Nearly all of Billy's friends knew that Bertram Henshaw was in love with Billy Neilson before Billy herself knew it. Not that they regarded it as anything serious—“it's only Bertram” was still said of him on almost all occasions. But to Bertram himself it was very serious.
The world to Bertram, indeed, had come to assume a vastly different aspect from what it had displayed in times past. Heretofore it had been a plaything which like a juggler's tinsel ball might be tossed from hand to hand at will. Now it was no plaything—no glittering bauble. It was something big and serious and splendid—because Billy lived in it; something that demanded all his powers to do, and be—because Billy was watching; something that might be a Hades of torment or an Elysium of bliss—according to whether Billy said “no” or “yes.”
Since Thanksgiving Bertram had known that it was love—this consuming fire within him; and since Thanksgiving he had known, too, that it was jealousy—this fierce hatred of Calderwell. He was ashamed of the hatred. He told himself that it was unmanly, unkind, and unreasonable; and he vowed that he would overcome it. At times he even fancied that he had overcome it; but always the sight of Calderwell in Billy's little drawing-room or of even the man's card on Billy's silver tray was enough to show him that he had not.
There were others, too, who annoyed Bertram not a little, foremost of these being his own brothers. Still he was not really worried about William and Cyril, he told himself. William he did not consider to be a marrying man; and Cyril—every one knew that Cyril was a woman-hater. He was doubtless attracted now only by Billy's music. There was no real rivalry to be feared from William and Cyril. But there was always Calderwell, and Calderwell was serious. Bertram decided, therefore, after some weeks of feverish unrest, that the only road to peace lay through a frank avowal of his feelings, and a direct appeal to Billy to give him the great boon of her love.
Just here, however, Bertram met with an unexpected difficulty. He could not find words with which to make his avowal or to present his appeal. He was surprised and annoyed. Never before had he been at a loss for words—mere words. And it was not that he lacked opportunity. He walked, drove, and talked with Billy, and always she was companionable, attentive to what he had to say. Never was she cold or reserved. Never did she fail to greet him with a cheery smile.
Bertram concluded, indeed, after a time, that she was too companionable, too cheery. He wished she would hesitate, stammer, blush; be a little shy. He wished that she would display surprise, annoyance, even—anything but that eternal air of comradeship. And then, one afternoon in the early twilight of a January day, he freed his mind, quite unexpectedly.
“Billy, I wish you WOULDN'T be so—so friendly!” he exclaimed in a voice that was almost sharp.
Billy laughed at first, but the next moment a shamed distress drove the merriment quite out of her face.
“You mean that I presume on—on our friendship?” she stammered. “That you fear that I will again—shadow your footsteps?” It was the first time since the memorable night itself that Billy had ever in Bertram's presence referred to her young guardianship of his welfare. She realized now, suddenly, that she had just been giving the man before her some very “sisterly advice,” and the thought sent a confused red to her cheeks.
Bertram turned quickly.
“Billy, that was the dearest and loveliest thing a girl ever did—only I was too great a chump to appreciate it!” finished Bertram in a voice that was not quite steady.
“Thank you,” smiled the girl, with a slow shake of her head and a relieved look in her eyes; “but I'm afraid I can't quite agree to that.” The next moment she had demanded mischievously: “Why, then, pray, this unflattering objection to my—friendliness now?”
“Because I don't want you for a friend, or a sister, or anything else that's related,” stormed Bertram, with sudden vehemence. “I don't want you for anything but—a wife! Billy, WON'T you marry me?”
Again Billy laughed—laughed until she saw the pained anger leap to the gray eyes before her; then she became grave at once.
“Bertram, forgive me. I didn't think you could—you can't be—serious!”
“But I am.”
Billy shook her head.
“But you don't love me—not ME, Bertram. It's only the turn of my head or—or the tilt of my chin that you love—to paint,” she protested, unconsciously echoing the words Calderwell had said to her weeks before. “I'm only another 'Face of a Girl.'”
“You're the only 'Face of a girl' to me now, Billy,” declared the man, with disarming tenderness.
“No, no, not that,” demurred Billy, in distress. “You don't mean it. You only think you do. It couldn't be that. It can't be!”
“But it is, dear. I think I have loved you ever since that night long ago when I saw your dear, startled face appealing to me from beyond Seaver's hateful smile. And, Billy, I never went once with Seaver again—anywhere. Did you know that?”
“No; but—I'm glad—so glad!”
“And I'm glad, too. So you see, I must have loved you then, though unconsciously, perhaps; and I love you now.”
“No, no, please don't say that. It can't be—it really can't be. I—I don't love you—that way, Bertram.”
The man paled a little.
“Billy—forgive me for asking, but it's so much to me—is it that there is—some one else?” His voice shook.
“No, no, indeed! There is no one.”
“It's not—Calderwell?”
Billy's forehead grew pink. She laughed nervously.
“No, no, never!”
“But there are others, so many others!”
“Nonsense, Bertram; there's no one—no one, I assure you!”
“It's not William, of course, nor Cyril. Cyril hates women.”
A deeper flush came to Billy's face. Her chin rose a little; and an odd defiance flashed from her eyes. But almost instantly it was gone, and a slow smile had come to her lips.
“Yes, I know. Every one—says that Cyril hates women,” she observed demurely.
“Then, Billy, I sha'n't give up!” vowed Bertram, softly. “Sometime you WILL love me!”
“No, no, I couldn't. That is, I'm not going to—to marry,” stammered Billy.
“Not going to marry!”
“No. There's my music—you know how I love that, and how much it is to me. I don't think there'll ever be a man—that I'll love better.”
Bertram lifted his head. Very slowly he rose till his splendid six feet of clean-limbed strength and manly beauty towered away above the low chair in which Billy sat. His mouth showed new lines about the corners, and his eyes looked down very tenderly at the girl beside him; but his voice, when he spoke, had a light whimsicality that deceived even Billy's ears.
“And so it's music—a cold, senseless thing of spidery marks on clean white paper—that is my only rival,” he cried. “Then I'll warn you, Billy, I'll warn you. I'm going to win!” And with that he was gone.
Billy did not know whether to be more amazed or amused at Bertram's proposal of marriage. She was vexed; she was very sure of that. To marry Bertram? Absurd!... Then she reflected that, after all, it was only Bertram, so she calmed herself.
Still, it was annoying. She liked Bertram, she had always liked him. He was a nice boy, and a most congenial companion. He never bored her, as did some others; and he was always thoughtful of cushions and footstools and cups of tea when one was tired. He was, in fact, an ideal friend, just the sort she wanted; and it was such a pity that he must spoil it all now with this silly sentimentality! And of course he had spoiled it all. There was no going back now to their old friendliness. He would be morose or silly by turns, according to whether she frowned or smiled; or else he would take himself off in a tragic sort of way that was very disturbing. He had said, to be sure, that he would “win.” Win, indeed! As if she could marry Bertram! When she married, her choice would fall upon a man, not a boy; a big, grave, earnest man to whom the world meant something; a man who loved music, of course; a man who would single her out from all the world, and show to her, and to her only, the depth and tenderness of his love; a man who—but she was not going to marry, anyway, remembered Billy, suddenly. And with that she began to cry. The whole thing was so “tiresome,” she declared, and so “absurd.”
Billy rather dreaded her next meeting with Bertram. She feared—she knew not what. But, as it turned out, she need not have feared anything, for he met her tranquilly, cheerfully, as usual; and he did nothing and said nothing that he might not have done and said before that twilight chat took place.
Billy was relieved. She concluded that, after all, Bertram was going to be sensible. She decided that she, too, would be sensible. She would accept him on this, his chosen plane, and she would think no more of his “nonsense.”
Billy threw herself then even more enthusiastically into her beloved work. She told Marie that after all was said and done, there could not be any man that would tip the scales one inch with music on the other side. She was a little hurt, it is true, when Marie only laughed and answered:
“But what if the man and the music both happen to be on the same side, my dear; what then?”
Marie's voice was wistful, in spite of the laugh—so wistful that it reminded Billy of their conversation a few weeks before.
“But it is you, Marie, who want the stockings to darn and the puddings to make,” she retorted playfully. “Not I! And, do you know? I believe I shall turn matchmaker yet, and find you a man; and the chiefest of his qualifications shall be that he's wretchedly hard on his hose, and that he adores puddings.”
“No, no, Miss Billy, don't, please!” begged the other, in quick terror. “Forget all I said the other day; please do! Don't tell—anybody!”
She was so obviously distressed and frightened that Billy was puzzled.
“There, there, 'twas only a jest, of course,” she soothed her. “But, really Marie, it is the dear, domestic little mouse like yourself that ought to be somebody's wife—and that's the kind men are looking for, too.”
Marie gave a slow shake of her head.
“Not the kind of man that is somebody, that does something,” she objected; “and that's the only kind I could—love. HE wants a wife that is beautiful and clever, that can do things like himself—LIKE HIMSELF!” she iterated feverishly.
Billy opened wide her eyes.
“Why, Marie, one would think—you already knew—such a man,” she cried.
The little music teacher changed her position, and turned her eyes away.
“I do, of course,” she retorted in a merry voice, “lots of them. Don't you? Come, we've discussed my matrimonial prospects quite long enough,” she went on lightly. “You know we started with yours. Suppose we go back to those.”
“But I haven't any,” demurred Billy, as she turned with a smile to greet Aunt Hannah, who had just entered the room. “I'm not going to marry; am I, Aunt Hannah?”
“Er—what? Marry? My grief and conscience, what a question, Billy! Of course you're going to marry—when the time comes!” exclaimed Aunt Hannah.
Billy laughed and shook her head vigorously. But even as she opened her lips to reply, Rosa appeared and announced that Mr. Calderwell was waiting down-stairs. Billy was angry then, for after the maid was gone, the merriment in Aunt Hannah's laugh only matched that in Marie's—and the intonation was unmistakable.
“Well, I'm not!” declared Billy with pink cheeks and much indignation, as she left the room. And as if to convince herself, Marie, Aunt Hannah, and all the world that such was the case, she refused Calderwell so decidedly that night when he, for the half-dozenth time, laid his hand and heart at her feet, that even Calderwell himself was convinced—so far as his own case was concerned—and left town the next day.
Bertram told Aunt Hannah afterward that he understood Mr. Calderwell had gone to parts unknown. To himself Bertram shamelessly owned that the more “unknown” they were, the better he himself would be pleased.
It was on a very cold January afternoon, and Cyril was hurrying up the hill toward Billy's house, when he was startled to see a slender young woman sitting on a curbstone with her head against an electric-light post. He stopped abruptly.
“I beg your pardon, but—why, Miss Hawthorn! It is Miss Hawthorn; isn't it?”
Under his questioning eyes the girl's pale face became so painfully scarlet that in sheer pity the man turned his eyes away. He thought he had seen women blush before, but he decided now that he had not.
“I'm sure—haven't I met you at Miss Neilson's? Are you ill? Can't I do something for you?” he begged.
“Yes—no—that is, I AM Miss Hawthorn, and I've met you at Miss Neilson's,” stammered the girl, faintly. “But there isn't anything, thank you, that you can do—Mr. Henshaw. I stopped to—rest.”
The man frowned.
“But, surely—pardon me, Miss Hawthorn, but I can't think it your usual custom to choose an icy curbstone for a resting place, with the thermometer down to zero. You must be ill. Let me take you to Miss Neilson's.”
“No, no, thank you,” cried the girl, struggling to her feet, the vivid red again flooding her face. “I have a lesson—to give.”
“Nonsense! You're not fit to give a lesson. Besides, they are all folderol, anyway, half of them. A dozen lessons, more or less, won't make any difference; they'll play just as well—and just as atrociously. Come, I insist upon taking you to Miss Neilson's.”
“No, no, thank you! I really mustn't. I—” She could say no more. A strong, yet very gentle hand had taken firm hold of her arm in such a way as half to support her. A force quite outside of herself was carrying her forward step by step—and Miss Hawthorn was not used to strong, gentle hands, nor yet to a force quite outside of herself. Neither was she accustomed to walk arm in arm with Mr. Cyril Henshaw to Miss Billy's door. When she reached there her cheeks were like red roses for color, and her eyes were like the stars for brightness. Yet a minute later, confronted by Miss Billy's astonished eyes, the stars and the roses fled, and a very white-faced girl fell over in a deathlike faint in Cyril Henshaw's arms.
Marie was put to bed in the little room next to Billy's, and was peremptorily hushed when faint remonstrance was made. The next morning, white-faced and wide-eyed, she resolutely pulled herself half upright, and announced that she was all well and must go home—home to Marie was a six-by-nine hall bed-room in a South End lodging house.
Very gently Billy pushed her back on the pillow and laid a detaining hand on her arm.
“No, dear. Now, please be sensible and listen to reason. You are my guest. You did not know it, perhaps, for I'm afraid the invitation got a little delayed. But you're to stay—oh, lots of weeks.”
“I—stay here? Why, I can't—indeed, I can't,” protested Marie.
“But that isn't a bit of a nice way to accept an invitation,” disapproved Billy. “You should say, 'Thank you, I'd be delighted, I'm sure, and I'll stay.'”
In spite of herself the little music teacher laughed, and in the laugh her tense muscles relaxed.
“Miss Billy, Miss Billy, what is one to do with you? Surely you know—you must know that I can't do what you ask!”
“I'm sure I don't see why not,” argued Billy. “I'm merely giving you an invitation and all you have to do is to accept it.”
“But the invitation is only the kind way your heart has of covering another of your many charities,” objected Marie; “besides, I have to teach. I have my living to earn.”
“But you can't,” demurred the other. “That's just the trouble. Don't you see? The doctor said last night that you must not teach again this winter.”
“Not teach—again—this winter! No, no, he could not be so cruel as that!”
“It wasn't cruel, dear; it was kind. You would be ill if you attempted it. Now you'll get better. He says all you need is rest and care—and that's exactly what I mean my guest shall have.”
Quick tears came to the sick girl's eyes.
“There couldn't be a kinder heart than yours, Miss Billy,” she murmured, “but I couldn't—I really couldn't be a burden to you like this. I shall go to some hospital.”
“But you aren't going to be a burden. You are going to be my friend and companion.”
“A companion—and in bed like this?”
“Well, THAT wouldn't be impossible,” smiled Billy; “but, as it happens you won't have to put that to the test, for you'll soon be up and dressed. The doctor says so. Now surely you will stay.”
There was a long pause. The little music teacher's eyes had left Billy's face and were circling the room, wistfully lingering on the hangings of filmy lace, the dainty wall covering, and the exquisite water colors in their white-and-gold frames. At last she drew a deep sigh.
“Yes, I'll stay,” she breathed rapturously; “but—you must let me help.”
“Help? Help what?”
“Help you; your letters, your music-copying, your accounts—anything, everything. And if you don't let me help,”—the music teacher's voice was very stern now—“if you don't let me help, I shall go home just—as—soon—as—I—can—walk!”
“Dear me!” dimpled Billy. “And is that all? Well, you shall help, and to your heart's content, too. In fact, I'm not at all sure that I sha'n't keep you darning stockings and making puddings all the time,” she added mischievously, as she left the room.
Miss Hawthorn sat up the next day. The day following, in one of Billy's “fluttery wrappers,” as she called them, she walked all about the room. Very soon she was able to go down-stairs, and in an astonishingly short time she fitted into the daily life as if she had always been there. She was, moreover, of such assistance to Billy that even she herself could see the value of her work; and so she stayed, content.
The little music teacher saw a good deal of Billy's friends then, particularly of the Henshaw brothers; and very glad was Billy to see the comradeship growing between them. She had known that William would be kind to the orphan girl, but she had feared that Marie would not understand Bertram's nonsense or Cyril's reserve. But very soon Bertram had begged, and obtained, permission to try to reproduce on canvas the sheen of the fine, fair hair, and the veiled bloom of the rose-leaf skin that were Marie's greatest charms; and already Cyril had unbent from his usual stiffness enough to play to her twice. So Billy's fears on that score were at an end.
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