OUR story now makes a bold skip. Compton Bassett was fourteen years old, a youth highly cultivated in mind and trained in body, but not very tall, and rather effeminate looking, because he was so fair and his skin so white.
For all that, he was one of the bowlers in the Wolcombe Eleven, whose cricket-ground was the very meadow in which he had erst gathered cowslips with Ruperta Bassett; and he had a canoe, which he carried to adjacent streams, however narrow, and paddled it with singular skill and vigor. A neighboring miller, suffering under drought, was heard to say, “There ain't water enough to float a duck; nought can swim but the dab-chicks and Muster Bassett.”
He was also a pedestrian, and got his father to take long walks with him, and leave the horses to eat their oats in peace.
In these walks young master botanized and geologized his own father, and Sir Charles gave him a little politics, history, and English poetry, in return. He had a tutor fresh from Oxford for the classics.
One day, returning with his father from a walk, they met a young lady walking toward them from the village; she was tall, and a superb brunette.
Now it was rather a rare thing to see a lady walking through that village, so both Sir Charles and his son looked keenly at her as she came toward them.
Compton turned crimson, and raised his hat to her rather awkwardly.
Sir Charles, who did not know the lady from Eve, saluted her, nevertheless, and with infinite grace; for Sir Charles, in his youth, had lived with some of the elite of French society, and those gentlemen bow to the person whom their companion bows to. Sir Charles had imported this excellent trait of politeness, and always practiced it, though not the custom in England, the more the pity.
As soon as the young lady had passed and was out of hearing, Sir Charles said to Compton, “Who is that lovely girl? Why, how the boy is blushing!”
“Oh, papa!”
“Well, what is the matter?”
“Don't you see? It is herself come back from school.”
“I have no doubt it is herself, and not her sister, but who is herself?”
“Ruperta Bassett.”
“Richard Bassett's daughter! impossible. That young lady looks seventeen or eighteen years of age.”
“Yes, but it is Ruperta. There's nobody like her. Papa!”
“Well?”
“I suppose I may speak to her now.”
“What for?”
“She is so beautiful.”
“That she really is. And therefore I advise you to have nothing to say to her. You are not children now, you know. Were you to renew that intimacy, you might be tempted to fall in love with her. I don't say you would be so mad, for you are a sensible boy; but still, after that little business in the wood—”
“But suppose I did fall in love with her?”
“Then that would be a great misfortune. Don't you know that her father is my enemy? If you were to make any advances to that young lady, he would seize the opportunity to affront you, and me through you.”
This silenced Compton, for he was an obedient youth.
But in the evening he got to his mother and coaxed her to take his part.
Now Lady Bassett felt the truth of all her husband had said; but she had a positive wish the young people should be on friendly terms, at all events; she wanted the family feud to die with the generation it had afflicted. She promised, therefore, to speak to Sir Charles; and so great was her influence that she actually obtained terms for Compton: he might speak to Miss Bassett, if he would realize the whole situation, and be very discreet, and not revive that absurd familiarity into which, their childhood had been betrayed.
She communicated this to him, and warned him at the same time that even this concession had been granted somewhat reluctantly, and in consideration of his invariable good conduct; it would be immediately withdrawn upon the slightest indiscretion.
“Oh, I will be discretion itself,” said Compton; but the warmth with which he kissed his mother gave her some doubts. However, she was prepared to risk something. She had her own views in this matter.
When he had got this limited permission, Master Compton was not much nearer the mark; for he was not to call on the young lady, and she did not often walk in the village.
But he often thought of her, her loving, sprightly ways seven years ago, and the blaze of beauty with which she had returned.
At last, one Sunday afternoon, she came to church alone. When the congregation dispersed, he followed her, and came up with her, but his heart beat violently.
“Miss Bassett!” said he, timidly.
She stopped, and turned her eyes on him; he blushed up to the temples. She blushed too, but not quite so much.
“I am afraid you don't remember me,” said the boy, sadly.
“Yes, I do, sir,” said Ruperta, shyly.
“How you are grown!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are taller than I am, and more beautiful than ever.”
No answer, but a blush.
“You are not angry with me for speaking to you?”
“No, sir.”
“I wouldn't offend you.”
“I am not offended. Only—”
“Oh, Miss Bassett, of course I know you will never be—we shall never be—like we used.”
A very deep blush, and dead silence.
“You are a grown-up young lady, and I am only a boy still, somehow. But it would have been hard if I might not even speak to you. Would it not?”
“Yes,” said the young lady, but after some hesitation, and only in a whisper.
“I wonder where you walk to. I have never seen you out but once.”
No reply to this little feeler.
Then, at last, Compton was discouraged, partly by her beauty and size, partly by her taciturnity.
He was silent in return, and so, in a state of mutual constraint, they reached the gate of Highmore.
“Good-by,” said Compton reluctantly.
“Good-by.”
“Won't you shake hands?”
She blushed, and put out her hand halfway. He took it and shook it, and so they parted.
Compton said to his mother disconsolately, “Mamma, it is all over. I have seen her, and spoken to her; but she has gone off dreadfully.”
“Why, what is the matter?”
“She is all changed. She is so stupid and dignified got to be. She has not a word to say to a fellow.”
“Perhaps she is more reserved; that is natural. She is a young lady now.”
“Then it is a great pity she did not stay as she was. Oh, the bright little darling! Who'd think she could ever turn into a great, stupid, dignified thing? She is as tall as you, mamma.”
“Indeed! She has made use of her time. Well, dear, don't take too much notice of her, and then you will find she will not be nearly so shy.”
“Too much notice! I shall never speak to her again—perhaps.”
“I would not be violent, one way or the other. Why not treat her like any other acquaintance?”
Next Sunday afternoon she came to church alone.
In spite of his resolution, Mr. Compton tried her a second time. Horror! she was all monosyllables and blushes again.
Compton began to find it too up-hill. At last, when they reached Highmore gate, he lost his patience, and said, “I see how it is. I have lost my sweet playmate forever. Good-by, Ruperta; I won't trouble you any more.” And he held out his hand to the young lady for a final farewell.
Ruperta whipped both her hands behind her back like a school-girl, and then, recovering her dignity, cast one swift glance of gentle reproach, then suddenly assuming vast stateliness, marched into Highmore like the mother of a family. These three changes of manner she effected all in less than two seconds.
Poor Compton went away sorely puzzled by this female kaleidoscope, but not a little alarmed and concerned at having mortally offended so much feminine dignity.
After that he did not venture to accost her for some time, but he cast a few sheep's-eyes at her in church.
Now Ruperta had told her mother all; and her mother had not forbidden her to speak to Compton, but had insisted on reserve and discretion.
She now told her mother she thought he would not speak to her any more, she had snubbed him so.
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Bassett, “why did you do that? Can you not be polite and nothing more?”
“No, mamma.”
“Why not? He is very amiable. Everybody says so.”
“He is. But I keep remembering what a forward girl I was, and I am afraid he has not forgotten it either, and that makes me hate the poor little fellow; no, not hate him; but keep him off. I dare say he thinks me a cross, ill-tempered thing; and I am very unkind to him, but I can't help it.”
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Bassett; “that is much better than to be too forward. Papa would never forgive that.”
By-and-by there was a cricket-match in the farmer's meadow, Highcombe and Huntercombe eleven against the town of Staveleigh. All clubs liked to play at Huntercombe, because Sir Charles found the tents and the dinner, and the young farmers drank his champagne to their hearts' content.
Ruperta took her maid and went to see the match. They found it going against Huntercombe. The score as follows—
Staveleigh. First innings, a hundred and forty-eight runs.
Huntercombe eighty-eight.
Staveleigh. Second innings, sixty runs, and only one wicket down; and Johnson and Wright, two of their best men, well in, and masters of the bowling.
This being communicated to Ruperta, she became excited, and her soul in the game.
The batters went on knocking the balls about, and scored thirteen more before the young lady's eyes.
“Oh, dear!” said she, “what is that boy about? Why doesn't he bowl? They pretend he is a capital bowler.”
At this time Compton was standing long-field on, only farther from the wicket than usual.
Johnson, at the wicket bowled to, being a hard but not very scientific hitter, lifted a half volley ball right over the bowler's head, a hit for four, but a skyscraper. Compton started the moment he hit, and, running with prodigious velocity, caught the ball descending, within a few yards of Ruperta; but, to get at it, he was obliged to throw himself forward into the air; he rolled upon the grass, but held the ball in sight all the while.
Mr. Johnson was out, and loud acclamations rent the sky.
Compton rose, and saw Ruperta clapping her hands close by.
She left off and blushed, directly he saw her. He blushed too, and touched his cap to her, with an air half manly, half sheepish, but did not speak to her.
This was the last ball of the over, and, as the ball was now to be delivered from the other wicket, Compton took the place of long-leg.
The third ball was overpitched to leg, and Wright, who, like most country players, hit freely to leg, turned half, and caught this ball exactly right, and sent it whizzing for five.
But the very force of the stroke was fatal to him; the ball went at first bound right into Compton's hands, who instantly flung it back, like a catapult, at Wright's wicket.
Wright, having hit for five, and being unable to see what had become of the ball, started to run, as a matter of course.
But the other batsman, seeing the ball go right into long-leg's hands like a bullet, cried, “Back!”
Wright turned, and would have got back to his wicket if the ball had required handling by the wicket-keeper; but, by a mixture of skill with luck, it came right at the wicket. Seeing which, the wicket-keeper very judiciously let it alone, and it carried off the bails just half a second before Mr. Wright grounded his bat.
“How's that, umpire?” cried the wicket-keeper.
“Out!” said the Staveleigh umpire, who judged at that end.
Up went the ball into the air, amid great excitement of the natives.
Ruperta, carried away by the general enthusiasm, nodded all sparkling to Compton, and that made his heart beat and his soul aspire. So next over he claimed his rights, and took the ball. Luck still befriended him: he bowled four wickets in twelve overs; the wicket-keeper stumped a fifth: the rest were “the tail,” and disposed of for a few runs, and the total was no more than Huntercombe's first innings.
Our hero then took the bat, and made forty-seven runs before he was disposed of, five wickets down for a hundred and ten runs. The match was not won yet, nor sure to be; but the situation was reversed.
On going out, he was loudly applauded; and Ruperta naturally felt proud of her admirer.
Being now free, he came to her irresolutely with some iced champagne.
Ruperta declined, with thanks; but he looked so imploringly that she sipped a little, and said, warmly, “I hope we shall win: and, if we do, I know whom we shall have to thank.”
“And so do I: you, Miss Bassett.”
“Me? Why, what have I done in the matter?”
“You brought us luck, for one thing. You put us on our mettle. Staveleigh shall never beat me, with you looking on.”
Ruperta blushed a little, for the boy's eyes beamed with fire.
“If I believed that,” said she, “I should hire myself out at the next match, and charge twelve pairs of gloves.”
“You may believe it, then; ask anybody whether our luck did not change the moment you came.”
“Then I am afraid it will go now, for I am going.”
“You will lose us the match if you do,” said Compton.
“I can't help it: now you are out, it is rather insipid. There, you see I can pay compliments as well as you.”
Then she made a graceful inclination and moved away.
Compton felt his heart ache at parting. He took a thought and ran quickly to a certain part of the field.
Ruperta and her attendant walked very slowly homeward.
Compton caught them just at their own gate. “Cousin!” said he, imploringly, and held her out a nosegay of cowslips only.
At that the memories rushed back on her, and the girl seemed literally to melt. She gave him one look full of womanly sensibility and winning tenderness, and said, softly, “Thank you, cousin.”
Compton went away on wings: the ice was broken.
But the next time he met her it had frozen again apparently: to be sure she was alone; and young ladies will be bolder when they have another person of their own sex with them.
Mr. Angelo called on Sir Charles Bassett to complain of a serious grievance.
Mr. Angelo had become zealous and eloquent, but what are eloquence and zeal against sex? A handsome woman had preached for ten minutes upon a little mound outside the village, and had announced she should say a few parting words next Sunday evening at six o'clock.
Mr. Angelo complained of this to Lady Bassett.
Lady Bassett referred him to Sir Charles.
Mr. Angelo asked that magistrate to enforce the law against conventicles.
Sir Charles said he thought the Act did not apply.
“Well, but,” said Angelo, “it is on your ground she is going to preach.”
“I am the proprietor, but the tenant is the owner in law. He could warn me off his ground. I have no power.”
“I fear you have no inclination,” said Angelo, nettled.
“Not much, to tell the truth,” replied Sir Charles coolly. “Does it matter so very much who sows the good seed, or whether it is flung abroad from a pulpit or a grassy knoll?”
“That is begging the question, Sir Charles. Why assume that it is good seed? it is more likely to be tares than wheat in this case.”
“And is not that begging the question? Well, I will make it my business to know: and if she preaches sedition, or heresy, or bad morals, I will strain my power a little to silence her. More than that I really cannot promise you. The day is gone by for intolerance.”
“Intolerance is a bad thing; but the absence of all conviction is worse, and that is what we are coming to.”
“Not quite that: but the nation has tasted liberty; and now every man assumes to do what is right in his own eyes.”
“That mean's what is wrong in his neighbor's.”
Sir Charles thought this neat, and laughed good-humoredly: he asked the rector to dine on Sunday at half-past seven. “I shall know more about it by that time,” said he.
They dined early on Sunday, at Highmore, and Ruperta took her maid for a walk in the afternoon, and came back in time to hear the female preacher.
Half the village was there already, and presently the preacher walked to her station.
To Ruperta's surprise, she was a lady, richly dressed, tall and handsome, but with features rather too commanding. She had a glove on her left hand, and a little Bible in her right hand, which was large, but white, and finely formed.
She delivered a short prayer, and opened her text:
“Walk honestly; not in strife and envying.”
Just as the text was given out, Ruperta's maid pinched her, and the young lady, looking up, saw her father coming to see what was the matter. Maid was for hiding, but Ruperta made a wry face, blushed, and stood her ground. “How can he scold me, when he comes himself?” she whispered.
During the sermon, of which, short as it was, I can only afford to give the outline, in crept Compton Bassett, and got within three or four of Ruperta.
Finally Sir Charles Bassett came up, in accordance with his promise to Angelo.
The perfect preacher deals in generalities, but strikes them home with a few personalities.
Most clerical preachers deal only in generalities, and that is ineffective, especially to uncultivated minds.
Mrs. Marsh, as might be expected from her sex, went a little too much the other way.
After a few sensible words, pointing out the misery in houses, and the harm done to the soul, by a quarrelsome spirit, she lamented there was too much of it in Huntercombe: with this opening she went into personalities: reminded them of the fight between two farm servants last week, one of whom was laid up at that moment in consequence. “And,” said she, “even when it does not come to fighting, it poisons your lives and offends your Redeemer.”
Then she went into the causes, and she said Drunkenness and Detraction were the chief causes of strife and contention.
She dealt briefly but dramatically with Drunkenness, and then lashed Detraction, as follows:
“Every class has its vices, and Detraction is the vice of the poor. You are ever so much vainer than your betters: you are eaten up with vanity, and never give your neighbor a good word. I have been in thirty houses, and in not one of those houses has any poor man or poor woman spoken one honest word in praise of a neighbor. So do not flatter yourselves this is a Christian village, for it is not. The only excuse to be made for you, and I fear it is not one that God will accept on His judgment-day, is that your betters set you a bad example instead of a good one. The two principal people in this village are kinsfolk, yet enemies, and have been enemies for twenty years. That's a nice example for two Christian gentlemen to set to poor people, who, they may be sure, will copy their sins, if they copy nothing else.
“They go to church regularly, and believe in the Bible, and yet they defy both Church and Bible.
“Now I should like to ask those gentlemen a question. How do they mean to manage in Heaven? When the baronet comes to that happy place, where all is love, will the squire walk out? Or do they think to quarrel there, and so get turned out, both of them? I don't wonder at your smiling; but it is a serious consideration, for all that. The soul of man is immortal: and what is the soul? it is not a substantial thing, like the body; it is a bundle of thoughts and feelings: the thoughts we die with in this world, we shall wake up with them in the next. Yet here are two Christians loading their immortal souls with immortal hate. What a waste of feeling, if it must all be flung off together with the body, lest it drag the souls of both down to bottomless perdition.
“And what do they gain in this world?—irritation, ill-health, and misery. It is a fact that no man ever reached a great old age who hated his neighbor; still less a good old age; for, if men would look honestly into their own hearts, they would own that to hate is to be miserable.
“I believe no men commit a sin for many years without some special warnings; and to neglect these, is one sin more added to their account. Such a warning, or rather, I should say, such a pleading of Divine love, those two gentlemen have had. Do you remember, about eight years ago, two children were lost on one day, out of different houses in this village?” (A murmur from the crowd.)
“Perhaps some of you here present were instrumental, under God, in finding that pretty pair.” (A louder murmur.)
“Oh, don't be afraid to answer me. Preaching is only a way of speaking; and I'm only a woman that is speaking to you for your good. Tell me—we are not in church, tied up by stait-laced rules to keep men and women from getting within arm's-length of one another's souls—tell me, who saw those two lost children?”
“I, I, I, I, I,” roared several voices in reply.
“Is it true, as a good woman tells me, that the innocent darlings had each an arm round the other's neck?”
“Ay.”
“And little coronets of flowers, to match their hair?” (That was the girl's doing.)
“Ay.”
“And the little boy had played the man, and taken off his tippet to put round the little lady?”
“Ay!” with a burst of enthusiasm from the assembled rustics.
“I think I see them myself; and the torches lighting up the dewy leaves overhead, and that Divine picture of innocent love. Well, which was the prettiest sight, and the fittest for heaven—the hatred of the parents, or the affection of the children?
“And now mark what a weapon hatred is, in the Devil's hands. There are only two people in this parish on whom that sight was wasted; and those two being gentlemen, and men of education, would have been more affected by it than humble folk, if Hell had not been in their hearts, for Hate comes from Hell, and takes men down to the place it comes from.
“Do you, then, shun, in that one thing, the example of your betters: and I hope those children will shun it too. A father is to be treated with great veneration, but above all is our Heavenly Father and His law; and that law, what is it?—what has it been this eighteen hundred years and more? Why, Love.
“Would you be happy in this world, and fit your souls to dwell hereafter even in the meanest of the many mansions prepared above, you must, above all things, be charitable. You must not run your neighbor down behind his back, or God will hate you: you must not wound him to his face, or God will hate you. You must overlook a fault or two, and see a man's bright side, and then God will love you. If you won't do that much for your neighbor, why, in Heaven's name, should God overlook a multitude of sins in you?
“Nothing goes to heaven surer than Charity, and nothing is so fit to sit in heaven. St. Paul had many things to be proud of and to praise in himself—things that the world is more apt to admire than Christian charity, the sweetest, but humblest of all the Christian graces: St. Paul, I say, was a bulwark of learning, an anchor of faith, a rock of constancy, a thunder-bolt of zeal: yet see how he bestows the palm.
“'Knowledge puffeth up: but charity edifieth. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth; but prophecies—they shall fail; tongues—they shall cease; knowledge—it shall vanish away. And now abideth Faith, Hope, Charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.'”
The fair orator delivered these words with such fire, such feeling, such trumpet tones and heartfelt eloquence, that for the first time those immortal words sounded in these village ears true oracles of God.
Then, without pause, she went on. “So let us lift our hearts in earnest prayer to God that, in this world of thorns, and tempers, and trials, and troubles, and cares, He will give us the best cure for all—the great sweetener of this mortal life—the sure forerunner of Heaven—His most excellent gift of charity.” Then, in one generous burst, she prayed for love divine, and there was many a sigh and many a tear, and at the close an “Amen!” such as, alas! we shall never, I fear, hear burst from a hundred bosoms where men repeat beautiful but stale words and call it prayer.
The preacher retired, but the people still lingered spell-bound, and then arose that buzz which shows that the words have gone home.
As for Richard Bassett, he had turned on his heel, indignant, as soon as the preacher's admonitions came his way.
Sir Charles Bassett stood his ground rather longer, being steeled by the conviction that the quarrel was none of his seeking. Moreover, he was not aware what a good friend this woman had been to him, nor what a good wife she had been to Marsh this seventeen years. His mind, therefore, made a clear leap from Rhoda Somerset, the vixen of Hyde Park and Mayfair, to this preacher, and he could not help smiling; than which a worse frame for receiving unpalatable truths can hardly be conceived. And so the elders were obdurate. But Compton and Ruperta had no armor of old age, egotism, or prejudice to turn the darts of honest eloquence. They listened, as to the voice of an angel; they gazed, as on the face of an angel; and when those silvery accents ceased, they turned toward each other and came toward each other, with the sweet enthusiasm that became their years. “Oh, Cousin Ruperta!” quavered Compton. '“Oh, Cousin Compton!” cried Ruperta, the tears trickling down her lovely cheeks.
They could not say any more for ever so long.
Ruperta spoke first. She gave a final gulp, and said, “I will go and speak to her, and thank her.”
“Oh, Miss Ruperta, we shall be too late for tea,” suggested the maid.
“Tea!” said Ruperta. “Our souls are before our tea! I must speak to her, or else my heart will choke me and kill me. I will go—and so will Compton.”
“Oh, yes!” said Compton.
And they hurried after the preacher.
They came up with her flushed and panting; and now it was Compton's turn to be shy—the lady was so tall and stately too.
But Ruperta was not much afraid of anything in petticoats. “Oh, madam,” said she, “if you please, may we speak to you?”
Mrs. Marsh turned round, and her somewhat aquiline features softened instantly at the two specimens of beauty and innocence that had run after her.
“Certainly, my young friends;” and she smiled maternally on them. She had children of her own.
“Who do you think we are? We are the two naughty children you preached about so beautifully.”
“What! you the babes in the wood?”
“Yes, madam. It was a long, long while ago, and we are fifteen now—are we not, Cousin Compton?”
“Yes, madam.”
“And we are both so unhappy at our parents' quarreling. At least I am.”
“And so am I.”
“And we came to thank you. Didn't we, Compton?”
“Yes, Ruperta.”
“And to ask your advice. How are we to make our parents be friends? Old people will not be advised by young ones. They look down on us so; it is dreadful.”
“My dear young lady,” said Mrs. Marsh, “I will try and answer you: but let me sit down a minute; for, after preaching, I am apt to feel a little exhausted. Now, sit beside me, and give me each a hand, if you please.
“Well, my dears, I have been teaching you a lesson; and now you teach me one, and that is, how much easier it is to preach reconciliation and charity than it is to practice it under certain circumstances. However, my advice to you is first to pray to God for wisdom in this thing, and then to watch every opportunity. Dissuade your parents from every unkind act: don't be afraid to speak—with the word of God at your back. I know that you have no easy task before you. Sir Charles Bassett and Mr. Bassett were both among my hearers, and both turned their backs on me, and went away unsoftened; they would not give me a chance; would not hear me to an end, and I am not a wordy preacher neither.”
Here an interruption occurred. Ruperta, so shy and cold with Compton, flung her arms round Mrs. Marsh's neck, with the tears in her eyes, and kissed her eagerly.
“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Marsh, after kissing her in turn, “I was a little mortified. But that was very weak and foolish. I am sorry, for their own sakes, they would not stay; it was the word of God: but they saw only the unworthy instrument. Well, then, my dears, you have a hard task; but you must work upon your mothers, and win them to charity.”
“Ah! that will be easy enough. My mother has never approved this unhappy quarrel.”
“No more has mine.”
“Is it so? Then you must try and get the two ladies to speak to each other. But something tells me that a way will be opened. Have patience; have faith; and do not mind a check or two; but persevere, remembering that 'blessed are the peace-makers.'”
She then rose, and they took leave of her.
“Give me a kiss, children,” said she. “You have done me a world of good. My own heart often flags on the road, and you have warmed and comforted it. God bless you!”
And so they parted.
Compton and Ruperta walked homeward. Ruperta was very thoughtful, and Compton could only get monosyllables out of her. This discouraged, and at last vexed him.
“What have I done,” said he, “that you will speak to anybody but me?”
“Don't be cross, child,” said she; “but answer me a question. Did you put your tippet round me in that wood?”
“I suppose so.”
“Oh, then you don't remember doing it, eh?”
“No; that I don't.”
“Then what makes you think you did?”
“Because they say so. Because I must have been such an awful cad if I didn't. And I was always much fonder of you than you were of me. My tippet! I'd give my head sooner than any harm should come to you, Ruperta!”
Ruperta made no reply, but, being now at Highmore, she put out her hand to him, and turned her head away. He kissed her hand devotedly, and so they parted.
Compton told Lady Bassett all that happened, and Ruperta told Mrs. Bassett.
Those ladies readily promised to be on the side of peace, but they feared it could only be the work of time, and said so.
By-and-by Compton got impatient, and told Ruperta he had thought of a way to compel their fathers to be friends. “I am afraid you won't like the idea at first,” said he; “but the more you think of it, the more you will see it is the surest way of all.”
“Well, but what is it?”
“You must let me marry you.”
Ruperta stared, and began to blush crimson.
“Will you, cousin?”
“Of course not, child. The idea!”
“Oh, Ruperta,” cried the boy in dismay, “surely you don't mean to marry anybody else but me!”
“Would that make you very unhappy, then?”
“You know it would, wretched for my life.”
“I should not like to do that. But I disapprove of early marriages. I mean to wait till I'm nineteen; and that is three years nearly.”
“It is a fearful time; but if you will promise not to marry anybody else, I suppose I shall live through it.”
Ruperta, though she made light of Compton's offer, was very proud of it (it was her first). She told her mother directly.
Mrs. Bassett sighed, and said that was too blessed a thing ever to happen.
“Why not?” said Ruperta.
“How could it,” said Mrs. Bassett, “with everybody against it but poor little me!”
“Compton assures me that Lady Bassett wishes it.”
“Indeed! But Sir Charles and papa, Ruperta?”
“Oh, Compton must talk Sir Charles over, and I will persuade papa. I'll begin this evening, when he comes home from London.”
Accordingly, as he was sitting alone in the dining-room sipping his glass of port, Ruperta slipped away from her mother's side and found him.
His face brightened at the sight of her; for he was extremely fond and proud of this girl, for whom he would not have the bells rung when she was born.
She came and hung round his neck a little, and kissed him, and said softly, “Dear papa, I have something to tell you. I have had a proposal.”
Richard Bassett stared.
“What, of marriage?”
Ruperta nodded archly.
“To a child like you? Scandalous! No, for, after all, you look nineteen or twenty. And who is the highwayman that thinks to rob me of my precious girl?”
“Well, papa, whoever he is, he will have to wait three years, and so I told him. It is my cousin Compton.”
“What!” cried Richard Bassett, so loudly that the girl started back dismayed. “That little monkey have the impudence to offer marriage to my daughter? Surely, Ruperta, you have offered him no encouragement?”
“N—no.”
“Your mother promised me nothing but common civility should pass between you and that young gentleman.”
“She promised for me, but she could not promise for him—poor little fellow!”
“Marry a son of the man who has robbed and insulted your father!”
“Oh, papa! is it so? Are you sure you did not begin?”
“If you can think that, it is useless to say more. I thought ill-fortune had done its worst; but no; blow upon blow, and wound upon wound. Don't spare me, child. Nobody else has, and why should you? Marry my enemy's son, his younger son, and break your father's heart.”
At this, what could a sensitive girl of sixteen do but burst out crying, and promise, round her father's neck, never to marry any one whom he disliked.
When she had made this promise, her father fondled and petted her, and his tenderness consoled her, for she was not passionately in love with her cousin.
Yet she cried a good deal over the letter in which she communicated this to Compton.
He lay in wait for her; but she baffled him for three weeks.
After that she relaxed her vigilance, for she had no real wish to avoid him, and was curious to see whether she had cured him.
He met her; and his conduct took her by surprise. He was pale, and looked very wretched.
He said solemnly, “Were you jesting with me when you promised to marry no one but me?”
“No, Compton. But you know I could never marry you without papa's consent.”
“Of course not; but, what I fear, he might wish you to marry somebody else.”
“Then I should refuse. I will never break my word to you, cousin. I am not in love with you, you are too young for that—but somehow I feel I could not make you unhappy. Can't you trust my word? You might. I come of the same people as you. Why do you look so pale?—we are very unhappy.”
Then the tears began to steal down her cheeks; and Compton's soon followed.
Compton consulted his mother. She told him, with a sigh, she was powerless. Sir Charles might yield to her, but she had no power to influence Mr. Bassett at present. “The time may come,” said she. She could not take a very serious view of this amour, except with regard to its pacific results. So Mr. Bassett's opposition chilled her in the matter.
While things were so, something occurred that drove all these minor things out of her distracted heart.
One summer evening, as she and Sir Charles and Compton sat at dinner, a servant came in to say there was a stranger at the door, and he called himself Bassett.
“What is he like?” said Lady Bassett, turning pale.
“He looks like a foreigner, my lady. He says he is Mr. Bassett,” repeated the man, with a scandalized air.
Sir Charles got up directly, and hurried to the hall door. Compton followed to the door only and looked.
Sure enough it was Reginald, full-grown, and bold, as handsome as ever, and darker than ever.
In that moment his misconduct in running away never occurred either to Sir Charles or Compton; all was eager and tremulous welcome. The hall rang with joy. They almost carried him into the dining-room.
The first thing they saw was a train of violet-colored velvet, half hidden by the table.
Compton ran forward with a cry of dismay.
It was Lady Bassett, in a dead swoon, her face as white as her neck and arms, and these as white and smooth as satin.
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