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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23368-0.txt b/23368-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8e4a6b --- /dev/null +++ b/23368-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1042 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Courting Of Lady Jane, by Josephine Daskam + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Courting Of Lady Jane + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23368] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE COURTING OF LADY JANE + +By Josephine Daskam + +Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons + + +The colonel entered his sister's room abruptly, sat down on her bed, and +scattered a drawerful of fluffy things laid out for packing. + +“You don't seem to think about my side of the matter,” he said gloomily. +“What am I to do here all alone, for Heaven's sake?” + +“That is so like a man,” she murmured, one arm in a trunk. “Let me see: +party-boots, the children's arctics, Dick's sweater--did you think I +could live here forever, Cal?” + +“Then you shouldn't have come at all. Just as I get thoroughly settled +down to flowers in the drawing-room, and rabbits in a chafing-dish, and +people for dinner, you skip off. Why don't you bring the children here? +What did you marry into the navy for, anyway? Nagasaki! I wouldn't live +in a place called Nagasaki for all that money could buy!” + +“You're cross,” said Mrs. Dick placidly. “Please get off that +bath-wrapper. If you don't like to live alone--Six bath-towels, Dick's +shoe-bag, my old muff (I hope and pray I'll remember that!) Helen's +reefer--Why don't you marry?” + +“Marry? Marry! Are you out of your mind, Dosia? I marry!” + +The colonel twisted his grayish mustache into points; a look of horror +spread over his countenance. + +“Men have done it,” she replied seriously, “and lived. Look at Dick.” + +“Look at him? But how? Who ever sees him? I've ceased to believe in him, +personally. I can't look across the Pacific. Consider my age, Dosia; +consider my pepper-and-salt hair; consider my bronchitis; consider--” + +“Consider your stupidity! As to your hair, I should hate to eat a salad +dressed with that proportion of pepper. As to your age, remember you're +only ten years ahead of me, and I expect to remain thirty-eight for some +time.” + +“But forty-eight is centenarian to a girl of twenty-two, Dosia.” + +The colonel was plaiting and un-plaiting the ball-fringe of the +bed-slip; his eyes followed the motion of his fingers--he did not see +his sister's triumphant smile as she dived again into the trunk. + +“That depends entirely on the girl. Take Louise Morris, for instance; +she regards you as partly entombed, probably”--the colonel winced +involuntarily--“but, on the other hand, a girl like Jane Leroy would +have no such nonsense in her head, and she can't be much more than +twenty.” + +“She is twenty-two,” cried the unsuspecting colonel eagerly. + +“Ah? I should not have said so much. Now such a girl as that, Cal, +handsome, dignified, college-bred, is just the wife for an older man. +One can't seem to see her marrying some young snip of her own age. She'd +be wasted on him. I happen to know that she refused Wilbur Vail entirely +on that ground. She admitted that he was a charming fellow, but she told +her mother he was far too young for her. And he was twenty-eight.” + +“Did she?” The colonel left the fringe. “But--but perhaps there were +other reasons; perhaps she didn't--” + +“Oh, probably she didn't. But still, she said he was too young. That's +the way with these serious girls. Now I thought Dick was middle-aged +when I married him, and he was thirty. Jane doesn't take after her +mother; she was only nineteen when she was born--I mean, of course, when +Jane was born. Will you hand me that crocheted shawl, please?” + +“My dear girl, you're not going to try to get that into that trunk, too? +Something will break.” + +“Not at all, my dear Clarence. Thank you. Will you send Norah up to me +as you go down?” + +It had not occurred to the colonel that he was going down, but he +decided that he must have been, and departed, forgetting Norah utterly +before he had accomplished half of the staircase. + +He wandered out through the broad hall, reaching down a hat absently, +and across the piazza. Then, half unconscious of direction, he crossed +the neat suburban road and strolled up the gravel path of the cottage +opposite. Mrs. Leroy was sitting in the bay-window, attaching indefinite +yards of white lace to indefinite yards of white ruffles. Jane, in cool +violet lawn, was reading aloud to her. Both looked up at his light knock +at the side door. + +“But I am afraid I interrupt,” he suggested politely, as he dropped +into a low chair with a manner that betokened the assurance of a warm +welcome. + +“Not the least in the world,” Mrs. Leroy smiled whimsically. + +“Lady is reading Pater to me for the good of my soul, and I am listening +politely for the good of her manners,” she answered. “But it is a little +wearing for us both, for she knows I don't understand it, and I know she +thinks me a little dishonest for pretending to.” + +“Mother!” + +The girl's gray eyes opened wide above her cool, creamy cheeks; the +deep dimples that made her mother's face so girlish actually added a +regularity and seriousness to the daughter's soft chin. Her chestnut +hair was thick and straight, the little half-curls of the same rich tint +that fell over her mother's forehead brushed wavelessly back on each +side of a deep widow's peak. + +The two older ones laughed. + +“Always uncompromising, Lady Jane!” the colonel cried. + +“I assure you, colonel, when Lady begins to mark iniquities, few of us +stand!” + +Jane smiled gravely, as on two children. “You know very well that is +nonsense,” she said. + +Black Hannah appeared in the door, beaming and curtsying to the colonel. + +“You-all ready foh yoh tea, Miss Lady?” she inquired. + +A sudden recollection threw Mrs. Leroy into one of her irresistible fits +of gentle laughter. + +“Oh, Lady,” she murmured, “do you remember that impossible creature that +lectured me about Hannah's asking you for orders? Did I tell you about +it, colonel?” + +Jane shook her head reprovingly. + +“Now, mother dearest, you always make him out worse--” + +“Worse, my darling? Worse is a word that couldn't be applied to that +man. Worse is comparative. Positive he certainly was, superlative is +mild, but comparative--never!” + +“Tell about it, do,” begged the guest. + +“Well, he came to see how Lady was growing up--he's a sort of species of +relative--and he sat in your chair, colonel, and talked the most amazing +Fourth Reader platitudes in a deep bass voice. And when Hannah asked +Lady what her orders were for the grocer, he gave me a terrible look and +rumbled out: 'I am grieved to see, Cousin Alice, that Jennie has burst +her bounds!' + +“It sounded horribly indecorous--I expected to see her in fragments on +the floor--and I fairly gasped.” + +“Gasped, mother? You laughed in his face!” + +“Did I, dearest? It is possible.” Mrs. Leroy admitted. “And when I +looked vague he explained, 'I mean that you seem to have relinquished +the reins very early, Cousin Alice!' + +“'Relinquished? Relinquished?' said I. 'Why, dear me, Mr. Wadham, I +never held 'em!'” + +“He only meant, mother dear, that--” + +“Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to +me very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old +child, she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds.” + +“Disgusting beast!” the colonel exclaimed with feeling, possessing +himself of one of Hannah's beaten biscuits, and smiling as Lady Jane's +white fingers dropped just the right number of lumps in his tea. + +How charming she was, how dignified, how tender to her merry little +mother, this grave, handsome girl! He saw her, in fancy, opposite him at +his table, moving so stately about his big empty house, filling it with +pretty, useless woman's things, lighting every corner with that last +touch of grace that the most faithful housekeeper could never hope to +add to his lonely life. For Theodosia had taught him that he was lonely. +He envied Dick this sister of his. + +He wondered that marriage had never occurred to him before: simply it +had not. Ever since that rainy day in April, twenty years ago, when +they had buried the slender, soft-eyed little creature with his twisted +silver ring on her cold finger, he had shut that door of life; and +though it had been many years since the little ring had really bound him +to a personality long faded from his mind, he had never thought to open +the door--he had forgotten it was there. + +He was not a talkative man, and, like many such, he dearly loved to be +amused and entertained by others who were in any degree attractive to +him. The picture of these two dear women adding their wit and charm and +dainty way of living to his days grew suddenly very vivid to him; he +realized that it was an unconscious counting on their continued interest +and hospitality that had made the future so comfortable for so long. + +With characteristic directness he began: + +“Will your Ladyship allow me a half-hour of business with the +queen-mother?” + +She rose easily and stepped out through the long window to the little +side porch, then to the lawn. They watched her as she paced slowly away +from them, a tall violet figure vivid against all the green. + +“She is a dear girl, isn't she?” said her mother softly. + +A sudden flood of delighted pride surged through the colonel's heart. +If only he might keep them happy and contented and--and his! He never +thought of them apart: no rose and bud on one stem were more essentially +together than they. + +“She is too dear for one to be satisfied forever with even our charming +neighborliness,” he answered gravely. “How long have we lived 'across +the street from each other,' as they say here, Mrs. Leroy?” + +She did not raise her eyes from her white ruffles. + +“It is just a year this month,” she said. + +“We are such good friends,” he continued in his gentle, reserved voice, +“that I hesitate to break into such pleasant relations, even with +the chance of making us all happier, perhaps. But I cannot resist the +temptation. Could we not make one family, we three?” + +A quick, warm color flooded her cheeks and forehead. She caught her +breath; her startled eyes met his with a lightning-swift flash of +something that moved him strangely. + +“What do you mean, Colonel Driscoll?” she asked, low and quickly. + +“I mean, could you give me your daughter--if she--at any time--could +think it possible?” + +She drew a deep breath; the color seemed blown from her transparent skin +like a flame from a lamp. For a moment her head seemed to droop; then +she sat straight and moistened her lips, her eyes fixed level ahead. + +“Lady?” she whispered, and he was sure that she thought the word was +spoken in her ordinary tone. “Lady?” + +“I know--I realize perfectly that it is a presumption in me--at my +age--when I think of what she deserves. Oh, we won't speak of it again +if you feel that it would be wrong!” + +“No, no, it is not that,” she murmured. “I--I have always known that I +must lose her; but she--one is so selfish--she is all I have, you know!” + +“But you would not lose her!” he cried eagerly. “You would only share +her with me, dear Mrs. Leroy! Do you think--could she--it is possible?” + +“Lady is an unusual girl,” she said evenly, but with something gone out +of her warm, gay voice. “She has never cared for young people. I know +that she admires you greatly. While I cannot deny that I should prefer +less difference than lies between your ages, it would be folly in me to +fail to recognize the desirability of the connection in every other +way. Whatever her decision--and the matter rests entirely with her--my +daughter and I are honored by your proposal, Colonel Driscoll.” + +She might have been reading a carefully prepared address: her eyes never +wavered from the wall in front--it was as if she saw her words there. + +“Then--then will you ask her?” + +She stared at him now. + +“You mean that you wish me to ask her to marry you?” + +“Yes,” he said simply. “She will feel freer in that way. You will know +as I should not, directly, if there is any chance. I can talk about it +with you more easily--somehow.” + +She shrugged her shoulders with a strange air of exhaustion; it was the +yielding of one too tired to argue. + +“Very well,” she breathed, “go now, and I will ask her. Come this +evening. You will excuse--” + +She made a vague motion. The colonel pitied her tremendously in a blind +way. Was it all this to lose a daughter? How she loved her! + +“Perhaps to-morrow morning,” he suggested, but she shook her head +vehemently. + +“No, to-night, to-night!” she cried. “Lady will know directly. Come +tonight!” + +He went out a little depressed. Already a tiny cloud hung between them. +Suppose their pleasant waters had been troubled for worse than nothing? +Suddenly his case appeared hopeless to him. What folly--a man of his +years, and that fresh young creature with all her life before her! He +wondered that he could have dreamed of it; he wished the evening over +and the foolish mistake forgiven. + +His sister was full of plans and dates, and her talk covered his almost +absolute silence. After dinner she retired again into packing, and he +strode through the dusk to the cottage; his had not been a training that +seeks to delay the inevitable. + +The two women sat, as usual at this hour, on the porch. Their white +gowns shimmered against the dark honeysuckle-vine. He halted at the +steps and took off the old fatigue-cap he sometimes wore, standing +straight and tall before them. + +Mrs. Leroy leaned back in her chair; the faintest possible gesture +indicated her daughter, who had risen and stood beside her. + +“Colonel Driscoll,” she said in a low, uneven voice, “my daughter wishes +me to say to you that she appreciates deeply the honor you do her, and +that if you wish it she will be your wife. She--she is sure she will be +happy.” + +The colonel felt his heart leap up and hit heavily against his chest. +Was it possible? A great gratitude and pride glowed softly through him. +He walked nearly up the steps and stood just below her, lifting her hand +to his lips. + +“My dear, dear child,” he said slowly, “you give me too much, but you +must not measure my thankfulness for the gift by my deserts. Whatever a +man can do to make you and your mother happy shall be done so long as I +live.” + +She smiled gravely into his eyes and bowed her head slightly; like all +her little motions, it had the effect of a graceful ceremony. Then, +slipping loose her hand, she seated herself on a low stool beside her +mother's chair, leaning against her knee. Her sweet silence charmed him. + +He took his accustomed seat, and they sat quietly, while the breeze +puffed little gusts of honeysuckle across their faces. Occasional +neighbors greeted them, strolling past; the newly watered lawns all +along the street sent up a fresh turfy odor; now and then a bird chirped +drowsily. He felt deliriously intimate, peacefully at home. A fine, +subtle sense of _bien-être_ penetrated his whole soul. + +When he rose to go they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. As he held, +her hand closely, half doubting his right, she raised her face to him +simply, and he kissed her white forehead. When he bent over her mother's +hand it was as cold as stone. + +Through the long pleasant weeks of the summer they talked and laughed +and drove and sailed together, a happy trio. Mrs. Leroy's listless +quiet of the first few days gave way to a brilliant, fitful gayety that +enchanted the more silent two, and the few hours when she was not with +them seemed incomplete. On his mentioning this to her one afternoon she +shot him a strange glance. + +“But this is all wrong,” she said abruptly. “What will you do when I am +gone in the winter?” + +“What do you mean?” he asked. “Gone where, when, how?” + +“My dear colonel,” she said lightly, but with an obvious effort, “do +you imagine that I cannot leave you a honeymoon, in spite of my doting +parenthood? I plan to spend the latter part of the winter in New York +with friends. Perhaps by spring--” + +“My dear Mrs. Leroy, how absurd! How cruel of you! What will Lady do? +What shall I do? She has never been separated from you in her life. Does +she know of this?” + +“No; I shall tell her soon. As for what she will do--she will have her +husband. If that is not enough for her, she should not marry the man who +cannot--” + +She stopped suddenly and controlled with great effort a rising emotion +almost too strong for her. Again a deep, inexplicable sympathy welled up +in him. He longed to comfort her, to give her everything she wanted. He +blamed himself and Jane for all the trouble they were causing her. + +That afternoon she kept in her room, and he and his fiancée drank +their tea together alone. He was worried by the news of the morning, +dissatisfied out of all proportion, vexed that so sensible and natural +a proposition should leave him so uneasy and disappointed. He had +meant the smooth, quiet life to go on without a break, and now the new +relation must change everything. + +He glanced at Jane, a little irritated that she should not perceive +his mood and exorcise it. But she had not her mother's marvellous +susceptibility. She drank her tea in serene silence. He made a few +haphazard remarks, hoping to lose in conversation the cloud that +threatened his evening; but she only assented tranquilly and watched the +changing colors of the early sunset. + +“Have you made a vow to agree with everything I say?” he asked finally, +half laughing, half in earnest. + +“Not at all,” she replied placidly, “but you surely do not want an +argument?” + +“Oh, no,” he answered her, vexed at himself. + +“What do you think of Mrs. ------'s novel?” he suggested, as the pages, +fluttering in the rising breeze, caught his attention. + +“Mother is reading it, not I,” she returned indifferently. “I don't care +very much for the new novels.” + +Involuntarily he turned as if to catch her mother's criticism of the +book: light, perhaps, but witty, and with a little tang of harmless +satire that always took his fancy. But she was not there. He sighed +impatiently; was it possible he was a little bored? + +A quick step sounded on the gravel walk, a swish of skirts. + +“It is Louise Morris,” she said, “I'll meet her at the gate.” + +After a short conference she returned. + +“Will you excuse me, please?” she said, quite eagerly for her. “Mother +will be down soon, anyway, I am sure. Louise's brother is back; he has +been away in the West for six years. Mother will be delighted--she was +always so fond of Jack. Louise is making a little surprise for him. He +must be quite grown up now. I'll go and tell mother.” + +A moment later and she was gone. Mrs. Leroy took her place in the +window, and imperceptibly under her gentle influence the cloud faded +from his horizon; he forgot the doubt of an hour ago. At her suggestion +he dined there, and found himself, as always when with his hostess, at +his best. He felt that there was no hypocrisy in her interest in his +ideas, and the ease with which he expressed them astonished him even +while he delighted in it. Why could he not talk so with Jane? It +occurred to him suddenly that it was because Jane herself talked rarely. +She was, like him, a listener, for the most part. His mind, unusually +alert and sensitive to-night, looked ahead to the happy winter evenings +he had grown to count on so, and when, with an effort, he detached +this third figure from the group to be so closely allied after +Christmas-tide--the date fixed for the wedding--he perceived that there +was a great gap in the picture, that the warmth and sparkle had suddenly +gone. All the tenderness in the world could not disguise that flash of +foresight. + +He grew quiet, lost in revery. She, following his mood, spoke less and +less; and when Jane returned, late at night, escorted by a tall, bronzed +young ranchman, she found them sitting in silence in a half-light, +staring into the late September fire on the hearth. + +In the month that followed an imperceptible change crept over the three. +The older woman was much alone--variable as an April day, now merry and +caressing, now sombre and withdrawn. The girl clung to her mother more +closely, sat for long minutes holding her hand, threw strange glances at +her betrothed that would have startled him, so different were they +from her old, steady regard, had not his now troubled sense of some +impalpable mist that wrapped them all grown stronger every day. He +avoided sitting alone with her, wondering sometimes at the ease +with which such tête-à-têtes were dispensed with. Then, struck with +apprehension at his seeming neglect, he spent his ingenuity in delicate +attentions toward her, courtly thoughtfulness of her tastes, beautiful +gifts that provoked from her, in turn, all the little intimacies and +tender friendliness of their earlier intercourse. + +At one of these tiny crises of mutual restoration, she, sitting alone +with him in the drawing-room, suddenly raised her eyes and looked +steadily at him. + +“You care for me, then, very much?” she said earnestly. “You--you would +miss--if things were different? You really count on--on--our marriage? +Are you happy?” + +A great remorse rose in him. Poor child--poor, young, unknowing +creature, that, after all, was only twenty-two! She felt it, then, the +strange mist that seemed to muffle his words and actions, to hold him +back. And she had given him so much! + +He took her hands and drew her to him. + +“My dear, dear child,” he said gently, “forgive a selfish middle-aged +bachelor if he cannot come up to the precious ideals of the sweetest +girlhood in the world! I am no more worthy of you, Lady dear, than +I have ever been, but I have never felt more tender toward you, more +sensible of all you are giving me. I cannot pretend to the wild love of +the poets you read so much; that time, if it ever was, is past for me. +I am a plain, unromantic person, who takes and leaves a great deal for +granted--I thought you knew that. But you must never doubt--” He paused +a moment, and for the first time she interrupted him nervously. + +“I never will--Clarence,” she said almost solemnly; and it struck him +for the first time that she had never called him by his name before. He +leaned over her, and as in one of her rare concessions she lifted her +face up to him, he bent lower than her forehead; what compelled him to +kiss her soft cheek rather than her lips he did not know. + +Unexpected business summoned him to New York for a fortnight the next +day, and the great city drew him irresistibly into its noisy maelstrom. +The current of his thoughts changed absolutely. Old friends and new took +up his leisure. His affairs, as they grew more pressing, woke in him +a keen delight in the struggle with his opponents; as he shook hands +triumphantly with his lawyer after a well-earned victory he felt years +younger. He decided that he had moped too long in the country: “We must +move into town this season,” he said to himself. + +He fairly ran up the cottage steps in the gathering dusk. He longed to +see them, full of plans for the winter. Hannah met him at the door: +the ladies had gone to a dance at the Morrises'; there had been an +invitation for him, so he would not intrude if he followed. + +Hastily changing his clothes, he walked up the street. Lights and music +poured out of the open windows of the large house; the full moon made +the grounds about it almost as bright as the rooms. He stepped up on +the piazza and looked in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane, beautiful +in pale blue mull, drifted by in her young host's arms. She was flushed +with dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly +recognized her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a +glimpse of a flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose +fine poise he could not mistake. + +A young man passed him with a filmy crêpe shawl he knew well. The +colonel stepped along with him. + +“You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy?” + +“Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little.” + +“Let me relieve you of it,” and he walked alone into the garden with the +softly scented cobweb over his arm. + +She was standing in an old neglected summer-house, her back to the door. +As he stopped behind her and laid the soft wrap over her firm white +shoulders, she turned her head with a startled prescience of his +personality, and met his eyes full. He looked straight into those soft +gray depths, and as he looked, searching for something there, he knew +not what, troubled strangely by her nearness and the helpless surrender +of her fastened gaze, a great light burst upon him. + +“It is you! it is you!” he said hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, +he kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth. + +For a moment she rested against him. The music, piercingly sweet, drove +away thought. Then she drew herself back, pushing him blindly from her. + +“No, no, no!” she gasped, “it is Lady! You are mad--” + +“Mad?” he said quickly. “I was never sane till now. When I think of what +I had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love +I was sacrificing her--oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must have +known!” + +She raised her head; an unquenchable triumph smiled at him. + +“I did know!” she cried exultantly. Suddenly her whole expression +changed, her head sank again. + +“Oh, Lady, my child, my baby!” she moaned, all mother now, and +brokenhearted. + +“You must never tell her, never!” she panted. “You will forget; you--I +will go away--” + +“It is you who are mad, Alice,” he said sternly. “Listen to me. For all +these weeks it has been your voice I have remembered, your face I +have seen in imagination in my house. It is you I have missed from +us three--never Lady. It is you I have tried to please and hoped to +satisfy--not Lady. Ever since you told me you would not spend the winter +with us I have been discontented. Why, Alice, I have never kissed her in +my life--as I have kissed you.” + +She grew red to the tips of her little ears, and threw him a quick +glance that tingled to his fingers' ends. + +“You would not have me--oh, my dear, it is not possible!” he cried. + +She burst into tears. “I don't know--I don't know!” she sobbed. “It will +break her heart! I don't understand her any more; once I could tell what +she would think, but not now.” + +“Hush! some one is coming,” he warned her, and taking her arm he drew +her out through a great gap in the side of the little house, so that +they stood hidden by it. + +“Then I will tell him to his face what I think of him!” said a young +man's voice, angry, determined, but shaking with disappointment. “To +hold a girl--” + +“He does not hold me--I hold myself!” It was Lady's voice, low and +trembling. “It is all my fault, Jack. I bound myself before I knew +what--what a different thing it really was. I do love him--I love him +dearly, but not--not--No, no; I don't mean what you think--or, if I do, +I must not. Jack, I have promised, don't you see? And when I thought +that perhaps he didn't care so much, and asked him--oh, I told you how +beautifully he answered me, I will never hurt him so, never!” + +“It is disgusting, it is horrible; he is twenty-five years older than +you--he might be your father!” stormed the voice. + +“I--I never cared for young people before!” + +Could this be Lady, this shy, faltering girl? Moved by an overmastering +impulse, the man behind the summer-house turned his head and looked +through the broken wall. + +Lady Jane was blushing and paling in quick succession: the waves of red +flooded over her moved face and receded like the tide at turn. Her eyes +were piteous; her hair fell low over her forehead; she looked incredibly +young. + +“Of course,” said the young man bitterly, “it is a good match--a fine +match, You will have a beautiful home and everything you want.” + +She put out her hands appealingly. “Oh, Jack, how can you hurt me so? +You know I would live with you in a garret--on the plains--” + +“Then do it.” + +“I shall never hurt a person so terribly to whom I have freely given my +word,” she said, with a touch of her old-time decision. + +Colonel Driscoll felt his blood sweeping through his veins like wine. He +was far too excited for finesse, too eager--and he had been so willing +to wait, once!--for the next sweet moment when this almost tragedy +should be resolved into its elements. He strode out into the open space +in front of the little house. + +“My dear young people,” he said, as they stared at him in absolute +silence, “I am, I am--” He had intended to carry the matter off +jocularly, but the sight of the girl's tear-stained face and the emotion +of the minutes before had softened and awed him. His eyes seemed yet to +hold those gray ones; he felt strangely the pressure of that soft body +against his. + +“Ah, my dear,” he said gently, “could you not believe me when I told you +that my one wish was to make you happy as long as I lived? Happiness is +not built on mistakes, and you must forgive us if we do not always allow +youth to monopolize them. + +“She has always been like a dear child to me, Mr. Morris”--he turned to +the other man--“and you would never wish me to change my regard for her, +could you know it! + +“Go with him, Lady dear, and forgive me if I have ever pained +you--believe me, I am very happy to-night.” + +He raised her softly as she knelt before him weeping, and kissed her +hair. + +“But there is nothing to forgive,” he assured her. + +They went away hand in hand, happy, like two dazed children for whom +the sky has suddenly but not--because they are young--too miraculously +opened, and the shrubbery swallowed them. + +He turned and strode back into the shadow. Mrs. Leroy sat crouching on +the fallen timber, her head still bent. Stooping behind her, he drew her +toward him. + +“They have forgotten us by now,” he whispered, “can I make you forget +them?” + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Courting Of Lady Jane, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + +***** This file should be named 23368-0.txt or 23368-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23368/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Courting Of Lady Jane + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23368] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE COURTING OF LADY JANE + +By Josephine Daskam + +Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons + + +The colonel entered his sister's room abruptly, sat down on her bed, and +scattered a drawerful of fluffy things laid out for packing. + +"You don't seem to think about my side of the matter," he said gloomily. +"What am I to do here all alone, for Heaven's sake?" + +"That is so like a man," she murmured, one arm in a trunk. "Let me see: +party-boots, the children's arctics, Dick's sweater--did you think I +could live here forever, Cal?" + +"Then you shouldn't have come at all. Just as I get thoroughly settled +down to flowers in the drawing-room, and rabbits in a chafing-dish, and +people for dinner, you skip off. Why don't you bring the children here? +What did you marry into the navy for, anyway? Nagasaki! I wouldn't live +in a place called Nagasaki for all that money could buy!" + +"You're cross," said Mrs. Dick placidly. "Please get off that +bath-wrapper. If you don't like to live alone--Six bath-towels, Dick's +shoe-bag, my old muff (I hope and pray I'll remember that!) Helen's +reefer--Why don't you marry?" + +"Marry? Marry! Are you out of your mind, Dosia? I marry!" + +The colonel twisted his grayish mustache into points; a look of horror +spread over his countenance. + +"Men have done it," she replied seriously, "and lived. Look at Dick." + +"Look at him? But how? Who ever sees him? I've ceased to believe in him, +personally. I can't look across the Pacific. Consider my age, Dosia; +consider my pepper-and-salt hair; consider my bronchitis; consider--" + +"Consider your stupidity! As to your hair, I should hate to eat a salad +dressed with that proportion of pepper. As to your age, remember you're +only ten years ahead of me, and I expect to remain thirty-eight for some +time." + +"But forty-eight is centenarian to a girl of twenty-two, Dosia." + +The colonel was plaiting and un-plaiting the ball-fringe of the +bed-slip; his eyes followed the motion of his fingers--he did not see +his sister's triumphant smile as she dived again into the trunk. + +"That depends entirely on the girl. Take Louise Morris, for instance; +she regards you as partly entombed, probably"--the colonel winced +involuntarily--"but, on the other hand, a girl like Jane Leroy would +have no such nonsense in her head, and she can't be much more than +twenty." + +"She is twenty-two," cried the unsuspecting colonel eagerly. + +"Ah? I should not have said so much. Now such a girl as that, Cal, +handsome, dignified, college-bred, is just the wife for an older man. +One can't seem to see her marrying some young snip of her own age. She'd +be wasted on him. I happen to know that she refused Wilbur Vail entirely +on that ground. She admitted that he was a charming fellow, but she told +her mother he was far too young for her. And he was twenty-eight." + +"Did she?" The colonel left the fringe. "But--but perhaps there were +other reasons; perhaps she didn't--" + +"Oh, probably she didn't. But still, she said he was too young. That's +the way with these serious girls. Now I thought Dick was middle-aged +when I married him, and he was thirty. Jane doesn't take after her +mother; she was only nineteen when she was born--I mean, of course, when +Jane was born. Will you hand me that crocheted shawl, please?" + +"My dear girl, you're not going to try to get that into that trunk, too? +Something will break." + +"Not at all, my dear Clarence. Thank you. Will you send Norah up to me +as you go down?" + +It had not occurred to the colonel that he was going down, but he +decided that he must have been, and departed, forgetting Norah utterly +before he had accomplished half of the staircase. + +He wandered out through the broad hall, reaching down a hat absently, +and across the piazza. Then, half unconscious of direction, he crossed +the neat suburban road and strolled up the gravel path of the cottage +opposite. Mrs. Leroy was sitting in the bay-window, attaching indefinite +yards of white lace to indefinite yards of white ruffles. Jane, in cool +violet lawn, was reading aloud to her. Both looked up at his light knock +at the side door. + +"But I am afraid I interrupt," he suggested politely, as he dropped +into a low chair with a manner that betokened the assurance of a warm +welcome. + +"Not the least in the world," Mrs. Leroy smiled whimsically. + +"Lady is reading Pater to me for the good of my soul, and I am listening +politely for the good of her manners," she answered. "But it is a little +wearing for us both, for she knows I don't understand it, and I know she +thinks me a little dishonest for pretending to." + +"Mother!" + +The girl's gray eyes opened wide above her cool, creamy cheeks; the +deep dimples that made her mother's face so girlish actually added a +regularity and seriousness to the daughter's soft chin. Her chestnut +hair was thick and straight, the little half-curls of the same rich tint +that fell over her mother's forehead brushed wavelessly back on each +side of a deep widow's peak. + +The two older ones laughed. + +"Always uncompromising, Lady Jane!" the colonel cried. + +"I assure you, colonel, when Lady begins to mark iniquities, few of us +stand!" + +Jane smiled gravely, as on two children. "You know very well that is +nonsense," she said. + +Black Hannah appeared in the door, beaming and curtsying to the colonel. + +"You-all ready foh yoh tea, Miss Lady?" she inquired. + +A sudden recollection threw Mrs. Leroy into one of her irresistible fits +of gentle laughter. + +"Oh, Lady," she murmured, "do you remember that impossible creature that +lectured me about Hannah's asking you for orders? Did I tell you about +it, colonel?" + +Jane shook her head reprovingly. + +"Now, mother dearest, you always make him out worse--" + +"Worse, my darling? Worse is a word that couldn't be applied to that +man. Worse is comparative. Positive he certainly was, superlative is +mild, but comparative--never!" + +"Tell about it, do," begged the guest. + +"Well, he came to see how Lady was growing up--he's a sort of species of +relative--and he sat in your chair, colonel, and talked the most amazing +Fourth Reader platitudes in a deep bass voice. And when Hannah asked +Lady what her orders were for the grocer, he gave me a terrible look and +rumbled out: 'I am grieved to see, Cousin Alice, that Jennie has burst +her bounds!' + +"It sounded horribly indecorous--I expected to see her in fragments on +the floor--and I fairly gasped." + +"Gasped, mother? You laughed in his face!" + +"Did I, dearest? It is possible." Mrs. Leroy admitted. "And when I +looked vague he explained, 'I mean that you seem to have relinquished +the reins very early, Cousin Alice!' + +"'Relinquished? Relinquished?' said I. 'Why, dear me, Mr. Wadham, I +never held 'em!'" + +"He only meant, mother dear, that--" + +"Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to +me very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old +child, she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds." + +"Disgusting beast!" the colonel exclaimed with feeling, possessing +himself of one of Hannah's beaten biscuits, and smiling as Lady Jane's +white fingers dropped just the right number of lumps in his tea. + +How charming she was, how dignified, how tender to her merry little +mother, this grave, handsome girl! He saw her, in fancy, opposite him at +his table, moving so stately about his big empty house, filling it with +pretty, useless woman's things, lighting every corner with that last +touch of grace that the most faithful housekeeper could never hope to +add to his lonely life. For Theodosia had taught him that he was lonely. +He envied Dick this sister of his. + +He wondered that marriage had never occurred to him before: simply it +had not. Ever since that rainy day in April, twenty years ago, when +they had buried the slender, soft-eyed little creature with his twisted +silver ring on her cold finger, he had shut that door of life; and +though it had been many years since the little ring had really bound him +to a personality long faded from his mind, he had never thought to open +the door--he had forgotten it was there. + +He was not a talkative man, and, like many such, he dearly loved to be +amused and entertained by others who were in any degree attractive to +him. The picture of these two dear women adding their wit and charm and +dainty way of living to his days grew suddenly very vivid to him; he +realized that it was an unconscious counting on their continued interest +and hospitality that had made the future so comfortable for so long. + +With characteristic directness he began: + +"Will your Ladyship allow me a half-hour of business with the +queen-mother?" + +She rose easily and stepped out through the long window to the little +side porch, then to the lawn. They watched her as she paced slowly away +from them, a tall violet figure vivid against all the green. + +"She is a dear girl, isn't she?" said her mother softly. + +A sudden flood of delighted pride surged through the colonel's heart. +If only he might keep them happy and contented and--and his! He never +thought of them apart: no rose and bud on one stem were more essentially +together than they. + +"She is too dear for one to be satisfied forever with even our charming +neighborliness," he answered gravely. "How long have we lived 'across +the street from each other,' as they say here, Mrs. Leroy?" + +She did not raise her eyes from her white ruffles. + +"It is just a year this month," she said. + +"We are such good friends," he continued in his gentle, reserved voice, +"that I hesitate to break into such pleasant relations, even with +the chance of making us all happier, perhaps. But I cannot resist the +temptation. Could we not make one family, we three?" + +A quick, warm color flooded her cheeks and forehead. She caught her +breath; her startled eyes met his with a lightning-swift flash of +something that moved him strangely. + +"What do you mean, Colonel Driscoll?" she asked, low and quickly. + +"I mean, could you give me your daughter--if she--at any time--could +think it possible?" + +She drew a deep breath; the color seemed blown from her transparent skin +like a flame from a lamp. For a moment her head seemed to droop; then +she sat straight and moistened her lips, her eyes fixed level ahead. + +"Lady?" she whispered, and he was sure that she thought the word was +spoken in her ordinary tone. "Lady?" + +"I know--I realize perfectly that it is a presumption in me--at my +age--when I think of what she deserves. Oh, we won't speak of it again +if you feel that it would be wrong!" + +"No, no, it is not that," she murmured. "I--I have always known that I +must lose her; but she--one is so selfish--she is all I have, you know!" + +"But you would not lose her!" he cried eagerly. "You would only share +her with me, dear Mrs. Leroy! Do you think--could she--it is possible?" + +"Lady is an unusual girl," she said evenly, but with something gone out +of her warm, gay voice. "She has never cared for young people. I know +that she admires you greatly. While I cannot deny that I should prefer +less difference than lies between your ages, it would be folly in me to +fail to recognize the desirability of the connection in every other +way. Whatever her decision--and the matter rests entirely with her--my +daughter and I are honored by your proposal, Colonel Driscoll." + +She might have been reading a carefully prepared address: her eyes never +wavered from the wall in front--it was as if she saw her words there. + +"Then--then will you ask her?" + +She stared at him now. + +"You mean that you wish me to ask her to marry you?" + +"Yes," he said simply. "She will feel freer in that way. You will know +as I should not, directly, if there is any chance. I can talk about it +with you more easily--somehow." + +She shrugged her shoulders with a strange air of exhaustion; it was the +yielding of one too tired to argue. + +"Very well," she breathed, "go now, and I will ask her. Come this +evening. You will excuse--" + +She made a vague motion. The colonel pitied her tremendously in a blind +way. Was it all this to lose a daughter? How she loved her! + +"Perhaps to-morrow morning," he suggested, but she shook her head +vehemently. + +"No, to-night, to-night!" she cried. "Lady will know directly. Come +tonight!" + +He went out a little depressed. Already a tiny cloud hung between them. +Suppose their pleasant waters had been troubled for worse than nothing? +Suddenly his case appeared hopeless to him. What folly--a man of his +years, and that fresh young creature with all her life before her! He +wondered that he could have dreamed of it; he wished the evening over +and the foolish mistake forgiven. + +His sister was full of plans and dates, and her talk covered his almost +absolute silence. After dinner she retired again into packing, and he +strode through the dusk to the cottage; his had not been a training that +seeks to delay the inevitable. + +The two women sat, as usual at this hour, on the porch. Their white +gowns shimmered against the dark honeysuckle-vine. He halted at the +steps and took off the old fatigue-cap he sometimes wore, standing +straight and tall before them. + +Mrs. Leroy leaned back in her chair; the faintest possible gesture +indicated her daughter, who had risen and stood beside her. + +"Colonel Driscoll," she said in a low, uneven voice, "my daughter wishes +me to say to you that she appreciates deeply the honor you do her, and +that if you wish it she will be your wife. She--she is sure she will be +happy." + +The colonel felt his heart leap up and hit heavily against his chest. +Was it possible? A great gratitude and pride glowed softly through him. +He walked nearly up the steps and stood just below her, lifting her hand +to his lips. + +"My dear, dear child," he said slowly, "you give me too much, but you +must not measure my thankfulness for the gift by my deserts. Whatever a +man can do to make you and your mother happy shall be done so long as I +live." + +She smiled gravely into his eyes and bowed her head slightly; like all +her little motions, it had the effect of a graceful ceremony. Then, +slipping loose her hand, she seated herself on a low stool beside her +mother's chair, leaning against her knee. Her sweet silence charmed him. + +He took his accustomed seat, and they sat quietly, while the breeze +puffed little gusts of honeysuckle across their faces. Occasional +neighbors greeted them, strolling past; the newly watered lawns all +along the street sent up a fresh turfy odor; now and then a bird chirped +drowsily. He felt deliriously intimate, peacefully at home. A fine, +subtle sense of _bien-tre_ penetrated his whole soul. + +When he rose to go they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. As he held, +her hand closely, half doubting his right, she raised her face to him +simply, and he kissed her white forehead. When he bent over her mother's +hand it was as cold as stone. + +Through the long pleasant weeks of the summer they talked and laughed +and drove and sailed together, a happy trio. Mrs. Leroy's listless +quiet of the first few days gave way to a brilliant, fitful gayety that +enchanted the more silent two, and the few hours when she was not with +them seemed incomplete. On his mentioning this to her one afternoon she +shot him a strange glance. + +"But this is all wrong," she said abruptly. "What will you do when I am +gone in the winter?" + +"What do you mean?" he asked. "Gone where, when, how?" + +"My dear colonel," she said lightly, but with an obvious effort, "do +you imagine that I cannot leave you a honeymoon, in spite of my doting +parenthood? I plan to spend the latter part of the winter in New York +with friends. Perhaps by spring--" + +"My dear Mrs. Leroy, how absurd! How cruel of you! What will Lady do? +What shall I do? She has never been separated from you in her life. Does +she know of this?" + +"No; I shall tell her soon. As for what she will do--she will have her +husband. If that is not enough for her, she should not marry the man who +cannot--" + +She stopped suddenly and controlled with great effort a rising emotion +almost too strong for her. Again a deep, inexplicable sympathy welled up +in him. He longed to comfort her, to give her everything she wanted. He +blamed himself and Jane for all the trouble they were causing her. + +That afternoon she kept in her room, and he and his fiance drank +their tea together alone. He was worried by the news of the morning, +dissatisfied out of all proportion, vexed that so sensible and natural +a proposition should leave him so uneasy and disappointed. He had +meant the smooth, quiet life to go on without a break, and now the new +relation must change everything. + +He glanced at Jane, a little irritated that she should not perceive +his mood and exorcise it. But she had not her mother's marvellous +susceptibility. She drank her tea in serene silence. He made a few +haphazard remarks, hoping to lose in conversation the cloud that +threatened his evening; but she only assented tranquilly and watched the +changing colors of the early sunset. + +"Have you made a vow to agree with everything I say?" he asked finally, +half laughing, half in earnest. + +"Not at all," she replied placidly, "but you surely do not want an +argument?" + +"Oh, no," he answered her, vexed at himself. + +"What do you think of Mrs. ------'s novel?" he suggested, as the pages, +fluttering in the rising breeze, caught his attention. + +"Mother is reading it, not I," she returned indifferently. "I don't care +very much for the new novels." + +Involuntarily he turned as if to catch her mother's criticism of the +book: light, perhaps, but witty, and with a little tang of harmless +satire that always took his fancy. But she was not there. He sighed +impatiently; was it possible he was a little bored? + +A quick step sounded on the gravel walk, a swish of skirts. + +"It is Louise Morris," she said, "I'll meet her at the gate." + +After a short conference she returned. + +"Will you excuse me, please?" she said, quite eagerly for her. "Mother +will be down soon, anyway, I am sure. Louise's brother is back; he has +been away in the West for six years. Mother will be delighted--she was +always so fond of Jack. Louise is making a little surprise for him. He +must be quite grown up now. I'll go and tell mother." + +A moment later and she was gone. Mrs. Leroy took her place in the +window, and imperceptibly under her gentle influence the cloud faded +from his horizon; he forgot the doubt of an hour ago. At her suggestion +he dined there, and found himself, as always when with his hostess, at +his best. He felt that there was no hypocrisy in her interest in his +ideas, and the ease with which he expressed them astonished him even +while he delighted in it. Why could he not talk so with Jane? It +occurred to him suddenly that it was because Jane herself talked rarely. +She was, like him, a listener, for the most part. His mind, unusually +alert and sensitive to-night, looked ahead to the happy winter evenings +he had grown to count on so, and when, with an effort, he detached +this third figure from the group to be so closely allied after +Christmas-tide--the date fixed for the wedding--he perceived that there +was a great gap in the picture, that the warmth and sparkle had suddenly +gone. All the tenderness in the world could not disguise that flash of +foresight. + +He grew quiet, lost in revery. She, following his mood, spoke less and +less; and when Jane returned, late at night, escorted by a tall, bronzed +young ranchman, she found them sitting in silence in a half-light, +staring into the late September fire on the hearth. + +In the month that followed an imperceptible change crept over the three. +The older woman was much alone--variable as an April day, now merry and +caressing, now sombre and withdrawn. The girl clung to her mother more +closely, sat for long minutes holding her hand, threw strange glances at +her betrothed that would have startled him, so different were they +from her old, steady regard, had not his now troubled sense of some +impalpable mist that wrapped them all grown stronger every day. He +avoided sitting alone with her, wondering sometimes at the ease +with which such tte--ttes were dispensed with. Then, struck with +apprehension at his seeming neglect, he spent his ingenuity in delicate +attentions toward her, courtly thoughtfulness of her tastes, beautiful +gifts that provoked from her, in turn, all the little intimacies and +tender friendliness of their earlier intercourse. + +At one of these tiny crises of mutual restoration, she, sitting alone +with him in the drawing-room, suddenly raised her eyes and looked +steadily at him. + +"You care for me, then, very much?" she said earnestly. "You--you would +miss--if things were different? You really count on--on--our marriage? +Are you happy?" + +A great remorse rose in him. Poor child--poor, young, unknowing +creature, that, after all, was only twenty-two! She felt it, then, the +strange mist that seemed to muffle his words and actions, to hold him +back. And she had given him so much! + +He took her hands and drew her to him. + +"My dear, dear child," he said gently, "forgive a selfish middle-aged +bachelor if he cannot come up to the precious ideals of the sweetest +girlhood in the world! I am no more worthy of you, Lady dear, than +I have ever been, but I have never felt more tender toward you, more +sensible of all you are giving me. I cannot pretend to the wild love of +the poets you read so much; that time, if it ever was, is past for me. +I am a plain, unromantic person, who takes and leaves a great deal for +granted--I thought you knew that. But you must never doubt--" He paused +a moment, and for the first time she interrupted him nervously. + +"I never will--Clarence," she said almost solemnly; and it struck him +for the first time that she had never called him by his name before. He +leaned over her, and as in one of her rare concessions she lifted her +face up to him, he bent lower than her forehead; what compelled him to +kiss her soft cheek rather than her lips he did not know. + +Unexpected business summoned him to New York for a fortnight the next +day, and the great city drew him irresistibly into its noisy maelstrom. +The current of his thoughts changed absolutely. Old friends and new took +up his leisure. His affairs, as they grew more pressing, woke in him +a keen delight in the struggle with his opponents; as he shook hands +triumphantly with his lawyer after a well-earned victory he felt years +younger. He decided that he had moped too long in the country: "We must +move into town this season," he said to himself. + +He fairly ran up the cottage steps in the gathering dusk. He longed to +see them, full of plans for the winter. Hannah met him at the door: +the ladies had gone to a dance at the Morrises'; there had been an +invitation for him, so he would not intrude if he followed. + +Hastily changing his clothes, he walked up the street. Lights and music +poured out of the open windows of the large house; the full moon made +the grounds about it almost as bright as the rooms. He stepped up on +the piazza and looked in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane, beautiful +in pale blue mull, drifted by in her young host's arms. She was flushed +with dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly +recognized her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a +glimpse of a flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose +fine poise he could not mistake. + +A young man passed him with a filmy crpe shawl he knew well. The +colonel stepped along with him. + +"You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy?" + +"Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little." + +"Let me relieve you of it," and he walked alone into the garden with the +softly scented cobweb over his arm. + +She was standing in an old neglected summer-house, her back to the door. +As he stopped behind her and laid the soft wrap over her firm white +shoulders, she turned her head with a startled prescience of his +personality, and met his eyes full. He looked straight into those soft +gray depths, and as he looked, searching for something there, he knew +not what, troubled strangely by her nearness and the helpless surrender +of her fastened gaze, a great light burst upon him. + +"It is you! it is you!" he said hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, +he kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth. + +For a moment she rested against him. The music, piercingly sweet, drove +away thought. Then she drew herself back, pushing him blindly from her. + +"No, no, no!" she gasped, "it is Lady! You are mad--" + +"Mad?" he said quickly. "I was never sane till now. When I think of what +I had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love +I was sacrificing her--oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must have +known!" + +She raised her head; an unquenchable triumph smiled at him. + +"I did know!" she cried exultantly. Suddenly her whole expression +changed, her head sank again. + +"Oh, Lady, my child, my baby!" she moaned, all mother now, and +brokenhearted. + +"You must never tell her, never!" she panted. "You will forget; you--I +will go away--" + +"It is you who are mad, Alice," he said sternly. "Listen to me. For all +these weeks it has been your voice I have remembered, your face I +have seen in imagination in my house. It is you I have missed from +us three--never Lady. It is you I have tried to please and hoped to +satisfy--not Lady. Ever since you told me you would not spend the winter +with us I have been discontented. Why, Alice, I have never kissed her in +my life--as I have kissed you." + +She grew red to the tips of her little ears, and threw him a quick +glance that tingled to his fingers' ends. + +"You would not have me--oh, my dear, it is not possible!" he cried. + +She burst into tears. "I don't know--I don't know!" she sobbed. "It will +break her heart! I don't understand her any more; once I could tell what +she would think, but not now." + +"Hush! some one is coming," he warned her, and taking her arm he drew +her out through a great gap in the side of the little house, so that +they stood hidden by it. + +"Then I will tell him to his face what I think of him!" said a young +man's voice, angry, determined, but shaking with disappointment. "To +hold a girl--" + +"He does not hold me--I hold myself!" It was Lady's voice, low and +trembling. "It is all my fault, Jack. I bound myself before I knew +what--what a different thing it really was. I do love him--I love him +dearly, but not--not--No, no; I don't mean what you think--or, if I do, +I must not. Jack, I have promised, don't you see? And when I thought +that perhaps he didn't care so much, and asked him--oh, I told you how +beautifully he answered me, I will never hurt him so, never!" + +"It is disgusting, it is horrible; he is twenty-five years older than +you--he might be your father!" stormed the voice. + +"I--I never cared for young people before!" + +Could this be Lady, this shy, faltering girl? Moved by an overmastering +impulse, the man behind the summer-house turned his head and looked +through the broken wall. + +Lady Jane was blushing and paling in quick succession: the waves of red +flooded over her moved face and receded like the tide at turn. Her eyes +were piteous; her hair fell low over her forehead; she looked incredibly +young. + +"Of course," said the young man bitterly, "it is a good match--a fine +match, You will have a beautiful home and everything you want." + +She put out her hands appealingly. "Oh, Jack, how can you hurt me so? +You know I would live with you in a garret--on the plains--" + +"Then do it." + +"I shall never hurt a person so terribly to whom I have freely given my +word," she said, with a touch of her old-time decision. + +Colonel Driscoll felt his blood sweeping through his veins like wine. He +was far too excited for finesse, too eager--and he had been so willing +to wait, once!--for the next sweet moment when this almost tragedy +should be resolved into its elements. He strode out into the open space +in front of the little house. + +"My dear young people," he said, as they stared at him in absolute +silence, "I am, I am--" He had intended to carry the matter off +jocularly, but the sight of the girl's tear-stained face and the emotion +of the minutes before had softened and awed him. His eyes seemed yet to +hold those gray ones; he felt strangely the pressure of that soft body +against his. + +"Ah, my dear," he said gently, "could you not believe me when I told you +that my one wish was to make you happy as long as I lived? Happiness is +not built on mistakes, and you must forgive us if we do not always allow +youth to monopolize them. + +"She has always been like a dear child to me, Mr. Morris"--he turned to +the other man--"and you would never wish me to change my regard for her, +could you know it! + +"Go with him, Lady dear, and forgive me if I have ever pained +you--believe me, I am very happy to-night." + +He raised her softly as she knelt before him weeping, and kissed her +hair. + +"But there is nothing to forgive," he assured her. + +They went away hand in hand, happy, like two dazed children for whom +the sky has suddenly but not--because they are young--too miraculously +opened, and the shrubbery swallowed them. + +He turned and strode back into the shadow. Mrs. Leroy sat crouching on +the fallen timber, her head still bent. Stooping behind her, he drew her +toward him. + +"They have forgotten us by now," he whispered, "can I make you forget +them?" + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Courting Of Lady Jane, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + +***** This file should be named 23368-8.txt or 23368-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23368/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Courting Of Lady Jane + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23368] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE COURTING OF LADY JANE + </h1> + <h2> + By Josephine Daskam <br /> <br /> Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's + Sons + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + The colonel entered his sister's room abruptly, sat down on her bed, and + scattered a drawerful of fluffy things laid out for packing. + </p> + <p> + “You don't seem to think about my side of the matter,” he said gloomily. + “What am I to do here all alone, for Heaven's sake?” + </p> + <p> + “That is so like a man,” she murmured, one arm in a trunk. “Let me see: + party-boots, the children's arctics, Dick's sweater—did you think I + could live here forever, Cal?” + </p> + <p> + “Then you shouldn't have come at all. Just as I get thoroughly settled + down to flowers in the drawing-room, and rabbits in a chafing-dish, and + people for dinner, you skip off. Why don't you bring the children here? + What did you marry into the navy for, anyway? Nagasaki! I wouldn't live in + a place called Nagasaki for all that money could buy!” + </p> + <p> + “You're cross,” said Mrs. Dick placidly. “Please get off that + bath-wrapper. If you don't like to live alone—Six bath-towels, + Dick's shoe-bag, my old muff (I hope and pray I'll remember that!) Helen's + reefer—Why don't you marry?” + </p> + <p> + “Marry? Marry! Are you out of your mind, Dosia? I marry!” + </p> + <p> + The colonel twisted his grayish mustache into points; a look of horror + spread over his countenance. + </p> + <p> + “Men have done it,” she replied seriously, “and lived. Look at Dick.” + </p> + <p> + “Look at him? But how? Who ever sees him? I've ceased to believe in him, + personally. I can't look across the Pacific. Consider my age, Dosia; + consider my pepper-and-salt hair; consider my bronchitis; consider—” + </p> + <p> + “Consider your stupidity! As to your hair, I should hate to eat a salad + dressed with that proportion of pepper. As to your age, remember you're + only ten years ahead of me, and I expect to remain thirty-eight for some + time.” + </p> + <p> + “But forty-eight is centenarian to a girl of twenty-two, Dosia.” + </p> + <p> + The colonel was plaiting and un-plaiting the ball-fringe of the bed-slip; + his eyes followed the motion of his fingers—he did not see his + sister's triumphant smile as she dived again into the trunk. + </p> + <p> + “That depends entirely on the girl. Take Louise Morris, for instance; she + regards you as partly entombed, probably”—the colonel winced + involuntarily—“but, on the other hand, a girl like Jane Leroy would + have no such nonsense in her head, and she can't be much more than + twenty.” + </p> + <p> + “She is twenty-two,” cried the unsuspecting colonel eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “Ah? I should not have said so much. Now such a girl as that, Cal, + handsome, dignified, college-bred, is just the wife for an older man. One + can't seem to see her marrying some young snip of her own age. She'd be + wasted on him. I happen to know that she refused Wilbur Vail entirely on + that ground. She admitted that he was a charming fellow, but she told her + mother he was far too young for her. And he was twenty-eight.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she?” The colonel left the fringe. “But—but perhaps there were + other reasons; perhaps she didn't—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, probably she didn't. But still, she said he was too young. That's the + way with these serious girls. Now I thought Dick was middle-aged when I + married him, and he was thirty. Jane doesn't take after her mother; she + was only nineteen when she was born—I mean, of course, when Jane was + born. Will you hand me that crocheted shawl, please?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear girl, you're not going to try to get that into that trunk, too? + Something will break.” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all, my dear Clarence. Thank you. Will you send Norah up to me as + you go down?” + </p> + <p> + It had not occurred to the colonel that he was going down, but he decided + that he must have been, and departed, forgetting Norah utterly before he + had accomplished half of the staircase. + </p> + <p> + He wandered out through the broad hall, reaching down a hat absently, and + across the piazza. Then, half unconscious of direction, he crossed the + neat suburban road and strolled up the gravel path of the cottage + opposite. Mrs. Leroy was sitting in the bay-window, attaching indefinite + yards of white lace to indefinite yards of white ruffles. Jane, in cool + violet lawn, was reading aloud to her. Both looked up at his light knock + at the side door. + </p> + <p> + “But I am afraid I interrupt,” he suggested politely, as he dropped into a + low chair with a manner that betokened the assurance of a warm welcome. + </p> + <p> + “Not the least in the world,” Mrs. Leroy smiled whimsically. + </p> + <p> + “Lady is reading Pater to me for the good of my soul, and I am listening + politely for the good of her manners,” she answered. “But it is a little + wearing for us both, for she knows I don't understand it, and I know she + thinks me a little dishonest for pretending to.” + </p> + <p> + “Mother!” + </p> + <p> + The girl's gray eyes opened wide above her cool, creamy cheeks; the deep + dimples that made her mother's face so girlish actually added a regularity + and seriousness to the daughter's soft chin. Her chestnut hair was thick + and straight, the little half-curls of the same rich tint that fell over + her mother's forehead brushed wavelessly back on each side of a deep + widow's peak. + </p> + <p> + The two older ones laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Always uncompromising, Lady Jane!” the colonel cried. + </p> + <p> + “I assure you, colonel, when Lady begins to mark iniquities, few of us + stand!” + </p> + <p> + Jane smiled gravely, as on two children. “You know very well that is + nonsense,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Black Hannah appeared in the door, beaming and curtsying to the colonel. + </p> + <p> + “You-all ready foh yoh tea, Miss Lady?” she inquired. + </p> + <p> + A sudden recollection threw Mrs. Leroy into one of her irresistible fits + of gentle laughter. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lady,” she murmured, “do you remember that impossible creature that + lectured me about Hannah's asking you for orders? Did I tell you about it, + colonel?” + </p> + <p> + Jane shook her head reprovingly. + </p> + <p> + “Now, mother dearest, you always make him out worse—” + </p> + <p> + “Worse, my darling? Worse is a word that couldn't be applied to that man. + Worse is comparative. Positive he certainly was, superlative is mild, but + comparative—never!” + </p> + <p> + “Tell about it, do,” begged the guest. + </p> + <p> + “Well, he came to see how Lady was growing up—he's a sort of species + of relative—and he sat in your chair, colonel, and talked the most + amazing Fourth Reader platitudes in a deep bass voice. And when Hannah + asked Lady what her orders were for the grocer, he gave me a terrible look + and rumbled out: 'I am grieved to see, Cousin Alice, that Jennie has burst + her bounds!' + </p> + <p> + “It sounded horribly indecorous—I expected to see her in fragments + on the floor—and I fairly gasped.” + </p> + <p> + “Gasped, mother? You laughed in his face!” + </p> + <p> + “Did I, dearest? It is possible.” Mrs. Leroy admitted. “And when I looked + vague he explained, 'I mean that you seem to have relinquished the reins + very early, Cousin Alice!' + </p> + <p> + “'Relinquished? Relinquished?' said I. 'Why, dear me, Mr. Wadham, I never + held 'em!'” + </p> + <p> + “He only meant, mother dear, that—” + </p> + <p> + “Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to me + very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old child, + she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds.” + </p> + <p> + “Disgusting beast!” the colonel exclaimed with feeling, possessing himself + of one of Hannah's beaten biscuits, and smiling as Lady Jane's white + fingers dropped just the right number of lumps in his tea. + </p> + <p> + How charming she was, how dignified, how tender to her merry little + mother, this grave, handsome girl! He saw her, in fancy, opposite him at + his table, moving so stately about his big empty house, filling it with + pretty, useless woman's things, lighting every corner with that last touch + of grace that the most faithful housekeeper could never hope to add to his + lonely life. For Theodosia had taught him that he was lonely. He envied + Dick this sister of his. + </p> + <p> + He wondered that marriage had never occurred to him before: simply it had + not. Ever since that rainy day in April, twenty years ago, when they had + buried the slender, soft-eyed little creature with his twisted silver ring + on her cold finger, he had shut that door of life; and though it had been + many years since the little ring had really bound him to a personality + long faded from his mind, he had never thought to open the door—he + had forgotten it was there. + </p> + <p> + He was not a talkative man, and, like many such, he dearly loved to be + amused and entertained by others who were in any degree attractive to him. + The picture of these two dear women adding their wit and charm and dainty + way of living to his days grew suddenly very vivid to him; he realized + that it was an unconscious counting on their continued interest and + hospitality that had made the future so comfortable for so long. + </p> + <p> + With characteristic directness he began: + </p> + <p> + “Will your Ladyship allow me a half-hour of business with the + queen-mother?” + </p> + <p> + She rose easily and stepped out through the long window to the little side + porch, then to the lawn. They watched her as she paced slowly away from + them, a tall violet figure vivid against all the green. + </p> + <p> + “She is a dear girl, isn't she?” said her mother softly. + </p> + <p> + A sudden flood of delighted pride surged through the colonel's heart. If + only he might keep them happy and contented and—and his! He never + thought of them apart: no rose and bud on one stem were more essentially + together than they. + </p> + <p> + “She is too dear for one to be satisfied forever with even our charming + neighborliness,” he answered gravely. “How long have we lived 'across the + street from each other,' as they say here, Mrs. Leroy?” + </p> + <p> + She did not raise her eyes from her white ruffles. + </p> + <p> + “It is just a year this month,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “We are such good friends,” he continued in his gentle, reserved voice, + “that I hesitate to break into such pleasant relations, even with the + chance of making us all happier, perhaps. But I cannot resist the + temptation. Could we not make one family, we three?” + </p> + <p> + A quick, warm color flooded her cheeks and forehead. She caught her + breath; her startled eyes met his with a lightning-swift flash of + something that moved him strangely. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean, Colonel Driscoll?” she asked, low and quickly. + </p> + <p> + “I mean, could you give me your daughter—if she—at any time—could + think it possible?” + </p> + <p> + She drew a deep breath; the color seemed blown from her transparent skin + like a flame from a lamp. For a moment her head seemed to droop; then she + sat straight and moistened her lips, her eyes fixed level ahead. + </p> + <p> + “Lady?” she whispered, and he was sure that she thought the word was + spoken in her ordinary tone. “Lady?” + </p> + <p> + “I know—I realize perfectly that it is a presumption in me—at + my age—when I think of what she deserves. Oh, we won't speak of it + again if you feel that it would be wrong!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, it is not that,” she murmured. “I—I have always known that + I must lose her; but she—one is so selfish—she is all I have, + you know!” + </p> + <p> + “But you would not lose her!” he cried eagerly. “You would only share her + with me, dear Mrs. Leroy! Do you think—could she—it is + possible?” + </p> + <p> + “Lady is an unusual girl,” she said evenly, but with something gone out of + her warm, gay voice. “She has never cared for young people. I know that + she admires you greatly. While I cannot deny that I should prefer less + difference than lies between your ages, it would be folly in me to fail to + recognize the desirability of the connection in every other way. Whatever + her decision—and the matter rests entirely with her—my + daughter and I are honored by your proposal, Colonel Driscoll.” + </p> + <p> + She might have been reading a carefully prepared address: her eyes never + wavered from the wall in front—it was as if she saw her words there. + </p> + <p> + “Then—then will you ask her?” + </p> + <p> + She stared at him now. + </p> + <p> + “You mean that you wish me to ask her to marry you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said simply. “She will feel freer in that way. You will know as + I should not, directly, if there is any chance. I can talk about it with + you more easily—somehow.” + </p> + <p> + She shrugged her shoulders with a strange air of exhaustion; it was the + yielding of one too tired to argue. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” she breathed, “go now, and I will ask her. Come this evening. + You will excuse—” + </p> + <p> + She made a vague motion. The colonel pitied her tremendously in a blind + way. Was it all this to lose a daughter? How she loved her! + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps to-morrow morning,” he suggested, but she shook her head + vehemently. + </p> + <p> + “No, to-night, to-night!” she cried. “Lady will know directly. Come + tonight!” + </p> + <p> + He went out a little depressed. Already a tiny cloud hung between them. + Suppose their pleasant waters had been troubled for worse than nothing? + Suddenly his case appeared hopeless to him. What folly—a man of his + years, and that fresh young creature with all her life before her! He + wondered that he could have dreamed of it; he wished the evening over and + the foolish mistake forgiven. + </p> + <p> + His sister was full of plans and dates, and her talk covered his almost + absolute silence. After dinner she retired again into packing, and he + strode through the dusk to the cottage; his had not been a training that + seeks to delay the inevitable. + </p> + <p> + The two women sat, as usual at this hour, on the porch. Their white gowns + shimmered against the dark honeysuckle-vine. He halted at the steps and + took off the old fatigue-cap he sometimes wore, standing straight and tall + before them. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leroy leaned back in her chair; the faintest possible gesture + indicated her daughter, who had risen and stood beside her. + </p> + <p> + “Colonel Driscoll,” she said in a low, uneven voice, “my daughter wishes + me to say to you that she appreciates deeply the honor you do her, and + that if you wish it she will be your wife. She—she is sure she will + be happy.” + </p> + <p> + The colonel felt his heart leap up and hit heavily against his chest. Was + it possible? A great gratitude and pride glowed softly through him. He + walked nearly up the steps and stood just below her, lifting her hand to + his lips. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, dear child,” he said slowly, “you give me too much, but you must + not measure my thankfulness for the gift by my deserts. Whatever a man can + do to make you and your mother happy shall be done so long as I live.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled gravely into his eyes and bowed her head slightly; like all her + little motions, it had the effect of a graceful ceremony. Then, slipping + loose her hand, she seated herself on a low stool beside her mother's + chair, leaning against her knee. Her sweet silence charmed him. + </p> + <p> + He took his accustomed seat, and they sat quietly, while the breeze puffed + little gusts of honeysuckle across their faces. Occasional neighbors + greeted them, strolling past; the newly watered lawns all along the street + sent up a fresh turfy odor; now and then a bird chirped drowsily. He felt + deliriously intimate, peacefully at home. A fine, subtle sense of <i>bien-être</i> + penetrated his whole soul. + </p> + <p> + When he rose to go they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. As he held, + her hand closely, half doubting his right, she raised her face to him + simply, and he kissed her white forehead. When he bent over her mother's + hand it was as cold as stone. + </p> + <p> + Through the long pleasant weeks of the summer they talked and laughed and + drove and sailed together, a happy trio. Mrs. Leroy's listless quiet of + the first few days gave way to a brilliant, fitful gayety that enchanted + the more silent two, and the few hours when she was not with them seemed + incomplete. On his mentioning this to her one afternoon she shot him a + strange glance. + </p> + <p> + “But this is all wrong,” she said abruptly. “What will you do when I am + gone in the winter?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” he asked. “Gone where, when, how?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear colonel,” she said lightly, but with an obvious effort, “do you + imagine that I cannot leave you a honeymoon, in spite of my doting + parenthood? I plan to spend the latter part of the winter in New York with + friends. Perhaps by spring—” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Mrs. Leroy, how absurd! How cruel of you! What will Lady do? What + shall I do? She has never been separated from you in her life. Does she + know of this?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I shall tell her soon. As for what she will do—she will have + her husband. If that is not enough for her, she should not marry the man + who cannot—” + </p> + <p> + She stopped suddenly and controlled with great effort a rising emotion + almost too strong for her. Again a deep, inexplicable sympathy welled up + in him. He longed to comfort her, to give her everything she wanted. He + blamed himself and Jane for all the trouble they were causing her. + </p> + <p> + That afternoon she kept in her room, and he and his fiancée drank their + tea together alone. He was worried by the news of the morning, + dissatisfied out of all proportion, vexed that so sensible and natural a + proposition should leave him so uneasy and disappointed. He had meant the + smooth, quiet life to go on without a break, and now the new relation must + change everything. + </p> + <p> + He glanced at Jane, a little irritated that she should not perceive his + mood and exorcise it. But she had not her mother's marvellous + susceptibility. She drank her tea in serene silence. He made a few + haphazard remarks, hoping to lose in conversation the cloud that + threatened his evening; but she only assented tranquilly and watched the + changing colors of the early sunset. + </p> + <p> + “Have you made a vow to agree with everything I say?” he asked finally, + half laughing, half in earnest. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” she replied placidly, “but you surely do not want an + argument?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” he answered her, vexed at himself. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of Mrs. ———'s novel?” he suggested, + as the pages, fluttering in the rising breeze, caught his attention. + </p> + <p> + “Mother is reading it, not I,” she returned indifferently. “I don't care + very much for the new novels.” + </p> + <p> + Involuntarily he turned as if to catch her mother's criticism of the book: + light, perhaps, but witty, and with a little tang of harmless satire that + always took his fancy. But she was not there. He sighed impatiently; was + it possible he was a little bored? + </p> + <p> + A quick step sounded on the gravel walk, a swish of skirts. + </p> + <p> + “It is Louise Morris,” she said, “I'll meet her at the gate.” + </p> + <p> + After a short conference she returned. + </p> + <p> + “Will you excuse me, please?” she said, quite eagerly for her. “Mother + will be down soon, anyway, I am sure. Louise's brother is back; he has + been away in the West for six years. Mother will be delighted—she + was always so fond of Jack. Louise is making a little surprise for him. He + must be quite grown up now. I'll go and tell mother.” + </p> + <p> + A moment later and she was gone. Mrs. Leroy took her place in the window, + and imperceptibly under her gentle influence the cloud faded from his + horizon; he forgot the doubt of an hour ago. At her suggestion he dined + there, and found himself, as always when with his hostess, at his best. He + felt that there was no hypocrisy in her interest in his ideas, and the + ease with which he expressed them astonished him even while he delighted + in it. Why could he not talk so with Jane? It occurred to him suddenly + that it was because Jane herself talked rarely. She was, like him, a + listener, for the most part. His mind, unusually alert and sensitive + to-night, looked ahead to the happy winter evenings he had grown to count + on so, and when, with an effort, he detached this third figure from the + group to be so closely allied after Christmas-tide—the date fixed + for the wedding—he perceived that there was a great gap in the + picture, that the warmth and sparkle had suddenly gone. All the tenderness + in the world could not disguise that flash of foresight. + </p> + <p> + He grew quiet, lost in revery. She, following his mood, spoke less and + less; and when Jane returned, late at night, escorted by a tall, bronzed + young ranchman, she found them sitting in silence in a half-light, staring + into the late September fire on the hearth. + </p> + <p> + In the month that followed an imperceptible change crept over the three. + The older woman was much alone—variable as an April day, now merry + and caressing, now sombre and withdrawn. The girl clung to her mother more + closely, sat for long minutes holding her hand, threw strange glances at + her betrothed that would have startled him, so different were they from + her old, steady regard, had not his now troubled sense of some impalpable + mist that wrapped them all grown stronger every day. He avoided sitting + alone with her, wondering sometimes at the ease with which such + tête-à-têtes were dispensed with. Then, struck with apprehension at his + seeming neglect, he spent his ingenuity in delicate attentions toward her, + courtly thoughtfulness of her tastes, beautiful gifts that provoked from + her, in turn, all the little intimacies and tender friendliness of their + earlier intercourse. + </p> + <p> + At one of these tiny crises of mutual restoration, she, sitting alone with + him in the drawing-room, suddenly raised her eyes and looked steadily at + him. + </p> + <p> + “You care for me, then, very much?” she said earnestly. “You—you + would miss—if things were different? You really count on—on—our + marriage? Are you happy?” + </p> + <p> + A great remorse rose in him. Poor child—poor, young, unknowing + creature, that, after all, was only twenty-two! She felt it, then, the + strange mist that seemed to muffle his words and actions, to hold him + back. And she had given him so much! + </p> + <p> + He took her hands and drew her to him. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, dear child,” he said gently, “forgive a selfish middle-aged + bachelor if he cannot come up to the precious ideals of the sweetest + girlhood in the world! I am no more worthy of you, Lady dear, than I have + ever been, but I have never felt more tender toward you, more sensible of + all you are giving me. I cannot pretend to the wild love of the poets you + read so much; that time, if it ever was, is past for me. I am a plain, + unromantic person, who takes and leaves a great deal for granted—I + thought you knew that. But you must never doubt—” He paused a + moment, and for the first time she interrupted him nervously. + </p> + <p> + “I never will—Clarence,” she said almost solemnly; and it struck him + for the first time that she had never called him by his name before. He + leaned over her, and as in one of her rare concessions she lifted her face + up to him, he bent lower than her forehead; what compelled him to kiss her + soft cheek rather than her lips he did not know. + </p> + <p> + Unexpected business summoned him to New York for a fortnight the next day, + and the great city drew him irresistibly into its noisy maelstrom. The + current of his thoughts changed absolutely. Old friends and new took up + his leisure. His affairs, as they grew more pressing, woke in him a keen + delight in the struggle with his opponents; as he shook hands triumphantly + with his lawyer after a well-earned victory he felt years younger. He + decided that he had moped too long in the country: “We must move into town + this season,” he said to himself. + </p> + <p> + He fairly ran up the cottage steps in the gathering dusk. He longed to see + them, full of plans for the winter. Hannah met him at the door: the ladies + had gone to a dance at the Morrises'; there had been an invitation for + him, so he would not intrude if he followed. + </p> + <p> + Hastily changing his clothes, he walked up the street. Lights and music + poured out of the open windows of the large house; the full moon made the + grounds about it almost as bright as the rooms. He stepped up on the + piazza and looked in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane, beautiful in pale + blue mull, drifted by in her young host's arms. She was flushed with + dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly recognized + her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a glimpse of a + flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose fine poise he + could not mistake. + </p> + <p> + A young man passed him with a filmy crêpe shawl he knew well. The colonel + stepped along with him. + </p> + <p> + “You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me relieve you of it,” and he walked alone into the garden with the + softly scented cobweb over his arm. + </p> + <p> + She was standing in an old neglected summer-house, her back to the door. + As he stopped behind her and laid the soft wrap over her firm white + shoulders, she turned her head with a startled prescience of his + personality, and met his eyes full. He looked straight into those soft + gray depths, and as he looked, searching for something there, he knew not + what, troubled strangely by her nearness and the helpless surrender of her + fastened gaze, a great light burst upon him. + </p> + <p> + “It is you! it is you!” he said hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, he + kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth. + </p> + <p> + For a moment she rested against him. The music, piercingly sweet, drove + away thought. Then she drew herself back, pushing him blindly from her. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no!” she gasped, “it is Lady! You are mad—” + </p> + <p> + “Mad?” he said quickly. “I was never sane till now. When I think of what I + had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love I was + sacrificing her—oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must have + known!” + </p> + <p> + She raised her head; an unquenchable triumph smiled at him. + </p> + <p> + “I did know!” she cried exultantly. Suddenly her whole expression changed, + her head sank again. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lady, my child, my baby!” she moaned, all mother now, and + brokenhearted. + </p> + <p> + “You must never tell her, never!” she panted. “You will forget; you—I + will go away—” + </p> + <p> + “It is you who are mad, Alice,” he said sternly. “Listen to me. For all + these weeks it has been your voice I have remembered, your face I have + seen in imagination in my house. It is you I have missed from us three—never + Lady. It is you I have tried to please and hoped to satisfy—not + Lady. Ever since you told me you would not spend the winter with us I have + been discontented. Why, Alice, I have never kissed her in my life—as + I have kissed you.” + </p> + <p> + She grew red to the tips of her little ears, and threw him a quick glance + that tingled to his fingers' ends. + </p> + <p> + “You would not have me—oh, my dear, it is not possible!” he cried. + </p> + <p> + She burst into tears. “I don't know—I don't know!” she sobbed. “It + will break her heart! I don't understand her any more; once I could tell + what she would think, but not now.” + </p> + <p> + “Hush! some one is coming,” he warned her, and taking her arm he drew her + out through a great gap in the side of the little house, so that they + stood hidden by it. + </p> + <p> + “Then I will tell him to his face what I think of him!” said a young man's + voice, angry, determined, but shaking with disappointment. “To hold a girl—” + </p> + <p> + “He does not hold me—I hold myself!” It was Lady's voice, low and + trembling. “It is all my fault, Jack. I bound myself before I knew what—what + a different thing it really was. I do love him—I love him dearly, + but not—not—No, no; I don't mean what you think—or, if I + do, I must not. Jack, I have promised, don't you see? And when I thought + that perhaps he didn't care so much, and asked him—oh, I told you + how beautifully he answered me, I will never hurt him so, never!” + </p> + <p> + “It is disgusting, it is horrible; he is twenty-five years older than you—he + might be your father!” stormed the voice. + </p> + <p> + “I—I never cared for young people before!” + </p> + <p> + Could this be Lady, this shy, faltering girl? Moved by an overmastering + impulse, the man behind the summer-house turned his head and looked + through the broken wall. + </p> + <p> + Lady Jane was blushing and paling in quick succession: the waves of red + flooded over her moved face and receded like the tide at turn. Her eyes + were piteous; her hair fell low over her forehead; she looked incredibly + young. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said the young man bitterly, “it is a good match—a fine + match, You will have a beautiful home and everything you want.” + </p> + <p> + She put out her hands appealingly. “Oh, Jack, how can you hurt me so? You + know I would live with you in a garret—on the plains—” + </p> + <p> + “Then do it.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall never hurt a person so terribly to whom I have freely given my + word,” she said, with a touch of her old-time decision. + </p> + <p> + Colonel Driscoll felt his blood sweeping through his veins like wine. He + was far too excited for finesse, too eager—and he had been so + willing to wait, once!—for the next sweet moment when this almost + tragedy should be resolved into its elements. He strode out into the open + space in front of the little house. + </p> + <p> + “My dear young people,” he said, as they stared at him in absolute + silence, “I am, I am—” He had intended to carry the matter off + jocularly, but the sight of the girl's tear-stained face and the emotion + of the minutes before had softened and awed him. His eyes seemed yet to + hold those gray ones; he felt strangely the pressure of that soft body + against his. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, my dear,” he said gently, “could you not believe me when I told you + that my one wish was to make you happy as long as I lived? Happiness is + not built on mistakes, and you must forgive us if we do not always allow + youth to monopolize them. + </p> + <p> + “She has always been like a dear child to me, Mr. Morris”—he turned + to the other man—“and you would never wish me to change my regard + for her, could you know it! + </p> + <p> + “Go with him, Lady dear, and forgive me if I have ever pained you—believe + me, I am very happy to-night.” + </p> + <p> + He raised her softly as she knelt before him weeping, and kissed her hair. + </p> + <p> + “But there is nothing to forgive,” he assured her. + </p> + <p> + They went away hand in hand, happy, like two dazed children for whom the + sky has suddenly but not—because they are young—too + miraculously opened, and the shrubbery swallowed them. + </p> + <p> + He turned and strode back into the shadow. Mrs. Leroy sat crouching on the + fallen timber, her head still bent. Stooping behind her, he drew her + toward him. + </p> + <p> + “They have forgotten us by now,” he whispered, “can I make you forget + them?” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Courting Of Lady Jane, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + +***** This file should be named 23368-h.htm or 23368-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23368/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Courting Of Lady Jane + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23368] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE COURTING OF LADY JANE + +By Josephine Daskam + +Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons + + +The colonel entered his sister's room abruptly, sat down on her bed, and +scattered a drawerful of fluffy things laid out for packing. + +"You don't seem to think about my side of the matter," he said gloomily. +"What am I to do here all alone, for Heaven's sake?" + +"That is so like a man," she murmured, one arm in a trunk. "Let me see: +party-boots, the children's arctics, Dick's sweater--did you think I +could live here forever, Cal?" + +"Then you shouldn't have come at all. Just as I get thoroughly settled +down to flowers in the drawing-room, and rabbits in a chafing-dish, and +people for dinner, you skip off. Why don't you bring the children here? +What did you marry into the navy for, anyway? Nagasaki! I wouldn't live +in a place called Nagasaki for all that money could buy!" + +"You're cross," said Mrs. Dick placidly. "Please get off that +bath-wrapper. If you don't like to live alone--Six bath-towels, Dick's +shoe-bag, my old muff (I hope and pray I'll remember that!) Helen's +reefer--Why don't you marry?" + +"Marry? Marry! Are you out of your mind, Dosia? I marry!" + +The colonel twisted his grayish mustache into points; a look of horror +spread over his countenance. + +"Men have done it," she replied seriously, "and lived. Look at Dick." + +"Look at him? But how? Who ever sees him? I've ceased to believe in him, +personally. I can't look across the Pacific. Consider my age, Dosia; +consider my pepper-and-salt hair; consider my bronchitis; consider--" + +"Consider your stupidity! As to your hair, I should hate to eat a salad +dressed with that proportion of pepper. As to your age, remember you're +only ten years ahead of me, and I expect to remain thirty-eight for some +time." + +"But forty-eight is centenarian to a girl of twenty-two, Dosia." + +The colonel was plaiting and un-plaiting the ball-fringe of the +bed-slip; his eyes followed the motion of his fingers--he did not see +his sister's triumphant smile as she dived again into the trunk. + +"That depends entirely on the girl. Take Louise Morris, for instance; +she regards you as partly entombed, probably"--the colonel winced +involuntarily--"but, on the other hand, a girl like Jane Leroy would +have no such nonsense in her head, and she can't be much more than +twenty." + +"She is twenty-two," cried the unsuspecting colonel eagerly. + +"Ah? I should not have said so much. Now such a girl as that, Cal, +handsome, dignified, college-bred, is just the wife for an older man. +One can't seem to see her marrying some young snip of her own age. She'd +be wasted on him. I happen to know that she refused Wilbur Vail entirely +on that ground. She admitted that he was a charming fellow, but she told +her mother he was far too young for her. And he was twenty-eight." + +"Did she?" The colonel left the fringe. "But--but perhaps there were +other reasons; perhaps she didn't--" + +"Oh, probably she didn't. But still, she said he was too young. That's +the way with these serious girls. Now I thought Dick was middle-aged +when I married him, and he was thirty. Jane doesn't take after her +mother; she was only nineteen when she was born--I mean, of course, when +Jane was born. Will you hand me that crocheted shawl, please?" + +"My dear girl, you're not going to try to get that into that trunk, too? +Something will break." + +"Not at all, my dear Clarence. Thank you. Will you send Norah up to me +as you go down?" + +It had not occurred to the colonel that he was going down, but he +decided that he must have been, and departed, forgetting Norah utterly +before he had accomplished half of the staircase. + +He wandered out through the broad hall, reaching down a hat absently, +and across the piazza. Then, half unconscious of direction, he crossed +the neat suburban road and strolled up the gravel path of the cottage +opposite. Mrs. Leroy was sitting in the bay-window, attaching indefinite +yards of white lace to indefinite yards of white ruffles. Jane, in cool +violet lawn, was reading aloud to her. Both looked up at his light knock +at the side door. + +"But I am afraid I interrupt," he suggested politely, as he dropped +into a low chair with a manner that betokened the assurance of a warm +welcome. + +"Not the least in the world," Mrs. Leroy smiled whimsically. + +"Lady is reading Pater to me for the good of my soul, and I am listening +politely for the good of her manners," she answered. "But it is a little +wearing for us both, for she knows I don't understand it, and I know she +thinks me a little dishonest for pretending to." + +"Mother!" + +The girl's gray eyes opened wide above her cool, creamy cheeks; the +deep dimples that made her mother's face so girlish actually added a +regularity and seriousness to the daughter's soft chin. Her chestnut +hair was thick and straight, the little half-curls of the same rich tint +that fell over her mother's forehead brushed wavelessly back on each +side of a deep widow's peak. + +The two older ones laughed. + +"Always uncompromising, Lady Jane!" the colonel cried. + +"I assure you, colonel, when Lady begins to mark iniquities, few of us +stand!" + +Jane smiled gravely, as on two children. "You know very well that is +nonsense," she said. + +Black Hannah appeared in the door, beaming and curtsying to the colonel. + +"You-all ready foh yoh tea, Miss Lady?" she inquired. + +A sudden recollection threw Mrs. Leroy into one of her irresistible fits +of gentle laughter. + +"Oh, Lady," she murmured, "do you remember that impossible creature that +lectured me about Hannah's asking you for orders? Did I tell you about +it, colonel?" + +Jane shook her head reprovingly. + +"Now, mother dearest, you always make him out worse--" + +"Worse, my darling? Worse is a word that couldn't be applied to that +man. Worse is comparative. Positive he certainly was, superlative is +mild, but comparative--never!" + +"Tell about it, do," begged the guest. + +"Well, he came to see how Lady was growing up--he's a sort of species of +relative--and he sat in your chair, colonel, and talked the most amazing +Fourth Reader platitudes in a deep bass voice. And when Hannah asked +Lady what her orders were for the grocer, he gave me a terrible look and +rumbled out: 'I am grieved to see, Cousin Alice, that Jennie has burst +her bounds!' + +"It sounded horribly indecorous--I expected to see her in fragments on +the floor--and I fairly gasped." + +"Gasped, mother? You laughed in his face!" + +"Did I, dearest? It is possible." Mrs. Leroy admitted. "And when I +looked vague he explained, 'I mean that you seem to have relinquished +the reins very early, Cousin Alice!' + +"'Relinquished? Relinquished?' said I. 'Why, dear me, Mr. Wadham, I +never held 'em!'" + +"He only meant, mother dear, that--" + +"Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to +me very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old +child, she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds." + +"Disgusting beast!" the colonel exclaimed with feeling, possessing +himself of one of Hannah's beaten biscuits, and smiling as Lady Jane's +white fingers dropped just the right number of lumps in his tea. + +How charming she was, how dignified, how tender to her merry little +mother, this grave, handsome girl! He saw her, in fancy, opposite him at +his table, moving so stately about his big empty house, filling it with +pretty, useless woman's things, lighting every corner with that last +touch of grace that the most faithful housekeeper could never hope to +add to his lonely life. For Theodosia had taught him that he was lonely. +He envied Dick this sister of his. + +He wondered that marriage had never occurred to him before: simply it +had not. Ever since that rainy day in April, twenty years ago, when +they had buried the slender, soft-eyed little creature with his twisted +silver ring on her cold finger, he had shut that door of life; and +though it had been many years since the little ring had really bound him +to a personality long faded from his mind, he had never thought to open +the door--he had forgotten it was there. + +He was not a talkative man, and, like many such, he dearly loved to be +amused and entertained by others who were in any degree attractive to +him. The picture of these two dear women adding their wit and charm and +dainty way of living to his days grew suddenly very vivid to him; he +realized that it was an unconscious counting on their continued interest +and hospitality that had made the future so comfortable for so long. + +With characteristic directness he began: + +"Will your Ladyship allow me a half-hour of business with the +queen-mother?" + +She rose easily and stepped out through the long window to the little +side porch, then to the lawn. They watched her as she paced slowly away +from them, a tall violet figure vivid against all the green. + +"She is a dear girl, isn't she?" said her mother softly. + +A sudden flood of delighted pride surged through the colonel's heart. +If only he might keep them happy and contented and--and his! He never +thought of them apart: no rose and bud on one stem were more essentially +together than they. + +"She is too dear for one to be satisfied forever with even our charming +neighborliness," he answered gravely. "How long have we lived 'across +the street from each other,' as they say here, Mrs. Leroy?" + +She did not raise her eyes from her white ruffles. + +"It is just a year this month," she said. + +"We are such good friends," he continued in his gentle, reserved voice, +"that I hesitate to break into such pleasant relations, even with +the chance of making us all happier, perhaps. But I cannot resist the +temptation. Could we not make one family, we three?" + +A quick, warm color flooded her cheeks and forehead. She caught her +breath; her startled eyes met his with a lightning-swift flash of +something that moved him strangely. + +"What do you mean, Colonel Driscoll?" she asked, low and quickly. + +"I mean, could you give me your daughter--if she--at any time--could +think it possible?" + +She drew a deep breath; the color seemed blown from her transparent skin +like a flame from a lamp. For a moment her head seemed to droop; then +she sat straight and moistened her lips, her eyes fixed level ahead. + +"Lady?" she whispered, and he was sure that she thought the word was +spoken in her ordinary tone. "Lady?" + +"I know--I realize perfectly that it is a presumption in me--at my +age--when I think of what she deserves. Oh, we won't speak of it again +if you feel that it would be wrong!" + +"No, no, it is not that," she murmured. "I--I have always known that I +must lose her; but she--one is so selfish--she is all I have, you know!" + +"But you would not lose her!" he cried eagerly. "You would only share +her with me, dear Mrs. Leroy! Do you think--could she--it is possible?" + +"Lady is an unusual girl," she said evenly, but with something gone out +of her warm, gay voice. "She has never cared for young people. I know +that she admires you greatly. While I cannot deny that I should prefer +less difference than lies between your ages, it would be folly in me to +fail to recognize the desirability of the connection in every other +way. Whatever her decision--and the matter rests entirely with her--my +daughter and I are honored by your proposal, Colonel Driscoll." + +She might have been reading a carefully prepared address: her eyes never +wavered from the wall in front--it was as if she saw her words there. + +"Then--then will you ask her?" + +She stared at him now. + +"You mean that you wish me to ask her to marry you?" + +"Yes," he said simply. "She will feel freer in that way. You will know +as I should not, directly, if there is any chance. I can talk about it +with you more easily--somehow." + +She shrugged her shoulders with a strange air of exhaustion; it was the +yielding of one too tired to argue. + +"Very well," she breathed, "go now, and I will ask her. Come this +evening. You will excuse--" + +She made a vague motion. The colonel pitied her tremendously in a blind +way. Was it all this to lose a daughter? How she loved her! + +"Perhaps to-morrow morning," he suggested, but she shook her head +vehemently. + +"No, to-night, to-night!" she cried. "Lady will know directly. Come +tonight!" + +He went out a little depressed. Already a tiny cloud hung between them. +Suppose their pleasant waters had been troubled for worse than nothing? +Suddenly his case appeared hopeless to him. What folly--a man of his +years, and that fresh young creature with all her life before her! He +wondered that he could have dreamed of it; he wished the evening over +and the foolish mistake forgiven. + +His sister was full of plans and dates, and her talk covered his almost +absolute silence. After dinner she retired again into packing, and he +strode through the dusk to the cottage; his had not been a training that +seeks to delay the inevitable. + +The two women sat, as usual at this hour, on the porch. Their white +gowns shimmered against the dark honeysuckle-vine. He halted at the +steps and took off the old fatigue-cap he sometimes wore, standing +straight and tall before them. + +Mrs. Leroy leaned back in her chair; the faintest possible gesture +indicated her daughter, who had risen and stood beside her. + +"Colonel Driscoll," she said in a low, uneven voice, "my daughter wishes +me to say to you that she appreciates deeply the honor you do her, and +that if you wish it she will be your wife. She--she is sure she will be +happy." + +The colonel felt his heart leap up and hit heavily against his chest. +Was it possible? A great gratitude and pride glowed softly through him. +He walked nearly up the steps and stood just below her, lifting her hand +to his lips. + +"My dear, dear child," he said slowly, "you give me too much, but you +must not measure my thankfulness for the gift by my deserts. Whatever a +man can do to make you and your mother happy shall be done so long as I +live." + +She smiled gravely into his eyes and bowed her head slightly; like all +her little motions, it had the effect of a graceful ceremony. Then, +slipping loose her hand, she seated herself on a low stool beside her +mother's chair, leaning against her knee. Her sweet silence charmed him. + +He took his accustomed seat, and they sat quietly, while the breeze +puffed little gusts of honeysuckle across their faces. Occasional +neighbors greeted them, strolling past; the newly watered lawns all +along the street sent up a fresh turfy odor; now and then a bird chirped +drowsily. He felt deliriously intimate, peacefully at home. A fine, +subtle sense of _bien-etre_ penetrated his whole soul. + +When he rose to go they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. As he held, +her hand closely, half doubting his right, she raised her face to him +simply, and he kissed her white forehead. When he bent over her mother's +hand it was as cold as stone. + +Through the long pleasant weeks of the summer they talked and laughed +and drove and sailed together, a happy trio. Mrs. Leroy's listless +quiet of the first few days gave way to a brilliant, fitful gayety that +enchanted the more silent two, and the few hours when she was not with +them seemed incomplete. On his mentioning this to her one afternoon she +shot him a strange glance. + +"But this is all wrong," she said abruptly. "What will you do when I am +gone in the winter?" + +"What do you mean?" he asked. "Gone where, when, how?" + +"My dear colonel," she said lightly, but with an obvious effort, "do +you imagine that I cannot leave you a honeymoon, in spite of my doting +parenthood? I plan to spend the latter part of the winter in New York +with friends. Perhaps by spring--" + +"My dear Mrs. Leroy, how absurd! How cruel of you! What will Lady do? +What shall I do? She has never been separated from you in her life. Does +she know of this?" + +"No; I shall tell her soon. As for what she will do--she will have her +husband. If that is not enough for her, she should not marry the man who +cannot--" + +She stopped suddenly and controlled with great effort a rising emotion +almost too strong for her. Again a deep, inexplicable sympathy welled up +in him. He longed to comfort her, to give her everything she wanted. He +blamed himself and Jane for all the trouble they were causing her. + +That afternoon she kept in her room, and he and his fiancee drank +their tea together alone. He was worried by the news of the morning, +dissatisfied out of all proportion, vexed that so sensible and natural +a proposition should leave him so uneasy and disappointed. He had +meant the smooth, quiet life to go on without a break, and now the new +relation must change everything. + +He glanced at Jane, a little irritated that she should not perceive +his mood and exorcise it. But she had not her mother's marvellous +susceptibility. She drank her tea in serene silence. He made a few +haphazard remarks, hoping to lose in conversation the cloud that +threatened his evening; but she only assented tranquilly and watched the +changing colors of the early sunset. + +"Have you made a vow to agree with everything I say?" he asked finally, +half laughing, half in earnest. + +"Not at all," she replied placidly, "but you surely do not want an +argument?" + +"Oh, no," he answered her, vexed at himself. + +"What do you think of Mrs. ------'s novel?" he suggested, as the pages, +fluttering in the rising breeze, caught his attention. + +"Mother is reading it, not I," she returned indifferently. "I don't care +very much for the new novels." + +Involuntarily he turned as if to catch her mother's criticism of the +book: light, perhaps, but witty, and with a little tang of harmless +satire that always took his fancy. But she was not there. He sighed +impatiently; was it possible he was a little bored? + +A quick step sounded on the gravel walk, a swish of skirts. + +"It is Louise Morris," she said, "I'll meet her at the gate." + +After a short conference she returned. + +"Will you excuse me, please?" she said, quite eagerly for her. "Mother +will be down soon, anyway, I am sure. Louise's brother is back; he has +been away in the West for six years. Mother will be delighted--she was +always so fond of Jack. Louise is making a little surprise for him. He +must be quite grown up now. I'll go and tell mother." + +A moment later and she was gone. Mrs. Leroy took her place in the +window, and imperceptibly under her gentle influence the cloud faded +from his horizon; he forgot the doubt of an hour ago. At her suggestion +he dined there, and found himself, as always when with his hostess, at +his best. He felt that there was no hypocrisy in her interest in his +ideas, and the ease with which he expressed them astonished him even +while he delighted in it. Why could he not talk so with Jane? It +occurred to him suddenly that it was because Jane herself talked rarely. +She was, like him, a listener, for the most part. His mind, unusually +alert and sensitive to-night, looked ahead to the happy winter evenings +he had grown to count on so, and when, with an effort, he detached +this third figure from the group to be so closely allied after +Christmas-tide--the date fixed for the wedding--he perceived that there +was a great gap in the picture, that the warmth and sparkle had suddenly +gone. All the tenderness in the world could not disguise that flash of +foresight. + +He grew quiet, lost in revery. She, following his mood, spoke less and +less; and when Jane returned, late at night, escorted by a tall, bronzed +young ranchman, she found them sitting in silence in a half-light, +staring into the late September fire on the hearth. + +In the month that followed an imperceptible change crept over the three. +The older woman was much alone--variable as an April day, now merry and +caressing, now sombre and withdrawn. The girl clung to her mother more +closely, sat for long minutes holding her hand, threw strange glances at +her betrothed that would have startled him, so different were they +from her old, steady regard, had not his now troubled sense of some +impalpable mist that wrapped them all grown stronger every day. He +avoided sitting alone with her, wondering sometimes at the ease +with which such tete-a-tetes were dispensed with. Then, struck with +apprehension at his seeming neglect, he spent his ingenuity in delicate +attentions toward her, courtly thoughtfulness of her tastes, beautiful +gifts that provoked from her, in turn, all the little intimacies and +tender friendliness of their earlier intercourse. + +At one of these tiny crises of mutual restoration, she, sitting alone +with him in the drawing-room, suddenly raised her eyes and looked +steadily at him. + +"You care for me, then, very much?" she said earnestly. "You--you would +miss--if things were different? You really count on--on--our marriage? +Are you happy?" + +A great remorse rose in him. Poor child--poor, young, unknowing +creature, that, after all, was only twenty-two! She felt it, then, the +strange mist that seemed to muffle his words and actions, to hold him +back. And she had given him so much! + +He took her hands and drew her to him. + +"My dear, dear child," he said gently, "forgive a selfish middle-aged +bachelor if he cannot come up to the precious ideals of the sweetest +girlhood in the world! I am no more worthy of you, Lady dear, than +I have ever been, but I have never felt more tender toward you, more +sensible of all you are giving me. I cannot pretend to the wild love of +the poets you read so much; that time, if it ever was, is past for me. +I am a plain, unromantic person, who takes and leaves a great deal for +granted--I thought you knew that. But you must never doubt--" He paused +a moment, and for the first time she interrupted him nervously. + +"I never will--Clarence," she said almost solemnly; and it struck him +for the first time that she had never called him by his name before. He +leaned over her, and as in one of her rare concessions she lifted her +face up to him, he bent lower than her forehead; what compelled him to +kiss her soft cheek rather than her lips he did not know. + +Unexpected business summoned him to New York for a fortnight the next +day, and the great city drew him irresistibly into its noisy maelstrom. +The current of his thoughts changed absolutely. Old friends and new took +up his leisure. His affairs, as they grew more pressing, woke in him +a keen delight in the struggle with his opponents; as he shook hands +triumphantly with his lawyer after a well-earned victory he felt years +younger. He decided that he had moped too long in the country: "We must +move into town this season," he said to himself. + +He fairly ran up the cottage steps in the gathering dusk. He longed to +see them, full of plans for the winter. Hannah met him at the door: +the ladies had gone to a dance at the Morrises'; there had been an +invitation for him, so he would not intrude if he followed. + +Hastily changing his clothes, he walked up the street. Lights and music +poured out of the open windows of the large house; the full moon made +the grounds about it almost as bright as the rooms. He stepped up on +the piazza and looked in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane, beautiful +in pale blue mull, drifted by in her young host's arms. She was flushed +with dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly +recognized her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a +glimpse of a flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose +fine poise he could not mistake. + +A young man passed him with a filmy crepe shawl he knew well. The +colonel stepped along with him. + +"You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy?" + +"Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little." + +"Let me relieve you of it," and he walked alone into the garden with the +softly scented cobweb over his arm. + +She was standing in an old neglected summer-house, her back to the door. +As he stopped behind her and laid the soft wrap over her firm white +shoulders, she turned her head with a startled prescience of his +personality, and met his eyes full. He looked straight into those soft +gray depths, and as he looked, searching for something there, he knew +not what, troubled strangely by her nearness and the helpless surrender +of her fastened gaze, a great light burst upon him. + +"It is you! it is you!" he said hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, +he kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth. + +For a moment she rested against him. The music, piercingly sweet, drove +away thought. Then she drew herself back, pushing him blindly from her. + +"No, no, no!" she gasped, "it is Lady! You are mad--" + +"Mad?" he said quickly. "I was never sane till now. When I think of what +I had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love +I was sacrificing her--oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must have +known!" + +She raised her head; an unquenchable triumph smiled at him. + +"I did know!" she cried exultantly. Suddenly her whole expression +changed, her head sank again. + +"Oh, Lady, my child, my baby!" she moaned, all mother now, and +brokenhearted. + +"You must never tell her, never!" she panted. "You will forget; you--I +will go away--" + +"It is you who are mad, Alice," he said sternly. "Listen to me. For all +these weeks it has been your voice I have remembered, your face I +have seen in imagination in my house. It is you I have missed from +us three--never Lady. It is you I have tried to please and hoped to +satisfy--not Lady. Ever since you told me you would not spend the winter +with us I have been discontented. Why, Alice, I have never kissed her in +my life--as I have kissed you." + +She grew red to the tips of her little ears, and threw him a quick +glance that tingled to his fingers' ends. + +"You would not have me--oh, my dear, it is not possible!" he cried. + +She burst into tears. "I don't know--I don't know!" she sobbed. "It will +break her heart! I don't understand her any more; once I could tell what +she would think, but not now." + +"Hush! some one is coming," he warned her, and taking her arm he drew +her out through a great gap in the side of the little house, so that +they stood hidden by it. + +"Then I will tell him to his face what I think of him!" said a young +man's voice, angry, determined, but shaking with disappointment. "To +hold a girl--" + +"He does not hold me--I hold myself!" It was Lady's voice, low and +trembling. "It is all my fault, Jack. I bound myself before I knew +what--what a different thing it really was. I do love him--I love him +dearly, but not--not--No, no; I don't mean what you think--or, if I do, +I must not. Jack, I have promised, don't you see? And when I thought +that perhaps he didn't care so much, and asked him--oh, I told you how +beautifully he answered me, I will never hurt him so, never!" + +"It is disgusting, it is horrible; he is twenty-five years older than +you--he might be your father!" stormed the voice. + +"I--I never cared for young people before!" + +Could this be Lady, this shy, faltering girl? Moved by an overmastering +impulse, the man behind the summer-house turned his head and looked +through the broken wall. + +Lady Jane was blushing and paling in quick succession: the waves of red +flooded over her moved face and receded like the tide at turn. Her eyes +were piteous; her hair fell low over her forehead; she looked incredibly +young. + +"Of course," said the young man bitterly, "it is a good match--a fine +match, You will have a beautiful home and everything you want." + +She put out her hands appealingly. "Oh, Jack, how can you hurt me so? +You know I would live with you in a garret--on the plains--" + +"Then do it." + +"I shall never hurt a person so terribly to whom I have freely given my +word," she said, with a touch of her old-time decision. + +Colonel Driscoll felt his blood sweeping through his veins like wine. He +was far too excited for finesse, too eager--and he had been so willing +to wait, once!--for the next sweet moment when this almost tragedy +should be resolved into its elements. He strode out into the open space +in front of the little house. + +"My dear young people," he said, as they stared at him in absolute +silence, "I am, I am--" He had intended to carry the matter off +jocularly, but the sight of the girl's tear-stained face and the emotion +of the minutes before had softened and awed him. His eyes seemed yet to +hold those gray ones; he felt strangely the pressure of that soft body +against his. + +"Ah, my dear," he said gently, "could you not believe me when I told you +that my one wish was to make you happy as long as I lived? Happiness is +not built on mistakes, and you must forgive us if we do not always allow +youth to monopolize them. + +"She has always been like a dear child to me, Mr. Morris"--he turned to +the other man--"and you would never wish me to change my regard for her, +could you know it! + +"Go with him, Lady dear, and forgive me if I have ever pained +you--believe me, I am very happy to-night." + +He raised her softly as she knelt before him weeping, and kissed her +hair. + +"But there is nothing to forgive," he assured her. + +They went away hand in hand, happy, like two dazed children for whom +the sky has suddenly but not--because they are young--too miraculously +opened, and the shrubbery swallowed them. + +He turned and strode back into the shadow. Mrs. Leroy sat crouching on +the fallen timber, her head still bent. Stooping behind her, he drew her +toward him. + +"They have forgotten us by now," he whispered, "can I make you forget +them?" + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Courting Of Lady Jane, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + +***** This file should be named 23368.txt or 23368.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23368/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Courting Of Lady Jane + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23368] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE COURTING OF LADY JANE + </h1> + <h2> + By Josephine Daskam <br /> <br /> Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's + Sons + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + The colonel entered his sister's room abruptly, sat down on her bed, and + scattered a drawerful of fluffy things laid out for packing. + </p> + <p> + “You don't seem to think about my side of the matter,” he said gloomily. + “What am I to do here all alone, for Heaven's sake?” + </p> + <p> + “That is so like a man,” she murmured, one arm in a trunk. “Let me see: + party-boots, the children's arctics, Dick's sweater—did you think I + could live here forever, Cal?” + </p> + <p> + “Then you shouldn't have come at all. Just as I get thoroughly settled + down to flowers in the drawing-room, and rabbits in a chafing-dish, and + people for dinner, you skip off. Why don't you bring the children here? + What did you marry into the navy for, anyway? Nagasaki! I wouldn't live in + a place called Nagasaki for all that money could buy!” + </p> + <p> + “You're cross,” said Mrs. Dick placidly. “Please get off that + bath-wrapper. If you don't like to live alone—Six bath-towels, + Dick's shoe-bag, my old muff (I hope and pray I'll remember that!) Helen's + reefer—Why don't you marry?” + </p> + <p> + “Marry? Marry! Are you out of your mind, Dosia? I marry!” + </p> + <p> + The colonel twisted his grayish mustache into points; a look of horror + spread over his countenance. + </p> + <p> + “Men have done it,” she replied seriously, “and lived. Look at Dick.” + </p> + <p> + “Look at him? But how? Who ever sees him? I've ceased to believe in him, + personally. I can't look across the Pacific. Consider my age, Dosia; + consider my pepper-and-salt hair; consider my bronchitis; consider—” + </p> + <p> + “Consider your stupidity! As to your hair, I should hate to eat a salad + dressed with that proportion of pepper. As to your age, remember you're + only ten years ahead of me, and I expect to remain thirty-eight for some + time.” + </p> + <p> + “But forty-eight is centenarian to a girl of twenty-two, Dosia.” + </p> + <p> + The colonel was plaiting and un-plaiting the ball-fringe of the bed-slip; + his eyes followed the motion of his fingers—he did not see his + sister's triumphant smile as she dived again into the trunk. + </p> + <p> + “That depends entirely on the girl. Take Louise Morris, for instance; she + regards you as partly entombed, probably”—the colonel winced + involuntarily—“but, on the other hand, a girl like Jane Leroy would + have no such nonsense in her head, and she can't be much more than + twenty.” + </p> + <p> + “She is twenty-two,” cried the unsuspecting colonel eagerly. + </p> + <p> + “Ah? I should not have said so much. Now such a girl as that, Cal, + handsome, dignified, college-bred, is just the wife for an older man. One + can't seem to see her marrying some young snip of her own age. She'd be + wasted on him. I happen to know that she refused Wilbur Vail entirely on + that ground. She admitted that he was a charming fellow, but she told her + mother he was far too young for her. And he was twenty-eight.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she?” The colonel left the fringe. “But—but perhaps there were + other reasons; perhaps she didn't—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, probably she didn't. But still, she said he was too young. That's the + way with these serious girls. Now I thought Dick was middle-aged when I + married him, and he was thirty. Jane doesn't take after her mother; she + was only nineteen when she was born—I mean, of course, when Jane was + born. Will you hand me that crocheted shawl, please?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear girl, you're not going to try to get that into that trunk, too? + Something will break.” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all, my dear Clarence. Thank you. Will you send Norah up to me as + you go down?” + </p> + <p> + It had not occurred to the colonel that he was going down, but he decided + that he must have been, and departed, forgetting Norah utterly before he + had accomplished half of the staircase. + </p> + <p> + He wandered out through the broad hall, reaching down a hat absently, and + across the piazza. Then, half unconscious of direction, he crossed the + neat suburban road and strolled up the gravel path of the cottage + opposite. Mrs. Leroy was sitting in the bay-window, attaching indefinite + yards of white lace to indefinite yards of white ruffles. Jane, in cool + violet lawn, was reading aloud to her. Both looked up at his light knock + at the side door. + </p> + <p> + “But I am afraid I interrupt,” he suggested politely, as he dropped into a + low chair with a manner that betokened the assurance of a warm welcome. + </p> + <p> + “Not the least in the world,” Mrs. Leroy smiled whimsically. + </p> + <p> + “Lady is reading Pater to me for the good of my soul, and I am listening + politely for the good of her manners,” she answered. “But it is a little + wearing for us both, for she knows I don't understand it, and I know she + thinks me a little dishonest for pretending to.” + </p> + <p> + “Mother!” + </p> + <p> + The girl's gray eyes opened wide above her cool, creamy cheeks; the deep + dimples that made her mother's face so girlish actually added a regularity + and seriousness to the daughter's soft chin. Her chestnut hair was thick + and straight, the little half-curls of the same rich tint that fell over + her mother's forehead brushed wavelessly back on each side of a deep + widow's peak. + </p> + <p> + The two older ones laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Always uncompromising, Lady Jane!” the colonel cried. + </p> + <p> + “I assure you, colonel, when Lady begins to mark iniquities, few of us + stand!” + </p> + <p> + Jane smiled gravely, as on two children. “You know very well that is + nonsense,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Black Hannah appeared in the door, beaming and curtsying to the colonel. + </p> + <p> + “You-all ready foh yoh tea, Miss Lady?” she inquired. + </p> + <p> + A sudden recollection threw Mrs. Leroy into one of her irresistible fits + of gentle laughter. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lady,” she murmured, “do you remember that impossible creature that + lectured me about Hannah's asking you for orders? Did I tell you about it, + colonel?” + </p> + <p> + Jane shook her head reprovingly. + </p> + <p> + “Now, mother dearest, you always make him out worse—” + </p> + <p> + “Worse, my darling? Worse is a word that couldn't be applied to that man. + Worse is comparative. Positive he certainly was, superlative is mild, but + comparative—never!” + </p> + <p> + “Tell about it, do,” begged the guest. + </p> + <p> + “Well, he came to see how Lady was growing up—he's a sort of species + of relative—and he sat in your chair, colonel, and talked the most + amazing Fourth Reader platitudes in a deep bass voice. And when Hannah + asked Lady what her orders were for the grocer, he gave me a terrible look + and rumbled out: 'I am grieved to see, Cousin Alice, that Jennie has burst + her bounds!' + </p> + <p> + “It sounded horribly indecorous—I expected to see her in fragments + on the floor—and I fairly gasped.” + </p> + <p> + “Gasped, mother? You laughed in his face!” + </p> + <p> + “Did I, dearest? It is possible.” Mrs. Leroy admitted. “And when I looked + vague he explained, 'I mean that you seem to have relinquished the reins + very early, Cousin Alice!' + </p> + <p> + “'Relinquished? Relinquished?' said I. 'Why, dear me, Mr. Wadham, I never + held 'em!'” + </p> + <p> + “He only meant, mother dear, that—” + </p> + <p> + “Bless you, my child, I know what he only meant! He explained it to me + very fully. He meant that when a widow is left with a ten-year-old child, + she should apply to distant cousins to manage her and her funds.” + </p> + <p> + “Disgusting beast!” the colonel exclaimed with feeling, possessing himself + of one of Hannah's beaten biscuits, and smiling as Lady Jane's white + fingers dropped just the right number of lumps in his tea. + </p> + <p> + How charming she was, how dignified, how tender to her merry little + mother, this grave, handsome girl! He saw her, in fancy, opposite him at + his table, moving so stately about his big empty house, filling it with + pretty, useless woman's things, lighting every corner with that last touch + of grace that the most faithful housekeeper could never hope to add to his + lonely life. For Theodosia had taught him that he was lonely. He envied + Dick this sister of his. + </p> + <p> + He wondered that marriage had never occurred to him before: simply it had + not. Ever since that rainy day in April, twenty years ago, when they had + buried the slender, soft-eyed little creature with his twisted silver ring + on her cold finger, he had shut that door of life; and though it had been + many years since the little ring had really bound him to a personality + long faded from his mind, he had never thought to open the door—he + had forgotten it was there. + </p> + <p> + He was not a talkative man, and, like many such, he dearly loved to be + amused and entertained by others who were in any degree attractive to him. + The picture of these two dear women adding their wit and charm and dainty + way of living to his days grew suddenly very vivid to him; he realized + that it was an unconscious counting on their continued interest and + hospitality that had made the future so comfortable for so long. + </p> + <p> + With characteristic directness he began: + </p> + <p> + “Will your Ladyship allow me a half-hour of business with the + queen-mother?” + </p> + <p> + She rose easily and stepped out through the long window to the little side + porch, then to the lawn. They watched her as she paced slowly away from + them, a tall violet figure vivid against all the green. + </p> + <p> + “She is a dear girl, isn't she?” said her mother softly. + </p> + <p> + A sudden flood of delighted pride surged through the colonel's heart. If + only he might keep them happy and contented and—and his! He never + thought of them apart: no rose and bud on one stem were more essentially + together than they. + </p> + <p> + “She is too dear for one to be satisfied forever with even our charming + neighborliness,” he answered gravely. “How long have we lived 'across the + street from each other,' as they say here, Mrs. Leroy?” + </p> + <p> + She did not raise her eyes from her white ruffles. + </p> + <p> + “It is just a year this month,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “We are such good friends,” he continued in his gentle, reserved voice, + “that I hesitate to break into such pleasant relations, even with the + chance of making us all happier, perhaps. But I cannot resist the + temptation. Could we not make one family, we three?” + </p> + <p> + A quick, warm color flooded her cheeks and forehead. She caught her + breath; her startled eyes met his with a lightning-swift flash of + something that moved him strangely. + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean, Colonel Driscoll?” she asked, low and quickly. + </p> + <p> + “I mean, could you give me your daughter—if she—at any time—could + think it possible?” + </p> + <p> + She drew a deep breath; the color seemed blown from her transparent skin + like a flame from a lamp. For a moment her head seemed to droop; then she + sat straight and moistened her lips, her eyes fixed level ahead. + </p> + <p> + “Lady?” she whispered, and he was sure that she thought the word was + spoken in her ordinary tone. “Lady?” + </p> + <p> + “I know—I realize perfectly that it is a presumption in me—at + my age—when I think of what she deserves. Oh, we won't speak of it + again if you feel that it would be wrong!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, it is not that,” she murmured. “I—I have always known that + I must lose her; but she—one is so selfish—she is all I have, + you know!” + </p> + <p> + “But you would not lose her!” he cried eagerly. “You would only share her + with me, dear Mrs. Leroy! Do you think—could she—it is + possible?” + </p> + <p> + “Lady is an unusual girl,” she said evenly, but with something gone out of + her warm, gay voice. “She has never cared for young people. I know that + she admires you greatly. While I cannot deny that I should prefer less + difference than lies between your ages, it would be folly in me to fail to + recognize the desirability of the connection in every other way. Whatever + her decision—and the matter rests entirely with her—my + daughter and I are honored by your proposal, Colonel Driscoll.” + </p> + <p> + She might have been reading a carefully prepared address: her eyes never + wavered from the wall in front—it was as if she saw her words there. + </p> + <p> + “Then—then will you ask her?” + </p> + <p> + She stared at him now. + </p> + <p> + “You mean that you wish me to ask her to marry you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said simply. “She will feel freer in that way. You will know as + I should not, directly, if there is any chance. I can talk about it with + you more easily—somehow.” + </p> + <p> + She shrugged her shoulders with a strange air of exhaustion; it was the + yielding of one too tired to argue. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” she breathed, “go now, and I will ask her. Come this evening. + You will excuse—” + </p> + <p> + She made a vague motion. The colonel pitied her tremendously in a blind + way. Was it all this to lose a daughter? How she loved her! + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps to-morrow morning,” he suggested, but she shook her head + vehemently. + </p> + <p> + “No, to-night, to-night!” she cried. “Lady will know directly. Come + tonight!” + </p> + <p> + He went out a little depressed. Already a tiny cloud hung between them. + Suppose their pleasant waters had been troubled for worse than nothing? + Suddenly his case appeared hopeless to him. What folly—a man of his + years, and that fresh young creature with all her life before her! He + wondered that he could have dreamed of it; he wished the evening over and + the foolish mistake forgiven. + </p> + <p> + His sister was full of plans and dates, and her talk covered his almost + absolute silence. After dinner she retired again into packing, and he + strode through the dusk to the cottage; his had not been a training that + seeks to delay the inevitable. + </p> + <p> + The two women sat, as usual at this hour, on the porch. Their white gowns + shimmered against the dark honeysuckle-vine. He halted at the steps and + took off the old fatigue-cap he sometimes wore, standing straight and tall + before them. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Leroy leaned back in her chair; the faintest possible gesture + indicated her daughter, who had risen and stood beside her. + </p> + <p> + “Colonel Driscoll,” she said in a low, uneven voice, “my daughter wishes + me to say to you that she appreciates deeply the honor you do her, and + that if you wish it she will be your wife. She—she is sure she will + be happy.” + </p> + <p> + The colonel felt his heart leap up and hit heavily against his chest. Was + it possible? A great gratitude and pride glowed softly through him. He + walked nearly up the steps and stood just below her, lifting her hand to + his lips. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, dear child,” he said slowly, “you give me too much, but you must + not measure my thankfulness for the gift by my deserts. Whatever a man can + do to make you and your mother happy shall be done so long as I live.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled gravely into his eyes and bowed her head slightly; like all her + little motions, it had the effect of a graceful ceremony. Then, slipping + loose her hand, she seated herself on a low stool beside her mother's + chair, leaning against her knee. Her sweet silence charmed him. + </p> + <p> + He took his accustomed seat, and they sat quietly, while the breeze puffed + little gusts of honeysuckle across their faces. Occasional neighbors + greeted them, strolling past; the newly watered lawns all along the street + sent up a fresh turfy odor; now and then a bird chirped drowsily. He felt + deliriously intimate, peacefully at home. A fine, subtle sense of <i>bien-être</i> + penetrated his whole soul. + </p> + <p> + When he rose to go they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. As he held, + her hand closely, half doubting his right, she raised her face to him + simply, and he kissed her white forehead. When he bent over her mother's + hand it was as cold as stone. + </p> + <p> + Through the long pleasant weeks of the summer they talked and laughed and + drove and sailed together, a happy trio. Mrs. Leroy's listless quiet of + the first few days gave way to a brilliant, fitful gayety that enchanted + the more silent two, and the few hours when she was not with them seemed + incomplete. On his mentioning this to her one afternoon she shot him a + strange glance. + </p> + <p> + “But this is all wrong,” she said abruptly. “What will you do when I am + gone in the winter?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” he asked. “Gone where, when, how?” + </p> + <p> + “My dear colonel,” she said lightly, but with an obvious effort, “do you + imagine that I cannot leave you a honeymoon, in spite of my doting + parenthood? I plan to spend the latter part of the winter in New York with + friends. Perhaps by spring—” + </p> + <p> + “My dear Mrs. Leroy, how absurd! How cruel of you! What will Lady do? What + shall I do? She has never been separated from you in her life. Does she + know of this?” + </p> + <p> + “No; I shall tell her soon. As for what she will do—she will have + her husband. If that is not enough for her, she should not marry the man + who cannot—” + </p> + <p> + She stopped suddenly and controlled with great effort a rising emotion + almost too strong for her. Again a deep, inexplicable sympathy welled up + in him. He longed to comfort her, to give her everything she wanted. He + blamed himself and Jane for all the trouble they were causing her. + </p> + <p> + That afternoon she kept in her room, and he and his fiancée drank their + tea together alone. He was worried by the news of the morning, + dissatisfied out of all proportion, vexed that so sensible and natural a + proposition should leave him so uneasy and disappointed. He had meant the + smooth, quiet life to go on without a break, and now the new relation must + change everything. + </p> + <p> + He glanced at Jane, a little irritated that she should not perceive his + mood and exorcise it. But she had not her mother's marvellous + susceptibility. She drank her tea in serene silence. He made a few + haphazard remarks, hoping to lose in conversation the cloud that + threatened his evening; but she only assented tranquilly and watched the + changing colors of the early sunset. + </p> + <p> + “Have you made a vow to agree with everything I say?” he asked finally, + half laughing, half in earnest. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” she replied placidly, “but you surely do not want an + argument?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” he answered her, vexed at himself. + </p> + <p> + “What do you think of Mrs. ———'s novel?” he suggested, + as the pages, fluttering in the rising breeze, caught his attention. + </p> + <p> + “Mother is reading it, not I,” she returned indifferently. “I don't care + very much for the new novels.” + </p> + <p> + Involuntarily he turned as if to catch her mother's criticism of the book: + light, perhaps, but witty, and with a little tang of harmless satire that + always took his fancy. But she was not there. He sighed impatiently; was + it possible he was a little bored? + </p> + <p> + A quick step sounded on the gravel walk, a swish of skirts. + </p> + <p> + “It is Louise Morris,” she said, “I'll meet her at the gate.” + </p> + <p> + After a short conference she returned. + </p> + <p> + “Will you excuse me, please?” she said, quite eagerly for her. “Mother + will be down soon, anyway, I am sure. Louise's brother is back; he has + been away in the West for six years. Mother will be delighted—she + was always so fond of Jack. Louise is making a little surprise for him. He + must be quite grown up now. I'll go and tell mother.” + </p> + <p> + A moment later and she was gone. Mrs. Leroy took her place in the window, + and imperceptibly under her gentle influence the cloud faded from his + horizon; he forgot the doubt of an hour ago. At her suggestion he dined + there, and found himself, as always when with his hostess, at his best. He + felt that there was no hypocrisy in her interest in his ideas, and the + ease with which he expressed them astonished him even while he delighted + in it. Why could he not talk so with Jane? It occurred to him suddenly + that it was because Jane herself talked rarely. She was, like him, a + listener, for the most part. His mind, unusually alert and sensitive + to-night, looked ahead to the happy winter evenings he had grown to count + on so, and when, with an effort, he detached this third figure from the + group to be so closely allied after Christmas-tide—the date fixed + for the wedding—he perceived that there was a great gap in the + picture, that the warmth and sparkle had suddenly gone. All the tenderness + in the world could not disguise that flash of foresight. + </p> + <p> + He grew quiet, lost in revery. She, following his mood, spoke less and + less; and when Jane returned, late at night, escorted by a tall, bronzed + young ranchman, she found them sitting in silence in a half-light, staring + into the late September fire on the hearth. + </p> + <p> + In the month that followed an imperceptible change crept over the three. + The older woman was much alone—variable as an April day, now merry + and caressing, now sombre and withdrawn. The girl clung to her mother more + closely, sat for long minutes holding her hand, threw strange glances at + her betrothed that would have startled him, so different were they from + her old, steady regard, had not his now troubled sense of some impalpable + mist that wrapped them all grown stronger every day. He avoided sitting + alone with her, wondering sometimes at the ease with which such + tête-à-têtes were dispensed with. Then, struck with apprehension at his + seeming neglect, he spent his ingenuity in delicate attentions toward her, + courtly thoughtfulness of her tastes, beautiful gifts that provoked from + her, in turn, all the little intimacies and tender friendliness of their + earlier intercourse. + </p> + <p> + At one of these tiny crises of mutual restoration, she, sitting alone with + him in the drawing-room, suddenly raised her eyes and looked steadily at + him. + </p> + <p> + “You care for me, then, very much?” she said earnestly. “You—you + would miss—if things were different? You really count on—on—our + marriage? Are you happy?” + </p> + <p> + A great remorse rose in him. Poor child—poor, young, unknowing + creature, that, after all, was only twenty-two! She felt it, then, the + strange mist that seemed to muffle his words and actions, to hold him + back. And she had given him so much! + </p> + <p> + He took her hands and drew her to him. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, dear child,” he said gently, “forgive a selfish middle-aged + bachelor if he cannot come up to the precious ideals of the sweetest + girlhood in the world! I am no more worthy of you, Lady dear, than I have + ever been, but I have never felt more tender toward you, more sensible of + all you are giving me. I cannot pretend to the wild love of the poets you + read so much; that time, if it ever was, is past for me. I am a plain, + unromantic person, who takes and leaves a great deal for granted—I + thought you knew that. But you must never doubt—” He paused a + moment, and for the first time she interrupted him nervously. + </p> + <p> + “I never will—Clarence,” she said almost solemnly; and it struck him + for the first time that she had never called him by his name before. He + leaned over her, and as in one of her rare concessions she lifted her face + up to him, he bent lower than her forehead; what compelled him to kiss her + soft cheek rather than her lips he did not know. + </p> + <p> + Unexpected business summoned him to New York for a fortnight the next day, + and the great city drew him irresistibly into its noisy maelstrom. The + current of his thoughts changed absolutely. Old friends and new took up + his leisure. His affairs, as they grew more pressing, woke in him a keen + delight in the struggle with his opponents; as he shook hands triumphantly + with his lawyer after a well-earned victory he felt years younger. He + decided that he had moped too long in the country: “We must move into town + this season,” he said to himself. + </p> + <p> + He fairly ran up the cottage steps in the gathering dusk. He longed to see + them, full of plans for the winter. Hannah met him at the door: the ladies + had gone to a dance at the Morrises'; there had been an invitation for + him, so he would not intrude if he followed. + </p> + <p> + Hastily changing his clothes, he walked up the street. Lights and music + poured out of the open windows of the large house; the full moon made the + grounds about it almost as bright as the rooms. He stepped up on the + piazza and looked in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane, beautiful in pale + blue mull, drifted by in her young host's arms. She was flushed with + dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly recognized + her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a glimpse of a + flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose fine poise he + could not mistake. + </p> + <p> + A young man passed him with a filmy crêpe shawl he knew well. The colonel + stepped along with him. + </p> + <p> + “You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me relieve you of it,” and he walked alone into the garden with the + softly scented cobweb over his arm. + </p> + <p> + She was standing in an old neglected summer-house, her back to the door. + As he stopped behind her and laid the soft wrap over her firm white + shoulders, she turned her head with a startled prescience of his + personality, and met his eyes full. He looked straight into those soft + gray depths, and as he looked, searching for something there, he knew not + what, troubled strangely by her nearness and the helpless surrender of her + fastened gaze, a great light burst upon him. + </p> + <p> + “It is you! it is you!” he said hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, he + kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth. + </p> + <p> + For a moment she rested against him. The music, piercingly sweet, drove + away thought. Then she drew herself back, pushing him blindly from her. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no!” she gasped, “it is Lady! You are mad—” + </p> + <p> + “Mad?” he said quickly. “I was never sane till now. When I think of what I + had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love I was + sacrificing her—oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must have + known!” + </p> + <p> + She raised her head; an unquenchable triumph smiled at him. + </p> + <p> + “I did know!” she cried exultantly. Suddenly her whole expression changed, + her head sank again. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Lady, my child, my baby!” she moaned, all mother now, and + brokenhearted. + </p> + <p> + “You must never tell her, never!” she panted. “You will forget; you—I + will go away—” + </p> + <p> + “It is you who are mad, Alice,” he said sternly. “Listen to me. For all + these weeks it has been your voice I have remembered, your face I have + seen in imagination in my house. It is you I have missed from us three—never + Lady. It is you I have tried to please and hoped to satisfy—not + Lady. Ever since you told me you would not spend the winter with us I have + been discontented. Why, Alice, I have never kissed her in my life—as + I have kissed you.” + </p> + <p> + She grew red to the tips of her little ears, and threw him a quick glance + that tingled to his fingers' ends. + </p> + <p> + “You would not have me—oh, my dear, it is not possible!” he cried. + </p> + <p> + She burst into tears. “I don't know—I don't know!” she sobbed. “It + will break her heart! I don't understand her any more; once I could tell + what she would think, but not now.” + </p> + <p> + “Hush! some one is coming,” he warned her, and taking her arm he drew her + out through a great gap in the side of the little house, so that they + stood hidden by it. + </p> + <p> + “Then I will tell him to his face what I think of him!” said a young man's + voice, angry, determined, but shaking with disappointment. “To hold a girl—” + </p> + <p> + “He does not hold me—I hold myself!” It was Lady's voice, low and + trembling. “It is all my fault, Jack. I bound myself before I knew what—what + a different thing it really was. I do love him—I love him dearly, + but not—not—No, no; I don't mean what you think—or, if I + do, I must not. Jack, I have promised, don't you see? And when I thought + that perhaps he didn't care so much, and asked him—oh, I told you + how beautifully he answered me, I will never hurt him so, never!” + </p> + <p> + “It is disgusting, it is horrible; he is twenty-five years older than you—he + might be your father!” stormed the voice. + </p> + <p> + “I—I never cared for young people before!” + </p> + <p> + Could this be Lady, this shy, faltering girl? Moved by an overmastering + impulse, the man behind the summer-house turned his head and looked + through the broken wall. + </p> + <p> + Lady Jane was blushing and paling in quick succession: the waves of red + flooded over her moved face and receded like the tide at turn. Her eyes + were piteous; her hair fell low over her forehead; she looked incredibly + young. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said the young man bitterly, “it is a good match—a fine + match, You will have a beautiful home and everything you want.” + </p> + <p> + She put out her hands appealingly. “Oh, Jack, how can you hurt me so? You + know I would live with you in a garret—on the plains—” + </p> + <p> + “Then do it.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall never hurt a person so terribly to whom I have freely given my + word,” she said, with a touch of her old-time decision. + </p> + <p> + Colonel Driscoll felt his blood sweeping through his veins like wine. He + was far too excited for finesse, too eager—and he had been so + willing to wait, once!—for the next sweet moment when this almost + tragedy should be resolved into its elements. He strode out into the open + space in front of the little house. + </p> + <p> + “My dear young people,” he said, as they stared at him in absolute + silence, “I am, I am—” He had intended to carry the matter off + jocularly, but the sight of the girl's tear-stained face and the emotion + of the minutes before had softened and awed him. His eyes seemed yet to + hold those gray ones; he felt strangely the pressure of that soft body + against his. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, my dear,” he said gently, “could you not believe me when I told you + that my one wish was to make you happy as long as I lived? Happiness is + not built on mistakes, and you must forgive us if we do not always allow + youth to monopolize them. + </p> + <p> + “She has always been like a dear child to me, Mr. Morris”—he turned + to the other man—“and you would never wish me to change my regard + for her, could you know it! + </p> + <p> + “Go with him, Lady dear, and forgive me if I have ever pained you—believe + me, I am very happy to-night.” + </p> + <p> + He raised her softly as she knelt before him weeping, and kissed her hair. + </p> + <p> + “But there is nothing to forgive,” he assured her. + </p> + <p> + They went away hand in hand, happy, like two dazed children for whom the + sky has suddenly but not—because they are young—too + miraculously opened, and the shrubbery swallowed them. + </p> + <p> + He turned and strode back into the shadow. Mrs. Leroy sat crouching on the + fallen timber, her head still bent. Stooping behind her, he drew her + toward him. + </p> + <p> + “They have forgotten us by now,” he whispered, “can I make you forget + them?” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Courting Of Lady Jane, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTING OF LADY JANE *** + +***** This file should be named 23368-h.htm or 23368-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23368/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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