“There is no answer required, Thisbe,” said Millicent gravely.
“And Mr Hallam, miss?”
“Thisbe,” said Millicent gravely, “I want you always to be our old faithful friend as well as servant, but – ”
She held up a warning finger, and was silent. Thisbe’s lips parted to say a few angry words; but she flounced round, and made the door speak for her in a sharp bang, after which she rushed upstairs with the intent of having a furious encounter with a bed; but she changed her mind, and on reaching her own room, sat down, put her apron to her eyes, and had what she called “a good cry.”
“Poor Miss Milly!” she sobbed at last; “she’s just about as blind as I was, and she’ll only find it out when it’s too late.”
Volume One – Chapter Eleven.
Another Evening at the Doctor’s
“But – but I don’t like it, my dear,” said Mrs Luttrell, wiping her eyes, and looking up at the doctor, as he stood rubbing his hands softly, to get rid of the harshness produced by freshly-dug earth used for potting.
“Neither do I,” said the doctor calmly.
“But why should she choose him of all men?” sighed Mrs Luttrell. “I never thought Millicent the girl to be taken by a man only for his handsome face. I was not when I was young!”
“Which is saying that I was precious ugly, eh?”
“Indeed you were the handsomest man in Castor!” cried Mrs Luttrell proudly; “but you were the cleverest too, and – dear, dear! – what a little while ago it seems!”
“Gently, gently, old lady!” said the doctor, tenderly kissing the wrinkled forehead that was raised towards him. “Well, heaven’s blessing be upon her, my dear, and may her love be as evergreen as ours.”
Mrs Luttrell rose and laid her head upon his shoulder, and stood there, with a happy, peaceful look upon her pleasant face, although it was still wet with tears.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she sighed; “and it would be so sad.”
“Ah, wife!” said the doctor, walking slowly up and down the room, with his arm about Mrs Luttrell’s waist, “it’s one of Nature’s mysteries. We can’t rule these things. Look at Milly. Some girls begin love-making at seventeen, ah, and before! and here she went calmly on to four-and-twenty untouched, and finding her pleasure in her books and music, and home-life.”
“As good and affectionate a girl as ever breathed!” cried Mrs Luttrell.
“Yes, my dear; and then comes the man, and he has but to hold up his finger and say ‘Come,’ and it is done.”
“But she might have had Sir Gordon, and he is rich, and then she would have been Lady Bourne!”
“He was too old, my dear, too old. She looked upon him like a child would look up to her father.”
“Well, then, Mr Bayle, the best of men, I’m sure; and he is well off too.”
“Too young, old lady, too young. I’ve watched them together hundreds of times. Milly always petted and patronised him, and treated him as if he were a younger brother, of whom she was very fond.”
“Heigho! Oh dear me!” sighed Mrs Luttrell. “But I don’t like him – this Mr Hallam. I never thought when Millicent was a baby that she would ever enter into an engagement like this. Can’t we break it off?”
The doctor shook his head. “I don’t like it, mother. Hallam is the last man I should have chosen for her; but we must make the best of it. He has won her; and she is not a child, but a calm, thoughtful woman.”
“Yes, that’s the worst of it,” sighed Mrs Luttrell; “she is so thoughtful and calm and dignified, that I never can look upon her now as my little girl. I always seem to be talking to a superior woman, whose judgment I must respect. But this is very sad!”
“There, there! we must not treat it like that, old lady. Perhaps we have grown to be old and prejudiced. I own I have.”
“Oh, no, no, my dear!”
“Yes, but I have. As soon as this seemed to be a certainty I began to try and find a hole in the fellow’s coat.”
“In Mr Hallam’s coat, love? Oh, you wouldn’t find that.”
“No,” said the doctor dryly, as he smiled down in the gentle old face, “not one. There, there! you must let it go! Now then, old lady, you must smile and look happy, here’s Milly coming down.”
Mrs Luttrell shook her head, and her wistful look seemed to say that she would never feel happy again; but as Millicent entered, in plain white satin, cut in the high-waisted, tight fashion of the period, and with a necklet of pearls for her only ornament, a look of pride and pleasure came into the mother’s face, and she darted a glance at her husband, which he caught and interpreted, “I will think only of her.”
“Oh, Milly!” she cried, “that necklace! what lovely pearls!”
“Robert’s present, dear. I was to wear them to-night. Are they not lovely?”
“Almost as lovely as their setting,” said the doctor to himself, as he kissed his child tenderly. “Why, Milly,” he said aloud, “you look as happy as a bird!”
She laid her cheek upon his breast, and remained silent for a few moments, with half-closed eyes. Then, raising her head, she kissed him lovingly.
“I am, father dear,” she said in a low voice, full of the calm and peaceful joy that filled her breast. “I am, father, I am, mother – so happy!” She paused, and then, laughing gently, added: “So happy I feel ready to cry.”
It was to be a quiet evening, to which a few friends were invited; but it was understood as being an open acknowledgment of Millicent’s engagement to Robert Hallam, and in this spirit the visitors came.
Miss Heathery generally arrived last at the social gatherings. It gave her entry more importance, and, at her time of life, she could not afford to dispense with adventitious aids. But there was the scent of matrimony in this little party, and she was dressed an hour too soon, and arrived first in the well-lit drawing-room.
“My darling!” she whispered, as she kissed Millicent.
That was all; but her voice and look were full of pity for the victim chosen for the next sacrifice, and she turned away towards the piano to get out her handkerchief, and drop a parting tear.
It was a big tear, one of so real and emotional a character that it brimmed over, fell on her cheekbone, and hopped into her reticule just as she was drawing open the top, and was lost in the depths within.
There was as much sorrow for herself as emotion on Millicent Luttrell’s behalf. Had not Millicent robbed her of the chance of an offer? Mr Hallam might never have proposed: but still he might.
Suddenly her heart throbbed, for the next guest arrived also unusually early, and as Thisbe held open the door for him to pass, hope told again her flattering tale to the tune that Sir Gordon might have known that she, Miss Heathery, was coming early, and had followed.
The hopeful feeling did not die at once, but it received a shock as Sir Gordon entered, looking very bright and young, to shake hands warmly with the doctor and Mrs Luttrell, to bow to Miss Heathery, and then turn to Millicent, who, in spite of her natural firmness, was a good deal agitated. She had nerved herself for these meetings, and striven to keep down their importance; but now the night had arrived, she was fain to confess that hers was a difficult task, to meet two rejected lovers, and bear herself easily before them with the husband of her choice. First there was Sir Gordon, from whom she was prepared for reproachful looks, and perhaps others marked by disappointment; while from Christie Bayle – ah, how would he behave towards her? He was so young that she trembled lest he should make himself ridiculous in his loving despair.
And