as hermia sat playing this evening all the attention she was obliged to give to the music could not keep her uncle's words from ringing in her ears: "he is as changeable as the moon, as i have told him many a time." what if frank had changed towards her, and were never to come and see her more!
she knew, or thought she knew, the reason why frank derison had kept away from nairn cottage for upwards of a week. on the occasion of his last visit, when she was at the piano, and he was turning over her music, there being no one but themselves in the room, he had suddenly stooped and imprinted a kiss on her cheek. she had started up in a flame of indignation, and the result had been a short but sharp passage of arms between the two. there was a sort of half-engagement between them (of which more hereafter), sufficiently binding, however, in frank's opinion, to allow of his stealing a kiss "without a fellow being called over the coals for it as if he had committed some awful crime." but hermia took a totally opposite view, and frank was made to understand that, on no account, must he attempt to take such a liberty again. thereupon, the young fellow had flung out of the cottage in a huff, and had not been near since; while hermia, as a matter of course, had locked herself in her bedroom, and had a good cry all to herself.
the concert this evening went on for upwards of an hour. then came an interruption. dr. hazeldine was wanted in haste by one of his patients.
"my father would fain have made a doctor of me," remarked mr. kittaway, parenthetically, "but i said, 'give me a business that will leave me my own master at night, and that will ensure me from being called out of bed to go tramping through the rain or snow at all sorts of hours.'"
"it's nothing when you are used to it," said clement, with a laugh.
"it seems to me very inconsiderate of people to be taken ill in the middle of the night," remarked the old gentleman, as he peered into his snuff-box; "matters ought to be arranged differently somehow." mr. kittaway stayed about half an hour after clement's departure. after partaking of a small mug of warm elder wine and a soft biscuit, he, too, took his leave.
"i think i will walk as far as strong's, and see whether he is likely to turn up on sunday," said john, a few minutes later.
john was organist at the parish church, and strong was the man who blew the bellows for him.
"it is rather late for you to go out," observed miss brancker.
"the night is fine, and the walk will do me good. besides, if strong is no better, i must look out for a substitute to-morrow."
charlotte followed her brother to the garden gate.
"it seems to blow very like for rain," she said, as she held up her hand to ascertain the way of the wind. "had you not better take your umbrella?"
but when the umbrella came to be looked for it could not be found.
"i must have left it at the bank," said john, who was rather absent-minded in small matters; "but i don't think i shall need it to-night."
after a few more words he went his way, humming to himself one of the airs he had been playing. his sister watched him down the street till he was lost in the darkness; then she turned, and was on the point of going indoors, when frank derison came hurrying up from the opposite direction.
"better late than never, miss brancker," he said, his thin, careless laugh. "i suppose i'm just about in time to bid you good night."
"just about," answered the spinster, dryly. "we had some thought of sending the bellman round. we were anxious to know whether you were lost, stolen, or had strayed away of your own accord."
"i daresay you know. miss brancker, that i sometimes try to earn a little money by making up tradesmen's books of an evening. well, i've had a special job of the kind to do during the last week, and that's why i've not been near the cottage."
this was a little invention on master frank's part, made up on the spur of the moment, and he laughed to himself when he found how readily the simple-minded spinster took it in. in reality, his evenings had been spent in the billiard-room of the "crown and cushion." while he had offended hermia at their last meeting, what she had said had been a source of offence to him, and he had stayed away purposely, if only to prove to her, as he said to himself, that he was not going to be tied to any girl's apron-string.
"won't you come in for a little while?" said aunt charlotte; "john is out, and hermy and i are all alone."
"not to-night, i think, thanks all the same. my mother is not well, and i promised not to be late home this evening." this latter statement was also a little fiction on frank's part.
"in that case, of course, i cannot press you to stay."
"have you had any music to-night?" asked frank abruptly.
"yes, both mr. kittaway and clement hazeldine were here, but clement was called away to a patient, and the party broke up early."
"confound that fellow! he's always here!" muttered frank, between his teeth. then aloud: "i've brought a late rose for hermia; perhaps you won't mind giving it her." and with that he proceeded to detach the flower from his button-hole.
"why not give it her yourself? i'm sure that would be much nicer," said miss charlotte, archly. "i wonder she has not come to the gate before now; but perhaps she doesn't know who's here. i'll go and fetch her."
"she knows well enough who's here, the huzzy!" growled frank under his breath. "it's merely a try-on--that's what it is. they all do it. what simpletons they must take us men for, to think we can't see through their little games. but i suppose there are some born fools who can't."
they had been standing at the wicket of the little garden which divided the house from the road, the front door being wide open all this time. miss brancker now hurried up the pathway into the cottage. hermia was in none of the lower rooms. she called her by name, and then the girl appeared at the head of the stairs, her hair unbound and flowing over her shoulders.
"frank is at the gate. he has brought a rose which he wishes to give you. won't you come down?"
"not to-night, aunt, please. really and truly i've a wretched headache. besides, my hair is down, and----"
"bother!" exclaimed miss charlotte. "it wouldn't take you a second to tie a bit of ribbon round it."
"you must really excuse me, aunt, and so must frank. he can send me the rose through you, if he wishes me to have it."
"that won't be half so nice as giving you it himself."
but hermia had disappeared.
miss charlotte went back, rubbing her nose.
"i suppose there's been a tiff between them," she said to herself. "well, well! at lover's perjuries they say jove laughs, and no doubt he does the same at their quarrels."
frank, with his hands deep in his pockets, was whistling in a minor key when she reached the gate.
he laughed a laugh which was by no means as pleasant as usual, at aunt charlotte's lame excuse.
"well, here is the rose, at any rate," he said. "let us hope she won't disdain it as she has disdained the giver."
as he spoke he kissed the flower, and handed it to miss brancker.
"pray, don't forget to tell her that my love goes with it," he added, with another laugh. "and now, goodnight; my mother will think i'm lost."
then they shook hands and parted.
"i often wonder whether the young baggage is aware of the twelve hundred pounds standing to her credit in the books of the dulminster bank," he said to himself as he went along. "it would be strange if she isn't. and yet sometimes i'm inclined to think she knows nothing about it."
it was far from being his intention to go straight home. he turned into the "crown and cushion" as a matter of course. there was time for one last game of billiards before the house closed for the night.
miss brancker did not fail to give hermia both the rose and the message. the girl smiled faintly at the latter. the flower she put in water, but neither then nor afterwards did she touch it with her lips, as aunt charlotte told her frank had done before sending it.
frank derison's mother, who had been many years a widow, was half-cousin to mr. avison. at sixteen frank had entered the bank as junior clerk, and there he had since remained, being treated in no way differently from any other member of the staff, the relationship between himself and mr. avison being never recognized by the latter; a state of things which to frank seemed exactly the reverse of that which ought to have subsisted between the two.
nature, if she had any intentions at all in the framing of frank derison, certainly never intended him for a bank clerk. he hated his work: indeed it is doubtful whether he would not have hated work of any kind; but not being able to help himself, he contrived to get through it from day to day, although in a very half-hearted and perfunctory sort of way. john brancker, however, had conceived a great liking for the handsome, careless, bright-eyed young fellow, who had always a merry laugh for everybody and everything; and he so managed to gloss over his faults and shortcomings--which, in truth, were not very glaring ones--as, with rare exceptions, to keep him from being found fault with either by mr. avison or mr. hazeldine.
from this it came to pass that by-and-bye frank began to be a somewhat frequent visitor at nairn cottage, where he quite won the heart of miss brancker, as he did the hearts of most people with whom he was brought into contact. as time went on he and hermia were naturally thrown much together, and each began to find in the other that sweet but dangerous quality of attraction which, as a rule, can conduce to but one result.
meanwhile, simple-hearted john brancker and his equally simple-hearted sister looked on complacently happy in the happiness of the young people, and leaving the future, if they ever took it into consideration at all, to solve its own problems.
one morning frank awoke to the fact that he was of age; he also about the same time awoke to the knowledge of another pleasant fact, to wit, that he was in love with hermia rivers. he was quite persuaded that hermy was necessary to his happiness. still, he was in no hurry to declare his passion. there was a vein of cool calculation under his laughing, happy-go-lucky exterior, the existence of which few people except his mother were aware of, or even suspected.
he could afford to bide awhile, he told himself. hermy was safe, there was no other romeo in the field; he had but to speak the word in order at once, as with a harlequin's wand, to change her placid, bread-and-butter, sisterly liking into a feeling infinitely more passionate and delightful, of which he was to be the centre and focus, and which was to render his life beautiful with the incense it would never tire of showering round his path. what he was to give in return for all this he did not condescend to explain even to himself. the awkwardness of it was that his present salary at the bank was only ninety pounds a year. from that sum it would rise by yearly increments of ten pounds till it reached a hundred and fifty pounds, at which point it would stop until the chance should offer itself of his stepping into some senior clerk's shoes; a chance, however, which might not come to him for an indefinite number of years.
after all, a hundred and fifty pounds a year was a beggarly amount on which to marry, and to secure even that limited happiness he would have six years still to wait. of course, considering the relationship between them, mr. avison ought to do something more for him--ought to shove him on specially over the heads of some of the other fellows, or, in any case, give him a thumping advance in place of a paltry ten pounds. it was an awful shame that he, a blood relation, should be treated no differently from the veriest stranger, and that he should even have to knuckle under, as far as position in the office went, to that cad of an ephraim judd!
among frank's manifold acquaintances was a young man of the name of winton, who had at one time been a clerk in avison's bank, but had since accepted a better-paid situation in umpleby's bank at dulminster. winton came over once or twice a month to ashdown to see his relatives, on which occasions he and derison generally contrived to have an hour or two together at their favorite billiards.
said winton on one occasion, nearly a year before the time of which we are now writing:
"i'm going to tell you a secret, old man, which you may or may not make use of to your own advantage. that will be for you to decide when you've heard it; only, you must first give me your sacred word of honor never to mention it to a soul."
frank gave the required promise without difficulty.
"i know you often visit at john brancker's," resumed the other, "and report has it that you're sweet on that pretty niece of his. small blame to you, if you are, say i. however, if you're not, perhaps you'll think it advisable to be so when i whisper to you that in our books at umpleby's the very nice little sum of twelve hundred pounds is at the present moment standing to the credit of miss hermia rivers."
"winton, you must be dreaming," was all derison could say, so extreme was his astonishment.
"not a bit of it, my boy. i've seen the account with my own eyes. its been accumulating for years, at the rate of eighty pounds per annum. john comes over once a quarter, as regular as clockwork, bringing twenty pounds with him at each visit. the probability is that he banks with us in order that none of avison's people may know anything of the affair."
"but are you quite sure that the account stands in the name of miss rivers, and of no one else?" asked frank after a pause, during which he had been trying to digest his friend's startling information.
"of course i'm sure. hermia rivers, and that alone, is the name in our ledger. i suppose honest john, having no children of his own, is investing his savings, or some portion of them, for the benefit of his niece. he'll be a lucky fellow that gets miss hermy for a wife. if i wasn't engaged already, hang me if i wouldn't have a cut-in on my own account."
it did not take frank long to make up his mind what he ought to do; the duty he owed to himself lay clearly before him. he would propose to hermy without a day's delay. he had loved her all along, but he felt that she was dearer, far dearer, to him now than ever she had been before.
