Chapter XIX: An Unexpected Offer

"Whither my heart has gone, there follows
My hand, and not elsewhere."
LONGFELLOW.

IT was a stormy day. Wind and rain fought for predominance, and lashed the old trees on the lawn in their fury. The casement windows rattled, and the wind howled down the chimneys, making even Ena shiver. It was very near the end of Heather's visit, and she had just received instructions from Mrs. Macintyre as to where and when she was to meet her.

Ena listened and advised, but soon after breakfast got such a violent headache that she was forced to go to her room to lie down.

"Storms always affect me," she said; "if I can manage to get to sleep, I shall be better. Make yourself comfortable over the fire, Heather. I think you will hear the wind less in the drawing-room."

So to the drawing-room Heather went, trying to battle with her depression of spirits. She took out Mrs. Macintyre's letter and re-read it, trying to imagine herself in familiar and friendly relations with that good lady. The postscript did not reassure her.

"Do not bring fancy work of any sort with you. I have found it engrosses the thoughts too much, and your time is mine whilst you are with me. I wish you from the first to understand this."

"It will be slavery," was Heather's thought, as, leaning back in an easy chair, she looked into the glowing coals in front of her, and tried to banish the sounds of the storm without.

She remained there deep in thought until, with a start, she was roused by Captain Vaughan's voice.

"Are you in a brown study?"

Heather laughed a little unsteadily.

Captain Vaughan came and leant against the old oak mantel-piece, looking down upon her, and pulling out the ends of his moustache thoughtfully.

"This kind of day always seems to send you women into the blues. Ena has collapsed, and you—excuse me for the remark—look as if you are going to drown yourself!"

"I have no thoughts in that direction," said Heather, looking up at him with a little laugh. "I think I was dreaming. I am sorry to be leaving Ena. I have enjoyed my visit so much here, and only regret that it is coming to an end."

"Why do you go?"

"I must."

There was silence. Captain Vaughan walked to the window and looked out, then came back to the fire and took up his former position.

"I don't see why you need go," he persisted. "Ena enjoys having you with her, and you do her a world of good."

"I could not stay on with her indefinitely," said Heather, quietly.

"I think you could."

Something in his tone made Heather look up. There was purpose and determination in it, such as she had never heard him use before.

"Would you not like to make this your home?" was his next question.

Heather felt a little puzzled.

"I suppose I might," she said, "if I felt it right to do so. But I see my way lies differently."

"I want you to reconsider your decision. It is not too late. I want you to stay here altogether, and stay here as my wife!"

If a thunderbolt had dropped at Heather's feet, she could not have felt more astonished. She had been accustomed to a great deal of attention and admiration when in London, and the very quietness and polite indifference with which Captain Vaughan had treated her made her regard him entirely as her friend's brother, and in no other light.

She looked at him now in complete bewilderment, and his quiet, steady gaze did not help her.

"Are you joking?" she asked, trying to smile.

"No," he said; "I am in sober earnest."

Heather's head felt in a whirl.

"Is this for your sister's sake?" she asked.

"For my own as well."

And then mustering courage, Heather rose to her feet.

"I am so utterly unprepared for this, Captain Vaughan, that I feel I cannot give you an answer at present. Forgive me, but even now I am wondering if you are in earnest."

"I cannot do more than give you my word as a gentleman that I am."

His tone was a little stiff. He added more gently—

"Don't act in a hurry. Think it over. I believe you would be happy with us. We would try to make you so. I know I am much older than yourself, but you like our home, and are sorry to leave us. Isn't this a way out of your difficulty?"

Then Heather looked up, and as simply as a child placed her hand in his.

"I believe in your kindness of heart," she said. "Let me think it over."

She left the room softly, and after she had gone, Captain Vaughan paced up and down with knitted brows.

Heather fled to her room, locked the door, and with a tumult of feeling threw herself into the easy chair by the window. Her thoughts were these.

"Not a word of love! It was like offering me another situation. What does he mean by it? If I did not know his past history, and how self-sacrificing and unselfish he is, I would not fear so much. It must be pity for me, love for his sister, that is making him act so! Oh, I couldn't, I couldn't! If I am not wanted for my own sake, I will not give myself away. He does not seem to reckon love or liking at all in the question, nor care to know if I like him well enough to link my life to his for good and all. And do I like him? Oh, I don't know. I honour and respect him immensely, but I don't feel I know him. He has depths that he will reveal to no one. He has seemed so calmly indifferent to all I do or say, that I can't believe he means what he says.

"Of course I could be happy, oh, I know I could, if—if he really cared for me. If he was even as tender and gentle as I have sometimes seen him with Ena. Yet he was that the other day when he found me down by the river after my accident. I felt then how good it was to have some one to take care of one. He seemed so strong, so reliable. Oh, what shall I do? It is such a temptation. The right to stay on here in this dear old place, the right to make it my home and be shielded and cared for all my life. He could not make an unkind husband. Need all marriages be love ones? And how happy Ena would be! I know she would be pleased. I could look after her and make her life a brighter one, I am sure I could.

"If only he seemed to care a little. If it is simply his unselfish kindness in taking pity on my homeless condition, if it is done entirely for his sister's sake, how could I place myself in such a humiliating position? Oh, I don't know what to do! I wish I had a mother to talk it over with. I cannot argue it out with Ena. I wonder if she knows. I don't believe she has any idea of it."

Poor Heather soon got on her knees to ask for the guidance and help which she felt she so much needed at this crisis.

It was a great temptation to her. She felt unutterably lonely when away from her friend, and the prospect of the winter before her was not cheering. Yet marriage had not lost its sacredness to her; she knew too well what misery so many marriages "de convenance" brought, and her pride recoiled from giving herself away unloved.

The luncheon bell rang, and she reluctantly left her room, hoping that she would not be condemned to a "tête-à-tête" meal with the one so much in her thoughts. This was spared her. Ena's head was better, and she was able to come to the table. Captain Vaughan was out, the maid told them, and would not return till dinner-time.

"Where can he have gone in this storm?" said Ena. "He told me he would be indoors most of the day."

"I think it is going to clear," Heather said, looking out of the window, where great masses of dark clouds rolled by, and gleams of light appeared on the horizon.

"Perhaps it is. We must hope so. You look pale and worried, Heather dear. What have you been doing with yourself?"

"I have been in my room most of the morning."

"Not packing?"

"No, not yet. I have still two days before me."

Ena saw she was troubled, but thought it was at the idea of her near departure, and Heather still felt her mind in such chaos that she could not mention what had passed.

"He is the person to tell her, not I," she thought.

The afternoon passed. Ena was at all times a pleasant companion, and Heather was enough versed in self-control to set her feelings aside and enter into her friend's interests.

Captain Vaughan made his appearance just as they were finishing afternoon tea, and Heather slipped quietly out of the room, leaving him telling his sister where he had been.

When she had closed the door behind her, Captain Vaughan said abruptly—

"Have you been told anything, Ena?"

"No; what?"

He did not answer for a moment, then he said slowly—

"I asked your little friend to stay on with us indefinitely."

"Did you really? I'm afraid you did not succeed in persuading her to do so."

"I don't know."

Something in his voice made his sister look up.

"Now, Bertram, what is it? You're keeping something back."

"I offered her an extra inducement to stay," was the dry response.

Ena caught her breath. Her woman's quick wit guessed the truth at once.

"Oh, Bertram!" she exclaimed. "If you care for her, I shall have obtained my heart's desire!"

"How about her side?"

"Oh, she must, she will say Yes. I have secretly longed to be a match-maker. You don't know how I have wished to bring you together. But you are so silent, and have been particularly so in reference to her, that I hardly dared to hope it. What did she say?"

"She has postponed her reply."

"No wonder she has looked so absorbed. Why didn't she confide in me? I must see her at once. Oh, Bertram, I can't tell you what I feel about it! It is more than I hoped, and now this dreadful visit abroad must be put an end to. But why have you left it so late in the day? It might have been too late altogether. Will you ring for Dick?"

Ena was quite excited.

Her brother listened to her apparently quite unmoved, then, with his hand upon the bell, he said quietly—

"I must ask you, as a special favour, not to allude to this matter until after dinner. It will be an awkward time for all of us if you do. I am going out afterwards, so you will have the whole evening to talk over it."

Ena's face fell, but she saw the wisdom of her brother's words.

As it was, there was a certain constraint upon them all when they met in the dining-room. Captain Vaughan was perhaps the least discomposed, and Heather talked away to Ena rather more rapidly than usual, as if she dreaded any pauses in the conversation.

It was afterwards in the drawing-room that Ena touched upon the subject, and her intense delight in the possibility of the engagement made it very difficult for Heather to express her real sentiments.

She could not let his sister know that she doubted his reality of feeling about it. And she sighed to think that at such a time as this, her friend could not give her an unbiassed opinion, for Ena felt that no one could refuse her brother. And Heather wondered, if she were to refuse him, whether it would bring a break in her friendship with his sister.

She went to bed that night still restless and undecided, wondering if the dictates of her heart would play her false.

For by this time she had come to this conclusion. Life with Captain Vaughan at her side wore a very roseate hue; without him, it would be a blank. And if she had been convinced that he reciprocated these sentiments, there would have been no cloud upon her horizon. There was little or no sleep for her. The storm that still swept on its wild way outside was a picture of the storm within her soul, but at length, as another day dawned soft and fair, with no signs of the wild weather that had preceded it, Heather's resolve was made. The dawning of a love which now surprised herself overcame the pride that had battled fiercely for predominance.

It was after breakfast in the garden that Heather gave her answer. She was gathering dahlias in an old-fashioned winding walk that led round the outskirts of the grounds, when a step behind her sent a quick flush to her cheek.

It was Captain Vaughan, and he spoke with his usual simple directness.

"I have come for my answer, Miss Fotheringay."

Then Heather faced him, and her eyes held his for a moment as she tried to read him through and through.

"Do you really want me to say Yes?" she asked, a little unsteadily.

"I do, indeed," was the grave reply.

Her eyes dropped. With a pretty grace, she put both her hands in his.

"Then I say it."

"God bless you."

That was all, but it was enough.