George Fenn - One Maid's Mischief

He was coming slowly down the path as wheels stopped at the gate just out of sight from the window, where little Miss Rosebury sat with her head once more bent down over her work; but she could hear a quick, well-known voice speaking to the driver of the station fly; then there was the click of the latch as the gate swung to, and the little lady’s heart began to go pat, pat – pat, pat – much faster than the quick, decided step that she heard coming down the long gravel path.

Her hearing seemed to be abnormally quickened, and she listened to the wheels as the fly drove off, and then heard every word as the doctor’s quick, decided voice saluted his old friend.

“Been horribly busy, Arthur,” he cried; “but I’m down at last. Where’s Mary?”

Hiding behind the curtain, for she had drawn back to place her hand upon her side to try and control the agitated beating of her foolish little heart.

“Oh, it is dreadful! How can I be so weak?” she cried angrily, as she made a brave effort to be calm – a calmness swept away by the entrance of the doctor, who rushed in boisterously to seize her hands, and before she could repel him, he had kissed her heartily.

“Eureka! my dear Mary! Eureka!” he cried. “I have it – I have it!”

“Henry – Dr Bolter!” she cried, with a decidedly dignified look in her pleasant face.

“Don’t be angry with me, my dear,” he cried; “the news is so good. You couldn’t leave poor Arthur, could you?”

“No!” she cried, with an angry little stamp, as she mentally upbraided him for tearing open the throbbing wound she was striving to heal. “You know I will not leave him.”

“I love and honour you for it more and more, my dear,” he cried. “But what do you think of this? Suppose we take him with us?”

“Take him with us?” said the little lady, slowly.

“Yes,” cried the doctor, excitedly; “take him with us, Mary – my darling wife that is to be. The chaplaincy of our settlement is vacant. Did you ever hear the like?”

Little Miss Rosebury could only stare at the excited doctor in a troubled way, for she understood him now, though her lips refused to speak.

“Yes, and I am one of the first to learn the news. I can work it, I feel sure, if he’ll come. Then only think; lovely climate, glorious botanical collecting trips for him! The land, too, whence Solomon’s ships brought gold, and apes, and peacocks. Ophir, Mary, Ophir! Arthur will be delighted.”

“Indeed!” said that lady wonderingly.

“Not a doubt about it, my dear. My own discovery. All live together! Happiness itself.”

“But Arthur is delicate,” she faltered. “The station is unhealthy.”

“Am not I there? Do I not understand your brother thoroughly? Oh! my dear Mary, do not raise obstacles in the way. It is fate. I know it is, in the shape of our Political Resident Harley. He came over with me, and goes back in the same boat. He has had telegrams from the station.”

“You – you take away my breath, doctor,” panted the little lady. “I must have time to think. Oh! no, no, no; it is impossible. Arthur would never consent to go.”

“If you will promise to be my wife, Mary, I’ll make him go!” cried the doctor, excitedly.

“No, no; he never would. He could not give up his position here, and I should not allow him. It would be too cruelly selfish on my part. It is impossible; it can never be.”

The next moment the doctor was alone, for Miss Rosebury had hurried out to go and sob passionately as a girl in her own room, waking up more and more, as she did, to the fact that she had taken the love distemper late in life; but it was none the weaker for being long delayed.

“It isn’t impossible, my dear,” chuckled the doctor, as he rubbed his hands; “and if I know anything of womankind, the darling little body’s mine. I hope she won’t think I want her bit of money, because I don’t.”

He took a turn up and down the room, rubbing his hands and smiling in a very satisfied way.

“I think I can work Master Arthur,” he said. “He’ll be delighted at the picture I shall paint him of our flora and fauna. It will be a treat for him, and we shall be as jolly as can be. We’ll see about duty and that sort of thing. Why, it will be a better post for him ever so much, and he’s a splendid old fellow.”

There was another promenade of the room, greatly to the endangerment of Miss Rosebury’s ornaments. Then the doctor slapped one of his legs loudly.

“Capital!” he cried. “What a grand thought. What a card to play! That will carry her by storm. I’ll play that card at our next interview; but gently, Bolter, my boy, don’t be in too great a hurry! She’s a splendid specimen, and you must not lose her by being precipitate; but, by Jove! what a capital thought – tell her it will be quite an act of duty to come with me and act a mother’s part to those two girls.”

“She’ll do it – she’ll do it,” he cried, after a pause, “for she quite loves little Grey, and a very nice little girl too. Then it will keep that dark beauty out of mischief, for hang me if I think I could get her over to her father disengaged, and so I told Harley yesterday.”

The doctor did knock off an ornament from a stand at his next turn up and down the room, breaking it right in two; and this brought him to his senses, as, full of repentance, he sought the Reverend Arthur Rosebury in his study to act as medium and confess his sin.

The Reverend Arthur had removed the butterflies and wild flowers from his hat by the time Dr Bolter reached him, and was walking slowly up and down the study with his hands clasped behind him.

There was a wrinkled look of trouble in his face.

As the doctor entered he smilingly placed a chair for his friend, and seemed to make an effort to get rid of the feeling of oppression that weighed him down.

Then they sat and talked of butterflies and birds for a time, fencing as it were, for somehow Dr Bolter felt nervous and ill at ease, shrinking from the task which he had set himself, while the Reverend Arthur, though burning to ask several questions upon a subject nearest his heart, shrank from so doing lest he should expose his wound to his friend’s inquisitorial eyes.

“I declare I’m as weak as a child,” said the doctor to himself, after making several vain attempts at beginning. “It’s dreadfully difficult work!” and he asked his friend if the lesser copper butterfly was plentiful in that district.

“No,” said the Reverend Arthur, “we have not chalk enough near the surface.”

Then there was a pause – a painful pause – during which the two old friends seemed to be fighting hard to break the ice that kept forming between them.

“I declare I’m much weaker than a child,” said the doctor to himself; and the subject was the next moment introduced by the Reverend Arthur, who, with a guilty aspect and look askant, both misinterpreted by the doctor, said, hesitatingly:

“Do you know for certain when you go away, Harry?”

“In three weeks, my boy, or a month at most, and there is no time to lose in foolish hesitation, is there?”

“No, of course not. You mean about the subject Mary named?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” cried the doctor, who was now very hot and excited. “You wouldn’t raise any objection, Arthur?”

“No, I think not, Harry. It would be a terrible loss to me.”

“It would – it would.”

“And I should feel it bitterly at first.”

“Of course – of course,” said the doctor, trying to speak; but his friend went on excitedly.

“Time back I could not have understood it; but I am not surprised now!”