Miss Billy — Married. Eleanor H. PorterЧитать онлайн книгу.
mean—”
“Yes,” he nodded dully, without looking up. “I cared too much for her. I supposed Henshaw was just a friend—till too late.”
There was a breathless hush before, a little unsteadily, the girl stammered:
“Oh, I'm so sorry—so very sorry! I—I didn't know.”
“No, of course you didn't. I've almost told you, though, lots of times; you've been so good to me all these weeks.” He raised his head now, and looked at her, frank comradeship in his eyes.
The girl stirred restlessly. Her eyes swerved a little under his level gaze.
“Oh, but I've done nothing—n-nothing,” she stammered. Then, at the light tap of crutches on a bare floor she turned in obvious relief. “Oh, here's mother. She's been in visiting with Mrs. Delano, our landlady. Mother, Mr. Arkwright is here.”
Meanwhile, speeding north as fast as steam could carry them, were the bride and groom. The wondrousness of the first hour of their journey side by side had become a joyous certitude that always it was to be like this now.
“Bertram,” began the bride, after a long minute of eloquent silence.
“Yes, love.”
“You know our wedding was very different from most weddings.”
“Of course it was!”
“Yes, but really it was. Now listen.” The bride's voice grew tenderly earnest. “I think our marriage is going to be different, too.”
“Different?”
“Yes.” Billy's tone was emphatic. “There are so many common, everyday marriages where—where—Why, Bertram, as if you could ever be to me like—like Mr. Carleton is, for instance!”
“Like Mr. Carleton is—to you?” Bertram's voice was frankly puzzled.
“No, no! As Mr. Carleton is to Mrs. Carleton, I mean.”
“Oh!” Bertram subsided in relief.
“And the Grahams and Whartons, and the Freddie Agnews, and—and a lot of others. Why, Bertram, I've seen the Grahams and the Whartons not even speak to each other a whole evening, when they've been at a dinner, or something; and I've seen Mrs. Carleton not even seem to know her husband came into the room. I don't mean quarrel, dear. Of course we'd never quarrel! But I mean I'm sure we shall never get used to—to you being you, and I being I.”
“Indeed we sha'n't,” agreed Bertram, rapturously.
“Ours is going to be such a beautiful marriage!”
“Of course it will be.”
“And we'll be so happy!”
“I shall be, and I shall try to make you so.”
“As if I could be anything else,” sighed Billy, blissfully. “And now we can't have any misunderstandings, you see.”
“Of course not. Er—what's that?”
“Why, I mean that—that we can't ever repeat hose miserable weeks of misunderstanding. Everything is all explained up. I know, now, that you don't love Miss Winthrop, or just girls—any girl—to paint. You love me. Not the tilt of my chin, nor the turn of my head; but me.”
“I do—just you.” Bertram's eyes gave the caress his lips would have given had it not been for the presence of the man in the seat across the aisle of the sleeping-car.
“And you—you know now that I love you—just you?”
“Not even Arkwright?”
“Not even Arkwright,” smiled Billy.
There was the briefest of hesitations; then, a little constrainedly, Bertram asked:
“And you said you—you never had cared for Arkwright, didn't you?”
For the second time in her life Billy was thankful that Bertram's question had turned upon her love for Arkwright, not Arkwright's love for her. In Billy's opinion, a man's unrequited love for a girl was his secret, not hers, and was certainly one that the girl had no right to tell. Once before Bertram had asked her if she had ever cared for Arkwright, and then she had answered emphatically, as she did now:
“Never, dear.”
“I thought you said so,” murmured Bertram, relaxing a little.
“I did; besides, didn't I tell you?” she went on airily, “I think he'll marry Alice Greggory. Alice wrote me all the time I was away, and—oh, she didn't say anything definite, I'll admit,” confessed Billy, with an arch smile; “but she spoke of his being there lots, and they used to know each other years ago, you see. There was almost a romance there, I think, before the Greggorys lost their money and moved away from all their friends.”
“Well, he may have her. She's a nice girl—a mighty nice girl,” answered Bertram, with the unmistakably satisfied air of the man who knows he himself possesses the nicest girl of them all.
Billy, reading unerringly the triumph in his voice, grew suddenly grave. She regarded her husband with a thoughtful frown; then she drew a profound sigh.
“Whew!” laughed Bertram, whimsically. “So soon as this?”
“Bertram!” Billy's voice was tragic.
“Yes, my love.” The bridegroom pulled his face into sobriety; then Billy spoke, with solemn impressiveness.
“Bertram, I don't know a thing about—cooking—except what I've been learning in Rosa's cook-book this last week.”
Bertram laughed so loud that the man across the aisle glanced over the top of his paper surreptitiously.
“Rosa's cook-book! Is that what you were doing all this week?”
“Yes; that is—I tried so hard to learn something,” stammered Billy. “But I'm afraid I didn't—much; there were so many things for me to think of, you know, with only a week. I believe I could make peach fritters, though. They were the last thing I studied.”
Bertram laughed again, uproariously; but, at Billy's unchangingly tragic face, he grew suddenly very grave and tender.
“Billy, dear, I didn't marry you to—to get a cook,” he said gently.
Billy shook her head.
“I know; but Aunt Hannah said that even if I never expected to cook, myself, I ought to know how it was done, so to properly oversee it. She said that—that no woman, who didn't know how to cook and keep house properly, had any business to be a wife. And, Bertram, I did try, honestly, all this week. I tried so hard to remember when you sponged bread and when you kneaded it.”
“I don't ever need—yours,” cut in Bertram, shamelessly; but he got only a deservedly stern glance in return.
“And I repeated over and over again how many cupfuls of flour and pinches of salt and spoonfuls of baking-powder went into things; but, Bertram, I simply could not keep my mind on it. Everything, everywhere was singing to me. And how do you suppose I could remember how many pinches of flour and spoonfuls of salt and cupfuls of baking-powder went into a loaf of cake when all the while the very teakettle on the stove was singing: 'It's all right—Bertram loves me—I'm going to marry Bertram!'?”
“You darling!” (In spite of the man across the aisle Bertram did almost kiss her this time.) “As if anybody cared how many cupfuls of baking-powder went anywhere—with that in your heart!”
“Aunt Hannah says you will—when you're hungry. And Kate said—”
Bertram uttered a sharp word behind his teeth.
“Billy, for heaven's