Greatheart, Ethel May Dell [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

said, "Biddy, darling, I can't think what ever I'd do without you!"

Biddy uttered a sharp sob, and gathered her close. But in a moment, half-angrily, "And what is it that I'd be crying for at all?" she said. "Isn't my dear Miss Isabel safer with the Almighty than ever she was with me? Isn't she gone to the blessed saints in Paradise? And would I have her back? No, no! I'm not that selfish, Miss Dinah. I'm an old woman moreover, and be the same token me own time can't be so far off now."

But Dinah clung faster to her. "Please, Biddy, please—don't talk like that! I want you," she said.

"Ah, bless the dear lamb!" said Biddy, and tenderly kissed the upturned, pleading face. "Miss Isabel said ye would now. But when ye've got Master Scott to take care of ye, it's not old Biddy that ye'll be wanting any longer."

"I shall," Dinah vowed. "I shall. I shall always want my Biddy."

"And may the Lord Almighty bless ye for the word!" said Biddy.

When Dinah was dressed, a great shyness fell upon her, born partly of the still mystery of the presence of Death that wrapped the little house. She stood by the window of her room, looking forth, irresolute, over the evening sea.

The blinds were drawn only in the room of Death, for Scott had so decreed, and the air blew in sweet and fresh from the rippling water.

After a few minutes, Biddy came softly up behind her. "And is it himself ye're looking for, mavourneen?" she murmured at Dinah's shoulder.

Dinah started a little and flushed. She wondered if Biddy knew all or only guessed. "I don't know—what to do," she said rather confusedly.

Biddy gave her a quick, wise look. "Will I tell ye a secret, Miss Dinah dear?" she whispered.

Dinah looked at her. The old woman's face was full of shrewd understanding. "Yes, tell me!" she said somewhat breathlessly.

Biddy's brown hand grasped her arm. "Master Scott went to town this morning," she said. "He'll be back any minute now. Sir Eustace is downstairs. He wants to see ye—to tell ye something—before Master Scott gets back."

"Oh, what—what?" gasped Dinah.

"There, now, there! Don't ye be afraid!" said Biddy, her beady eyes softening. "It's something ye'll like. Master Scott—he's not the gentleman to make ye do anything ye don't want to do. Don't ye trust him, Miss Dinah?"

"Of course—of course," Dinah said, with trembling lips.

"Then ye've nothing to be afraid of," said Biddy wisely. "Faith, it's only the marriage-licence he's been to fetch!"

"Oh—Biddy!" Dinah wheeled from the window, with both her hands over her heart.

Biddy nodded with grave triumph. "It was Sir Eustace made him go. Master Scott—he didn't think it would be dacent, not at first. But, as Sir Eustace said, there's more ways than one of being ondacent, and after all it was the dearest wish of Miss Isabel's heart. 'Don't you be a conventional fool!' he said. And for once I agreed with him," said Biddy naïvely, "though I think he needn't have used bad language over it."

"Oh—Biddy!" Dinah said again, and then very oddly she began to smile, and the tension went out of her attitude. She kissed the wrinkled cheek, and turned. "I think perhaps I will go down and speak to Sir Eustace," she said.

She went quickly, aware that if she suffered herself to pause, that overpowering shyness would seize upon her again.

Guided by the scent of cigarette-smoke, she entered the dining-room. Sir Eustace was seated at a writing-table near the window. He looked up swiftly at her entrance.

"Awake at last!" he said, and would have risen with the words, but she reached him first and checked him.

"Eustace! Oh, Eustace!" she said. "I—I—Biddy has just told me—"

He frowned, as she stopped in confusion, steadying herself rather piteously against his shoulder. But in a moment, seeing her agitation, he put a kindly arm around her.

"Biddy is an old fool—always was. Don't take any notice of her! What a ferment you're in, child! What's the matter? There, sit down!"

He drew her down on to the arm of his chair, and she leaned against him, striving for self-control.

"You—you are so—so much too good," she murmured.

He smiled rather grimly. "No one ever accused me of that before! Was that the staggering piece of information that Biddy has imparted to you?"

"No," she said, a fleeting smile upon her awn face. "It was—it was—about Scott. It took my breath away,—that's all."

"That all?" said Eustace with a faintly wry lift of one eyebrow.

She slipped a shy arm around his neck. "Eustace, do you—do you think
I—ought to let Scott marry me?"

"I'm quite sure you'll break his heart if you don't," responded Eustace.

"Oh, I couldn't do that!" she said quickly.

"No. I shouldn't if I were you. It isn't a very amusing game for anyone concerned." Sir Eustace took up his pen with his free hand. "He's rather a good chap, you know," he said, "beastly good sometimes. He'll take a little living up to. But you'll manage that, I daresay. When he told me how things stood between you, I saw directly that there was only one thing to be done, and I made him do it. The idea is to get you married before the nurse goes, and she is off to-morrow." He paused, looking at her critically, and again half-cynically, half-sadly, smiled. "You took that well," he said. "If it had been to me, you'd have jumped sky-high. You're a wise little creature, Dinah. You've chosen the best man, and you'll never be sorry. I congratulate you on your choice."

He turned his face fully to her, and she stooped swiftly and kissed him.
"I'm—dreadfully sorry I—treated you so badly first," she whispered.

"You needn't be," he said. "It did me good. You showed me myself from a point of view that I had never taken before. You taught me to be human. I told Isabel so. She—poor girl—" he stopped a second, and she saw that momentarily he was moved; but he continued almost at once—"she was grateful to you too," he said. "You removed the outer crust at a single stroke—just in time to prevent atrophy. Of course," he glanced down at the letter under his hand, "it was a more or less painful process, but it may comfort you to know that it didn't go quite so deep with me as I thought it had at the time. There's no sense in crying over spilt milk anyhow. I never was that sort of ass. You may—or may not—be pleased to hear that I am already well on the way to consolation." He lifted his eyes suddenly with an expression in them that completely baffled her. It was almost as if he had detached himself for the moment from all participation in his own doings, contemplating them with a half-pathetic irony. "Shall I tell you what I was doing when you came in just now?" he said. "I was writing to the girl you nearly sacrificed your happiness to cut out."

"Rose de Vigne?" she said quickly.

He nodded. "Yes, Rose de Vigne" He paused for a second, just a second; then: "The girl I am going to marry," he said quietly.

"Oh, Eustace!" There was no mistaking the gladness in Dinah's tone. "I am pleased!" she said earnestly. "I know you will be happy together. You were simply made for each other."

He smiled, still in that strange, half-rueful fashion. "I am doing the best I can under the circumstances. It is kind of you to be pleased. But now once more to your affairs. They are more pressing than mine just now. It may interest you to know that Scott—although under Isabel's will he is made absolutely independent of me—is willing to live at the Dower House, if that arrangement meets with your approval."

"Of course—I shall love it," Dinah said.

"I am glad of that, for it will be a great help to me to have him there. You will be able to have Billy to stay with you in the holidays and roam about as you like. Scott is making all sorts of plans. I am going to settle the place on him as a wedding-present."

"Oh, Eustace! How kind! What a lovely gift!"

Sir Eustace smiled at her. "I am giving him more than that, Dinah. I am giving him his wife and—the wedding-ring." The irony was uppermost again, but it held no sting. "It will fit no other hand but yours, and it will serve to keep you in constant remembrance of your good luck. I can hear him coming up the path. Aren't you going to meet him?"

She sprang up like a startled fawn. "Oh, I can't—I can't meet him yet," she said desperately.

There was a curious glint in Eustace's eyes as he watched her, a flash of mockery that came and went.

"What?" he said. "Do you want me to help you to run away from him now?"

She looked at him quickly, and in a moment her hesitation was gone.

"Oh, no!" she said. "No!" and with a little breathless sound that might have been a tremor of laughter, she fled away from him out into the evening sunshine to meet her lover.

CHAPTER XXIX THE SEVENTH HEAVEN

They were married in the early morning at the little old church that had nestled for centuries among its trees in the village on the cliff. The absolute simplicity of the service deprived it of all terrors for Dinah. Standing with Scott in the glow of sunlight that smote full upon them through the mellow east window, she could not feel afraid. The whole world was so bright, so full of joy.

"Do you think Isabel can see us now?" she whispered to him, as they rose together from kneeling before the altar.

He did not answer her in words, but his pale eyes were shining with that steadfast light of the spirit which she had come to know. She wished she could have knelt there by his side a little longer. They seemed to be so near to the Gates of Heaven.

But they were not alone, and they could not linger. Sir Eustace who had given her away, Biddy who had tenderly supported her, the nurse who carried the fragrant bouquet of honeysuckle—the bond of love—which she had herself gathered for the bride, all were waiting to draw them back to earth again; and with Scott's hand clasping hers she turned regretfully and left the holy place.

Later, when Sir Eustace kissed her with the careless observation that he always kissed a bride, she had a moment of burning shyness, and she would gladly have hidden her face. But Scott did not kiss her. He had not offered to do so since that wonderful moment when he had first held her against his heart. He had not attempted to make love to her, and she had not felt the need of it. Grave and practical, he had laid his plans before her, and with the supreme confidence that he had always inspired in her she had acquiesced to all.

At his desire she had refrained from entering Isabel's death-chamber. At his desire she was to leave that day for the Dower House that was to be their home. Biddy would accompany her thither. The place was ready for occupation, for by Isabel's wish the work had gone on, though both she and Scott had known that they would never share a home there. It almost seemed as if she had foreseen the fulfilment of her earnest wish. And here Dinah was to await her husband.

"I won't come to you till the funeral is over," he said to her. "I must be with Eustace. You won't be unhappy?"

No, she would not be unhappy. She had never been so near to Death before, but she was neither frightened nor dismayed. She stood in the shadow indeed, but she looked forth from it over a world of such sunshine as filled her heart with quivering gladness.

He did not want her to attend the funeral at Willowmount, would not, if he could help it, suffer her so much as to see the trappings of woe; and in this Dinah acquiesced also, comprehending fully the motive that underlay his wish. She knew that the earthly formalities, though they had to be faced, were to Scott something of the nature of a grim farce in which, while he could not escape