Far Above Rubies, George MacDonald [open ebook txt] 📗

of it till afterwards."

"I dare say your mother would have been glad of the money herself; I understand she was not left very well off."

"At that time I did not know she was so poor. But now that my mistress has paid me such good wages, I am going to take her every penny of them this very afternoon."

"And then you will tell her, will you not?"

"I shall not mind telling her when you have taken it back. I was afraid to tell her before! It was to pay you back that I asked Mrs. Macintosh to take me for parlor-maid."

"Then you were not in service before?"

"No, sir. You see, my mother thought I could earn my bread in a way we should both like better."

"So now you will give up service and go back to her?"

"I am not sure, sir. It would be long, I fear, before the school would pay me as well. You see, I have my food here too. And everything tells. Please, sir, take the pound."

"My dear girl," said her master, "I could not think of depriving you of what you have so well earned. It is more than enough to me that you want to repay it. I positively cannot take it."

"Indeed, I do want to repay it, sir," rejoined Annie. "It's anything but willing I shall be not to repay it. Indeed, there is no other way to get my soul free."

Here it seems time I should mention that Hector, weary of waiting Annie's return, had left the dining room to look for her; and running up the stair, not without the dread of hearing his mother's foot behind him, had slid softly into his father's room, to find Annie on her knees before him, and hear enough to understand her story before either his father or she was aware of his presence.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but indeed you must take it," urged Annie. "Surely you would not be so cruel to a poor girl who prays you to take the guilt off her back. Don't you see, sir, I never can look my father in the face till I have paid the money back!"

Here his father caught sight of Hector, and, perceiving that Annie had not yet seen him, and possibly glad of a witness, put up his hand to him to keep still. "Where is your father, then?" he asked Annie.

"In heaven somewhere," she answered, "waiting for my mother and me. Oh, father!" she broke out, "if only you had been alive you would soon have got me out of my shame and misery! But, thank God! it will soon be over now; my master cannot refuse to set me free."

"Certainly I will set you free," said Mr. Macintosh, a good deal touched. "With all my heart I forgive you the-the-the debt, and I thank you for bringing me to know the honestest girl-I mean, the most honorable girl I have ever yet had the pleasure to meet."

Hector had been listening, hardly able to contain his delight, and at these last words of his father, like the blundering idiot he was, he rushed forward, and, clasping Annie to his heart, cried out:

"Thank God, Annie, my father at least knows what you are!"

He met with a rough and astounding check. Far too startled to see who it was that thus embraced her, and unprepared to receive such a salutation, least of all from one she had hitherto regarded as the very prince of gentleness and courtesy, she met it with a sound, ringing box on the ear, which literally staggered Hector, and sent his father into a second peal of laughter, this time as loud as it was merry, and the next moment swelled in volume by that of Hector himself.

"Thank you, Annie!" he cried. "I never should have thought you could hit so hard. But, indeed, I beg your pardon. I forgot myself and you too when I behaved so badly. But I'm not sorry, father, after all, for that box on the ear has got me over a difficult task, and compelled me to speak out at once what has been long in my mind, but which I had not the courage to say. Annie," he went on, turning to her, and standing humbly before her, "I have long loved you; if you will do me the honor to marry me, I am yours the moment you say so."

But Annie's surprise and the hasty act she had committed in the first impulse of defense had so reacted upon her in a white dismay that she stood before him speechless and almost ready to drop. Awakening from what was fast growing a mere dream of offense to the assured consciousness of another offense almost as flagrant, she stared as if she had suddenly opened her eyes on a whole Walpurgisnacht of demons and witches, while Hector, recovering from his astonishment to the lively delight of having something to pretend at least to forgive Annie, and yielding to sudden Celtic impulse, knelt at her feet, seized her hand, which she had no power to withdraw from him, covered it with eager kisses and placed it on his head. Little more would have made him cast himself prone before her, lift her foot, and place it on his neck.

But his father brought a little of his common sense to the rescue.

"Tut, Hector!" he said; "give the lass time to come to her senses. Would you woo her like a raving maniac? I don't, indeed, wonder, after what you heard her tell me, that you should have taken such a sudden fancy to her; but-"

"Father," interrupted Hector, "it is no fancy-least of all a sudden one! I fell in love with Annie the very first time I saw her waiting at table. It is true I did not understand what had befallen me for some time; but I do, and I did from the first, and now forever I shall both love and worship Annie!"

"Mr. Hector," said Annie, "it was too bad of you to listen. I did not know anyone was there but your father. You were never intended to hear; and I did not think you would have done such a dishonorable thing. It was not like you, Mr. Hector!"

How was I to know you had secrets with my father, Annie? Dishonorable or not, the thing is done, and I am glad of it-especially to have heard what you had no intention of telling me."

"I could not have believed it of you, Mr. Hector!" persisted Annie.

"But, now that I think of it," suggested Mr. Macintosh, "may not your mother think she has something to say in the matter between you?"

This was a thought already dawning upon her that terrified Annie; she knew, indeed, perfectly how his mother would regard Hector's proposal, and she dared not refer the matter to her decision.

"I must be out of the house first, Mr. Hector," she said-and I think she meant-"before I confess my love."

The impression Annie had made upon her master may be judged from the fact that he rose and went, leaving his son and the parlor-maid together.

What then passed between them I cannot narrate precisely. Overwhelmed by Hector's avowal, and quite unprepared as she had been for it, it was yet no unwelcome news to Annie. Indeed, the moment he addressed her, she knew in her heart that she had been loving him for a long time, though never acknowledging to herself the fact. Such must often be the case between two whom God has made for each other. And although he were a bold man who said that marriages were made in heaven, he were a bolder who denied that love at first sight was never there decreed. For where God has fitted persons for each other, what can they do but fall mutually in love? Who will then dare to say he did not decree that result? As to what may follow after from their own behavior, I would be as far from saying that was not decreed as from saying the conduct itself was decreed. Surely there shall be room left, even in the counsels of God, for as much liberty as belongs to our being made in his image-free like him to choose the good and refuse the evil! He who has chosen the good remains in the law of liberty, free to choose right again. He who always chooses the right, will at length be free to choose like God himself, for then shall his will itself be free. Freedom to choose and freedom of the will are two different conditions.

Before the lovers, which it wanted no moment to make them, left the room, they had agreed that Annie must at once leave the house. Hector took her to her mother's door, and when he returned he found that his father and mother had retired. But it may be well that I should tell a little more of what had passed between the lovers before they parted.

Annie's first thought when they were left together was, "Alas! what will my mistress say? She must think the worst possible of me!"

"Oh, Hector!" she broke out, "whatever will your mother think of me?"

"No good, I'm afraid," answered Hector honestly. "But that is hardly what we have to think of at this precise moment."

"Take back what you said!" cried Annie; "I will promise you never to think of it again-at least, I will try never once to do so. It must have been all my fault-though I do not know how, and never dreamed it was coming. Perhaps I shall find out, when I think over it, where I was to blame."

"I have no doubt you are capable of inventing a hundred reasons-after hearing your awful guilty confession to my father, you little innocent!" answered Hector.

And the ice thus broken, things went on a good deal better, and they came to talk freely.

"Of course," said Hector, "I am not so silly or so wicked as to try to persuade you that my mother will open her arms to you. She knows neither you nor herself."

"Will she be terribly angry?" said Annie, with a foreboding quaver in her voice.

"Rather, I am afraid," allowed Hector.

"Then don't you think we had better give it up at once?"

"Never forever!" cried Hector. "That is not what I fell in love with you for! I will not give you up even for Death himself! He is not the ruler of our world. No lover is worthy of the name who does not defy Death and all his works!"

"I am not afraid of him, Hector. I, too, am ready to defy him. But is it right to defy your mother?"

"It is, when she wants one to be false and dishonorable. For herself, I will try to honor her as much as she leaves possible to me. But my mother is not my parents."

"Oh, please, Hector, don't quibble. You would make me doubt you!"

"Well, we won't argue about it. Let us wait to hear what your mother will say to it to-morrow, when I come to see you."

"You really will come? How pleased my mother will be!"

"Why, what else should I do? I thought you were just talking of the honor we owe to our parents! Your mother is mine too."