The Tiger of Mysore: A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib, G. A. Henty [different e readers .txt] 📗

We shall stay here through the winter, and then we are going down to her place at Plymouth for the summer. What we shall do, afterwards, is not settled. That must depend upon a variety of things."

"She has grown much prettier than I ever thought she would do," Dick said. "Of course, I knew she would have grown into a woman, but somehow I never realised it, until I saw her, and I believe I have always thought of her as being still the girl I carried off from Seringapatam."

In a few minutes Annie joined them, and the talk then turned upon India, and many questions were asked as to their friends at Tripataly.

"I suppose by this time, Annie--at least, I hope I may still call you Annie?"

"If you call me anything else, I shall not answer," she said indignantly.

"Well, I was going to say, I suppose you have got a good deal beyond words of two letters, now?"

"I regard the question as an impertinent one. I have even mastered geography; the meaning of which word you may remember, you explained to me; and I have a partial knowledge of history."

The next day Dick met an old friend, Ben Birket. Dick had kept his promise, and had written to him as soon as he returned to Tripataly with his father, and a few weeks after Captain Holland's return, his old shipmate came to see him and his wife. Ben had for some time thought of retiring, and he now left the sea, and settled down in a little cottage near. Captain Holland insisted upon settling a small pension upon him, and he was always a welcome guest at the house. His delight at Dick's return was extreme.

"I never thought you would do it, Master Dick, never for a moment, and when on coming home I got your letter, and found that the Captain and your mother were in England, it just knocked me foolish for a bit."

Three weeks later, Dick told Annie that he loved her. He spoke without any circumlocution, merely taking her hand one evening, when they happened to be alone together, and telling her so in plain words.

"I know nothing of women, Annie," he said, "or their ways. I have been bothering myself how to set about it, but though I don't know how to put it, I do know that I love you dearly. All these years I have been thinking about you--not like this, you know, but as the dear, plucky little girl of the old days."

"The little girl of old days, Dick," she said quietly, "is in no way changed. I think you know what I thought of you, then. I have never for a moment wavered. I gave you all the love of my heart, and you have had it ever since.

"Why, you silly boy," she said, with a laugh, a few minutes later, "I had begun to think that, just as I had to ask you for a kiss in the old times, and again when you met me, I should have to take this matter in hand. Why, I never thought of anything else. Directly I got old enough to look upon myself as a woman, and young men began to come to the house, I said to my dear father:

"'It is of no use their coming here, Father. My mind has been made up for years, and I shall never change.'

"He knew at once what I meant.

"'I don't blame you, my dear,' he said. 'Of course, you are young at present, but he has won you fairly; and if he is at all like what you make him out to be, I could not leave you in better hands. He will be home in another three or four years, and I shall have the comfort of having you with me, until then. But you must not make too sure of it. He may fall in love out there. You know that there is plenty of society at Madras.'

"I laughed at the idea.

"'All the pretty ones either come out to be married, or get engaged on the voyage, or before they have been there a fortnight. I have no fear, Father, of his falling in love out there, though I don't say he might not when he gets home, for of course he thinks of me only as a little girl.'

"'Well, my dear,' he said, 'we will get him, and his father and mother, to come down as soon as he gets home. As you have made up your mind about it, it is only right that you should have the first chance.'

"It was not to be as he planned, Dick, but you see I have had the first chance, and it is well it was so, for no one can say how matters would have turned out, if I had not been on the spot. Do you know, Dick, I felt that when you rescued me from slavery, you became somehow straightway my lord and master. As you carried me that night before you, I said to myself I should always be your little slave; and you see, it has come quite true."

"I don't know about that, Annie. We are in England now, and there are no slaves. You will be the mistress now, and I your devoted servant."

"It will be as I say, Dick," she said tenderly. "I feel that, to the end of my life, I shall remain your willing slave."

There was nothing to prevent an early marriage. It was settled that Captain and Mrs. Holland should retain the house, which indeed they could well afford to do, and that Dick and Annie should reside there whenever they were in town, but that, as a rule, they would live at the estate her father had purchased, near Plymouth. Their means were ample, for during the eight years he was in the Service, Dick's 12,000 pounds had, as his father had predicted, doubled itself; and Annie's fortune was at least as large as his own.

Dick had good reason to bless, to the end of his life, his mother's plan; that had resulted in the double satisfaction of restoring his father to her, and in winning for himself the woman whom he ever regarded as the dearest and best wife in the world.