I, Thou, and the Other One: A Love Story. Barr Amelia E.
a lovely girl may not be without danger.” The Duchess smiled at the supposition. A royal princess, in her estimation, was not above her son’s deserts and expectations; and the Squire’s little home-bred girl was beneath either her fears or her suppositions. This also was the tone in which she received all her son’s conversation about the Athelings. “Very nice people, I dare say, Piers,” she would remark; “and I am glad you have such thoroughly respectable companions; but you will, of course, forget them when you go to College, and begin your independent life.” And there was such an air of finality in these assertions that it was only rarely Piers had the spirit to answer, “Indeed, I shall never forget them!”
So it happened that the last few weeks of their friendship missed much of the easy familiarity and sweet confidence that had hitherto marked its every change. Kate, with the new consciousness of dawning womanhood, was shy, less frank, and less intimate. Strangers began to call her “Miss” Atheling; and there were hours when the little beauty’s airs of maidenly pride and reserve made Piers feel that any other address would be impertinent. And this change had come, no one knew how, only it was there, and not to be gainsaid; and every day’s events added some trifling look, or word, or act which widened the space between them, though the space itself was full of sweet and kindly hours.
Then there came a day in autumn when Kate was to leave her home for the York school. Edgar was already in Cambridge. Piers was to enter Oxford the following week. This chapter of life was finished; and the three happy souls that had made it, were to separate. Piers, who had a poetic nature, and was really in love–though he suspected it not–was most impressed with the passing away. He could not keep from Atheling, and though he had bid Kate “good-bye” in the afternoon, he was not satisfied with the parting. She had then been full of business: the Squire was addressing her trunks; Mrs. Atheling crimping the lace frill of her muslin tippets; and Kate herself bringing, one by one, some extra trifle that at the last moment impressed her with its necessity. It was in this hurry of household love and care that he had said “good-bye,” and he felt that it had been a mere form.
Perhaps Kate felt it also; for when he rode up to Atheling gates in the gloaming, he saw her sauntering up the avenue. He thought there was both melancholy and expectation in her attitude and air. He tied his horse outside, and joined her. She met him with a smile. He took her hand, and she permitted him to retain it. He said, “Kate!” and she answered the word with a glance that made him joyous, ardent, hopeful. He was too happy to speak; he feared to break the heavenly peace between them by a word. Oh, this is the way of Love! But neither knew the ways of Love. They were after all but children, and the sweet thoughts in their hearts had not come to speech. They wandered about the garden until the gloaming became moonlight, and they heard Mrs. Atheling calling her daughter. Then their eyes met, and, swift as the firing of a gun, their pupils dilated and flashed with tender feeling; over their faces rushed the crimson blood; and Piers said sorrowfully, “Kate! Sweet Kate! I shall never forget you!” He raised the hand he held to his lips, kissed it, and went hurriedly away from her.
Kate was not able to say a word, but she felt the kiss on her hand through all her sleep and dreams that night. Indeed five years of change and absence had not chilled its warm remembrance; there were hours when it was still a real expression, when the hand itself was conscious of the experience, and willingly cherished it. All through Cecil North’s visit, she had been aware of a sense of expectancy. Interested as she was in Edgar, the thought of Lord Exham would not be put down. For a short time it was held in abeyance; but when the early dinner was over, and she was in the solitude of her own room, Piers put Edgar out of consideration. As she sat brushing and dressing her long brown hair, she recalled little incidents concerning Piers,–how once in the harvest-field her hair had tumbled down, and Piers praised its tangled beauty; how he had liked this and the other dress; how he had praised her dancing, and vowed she was the best rider in the county. He had given her a little gold brooch for a Christmas present, and she took it from its box, and said to herself she would wear it, and see if it evoked its own memory in Exham’s heart.
It had been her intention to put on a white gown, but the day darkened and chilled; and then she had a certain shyness about betraying, even to her mother, her anxiety to look beautiful. Perhaps Piers might not now think her beautiful in any garb. Perhaps he had forgotten–everything. So, impelled by a kind of perverse indifference, she wore only the gray woollen gown that was her usual afternoon attire. But the fashion of the day left her lovely arms uncovered, and only veiled her shoulders in a shadowing tippet of lace. She fastened this tippet with the little gold brooch, just where the folds crossed the bosom. She had hastened rather than delayed her dressing; and when Mrs. Atheling came downstairs in her afternoon black silk dress, she found Kate already in the parlour. She had taken from her work-box a piece of fine cambric, and was stitching it industriously; and Mrs. Atheling lifted her own work, and began to talk of Edgar, and Edgar’s great fortune, and what his father would say about it. This subject soon absorbed her; she forgot everything in it; but Kate heard through all the radical turmoil of the conversation the gallop of a strange horse on the gravelled avenue, and the echo of strange footsteps on the flagged halls of the house.
In the middle of some grand prophecy for Edgar’s future, the parlour door was opened, and Lord Exham entered. He came forward with something of his boyhood’s enthusiasm, and took Mrs. Atheling’s hands, and said a few words of pleasant greeting, indistinctly heard in the fluttering gladness of Mrs. Atheling’s reception. Then he turned to Kate. She had risen, but she held her work in her left hand. He took it from her, and laid it on her work-box, and then clasped both her hands in his. The firm, lingering pressure had its own eloquence. In matters of love, they who are to understand, do understand; and no interpreter is needed.
The conversation then became general and full of interest; but from Oxford, and France, and Italy, it quickly drifted–as all conversation did in those days–to Reform. And Mrs. Atheling could not keep the news that had come to her that day. She magnified Edgar with a sweet motherly vanity that was delightful, and to which Piers listened with pleasure; for the listening gave him opportunity to watch Kate’s eloquent face, and to flash his sympathy into it. He thought her marvellously beautiful. Her shining hair, her rich colouring, and her large gray eyes were admirably emphasised by the homely sweetness of her dress. After the lavish proportions, and gaily attired women of Italy, nothing could have been more enchanting to Piers Exham than Kate’s subdued, gray-eyed loveliness, clad in gray garments. The charming background of her picturesque home added to this effect; and this background he saw and realised; but she had also a moral background of purity and absolute sincerity which he did not see, but which he undoubtedly felt.
While Piers was experiencing this revelation of womanhood, it was not likely Kate was without impressions. In his early youth, Exham had a slight resemblance to Lord Byron; and he had been vain of the likeness, and accentuated it by adopting the open collar, loose tie, and other peculiarities of the poetic nobleman. Kate was glad to see this servile imitation had been discarded. Exham was now emphatically individual. He was not above medium height; but his figure was good, and his manner gentle and courteous, as the manner of all superior men is. Grave and high-bred, he had also much of the melancholy, mythical air of an English nobleman, conscious of long antecedents, and dwelling in the seclusion of shaded parks, and great houses steeped in the human aura of centuries. His hair was very black, and worn rather long, and his complexion, a pale bronze; but this lack of red colouring added to the fascination of his dark eyes, which were remarkable for that deep glow always meaning mental or moral power of some kind. They were often half shut–and then–who could tell what was passing behind them? And yet, when all this had been observed by Kate, she was sure that something–perhaps the most essential part–had escaped her.
This latter estimate was the correct one. No one as yet had learned the heart or mind of Piers Exham. It is doubtful if he understood his own peculiarities; for he had few traits of distinctive pre-eminence, his character being very like an opal, where all colours are fused and veiled in a radiant dimness. So that, after all, this meeting was a first meeting; and Kate did not feel that the past offered her any intelligible solution of the present man.
The conversation having drifted to Edgar and Reform, stayed there. Lord Exham spoke with a polite, but stubborn emphasis in favour of his own caste, as the governing caste, and thought that the honour and welfare of England