Читать книгу Pretty Madcap Dorothy: or, How She Won a Lover - Libbey Laura Jean - Страница 6

How the hours passed up to luncheon time Dorothy never afterward realized, her foolish little heart was in such a flutter of excitement.

She knew she should meet Harry at the table, and oh! it would be so hard to pretend before Doctor Bryan and the stern, keen-eyed old housekeeper that they were strangers.

She had but two dresses as yet, which the housekeeper had provided her with, and she tried on each of them in succession to see which looked best on her.

Which should it be? The pale-blue merino or the rose-pink cashmere?

After much studying and slipping on and off, Dorothy decided upon wearing the rose-pink.

She was scarcely dressed ere the luncheon bell rang.

Taking up her handkerchief, Dorothy flew down the stairway, pausing before the doorway to catch her breath and to summon courage to enter.

But the longer she stood there the more difficult it seemed to get courage enough to open the door and face the music. At length she heard Doctor Bryan inquire surprisedly of Mrs. Kent:

"Where can Dorothy be, I wonder?"

And the next instant they heard a faint voice exclaim:

"Here I am, please."

And, turning to see from whence the sound proceeded, they all saw distinctly that the door was open the space of an inch, and that a human eye was applied to the crack, while four little fingers clutched it frantically to keep it open.

"Come in, Dorothy," commanded Mr. Bryan, inwardly highly amused at the girl's bashfulness in venturing in when she saw a stranger seated at the board.

Dorothy opened the door, stumbled over the mat, and, with a face red as a beet, walked awkwardly to the table and took her seat, which happened to be directly opposite Harry's.

She did not dare for the life of her to look at him, for she knew that his black eyes were bent upon her. She felt them scorching down into her soul.

"Dorothy," said Mr. Bryan, pompously, "allow me to present to you my young friend, Mr. Kendal."

"I am right glad to see him, sir," said Dorothy, faintly, without raising her eyes.

Noticing her embarrassment, Doctor Bryan quickly turned the conversation into another channel; but he soon observed that his young friend was looking at the girl across the table, almost convulsed with laughter.

It took but one glance that way to see the cause.

In her great confusion Dorothy was making dire efforts to eat her soup with a fork, catching occasionally a stray bean.

"Remove the soup plates!" roared the doctor to the servant who stood in waiting, and who was also grinning at the girl's discomfiture.

It was the most confusing meal that Dorothy had ever sat down to.

And when she arose from the table she was far hungrier than when she sat down.

She had scarcely eaten a good solid mouthful.

Oh, it was so hard to act out such a falsehood as handsome Harry had prevailed upon her to do.

During the fortnight that followed, she became more used to the situation, but it was no little wonder, both to the housekeeper and Doctor Bryan, what excellent friends they were getting to be in so short a time.

It could not be that they were falling in love with each other; and the doctor looked rather serious at the last thought.

As for Dorothy, it was quite a clear case; she was deeply in love with Harry Kendal. Like all girls, her day-dreams were rosy. It was so sweet to wander with him through the grand grounds surrounding Gray Gables, or sit in the sunshine in the clover meadow beyond, with the babbling brook at their feet, and the great branches of the oak trees over their heads, and listen to him while he read such sweet poems to her – poems of how some lover loved a lassie, and how bright was their future.

But still there was a change in him; he wasn't just like he used to be when she was only Dorothy Glenn, working for her living in the book-bindery. And just to show him that she did not notice the change, and did not care, she was so gay and hoidenish, so full of repartee and laughter, that she saw him open his eyes in wonder more than once; and Doctor Bryan gave her the soubriquet of "Madcap Dorothy," which seemed to suit her exactly.

There was no prank that could ever have entered a roguish girl's brain which she did not play upon Kendal.

This phase of her character rather annoyed Kendal than pleased him; and it seemed to him that she took a special delight in teasing him. She hid his slippers, slipped briars into his couch, turned tack-points upward in his lounging chairs, and substituted periodicals a month old for his morning journals and magazines, until he almost grew to detest her for becoming the torment of his life. Shrewd as he was in the ways of young girls, he did not know that this is the course which many a young girl pursues toward a young man with whom she has fallen in love, and would not have him know it for the whole world.

If there was anything which Kendal detested, it was a girl who was always on the lookout to turn every word and action into a joke. He preferred them modest and flower-like; still, he was in duty bound to treat her as well as he could because she was under that roof.

And there was another reason why he began to abhor Dorothy. Before her appearance on the scene, there had been a wild hope in his heart that some day he might possibly inherit a good portion of Doctor Bryan's money. For two years or more he had left no stone unturned to get into the old gentleman's good graces.

True, Dorothy was as much of a stranger to Doctor Bryan as he himself was, but who knew but that, by some freak of unlucky fate, he might take a notion to leave the girl all of his fortune? He wished to Heaven she had never crossed the threshold of Gray Gables.

At this turn of affairs it occurred to him that it would not be a bad idea to test the old gentleman's friendship for himself; and the greatest of all tests, he believed, was to borrow money from him. If Doctor Bryan refused this little favor, he reasoned to himself, all his hopes in regard to inheriting the old gentleman's money, in time to come, would be dashed. He would ask him for a small loan; and on the very day this occurred to him he proceeded to put it into execution, saying to himself:

He knew that he should find the doctor in his study directly after luncheon, and here he presented himself with some trepidation.

"Come in," called the doctor, in answer to his knock.

"Oh, it's you, is it, Harry?" he exclaimed, placing a chair for him, which the young man took rather awkwardly.

"It is not often I trouble you in your study, sir," began Harry, "but I have something of importance to say to you, and I beg that you will pardon the intrusion. I chose a time when we will be least apt to be interrupted."

"I wouldn't advise you to begin it if it will take long to tell," said Mr. Bryan, "for we might be interrupted at any moment. I am expecting an old friend, who is to accompany me on a horse-back ride. He ought to have been here by this time."

Harry fidgeted nervously about in his chair. It required something of an effort to make his request carelessly.

"You are the only one," he began, a little disconcertedly, "I feel sure, who can help me in my present dilemma."

The old doctor wheeled suddenly around in his chair, and all in an instant the object of the young man's visit flashed over his mind.

"To my mind he is come to tell me that he has fallen head over heels in love with little Dorothy, and wants to marry her;" and with the thought a broad smile crept up to the lips the white beard covered.

He had never been in love himself – but, for all that, he always sympathized with young folks in their tender affairs of the heart, and many a secret sigh escaped his lips for the lost opportunities of the past.

"Well," he began, brusquely, "why don't you proceed, my boy?"

"It is such a delicate matter," began Kendal, "that I scarcely know how to frame the words. You have always been so kind to me in the past, that the remembrance of it has led me to dare hope that your goodness will not desert me in the present emergency."

"Well," said the old gentleman, rather enjoying the young man's evident discomfiture, "pray go on."

"The boon I have to ask," began Kendal, "will either make or mar my future."

"Is it so bad as that?" returned the old gentleman with assumed innocence.

"You could never imagine what it is that I wish to ask," continued the young man.

"I might guess, perhaps," laughed the doctor, with a roguish twinkle in his eye.

"Surely you – you couldn't have noticed the one great wish of my heart," gasped Kendal. "I – "

At that moment the expected visitor was announced.

"Come and see me in my library this evening," said Doctor Bryan, grasping the young man's hand, "and we will talk over the matter you have so much at heart, and I will give you my answer in regard to it."

"You are too good, sir," cried Kendal, in bewilderment.

At that moment the entrance of the visitor put a stop to all further conversation, and Kendal arose and took his leave after an exchange of greetings.

"How could he possibly have divined that I was thinking of asking him for money?" he pondered.

He heard Dorothy singing at the top of her voice in the drawing-room, and he turned on his heel in the hallway, and walked in an opposite direction with a frown of impatience on his face.

Dorothy saw him pass the door, and she bit her lip with vexation.

"Of course he heard me playing on the piano, for I thumped as loud as ever I could; but he did not come in. It seems to me he is trying 'to cool off,' as we girls in the bindery used to say."

Dorothy tiptoed over to the window as she heard the front door slam after him, and if he had looked back he would have seen a very defiant though tear-stained face peering earnestly after him from behind the lace curtains.

Kendal walked disconsolately enough through the spacious grounds and out into the main road, little dreaming that a strange fate was drawing him onward with each step he took.

He had traveled a mile or more over the country road, when suddenly he was startled by the sound of horses' hoofs.

The next instant, from around the bend in the road, a horse dashed riderless, covered with foam, and so near him that he had to spring aside or its hoofs would have been buried in his brain. One glance, and a cry of horror broke from his lips. It was Doctor Bryan's horse.

Great God! where was he? Kendal realized that there had been a terrible accident, and that at that moment the doctor lay dying – perhaps dead – by the road-side.

In all haste he rushed down the road in the direction whence the horse had come, and around the first bend he beheld the prostrate figure of Doctor Bryan lying covered with dust, his friend bending over him.

In an instant he was by his side. One glance, and his worst fears were realized – the old gentleman had been mortally injured – he was dying. He held out his hand when he saw Kendal bending over him, and nodded assent as his companion briefly and hurriedly related how the terrible accident had come about.

"I was just about to go for you," said the friend. "The doctor has something to say to you. Surely it was the work of Providence that you happened along just now."

Kendal bent over the prostrate form.

"I – I am dying, Harry!" gasped the doctor; "but that – of which we were – talking – this – afternoon – is – uppermost – in – my – mind. You – you – wished – me – to – give my – consent – to – to – your – wooing – and wedding little – Dorothy. I – give – it – to you – here – and – now – with – my – blessing – for – I – know – she – cares – for you. Six months – from – to-day – at – noon – my – will – must be read; and on that day you – must marry her – if ever – aye – you must – be wedded – ere that noon-hour – shall have waned. Then – then – within that hour – you shall know – the contents of – my will; and – remember, too, that – it – is – irrevocable!"

Harry Kendal reeled back, like one dazed by an awful blow.

The suddenness of this affair had taken his breath away. But before he could raise his voice in protest, or utter one word of the terrible mistake which the old gentleman was laboring under, Doctor Bryan breathed his last, and he found himself betrothed, as it were, to Dorothy, and by the most terrible mistake that ever a man labored under.