University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
SHOWING HOW IT HAPPENED.

LUCY had insisted that she did not care to go to
Saratoga. She preferred remaining in Hanover,
where it was cool and quiet, and where she
would not have to dress three times a day and dance
every night until twelve. She was beginning to find that
there was something to live for besides consulting one's
own pleasure, and she meant to do good the rest of her
life, she said, assuming such a sober, nun-like air, that
no one who saw her could fail to laugh, it was so at variance
with her entire nature. But Lucy was in earnest.
Hanover had a greater attraction for her than all the
watering-places in the world, and she was very grateful
when Fanny threw her influence on her side and so
turned the scale in her favor.

Fanny was glad to leave her dangerous cousin at home,
especially after Mr. Bellamy decided to join their party
at Saratoga; and as she carried great weight with both
her parents it was finally decided to let Lucy remain at
Prospect Hill in peace, and one morning in July she saw
the family depart without a single feeling of regret that

she was not of their number. She had far too much on
her hands to spend her time in regretting anything:
there was the parish school to visit, and a class of children
to hear, children who were no longer ragged, for
Lucy's money had been expended till even Arthur had
remonstrated with her, and read her a long lecture on the
subject of misapplied charity. Then there was Widow
Hobbs waiting for the jelly which Lucy had promised,
and for the chapter which Lucy now read to her, sitting
where she could watch the road and see just who turned
the corner, her voice always sounding a little more serious
and good when the footsteps belonged to Arthur
Leighton, and her eyes always glancing at the bit of a
cracked mirror on the wall, to see that her dress and
hair and ribbons were right before Arthur came in. It
was a very pretty sight to see her thus and hear her as
she read to the poor, whose surroundings she had so
greatly improved; and Arthur always smiled gratefully
upon her, and then walked back with her to Prospect
Hill, where he lingered while she played or talked to
him, or brought the luscious fruits with which the garden
abounded.

This was Lucy's life, which she preferred to Saratoga,
and they left her to enjoy it, somewhat to Arthur's discomfiture,
for, much as he valued her society, he would
rather she had gone where the Hethertons did, for he could
not be insensible to the remarks which were being made by

the curious villagers, who watched this new flirtation, as
they called it, and wondered if their minister had forgotten
Anna Ruthven. He had not forgotten her, and many a
time was her loved name upon his lips and a thought of
her in his heart, while he never returned from an interview
with Lucy that he did not contrast the two, and
sigh for the olden time when Anna was his coworker instead
of pretty Lucy Harcourt. And yet there was about
the latter a powerful fascination which he found it hard
to resist. It rested him just to look at her, she was so
fresh, so bright, and so beautiful; and then she flattered
his self-love by the unbounded deference she paid to his
opinions, studying all his tastes and bringing her will into
perfect subjection to his, until she could scarcely be
said to have a thought or feeling which was not a reflection
of his own. And so the flirtation, which at first had
been a one-sided affair, began to assume a more serious
form, and the rector went oftener to Prospect Hill, while
the Hetherton carriage stood daily at the gate of the parsonage,
and people talked and gossiped, until Captain
Humphreys, Anna's grandfather, concluded it was his duty
as senior warden of St. Mark's, to talk with the young
rector and know “what his intentions were.”

“You have none?” he said, fixing his mild eyes reproachfully
upon his clergyman, who recoiled a little beneath
the gaze. “Then, if you have no intentions, my
advice to you is that you quit it and let the gal alone, or

you'll ruin her, if she ain't spoilt already, as some of the
women folks say she is. It don't do no gal any good to
have a chap, and 'specially a minister, gallivantin' after
her, as I must say you've been after this one for the last
few weeks. She's a pretty little creeter, and I don't
blame you for liking her. It makes my old blood stir
faster when she comes purring around me, with her soft
ways and winsome face, and so I don't wonder at you, but
when you say you've no intentions, I blame you greatly.
You or'to have. Excuse my plainness; I'm an old
man, and I like my minister, and don't want him to go
wrong; and then I feel for her, left all alone by all her
folks; more's the shame to them, and more's the harm to
you, to tangle up her affections as you are doing if you
are not in earnest; and so I speak for her just as I should
want some one to speak for Anna!”

The old man's voice trembled a little here, for it had
been a wish of his that Anna should occupy the parsonage,
and he had at first felt a little resentment against the
gay young creature who seemed to have supplanted her,
but he was over that now, and in all honesty of heart he
spoke both for Lucy's interest and that of his clergyman.
And Arthur listened to him respectfully, feeling when he
was gone that he merited the rebuke,—that he had not
been guiltness in the matter,—that if he did not mean to
marry Lucy Harcourt he should let her alone. And he
would, he said,—he would not go to Prospect Hill again

for two whole weeks, nor visit at the cottages where he
was sure to find her; he would keep himself at home; and
he did, and shut himself up among his books, not even
going to make a pastoral call on Lucy when he heard
that she was sick. And so Lucy came to him, looking
dangerously charming in her blue riding-habit with the
white feather streaming from her hat. Very prettily she
pouted, too, as she chided him for his neglect, and asked
why he had not been to see her nor anybody;—there
was the Widow Hobbs, and Mrs. Briggs, and those miserable
Donelsons, whom he had not been near for a fortnight.

“What is the reason?” she asked, beating her foot
upon the carpet and tapping the end of her riding-whip
upon the sermon he was writing. “Are you displeased
with me, Arthur,” she continued, her eyes filling with
tears as she saw the expression of his face. “Have I
done anything wrong; I am so sorry if I have.”

Her voice had in it the grieved tones of a little child,
and her eyes were very bright with the tears quivering
on her long eyelashes. Leaning back in his chair, with
his hands clasped behind his head, a position he usually
assumed when puzzled and perplexed, the rector looked
at her a moment before he spoke. He could not define
to himself the nature of the interest he took in Lucy
Harcourt. He admired her greatly, and the self-denials
and generous exertions she had made to be of use to him

since Anna went away, had touched a tender chord and
made her seem very near to him. Habit with him was
everything, and the past two weeks' isolation had shown
him how necessary she had become to him. She did not
satisfy his higher wants as Anna Ruthven had done. No
one could ever do that, but she amused and soothed and
rested him, and made his duties lighter by taking half of
them upon herself. That she was more attached to him
than he could wish he greatly feared, for since Captain
Humphreys' visit he had seen matters differently from
what he saw them before, and had unsparingly questioned
himself as to how far he would be answerable for
her future weal or woe.

“Guilty, verily I am guilty in leading her on if I
meant nothing by it,” he had written against himself,
pausing in his sermon to write it just as Lucy came in,
appealing to him to know why he had neglected her so
long.

She was very beautiful this morning, and Arthur felt
his heart beat rapidly as he looked at her, and thought
any man who had not known Anna Ruthven would
be glad to gather that bright creature in his arms and
know she was his own. One long, long sigh to the memory
of all he had hoped for once,—one bitter pang as
he remembered Anna and that twilight hour in the
church, and then he made a mad plunge in the dark and
said:

“Lucy, do you know people are beginning to talk
about my seeing you so much?”

“Well, let them talk; who cares?” Lucy replied, with
a good deal of asperity of manner for her, for that very
morning the house-keeper at Prospect Hill had ventured
to remonstrate with her for “running after the parson.”
“Pray where is the wrong? What harm can come of
it?”

“None, perhaps,” Arthur replied, “if one could
keep their affections under control. But if either of us
should learn to love the other very much and the love
was not reciprocated, harm would surely come of that.
At least that was the view Captain Humphreys took of
the matter when he was speaking to me about it.”

There were red spots on Lucy's face, but her lips were
very white and the buttons on her riding-dress rose and
fell rapidly with the beating of her heart as she looked
steadily at Arthur. Was he going to send her from him,
—back to the insipid life she had lived before she knew
him? It was too terrible to believe, and the great tears
rolled slowly down her cheeks. Then as a flash of pride
came to her aid, she dashed them away and said to him
haughtily:

“And so for fear I shall fall in love with you, you are
sacrificing both comfort and freedom, and shutting yourself
up with your books and studies to the neglect of
other duties. But it need be so no longer. The necessity

for it, if it existed once, certainly does not now. I
will not be in your way; forgive me that I ever have
been.”

Lucy's voice began to tremble as she gathered up her
riding-habit and turned to find her gauntlets. One of
them had dropped upon the floor between the table and
the rector, and as she stooped to reach it her curls almost
swept the young man's lap.

“Let me get it for you,” he said, hastily pushing back
his chair and awkwardly entangling his foot in her long
sweeping dress, so that when she arose she stumbled backward
and would have fallen, but for the arm he quickly
passed around her.

Something in the touch of that quivering form completed
the work of temptation, and he held it for an instant,
when she said to him pettishly:

“Please let me go, sir.”

“No, Lucy, I can't let you go. I want you to stay
with me.”

Instantly the drooping head was uplifted, and Lucy's
eyes looked into his with such a wistful, pleading, wondering
look that Arthur saw or thought he saw his duty
plain, and gently touching his lips to the brow glistening
so white within their reach, he continued:

“There is a way to stop the gossip and make it right
for me to see you. Promise to be my wife, and not even
Captain Humphreys can say aught against it.”

Arthur's voice trembled now, for the mention of Captain
Humphreys had brought a thought of Anna, whose
eyes seemed for an instant to look reproachfully upon
that wooing. But he had gone too far to retract; he had
only to wait for Lucy's answer. There was no deception
about her; hers was a nature as clear as crystal, and with
a gush of glad tears she promised to be the rector's wife;
and hiding her face on his bosom, told him, brokenly,
how unworthy she was of him; how foolish, and how unsuited
to the place, but promising to do the best she
could not to bring him into disgrace on account of her
shortcomings.

“With the knowledge that you love me I can do anything,”
she said, and her white hand crept slowly into the
cold, clammy one which lay so listlessly on Arthur's
lap.

He was already repenting, for he felt that it was sin
to take that warm, trusting, loving heart in exchange for
the cold, half lifeless one he should render in return, and
in which scarcely a pulse of joy was beating, even though
he held his promised wife; and she was fair and beautiful
as ever promised wife could be.

“But I can make her happy, and I will,” he thought,
pressing the warm fingers which quivered to his touch.

But he did not kiss her again; he could not for the
eyes, which still seemed looking at him and asking what
he did. There was a strange spell about those phantom

eyes, and they made him say to Lucy, who was now sitting
demurely at his side:

“I could not clear my conscience if I did not confess
that you are not the first woman whom I have asked to
be my wife.”

There was a start, and Lucy's face was pale as ashes,
while her hand went quickly to her side, where the heartbeats
were visible, warning Arthur to be careful how he
startled one whose life hung on so slender a thread as
Lucy's; so, when she asked, “Who was it, and why did
you not marry her? Did you love her very much?” he
answered indifferently, “I would rather not tell you who
it was, as that might be a breach of confidence. She did
not care to be my wife, and so that dream was over and
I was left for you.”

He did not say how much he loved her who had discarded
him, but Lucy forgot the omission, and asked,
“Was she very young and pretty?”

“Young and pretty both, but not as beautiful as you,”
Arthur replied, his fingers softly putting back the golden
curls from the face looking so trustingly into his.

And in that he answered truly. He had seen no face
as beautiful of its kind as Lucy's was, and he was glad
that he could tell her so. He knew how that would
please her and partly make amends for the tender words
which he could not speak,—for the phantom eyes still
haunting him so strangely.

And Lucy, who took all things for granted, was more
than content, although she wondered that he did not kiss
her again, and wished she knew the girl who had come so
near being in her place. But she respected his wishes too
much to ask after what he had said, and she tried to
make herself glad that he had been so frank with her and
not left his other love-affair to the chance of her discovering
it afterwards, at a time when it might be painful to
her.

“I wish I had something to confess,” she thought;
but from the score of her flirtations, and even offers, for
she had not lacked for them, she could not find one
where her own feelings had been enlisted in ever so
slight a degree until she remembered Thornton Hastings,
who for one whole week had paid her such attentions as
had made her dream of him, and even drive round once
on purpose to look at the house on Madison Square
where the future Mrs. Hastings was to live.

But his coolness afterwards, and his comments on her
frivolity had terribly angered her, making her think that
she hated him, as she had said to Anna. Now, however,
as she remembered the drive and the house, she nestled
closer to Arthur and told him all about it, fingering the
buttons on his dressing-gown as she told him it, and
never dreaming of the pang she was inflicting as Arthur
thought how mysterious were God's ways, and wondered
that He had not reversed the matter and given Lucy to

Thornton Hastings, rather than to him, who did not half
deserve her.

“I know now I never cared a bit for Thornton Hastings,
though I might if he had not been so mean as to call me
frivolous,” Lucy said, as she arose to go; then suddenly
turning to the rector, she added: “I shall never ask who
your first love was, but would like to know if you have
quite forgotten her?”

“Have you forgotten Thornton Hastings?” Arthur
asked, laughingly; and Lucy replied, “Of course not;
one never forgets, but I don't care a pin about him now;
and did I tell you, Fanny writes that rumor says he will
marry Anna Ruthven?”

“Yes,—no,—I did not know; I am not surprised;”
and Arthur stooped to pick up a book lying on the floor,
thus hiding his face from Lucy, who, woman-like, was
glad to report a piece of gossip, and continued:

“She is a great belle, Fanny says; dresses beautifully
and in perfect taste, besides talking as if she knew something,
and this pleases Mr. Hastings, who takes her out
to ride and drive, and all this after I warned her against
him and told her just what he said of me. I am surprised
at her!”

Lucy was drawing on her gauntlets, and Arthur was
waiting to see her out, but she still lingered on the threshold,
and at last said to him:

“I wonder you never fell in love with Anna yourself.

I am sure, if I were you I should prefer her to me. She
knows something and I do not, but I am going to study;
there are piles of books in the library at Prospect Hill,
and you shall see what a famous student I will become.
If I get puzzled will you help me?”

“Yes, willingly,” Arthur replied, wishing that she
would go, before she indulged in any more speculation
as to why he did not love Anna Ruthven.

But Lucy was not done yet; the keenest pang was yet
to come, and Arthur felt as if the earth was giving way
beneath his feet, when, as he lifted her into the saddle
and took her hand at parting, she said:

“You remember I am not going to be jealous of that
other girl. There is only one person who could make
me so, and that is Anna Ruthven; but I know it was not
she, for that night we all came from Mrs. Hobbs's and
she went with me up-stairs, I asked her honestly if you
had ever offered yourself to her, and she told me you had
not. I think you showed a lack of taste; but I am glad
it was not Anna.”

Lucy was far down the road ere Arthur recovered from
the shock her last words had given him. What did it
mean, and why had Anna said he never proposed? Was
there some mistake, and he the victim of it? There was
a blinding mist before the young man's eyes, and a gnawing
pain at his heart as he returned to his study and
went over again with all the incidents of Anna's refusal,

even to the reading of the letter which he already knew
by heart. Then, as the thought came over him that possibly
Mrs. Meredith played him false in some way,
he groaned aloud, and the great sweat-drops fell upon the
table where he leaned his head. But this could not be,
he reasoned. Lucy was mistaken. She had not heard
aright. Somebody surely was mistaken, or he had committed
a fatal error.

“But I must abide by it,” he said, lifting up his pallid
face. “God forgive the wrong I have done in asking
Lucy to be my wife when my heart belonged to another.
God help me to forget the one and love the other as I
ought. She is a lovely little girl, trusting me so wholly
that I can make her happy,—and I will!—but Anna,—
O Anna!”

It was a despairing cry, such as a newly-engaged man
should never have sent after another than his affianced
bride; and Arthur thought so too, fighting back his first
love with an iron will, and after that hour of anguish
burying it so far from sight that he went that night to
Captain Humphreys and told of his engagement; then
called upon his bride-elect, and tried so hard to be satisfied,
that, when at a late hour he returned to the parsonage,
he was more than content; and by way of fortifying
himself still more, wrote the letter which Thornton
Hastings read at Newport.

And that was how it happened.