Interference

Betty had been out in the garden, gathering a harvest of flowers, whilst her three companions raced one another round the gravel walks, or rollicked among the cabbages, and she had now returned with an armful of roses, carnations and geraniums, to where all the empty vases in the house were paraded on the study table, awaiting her attention. They were soon filled from the pile of flowers. Betty had dainty, tasteful fingers, and knew how to apply a bud here and to insert a bit of fern there. She took up a late yellow rose quite tenderly, and gave it the honour of a glass to itself, and set it off with one or two pretty shaded leaves. Had George her rose still? The one she had pulled from the old Cloth of Gold tree, now so many months ago. He had said a year, and a year had elapsed; it was a year and two months since that summer afternoon, when, as she came in from picking strawberries she found him waiting for her at the end of the long walk. Oh, and her heart beat quickly at the thought, if she had only seen him standing there, when she opened the garden gate to-day! Not that she doubted him for one second; no, she turned her bangle on her arm, and told herself she would trust him, and wait for him, if she lived for fifty years.

“Betty, Betty, Betty,” screamed Belle, coming dashing through the drawing-room, like a whirlwind. “Where are you? News, news, and such news,” embracing her and hugging her till she was almost suffocated. “Do put down those wretched flowers, and listen to what I am going to tell you. Something so very nice,” she added with her usual rapid utterance.

Betty stuck a piece of geranium in a glass, and turned to her cousin with an expectant smile.

“Mother has had a letter from George Holroyd.”

Here Betty became rather white.

“It came by the second post; his uncle has made him an allowance, and he can afford to marry now. He has friends going to India next month, and so he has written home for—guess who?” pushing her cousin away playfully with both hands and looking at her with a pair of brilliant, excited eyes. Betty gazed back at her with a stare of awful suspense, and almost held her breath.

“For me!” cried Belle, and she broke into a hysterical peal of laughter. Betty felt as if her heart had stopped. Her senses seemed to be suddenly benumbed; there was a dimness over her eyes. “Isn’t it splendid?” continued Belle exultantly, still holding her cousin by the wrists. “Am I not a lucky girl? Oh, what a change in one’s life a little bit of paper and a few strokes can make”—(Yes, poor Betty, what a change indeed!)

“And is it quite certain—are you sure?” she stammered with a curious catching of her breath.

“As sure as I am standing here, my dear child! Here’s his letter, you may read it if you like!”

“Oh, no! no!” averting her face with a kind of shuddering sigh. Belle in her innocence was turning the knife in the wound.

“Why, Bet! What’s this, are you not glad? Bet, don’t be silly, you won’t miss me so very much, you have plenty of friends, and perhaps, if you are good, I shall send for you some day to come out and live with us. Eh—why don’t you speak? I thought you would have been delighted!”

“It is all so sudden,” faltered the domestic martyr in a strange voice, “and—and of course,” turning her white face bravely on her cousin, “I am glad you are so happy,” but she might have been a different girl, so changed was she.

“Then look glad, my dear! and kiss me, my Queen Elizabeth. My! how icy cold you are this broiling afternoon, a walk will warm you.”

Belle was far too pre-occupied with her own happiness to take serious notice of her cousin’s deadly pallor.

“I want you to go into town on an errand for me at once. I have so much to do, and think of, and so very little time. I feel completely bewildered. First of all, I must write to those friends of George’s by this post on account of taking my passage. He pays for it; is he not generous? And I am to send him a wire. Look here, do you think this will do?” producing a bit of paper on which was pencilled:

“George Holroyd, Mangobad, India. Yes, coming.”

“Six words at four shillings and six-pence a word, no need to put who it is from. He knows,” and she laughed triumphantly. “It will come to one pound seven; here is the family purse; will you send it at once, and write it on the proper office form?”

“Yes,” responded Betty with an effort, her throat felt so hard and dry.

“Now don’t be so dull and grumpy, Bet! Do you think distance will make any difference to me? Do you think I shall ever forget you? I shall miss you frightfully. Who will bring me my tea, spell my notes, and help me to do up my dresses, and pack my clothes? When you are up the street you might run into Dooley’s and tell them they are not to do a stitch of plain work for any one but me for the next month. I will go in to-morrow and speak to them myself.”

“Very well,” said her listener mechanically.

“Now I must run and write to these Calvert people, and to lots of others, and give them ample time to forward desirable wedding presents. To intimate friends I shall send round a list of what I require. I hope Miss Dopping will give me something good, you might suggest a handsome dressing bag—fitted, of course.”

“And won’t you write to Mrs. Malone?”

“Not I,” scornfully. “She can wait. No doubt she has had an inkling of this all along, and that was why she was always so very cool to me. You are her favourite, Betty; only for supporting her and Cuckoo, and her good-for-nothing son, poor George would have married me a year ago. I believe he made them over every penny of his private means; however, they have seen the last of our money.”

Betty noted the plural, and how glibly it came tripping off the bride-elect’s lips.

“Well, I must fly, or the post will be going without my despatches. How wild Annie Carr will be! I shall write to her at once. I shall write to tell her that I am going to marry a handsome, rich young officer, who adores me, and is counting the very seconds till I join him in India! Poor Annie, her day is over. I feel as if my sun were just rising,” and she passed into the hall singing.

Who can picture Betty—let them picture her, as she stood alone in the middle of the room, with pale dry lips, and a face like marble. Suddenly she sat down, and laid her arms on the table, and leant her throbbing head on them. All she wanted was time to think, to pull herself together, to try and understand what it meant; no tear trickled down her face—a face miserable and quivering with anguish. What did it all mean? What did it mean? It meant that George Holroyd, “Gentleman George” as Fred Moore said he was called, her preux chevalier, her model of all that was unselfish, and noble, and manly, had proved to be a very poor specimen of chivalry after all. He had merely been amusing himself with her, an ignorant, simple-minded little country chit! It was true that he had not told his love in so many words, his proposal at the garden gate had been a parable, but had that bangle no meaning? Nor a little bunch of forget-me-nots on a Christmas card, nor the kiss he had imprinted on her hand, nor the look in his eyes when they had parted? Had not irrepressible, chattering Cuckoo, plainly informed her that she was sure George worshipped the ground she stood on, and although she had feebly silenced her, Cuckoo had persisted in declaring that he had removed her photograph from the Bridgetstown album; and—and—and it all meant nothing. She was only a stupid, silly little country girl, and he had been in love with her cousin all along. It was to her he wrote constantly, she had evidently expected this summons to join him. Pretty, fascinating, well-dressed Belle! and yet how often had he quitted Belle to speak to her? To dwell on these cherished memories was folly now; he was going to marry Belle, and she must stifle her feelings and seem glad. Her brief dream of happiness was over, was gone for ever; before her stretched the old monotonous existence, with nothing but a blank, hopeless future. All the light had gone out of her life—quenched in a moment by a careless hand. Suddenly she heard Belle’s step approaching, and what a light and happy contrast, to her usual dragging heavy gait.

“What!” she cried, “not gone yet! Oh, do hurry and send off the telegram. George said he would expect it so anxiously, and moments to you are hours to him! I want you to get me five shillings’ worth of stamps. How queer and strange you look; certainly such sudden news is stunning. Here is your hat, you will do very well; come, be off.”

And she hastily escorted her to the hall door, and saw her down the avenue, accompanied by the three delighted dogs (Mossoo preferred the fire, and the other dogs preferred his room to his company). As Betty walked along, smiling and nodding to many acquaintances—for it had been market day—she was by no means a bad imitation of the Spartan boy and fox. She was suffering her first keen agonising grief, and wore a white but cheerful countenance. Oh! what would she not give to be able to run away and hide herself in the woods, and there alone have it out with this stabbing pain that seemed to be tearing at her very heart-strings. She wended her way to the post office, and wrote out Belle’s message on a telegram form. Strange fate! that hers should be the hand to extinguish her own best hopes!

Miss Bolland, the post-mistress and Ballingoole daily news, of which Maria Finny was the supplement, observed more than most people, and noticed how pale Betty was, and how her hand shook as she guided the pen, and remarked upon it, with her usual uncompromising frankness.

“It’s the change in the weather,” replied the girl mendaciously. “This close weather is trying, and I am sure there is thunder in the air.”

“Dear me, do you say so! I’m that nervous in a thunderstorm, on account of the telegraph wires. Well, miss, you do look poorly, I must say.”

“A telegram to India,” as Betty handed it to her; “we never sent one there before.

“‘George Holroyd, Mangobad, India,
Yes, coming.’”

Now reading it aloud with inexpressible unction.

“From you, Miss Betty?” with a quick glance.

“Oh no, but it is of no consequence whom it is from. It need not be wired. He knows.”

“Yes—but I must know, too,” returned Jane Bolland rather sharply, “otherwise I can’t send it.”

“Miss Redmond sends it,” said Betty quietly.

“Oh, indeed. So I was thinking; yes, coming to Mr. Holroyd. Oh, of course. It will be one pound seven shillings. Thank you, miss, it shall be despatched at once. I quite understand its importance. Good evening.”

In less than five minutes, Jane had darted out with a shawl over her head, to impart the great news to Mrs. Maccabe—who lived next door but one—and before the shops were closed, all Ballingoole was in possession of the intelligence, that Miss Redmond was going to India to be married to Mr. Holroyd—and no one was the least surprised, except Miss Dopping and Betty.