The Man Between: An International Romance

“Yes. It is mine.”

“It was yours. It is now mine.”

“How did you get it?”

“I bought it from the old man you gave it to.”

“Oh! Then you know him? How is that?”

“The hotel people sent a porter home with him lest he should be robbed. Next day I made inquiries, and this porter told me where he lived. I went there and bought this purse from him. I knew some day it would bring me to you. I have carried it over my heart ever since.”

“So you noticed me?”

“I saw you all the time I was singing. I have never forgotten you since that hour.”

“What made you sing?”

“Compassion, fate, an urgent impulse; perhaps, indeed, your piteous face—I saw it first.”

“Really?”

“I saw it first. I saw it all the time I was singing. When you dropped this purse my soul met yours in a moment’s greeting. It was a promise. I knew I should meet you again. I have loved you ever since. I wanted to tell you so the hour we met. It has been hard to keep my secret so long.”

“It was my secret also.”

“I love you beyond all words. My life is in your hands. You can make me the gladdest of mortals. You can send me away forever.”

“Oh, no, I could not! I could not do that!” The rest escapes words; but thus it was that on this day of days these two came by God’s grace to each other.

For all things come by fate to flower,
At their unconquerable hour.

And the very atmosphere of such bliss is diffusive; it seemed as if all the living creatures around understood. In the thick, green branches the birds began to twitter the secret, and certainly the wise, wise bees knew also, in some occult way, of the love and joy that had just been revealed. A wonderful humming and buzzing filled the hives, and the air vibrated with the movement of wings. Some influence more swift and secret than the birds of the air carried the matter further, for it finally reached Royal, the Squire’s favorite collie, who came sauntering down the alley, pushed his nose twice under Ethel’s elbow, and then with a significant look backward, advised the lovers to follow him to the house.

When they finally accepted his invitation, they found Mrs. Rawdon drinking a cup of tea with Ruth in the hall. Ethel joined them with affected high spirits and random explanations and excuses, but both women no-ticed her radiant face and exulting air. “The garden is such a heavenly place,” she said ecstatically, and Mrs Rawdon remarked, as she rose and put her cup on the table, “Girls need chaperons in gardens if they need them anywhere. I made Nicholas Rawdon a promise in Mossgill Garden I’ve had to spend all my life since trying to keep.”

“Tyrrel and I have been sitting under the plane tree watching the bees. They are such busy, sensible creatures.”

“They are that,” answered Mrs. Rawdon. “If you knew all about them you would wonder a bit. My father had a great many; he studied their ways and used to laugh at the ladies of the hive being so like the ladies of the world. You see the young lady bees are just as inexperienced as a schoolgirl. They get lost in the flowers, and are often so overtaken and reckless, that the night finds them far from the hive, heavy with pollen and chilled with cold. Sometimes father would lift one of these imprudent young things, carry it home, and try to get it admitted. He never could manage it. The lady bees acted just as women are apt to do when other women GO where they don’t go, or DO as they don’t do.”

“But this is interesting,” said Ruth. “Pray, how did the ladies of the hive behave to the culprit?”

“They came out and felt her all over, turned her round and round, and then pushed her out of their community. There was always a deal of buzzing about the poor, silly thing, and I shouldn’t wonder if their stings were busy too. Bees are ill-natured as they can be. Well, well, I don’t blame anyone for sitting in the garden such a day as this; only, as I was saying, gardens have been very dangerous places for women as far as I know.”

Ruth laughed softly. “I shall take a chaperon with me, then, when I go into the garden.”

“I would, dearie. There’s the Judge; he’s a very suitable, sedate-looking one but you never can tell. The first woman found in a garden and a tree had plenty of sorrow for herself and every woman that has lived after her. I wish Nicholas and John Thomas would come. I’ll warrant they’re talking what they call politics.”

Politics was precisely the subject which had been occupying them, for when Tyrrel entered the dining-room, the Squire, Judge Rawdon, and Mr. Nicholas Rawdon were all standing, evidently just finishing a Conservative argument against the Radical opinions of John Thomas. The young man was still sitting, but he rose with smiling good-humor as Tyrrel entered.

“Here is Cousin Tyrrel,” he cried; “he will tell you that you may call a government anything you like radical, conservative, republican, democratic, socialistic, but if it isn’t a CHEAP government, it isn’t a good government; and there won’t be a cheap government in England till poor men have a deal to say about making laws and voting taxes.”

“Is that the kind of stuff you talk to our hands, John Thomas? No wonder they are neither to hold nor to bind.”

They were in the hall as John Thomas finished his political creed, and in a few minutes the adieux were said, and the wonderful day was over. It had been a wonderful day for all, but perhaps no one was sorry for a pause in life—a pause in which they might rest and try to realize what it had brought and what it had taken away. The Squire went at once to his room, and Ethel looked at Ruth inquiringly. She seemed exhausted, and was out of sympathy with all her surroundings.

“What enormous vitality these Yorkshire women must have!” she said almost crossly. “Mrs. Rawdon has been talking incessantly for six hours. She has felt all she said. She has frequently risen and walked about. She has used all sorts of actions to emphasize her words, and she is as fresh as if she had just taken her morning bath. How do the men stand them?”

“Because they are just as vital. John Thomas will overlook and scold and order his thousand hands all day, talk even his mother down while he eats his dinner, and then lecture or lead his Musical Union, or conduct a poor man’s concert, or go to ‘the Weaver’s Union,’ and what he calls ‘threep them’ for two or three hours that labor is ruining capital, and killing the goose that lays golden eggs for them. Oh, they are a wonderful race, Ruth!”

“I really can’t discuss them now, Ethel.”

“Don’t you want to know what Tyrrel said to me this afternoon?”

“My dear, I know. Lovers have said such things before, and lovers will say them evermore. You shall tell me in the morning. I thought he looked distrait and bored with our company.”

Indeed, Tyrrel was so remarkably quiet that John Thomas also noticed his mood, and as they sat smoking in Tyrrel’s room, he resolved to find out the reason, and with his usual directness asked:

“What do you think of Ethel Rawdon, Tyrrel.”

“I think she is the most beautiful woman I ever saw. She has also the most sincere nature, and her high spirit is sweetly tempered by her affectionate heart.”

“I am glad you know so much about her. Look here, Cousin Tyrrel, I fancied to-night you were a bit jealous of me. It is easy to see you are in love, and I’ve no doubt you were thinking of the days when you would be thousands of miles away, and I should have the ground clear and so on, eh?”

“Suppose I was, cousin, what then?”

“You would be worrying for nothing. I don’t want to marry Ethel Rawdon. If I did, you would have to be on the ground all the time, and then I should best you; but I picked out my wife two years ago, and if we are both alive and well, we are going to be married next Christmas.”

“I am delighted. I–”

“I thought you would be.”

“Who is the young lady?”

“Miss Lucy Watson. Her father is the Independent minister. He is a gentleman, though his salary is less than we give our overseer. And he is a great scholar. So is Lucy. She finished her course at college this summer, and with high honors. Bless you, Tyrrel, she knows far more than I do about everything but warps and looms and such like. I admire a clever woman, and I’m proud of Lucy.”

“Where is she now?”

“Well, she was a bit done up with so much study, and so she went to Scarborough for a few weeks. She has an aunt there. The sea breezes and salt water soon made her fit for anything. She may be home very soon now. Then, Tyrrel, you’ll see a beauty—face like a rose, hair brown as a nut, eyes that make your heart go galloping, the most enticing mouth, the prettiest figure, and she loves me with all her heart. When she says ‘John Thomas, dear one,’ I tremble with pleasure, and when she lets me kiss her sweet mouth, I really don’t know where I am. What would you say if a girl whispered, ‘I love you, and nobody but you,’ and gave you a kiss that was like—like wine and roses? Now what would you say?”

“I know as little as you do what I would say. It’s a situation to make a man coin new words. I suppose your family are pleased.”

“Well, I never thought about my family till I had Lucy’s word. Then I told mother. She knew Lucy all through. Mother has a great respect for Independents, and though father sulked a bit at first, mother had it out with him one night, and when mother has father quiet in their room father comes to see things just as she wants him. I suppose that’s the way with wives. Lucy will be just like that. She’s got a sharp little temper, too. She’ll let me have a bit of it, no doubt, now and then.”

“Will you like that?”

“I wouldn’t care a farthing for a wife without a bit of temper. There would be no fun in living with a woman of that kind. My father would droop and pine if mother didn’t spur him on now and then. And he likes it. Don’t I know? I’ve seen mother snappy and awkward with him all breakfast time, tossing her head, and rattling the china, and declaring she was worn out with men that let all the good bargains pass them; perhaps making fun of us because we couldn’t manage to get along without strikes. She had no strikes with her hands, she’d like to see her women stand up and talk to her about shorter hours, and so on; and father would look at me sly-like, and as we walked to the mill together he’d laugh contentedly and say, ‘Your mother was quite refreshing this morning, John Thomas. She has keyed me up to a right pitch. When Jonathan Arkroyd comes about that wool he sold us I’ll be all ready for him.’ So you see I’m not against a sharp temper. I like women as Tennyson says English girls are, ‘roses set round with little wilful thorns,’ eh?”

Unusual as this conversation was, its general tone was assumed by Ethel in her confidential talk with Ruth the following day. Of course, Ruth was not at all surprised at the news Ethel brought her, for though the lovers had been individually sure they had betrayed their secret to no one, it had really been an open one to Ruth since the hour of their meeting. She was sincerely ardent in her praises of Tyrrel Rawdon, but—and there is always a but—she wondered if Ethel had “noticed what a quick temper he had.”