coming to me now?’
‘No,’ said Nelly—and even in the sound of her voice there was something changed—‘it is so long since I have been in the village. I had settled to go down there this morning, and take poor Mary Jackson some warm socks we have been knitting for the babies. It is so cold to-day.’
‘I thought you never felt the cold,’ said I, as one does without thinking. ‘You are always as merry as a cricket in the winter weather, when we are all shivering. You know you never feel the cold.’
‘No,’ said Nelly again. ‘I suppose it is only the first chill’—and she gave me a strange little sick smile, and suddenly looked down and stooped to pick up something. I saw in a moment there was nothing to pick up. Could it be that there were tears in her eyes, which she wanted to hide? ‘But I must go now,’ she went on hurriedly. ‘Oh, no, don’t think of coming with me; it is too cold, and I shall have to walk fast, I am in such a hurry. Good-bye.’
I could do nothing but stand and stare after her when she had gone on. What did it mean? Nelly was not given to taking fancies, or losing her temper—at least not in this way. She walked away so rapidly that she seemed to vanish out of my sight, and never once looked round or turned aside for anything. The surprise was so great that I actually forgot where I was going. It could not be for nothing that she had changed like this. I went back to my own door, and then I came out again and opened the Admiral’s gate. Probably Martha was at home, and would know what was the matter. As I was going in, Martha met me coming out. She was in her red cloak, like Nelly, and she had a letter in her hand. When she saw me she laughed, and blushed a little. ‘Will you come with me to the post, Mrs. Mulgrave?’ she said. ‘Sister would not wait for me; and when one has an important letter to post–’ Martha went on, holding it up to me, and laughing and blushing again.
‘What makes it so very important?’ said I; and I confess that I tried very hard to make out the address.
‘Oh, didn’t she tell you?’ said Martha. ‘What a funny girl she is! If it had been me I should have rushed all over the Green, and told everybody. It is—can’t you guess?’
And she held out to me the letter in her hand. It was addressed to ‘Captain Llewellyn, H.M.S. Spitfire, Portsmouth.’ I looked at it, and I looked at her, and wonder took possession of me. The address was in Martha’s handwriting. It was she who was going to post it; it was she who, conscious and triumphant, giggling a little and blushing a little, stood waiting for my congratulations. I looked at her aghast, and my tongue failed me. ‘I don’t know what it means,’ I said, gasping. ‘I can’t guess. Is it you who have been writing to Captain Llewellyn, or is it Nelly, or who is it? Can there have been any mistake?’
Martha was offended, as indeed she had reason to be. ‘There is no mistake,’ she said indignantly. ‘It is a very strange sort of thing to say, when any friend, any acquaintance even, would have congratulated me. And you who know us so well! Captain Llewellyn has asked me to marry him—that is all. I thought you might have found out what was coming. But you have no eyes for anybody but Sister. You never think of me.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said I, faltering; ‘I was so much taken by surprise. I am sure I wish you every happiness, Martha. Nobody can be more anxious for your welfare than I am—’ and here I stopped short in my confusion, choked by the words, and not knowing what to say.
‘Yes, I am sure of that,’ said Martha affectionately, stopping at the gate to give me a kiss. ‘I said so to Sister this morning. I said I am sure Mrs. Mulgrave will be pleased. But are you really so much surprised? Did you never think this was how it was to be?’
‘No,’ I said, trembling in spite of myself; ‘I never thought of it. I thought indeed—but that makes no difference now.’
‘What did you think?’ said Martha; and then her private sense of pride and pleasure surmounted everything else. ‘Well, you see it is so,’ she said, with a beaming smile. ‘He kept his own counsel, you see. I should not have thought he was so sly—should you? I dare say he thinks he showed it more than he did; for he says I must have seen how it was from the first day.’
And she stood before me so beaming, so dimpling over with smiles and pleasure, that my heart sank within me. Could it be a mistake, or was it I—ah! how little it mattered for me—was it my poor Nelly who had been deceived?
‘And did you?’ I said, looking into her face, ‘did you see it from the first day?’
‘Well, n-no,’ said Martha, hesitating; and then she resumed with a laugh, ‘That shows you how sly he must have been. I don’t think I ever suspected such a thing; but then, to be sure, I never thought much about him, you know.’
A little gleam of comfort came into my heart as she spoke. ‘Oh, then,’ I said, relieved, ‘there is no occasion for congratulations after all.’
‘Why is there no occasion for congratulations?’ said Martha. ‘Of course there is occasion. I wanted Sister to run in and tell you last night, but she wouldn’t; and I rather wanted you to tell me what I should say, or, rather, how I should say it; but I managed it after all by myself. I suppose one always can if one tries. It comes by nature, people say.’ And Martha laughed again, and blushed, and cast a proud glance on the letter she held in her hand.
‘But if you never had thought of him yesterday,’ said I, ‘you can’t have accepted him to-day.’
‘Why not?’ said Martha, with a toss of her pretty head—and she was pretty, especially in that moment of excitement. I could not refuse to see it. It was a mere piece of pink-and-white prettiness, instead of my little nut-brown maid, with her soft eyes, and her bright varied gleams of feeling and intelligence. But then you can never calculate on what a man may think in respect to a girl. Men are such fools; I mean where women are concerned.
‘Why not?’ said Martha, with a laugh. ‘I don’t mean I am frantically in love with him, you know. How could I be, when I never knew he cared for me? But I always said he was very nice; and then it is so suitable. And I don’t care for anybody else. It would be very foolish of me to refuse him without any reason. Of course,’ said Martha, looking down upon her letter, ‘I shall think of him very differently now.’
What could I say? I was at my wits’ end. I walked on by her side to the post-office in a maze of confusion and doubt. I could have snatched the letter out of her hand, and torn it into a hundred pieces; but that would have done little good; and how could I tell if it was a mistake after all? He might have sought Nelly for her sister’s sake. He might have been such a fool, such a dolt, as to prefer Martha. All this time he might but have been making his advances to her covertly—under shield as it were of the gay bright creature who was too young and too simple-hearted to understand such devices. Oh, my little nut-brown maid! no wonder her eyes were so large and shadowy, her pretty cheeks so colourless! I could have cried with vexation and despair as I went along step for step with the other on the quiet country road. Though she was so far from being bright, Martha at last was struck by my silence. It took her a considerable time to find it out, for naturally her own thoughts were many, and her mind was fully pre-occupied; but she did perceive it at last.
‘I don’t think you seem to like it, Mrs. Mulgrave,’ she said; ‘not so much as I thought you would. You were the very first person I thought of; I was coming to tell you when I met you. And I thought you would sympathize with me and be so pleased to hear–’
‘My dear,’ said I, ‘I am pleased to hear—anything that is for your happiness; but then I am so much surprised. It was not what I looked for. And then, good heavens! if it should turn out to be some mistake–’
‘Mrs. Mulgrave,’
