Chapter Seventeen Honors are Easy
The poet strode gayly into the room, quite at peace with the world and decidedly pleased with one Thomas Moore, in both these particulars holding opinions widely differing from the views cherished by the young lady concealed behind the curtains.
“What?” remarked Moore. “Is she gone? Dear me, how unkind of her to go without saying good-bye.”
Then, apparently observing the skirt for the first time, he continued:
“Ah, she has left this behind for me as a souvenir of the occasion. How considerate of her.”
Stooping, he unlocked the drawer and drew forth the imprisoned millinery. Then flinging it carelessly over his arm, he started toward the door, apparently intending to return to the crowded rooms which he had just quitted.
From behind the curtains Bessie regarded his actions with an exasperation and helplessness which were about equally possessed of her mind. What should she do? If she betrayed her presence she would be more than ever at his mercy, yet it was clearly impossible to allow him to carry off her skirt, as he seemed to purpose doing. Abandoning all pride, she gave a squeak of alarm as Moore reached the door.
“Did I hear some one address me?” he demanded, turning on the threshold.
“Sir,” said Bessie, desperately from the window, her brown head visible between the curtains.
“Oh, you are there, are you?” said Moore, apparently greatly astonished.
“Bring me that—That,” she said, blushing a little as she spoke.
“That what?” he asked.
She pointed angrily at the skirt adorning his arm.
“That,” she repeated more loudly.
“This?” said he, obtusely, holding up his prize.
“Yes. Give it to me immediately.”
“But,” objected Moore, “I don’t know that you have any right to it. Can you prove it to be your property?”
“I can,” replied Bessie with emphasis, “but I won’t.”
“I am sorry, Mistress Dyke, but under the circumstances I really must refuse.”
“But it is mine, Mr. Moore.”
“But I have no proof that it is n’t somebody else’s. Perhaps it belongs to Mr. Sheridan.”
“What nonsense.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Richard Brinsley is said to be fond of the petticoats. Perhaps this is one he carries around with him. I ’ll go ask the old boy.”
“Don’t you dare,” she cried.
“Well, can you identify this as your property?” insisted the poet, not loth to prolong her discomfiture.
“Certainly, sir,” she replied. “You will find a handkerchief in the pocket with my initials stitched in the corner with white silk.”
“All right, my dear,” said Moore, looking for the pocket and not finding it immediately. “Where is the infernal—Oh, I have it!”
And inserting his hand in the elusive object of his quest he drew forth a powder puff.
“Oh,” said Bessie, and vanished behind the curtains, while Moore viewed his recent find with delighted curiosity.
“What’s this, Bessie?”
No answer rewarded his inquiry.
“Oh, I understand,” he went on. “This is the frosting on the cake of beauty.”
Then, carefully powdering himself, he crossed to the mirror over the mantel on the opposite side of the room and inspected the result of his labor.
“Humph,” said he. “I look seasick. I’ll have none of this for me.”
And he industriously rubbed his face with his handkerchief.
“Oh, do hurry up,” implored the girl, fearful lest some other of the guests should enter the room before she recovered her belongings.
“I was not made in a hurry,” replied Moore. “The more haste the less speed, so I ’ll take my time in my investigations.”
The next thing he took from the pocket was a little black and white sketch of himself which had been drawn at a supper party the week before by no less distinguished a gentleman than Samuel Rogers, the banker poet.
“My picture!” he exclaimed in surprise. “How did you get this, Bessie?”
“If you must know, Mr. Rogers threw it away and I picked it up,” she replied, displaying as much regard for the truth as any of her sex would be likely to under the same circumstances.
“I ’m honored, Mistress Dyke,” observed Moore, bowing to the portière with formal grace and politeness. “You show much taste in your selection of works of art.”
Proceeding with his search, Moore now brought to light the handkerchief, which he promptly confiscated.
“Mistress Dyke,” he said, at the same time tucking away the handkerchief in his breast pocket, “I am now convinced that this is your property.”
“Then give it to me at once,” she directed.
“Not yet,” said Moore. “If I remember correctly, I made a statement to you concerning an apology which I thought should be forthcoming to me. Well, I have n’t received it as yet.”
“Bully!” remarked Bessie as spitefully as she could, which was not a little.
“Did I hear aright?” asked Moore. “Did I hear some one call me a bully?”
“Please, oh, please, give me—that!” she pleaded, but Moore was not to be turned aside from his march to triumph.
“Did I hear some one say ‘Tom, I am truly sorry for my crossness to-night’?” he asked.
“I won’t say it,” she declared, but her voice lacked determination.
“I really must be going,” said Moore, taking a step towards the door.
She gave a squeal of terror.
“I will, I will!” she cried.
“I hope so, Bessie,” he replied, pausing.
“Tom, I am truly sorry for the cross things you have said to me to-night.”
She mumbled it quickly, hoping he would not distinguish the adaptation she made in the sentence he had dictated; but Moore heard and defeated her.
“That won’t do,” he said sternly. “Try again.”
“Tyrant!” she exclaimed ferociously.
“That is not a pretty name, Bessie.”
“It is appropriate,” she said, coldly.
“Go on with the apology.”
The girl made an effort and proceeded with her unwilling penance in the meekest of tones.
“Tom, I am truly sorry for the cross things I have said to you to-night. Now give me it.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry, Bessie. There is more to be said.”
“Oh, dear! will you never be satisfied?”
“Not till you are all mine,” he answered in his tenderest tones.
“That will be a long time,” she said determinedly.
“I can wait, but to continue—Say ‘You are an old nuisance, Tom, but I like to have you around.’”
“You are an old nuisance, Tom, but I like to have you around,” she repeated, parrot-like; then she added sweetly, “I have something else I wish to tell you.”
Deceived by her sentimental tone, Moore stepped near the curtains and like a flash she snapped the skirt off his arm and vanished behind her shelter.
“The deuce!” exclaimed Moore, in chagrin.
The curtains undulated violently as though some vigorous performance were being enacted behind them. The next moment Bessie, fully attired, swept out between them and across the room, her independence and peace of mind restored with the resumption of the purloined garment.
“Bessie,” said Moore, persuasively, and she halted on the threshold in haughty response. “Bessie, won’t you let me speak to you before you go?”
“I fear it will only be a waste of time, Mr. Moore,” she answered.
“Yet I waited when you asked me to from behind the curtains,” he said, a glint of laughter in his eyes.
Bessie winced, but the stare she favored him with was both cold and disdainful.
“But, Mr. Moore,” she answered, “I had something to say to which you wished to listen.”
“You mean,” he corrected, “you had to say something, Bessie, that I wished to hear. There never was maid more unwilling to do what she was bid than you.”
“Pray hasten your words, sir. I am listening.”
“Bessie,” he whispered, all the music and poetry to which the love in his heart had given life vibrant in his caressing voice, “Bessie, mavourneen, let’s have done with this bickering. The days of youth fly far too fast for us to waste them in contention. You are the breath of my life, darlin’. Say you ’ll take me back to my old place in your heart this night and ne’er send me a-journeying again while we live.”
She walked slowly to the fireplace and resting her arm on the mantel above stood looking into the blaze. Moore, encouraged by her return, drew near her.
“You know I love you deeply and truly as any woman has ever been loved,” he murmured, standing so close that his warm, eager breath gently stirred and set a-quivering the tiny ringlets clustered on her neck. “And I can’t bear to go on like this. You must hear me to-night, Bessie darlin’, once and for all. I love you; with all my heart and all my soul I love you, dearest of girls. You planted my heart full of roses of passion the first day that I met you, and each and every bud has come to blossom. Your dear eyes have looked into mine and written your name upon my heart. There is not a curl that steals kisses from your cheek I ’d not give my life to be, unless that curl and the proud head it graces can both be mine. Ah, Bessie, dearest, Bessie, darling, be my wife and make me the happiest man on earth. Aye, or in heaven.”
If he could have seen her eyes he would never have listened to the words of her reply, for in their depths shone an answer so sweet and tender and surrendering that even he, oft rejected and almost despairing wooer that he was, could not have mistaken or read as aught else but final. But, resolved not to yield yet, though a love as strong and passionate as his own was tugging at her heart-strings, she kept her face turned from him till her original determination, aided by mischief which prompted her to punish him for all the humiliation she had just suffered at his hands, sufficed to give her control of her emotions. Then she turned coldly and said:
“Tom, you really should put that into rhyme. You have never written a prettier poem.”
He started at her words and drew back a pace or two.
“You make a jest of me,” he said in an offended tone.
“And why so, sir? I refused to marry you when you were poor.”
“Do you think I’ve forgotten it?” he demanded.
“Now, if I married you, people would say I took back my ‘No’ because of your rise in the world. Why, even you once spoke as though you thought I might be influenced by such sordid considerations.”
“You do not believe—you never have believed—that I thought you capable of such a vile thing,” he responded hotly. “You seized on that as a means to hold me off. You must needs play your game of hide-and-seek till you are weary, regardless of my pain and despair.”
“The world would say I married you for your money,” she continued, paying no heed to his words. “You know how quick it is to misinterpret the best of motives.”
“If they said that they ’d lie, Bessie,” said Moore. “Save that I have paid my debts and incurred no others, I ’m no richer, for as yet I ’ve made no fortune. On my honor, I ’m still as poor as you are pretty, and the glass will show you I must be little better than a beggar. Like your father, dearest, my future—all my hope of wealth and fame these next few years—depends upon the Regent’s favor, so it couldn’t be for aught but love. Ah, alanna, say you ’ll have me?”
“No,” she answered with great emphasis, and crossed the room. Once on the other side she repeated her reply, but this time in a tone soft and cooing, but if she expected by this last manoeuvre to elicit further wooing from her lover she made a mistake, for, justly wrathful at the treatment she accorded him, he threw caution to the winds.
“So?” he cried, hoarsely. “You still refuse? Then listen to me. I ’ve courted you from the first day I saw you. From the moment our eyes met I ’ve loved you faithfully and truly. I ’ve sung to you of love—I ’ve talked to you of love—I ’ve begged for it upon my knees—and you? You have laughed at me. Because my heart was full of you there was no room for resentment, and I, too, laughed and made a jest of what was breaking it. That is past; I’ve offered it to you for the last time. I ’ll never again ask you to be my wife.”
“Oh,” said the girl, momentarily shocked at his vehemence, but quickly recovering. “Tom, you ’ll never again ask me to marry you?”
“No,” he answered roughly, and sat down beside the fire.
“Then,” she went on mournfully, “there is only one thing for me to do.”
“What is that?” he asked moodily.
“If you won’t ask me to marry you, then some day I—I—”
She hesitated, the words hindered by the smile that could not be denied.
“Well?”
“Then some day I’ll have to ask you to marry me.”
Moore leaped to his feet.
“Will you, Bessie?” he cried.
“Who knows?” she answered, backing towards the door.
“What would you say?”
“I ‘d say ‘I love you, Tom; will you be my husband?’”
“You would?”
“That is, if I should happen to want you, which is n’t at all likely.”
Then, with a rippling laugh, Bessie turned her back on him, and strolled off, satisfied that she had avenged her wrongs of the evening. And had she not?