My honey. By the author of 'Tip-cat' [i.e. Evelyn Whitaker], etc

Front matter

MY HONEY 'HUGH WAS DIMLY CONSCIOUS OF A TALL GIKL WHO HAD PASSED HIM ON THE PLATFORM." [Sees. _s8?. MY HONEY BY the author of "TIP-CAT," "MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION," "LADDIE," Etc. LONDON: A. D. INNES & CO., BEDFORD STREET. 1895. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Solitude ... ... ... ... i II. The Return ... ... ... 13 III. An Explanation ... ... ... 27 IV. Sunday ... ... ... ... 39 V. Uncongenial ... ... ... ... 53 VI. The Difference ... ... ... 70 VII. Nellie and Hetty ... ... ... 88 VIII. Tim ... ... ... ... ... 101 IX. An Old Acquaintance ... ... ... 114 X. Public Opinion ... ... ... 127 XI. Unlucky Hetty ... ... ... 139 XII. An Invitation ... ... ... 153 XIII. Complications ... ... ... ••• 174 XIV. The Inevitable ... ... ••• 187 XV. The Day of the Races ... ... ... 208 XVI. Illness 227 XVII. Forgiveness ... ... ... ■■•239 XVIII.

Convalescence ... ... ... 255 XIX. Coming Home ... ... ... ■•• 271 XX. Hugh's Arrival ... ... ••• 284 XXI. Unattainable ... ... ... ••• 293 XXII. A Revelation ... ... ... 3>° XXIII. A Plain Duty ... ... ... ... 324 XXIV. The Last Evening at Home ...

Chapter I. Solitude

" Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good, great man ? — three treasures — love and light, And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath." Coleridge. " Checkmate ! " said the Rector, rising and pushing back his chair, with that suppressed air of triumph which it is impossible for the most amiable chess-player to conceal ; and the doctor rubbed his chin reflectively, and gave a little laugh that was not quite as genuine as his usual manifestations of amusement, for it is equally difficult to conceal the feeling of annoyance at being beaten. " It was that move E with the knight that turned the game," went on the Rector. "You might have mated in three moves, but for that." "Ah," returned the doctor, "I doubt it. That rook of yours bothered me all along, and I thought you'd have done for me before.

I hadn't much chance after " But just then the bell of the old church interrupted the two men (who, after the fashion of chess-players, were fighting their battle o'er again), by solemnly sounding out a full, rich note into the summer night, followed by another and another, till twelve had vibrated through the rectory drawing-room, which, having its windows wide open, and only being separated from the churchyard by a lawn and divers flower-beds and a laurel hedge, was not in a position where it was possible to be unconscious of the passage of time. " Bless my soul, how late it is ! " said the doctor ; " and Nellie will be sitting up for me. Poor, little Nell ! " And the doctor sighed, and the two men's SOLITUDE. 3 eyes met, with a certain look of meaning and mutual understanding, as the Rector echoed — " Poor, little Nell !

Give her my love, and say it was too bad of me to give her a lonely evening by keeping you ; but you've made me forget my loneliness this first evening, and I thank you heartily. I expect Mrs. Hannah has shut up the door, so you had better come out this way." And the Rector accompanied him out through the window and across the dewy lawn, to the little gate into the churchyard, and parted with him there, standing with the moonlight on his uncovered, white head, watching the sturdy, square-shouldered, little doctor, as he stepped briskly along the churchyard path, with the old grey tombstones on either side, and ulti mately disappeared round the ivy-covered but tress of the tower. It was a beautiful June night, and the great, gentle moon up above was asserting her royal dignity and keeping the stars almost out of sight, while she poured such a store of silver light on the world that everything was nearly as distinct as day, only appearing with that mysterious charm that moonlight lends, the laurel-leaves shining like burnished silver, and blades of grass on the grave-hillocks coming out into prominence that the sunlight does not give them.

It was as peaceful a scene as could be imagined, and the Rector stood there for some minutes, to let the excitement, which even at seventy stirs the blood at a victory at chess, calm down, and let his mind follow gently and prayerfully the journey of the young son who had left him that day for some years' absence in India. ' Peace, perfect peace, with dear ones far away,' he murmured to himself, ' In Jesu's keeping we are safe and they.' And the confidence was none the less because his voice shook and the moonlight radiance dimmed a little before his eyes. The lad's mother had died when he was SOLITUDE. 5 but a little rosy-cheeked chap of five — old enough to cry pitifully after mothers though not old enough to understand the irreparable loss, or to refuse to be comforted, and to go fast asleep in his father's arms, which was perhaps the surest though unconscious way of bringing consolation to the bereaved heart against which his curly head was pressed.

So from that day the Rector had been father and mother too to little Hugh ; nursed him, played with him, taught him, cared for him, punished him, comforted him, and instead of the boy turning out, as might naturally have been expected, selfish and priggish and head strong, he grew up a good, honest, manly young fellow, getting into scrapes now and then, but never so bad a scrape but what he could make a clean breast of it to the old father and start fresh again. " Such a good-looking young fellow too ! " the Rector told himself that night, being alone and able to indulge in a little paternal pride without offending any one ; " so tall — six foot one when last we measured against the library door— and such broad shoulders too, and eyes like his mother's — true and honest and simple and fearless, corresponding exactly with the words he said, without a suspicion of a double meaning or insincerity."

The Rector had always pretended to wage war against the soft, little moustache adorning Hugh's upper lip, though inwardly he greatly admired it, and would not have let it be shaved off on any account. But it was contrary to the traditions of his youth, when moustache was pretty well unknown, and besides, the boy's mouth was like his mother's, without the least sneer or sign of ill-nature in the lines of the lips, and it seemed a pity to hide them. The boy had done well at school, though he had not the making of a scholar in him? as at one time his father had fondly hoped, and sometimes cricket and football came a little in the way of more serious studies ; but when he went up for the examination for the Woods and Forests, it proved that he had been SOLITUDE. 7 working satisfactorily, for he passed well, much to his father's pride, though under the pride lurked the pang of the coming parting, and the Rector found out in the hour of his triumph that he had been counting on the lad's failing with something very like hope, for failure would mean finding some work nearer home.

And then came two years at Cooper's Hill, and then — and now had come the parting, and Hugh had started that very morning on his way to India, and the years before he would come home again were too long even to reckon that first night of parting. Every one had been very kind and con siderate. Mrs. Hannah had been almost too fussy in her attentions ; Mrs. Meredith, his sister, had volunteered to come and bear him company, only had been prevented at the last moment by one of her attacks of asthma. The telegram to this effect had come while Mrs. Hannah had been superintending the preparation of the spare bedroom for her reception, superintending with a good deal of sniffing and dim eyes, for the parting with Hugh, to whom she had been nurse, had been very heartrending. It is a great relief to low spirits to be cross about something, and Mrs. Hannah, using the privilege of old service, turned on Mrs. Meredith and her telegram and her asthma, which the old woman regarded as a convenient sort of malady that came on whenever anything uncongenial had to be done ; and the Rector, who partly sympathised in this view of his sister's infirmity, though he would rather have died than confessed it, had to withdraw in dignified, reproving silence, as he did not wish to administer a rebuke to the kind old soul who was fretting after the boy.

But the doctor had come up in the evening for the game at chess that never failed to dis tract the Rector's mind, and Nellie had made various pretexts to run over two or three times in the course of the day, invading his solitude with her pretty, bright face and pleasant, girlish talk, under which might yet be detected a little minor note of sadness, which harmonised SOLITUDE. 9 with the Rector's own feelings very sooth ingly. Dear, little Nellie ! The Rector had known her from her earliest days ; had held her in his arms at the font ; had conducted her tod dling steps, when the grasp of a large finger was essential to preserve a body's equilibrium, across the rectory lawn and in at the drawing room window, with more substantial assistance than the finger to surmount the step, and up to his wife's sofa, where little Hugh, two years her senior, and firm on strong, young legs, had received her with round eyes of wonder and distrust, till mother mediated between them and put Nellie's soft, little, fat hand into Hugh's and said they must be friends.

The Rector often thought of those two little hands joined together by his wife's delicate, transparent fingers, and especially had he thought of the little episode in these later days, since Hugh's moustache had grown and Nellie had worn long petticoats and plaited up her pretty, sunny hair. They had been friends and playmates ever since, and who could tell if some day they might not be more than friends, and if it might not be his pleasant task to join their hands in a closer union ? There had never been a word of this between the Rector and the doctor, but it was this that had been in the minds of both many a time when Hugh and Nellie lingered in the twilight garden, or sang together at the piano, while the two fathers played their game of chess or discussed parish matters, and it was this that the look meant which they had exchanged that night when the doctor said, " Poor, little Nell !

" The Rector almost wished that the boy had let his heart speak out before he went, for he had little doubt as to what that heart would have said, and he was inclined to wonder at the prudence that kept Hugh's tongue silent, and to think that the rising generation were less impulsive and hot-blooded than their fathers ; for in those sweet, old courting days, he could SOLITUDE. 11 never have left Hugh's mother for three long years without a word or a promise. But he was quite right — quite right ! It was much more kind and wise to leave the little girl free, "though, if I know anything of little Nell, I can guess pretty well that she will wait for him and be as loyal and true, even if he stayed away for ten times three years, as if she were bound to him by the most solemn engage ment. Bless her little heart !

" How much he had to be thankful for ! Standing there in the soft June moonlight, the old man looked back over his life reckoning the many blessings — the very sorrows were but blessings in disguise. Looking back over one's life at seventy is much such a prospect as lay before the Rector's eyes as he leaned on the gate that nights — a graveyard wherein lie buried friends and hopes and ambitions ; happy for us if the prospect is seen in the soft moonlight of thankfulness and faith casting the shadow of the cross over our graves ! How still it was ! Not a breath of air to stir the leaves : so still, that he could hear the soft fall of the silken petals of a rose on the gravel by the drawing-room window ; so still, that he could hear the sound of wheels on the Medington road quite two miles away, or even more, he reckoned.

Chapter II

the return. " Like simple, noble natures, credulous Of what they long for, good in friend or foe." Tennyson. The Rector turned almost reluctantly to the house. He realised his loss and loneliness more indoors. Everything reminded him of Hugh in there. He used to rail at the lad for his untidiness, and now the neatness was in tolerable ; the closed piano and the orderly music portfolios, the books on the centre table arranged with housemaids' geometrical pre cision, instead of being tossed higgledy-piggledy anyhow, the chairs standing in the polite atti tudes assigned them when they were dusted — all had a little, sharp sting for the old man. He shrank, too, from the closing up of the window which was associated with Hugh's teasing banter of Mrs. Hannah, who could not sleep a wink, she declared, unless every bolt and bar were religiously fastened, though Hugh declared he c6uld get in easily at half a dozen windows and doors, and that the most inexperienced burglar would laugh her bolts and alarm bells on the shutters to scorn.

It was, perhaps, this shrinking that drew him again to the chess-table, where he replaced the pieces as they had been before that critical move of the doctor's knight which turned the fortune of war so completely. This is a very engrossing occupation, and I should think something like twenty minutes must have elapsed before he tore himself away and turned to close the window. All was still and clear in the moonlight as before, but those wheels which he had heard at a distance on the Medington road were now much nearer, coming down the steep, little pitch at the top of the village street, for he could hear the brake put on and the creaking crunch of the wheel. " Some one coming to fetch the doctor," he thought, with a sigh of compassion for the poor man who would just have had time to get into bed and now would be called up and hurried off, and expected to be wide awake and sympathetic, and patient and con siderate.

"Poor Marlow!" the Rector said, "he has to get his sleep and his meals as best he may, and people are indignant if a doctor's bed or dinner interferes with his coming the moment they want him." But the wheels were coming nearer, and had distinctly passed the turning that led to Dr. Marlow's house. " Strangers," the Rector said to himself, " and don't know the way to the Bungalow." And he drew back his hand from the window fastening and stepped out once more into the moonlit garden with the intention of directing the wanderers, for up and down the length and breadth of the village you would hardly find any light burning or any one astir at that time of night. But if the driver of the vehicle in question was uncertain where to go, there was a curious purpose in his uncertainty, for the carriage turned the corner by the church with great precision and drew up at the rectory gate, very much as if it were the destination desired, and the Rector, coming round the side of the house at that moment, saw a man jump off the box of the carriage, and, with a word to some one inside, open the gate as if the trick of the latch, which stuck unless you gave the gate a little hitch up, was well known to him, and come quickly up the drive.

The old man's breath caught with a gasp, and he had to steady himself against the trellis work on the wall where the Banksia rose was clustering so thickly. Was it some wild hallu cination of the brain, or was it really Hu^h, who at the same moment caught sight of the old figure standing at the corner of the house I 17 and with an ejaculation of satisfaction came towards him ? It was not twenty-four hours since they had parted, and yet even in that short time it seemed to the Rector's eyes that the boy was changed. Perhaps it was the moonlight that made him look so white, and the lines of his face so much more set and firm. It was a boy Hugh who had gone in the morning, in spite of his two and twenty years, with the same suspicion of moisture in the blue eyes, and tremble in the lip, and break in the voice that were very usual symptoms when holiday time was over and the old father was seeing him off in the train that was to take him to school.

But now, somehow, it was a man who had come back in the moonlight, a man in whom you would not expect to see such childish expres sions of emotion, though it was a man with some great trouble agitating and stirring him. " Hugh ! " gasped the Rector, " Hugh ! " " Father," he said, holding both the old man's hands in his and speaking very quickly, though c the very tone of his voice seemed deeper and more manly, "I'm in a terrible difficulty and I want you to help me." " Of course, my dear, of course. Who else ? " "There is some one in the carriage there — a girl. She is quite young, hardly more than a child, and so lonely and unprotected — and I want you — for my sake, to take care of her and be good to her till — I come home." The last words ended nearly in a groan, as the young man's chin sank on his breast with an air of bitter dejection.

" When I come home " had been the one glad refrain in all these sad days of parting, something to look forward to, something to live for, and now it seemed the worst of the trouble, a prospect he was hardly man enough to face. The old man's heart turned cold and sick within him, but he answered back bravely, even with a smile — " To be sure, my boy, to be sure." " I will tell you all about it presently, but I can't leave her there. We must bring her in. She's tired to death, poor child ! And we must give the horse a feed and something for the man too, for we've driven from Southam, and he'll have to take me back in an hour to catch the up express. You'll trust me, father, won't you ? — that there's nothing wrong or shameful " " Of course, lad, of course." And then the old man went on to the gate, with the moonlight shining on his uncovered, white head, and he opened the carriage door.

" You have had a long, tiring journey, I'm afraid," he said, "but you must come in, and we'll do our best to make you comfortable. You are very welcome." He held out his hand and helped from the carriage a tall, slim girl, wrapped in a tumbled dust cloak, with a cloth cap on her rough, curly mass of dark hair, which to the Rector's old world notions of even partings and satin-smooth locks, looked sadly in need of a brush and comb. The hand she had placed in the Rector's was bare, and on the other was a long tan Suede glove split down the back. " Thanks awfully," she said in a pretty, soft, girlish voice which pleased the Rector's ear, though the form of expression was new to him. "Will you mind coming in through the drawing-room window ? " he asked. " My ser vants are in bed and the front door locked up."

" Oh, I don't mind," she answered ; and he led her across the lawn, with old-fashioned gallantry, holding the hand she had given him and only vexed, in his tidy, fidgety, old mind, at seeing her let her dress drag across the dewy grass and then over the gravel path. Hugh was instructing the flyman how to get into the stable and supply his horse's wants, so the Rector and his unexpected visitor entered the drawing-room alone and looked curiously at one another in the lamp-light, which seemed living and real and warm after the moon light. Yes, she was quite young, as Hugh had said, HE LED ItEK ACROSS THE LAWN WITH OLD-FASHIONEH GALLANTRY," hardly more than a child, though she was so tall. The outlines of her cheek and chin were quite childish, though the great, soft, dark eyes had a sadness in them that looked as if she had more than a child's experience of trouble.

She was dusty and travel-stained, and there were marks of tears on her cheeks, and one fresh one shining on her long eyelashes that appealed to the old man's tender heart. "You are very tired, my dear," he said. " There is a room quite ready for you. It was got ready for my sister, who has not come. But you will want some refreshment ; and if you won't think me very rude, I will go and see about it myself, as my housekeeper is in bed, and I should not like to disturb her, as she has had a trying day." The girl sank wearily into the arm-chair where he had placed her, throwing off her cloak and cap, and tossing back her head against the cushioned back with an abandon that was graceful though not very conventional, and the Rector went off to the kitchen and was making ineffectual efforts to rouse the kitchen fire, feeling that tea was the only appropriate refreshment to offer a lady, when his son joined him. ' I've told the man to come in when he has seen to the horse, and have a bit of supper.

Shall I see what there is in the larder? Oh, never mind me ; I don't think I could eat any thing just now, and I've so much to say, there's no time to waste on eating. Let us give the poor child something and send her to bed and then we can talk. Tea ? No. I think some wine would be better and quicker managed, and here's one of Mrs. Hannah's cakes. I gave her some dinner before we left town. I suppose the flyman may have a cut of this beef," he said, pouncing on the joint Mrs. Hannah had roasted ready for the cold Sunday dinner ; and even in this emergency the Rector felt they were taking an unwarrantable liberty in inter fering with her arrangements. But Hugh had whisked it out, and had turned up a loaf of bread and knife and fork before his father had time to remonstrate, and had set the back door open for the man to come in, and then, slipping his arm through his father's, led him back to the drawing-room.

The girl was still leaning back in the same chair in which the Rector had placed her, and seemed half-dozing, for she started upright when they came in and pushed back the hair from her eyes. "Hetty, I am going to give you a glass of wine," Hugh said ; and though his voice and face were kind and gentle, it was more the kindness and gentleness a grown-up person would show to a rather troublesome child, a kindness with a touch of forbearance in it, not the tenderness the Rector listened for as the voice of love, a tenderness that he sometimes of late thought that he had heard in Hugh's voice as he talked to Nellie. " And then you must go up to bed. I am going to leave you with my father, and he will take care of you, and be very kind to you, and you must be very good and contented, and try and be a daughter to him till I come home."

How long will you be gone ? " Three years, perhaps longer ! " It's an awfully long time ! " " It will soon pass, you will be so happy here. Come, Hetty, you must be a brave, little girl. Now, drink up this wine and eat a bit of cake." She obeyed as a child might, and he sat by her holding her glass and waiting on her, but without talking. Once the Rector rose to go, thinking that his presence might be a re straint on all they must have to say to one another before a parting of such a long duration, but an appealing look and gesture from his son made him resume his seat. " Now," Hugh said, when she had eaten the cake, " now, my father will show you the room where you will sleep. I have taken up your portmanteau." And he lighted a bedroom candle and came to the foot of the stairs with her. "Good-night and good-bye, Hetty," he said, taking her hand in his ; " you must write and tell me how you are and what you are doing " " Shall you be gone by to-morrow morning ?

" she interrupted. " Shan't I see you again ? " " No, I must be off in half an hour," he said, with an anxious glance at the great eight-day clock in the hall, which had witnessed many partings, but never such a strange one as this. "And you must be in bed and asleep by that time. So good-bye, little Hetty, good bye." He pressed her hands very kindly, and then let them go and turned away, with no senti mental lingering over the farewell such as might have been expected. But the girl did not seem satisfied with part ing in this way, and she made a step after him and laid her hand on his arm. " Is it really good-bye ? " she said ; and she raised her face to his with a simple gesture that was too childish to seem bold. But the Rector from the stairs above saw Hugh's face crimson and then turn white as he bent and kissed her, and when he looked round again from the top of the stairs, he saw Hugh with his face buried in his hands, as if that kiss had been a shameful blow that had shaken and unmanned him. And Hetty saw it too.

Chapter III. An Explanation

" Our hearts so beat together That speech is mockery." Browning. It is sometimes a good thing when an un pleasant thing has to be done, when there is very little time in which to do it. If Hugh had had a week to tell his story in instead of half an hour, I doubt if it would ever have got told. Even the few minutes he waited while his father showed his young visitor to her room and lighted the candles on the toilette-table and unfastened the straps of her portmanteau, even that short time made it more difficult to Hugh, bringing home to him as it did the discomfort he was introducing into the peaceful old house, upsetting the gentle calm of it as completely as Hetty's cloak, dragging behind her, had upset the chess-table, the scattered pieces from which had rolled hither and thither over the room.

Hugh was still collecting the chess-men when his father came back, and the two sat down close together on the sofa, so that Hugh could emphasise his words with a hand on his father's arm or receive a sympathetic touch in return. " I got to know her first last summer, when I was up at Whitby with those fellows read ing " " Why didn't you tell me about her, Hugh ? " "There was nothing to tell. She was only a little girl. I'll tell you just how it came about. You knew Munro — I've told you about him and what a craze he has for play. I don't know where it will take him. Well, you know I've never played since — you remember, when you were so awfully good and I gave you my word not to. Well, Munro picked up an acquaintance in the billiard-room at the Mitre with a Captain Hampden, an amusing sort of man, very good company and all that, but I did not much take to him even from the first, like Munro did.

He invited Munro and one or two of the other fellows to his rooms, and they used to play. He gave me a general sort of invitation, so I used to go with Munro, though I don't think the captain much cared about my going when he found out that I did not play cards. Lookers-on see most of the game, and more than once I saw more of the captain's play than I was intended. I went more on Munro's account than anything, be cause I could carry him off in decent time, but if I didn't go, he stopped all hours of the night, and lost a pretty lot of money, I fancy. But they didn't relish my sitting by all the time, so I used to sit out on the balcony and smoke, and the captain's little girl Hetty used to come and talk to me. "She was really quite a little girl then, though she is so tall now, and she had short petticoats and hair down her back, and she had a boat she used to sail in the pools at low tide, and she used to run wild about the beach all day and talk to the boatmen and donkey boys.