His Heart to Win

Front matter

iobr £torp. BY CURTIS YORKE, Author of " Once.'" "A Romance of Modern London," "Hiuth!" " Dudley ,"" The Wild lliithtens," " That Little Girl," etc., etc., etc. " If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should." Italj/h Waldo Emerson. LONDON : JAREOLD & SONS, 10 & 11, WARWICK LANE, E.C. 1893. \AU Rights Reserved.'] COMPLETE LIST OF worf;s BY CURTIS YOF^E, Published by Jarrold & Sons. Crown &vo., Cloth, 3/6 each. (Postage c\\d.) HUSH ! 2nd Edition. " Is in many ways a remarkable novel, and from every point of view superior to the current fiction of the day." — Morning Post. DUDLEY. 3rd Edition. " It is some time since such a fresh, pleasant book has come under our notice as 'Dudley.' " — Whitehall Review. WILD RUTHVENS. 3rd Edition.

"An enchanting work — the story ru«s on with happy blithesome tread to the end, which is reached all loo soon."-*S7. Stephen's Review. THAT LITTLE GIRL. 4th Edition. " A very charming and well-written story."'— Queen. THE BROWN PORTMANTEAU, AND OTHER STORIES. "The stories are all interesting, and the volume is sure of a welcome." — Literary World, ONCE. An entirely New Work. " Full of incident, rich in pathos and passion, and told In fascinat ing language, 'Once !' will be warmly appreciated by all lovers of fiction.' ' — Christian Age. A ROMANCE OF MODERN LONDON. Second Edition. "This is an exceedingly clever and well-written novel, full of interest and pathos." — Life. HIS HEART TO WIN. An entirely New Story. LONDON JARROLD &• SONS, 10 &* ir, Warwick Lam. And of all Booksellers. CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PACE I. "What Kind of Things?" ... ... 7 II. Haed Hit ... ... ... 14 III. Arthur ... ... ... '... 20 IV. A Kiss! ... ... ... 25 V. Consequences ... ... ... 33 VI. In which Mollie Geows Up ... 40 VII. What Mollie's Heart Said ... ... 51 VIII. In which Mollie is Troubled ... 58 IX. Treats of Festivity and Gloom ... 65 X. Shadow ... ... ... ... 77 XL " Say ' Yes,' Mollie ! " ... ... 81 XII. In which Bobbits tells Tales ... 89 XIII. Married Life ... ... ... 93 XIV. Treats of Various Matters ... 99 XV. 'Twixt Cap and Lip! ... ... ... 105 XVI. Alas !— for Mollie ! ... ... Ill XVII. To Leeward! ... ... ... CONTEXTS. CHAFTER PAOE XVIII. An Aspirant for Fame ... ... 125 XIX. Delilah! ... ... ... ... 131 XX. In which Dorian is set Free ... 141 XXI. In which Mollie is Indiscreet ... 146 XXII.

Chapter II. Hard Hit

" I love once as I live but once. What case is this to think or talk about?" Robert Browning. DOWN by the stile Dorian Keith still leaned in the light of the sunset. He had hardly moved since Mollie left him half an hour ago. A stunned bitter sense of incredulity had been his state of mind all day— aud all the preceding night, for that matter. Now, he was beginning to awake to con sciousness, as it were. His wound was beginning to sting. And yet it was a common enough wound, too. It was only — that the girl who had promised to marry him had found out that she liked someone else better, and had told him so. As I have said, it was a common enough trouble. Men have been crossed in love before, and got over it, as we all know. But it does not make your toothache any the less intolerable that thousands of your fellow-creatures are, or have been, suffering similar agonies.

" Toothache of the heart," someone has called that folly which we know as love. Is it worse to bear than the old ordinary toothache ? Upon my word I don't know. And yet — At all events, life in general, as viewed in the light of recent events, seemed rather a poor affair to Dorian Keith to-night. As he watched the sun go down behind a billowy bank of clouds — the yellow glory that had touched the trees aud hedges and all the far-reaching landscape, fading into a HARD HIT. 15 cold dreary grey — he realized with a heavy sick despair that out of his life all the glory that had tinged it only yesterday had. faded too, leaving nothing but greyness and desolation. Then he smiled at himself contemptuously. " By Jove ! I must be a drivelling sentimental idiot," he muttered, flinging away his half-smoked cigar, which had gone out long ago.

" And yet, oh my God, it is hard — infernally hard." He turned and walked rapidly across the fields to the beach, where the tide was rushing up in grey transparent wavelets over the shells and shingle. A light oak-coloured boat lay high and dry above the sea-weed, and having run it swiftly down to the water's edge, Keith swung himself in and rowed away. His strokes were swift, and strong, and deep, as if .he wrere trying to outstrip the sore pain in his heart that he found so "infernally hard" to bear. As the days went on he found his trouble cut deeper still. A man, though he may be pretty hard hit, may get over a girl's refusal without much damage. But when he is a man of strong passions, and when he has been allowed to call a girl his future wife for over two years, when he has kissed her as his future wife, thought of her as his future wife, and finally been calmly jilted by her within a few weeks of his longed-for wedding-day — why, then it is apt to be a more serious affair.

However, it was not Dorian Keith's way to make much fuss about his feelings or worries. So, as the weeks crawled past, he did not grow appreciably white and thin as he ought to have done. Nor did he pose at all as a disappointed lover — not even when Drinton was electrified by the news that Esther Fairfax had made a runaway match with "the other man." Indeed, except that his old father found him a shade less conversational at meal-times than formerly, and that his visits to Fairfax Hall naturally ceased, nobody noticed much difference in himself and his habits. Nobody, that is to say, except little Mollie Coningham. But then, as her cousins often said, she was always a queer, old-fashioned bit of a thing. About a week after Mollie had seen Keith in the lane, she and Baby Bob were sunning themselves on the banks of a quiet little troutstream that emerged from a wood not far from Home Croft, and ran from thence through half-a mile or so of fields and meadows until it reached the sea.

Baby Bob was crowing in sleepy contentment on a shawl spread on the short dry grass. Mollie was busy with some intricate piece of fancy-work. There was a small pine wood to the left of the trout stream, and from this wood, by-and-bye, came the sound of steadily approaching footsteps. Mollie looked up suddenly and put her work out of sight, as Dorian Keith emerged from under the trees. He was walking slowly, with his hands behind his back, a cigar between his lips, and on his face a look his dead mother would not have liked to see there. He did not observe Mollie at first, and became conscious of her presence with a start when he was within a yard or so of Baby Bob's shawl. " Why Mollie," he said as he stopped beside her — " what an omnipresent little woman you are ! You seem to be everywhere."

" I haven't seen you for a good many days," she answered, a hurt flush covering her small face. Keith threw himself down on the grass, and addressed a few conventional remarks to Baby Bob, who stared at him solemnly, and then broke into a loud and indignant wail. Mollie caught up the small weeper lovingly, pacified him, and replaced him on the shawl. "What's this?" inquired Keith languidly, after a pause, picking up Mollie's work, which had dropped on the grass near him. HARD HIT. 17 It was a gorgeously-designed smoking-cap of blue velvet, adorned with impossible flowers in yellow embroidery. Mollie snatched it away. "Oh, I didn't want you to see it yet," she said. "It — it is something I am making — for you." "For me?" turning his eyes on her in faint surprise. " That is very good of you, Mollie.

But what have I done to deserve a present just now? It isn't my birthday, is it ? " " No. But it isn't for your birthday, you know," she said shyly. "It is for by-and-bye, when you — it is for a wedding present." Keith's face got quite white. " Then in that case, Mollie," he said in a curiously cold voice, " I think you had better not finish it." " Not finish it," she echoed. " Don't you like it, then ? Sylvia said it was too bright," she added wistfully. Her companion laughed, as he had laughed that other day in the lane. " My dear Mollie," he said, aiming a piece of bark with a somewhat unsteady hand at an unoffending bird on the other side of the river, " unless one is going to be married one is not likely to want wedding presents." "But— you are going to be married!" exclaimed Mollie breathlessly.

Keith smiled oddly under his moustache. " That is just the point, Mollie. I am not going to be mariied." He spoke very quietly. Mollie did not see the clenching of the strong white hand that lay on the sun-baked grass. " Not going to be married ! " she repeated in perplexed amazement. "Not at all! " " No," was the brief answer, " not at all." "Don't you — don't you care for her any more?" the girl asked in a hushed voice. B Keith did not answer. The river rippled on peacefully. Baby Bob sucked his thumb and stared at the sky. Mollie sat quite still, her heart beating very quickly, her hands folded over the gay colours of the wedding present that was never to be given. One swift glance at the man beside her told her that his face was half-hidden on his arm, and that his teeth were shut hard on his under-lip.

Presently a small hand stole into his, and an eager childish voice said chokingly, " I know — I can guess what she has done. Don't be vexed. Don't think about her. She never was good enough for you — never I " Keith pressed the friendly little fingers. But he did not speak, nor uncover his face. He could not have borne sympathy from anyone else just then ; but somehow from this quaint loving child it had a novel sweetness. By-and-bye he stirred, and raised himself on his elbow. His face looked haggard and almost old ; and seeing it, a furious hatred of beautiful Esther raged in Mollie's loyal young heart. With a sudden inexplicable impulse she flung the half-completed smoking-cap viciously from her — far into the river. It floated gaily for a time, then caught on a straggling branch of willow, and hung there miserably.

" Why, what was that for, little woman ?" Keith inquired with a pale ghost of a smile. "Because I hate her — I hate her!" was the fierce and somewhat inexplicable answer. "I am glad you are not going to many her." The man's face grew dark. " Mollie," he said slowly, " there are things that it hurts to talk about. You are too young to know it, perhaps " " No, no," she interrupted him vehemently. " I am not too young. I am more than fourteen. I know — I ,le> know. I will nevi.r speak of it again — never. I will HARD HIT. 19 on!}- — only be so sorry for you. You are not angry with me, are you ? " " No, child, no," he answered with a quick contraction of his brows. He lay silent for some time, moodily pulling at his moustache. Then he rose to his feet and glanced at his watch. " By Jove, it is late," he said.

As his eye encountered the wrecked smoking-cap he added, " You might have kept that gorgeous affair for my birthday, Mollie." "No, not that one," she answered quickly. "I will make you something else for your birthday — if you would care for it." " Yes," he answered in an absent voice. " I don't often get presents. Yours will be a novelty." Then raising his cap with an accompanying nod he walked away amongst the ferns and dock-leaves, and disappeared into the wood. Mollie sat silently gazing at the river for a long time, until at last Baby Bob began to whimper ; whereupon his cousin took him up in her arms and went home to tea.

CHAPTER IIL ARTHUR.

" The tongue is the key of the mind ; And whenever it opens the secret-hung door, What lies in the storehouse behind — Whether gems or mere rubbish — is hidden no more." Translated from the Oriental. THE Coninghams were not a particularly well-behaved family. But for the most part they were loving and good-hearted, and stood up for each other all round with an almost fierce loyalty. As a rule, one or other of them was in disgrace ; for Dr. Coningham was both stern and irritable with his children, and was far from either under standing or being understood by them. To-night it was Arthur's turn to be in disgrace. Arthur was sixteen, and the eldest of the family — the eldest at home, that is to say. Two grownup sons were abroad, one in Australia and one in Africa. Next to them came blithe brown-haired Joyce, who three years ago had celebrated her eighteenth birthday and her wedding-day simultaneously, and thereupon became one of the happiest little wives in London.

Arthur did not possess the happy-go-lucky disposition of the other young Coninghams. He was inclined to be morbid, and moreover, was cursed with a jealous sullen temper. Even Mollie, whom he secretly considered a model of what girls ought to be, found him " difficult to get on with," as she mildly put it. ARTHUR. 21 During the afternoon of this particular day he had un happily been caught by his father in the stable-yard of the "Blue Lion," laughing and joking with the ostlers and stablemen, and — deadly crime in the doctor's eyes — smoking. Perhaps it would have been better had Dr. Coningham waited until they were alone to correct the lad. But he did not. He laid his riding-whip smartly across his shoulders then and there, with a few sharp stinging words that brought an ugly look into the boy's eyes, and sowed seeds of rebellion and resentment that were to bear sad enough fruit in the future.

Neither a good-looking nor a good-tempered lad did Arthur Coningham look as he sat at the tea-table to-night, his dark young face even darker in its sullenness than usual, his tea and bread and butter untouched before him. " Why are you not taking your tea, Arthur ? " inquired his father, suddenly and sharply. "I don't want any," was the curt answTer. " Now none of your stable-yard manners here, sir," lashed out the doctor fiercely. " Take your tea, or leave the table." Arthur's reply to this was to push his chair violently backward — upsetting his tea thereby — and fling himself out of the room. Then the doctor followed him, and boxed his ears smartly in the hall ; then returned to his seat with a heavy frown. Mrs. Coningham was already dissolved in tears, for Arthur was her favourite son.

She adored him ; and, like most worshippers of the earthly, she got but little thanks for her adoration. Tim and Terry disposed of their tea with swift solemnity. Their turn might come at any moment, they knew. Mollie removed Baby Bob's hands from his tea-cup, in which he was surreptitiously washing them. Then she hurriedly dispatched her own tea, and went in search of Arthur. For though she liked him least of all her cousins, somehow she was sorry for him trlight. As she passed through the hall she saw his cap on the table. Therefore he had evidently not gone out. He was not in the bare, untidy schoolroom. He was not in the boy's bedroom. Mollie turned into a small room known as the workshop, where the boys kept a number of maimed and ancient tools, where they had skinned and dissected many a dead cat, rat, and mouse, and where boys and girls alike had played and laughed aud sulked and quarrelled and made it up again, ever since they could remember anything.

A dejected-looking figure was dimly outlined against the fast-darkening window, and Mollie stole softly up to it. "Arthur," she said, "could you help me with my French verbs now, do you think ? Or are you going to do anything else ? " Instead of impatiently negativing this proposal, Arthur acquiesced at once, as Mollie's quick instinct had known he would. His sore angry young heart was consoled in some vague way by the request for assistance. It raised him from the position of the snubbed to the possible snubber. Mollie's verbs were scarcely a success that night — as verbs. She got well scolded and jeered at, poor little woman. But she did not mind much. When the books were tossed aside, Arthur seated himself on a chip-strewn bench and said in a hard voice, " Look here, Mollie. You're a good decent little soul, and about the only one in this house I care a rap for.

Now, I'm not going to stand the governor's cheek any longer. I'm going to make my own way in the world, as Sam and Fred have done. So I want to know, if when I come back, a grown-up swell, with plenty of money, if you'll marry me. You see, when a fellow gets on, and has a house and that, he wants a wife to look after things. And you'd suit me better than most girls, I fancy — though you're not exactly pretty. So what do you say ? " ARTHUR. 23 Mollie stared, as well she might, at this uniquely-put proposal. Then she said, trying not to laugh, "No, Arthur, thank you. I don't want to be married, ever. And besides, I'm sure," she added, hesitatingly, " that uncle would thiuk we are too young to talk about such things." "Too young? Pooh !— nobody's ever too young to talk about anything," was the extremely catholic answer.

"I'm past sixteen, and you're past fourteen. In five years I'll be over twenty-one, and you'll be nineteen. As for the governor, he thinks everybody's too young for everything, except beastly grinds. I'm sick of it. But of course you can please yourself, Mollie. I should have thought you'd have been glad enough to see a way of being independent, instead of living here all your life." " Auntie likes to have me," said Mollie, feeiiug curiously desolate all at once. " And oh, Arthur, I don't think you ought to go away. I know uncle is looking forward to your studying medicine and being a doctor." " He'll have to look forward to something else, then," was Master Coningham's dutiful answer. " I don't want to be a doctor. I don't care a straw about sick people, and trying to find out what's the matter with them.

Tim likes it. Let him have a try." " But you are the eldest," began Mollie. "Well, I can't help that," said the boy moodily. "I wish I wasn't, I'm sure. I wish I'd never been born at all." To this melancholy remark Mollie made no reply. "I say, Mollie," resumed Arthur, after a pause, " should you be vexed if I went away ? " "Yes, of course I should." " Well then, I won't go. I'll put up with the governor a little longer, if you'll get the mother to coax him to let me off being a doctor. I'd far rather be a lawyer — or anything. But mind this — I shouldn't have stayed at home if you hadn't wanted me to. And I think, Mollie, you might give a fellow a kiss as a kind of set off." " No indeed, I'd rather not. Kissing is silly. We'll shake hands ou it. That's far more sensible." " You are a cold, unfeeling little thing," began the lad angrily.

And just then Tim came in. "Well, Arthur," he observed cheerfully. "In the dumps as usual, eh ? " " Oh, shut up," growled the other. And pitching the French grammar at his brother's head, he lounged moodily out of the room. " Awful muff, Arthur," chuckled Tim, lighting a candle, and briskly exhuming a dead rabbit from a drawer. " Here, take hold of the ears, Mollie, like a good girl." But Mollie shrank back. " Oh no, I can't. It looks awful. I hate it," she said, shuddering. "Pooh, what a goose you are. Send Terry, then. She likes it. I don't know how it is, Mollie, that you are such a brick in most things, and yet you can't bear to see a simple rabbit skinned." As tbe " simple rabbit" had by this time assumed a some what terrifying appearance, Mollie fled precipitately.

Chapter IV

A KISS ! "Her face, her parnest baby-sac?; Her young fjce, so uncommon wife " Joaqnin Miller. HPHE Keiths, father and son, lived in a large square house -*- some little way out of Drinton, known as The Larches. And over the household at The Larches old Mr. Keith's elderly maiden sister, Miss Warnuke, reigned supreme, for Mrs. Keith had died long ago. Old Mr. Keith (who, by the way, was not particularly old, aud was only called so to distinguish him from his son) was senior partner of the only bank the little town of Drinton possessed. "Keith's Bank " was looked upon by the Drintouites as a rather safer and more importaut institution than the Bank of England itself. The Keiths themselves were very popular in the neighbourhood. Much more so than the family at Fairfax Hall. For " the Squire," Sir Thomas Fairfax, was a personage both domineering and irascible, and woe to tho poacher on his preserves, or the trespasser on his exquisitelykept park aud grounds.

His only son (now at Eton) had been an imp of mischief and a terror to the surrounding district ever since he had eschewed long clothes some seventeen years ago, and Esther Fairfax had put the finishing touch to her family's unpopularity when she broke off her engagement with Dorian Keith, and ran away to marry Captain Leamington a few weeks later. For which latter escapade her father, who cordially disliked the gallant captain, declared he had disowned her, and after the most approved fashion, struck her name out of his will. The Drinton gossips said she was a stuck-up, fly-away minx, and that young Keith was well rid of her. They also said that ho was " evidently getting over it, and that he had not been very hard hit after all." But besides little Mollie, one other person in Drinton knew that he had not got over it— would not get over it for many a long day— and that he was very hard hit indeed.

This one other person was Miss Warnuke — Aunt Hetty, as her nephew always called her. He never spoke of Esther, nor did Aunt Hetty; but she tried to show her sympathy for him in all sorts of funny fussy ways, which, to be sure, rather irritated him than otherwise. Aunt Hetty was a dear little old lady — a sweet little old lady — but she was undeniably fussy. She worried and made a fuss about inconceivably many things ; — about the housekeeping, about the servants and their delinquencies, about her brother's health, about her nephew's health, about her own health, about her neighbours' affairs, about church affairs, about everything under the sun that concerned her, and about a great many things that did not concern her at all. To-night she was going out to tea, therefore she was even fussier than usual.

Tea-parties were tbe forms of dissipation most affected in Drinton, and at these festivities Miss Warnuke usually appeared either in a rich black silk, or a blue aud white striped silk ; and it was always a matter of deep cogitation to her as to which of these garments she ought to wear. She had just decided in favour of the blue and white stripes for this particular evening, when she remembered that the new Vicar would be there, and that the black would therefore be more "suitable." Why it would be more suitable did not exactly trauspire. When she was at last dressed and ready to go, she begun to A KISS! 27 worry her nephew's life out because he would not accompany her. " I shall go in time to take you home," he said, smiling down at her anxious rosy little face. "Not a quarter of an hour sooner."

" Dear me, Dorian, you are as obstinate as your father," she said, fretfully. " And I know there are going to be some nice girls there." "Ah! Give them my love," he answered, carelessly. •' You'll be late, Aunt Hetty." As Miss Warnuke hurried along the road to Mrs. Raynor's, she was overtaken by Mollie Coningham, who was also going to the tea-party. For Mrs. Raynor was very fond of Mollie, and made a point of inviting her to most of her little entertainments, to the exclusion of the other younger mem bers of the Home Croft household, whom she openly declared she did not "get on with." They, for their part, thought the Raynor tea-parties "slow," in which opinion Mollie concurred, and which, in truth, they were. "Well, my dear, you look very nice," was the old lady's greeting, as Mollie kissed her.

" Do I ? " answered Mollie, soberly. " Let me carry your cap-basket, Miss Warnuke. Which one is it?" she asked, peeping in with the freedom of favouritism. " Oh, a new one." " Why, yes, my dear. I bought it at Gallup's the other day for a mere nothing. I didn't really want it, and I'm afraid it's shockingly unbecoming ; but it was such a bargain, I really couldn't resist it." Mollie laughed; for the love of bargains was Miss Warnuke's grand weakness. Just then Mr. Mortimer, the new Vicar, came down the lane that led from the Vicarage, with his mother on his arm. He was a long-legged, somewhat ungainly, and extremely nervous young man. His mother was small and thin and agile, with a chirping, second-rate voice that never rested, and hard beady black eyes. «• Well, Miss Warnuke, and how are you ?

" the said, "and isn't it much chillier to-night? I entreated Evan to put on his warm flannels before coming out into the evening air. But young men are so careless. Ah, dear me, dear me. And how are you, little Miss Coningham. Dear me, you're quite the young lady. Why the other day in church you looked almost a child. How old are you ? Fourteen, past fourteen ? Dear me, dear me, when I was fifteen I was engaged — or, at least, just going to be— to your poor father, Evan, my dear. Ah, well, well— it's the way we all must go. Evan— you look pale. You're sure you don't feel a chill ? — or anv return of those internal pains you had last night ? Won't you run back, dear, and put on your heavy flannels ? They are hanging before the fire in the parlour. And the peppermint-water is on the mantelpiece."

"Mother, mother, never mind me — I'm all right," ex postulated her son in crimson confusion-i For he was a very shy and modest young man, and he did not like these public allusions to his under-clothing and casual ailments — even before such a limited audience as an old lady and a little girl. Mollie, indeed, was looking quite bonnie and womanly to night. She had on a new frock, and it came nearer her shoes than did the majority of her frocks. Her curly hair was tied up in a less childish way than usual ; it was a becoming way, too, and Mollie knew it. The evening passed heavily — even for one of Mrs. Raynor's evenings. People sang, or listened to other people singing, songs that they all knew and abhorred. They played cards, and less dignified games. And one young man recited in a faint trembling voice a long poem, which vaguely suggested battle and murder and sudden death.

The compauy stopped yawning to applaud when it was finished. At ten o'clock a neat little servant entered with a tray, upon which small tumblers of surprisingly weak claret and water were arranged symmetrically. Aud a little later Dorian Keith appeared to take his aunt home. A KISS! 29 There was a slight, almost imperceptible flutter among tbe more youthful spinsters present as he entered. For besides being quite good-looking enough for everyday purposes, Dorian was decidedly an eligible, and, thanks to Miss Fairfax's defection, once more " to be had." It pleased them to imagine him pale and distrait, and generally interesting to-night; though, as a matter of fact, he was looking very much as he had always done. " How are you going to get home to-night, little Mollie ? " he said, when he had greeted his hostess, uttered various polite nothings to several bright-eyed maidens, and finnlly come to an anchor beside a rather sleepy and neglected Mollie.