Greatheart - Ethel May Dell (the lemonade war series TXT) 📗

sorts of messages for you, and I have promised to take care of you in his absence, if you will allow me."
"Oh, that will be great fun!" exclaimed Dinah ingenuously, "I hope you are not very busy. I'd like you to show me everything."
He laughed. "No, I can't do that. We must keep that for Eustace. But I will take you to the Dower House, and show you that."
"I shall love that," said Dinah.
He took her into a room that overlooked terrace and river-valley and the sunny southern slope that lay between.
Breakfast was laid for two, and a cheery fire was burning. "How cosy it looks!" said Dinah.
"It does, doesn't it?" said Scott. "We always breakfast here in the winter for that reason. Not that it is winter to-day. It is glorious spring. You seem to have brought it with you. Take the coffee-pot end, won't you? What will you have to eat?"
He spoke with a lightness that Dinah found peculiarly exhilarating. He was evidently determined that she should not be dull. Her spirits rose. She suddenly felt like a child who has been granted an unexpected holiday.
She smiled up at him as he brought her a plate. "Isn't it a perfect morning? I'm so glad to be here. Don't let us waste a single minute; will we?"
"Not one," said Scott.
He went to his own place. He was plainly in a holiday mood also. She saw it in his whole bearing, and her heart rejoiced. It was so good to see him looking happy.
"Have you seen Isabel this morning?" he asked her presently.
"No. I went to her door, but Biddy said she was asleep, so I didn't go in."
"She often doesn't sleep much before morning," Scott said. "I expect she will be down to luncheon if you can put up with me only till then."
He evidently did not want to discuss Isabel's health just then, and Dinah was quite willing also to let the subject pass for the time. It was a morning for happy thoughts only. She and Scott would pretend that they had not a care in the world.
They breakfasted together as if it were a picnic. She had never seen him so cheery and inconsequent. It was as if he also were engaged in some species of make-believe. Or was it the enchantment of spring that had fallen upon them both? Dinah could not have said. She only knew that she had never felt so happy in all her life before.
The walk to the Dower House was full of delight. It was all so exquisite, the long, grassy slopes, the dark woods, the bare trees stark against the blue. The path led through a birch copse, and here in sheltered corners were primroses. She gathered them eagerly, and Scott helped her, even forgetting to smoke.
She did not remember later what they talked about, or even if they talked at all. But the amazing gladness of her heart on that spring morning was to be a vivid memory to her for as long as she lived.
They reached the Dower House. Like Willowmount, it overlooked the river, but from a different angle. Dinah was charmed with the old place. It was full of unexpected corners and old-fashioned contrivances. Blue patches of violets bloomed in the garden. Again with Scott's help, she gathered a great dewy bunch.
There were workmen in one or two of the rooms, and she stood by or wandered at will while Scott talked to the foreman.
They found themselves presently in the room that was to be Isabel's,--a large and sunlit apartment that had a turret window that looked to the far hills beyond the river. Dinah stood entranced with her eyes upon the blue distance. Finally, with a sigh, she spoke.
"How I wish I were going to live here too!"
"What! You like it better than Willowmount?" said Scott.
She made a little gesture of the hands, as if she pleaded for understanding. "I feel so small in big places. This is spacious, but it's cosy too. I--I should feel lost alone at Willowmount."
"But you won't be alone," he pointed out, with his kindly smile. "You will be very much the reverse, I can assure you."
She gave that sharp, uncontrollable little shiver of hers. "You mean Eustace--" she said haltingly.
"Yes, Eustace, and all the people round who will want to know his bride," said Scott. "I don't think you will have much time to be lonely. If you have, you can always come along to us, you know. We shall be only too delighted to see you."
Dinah turned to him impulsively. "You are good!" she said. "I wonder you don't look upon me as a horrid little interloper, turning you out of your home where you have always lived! I do hate the thought of it! Really it isn't my fault."
She spoke with tears in her eyes; but Scott still smiled. "My dear child," he said, "such an idea never entered my head. Isabel and I have often thought we should like to make this our home. We have always intended to as soon as Eustace married."
"Did you never think of marrying?" Dinah asked him suddenly.
There was an instant's pause, and then, as he was about to speak, she broke in quickly.
"Oh, please don't tell me! I was a pig to ask! I didn't mean to. It just slipped out. Do forgive me!"
"But why shouldn't you ask?" said Scott gently. "We are friends. I don't mind answering you. I've had my dream like the rest of the world. But it was very soon over. I never seriously deluded myself into the belief that anyone could care to marry a shrimp like me."
"Oh, Scott!" Almost fiercely Dinah cut him short. "How can you--you of all people--say a thing like that?"
Scott looked at her quizzically for a moment. "I should have thought I was the one person who could say it," he observed.
Dinah turned from him sharply. Her hands were clenched. "Oh no! Oh no!" she said incoherently. "It's not right! It's not fair! You--you--Mr. Greatheart!" Quite suddenly, as if the utterance of the name were too much for her, she broke down, covered her face, and wept.
"Dinah!" said Scott.
He came to her and took her very gently by the arm. Dinah's shoulders were shaking. She could not lift her face.
"Why--why shouldn't your dream come true too?" she sobbed. "You--who help everybody--to get what they want!"
"My dear," Scott said, "my dream is over. Don't you grieve on my account! God knows I'm not grieving for myself." His voice was low, but very steadfast.
"You wouldn't!" said Dinah.
"No; because it's futile, unnecessary, a waste of time. I've other things to do--plenty of other things." Scott braced himself with the words, as one who manfully lifts a burden. "Cheer up, Dinah! I didn't mean to make you sad."
"But--but--are you sure--quite sure--she didn't care?" faltered Dinah, rubbing her eyes woefully.
"Quite sure," said Scott, with decision.
Dinah threw him a sudden, flashing glance of indignation. "Then she was a donkey, Scott, a fool--an idiot!" she declared, with trembling vehemence. "I'd like--oh, how I'd like--to tell her so."
Scott was smiling, his own, whimsical smile. "Yes, wouldn't you?" he said. "And it's awfully nice of you to say so. But do you know, you're quite wrong. She wasn't any of those things. On the other hand, I was all three. But where's the use of talking? It's over, and a good thing too!"
Dinah slipped a quivering hand over his. "We'll always be friends, won't we, Scott?" she said tremulously.
"Always," said Scott.
She squeezed his hand hard, and in response his fingers pressed her arm. His steady eyes looked straight into hers.
And in the silence, there came to Dinah a queer stirring of uncertainty,--the uncertainty of one who just begins to suspect that he is on the wrong road.
The moment passed, and they talked again of lighter things, but the mood of irresponsible light-heartedness had gone. When they finally left the Dower House, Dinah felt that she trod the earth once more.
"I shall come and see you very often when we come back," she said rather wistfully. "I hope Eustace won't want to be away a very long time."
"Aren't you looking forward to your honeymoon?" asked Scott.
"I don't know," said Dinah, and paused. "I really don't know. But," brightening, "I'm sure the wedding will be great fun."
"I hope it will," said Scott kindly.
It was not till they were nearing Willowmount that Dinah asked him at length hesitatingly about Isabel.
"Do you mind telling me? Is she worse?"
Scott also hesitated a little before he answered. Then: "In one sense she is much better," he said. "But physically," he paused, "physically she is losing ground."
"Oh, Scott!" Dinah looked at him with swift dismay. "But why--why? Can nothing be done?"
His eyes met hers unwaveringly. "No, nothing," he said, and he spoke with that decision which she had come to know as in some fashion a part of himself. His words carried conviction, and yet by some means they quieted her dismay as well. He went on after a moment with that gentle philosophy of his that seemed to soften all he said. "She is as one nearing the end of a long journey, and she is very tired, poor girl. We can't grudge her her rest--when it comes. Eustace wants to rouse her, but I think the time for that is past. It is kinder--it is wiser--to let her alone."
Dinah drew a little nearer to him. "Do you mean--that you think she won't live very long?" she whispered.
"If you like to put it that way," Scott answered quietly.
"Oh, but what of you?" she said.
She uttered the words almost involuntarily, and the next moment she would have recalled them, for she saw his face change. For a second--only a second--she read suffering in his eyes. But he answered her without hesitation.
"I shall just keep on, Dinah," he said. "It's the only way. But, as I think I've mentioned before, it's no good meeting troubles half-way. The day's work is all that really matters."
They walked on for a space in silence; then as they drew near the house he changed the subject. But that brief shadow of a coming desolation dwelt in Dinah's memory with a persistence that defied all lesser things. He was brave enough, cheery enough, in the shouldering of his burden; but her heart ached when she realized how heavy that burden must be.
A message awaited her at the house that she would go to Isabel in her sitting-room, and she went, half-eager, half-diffident. But as soon as she was with her friend her doubts were all gone. For Isabel looked and spoke so much as usual that it seemed impossible to believe that she was indeed nearing the end of the journey.
She wanted to know all that Dinah had been doing, and they sat and discussed the decorations of the Dower House till the luncheon-hour.
When luncheon was over they repaired to a sheltered corner of the terrace, looking down over the garden to the river, while Scott went away to write letters; and here they talked over the serious matter of the trousseau with regard to which neither Dinah nor her mother had made any very definite arrangements.
Perhaps Mrs. Bathurst had foreseen the possibility of Isabel desiring to undertake this responsibility. Perhaps Isabel had already dropped a hint of her intention. In any case it seemed the most natural thing in the world that Isabel should be the one to assist and advise, and when Dinah demurred a little on the score of cost she found herself gently but quite effectually silenced. Sir