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Love Me Little, Love Me Long, a novel by Charles Reade |
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Chapter 22 |
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_ CHAPTER XXII "I HEARD your voice, Miss Lucy; I would know it among a million; so I rigged myself directly. Why, what is the matter?" "Oh, Mr. Dodd," sobbed Lucy, "she has told me all you have gone through, and I am the wicked, wicked cause!" David groaned. "If I didn't think as much. I heard the mill going. Ah! Eve, my girl, your jawing-tackle is too well hung. Eve is a good sister to me, Miss Lucy, and, where I am concerned, let her alone for making a mountain out of a mole-hill. If you believe all she says, you are to blame. The thing that went to my heart was to see my skipper run out his stunsel booms the moment he saw me overhauling him; it was a dirty action, and him an old shipmate. I am glad now I couldn't catch her, for if I had my foot would not have been on the deck two seconds before his carcass would have been in the Channel. And pray, Eve, what has Miss Fountain got to do with that? the dirty lubber wasn't bred at her school, or he would not have served an old messmate so. "Belay all that, and let's hear something worth hearing. Now, Miss Lucy, you tell me--oh, Lord, Eve, I say, isn't the thundering old dingy room bright now?--you spin me your own yarn, if you will be so good. Here you are, safe and sound, the Lord be praised! But I left you under the lee of that thundering island: wasn't very polite, was it? but you will excuse, won't you? Duty, you know--a seaman must leave his pleasure for his duty. Tell me, now, how did you come on? Was the vessel comfortable? You would not sail till the wind fell? Had you a good voyage? A tiresome one, I am afraid: the sloop wasn't built for fast sailing. When did you land?" To this fire of eager questions Lucy was in no state to answer. "Oh, no, Mr. Dodd," she cried, "I can't. I am choking. Yes, Miss Dodd, I am the heartless, unfeeling girl you think me." Then, with a sudden dart, she took David's hand and kissed it, and, both her hands hiding her blushing face, she fled, and a single sob she let fall at the door was the last of her. So sudden was her exit, it left both brother and sister stupefied. "Eve, she is offended," said David, with dismay. "What if she is?" retorted Eve; "no, she is not offended; but I have made her feel at last, and a good job, too. Why should she escape? she has done all the mischief. Come, you go to bed." "Not I; I have been long enough on my beam-ends. And I have heard her voice, and have seen her face, and they have put life into me. I shall cruise about the port. I have gone to leeward of John Company's favor, but there are plenty of coasting-vessels; I may get the command of one. I'll try; a seaman never strikes his flag while there's a shot in the locker."
"Why, what is the matter? Why, the child is ill. Don't gasp like that, Lucy. Come, pluck up courage; I am sure to be on your side, you know. What is it?" "Uncle, you are always so kind to me; you know you are." "Oh, am I? Noble old fellow!" "Oh, don't make me laugh! ha! ha! oh! oh! oh! ha! oh!" "Confound it, I have sent her into hysterics; no, she is coming round. Ten thousand million devils, has anybody been insulting the child in my house? They have. My wife, for a guinea." "No, no, no. It is about Mr. Dodd." "Mr. Dodd? oho!" "I have ruined him." "How have you managed that, my dear?" Then Lucy, all in a flutter, told Mr. Bazalgette what the reader has just learned. He looked grave. "Lucy," said he, "be frank with me. Is not Mr. Dodd in love with you?" "I _will_ be frank with _you,_ dear uncle, because you are frank. Poor Mr. Dodd did love me once; but I refused him, and so his good sense and manliness cured him directly." "So, now that he no longer loves you, you love him; that is so like you girls." "Oh, no, uncle; how ridiculous! If I loved Mr. Dodd, I could repair the cruel injuries I have done him with a single word. I have only to recall my refusal, and he-- But I do not love Mr. Dodd. Esteem him I do, and he has saved my life; and is he to lose his health, and his character, and his means of honorable ambition for that? Do you not see how shocking this is, and how galling to my pride? Yes, uncle, I _have_ been insulted. His sister told me to my face it was an evil day for him when he and I first met--that was at Uncle Fountain's." "Well, and what am I to do, Lucy?" "Dear Uncle, what I thought was, if you would be so kind as to use your influence with the Company in his favor. Tell them that if he did miss his ship it was not by a fault, but by a noble virtue; tell them that it was to save a fellow creature's life--a young lady's life--one that did not deserve it from him, your own niece's; tell them it is not for your honor he should be disgraced. Oh, uncle, you know what to say so much better than I do." Bazalgette grinned, and straightway resolved to perpetrate a practical joke, and a very innocent one. "Well," said he, "the best way I can think of to meet your views will be, I think, to get him appointed to the new ship the Company is building." Lucy opened her eyes, and the blood rushed to her cheek. "Oh uncle, do I hear right? a ship? Are you so powerful? are you so kind? do you love your poor niece so well as all this? Oh, Uncle Bazalgette!" "There is no end to my power," said the old man, solemnly; "no limit to my goodness, no bounds to my love for my poor niece. Are you in a hurry, my poor niece? Shall we have his commission down to-morrow, or wait a month?" "To-morrow? is it possible? Oh, yes! I count the minutes till I say to his sister, 'There, Miss Dodd, I have friends who value me too highly to let me lie under these galling obligations.' Dear, dear uncle, I don't mind being under them to you, because I love you" (kisses). "And not Mr. Dodd?" "No, dear; and that is the reason I would rather give him a ship than--the only other thing that would make him happy. And really, but for your goodness, I should have been tempted to--ha! ha! Oh, I am so happy now. No; much as I admire my preserver's courage and delicacy and unselfishness and goodness, I don't love him; so, but for this, he MUST have been unhappy for life, and then I should have been miserable forever." "Perfectly clear and satisfactory, my dear. Now, if the commission is to be down to-morrow, you must not stay here, because I have other letters to write, to go by the same courier that takes my application for the ship." "And do you really think I will go till I have kissed you, Uncle Bazalgette?" "On a subject so important, I hardly venture to give an opin--hallo! kissing, indeed? Why, it is like a young wolf flying at horseflesh." "Then that will teach you not to be kinder to me than anybody else is." Lucy ran out radiant and into the garden. Here she encountered Kenealy, and, coming on him with a blaze of beauty and triumph, fired a resolution that had smoldered in him a day or two. He twirled his mustache and--popped briefly. _ |
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