CHAPTER XLI.

The friendship which Bruce at this time conceived for Josiah was uncommonly warm and sudden. Though always well disposed towards the worthy Curate, he had not, while Rosa was living at the Heronry, taken much pains to seek his society, but he now became of a sudden a frequent visitor to the Parsonage. He showed great interest in flowers, though he hardly knew a dahlia from a polyanthus; he listened to details of parish matters with an attention quite wonderful, considering how little taste he had that way; and he became enamoured of those old English authors who were Josiah’s especial favourites. Finding these manifold pretences insufficient to account for the frequency of his visits, he hit upon a project for rendering them quite plausible. He insisted on subscribing fifty pounds towards a school-house that was to be built in the village under the Curate’s auspices; and when Josiah protested against this liberality as indiscreet and uncalled for, he hinted that it was not altogether disinterested—that his classical knowledge was getting rusty—that he perceived Josiah to be often unoccupied for an hour or two of a morning—and proposed they should read some Latin together.

The Curate liked the project much; it would divert his thoughts from painful subjects—his own classics wanted rubbing up—he had a great regard for Bruce, whose openness, vivacity, and good-nature had quite won his heart, and the readings commenced forthwith.

They were carried on upon a plan which, however agreeable to the master and his disciple, was scarcely calculated to answer the proposed end. Bruce and Josiah would sit down together with their Horace, or their Virgil, or their Terence before them, and for a time would read away with tolerable diligence. Presently Rosa, coming into the room from some household avocation, would trip across it softly, not to disturb them—get what she was in quest of, perhaps a cookery-book, and go off in the same silent fashion, with a nod and a smile at Bruce. At this stage of the lesson the student’s attention would begin to waver; he would look a good deal oftener at the door than upon his page. Perhaps shortly after Rosa would re-enter, to request Josiah to get from the garden some celery, parsnip, or other winter vegetable, of which she stood in need for culinary purposes. “Why didn’t you ask me before, when I was in the garden, my child?” the Curate would say, which, indeed, she might very well have done; and Josiah, rising with a sigh to comply with her request, would be forcibly reseated by Bruce, who would desire him to try again at that crabbed bit of Latinity, while _he_ went to get what Miss Rosa wanted. Whereupon he and Rosa would repair to the garden together, she pointing out what she wanted, while Bruce supplied her with it; and the Curate, after looking dreamily about for their re-entrance, would forget them altogether, plunging either into a reverie or into a book.

Sometimes Bruce found the Curate absent on some clerical or parochial errand, and on these occasions he thought no apology necessary for his stay, nor did Rosa expect one. If she was too busy to talk to him in the study, he would repair to the kitchen, and even take a share in the culinary mysteries to which that region is sacred, though his presence did not perhaps, on the whole, contribute to the excellence of the cookery. I have always suspected that King Alfred, when he let the cakes burn, was making love to the herdsman’s wife, and that the idea of her scolding him for negligence was devised to conceal her share in the delinquency.

Mr Oates, seeing the state of affairs between them, grew quite morose, and would hardly speak to Bruce at breakfast-time. He addicted himself to the society of Suckling, and attempted to divert his thoughts by getting up a scratch pack of harriers, and hunting them himself; and might be heard two or three times a-week in the woods about Doddington, attended by the fast spirits of the place, hallooing, and pouring through the mellow horn his pensive soul.

Rosa had none of the dignity which in Lady Lee and Orelia could always have kept the most impassioned lovers under a certain restraint. It is well known to be the duty of young ladies to affect total ignorance of the fact that they are objects of adoration, and to harrow up the souls of their admirers with affectation of indifference, at any rate until coming to the point of proposal. Rosa, however, showed undisguised pleasure at Bruce’s visits, and one day, when he came in with a melancholy face, and told her the detachment was to leave Doddington immediately, she began to cry.

The Curate was from home that morning, and Bruce had found Rosa in the kitchen, rolling paste for mince-pies, while the cat Pick, whom she had, when leaving the Heronry, brought with her to the Parsonage, sat on the table, watching the process, and occasionally putting out his paw to arrest the motion of the rolling-pin. The smile with which she looked up at Bruce’s entrance turned to a look of sympathetic sadness, as she perceived his sorrowful aspect. He stood by her at the end of the table, and told her the news which had come that morning.

“You see what a life ours is,” said Bruce, trying to smile; “here to-day, gone to-morrow. And when we were going to spend such a pleasant winter too!”

“And won’t you be here at Christmas?” said Rosa; “and won’t you have any of the mince-pies after all? And is there to be an end of our rides, and walks, and evening readings?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Bruce, shaking his head. “The troop that relieves us will be here to-morrow week—though, in my opinion,” he added, with a faint attempt at pleasantry, “the best way to relieve us would be to let us alone.”

“And won’t you be coming back?” asked Rosa, with sorrow shining moistly in her blue eyes.

“I fear not,” said Bruce, “though, to be sure, it might be managed. But you won’t wish that when you’ve made acquaintance with our successors. The new-comers will take the place of your old friends, and you’ll forget us—won’t you, Miss Rosa?”

This highly sincere speech was too much for Rosa. “No—oh, no—ne—never!” sobbed she, sinking on a chair, and burying her face on her plump arms as they lay folded on the table.

Bruce had certainly supposed she would be sorry to hear he was going, but this display of sympathy surpassed his expectations. He stooped down over her—he whispered that nothing should prevent him from coming back—he also mentioned that she was “a dear little thing,” and spying a little white space amid her hair, between her ear and her cheek, and the whispering having brought his lips into that neighbourhood, he thought he would kiss it, and did so. Rosa wept on, which distressed the humane young man so much, that, after begging her, in vain, to look up and be comforted, he managed to insinuate his hand between her cheek and her arms, and to turn her face, using the chin as a handle, gently towards him. A flushed, tearful, glistening face it was; and really, considering the temptation and proximity, one can’t altogether blame him for kissing it, which he did both on the eyes and lips; and then, turning it so that his left cheek rested against hers, with only the tresses between, as he whispered in her left ear, while her glistening eyes appeared over his shoulder, he did his best to pacify her. And so absorbed was he in whispering, and she in listening, that the cat Pick, advancing along the flat paste (from which he had only been kept before by the terror of the rolling-pin), and leaving his foot-marks on the soft substance, proceeded, with the utmost effrontery, to lick up, under their very noses, the little dabs of butter dotted thereon. He made a good deal of noise in doing so; but as Bruce, between the whispers, made a noise not altogether dissimilar (for there were constantly fresh tears requiring to be attended to), Pick finished the butter with perfect impunity, and sat up in the middle of the paste, much about the same time that Rosa pushed Bruce gently away, and removed the last moisture from her eyes with her apron.

The two having, by this time, come to an understanding, Bruce suggested that he would write to his father, who, he assured her, was a splendid old fellow, and who would, no doubt, enter into the spirit of the thing immediately, and give his consent like a trump.

Accordingly, he fetched pen, ink, and paper from the study, and sitting at one end of the kitchen-table, while Rosa rolled fresh paste at the other, he indited a very eloquent and enthusiastic epistle to his parent, and having folded and directed it to “The Very Rev. the Dean of Trumpington,” put it with great confidence in his pocket.

After this their conversation took a more cheerful turn, and Rosa worked so diligently at her task that the mince-pies were made, after a receipt which Bruce read out to her from a cookery-book, and were ready for dinner that very day, and Bruce stayed to eat them.

That splendid old fellow the Dean of Trumpington got the letter in due time. It was brought in after dinner by his butler when he was chatting, in a pleasant digestive sort of way, with a couple of old Canons over a bottle of port. He put on his spectacles to peruse it, and as his wife was in the room, and the Canons old friends and admirers of Harry, he proceeded to read it aloud, and had got pretty well into the matter before he discovered its interesting nature. “Why, bless my soul!” interpolated the Reverend Doctor Bruce, in the middle of a warm passage, “the boy’s fallen in love!”

“My dearest Harry!” exclaimed Mrs Bruce; and then eagerly added, “go on, love!”

While the reading proceeded, one old Canon, who was married and had a large family, looked fiercely at his glass of port, as he held it between him and the light, and cried “hum!” or “ha!” at the most touching passages; while the other, who was a bachelor, rubbed his hands as he listened, and chuckled aloud.

“Her brother, Mr Young, is a member of your own profession,” read the Dean over again slowly. “Sillery” (to the bachelor Canon), “oblige me by touching the bell. Bring the Clergy List,” said the Dean to the butler, when the latter entered.

“Y,” read the Dean, running his finger down the list, when he got it—“Yorke—Youatt—Young—here you are: Young, George, Vicar of Feathernest (is that him, I wonder? good living Feathernest)—Young, Henry, Prebendary of Durham—Young, Josiah, Curate of Lanscote—that must be the man,” said the Dean, referring to the letter; “he dates from Lanscote, near Doddington.”

“There was a Young at Oxford with me,” said Dr Macvino, the married Canon, in a deep, oily, sententious voice. “He left college on coming into six thousand a-year. He might have a daughter,” said the Canon, looking round as he propounded the theory. “And,” added the Canon, “he might also have a son in the Church. He was a tall fellow, who once pulled the stroke oar in a match, as I remember—he gave remarkably good breakfasts.”

“Dear boy!” said Mrs Bruce, apostrophising Harry, “I’m certain he wouldn’t make other than a charming choice. I’m certain she’s a sweet girl.”

“Harry knows what’s what,” said the Dean; “I’ve confidence in that boy.”

“Plenty of good sense,” said the bachelor Canon.

“Good stuff,” said Dr Macvino, who, sipping his wine before he gave the opinion, left it doubtful whether he was praising Bruce junior or the port.

“Harry’s got something here,” said the Dean, pointing to his forehead. “He’s almost thrown away in his present profession. He ought to have come into the Church.”

“Decidedly he ought,” said Dr Macvino, who thought himself an example to teach other clever fellows how to choose a profession.

“He’s the most sensible darling!” said Mrs Bruce; “and I, too, was sorry that he hadn’t chosen a learned profession, till I saw him in his uniform. His mustache promised to be beautiful” (there had been perhaps four hairs in it when she last saw him,) “and ’tis very becoming.”

“Suits him to a hair,” said the bachelor Canon, who was a wag in a mild way.

“The boy’s letter is a little high-flown,” said the Dean, “but that was to be expected, perhaps. I remember describing Mrs Bruce there to my family in such terms, that, when I brought her home, they were rather disappointed at finding her without wings. But I’ve no doubt the young lady is a most proper person.”

“A young man like my Harry ought to get a wife with twenty thousand pounds any day,” said his mother.

“There were two things, I remember,” said Dr Bruce, “that Harry was very fastidious about in women—dress and manner: I venture to prophecy that our future daughter-in-law is irreproachable in both.”

“A tall girl, I suspect,” said Mrs Bruce.

“Tall, and with a good deal of the air noble—perhaps a little proud,” the Doctor went on.

“But not disagreeably so,” said Mrs Bruce.

“Certainly not,” said the Doctor. “A hauteur of manner merely. I like to see a woman keep up her dignity.”

“I wish he had said something about her fortune,” said Mrs Bruce.

“So do I,” said the Doctor, “and I think I’ll go down to Doddington to-morrow, and see what he’s about. I’m rather in want of change of air.” And the two canons drank success to his journey in another bottle of port.

Accordingly, the next day the Doctor went down to Doddington, three counties off, and not finding Harry at his lodgings, got a conveyance and a man to take him over to Lanscote. Bruce was there of course—he had rushed away from the parade that morning, and, without changing his dress, galloped to Lanscote at a tremendous pace. He was not sorry to find the Curate absent, and, going clanking into the kitchen in his spurs, found Rosa there with a great pinafore on, making a tart.

For about ten minutes after his arrival the manufacture of the tart proceeded but slowly; and Rosa, to keep him out of her way, begged him to superintend the re-boiling of some preserves, which Jennifer’s economy had left to spoil in their jars. “You’ve nothing to do,” said she, “but to sit still before the fire, and skim the pan from time to time with this spoon; and I’ll get you something to keep your uniform clean, while you’re doing it.” So Rosa went and got a small table-cloth, and causing him to seat himself in the desired position in front of the fire, she pinned it round his neck as if he was going to be shaved—his brass shoulder-scales sticking out rather incongruously from under the vestment.

“I ought to hear from my father, to-day,” said Harry, skimming away at the pan with his spoon.

“He won’t be angry, I hope,” said Rosa, putting a strip of paste round the edge of her tart-dish.

“Angry,” said Bruce, “not he. If he was, I should just show you to him, and if he were the most peppery old man in existence, he’d come to the down charge directly, like a well-bred pointer—just as the lion did before Una. He’d love you directly—I’m certain he would—he must, you know—he couldn’t help himself.”

“I’m sure I shall love _him_,” said Rosa, smiling at Bruce as she took the spoon from him in order to taste the jam, and see how it was getting on.

“Of course you will,” said Harry. “As I said before, he’s a splendid old fellow.”

At this moment a step was heard on the gravel in front of the house, followed by a tapping at the door of the porch, which was open.

“Come in!” cried Bruce. “Come in, can’t you!” he repeated, as the tapping was renewed. “I _can’t_ go to the door in this way,” he said to Rosa, looking down at his table-cloth.

“It’s only the butcher, or Josiah’s clerk, or some of those people,” said Rosa; “come in, if you please.”

At this the step advanced along the passage, and came to the kitchen door. Bruce, skimming away at his pan, didn’t turn round till he heard a voice he knew exclaim behind him, “God bless my soul!” The spoon fell into the brass pan, and disappeared in the seething fruit.

“Why, in heaven’s name,” said the Doctor, “what is the boy about?”

The boy in question, standing up in great confusion to the height of six feet, with the table-cloth descending like a large cloud about his person, hiding all of it except his military-looking arms and legs, did not make any reply. Rosa, when she tasted the jam, had left some on her lips, and somehow a splash of it had got transferred to Bruce’s face.

“What prank is this, sir?” asked the Dean sternly. “Who is this person?” pointing his thick yellow cane at Rosa. “Is it the cook or the dairymaid?”

“That, sir,” said Bruce, coming to Rosa’s rescue, “is Miss Young—the lady I wrote to you about.”

“Oh, indeed!” said the Doctor, who had not found the answers to the inquiries he made in Doddington as to the worldly condition of the house of Young at all to his mind, and who, at the sight of the Parsonage, had been more struck with its diminutiveness than its picturesqueness. “You’re a pretty fellow! Don’t you think you’re a pretty fellow? Answer me, puppy!”

“I’m not doing any harm, sir,” said Bruce, his handsome face looking very red over the table-cloth, which he struggled to unpin.

“Not doing any harm, sir!” sung the Dean after him, through his nose. “Are you making an ass of yourself, sir, do you think? Come, sir, I’m waiting for ye. Come along with me, sir.”

Bruce having got rid of the table-cloth, went up to console Rosa, who was now sobbing in a chair.

“Are ye coming, sir?” shouted the Dean from the door; and Bruce, with a last whisper of comfort, went to join his parent, who, lifting his shovel-hat, said, “Ma’am, I wish you a very good morning!” As they went through the passage, Rosa heard the Doctor say something about “What a shock to your poor mother!”

When Josiah returned, he found Rosa weeping by the kitchen fire, now sunk to embers, the jam reduced to a sort of dark concrete, and the tart still in an elemental state.

“Harry’s papa has been here,” sobbed Rosa; “and he’s been so angry; and he’s carried Harry away, and I shall ne—never—see him—any mo—re.”

The Dean kept such strict watch over his son while the troop remained at Doddington, lecturing him all the time, that he never got the smallest glimpse of Rosa before quitting the place, though he managed to write her some tender and consoling letters. His only other consolation was in confiding his grief to Mr Titcherly, the old antiquary. They had become intimate and fond of one another—“a pair of friends, though he was young, and Titcherly seventy-two.” Bruce had sympathised with the old gentleman’s pursuits, and aided them—he had, moreover, made drawings illustrative of the great work on the antiquities of Doddington, which were now being engraved for a second edition; and when the troop left the town, nobody missed him more, nor thought more kindly of him, next to Rosa, than Mr Titcherly.

Bruce had nourished in his secret heart an intention of getting leave when they got to headquarters, and coming back to see Rosa. This was defeated by the vigilance of his parent, who, suspecting the design, made it a particular request to the Colonel that he would allow his son no leave of absence, hinting at an indiscreet attachment; and the Colonel, in the most friendly way, promised to comply with the Dean’s wishes. Afterwards the Dean went home, and told his wife (he being a pious man, and familiar with the ways of Providence) that he considered the moving of the detachment from Doddington in the light of a special interference.