Chapter IV.

THE next morning Harry came radiant, quite like a new man. Was it all for joy of taking me home? or, perhaps he had got the money on this most convenient of all mornings? but such things don’t often happen just at the most suitable time. He came rushing in with a kind of shout,—“Milly, we’ve orders to march; we’re going next week. Hurrah!” cried Harry.

“And why hurrah?” said I.

“We’ll have ourselves to ourselves, and nobody in our way,” he said; but just then seeing Aunt Connor, who was at the other end of the room, stopped short and looked a little confused. He had not intended to say anything ill-natured to her.

“Oh, I am not affronted; you’re excusable, you’re quite excusable,” said Aunt Connor; “and I believe it is very lucky; you’ll have a fresh start, and nobody will know how foolish you have been. I was too angry to ask yesterday, or to think of anything but that deluded child there, that thinks herself so happy;—but young Langham, dear, have ye any friends?”{60}

“None to whom I am answerable,” said Harry.

“Then that means no father nor mother, no parents and guardians?” said my aunt. “Well, what you’ve done is done, and can’t be undone; we must make the best of it. Have you put the boots into the corner, and tidied the cigars off the mantelshelf? and now Mrs. Grogram knows all about it,—when it happened, where it happened, and how you two took clever Mrs. Connor in?”

“Exactly,” said Harry, laughing; “you have quite described it all. I have done my best, Milly darling; come home.”

“You’re glad, you two young fools?” said my aunt.

“I should think so! and shouldn’t we be glad?” cried Harry. “If we have not a penny between us, we have what is much better. Milly, come.”

“Hush with your Milly, Milly,” said Aunt Connor, “and speak for yourself, young man. My poor Connor’s niece, if she is undutiful, shall never be said to be penniless. Well, I’ve won the battle. I will tell you, for I ought. As sure as she’s standing there in her white frock, she has five hundred pounds.”

“Five hundred pounds!” both Harry and I repeated the words with a little cry of wonder and delight.

She had said this with a flash of resolution, as if it were quite hard to get it out; now she fell suddenly into a strange sort of coaxing, persuading tone, which was sadly painful to me just as I was getting to like her better; and as she coaxed and grew affectionate she grew vulgar too. How strange! I had rather have given her the money than seen her humble herself so.

“But it’s out at the best of interest, my dears; what you couldn’t get for it elsewhere. Think of five-and-twenty pounds a-year; an income, Milly! My child, I’ll undertake to pay you the half year’s interest out of my own pocket to help you with your housekeeping; for, of course, you would never think of lifting the money, you nor young Langham, with such an income coming of it. No, no; let well alone, I say. I would not meddle with a penny of it if I were you. Rash young creatures that don’t know the value of money, you’d just throw it away; but think what a comfort there is in five-and-twenty pounds a-year!”

Harry and I looked at each other; it was as clear as day that she had it herself, and did not want to give it up. He was angry; I was only vexed and distressed. I never in all my life had thought of money before.

“Five hundred pounds would be very useful to Milly just{61} now, Mrs. Connor,” said Harry; “she has not a trousseau, as your daughters would have; and I can only give her all I have, which is little enough. At least it’s my duty to ascertain all about it; where it is, and what it is, and——”

“Oh, what it is! half of it Uncle Connor’s own gift to the ungrateful creature—half of it at the very least; and ascertain, to be sure!—ascertain, and welcome!—call it in if ye please, and spend it all in three weeks, and don’t come to me for help or credit. What do you mean, sir? Do ye think it’s anything to me?”

“Oh, Aunt Connor, please don’t be angry. I never had but half-a-sovereign all my life,” cried I. “You’ll tell us all about it afterwards, to be sure. Harry—I mean Mr. Langham—doesn’t understand. But it would be so handy to have some of it. Aunt Connor, don’t you think so? Only please don’t be angry. I should like, all out of my own head, to spend ten pounds.”

Aunt Connor did not speak, but went to her desk and took something out of it that was already prepared—one envelope she gave to Harry and the other to me.

“Here is the half year’s dividend of your wife’s little money; it’s just come due,” said Aunt Connor, “and here, Milly, dear, is your aunt’s wedding-present to you. Now you can have your will, you see, without breaking in upon your tiny bit of fortune. See what it is to have thoughtful friends.”

For in my envelope there was exactly the sum I wished for—ten pounds.

And what do you suppose I did? Harry standing there as sulky as a statue, looking as if he would like to tear up his share and throw it into the fire. I was so delighted I ran and threw my arms round her neck, and kissed Aunt Connor. I hugged her quite heartily. I did not understand five hundred pounds; but I knew I could get something nice for Harry, and a new dress and a wedding bonnet, with orange-blossoms, out of what she gave me. And she cried, too, and kissed me as if I had been her own child; and it was no hypocrisy, whatever you may think. Harry snatched me away, and quite turned me out of the room to get my bonnet. He looked the sulkiest, most horrid fellow imaginable. I almost could have made faces at him as he sent me away; it was our first real quarrel; but I can’t say I was very much afraid.

When we got out of doors he was quite in a passion with poor Aunt Connor. “Kind! what do you mean by kind? why, you’ve been living on your own money. I am sure she{62} has not spent more on you, besides making you her servant,” cried Harry. “And to take her present! and kiss her—pah! I would not do it for a hundred pounds.”

“Nobody asked you, sir,” said I: “but come this way, please Harry, I want to look at one shop-window—just one. I saw something there yesterday that would just do for me; and now I can afford to buy a dress.”

“By Jove!” cried Harry, “what creatures you women are; here we are, on as good as our wedding-day, walking home for the first time, and you are thinking of the shop-windows! Are you just like all the rest?”

“Oh, indeed, just precisely,” said I. “Ah, Harry, I never was in the street before that I felt quite free and yet quite protected and safe. Only think of the difference! I am not afraid of anybody or anything to-day. I am going home. If you were not so grave and proper I think I could dance all the way.”

Harry did not say another word; he held my arm close, and called me by my name. My name was Milly darling, to Harry; he said it sounded like the turn of an Irish song. He calls me Milly darling still, though we have been married two years.

And how pretty he had made that little parlour over Mrs. Grogram’s shop! Not a boot about anywhere that I could see, nor the shadow of a cigar; clean new muslin curtains up, and flowers on the table; and the landlady curtseying, and calling me Mrs. Langham. It was the very first time I had heard the name. How odd it sounded! and yet an hour after I should have laughed if any one had called me Miss Mortimer, as if that were the most absurd thing in the world.

And to make home does not require many rooms or a great deal of furniture. I have not a “house of my own” yet, and, perhaps, may not have for years. A poor subaltern, with nothing but his pay, when he is so foolish as to marry, has to take his wife to lodgings; but the best house in the world could not have felt to me a warmer, safer, more delightful home than Mrs. Grogram’s parlour above the shop.