The Queen's Cup

The tears stood in her eyes now.

"Don't you think, Frank, that was a thing that I might have been interested to know—a thing that would raise you immeasurably in the eyes of a woman–that would show her vastly more of your real character than she could know by meeting you from day to day as a friend?"

"It was his secret and not mine, Bertha. It was known to but him and me. Never was a man more repentant or more bitterly regretful for a fault–that was in my eyes scarcely a fault at all—except that he had too rashly assumed me to be the author of the ruin of the girl he loved. The poor fellow had been half maddened, and was scarce responsible for his actions. He had already suffered terribly, and the least I could do was to endeavour to restore his self respect by showing him that I had entirely forgiven him. Any kindness that I have shown him he has repaid ten-fold, not only by saving my life, but in becoming my most sincere and attached friend. I promised him that I would tell no one, and I have never done so, and no one to this day knows it, save his father and mother.

"How then could I tell even you? You must see yourself that it was impossible that I could tell you. Besides, the story was of no interest save to him and me; and above all, as I said, it was his secret and not mine."

"I see that now," she said. "Still, I am so sorry, so very sorry, that I did not know it before.

"You see, Frank," she went on, after a pause; "we women have to make or unmake our lives very much in the dark. No one helps us, and if we have not a brother to do so, we are groping in the dark. Look at me. Here was I, believing that Mr. Carthew, whom I met everywhere in society, was, except that he kept race horses and bet heavily, as good as other men. He was very pleasant, very good looking, generally liked, and infinitely more amusing than most men one meets. How was I to tell what he really was?

"On the other hand, there were you, my dear friend, who, I knew, had shown yourself a very brave soldier, and whom also everyone liked and spoke well of, but of whose real character I did not know much, except on the side that was always presented to me; and now I find you capable of what I consider a grand act of generosity."

"You overrate the matter altogether, Bertha. The man shot me by mistake. The fellow he took me for richly deserved shooting. When he found it was a mistake, the poor fellow was bitterly sorry for it. Surely, there was nothing more to be said about it."

The girl sat silent for some time.

"Well, it is all cleared up now," she said at last. "There is no reason why we should not be friends as of old."

"None whatever," he said. "There has been only—" and he stopped short.

"Only what, Frank?"

"Nothing," he said. "We will be just as we were, Bertha. I will try and be the good elder brother, and scold you and look after you, and warn you, if it should be necessary, until you get under other guidance."

"It will be some time," she said, quietly, "before that happens. I have had a sharp lesson."

"And did you really care for him much, Bertha?"

"I don't think that I really cared for him at all," she said. "That is not the lesson that I was thinking of."

He saw the colour mount into her cheeks as she twisted the handkerchief she held into a knot. Then, turning to him, she said:

"Frank, are you never going to give me a chance again?"

He could not misunderstand her.

"Do you mean—can you mean, Bertha?" he said, in a low tone. "Do you mean that if I ask you the same question again you will give me a different answer?"

"I did not know then," she said. "I had never thought of it. You took me altogether by surprise, and what I said I thought was true. Afterwards I knew that I had been mistaken. I hoped that you would ask me again, but you did not, and I soon felt that you never would. You tried hard to be as you were before, but you were not the same, and I was not the same. Then I did not seem to care. There were three men who wanted me. I did not care much which it was, but I would not have anyone say that I had married for position—I hated the idea of that—and so I would have taken the third. He was bright and pleasant, and all that sort of thing, and I thought that I could be happy with him, until George Lechmere opened my eyes. Then, of course, that was over; but his story showed me still more what a fool I had been, what a heart I had thrown away, and I said, 'I will at least make an effort to undo the past. I will not let my chance of happiness go away from me merely from false pride. If he loves me still he will forgive me. If not, at least I shall not, all through my life, feel that I might have made it different could I have brought myself to speak a word.'"

"I love you as much as ever," Frank said, taking her hand. "I love you more for speaking as you have. I can hardly believe my happiness. Can it be that you really love me, Bertha?"

"I think I have proved it, Frank. I do love you. I have known it for some time, but it seemed all too late. It was a grief rather than a pleasure. Every time you came it was a pain to me, for I felt that I had lost you; and it was only when I learned, two days ago, how you could forgive, and that at the same time I could free myself from the chain I had allowed to be wound round me, and which I don't think I could otherwise have broken, that I made up my mind that it should not be my fault if things were not put right between us.

"Now let us tell mother."

Her hand was still in his, and they went across the deck together.

"Mamma," she said, "please put down that book. I have a piece of news for you. Frank and I are going to be married."

Lady Greendale sat for a moment, speechless in astonishment. She knew that Bertha had wished to tell him that she had refused Carthew's offer, but that this would come of it she had never dreamt. A year before she had approved of Bertha's rejection of Frank, but since then much had happened. Bertha had shown that she would not marry for position only, and that she would be likely to take her own way entirely in the matter; and, although this was a downfall to the hopes that she had once entertained, Lady Greendale was herself very fond of Frank, and it was at any rate better than having Bertha marry a man of whose real means she was ignorant, and who, as everyone knew, bet heavily on the turf. These ideas flashed rapidly through her mind, and holding out one hand to each, she said:

"There is no one to whom I could more confidently entrust her happiness, Frank. God bless you both."

Then she betook herself to her pocket handkerchief, for her tears came easily, and on this occasion she herself could hardly have said whether they were the result of pleasure in Bertha's happiness, or regret at the downfall of the air castles she had once built.

"I think, Bertha, our best plan will be to go below now," Frank suggested, quietly.

"What for?" Bertha asked, shyly.

The thing had been done. She felt radiantly happy, but more shocked at her own boldness than she had been when she perpetrated it.

"Well, my dear, I thought that perhaps you would rather not kiss me in sight of the whole crew, and certainly I shan't be able to restrain myself much longer."

"Then, in that case," she said, demurely, "perhaps we had better go below."

It was half an hour before they came on deck again.

"Well, my dears," Lady Greendale said, "the more I think of it the better I am pleased. As far as I am concerned, nothing could be nicer. I shall have Bertha within a short drive of me, and it won't be like losing her.

"Do you know, Bertha, your father said to me once, 'I would give anything if some day Frank Mallett and our Bertha were to take a fancy to each other. There is nothing I should like more than to have her settled near us, and there is no one I know more likely to make her happy than he would be.' I am sure, dear, that you will be glad to know that your engagement would have had his approval, as it has mine."

Bertha bent down and kissed her mother, with tears standing in her eyes.

"It will be a great pleasure to us both to have you so near us," Frank said, earnestly. "You know that, having lost my own mother so long ago, I have always looked upon you as more of a mother than anyone else, and have always felt almost as much at home in your house as in my own.

"Now, let us sit down and talk it over quietly. In the first place, I propose that on Monday, when you leave Lord Haverley's, you shall both come here for a time. The Solent will be very pleasant for the next fortnight, and we can then take a fortnight's cruise west, and, if you like, land at Plymouth, and go straight home."

"I should be very glad," Lady Greendale said at once, rejoiced at the thought that she would thus avoid the necessity of answering any questions about Bertha; "and there will be no occasion at all to speak of this at my cousin's. There might be all sorts of questions asked, and expressions of surprise, and so on. It will be quite time enough to write to our friends after we have been comfortably settled at home for a time. We can talk over all that afterwards."

"Yes, and I should think, Lady Greendale, that it would save the trouble of two letters if, while mentioning that Bertha is engaged to your neighbour, Major Mallett, you could add that the marriage will come off in the course of a few weeks.

"Don't you think so, Bertha?"

"Certainly not," she said, saucily. "It will be quite time to talk about that a long time hence."

"Well, I will put off talking about it for a short time, but, you see, I have had a year's waiting already."

Very pleasant was the three hours' cruise. No one gave a thought of the missing topmast and bowsprit. There was a nice sailing breeze, and, clipped as her wings were, the Osprey was still faster than the majority of the yachts.

As soon as the two ladies had been put ashore, Frank sailed for Cowes. It was too late when they got there for anything to be done that evening, but Frank went ashore with the captain, and found that the spars were all ready to receive the iron work and sheaves from the old ones; and as these had been towed up to the yard to be in readiness, Messieurs White promised that they would arrange for a few hands to come to work early, and that the spars should be brought off by half-past eight on Monday morning.

As soon as he had returned in the gig, after putting the ladies ashore at Ryde, Frank had called George Lechmere to him.

"It is all right, George, thanks to your interview with Miss Greendale. It was a bold step to take, but it was the best possible thing, and succeeded splendidly, and everything is to be as I wish it."

"I am glad, indeed, to hear it, Major, and I hoped that you would have something of the sort to tell me. There was a look about you both that I took to mean that things were going on well."

"Yes, George. At first, when she told me that you had told her about that affair at Delhi, I felt that there was really no occasion for you to have said anything about it; but it did me a great deal of good. She made much more of it than there was any occasion for; but, you know, when women are inclined to take a pleasant view of a thing, they will magnify molehills into mountains."

"I thought that it would do good, Major. I don't mean that it would do you any good, but that it would do good generally. I had to tell the other story, and that came naturally with it; and, at any rate, she could not but see that there was a deal of difference between the nature of the man who had been so good to me, and that of that scoundrel."

"That is just the effect it did have. Well, don't say anything about it forward, at present. The men shall be told later on."

By one o'clock on Monday the Osprey was back at Ryde, and at two o'clock the dinghy went ashore with the mate and two of the hands, who waited a quarter of an hour till a vehicle brought down the ladies' luggage. Soon afterwards Frank went ashore in the gig, and brought Lady Greendale and Bertha off.

As they went down to their cabin, Bertha, looking into the saloon, saw George Lechmere preparing the tea tray to bring it up on deck. She at once went to him.

"I did not thank you before," she said, holding out her hand; "but I thank you now, and shall thank you all my life. You did me the greatest service."

"I am glad, indeed, Miss Greendale, that it was so; for I know that the Major would never have been a happy man if this had not come about."

For the next fortnight the Osprey was cruising along the coast, getting as far as Torquay, and returning to Cowes. Frank did not enter her for any of the races. Lady Greendale, although a fair sailor, grew nervous when the yacht heeled over far, and even Bertha did not care for racing, the memory of the last race being too fresh in her mind for her to wish to take part in another for the present.