CHAPTER VII.
Thevery first and most lasting impression made upon Lewis Pryor’s boyish mind was that a subtile difference existed between him and every other boy he had ever known in his life. At the first glance the difference would seem to have been altogether in Lewis’s favour, for he always had a plenty of pocket money, and a pony to ride, and a servant to wait on him; but, being a very healthy-natured, honest-hearted boy, he regarded these things with admirable indifference, and instinctively rated them at their true value, which was small. In fact, he came, in the course of his boyish experiences, to hate these distinctions in his favour, as he imagined sometimes that it accounted for the shyness of other boys towards him. From his very earliest recollection there had been this strange and mystifying avoidance, and the boy’s heart swelled and his eyes filled with tears whenever he thought of it. Not only was it strange, but it was cruelly undeserved, for he felt himself worthy of respect. He had never told a lie in his life, and such boyish naughtinesses as he had been guilty of were merely the ordinary lapses of impetuous young creatures. But poor Lewis was perforce a model boy, for it is tolerably hard for a boyto get in mischief by himself. Lewis, gazing with melancholy eyes at others of his own age, would feel, with a tightening at his heart, that he would cheerfully give his pony and all his fine belongings to be one with those merry, happy fellows. He remembered dimly his mother—a gentle creature who lavished tenderness upon him; his father—Thomas Pryor, the tutor—a tall, thin, spectacled man; and they all lived very quietly somewhere in the country in England. But even then he had no playmates. Then he remembered quite distinctly his father and his mother both dying, and Bulstrode and Bob Skinny being there and taking him to Skelton. Lewis was then about five years old. After that came a dreary existence of splendid suites of rooms in foreign hotels, where he and Bulstrode were usually waiting for Skelton and Bob Skinny to turn up, when they would all go on to some other splendid suite of rooms in another place, all equally dreary to the lonely boy. Bulstrode was his guardian, and was supposed to be his tutor, and Lewis did his lessons with tolerable regularity. But he had a little store of books—some old romances, dear to every boy’s heart, and some of Scott’s novels, which were coming out, and a few other imaginative books, which he devoured with insatiate delight. Sometimes, with one of these darling dog’s-eared volumes, he could be perfectly happy, lying on the rug before the fire, with his dog Service poking his cold nose affectionately into his face, or flat on his back in the summer time, with the dog on the grass near him, and the trees murmuring softly overhead. For want of other companionship he made a friend and confidant ofService; and the two would exchange queer confidences, and understood each other as only a boy and a dog can. But more than the dog—even more than his cherished romances—Lewis’s most beloved possession were certain books inscribed “Thomas Pryor, M. A.,� and a miniature of his father—a lanky person, as unlike Lewis’s dark, clear-cut little face as could be imagined—and a quaint picture in black and white of his mother. But he thought of her so often and so much that he had in his mind’s eye a perfect portrait of her. Bulstrode was always ready enough to talk to the boy about his father and mother, but Lewis soon found that Bulstrode’s talk amounted to nothing at all, as he had seen but little of either Mr. or Mrs. Pryor. As for Skelton, Lewis could not make him out. He was always kind, always indulgent, and Lewis was quite sharp enough to see that, however Bulstrode might be his guardian, Skelton had the real authority over both Bulstrode and himself. But there was a perfect formality between them. The boy remembered, though, once when he was ill, that Skelton scarcely left him day or night. He always dined with Skelton, and at dinner had one very small glass of wine, after which he might have been expected to leave the table. Occasionally after dinner Skelton would thaw, and would talk to the boy in a way that quite charmed him, telling him of Skelton’s own boyhood and his travels. When they came to Virginia, Lewis found the new country more like his faintly remembered English home than he could express, and was a thousand times happier than he had been in the splendid lodgings where so much of his boyhood had beenpassed. He liked much better riding over the country on his pony than taking a tiresome canter in a public park; Service and himself had much jollier times in the woods and fields than in prim city gardens. And then the negroes were so amusing, and called him “Little Marse� so obsequiously, and he had a boat to sail on the river. This last gave him the most acute and intense pleasure. Skelton, for the first time in his life, taught him something in teaching him to sail the boat.
“Now, Lewis,� Skelton said, the first morning the boat was put into the water, “I foresee that you will live in this boat, and as you will no doubt be upset dozens of times, and be caught in squalls and all sorts of accidents, the only thing to do is to teach you to depend upon yourself. The river is not more than fifteen feet deep anywhere, except in the channel, and with ordinary intelligence and care nothing worse ought to happen to you than a good wetting once in a while. The boat is staunch. I myself watched Jim, the wheelwright, making it, and gave him the dimensions�—for the boat had been built at Deerchase—“and the sail is quite large enough for it�—Lewis did not agree with this last, as his ambition was to have the smallest boat and the biggest sail on the river—“and if you are drowned it will be your own fault.�
Lewis was wonderfully apt at learning anything, and Skelton, in his quiet way, showed an excellent knack of teaching. Every day, for a week or more, the two were out in the boat together upon the bright river glowing in the August sunshine. Lewis often wondered if Skelton were not bored as theysailed up and down the river, and then beyond out into the bay, Skelton sitting in the stern, with a book in his hand, reading when he was not showing Lewis how to manage the boat. It puzzled the boy because there was usually such a distance, so much reserve between them. More than once Lewis caught Skelton’s black, expressive eyes fixed on him with a look that was almost fondness, and at such moments the boy’s heart would thrill with a strange emotion. He had often thought that he would ask Skelton some time about his father and mother, and what better opportunity could he have than when sailing together for hours upon the blue water? But he never did it. In spite of Skelton’s interest, and his evident desire to secure Lewis from danger by making him a good sailor, the barrier remained. In a very short while, though, Lewis mastered the whole science of a sailboat, with one exception. Nothing could induce him to take the sail down until a squall was actually upon him, and in consequence of this he got into the water several times unnecessarily. But he was a cool-headed fellow, and a good swimmer besides, so that his various upsets did him no harm. Skelton, on these occasions, would send for him and give him lectures upon his foolhardiness, which Lewis would receive respectfully enough, saying “Yes, sir,� every time Skelton paused. But when the door was closed Skelton would sigh, and smile too, and say to himself, “There is no frightening the fellow.�
There was but one boy in the neighbourhood near Lewis’s age. This was Hilary Blair, a handsome, fair-haired, freckle-faced boy, who began the acquaintance with a sturdy contempt for Lewis’sprowess. Hilary was a year older than Lewis, and a heavier and stouter boy. But at the first personal encounter between the two young gentlemen, which was precipitated by a dispute over a game of marbles in the main road, Lewis showed so much science in the manly art, that Hilary was knocked out ignominiously about the fourth round. Hilary displayed excellent good sense in the affair. He got up with a black eye, but an undaunted soul.
“Look here,� he said, “you’ve taken lessons of some sort.�
“Yes,� responded Lewis, shamefacedly, remembering that he had had lessons of all sorts—boxing, fencing, dancing, riding, everything, in short—while this country gentleman’s son knew nothing of many of these things; “but if you want to, I’ll teach you all I know, and then�—here the fighting instinct in the boy cropped out—“I’ll lick you just as easy as I do now.�
“I reckon you won’t,� answered Hilary coolly, and it turned out that he was right; for, with the addition of such scientific instruction as Lewis could impart, the two boys were very evenly matched in their future encounters, which were purely friendly and in the interests of sport.
The boys became fond of each other in a surreptitious way, for Hilary never came to see Lewis, and an instinctive delicacy kept Lewis from going to Newington. But they met on the river, out fishing, and in the woods setting their hare-traps, and they exchanged whispers during church-time.
On Sundays Lewis sat alone in one of the great square high-backed pews, which still remained in theold colonial church of Abingdon. That unlucky singularity of luxury which was the bane of poor Lewis’s life actually followed him to church, for Skelton’s was the only upholstered pew in the church; and instead of the faded moreen curtains of the other pews, when they were curtained at all, there was a fine purple-silk drapery, behind which the lonely boy sat forlornly. He was the only person who went to church regularly from Deerchase. Bulstrode scoffed at the notion, and Skelton alleged usually that he was too busy. Once in a great while, though, he would saunter into church about the second lesson. Conyers, who feared no man, not even Skelton, would stop deliberately in the midst of the sermon as a rebuke to Skelton. Skelton, however, would be perfectly unmoved by it, as well as by the hundreds of curious eyes bent upon him, and would walk down the aisle with his inimitable grace and a half-smile on his lips. Conyers, though, by that strange contrariety which seems to govern human affairs, found his best supporters in Skelton and Bulstrode, whom he expected to be his most powerful foes. So far from antagonising Conyers on account of the public rebuke administered upon his tardiness, Skelton respected him for it, and never failed to speak to the parson politely before all the people as they gossiped in the churchyard. It was not Skelton’s way to withhold the meed of justice due any man, and he saw at a glance that the stern, scruple-ridden, conscientious moralist had a very hard time with his merry, free-handed, pleasure-loving congregation—the pastor intolerant of pleasure, the flock intolerant of pain.
As for Bulstrode, Conyers’s sad heart had glowed when he first heard of the advent of this great scholar in the county. Perhaps here was light at hand. But the very first sight of Bulstrode was enough for him. Bulstrode’s guzzling of liquor, his unbridled license of tongue, were repelling to a natural born ascetic and enthusiast. But Bulstrode was instantly attracted by the parson with the distressed eyes, which always seemed to be looking for something which they never could find. He pursued the acquaintance, and actually tracked Conyers to his lair in the tumble-down rectory. Here Bulstrode would sit for hours, clawing his unkempt hair, and drinking innumerable cups of tea out of a cracked teapot from sheer force of habit. He talked on every imaginable subject, and poured out the stores of his learning lavishly. But he never touched, in the remotest degree, upon religion. Conyers found out, though, that Bulstrode was deeply skilled in that science called theology, and at last the impulse came to unburden his mind and heart, which Bulstrode had long foreseen. They were sitting, one night soon after their acquaintance began, in the shabby rectory study, when Conyers made his confession—telling it all recklessly, his sallow face glowing, his deep eyes burning. Bulstrode heard patiently, even that greatest grievance of all to Conyers—the unwillingness of people tothinkupon the great affair of religion, and their perfect willingness to accept anything rather than to bestow consideration or thought upon it.
“And do you imagine,� asked Bulstrode gravely, stopping in the midst of his tea-drinking, “that religion is an intellectual exercise?�
Poor Conyers admitted that he thought it had an intellectual side.
“So it has, so it has; but it has a great emotional side too,� answered Bulstrode; “that’s where the women are nearer right than men think. The Christian religion undertakes to make a human being better, but it doesn’t pretend to make him wiser or happier—or only incidentally; so you see, it must work in the heart of man as in the brain. And I tell you, my clerical friend, that the great defect in all the other systems I’ve studied—and I know ’em all—is that they are meant for thinkers, and that leaves out nine tenths of the human race. The intellectual side of man’s relation to the Great First Cause was worked out long ago by those clever old Greeks. All these modern fellows have been threshing over old straw.�
Conyers was surprised at this, and said so. It seemed to him that men who dared to meddle with so vast a subject must be of gigantic strength and heroic mould. Through the mists of his own ignorance and inexperience their figures loomed large, but when he expressed this in halting language, Bulstrode shouted with laughter.
“You think a man must be a second Plato to start a new philosophic system—a new religion, in fact! Why, look you, parson, most undergraduates have doubts about a Great First Cause even; and there are monstrous few university men who don’t expect to make a new religion some time or other. They have the disease, like measles or whooping-cough, and get over it and are better afterwards.�
Conyers had an idea that among men of truelearning the Christian religion was treated as a lot of old women’s fables, while all systems of philosophy were regarded with the utmost respect. This, too, he expressed to Bulstrode.
“Don’t know, I’m sure, how it is in this queer country,� answered Bulstrode, pouring himself out a ninth cup of tea, “but, comparing things according to their size, the biggest system is small compared with that enormous fact of Christianity. Mind, I ain’t a Christian myself, though I lean that way, and when I’m drunk and my mind works rapidly, and I see the relations of things better, I lean that way still more; for, know you, Wat Bulstrode drunk is a better man than Wat Bulstrode sober.�
If this was meant as a hint for Conyers to produce something stronger than tea, it failed of its object, for not even to make Bulstrode talk like a Christian, would Conyers so far outrage his conscience as to give liquor to a man already too fond of it. Bulstrode really threw out the remark more as a test of the man than a hint, but when Conyers refused the bait a strange glitter came into Bulstrode’s dull eyes. Here was that honest man, whose untarnished integrity was like the sun at noonday. Bulstrode, in admiration for this, conceived the idea of establishing in Conyers a sincere belief of Christianity; for, half-educated, starved spiritually, and the prey of scruples that were really doubts, Conyers scarcely knew where he stood. So, then, the extraordinary spectacle was presented of a man little better than a heathen preaching the gospel to a man after God’s own heart. Bulstrode was fully sensible of the grotesqueness of the thing, but all disposition tolaugh was checked by the sublime earnestness with which Conyers followed him. Bulstrode marshalled with singular power and precision all the arguments in favour of the immortality of the soul, beginning with Plato. He then argued profoundly and subtly in favour of a revealed religion. He pointed out all the weak spots in the various substitutes for religion that had been offered in various ages, and laid bare their defects mercilessly. He sat until late in the night talking, Conyers’s eyes all the time growing less and less sombre.
“Now,� said Bulstrode, getting up toward midnight, “I’ve given you all the weapons I have, and taught you how to thrust and parry the best I know how; and, hang me, parson, I’ve almost argued myself into being a Christian too while I’ve been trying to convert you!�
Conyers smiled involuntarily as he looked at Bulstrode. There was nothing apostolic in that bulky figure and careless, dissipated face.
Bulstrode went back to Deerchase, and complained next morning that he had been kept up late the night before labouring with Conyers to make him a Christian.
Conyers, however, felt that he had been more helped by this boozy heathen than by all the theologians he had ever met with in his life.
Meanwhile Skelton and his affairs continued to be of prodigious interest among the county people, who regarded him as their local prodigy. There was, of course, great speculation about his wife’s fortune, and much indignation expressed that it could not be bestowed upon some of the numerous youngwomen who would have presided so admirably at Deerchase. The universal conviction was that Skelton would never marry, but, in the strange event that he did, conjecture ran wild as to what would become of the money.
Some said it went to found a great charity hospital somewhere; others, that it returned to the late Mrs. Skelton’s family; others still, that, Mrs. Skelton having quarrelled with her relations, they would get none of it, but that it would go to Skelton’s next of kin, which, wonderful to say, were Elizabeth Blair and her children; but everybody was agreed in thinking that, before Skelton would see the Blairs benefitted by him, he would turn his back on Helen of Troy could she come back to earth. However, the solution seemed far enough off. It was perfectly well known that the late Mrs. Skelton had put an embargo of some sort upon her place being filled, and they would have to wait until Skelton, who was in the perfection of physical health, should be laid in his grave before the mystery would be solved.
Skelton had come home in the early summer, and, although he had been formally called upon by all the gentry in the county, including Blair, as soon as he arrived, and the visits had been returned, but little had been seen of him. Even when the autumn meeting of the Jockey Club had come off, and when all the people from four counties had assembled and Skelton’s horses had carried everything before them, Skelton himself had scarcely appeared on the course at all. The truth was he was making a desperate effort to work. He shut himself up every day in the library, and actually got some little way upon his Introduction,but in a very short while a strange and irritating torpor seized upon him mentally. He had no distractions—he had all his books close by him, his notes tabulated; the whole thing was ready to his hand. The hand, though, refused to work; the mind refused to drive the hand. Skelton found he did as little in the scholastic retirement which he had adopted as in the whirl of cities.
He turned to racing as a faint and unsatisfying distraction. He had had the pleasure of beating Blair all along, even at the autumn meeting; he had had the savage enjoyment of knowing that Blair was as unlucky as usual when pitted against him. Skelton’s own secret dissatisfaction with himself fanned his resentment against Blair. He turned feverishly to the only thing that interested him—the determination to make Jack Blair know what it was to oppose Richard Skelton. Blair’s imprudent speeches, his constant reminders of the why and wherefore of Skelton’s rivalry, were not lost on him, and men of his type are always dangerous to trifle with.
Skelton’s doubled subscription to the Jockey Club had had a wonderful stimulating effect upon that institution, and it also caused Mrs. Blair to sign her name to a bit of paper which enabled Blair to raise some money, not only for his own increased subscription, but for that horse of old Tom Shapleigh’s which Skelton himself had professed to be afraid of. If once a match could be brought about between Alabaster and Jaybird, Blair, who was irrepressibly sanguine, believed that he could wipe out all old scores between them. And, of course, he could buy the horse—old Tom had not seriously meant thatSylvia was to have for a riding nag a horse that could beat Jaybird. Blair thought that raising a certain sum of money, which was in effect an extravagant price, must certainly buy Alabaster. But he had to go through with some unpleasant processes before raising that money. He was terribly hard up at that time, and one of the most necessary conditions was the signing of his wife’s name to a bit of paper that to him represented Alabaster, money, coming out ahead of Skelton—everything, in short.
When he went after Elizabeth to sign that paper she was sewing together the leaves of Hilary’s Latin grammar, and wishing she could buy some new books that the boy needed—for she taught him herself, under the womanly pretense that they might thereby save up money for his university expenses. But she knew in her heart of hearts that no money was saved or thought of being saved. Only her pride was saved by that subterfuge. The drawing-room at Newington where she sat was very unlike the splendid drawing-rooms at Deerchase or the gaudy show-rooms at Belfield. It was large, plain, and old-fashioned. The mahogany furniture was scanty, and the ornaments consisted of those daubs of family portraits which all Virginians possess. It was a gloomy afternoon early in October, and neither the room nor anything in it looked cheerful. Blair came in whistling, and stated the case to Elizabeth. As she had brought him no fortune, it seemed ungracious in her to refuse him that which was his own, but she thought of Hilary, and her heart sank. Nevertheless, she signed the paper with the quill pen that Blair cut for her with his penknife. When askingher to make the sacrifice for him he did not insult her by any endearments; there were certain fine points of delicacy about him which well pleased her woman’s soul. He profoundly respected the love between them, and would have scorned to use it directly as a means of wheedling anything out of her. But when her name was signed, he tipped her chin up and kissed her with ineffable tenderness.
“By heaven, my girl,� he said, “you deserve a better husband than I have ever made you! But you could never find one that loves you half as much.�
This gave Elizabeth a chance to air a grievance which she had been cherishing ever since the dinner at Belfield. Mrs. Blair was an uncommonly level-headed woman, and if any one had suggested a doubt of her husband to her, nothing could have exceeded her righteous resentment towards the suggestor. But there never had been a time in all their married life that Mrs. Blair had not fancied Blair’s admiration fixed upon some girl in the county, who nine times out of ten bored him to death, and Mrs. Blair was always ready with a few tears and a reproach or two on the subject of these imaginary injuries.
“Yes,� she said, withdrawing with an offended air from his encircling arm, “you can say these things to me now, but ever since that night at Belfield, when you never took your eyes off Sylvia Shapleigh, you have been thinking a great deal too much about her.�
“Elizabeth,� said Blair solemnly, “you are a fool,� and then he suddenly burst out laughing—agenuine laugh, inspired by the perfect absurdity of the thing.
“And you won’t deny it?� asked Elizabeth, trying feebly to maintain her position.
“Of course not,� answered Blair, becoming serious. “If you were a man I should knock you down. As you are a woman, I can’t, but I decline to take any notice of what you say. This is the seventeenth girl, I believe, that you have accused me of making eyes at.�
Elizabeth condescended to smile at this, and harmony was in a fair way to be restored between them. But after a moment Elizabeth said:
“There is something else, though, which troubled me that night. It was at the dinner table.�
Blair knew in an instant that she meant his increased subscription to the Jockey Club, but he asked what she meant.
“Can you ask me?� replied Elizabeth.
“The devil I can,� cried Blair, dropping at once into the ordinary, every-day, vexed-husband’s tone. “Look here, Elizabeth, didn’t you encourage me?�
“What could I do,� answered his wife with a piteous smile, “with Richard Skelton looking on and pitying me?�
“And what couldIdo, with Skelton challenging me in every tone of his voice and look of his eye? Don’t I know that Miles Lightfoot has got his orders to ruin me at any cost? And do you think that a man would quietly draw out and yield the field to another man under the circumstances? No, Elizabeth, I beat Skelton in the race for you, and I’ll beat him again on the Campdown course. And it isn’t sohard as you think. You know that black colt Alabaster, of old Tom Shapleigh’s? Well, that colt is more than three fourths thoroughbred—he has a strain of blood in him that goes straight back to Diomed. Now, that three fourths thoroughbred can beat any thoroughbred in Skelton’s stable; and Skelton himself said so in effect the night of that confounded dinner, and I’m going to have that horse. I shall have him with this money that you have enabled me to raise, and which I regard as a gift from you.�
Blair kissed her again—he certainly knew how to express his thanks. Elizabeth had heard the story about Alabaster and Diomed before.
“But I thought you said Mr. Shapleigh wouldn’t sell him?�
“Heshallsell him, by George!� cried Blair violently, and bringing his fist down on the mantel. “Elizabeth, you can’t imagine how the desire to own that horse has taken possession of me. You make yourself jealous about a lot of pink-faced girls that I never looked at twice, and, if you only knew it, your real rival is Alabaster. I swear I am in love with that horse! I dream about him at night. I never saw such quarters in my life—so strong, so sinewy, yet so light! And in the daytime, as I ride by the pasture and see him roaming around, not half attended to, it maddens me that such a creature should not be more appreciated. If I had him I could pay off all the mortgages on this place. I could send Hilary to school, and have a governess for Mary. I could give you a new carriage, and, better than all, I could beat Skelton at his own game.�
He spoke with a strange fierceness, he so debonairand full of careless good humor. Elizabeth looked at him in amazement. In all their fifteen years of married life she had never seen this trait in him. He was so intense, so wrought up over the horse, that she was glad it was only a horse that excited him. Suppose it had been one of those pink-faced girls that Blair spoke of so contemptuously, but who liked his dashing manners and captivating ways only too well, Mrs. Blair thought.
“But suppose, for an instant, Mr. Shapleigh won’t sell him,� persisted Elizabeth.
“But heshallsell him!� shouted Blair for the second time. “What does he want with him—to drive him to old lady Shapleigh’s chaise? I assure you he talks about Sylvia’s wanting to keep the horse as a riding horse. It made me grind my teeth. It would be cruel—yes, cruel, Elizabeth, if I didn’t own that horse!�
Elizabeth was startled; she said nothing more about Alabaster, and Blair went off with his hands in his pockets toward Belfield, and in a little while she saw him leaning on the fence that divided the two places, as the lands came together at the river, eying the black horse that browsed about in the pasture in the late October afternoon.
The red-brown pasture-land glowed in the setting sun, and the masses of gorgeous sumac that bordered the field made great dashes of colour in the landscape. A worm fence divided the two plantations, and upon this fence Blair leaned, meditatively watching the horses as they champed about the field. Elizabeth, who was far-sighted, could see him perfectly well, his stalwart and somewhat overgrownfigure outlined against the twilight sky. A negro boy came through the field whistling, and singing, to drive the horses into the stable lot at Belfield. He shied a stick at Alabaster to make him move on. At that Blair sprang over the fence, and, seizing the boy, shook him so violently that Elizabeth was frightened, thinking he might really be harmed by Blair in his rage.
He came home moodily, and told Elizabeth that he believed he could kill any creature that hurt an animal as valuable as Alabaster. Elizabeth believed him, after what she had just seen.
Next morning Blair went over to bargain for the horse. Old Tom was disinclined to sell, and as he talked Blair grew paler and paler. At last old Tom declared that Sylvia might decide. He had told her the horse was hers. He didn’t care for the money particularly, although the horse was certainly worth a good price, and was very speedy, but if Sylvia chose to part with him it was all right.
Sylvia, on getting a message from her father, tripped down to the stable lot, where the two men were talking. The morning was warm and bright, even for the bright October season, and Sylvia wore a white dress and a large black hat. She had a wild-rose bloom in her cheek, and was altogether uncommonly pretty that morning. Blair was usually very observant and appreciative of women’s looks, but no woman that lived could have taken his attention off from Alabaster at that moment. Old Tom stated the case, and then walked away, laughing.
“You and Sylvia settle it between you,� he cried. “If she chooses to sell him I’ll take what you offeredme. If not, she wouldn’t let me sell him for the whole of Newington plantation.�
“I wouldn’t either, if he were my property,� answered Blair, with a smile upon his handsome ruddy face that had, however, quite a strange look upon it.
“Now, Miss Sylvia, can’t you let me have him?� he asked, as soon as old Tom was out of the way.
Sylvia did not at all take in Blair’s intense desire to own the horse. “Why, Mr. Blair,� she said pettishly, “Iwant the horse. He is a splendid riding horse, and I have looked forward to having him for such a long time.�
Blair threw up his hands in a kind of despair. What creatures women were! Could they ever be made to understand the great affairs of life? Sylvia, who was quick of apprehension, caught in a moment the look which revealed an unsuspected turn in Blair’s character. His expression was desperate.
“But—but—do youwanthim very much?� suddenly asked Sylvia.
“Want him!� cried Blair. “Great God!�
Sylvia looked at him in dumb amazement. Blair’s features were working—he seemed to be asking for something as dear to him as his own children.
“I don’t think you know how much I want this horse,� he said, with furious entreaty in his voice and his eyes. “This horse is worth everything to me, and without him life itself is worth nothing to me, because I am undoubtedly ruined unless I can get a horse to beat Skelton’s Jaybird. Alabaster can do it. I don’t know of any other horse that can. It is not only that I may recoup what I have lost—for I tell you I’d risk my own soul almost on Alabaster’scoming under the wire first with Jaybird—but there is feud between Skelton and me, feud such as you never dreamed of. I hate him, and he hates me.�
Sylvia hesitated for a moment. Blair hung upon her words. She was serious enough now. Her lips moved once or twice as she patted the grass with her foot. Of course, it was all over, that childish romance about Skelton. She was now a young woman nearly out of her twenties, and he was nearing his fortieth birthday; and, besides, she had nothing to do with any rivalry on the turf between him and Mr. Blair, nor did she believe that Alabaster was as certain to carry everything before him as Blair thought. But—but—she recoiled from being the means of a possible defeat to Skelton. She knew well enough that there was great feeling on both sides in these matters between Blair and Skelton, and she knew Skelton to be unforgiving to the last degree. She raised her clear grey eyes to Blair’s face, but the expression on it made her turn a little pale. It was not only fiercely entreating, but it had a menace in it. Blair, indeed, felt a savage impulse to seize this slight creature and actually force her to let him have the horse. But the pity that dwells in every woman’s heart now rose in Sylvia’s. She felt so sorry for him—he had told her he would be ruined if he did not get Alabaster; so, after a few moments, painful on both sides, Sylvia suddenly held out her hand, and said:
“Yes, you may have him.�
Blair seized her hands and kissed them. His face changed to something like what it usually was. Sylvia’s eyes were full of tears; she realised that hewas really ruined then, although Blair spoke of Alabaster as destined to prevent it. Blair was so eager, that he had to take the horse home with him. Sylvia walked slowly back to the house through the old-fashioned garden, while Blair, in triumph, rode home, leading his treasure. He made Hilary go with the horse to the stable, while he went in the house. He felt the need of rest—he, this great, strong country squire felt a nervous reaction after the singular excitement of the morning.
“Elizabeth,� he said to his wife, “you accused me of looking at Sylvia Shapleigh too often. Let me tell you something. I never felt an impulse of violence towards a woman in my life until this morning. But when I saw her standing before me so unconcerned and smiling, and making up her mind so deliberately about the horse, I declare to you, I longed to—to seize her and throttle her until she came to her senses and agreed to let me have the horse. There is destiny in this. I wouldn’t so have longed for the creature if there were not something quite out of the usual run of events connected with him.�
Elizabeth looked at her husband and said nothing. How unintelligible is human nature, after all! Here, this man, to whom she had been married fifteen years, suddenly developed an intensity, a savagery, that she had no more suspected than she suspected a whirlpool in the placid river that began its course up in the green marshes and made its broad and shallow way to the sea. And it came to her again and again, Suppose it had been not a horse, but a human being that had aroused this vehement desireof possession? It was enough to make her turn pale.
“And,� continued Blair, with a smile that had something ferocious in it, “I shall beat Skelton again through a woman. Imagine, he might fall in love with Sylvia Shapleigh, and then find that she had furnished me with the means to be revenged on him! Perhaps Sylvia is in love with him, and that’s why she didn’t want to let me have the horse.�
“But he can’t marry, you know, without giving up his wife’s fortune, and that he would be most unlikely to do,� said Elizabeth; and she adroitly got Blair off the subject of Skelton, and Skelton’s plans and his horses, and horses in general, and Alabaster in particular, on to some less exciting topic.