"No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,No arborett with painted blossoms drestAnd smelling sweete, but there it might be fowndTo bud out faire and throwe her sweete smels al arownd."
"No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,No arborett with painted blossoms drestAnd smelling sweete, but there it might be fowndTo bud out faire and throwe her sweete smels al arownd."
Dorian, coming up presently to meet his wife and drive her home, finds her and Clarissa laughing gayly over one of Georgie's foreign reminiscences. He walks so slowly over the soft green grass that they do not hear him until he is quite close to them.
"Ah! you have come, Dorian," says Dorian's wife, with a pretty smile, "but too soon. Clarissa and I haven't half said all we have to say yet."
"At least I have said how glad I am to have you both back," says Clarissa. "The whole thing has been quite too awfully dismal without you. But for Jim and papa I should have gone mad, or something. I never put in such a horrid time. Horace came down occasionally,—very occasionally,—out of sheer pity, I believe; and Lord Sartoris was a real comfort, he visited so often; but he has gone away again."
"Has he? I suppose our return frightened him," says Branscombe, in a peculiar tone.
"I have been telling Clarissa how we tired of each other long before the right time," says Georgie, airily, "and how we came home to escape being bored to death by our own dulness."
Dorian laughs.
"She says what she likes," he tells Clarissa. "Has she yet put on the dignified stop for you? It would quite subdue any one to see her at the head of her table. Last night it was terrible. She seemed to grow several inches taller, and looked so severe that, long before it was time for him to retire, Martin was on the verge of nervous tears. I could have wept for him, he looked so disheartened."
"I'm perfectly certain Martin adores me," says Mrs. Branscombe, indignantly, "and I couldn't be severe or dignified to save my life. Clarissa, you must forgive me if I remove Dorian at once, before he says anything worse. He is quite untrustworthy. Good-by, dearest, and be sure you come up to see me to-morrow. I want to ask you ever so many more questions."
"Cards from the duchess for a garden-party," says Georgie, throwing the invitations in question across the breakfast-table to her husband. It is quite a week later, and she has almost settled down into the conventional married woman, though not altogether. To be entirely married—that is, sedate and sage—is quite beyond Georgie. Just now some worrying thought is oppressing her, and spoiling the flavor of her tea; her kidney loses its grace, her toast its crispness. She peeps at Dorian from behind the huge silver urn that seeks jealously to conceal her from view, and says, plaintively,—
"Is the duchess a very grand person, Dorian?"
"She is an awfully fat person, at all events," says Dorian, cheerfully. "I never saw any one who could beat her in that line. She'd take a prize, I think. She is not a bad old thing when in a good temper, but that is so painfully seldom. Will you go?"
"I don't know,"—doubtfully. Plainly, she is in the lowest depths of despair. "I—I—think I would rather not."
"I think you had better, darling."
"But you said just now she was always in a bad temper."
"Always? Oh, no; I am sure I couldn't have said that. And, besides, she won't go for you, you know, even if she is. The duke generally comes in for it. And by this time he rather enjoys it, I suppose,—as custom makes us love most things."
"But, Dorian, really now, what is she like?"
"I can't say that: it is a tremendous question. I don't know what she is; I only know what she is not."
"What, then?"
"'Fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair,'" quotes he, promptly. At which they both laugh.
"If she is an old dowdy," says Mrs. Branscombe, somewhat irreverently, "I sha'n't be one scrap afraid of her, and I do so want to go right over the castle. Somebody—Lord Alfred—would take me, I dare say. Yes,"—with sudden animation,—"let us go."
"I shall poison Lord Alfred presently," says Dorian, calmly. "Nothing shall prevent me. Your evident determination to spend your day with him has sealed his doom. Very well: send an answer, and let us spend a 'nice long happy day in the country.'"
"We are always spending that, aren't we?" says Mrs. Branscombe, adorably. Then, with a sigh, "Dorian, what shall I wear?"
He doesn't answer. For the moment he is engrossed, being deep in his "Times," busy studying the murders, divorces, Irish atrocities, and other pleasantries it contains.
"Dorian, do put down that abominable paper," exclaims she again, impatiently, leaning her arms on the table, and regarding him anxiously from the right side of the very forward urn that still will come in her way. "What shall I wear?"
"It can't matter," says Dorian: "you look lovely in everything, so it is impossible for you to make a mistake."
"It is a pity you can't talk sense,"—reproachfully. Then, with a glance literally heavy with care, "There is that tea-green satin trimmed with Chantilly."
"I forget it," says Dorian, professing the very deepest interest, "but I know it is all things."
"No, it isn't: I can't bear the sleeves. Then"—discontentedly—"there is that velvet."
"The very thing,"—enthusiastically.
"Oh, Dorian, dear! What are you thinking of? Do remember how warm the weather is."
"Well, so it is,—grilling," says Mr. Branscombe, nobly confessing his fault.
"Do you like me in that olive silk?" asks she, hopefully, gazing at him with earnest intense eyes.
"Don't I just?" returns he, fervently, rising to enforce his words.
"Now, don't be sillier than you can help," murmurs she, with a lovely smile. "Don't! I like that gown myself, you know: it makes me look so nice and old, and that."
"If I were a little girl like you," says Mr. Branscombe, "I should rather hanker after looking nice and young."
"But not too much so: it is frivolous when one is once married." This pensively, and with all the air of one who has long studied the subject.
"Is it? Of course you know best, your experience being greater than mine," says Dorian, meekly, "but, just for choice, I prefer youth to anything else."
"Do you? Then I suppose I had better wear white."
"Yes, do. One evening, in Paris, you wore a white gown of some sort, and I dreamt of you every night for a week afterwards."
"Very well. I shall give you a chance of dreaming of me again," says Georgie, with a carefully suppressed sigh, that is surely meant for the beloved olive gown.
The sigh is wasted. When she does don the white gown so despised, she is so perfect a picture that one might well be excused for wasting seven long nights in airy visions filled all with her. Some wild artistic marguerites are in her bosom (she plucked them herself fromout the meadow an hour agone); her lips are red, and parted; her hair, that is loosely knotted, and hangs low down, betraying the perfect shape of her small head, is "yellow, like ripe corn." She smiles as she places her hand in Dorian's and asks him how she looks; while he, being all too glad because of her excessive beauty, is very slow to answer her. In truth, she is "like the snow-drop fair, and like the primrose sweet."
At the castle she creates rather a sensation. Many, as yet, have not seen her; and these stare at her placidly, indifferent to the fact that breeding would have it otherwise.
"What a peculiarly pretty young woman," says the duke, half an hour after her arrival, staring at her through his glasses. He had been absent when she came, and so is only just now awakened to a sense of her charms.
"Who?—what?" says the duchess, vaguely, she being the person he has rashly addressed. She is very fat, very unimpressionable, and very fond of argument. "Oh! over there. I quite forget who she is. But I do see that Alfred is making himself, as usual, supremely ridiculous with her. With all his affected devotion to Helen, he runs after every fresh face he sees."
"'There's nothing like a plenty,'" quotes the duke, with a dry chuckle at his own wit; indeed he prides himself upon having been rather a "card" in his day, and anything but a "k'rect" one, either.
"Yes, there is,—there is propriety," responds the duchess, in an awful tone.
"That wouldn't be a bit like it," says the duke, still openly amused at his own humor; after which—thinking it, perhaps, safer to withdraw while there is yet time—he saunters off to the left, and, as he has a trick of looking over his shoulder while walking, nearly falls into Dorian's arms at the next turn.
"Ho, hah!" says his Grace, pulling himself up very shortly, and glancing at his stumbling-block to see if he can identify him.
"Why, it is you, Branscombe," he says, in his usual cheerful, if rather fussy, fashion. "So glad to see you!—so glad." He has made exactly this remark to Dorian every time he has come in contact with him during the past twenty years and more. "By the by, I dare say youcan tell me,—who is that pretty child over there, with the white frock and the blue eyes?"
"That pretty child in the frock is my wife," says Branscombe, laughing.
"Indeed! Dear me! dear me! I beg your pardon. My dear boy, I congratulate you. Such a face,—like a Greuze; or a—h'm—yes." Here he grows slightly mixed. "You must introduce me, you know. One likes to do homage to beauty. Why, where could you have met her in this exceedingly deficient county, eh? But you were always a sly dog, eh?"
The old gentleman gives him a playful slap on his shoulder, and then, taking his arm, goes with him across the lawn to where Georgie is standing talking gayly to Lord Alfred.
The introduction is gone through, and Georgie makes her very best bow, and blushes her very choicest blush; but the duke will insist upon shaking hands with her, whereupon, being pleased, she smiles her most enchanting smile.
"So glad to make your acquaintance. Missed you on your arrival," says the duke, genially. "Was toiling through the conservatories, I think, with Lady Loftus. Know her? Stout old lady, with feathers over her nose. She always will go to hot places on hot days."
"I wish she would go to a final hot place, as she affects them so much," says Lord Alfred, gloomily. "I can't bear her; she is always coming here bothering me about that abominable boy of hers in the Guards, and I never know what to say to her."
"Why don't you learn it up at night and say it to her in the morning?" says Mrs. Branscombe, brightly. "Ishould know what to say to her at once."
"Oh! I dare say," says Lord Alfred. "Only that doesn't help me, you know, becauseIdon't."
"Didn't know who you were, at first, Mrs. Branscombe," breaks in the duke. "Thought you were a little girl—eh?—eh?"—chuckling again. "Asked your husband who you were, and so on. I hope you are enjoying yourself. Seen everything, eh? The houses are pretty good this year."
"Lord Alfred has just shown them to me. They are quite too exquisite," says Georgie.
"And the lake, and my new swans?"
"No; not the swans."
"Dear me! why didn't he show you those? Finest birds I ever saw. My dear Mrs. Branscombe, you really must see them, you know."
"I should like to, if you will show them to me," says the little hypocrite, with the very faintest, but the most successful, emphasis on the pronoun, which is wine to the heart of the old beau; and, offering her his arm, he takes her across the lawn and through the shrubberies to the sheet of water beyond, that gleams sweet and cool through the foliage. As they go, the county turns to regard them; and men wonder who the pretty woman is the old fellow has picked up; and women wonder what on earth the duke can see in that silly little Mrs. Branscombe.
Sir James, who has been watching the duke's evident admiration for his pretty guest, is openly amused.
"Your training!" he says to Clarissa, over whose chair he is leaning. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself and your pupil. Such a disgraceful little coquette I never saw. I really pity that poor duchess: see there, how miserably unhappy she is looking, and how——er——pink."
"Don't be unkind: your hesitation was positively cruel. The word 'red' is unmistakably the word for the poor duchess to-day."
"Well, yes, and yesterday, and the day before, and probably to-morrow," says Sir James, mildly. "But I really wonder at the duke,—at his time of life, too! If I were Branscombe I should feel it my duty to interfere."
He is talking gayly, unceasingly, but always with his grave eyes fixed upon Clarissa, as she leans back languidly on the uncomfortable garden-chair, smiling indeed every now and then, but fitfully, and without the gladness that generally lights up her charming face.
Horace had promised to be here to-day,—had faithfully promised to come with her and her father to this garden-party; and where is he now? A little chill of disappointment has fallen upon her, and made dull her day. No smallest doubt of his truth finds harbor in her gentle bosom,yet grief sits heavy on her, "as the mildews hang upon the bells of flowers to blight their bloom!"
Sir James, half divining the cause of her discontent, seeks carefully, tenderly, to draw her from her sad thoughts in every way that occurs to him; and his efforts, though not altogether crowned with success, are at least so far happy in that he induces her to forget her grievance for the time being, and keeps her from dwelling too closely upon the vexed question of her recreant lover.
To be with Sir James is, too, in itself a relief to her. With him she need not converse unless it so pleases her; her silence will neither surprise nor trouble him; but with all the others it would be so different: they would claim her attention whether she willed it or not, and to make ordinary spirited conversation just at this moment would be impossible to her. The smile dies off her face. A sigh replaces it.
"How well you are looking to-day!" says Scrope, lightly, thinking this will please her. She is extremely pale, but a little hectic spot, born of weariness and fruitless hoping against hope, betrays itself on either cheek. His tone, if not the words, does please her, it is so full of loving kindness.
"Am I?" she says. "I don't feel like looking well; and I am tired, too. They say,—
'A merry heart goes all the day,Your sad tires in a mile-a;'
'A merry heart goes all the day,Your sad tires in a mile-a;'
I doubt mine is a sad one, I feel so worn out. Though,"—hastily, and with a vivid flush that changes all her pallor into warmth,—"if I were put to it, I couldn't tell you why."
"No? Do you know I have often felt like that," says Scrope, carelessly. "It is both strange and natural. One has fits of depression that come and go at will, and that one cannot account for; at least, I have, frequently. But you, Clarissa, you should not know what depression means."
"I know it to day." For the moment her courage fails her. She feels weak; a craving for sympathy overcomes her; and, turning, she lifts her large sorrowful eyes to his.
She would, perhaps, have spoken; but now a sense of shame and a sharp pang that means pride come to her, and, by a supreme effort, she conquers emotion, and lets her heavily-lashed lids fall over her suffused eyes, as though to conceal the tell-tale drops within from his searching gaze.
"So, you see,"—she says, with a rather artificial laugh,—"your flattery falls through: with all this weight of imaginary woe upon my shoulders, I can hardly be looking my best."
"Nevertheless, I shall not allow you to call my true sentiments flattery," says Scrope: "I really meant what I said, whether you choose to believe me or not. Yours is a
'Beauty truly blent, whose red and whiteNature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.'"
'Beauty truly blent, whose red and whiteNature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.'"
"What a courtier you become!" she says, laughing honestly for almost the first time to-day. It is so strange to hear James Scrope say anything high-flown or sentimental. She is a little bit afraid that he knows why she is sorry, yet, after all, she hardly frets over the fact of his knowing. Dear Jim! he is always kind, and sweet, and thoughtful! Even if he does understand, he is quite safe to look as if he didn't. And that is always such a comfort!
And Sir James, watching her, and marking the grief upon her face, feels a tightening at his heart, and a longing to succor her, and to go forth—if need be—and fight for her as did the knights of old for those they loved, until "just and mightie death, whom none can advise," enfolded him in his arms.
For long time he has loved her,—has lived with only her image in his heart. Yet what has his devotion gained him? Her liking, her regard, no doubt, but nothing that can satisfy the longing that leaves desolate his faithful heart. Regard, however deep, is but small comfort to him whose every thought, waking and sleeping, belongs alone to her.
"Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride,What hell it is, in swing long to bide;To loose good dayes that might be better spent,To wast long nights in pensive discontent;To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires."
"Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride,What hell it is, in swing long to bide;To loose good dayes that might be better spent,To wast long nights in pensive discontent;To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires."
He is quite assured she lives in utter ignorance of his love. No word has escaped him, no smallest hint, that might declare to her the passion that daily, hourly, grows stronger, and of which she is the sole object. "The noblest mind the best contentment has," and he contents himself as best he may on a smile here, a gentle word there, a kindly pressure of the hand to-day, a look of welcome to-morrow. These are liberally given, but nothing more. Ever since her engagement to Horace Branscombe he has, of course, relinquished hope; but the surrender of all expectation has not killed his love. He is silent because he must be so, but his heart wakes, and
"Silence in love bewrays more woeThan words, though ne'er so witty."
"Silence in love bewrays more woeThan words, though ne'er so witty."
"See, there they are again," he says now, alluding to Georgie and her ducal companion, as they emerge from behind some thick shrubs. Another man is with them, too,—a tall, gaunt young man, with long hair, and a cadaverous face, who is staring at Georgie as though he would willingly devour her—but only in the interest of art. He is lecturing on the "Consummate Daffodil," and is comparing it unfavorably with the "Unutterable Tulip," and is plainly boring the two, with whom he is walking, to extinction. He is Sir John Lincoln, that old-new friend of Georgie's, and will not be shaken off.
"Long ago," says Georgie, tearfully, to herself, "he was not an æsthete. Oh, how Iwishhe would go back to his pristine freshness!"
But he won't: he maunders on unceasingly about impossible flowers, that are all very well in their way, but whose exaltedness lives only in his own imagination, until the duke, growing weary (as well he might, poor soul), turns aside, and greets with unexpected cordiality a group upon his right, that, under any other less oppressive circumstances, would be abhorrent to him. But to spend a long hour talking about one lily is not to be borne.
Georgie follows his example, and tries to escape Lincolnand the tulips by diving among the aforesaid group. She is very successful,—groups do not suit æsthetics,—and soon the gaunt young man takes himself, and his long hair, to some remote region.
"How d'ye do, Mrs. Branscombe?" says a voice at her elbow, a moment later, and, turning, she finds herself face to face with Mr. Kennedy.
"Ah! you?" she says, with very flattering haste, being unmistakably pleased to see him. "I had no idea you were staying in the country."
"I am staying with the Luttrells'. Molly asked me down last month."
"She is a great friend of yours, I know," says Mrs. Branscombe; "yet I hadn't the faintest notion I should meet you here to-day."
"And you didn't care either, I dare say," says Mr. Kennedy, in a tone that is positively sepulchral, and, consideringallthings, very well done indeed.
"I should have cared, if I had even once thought about it," says Mrs. Branscombe, cheerfully.
Whereupon he says,—
"Thankyou!" in a voice that isallreproach.
Georgie colors. "I didn't mean whatyouthink," she says, anxiously. "I didn'tindeed."
"Well, it sounded exactly like it," says Mr. Kennedy, with careful gloom. "Of course it is not to be expected that you everwouldthink of me, but——I haven't seen you since that last night at Gowran, have I?"
"No."
"I think you might have told me then you were going to be married."
"I wasn't going to be married then," says Georgie, indignantly: "I hadn't a single idea of it. Never thought of it, until the next day."
"I quite thought you were going to marry me," says Mr. Kennedy, sadly; "I had quite made up my mind to it. I never"—forlornly—"imagined you as belonging to any other fellow. It isn't pleasant to find that one's pet doll is stuffed with sawdust, and yet—"
"I can't think what you are talking about," says Mrs. Branscombe, coldly, and with some fine disgust; she cannot help thinking that she must be the doll in question,and to be filled with sawdust sounds anything but dignified.
Kennedy, reading her like a book, nobly suppresses a wild desire for laughter, and goes on in a tone, if possible, more depressed than the former one.
"My insane hope was the doll," he says: "it proved only dust. I haven't got over the shock yet that I felt on hearing of your marriage. I don't suppose I ever shall now."
"Nonsense!" says Georgie, contemptuously. "I never saw you look so well in all my life. You are positively fat."
"That's how it always shows with me," says Kennedy, unblushingly. "Whenever green and yellow melancholy marks me for its own, I sit on a monument (they always keep one for me at home) and smile incessantly at grief, and get as fat as possible. It is a refinement of cruelty, you know, as superfluous flesh is not a thing to be hankered after."
"How you must have fretted," says Mrs. Branscombe, demurely, glancing from under her long lashes at his figure, which has certainly gained both in size and in weight since their last meeting.
At this they both laugh.
"Is your husband here to-day?" asks he, presently.
"Yes."
"Why isn't he with you?"
"He has found somebody more to his fancy, perhaps."
As she says this she glances round, as though for the first time alive to the fact that indeed he is not beside her.
"Impossible!" says Kennedy. "Give any other reason but that, and I may believe you. I am quite sure he is missing you terribly, and is vainly searching every nook and corner by this time for your dead body. No doubt he fears the worst. If you were my——I mean if ever I were to marry (which of course is quite out of the question now), I shouldn't let my wife out of my sight."
"Poor woman! what a time she is going to put in!" says Mrs. Branscombe, pityingly. "Don't go about telling people all that, or you will never get a wife. By this time Dorian and I have made the discovery that we can do excellently well without each other sometimes."
Dorian coming up behind her just as she says this, hears her, and changes color.
"How d'ye do!" he says to Kennedy, civilly, if not cordially, that young man receiving his greeting with the utmost bonhommie and an unchanging front.
For a second, Branscombe refuses to meet his wife's eyes, then, conquering the momentary feeling of pained disappointment, he turns to her, and says, gently,—
"Do you care to stay much longer? Clarissa has gone, and Scrope, and the Carringtons."
"I don't care to stay another minute: I should like to go home now," says Georgie, slipping her hand through his arm, as though glad to have something to lean on; and, as she speaks, she lifts her face and bestows upon him a small smile. It is a very dear little smile, and has the effect of restoring him to perfect happiness again.
Seeing which, Kennedy raises his brows, and then his hat, and, bowing, turns aside, and is soon lost amidst the crowd.
"You are sure you want to come home?" says Dorian, anxiously. "I am not in a hurry, you know."
"I am. I have walked enough, and talked enough, to last me a month."
"I am afraid I rather broke in upon your conversation just now," says Branscombe, looking earnestly at her. "But for my coming, Kennedy would have stayed on with you; and he is a—a rather amusing sort of fellow, isn't he?"
"Is he? He was exceedingly stupid to-day, at all events. I don't believe he has a particle of brains, or else he thinks other people haven't. I enjoyed myself a great deal more with the old duke, until that ridiculous Sir John Lincoln came to us. I don't think he knew a bit who the duke was, because he kept saying odd little things about the grounds and the guests, right under his nose; at least, right behind his back: it is all the same thing."
"What is? His nose and his back?" asks Dorian; at which piece of folly they both laugh as though it was the best thing in the world.
Then they make their way over the smooth lawns, and past the glowing flower-beds, and past Sir John Lincoln,too, who is standing in an impossible attitude, that makes him all elbows and knees, talking to a very splendid young man—all bone and muscle and good humor—who is plainly delighted with him. To the splendid young man he is nothing but one vast joke.
Seeing Mrs. Branscombe, they both raise their hats, and Sir John so far forgets the tulips as to give it as his opinion that she is "Quite too, too intense for every-day life." Whereupon the splendid young man, breaking into praise too, declares she is "Quite too awfully jolly, don't you know," which commonplace remark so horrifies his companion that he sadly and tearfully turns aside, and leaves him to his fate.
Georgie, who has been brought to a standstill for a moment, hears both remarks, and laughs aloud.
"It is something to be admired by Colonel Vibart, isn't it?" she says to Dorian; "but it is really very sad about poor Sir John. He has bulbous roots on the brain, and they have turned him as mad as a hatter."
"There's not a scene on earth so full of lightnessThat withering careSleeps not beneath the flowers and turns their brightnessTo dark despair."—Hon. Mrs. Norton.
"There's not a scene on earth so full of lightnessThat withering careSleeps not beneath the flowers and turns their brightnessTo dark despair."—Hon. Mrs. Norton.
"There's not a scene on earth so full of lightnessThat withering careSleeps not beneath the flowers and turns their brightnessTo dark despair."—Hon. Mrs. Norton.
It is a day of a blue and goldness so intense as to make one believe these two are the only colors on earth worthy of admiration. The sky is cloudless; the great sun is wide awake; the flowers are drooping, sleeping,—too languid to lift their heavy heads.
"The gentle wind, that like a ghost doth pass,A waving shadow on the cornfield keeps."
"The gentle wind, that like a ghost doth pass,A waving shadow on the cornfield keeps."
And Georgie descending the stone steps of the balcony, feels her whole nature thrill and glow beneath the warmth and richness of the beauty spread all around with lavish hand. Scarcely a breath stirs the air; no sound comes to mar the deep stillness of the day, save the echo of the "swallows' silken wings skimming the water of the sleeping lake."
As she passes the rose-trees, she puts out her hand, and, from the very fulness of her heart, touches some of the drowsy flowers with caressing fingers. She is feeling peculiarly happy to-day: everything is going so smoothly with her; her life is devoid of care; only sunshine streams upon her path; storm and rain and nipping frosts seem all forgotten.
Going into the garden, she pulls a flower or two and places them in the bosom of her white gown, and bending over the basin of a fountain, looks at her own image, and smiles at it, as well she may.
Then she blushes at her own vanity, and, drawing back from nature's mirror, tells herself she will go a little farther, and see what Andrews, the under-gardener (who has come to Sartoris from Hythe), is doing in the shrubbery.
The path by which she goes is so thickly lined with shrubs on the right-hand side that she cannot be seen through them, nor can she see those beyond. Voices come to her from the distance, that, as she advances up the path, grow even louder. She is not thinking of them, or, indeed, of anything but the extreme loveliness of the hour, when words fall upon her ear that make themselves intelligible and send the blood with a quick rush to her heart.
"It is a disgraceful story altogether; and to have the master's name mixed up with it is shameful!"
The voice, beyond doubt, belongs to Graham, the upper-housemaid, and is full of honest indignation.
Hardly believing she has heard aright, and without any thought of eaves-dropping, Georgie stands still upon the walk, and waits in breathless silence for what may come next.
"Well, I think it is shameful," says another voice, easily recognized as belonging to Andrews. "But I believe it is the truth for all that. Father saw him with his own eyes. It was late, but just as light as it is now, and he saw him plain."
"Do you mean to tell me," says Graham, with increasing wrath (she is an elderly woman, and has lived at Sartoris for many years), "that you really think your master had either hand, act, or part in inducing Ruth Annersley to leave her home?"
"Well, I only say what father told me," says Andrews, in a half-apologetic fashion, being somewhat abashed by her anger. "And he ain't one to lie much. He saw him with her in the wood the night she went to Lunnun, or wherever 'twas, and they walked together in the way to Langham Station. They do say, too, that——"
A quick light footstep, a putting aside of branches, and Georgie, pale, but composed, appears before them. Andrews, losing his head, drops the knife he is holding, and Graham grows a fine purple.
"I don't think you are doing much good here, Andrews," says Mrs. Branscombe, pleasantly. "These trees look well enough: go to the eastern walk, and see what can be done there."
Andrews, only too thankful for the chance of escape, picks up his knife again and beats a hasty retreat.
Then Georgie, turning to Graham, says slowly,—
"Now, tell me every word of it, from beginning to end."
Her assumed unconsciousness has vanished. Every particle of color has flown from her face, her brow is contracted, her eyes are shining with a new and most unenviable brilliancy. Perhaps she knows this herself, as, after the first swift glance at the woman on Andrews's departure, she never lifts her eyes again, but keeps them deliberately fixed upon the ground during the entire interview. She speaks in a low concentrated tone, but with firm compressed lips.
Graham's feelings at this moment would be impossible to describe. Afterwards—many months afterwards—she herself gave some idea of them when she declared to the cook that she thought she should have "swooned right off."
"Oh, madam! tell you what?" she says, now, in a terrified tone, shrinking away from her mistress, and turning deadly pale.
"You know what you were speaking about just now when I came up."
"It was nothing, madam, I assure you, only idle gossip, not worth——"
"Do not equivocate to me. You were speaking of Mr. Branscombe. Repeat your 'idle gossip.' I will have itword for word. Do you hear?" She beats her foot with quick impatience against the ground.
"Do not compel me to repeat so vile a lie," entreats Graham, earnestly. "It is altogether false. Indeed, madam,"—confusedly,—"I cannot remember what it was we were saying when you came up to us so unexpectedly."
"Then I shall refresh your memory. You were talking of your master and—and of that girl in the village who——" The words almost suffocate her; involuntarily she raises her hand to her throat. "Go on," she says, in a low, dangerous tone.
Graham bursts into tears.
"It was the gardener at Hythe—old Andrews—who told it to our man here," she sobs, painfully. "You know he is his father, and he said he had seen the master in the copsewood the evening—Ruth Annersley ran away."
"He was in London that evening."
"Yes, madam, we all know that," says the woman, eagerly. "That alone proves how false the whole story is. But wicked people will talk, and it is wise people only who will not give heed to them."
"What led Andrews to believe it was your master?" She speaks in a hard constrained voice, and as one who has not heard a word of the preceding speech. In truth, she has not listened to it, her whole mind being engrossed with this new and hateful thing that has fallen into her life.
"He says he saw him,—that he knew him by his height, his figure, his side-face, and the coat he wore,—a light overcoat, such as the master generally uses."
"And how does he explain away the fact of—of Mr. Branscombe's being in town that evening?"
At this question Graham unmistakably hesitates before replying. When she does answer, it is with evident reluctance.
"You see, madam," she says, very gently, "it would be quite possible to come down by the mid-day train to Langham, to drive across to Pullingham, and get back again to London by the evening train."
"It sounds quite simple," says Mrs. Branscombe, in a strange tone. Then follows an unbroken silence that lasts for several minutes and nearly sends poor Graham out ofher mind. She cannot quite see her mistress's face as it is turned carefully aside, but the hand that is resting on a stout branch of laurel near her is steady as the branch itself. Steady,—but the pretty filbert nails show dead-white against the gray-green of the bark, as though extreme pressure, born of mental agitation and a passionate desire to suppress and hide it, has compelled the poor little fingers to grasp with undue force whatever may be nearest to them.
When silence has become positively unbearable, Georgie says, slowly,—
"And does all the world know this?"
"I hope not, ma'am. I think not. Though, indeed,"—says the faithful Graham, with a sudden burst of indignation,—"even if they did, I don't see how it could matter. It would not make it a bit more or less than a deliberate lie."
"You are a good soul, Graham," says Mrs. Branscombe, wearily.
Something in her manner frightens Graham more than all that has gone before.
"Oh, madam, do not pay any attention to such a wicked tale," she says, anxiously, "and forgive me for ever having presumed to lend my ears to it. No one knowing the master could possibly believe in it."
"Of course not." The answer comes with unnatural calmness from between her white lips. Graham bursts into fresh tears, and flings her apron over her head.
Mrs. Branscombe, at this, throws up her head hastily, almost haughtily, and, drawing her hand with a swift movement across her averted eyes, breathes a deep lingering sigh. Then her whole expression changes; and, coming quite near to Graham, she lays her hand lightly on her shoulder, and laughs softly.
Graham can hardly believe her ears: has that rippling, apparently unaffected laughter come from the woman who a moment since appeared all gloom and suppressed anger?
"I am not silly enough to fret over a ridiculous story such as you have told me," says Georgie, lightly. "Just at first it rather surprised me, I confess, but now—now I can see the absurdity of it. There; do not cry anymore; it is a pity to waste tears that later on you may long for in vain."
But when she has gained the house, and has gone up to her own room, and carefully locked her door, her assumed calmness deserts her. She paces up and down the floor like some chained creature, putting together bit by bit the story just related to her. Not for a moment does she doubt its truth: some terrible fear is knocking at her heart, some dread that is despair and that convinces her of the reality of Andrews's relation.
Little actions of Dorian's, light words, certain odd remarks, passed over at the time of utterance as being of no importance, come back to her now, and assert themselves with overwhelming persistency, until they declare him guilty beyond all dispute.
When she had gone to the altar and sworn fidelity to him, she had certainly not been in love with her husband, according to the common acceptation of that term. But at least she had given him a heart devoid of all thought for another, and she had fully, utterly, believed in his affection for her. For the past few months she had even begun to cherish this belief, to cling to it, and even to feel within herself some returning tenderness for him.
It is to her now, therefore, as the bitterness of death, this knowledge that has come to her ears. To have been befooled where she had regarded herself as being most beloved,—to have been only second, where she had fondly imagined herself to be first and dearest,—is a thought bordering upon madness.
Passionate sobs rise in her throat, and almost overcome her. An angry feeling of rebellion, a vehement protest against this deed that has been done, shakes her slight frame. It cannot be true; it shall not; and yet—and yet—why has this evil fallen upon her of all others? Has her life been such a happy one that Fate must needs begrudge her one glimpse of light and gladness? Two large tears gather in her eyes, and almost unconsciously roll down her cheeks that are deadly white.
Sinking into a chair, as though exhausted, she leans back among its cushions, letting her hands fall together and lie idly in her lap.
Motionless she sits, with eyes fixed as if riveted toearth, while tears insensibly steal down her pensive cheeks, which look like weeping dew fallen on the statue of despair.
For fully half an hour she so rests, scarce moving, hardly seeming to breathe. Then she rouses herself, and, going over to a table, bathes her face with eau-de-Cologne. This calms her in a degree, and stills the outward expression of her suffering, but in her heart there rages a fire that no waters can quench.
Putting her hat on once again, she goes down-stairs, feeling eager for a touch of the cool evening air. The hot sun is fading, dying; a breeze from the distant sea is creeping stealthily up to the land. At the foot of the staircase she encounters Dorian coming towards her from the library.
"I have been hunting the place for you," he says, gayly. "Where on earth have you been hiding? Visions of ghastly deaths rose before me, and I was just about to have the lake dragged and the shrubberies swept. Martin is nearly in tears. You really ought to consider our feelings a little. Why, where are you off to now?"—for the first time noticing her hat.
"Out," returns she, coldly, looking straight over his head: she is standing on the third step of the stairs, while he is in the hall below. "I feel stifled in this house."
Her tone is distinctly strange, her manner most unusual. Fearing she is really ill, he goes up to her and lays his hand upon her arm.
"Anything the matter, darling? How white you look," he begins, tenderly; but she interrupts him.
"I am quite well," she says, hardly, shrinking away from his touch as though it is hateful to her. "I am going out because I wish to be alone."
She sweeps past him through the old hall and out into the darkening sunlight, without a backward glance or another word. Amazed, puzzled, Branscombe stands gazing after her until the last fold of her dress has disappeared, the last sound of her feet has echoed on the stone steps beyond; then he turns aside, and, feeling, if possible, more astonished than hurt, goes back to the library.
From this hour begins the settled coldness betweenDorian and his wife that is afterwards to bear such bitter fruit. She assigns no actual reason for her changed demeanor; and Dorian, at first, is too proud to demand an explanation,—though perhaps never yet has he loved her so well as at this time, when all his attempts at tenderness are coldly and obstinately rejected.
Not until a full month has gone by, and it is close upon the middle of August, does it dawn upon him why Georgie has been so different of late.
Sir James Scrope is dining with them, and, shortly after the servants have withdrawn, he makes some casual mention of Ruth Annersley's name. No notice is taken of it at the time, the conversation changes almost directly into a fresh channel, but Dorian, happening to glance across the table at his wife, sees that she has grown absolutely livid, and really, for the instant, fears she is going to faint. Only for an instant! Then she recovers herself, and makes some careless remark, and is quite her usual self again.
But he cannot forget that sudden pallor, and like a flash the truth comes to him, and he knows he is foul and despicable in the eyes of the only woman he loves.
When Sir James has gone, he comes over to her, and, leaning his elbow on the chimney-piece, stands in such a position as enables him to command a full view of her face.
"Scrope takes a great interest in that girl Ruth," he says, purposely introducing the subject again. "It certainly is remarkable that no tidings of her have ever since reached Pullingham."
Georgie makes no reply. The nights have already grown chilly and there is a fire in the grate, before which she is standing warming her hands. One foot,—a very lovely little foot,—clad in a black shoe relieved by large silver buckles, is resting on the fender, and on this her eyes are riveted, as though lost in admiration of its beauty, though in truth she sees it not at all.
"I can hardly understand her silence," persists Dorian. "I fear, wherever she is, she must be miserable."
Georgie raises her great violet eyes to his, that are now dark and deep with passionate anger and contempt.
"She is not the only miserable woman in the world," she says, in a low, quick tone.
"No, I suppose not. But what an unsympathetic tone you use! Surely you can feel for her?"
"Feel for her! Yes. No woman can have as much compassion for her as I have."
"That is putting it rather strongly, is it not? You scarcely know her; hardly ever spoke to her. Clarissa Peyton, for instance, must think more pitifully of her than you can."
"I hope it will never be Clarissa's lot to compassionate any one in the way I do her."
"You speak very bitterly."
"Do I? I think very bitterly."
"What do you mean?" demands he, suddenly, straightening himself and drawing up his tall figure to its fullest height. His tone is almost stern.
"Nothing. There is nothing to be gained by continuing this conversation."
"But I think there is. Of late, your manner towards me has been more than strange. If you complain of anything, let me know what it is, and it shall be rectified. At the present moment, I confess, I fail to understand you. You speak in the most absurdly romantic way about Ruth Annersley (whom you hardly knew), as though there existed some special reason why you, above all women, should pity her."
"I do pity her from my heart; and there is a special reason: she has been deceived, and so have I."
"By whom?"
"I wish you would discontinue the subject, Dorian: it is a very painful one to me, if—if not to you." Then she moves back a little, and, laying her hand upon her chest, as though a heavy weight, not to be lifted, is lying there, she says, slowly, "You compel me to say what I would willingly leave unsaid. When I married you, I did not understand your character; had I done so——"
"You would not have married me? You regret your marriage?" He is very pale now, and something that is surely anguish gleams in his dark eyes. Perhaps had she seen his expression her answer would have been different, or, at least, more merciful.
"I do," she says, faintly.
"Why?" All heart seems gone from his voice. He is gazing mournfully upon the girlish figure of his wife as she stands at some little distance from him. "Have I been such a bad husband to you, Georgie?" he says, brokenly.
"No, no. But it is possible to be cruel in more ways than one."
"It is, indeed!" Then he sighs wearily; and, giving up all further examination of her lovely unforgiving face, he turns his gaze upon the fire. "Look here," he says, presently; "I heard unavoidably what you said to Kennedy that afternoon at the castle, that we could manage to get on without each other excellently well on occasion: you alluded to yourself, I suppose. Perhaps you think we might get on even better had we never met."
"I didn't say that," says Georgie, turning pale.
"I understand,"—bitterly: "you only meant it. Well, if you are so unhappy with me, and if—if you wish for a separation, I think I can manage it for you. I have no desire whatever"—coldly—"to keep you with me against your will."
"And have all the world talking?" exclaims she, hastily. "No. In such a case the woman goes to the wall: the man is never in fault. Things must now remain as they are. But this one last thing you can do for me. As far as is possible, let us live as utter strangers to each other."
"It shall be just as you please," returns he, haughtily.
Day by day the dark cloud that separates them widens and deepens, drifting them farther and farther apart, until it seems almost impossible that they shall ever come together again.
Dorian grows moody and irritable, and nurses his wrongs in sullen morbid silence. He will shoot whole days without a companion, or go for long purposeless rides across country, only to return at nightfall weary and sick at heart.
"Grief is a stone that bears one down." To Dorian, all the world seems going wrong; his whole life is a failure. The two beings he loves most on earth—Lord Sartoris and his wife—distrust him, and willingly lend an open ear to the shameless story unlucky Fate has coined for him.
As for Georgie, she grows pale and thin, and altogether unlike herself. From being a gay, merry, happy little girl, with "the sun upon her heart," as Bailey so sweetly expresses it, she has changed into a woman, cold and self-contained, with a manner full of settled reserve.
Now and again small scenes occur between them that only render matters more intolerable. For instance, coming into the breakfast-room one morning, Georgie, meeting the man who brings the letters, takes them from him, and, dividing them, comes upon one directed to Dorian, in an unmistakable woman's hand, bearing the London post-mark, which she throws across the table to her husband.
Something in the quickness of her action makes him raise his head to look at her. Catching the expression of her eyes, he sees that they are full of passionate distrust, and at once reads her thoughts aright. His brow darkens; and, rising, he goes over to her, and takes her hands in his, not with a desire to conciliate, but most untenderly.
"It is impossible you can accuse me of this thing," he says, his voice low and angry.
"Few things are impossible," returns she, with cold disdain. "Remove your hands, Dorian: they hurt me."
"At least you shall be convinced that in this instance, as in all the others, you have wronged me."
Still holding her hands, he compels her to listen to him while he reads aloud a letter from the wife of one of his tenants who has gone to town on law business and who has written to him on the matter.
Such scenes only help to make more wide the breach between them. Perhaps, had Georgie learned to love her husband before her marriage, all might have been well; but the vague feeling of regard she had entertained for him (that, during the early days of their wedded life, had been slowly ripening into honest love, not having had time to perfect itself) at the first check had given in, and fallen—hurt to death—beneath the terrible attack it had sustained.
She fights and battles with herself at times, and, with passionate earnestness, tries to live down the growing emptiness of heart that is withering her young life. All night long sometimes she lies awake, waiting wearilyfor the dawn, and longing prayerfully for some change in her present stagnation.
And, even if she can summon sleep to her aid, small is the benefit she derives from it. Bad dreams, and sad as bad, harass and perplex her, until she is thankful when her lids unclose and she feels at least she is free of the horrors that threatened her a moment since.