"Do not be frightened!" he says, in an eager whisper—"you need not. I will take care of you!"
Even through all the preoccupation of my alarm something in his tone jars upon and angers me.
"Youtake care of me!" I cry, scornfully. "How could you? I wish you would not talk nonsense."
We have reached the turn now! Shall we do it? One moment of breathless anxiety. I set my teeth and breathe hard. No, we shall not! We turn too sharp, and do not take a wide-enough sweep. The coach gives a horrible lurch. One side of us is up on the hedge-bank!—we are going over! I give a little agonized yell, and make a snatch at Frank, while my fingers clutch his nearest hand with the tenacity of a devil-fish. If it were his hair, or his nose, I should equally grasp it. Then, somehow—to this moment I do not know how—we right ourselves. The grooms are down like a shot, pulling at the horses' heads, and in a second or two—how it is done I do not see, on account of the dark—but with many bumpings, and shouts and callings, and dreadful jolts, we come straight again, and I drop Frank's hand like a hot chestnut.
In ten minutes more we are briskly and safely trotting up to the hall-door. Before we reach it, I see Roger standing under the lit portico, with level hand shading his eyes, which are intently staring out into the darkness.
"All right? nothing happened?" he asks, in a tone of the most poignant anxiety, almost before we have pulled up.
"All right!" replies Barbara's voice, softly cheerful. "Are you looking for Nancy? She is at the back with Frank."
Roger makes no comment, but this time he does not offer to lift me down.
"Well, here we are!" cries Mr. Parker, coming beaming into the hall, with his mackintosh one great drip, laughing and rubbing his hands. "And though I say it that should not, there are not many that could have brought you home better than I have done to-night, and, I declare, in spite of the rain, we have not had half a bad day, have we?"
But we are all strictly silent.
"... Peace, pray you, now,No dancing more. Sing sweet, and make us mirth.We have done with dancing measures; sing that songYou call the song of love at ebb."
"... Peace, pray you, now,No dancing more. Sing sweet, and make us mirth.We have done with dancing measures; sing that songYou call the song of love at ebb."
Yesterday it had seemed impossible that we could ever be dry again, and yet to-day we are. Even our hair is no longer in dull, discolored ropes. A night has intervened between us and our sufferings. We have at last got the sound of the hissing rain and the thunder of the boisterous wind out of our ears. We have all got colds more or less. I am among theless; for rough weather has never been an enemy to me, and at home I have always been used to splashing about in the wet, with the native relish of a young duck. Mrs. Huntley is (despite the fly) among themore. She does not appear until late—not until near luncheon-time. Her cold is in the head, thesafestbut unbecomingest place, producing, as I with malignant joy perceive, a slight thickening and swelling of her little thin nose, and a boiled-gooseberry air in her appealing eyes.
The old gentleman is—with the exception, perhaps, of Algy—the most dilapidated among us. He has not yet begun one anecdote, whose point was not smothered and effaced by that choking, goat-like cough. This is perhaps a gain tous, as one is not expected to laugh at acough; nor does itsdénoûmentever put one to the blush.
Mr. Parker has no cold at all, and has even had the shameless audacity to proposeanotherexpedition to-day. But we all rise in such loud and open revolt that he has perforce to withdraw his suggestion.
He must save his superfluous energy for the evening, when the neighbors are to come together, and we are to dance. This fact is news to most of us, and I think we hardly receive it with the elation he expects. There seems to be more of rheumatism than of dance in many of our limbs, and our united sneezes will be enough to drown the band. However, revolt in this case is useless. We must console ourselves with the notion that at least in a ballroom there can be neither rain nor wind—that we cannot lose our way or be upset, at least not in the sense which had such terror for us yesterday. Roger has gone over to Tempest on business, and is away all day. Mrs. Huntley sits by the fire, with a little fichu over her head, sipping a tisane; while Algy, in undisturbed possession, and with restored but feverish amiability, stretches his length on the rug at her feet, and looks injured if Barbara or I, or even the footman with coals, enters the room.
As the day goes on, there is not much to do; a new idea takes possession of Mr. Parker's active mind.
Why should not we all be in fancy-dress to-night? Well, not all of us, then—not his uncle, of course, nor Sir Roger, but any of us that liked.Trouble!Not a bit of it. Why, the ladies need only rouge a bit, and put some flour on their heads, and there they are; and, as for the men, there is a heap of old things up in the lumber-room that belonged to his great-grandfather, and among them there is sure to be something to fit everybody. If they do not believe him, they may come and see for themselves.
Such is the force of a strong will, that he actually carries off the deeply unwilling Musgrave to inspect his ancestor's wardrobe. At first we have treated his proposal only with laughter, but he is so profoundly in earnest about it, and dwells with such eagerness on the advantage of the fact that not a soul among the company will recognize us—he can answer forhimselfat least—it is always by hishair(with a laugh) that people knowhim—that we at length begin to catch his ardor.
To tell truth, from the beginning the idea has approved itself to Barbara and me, only that we were ashamed to say so—carrying us back in memory as it does to the days when we dressed the Brat up in my clothes asme, and took in all the maid-servants. I think, too, that I have a little of the feeling of faint hope that inspired Balak when he showed Balaam the Israelites from a fresh point of view. Perhaps, in carmine cheeks and a snow-white head, I may find a little of my old favor in Roger's eyes.
Human wills are mostly so feeble and vacillating, that if one thorough-going determined one sticks toanyproposition, however absurd, he is pretty sure to get the majority round to him in time; and so it is in the present case. Mr. Parker succeeds in making us all, willing and unwilling, promise to travesty ourselves. We are not to dress till after dinner; that is over now, and we are all adorning ourselves.
For once I am taking great pains, and—for a wonder—pleasant pains with my toilet. It is slightly delayed by a variety of unwonted interruptions—knocks at the door, voices of valets in interrogation, and dialogue with my maid.
"If you please, Mr. Musgrave wants to know has Lady Tempest done with the rouge?"
(There is only one edition of rouge, which is traveling from room to room.)
Five minutes more, another knock.
"If you please, Mr. Parker's compliments, and will Lady Tempest lend him a hair-pin to black his eyelashes?"
I am finished now, quite finished—metamorphosed. I have suffered a great deal in the process of powdering, as I fancy every one must have done since the world began; the powder has gone into my eyes, up my nose, down into my lungs. I have breathed it, and sneezed it, and swallowed it, but "il faut souffrir pour être belle," and I do not grumble; for Iambelle! For once in my life I know what it feels like to be a pretty woman. My uninteresting flax-hair is hidden. Above the lowness of my brow there towers a great white erection, giving me height and dignity, while high aloft a little cap of ancient lace and soft pink roses daintily perches. On my cheeks there is a vivid yet delicate color; and my really respectable eyes are emphasized and accentuated by the dark line beneath them. To tell you the truth, I cannot take my eyes off myself. It isdelightfulto be pretty! I am simpering at myself over my left shoulder, and heartily joining in my maid's encomiums on myself, when the door opens, and Roger enters. For the first instant I really think that he does not recognize me. Then—
"Nancy!" he exclaims, in a tone of the most utter and thorough astonishment—"isit Nancy?"
"Nancy, at your service!" reply I, with undisguised elation, looking eagerly at him, with my blackened eyes, to see what he will say next.
"But—what—has—happened—to you?" he says, slowly, looking at me exhaustively from top to toe—from the highest summit of my floured head to the point of my buckled shoes. "What have you got yourself up like this for?"
"To please Mr. Parker," reply I, breaking into a laugh of excitement. "But I have killed two birds with one stone; I have pleasedmyself, too! Did you ever see any thing so nice as I look?" (unable any longer to wait for the admiration which is so justly my due).
"Not often!" he answers, with emphasis.
We had parted rather formally—ratheren délicatesse—this morning, but we both seem to have forgotten this.
"I must not dancemuch!" say I, anxiously turning again to the glass, and closely examining my complexion—"must I?—or my rouge willrun!"
After a moment—
"You must be sure to tell me if I grow to look at allsmeary, and I will run up-stairs at once, and put some more on."
He is looking at me, with an infinite amusement, and also commendation, in his eyes.
"Why, Nancy," he says, smiling—"I had no idea that you were so vain!"
"No," reply I, bubbling over again into a shamefaced yet delighted laughter—"no more had I! But then I had no idea that I was so pretty, either."
My elation remains undiminished when I go down-stairs. Yes, even when I compare myself with Mrs. Huntley, for,for once, I have beaten her! I really think that there can be no two opinions about it! indeed, I have the greatest difficulty in refraining from asking everybody whether there can.
She is not in powder. Her hair, in its present color, is hardly dark enough to suit the high comb, and black lace mantilla which she has draped about her head, and the red rose in her hair is hardly redder than the catarrh has made her eyelids. A cold always comes on more heavily at night; and no one can deny that her whole appearance is stuffy and choky, and that she speaks through her nose.
As for me, I am not sure that I do not beat evenBarbara. At least, the idea has struck me; and, when she herself suggests, and with hearty satisfaction, and elation not inferior to my own, insists upon it, I do not think it necessary to contradict her.
None of the three young men have as yet made their appearance; and the guests are beginning quickly to arrive. All the neighbors—all the friends who are staying with the neighbors to shoot their partridges—some soldiers, some odds and ends,bushelsof girls—there always are bushels of girls somehow; here they come, smiling, settling their ties, giving their skirts furtive kicks behind, as their different sex and costume bid them.
All the duties of reception fall upon the poor old gentleman, and drive him to futile wrath, and to sending off many loud and desperate messages to his truant heir. However, to do him justice, the poor old soul is hospitality itself, and treats his guests, not only to the best food, drink, and fiddling in his power, but also to all his primest anecdotes. No less thanthreetimes in the course of the evening do I hear him go through that remarkable tale of the doctor at Norwich, of the age of seventy-eight, and the four fine children.
To my immense delight, hardly anybody recognizes me. Many people lookhard—reallyveryhard—at me, and I try to appear modestly unconscious.
We are all in the dancing-room. The sharp fiddles are already beginning to squeak out a gay galop, and I am tapping impatient time with my foot to that brisk, emphasized music which has always seemed to Barbara and me exhilarating past the power of words to express.
I think that Roger perceives my eagerness, for he brings up a, to me, strange soldier, who makes his bow, and invites me.
I comply, with contained rapture, and off we fly. For I have pressingly consulted Roger as to whether I may, with safety to my complexion, take a turn or two, and he has replied strongly in the affirmative. He has, indeed, maintained that I may dance all night without seeing my rosy cheeks dissolve, but I know better.
The room is almost lined with mirrors. I can even perceive myself over my partner's shoulder as I dance. I can ascertain that my loveliness still continues.
How pleasant it is, after all, to be young! and howdelightfulto be pretty!
Does Barbaraalwaysfeel like this? It seems to me as if I had never danced so lightly—on so admirably slippery and springy a floor, or with any one whose step suited mine better. His style of dancing is, indeed, very like Bobby's. I tell him so. This leads to an explanation as to who Bobby is, which makes us extremely friendly.
We are standing still for a moment or two to take breath—we are long-winded, and do notoftendo it; but still, once in a way, it is unavoidable—and everybody else is whirling and galloping, and prancing round us, like Bacchantes, or tops, or what you will, when, looking toward the door, I catch a glimpse of the three missing young men. They are dodging behind one another, and each nudging and pushing the other forward. Clearly, they are horribly ashamed of themselves; and, from the little I see of them,no wonder!
"Here they are!" I cry, in a tone of excitement. "Look! do look!" for, having at length succeeded in urging Mr. Parker to the front, they are making their entry, hanging as close together as possible, and with an extremely hang-dog air.
My partner has opened his eyes and his mouth.
"Whatare they?" he says, in a tone of extreme disapprobation. "Whoare they? Are theyChristy Minstrels?"
"Oh, do not!" cry I, in a choked voice, "I do not want to laugh, it will make them so angry—at least not Mr. Parker, but the others."
As I speak, they reach me, that is, Algy and Mr. Parker do. Musgrave has slunk into a corner, and sits there, glaring at whoever he thinks shows a disposition to smile in his direction.
I have done Mr. Parker an injustice in accrediting him with anymauvaise honte. On the contrary, he clearly glories in his shame.
"Not half so bad, after all, are they?" he says in a voice of loud and cheerful appeal to me, as he comes up. "I mean considering, of course, that they were notmeantfor one, they really do very decently, do not they?"
I have put up my fan to hide the irresistible contortions which lips and mouth are undergoing.
"Very!" I say, indistinctly.
Almost everybody has stopped dancing, and is staring with unaffected wonder at them. Their heads are heavily floured, and their cheeks rouged. They have also greatly overdone the burnt hair-pin, as a huge smouch of black under each of their eyes attests.
They have all three got painfully tight knee-breeches, white stockings, and enormously long, broad-skirted coats, embroidered in tarnished gold. Algy's is plum-color. The arms of all three are very,verytight. Had our ancestors indeed such skinny limbs, and such prodigious backs?
Algy is a tall young man, but the waist of his coat is somewhere about the calves of his legs. It has told upon his spirits; he looks supernaturally grave.
Mr. Parker is differently visited. He has an apparently unaccountable reluctance to turning his back to me. I put it down at first to an exaggerated politeness; but, when, at last, in walking away, he unavoidably does it, I no longer wonder at his unwillingness, as his coat-tails decline to meet within half a mile. His forefathers must have been oddly framed.
"Poor fellows!" says my partner, in a tone of the profoundest compassion, as he puts his arm round me, and prepares to whirl me again into the throng, "howI pity them! What on earth did they do it for?"
"Oh, I do not know," I reply; "forfunI suppose!"
But I think that except in the case of Mr. Parker, who really enjoys himself, and goes about making jovial jests at his own expense, and asking everybody whether he is not immensely improved by the loss of his red hair, that there is not much fun in it.
Algy is as sulky and shamefaced as a dog with a tin kettle tied to his tail, and Mr. Musgrave has altogether disappeared.
The evening wears on. I forget my cheeks, and dance every thing.HowIamenjoying myself! Man after man is brought up to me, and they all seem pleased with me. At many of the things I say, they laugh heartily, and I do not wonder—even to myself my speeches sound pleasant. What a comfort it is that, for once in his life, Roger may be honestly proud of me! And he is.
It is surely pride, and also something better and pleasanter than pride, that is shining in the smile with which he is watching me from the door-way. At least, during the first part of the evening hewaswatching me.
Is not he still? I look round the room. No, he is not here! he has disappeared! By a sudden connection of ideas I turn my eyes in search of the high comb and mantilla. Neither are they here. Last time I saw them, they were sitting on the stairs, pathetically observing to their companion how hard it was that one might not feel cool without looking as if one were flirting.
Perhaps they are on the stairs still; perhaps she has gone to bed as she threatened. Somehow my heart misgives me. I become rather absent: my partners grow seldomer merry at my speeches. Even my feet feel to fly less lightly, and I forget to look at myself in the glass. Then it strikes me suddenly that I will not dance any more. The sparkle seems to have gone out of the evening since I missed Roger's face from the door-way.
I decline an overture on the part of my first friend to trip a measure with me—we have already tripped several—and, by the surprise and slight mortification which I read on his face as he turns away, I think I must have done it with some abruptness.
I decline everybody. I stand in the door-way, whence I can command both the ballroom and the passages. They are not on the stairs.
A moment ago Mr. Parker came up to me, and told me in his gay, loud voice how much he would like to have a valse with me, but that his clothes are so tight, he reallydare not. Then he disappears among the throng, with an uncomfortable sidelong movement, which endeavors to shield the incompleteness of his back view.
I am still smiling at his dilemma, when another voice sounds in my ears.
"You are not dancing?"
It is Musgrave. He has had the vanity to take off his absurd costume, and to wash the powder from his hair, and the rouge from his cheeks. He stands before me now, cool, pale, and civilized, in the faultless quietness of his evening dress.
"No," reply I, shortly, "I am not!"
"Will you dance with me?"
I am not looking at him; indeed, I never look at him now, if I can help; but I hear a sort of hesitating defiance in his tone.
"No, thank you"—(still more shortly)—"I might have danced, if I had liked: it is not for want of asking"—(with a little childish vanity)—"but I do not wish."
"Do not you mean to dance any more this evening, then?"
"I do not know; that is as may be!"
I have almost turned my back upon him, and my eyes are following—not perhaps quite without a movement of envy—my various acquaintances, scampering, coupled in mad embraces. I think that he is gone, but I am mistaken.
"Will you at least let me take you in to supper?" in a tone whose formality is strongly dashed with resentment.
I wish that I did not know his voice so hatefully well: all its intonations and inflections are as familiar to me as Roger's.
"I do not want any supper," I answer, petulantly, turning the back of my head and all my powdered curls toward him; "I never eat supper at a ball; I like to stand here; I like to watch the people—to watch Barbara!"
This at least is true. To see Barbara dance has always given, and does even now give, me the liveliest satisfaction. No one holds her head so prettily as Barbara; no one moves so smoothly, and with so absolutely innocent a gayety. The harshest, prudishest adversary of valsing, were he to see Barbara valse, would be converted to thinking it the most modest of dances. Mr. Musgrave is turning away. Just as he is doing so, an idea strikes me. Perhaps they are in the supper-room.
"After all," say I, unceremoniously, and forgetting for the moment who it is that I am addressing, "I do not mind if I do have something; I—I—am rather hungry."
I put my hand on his arm, and we walk off.
The supper-room is rather full—(when, indeed, was a supper-room known to be empty?)—some people are sitting—some standing—it is therefore a little difficult to make out who is here, and who is not. In total absolute forgetfulness of the supposed cause that has brought me here, I stand eagerly staring about, under people's arms—over their shoulders. So far, I do not see them. I am recalled by Mr. Musgrave's voice, coldly polite.
"Will not you sit down?"
"No, thank you," reply I, bending my neck back to get a view behind an intervening group; "I had rather stand."
"Are you looking for any one?"
Again, I wish that I did not know his voice so well—that I did not so clearly recognize that slightly guardedly malicious intonation.
"Looking for any one?" I cry, sharply, and reddening even through my rouge—"of course not!—whom should I be looking for?—but, after all, I do not think I care about having any thing!—there's—there's nothing that I fancy."
This is a libel at once upon myself and on General Parker's hospitality. He answers nothing, and perhaps the smile, almost imperceptible—which I fancy in his eyes, and in the clean curve of his lips—exists only in my imagination. He again offers me his arm, and I again take it. I have clean forgotten his existence. His arm is no more to me than if it were a piece of wood.
"Where are they? where can they be?" is the thought that engrosses all my attention.
I hardly notice that he is leading me away from the ballroom—down the long corridor, on which almost all the sitting-rooms open. They are, one and all, lit up to-night; and in each of them there are guests. I glance in at the drawing-room: they are not there! We take a turn in the conservatory. We find Mr. Parker sitting very carefully upright, for his costume does not allow of any lolling, or of any tricks being played with it under a magnolia, with a pretty girl—(I wonder, havemycheeks grown as streaky as his?)—but they are not there. We go back to the corridor. We peep into the library: two or three bored old gentlemen—martyrs to their daughters' prospects—yawning over the papers and looking at their watches. They are not here. Wherecanthey be? Only one room yet remains—one room at the very end of the passage—the billiard-room, shut off by double doors to deaden the sound of the balls. One of the double doors is wide open, the other closed—not absolutelyshut, but not ajar. Musgrave pushes it, and we look in. I do not know why I do. I do not expect to see any one. I hardly think it will be lit, probably blank darkness will meet us. But it is not so. The lamps above the table are shining subduedly under their green shades; and on a couch against the wall two people are sitting. Theyarehere. I found them at last.
Evidently they are in deep and absorbing talk. Roger's elbow rests on the top of the couch. His head is on his hand. On his face there is an expression of grave and serious concern; and she—she—is itpossible?—she is evidently—plainly weeping. Her face is hidden in her handkerchief, and she is sobbing quietly, but quite audibly. In an instant, with ostentatious hurry, Musgrave has reclosed the door, and we stand together in the passage.
I am not mistaken now: I could not be: that can be no other expression than triumph that so darkly shines in his great and eager eyes.
"Youknewthey were there!" I cry in a whisper of passionate resentment, snatching my hand from his arm; "you brought me hereon purpose!"
Then, regardless of appearances, I turn quickly away, and walk back down the passage alone!
This is how the ball ends for me. As soon as I am out of sight, I quicken my walk into a run, and, flying up the stairs, take refuge in my bedroom. Nor do I emerge thence again. The ball itself goes on for hours. The drawing-room is directly beneath me. It seems to me as if the sound of the fiddling, of the pounding, scampering feet would never, never end.
I believe, at least I hear afterward, that Mr. Parker, whose spirits go on rising with the steady speed of quicksilver in fine weather, declines to allow his guests to depart, countermands their carriages, bribes their servants, and, in short, reaches the pitch of joyfully confident faith to which all things seem not onlypossible, but extremely desirable, and in whose eyes the mango-tree feat would appear but a childish trifle.
The room is made up for the night; windows closed, shutters bolted, curtains draped. With hasty impatience I undo them all. I throw high the sash, and lean out. It is not a warm night; there is a little frosty crispness in the air, but I amburning. I am talking quickly and articulately to myself all the time, under my breath; it seems to me to relieve a little the inarticulate thoughts. I will not wink at it any longer, indeed I will not; nobody could expect it of me. I will not be taken in by that transparent fallacy of old friends! Nobody but me is. Theyallsee it; Algy, Musgrave, all of them. At the thought of the victory written in Musgrave's eyes just now—at the recollection of the devilish irony of his wish, as we parted in Brindley Wood—
"I hope that your fidelity may be rewarded as it deserves—"
I start up, with a sort of cry, as if I had been smartly stung, and begin to walk quickly up and down the room. I will not storm at Roger—no, I will not even raise my voice, if I can remember, and, after all, there is a great deal to be said on his side; he has been very forbearing to me always, and I—I have been trying to him; most petulant and shrewish; treating him to perpetual, tiresome tears, and peevish, veiled reproaches. I will only ask him quite meekly and humbly to let me go home again; to send me back to the changed and emptied school-room; to Algy's bills and morosities; to the wearing pricks of father's little pin-point tyrannies.
I have lit the candles, and am looking at myself in the cheval-glass. What has become of my beauty, pray? The powder is shaken from my hair; it no longer rises in a white and comely pile; the motion of dancing has loosened and tossed it; it has a look of dull, gray dishevelment. The rouge has almost disappeared; melted away, or sunk in; there never was a great deal of it, never the generous abundance that adorned Mr. Parker's face. I cannot help laughing, even now, as I think of the round red smouch that so artlessly ornamented each of his cheeks.
I neither ring for my maid, nor attempt to undress myself. I either keep walking restlessly to and fro, or I sit by the casement, while the cold little wind lifts my dusty hair, or blows against my hot, stiff eyes; or I stand stupidly before the glass; bitterly regarding the ruins of my one night's fairness. I do not know for how long; it must be hours, but I could not say how many.
The fiddles' shrill voices grow silent at last; the bounding and stamping ceases; the departing carriage-wheels grind and crunch on the gravel drive. I shall not have much longer to wait; he will be coming soon now. But there is yet another interval. In ungovernable impatience, I open my door and listen. It seems to me that there reaches me from the hall, the sound of voices in loud and angry altercation; it is too far off for me to distinguish to whom they belong. Then there is silence again, and then at last—at last Roger comes. I hear his foot along the passage, and run to the door to intercept him, on his way to his dressing-room. He utters an exclamation of surprise on seeing me.
"Not in bed yet? Not undressed? They told me that you were tired and had gone to bed hours ago!"
"Did they?"
I can say only these two little words. I am panting so, as if I had run hard. We are both in the room now, and the door is shut. I suppose I look odd; wild and gray and haggard through the poor remains of my rouge.
"You are late," I say presently, in a voice of low constraint, "are not you? everybody went some time ago."
"I know," he answers, with a slight accent of irritation; "it is Algy's fault! I do not know what has come to that boy; he hardly seems in his right mind to-night; he has been trying to pick a quarrel with Parker, because he lit Mrs. Huntley's candle for her."
"Yes," say I, breathing short and hard. Has not he himself introduced her name?
"And you know Parker is always ready for a row—loves it—and as he is as screwed to-night as he well can be, it has been as much as we could do to make them keep their hands off each other!" After a moment he adds: "Silly boy! he has been doing his best to fall out withme, but I would not let him compass that."
"Has he?"
Roger has begun to walk up and down, as I did a while ago; on his face a look of unquiet discontent.
"It was a mistake his coming here this time," he says, with a sort of anger, and yet compassion, in his tone. "If he had had a grain of sense, he would have staid away!"
"It is a thousand pities that you cannot send usallhome again!" I say, with a tight, pale smile—"send us packing back again, Algy and Barbara andme—replace me on the wall among the broken bottles, where you found me."
My voice shakes as I make this dreary joke.
"Why do you say that?" he cries, passionately. "Why do youtormentme? You know as well as I do, that it is impossible—out of the question! You know that I am no more able to free you than—"
"Youwould, then, if youcould?" cry I, breathing short and hard. "Youownit!"
For a moment he hesitates; then—
"Yes," he says firmly, "I would! I did not think at one time that I should ever have lived to say it, but Iwould."
"You are at least candid," I answer, with a sort of smothered sob, turning away.
"Nancy!" he cries, following me, and taking hold of my cold and clammy hands, while whatlooks—what, at least, I should have once saidlooked—like a great yearning fills his kind and handsome eyes; "we are not very happy, are we? perhaps, child, we never shall be now—often I think so. Well, it cannot be helped, I suppose. We are not the first, and we shall not be the last! (with a deep and bitter sigh). But indeed, I think, dear, that we are unhappier than we need be."
I shrug my shoulders with a sort of careless despair.
"Do you think so? I fancy not. Some people have their happiness thinly spread over their whole lives, like bread-and-scrape!" I say, with a homely bitterness. "Some people have it in alump! that is all the difference! I had mine in alump—all crowded into nineteen years that is, nineteenvery good years!" I end, sobbing.
He still has hold of my hands. His face is full of distress; indeed, distress is too weak a word—of acute and utter pain.
"What makes you talk like thisnow, to-night?" he asks, earnestly. "I have been deceiving myself with the hope that you were havingonehappy evening, as I watched you dancing—did you see me? I dare say not—of course you were not thinking of me. You looked like the old light-hearted Nancy that lately I have been thinking was gone forever!"
"Did I?" say I, dejectedly, slowly drawing my hands from his, and wiping my wet eyes with my pocket-handkerchief.
"Any onewould have said that you were enjoying yourself," he pursues, eagerly—"werenot you?"
"Yes," say I, ruefully, "I was very much." Then, with a sudden change of tone to that sneering key which so utterly—so unnaturally misbecomes me—"Andyou?"
"I!" He laughs slightly. "I am a little past the age when one derives any very vivid satisfaction from a ball; and yet," with a softening of eye and voice, "I liked looking at you too!"
"And it was pleasant in the billiard-room, was not it?" say I, with a stiff and coldly ironical smile—"so quiet and shady."
"In the billiard room?"
"Do you mean to say," cry I, my factitious smile vanishing, and flashing out into honest, open passion, "that you mean to deny that you were there?"
"Deny it!" he echoes, in a tone of the deepest and most displeased astonishment; "of course not! Why should I? What would be the object? And if therewereone—haveIever toldyoua lie?" with a reproachful accent on the pronouns. "I was there half an hour, I should think."
"And why were you?" cry I, losing all command over myself. "What business had you? Were not there plenty of other rooms—rooms where there were lights and people?"
"Plenty!" he replies, coldly, still with that look of heavy displeasure; "and for my part I had far rather have staid there. I went into the billiard-room because Mrs. Huntley asked me to take her. She said she was afraid of the draughts anywhere else."
"Was it thedraughtsthat were making her cry so bitterly, pray?" say I, my eyes—dry now, achingly dry—flashing a wretched hostility back into his. "I have heard of their making people's eyes run indeed, but I never heard of their causing them to sob and moan."
He has begun again to tramp up and down, and utters an exclamation of weary impatience.
"How could I help her crying?" he asks, with a tired irritation in his tone. "Do you think Ienjoyedit? Ihateto see a woman weep! it makes memiserable! it always did; but I have not the slightest objection—why, in Heaven's name, should I?—to tell you the cause of her tears. She was talking to me about her child."
"Herchild!" repeat I, in an accent of the sharpest, cuttingest scorn. "And you were taken in! I knew that she made capital out of that child, but I thought that it was only neophytes like Algy, for whose benefit it was trotted out! I thought thatyouwere too much of a man of the world, that she knewyoutoo well—" I laugh, derisively.
"Would you like to know the true history of the little Huntley?" I go on, after a moment. "Would you like to know that its grandmother, arriving unexpectedly, found it running wild about the lanes, a little neglected heathen, out at elbows, and with its frock up to its knees, and that she took it out of pure pity, Mrs. Zéphine not making the slightest objection, but, on the contrary, being heartily glad to be rid of it—do you like to knowthat?"
"How doyouknow it?" (speaking quickly)—"how didyouhear it?"
"I was told."
"Butwhotold you?"
"That is not of the slightest consequence."
"I wish to know."
"Mr. Musgrave told me."
I can manage his name better than I used, but even now I redden. For once in his life, Roger, too, sneers as bitterly as I myself have been doing.
"Mr. Musgrave seems to have told you a good many things."
This is carrying the war into the enemy's quarters, and so I feel it. For the moment it shuts my mouth.
"Who is it that has put such notions into your head?" he asks, with gathering excitement, speaking with rapid passion. "Some onehas! I am as sure as that I stand here that they did not come there of themselves. There was no room for such suspicions in the pure soul of the girl I married."
I make no answer.
"If it were not for themiseryof it," he goes on, that dark flush that colored his bronzed face the other night again spreading over it, "I couldlaughat the gross absurdity of the idea! To begin such fooleries atmyage! Nancy, Nancy!" his tone changing to one of reproachful, heart-rending appeal—"has it never struck you that it is a little hard, considering all things, thatyoushould suspectme?"
Still I am silent.
"Tell me what you wish me to do!" he cries, with passionate emphasis. "Tell me what you wish me to leave undone! I will do it! I will leave it undone! You are a little hard upon me, dear: indeed you are—some day I think that you will see it—but it was not your own thought! I know that as well as if you had told me! It was suggested to you—by whomyou best know, and whether his words or mine are most worthy of credit!"
He is looking at me with a fixed, pathetic mournfulness. There is in his eyes a sort of hopelessness and yet patience.
"We aremiserable, are not we?" he goes on, in a low voice—"mostmiserable! and it seems to me that every day we grow more so, that every day there is a greater dissonance between us! For my part, I have given up the hope that we can ever be happier! I have wondered that I should have entertained it. But, at least, we might havepeace!"
There is such a depth of depression, such a burden of fatigue in his voice, that the tears rise in my throat and choke the coming speech.
"At least you are undeceived about me, are not you?" he says, looking at me with an eager and yet almost confident expectation. "At least, you believe me!"
But I answer nothing. It is the tears that keep me dumb, but I think that he thinks me still unconvinced, for he turns away with a groan.
"I made a posy while the day ran by,Here will I smell my remnant out, and tieMy life within this band;But Time did beckon to the flowers, and theyBy noon most cunningly did steal away,And withered in my hand!"
"I made a posy while the day ran by,Here will I smell my remnant out, and tieMy life within this band;But Time did beckon to the flowers, and theyBy noon most cunningly did steal away,And withered in my hand!"
We are home again now; we have been away only three days after all, but they seem to me like three years—three disastrous years—so greatly during them has the gulf between Roger and me widened and deepened. Looking back on what it was before that, it seems to me now to have been but a shallow and trifling ditch, compared to the abyss that it is now. We left Mr. Parker standing at the hall-door, his red hair flaming bravely in the morning sun, loudly expressing his regret at our departure, and trying to extract an unlikely promise from us that we will come back next week.
During the drive home we none of us hardly speak. Roger and I are gloomily silent, Barbara sympathetically so. Barbara has the happiest knack of being in tune with every mood; she never jostles with untimely mirth against any sadness. I think she sees that my wounds are yet too fresh and raw to bear the gentlest handling, so she only pours upon them the balm of her tender silence. There is none of the recognized and allowed selfishness of a betrothed pair about Barbara. Sometimes I almost forget that sheisengaged, so little does she ever bring herself into the foreground; and yet, if it were not for us, I think that to-day she could well find in her heart to be mirthful.
After all is said and done, Istilllove Barbara. However much the rest of my life has turned to Dead Sea apples, I still love Barbara; and, what is more, I shall always love her now. Is not she to live at only a stone's-throw from me? I do not think that I am of a very gushing nature generally, but as I think these thoughts I take hold of her slight hand, and give it a long squeeze. Somehow the action consoles me.
Two more days pass. It is morning again, and I am sitting in my boudoir, doing nothing (I never seem to myself to do any thing now), and listlessly thinking how yellow the great horse-chestnut in the garden is turning, and how kindly and becomingly Death handles all leaves and flowers, so different from the bitter spite with which he makes havoc ofus, when Roger enters. It surprises me, as it is the first time that he has done it since our return.
We are on the formalest terms now; perhaps so best; and, if we have to address each other, do it in the shortest little icy phrases. When we areobligedto meet, as at dinner, etc., we both talk resolutely to Barbara. He does not look icy now; disturbed rather, and anxious. He has an open note in his hand.
"Nancy," he says, coming quickly up to me, "did you know that Algy was at Laurel Cottage?"
"Not I!" I answer, tartly. "He does not favor me with his plans; tiresome boy. He is more bother than he is worth."
"Hush!" he says, hastily yet gently. "Do not say any thing against him; you will be sorry if you do. He isill."
"Ill!" repeat I, in a tone of consternation, for among us it is a new word, and its novelty is awful. "What is the matter with him?"
Then, without waiting for an answer, I snatch the note from his hand. I do not know to this day whether he meant me to read it or not, but I think hedid, and glance hastily through it. I am well into it before I realize that it is from my rival.
"My dear Roger:"My hand is trembling so much that I can hardly hold the pen, but,as usual, in my troubles, I turn to you. Algy Grey is here. You, who always understand, will know how much against my will his coming was, but hewouldcome; and you know, poor fellow, how headstrong he is! I am grieved to tell you that he was taken ill this morning; I sadly fear that it is this wretched low fever that is so much about. It makes memiserableto leave him! If I consulted my own wishes, I need not tellyouthat I should stay and nurse him; but alas! I know by experience the sharpness of the world's tongue, and in my situation I dare not brave it; nor would it be fair upon Mr. Huntley that I should. Ah! what a different world it would be if one might follow one's own impulses! but one may not, and so I am leaving at once. I shall be gone before this reaches you."
"My dear Roger:
"My hand is trembling so much that I can hardly hold the pen, but,as usual, in my troubles, I turn to you. Algy Grey is here. You, who always understand, will know how much against my will his coming was, but hewouldcome; and you know, poor fellow, how headstrong he is! I am grieved to tell you that he was taken ill this morning; I sadly fear that it is this wretched low fever that is so much about. It makes memiserableto leave him! If I consulted my own wishes, I need not tellyouthat I should stay and nurse him; but alas! I know by experience the sharpness of the world's tongue, and in my situation I dare not brave it; nor would it be fair upon Mr. Huntley that I should. Ah! what a different world it would be if one might follow one's own impulses! but one may not, and so I am leaving at once. I shall be gone before this reaches you."
I throw the letter down on the floor with a gesture of raging disgust.
"Gone!" I say, with flashing eyes and lifted voice; "is it possible that, after having decoyed him there, she is leaving him now to die,alone?"
"So it seems," he answers, looking back at me with an indignation hardly inferior to my own. "I could not have believed it of her."
"He will die!" I say a moment after, forgetting Mrs. Huntley, and breaking into a storm of tears. "Iknowhe will! I always said we were too prosperous. Nothing has ever happened to us. None of us have ever gone! Iknowhe will die; and I said yesterday that I liked him the least of all the boys. Oh, IwishI had not said it.—Barbara! Barbara! IwishI had not said it."
For Barbara has entered, and is standing silently listening. The roses in her cheeks have paled, indeed, and her blue eyes look large and frightened; but, unlike me, she makes no crying fuss. With noiseless dispatch she arranges every thing for our departure. Neither will she hear of Algy's dying. He will get better. We will go to him at once—all three of us—and will nurse him so well that he will soon be himself again; and whatever happens (with a kindling of the eye, and godly lightening of all her gentle face), is notGodhere—Godour friend? This is what she keeps saying to me in a soft and comforting whisper during our short transit, with her slight arm thrown round me as I sob in helpless wretchedness on her shoulder. It is very foolish, very childish of me, but I cannot get it out of my head, that I said I liked him the least. It haunts me still when I stand by his bedside, when I see his poor cheeks redder than mine were when they wore their rouge, when I notice the hot drought of his parched lips. It haunts me still with disproportioned remorse through all the weeks of his illness.
For the time stretches itself out to weeks—abnormal, weary weeks, when the boundaries of day and night confound themselves—when each steps over into his brother's territories—when it grows to feel natural, wakefully, to watch the candle's ghostly shadows, flickering at midnight, and to snatch fitful sleeps at noon! to watch the autumnal dawns coldly breaking in the gloom of the last, and to have the stars for companions.
His insane exposure of himself to the rage of the storm, on the night of the picnic, has combined, with previous dissipation, to lower his system so successfully as to render him an easy booty to the low, crawling fever, which, as so often in autumn, is stealing sullenly about, to lay hold on such as through any previous cause of weakness are rendered the more liable to its attacks. Slowly it saps the foundations of his being.
But Algy has always loved life, and had a strong hold on it; neither will he let go his hold on it now, without a tough struggle; and so the war is long and bitter, and we that fight on Algy's side are weak and worn out.
Sometimes the silence of the night is broken by the boy's voice calling strongly and loudly for Zéphine. Often he mistakes me for her—often Barbara—catches our hands and covers them with insane kisses.
Sometimes he appeals to her by the most madly tender names—names that I think would surprise Mr. Huntley a good deal, and perhaps not altogether please him; sometimes he alludes to past episodes—episodes that perhaps would have done as well to remain in their graves.
On such occasions I am dreadfully frightened, and very miserable; but all the same, I cannot help glancing across at Roger, with a sort of triumph in my eyes—sort oftold-you-soexpression, from which it would have required a loftier nature than mine to refrain.
And so the days go on, and I lose reckoning of time. I could hardly tell you whether it were day or night.
My legs ache mostly a good deal, and I feel dull and drowsy from want of sleep. But the brunt of the nursing falls upon Barbara.
When he was well—even in his best days—Algy was never very reasonable—very considerate—neither, you may be sure, is he so now.
It is always Barbara, Barbara, for whom he is calling. God knows I do my best, and so does Roger. No most loving mother could be gentler, or spare himself less, than he does; but somehow we do not content him.
It is not to every one that the gift of nursing is vouchsafed. I think I am clumsy. Try as I will, my hands are not so quick and light and deft as hers—my dress rustles more, and my voice is less soothing.
And so it is always "Barbara! Barbara!" And Barbara is always there—always ready.
The lovely flush that outdid the garden-flowers has left her cheeks indeed, and her eyelids are drooped and heavy; but her eyes shine with as steady a sweetness as ever; for God has lit in them a lamp that no weariness can put out.
Sometimes I think that if one of the lovely spirits that wait upon God in heaven were sent down to minister here below, he would not be very different in look and way, and holy tender speech, from our Barbara.
Whether it be through her nursing, or by the strength of his own constitution, and the tenacious vitality of youth, or, perhaps, the help of all three, Algy pulls through.
I think he has looked Death in the face, as nearly as any one ever did without falling utterly into his cold embrace, but he pulls through.
By very slow, small, and faltering steps, he creeps back to convalescence. His recovery is a tedious business, with many tiresome checks, and many ebbings and flowings of the tide of life; but—he lives. Weak as any little tottering child—white as the sheets he lies on; with prominent cheek-bones, and great and languid eyes, he is given back to us.
Life, worsted daily in a thousand cruel fights, has gained one little victory. To-day, for the first time, we all three at once leave him—leave him coolly and quietly asleep, and dine together in Mrs. Huntley's little dusk-shaded dining-room.
We are quite a party. Mother is here, come to rejoice over her restored first-born son; the Brat is here; he has run over from Oxford. Musgrave is here. I am in such spirits; I do not know what has come to me. It seems to me as if I were newly born into a fresh and altogether good and jovial world.
Not even the presence of Musgrave lays any constraint upon my spirits.
For the first time since the dark day in Brindley Wood, I meet him without embarrassment. I answer him: I even address him now and then.
All the small civilizations of life—the flower-garnished table; the lamps softly burning; the evening-dresses (for the first time we have dressed for dinner)—fill me with a keen pleasure, that I should have thought such little etceteras were quite incapable of affording.
I seem as if I could not speak without broad smiles. I am tired, indeed, still, and my eyes are heavy. But what does that matter? Life has won! Life has won! We are still all six here!
"Nancy!" says the Brat, regarding me with an eye of friendly criticism, "I think you arecrackedto-night!—Do you remember what our nurses used to tell us? 'Much laughing always ends in much crying.'"
But I do not heed: I laugh on. Barbara is not nearly so boisterously merry as I, but then she never is. She is more overdone with fatigue than I, I think; for she speaks little—though what she does say is full of content and gladness—and there are dark streaks of weariness and watching under the serene violets of her eyes. She is certainly very tired; as we go to bed at night she seems hardly able to get up the stairs, but leans heavily on the banisters—one who usually runs so lightly up and down.
Yes,verytired, but what of that? it would be unnatural,mostunnatural if she were not; she will be all right to-morrow, after a good long night's rest—yes, all right. I say this to her, still gayly laughing as I give her my last kiss, and she smiles and echoes, "All right!"