With feet as heavy and slowly-dragging as those of some unwieldy old person, with drooped figure, and stained and swollen face, I enter the school-room an hour later to tell my ill-news.
"Enter a young mourner!" says Algy, facetiously, in unkind allusion to the gloom of my appearance, which is perhaps heightened by the black-silk gown I wear.
"Whatisup?" cries Bobby, advancing toward me with an overpowering curiosity, not unmixed with admiration, legible on his burnt face; "whathassummoned those glorious sunset tints into your eyes and nose?"
"Which of Turner's pictures," says Algy, putting up his hand in the shape of a spy-glass to one eye, and critically regarding me through it, "is she so like in coloring? the 'Founding of Carthage,' or 'The Fighting Temeraire?'"
"Shame! shame!" cries Bobby, in a mock hortatory tone, trying to swell himself out to the shape and bulk of our fat rector, and to speak in his wheezy tone, "that a young woman so richly dowered with the good things of this life; a young woman with a husband and a deer-park in possession, and a house-warming in prospect—"
"But I have not," interrupt I, speaking for the first time, and with a snuffliness of tone engendered by much crying.
"Have not? have notwhat?"
"Have not a house-warming in prospect," reply I, with distinct malignity. A moment's silence. My bomb-shell has worked quite as much havoc as I expected.
"But where has it gone to since this morning?" asks Algy, looking rather blank.
"What do you mean?" cries Tou Tou, shrilly; "it was only last night that you were asking me for the Brat's address that you might invite him."
"And tell him to bring a judiciously-selected assortment of undergraduate friends with him," supplements Bobby, loudly.
"Yes," say I, sighing, "I know I did; but last night was last night."
"That throws a great deal of light on the matter, does it not?" says Algy, ironically.
"Nancy!" cries Bobby, seizing both my hands, and looking me in the face with an air of irritated determination, "if you do notthis momentstop sighing like a windmill and tell us what is up, I will go to Sir Roger, hanged if I will not, and ask him what he means by making you cry yourself to ajelly!"
At this bold metaphor applied to my own appearance, the tears begin again to start to my eyes.
"Do not!" cry I, eagerly, catching at his wrists in detention, "it was not his fault! he could not help it; but" (mopping first one eye and then the other, and finishing by a dolorous blast on my nose) "but I am so disappointed, every thing issochanged, and I know I shall miss himsomuch!" I end with a break in my voice, and a long whimper.
"Miss him!miss whom?"
"The ge-general!" reply I, indistinctly, from the recesses of a drenched pocket-handkerchief.
"But what is going to happen to him? where is he going to? I wish that you would be a little more intelligible," cry they all, impatiently.
"He is going to the West Indies, to Antigua," reply I, lifting my face and speaking with a slow dejection.
"To Antigua!" cries Algy; "but what in the world is going to take him there?"
"Perhaps," says Bobby, in a loud aside to Tou Tou, "perhaps he has got another wife out there—ablackone—and he thinks it isherturn now!"
Barbara says, "Hush!" and Tou Tou is beginning to embark on a long argument to prove that a mancannothave more than one wife at a time, when she is summarilyhustledinto silence, for I speak again.
"He has some property in the West Indies—I knew he had before—" (with a passing flash of pride in my superior information)—"I dare say you did not—and he has to go out there to look after it."
"By himself?"
"By himself, worse luck!" reply I, despondently, reinterring my countenance in my pocket-handkerchief.
"And you decline to accompany him? Well, I think you are about right!" says Algy, rising, lounging over to the empty hearth, and looking at his face with a glance of serious fondness in the glass that hangs above the mantel-shelf.
"I do nothing of the kind!" cry I, indignantly, "I have not the chance! he will not take me!"
I am not looking at him, nor, indeed, in his direction at all; but I am aware that Bobby is giving Tou Tou a private and severe nudge, which means "Attend! here is confirmation of my theory for you!" and that the idea of the hypothetical black lady is again traversing his ingenuous mind.
"I hope he will bring us some Jamaica ginger," he says, presently.
"I wish you would mention it, Nancy! the suggestion would come best fromyou, would not it?"
"And you are to be leftaloneat Tempest? Is that the plan?" asks Algy, turning his eyes from his own face, and fixing them on the less interesting object of mine.
It may be my imagination, but I cannot help fancying that there is a tone of slight and repressed exultation in his voice; and also that a look of hope and bright expectation is passing from one to another of the faces round me. All but Barbara's! Barbara always understands.
"All alone?" cries Tou Tou, opening her ugly little eyes to their widest stretch. "Nobody but the servants in the house with you? Will not you be very much afraid ofghosts?"
"She need never be alone, unless she chooses," says Bobby, winking with dexterous slightness at the others; "there is the beauty of having three kind little brothers!"
"The moment you feelat alllonely," says Algy, emphasizing his remarks by benevolent but emphatic strokes with his flat hand on my shoulder, "send for us! one of us is sure to be handy! If it will be any comfort to Sir Roger, I shall be most happy to promise him that I will keepallhis horses in exercise next winter!"
"I am sorrier than I was before," says Bobby, reflectively, "that the heavy rains have drowned so many of the young birds."
"O Nancy!" cries Tou Tou, ecstatically clasping her hands, "havea Christmas-tree!"
"And a dance after it!" adds Bobby, beginning to whistle a waltz-tune.
"And Sir Roger's not being at home will be a good excuse for not asking father," cries Algy, catching the prevailing excitement.
"I will not haveoneof you!" cry I, rising with a face pale, as I feel with anger—with flashing eyes and a trembling voice, "notoneof you shall enter his doors, except Barbara!—Ihateyouall!—you are all g—g—gladthat he is going, and I—I never was so sorry for any thing in my life before!"
I end in a passion of tears. There is a silence of consternation on the late so jubilant assembly.
"'Times is changed,' says the dog's-meat man,"
"'Times is changed,' says the dog's-meat man,"
remarks Bobby, presently, veiling his discomfiture in vulgarity, and launching into uncouth and low-lived rhyme:
"'Lights is riz,' says the dog's-meat man!"
"'Lights is riz,' says the dog's-meat man!"
However, not all the hot tears in the world—not all the swelled noses and boiled-gooseberry eyes avail to alter the case. Not even all my righteous wrath against the boys profits—and I do keep Bobby at arms'-length for a day and a half. No one who does not know Bobby understands how difficult such a course of proceeding is; for he is one of those people who ignore the finer shades of displeasure. The more delicately dignified and civilly frosty one is to him, the more grossly familiar and hopelessly, obtusely friendly is he. I have made several more efforts to change Sir Roger's decision, but in vain. He makes the case more difficult by laying his refusal chiefly on his own convenience; dilating on the much greater speed and ease with which he will be able to transact his business, ifalone, than if weighted by a woman, and a woman's paraphernalia, and also on the desirability of having in me alocum tenensfor himself at Tempest. But, in my soul, I know that both these are hollow pretenses to lighten the weight on my conscience.
"But," say I, with discontented demurring, "you have been away often before! how did Tempest get onthen?"
He laughs.
"Very middling, indeed! last time I was away the servants gave a ball in the new ballroom—so my friends told me afterward, and the time before, the butler took the housekeeper a driving-tour in my T.-cart. I should not have mindedthatmuch—but I suppose he was not a very good whip, and so he threw down one of my best horses, and broke his knees!"
"Well, theyshall notgive a ball!" say I, resolutely, "but"—(in a tone of melancholy helplessness)—"they may throw downallthe horses, for any thingIcan do to prevent them! A horse's knees would have to bevery much brokenbefore I should perceive that they were!"
"You must get Algy to help you," he says, kindly. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, is not it? Poor boy!"—(laughing)—"You must not expecthimto be very keen about my speedy return."
As he speaks, an arrow of animosity toward Algy shoots through my heart.
We are at Tempest—Sir Roger and I. It has been his wish to establish me there before his departure; and now it is the gray of the evening before his setting off, and we are strolling through the still park. Vick is racing, with idiotic ardor, through the tall green bracken, after the mottled deer, yelping with shrill insanity, and vainly imagining that she is going to overtake them. The gray rabbits are scuttling across the grass rides in the pale light: as I see them popping in and out of their holes, I cannot help thinking of Bobby. Apparently, Sir Roger also is reminded of him.
"Nancy," he says, looking down at me with a smile of recollected entertainment, "have you forgiven Bobby yet for leaving you sitting on the wall? I remember, in the first blaze of your indignation, you vowed that never should he fire a gun in your preserves!—do you still stick to it, or have you forgiven him?"
"ThatI have not!" cry I, heartily. "None of them shall shoot any thing! Why should they? Every thing shall be kept for you against you come back!"
He raises his eyebrows a little.
"Rabbits and all?"
"Rabbits and all!" reply I, firmly.
"And what will the farmers say?" asks Sir Roger, smiling.
I have not considered this aspect of the question, so remain silent. We walk on without speaking for some moments. The deer, in lofty pity for Vick, have stopped to allow her to get nearer to them. With their fine noses in the air, and their proud necks compassionately turned toward her, they are waiting, while she pushes, panting and shrieking, through the stout fern-stems; then, leap cruelly away in airy bounds.
"If I am not back by Christmas—" says Sir Roger, presently.
"ByChristmas!" interrupt I, aghast, "one, two, three, four,fivemonths—but youmust!—youMUST!" clasping both hands on his arm.
"I hope I shall, certainly," replies he; "but one never knows what may happen! If I amnot—"
"But youmust," repeat I urgently, and apparently resolved that he shall never reach the end of his sentence; "if you are not—I warn you—you may not like it—I dare say you will not—but—I shall come to look for you!"
"In asailing-vessel, like the governor-general's wife?" asks he with a smile.
And now he is gone! gone in the first freshness of the morning! This year, I seem fated to witness the childhood of many summer days. The carriage that bears him away is lost to sight—dwindled away to nothing among the park-trees. Five minutes ago, my arms were clinging with a tightness of a clasp that a bear might have admired round his neck. I was too choked with tears to say much, and kept repeating with the persistence of a guinea-fowl, but without the distinctness, "Come back! come back!"
"Good-by, my Nancy!" he says, holding me a little from him, that he may the better consider my face, "be quite—quitehappy, while I am away—indeed, that will be the way to please me best, and be a little glad to see me when I come back!"
And now he is gone; and I am left standing at the hall-door with level hand shading my eyes from the red sun—with a smeared face—with the butler and two footmen respectfully regarding my affliction—(they do not like to disappear, till they have shut the door—Ido not like to ask them to retire, and I do not like to lose the last glimpse) so there I remain—nineteen—a grass widow, and—ALONE!I shall not, however, be alone for long; for this evening Barbara is coming. Algy is to bring her, and to stay a few days on his way to Aldershott. All day long, I wander with restless aimlessness about the house, my big house—so empty, so orderly in its stateliness—so frightfully silent! Ah! the doll's house whose whole front came out at once was a better companion—much more friendly, and not half so oppressive. In almost every room, I cry profusely—disagreeable tears of shame and remorse and grief—only, O friends! I will tell younow, what I would not tell myself then, that the grief, though true, was not so great as either of the other feelings. I lunch in the great dining-room, with tall full-length Tempests eying me with constant placidity from the walls; with the butler and footman still trying respectfully to ignore my swelled nose and bunged-up eyes.
As evening draws on—evening that is to bring some voices, some sound of steps to me and my great dumb house—I revive a little. If it were Bobby that were coming, my mind would be weighted by the thought of the repression his spirits would need, but Algy's mirth is several shades less violent, and Barbara is never jarringly joyful. So I change my dress, bathe my face, make my maid retwist my hair, and prepare to be chastenedly and moderately glad to see them.
At least there will be some one to occupy two more of these numberless chairs; two more for the stolid family portraits to eye; two voices, naythree, forIshall speak then, to drown the sounding silence.
It is time they should be here. The carriage went to the station more than an hour ago. I sit down in a window-seat that commands the park, and look along the drive by which the general went this morning.
Dear Roger! I will practise calling him "Roger" when I am by myself, and then perhaps I may be able to address him by it when he comes home. I will say, "How are you, Roger?"
I have fallen into a pleasant reverie, with my head leaned against the curtain, in which I see myself giving glib utterance to this formula, as I stand in a blue gown—Roger likes me in blue—and a blue cap—I look older in a cap—while he precipitates himself madly—
My reverie breaks off. Some one has entered, and is standing by me. It is a footman, with a telegram on a salver. Albeit I know the trivial causes for which people employ the telegraph-wires nowadays, I never can get over my primal deadly fear of those yellow envelopes, that seem emblems and messengers of battle, murder, and sudden death. As I tear it open, a hundred horrible impossible possibilities flash across my brain. Algy and Barbara have both been killed in a railway-accident, and have telegraphed to tell me so; the same fate has happened to Roger, and he has adopted the same course.
"Algernon Grey to Lady Tempest."Cannot come: not allowed.Hehas turned nasty."
"Algernon Grey to Lady Tempest.
"Cannot come: not allowed.Hehas turned nasty."
The paper drops into my lap, as I draw a long breath of mingled relief and disappointment. A whole long evening—long night of this solitude before me! perhaps much more, for they do not even say that they will come to-morrow! Imustutter my disappointment to somebody, even if it is only the footman.
"They are not coming!" say I, plaintively; then, recollecting and explaining myself, "I mean, they need not send in dinner! I will not have any!" Icannotstand another repast—three times longer than the last too—for onecanabridge luncheon, seated in lorn dignity between the staring dead on the walls, and the obsequious living.
As soon as the man is fairly out of the room, I cry again. Yes, though my hair is readjusted, though I spent more than a quarter of an hour in bathing my eyes, and restoring some semblance of white to their lids, though I had resolved—and without much difficulty, too, hitherto—to be dry-eyed for the rest of the evening. What does it matter what color my eyelids are? what size my nose is? or how beblubbered my cheeks? Not a soul will see them, except my maid, and I am naturally indifferent as to the effect I produce upon her. I look at the clock on the mantel-piece. It has stopped—ornamental clocks mostly do—but even this trivial circumstance adds to my affliction. I instantly take out my pocket-handkerchief, and begin to cry again. Then I look at my watch; a quarter-past seven only—and my watch always gains! Two hours and three-quarters before I can, with the smallest semblance of decency, go to bed. Meanwhile I am hungry. Though my husband has deserted me, though my brother and sister have failed me, my appetite has done neither.
Faithful friend! never yet was it known to quit me, and here it is! I decide to haveteain my own boudoir. Tea is informal, and one need not be waited on at it. When it comes, I try to dawdle over it as much as possible, to sip my tea with labored slowness, and bite each mouthful with conscientious care. When I have finished, I think with satisfaction that I cannot have occupied less than half an hour. Again I consult my watch. Exactly twelve minutes. It is now five minutes to eight; two hours and five minutes more! I sigh loudly, and putting on my hat stroll out into the wide and silent garden. It is as yet unfamiliar to me. I do not know where half the walks lead. I have no favorite haunts, no chosen spot of solitude and greenery, where old and pleasant thoughts meet me. Many such have I at home, but none here. I wander objectlessly, pleasurelessly about with Vick—apparently sharing my depression—trotting subduedly, with tail half-mast high, at my heels, and at length sit down on a bench under a mulberry-tree. The scentless flame of the geraniums and calceolarias fills, without satisfying my eyes; the gnats' officious hum offends my ears; and thoughts in comparison of which the calceolarias are sweet and the gnats melodious, occupy my mind.
Sir Roger will most likely be drowned on his voyage out. Bobby will almost certainly be sent to Hong-Kong, and, as a natural consequence, die of a putrid fever. Algy has just entered the army; there can be no two opinions as to our going to war immediately with either Russia or America. Algy will probably be among the first to fall, and will die, grasping his colors, and shouting "Victory!" or "Westminster Abbey!" or perhaps both.
I have not yet decided what he shall be shouting, when the current of my thoughts is turned by seeing some one—thank Heaven, not a footman, this time!—advancing across the sward toward me. Surely I know the nonchalant lounge of that walk—the lazy self-consciousness of that gait, though, when last I saw it, it was not on dewy English turf, but on the baking flags of a foreign town. It is Mr. Musgrave. Until this moment I have ungratefully forgotten his existence, and all the interesting facts he told me connected with his existence—how his lodge faces ours—how he has no father nor mother, and lives by himself at an abbey. Alas! in this latter particular, can I not feel for him? AmInot living by myself at ahall?
Vick recognizes him at about the same moment as I do. Having first sprung at him with that volubility of small but hostileyaps, with which she strikes terror into the hearts of tramps, she has now—havingsmelthim to be not only respectable, but an acquaintance—changed her behavior to a little servile whine and a series of high jumps at his hand.
"It is you, is it?" cry I, springing up and running to meet him with an elate sensation of company and sociability; "I had quite forgotten that you lived near here. I'msoglad!"
At my happy remark as to having been hitherto oblivious of his existence, his face falls in the old lowering way I remember so well, and that brings back to me so forcibly the Prager Strasse, the Zwinger, the even sunshine, that favored my honey-moon; but at the heartily-expressed joy at seeing him, with which I conclude, he cheers up again. If he had known that I was in so reduced a state that I should have enjoyed a colloquy with a chimney-sweep, and not despised exchanging opinions with a dustman, he would not have thought my admission worth much.
"So you have come at last," he says, holding my hand, and looking at me with those long dark eyes that I would swear were black had not a conscientious and thorough daylight scrutiny of them assured me long ago that they were hazel.
"Yes," say I, cheerfully; "I told you you would catch sight of us, sooner or later, if you waited long enough."
"And your tenants never dragged you in, after all?"
"No," say I; "we did not give them the chance. But how doyouknow? Were you peeping out of your lodge? If I had remembered that you lived there, I would have been on the lookout for you."
"You had, of course, entirely forgotten so insignificant a fact?" he says, with a tone of pique.
That happy one! how well I recollect it! I feel quite fondly toward it; it reminds me so strongly of the Linkesches Bad, of the brisk band, and of Roger smoking and smiling at me with his gray eyes across our Mai-trank.
"Yes," I say, contritely, "I am ashamed to say I had—quite; but you see I have had a good many things to think of lately."
At this point it strikes me that he must have forgotten that he has my hand, so I quietly, and without offense, resume it.
"And you arealone—Sir Roger has left you quitealonehere?"
"Yes," say I, lachrymosely; "is not itdreadful? I never was so miserable in my life; I do not think Ieverwas by myself for awholenight before, and"—(lowering my voice to a nervous whisper)—"they tell me there is a ghost somewhere about. Did you ever hear of it?—and the furniture givessuchcracks!"
"And—he has goneby himself?" he continues, still harping on the same string, as if unable to leave it.
"Yes," reply I, laconically, hanging my head, for this is a topic on which I feel always guilty, and never diffuse.
"H'm!" he says, ruminatingly, and as if addressing the remark more to himself than to me. "I suppose itisdifficult to get out of old habits, and into new ones, all of a sudden."
"I do not know what you mean by old habits and new habits," cry I, angrily; "if you think he did not want me to go with him, you are very much mistaken; he would have much rather that I had."
"Butyou," looking at me penetratingly, and speaking with a sort of alacrity, "you did not see it? I remember of old" (with a smile) "your abhorrence of the sea."
"You are wrong again," say I, reddening, and still speaking with some heat, "Iwishedto go—I begged him to take me. However sick I had been, I should have liked it better than being left moping here, without a soul to speak to!"
Silence for a moment. Then he speaks with a rather sarcastic smile.
"I confess myself puzzled; ifyouwere dying to go, andhewere dying to take you, how comes it that you are sitting at the present moment on this bench?"
I can give no satisfactory answer to this query, so take refuge in a smile.
"I see," say I, tartly, "that you have still your old trick of asking questions. I wish that you would try to get the better of it; it is very disadvantageous to you, and very trying to other people!"
He takes this severe set-down in silence.
The trees that surround the garden are slowly darkening. The shadows that intervene between the round masses of the sycamore-leaves deepen, deepen. A bat flitters dumbly by. Vick, to whose faith all things seem possible, runs sharply barking and racing after it. We both laugh at the fruitlessness of her undertaking, and the joint merriment restores suavity to me, and assurance to him.
"And are you to stay here by yourselfallthe time he is away—all?"
"God forbid!" reply I, with devout force.
"Not? well, then—I am really afraid this is a question again, but I cannot help it. If you will not volunteer information, I must ask for it—who is to be your companion?"
"I suppose they will take turns," say I, relapsing into dejection, as I think of the precarious nature of the society on which I depend; "sometimes one, sometimes another, whichever can get away best—they will take turns."
"And who is to have thefirstturn?" he asks, leaning back in the corner of the seat, so as to have a fuller view of my lamentable profile; "when is the first installment of consolatory relatives to arrive?"
"Algy and Barbarawereto have come to-day," reply I, feeling a covert resentment against something of faintlygibingin his tone, but being conscious that it is not perceptible enough to justify another snub, even if I had one ready, which I have not.
"And they did not?"
"Now is not that a silly question?" cry I, tartly, venting the crossness born of my desolation on the only person within reach; "if theyhad, should I be sitting moping here with nobody but Vick to talk to?"
"You forgetme! may I not run in couples even with adog?" he asks, with a little bitter laugh.
"I did not forget you," reply I, coolly; "but you do not affect the question one way or another—you will be gone directly and—when you are—"
"Thank you for the hint," he cries springing up, picking up his little stick off the grass and flushing.
"You are not going?" cry I, eagerly, laying my hand on his coat-sleeve, "do not! why should you? there is no hurry. Let me have some one to help me to keep the ghosts at bay as long as I can!" then, with a dim consciousness of having said something ratherodd, I add, reddening, "I shall be going in directly, and you may go then."
He reseats himself. A tiny air is ruffling the flower-beds, giving a separate soft good-night to each bloom.
"And what happened to Algy and Barbara?" he says presently.
"Happened? Nothing!" I answer, absently.
"Very brutal of Algy and Barbara, then!" he says, more in the way of a reflection than a remark.
"Very brutal offather, you should say!" reply I, roused by the thought of my parent to a fresh attack of active and lively resentment.
"I have no doubt I should if I knew him."
"He would not let them come!" say I, explanatorily, "for what reason? fornone—he never has any reasons, or if he has, he does not give them. I sometimes think" (laughing maliciously) "thatyouwill not be unlike him, when you grow old and gouty."
"Thank you."
"Youhave no father, have you?" continue I, presently; "no, I remember your telling me so at the Linkesches Bad. Well" (laughing again, with a certain grim humor), "I would not fret about ittoomuch, if I were you—it is a relationship that has its disadvantages."
He laughs a little dryly.
"On whatever other heads I may quarrel with Providence, at least no one can accuse me of ever murmuring at its decrees in this respect."
We have risen. The darkness creeps on apace, warmly, without damp or chillness; but still, on it comes! I have to face the prospect of my great and gloomy house all through the lagging hours of the long black night!
"They will come to-morrow,certainly, I suppose?" (interrogatively).
"Notcertainly, at all!" reply I, with an energetic despondence in my voice; "quite the contrary! most likely not! most likely not the day after either, nor the day after that—"
"And if they do not" (with an accent of sincere compassion), "what will you do?"
"What I have done to-day, I suppose," I answer dejectedly; "cry till my cheeks aresore! You may not believe me" (passing my bare fingers lightly over them as I speak), "but they feel quiteraw. I wonder" (with a little dismal laugh) "why tears were madesalt!—they would not blister one half so much if they were fresh water."
He has drawn a pace or two nearer to me. In this light one has to look closely at any object that one wishes specially and narrowly to observe; and I myself have pointed out the peculiarities of my countenance to him, so I cannot complain if he scrutinizes me with a lengthy attention.
"It is going to be such adarknight!" I say, with a slight shiver; "and if the wind gets up, I know that I shall lie awake all night, thinking that the gen—that Roger is drowned! Do you not think" (looking round apprehensively) "that it is rising already? See how those boughs are waving!"
"Not an atom!" reassuringly.
We both look for an instant at the silent flower-beds, at the sombre bulk of the house.
"If they do not come to-morrow—" begins Frank.
"But theywill!" cry I, petulantly; "theymust! I cannot do without them! I believe some people do notmindbeing alone—not even in the evenings, when the furniture cracks and the door-handles rattle. I dare sayyoudo not; but I hate my own company; I have never been used to it. I have always been used to a great deal of noise—toomuch, I have sometimes thought, but I am sure that I never shall think so again!"
"Well, but if they do not—"
"You have said that three times," I cry, irritably. "You seem to take a pleasure in saying it. If they do not—well, what?"
"I will not say what I was going to say," he answers, shortly. "I shall only get my nose bitten off if I do."
"Very well, do not!" reply I, with equal suavity.
We walk in silence toward the house, the wet grass is making my long gown drenched and flabby. We have reached the garden-door whence I issued, and by which I shall return.
"You must go now, I suppose," say I, reluctantly. "Youwill be by yourself too, will not you? Tell me" (speaking with lowered confidential tone), "doyourchairs and tables ever make odd noises?"
"Awful!" he answers, laughing. "I can hardly hear myself speak for them."
I laugh too.
"You might as well tell me before you go what the remark that I quenched was? One always longs to hear the things that people aregoingto say, and do not! Have no fear! your nose is quite safe!"
"It is nothing much," he answers, with self-conscious stiffness, looking down and poking about the little dark pebbles with his cane; "nothing that you would care about."
"Care about!" echo I, leaning my back against the dusk house-wall, and staring up at the sombre purple of the sky. "Well, no! I dare say not! WhatshouldI care to hear now? I am sure I should be puzzled to say! But, as I have been so near it, I may as well be told."
"As you will!" he answers, with an air of affected carelessness. "It is only that, if theydo notcome to-morrow—"
"Fourth time!" interject I, counting on my fingers and smiling.
"If youwish—if youlike—if it would be any comfort to you—I shall be happy—I mean I shall be very glad to come up again about the same time to-morrow evening."
"Willyou?" (eagerly, with a great accession of exhilaration in my voice). "Are you serious? I shall be so much obliged if you will, but—"
"It isimpossiblethat any one can say any thing," he interrupts, hastily. "Therecouldbe no harm in it!"
"Harm!" repeat I, laughing. "Well,hardly! I cannot fancy a more innocent amusement."
Though my speech is in agreement with his own, the coincidence does not seem to gratify him.
"What did you mean, then?" he says, sharply. "You said 'but'—"
"Did I?" answer I, again throwing back my head, and looking upward, as if trying to trace my last preposition among the clouds; "but—but—where could I have put a 'but'?—oh, I know!butyou will most likely forget! Do not!" I continue, bringing down my eyes again, and speaking in a coaxing tone. "If you do, it will be play to you, butdeathto me; the thought of it will keep me up all the day!"
"Will it?" in a tone of elated eagerness. "You are notgibing, I suppose? it does not sound like your gibing voice!"
"Not it!" reply I, gloomily. "My gibing voice is packed away at the bottom of my imperial. I do not think it has been out since we left Dresden. Well, good-night! What do you want to shake handsagainfor? We have done thattwicealready. You are like the man who, the moment he had finished reading prayers to his family, began them all over again.Mindyou do not forget! and" (laughing) "if you cannot come yourself,send some one else! any onewill do—I am not particular, but Imusthavesome oneto speak to!"
Almost before my speech is finished, Frank is out of sight. With such rapid suddenness has he disappeared round the house-corner. I stand for a moment, marveling a little at his hurry. Five minutes ago he seemed willing enough to dawdle on till midnight. Then I go in, and forget his existence.
Suppose that in all this world, during all its ages, there never was a case of a person beingalwaysin an ill-humor. I believe that even Xantippe had her lucid intervals of amiability, during which she fondled her Socrates. At all events, father has. On the day after my disappointment, one such interval occurs. He relents, allows Algy and Barbara to have the carriage, and sends them off to Tempest.
Either Mr. Musgrave becomes aware of this fact, or, as I had anticipated, he forgets his promise, for he never appears, and I do not see him again till Sunday. By Sunday my cheeks are no longerraw; the furniture has stopped cracking—seeing that no one paid any attention to it, it wisely left off—and the ghosts await a fitter opportunity to pounce.
I have heard from Sir Roger—a cheerful note, dated Southampton. Ifheis cheerful, I may surely allow myself to be so too. I therefore no longer compunctiously strangle any stray smiles that visit my countenance. I have taken several drives with Barbara in my new pony-carriage—it is a curious sensation being able to order it without being subject to fathers veto—and we have skirted our own park, and have peeped through his close wooden palings at Mr. Musgrave's, have strained our eyes and stretched our necks to catch a glimpse of his old gray house, nestling low down among its elms. (Was there ever an abbey that did not live in a hollow?) With bated breath, lest the groom behind should overhear me, I have slightly sketched to Barbara the outline of an idea for establishing her in that weather-worn old pile—an idea which I think was born in my mind as long ago as the first evening that I saw its owner at the Linkesches Bad, and heard that hehadan abbey, and that it was over against my future home.
Barbara does not altogether deny the desirability of the arrangement; she is not, however, so sanguine as I as to its feasibility, and she positively declines to consent to enter actively into it until she has seen him. This will be on Sunday. To Sunday, therefore, I look forward with pious haste.
Well, it is Sunday now—the Sunday of my first appearance as a bride at Tempest church. A bride without her bridegroom! A pang of mortification and pain shoots through me, as this thought traverses my soul. I look at myself dissatisfiedly in the glass. Alas! I am no credit to his taste. If, for this once. I could but look taller, personabler,older!
"They will all say that he has made a fool of himself," I say, half aloud.
It is a sultry day, without wind or freshness, and with a great deal of sun; but in spite of this, I put on a silk gown, rich and heavy, as looking moremarriedthan the cobweb muslins in which I have hitherto met the summer heat. On my head I place a sedately feathered bonnet, which would not have misbecome mother. I meet Algy and Barbara in my boudoir. They are already dressed. I examine Barbara with critical care, and with a discontented eye, though to a stranger her appearance would seem likely to inspire any feeling rather than dissatisfaction, for she looks as clean and fair and chastely sweet as ever maiden did. Ben Jonson must have known some one like her when he wrote:
"Have you seen but a bright lily growBefore rude hands have touched it?Have you marked but the fall of the snowBefore the soil hath smutched it?Have you felt the wool of the beaverOr swan's-down ever?Or have smelled of the bud of the brier,Or the nard in the fire?Or have tasted the bag of the bee?Oh so white, oh so soft, oh so sweet is she?"
"Have you seen but a bright lily growBefore rude hands have touched it?Have you marked but the fall of the snowBefore the soil hath smutched it?Have you felt the wool of the beaverOr swan's-down ever?Or have smelled of the bud of the brier,Or the nard in the fire?Or have tasted the bag of the bee?Oh so white, oh so soft, oh so sweet is she?"
But all the same, having a bonnet on, she is distinctly less like Palma Vecchio's St. Catherine, to which in my talk with Frank I compared her, than she was bareheaded this morning at breakfast. Who in the annals of history ever heard of a saint in abonnet?
"I wish that people might be allowed to go to church without their bonnets these hot Sundays," I say, grumblingly. "Youespecially, Barbara."
She laughs.
"I should be very glad, but I am afraid the beadle would turn me out."
"For Heaven's sake," says Algy, gravely, putting back his shoulders and throwing out his chest, as he draws on a pair of exact gray gloves, "do not let us make ourselves to stink in the nostrils of the inhabitants by any eccentricities of conduct, on this our first introduction to them. If we consulted our own comfort, there is no doubt that we should reduce our toilets by a good many more articles than a bonnet—in fact—" (with an air of reflection), "I shudder to thinkwherewe should stop!"
We are in church now. I have run the gantlet of the observation of all the parishioners, and have been unable to look calmly unaware of it; on the contrary, have grown consciously rosy red, and have walked over hastily between the open sittings. But now I have reached the shelter of our own seat, near the top of the church, with all the gay bonnets behind me, and only the pulpit, the spread-eagle reading-desk, and the gaudy stained window in front. As soon as I am established—almost sooner, perhaps—I turn my eyes in search of Mr. Musgrave. I know perfectly where to look for him, as he drew a plan of Tempest church and the relative position of our sittings, with the point of his stick on the gravel in the gardens close to the Zwinger at Dresden, while we sat under the trees by the little pool, feeding the pert sparrows and the intimate cock-chaffinch that resort thither. He is not there!
Barbara may be crowned with any abomination, in the way of a bonnet, that ever entered into the grotesque imagination of a milliner to conceive—coal-scuttle, cottage, spoon—for all that it matters. The organ strikes up, a file of chorister-boys in dirty surplices—Tempest is a more pretentious church than ours—and a brace of clergy enter. All through the Confession I gape about with vacant inattention—at the grimy whiteness of the choir; at the back of the organist's head; at the parson, a mealy-mouthed fledgling, who, with his finger on his place in the prayer to prevent his losing it, is taking a stealthy inventory of my charms.
Suddenly I hear the door, which has been for some time silent, creak again in opening. Footsteps sound along the aisle. I look up. Yes, it is he! walking as quickly and noiselessly as he can, and looking rather ashamed of himself, while patches of red, blue, and golden light, from the east window, dance on his Sunday coat and on the smooth darkness of his hair. I glance at Barbara, to give her notice of the approach of her destiny, but my glance is lost. Barbara's stooped head is hidden by her hands, and her pure thoughts are away with God. As apis aller, I look at Algy. No absorption in prayer onhispart baffles me. He is leaning his elbow on his knee, and wearily biting the top of his prayer-book. He returns my look by another, which, though wordless, is eloquent. It says, in raised eyebrow and drooped mouth, "Is that all? I do not think much of him?"
The church is full and hot. The windows are open, indeed, but only the infinitesimally small chink that church-windows ever do open. The pew-opener sedulously closes the great door after every fresh entrance. I kneel simmering through the Litany. Never before did it seem so long! Never did the chanted, "We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord!" appear so endlessly numerous.
Under cover of my arched hands, shading my eyes, I peep at one after another of the family groups. Most of them are behind me indeed, but there are still a good many that I can get a view of sideways. Among these, the one that oftenest engages my notice is a small white woman, evidently a lady—and, at the moment I first catch sight of her, with closed eyes and drawn-in nostrils, inhaling smelling-salts, as if to her, too, church was up-hill work this morning—in a little seat by herself. At the other pews one glance a piece satisfies me, but, having looked atheronce, I look again. I could not tell youwhyI do it. There is nothing very remarkable about her in the matter of either youth or beauty, and yet I look.
The service is ended at length, but eagerly as I long for the fresh air, we are—whether to mark our own dignity, or to avoid further scrutiny on the part of our fellow-worshipers—almost the last to issue from the church. At the porch we find Mr. Musgrave waiting. A sort ofmauvaise honteand a guilty conscience combine to disable me from promptly introducing him to my people, and before I recover my presence of mind, Algy has walked on with Barbara, and I am left to follow with Frank.
He does not seem in one of his most sunshiny humors, but perhaps the long morning service, so trying in its present arrangement of lengthy prayers, praises, and preaching, to a restless and irritable temper, is to blame for that.
"I suppose," he says, speaking rather stiffly, "that I must congratulate you on the arrival of the first detachment."
"First detachment of what?"
"Of your family. I understood you to say that there were to berelaysof them during all Sir Roger's absence."
"It is to be hoped so, I am sure," I say, devoutly; "especially" (looking up at him with mock reproach) "considering the way in which my friends neglect me. You never came, after all! No!" (seeing the utter unsmilingness of his expression, and speaking hastily), "I am not serious; I am only joking! No doubt you heard that they had come, and thought that you would be in the way. But, indeed you would not. We had no secrets to talk; we should not have minded you a bit."
"Ididhear that they had arrived," he answers, still speaking ungraciously, "but even if I had not, I should not have come!"
I look up in his face, and laugh.
"Youforgot? Ah, I told you you would!"
"I didnotforget."
Again I look up at him, this time in honest astonishment, awaiting the solution of his enigma.
"There is no particular use in making one's selfcheap, is there?" he says, with a bitter little laugh. "What is the use of going to a place where you are told thatany one elsewill do as well?"
A pause. I walk along in silent wonderment. So he actually was happy again! We have left the church-yard. We are in the road, between the dusty quicks of the hedgerows. The carriages bowl past us, whirling clouds of dust down our throats. One is trotting by now, a victoria and pair of grays, and in it, leaning restfully back, and holding up her parasol, is the lady I noticed in church. Musgrave knows her apparently. At least, he takes off his hat.
"Who is she?" I say, with a slightly aroused interest. "I was wondering in church. I suppose she is delicate, as she sat down through the psalms."
At the moment I address him, Mr. Musgrave is battling angrily with an angrier wasp, but no sooner has he heard my question than he ceases his warfare, and allows it to buzz within half an inch of his nose, as he turns his hazel eyes, full of astonished inquiry, upon me.
"Youdo not know?"
"Not I," reply I lightly. "How should I? I know nobody in these parts."
"That is Mrs. Huntley."
"You do not say so!" reply I, ironically. "I am sure I am very glad to hear it, but I am not very much wiser than I was before."
"Is it possible," he says, looking rather nettled at my tone, and lowering his voice a little, as if anxious to confine the question to me alone—a needless precaution, as there is no one else within hearing—"that you haveneverheard of her?"
"Never!" reply I, in some surprise; "why should I?—has she ever done any thing very remarkable?"
He laughs slightly, but disagreeably.
"Remarkable! well, no, I suppose not!"
The victoria is quite out of sight now—quite out of sight the delicately poised head, the dove-colored parasol.
"You are joking, of course," says Frank, presently, turning toward me, and still speaking in that needlessly lowered key. "It is so long since I have seen you, that I have got out of the habit of remembering that you never speak seriously; but,of course, you have heard—I mean Sir Roger has mentioned her to you!"
"He has not!" reply I, speaking sharply, and raising my voice a little. "Neither has he mentioned any of the other neighbors to me! He had not time." No rejoinder. "Most likely," continue I, speaking with quick heat, for something in his manner galls me, "he did not recollect her existence."
"Most likely."
He is looking down at the white dust which is defiling his patent-leather boots, and smiling slightly.
"How do you know—what reason have you for thinking that he was aware that there was such a person?" I ask, with injudicious eagerness.
"I have no reason—I think nothing," he answers, coldly, with an air of ostentatious reserve.
I walk on in a ruffled, jarred silence. Presently Frank speaks again.
"Are those two"—(slightly indicating by a faint nod the figures in front of us)—"the two you expected?—Are these—what are their names?—AlgyandBarbara?"
"Yes," say I, smiling, with recovered equanimity; "Algy and Barbara." A little pause. "You can judge for yourself now," say I, laughing rather nervously, "whether I spoke truth—whether Barbara is as like the St. Catherine as I told you." For a moment he does not answer. "Of course," I say, rather crestfallen, "the bonnet makes a difference; the likeness is much more striking when it is off."
"The St. Catherine!" he repeats, with a puzzled air, "whatSt. Catherine? I am afraid you will think me very stupid, but I really am quite at sea."
"Do you mean to say," cry I, reddening with mortification, "that you forget—that you do not remember that St. Catherine of Palma Vecchio's in the Dresden Gallery that I always pointed out to you as having such a look of Barbara? Well, youhavea short memory!"
"Have I?" he answers, dryly; "perhaps forsomethings; forothers, I fancy that mine is a good deal longer than yours."
"It might easily be that," I answer, recovering from my temporary annoyance and laughing; "I suppose you mean for books and dates, and things of that kind. Well, you may easily beat me there. The landing of William the Conqueror, and the battle of Waterloo, were the only two dates I ever succeeded in mastering, and that was only after the struggle of years."
"Dates!" he says, impatiently, "pshaw! I was not thinking ofthem! I was thinking of Dresden!"
"Are you so sure that you could beat me there?" ask I, thoughtfully; "I do not know about that! I think I could stand a pretty stiff examination; but perhaps you are talking of the pictures and the names of the artists. Ah, yes! there you are right; withmethey go in at one ear, and out at another. Only the other day I was racking my brain to think of the name of the man that painted theotherMagdalen—not Guido's—I was telling Algy about it. Bah! what is it? I know it as well as my own."
His head is turned away from me. He does not appear to be attending.
"What is it?" I repeat; "haveyouforgotten too?"
"Battoni!" he answers, laconically, still keeping his face averted.
"Battoni!oh, yes! thanks—of course! so it is!—Algy" (raising my voice a little)—"Battoni!"
"Well, what about him?" replies Algy, turning his head, but not showing much inclination to slacken his speed or to join Frank and me.
"The Magdalen man—you know—I mean the man that painted the Magdalen, and whose name I could not recollect last night, Algy. Barbara! how fast you are walking!" (speaking rather reproachfully)—"stop a moment! I want to introduce you to Mr. Musgrave."
Thus adjured, they have come to a halt, and the presentation is made.
"Surely," think I, glancing at Barbara's face, slightly flushed by the heat, and still gently grave with the sobriety of expression left by devotion, "hemustsee the likeness now!" To insure his having the chance of telling her that he does, I fall behind with Algy.
Claret cup has washed the dust from our throats; cold lamb and mayonnaise have restored the force of body and equanimity of mind which the exhausted air and long-drawn Gregorian chants of Tempest Church destroyed. Frank is lunching with us. He had accompanied us to our own gates, and had then made a feint of leaving, but I had pressed him, with an eagerness proportioned to the seriousness of my design upon him, to accompany us, and he had yielded with a willing ease.
I cannot help thinking that Algy does not look altogether pleased with the arrangement, but after all, it ismyhouse, and not Algy's. It is the first time that I have entertained a guest since the far-off childish birthdays, when the neighbors' little boys and girls used to be gathered together to drink tea out of the doll's tea service. In the afternoon, we all walk to church again, and in the same order. Barbara and Algy in front, Frank and I behind. I had planned differently, but Algy is obtuse, Barbara will come into the manœuvres, and Frank seems simply indifferent. So it happens, that all through the park, and up the bit of dusty white road we are out of ear-shot of the other two.
"A sky worthy of Dresden!" says Mr. Musgrave, throwing back his head and looking up at the pale blue sultriness above our heads—the waveless, stormless ether sea—as we pace along, with the church-bells' measured ding-dong in our ears, and the cool ripe grasses about our feet.
"DearDresden!" say I, pensively, with a sigh of mixed regret and remorse, as I look back on the sunshiny hours that at the time I thought so long, in that fair, white foreign town.
"Dear Linkesches Bad!" says Frank, sighing too.
"Dear Groosegarten!" cry I, thinking of the long pottering stroll that Roger and I had taken one evening up and down its green alleys, and thatthenI had found so tedious.
"Dear Zwinger!" retorts Frank.
"Dear Weisserhirsch!" say I, half sadly. "Dear white acacias! dear drives under the acacias!"
"Drives under the acacias!" echoes Frank, dropping his accent of sentimentalism, and speaking rather sharply. "We never had any drives under the acacias! We never had any drives at all, that I recollect!"
"Youhad not, I dare say," reply I, carelessly, "butwehad. They are the things that I look back at with the greatest pleasure of any thing that happened there!"
Frank does not apostrophize as "dear" any other public resort; indeed, he turns away his head, and we walk on without uttering a word for a few moments.
"By-the-by," say I, with a labored and not altogether successful attempt at appearing to speak with suddenness and want of premeditation, "what did you mean this morning, about that la—about Mrs. Huntley?"
"I meant nothing," he answers, but the faint quiver of a smile about his mouth contradicts his words.
"That is not true!" reply I, with impatient brusqueness; "why were you surprised at my not having heard of her?"
"I was not surprised."
"What is the use of so many falsehoods?" cry I, indignantly; "at least I would choose some better time than when I was going to church for telling them. What reason have you for supposing that—that Roger knows more about her than I—than Barbara do?"
"How persistent you are!" he says, with that same peculiar smile—not latent now, but developed—curbing his lips and lightening in his eyes. "There is no baffling you! Since you dislike falsehoods, I will tell you no more. I will own to you that I made a slip of the tongue; I took it for granted that you had been told a certain little history, which it seems you havenotbeen told."
The blood rushes headlong to my face. It feels as if every drop in my body were throbbing and tingling in my cheeks, but I look back at him hardily.
"I don't believe thereisany such history."
"I dare say not."
More silence. Swish through the buttercups and the yellow rattle; a lark, miles above our heads, singing the music he has overheard in heaven. Frank does not seem inclined to speak again.
"Your story isnottrue," say I, presently, laughing uncomfortably, and unable to do the one wise thing in my reach, and leave the subject alone—"but untrue stories are often amusing, more amusing than the true ones. You may tell yours, if you like."
"I have not the slightest wish."
A few steps more. How quickly we are getting through the park! We shall reach the church, and I shall not have heard. I shall sit and stand and kneel all through the service with the pain of that gnawing curiosity—that hateful new vague jealousy aching at my heart.
It isimpossible! I stop. I stand stock-still in the summer grass.
"Ihateyour hints! I hate your innuendoes!" I say, passionately. "I have always lived with people who spoke their thoughts straight out! Tell me this moment! I will not move a step from this spot till you do."
"I have nothing worth speaking of to tell," he answers, slightly. "It is only that never having had a wife myself, I have taken an outsider's view; I have taken it for granted that when two people marry each other they make a clean breast of their past history—make a mutual confession of their former—"
He pauses, as if in search of a word.
"But supposing," cry I, eagerly, "that they have nothing to tell, nothing to confess—"
He shrugs his shoulders.
"That is so likely, is it not?"
"Likely or not," cry I, excitedly, "it was true inmycase. If you had put me on the rack, I could have confessed nothing!"
"I do not see the analogy," he answers, coldly; "youare—what did you tell me? nineteen?—It is to be supposed"—(with a rather unlovely smile)—"that your history is yet to come; and he is—forty-seven! We shall be late for church!"—with a glance at Algy's and Barbara's quickly diminishing figures.
"I do not care whether we are late or not!" cry I, vehemently, and stamping on the daisy-heads as I speak. "I will notstiruntil you tell me."
"There is really no need for such excitement!" returns he with a cold smile; "since you will have it, it is only that rumor—and you know what a liarrumoris—says that once, some years ago, they were engaged to marry each other."
"And why did not they?" speaking with breathless panting, and forgetting my stout asseveration that the whole tale is a lie.
"Because—mind, Ivouchfor nothing, I am only quoting rumor again—because—she threw him over."
"Threw him over!" with an accent of most unfeigned astonishment.
"You are surprised!" he says, quickly, and with what sounds to me like a slightly annoyed inflection of voice; "itdoesseem incredible, does not it? But at that time, you see, he had not all the desirables—not quite the pull over other men that he has now; his brother was not dead or likely to die, and he was only General Tempest, with nothing much besides his pay."
"Threw—him—over!" repeat I, slowly, as if unable yet to grasp the sense of the phrase.
"We shallcertainlybe late; the last bell is beginning," says Frank, impatiently.
I move slowly on. We have reached the turnstile that gives issue from the park to the road. The smart farmers' wives, the rosy farmers' daughters, are pacing along through the powdery dust toward the church-gate.
"Is she awidow?" ask I, in a low voice.
He laughs sarcastically.
"A widow indeed, and desolate, eh? No! I believe she has a husband somewhere about, but she keeps him well out of sight—away in the colonies. He is there now, I fancy."
"And why is not she with him?" cry I, indignantly; but the moment that the words are out of my mouth, I hang my head. Might notsheask the same question with regard tome?
"She did not like thesea, perhaps," answers Frank, demurely.
A day—two days pass.
"More callers," say I, hearing the sound of wheels, and running to the window; "I thought wemusthave exhausted the neighborhood yesterday and the day before!" I add, sighing.
"Whoever they are," says Barbara, anxiously, lifting her head from the work over which it is bent, "mind you do not ask after their relations! Think of the man whose wife you inquired after, and found that she had run away with his groom not a month before!"
"That certainly was one of my unlucky things," answer I, gravely; then, beginning to laugh—"and I was sodeterminedto know what had become of her, too."
I am still looking out. It is a soft, smoke-colored day; half an hour ago, there was a shower—each drop a separate loud patter on the sycamore-leaves—but now it is fair again. A victoria is coming briskly up the drive; servants in dark liveries; a smoke-colored parasol that matches the day.
"Shall I ring, and say 'not at home?'" asks Barbara, stretching out her hand toward the bell.
"No, no!" cry I, hurriedly, in an altered voice, for the parasol has moved a little aside, and I have seen the face beneath.
In two minutes the butler enters and announces "Mrs. Huntley," and the "plain woman—not very young—about thirty—who cannot be very strong, as she sat down through the Psalms," enters.
At first she seems uncertainwhichto greet as bride and hostess; indeed, I can see that her earliest impulse is to turn from the small insignificance in silk, to the tall little loveliness in cotton, and as I perceive it, a little arrow—not of jealousy, for, thank God, I never was jealous of our Barbara—never—but of pain at my so palpable inferiority, shoots through all my being. But Barbara draws back, and our visitor perceives her error. We sit down, but the brunt of the talk falls on Barbara. I am never glib with strangers, and I throw in a word only now and then, all my attention and observation having passed into my eyes. A plain woman, indeed! I have always been convinced of the unbecomingness of church, butnowmore than ever am I fully persuaded of it. And yet she is not pretty! Her mouth is very wide, that is perhaps why she so rarely laughs; her nose cannot say much for itself; her cheeks are thin, and Ithink—nay, let me tell truth—Ihopethat in a low gown she would bescraggy, so slight even to meagreness is she! But how thoroughly made the most of! What a shapeless pin-cushion fit my gown seems beside the admirable French sit of hers! How hard, how metallic its tint beside the indefinite softness of that sweep of smoke-color! What a stiff British erection my hair feels beside the careless looseness of these shining twists! What a fine, slight hand, as if cut in faint gray stone!
At each fresh detail that I note, Musgrave's anecdote gains ever more and more probability; and my heart sinks ever lower and more low.
Onehope remains to me. Perhaps she may be stupid! Certainly she is notaffording.
How heavily poor Barbara is driving through the fine weather and theTimes! and how little more than "yes" and "no" does she get! I take heart. Roger loves people who talk—people who are merry and make jests. It was my most worthless gabble that first drew him toward me. Cheered and emboldened by this thought, I swoop down like a sudden eagle to the rescue.
"You know Rog—, my husband, do not you?" I say, with an abrupt bluntness that contrasts finely with the languid gentleness with which her little remarks steal out like mice.Minerushes forth like a desolating bomb-shell.
"A little—yes."
"You knew him in India, did not you?" say I, unable to resist the temptation of seizing this opportunity to gratify my curiosity, drawing my chair a little nearer hers, and speaking with an eagerness which I, in vain, try to stifle.
"Yes," smiling sweetly, "in India."
"He was there a long time," continue I, communicatively.
"Yes."
(Well, sheisbaffling! when she does not say "yes" affirmatively, she says it interrogatively.)
"All the same he did not like it," I go on, with amicable volubility; "but I dare say you know that. They say—" (reddening as I feel, perceptibly, and nervously twisting my pocket-handkerchief round my fingers)—"that people are so sociable in India: now, I dare say you saw a good deal of him."
"Yes; we met several times."
She is smiling again. There is not a shade of hesitation or unreadiness in her low voice, nor does the faintest tinge of color stain the fine pallor of her cheeks.
(Itmusthave been a lie!)
"Yourhusband, too, is out—" I pause; not sure of the locality, but she does not help me, so I add lamely, "somewhere, is not he?"
"He is in the West Indies."
"In the West Indies!" cry I, with animation, drawing my chair yet a little nearer hers, and feeling positively friendly; "why, that is wheremineis too!"
"Yes?"
"We are companions in misfortune," cry I, heartily; "we must keep up each other's spirits, must not we?"
Another smile, but no verbal answer.
A noise of feet coming across the hall—of manly whistling makes itself heard. The door opens and Algy enters. It is clear that he is unaware of there being any stranger present, for his hat is on his head, his hands are in his pockets, and he only stops whistling to observe:
"Well, Nancy! any more aborigines?" then he breaks suddenly off, and we all grow red—he himself beaming of as lively a scarlet as the new tunic that he tried on last night. I make a hurried and confused presentation, in which I manage to slur over into unintelligibility and utter doubtfulness the names of the two people made known to one another.
"One more aborigine, you see!" says Mrs. Huntley, to my surprise—after the experience I have had of her fine taste in monosyllables—beginning the conversation. I look at her with a little wonder. Her voice is quite as low as ever, but there is an accent of playfulness in it; and on her face a sparkle ofesprit, whose possible existence I had not conjectured. Certainly, she showed no symptom of playfulness orespritduring our late talk. I have yet to learn that to some women, the presence of a man—nottheman, butaman—any man—is what warm rain is to flowers athirst. I am still marveling at this metamorphosis, when the door again opens, and another guest is announced—an old man, as great a stranger to us as is the rest of the neighborhood, but of whom we quickly discover that he is deadly, deadly deaf. For five minutes, I bawl at him a series of remarks, each and all of which he misunderstands. He does it so invariably, that I come at length to the conclusion that he is doing it on purpose, and stop talking in a huff. Then Barbara takes her turn—Barbara can always make deaf people hear better than I do, though she does not speak to them nearly so loud, and I rest on my oars. Owing to my position between the two couples, I can hear what is passing between Algy and Mrs. Huntley.
To tell the truth, I do not take much pains to avoid hearing it, for surely they can have no secrets. They are sitting rather close together, and speaking in a low key, but I am so used tohisvoice, and her articulation is so distinct, that I do not miss a word.
"I think I had the pleasure of seeing you in church, last Sunday," Algy says, rather diffidently; not having yet quite recovered from the humiliation engendered by his unfortunate remark.
She nods.
"And I you," with a gently reassuring smile.
"Did you, really? did you see me—I mean us?"
"Yes, I saw you," with a delicate inflection of voice, which somehow confines the application of the remark to him. "I made up my mind—one takes ideas into one's head, you know—I made up my mind that you were asoldier; one can mostly tell."
He laughs the flattered, fluttered laugh, thatmyrough speech was never known to provoke in living man.
"Yes, I am; at least, I am going to be; I join this week."
"Yes?" with a pretty air of attention and interest.
"We—we—found out whoyouwere," he says, laughing again, with a little embarrassment, and edging his chair nearer hers; "we asked Musgrave!"
"Mr. Musgrave!" (with a little tone of alert curiosity)—"oh! you knowhim?"
"I know him! I should think so: he is quite a tame cat here."
"Yes?"
"Have you anychildren?" cry I, suddenly, bundling with my usual fine tact head-foremost into the conversation (where I am clearly not wanted, and altogether forgetting Barbara's warning injunction) with my unnecessary and malapropos query. For a moment she looks only astonished; then an expression of pain crosses her face, and a slight contraction passes over her features. Evidently, shehada child, and it isdead. She is going tocry! At this awful thought, I grow scarlet, and Algy darts a furious look at me. WhathaveI said? I have outdone myself. How far worse a case than the fugitive wife whose destiny I was so resolute to learn from her injured husband!