diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12304-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 295893 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12304-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 304500 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12304-h/12304-h.htm | 15815 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12304.zip | bin | 0 -> 295766 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/12304-8.txt | 15196 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/12304-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 293887 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/12304.txt | 15196 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/12304.zip | bin | 0 -> 293760 bytes |
8 files changed, 46207 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/12304-8.zip b/old/12304-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e126da2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12304-8.zip diff --git a/old/12304-h.zip b/old/12304-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2900e39 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12304-h.zip diff --git a/old/12304-h/12304-h.htm b/old/12304-h/12304-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..075c743 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12304-h/12304-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15815 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Nancy, by Rhoda Broughton + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i16 {display: block; margin-left: 16em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nancy, by Rhoda Broughton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Nancy + A Novel + +Author: Rhoda Broughton + +Release Date: July 9, 2007 [EBook #12304] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NANCY *** + + + + +<b>htm version produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This htm file was produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.)</b> + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<h1>NANCY:</h1> + +<h3><i>A NOVEL.</i></h3> + +<h2>BY RHODA BROUGHTON.</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "'GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART!'" "RED AS A ROSE IS SHE," ETC., ETC.</h3> + +<h3>NEW YORK:<br /> +D. APPLETON & COMPANY,<br /> +549 & 551 BROADWAY.<br /> +1874.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"As through the land at eve we went,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And plucked the ripened ears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We fell out, my wife and I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, we fell out, I know not why,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And kissed again with tears."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LI">CHAPTER LI.</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_LII">CHAPTER LII.</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#Other_Works_Published_by_D_APPLETON_CO">Other Works Published by D. APPLETON &. CO.</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>NANCY.</h1> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"Put into a small preserving pan three ounces of fresh butter, and, as +soon as it is just melted, add one pound of brown sugar of moderate +quality—"</p> + +<p>"Not moderate; the browner the better," interpolates Algy.</p> + +<p>"Cannot say I agree with you. I hate brown sugar—filthy stuff!" says +Bobby, contradictiously.</p> + +<p>"Not half so <i>filthy</i> as white, if you come to that," retorts Algy, +loftily, looking up from the lemon he is grating to extinguish his +brother. "They clear white sugar with but—"</p> + +<p>"Keep these stirred gently over a clear fire for about fifteen minutes," +interrupt I, beginning to read again very fast, in a loud, dull +recitative, to hinder further argument, "or until a little of the +mixture dipped into cold water breaks clear between the teeth without +sticking to them. When it is boiled to this point, it must be poured out +immediately or it will burn."</p> + +<p>Having galloped jovially along, scorning stops, I here pause out of +breath. We are a large family, we Greys, and we are <i>all</i> making taffy. +Yes, every one of us. It would take all the fingers of one hand, and the +thumb of the other, to count us, O reader. Six! Yes, six. A Frenchman +might well hold up his hands in astonished horror at the insane +prolificness—the foolhardy fertility—of British householders. We come +very <i>improbably</i> close together, except Tou Tou, who was an +after-thought. There are no two of us, I am proud to say, exactly +simultaneous, but we have come tumbling on each other's heels into the +world in so hot a hurry that we evidently expect to find it a pleasant +place when we get there. Perhaps we do—perhaps we do not; friends, you +will hear and judge for yourselves.</p> + +<p>A few years ago when we were little, people used to say that we were +quite a pretty sight, like little steps one above another. We are big +steps now, and no one any longer hazards the suggestion of our being +pretty. On the other hand, nobody denies that we are each as well +furnished with legs, arms, and other etceteras, as our neighbors, nor +can affirm that we are notably more deficient in wits than those of our +friends who have arrived in twos and threes.</p> + +<p>We are in the school-room, the big bare school-room, that has seen us +all—that is still seeing some of us—unwillingly dragged, and painfully +goaded up the steep slopes of book-learning. Outside, the March wind is +roughly hustling the dry, brown trees and pinching the diffident green +shoots, while the round and rayless sun of late afternoon is staring, +from behind the elm-twigs in at the long maps on the wall, in at the +high chairs—tall of back, cruelly tiny of seat, off whose rungs we have +kicked all the paint—in at the green baize table, richly freaked with +splashes. Hardly less red than the sun's, are our burnt faces gathered +about the fire.</p> + +<p>This fire has no flame—only a glowing, ruddy heart, on which the bright +brass saucepan sits; and kneeling before it, stirring the mess with a +long iron spoon, is Barbara. Algy, as I have before remarked, is grating +a lemon. Bobby is buttering soup-plates. The Brat—the Brat always takes +his ease if he can—is peeling almonds, fishing delicately for them in a +cup of hot water with his finger and thumb; and I, Nancy, am reading +aloud the receipt at the top of my voice, out of a greasy, dog's-eared +cookery-book, which, since it came into our hands, has been the innocent +father of many a hideous compound. Tou Tou alone, in consideration of +her youth, is allowed to be a spectator. She sits on the edge of the +table, swinging her thin legs, and kicking her feet together.</p> + +<p>Certainly we deteriorate in looks as we go downward. In Barbara we made +an excellent start: few families a better one, though we say it that +should not. Although in Algy there was a slight falling off, it was not +much to complain of. But I am sensibly uglier than Algy (as indeed he +has, on several occasions, dispassionately remarked to me); the Brat +than me; Bobby than the Brat; and so steadily on, till we reach our +nadir of unhandsomeness in Tou Tou. Tou Tou is our climax, and we +certainly defy our neighbors and acquaintances to outdo her.</p> + +<p>Hapless young Tou Tou! made up of the thinnest legs, the widest mouth, +the invisiblest nose, and over-visiblest ears, that ever went to the +composition of a child of twelve years.</p> + +<p>"Keep stirring always! You must take care that it does not stick to the +bottom!" say I, closing the receipt-book, and speaking on my own +account, but still as one having authority.</p> + +<p>"All very well to say 'Keep stirring always,'" answers Barbara, turning +round a face unavoidably pretty, even though at the present moment +deeply flame-colored; eyes still sweetly laughing with gay good-humor, +even though half burnt out of her head, to answer me; "but if you had +been stirring as long as I have, you would wonder that you had any arm +left to stir with, however feebly. Here, one of you boys, take a turn! +You Brat, you never do any thing for your living!"</p> + +<p>The Brat complies, though not with eagerness. They change occupations: +the Brat stirs, and she fishes for almonds. Ten minutes pass: the taffy +is done, and what is more it really is taffy. The upshot of our cookery +is in general so startlingly indifferent from what we had intended, that +the result in the present case takes us by surprise. We all prove +practically that, in the words of the receipt-book, it "breaks clear +between the teeth without sticking to them." It is poured into Bobby's +soup-plate, and we have thrown up the window-sashes, and set it on the +ledge to cool. The searching wind blows in dry and biting. Now it is +rushing in a violent current through the room, for the door has opened. +Mother enters.</p> + +<p>"To what may we attribute the honor of this visit?" says Algy, turning +away from the window to meet her, and setting her a chair. Bobby gives +her a kiss, and the Brat a lump of taffy, concerning which it would be +invidious to predicate which were the stickier; so exceedingly adhesive +are both.</p> + +<p>"Your father says," begins she, sitting down. She is interrupted by a +loud and universal groan.</p> + +<p>"Says what? Something unpleasant of course, who is it now? Who has done +any thing now? I do hope it is the Brat," cries Bobby, viciously; "it is +quite his turn; he has been good boy of the family for the last week."</p> + +<p>"I dare say it is," replies the Brat, resignedly; "one can't expect such +prosperity as mine to last forever."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is <i>I</i>," says Algy, rather bitterly, "it is always I. I +have never been good boy since I was ploughed; and, please God, I never +will be again."</p> + +<p>"But what is it? what is it? About how bad is it? Is it to be one of our +worst rows?"</p> + +<p>We are all speaking together at the top of our voices; indeed, we rarely +employ a lower key.</p> + +<p>"It is no one; no one has done any thing," replies mother, when, at +last, we allow her to make herself heard, "only your father sends you a +message that, as Sir Roger Tempest is coming here to-day, he hopes you +will make less noise this evening in here than you did last night: he +says he could hardly hear the sound of his own voice."</p> + +<p>"Ahem!" "Very likely!" "I dare say!" in different tones of angry +incredulity.</p> + +<p>"He begs you to see that the swing-door is shut, as he does not wish his +friend to imagine that he keeps a private lunatic asylum."</p> + +<p>A universal snort of indignation.</p> + +<p>"If we are bedlamites, we know who made us so. We will tell old Roger if +he asks," etc.</p> + +<p>"For my part," say I, resolutely pinching my lips together as I kneel on +the carpet, and violently hammer the now cold and hard taffy with the +handle of the poker, which in its day has been put to many uses vile, "I +can tell you that I shall not dine with you to-night: I should +infallibly say something to father—something unfortunate—I feel it +rising; and it would be unseemly to have one of our <i>émeutes</i> before +this old gentleman, would not it?"</p> + +<p>"They are nice breezy things when you are used to them," says Barbara, +laughing; "but one requires to be brought up to them."</p> + +<p>"Do not you dine either, Brat," say I, looking up, and waving the poker +with suave command at him, "and we will broil bones for tea, and roast +potatoes on the shovel."</p> + +<p>"Some of you must dine," says poor mother, rather wearily, "or your +father—"</p> + +<p>"He cannot complain if we send our two specimen ones," say I, again +looking up, and indicating Barbara and Algy with my weapon, "our sample +figs: if Sir Robert—Sir Robin—Sir Roger—what is he?—does not see the +rest of us, he may perhaps imagine that we are all equally presentable, +which would be more to your credit, mother, than if Bobby and Tou Tou +and I were to be submitted to the poor old thing's notice."</p> + +<p>Mother looks rather at sea.</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about? What poor old thing? Oh! I understand."</p> + +<p>"He will have to see us," says Tou Tou, rather lugubriously, "he cannot +help it—at prayers."</p> + +<p>Tou Tou has descended from the table, and is standing propped against +mother's knee, twisting one leg with ingenious grace round the other.</p> + +<p>"Bless your heart," says the Brat, comfortingly, "he will never find out +that we are there: do you suppose that his blear old eyes will see all +across that big room, economically lit up by one pair of candles?"</p> + +<p>Mother smiles.</p> + +<p>"Wait till you see whether he has blear eyes!"</p> + +<p>"He must be very ancient," says Algy, in all the insolence of twenty, +leaning his flat back against the mantel-shelf, "as he was at school +with father."</p> + +<p>"Father has not blear eyes," remarks Bobby, dryly. "Would God he had! +For then perhaps he would not see our little vices quite so clearly with +them as he does."</p> + +<p>"But then father has not been in India," retorts Algy, stretching. +"India plays the deuce with one's organs and appurtenances."</p> + +<p>"I wish you joy of him," say I, rising flushed and untidy from my knees, +having successfully smashed the taffy into little bits; "from soup to +walnuts, you will have to undergo a ceaseless tyranny of tales about +hitmaghars and dak bungalows and Choto Lazery: which of us has not +suffered in our day from the horrible monotony of ideas of an old +Indian?"</p> + +<p>"Never you mind, Barbara!" cries the Brat, giving her a sounding +brotherly pat on the back. "Pay no attention to her."</p> + +<p>"'What great events from trivial causes spring!' as the poet says: you +may live to bless the day that old Roger crossed our doors."</p> + +<p>"As how?" says Barbara, laughing, and rocking herself backward and +forward in a veteran American rocking-chair which, at different periods +of our history, has served most of us the dirty turn of tipping us over, +and presenting us reversed to the eyes of our family.</p> + +<p>"Never you mind," repeats the Brat, oracularly; "truth is stranger than +fiction! odd things happen: I read in the paper the other day of a man +who pulled up the window for an old woman in the train, and she died at +once—I do not mean on the spot, but very soon after, and when she +died—listen, please, all of you—" (speaking very slowly and +impressively)—"she left him <i>two thousand pounds</i> a year."</p> + +<p>"I wish I saw the application," answers Barbara, still rocking and +sighing.</p> + +<p>"Mind that you set a stool for his gouty foot," says Algy, feeling for +his faint mustache, "and run and search for his spectacle-case, when he +has mislaid it."</p> + +<p>"Seriously," say I, "what a grand thing it would be for the family if he +were to adopt you, Barbara!"</p> + +<p>"Or me," suggests the Brat, standing before the fire with his coat-tails +under his arm. "Why not <i>me</i>? My manners to the aged are always +considered particularly happy."</p> + +<p>"Here he is!" cries Tou Tou from the window, whither she has retired, +and now stands, like a heron, on one leg, leaning her elbow on the sill. +"Here is the dog-cart turning the corner!"</p> + +<p>We all make a rush to the casement.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there he is! sure enough! our future benefactor!" says Algy, +looking over the rest of our heads, and making a counterfeit +greeting.—"Welcome, welcome, good old man!"</p> + +<p>"And father, all affability, pointing out the house," supplements Bobby.</p> + +<p>We laugh grimly.</p> + +<p>"But who is it he has in the fly?" say I, as the second vehicle follows +the first. "His harem, I suppose! half a dozen old Wampoos."</p> + +<p>"His valet, to be sure," replies the Brat, chidingly, "with his stays, +and his evening wig, and the calves of his legs."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The wind is even colder than it was, stronger and more withering now +that the sun's faint warmth is withdrawn, and that the small and chilly +stars possess the sky. Nevertheless, both the school-room windows are +open. We are all huddled shivering round the hearth, yet no one talks of +closing them. The fact is, that amateur cooking, though a graceful +accomplishment, has its penalties, and that at the present moment the +smell of broiled bones and fried potatoes that fills our place of +learning is something appalling. Why may not it penetrate beneath the +swing-door, through the passages, and reach the drawing-room? Such a +thing has happened once or twice before. At the bare thought we all +quake. I am in the pleasant situation, just at present, of owning a +chilled body and a blazing face.</p> + +<p>Chiefest among the cooks have I been, and now I am sitting trying to fan +my red cheeks and redder nose, with the back of an old atlas, gutted in +some ancient broil, trying, in deference to Sir Roger, to cool down my +appearance a little against prayer-time. Alas! that epoch is nearer than +I think. Ting! tang! the loud bell is ringing through the house. My hair +is loosened and tumbled with stooping over the fire, and I have burnt a +hole right in the fore front of my gown, by letting a hot cinder fall +from the grate upon it. There is, however, now no time to repair these +dilapidations. We issue from our lair, and <i>en route</i> meet the long +string of servants filing from their distant regions. How is it that the +cook's face is so much, <i>much</i> less red than mine? Prayers are held in +the justicing-room, and thither we are all repairing. The accustomed +scene bursts on my eye. At one end the long, straight row of the +servants, immovably devout, staring at the wall, with their backs to us. +In the middle of the room, facing them, father, kneeling upon a chair +with his hands clutched, and his eyes closed, repeating the church +prayers, as if he were rather angry with them than otherwise. Mother, +kneeling on the carpet beside him, like the faithful, ruffed, and +farthingaled wife on a fifteenth-century tomb. Behind them, again, at +some little distance, we and our visitor. With the best will in the +world to do so, I can get but a meagre view of the latter. The room is +altogether rather dark, it being one of our manners and customs not to +throw much light on prayers, and he has chosen the darkest corner of it. +I only vaguely see the outline of a kneeling figure, evidently neither +bulky nor obese, of a flat back and vigorous shoulders. His face is +generally hidden in his hands, but once or twice he lifts it to scan the +proportions of my late grandfather's preposterously fat cob, whose +portrait hangs on the wall above his head.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt that on some days the devil reigns with a more potent +sway over people than on others. To-night he has certainly entered into +the boys. He often does a little, but this evening he is holding a great +and mighty carnival among them. While father's strong, hard voice +vibrates in a loud, dull monotone through the silent room, they are +engaged in a hundred dumb yet ungodly antics behind his back.</p> + +<p>Algernon has thrust his head far out between the rungs of his +chair-back, and affects to be unable to withdraw it again, making +movements of simulated suffocation. The Brat is stealthily walking on +his knees across the space that intervenes between them to Barbara, with +intent, as I too well know, of unseemly pinchings. If father unbutton +his eyes, or move his head one barley-corn, we are all dead men. I hold +my breath in a nervous agony. Thank Heaven! the harsh recitation still +flows on with equable loud slowness. In happy ignorance of his +offspring's antics, father is still asking, or rather ordering, the +Almighty (for there is more of command than entreaty in his tone) to +prosper the High Court of Parliament. Also the Brat is now returning to +his place, travelling with surprising noiseless rapidity over the Turkey +carpet, dragging his shins and his feet after him. I draw a long breath +of relief, and drop my hot face into my spread hands. My peace, however, +is not of long duration. I am aroused again by a sort of choking snort +from Tou Tou, who is beside me—a snort that seems compounded of mingled +laughter and pain, and, looking up, detect Bobby in the act of deftly +puncturing one of her long bare legs with a long brass pin, which he has +found straying, after the vagabond manner of pins, over the carpet.</p> + +<p>I raise myself, and lean over Tou Tou, to give the offender a silent +buffet of admonition, and, lifting my eyes apprehensively to see if I am +noticed, I meet the blear eyes of Sir Roger fixed upon mine. He has +turned his face quite toward me, and a ray from the candles falls full +upon it. <i>Blear!</i> Well, if his eyes are blear, then henceforth blear +must bear a different signification from the unhandsome one it has +hitherto worn. Henceforth it must mean blue as steel: it must mean clear +as a glass of spring water; keen as a well-tempered knife; kindly as the +early sunshine.</p> + +<p>I am so astonished at my discovery, that I remain for full two minutes +staring blankly at the object of it, while he also looks stealthily at +me; then, recollecting my manners, I burrow my face into my +chair-bottom, and so remain until mother's gentle Amen, and a noise of +shuffling and scrambling to their feet on the part of the congregation, +tell me that the end has come.</p> + +<p>We all go up to father, and coldly and stiffly kiss him. While I am +waiting for my turn to receive our parent's chilly salute, I steal a +second glance at our guest. Yes, he is old certainly. Despite the youth +of his eyes, despite the uprightness, the utter freedom from superfluous +flesh—from the ugly shaky bulkiness of age—in his tall and stalwart +figure, still he is old—old in the eyes of nineteen—as old as father, +perhaps—though in much better preservation—forty-eight or forty-nine; +for is not his hair iron-gray, and his heavy mustache, and the thick and +silky beard that falls on his broad breast, are they not iron-gray too? +I have dropped my small and unwilling kiss on father's forehead—and +said "good-night" in a tone as suppressedly hostile as his own. Now I +may go. We may all go. I am the last, or I think I am, to pass through +the swing-door. I hurry along the passage to join the rest in the +school-room. I upbraid the boys for the rash impiety of their demeanor. +I feel a foot on my garments behind, and hear a long cracking sound that +I too, too well know to mean <i>gathers</i>.</p> + +<p>"You beast!" cried I, in good nervous English, turning sharply round +with my hand raised in act to strike, "that is the third time this week +that you have torn out my—"</p> + +<p>I stop dumfounded. If I mean to box the offender's ears, I must raise my +hand considerably higher than it is at present. Angels and ministers of +grace! what has happened? I have called General Sir Roger Tempest a +<i>beast</i>, and offered to cuff him. For a moment, I am dumfounded. Then, +for shyness has never been my besetting sin, and something in the genial +laughter of his eyes reassures me.</p> + +<p>I hold out the injured portion of my raiment, and say:</p> + +<p>"Look! when you see what you have done, I am sure you will forgive me; +but of course I meant it for Bobby. I never dreamt it was you."</p> + +<p>He takes hold of one end of the rent, I of the other, and we both +examine it.</p> + +<p>"How exceedingly clumsy of me! how could it have happened? I beg your +pardon ten thousand times."</p> + +<p>In his words there is polite remorse and solicitude; in his face only a +friendly mirth. He is old, that is clear. Had he been young, he would +have said, with that variety and suitability of epithets so +characteristic of this generation:</p> + +<p>"I am awfully sorry! how awfully stupid of me! what an awful duffer I +am!"</p> + +<p>The gas is shining in its garish yellow brightness full down upon us, as +we stand together, illuminating my plain, scorched face, the slatternly +looseness of my hair, and the burnt hole in my gown.</p> + +<p>"You will have to give me another," I say, looking up at him and +smiling. I should not have thought of saying it if he had been a young +man, but with a <i>vieux papa</i> one may be at one's ease.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing in the world I should like better," he says, with a +sort of hurry and eagerness, not very suggestive of a <i>vieux papa</i>; "but +really—" (seeing me look rather ashamed of my proposition)—"is it +<i>quite</i> hopeless? the damage quite irremediable?"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary," reply I, tucking my gathers in, with a graceful +movement, at the band of my gown, "five minutes will make it as good as +new—at least" (casting a disparaging eye over its frayed and +taffy-marked surface), "as good as it ever will be in this world."</p> + +<p>A little pause.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I have lost my way," he says, thinking, I fancy, that I look +rather eager to be gone. "I am never very good at the geography of a +strange house."</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, promptly; "you came through <i>our</i> door, instead of your +own; shall I show you the way back?"</p> + +<p>"Since I have come so far, may not I come a little farther?" he asks, +glancing rather longingly at the half-open school-room door, whence +sounds of pious mirth are again beginning to reissue.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean <i>really</i>?" ask I, with a highly-dissuasive inflection of +voice. "Please not to-night; we are all higgledy-piggledy—at sixes and +sevens! To tell you the truth, we have been <i>cooking</i>. I wonder you did +not smell it in the drawing-room."</p> + +<p>Again he looks amused.</p> + +<p>"May not I cook too? I <i>can</i>, though you look disbelieving; there are +few people that can beat me at an Irish stew when I set my mind to it."</p> + +<p>A head (Bobby's) appears round the school-room door.</p> + +<p>"I say, Nancy, who are you colloquing with out there? I believe you have +got hold of our future benefact—"</p> + +<p>An "oh!" of utter discomfiture, and the head is withdrawn.</p> + +<p>"I am keeping you," Sir Roger says. "Well, I will say good-night. You +will shake hands, won't you, to show that you bear no malice?"</p> + +<p>"That I will," reply I, heartily stretching out my right hand, and +giving his a cordial shake. For was not he at school with father?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Day has followed night. The broiled smell has at length evacuated the +school-room, but a good deal of taffy, spilt in the pouring out, still +adheres to the carpet, making it nice and sticky. The wind is still +running roughly about over the earth, and the yellow crocuses, in the +dark-brown garden-borders, opened to their widest extent, are staring up +at the sun. How <i>can</i> they stare so straight up at him without blinking? +I have been trying to emulate them—trying to stare, too, up at him, +through the pane, as he rides laughing, aloft in the faint far sky; and +my presumptuous eyes have rained down tears in consequence. I am trying +now to read; but a hundred thousand things distract me: the sun shining +warm on my shoulder, as I lean against the window; the divine morning +clamor of the birds; their invitations to come out that will take no +nay; and last, but oh! not, <i>not</i> least, the importunate voices of +Barbara and Tou Tou. Every morning at this hour they have a weary tussle +with the verb "aimer," "to love." It is hard that they should have +pitched upon so tender-hearted a verb for the battle-field of so grim a +struggle:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">J'aime, I love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tu aimes, Thou lovest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Il aime, He loves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nous aimons, We love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Vous aimez, You love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ils aiment, They love.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This, with endless variations of ingenious and hideous +inaccuracies—this, interspersed with foolish laughter and bitter tears, +is what I have daily been audience to, for the last two months. The day +before yesterday a great stride was taken; the present tense was +pronounced vanquished, and Barbara and her pupil passed on in triumph to +the imperfect, "j'aimais, I loved, or was loving." To-day, in order to +be quite on the safe side, a return has been made to "j'aime," and it +has been discovered that it has utterly disappeared from our young +sister's memory. "J'aimais, I loved, or was loving," has entirely routed +and dispersed his elder brother, "j'aime, I love." The old strain is, +therefore, desperately resumed:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">J'aime, I love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tu aimes, Thou lovest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Il aime, He loves, etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is making me drowsy. Ten minutes more, and I shall be asleep in the +sun, with my head down-dropped on the window-sill. I get up, and, +putting on my out-door garments, stray out into the sun, leaving +Barbara—her pretty forehead puckered with ineffectual wrath, and Tou +Tou blurred with grimy tears, to their death-struggle with the restive +verb "to love." It is the end of March, and when one can hide round a +corner from the wind, one has a foretaste of summer, in the sun's warm +strength. I gaze lovingly at the rich brown earth, so lately freed from +the frost's grasp, through which the blunt green buds are gently forcing +themselves. I look down the flaming crocus throats—the imperial purple +goblets with powdery gold stamens—and at the modest little pink faces +of the hepaticas. All over our wood there is a faint yet certain purply +shade, forerunner of the summer green, and the loud and sweet-voiced +birds are abroad. O Spring! Spring! with all your searching east winds, +with your late, shriveling frosts, with your occasional untimely sleets +and snows, you are yet as much better than summer as hope is better than +fruition.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">J'aime, I love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tu aimes, Thou lovest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Il aime, He loves.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It runs in my head like some silly refrain. I meet Bobby. I also meet +Vick, my little shivering, smooth, white terrier. They both join me. +The one wriggles herself into the shape of a trembling comma, and, +foolishly chasing herself, rolls over on her back, to demonstrate her +joy at my advent. The other says:</p> + +<p>"Come into the kitchen-garden, and see whether the apricot-flowers are +out on the south wall."</p> + +<p>We pace along the broad and even gravel walk among the red cabbages and +the sea-kale, basking in the sun, whose heat we feel undiminished by the +influence of any bitter blast, in the prison of these four high walls, +against which the long tree-branches are pinioned. In one place, the +pinioning has failed. A long, flower-laden arm has burst from its bonds, +and is dangling loosely down. There is a ladder against the wall, set +for the gardener to replace it.</p> + +<p>"Is it difficult to get up a ladder, Bobby?" ask I, standing still.</p> + +<p>"Difficult! Bless your heart, no! Why?"</p> + +<p>"One can see nothing here," I answer. "I should like to climb up and sit +on the top of the wall, where one can look about one."</p> + +<p>My wish is easy of gratification. Bobby holds the ladder, and I climb +cautiously, rung by rung. Having reached the summit, I sit at ease, with +my legs loosely dangling. There is no broken glass, there are no painful +bottoms of bottles to disturb my ruminant quiet. The air bites a little, +but I am warmly clad, and young. Bobby sits beside me, whistling and +kicking the bricks with his heels. There is the indistinctness of fine +weather over the chain of low round hills that bound our horizon, giving +them a dignity that, on clearer days, they lack. As I sit, many small +and pleasant noises visit my ears, sometimes distinct, sometimes mixed +together; the brook's noise, as it runs, quick and brown, between the +flat, dry March fields; the gray geese's noise, as they screech all +together from the farm-yard; the church-bells' noise, as they ring out +from the distant town, whose roofs and vanes are shining and glinting in +the morning sun.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear the bells?" say I. "Some one has been married this +morning."</p> + +<p>"Do not you wish it was you?" asks Bobby, with a brotherly grin.</p> + +<p>"I should not mind," reply I, picking out a morsel of mortar with my +finger and thumb. "It is about time for one of us to move off, is not +it? And Barbara has made such a signal failure hitherto, that I think it +is but fair that I should try my little possible."</p> + +<p>"All I ask of you is," says Bobby, gravely, "not to take a fellow who +has not got any shooting."</p> + +<p>"I will make it a <i>sine qua non</i>," I answer, seriously.</p> + +<p>A louder screech than ever from the geese, accompanied with +wing-flappings. How unanimous they are! There is not a voice wanting.</p> + +<p>"I wonder how long Sir Roger will stay?" I say presently.</p> + +<p>"What connection of ideas made you think of him?" asks Bobby, curiously. +"Do you suppose that he has any shooting?"</p> + +<p>I break into a laugh.</p> + +<p>"I do not know, I am sure. I do not think it matters much whether he has +or not."</p> + +<p>"I dare say that there are a good many women—old ones, you know—who +would take him, old as he is," says Bobby, with liberality.</p> + +<p>"I dare say," I answer. "I do not know. I am not old, but I am not sure +that I would not rather marry him than be an old maid."</p> + +<p>A pause. Again I laugh—this time a laugh of recollection.</p> + +<p>"What a fool you did look last night!" I say with sisterly candor, "when +you put your head round the school-room door, and found that you had +been witty about him to his face!"</p> + +<p>Bobby reddens, and aims a bit of mortar at a round-eyed robin that has +perched near us.</p> + +<p>"At all events, I did not call him a <i>beast</i>."</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind; do not get angry! What did it matter?" say I, +comfortingly. "You did not mention his name. How could he tell that he +was our benefactor? He did not even know that he was to be; and I begin +to have misgivings about it myself."</p> + +<p>"I cannot say that I see much sign of his putting his hand into his +breeches-pocket," says Bobby, vulgarly.</p> + +<p>There is the click of a lifted latch. We both look in the direction +whence comes the sound. He of whom we speak is entering the garden by a +distant door.</p> + +<p>"Get down, Bobby!" cry I, hurriedly, "and help me down. Make haste! +quick! I would not have him find me perched up here for <i>worlds</i>."</p> + +<p>Bobby gets down as nimbly as a monkey. I prepare to do likewise.</p> + +<p>"Hold it steady!" I cry nervously, and, so saying, begin to turn round +and to stretch out one leg, with the intention of making a graceful +descent backward.</p> + +<p>"Stop!" cries Bobby from the bottom, with a diabolical chuckle. "I think +you observed just now that I looked a fool last night! perhaps you will +not mind trying how it feels!"</p> + +<p>So saying, he seizes the ladder—a light and short one—and makes off +with it. I cry, "Bobby! Bobby!" suppressedly, several times, but I need +hardly say that my appeal is addressed to deaf ears. I remain sitting on +the wall-top, trying to look as if I did not mind, while grave +misgivings possess my soul as to the extent of strong boot and ankle +that my unusual situation leaves visible. Once the desperate idea of +jumping presents itself to my mind, but the ground looks so distant, and +the height so great, that my heart fails me.</p> + +<p>From my watch-tower I trace the progress of Sir Roger between the +fruit-trees. As yet, he has not seen me. Perhaps he will turn into +another walk, and leave the garden by an opposite door, I remaining +undiscovered. No! he is coming toward me. He is walking slowly along, a +cigar in his mouth, and his eyes on the ground, evidently in deep +meditation. Perhaps he will pass me without looking up. Nearer and +nearer he comes, I hold my breath, and sit as still as stone, when, as +ill-luck will have it, just as he is approaching quite close to me, +utterly innocent of my proximity, a nasty, teasing tickle visits my +nose, and I sneeze loudly and irrepressibly. Atcha! atcha! He starts, +and not perceiving at first whence comes the unexpected sound, looks +about him in a bewildered way. Then his eyes turn toward the wall. Hope +and fear are alike at an end. I am discovered. Like Angelina, I—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">.... "stand confessed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A maid in all my charms."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"How—on—earth—did you get up there?" he asks, in an accent of slow +and marked astonishment, not unmixed with admiration.</p> + +<p>As he speaks, he throws away his cigar, and takes his hat off.</p> + +<p>"How on earth am I to get down again? is more to the purpose," I answer, +bluntly.</p> + +<p>"I could not have believed that any thing but a cat could have been so +agile," he says, beginning to laugh. "Would you mind telling me how +<i>did</i> you get up?"</p> + +<p>"By the ladder," reply I, laconically, reddening, and, under the +influence of that same insupportable doubt concerning my ankles, trying +to tuck away my legs under me, a manœuvre which all but succeeds in +toppling me over.</p> + +<p>"The <i>ladder</i>!" (looking round). "Are you quite sure? Then where has it +disappeared to?"</p> + +<p>"I said something that vexed Bobby," reply I, driven to the humiliating +explanation, "and he went off with it. Never mind! once I am down, I +will be even with him!"</p> + +<p>He looks entertained.</p> + +<p>"What will you do? What will you say? Will you make use of the same +excellently terse expression that you applied to me last night?"</p> + +<p>"I should not wonder," reply I, bursting out into uncomfortable +laughter; "but it is no use talking of what I shall do when I am down: I +am not down yet; I wish I were."</p> + +<p>"It is no great distance from the ground," he says, coming nearer the +wall, standing close to where the apricot is showering down her white +and pinky petals. "Are you afraid to jump? Surely not! Try! If you will, +I will promise that you shall come to no hurt."</p> + +<p>"But supposing that I knock you down?" say I, doubtfully. "I really am a +good weight—heavier than you would think to look at me—and coming from +such a height, I shall come with great force."</p> + +<p>He smiles.</p> + +<p>"I am willing to risk it; if you do knock me down, I can but get up +again."</p> + +<p>I require no warmer invitation. With arms extended, like the sails of a +windmill, I hurl myself into the embrace of Sir Roger Tempest. The next +moment I am standing beside him on the gravel-walk, red and breathless, +but safe.</p> + +<p>"I hope I did not hurt you much," I say with concern, turning toward him +to make my acknowledgments, "but I really am very much obliged to you; I +believe that, if you had not come by, I should have been left there till +bedtime."</p> + +<p>"It must have been a very unpleasant speech that you made to deserve so +severe a punishment," he says, looking back at me, with a kindly and +amused curiosity.</p> + +<p>I do not gratify his inquisitiveness.</p> + +<p>"It was something not quite polite," I answer, shortly.</p> + +<p>We walk on in silence, side by side. My temper is ruffled. I am planning +five distinct and lengthy vengeances against Bobby.</p> + +<p>"I dare say," says my companion presently, "that you are wondering what +brought me in here now—what attraction a kitchen-garden could have for +me, at a time of year when not the most sanguine mind could expect to +find any thing good to eat in it."</p> + +<p>"At least, it is sheltered," I answer, shivering, thrusting my hands a +little farther into the warm depths of my muff.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of old days," he says, with a hazy, wistful smile. "Ah! +you have not come to the time of life for doing that yet. Do you know, I +have not been here since your father and I were lads of eleven and +twelve together?"</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> were eleven, and <i>he</i> was twelve, I am sure," say I, +emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"You look <i>so much</i> younger than he," I answer, looking frankly and +unembarrassedly up into his face.</p> + +<p>"Do I?" (with a pleased smile). "It is clear, then, that one cannot +judge of one's self; on the rare occasions when I look in the glass it +seems to me that, in the course of the last five years, I have grown +into a <i>very</i> old fogy."</p> + +<p>"He looks as if he had been so much oftener vexed, and so much seldomer +pleased than you do," continued I, mentally comparing the smooth though +weather-beaten benignity of the straight-cut features beside me, with +the austere and frown-puckered gravity of my father's.</p> + +<p>"Does he?" he answers, with an air of half-surprised interest, as if the +subject had never struck him in that light before. "Poor fellow! I am +sorry if it is so. Ah, you see"—with a smile—"he has <i>six</i> more +reasons for wrinkles than I have."</p> + +<p>"You mean us, I suppose," I answer matter-of-factly. "As to that, I +think he draws quite as many wrinkles on our faces as we do on his." +Then, rather ashamed of my over-candor, I add, with hurried bluntness, +"You have never been married, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>He half turns away his head.</p> + +<p>"No—not yet! I have not yet had that good fortune."</p> + +<p>I am inwardly amused at the power of his denial. Surely, surely he might +say in the words of Lancelot:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Had I chosen to wed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"And you?" he asks, turning with an accent of playfulness toward me.</p> + +<p>"Not yet," I answer, laughing, "and most likely I shall have to answer +'not yet' to that question as often as it is put to me till the end of +the chapter."</p> + +<p>"Why so?"</p> + +<p>I shrug my shoulders.</p> + +<p>"In moments of depression it strikes Barbara and me, that me and Tou Tou +shall end by being three old cats together."</p> + +<p>"Are you so anxious to be married?" he asks with an air of wonder, "in +such a hurry to leave so happy a home?"</p> + +<p>"Every one knows best where his own shoe pinches," I answer +vernacularly. "I am afraid that it does not sound very lady-like, but +since you ask me the question, I <i>am</i> rather anxious. Barbara is not: +<i>I</i> am."</p> + +<p>A shade of I cannot exactly say what emotion—it <i>looks</i> like +disappointment, but surely it cannot be that—passes across the sunshine +of his face.</p> + +<p>"All my plans hinge on my marrying," I continue, feeling drawn, I do not +know how or why, into confidential communication to this almost total +stranger, "and what is more, on my marrying a rich man."</p> + +<p>"And what are your plans?" he asks, with an air of benevolent interest, +but that unexplained shade is still there.</p> + +<p>"Their name is Legion," I answer; "you will be very tired before I get +to the end of them."</p> + +<p>"Try me."</p> + +<p>"Firstly then," say I, narratively, "my husband must have a great deal +of interest in several professions—the army, the navy, the bar—so as +to give the boys a helping hand; then he must have some shooting—good +shooting for them; for them all, that is, except Bobby! <i>never</i> shall +<i>he</i> fire a gun in my preserves!"</p> + +<p>My mind again wanders away to my vengeances, and I break off.</p> + +<p>"Well!"</p> + +<p>"He must also keep two or three horses for them to hunt: Algy <i>loves</i> +hunting, but he hardly ever gets a day. He is so big, poor dear old boy, +that nobody ever gives him a mount—"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I should like to be able to have some nice parties—dancing +and theatricals, and that sort of thing, for Barbara—father will never +hardly let us have a soul here—and to buy her some pretty dresses to +set off her beauty—"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"And then I should like to have a nice, large, cheerful house, where +mother could come and stay with me, for two or three months at a time, +and get <i>clear</i> away from the worries of house-keeping and—" the +tyranny of father, I am about to add, but pull myself up with a jerk, +and substitute lamely and stammeringly "and—and—others."</p> + +<p>"Any thing else?"</p> + +<p>"I should not at all mind a donkey-carriage for Tou Tou, but I shall not +<i>insist</i> upon that."</p> + +<p>He is smiling broadly now. The shade has fled away, and only sunshine +remains.</p> + +<p>"And what for yourself? you seem to have forgotten yourself!"</p> + +<p>"For myself!" I echo, in surprise, "I have been telling you—you cannot +have been listening—all these things are for myself."</p> + +<p>Again he has turned his face half away.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will get your wish," he says shortly and yet heartily.</p> + +<p>I laugh. "That is so probable, is not it? I am so likely to fall in with +a rich young man of weak intellect who is willing to marry all the whole +six of us, for that is what he would have to do, and so I should explain +to him."</p> + +<p>Sir Roger is looking at me again with an odd smile—not disagreeable in +any way—not at all hold-cheap, or as if he were sneering at me for a +simpleton, but merely <i>odd</i>.</p> + +<p>"And you think," he says, "that when he hears what is expected of him he +will withdraw?"</p> + +<p>Again I laugh heartily and rather loudly, for the idea tickles me, and, +in a large family, one gets into the habit of raising one's voice, else +one is not heard.</p> + +<p>"I am so sadly sure that he will never come forward, that I have never +taken the trouble to speculate as to whether, if he did, my greediness +would make him retire again."</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"Now that I come to think of it, though," continue I, after a pause, "I +have no manner of doubt that he would."</p> + +<p>Apparently Sir Roger is tired of the subject of my future prospects, for +he drops it. We have left the kitchen-garden—have passed through the +flower-garden—have reached the hall-door. I am irresolutely walking up +the stone steps that mount to it, not being able to make up my mind as +to whether or no I should make some sort of farewell observation to my +companion, when his voice follows me. It seems to me to have a +dissuasive inflection.</p> + +<p>"Are you going in?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," I answer uncertainly, "I suppose so."</p> + +<p>He looks at his watch.</p> + +<p>"It is quite early yet—not near luncheon-time—would it bore you very +much to take a turn in the park? I think" (with a smile) "that you are +quite honest enough to say so if it would: or, if you did not, I should +read it on your face."</p> + +<p>"Would you?" say I, a little piqued. "I do not think you would: I assure +you that my face can tell stories, at a pinch, as well as its neighbor."</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>would</i> it bore you?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all! not at all!" reply I briskly, beginning to descend again; +"but one thing is very certain, and that is that it will bore <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"Why should it?"</p> + +<p>"If I say what I was going to say you will think that it is on purpose +to be contradicted," I answer, unlatching the gate in the fence, and +entering the park.</p> + +<p>"And if I do, much you will mind," he answers, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," say I, candidly, looking down at my feet as they trip +quickly along through the limp winter grass, "there is no use blinking +the fact that I have no conversation—none of us have. We can gabble +away among ourselves like a lot of young rooks, about all sorts of silly +home jokes, that nobody but us would see any fun in; but when it comes +to real talk—"</p> + +<p>I pause expressively.</p> + +<p>"I do not care for <i>real talk</i>," he says, looking amused; "I like +<i>gabble</i> far, far better. I wish you would gabble a little now."</p> + +<p>But the request naturally ties my tongue tight up.</p> + +<p>"This is the tree that they planted when father was born," I say, +presently, in a stiff, <i>cicerone</i> manner, pointing to a straight and +strong young oak, which is lifting its branchy head, and the fine +net-work of its brown twigs, to the cold, pale sky.</p> + +<p>Sir Roger leans his arms on the top of the palings that surround the +tree.</p> + +<p>"Ah! eight-and-forty years ago! eight-and-forty years ago!" he repeats +to himself with musing slowness. "Hard upon half a century!"</p> + +<p>I turn over in my own mind whether I should do well to make some +observation of a trite and copy-book nature on the much greater duration +of trees than men, but reflecting that the application of the remark may +be painful to a person so elderly as the gentleman beside me, I abstain. +However, he does something of the kind himself.</p> + +<p>"To think that it should be such a stripling," he says, looking with a +half-pensive smile at the straight young trunk, "hardly out of the +petticoat age, and <i>we</i>—he and I—such a couple of old wrecks!"</p> + +<p>It never occurs to me that it would be polite, and even natural, to +contradict him. Why should not he call himself an old wreck, if it +amuses him? I suppose he only means to express a gentleman decidedly in +the decline of life, which, in my eyes, he is; so I say kindly and +acquiescingly—</p> + +<p>"Yes, it <i>is</i> rather hard, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"Forty-one—forty-two—yes, forty-two years since I first saw him," he +continues, reflectively, "running about in short, stiff, white +petticoats and bare legs, and going bawling to his mother, because he +tumbled up those steps to the hall-door, and cut his nose open."</p> + +<p>I lift my face out of my muff, in which, for the sake of warmth, I have +been hiding it, and, opening my mouth, give vent to a hearty and +undutiful roar of laughter.</p> + +<p>"Cut his nose open!" repeat I, indistinctly. "How pleased he must have +been, and what sort of a nose was it? already hooked? It never <i>could</i> +have been the conventional button, <i>that</i> I am sure of; <i>yours</i> was, I +dare say, but <i>his</i>—<i>never</i>. Good Heavens!" (with a sudden change of +tone, and disappearance of mirth) "here he is! Come to look for you, no +doubt! I—I—think I may go now, may not I?"</p> + +<p>"Go!" repeats he, looking at me with unfeigned wonder. "Why? It is more +likely <i>you</i> that he has missed, <i>you</i>, who are no doubt his daily +companion."</p> + +<p>"Not quite daily," I answer, with a fine shake of irony, which, by +reason of his small acquaintance with me, is lost on my friend. "Two, +you know, is company, and three none. Yes, if you do not mind, I think +it must be getting near luncheon-time. I will go."</p> + +<p>So I disappear through the dry, knotted tussocks of the park grass.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p>"Friends, Romans, and countrymen!" say I, on that same afternoon, +strutting into the school-room, with my left hand thrust oratorically +into the breast of my frock, and my right loftily waving, "I wish to +collect your suffrages on a certain subject. Tell me," sitting down on a +hard chair, and suddenly declining into a familiar and colloquial tone, +"have you seen any signs of derangement in father lately?"</p> + +<p>"None more than usual," answers Algy, sarcastically, lifting his pretty, +disdainful nose out of his novel. "If, as the Eton Latin Grammar says, +<i>ira</i> is a <i>brevis furor</i> you, will agree with me that he is pretty +often out of his mind, in fact, a good deal oftener than he is in it."</p> + +<p>"No, but <i>really</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Put down all your books!" say I, impressively. "Listen attentively. +Bobby, stop see-sawing that chair, it makes me feel deadly sick. Ah! my +young friend, <i>you</i> will rue the day when you kept me sitting on the top +of that wall—"</p> + +<p>I break off.</p> + +<p>"Go on! go on!" in five different voices of impatience.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, father has sent a message by mother to the effect that <i>I</i> +am to dine with them to-night—<i>I</i>, if you please—<i>I!</i>—you must own" +(lengthening my neck as I speak, and throwing up my untidy flax head) +"that sweet Nancies are looking up in the world."</p> + +<p>A silence of stupefaction falls on the assembly. After a pause—</p> + +<p>"YOU?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>I!</i>"</p> + +<p>"And how do you account for it?"</p> + +<p>"I believe," reply I, simpering, "that our future benefac—, no! I +really must give up calling him that, or I shall come out with it to his +face, as Bobby did last night. Well, then, Sir Roger asked me why I did +not appear yesterday. I suppose he thought that I looked so <i>very</i> grown +up, that they must be keeping me in pinafores by force."</p> + +<p>Algy has risen. He is coming toward me. He has pulled me off my chair. +He has taken me by the shoulders, and is turning me round to face the +others.</p> + +<p>"Allow me!" he says, bowing, and making me bow, too, "to introduce you +to the future legatee!—Barbara, my child, you and I are <i>nowhere</i>. This +depraved old man has clearly no feeling for symmetry of form or face; a +long career of Begums has utterly vitiated his taste. To-morrow he will +probably be clamoring for Tou Tou's company."</p> + +<p>"Brat!" says Barbara, laughing, "where has the analogy between me and +the man who pulled up the window in the train for the old woman gone +to?"</p> + +<p>"Mother said I was to look as nice as I could," say I, casting a rueful +glance at the tea-board, at the large plum loaf, at the preparations for +temperate conviviality. I have sat down on the threadbare blue-and-red +hearth-rug, and am shading my face with a pair of cold pink hands, from +the clear, quick blaze. "What <i>am</i> I to wear?" I say, gloomily. "None of +my frocks are ironed, and there is no time now. I shall look as if I +came out of the dirty clothes-basket! Barbara, dear, will you lend me +your blue sash? Last time I wore mine the Brat upset the gum-bottle over +my ends."</p> + +<p>"Let us each have the melancholy pleasure of contributing something +toward the decking of our victim," says Algy, with a grin; "have my +mess-jacket!"</p> + +<p>"Have as many beads as you can about you," puts in Bobby. "Begums always +have plenty of beads."</p> + +<p>A little pause, while the shifting flame-light makes small pictures of +us on the deep-bodied teapot's sides, and throws shadowy profiles of us +on the wall.</p> + +<p>"Mother said, too, that I was to try and not say any of my unlucky +things!" I remark, presently.</p> + +<p>"Do not tell him," says Bobby, ill-naturedly, "as you told poor Captain +Saunders the other day, that 'they always put the fool of the family +into the army.'"</p> + +<p>"I did not say so of myself," cry I, angrily. "I only told it him as a +quotation."</p> + +<p>"Abstain from quotations, then," retorts Bobby, dryly; "for you know in +conversation one does not see the inverted commas."</p> + +<p>"What <i>shall</i> I talk about?" say I, dropping my shielding hand into my +lap, and letting the full fire-warmth blaze on eyes, nose, and cheeks. +"Barbara, what <i>did</i> you talk about?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever I talked about," replies Barbara, gayly, "they clearly were +not successful topics, so I will not reveal what they were."</p> + +<p>Barbara is standing by the tea-table, thin and willowy, a tea-caddy in +one hand, and a spoon in the other, ladling tea into the deep-bodied +pot—a spoonful for each person and one for the pot.</p> + +<p>"I will draw you up a list of subjects to be avoided," says Algy, +drawing his chair to the table, and pulling a pencil out of his +waistcoat-pocket. "Here, Tou Tou, tear a leaf out of your +copy-book—imprimis, <i>old age</i>."</p> + +<p>"You are wrong there," cry I, triumphantly, "<i>quite</i> wrong; he is rather +fond of talking of his age, harps upon it a good deal. He said to-day +that he was an <i>old wreck</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Of course he meant you to contradict him!" says Bobby, cackling, "and, +from the little I know of you, I am morally certain that you did +not—<i>did</i> you, now?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no!" reply I, rather crestfallen; "I certainly did not. I would, +though, in a minute, if I had thought that he wanted it."</p> + +<p>"I wish," says Barbara, shutting the caddy with a snap, "that Providence +had willed to send the dear old fellow into the world twenty years later +than it did. In that case I should not at all have minded trying to be a +comfort to him."</p> + +<p>"He must have been very good-looking, must not he?" say I, pensively, +staring at the red fire-caverns. "Very—before his hair turned gray. I +wonder what color it was?"</p> + +<p>Visions of gold yellow, of sunshiny brown, of warm chestnut locks, +travel in succession before my mind's eye, and try in turn to adjust +themselves to the good and goodly weather-worn face, and wide blue eyes +of my new old friend.</p> + +<p>"It is so nice and curly even now," I go on, "twice as curly as Algy's."</p> + +<p>"Tongs," replies Algy, with short contempt, looking up from his list of +prohibitions.</p> + +<p>"<i>Very</i> good-looking!" repeat I, dogmatically, entirely ignoring the +last suggestion.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps when this planet was young!" retorts he, with the superb +impertinence of twenty.</p> + +<p>"You talk as if he were eighty years old," cry I, with an unaccountably +<i>personal</i> feeling of annoyance. "He is <i>only</i> forty-seven!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Only</i> forty-seven!"</p> + +<p>And they all laugh.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must be going, I suppose," cry I, leisurely rising, stretching, +sighing, and beginning to collect the various articles of my wardrobe, +scattered over the furniture. "Good-by, dear teapot! good-by, dear plum +loaf! <i>how</i> I wish I was going to stay with you! It really is ten +minutes past dressing-time, and father is always so pleased when one +keeps him waiting for his soup."</p> + +<p>"He would not say any thing to you to-day if you <i>were</i> late," says +Bobby, astutely. "You might tumble over his gouty foot, and he would +smile! Are we not the most united family in Christendom—<i>when we have +company</i>?"</p> + +<p>After all, I need not have disquieted myself; I am in very good time. +When I open the drawing-room door, and make my entrance in the borrowed +splendor of Barbara's broad blue-sash tails, and the white virginity of +my own muslin frock, I find that neither of my parents have as yet made +their appearance. Sir Roger has the hearth-rug to himself; at least he +only shares it with Vick, and she is asleep; sitting very upright, it is +true, with her thin tail round her toes, like a cat's, her head and +whole body swaying from side to side in indisputable slumber. At sight +of the chaste and modest apparition that the opened door yields to his +gaze, an exclamation of pleasure escapes him—at least it sounds like +pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Ah! this is all right! You are here to-night at all events; but, +by-the-by, what became of you yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"What always becomes of me?" reply I, bluntly, lifting my grave gray +eyes to his face, and to the hair which sweeps thick and waved above his +broad brown forehead. (Tongs indeed!)</p> + +<p>"I remember that you told me you had been <i>cooking</i>, but you cannot cook +<i>every</i> night."</p> + +<p>"Not quite," reply I, with a short smile, stretching my hands to the +blaze.</p> + +<p>"But do not you dine generally?"</p> + +<p>"Never when I can possibly help it," I reply, with emphasis. And no +sooner are the words out of my mouth than I see that I have already +transgressed my mother's commands, and given vent to one of "my unlucky +things." I stand silent and ashamed, reflecting that no after-tinkering +will mend my unfortunate speech.</p> + +<p>"And to-night you could not help it?" he asks, after a slight, hardly +perceptible pause.</p> + +<p>I look up to answer him. He is forty-seven years old. He is a general, +and a sir, and has been in every known land; has killed big and little +beasts, and known big and little people, and I am nineteen and nobody, +and have rarely been beyond our own park and parish, and my acquaintance +is confined to half a dozen turnipy squires and their wives; and yet he +is looking snubbed, and it is I that have snubbed him. Well, I cannot +help it. Truth is truth; and so I answer, in a low voice:</p> + +<p>"No, father said I was to."</p> + +<p>"And you look upon it as a great penance?" he says, still with that +half-disappointed accent.</p> + +<p>"To be sure I do," reply I, briskly. "So does Barbara. Ask her if she +does not. So would you, if you were I."</p> + +<p>"And why?"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" say I, hearing a certain heavy, well-known, slow footfall. "He +is coming! I will tell you by-and-by—when we are by ourselves."</p> + +<p>After all, how convenient an elderly man is! I could not have said that +to any of the young squires!</p> + +<p>His blue eyes are smiling in the fire-light, as, leaning one strong +shoulder against the mantel-piece, he turns to face me more fully.</p> + +<p>"And when are we likely to be by ourselves?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do not know," reply I, indifferently. "Any time."</p> + +<p>And then father enters, and I am dumb. Presently, dinner is announced, +and we walk in; I on father's arm. He addresses me several times with +great <i>bonhomie</i> and I respond with nervous monosyllables. Father is +always suavity itself to us, when we have guests; but, when one is not +in the habit of being treated with affability, it is difficult to enter +into the spirit of the joke. Several times I catch our guest's frank +eyes, watching me with inquiring wonder, as I respond with brief and +low-voiced hurry to some of my parent's friendly and fatherly queries as +to the disposition of my day. And I sit tongue-tied and hungry—for, +thank God, I have always had a large appetite—dumb as the butler and +footman—dumb as the racing-cups on the sideboard—dumber than Vick, +who, being a privileged person, is standing—very tall—on her +hind-legs, and pawing Sir Roger's coat-sleeve, with a small, impatient +whine.</p> + +<p>"Why, Nancy, child!" says father, helping himself to sweetbread, and +smiling, "what made you in such a hurry to get away this morning out of +the park?"</p> + +<p>(Why can't he always speak in that voice? always smile?—even his nose +looks a different shape.)</p> + +<p>"Near—luncheon-time," reply I, indistinctly, with my head bent so low +that my nose nearly touches the little square of bare neck that my +muslin frock leaves exposed.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it—half an hour off.—Why, Roger, I am afraid you had not +been making yourself agreeable! eh, Nancy?"</p> + +<p>"No," say I, mumbling, "that is—yes—quite so."</p> + +<p>"I was <i>very</i> agreeable, as it happened—rather more brilliant than +usual, if possible, was not I? And, to clear my character, and prove +that you thought so, you will take me out for another walk, some day, +will not you?"</p> + +<p>At the sound of his voice so evidently addressing me, I look up—look at +him.</p> + +<p>"Yes! with pleasure! when you like!" I answer heartily, and I neither +mumble nor stutter, nor do I feel any disposition to drop my eyes. I +<i>like</i> to look at him. For the rest of dinner I am absolutely mute, I +make only one other remark, and that is a request to one of the footmen +to give me some water. The evening passes. It is but a short one—at +least, as regards the company of the gentlemen, for they sit late; +father's port, I am told, not being to be lightly left for any female +frippery. I retire to the school-room, and regale my brethren with +lively representations of father's unexampled benignity. I also resume +with Algy the argument about <i>tongs</i>, at the very point where I had +dropped it. It lasts till prayer-time; and its monotony is relieved by +personalities. The devil in the boys is fairly quiescent to-night, and +our evening devotions pass over with tolerable peace; the only +<i>contretemps</i> being that the Brat, having fallen asleep, remains on his +knees when "Amen" raises the rest of the company from theirs, and has to +be privily and heavily kicked to save him from discovery and ruin. +Having administered the regulation embrace to father, and heartily +kissed mother—not but what I shall see her again; she always comes, as +she came when we were little, to kiss us in bed—I turn to find Sir +Roger holding open the swing-door for us.</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure about it to-night?" I say, stretching out my hand to +him to bid him good-night. "<i>Ours</i> on the right—<i>yours</i> on the left—do +you see?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Yours</i> on the right—<i>mine</i> on the left," he repeats, "Yes—I see—I +shall make no more mistakes—unless I make one on purpose."</p> + +<p>"Do not come without telling us beforehand!" I cry, earnestly. "I mean +<i>really</i>: if you hold a vague threat of paying us a visit over our +heads, you will keep us in a state of unnatural tidiness for days."</p> + +<p>I make a move toward retiring, but he still has hold of my hand.</p> + +<p>"And about our walk?"</p> + +<p>The others—boys and girls—have passed us: the servants have melted out +of sight; so has mother; father is speaking to the butler in the +passage—we are alone.</p> + +<p>"Yes? what about it?" I ask, my eyes calmly resting on his.</p> + +<p>"You will not forget it?"</p> + +<p>"Not I!" reply I, lightly. "I want to hear the end of the anecdote about +father's nose! I cannot get over the idea of him in a stiff white +petticoat: I thought of it at dinner, whenever I looked at him!"</p> + +<p>At the mention of father, his face falls a little.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says, abruptly, taking possession of my other hand also, +"why did you answer your father so shortly to-day? Why did you look so +scared when he tried to joke with you?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, why?" reply I, laughing awkwardly.</p> + +<p>"You are not <i>afraid</i> of him, surely?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no—not at all!"</p> + +<p>"Why do you speak in that sneering voice? It is not your own voice; I +have known you only twenty-four hours, and yet I can tell that."</p> + +<p>"I will not answer any more questions," reply I, recovering both hands +with a sudden snatch: "and if you ask me any more, I will not take you +out walking! there!"</p> + +<p>So I make off, laughing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom," say I slowly next +morning, as I stand by the window, trying to see clearly through the +dimmed and tearful pane. "The king would have to do without his ransom +to-day."</p> + +<p>It is raining <i>mightily</i>; strong, straight, earnest rain, that harshly +lashes the meek earth, that sends angry runlets down the gravel walks, +that muddies the gold goblets of the closed crocuses.</p> + +<p>"And you without your walk!" says Barbara, lifting her face from her +stitching. "Poor Miss Nancy!"</p> + +<p>"There is not enough blue sky to make a cat a pair of breeches!" cries +Bobby, despondently, and with his usual vulgarity.</p> + +<p>Sometimes I am tempted to fear that Bobby is hopelessly +ungenteel—ungenteel for life. He has now taken possession of another +window, and is consulting the eastern sky.</p> + +<p>"A ransomless king, and a trouserless cat! That is about the state of +the case!" say I, turning away from the window with a grin.</p> + +<p>After all, now I come to think of it, I am nearly as vulgar as Bobby. +But I am right. Through the day, through the long, light, cold evening, +the posture of the weather changes not. To-day, Barbara, Algy, and I, +are all constrained to dine; for have not we a dinner-party, or rather a +mild simulation of one?—a squire or two, a squiress or two, a curate or +two—such odd-come-shorts as can be got together in a scattered country +neighborhood at briefest notice. Barbara and I, as it happens, are both +late. It is five minutes past eight, when with the minor details of our +toilets a good deal slurred, with a paucity of bracelets and lack of +necessary pins, we hurriedly and sneakingly enter the drawing-room, and +find all our guests already come together. Mother gives us an almost +imperceptible glance of gentle reproach, but father is so occupied in +bantering a strange miss—banter in which the gallant and the fatherly +happily join to make that manner which is the envy and admiration of the +neighborhood—that he seems unconscious of our entrance. An intuition, +however, tells us that this is not the case, but that he is making a +note of it. This depresses us so much that, until song and sherry have +comforted and emboldened us, we have not spirits to make any effort +toward the entertainment of our neighbors. We have been paired with a +couple of curates. Mine is a strong-handed, ingenuous Ishmael, who tells +everybody that he hates his trade, and that he thinks it is very hard +that he may not get out of it, now that his elder brother is dead. I am +thankful to say that his appetite is as vast as his shoulders; so, after +I have told him that I <i>love</i> raw oysters, and that Barbara cannot sit +in the room with a roast hare; and have heard in return that he does not +care about brill, but worships John Dory, we slide into a gluttonous +silence, and abide in it. Barbara's man of God is in a wholly different +pattern to mine. He is a macerated little saint, with the eyes of a +ferret and the heart of a mouse. As the courses pass by, in savory +order, I, myself unemployed, watch my sister gradually reassuring, +comforting, heartening him, as is her way with all weakly, maimed, and +unhandsome creatures. She has succeeded in thawing him into a thin +trickle of parochial talk, when mother bends her laced and feathered +head in distant signal from the table-top, and off we go. We drink +coffee, we drink tea, we pick clever little holes in our absent +neighbors, in brisk duet and tortuous solo we hammer the blameless +spinnet, we sing affecting songs about "fair doves," and "cleansing +fires," and people "far away," and still our deliverers come not. They +<i>must</i> hear our appealing melodies clearly through the walls and doors, +but still they come not. Sunk in sloth and old port, still they come +not. I seem to have said every possible thing that is to be said on +every known subject to the young woman beside me, and now I am falling +asleep. I feel it. Lulled by the warm glow diffused through the room, by +the smell of the jonquils, lilies of the valley and daphnes, by the low +even talk, I am slipping into slumber. The door opens, and I jump into +wakefulness; Sir Roger to the rescue. I am afraid that I look at him +with something not unlike invitation in my eyes, for he makes straight +toward me.</p> + +<p>"Wish me good-morning," say I, rubbing my eyes, "for I have been sweetly +asleep. I fell asleep wondering which of you would come first—somehow I +thought it would be you. Are you going to sit here? Oh! that is all +right!" as he subsides into the next division of the ottoman to mine. +"What have you been talking about?" I continue, with a contented, chatty +feeling, leaning my elbow on the blue-satin ottoman-top; "any thing +pleasant? Did not you hear our screams for help through the wall?"</p> + +<p>"Have not we come in answer to them?"</p> + +<p>Yes; they are all here now, at last; all, from father down to the +curates; some sitting resolutely down, some standing uncertainly up. +Barbara's <i>protégé</i>, with frightened stealth, is edging round the +furniture to where she sits on a little chair alone. Barbara is +locketless, braceletless, chainless, head-dressless! such was our +unparalleled haste to abscond. Ornaments has she none but those that God +has given her: a sweep of blond hair, a long, cool throat, and two +smooth arms that lie bare and white as any milk on her lap. As he +nervously draws near, she lifts her eyes with a lovely friendliness to +his face. He is poor, slightly thought of, sickly, not over-clever; +probably she will talk to him all the evening.</p> + +<p>"Look at Barbara!" say I, with deep admiration, familiarly laying my +hand on Sir Roger's coat-sleeve, to make sure of engaging his attention, +"that is always her way! Did you ever see any thing so cruelly shy as +that poor little man is? See! he is wriggling all over like an eel! He +came to call the other day, and while he was talking to mother I watched +him. He tore a pair of quite new tea-green gloves into thin strips, like +little thongs! He must find it rather expensive work, if he makes many +morning calls, must he not?"</p> + +<p>"Rather!"</p> + +<p>"I am sure that you and Barbara would get on," continue I, loquaciously, +leaning my head on my hand, and talking in that low, comfortable voice +that our proximity warrants; "I cannot understand how it was that you +did not make great friends that first night! I suppose that you are not +poor and ugly and depressed enough for her to make much of you! Shall I +make a sign to her to come over and talk to us?"</p> + +<p>Sir Roger does not accept my proposal with the alacrity I had expected.</p> + +<p>"Do not you think that she looks very comfortable where she is?" he +asks, rather doubtfully.</p> + +<p>I am a little disappointed.</p> + +<p>"I am sure she would like you," I say, with a dogmatic shake of the +head. "I told her that you were—well, that <i>I</i> got on with you, and we +always like the same people."</p> + +<p>"That must be awkward sometimes?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? Oh! not in <i>that</i> way—" (with an unblushing +heart-whole laugh). "Lucky for me that we do not."</p> + +<p>"Lucky for <i>you</i>?" (interrogatively).</p> + +<p>"Why <i>will</i> you make me say things that sound mock-modest?" cry I, +reddening a little this time. "You know perfectly well what I mean—it +is not likely that any one would <i>look</i> at me when Barbara was by—you +can have no notion," continue I, speaking very fast to avoid +contradiction, "how well she looks when she is dancing—never gets hot, +or flushed, or <i>mottled</i>, as so many people do."</p> + +<p>"And <i>you</i>? how do <i>you</i> look?"</p> + +<p>"I grow purple," I answer, laughing—"a rich imperial purple, all over. +If you had once seen me, you would never forget me."</p> + +<p>"Go on: tell me something more about Barbara!"</p> + +<p>He has settled himself with an air of extreme repose and enjoyment. We +really <i>are</i> very comfortable.</p> + +<p>"Well," say I, nothing loath, for I have always dearly loved the sound +of my own voice, "do you see that man on the hearth-rug?—do not look at +him this very minute, or he will know that we are speaking of him. I +cannot imagine why father has asked him here to-night—he wants to marry +Barbara; he has never said it, but I know he does: the boys—we all, +indeed—call him <i>Toothless Jack</i>! he is not old <i>really</i>, I +suppose—not more than fifty, that is; but for Barbara!—"</p> + +<p>I think that Sir Roger is beginning to find me rather tiresome: +evidently he is not listening: he has even turned away his head.</p> + +<p>There is a movement among the guests, the first detachment are bidding +good-night, the rest speedily do the like. Father follows his favorite +miss into the hall, cloaks her with gallant care, and through the door I +hear him playfully firing off parting jests at her as she drives away. +Then he returns to the drawing-room. Sir Roger has gone to put on his +smoking-coat, I suppose. Father is alone with his wife and his two +lovely daughters. We make a faint movement toward effacing ourselves, +but our steps are speedily checked.</p> + +<p>"Barbara! Nancy!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, father" (in a couple of very small voices).</p> + +<p>"May I ask what induced you to keep my guests waiting half an hour for +their dinner to-night?"</p> + +<p>No manner of answer. <i>How</i> hooked his nose looks! how fearfully like a +hawk he has grown all in a minute!</p> + +<p>"When you have houses of your own," he continues with iced politeness, +"you may of course treat your visitors to what vagaries you please, but +as long as you deign to honor <i>my</i> roof with your presence, you will be +good enough to behave to my guests with decent civility, do you hear?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Roger, how is the glass? up or down? What is it doing? Are we to +have a fine day to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>For Roger apparently has got quickly into his smoking-coat: at least he +is here: he has heard all. Barbara and I <i>crawl</i> away with no more +spring or backbone in us than a couple of torpid, wintery flies.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later, "Do you wonder that we hate him?" cry I, with +flaming cheeks, holding a japanned candlestick in one hand, and Sir +Roger's right hand in the other.</p> + +<p>"I do not care if he <i>does</i> hear me!—yes, I do, though" (giving a great +jump as a door bangs close to me).</p> + +<p>Sir Roger is looking down at me with an expression of most thorough +discomfiture and silent pain in his face.</p> + +<p>"He did not mean it, Nancy!" he says, hesitatingly, and with a sort of +look of shamed wonder in his friendly eyes.</p> + +<p>"<i>Did</i> not he?" (ironically).</p> + +<p>A little pause, the position of the japanned candlestick and of Sir +Roger's hand still remaining the same. "<i>How</i> I wish that <i>you</i> were my +father instead!" I say with a sort of sob. He does not, as I fully +expect, say, "So do I!" and I go to bed, feeling rather small, as one +who has <i>gushed</i>, and whose gush has not been welcome to the recipient.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>A fortnight has passed. Two Sundays, two Mondays, two Tuesdays, etc. +Fourteen times have I sleepily laid head on pillow. Fourteen times have +I yawningly raised it from my pillow. Fourteen times have I hungrily +eaten my dinner, since the night when I stood in the hall with Sir +Roger's hand in mine, raging against my parent. And Sir Roger is here +still. After all, there is nothing like the tenacity of boyish +friendship, is there?</p> + +<p>I suppose that, to Sir Roger, father is still the manly, debonair youth +that he remembers thirty years ago. In happy ignorance he slurs over the +thirty intervening years of moroseness, and goes back to that blest +epoch in which I have so much difficulty in believing, and about which +he, walking beside me now and again through the tender, springing grass +of the meadows, has told me many a tale. For our promised walk has come +off, and so has many others like it.</p> + +<p>He <i>must</i> be dotingly fond of father. It is the 15th of April. I dare +say, O reader, that it seems to you much like any other date, but to me, +through every back-coming year, it seems to gain fresh significance—the +date that marks the most important day—take it for all in all—of my +life, though, whether for good or ill, who shall say, until I am dead, +and my life's sum reckoned up. I awake on that morning with no forecast +of what is coming? I tear myself from my morning dreams with as sleepy +unwillingness as usual. I eat my bread-and-butter with as stolidly +healthy an appetite. I run with as scampering feet, as evenly-beating a +heart as is my wont, with little Vick along the garden-walks, in the +royal morning sun. For one of God's own days has come—one that must +have lost his way, and strayed from paradise.</p> + +<p>It has the steady heat of June, though we are only in mid-April, and the +freshness of the prune. The leaves on the trees are but tender and tiny, +and through them the sun sends his might. The tulips are all a-blaze and +a-stare, making one blink with the dazzle of their odorless beauty: the +frolicsome young wind is shaking out their balm from the hyacinth-bells, +and the sweet Nancies—my flowers—blowing all together, are swaying and +<i>congéeing</i> to the morning airs.</p> + +<p>O wise men, who know all things, do you know this? Can you tell it me? +Where does the flower hide her scent? From what full cup of hidden +sweets does one suck it?</p> + +<p>It is one of those days when one feels most convinced of being +immortal—when the spirits of men stretch out longing arms toward the +All-Good, the Altogether Beautiful—when souls thirst for God, yearn +most deeply for the well of his unfathomed truth—when, to those who +have lost, their dead come back in most pleasant, gentle guise. As for +me, I have lost nothing and no one as yet. All my treasures are still +about me; I can stretch out live hands, and touch <i>them</i> alive; none of +my dear names are yet to be spoken sparingly with bated breath, as too +holy for common talk. And yet I, too, as I walk and bask, and bend to +smell the hyacinth-blooms, feel that same vague and most unnamed +yearning—a delicate pain that he who has it would barter for no +boisterous joy. The clocks tick out the scented hours, and with loud +singing of happy birds, with pomp of flowers and bees, and freaked +butterflies, God's day treads royally past.</p> + +<p>It is afternoon, and the morning wind, heaving with too much fragrance, +has lain down to sleep. A great warm stillness is on the garden and +house. The sweet Nancies no longer bow. They stand straight up, all +a-row, making the whole place honeyed. The school-room is one great +nosegay. Every vase and jug, and cup, and pot and pan and pipkin that we +can command, is crammed with heavy-headed daffodils, with pale-cheeked +primroses, with wine-colored gilly-flowers, every thing that spring has +thrust most plentifully into our eager hands.</p> + +<p>The boys have been out fishing.</p> + +<p>Algy and Bobby have been humorously trying to drown the Brat.</p> + +<p>He looks small and cold in consequence, and his little pert nose is +tinged with a chilly pink. Half an hour ago, mother called me away to a +private conference, exciting thereby a mighty curiosity not unmixed with +envy in my brethren.</p> + +<p>Our colloquy is ended now, and I am reëntering the school-room.</p> + +<p>"Well, what was it? out with it," cries Algy, almost before I am inside +the door again. Algy is sitting more than half—more than three-quarters +out of the window, balancing himself with great nicety on the sill. He +is in the elegant <i>négligé</i> of a decrepit shooting-jacket, no +waistcoat, and no collar.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing to your face?" says Bobby, drawing nigh, and +peering with artless interest into the details of my appearance; "it is +the color of this" (pointing to a branch of red rhibes, which is hanging +its drooped flowers, and joining its potent spice to the other +flower-scents).</p> + +<p>"Is it?" I answer, putting both hands to my cheeks, to feel their +temperature. "I dare say! so would yours be, perhaps, if you had, like +me, been having a—" I stop suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Having a <i>what</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I will not say what I was going to say," I cry, emphatically, "it was +nonsensical!"</p> + +<p>"But what <i>has</i> she told you, Nancy?" asks Barbara, who, enervated by +the first hot day, is languishing in the rocking-chair, slowly +see-sawing. "What could it have been that she might not as well have +said before us all?"</p> + +<p>"You had better try and guess," I reply, darkly.</p> + +<p>"I will not, for one," says Bobby, doggedly, "I never made out a +conundrum in my life, except, 'What is most like a hen stealing?'"</p> + +<p>"It is not much like that," say I, demurely, "and, in fact, when one +comes to think of it, it can hardly be called a conundrum at all!"</p> + +<p>"I do not believe it is any thing worth hearing," remarks the Brat, +skeptically, "or you would have come out with it long ago! you never +could have kept in to yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Not worth hearing!" cry I, triumphantly raising my voice, "is not it? +That is all <i>you</i> know about it!"</p> + +<p>"Do not wrangle, children," says Algy from the window; "but, Nancy, if +you have not told us before the clock gets to the quarter" (looking +impressively at the slowly-traveling hands), "I shall think it right +to—"</p> + +<p>What awful threats would have followed will never now be certainly +known, for I interrupt.</p> + +<p>"I <i>will</i> tell you! I <i>mean</i> to tell you!" I cry, excitedly, covering my +face with my hands, and turning my back to them all; "only do not <i>look</i> +at me! look the other way, or I <i>cannot</i> tell you."</p> + +<p>A little pause.</p> + +<p>"You have only three minutes, Nancy."</p> + +<p>"Will you <i>promise</i>," cry I, with indistinct emphasis from under my +hands, "none of you to <i>laugh</i>—none, even Bobby!"</p> + +<p>"Yes!"—"Yes!"—"Yes!"</p> + +<p>"Will you <i>swear</i>?"</p> + +<p>"What is the use of swearing?—you have only half a minute now. Well, I +dare say it is nothing very funny. Yes, we will swear!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, Sir Roger—I <i>hear</i> Bobby laughing!"</p> + +<p>"He is not!"—"He is not!"—"I am not!—I am only beginning to sneeze!"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, Sir Roger—"</p> + +<p>I come to a dead stop.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sir Roger?</i> What about him? There is not a smile on one of our faces: +if you do not believe, look for yourself!—What about our future +benefactor?"</p> + +<p>"He <i>is</i> not our future benefactor," cry I, energetically, whisking +swiftly round to face them again, and dropping my hands, "he <i>never</i> +will be!—he does not <i>want</i> to be! He wants to—to—to <span class="smcap">marry me</span>! +there!"</p> + +<p>The murder is out. The match is set to the gunpowder train. Now for the +explosion!</p> + +<p>The clock-hand reaches the quarter—passes it; but in all the assembly +there is no sound. The westering sun shines in on four open mouths (the +youthful Tou Tou is absent), on four pairs of stupidly-staring eyes. The +rocking-chair has ceased rocking. Bobby's sneeze has stopped half-way. +There is a petrified silence.</p> + +<p>At length, "<i>Marry you!</i>" says the Brat, in a deeply-accented tone of +low and awed disbelief. "Why, he was at school with father!"</p> + +<p>"I wish to heavens that he had never been at school anywhere!" cry I, in +a fury. "I am sick to death of hearing that he was at school with +father. Will no one ever forget it?"</p> + +<p>"He is for-ty-sev-en!" says Algy, at last closing his mouth, and +speaking with slow impressiveness. "Nineteen from forty-seven! how many +years older than you?"</p> + +<p>"Do not count!" cry I, pettishly; "what is the use? not all the counting +in the world will make him any younger."</p> + +<p>"It is not true!" cries Bobby, with boisterous skepticism, jumping up +from his seat, and making a plunge at me; "it is a <i>hoax</i>! she has been +taking us all in! Really, Nancy, for a beginner, you did not do it +badly!"</p> + +<p>"It is <i>not</i> a hoax!" cry I, scornfully, standing scarlet and deeply +ashamed, facing them all; "it is real, plain, downright, simple truth."</p> + +<p>Another pause. No sound but the monotonous, unemotional clock, and the +woodpecker's fluty laugh from the orchard.</p> + +<p>"And so you <i>really</i> have a lover at last, Nancy?" says Algy, the +corners of his mouth beginning to twitch in a way which looks badly for +the keeping of his oath.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" say I, beginning to laugh violently, but quite uncomfortably; +"are you surprised? you know I always told you that if you half shut +your eyes, and looked at me from a great way off, I really was not so +bad-looking."</p> + +<p>"You have distanced the Begums!" cries the young fellow, joining in my +mirth, but with a good deal more enjoyment than I can boast.</p> + +<p>"So I have!" I answer; and my sense of the ludicrous overcoming all +other considerations, I begin to giggle with a good-will.</p> + +<p>"Let us look at you, Nancy!" says the Brat, taking hold of me by both +arms, and bringing the minute impertinence of his face into close +neighborhood to mine. "I begin to think that there must be more in you +than we have yet discovered! we never looked upon you as one of our most +favorable specimens, did we?"</p> + +<p>"Do not you remember old Aunt Williams?" reply I, merrily; "how she used +to say 'I was not pretty, my dears, but I was a pleasant little devil!' +perhaps I am a pleasant little devil!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Poor</i>—<i>dear</i>—old fellow!" says Barbara, in an accent of the +profoundest, delicatest, womanliest pity, "<i>how</i> sorry I am for him! +Nancy, how will you break it to him most kindly? I am afraid he will be +sadly hurt! will you speak to him, or do it by letter?"</p> + +<p>Barbara has risen. We are all standing up, more or less; it is +impossible to sit through such news; Barbara's garden-hat is in her +hand. The warm and mellow sun that is making Africa's dreary expanse in +the map on the wall, one broad fine sheet, is enkindling, too, the silk +of her hair, the flower-petals of her cheeks, the blue compassion of her +eyes. My pretty, tall Barbara! Let them say what they like, I am sure +that somewhere—<i>somewhere</i>—you are pretty now!</p> + +<p>"If you write," says Algy, still laughing, but with more moderation, "I +should advise you to depute me to make a fair copy of the letter; else, +from the extreme ambiguity of your handwriting, he will most likely +mistake your drift, and imagine that you are saying yes."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that I am not going to say yes?" I ask, abruptly.</p> + +<p>Rivers of additional scarlet are racing to my cheeks, over my +forehead—in among the roots of my hair—all around and about my throat, +but I stand, looking the assembled multitude full in the face, fairly, +well, and boldly.</p> + +<p>"Listen!" I continue, holding up my right hand in deprecation, "let me +speak!—do not interrupt me!—Bobby, I know that he was at school with +father—Algy, I know that he is forty-seven—all of you, I know that his +hair is gray, and that there are crows'-feet about his eyes—but +still—but still—"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that you are <i>in love</i> with him?" breaks in Bobby, +impressively.</p> + +<p>Instances of enamored humanity have been rare in Bobby's experience. +With the exception of Toothless Jack, he has never had a near and +familiar view of an authentic specimen. I therefore see him now +regarding me with a reverent interest, not unmixed with awe.</p> + +<p>"I mean nothing so silly!" I answer, with lofty petulance. "I am a great +deal too old for any such nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"There I go with you," says Algy, not without grandeur. "I believe that +it is the greatest humbug out, and that it rarely occurs between the +ages of sixteen and sixty."</p> + +<p>"Father's and mother's was a love-match," says Bobby, gravely. "Did not +Aunt Williams tell us that they used always to sit hand-in-hand before +they were married?"</p> + +<p>A shout of laughter at our parents' expense greets this piece of +information.</p> + +<p>"<i>All</i> married people grow to hate one another after a bit," say I, +comprehensively; "it is only a question of time."</p> + +<p>"But if you do not love him <i>now</i>, and if you are sure that you will +hate him by-and-by," says Barbara, looking rather puzzled, "what makes +you think of taking him?"</p> + +<p>"It would be such a fine thing for all the family: I could give all the +boys such a shove," say I, with homely shrewdness.</p> + +<p>"They killed seven hundred head of game on his big day last year; I +heard him tell father so," says Bobby, with his mouth watering.</p> + +<p>"He has a moor in Scotland," throws in the Brat.</p> + +<p>"He must ride a stone heavier than I do," says Algy, thoughtfully, "his +horses would certainly carry me: I wonder would he give me a mount now +and then?"</p> + +<p>"I would have you <i>all</i> staying with me <i>always</i>," I cry, warming with +my theme, and beginning to dance, "all except father: he should come +once a year for a week, if he was good, and <i>not at all</i>, if he was +not."</p> + +<p>"What will you call him, Nancy?" asks the Brat, inquisitively. "What +shall <i>we</i> call him?"</p> + +<p>"He will be Tou Tou's <i>brother</i>," cries Bobby, with a yell of delight.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" says Barbara, apprehensively, "he will hear you."</p> + +<p>"No he will not," I answer, composedly. "A person would have to bawl +even louder than Bobby does, to make him hear: he has gone away for a +week; he said he did not wish me to decide in a hurry: he has given me +till this day week; I wish it were this day ten years—"</p> + +<p>"This day week, then," says Algy, walking about with his hands in his +pockets, and smiling to himself, "we may hope to see him return in +triumph in a blue frock-coat, with the ring and the parson: at that age +one has no time to lose."</p> + +<p>"Haste to the wedding!" cries the Brat at the top of his voice, seizing +me by both hands, and forcing me to execute an uncouth war-dance, in +unwilling celebration of my approaching nuptials.</p> + +<p>"I hope that there will be lots of almonds in the cake!" says Bobby, +gluttonously.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The week's reprieve has ended; my Judgment Day has come. Never, never, +surely, did seven days race so madly past, tumbling over each other's +heels. Even Sunday—Sunday, which mostly contains at least forty-eight +hours—has gone like a flash. Morning service, afternoon service, good +looks, sermon to the servants, supper, they all run into one another +like dissolving views. For the first time in my life, my sleep is +broken. I fall asleep in a fever of irresolution. I awake in one. I walk +about in one. I feed the jackdaw in one. I box Bobby's ears in one. My +appetite (oh, portent!) flags. In intense excitement, who can eat yards +of bread-and-butter, pounds of oatmeal-porridge, as has ever been my +bucolic habit? Shall I marry Sir Roger, or shall I not? The birds, the +crowing cocks, the church-bells, the gong for dinner, the old pony +whinnying in the park, they all seem to say this. It seems written on +the sailing clouds, on the pages of every book that I open. Armies of +<i>pros</i> wage battle against legions of <i>cons</i>, and every day the issue of +the fight seems even more and more doubtful.</p> + +<p>The morning of the day has arrived, and I am still undecided. I dress in +a perfect storm of doubts and questionings. I put on my gown, without +the faintest idea of whether it is inside out, or the reverse. I go +slowly down-stairs, every banister marked by a fresh decision. I open +the dining-room door. Father's voice is the first thing that I hear; +father's voice, raised and rasping. He is standing up, and has a letter +in his hand; from the engaging blue of its color, and the harmony of its +shape, too evidently a bill.</p> + +<p>"I regret to have to hurt your feelings," he is saying, in that awful +civil voice, at which we all—small and great—quake, "but the next time +that <i>this</i> occurs" (pointing to the bill), "I must request you to find +accommodation for yourself elsewhere, as really my poor house is not a +fit place for a young gentleman with such princely views on the subject +of expenditure."</p> + +<p>The object of this pleasant harangue is Algy, who, also standing, with +his face very white, his lips very much compressed, and his eyes +flashing with a furious light, is fronting his parent on the hearth-rug.</p> + +<p>Behind the tea-urn, mother is mingling her drink with tears, and making +little covert signs to Algy, at all rates to hold his tongue.</p> + +<p>My mind is made up, never to be unmade again. I will marry Sir Roger. He +shall pay all Algy's debts, and forever dry mother's sad, wet eyes.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The weather of paradise is gone back to paradise. This day is very +earthly. There has been a sharp, cold shower, and there is still a +strong rain-wind, which has snapped a score of tulip-heads. Poor, brave +<i>Jour ne sols</i>! Prone they lie on the garden-beds, defiled, dispetalled. +Even the survivors are stained and dashed, and the sweet Nancies look +pinched and small. If you were to go down on your knees to them, they +could not give you any scent. I am walking up and down the room, in a +state of the utmost agitation. My heart is beating so as to make me feel +quite sick. My fingers are very hot, but hardly so hot as my face.</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake do not make me laugh! do not!" cry I, nervously, "it +would be <i>too</i> dreadful if I were to receive his overtures with a broad +grin, would not it? There! is it gone? Do I look quite grave?"</p> + +<p>I take half a dozen hurried turns along the floor, and try to think of +all our most depressing family themes—father; Algy's college-bills; Tou +Tou's shrunk face and thin legs; nothing will do. When I stop before the +glass and consult it, that hysterical smile is there still.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember the day, when we were children, that we all went to the +dentist?" says the Brat, chuckling, "and father gave Bobby a New +Testament because he had his eye-tooth out? Does to-day at all remind +you of it, Nancy?"</p> + +<p>"I had far rather have <i>both</i> my eye-teeth out, and several of my double +ones, too," reply I, sincerely.</p> + +<p>A little pause.</p> + +<p>"I must not keep him waiting any longer," cry I, desperately. "Tell me!" +(appealing piteously to them all), "do I look all right? do I look +pretty natural?"</p> + +<p>"You do not look <i>middle-aged</i> enough," says Bobby, bluntly.</p> + +<p>"Put on your bonnet," suggests Algy. "You look twenty years older in +that, particularly when you cock it well over your nose, as you did last +Sunday."</p> + +<p>"You are all very unkind!" say I, in a whimpering voice, walking toward +the door.</p> + +<p>"And if he becomes too demonstrative," says the Brat, overtaking me with +a rush before I reach it, "say—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Unhand me, graybeard loon!'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then I go. As I know perfectly well, that if I give myself time to +think, I shall stand with the drawing-room door-handle in my grasp for +half an hour, before I can make up my mind to enter, I take the bull by +the horns, and whisking in suddenly and noisily, find myself +<i>tête-à-tête</i> with my lover.</p> + +<p>Certainly, I never felt such a fool in my life. How <i>awful</i> it will be +if I burst out laughing in his face! It is quite as likely as not that I +shall do it out of sheer hysterical fright. Oh, how different! how much +nicer it was when we last parted! I had taken him to see the jackdaw, +and the little bear that Bobby brought from foreign parts; and jacky had +bitten his finger so humorously, and we had been so merry, and I had +told him again how much I wished that he could change places with +father. And now! I <i>feel</i>—more than see—that he is drawing nigh me. +Through my eyelids—for I am very sure that I never lift my eyes—I get +an idea of his appearance.</p> + +<p>Under his present aspect I am much more disposed to be critical, and to +pick holes in him, than I was under his former one. Any attempt at +youthfulness, any effort at <i>smartness</i>, will not escape my vigilant +reprobation—down-eyed and red-cheeked as I appear to be. But none such +do I find. There is no false juvenility—there is no trace of dandyism +in the plain and quiet clothes, in the hair sparsely sprinkled with +snow, in the mature and goodly face.</p> + +<p>An iron-gray, middle-aged gentleman stands before me, more vigorous, +more full of healthy life than two-thirds of the puny youth, nourished +on sherry and bitters, of the present small generation, but with no +wish, no smallest effort to take away one from the burden of years that +God has laid on his strong shoulders.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt that I shall not speak first, so for a moment there is +a profound silence. Then I find my hot hand in Sir Roger's where it has +so often and so familiarly lain before, and I hear Sir Roger's voice +addressing me.</p> + +<p>"I am an old fool, Nancy, and you have come to tell me so?"</p> + +<p>Somehow I know that the bronze of his face is a little paled by emotion, +but there is no sawny sentiment in his tone, none of the lover's whine. +It is the same voice—as manly, as sustained—that made comments on +Bobby's little bear. And yet, for the moment, I am physically unable to +answer him. Who <i>can</i> answer the simplest question ever put with a lump +the size of a cocoa-nut in their throat? My eyelids are still hopelessly +drooped over my eyes, but, by some sense that is not eyesight, I am +aware that there is a sort of shyness in his face, a diffidence in his +address.</p> + +<p>"Nancy, have I come back too soon? am I hurrying you?"</p> + +<p>I raise my eyes for an instant, and then let them fall.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," I say, demurely, "not at all. I have had plenty of +time!"</p> + +<p>And then, somehow, there seems to me something so ludicrous in the sound +of my own speech, that I tremble on the verge of a burst of loud and +unwilling laughter.</p> + +<p>"Speak out all your thought to me, whatever it is," he says, in a tone +of grave entreaty, moved and tender, yet manly withal. "Look at me with +the same friendly, fearless eyes that you did last week! I know, my +dear, that you always think of others more than yourself, and I dare say +that <i>now</i> you are afraid of hurting me! Indeed, you need not be! I am +tough and well-seasoned; I have known what pain is before now—it would +be very odd, at my time of life, if I had not! I can well bear a little +more, and be the better for it, perhaps."</p> + +<p>I stand stupidly silent. One's outer man or woman often does an +injustice to one's inner feelings. As he speaks, my heart goes out to +him, but I can find no words in which to dress my thought.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" in a tone of thorough distress. "I can bear any thing but +seeing you shrink and shiver away from me, as I have seen you do from +your father."</p> + +<p>"You <i>never</i> will see that," reply I, laconically, gathering bravery +enough to look him in the face, as I deliver this encouraging remark.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," he says, beginning to walk restlessly about the +room—(long ago he dropped my limp hand)—"that all this week I have had +much hope? Every time that I have caught a glimpse of myself in the +glass, I have said, 'Is this a face likely to take a child's fancy? Do +you bear much resemblance to the hero of her storybooks?' My +dear"—(stopping before me)—"you cannot think my presumption more +absurd than I do myself."</p> + +<p>"I do not think it at all absurd," reply I, beginning to speak quite +stoutly, and to be rather diffuse than otherwise. "Perhaps I did, just +at first, when they were all laughing, and saying about your having been +at school with father; but <i>now</i> I do not in the least—I do not care +what the boys say—I do not, really. I am not joking."</p> + +<p>At my words he half stretches out his hand to take mine; but, as if +repressing some strong impulse, withdraws it again, and speaks quietly, +with a rather sober smile.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid that one's soul ages more slowly than one's body, Nancy! +Even at my age it has seemed difficult to me to be brought into hourly +companionship with all that was most fresh and womanly, and spirited, +and pretty."</p> + +<p>"<i>Pretty!</i>" think I. "I wish the boys could hear him! they will never +believe me if I tell them."</p> + +<p>"And not wish to have it for my own, to take and make much of. I that +have never had any thing very lovely or lovable in my life. And then, +dear, it was all your good-nature, you did not know what you were doing; +you seemed to find some little pleasure in my society—even chose it by +preference now and then. My talk did not weary you, as I should have +thought it would have done, and so I grew to think—to think—Bah!" +(with a movement of impatience) "it was a foolish thought! what can +there be in common between me and a child like you?"</p> + +<p>"I think that there is a great deal," reply I, speaking very steadily, +and so saying, I stretch out my hand and of my own accord put it in his +again. He cannot well return it to me, so he keeps it.</p> + +<p>"And yet it is impossible?" he says, with hesitating interrogation, +while his steel-blue eyes look anxiously into mine.</p> + +<p>"Is it?" say I, a wily smile beginning to creep over my features. "If it +is, what was the use of asking me?" I have the grace to grow extremely +red as I make this observation.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" seizing my other hand, too, and speaking in a hurried, low +voice that slightly shakes with the force of his emotion, "what are you +saying? You do not know what you are implying."</p> + +<p>"Yes I do," reply I, firmly. "I know perfectly. And it is <i>not</i> +impossible. Not at all, I should say."</p> + +<p>Upon this explicit declaration an ordinary lover would have had me in +his arms and smothered me with kisses before you could look round, but +my lover is abnormal. He does nothing of the kind.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure," he says, with an earnest gravity and imploring emphasis, +"that you understand what you are doing? Are you certain, Nancy, that if +we had not been friends, if you had not been loath to pain me, that you +would not have answered differently? Think, child! think well of it! +this is not a matter of months or even years, but of your whole long +young life."</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, gravely, looking down. "I know it is."</p> + +<p>And put thus solemnly before me, the idea of the marriage state seems to +me, hardly less weightily oppressive than the idea of eternity.</p> + +<p>"How should I feel," he continues (he has put a hand on each of my +shoulders, and is looking at me with a serious yet tender fixity), "if, +by-and-by, in the years ahead of us, you came and told me that by my +selfishness, taking advantage of your youth, I had destroyed your life?"</p> + +<p>"And do you think," say I, with a flash of indignation, "that even if +you had done it, I should come and tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Are you <i>quite</i> sure that among all the men of your acquaintance, men +nearer you in age, more akin in tastes, men <i>not</i> gray-haired, <i>not</i> +weather-beaten, <i>not</i> past their best years—there is not one with whom +you would more willingly spend your life than with me? If it is so, I +<i>beseech</i> you to tell me, as you would tell your mother!"</p> + +<p>"If there were," reply I, smiling broadly, a smile which greatly widens +my mouth, and would show my dimples if I had any, "I should <i>indeed</i> be +susceptible! The two curates that you saw the other night—the one who +tore his gloves into strips, you know, and the other who ate so +much—Toothless Jack—these are the sort of men among whom my lines have +lain. Do you think I am likely to be very much in love with any of +<i>them</i>?"</p> + +<p>My speech does not seem so altogether reassuring as I had expected.</p> + +<p>"I am very suspicious," he says, half apologetically, "but you have seen +so little of the world, you have led such a nun's life! how can you +answer for it that hereafter out in the world you may not meet some one +more to your liking? You are a dear little, kindly, tender-hearted sort, +and you do not tell me so, but you do not like me <i>much</i>, Nancy! Indeed, +dear, I could far better do without you now, than see you by-and-by +wishing me away and yet be unable to rid you of me."</p> + +<p>"People can help falling in love," say I, with matter-of-fact +common-sense. "If I belonged to you, of course I should never think of +any one else in that way."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure—?"</p> + +<p>"I wish that you would not ask me any more questions," say I, +interrupting him with a pout. "I am quite sure of every thing you can +possibly think of."</p> + +<p>"I will only ask <i>one</i> more—are you quite sure that it is not for your +brothers' and sisters' sakes—not your own—that you are doing this? Do +you remember" (with a smile half playful, half sad) "what you told me +about your views of marriage on that first day when I found you in the +kitchen-garden?"</p> + +<p>"I hope to Heaven that you did not think I was <i>hinting</i>," say I, +growing crimson; "it certainly sounded very like it, but I really and +truly was not. I was thinking of a <i>young</i> man! I assure you" (speaking +with great earnestness) "that I had as much idea of marrying you as of +marrying <i>father</i>!"</p> + +<p>Looking back with mature reflection at this speech, I think that it may +be safely reckoned among my unlucky things.</p> + +<p>"No," he says, wincing a little, a very little. "I know you had not; +but—you have not answered my question."</p> + +<p>For a moment I look down irresolute, then, through some fixed belief in +him, I look up and tell him the plain, bare truth.</p> + +<p>"I <i>did</i> think that it would be a nice thing for the boys," I say, "and +so it will, there is no doubt; you will be as good as a fa—, as a +brother to them; but—I like you <i>myself</i> besides, you may believe it or +not as you please, but it is quite, <i>quite</i>, <span class="smcap">quite</span> true."</p> + +<p>As I speak, the tears steal into my eyes.</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> like <i>you</i>!" he answers very simply, and so saying, stoops, and +with a sort of diffidence, kisses me.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Well, how did it go off?" cries Bobby, curiously, when I next rejoin my +compeers. "Did you laugh?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Laugh!</i>" I echo, with lofty anger, "I do not know what you mean! I +never felt in the least inclined." Then seeing my brethren look rather +aghast at this sudden change in the wind, I add gayly: "Bobby, you must +never again breathe a word about Sir Roger's having been at school with +father; let it be supposed that he did without education."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>This is my wooing: thus I am disposed of. Without a shadow of previous +flirtation with any man born of woman—without any of the ups and downs, +the ins and outs of an ordinary love-affair, I place my fate in Sir +Roger's hands. Henceforth I must have done with all girlish +speculations, as to the manner of man who is to drop from the clouds to +be my wooer. Well, I have not many day-dreams to relinquish. When I have +built Spanish castles—in a large family, one has not time for many—a +lover for myself has been less the theme of my aspirations than a +benefactor for the family. One, who will exercise a wholesomely +repressive influence over father, has been more than any thing the theme +of my longings; on the unlikely hypothesis of my marrying at all. For, O +friends, it has seemed to me <i>most</i> unlikely; I dare say that I might +not have been over-difficult—might have thankfully and heartily loved +some one not quite a Bayard, but one cannot love <i>any thing</i>—any odd +and end—and, say what you will, the choice of a country girl, with a +little dowry and a plain face, is but small. For—do not dislike me for +it if you can help—I <i>am</i> plain. I know it by the joint and honest +testimony of all my brethren. I have had no trouble in gathering the +truth from them. A hundred times they have volunteered it, with that +healthy disregard of any sickly sensitiveness which arms one against +blows to one's vanity through all after-life. Yes: I am plain; not +offensively so, not largely, fatly, staringly plain, but in a small, +blond, harmless way. However, Sir Roger thinks me pretty. Did not he say +so, in unmistakable English? I have tried darkly to hint this to the +boys, but have been so decisively pooh-poohed that I resolve not to +allude to the subject again. Not only am I plain now, but I shall remain +plain to my life's end. Unlike the generality of ugly heroines, you will +not see me develop and effloresce into beauty toward the end of my +story.</p> + +<p>The interval between my betrothal and my marriage is but short. On April +22d, I put my hand into Sir Roger's. On May 20th, I am to put it into +his for good. When the bridegroom is forty-seven, and the bride one of +six, why should there be any delay? Why should a man keep and lodge his +daughter any longer than he can help, when he has found some one else +willing to do it for him? This, I think, is father's view. And, +meanwhile, father himself is more like an <i>angel</i> than a man. Not once +do we hear the terrible polite voice that chills the marrow of our +bones. Not once is his nose more than becomingly hooked. Not once does +he look like a hawk. <i>Another</i> long bill comes in for Algy, and is +dismissed with the benevolent comment that you cannot put gray heads +upon green shoulders. I dine every day now; and father and I converse +agreeably upon indifferent topics. Once—oh, prodigious!—we take a walk +round the Home Farm together, and he consults me about the Berkshire +pigs. Then comes a mad rush for clothes. I am involved in a whirlwind of +haberdashery, Brussels lace, diamonds. It feels very odd—the becoming +possessed of a great number of stately garments, to which Barbara has no +fellows—Barbara and I, who hitherto have been always stitch for stitch +alike. And meanwhile I see next to nothing of my future husband. This is +chiefly my own doing.</p> + +<p>"You will not mind," I say, standing before him one day in the +drawing-room window, and speaking rather bashfully—somehow I do not +feel so comfortably easy and outspoken with him as I did before the +catastrophe—"you will not mind if I do not see much of you—do not go +out walking—do not talk to you very much till—till <i>it</i> is over!"</p> + +<p>"And why am I not to mind?" he asks, half jestingly, and yet a little +gravely, too.</p> + +<p>"You will have quite enough—<i>too much</i> of me afterward," I say, with a +shy laugh, "and <i>they</i>—they will never have much of me again—never so +much, at least—and" (with rather a tremble in my voice) "we have had +<i>such</i> fun together!"</p> + +<p>And so Sir Roger keeps away. Whether his self-denial costs him much, I +cannot say. It never occurs to me at the time that it does. He may think +me a very nice little girl, and that I shall be a great comfort to him, +but he cannot care much about having any very long conversations with +me—he that has seen so many lands, and known so many great and clever +people, and read so many books. He has always been <i>most</i> +undemonstrative to me. At <i>his</i> age, no doubt, he does not care much for +the foolish endearments of lovers; so, with an easy conscience, I devote +myself, for my short space, to the boys, to Barbara, to Vick, and the +jackdaw. Once, indeed—just once—I have a little talk with him, and +afterward I almost wish that I had not had it. We are sitting under a +horse-chestnut-tree in the garden—a tree that, under the handling of +the warm air, is breaking into a thousand tender faces. We did not begin +by being <i>tête-à-tête</i>; indeed, several lately-occupied chairs intervene +between us, but first one and then another has slipped away, and we are +alone.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" says Sir Roger, his eyes following the Brat, who is lightly +tripping up the stone steps, looking very small and agile in his +white-flannel cricketing things, "what is that boy's real name? Why do +you call him 'the Brat'?"</p> + +<p>"Because he <i>is</i> such a <i>Brat</i>," reply I, fondly, picking up from the +grass a green chestnut-bud that the squirrels or the rooks have untimely +nipped. "Did you ever see any thing so little, so white and pert? He has +sadly mistaken his vocation in life: he ought to have been a street +Arab."</p> + +<p>"One gets rather sick of one's surname," says my companion. "Except your +father, hardly any one calls me Roger now! I should be glad to answer to +it again."</p> + +<p>He turns and looks at me with a kind of appeal as he says this. If he +were not forty-seven and a man, I should say that he was coloring a +little. After all, blushing is confined to no age. I have seen a veteran +of sixty-five redden violently.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say," cry I, looking rather aghast, and speaking, as +usual, without thinking, "that you mean <i>me</i> to call you <i>Roger</i>! +indeed, I could not think of such a thing! it would sound so—so +<i>disrespectful</i>! I should as soon think of calling my father <i>James</i>."</p> + +<p>"Should you?" he answers, turning away his face toward the garden-beds, +where the blue forget-me-not is unrolling her sky-colored sheet, and the +double daisies are stiffly parading their tight pink buttons. "Then call +me what you like!"</p> + +<p>I am not learned in the variations of his voice, as I am in those of +father and Algy, in either of which I can at once detect each fine +inflection of anger, contest, or pain; but, comparatively unversed as I +am in it, there sounds to me a slight, carefully smothered, yet still +perceptible, intonation of disappointment—mortification. I wish that +the air would give me back my words; but that it never yet was known to +do.</p> + +<p>"I will try if you like," say I, cheerfully, but a little shyly, as, +like the March Hare and the Hatter in the "Mad Sea Party," I move up +past the empty chairs to the one next him. "I do not see, after all, why +I should not get quite used to it in time! Roger! Roger! it is a name I +have always been very partial to until" (laughing a little) "the +Claimant threw discredit on all Rogers!"</p> + +<p>He is looking at me again. After all, I must have been mistaken. There +is no shadow of disappointment or mortification near him. He is smiling +with some friendliness.</p> + +<p>"You must never mind what <i>I</i> say," I continue, dragging my wicker chair +along the shortly-shorn sward a little nearer to him. "<i>Never!</i> nobody +ever does; I am a proverb and a by-word for my malapropos speeches. +Mother always <i>trembles</i> when she hears me talking to a stranger. The +first day that I dined after you came, Algy made me a list of things +that I was not to talk about to you."</p> + +<p>"A list of sore subjects?" says my lover, laughing. "But how did the boy +know what <i>were</i> my sore subjects? What were they, Nancy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do not know! I have forgotten," reply I, in some confusion. "I've +made some very bad shots."</p> + +<p>And so we slip away from the subject; but, all the same, I wish that I +had not said it.</p> + +<p>We have come to the day before the wedding. My spirits, which held up +bravely during the first two weeks of my engagement, have now +fallen—fallen, like a wind at sundown. I am as limp, lachrymose, and +lamentable, a young woman as you would find between the three seas. I +have cried with loud publicity in full school-room conclave; I have +cried with silent privacy in bed. I have cried over the jackdaw. I have +cried over the bear. I have not cried over Vick, as I am to take her +with me. To-day we have <i>all</i> cried—boys and all; and have moistened +the bun-loaf and the gooseberry-jam at tea with our tears. Our spirits +being now temporarily revived, I am undergoing the operation of trying +my wedding-dress. I am having a private rehearsal, in fact, in mother's +boudoir, with only mother, Barbara, and the maid, for audience.</p> + +<p>"Mine is the most hopeless kind of ugliness," say I, with an admirable +dispassionateness, as if I were talking of some one else, as, armed in +full panoply, I stand staring at my white reflection in a long mirror +let into the wall—staring at myself from top to toe—from the highest +jasmine star of my wreath to the lowest edge of my Brussels flounce. "If +I were very fat, I might fine down; if I were very thin, I might plump +up; if I were very red, I might grow pale; if I were—hush! here are the +boys. I would not for worlds that they should see me!"</p> + +<p>So saying, I run behind the folding-screen—the screen which, through so +many winter evenings, we have adorned with gay and ingenious pictures, +and which, after having worked openly at it under her nose for a year +and a half, we presented to mother <i>as a surprise</i>, on her last +birthday.</p> + +<p>"Come out, ostrich!" cries Algy, laughing. "Do you suppose that you are +hidden? Did it never occur to you that we could see your reflection in +the glass?"</p> + +<p>Thus adjured, I reissue forth.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see such a fool as I look?" say I, feeling very sneaky, +and going through a few uncouth antics to disguise my confusion.</p> + +<p>"Talk of <i>me</i> being a Brat," cries the Brat, triumphantly. "I am not +half such a brat as you are! You look about ten years old!"</p> + +<p>"Mark my words!" cries Bobby. "Wherever you go, on the Continent, you +will be taken for a good little girl making a tour with her grandpapa!"</p> + +<p>Bobby is speaking at the top of his voice; as, indeed, we have all of us +rather a bad habit of doing. Bobby has the most excuse for it, as, being +a sailor, I suppose that he has to bellow a good deal at the +blue-jackets. In the present case, he has <i>one</i> more listener than he +thinks. Sir Roger is among us. The door has been left ajar, and he, +hearing the merry clamor, and having always the <i>entrée</i> to mother's +room, has entered. By the pained smile on his face, I can see that he +has heard.</p> + +<p>"You are right, my boy," he says, quite gently, looking kindly at the +unfortunate Bobby; "she <i>does</i> look very—<i>very</i> young!"</p> + +<p>"I shall mend of that!" cry I, briskly, putting my arm through his, in +anxious amends for Bobby's hapless speech. "We are a family who age +particularly early. I have a cousin whose hair was gray at +five-and-twenty, and I am sure that any one who did not know father, +would say that he was sixty, if he was a day—would not they, mother?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The preparations are ended; the guests are come; no great number. A few +unavoidable Tempests, a few necessary Greys (I have told you, have not +I, that my name is Grey?). The heels have been amputated from a large +number of white satin slippers, preparatory to their being thrown after +us. The school-children have had their last practice at the +marriage-hymn.</p> + +<p>I have resolved to rise at five o'clock on my wedding-morning, so as to +make a last gloomy progress round every bird and beast and +gooseberry-bush on the premises. I have exacted—binding her by many +stringent oaths—a solemn promise from Barbara to make me, if I do not +do so of my own accord, at the appointed hour. I am sunk in heavy sleep, +and wake only very gradually, to find her, in conformity with her +engagements, giving my shoulder reluctant and gentle pushes, and softly +calling me.</p> + +<p>"Is it five?" say I, sitting up and yawning. Then as the recollection of +my position flashes across my mind, "I will <i>not</i> be married!" I cry, +turning round, and burying all my face in my pillow again. "Nobody shall +induce me! Let some one go and tell Sir Roger so."</p> + +<p>"Sir Roger is not awake," replied Barbara, laughing rather sleepily, +"you forget that."</p> + +<p>And by the time he is awake, I have come to a saner mind. We dress, for +the last time, <i>alike</i>. The thought that never again shall I have a +holland frock like Barbara's is nearly too much for us both. We run +quietly down-stairs, and out into as August a morning as God ever gave +his poor pensioners.</p> + +<p>We walk along soberly and silently, hand-in-hand, as we used to do when +we were little children. My heart is very, <i>very</i> full. I may be going +to be happy in my new life. I fully expect to be. At nineteen, happiness +seems one's right, one's matter of course; but it will not be in the +same way. <i>This</i> chapter of my life is ended, and it has been <i>such</i> a +good chapter, so full of love, of healthy, strong affection, of +interchanged, kind offices, and little glad self-denials, so abounding +in good jokes and riotous laughter, in little pleasures that—looked +back on—seem great; in little wholesome pains that—in retrospect—seem +joys. And, as we walk, the birds</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To woo them from their beds, still murmuring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That men can sleep while they their matins sing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Most divine service, whose so early lay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The old singers have said many a fine and lovely thing about lusty +spring. From their pages there seems to come a whiff of clean and +healthy perfume from many dead Mays. In sweet and matterful verse they +have sung their praises; but, oh! no singer, old or new—none, at least, +that was but human—none but a God-intoxicated man could tell the +glories of that serenely shining and suave morn.</p> + +<p>One so seldom sees the best part of a summer day! Buried in swinish +slumber, with window-curtains heedfully drawn, and shutters closely +fastened, between us and it, we know nothing of the stately pageant +spread outside our doors.</p> + +<p>It is wasted; nay, not wasted, for the birds have it. It is so early, +that the gardening-men are not yet come to their work. Every thing is as +wet as though there had been a shower, but there has been none.</p> + +<p>Talk of the earth moving round the sun—he himself the while stupidly +stock-still—let <i>them</i> believe it who like; is not he now placidly +sailing through the turquoise sea? Below, the earth is unfolding all her +freshened meadows, bravely pied with rainbow flowers. There is a very +small soft wind, that comes in honeyed puffs and little sighs, that wags +the lilac-heads, and the long droop of the laburnum-blooms. The grass is +so wet—so wet—as we swish through it, every blade a separate green +sparkle. The young daisies give our feet little friendly knocks as we +pass.</p> + +<p>All round the old flowering thorn there is a small carpet, milk-white +and rose-red, of strewn petals. Every flower that has a cup, is holding +it brimful of cool dew. Vick is sitting on the top of the stone steps, +her ears pricked, and her little black nose working mysteriously as she +sniffs the morning air.</p> + +<p>On the bright gravel walk stands the jackdaw, looking rather a funereal +object in his black suit, on this gaudy-colored day; his gray head very +much on one side, his round, sly eyes turned upward in dishonest +meditation. A worse bird than Jacky does not hop. His life is one long +course of larceny, and I know that if he had the gift of speech, he +would also be a consummate liar. I kneel on the walk, and, holding out a +bit of cake, call him softly and clearly, "Jacky! Jacky!" He snatches it +rudely, with a short hoarse caw, puts one black foot on it, and begins +to peck.</p> + +<p>"Jacky! Jacky!" say I, sorrowfully, "I am going to be married! Oh, you +know that? You may thank your stars that you are not."</p> + +<p>As I speak, my tears fall on his sleek black wings and his dear gray +head. I try to kiss him; but he makes such a spiteful peck at my nose, +that I have to give up the idea. Thus one of my good-byes is over. By +the time that they are all ended, and we have returned to the house, I +am drowned in tears, and my appearance for the day is irretrievably +damaged. My nose is certainly <i>very</i> red. It surprises even myself, who +have known its capabilities of old. Bobby, always prosaic, suggests that +I shall hold it in the steam of boiling water, to reduce the +inflammation. But I have not the heart to try this remedy. It may be sky +blue, for all I care. Nose or no nose, I am dressed now.</p> + +<p>Instead of the costly artificial wreath that Madame Elise sent me, +Barbara has made a little natural garland of my own flowers—my Nancies. +I smell them all the time that I am being married. I have no female +friends—Barbara has always been friend enough for me—so I have +stipulated that I shall have no other bridesmaids but her and Tou Tou. +They are not much to brag of in the way of a match. Algy indeed +suggested that in order to bring them into greater harmony, Tou Tou +shall clothe her thin legs with long petticoats, or Barbara abridge her +garments to Tou Tou's length; but the proposition has met with as little +favor in the family's eyes as did Squire Thornhill's proposal, that +every gentleman should sit on a lady's lap, in the Vicar of Wakefield.</p> + +<p>The guests are all off to the church. I follow with my parents. Mother +is inclined to cry, until snubbed and withered into dry-eyedness by her +consort. He is, however, all benignity to me. I catch myself wondering +whether I <i>can</i> be his own daughter; whether I am not one of the train +of neighboring misses who have sometimes made me the depository of their +raptures about him.</p> + +<p>We reach the church. I am walking up the aisle on red cloth: the +wedding-hymn is in my ears, gayly and briskly sung, though it <i>is</i> a +hymn, and not an <i>Epithalamium</i>: a vague idea of many people is in my +head. I am standing before the altar—the altar smothered in flowers. +The old vicar who christened me is to marry me. I have declined the +intervention of all strange bishops and curates whatsoever. He is a +clergyman of the old school, and spares us not a word of the ritual.</p> + +<p>Truly in no squeamish age was the marriage-service composed! I +know—that is, I could have told you if you had asked me—that I am +standing beside a large and stately person, to whom, if neither God nor +man interpose to prevent it, I shall, within five minutes, be lawfully +wed; but I do not in the least degree realize it.</p> + +<p>Now and again a strong sense of the ludicrous rushes over me. There +seems to me something acutely ridiculous in the idea of myself standing +here, so finely dressed—of the boys, demure and prim in their tall hats +and Sunday coats, gathered to see <i>me</i> married—<i>me</i> of all people!</p> + +<p>Like lightning-flash there darts into my head the recollection of the +<i>last time that I was married</i>! when, long ago we were little children, +one wet Sunday afternoon, for want of a job, I had espoused Bobby; and +Algy, standing on a chair, with his night-gown on for a surplice, had +married us. It is over now. I am aware that several persons of different +genders have kissed me. I have signed my name. I am walking down the +church-yard path, the bells jangling gayly above my head, drowning the +sweet thrushes; and the school-children flinging bountiful garden +flowers before my feet. It seems to me a sin to tread upon them. It goes +to my heart. We reach the house. Vick comes out to meet us in a +crawling, groveling manner, which owes its birth to the <i>shame</i> caused +in her mind by the huge favor which my maid has tied round her little +neck. We go into breakfast and feed—the <i>women</i> with easy minds; the +<i>men</i>, with such appetites as the fear of impending speeches, of +horrible shattered commonplaces leaves them.</p> + +<p>I suppose that, despite my change of name, I cannot yet be wholly a +Tempest; for, while I remain perfectly serene and calm during Sir +Roger's few plain words, I am one red misery while Algy is returning +thanks for the bridesmaids, which he does in so appallingly lame, +stammering, and altogether agonizing a manner, that I have serious +thoughts of slipping from my bridegroom's side under the friendly shade +of the table, among its sheltering legs.</p> + +<p>Thank God it is over, and I am gone to put on my traveling-dress! The +odious parting moment has come. The carriage is at the door: the maid +and valet are in the dickey. What a pity that they are not bride and +bridegroom too! Vick has jumped in—alert and self-respecting again now +that she has bitten off her favor.</p> + +<p>I have begun my voluminous farewells. I have kissed them all round once, +and am beginning again. How can one make up one's mind where to stop? +with whom to end?</p> + +<p>"Never you marry, Barbara!" say I, in a sobbing whisper, as I clasp her +in my last embrace, greatly distorting my new bonnot, "it is <i>so</i> +disagreeable!"</p> + +<p>We are off, followed by a tornado of shoes—one, aimed with dexterous +violence by that unlucky Bobby, goes nigh to cut the bridegroom's left +eye open, as he waves his good-byes.</p> + +<p>As we trot smartly away, I turn round in the carriage and look at them +through my tears. There they all are! After all, what a nice-looking +family! Even Tou Tou! there is something pretty about her, and standing +as she is now, her legs look quite nice and thick.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We reach Dover before dinner-time. Sir Roger has gone out to speak to +the courier who meets us there. I am left alone in our great stiff +sitting-room at the Lord Warden. Instantly I rush to the +writing-materials.</p> + +<p>"What, writing already?" says my husband, reëntering, and coming over +with a smile toward me. "Have you forgotten any of your finery?"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" cry I, impulsively, spreading both hands over the sheet; "do +not look! you must not look!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think I <i>should</i>?" he says, reproachfully, turning quickly away.</p> + +<p>"But you may," cry I, with one of my sudden useless remorses, holding +out the note to him. "Do! I should like you to!—I do not know why I +said it!—I was only sending them a line, just to tell them how +<i>dreadfully</i> I missed them all!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>I have been married a week. A <i>week</i> indeed! a week in the sense in +which the creation of the world occupied a week!—seven geological ages, +perhaps, but <i>not</i> seven days. We have been to Brussels, to Antwerp, to +Cologne. We have seen—(with the penetrating incense odor in our +nostrils, and the kneeling peasants at our feet)—the Descent from the +Cross, the Elevation of the Cross—dead Christs manifold. Can it be +possible that the brush which worthily painted Christ's agony, can be +the same that descended to eternize redundant red fishwives, and call +them goddesses? We have given ourselves cricks in the necks, staring up +at the divine incompleteness of Cologne Cathedral. And all through +Crucifixions, cathedrals, table d'hôtes, I have been deadly, <i>deadly</i> +homesick—homesick as none but one that has been a member of a large +family and has been out into the world on his or her own account, for +the first time, can understand. When first I drove away through the +park, my sensations were something like those that we all used to +experience, on the rare occasions when father, as a treat, took one or +other of us out on an excursion with him—the <i>honor</i> great, but the +<i>pleasure</i> small.</p> + +<p>It seems to myself, as if I had not laughed once since we set +off!—yes—<i>once</i> I did, at the recollection of an old joke of Bobby's, +that we all thought very silly at the time, but that strikes me as +irresistibly funny now that it recurs to me in the midst of strange +scenes, and of jokeless foreigners.</p> + +<p>After forty, people do not laugh at absolutely <i>nothing</i>. They may be +very easily moved to mirth, as, indeed, to do him justice, Sir Roger is; +but they do not laugh for the pure physical pleasure of grinning. The +weight of the absolute <i>tête-à-tête</i> of a honey-moon, which has proved +trying to a more violent love than mine, is oppressing me.</p> + +<p>At home, if I grew tired of talking to one, I could talk to another. If +I waxed weary of Bobby's sea-tales, I might refresh myself with +listening to the Brat's braggings about Oxford—with Tou Tou's murdered +French lesson:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">J'aime, I love.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tu aimes, Thou lovest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Il aime, He loves.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>How many thousand years ago, the labored conjugation of that verb seems +to me!</p> + +<p><i>Now</i>, if I do not converse with Sir Roger, I must remain silent. And, +somehow, I cannot talk to him now as fluently as I used. Before—during +our short previous acquaintance—where I used to pester the poor man +with filial aspirations that he could not reciprocate, there seemed no +end to the things I had to say to him. I felt as if I could have told +him any thing. I bubbled over with silly jests.</p> + +<p>It never occurred to me to think whether I pleased him or not; but +<i>now</i>—<i>now</i>, the sense of my mental inferiority—of the gulf of years +and inequalities that yawns between us—weighs like a lump of lead upon +me.</p> + +<p>I am in constant fear of falling below his estimate of me. Before I +speak, I think whether what I am going to say will be worth saying, and, +as very few of my remarks come up to this standard, I become extremely +silent. Oh, if we could meet some one we knew—even if it were some one +that we rather disliked than otherwise: some one that would laugh and +have as few wits as I, and be <i>young</i>.</p> + +<p>But it is too early in the year for many people to be yet abroad, and, +so far, we have fallen upon no acquaintances. Once, indeed, at Antwerp, +I see in the distance a man whose figure bears a striking resemblance to +that of "Toothless Jack," and my heart leaps—detestable as I have +always thought Barbara's aspirant; but on coming nearer the likeness +disappears, and I relapse into depression.</p> + +<p>Long ago, I had told my husband—on the first day I had made his +acquaintance indeed—that I had no conversation, and now he is proving +experimentally the truth of my confession. At home, our talk has always +been made up of allusions, half-words, petrified witticisms, that have +become part of our language. Each sentence would require a dictionary of +explanation to any strange hearer. <i>Now</i>, if I wish to be understood, I +must say my meaning in plain English, and very laborious I find it.</p> + +<p>To-day, we are on our way from Cologne to Dresden; sixteen hours and a +half at a stretch. This of itself is enough to throw the equablest mind +off its balance.</p> + +<p>We have a <i>coupé</i> to ourselves. This is quite opposed to my wishes, nor +is it Sir Roger's doing, but Schmidt, the courier, knowing what is +seemly on those occasions—what he has always done for all former +freshly-wed couples whom he has escorted—secured it before we could +prevent him. As for me, it would have amused me to see the people come +in and out, to air my timid German in little remarks about the weather; +albeit I have thus early discovered that the German, which we have been +exhorted to talk among ourselves in the school-room, to perfect us in +that tongue, bears no very pronounced likeness to the language as talked +by the indigenous inhabitants. They <i>will</i> talk so fast, and they never +say any thing in the least like Ollendorff.</p> + +<p><i>Sixteen hours and a half</i> of a <i>tête-à-tête</i> more complete and unbroken +than any we have yet enjoyed. All day I watch the endless, treeless, +hedgeless German flats fly past; the straight-lopped poplars, the spread +of tall green wheat, the blaze of rape-fields—the villages and towns, +with two-towered German churches, over and over, and over again. Oh, for +a hill, were it no bigger than a molehill! Oh, for a broad-armed English +oak!</p> + +<p>At Minden we stop to lunch. The whole train pushes and jostles into the +refreshment-room, and, in ten galloping minutes, we devour three filthy +<i>plats</i>; a nauseous potage, a terrible dish of sickly veal, and a ragged +Braten. Then a rush and tumble off again.</p> + +<p>The day rolls past, dustily, samely, wearily. There have been flying +thunder-storms—lightning-flashes past the windows. I hide my face in my +dusty gloves to avoid seeing the quick red forks, and leave a smear on +each grimy cheek. Every moment, I am a rape-field—a corn-field, a +bean-field, farther from Barbara, farther from the Brat, farther from +the jackdaw.</p> + +<p>"This is rather a long day for you, child!" says Sir Roger, kindly, +perceiving, I suppose, the joviality of the expression with which I am +eying the German landscape. "The most tedious railway-journey you ever +took, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," reply I, "far! It seems like three Sundays rolled into one, does +not it? What time is it now?"</p> + +<p>He takes out his watch and looks.</p> + +<p>"Twenty past five."</p> + +<p>"<i>Seven</i> hours more!" say I, with a burst of desperateness.</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry for you, Nancy! what can one do for you?" says my +husband, looking thoroughly discomfited, concerned, and helpless. "Would +you care to have a book?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot read in a train," reply I, dolorously, "it makes me <i>sick</i>!" +Then feeling rather ashamed of my peevishness—"Never mind me!" I say, +with a dusty smile; "I am quite happy! I—I—like looking out."</p> + +<p>The day falls, the night comes. On, on, on! There is a bit of +looking-glass opposite me. I can no longer see any thing outside. I have +to sit staring at my own plain, grimed, bored face. In a sudden fury, I +draw the little red silk curtain across my own image. Thank God! I can +no longer see myself. Sir Roger ceases to try his eyes with the print of +the <i>Westminster</i>, and closes it.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," say I, pouring some eau-de-cologne on my +pocket-handkerchief, and trying to cleanse my face therewith, but only +succeeding in making it a muddy instead of a dusty smudge—"I wonder +whether we shall meet any one we know at Dresden?"</p> + +<p>"I should not wonder," replies Sir Roger, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"Is the Hôtel de Saxe the place where most English go?" inquire I, +anxiously. "Ah, you do not know! I must ask Schmidt."</p> + +<p>"Yes, do."</p> + +<p>"I hope we shall," say I, straining my eyes to make out the objects in +the dark outside. "We have been very unlucky so far, have not we?"</p> + +<p>"Are you so anxious to meet people? are you so dull already, Nancy?" he +asks, in that voice of peculiar gentleness which I have already learned +to know hides inward pain.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" cry I, with quick remorse. "Not at all! I have always +<i>longed</i> to travel! At one time Barbara and I were always talking about +it, making plans, you know, of where we would go. I enjoy it, of all +things, especially the pictures—but do not you think it would be +amusing to have some one to talk to at the <i>tables d'hôte</i>, some one +English, to laugh at the people with?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answers, readily, "of course it would. It is quite natural +that you should wish it. I heartily hope we shall. We will go wherever +it is most likely."</p> + +<p>After long, <i>long</i> hours of dark rushing, Dresden at last. We drive in +an open carriage through an unknown town, moonlit, silent, and asleep. +German towns go to bed early. We cross the Elbe, in which a second moon, +big and clear as the one in heaven, lies quivering, waving with the +water's wave; then through dim, ghostly streets, and at last—at +last—we pull up at the door of the Hôtel de Saxe, and the sleepy porter +comes out disheveled.</p> + +<p>"There is no doubt," say I, aloud, when I find myself alone in my +bedroom, Sir Roger not having yet come up, and the maid having gone to +bed—addressing the remark to the hot water in which I have been bathing +my face, stiff with dirt, and haggard with fatigue. "There is no use +denying it, I <i>hate</i> being married!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>We have been in Dresden three whole days, and as yet my aspirations have +not met their fulfillment. We have met no one we know. We have borrowed +the Visitors' Book from the porter, and diligently searched it. We have +expectantly examined the guests at the <i>tables d'hôte</i> every day, but +with no result. It is too early in the year. The hotel is not half full. +Of its inmates one half are American, a quarter German, and the other +quarter English, such as not the most rabidly social mind can wish to +forgather with. At the discovery of our ill-success, Sir Roger looks so +honestly crestfallen that my heart smites me.</p> + +<p>"How eager you are!" I say, laying my hand on his, with a smile. "You +are far more anxious about it than I am! I begin to think that you are +growing tired of me already! As for me," continue I, nonchalantly, +seeing his face brighten at my words, "I think I have changed my mind. +Perhaps it would be rather a <i>bore</i> to meet any acquaintance, +and—and—we do very well as we are, do not we?"</p> + +<p>"Is that true, Nancy?" he says, eagerly. "I have been bothering my head +rather with the notion that I was but poor company for a little young +thing like you; that you must be wearying for some of your own friends."</p> + +<p>"I never had a friend," reply I, "<i>never</i>—that is—except <i>you</i>! The +boys"—(with a little stealing smile)—"always used to call you my +friend—always from the first, from the days I used to take you out +walking, and keep wishing that you were my father, and be rather hurt +because I never could get you to echo the wish."</p> + +<p>"And you are not much disappointed <i>really</i>?" he says, with a wistful +persistence, as if he but half believed the words my lips made. "If you +are, mind you tell me, child—tell me every thing that vexes +you—<i>always</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I will tell you every thing that happens to me, bad and good," reply I, +quite gayly, "and all the unlucky things I say—there, that is a large +promise, I can tell you!"</p> + +<p>I am no longer dusty and grimy; quite spick and span, on the contrary; +so freshly and prettily dressed, indeed, that the thought <i>will</i> occur +to me that it is a pity there are not more people to see me. However, no +doubt some one will turn up by-and-by. The weather is serenely, evenly +fine. It seems as if no rain <i>could</i> come from such a high blue sky. It +is late afternoon or early evening. Since dinner is over—dinner at the +godless hour of half-past four—I suppose we must call it evening. Sir +Roger and I are driving out in an open carriage beyond the town, across +the Elbe, up the shady road to Weisserhoisch. The calm of coming night +is falling with silky softness upon every thing. The acacias stand on +each side of the highway, with the delicate abundance of their airy +flowers, faintly yet most definitely sweet on the evening air.</p> + +<p>I look up and see the crowded blooms drooping in pensive beauty above my +head. The guelder-rose's summer snow-balls, and the mock-orange with its +penetrating odor, whiten the still gardens as we pass. The billowy +meadow-grass, the tall red sorrel, the untidy, ragged robin, all the +yearly-recurring May miracles! What can I say, O my friends, to set them +fairly before you?</p> + +<p>Under the trees the townsfolk are walking, chatting low and friendly. A +soldier has his arm round a fat-faced Mädchen's waist, an attention +which she takes with the stolidity engendered by long habit. Dear, +willing, panting dogs, are laboriously dragging the washer-women's +little carts up-hill.</p> + +<p>"Vick," say I, gravely, "how would you like to drag a little cart to the +wash?"</p> + +<p>Vick does not answer verbally, but she stretches her small neck over the +carriage-side, and gives a disdainful yet inquisitive <i>smell</i> at her low +brethren. No words could express a fuller contempt for a dog that earns +his own living.</p> + +<p>The driver is taking his horses along very easily, but we do not care to +hurry him. I have not felt so happy, so at ease, so gay, since I was +wed.</p> + +<p>"This <i>is</i> nice," say I, making a frantic snatch at a long acacia-droop; +"<i>how</i> I wish they were <i>all</i> here!"</p> + +<p>Sir Roger laughs a little, and raises his eyebrows slightly.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean <i>with us</i>—<i>now</i>—<i>in the carriage</i>? Should not we be +rather a tight fit?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," say I, laughing too. "We should be puzzled how to pack them +all, should not we? We would be like the animals in a Noah's ark."</p> + +<p>A little pause.</p> + +<p>"General," say I, impulsively, "it has just occurred to me, are not you +sometimes deadly, <i>deadly</i> tired of hearing about the boys? I am sure I +should be, if I were you. Confess! I will try not to be any angrier with +you than I can help; but do not you sometimes wish that Algy and Bobby, +and the Brat—not to speak of Tou Tou—were drowned in the Red Sea, or +in the horse-pond, at home?"</p> + +<p>"At least you gave me fair warning," he says, with a smile. "Do you +remember telling me that whoever married you would have to marry all +six?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you would not remind me of that," say I, reddening.</p> + +<p>It was quite the broadest hint any one ever gave. The evening is +deepening. We have reached Weisserhoisch. Now our faces are turned +homeward again. As we pass the entrance to the Gardens of the Linnisches +Bad, we see the lamps springing into light, and the people gayly yet +quietly trooping in, while on the soft evening air comes the swell of +merry music.</p> + +<p>"Stop! stop!" cry I, springing up, excitedly. "Let us go in. I <i>love</i> a +band! It is almost as good as a circus. May we, general? Do you mind? +Would it bore you?"</p> + +<p>Five minutes more, and we are sitting at a little round table, each with +a tall green glass of Mai-Trank before us, and a brisk Uhlanenritt in +our ears. I look round with a pleasant sense of dissipation. The still, +green trees; the cluster of oval lamps, like great bright ostrich-eggs; +the countless little tables like our own; the happy social groups; the +waiters running madly about with bif-tecks; the great-lidded goblets of +amber-colored Bohemian beer; the young Bavarian officers, in light-blue +uniforms, at the next table to us—stalwart, fair-haired boys—I should +not altogether mind knowing a few of them; and, over all, the arch of +suave, dark, evening sky.</p> + +<p>"What shall we have for supper?" cry I, vivaciously. "I never can see +anybody eating without longing to eat too. <i>Blutwurst!</i> That means +black-pudding, I suppose—certainly not <i>that</i>—how they do call a spade +a spade in German! By-the-by, what are the soldiers having? Can you see? +I think I saw a vision of <i>prawns</i>! I saw things sticking out like their +legs. I <i>must</i> find out!"</p> + +<p>I rise, on pretense of getting a little wooden stool from under an +unoccupied table close to the object of my curiosity, and, as I stoop to +pick it up, I fraudulently glance over the nearest warrior's shoulder. +My sin finds me out. He turns and catches me in the act, and at the same +time a young man—<i>not</i> a warrior, at least not in uniform, but in loose +gray British clothes—turns, too, and fixes me with a stony, British +stare. I am returning in some confusion, having moreover incidentally +discovered that they were <i>not</i> prawns, when to my extreme surprise, I +hear my husband addressing the young gentleman in gray.</p> + +<p>"Why, Frank, my dear boy, is that you? Who would have thought of seeing +<i>you</i> here?"</p> + +<p>"As to that," replies the young man, stretching out a ready right hand, +"who would have thought of seeing <i>you</i>? What on earth has brought <i>you</i> +here?"</p> + +<p>Sir Roger laughs, but with a sort of shyness.</p> + +<p>"Like the man in the parable, I have married a wife," he says; then, +putting his hand kindly on the young fellow's shoulder—"Nancy, you have +been wishing that we might meet some one we knew, have not you? Well, +here is some one. I suppose that I must introduce you formally to each +other. Lady Tempest—Mr. Musgrave."</p> + +<p>Despite the searching, and, I should have thought, exhaustive +examination of my appearance, that my new friend has already indulged +in, he thinks good to look at me again, as he bows, and this time with a +sort of undisguisable surprise in his great dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"I must apologize," he says, taking off his hat. "I had heard that you +were going to be married, but I am so behind the time, have been so out +of the way of hearing news, that I did not know that it had come off +yet."</p> + +<p>He says this with a little of that doubtful stiffness, which sometimes +owes its birth to shyness, and sometimes to self-consciousness; but he +seems in no hurry to return to his friends, the big, blond soldiers. On +the contrary, he draws a chair up to our table.</p> + +<p>"Do they ever get <i>prawns</i> here?" say I, with apparent irrelevancy, not +being able to disengage my mind from the thought of shell-fish, "or is +it too far inland? I am <i>so</i> fond of them, and I fancied that these +gentlemen—" (slightly indicating the broad, blue warrior-backs)—"were +eating some."</p> + +<p>His mouth curves into a sudden smile.</p> + +<p>"Was that why you came to look?"</p> + +<p>I laugh.</p> + +<p>"I did not mean to be seen: that person must have had eyes in the back +of his head."</p> + +<p>I relapse into silence, and fish for the sprigs of woodruff floating in +my Mai-Trank, while the talk passes to Sir Roger. Presently I become +aware that the stranger is addressing me by that new title which makes +me disposed to laugh.</p> + +<p>"Lady Tempest, have you seen those lamps that they have here, in the +shape of flowers? Cockney sort of things, but they are rather pretty."</p> + +<p>"No," say I, eagerly, dropping my spoon and looking up; "<i>in the shape +of flowers</i>? Where?"</p> + +<p>"You cannot see them from here," he answers; "they are over there, +nearer the river."</p> + +<p>"I should like to see them," say I, decisively; "shall we, general?"</p> + +<p>"Will you spare Lady Tempest for five minutes?" says the young man, +addressing my husband; "it is not a hundred yards off."</p> + +<p>At <i>my</i> words Sir Roger had made a slight movement toward rising; but, +at the stranger's, he resettles himself in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Will you not come, too? Do!" say I, pleadingly; and, as I speak, I half +stretch out my hand to lay it on his arm; then hastily draw it back, +afraid and ashamed of vexing him by public demonstrations.</p> + +<p>He looks up at me with a smile, but shakes his head.</p> + +<p>"I think I am lazy," he says; "I will wait for you here."</p> + +<p>We set off; I with a strongish, but unexplained feeling of resentment +against my companion.</p> + +<p>"Where are they?" I ask, pettishly; "not far off, I hope! I do not fancy +I shall care about them!"</p> + +<p>"I did not suppose that you would," he replies, in an extremely happy +tone; "would you like us to go back?"</p> + +<p>"No," reply I, carelessly, "it would not be worth while now we have +started."</p> + +<p>We march on in solemn silence, not particularly pleased with each other. +I am staring about me, with as greedily wondering eyes as if I were a +young nun let loose for the first time. We pass a score—twoscore, +threescore, perhaps—of happy parties, soldiers again, a <i>bourgeois</i> +family of three generations, the old grandmother with a mushroom-hat +tied over her cap—soldiers and Fräuleins <i>coketteering</i>. The air comes +to our faces, dry, warm, and elastic, yet freshened by the river, far +down in whose quiet heart all the lamps are burning again.</p> + +<p>"Have you been here long?" says Mr. Musgrave, presently, in a formal +voice, from which I see that resentment is not yet absent.</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, having on the other hand fully recovered my good-humor, "a +good while—that is, not very long—three, four, three whole days."</p> + +<p>"Do you call that a <i>good while</i>?"</p> + +<p>"It seems more," reply I, looking frankly back at him in the lamplight, +and thinking that he cannot be much older than Algy, and that, in +consequence, it is rather a comfort not to be obliged to feel the +slightest respect for him.</p> + +<p>"And how long have you been abroad altogether?"</p> + +<p>We have reached the flower-lamps. We are standing by the bed in which +they are supposed to grow. There are half a dozen of them: a fuchsia, a +convolvulus, lilies.</p> + +<p>"I do not think much of them," say I, disparagingly, kneeling down to +examine them. "What a villainous rose! It is like an <i>artichoke</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I told you you would not like them," he says, not looking at the +flowers, but switching a little stick nonchalantly about; then, after a +moment: "How long did you say you had been abroad?"</p> + +<p>"You asked me that before," reply I, sharply, rising from my knees, and +discovering that the evening grass has left a disfiguring green trace on +my smart <i>trousseau</i> gown.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and you did not give me any answer," he replies, with equal +sharpness.</p> + +<p>"Because I cannot for the life of me recollect," reply I, looking up for +inspiration to the stars, which the great bright lamps make look small +and pale. "I must do a sum: what day of the month is this?—the 31st? +Oh, thanks, so it is; and we were married on the 20th. It is ten days, +then. Oh, it <i>must</i> be more—it seems like ten <i>months</i>."</p> + +<p>I am looking him full in the face as I say this, and I see a curious, +and to me <i>puzzling</i>, expression of inquiry and laughter in the shady +darkness of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Has the time seemed so long to you, then?"</p> + +<p>"No," reply I, reddening with vexation at my own <i>bêtise</i>; "that +is—yes—because we have been to so many places, and seen so many +things—any one would understand <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"And when do you go home?"</p> + +<p>"In less than three weeks now," I reply, in an alert, or rather joyful +tone; "at least I hope so—I mean" (again correcting myself)—"I <i>think</i> +so."</p> + +<p>Somehow I feel dissatisfied with my own explanations, and recommence:</p> + +<p>"The boys—that is, my brothers—will soon be scattered to the ends of +the earth; Algy has got his commission, and Bobby will soon be sent to a +foreign station—he is in the navy, you will understand; and so we all +want to be together once again before they go."</p> + +<p>"You are not going home <i>really</i>, then?" inquires my companion, with a +slight shade of disappointment in his tone; "not to <i>Tempest</i>—that is?"</p> + +<p>"What a number of questions you do ask!" say I, impatiently. "Of what +possible interest can it be to you where we are going?"</p> + +<p>"Only that I shall be your nearest neighbor," replies he, stiffly; "and, +as Sir Roger has hardly ever been down hitherto, I am rather tired of +living next an empty house."</p> + +<p>"Our nearest neighbor!" cry I, with animation, opening my eyes. "Not +<i>really</i>? Well, I am rather glad! Only yesterday I was asking Sir Roger +whether there were many young people about. And <i>how</i> near are you? +<i>Very</i> near?"</p> + +<p>"About as near as I well can be," answers he, dryly. "My lodge exactly +faces yours."</p> + +<p>"Too close," say I, shaking my head. "We shall quarrel."</p> + +<p>"And do you mean to say," in a tone of attempted lightness that but +badly disguises a good deal of hurt conceit, "that you never heard my +name before?"</p> + +<p>Again I shake my head.</p> + +<p>"Never! and, what is more, I do not think I know what it is now: I +suppose I did not listen very attentively, but I do not think I caught +it."</p> + +<p>"And your tone says" (with a very considerable accession of huffiness) +"that you are supremely indifferent as to whether you <i>ever</i> catch it."</p> + +<p>I laugh.</p> + +<p>"<i>Catch</i> it! you talk as if it were a <i>disease</i>. Well" (speaking +demurely), "perhaps on the whole it <i>would</i> be more convenient if I were +to know it."</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>"Well! what is it?"</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to ask at your lodge!"</p> + +<p>"Who <i>can</i> pronounce his <i>own</i> name in cold blood?" he says, reddening a +little. "I, for one, cannot—there—if you do not mind looking at this +card—"</p> + +<p>He takes one out of his pocket, and I stop—we are slowly strolling +back—under a lamp, to read it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Mr.</span> MR. FRANCIS MUSGRAVE,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">MUSGRAVE ABBEY.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Oh, thanks—<i>Musgrave</i>—yes."</p> + +<p>"And Sir Roger has never mentioned me to you <i>really</i>?" he says, +recurring with persistent hurt vanity to the topic. "How very odd of +him!"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least odd!" reply I, brusquely. "Why should he? He knew that +I was not aware of your existence, and that therefore you would not be a +very interesting subject to me; no doubt"—(smiling a little)—"I shall +hear all about you from him now."</p> + +<p>He is silent.</p> + +<p>"And do you live <i>here</i> at this abbey"—(pointing to the card I still +hold in my hand)—"<i>all by yourself</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean without a <i>wife</i>?" he asks, with a half-sneering smile. +"Yes—I have that misfortune."</p> + +<p>"I was not thinking of a <i>wife</i>," say I, rather angrily. "It never +occurred to me that you could have one! you are too young—a great deal +too young!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Too young</i>, am I? At what age, then, may one be supposed to deserve +that blessing? forty? fifty? sixty?"</p> + +<p>I feel rather offended, but cannot exactly grasp in my own mind the +ground of offense.</p> + +<p>"I meant, of course, had you any father? any mother?"</p> + +<p>"Neither. I am that most affecting spectacle—an orphan-boy."</p> + +<p>"You have no brothers and sisters, I am <i>sure</i>," say I, confidently.</p> + +<p>"I have not, but why you should be <i>sure</i> of it, I am at a loss to +imagine."</p> + +<p>"You seem to take offense rather easily," I say, ingenuously. "You +looked quite cross when I said I did not think much of the flowers—and +again when I said I had forgotten your name—and again when I told you, +you were too young to have a wife: now, you know, in a large family, one +has all that sort of nonsense knocked out of one."</p> + +<p>"Has one?" (rather shortly).</p> + +<p>"Nobody would mind whether one were huffy or not," continue I; "they +would only laugh at one."</p> + +<p>"What a pleasant, civil-spoken thing a large family must be!" he says, +dryly.</p> + +<p>We have reached Sir Roger. I had set off on my little expedition feeling +rather out of conceit with my young friend, and I return with those +dispositions somewhat aggravated. We find my husband sitting where we +left him, placidly smoking and listening to the band.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>They have long finished the Uhlanenritt, and are now clashing out a +brisk Hussarenritt, in which one plainly hears the hussars' thundering +gallop, while the conductor madly waves his arms, as he has been doing +unintermittingly for the last two hours.</p> + +<p>"You were quite wise," say I, laying my hand on the back of his chair; +"you had much the best of it! they were a great imposture!"</p> + +<p>"Were they?" he says, taking his cigar out of his mouth, and lifting his +handsome and severe iron-gray eyes to mine. "They were farther off than +you thought, were not they? I began to think you had not been able to +find them."</p> + +<p>"Have we been so long?" I say, surprised. "It did not <i>seem</i> long! I +suppose we dawdled. We began to talk—bah! it is growing chill! let us +go home!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Musgrave accompanies us to the entrance to the gardens.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Frank!" cries Sir Roger, as he follows me into the +carriage.</p> + +<p>As soon as I am in, I recollect that I have ungratefully forgotten to +shake hands with my late escort.</p> + +<p>"Good-night!" cry I, too, stretching out a compunctious hand, over Sir +Roger and the carriage-side. "I am so sorry! I forgot all about you!"</p> + +<p>"What hotel are you at?" asks Sir Roger, closing the carriage-door after +him. "The Victoria? Oh, yes. We are at the Saxe. You must come and look +us up when you have nothing better to do. Our rooms are number—what is +it, Nancy? I never can recollect."</p> + +<p>"No. 5," reply I. "But, indeed, it is not much use any one coming to +call upon us, is it? For we are always out—morning, noon, and night."</p> + +<p>With this parting encouragement on my part, we drive off, and leave our +young friend trying, with only moderate success, to combine a gracious +smile to Sir Roger, with a resentful scowl at me, under a lamp-post. We +roll along quickly and easily, through the soft, cool, lamplit night.</p> + +<p>"Well, how did you get on with him, Nancy?" asks Sir Roger. +"Good-looking fellow, is not he?"</p> + +<p>"Is he?" say I, carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is, only that I never +<i>can</i> admire <i>dark</i> men: I am so glad that all the boys are fair—I +should have hated a <i>black</i> brother."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that my hair was not coal-black before it turned gray?" +he asks, with a smile. "It may have been the hue of the carrion-crow for +all you know."</p> + +<p>"I am <i>sure</i> it was not," reply I, stoutly; then, after a little pause, +"I do not think that I <i>did</i> get on well with him—not what <i>I</i> call +getting on—he seems rather a touchy young gentleman."</p> + +<p>"You must not quarrel with him, Nancy," says Sir Roger, laughing. "He +lives not a stone's-throw from us."</p> + +<p>"So he told me!"</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow!" with an accent of compassion. "He has never had much of a +chance; he has been his own master almost ever since he was born—a bad +thing for any boy—he has no parents, you know."</p> + +<p>"So he told me."</p> + +<p>"Neither has he any brothers or sisters."</p> + +<p>"So he told me!"</p> + +<p>"He seems to have told you a great many things."</p> + +<p>"Yes," reply I, "but then I asked him a great many questions: our +conversation was rather like the catechism: the moment I stopped asking +<i>him</i> questions, he began asking me!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Three long days—all blue and gold—blue sky and gold sunshine—roll +away. If Schmidt, the courier, <i>has</i> a fault, it is over-driving us. We +visit the Grüne Gewölbe, the Japanese Palace, the Zwinger—and we visit +them <i>alone</i>. Dresden is not a very large place, yet in no part of it, +in none of its bright streets—in neither its old nor its new market, in +none of its public places, do I catch a glimpse of my new acquaintance. +Neither does he come to call. This last fact surprises me a little, and +disappoints me a good deal. Our walk at the Linnisches Bad in the gay +lamplight, his character, his conversation, even his appearance, begin +to undergo a transformation in my mind. After all, he was not <i>really</i> +dark—not one of those black men, against whom Barbara and I have always +lifted up our testimonies; by daylight, I think his eyes would have been +hazel. He certainly was very easy to talk to. One had not to pump up +conversation for him, and I do not suppose that, <i>as men go</i>, he was +<i>really</i> very touchy. One cannot expect everybody to be so jest-hardened +and robustly good-tempered as the boys. Often before now I have only +been able to gauge the unfortunateness of my speeches to men, by the +rasping effect they have had on their tempers, and which has often taken +me honestly by surprise.</p> + +<p>"<i>Again</i>, Mr. Musgrave has not been to call," say I, one afternoon, on +returning from a long and rather grilling drive, speaking in a slightly +annoyed tone.</p> + +<p>"Did you expect that he would?" asks Sir Roger, with a smile. "I think +that, after the searching snub you gave him, he would have been a bolder +man than I take him for, if he had risked his head in the lion's mouth."</p> + +<p>"<i>Am</i> I such a lion?" say I, with an accent of vexation. "<i>Did</i> I snub +him? I am sure I had no more idea of snubbing him than I had of snubbing +<i>you</i>; that is the way in which I always cut my own throat!"</p> + +<p>I draw a chair into the balcony, where he has already established +himself with his cigar, and sit down beside him.</p> + +<p>"I foresee," say I, beginning to laugh rather grimly, "that a desert +will spread all round our house! your friends will disappear before my +tongue, like morning mist."</p> + +<p>"Let them!"</p> + +<p>After a pause, edging a little nearer to him, and, regardless of the +hay-carts in the market below—laying my fair-haired head on his +shoulder:</p> + +<p>"What <i>could</i> have made you marry such a <i>shrew</i>? I believe it was the +purest philanthropy."</p> + +<p>"That was it!" he answers, fondly. "To save any other poor fellow from +such an infliction!"</p> + +<p>"Quite unnecessary!" rejoin I, shaking my head. "If you had not married +me, it is very certain that nobody else would!"</p> + +<p>Another day has come. It is hot afternoon. Sir Roger is reading the +<i>Times</i> in our balcony, and I am strolling along the dazzling streets by +myself. What can equal the white glare of a foreign town? I am strolling +along by myself under a big sun-shade. My progress is slow, as my nose +has a disposition to flatten itself against every shop-window—saving, +perhaps, the cigar ones. A grave problem is engaging my mind. What +present am I to take to father? It is this question which moiders our +young brains as often as his birthday recurs. My thoughts are trailing +back over all our former gifts to him. This year we gave him a +spectacle-case (he is short-sighted); last year a pocket-book; the year +before, an inkstand. What is there left to give him? A cigar-case? He +does not smoke. A hunting-flask? He has half a dozen. A Norwegian stove? +He does not approve of them, but says that men ought to be satisfied +with sandwiches out shooting. A telescope? He never lifts his eyes high +enough above our delinquencies to look at the stars. I cannot arrive at +any approximation to a decision. As I issue from a china-shop, with a +brown-paper parcel under my arm, and out on the hot and glaring flags, I +see a young man come stepping down the street, with a long, loose, +British stride; a young man, pale and comely, and a good deal worn out +by the flies, that have also eaten most of me.</p> + +<p>"How are you?" cry I, hastily shifting my umbrella to the other hand, so +as to have my right one ready to offer him. "Are not these streets +blinding? I am blinking like an owl in daylight!—so you never came to +see us, after all!"</p> + +<p>"It was so likely that I should!" he answers, with his nose in the air.</p> + +<p>"Very likely!" reply I, taking him literally; "so likely that I have +been expecting you every day."</p> + +<p>"You seem to forget—confound these flies!"—(as a stout blue-bottle +blunders into one flashing eye)—"you seem to forget that you told me, +in so many words, to stay away."</p> + +<p>"You <i>were</i> huffy, then!" say I, with an accent of incredulity. "Sir +Roger was right! he said you were, and I could not believe it; he was +quite sorry for you. He said I had snubbed you so."</p> + +<p>"<i>Snubbed</i> me!" reddening self-consciously, and drawing himself up as if +he did not much relish the application of the word. "I do not often give +any one the chance of doing that <i>twice</i>!"</p> + +<p>"You are not going to be offended <i>again</i>, I suppose," say I, +apprehensively; "it must be with Sir Roger this time, if you are! it was +he that was sorry for you, not <i>I</i>."</p> + +<p>We look at each other under my green sun-shade (his eyes <i>are</i> hazel, by +daylight), and then we both burst into a duet of foolish friendly +laughter.</p> + +<p>"I want you to give me your advice," say I, as we toddle amicably along, +side by side. "What would be a nice present for a gentleman—an elderly +gentleman—at least <i>rather</i> elderly, who <i>has</i> a spectacle-case, a +pocket-book, an inkstand, six Church services, and who does not smoke."</p> + +<p>"But he <i>does</i> smoke," says Mr. Musgrave, correcting me. "I <i>saw</i> him +the other day."</p> + +<p>"Saw <i>whom</i>? What—do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Are not you talking of Sir Roger?" he asks, with an accent of surprise.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sir Roger!</i>" (indignantly). "No, indeed! do you think <i>he</i> wants +spectacles? No! I was talking of my father."</p> + +<p>"<i>Your father?</i> You are not, like me, a poor misguided orphan, then; you +have a father."</p> + +<p>"I should think I <i>had</i>," reply I, expressively.</p> + +<p>"Any brothers? Oh, yes, by-the-by, I know you have! you held them up for +my imitation the other day—half a dozen fellows who never take offense +at any thing."</p> + +<p>"No more they do!" cry I, firing up. "If I tell them when I go home, as +I certainly shall, if I remember, that you were out of humor and bore +malice for <i>three</i> whole days, because I happened to say that we were +generally out-of-doors most of the day—they will not believe it—simply +they will not."</p> + +<p>"And have you also six sisters?" asks the young man, dexterously +shifting the conversation a little.</p> + +<p>"No, two."</p> + +<p>"And are they <i>all</i> to have presents?—six and two is eight, and your +father nine, and—I suppose you have a mother, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Nine and one is ten—ten brown-paper parcels, each as large as the one +you now have under your arm—by-the-by, would you like me to carry it? +<i>What</i> a lot you will have to pay for extra luggage!"</p> + +<p>His offer to carry my parcel is so slightly and incidentally made, and +is so unaccompanied by any gesture suited to the words, that I decline +the attention. The people pass to and fro in the sun as we pace +leisurely along.</p> + +<p>"Have you nearly done your shopping?" asks my companion, presently.</p> + +<p>"Very nearly."</p> + +<p>"What do you say to taking a tour through the gallery?" he says, "or are +you sick of the pictures?"</p> + +<p>"Far from it," say I, briskly, "but, all the same, I cannot do it; I am +going back at once to Sir Roger; we are to drive to Loschwitz: I only +came out for a little prowl by myself, to think about father's present! +Sir Roger cannot help me at all," I continue, marching off again into +the theme which is uppermost in my thoughts. "<i>He</i> suggested a +traveling-bag, but I know that father would <i>hate</i> that."</p> + +<p>"To <i>drive</i>! this time of day!" cried Mr. Musgrave, in a tone of extreme +disapprobation; "will not you get well baked?"</p> + +<p>"I dare say," I answer, absently; then, in a low tone to myself, "<i>why</i> +does not he smoke? it would be so easy then—a smoking-cap, a +tobacco-pouch, a cigar-holder, a hundred things!"</p> + +<p>"Is it <i>quite</i> settled about Loschwitz?" asks the young man, with an air +of indifference.</p> + +<p>"Quite," say I, still not thinking of what I am saying. "That is, +no—not quite—nearly—a bag <i>is</i> useful, you know."</p> + +<p>"I passed the Saxe just now," he says, giving his hat a little tilt over +his nose, "and saw Sir Roger sitting in the balcony, with his cigar and +his <i>Times</i>, and he looked so luxuriously comfortable that it seemed a +sin to disturb him. Do not you think, taking the dust and the +blue-bottles into consideration, that it would be kinder to leave him in +peace in his arm-chair?"</p> + +<p>"No, I do not," reply I, flatly. "I suppose he knows best what he likes +himself; and why a strong, hearty man in the prime of life should be +supposed to wish to spend a whole summer afternoon nodding in an +arm-chair, any more than you would wish it yourself, I am at a loss to +inquire!" The suggestion has irritated me so much that for the moment I +forget the traveling-bag.</p> + +<p>"When I am as old as he," replies the young man, coldly, shaking the ash +off his cigar, "if I ever am, which I doubt, and have knocked about the +world for as many years, and imperiled my liver in as many climates, and +sent as many Russians, and Chinamen, and Sikhs to glory as he has, I +shall think myself entitled to sit in an arm-chair—yes, and sleep in it +too—all day, if I feel inclined."</p> + +<p>I do not answer, partly because I am exasperated, partly because at this +moment my eye is caught by an object in a shop-window—a traveling-bag, +with its mouth invitingly open, displaying all manner of manly +conveniences. I hastily furl my green umbrella, and step in. My squire +does not follow me. I hardly notice the fact, but suppose that he is +standing outside in the sun. However, when I reissue forth, I find that +he has disappeared. I look up the street, down the street. There is no +trace of him. I walk away, feeling a little mortified. I go into a few +more shops: I dawdle over some china. Then I turn my steps homeward.</p> + +<p>At a narrow street-corner, in the grateful shade cast by some tall +houses, I come face to face with him again.</p> + +<p>"Did not you wonder where I had disappeared to?" he asks; "or perhaps +you never noticed that I had?"</p> + +<p>He is panting a little, as if he had been running, or walking fast.</p> + +<p>"I thought that most likely you had taken offense again," reply I, with +a laugh, "and that I had lost sight of you for three more days."</p> + +<p>"I have been to the Hôtel de Saxe," he replies, with a rather triumphant +smile on his handsome mustacheless lips. "I thought I would find out +about Loschwitz."</p> + +<p>"Find out <i>what</i>?" cry I, standing still, raising my voice a little, and +growing even redder than the sun, the flies, the brown-paper parcel, and +the heavy umbrella, have already made me. "There was nothing to find +out! I wish you would leave things alone; I wish you would let me manage +my own business."</p> + +<p>The smile disappears rather rapidly.</p> + +<p>"You have not been telling the general," continue I, in a tone of rapid +apprehension, "that I did not want to go with him? because, if you have, +it was a great, great <i>mistake</i>."</p> + +<p>"I told him nothing of the kind," replies Mr. Musgrave, looking, like +me, fierce, but—unlike me—cool and pale. "I was not so inventive. I +merely suggested that sunstroke would most likely be your portion if you +went now, and that it would be quite as easy, and a great deal +pleasanter, to go three hours later."</p> + +<p>"Yes? and he said—what?"</p> + +<p>"He was foolish enough to agree with me."</p> + +<p>We are standing in a little quiet street, all shade and dark shops. +There are very few passers-by. I feel rather ashamed of myself, and my +angry eyes peruse the pavement. Neither does he speak. Presently I look +up at him rather shyly.</p> + +<p>"How about the gallery? the pictures?"</p> + +<p>"Do you wish to go there?" he asks, with rather the air of a polite +martyr. "I shall be happy to take you if you like."</p> + +<p>"Do!" say I, heartily, "and let us try to be friends, and to spend five +minutes without quarreling!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We have spent more than five, a great deal more—thirty, forty, perhaps, +and our harmony is still unbroken, <i>uncracked</i> even. We have sat in awed +and chastened silence before the divine meekness of the Sistine Madonna. +We have turned away in disgust from Jordain's brutish "Triumphs of +Silenus," and tiresome repetitions of Hercules in drink. We have admired +the exuberance of St. Mary of Egypt's locks, and irreverently compared +them to the effects of Mrs. Allen's "World-wide Hair Restorer." We have +observed that the forehead of Holbein's great Virgin is too high to +please <i>us</i>, and made many other connoisseur-like remarks. I have +pointed out to Mr. Musgrave the Saint Catherine which has a look of +Barbara, and we have both grown rather tired of St. Sebastian, stuck as +full of darts as a pin-cushion of pins. Now we are sitting down resting +our eyes and our strained powers of criticism, and have fallen into easy +talk.</p> + +<p>"I am glad you are coming to dine at our <i>table d'hôte</i> to-night," say +I, in a friendly tone. "It will be nice for the general to have an +Englishman to talk to. I hope you will sit by him; he has been so much +used to men all his life that he must get rather sick of having nothing +but the chatter of one woman to depend upon."</p> + +<p>"At least he has no one but himself to blame for that," replies the +young fellow, laughing. "I suppose it was his own doing."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?" cry I, gayly, and then the recollection of my +<i>hint</i> to Sir Roger—a remembrance that always makes me rather +hot—comes over me, and causes me to turn my head quickly away with a +red blush. "It certainly <i>has</i> a look of Barbara," I say, glancing +toward the Saint Catherine, and rushing quickly into another subject.</p> + +<p>"Has it?" he says, apparently unaware of the rapidity of my transition. +"Then I wish I knew Barbara."</p> + +<p>I laugh.</p> + +<p>"I dare say you do."</p> + +<p>"She is not much like you, I suppose?" he says, turning from the saint's +straight and strict Greek profile to the engaging irregularity of mine.</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," say I, with emphasis. "Ah!" (in a tone of prospective +triumph), "wait till you see her!"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid that I shall have to wait some time."</p> + +<p>"The Brat—that is one of my brothers, you know—is the one like me," I +say, becoming diffuse, as I always do, when the theme of my family is +started; "we <i>are</i> like! We can see it ourselves."</p> + +<p>"Is he one of the thick-skinned six that you told me about?"</p> + +<p>"There are <i>not</i> six," cry I, impatiently. "I do not know what put it +into your head that there were <i>six</i>; there are only <i>three</i>."</p> + +<p>"You certainly told me there were six."</p> + +<p>"I am <i>he</i> in petticoats," say I, resuming the thread of my own +narrative; "everybody sees the likeness. One day when he was three or +four years younger, we dressed him up in my things—my gown and bonnet, +you know—and all the servants took him for me; they only found him out +because he held up his gown so awkwardly high, and gave it such great +kicks to keep it out of his way, that they saw his great nailed boots! +Sir Roger thought we were twins the first time he saw us."</p> + +<p>"Sir Roger!" repeats the young man, as if reminded by the name of +something he had meant to say. "Oh, by-the-by, if you will not think me +impertinent for asking, where did you first fall in with Sir Roger? I +should have thought that he was rather out of your beat; you do not hail +from his part of the world, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No," reply I, my thoughts traveling back to the day when we made taffy, +and tumbled over each other, hot and sticky to the window, to see the +dog-cart bearing the stranger roll up the drive. "I never saw him till +this last March, when he came to stay with us."</p> + +<p>"To stay with you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," reply I, thinking of our godless jokes about his wig and his +false calves, and smiling gently to myself; "he was an old friend of +father's."</p> + +<p>"A contemporary, I suppose?" (a little inquisitively).</p> + +<p>"Yes, he was at school with father," I answer; and the moment I have +given utterance to the abhorred formula I repent.</p> + +<p>"At school with him?" (speaking rather slowly, and looking at me, with a +sort of flickering smile in lips and eyes). "Oh, I see!"</p> + +<p>"What do you see?" cry I, sharply.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, nothing! I only meant to say I understand, I comprehend."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing to understand," reply I, brusquely, and rising. "I am +tired—I shall go home!"</p> + +<p>We walk back rather silently; there is nothing so trying to eyes and +mind as picture-seeing, and I am fagged, and also indefinitely, yet +certainly, cross. As we reach the door of the Saxe, I hold out my hand.</p> + +<p>"Now that we have come to the end of our walk," say I, "and that you +cannot think that I am <i>hinting</i> to you, I will tell you that I think it +was very ill-mannered and selfish of you not to <i>insist</i> on carrying +<i>this</i>" (holding out the brown-paper parcel); "there is not <i>one</i> of the +boys—not even Bobby, whom we always call so rough, who would have +<i>dreamed</i> of letting a lady carry a parcel for herself, when he was by +to take it. There! I am better now! I <i>had</i> to tell you; I wish you +good-day!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"If he does not like it," say I, setting it on the floor, and regarding +it from a little distance, with my head on one side, while friendly +criticism and admiration meet in happy wedlock in my eyes, "I can give +it to you; I had much rather make you a present than <i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>"Then Heaven grant that it may find disfavor in his sight!" says Sir +Roger, piously.</p> + +<p>We are talking of the traveling-bag, which at last, in despair of any +thing suitable occurring to my mind, I have bought, and now regard with +a sort of apprehensive joy. The blinds are half lowered for the heat, +but, through them and under them, the broad gold sunshine is streaming +and pushing itself, washing the careful twists of my flax hair, the +bag's stout red leather sides, and Sir Roger's nose, as he leans over +it, with manly distrust, trying the clasp by many searching snappings.</p> + +<p>"I never gave you a present in my life—never—did I?" say I, squatting +down on the floor beside him, crumpling my nice crisp muslin frock with +the recklessness of a woman who knows that there are many more such +frocks in the cupboard, and to whom this knowledge has but newly come; +"never mind! next birthday I will give you one—a really nice, handsome, +rather expensive one—all bought with your own money, too—there!"</p> + +<p>This is on the morning of our last day in Dresden. Yes! <i>to-morrow</i> we +set off homeward. Our wedding-tour is nearly ended: tyrant Custom, which +sent us off, permits us to rejoin our fellows. Well, it really has not +been so bad! I do not know that I should care to have it over +again—that is, just immediately; but it has gone off very well +altogether—quite as well as most other people's, I fancy. These are my +thoughts in the afternoon, as (Sir Roger having gone to the post-office, +and I having made myself very hot by superintending the packing of the +presents—most of them of a brittle, <i>crackable</i> nature) I am leaning, +to cool myself, over our balcony, and idly watching the little events +that are happening under my nose. The omnibus stands, as usual, in the +middle of the square, about to start for Blasewitz. Mysterious 'bus! +always about to start—always full of patient passengers, and that yet +was never seen by mortal man to set off. As I watch it with the +wondering admiration with which I have daily regarded it, I hear the +door of our sitting-room open, and Vick give a little shrewish shrill +bark, speedily changed into an apologetic and friendly whiffling and +whoffling.</p> + +<p>"Is that you?" cry I, holding on by the balcony, and leaning back to +peep over my own shoulder into the interior. "Come out here, if it is."</p> + +<p>"Sir Roger is out," I say, a second later, putting my hand into that of +Mr. Musgrave (for it is he), as he comes stepping, in his usual +unsmiling, discontented beauty, to meet me.</p> + +<p>"I know he is! I met him!"</p> + +<p>"I am seeing the people start for Blasewitz for the last time! it makes +me quite low!" I say, replacing my arms on the balcony, and speaking +with an irrepressibly jovial broad smile on my face that rather +contradicts my words.</p> + +<p>"You <i>look</i> low," he answers, ironically, standing beside me, and +looking rather provoked at my urbanity.</p> + +<p>"This time to-morrow we shall be off," say I, beginning to laugh out of +pure light-heartedness, though there is no joke within a mile of me, and +to count on my fingers; "this time the day after to-morrow we shall be +at Cologne—this time the day after <i>that</i> we shall be getting toward +Brussels—this time the day after <i>that</i>, we shall be getting toward +Dover—this time the day after <i>that</i>—"</p> + +<p>"You will all be rushing higgledy-piggledy, helter-skelter, into each +other's arms," interrupts my companion, looking at me with a lowering +eye.</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, my eyes dancing. "You are quite right."</p> + +<p>"Algy, and the Brat, and—what is the other fellow's +name?—Dicky?—Jacky?—Jemmy?—"</p> + +<p>"Bobby," say I, correcting him. "But you are not quite right; the Brat +will not be there!—worse luck—he is in Paris!"</p> + +<p>"Well, Barbara will not be in Paris," says the young man, still in the +same discontented, pettish voice. "<i>She</i> will be there, no doubt—well +to the front—in the thickest of the osculations."</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> she will!" cry I, heartily. "But you must give up calling her +Barbara; that is not at all pretty manners."</p> + +<p>"We will make a bargain," he says, beginning to smile a little, but +rather as if it were against his will and intention. "I will allow her +to call me 'Frank,' if she will allow me to call her 'Barbara.'"</p> + +<p>"I dare say you will" (laughing).</p> + +<p>A little pause. Another person has got into the omnibus; it is growing +extremely full.</p> + +<p>"I <i>hate</i> last days," says my companion, hitting viciously at the iron +balcony rails with his stick, and scowling.</p> + +<p>"'The Last Days of Pompeii,'" say I, stupidly, and yet laughing again; +not because I think my witticism good, which no human being could do, +but because I <i>must</i> laugh for very gladness. Another longer pause. +(Shall I present the bag the night we arrive, or wait till next day?)</p> + +<p>"I have got a riddle to ask you," says Frank, abruptly, and firing the +observation off somewhat like a bomb-shell.</p> + +<p>"Have you?" say I, absently. "I hope it is a good one."</p> + +<p>"Of course, <i>you</i> must judge of that—'<i>Mon premier</i>—'"</p> + +<p>"It is in <i>French</i>!" cry I, with an accent of disgust.</p> + +<p>"Well, why should not it be?" (rather tartly).</p> + +<p>"No reason whatever, only that I warn you beforehand I shall not +understand it: I always <i>shiver</i> when people tell me a French anecdote; +I never know when the point has arrived: I always laugh too soon or too +late."</p> + +<p>He says nothing, but looks black.</p> + +<p>"Go on!" say I, laughing. "We will try, if you like."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon—premier—est—le—premier—de tout</i>," he says, pronouncing each +word very separately and distinctly. "Do you understand <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>I nod. "My first is the first of all—yes."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon second n'a pas de second.</i>"</p> + +<p>"My second has no second—yes."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon tout</i>"—(turning his long, sleepy eyes sentimentally toward +me)—"<i>je ne saurai vous le dire.</i>"</p> + +<p>"My whole—I cannot tell it you!—then why on earth did you ask me?" cry +I, breaking out into hearty, wholesome laughter.</p> + +<p>Again he blackens.</p> + +<p>"Well, have you guessed it?"</p> + +<p>"Guessed it!" I echo, recovering my gravity. "Not I!—my first is the +first of all—my second has no second—my whole, I cannot tell it +you!—I do not believe it is a riddle at all! it is a hoax—a take-in, +like 'Why does a miller wear a white hat?'"</p> + +<p>"It is nothing of the kind," he answers, looking thoroughly annoyed. +"Must I tell you the answer?"</p> + +<p>"I shall certainly never arrive at it by my unassisted genius," I reply, +yawning. "Ah! there is M. Dom going out riding! Alas! never again shall +I see him mount that peacocking steed!"</p> + +<p>"It is 'Adieu!'" says my companion, blurting it out in a rage, seeing +that I <i>will</i> not be interested in or excited by it.</p> + +<p>"<i>Adieu!</i>" repeat I, standing with my mouth wide open, looking perfectly +blank. "<i>How?</i>"</p> + +<p>"You do not see?" he says. (His face has grown scarlet.) "Well, you must +excuse me for saying that you are rather—" He breaks off and begins +again, very fast this time. "My first is the first of all—is not <i>A</i> +the first letter in the alphabet? My second has no second—has God +(<i>Dieu</i>) any second? My whole—I cannot say it to you—<i>Adieu!</i>"</p> + +<p>The contrast between the sentimentality of the words, and the brusque +and defiant anger of his tone, is so abrupt, that I am sorry to say, I +laugh again: indeed, I retire from the balcony into the saloon inside, +throw myself into a chair, and, covering my face with my handkerchief, +roar—</p> + +<p>"It is very good," say I, in a choked voice; "very—so civil and +pretty—but it is not very <i>funny</i>, is it?"</p> + +<p>I receive no answer. I am still in my pocket-handkerchief, and he might +be gone, but that I hear his quick, angry breathing, and know, by +instinct, that he is standing over me, looking like a handsome +thunder-cloud. I dare not look up at him, lest another mad cachinnation, +such as sometimes overtakes one for the punishment of one's sins in +church, should again lay violent hands upon me.</p> + +<p>"I think I like 'Why was Balaam like a Life-Guardsman?' better, <i>on the +whole</i>," I say, presently, peeping through my fingers, and speaking with +a suspicious tremble in my voice.</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt it is far superior," he answers, in a fierce and sulky +tone, that he in vain tries to make sound playful. "'<i>Balaam like a +Life-Guardsman?</i>' and why was he, may I ask? Something humorous about +his donkey, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Because he had a queer ass (cuirass)," reply I, again exploding, and +hiding my face in the back of the chair.</p> + +<p>"A <i>queer ass</i>!" (in a tone of the profoundest contempt); "you have no +more sentiment in you than <i>this table</i>!" smiting it with his bare hand.</p> + +<p>"I know I have not," say I, sitting up, and holding my hand to my side +to ease the pain my excessive mirth has caused; "they always said so at +home. Oh, here is the general! we will make <i>him</i> umpire, which is +funniest, yours or mine!"</p> + +<p>Sir Roger enters, and glances in some surprise from Frank's crimson face +to my convulsed one.</p> + +<p>"Oh, general, do we not look as if we had been having an affecting +parting?" cry I, jumping up and running to him. "Do not I look as if I +had been crying? Quite the contrary, I assure you. But Musgrave and I +have been asking each other such amusing riddles—would you like to hear +them? <i>Mine</i> is good, plain, vulgar English, but his is French, so we +will begin with <i>it</i>—'<i>Mon premier</i>—'"</p> + +<p>I stop suddenly, for Mr. Musgrave is looking at me with an expression +simply <i>murderous</i>.</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you stopping for? I am on the horns of +expectation—'<i>Mon premier</i>—'"</p> + +<p>"After all, it is not so funny as I thought," I answer, brusquely. "I +think we will keep it for some wet Sunday afternoon, when we are short +of something to do."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The day of departure has really come. We have eaten our last bif-teck +<i>aux pommes frites</i>, and drank our last cup of coffee in the Saxe. I +have had my last look at the familiar square, at the great dome of the +Frauen Kirchen, at the high houses with their dormer-windows, at the +ugly big statue standing with its stiff black back rudely turned to the +hotel, at the piled hay-carts. We are really and truly off. Our faces +are set Barbara-ward, Bobby-ward, jackdaw-ward. I am in such rampaging +spirits, that I literally do not know what to do with myself. I feel +that I should like to tuck my tail, if I had one, between my legs, like +Vick, and race round and round in an insane and unmeaning circle, as she +does on the lawn at home, when oppressed by the overflow of her own +gayety.</p> + +<p>It seems to me as if there never had been such a day. I look at the sky +as we drive along to the station. Call it sapphire, turquoise—indeed! +What dull stone that ever lived darkling in a mine is fit to be named +even in metaphor with this pale yet brilliant arch that so softly leans +above us? It seems to me as if all the people we meet were handsome and +well-featured—as if the Elbe were the noblest river that ever ran, +carrying the sunlight in flakes of gold and diamond on its breast—as if +all life were one long and kindly jest.</p> + +<p>As we reach the station I see Mr. Musgrave standing on the pavement +awaiting us, with a sort of mixed and compound look on his face.</p> + +<p>"Here is Mr. Musgrave come to see us off!" I cry, jocundly. "Come to say +'<i>Adieu!</i>' ha! ha! I must not forget to ask him whether he has any more +riddles."</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake do not!" cries Sir Roger, smiling in spite of +himself, yet seriously and earnestly desirous of checking my wit. "Let +the poor boy have a little peace! He no more understands chaff than I +understand Parsee."</p> + +<p>I hop out of the carriage like a parched pea, scorning equally the step +and Frank's hand extended to help me. I feel to-day as if I need only +stand on tiptoe, and stretch out my arms in order to be able to fly.</p> + +<p>"So you have come to see the last of us," I say, trying to pull a long +face, and walking with him into the waiting-room.</p> + +<p>"Yes; rather a mistake, is not it?" he says, somewhat gloomily, but +loading himself at once, with ostentatious haste (in memory of my former +reproof), with my bag, parasol, and novel.</p> + +<p>"The day after—the day after—the day after to-morrow," say I, smiling +cheerfully up in his dismal face. "You may fancy us just turning in at +the park-gates—by-the-by, have you any message to send to the boys, to +Barbara?"</p> + +<p>"None to the boys," he answers, half smiling, too. "I hate boys: you may +give my love to Barbara if you like, and if you are quite sure that she +is like the St. Catherine."</p> + +<p>"Wait till you see her," say I, oracularly.</p> + +<p>"But when <i>shall</i> I see her?" he asks, roused into an eagerness which I +think promises admirably for Barbara; "when are you coming home, +really?"</p> + +<p>"Keep a good lookout at your lodge," I say, gayly, "and you will no +doubt see us arrive some fine day, looking very foolish, most +probably—crawling along like snails, dragged by our tenants."</p> + +<p>"Were you <i>ever</i> known to answer a plain question plainly since you were +born?" he cries, petulantly. "When are you likely to come <i>really</i>?"</p> + +<p>"'I know not! What avails to know?'" reply I, pompously spouting a line +out of some forgotten poem that has lurked in my memory, and now struts +out, to the anger and discomfiture of Mr. Musgrave.</p> + +<p>"Ah! here are the doors opening."</p> + +<p>Everybody pours out on to the platform, and into the empty and expectant +train.</p> + +<p>Sir Roger and I get into a carriage—<i>not</i> a <i>coupé</i> this time—and +dispose our myriad parcels above our heads, under our feet. Trucks roll, +and porters bawl past; luggage is violently shot into vans. The last +belated, panting passenger has got in. The doors are slammed-to. Off we +go! The train is already in motion when the young man jumps on the step +and thrusts in his hand for one parting shake.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon tout</i>," say I, screwing up my face into a crying shape, and +speaking in a squeaky, pseudo-tearful voice, "<i>je ne saurai vous le +dire!</i>"</p> + +<p>Then he is hustled off by an indignant guard and three porters, and we +see him no more. I throw myself back into my corner laughing.</p> + +<p>"General," say I, "I think your young friend is nearly as soft-hearted +as the girl in Tennyson who was</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tender over drowning flies.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He looked as if he were going to <i>weep</i>, did not he? and what on earth +about?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"How mother, when we used to stun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her head wi' all our noisy fun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did wish us all a-gone from home;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But now that some be dead and some<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be gone, and, oh, the place is dumb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How she do wish wi' useless tears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To have again about her ears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The voices that be gone!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>We have passed Cologne; have passed Brussels; have passed Calais and +Dover; have passed London; we are drawing near home. How refreshing +sounds the broad voice of the porters at Dover! Squeamish as I am, after +an hour and three-quarters of a nice, short, chopping sea, the sight of +the dear green-fustian jackets, instead of the slovenly blue blouses +across-Channel, goes nigh to revive me. Adieu, O neatly aquiline, +broad-shaved French faces! Welcome, O bearded Britons, with your +rough-hewn noses!</p> + +<p>To avoid the heat of the day, we go down from London by a late afternoon +train. It is evening when, almost <i>before</i> the train has stopped, I +insist on jumping out at our station. Imagine if through some accident +we were carried on to the next by mistake!</p> + +<p>Such a thing has never happened in the annals of history, but still it +<i>might</i>.</p> + +<p>Sir Roger has some considerable difficulty in hindering me from shaking +hands with the whole staff of officials. One veteran porter, who has +been here ever since I was born, has a polite but improbable trick of +addressing <i>every</i> female passenger as "my lady." Well, with regard to +<i>me</i>, at least, he is right now. I <i>am</i> "my lady." Ha! ha! I have not +nearly got over the ridiculousness of this fact yet, though I have been +in possession of it now these <i>four</i> whole weeks.</p> + +<p>It has been a hot, parching summer day, and now that the night draws on +all the flagging flowers in the cottage-borders are straightening +themselves anew, and lifting their leaves to the dews. The pale +bean-flowers, in the broad bean-fields, as we pass, send their delicate +scent over the hedge to me, as if it were some fair and courteous +speech. To me it seems as if they were saying, as plainly as may be, +"Welcome home, Nancy!"</p> + +<p>The sky that has been all of one hue during the live-long day—wherever +you looked, nothing but pale, <i>pale</i> azure—is now like the palette of +some God-painter splashed and freaked with all manner of great and noble +colors—a most regal blaze of gold—wide plains of crimson, as if all +heaven were flashing at some high thought—little feathery cloud-islands +of tenderest rose-pink. We are coming very near now. There, down below, +set round its hips with tall rushes, is our pool, all blood-red in the +sunset! Can <i>that</i> be colorless water—that great carmine fire? There +are our elms, with their heads in the sunset, too.</p> + +<p>"General," say I, very softly, putting my hand through his arm, and +speaking in a small tone of unutterable content, "I should like to kiss +everybody in the world."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you would not mind beginning with <i>me</i>," returns he, gayly; +then—for I look quite capable of it—glancing slightly over his +shoulder at the vigilant couple in the dickey.</p> + +<p>"No, I did not mean <i>really</i>."</p> + +<p>We are trotting alongside of the park-paling. I stand up and try to +catch a glimpse between the coachman and footman, of the gate, to see +whether they have come to meet me.</p> + +<p>We are slackening our speed; we are going to turn in; the lodge-keeper +runs out to open the gate; but no, it is needless. It is already open. I +could have told <i>her</i> that. Here they all are!—Barbara, Algy, Bobby, +Tou Tou.</p> + +<p>"Here they are!" cry I, in a fidgety rapture. "Oh, general, just look +how Tou Tou has grown; her frock is nearly up to her knees!"</p> + +<p>"Do you think she <i>can</i> have grown that much in four weeks?" asks he, +not contradictiously, but a little <i>doubtfully</i>, as Don Quixote may have +asked the Princess Micomicona her reasons for landing at Ossime. "But +pray, madam," says he, "why did your ladyship land at Ossime, seeing +that it is not a seaport town?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," I reply, a little disappointed. "I suppose that her +frock must have run up in the washing."</p> + +<p>To this day I have not the faintest idea how I got out of the carriage. +My impression is that I <i>flew</i> over the side with wings which came to my +aid in that one emergency, and then for evermore disappeared.</p> + +<p>I do not know <i>this</i> time <i>where</i> I begin, or whom I end with. I seemed +to be kissing them <i>all</i> at once. All their arms seem to be round <i>my</i> +neck, and mine round all of theirs at the same moment. The only wonder +is that, at the end of our greetings, we have a feature left among us. +When at length they are ended—</p> + +<p>"Well," say I, studiedly, with a long sigh of content, staring from one +countenance to another, with a broad grin on my own. "Well!" and though +I have been away <i>four</i> weeks, and been to foreign parts, and dined at +<i>table d'hôtes</i> and seen Crucifixions and Madonnas, and seem to have +more to tell than could be crowded into a closely-packed twelvemonth of +talk, this is all I can find to say.</p> + +<p>"Well," reply they, nor do they seem to be much richer in conversation +than I.</p> + +<p>Bobby is the first to regain the use of his tongue. He says, "My eye!" +(oh, dear and familiar expletive, for a whole calendar month I have not +heard you!)—"my eye! what a swell you are!"</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Sir Roger stands aloof. If he <i>ever</i> thought of himself, he +might be reasonably and equitably huffy at being so entirely neglected, +for I will do them the justice to say that I think they have all utterly +forgotten his existence: but, as he never does, I suppose he is not; at +least there is only a friendly entertainment, and no hurt dignity, in +the gentle strength of his face.</p> + +<p>In the exuberance of my happiness, I have given him free leave to kiss +Barbara and Tou Tou, but the poor man does not seem to be likely to have +the chance.</p> + +<p>"Are not you going to speak to the general?" I say, nudging Barbara. +"You have never said 'How do you do?' to him."</p> + +<p>Thus admonished, they recover their presence of mind and turn to salute +him. There are no kissings, however, only some rather formal +hand-shakings; and then Algy, as being possessed of the nearest approach +to manners of the family, walks on with him. The other three adhere to +me.</p> + +<p>"Well," say I, for the third time, holding Barbara by one hand, and +resting the other on Bobby's stout arm, dressed in cricketing-flannel, +while Tou Tou <i>backs</i> before us with easy grace. "Well, and how is +everybody? How is mother?"</p> + +<p>"She is all right!"</p> + +<p>"And HE? Is anybody in disgrace now? At least of course <i>somebody</i> is, +but <i>who</i>?"</p> + +<p>"<i>In disgrace!</i>" cries Bobby, briskly. "Bless your heart, no! we are</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">'Like the young lambs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sporting about <i>by</i> the side of their dams.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><i>In disgrace</i>, indeed! we are 'Barbara, child,' and 'Algy, my dear +fellow,' and 'Bobby, love.'"</p> + +<p>"<i>Bobby!</i>" cries Tou Tou, in a high key of indignation at this +monstrously palpable instance of unveracity, and nearly capsizing, as +she speaks, into a rabbit-hole, which, in her backward progress—we are +crossing the park—she has not perceived.</p> + +<p>"Well," replies Bobby, candidly, "that last yarn may not be <i>quite</i> a +fact, I own <i>that</i>; but I appeal to <i>you</i>, Barbara, is not it true <i>i' +the main</i>? Are not we all 'good fellows,' and 'dear boys?'"</p> + +<p>"I am thankful to say that we are," replies Barbara, laughing; "but how +long we shall remain so is quite another thing."</p> + +<p>"I have brought a present for him," say I, rather nervously; "do you +think he will be pleased?"</p> + +<p>"He will say that he very much regrets that you should have taken the +trouble to waste your money upon <i>him</i>, as he did last birthday, when we +exerted ourselves to lay out ten shillings and sixpence on that +spectacle-case," answers Bobby, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"But what is it?"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" cry Barbara and Tou Tou in a breath.</p> + +<p>"It is a—a <i>traveling-bag</i>," reply I, with a little hesitation, looking +imploringly from Barbara to Bobby. "Do you think he will like it?"</p> + +<p>"A <i>traveling-bag</i>!" echoes Bobby; then, a little bluntly, "but he +never travels!"</p> + +<p>"No more he does!" reply I, feeling a good deal crestfallen. "I thought +of that myself; it was not quite my own idea—it was the general's +suggestion!"</p> + +<p>"The general!" says Bobby, "whew—w!" (with a long whistle of +intelligence)—"well, <i>he</i> ought to know what he likes and dislikes, +ought not he? He ought to understand his tastes, being the same age, and +having been at schoo—"</p> + +<p>"Look!" cry I, hastily, breaking into the midst of these soothing facts, +which are daily becoming more distasteful to me, and pointing to the +windows of the house, which are all blazing in the sunset, each pane +sending forth a sheaf of fire, as if some great and mighty feast were +being held within. "I see you are having an illumination in honor of +us."</p> + +<p>"Yes," answers Bobby, kindly entering into my humor, "and the reason why +father did not come to meet you at the gate was that he was busy +lighting the candles."</p> + +<p>My spirits are so dashed by the more implied than expressed disapproval +of my brethren, that I resolve to defer the presentation of the bag till +to-morrow, or perhaps—to-morrow being Sunday, always rather a dark day +in the paternal calendar—till Monday.</p> + +<p>Dinner is over, and, as it is clearly impossible to stay in-doors on +such a night, we are all out again. The three elders—father, mother, +and husband—sitting sedately on three rustic chairs on the dry +gravel-walk, and we young ones lying about in different attitudes of +restful ease, on rugs and cloaks that we have spread upon the dewy +grass. We are not far off from the others, but just so far as that our +talk should be out of ear-shot. In my own mind, I am not aware that Sir +Roger would far rather be with <i>us</i>, listening to our quick gabble, and +laughing with us at our threadbare jests, which are rewarded with mirth +so disproportioned to their size, than interchanging sober talk with the +friend of his infancy. Once or twice I see his gray eyes straying a +little wistfully toward us, but he makes no slightest movement toward +joining us. I should like, if I had my own way, to ask him to come to +us, to ask him to sit on the rugs and make jokes too, but some sort of +false shame, some sneaky shyness before the boys, hinders me. I am +leaning my elbow on the soft fur of the rug, and my head on my hand, and +am staring up at the stars, cool and throbbing, so like little +stiletto-holes pricked in heaven's floor, as they steal out in systems +and constellations on the night.</p> + +<p>"There is dear old Charles Wain," say I, affectionately; "I never knew +where to look for him in Dresden; <i>how</i> nice it is to be at home again!"</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" says Algy, gravely, "do you know I have counted, and that is +the <i>sixteenth</i> time that you have made that ejaculation since your +arrival! Do you know—I am sorry to have to say it—that it sounds as if +you had not enjoyed your honey-moon very much?"</p> + +<p>"It sounds quite wrong, then," cry I, coming down from the stars, and +speaking rather sharply. "I enjoyed it immensely; yes, <i>immensely</i>!"</p> + +<p>I say this with an emphasis which is calculated to convince not only +everybody else, but even myself.</p> + +<p>"Come, now," cries Bobby, who is farthest off from me, and, to remedy +this disadvantage, begins to travel quickly, in a sitting posture, along +the rugs toward me, "tell the truth—<i>gospel</i> truth, mind!—the truth, +the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God. Would you +like to be setting off on it over again, to-morrow morning?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not," reply I, angrily; "what a silly question! Would <i>any +one</i> like to begin <i>any thing</i> over again, just the very minute that +they had finished it? You might as well ask me would I like to have +dinner over again, and begin upon a fresh plate of soup."</p> + +<p>No one is convinced.</p> + +<p>"When <i>I</i> marry," continues Bobby, lying flat on his back, with his +hands clasped under his head (we all laugh)—"when <i>I</i> marry, no one +shall succeed in packing <i>me</i> off to foreign parts, with my young woman. +I shall take her straight home, as if I was not ashamed of her, and we +will have a <i>dance</i>, and make a clean sweep of our own cake."</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" cries Tou Tou, innocently, joining in the conversation for the +first time, "<i>did</i> any one take him for your <i>grandfather</i>, as the Brat +said they would?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not!" cry I, crossly, making a spiteful lunge, as I speak, at +a <i>startle-de-buz</i>, which has lumbered booming into my face. "Who on +earth supposed they would <i>really</i>?"</p> + +<p>Tou Tou collapses, with a hazy impression of having been snubbed, and +there is a moment's silence. A faint, fire-like flush still lingers in +the west—all that is left of the dazzling pageant that the heavens sent +to welcome me home. I am looking toward it—away from my brothers and +sisters—away from everybody—across the indistinct garden-beds—across +the misty park, and the dark tree-tops, when a voice suddenly brings me +back.</p> + +<p>"Nancy, child!" it says, "is not it rather damp for you? Would you mind +putting <i>this</i> on?"</p> + +<p>I look up in a hurry, and see Sir Roger stooping over me, with an +outspread cloak in his hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you!" cry I, hurriedly, reddening—I do not quite know +why—and with that same sort of sneaky feeling, as if the boys were +laughing; "I am not one much apt to catch cold—none of us are—but I +will, if you like."</p> + +<p>So saying, I drew it round my shoulders. Then he goes, <i>in a minute</i>, +without a second's lingering, back to the gravel-walk, to his +wicker-chair, to grave, dry talk, to the friend of his infancy! I have +an uncomfortable feeling that there is a silent and hidden laugh among +the family.</p> + +<p>"Barbara, my treasure!" says Algy, presently, in a mocking voice, +"<i>might</i> I be allowed to offer you our umbrella, and a pair of goloshes +to defend you from the evening dews?"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" cries Barbara, gently pushing him away, and stretching out her +hand to me. She is the only one that understands. (Oh, why, <i>why</i> did I +ever laugh at him with them? What is there to laugh at in him?)</p> + +<p>"My poor Barbara!" continues Algy, in a tone of affected solicitude. "If +you had not a tender brother to look after you, your young limbs might +be cramped with rheumatism, and twitched with palsy, before any one +would think of bringing <i>you</i> a cloak."</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit!" say I, recovering my good-humor with an effort, reflecting +that it is no use to be vexed—that they <i>mean</i> nothing—and that, +lastly, <i>I have brought it on myself</i>!</p> + +<p>"Wait for <i>what</i>?" asks Barbara, laughing. "Till Toothless Jack has +grown used to his new teeth?"</p> + +<p>"By-the-by," cries Bobby, eagerly, "that was since you went away, Nancy: +he has set up a stock of <i>new</i> teeth—<i>beauties</i>—like Orient pearl—he +wore them in church last Sunday for the first time. We tell Barbara that +he has bought them on purpose to propose in. Now, do not you think it +looks <i>promising</i>?"</p> + +<p>"We do not mean, however," says Algy, lighting a cigar, "to let Barbara +go <i>cheap</i>! Now that we have disposed of you so advantageously, we are +beginning to be rather ambitious even for <i>Tou Tou</i>."</p> + +<p>"We think," says Bobby, giving a friendly but severe pull to our +youngest sister's outspread yellow locks, "that Tou Tou would adorn the +<i>Church</i>. Bishops have mostly <i>thin</i> legs, so it is to be presumed that +they admire them: we destine Tou Tou for a bishop's lady!"</p> + +<p>Hereupon follows a lively fire of argument between Bobby and his sister; +she protesting that she will <i>not</i> espouse a bishop, and he asseverating +that she shall. It lasts the best part of a quarter of hour, and ends by +reducing Tou Tou to tears.</p> + +<p>"But come," says Algy, taking his cigar out of his mouth, throwing his +head back, and blowing two columns of smoke out of his nose, "let us +take up our subject again where we dropped it. I should be really glad +if I could get you to own that you and <i>he</i>"—(indicating my husband by +a jerk of his head)—"grew rather sick of each other! Whether you own it +or not, I know you <i>did</i>; and it would give me pleasure to hear it. You +need not take it personally. I assure you that it is no slur upon +him—<i>everybody</i> does. I have talked to lots of fellows who have gone +through it, and they all say the same."</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" says Bobby, abandoning, at length, his persecution of Tou Tou, +and pretending not to hear her last persevering assertion of her +determination not to be episcopally wed—"tell the truth, and shame the +devil. It would be different if we were strangers, but <i>we</i> that have +sported with you since you wore frilled trousers and a bib—come +now—did you, or did you not, kneel three times a day, like the prophet +Daniel, looking eastward or westward, or whichever way it <i>did</i> look, +and yearn for us, and Jacky, and the bun-loaf—come, now?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," say I, reluctantly making the admission. "I do not say that +I did not! Of course, after having been used to you all my life, it +would have been very odd if I had not missed you rather badly; but that +is a very different thing from being <i>sick of him</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Well, we will not say <i>sick</i>," returns Algy, with the air of one who is +making a handsome concession, "it is a disagreeable, bilious expression, +but it would be useless to try and convince me that <i>any</i> human +affection could stand the wear and tear of twenty-eight whole days of an +absolute duet and not be rather the worse for it!"</p> + +<p>"But it was <i>not</i> an absolute duet," cry I, raising my voice a little, +and speaking with some excitement; "you are talking about what you do +not know! you are quite wrong."</p> + +<p>"Well, it is not the first time in my life that I have been that," he +says, philosophically; "but come—who did you the Christian office of +interrupting it? tell us."</p> + +<p>"I told you in my letters," say I, rather petulantly. "I certainly +mentioned—yes, I know I did—we happened at Dresden to fall in with a +friend of the general's—at least, a person he knew."</p> + +<p>"A person he knew? What kind of a person? Man or woman?"</p> + +<p>"Man."</p> + +<p>"Old or young?"</p> + +<p>"Young."</p> + +<p>"Ugly or pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty," answer I, laughing. "Ah! what a rage he would be in, if he +could hear such an epithet applied to him!"</p> + +<p>"A young, well-looking, man-friend!" says Algy, slowly recapitulating +all my admissions as he lies gently puffing on the rug beside me. +"Well?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Well!</i>" echo I, rather snappishly. "Nothing! only that I wanted to +show you that it was not quite such a <i>duet</i> as you imagined! Of +course—Dresden is not a big place—of course we met very often, and +went here and there together."</p> + +<p>"And where was Sir Roger meanwhile?"</p> + +<p>"Sir Roger was there, too, of course," reply I, still a little crossly, +"except once or twice—certainly not more than twice—he said he did +not feel inclined to come, and so we went without him."</p> + +<p>"You left him at home, in fact!" says Algy, with a rather malicious +smile, "out of harm's way, while you and the young friend marauded about +the town together; it must have been very lively for him, poor man! Oh, +fie! Nancy, fie!"</p> + +<p>"We did not do any thing of the kind," cry I, now thoroughly vexed and +uncomfortable. "I wish you would not misunderstand things on purpose! +there is not any fun in it! <i>Both</i> times I <i>wanted</i> him to come! I +<i>asked</i> him particularly!"</p> + +<p>"And, if I may make so bold as to inquire," asks Bobby, striking in, +"how did the young friend call himself? What was his name?"</p> + +<p>"Musgrave," reply I, shortly. "Frank Musgrave!" for the stream of my +conversation seems dried.</p> + +<p>"Was he <i>nice</i>? Should <i>we</i> like him?" ask Tou Tou, who has recovered +her equanimity, dried her tears, and forgotten the bishop.</p> + +<p>"He was nice <i>to look at</i>!" reply I cautiously.</p> + +<p>"That is a very different thing!" says Barbara, laughing. "But was he +nice in himself?"</p> + +<p>I reflect.</p> + +<p>"No," say I, "I do not think he was: at least, he wanted a great deal of +alteration."</p> + +<p>"As I have no doubt that you told him," says Algy, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"I dare say I did," reply I, distantly, for I am not pleased with Algy.</p> + +<p>A little pause.</p> + +<p>"I think he <i>was</i> nice, too, <i>in a way</i>," say I, rather compunctiously. +"I used to tell him about all of you, and—I dare say it was +pretense—but he <i>seemed</i> to like to hear about you! When I came away, +he sent his love to Barbara; he would not send any messages to you +boys—he said he hated boys!"</p> + +<p>"Humph!"</p> + +<p>Another short silence. The elders have gone in to tea. Through the +windows, I see the lamplight shining on the tea-cups.</p> + +<p>"Algy!" say I, in a rather low voice, edging a little nearer to where he +lies gracefully outspread, "you did not mean it, <i>really</i>? You do not +think I—I—I—<i>neglected</i> the general, do you?—you do not think +I—I—<i>liked</i> to be away from him?"</p> + +<p>"My lady!" replies he, teasingly, "I <i>think</i> nothing! I only know what +your ladyship was good enough to tell me!"</p> + +<p>Then we all get up, shoulder our rugs, and walk in.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Well, no one will deny that Sunday comes after Saturday; and it was +Saturday evening, when the heavens painted themselves with fire, and the +sun lit up all the house-windows to welcome us home. Sunday is not +usually one of our blandest days, but we must hope for the best.</p> + +<p>"General," say I, standing before him, dressed for morning church, after +having previously turned slowly round on the point of my toes, to favor +him with the back view of as delightful a bonnet, and as airily fresh +and fine a muslin gown, as ever young woman said her prayers +in—"by-the-by, do you like my calling you general?"</p> + +<p>"At least I understand who you mean by it," he says, a little evasively; +"which, after all, is the great thing, is not it?"</p> + +<p>"It is my own invention," say I, rather proudly; "nobody put it into my +head, and nobody else calls you by it, do they?"</p> + +<p>"Not now."</p> + +<p>"<i>Not now?</i>" cry I, surprised; "but did they ever?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he says, "for about a year, most people did; I was general a year +before my brother died."</p> + +<p>"<i>Your brother died?</i>" cry I, again repeating his words, and arching my +eyebrows, which have not naturally the slightest tendency toward +describing a semicircle. "What! <i>you</i> had a brother, too, had you? I +never knew that before."</p> + +<p>"Did you think <i>you</i> had a monopoly of them?" laughing a little.</p> + +<p>"So you were not 'Sir' always?"</p> + +<p>"No more than <i>you</i> are," he answers, smiling. "No, I was not born in +the purple; for thirty-seven years of my life I earned my own bread—and +rather dry bread too."</p> + +<p>"You do not say so!" cry I, in some astonishment.</p> + +<p>"If I had come here seven years ago," he says, taking both my pale +yellow hands in his light gray ones, and looking at me with eyes which +seem darker and deeper than usual under the shade of the brim of his +tall hat—"by-the-by, you would have been a little girl then—as little +as Tou Tou—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," interrupt I, breaking in hastily; "but, indeed, I never was a bit +like her, never. I <i>never</i> had such legs—ask the boys if I had!"</p> + +<p>"I did not suppose that you had," he answers, bursting into a hearty and +most unfeigned laugh! "but" (growing grave again), "Nancy, suppose that +I had come here then! I should have had no shooting to offer the +boys—no horses to mount Algy—no house worth asking Barbara to—"</p> + +<p>"No more you would!" say I, too much impressed with surprise at this new +light on Sir Roger's past life to notice the sort of wistfulness and +inquiry that lurks in his last words; then, after a second, perceiving +it: "And you think," say I, loosing my hands from his, and growing as +pink as the delicate China rose-bud that is peeping round the corner of +the trellis in at the window, "that there would not have been as much +inducement <i>then</i> for me to propose to you, as there was in the present +state of things!"</p> + +<p>I am laughing awkwardly as I speak; then, eagerly changing the +conversation, and rushing into another subject: "By-the-by, I had +something to say to you—something quite important—before we +digressed."</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"O general!" taking hold of the lapel of his coat, and looking up at him +with appealing earnestness, "do you know that I have made up my mind to +give <i>him</i> the <i>bag</i> to-day! it is no use putting off the evil day—it +<i>must</i> come, after supper—they all say <i>after supper</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I want you to talk to him <i>all day</i>, and get him into a +good-humor by then, if you can, that is all!"</p> + +<p>"<i>That is all!</i>" repeats my husband, with the slightest possible +ironical accent. Then we go to church. It is too near to drive, so we +all walk. The church-yard elms are out in fullest leaf above our heads. +There are so many leaves, and they are so close together, that they hide +the great brown rooks' nests. They do not hide the rooks themselves. It +would take a good deal to do that. Dear pleasant-spoken rooks, talking +so loudly and irreverently about their own secular themes—out-cawing +the church-bells, as we pace by, devout and smart, to our prayers. Last +time I walked up this path, it was hidden with red cloth, and flowers +were tumbling under my feet. Ah! red cloth comes but once in a lifetime. +It is only the queen who lives in an atmosphere of red cloth and cut +flowers.</p> + +<p>We are in church now. The service is in progress. Can it be only <i>five</i> +Sundays ago that I was standing here as I am now, watching all the +little well-known incidents? Father standing up in frock-coat and +spectacles, keeping a sharp lookout over the top of his prayer-book, to +see <i>how</i> late the servants are. The ill-behaved charity-boys emulously +trying who shall make the hind-legs of his chair squeak the loudest on +the stone floor. Toothless Jack leering distantly at Barbara from the +side aisle. Something apparently is amusing him. He is smiling a little. +I see his teeth. They, at least, are new. <i>They</i> were not here five +weeks ago. The little starved curate—the one who tore his gloves into +strips—loses his place in the second lesson, and madly plunges at three +different wrong verses in succession, before he regains the thread of +his narrative.</p> + +<p>We have come to the sermon. The text is, "I have married a wife, and +therefore I cannot come." No sooner is it given out than Algy, Bobby, +and Tou Tou, all look at me and grin; but father, who has a wily way of +establishing himself in the corner of the pew, so as to have a +bird's-eye view of all our demeanors, speedily frowns them down into a +preternatural gravity. Ah, why <i>to-day</i>, of all days, did they laugh? +and why <i>to-day</i>, of all days, did the servants file noisily in, +numerous and out of breath, in the middle of the psalms? I tremble when +I think of the bag.</p> + +<p>Well, who will may laugh again now: we are out in the sunshine, with the +church-yard grass bowing and swaying in the wind, and the little +cloud-shadows flying across the half-effaced names of the forgotten +dead, who lie under their lichen-grown tombs.</p> + +<p>"Did you see his <i>teeth</i>?" asks Tou Tou, joining me with a leap, almost +before I am outside the church-porch.</p> + +<p>"They are not comfortable yet," remarks Bobby, gravely, as he walks +beside me carrying my prayer-book. "I could see that: he was taking them +out, and putting them in again, with his tongue all through the Litany."</p> + +<p>"When once he has secured Barbara, I expect that they will go back with +the box for good and all—eh, Barbara?" say I, laughing, as I speak; but +Barbara is out of ear-shot. She is lingering behind to shake hands with +the curate, and ask all the poor old people after their diseases. <i>I</i> +never can recollect clearly <i>who</i> has <i>what</i>. I always apportion the +rheumatism wrongly, but <i>she</i> never does. There she stands just by the +church-gate, with the little sunny lights running up and down upon her +snow-white gown, shaking each grimy old hand with a kind and friendly +equality.</p> + +<p>The day rolls by; afternoon service; walk round the grounds; early +dinner (we always embitter our lives on Sundays by dining at <i>six</i>, +which does the servants no good, and sours the tempers of the whole +family); then prayers. Prayers are always immediately followed by that +light refection which we call supper.</p> + +<p>As the time approaches, my heart sinks imperceptibly lower in my system +than the place where it usually resides.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Be ready, Sister Nancy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the time is drawing nigh,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>says Algy, solemnly, putting his arm round my shoulders, as, the +prayer-bell having rung, we set off for the wonted justicing-room.</p> + +<p>"Have a pull at my flask," suggests Bobby, seriously; "there is some +cognac left in it since the day we fished the pool. It would do you all +the good in the world, and, if you took <i>enough</i>, you would feel able to +give him <i>ten</i> bags, or, indeed, throw them at his head at a pinch."</p> + +<p>"Have you got it?" say I, faintly, to the general, who at this moment +joins us.</p> + +<p>"Yes, here it is."</p> + +<p>"But what will you do with it <i>meanwhile</i>?" cry I, anxiously; "he must +not see it <i>first</i>."</p> + +<p>"Sit upon it," suggests Algy, flippantly.</p> + +<p>"Hang it round his neck while he is at prayers," bursts out Bobby, with +the air of a person who has had an illumination; "you know he always +pretends to have his eyes shut."</p> + +<p>"And at 'Amen,' he would awake to find himself famous," says Algy, +pseudo-pompously.</p> + +<p>But this suggestion, although I cannot help looking upon it as +ingenious, I do not adopt.</p> + +<p>Prayers on Sunday are a much <i>finer</i> and larger ceremonial than they are +on week-days. In the first place, instead of a few of the church prayers +quickly pattered, which are ended in five minutes, we have a whole long +sermon, which lasts twenty. In the second place, the congregation is so +much greater. On week-days it is only the in-door servants; on Sundays +it is the whole staff—coachman, grooms, stablemen. I think myself that +it is more in the nature of a <i>parade</i>, to insure that none of the +establishment are out <i>sweethearting</i>, than of a religious exercise. +Usually I am delighted when the sermon is ended. Even Barrow or Jeremy +Taylor would sound dull and stale if fired off in a flat, fierce +monotone, without emphasis or modulation. To-night, at every page that +turns, my heart declines lower and lower down. It is ended now; so is +the short prayer that follows it. We all rise, and father stands with +his hawk-eyes fixed on the servants, as they march out, <i>counting</i> them. +The upper servants are all right; so are the housemaids, cookmaids, and +lesser scullions. Alas! alas! there is a helper wanting.</p> + +<p>Having listened to and <i>dis</i>believed the explanation of his absence, +father leads the way into supper, but the little incident has taken the +bloom off his suavity.</p> + +<p>Sir Roger has deposited the bag—still wrapped in its paper +coverings—on a chair, in a modest and unobtrusive corner of the +dining-room, ready for presentation. He did this just before prayers. As +we enter the room, father's eyes fall on it.</p> + +<p>"What is <i>that</i>?" he cries, pointing with his forefinger, and turning +severely to the boys. "How many times have I told you that I will not +have parcels left about, littering the whole place? Off with it!"</p> + +<p>"If you please, father," say I, in a very small and starved voice, "it +is not the boys', it is <i>mine</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>Yours</i>, is it?" with a sudden change of tone, and return to amenity. +"Oh, all right!" (Then, with a little accent of sudden jocosity)—"One +of your foreign purchases, eh?"</p> + +<p>We sit round the snowy table, in the pleasant light of the shaded lamps, +eating chicken-salad, and abasing and rifling the great red pyramids of +strawberries and raspberries, but talking not much. We young ones never +<i>can</i> talk out loud before father. He has never heard our voices raised +much above a whisper. I do not think he has an idea what fine, loud, +Billingsgate voices his children <i>really</i> have. He has said grace—we +always have a longer, <i>gratefuller</i> grace than usual on Sundays—and has +risen to go.</p> + +<p>"Now for it!" cries Bobby, wildly excited, and giving me an awful dig in +the ribs with his elbow.</p> + +<p>"Shall I get it?" asks the general, in an encouraging whisper. "Cheer +up, Nancy! do not look so <i>white</i>! it is all right."</p> + +<p>He rises and fetches it, slips it quickly out of its coverings, and puts +it into my hand. Father has reached the door, I run after him.</p> + +<p>"Father!" cry I, in a choked and trembling voice. "Stop!"</p> + +<p>He turns with the handle in his grasp, and looks at me in some surprise.</p> + +<p>"Father!" cry I, beginning again, and holding my gift out nervously +toward him, "here's—here's—here's a <i>bag</i>!"</p> + +<p>This is my address of presentation. I hear the boys tittering at the +table behind me—a sound which, telling me how ill I am speeding, makes +my confusion tenfold worse. I murmur, helplessly and indistinctly, +something about his never traveling, and my knowing that fact—and +having been always sure that he would hate it—and then I glance +helplessly round with a wild idea of flight. But at the same moment an +arm of friendly strength comes round my shoulders—a friendly voice +sounds in my buzzing ears.</p> + +<p>"James," it says, simply and directly, "she has brought you a present, +and she is afraid that you will not care about it."</p> + +<p>"A <i>present</i>!" echoes my father, the meaning of the inexplicable object +which has suddenly been thrust into his grasp beginning to dawn upon +him. "Oh, I see! I am sure, my dear Nancy"—with a sort of embarrassed +stiffness that yet means to be gracious—"that I am extremely obliged to +you, extremely; and though I regret that you should have wasted your +money on me—yet—yet—I assure you, I shall always prize it very +highly."</p> + +<p>Then he goes out rather hastily. I return to the supper-table.</p> + +<p>"Shake hands!" cries Algy, pouring me out a glass of claret. "<i>Now</i>, +perhaps, you have some faint idea of what <i>I</i> felt when I had to return +thanks for the bridesmaids."</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" cries Bobby, holding out the fruit to which he alludes, and +speaking in a wobbly, quivering voice, with a painfully <i>literal</i> +imitation of my late address, "here's—here's—here's a <i>peach</i>!"</p> + +<p>But I am burying my face in Sir Roger's shoulder, like a shy child.</p> + +<p>"I <i>like</i> you!" I say, creeping up quite close to him. "You were the +only one that came to help me. If it had not been for <i>you</i>, I should be +there still!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The bag-affair is quite an old one now—a fortnight old. The bag itself +has, I believe, retired into the decent privacy of a cupboard, nor is it +much more likely to reissue thence than was one of the frail nuns built +into the wall in the old times likely to come stepping out again. Bobby +has at length ceased to offer me every object which it devolves upon him +to hand me, with a quavering voice and a prolonged stammer, since, +though I was at first excellently vulnerable by this weapon of offense, +I am now becoming <i>hornily</i> hard and indifferent to it. We have stepped +over the boundaries of June into July.</p> + +<p>Yes, June has gone to look for all its dead brothers, wherever—since +they say nothing is ever really lost—they lie with their stored sweets. +To me, this has been as merry and good a June as any one of my nineteen.</p> + +<p>Sir Roger is beginning to talk of going home—<i>his</i> home, that is—but +rather diffidently and tentatively, as if not quite sure whether the +proposal will meet with favor in my eyes. He need not be nervous on this +point. I, too, am rather anxious and eager to see my house—<i>my</i> house, +if you please!—I, who have never hitherto possessed any larger +residence than a doll's house, whose whole front wall opened at once, +giving one an improbably simultaneous view of kitchen-range, best +four-poster, and drawing-room chairs. I have, it is true, seen +photographs of my new house, photographs of its east front, of its west +front—photographs, in its park, of the great old cedar; in its gardens, +of its woody pool—but, to tell you the truth, I want to see <i>it</i>. I +have already planned a house-warming, and invited them all to it, a +house-warming in which—oh, absurd!—<i>I</i> shall sit at the head of the +table, and father and mother only at the sides—<i>I</i> shall tell the +people who they are to take in to dinner, and nod my head from the top +when dessert is ended.</p> + +<p>To-day I am going to write and secure the Brat's company—that is, later +in the day—but now it is quite, <i>quite</i> early, even the letters have +not come in. We have all—viz., the boys, the girls, and I—risen (in +pursuance of a plan made overnight) preternaturally early, almost as +early as I did on my wedding-morning, and are going out to gather +mushrooms in the meadow, by the river. Indignation against the +inhabitants of the neighboring town is what has torn us from our morning +dreams, the greedy townsfolk, by whom, on every previous occasion, we +have found our meadow rifled before we could reach it. To-day we shall, +at least, meet them on equal terms. We are all rather gapy at first, +more especially Algy, who has deferred the making of the greater part of +his toilet till his return, looks disheveled, and sounds grumbling. But +before long both gapes and grumbles depart.</p> + +<p>Who would see the day when he is old, and stale, and shabby, when, like +us, they could come out to meet him as he walks across the meadow with a +mantle of dew wrapped round him, and a garland of paling rose-clouds, +that an hour ago were crimson, about his head?</p> + +<p>The place toward which we tend is at some little distance, and our road +thither leads through all manner of comely rustic places, flowered +fields, where the buttercups crowd their little varnished cups, and the +vigilant ox-eyes are already wakefully staring up from among the +grass-spears; a little wood; a deep and ruddy-colored lane, along whose +unpruned hedges straggle the riches of the wild-rose, most delicately +flushed, as if God in passing had called her very good, and she had +reddened at his praise; where the honey-suckle, too, is holding stilly +aloft the open cream-colored trumpets and closed red trumpet-buds of her +heaven-sweet crown.</p> + +<p>In an instant Tou Tou is scrawling and scrambling like a great spider up +the steep bank: in an instant more she is tugging, tearing, devastating; +while the faint petals that no mightiest king can restore, but that any +infant with a touch can destroy, are showering in scented ruin around +her. It gives me a pain to see it, as if I saw some sentient thing in +agony. I think I feel, with Walter Savage Landor—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I never pluck the rose; the violet's head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not reproached me: the ever-sacred cup<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the pure lily hath between my hands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"You will have your basket filled before we get there," I say, +remonstrating, but she does not heed me.</p> + +<p>Hot and scratched—at least I am glad that in their death-pain they were +able to scratch her—she still tugs and mauls. I walk on. We reach the +meadow. Well, at least <i>to-day</i> we are in time. It has the silence and +solitude of the dawn of Creation's first still day, broken only by the +sheep that are cropping</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The slant grass, and daisies pale."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The slow, smooth river washes by, sucking in among the rushes. Our +footsteps show plainly shaped as we step along through the hoary dew. We +separate—going one this way, one that—and, in silence and gravity, +pace with bent heads and down-turned eyes through the fine, short grass. +Excitement and emulation keep us dumb, for let who will—<i>blasé</i> and +used up—deny it, but there is an excitement, wholesome and hearty, in +<i>seeking</i>, and a joy pure and unadulterated in finding, mushrooms in a +probable field in the hopeful morning; whether the mushroom be a +patriarch whose gills are browned with age, and who is big enough to be +an umbrella for the fairy people, or a little milk-white button, half +hidden in daisies and trefoil. Sometimes a cry of rage and anguish +bursts from one or other of us who has been the dupe of a puff-ball +family, and who is satiating his or her revenge by stamping on the +deceiver's head, and reducing its fair, round proportions to a flat and +fleshy pulp. We search long and diligently, and our efforts are blessed +with an unwonted success. By the time that the sun has attained height +enough in the heavens to make his power tyrannically felt, our baskets +are filled. Tou Tou has to throw away her wild-roses, limp and flaccid, +into the dust of the lane. We walk home, singing, and making poor jokes, +as is our wont. As we draw near the house with joyful foretastes of +breakfast in our minds, with redly-flushed cheeks and merry eyes, I see +Sir Roger leaning on the stone balustrade of the terrace, looking as if +he were watching for us, and, indeed, no sooner does he catch sight of +us, than he comes toward us.</p> + +<p>"Do you like mushrooms?" cry I, at the top of my voice, long before I +have reached him, holding up my basket triumphantly. "See, I have got +the most of anybody, except Tou Tou!"</p> + +<p>I have met him by the end of this sentence.</p> + +<p>"Do you like mushrooms?" I repeat, lifting the lid, and giving him a +peep into the creamy and pink-colored treasures inside, "oh, you <i>must</i>! +if you do not, I shall have a <i>divorce</i>! I could not bear a difference +of opinion upon such a subject."</p> + +<p>I have never given him time to speak, and now I look with appealing +laughter into his silent face.</p> + +<p>"Why, what is the matter?" I cry, with an abrupt change of tone. "What +has happened? How odd you look!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing has happened," he answers, trying to smile, but I see that it +is quite against the grain, "only that I have had some not very pleasant +news."</p> + +<p>"It is not any thing about—about the <i>Brat</i>!" cry I, stopping suddenly, +seizing his arm with both hands, and turning, as I feel, extremely pale, +while my thoughts fly to the only one of my beloveds that is out of my +sight.</p> + +<p>"About the <i>Brat</i>!" he echoes in surprise, "oh, dear no! nothing!"</p> + +<p>"Then I do not much care <i>who</i> is dead?" I answer, unfeelingly, drawing +a long breath; "he is the only person <i>out</i> of this house whose death +would afflict me much, and I do not think that there is any one besides +<i>us</i> that <i>you</i> are very devoted to, is there?"</p> + +<p>"Why are you so determined that some one is <i>dead</i>?" he asks, smiling +again, but this time a little more naturally; "is there nothing +vexatious in the world but <i>death</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, laughing, despite myself, as my thoughts revert to my late +employment, "there are <i>puff-balls</i>!"—then, ashamed of having been +flippant, and afraid of having been unsympathetic, I add hastily: "I +wish you would tell me what it is! I am sure, <i>when I hear</i>, I shall be +vexed too; but you see as long as I do not know what it is, I cannot, +can I?"</p> + +<p>"There is no time now," he says, glancing toward father, whose head +appears through the dining-room windows. "See! they are going to +breakfast!—afterward I will tell you—afterward—and child—" (putting +his hands on my shoulders, and essaying to look at me with an altogether +cheered and careless face,) "do not you worry your head about it!—eat +your breakfast with an easy mind; after all, it is nothing very bad!—it +could not be any thing <i>very</i> bad, as long as—." He stops abruptly, and +adds hastily, "let us have a look at your mushrooms! well, you <i>have</i> a +quantity!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, have not I?" say I, triumphantly, "more than any of them, except +Tou Tou—." Then, not quite satisfied with the impression our late talk +has left upon me: "General!" say I, lowering my face and reddening, "I +hope you do not think that I am <i>quite</i> a baby because I like childish +things—gathering mushrooms—running about with the boys—talking to +Jacky. I can understand serious things <i>too</i>, I assure you. I think I +could enter into your trouble—I think, if you gave me the chance, that +you would find that I could!"</p> + +<p>Then a sort of idiotic false shame overtakes me, and without waiting for +his answer I disappear.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>I meet Bobby retiring to the kitchen to cook his mushrooms himself. He +invites me to join him, but I refuse. It is the first time in the annals +of history that I was ever known to say no to such an offer. Bobby +regards me with reproachful anger, and makes a muffled remark, the drift +of which I understand to be that, though I may <i>pretend</i> not to be, I +<i>am</i> grown fine, as he always said I should. To-day it seems to me as if +breakfast would <i>never</i> end. It is one of our fixed laws that no one +shall leave the table until father gives the signal by saying grace. +Sometimes, when he is in one of his unfortunate moods, he keeps us all +staring at our empty cups and platters for half an hour. To-day I watch +with warm anxiety the progress downward of the tea in his cup. At last +he has come to the grounds. He lays down the <i>Times</i>. We all joyfully +half bow our heads, in expectation of the wonted "For what we have +received," etc., but speedily and disappointedly raise them again.</p> + +<p>"Jane, can you spare me another cup?" and reburies himself in a long +leader. Behind the shelter of the great sheet, I make a hideous +contortion across the table at Sir Roger, who has fallen with great +docility into our ways, and is looking back at me now with that gentle, +steadfast serenity which is the leading characteristic of his face, but +which this morning is, I cannot help thinking, a good deal disturbed, +hard as he is trying to hide it. There are, thank Heaven, no more false +starts. Next time that he lays down the paper, we are all afraid to bend +our heads, for fear that the movement shall break the charm, and induce +him to send for a fourth cup—he has already had <i>three</i>—but no! +release has come at last.</p> + +<p>"For what we have received the Lord make us truly thankful!"</p> + +<p>Almost before we have reached "thankful," there is a noise of several +chairs pushed back. Before you could say "knife!" we are all out of the +room. All but Sir Roger! In deference, I suppose, to the feelings of the +friend of his infancy, and not to appear <i>too</i> anxious to leave him—Sir +Roger ought to have married Barbara, they two are always thinking of +other people's feelings—he delays a little, and indeed they emerge +together and find me sitting on one of the uncomfortable, stiff +hall-chairs, on which nobody ever sits. To my dismay, I hear father say +something about the chestnut colt's legs, and I know that another delay +is in store for me. Sir Roger comes over to me, and takes his wide-awake +from the stand beside me.</p> + +<p>"We are going to the stables," he says, patting my shoulder.</p> + +<p>I make a second hideous face. Often have I been complimented by the +boys, on the flexibility of my features.</p> + +<p>"I shall be back in ten minutes," he says, in a low voice; "will you +wait for me in the morning-room?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I must," say I, reluctantly, with a disgusted and +disappointed drawing down of the corners of my mouth.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes pass; twenty, five-and-twenty! Still he has not come back. I +walk up and down the room; I look out the window at the gardeners +rolling the grass; I rend a large and comely rose into tatters, while +all manner of unpleasant possibilities stalk along in order before my +mind's eye. Perhaps Tempest is burnt down. Perhaps some bank, in which +he has put all his money, has broken. Perhaps he has found out that his +brother is not <i>really</i> dead after all! I dismiss this last <i>worst</i> +suggestion as improbable. The door opens, and he enters.</p> + +<p>"Here you are!" I cry, making a joyous rush at him. "I thought you were +never coming! Please, is <i>that</i> your idea of ten minutes?"</p> + +<p>"I could not help it," he answers; "he kept me talking; I could not get +away any sooner."</p> + +<p>"Why did you go?" say I, dutifully. "Why did not you say, when he asked +you, 'No, I will not?' He would have done it to you as soon as look at +you."</p> + +<p>"That would have been so polite to one's host and father-in-law, would +not it?" he answers, a little ironically. "After all, Nancy, where is +the use of vexing people for nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Not <i>people</i> generally," reply I, still chafed; "but I <i>should</i> like +some one who was not his child, and in whom it would not be +disrespectful, to pay him out for keeping us all as he did this morning; +he knew as well as possible that we were dying to be off; <i>that</i> was why +he had that last cup: he did not <i>want</i> it any more than I did. He did +not drink it; did not you see? he left three-quarters of it."</p> + +<p>Sir Roger does not answer, unless a slight shrug and a passing his hand +across his face with a rather dispirited gesture be an answer. I feel +ashamed of my petulance.</p> + +<p>"Do you feel inclined to tell me about your ill news?" I say, gently, +going over to him, and putting my hand on his shoulder. "I have been +making so many guesses as to what it can be?"</p> + +<p>"Have you?" he says, looking up. "I dare say. Well, I will tell you. Do +you remember—I dare say you do not—my once mentioning to you that I +had some property in the West Indies—in Antigua?"</p> + +<p>I nod.</p> + +<p>"To be sure I do; I recollect I had not an idea where Antigua was, and I +looked out for it at once in Tou Tou's atlas."</p> + +<p>"Well, a fortnight—three weeks ago—it was when we were in Dresden, I +had a letter telling me of the death of my agent out there. I knew +nothing about him personally—had never seen him—but he had long been +in my poor brother's employment, and was very highly thought of by him."</p> + +<p>"<i>Poor</i> brother!" think I; "well, thank Heaven! at least <i>he</i> has not +revived; he would not be 'poor' if he had," but I say only, "Yes?" with +a delicately interrogative accent.</p> + +<p>"And to-day comes this letter"—(pulling one out of his +pocket)—"telling me that now that his affairs have been looked into, +they are found to be in the greatest confusion—that he has died +bankrupt, in fact; and not only <i>that</i>, but that he has been cheating me +right and left for years and years, appropriating the money which ought +to have been spent on the estate to his own uses; and, as misfortunes +never come single, I also hear"—(unfolding the sheet, and glancing +rather disconsolately over it)—"that there has been a hurricane, which +has destroyed nearly all the sugar-canes."</p> + +<p>The thought of <i>Job</i> and his successive misfortunes instantly occurs to +me—the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, the great wind from the wilderness—but +being a little doubtful as to his example having a very consoling +effect, with some difficulty, and at the cost of a great pressure +exercised on myself, I abstain from mentioning him.</p> + +<p>"To make a long story short," continues Sir Roger, "and not to bother +you with unnecessary details—"</p> + +<p>"But indeed they would not bother me," interrupt I, eagerly, putting my +hand through his arm, and turning my face anxiously up to him; "I should +<i>enjoy</i> hearing them. I wish you would not think that all sensible, +sober things <i>bother</i> me."</p> + +<p>"My dear," he says, gently pinching my cheek, "I think nothing of the +kind, but I know that not all the explanations in the world will alter +the result, which is, that I shall not get a farthing from the property +<i>this</i> year, and very likely not <i>next</i> either."</p> + +<p>"You do not say so!" cry I, trying to impart a tragic tone to my voice, +and only hoping that my face <i>looks</i> more distressed and aghast than it +feels.</p> + +<p>To tell you the truth, I am mightily relieved. At this period of my +history, money troubles seem to me the lightest and airiest of all +afflictions. I have sat down, and Sir Roger is walking up and down, with +a restlessness unlike his usual repose; on his face there is a vexed and +thwarted look, that is unfamiliar to me. The old parrot sits in the sun, +outside his cage, scratching his head, and chuckling to himself. Tou +Tou's voice comes ringing from the garden. It has a tone of mingled +laughter and pain, which tells me that she is undergoing severe and +searching discipline at the hands of Bobby.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," say I, presently, speaking with some diffidence, "that +<i>that</i> is <i>all</i>. Of course I do not mean to say that it is not very bad, +but is there nothing <i>worse</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Is not it <i>bad enough</i>?" he asks, half laughing. "What did you expect?"</p> + +<p>"You know," say I, still hesitatingly, "I have not an idea <i>how</i> well +off you are; I mean, how much a year you have. Mercenary as I +am"—(laughing nervously)—"I never thought of asking you; but I +suppose, even if the earth were to open and swallow Antigua—even if +there were no such things as West Indies—we should still have money +enough to buy us bread and cheese, should not we?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it is to be hoped so," he answers, a gleam of amusement flashing +like a little sunshiny arrow across his vexation; "it would be a bad +lookout for you and me, would not it, considering the size of our +appetites, if we should not?"</p> + +<p>A little pause. Tou Tou's voice again. The anguish has conquered the +laughter, and is now mixed with a shrill treble wrath. Polly is +alternately barking like Vick, and laughing with a quiet amusement at +his own performance.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," say I, still airing my opinion with timidity, as one +that has no great opinion of their worth, "that it does one much good to +be rich beyond a certain point?—that a large establishment, for +instance, gives one much pleasure? I am sure it does not in <i>our</i> case; +if you were to know the number of nails that the servants and their +iniquities have knocked into mother's coffin—yes, and father's, too."</p> + +<p>"Have they?" (a little absently). He is still pacing up and down +restlessly—to and fro—along and across—he that is usually so innocent +of fidget or fuss. "Nancy," he says, half seriously, half in rueful +jest, "if you want a thing done, do it yourself: mind that, all your +life. I am a standing instance of the disadvantage of having let other +people do it for me. The fact is, I ought to have gone out there long +ago, to look after things myself."</p> + +<p>"If you <i>had</i> been there, you could not have stopped the hurricane +coming, any more than Canute could stop the waves," say I, filching a +piece of history from "Little Arthur," and pushing it to the front.</p> + +<p>He smiles.</p> + +<p>"Not the hurricane—no; but the hurricane was the lesser evil. I might +have done something to avert, or, at least, lessen the greater one. To +tell the truth, I meant to have gone out there this spring—had, indeed, +almost fixed upon a day for starting, when—<i>you</i> stopped me."</p> + +<p>"<i>I!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he says, pausing in his walk in front of me, and looking at me +with a face full of sunshine, content, and laughter; a face whence +hurricanes, West Indies, and agents have altogether fled; "you called me +a '<i>beast</i>', and the expression startled me so much—I suppose from not +being used to it—that it sent the West Indies, yes, and the East ones +too, clean out of my head."</p> + +<p>"I hope," say I, anxiously, "that you will never tell any one that I +said <i>that</i>. They would think that I was in the habit of calling people +'<i>beasts</i>', and indeed—<i>indeed</i>, I very seldom use so strong a word, +<i>even</i> to Bobby."</p> + +<p>"Well," he says, not heeding my request, not, I am sure, hearing it, and +resuming his walk, "what is done cannot be undone, so there is no use +whining about it, Nancy" (again stopping before me, and this time taking +my face in his two hands). "Will you mind much, or will you not?—do you +ever mind <i>any thing much</i>, I wonder?" (eagerly and wistfully scanning +my face, as if trying to read my character through the mask of my pale +skin, and small and unremarkable features). "Well, there is no help for +it—as I did not go then, I must go now."</p> + +<p>"Go!" repeat I, panting in horrid surprise, "go where?—to Antigua?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, to Antigua."</p> + +<p>No need now to dress my voice in the tones of factitious tragedy—no +need to lengthen my face artificially. It feels all of a sudden quite a +yard and a half long. Polly has stopped barking: he is now calling, +"Barb'ra! Barb'ra!" in father's voice, and he hits off the pompous +severity of his tone with such awful accuracy, that did not my eyes +assure me to the contrary, I could swear that my parent was in the room.</p> + +<p>After a moment I rise, throw my arms round Sir Roger, and lay my head on +his breast—a most unwonted caress on my part, for we are not a couple +by any means given to endearments.</p> + +<p>"Do not go!" I say in a coaxing whisper, "do nothing of the kind!—stay +at home!"</p> + +<p>"And will <i>you</i> go instead of me?" he asks with a gentle irony, +stroking, the while, my plaits as delicately as if he were afraid that +they would <i>come off</i>, which indeed, <i>indeed</i>, they would not.</p> + +<p>"By myself," say I, laughing, but not raising my head. "Oh! of course; +nothing I should like better, and I should be so invaluable in mending +the sugar-canes, and keeping the new agent on his P's and Q's, should +not I?"</p> + +<p>He laughs.</p> + +<p>"Stay!" say I, again whispering, as being more persuasive; "where would +be the use of going <i>now</i>? It would be shutting the stable-door after +the steed was stolen, and—" (this in a still lower voice)—"we are +beginning to get on so nicely, too."</p> + +<p>"Beginning!" he echoes, with a half-melancholy smile, "only <i>beginning</i>? +have not we always got on nicely?"</p> + +<p>"And if we are poorer," continue I, insinuatingly, "I believe we shall +get on better still. I am sure that poor people are fonder of one +another than rich ones—they have less to distract them from each +other."</p> + +<p>I have now raised my head, and perceive that Sir Roger does not look +very much convinced.</p> + +<p>"But granting that poverty <i>is</i> better than riches, do you believe that +it <i>is</i>, Nancy?—for my part I doubt it—for myself I will own to you +that I have found it pleasant not to be obliged to look at sixpence upon +both sides; but <i>that</i>," he says with straightforward simplicity, "is +perhaps because I have not long been used to it—because once, long ago, +I wanted money badly—I would have given my right hand for it, and could +not get it!"</p> + +<p>"What did you want it for?" cry I, curiously, pricking my ears, and for +a moment forgetting my private troubles in the hope of a forthcoming +anecdote.</p> + +<p>"Ah! would not you like to know?" he says, playfully, but he does not +explain: instead, he goes on: "Even granting that it is so, do you think +it would be very manly to let a fine estate run to ruin, because one was +too lazy to look after it? Do you think it would be quite +<i>honest</i>—quite fair to those that will come after us?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Those that will come after us!</i>" cry I, scornfully, making a face for +the third and last time this morning. "And who are they, pray? Some +sixteenth cousin of yours, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says, gravely, but in a tone whose gentleness takes all +harshness from the words, "you are talking nonsense, and you know as +well as I do that you are!"</p> + +<p>Then I know that I may as well be silent. After a pause:</p> + +<p>"And when," say I, in as lamentable a voice as King Darius sent down +among the lions in search of Daniel—"how soon, I mean, are we to set +off?"</p> + +<p>"<i>We!</i>" he cries, a sudden light springing into his eyes, and an accent +of keen pleasure into his voice. "Do you mean to say that <i>you</i> thought +of coming too?"</p> + +<p>I look up in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Do not wives generally go with their husbands?"</p> + +<p>"But would you <i>like</i> to come?" he asks, seizing my hands, and pressing +them with such unconscious eagerness, that my wedding-ring makes a red +print in its neighbor-finger.</p> + +<p>O friends, I wish to Heaven that I had told a lie! It would have been, I +am sure, one of the cases in which a lie would have been +justifiable—nay, praiseworthy, too. But, standing there, under the +truth of his eyes, I have to be true, too.</p> + +<p>"Like!" say I, evasively, casting down my eyes, and fiddling uneasily +with one of the buttons of his coat, "it is hardly a question of +'<i>like</i>,' is it? I do not imagine that you <i>like</i> it much yourself?—one +cannot always be thinking of what one likes."</p> + +<p>The pressure of his fingers on mine slackens; and, though, thanks to my +wedding-ring, it was painful, I am sorry. After a minute:</p> + +<p>"But you have not," say I, trying to speak in a tone of light and airy +cheerfulness, "answered my question yet—how soon we must set off? You +know what a woman always thinks of first—her <i>clothes</i>, and I must be +seeing to my packing."</p> + +<p>"The sooner the better," he answers, with a preoccupied look. "Not later +than ten days hence!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ten days!</i>"</p> + +<p>Again my jaw falls. He has altogether loosed my hands now, and resumed +his walk. I sit down by the table, lean my elbows on it, and push my +fingers through my hair in most dejected musing. Polly has been dressing +himself; turning his head over his shoulder, and arranging his feathers +with his aquiline nose. He has finished now, and has just given vent, in +a matter-of-fact, unemotional voice, to an awful oath! There is the +sound of brisk feet on the sunny gravel outside. Bobby's face looks in +at the window—broad, sunburnt, and laughing.</p> + +<p>"Well! what is up now?" cries he, catching a glimpse of my disconsolate +attitude. "You look as if the fungi had disagreed with you!"</p> + +<p>"Then appearances are deceitful," reply I, trying to be merry, "for they +have not."</p> + +<p>He has only glanced in upon us in passing: he is gone again now. I +rebury my hands in my locks, which, instead of a highly-cultivated +garden, I am rapidly making into a wilderness.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," say I, in a tone which fitly matches the length of my face, +"that Bobby will have got a ship before I come back; I hope they will +not send him to any very unhealthy station—Hong-Kong, or the Gold +Coast."</p> + +<p>"I hope not."</p> + +<p>"What port shall we sail from?"</p> + +<p>"Southampton."</p> + +<p>"And how long—about how long will the voyage be?"</p> + +<p>"About seventeen days to Antigua."</p> + +<p>"And how long"—(still in the same wretched and resignedly melancholy +voice)—"shall we have to stay there?"</p> + +<p>"It depends upon the state in which I find things?"</p> + +<p>A good long pause. My elbows are growing quite painful, from the length +of time during which they have been digging into the hard <i>marqueterie</i> +table, and my hair is as wild as a red Indian's. <i>Ten</i> days! ten little +galloping days, and then <i>seventeen</i> long, slow, monstrous ones! +<i>Seventeen</i> days at sea! seventeen days and seventeen nights, too—do +not let us forget that—of that deadly nausea, of that unspeakable +sinking of all one's inside to the very depths of creation—of the smell +of boiling oil, and the hot, sick, throbbing of engines!</p> + +<p>"I hope," say I, in a voice so small that I hardly recognize it for my +own, "that I shall not be <i>quite</i> as ill all the way as I was crossing +from Calais to Dover; and the steward," continue I, in miserable +meditation, "kept telling me all the while what a fine passage we were +having, too!"</p> + +<p>"So we were!"</p> + +<p>Another pause. I am still thinking of the horrid theme; living over +again my nearly-forgotten agonies.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember," say I, presently, "hearing about that Lady +Somebody—I forget her name—but she was the wife of one +Governor-General of India, and she always suffered so much from +sea-sickness that she thought she should suffer less in a +sailing-vessel, and so returned from India in one, and just as she came +in sight of the shores of England <i>she died</i>!"</p> + +<p>As I reach this awful climax, I open my eyes very wide, and sink my +voice to a tragic depth.</p> + +<p>"The moral is—" says Sir Roger, stopping beside me, laying his hand on +my chair back, and regarding me with a mixture of pain and diversion in +his eyes, "stick to steam!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>A heavy foot along the passage, a hand upon the door, a hatted head +looking in.</p> + +<p>"Roger," says father, in that laboriously amiable voice in which he +always addresses his son-in-law, "sorry to interrupt you, but could you +come here for a minute—will not keep you long."</p> + +<p>"All right!" cries Sir Roger, promptly.</p> + +<p>(How <i>can</i> he speak in that flippantly cheerful voice, with the prospect +of seventeen days' sea before him?)</p> + +<p>"Now, where did I put my hat, Nancy? did you happen to notice?"</p> + +<p>"It is here," say I, picking it up from the window-seat, and handing it +to him with lugubrious solemnity.</p> + +<p>As he reaches the door, following father, he turns and nods to me with a +half-humorous smile.</p> + +<p>"Cheer up," he says, "it shall not be a sailing-vessel."</p> + +<p>He is gone, and I return to my former position, and my former +occupation, only that now—the check of Sir Roger's presence being +removed—I indulge in two or three good hearty groans. To think how the +look of all things is changed since this morning!</p> + +<p>As we came home through the fields singing, if any one had given me +three wishes, I should have been puzzled what to ask—and <i>now</i>! All the +good things I am going to lose march in gloomy procession before my +mind. <i>No house-warming!</i> It will have to be put off till we come back, +and, by the time that we come back, Bobby will almost certainly have +been sent to some foreign station for three or four years. And who knows +what may happen before he returns? Perhaps—for I am in the mood when +all adversities seem antecedently probable—he will <i>never</i> come back. +Perhaps never again shall I be the willing victim of his buffets, never +again shall I buffet him in return.</p> + +<p>And the <i>sea</i>! It is all very fine for Sir Roger to take it so easily, +to laugh and make unfeeling jokes at my expense! <i>He</i> does not lie on +the flat of his back, surrounded by the horrid paraphernalia of +sea-sickness. <i>He</i> walks up and down, with his hands in his pockets, +smoking a cigar, and talking to the captain. <i>He</i> cares nothing for the +heaving planks. The taste of the salt air gives <i>him</i> an appetite. An +<i>appetite</i>! Oh, prodigious! I must say I think he might have been a +<i>little</i> more feeling, might have expressed himself a <i>little</i> more +sympathetically.</p> + +<p>By dint of thinking over Sir Roger's iniquities on this head, I +gradually work myself up into such a state of righteous indignation and +injury against him, that when, after a longish interval, the door again +opens to readmit him, I affect neither to see nor hear him, nor be in +any way conscious of his presence. Through the chinks of my fingers, +dolorously spread over my face, I see that he has sat down on the other +side of the table, just opposite me, and that he is smiling in the same +unmirthful, gently sarcastic way, as he was when he left me.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says, "I have been thinking what a pity it is that I have +not a <i>yacht</i>! We might have taken our own time then, and done it +enjoyably—made quite a pleasure-trip of it."</p> + +<p>I drop my hands into my lap.</p> + +<p>"People's ideas of pleasure differ," I say, with trite snappishness.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answers, a little sadly, "no two people look at any thing in +<i>quite</i> the same way, do they?—not even husband and wife."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," say I, still thinking of the steward.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," he says, leaning his arms and his crossed hands on the +table between us, and steadfastly regarding me, "that I never saw you +look miserable before, never? I did not even know that you <i>could</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I am not <i>miserable</i>," I answer, rather ashamed of myself, "that is far +too strong a word! Of course I am a little disappointed." Then I mumble +off into an indistinctness, whence the nouns "House—warming," "Bobby," +"Gold Coast," crop out audibly.</p> + +<p>"After all," he says, still regarding me, and speaking kindly, yet a +little coldly too, "you need not look so woebegone. They say second +thoughts are best, do not they? Well, I have been thinking second +thoughts, and—I have altered my mind."</p> + +<p>"You are going to stay at home?" cry I, at the top of my voice, jumping +up in an ecstasy, and beginning to clap my hands.</p> + +<p>"No," he says, gently, "not quite <i>that</i>, as I explained to you before, +that is impossible: but—do not be downcast—something nearly as good. I +am going to leave <i>you</i> at home!"</p> + +<p>To leave me at home! My first feeling is one of irrepressible relief. No +sea! no steward! no courtesying ship! no swaying waves after all! Then +comes a quick and strong revulsion, shame, mortification, and pain.</p> + +<p>"To—leave—me—at home!" I repeat slowly, hardly yet grasping the idea, +"to—go—<i>without</i>—me!—by yourself?"</p> + +<p>"By myself," he answers, gently. "You see, it is no <i>new</i> thing to me. I +have been by myself for forty-seven years."</p> + +<p>A quick, remorseful pain runs through my heart.</p> + +<p>"But you are not by yourself any longer," I cry, eagerly. "Why do you +talk as if you were? Do you count <i>me</i> for nothing?"</p> + +<p>"For nothing?" he answers, smiling quietly. "I am glad of an excuse to +be rid of you for a bit—that is it!"</p> + +<p>"But <i>is</i> that it?" cry I, excitedly, rising and running round to him. +"If you are sure of that—if you will <i>swear</i> it to me—I will not say +another word. I will hold my tongue, and try to bear as well as I can, +your having grown tired of me so soon—but—" speaking more slowly, and +hesitating, "if—if—it is that you fancied—you thought—you +imagined—that I did not <i>want</i> to come with you—"</p> + +<p>"My dear," he says, laughing not at all bitterly, but with a genuine +amusement, "I should have been even less bright than I am, if I had not +gathered that much."</p> + +<p>I sink down on a chair, and cover my face with my hands. My <i>attitude</i> +is the same as it was ten minutes ago, but oh, how different are my +feelings! What bitter repentance, what acute self-contempt, invade my +soul! As I so sit, I feel an arm round my waist.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," says Sir Roger, "it was ill-naturedly said; do not fret about +it; you were not in the least to blame. I should not like you half so +much—should not think nearly so well of you, if you had been willing to +give up all your own people, to throw them lightly over, all of a +sudden, for a comparative stranger, treble your age, too"—(with a +sigh)—"like me."</p> + +<p>He generously ignores the selfish fear of sea-sickness, of <i>personal</i> +suffering, which had occupied the fore-front of my mind.</p> + +<p>"It will be much, <i>much</i> better, and a far more sensible plan for both +of us," he continues, cheerfully. "Where would be the use of exposing +you to the discomfort and misery of what you hate most on earth for no +possible profit? I shall not be long away, shall be back almost before +you realize that I am gone, and meanwhile I should be far happier +thinking of you merry, and enjoying yourself with your brothers and +sisters at Tempest, than I should be seeing you bored and suffering, +with no one but me to amuse you—you know, dear—" (smiling pensively); +"do not be angry with me, it was no fault of yours; but you <i>did</i> grow +rather tired of me at Dresden."</p> + +<p>"I did not! I did not!" cry I, bursting into a passion of tears, and +asseverating all the more violently because I feel, with a sting of +remorse, that there is a tiny grain of truth—not so large a one as he +thinks, but still a <i>grain</i> in his accusations. "It seemed rather +<i>quiet</i> at first—I had always been used to such a noisy house, and +I missed the boys' chatter a little, perhaps; but <i>indeed</i>, +<span class="smcap">INDEED</span>, that was all!"</p> + +<p>"Was it? I dare say! I dare say!" he says, soothingly.</p> + +<p>"You shall <i>not</i> leave me behind," say I, still weeping with stormy +bitterness. "I <i>will not</i> be left behind! What business have you to go +without me? Am I to be only a fair-weather wife to you? to go shares in +all your pleasant things, and then—when any thing hard or disagreeable +comes—to be left out. I tell you" (looking up at him with streaming +eyes) "that I <i>will not</i>! <span class="smcap">I WILL NOT!</span>"</p> + +<p>"My darling!" he says, looking most thoroughly concerned, I do not fancy +that crying women have formed a large part of his life-experience—"you +misunderstand me! I will own to you, that five minutes ago I did you an +injustice; but <i>now</i> I know, I am thoroughly convinced, that you would +follow me without a murmur or a sulky look to the world's end—and" +(laughing) "be frightfully sea-sick all the way; but" (kindly patting my +heaving shoulder) "do you think that I want to be hampered with a little +invalid? and, supposing that I took you with me, whom should I have to +look after things at Tempest, and keep them straight for me against I +come home?"</p> + +<p>"I know what it is," I cry, passionately clinging round his neck, "you +think I do not like you! I <i>see</i> it! twenty times a day, in a hundred +things that you do and leave undone! but indeed, <i>indeed</i>, you never +were more mistaken in all your life! I will own to you that I did not +care <i>very</i> much about you at first. I thought you good, and kind, and +excellent, but I was not <i>fond</i> of you; but <i>now</i>, every day, every hour +that I live, I like you better! Ask Barbara, ask the boys if I do not! I +like you ten thousand times better than I did the day I married you!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Like</i> me!" he repeats a little dreamily, looking with a strong and +bitter yearning into my eyes; then, seeing that I am going to +asseverate, "for God's sake, child," he says, hastily, "do not tell me +that you <i>love</i> me, for I know it is not true! you can no more help it +than I can help caring for you in the idiotic, mad way, that I do! +Perhaps, on some blessed, far-off day, you may be able to say so, and I +to believe it, but not now!—<i>not now</i>!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> up?" cries Bobby, advancing toward me with an overpowering +curiosity, not unmixed with admiration, legible on his burnt face; "what +<i>has</i> summoned those glorious sunset tints into your eyes and nose?"</p> + +<p>"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?'"</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"But I have not," interrupt I, speaking for the first time, and with a +snuffliness of tone engendered by much crying.</p> + +<p>"Have not? have not <i>what</i>?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"But where has it gone to since this morning?" asks Algy, looking rather +blank.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And tell him to bring a judiciously-selected assortment of +undergraduate friends with him," supplements Bobby, loudly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, sighing, "I know I did; but last night was last night."</p> + +<p>"That throws a great deal of light on the matter, does it not?" says +Algy, ironically.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" cries Bobby, seizing both my hands, and looking me in the face +with an air of irritated determination, "if you do not <i>this moment</i> +stop 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 a <i>jelly</i>!"</p> + +<p>At this bold metaphor applied to my own appearance, the tears begin +again to start to my eyes.</p> + +<p>"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 is <i>so</i> changed, and I know I shall miss +him <i>so</i> much!" I end with a break in my voice, and a long whimper.</p> + +<p>"<i>Miss him!</i> miss whom?"</p> + +<p>"The ge-general!" reply I, indistinctly, from the recesses of a drenched +pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"He is going to the West Indies, to Antigua," reply I, lifting my face +and speaking with a slow dejection.</p> + +<p>"<i>To Antigua!</i>" cries Algy; "but what in the world is going to take him +there?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," says Bobby, in a loud aside to Tou Tou, "perhaps he has got +another wife out there—a <i>black</i> one—and he thinks it is <i>her</i> turn +now!"</p> + +<p>Barbara says, "Hush!" and Tou Tou is beginning to embark on a long +argument to prove that a man <i>cannot</i> have more than one wife at a time, +when she is summarily <i>hustled</i> into silence, for I speak again.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>By himself?</i>"</p> + +<p>"By himself, worse luck!" reply I, despondently, reinterring my +countenance in my pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I do nothing of the kind!" cry I, indignantly, "I have not the chance! +he will not take me!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I hope he will bring us some Jamaica ginger," he says, presently.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would mention it, Nancy! the suggestion would come best from +<i>you</i>, would not it?"</p> + +<p>"And you are to be left <i>alone</i> at Tempest? Is that the plan?" asks +Algy, turning his eyes from his own face, and fixing them on the less +interesting object of mine.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>All alone?</i>" 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 of <i>ghosts</i>?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"The moment you feel <i>at all</i> lonely," says Algy, emphasizing his +remarks by benevolent but emphatic strokes with his flat hand on my +shoulder, "<i>send for us</i>! 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 keep <i>all</i> his horses in exercise next winter!"</p> + +<p>"I am sorrier than I was before," says Bobby, reflectively, "that the +heavy rains have drowned so many of the young birds."</p> + +<p>"O Nancy!" cries Tou Tou, ecstatically clasping her hands, "<i>have</i> a +Christmas-tree!"</p> + +<p>"And a dance after it!" adds Bobby, beginning to whistle a waltz-tune.</p> + +<p>"And Sir Roger's not being at home will be a good excuse for not asking +father," cries Algy, catching the prevailing excitement.</p> + +<p>"I will not have <i>one</i> of you!" cry I, rising with a face pale, as I +feel with anger—with flashing eyes and a trembling voice, "not <i>one</i> of +you shall enter his doors, except Barbara!—I <i>hate</i> you <i>all</i>!—you are +all g—g—<i>glad</i> that he is going, and I—I never was so sorry for any +thing in my life before!"</p> + +<p>I end in a passion of tears. There is a silence of consternation on the +late so jubilant assembly.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Times is changed,' says the dog's-meat man,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>remarks Bobby, presently, veiling his discomfiture in vulgarity, and +launching into uncouth and low-lived rhyme:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Lights is riz,' says the dog's-meat man!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p>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, if <i>alone</i>, than if weighted by a +woman, and a woman's paraphernalia, and also on the desirability of +having in me a <i>locum tenens</i> for himself at Tempest. But, in my soul, I +know that both these are hollow pretenses to lighten the weight on my +conscience.</p> + +<p>"But," say I, with discontented demurring, "you have been away often +before! how did Tempest get on <i>then</i>?"</p> + +<p>He laughs.</p> + +<p>"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 minded <i>that</i> much—but I suppose he was not a very good whip, +and so he threw down one of my best horses, and broke his knees!"</p> + +<p>"Well, they <i>shall not</i> give a ball!" say I, resolutely, "but"—(in a +tone of melancholy helplessness)—"they may throw down <i>all</i> the horses, +for any thing <i>I</i> can do to prevent them! A horse's knees would have to +be <i>very much broken</i> before I should perceive that they were!"</p> + +<p>"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 +expect <i>him</i> to be very keen about my speedy return."</p> + +<p>As he speaks, an arrow of animosity toward Algy shoots through my heart.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> I 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!"</p> + +<p>He raises his eyebrows a little.</p> + +<p>"Rabbits and all?"</p> + +<p>"Rabbits and all!" reply I, firmly.</p> + +<p>"And what will the farmers say?" asks Sir Roger, smiling.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If I am not back by Christmas—" says Sir Roger, presently.</p> + +<p>"By <i>Christmas</i>!" interrupt I, aghast, "one, two, three, four, <i>five</i> +months—but you <i>must</i>!—you <span class="smcap">MUST</span>!" clasping both hands on his arm.</p> + +<p>"I hope I shall, certainly," replies he; "but one never knows what may +happen! If I am <i>not</i>—"</p> + +<p>"But you <i>must</i>," 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!"</p> + +<p>"In a <i>sailing-vessel</i>, like the governor-general's wife?" asks he with +a smile.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"Good-by, my Nancy!" he says, holding me a little from him, that he may +the better consider my face, "be quite—<i>quite</i> happy, while I am +away—<i>indeed</i>, that will be the way to please me best, and be a little +glad to see me when I come back!"</p> + +<p>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—<i>I</i> do 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—<span class="smcap">ALONE!</span> 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 you <i>now</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, nay +<i>three</i>, for <i>I</i> shall speak then, to drown the sounding silence.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Algernon Grey to Lady Tempest.</i></p> + +<p>"Cannot come: not allowed. <i>He</i> has turned nasty."</p></div> + +<p>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! I <i>must</i> utter my disappointment to somebody, even if it +is only the footman.</p> + +<p>"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!" I <i>cannot</i> stand another repast—three times longer than the +last too—for one <i>can</i> abridge luncheon, seated in lorn dignity between +the staring dead on the walls, and the obsequious living.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Faithful friend! never yet was it known to quit me, and here it is! I +decide to have <i>tea</i> in 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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? Am <i>I</i> +not living by myself at a <i>hall</i>?</p> + +<p>Vick recognizes him at about the same moment as I do. Having first +sprung at him with that volubility of small but hostile <i>yaps</i>, with +which she strikes terror into the hearts of tramps, she has now—having +<i>smelt</i> him 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.</p> + +<p>"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'm <i>so</i> glad!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, cheerfully; "I told you you would catch sight of us, +sooner or later, if you waited long enough."</p> + +<p>"And your tenants never dragged you in, after all?"</p> + +<p>"No," say I; "we did not give them the chance. But how do <i>you</i> know? +Were you peeping out of your lodge? If I had remembered that you lived +there, I would have been on the lookout for you."</p> + +<p>"You had, of course, entirely forgotten so insignificant a fact?" he +says, with a tone of pique.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I say, contritely, "I am ashamed to say I had—<i>quite</i>; but you +see I have had a good many things to think of lately."</p> + +<p>At this point it strikes me that he must have forgotten that he has my +hand, so I quietly, and without offense, resume it.</p> + +<p>"And you are <i>alone</i>—Sir Roger has left you quite <i>alone</i> here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, lachrymosely; "is not it <i>dreadful</i>? I never was so +miserable in my life; I do not think I <i>ever</i> was by myself for a +<i>whole</i> night 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 gives <i>such</i> cracks!"</p> + +<p>"And—he has gone <i>by himself</i>?" he continues, still harping on the same +string, as if unable to leave it.</p> + +<p>"Yes," reply I, laconically, hanging my head, for this is a topic on +which I feel always guilty, and never diffuse.</p> + +<p>"H'm!" he says, ruminatingly, and as if addressing the remark more to +himself than to me. "I suppose it <i>is</i> difficult to get out of old +habits, and into new ones, all of a sudden."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But <i>you</i>," 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."</p> + +<p>"You are wrong again," say I, reddening, and still speaking with some +heat, "I <i>wished</i> to 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!"</p> + +<p>Silence for a moment. Then he speaks with a rather sarcastic smile.</p> + +<p>"I confess myself puzzled; if <i>you</i> were dying to go, and <i>he</i> were +dying to take you, how comes it that you are sitting at the present +moment on this bench?"</p> + +<p>I can give no satisfactory answer to this query, so take refuge in a +smile.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>He takes this severe set-down in silence.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"And are you to stay here by yourself <i>all</i> the time he is away—<i>all</i>?"</p> + +<p>"God forbid!" reply I, with devout force.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And who is to have the <i>first</i> turn?" 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?"</p> + +<p>"Algy and Barbara <i>were</i> to have come to-day," reply I, feeling a covert +resentment against something of faintly <i>gibing</i> in 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.</p> + +<p>"And they did not?"</p> + +<p>"Now is not that a silly question?" cry I, tartly, venting the crossness +born of my desolation on the only person within reach; "if they <i>had</i>, +should I be sitting moping here with nobody but Vick to talk to?"</p> + +<p>"You forget <i>me</i>! may I not run in couples even with a <i>dog</i>?" he asks, +with a little bitter laugh.</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>"Thank you for the hint," he cries springing up, picking up his little +stick off the grass and flushing.</p> + +<p>"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 rather <i>odd</i>, I add, reddening, +"I shall be going in directly, and you may go then."</p> + +<p>He reseats himself. A tiny air is ruffling the flower-beds, giving a +separate soft good-night to each bloom.</p> + +<p>"And what happened to Algy and Barbara?" he says presently.</p> + +<p>"Happened? Nothing!" I answer, absently.</p> + +<p>"Very brutal of Algy and Barbara, then!" he says, more in the way of a +reflection than a remark.</p> + +<p>"Very brutal of <i>father</i>, you should say!" reply I, roused by the +thought of my parent to a fresh attack of active and lively resentment.</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt I should if I knew him."</p> + +<p>"He would not let them come!" say I, explanatorily, "for what reason? +for <i>none</i>—he never has any reasons, or if he has, he does not give +them. I sometimes think" (laughing maliciously) "that <i>you</i> will not be +unlike him, when you grow old and gouty."</p> + +<p>"Thank you."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> have 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 it <i>too</i> much, if I were +you—it is a relationship that has its disadvantages."</p> + +<p>He laughs a little dryly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"They will come to-morrow, <i>certainly</i>, I suppose?" (interrogatively).</p> + +<p>"Not <i>certainly</i>, 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—"</p> + +<p>"And if they do not" (with an accent of sincere compassion), "what will +you do?"</p> + +<p>"What I have done to-day, I suppose," I answer dejectedly; "cry till my +cheeks are <i>sore</i>! You may not believe me" (passing my bare fingers +lightly over them as I speak), "but they feel quite <i>raw</i>. I wonder" +(with a little dismal laugh) "why tears were made <i>salt</i>!—they would +not blister one half so much if they were fresh water."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It is going to be such a <i>dark</i> night!" 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!"</p> + +<p>"Not an atom!" reassuringly.</p> + +<p>We both look for an instant at the silent flower-beds, at the sombre +bulk of the house.</p> + +<p>"If they do not come to-morrow—" begins Frank.</p> + +<p>"But they <i>will</i>!" cry I, petulantly; "they <i>must</i>! I cannot do without +them! I believe some people do not <i>mind</i> being alone—not even in the +evenings, when the furniture cracks and the door-handles rattle. I dare +say <i>you</i> do 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—<i>too</i> much, I have +sometimes thought, but I am sure that I never shall think so again!"</p> + +<p>"Well, but if they do not—"</p> + +<p>"You have said that three times," I cry, irritably. "You seem to take a +pleasure in saying it. If they do not—well, what?"</p> + +<p>"I will not say what I was going to say," he answers, shortly. "I shall +only get my nose bitten off if I do."</p> + +<p>"Very well, do not!" reply I, with equal suavity.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You must go now, I suppose," say I, reluctantly. "<i>You</i> will be by +yourself too, will not you? Tell me" (speaking with lowered confidential +tone), "do <i>your</i> chairs and tables ever make odd noises?"</p> + +<p>"Awful!" he answers, laughing. "I can hardly hear myself speak for +them."</p> + +<p>I laugh too.</p> + +<p>"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 are <i>going</i> to say, +and do not! Have no fear! your nose is quite safe!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>Care about!</i>" 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! +What <i>should</i> I 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."</p> + +<p>"As you will!" he answers, with an air of affected carelessness. "It is +only that, if they <i>do not</i> come to-morrow—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Fourth time!</i>" interject I, counting on my fingers and smiling.</p> + +<p>"If you <i>wish</i>—if you <i>like</i>—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."</p> + +<p>"<i>Will</i> you?" (eagerly, with a great accession of exhilaration in my +voice). "Are you serious? I shall be so much obliged if you will, but—"</p> + +<p>"It is <i>impossible</i> that any one can say any thing," he interrupts, +hastily. "There <i>could</i> be no harm in it!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Harm!</i>" repeat I, laughing. "Well, <i>hardly</i>! I cannot fancy a more +innocent amusement."</p> + +<p>Though my speech is in agreement with his own, the coincidence does not +seem to gratify him.</p> + +<p>"What did you mean, then?" he says, sharply. "You said 'but'—"</p> + +<p>"Did I?" answer I, again throwing back my head, and looking upward, as +if trying to trace my last preposition among the clouds; +"but—<i>but</i>—where could I have put a '<i>but</i>'?—oh, I know! <i>but</i> you +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, but <i>death</i> to me; the thought of it will keep me up all the day!"</p> + +<p>"Will it?" in a tone of elated eagerness. "You are not <i>gibing</i>, I +suppose? it does not sound like your gibing voice!"</p> + +<p>"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 hands <i>again</i> for? +We have done that <i>twice</i> already. You are like the man who, the moment +he had finished reading prayers to his family, began them all over +again. <i>Mind</i> you do not forget! and" (laughing) "if you cannot come +yourself, <i>send some one else! any one</i> will do—I am not particular, +but I <i>must</i> have <i>some one</i> to speak to!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Suppose that in all this world, during all its ages, there never was a +case of a person being <i>always</i> in 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.</p> + +<p>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 longer <i>raw</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>I have heard from Sir Roger—a cheerful note, dated Southampton. If <i>he</i> +is 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 he <i>had</i> an abbey, +and that it was over against my future home.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>older</i>!</p> + +<p>"They will all say that he has made a fool of himself," I say, half +aloud.</p> + +<p>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 more <i>married</i> than 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:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Have you seen but a bright lily grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before rude hands have touched it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have you marked but the fall of the snow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before the soil hath smutched it?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have you felt the wool of the beaver<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or swan's-down ever?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or have smelled of the bud of the brier,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the nard in the fire?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or have tasted the bag of the bee?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh so white, oh so soft, oh so sweet is she?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 a <i>bonnet</i>?</p> + +<p>"I wish that people might be allowed to go to church without their +bonnets these hot Sundays," I say, grumblingly. "<i>You</i> especially, +Barbara."</p> + +<p>She laughs.</p> + +<p>"I should be very glad, but I am afraid the beadle would turn me out."</p> + +<p>"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 think <i>where</i> we should stop!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 a <i>pis aller</i>, I look +at Algy. No absorption in prayer on <i>his</i> part 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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 at <i>her</i> once, I look again. I could not tell you <i>why</i> I do it. +There is nothing very remarkable about her in the matter of either youth +or beauty, and yet I look.</p> + +<p>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 of <i>mauvaise +honte</i> and 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," he says, speaking rather stiffly, "that I must congratulate +you on the arrival of the first detachment."</p> + +<p>"First detachment of what?"</p> + +<p>"Of your family. I understood you to say that there were to be <i>relays</i> +of them during all Sir Roger's absence."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I <i>did</i> hear that they had arrived," he answers, still speaking +ungraciously, "but even if I had not, I should not have come!"</p> + +<p>I look up in his face, and laugh.</p> + +<p>"You <i>forgot</i>? Ah, I told you you would!"</p> + +<p>"I did <i>not</i> forget."</p> + +<p>Again I look up at him, this time in honest astonishment, awaiting the +solution of his enigma.</p> + +<p>"There is no particular use in making one's self <i>cheap</i>, is there?" he +says, with a bitter little laugh. "What is the use of going to a place +where you are told that <i>any one else</i> will do as well?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You <i>do not know</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Not I," reply I lightly. "How should I? I know nobody in these parts."</p> + +<p>"That is Mrs. Huntley."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 have <i>never</i> heard of her?"</p> + +<p>"Never!" reply I, in some surprise; "why should I?—has she ever done +any thing very remarkable?"</p> + +<p>He laughs slightly, but disagreeably.</p> + +<p>"Remarkable! well, no, I suppose not!"</p> + +<p>The victoria is quite out of sight now—quite out of sight the +delicately poised head, the dove-colored parasol.</p> + +<p>"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, <i>of course</i>, you have heard—I mean Sir +Roger has mentioned her to you!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Most likely."</p> + +<p>He is looking down at the white dust which is defiling his +patent-leather boots, and smiling slightly.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I have no reason—I think nothing," he answers, coldly, with an air of +ostentatious reserve.</p> + +<p>I walk on in a ruffled, jarred silence. Presently Frank speaks again.</p> + +<p>"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?—<i>Algy</i> and <i>Barbara</i>?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"The St. Catherine!" he repeats, with a puzzled air, "<i>what</i> St. +Catherine? I am afraid you will think me very stupid, but I really am +quite at sea."</p> + +<p>"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, you <i>have</i> a short memory!"</p> + +<p>"Have I?" he answers, dryly; "perhaps for <i>some</i> things; for <i>others</i>, I +fancy that mine is a good deal longer than yours."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Dates!" he says, impatiently, "pshaw! I was not thinking of <i>them</i>! I +was thinking of Dresden!"</p> + +<p>"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; with <i>me</i> they 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 the <i>other</i> Magdalen—not +Guido's—I was telling Algy about it. Bah! what is it? I know it as well +as my own."</p> + +<p>His head is turned away from me. He does not appear to be attending.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" I repeat; "have <i>you</i> forgotten too?"</p> + +<p>"Battoni!" he answers, laconically, still keeping his face averted.</p> + +<p>"<i>Battoni!</i> oh, yes! thanks—of course! so it is!—Algy" (raising my +voice a little)—"<i>Battoni!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Well, what about him?" replies Algy, turning his head, but not showing +much inclination to slacken his speed or to join Frank and me.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Thus adjured, they have come to a halt, and the presentation is made.</p> + +<p>"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, "he <i>must</i> see the likeness now!" To insure his having the +chance of telling her that he does, I fall behind with Algy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I cannot help thinking that Algy does not look altogether pleased with +the arrangement, but after all, it is <i>my</i> house, 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dear</i> Dresden!" 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.</p> + +<p>"Dear Linkesches Bad!" says Frank, sighing too.</p> + +<p>"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 that +<i>then</i> I had found so tedious.</p> + +<p>"Dear Zwinger!" retorts Frank.</p> + +<p>"Dear Weisserhirsch!" say I, half sadly. "Dear white acacias! dear +drives under the acacias!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Drives under the acacias!</i>" 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!"</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> had not, I dare say," reply I, carelessly, "but <i>we</i> had. They +are the things that I look back at with the greatest pleasure of any +thing that happened there!"</p> + +<p>Frank does not apostrophize as "<i>dear</i>" any other public resort; indeed, +he turns away his head, and we walk on without uttering a word for a few +moments.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I meant nothing," he answers, but the faint quiver of a smile about his +mouth contradicts his words.</p> + +<p>"That is not true!" reply I, with impatient brusqueness; "why were you +surprised at my not having heard of her?"</p> + +<p>"I was not surprised."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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 have <i>not</i> been told."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe there <i>is</i> any such history."</p> + +<p>"I dare say not."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Your story is <i>not</i> true," 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."</p> + +<p>"I have not the slightest wish."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is <i>impossible</i>! I stop. I stand stock-still in the summer grass.</p> + +<p>"I <i>hate</i> your 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."</p> + +<p>"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—"</p> + +<p>He pauses, as if in search of a word.</p> + +<p>"But supposing," cry I, eagerly, "that they have nothing to tell, +nothing to confess—"</p> + +<p>He shrugs his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"That is so likely, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"Likely or not," cry I, excitedly, "it was true in <i>my</i> case. If you had +put me on the rack, I could have confessed nothing!"</p> + +<p>"I do not see the analogy," he answers, coldly; "<i>you</i> are—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—<i>forty-seven</i>! We +shall be late for church!"—with a glance at Algy's and Barbara's +quickly diminishing figures.</p> + +<p>"I do not care whether we are late or not!" cry I, vehemently, and +stamping on the daisy-heads as I speak. "I will not <i>stir</i> until you +tell me."</p> + +<p>"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 liar <i>rumor</i> is—says that once, some years ago, they were engaged to +marry each other."</p> + +<p>"And why did not they?" speaking with breathless panting, and forgetting +my stout asseveration that the whole tale is a lie.</p> + +<p>"Because—mind, I <i>vouch</i> for nothing, I am only quoting rumor +again—because—she threw him over."</p> + +<p>"<i>Threw him over!</i>" with an accent of most unfeigned astonishment.</p> + +<p>"You are surprised!" he says, quickly, and with what sounds to me like a +slightly annoyed inflection of voice; "it <i>does</i> seem 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."</p> + +<p>"<i>Threw—him—over!</i>" repeat I, slowly, as if unable yet to grasp +the sense of the phrase.</p> + +<p>"We shall <i>certainly</i> be late; the last bell is beginning," says Frank, +impatiently.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Is she a <i>widow</i>?" ask I, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>He laughs sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 not <i>she</i> ask the +same question with regard to <i>me</i>?</p> + +<p>"She did not like the <i>sea</i>, perhaps," answers Frank, demurely.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>A day—two days pass.</p> + +<p>"More callers," say I, hearing the sound of wheels, and running to the +window; "I thought we <i>must</i> have exhausted the neighborhood yesterday +and the day before!" I add, sighing.</p> + +<p>"<i>Whoever they are</i>," 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!"</p> + +<p>"That certainly was one of my unlucky things," answer I, gravely; then, +beginning to laugh—"and I was so <i>determined</i> to know what had become +of her, too."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Shall I ring, and say 'not at home?'" asks Barbara, stretching out her +hand toward the bell.</p> + +<p>"No, no!" cry I, hurriedly, in an altered voice, for the parasol has +moved a little aside, and I have seen the face beneath.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At first she seems uncertain <i>which</i> to 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, but <i>now</i> more 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 I <i>think</i>—nay, let me tell truth—I <i>hope</i> +that in a low gown she would be <i>scraggy</i>, 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><i>One</i> hope remains to me. Perhaps she may be stupid! Certainly she is +not <i>affording</i>.</p> + +<p>How heavily poor Barbara is driving through the fine weather and the +<i>Times</i>! 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.</p> + +<p>"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. <i>Mine</i> rushes forth like a +desolating bomb-shell.</p> + +<p>"A little—yes."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Yes," smiling sweetly, "in India."</p> + +<p>"He was there a long time," continue I, communicatively.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>(Well, she <i>is</i> baffling! when she does not say "yes" affirmatively, she +says it interrogatively.)</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes; we met several times."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>(It <i>must</i> have been a lie!)</p> + +<p>"<i>Your</i> husband, too, is out—" I pause; not sure of the locality, but +she does not help me, so I add lamely, "<i>somewhere</i>, is not he?"</p> + +<p>"He is in the West Indies."</p> + +<p>"In the West Indies!" cry I, with animation, drawing my chair yet a +little nearer hers, and feeling positively friendly; "why, that is where +<i>mine</i> is too!"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"We are companions in misfortune," cry I, heartily; "we must keep up +each other's spirits, must not we?"</p> + +<p>Another smile, but no verbal answer.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 of <i>esprit</i>, whose possible existence I had not +conjectured. Certainly, she showed no symptom of playfulness or <i>esprit</i> +during our late talk. I have yet to learn that to some women, the +presence of a man—not <i>the</i> man, but <i>a</i> man—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.</p> + +<p>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 to <i>his</i> voice, and her +articulation is so distinct, that I do not miss a word.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>She nods.</p> + +<p>"And I you," with a gently reassuring smile.</p> + +<p>"Did you, really? did you see me—I mean us?"</p> + +<p>"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 a +<i>soldier</i>; one can mostly tell."</p> + +<p>He laughs the flattered, fluttered laugh, that <i>my</i> rough speech was +never known to provoke in living man.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am; at least, I am going to be; I join this week."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" with a pretty air of attention and interest.</p> + +<p>"We—we—found out who <i>you</i> were," he says, laughing again, with a +little embarrassment, and edging his chair nearer hers; "we asked +Musgrave!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Musgrave!" (with a little tone of alert curiosity)—"oh! you know +<i>him</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I know him! I should think so: he is quite a tame cat here."</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Have you any <i>children</i>?" 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, she <i>had</i> a child, and +it is <i>dead</i>. She is going to <i>cry</i>! At this awful thought, I grow +scarlet, and Algy darts a furious look at me. What <i>have</i> I 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!</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry," I stammer—"I never thought—I did not know—"</p> + +<p>"It is of no consequence," she answers, speaking with some difficulty, +and with a slight but quite musical tremor in her voice—very different +from the ugly gulpings and catchings of the breath which always +set off <i>my</i> tears—"but the fact is, that I <i>have</i> one little +one—and—and—she no longer lives with me; my husband's people have +taken her; I am sure that they meant it for the best; only—only—I am +afraid I cannot quite manage to talk of her yet" (turning away from me, +and looking up into Algy's face with a showery smile). Then, as if +unable to run the risk of any other further shock to her feelings, she +rises and takes her leave; Algy eagerly attending her to the door.</p> + +<p>The old deaf gentleman departs at the same time, loading Barbara with +polite parting messages to her husband, and bowing distantly to <i>me</i>. +Algy reënters presently, looking cross and ruffled.</p> + +<p>"You really are <i>too</i> bad, Nancy!" he says, harshly, throwing himself +into the chair lately occupied by Mrs. Huntley. "You grow worse every +day—one would think you did it on purpose—riding rough-shod over +people's feelings."</p> + +<p>I stand aghast. Formerly, I used not to mind rough words; but I think +Roger must have spoilt me; they make me wince now.</p> + +<p>"But—but—it was not <i>dead</i>!" I say, whimpering; "it had only gone to +visit its grandmother."</p> + +<p>"Never you mind, my Nancy!" says Barbara, in a whisper, drawing me away +to the window, and pressing her soft, cool lips, to the flushed misery +of my cheeks; "she was not hurt a bit! her eyes were as dry as a bone!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>One more day is gone. We are one day nearer Roger's return. This is the +way in which I am growing to look at the flight of time; just as, in +Dresden, I joyfully marked each sunset, as bringing me twenty-four hours +nearer home and the boys. And now the boys are within reach; at a wish I +could have them all round me; and still, in my thoughts, I hurry the +slow days, and blame them for dawdling. With all their broad, gold +sunshine, and their rainbow-colored flowers, I wish them away.</p> + +<p>Alas! that life should be both so quick and so lagging! It is afternoon, +and I am lying by myself on a cloak at the bottom of the punt—the +<i>unupsettable</i>, broad-bottomed punt. My elbow rests on the seat, and a +book is on my lap. But, in the middle of the pool, the glare from the +water is unbearably bright, but <i>here</i>, underneath those dipping, +drooped trees, the sun only filters through in little flakes, and the +shade is brown, and the reflections are so vivid that the flags hardly +know which are themselves—they, or the other flags that grow in the +water at their feet.</p> + +<p>A while ago I tried to read; but a private vexation of my own—a small +new one—interleaved with its details each page of the story, and made +nonsense of it. I have shut the volume, therefore, and, with my hat +tilted over my eyes, and my cheek on my hand, am watching the long blue +dragon-flies, and the numberless small peoples that inhabit the summer +air. All at once, I hear some one coming, crashing and pushing through +the woody undergrowth. Perhaps it is Algy come to say that he has +changed his mind, and that he will not go after all! No! it is only Mr. +Musgrave. I am a little disappointed, but, as my fondness for my own +company is always of the smallest, I am able to smile a sincere welcome.</p> + +<p>"It is you, is it?" I say, with a little intimate nod. "How did you know +where I was?"</p> + +<p>"Barbara told me."</p> + +<p>"<i>Barbara</i>, indeed!" (laughing). "I wish father could hear you."</p> + +<p>"I am very glad he does not."</p> + +<p>"And so you found her at home?" I say, with a feeling of pleased +curiosity, as to the details of the interview. (He cannot well have +volunteered the abbey <i>already</i>, can he?)</p> + +<p>"I suppose I may come in," he says, hardly waiting my permission to jump +into the punt, which, however, by reason of the noble broadness of its +bottom, is enabled to bid defiance to any such shock. "She was making a +flannel petticoat for an old woman," he goes on, sitting down opposite +me, and looking at me from under his hat-brim, with gravely shining +eyes; "<i>herring-boning</i>, she called it. She has been teaching me how to +herring-bone. I like Barbara."</p> + +<p>"How kind of you!" I say, ironically, and yet a little gratified too. +"And does she return the compliment, may I ask?"</p> + +<p>He nods.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so."</p> + +<p>"She would like you better still if you were to lose all your money, and +one of your legs, and be marked by the small-pox," I say, thoughtfully; +"to be despised, and out at elbows, and down in the world, is the sure +way to Barbara's heart."</p> + +<p>I had meant to have drawn for him a pleasant and yet most true picture +of her sweet disinterestedness, but his uneasy vanity takes it amiss.</p> + +<p>"As it entails being enrolled among the blind and lame," he says, +smiling sarcastically, and flushing a little, "I am afraid I shall never +get there."</p> + +<p>A moment ago I had felt hardly less than sisterly toward him. Now I look +at him with a disgustful and disapprobative eye. What a very great deal +of alteration he needs, and, with that face, and his abbey, and all his +rooks to back it, how very unlikely he is to get it! Well, <i>I</i> at least +will do my best!</p> + +<p>We both remain quiet for a few moments. Vick sits at the end of the +punt, a shiver of excitement running all over her little white body, her +black nose quivering, and one lip slightly lifted by a tooth, as she +gazes with eager gravity at the distant wild-ducks flying along in a +row, with outstretched necks, making their pleasant quacks. How low they +fly; so low that their feet splash in the water, that makes a bright +spray-hue in the sun!</p> + +<p>"Algy is going away to-morrow!" say I, presently.</p> + +<p>"So he told me."</p> + +<p>"This is his last evening here!" (in a rather dolorous tone).</p> + +<p>"So I should gather," laughing a little at the obviousness of my last +piece of information.</p> + +<p>"And yet," say I, looking down through the clear water at a dead +tree-bough lying at the bottom, and sighing, "he is going to dine out +to-night—to dine with Mrs. Huntley."</p> + +<p>"With Mrs. Huntley! when?" with a long-drawn whistle of intelligence.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," cry I, impulsively, raising myself from my reclining pose, +and sitting upright, "you will understand better than I do—perhaps it +is my mistake—but, if you had seen a person only <i>once</i> for five or ten +minutes, would you sign yourself 'Yours very sincerely' to them?"</p> + +<p>He laughs dryly.</p> + +<p>"Not unless I was writing <i>after dinner</i>—why?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—no reason!"</p> + +<p>Again he laughs.</p> + +<p>"I think I can guess."</p> + +<p>"Her name is Zéphine," say I again, leaning over the boat-side and +pulling my forefinger slowly to and fro through the warm brown water.</p> + +<p>"I am well aware of that fact" (smiling).</p> + +<p>How near the swans are drawing toward us! One, with his neck well thrown +back, and his wings raised and ruffled, sailing along like a lovely +snow-white ship; another, with less grace and more homeliness, standing +on his head, with black webs paddling out behind.</p> + +<p>"You were quite wrong on Sunday—<i>quite</i>," say I, speaking with sudden +abruptness, and reddening.</p> + +<p>"On Sunday!" (throwing his luminous dark eyes upward to the light clouds +and faint blue of the August sky above us, as if to aid his +recollection), "nothing more likely—but what about?"</p> + +<p>"About—Roger," I answer, speaking with some difficulty ("and Mrs. +Huntley," I was going to add, but some superstition hinders me from +coupling their names even in a sentence).</p> + +<p>"I dare say"—carelessly—"but what new light have you had thrown upon +the matter?"</p> + +<p>"I asked her," I say, looking him full in the face, with simple +directness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Asked her!</i>" repeats he, with an accent of profound astonishment. +"Asked the woman whether she had been engaged to him, and jilted him? +Impossible!"</p> + +<p>"No! no!" cry I, with tremulous impatience, "of course not; but I asked +her whether she used not to know him in India, and she said, 'Yes, we +met several times,' just like <i>that</i>—she no more blushed and looked +confused than <i>I</i> should if any one asked me whether I knew you!"</p> + +<p>He is still leaning over the punt, and has begun to dabble as I did.</p> + +<p>"You certainly have a way of putting things very strongly," he says in a +rather low voice, "<i>convincingly</i> so!"</p> + +<p>"She did not even know what part of the world he was in!" I cry, +triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"Did she say so?" (lifting up his face, and speaking quickly).</p> + +<p>"Well, no—o—" I answer, reluctantly; "but I said, 'He is in the West +Indies,' and she answered 'Yes,' or 'Indeed,' or 'Is he?' I forget +which, but at any rate it implied that it was news to her."</p> + +<p>A pike leaps not far from us, and splashes back again. I watch to see +whether the widening faint circles will have strength to reach us, or +whether the water's smile will be smoothed and straightened before it +gets to us.</p> + +<p>"Did Mrs. Huntley happen to say" (leaning lazily back, and speaking +carelessly), "how she liked her house?"</p> + +<p>"No; why?"</p> + +<p>"She has only just got into it," he answers, slightly; "only about a +fortnight, that is."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," say I, ruminatingly, "what brought her to this part of the +world, for she does not seem to know anybody."</p> + +<p>He does not answer.</p> + +<p>"We <i>ought</i> to be friends, ought not we?" say I, beginning to laugh +nervously, and looking appealingly toward him, "both of us coming to +sojourn in a strange land! It is a curious coincidence our both settling +here in such similar circumstances, at almost the same time, is not it?"</p> + +<p>Still he is silent.</p> + +<p>"<i>Is not it?</i>" cry I, irritably, raising my voice.</p> + +<p>Again he has thrown his head back, and is perusing the sky, his hands +clasped round one lifted knee.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> a coincidence?" he says, languidly. "I do not think I quite +know—I am never good at long words—two things that happen accidentally +at the same time, is not it?"</p> + +<p>He lays the faintest possible stress on the word accidentally.</p> + +<p>"And you mean to say that this in not accidental?" I cry, quickly.</p> + +<p>"I mean nothing; I only ask for information."</p> + +<p>How still the world is to-day! The feathery water-weeds sway, indeed, to +and fro, with the motion of the water, but the tall cats'-tails, and all +the flags, stand absolutely motionless. I feel vaguely ruffled, and take +up my forgotten book. Holding it so as to hide my companion's face from +me, I begin to read ostentatiously. He seems content to be silent; lying +on the flat of his back, at the bottom of the punt, staring at the sky, +and declining the overtures, and parrying the attacks, of Vick, who, +having taken advantage of his supine position to mount upon his chest, +now stands there wagging her tail, and wasting herself in efforts, +mostly futile, but occasionally successful, to lick the end of his nose. +A period of quiet elapses, during which, for the sake of appearances, I +turn over a page. By-and-by, he speaks.</p> + +<p>"Algy is your eldest brother, is not he?—get away, you little +beast!"—(the latter clause, in a tone of sudden exasperation, is +addressed, not to me, but to Vick, and tells me that my pet dog's +endeavors have been crowned with a tardy prosperity.)</p> + +<p>"Yes" (still reading sedulously).</p> + +<p>"I thought so," with a slight accent of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Why?" cry I, again letting fall my volume, and yielding to a curiosity +as irresistible as unwise; for he had meant me to ask, and would have +been disobliged if I had not.</p> + +<p>"We all have our hobbies, don't you know?" he says, shifting his eyes +from the sky, and fixing them on the less serene, less amiable object of +my face—"some people's is old china—some Elzevir editions—<i>I</i> have a +mania for <i>clocks</i>—I have one in every room in my house—by-the-by, you +have never been over my house—Mrs. Huntley's—she is a dear little +woman, but she has her fancies, like the rest of us, and hers +is—<i>eldest sons</i>!"</p> + +<p>"But she is married!" exclaim I, stupidly. "What good can they do her, +now?"—then, reddening a little at my own simplicity, I go on, +hurriedly: "But he is such a boy!—younger than <i>you</i>—young enough to +be her <i>son</i>—it <i>can</i> be only out of good-nature that she takes notice +of him."</p> + +<p>"Yes—true—out of good-nature!" he echoes, nodding, smiling, and +speaking with that surface-assent which conveys to the hearer no +impression less than acquiescence.</p> + +<p>"Boys are not much in her way, either," he pursues, carelessly; +"generally she prefers such as are of <i>riper</i> years—<i>much</i> riper!"</p> + +<p>"How spiteful you are!" I say, glad to give my chafed soul vent in +words, and looking at him with that full, cold directness which one can +employ only toward such as are absolutely indifferent to one. "How she +<i>must</i> have snubbed you!"</p> + +<p>For an instant, he hesitates; then—</p> + +<p>"Yes," he says, smiling still, though his face has whitened, and a +wrathy red light has come into his deep eyes; "in the pre-Huntley era, I +laid my heart at her feet—by-the-way, I must have been in petticoats at +the time—and she kicked it away, as she had, no doubt, done—<i>others</i>."</p> + +<p>The camel's backbone is broken. This last innuendo—in weight a +straw—has done it. I speak never a word; but I rise up hastily, and, +letting my novel fall heavily prone on the pit of its stomach at the +punt-bottom, I take a flying leap to shore—<i>toward</i> shore, I should +rather say—for I am never a good jumper—Tou Tou's lean spider-legs can +always outstride me—and now I fall an inch or two short, and draw one +leg out booted with river-mud. But I pay no heed. I hurry on, pushing +through the brambles, and leaving a piece of my gown on each. Before I +have gone five yards—his length of limb and freedom from petticoats +giving him the advantage over me—he overtakes me.</p> + +<p>"What <i>has</i> happened? at this rate you will not have much gown left by +the time you reach the house."</p> + +<p>To my excited ears, there seems to be a suspicion of laughter in his +voice. I disdain to answer. The path we are pursuing is not the regular +one; it is a short cut through the wood. At its widest it is very +narrow; and, a little ahead of us, a bramble has thrown a strong arm +right across it, making a thorny arch, and forbidding passage. By a +quick movement, Mr. Musgrave gets in advance of me, and, turning round, +faces me at this defile.</p> + +<p>"What <i>has</i> happened?"</p> + +<p>Still I remain stubbornly silent.</p> + +<p>"We are not going to fight, at this time of day, such old friends as we +are?"</p> + +<p>The red-anger light has died out of his eyes. They look softer, and yet +less languid, than I have ever seen them before; and there is subdued +appeal and entreaty in his lowered voice. At the present moment, I +distinctly dislike him. I think him altogether trying and odious, and I +should be glad—yes, <i>glad</i>, if Vick were to bite a piece out of his +leg; but, at the same time, I cannot deny that I have seldom seen any +thing comelier than the young man who now stands before me, with the +green woodland lights flickering about the close-shorn beauty of his +face—he is well aware that his are not features that need <i>planting +out</i>—while a lively emotion quickens all his lazy being.</p> + +<p>"We are <i>not</i> old friends! Let me pass!"</p> + +<p>"<i>New</i> friends, then—<i>friends</i>, at all events!" coming a step nearer, +and speaking without a trace of sneer, sloth, or languor.</p> + +<p>"Not friends at all! Let me pass!"</p> + +<p>"Not until you tell me my offense—not until you own that we are +friends!" (in a tone of quick excitement, and almost of authority, that, +in him, is new to me).</p> + +<p>"Then we shall stay here all night!" reply I, with a fine obstinacy, +plumping down, as I speak, on the wayside grass, among the St. +John's-worts, and the red arum-berries. In a moment he has stepped +aside, and is holding the stout purple bramble-stem out of my way.</p> + +<p>"Pass, then!" he says, in a tone of impatience, frowning a little; "as +you have said it, of course you will stick to it—right or wrong—or you +would not be a woman; but, whether you confess it or not, we <i>are</i> +friends!"</p> + +<p>"We are <span class="smcap">NOT</span>!" cry I, resolute to have the last word, as I spring up and +fly past him, with more speed than dignity, lest he should change his +mind, and again detain me.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The swallows are gone: the summer is done: it is October. The year knows +that I am in a hurry, and is hasting with its shortened days—each +day marked by the loss of something fair—toward the glad +Christmas-time—Christmas that will bring me back my Roger—that will +set him again at the foot of his table—that will give me again the +sound of his foot on the stairs, the smile in his fond gray eyes. So I +thought yesterday, and to-day I have heard from him; heard that though +he is greatly loath to tell me so, yet he cannot be back by Christmas; +that I must hear the joy-bells ring, and see the merry Christmas cheer +<i>alone</i>. It is true that he earnestly and insistantly begs of me to +gather all my people, father, mother, boys, girls, around me. But, after +all, what are father, mother, boys, girls, to me? Father never <i>was</i> any +thing, I will do myself that justice, but at this moment of sore +disappointment as I lean my forehead on the letter outspread on the +table before me, and dim its sentences with tears, I <i>belittle</i> even the +boys. No doubt that by-and-by I shall derive a little solace from the +thought of their company; that when they come I shall even be inveigled +into some sort of hilarity with them; but at present, "No."</p> + +<p>There are some days on which all ills gather together as at a meeting. +This is one. Barbara is prostrated by a violent headache, and is in such +thorough physical pain that even she cannot sympathize with me. Mr. +Musgrave never makes his now daily appearance—he comes, as I jubilantly +notice, as regularly as the postman—until late in the afternoon. All +day, therefore, I must refrain myself and be silent. And I am never one +for brooding with private dumbness over my woes. I much prefer to air +them by expression and complaint. About noon it strikes me that, <i>faute +de mieux</i>, I will go and see Mrs. Huntley, tell her <i>suddenly</i> that +Roger is not coming back, and see if she looks vexed or confused or +grieved. Accordingly, soon after luncheon, I set off in the +pony-carriage. It is a quiet sultry-looking unclouded day. One uniform +livery of mist clothes sky and earth, dimming the glories of the dying +leaves, and making them look dull and sodden. Every thing has a drenched +air: each crimson bramble-leaf is clothed in rain-drops, and yet it is +not raining. The air is thick and heavy, and one swallows it like +something solid, but it is not raining: in fact, it is an English fine +day.</p> + +<p>Under the delusive idea that it is warm, or at least not cold, I have +protected my face with no veil, my hands with no mittens; so that, long +before I reach the shelter of the Portugal laurels that warmly hem in +and border Mrs. Huntley's little graveled sweep, the end of my nose +feels like an icy promontory at a great distance from me, and my hands +do not feel at all. Mrs. Huntley <i>is</i> at home. Wise woman! I knew that +she would be. I suppose that I follow on the footsteps of the butler +more quickly than is usual, for, as the door opens, and before I can get +a view of the inmate or inmates, I hear a hurried noise of scrambling, +as of some one suddenly jumping up. For a little airy woman who looks as +if one could blow her away—puff!—like a morsel of thistle-down or a +snowball, what a heavy foot Mrs. Huntley has! The next moment, I am +disabused. Mrs. Huntley has clearly not moved. It was not <i>she</i> that +scrambled. She is lying back in a deep arm-chair, her silky head gently +denting the flowered cushion, the points of two pretty shoes slightly +advanced toward the fire, and a large feather fan leisurely waving to +and fro, in one white hand. Beyond the <i>fan</i> movement she is not <i>doing</i> +any thing that I can detect.</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" say I, bustling in, in a hurry to reach the fire. "How +comfortable you look! how cold it is!—Algy!!" For the enigma of the +noise is solved. It was Algy who shuffled and scuffled—yes, scuffled up +from the low stool which he has evidently been sharing with the pretty +shoes—at Mrs. Huntley's feet, on to his long legs, on which he is now +standing, not at all at ease. He does not answer.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Algy!</span>" repeat I, in a tone of the profoundest, accentedest surprise, +involuntarily turning my back upon my hostess and facing my brother.</p> + +<p>"Well, what about me?" he cries tartly, irritated (and no wonder) by my +open mouth and tragical air.</p> + +<p>"What <i>has</i> brought you here?" I ask slowly, and with a tactless +emphasis.</p> + +<p>"The fly from the White Hart," he answers, trying to laugh, but looking +confused and angry.</p> + +<p>"But I mean—I thought you told me, when I asked you to Tempest this +week, that you could not get away for an <i>hour</i>!"</p> + +<p>"No more I could," he answers impatiently, yet stammering; "quite +unexpected—did not know when I wrote—have to be back to-night."</p> + +<p>"Will not you come nearer the fire?" says Mrs. Huntley, in her slow +sugared tones, with a well-bred ignoring of our squabble. "I am sure +that you must be perished with cold."</p> + +<p>I recollect myself and comply. As I sit down I catch a glimpse of myself +in the glass. It is indeed difficult to abstain from the sight of one's +self, however little fond one may be of it, so thickly is the room set +round with rose-draped mirrors. For the moment, O friends, I will own to +you that I appear to myself nothing less than <i>brutally</i> ugly. I know +that I am not so in reality, that the disfigurement is only temporary, +but none the less does the consciousness deeply, deeply depress me. My +nose is of a lively scarlet, which the warmth of the room is quickly +deepening into a lowering purple. My quick passage through the air has +set my hat a little awry, giving me a falsely rakish air, and the wind +has loosened my hair—not into a picturesque and comely disorder, but +into mere untidiness. And, meanwhile, how admirably small and cool <i>her</i> +nose looks! What rest and composure in her whole pose! What a neat +refinement in the disposition of her hair! What a soft luxury in her +dress! Even my one indisputable advantage of <i>youth</i> seems to me as +dirt. Looking at the completeness of her native grace, I <i>despise</i> +youth. I think it an ill and ugly thing in its green unripeness. I look +round the room. After the thick outside air, saturated with moisture, I +think that the warm atmosphere would, were my spirit less disquieted, +lull me quickly to sleep. How perfumed it is, not with any meretricious +artificial scents, but with the clean and honest smell of sweet live +flowers. Yes, though I am aware that Mrs. Huntley has no conservatory, +yet hot-house flowers and airy ferns are scattered about the room in far +greater profusion than in mine, with all Roger's imposing range of +glass—scattered about here, there, and everywhere; not as if they were +a rare and holiday treat, but a most common, every-day occurrence. There +is not much work to be seen about, and <i>not a book</i>! On the other hand, +lounging-chairs, suited to the length or shortness of <i>any</i> back; rococo +photograph stands, framing either a great many men, or a few men in a +great many attitudes; soothing pictures—<i>décolleté</i> Venuses, Love's +<i>greuze</i> heads—tied up with rose-ribbon, and a sleepy half-light. On a +small table at the owner's elbow, a blue-velvet jeweler's case stands +open. On its white-satin lining my long-sighted eyes enable me to +decipher the name of Hunt and Roskell; and it does not need any long +sight to observe the solid breadth of the gold band bracelet, set with +large, dull turquoises and little points of brilliant light, which is +its occupant. As I note this phenomenon, my heart burns within me—yea, +burns even more hotly than my nose. For father keeps Algy very tight, +and I know that he has only three hundred pounds a year, besides his +pay.</p> + +<p>"I have had such bad news to-day," I say, suddenly, looking my +<i>vis-à-vis</i> full and directly in the face.</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>So far she certainly shows no signs of emotion. Her fan is still waving +with slow steadiness. I see the diamonds on her hands (whence did <i>they</i> +owe their rise, I wonder?) glint in the fire-light.</p> + +<p>"Roger is not coming back!"</p> + +<p>"Not at all?" with a slight raising of the eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Not before Christmas, certainly."</p> + +<p>"Really! how disappointing! I am very sorry!"</p> + +<p>There is not a particle of sorrow in face or tone: only the counterfeit +grief of an utterly indifferent acquaintance. My heart feels a little +lightened.</p> + +<p>"And have <i>you</i> no better luck, either?" I say, more cheerfully. "Is +there no talk of your—of Mr. Huntley coming back?"</p> + +<p>Her eyelids droop: her breast heaves in a placid sigh.</p> + +<p>"Not the slightest, I am afraid."</p> + +<p>What to say next? I have had enough of asking after her child. I will +not fall into <i>that</i> error again. Ask who all the men in the rococo +frames are?—which of them, or whether any, is <i>Mr.</i> Huntley? On +consideration, I decide not to do this either; and, after one or two +more stunted attempts at talk, I take my leave. I ask Algy to accompany +me just down the drive, and with a most grudging and sulky air of +unwillingness he complies. Alas! he always used to like to be with us +girls. The ponies are fresh, and we have almost reached the gate before +I speak, with a difficult hesitation.</p> + +<p>"Algy," say I, "did you happen to notice that—that <i>bracelet</i>?"</p> + +<p>He does not answer. He is looking the other way, and turns only the back +of his head toward me.</p> + +<p>"It was from Hunt and Roskell," I say.</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"It must have—must have—<i>come to</i> a good deal," I go on, timidly.</p> + +<p>He has turned his face to me now. I cannot complain, but indeed, as it +now is, I prefer the back of his head, so white and headstrong does he +look.</p> + +<p>"I wish to God," he says, in a voice of low anger, "that you would be so +obliging as to mind your own business, and allow me to mind mine!"</p> + +<p>"But it <i>is</i> mine!" I cry, passionately; "what right has she to be +sitting all day with young men on stools at her feet?—she, a married +woman, with her husband—"</p> + +<p>"This comes extremely well from <i>you</i>," he says, in a voice of +concentrated anger, with a bitterly-sneering tone; "<i>how is Musgrave</i>?"</p> + +<p>Before I can answer, he has jumped out, and is half-way back to the +house. But indeed I am dumb. Is it possible that <i>he</i> makes such a +mistake?—that he does not see the difference?</p> + +<p>For the next half-mile, I see neither ponies, nor misty hedges, nor +wintry high-road, for tears. I <i>used</i> to get on so well with the boys!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>When I return home, I find that Barbara is still no better. She is still +lying in her darkened room, and has asked not to be disturbed. And even +<i>my</i> wrongs are not such as to justify my forcing myself upon the +painful privacy of a sick-headache. How much the better am I then than I +was before my late expedition? I have brought home my old grievance +quite whole and unlightened by communication, and I have got a new and +fresh one in addition, with absolutely no one to whom to impart it; for, +even when Frank comes, I will certainly not tell <i>him</i>. I am too +restless to remain in-doors over the fire, though thoroughly chilled by +my late drive, and resolve to try and restore my circulation by a brisk +walk in the park.</p> + +<p>The afternoon is still young, and the day is mending. A wind has risen, +and has pulled aside the steel-colored cloud-curtain, and let heaven's +eyes—blue, though faint and watery—look through. And there comes +another strong puff of autumnal wind, and lo! the sun, and the leaves +float down in a sudden shower of amber in his light. I march along +quickly and gravely through the long drooped grass—no longer sweet and +fresh and upright, in its green summer coat—through the frost-seared +pomp of the bronze bracken, till I reach a little knoll, whose head is +crowned by twelve great brother beeches. From time immemorial they have +been called the Twelve Apostles, and under one apostle I now stand, with +my back against his smooth and stalwart trunk.</p> + +<p>How <i>beaming</i> is death to them! Into what a glorious crimson they +decline! My eyes travel from one tree-group to another, and idly +consider the many-colored majesty of their decay. Over all the landscape +there is a look of plaintive uncontent. The distant town, with its two +church-spires, is choked and effaced in mist: the very sun is sickly and +irresolute. All Nature seems to say, "Have pity upon me—I die!"</p> + +<p>It is not often that our mother is in sympathy with her children. Mostly +when we cry she broadly laughs; when we laugh and are merry she weeps; +but to-day my mood and hers match. The tears are as near my eyes as +hers—as near hers as mine.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'See the leaves around us falling!'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>say I, aloud, stretching out my right arm in dismal recitation. We had +the hymn last Sunday, which is what has put it into my head:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'See the leaves around us falling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dry and withered to the ground—'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Another voice breaks in:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Thus to thoughtless mortals calling—.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"How you made me jump!" cry I, descending with an irritated leap to +prose, and at least making the leaves say something entirely different +from what they had ever been known to say before.</p> + +<p>"Why did not you bring your sentinel, Vick?"</p> + +<p>He—it is Musgrave, of course—has joined me, and is leaning his flat +back also against the apostle, and, like me, is looking at the mist, at +the red and yellow leaves—at the whole low-spirited panorama.</p> + +<p>"She is ill," say I, lamentably, drawing a portrait in lamp-black and +Indian-ink of the whole family; "we are <i>all</i> ill—Barbara is ill!"</p> + +<p>"Poor Barbara!"</p> + +<p>"She has got a headache."</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Poor</span> Barbara!"</p> + +<p>"And I have got a heartache," say I, more for the sake of preserving the +harmony of my sketch, and for making a pendant to Barbara, than because +the phrase accurately describes my state.</p> + +<p>"Poor <i>you</i>!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Poor me, indeed!</i>" cry I, with emphasis, and to this day I cannot make +up my mind whether the ejaculation were good grammar or no.</p> + +<p>"I have had <i>such</i> bad news," I continue, feeling, as usual, a sensible +relief from the communication of my grief. "Roger is not coming back!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Not at all?</i>"</p> + +<p>The words are the same as those employed by Mrs. Huntley; but there is +much more alacrity and liveliness in the tone.</p> + +<p>"<i>Not at all!</i>" repeat I, scornfully, looking impatiently at him; "that +is so likely, is not it?"—then "No not <i>at all</i>"—I continue, +ironically, "he has run off with some one else—some one <i>black</i>!" (with +a timely reminiscence of Bobby's happy flight of imagination).</p> + +<p>"Not till <i>when</i>, then?"</p> + +<p>"Not till after Christmas," reply I, sighing loudly, "which is almost as +bad as not at all."</p> + +<p>"I knew <i>that</i>!" he says, rather petulantly; "you told me <i>that</i> +before!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I told you that before?</i>" cry I, opening my eyes, and raising my +voice; "why, how could I? I only heard it myself this morning!"</p> + +<p>"It was not you, then," he says, composedly; "it must have been some one +else!"</p> + +<p>"It <i>could</i> have been no one else," retort I, hastily. "I have told no +one—no one at least from whom <i>you</i> could have heard it."</p> + +<p>"All the same, I <i>did</i> hear it" (with a quiet persistence); "now, who +could it have been?" throwing back his head, elevating his chin, and +lifting his eyes in meditation to the great depths of burning red in the +beech's heart, above him—"ah!"—(overtaking the recollection)—"I +know!"</p> + +<p>"Who?" say I, eagerly, "not that it <i>could</i> have been any one."</p> + +<p>"It was Mrs. Huntley!" he answers, with an air of matter-of-fact +indifference.</p> + +<p>I laugh with insulting triumph. "Well, that <i>is</i> a bad hit! What a pity +that you did not fix upon some one else! I have once or twice suspected +you of drawing the long bow—<i>now</i> I am sure of it! As it happens, I +have just come from Mrs. Huntley, and she knew no more about it than the +babe unborn!"</p> + +<p>I am looking him full in the face, but, to my surprise, I cannot detect +the expression of confusion and defeat which I anticipate. There is only +the old white-anger look that I have such a happy knack of calling up on +his features.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> a consummate liar!" he says, quietly, though his eyes flash. +"Every one knows <i>that</i>; but, all the same, she <i>did</i> tell me."</p> + +<p>"I do not believe a word of it!" cry I, in a fury.</p> + +<p>He makes no answer, but, lifting his hat, begins to walk quickly away. +For a hundred yards I allow him to go unrecalled; then, as I note his +quickly-diminishing figure and the heavy mists beginning to fold him, my +resolution fails me; I take to my heels and scamper after him.</p> + +<p>"Stop!" say I, panting as I come up with him, "I dare say—perhaps—you +<i>thought</i> you were speaking truth!—there must, must be some <i>mistake</i>!"</p> + +<p>He does not answer, but still walks quickly on.</p> + +<p>"Tell me!" cry I, posting on alongside of him, breathless and +distressed—"when was it? where did you hear it? how long ago?"</p> + +<p>"I never heard it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you did," cry I, passionately, asseverating what I have so lately +and passionately denied. "You know you did; but when was it? how was it? +where was it?"</p> + +<p>"It was <i>nowhere</i>," he answers with a cold, angry smile. "I was <i>drawing +the long bow</i>!"</p> + +<p>I stop in baffled rage and misery. I stand stock-still, with the long, +dying grass wetly and limply clasping my ankles. To my surprise he stops +too.</p> + +<p>"I wish you were <i>dead</i>!" I say tersely, and it is not a figure of +speech. For the moment I do honestly wish it.</p> + +<p>"Do you?" he answers, throwing me back a look of hardly inferior +animosity; "I dare say I do not much mind." A little pause, during which +we eye each other, like two fighting-cocks. "Even if I <i>were</i> dead," he +says, in a low voice—"mind, I do not blame you for wishing +it—sometimes I wish it myself—but even if I <i>were</i>, I do not see how +that would hinder Sir Roger and Mrs. Huntley from corresponding."</p> + +<p>"They <i>do not</i> correspond," cry I, violently; "it is a falsehood!" Then, +with a quick change of thought and tone: "But if they do, I—I—do not +mind! I—I—am very glad—if Roger likes it! There is no harm in it."</p> + +<p>"Not the slightest."</p> + +<p>"Do you <i>always</i> stay at home?" cry I, in a fury, goaded out of all +politeness and reserve by the surface false acquiescence of his tone; +"do you <i>never</i> go away? I <i>wish</i> you would! I wish"—(speaking between +laughing and crying)—"that you could take your abbey up on your back, +as a snail does its shell, and march off with it into another county."</p> + +<p>"But unfortunately I cannot."</p> + +<p>"What have I done to you?" I cry, falling from anger to reproach, "that +you take such delight in hurting me? You can be pleasant enough to—to +other people. I never hear you hinting and sneering away any one else's +peace of mind; but as for me, I never—<i>never</i> am alone with you +that you do not leave me with a pain—a tedious long ache +<i>here</i>"—(passionately clasping my hands upon my heart).</p> + +<p>"Do not I?"—(Then half turning away in a lowered voice)—"<i>nor you +me</i>!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I!</i>" repeat I, positively laughing in my scorn of this accusation. +"<i>I</i> hint! <i>I</i> imply! why, I <i>could</i> not do it, if I were to be shot for +it! it is not <i>in</i> me!"</p> + +<p>He does not immediately answer; still, he is looking aside, and his +color changes.</p> + +<p>"Ask mother, ask the boys, ask Barbara," cry I, in great excitement, +"whether I ever <i>could</i> wrap up any thing neatly, if I wished it ever so +much? Always, <i>always</i>, I have to blurt it out! <i>I</i> hint!"</p> + +<p>"Hint! no!" he repeats, in a tone of vexed bitterness. "Well, no! no one +could accuse you of <i>hinting</i>! Yours is honest, open cut and thrust!"</p> + +<p>"If it is," retort I, bluntly, still speaking with a good deal of heat, +"it is your own fault! I have no wish to quarrel, being such near +neighbors, and—and—altogether—of course I had rather be on good terms +than bad ones! When you <i>let</i> me—when you leave me alone—I +<i>almost</i>—sometimes I <i>quite</i> like you. I am speaking seriously! I +<i>do</i>."</p> + +<p>"You do not say so?" again turning his head aside, and speaking with the +objectionable intonation of irony.</p> + +<p>"At home," pursue I, still chafing under the insult to my amiability, "I +never was reckoned quarrelsome—<i>never</i>! Of course I was not like +Barbara—there are not many like her—but I did very well. Ask <i>any one</i> +of them—it does not matter which—they will all tell you the +same—whether I did not!"</p> + +<p>"You were a household angel, in fact?"</p> + +<p>"I was nothing of the kind," cry I, very angry, and yet laughing: the +laughter caused by the antagonism of the epithet with the many +recollected blows and honest sounding cuffs that I have, on and off, +exchanged with Bobby.</p> + +<p>A pause.</p> + +<p>The sun has quite gone now: sulky and feeble, he has shrunk to his cold +bed in the west, and the victor-mist creeps, crawls, and soaks on +unopposed.</p> + +<p>"Good-night!" cry I, suddenly. "I am going!" and I am as good as my +word.</p> + +<p>With the triple agility of health, youth, and indignation, I scurry away +through the melancholy grass, and the heaped and fallen leaves, home.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Ding-dong bell! ding-dong bell! The Christmas bells are ringing. +Christmas has come—Christmas as it appears on a Christmas card, white +and hard, and beset with puffed-out, ruffled robins. Only Nature is wise +enough not to express the ironical wish that we may have a "merry one."</p> + +<p>For myself, I have but small opinion of Christmas as a time of jollity. +Solemn—<i>blessed</i>, if you will—but no, not jovial. At no time do the +dead so clamor to be remembered. Even those that went a long time ago, +the regret for whose departure has settled down to a tender, almost +pleasant pain; whom at other times we go nigh to forget; even they cry +out loud, "Think of us!"</p> + +<p>When all the family is gathered, when the fire burns quick and clear, +and the church-bells ring out grave and sweet, neither will <i>they</i> be +left out. But, on the other hand, to one who has paid his bills, and in +whose family Death's cannon have as yet made no breaches, I do not see +why it may not be a season of moderate, placid content.</p> + +<p>Festivity! jollity! <i>never!</i> I have paid my bills, and there are no gaps +among my people. Sometimes I tremble when I think how many we are; one +of us must go soon. But, as yet, when I count us over, none lacks. +Father, mother, Algy, Bobby, the Brat, Tou Tou. Slightly as I have +spoken of them to myself, and conscientiously as I have promised myself +to derive no pleasure from their society, and even to treat them with +distant coolness, if they are, any of them, and Bobby especially—it is +he that I most mistrust—more joyfully disposed than I think fitting, +yet my heart has been growing ever warmer and warmer at the thought of +them, as Christmas-time draws nigh; and now, as I kiss their firm, cold, +healthy cheeks—(I declare that Bobby's cheeks are as hard as marbles), +I know how I have lied to myself.</p> + +<p>Father is not in quite so good a humor as I could have wished, his man +having lost his hat-box <i>en route</i>, and consequently his nose is rather +more aquiline than I think desirable.</p> + +<p>"Do not be alarmed!" says Bobby, in a patronizing aside, introducing me, +as if I were a stranger, to father's peculiarities; "a little infirmity +of temper, but the <i>heart</i> is in the right place."</p> + +<p>"Bobby," say I, anxiously, in a whisper, "has he—has he brought the +<i>bag</i>?"</p> + +<p>Bobby shakes his head.</p> + +<p>"I <i>knew</i> he would not," cry I, rather crestfallen. Then, with sudden +exasperation: "I wish I had not given it to him; he always <i>hated</i> it. I +wish I had given it to Roger instead."</p> + +<p>"Never you mind!" cries Bobby, while his round eyes twinkle +mischievously; "I dare say he has got one by now, a nice one, all beads +and wampums, that the old Begum has made him."</p> + +<p>I laugh, but I also sigh. What a long time it seems since I was jealous +of Bobby's Begum! We are a little behind father, whispering with our +heads together, while he, in his raspingest voice, is giving his +delinquent a month's warning. That tone! it still makes me feel sneaky.</p> + +<p>"Bobby," say I, putting my arm through his substantial one, and speaking +in a low tone of misgiving, "how is he? how has he been?"</p> + +<p>"We have been a little fractious," replies Bobby, leniently—"a little +disposed to quarrel with our bread-and-butter; but, as you may remember, +my dear, from <i>your</i> experience of our humble roof, Christmas never was +our happiest time."</p> + +<p>"No, never," reply I, pensively.</p> + +<p>The storm is rising: at least father's voice is. It appears that the +valet is not only to go, but to go without a character.</p> + +<p>"Never you mind," repeats Bobby, reassuringly, seeing me blench a little +at these disused amenities, pressing the hand that rests on his arm +against his stout side; "it is nothing to <i>you</i>! bless your heart, you +are the apple of his eye."</p> + +<p>"Am I?" reply I, laughing. "It has newly come to me, if I am."</p> + +<p>"And I am his 'good, brave Bobby!'—his 'gallant boy!'—do you know +why?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Because I am going to Hong-Kong, and he hears that they are keeping two +nice roomy graves open all the time there!"</p> + +<p>"You are <i>not</i>?" (in a tone of keen anxiety and pain); then, with a +sudden change of tone to a nervous and constrained amenity: "Yes, it +<i>is</i> a nice-sized room, is not it? My only fault with it is, that the +windows are so high up that one cannot see out of them when one is +sitting down."</p> + +<p>For father, having demolished his body-servant, and reduced mother to +her usual niche-state, now turns to me, and, in his genialest, happiest +society-manner, compliments me on my big house.</p> + +<p>That is a whole day ago. Since then, I have grown used to seeing +father's austere face, unbent into difficult suavity, at the opposite +end of the dinner-table to me, to hearing the well-known old sound of +Tou Tou's shrieks of mixed anguish and delight, as Bobby rushes after +her in headlong pursuit, down the late so silent passages; and to +looking complacently from one to another of the holiday faces round the +table, where Barbara and I have sat, during the last noiseless month, in +stillest dialogue or preoccupied silence.</p> + +<p>I <i>love</i> noise. You may think that I have odd taste; but I <i>love</i> +Bobby's stentor laugh, and Tou Tou's ear-piercing yells. I even forget +to think whether their mirth passes the appointed bounds I had set it. I +have mislaid my receipt of cold repression. My heart goes out to them.</p> + +<p>I have been a little disturbed as to how to dispose of father during the +day, but he mercifully takes that trouble off my hands. Providence has +brought good out of evil, congenial occupation out of the hat-box. He +has spent all the few daylight-hours in telegraphing for it to every +station on the line; in telling several home-truths to the porters at +our own station, which—it being Christmas-time, and they consequently +all more or less tipsy—they have taken with a bland playfulness that he +has found a little trying; and, lastly, in writing a long letter to the +<i>Times</i>. And I, meanwhile, being easy in my mind on his score, knowing +that he is happy, am at leisure to be happy myself. In company with my +brother, I have spent all the little day in decorating the church, +making it into a cheerful, green Christmas bower. We always did it at +home.</p> + +<p>The dusk has come now—the quick-hurrying, December dusk, and we have +all but finished. We have had to beg for a few candles, in order to put +our finishing touches here and there about the sombre church. They +flame, throwing little jets of light on the glossy laurel-leaves that +make collars round the pillars' stout necks; on the fresh moss-beds, +vividly green, in the windows; on the dull, round holly-berries. In the +glow, the ivy twines in cunning garlands round the rough-sculptured +font, and the oak lectern; and, above God's altar, a great white cross +of hot-house flowers blooms delicately, telling of summer, and matching +the words of old good news beneath it, that brought, as some say, +summer, or, at least, the hope of summer, to the world.</p> + +<p>Yes, we have nearly done. The Brat stands on the top of a step-ladder, +dexterously posing the last wintry garland; and all we others are +resting a moment—we and our coadjutors. For we have <i>two</i> coadjutors. +Mr. Musgrave, of course. Now, at this moment, through the gray light, +and across the candles, I can see him leaning against the font, while +Barbara kneels with bent head at his feet, completing the ornamentation +of the pedestal. I always knew that things would come right if we waited +long enough, and <i>coming</i> right they are—<i>coming</i>, not <i>come</i>, for +still, he has not spoken. I have consulted each and all of my family, +father excepted, as to the average length of time allotted to <i>unspoken</i> +courtship, and each has assigned a different period; the <i>longest</i>, +however, has been already far exceeded by Frank. Tou Tou, indeed, +adduces a gloomy case of a young man, who spent two years and a half in +dumb longing, and broke a blood-vessel and died at the end of them; but +this is so discouraging an anecdote, that we all poo-poohed it as +unauthentic.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he does not mean to speak at all!" says the Brat, starting a +new and hazardous idea; "perhaps he means to take it for granted!"</p> + +<p>"Walk out with her, some fine morning," says Algy, laughing, "and say, +like Wemmick, 'Hallo! here's a church! let's have a wedding!'"</p> + +<p>"It would be a good thing," retorts the Brat, gravely, "if there were a +printed form for such occasions; it would be a great relief to people."</p> + +<p>This talk did not happen in the church, but at an evening <i>séance</i> +overnight. Our second coadjutor is Mrs. Huntley.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I am not very efficient," she says, with a pathetic smile. +"I can't <i>stand</i> very long, but, if I might be allowed to sit down now +and then, I might perhaps be some little help."</p> + +<p>And sat down she has, accordingly, ever since, on the top pulpit-step. +It seems that Algy cannot stand very long, either; for he has taken +possession of the step next below the top one, and there he abides. +Thank Heaven! they are getting dark now! If <i>legitimate</i> lovers, whose +cooing is desirable and approved, are a sickly and sickening spectacle, +surely the sight of illegitimate lovers would make the blood boil in the +veins of Moses, Miriam, or Job.</p> + +<p>Bobby, Tou Tou, and I, having no one to hang over us, or gawk amorously +up at us, are sitting in a row in our pew. Bobby has garlanded Tou Tou +preposterously with laurel, to give us an idea, as he says, of how he +himself will look by-and-by, after some future Trafalgar. Now, he is +whispering to me—a whisper accompanied by one of those powerful and +painful nudges, with which he emphasizes his conversation on his +listener's ribs.</p> + +<p>"Look at him!" indicating his elder brother, and speaking with a tone of +disgust and disparagement; "did you ever see such a <i>beast</i> as he +looks?"</p> + +<p>"Not often!" reply I, readily, with that fine intolerance which one +never sees in full bloom after youth is past.</p> + +<p>"I say, Nancy!" with a second and rather lesser nudge, "if ever you see +any symptoms of—of <i>that</i>—" (nodding toward the pulpit) "in me—"</p> + +<p>"If—" repeat I, scornfully, "of course I shall!"</p> + +<p>"Well, that is as it may be, but if you <i>do</i>, mind what I tell you—do +not say any thing to anybody, but—<i>put an end to me</i>! it does not +matter <i>how</i>; smother me with bolsters; run your bodkin up to its hilt +in me—"</p> + +<p>"Even if I <i>did</i>," interrupt I, laughing, "I should never reach any +vital part—you are <i>much</i> too fat!"</p> + +<p>"I should not be so fat then," returns he, gravely, amiably overlooking +the personality of my observation; "love would have pulled me down!"</p> + +<p>The Brat has nearly finished. He is nimbly descending the ladder, with a +long, guttering dip in his right hand.</p> + +<p>"The other two—" begins Bobby, thoughtfully, turning his eyes from +pulpit to font.</p> + +<p>"I do not mind <i>them</i> half so much," interrupt I, indulgently; "they are +not half so disgusting."</p> + +<p>"Has he done it yet?" (lowering his cheerful loud voice to an important +whisper).</p> + +<p>I shake my head.</p> + +<p>"Not unless he has done it since luncheon! he had not <i>then</i>; I asked +her."</p> + +<p>"I am beginning to think that <i>your</i> old man's plan was the best, after +all," continues Bobby, affably. "I thought him rather out of date, at +the time, for applying to your parents, but, after all, it saved a great +deal of trouble, and spared us a world of suspense."</p> + +<p>I am silent; swelling with a dumb indignation at the epithet bestowed on +my Roger; but unable to express it outwardly, as I well know that, if I +do, I shall be triumphantly quoted against myself.</p> + +<p>"Who will break it to Toothless Jack?" says Bobby, presently, with a +laugh; "after all the expense he has been at, too, with those teeth! it +is not as if it were a beggarly two or three, but a whole complete new +set—thirty-two individual grinders!"</p> + +<p>"Such beauties, too!" puts in Tou Tou, cackling.</p> + +<p>"It is a thousand pities that they should be allowed to go out of the +family," says Bobby, warmly. "Tou Tou, my child—" (putting his arm +round her shoulders)—"a bright vista opens before you!—your charms are +approaching maturity!—with a little encouragement he might be induced +to lay his teeth—two and thirty, mind—at your feet!"</p> + +<p>Tou Tou giggles, and asserts that she will "kick them away, if he does." +Bobby mildly but firmly remonstrates, and points out to her the +impropriety and ingratitude of such a line of conduct. But his +arguments, though acute and well put, are not convincing, and the +subject is continued, with ever-increasing warmth, all the way home.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>It is Christmas-day—a clean white Christmas, pure and crisp. Wherever +one looks, one's eyes water cruelly. For my part, I am very thankful +that it did not occur to God to make the world always white. I hate +snow's blinding livery. Each tiniest twig on the dry harsh trees is +overladen with snow. It is a wonder that they do not break under it; nor +is there any wind to shake down and disperse it. Tempest is white; the +church is white: the whole world colorless and blinding. I have been in +the habit of looking upon Vick as a white dog; to-day she appears +disastrously dark—dirty brunette. Soap-and-water having entirely failed +to restore her complexion. Bobby kindly proposes to <i>pipeclay</i> her.</p> + +<p>We have all been to church, and admired our own decorations. And +through all the prayer and the praise, and the glad Christmas singing, +my soul has greatly hungered for Roger. Yes, even though all the boys +are round me—Bobby on this side, the Brat on that—Algy directly in +front; all behaving nicely, too; for are not they right under father's +eyes? Yes, and, for the matter of that, under the rector's too, as he +towers straight above us, under his ivy-bush—the ivy-bush into which +Bobby was so anxious yesterday to insert some misletoe.</p> + +<p>Church is over now, and the short afternoon has also slipped by. We are +at dinner; we are dining early to-night—at half-past six o'clock, and +we are to have a dance for the servants afterward. Any hospitality to my +equals I have steadily and stoutly declined, but it seems a shame to +visit my own loneliness on the heads of the servants, to whom it is +nothing. They have always had a Christmas-dance in Roger's reign, and so +a dance they are to have now. We have religiously eaten our beef and +plum-pudding, and have each made a separate little blue fire of burnt +brandy in our spoon.</p> + +<p>It is dessert now, and father has proposed Roger's health. I did not +expect it, and I never was so nearly betrayed into feeling fond of +father in my life. They all drink it, each wishing him something good. +As for me, I have been a fool always, and I am a fool now. I can wish +him nothing, my voice is choked and my eyes drowned in inappropriate +tears; only, from the depths of my heart, I ask God to give him every +thing that He has of choicest and best. For a moment or two, the +wax-lights, the purple grapes, the gleaming glass and shining silver, +the kindly, genial faces swim blurred before my vision. Then I hastily +wipe away my tears, and smile back at them all. As I raise my glistening +eyes, I meet those of Mr. Musgrave fixed upon me—(he is the only +stranger present). His look is not one that wishes to be returned; on +the contrary, it is embarrassed at being met. It is a glance that +puzzles me, full of inquiring curiosity, mixed with a sort of mirth. In +a second—I could not tell you why—I look hastily away.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what he is doing <i>now, this very minute</i>!" says Tou Tou, who +is dining in public for the first time, and whose conversation is +checked and her deportment regulated by Bobby, who has been at some +pains to sit beside her, and who guides her behavior by the help of many +subtle and unseen pinches under the table; from revolting against which +a fear of father hinders her, a fact of which Bobby is most basely +aware.</p> + +<p>"Had not you better telegraph?" asks Algy, with languid irony (Algy +certainly is not quite so nice as he used to be). "Flapping away the +blue-tailed fly, with a big red-and-yellow bandana, probably."</p> + +<p>"Playing the banjo for a lot of little niggers to dance to!" suggests +the Brat.</p> + +<p>"They are all wrong, are not they, Nancy?" says Bobby, in a lowered +voice, to me, on whose left hand he has placed himself; "he is sitting +in his veranda, is not he? in a palm hat and nankeen breeches, with his +arm around the old Wampoo."</p> + +<p>"I dare say," reply I, laughing. "I hope so," for, indeed, I am growing +quite fond of my dusky rival.</p> + +<p>The ball is to be in the servants' hall; it is a large, long room, and +thither, when all the guests are assembled, we repair. We think that we +shall make a greater show, and inspire more admiration, if we appear in +pairs. I therefore make my entry on father's arm. Never with greater +trepidation have I entered any room, for I am to open the ball with the +butler, and the prospect fills me with dismay. If he were a venerable +family servant, a hoary-headed old seneschal, who had known Roger in +petticoats, it would have been nothing. I could have chattered filially +to him; but he is a youngish man, who came only six months ago. On what +subjects can we converse? I feel small doubt that his own sufferings +will be hardly inferior in poignancy to mine.</p> + +<p>The room is well lit, and the candles shine genially down from the +laurel garlands and ivy festoons which clothe the walls. They light the +faces and various dresses of a numerous assembly—every groom, footman, +housemaid, and scullion, from far and near. The ladies seem largely to +preponderate both in number and <i>aplomb</i>; the men appearing, for the +more part, greatly disposed to run for shelter behind the bolder +petticoats; particularly the stablemen. The footmen, being more +accustomed to ladies' society, are less embarrassed by their own hands, +and by the exigencies of chivalry. This inversion of the usual attitude +of the sexes, will, no doubt, be set more than right when we have +retired. The moment has arrived. I quit father's arm—for the first time +in my life I am honestly sorry to drop it—and go up to my destined +partner.</p> + +<p>"Ashton," say I, with an attempt at an easy and unembarrassed smile, +"will you dance this quadrille with me?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my lady."</p> + +<p>How calm he is! how self-possessed. Oh, that he would impart to me the +secret of his composure! I catch sight of the Brat, who is passing at +the moment.</p> + +<p>"Brat!" cry I, eagerly, snatching at his coat-sleeve, like a drowning +man at a straw. "Will <i>you</i> be our <i>vis-à-vis</i>?"</p> + +<p>"All right," replies the Brat, gayly, "but I have not got a partner +yet."</p> + +<p>Off he goes in search of one, and Ashton and I remain <i>tête-à-tête</i>. I +suppose I ought to take his arm, and lead him to the top of the room. +After a moment of hot hesitation, I do this. Here we are, arrived. Oh, +why did I ask him so soon? Two or three minutes elapse before the Brat's +return.</p> + +<p>"How nicely you have all done the decorations!"</p> + +<p>"I am glad you think so, my lady."</p> + +<p>"They are better than ours at the church."</p> + +<p>"Do you think so, my lady?"</p> + +<p>A pause. Everybody is choosing partners. Tou Tou, grinning from ear to +ear, is bidding a bashful button-boy to the merry dance. Father—do my +eyes deceive me?—father himself is leading out the housekeeper. +Evidently he is saying something dignifiedly humorous to her, for she is +laughing. I wish that he would sometimes be dignifiedly humorous to us, +or even humorous without the dignity. Barbara, true to her life-long +instincts, is inviting the clergyman's shabby, gawky man-of-all-work, at +whom the ladies'-maids are raising the nose of contempt. Mr. Musgrave is +soliciting a kitchen-wench.</p> + +<p>"Are there as many here as you expected?"</p> + +<p>"Quite, my lady."</p> + +<p>Another pause.</p> + +<p>"I hope," with bald affability, in desperation of a topic, "that you +will all enjoy yourselves!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my lady!"</p> + +<p>Praise God! here is the Brat at last! Owing, I suppose, to the +slenderness and fragile tenuity of his own charms, the Brat is a great +admirer of fine women, the bigger the better; quantity, not quality; +and, true to his colors, he now arrives with a neighboring cook, a lady +of sixteen stone, on his arm.</p> + +<p>We take our places. While chassezing and poussetting, thank Heaven, a +very little talk goes a very long way. My mind begins to grow more easy. +I am even sensible of a little feeling of funny elation at the sound of +the fiddles gayly squeaking. I can look about me and laugh inwardly at +the distant sight of Tou Tou and the button-boy turning each other +nimbly round; of father, in the fourth figure, blandly backing between +Mrs. Mitchell and a cook-maid.</p> + +<p>We have now reached the fifth. At the few balls I have hitherto +frequented it has been a harmless figure enough; hands all round, and a +repetition of <i>l'été</i>. But <i>now</i>—oh, horror! what do I see? Everybody +far and near is standing in attitude to gallopade. The Brat has his +little arm round the cook's waist—at least not all the way round—it +would take a lengthier limb than his to effect <i>that</i>; but a bit of the +way, as far as it will go. An awful idea strikes me. Must Ashton and I +gallopade too? I glance nervously toward him. He is looking quite as +apprehensive at the thought that I shall expect him to gallopade with +me, as I am at the thought that he will expect me to gallopade with him. +I do not know how it is that we make our mutual alarm known to each +other, only I know that, while all the world is gallopading round us, we +gallopade not. Instead, we take hands, and jig distantly round each +other.</p> + +<p>The improvised valse soon ends, and I look across at the Brat. Gallant +boy! the beads of perspiration stand on his young brow, but there is no +look of blenching! When the time comes he will be ready to do it again.</p> + +<p>As I stand in silent amusement watching him, having, for the moment, no +dancing duties of my own, I hear a voice at my elbow, Bobby's, who, +having come in later than the rest of us, has not been taking part in +the dance.</p> + +<p>"Nancy! Nancy!" in a tone of hurried excitement, "for the love of Heaven +look at <i>father</i>! If you stand on tiptoe you will be able to see him; he +has been <i>gallopading</i>! When I saw his venerable coat-tails flying, a +feather would have knocked me down! You really ought to see it" +(lowering his voice confidentially), "it might give you an idea about +your own old man, and the old Wam—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Hang</i> the old Wampoo!" cry I, with inelegant force, laughing.</p> + +<p>The duty part of the evening is over now. We have all signalized +ourselves by feats of valor. I have scampered through an unsociable +country-dance with the head coachman, and have had my smart gown of +faint pink and pearl color nearly torn off my back by the +ponderous-footed pair that trip directly after me. We have, in fact, +done our duty, and may retire as soon as we like. But the music has got +into our feet, and we promise ourselves one valse among ourselves before +we depart.</p> + +<p>The Brat is the only exception. He still cleaves to his cook; dancing +with her is a <i>tour de force</i>, on which he piques himself. Mrs. Huntley +and Algy are already flying down the room in an active, tender embrace. +I have been asked as long ago as before dinner by Mr. Musgrave. I was +rather surprised and annoyed at his inviting <i>me</i> instead of Barbara; +but as, with this exception, his conduct has been unequivocally +demonstrative, I console myself with the notion that he looks upon me as +the necessary pill to which Barbara will be the subsequent jam.</p> + +<p>The first bars of the valse are playing when Bobby comes bustling up. +Healthy jollity and open mirth are written all over his dear, fat face.</p> + +<p>"Come along, Nancy! let us have <i>one</i> more scamper before we die!"</p> + +<p>"I am engaged to Mr. Musgrave," reply I, with a graceless and +discontented curl of lip, and raising of nose.</p> + +<p>"All right!" says Bobby, philosophically, walking away; "I am sure I do +not mind, only I had a fancy for having <i>one</i> more spin with you."</p> + +<p>"So you shall!" cry I, impulsively, with a sharp thought of Hong-Kong, +running after him, and putting his solid right arm round my waist.</p> + +<p>Away we go in mad haste. Like most sailors, Bobby dances well. I am +nothing very wonderful, but I suit <i>him</i>. In many musicless waltzings of +winter evenings, down the lobby at home, we have learned to fit each +other's step exactly. At our first pausing to recover breath, I become +sensible of a face behind me, of a fierce voice in my ear.</p> + +<p>"I had an idea, Lady Tempest, that this was <i>our</i> dance!"</p> + +<p>"So it was!" reply I, cheerfully; "but you see I have cut you!"</p> + +<p>"So I perceive!"</p> + +<p>"Had not you better call Bobby out!" cry I, with a jeering laugh, tired +of his eternal black looks. "You really are <i>too</i> silly! I wish I had a +looking-glass here to show you your face!"</p> + +<p>"Do you?" (very shortly).</p> + +<p>Repartee is never Frank's forte. This is all that he now finds with +which to wither me. However, even if he had any thing more or more +pungent to say, I should not hear him, for I am beginning to dance off +again.</p> + +<p>"What a fool he is to care!" says Bobby, contemptuously; "after all, he +is an ill-tempered beast! I suppose if one kicked him down-stairs it +would put a stop to his marrying Barbara, would not it?"</p> + +<p>I laugh.</p> + +<p>"I suppose so."</p> + +<p>It is over now. The last long-drawn-out notes have ceased to occupy the +air. As far as <i>we</i> are concerned, the ball is over, for we have quitted +it. We have at length removed the <i>gêne</i> of our presence from the +company, and have left them to polka and schottische their fill until +the morning. We have reached our own part of the house. My cheeks are +burning and throbbing with the quick, unwonted exercise. My brain is +unpleasantly stirred: a hundred thoughts in a second run galloping +through it. I leave the others in the warm-lit drawing-room, briskly +talking and discussing the scene we have quitted, and slip away through +the door, into a dark and empty adjacent anteroom, where the fire lies +at death's door, low and dull, and the candles are unlighted.</p> + +<p>I draw the curtains, unbar the shutters, and, lifting the heavy sash, +look out. A cold, still air, sharp and clear, at once greets my face +with its frosty kisses. Below me, the great house-shadow projects in +darkness, and beyond it lies a great and dazzling field of shining snow, +asleep in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>Snow-trees, snow-bushes, sparkle up against the dusk quiet of the sky. +No movement anywhere! absolute stillness! perfect silence! It is broken +now, this silence, by the church-clock with slow wakefulness chiming +twelve. Those slow strokes set me a thinking. I hear no longer the loud +and lively voices next door, the icy penetration of the air is unfelt by +me, as I lean, with my elbow on the sill, looking out at the cold grace +of the night. My mind strays gently away over all my past life—over the +last important year. I think of my wedding, of my little live wreath of +sweet Nancies, of our long, dusty journey, of Dresden.</p> + +<p>With an honest, stinging heart-pang, I think of my ill-concealed and +selfish weariness in our twilight walks and scented drives, of the look +of hurt kindness on his face, at his inability to please me. I think of +our return, of the day when he told me of the necessity for his voyage +to Antigua, and of my own egotistic unwillingness to accompany him. I +think of our parting, when I shed such plenteous tears—tears that seem +to me now to have been so much more tears of remorse, of sorrow that I +was not sorrier, than of real grief. In every scene I seem to myself to +have borne a most shabby part.</p> + +<p>My meditations are broken in upon by a quick step approaching me, by a +voice in my ear—Algy's.</p> + +<p>"You are <i>here</i>, are you? I have been looking for you everywhere! Why, +the window is <i>open</i>! For Heaven's sake let me get you a cloak! you know +how delicate your chest is. For <i>my</i> sake, <i>do</i>!"</p> + +<p>It is too dark to see his face, but there is a quick, excited tenderness +in his voice.</p> + +<p>"<i>My</i> chest delicate!" cry I, in an accent of complete astonishment. +"Well, it is news to me if it is! My dear boy, what has put such an idea +into your head? and if I got a cloak, I should think it would be for my +<i>own</i> sake, not yours!"</p> + +<p>He has been leaning over me in the dusk. At my words he starts violently +and draws back.</p> + +<p>"It is <i>you</i>, is it?" he says, in an altered voice of constraint, whence +all the mellow tenderness has fled.</p> + +<p>"To be sure!" reply I, matter-of-factly. "For whom did you take me?"</p> + +<p>But though I ask, alas! I know.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>How are unmusical people to express themselves when they are glad? +People with an ear and a voice can sing, but what is to become of those +who have not? Must they whoop inarticulately? For myself, I do not know +one tune from another. I am like the man who said that he knew two +tunes, one was "God save the Queen," and the other was not. And yet +to-day I have as good a heart for singing as ever had any of the most +famous songsters. In tune, out of tune, I must lift up my voice. It is +as urgent a need for me as for any mellow thrush. For my heart—oh, rare +case!—is fuller of joy than it can hold. It brims over. Roger is coming +back. It is February, and he has been away nearly seven months. All +minor evils and anxieties—Bobby's departure for Hong-Kong, Algy's +increasing besotment about Mrs. Huntley, and consequent slight +estrangement from me—(to me a very bitter thing)—Frank's continued +silence as regards Barbara—all these are swallowed up in gladness.</p> + +<p>When <i>he</i> is back, all will come right. Is it any wonder that they have +gone wrong, while <i>I</i> only was at the helm? My good news arrived only +this morning, and yet, a hundred times in the short space that has +elapsed since then, I have rehearsed the manner of our meeting, have +practised calling him "Roger," with familiar ease, have fixed upon my +gown and the manner of my coiffure, and have wearied Barbara with +solicitous queries, as to whether she thinks that I have grown +perceptibly plainer in the last seven months, whether she does not think +one side of my face better looking than the other, whether she +thinks—(with honest anxiety this)—that my appearance is calculated to +repel a person grown disused to it. To all which questions, she with +untired gentleness gives pleasant and favorable answers.</p> + +<p>The inability under which I labored of refraining from imparting <i>bad</i> +news is tenfold increased in the case of good. I must have some one to +whom to relate my prosperity. It will certainly <i>not</i> be Mrs. Huntley +this time. Though I have struggled against the feeling as unjust, and +disloyal to my faith in Roger, I still cannot suppress a sharp pang of +distrust and jealousy, as often as I think of her, and of the relation +made to me by Frank, as to her former connection with my husband. +Neither am I in any hurry to tell Frank. To speak truth, I am in no +good-humor with him or with his unhandsome shilly-shallying, and +unaccountable postponement of what became a duty months ago.</p> + +<p>Never mind! this also will come right when Roger returns. The delightful +stir and hubbub in my soul hinder me from working or reading, or any +tranquil in-door occupation; and, as afternoon draws on, fair and not +cold, I decide upon a long walk. The quick exercise will perhaps +moderately tire me, and subdue my fidgetiness by the evening, and nobody +can hinder me from thinking of Roger all the way.</p> + +<p>Barbara has a cold—a nasty, stuffy, choky cold; so I must do without +her. Apparently I must do without Vick too. She makes a feint, indeed, +of accompanying me half-way to the front gate, then sits down on her +little shivering haunches, smirks, and when I call her, looks the other +way, affecting not to hear. On my calling more peremptorily, "Vick! +Vick!" she tucks her tail well in, and canters back to the house on +three legs.</p> + +<p>So it comes to pass that I set out quite alone. I have no definite idea +where to go—I walk vaguely along, following my nose, as they say, +smiling foolishly, and talking to myself—now under my breath—now out +loud. A strong southwest wind blows steadily in my face: it sounded +noisy and fierce enough as I sat in the house; but there is no vice or +malevolence in it—it is only a soft bluster.</p> + +<p>Alternate clouds and sunshine tenant the sky. The shadows of the +tree-trunks lie black and defined across the road—branches, twigs, +every thing—then comes a sweep of steely cloud, and they disappear, +swallowed up in one uniform gray: a colorless moment or two passes, and +the sun pushes out again; and they start forth distinct and defined, +each little shoot and great limb, into new life on the bright ground. I +laugh out loud, out of sheer jollity, as I watch the sun playing at +hide-and-seek with them.</p> + +<p>What a good world! What a handsome, merry, sweetly-colored world! +Unsatisfying? disappointing?—not a bit of it! It must be people's own +fault if they find it so.</p> + +<p>I have walked a mile or so before I at length decide upon a goal, toward +which to tend—a lone and distant cottage, tenanted by a very aged, +ignorant, and feudally loyal couple—a cottage sitting by the edge of a +brown common—one of the few that the greedy hand of Tillage has yet +spared—where geese may still stalk and hiss unreproved, and +errant-tinker donkeys crop and nibble undisturbed—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Where the golden furze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With its green thin spurs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doth catch at the maiden's gown."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is altogether a choice and goodly walk; next to nothing of the tame +high-road. The path leads through a deep wooded dell; over purple +plough-lands; down retired lanes.</p> + +<p>After an hour and a quarter of smartish walking, I reach the door. There +are no signs of ravaging children about. Long, long ago—years before +this generation was born—the noisy children went out; some to the +church-yard; some, with clamor of wedding-bells, to separate life. I +knock, and after an interval hear the sound of pattens clacking across +the flagged floor, and am admitted by an old woman, dried and pickled, +by the action of the years, into an active cleanly old mummy, and whose +fingers are wrinkled even more than time has done it, by the action of +soapsuds. I am received with the joyful reverence due to my exalted +station, am led in, and posted right in front of the little red fire and +the singing kettle, and introduced to a very old man, who sits on the +settle in the warm chimney-corner, dressed in an ancient smock-frock, +and with both knotted hands clasped on the top of an old oak staff. He +is evidently childish, and breaks now and then into an anile laugh at +the thought, no doubt, of some dead old pot-house jest. A complication +arises through his persisting in taking me for a sister of Roger's, who +died thirty years ago, in early girlhood, and addressing me accordingly. +I struggle a little for my identity, but, finding the effort useless, +resign it.</p> + +<p>"This poor ould person is quoite aimless," says his wife with +dispassionate apology; "but what can you expect at noinety-one?"</p> + +<p>(Her own years cannot be much fewer.)</p> + +<p>I say tritely that it is a great age.</p> + +<p>"He's very fatiguin' on toimes!—that he is!" she continues, eying him +with contemplated candor—"he crumbles his wittles to that extent that I +'ave to make him sit upo' the <i>News of the World</i>."</p> + +<p>As it seems to me that the conversation is taking a painful direction, I +try to divert it by telling my news; but the bloom is again taken off it +by the old man, who declines to be disabused of the idea that the +Peninsular is still raging, and that it is Roger's <i>grandfather</i> who is +returning from that field of glory. After a few more minutes, during +which the old wife composedly tells me of all the children she has +buried—she has to think twice before she can recollect the exact +number—and in the same breath remarks, "How gallus bad their 'taters +were last year," I take my departure, and leave the old man still +nodding his weak old head, and chuckling to the kettle.</p> + +<p>On first leaving the house, I feel dashed and sobered. The inertness and +phlegmatic apathy of dry and ugly old age seem to weigh upon and press +down the passionate life of my youth, but I have not crossed a couple of +ploughed fields and seen the long slices newly ploughed, lying rich and +thick in the sun; I have not heard two staves of the throstle's loud +song, before I have recovered myself. I also begin to sing. I am not +very harmonious, perhaps, I never am; and I wander now and then from the +tune; but it is good enough for the stalking geese, my only audience, +except a ragged jackass, who, moved by my example, lifts his nose and +gives vent to a lengthy bray of infinite yearning.</p> + +<p>I am half-way home now. I have reached the wood—Brindley Wood; +henceforth I am not very likely to forget its name. The path dips at +once and runs steeply down, till it reaches the bottom of the dell, +along which a quick brook runs darkling. In summer, when the leaves are +out, it is twilight here at high noonday. Hardly a peep of sky to be +seen through the green arch of oak and elm; but now, through the +net-work of wintry twigs one looks up, and sees the faint, far blue, for +the loss of which no leafage can compensate. Winter brownness above, but +a more than summer green below—the heyday riot of the mosses. Mossed +tree-trunks, leaning over the bustling stream; emerald moss carpets +between the bronze dead leaves; all manner of mosses; mosses with little +nightcaps; mosses like doll's ferns; mosses like plump cushions; and +upon them here and there blazes the glowing red of the small +peziza-cups.</p> + +<p>I am still singing; and, as no wind reaches this shadowed hollow, I have +taken off my hat, and walk slowly along, swinging it in my hand. It is a +so little-frequented place, that I give an involuntary start, and my +song suddenly dies, when, on turning a corner, I come face to face with +another occupant. In a moment I recover myself. It is only Frank, +sitting on a great lichened stone, staring at the brook and the trees.</p> + +<p>"You seem very cheerful!" he says, rising, stretching out his hand, and +not (as I afterward recollect) expressing the slightest surprise at our +unlikely rencontre. "I never heard you lift up your voice before."</p> + +<p>"I seem what I am," reply I, shortly. "I <i>am</i> cheerful."</p> + +<p>"You mostly are."</p> + +<p>"That is all that <i>you</i> know about it," reply I, brusquely, rather +resenting the accusation. "I have not been <i>at all</i> in good spirits all +this—this autumn and winter, not, that is, compared to what I usually +am."</p> + +<p>"Have not you?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> in good spirits to-day, I grant you," continue I, more affably; +"it would be very odd if I were not. I should jump out of my skin if I +were quite sure of getting back into it again; I have had <i>such</i> good +news."</p> + +<p>"Have you? I wish <i>I</i> had" (sighing). "What is it?"</p> + +<p>"I will give you three guesses," say I, trying to keep grave, but +breaking out everywhere, as I feel, into badly-suppressed smiles.</p> + +<p>"Something about the boys, of course!"—(half fretfully)—"it is always +the boys."</p> + +<p>"It is nothing about the boys—quite wrong. That is <i>one</i>."</p> + +<p>"The fair Zéphine is no more!—by-the-by, I suppose I should have heard +of that."</p> + +<p>"It is nothing about the fair Zéphine—wrong again! That is <i>two</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Barbara has got leave to stay till Easter!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing about Barbara!"—(with a slight momentary pang at the ease and +unconcern with which he mentions her name).—"By-the-by, I wish you +would give up calling her 'Barbara;' she never calls you 'Frank!' There, +you have had your three guesses, and you have never come within a mile +of it—I shall have to tell you—<i>Roger is coming back!</i>" opening my +eyes and beginning to laugh joyously.</p> + +<p>"<i>Soon?</i>" with a quick and breathless change of tone, that I cannot help +perceiving, turning sharply upon me.</p> + +<p>"<i>At once!</i>" reply I, triumphantly; "we may expect him <i>any day</i>!"</p> + +<p>He receives this information in total silence. He does not attempt the +faintest or slightest congratulation.</p> + +<p>"I wish I had not told you!" cry I, indignantly; "what a fool I was to +imagine that you would feel the slightest interest in any thing that did +not concern yourself personally! Of course" (turning a scarlet face and +blazing eyes full upon him), "I did not expect you to <i>feel</i> glad—I +have known you too long for that—but you might have had the common +civility to <i>say</i> you were!"</p> + +<p>We have stopped. We stand facing each other in the narrow wood-path, +while the beck noisily babbles past, and the thrushes answer each other +in lovely dialogue. He is deadly pale; his lips are trembling, and his +eyes—involuntarily I look away from them!</p> + +<p>"I am <i>not</i> glad!" he says, with slow distinctness; "often—often you +have blamed me for <i>hinting</i> and <i>implying</i> for using innuendoes and +half-words, and once—<i>once</i>, do you recollect?—you told me to my face +that I <i>lied</i>! Well, I will not <i>lie</i> now; you shall have no cause to +blame me to-day. I will tell you the truth, the truth that you know as +well as I do—I am <i>not</i> glad!"</p> + +<p>Absolute silence. I could no more answer or interrupt him than I could +soar up between the dry tree-boughs to heaven. I stand before him with +parted lips, and staring eyes fixed in a stony, horrid astonishment on +his face.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says, coming a step nearer, and speaking in almost a +whisper, "<i>you</i> are not glad either! For once speak the truth! Hypocrisy +is always difficult to you. You are the worst actress I ever saw—speak +the truth for once! Who is there to hear you but me? I, who know it +already—who have known it ever since that first evening in Dresden! Do +you recollect?—but of course you do—why do I ask you? Why should you +have forgotten any more than I?"</p> + +<p>Still I am silent. Though I stand in the free clear air of heaven, I +could not feel more choked and gasping were I in some close and stifling +dungeon, hundreds of feet underground. I think that the brook must have +got into my brain, there is such a noise of bubbling and brawling in it. +Barbara, Roger, Algy, a hundred confused ideas of pain and dismay jostle +each other in my head.</p> + +<p>"Why do you look at me so?" he says, hoarsely. "What have I done? For +God's sake, do not think that I blame you! I never have been so sorry +for any one in my life as I have been for you—as I was for you from the +first moment I saw you! I can see you now, as I first caught sight of +you—weariness and depression in every line of your face—"</p> + +<p>I can bear no more. At his last words, a pain like a knife, sharp to +agony, runs through me. It is the grain of truth in his wicked, lying +words that gives them their sting. I <i>was</i> weary; I <i>was</i> depressed; I +<i>was</i> bored. I fling out my arms with a sudden gesture of despair, and +then, throwing myself down on the ground, bury my face in a great moss +cushion, and put my fingers in my ears.</p> + +<p>"O my God!" I cry, writhing, "what <i>shall</i> I do?—how <i>can</i> I bear it?"</p> + +<p>After a moment or two I sit up.</p> + +<p>"How <i>shameful</i> of you!" I cry, bursting into a passion of tears. "What +sort of women can you have lived among? what a hateful mind you must +have! And I thought that you were a nice fellow, and that we were all so +comfortable together!"</p> + +<p>He has drawn back a pace or two, and now stands leaning against one of +the bent and writhen trunks of the old trees. He is still as pale as the +dead, and looks all the paler for the burning darkness of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Is it possible," he says, in a low tone of but half-suppressed fury, +"that you are going to <i>pretend</i> to be surprised?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Pretend!</i>" cry I, vehemently; "there is no pretense about it! I never +was so horribly, miserably surprised in all my life!"</p> + +<p>And then, thinking of Barbara, I fall to weeping again, in utter +bitterness and discomfiture.</p> + +<p>"It is <i>impossible</i>!" he says, roughly. "Whatever else you are, you are +no fool; and a woman would have had to be blinder than any mole not to +see whither I—yes, and <i>you</i>, too—have been tending! If you meant to +be <i>surprised</i> all along when it came to this, why did you make yourself +common talk for the neighborhood with me? Why did you press me, with +such unconventional eagerness to visit you? Why did you reproach me if I +missed one day?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Why did I?</i>" cry I, eagerly. "Because—"</p> + +<p>Then I stop suddenly. How, even to clear myself, can I tell him my real +reason?</p> + +<p>"And now," he continues, with deepening excitement, "now that you reap +your own sowing, you are <i>surprised—miserably surprised</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I am!" cry I, incoherently. "You may not believe me, but it is true—as +true as that God is above us, and that I never, <i>never</i> was tired of +Roger!"</p> + +<p>I stop, choked with sobs.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he says, sardonically, "about as true. But, be that as it may, +you must at least be good enough to excuse me from expressing <i>joy</i> at +his return, seeing that he fills the place which I am fool enough to +covet, and which, but for him, <i>might</i>—yes, say what you please, deny +it as much as you like—<i>would</i> have been mine!"</p> + +<p>"It <i>never</i> would!" cry I, passionately. "If you had been the last man +in the world—if we had been left together on a desert island—I <i>never</i> +should have liked you, <i>never</i>! I <i>never</i> would have seen more of you +than I could help! There is <i>no one</i> whose society I grow so soon tired +of. I have said so over and over again to the boys."</p> + +<p>"Have you?"</p> + +<p>"What good reason can you give me for preferring you to him?" I ask, my +voice trembling and quivering with a passionate indignation; "I am here, +ready to listen to you if you can! How are you such a desirable +substitute for him? Are you nobler? cleverer? handsomer? +unselfisher?—if you are" (laughing bitterly), "you keep it mighty well +hid."</p> + +<p>No reply: not a syllable.</p> + +<p>"It is a <i>lie</i>," I cry, with growing vehemence, "a vile, base, +groundless lie, to say that I am not glad he is coming back! Barbara +knows—they <i>all</i> know how I have been <i>wearying</i> for him all these +months. I was not <i>in love</i>, as you call it, when I married him—often I +have told him that—and perhaps at Dresden I missed the boys a +little—he knows that too—he understands! but now—<i>now</i>—" (clasping +my hands upon my heart, and looking passionately upward with streaming +eyes), "I want no one—<i>no one</i> but him! I wish for nothing better than +to have <i>him—him only</i>!—and to-day, until I met <i>you</i>—till you made +me loathe myself and you, and every living thing—it seemed to me as if +all the world had suddenly grown bright and happy and good at the news +of his coming."</p> + +<p>Still he is silent.</p> + +<p>"Even if I had not liked <i>him</i>," pursue I, finding words come quickly +enough now, and speaking with indignant volubility, as, having risen, I +again face him—"even if I had wanted to flirt with some one, why on +earth should I have chosen <i>you</i>?" (eying him with scornful slowness, +from his wide-awake to his shooting-boots), "<i>you</i>, who never even +<i>amused</i> me in the least! Often when I have been talking to you, I have +yawned till the tears came into my eyes! I have been afraid that you +would notice it. If I had known" (speaking with great bitterness), "I +should have taken less pains with my manners."</p> + +<p>He does not answer a word. What answer <i>can</i> he make? He still stands +under the wintry tree, white to lividness; drops of cold sweat stand on +his brows; and his fine nostrils dilate and contract, dilate and +contract, in an agony of anger and shame.</p> + +<p>"What <i>could</i> have put such an idea into your head?" cry I, clasping my +hands, while the tears rain down my cheeks, as—my thoughts again flying +to Barbara—I fall from contempt and scorn to the sharpest reproach. +"Who would have thought of such a thing? when there are so many better +and prettier people who, for all I know, might have liked you. What +wicked perversity made you fix upon <i>me</i> who, even if I had not belonged +to any one else, could never, <i>never</i> have fancied you!"</p> + +<p>"Is that true?" he says, in a harsh, rough whisper; "are you sure that +you are not deceiving yourself? are you sure that under all your rude +words you are not nearer loving me than you think?—that it is not +that—with that barrier between us—you cannot reconcile it to your +conscience—"</p> + +<p>"Quite, <i>quite</i> sure!" interrupt I, with passionate emphasis, looking +back unflinchingly into the angry depths of his eyes, "it has nothing to +say to conscience! it has nothing to say to the <i>wrongness</i> of it" +(crimsoning as I speak). "If it were quite right—if it were my +<i>duty</i>—if it were the only way to save myself from <i>hanging</i>" (reaching +after an ever higher and higher climax), "I <i>never</i>, <span class="smcap">NEVER</span> could say +that I was fond of you! I do not see what there is to be fond of <i>in</i> +you! before God, I do not!"</p> + +<p>"There!" he says, hoarsely stretching out his hand, as if to ward off a +blow, "that will do!—stop!—you will never outdo that!"</p> + +<p>A moment's pause.</p> + +<p>Down in the loneliness of this dell, the twilight is creeping quickly +on: when once it begins it tarries not. Out in the open country I dare +say that it is still broad daylight; but here, the hues of the moss +carpet are growing duller, and the brook is darkening. In a sudden +panic, I hastily catch up my hat, which has fallen to the ground, and +without a word or look of farewell, begin to run fast along the homeward +path. Before I have gone ten yards he has overtaken me. His face is +distorted by passion out of all its beauty.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says, in a voice rendered almost unrecognizable by extreme +agitation, walking quickly alongside of me, "we are not going to part +like this!"</p> + +<p>"Do not call me Nancy!" cry I, indignantly; "it makes me <i>sick</i>!"</p> + +<p>"What does it matter what I call you?" he cries, impatiently; "of what +consequence is such a trifle? I will call you by what name you please, +but for this once you <i>must</i> listen to me. I know, as well as you do, +that it is my last chance!"</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> it is!" put in I, viciously.</p> + +<p>The path is beginning to rise. After mounting the slope, we shall soon +be out of the wood, and in the peopled open again.</p> + +<p>"How can I help it, if I have gone mad?" he cries violently, evidently +driven to desperation by the shortness of the time before him.</p> + +<p>"Mad!" echo I, scornfully, "not a bit of it! you are as sane as I am!"</p> + +<p>All this time we are posting along in mad haste. Thank God! the +high-road is in sight, the cheerful, populous, light high-road. The +trees grow thinner, and the path broadens. Even from here, we can +plainly see the carts and carters. He stops, and making me stop, too, +snatches both my hands.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" he says, harshly, stooping over me, while his eyes flame with a +haggard light. "Yes, I <i>will</i> call you so this once—to me now you <i>are</i> +Nancy! I will <i>not</i> call you by <i>his</i> name! Is it <i>possible</i>? You may +say that it is my egotism; but, at a moment like this, what is the use +of shamming—of polite pretense? Never, <i>never</i> before in all my life +have I given love without receiving it, and I <i>cannot</i> believe"—(with +an accent of passionate entreaty)—"that I do now! Feeling for you as I +do, do you feel absolutely <i>nothing</i> for me?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Feel</i>!" cry I, driven out of all moderation by disgust and +exasperation. "Would you like to know how I feel? I feel <i>as if a slug +had crawled over me</i>!"</p> + +<p>His face contracts, his eyes darken with a raging pain. He <i>throws</i> my +hands—the hands a moment ago so jealously clasped—away from him.</p> + +<p>"Thank you!" he says, after a pause, in a stiff voice of constraint. "I +am satisfied!"</p> + +<p>"And a very good thing too!" say I, sturdily, still at boiling-point, +and diminishing with quick steps the small space still intervening +between me and the road.</p> + +<p>"Stay!" he says, overtaking me once again, as I reach it, and laying his +hand in detention on my arm. "One word more! I should be sorry to part +from you—such friends as we have been"—(with a sneer)—"without <i>one</i> +good wish. Lady Tempest, I hope"—(smiling with malevolent irony)—"that +your fidelity will be rewarded as it deserves."</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt of it!" reply I, steadily; but even as I speak, a sharp +jealous pain runs through my heart. Thank God! he cannot see it!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Yes, here out in the open it is still quite light; it seems two hours +earlier than it did below in the dark dingle—light enough as plainly to +see the faces of those one meets as if it were mid-day. I suppose that +my late companion and I were too much occupied by our own emotions to +hear, or at least notice the sound of wheels approaching us; but no +sooner have I turned and left him, before I have gone three paces, than +I am quickly passed by an open carriage and pair of grays—<i>quickly</i>, +and yet slowly enough for me to recognize the one occupant. As to +her—for it is Mrs. Huntley—she must have seen me already, as I stood +with Mr. Musgrave on the edge of the wood, exchanging our last bitter +words.</p> + +<p>It is impossible that she could have helped it; but even had it been +possible—had there been any doubt on the subject, that doubt would be +removed by the unusual animation of her attitude, and the interest in +her eyes, that I have time to notice, as she rolls past me.</p> + +<p>I avert my face, but it is too late. She has seen my hat thrown on +anyhow, as it were with a pitchfork—has seen my face swollen with +weeping, and great tears still standing unwiped on my flushed cheeks. +What is far, <i>far</i> worse, she has seen him, too. This is the last drop +in an already over-full cup.</p> + +<p>There is nothing in sight now—not even a cart—so I sit down on a heap +of stones by the road-side, and, covering my hot face with my hands, cry +till I have no more eyes left to cry with. Can <i>this</i> be the day I +called good? Can <i>this</i> be that bright and merry day, when I walked +elate and laughing between the deep furrows, and heard the blackbird and +thrush woo their new loves, nor was able myself to refrain from singing?</p> + +<p>My brain is a black chaos of whirling agonies, now together, now +parting; so that each may make their separate sting felt, and, in turn, +each will have to be faced. Preëminent among the dark host, towering +above even the thought of Barbara, is the sense of my own degradation. +There must have been something in my conduct to justify his taking me so +confidently for the bad, light woman he did. One does not get such a +character for nothing. I have always heard that, when such things happen +to people, they have invariably brought them on themselves. In +incoherent misery, I run over in my head, as well as the confusion of it +will let me, our past meetings and dialogues. In almost all, to my +distorted view, there now seems to have been an unseemly levity. Things +I have said to him; easy, familiar jokes that I have had with him; not +that <i>he</i> ever had much sense of a jest—(even at this moment I think +this incidentally)—course through my mind.</p> + +<p>Our many <i>tête-à-têtes</i> to which, at the time, I attached less than no +importance: through many of which I unfeignedly, irresistibly <i>gaped</i>; +our meetings in the park—accidental, as I thought—our dawdling +saunters through the meadows, as often as not at twilight; all, <i>all</i> +recur to me, and, recurring, make my face burn with a hot and stabbing +shame.</p> + +<p>And <i>Roger</i>! This is the way in which I have kept things straight for +him! This is the way in which I have rewarded his boundless trust! he, +whose only fear was lest I should be dull! lest I should not amuse +myself! Well, I have amused myself to some purpose now. I have made +myself <i>common talk for the neighborhood</i>! <i>He</i> said so. I have brought +discredit on Roger's honored name! Not even the consciousness of the +utter cleanness of my heart is of the least avail to console me. What +matter how clean the heart is, if the conduct be light? None but God can +see the former; the latter lies open to every carelessly spiteful, +surface-judging eye. And Barbara! Goaded by the thought of her, I rise +up quickly, and walk hastily along the road, till I reach a gate into +the park. Arrived there, and now free from all fear of interruption from +passers-by, I again sit down on an old dry log that lies beneath a great +oak, and again cover my face with my hands.</p> + +<p>What care I for the growing dark? the darker the better! Ah! if it were +dark enough to hide me from myself! How shall I break it to her—I, who, +confident in my superior discernment, have always scouted her misgivings +and turned into derision her doubts? If I thought that she would rave +and storm, and that her grief would vent itself in <i>anger</i>, it would not +be of half so much consequence. But I know her better. The evening has +closed in colder. The birds have all ceased their singing, and I still +sit on, in the absolute silence, unconscious—unaware of any thing round +me; living only in my thoughts, and with a resolution growing ever +stronger and stronger within me. I will <i>not</i> tell her! I will <i>never</i> +tell <i>any one</i>. I, that have hitherto bungled and blundered over the +whitest fib, will wade knee-deep in falsehoods, before I will ever let +any one guess the disgrace that has happened to me. Oh that, by long +silence, I could wipe it out of my own heart—out of the book of +unerasable past deeds!</p> + +<p>Of course, by the cessation of his visits, Barbara will learn her fate +in time. <i>In time.</i> Yes! but till then—till the long weeks in their +lapse have brought the certainty of disappointment and mistake? How can +I—myself knowing—watch her gentle confidence (for latterly her +doubts—and whose would not?—have been set at rest) decline through all +the suffering stages of uneasy expectation and deferred hope, to the +blank, dull sickness of despair? How, without betraying myself, see her +daily with wistful eyes looking—with strained ears listening—for a +face and a step that come not? If she were one to love lightly, one of +the many women who, when satisfied that it is no longer any use to cry +and strive for the unattainable, the out of reach, clip and pare their +affections to fit the unattainable, the within reach—! But I know +differently.</p> + +<p>Hitherto, whenever love has been offered to her—and the occasions have +been not few—she has put it away from her; most gently, indeed, with a +most eager desire to pour balm and not vinegar into the wounds she has +made; with a most sincere sorrow and a disproportioned remorse at being +obliged to cause pain to any living thing; yet, with a quiet and +indifferent firmness, that left small ground for lingering hopes. And +now, having once loved, she will be slow to unlove again.</p> + +<p>It is quite dark now—as dark, at least, as it will be all night—and +two or three stars are beginning to quiver out, small and cold, in the +infinite distances of the sky. The sight of them, faintly trembling +between the bare boughs of the trees, is the first thing that calls me +back to the consciousness of outward things. Again I rise, and begin to +walk, stumbling through the long wet knots of the unseen grass, toward +the house. But when I reach it—when I see the red gleams shining +through the chinks of the window-shutters—my heart fails me. Not yet +can I face the people, the lights—Barbara! I turn into the garden, and +pace up and down the broad, lonely walks: I pass and repass the cold +river-gods of the unplaying fountain. I stand in the black night of the +old cedar's shade. On any other day no possible consideration would have +induced me to venture within the jurisdiction of its inky arms after +nightfall; to-day, I feel as if no earthly or unearthly thing would have +power to scare me. How long I stay, I do not know. Now and then, I put +up my hands to my face, to ascertain whether my cheeks and eyes feel +less swollen and burning; whether the moist and searching night-air is +restoring me to my own likeness. At length, I dare stay no longer for +fear of being missed, and causing alarm in the household. So I enter, +steal up-stairs, and open the door of my boudoir, which Barbara and I, +when alone, make our usual sitting-room. The candles are unlit; and the +warm fire—evidently long undisturbed—is shedding only a dull and +deceiving light on all the objects over which it ranges. So far, at +least, Fortune favors me. Barbara and Vick are sitting on the +hearth-rug, side by side. As I enter, they both jump up, and run to meet +me. One of them gives little raptured squeaks of recognition. The other +says, in a tone of relief and pleasure:</p> + +<p>"Here you are! I was growing so frightened about you! What can have made +you so late?"</p> + +<p>"It was so—so—pleasant! The thrushes were singing so!" reply I, thus +happily inaugurating my career of invention.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear child, the thrushes went to bed two hours ago!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answer, at once entirely nonplussed, "so they did!"</p> + +<p>"Where <i>have</i> you been?" she asks, in a tone of ever-increasing +surprise. "Did you go farther than you intended?"</p> + +<p>"I went—to see—the old Busseys," reply I, slowly; inwardly pondering, +with a stupid surprise, as to whether it can possibly have been no +longer ago than this very afternoon, that the old man mistook me for the +dead Belinda—and that I held the old wife's soapy hand in farewell in +mine; "the—old—Busseys!" I repeat, "and it took—me a long—<i>long</i> +time to get home!"</p> + +<p>I shiver as I speak.</p> + +<p>"You are cold!" she says, anxiously. "I hope you have not had a +chill—" (taking my hands in her own slight ones)—"yes—<i>starved</i>!—poor +dear hands; let me rub them!" (beginning delicately to chafe them).</p> + +<p>Something in the tender solicitude of her voice, in the touch of her +gentle hands, gives me an agony of pain and remorse. I snatch away my +hands.</p> + +<p>"No! no!" I cry, brusquely, "they do very well!"</p> + +<p>Again she looks at me, with a sort of astonishment, a little mixed with +pain; but she does not say any thing. She goes over to the fire, and +stoops to take up the poker.</p> + +<p>"Do not!" cry I, hastily, "there is plenty of light!—I +mean—" (stammering) "it—it—dazzles me, coming in out of the dark."</p> + +<p>As I speak, I retire to a distant chair, as nearly as possible out of +the fire-light, and affect to be occupied with Vick, who has jumped up +on my lap, and—with all a dog's delicate care not to hurt you +<i>really</i>—is pretending severely to bite every one of my fingers. +Barbara has returned to the hearth-rug. She looks a little troubled at +first; but, after a moment or two, her face regains its usual serene +sweetness.</p> + +<p>"And I have been here ever since you left me!" she says, presently, with +a look of soft gayety. "I have had <i>no</i> visitors! Not even"—(blushing a +little)—"the usual one."</p> + +<p>"No?" say I, bending down my head over Vick, and allowing her to have a +better and more thorough lick at the bridge of my nose than she has ever +enjoyed in her life before.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> did not meet him, I suppose?" she says, interrogatively.</p> + +<p>"<i>I!</i>" cry I, starting guiltily, and stammering. "Not I! Why—why should +I?"</p> + +<p>"Why should not you, rather?" she says, laughing a little. "It is not +such a <i>very</i> unusual occurrence?"</p> + +<p>"Do you think not?" I say, in a voice whose trembling is painfully +perceptible to myself. "You do not think I—I—" ("You do not think I +meet him on purpose," I am going to say; but I break off suddenly, aware +that I am betraying myself).</p> + +<p>"He will come earlier to-morrow to make up for it"—she says, in a low +voice, more to herself than to me—"yes"—(clasping her hands lightly in +her lap, while the fire-light plays upon the lovely mildness of her +happy face, and repeating the words softly)—"yes, he will come earlier +to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>I <i>cannot</i> bear it. I rise up abruptly, trundling poor Vick, to whom +this reverse is quite unexpected, down on the carpet, and rushing out of +the room.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is evening now—late evening, drawing toward bedtime. I am sitting +with my back to the light, and have asked for a shade for the lamp, on +the plea that the wind has cut my eyes—but, in spite of my precautions, +I am well aware that the disfigurement of my face is still unmistakably +evident to the most casual eye; and, from the anxious care with which +Barbara looks <i>away from me</i>, when she addresses me, I can perceive that +she has observed it, as, indeed, how could she fail to do? If Tou Tou +were here, she would overwhelm me with officious questions—would stare +me crazy, but Barbara averts her eyes, and asks nothing.</p> + +<p>We have been sitting in perfect silence for a long while; no noise but +the click of Barbara's knitting-pins, the low flutter of the fire-flame, +and the sort of suppressed choked <i>inward</i> bark, with which Vick attacks +a phantom tomcat in her dreams.</p> + +<p>Suddenly I speak.</p> + +<p>"Barbara!" say I, with a hard, forced laugh, "I am going to ask you a +silly question: tell me, did you ever observe—has it ever struck you +that there was something rather—rather <i>offensive</i> in my manner to +men?"</p> + +<p>Her knitting drops into her lap. Her blue eyes open wide, like +dog-violets in the sun; she is <i>obliged</i> to look at me now.</p> + +<p>"<i>Offensive!</i>" she echoes, with an accent of the most utter surprise and +mystification. "Good Heavens, no! What has come to the child? +Oh!"—(with a little look of dawning intelligence)—"I see! You mean, do +not you smite them too much? Are not you sometimes a little too <i>hard</i> +upon them?"</p> + +<p>"No," say I, gravely; "I did not mean that."</p> + +<p>She looks at me for explanation, but I can give none. More silence.</p> + +<p>Vick is either in hot pursuit of, or hot flight from, the tomcat; all +her four legs are quivering and kicking in a mimic gallop.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember," say I, again speaking, and again prefacing my words +by an uneasy laugh, "how the boys at home used always to laugh at me, +because I never knew how to flirt, nor had any pretty ways? Do you +think"—(speaking slowly and hesitatingly)—"that boys—one's brothers, +I mean—would be good judges of that sort of thing?"</p> + +<p>"As good as any one else's brothers, I suppose," she says, with a low +laugh, but still looking puzzled; "but why do you ask?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know," reply I, trying to speak carelessly; "it came into my +head."</p> + +<p>"Has any one been accusing you?" she says, a little curiously, "But no! +who <i>could</i>? You have seen no one, not even—"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" interrupt I, shrinking from the sound of the name that I know +is coming; "of course not; no one!"</p> + +<p>The clock strikes eleven, and wakes Vick. Barbara rises, rolls up her +knitting, and, going over to the fireplace, stands with one white elbow +resting on the chimney-piece, and slender neck drooped, pensively gazing +at the low fire.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," she says, with a half-confused smile, that is also tinged +with a little anxiety, "I have been thinking—it is the first time for +three months that he has not been here at all, either in the morning, +the afternoon, or the evening!"</p> + +<p>"Is it?" say I, slightly shivering.</p> + +<p>"I think," she says, with a rather embarrassed laugh, "that he must have +heard <i>you</i> were out, and that that was why he did not come. You know I +always tell you that he likes you best."</p> + +<p>She says it, as a joke, and yet her great eyes are looking at me with a +sort of wistfulness, but neither to <i>them</i> nor to her words can I make +any answer.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Next morning I am sitting before my looking-glass—never to me a +pleasant article of furniture—having my hair dressed. I am hardly awake +yet, and have not quite finished disentangling the real live +disagreeables which I have to face, from the imaginary ones from which +my waking has freed me. At least, in real life, I am not perpetually +pursued, through dull abysses, by a man in a crape mask, from whom I am +madly struggling to escape, and who is perpetually on the point of +overtaking and seizing me.</p> + +<p>It was a mistake going to sleep at all last night. It would have been +far wiser and better to have kept awake. The <i>real</i> evils are bad +enough, but the dream ones in their vivid life make me shiver even now, +though the morning sun is lying in companionable patches on the floor, +and the birds are loudly talking all together. Do <i>no</i> birds ever +listen?</p> + +<p>Distracted for a moment from my own miseries, by the noise of their soft +yet sharp hubbub, I am thinking this, when a knock comes at the door, +and the next moment Barbara enters. Her blond hair is tumbled about her +shoulders; no white rose's cheeks are paler than hers; in her hand she +has a note. In a moment I have dismissed the maid, and we are alone.</p> + +<p>"I want you to read this!" she says, in an even and monotonous voice, +from which, by an effort whose greatness I can dimly guess, she keeps +all sound of trembling.</p> + +<p>I have risen and turned from the glass; but now my knees shake under me +so much that I have to sit down again. She comes behind me, so that I +may no longer see her: and putting her arms round my neck, and hiding +her face in my unfinished hair, says, whisperingly:</p> + +<p>"Do not fret about it, Nancy!—I do not mind much."</p> + +<p>Then she breaks into quiet tears.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that he has had the <i>insolence</i> to write to you," I +cry, in a passion of indignation, forgetting for the moment Barbara's +ignorance of what has occurred, and only reminded of it by the look of +wonder that, as I turn on my chair to face her, I see come into her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Have not you been expecting him every day to write to me?" she asks, +with a little wonder in her tone; "but <i>read</i>!" (pointing to the note, +and laughing with a touch of bitterness), "you will soon see that there +is no <i>insolence</i> here."</p> + +<p>I had quite as lief, in my present state of mind, touch a yard-long +wriggling ground-worm, or a fat wood-louse, as paper that his fingers +have pressed; but I overcome my repulsion, and unfold the note.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Miss Grey:</span></p> + +<p>"Can I do any thing for you in town? I am going up there to-morrow, +and shall thence, I think, run over to the Exhibition. I have no +doubt that it is just like all the others; but <i>not</i> to have seen +it will set one at a disadvantage with one's fellows. I am afraid +that there is no chance of your being still at Tempest when I +return. I shall be most happy to undertake any commissions.</p> + +<p>"Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">F. Musgrave</span>"</p></div> + +<p>The note drops from my fingers, rolls on to my lap, and thence to the +ground. I sit in stiff and stupid silence. To tell the truth, I am +trying strongly to imagine how I should look and what I should say, were +I as ignorant of causes as Barbara thinks me, and to look and speak +accordingly.</p> + +<p>She kneels down beside me, and softly drawing down my face, till it is +on a level with hers, and our cheeks touch, says in a tone of gentle +entreaty and compassion, as if <i>I</i> were the one to be considered—the +prime sufferer:</p> + +<p>"Do not fret about it, Nancy! it is of no—no consequence!—there is no +harm done!"</p> + +<p>I struggle to say <i>something</i>, but for the life of me I can frame no +words.</p> + +<p>"It was my own fancy!" she says, faltering, "I suppose my vanity misled +me!"</p> + +<p>"It is all my fault!" cry I, suddenly finding passionate words, starting +up, and beginning to walk feverishly to and fro—"<i>all!</i>—there never +was any one in all this world so blind, so ill-judging, so miserably +mistaken! If it had not been for me, you never would have thought twice +of him—never; and I"—(beginning to speak with weeping +indistinctness)—"I thought it would be so nice to have you near me—I +thought that there was nothing the matter with him, but his temper; +<i>many</i> men are ill-tempered—nearly <i>all</i>. If" (tightly clinching my +hands, and setting my teeth) "I had had any idea of his being the +<i>scoundrel</i> that he is—"</p> + +<p>"But he is not," she interrupts quickly, wincing a little at my words; +"indeed he is not! What ill have we heard from him? If you do not mind" +(laying her hand with gentle entreaty on my arm), "I had rather, <i>far</i> +rather, that you did not say any thing hard of him! I was always so glad +that you and he were such friends—always—and I do not know why—there +is no sense in it; but I am glad of it still."</p> + +<p>"We were <i>not</i> friends," say I, writhing a little; "why do you say so?"</p> + +<p>She looks at me with a great and unfeigned astonishment.</p> + +<p>"<i>Not friends!</i>" she echoes, slowly repeating my words; then, seeing the +expression of my face, stops suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Are you <i>sure</i>," cry I, feverishly snatching her hands and looking with +searching anxiety into her face, "that you spoke truth just now?—that +you do not mind much—that you will get over it!—that it will not +<i>kill</i> you?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Kill</i> me!" she says, with a little sorrowful smile of derision; "no, +no! I am not so easily killed."</p> + +<p>"Are you <i>sure</i>?" persist I, with a passionate eagerness, still reading +her tear-stained face, "that it will not take the taste out of every +thing?—that it will not make you hate all your life?—it would me."</p> + +<p>"<i>Quite</i> sure!—certain!" she says, looking back at me with a steady +meekness, though her blue eyes brim over; "because God has taken from me +<i>one</i> thing—one that I never had any right to expect—should I do well, +do you think, to quarrel with all that He has left me?"</p> + +<p>I cannot answer; her godly patience is too high a thing for me.</p> + +<p>"Even if my life <i>were</i> spoilt," she goes on, after a moment or two, her +voice gaining firmness, and her face a pale serenity, "even if it +were—but it is <i>not</i>—indeed it is not. In a very little while it will +seem to me as good and pleasant and full as ever; but even if it <i>were</i>" +(looking at me with a lovely confidence in her eyes), "it would be no +such very great matter—<i>this</i> life is not every thing!"</p> + +<p>"Is not it?" say I, with a doubting shiver. "Who can tell you that? who +knows?"</p> + +<p>"<i>No one</i> has been to blame," she continues, with a gentle +persistence. "I should like you to see that! There has been only +a—a—<i>mistake</i>"—(her voice failing a little again), "a mistake that +has been corrected in time, and for which no one—<i>no one</i>, Nancy, is +the worse!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>So this is the way in which Barbara's hope dies! Our hopes have as many +ways of dying as our bodies. Sometimes they pine and fall into a slow +consumption, we nursing, cockering, and physicking them to the last. +Sometimes they fall down dead suddenly, as one that in full health, with +his bones full of marrow, and his eyes full of light, drops wordless +into the next world unaware. This last has been Barbara's case. When she +thought it healthiest, and most vigorous in its stalwart life, then the +death-mark was on it. To most of us, O friends, troubles are as great +stones cast unexpectedly on a smooth road; over which, in a dark night, +we trip, and grumblingly stumble, cursing, and angrily bruising our +limbs. To a few of us, they are ladders, by which we climb to God; +hills, that lift us nearer heaven—that heaven, which, however +certainly—with whatever mathematical precision—it has been +demonstrated to us that it exists not here, nor there, nor yet anywhere, +we still dimly, with yearning tears and high longings, grasp at. Barbara +has always looked heavenward. In all her mirth, God has mixed. Now, +therefore, in this grief that He has sent her—this ignoble grief, that +yet cuts the none less deeply for being ignoble, and excluding the +solace of human sympathy, she but thrusts her hand with a fuller +confidence in his, and fixes her sweet eyes with a more reverent surety +on the one prime consoler of humankind, who, from his Cross, has looked +royally down the toiling centuries—the king, whom this generation, +above all generations, is laboring—and, as not a few think, +<i>successfully</i>—to discrown. To her, his kingship is as unquestioned as +when heretics and paynims burnt to prove it.</p> + +<p>Often, since then, in those vain longings that come to each of us, I +suppose, I tried in after-days—sometimes I try now, to stretch my arms +out wide-backward toward the past—to speak the words that would have +been as easily spoken then as any other—that no earthly power can ever +make spoken words now, of sympathy and appreciation to Barbara.</p> + +<p>I did say loving things, but they seem to me now to have been but scant +and shabby. Why did not I say a great many more? Oh, all of you who live +with those that are dearer to you than they seem, tell them every day +how much you love them! at the risk of <i>wearying</i> them, tell them, I +pray you: it will save you, perhaps, many after-pangs.</p> + +<p>I think that, at this time, there are in me <i>two</i> Nancys—Barbara's +Nancy, and Roger's Nancy; the one so vexed, thwarted, and humiliated in +spirit, that she feels as if she never could laugh quite heartily again; +the other, so utterly and triumphantly glad, that any future tears or +trials seem to her in the highest degree improbable. And Barbara herself +is on the side of this latter. From her hopeful speech and her smiles, +you would think that some good news had come to her—that she was on the +eve of some long-looked-for, yet hardly-hoped prosperity. Not that she +is unnaturally or hysterically lively—an error into which many, making +such an effort and struggle for self-conquest, would fall. Barbara's +mirth was never noisy, as mine and the boys' so often was. Perhaps—nay, +I have often thought since, <i>certainly</i>—she weeps as she prays, in +secret; but God is the only One who knows of her tears, as of her +prayers. She has always been one to go halves in her pleasures, but of +her sorrows she will give never a morsel to any one.</p> + +<p>Her very quietness under her trouble—her silence under it—her +equanimity—mislead me. It is the impulse of any hurt thing to cry out. +I, myself, have always done it. Half unconsciously, I am led by this +reasoning to think that Barbara's wound cannot be very deep, else would +she shrink and writhe beneath it. So I talk to her all day, with +merciless length, about Roger. I go through all the old queries. I again +critically examine my face, and arrive—not only at the former +conclusion, that one side is worse-looking than the other, but also that +it looks ten years older.</p> + +<p>I have my flax hair built in many strange and differing fashions, and +again <i>un</i>built: piled high, to give me height; twisted low, in a vain +endeavor to liken me to the Greeks; curled, plaited, frizzed, and again +unfrizzed. I institute a searching and critical examination of my +wardrobe, rejecting this and that; holding one color against my cheek, +to see whether my pallor will be able to bear it; turning away from +another with a grimace of self-disgust.</p> + +<p>And this is the same "<i>I</i>," who thought it so little worth while to win +the good opinion of father's blear-eyed old friend, that I went to my +first meeting with him with a scorched face, loose hair, tottering, all +through prayers, on the verge of a descent about my neck, and a large +round hole, smelling horribly of singeing, burnt in the very front of my +old woolen frock.</p> + +<p>His coming is near now. This <i>very</i> day I shall see him come in that +door. He will sit in that chair. His head will dent that cushion. I +shall sit on a footstool at his feet. The better to imagine the +position, I push a footstool into the desired neighborhood to Roger's +arm-chair, and already see myself, with the eye of faith, in solid +reality occupying it. I rehearse all the topics that will engage my +tongue. The better to realize their effect upon him, I give utterance +out loud to the many greetings, to the numberless fond and pretty things +with which I mean to load him.</p> + +<p>He always looked so very joyful when I said any little civil thing to +him, and I so seldom, <i>seldom</i> did. Ah! we will change all that! He +shall be nauseated with sweets. And then, still sitting by him, holding +his hand, and with my head (dressed in what I finally decide upon as the +becomingest fashion) daintily rested on his arm, I will tell him all my +troubles. I will tell him of Algy's estrangement, his cold looks and +harsh words. Without any outspoken or bitter abuse of her, I will yet +manage cunningly to set him on his guard against Mrs. Huntley. I will +lament over Bobby to him. Yes, I will tell him <i>all</i> my troubles—<i>all</i>, +that is, with one reservation.</p> + +<p>Barbara is no longer here. She has gone home.</p> + +<p>"You will be better by yourselves," she says, gently, when she announces +her intention of going. "He will like it better. I should if I were he. +It will be like a new honey-moon."</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> it will not," reply I, stoutly, recollecting how much I yawned, +and how largely Mr. Musgrave figured in the first. "I have no opinion of +honey-moons; no more would <i>you</i> if you had <i>had</i> one."</p> + +<p>"<i>Should</i> not I?" speaking a little absently, while her eyes stray +through the window to the serene coldness of the sky, and the pallid +droop of the snow-drops in the garden-border.</p> + +<p>"You are sure," say I, earnestly, taking her light hand in mine, "that +you are not going because you think that you are not <i>wanted</i> now—that +now, that I have my—my own property again" (smiling irrepressibly), "I +can do very well without you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Quite</i> sure, Nancy!" looking back into my eager eyes with confident +affection.</p> + +<p>"And you will come back <i>very</i> soon? <i>very?</i>"</p> + +<p>"When you quarrel," she answers, her face dimpling into a laugh, "I will +come and make it up between you."</p> + +<p>"You must come before <i>then</i>," say I, with a proud smile, "or your visit +is likely to be indefinitely postponed."</p> + +<p>Roger and I quarrel! We both find the idea so amusing that we laugh in +concert.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Gertrude.</i> Is my knight come? O the Lord, my band! Sister, do my +cheeks look well? Give me a little box o' the ear, that I may seem +to blush."—<span class="smcap">Eastward Hoe.</span></p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>She is gone now. The atmosphere of the house seems less clear, less +pure, now that she has left it. As she drives away, it seems to me, +looking after her, that no flower ever had a modester face, a more +delicate bloom. If I had time to think about it, I should fret sorely +after her, I should grievously miss her; but I have none.</p> + +<p>The carriage that takes her to the station is to wait half an hour, and +then bring back Roger. There is, therefore, not more than enough time +for me to make the careful and lengthy toilet, on which I have expended +so much painstaking thought. I have deferred making it till now, so that +I may appear in perfect dainty freshness, as if I had just emerged from +the manifold silver papers of a bandbox, before him when he +arrives—that not a hair of my flax head may be displaced from its silky +sweep; that there may be no risk of Vick jumping up, and defiling me +with muddy paws that know no respect of clothes.</p> + +<p>I take a long time over it. I snub my maid more than I ever did in my +life before. But I am complete now; to the last pin I am finished. +Perhaps—though this does not strike me till the last moment—perhaps I +am rather, nay, more than <i>rather</i>, overdressed for the occasion. But +surely this, in a person who has not long been in command of fine +clothes, and even in that short time has had very few opportunities of +airing them, is pardonable.</p> + +<p>You remember that it is February. Well, then, this is the warm splendor +in which I am clad. Genoa velvet, of the color of a dark sapphire, +trimmed with silver-fox fur; and my head crowned with a mob-cap, +concerning which I am in doubt, and should be nervously glad to have the +boys here to enlighten me as to whether it is very becoming or rather +ridiculous. The object of the mob-cap is to approximate my age to +Roger's, and to assure all such as the velvet and fur leave in doubt, +that I am entitled to take my stand among the portly ranks of British +matrons.</p> + +<p>"Algy was right," say I, soliloquizing aloud, as I stand before the long +cheval glass, with a back-hair glass in one hand, by whose aid I correct +my errors in the profile, three-quarters or back view; "mine is not the +most hopeless kind of ugliness. It is certainly modifiable by dress."</p> + +<p>So saying, I lay down the hand-glass, and walk sedately down-stairs, +holding my head stiffly erect, and looking over my shoulder, like a +child, at the effect of my blue train sweeping down the steps after me.</p> + +<p>Arrived in my boudoir, I go and stand by the window, though there are +yet ten minutes before he is due. Once I open the casement to listen, +but hastily close it again, afraid lest the wintry wind should ruffle +the satin smoothness of my hair, or push the mob-cap awry. Then I sit +carefully down, and, harshly repulsing an overture on the part of Vick +to jump into my lap, fix my eyes upon the dark bare boughs of the tall +and distant elms, from between which I shall see him steal into sight. +The time ticks slowly on. He is due now. Five more lame, crawling +minutes—ten!—no sign of him. Again I rise, unclose the casement, and +push my matronly head a little way out to listen. Yes! yes! there is the +distant but not doubtful sound of a horse's four hoofs smartly trotting +and splashing along the muddy road. Three minutes more, and the sun +catches and brightly gleams on one of the quickly-turning wheels of the +dog-cart as it rolls toward me, between the wintry trees.</p> + +<p>At first I cannot see the occupants; the boughs and twigs interpose to +hide them; but presently the dog-cart emerges into the open. There is +only one person in it!</p> + +<p>At first I decline to believe my own eyes. I rub them. I stretch my head +farther out. Alas! self-deception is no longer possible: the groom +returns as he went—alone. Roger has <i>not</i> come!</p> + +<p>The dog-cart turns toward the stables, and I run to the bell and pull it +violently. I can hardly wait till it is answered. At last, after an +interval, which seems to me like twenty minutes, but which that false, +cold-blooded clock proclaims to be <i>two</i>, the footman enters.</p> + +<p>"Sir Roger has not come," I say more affirmatively than interrogatively, +for I have no doubt on the subject. "Why did not the groom wait for the +next train?"</p> + +<p>"If you please, my lady, Sir Roger <i>has</i> come."</p> + +<p>"<i>Has come!</i>" repeat I, in astonishment, opening my eyes; "then where is +he?"</p> + +<p>"He is walking up, my lady."</p> + +<p>"What! all the way from Bishopsthorpe?" cry I, incredulously, thinking +of the five miry miles that intervene between us and that station. +"<i>Impossible!</i>"</p> + +<p>"No, my lady, not all the way; only from Mrs. Huntley's."</p> + +<p>I feel the color rushing away from my cheeks, and turn quickly aside, +that my change of countenance may not be perceived.</p> + +<p>"Did he get out there?" I ask, faintly.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Huntley was at the gate, my lady, and Sir Roger got down to speak +to her, and bid James drive on and tell your ladyship he would be here +directly."</p> + +<p>"Very well," say I, unsteadily, still averting my face, "that will do."</p> + +<p>He is gone, and I need no longer mind what color my face is, nor what +shape of woeful jealousy my late so complacent features assume.</p> + +<p>So <i>this</i> is what comes of thinking life such a grand and pleasant +thing, and this world such a lovely, satisfying paradise! Wait long +enough—(I have not had to wait very long for my part)—and every sweet +thing turns to gall-like bitterness between one's teeth! The experience +of a few days ago might have taught me <i>that</i>, one would think, but I +was dull to thick-headedness. I required <i>two</i> lessons—the second, oh +how far harsher than even the first!</p> + +<p>In a moment I have taken my resolution. I am racing up-stairs. I have +reached my room. I do not summon my maid. One requires no assistance to +enable one to <i>un</i>build, deface, destroy. In a <i>second</i>—in much less +time than it takes me to write it—I have torn off the mob-cap, and +thrown it on the floor. If I had done what I wished, if I had yielded to +my first impulse, I should also have trampled upon it; but from the +extremity of petulance, I am proud to be able to tell you that I +refrain. With rapid fingers I unbutton my blue-velvet gown, and step out +of it, leaving it in a costly heap on the floor. Then I open the high +folding-doors of the wardrobe, and run my eye over its contents; but the +most becoming is no longer what I seek. For a moment or two I stand +undecided, then my eye is caught by a venerable garment, loathly and +ill-made, which I had before I married, and have since kept, more as a +relic than any thing else—a gown of that peculiar shade of sallow, +bilious, Bismarck brown, which is the most trying to the paleness of my +skin. Before any one could say "Jack Robinson," it is down, and I am in +it. Then, without even a parting smooth to the hair, which the violent +off-tearing of my cap must have roughened and disheveled, I go +down-stairs and reënter the boudoir. As I do so, I catch an accidental +glimpse of myself in a glass. Good Heavens! Can three minutes (for I +really have not been longer about it) have wrought such a monstrous +metamorphosis? Is every woman as utterly dependent for her charms upon +her <i>husk</i> as I am? Can this sad, sallow slip of a girl be the beaming, +shapely, British matron I contemplated with so innocently pleased an eye +half an hour ago? If, in all my designs, I could have the perfect +success which has crowned my efforts at self-disfigurement, I should be +among the most prosperous of my species.</p> + +<p>I sit down as far from the window as the dimensions of the room will +allow, call Vick, who comes at first sneakingly and doubtful of her +reception, up on my lap, and take a book. It is the one nearest to my +hand, and I plunge into it haphazard in the middle.</p> + +<p>This is the sentence that first greets me: "Her whole heart was in her +boy. She often feared that she loved him too much—more than God +himself—yet she could not bear to pray to have her love for her child +lessened."</p> + +<p>Not a very difficult one to construe, is it? and yet, having come to the +end, and found that it conveyed no glimmering of an idea to my mind, I +begin it over again.</p> + +<p>"Her whole heart was in her boy. She often feared that she loved him too +much—more than God himself—yet she could not bear to pray to have her +love for her child lessened."</p> + +<p>Still no better! What <i>is</i> it all about?</p> + +<p>I begin over again.</p> + +<p>"Her whole heart was in her boy," etc. I go through this process ten +times. I should go through it twenty, or even thirty, for I am resolved +to go on reading, but at the end of the tenth, my ear—unconsciously +strained—catches the sound of a step at the stair-foot. It is not the +footman's. It is firmer, heavier, and yet quicker.</p> + +<p>Eight weary months is it since I last heard that footfall. My heart +pulses with mad haste, my cheeks throb, but I sit still, and hold the +book before my eyes. I will <i>not</i> go to meet him. I will be as +indifferent as he! When he opens the door, I will not even look round, I +will be too much immersed in the page before me.</p> + +<p>"Her whole heart was in her boy. She often feared that—"</p> + +<p>The door-handle is turning. I <i>cannot</i> help it! Against my will, my head +turns too. With no volition of my own—against my firmest intention—my +feet carry me hastily toward him. My arms stretch themselves out. Thank +God! thank God! whatever happens afterward, I shall still thank God, and +call him good for allowing it. I am in Roger's embrace. No more +mistakes! no more delays! he is here, and I am kissing him as I never +kissed any one—as I certainly never kissed <i>him</i> in my life before.</p> + +<p>Well, I suppose that in every life there are <i>some</i> moments that are +<i>absolutely</i> good—that one could not mend even if one were given the +power to try! I suppose that even those who, looking back over their +history, say, most distinctly and certainly, "It was a failure," can yet +lay the finger of memory on <i>some</i> such gold minutes—it may be only +half a dozen, only four, only <i>two</i>—but still on some.</p> + +<p>This is one of my gold moments, one of those misplaced ones +that have strayed out of heaven, where, perhaps, they are <i>all</i> +such—<i>perhaps</i>—one can't be <i>sure</i>, for what human imagination can +grasp the idea of even a <i>day</i>, wholly made of such minutes?</p> + +<p>I have forgotten Mrs. Huntley—Mr. Musgrave. Every ill suspicion, every +stinging remembrance, is dead or fallen into a trance. All bad thoughts +have melted away from the earth. Only joyful love and absolute faith +remain, only the knowledge that Roger is mine, and I am his, and that we +are in each other's arms. I do not know how long we remain without +speaking. I do not imagine that souls in bliss ever think of looking at +the clock. He is the first to break silence. For the first time for +eight months I hear his voice again—the voice that for so many weeks +seemed to me no better than any other voice—whose tones I <i>now</i> feel I +could pick out from those of any other living thing, did all creation +shout together.</p> + +<p>"Let me look at my wife!" he says, taking my countenance in his tender +hands, as if it were made of old china, and would break if he let it +fall. "I feel as if I had never <i>had</i> a wife before, as if it were quite +a new plaything."</p> + +<p>I make no verbal answer. I am staring up with all my eyes into his face, +thinking, with a sort of wonder, how much goodlier, younger, statelier +it is than it has appeared to me in any of those dream-pictures, which +yet mostly flatter.</p> + +<p>"My wife! my wife!" he says, speaking the words most softly, as if they +greatly pleased him, and replacing with carefullest fingers a stray and +arrant lock that has wandered from its fellows into my left eye. "What +has come to you? Had I forgotten what you were like? How pretty you are! +How well you look!"</p> + +<p>"Do I?" say I, with a pleasant simper; then, with a sudden and +overwhelming recollection of the bilious gingery frock, and the tousled +hair, "No, nonsense!" I say, uneasily, "impossible! You are laughing at +me! Ah!"—(with a sigh of irrepressible regret and back-handed +pride)—"you should have seen me half an hour ago! I <i>did</i> look nice +<i>then</i>, if you like."</p> + +<p>"Why nicer than now?"—(with a puzzled smile that both plays about his +bearded lips and gayly shines in his steel-gray eyes).</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind! never mind!" reply I, in some confusion, "it is a long +story; it is of no consequence, but I <i>did</i>."</p> + +<p>He does not press for an explanation, for which I am obliged to him.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" he says, with a sort of hesitating joy, a diffident triumph in +his voice, "do you know, I believe you have kept your promise! I +believe, I <i>really</i> believe, that you are a little glad to see me!"</p> + +<p>"Are <i>you</i> glad to see <i>me</i>, is more to the purpose?" return I, +descending out of heaven with a pout, and returning to the small +jealousies and acerbities of earth, and to the recollection of that yet +unexplained alighting at Aninda's gate.</p> + +<p>"<i>Am I?</i>"</p> + +<p>He seems to think that no asseverations, no strong adjectives or +intensifying adverbs, no calling upon sun and moon and stars to bear +witness to his gladness, can increase the force of those two tiny words, +so he adds none.</p> + +<p>"I wonder, then," say I, in a rather sneaky and shamefaced manner, +mumbling and looking down, "that you were not in a greater hurry to get +to me?"</p> + +<p>"<i>In a greater hurry!</i>" he repeats, in an accent of acute surprise. +"Why, child, what are you talking about? Since we landed, I have neither +slept nor eaten. I drove straight across London, and have been in the +train ever since."</p> + +<p>"But—between—this—and the—station?" suggest I, slowly, having taken +hold of one of the buttons of his coat; the very one that in former +difficulties I used always to resort to.</p> + +<p>"You mean about my walking up?" he says readily, and without the +slightest trace of guilty consciousness, indeed with a distinct and open +look of pleasure; "but, my darling, how could I tell how long she would +keep me? poor little woman!" (beginning to laugh and to put back the +hair from his tanned forehead). "I am afraid I did not bless her when I +saw her standing at her gate! I had half a mind to ask her whether +another time would not do as well, but she looked so eager to hear about +her husband—you know I have been seeing him at St. Thomas—such a +wistful little face—and I knew that she could not keep me more than ten +minutes; and, altogether when I thought of her loneliness and my own +luck—"</p> + +<p>He breaks off.</p> + +<p>"Are you so sure she <i>is</i> lonely?" I say, with an innocent air of asking +for information, and still working hard at the button; "are people +always lonely when their husbands are away?"</p> + +<p>He looks at me strangely for a moment; then, "Of course she is lonely, +poor little thing!" he says, warmly; "how could she help it?"</p> + +<p>A slight pause.</p> + +<p>"<i>Most</i> men," say I, jealously, "would not have thought it a hardship to +walk up and down between the laurustinus with Mrs. Zéphine, I can tell +you!"</p> + +<p>"Would not they?" he answers, indifferently. "I dare say not! she always +<i>was</i> a good little thing!"</p> + +<p>"Excellent!" reply I, with a nasty dryness, "bland, passionate, and +deeply religious!"</p> + +<p>Again he looks at me in surprise—a surprise which, after a moment's +reflection, melts and brightens into an expression of pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Did you care so much about my coming that ten minutes seemed to make a +difference?" he asks, in an eager voice. "Is it possible that you were +<i>in a hurry</i> for me?"</p> + +<p>Why cannot I speak truth, and say yes? Why does an objectlessly lying +devil make its inopportune entry into me? Through some misplaced and +crooked false shame I answer, "Not at all! not at all! of course a few +minutes one way or the other could not make much difference; I was only +puzzled to know what had become of you?"</p> + +<p>He looks a shade disappointed, and for a moment we are both silent. We +have sat down side by side on the sofa. Vick is standing on her hinder +legs, with her forepaws rested on Roger's knee. Her tail is wagging with +the strong and untiring regularity of a pendulum, and a smirk of welcome +and recognition is on her face. Roger's arm is round me, and we are +holding each other's hands, but we are no longer in heaven. I could not +tell you <i>why</i>, but we are not. Some stupid constraint—quite of +earth—has fallen upon me. Where are all those most tender words, those +profuse endearments with which I meant to have greeted him?</p> + +<p>"And so it is actually true!" he says, with a long-drawn sigh of relief; +his eyes wandering round the room, and taking in all the familiar +objects; "there is no mistake about it! I am actually holding your real +live hand" (turning it gently about and softly considering the long +slight fingers and pink palm)—"in mine! Ah! my dear, how often, how +often I have held it so in my dreams! Have you ever" (speaking with a +sort of doubtfulness and uncertain hope)—"have you ever—no, I dare say +not—so held mine?"</p> + +<p>The diffident passion in his voice for once destroys that vile +constraint, dissipates that idiotic sense of bashfulness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Scores</i> of times!" I answer, letting my head drop on his shoulder, and +not taking the trouble to raise it again.</p> + +<p>"I never <i>used</i> to think myself of a very nervous turn!" he says, +presently, with a smile. "Nancy, you will laugh at me, but I assure you +upon my honor that all the way home I have been in the most abject and +deadly fright: at every puff of wind I thought we were infallibly going +to the bottom: whenever the carriage rocked in the least to-day on the +way down, I made up my mind we were going to smash! Little woman, what +can a bit of a thing like you have done to me to make me seem so much +more valuable to myself than I have ever done these eight-and-forty +years?"</p> + +<p>I think no answer to this so suitable and seemly as a dumb friction of +my left cheek against the rough cloth of the shoulder on which it has +reposed itself.</p> + +<p>"Talk to me, Nancy!" he says, in a quiet half-whisper of happiness. "Let +me hear the sound of your voice! I am sick of my own; I have had a glut +of that all these weary eight months; tell me about them all! How are +they all? how are the boys?" (with a playful smile of recollection at +what used to be my <i>one</i> subject, the one theme on which I was wont to +wax illimitably diffuse). But now, at the magic name no pleasant +garrulity overcomes me; only the remembrance of my worries; of all those +troubles that I mean now to transfer from my own to Roger's broad +shoulders, swoop down upon me.</p> + +<p>I raise my head and speak with a clouded brow and a complaining tone.</p> + +<p>"The Brat has gone back to Oxford," I say, gloomily; "Bobby has gone to +Hong-Kong, and Algy has gone to <i>the dogs</i>—or at least is going there +as hard as he can!"</p> + +<p>"<i>To the dogs?</i>" (with an accent of surprise and concern); "what do you +mean? what has sent him there?"</p> + +<p>"You had better ask Mrs. Zéphine," reply I, bitterly, thinking, with a +lively exasperation, of the changed and demoralized Algy I had last +seen—soured, headstrong, and unhinged.</p> + +<p>"<i>Zéphine!</i>" (repeating the name with an accent of thorough +astonishment), "what on earth can <i>she</i> have to say to it?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, <i>what</i>?" reply I, with oracular spite; then, overcome with remorse +at the thought of the way in which I was embittering the first moments +of his return, I rebury my face in his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I will tell you about that to-morrow," I say; "to-day is a good day, +and we will talk only of good things and of good people."</p> + +<p>He does not immediately answer. My remark seems to have buried him in +thought. Presently he shakes off his distraction and speaks again.</p> + +<p>"And Barbara? how is she? <i>She</i> has not" (beginning to laugh)—"<i>she</i> +has not gone to the dogs, I suppose!"</p> + +<p>"No," say I, slowly, not thinking of what I am saying, but with my +thoughts wandering off to the greatest and sorest of my afflictions, +"not yet."</p> + +<p>"And" (smiling) "your plan. See what a good memory I have—your plan of +marrying her to Musgrave, how does that work?"</p> + +<p>"<i>My</i> plan!" cry I, tremulously, while a sudden torrent of scarlet pours +all over my face and neck. "I do not know what you are talking about! I +never had any such plan! Phew!" (lifting up the arm that is round my +waist, hastily removing it, rising and going to the window), "how hot +this room grows of an afternoon!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>So the king enjoys his own again, and Roger is at home. Not yet—and now +it is the next morning—has his return become <i>real</i> to me. Still there +is something phantom and visionary about it: still it seems to me open +to question whether, if I look away from him for a moment, he may not +melt and disappear into dream-land.</p> + +<p>All through breakfast I am dodging and peeping from behind the urn to +assure myself of the continued presence and substantial reality of the +strong shoulders and bronze-colored face that so solidly and certainly +face me. As often as I catch his eye—and this is not seldom, for +perhaps he too has his misgivings about me—I smile, in a manner, half +ashamed, half sneaky, and yet most wholly satisfied.</p> + +<p>The sun, who is not by any means <i>always</i> so well-judging, often hiding +his face with both hands from a wedding, and hotly and gaudily flaming +down on a black funeral, is shining with a temperate February comeliness +in at our windows, on our garden borders; trying (and failing) to warm +up the passionless melancholy of the chilly snow-drop families, trying +(and succeeding) to add his quota to the joy that already fills and +occupies our two hearts.</p> + +<p>"How fine it is!" I cry, flying with unmatronly agility to the window, +and playing a waltz on the pane. "That is right! I should have been so +angry if it had rained; let us come out at once—I want to hear your +opinion about the laurels; they want cutting badly, but I could not have +them touched while you were away, though Bobby's fingers—when he was +here—itched to be hacking at them. Come, I have got on my strong boots +on purpose!—<i>at once</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>At once?</i>" he repeats, a little doubtfully turning over the letters +that lie in a heap beside his plate. "Well, I do not know about +<i>that</i>—duty first, and pleasure afterward. Had not I better go to +Zéphine Huntley's <i>first</i>, and get it over?"</p> + +<p>"To <i>Zéphine Huntley's</i>?" repeat I, my fingers suddenly breaking off in +the middle of their tune, as I turn quickly round to face him; the smile +disappearing from my face, and my jaw lengthening; "you do not mean to +say that you are going there <i>again</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>again</i>!" he answers, laughing a little, and slightly mimicking my +tragic tone; "why not, Nancy?"</p> + +<p>I make no answer. I turn away and look out; but I see a different +landscape. It looks to me as if I were regarding it through dark-blue +glass.</p> + +<p>"I have got a whole sheaf of letters and papers from her husband for +her," pursues Roger, apparently calmly, and utterly unaware of my +discomfiture, "and I do not want to keep her out of them longer than I +can help."</p> + +<p>Still I make no rejoinder. My fingers stray idly up and down the glass; +but it is no longer a giddy waltz that they are executing—if it is a +tune at all, it is some little dirge.</p> + +<p>"What has happened to you, Nancy?" says Roger, presently, becoming aware +of my silence, rising and following me; "what are you doing—catching +flies?"</p> + +<p>"No," reply I, with an acrid smartness, "not I! I leave that to Mrs. +Zéphine."</p> + +<p>Once again he regards me with that look of unfeigned surprise, tinged +with a little pain which yesterday I detected on his face. When I look +at him, when my eyes rest on the brave and open honesty of his, my ugly, +nipping doubts disappear.</p> + +<p>"Do not go," say I, standing on tiptoe, so that my hands may reach his +neck, and clasp it, speaking in my most beguiling half-whisper; "why +should you fetch and carry for her? let John or William take her +letters. Are you so sure" (with an irresistible sneer) "that she is in +such a hurry for them?—stay with me this <i>one first</i> day!—<i>do, +please—Roger.</i>"</p> + +<p>It is the first time in all my history that I have succeeded in +delivering myself of his Christian name to his face—frequently as I +have fired it off in dialogues with myself, behind his back. It shoots +out now with the loud suddenness of a mismanaged soda-water cork.</p> + +<p>"<i>Roger!</i>" he repeats, in an accent of keen pleasure, catching me to his +heart; "what! I am <i>Roger</i>, after all, am I? The 'general' has gone to +glory at last, has he?—thank God!"</p> + +<p>"I will ring and tell John at once," say I, with subtile amiability, +disengaging myself from his arms, and walking quickly toward the bell.</p> + +<p>"Stay!" he says, putting his hand on me in detention, before I have made +two steps; "you must not! it is no use! John will not do, or William +either: it is a matter of business. I have" (sighing) "to go through +many of these papers with her."</p> + +<p>"<i>You?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>I</i>; why is that so surprising?"</p> + +<p>"What possible concern is it of <i>yours</i>?" ask I, throwing the reins on +the neck of my indignation, and urging that willing steed to a sharp +gallop, crimsoning as I speak, and raising my voice, as has ever been +our immemorial wont in home-broils. "For my part, I never saw any good +come of people putting their fingers into their neighbors' pies!"</p> + +<p>"Not even if those neighbors are the oldest friends they have in the +world?" he says, gently, yet eying with some wonder—perhaps +apprehension, for odd things frighten men—the small scarlet scold who +stands swelling with ruffled feathers, and angry eyes, winking to keep +the tears out of them, before him.</p> + +<p>"I thought <i>father</i> was the oldest friend you had in the world!" say I, +with a jealous tartness; "you always <i>used</i> to tell us so."</p> + +<p>"<i>Some</i> of my oldest friends, then," he answers, looking a little +amused, "since you will have me so exact."</p> + +<p>"If Mrs. Huntley is the oldest friend you have in the world," say I, +acrimoniously, still sticking to his first and most offensive form of +expression, and <i>heavily</i> accenting it, "I wonder that you never +happened to mention her existence before you went."</p> + +<p>"So do I," he says, a little thoughtfully. "I am not much of a friend, +am I? but—" (looking at me with that sincere and hearty tenderness +which, as long as I am under its immediate influence, always disarms me) +"my head was full of other things; and people drop out of one's life so; +I had neither seen nor heard of her since—since she married."</p> + +<p>("Since she was engaged to you," say I, mentally interlining this +statement, "and threw you over because you were not rich enough! why +cannot you be honest and say so?") but aloud I give utterance to nothing +but a shrewish and disbelieving "Hm!"</p> + +<p>A pause. I do not know what Roger is thinking of, but I am following out +my own train of thought; the fruit of which is this observation, made +with an air of reflection:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Huntley is a very rich man, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>Roger laughs.</p> + +<p>"<i>Rich!</i> poor Huntley! that is the very last thing his worst enemy could +accuse him of! why, he was obliged to run the constable two years ago."</p> + +<p>"But I suppose," say I, slowly, "that he was better off—<i>well</i> off +once—when she married him, for instance?"</p> + +<p>"How did you know that?" he asks, a little surprised. "Who told you? +Yes; at that time he was looked upon as quite a <i>parti</i>."</p> + +<p>"Better off than <i>you</i>, I suppose?" say I, still speaking slowly, and +reading the carpet. "I mean than you were then?"</p> + +<p>Again he laughs.</p> + +<p>"He might easily have been that? I had nothing but my younger son's +portion and my pay; why, Nancy, I had an idea that I had told you that +before."</p> + +<p>"I dare say you did," reply I, readily, "but I like to hear it again."</p> + +<p>Yet another pause.</p> + +<p>"He is badly off <i>now</i>, then," say I, presently, with a faintly +triumphant accent.</p> + +<p>"About as badly off as it is possible to be," answers Roger, very +gravely; "that is my business with his wife; she and I are trying to +make an arrangement with his creditors, to enable him to come home."</p> + +<p>"To come home!" echo I, raising my eyebrows in an artless astonishment; +"but if he <i>does</i> come home, what will become of Algy and the <i>rest of +them</i>?"</p> + +<p>"The rest of <i>whom</i>?" asks Roger, but there is such a severity in his +eye as he puts the question that it is not too much to say I <i>dare not</i> +explain. The one thing hated of Roger's soul—the one thing for which he +has no tolerance, and on which he brings to bear all the weight of his +righteous wrath, is <i>scandal</i>. Not even me will he allow to nibble at a +neighbor's fame.</p> + +<p>"Is she much changed since you saw her last?" pursue I presently, with +infantile guilelessness; "was her hair <i>red</i> then? some people say it +<i>used</i> to be black!"</p> + +<p>I raise my eyes to his face as I put this gentle query, in order the +better to trace its effect; but the concern that I see in his +countenance is so very much greater than any that I had intended to have +summoned that I have no sooner hurled my dart than I repent me of having +done it.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" he says, putting one hand under my chin, and stroking my hair +with the other—"am I going to have a <i>backbiting</i> wife? Child! child! +there was neither hatred nor malice in the little girl I found sitting +at the top of the wall."</p> + +<p>I do not answer.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says again, in a voice of most thorough earnestness, "I have +a favor to ask of you—I know when I put it <i>that way</i>, that you will +not say 'No;' if you do not mind, I had rather you did not abuse Zéphine +Huntley!—for the matter of that, I had rather you did not abuse any +one—it does not pay, and there is no great fun in it; but Zéphine +<i>specially</i> not."</p> + +<p>"Why <i>specially</i>?" cry I, breathing short and speaking again with a +quick, raised voice. "I know that it is a bad plan abusing people, you +need not tell me <i>that</i>, I know it as well as you do, and I never did it +at home, before I married, <i>never</i>!—none of them ever accused me of +it—I was always quite good-natured about people, <i>quite</i>; but why <i>she +specially</i>? why is she to be more sacred than any one else?"</p> + +<p>"It is an old story," he answers, passing his hand across his forehead +with what looks to me like a rather weary gesture and sighing, "I do not +know why I did not tell you before—did not I ever?—no, by-the-by, I +remember I never did; well, I will tell you now, and then you will +understand!"</p> + +<p>"Do not!" cry I, passionately, putting my fingers in my ears, and +growing scarlet, while the tears rush in mad haste to my eyes, for I +imagine that I well know what is coming. "I do not want to hear! I had +rather not! I <i>hate</i> old stories." He looks at me in silent dismay. "I +mean," say I, seeing that some explanation is needed, "that I know all +about it!—I have heard it already! I have been told it."</p> + +<p>"Been told it? By whom?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind by whom!" reply I, removing my fingers from my ears, and +covering with both hot hands my hotter face. "I <i>have</i> been told it! I +<i>have</i> heard it, and, what is more, I <i>will not hear it again</i>!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>When I rose this morning, I did not think that I should have cried +before night; indeed, nothing would have seemed to me so unlikely. Cry! +on the day of Roger's first back-coming! absurd! And yet now the morning +is still quite young, and I have wept abundantly.</p> + +<p>I am always rather good at crying. Tears with me do not argue any very +profound depth of affliction. My tears have always been somewhat near my +eyes, a fact well known to the boys, whom my pearly drops always leave +as stolid and unfeeling as they found them. But the case is different +with Roger. Either he is ignorant, or he has forgotten the facility with +which I weep, and his distress is proportioned to his ignorance.</p> + +<p>My eyes are dried again now, though they and my nose still keep a brave +after-glow; and Roger and I are at one again. But, for my part, on this +first day, I think it would have been pleasanter if we had never been at +two. However, smiling peace is now again restored to us, and no one, to +look at us, as we sit in my boudoir after breakfast, would think that +we, or perhaps I should say I, had been so lately employed in chasing +her away. As little would any one, looking at the blandness of Vick's +profile, as she slumbers on the window-seat in the sun, conjecture of +her master-passion for the calves of strangers' legs.</p> + +<p>"So you see that I <i>must</i> go, Nancy," says Roger, with a rather wistful +appeal to my reason, of whose supremacy he is not, perhaps, quite so +confident as he was when he got up this morning. "You understand, don't +you, dear?"</p> + +<p>I nod.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand."</p> + +<p>I still speak in a subdued and snuffly voice, but the wrath has gone out +of me.</p> + +<p>"Well, you—would you mind," he says, speaking rather hesitatingly, as +not quite sure of the reception that his proposition may meet +with—"would you mind coming with me as far as Zéphine's?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean come all the way, and go in with you, and stay while you +are there?" cry I, with great animation, as a picture of the strict +supervision which, by this course of conduct, I shall be enabled to +exercise over Mrs. Zéphine's oscillades, poses, and little verbal +tendernesses, flashes before my mind's eye.</p> + +<p>Roger looks down.</p> + +<p>"I do not know about <i>that</i>," he says, slowly. "Perhaps she would not +care to go into her husband's liabilities before a—a str—before a +third person!"</p> + +<p>"Two is company and three is none, in fact," say I, with a slight +relapse into the disdainful and snorting mood.</p> + +<p>He looks distressed, but attempts no argument or explanation.</p> + +<p>"How far did you mean me to come, then?" say I, half ashamed of my +humors, but still with an after-thought of pettishness in my voice. +"Escort you to the hall-door, I suppose, and kick my heels among the +laurestines until such time as all Mr. Huntley's bills are paid?"</p> + +<p>He turns away.</p> + +<p>"It is of no consequence," he says, with a slight shade of impatience, +and a stronger shade of disappointment in his voice. "I see that you do +not wish it, but what I meant was, that you might have walked with me as +far as the gate, so that on this first day we might lose as little of +each other's society as possible."</p> + +<p>"And so I will!" cry I, impulsively, with a rush of tardy repentance. +"I—I—<i>meant</i> to come all along. I was only—only—<i>joking</i>!"</p> + +<p>But to both of us it seems but a sorry jest. We set forth, and walk side +by side through the park. Both of us are rather silent. Yes, though we +have eight months' arrears of talk to make up, though it seemed to me +before he came that in a whole long life there would scarce be time for +all the things I had to say to him, yet, now that we are reunited, we +are stalking dumbly along through the withered white grass, pallid from +the winter storms. Certainly, we neither of us could say any thing so +well worth hearing as what the lark, in his most loud and godly joy, is +telling us from on high. Perhaps it is the knowledge of this that ties +our tongues.</p> + +<p>The sun shines on our heads. He has not much power yet, but great +good-will. And the air is almost as gentle as June. We have left our own +domain behind us, and have reached Mrs. Huntley's white gate. Through +the bars I see the sheltered laurestines all ablow.</p> + +<p>"May I wait for you here?" say I, with diffident urgency, reflecting +hopefully, as I make the suggestion, on the wholesome effect, on the +length of the interview that the knowledge of my being, flattening my +nose against the bars of the gate all through it, must necessarily have.</p> + +<p>Again he looks down, as if unwilling to meet my appealing eyes.</p> + +<p>"I think not, Nancy," he answers, reluctantly. "You see, I cannot +possibly tell how long I might be obliged to keep you waiting."</p> + +<p>"I do not mind waiting at all," persist I, eagerly. "I am not very +impatient; I shall not expect you to be very quick, and" (going on very +fast, to hinder him from the second refusal which I see hovering on his +lips), "and it is not at all cold; just now you yourself said that you +had felt many a chillier May-day, and I am so warmly wrapped up, pet!" +(taking hold of one of his fingers, and making it softly travel up and +down the fur of my thick coat).</p> + +<p>He shakes his head, with a gesture unwilling, yet decided.</p> + +<p>"No, Nancy, it could not be! I had rather that you would go home."</p> + +<p>"I have no doubt you would!" say I, turning sharply and huffily away; +then, with a sudden recollecting and repenting myself, "May I come back, +then?" I say, meekly. "Come and fetch you, I mean, after a time—any +long time that you like!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Will</i> you?" he cries, with animation, the look of unwilling refusal +vanishing from his face. "Would you <i>like</i>? would not it be too much +trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all! not at all!" reply I, affably. "How soon, then?" (taking +out my watch); "in half an hour?"</p> + +<p>Again his face falls a little.</p> + +<p>"I think it must be longer than <i>that</i>, Nancy."</p> + +<p>"An hour, then?" say I, lifting a lengthened countenance wistfully to +his; "people may do a good deal in an hour, may not they?"</p> + +<p>"Had not we better be on the safe side, and say an hour and a half?" +suggests he, but somewhat apprehensively—or I imagine so. "I shall be +sure not to keep you a minute then—I do not relish the notion of my +wife's tramping up and down this muddy road all by herself."</p> + +<p>"And I do not relish the notion of my husband—" return I, beginning to +speak very fast, and then suddenly breaking off—"Well, good-by!"</p> + +<p>"Say, good-by, Roger," cries he, catching my hand in detention, as I +turn away. "Nancy, if you knew how fond I have grown of my own name! In +despite of Tichborne, I think it <i>lovely</i>."</p> + +<p>I laugh.</p> + +<p>"Good-by, <i>Roger</i>!"</p> + +<p>He has opened the gate, and turned in. I watch him, as he walks with +long, quick steps, up the little, trim swept drive. As I follow him with +my eyes, a devil enters into me. I cry—</p> + +<p>"Roger!"</p> + +<p>He turns at once.</p> + +<p>"Ask her to show you Algy's bracelet," I say, with an awkward laugh; and +then, thoroughly afraid of the effect of my bomb-shell, and not daring +to see what sort it is, I turn and run quickly away.</p> + +<p>The end of the hour and a half finds me punctually peering through the +bars again. Well, I am first at the rendezvous. This, perhaps, is not +very surprising, as I have not given him one moment's law. For the first +five minutes, I am very fairly happy and content. The lark is still +fluttering in strong rapture up in the heights of the sky; and for these +five minutes I listen to him, soothed and hallowed. But, after they are +past, it is different. God's bird may be silent, as far as I am +concerned: not a verse more of his clear psalm do I hear. An uneasy +devil of jealousy has entered into me, and stopped my ears. I take hold +of the bars of the gate, and peer through, as far as my head will go: +then I open it, and, stealing on tiptoe up the drive a little way, to +the first corner, look warily round it. Not a sign of him! Not a sound! +Not even a whisper of air to rustle the glistening laurel-leaves, or +stir the flat laurestine-sprays.</p> + +<p>I return to the road, and inculcate patience on myself. Why may not I +take a lesson in easy-mindedness from Vick? Was not it Hartley Coleridge +who suggested that perhaps dogs have a language of smell; and that what +to us is a noisome smell, is to them a beautiful poem? If so, Vick is +searching for lyrics and epics in the ditch. I stroll along the wintry +brown hedge-row, and begin to pick Roger a little, scant nosegay. He +shall see how patient I am! how <i>un</i>sulky! with what sunny mildness I +can wait his leisure! I have already two or three snow-drops in my +breast, that I picked as I came through the garden. To these I add a +drooping hazel-tassel or two, and a little bit of honeysuckle-leaf, just +breaking greenly into life. This is all I can find—all the scentless +first-fruits of the baby year.</p> + +<p>It is ten minutes past the due time now. Again I listen intently, as I +listened yesterday, for his coming. There is a sound now; but, alas! not +the right one! It is the rumbling of an approaching carriage. A +pony-chaise bowls past. The occupants are acquaintances of mine, and we +bow and smile to each other. As long as they are in sight, I affect to +be diligently botanizing in the hedge. When they have disappeared, I sit +down on a heap of stones, and take out my watch for the hundredth time; +a whole quarter of an hour!</p> + +<p>"He does not relish the notion of his wife's tramping up and down this +muddy road by herself, does not he?" say I, speaking out loud, and +gnashing my teeth.</p> + +<p>Then I hurl my little posy away from me into the mud, as far as it will +go. What has become of my patience? my sunny mildness? Then, as the +recollection of the velvet-gown and mob-cap episode recurs to me, I +repent me, and, crossing the road, pick up again my harmless catkins and +snow-drops, and rearrange them. I have hardly finished wiping the mire +from the tender, lilac-veined snow-drop petals, before I hear his voice +in the distance, in conversation with some one. Clearly, Delilah is +coming to see the last of him! I expect that she mostly escorts them to +the gate. In my present frame of mind, it would be physically impossible +for me to salute her with the bland civility which society enjoins on +people of our stage of civilization. I therefore remain sitting on my +heap.</p> + +<p>Presently, Roger emerges alone. He does not see me at first, but looks +up the road, and down the road, in search of me. When, at last, he +perceives me, no smile—(as has ever hitherto been his wont)—kindles +his eyes and lips. With unstirred gravity, he approaches me.</p> + +<p>"Here you are <i>at last</i>!" cry I, scampering to meet him, but with a +stress, from which human nature is unable to refrain, on the last two +words.</p> + +<p>"At last?" he repeats in a tone of surprise; "am I over +time?—Yes"—(looking at his watch)—"so I am! I had no idea of it; I +hope you have not been long waiting."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> was here to the minute," reply I, curtly; and again my tongue +declines to refrain from accentuation.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon!" he says, still speaking with unnecessary +seriousness, as it seems to me, "I really had no idea of it."</p> + +<p>"I dare say not," say I, with a little wintry grin; "I never heard that +they had a clock in paradise."</p> + +<p>"<i>In paradise!</i>" he repeats, looking at me strangely with his keen, +clear eyes, that seem to me to have less of a caress in them than they +ever had before on meeting mine. "What has <i>paradise</i> to say to it? Do +you imagine that I have been in <i>paradise</i> since I left you here?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know, I am sure!" reply I, rather confused, and childishly +stirring the stiff red mud with the end of my boot, "I believe <i>they</i> +mostly do; Algy does—" then afraid of drawing down the vial of his +wrath on me a second time for my scandal-mongering propensities, I go on +quickly; "Were you talking to yourself as you came down the drive? I +heard your voice as if in conversation. I sometimes talk to myself when +I am by myself, quite loud."</p> + +<p>"Do you? I do not think I do; at least I am not aware of it; I was +talking to Zéphine."</p> + +<p>"Why did not she come to the gate, then?" inquire I, tartly; "did she +know I was there? did not she want to see me?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know; I did not ask her."</p> + +<p>I look up at him in strong surprise. We are in the park now—our own +unpeopled, silent park, where none but the deer can see us; and yet he +has not offered me the smallest caress; not once has he called me +"Nancy;" he, to whom hitherto my homely name has appeared so sweet. It +is only an hour and three-quarters since I parted from him, and yet in +that short space an indisputable shade—a change that exits not only in +my imagination, but one that no most careless, superficial eye could +avoid seeing—has come over him. Face, manner, even gait, are all +altered, I think of Algy—Algy as he used to be, our jovial pet and +playfellow, Algy as he now is, soured, sulky, unloving, his very beauty +dimmed by discontent and passion. Is this the beginning of a like change +in Roger?</p> + +<p>A spasm of jealous agony, of angry despair, contracts my heart as I +think this.</p> + +<p>"Well, are all Mr. Huntley's debts paid?" I ask, trying to speak in a +tone of sprightly ease; "is there a good hope of his coming back soon?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet a while; in time, perhaps, he may."</p> + +<p>Still there is not a vestige of a smile on his face. He does not look at +me as he speaks; his eyes are on the long, dead knots of the colorless +grass at his feet; in his expression despondency and preoccupation +strive for supremacy.</p> + +<p>"Have you made your head ache?" I say, gently stealing my hand into his; +"there is nothing that addles the brains like muddling over accounts, is +there?"</p> + +<p><i>Am</i> I awake? <i>Can</i> I believe it? He has dropped my hand, as if he +disliked the touch of it.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks, no. I have no headache," he answers, hastily.</p> + +<p>Another little silence. We are marching quickly along, as if our great +object were to get our <i>tête-à-tête</i> over. As we came, we dawdled, stood +still to listen to the lark, to look at the wool-soft cloud-heaps piled +in the west—on any trivial excuse indeed; but now all these things are +changed.</p> + +<p>"Did you talk of business <i>all</i> the time?" I ask, by-and-by, with timid +curiosity.</p> + +<p>It is <i>not</i> my fancy; he does plainly hesitate.</p> + +<p>"Not quite <i>all</i>," he answers, in a low voice, and still looking away +from me.</p> + +<p>"About <i>what</i>, then?" I persist, in a voice through whose counterfeit +playfulness I myself too plainly hear the unconquerable tremulousness; +"may not I hear?—or is it a secret?"</p> + +<p>He does not answer; it seems to me that he is considering what response +to make.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," say I, still with a poor assumption of lightness and gayety, +"perhaps you were talking of—of old times."</p> + +<p>He laughs a little, but <i>whose</i> laugh has he borrowed? in that dry, +harsh tone there is nothing of my Roger's mellow mirth!</p> + +<p>"Not we; old times must take care of themselves; one has enough to do +with the new ones, I find."</p> + +<p>"Did she—did she say any thing to you about—about <i>Algy</i>, +then?"—hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"We did not mention his name."</p> + +<p>There is something so abrupt and trenchant in his tone that I have not +the spirit to pursue my inquiries any further. In deep astonishment and +still deeper mortification, I pursue my way in silence.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Roger comes to a stand-still.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" he says, in a voice that is more like his own, stopping and +laying his hands on my shoulders; while in his eyes is something of his +old kindness; yet not quite the old kindness either; there is more of +unwilling, rueful yearning in them than there ever was in that—"Nancy, +how old are you?—nineteen, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"Very nearly twenty," reply I, cheerfully, for he has called me "Nancy," +and I hail it as a sign of returning fine weather; "we may call it +twenty; will not it be a comfort when I am well out of my teens?"</p> + +<p>"And I am forty-eight," he says, as if speaking more to himself than to +me, and sighing heavily; "it is a <i>monstrous</i>, an <i>unnatural</i> +disparity!"</p> + +<p>"It is not nearly so bad as if it were <i>the other way</i>," reply I, +laughing gayly; "I forty-eight, and <i>you</i> twenty, is it?"</p> + +<p>"My child! my child!"—speaking with an accent of, to me, unaccountable +suffering—"what possessed me to <i>marry</i> you? why did not I <i>adopt</i> you +instead? It would have been a hundred times more seemly!"</p> + +<p>"It is a little late to think of that now, is not it?" I say, with an +uncomfortable smile; then I go on, with an uneasy laugh, "that was the +very idea that occurred to us the first night you arrived; at least, it +never struck us as possible that you would take any notice of <i>me</i>, but +we all said what a good thing it would be for the family if you would +adopt Barbara or the Brat."</p> + +<p>"Did you?" (very quickly, in a tone of keen pain); "it struck you all in +the same light then?"</p> + +<p>"But that was before we had seen you," I answer, hastily, repenting my +confession as soon as I see its effects. "When we <i>had</i>, we soon changed +our tune."</p> + +<p>"<i>If</i> I <i>had</i> adopted you," he pursues, still looking at me with the +same painful and intent wistfulness, "if I had been your father, you +would have been fond of me, would not you? Not <i>afraid</i> of me—not +afraid to tell me any thing that most nearly concerned you—you would +perhaps"—(with a difficult smile)—"you would perhaps have made me your +<i>confidant</i>, would you, Nancy?"</p> + +<p>I look up at him in utter bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about? Why do I want a confidant? What have I to +confide? What have I to tell any one?"</p> + +<p>Our eyes are resting on each other, and, as I speak, I feel his go with +clean and piercing search right through mine into my soul. In a moment I +think of Musgrave, and the untold black tale now forever in my thought +attached to him, and, as I so think, the hot flush of agonized shame +that the recollection of him never fails to call to my face, invades +cheeks, brow, and throat. To hide it, I drop my head on Roger's breast. +Shall I tell him <i>now</i>, this instant? Is it possible that he has already +some faint and shadowy suspicion of the truth—some vague conjecture +concerning it, as something in his manner seems to say? But no! it is +absolutely impossible! Who, with the best will in the world, could have +told him? Is not the tale safely buried in the deep grave of Musgrave's +and my two hearts?</p> + +<p>I raise my head, and twice essay to speak. Twice I stop, choked. How can +I put into words the insult I have received? How can I reveal to him the +slack levity, the careless looseness, with which I have kept the honor +confided to me?</p> + +<p>As my eyes stray helplessly round in a vain search for advice or help +from the infinite unfeeling apathy of Nature, I catch sight of the +distant chimneys of the abbey! How near it is! After all, why should I +sow dissension between such close neighbors? why make an irreparable +breach between two families, hitherto united by the kindly ties of +mutual friendship and good-will?</p> + +<p>Frank is young, very young; he has been—so Roger himself told me—very +ill brought up. Perhaps he has already repented, who knows? I try to +persuade myself that these are the reasons—and sufficient reasons—of +my silence, and I take my resolution afresh. I will be dumb. The flush +slowly dies out of my face, and, when I think it is almost gone, I +venture to look again at Roger. I think that his eyes have never left +me. They seem to be expecting me to speak, but, as I still remain +silent, he turns at length away, and also gently removes his hands from +my shoulders. We stand apart.</p> + +<p>"Well, Nancy," he says, sighing again, as if from the bottom of his +soul, "my poor child, it is no use talking about it. I can never be your +father now."</p> + +<p>"And a very good thing too!" rejoin I, with a dogged stoutness. "I do +not see what I want with <i>two</i> fathers; I have always found <i>one</i> amply +enough—quite as much as I could manage, in fact."</p> + +<p>He seems hardly to be listening to me. He has dropped his eyes on the +ground, and is speaking more to himself than to me.</p> + +<p>"Husband and wife we are!" he says, with a slow depression of tone, +"and, as long as God's and man's laws stand, husband and wife we must +remain!"</p> + +<p>"You are not very polite," I cry, with an indignant lump rising in my +throat; "you speak as if you were <i>sorry</i> for it—<i>are</i> you?"</p> + +<p>He lifts his eyes again, and again their keen search investigates the +depths of my soul; but no human eye can rightly read the secrets of any +other human spirit; they find what they expect to find, not what is +there. Clear and cuttingly keen as they are, Roger's eyes do not read my +soul aright.</p> + +<p>"Are <i>you</i>, Nancy?"</p> + +<p>"If <i>you</i> are, I am," I reply, with a half-smothered sob.</p> + +<p>He makes no rejoinder, and we begin again to walk along homeward, but +slowly this time.</p> + +<p>"We have made a mistake, perhaps," he says, presently, still speaking +with the same slow and ruminating sadness in his tone. "The inscrutable +God alone knows why He permits his creatures to mar all their seventy +years by one short false step—yes—a <i>mistake</i>!"</p> + +<p>(Ah me! ah me! I always mistrusted those laurestines! They sent me back +my brother churlish and embittered, but oh! that in my steadfast Roger +they should have worked such a sudden deadly change!)</p> + +<p>"Is it more a mistake," I cry, bursting out into irrepressible anger, +"than it was two hours ago, when I left you at that gate? You did not +seem to think it a mistake <i>then</i>—at least you hid it very well, if you +did"—(then going on quickly, seeing that he is about to interrupt +me)—"have you been <i>comparing notes</i>, pray? Has <i>she</i> found it a +mistake, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>that</i> she has! Poor soul! God help her!" he answers, +compassionately.</p> + +<p>Something in the pity of his tone jars frightfully on my strung nerves.</p> + +<p>"If God has to help all the poor souls who have made mistakes, He will +have his hands full!" I retort, bitterly.</p> + +<p>Another silence. We are drawing near the pleasure-grounds—the great +rhododendron belt that shelters the shrubbery from the east wind.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," says Roger, again stopping, and facing me too. This time he +does not put his hands on my shoulders; the melancholy is still in his +eyes, but there is no longer any harshness. They repossess their natural +kindly benignity. "Though it is perhaps impossible that there should be +between us that passionate love that there might be between people that +are nearer each other in age—more fitly mated—yet there is no reason +why we should not <i>like</i> each other very heartily, is there, dear? why +there should not be between us absolute confidence, perfect +frankness—that is the great thing, is not it?"</p> + +<p>He is looking with such intense wistfulness at me, that I turn away. Why +should not there be passionate love between us? Who is there but himself +to hinder it? So I make no answer.</p> + +<p>"I dare say," he says, taking my right hand, and holding it with a cool +and kindly clasp, "that you think it difficult—next door to +impossible—for two people, one at the outset, one almost on the +confines of life, to enter very understandingly into each other's +interests! No doubt the thought that I—being so much ahead of you in +years"—(sighing again heavily)—"cannot see with your eyes, or look at +things from your stand-point—would make it harder for you to come to me +in your troubles; but indeed, dear, if you believe me, I will <i>try</i>, +and, as we are to spend our lives together, I think it would be better, +would not it?"</p> + +<p>He speaks with a deprecating humility, an almost imploring gentleness, +but I am so thoroughly upset by the astounding change that has come over +the tone of his talk—by the clouds that have suddenly darkened the +morning sunshine of my horizon—that I cannot answer him in the same +tone.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we shall not have to spend all our lives together!" I say, +with a harsh laugh. "Cheer up! One of us may <i>die</i>! who knows?"</p> + +<p>After that we neither of us say any thing till we reach the house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Yea, by God's rood, I trusted you too well!"</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>In the hall we part without a word, and I, spiritlessly, mount the +staircase alone. How I flew down it this morning, three steps at a time, +and had some ado to hinder myself from sliding down the banisters, as we +have all often, with dangerous joy, done at home! Now I crawl up, like +some sickly old person. When I reach my bedroom, I throw myself into the +first chair, and lie in it—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"... quiet as any water-sodden log<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stayed in the wandering warble of a brook."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I do not attempt to take off my hat and jacket. Of what use is it to +take them off more than to leave them on, or to leave them on more than +to take them off? Of what use is <i>any thing</i>, pray? What a weary round +life is! what a silly circle of unfortunate repetitions! eating only to +be hungry again; waking only to sleep; sleeping only to wake!</p> + +<p>At first I am too inert even to think, even to lift my hand to protect +my cheek from Vick's muddy paws, who, annoyed at my evident inattention +to her presence, is sitting on my lap, making little impatient +<i>clawings</i> at my defenseless countenance. But gradually on the river of +recollection all the incidents of the morning flow through my mind. In +more startling relief than ever, the astounding change in Roger, wrought +by those ill-starred two hours, stands out. Is it possible that I may +have been attributing it to a wrong cause? Doubtless, the first +interview with the woman he had loved, and who had thrown him over +(by-the-by, how forgiving men are!)—yes, the first, probably, since +they had stood in the relation of betrothed people to each other—must +have been full of pain. Doubtless, the contrast between the crude +gawkiness of the raw girl he has drifted into marrying—for I suppose it +was more accident than any thing else—with the mature and subtile +grace, the fine and low-voiced sweetness of the woman whom his whole +heart and soul and taste chose and approved, must have struck him with +keen force. I expected <i>that</i>: it would not have taken me by surprise. +If he had emerged from among the laurestines, depressed, and vainly +struggling for a factitious cheerfulness, I think I could have +understood it. I think I could have borne with it, could have tried +meekly to steal back into his heart again, to win him back, in despite +of ignorance, gawkiness, and all other my drawbacks, by force of sheer +love.</p> + +<p>But the change was surely too abrupt to be accounted for on this +hypothesis. Would <i>Roger</i>, my pattern of courtesy—Roger, who shrinks +from hurting the meanest beggar's feelings—would he, in such plain +terms, have deplored and wished undone our marriage, if it were only +suffering to <i>himself</i> that it had entailed? Has his unselfish chivalry +gone the way of Algy's brotherly love? Impossible! the more I think of +it, the more unlikely it seems—the more certain it appears to me that I +must look elsewhere for the cause of the alteration that has so heavily +darkened my day.</p> + +<p>I have risen, and am walking quickly up and down. I have shaken off my +stolid apathy, or, rather, it has fallen off of itself. Can she have +told him any ill tales of me? any thing to my disadvantage? Instantly +the thought of Musgrave—the black and heavy thought that is never far +from the portals of my mind—darts across me, and, at the same instant, +like a flash of lightning, the recollection of my meeting her on the +fatal evening, just as (with tear-stained, swollen face) I had parted +from Frank—of the alert and lively interest in her eyes, as she bowed +and smiled to me, flames with sudden illumination into my soul. Still I +can hardly credit it. It would, no doubt, be pleasant to her to sow +dissension between us, but would even <i>she</i> dare to carry ill tales of a +wife to a husband? And even supposing that she had, would he attach so +much importance to my being seen with wet cheeks? I, who cry so +easily—I, who wept myself nearly blind when Jacky caught his leg in the +snare? If he thinks so much of that part of the tale, <i>what would he +think of the rest</i>?</p> + +<p>As I make this reflection I shudder, and again congratulate myself on my +silence. For beyond our parting, and my tears, it is <i>impossible</i> that +she can have told him aught.</p> + +<p>Men are not prone to publish their own discomfitures; even <i>I</i> know that +much. I exonerate Mr. Musgrave from all share in making it known—and +have the mossed tree-trunks lips? or the loud brook an articulate +tongue? Thank God! thank God! <i>no!</i> Nature never blabs. With infinite +composure, with a most calm smile she <i>listens</i>, but she never tells +again.</p> + +<p>A little reassured by this thought, I resolve to remain in doubt no +longer than I can help, but to ascertain, if necessary, by direct +inquiry, whether my suspicions are correct. This determination is no +sooner come to than it puts fresh life and energy into my limbs. I take +off my hat and jacket, smooth my hair, and prepare with some alacrity +for luncheon.</p> + +<p>It is evening, however, before I have an opportunity of putting my +resolve in practice. At luncheon, there are the servants; all afternoon, +Roger is closeted with his agent: before we set off this morning, he +never mentioned the agent: he never figured at all in our day's plan—(I +imagined that he was to be kept till to-morrow); and at dinner there are +the servants again. Thank God, they are gone now! We are alone, Roger +and I. We are sitting in my boudoir, as in my day-dreams, before his +return, I had pictured us; but, alas! where is caressing proximity which +figured in all my visions? where is the stool on which I was to sit at +his feet, with head confidently leaned on his arm? As it happens, Vick +is sitting on the stool, and we occupy two arm-chairs, at civil distance +from each other, much as if we had been married sixty years, and had +hated each other for fifty-nine of them. I am idly fiddle-faddling with +a piece of work, and Roger—is it possible?—is stretching out his hand +toward a book.</p> + +<p>"You do not mean to say that you are going to <i>read</i>?" I say, in a tone +of sharp vexation.</p> + +<p>He lays it down again.</p> + +<p>"If you had rather talk, I will not."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," say I, with a sour laugh, "that you have not kept much +conversation <i>for home use</i>! I suppose you exhausted it all, this +morning, at Laurel Cottage!"</p> + +<p>He passes his hand slowly across his forehead.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps!—I do not think I am in a very talking vein."</p> + +<p>"By-the-by," say I, my heart beating thick, and with a hurry and tremor +in my voice, as I approach the desired yet dreaded theme, "you have +never told me what it was, besides Mr. Huntley's debts, that you talked +of this morning!—you owned that you did not talk of business <i>quite</i> +all the time!"</p> + +<p>"Did I?"</p> + +<p>He has forgotten his book now; across the flame of the candles, he is +looking full and steadily at me.</p> + +<p>"When I asked you, you said it was not about old times?—of +course—" (laughing acridly)—"I can imagine your becoming illimitably +diffuse about <i>them</i>, but you told me, that, 'No,' you did not mention +them."</p> + +<p>"I told truth."</p> + +<p>"You also said," continue I, with my voice still trembling, and my +pulses throbbing, "that it was not <i>Algy</i> that you were discussing!—if +<i>I</i> had been in your place, I could, perhaps, have found a good deal to +say about <i>him</i>; but you told me that you never mentioned him."</p> + +<p>"We did not."</p> + +<p>"Then what <i>did</i> you talk about?" I ask, in strong excitement; "it must +have been a very odd theme that you find such difficulty in repeating."</p> + +<p>Still he is looking, with searching gravity, full in my face.</p> + +<p>"Do you <i>really</i> wish to know?"</p> + +<p>I cannot meet his eyes: something in me makes me quail before them. I +turn mine away, but answer, stoutly:</p> + +<p>"Yes, I <i>do</i> wish. Why should I have asked, if I did not?"</p> + +<p>Still he says nothing: still I feel, though I am not looking at him, +that his eyes are upon me.</p> + +<p>"Was it—" say I, unable any longer to bear that dumb gaze, and +preferring to take the bull by the horns, and rush on my fate—"was it +any thing about <i>me</i>? has she been telling you any tales of—of—<i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>No answer! No sound but the clock, and Vick's heavy breathing, as she +peacefully snores on the footstool. I <i>cannot</i> bear the suspense. Again +I lift my eyes, and look at him. Yes, I am right! the intense +anxiety—the overpowering emotion on his face tell me that I have +touched the right string.</p> + +<p>"Are there—are there—are you aware that there are any tales that she +<i>could</i> tell of you?"</p> + +<p>Again I laugh harshly.</p> + +<p>"Ha! ha! if we came to mutual anecdotes, I am not quite sure that I +might not have the best of it!"</p> + +<p>"That is not the question," he replies, in a voice so exceedingly stern, +so absolutely different from any thing I have ever hitherto contemplated +as possible in my gentle, genial Roger, that again, to the depths of my +soul, I quail; how could I ever, in wildest dreams, have thought I +should dare to tell him?—"it is nothing to me what tales <i>you</i> can tell +of <i>her</i>!—<i>she</i> is not my wife!—what I wish to know—what I <i>will</i> +know, is, whether there is any thing that she <i>could</i> say of you!"</p> + +<p>For a moment, I do not answer. I cannot. A coward fear is grasping my +heart with its clammy hands. Then—</p> + +<p>"<i>Could!</i>" say I, shrugging my shoulders, and feebly trying to laugh +derisively; "of course she could! it would be difficult to set a limit +to the powers of a lady of her imagination!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" he cries, quickly, and with what sounds like a sort +of hope in his voice; "have you any reason—any grounds for thinking her +inventive?"</p> + +<p>I do not answer directly.</p> + +<p>"It is true, then," I cry, with flashing eyes, and in a voice of great +and indignant anguish. "I have not been mistaken! I was right! Is it +possible that <i>you</i>, who, only this morning, warned me with such +severity against backbiting, have been calmly listening to scandalous +tales about me from a stranger?"</p> + +<p>He does not interrupt me: he is listening eagerly, and that sort of hope +is still in his face.</p> + +<p>"I <i>knew</i> it would come, sooner or later," I continue, speaking +excitedly, and with intense bitterness, "sooner or later, I knew that it +would be a case of Algy over again! but I did not—did not think that it +would have been quite so soon! Great Heaven!" (smiting my hands sharply +together, and looking upward), "I <i>have</i> fallen low! to think that I +should come to be discussed by <i>you</i> with <i>her</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I have <i>not</i> discussed you with her," he answers, very solemnly, and +still looking at me with that profound and greedy eagerness in his eyes; +"with <i>no</i> living soul would I discuss my wife—I should have hardly +thought I need tell you that! What I heard, I heard by accident. +She—as I believe, in all innocence of heart—referred +to—the—the—circumstance, taking it for granted that I knew it—that +<i>you</i> had told me of it, and I—<i>I</i>—" (raising his clinched right hand +to emphasize his speech)—"I take God to witness, I had no more idea to +what she was alluding—as soon as I understood—she must have thought me +very dull—" (laughing hoarsely)—"for it was a long time before I took +it in—but as soon as I understood to what manner of anecdote it was +that she was referring—then, <i>at once</i>, I bade her be silent!—not even +with <i>her</i>, would I talk over my wife!"</p> + +<p>He stops. He has risen from his chair, and is now standing before me. +His breath comes quick and panting; and his face is not far from being +as white as mine.</p> + +<p>"But what I have learned," he continues presently, in a low voice, that, +by a great effort, he succeeds in making calm and steady, "I cannot +again unlearn! I would not if I could!—I have no desire to live in a +fool's paradise! I tried hard this morning—God knows what constraint I +had to put upon myself—to induce you to tell me of your own accord—to +<i>volunteer</i> it—but you would not—you were <i>resolutely</i> silent. Why +were you? Why were you?" (breaking off with an uncontrollable emotion). +"I should not have been hard upon you—I should have made allowances. +God knows we all need it!"</p> + +<p>I sit listening in a stony silence: every bit of me seems turned into +cold rock.</p> + +<p>"But <i>now</i>," he says, regathering his composure, and speaking with a +resolute, stern quiet; "I have no other resource—you have left me +none—but to come to you, and ask point-blank, is this true, or is it +false?"</p> + +<p>For a moment, my throat seems absolutely stopped up, choked; there seems +no passage for my voice, through its dry, parched gates. Then at length +I speak faintly: "Is <i>what</i> true? is what false? I suppose you will not +expect me to deny it, before I know what it is?"</p> + +<p>He does not at once answer. He takes a turn once or twice up and down +the silent room, in strong endeavor to overcome and keep down his +agitation, then he returns and speaks; with a face paler, indeed, than I +could have imagined any thing so bronzed could be; graver, more austere +than I ever thought I should see it, but still without bluster or +hectoring violence.</p> + +<p>"Is it true, then?" he says, speaking in a very low key. "Great God! +that I should have to put such a question to my wife; that one evening, +about a week ago, on the very day, indeed, that the news of my intended +return arrived, you were seen parting with—with—<i>Musgrave</i>" (he seems +to have an intense difficulty in pronouncing the name) "at or after +nightfall, on the edge of Brindley Wood, <i>he</i> in a state of the most +evident and extreme agitation, and <i>you</i> in floods of tears!—is it +true, or is it false?—for God's sake, speak quickly!"</p> + +<p>But I cannot comply with his request. I am <i>gasping</i>. His eyes are upon +me, and, at every second's delay, they gather additional sternness. Oh, +how awful they are in their just wrath! When was father, in his worst +and most thunderous storms, half so dreadful? half so awe-inspiring?</p> + +<p>"What sort of an interview could it have been to which there was such a +close?" he says, as if making the reflection more to himself than to me; +"speak! is it true?"</p> + +<p>I can no longer defer my answer. One thing or another I must say: both +eyes and lips imperatively demand it. Twice, nay <i>thrice</i> I +struggle—struggle mightily to speak, and speak well and truly, and +twice, nay, three times, that base fear strangles my words. Then, at +length—O friends! do not be any harder upon me than you can help, for +indeed, <i>indeed</i> I have paid sorely for it, and it is the first lie that +ever I told; then, at length, with a face as wan as the ashes of a dead +fire—with trembling lips, and a faint, scarcely audible voice, I say, +"No, it is not true!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Not true?</i>" he echoes, catching up my words quickly; but in his voice +is none of the relief, the restored amenity that I had looked for, and +for the hope of which I have perjured myself; equally in voice and face, +there is only a deep and astonished anger.</p> + +<p>"<i>Not true!</i>—you mean to say that it is <i>false</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, false!" I repeat in a sickly whisper. Oh, why, if I <i>must</i> lie, do +not I do it with a bold and voluble assurance? whom would my starved +pinched falsehood deceive?</p> + +<p>"You mean to say," speaking with irrepressible excitement, while the +wrathful light gathers and grows intenser in the gray depths of his +eyes, "that this—this <i>interview</i> never took place? that it is all a +delusion; a mistake?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>I repeat it mechanically now. Having gone thus far, I must go on, but I +feel giddy and sick, and my hands grasp the arms of my chair. I feel as +if I should fall out of it if they did not.</p> + +<p>"You are <i>sure</i>?" speaking with a heavy emphasis, and looking +persistently at me, while the anger of his eyes is dashed and crossed by +a miserable entreaty. Ah! if they had had that look at first, I could +have told him. "Are you <i>sure</i>?" he repeats, and I, driven by the fates +to my destruction, while God hides his face from me, and the devil +pushes me on, answer hazily, "Yes, quite sure!"</p> + +<p>Then he asks me no more questions; he turns and slowly leaves the room, +and I know that I have lied in vain!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>And thus I, ingenious architect of my own ruin, build up the barrier of +a lie between myself and Roger. It is a barrier that hourly grows +higher, more impassable. As the days go by, I say to myself in +heart-sickness, that I shall never now cross it—never see it leveled +with the earth. Even when we too are dead it will still rise between us +in the other world; if—as all the nations have agreed to say—there +<i>be</i> another. For my part, I think at this time that, if there is any +chance of its bearing aught of resemblance to this present world, I had +far fainer there were none.</p> + +<p>With all due deference to Shakespeare—and I suppose that even the one +supreme genius of all time must, in his day, have made a mistake or +two—I have but faint belief in the "sweet uses of adversity." I think +that they are about as mythical as the jewels in the toad's ugly skull, +to which he likened them. It is in <i>prosperity</i> that one looks up, with +leaping heart and clear eyes, and through the clouds see God sitting +throned in light. In adversity one sees nothing but one's own dunghill +and boils.</p> + +<p>At least such has been my experience. I think I could have borne it +better if I had not looked forward to his return so much—if he had been +an austere and bitter tyrant, to <i>whose coming</i> I had looked with dread, +I could have braced my nerves and pulled myself together, to face with +some stoutness the hourly trials of life. But when one has counted the +days, hours, and moments, till some high festival, and, when it comes, +it turns out a drear, black funeral, one cannot meet the changed +circumstances with any great fortitude.</p> + +<p>It is the horrible contrast between my dreams and their realization that +gives the keenest poignancy to my pangs.</p> + +<p>To his return I had referred the smoothing of all my difficulties, the +clearing up of all my doubts, the sweeping of all clouds from my sky; +and now he is back! and, oh, how far, <i>far</i> gloomier than ever is my +weather! What a sullen leaden sky overhangs me!</p> + +<p>I never tell him about Algy after all! I do not often laugh now; but I +<i>did</i> laugh loudly and long the other day, although I was quite alone, +when I thought of my wily purpose of setting Roger on his guard against +Mrs. Huntley's little sugared unveracities.</p> + +<p>No, I never tell him about Algy! Why should I? it would be wasted +breath—spent words. He would not believe me. In the more important case +has not he taken her word in preference to mine? Would not he in <i>this</i> +too? For I know that he knows, as well as I know it myself, that in that +matter I lied.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, when I am by myself, a mighty yearning—a most constraining +longing seizes me to go to him—fall at his feet, and tell him the truth +even yet. After all, God knows that I have no ugly fault to confess to +him—no infidelity even of thought. But as soon as I am in his presence +the desire fades; or at least the power to put it in practice melts +away. For he never gives me an opening. After that first evening never +does he draw nigh the subject: never once is the detested name of +Musgrave mentioned between us. If he had been one most dear to us both +and had died untimely, we could not avoid with more sacred care any +allusion to him. And, even if, by doing infinite violence to myself, I +could bring myself to overcome the painful steepness of the hill of +difficulty that lies between me and the subject, and tell the tardy +truth, to what use, pray? Having once owned that I had lied, could I +resent any statement of mine being taken with distrust? Would he believe +me? Not he! He would say, "If you were as innocent as you say, why did +you <i>lie</i>? If you were innocent, what had you to fear?" So I hold my +peace. And, as the days go, and the winter wanes, it seems to me that I +can plainly see, with no uncertain or doubtful eyes, Roger's love wane +too.</p> + +<p>After all, why should I wonder? I may be sorry, for who ever saw gladly +love—the one all-good thing on this earth, most of whose good things +are adulterated and dirt-smirched—who ever saw it <i>gladly</i> slip away +from them? But I cannot be surprised.</p> + +<p>With Roger, love and trust must ever go hand-in-hand; and, when the one +has gone, the other must needs soon follow.</p> + +<p>After all, what he loved in me was a delusion—had never existed. It was +my blunt honesty, my transparent candor, the open-hearted downrightness +that in me amounted to a misfortune, that had at first attracted him. +And now that he has found that the unpolished abruptness of my manners +can conceal as great an amount of deception as the most insinuating +silkiness of any one else's, I do not see what there is left in me to +attract him. Certainly I have no beauty to excite a man's passions, nor +any genius to enchain his intellect, nor even any pretty accomplishment +to amuse his leisure.</p> + +<p>Why <i>should</i> he love me? Because I am his wife? Nay, nay! who ever loved +because it was their duty? who ever succeeded in putting love in +harness, and <i>driving</i> him? Sooner than be the object of such up-hill +conscientious affection, I had far rather be treated with cold +indifference—active hatred even. Because I am young? That seems no +recommendation in his eyes! Because I love him? He does not believe it. +Once or twice I have tried to tell him so, and he has gently pooh-poohed +me.</p> + +<p>Sometimes it has occurred to me that, perhaps, if I had him all to +myself, I might even yet bring him back to me—might reconcile him to my +paucity of attractions, and persuade him of my honesty; but what chance +have I, when every day, every hour of the day if he likes to put himself +to such frequent pain, he may see and bitterly note the contrast between +the woman of his choice and the woman of his fate—the woman from whom +he is irrevocably parted, and the woman to whom he is as irrevocably +joined. And I think that hardly a day passes that he does not give +himself the opportunity of instituting the comparison.</p> + +<p>Not that he is unkind to me; do not think that. It would be impossible +to Roger to be unkind to any thing, much more to any weakly woman thing +that is quite in his own power. No, no! there is no fear of that. I have +no need to be a grizzle. I have no cross words, no petulances, no +neglects even, to bear. But oh! in all his friendly words, in all his +kindly, considerate actions, what a <i>chill</i> there is! It is as if some +one that had been a day dead laid his hand on my heart!</p> + +<p>How many, <i>many</i> miles farther apart we are now, than we were when I was +here, and he in Antigua; albeit then the noisy winds roared and sung, +and the brown billows tumbled between us! If he would but <i>hit</i> me, or +box my ears, as Bobby has so often done—a good swinging, tingling box, +that made one see stars, and incarnadized all one side of one's +countenance—oh, how much, <i>much</i> less would it hurt than do the frosty +chillness of his smiles, the uncaressing touch of his cool hands!</p> + +<p>I have plenty of time to think these thoughts, for I am a great deal +alone now. Roger is out all day, hunting or with his agent, or on some +of the manifold business that landed property entails, or that the +settlement of Mr. Huntley's inextricably tangled affairs involves. Very +often he does not come in till dressing-time. I never ask him where he +has been—never! I think that I know.</p> + +<p>Often in these after-days, pondering on those ill times, seeing their +incidents in that duer proportion that a stand-point at a little +distance from them gives, it has occurred to me that sometimes I was +wrong, that not seldom, while I was eating my heart out up-stairs, with +dumb jealousy picturing to myself my husband in the shaded fragrance, +the dulcet gloom of the drawing-room at Laurel Cottage, he was in the +house with me, as much alone as I, in the dull solitude of his own room, +pacing up and down the carpet, or bending over an unread book.</p> + +<p>I will tell you why I think so. One day—it is the end of March now, the +year is no longer a swaddled baby, it is shooting up into a tall +stripling—I have been straying about the brown gardens, <i>alone</i>, of +course. It is a year to-day since Bobby and I together strolled among +the kitchen-stuff in the garden at home, since he served me that ill +turn with the ladder. Every thing reminds me of that day: these might be +the same crocus-clumps, as those that last year frightened away winter +with their purple and gold banners. I remember that, as I looked down +their deep throats, I was humming Tou Tou's verb, "J'aime, I love; Tu +aimes, Thou lovest; Il aime, He loves."</p> + +<p>I sigh. There was the same purple promise over the budded woods; the +same sharpness in the bustling wind. Since then, Nature has gone through +all her plodding processes, and now it is all to do over again. A sense +of fatigue at the infinite repetitions of life comes over me. If Nature +would but make a little variation! If the seasons would but change their +places a little, and the flowers their order, so that there might be +something of unexpectedness about them! But no! they walk round and +round forever in their monotonous leisure.</p> + +<p>I am stooping to pick a little posy of violets as these languid thoughts +dawdle through my mind—blue mysteries of sweetness and color, born of +the unscented, dull earth. As I pass Roger's door, having reëntered the +house, the thought strikes me to set them on his writing-table. Most +likely he will not notice them, not be aware of them: but even so they +will be able humbly to speak to him the sweet things that he will not +listen to from me. I open the door and listlessly enter. If I had +thought that there was any chance of his being within, I should not have +done so without knocking; indeed, I hardly think I should have done it +at all, but this seems to me most unlikely. Nevertheless, he is.</p> + +<p>As I enter, I catch sudden sight of him. He is sitting in his arm-chair, +his elbows leaned on the table before him, his hand passed through his +ruffled hair, and his gray eyes straying abstractedly away from the +neglected page before him. I see him before he sees me. I have time to +take in all the dejection of his attitude, all its spiritless idleness. +At the slight noise my skirts make, he looks up. I stop on the +threshold.</p> + +<p>"I—I thought you were out," say I, hesitatingly, and reddening a +little, as if I were being caught in the commission of some little +private sin.</p> + +<p>"No, I came in an hour ago."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," I say, humbly; "I will not disturb you; I would +have knocked if I had known!"</p> + +<p>He has risen, and is coming toward me.</p> + +<p>"Knock! why, in Heaven's name, <i>should</i> you knock?" he says, with +something of his old glad animation; then, suddenly changing his tone to +one of courteous friendly coldness, "Why do you stand out there? will +not you come in?"</p> + +<p>I comply with this invitation, and, entering, sit down in another +arm-chair not far from Roger's, but, now that I am here, I do not seem +to have much to say.</p> + +<p>"You have been in the gardens?" he says, presently, glancing at my +little nosegay, and speaking more to hinder total silence from reigning, +than for any other reason.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I reply, trying to be cheerful and chatty, "I have been picking +<i>these</i>; the Czar have not half their perfume, though they are three +times their size! <i>these</i> smell so good!"</p> + +<p>As I speak, I timidly half stretch out the little bunch to him, that he, +too, may inhale their odor, but the gesture is so uncertain and faint +that he does not perceive it—at least, he takes no notice of it, and I +am sure that if he had he would; but yet I am so discouraged by the +failure of my little overture that I have not resolution enough to tell +him that I had gathered them for him. Instead, I snubbedly and +discomfortedly put them in my own breast.</p> + +<p>Presently I speak again.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember," I say—"no, I dare say you do not, but yet it is +so—it is a year to-day since you found me sitting on the top of the +wall!—such a situation for a person of nineteen to be discovered in!"</p> + +<p>At the recollection I laugh a little, and not bitterly, which is what I +do not often do now. I can only see his profile, but it seems to me that +a faint smile is dawning on his face, too.</p> + +<p>"It was a good jump, was not it?" I go on, laughing again; "I still +wonder that I did not knock you down."</p> + +<p>He is certainly smiling now; his face has almost its old, tender mirth.</p> + +<p>"It will be a year to-morrow," continue I, emboldened by perceiving +this, and beginning to count on my fingers, "since Toothless Jack and +the curates came to dine, and you staid so long in the dining-room that +I fell asleep; the day after to-morrow, it will be a year since we +walked by the river-side, and saw the goslings flowering out on the +willows; the day after that it will be a year since—"</p> + +<p>"Stop!" he cries, interrupting me, with a voice and face equally full of +disquiet and pain; "do not go on, where is the use?—I hate +anniversaries."</p> + +<p>I stop, quenched into silence; my poor little trickle of talk +effectually dried. After a pause, he speaks.</p> + +<p>"What has made you think of all these dead trivialities?" he asks in a +voice more moved—or I think so—less positively steady than his has +been of late; "at your age, it is more natural to look on than to look +back."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" say I, sadly, "I do not know; I seem to have such a great deal +of time for <i>thinking</i> now; this house is so <i>extraordinarily</i> silent! +did you never notice it?—of course it is large, and we are only two +people in it, but at home it never seemed to me so <i>deadly</i> quiet, even +when I was alone in the house."</p> + +<p>"<i>Were</i> you ever alone?" he asks, with a smile. He is thinking of the +noisy multitude that are connected in his memory with my father's +mansion; that, during all his experience of it, have filled its rooms +and passages with the hubbub of their strong-lunged jollity.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have been," I reply; "not often, of course! but several times, +when the boys were away, and father and mother and Barbara had gone out +to dinner; of course it seemed still and dumb, but not—" (shuddering a +little)—"not so <i>aggressively loudly</i> silent as this does!"</p> + +<p>He looks at me, with a sort of remorseful pain.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> very dull for you!" he says, compassionately; "shut up in +endless duet, with a person treble your age! I ought to have thought of +that; in a month or so, we shall be going to London, <i>that</i> will amuse +you, will not it? and till then, is there any one that you would like to +have asked here?—any friend of your own?—any companion of your own +age?"</p> + +<p>"No," reply I, despondently, staring out of the window, "I have no +friends."</p> + +<p>"The boys, then?" speaking with a sudden assurance of tone, as one that +has certainly hit upon a pleasant suggestion.</p> + +<p>I shake my head.</p> + +<p>"I could not have Bobby and the Brat, if I would, and I would not have +Algy if I could!" I reply with curt dejection.</p> + +<p>"Barbara, then?"</p> + +<p>Again I shake my head. Not even Barbara will I allow to witness the +failure of my dreams, the downfall of my high castles, the sterility of +my Promised Land.</p> + +<p>"No, I will not have Barbara!" I answer; "last time that she was +here—" but I cannot finish my sentence. I break away weeping.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I think you hardly know the tender rhyme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of 'Trust me not at all or all in all!'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>There are some wounds, O, my friends, that Time, by himself, with no +clever physician to help him, will surely cure. You all know that, do +not you? some wounds that he will lay his cool ointment on, and +by-and-by they are well. Among such, are the departures hence of those +we have strongly loved, and to whom we have always been, as much as in +us lay, tender and good. But there are others that he only +worsens—yawning gaps that he but widens; as if one were to put one's +fingers in a great rent, and tear it asunder. And of these last is mine.</p> + +<p>As the year grows apace, as the evenings draw themselves out, and the +sun every day puts on fresh strength, we seem to grow ever more +certainly apart. Our bodies, indeed, are nigh each other, but our souls +are sundered. It never seems to strike any one, it is true, that we are +not a happy couple; indeed, it would be very absurd if it did. We never +wrangle—we never contradict each other—we have no tiffs; but we are +<i>two</i> and not <i>one</i>. Whatever may be the cause, whether it be due to his +shaken confidence in me, or (I myself assign this latter as its chief +reason) to the constant neighborhood of the woman whom I know him to +have loved and coveted years before he ever saw me; whatever may be the +cause, the fact remains; I no longer please him. It does not surprise me +much. After all, the boys always told me that men would not care about +me; that I was not the sort of woman to get on with them! Well, perhaps! +It certainly seems so.</p> + +<p>I meet Mrs. Huntley pretty often in society nowadays, at such staid and +sober dinners as the neighborhood thinks fit to indulge in, in this +lenten season; and, whenever I do so, I cannot refrain from a stealthy +and wistful observation of her.</p> + +<p>She is ten—twelve years older than I. Between her and me lie the ten +years best worth living of a woman's life; and yet, how easily she +distances me! With no straining, with no hard-breathed effort, she +canters lightly past me. So I think, as I intently and curiously watch +her—watch her graceful, languid silence with women, her pretty, +lady-like playfulness with men. And how successful she is with them! how +highly they relish her! While I, in the uselessness of my round, white +youth, sit benched among the old women, dropping spiritless, pointless +"yeses" and "noes" among the veteran worldliness of their talk, how they +crowd about her, like swarmed bees on some honeyed, spring day! how they +scowl at each other! and <i>finesse</i> as to who shall approach most nearly +to her cloudy skirts!</p> + +<p>Several times I have strained my ears to catch what are the utterances +that make them laugh so much, make them look both so fluttered and so +smoothed. Each time that I succeed, I am disappointed. There is no touch +of genius, no salt of wit in any thing she says. Her utterances are +hardly more brilliant than my own.</p> + +<p>You will despise me, I think, friends, when I tell you that in these +days I made one or two pitiful little efforts to imitate her, to copy, +distantly and humbly indeed, the fashion of her clothes, to learn the +trick of her voice, of her slow, soft gait, of her little, surprised +laugh. But I soon give it up. If I tried till my death-day, I should +never arrive at any thing but a miserable travesty. Before—ere Roger's +return—I used complacently to treasure up any little civil speeches, +any small compliments that people paid me, thinking, "If such and such a +one think me pleasing, why may not Roger?" But now I have given this up, +too.</p> + +<p>I seem to myself to have grown very dull. I think my wits are not so +bright as they used to be. At home, I used to be reckoned one of the +pleasantest of us: the boys used to laugh when I said things: but not +even the most hysterically mirthful could find food for laughter in my +talk now.</p> + +<p>And so the days pass; and we go to London. Sometimes I have thought that +it will be better when we get there. At least, <i>she</i> will not be there. +How can she, with her husband gnashing his teeth in lonely discomfiture +at his exasperated creditors, and receiptless bills, in sultry St. +Thomas? But, somehow, she is. What good Samaritan takes out his twopence +and pays for her little apartment, for her stacks of cut flowers, for +her brougham and her opera-boxes, is no concern of mine. But, somehow, +there always <i>are</i> good Samaritans in those cases; and, let alone +Samaritans, there are no priests or Levites stonyhearted enough to pass +by these dear, little, lovely things on the other side.</p> + +<p>We go out a good deal, Roger and I, and everywhere he accompanies me. It +bores him infinitely, though he does not say so. One night, we are at +the play. It is the Prince of Wales's, the one theatre where one may +enjoy a pleasant certainty of being rationally amused, of being free +from the otherwise universal dominion of <i>Limelight</i> and <i>Legs</i>. The +little house is very full; it always is. Some of the royalties are here, +laughing "<i>à gorge déployée!</i>" I have been laughing, too; laughing in my +old fashion; not in Mrs. Zéphine's little rippling way, but with the +thorough-paced, unconventional violence with which I used to reward the +homely sallies of Bobby and the Brat. I am laughing still, though the +curtain has fallen between the acts, and the orchestra are fiddling +gayly away, and the turned-up gas making everybody look pale. My +opera-glasses are in my hand, and I am turning them slowly round the +house, making out acquaintances in the stalls, prying into the secrets +of the boxes, examining the well-known features of my future king.</p> + +<p>Suddenly my smile dies away, and the glasses drop from my trembling +hands into my lap. Who is it that has just entered, and is slipping +across the intervening people in the stalls to his own seat, one of the +few that have hitherto remained vacant beneath us? Can I help +recognizing the close-shorn, cameo-like beauty—to me <i>no</i> beauty; to me +deformity and ugliness—of the dark face that for months I daily saw by +my fireside? Can there be <i>two</i> Musgraves? No! it is <i>he</i>! yes, <i>he</i>! +though now there is on his features none of the baffled passion, none of +the wrathful malignity, which they always wear in my memory, as they +wore in the February dusk of Brindley Wood. Now, in their handsome +serenity, they wear only the look of subdued sadness that a male Briton +always assumes when he takes his pleasure. Do you remember what +Goldsmith says?—"When I see an Englishman laugh, I fancy I rather see +him hunting after joy than having caught it."</p> + +<p>As soon as my eyes have fallen upon, and certainly recognized him, by a +double impulse I draw back behind the curtain of the box, and look at +Roger. He, too, has seen him; I can tell it in an instant by his face, +and by the expression of his eyes, as they meet mine. I try to look back +unflinchingly, indifferently, at him. I would give ten years of my life +for an unmoved complexion, but it is no use. Struggle as I will against +it, I feel that rush, that torrent of vivid scarlet, that, retiring, +leaves me as white as my gown. Oh! it <i>is</i> hard, is not it, that the +lying changefulness of a deceitful skin should have power to work me +such hurt?</p> + +<p>"Are you faint?" Roger asks, bending toward me, and speaking in a low +and icy voice; "shall I get you a glass of water?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you!" I reply, resolutely, and with no hesitation or stammer +in my tone, "I am not at all faint."</p> + +<p>But, alas! my words cannot undo what my false cheeks, with their +meaningless red and their causeless white, have so fully done.</p> + +<p>The season is over now; every one has trooped away from the sun-baked +squares, and the sultry streets of the great empty town. I have never +<i>done</i> a season before, and the heat and the late hours have tired me +wofully. Often, when I have gone to a ball, I have longed to go to bed +instead. And, now that we are home again, it would seem to me very +pleasant to sit in leisurely coolness by the pool, and to watch the +birth, and the prosperous short lives, of the late roses, and the great +bright gladioli in the garden-borders. Yes, it would have seemed very +pleasant to me—if—(why is life so full of <i>ifs</i>? "Ifs" and "Buts," +"Ifs" and "Buts," it seems made up of them! Little ugly words! in heaven +there will be none of you!)—if—to back and support the outward good +luck, there had been any inward content. But there is none! The trouble +that I took with me to London, I have brought back thence whole and +undiminished.</p> + +<p>It is September now; so far has the year advanced! We are well into the +partridges. Their St. Bartholomew has begun. Roger is away among the +thick green turnip-ridges and the short white stubble all the day. I +wish to Heaven that I could shoot, too, and hunt. It would not matter if +I never killed any thing—indeed, I think—of the two—I had rather not; +I had rather have a course of empty bags and blank days than snuff out +any poor, little, happy lives; but the occupation that these amusements +would entail would displace and hinder the minute mental torments I now +daily, in my listless, luxurious idleness, endure. I am thinking these +thoughts one morning, as I turn over my unopened letters, and try, with +the misplaced ingenuity and labor one is so apt to employ in such a +case, to make out from the general air of their exteriors—from their +superscriptions—from their post-marks, whom they are from. About one +there is no doubt. It is from Barbara. I have not heard from Barbara for +a fortnight or three weeks. It will be the usual thing, I suppose. +Father has got the gout in his right toe, or his left calf, or his +wrist, or all his fingers, and is, consequently, fuller than usual of +hatred and malice; mother's neuralgia is very bad, and she is sadly in +want of change, but she cannot leave him. Algy has lost a lot of money +at Goodwood, and they are afraid to tell father, etc., etc. Certainly, +life is rather up-hill! I slowly tear the envelope open, and languidly +throw my eyes along the lines. But, before I have read three words, my +languor suddenly disappears. I sit upright in my chair, grasp the paper +more firmly, bring it nearer my eyes, which begin greedily to gallop +through its contents. They are not very long, and in two minutes I have +mastered them.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My Dearest Nancy</span>:</p> + +<p>"I have <i>such</i> a piece of news for you! I cannot help laughing as I +picture to myself your face of delight; I would make you guess it, +only I cannot bear to keep you in suspense. <i>It has all come right! +I am going to marry Frank, after all!</i> What <i>have</i> I done to +deserve such luck! How can I ever thank God enough for it? Do you +know that my very first thought, when he asked me, was, '<i>How</i> +pleased Nancy will be!' You dear little soul! I think, when he went +away that time from Tempest, that you took all the blame of it to +yourself! O Nancy, do you think it is wrong to be so <i>dreadfully</i> +happy? Sometimes I am afraid that I love him <i>too</i> much! it seems +so hard to help it. I have no time for more now; he is waiting for +me; how little I thought, a month ago, that I should be ending a +letter to you for such a reason! When all is said and done, what a +pleasant world it is! Do not think me quite mad. I know I <i>sound</i> +as if I were!</p> + +<p>"Yours, <span class="smcap">Barbara</span>."</p></div> + +<p>My hand, and the letter with it, fall together into my lap; my head +sinks back on the cushion of my chair; my eyes peruse the ceiling.</p> + +<p>"Engaged to Musgrave! engaged to Musgrave! engaged to Musgrave!"</p> + +<p>The words ring with a dull monotony of repetition through my brain. Poor +Barbara! I think she would be surprised if she were to see my "<i>face of +delight!</i>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>My eyes are fixed on the mouldings of the ceiling, while a jumble of +thoughts mix and muddle themselves in my head. Was Brindley Wood a +dream? or is this a dream? Surely one or other must be, and, if this is +not a dream, what is it? Is it reality, is it truth? And, if it is, how +on earth did any thing so monstrous ever come about? How did he dare to +approach her? How could he know that I had not told her? Is it possible +that he cares for her really?—that he cared for her all along?—that he +only went mad for one wicked moment? Is he sorry? how soon shall I have +to meet him? On what terms shall we be? Will Roger be undeceived at +last? Will he believe me? As my thoughts fall upon him, he opens the +door and enters.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am off, Nancy!" he says, speaking in his usual cool, friendly +voice, to which I have now grown so accustomed that sometimes I could +almost persuade myself that I had never known any lovinger terms; and +standing with the door-handle in his hand.</p> + +<p>He rarely kisses me now; never upon any of these little temporary +absences. We always part with polite, cold, verbal salutations. Then, +with a sudden change of tone, approaching me as he speaks.</p> + +<p>"Is there any thing the matter? have you had bad news?"</p> + +<p>My eyes drop at length from the scroll and pomegranate flower border of +the ceiling. I sit up, and, with an involuntary movement, put my hand +over the open letter that lies in my lap.</p> + +<p>"I have had news," I answer, dubiously.</p> + +<p>"If it is any thing that you had rather not tell me!" he says, hastily, +observing my stupid and unintentional gesture, and, I suppose, afraid +that I am about to drift into a second series of lies—"please do not. I +would not for worlds thrust myself on your confidence!"</p> + +<p>"It is no secret of mine," I answer, coldly, "everybody will know it +immediately, I suppose: it is that Barbara—" I stop, as usual choked as +I approach the abhorred theme. "Will you read the letter, please? that +will be better!—yes—I had rather that you did—it will not take you +long; yes, <i>all</i> of it!" (seeing that he is holding the note in his hand +and conscientiously looking away from it as if expecting limitation as +to the amount he is to peruse).</p> + +<p>He complies. There is silence—an expectant silence on my part. It is +not of long duration. Before ten seconds have elapsed the note has +fallen from his hand; and, with an exclamation of the profoundest +astonishment, he is looking with an expression of the most keenly +questioning wonder at me.</p> + +<p>"To <span class="smcap">Musgrave</span>!"</p> + +<p>I nod. I have judiciously placed myself with my back to the light, so +that, if that exasperating flood of crimson bathe my face—and bathe it +it surely will—is not it coming now?—do not I feel it creeping hotly +up?—it may be as little perceptible as possible.</p> + +<p>"It must be a great, great <i>surprise</i> to you!" he says, interrogatively, +and still with that sound of extreme and baffled wonder in his tone.</p> + +<p>"Immense!" reply I.</p> + +<p>I speak steadily if low; and I look determinedly back in his face. +Whatever color my cheeks are—I believe they are of the devil's own +painting—I feel that my eyes are honest. He has picked up the note, and +is reading it again.</p> + +<p>"She seems to have no doubt"—(with rising wonder in face and +voice)—"as to its greatly pleasing <i>you</i>!"</p> + +<p>"So it would have done at one time," I answer, still speaking (though no +one could guess with what difficulty), with resolute equanimity.</p> + +<p>"And does not it now?" (very quickly, and sending the searching scrutiny +of his eyes through me).</p> + +<p>"I do not know," I answer hazily, putting up my hand to my forehead. "I +cannot make up my mind, it all seems so sudden."</p> + +<p>A pause. Roger has forgotten the partridges. He is sunk in reflection.</p> + +<p>"Was there ever any talk of this before?" he says, presently, with a +hesitating and doubtful accent, and an altogether staggered look. "Had +you any reason—any ground for thinking that he cared about her?"</p> + +<p>"Great ground," reply I, touching my cheeks with the tips of my fingers, +and feeling, with a sense of self-gratulation, that their temperature is +gradually, if slowly, lowering, "<i>every</i> ground—at <i>one</i> time!"</p> + +<p>"At <i>what</i> time!"</p> + +<p>"In the autumn," say I, slowly; my mind reluctantly straying back to the +season of my urgent invitations, of my pressing friendlinesses, "and at +Christmas, and after Christmas."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" (with a quick eagerness, as if expecting to hear more).</p> + +<p>"The boys," continue I, speaking without any ease or fluency, for the +subject is always one irksome and difficult to me, "the boys took it +quite for granted—looked upon it as a certain thing that he meant +seriously until—"</p> + +<p>"Until what?" (almost snatching the words out of my mouth).</p> + +<p>"Until—well!" (with a short, forced laugh), "until they found that he +did not."</p> + +<p>"And—do you know?—but of course you do—can you tell me how they +discovered that?"</p> + +<p>He is looking at me with that same greedy anxiety in his eyes, which I +remember in our last fatal conversation about Musgrave.</p> + +<p>"He went away," reply I, unable any longer to keep watch and ward over +my countenance and voice, rising and walking hastily to the window.</p> + +<p>The moment I have done it, I repent. <i>However</i> red I was, <i>however</i> +confused I looked, it would have been better to have remained and faced +him. For several minutes there is silence. I look out at the stiff +comeliness of the variously tinted asters, at the hoary-colored dew that +is like a film along the morning grass. I do not know what <i>he</i> looks +at, because I have my back to him, but I think he is looking at +Barbara's note again. At least, I judge this by what he says next—"Poor +little soul!" (in an accent of the honestest, tenderest pity), "how +happy she seems!"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" say I, with a bitter little laugh, "she will mend of <i>that</i>, will +not she?"</p> + +<p>He does not echo my mirth; indeed, I think I hear him sigh.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Romances paint at full length people's wooings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But only give a bust of marriages!'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>say I, in soft quotation, addressing rather myself and my thoughts than +my companion.</p> + +<p>He has joined me; he, too, is looking out at the serene aster-flowers, +at the glittering glory of the dew.</p> + +<p>"Since when you have learned to quote 'Don Juan?'" he asks, with a sort +of surprise.</p> + +<p>"Since <i>when</i>?" I reply, with the same tart playfulness—"oh! since I +married! I date all my accomplishments from then!—it is my anno +Domini."</p> + +<p>Another silence. Then Sir Roger speaks again, and this time his words +seem as slow and difficult of make as mine were just now.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" he says, in a low voice, not looking at me, but still facing +the flowers and the sunshiny autumn sward, "do you believe +that—that—<i>this fellow</i> cares about her really?—she is too good to be +made—to be made—a mere <i>cat's-paw</i> of!"</p> + +<p>"A <i>cat's-paw</i>!" cry I, turning quickly round with raised voice; the +blood that so lately retired from it rushing again headlong all over my +face; "I do not know—what you mean—what you are talking about!"</p> + +<p>He draws his breath heavily, and pauses a moment before he speaks.</p> + +<p>"God knows," he says, looking solemnly up, "that I had no wish to broach +this subject again—God knows that I meant to have done with it +forever—but now that it has been forced against my will—against both +our wills—upon me, I must ask you this one question—tell me, +Nancy—tell me truly <i>this</i> time"—(with an accent of acute pain on the +word "<i>this</i>")—"can you say, <i>on your honor—on your honor</i>, +mind—that you believe this—this man loves Barbara, as a man should +love his wife?"</p> + +<p>If he had worded his interrogation differently, I should have been +sorely puzzled to answer it; as it is, in the form his question takes, I +find a loop-hole of escape.</p> + +<p>"As a man should love his wife?" I reply, with a derisive laugh, "and +how is that? I do not think I quite know!—very dearly, I suppose, but +not quite so dearly as if she were his neighbor's—is that it?"</p> + +<p>As I speak, I look up at him, with a malicious air of pseudo-innocence. +But if I expect to see any guilt—any conscious shrinking in his face—I +am mistaken. There is pain—infinite pain—pain both sharp and +long-enduring in the grieved depths of his eyes; but there is no guilt.</p> + +<p>"You will not answer me?" he says, in an accent of profound +disappointment, sighing again heavily. "Well, I hardly expected +it—hardly hoped it!—so be it, then, since you will have it so; and +yet—" (again taking up the note, and reading over one of its few +sentences with slow attention), "and yet there is one more question I +must put to you, after all—they both come to pretty much the same +thing. Why"—(pointing, as he speaks, to the words to which he +alludes)—"why should <i>you</i> have taken on yourself the blame of—of his +departure from Tempest? what had <i>you</i> to say to it?"</p> + +<p>In his voice there is the same just severity; in his eyes there is the +same fire of deep yet governed wrath that I remember in them six months +ago, when Mrs. Huntley first threw the firebrand between us.</p> + +<p>"I do not know," I reply, in a half whisper of impatient misery, turning +my head restlessly from side to side; "how should I know? I am <i>sick</i> of +the subject."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps!—so, God knows, am I; but <i>had</i> you any thing to say to it?"</p> + +<p>He does not often touch me now; but, as he asks this, he takes hold of +both my hands, more certainly to prevent my escaping from under his +gaze, than from any desire to caress me.</p> + +<p>It is my last chance of confession. I little thought I should ever have +another. Late as it is, shall I avail myself of it? Nay! if not before, +why <i>now</i>? Why <i>now</i>?—when there are so much stronger reasons for +silence—when to speak would be to knock to atoms the newly-built +edifice of Barbara's happiness—to rake up the old and nearly dead ashes +of Frank's frustrated, and for aught I know, sincerely repented sin? So +I answer, faintly indeed, yet quite audibly and distinctly:</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Nothing</span>?" (in an accent and with eyes of the keenest, wistfulest +interrogation, as if he would wring from me, against my will, the +confession I so resolutely withhold).</p> + +<p>But I turn away from that heart-breaking, heart-broken scrutiny, and +answer:</p> + +<p>"Nothing!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"She dwells with beauty—beauty that must die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And joy whose hand is ever at his lips<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bidding adieu!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Thus I accomplished my second lie: I that, at home, used to be a proverb +for blunt truth-telling. They say that "<i>facilis descensus Averni</i>." I +do not agree with them. I have not found it easy. To me it has seemed a +very steep and precipitous road, set with sharp flints that cut the +feet, and make the blood flow.</p> + +<p>I think the second falsehood was almost harder to utter than the first: +but, indeed, they were both very disagreeable. I cannot think why any +one should have thought it necessary to invent the doctrine of a future +retribution for sin.</p> + +<p>It appears to me that, in this very life of the present, each little +delinquency is so heavily paid for—so exorbitantly overpaid, indeed. +Look, for instance, at my own case. I told a lie—a lie more of the +letter than the spirit—and since then I have spent six months of my +flourishing youth absolutely devoid of pleasure, and largely penetrated +with pain.</p> + +<p>I have stood just outside my paradise, peeping under and over the +flaming sword of the angel that guards it. I have been near enough to +smell the flowers—to see the downy, perfumed fruits—to hear the song +of the angels as they go up and down within its paths; but I have been +outside.</p> + +<p>Now I have told another lie, and I suppose—nay, what better can I +hope?—that I shall live in the same state of weary, disproportioned +retribution to the end of the chapter.</p> + +<p>These are the thoughts, interspersed and diversified with loud sighs, +that are employing my mind one ripe and misty morning a few days later +than the incidents last detailed.</p> + +<p>Barbara is to arrive to-day. She is coming to pay us a visit—coming, +like the lady mentioned by Tennyson, in "In Memoriam"—not, indeed, "to +bring her babe," but to "make her boast." And how, pray, am I to listen +with complacent congratulation to this boast? For the first time in my +life I dread the coming of Barbara. How am I, whose acting, on the few +occasions when I have attempted it, has been of the most improbably +wooden description—how am I, I say, to counterfeit the extravagant joy, +the lively sympathy, that Barbara will expect—and naturally +expect—from me?</p> + +<p>I get up and look at myself in the glass. Assuredly I shall have to take +some severe measures with my countenance before it falls under my +sister's gaze. Small sympathy and smaller joy is there in it now—it +wears only a lantern-jawed, lack-lustre despondency. I practise a +galvanized smile, and say out loud, as if in dialogue with some +interlocutor:</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>delightful</i>!—I am <i>so</i> pleased!" but there is more mirth in the +enforced grin of an unfleshed skull than in mine.</p> + +<p>That will never take in Barbara. I try again—once, twice—each time +with less prosperity than the last. Then I give it up. I must trust to +Providence.</p> + +<p>As the time for her coming draws nigh, I fall to thinking of the +different occasions since my marriage, on which I have watched for +expected comings from this window—have searched that bend in the drive +with impatient eyes—and of the disappointment to which, on the two +occasions that rise most prominently before my mind's eye, I became a +prey.</p> + +<p>Well, I am to be subject to no disappointment—if it <i>would</i> be a +disappointment—to-day.</p> + +<p>Almost before I expect her—almost before she is due—she is here in the +room with me, and we are looking at one another. I, indeed, am staring +at her with a black and stupid surprise.</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" say I, bluntly; "what <i>have</i> you been doing to yourself? +<i>how</i> happy you look!"</p> + +<p>I have always known theoretically that happiness was becoming; and I +have always thought Barbara most fair.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fair as the angel that said, 'Hail!' she seemed,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but <i>now</i>, what a lovely brightness, like that of clouds remembering the +gone sun, shines all about her! What a radiant laughter in her eyes! +What a splendid carnation on her cheeks! (How glad I am that I did not +tell!)</p> + +<p>"Do I?" she says, softly, and hiding her face, with the action of a shy +child, on my shoulders. "I dare say."</p> + +<p>"<i>Good</i> Heavens!" repeat I, again, with more accentuation than before, +and with my usual happy command and variety of ejaculation.</p> + +<p>"And <i>you</i>?" she says, lifting her face, and speaking with a joyful +confidence of anticipation in her innocent eyes, "and <i>you</i>? you are +pleased too, are not you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," reply I, quickly calling to my aid the galvanized smile and +the unnatural tone in which I have been perfecting myself all the +forenoon, "<i>delighted</i>! I never was so pleased in my life. I told you so +in my letters, did not I?"</p> + +<p>A look of nameless disappointment crosses her features for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she says, "I know! but I want you to tell me again. I thought +that you—would have such a—such a great deal to say about it."</p> + +<p>"So I have!" reply I, uncomfortably, fiddling uneasily with a +paper-knife that I have picked up, and trying how much ill-usage it will +bear without snapping, "an immensity! but you see it is—it is difficult +to begin, is not it? and you know I never was good at expressing myself, +was I?"</p> + +<p>We have sat down. I am not facing her. With a complexion that serves +one such ill turns as mine does, one is not over-fond of <i>facing</i> +people. I am beside her. For a moment we are both silent.</p> + +<p>"Well," say I, presently, with an unintentional tartness in my tone, +"why do not you begin? I am waiting to hear all about it! Begin!"</p> + +<p>So Barbara begins.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," she says, smiling all the while, but growing as red as +the bunch of late roses in my breast, "that I looked horribly <i>pleased</i>! +One ought to look as if one did not care, ought not one?"</p> + +<p>"Ought one?" say I, with interest, then beginning to laugh vociferously. +"At least you were not as bad as the old maid who late in life received +a very wealthy offer, and was so much elated by it that she took off all +her clothes, and kicked her bonnet round the room!"</p> + +<p>Barbara laughs.</p> + +<p>"No, I was not quite so bad as that."</p> + +<p>"And how did he do it?" pursue I, inquisitively. "Did he write or speak"</p> + +<p>"He spoke."</p> + +<p>"And what did he say? How did he word it? Ah!"—(with a sigh)—"I +suppose you will not tell me <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>She has abandoned her chair, and has fallen on her knees before me, +hiding her face in my lap. Delicious waves of color, like the petals of +a pink sweet-pea, are racing over her cheeks and throat.</p> + +<p>"Was ever any one known to tell it?" she says, indistinctly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," reply I, "<i>I</i> was. I told you what Roger said, word for word—all +of you!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Did</i> you?"—(with an accent of astonished incredulity).</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, "do not you remember? I promised I would before I went +into the drawing-room that day, and, when I came out, I wanted the boys +to let me off, but they would not."</p> + +<p>A pause.</p> + +<p>"I wish," say I, a little impatiently, "that you would look up! Why need +you mind if you <i>are</i> rather red? What do <i>I</i> matter? and so—and +so—you are <i>pleased</i>!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Pleased!</i>"</p> + +<p>She has raised her head as I bid her, and on her face there is a sort of +scorn at the poverty and inadequacy of the expression, and yet she +replaces it with no other; only the sapphire of her eyes is dimmed and +made more tender by rising tears.</p> + +<p>Clearly we were never meant to be joyful, we humans! In any bliss +greater than our wont, we can only hang out, to demonstrate our +felicity, the sign and standard of woe.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!"—(taking my hand, and looking at me with wistful +earnestness)—"do you think it <i>can</i> last? Did ever any one feel as I do +for <i>long</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know—how can I tell?" reply I, discomfortably, as I absently +eye the two halves of my paper-knife, which, after having given one or +two warning cracks, has now snapped in the middle. Then Roger enters, +and our talk ends.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"God made a foolish woman, making me!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"Have you any idea whom we shall meet?"</p> + +<p>It is Barbara who asks this one morning at breakfast. The question +refers to a three days' visit that it has become our fate to pay to a +house in the neighborhood—a house not eight miles distant from Tempest, +and over which we are grumbling in the minute and exhaustive manner +which people mostly employ when there is a question of making merry with +their friends.</p> + +<p>I shake my head.</p> + +<p>"I have not an idea, that is to say, except Mrs. Huntley, and she goes +without saying!"</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"We are known to be such inseparables, that she is always asked to meet +us," reply I, with that wintry smile, which is my last accomplishment. +"We pursue her round the country, do not we, Roger?"</p> + +<p>Barbara opens her great eyes, but, with her usual tact, she says +nothing. She sees that she has fallen on stony ground.</p> + +<p>"She is <i>the oldest friend that we have in the world</i>!" continue I, +laughing pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Roger does not answer, he does not even look up, but by a restless +movement that he makes in his chair, by a tiny contraction of the brows, +I see that my shot has told. I am becoming an adept in the infliction of +these pin-pricks. It is one of the few pleasures I have left.</p> + +<p>The day of our visit has come. We have relieved our feelings by +grumbling up to the hall-door. Our murmuring must per force be stilled +now, though indeed, were we to <i>shout</i> our discontents at the top of our +voices, there would be small fear of our being overheard by the master +of the house, he being the boundlessly deaf old gentleman who paid his +respects at Tempest on the day of Mrs. Huntley's first call, and +insisted on mistaking Barbara for me. Whether he is yet set right on +that head is a point still enveloped in Cimmerian gloom.</p> + +<p>It is a bachelor establishment, as any one may perceive by a cursory +glance at the disposition of the drawing-room furniture, and at the +unfortunate flowers, tightly jammed, packed as thickly as they will go +in one huge central bean-pot.</p> + +<p>As we arrived rather late and were at once conducted to our rooms, we +still remain in the dark as to our co-guests. Personally, I am not much +interested in the question. There cannot be anybody that it will cause +me much satisfaction to meet. It would give me a faint relief, indeed, +to find that there were some matron of exalteder rank than mine to save +me from my probable fate of bowling dark sayings at our old host, +General Parker, from the season of clear soup to that of peaches and +nuts. I dress quickly. The toilet is never to me a work of art. It is +not that from my lofty moral stand-point I look down upon meretricious +aids to faulty Nature. If I thought that it would set me on a fairer +standing with Mrs. Zéphine, I would paint my cheeks an inch thick; would +prune my eyebrows; daub my eyes, and make my hair yellower than any +buttercups in the meadow; but I know that it would be of no avail. I +should still be, compared to her, as a sign-painting to a Titian. For a +long time now I have cared naught for clothes. I used greatly to respect +their power, but they have done <i>me</i> no good; and so my reverence for +them is turned into indifference and contempt.</p> + +<p>I think that I must be late. Roger went down some minutes ago, at my +request, so that there might be <i>one</i> representative of the family in +time.</p> + +<p>I hasten down-stairs, fastening my last bracelet as I go, and open the +drawing-room door. I was wrong. There is no one down yet: even Roger has +disappeared. I am the first. This is my impression for a moment: then I +perceive that there is some one in the bow-window, half hidden by the +drooped curtains; some one who, hearing my entry, is advancing to meet +me. It is Musgrave! My first impulse, a wrong one, I need hardly say, is +to turn and flee. I have even laid hold of the just abandoned handle, +when he speaks.</p> + +<p>"Are you going?" he says in a low voice, marked by great and evidently +ungovernable agitation; "do not! if you wish, I will leave the room."</p> + +<p>I look at him, and our eyes meet. He always was a pale young man—no +bucolic beef-and-beer ruddiness about him—always of a healthy swart +pallor; but now he is deadly white!—so, by-the-by, I fancy am I! His +dark eyes burn with a shamed yet eager glow.</p> + +<p>With the words and tones of our last parting ringing in our ears, we +both feel that it would be useless affectation to attempt to meet as +ordinary acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"No," say I, faintly, almost in a whisper, "it—it does not matter! only +that I did not know that you were to be here!"</p> + +<p>"No more did I, until this morning!" he answers, eagerly; "this +morning—at the last moment—young Parker asked me to come down with +him—and I—I knew we must meet sooner or later—that it could not be +put off forever, and so I thought we might as well get over it here as +anywhere else!"</p> + +<p>Neither of us has thought of sitting down. He is speaking with rapid, +low emotion, and I stand stupidly listening.</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," I answer lazily. I cannot for the life of me help it, +friends. I am back in Brindley Wood. He has come a few steps nearer me. +His voice is always low, but now it is almost a whisper in which he is +so rapidly, pantingly speaking.</p> + +<p>"I shall most likely not have another opportunity, probably we shall not +be alone again, and I <i>must</i> hear, I <i>must</i> know—have you forgiven me?"</p> + +<p>As he speaks, the recollection of all the ill he has done me, of my lost +self-respect, my alienated Roger, my faded life, pass before my mind.</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> I have not!" reply I, looking full at him, and speaking with a +distinct and heavy emphasis of resentment and aversion, "and, by God's +help, I never will!"</p> + +<p>"You will <i>not</i>!" he cries, starting back with an expression of the +utmost anger and discomfiture. "You will <i>not</i>! you will carry vengeance +for one mad minute through a whole life! It is <i>impossible! impossible!</i> +if <i>you</i> are so unforgiving, how do you expect God to forgive you your +sins?"</p> + +<p>I shrug my shoulders with a sort of despairing contempt. God has seemed +to me but dim of late.</p> + +<p>"He may forgive them or leave them unforgiven as He sees best; but—<i>I +will never forgive you!</i>"</p> + +<p>"What!" he cries, his face growing even more ash-white than it was +before, and his voice quivering with a passionate anger; "not for +<i>Barbara's</i> sake?"</p> + +<p>I shudder. I hate to hear him pronounce her name.</p> + +<p>"No," say I, steadily, "not for Barbara's sake!"</p> + +<p>"You will have to," he cries violently; "it is nonsense! think of the +close connection, of the <i>relationship</i> that there will be between us! +think of the remarks you will excite! you will defeat your own object!"</p> + +<p>"I will excite no remark!" I reply resolutely. "I will be quite civil to +you! I will say 'good-morning' and 'good-evening' to you; if you ask me +a question I will answer it; but—I will <i>never</i> forgive you!"</p> + +<p>We are standing, as I before observed, close together, and are so +wholly occupied—voices, eyes, and ears—with each other, that we do not +perceive the approach of two hitherto unseen people who are coming +dawdling and chatting up the conservatory that opens out of the room; +two people that I suppose have been there, unknown to us, all along. +They have come quite close now, and we must needs perceive them.</p> + +<p>In a second our eager talk drops into silence, and we look with +involuntary, startled apprehension toward them. They are Roger and Mrs. +Huntley. This is why he acceded with such alacrity to my request. This +is why he was so afraid of being late. He has been helping her to smell +the jasmine, and to look down the datura's great white trumpet-throats.</p> + +<p>Even at this agitated moment I have time to think this with a jeering +pain. The next instant all other feelings are swallowed up in breathless +dread as to how they will meet. My fears are groundless. On first +becoming aware, indeed, whose <i>tête-à-tête</i> it is that he has +interrupted, whose low, quick voices they are that have dropped into +such sudden, suspicious silence at his approach—I can see him start +perceptibly, can see his gray eyes dart with lightning quickness from +Musgrave to me, and from me to Musgrave; and in his voice there is to me +an equally perceptible tone of ice-coldness; but to an ordinary observer +it would seem the greeting, neither more nor less warm, exchanged +between two moderately friendly acquaintances meeting after absence.</p> + +<p>"How are you, Musgrave? I had no idea that you were in this part of the +world!"</p> + +<p>"No more had I!" answers Musgrave, with an exaggerated laugh. "No more I +was, until—until <i>to-day</i>."</p> + +<p>He has not caught the infection of Roger's stately calm. His face has +not recovered a <i>trace</i> of even its usual slight color, and his eyes are +twitching nervously. Mrs. Huntley appears unaware of any thing. Her +artistic eye has been caught by the tight bean-pot, and her fingers are +employed in trying to give a little air of ease and liberty to its +crowded inmates. Then, thank God, the others come in, and dinner is +announced, and the situation is ended.</p> + +<p>The old host, still under the influence of his hallucination, is bearing +down like a hawk (with his old bent elbow extended) on Barbara, until +intercepted and redirected by a whispered roar and graphic pantomime on +the part of his nephew. Then, at last, he realizes Roger's bad taste, +and we go in.</p> + +<p>As soon as we are seated, I look about me. It is a round table. For my +part, I hate a round table. There is no privacy in it. Everybody seems +eavesdropping on everybody else.</p> + +<p>There are only eight of us in all—those I have enumerated, and Algy. +Yes, he is here. Bellona is a goddess who can always spare her sons when +there is any chance of their getting into mischief. Roger has taken Mrs. +Huntley. <i>That</i>, poor man, he could hardly help, his only alternative +being his own sister-in-law. Musgrave has taken Barbara. He is still as +white as the table-cloth, and hardly speaks. It is clear that <i>he</i> will +not get up his conversation again, until after the champagne has been +round. Algy has taken no one; and, consequently, a bear is an amiable +and affable beast in comparison of him. I am placed between our host and +his nephew. The latter comes in for a good deal of my conversation, as +most of my remarks have to be taken up and rebellowed by him with a loud +emphasis, that contrasts absurdly with their triviality; and even then +they mostly miscarry, and turn into something totally different.</p> + +<p>Talking to the old man is not a dialogue, but a couple of soliloquies, +carried on mostly on different subjects, which in vain try to become the +same, between two interlocutors. Through soup we prospered—that is to +say, we talked of the weather; and though I said several things about it +that surprised me a good deal, yet we both knew that we <i>were</i> talking +of the weather. But since then we have been diverging ever more and more +hopelessly. <i>He</i> is at the shah's visit, and so he imagines am I. I, on +the contrary, am at the Bishop of Winchester's death, and, for the last +five minutes have been trying, with all the force of my lungs, and with +a face rendered scarlet by the double action of heat and of the +consciousness of being the object of respectful attention to the whole +company, to convey to him that, in my opinion, the deceased prelate +ought to have been buried in Westminster Abbey. I have at last +succeeded, at least in so far as to make him understand that I wish +<i>somebody</i> to be buried in Westminster Abbey; but, as he still persists +in thinking it the shah, we are perhaps not much better off than we were +before. I lean back with a sense of despairing defeat, and, behind my +fan, turn to the young man on the other side. He is a jolly-looking +fellow, with an aureole of fiery red hair.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind," say I, with panting appeal, "trying to make him +understand that it <i>is not</i> the shah?"</p> + +<p>He complies, and, while he is trying to make it clear to his uncle that +he wrongs me in crediting me with any wish to thrust the Persian monarch +among the ashes of the Plantagenets, I take breath, and look round +again. Algy is eating nothing, and is drinking every thing that is +offered to him. His face is not much redder than Musgrave's, and he is +glancing across the table at Mrs. Huntley, with the haggard anger of his +eyes. Of this, however, she seems innocently unaware. She is leaning +back in her chair; so is Roger. They are talking low and quickly, and +looking smilingly at each other. When does his face ever light up into +such alert animation when he is talking to me? There can be no doubt of +it! Why blink a thing because it is unpleasant? I <i>bore him</i>.</p> + +<p>I have no intention of listening, and yet I hear some of their +words—enough to teach me the drift of their talk. "Residency!" +"Cawnpore!" "Simlah!" "<i>Cursed</i> Simlah!" "<i>Cursed</i> Cawnpore!" My +attention is recalled by the voice of my old neighbor.</p> + +<p>"Talking of that—" he says—(talking of <i>what</i>, in Heaven's name?)—"I +once knew a man—a doctor, at Norwich—who did not marry till he was +seventy-eight, and had four as fine children as any man need wish to +see."</p> + +<p>By the extraordinary irrelevancy of this anecdote, I am so taken aback +that, for a moment, I am unable to utter. Seeing, however, that some +comment is expected from me, I stammer something about its being a great +age. He, however, imagines that I am asking whether they were boys or +girls.</p> + +<p>"Three boys and a girl, or three girls and a boy!" he answers, with loud +distinctness—"I cannot recollect which; but, after all—" (with an +acrid chuckle)—"that is not the point of the story!"</p> + +<p>I sink back in my chair, with a slight shiver.</p> + +<p>"Give it up!" says my other neighbor, with a compassionate smile, and +speaking in a voice not a whit lower than usual—"<i>I</i> would!—it really +is no good!"</p> + +<p>"Why does not he have a <i>trumpet</i>?" ask I, with a slight accent of +irritation, for I have suffered much, and it is hot.</p> + +<p>"He had one once," replies my companion, still pityingly regarding the +flushed discomposure of my face; "but people <i>would</i> insist on bawling +so loudly down it, that they nearly broke the drum of his ear, and so +<i>he</i> broke <i>it</i>."</p> + +<p>I laugh a little, but in a puny way. There is not much laugh in me. +Again I look round the table. Musgrave is better; he is a better color +than he was. Under the influence of Barbara's gentle talk, his features +have reassumed almost serenity. Algy is <i>no</i> better. I see him lean +back, and speak to the servant behind him. He is asking for more +champagne. I wish he would not. He has had quite enough already. Roger +and Mrs. Huntley are much as they were. They are still leaning back in +their chairs—still looking with friendly intimacy into each other's +eyes—still smiling. Again a few words of their talk reach me.</p> + +<p>"Do you recollect?"</p> + +<p>"Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Have you forgotten?"</p> + +<p>Clearly, they have fallen upon old times. I wish—I dearly wish—that I +might bite a piece out of somebody.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I saw pale kings, and princes, too;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pale warriors, death-pale were they all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They cried, 'La Belle Dame, sans merci,'<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hath thee in thrall."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The long penance of dinner is over at last, thank God! I may intermit my +hopeless roarings, melancholy as those of any caged zoological beast. +Roger and Zéphine must also fain suspend their reminiscences. There +being no lady of the house, I have taken upon myself to hasten the date +of our departure. Before Mrs. Zéphine has finished her last grape, I +have swept her incontinently away into the drawing-room. But I might as +well have let it alone: almost before you could say "Knife" they are +after us. I suppose that when three are eager to come, and only two +anxious to stay—(I acquit my old friend and his nephew of any +over-hurry to rejoin us)—the three must needs get their way. Anyhow, +here they all five are! I am so hot! so hot! Nothing heats one like +bellowing and being miserable and a failure. I have again taken +advantage of the mistressless condition of the establishment, have drawn +back the window-curtains, and lifted the heavy sash. The night always +soothes me. There is something so stilling in the far placidity of the +high stars—in the sweet sharpness of the night winds. I have sat down +on a couch in the embrasure, alone.</p> + +<p>When the men come in, I remain alone. It does not at all surprise or +much vex me. I have nothing pleasant to say to any one. Also, I think I +must be almost hidden by the droop of the curtains. Roger, indeed, sent +his eyes round the room on his first entry, as if searching for +something or somebody. It cannot be Mrs. Huntley, who is right under his +nose, and who is, indeed, saying something playful to him over the top +of her black fan. For once, he does not hear her. He is still looking. +Then he catches a glimpse of my skirts, and comes straight toward me. +Thank God! it <i>was</i> me he was looking for. I feel a little throb of +disused gladness, as I realize this.</p> + +<p>"Are not you cold?" he says, perceiving the open window.</p> + +<p>"Not I!" reply I, brusquely—"naught never comes to harm."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would have a shawl!" he says, as the evening wind comes, +with the tartness of autumn, to his face.</p> + +<p>"Why do not you say, '<i>do, for my sake!</i>' as Algy once said to me, when +he mistook me in the dark for Mrs. Huntley?" reply I, with a mocking +laugh—"I am not sure that he did not add <i>darling</i>, but I will excuse +<i>that</i>!"</p> + +<p>At the mention of Algy, a shade crosses his face, and his eye travels to +where, in the dignified solitude of a corner, my eldest brother is +sitting, biting his lips, and reading "Alice Through the Looking-glass," +upside down.</p> + +<p>"Foolish fellow! I wish he had not come!"</p> + +<p>"I dare say he returns the compliment."</p> + +<p>"I wish she would leave him alone!" he says, with an accent of +impatience, more to himself than to me.</p> + +<p>"That is so likely," say I, quickly, "so much her way, is not it?"</p> + +<p>I suppose that something in the exceeding bitterness of my tone strikes +him, for his eyes return from Algy to me.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says, speaking with a sort of hesitating impulse, while a +dark flush crosses his face, "it has occurred to me once or twice—if +the idea had been less unspeakably absurd, it would have occurred to me +many times—that you are—are <i>jealous</i> of Zéphine and me!—<span class="smcap">You</span> jealous +of ME!!"</p> + +<p>There is such a depth of emphasis in his last words—such a wealth of +reproachful appeal in the eyes that are bent on me—that I can answer +nothing. I say neither yea nor nay. He has sat down on the couch beside +me.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," he says, with low, quick excitement—"and for God's sake do +not grow scarlet, and turn your head aside as you mostly have done—did +you, or did you not know that—that <i>Musgrave</i> was to be here to-day?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>did not</i>—<i>indeed</i> I <i>did not</i>!" I cry, with passionate eagerness; +thankful for once to be able to tell the truth; "we none of us did—not +even Barbara!"</p> + +<p>He repeats my last words with a slightly sarcastic inflection, "<i>not +even Barbara</i>!"</p> + +<p>A moment's pause.</p> + +<p>"Why did you stop talking so suddenly, the moment that we interrupted +you?" he asks, with an abruptness that is almost harsh—"what were you +talking about?"</p> + +<p>Phew! how hot it is! even though one is by the open window!—even +despite the cool moistness of the night wind.</p> + +<p>"I was—I was—I was—congratulating him!" I say, doing the very thing +he has forbidden me, reddening and turning half away. He makes no +rejoinder; only I hear him sigh, and put his hand with a quick, +impatient movement to his head.</p> + +<p>"You believe me?" I ask, timidly, laying my hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"No, <i>I do not</i>!" he replies, shaking off my touch, and turning his +stern and glittering eyes full upon me. "I should be a <i>fool</i> and an +<i>idiot</i> if I did!"</p> + +<p>Then he rises hastily and leaves me. I watch him as he joins the other +men. They are <i>all</i> round her now—all but Musgrave.</p> + +<p>Algy has left his corner and his reversed picture-book, moved thereto by +the unparalleled audacity of young Parker, who has pulled one of the +sofa-cushions down on the floor, and is squatting on it, like a great +toad at her feet, examining a gnat-bite on her sacred arm.</p> + +<p>Even the old host is doing the agreeable according to his lights. In a +very loud voice he is narrating a long anecdote about a pretty girl that +he once saw at a windmill near Seville, during the Peninsular. With a +most unholy chuckle he is trying to hint that there was more between him +and the young lady than it well beseems him to tell; but fortunately no +one, but I, is listening to him.</p> + +<p>I turn away my head, and look out of the window up at Charles's Wain, +and all my other bright old friends. No one is heeding me—no one sees +me; so I drop my hot cheek on the sill.</p> + +<p>Suddenly I start up. Some one is approaching me: some one has thrown +himself with careless freedom on the couch beside me. It is Algy.</p> + +<p>Having utterly failed in dislodging Mr. Parker from his cushion—having +had a suggestion on his part, on the treatment of the gnat-bite, passed +over in silent contempt—he has retired from the circle in dudgeon.</p> + +<p>"This is lively, is not it?" he says, in an aggressively loud voice, as +if he were quarrelsomely anxious to be overheard.</p> + +<p>I say "Hush!" apprehensively.</p> + +<p>"As no one makes the slightest attempt to entertain <i>us</i>, we must +entertain each other, I suppose!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear old boy!" I say, affectionately, "why not?—it would not be +the first time by many."</p> + +<p>"That does not make it any the more amusing!" he says, harshly.—"I say, +Nancy"—his eyes fixing themselves with sullen greediness on the central +figure of the group he has left—on the slight round arm (after all, not +half so round or so white as Barbara's or mine)—which is still under +treatment, "<i>is</i> eau de cologne good for those sort of bites?—her arm +<i>is</i> bad, you know!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Bad!</i>" echo I, scornfully; "<i>bad!</i> why, I am <i>all</i> lumps, more or +less, and so is Barbara! who minds <i>us</i>!"</p> + +<p>"You ought to make your old man—'<i>auld Robin Gray</i>'—mind you," he +says, with a disagreeable laugh. "It is <i>his</i> business, but he does not +seem to see it, does he? ha! ha!"</p> + +<p>"I <i>wish</i>!" cry I, passionately; then I stop myself. After all, he is +hardly himself to-night, poor Algy!</p> + +<p>"By-the-by," he says, presently, with a wretchedly assumed air of +carelessness, "is it true—it is as well to come to the fountain-head at +once—is it true that <i>once</i>, some time in the dark ages, +he—he—thought fit to engage himself to, to <i>her</i>?" (with a fierce +accent on the last word).</p> + +<p>A pain runs through my heart. Well, that is nothing new nowadays. He too +has heard it, then.</p> + +<p>"I do not know!" I answer, faintly.</p> + +<p>"What! he has not told you? <i>Kept it dark!</i> eh?" (with the same hateful +laugh).</p> + +<p>"He has kept nothing dark!" I answer, indignantly. "One day he began to +tell me something, and I stopped him! I would not hear; I did not want +to hear, I believe; I am sure that they are—only—only—old friends."</p> + +<p>"<i>Old friends!</i>" he echoes, with a smile, in comparison of which our +host's satyr-leer seems pleasant and chaste. "<i>Old friends!</i> you call +yourself a woman of the world" (indeed I call myself nothing of the +kind), "you call yourself a woman of the world, and believe <i>that</i>! They +looked like <i>old friends</i> at dinner to-day, did not they? A little less +than kin, and more than kind! Ha! ha!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Partridges are not General Parker's strong point, and the few he ever +had his nephew has already shot. Roger must, therefore, for one day +abstain from the turnip-ridges. To amuse us, however, and keep us all +sociably together, and bridge the yawning gulf between breakfast and +dinner, we are to be sent on an expedition. Not only an expedition, but +a picnic. This is perhaps a little risky in such a climate as ours, and +in a month so doubtfully hovering on the borders of winter as September; +but the sun is shining, and we therefore make up our minds, contrary to +all precedent, that he must necessarily go on shining.</p> + +<p>Some ten miles away there is a spot whence one can see seven counties, +not to speak of the sea, a mountain or two, and some other trifles; and +thither Mr. Parker is kindly going to bowl us down on his coach.</p> + +<p>A drive on a coach is always to me a most doubtful joy; the ascent, +labor; the drive itself, long anxiety and peril; the descent, agony, and +sometimes shame. However, that is neither here nor there. I am going. It +is still half an hour till the time appointed for our departure, and I +am sitting alone in my room when Roger enters.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says, coming quickly toward me, "have you any idea what sort +of a whip that boy is?"</p> + +<p>"Not the slightest!" reply I, shortly.</p> + +<p>I feel as hard as a flint to-day. Algy's words last night seem to have +confirmed and given a solider reality to my worst fears. He has walked +to the window and is looking out.</p> + +<p>"Are you <i>nervous</i>?" say I, with a slightly sarcastic smile.</p> + +<p>He does not appear to notice the sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he says, "that is just what I am. He is a mad sort of fellow, and +a coach is not a thing to play tricks with!"</p> + +<p>"No," say I, indifferently. It seems to me of infinitely little +consequence whether we are upset or not.</p> + +<p>"That is what I came to speak to you about!" he says, still looking out +of the window.</p> + +<p>"Zéphine—"</p> + +<p>"Is nervous, too?" ask I, smiling disagreeably. "What a curious +coincidence!"</p> + +<p>"I do not know whether she is nervous or not!" he answers, quickly; "I +never asked her, but it seems that Huntley never would let her go on a +drag; he had seen some bad accident, and it had given him a fright—"</p> + +<p>"And so you and she are going to stay at home?" say I, coldly, but +breathing a little heavily, and whitening.</p> + +<p>"Stay at home!" he echoes, impatiently, "of course not; why should we? +The fact is" (beginning to speak quickly in clear and eager explanation) +"that I heard them talking of this plan yesterday, and so I thought I +would be on the safe side, and send over to Tempest for the +pony-carriage, and it is here now, and—"</p> + +<p>"And you are going to drive her in it?" I say, still speaking quietly, +and smiling. "I see! nothing could be nicer!"</p> + +<p>"I wish to Heaven that you would not take the words out of my mouth," he +cries, losing his temper a little; while his brows contract into a +slight and most unwonted frown. "What I wish to know is, will <i>you</i> +drive her?"</p> + +<p>"I!!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>you</i>; I know—" (speaking with a sort of hurried deprecation) "I +know that you are not fond of her; she is not a woman that other women +are apt to get on with; but it would not be for long! I tell you +candidly" (with a look of sincere anxiety) "I do not half like trusting +you to Parker!—I think you are as likely as not to come to grief."</p> + +<p>"To come to grief!" repeat I, with a harsh, dry laugh; "ha! ha! perhaps +I have done that already!"</p> + +<p>"But will you?" he asks, eagerly; not heeding my sorry mirth, and taking +my hand. "I would drive you myself, if I could, and if—" (almost humbly) +"if it would not bore you; but you see—" (rather slowly) "about the +carriage, she—she <i>asked</i> me, and one does not like to say 'No' to such +an old friend!"</p> + +<p><i>Old friend!</i> At the phrase, Algy's sneering white face rises before my +mind's eye.</p> + +<p>"Will you?" he repeats, looking pleadingly at me, with the gray darkness +of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"No, I will not!" I reply, resolutely, and still with that unmirthful +mirth; "what ever else I may be, I will not be a <i>spoil-sport</i>!"</p> + +<p>"A <i>spoil-sport</i>!" he echoes, passionately, while his face darkens, and +hardens with impatient anger; "good God! will you <i>never</i> understand?"</p> + +<p>Then he hastily leaves the room. And so it comes to pass that, half an +hour later, I am crawling up with a sick heart to the box-seat, +piteously calling on all around me to hold down my garments during my +ascent. The grooms have let go the horses' heads, and have climbed up in +dapper lightness at the back: we are through the first gate! Bah! that +was a near shave of the post; yes, we are off, off for a long day's +pleasuring! The very thought is enough to put any one in low spirits, is +not it?</p> + +<p>Barbara and Musgrave are behind us; and at the back, our old host and +Algy. The two latter are, I think, specially likely to enjoy themselves; +as the raw morning air has got down the old gentleman's throat, and he +is coughing like a wheezy old squirrel; and Algy is in a dumb frenzy. I +am no great judge of coachmanship, but we have not gone a quarter of a +mile, before it is borne in on my mind that Mr. Parker has about as much +idea of driving as a tomcat. The team do what is good in their eyes; we +must throw ourselves on their clemency and discretion, for clearly our +only hope is in them. He has not an idea of keeping them together; they +are all over the place; the wheelers' reins are all loose on their +backs. We seem to have an irresistible tendency toward bordering to the +right which keeps us hovering over the ditch. However, fortunately, the +road is very broad—one of the old coach-roads—and the vehicles we meet +are few and anxious to get out of our way. Such as they are, I will do +ourselves the justice to say that we try our best to run down each and +all of them.</p> + +<p>It is September, as I have before said. The leaves are still all green, +only a stray bramble reddening here and there; but most of the midsummer +hedge-row peoples are gathered to their rest. Only a lagging few, the +slight-throated blue-bell, the uncouth ragwort, the little, tight +scabious, remain. At least, the berries are here, however. While each +red hip shows where a faint rose blossomed and fell; while the elder +holds stoutly aloft her flat, black clusters; while the briony clasps +the hawthorn-hedge, we cannot complain. Not only the <i>main</i> things of +Nature, but all her odds and ends, are so exceedingly fair and daintily +wrought.</p> + +<p>It is one of those days that look charming, when seen through the +window; bright and sunny, with lights that fly, and shadows that pursue; +but it is a very different matter when one comes to <i>feel</i> it. There is +a bleak, keen wind, that sends the clouds racing through the heavens, +and that blows right in our teeth; nearly strangling me by the violence +with which it takes hold of my head.</p> + +<p>There has been no rain for a week or two, and it is a chalky country. +The dust is waltzing in white whirlwinds along the road. High up as we +are, it reaches us, and thrusts its fine and choking powder up our +noses.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," say I, doubtfully, looking up at the shifting uncertainty +of the heavens, and trying to speak in a sprightly tone, a feat which I +find rather hard of accomplishment, with such a blast cutting my eyes, +and making me gasp—"I suppose that it will not rain!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Rain!</i> not it!" replies our coachman, with contemptuous cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>"The glass was going down!" I say, humbly, "and I think I felt a drop +just now!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Impossible!</i> it <i>could</i> not rain with this wind."</p> + +<p>He says this with such a jovial and robust certainty of scorn, that I am +half inclined to distrust the sky's evidence—to disbelieve even in the +big drop that so indisputably splashed into my eye just now. "But in +case it <i>does</i> rain," continue I, pertinaciously, "I suppose that there +is a house near, or some place where we can take refuge?"</p> + +<p>"No, there is no house nearer than a couple of miles"—making the +statement with the easiest composure—"but it will not rain."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps"—say I, with a sinking heart—"there is a wood—trees?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no, there is not much in the way of trees—except Scotch +firs—there are plenty of them—it is a bare sort of place—that is the +beauty of it, you know"—(with a tone of confident pride)—"there is a +monstrously fine view from it!—one can see <i>seven</i> counties!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, faintly, "so I have heard!"</p> + +<p>At this point, the old gentleman is understood to be bawling something +from the back. By the utter morosity of Algy's face—faintly seen in the +distance—I conjecture that it is a joke; and, by the chuckling agony of +zest with which the old man is delivered of it, I further conclude that +it is something slightly unclean, but, thanks to the wind, none of us +overtake a word of it. The wind's spirits are rising. Its play is +becoming ever more and more boisterous. It would be difficult to imagine +any thing disagreeabler than it is making itself; but perhaps it <i>will</i> +keep off the rain. Thinking this, I try to bear its blows and +buffets—its slaps on the face—its boxes on the ear—with greater +patience. We have left the broad and safe high-road; Mr. Parker having, +in an evil moment, bethought himself of a short-cut. We are, therefore, +entangled in a labyrinth of cross-roads—finger-postless, guideless, +solitary. <i>So</i> solitary, indeed, that we meet only one vacant boy of +tender years, of whom, when we inquire the way, the wind absolutely +refuses to allow us to hear a word of the broad Doric of his answer. At +last—after many bold and stout declarations on the part of Mr. Parker, +that he <i>will not</i> be beaten—that he knows the way as well as he does +his A B C—and that he will find it if he stays till midnight—he is +compelled, by the joint and miserable clamor of us all, to turn back—(a +frightful process, as the road is narrow, and the coach will not +lock)—to retrace our steps, and take up again the despised high-road, +where we had left it. These manœuvres have naturally taken some time. +It is three o'clock in the afternoon before we at length reach the great +spread of desolate, broad, moorland, which is our destination. For more +than an hour, absolute silence has fallen upon us. Like poor Yorick, we +are "quite, quite chapfallen!" Even the gallant old gentleman could not +make a dirty jest if he were to be shot for it. Mr. Parker alone +maintains his exasperating good spirits. We find Roger and Mrs. Huntley +sitting on the heather waiting for us. There is a good deal of +relief—as it seems to me—in the former's eye, as he sees us appear on +the scene; and a good deal of another expression, as he watches the +masterly manner in which we pull up: all the four horses floundering +together on their haunches; the leaders, moreover, exhibiting a +mysterious desire to turn round and look in the wheelers' faces.</p> + +<p>"Here we are!" cries Mr. Parker, joyously; "I have brought you along +capitally, have not I?—but I am afraid we are a little late—eh, Mrs. +Huntley? I hope we have not kept you long."</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> it late?" she replies, with a smile and a fine hypocrisy—for she +<i>looks</i> hungry—"I did not know; we have been quite happy!"</p> + +<p>Roger has risen, and is coming to help me down, but I say, crossly, "Do +not, please; Algy manages best!" Algy, however, has no intention of +helping anybody down. He has helped <i>himself</i> down; and, without a word +or a look to any of his fellow-travellers, has thrown himself down on +the heather at Mrs. Huntley's feet, and is relieving his mind by audible +animadversions on our late triumphal progress. I am therefore left to +the tender mercies of the grooms; at least, I should have been, if Mr. +Musgrave had not taken pity on me, and guided my uncertain feet and the +petticoats, which Zephyr is doing his playful best to turn over my head, +down the steep declivity of the ladder. This, as you may guess, does not +help to restore my equanimity. However, I am down now, on firm ground; +and, at least, we are rid of the dust. My eyes are still full of grit, +but I suppose they will get over that. I turn them disconsolately about.</p> + +<p>On a fine sunny day—with butterflies hovering over the heather-flowers, +and bees sucking honey from the gorse—with little mild airs playing +about, and a torquoise sky shining overhead—it might be a spot on which +to lie and dream dreams of paradise; but <i>now</i>! The sun has finally +retired, and hid his sulky face for the day; the heather is over; and, +though the gorse is not, yet it gives no fragrance to the raw air. All +over the great rolling expanse there is a heavy, leaden look, caught +from the angry heavens above. The great clouds are gathering themselves +together to battle; and the mighty wind, with nothing to check its +progress, is sweeping over the great plain, and singing with eerie, loud +mournfulness.</p> + +<p>I shudder.</p> + +<p>"Where are the Scotch firs?" (I say, querulously, to Mr. Parker, who by +this time had joined me); "you said there were plenty of them! where are +they?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Where?</i>" (looking cheerfully round), "oh, <i>there</i>!" (pointing to where +one lightning-riven little wreck bends its sickly head to the gale). +"Ah! I see there is only <i>one</i>, after all. I thought that there had been +more."</p> + +<p>My heart sinks. Is that one withered, scathed little stick to be our +sole protection against the storm, so evidently quickly coming up?</p> + +<p>"Fine view, is not it?" pursues my companion, not in the least +perceiving my depression, and complacently surveying the prospect. "Of +course it might have been clearer, but, after all, you get a very good +idea of it."</p> + +<p>I turn my faint eyes in the same direction as his. Down on the horizon +the sullen rain-clouds are settling, and, to meet them, there stretches +a dead, colorless flat, dotted with little round trees, little +church-spires, little houses, little fields, little hedges—one of those +mappy views, that lack even the beauties of a map—the nice pink and +green and blue lines which so gayly define the boundaries of each +county.</p> + +<p>"Very extensive, is not it?" he says, proudly; "you know you can see—"</p> + +<p>"Seven counties!" interrupt I, sharply, snapping the words out of his +mouth. "Yes, I know; you told me."</p> + +<p>The horses have been led away to the distant ale-house. The coach stands +forlorn and solitary on the moor. Some of us, looking at the threatening +aspect of the weather, have suggested that <i>we</i> too should make for +shelter; but this suggestion is indignantly vetoed by Mr. Parker.</p> + +<p>"<i>Rain!</i> not a bit of it! It is not <i>thinking</i> of raining! The wind! +what is the matter with the wind? Nice and fresh! Much better than one +of those muggy days, when you can hardly breathe!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The cloth is therefore laid, with the dead heather-flowers beneath it, +and the low leaden sky above. As large stones as can be found have to be +sought on the moorland road to weight it, and hinder our banquet from +flying bodily away. It is at last spread—cold lamb, cold partridges, +chickens, <i>mayonnaise</i>, cakes, pastry—they have just been arranged in +their defenceless nakedness under the eye of heaven, when the rain +begins. And, when it begins, it begins to some purpose. It deceives us +with no false hopes—with no breakings in the serried clouds—with no +flying glimpses of blue sky. Down it comes, straight, <i>straight</i> down, +on the lamb, on the <i>mayonnaise</i>, splash into the bitter. Each of us +seizes the viand dearest to his or her heart, and tries to shelter it +beneath his or her umbrella. But in vain! The great slant storm reaches +it under the puny defense. Even Mr. Parker has to change the <i>form</i> of +his consolation, though not the spirit. He can no longer deny that it is +raining; but what he now says is that it will not last—that it is only +a shower—that he is very glad to see it come down so hard at first, as +it is all the more certain to be soon over.</p> + +<p>Nobody has the heart to contradict him, though everybody knows that it +is a lie. Mrs. Huntley, at the first drop, has made for the coach, and +now sits in it, serene and dry. Algy follows her, with a chicken and a +champagne bottle. I sit doggedly still, where I am, on the cold moor.</p> + +<p>Roger has not spoken to me since my rude reception of him on arriving, +but he now comes up to me.</p> + +<p>"Had not you better follow her example?" he asks, speaking rather +formally, and looking toward the coach, where with smiling profile and +neat hair, my rival is sitting, reveling among the flesh-pots.</p> + +<p>Something in the sight of her sleek, smooth tidiness, joined to the +consciousness of my own miserable, blowsed disorder, stings me more even +than the rain-drops are doing.</p> + +<p>"Not I!" I answer, brusquely; "that is what I trust I shall never do!"</p> + +<p>He passes by my sneer without notice.</p> + +<p>"In this rain you will be drenched in two minutes."</p> + +<p>"Après!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Après!</i>" he repeats, impatiently, "<i>après?</i> you will catch your death +of cold!"</p> + +<p>"And you will be a widower!" reply I, with a bitter smile.</p> + +<p>Barbara is as obstinate as I am. She, too, seems to prefer the spite of +the elements to disturbing the <i>tête-à-tête</i> in the coach. Musgrave has +made her as comfortable as he can, with her back against the poor little +Scotch fir, and a plaid over both their heads.</p> + +<p>The feast proceeds in solemn silence. Even if we had the heart to talk, +the difficulty of making ourselves heard would quite check the +inclination.</p> + +<p>There are little puddles in all our plates—the bread and cakes are +<i>pap</i>—the lamb is damp and flabby, and the <i>mayonnaise</i> is reduced to a +sort of watery whey.</p> + +<p>Mr. Parker is the only one who, under these circumstances, makes any +attempt to pretend that we are enjoying ourselves.</p> + +<p>"This is not so bad, after all," he says, still with that same +unconquerable accent of joviality. He has to say it three times, and to +put up his hands to his mouth like a speaking-trumpet, before any one +hears him. When they do, "answer comes there none!"</p> + +<p>I, indeed, am not in a position for conversation at the exact moment +that the demand is made upon me. I have just come to the end of a long +wrestle with my umbrella. It has at last got its wicked will, and has +turned right inside out! All its whalebones are aspiring heavenward. It +is transformed into a melancholy <i>cup</i>—like a great ugly flower, on a +bare stalk. I lay the remains calmly down beside me, and affront the +blast and the tempest alone! I have a brown hat on—at least it <i>was</i> +brown when we set off—I am just wondering, therefore, with a sort of +stupid curiosity, why the <i>rill</i> that so plenteously distills from its +brim, and so madly races down my cold nose, should be <i>sky blue</i>, when I +perceive that Barbara has left her shelter, and her lover, and is +standing beside me.</p> + +<p>"Poor Nancy!" she says, with a softly compassionate laugh, "how wet you +are! come under the plaid with me! you have no notion how warm it keeps +one; and the tree, though it does not <i>look</i> much, saves one a bit, +too—and Frank does not mind being wet—come quick!"</p> + +<p>I am too wretched to object. No water-proof could stand the deluge to +which mine has been subjected. My shoulder-blades feel moist and +<i>sticky</i>: my hair is in little dismal ropes, and dreadful runlets are +coursing down my throat, and under my clothes.</p> + +<p>Without any remonstrance, I snuggle under the plaid with Barbara—with a +little of the feeling of soothing and dependence with which, long ago, +in the dear old dead days at home, I used, when I was a naughty child, +or a bruised child—and I was very often both—to creep to her for +consolation.</p> + +<p>Thanks to the wind, and to our proximity, we are able to talk without a +fear of being overheard.</p> + +<p>"You are wrong!" Barbara says, glancing first toward the coach, and then +turning the serene and limpid gravity of her blue eyes on me; "you are +making a mistake!"</p> + +<p>I do not affect to understand her.</p> + +<p>"<i>Am I?</i>" I say, indignantly; "I am doing nothing of the kind! it is not +only my own idea!—ask Algy!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Algy!</i>" (with a little accent of scorn), "poor Algy!—he is in such a +fit state for judging, is not he?"</p> + +<p>We both involuntarily look toward him.</p> + +<p>It is <i>his</i> turn now, and his morosity is exchanged for an equally +uncomfortable hilarity. His cheeks are flushed; he is laughing loudly, +and going in heavily for the champagne. The next moment he is scowling +discourteously at his old host, who, with his poor old chuckle entirely +drowned, and overcome by an endless sort of choking monotony of cough, +is clambering on tottery old legs into the coach, to try and get his +share of shelter.</p> + +<p>We both laugh a little; and then Barbara speaks again.</p> + +<p>"Nancy, I want to say something to you. Just now I heard Roger ask +whether there was a fly to be got at the public-house where the horses +are put up, and it seems there <i>is</i>; and he has sent for it. You may +think that it is for <i>her</i>, but it is not—it is for <i>you</i>! Will you +promise me to go home in it, if he asks you?"</p> + +<p>I am silent.</p> + +<p>"Will you?" she repeats, taking hold of one of my froggy hands, while +her eyes shine with a soft and friendly urgency; "you know you always +used to take my advice when we were little—will you?"</p> + +<p>Somehow, at her words, a little warmth of comfortable reassurance steals +about my heart. At home she always used to be right: perhaps she is +right now—perhaps <i>I</i> am wrong. I will be even better than her +suggestion.</p> + +<p>Roger is standing not far from us. The rain has drenched his beard and +his heavy mustache: the great drops stand on his eyelashes, and on his +straight brows. Perhaps I only imagine it, but to me he looks sad and +out of heart. It is not the weather that makes him so, if he is. Much he +cares for that!</p> + +<p>I call him "Roger!" My voice is small and low, and the wind is large and +loud, but he hears me.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" (turning at the sound with a surprised expression).</p> + +<p>"May I go home in the fly?" I ask impulsively, yet humbly, "I mean +with—with <i>her</i>!" (a gulp at the pronoun), then, under the influence of +a fear that he may think that I am driven by a hankering after creature +comforts to this overture, I go on quickly, "it is not because I want to +be kept dry—if I were to be dragged through the sea I could not be +wetter than I am—but if you wish—Barbara thought—Barbara said—"</p> + +<p>I mumble off into shy incoherency.</p> + +<p>"<i>Will</i> you?" he says, with a tone of eagerness and pleasure, which, if +not real, is at least admirably feigned. "It is what I was just wishing +to ask you, only" (laughing with a sort of constraint and a touch of +bitterness) "I really was <i>afraid</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Am I such a <i>shrew</i>?" I say, looking at him with a feeling of growing +light-heartedness. "Ah! I always was! was not I, Barbara?" Then, a +moment after, in a tone that is almost gay, I say, "May Barbara come, +too? is there room?"</p> + +<p>"Of course!" he answers readily; "surely there is plenty of room for +all!"</p> + +<p>While the words are yet on his lips, while I am still smiling up at him, +under the soaked tartan there comes a voice from the coach.</p> + +<p>"Roger!"</p> + +<p>He obeys the summons. It is just five paces off, and I hear each of the +slow and softly-enunciated words that follow.</p> + +<p>"I hear that you have sent for a fly! how very thoughtful of you! did +you ever forget <i>any thing</i>, I wonder? I was—no—not <i>dreading</i> my +drive home; but now I am <i>quite</i> looking forward to it. Why did you not +bring a pack of cards? we might have had a game of bézique."</p> + +<p>"I think we have made another arrangement," he answers, quietly. "I +think Nancy will be your companion instead of me."</p> + +<p>"<i>Lady Tempest!</i>" (with a slight but to me quite perceptible raising of +eyebrows, and accenting of words).</p> + +<p>"Yes, Nancy."</p> + +<p>I can see her face, but not his. To my acutely listening, sharply +jealous ears there sounds a tone of faint and carefully hidden annoyance +in his voice. It seems to me, too, that her features would not dare to +wear such an expression of open disappointment if they were not answered +and meeting something in his. I therefore take my course. I jump up +hastily, flinging off the plaid, and advance toward the interlocutors.</p> + +<p>She is just saying, "Oh, I understand! very nice!" in a little formal +voice when I break in.</p> + +<p>"I am going to do nothing of the kind!" I cry, hurriedly. "I have +altered my mind; I shall keep to the coach, that is" (with a nervous +laugh, and a miserable attempt at coquetry), "if Mr. Parker is not tired +of me."</p> + +<p>This is the way in which I take Barbara's advice. The fly arrives +presently, and the original pair depart in it. Roger neither looks at +nor speaks to me again; in fact, he ignores my existence; although, +under the influence of one of those speedy and altogether futile +repentances which always follow hard on the heels of my tantrums, I have +waylaid him once or twice in the hope that he would be induced to +recognize it. But no! this time I have outdone myself. I have tried his +patience a little too far. I am in disgrace.</p> + +<p>It is long, <i>long</i> after their departure before <i>we</i> get under way. The +grooms have either misunderstood Mr. Parker's directions, or are +enjoying their mulled beer over the pot-house fire too much to be in any +violent haste again to meet the raw air and the persisting deluge.</p> + +<p>It is past six o'clock before the horses arrive on the ground; it is +half-past before we are off.</p> + +<p>And meanwhile Mr. Parker has been rivaling Algy in the ardor with which +he calls in the aid of the champagne to keep out the wet. At each fresh +tumbler his joviality goes up a step, until at length it reaches a pitch +which produces an opposite effect on me, and engenders a depressed +fright.</p> + +<p>"Barbara," say I, in a low voice, when at length the moment of departure +draws near, and only Musgrave is within ear-shot—"Barbara, has it +struck you? do not you think he is rather—"</p> + +<p>Barbara, however, is diffident of her own opinion, and repeats my +question to her lover.</p> + +<p>He shrugs his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Is he? I have not noticed him; nothing more likely; last time I saw him +he was <i>flying</i>! It was in India at a great pig-sticking meeting, and +after dinner he got up to the top of a big mango-tree, and tried to +<i>fly</i>! Of course he fell down, but he was so drunk that he was not in +the least hurt."</p> + +<p>Mr. Musgrave seems to think this an amusing anecdote; but we do not.</p> + +<p>"Why do not <i>you</i> drive?" I ask, contrary to all my resolutions +addressing my future brother-in-law, and indeed forgetting in my alarm +that I had ever made such. I am reminded of it, however, by the look of +gratification that flashes—for only one moment and is gone—but still +flashes into the depths of his great dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"It is so likely that he would let me!" he says, laughing.</p> + +<p>"I would not mind so much if I were at the <i>back</i>!" I say, piteously, +turning to Barbara. "At the back one does not know what is coming, but +on the box one sees whatever is happening."</p> + +<p>"That is rather an advantage I think," she answers, laughing. "I do not +mind; I will go on the box."</p> + +<p>"Will you?" say I, eagerly. "<i>Do!</i> and I will take care of the old +general at the back."</p> + +<p>So it is settled. We are on the point of starting now. Mr. Parker is up +and is already beginning to struggle with the hopeless muddle of his +reins. I think we have perhaps done him an injustice; at all events, his +condition is not at all what it must have been when he mounted the +mango. Algy's morosity has returned tenfold, and he is performing the +evolution familiarly known as "pulling your nose to vex your face." That +is to say, he is standing about in the pouring rain utterly unprotected +from it. He entirely declines to put on any mackintosh or overcoat. Why +he does this, or how it punishes Mrs. Huntley, I cannot say, but so it +is.</p> + +<p>We are off at last. I, in accordance with my wishes, up at the back, +facing the grooms; but not at all in accordance with my wishes, Mr. +Musgrave, and not the old host, is my companion.</p> + +<p>"This is all wrong!" I cry, with vexed abruptness, as I see who it is +that is climbing after me. "Where is the general? We settled that he—"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid you will have to put up with me!" interrupts Musgrave, +coldly, with that angry and mortified darkening of the whole face, and +sudden contraction of the eye-balls that I used so well to know. "We +could not make him hear; we all tried, but none of us could make him +understand." So I have to submit.</p> + +<p>Well, we are off now. The night is coming quickly down: it will be +<i>quite</i> dark an hour sooner than usual to-night, so low does the great +black cloud-curtain stoop to the earth's wet face. Ink above us, so +close above us, too, that it seems as if one might touch it with lifted +hand; ink around us; a great stretch of dull and sulky heather; and, +maddening around us with devilish glee, hitting us, buffeting us, +bruising us, taking away our breath, and making our eyelids smart, is a +wind—such a wind! I should have laughed if any one had told me an hour +ago that it would rise. I should have said it was impossible, and yet it +certainly has.</p> + +<p>The wind which turned my umbrella inside out was a zephyr compared to +that which is now <i>thundering</i> round us. Sometimes, for one, for two +false moments, it lulls (the lulls are almost awfuller than the +whirlwind that follows them), then with gathered might it comes tearing, +howling, whooping down on us again, gnashing its angry teeth; bellowing +with a voice like ten million lost devils. And on its pinions what rain +it brings; what stinging, lacerating, bitter rain! And now, to add to +our misfortunes, to pile Pelion on Ossa, we <i>lose our way</i>. Mr. Parker +cannot be persuaded to abandon the idea of the short-cut. The natural +result follows.</p> + +<p>If we were hopelessly bewildered—utterly at sea among the maze of +lonely roads into which he has again betrayed us at high noon—what must +we be now in the angry dark of the evening? This time we have to go into +a field to turn, a field full of tussocks, which in the dark we are +unable to see, and over which the horses flounder and stumble. However, +now at length—now that we have wasted three-quarters of an hour, and +that it is quite pitch dark—(I need hardly say that we have no +lamps)—we have at length regained the blessed breadth of the high-road, +and I think that not even our coachman, to whose faith most things seem +possible, will attempt to leave it a second time. I give a sigh of +relief.</p> + +<p>"It is all plain sailing now!" Musgrave says, reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"There is one bad turn," reply I, gloomily—"very bad, at the bottom of +the village by the bridge."</p> + +<p>We relapse into silence, and into our unnatural battle with the +elements. I have to grasp my hat firmly with one hand, and the side of +the coach with the other, to prevent being blown off. If my companion +were any one else, I should grasp <i>him</i>.</p> + +<p>We are only a mile and a half from our haven now; the turn I dread is +nearing.</p> + +<p>"Are you frightened?" asks Musgrave, in a pause of the storm.</p> + +<p>"<i>Horribly!</i>" I answer.</p> + +<p>I have forgotten Brindley Wood—have forgotten all the mischief he has +done. I recollect only that he is human, and that we are sharing what +seems to me a great and common peril.</p> + +<p>"Do not be frightened!" he says, in an eager whisper—"you need not. I +will take care of you!"</p> + +<p>Even through all the preoccupation of my alarm something in his tone +jars upon and angers me.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> take care of me!" I cry, scornfully. "How could you? I wish you +would not talk nonsense."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"All right? nothing happened?" he asks, in a tone of the most poignant +anxiety, almost before we have pulled up.</p> + +<p>"All right!" replies Barbara's voice, softly cheerful. "Are you looking +for Nancy? She is at the back with Frank."</p> + +<p>Roger makes no comment, but this time he does not offer to lift me down.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>But we are all strictly silent.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"... Peace, pray you, now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No dancing more. Sing sweet, and make us mirth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have done with dancing measures; sing that song<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You call the song of love at ebb."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p>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 the +<i>less</i>; 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 the +<i>more</i>. She does not appear until late—not until near luncheon-time. +Her cold is in the head, the <i>safest</i> but 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.</p> + +<p>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 to <i>us</i>, as one is not expected to laugh at a <i>cough</i>; +nor does its <i>dénoûment</i> ever put one to the blush.</p> + +<p>Mr. Parker has no cold at all, and has even had the shameless audacity +to propose <i>another</i> expedition to-day. But we all rise in such loud and +open revolt that he has perforce to withdraw his suggestion.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As the day goes on, there is not much to do; a new idea takes possession +of Mr. Parker's active mind.</p> + +<p>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. +<i>Trouble!</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 for <i>himself</i> at least—it is always by his <i>hair</i> (with a laugh) +that people know <i>him</i>—that we at length begin to catch his ardor.</p> + +<p>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 +as <i>me</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>Human wills are mostly so feeble and vacillating, that if one +thorough-going determined one sticks to <i>any</i> proposition, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If you please, Mr. Musgrave wants to know has Lady Tempest done with +the rouge?"</p> + +<p>(There is only one edition of rouge, which is traveling from room to +room.)</p> + +<p>Five minutes more, another knock.</p> + +<p>"If you please, Mr. Parker's compliments, and will Lady Tempest lend him +a hair-pin to black his eyelashes?"</p> + +<p>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 "<i>il faut souffrir pour être belle</i>," and I do not +grumble; for I <i>am</i> belle! 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 is <i>delightful</i> to 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—</p> + +<p>"<i>Nancy!</i>" he exclaims, in a tone of the most utter and thorough +astonishment—"<i>is</i> it Nancy?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Nancy</i>, at your service!" reply I, with undisguised elation, looking +eagerly at him, with my blackened eyes, to see what he will say next.</p> + +<p>"But—what—<i>has</i>—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?"</p> + +<p>"To please Mr. Parker," reply I, breaking into a laugh of excitement. +"But I have killed two birds with one stone; I have pleased <i>myself</i>, +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).</p> + +<p>"Not often!" he answers, with emphasis.</p> + +<p>We had parted rather formally—rather <i>en délicatesse</i>—this morning, +but we both seem to have forgotten this.</p> + +<p>"I must not dance <i>much</i>!" say I, anxiously turning again to the glass, +and closely examining my complexion—"must I?—or my rouge will <i>run</i>!"</p> + +<p>After a moment—</p> + +<p>"You must be sure to tell me if I grow to look at all <i>smeary</i>, and I +will run up-stairs at once, and put some more on."</p> + +<p>He is looking at me, with an infinite amusement, and also commendation, +in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why, Nancy," he says, smiling—"I had no idea that you were so vain!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>My elation remains undiminished when I go down-stairs. Yes, even when I +compare myself with Mrs. Huntley, for, <i>for once</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As for me, I am not sure that I do not beat even <i>Barbara</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>bushels</i> of 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.</p> + +<p>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 than <i>three</i> times 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.</p> + +<p>To my immense delight, hardly anybody recognizes me. Many people look +<i>hard</i>—really <i>very</i> hard—at me, and I try to appear modestly +unconscious.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I think that Roger perceives my eagerness, for he brings up a, to me, +strange soldier, who makes his bow, and invites me.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>How pleasant it is, after all, to be young! and how <i>delightful</i> to be +pretty!</p> + +<p>Does Barbara <i>always</i> feel 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.</p> + +<p>We are standing still for a moment or two to take breath—we are +long-winded, and do not <i>often</i> do 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, <i>no wonder</i>!</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>My partner has opened his eyes and his mouth.</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> are they?" he says, in a tone of extreme disapprobation. "<i>Who</i> +are they? Are they <i>Christy Minstrels</i>?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I have done Mr. Parker an injustice in accrediting him with any +<i>mauvaise honte</i>. On the contrary, he clearly glories in his shame.</p> + +<p>"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 not <i>meant</i> for one, they really do very decently, do not +they?"</p> + +<p>I have put up my fan to hide the irresistible contortions which lips and +mouth are undergoing.</p> + +<p>"Very!" I say, indistinctly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>very</i> tight. Had +our ancestors indeed such skinny limbs, and such prodigious backs?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<i>Poor fellows!</i>" 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, "<i>how</i> I pity them! What on earth did they do it for?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do not know," I reply; "for <i>fun</i> I suppose!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Algy is as sulky and shamefaced as a dog with a tin kettle tied to his +tail, and Mr. Musgrave has altogether disappeared.</p> + +<p>The evening wears on. I forget my cheeks, and dance every thing. <i>How</i> I +<i>am</i> enjoying 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.</p> + +<p>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 he <i>was</i> +watching me.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 really <i>dare not</i>. Then he disappears among the +throng, with an uncomfortable sidelong movement, which endeavors to +shield the incompleteness of his back view.</p> + +<p>I am still smiling at his dilemma, when another voice sounds in my ears.</p> + +<p>"You are not dancing?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"No," reply I, shortly, "I am not!"</p> + +<p>"Will you dance with me?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Do not you mean to dance any more this evening, then?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know; that is as may be!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Will you at least let me take you in to supper?" in a tone whose +formality is strongly dashed with resentment.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>I put my hand on his arm, and we walk off.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Will not you sit down?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," reply I, bending my neck back to get a view behind an +intervening group; "I had rather stand."</p> + +<p>"Are you looking for any one?"</p> + +<p>Again, I wish that I did not know his voice so well—that I did not so +clearly recognize that slightly guardedly malicious intonation.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Where are they? where can they be?" is the thought that engrosses all +my attention.</p> + +<p>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, have <i>my</i> +cheeks 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. Where <i>can</i> they +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 absolutely <i>shut</i>, 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. They <i>are</i> here. I found them at last.</p> + +<p>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 it +<i>possible</i>?—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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You <i>knew</i> they were there!" I cry in a whisper of passionate +resentment, snatching my hand from his arm; "you brought me here <i>on +purpose</i>!"</p> + +<p>Then, regardless of appearances, I turn quickly away, and walk back down +the passage alone!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 only <i>possible</i>, but extremely +desirable, and in whose eyes the mango-tree feat would appear but a +childish trifle.</p> + +<p>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 am <i>burning</i>. 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. +They <i>all</i> see 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—</p> + +<p>"I hope that your fidelity may be rewarded as it deserves—"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Not in bed yet? Not undressed? They told me that you were tired and had +gone to bed hours ago!"</p> + +<p>"Did they?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You are late," I say presently, in a voice of low constraint, "are not +you? everybody went some time ago."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, breathing short and hard. Has not he himself introduced +her name?</p> + +<p>"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 with <i>me</i>, but +I would not let him compass that."</p> + +<p>"Has he?"</p> + +<p>Roger has begun to walk up and down, as I did a while ago; on his face a +look of unquiet discontent.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"It is a thousand pities that you cannot send us <i>all</i> home again!" I +say, with a tight, pale smile—"send us packing back again, Algy and +Barbara and <i>me</i>—replace me on the wall among the broken bottles, where +you found me."</p> + +<p>My voice shakes as I make this dreary joke.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?" he cries, passionately. "Why do you <i>torment</i> me? +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—"</p> + +<p>"You <i>would</i>, then, if you <i>could</i>?" cry I, breathing short and hard. +"You <i>own</i> it!"</p> + +<p>For a moment he hesitates; then—</p> + +<p>"Yes," he says firmly, "I would! I did not think at one time that I +should ever have lived to say it, but I <i>would</i>."</p> + +<p>"You are at least candid," I answer, with a sort of smothered sob, +turning away.</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" he cries, following me, and taking hold of my cold and clammy +hands, while what <i>looks</i>—what, at least, I should have once said +<i>looked</i>—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."</p> + +<p>I shrug my shoulders with a sort of careless despair.</p> + +<p>"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 a <i>lump</i>! that is all the +difference! I had mine in a <i>lump</i>—all crowded into nineteen years that +is, nineteen <i>very good years</i>!" I end, sobbing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What makes you talk like this <i>now</i>, to-night?" he asks, earnestly. "I +have been deceiving myself with the hope that you were having <i>one</i> +happy 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!"</p> + +<p>"Did I?" say I, dejectedly, slowly drawing my hands from his, and wiping +my wet eyes with my pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"<i>Any one</i> would have said that you were enjoying yourself," he pursues, +eagerly—"<i>were</i> not you?"</p> + +<p>"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—"And <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I!</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!"</p> + +<p>"And it was pleasant in the billiard-room, was not it?" say I, with a +stiff and coldly ironical smile—"so quiet and shady."</p> + +<p>"<i>In the billiard room?</i>"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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 there <i>were</i> one—have <i>I</i> ever told <i>you</i> a lie?" with a +reproachful accent on the pronouns. "I was there half an hour, I should +think."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Was it the <i>draughts</i> that 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."</p> + +<p>He has begun again to tramp up and down, and utters an exclamation of +weary impatience.</p> + +<p>"How could I help her crying?" he asks, with a tired irritation in his +tone. "Do you think I <i>enjoyed</i> it? I <i>hate</i> to see a woman weep! it +makes me <i>miserable</i>! 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."</p> + +<p>"Her <i>child</i>!" 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 that <i>you</i> were too much of a man of the +world, that she knew <i>you</i> too well—" I laugh, derisively.</p> + +<p>"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 know <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>"How do <i>you</i> know it?" (speaking quickly)—"how did <i>you</i> hear it?"</p> + +<p>"I was told."</p> + +<p>"But <i>who</i> told you?"</p> + +<p>"That is not of the slightest consequence."</p> + +<p>"I wish to know."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Musgrave told me."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Musgrave seems to have told you a good many things."</p> + +<p>This is carrying the war into the enemy's quarters, and so I feel it. +For the moment it shuts my mouth.</p> + +<p>"Who is it that has put such notions into your head?" he asks, with +gathering excitement, speaking with rapid passion. "<i>Some one</i> has! 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."</p> + +<p>I make no answer.</p> + +<p>"If it were not for the <i>misery</i> of it," he goes on, that dark flush +that colored his bronzed face the other night again spreading over it, +"I could <i>laugh</i> at the gross absurdity of the idea! To begin such +fooleries at <i>my</i> age! 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, that <i>you</i> should suspect <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>Still I am silent.</p> + +<p>"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—<i>by whom</i> you +best know, and whether his words or mine are most worthy of credit!"</p> + +<p>He is looking at me with a fixed, pathetic mournfulness. There is in his +eyes a sort of hopelessness and yet patience.</p> + +<p>"We are <i>miserable</i>, are not we?" he goes on, in a low voice—"<i>most</i> +miserable! 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 have <i>peace</i>!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I made a posy while the day ran by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My life within this band;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By noon most cunningly did steal away,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And withered in my hand!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 she <i>is</i> engaged, 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.</p> + +<p>After all is said and done, I <i>still</i> love 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.</p> + +<p>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 of +<i>us</i>, when Roger enters. It surprises me, as it is the first time that +he has done it since our return.</p> + +<p>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 +are <i>obliged</i> to 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.</p> + +<p>"Nancy," he says, coming quickly up to me, "did you know that Algy was +at Laurel Cottage?"</p> + +<p>"Not I!" I answer, tartly. "He does not favor me with his plans; +tiresome boy. He is more bother than he is worth."</p> + +<p>"Hush!" he says, hastily yet gently. "Do not say any thing against him; +you will be sorry if you do. He is <i>ill</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ill!</i>" 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?"</p> + +<p>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 he <i>did</i>, and glance hastily through it. I am well into it before +I realize that it is from my rival.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Roger</span>:</p> + +<p>"My hand is trembling so much that I can hardly hold the pen, but, +<i>as usual</i>, 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 he <i>would</i> come; 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 me <i>miserable</i> to leave him! If I +consulted my own wishes, I need not tell <i>you</i> that 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."</p></div> + +<p>I throw the letter down on the floor with a gesture of raging disgust.</p> + +<p>"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, +<i>alone</i>?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"He will die!" I say a moment after, forgetting Mrs. Huntley, and +breaking into a storm of tears. "I <i>know</i> he will! I always said we were +too prosperous. Nothing has ever happened to us. None of us have ever +gone! I <i>know</i> he will die; and I said yesterday that I liked him the +least of all the boys. Oh, I <i>wish</i> I had not said it.—Barbara! +Barbara! I <i>wish</i> I had not said it."</p> + +<p>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 not <i>God</i> here—God <i>our friend</i>? +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 of <i>told-you-so</i> expression, from which it +would have required a loftier nature than mine to refrain.</p> + +<p>And so the days go on, and I lose reckoning of time. I could hardly tell +you whether it were day or night.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And so it is always "Barbara! Barbara!" And Barbara is always +there—always ready.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Not even the presence of Musgrave lays any constraint upon my spirits.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" says the Brat, regarding me with an eye of friendly criticism, +"I think you are <i>cracked</i> to-night!—Do you remember what our nurses +used to tell us? 'Much laughing always ends in much crying.'"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Yes, <i>very</i> tired, but what of that? it would be unnatural, <i>most</i> +unnatural 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!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"So mayst thou die, as I do; fear and pain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>All right! Yes, for Barbara it <i>is</i> all right. Friends, I no more doubt +that than I doubt that I am sitting here now, with the hot tears on my +cheeks, telling you about it; but oh! not—<i>not</i> for us!</p> + +<p>"Much laughing will end in much crying." The Brat was right. God knows +the old saw has come true enough in my case. I exulted too soon. Too +soon I said that the all-victor was vanquished. He might have left us +our one little victory, might not he?—knowing that at best it was but a +reprieve, that soon or late—soon or late, Algy—we all, every human +flower that ever blossomed out in this world's sad garden, must be +embraced in the icy iron of his arms.</p> + +<p>I always said that we were too many and too prosperous; long ago I said +it. I always wondered that he had so long overlooked us. And now that he +comes, he takes our choicest and best. With nothing less is he content. +Barbara sickens. Not until the need for her tender nursing is ended, not +until Algy can do without her, does she go; and then she makes haste to +leave us.</p> + +<p>On the morning after my mad and premature elation, it is but too plain +that the fever has laid hold of her too, and in its parching, withering +clasp, our unstained lily fades. We take her back to Tempest at her +wish, and there she dies—yes, <i>dies</i>.</p> + +<p>Somehow, I never thought of Barbara dying. Often I have been nervous +about the boys; out in the world, exposed to a hundred dangers and rough +accidents, but about Barbara—<i>never</i>, hardly more than about myself, +safely at home, scarcely within reach of any probable peril. And now the +boys are all alive and safe, and Barbara is going. One would think that +she had cared nothing for us, she is in such a hurry to be gone; and yet +we all know that she has loved us well—that she loves us still—none +better.</p> + +<p>Alas! we have no long and tedious nursing of her. She has never given +any trouble in her life, and she gives none now. Almost before we +realize the reality and severity of her sickness, she is gone. Neither +does she make any struggle. She never was one to strive or cry; never +loud, clamorous, and self-asserting, like the boys and me; she was +always most meek, and with a great meekness she now goes forth from +among us—meekness and yet valor, for with a full and collected +consciousness she looks in the face of Him from whom the nations +shuddering turn away their eyes, and puts her slight hand gently into +his, saying, "Friend, I am ready!"</p> + +<p>And the days roll by; <i>but</i> few, <i>but</i> few of them, for, as I tell you, +she goes most quickly, and it comes to pass that our Barbara's death-day +dawns. Most people go in the morning. God grant that it is a good omen, +that for them, indeed, the sun is rising!</p> + +<p>We are all round her—all we that loved her and yet so lightly—for +every trivial thing called upon her, and taxed her, and claimed this and +that of her, as if she were some certain common thing that we should +always have within our reach. Yes, we are all about her, kneeling and +standing in a hallowed silence, choking back our tears that they may not +stain the serenity of her departure.</p> + +<p>Musgrave is nearest her; her hand is clasped in his; even at this sacred +and supreme moment a pang of most bitter earthly jealousy contracts my +heart that it should be so. What is he to her? what has he to do with +our Barbara?—<i>ours, not his, not his!</i> But it pleases her.</p> + +<p><i>She</i> has never doubted him. Never has the faintest suspicion of his +truth dimmed the mirror of her guileless mind, nor will it ever now. She +goes down to the grave smiling, holding his hand, and kissing it. Now +and then she wanders a little, but there is nothing painful or uneasy in +her wanderings.</p> + +<p>Her fair white body lies upon the bed, but by the smile that kindles all +the dying loveliness of her face, by the happy broken words that fall +from her sweet mouth, we know that she is already away in heaven. Now +and again her lips part as if to laugh—a laugh of pure pleasantness.</p> + +<p>"As the man lives, so shall he die!" As Barbara has lived, so does she +die—meekly, unselfishly—with a great patience, and an absolute peace. +O wise man! O philosophers! who would take from us—who have all but +taken from us—our Blessed Land, the land over whose borders our +Barbara, at that smile, seems setting her feet—you <i>may</i> be right—I, +for one, know not! I am weary of your pros and cons! But when you take +it away, for God's sake give us something better instead!</p> + +<p>Who, while they kneel, with the faint hand of their life's life in +theirs, can be satisfied with the <i>probability</i> of meeting again? God! +God! give us <i>certainty</i>.</p> + +<p>The night has all but waned, the dawn has come. God has sent his +messenger for Barbara. An awful hunger to hear her voice once more +seizes me, <i>masters</i> me. I rise from my knees, and lean over her.</p> + +<p>"Barbara!" I say, in a strangling agony of tears, "you are not <i>afraid</i>, +are you?"</p> + +<p><i>Afraid!</i> She has all but forgotten our speech—she, who is hovering on +the confines of that other world, where our speech is needed not, but +she just repeats my word, "<i>Afraid!</i>"</p> + +<p>Her voice is but a whisper now, but in all her look there is such an +utter, tender, joyful disdain, as leaves no room for misgiving.</p> + +<p>Nay, friends, our Barbara is not at all afraid. She never was reckoned +one of the bravest of us—never—timorous rather! Often we have laughed +at her easy fears, we bolder ones. But which of us, I pray you, could go +with such valiant cheer to meet the one prime terror of the nations as +she is doing?</p> + +<p>And it comes to pass that, about the time of the sun-rising, Barbara +goes.</p> + +<p>"She is gone! God bless her!" Roger says, with low and reverent +tenderness, stooping over our dead lily, and, putting his arm round me, +tries to lead me away. But I shake him off, and laugh out loud.</p> + +<p>"Are you <i>mad</i>?" I cry, "she is <i>not</i> dead! She is no more dead than +<i>you</i> are! Only a moment ago, she was speaking to me! Do dead people +speak?"</p> + +<p>But rave and cry as I may, she <i>is</i> dead. In smiling and sweetly +speaking, even while yet I said "She is here!" yea, in that very moment +she went.</p> + +<p>Our Barbara is asleep!—to awake—when?—where?—we know not, only we +altogether hope, that, when next she opens her blue eyes, it will be in +the sunshine of God's august smile—God, through life and in death, <i>her +friend</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then, breaking into tears, 'Dear God,' she cried, 'and must we see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All blissful things depart from us, or e'er we go to Thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We cannot guess Thee in the wood, or hear Thee in the wind:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our cedars must fall round us e'er we see the light behind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, sooth, we feel too strong in weal to need Thee on that road;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on God.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>I am twenty years old now, barely twenty; and seventy is the appointed +boundary of man's date, often exceeded by ten, by fifteen years. During +all these fifty—perhaps sixty—years, I shall have to do without +Barbara. I have not yet arrived at the <i>pain</i> of this thought: <i>that</i> +will come, quick enough, I suppose, by-and-by!—it is the <i>astonishment</i> +of it that is making my mind reel and stagger!</p> + +<p>I suppose there are few that have not endured and overlived the +frightful <i>novelty</i> of this idea.</p> + +<p>I am sitting in a stupid silence; my stiff eyes—dry now, but dim and +sunk with hours of frantic weeping—fixed on vacancy, while I try to +think <i>exactly</i> of her face, with a greedy, jealous fear lest, in the +long apathy of the endless years ahead of me, one soft line, one lovely +line, may become faint and hazy to me.</p> + +<p>How often I have sat for hours in the same room with her, without one +glance at her! It seems to me, now, <i>monstrous</i>, incredible, that I +should ever have moved my eyes from her—that I should ever have ceased +kissing her, and telling her how altogether beloved she was by me.</p> + +<p>If all of us, while we are alive, could stealthily, once a year, and +during a moment long enough to exchange but two words with them, behold +those loved ones whom we have lost, death would be no more death.</p> + +<p>But, O friends, that one moment, for whose sake we could so joyfully +live through all the other minutes of the year, to us never comes.</p> + +<p>I suppose trouble has made me a little light-headed. I think to-day I am +foolisher than usual. Thoughts that would not tease other people, tease +me.</p> + +<p>If I ever see her again—if God ever give me that great felicity—I do +not quite know why He should, but if—if—(ah! what an if it is!)—my +mind misgives me—I have my doubts that it will not be <i>quite</i> +Barbara—not the Barbara that knitted socks for the boys, and taught Tou +Tou, and whose slight, fond arms I can—now that I have shut my eyes—so +plainly feel thrown round my shoulders, to console me when I have broken +into easy tears at some silly tiff with the others. Can even the +omnipotent God remember all the unnumbered dead, and restore to them the +shape and features that they once wore, and by which they who loved them +knew them?</p> + +<p>The funeral is over now—over two days ago. She lies in Tempest +church-yard, at her own wish. The blinds are drawn up again; the sun +looks in; and life goes on as before.</p> + +<p>Already there has grown a sacredness about the name of Barbara—the name +that used to echo through the house oftener than any other, as one and +another called for her. Now, it is less lightly named than the names of +us live ones.</p> + +<p>I shall always <i>wince</i> when I hear it. Thank God! it is not a common +name. After a while, I know that she will become a sealed subject, never +named; but as yet—while my wound is in its first awful rawness, I must +speak of her to some one.</p> + +<p>I am talking of her to Roger now; Roger is very good to me—very! I do +not seem to care much about him, nor about anybody for the matter of +that, but he is very good.</p> + +<p>"You liked her," I say, in a perfectly collected, tearless voice, "did +not you? You were very kind and forbearing to them all, always—I am +very grateful to you for it—but you liked <i>her</i> of your own accord—you +would have liked her, even if she had not been one of us, would not +you?"</p> + +<p>I seem greedy to hear that she was dear to everybody.</p> + +<p>"I was very fond of her," he answers, in a choked voice.</p> + +<p>"And you are <i>sure</i> that she is happy now?" say I, with the same keen +agony of anxiety with which I have put the question twenty times +before—"well off—better than she was here—you do not say so to +comfort me, I suppose; you would say it even if I were talking—not of +her—but of some one like her that I did not care about?"</p> + +<p>He turns to me, and clasps my dry, hot hands.</p> + +<p>"Child!" he says, looking at me with great tears standing in his gray +eyes—"I would stake all my hopes of seeing His face myself, that she +has gone to God!"</p> + +<p>I look at him with a sort of wistful envy. How is it that he and Barbara +have attained such a certainty of faith? He can <i>know</i> no more than I +do. After a pause—</p> + +<p>"I think," say I, "that I should like to go home for a bit, if you do +not mind. Everybody was fond of her there. Nobody knew any thing about +her, nobody cared for her here."</p> + +<p>So I go home. As I turn in at the park-gates, in the gray, wet gloom of +the November evening, I think of my first home-coming after my +wedding-tour.</p> + +<p>Again I see the divine and jocund serenity of the summer evening—the +hot, red sunset making all the windows one great flame, and they all, +Barbara, Algy, Bobby, Tou Tou, laughing welcome to me from the opened +gate. To-night I feel as if they were <i>all</i> dead.</p> + +<p>I reach the house. I stand in the empty school-room!—I, alone, of all +the noisy six. The stains of our cookery still discolor the old carpet; +there is still the great ink-splash on the wall, that marks the spot +where the little inkstand, aimed by Bobby at my head, and dodged by me, +alighted.</p> + +<p>How little I thought that those stains and that splash would ever speak +to me with voices of such pathos! I have asked to be allowed to sleep in +Barbara's and my old room. I am there now. I have thrown myself on +Barbara's little white bed, and am clasping her pillow in my empty arms. +Then, with blurred sight and swimming eyes, I look round at all our +little childish knick-knacks.</p> + +<p>There is the white crockery lamb that she gave me the day I was six +years old! Poor little trumpery lamb! I snatch it up, and deluge its +crinkly back, and its little pink nose, with my scalding tears.</p> + +<p>At night I cannot sleep. I have pulled aside the curtains, that through +the windows my eyes may see the high stars, beyond which she has gone. +Through the pane they make a faint and ghostly glimmer on the empty bed.</p> + +<p>I sit up in the dead middle of the night, when the darkness and +so-called silence are surging and singing round me, while the whole room +feels full of spirit presences. <i>I alone!</i> I am accompanied by a host—a +bodiless host.</p> + +<p>I stretch out my arms before me, and cry out:</p> + +<p>"Barbara! Barbara! If you are here, make some sign! I <i>command</i> you, +touch me, speak to me! I shall not be afraid!—dead or alive, can I be +afraid of <i>you</i>?—give me some sign to let me know where you +are—whether it is worth while trying to be good to get to you! I +<i>adjure</i> you, give me some sign!"</p> + +<p>The tears are raining down my cheeks, as I eagerly await some answer. +Perhaps it will come in the cold, <i>cold</i> air, by which some have known +of the presence of their dead; but in vain. The darkness and the silence +surge round me. Still, still I feel the spirit-presences; but Barbara is +dumb.</p> + +<p>"You have been away such a short time!" I cry, piteously. "You cannot +have gone far! Barbara! Barbara! I <i>must</i> get to you! If <i>I</i> had died, +and <i>you</i> had lived, a hundred thousand devils should not have kept me +from you. I should have broken through them all and reached you. Ah! +cruel Barbara! you do not <i>want</i> to come to me!"</p> + +<p>I stop, suffocated with tears; and through the pane the high stars still +shine, and Barbara is dumb!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The last touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day<br /></span> +<span class="i3">and by night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their last step on the stairs, at the door, still throbs through<br /></span> +<span class="i3">me, if ever so light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their last gift which they left to my childhood, far off in the<br /></span> +<span class="i3">long-ago years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is now turned from a toy to a relic, and seen through the crystals<br /></span> +<span class="i3">of tears.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Dig the snow,' she said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'For my church-yard bed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet I, as I sleep, shall not fear to freeze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If one only of these, my beloveds, shall love with heart-warm tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I have loved these.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>It seems to me in these days as if, but for the servants, I were quite +alone in the house. Father is ill. We always thought that he never would +care about any thing, or any of us, but we are wrong. Barbara's death +has shaken him very much. Mother is with him always, nursing him, and +being at his beck and call, and I see nothing of her.</p> + +<p>Tou Tou has gone to school, and so it comes to pass that, in the late +populous school-room, I sit alone. Where formerly one could hardly make +one's voice heard for the merry clamor, there is now no noise, but the +faint buzzing of the house-flies on the pane, and now and again, as it +grows toward sunset, the loud wintry winds keening and calling.</p> + +<p>The Brat indeed runs over for a couple of days, but I am so glad when +they are over, and he is gone. I used to like the Brat the best of all +the boys, and perhaps by-and-by I shall again; but, for the moment, do +you know, I almost hate him.</p> + +<p>Once or twice I <i>quite</i> hate him, when I hear him laughing in his old +thorough, light-hearted way—when I hear him jumping up-stairs three +steps at a time, whistling the same tune he used to whistle before he +went.</p> + +<p>Poor boy! He would be always sorrowful if he could, and is very much +ashamed of himself for not being, but he cannot.</p> + +<p>Life is still pleasant to him, though Barbara is dead, and so I unjustly +hate him, and am glad when he is gone. Have not I come home because here +she was loved, here, at least, through all the village—the village +about which she trod like one of God's kind angels—I shall be certain +of meeting a keen and assured sympathy in my sorrow.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"... Where indeed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The roof so lowly but that beam of heaven<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dawned some time through the door-way?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And yet, now that I am here, the village seems much as it was. Still the +same groups of fat, frolicking children about the doors; still the same +busy women at the wash-tub; about the house still the same coarse +laughs.</p> + +<p>It would be most unnatural, impossible that it should not be so, and yet +I feel angry—sorely angry with them.</p> + +<p>One day when this sense of rawness is at its worst and sharpest, I +resolve that I will pay a visit to the almshouse. There, at least, I +shall find that she is remembered; there, out of mere selfishness, they +must grieve for her. When will they, in their unlovely eld, ever find +such a friend again?</p> + +<p>So I go there. I find the old women, some crooning over the fire, half +asleep, some squabbling. I suppose they are glad to see me, though not +<i>so</i> glad when they discover that I have brought no gift in my hand, for +indeed I have forgotten—no quarter-pounds of tea—no little +three-cornered parcels of sugar.</p> + +<p>They begin to talk about Barbara at once. Among the poor there is never +any sacredness about the names of the dead, and though I have hungered +for sorrowful talk about her, for assurance that by some one besides +myself the awful emptiness of her place is felt, yet I wince and shrink +from hearing her lightly named in common speech.</p> + +<p>They are sorry about her, certainly—quite sorry—but it is more what +they have lost by her, than her that they deplore. And they are more +taken up with their own little miserable squabbles—with detracting +tales of one another—than with either.</p> + +<p>"Eh? she's a bad 'un, she is! I says to her, says I, 'Sally,' says I, +'if you'll give yourself hully and whully to the Lord for one week, I'll +give you a <i>hounce</i> of baccy,' and she's that wicked, she actilly would +not."</p> + +<p>Is <i>this</i> the sort of thing I have come to hear? I rise up hastily, and +take my leave.</p> + +<p>As I walk home again through the wintry roads, and my eyes fix +themselves with a tired languor on the green ivy-flowers—on the little +gray-green lichen-cups on the almshouse-wall, I think, "Does <i>no one</i> +remember her? Is she already altogether forgotten?"</p> + +<p>It is still early in the afternoon when I reach home. The dark is +<i>coming</i> indeed, for it comes soon nowadays, but it has not yet come.</p> + +<p>I go into the garden, and begin to pace up and down the gravel walks, +under the naked lime-trees that have forgotten their July perfume, and +are tossing their bare, cold arms in the evening wind.</p> + +<p>Only <i>one</i> of my old playfellows is left me. Jacky still stands on the +gravel as if the whole place belonged to him; still stands with his head +on one side, roguishly eying the sunset.</p> + +<p>Thank Heaven, Jacky is still here, sly and nefarious, as when I bent +down to give him my tearful good-by kiss on my wedding-morning. I kneel +down, half laughing, half crying, on the damp walk, to stroke his round +gray head, and hear his dear cross croak. Whether he resents the +blackness of my appearance as being a mean imitation of his own, I do +not know, but he will not come near me; he hops stiffly away, and stands +eying me from the grass, with an unworthy affectation of not knowing who +I am. I am still wasting useless blandishments on him, when my attention +is distracted by the sound of footsteps on the walk.</p> + +<p>I look up. Who is this man that is coming, stepping toward me in the +gloaming?</p> + +<p>I am not long left in doubt. With a slight and sudden emotion of +surprised distaste, I see that it is Musgrave. I rise quickly to my +feet.</p> + +<p>"It is you, is it?" I say, with a cold ungraciousness, for I have not +half forgiven him yet—still I bear a grudge against him—still I feel +an angry envy that Barbara died with her hand in his.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is I!"</p> + +<p>He is dressed in deep mourning. His cheeks are hollow and pale; he looks +dejected, and yet fierce. We walk alongside of each other in silence for +a few yards.</p> + +<p>"Why do not you ask what has brought me here?" he asks suddenly, with a +harsh abruptness. "I know that that is what you are thinking of."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I reply, gravely, without looking at him, "it is!—what has?"</p> + +<p>"I have come to bid you all good-by," he answers, in a low, quick voice, +with his eyes bent on the ground; "you know"—raising them, and +beginning to laugh hoarsely—"if—if—things had gone right—you would +have been my nearest relation by now."</p> + +<p>I shudder.</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, "I know."</p> + +<p>"I am going away," he goes on, raising his voice to a louder tone of +reckless unrest, "<i>where?</i>—God knows!—<i>I</i> do not, and do not care +either!—going away for good!—I am going to let the abbey."</p> + +<p>"To <i>let</i> it!"</p> + +<p>"You are <i>glad</i>!" he cries in a tone of passionate and sombre +resentment, while his great eyes, lifted, flash a miserable resentment +into mine; "I <i>knew</i> you would be! I have not given you much pleasure +very often, have I?"—(still with that same harsh mirth).—"Well, it is +something to have done it <i>once</i>!"</p> + +<p>I clasp my down-hanging hands loosely together. I lift my eyes to the +low, dark sky.</p> + +<p>"<i>Am</i> I glad?" I say, hazily. "I do not know!—I do not think I am!—I +do not think I care one way or another!"</p> + +<p>"Nancy!" he says, presently, in a tone no longer of counterfeit mirth, +but of deep and serious earnestness, "I do not know why I told you just +now that I had come to bid them all good-by—it was not true—you know +it was not. What are they to me, or I to them, now? I came—"</p> + +<p>"For what did you come, then?" cry I, interrupting him, pantingly, while +my eyes, wide and aghast, grow to his face. What is it that he is going +to say? He—from whose clasp Barbara's dead hand was freed!</p> + +<p>"Do not look at me like that!" he cries, wildly, putting up his hands +before his eyes. "It reminds me—great God! it reminds me—"</p> + +<p>He breaks off; then goes on a little more calmly:</p> + +<p>"You need not be afraid! Brute and blackguard as I am, I am not quite +brute and blackguard enough for <i>that</i>!—that would be past <i>even</i> me! I +have come to ask you once again to forgive me for that—that old +offense" (with a shamed red flush on the pallor of his cheeks); "I asked +you once before, you may remember, and you answered"—(recalling my +words with a resentful accuracy)—"that you <i>'would not, and, by God's +help, you never would'</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Did I?" say I, with that same hazy feeling. Those old emotions seem +grown so distant and dim. "I dare say!—I did not recollect!"</p> + +<p>"And so I have come to ask you once again," he goes on, with a heavy +emphasis—"it will do me no great harm if you say 'No' again!—it will +do me small good if you say 'Yes.' And yet, before I go away +<i>forever</i>—yes"—(with a bitter smile)—"cheer up!—<i>forever!</i>—I must +have one more try!"</p> + +<p>I am silent.</p> + +<p>"You may as well forgive me!" he says, taking my cold and passive hand, +and speaking with an intense though composed mournfulness. "After all, I +have not done you much harm, have I?—that is no credit to me, I know. I +would have done, if I could, but I could not! You may as well forgive +me, may not you? God forgives!—at least"—(with a sigh of heavy and +apathetic despair)—"so they say!—would <i>you</i> be less clement than He?"</p> + +<p>I am looking back at him, with a quiet fixedness. I no longer feel the +slightest embarrassment in his presence; it no longer disquiets me, that +he should hold my hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes," say I, speaking slowly, and still with my sunk and tear-dimmed +eyes calmly resting on the dull despair of his, "yes—if you wish—it is +all so long ago—and <i>she</i> liked you!—yes!—I forgive you!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Love is enough."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>And so, as the days go by, the short and silent days, it comes to pass +that a sort of peace falls upon my soul; born of a slow yet deep +assurance that with Barbara it is well.</p> + +<p>One can do with probabilities in prosperity, when to most of us careless +ones it seems no great matter whether there be a God or no? When all the +world's wheels seem to roll smoothly, as if of themselves, and one can +speculate with a confused curiosity as to the nature of the great far +cause that moves them; but in grief—in the destitute bareness, the +famished hunger of soul, when "one is not," how one craves for +<i>certainties</i>! How one yearns for the solid heaven of one's childhood; +the harping angels, the never-failing flowers; the pearl gates and +jeweled walls of God's great shining town!</p> + +<p>They may be gone; I know not, but at least <i>one</i> certainty +remains—guaranteed to us by no outside voice, but by the low yet plain +tones that each may listen to in his own heart. That, with him who is +pure and just and meek, who hates a lie worse than the sharpness of +death, and loves others dearer than himself, it shall be well.</p> + +<p>Do you ask where? or when? or how? We cannot say. We know not; only we +know that it shall be well.</p> + +<p>Never, never shall I reach Barbara's clear child-faith; Barbara, to whom +God was as real and certain as I; never shall I attain to the steady +confidence of Roger. I can but grope dimly with outstretched hands; +sometimes in the outer blackness of a moonless, starless night; +sometimes, with strained eyes catching a glimpse of a glimmer in the +east. I can but <i>feel</i> after God, as a plant in a dark place feels after +the light.</p> + +<p>And so the days go by, and as they do, as the first smart of my despair +softens itself into a slow and reverent acquiescence in the Maker's +will, my thoughts stray carefully, and heedfully back over my past life: +they overleap the gulf of Barbara's death and linger long and +wonderingly among the previous months.</p> + +<p>With a dazed astonishment I recall that even then I looked upon myself +as one most unprosperous, most sorrowful-hearted.</p> + +<p>What in Heaven's name ailed me? What did I lack? My jealousy of Roger, +such a living, stinging, biting thing <i>then</i>; how dead it is now!</p> + +<p>Barbara always said I was wrong; always!</p> + +<p>As his eyes, in the patient mournfulness of their reproachful appeal, +answer again in memory the shrewish violence of my accusation on the +night of the ball—the last embers of my jealousy die. He does not love +me as he did; of that I am still persuaded. There is now, perhaps, there +always will be, a film, a shade between us.</p> + +<p>By my peevish tears, by my mean and sidelong reproaches, by my sulky +looks, I have necessarily diminished, if not quite squandered the stock +of hearty, wholesome, honest love that on that April day he so +diffidently laid at my feet. I have already marred and blighted a year +and three-quarters of his life. I recollect how much older than me he +is, how much time I have already wasted; a pang of remorse, sharp as my +knife, runs through my heart; a great and mighty yearning to go back to +him at once, to begin over again <i>at once, this very minute</i>, to begin +over again—overflows and floods my whole being. Late in the day as it +is—doubly unseemly and ungracious as the confession will seem now—I +will tell him of that lie with which I first sullied the cleanness of +our union. With my face hidden on his broad breast, so that I may not +see his eyes, I will tell him—yes, I will tell him. "I will arise, and +go to him, and say, 'I have sinned against Heaven and before thee.'"</p> + +<p>So I go. I am nearing Tempest: as I reach the church-yard gate, I stop +the carriage, and get out.</p> + +<p>Barbara was always the one that, after any absence from home, I used +first to run in search of. I will go and seek her now.</p> + +<p>It is drawing toward dusk as I pass, in my long black gown, up the +church-path, between the still and low-lying dead, to the quiet spot +where, with the tree-boughs waving over her, with the ivy hanging the +loose luxuriance of its garlands on the church-yard wall above her head, +our Barbara is taking her rest.</p> + +<p>As I near the grave, I see that I am not its only visitor. Some one, a +man, is already there, leaning pensively on the railings that surround +it, with his eyes fixed on the dark and winterly earth, and on the +newly-planted, flagging flowers. It is Roger. As he hears my approaching +steps, the swish of my draperies, he turns; and, by the serene and +lifted gravity of his eyes, I see that he has been away in heaven with +Barbara. He does not speak as I come near; only he opens his arms +joyfully, and yet a little diffidently, too, and I fly to then.</p> + +<p>"Roger!" I cry, passionately, with a greedy yearning for human love +here—at this very spot, where so much of the love of my life lies in +death's austere silence at my feet—"love me a little—<i>ever so little</i>! +I know I am not very lovable, but you once liked me, did not you?—not +nearly so much as I thought, I know, but still <i>a little</i>!"</p> + +<p>"<i>A little!</i>"</p> + +<p>"I am going to begin all over again!" I go on, eagerly, speaking very +quickly, with my arms clasped about his neck, "quite all over again; +indeed I am! I shall be so different that you will not know me for the +same person, and if—if—" (beginning to falter and stumble)—"if you +still go on liking <i>her</i> best, and thinking her prettier and pleasanter +to talk to—well, you cannot help it, it will not be your fault—and +I—I—will try not to mind!"</p> + +<p>He has taken my hands from about his neck, and is holding them warmly, +steadfastly clasped in his own.</p> + +<p>"Child! child!" he cries, "shall I <i>never</i> undeceive you? are you still +harping on that old worn-out string?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> it worn out?" I ask, anxiously, staring up with my wet eyes +through the deep twilight into his. "Yes, yes!" (going on quickly and +impulsively), "if you say so, I will believe it—without another word I +will believe it, but—" (with a sudden fall from my high tone, and lapse +into curiosity)—"you know you must have liked her a good deal once—you +know you were engaged to her."</p> + +<p>"<i>Engaged to her?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>were not</i> you?"</p> + +<p>"I never was engaged to any one in my life," he answers with solemn +asseveration; "odd as it may seem, I never in my life had asked any +woman to marry me until I asked you. I had known Zéphine from a child; +her father was the best and kindest friend ever any man had. When he was +dying, he was uneasy in his mind about her, as she was not left well +off, and I promised to do what I could for her—one does not lightly +break such a promise, does one? I was fond of her—I would do her any +good turn I could, for old sake's sake, but <i>marry</i> her—be <i>engaged</i> to +her!—"</p> + +<p>He pauses expressively.</p> + +<p>"Thank God! thank God!" cry I, sobbing hysterically; "it has all come +right, then—Roger!—Roger!"—(burying my tear-stained face in his +breast)—"I will tell you <i>now</i>—perhaps I shall never feel so brave +again!—do not look at me—let me hide my face; I want to get it over in +a hurry! Do you remember—" (sinking my voice to an indistinct and +struggling whisper)—"that night that you asked me about—about +<i>Brindley Wood</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember."</p> + +<p>Already, his tone has changed. His arms seem to be slackening their +close hold of me.</p> + +<p>"Do not loose me!" cry I, passionately; "hold me tight, or I can <i>never</i> +tell you—how could you expect me? Well, that night—you know as well as +I do—I <i>lied</i>."</p> + +<p>"You <i>did</i>?"</p> + +<p>How hard and quick he is breathing! I am glad I cannot see his face.</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> there! I <i>did</i> cry! she <i>did</i> see me—"</p> + +<p>I stop abruptly, choked by tears, by shame, by apprehension.</p> + +<p>"Go on!" (spoken with panting shortness).</p> + +<p>"He met me there!" I say, tremulously. "I do not know whether he did it +on purpose or not, and said dreadful things! must I tell you them?" +(shuddering)—"pah! it makes me sick—he said" (speaking with a +reluctant hurry)—"that he loved me, and that I loved him, and that I +<i>hated</i> you, and it took me so by surprise—it was all so horrible, and +so different from what I had planned, that I cried—of course I ought +not, but I did—I <i>roared</i>!"</p> + +<p>There does not seem to me any thing ludicrous in this mode of +expression, neither apparently does there to him.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I do not think there is any thing more!" say I, slowly and timidly +raising my eyes, to judge of the effect of my confession, "only that I +was so <i>deadly, deadly</i> ashamed; I thought it was such a shameful thing +to happen to any one that I made up my mind I would never tell anybody, +and I did not."</p> + +<p>"And is that <i>all</i>?" he cries, with an intense and breathless anxiety in +eyes and voice, "are you sure that that is <i>all</i>?"</p> + +<p>"All!" repeat I, opening my eyes very wide in astonishment; "do not you +think it is <i>enough</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Are you sure," he cries, taking my face in his hands, and narrowly, +searchingly regarding it—"Child! child!—to-day let us have +nothing—<i>nothing</i> but truth—are you sure that you did not a little +regret that it must be so—that you did not feel it a little hard to be +forever tied to my gray hairs—my eight-and-forty years?"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" cry I, snatching away my hands, and putting them over my ears. +"I will not listen to you!—what do I care for your forty-eight +years?—If you were a hundred—two hundred—what is it to me?—what do I +care—I love you! I love you! I love you—O my darling, how stupid you +have been not to see it all along!"</p> + +<p>And so it comes to pass that by Barbara's grave we kiss again with +tears. And now we are happy—stilly, inly happy, though I, perhaps, am +never quite so boisterously gay as before the grave yawned for my +Barbara; and we walk along hand-in-hand down the slopes and up the hills +of life, with our eyes fixed, as far as the weakness of our human sight +will let us, on the one dread, yet good God, whom through the veil of +his great deeds we dimly discern. Only I wish that Roger were not +nine-and-twenty years older than I!</p> + +<p>THE END.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Other_Works_Published_by_D_APPLETON_CO" id="Other_Works_Published_by_D_APPLETON_CO"></a>Other Works Published by D. APPLETON &. CO.</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>"GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART!"</h3> + + +<h3>D. APPLETON & CO.<br /> +<i>Have recently published</i>,<br /> +GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART!</h3> + +<h3>By RHODA BROUGHTON,</h3> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "RED AS A ROSE IS SHE," "COMETH UP AS A FLOWER," ETC.</h3> + +<p>"Good-bye, Sweetheart!" is certainly one of the brightest and most +entertaining novels that has appeared for many years. The heroine of the +story, Lenore, is really an original character, drawn only as a woman +could draw her, who had looked deeply into the mysterious recesses of +the feminine heart. She is a creation totally beyond the scope of a +man's pen, unless it were the pen of Shakespeare. Her beauty, her +wilfulness, her caprice, her love, and her sorrow, are depicted with +marvellous skill, and invested with an interest of which the reader +never becomes weary. Miss Broughton, in this work, has made an immense +advance on her other stories, clever as those are. Her sketches of +scenery and of interiors, though brief, are eminently graphic, and the +dialogue is always sparkling and witty. The incidents, though sometimes +startling and unexpected, are very natural, and the characters and +story, from the beginning to the end, strongly enchain the attention of +the reader. The work has been warmly commended by the press during its +publication, as a serial, in <span class="smcap">Appletons' Journal</span>, and, in its book-form, +bids fair to be decidedly <span class="smcap">THE</span> novel of the season.</p> + + +<h3><i>D. A. & Co. have now ready, New Editions of</i></h3> + +<h3>COMETH UP AS A FLOWER<br /> +NOT WISELY, BUT TOO WELL<br /> +RED AS A ROSE IS SHE</h3> + +<h3>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</h3> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3>BRESSANT.</h3> + +<h3>A NOVEL.</h3> + +<h3>By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.</h3> + + +<p><i>From the London Examiner.</i></p> + +<p>"We will not say that Mr. Julian Hawthorne has received a double portion +or his father's spirit, but 'Bressant' proves that he has inherited the +distinctive tone and fibre of a gift which was altogether exceptional, +and moved the author of the 'Scarlet Letter' beyond the reach of +imitators.</p> + +<p>"Bressant, Sophie, and Cornelia, appear to us invested with a sort of +enchantment which we should find it difficult to account for by any +reference to any special passage in their story."</p> + +<p><i>From the London Athenæum.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Hawthorne's book forms a remarkable contrast, in point of power and +interest, to the dreary mass of so-called romances through which the +reviewer works his way. It is not our purpose to forestall the reader, +by any detailed account of the story; suffice it to say that, if we can +accept the preliminary difficulty of the problem, its solution, in all +its steps, is most admirably worked out."</p> + +<p><i>From the Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>"So far as a man may be judged by his first work, Mr. Julian Hawthorne +is endowed with a large share of his father's peculiar genius. We trace +in 'Bressant' the same intense yearning after a high and spiritual life, +the same passionate love of nature, the same subtlety and delicacy of +remark, and also a little of the same tendency to indulge in the use of +a half-weird, half-fantastic imagery."</p> + +<p><i>From the New York Times.</i></p> + +<p>"'Bressant' is, then, a work that demonstrates the fitness of its author +to bear the name of Hawthorne. More in praise need not be said; but, if +the promise of the book shall not utterly fade and vanish, Julian +Hawthorne, in the maturity of his power, will rank side by side with him +who has hitherto been peerless, but whom we must hereafter call the +'Elder Hawthorne.'"</p> + +<p><i>From the Boston Post.</i></p> + +<p>"There is beauty as well as power in this novel, the two so pleasantly +blended, that the sudden and incomplete conclusion, although ending the +romance with an abruptness that is itself artistic, comes only too soon +for the reader."</p> + +<p><i>From the Boston Globe.</i></p> + +<p>"It is by far the most original novel of the season that has been +published at home or abroad, and will take high rank among the best +American novels ever written."</p> + +<p><i>From the Boston Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>"There is a strength in the book which takes it in a marked degree out +or the range of ordinary works of fiction. It is substantially an +original story. There are freshness and vigor in every part."</p> + +<p><i>From the Home Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"'Bressant' is a remarkable romance, full of those subtle touches of +fancy, and that insight into the human heart, which distinguish genius +from the mere clever and entertaining writers of whom we have perhaps +too many."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3>NOW READY, A NEW EDITION OF</h3> + +<h3><i>THE HOUSEHOLD OF BOUVERIE.</i></h3> + +<h3>BY THE AUTHOR OF "MIRIAM MONFORT."</h3> + + +<p><i>From Gail Hamilton, author of "Gala Days," etc.</i></p> + +<p>"'The Household of Bouverie' is one of those nuisances of books that +pluck out all your teeth, and then dare you to bite them. Your interest +is awakened in the first chapter, and you are whirled through in a +lightning-express train that leaves you no opportunity to look at the +little details of wood, and lawn, and river. You notice two or three +little peculiarities of style—one or two 'bits' of painting—and then +you pull on your seven-leagued boots, and away you go."</p> + +<p><i>From John G. Saxe, the Poet.</i></p> + +<p>"It is a strange romance, and will bother the critics not a little. The +interest of the book is undeniable, and is wonderfully sustained to the +end of the story. I think it exhibits far more power than any lady-novel +of recent date, and it certainly has the rare merit of entire +originality."</p> + +<p><i>From Marion Harland, author of "Alone," "Hidden Path," etc.</i></p> + +<p>"As to Mrs. Warfield's wonderful book, I have read it twice—the second +time more carefully than the first—and I use the term 'wonderful' +because it best expresses the feeling uppermost in my mind, both while +reading and thinking it over. As a piece of imaginative writing, I have +seen nothing to equal it since the days of Edgar A. Poe, and I doubt +whether he could have sustained himself and reader through a book of +half the size of the 'Household of Bouverie.' I was literally hurried +through it by my intense sympathy, my devouring curiosity—it was more +than interest. I read everywhere—between the courses of the +hotel-table, on the boat, in the cars—until I had swallowed the last +line. This is no common occurrence with a veteran romance-reader like +myself."</p> + +<p><i>From George Ripley's Review of "The Household of Bouverie," in Harper's +Magazine, November, 1860.</i></p> + +<p>"Everywhere betraying a daring boldness of conception, singular +fertility of illustration, and a combined beauty and vigor of +expression, which it would be difficult to match in any recent works of +fiction. In these days, when the most milk-and-watery platitudes are so +often welcomed as sibylline inspirations, it is somewhat refreshing to +meet with a female novel-writer who displays the unmistakable fire of +genius, however terrific its brightness."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3>Mrs. Warfield's New Novel.</h3> + +<h3>MIRIAM MONFORT.</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">by the author of</span> "THE HOUSEHOLD OF BOUVERIE."</h3> + +<p>The <i>N. Y. Evening Post</i> says of "Miriam Monfort:" "Mrs. Warfield's new +novel has freshness, and is so far removed from mediocrity as to entitle +it to respectful comment. Her fiction calls for study. Her perception is +deep and artistic, as respects both the dramatic side of life and the +beautiful. It is not strictly nature, in the general sense, that forms +the basis of her descriptions. She finds something deeper and more +mystic than nature in the sense in which the term is usually used by +critics, in the answer of the soul to life—in the strange, weird, and +lonesome music (though now and then broken by discords) of the still +small voices with which human nature replies to the questions that +sorely vex her. She has the analytic capacity in the field of +psychology, which enables her to trace phenomena in a story without +arguing about them, and to exhibit the dramatic side of them without +stopping to explain the reasons for it. In a word, her hand is as sure +as that of a master, and if there were more such novels as this simple +semi-biographical story of Miriam Monfort, it would not be necessary so +often to put the question, 'Is the art of fiction extinct?'"</p> + +<p>The <i>Cincinnati Daily Gazette</i> says: "'Miriam Monfort,' which now lies +before us, is less sensational in incident than its predecessor, though +it does not lack stirring events—an experience on a burning ship, for +example. Its interest lies in the intensity which marks all the +characters good and bad. The plot turns on the treachery of a pretended +lover, and the author seems to have experienced every emotion of love +and hate, jealousy and fear, that has inspired the creations of her pen. +There is a contagion in her earnestness, and we doubt not that numerous +readers will follow the fortunes of the beautiful but much-persecuted +Miriam with breathless interest."</p> + +<p>The <i>All Day City Item</i> says: "It is a work of extraordinary merit. The +story is charmingly told by the heroine. It is admirable and original in +plot, varied in incident, and intensely absorbing in interest; besides, +throughout the volume, there is an exquisite combination of sensibility, +pride, and loveliness, which will hold the work in high estimation. We +make a quotation from the book that suits the critic exactly. 'It is +splendid; it is a dream, more vivid than life itself; it is like +drinking champagne, smelling tuberoses, inhaling laughing-gas, going to +the opera, all at one time.' We recommend this to our young lady friends +as a most thoughtfully and delightfully written novel."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3>APPLETONS' (so-called) PLUM-PUDDING EDITION OF THE WORKS OF CHARLES +DICKENS.</h3> + + +<h3>LIST OF THE WORKS.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oliver Twist<br /></span> +<span class="i0">American Notes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dombey and Son<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Martin Chuzzlewit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our Mutual Friend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Christmas Stories<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tale of Two Cities<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hard Times, and Additional Christmas Stories<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nicholas Nickleby<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bleak House<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little Dorrit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pickwick Papers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">David Copperfield<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Barnaby Rudge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Curiosity Shop<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great Expectations<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sketches<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uncommercial Traveller, Pictures of Italy, etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Any person ordering the entire set, and remitting $5, will receive a +Portrait of Dickens, suitable for framing. The entire set will be sent by +mail or express, at our option, postage or freight prepaid, to any part +of the United States.</p> + +<p><i>Single copies of any of the above sent to any address in the United +States on the receipt of the price affixed.</i></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3>GRACE AGUILAR'S WORKS.</h3> + + +<h3>HOME INFLUENCE. A Tale for Mothers and Daughters.<br /> +THE MOTHER'S RECOMPENSE. A Sequel to Home Influence.<br /> +WOMAN'S FRIENDSHIP. A Story of Domestic Life.<br /> +THE VALE OF CEDARS; or, the Martyr.<br /> +THE DAYS OF BRUCE. A Story from Scottish History. 2 vols.<br /> +HOME SCENES AND HEART STUDIES. Tales.<br /> +THE WOMEN OF ISRAEL. Characters and Sketches from the Holy Scriptures. Two vols.</h3> + + +<p>CRITICISMS ON GRACE AGUILAR'S WORKS.</p> + +<p><i>HOME INFLUENCE.</i>—"Grace Aguilar wrote and spoke as one inspired; +she condensed and spiritualized, and all her thoughts and feelings were +steeped in the essence of celestial love and truth. To those who really +knew Grace Aguilar, all eulogium falls short of her deserts, and she has +left a blank in her particular walk of literature, which we never expect +to see filled up."—<i>Pilgrimages to English Shrines, by Mrs. Hall.</i></p> + +<p><i>MOTHER'S RECOMPENSE.</i>—"'The Mother's Recompense' forms a fitting close +to its predecessor. 'Home Influence.' The results of maternal care are +fully developed, its rich rewards are set forth, and its lesson and its +moral are powerfully enforced."—<i>Morning Post.</i></p> + +<p><i>WOMAN'S FRIENDSHIP.</i>—"We congratulate Miss Aguilar on the spirit, +motive, and composition of this story. Her alms are eminently moral, and +her cause comes recommended by the most beautiful associations. These, +connected with the skill here evinced in their development, insure the +success of her labors."—<i>Illustrated News.</i></p> + +<p><i>VALE OF CEDARS.</i>—"The authoress of this most fascinating volume has +selected for her field one of the most remarkable eras in modern +history—the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella. The tale turns on the +extraordinary extent to which concealed Judaism had gained footing at +that period in Spain. It is marked by much power of description, and by +a woman's delicacy of touch, and it will add to its writer's well-earned +reputation."—<i>Eclectic Rev.</i></p> + +<p><i>DAYS OF BRUCE.</i>—"The tale is well told, the interest warmly sustained +throughout, and the delineation of female character is marked by a +delicate sense of moral beauty. It is a work that may be confided to the +hands of a daughter by her parent."—<i>Court Journal.</i></p> + +<p><i>HOME SCENES.</i>—"Grace Aguilar knew the female heart better than any +writer of our day, and in every fiction from her pen we trace the same +masterly analysis and development of the motives and feelings of woman's +nature."—<i>Critic.</i></p> + +<p><i>WOMEN OF ISRAEL.</i>—"A work that is sufficient of itself to create and +crown a reputation."—<i>Mrs. S. C. Hall.</i></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h3>Sir HENRY HOLLAND'S RECOLLECTIONS.</h3> + +<h3>RECOLLECTIONS OF PAST LIFE<br /> +<i>By Sir HENRY HOLLAND, Bart.</i>,<br /> +1 vol., 12mo, Cloth. 350 pp.</h3> + +<p><i>From The London Lancet.</i></p> + +<p>"The 'Life or Sir Henry Holland' is one to be recollected, and he has +not erred in giving an outline of it to the public. In the very nature +of things it is such a life as cannot often be repeated. Even if there +were many men in the profession capable of living to the age of +eighty-four, and then writing their life with fair hope of further +travels, it is not reasonable to expect that there could ever be more +than a very few lives so full of incidents worthy of being recorded +autographically as the marvellous life which we are fresh from perusing. +The combination of personal qualities and favorable opportunities in Sir +Henry Holland's case is as rare as it is happy. But that is one reason +for recording the history of it. Sir Henry's life cannot be very closely +imitated, but it may be closely studied. We have found the study of it, +as recorded in the book just published, one of the most delightful +pieces of recreation which we have enjoyed for many days.... Among his +patients were pachas, princes, and premiers. Prince Albert, Napoleon +III., Talleyrand, Pozzo di Borgo, Gulzot, Palmella, Bulow, and Drouyn de +Lhuys, Jefferson Davis, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Stowell, Lord Melbourne, +Lord Palmerston, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Lansdowne. Lord Lyndhurst, to say +nothing of men of other note, were among his patients."</p> + +<p><i>From the London Spectator.</i></p> + +<p>"We constantly find ourselves recalling the Poet Laureate's modernized +Ulysses, the great wanderer, insatiate of new experiences, as we read +the story of the octogenarian traveller and his many friends in many +lands:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'I am become a name;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For always roaming with a hungry heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Much have I seen and known. Cities of men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And manners, climates, councils, governments,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Myself not least and honored of them all.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>You see in this book all this and more than this—knowledge of the +world, and insatiable thirst for more knowledge of it, great clearness +of aim and exact appreciation of the mind's own wants, precise knowledge +of the self-sacrifices needed to gratify those wants and a readiness for +those sacrifices, a distinct adoption of an economy of life, and steady +adherence to it from beginning to end—all of them characteristics which +are but rare in this somewhat confused and hand-to-mouth world, and +which certainly when combined make a unique study of character, however +indirectly it may be presented to us and however little attention may be +drawn to the interior of the picture."</p> + +<p><i>From The New York Times.</i></p> + +<p>"His memory was—is, we may say, for he is still alive and in possession +of all his faculties—stored with recollections of the most eminent men +and women of this century. He has known the intimate friends of Dr. +Johnson. He travelled in Albania when Ali Pacha ruled, and has since +then explored almost every part of the world, except the far East. He +has made eight visits to this country, and at the age of eighty-two (in +1869) he was here again—the guest of Mr. Evarts, and, while in this +city, of Mr. Thurlow Weed. Since then he has made a voyage to Jamaica +and the West India Islands, and a second visit to Iceland. He was a +friend of Sir Walter Scott, Lockhart, Dugald Stewart, Mme. de Staël, +Byron, Moore, Campbell, Rogers, Crabbe, Wordsworth, Coleridge, +Talleyrand, Sydney Smith, Macaulay, Hallam, Mackintosh, Malthus, +Erskine, Humboldt, Schlegel, Canova, Sir Humphry Davy, Joanna Baillie, +Lord and Lady Holland, and many other distinguished persons whose names +would occupy a column. In this country he has known, among other +celebrated men, Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Abraham +Lincoln, Seward, etc. He was born the same year in which the United +States Constitution was ratified. A life extending over such a period, +and passed in the most active manner, in the midst of the best society +which the world has to offer, must necessarily be full of singular +interest; and Sir Henry Holland has fortunately not waited until his +memory lost its freshness before recalling some of the incidents in it."</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nancy, by Rhoda Broughton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NANCY *** + +***** This file should be named 12304-h.htm or 12304-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/0/12304/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Carol David, David Edwards, Mary Meehan +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/12304.zip b/old/12304.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b2f4ef --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12304.zip diff --git a/old/old/12304-8.txt b/old/old/12304-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01e08b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12304-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15196 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nancy, by Rhoda Broughton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Nancy + +Author: Rhoda Broughton + +Release Date: May 9, 2004 [EBook #12304] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NANCY *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Carol David and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +NANCY: + +A NOVEL. + +BY +RHODA BROUGHTON. + + +AUTHOR OF +"'GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART!'" "RED AS A ROSE IS SHE," ETC., ETC. + + + + "As through the land at eve we went, + And plucked the ripened ears, + We fell out, my wife and I, + Oh, we fell out, I know not why, + And kissed again with tears." + + +1874 + + + + +NANCY. + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +"Put into a small preserving pan three ounces of fresh butter, and, as +soon as it is just melted, add one pound of brown sugar of moderate +quality--" + +"Not moderate; the browner the better," interpolates Algy. + +"Cannot say I agree with you. I hate brown sugar--filthy stuff!" says +Bobby, contradictiously. + +"Not half so _filthy_ as white, if you come to that," retorts Algy, +loftily, looking up from the lemon he is grating to extinguish his +brother. "They clear white sugar with but--" + +"Keep these stirred gently over a clear fire for about fifteen minutes," +interrupt I, beginning to read again very fast, in a loud, dull +recitative, to hinder further argument, "or until a little of the +mixture dipped into cold water breaks clear between the teeth without +sticking to them. When it is boiled to this point it must be poured out +immediately or it will burn." + +Having galloped jovially along, scorning stops, I here pause out of +breath. We are a large family, we Greys, and we are _all_ making taffy. +Yes, every one of us. It would take all the fingers of one hand, and the +thumb of the other, to count us, O reader. Six! Yes, six. A Frenchman +might well hold up his hands in astonied horror at the insane +prolificness--the foolhardy fertility--of British householders. We come +very _improbably_ close together, except Tou Tou, who was an +after-thought. There are no two of us, I am proud to say, exactly +simultaneous, but we have come tumbling on each other's heels into the +world in so hot a hurry that we evidently expect to find it a pleasant +place when we get there. Perhaps we do--perhaps we do not; friends, you +will hear and judge for yourselves. + +A few years ago when we were little, people used to say that we were +quite a pretty sight, like little steps one above another. We are big +steps now, and no one any longer hazards the suggestion of our being +pretty. On the other hand, nobody denies that we are each as well +furnished with legs, arms, and other etceteras, as our neighbors, nor +can affirm that we are notably more deficient in wits than those of our +friends who have arrived in twos and threes. + +We are in the school-room, the big bare school-room, that has seen us +all--that is still seeing some of us--unwillingly dragged, and painfully +goaded up the steep slopes of book-learning. Outside, the March wind is +roughly hustling the dry, brown trees and pinching the diffident green +shoots, while the round and rayless sun of late afternoon is staring, +from behind the elm-twigs in at the long maps on the wall, in at the +high chairs--tall of back, cruelly tiny of seat, off whose rungs we have +kicked all the paint--in at the green baize table, richly freaked with +splashes. Hardly less red than the sun's, are our burnt faces gathered +about the fire. + +This fire has no flame--only a glowing, ruddy heart, on which the bright +brass saucepan sits; and kneeling before it, stirring the mess with a +long iron spoon, is Barbara. Algy, as I have before remarked, is grating +a lemon. Bobby is buttering soup-plates. The Brat--the Brat always takes +his ease if he can--is peeling almonds, fishing delicately for them in a +cup of hot water with his finger and thumb; and I, Nancy, am reading +aloud the receipt at the top of my voice, out of a greasy, dog's-eared +cookery-book, which, since it came into our hands, has been the innocent +father of many a hideous compound. Tou Tou alone, in consideration of +her youth, is allowed to be a spectator. She sits on the edge of the +table, swinging her thin legs, and kicking her feet together. + +Certainly we deteriorate in looks as we go downward. In Barbara we made +an excellent start: few families a better one, though we say it that +should not. Although in Algy there was a slight falling off, it was not +much to complain of. But I am sensibly uglier than Algy (as indeed he +has, on several occasions, dispassionately remarked to me); the Brat +than me; Bobby than the Brat; and so steadily on, till we reach our +nadir of unhandsomeness in Tou Tou. Tou Tou is our climax, and we +certainly defy our neighbors and acquaintances to outdo her. + +Hapless young Tou Tou! made up of the thinnest legs, the widest mouth, +the invisiblest nose, and over-visiblest ears, that ever went to the +composition of a child of twelve years. + +"Keep stirring always! You must take care that it does not stick to the +bottom!" say I, closing the receipt-book, and speaking on my own +account, but still as one having authority. + +"All very well to say 'Keep stirring always,'" answers Barbara, turning +round a face unavoidably pretty, even though at the present moment +deeply flame-colored; eyes still sweetly laughing with gay good-humor, +even though half burnt out of her head, to answer me; "but if you had +been stirring as long as I have, you would wonder that you had any arm +left to stir with, however feebly. Here, one of you boys, take a turn! +You Brat, you never do any thing for your living!" + +The Brat complies, though not with eagerness. They change occupations: +the Brat stirs, and she fishes for almonds. Ten minutes pass: the taffy +is done, and what is more it really is taffy. The upshot of our cookery +is in general so startlingly indifferent from what we had intended, that +the result in the present case takes us by surprise. We all prove +practically that, in the words of the receipt-book, it "breaks clear +between the teeth without sticking to them." It is poured into Bobby's +soup-plate, and we have thrown up the window-sashes, and set it on the +ledge to cool. The searching wind blows in dry and biting. Now it is +rushing in a violent current through the room, for the door has opened. +Mother enters. + +"To what may we attribute the honor of this visit?" says Algy, turning +away from the window to meet her, and setting her a chair. Bobby gives +her a kiss, and the Brat a lump of taffy, concerning which it would be +invidious to predicate which were the stickier; so exceedingly adhesive +are both. + +"Your father says," begins she, sitting down. She is interrupted by a +loud and universal groan. + +"Says what? Something unpleasant of course, who is it now? Who has done +any thing now? I do hope it is the Brat," cries Bobby, viciously; "it is +quite his turn; he has been good boy of the family for the last week." + +"I dare say it is," replies the Brat, resignedly; "one can't expect such +prosperity as mine to last forever." + +"Of course it is _I_," says Algy, rather bitterly, "it is always I. I +have never been good boy since I was ploughed; and, please God, I never +will be again." + +"But what is it? what is it? About how bad is it? Is it to be one of our +worst rows?" + + +We are all speaking together at the top of our voices; indeed, we rarely +employ a lower key. + +"It is no one; no one has done any thing," replies mother, when, at +last, we allow her to make herself heard, "only your father sends you a +message that, as Sir Roger Tempest is coming here to-day, he hopes you +will make less noise this evening in here than you did last night: he +says he could hardly hear the sound of his own voice." + +"Ahem!" "Very likely!" "I dare say!" in different tones of angry +incredulity. + +"He begs you to see that the swing-door is shut, as he does not wish his +friend to imagine that he keeps a private lunatic asylum." + +A universal snort of indignation. + +"If we are bedlamites, we know who made us so. We will tell old Roger if +he asks," etc. + +"For my part," say I, resolutely pinching my lips together as I kneel on +the carpet, and violently hammer the now cold and hard taffy with the +handle of the poker, which in its day has been put to many uses vile, "I +can tell you that I shall not dine with you to-night: I should +infallibly say something to father--something unfortunate--I feel it +rising; and it would be unseemly to have one of our _émeutes_ before +this old gentleman, would not it?" + +"They are nice breezy things when you are used to them," says Barbara, +laughing; "but one requires to be brought up to them." + +"Do not you dine either, Brat," say I, looking up, and waving the poker +with suave command at him, "and we will broil bones for tea, and roast +potatoes on the shovel." + +"Some of you must dine," says poor mother, rather wearily, "or your +father--" + +"He cannot complain if we send our two specimen ones," say I, again +looking up, and indicating Barbara and Algy with my weapon, "our sample +figs: if Sir Robert--Sir Robin--Sir Roger--what is he?--does not see the +rest of us, he may perhaps imagine that we are all equally presentable, +which would be more to your credit, mother, than if Bobby and Tou Tou +and I were to be submitted to the poor old thing's notice." + +Mother looks rather at sea. + +"What are you talking about? What poor old thing? Oh! I understand." + +"He will have to see us," says Tou Tou, rather lugubriously, "he cannot +help it--at prayers." + +Tou Tou has descended from the table, and is standing propped against +mother's knee, twisting one leg with ingenious grace round the other. + +"Bless your heart," says the Brat, comfortingly, "he will never find out +that we are there: do you suppose that his blear old eyes will see all +across that big room, economically lit up by one pair of candles?" + +Mother smiles. + +"Wait till you see whether he has blear eyes!" + +"He must be very ancient," says Algy, in all the insolence of twenty, +leaning his flat back against the mantel-shelf, "as he was at school +with father." + +"Father has not blear eyes," remarks Bobby, dryly. "Would God he had! +For then perhaps he would not see our little vices quite so clearly with +them as he does." + +"But then father has not been in India," retorts Algy, stretching. +"India plays the deuce with one's organs and appurtenances." + +"I wish you joy of him," say I, rising flushed and untidy from my knees, +having successfully smashed the taffy into little bits; "from soup to +walnuts, you will have to undergo a ceaseless tyranny of tales about +hitmaghars and dak bungalows and Choto Lazery: which of us has not +suffered in our day from the horrible monotony of ideas of an old +Indian?" + +"Never you mind, Barbara!" cries the Brat, giving her a sounding +brotherly pat on the back. "Pay no attention to her." + +"'What great events from trivial causes spring!' as the poet says: you +may live to bless the day that old Roger Crossed our doors." + +"As how?" says Barbara, laughing, and rocking herself backward and +forward in a veteran American rocking-chair which, at different periods +of our history, has served most of us the dirty turn of tipping us over, +and presenting us reversed to the eyes of our family. + +"Never you mind," repeats the Brat, oracularly; "truth is stranger than +fiction! odd things happen: I read in the paper the other day of a man +who pulled up the window for an old woman in the train, and she died at +once--I do not mean on the spot, but very soon after, and when she died +--listen, please, all of you--" (speaking very slowly and impressively) +--"she left him _two thousand pounds_ a year." + +"I wish I saw the application," answers Barbara, still rocking and +sighing. + +"Mind that you set a stool for his gouty foot," says Algy, feeling for +his faint mustache, "and run and search for his spectacle-case, when he +has mislaid it." + +"Seriously," say I, "what a grand thing it would be for the family if he +were to adopt you, Barbara!" + +"Or me," suggests the Brat, standing before the fire with his coat-tails +under his arm. "Why not _me_? My manners to the aged are always +considered particularly happy." + +"Here he is!" cries Tou Tou from the window, whither she has retired, +and now stands, like a heron, on one leg, leaning her elbow on the sill. +"Here is the dog-cart turning the corner!" + +We all make a rush to the casement. + +"Yes, there he is! sure enough! our future benefactor!" says Algy, +looking over the rest of our heads, and making a counterfeit greeting.-- +"Welcome, welcome, good old man!" + +"And father, all affability, pointing out the house," supplements Bobby. + +We laugh grimly. + +"But who is it he has in the fly?" say I, as the second vehicle follows +the first. "His harem, I suppose! half a dozen old Wampoos." + +"His valet, to be sure," replies the Brat, chidingly, "with his stays, +and his evening wig, and the calves of his legs." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The wind is even colder than it was, stronger and more withering now +that the sun's faint warmth is withdrawn, and that the small and chilly +stars possess the sky. Nevertheless, both the school-room windows are +open. We are all huddled shivering round the hearth, yet no one talks of +closing them. The fact is, that amateur cooking, though a graceful +accomplishment, has its penalties, and that at the present moment the +smell of broiled bones and fried potatoes that fills our place of +learning is something appalling. Why may not it penetrate beneath the +swing-door, through the passages, and reach the drawing-room? Such a +thing has happened once or twice before. At the bare thought we all +quake. I am in the pleasant situation, just at present, of owning a +chilled body and a blazing face. + +Chiefest among the cooks have I been, and now I am sitting trying to fan +my red cheeks and redder nose, with the back of an old atlas, gutted in +some ancient broil, trying, in deference to Sir Roger, to cool down my +appearance a little against prayer-time. Alas! that epoch is nearer than +I think. Ting! tang! the loud bell is ringing through the house. My hair +is loosened and tumbled with stooping over the fire, and I have burnt a +hole right in the fore front of my gown, by letting a hot cinder fall +from the grate upon it. There is, however, now no time to repair these +dilapidations. We issue from our lair, and _en route_ meet the long +string of servants filing from their distant regions. How is it that the +cook's face is so much, _much_ less red than mine? Prayers are held in +the justicing-room, and thither we are all repairing. The accustomed +scene bursts on my eye. At one end the long, straight row of the +servants, immovably devout, staring at the wall, with their backs to us. +In the middle of the room, facing them, father, kneeling upon a chair +with his hands clutched, and his eyes closed, repeating the church +prayers, as if he were rather angry with them than otherwise. Mother, +kneeling on the carpet beside him, like the faithful, ruffed, and +farthingaled wife on a fifteenth-century tomb. Behind them, again, at +some little distance, we and our visitor. With the best will in the +world to do so, I can get but a meagre view of the latter. The room is +altogether rather dark, it being one of our manners and customs not to +throw much light on prayers, and he has chosen the darkest corner of it. +I only vaguely see the outline of a kneeling figure, evidently neither +bulky nor obese, of a flat back and vigorous shoulders. His face is +generally hidden in his hands, but once or twice he lifts it to scan the +proportions of my late grandfather's preposterously fat cob, whose +portrait hangs on the wall above his head. + +There is no doubt that on some days the devil reigns with a more potent +sway over people than on others. Tonight he has certainly entered into +the boys. He often does a little, but this evening he is holding a great +and mighty carnival among them. While father's strong, hard voice +vibrates in a loud, dull monotone through the silent room, they are +engaged in a hundred dumb yet ungodly antics behind his back. + +Algernon has thrust his head far out between the rungs of his +chair-back, and affects to be unable to withdraw it again, making +movements of simulated suffocation. The Brat is stealthily walking on +his knees across the space that intervenes between them to Barbara, with +intent, as I too well know, of unseemly pinchings. If father unbutton +his eyes, or move his head one barley-corn, we are all dead men. I hold +my breath in a nervous agony. Thank Heaven! the harsh recitation still +flows on with equable loud slowness. In happy ignorance of his +offspring's antics, father is still asking, or rather ordering, the +Almighty (for there is more of command than entreaty in his tone) to +prosper the High Court of Parliament. Also the Brat is now returning to +his place, travelling with surprising noiseless rapidity over the Turkey +carpet, dragging his shins and his feet after him. I draw a long breath +of relief, and drop my hot face into my spread hands. My peace, however, +is not of long duration. I am aroused again by a sort of choking snort +from Tou Tou, who is beside me--a snort that seems compounded of mingled +laughter and pain, and, looking up, detect Bobby in the act of deftly +puncturing one of her long bare legs with a long brass pin, which he has +found straying, after the vagabond manner of pins, over the carpet. + +I raise myself, and lean over Tou Tou, to give the offender a silent +buffet of admonition, and, lifting my eyes apprehensively to see if I am +noticed, I meet the blear eyes of Sir Roger fixed upon mine. He has +turned his face quite toward me, and a ray from the candles falls full +upon it. _Blear_! Well, if his eyes are blear, then henceforth blear +must bear a different signification from the unhandsome one it has +hitherto worn. Henceforth it must mean blue as steel: it must mean clear +as a glass of spring water; keen as a well-tempered knife; kindly as the +early sunshine. + +I am so astonished at my discovery, that I remain for full two minutes +staring blankly at the object of it, while he also looks stealthily at +me; then, recollecting my manners, I burrow my face into my +chair-bottom, and so remain until mother's gentle Amen, and a noise of +shuffling and scrambling to their feet on the part of the congregation, +tell me that the end has come. + +We all go up to father, and coldly and stiffly kiss him. While I am +waiting for my turn to receive our parent's chilly salute, I steal a +second glance at our guest. Yes, he is old certainly. Despite the youth +of his eyes, despite the uprightness, the utter freedom from superfluous +flesh--from the ugly shaky bulkiness of age--in his tall and stalwart +figure, still he is old--old in the eyes of nineteen--as old as father, +perhaps--though in much better preservation--forty-eight or forty-nine; +for is not his hair iron-gray, and his heavy mustache, and the thick and +silky beard that falls on his broad breast, are they not iron-gray too? +I have dropped my small and unwilling kiss on father's forehead--and +said "good-night" in a tone as suppressedly hostile as his own. Now I +may go. We may all go. I am the last, or I think I am, to pass through +the swing-door. I hurry along the passage to join the rest in the +school-room. I upbraid the boys for the rash impiety of their demeanor. +I feel a foot on my garments behind, and hear a long cracking sound that +I too, too well know to mean _gathers_. + +"You beast!" cried I, in good nervous English, turning sharply round +with my hand raised in act to strike, "that is the third time this week +that you have torn out my--" + +I stop dumfounded. If I mean to box the offender's ears, I must raise my +hand considerably higher than it is at present. Angels and ministers of +grace! what has happened? I have called General Sir Roger Tempest a +_beast_, and offered to cuff him. For a moment, I am dumfounded. Then, +for shyness has never been my besetting sin, and something in the genial +laughter of his eyes reassures me. + +I hold out the injured portion of my raiment, and say: + +"Look! when you see what you have done, I am sure you will forgive me; +but of course I meant it for Bobby. I never dreamt it was you." + +He takes hold of one end of the rent, I of the other, and we both +examine it. + +"How exceedingly clumsy of me! how could it have happened? I beg your +pardon ten thousand times." + +In his words there is polite remorse and solicitude; in his face only a +friendly mirth. He is old, that is clear. Had he been young, he would +have said, with that variety and suitability of epithets so +characteristic of this generation: + +"I am awfully sorry! how awfully stupid of me! what an awful duffer I +am!" + +The gas is shining in its garish yellow brightness full down upon us, as +we stand together, illuminating my plain, scorched face, the slatternly +looseness of my hair, and the burnt hole in my gown. + +"You will have to give me another," I say, looking up at him and +smiling. I should not have thought of saying it if he had been a young +man, but with a _vieux papa_ one may be at one's ease. + +"There is nothing in the world I should like better," he says, with a +sort of hurry and eagerness, not very suggestive of a _vieux papa_; "but +really--" (seeing me look rather ashamed of my proposition)--"is it +_quite hopeless?_ the damage quite irremediable?" + +"On the contrary," reply I, tucking my gathers in, with a graceful +movement, at the band of my gown, "five minutes will make it as good as +new--at least" (casting a disparaging eye over its frayed and +taffy-marked surface), "as good as it _ever_ will be in this world." + +A little pause. + +"I suppose I have lost my way," he says, thinking, I fancy, that I look +rather eager to be gone. "I am never very good at the geography of a +strange house." + +"Yes," say I, promptly; "you came through _our_ door, instead of your +own; shall I show you the way back?" + +"Since I have come so far, may not I come a little farther?" he asks, +glancing rather longingly at the half-open school-room door, whence +sounds of pious mirth are again beginning to reissue. + +"Do you mean _really?_" ask I, with a highly-dissuasive inflection of +voice. "Please not to-night; we are all higgledy-piggledy--at sixes and +sevens! To tell you the truth, we have been _cooking_. I wonder you did +not smell it in the drawing-room." + +Again he looks amused. + +"May not I cook too? I _can_, though you look disbelieving; there are +few people that can beat me at an Irish stew when I set my mind to it." + +A head (Bobby's) appears round the school-room door. + +"I say, Nancy, who are you colloquing with out there? I believe you have +got hold of our future benefact--" + +An "oh!" of utter discomfiture, and the head is withdrawn. + +"I am keeping you," Sir Roger says. "Well, I will say good-night. You +will shake hands, won't you, to show that you bear no malice?" + +"That I will," reply I, heartily stretching out my right hand, and +giving his a cordial shake. For was not he at school with father? + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Day has followed night. The broiled smell has at length evacuated the +school-room, but a good deal of taffy, spilt in the pouring out, still +adheres to the carpet, making it nice and sticky. The wind is still +running roughly about over the earth, and the yellow crocuses, in the +dark-brown garden-borders, opened to their widest extent, are staring up +at the sun. How _can_ they stare so straight up at him without blinking? +I have been trying to emulate them--trying to stare, too, up at him, +through the pane, as he rides laughing, aloft in the faint far sky; and +my presumptuous eyes have rained down tears in consequence. I am trying +now to read; but a hundred thousand things distract me: the sun shining +warm on my shoulder, as I lean against the window; the divine morning +clamor of the birds; their invitations to come out that will take no +nay; and last, but oh! not, _not_ least, the importunate voices of +Barbara and Tou Tou. Every morning at this hour they have a weary tussle +with the verb "aimer," "to love." It is hard that they should have +pitched upon so tenderhearted a verb for the battle-field of so grim a +struggle: + + J'aime, I love. + Tu aimes, Thou lovest. + Il aime, He loves. + Nous aimons, We love. + Vous aimez, You love. + Ils aiment, They love. + +This, with endless variations of ingenious and hideous inaccuracies-- +this, interspersed with foolish laughter and bitter tears, is what I +have daily been audience to, for the last two months. The day before +yesterday a great stride was taken; the present tense was pronounced +vanquished, and Barbara and her pupil passed on in triumph to the +imperfect, "j'aimais, I loved, or was loving." To-day, in order to be +quite on the safe side, a return has been made to "j'aime," and it has +been discovered that it has utterly disappeared from our young sister's +memory. "J'aimais, I loved, or was loving," has entirely routed and +dispersed his elder brother, "j'aime, I love." The old strain is, +therefore, desperately resumed: + + J'aime, I love. + Tu aimes, Thou lovest. + Il aime, He loves, etc. + +It is making me drowsy. Ten minutes more, and I shall be asleep in the +sun, with my head down-dropped on the window-sill. I get up, and, +putting on my out-door garments, stray out into the sun, leaving +Barbara--her pretty forehead puckered with ineffectual wrath, and Tou +Tou blurred with grimy tears, to their death-struggle with the restive +verb "to love." It is the end of March, and when one can hide round a +corner from the wind, one has a foretaste of summer, in the sun's warm +strength. I gaze lovingly at the rich brown earth, so lately freed from +the frost's grasp, through which the blunt green buds are gently forcing +themselves. I look down the flaming crocus throats--the imperial purple +goblets with powdery gold stamens--and at the modest little pink faces +of the hepaticas. All over our wood there is a faint yet certain purply +shade, forerunner of the summer green, and the loud and sweet-voiced +birds are abroad. O Spring! Spring! with all your searching east winds, +with your late, shriveling frosts, with your occasional untimely sleets +and snows, you are yet as much better than summer as hope is better than +fruition. + + J'aime, I love. + Tu aimes, Thou lovest. + Il aime, He loves. + +It runs in my head like some silly refrain. I meet Bobby. I also meet +Vick, my little shivering, smooth, white terrier. They both join me. The +one wriggles herself into the shape of a trembling comma, and, foolishly +chasing herself, rolls over on her back, to demonstrate her joy at my +advent. The other says: + +"Come into the kitchen-garden, and see whether the apricot-flowers are +out on the south wall." + +We pace along the broad and even gravel walk among the red cabbages and +the sea-kale, basking in the sun, whose heat we feel undiminished by the +influence of any bitter blast, in the prison of these four high walls, +against which the long tree-branches are pinioned. In one place, the +pinioning has failed. Along, flower-laden arm has burst from its bonds, +and is dangling loosely down. There is a ladder against the wall, set +for the gardener to replace it. + +"Is it difficult to get up a ladder, Bobby?" ask I, standing still. + +"Difficult! Bless your heart, no! Why?" + +"One can see nothing here," I answer. "I should like to climb up and sit +on the top of the wall, where one can look about one." + +My wish is easy of gratification. Bobby holds the ladder, and I climb +cautiously, rung by rung. Having reached the summit, I sit at ease, +with, my legs loosely dangling. There is no broken glass, there are no +painful bottoms of bottles to disturb my ruminant quiet. The air bites a +little, but I am warmly clad, and young. Bobby sits beside me, whistling +and kicking the bricks with his heels. There is the indistinctness of +fine weather over the chain of low round hills that bound our horizon, +giving them a dignity that, on clearer days, they lack. As I sit, many +small and pleasant noises visit my ears, sometimes distinct, sometimes +mixed together; the brook's noise, as it runs, quick and brown, between +the flat, dry March fields; the gray geese's noise, as they screech all +together from the farm-yard; the church-bells' noise, as they ring out +from the distant town, whose roofs and vanes are shining and glinting in +the morning sun. + +"Do you hear the bells?" say I. "Some one has been married this +morning." + +"Do not you wish it was you?" asks Bobby, with a brotherly grin. + +"I should not mind," reply I, picking out a morsel of mortar with my +finger and thumb. "It is about time for one of us to move off, is not +it? And Barbara has made such a signal failure hitherto, that I think it +is but fair that I should try my little possible." + +"All I ask of you is," says Bobby, gravely, "not to take a fellow who +has not got any shooting." + +"I will make it a _sine qua non_," I answer, seriously. + +A louder screech than ever from the geese, accompanied with +wing-flappings. How unanimous they are! There is not a voice wanting. + +"I wonder how long Sir Roger will stay?" I say presently. + +"What connection of ideas made you think of him?" asks Bobby, curiously. + +"Do you suppose that he has any shooting?" + +I break into a laugh. + +"I do not know, I am sure. I do not think it matters much whether he has +or not." + +"I dare say that there are a good many women--old ones, you know--who +would take him, old as he is," says Bobby, with liberality. + +"I dare say," I answer. "I do not know. I am not old, but I am not sure +that I would not rather marry him than be an old maid." + +A pause. Again I laugh--this time a laugh of recollection. + +"What a fool you did look last night!" I say with sisterly candor, "when +you put your head round the schoolroom door, and found that you had been +witty about him to his face!" + +Bobby reddens, and aims a bit of mortar at a round-eyed robin that has +perched near us. + +"At all events, I did not call him a _beast_" + +"Well, never mind; do not get angry! What did it matter?" say I, +comfortingly. "You did not mention his name. How could he tell that he +was our benefactor? He did not even know that he was to be; and I begin +to have misgivings about it myself." + +"I cannot say that I see much sign of his putting his hand into his +breeches-pocket," says Bobby, vulgarly. + +There is the click of a lifted latch. We both look in the direction +whence comes the sound. He of whom we speak is entering the garden by a +distant door. + +"Get down, Bobby!" cry I, hurriedly, "and help me down. Make haste! +quick! I would not have him find me perched up here for _worlds_" + +Bobby gets down as nimbly as a monkey. I prepare to do likewise. + +"Hold it steady!" I cry nervously, and, so saying, begin to turn round +and to stretch out one leg, with the intention of making a graceful +descent backward. + +"Stop!" cries Bobby from the bottom, with a diabolical chuckle. "I think +you observed just now that I looked a fool last night! perhaps you will +not mind trying how it feels!" + +So saying, he seizes the ladder--a light and short one--and makes off +with it. I cry, "Bobby! Bobby!" suppressedly, several times, but I need +hardly say that my appeal is addressed to deaf ears. I remain sitting on +the wall-top, trying to look as if I did not mind, while grave +misgivings possess my soul as to the extent of strong boot and ankle +that my unusual situation leaves visible. Once the desperate idea of +jumping presents itself to my mind, but the ground looks so distant, and +the height so great, that my heart fails me. + +From my watch-tower I trace the progress of Sir Roger between the +fruit-trees. As yet, he has not seen me. Perhaps he will turn into +another walk, and leave the garden by an opposite door, I remaining +undiscovered. No! he is coming toward me. He is walking slowly along, a +cigar in his mouth, and his eyes on the ground, evidently in deep +meditation. Perhaps he will pass me without looking up. Nearer and +nearer he comes, I hold my breath, and sit as still as stone, when, as +ill-luck will have it, just as he is approaching quite close to me, +utterly innocent of my proximity, a nasty, teasing tickle visits my +nose, and I sneeze loudly and irrepressibly. Atcha! atcha! He starts, +and not perceiving at first whence comes the unexpected sound, looks +about him in a bewildered way. Then his eyes turn toward the wall. Hope +and fear are alike at an end. I am discovered. Like Angelina, I-- + + ....'"stand confessed, + A maid in all my charms." + +"How--on--earth--did you get up there?" he asks, in an accent of slow +and marked astonishment, not unmixed with admiration. + +As he speaks, he throws away his cigar, and takes his hat off. + +"How on earth am I to get down again? is more to the purpose," I answer, +bluntly. + +"I could not have believed that any thing but a cat could have been so +agile," he says, beginning to laugh. "Would you mind telling me how +_did_ you get up?" + +"By the ladder," reply I, laconically, reddening, and, under the +influence of that same insupportable doubt concerning my ankles, trying +to tuck away my legs under me, a manoeuvre which all but succeeds in +toppling me over. + +"The _ladder_!" (looking round). "Are you quite sure? Then where has it +disappeared to?" + +"I said something that vexed Bobby," reply I, driven to the humiliating +explanation, "and he went off with it. Never mind! once I am down, I +will be even with him!" + +He looks entertained. + +"What will you do? What will you say? Will you make use of the same +excellently terse expression that you applied to me last night?" + +"I should not wonder," reply I, bursting out into uncomfortable +laughter; "but it is no use talking of what I shall do when I am down: I +am not down yet; I wish I were." + +"It is no great distance from the ground," he says, coming nearer the +wall, standing close to where the apricot is showering down her white +and pinky petals. "Are you afraid to jump? Surely not! Try! If you will, +I will promise that you shall come to no hurt." + +"But supposing that I knock you down?" say I, doubtfully. "I really am a +good weight--heavier than you would think to look at me--and coming from +such a height, I shall come with great force." + +He smiles. + +"I am willing to risk it; if you do knock me down, I can but get up +again." + +I require no warmer invitation. With arms extended, like the sails of a +windmill, I hurl myself into the embrace of Sir Roger Tempest. The next +moment I am standing beside him on the gravel-walk, red and breathless, +but safe. + +"I hope I did not hurt you much," I say with concern, turning toward him +to make my acknowledgments, "but I really am very much obliged to you; I +believe that, if you had not come by, I should have been left there till +bedtime." + +"It must have been a very unpleasant speech that you made to deserve so +severe a punishment," he says, looking back at me, with a kindly and +amused curiosity. + +I do not gratify his inquisitiveness. + +"It was something not quite polite," I answer, shortly. + +We walk on in silence, side by side. My temper is ruffled. I am planning +five distinct and lengthy vengeances against Bobby. + +"I dare say," says my companion presently, "that you are wondering what +brought me in here now--what attraction a kitchen-garden could have for +me, at a time of year when not the most sanguine mind could expect to +find any thing good to eat in it." + +"At least, it is sheltered," I answer, shivering, thrusting my hands a +little farther into the warm depths of my muff. + +"I was thinking of old days," he says, with a hazy, wistful smile. "Ah! +you have not come to the time of life for doing that yet. Do you know, I +have not been here since your father and I were lads of eleven and +twelve together?" + +"_You_ were eleven, and _he_ was twelve, I am sure," say +I, emphatically. + +"Why?" + +"You look _so much_ younger than he," I answer, looking frankly and +unembarrassedly up into his face. + +"Do I?" (with a pleased smile). "It is clear, then, that one cannot +judge of one's self; on the rare occasions when I look in the glass it +seems to me that, in the course of the last five years, I have grown +into a _very_ old fogy." + +"He looks as if he had been so much oftener vexed, and so much seldomer +pleased than you do," continued I, mentally comparing the smooth though +weather-beaten benignity of the straight-cut features beside me, with +the austere and frown-puckered gravity of my father's. + +"Does he?" he answers, with an air of half-surprised interest, as if the +subject had never struck him in that light before. "Poor fellow! I am +sorry if it is so. Ah, you see"--with a smile--"he has _six_ more +reasons for wrinkles than I have." + +"You mean us, I suppose," I answer matter-of-factly. "As to that, I +think he draws quite as many wrinkles on our faces as we do on his." +Then, rather ashamed of my over-candor, I add, with hurried bluntness, +"You have never been married, I suppose?" + +He half turns away his head. + +"No--not yet! I have not yet had that good fortune." + +I am inwardly amused at the power of his denial. Surely, surely he might +say in the words of Lancelot: + + "Had I chosen to wed, + I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine." + +"And you?" he asks, turning with an accent of playfulness toward me. + +"Not yet," I answer, laughing, "and most likely I shall have to answer +'not yet' to that question as often as it is put to me till the end of +the chapter." + +"Why so?" + +I shrug my shoulders. + +"In moments of depression it strikes Barbara and me, that me and Tou Tou +shall end by being three old cats together." + +"Are you so anxious to be married?" he asks with an air of wonder, "in +such a hurry to leave so happy a home?" + +"Every one knows best where his own shoe pinches," I answer +vernacularly. "I am afraid that it does not sound very lady-like, but +since you ask me the question, I _am_ rather anxious. Barbara is not: +_I_ am." + +A shade of I cannot exactly say what emotion--it _looks_ like +disappointment, but surely it cannot be that--passes across the sunshine +of his face. + +"All my plans hinge on my marrying," I continue, feeling drawn, I do not +know how or why, into confidential communication to this almost total +stranger, "and what is more, on my marrying a rich man." + +"And what are your plans?" he asks, with an air of benevolent interest, +but that unexplained shade is still there. + +"Their name is Legion," I answer; "you will be very tired before I get +to the end of them." + +"Try me." "Firstly then," say I, narratively, "my husband must have a +great deal of interest in several professions--the army, the navy, the +bar--so as to give the boys a helping hand; then he must have some +shooting--good shooting for them; for them all, that is, except Bobby! +_never_ shall _he_ fire a gun in my preserves!" + +My mind again wanders away to my vengeances, and I break off. + +"Well!" + +"He must also keep two or three horses for them to hunt: Algy _loves_ +hunting, but he hardly ever gets a day. He is so big, poor dear old boy, +that nobody ever gives him a mount--" + +"Yes?" + +"Well, then, I should like to be able to have some nice parties--dancing +and theatricals, and that sort of thing, for Barbara--father will never +hardly let us have a soul here--and to buy her some pretty dresses to +set off her beauty--" + +"Yes?" + +"And then I should like to have a nice, large, cheerful house, where +mother could come and stay with me, for two or three months at a time, +and get _clear_ away from the worries of house-keeping and--" the +tyranny of father, I am about to add, but pull myself up with a jerk, +and substitute lamely and stammeringly "and--and--others." + +"Any thing else?" + +"I should not at all mind a donkey-carriage for Tou Tou, but I shall not +_insist_ upon that." + +He is smiling broadly now. The shade has fled away, and only sunshine +remains. + +"And what for yourself? you seem to have forgotten yourself!" + +"For myself!" I echo, in surprise, "I have been telling you--you cannot +have been listening--all these things are for myself." + +Again he has turned his face half away. + +"I hope you will get your wish," he says shortly and yet heartily. + +I laugh. "That is so probable, is not it? I am so likely to fall in with +a rich young man of weak intellect who is willing to marry all the whole +six of us, for that is what he would have to do, and so I should explain +to him." + +Sir Roger is looking at me again with an odd smile--not disagreeable in +any way--not at all hold-cheap, or as if he were sneering at me for a +simpleton, but merely _odd_. + +"And you think," he says, "that when he hears what is expected of him he +will withdraw?" + +Again I laugh heartily and rather loudly, for the idea tickles me, and, +in a large family, one gets into the habit of raising one's voice, else +one is not heard. + +"I am so sadly sure that he will never come forward, that I have never +taken the trouble to speculate as to whether, if he did, my greediness +would make him retire again." + +No answer. + +"Now that I come to think of it, though," continue I, after a pause, "I +have no manner of doubt that he would." + +Apparently Sir Roger is tired of the subject of my future prospects, for +he drops it. We have left the kitchen-garden--have passed through the +flower-garden--have reached the hall-door. I am irresolutely walking up +the stone steps that mount to it, not being able to make up my mind as +to whether or no I should make some sort of farewell observation to my +companion, when his voice follows me. It seems to me to have a +dissuasive inflection. + +"Are you going in?" + +"Well, yes," I answer uncertainly, "I suppose so." + +He looks at his watch. + +"It is quite early yet--not near luncheon-time--would it bore you very +much to take a turn in the park? I think" (with a smile) "that you are +quite honest enough to say so if it would: or, if you did not, I should +read it on your face." + +"Would you?" say I, a little piqued. "I do not think you would: I assure +you that my face can tell stories, at a pinch, as well as its neighbor." + +"Well, _would_ it bore you?" + +"Not at all! not at all!" reply I briskly, beginning to descend again; +"but one thing is very certain, and that is that it will bore _you_" + +"Why should it?" + +"If I say what I was going to say you will think that it is on purpose +to be contradicted," I answer, unlatching the gate in the fence, and +entering the park. + +"And if I do, much you will mind," he answers, smiling. + +"Well, then," say I, candidly, looking down at my feet as they trip +quickly along through the limp winter grass, "there is no use blinking +the fact that I have no conversation--none of us have. We can gabble +away among ourselves like a lot of young rooks, about all sorts of silly +home jokes, that nobody but us would see any fun in; but when it comes +to real talk--" + +I pause expressively. + +"I do not care for _real talk_," he says, looking amused; "I like +_gabble_ far, far better. I wish you would gabble a little now." + +But the request naturally ties my tongue tight up. + +"This is the tree that they planted when father was born," I say, +presently, in a stiff, _cicerone_ manner, pointing to a straight and +strong young oak, which is lifting its branchy head, and the fine +net-work of its brown twigs, to the cold, pale sky. + +Sir Roger leans his arms on the top of the palings that surround the +tree. + +"Ah! eight-and-forty years ago! eight-and-forty years ago!" he repeats +to himself with musing slowness. "Hard upon half a century!" + +I turn over in my own mind whether I should do well to make some +observation of a trite and copy-book nature on the much greater duration +of trees than men, but reflecting that the application of the remark may +be painful to a person so elderly as the gentleman beside me, I abstain. +However, he does something of the kind himself. + +"To think that it should be such a stripling," he says, looking with a +half-pensive smile at the straight young trunk, "hardly out of the +petticoat age, and _we_--he and I--such a couple of old wrecks!" + +It never occurs to me that it would be polite, and even natural, to +contradict him. Why should not he call himself an old wreck, if it +amuses him? I suppose he only means to express a gentleman decidedly in +the decline of life, which, in my eyes, he is; so I say kindly and +acquiescingly-- + +"Yes, it _is_ rather hard, is it not?" + +"Forty-one--forty-two--yes, forty-two years since I first saw him," he +continues, reflectively, "running about in short, stiff, white +petticoats and bare legs, and going bawling to his mother, because he +tumbled up those steps to the hall-door, and cut his nose open." + +I lift my face out of my muff, in which, for the sake of warmth, I have +been hiding it, and, opening my mouth, give vent to a hearty and +undutiful roar of laughter. + +"Cut his nose open!" repeat I, indistinctly. "How pleased he must have +been, and what sort of a nose was it? already hooked? It never _could_ +have been the conventional button, _that_ I am sure of; _yours_ was, I +dare say, but _his_--_never._ Good Heavens!" (with a sudden change of +tone, and disappearance of mirth) "here he is! Come to look for you, no +doubt! I--I--think I may go now, may not I?" + +"Go!" repeats he, looking at me with unfeigned wonder. "Why? It is more +likely _you_ that he has missed, _you_, who are no doubt his daily +companion." + +"Not quite daily," I answer, with a fine shake of irony, which, by +reason of his small acquaintance with me, is lost on my friend. "Two, +you know, is company, and three none. Yes, if you do not mind, I think +it must be getting near luncheon-time. I will go." + +So I disappear through the dry, knotted tussocks of the park grass. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +"Friends, Romans, and countrymen!" say I, on that same afternoon, +strutting into the school-room, with my left hand thrust oratorically +into the breast of my frock, and my right loftily waving, "I wish to +collect your suffrages on a certain subject. Tell me," sitting down on a +hard chair, and suddenly declining into a familiar and colloquial tone, +"have you seen any signs of derangement in father lately?" + +"None more than usual," answers Algy, sarcastically, lifting his pretty, +disdainful nose out of his novel. "If, as the Eton Latin Grammar says, +_ira_ is a _brevis furor_, you will agree with me that he is pretty +often out of his mind, in fact, a good deal oftener than he is in it." + +"No, but _really?_" + +"Of course not. What do you mean?" + +"Put down all your books!" say I, impressively. "Listen attentively. +Bobby, stop see-sawing that chair, it makes me feel deadly sick. Ah! my +young friend, _you_ will rue the day when you kept me sitting on the top +of that wall--" + +I break off. + +"Go on! go on!" in five different voices of impatience. + +"Well, then, father has sent a message by mother to the effect that I am +to dine with them to-night--_I_, if you please--_I_!--you must own" +(lengthening my neck as I speak, and throwing up my untidy flax head) +"that sweet Nancies are looking up in the world." + +A silence of stupefaction falls on the assembly. After a pause-- + +"YOU?" + +"Yes, _I!_" + +"And how do you account for it?" + +"I believe," reply I, simpering, "that our future benefac--, no! I +really must give up calling him that, or I shall come out with it to his +face, as Bobby did last night. Well, then, Sir Roger asked me why I did +not appear yesterday. I suppose he thought that I looked so _very_ grown +up, that they must be keeping me in pinafores by force." + +Algy has risen. He is coming toward me. He has pulled me off my chair. +He has taken me by the shoulders, and is turning me round to face the +others. + +"Allow me!" he says, bowing, and making me bow, too, "to introduce you +to the future legatee!--Barbara, my child, you and I are _nowhere_. This +depraved old man has clearly no feeling for symmetry of form or face; a +long career of Begums has utterly vitiated his taste. To-morrow he will +probably be clamoring for Tou Tou's company." + +"Brat!" says Barbara, laughing, "where has the analogy between me and +the man who pulled up the window in the train for the old woman gone +to?" + +"Mother said I was to look as nice as I could," say I, casting a rueful +glance at the tea-board, at the large plum loaf, at the preparations for +temperate conviviality. I have sat down on the threadbare blue-and-red +hearth-rug, and am shading my face with a pair of cold pink hands, from +the clear, quick blaze. "What _am_ I to wear?" I say, gloomily. "None of +my frocks are ironed, and there is no time now. I shall look as if I +came out of the dirty clothes-basket! Barbara, dear, will you lend me +your blue sash? Last time I wore mine the Brat upset the gum-bottle over +my ends." + +"Let us each have the melancholy pleasure of contributing something +toward the decking of our victim," says Algy, with a grin; "have my +mess-jacket!" + +"Have as many beads as you can about you," puts in Bobby. "Begums always +have plenty of beads." + +A little pause, while the shifting flame-light makes small pictures of +us on the deep-bodied teapot's sides, and throws shadowy profiles of us +on the wall. + +"Mother said, too, that I was to try and not say any of my unlucky +things!" I remark, presently. + +"Do not tell him," says Bobby, ill-naturedly, "as you told poor Captain +Saunders the other day, that 'they always put the fool of the family +into the army.'" + +"I did not say so of myself," cry I, angrily. "I only told it him as a +quotation." + +"Abstain from quotations, then," retorts Bobby, dryly; "for you know in +conversation one does not see the inverted commas." + +"What _shall_ I talk about?" say I, dropping my shielding hand into my +lap, and letting the full fire-warmth blaze on eyes, nose, and cheeks. +"Barbara, what _did_ you talk about?" + +"Whatever I talked about," replies Barbara, gayly, "they clearly were +not successful topics, so I will not reveal what they were." + +Barbara is standing by the tea-table, thin and willowy, a tea-caddy in +one hand, and a spoon in the other, ladling tea into the deep-bodied +pot--a spoonful for each person and one for the pot. + +"I will draw you up a list of subjects to be avoided," says Algy, +drawing his chair to the table, and pulling a pencil out of his +waistcoat-pocket. "Here, Tou Tou, tear a leaf out of your copy-book-- +imprimis, _old age_." + +"You are wrong there," cry I, triumphantly, "_quite_ wrong; he is rather +fond of talking of his age, harps upon it a good deal. He said to-day +that he was an _old wreck!_" + +"Of course he meant you to contradict him!" says Bobby, cackling, "and, +from the little I know of you, I am morally certain that you did not-- +_did_ you, now?" + +"Well, no!" reply I, rather crestfallen; "I certainly did not. I would, +though, in a minute, if I had thought that he wanted it." + +"I wish," says Barbara, shutting the caddy with a snap, "that Providence +had willed to send the dear old fellow into the world twenty years later +than it did. In that case I should not at all have minded trying to be a +comfort to him." + +"He must have been very good-looking, must not he?" say I, pensively, +staring at the red fire-caverns. "Very--before his hair turned gray. I +wonder what color it was?" + +Visions of gold yellow, of sunshiny brown, of warm chestnut locks, +travel in succession before my mind's eye, and try in turn to adjust +themselves to the good and goodly weather-worn face, and wide blue eyes +of my new old friend. + +"It is so nice and curly even now," I go on, "twice as curly as Algy's." + +"Tongs," replies Algy, with short contempt, looking up from his list of +prohibitions. + +"_Very_ good-looking!" repeat I, dogmatically, entirely ignoring the +last suggestion. + +"Perhaps when this planet was young!" retorts he, with the superb +impertinence of twenty. + +"You talk as if he were eighty years old," cry I, with an unaccountably +_personal_ feeling of annoyance. "He is _only_ forty-seven!" + +"_Only_ forty-seven!" + +And they all laugh. + +"Well, I must be going, I suppose," cry I, leisurely rising, stretching, +sighing, and beginning to collect the various articles of my wardrobe, +scattered over the furniture. "Good-by, dear teapot! good-by, dear plum +loaf! _how_ I wish I was going to stay with you! It really is ten +minutes past dressing--time, and father is always so pleased when one +keeps him waiting for his soup." + +"He would not say any thing to you to-day if you _were_ late," says +Bobby, astutely. "You might tumble over his gouty foot, and he would +smile! Are we not the most united family in Christendom--_when we have +company?_" + +After all, I need not have disquieted myself; I am in very good time. +When I open the drawing-room door, and make my entrance in the borrowed +splendor of Barbara's broad blue-sash tails, and the white virginity of +my own muslin frock, I find that neither of my parents have as yet made +their appearance. Sir Roger has the hearth-rug to himself; at least he +only shares it with Vick, and she is asleep; sitting very upright, it is +true, with her thin tail round her toes, like a cat's, her head and +whole body swaying from side to side in indisputable slumber. At sight +of the chaste and modest apparition that the opened door yields to his +gaze, an exclamation of pleasure escapes him--at least it sounds like +pleasure. + +"Ah! this is all right! You are here to-night at all events; but, +by-the-by, what became of you yesterday?" + +"What always becomes of me?" reply I, bluntly, lifting my grave gray +eyes to his face, and to the hair which sweeps thick and waved above his +broad brown forehead. (Tongs indeed!) + +"I remember that you told me you had been _cooking_, but you cannot +cook _every_ night." + +"Not quite," reply I, with a short smile, stretching my hands to the +blaze. + +"But do not you dine generally?" + +"Never when I can possibly help it," I reply, with emphasis. And no +sooner are the words out of my mouth than I see that I have already +transgressed my mother's commands, and given vent to one of "my unlucky +things." I stand silent and ashamed, reflecting that no after-tinkering +will mend my unfortunate speech. + +"And to-night you could not help it?" he asks, after a slight, hardly +perceptible pause. + +I look up to answer him. He is forty-seven years old. He is a general, +and a sir, and has been in every known land; has killed big and little +beasts, and known big and little people, and I am nineteen and nobody, +and have rarely been beyond our own park and parish, and my acquaintance +is confined to half a dozen turnipy squires and their wives; and yet he +is looking snubbed, and it is I that have snubbed him. Well, I cannot +help it. Truth is truth; and so I answer, in a low voice: + +"No, father said I was to." + +"And you look upon it as a great penance?" he says, still with that +half-disappointed accent. + +"To be sure I do," reply I, briskly. "So does Barbara. Ask her if she +does not. So would you, if you were I." + +"And why?" + +"Hush!" say I, hearing a certain heavy, well-known, slow footfall. "He +is coming! I will tell you by-and-by--when we are by ourselves." + +After all, how convenient an elderly man is! I could not have said that +to any of the young squires! + +His blue eyes are smiling in the firelight, as, leaning one strong +shoulder against the mantel-piece, he turns to face me more fully. + +"And when are we likely to be by ourselves?" + +"Oh, I do not know," reply I, indifferently. "Any time." + +And then father enters, and I am dumb. Presently, dinner is announced, +and we walk in; I on father's arm. He addresses me several times with +great _bonhomie_ and I respond with nervous monosyllables. Father is +always suavity itself to us, when we have guests; but, when one is not +in the habit of being treated with affability, it is difficult to enter +into the spirit of the joke. Several times I catch our guest's frank +eyes, watching me with inquiring wonder, as I respond with brief and +low-voiced hurry to some of my parent's friendly and fatherly queries as +to the disposition of my day. And I sit tongue-tied and hungry--for, +thank God, I have always had a large appetite--dumb as the butler and +footman--dumb as the racing-cups on the sideboard--dumber than Vick, +who, being a privileged person, is standing--very tall--on her +hind-legs, and pawing Sir Roger's coat-sleeve, with a small, impatient +whine. + +"Why, Nancy, child!" says father, helping himself to sweetbread, and +smiling, "what made you in such a hurry to get away this morning out of +the park?" + +(Why can't he always speak in that voice? always smile?--even his nose +looks a different shape.) + +"Near--luncheon-time," reply I, indistinctly, with my head bent so low +that my nose nearly touches the little square of bare neck that my +muslin frock leaves exposed. + +"Not a bit of it--half an hour off.--Why, Roger, I am afraid you had not +been making yourself agreeable! eh, Nancy?" + +"No," say I, mumbling, "that is--yes--quite so." + +"I was _very_ agreeable, as it happened--rather more brilliant than +usual, if possible, was not I? And, to clear my character, and prove +that you thought so, you will take me out for another walk, some day, +will not you?" + +At the sound of his voice so evidently addressing me, I look up--look at +him. + +"Yes! with pleasure! when you like!" I answer heartily, and I neither +mumble nor stutter, nor do I feel any disposition to drop my eyes. I +_like_ to look at him. For the rest of dinner I am absolutely mute, I +make only one other remark, and that is a request to one of the footmen +to give me some water. The evening passes. It is but a short one--at +least, as regards the company of the gentlemen, for they sit late; +father's port, I am told, not being to be lightly left for any female +frippery. I retire to the school-room, and regale my brethren with +lively representations of father's unexampled benignity. I also resume +with Algy the argument about _tongs_, at the very point where I had +dropped it. It lasts till prayer-time; and its monotony is relieved by +personalities. The devil in the boys is fairly quiescent to-night, and +our evening devotions pass over with tolerable peace; the only +_contretemps_ being that the Brat, having fallen asleep, remains on his +knees when "Amen" raises the rest of the company from theirs, and has to +be privily and heavily kicked to save him from discovery and ruin. +Having administered the regulation embrace to father, and heartily +kissed mother--not but what I shall see her again; she always comes, as +she came when we were little, to kiss us in bed--I turn to find Sir +Roger holding open the swing-door for us. + +"Are you quite sure about it to-night?" I, say, stretching out my hand +to him to bid him good-night. "_Ours_ on the right--_yours_ on the left +--do you see?" + +"_Yours_ on the right--_mine_ on the left," he repeats. "Yes--I see--I +shall make no more mistakes--unless I make one on purpose." + +"Do not come without telling us beforehand!" I cry, earnestly. "I mean +_really_: if you hold a vague threat of paying us a visit over our +heads, you will keep us in a state of unnatural tidiness for days." + +I make a move toward retiring, but he still has hold of my hand. + +"And about our walk?" + +The others--boys and girls--have passed us: the servants have melted out +of sight; so has mother; father is speaking to the butler in the +passage--we are alone. + +"Yes? what about it?" I ask, my eyes calmly resting on his. + +"You will not forget it?" + +"Not I!" reply I, lightly. "I want to hear the end of the anecdote about +father's nose! I cannot get over the idea of him in a stiff white +petticoat: I thought of it at dinner, whenever I looked at him!" + +At the mention of father, his face falls a little. + +"Nancy," he says, abruptly, taking possession of my other hand also, +"why did you answer your father so shortly to-day? Why did you look so +scared when he tried to joke with you?" + +"Ah, why?" reply I, laughing awkwardly. + +"You are not _afraid_ of him, surely?" + +"Oh, no--not at all!" + +"Why do you speak in that sneering voice? It is not your own voice; I +have known you only twenty-four hours, and yet I can tell that." + +"I will not answer any more questions," reply I, recovering both hands +with a sudden snatch: "and if you ask me any more, I will not take you +out walking! there!" So I make off, laughing. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +"A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom," say I slowly next +morning, as I stand by the window, trying to see clearly through the +dimmed and tearful pane. "The king would have to do without his ransom +to-day." + +It is raining _mightily_: strong, straight, earnest rain, that harshly +lashes the meek earth, that sends angry runlets down the gravel walks, +that muddies the gold goblets of the closed crocuses. + +"And you without your walk!" says Barbara, lifting her face from her +stitching. "Poor Miss Nancy!" + +"There is not enough blue sky to make a cat a pair of breeches!" cries +Bobby, despondently, and with his usual vulgarity. + +Sometimes I am tempted to fear that Bobby is hopelessly ungenteel-- +ungenteel for life. He has now taken possession of another window, and +is consulting the eastern sky. + +"A ransomless king, and a trouserless cat! That is about the state of +the case!" say I, turning away from the window with a grin. + +After all, now I come to think of it, I am nearly as vulgar as Bobby. +But I am right. Through the day, through the long, light, cold evening, +the posture of the weather changes not. To-day, Barbara, Algy, and I, +are all constrained to dine; for have not we a dinner-party, or rather a +mild simulation of one?--a squire or two, a squiress or two, a curate or +two--such odd-come-shorts as can be got together in a scattered country +neighborhood at briefest notice. Barbara and I, as it happens, are both +late. It is five minutes past eight, when with the minor details of our +toilets a good deal slurred, with a paucity of bracelets and lack of +necessary pins, we hurriedly and sneakingly enter the drawing-room, and +find all our guests already come together. Mother gives us an almost +imperceptible glance of gentle reproach, but father is so occupied in +bantering a strange miss--banter in which the gallant and the fatherly +happily join to make that manner which is the envy and admiration of the +neighborhood--that he seems unconscious of our entrance. An intuition, +however, tells us that this is not the case, but that he is making a +note of it. This depresses us so much that, until song and sherry have +comforted and emboldened us, we have not spirits to make any effort +toward the entertainment of our neighbors. We have been paired with a +couple of curates. Mine is a strong-handed, ingenuous Ishmael, who tells +everybody that he hates his trade, and that he thinks it is very hard +that he may not get out of it, now that his elder brother is dead. I am +thankful to say that his appetite is as vast as his shoulders; so, after +I have told him that I _love_ raw oysters, and that Barbara cannot sit +in the room with a roast hare; and have heard in return that he does not +care about brill, but worships John Dory, we slide into a gluttonous +silence, and abide in it. Barbara's man of God is in a wholly different +pattern to mine. He is a macerated little saint, with the eyes of a +ferret and the heart of a mouse. As the courses pass by, in savory +order, I, myself unemployed, watch my sister gradually reassuring, +comforting, heartening him, as is her way with all weakly, maimed, and +unhandsome creatures. She has succeeded in thawing him into a thin +trickle of parochial talk, when mother bends her laced and feathered +head in distant signal from the table-top, and off we go. We drink +coffee, we drink tea, we pick clever little holes in our absent +neighbors, in brisk duet and tortuous solo we hammer the blameless +spinnet, we sing affecting songs about "fair doves," and "cleansing +fires," and people "far away," and still our deliverers come not. They +_must_ hear our appealing melodies clearly through the walls and doors, +but still they come not. Sunk in sloth and old port, still they come +not. I seem to have said every possible thing that is to be said on +every known subject to the young woman beside me, and now I am falling +asleep. I feel it. Lulled by the warm glow diffused through the room, by +the smell of the jonquils, lilies of the valley and daphnes, by the low +even talk, I am slipping into slumber. The door opens, and I jump into +wakefulness; Sir Roger to the rescue. I am afraid that I look at him +with something not unlike invitation in my eyes, for he makes straight +toward me. + +"Wish me good-morning," say I, rubbing my eyes, "for I have been sweetly +asleep. I fell asleep wondering which of you would come first--somehow I +thought it would be you. Are you going to sit here? Oh! that is all +right!" as he subsides into the next division of the ottoman to mine. +"What have you been talking about?" I continue, with a contented, chatty +feeling, leaning my elbow on the blue-satin ottoman-top; "any thing +pleasant? Did not you hear our screams for help through the wall?" + +"Have not we come in answer to them?" + +Yes; they are all here now, at last; all, from father down to the +curates; some sitting resolutely down, some standing uncertainly up. +Barbara's _protégé_ with frightened stealth, is edging round the +furniture to where she sits on a little chair alone. Barbara is +locketless, braceletless, chainless, head-dressless! such was our +unparalleled haste to abscond. Ornaments has she none but those that God +has given her: a sweep of blond hair, a long, cool throat, and two +smooth arms that lie bare and white as any milk on her lap. As he +nervously draws near, she lifts her eyes with a lovely friendliness to +his face. He is poor, slightly thought of, sickly, not over-clever; +probably she will talk to him all the evening. + +"Look at Barbara!" say I, with deep admiration, familiarly laying my +hand on Sir Roger's coat-sleeve, to make sure of engaging his attention, +"that is always her way! Did you ever see any thing so cruelly shy as +that poor little man is? See! he is wriggling all over like an eel! He +came to call the other day, and while he was talking to mother I watched +him. He tore a pair of quite new tea-green gloves into thin strips, like +little thongs! He must find it rather expensive work, if he makes many +morning calls, must he not?" + +"Rather!" + +"I am sure that you and Barbara would get on," continue I, loquaciously, +leaning my head on my hand, and talking in that low, comfortable voice +that our proximity warrants; "I cannot understand how it was that you +did not make great friends that first night! I suppose that you are not +poor and ugly and depressed enough for her to make much of you! Shall I +make a sign to her to come over and talk to us?" + +Sir Roger does not accept my proposal with the alacrity I had expected. + +"Do not you think that she looks very comfortable where she is?" he +asks, rather doubtfully. + +I am a little disappointed. + +"I am sure she would like you," I say, with a dogmatic shake of the +head. "I told her that you were--well, that _I_ got on with you, and we +always like the same people." + +"That must be awkward sometimes?" + +"What do you mean? Oh! not in _that_ way--" (with an unblushing +heart-whole laugh). "Lucky for me that we do not." + +"Lucky for _you?_" (interrogatively). + +"Why _will_ you make me say things that sound mock-modest?" cry I, +reddening a little this time. "You know perfectly well what I mean--it +is not likely that any one would _look_ at me when Barbara was by--you +can have no notion," continue I, speaking very fast to avoid +contradiction, "how well she looks when she is dancing--never gets hot, +or flushed, or _mottled_ as so many people do." + +"And _you?_ how do _you_ look?" + +"I grow purple," I answer, laughing--"a rich imperial purple, all over. +If you had once seen me, you would never forget me." + +"Go on: tell me something more about Barbara!" + +He has settled himself with an air of extreme repose and enjoyment. We +really _are_ very comfortable. + +"Well," say I, nothing loath, for I have always dearly loved the sound +of my own voice, "do you see that man on the hearth-rug?--do not look at +him this very minute, or he will know that we are speaking of him. I +cannot imagine why father has asked him here to-night--he wants to marry +Barbara; he has never said it, but I know he does: the boys--we all, +indeed--call him _Toothless Jack_! he is not old _really_, I suppose-- +not more than fifty, that is; but for Barbara!--" + +I think that Sir Roger is beginning to find me rather tiresome: +evidently he is not listening: he has even turned away his head. + +There is a movement among the guests, the first detachment are bidding +good-night, the rest speedily do the like. Father follows his favorite +miss into the hall, cloaks her with gallant care, and through the door I +hear him playfully firing off parting jests at her as she drives away, + +Then he returns to the drawing-room. Sir Roger has gone to put on his +smoking-coat, I suppose. Father is alone with his wife and his two +lovely daughters. We make a faint movement toward effacing ourselves, +but our steps are speedily checked. + +"Barbara! Nancy!" + +"Yes, father" (in a couple of very small voices). + +"May I ask what induced you to keep my guests waiting half an hour for +their dinner to-night?" + +No manner of answer. _How_ hooked his nose looks! how fearfully like a +hawk he has grown all in a minute! + +"When you have houses of your own," he continues with iced politeness, +"you may of course treat your visitors to what vagaries you please, but +as long as you deign, to honor _my_ roof with your presence, you will be +good enough to behave to my guests with decent civility, do you hear?" + +"Well, Roger, how is the glass? up or down? What is it doing? Are we to +have a fine day to-morrow?" + +For Roger apparently has got quickly into his smoking-coat: at least he +is here: he has heard all. Barbara and I _crawl_ away with no more +spring or backbone in us than a couple of torpid, wintery flies. + +Five minutes later, "Do you wonder that we hate him?" cry I, with +flaming cheeks, holding a japanned candlestick in one hand, and Sir +Roger's right hand in the other. + +"I do not care if he _does_ hear me!--yes, I do, though" (giving a great +jump as a door bangs close to me). + +Sir Roger is looking down at me with an expression of most thorough +discomfiture and silent pain in his face. + +"He did not mean it, Nancy!" he says, hesitatingly, and with a sort of +look of shamed wonder in his friendly eyes. + +"_Did_ not he?" (ironically). + +A little pause, the position of the japanned candlestick and of Sir +Roger's hand still remaining the same. "_How_ I wish that _you_ were my +father instead!" I say with a sort of sob. He does not, as I fully +expect, say, "So do I!" and I go to bed, feeling rather small, as one +who has _gushed_, and whose gush has not been welcome to the recipient. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +A fortnight has passed. Two Sundays, two Mondays, two Tuesdays, etc. +Fourteen times have I sleepily laid head on pillow. Fourteen times have +I yawningly raised it from my pillow. Fourteen times have I hungrily +eaten my dinner, since the night when I stood in the hall with Sir +Roger's hand in mine, raging against my parent. And Sir Roger is here +still. After all, there is nothing like the tenacity of boyish +friendship, is there? + +I suppose that, to Sir Roger, father is still the manly, debonair youth +that he remembers thirty years ago. In happy ignorance he slurs over the +thirty intervening years of moroseness, and goes back to that blest +epoch in which I have so much difficulty in believing, and about which +he, walking beside me now and again through the tender, springing grass +of the meadows, has told me many a tale. For our promised walk has come +off, and so has many others like it. + +He _must_ be dotingly fond of father. It is the 15th of April. I dare +say, O reader, that it seems to you much like any other date, but to me, +through every back-coming year, it seems to gain fresh significance--the +date that marks the most important day--take it for all in all--of my +life, though, whether for good or ill, who shall say, until I am dead, +and my life's sum reckoned up. I awake on that morning with no forecast +of what is coming? I tear myself from my morning dreams with as sleepy +unwillingness as usual. I eat my bread-and-butter with as stolidly +healthy an appetite. I run with as scampering feet, as evenly-beating a +heart as is my wont, with little Vick along the garden-walks, in the +royal morning sun. For one of God's own days has come--one that must +have lost his way, and strayed from paradise. + +It has the steady heat of June, though we are only in mid-April, and the +freshness of the prune. The leaves on the trees are but tender and tiny, +and through them the sun sends his might. The tulips are all a-blaze and +a-stare, making one blink with the dazzle of their odorless beauty: the +frolicsome young wind is shaking out their balm from the hyacinth-bells, +and the sweet Nancies--my flowers--blowing all together, are swaying and +_congéeing_ to the morning airs. + +O wise men, who know all things, do you know this? Can you tell it me? +Where does the flower hide her scent? From what full cup of hidden +sweets does one suck it? + +It is one of those days when one feels most convinced of being +immortal--when the spirits of men stretch out longing arms toward the +All-Good, the Altogether Beautiful--when souls thirst for God, yearn +most deeply for the well of his unfathomed truth--when, to those who +have lost, their dead come back in most pleasant, gentle guise. As for +me, I have lost nothing and no one as yet. All my treasures are still +about me; I can stretch out live hands, and touch _them_ alive; none of +my dear names are yet to be spoken sparingly with bated breath, as too +holy for common talk. And yet I, too, as I walk and bask, and bend to +smell the hyacinth-blooms, feel that same vague and most unnamed +yearning--a delicate pain that he who has it would barter for no +boisterous joy. The clocks tick out the scented hours, and with loud +singing of happy birds, with pomp of flowers and bees, and freaked +butterflies, God's day treads royally past. + +It is afternoon, and the morning wind, heaving with too much fragrance, +has lain down to sleep. A great warm stillness is on the garden and +house. The sweet Nancies no longer bow. They stand straight up, all +a-row, making the whole place honeyed. The school-room is one great +nosegay. Every vase and jug, and cup, and pot and pan and pipkin that we +can command, is crammed with heavy-headed daffodils, with pale-cheeked +primroses, with wine-colored gilly-flowers, every thing that spring has +thrust most plentifully into our eager hands. + +The boys have been out fishing. + +Algy and Bobby have been humorously trying to drown the Brat. + +He looks small and cold in consequence, and his little pert nose is +tinged with a chilly pink. Half an hour ago, mother called me away to a +private conference, exciting thereby a mighty curiosity not unmixed with +envy in my brethren. + +Our colloquy is ended now, and I am reëntering the school-room. + +"Well, what was it? out with it," cries Algy, almost before I am inside +the door again. Algy is sitting more than half--more than three-quarters +out of the window, balancing himself with great nicety on the sill. He +is in the elegant _négligé_ of a decrepit shooting-jacket, no waistcoat, +and no collar. + +"What have you been doing to your face?" says Bobby, drawing nigh, and +peering with artless interest into the details of my appearance; "it is +the color of this" (pointing to a branch of red rhibes, which is hanging +its drooped flowers, and joining its potent spice to the other +flower-scents). + +"Is it?" I answer, putting both hands to my cheeks, to feel their +temperature. "I dare say! so would yours be, perhaps, if you had, like +me, been having a--" I stop suddenly. + +"Having a _what_?" + +"I will not say what I was going to say," I cry, emphatically, "it was +nonsensical!" + +"But what _has_ she told you, Nancy?" asks Barbara, who, enervated by +the first hot day, is languishing in the rocking-chair, slowly +seesawing. "What could it have been that she might not as well have said +before us all?" + +"You had better try and guess," I reply, darkly. + +"I will not, for one," says Bobby, doggedly, "I never made out a +conundrum in my life, except, 'What is most like a hen stealing?'" + +"It is not much like that," say I, demurely, "and, in fact, when one +comes to think of it, it can hardly be called a conundrum at all!" + +"I do not believe it is any thing worth hearing," remarks the Brat, +skeptically, "or you would have come out with it long ago! you never +could have kept in to yourself!" + +"Not worth hearing!" cry I, triumphantly raising my voice, "is not it? +That is all _you_ know about it!" + +"Do not wrangle, children," says Algy from the window; "but, Nancy, if +you have not told us before the clock gets to the quarter" (looking +impressively at the slowly-traveling hands), "I shall think it right +to--" + +What awful threats would have followed will never now be certainly +known, for I interrupt. + +"I _will_ tell you! I _mean_ to tell you!" I cry, excitedly covering my +face with my hands, and turning my back to them all; "only do not _look_ +at me! look the other way, or I _cannot_ tell you." + +A little pause. + +"You have only three minutes, Nancy." + +"Will you _promise_" cry I, with indistinct emphasis from under my +hands, "none of you to _laugh_--none, even Bobby!" + +"Yes!"--"Yes!"--"Yes!" + +"Will you _swear?_" + +"What is the use of swearing?--you have only half a minute now. Well, I +dare say it is nothing very funny. Yes, we will swear!" + +"Well, then, Sir Roger--I _hear_ Bobby laughing!" + +"He is not!"--"He is not!"--"I am not!--I am only beginning to sneeze!" + +"Well, then, Sir Roger--" + +I come to a dead stop. + +"_Sir Roger?_ What about him? There is not a smile on one of our faces: +if you do not believe, look for yourself!--What about our future +benefactor?" + +"He _is_ not our future benefactor," cry I, energetically, whisking +swiftly round to face them again, and dropping my hands, "he _never_ +will be!--he does not _want_ to be! He wants to--to--to MARRY ME! +there!" + +The murder is out. The match is set to the gunpowder train. Now for the +explosion! + +The clock-hand reaches the quarter--passes it; but in all the assembly +there is no sound. The westering sun shines in on four open mouths (the +youthful Tou Tou is absent), on four pairs of stupidly-staring eyes. The +rocking-chair has ceased rocking. Bobby's sneeze has stopped half-way. +There is a petrified silence. + +At length, "_Marry you_!" says the Brat, in a deeply-accented tone of +low and awed disbelief. "Why, he was at school with father!" + +"I wish to heavens that he had never been at school anywhere!" cry I, in +a fury. "I am sick to death of hearing that he was at school with +father. Will no one ever forget it?" + +"He is for-ty-sev-en!" says Algy, at last closing his mouth, and +speaking with slow impressiveness. "Nineteen from forty-seven! how many +years older than you?" + +"Do not count!" cry I, pettishly; "what is the use? not all the counting +in the world will make him any younger." + +"It is not true!" cries Bobby, with boisterous skepticism, jumping up +from his seat, and making a plunge at me; "it is a _hoax_! she has been +taking us all in! Really, Nancy, for a beginner, you did not do it +badly!" + +"It is _not_ a hoax!" cry I, scornfully, standing scarlet and deeply +ashamed, facing them all; "it is real, plain, downright, simple truth." + +Another pause. No sound but the monotonous, unemotional clock, and the +woodpecker's fluty laugh from the orchard. + +"And so you _really_ have a lover at last, Nancy?" says Algy, the +corners of his mouth beginning to twitch in a way which looks badly for +the keeping of his oath. + +"Yes!" say I, beginning to laugh violently, but quite uncomfortably; +"are you surprised? you know I always told you that if you half shut +your eyes, and looked at me from a great way off, I really was not so +bad-looking." + +"You have distanced the Begums!" cries the young fellow, joining in my +mirth, but with a good deal more enjoyment than I can boast. + +"So I have!" I answer; and my sense of the ludicrous overcoming all +other considerations, I begin to giggle with a good-will. + +"Let us look at you, Nancy!" says the Brat, taking hold of me by both +arms, and bringing the minute impertinence of his face into close +neighborhood to mine. "I begin to think that there must be more in you +than we have yet discovered! we never looked upon you as one of our most +favorable specimens, did we?" + +"Do not you remember old Aunt Williams?" reply I, merrily; "how she used +to say I was not pretty, my dears, but I was a pleasant little devil!' +perhaps I am a pleasant little devil!" + +"_Poor_--_dear_--old fellow!" says Barbara, in an accent of the +profoundest, delicatest, womanliest pity, "_how_ sorry I am for him! +Nancy, how will you break it to him most kindly? I am afraid he will be +sadly hurt! will you speak to him, or do it by letter?" + +Barbara has risen. We are all standing up, more or less; it is +impossible to sit through such news; Barbara's garden-hat is in her +hand. The warm and mellow sun that is making Africa's dreary expanse in +the map on the wall, one broad fine sheet, is enkindling, too, the silk +of her hair, the flower-petals of her cheeks, the blue compassion of her +eyes. My pretty, tall Barbara! Let them say what they like, I am sure +that somewhere--_somewhere_--you are pretty now! + +"If you write," says Algy, still laughing, but with more moderation, "I +should advise you to depute me to make a fair copy of the letter; else, +from the extreme ambiguity of your handwriting, he will most likely +mistake your drift, and imagine that you are saying yes." + +"How do you know that I am not going to say yes?" I ask, abruptly. + +Rivers of additional scarlet are racing to my cheeks, over my forehead-- +in among the roots of my hair--all around and about my throat, but I +stand, looking the assembled multitude full in the face, fairly, well, +and boldly. + +"Listen!" I continue, holding up my right hand in deprecation, "let me +speak!--do not interrupt me!--Bobby, I know that he was at school with +father--Algy, I know that he is forty-seven--all of you, I know that his +hair is gray, and that there are crows'-feet about his eyes--but still-- +but still--" + +"Do you mean to say that you are _in love_ with him?" breaks in Bobby, +impressively. + +Instances of enamored humanity have been rare in Bobby's experience. +With the exception of Toothless Jack, he has never had a near and +familiar view of an authentic specimen. I therefore see him now +regarding me with a reverent interest, not unmixed with awe. + +"I mean nothing so silly!" I answer, with lofty petulance. "I am a great +deal too old for any such nonsense!" + +"There I go with you," says Algy, not without grandeur. "I believe that +it is the greatest humbug out, and that it rarely occurs between the +ages of sixteen and sixty." + +"Father's and mother's was a love-match," says Bobby, gravely. "Did not +Aunt Williams tell us that they used always to sit hand-in-hand before +they were married?" + +A shout of laughter at our parents' expense greets this piece of +information. + +"_All_ married people grow to hate one another after a bit," say I, +comprehensively; "it is only a question of time." + +"But if you do not love him _now_, and if you are sure that you will +hate him by-and-by," says Barbara, looking rather puzzled, "what makes +you think of taking him?" + +"It would be such a fine thing for all the family: I could give all the +boys such a shove," say I, with homely shrewdness. + +"They killed seven hundred head of game on his big day last year; I +heard him tell father so," says Bobby, with his mouth watering. + +"He has a moor in Scotland," throws in the Brat. + +"He must ride a stone heavier than I do," says Algy, thoughtfully, "his +horses would certainly carry me: I wonder would he give me a mount now +and then?" + +"I would have you _all_ staying with me _always_," I cry, warming with +my theme, and beginning to dance, "all except father: he should come +once a year for a week, if he was good, and _not at all_, if he was +not." + +"What will you call him, Nancy?" asks the Brat, inquisitively. "What +shall _we_ call him?" + +"He will be Tou Tou's _brother_" cries Bobby, with a yell of delight. + +"Hush!" says Barbara, apprehensively, "he will hear you." + +"No he will not," I answer, composedly. "A person would have to bawl +even louder than Bobby does, to make him hear: he has gone away for a +week; he said he did not wish me to decide in a hurry: he has given me +till this day week; I wish it were this day ten years--" + +"This day week, then," says Algy, walking about with his hands in his +pockets, and smiling to himself, "we may hope to see him return in +triumph in a blue frock-coat, with the ring and the parson: at that age +one has no time to lose." + +"Haste to the wedding!" cries the Brat at the top of his voice, seizing +me by both hands, and forcing me to execute an uncouth war-dance, in +unwilling celebration of my approaching nuptials. + +"I hope that there will be lots of almonds in the cake!" says Bobby, +gluttonously. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The week's reprieve has ended; my Judgment Day has come. Never, never, +surely, did seven days race so madly past, tumbling over each other's +heels. Even Sunday--Sunday, which mostly contains at least forty-eight +hours--has gone like a flash. Morning service, afternoon service, good +looks, sermon to the servants, supper, they all run into one another +like dissolving views. For the first time in my life, my sleep is +broken. I fall asleep in a fever of irresolution. I awake in one. I walk +about in one. I feed the jackdaw in one. I box Bobby's ears in one. My +appetite (oh, portent!) flags. In intense excitement, who can eat yards +of bread-and-butter, pounds of oatmeal-porridge, as has ever been my +bucolic habit? Shall I marry Sir Roger, or shall I not? The birds, the +crowing cocks, the church-bells, the gong for dinner, the old pony +whinnying in the park, they all seem to say this. It seems written on +the sailing clouds, on the pages of every book that I open. Armies of +_pros_ wage battle against legions of _cons_, and every day the issue +of the fight seems even more and more doubtful. + +The morning of the day has arrived, and I am still undecided. I dress in +a perfect storm of doubts and questionings. I put on my gown, without +the faintest idea of whether it is inside out, or the reverse. I go +slowly downstairs, every banister marked by a fresh decision. I open the +dining-room door. Father's voice is the first thing that I hear; +father's voice, raised and rasping. He is standing up, and has a letter +in his hand; from the engaging blue of its color, and the harmony of its +shape, too evidently a bill. + +"I regret to have to hurt your feelings," he is saying, in that awful +civil voice, at which we all--small and great--quake, "but the next time +that _this_ occurs" (pointing to the bill), "I must request you to find +accommodation for yourself elsewhere, as really my poor house is not a +fit place for a young gentleman with such princely views on the subject +of expenditure." + +The object of this pleasant harangue is Algy, who, also standing, with +his face very white, his lips very much compressed, and his eyes +flashing with a furious light, is fronting his parent on the hearth-rug. + +Behind the tea-urn, mother is mingling her drink with tears, and making +little covert signs to Algy, at all rates to hold his tongue. + +My mind is made up, never to be unmade again. I will marry Sir Roger. He +shall pay all Algy's debts, and forever dry mother's sad, wet eyes. + + * * * * * + +The weather of paradise is gone back to paradise. This day is very +earthly. There has been a sharp, cold shower, and there is still a +strong rain-wind, which has snapped a score of tulip-heads. Poor, brave +_Jour ne sols_! Prone they lie on the garden-beds, defiled, dispetalled. +Even the survivors are stained and dashed, and the sweet Nancies look +pinched and small. If you were to go down on your knees to them, they +could not give you any scent. I am walking up and down the room, in a +state of the utmost agitation. My heart is beating so as to make me feel +quite sick. My fingers are very hot, but hardly so hot as my face. + +"For Heaven's sake do not make me laugh! do not!" cry I, nervously, "it +would be _too_ dreadful if I were to receive his overtures with a broad +grin, would not it? There! is it gone? Do I look quite grave?" + +I take half a dozen hurried turns along the floor, and try to think of +all our most depressing family themes--father; Algy's college-bills; Tou +Tou's shrunk face and thin legs; nothing will do. When I stop before the +glass and consult it, that hysterical smile is there still. + +"Do you remember the day, when we were children, that we all went to the +dentist?" says the Brat, chuckling, "and father gave Bobby a New +Testament because he had his eye-tooth out? Does to-day at all remind +you of it, Nancy?" + +"I had far rather have _both_ my eye-teeth out, and several of my double +ones, too," reply I, sincerely. + +A little pause. + +"I must not keep him waiting any longer," cry I, desperately. "Tell me!" +(appealing piteously to them all), "do I look all right? do I look +pretty natural?" + +"You do not look _middle-aged_ enough," says Bobby, bluntly. + +"Put on your bonnet," suggests Algy. "You look twenty years older in +that, particularly when you cock it well over your nose, as you did last +Sunday." + +"You are all very unkind!" say I, in a whimpering voice, walking toward +the door. + +"And if he becomes too demonstrative," says the Brat, overtaking me with +a rush before I reach it, "say-- + + 'Unhand me, graybeard loon!'" + +Then I go. As I know perfectly well, that if I give myself time to +think, I shall stand with the drawing-room door-handle in my grasp for +half an hour, before I can make up my mind to enter, I take the bull by +the horns, and whisking in suddenly and noisily, find myself +_tête-à-tête_ with my lover. + +Certainly, I never felt such a fool in my life. How _awful_ it will be +if I burst out laughing in his face! It is quite as likely as not that I +shall do it out of sheer hysterical fright. Oh, how different! how much +nicer it was when we last parted! I had taken him to see the jackdaw, +and the little bear that Bobby brought from foreign parts; and jacky had +bitten his finger so humorously, and we had been so merry, and I had +told him again how much I wished that he could change places with +father. And now! _I feel_--more than see--that he is drawing nigh me. +Through my eyelids--for I am very sure that I never lift my eyes--get an +idea of his appearance. + +Under his present aspect I am much more disposed to be critical, and to +pick holes in him, than I was under his former one. Any attempt at +youthfulness, any effort at _smartness_, will not escape my vigilant +reprobation--down-eyed and red-cheeked as I appear to be. But none such +do I find. There is no false juvenility--there is no trace of dandyism +in the plain and quiet clothes, in the hair sparsely sprinkled with +snow, in the mature and goodly face. + +An iron-gray, middle-aged gentleman stands before me, more vigorous, +more full of healthy life than two-thirds of the puny youth, nourished +on sherry and bitters, of the present small generation, but with no +wish, no smallest effort to take away one from the burden of years that +God has laid on his strong shoulders. + +There is no doubt that I shall not speak first, so for a moment there is +a profound silence. Then I find my hot hand in Sir Roger's where it has +so often and so familiarly lain before, and I hear Sir Roger's voice +addressing me. + +"I am an old fool, Nancy, and you have come to tell me so?" + +Somehow I know that the bronze of his face is a little paled by emotion, +but there is no sawny sentiment in his tone, none of the lover's whine. +It is the same voice--as manly, as sustained--that made comments on +Bobby's little bear. And yet, for the moment, I am physically unable to +answer him. Who _can_ answer the simplest question ever put with a lump +the size of a cocoa-nut in their throat? My eyelids are still hopelessly +drooped over my eyes, but, by some sense that is not eyesight, I am +aware that there is a sort of shyness in his face, a diffidence in his +address. + +"Nancy, have I come back too soon? am I hurrying you?" + +I raise my eyes for an instant, and then let them fall. + +"No, thank you," I say, demurely, "not at all. I have had plenty of +time!" + +And then, somehow, there seems to me something so ludicrous in the sound +of my own speech, that I tremble on the verge of a burst of loud and +unwilling laughter. + +"Speak out all your thought to me, whatever it is," he says, in a tone +of grave entreaty, moved and tender, yet manly withal. "Look at me with +the same friendly, fearless eyes that you did last week! I know, my +dear, that you always think of others more than yourself, and I dare say +that _now_ you are afraid of hurting me! Indeed, you need not be! I am +tough and well-seasoned; I have known what pain is before now--it would +be very odd, at my time of life, if I had not! I can well bear a little +more, and be the better for it, perhaps." + +I stand stupidly silent. One's outer man or woman often does an +injustice to one's inner feelings. As he speaks, my heart goes out to +him, but I can find no words in which to dress my thought. + +"Nancy!" in a tone of thorough distress. "I can bear any thing but +seeing you shrink and shiver away from me, as I have seen you do from +your father." + +"You _never_ will see that," reply I, laconically, gathering bravery +enough to look him in the face, as I deliver this encouraging remark. + +"Do you think," he says, beginning to walk restlessly about the room-- +(long ago he dropped my limp hand)--"that all this week I have had much +hope? Every time that I have caught a glimpse of myself in the glass, I +have said, 'Is this a face likely to take a child's fancy? Do you bear +much resemblance to the hero of her storybooks?' My dear"--(stopping +before me)--"you cannot think my presumption more absurd than I do +myself." + +"I do not think it at all absurd," reply I, beginning to speak quite +stoutly, and to be rather diffuse than otherwise. "Perhaps I did, just +at first, when they were all laughing, and saying about your having been +at school with father; but _now_ I do not in the least--I do not care +what the boys say--I do not, really. I am not joking." + +At my words he half stretches out his hand to take mine; but, as if +repressing some strong impulse, withdraws it again, and speaks quietly, +with a rather sober smile. + +"I am afraid that one's soul ages more slowly than one's body, Nancy! +Even at my age it has seemed difficult to me to be brought into hourly +companionship with all that was most fresh and womanly, and spirited, +and pretty." + +"_Pretty_!" think I. "I wish the boys could hear him! they will never +believe me if I tell them." + +"And not wish to have it for my own, to take and make much of. I that +have never had any thing very lovely or lovable in my life. And then, +dear, it was all your good-nature, you did not know what you were doing; +you seemed to find some little pleasure in my society--even chose it by +preference now and then. My talk did not weary you, as I should have +thought it would have done, and so I grew to think--to think--Bah!" +(with a movement of impatience) "it was a foolish thought! what can +there be in common between me and a child like you?" + +"I think that there is a great deal," reply I, speaking very steadily, +and so saying, I stretch out my hand and of my own accord put it in his +again. He cannot well return it to me, so he keeps it. + +"And yet it is impossible?" he says, with hesitating interrogation, +while his steel-blue eyes look anxiously into mine. + +"Is it?" say I, a wily smile beginning to creep over my features. "If it +is, what was the use of asking me?" I have the grace to grow extremely +red as I make this observation. + +"Nancy!" seizing my other hand, too, and speaking in a hurried; low +voice that slightly shakes with the force of his emotion, "what are you +saying? You do not know what you are implying." + +"Yes I do," reply I, firmly. "I know perfectly. And it is _not_ +impossible. Not at all, I should say." + +Upon this explicit declaration an ordinary lover would have had me in +his arms and smothered me with kisses before you could look round, but +my lover is abnormal. He does nothing of the kind. + +"Are you sure," he says, with an earnest gravity and imploring emphasis, +"that you understand what you are doing? Are you certain, Nancy, that if +we had not been friends, if you had not been loath to pain me, that you +would not have answered differently? Think, child! think well of it! +this is not a matter of months or even years, but of your whole long +young life." + +"Yes," say I, gravely, looking down. "I know it is." + +And put thus solemnly before me, the idea of the marriage state seems to +me, hardly less weightily oppressive than the idea of eternity. + +"How should I feel," he continues (he has put a hand on each of my +shoulders, and is looking-at me with a serious yet tender fixity), "if, +by-and-by, in the years ahead of us, you came and told me that by my +selfishness, taking advantage of your youth, I had destroyed your life?" + +"And do you think," say I, with a flash of indignation, "that even if +you had done it, I should come and tell you?" + +"Are you _quite_ sure that among all the men of your acquaintance, men +nearer you in age, more akin in tastes, men _not_ gray-haired, _not_ +weather-beaten, _not_ past their best years--there is not one with whom +you would more willingly spend your life than with me? If it is so, I +_beseech_ you to tell me, as you would tell your mother!" + +"If there were," reply I, smiling broadly, a smile which greatly widens +my mouth, and would show my dimples if I had any, "I should _indeed_ be +susceptible! The two curates that you saw the other night--the one who +tore his gloves into strips, you know, and the other who ate so much-- +Toothless Jack--these are the sort of men among whom my lines have lain. +Do you think I am likely to be very much in love with any of _them_?" + +My speech does not seem so altogether reassuring as I had expected. + +"I am very suspicious," he says, half apologetically, "but you have seen +so little of the world, you have led such a nun's life! how can you +answer for it that hereafter out in the world you may not meet some one +more to your liking? You are a dear little, kindly, tender-hearted sort, +and you do not tell me so, but you do not like me _much_ Nancy! Indeed, +dear, I could far better do without you now, than see you by-and-by +wishing me away and yet be unable to rid you of me." + + + +"People can help falling in love," say I, with matter-of-fact +common-sense. "If I belonged to you, of course I should never think of +any one else in that way." + +"Are you sure--?" + +"I wish that you would not ask me any more questions," say I, +interrupting him with a pout. "I am quite sure of everything you can +possibly think of." + +"I will only ask _one_ more--are you quite sure that it is not for your +brothers' and sisters' sakes--not your own--that you are doing this? Do +you remember" (with a smile half playful, half sad) "what you told me +about your views of marriage on that first day when I found you in the +kitchen-garden?" + +"I hope to Heaven that you did not think I was _hinting_," say I, +growing crimson; "it certainly sounded very like it, but I really and +truly was not. I was thinking of a _young_ man! I assure you" (speaking +with great earnestness) "that I had as much idea of marrying you as of +marrying _father!_" + +Looking back with mature reflection at this speech, I think that it may +be safely reckoned among my unlucky things. + +"No," he says, wincing a little, a very little. "I know you had not; +but--you have not answered my question." + +For a moment I look down irresolute, then, through some fixed belief in +him, I look up and tell him the plain, bare truth. + +"I _did_ think that it would be a nice thing for the boys," I say, "and +so it will, there is no doubt; you will be as good as a fa--, as a +brother to them; but--I like you _myself_ besides, you may believe it or +not as you please, but it is quite, _quite_, QUITE true." + +As I speak, the tears steal into my eyes. + +"And _I_ like _you!_" he answers very simply, and so saying, stoops, and +with a sort of diffidence, kisses me. + +"Well, how did it go off?" cries Bobby, curiously, when I next rejoin my +compeers. "Did you laugh?" + +"_Laugh!_" I echo, with lofty anger, "I do not know what you mean! I +never felt in the least inclined." Then seeing my brethren look rather +aghast at this sudden change in the wind, I add gayly: "Bobby, you must +never again breathe a word about Sir Roger's having been at school with +father; let it be supposed that he did without education." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +This is my wooing: thus I am disposed of. Without a shadow of previous +flirtation with any man born of woman--without any of the ups and downs, +the ins and outs of an ordinary love-affair, I place my fate in Sir +Roger's hands. Henceforth I must have done with all girlish +speculations, as to the manner of man who is to drop from the clouds to +be my wooer. Well, I have not many daydreams to relinquish. When I have +built Spanish castles--in a large family, one has not time for many--a +lover for myself has been less the theme of my aspirations than a +benefactor for the family. One, who will exercise a wholesomely +repressive influence over father, has been more than any thing the theme +of my longings; on the unlikely hypothesis of my marrying at all. For, O +friends, it has seemed to me _most_ unlikely; I dare say that I might +not have been over-difficult--might have thankfully and heartily loved +some one not quite a Bayard, but one cannot love _any thing_--any odd +and end--and, say what you will, the choice of a country girl, with a +little dowry and a plain face, is but small. For--do not dislike me for +it if you can help--I _am_ plain. I know it by the joint and honest +testimony of all my brethren. I have had no trouble in gathering the +truth from them. A hundred times they have volunteered it, with that +healthy disregard of any sickly sensitiveness which arms one against +blows to one's vanity through all after-life. Yes: I am plain; not +offensively so, not largely, fatly, staringly plain, but in a small, +blond, harmless way. However, Sir Roger thinks me pretty. Did not he say +so, in unmistakable English? I have tried darkly to hint this to the +boys, but have been so decisively pooh-poohed that I resolve not to +allude to the subject again. Not only am I plain now, but I shall remain +plain to my life's end. Unlike the generality of ugly heroines, you will +not see me develop and effloresce into beauty toward the end of my +story. + +The interval between my betrothal and my marriage is but short. On April +22d, I put my hand into Sir Roger's. On May 20th, I am to put it into +his for good. When the bridegroom is forty-seven, and the bride one of +six, why should there be any delay? Why should a man keep and lodge his +daughter any longer than he can help, when he has found some one else +willing to do it for him? This, I think, is father's view. And, +meanwhile, father himself is more like an _angel_ than a man. Not once +do we hear the terrible polite voice that chills the marrow of our +bones. Not once is his nose more than becomingly hooked. Not once does +he look like a hawk. _Another_ long bill comes in for Algy, and is +dismissed with the benevolent comment that you cannot put gray heads +upon green shoulders. I dine every day now; and father and I converse +agreeably upon indifferent topics. Once--oh, prodigious!--we take a walk +round the Home Farm together, and he consults me about the Berkshire +pigs. Then comes a mad rush for clothes. I am involved in a whirlwind of +haberdashery, Brussels lace, diamonds. It feels very odd--the becoming +possessed of a great number of stately garments, to which Barbara has no +fellows--Barbara and I, who hitherto have been always stitch for stitch +alike. And meanwhile I see next to nothing of my future husband. This is +chiefly my own doing. + +"You will not mind," I say, standing before him one day in the +drawing-room window, and speaking rather bashfully--somehow I do not +feel so comfortably easy and outspoken with him as I did before the +catastrophe--"you will not mind if I do not see much of you--do not go +out walking--do not talk to you very much till--till _it_ is over!" + +"And why am I not to mind?" he asks, half jestingly, and yet a little +gravely, too. + +"You will have quite enough--_too much_ of me afterward," I say, with a +shy laugh, "and _they_--they will never have much of me again--never so +much, at least--and" (with rather a tremble in my voice) "we have had +_such_ fun together!" + +And so Sir Roger keeps away. Whether his self-denial costs him much, I +cannot say. It never occurs to me at the time that it does. He may think +me a very nice little girl, and that I shall be a great comfort to him, +but he cannot care much about having any very long conversations with +me--he that has seen so many lands, and known so many great and clever +people, and read so many books. He has always been _most_ +undemonstrative to me. At _his_ age, no doubt, he does not care much for +the foolish endearments of lovers; so, with an easy conscience, I devote +myself, for my short space, to the boys, to Barbara, to Vick, and the +jackdaw. Once, indeed--just once--I have a little talk with him, and +afterward I almost wish that I had not had it. We are sitting under a +horse-chestnut-tree in the garden--a tree that, under the handling of +the warm air, is breaking into a thousand tender faces. We did not begin +by being _tête-à-tête_; indeed, several lately-occupied chairs intervene +between us, but first one and then another has slipped away, and we are +alone. + +"Nancy!" says Sir Roger, his eyes following the Brat, who is lightly +tripping up the stone steps, looking very small and agile in his +white-flannel cricketing things, "what is that boy's real name? Why do +you call him 'the Brat?'" + +"Because he _is_ such a _Brat_," reply I, fondly, picking up from the +grass a green chestnut-bud that the squirrels or the rooks have untimely +nipped. "Did you ever see any thing so little, so white and pert? He has +sadly mistaken his vocation in life: he ought to have been a street +Arab." + +"One gets rather sick of one's surname," says my companion. "Except your +father, hardly any one calls me Roger now! I should be glad to answer to +it again." + +He turns and looks at me with a kind of appeal as he says this. If he +were not forty-seven and a man, I should say that he was coloring a +little. After all, blushing is confined to no age. I have seen a veteran +of sixty-five redden violently. + +"Do you mean to say," cry I, looking rather aghast, and speaking, as +usual, without thinking, "that you mean _me_ to call you _Roger!_ +indeed, I could not think of such a thing! it would sound so--so +_disrespectful_! I should as soon think of calling my father _James_." + +"Should you?" he answers, turning away his face toward the garden-beds, +where the blue forget-me-not is unrolling her sky-colored sheet, and the +double daisies are stiffly parading their tight pink buttons. "Then call +me what you like!" + +I am not learned in the variations of his voice, as I am in those of +father and Algy, in either of which I can at once detect each fine +inflection of anger, contest, or pain; but, comparatively unversed as I +am in it, there sounds to me a slight, carefully smothered, yet still +perceptible, intonation of disappointment--mortification. I wish that +the air would give me back my words; but that it never yet was known to +do. + +"I will try if you like," say I, cheerfully, but a little shyly, as, +like the March Hare and the Hatter in the "Mad Sea Party," I move up +past the empty chairs to the one next him. "I do not see, after all, why +I should not get quite used to it in time! Roger! Roger! it is a name I +have always been very partial to until" (laughing a little) "the +Claimant threw discredit on all Rogers!" + +He is looking at me again. After all, I must have been mistaken. There +is no shadow of disappointment or mortification near him. He is smiling +with some friendliness. + +"You must never mind what _I_ say," I continue, dragging my wicker chair +along the shortly-shorn sward a little nearer to him."_Never!_ nobody +ever does; I am a proverb and a by-word for my malapropos speeches. +Mother always _trembles_ when she hears me talking to a stranger. The +first day that I dined after you came, Algy made me a list of things +that I was not to talk about to you." + +"A list of sore subjects?" says my lover, laughing. "But how did the boy +know what _were_ my sore subjects? What were they, Nancy?" + +"Oh, I do not know! I have forgotten," reply I, in some confusion. "I've +made some very bad shots." + +And so we slip away from the subject; but, all the same, I wish that I +had not said it. + +We have come to the day before the wedding. My spirits, which held up +bravely during the first two weeks of my engagement, have now fallen-- +fallen, like a wind at sundown. I am as limp, lachrymose, and +lamentable, a young woman as you would find between the three seas. I +have cried with loud publicity in full school-room conclave; I have +cried with silent privacy in bed. I have cried over the jackdaw. I have +cried over the bear. I have not cried over Vick, as I am to take her +with me. To-day we have _all_ cried--boys and all; and have moistened +the bun-loaf and the gooseberry-jam at tea with our tears. Our spirits +being now temporarily revived, I am undergoing the operation of trying +my wedding-dress. I am having a private rehearsal, in fact, in mother's +boudoir, with only mother, Barbara, and the maid, for audience. + +"Mine is the most hopeless kind of ugliness," say I, with an admirable +dispassionateness, as if I were talking of some one else, as, armed in +full panoply, I stand staring at my white reflection in a long mirror +let into the wall--staring at myself from top to toe--from the highest +jasmine star of my wreath to the lowest edge of my Brussels flounce. "If +I were very fat, I might fine down; if I were very thin, I might plump +up; if I were very red, I might grow pale; if I were--hush! here are the +boys. I would not for worlds that they should see me!" + +So saying, I run behind the folding-screen--the screen which, through so +many winter evenings, we have adorned with gay and ingenious pictures, +and which, after having worked openly at it under her nose for a year +and a half, we presented to mother _as a surprise_, on her last +birthday. + +"Come out, ostrich!" cries Algy, laughing. "Do you suppose that you are +hidden? Did it never occur to you that we could see your reflection in +the glass?" + +Thus adjured, I reissue forth. + +"Did you ever see such a fool as I look?" say I, feeling very sneaky, +and going through a few uncouth antics to disguise my confusion, + +"Talk of _me_ being a Brat," cries the Brat, triumphantly. "I am not +half such a brat as you are! You look about ten years old!" + +"Mark my words!" cries Bobby. "Wherever you go, on the Continent, you +will be taken for a good little girl making a tour with her grandpapa!" + +Bobby is speaking at the top of his voice; as, indeed, we have all of us +rather a bad habit of doing. Bobby has the most excuse for it, as, being +a sailor, I suppose that he has to bellow a good deal at the +blue-jackets. In the present case, he has _one_ more listener than he +thinks. Sir Roger is among us. The door has been left ajar, and he, +hearing the merry clamor, and having always the _entrée_ to mother's +room, has entered. By the pained smile on his face, I can see that he +has heard. + +"You are right, my boy," he says, quite gently, looking kindly at the +unfortunate Bobby; "she _does_ look very--_very_ young!" "I shall mend +of that!" cry I, briskly, putting my arm through his, in anxious amends +for Bobby's hapless speech. "We are a family who age particularly early. +I have a cousin whose hair was gray at five-and-twenty, and I am sure +that any one who did not know father, would say that he was sixty, if he +was a day--would not they, mother?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The preparations are ended; the guests are come; no great number. A few +unavoidable Tempests, a few necessary Greys (I have told you, have not +I, that my name is Grey?). The heels have been amputated from a large +number of white satin slippers, preparatory to their being thrown after +us. The school-children have had their last practice at the +marriage-hymn. + +I have resolved to rise at five o'clock on my wedding-morning, so as to +make a last gloomy progress round every bird and beast and +gooseberry-bush on the premises. I have exacted--binding her by many +stringent oaths--a solemn promise from Barbara to make me, if I do not +do so of my own accord, at the appointed hour. I am sunk in heavy sleep, +and wake only very gradually, to find her, in conformity with her +engagements, giving my shoulder reluctant and gentle pushes, and softly +calling me. + +"Is it five?" say I, sitting up and yawning. Then as the recollection of +my position flashes across my mind, "I will _not_ be married!" I cry, +turning round, and burying all my face in my pillow again. "Nobody shall +induce me! Let some one go and tell Sir Roger so." + +"Sir Roger is not awake," replied Barbara, laughing rather sleepily, +"you forget that." + +And by the time he is awake, I have come to a saner mind. We dress, for +the last time, _alike_. The thought that never again shall I have a +holland frock like Barbara's is nearly too much for us both. We run +quietly downstairs, and out into as August a morning as God ever gave +his poor pensioners. + +We walk along soberly and silently, hand-in-hand, as we used to do when +we were little children. My heart is _very, very full_. I may be going +to be happy in my new life. I fully expect to be. At nineteen, happiness +seems one's right, one's matter of course; but it will not be in the +same way. _This_ chapter of my life is ended, and it has been _such_ a +good chapter, so full of love, of healthy, strong affection, of +interchanged, kind offices, and little glad self-denials, so abounding +in good jokes and riotous laughter, in little pleasures that--looked +back on--seem great; in little wholesome pains that--in retrospect--seem +joys. And, as we walk, the birds + + "Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men + To woo them from their beds, still murmuring + That men can sleep while they their matins sing. + Most divine service, whose so early lay + Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day." + +The old singers have said many a fine and lovely thing about lusty +spring. From their pages there seems to come a whiff of clean and +healthy perfume from many dead Mays. In sweet and matterful verse they +have sung their praises; but, oh! no singer, old or new--none, at least, +that was but human--none but a God-intoxicated man could tell the +glories of that serenely shining and suave morn. + +One so seldom sees the best part of a summer day! Buried in swinish +slumber, with window-curtains heedfully drawn, and shutters closely +fastened, between us and it, we know nothing of the stately pageant +spread outside our doors. + +It is wasted; nay, not wasted, for the birds have it. It is so early, +that the gardening-men are not yet come to their work. Every thing is as +wet as though there had been a shower, but there has been none. + +Talk of the earth moving round the sun--he himself the while stupidly +stock-still--let _them_ believe it who like; is not he now placidly +sailing through the turquoise sea? Below, the earth is unfolding all her +freshened meadows, bravely pied with rainbow flowers. There is a very +small soft wind, that comes in honeyed puffs and little sighs, that wags +the lilac-heads, and the long droop of the laburnum-blooms. The grass is +so wet--so wet--as we swish through it, every blade a separate green +sparkle. The young daisies give our feet little friendly knocks as we +pass. + +All round the old flowering thorn there is a small carpet, milk-white +and rose-red, of strewn petals. Every flower that has a cup, is holding +it brimful of cool dew. Vick is sitting on the top of the stone steps, +her ears pricked, and her little black nose working mysteriously as she +sniffs the morning air. + +On the bright gravel walk stands the jackdaw, looking rather a funereal +object in his black suit, on this gaudy-colored day; his gray head very +much on one side, his round, sly eyes turned upward in dishonest +meditation. A worse bird than Jacky does not hop. His life is one long +course of larceny, and I know that if he had the gift of speech, he +would also be a consummate liar. I kneel on the walk, and, holding out a +bit of cake, call him softly and clearly, "Jacky! Jacky!" He snatches it +rudely, with a short hoarse caw, puts one black foot on it, and begins +to peck. + +"Jacky! Jacky!" say I, sorrowfully, "I am going to be married! Oh, you +know that? You may thank your stars that you are not." + +As I speak, my tears fall on his sleek black wings and his dear gray +head. I try to kiss him; but he makes such a spiteful peck at my nose, +that I have to give up the idea. Thus one of my good-byes is over. By +the time that they are all ended, and we have returned to the house, I +am drowned in tears, and my appearance for the day is irretrievably +damaged. My nose is certainly _very_ red. It surprises even myself, who +have known its capabilities of old. Bobby, always prosaic, suggests that +I shall hold it in the steam of boiling water, to reduce the +inflammation. But I have not the heart to try this remedy. It may be sky +blue, for all I care. Nose or no nose, I am dressed now. + +Instead of the costly artificial wreath that Madame Elise sent me, +Barbara has made a little natural garland of my own flowers--my Nancies. +I smell them all the time that I am being married. I have no female +friends--Barbara has always been friend enough for me--so I have +stipulated that I shall have no other bridesmaids but her and Tou Tou. +They are not much to brag of in the way of a match. Algy indeed +suggested that in order to bring them into greater harmony, Tou Tou +shall clothe her thin legs with long petticoats, or Barbara abridge her +garments to Tou Tou's length; but the proposition has met with as little +favor in the family's eyes as did Squire Thornhill's proposal, that +every gentleman should sit on a lady's lap, in the Vicar of Wakefield. + +The guests are all off to the church. I follow with my parents. Mother +is inclined to cry, until snubbed and withered into dry-eyedness by her +consort. He is, however, all benignity to me. I catch myself wondering +whether I _can_ be his own daughter; whether I am not one of the train +of neighboring misses who have sometimes made me the depository of their +raptures about him. + +We reach the church. I am walking up the aisle on red cloth: the +wedding-hymn is in my ears, gayly and briskly sung, though it _is_ a +hymn, and not an _Epithalamium_: a vague idea of many people is in my +head. I am standing before the altar--the altar smothered in flowers. +The old vicar who christened me is to marry me. I have declined the +intervention of all strange bishops and curates whatsoever. He is a +clergyman of the old school, and spares us not a word of the ritual. + +Truly in no squeamish age was the marriage-service composed! I know-- +that is, I could have told you if you had asked me--that I am standing +beside a large and stately person, to whom, if neither God nor man +interpose to prevent it, I shall, within five minutes, be lawfully wed; +but I do not in the least degree realize it. + +Now and again a strong sense of the ludicrous rushes over me. There +seems to me something acutely ridiculous in the idea of myself standing +here, so finely dressed--of the boys, demure and prim in their tall hats +and Sunday coats, gathered to see _me_ married--_me_ of all people! + +Like lightning-flash there darts into my head the recollection of the +_last time that I was married!_ when, long ago we were little children, +one wet Sunday afternoon, for want of a job, I had espoused Bobby; and +Algy, standing on a chair, with his night-gown on for a surplice, had +married us. It is over now. I am aware that several persons of different +genders have kissed me. I have signed my name. I am walking down the +church-yard path, the bells jangling gayly above my head, drowning the +sweet thrushes; and the school-children flinging bountiful garden +flowers before my feet. It seems to me a sin to tread upon them. It goes +to my heart. We reach the house. Vick comes out to meet us in a +crawling, groveling manner, which owes its birth to the _shame_ caused +in her mind by the huge favor which my maid has tied round her little +neck. We go into breakfast and feed--the _women_ with easy minds; the +_men_, with such appetites as the fear of impending speeches, of +horrible shattered commonplaces leaves them. + +I suppose that, despite my change of name, I cannot yet be wholly a +Tempest; for, while I remain perfectly serene and calm during Sir +Roger's few plain words, I am one red misery while Algy is returning +thanks for the bridesmaids, which he does in so appallingly lame, +stammering, and altogether agonizing a manner, that I have serious +thoughts of slipping from my bridegroom's side under the friendly shade +of the table, among its sheltering legs. + +Thank God it is over, and I am gone to put on my traveling-dress! The +odious parting moment has come. The carriage is at the door: the maid +and valet are in the dickey. What a pity that they are not bride and +bridegroom too! Vick has jumped in--alert and self-respecting again now +that she has bitten off her favor. + +I have begun my voluminous farewells. I have kissed them all round once, +and am beginning again. How can one make up one's mind where to stop? +with whom to end? + +"Never you marry, Barbara!" say I, in a sobbing whisper, as I clasp her +in my last embrace, greatly distorting my new bonnot, "it is _so_ +disagreeable!" + +We are off, followed by a tornado of shoes--one, aimed with dexterous +violence by that unlucky Bobby, goes nigh to cut the bridegroom's left +eye open, as he waves his good-byes. + +As we trot smartly away, I turn round in the carriage and look at them +through my tears. There they all are! After all, what a nice-looking +family! Even Tou Tou! there is something pretty about her, and standing +as she is now, her legs look quite nice and thick. + + * * * * * + +We reach Dover before dinner-time. Sir Roger has gone out to speak to +the courier who meets us there. I am left alone in our great stiff +sitting-room at the Lord Warden. Instantly I rush to the +writing-materials. + +"What, writing already?" says my husband, reëntering, and coming over +with a smile toward me. "Have you forgotten any of your finery?" + +"No, no!" cry I, impulsively, spreading both hands over the sheet; "do +not look! you must not look!" + +"Do you think I _should?_" he says, reproachfully, turning quickly away. + +"But you may," cry I, with one of my sudden useless remorses, holding +out the note to him. "Do! I should like you to!--I do not know why I +said it!--I was only sending them a line, just to tell them how +_dreadfully_ I missed them all!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +I have been married a week. A _week_ indeed! a week in the sense in +which the creation of the world occupied a week!--seven geological ages, +perhaps, but _not_ seven days. We have been to Brussels, to Antwerp, to +Cologne. We have seen--(with the penetrating incense odor in our +nostrils, and the kneeling peasants at our feet)--the Descent from the +Cross, the Elevation of the Cross--dead Christs manifold. Can it be +possible that the brush which worthily painted Christ's agony, can be +the same that descended to eternize redundant red fishwives, and call +them goddesses? We have given ourselves cricks in the necks, staring up +at the divine incompleteness of Cologne Cathedral. And all through +Crucifixions, cathedrals, table d'hotes, I have been deadly, _deadly_ +homesick--homesick as none but one that has been a member of a large +family and has been out into the world on his or her own account, for +the first time, can understand. When first I drove away through the +park, my sensations were something like those that we all used to +experience, on the rare occasions when father, as a treat, took one or +other of us out on an excursion with him--the _honor_ great, but the +_pleasure_ small. + +It seems to myself, as if I had not laughed once since we set off!--yes +--_once_ I did, at the recollection of an old joke of Bobby's, that we +all thought very silly at the time, but that strikes me as irresistibly +funny now that it recurs to me in the midst of strange scenes, and of +jokeless foreigners. + +After forty, people do not laugh at absolutely _nothing_. They may be +very easily moved to mirth, as, indeed, to do him justice, Sir Roger is; +but they do not laugh for the pure physical pleasure of grinning. The +weight of the absolute _tête-à-tête_ of a honey-moon, which has proved +trying to a more violent love than mine, is oppressing me. + +At home, if I grew tired of talking to one, I could talk to another. If +I waxed weary of Bobby's sea-tales, I might refresh myself with +listening to the Brat's braggings about Oxford--with Tou Tou's murdered +French lesson: + + J'aime, I love. + Tu aimes, Thou lovest. + Il aime, He loves. + +How many thousand years ago, the labored conjugation of that verb seems +to me! + +_Now_, if I do not converse with Sir Roger, I must remain silent. And, +somehow, I cannot talk to him now as fluently as I used. Before--during +our short previous acquaintance--where I used to pester the poor man +with filial aspirations that he could not reciprocate, there seemed no +end to the things I had to say to him. I felt as if I could have told +him any thing. I bubbled over with silly jests. + +It never occurred to me to think whether I pleased him or not; but _now +--now_, the sense of my mental inferiority--of the gulf of years and +inequalities that yawns between us--weighs like a lump of lead upon me. + +I am in constant fear of falling below his estimate of me. Before I +speak, I think whether what I am going to say will be worth saying, and, +as very few of my remarks come up to this standard, I become extremely +silent. Oh, if we could meet some one we knew--even if it were some one +that we rather disliked than otherwise: some one that would laugh and +have as few wits as I, and be _young_. + +But it is too early in the year for many people to be yet abroad, and, +so far, we have fallen upon no acquaintances. Once, indeed, at Antwerp, +I see in the distance a man whose figure bears a striking resemblance to +that of "Toothless Jack," and my heart leaps--detestable as I have +always thought Barbara's aspirant; but on coming nearer the likeness +disappears, and I relapse into depression. + +Long ago, I had told my husband--on the first day I had made his +acquaintance indeed--that I had no conversation, and now he is proving +experimentally the truth of my confession. At home, our talk has always +been made up of allusions, half-words, petrified witticisms, that have +become part of our language. Each sentence would require a dictionary of +explanation to any strange hearer. _Now_, if I wish to be understood, I +must say my meaning in plain English, and very laborious I find it. + +To-day, we are on our way from Cologne to Dresden; sixteen hours and a +half at a stretch. This of itself is enough to throw the equablest mind +off its balance. + +We have a _coupé_ to ourselves. This is quite opposed to my wishes, nor +is it Sir Roger's doing, but Schmidt, the courier, knowing what is +seemly on those occasions--what he has always done for all former +freshly-wed couples whom he has escorted--secured it before we could +prevent him. As for me, it would have amused me to see the people come +in and out, to air my timid German in little remarks about the weather; +albeit I have thus early discovered that the German, which we have been +exhorted to talk among ourselves in the school-room, to perfect us in +that tongue, bears no very pronounced likeness to the language as talked +by the indigenous inhabitants. They _will_ talk so fast, and they never +say any thing in the least like Ollendorff. + +_Sixteen hours and a half_ of a _tête-à-tête_ more complete and unbroken +than any we have yet enjoyed. All day I watch the endless, treeless, +hedgeless German flats fly past; the straight-lopped poplars, the spread +of tall green wheat, the blaze of rape-fields--the villages and towns, +with two-towered German churches, over and over, and over again. Oh, for +a hill, were it no bigger than a molehill! Oh, for a broad-armed English +oak! + +At Minden we stop to lunch. The whole train pushes and jostles into the +refreshment-room, and, in ten galloping minutes, we devour three filthy +_plats_; a nauseous potage, a terrible dish of sickly veal, and a ragged +Braten. Then a rush and tumble-off again. + +The day rolls past, dustily, samely, wearily. There have been flying +thunder-storms--lightning-flashes past the windows. I hide my face in my +dusty gloves to avoid seeing the quick red forks, and leave a smear on +each grimy cheek. Every moment, I am a rape-field--a corn-field, a +bean-field, farther from Barbara, farther from the Brat, farther from +the jackdaw. + +"This is rather a long day for you, child!" says Sir Roger, kindly, +perceiving, I suppose, the joviality of the expression with which I am +eying the German landscape. "The most tedious railway-journey you ever +took, I suppose?" + +"Yes," reply I, "far! It seems like three Sundays rolled into one, does +not it? What time is it now?" + +He takes out his watch and looks. + +"Twenty past five." + +"_Seven_ hours more!" say I, with a burst of desperateness. + +"I am so sorry for you, Nancy! what can one do for you?" says my +husband, looking thoroughly discomfited, concerned, and helpless. "Would +you care to have a book?" + +"I cannot read in a train," reply I, dolorously, "it makes me _sick_!" +Then feeling rather ashamed of my peevishness--"Never mind me!" I say, +with a dusty smile; "I am quite happy! I--I--like looking out." + +The day falls, the night comes. On, on, on! There is a bit of +looking-glass opposite me. I can no longer see any thing outside. I have +to sit staring at my own plain, grimed, bored face. In a sudden fury, I +draw the little red silk curtain across my own image. Thank God! I can +no longer see myself. Sir Roger ceases to try his eyes with the print of +the _Westminster_, and closes it. + +"I wonder," say I, pouring some eau-de-cologne on my +pocket-handkerchief, and trying to cleanse my face therewith, but only +succeeding in making it a muddy instead of a dusty smudge--"I wonder +whether we shall meet any one we know at Dresden?" + +"I should not wonder," replies Sir Roger, cheerfully. + +"Is the Hôtel de Saxe the place where most English go?" inquire I, +anxiously. "Ah, you do not know! I must ask Schmidt." + +"Yes, do." + +"I hope we shall," say I, straining my eyes to make out the objects in +the dark outside. "We have been very unlucky so far, have not we?" + +"Are you so anxious to meet people? are you so dull already, Nancy?" he +asks, in that voice of peculiar gentleness which I have already learned +to know hides inward pain. + +"Oh, no, no!" cry I, with quick remorse. "Not at all! I have always +_longed_ to travel! At one time Barbara and I were always talking about +it, making plans, you know, of where we would go. I enjoy it, of all +things, especially the pictures--but do not you think it would be +amusing to have some one to talk to at the _tables d'hôte_, some one +English, to laugh at the people with?" + +"Yes," he answers, readily, "of course it would. It is quite natural +that you should wish it. I heartily hope we shall. We will go wherever +it is most likely." + +After long, _long_ hours of dark rushing, Dresden at last. We drive in +an open carriage through an unknown town, moonlit, silent, and asleep. +German towns go to bed early. We cross the Elbe, in which a second moon, +big and clear as the one in heaven, lies quivering, waving with the +water's wave; then through dim, ghostly streets, and at last--at last-- +we pull up at the door of the Hotel de Saxe, and the sleepy porter comes +out disheveled. + +"There is no doubt," say I, aloud, when I find myself alone in my +bedroom, Sir Roger not having yet come up, and the maid having gone to +bed--addressing the remark to the hot water in which I have been bathing +my face, stiff with dirt, and haggard with fatigue. "There is no use +denying it, I _hate_ being married!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +We have been in Dresden three whole days, and as yet my aspirations +have not met their fulfillment. We have met no one we know. We have +borrowed the Visitors' Book from the porter, and diligently searched it. +We have expectantly examined the guests at the _tables d'hôte_ every +day, but with no result. It is too early in the year. The hotel is not +half full. Of its inmates one half are American, a quarter German, and +the other quarter English, such as not the most rabidly social mind can +wish to forgather with. At the discovery of our ill-success, Sir Roger +looks so honestly crestfallen that my heart smites me. + +"How eager you are!" I say, laying my hand on his, with a smile. "You +are far more anxious about it than I am! I begin to think that you are +growing tired of me already! As for me," continue I, nonchalantly, +seeing his face brighten at my words, "I think I have changed my mind. +Perhaps it would be rather a _bore_ to meet any acquaintance, and--and-- +we do very well as we are, do not we?" + +"Is that true, Nancy?" he says, eagerly. "I have been bothering my head +rather with the notion that I was but poor company for a little young +thing like you; that you must be wearying for some of your own friends." + +"I never had a friend," reply I, "_never_--that is--except _you_! The +boys"--(with a little stealing smile)--"always used to call you my +friend--always from the first, from the days I used to take you out +walking, and keep wishing that you were my father, and be rather hurt +because I never could get you to echo the wish." + +"And you are not much disappointed _really?_" he says, with a wistful +persistence, as if he but half believed the words my lips made. "If you +are, mind you tell me, child--tell me every thing that vexes you-- +_always!_" + +"I will tell you every thing that happens to me, bad and good," reply I, +quite gayly, "and all the unlucky things I say--there, that is a large +promise, I can tell you!" + +I am no longer dusty and grimy; quite spick and span, on the contrary; +so freshly and prettily dressed, indeed, that the thought _will_ occur +to me that it is a pity there are not more people to see me. However, no +doubt some one will turn up by-and-by. The weather is serenely, evenly +fine. It seems as if no rain _could_ come from such a high blue sky. It +is late afternoon or early evening. Since dinner is over--dinner at the +godless hour of half-past four--I suppose we must call it evening. Sir +Roger and I are driving out in an open carriage beyond the town, across +the Elbe, up the shady road to Weisserhoisch. The calm of coming night +is falling with silky softness upon every thing. The acacias stand on +each side of the highway, with the delicate abundance of their airy +flowers, faintly yet most definitely sweet on the evening air. + +I look up and see the crowded blooms drooping in pensive beauty above my +head. The guelder-rose's summer snow-balls, and the mock-orange with its +penetrating odor, whiten the still gardens as we pass. The billowy +meadow-grass, the tall red sorrel, the untidy, ragged robin, all the +yearly-recurring May miracles! What can I say, O my friends, to set them +fairly before you? + +Under the trees the townsfolk are walking, chatting low and friendly. A +soldier has his arm round a fat-faced Mädchen's waist, an attention +which she takes with the stolidity engendered by long habit. Dear, +willing, panting dogs, are laboriously dragging the washer-women's +little carts up-hill. + +"Vick," say I, gravely, "how would you like to drag a little cart to the +wash?" + +Vick does not answer verbally, but she stretches her small neck over the +carriage-side, and gives a disdainful yet inquisitive _smell_ at her low +brethren. No words could express a fuller contempt for a dog that earns +his own living. + +The driver is taking his horses along very easily, but we do not care to +hurry him. I have not felt so happy, so at ease, so gay, since I was +wed. + +"This _is_ nice," say I, making a frantic snatch at a long acacia-droop; +"_how_ I wish they were _all_ here!" + +Sir Roger laughs a little, and raises his eyebrows slightly. + +"Do you mean _with us_--_now_--_in the carriage_? Should not we be +rather a tight fit?" + +"Rather," say I, laughing too. "We should be puzzled how to pack them +all, should not we? We would be like the animals in a Noah's ark." + +A little pause. + +"General," say I, impulsively, "it has just occurred to me, are not you +sometimes deadly, _deadly_ tired of hearing about the boys? I am sure I +should be, if I were you. Confess! I will try not to be any angrier with +you than I can help; but do not you sometimes wish that Algy and Bobby, +and the Brat--not to speak of Tou Tou--were drowned in the Bed Sea, or +in the horse-pond, at home?" + +"At least you gave me fair warning," he says, with a smile. "Do you +remember telling me that whoever married you would have to marry all +six?" + +"I wish you would not remind me of that," say I, reddening. + +It was quite the broadest hint any one ever gave. The evening is +deepening. We have reached Weisserhoisch. Now our faces are turned +homeward again. As we pass the entrance to the Gardens of the Linnisches +Bad, we see the lamps springing into light, and the people gayly yet +quietly trooping in, while on the soft evening air comes the swell of +merry music. + +"Stop! stop!" cry I, springing up, excitedly. "Let us go in. I _love_ a +band! It is almost as good as a circus. May we, general? Do you mind? +Would it bore you?" + +Five minutes more, and we are sitting at a little round table, each with +a tall green glass of Mai. Frank [Transcriber's note: sic] before us, +and a brisk Uhlanenritt in our ears. I look round with a pleasant sense +of dissipation. The still, green trees; the cluster of oval lamps, like +great bright ostrich-eggs; the countless little tables like our own; the +happy social groups; the waiters running madly about with bif-tecks; the +great-lidded goblets of amber-colored Bohemian beer; the young Bavarian +officers, in light-blue uniforms, at the next table to us--stalwart, +fair-haired boys--I should not altogether mind knowing a few of them; +and, over all, the arch of suave, dark, evening sky. + +"What shall we have for supper?" cry I, vivaciously. "I never can see +anybody eating without longing to eat too. _Blutwurst!_ That means +black-pudding, I suppose--certainly not _that_--how they do call a spade +a spade in German! By-the-by, what are the soldiers having? Can you see? +I think I saw a vision of _prawns!_ I saw things sticking out like their +legs. I _must_ find out!" + +I rise, on pretense of getting a little wooden stool from under an +unoccupied table close to the object of my curiosity, and, as I stoop to +pick it up, I fraudulently glance over the nearest warrior's shoulder. +My sin finds me out. He turns and catches me in the act, and at the same +time a young man--_not_ a warrior, at least not in uniform, but in loose +gray British clothes--turns, too, and fixes me with a stony, British +stare. I am returning in some confusion, having moreover incidentally +discovered that they were _not_ prawns, when to my extreme surprise, I +hear my husband addressing the young gentleman in gray. + +"Why, Frank, my dear boy, is that you? Who would have thought of seeing +_you_ here?" + +"As to that," replies the young man, stretching out a ready right hand, +"who would have thought of seeing _you?_ What on earth has brought _you_ +here?" + +Sir Roger laughs, but with a sort of shyness. + +"Like the man in the parable, I have married a wife," he says; then, +putting his hand kindly on the young fellow's shoulder--"Nancy, you have +been wishing that we might meet some one we knew, have not you? Well, +here is some one. I suppose that I must introduce you formally to each +other. Lady Tempest--Mr. Musgrave." + +Despite the searching, and, I should have thought, exhaustive +examination of my appearance, that my new friend has already indulged +in, he thinks good to look at me again, as he bows, and this time with a +sort of undisguisable surprise in his great dark eyes. + +"I must apologize," he says, taking off his hat. "I had heard that you +were going to be married, but I am so behind the time, have been so out +of the way of hearing news, that I did not know that it had come off +yet." + +He says this with a little of that doubtful stiffness, which sometimes +owes its birth to shyness, and sometimes to self-consciousness; but he +seems in no hurry to return to his friends, the big, blond soldiers. On +the contrary, he draws a chair up to our table. + +"Do they ever get _prawns_ here?" say I, with apparent irrelevancy, not +being able to disengage my mind from the thought of shell-fish, "or is +it too far inland? I am _so_ fond of them, and I fancied that these +gentlemen--" (slightly indicating the broad, blue warrior-backs)--"were +eating some." + +His mouth curves into a sudden smile. + +"Was that why you came to look?" + +I laugh. + +"I did not mean to be seen: that person must have had eyes in the back +of his head." + +I relapse into silence, and fish for the sprigs of woodruff floating in +my Mai-Trank, while the talk passes to Sir Roger. Presently I become +aware that the stranger is addressing me by that new title which makes +me disposed to laugh. + +"Lady Tempest, have you seen those lamps that they have here, in the +shape of flowers? Cockney sort of things, but they are rather pretty." + +"No," say I, eagerly, dropping my spoon and looking up; "_in the shape +of flowers?_ Where?" + +"You cannot see them from here," he answers; "they are over there, +nearer the river." + +"I should like to see them," say I, decisively; "shall we, general?" + +"Will you spare Lady Tempest for five minutes?" says the young man, +addressing my husband; "it is not a hundred yards off." + +At _my_ words Sir Roger had made a slight movement toward rising; but, +at the stranger's, he resettles himself in his chair. + +"Will you not come, too? Do!" say I, pleadingly; and, as I speak, I half +stretch out my hand to lay it on his arm; then hastily draw it back, +afraid and ashamed of vexing him by public demonstrations. + +He looks up at me with a smile, but shakes his head. + +"I think I am lazy," he says; "I will wait for you here." + +We set off; I with a strongish, but unexplained feeling of resentment +against my companion. + +"Where are they?" I ask, pettishly; "not far off, I hope! I do not fancy +I shall care about them!" + +"I did not suppose that you would," he replies, in an extremely happy +tone; "would you like us to go back?" + +"No," reply I, carelessly, "it would not be worth while now we have +started." + +We march on in solemn silence, not particularly pleased with each other. +I am staring about me, with as greedily wondering eyes as if I were a +young nun let loose for the first time. We pass a score--twoscore, +threescore, perhaps--of happy parties, soldiers again, a _bourgeois_ +family of three generations, the old grandmother with a mushroom-hat +tied over her cap--soldiers and Fräuleins _coketteering._ The air comes +to our faces, dry, warm, and elastic, yet freshened by the river, far +down in whose quiet heart all the lamps are burning again. + +"Have you been here long?" says Mr. Musgrave, presently, in a formal +voice, from which I see that resentment is not yet absent. + +"Yes," say I, having on the other hand fully recovered my good-humor, "a +good while--that is, not very long--three, four, three whole days." + +"Do you call that a _good while_?" + +"It seems more," reply I, looking frankly back at him in the lamplight, +and thinking that he cannot be much older than Algy, and that, in +consequence, it is rather a comfort not to be obliged to feel the +slightest respect for him. + +"And how long have you been abroad altogether?" + +We have reached the flower-lamps. We are standing by the bed in which +they are supposed to grow. There are half a dozen of them: a fuchsia, a +convolvulus, lilies. + +"I do not think much of them," say I, disparagingly, kneeling down to +examine them. "What a villainous rose! It is like an _artichoke_!" + +"I told you you would not like them," he says, not looking at the +flowers, but switching a little stick nonchalantly about; then, after a +moment: "How long did you say you had been abroad?" + +"You asked me that before," reply I, sharply, rising from my knees, and +discovering that the evening grass has left a disfiguring green trace on +my smart _trousseau_ gown. + +"Yes, and you did not give me any answer," he replies, with equal +sharpness. + +"Because I cannot for the life of me recollect," reply I, looking up for +inspiration to the stars, which the great bright lamps make look small +and pale. "I must do a sum: what day of the month is this?--the 31st? +Oh, thanks, so it is; and we were married on the 20th. It is ten days, +then. Oh, it _must_ be more--it seems like ten _months_" + +I am looking him full in the face as I say this, and I see a curious, +and to me _puzzling_, expression of inquiry and laughter in the shady +darkness of his eyes. + +"Has the time seemed so long to you, then?" + +"No," reply I, reddening with vexation at my own _bêtise_; "that is-- +yes--because we have been to so many places, and seen so many things-- +any one would understand _that_" + +"And when do you go home?" + +"In less than three weeks now," I reply, in an alert, or rather joyful +tone; "at least I hope so--I mean" (again correcting myself)--"I _think_ +so." + +Somehow I feel dissatisfied with my own explanations, and recommence: + +"The boys--that is, my brothers--will soon be scattered to the ends of +the earth; Algy has got his commission, and Bobby will soon be sent to a +foreign station--he is in the navy, you will understand; and so we all +want to be together once again before they go." "You are not going home +_really_, then?" inquires my companion, with a slight shade of +disappointment in his tone; "not to _Tempest_--that is?" + +"What a number of questions you do ask!" say I, impatiently. "Of what +possible interest can it be to you where we are going?" + +"Only that I shall be your nearest neighbor," replies he, stiffly; "and, +as Sir Roger has hardly ever been down hitherto, I am rather tired of +living next an empty house." + +"Our nearest neighbor!" cry I, with animation, opening my eyes. "Not +_really?_ Well, I am rather glad! Only yesterday I was asking Sir Roger +whether there were many young people about. And _how_ near are you? +_Very_ near?" + +"About as near as I well can be," answers he, dryly. "My lodge exactly +faces yours." + +"Too close," say I, shaking my head. "We shall quarrel." + +"And do you mean to say," in a tone of attempted lightness that but +badly disguises a good deal of hurt conceit, "that you never heard my +name before?" + +Again I shake my head. + +"Never! and, what is more, I do not think I know what it is now: I +suppose I did not listen very attentively, but I do not think I caught +it." + +"And your tone says" (with a very considerable accession of huffiness) +"that you are supremely indifferent as to whether you _ever_ catch it." + +I laugh. + +"_Catch_ it! you talk as if it were a _disease_. Well" (speaking +demurely), "perhaps on the whole it _would_ be more convenient if I were +to know it." + +Silence. + +"Well! what is it?" + +No answer. + +"I shall have to ask at your lodge!" + +"Who _can_ pronounce his _own_ name in cold blood?" he says, reddening a +little. "I, for one, cannot--there--if you do not mind looking at this +card--" + +He takes one out of his pocket, and I stop--we are slowly strolling +back--under a lamp, to read it: + + MR. FRANCIS MUSGRAVE, + MUSGRAVE ABBEY. + +"Oh, thanks--_Musgrave_--yes." + +"And Sir Roger has never mentioned me to you--_really?_" he says, +recurring with persistent hurt vanity to the topic. "How very odd of +him!" + +"Not in the least odd!" reply I, brusquely. "Why should he? He knew that +I was not aware of your existence, and that therefore you would not be a +very interesting subject to me; no doubt"--(smiling a little)--"I shall +hear all about you from him now." + +He is silent. + +"And do you live _here_ at this abbey"--(pointing to the card I still +hold in my hand)--"_all by yourself?_" + +"Do you mean without a _wife?_" he asks, with a half-sneering smile. +"Yes--I have that misfortune." + +"I was not thinking of a _wife_," say I, rather angrily. "It never +occurred to me that you could have one! you are too young--a great deal +too young!" + +"_Too young_, am I? At what age, then, may one be supposed to deserve +that blessing? forty? fifty? sixty?" + +I feel rather offended, but cannot exactly grasp in my own mind the +ground of offense. + +"I meant, of course, had you any father? any mother?" + +"Neither. I am that most affecting spectacle--an orphan-boy." + +"You have no brothers and sisters, I am _sure_," say I, confidently. + +"I have not, but why you should be _sure_ of it, I am at a loss to +imagine." + +"You seem to take offense rather easily," I say, ingenuously. "You +looked quite cross when I said I did not think much of the flowers--and +again when I said I had forgotten your name--and again when I told you, +you were too young to have a wife: now, you know, in a large family, one +has all that sort of nonsense knocked out of one." + +"Has one?" (rather shortly). + +"Nobody would mind whether one were huffy or not," continue I; "they +would only laugh at one." + +"What a pleasant, civil-spoken thing a large family must be!" he says, +dryly. + +We have reached Sir Roger. I had set off on my little expedition feeling +rather out of conceit with my young friend, and I return with those +dispositions somewhat aggravated. We find my husband sitting where we +left him, placidly smoking and listening to the band. + + "Four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row!" + +They have long finished the Uhlanenritt, and are now clashing out a +brisk Hussarenritt, in which one plainly hears the hussars' thundering +gallop, while the conductor madly waves his arms, as he has been doing +unintermittingly for the last two hours. + +"You were quite wise," say I, laying my hand on the back of his chair; +"you had much the best of it! they were a great imposture!" + +"Were they?" he says, taking his cigar out of his mouth, and lifting his +handsome and severe iron-gray eyes to mine. "They were farther off than +you thought, were not they? I began to think you had not been able to +find them." + +"Have we been so long?" I say, surprised. "It did not _seem_ long! I +suppose we dawdled. We began to talk--bah! it is growing chill! let us +go home!" + +Mr. Musgrave accompanies us to the entrance to the gardens. + +"Good-night, Frank!" cries Sir Roger, as he follows me into the +carriage. + +As soon as I am in, I recollect that I have ungratefully forgotten to +shake hands with my late escort. + +"Good-night!" cry I, too, stretching out a compunctious hand, over Sir +Roger and the carriage-side. "I am so sorry! I forgot all about you!" + +"What hotel are you at?" asks Sir Roger, closing the carriage-door after +him. "The Victoria? Oh, yes. We are at the Saxe. You must come and look +us up when you have nothing better to do. Our rooms are number--what is +it, Nancy? I never can recollect." + +"No. 5." reply I. "But, indeed, it is not much use any one coming to +call upon us, is it? For we are always out--morning, noon, and night." + +With this parting encouragement on my part, we drive off, and leave our +young friend trying, with only moderate success, to combine a gracious +smile to Sir Roger, with a resentful scowl at me, under a lamp-post. We +roll along quickly and easily, through the soft, cool, lamplit night. + +"Well, how did you get on with him, Nancy?" asks Sir Roger. +"Good-looking fellow, is not he?" + +"Is he?" say I, carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is, only that I never +_can_ admire _dark_ men: I am so glad that all the boys are fair--I +should have hated a _black_ brother." + +"How do you know that my hair was not coal-black before it turned gray?" +he asks, with a smile. "It may have been the hue of the carrion-crow for +all you know." + +"I am _sure_ it was not," reply I, stoutly; then, after a little pause, +"I do not think that I _did_ get on well with him--not what _I_ call +getting on--he seems rather a touchy young gentleman." + +"You must not quarrel with him, Nancy," says Sir Roger, laughing. "He +lives not a stone's-throw from us." + +"So he told me!" + +"Poor fellow!" with an accent of compassion. "He has never had much of a +chance; he has been his own master almost ever since he was born--a bad +thing for any boy--he has no parents, you know." + +"So he told me." + +"Neither has he any brothers or sisters." + +"So he told me!" + +"He seems to have told you a great many things." + +"Yes," reply I, "but then I asked him a great many questions: our +conversation was rather like the catechism: the moment I stopped asking +_him_ questions, he began asking me!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Three long days--all blue and gold--blue sky and gold sunshine--roll +away. If Schmidt, the courier, _has_ a fault, it is over-driving us. We +visit the Grüne Gewölbe, the Japanese Palace, the Zwinger--and we visit +them _alone_. Dresden is not a very large place, yet in no part of it, +in none of its bright streets--in neither its old nor its new market, in +none of its public places, do I catch a glimpse of my new acquaintance. +Neither does he come to call. This last fact surprises me a little, and +disappoints me a good deal. Our walk at the Linnisches Bad in the gay +lamplight, his character, his conversation, even his appearance, begin +to undergo a transformation in my mind. After all, he was not _really_ +dark--not one of those black men, against whom Barbara and I have +always lifted up our testimonies; by daylight, I think his eyes would +have been hazel. He certainly was very easy to talk to. One had not to +pump up conversation for him, and I do not suppose that, _as men go_, he +was _really_ very touchy. One cannot expect everybody to be so +jest-hardened and robustly good-tempered as the boys. Often before now I +have only been able to gauge the unfortunateness of my speeches to men, +by the rasping effect they have had on their tempers, and which has +often taken me honestly by surprise. + +"_Again_, Mr. Musgrave has not been to call," say I, one afternoon, on +returning from a long and rather grilling drive, speaking in a slightly +annoyed tone. + +"Did you expect that he would?" asks Sir Roger, with a smile. "I think +that, after the searching snub you gave him, he would have been a bolder +man than I take him for, if he had risked his head in the lion's mouth." + +"_Am_ I such a lion?" say I, with an accent of vexation. "_Did_ I snub +him? I am sure I had no more idea of snubbing him than I had of snubbing +_you_; that is the way in which I always cut my own throat!" + +I draw a chair into the balcony, where he has already established +himself with his cigar, and sit down beside him. + +"I foresee," say I, beginning to laugh rather grimly, "that a desert +will spread all round our house! your friends will disappear before my +tongue, like morning mist." + +"Let them!" + +After a pause, edging a little nearer to him, and, regardless of the +hay-carts in the market below--laying my fair-haired head on his +shoulder: + +"What _could_ have made you marry such a _shrew?_ I believe it was the +purest philanthropy." + +"That was it!" he answers, fondly. "To save any other poor fellow from +such an infliction!" + +"Quite unnecessary!" rejoin I, shaking my head. "If you had not married +me, it is very certain that nobody else would!" + +Another day has come. It is hot afternoon. Sir Roger is reading the +_Times_ in our balcony, and I am strolling along the dazzling streets by +myself. What can equal the white glare of a foreign town? I am strolling +along by myself under a big sun-shade. My progress is slow, as my nose +has a disposition to flatten itself against every shop-window--saving, +perhaps, the cigar ones. A grave problem is engaging my mind. What +present am I to take to father? It is this question which moiders our +young brains as often as his birthday recurs. My thoughts are trailing +back over all our former gifts to him. This year we gave him a +spectacle-case (he is short-sighted); last year a pocket-book; the year +before, an inkstand. What is there left to give him? A cigar-case? He +does not smoke. A hunting-flask? He has half a dozen. A Norwegian stove? +He does not approve of them, but says that men ought to be satisfied +with sandwiches out shooting. A telescope? He never lifts his eyes high +enough above our delinquencies to look at the stars. I cannot arrive at +any approximation to a decision. As I issue from a china-shop, with a +brown-paper parcel under my arm, and out on the hot and glaring flags, I +see a young man come stepping down the street, with a long, loose, +British stride; a young man, pale and comely, and a good deal worn out +by the flies, that have also eaten most of me. + +"How are you?" cry I, hastily shifting my umbrella to the other hand, so +as to have my right one ready to offer him. "Are not these streets +blinding? I am blinking like an owl in daylight!--so you never came to +see us, after all!" + +"It was so likely that I should!" he answers, with his nose in the air. + +"Very likely!" reply I, taking him literally; "so likely that I have +been expecting you every day." + +"You seem to forget--confound these flies!"--(as a stout blue-bottle +blunders into one flashing eye)--"you seem to forget that you told me, +in so many words, to stay away." + +"You _were_ huffy, then!" say I, with an accent of incredulity. "Sir +Roger was right! he said you were, and I could not believe it; he was +quite sorry for you. He said I had snubbed you so." + +"_Snubbed_ me!" reddening self-consciously, and drawing himself up as if +he did not much relish the application of the word. "I do not often give +any one the chance of doing that _twice!_" + +"You are not going to be offended _again_, I suppose," say I, +apprehensively; "it must be with Sir Roger this time, if you are! it was +he that was sorry for you, not I." + +We look at each other under my green sunshade (his eyes _are_ hazel, by +daylight), and then we both burst into a duet of foolish friendly +laughter. + +"I want you to give me your advice," say I, as we toddle amicably along, +side by side. "What would be a nice present for a gentleman--an elderly +gentleman--at least _rather_ elderly, who _has_ a spectacle-case, a +pocket-book, an inkstand, six Church services, and who does not smoke." + +"But he _does_ smoke," says Mr. Musgrave, correcting me. "I _saw_ him +the other day." + +"Saw _whom?_ What--do you mean?" + +"Are not you talking of Sir Roger?" he asks, with an accent of surprise. + +"_Sir Roger_!" (indignantly). "No, indeed! do you think _he_ wants +spectacles? No! I was talking of my father." + +"_Your father?_ You are not, like me, a poor misguided orphan, then; you +have a father." + +"I should think I _had_," reply I, expressively. + +"Any brothers? Oh, yes, by-the-by, I know you have! you held them up for +my imitation the other day--half a dozen fellows who never take offense +at any thing." + +"No more they do!" cry I, firing up. "If I tell them when I go home, as +I certainly shall, if I remember, that you were out of humor and bore +malice for _three_ whole days, because I happened to say that we were +generally out-of-doors most of the day--they will not believe it--simply +they will not." + +"And have you also six sisters?" asks the young man, dexterously +shifting the conversation a little. + +"No, two." + +"And are they _all_ to have presents?--six and two is eight, and your +father nine, and--I suppose you have a mother, too?" + +"Yes." + +"Nine and one is ten--ten brown-paper parcels, each as large as the one +you now have under your arm--by-the-by, would you like me to carry it? +_What_ a lot you will have to pay for extra luggage!" + +His offer to carry my parcel is so slightly and incidentally made, and +is so unaccompanied by any gesture suited to the words, that I decline +the attention. The people pass to and fro in the sun as we pace +leisurely along. + +"Have you nearly done your shopping?" asks my companion, presently. + +"Very nearly." + +"What do you say to taking a tour through the gallery?" he says, "or are +you sick of the pictures?" + +"Far from it," say I, briskly, "but, all the same, I cannot do it; I am +going back at once to Sir Roger; we are to drive to Loschwitz: I only +came out for a little prowl by myself, to think about father's present! +Sir Roger cannot help me at all," I continue, marching off again into +the theme which is uppermost in my thoughts. "_He_ suggested a +traveling-bag, but I know that father would _hate_ that." + +"To _drive!_ this time of day!" cried Mr. Musgrave, in a tone of extreme +disapprobation; "will not you get well baked?" + +"I dare say," I answer, absently; then, in a low tone to myself, "_why_ +does not he smoke? it would be so easy then--a smoking-cap, a +tobacco-pouch, a cigar-holder, a hundred things!" + +"Is it _quite_ settled about Loschwitz?" asks the young man, with an air +of indifference. + +"Quite," say I, still not thinking of what I am saying. "That is, no-- +not quite--nearly--a bag _is_ useful, you know." + +"I passed the Saxe just now," he says, giving his hat a little tilt over +his nose, "and saw Sir Roger sitting in the balcony, with his cigar and +his _Times_, and he looked so luxuriously comfortable that it seemed a +sin to disturb him. Do not you think, taking the dust and the +blue-bottles into consideration, that it would be kinder to leave him in +peace in his arm-chair?" + +"No, I do not," reply I, flatly. "I suppose he knows best what he likes +himself; and why a strong, hearty man in the prime of life should be +supposed to wish to spend a whole summer afternoon nodding in an +arm-chair, any more than you would wish it yourself, I am at a loss to +inquire!" The suggestion has irritated me so much that for the moment I +forget the traveling-bag. + +"When I am as old as he," replies the young man, coldly, shaking the ash +off his cigar, "if I ever am, which I doubt, and have knocked about the +world for as many years, and imperiled my liver in as many climates, and +sent as many Russians, and Chinamen, and Sikhs to glory as he has, I +shall think myself entitled to sit in an armchair--yes, and sleep in it +too--all day, if I feel inclined." + +I do not answer, partly because I am exasperated, partly because at this +moment my eye is caught by an object in a shop-window--a traveling-bag, +with its mouth invitingly open, displaying all manner of manly +conveniences. I hastily furl my green umbrella, and step in. My squire +does not follow me. I hardly notice the fact, but suppose that he is +standing outside in the sun. However, when I reissue forth, I find that +he has disappeared. I look up the street, down the street. There is no +trace of him. I walk away, feeling a little mortified. I go into a few +more shops: I dawdle over some china. Then I turn my steps homeward. + +At a narrow street-corner, in the grateful shade cast by some tall +houses, I come face to face with him again. + +"Did not you wonder where I had disappeared to?" he asks; "or perhaps +you never noticed that I had?" + +He is panting a little, as if he had been running, or walking fast. + +"I thought that most likely you had taken offense again," reply I, with +a laugh, "and that I had lost sight of you for three more days." + +"I have been to the Hotel de Saxe," he replies, with a rather triumphant +smile on his handsome mustacheless lips. "I thought I would find out +about Loschwitz." + +"Find out _what?_" cry I, standing still, raising my voice a little, and +growing even redder than the sun, the flies, the brown-paper parcel, and +the heavy umbrella, have already made me. "There was nothing to find +out! I wish you would leave things alone; I wish you would let me manage +my own business." + +The smile disappears rather rapidly. + +"You have not been telling the general," continue I, in a tone of rapid +apprehension, "that I did not want to go with him? because, if you have, +it was a great, great _mistake._" + +"I told him nothing of the kind," replies Mr. Musgrave, looking, like +me, fierce, but--unlike me--cool and pale. "I was not so inventive. I +merely suggested that sunstroke would most likely be your portion if you +went now, and that it would be quite as easy, and a great deal +pleasanter, to go three hours later." + +"Yes? and he said--what?" + +"He was foolish enough to agree with me." + +We are standing in a little quiet street, all shade and dark shops. +There are very few passers-by. I feel rather ashamed of myself, and my +angry eyes peruse the pavement. Neither does he speak. Presently I look +up at him rather shyly. + +"How about the gallery? the pictures?" + +"Do you wish to go there?" he asks, with rather the air of a polite +martyr. "I shall be happy to take you if you like." + +"Do!" say I, heartily, "and let us try to be friends, and to spend five +minutes without quarreling!" + + * * * * * + +We have spent more than five, a great deal more--thirty, forty, perhaps, +and our harmony is still unbroken, _uncracked_ even. We have sat in awed +and chastened silence before the divine meekness of the Sistine Madonna. +We have turned away in disgust from Jordain's brutish "Triumphs of +Silenus," and tiresome repetitions of Hercules in drink. We have admired +the exuberance of St. Mary of Egypt's locks, and irreverently compared +them to the effects of Mrs. Allen's "World-wide Hair Restorer." We have +observed that the forehead of Holbein's great Virgin is too high to +please _us_, and made many other connoisseur-like remarks. I have +pointed out to Mr. Musgrave the Saint Catherine which has a look of +Barbara, and we have both grown rather tired of St. Sebastian, stuck as +full of darts as a pin-cushion of pins. Now we are sitting down resting +our eyes and our strained powers of criticism, and have fallen into easy +talk. + +"I am glad you are coming to dine at our _table d'hóte_ to-night," say +I, in a friendly tone. "It will be nice for the general to have an +Englishman to talk to. I hope you will sit by him; he has been so much +used to men all his life that he must get rather sick of having nothing +but the chatter of one woman to depend upon." + +"At least he has no one but himself to blame for that," replies the +young fellow, laughing. "I suppose it was his own doing." + +"How do you know that?" cry I, gayly, and then the recollection of my +_hint_ to Sir Roger--a remembrance that always makes me rather hot-- +comes over me, and causes me to turn my head quickly away with a red +blush. "It certainly _has_ a look of Barbara," I say, glancing toward +the Saint Catherine, and rushing quickly into another subject. + +"Has it?" he says, apparently unaware of the rapidity of my transition. +"Then I wish I knew Barbara." + +I laugh. + +"I dare say you do." + +"She is not much like you, I suppose?" he says, turning from the +saint's straight and strict Greek profile to the engaging irregularity +of mine. + +"Not exactly," say I, with emphasis. "Ah!" (in a tone of prospective +triumph), "wait till you see her!" + +"I am afraid that I shall have to wait some time." + +"The Brat--that is one of my brothers, you know--is the one like me," I +say, becoming diffuse, as I always do, when the theme of my family is +started; "we _are_ like! We can see it ourselves." + +"Is he one of the thick-skinned six that you told me about?" + +"There are _not_ six," cry I, impatiently. "I do not know what put it +into your head that there were _six_ there are only _three._" + +"You certainly told me there were six." + +"I am _he_ in petticoats," say I, resuming the thread of my own +narrative; "everybody sees the likeness. One day when he was three or +four years younger, we dressed him up in my things--my gown and bonnet, +you know--and all the servants took him for me; they only found him out +because he held up his gown so awkwardly high, and gave it such great +kicks to keep it out of his way, that they saw his great nailed boots! +Sir Roger thought we were twins the first time he saw us." + +"Sir Roger!" repeats the young man, as if reminded by the name of +something he had meant to say. "Oh, by-the-by, if you will not think me +impertinent for asking, where did you first fall in with Sir Roger? I +should have thought that he was rather out of your beat; you do not hail +from his part of the world, do you?" + +"No," reply I, my thoughts traveling back to the day when we made taffy, +and tumbled over each other, hot and sticky to the window, to see the +dog-cart bearing the stranger roll up the drive. "I never saw him till +this last March, when he came to stay with us." + +"To stay with you?" + +"Yes," reply I, thinking of our godless jokes about his wig and his +false calves, and smiling gently to myself; "he was an old friend of +father's." + +"A contemporary, I suppose?" (a little inquisitively). + +"Yes, he was at school with father," I answer; and the moment I have +given utterance to the abhorred formula I repent. + +"At school with him?" (speaking rather slowly, and looking at me, with a +sort of flickering smile in lips and eyes). "Oh, I see!" + +"What do you see?" cry I, sharply. + +"Nothing, nothing! I only meant to say I understand, I comprehend." + +"There is nothing to understand," reply I, brusquely, and rising. "I am +tired--I shall go home!" + +We walk back rather silently; there is nothing so trying to eyes and +mind as picture-seeing, and I am fagged, and also indefinitely, yet +certainly, cross. As we reach the door of the Saxe, I hold out my hand. + +"Now that we have come to the end of our walk," say I, "and that you +cannot think that I am _hinting_ to you, I will tell you that I think it +was very ill-mannered and selfish of you not to _insist_ on carrying +_this_" (holding out the brown-paper parcel); "there is not _one_ of the +boys--not even Bobby, whom we always call so rough, who would have +_dreamed_ of letting a lady carry a parcel for herself, when he was by +to take it. There! I am better now! I _had_ to tell you; I wish you +good-day!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +"If he does not like it," say I, setting it on the floor, and regarding +it from a little distance, with my head on one side, while friendly +criticism and admiration meet in happy wedlock in my eyes, "I can give +it to you; I had much rather make you a present than _him_" + +"Then Heaven grant that it may find disfavor in his sight!" says Sir +Roger, piously. + +We are talking of the traveling-bag, which at last, in despair of any +thing suitable occurring to my mind, I have bought, and now regard with +a sort of apprehensive joy. The blinds are half lowered for the heat, +but, through them and under them, the broad gold sunshine is streaming +and pushing itself, washing the careful twists of my flax hair, the +bag's stout red leather sides, and Sir Roger's nose, as he leans over +it, with manly distrust, trying the clasp by many searching snappings. + +"I never gave you a present in my life--never--did I?" say I, squatting +down on the floor beside him, crumpling my nice crisp muslin frock with +the recklessness of a woman who knows that there are many more such +frocks in the cupboard, and to whom this knowledge has but newly come; +"never mind! next birthday I will give you one--a really nice, handsome, +rather expensive one--all bought with your own money, too--there!" + +This is on the morning of our last day in Dresden. Yes! _to-morrow_ we +set off homeward. Our wedding-tour is nearly ended: tyrant Custom, which +sent us off, permits us to rejoin our fellows. Well, it really has not +been so bad! I do not know that I should care to have it over again-- +that is, just immediately; but it has gone off very well altogether-- +quite as well as most other people's, I fancy. These are my thoughts in +the afternoon, as (Sir Roger having gone to the post-office, and I +having made myself very hot by superintending the packing of the +presents--most of them of a brittle, _crackable_ nature) I am leaning, +to cool myself, over our balcony, and idly watching the little events +that are happening under my nose. The omnibus stands, as usual, in the +middle of the square, about to start for Blasewitz. Mysterious 'bus! +always about to start--always full of patient passengers, and that yet +was never seen by mortal man to set off. As I watch it with the +wondering admiration with which I have daily regarded it, I hear the +door of our sitting-room open, and Vick give a little shrewish shrill +bark, speedily changed into an apologetic and friendly whiffling and +whoffling. + +"Is that you?" cry I, holding on by the balcony, and leaning back to +peep over my own shoulder into the interior. "Come out here, if it is." + +"Sir Roger is out," I say, a second later, putting my hand into that of +Mr. Musgrave (for it is he), as he comes stepping, in his usual +unsmiling, discontented beauty, to meet me. + +"I know he is! I met him!" + +"I am seeing the people start for Blasewitz for the last time! it makes +me quite low!" I say, replacing my arms on the balcony, and speaking +with an irrepressibly jovial broad smile on my face that rather +contradicts my words. + +"You _look_ low," he answers, ironically, standing beside me, and +looking rather provoked at my urbanity. + +"This time to-morrow we shall be off," say I, beginning to laugh out of +pure light-heartedness, though there is no joke within a mile of me, and +to count on my fingers; "this time the day after to-morrow we shall be +at Cologne--this time the day after _that_ we shall be getting toward +Brussels--this time the day after _that_ we shall be getting toward +Dover--this time the day after _that_--" + +"You will all be rushing higgledy-piggledy, helter-skelter, into each +other's arms," interrupts my companion, looking at me with a lowering +eye. + +"Yes," say I, my eyes dancing. "You are quite right." + +"Algy, and the Brat, and--what is the other fellow's name?--Dicky?-- +Jacky?--Jemmy?--" + +"Bobby," say I, correcting him. "But you are not quite right; the Brat +will not be there!--worse luck--he is in Paris!" + +"Well, Barbara will not be in Paris," says the young man, still in the +same discontented, pettish voice. "_She_ will be there, no doubt--well +to the front--in the thickest of the osculations." + +"_That_ she will!" cry I, heartily. "But you must give up calling her +Barbara; that is not at all pretty manners." + +"We will make a bargain," he says, beginning to smile a little, but +rather as if it were against his will and intention. "I will allow her +to call me 'Frank,' if she will allow me to call her 'Barbara.'" + +"I dare say you will" (laughing). + +A little pause. Another person has got into the omnibus; it is growing +extremely full. + +"I _hate_ last days," says my companion, hitting viciously at the iron +balcony rails with his stick, and scowling. + +"'The Last Days of Pompeii,'" say I, stupidly, and yet laughing again; +not because I think my witticism good, which no human being could do, +but because I _must_ laugh for very gladness. Another longer pause. +(Shall I present the bag the night we arrive, or wait till next day?) + +"I have got a riddle to ask you," says Frank; abruptly, and firing the +observation off somewhat like a bomb-shell. + +"Have you?" say I, absently. "I hope it is a good one." + +"Of course, _you_ must judge of that--'_Mon premier_--'" + +"It is in _French!_" cry I, with an accent of disgust. + +"Well, why should not it be?" (rather tartly). + +"No reason whatever, only that I warn you beforehand I shall not +understand it: I always _shiver_ when people tell me a French anecdote; +I never know when the point has arrived: I always laugh too soon or too +late." + +He says nothing, but looks black. + +"Go on!" say I, laughing. "We will try, if you like." + +"_Mon--premier--est--le--premier--de tout_," he says, pronouncing each +word very separately and distinctly. "Do you understand _that?_" + +I nod. "My first is the first of all--yes." + +"_Mon second n'a pas de second._" + +"My second has no second--yes." + +"_Mon tout_"--(turning his long, sleepy eyes sentimentally toward me)-- +"_je ne saurai vous le dire._" + +"My whole--I cannot tell it you!--then why on earth did you ask me?" cry +I, breaking out into hearty, wholesome laughter. + +Again he blackens. + +"Well, have you guessed it?" + +"Guessed it!" I echo, recovering my gravity. "Not I!--my first is the +first of all--my second has no second--my whole, I cannot tell it you!-- +I do not believe it is a riddle at all! it is a hoax--a take-in, like +'Why does a miller wear a white hat?'" + +"It is nothing of the kind," he answers, looking thoroughly annoyed. +"Must I tell you the answer?" + +"I shall certainly never arrive at it by my unassisted genius," I reply, +yawning. "Ah! there is M. Dom going out riding! Alas! never again shall +I see him mount that peacocking steed!" + +"It is 'Adieu!'" says my companion, blurting it out in a rage, seeing +that I _will_ not be interested in or excited by it. + +"_Adieu!_" repeat I, standing with my mouth wide open, looking perfectly +blank. "_How?_" + +"You do not see?" he says. (His face has grown scarlet.) "Well, you must +excuse me for saying that you are rather--" He breaks off and begins +again, very fast this time. "My first is the first of all--is not _A_ +the first letter in the alphabet? My second has no second--has God +_(Dieu)_ any second? My whole--I cannot say it to you--_Adieu!_" + +The contrast between the sentimentality of the words, and the brusque +and defiant anger of his tone, is so abrupt, that I am sorry to say, I +laugh again: indeed, I retire from the balcony into the saloon inside, +throw myself into a chair, and, covering my face with my handkerchief, +roar-- + +"It is very good," say I, in a choked voice; "very--so civil and pretty +--but it is not _very funny_, is it?" + +I receive no answer. I am still in my pocket-handkerchief, and he might +be gone, but that I hear his quick, angry breathing, and know, by +instinct, that he is standing over me, looking like a handsome +thunder-cloud. I dare not look up at him, lest another mad cachinnation, +such as sometimes overtakes one for the punishment of one's sins in +church, should again lay violent hands upon me. + +"I think I like 'Why was Balaam like a Life-Guardsman?' better, _on the +whole_" I say, presently, peeping through my fingers, and speaking with +a suspicious tremble in my voice. + +"I have no doubt it is far superior," he answers, in a fierce and sulky +tone, that he in vain tries to make sound playful. "'_Balaam like a +Life-Guardsman?_' and why was he, may I ask? Something humorous about +his donkey, I suppose." + +"Because he had a queer ass (cuirass)," reply I, again exploding, and +hiding my face in the back of the chair. + +"A _queer ass!_" (in a tone of the profoundest contempt); "you have no +more sentiment in you than _this table!_" smiting it with his bare hand. + +"I know I have not," say I, sitting up, and holding my hand to my side +to ease the pain my excessive mirth has caused; "they always said so at +home. Oh, here is the general! we will make _him_ umpire, which is +funniest, yours or mine!" + +Sir Roger enters, and glances in some surprise from Frank's crimson face +to my convulsed one. + +"Oh, general, do we not look as if we had been having an affecting +parting?" cry I, jumping up and running to him. "Do not I look as if I +had been crying? Quite the contrary, I assure you. But Musgrave and I +have been asking each other such amusing riddles--would you like to hear +them? _Mine_ is good, plain, vulgar English; but his is French, so we +will begin with _it_--'_Mon premier_--'" + +I stop suddenly, for Mr. Musgrave is looking at me with an expression +simply _murderous_. + +"Well, what are you stopping for? I am on the horns of expectation-- +'_Mon premier_--'" + +"After all, it is not so funny as I thought," I answer, brusquely. "I +think we will keep it for some wet Sunday afternoon, when we are short +of something to do." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +The day of departure has really come. "We have eaten our last bif-teck +_aux pommes frites_" and drank our last cup of coffee in the Saxe. I +have had my last look at the familiar square, at the great dome of the +Frauen Kirchen, at the high houses with their dormer-windows, at the +ugly big statue standing with its stiff black back rudely turned to the +hotel, at the piled hay-carts. We are really and truly off. Our faces +are set Barbara-ward, Bobby-ward, jackdaw-ward. I am in such rampaging +spirits, that I literally do not know what to do with myself. I feel +that I should like to tuck my tail, if I had one, between my legs, like +Vick; and race round and round in an insane and unmeaning circle, as she +does on the lawn at home, when oppressed by the overflow of her own +gayety. + +It seems to me as if there never had been such a day. I look at the sky +as we drive along to the station. Call it sapphire, turquoise--indeed! +What dull stone that ever lived darkling in a mine is fit to be named +even in metaphor with this pale yet brilliant arch that so softly leans +above us? It seems to me as if all the people we meet were handsome and +well-featured--as if the Elbe were the noblest river that ever ran, +carrying the sunlight in flakes of gold and diamond on its breast--as if +all life were one long and kindly jest. + +As we reach the station I see Mr. Musgrave standing on the pavement +awaiting us, with a sort of mixed and compound look on his face. + +"Here is Mr. Musgrave come to see us off!" I cry, jocundly. "Come to say +_'Adieu' ha! ha!_! I must not forget to ask him whether he has any more +riddles." + +"For Heaven's sake do not!" cries Sir Roger, smiling in spite of +himself, yet seriously and earnestly desirous of checking my wit. "Let +the poor boy have a little peace! He no more understands chaff than I +understand Parsee." + +I hop out of the carriage like a parched pea, scorning equally the step +and Frank's hand extended to help me. I feel to-day as if I need only +stand on tiptoe, and stretch out my arms in order to be able to fly. + +"So you have come to see the last of us," I say, trying to pull a long +face, and walking with him into the waiting-room. + +"Yes; rather a mistake, is not it?" he says, somewhat gloomily, but +loading himself at once, with ostentatious haste (in memory of my former +reproof), with my bag, parasol, and novel. + +"The day after--the day after--the day after to-morrow," say I, smiling +cheerfully up in his dismal face. "You may fancy us just turning in at +the park-gates--by-the-by, have you any message to send to the boys, to +Barbara?" + +"None to the boys," he answers, half smiling, too. "I hate boys: you may +give my love to Barbara if you like, and if you are quite sure that she +is like the St. Catherine." + +"Wait till you see her," say I, oracularly. + +"But when _shall_ I see her?" he asks, roused into an eagerness which I +think promises admirably for Barbara; "when are you coming home, +really?" + +"Keep a good lookout at your lodge," I say, gayly, "and you will no +doubt see us arrive some fine day, looking very foolish, most probably-- +crawling along like snails, dragged by our tenants." + +"Were you _ever_ known to answer a plain question plainly since you were +born?" he cries, petulantly. "When are you likely to come _really_?" + +"'I know not! What avails to know?'" reply I, pompously spouting a line +out of some forgotten poem that has lurked in my memory, and now struts +out, to the anger and discomfiture of Mr. Musgrave. + +"Ah! here are the doors opening." + +Everybody pours out on to the platform, and into the empty and expectant +train. + +Sir Roger and I get into a carriage--_not_ a _coupé_ this time--and +dispose our myriad parcels above our heads, under our feet. Trucks roll, +and porters bawl past; luggage is violently shot into vans. The last +belated, panting passenger has got in. The doors are slammed-to. Off we +go! The train is already in motion when the young man jumps on the step +and thrusts in his hand for one parting shake. + +"_Mon tout_," say I, screwing up my face into a crying shape, and +speaking in a squeaky, pseudo-tearful voice, "_je ne saurai vous le +dire!_" + +Then he is hustled off by an indignant guard and three porters, and we +see him no more. I throw myself back into my corner laughing. + +"General," say I, "I think your young friend is nearly as soft-hearted +as the girl in Tennyson who was + + 'Tender over drowning flies.' + +He looked as if he were going to _weep_, did not he? and what on earth +about?" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + "How mother, when we used to stun + Her head wi' all our noisy fun, + Did wish us all a-gone from home; + But now that some be dead and some + Be gone, and, oh, the place is dumb, + How she do wish wi' useless tears + To have again about her ears + The voices that be gone!" + + +We have passed Cologne; have passed Brussels; have passed Calais and +Dover; have passed London; we are drawing near home. How refreshing +sounds the broad voice of the porters at Dover! Squeamish as I am, after +an hour and three-quarters of a nice, short, chopping sea, the sight of +the dear green-fustian jackets, instead of the slovenly blue blouses +across-Channel, goes nigh to revive me. Adieu, O neatly aquiline, +broad-shaved French faces! Welcome, O bearded Britons, with your +rough-hewn noses! + +To avoid the heat of the day, we go down from London by a late afternoon +train. It is evening when, almost _before_ the train has stopped, I +insist on jumping out at our station. Imagine if through some accident +we were carried on to the next by mistake! + +Such a thing has never happened in the annals of history, but still it +_might_. + +Sir Roger has some considerable difficulty in hindering me from shaking +hands with the whole staff of officials. One veteran porter, who has +been here ever since I was born, has a polite but improbable trick of +addressing _every_ female passenger as "my lady." Well, with regard to +_me_, at least, he is right now. I _am_ "my lady." Ha! ha! I have not +nearly got over the ridiculousness of this fact yet, though I have been +in possession of it now these _four_ whole weeks. + +It has been a hot, parching summer day, and now that the night draws on +all the flagging flowers in the cottage-borders are straightening +themselves anew, and lifting their leaves to the dews. The pale +bean-flowers, in the broad bean-fields, as we pass, send their delicate +scent over the hedge to me, as if it were some fair and courteous +speech. To me it seems as if they were saying, as plainly as may be, +"Welcome home, Nancy!" + +The sky that has been all of one hue during the livelong day--wherever +you looked, nothing but pale, _pale_ azure--is now like the palette of +some God-painter splashed and freaked with all manner of great and noble +colors--a most regal blaze of gold--wide, plains of crimson, as if all +heaven were flashing at some high thought--little feathery cloud-islands +of tenderest rose-pink. We are coming very near now. There, down below, +set round its hips with tall rushes, is our pool, all blood-red in the +sunset! Can _that_ be colorless water--that great carmine fire? There +are our elms, with their heads in the sunset, too. + +"General," say I, very softly, putting my hand through his arm, and +speaking in a small tone of unutterable content, "I should like to kiss +everybody in the world." + +"Perhaps you would not mind beginning with _me_" returns he, gayly; +then--for I look quite capable of it--glancing slightly over his +shoulder at the vigilant couple in the dickey. + +"No, I did not mean _really_." + +We are trotting alongside of the park-paling. I stand up and try to +catch a glimpse between the coachman and footman, of the gate, to see +whether they have come to meet me. + +We are slackening our speed; we are going to turn in; the lodge-keeper +runs out to open the gate; but no, it is needless. It is already open. I +could have told _her_ that. Here they all are!--Barbara, Algy, Bobby, +Tou Tou. + +"Here they are!" cry I, in a fidgety rapture. "Oh, general, just look +how Tou Tou has grown; her frock is nearly up to her knees!" + +"Do you think she _can_ have grown that much in four weeks?" asks he, +not contradictiously, but a little _doubtfully_, as Don Quixote may have +asked the Princess Micomicona her reasons for landing at Ossime. "But +pray, madam," says he, "why did your ladyship land at Ossime, seeing +that it is not a seaport town?" + +"I suppose not," I reply, a little disappointed. "I suppose that her +frock must have run up in the washing." + +To this day I have not the faintest idea how I got out of the carriage. +My impression is that I _flew_ over the side with wings which came to my +aid in that one emergency, and then for evermore disappeared. + +I do not know _this_ time _where_ I begin, or whom I end with. I seemed +to be kissing them _all_ at once. All their arms seem to be round _my_ +neck, and mine round all of theirs at the same moment. The only wonder +is that, at the end of our greetings, we have a feature left among us. +When at length they are ended-- + +"Well," say I, studiedly, with a long sigh of content, staring from one +countenance to another, with a broad grin on my own. "Well!" and though +I have been away _four_ weeks, and been to foreign parts, and dined at +_table d'hótes_ and seen Crucifixions and Madonnas, and seem to have +more to tell than could be crowded into a closely-packed twelvemonth of +talk, this is all I can find to say. + +"Well," reply they, nor do they seem to be much richer in conversation +than I. + +Bobby is the first to regain the use of his tongue. He says, "My eye!" +(oh, dear and familiar expletive, for a whole calendar month I have not +heard you!)--"my eye! what a swell you are!" + +Meanwhile Sir Roger stands aloof. If he _ever_ thought of himself, he +might be reasonably and equitably huffy at being so entirely neglected, +for I will do them the justice to say that I think they have all utterly +forgotten his existence: but, as he never does, I suppose he is not; at +least there is only a friendly entertainment, and no hurt dignity, in +the gentle strength of his face. + +In the exuberance of my happiness, I have given him free leave to kiss +Barbara and Tou Tou, but the poor man does not seem to be likely to have +the chance. + +"Are not you going to speak to the general?" I say, nudging Barbara. +"You have never said 'How do you do?' to him." + +Thus admonished, they recover their presence of mind and turn to salute +him. There are no kissings, however, only some rather formal +hand-shakings; and then Algy, as being possessed of the nearest approach +to manners of the family, walks on with him. The other three adhere to +me. + +"Well," say I, for the third time, holding Barbara by one hand, and +resting the other on Bobby's stout arm, dressed in cricketing-flannel, +while Tou Tou _backs_ before us with easy grace. "Well, and how is +everybody? How is mother?" + +"She is all right!" + +"And HE? Is anybody in disgrace now? At least of course _somebody_ is, +but _who?_" + +"_In disgrace_!" cries Bobby, briskly. "Bless your heart, no! we are + + 'Like the young lambs, + A sporting about by the side of their dams.' + +_In disgrace_, indeed! we are 'Barbara, child,' and 'Algy, my dear +fellow,' and 'Bobby, love.'" + +"_Bobby!_" cries Tou Tou, in a high key of indignation at this +monstrously palpable instance of unveracity, and nearly capsizing, as +she speaks, into a rabbit-hole, which, in her backward progress--we are +crossing the park--she has not perceived. + +"Well," replies Bobby, candidly, "that last yarn may not be _quite_ a +fact, I own _that_; but I appeal to _you_, Barbara, is not it true _i' +the main?_ Are not we all 'good fellows,' and 'dear boys?'" + +"I am thankful to say that we are," replies Barbara, laughing; "but how +long we shall remain so is quite another thing." + +"I have brought a present for him," say I, rather nervously; "do you +think he will be pleased?" + +"He will say that he very much regrets that you should have taken the +trouble to waste your money upon _him_, as he did last birthday, when we +exerted ourselves to lay out ten shillings and sixpence on that +spectacle-case," answers Bobby, cheerfully. + +"But what is it?" + +"What is it?" cry Barbara and Tou Tou in a breath. + +"It is a--a _traveling-bag_," reply I, with a little hesitation, looking +imploringly from Barbara to Bobby. "Do you think he will like it?" "A +_traveling-bag!_" echoes Bobby; then, a little bluntly, "but he never +travels!" + +"No more he does!" reply I, feeling a good deal crestfallen. "I thought +of that myself; it was not quite my own idea--it was the general's +suggestion!" + +"The general!" says Bobby, "whew--w!" (with a long whistle of +intelligence)--"well, _he_ ought to know what he likes and dislikes, +ought not he? He ought to understand his tastes, being the same age, and +having been at schoo--" + +"Look!" cry I, hastily, breaking into the midst of these soothing facts, +which are daily becoming more distasteful to me, and pointing to the +windows of the house, which are all blazing in the sunset, each pane +sending forth a sheaf of fire, as if some great and mighty feast were +being held within. "I see you are having an illumination in honor of +us." + +"Yes," answers Bobby, kindly entering into my humor, "and the reason why +father did not come to meet you at the gate was that he was busy +lighting the candles." + +My spirits are so dashed by the more implied than expressed disapproval +of my brethren, that I resolve to defer the presentation of the bag till +to-morrow, or perhaps--to-morrow being Sunday, always rather a dark day +in the paternal calendar--till Monday. + +Dinner is over, and, as it is clearly impossible to stay in-doors on +such a night, we are all out again. The three elders--father, mother, +and husband--sitting sedately on three rustic chairs on the dry +gravel-walk, and we young ones lying about in different attitudes of +restful ease, on rugs and cloaks that we have spread upon the dewy +grass. We are not far off from the others, but just so far as that our +talk should be out of ear-shot. In my own mind, I am not aware that Sir +Roger would far rather be with _us_, listening to our quick gabble, and +laughing with us at our threadbare jests, which are rewarded with mirth +so disproportioned to their size, than interchanging sober talk with the +friend of his infancy. Once or twice I see his gray eyes straying a +little wistfully toward us, but he makes no slightest movement toward +joining us. I should like, if I had my own way, to ask him to come to +us, to ask him to sit on the rugs and make jokes too, but some sort of +false shame, some sneaky shyness before the boys, hinders me. I am +leaning my elbow on the soft fur of the rug, and my head on my hand, and +am staring up at the stars, cool and throbbing, so like little +stiletto-holes pricked in heaven's floor, as they steal out in systems +and constellations on the night. + +"There is dear old Charles Wain," say I, affectionately; "I never knew +where to look for him in Dresden; _how_ nice it is to be at home again!" + +"Nancy!" says Algy, gravely, "do you know I have counted, and that is +the _sixteenth_ time that you have made that _ejaculation_ since your +arrival! Do you know--I am sorry to have to say it--that it sounds as if +you had not enjoyed your honey-moon very much?" + +"It sounds quite wrong, then," cry I, coming down from the stars, and +speaking rather sharply. "I enjoyed it immensely; yes, _immensely_!" + +I say this with an emphasis which is calculated to convince not only +everybody else, but even myself. + +"Come, now," cries Bobby, who is farthest off from me, and, to remedy +this disadvantage, begins to travel quickly, in a sitting posture, along +the rugs toward me, "tell the truth--_gospel_ truth, mind!--the truth, +the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God. Would you +like to be setting off on it over again, to-morrow morning?" + +"Of course not," reply I, angrily; "what a silly question! Would _any +one_ like to begin _any thing_ over again, just the very minute that +they had finished it? You might as well ask me would I like to have +dinner over again, and begin upon a fresh plate of soup." + +No one is convinced. + +"When _I_ marry," continues Bobby, lying flat on his back, with his +hands clasped under his head (we all laugh)--"when _I_ marry, no one +shall succeed in packing me off to foreign parts, with my young woman. I +shall take her straight home, as if I was not ashamed of her, and we +will have a _dance_, and make a clean sweep of our own cake." + +"Nancy!" cries Tou Tou, innocently, joining in the conversation for the +first time, "_did_ any one take him for your _grandfather_ as the Brat +said they would?" + +"Of course not!" cry I, crossly, making a spiteful lunge, as I speak, at +a _startle-de-buz_, which has lumbered booming into my face. "Who on +earth supposed they would _really_?" + +Tou Tou collapses, with a hazy impression of having been snubbed, and +there is a moment's silence. A faint, fire-like flush still lingers in +the west--all that is left of the dazzling pageant that the heavens sent +to welcome me home. I am looking toward it--away from my brothers and +sisters--away from everybody--across the indistinct garden-beds--across +the misty park, and the dark tree-tops, when a voice suddenly brings me +back. + +"Nancy, child!" it says, "is not it rather damp for you? Would you mind +putting _this_ on?" + +I look up in a hurry, and see Sir Roger stooping over me, with an +outspread cloak in his hands. + +"Oh, thank you!" cry I, hurriedly, reddening--I do not quite know why-- +and with that same sort of sneaky feeling, as if the boys were laughing; +"I am not one much apt to catch cold--none of us are--but I will, if +you like." + +So saying, I drew it round my shoulders. Then he goes, _in a minute_, +without a second's lingering, back to the gravel-walk, to his +wicker-chair, to grave, dry talk, to the friend of his infancy! I have +an uncomfortable feeling that there is a silent and hidden laugh among +the family. + +"Barbara, my treasure!" says Algy, presently, in a mocking voice, +"_might_ I be allowed to offer you our umbrella, and a pair of goloshes +to defend you from the evening dews?" + +"Hush!" cries Barbara, gently pushing him away, and stretching out her +hand to me. She is the only one that understands. (Oh, why, _why_ did I +ever laugh at him with them? What is there to laugh at in him?) + +"My poor Barbara!" continues Algy, in a tone of affected solicitude. "If +you had not a tender brother to look after you, your young limbs might +be cramped with rheumatism, and twitched with palsy, before any one +would think of bringing _you_ a cloak." + +"Wait a bit!" say I, recovering my good-humor with an effort, reflecting +that it is no use to be vexed--that they _mean_ nothing--and that, +lastly, _I have brought it on myself_! + +"Wait for _what_?" asks Barbara, laughing. "Till Toothless Jack has +grown used to his new teeth?" + +"By-the-by," cries Bobby, eagerly, "that was since you went away, Nancy: +he has set up a stock of _new_ teeth--_beauties_--like Orient pearl--he +wore them in church last Sunday for the first time. We tell Barbara that +he has bought them on purpose to propose in. Now, do not you think it +looks _promising_?" + +"We do not mean, however," says Algy, lighting a cigar, "to let Barbara +go _cheap_! Now that we have disposed of you so advantageously, we are +beginning to be rather ambitious even for _Tou Tou_" + +"We think," says Bobby, giving a friendly but severe pull to our +youngest sister's outspread yellow locks, "that Tou Tou would adorn the +_Church_. Bishops have mostly _thin_ legs, so it is to be presumed that +they admire them: we destine Tou Tou for a bishop's lady!" + +Hereupon follows a lively fire of argument between Bobby and his sister; +she protesting that she will _not_ espouse a bishop, and he asseverating +that she shall. It lasts the best part of a quarter of hour, and ends by +reducing Tou Tou to tears. + +"But come," says Algy, taking his cigar out of his mouth, throwing his +head back, and blowing two columns of smoke out of his nose, "let us +take up our subject again where we dropped it. I should be really glad +if I could get you to own that you and _he_"--(indicating my husband by +a jerk of his head)--"grew rather sick of each other! Whether you own it +or not, I know you _did_; and it would give me pleasure to hear it. You +need not take it personally. I assure you that it is no slur upon him-- +_everybody_ does. I have talked to lots of fellows who have gone through +it, and they all say the same." + +"Nancy!" says Bobby, abandoning, at length, his persecution of Tou Tou, +and pretending not to hear her last persevering assertion of her +determination not to be episcopally wed--"tell the truth, and shame the +devil. It would be different if we were strangers, but _we_ that have +sported with you since you wore frilled trousers and a bib--come now-- +did you, or did you not, kneel three times a day, like the prophet +Daniel, looking eastward or westward, or whichever way it _did_ look, +and yearn for us, and Jacky, and the bun-loaf--come, now?" + +"Well, yes," say I, reluctantly making the admission. "I do not say that +I did not! Of course, after having been used to you all my life, it +would have been very odd if I had not missed you rather badly; but that +is a very different thing from being _sick of him_!" + +"Well, we will not say _sick_" returns Algy, with the air of one who is +making a handsome concession, "it is a disagreeable, bilious expression, +but it would be useless to try and convince me that _any_ human +affection could stand the wear and tear of twenty-eight whole days of an +absolute duet and not be rather the worse for it!" + +"But it was _not_ an absolute duet," cry I, raising my voice a little, +and speaking with some excitement; "you are talking about what you do +not know! you are quite wrong." + +"Well, it is not the first time in my life that I have been that," he +says, philosophically; "but come--who did you the Christian office of +interrupting it? tell us." + +"I told you in my letters," say I, rather petulantly. "I certainly +mentioned--yes, I know I did--we happened at Dresden to fall in with a +friend of the general's--at least, a person he knew." + +"A person he knew? What kind of a person? Man or woman?" + +"Man." + +"Old or young?" + +"Young." + +"Ugly or pretty?" + +"Pretty," answer I, laughing. "Ah! what a rage he would be in, if he +could hear such an epithet applied to him!" + +"A young, well-looking, man-friend!" says Algy, slowly recapitulating +all my admissions as he lies gently puffing on the rug beside me. +"Well?" + +"_Well_!" echo I, rather snappishly. "Nothing! only that I wanted to +show you that it was not quite such a _duet_ as you imagined! Of course +--Dresden is not a big place--of course we met very often, and went here +and there together." + +"And where was Sir Roger meanwhile?" + +"Sir Roger was there, too, of course," reply I, still a little crossly, +"except once or twice--certainly not more than twice--he said he did not +feel inclined to come, and so we went without him." + +"You left him at home, in fact!" says Algy, with a rather malicious +smile, "out of harm's way, while you and the young friend marauded about +the town together; it must have been very lively for him, poor man! Oh, +fie! Nancy, fie!" + +"We did not do any thing of the kind," cry I, now thoroughly vexed and +uncomfortable. "I wish you would not misunderstand things on purpose! +there is not any fun in it! _Both_ times I _wanted_ him to come! I +_asked_ him particularly!" + +"And, if I may make so bold as to inquire," asks Bobby, striking in, +"how did the young friend call himself? What was his name?" + +"Musgrave," reply I, shortly. "Frank Musgrave!" for the stream of my +conversation seems dried. + +"Was he _nice_? Should _we_ like him?" ask Tou Tou, who has recovered +her equanimity, dried her tears, and forgotten the bishop. + +"He was nice _to look at_!" reply I cautiously. + +"That is a very different thing!" says Barbara, laughing. "But was he +nice in himself?" + +I reflect. + +"No," say I, "I do not think he was: at least, he wanted a great deal of +alteration." + +"As I have no doubt that you told him," says Algy, with a smile. + +"I dare say I did," reply I, distantly, for I am not pleased with Algy. + +A little pause. + +"I think he _was_ nice, too, _in a way_" say I, rather compunctiously. +"I used to tell him about all of you, and--I dare say it was pretense-- +but he _seemed_ to like to hear about you! When I came away, he sent his +love to Barbara; he would not send any messages to you boys--he said he +hated boys!" + +"Humph!" Another short silence. The elders have gone in to tea. Through +the windows, I see the lamp-light shining on the tea-cups. + +"Algy!" say I, in a rather low voice, edging a little nearer to where he +lies gracefully outspread, "you did not mean it, _really?_ You do not +think I--I--I--_neglected_ the general, do you?--you do not think I--I-- +_liked_ to be away from him?" + +"My lady!" replies he, teasingly, "I _think_ nothing! I only know what +your ladyship was good enough to tell me!" + +Then we all get up, shoulder our rugs, and walk in. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Well, no one will deny that Sunday comes after Saturday; and it was +Saturday evening, when the heavens painted themselves with fire, and the +sun lit up all the house-windows to welcome us home. Sunday is not +usually one of our blandest days, but we must hope for the best. + +"General," say I, standing before him, dressed for morning church, after +having previously turned slowly round on the point of my toes, to favor +him with the back view of as delightful a bonnet, and as airily fresh +and fine a muslin gown, as ever young woman said her prayers in-- +"by-the-by, do you like my calling you general?" + +"At least I understand who you mean by it," he says, a little evasively; +"which, after all, is the great thing, is not it?" + +"It is my own invention," say I, rather proudly; "nobody put it into my +head, and nobody else calls you by it, do they?" + +"Not now." + +"_Not now?_" cry I, surprised; "but did they ever?" + +"Yes," he says, "for about a year, most people did; I was general a year +before my brother died." + +"_Your brother died?_" cry I, again repeating his words, and arching my +eyebrows, which have not naturally the slightest tendency toward +describing a semicircle. "What! _you_ had a brother, too, had you? I +never knew that before." + +"Did you think _you_ had a monopoly of them?" laughing a little. + +"So you were not 'Sir' always?" + +"No more than _you_ are," he answers, smiling. "No, I was not born in +the purple; for thirty-seven years of my life I earned my own bread--and +rather dry bread too." + +"You do not say so!" cry I, in some astonishment. + +"If I had come here seven years ago," he says, taking both my pale +yellow hands in his light gray ones, and looking at me with eyes which +seem darker and deeper than usual under the shade of the brim of his +tall hat--"by-the by, you would have been a little girl then--as little +as Tou Tou--" + +"Yes," interrupt I, breaking in hastily; "but, indeed, I never was a bit +like her, never. I _never_ had such legs--ask the boys if I had!" + +"I did not suppose that you had," he answers, bursting into a hearty and +most unfeigned laugh! "but" (growing grave again), "Nancy, suppose that +I had come here then! I should have had no shooting to offer the boys-- +no horses to mount Algy--no house worth asking Barbara to--" + +"No more you would!" say I, too much impressed with surprise at this new +light on Sir Roger's past life to notice the sort of wistfulness and +inquiry that lurks in his last words; then, after a second, perceiving +it: "And you think," say I, loosing my hands from his, and growing as +pink as the delicate China rose-bud that is peeping round the corner of +the trellis in at the window, "that there would not have been as much +inducement _then_ for me to propose to you, as there was in the present +state of things!" + +I am laughing awkwardly as I speak; then, eagerly changing the +conversation, and rushing into another subject: "By-the-by, I had +something to say to you--something quite important--before we +digressed." + +"Yes?" + +"O general!" taking hold of the lapel of his coat, and looking up at him +with appealing earnestness, "do you know that I have made up my mind to +give _him_ the _bag_ to-day! it is no use putting off the evil day--it +_must_ come, after supper--they all say _after supper!_" + +"Yes?" + +"Well, I want you to talk to him _all day_, and get him into a +good-humor by then, if you can, that is all!" + +"_That is all!_" repeats my husband, with the slightest possible +ironical accent. Then we go to church. It is too near to drive, so we +all walk. The church-yard elms are out in fullest leaf above our heads. +There are so many leaves, and they are so close together, that they hide +the great brown rooks' nests. They do not hide the rooks themselves. It +would take a good deal to do that. Dear pleasant-spoken rooks, talking +so loudly and irreverently about their own secular themes--out-cawing +the church-bells, as we pace by, devout and smart, to our prayers. + +Last time I walked up this path, it was hidden with red cloth, and +flowers were tumbling under my feet. Ah! red cloth comes but once in a +lifetime. It is only the queen who lives in an atmosphere of red cloth +and cut flowers. + +We are in church now. The service is in progress. Can it be only _five_ +Sundays ago that I was standing here as I am now, watching all the +little well-known incidents? Father standing up in frock-coat and +spectacles, keeping a sharp lookout over the top of his prayer-book, to +see _how_ late the servants are. The ill-behaved charity-boys emulously +trying who shall make the hind-legs of his chair squeak the loudest on +the stone floor. Toothless Jack leering distantly at Barbara from the +side aisle. Something apparently is amusing him. He is smiling a little. +I see his teeth. They, at least, are new. _They_ were not here five +weeks ago. The little starved curate--the one who tore his gloves into +strips--loses his place in the second lesson, and madly plunges at three +different wrong verses in succession, before he regains the thread of +his narrative. + +We have come to the sermon. The text is, "I have married a wife, and +therefore I cannot come." No sooner is it given out than Algy, Bobby, +and Tou Tou, all look at me and grin; but father, who has a wily way of +establishing himself in the corner of the pew, so as to have a +bird's-eye view of all our demeanors, speedily frowns them down into a +preternatural gravity. Ah, why _to-day_, of all days, did they laugh? +and why _to-day_, of all days, did the servants file noisily in, +numerous and out of breath, in the middle of the psalms? I tremble when +I thing of the bag. + +Well, who will may laugh again now: we are out in the sunshine, with the +church-yard grass bowing and swaying in the wind, and the little +cloud-shadows flying across the half-effaced names of the forgotten +dead, who lie under their lichen-grown tombs. + +"Did you see his _teeth?_" asks Tou Tou, joining me with a leap, almost +before I am outside the church-porch. + +"They are not comfortable yet," remarks Bobby, gravely, as he walks +beside me carrying my prayer-book. "I could see that: he was taking them +out, and putting them in again, with his tongue all through the Litany." + +"When once he has secured Barbara, I expect that they will go back with +the box for good and all--eh, Barbara?" say I, laughing, as I speak; but +Barbara is out of ear-shot. She is lingering behind to shake hands with +the curate, and ask all the poor old people after their diseases. _I_ +never can recollect clearly _who_ has _what_. I always apportion the +rheumatism wrongly, but _she_ never does. There she stands just by the +church-gate, with the little sunny lights running up and down upon her +snow-white gown, shaking each grimy old hand with a kind and friendly +equality. + +The day rolls by; afternoon service; walk round the grounds; early +dinner (we always embitter our lives on Sundays by dining at _six_, +which does the servants no good, and sours the tempers of the whole +family); then prayers. Prayers are always immediately followed by that +light refection which we call supper. + +As the time approaches, my heart sinks imperceptibly lower in my system +than the place where it usually resides. + + "Be ready, Sister Nancy, + For the time is drawing nigh," + +says Algy, solemnly, putting his arm round my shoulders, as, the +prayer-bell having rung, we set off for the wonted justicing-room. + +"Have a pull at my flask," suggests Bobby, seriously; "there is some +cognac left in it since the day we fished the pool. It would do you all +the good in the world, and, if you took _enough_, you would feel able to +give him _ten_ bags, or, indeed, throw them at his head at a pinch." + +"Have you got it?" say I, faintly, to the general, who at this moment +joins us. + +"Yes, here it is." + +"But what will you do with it _meanwhile?_" cry I, anxiously; "he must +not see it _first_" + +"Sit upon it," suggests Algy, flippantly. + +"Hang it round his neck while he is at prayers," bursts out Bobby, with +the air of a person who has had an illumination; "you know he always +pretends to have his eyes shut." + +"And at 'Amen,' he would awake to find himself famous," says Algy, +pseudo-pompously. + +But this suggestion, although I cannot help looking upon it as +ingenious, I do not adopt. + +Prayers on Sunday are a much _finer_ and larger ceremonial than they are +on week-days. In the first place, instead of a few of the church prayers +quickly pattered, which are ended in five minutes, we have a whole long +sermon, which lasts twenty. In the second place, the congregation is so +much greater. On week-days it is only the in-door servants; on Sundays +it is the whole staff--coachman, grooms, stablemen. I think myself that +it is more in the nature of a _parade_, to insure that none of the +establishment are out _sweethearting_, than of a religious exercise. +Usually I am delighted when the sermon is ended. Even Barrow or Jeremy +Taylor would sound dull and stale if fired off in a flat, fierce +monotone, without emphasis or modulation. Tonight, at every page that +turns, my heart declines lower and lower down. It is ended now; so is +the short prayer that follows it. We all rise, and father stands with +his hawk-eyes fixed on the servants, as they march out, _counting_ them. +The upper servants are all right; so are the housemaids, cookmaids, and +lesser scullions. Alas! alas! there is a helper wanting. + +Having listened to and _dis_believed the explanation of his absence, +father leads the way into supper, but the little incident has taken the +bloom off his suavity. + +Sir Roger has deposited the bag--still wrapped in its paper coverings-- +on a chair, in a modest and unobtrusive corner of the dining-room, ready +for presentation. He did this just before prayers. As we enter the room, +father's eyes fall on it. + +"What is _that_?" he cries, pointing with his forefinger, and turning +severely to the boys. "How many times have I told you that I will not +have parcels left about, littering the whole place? Off with it!" + +"If you please, father," say I, in a very small and starved voice, "it +is not the boys', it is _mine_." + +"_Yours_, is it?" with a sudden change of tone, and return to amenity. +"Oh, all right!" (Then, with a little accent of sudden jocosity)--"One +of your foreign purchases, eh?" + +We sit round the snowy table, in the pleasant light of the shaded lamps, +eating chicken-salad, and abasing and rifling the great red pyramids of +strawberries and raspberries, but talking not much. We young ones never +_can_ talk out loud before father. He has never heard our voices raised +much above a whisper. I do not think he has an idea what fine, loud, +Billingsgate voices his children _really_ have. He has said grace--we +always have a longer, _gratefuller_ grace than usual on Sundays--and has +risen to go. + +"Now for it!" cries Bobby, wildly excited, and giving me an awful dig in +the ribs with his elbow. + +"Shall I get it?" asks the general, in an encouraging whisper. "Cheer +up, Nancy! do not look so _white!_ it is all right." + +He rises and fetches it, slips it quickly out of its coverings, and puts +it into my hand. Father has reached the door, I run after him. + +"Father!" cry I, in a choked and trembling voice. "Stop!" + +He turns with the handle in his grasp, and looks at me in some surprise. + +"Father!" cry I, beginning again, and holding my gift out nervously +toward him, "here's--here's--here's a _bag_!" + +This is my address of presentation. I hear the boys tittering at the +table behind me--a sound which, telling me how ill I am speeding, makes +my confusion tenfold worse. I murmur, helplessly and indistinctly, +something about his never traveling, and my knowing that fact--and +having been always sure that he would hate it--and then I glance +helplessly round with a wild idea of flight. But at the same moment an +arm of friendly strength comes round my shoulders--a friendly voice +sounds in my buzzing ears. + +"James," it says, simply and directly, "she has brought you a present, +and she is afraid that you will not care about it." + +"A _present_!" echoes my father, the meaning of the inexplicable object +which has suddenly been thrust into his grasp beginning to dawn upon +him. "Oh, I see! I am sure, my dear Nancy"--with a sort of embarrassed +stiffness that yet means to be gracious--"that I am extremely obliged to +you, extremely; and though I regret that you should have wasted your +money on me--yet--yet--I assure you, I shall always prize it very +highly." + +Then he goes out rather hastily. I return to the supper-table. + +"Shake hands!" cries Algy, pouring me out a glass of claret. "_Now_, +perhaps, you have some faint idea of what _I_ felt when I had to return +thanks for the bridesmaids." + +"Nancy!" cries Bobby, holding out the fruit to which he alludes, and +speaking in a wobbly, quivering voice, with a painfully _literal_ +imitation of my late address, "here's--here's--here's a _peach_!" + +But I am burying my face in Sir Roger's shoulder, like a shy child. + +"I _like_ you!" I say, creeping up quite close to him. "You were the +only one that came to help me. If it had not been for _you_, I should be +there still!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +The bag-affair is quite an old one now--a fortnight old. The bag itself +has, I believe, retired into the decent privacy of a cupboard, nor is it +much more likely to reissue thence than was one of the frail nuns built +into the wall in the old times likely to come stepping out again. Bobby +has at length ceased to offer me every object which it devolves upon him +to hand me, with a quavering voice and a prolonged stammer, since, +though I was at first excellently vulnerable by this weapon of offense, +I am now becoming _hornily_ hard and indifferent to it. We have stepped +over the boundaries of June into July. + +Yes, June has gone to look for all its dead brothers, wherever--since +they say nothing is ever really lost--they lie with their stored sweets. +To me, this has been as merry and good a June as any one of my nineteen. + +Sir Roger is beginning to talk of going home--_his_ home, that is--but +rather diffidently and tentatively, as if not quite sure whether the +proposal will meet with favor in my eyes. He need not be nervous on this +point. I, too, am rather anxious and eager to see my house--_my_ house, +if you please!--I, who have never hitherto possessed any larger +residence than a doll's house, whose whole front wall opened at once, +giving one an improbably simultaneous view of kitchen-range, best +four-poster, and drawing-room chairs. I have, it is true, seen +photographs of my new house, photographs of its east front, of its west +front--photographs, in its park, of the great old cedar; in its gardens, +of its woody pool--but, to tell you the truth, I want to see _it._ I +have already planned a house-warming, and invited them all to it, a +house-warming in which--oh, absurd!--_I_ shall sit at the head of the +table, and father and mother only at the sides--_I_ shall tell the +people who they are to take in to dinner, and nod my head from the top +when dessert is ended. + +To-day lam going to write and secure the Brat's company--that is, later +in the day--but now it is quite, _quite_, early, even the letters have +not come in. We have all--viz., the boys, the girls, and I--risen (in +pursuance of a plan made overnight) preternaturally early, almost as +early as I did on my wedding-morning, and are going out to gather +mushrooms in the meadow, by the river. Indignation against the +inhabitants of the neighboring town is what has torn us from our morning +dreams, the greedy townsfolk, by whom, on every previous occasion, we +have found our meadow rifled before we could reach it. To-day we shall, +at least, meet them on equal terms. We are all rather gapy at first, +more especially Algy, who has deferred the making of the greater part of +his toilet till his return, looks disheveled, and sounds grumbling But +before long both gapes and grumbles depart. + +Who would see the day when he is old, and stale, and shabby, when, like +us, they could come out to meet him as he walks across the meadow with a +mantle of dew wrapped round him, and a garland of paling rose-clouds, +that an hour ago were crimson, about his head? + +The place toward which we tend is at some little distance, and our road +thither leads through all manner of comely rustic places, flowered +fields, where the buttercups crowd their little varnished cups, and the +vigilant ox-eyes are already wakefully staring up from among the +grass-spears; a little wood; a deep and ruddy-colored lane, along whose +unpruned hedges straggle the riches of the wild-rose, most delicately +flushed, as if God in passing had called her very good, and she had +reddened at his praise; where the honey-suckle, too, is holding stilly +aloft the open cream-colored trumpets and closed red trumpet-buds of her +heaven-sweet crown. + +In an instant Tou Tou is scrawling and scrambling like a great spider up +the steep bank: in an instant more she is tugging, tearing, devastating; +while the faint petals that no mightiest king can restore, but that any +infant with a touch can destroy, are showering in scented ruin around +her. It gives me a pain to see it, as if I saw some sentient thing in +agony. I think I feel, with Walter Savage Landor-- + + "I never pluck the rose; the violet's head + Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank + And not reproached me: the ever-sacred cup + Of the pure lily hath between my hands + Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold." + +"You will have your basket filled before we get there," I say, +remonstrating, but she does not heed me. + +Hot and scratched--at least I am glad that in their death-pain they were +able to scratch her--she still tugs and mauls. I walk on. We reach the +meadow. Well, at least _to-day_ we are in time. It has the silence and +solitude of the dawn of Creation's first still day, broken only by the +sheep that are cropping + + "The slant grass, and daisies pale." + +The slow, smooth river washes by, sucking in among the rushes. Our +footsteps show plainly shaped as we step along through the hoary dew. We +separate--going one this way, one that--and, in silence and gravity, +pace with bent heads and down-turned eyes through the fine, short grass. +Excitement and emulation keep us dumb, for let who will--_blasé_ and +used up--deny it, but there is an excitement, wholesome and hearty, in +_seeking_, and a joy pure and unadulterated in finding, mushrooms in a +probable field in the hopeful morning; whether the mushroom be a +patriarch whose gills are browned with age, and who is big enough to be +an umbrella for the fairy people, or a little milk-white button, half +hidden in daisies and trefoil. Sometimes a cry of rage and anguish +bursts from one or other of us who has been the dupe of a puff-ball +family, and who is satiating his or her revenge by stamping on the +deceiver's head, and reducing its fair, round proportions to a fiat and +fleshy pulp. We search long and diligently, and our efforts are blessed +with an unwonted success. By the time that the sun has attained height +enough in the heavens to make his power tyrannically felt, our baskets +are filled. Tou Tou has to throw away her wild-roses, limp and flaccid, +into the dust of the lane. We walk home, singing, and making poor jokes, +as is our wont. As we draw near the house with joyful foretastes of +breakfast in our minds, with redly-flushed cheeks and merry eyes, I see +Sir Roger leaning on the stone balustrade of the terrace, looking as if +he were watching for us, and, indeed, no sooner does he catch sight of +us, than he comes toward us. + +"Do you like mushrooms?" cry I, at the top of my voice, long before I +have reached him, holding up my basket triumphantly. "See, I have got +the most of anybody, except Tou Tou!" + +I have met him by the end of this sentence. + +"Do you like mushrooms?" I repeat, lifting the lid, and giving him a +peep into the creamy and pink-colored treasures inside, "oh, you _must_! +if you do not, I shall have a _divorce_! I could not bear a difference +of opinion upon such a subject." + +I have never given him time to speak, and now I look with appealing +laughter into his silent face. + +"Why, what is the matter?" I cry, with an abrupt change of tone. "What +has happened? How odd you look!" + +"Nothing has happened," he answers, trying to smile, but I see that it +is quite against the grain, "only that I have had some not very pleasant +news." + +"It is not any thing about--about the _Brat_!" cry I, stopping suddenly, +seizing his arm with both hands, and turning, as I feel, extremely pale, +while my thoughts fly to the only one of my beloveds that is out of my +sight. + +"About the _Brat_!" he echoes in surprise, "oh, dear no! nothing!" + +"Then I do not much care _who_ is dead?" I answer, unfeelingly, drawing +a long breath; "he is the only person _out_ of this house whose death +would afflict me much, and I do not think that there is any one besides +_us_ that _you_ are very devoted to, is there?" + +"Why are you so determined that some one is _dead_?" he asks, smiling +again, but this time a little more naturally; "is there nothing +vexatious in the world but _death_?" + +"Yes," say I, laughing, despite myself, as my thoughts revert to my late +employment, "there are _puff-balls!_"--then, ashamed of having been +flippant, and afraid of having been unsympathetic, I add hastily: "I +wish you would tell me what it is! I am sure, _when I hear_, I shall be +vexed too; but you see as long as I do not know what it is, I cannot, +can I?" + +"There is no time now," he says, glancing toward father, whose head +appears through the dining-room windows. "See! they are going to +breakfast!--afterward I will tell you--afterward--and child--" (putting +his hands on my shoulders, and essaying to look at me with an altogether +cheered and careless face,) "do not you worry your head about it!--eat +your breakfast with an easy mind; after all, it is nothing very bad!--it +could not be any thing _very_ bad, as long as--." He stops abruptly, and +adds hastily, "let us have a look at your mushrooms! well, you _have_ a +quantity!" + +"Yes, have not I?" say I, triumphantly, "more than any of them, except +Tou Tou--." Then, not quite satisfied with the impression our late talk +has left upon me: "General!" say I, lowering my face and reddening, "I +hope you do not think that I am _quite_ a baby because I like childish +things--gathering mushrooms--running about with the boys--talking to +Jacky. I can understand serious things _too_, I assure you. I think I +could enter into your trouble--I think, if you gave me the chance, that +you would find that I could!" + +Then a sort of idiotic false shame overtakes me, and without waiting for +his answer I disappear. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +I meet Bobby retiring to the kitchen to cook his mushrooms himself. He +invites me to join him, but I refuse. It is the first time in the annals +of history that I was ever known to say no to such an offer. Bobby +regards me with reproachful anger, and makes a muffled remark, the drift +of which I understand to be that, though I may _pretend_ not to be, I +_am_ grown fine, as he always said I should. To-day it seems to me as if +breakfast would _never_ end. It is one of our fixed laws that no one +shall leave the table until father gives the signal by saying grace. +Sometimes, when he is in one of his unfortunate moods, he keeps us all +staring at our empty cups and platters for half an hour. To-day I watch +with warm anxiety the progress downward of the tea in his cup. At last +he has come to the grounds. He lays down the _Times_. We all joyfully +half bow our heads, in expectation of the wonted "For what we have +received." etc., but speedily and disappointedly raise them again. + +"Jane, can you spare me another cup?" and reburies himself in a long +leader. Behind the shelter of the great sheet, I make a hideous +contortion across the table at Sir Roger, who has fallen with great +docility into our ways, and is looking back at me now with that gentle, +steadfast serenity which is the leading characteristic of his face, but +which this morning is, I cannot help thinking, a dood [Transcriber's +note: sic] deal disturbed, hard as he is trying to hide it. There are, +thank Heaven, no more false starts. Next time that he lays down the +paper, we are all afraid to bend our heads, for fear that the movement +shall break the charm, and induce him to send for a fourth cup--he has +already had _three_--but no! release has come at last. + +"For what we have received the Lord make us truly thankful!" + +Almost before we have reached "thankful," there is a noise of several +chairs pushed back. Before you could say "knife!" we are all out of the +room. All but Sir Roger! In deference, I suppose, to the feelings of the +friend of his infancy, and not to appear _too_ anxious to leave him--Sir +Roger ought to have married Barbara, they two are always thinking of +other people's feelings--he delays a little, and indeed they emerge +together and find me sitting on one of the uncomfortable, stiff +hall-chairs, on which nobody ever sits. To my dismay, I hear father say +something about the chestnut colt's legs, and I know that another delay +is in store for me. Sir Roger comes over to me, and takes his wide-awake +from the stand beside me. + +"We are going to the stables," he says, patting my shoulder. + +I make a second hideous face. Often have I been complimented by the +boys, on the flexibility of my features. + +"I shall be back in ten minutes," he says, in a low voice; "will you +wait for me in the morning-room?" + +"I suppose I must," say I, reluctantly, with a disgusted and +disappointed drawing down of the corners of my mouth. + +Ten minutes pass; twenty, five-and-twenty! Still he has not come back. I +walk up and down the room; I look out of window at the gardeners rolling +the grass; I rend a large and comely rose into tatters, while all manner +of unpleasant possibilities stalk along in order before my mind's eye. +Perhaps Tempest is burnt down. Perhaps some bank, in which he has put +all his money, has broken. Perhaps he has found out that his brother is +not _really_ dead after all! I dismiss this last _worst_ suggestion as +improbable. The door opens, and he enters. + +"Here you are!" I cry, making a joyous rush at him. "I thought you were +never coming! Please, is _that_ your idea of ten minutes?" + +"I could not help it," he answers; "he kept me talking; I could not get +away any sooner." + +"Why did you go?" say I, dutifully. "Why did not you say, when he asked +you, 'No, I will not?' He would have done it to you as soon as look at +you." + +"That would have been so polite to one's host and father-in-law, would +not it?" he answers, a little ironically. "After all, Nancy, where is +the use of vexing people for nothing?" + +"Not _people_ generally," reply I, still chafed; "but I _should_ like +some one who was not his child, and in whom it would not be +disrespectful, to pay him out for keeping us all as he did this morning; +he knew as well as possible that we were dying to be off; _that_ was why +he had that last cup: he did not _want_ it any more than I did. He did +not drink it; did not you see? he left three-quarters of it." + +Sir Roger does not answer, unless a slight shrug and a passing his hand +across his face with a rather dispirited gesture be an answer. I feel +ashamed of my petulance. + +"Do you feel inclined to tell me about your ill news?" I say, gently, +going over to him, and putting my hand on his shoulder. "I have been +making so many guesses as to what it can be?" + +"Have you?" he says, looking up. "I dare say. Well, I will tell you. Do +you remember--I dare say you do not--my once mentioning to you that I +had some property in the West Indies--in Antigua?" + +I nod. + +"To be sure I do; I recollect I had not an idea where Antigua was, and I +looked out for it at once in Tou Tou's atlas." + +"Well, a fortnight--three weeks ago--it was when we were in Dresden, I +had a letter telling me of the death of my agent out there. I knew +nothing about him personally--had never seen him--but he had long been +in my poor brother's employment, and was very highly thought of by him." + +"_Poor_ brother!" think I; "well, thank Heaven! at least _he_ has not +revived; he would not be 'poor' if he had," but I say only, "Yes?" with +a delicately interrogative accent. + +"And to-day comes this letter"--(pulling one out of his pocket)-- +"telling me that now that his affairs have been looked into, they are +found to be in the greatest confusion--that he has died bankrupt, in +fact; and not only _that_, but that he has been cheating me right and +left for years and years, appropriating the money which ought to have +been spent on the estate to his own uses; and, as misfortunes never come +single, I also hear"--(unfolding the sheet, and glancing rather +disconsolately over it)--"that there has been a hurricane, which has +destroyed nearly all the sugar-canes." + +The thought of _Job_ and his successive misfortunes instantly occurs to +me--the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, the great wind from the wilderness--but +being a little doubtful as to his example having a very consoling +effect, with some difficulty, and at the cost of a great pressure +exercised on myself, I abstain from mentioning him. + +"To make a long story short," continues Sir Roger, "and not to bother +you with unnecessary details--" + +"But indeed they would not bother me," interrupt I, eagerly, putting my +hand through his arm, and turning my face anxiously up to him; "I should +_enjoy_ hearing them. I wish you would not think that all sensible, +sober things _bother_ me." + +"My dear," he says, gently pinching my cheek, "I think nothing of the +kind, but I know that not all the explanations in the world will alter +the result, which is, that I shall not get a farthing from the property +_this_ year, and very likely not _next_ either." + +"You do not say so!" cry I, trying to impart a tragic tone to my voice, +and only hoping that my face _looks_ more distressed and aghast than it +feels. + +To tell you the truth, I am mightily relieved. At this period of my +history, money troubles seem to me the lightest and airiest of all +afflictions. I have sat down, and Sir Roger is walking up and down, with +a restlessness unlike his usual repose; on his face there is a vexed and +thwarted look, that is unfamiliar to me. The old parrot sits in the sun, +outside his cage, scratching his head, and chuckling to himself. Tou +Tou's voice comes ringing from the garden. It has a tone of mingled +laughter and pain, which tells me that she is undergoing severe and +searching discipline at the hands of Bobby. + +"I suppose," say I, presently, speaking with some diffidence, "that +_that_ is _all_. Of course I do not mean to say that it is not very bad, +but is there nothing _worse_?" + +"Is not it _bad enough_?" he asks, half laughing. "What did you expect?" + +"You know," say I, still hesitatingly, "I have not an idea _how_ well +off you are; I mean, how much a year you have. Mercenary as I am"-- +(laughing nervously)--"I never thought of asking you; but I suppose, +even if the earth were to open and swallow Antigua--even if there were +no such things as West Indies--we should still have money enough to buy +us bread and cheese, should not we?" + +"Well, it is to be hoped so," he answers, a gleam of amusement flashing +like a little sunshiny arrow across his vexation; "it would be a bad +lookout for you and me, would not it, considering the size of our +appetites, if we should not?" + +A little pause. Tou Tou's voice again. The anguish has conquered the +laughter, and is now mixed with a shrill treble wrath. Polly is +alternately barking like Vick, and laughing with a quiet amusement at +his own performance. + +"Do you think," say I, still airing my opinion with timidity, as one +that has no great opinion of their worth, "that it does one much good to +be rich beyond a certain point?--that a large establishment, for +instance, gives one much pleasure? I am sure it does not in _our_ case; +if you were to know the number of nails that the servants and their +iniquities have knocked into mother's coffin--yes, and father's, too." + +"Have they?" (a little absently). He is still pacing up and down +restlessly--to and fro--along and across--he that is usually so innocent +of fidget or fuss. "Nancy," he says, half seriously, half in rueful +jest, "if you want a thing done, do it yourself: mind that, all your +life. I am a standing instance of the disadvantage of having let other +people do it for me. The fact is, I ought to have gone out there long +ago, to look after things myself." + +"If you _had_ been there, you could not have stopped the hurricane +coming, any more than Canute could stop the waves," say I, filching a +piece of history from "Little Arthur," and pushing it to the front. + +He smiles. + +"Not the hurricane--no; but the hurricane was the lesser evil. I might +have done something to avert, or, at least, lessen the greater one. To +tell the truth, I meant to have gone out there this spring--had, indeed, +almost fixed upon a day for starting, when--_you_ stopped me." + +"_I!_" + +"Yes," he says, pausing in his walk in front of me, and looking at me +with a face full of sunshine, content, and laughter; a face whence +hurricanes, West Indies, and agents have altogether fled; "you called me +a '_beast_,' and the expression startled me so much--I suppose from not +being used to it--that it sent the West Indies, yes, and the East ones +too, clean out of my head." + +"I hope," say I, anxiously, "that you will never tell any one that I +said _that_. They would think that I was in the habit of calling people +''_beasts_', and indeed--_indeed_, I very seldom use so strong a word, +_even_ to Bobby." + +"Well," he says, not heeding my request, not, I am sure, hearing it, and +resuming his walk, "what is done cannot be undone, so there is no use +whining about it, Nancy" (again stopping before me, and this time taking +my face in his two hands). "Will you mind much, or will you not?--do you +ever mind _any thing much_, I wonder?" (eagerly and wistfully scanning +my face, as if trying to read my character through the mask of my pale +skin, and small and unremarkable features). "Well, there is no help for +it--as I did not go then, I must go now." + +"Go!" repeat I, panting in horrid surprise, "go where?--to Antigua?" + +"Yes, to Antigua." + +No need now to dress my voice in the tones of factitious tragedy--no +need to lengthen my face artificially. It feels all of a sudden quite a +yard and a half long. Polly has stopped barking: he is now calling, +"Barb'ra! Barbara!" in father's voice, and he hits off the pompous +severity of his tone with such awful accuracy, that did not my eyes +assure me to the contrary, I could swear that my parent was in the room. + +After a moment I rise, throw my arms round Sir Roger, and lay my head on +his breast--a most unwonted caress on my part, for we are not a couple +by any means given to endearments. + +"Do not go!" I say in a coaxing whisper, "do nothing of the kind!--stay +at home!" + +"And will _you_ go instead of me?" he asks with a gentle irony, +stroking, the while, my plaits as delicately as if he were afraid that +they would _come off_, which indeed, _indeed_, they would not. + +"By myself," say I, laughing, but not raising my head. + +"Oh! of course; nothing I should like better, and I should be so +invaluable in mending the sugar-canes, and keeping the new agent on his +P's and Q's, should not I?" + +He laughs. + +"Stay!" say I, again whispering, as being more persuasive; "where would +be the use of going _now_? It would be shutting the stable-door after +the steed was stolen, and--" (this in a still lower voice)--"we are +beginning to get on so nicely, too." + +"Beginning!" he echoes, with a half-melancholy smile, "only _beginning_ +have not we always got on nicely?" + +"And if we are poorer," continue I, insinuatingly, "I believe we shall +get on better still. I am sure that poor people are fonder of one +another than rich ones--they have less to distract them from each +other." + +I have now raised my head, and perceive that Sir Roger does not look +very much convinced. + +"But granting that poverty _is_ better than riches, do you believe that +it _is_, Nancy?--for my part I doubt it--for myself I will own to you +that I have found it pleasant not to be obliged to look at sixpence upon +both sides; but _that_" he says with straightforward simplicity, "is +perhaps because I have not long been used to it--because once, long ago, +I wanted money badly--I would have given my right hand for it, and could +not get it!" + +"What did you want it for?" cry I, curiously, pricking my ears, and for +a moment forgetting my private troubles in the hope of a forthcoming +anecdote. + +"Ah! would not you like to know?" he says, playfully, but he does not +explain: instead, he goes on: "Even granting that it is so, do you think +it would be very manly to let a fine estate run to ruin, because one was +too lazy to look after it? Do you think it would be quite _honest_-- +quite fair to those that will come after us?" + +"_Those that will come after us_!" cry I, scornfully, making a face for +the third and last time this morning. "And who are they, pray? Some +sixteenth cousin of yours, I suppose?" + +"Nancy," he says, gravely, but in a tone whose gentleness takes all +harshness from the words, "you are talking nonsense, and you know as +well as I do that you are!" + +Then I know that I may as well be silent. After a pause: + +"And when," say I, in as lamentable a voice as King Darius sent down +among the lions in search of Daniel--"how soon, I mean, are we to set +off?" + +"_We_!" he cries, a sudden light springing into his eyes, and an accent +of keen pleasure into his voice. "Do you mean to say that _you_ thought +of coming too?" + +I look up in surprise. + +"Do not wives generally go with their husbands?" + +"But would you _like_ to come?" he asks, seizing my hands, and pressing +them with such unconscious eagerness, that my wedding-ring makes a red +print in its neighborfinger. + +O friends, I wish to Heaven that I had told a lie! It would have been, I +am sure, one of the cases in which a lie would have been justifiable-- +nay, praiseworthy, too. But, standing there, under the truth of his +eyes, I have to be true, too. + +"Like!" say I, evasively, casting down my eyes, and fiddling uneasily +with one of the buttons of his coat, "it is hardly a question of +'_like_,' is it? I do not imagine that you _like_ it much yourself?--one +cannot always be thinking of what one likes." + +The pressure of his fingers on mine slackens; and, though, thanks to my +wedding-ring, it was painful, I am sorry. After a minute: + +"But you have not," say I, trying to speak in a tone of light and airy +cheerfulness, "answered my question yet--how soon we must set off? You +know what a woman always thinks of first--her _clothes_, and I must be +seeing to my packing." + +"The sooner the better," he answers, with a preoccupied look. "Not later +than ten days hence!" + +"_Ten days_!" + +Again my jaw falls. He has altogether loosed my hands now, and resumed +his walk. I sit down by the table, lean my elbows on it, and push my +fingers through my hair in most dejected musing. Polly has been dressing +himself; turning his head over his shoulder, and arranging his feathers +with his aquiline nose. He has finished now, and has just given vent, in +a matter-of-fact, unemotional voice, to an awful oath! There is the +sound of brisk feet on the sunny gravel outside. Bobby's face looks in +at the window--broad, sunburnt, and laughing. + +"Well! what is up now?" cries he, catching a glimpse of my disconsolate +attitude. "You look as if the fungi had disagreed with you!" + +"Then appearances are deceitful," reply I, trying to be merry, "for they +have not." + +He has only glanced in upon us in passing: he is gone again now. I +rebury my hands in my locks, which, instead of a highly-cultivated +garden, I am rapidly making into a wilderness. + +"I suppose," say I, in a tone which fitly matches the length of my face, +"that Bobby will have got a ship before I come back; I hope they will +not send him to any very unhealthy station--Hong-Kong, or the Gold +Coast." + +"I hope not." + +"What port shall we sail from?" + +"Southampton." + +"And how long--about how long will the voyage be?" + +"About seventeen days to Antigua." + +"And how long"--(still in the same wretched and resignedly melancholy +voice)--"shall we have to stay there?" + +"It depends upon the state in which I find things?" + +A good long pause. My elbows are growing quite painful, from the length +of time during which they have been digging into the hard _marqueterie_ +table, and my hair is as wild as a red Indian's. _Ten_ days! ten little +galloping days, and then _seventeen_ long, slow, monstrous ones! +_Seventeen_ days at sea! seventeen days and seventeen nights, too--do +not let us forget that--of that deadly nausea, of that unspeakable +sinking of all one's inside to the very depths of creation--of the smell +of boiling oil, and the hot, sick, throbbing of engines! + +"I hope," say I, in a voice so small that I hardly recognize it for my +own, "that I shall not be _quite_ as ill all the way as I was crossing +from Calais to Dover; and the steward," continue I, in miserable +meditation, "kept telling me all the while what a fine passage we were +having, too!" + +"So we were!" + +Another pause. I am still thinking of the horrid theme; living over +again my nearly-forgotten agonies. + +"Do you remember," say I, presently, "hearing about that Lady Somebody-- +I forget her name--but she was the wife of one Governor-General of +India, and she always suffered so much from sea-sickness that she +thought she should suffer less in a sailing-vessel, and so returned from +India in one, and just as she came in sight of the shores of England +_she died_!" + +As I reach this awful climax, I open my eyes very wide, and sink my +voice to a tragic depth. + +"The moral is--" says Sir Roger, stopping beside me, laying his hand on +my chair back, and regarding me with a mixture of pain and diversion in +his eyes, "stick to steam!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +A heavy foot along the passage, a hand upon the door, a hatted head +looking in. + +"Roger," says father, in that laboriously amiable voice in which he +always addresses his son-in-law, "sorry to interrupt you, but could you +come here for a minute--will not keep you long." + +"All right!" cries Sir Roger, promptly. + +(How _can_ he speak in that flippantly cheerful voice, with the prospect +of seventeen days' sea before him?) + +"Now, where did I put my hat, Nancy? did you happen to notice?" + +"It is here," say I, picking it up from the window-seat, and handing it +to him with lugubrious solemnity. + +As he reaches the door, following father, he turns and nods to me with a +half-humorous smile. + +"Cheer up," he says, "it shall not be a sailing-vessel." + +He is gone, and I return to my former position, and my former +occupation, only that now--the check of Sir Roger's presence being +removed--I indulge in two or three good hearty groans. To think how +the look of all things is changed since this morning! + +As we came home through the fields singing, if any one had given me +three wishes, I should have been puzzled what to ask--and _now_! All the +good things I am going to lose march in gloomy procession before my +mind. _No house-warming!_ It will have to be put off till we come back, +and, by the time that we come back, Bobby will almost certainly have +been sent to some foreign station for three or four years. And who knows +what may happen before he returns? Perhaps--for I am in the mood when +all adversities seem antecedently probable--he will _never_ come back. +Perhaps never again shall I be the willing victim of his buffets, never +again shall I buffet him in return. + +And the _sea_! It is all very fine for Sir Roger to take it so easily, +to laugh and make unfeeling jokes at my expense! _He_ does not lie on +the flat of his back, surrounded by the horrid paraphernalia of +sea-sickness. _He_ walks up and down, with his hands in his pockets, +smoking a cigar, and talking to the captain. _He_ cares nothing for the +heaving planks. The taste of the salt air gives _him_ an appetite. An +_appetite_! Oh, prodigious! I must say I think he might have been a +_little_ more feeling, might have expressed himself a _little_ more +sympathetically. + +By dint of thinking over Sir Roger's iniquities on this head, I +gradually work myself up into such a state of righteous indignation and +injury against him, that when, after a longish interval, the door again +opens to readmit him, I affect neither to see nor hear him, nor be in +anyway conscious of his presence. Through the chinks of my fingers, +dolorously spread over my face, I see that he has sat down on the other +side of the table, just opposite me, and that he is smiling in the same +unmirthful, gently sarcastic way, as he was when he left me. + +"Nancy," he says, "I have been thinking what a pity it is that I have +not a _yacht_! We might have taken our own time then, and done it +enjoyably--made quite a pleasure-trip of it." + +I drop my hands into my lap. + +"People's ideas of pleasure differ," I say, with trite snappishness. + +"Yes," he answers, a little sadly, "no two people look at any thing in +_quite_ the same way, do they?--not even husband and wife." + +"I suppose not," say I, still thinking of the steward. + +"Do you know," he says, leaning his arms and his crossed hands on the +table between us, and steadfastly regarding me, "that I never saw you +look miserable before, never? I did not even know that you _could_!" + +"I am not _miserable_" I answer, rather ashamed of myself, "that is far +too strong a word! Of course I am a little disappointed." Then I mumble +off into an indistinctness, whence the nouns "House--warming," "Bobby," +"Gold Coast," crop out audibly. + +"After all," he says, still regarding me, and speaking kindly, yet a +little coldly too, "you need not look so woebegone. They say second +thoughts are best, do not they? Well, I have been thinking second +thoughts, and--I have altered my mind." + +"You are going to stay at home?" cry I, at the top of my voice, jumping +up in an ecstasy, and beginning to clap my hands. + +"No," he says, gently, "not quite _that_, as I explained to you before, +that is impossible: but--do not be downcast--something nearly as good. I +am going to leave _you_ at home!" + +To leave me at home! My first feeling is one of irrepressible relief. No +sea! no steward! no courtesying ship! no swaying waves after all! Then +comes a quick and strong revulsion, shame, mortification, and pain. + +"To--leave--me--at home!" I repeat slowly, hardly yet grasping the idea, +"to--go--_without_--me!--by yourself?" + +"By myself," he answers, gently. "You see, it is no thing to me. I have +been by myself for forty-seven years." + +A quick, remorseful pain runs through my heart. + +"But you are not by yourself any longer," I cry, eagerly. "Why do you +talk as if you were? Do you count _me_ for nothing?" + +"For nothing?" he answers, smiling quietly. "I am glad of an excuse to +be rid of you for a bit--that is it!" + +"But _is_ that it?" cry I, excitedly, rising and running round to him. +"If you are sure of that--if you will _swear_ it to me--I will not say +another word. I will hold my tongue, and try to bear as well as I can, +your having grown tired of me so soon--but--" speaking more slowly, and +hesitating, "if--if--it is that you fancied--you thought--you imagined-- +that I did not _want_ to come with you--" + +"My dear," he says, laughing not at all bitterly, but with a genuine +amusement, "I should have been even less bright than I am, if I had not +gathered that much." + +I sink down on a chair, and cover my face with my hands. My _attitude_ +is the same as it was ten minutes ago, but oh, how different are my +feelings! What bitter repentance, what acute self-contempt, invade my +soul! As I so sit, I feel an arm round my waist. + +"Nancy," says Sir Roger, "it was ill-naturedly said; do not fret about +it; you were not in the least to blame. I should not like you half so +much--should not think nearly so well of you, if you had been willing to +give up all your own people, to throw them lightly over, all of a +sudden, for a comparative stranger, treble your age, too"--(with a +sigh)--"like me." + +He generously ignores the selfish fear of sea-sickness, of _personal_ +suffering, which had occupied the fore-front of my mind. + +"It will be much, _much_ better, and a far more sensible plan for both +of us," he continues, cheerfully. "Where would be the use of exposing +you to the discomfort and misery of what you hate most on earth for no +possible profit? I shall not be long away, shall be back almost before +you realize that I am gone, and meanwhile I should be far happier +thinking of you merry, and enjoying yourself with your brothers and +sisters at Tempest, than I should be seeing you bored and suffering, +with no one but me to amuse you--you know, dear--" (smiling pensively); +"do not be angry with me, it was no fault of yours; but you _did_ grow +rather tired of me at Dresden." + +"I did not! I did not!" cry I, bursting into a passion of tears, and +asseverating all the more violently because I feel, with a sting of +remorse, that there is a tiny grain of truth--not so large a one as he +thinks, but still a _grain_ in his accusations. "It seemed rather +_quiet_ at first--I had always been used to such a noisy house, and I +missed the boys' chatter a little, perhaps; but _indeed_, INDEED, that +was all!" + +"Was it? I dare say! I dare say!" he says, soothingly. + +"You shall _not_ leave me behind," say I, still weeping with stormy +bitterness. "I _will not_ be left behind! What business have you to go +without me? Am I to be only a fair-weather wife to you? to go shares in +all your pleasant things, and then--when any thing hard or disagreeable +comes--to be left out. I tell you" (looking up at him with streaming +eyes) "that I _will not_! I WILL NOT!" + +"My darling!" he says, looking most thoroughly concerned, I do not fancy +that crying women have formed a large part of his life-experience--"you +misunderstand me! I will own to you, that five minutes ago I did you an +injustice; but _now_ I know, I am thoroughly convinced, that you would +follow me without a murmur or a sulky look to the world's end--and" +(laughing) "be frightfully sea-sick all the way; but" (kindly patting my +heaving shoulder) "do you think that I want to be hampered with a little +invalid? and, supposing that I took you with me, whom should I have to +look after things at Tempest, and keep them straight for me against I +come home?" + +"I know what it is," I cry, passionately clinging round his neck, "you +think I do not like you! I _see_ it! twenty times a day, in a hundred +things that you do and leave undone! but indeed, _indeed_, you never +were more mistaken in all your life! I will own to you that I did not +care _very_ much about you at first. I thought you good, and kind, and +excellent, but I was not _fond_ of you; but _now_, every day, every hour +that I live, I like you better! Ask Barbara, ask the boys if I do not! I +like you ten thousand times better than I did the day I married you!" + +"_Like_ me!" he repeats a little dreamily, looking with a strong and +bitter yearning into my eyes; then, seeing that I am going to +asseverate, "for God's sake, child," he says, hastily, "do not tell me +that you _love_ me, for I know it is not true! you can no more help it +than I can help caring for you in the idiotic, mad way, that I do! +Perhaps, on some blessed, far-off day, you may be able to say so, and I +to believe it, but not now!--_not now_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +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. + +"What _is_ up?" cries Bobby, advancing toward me with an overpowering +curiosity, not unmixed with admiration, legible on his burnt face; "what +_has_ summoned 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 not _what_?" + +"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 not _this moment_ +stop sighing like a wind-mill 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 a _jelly_!" + +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 is _so_ changed, and I know I shall miss +him _so_ much!" 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 I_" 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--a _black_ one--and he thinks it is _her_ turn +now!" + +Barbara says, "Hush!" and Tou Tou is beginning to embark on a long +argument to prove that a man _cannot_ have more than one wife at a time, +when she is summarily _hustled_ into 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 +mantelshelf. + +"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 from +_you_, would not it?" + +"And you are to be left _alone_ at 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 _of ghosts_?" + +"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 feel _at all_ lonely," 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 keep _all_ his 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, "_have_ a +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 have _one_ of you!" cry I, rising with a face pale, as I +feel with anger--with flashing eyes and a trembling voice, "not _one_ of +you shall enter his doors, except Barbara!--I _hate_ you _all!_--you are +all g--g--_glad_ that 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," + +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!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +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, if _alone_, than if weighted by a +woman, and a woman's paraphernalia, and also on the desirability of +having in me a _locum tenens_ for 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 on _then?_" + +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 minded _that_ much--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, they _shall not_ give a ball!" say I, resolutely, "but"--(in a +tone of melancholy helplessness)--"they may throw down _all_ the +horses, for any thing _I_ can do to prevent them! A horse's knees would +have to be _very much broken_ before 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 +expect _him_ to 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?" + +"_That_ I 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. + +"By _Christmas_!" interrupt I, aghast, "one, two, three, four, _five_ +months--but you _must_!--you MUST!" clasping both hands on his arm. + +"I hope I shall, certainly," replies he; "but one never knows what may +happen! If I am _not_--" + +"But you _must_," 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 a _sailing-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--_quite_ happy, 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--_I_ do 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 you _now_, 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, nay +_three_, for I shall 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. _He_ has 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! I _must_ utter 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!" I _cannot_ stand another repast--three times longer than the +last too--for one _can_ abridge 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 have _tea_ in 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? Am I not +living by myself at a _hall_? + +Vick recognizes him at about the same moment as I do. Having first +sprung at him with that volubility of small but hostile _yaps_, with +which she strikes terror into the hearts of tramps, she has now--having +_smelt_ him 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'm _so_ glad!" + +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 do _you_ know? +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 are _alone_--Sir Roger has left you quite _alone_ here?" + +"Yes," say I, lachrymosely; "is not it _dreadful?_ I never was so +miserable in my life; I do not think I _ever_ was by myself for a +_whole_ night 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 gives _such_ cracks!" + +"And--he has gone _by 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 it _is_ difficult 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." + +"But _you_" 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, "I _wished_ to 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; if _you_ were dying to go, and _he_ were +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 yourself _all_ the 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 _the first_ turn?" 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 Barbara _were_ to have come to-day," reply I, feeling a covert +resentment against something of faintly _gibing_ in 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 they _had_, +should I be sitting moping here with nobody but Vick to talk to?" + +"You forget _me!_ may I not run in couples even with a _dog?_" 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 rather _odd_, 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 of _father_, 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? +for _none_--he never has any reasons, or if he has, he does not give +them. I sometimes think" (laughing maliciously) "that _you_ will not be +unlike him, when you grow old and gouty." + +"Thank you." + +"_You_ have 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 it _too_ much, 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). + +"Not _certainly_, 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 are _sore!_ You may not believe me" (passing my bare fingers +lightly over them as I speak), "but they feel quite _raw_. I wonder" +(with a little dismal laugh) "why tears were made _salt_!--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 a _dark_ night!" 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 they _will_,'" cry I, petulantly; "they _must_! I cannot do without +them! I believe some people do not _mind_ being alone--not even in the +evenings, when the furniture cracks and the door-handles rattle. I dare +say _you_ do 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--_too_ much, 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. "_You_ will be by +yourself too, will not you? Tell me" (speaking with lowered confidential +tone), "do _your_ chairs and tables ever make odd noises?" + +"Awful!" he answers, laughing. "I can hardly bear 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 are _going_ to 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! +What _should_ I 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 they _do not_ come to-morrow--" + +"_Fourth time_!" interject I, counting on my fingers and smiling. + +"If you _wish_--if you _like_--if it would be any comfort to you--I +shall be happy--! mean I shall be very glad to come up again about the +same time to-morrow evening." + +"_Will_ you?" (eagerly, with a great accession of exhilaration in my +voice). "Are you serious? I shall be so much obliged if you will, but--" + +"It is _impossible_ that any one can say any thing-," he interrupts, +hastily. "There _could_ be 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! _but_ you will most +likely forget I Do not!" I continue, bringing down my eyes again, and +speaking in a coaxing tone. "If you do, it will be play to you, but +_death_ to me; the thought of it will keep me up all the day!" + +"Will it?" in a tone of elated eagerness. "You are not _gibing_, 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 hands _again_ for? +We have done that _twice_ already. You are like the man who, the moment +he had finished reading prayers to his family, began them all over +again. _Mind_ you do not forget! and" (laughing) "if you cannot come +yourself, _send some one else! any one_ will do--I am not particular, +but I _must_ have _some one_ to 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Suppose that in all this world, during all its ages, there never was a +case of a person being _always_ in an ill-humor. I believe that even +Nantippe 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 longer _raw_; 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. If _he_ +is 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 he _had_ an 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 more _married_ than 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 grow + Before rude hands have touched it? + Have you marked but the fall of the snow + Before the soil hath smutched it? + Have you felt the wool of the beaver + Or 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 a _bonnet_? + +"I wish that people might be allowed to go to church without their +bonnets these hot Sundays," I say, grumblingly. "_You_ especially, +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 think _where_ we 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 a _pis aller_, I look +at Algy. No absorption in prayer on _his_ part 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 at _her_ once, I look again. I could not tell you _why_ I 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 of _mauvaise +honte_ and 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 be _relays_ +of 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." + +"I _did_ hear 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. + +"You _forgot_? Ah, I told you you would!" + +"I did _not_ forget." + +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 self _cheap_, is there?" he +says, with a bitter little laugh. "What is the use of going to a place +where you are told that _any one else_ will 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. + +"You _do 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 have _never_ heard 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?-- +_Algy_ and _Barbara_?" + +"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, "_what_ St. +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, you _have_ a short memory!" + +"Have I?" he answers, dryly; "perhaps for _some_ things; for _others_ 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 of _them_! 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; with _me_ they 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 the _other_ Magdalen--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; "have _you_ forgotten 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, "he _must_ see the likeness now!" To insure his having the +chance of telling her that he does, I fall behind with Algy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +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 is my house, 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 manoeuvres, 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. + +"_Dear_ Dresden!" 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 that +_then_ I 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!" + +"_You_ had not, I dare say," reply I, carelessly, "but _we_ had. 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 have _not_ been 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 there _is_ any such history." + +"I dare say not." + +More silence. Swish through the butter-cups 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 is _not_ true," 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 is _impossible!_ I stop. I stand stock-still in the summer grass. + +"I _hate_ your 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 in _my_ case. If you had +put me on the rack, I could have confessed nothing!" + +"I do not see the analogy," he answers, coldly; "_you_ are--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 not _stir_ until 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 liar _rumor_ is--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, I _vouch_ for 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; "it _does_ seem 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 shall _certainly_ be 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 a _widow?_" 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 not _she_ ask the +same question with regard to _me?_ + +"She did not like the _sea_, perhaps," answers Frank, demurely. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +A day--two days pass. + +"More callers," say I, hearing the sound of wheels, and running to the +window; "I thought we _must_ have 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 so _determined_ to 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 uncertain _which_ to 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, but _now_ more 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 I _think_--nay, let me tell truth--I _hope_ +that in a low gown she would be _scraggy_, 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. + +_One_ hope remains to me. Perhaps she may be stupid! Certainly she is +not _affording_. + +How heavily poor Barbara is driving through the fine weather and the +_Times!_ 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. _Mine_ rushes forth like a +desolating bombshell. + +"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, she _is_ baffling! 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. + +(It _must_ have been a lie!) + +"_Your_ husband, 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 where +_mine_ is 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 of _esprit_, whose possible existence I +had not conjectured. Certainly, she showed no symptom of playfulness or +_esprit_ during our late talk. I have yet to learn that to some women, +the presence of a man--not _the_ man, but _a_ man--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 to _his_ voice, 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 a +_soldier_; one can mostly tell." + +He laughs the flattered, fluttered laugh, that _my_ rough 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 who _you_ were," 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 know +_him_?" + +"I know him! I should think so: he is quite a tame cat here." + +"Yes?" + +"Have you any _children?_" 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, she _had_ a child, and +it is _dead_. She is going to _cry_! At this awful thought, I grow +scarlet, and Algy darts a furious look at me. What _have_ I 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! + +"I am so sorry," I stammer--"I never thought--I did not know--" + +"It is of no consequence," she answers, speaking with some difficulty, +and with a slight but quite musical tremor in her voice--very different +from the ugly gulpings and catchings of the breath which always set off +_my_ tears--"but the fact is, that I _have_ one little one--and--and-- +she no longer lives with me; my husband's people have taken her; I am +sure that they meant it for the best; only--only--I am afraid I cannot +quite manage to talk of her yet" (turning away from me, and looking up +into Algy's face with a showery smile). Then, as if unable to run the +risk of any other further shock to her feelings, she rises and takes her +leave; Algy eagerly attending her to the door. + +The old deaf gentleman departs at the same time, loading Barbara with +polite parting messages to her husband, and bowing distantly to _me_. +Algy reënters presently, looking cross and ruffled. + +"You really are _too_ bad, Nancy!" he says, harshly, throwing himself +into the chair lately occupied by Mrs. Huntley. "You grow worse every +day--one would think you did it on purpose--riding rough-shod over +people's feelings." + +I stand aghast. Formerly, I used not to mind rough words; but I think +Roger must have spoilt me; they make me wince now. + +"But--but--it was not _dead!_" I say, whimpering; "it had only gone to +visit its grandmother." + +"Never you mind, my Nancy!" says Barbara, in a whisper, drawing me away +to the window, and pressing her soft, cool lips, to the flushed misery +of my cheeks; "she was not hurt a bit! her eyes were as dry as a bone!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +One more day is gone. We are one day nearer Roger's return. This is the +way in which I am growing to look at the flight of time; just as, in +Dresden, I joyfully marked each sunset, as bringing me twenty-four hours +nearer home and the boys. And now the boys are within reach; at a wish I +could have them all round me; and still, in my thoughts, I hurry the +slow days, and blame them for dawdling. With all their broad, gold +sunshine, and their rainbow-colored flowers, I wish them away. + +Alas! that life should be both so quick and so lagging! + +It is afternoon, and I am lying by myself on a cloak at the bottom of +the punt--the _unupsettable_, broad-bottomed punt. My elbow rests on the +seat, and a book is on my lap. But, in the middle of the pool, the glare +from the water is unbearably bright, but _here_, underneath those +dipping, drooped trees, the sun only filters through in little flakes, +and the shade is brown, and the reflections are so vivid that the flags +hardly know which are themselves--they, or the other flags that grow in +the water at their feet. + +A while ago I tried to read; but a private vexation of my own--a small +new one--interleaved with its details each page of the story, and made +nonsense of it. I have shut the volume, therefore, and, with my hat +tilted over my eyes, and my cheek on my hand, am watching the long blue +dragon-flies, and the numberless small peoples that inhabit the summer +air. All at once, I hear some one coming, crashing and pushing through +the woody undergrowth. Perhaps it is Algy come to say that he has +changed his mind, and that he will not go after all! No! it is only Mr. +Musgrave. I am a little disappointed, but, as my fondness for my own +company is always of the smallest, I am able to smile a sincere welcome. + +"It is you, is it?" I say, with a little intimate nod. "How did you know +where I was?" + +"Barbara told me." + +"_Barbara_, indeed!" (laughing). "I wish father could hear you." + +"I am very glad he does not." + +"And so you found her at home?" I say, with a feeling of pleased +curiosity, as to the details of the interview. (He cannot well have +volunteered the abbey _already_, can he?) + +"I suppose I may come in," he says, hardly waiting my permission to jump +into the punt, which, however, by reason of the noble broadness of its +bottom, is enabled to bid defiance to any such shock. "She was making a +flannel petticoat for an old woman," he goes on, sitting down opposite +me, and looking at me from under his hat-brim, with gravely shining +eyes; "_herring-boning_, she called it. She has been teaching me how to +herring-bone, I like Barbara." + +"How kind of you!" I say, ironically, and yet a little gratified too. +"And does she return the compliment, may I ask?" + +He nods. + +"Yes, I think so." + +"She would like you better still if you were to lose all your money, and +one of your legs, and be marked by the small-pox," I say, thoughtfully; +"to be despised, and out at elbows, and down in the world, is the sure +way to Barbara's heart." + +I had meant to have drawn for him a pleasant and yet most true picture +of her sweet disinterestedness, but his uneasy vanity takes it amiss. + +"As it entails being enrolled among the blind and lame," he says, +smiling sarcastically, and flushing a little, "I am afraid I shall never +get there." + +A moment ago I had felt hardly less than sisterly toward him. Now I look +at him with a disgustful and disapprobative eye. What a very great deal +of alteration he needs, and, with that face, and his abbey, and all his +rooks to back it, how very unlikely he is to get it! Well, _I_ at least +will do my best! + +We both remain quiet for a few moments. Vick sits at the end of the +punt, a shiver of excitement running all over her little white body, her +black nose quivering, and one lip slightly lifted by a tooth, as she +gazes with eager gravity at the distant wild-ducks flying along in a +row, with outstretched--necks, making their pleasant quacks. How low +they fly; so low that their feet splash in the water, that makes a +bright spray-hue in the sun! + +"Algy is going away to-morrow!" say I, presently. + +"So he told me." + +"This is his last evening here!" (in a rather dolorous tone). + +"So I should gather," laughing a little at the obviousness of my last +piece of information. + +"And yet," say I, looking down through the clear water at a dead +tree-bough lying at the bottom, and sighing, "he is going to dine out +to-night--to dine with Mrs. Huntley." + +"With Mrs. Huntley! when?" with a long-drawn whistle of intelligence. + +"Tell me," cry I, impulsively, raising myself from my reclining pose, +and sitting upright, "you will understand better than I do--perhaps it +is my mistake--but, if you had seen a person only _once_ for five or ten +minutes, would you sign yourself 'Yours very sincerely' to them?" + +He laughs dryly. + +"Not unless I was writing _after dinner_--why?" + +"Nothing--no reason!" + +Again he laughs. + +"I think I can guess." + +"Her name is Zéphine," say I again, leaning over the boat-side and +pulling my forefinger slowly to and fro through the warm brown water. + +"I am well aware of that fact" (smiling). + +How near the swans are drawing toward us! One, with his neck well thrown +back, and his wings raised and ruffled, sailing along like a lovely +snow-white ship; another, with less grace and more homeliness, standing +on his head, with black webs paddling out behind. + +"You were quite wrong on Sunday--_quite_," say I, speaking with sudden +abruptness, and reddening. + +"On Sunday!" (throwing his luminous dark eyes upward to the light clouds +and faint blue of the August sky above us, as if to aid his +recollection), "nothing more likely--but what about?" + +"About--Roger," I answer, speaking with some difficulty ("and Mrs. +Huntley," I was going to add, but some superstition hinders me from +coupling their names even in a sentence). + +"I dare say"--carelessly--"but what new light have you had thrown upon +the matter?" + +"I asked her," I say, looking him full in the face, with simple +directness. + +"_Asked her_!" repeats he, with an accent of profound astonishment. +"Asked the woman whether she had been engaged to him, and jilted him? +Impossible!" + +"No! no!" cry I, with tremulous impatience, "of course not; but I asked +her whether she used not to know him in India, and she said, 'Yes, we +met several times,' just like _that_--she no more blushed and looked +confused than _I_ should if any one asked me whether I knew you!" + +He is still leaning over the punt, and has begun to dabble as I did. + +"You certainly have a way of putting things very strongly," he says in a +rather low voice, "_convincingly_ so!" + +"She did not even know what part of the world he was in!" I cry, +triumphantly. + +"Did she say so?" (lifting up his face, and speaking quickly). + +"Well, no--o--" I answer, reluctantly; "but I said, 'He is in the West +Indies,' and she answered 'Yes,' or 'Indeed,' or 'Is he?' I forget +which, but at any rate it implied that it was news to her." + +A pike leaps not far from us, and splashes back again. I watch to see +whether the widening faint circles will have strength to reach us, or +whether the water's smile will be smoothed and straightened before it +gets to us. + +"Did Mrs. Huntley happen to say" (leaning lazily back, and speaking +carelessly), "how she liked her house?" + +"No; why?" + +"She has only just got into it," he answers, slightly; "only about a +fortnight, that is." + +"I wonder," say I, ruminatingly, "what brought her to this part of the +world, for she does not seem to know anybody." + +He does not answer. + +"We _ought_ to be friends, ought not we?" say I, beginning to laugh +nervously, and looking appealingly toward him, "both of us coming to +sojourn in a strange land! It is a curious coincidence our both settling +here in such similar circumstances, at almost the same time, is not it?" + +Still he is silent. + +"_Is not it_?" cry I, irritably, raising my voice. + +Again he has thrown his head back, and is perusing the sky, his hands +clasped round one lifted knee. + +"What _is_ a coincidence?" he says, languidly. "I do not think I quite +know--I am never good at long words--two things that happen accidentally +at the same time, is not it?" + +He lays the faintest possible stress on the word accidentally. + +"And you mean to say that this in not accidental?" I cry, quickly. + +"I mean nothing; I only ask for information." + +How still the world is to-day! The feathery water-weeds sway, indeed, to +and fro, with the motion of the water, but the tall cats'-tails, and all +the flags, stand absolutely motionless. I feel vaguely ruffled, and take +up my forgotten book. Holding it so as to hide my companion's face from +me, I begin to read ostentatiously. He seems content to be silent; lying +on the flat of his back, at the bottom of the punt, staring at the sky, +and declining the overtures, and parrying the attacks, of Vick, who, +having taken advantage of his supine position to mount upon his chest, +now stands there wagging her tail, and wasting herself in efforts, +mostly futile, but occasionally successful, to lick the end of his nose. +A period of quiet elapses, during which, for the sake of appearances, I +turn over a page. By-and-by, he speaks. + +"Algy is your eldest brother, is not he?--get away, you little beast!"-- +(the latter clause, in a tone of sudden exasperation, is addressed, not +to me, but to Vick, and tells me that my pet dog's endeavors have been +crowned with a tardy prosperity.) + +"Yes" (still reading sedulously). + +"I thought so," with a slight accent of satisfaction. + +"Why?" cry I, again letting fall my volume, and yielding to a curiosity +as irresistible as unwise; for he had meant me to ask, and would have +been disobliged if I had not. + +"We all have our hobbies, don't you know?" he says, shifting his eyes +from the sky, and fixing them on the less serene, less amiable object of +my face--"some people's is old china--some Elzevir editions--_I_ have a +mania for _clocks_--I have one in every room in my house--by-the-by, you +have never been over my house--Mrs. Huntley's--she is a dear little +woman, but she has her fancies, like the rest of us, and hers is-- +_eldest sons!_" + +"But she is married!" exclaim I, stupidly. "What good can they do her, +now?"--then, reddening a little at my own simplicity, I go on, +hurriedly: "But he is such a boy!--younger than _you_--young enough, to +be her _son_--it _can_ be only out of good-nature that she takes notice +of him." + +"Yes--true--out of good-nature!" he echoes, nodding, smiling, and +speaking with that surface-assent which conveys to the hearer no +impression less than acquiescence. + +"Boys are not much in her way, either," he pursues, carelessly; +"generally she prefers such as are of _riper_ years--_much_ riper!" + +"How spiteful you are!" I say, glad to give my chafed soul vent in +words, and looking at him with that full, cold directness which one can +employ only toward such as are absolutely indifferent to one. "How she +_must_ have snubbed you!" + +For an instant, he hesitates; then--"Yes," he says, smiling still, +though his face has whitened, and a wrathy red light has come into his +deep eyes; "in the pre-Huntley era, I laid my heart at her feet-- +by-the-way, I must have been in petticoats at the time--and she kicked +it away, as she had, no doubt, done--_others_" + +The camel's backbone is broken. This last innuendo--in weight a straw-- +has done it. I speak never a word; but I rise up hastily, and, letting +my novel fall heavily prone on the pit of its stomach at the +punt-bottom, I take a flying leap to shore--_toward_ shore, I should +rather say:--for I am never a good jumper--Tou Tou's lean spider-legs +can always outstride me--and now I fall an inch or two short, and draw +one leg out booted with river-mud. But I pay no heed. I hurry on, +pushing through the brambles, and leaving a piece of my gown on each. +Before I have gone five yards--his length of limb and freedom from +petticoats giving him the advantage over me--he overtakes me. + +"What _has_ happened? at this rate you will not have much gown left by +the time you reach the house." + +To my excited ears, there seems to be a suspicion of laughter in his +voice. I disdain to answer. The path we are pursuing is not the regular +one; it is a short cut through the wood. At its widest it is very +narrow; and, a little ahead of us, a bramble has thrown a strong arm +right across it, making a thorny arch, and forbidding passage. By a +quick movement, Mr. Musgrave gets in advance of me, and, turning round, +faces me at this defile. + +"What _has_ happened?" + +Still I remain stubbornly silent. + +"We are not going to fight, at this time of day, such old friends as we +are?" + +The red-anger light has died out of his eyes. They look softer, and yet +less languid, than I have ever seen them before; and there is subdued +appeal and entreaty in his lowered voice. At the present moment, I +distinctly dislike him. I think him altogether trying and odious, and I +should be glad--yes, _glad_, if Vick were to bite a piece out of his +leg; but, at the same time, I cannot deny that I have seldom seen any +thing comelier than the young man who now stands before me, with the +green woodland lights flickering about the close-shorn beauty of his +face--he is well aware that his are not features that need _planting out +_--while a lively emotion quickens all his lazy being. + +"We are _not_ old friends! Let me pass!" + +"_New_ friends, then--_-friends_ at all events!" coming a step nearer, +and speaking without a trace of sneer, sloth, or languor. + +"Not friends at all! Let me pass!" + +"Not until you tell me my offense--not until you own that we are +friends!" (in a tone of quick excitement, and almost of authority, that, +in him, is new to me). + +"Then we shall stay here all night!" reply I, with a fine obstinacy, +plumping down, as I speak, on the wayside grass, among the St. +John's-worts, and the red arum-berries. In a moment he has stepped +aside, and is holding the stout purple bramble-stem out of my way. + +"Pass, then!" he says, in a tone of impatience, frowning a little; "as +you have said it, of course you will stick to it--right or wrong--or you +would not be a woman; but, whether you confess it or not, we _are_ +friends!" + +"We are NOT!" cry I, resolute to have the last word, as I spring up and +fly past him, with more speed than dignity, lest he should change his +mind, and again detain me. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +The swallows are gone: the summer is done: it is October. The year knows +that I am in a hurry, and is hasting with its shortened days--each day +marked by the loss of something fair--toward the glad Christmas-time-- +Christmas that will bring me back my Roger--that will set him again at +the foot of his table--that will give me again the sound of his foot on +the stairs, the smile in his fond gray eyes. So I thought yesterday, and +to-day I have heard from him; heard that though he is greatly loath to +tell me so, yet he cannot be back by Christmas; that I must hear the +joy-bells ring, and see the merry Christmas cheer _alone._ It is true +that he earnestly and insistantly begs of me to gather all my people, +father, mother, boys, girls, around me. But, after all, what are father, +mother, boys, girls, to me? Father never _was_ any thing, I will do +myself that justice, but at this moment of sore disappointment as I lean +my forehead on the letter outspread on the table before me, and dim its +sentences with tears, I _belittle_ even the boys. No doubt that +by-and-by I shall derive a little solace from the thought of their +company; that when they come I shall even be inveigled into some sort of +hilarity with them; but at present, "No." + +There are some days on which all ills gather together as at a meeting. +This is one. Barbara is prostrated by a violent headache, and is in such +thorough physical pain that even she cannot sympathize with me. Mr. +Musgrave never makes his now daily appearance--he comes, as I jubilantly +notice, as regularly as the postman--until late in the afternoon. All +day, therefore, I must refrain myself and be silent. And I am never one +for brooding with private dumbness over my woes. I much prefer to air +them by expression and complaint. About noon it strikes me that, _faute +de mieux_, I will go and see Mrs. Huntley, tell her _suddenly_ that +Roger is not coming back, and see if she looks vexed or confused or +grieved. Accordingly, soon after luncheon, I set off in the +pony-carriage. It is a quiet sultry-looking unclouded day. One uniform +livery of mist clothes sky and earth, dimming the glories of the dying +leaves, and making them look dull and sodden. Every thing has a drenched +air: each crimson bramble-leaf is clothed in rain-drops, and yet it is +not raining. The air is thick and heavy, and one swallows it like +something solid, but it is not raining: in fact, it is an English fine +day. + +Under the delusive idea that it is warm, or at least not cold, I have +protected my face with no veil, my hands with no mittens; so that, long +before I reach the shelter of the Portugal laurels that warmly hem in +and border Mrs. Huntley's little graveled sweep, the end of my nose +feels like an icy promontory at a great distance from me, and my hands +do not feel at all. Mrs. Huntley _is_ at home. Wise woman! I knew that +she would be. I suppose that I follow on the footsteps of the butler +more quickly than is usual, for, as the door opens, and before I can get +a view of the inmate or inmates, I hear a hurried noise of scrambling, +as of some one suddenly jumping up. For a little airy woman who looks as +if one could blow her away--puff!--like a morsel of thistle-down or a +snowball, what a heavy foot Mrs. Huntley has! The next moment, I am +disabused. Mrs. Huntley has clearly not moved. It was not _she_ that +scrambled. She is lying back in a deep arm-chair, her silky head gently +denting the flowered cushion, the points of two pretty shoes slightly +advanced toward the fire, and a large feather fan leisurely waving to +and fro, in one white hand. Beyond the _fan_ movement she is not _doing_ +any thing that I can detect. + +"How do you do?" say I, bustling in, in a hurry to reach the fire. "How +comfortable you look! how cold it is!--Algy!" For the enigma of the +noise is solved. It was Algy who shuffled and scuffled--yes, scuffled up +from the low stool which he has evidently been sharing with the pretty +shoes--at Mrs. Huntley's feet, on to his long legs, on which he is now +standing, not at all at ease. He does not answer. + +"ALGY!" repeat I, in a tone of the profoundest, accentedest surprise, +involuntarily turning my back upon my hostess and facing my brother. + +"Well, what about me?" he cries tartly, irritated (and no wonder) by my +open mouth and tragical air. + +"What _has_ brought you here?" I ask slowly, and with a tactless +emphasis. + +"The fly from the White Hart," he answers, trying to laugh, but looking +confused and angry. + +"But I mean--I thought you told me, when I asked you to Tempest this +week, that you could not get away for an _hour_!" + +"No more I could," he answers impatiently, yet stammering; "quite +unexpected--did not know when I wrote--have to be back to-night." + +"Will not you come nearer the fire?" says Mrs. Huntley, in her slow +sugared tones, with a well-bred ignoring of our squabble. "I am sure +that you must be perished with cold." + +I recollect myself and comply. As I sit down I catch a glimpse of myself +in the glass. It is indeed difficult to abstain from the sight of one's +self, however little fond one may be of it, so thickly is the room set +round with rose-draped mirrors. For the moment, O friends, I will own to +you that I appear to myself nothing less than _brutally_ ugly. I know +that I am not so in reality, that the disfigurement is only temporary, +but none the less does the consciousness deeply, deeply depress me. My +nose is of a lively scarlet, which the warmth of the room is quickly +deepening into a lowering purple. My quick passage through the air has +set my hat a little awry, giving me a falsely rakish air, and the wind +has loosened my hair--not into a picturesque and comely disorder, but +into mere untidiness. And, meanwhile, how admirably small and cool _her_ +nose looks! What rest and composure in her whole pose! What a neat +refinement in the disposition of her hair! What a soft luxury in her +dress! Even my one indisputable advantage of _youth_ seems to me as +dirt. Looking at the completeness of her native grace, I _despise_ +youth. I think it an ill and ugly thing in its green unripeness. I look +round the room. After the thick outside air, saturated with moisture, I +think that the warm atmosphere would, were my spirit less disquieted, +lull me quickly to sleep. How perfumed it is, not with any meretricious +artificial scents, but with the clean and honest smell of sweet live +flowers. Yes, though I am aware that Mrs. Huntley has no conservatory, +yet hot-house flowers and airy ferns are scattered about the room in far +greater profusion than in mine, with all Roger's imposing range of +glass--scattered about here, there, and everywhere; not as if they were +a rare and holiday treat, but a most common, every-day occurrence. There +is not much work to be seen about, and _not a book!_ On the other hand, +lounging-chairs, suited to the length or shortness of _any_ back; rococo +photograph stands, framing either a great many men, or a few men in a +great many attitudes; soothing pictures--_décolleté_ Venuses, Love's +_greuze_ heads--tied up with rose-ribbon, and a sleepy half-light. On a +small table at the owner's elbow, a blue-velvet jeweler's case stands +open. On its white-satin lining my long-sighted eyes enable me to +decipher the name of Hunt and Roskell; and it does not need any long +sight to observe the solid breadth of the gold band bracelet, set with +large, dull turquoises and little points of brilliant light, which is +its occupant. As I note this phenomenon, my heart burns within me--yea, +burns even more hotly than my nose,' For father keeps Algy very tight, +and I know that he has only three hundred pounds a year, besides his +pay. + +"I have had such bad news to-day," I say, suddenly, looking my +_vis-à-vis_ full and directly in the face. + +"Yes?" + +So far she certainly shows no signs of emotion. Her fan is still waving +with slow steadiness. I see the diamonds on her hands (whence did _they_ +owe their rise, I wonder?) glint in the fire-light. + +"Roger is not coming back!" + +"Not at all?" with a slight raising of the eyebrows. + +"Not before Christmas, certainly." + +"Really! how disappointing! I am very sorry!" + +There is not a particle of sorrow in face or tone: only the counterfeit +grief of an utterly indifferent acquaintance. My heart feels a little +lightened. + +"And have _you_ no better luck, either?" I say, more cheerfully. "Is +there no talk of your--of Mr. Huntley coming back?" + +Her eyelids droop: her breast heaves in a placid sigh. + +"Not the slightest, I am afraid." + +What to say next? I have had enough of asking after her child. I will +not fall into _that_ error again. Ask who all the men in the rococo +frames are?--which of them, or whether any, is _Mr._ Huntley? On +consideration, I decide not to do this either; and, after one or two +more stunted attempts at talk, I take my leave. I ask Algy to accompany +me just down the drive, and with a most grudging and sulky air of +unwillingness he complies. Alas! he always used to like to be with us +girls. The ponies are fresh, and we have almost reached the gate before +I speak, with a difficult hesitation. + +"Algy," say I, "did you happen to notice that--that _bracelet?_" + +He does not answer. He is looking the other way, and turns only the back +of his head toward me. + +"It was from Hunt and Roskell," I say. + +"Oh!" + +"It must have--must have--_come to_ a good deal," I go on, timidly. + +He has turned his face to me now. I cannot complain, but indeed, as it +now is, I prefer the back of his head, so white and headstrong does he +look. + +"I wish to God," he says, in a voice of low anger, "that you would be so +obliging as to mind your own business, and allow me to mind mine!" + +"But it _is_ mine!" I cry, passionately; "what right has she to be +sitting all day with young men on stools at her feet?--she, a married +woman, with her husband--" + +"This comes extremely well from _you_," he says, in a voice of +concentrated anger, with a bitterly-sneering tone; "_how is Musgrave?_" + +Before I can answer, he has jumped out, and is half-way back to the +house. But indeed I am dumb. Is it possible that _he_ makes such a +mistake?--that he does not see the difference? + +For the next half-mile, I see neither ponies, nor misty hedges, nor +wintry high-road, for tears. I _used_ to get on so well with the boys! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +I return home, I find that Barbara is still no better. She is still +lying in her darkened room, and has asked not to be disturbed. And even +my wrongs are not such as to justify my forcing myself upon the painful +privacy of a sick-headache. How much the better am I then than I was +before my late expedition? I have brought home my old grievance quite +whole and unlightened by communication, and I have got a new and fresh +one in addition, with absolutely no one to whom to impart it; for, even +when Frank comes, I will certainly not tell _him_. I am too restless to +remain in-doors over the fire, though thoroughly chilled by my late +drive, and resolve to try and restore my circulation by a brisk walk in +the park. + +The afternoon is still young, and the day is mending. A wind has risen, +and has pulled aside the steel-colored cloud-curtain, and let heaven's +eyes--blue, though faint and watery--look through. And there comes +another strong puff of autumnal wind, and lo! the sun, and the leaves +float down in a sudden shower of amber in his light. I march along +quickly and gravely through the long drooped grass--no longer sweet and +fresh and upright, in its green summer coat--through the frost-seared +pomp of the bronze bracken, till I reach a little knoll, whose head is +crowned by twelve great brother beeches. From time immemorial they have +been called the Twelve Apostles, and under one apostle I now stand, with +my back against his smooth and stalwart trunk. + +How _beaming_ is death to them! Into what a glorious crimson they +decline! My eyes travel from one tree-group to another, and idly +consider the many-colored majesty of their decay. Over all the landscape +there is a look of plaintive uncontent. The distant town, with its two +church-spires, is choked and effaced in mist: the very sun is sickly and +irresolute. All Nature seems to say, "Have pity upon me--I die!" + +It is not often that our mother is in sympathy with her children. Mostly +when we cry she broadly laughs; when we laugh and are merry she weeps; +but to-day my mood and hers match: The tears are as near my eyes as +hers--as near hers as mine. + + "See the leaves around us falling!" + +say I, aloud, stretching out my right arm in dismal recitation. We had +the hymn last Sunday, which is what has put it into my head: + + "See the leaves around us falling, + Dry and withered to the ground--'" + +Another voice breaks in: + + "Thus to thoughtless mortals calling--.'" + +"How you made me jump!" cry I, descending with an irritated leap to +prose, and at least making the leaves say something entirely different +from what they had ever been known to say before. + +"Why did not you bring your sentinel, Vick?" + +He--it is Musgrave, of course--has joined me, and is leaning his flat +back also against the apostle, and, like me, is looking at the mist, at +the red and yellow leaves--at the whole low-spirited panorama. + +"She is ill," say I, lamentably, drawing a portrait in lamp-black and +Indian-ink of the whole family; "we are _all_ ill--Barbara is ill!" + +"Poor Barbara!" + +"She has got a headache." + +"POOR Barbara!" + +"And I have got a heartache," say I, more for the sake of preserving the +harmony of my sketch, and for making a pendant to Barbara, than because +the phrase accurately describes my state. + +"Poor _you_!" + +"_Poor me, indeed_!" cry I, with emphasis, and to this day I cannot make +up my mind whether the ejaculation were good grammar or no. + +"I have had _such_ bad news," I continue, feeling, as usual, a sensible +relief from the communication of my grief. "Roger is not coming back!" + +"_Not at all?_" + +The words are the same as those employed by Mrs. Huntley; but there is +much more alacrity and liveliness in the tone. + +"_Not at all!_" repeat I, scornfully, looking impatiently at him; "that +is so likely, is not it?"--then "No not _at all_"--I continue, +ironically, "he has run off with some one else--some one _black_!" (with +a timely reminiscence of Bobby's happy flight of imagination). + +"Not till _when_, then?" + +"Not till after Christmas," reply I, sighing loudly, "which is almost as +bad as not at all." + +"I knew _that_!" he says, rather petulantly; "you told me _that_ +before!" + +"_I told you that before?_" cry I, opening my eyes, and raising my +voice; "why, how could I? I only heard it myself this morning!" + +"It was not you, then," he says, composedly; "it must have been some one +else!" + +"It _could_ have been no one else," retort I, hastily. "I have told no +one--no one at least from whom _you_ could have heard it." + +"All the same, I _did_ hear it" (with a quiet persistence); "now, who +could it have been?" throwing back his head, elevating his chin, and +lifting his eyes in meditation to the great depths of burning red in the +beech's heart, above him--"ah!"--(overtaking the recollection)--"I +know!" + +"Who?" say I, eagerly, "not that it _could_ have been any one." + +"It was Mrs. Huntley!" he answers, with an air of matter-of-fact +indifference. + +I laugh with insulting triumph. "Well, that _is_ a bad hit! What a pity +that you did not fix upon some one else! I have once or twice suspected +you of drawing the long bow--_now_ I am sure of it! As it happens, I +have just come from Mrs. Huntley, and she knew no more about it than the +babe unborn!" + +I am looking him full in the face, but, to my surprise, I cannot detect +the expression of confusion and defeat which I anticipate. There is only +the old white-anger look that I have such a happy knack of calling up on +his features. + +"I _am_ a consummate liar!" he says, quietly, though his eyes flash. +"Every one knows _that_; but, all the same, she _did_ tell me." + +"I do not believe a word of it!" cry I, in a fury. + +He makes no answer, but, lifting his hat, begins to walk quickly away. +For a hundred yards I allow him to go unrecalled; then, as I note his +quickly-diminishing figure and the heavy mists beginning to fold him, my +resolution fails me; I take to my heels and scamper after him. + +"Stop!" say I, panting as I come up with him, "I dare say--perhaps--you +_thought_ you were speaking truth!--there must, must be some _mistake!_" + +He does not answer, but still walks quickly on. + +"Tell me!" cry I, posting on alongside of him, breathless and +distressed--"when was it? where did you hear it? how long ago?" + +"I never heard it?" + +"Yes, you did," cry I, passionately, asseverating what I have so lately +and passionately denied. "You know you did; but when was it? how was it? +where was it?" + +"It was _nowhere_," he answers with a cold, angry smile. "I was _drawing +the long bow_!'" + +I stop in baffled rage and misery. I stand stock-still, with the long, +dying grass wetly and limply clasping my ankles. To my surprise he stops +too. + +"I wish you were _dead_!" I say tersely, and it is not a figure of +speech. For the moment I do honestly wish it. + +"Do you?" he answers, throwing me back a look of hardly inferior +animosity; "I dare say I do not much mind." A little pause, during which +we eye each other, like two fighting-cocks. "Even if I _were_ dead," he +says, in a low voice--"mind, I do not blame you for wishing it-- +sometimes I wish it myself--but even if I _were_, I do not see how that +would hinder Sir Roger and Mrs. Huntley from corresponding." + +"They _do not_ correspond," cry I, violently; "it is a falsehood!" Then, +with a quick change of thought and tone: "But if they do, I--I--do not +mind! I--I--am very glad--if Roger likes it! There is no harm in it." + +"Not the slightest." + +"Do you _always_ stay at home?" cry I, in a fury, goaded out of all +politeness and reserve by the surface false acquiescence of his tone; +"do you _never_ go away? I _wish_ you would! I wish"--(speaking between +laughing and crying)--"that you could take your abbey up on your back, +as a snail does its shell, and march off with it into another county." + +"But unfortunately I cannot." + +"What have I done to you?" I cry, falling from anger to reproach, "that +you take such delight in hurting me? You can be pleasant enough to--to +other people. I never hear you hinting and sneering away any one else's +peace of mind; but as for me, I never--_never_ am alone with you that +you do not leave me with a pain--a tedious long ache _here_"-- +(passionately clasping my hands upon my heart). + +"Do not I?"--(Then half turning away in a lowered voice)--"_nor you +me_!" + +"_I_" repeat I, positively laughing in my scorn of this accusation. "_I_ +hint! _I_ imply! why, I _could_ not do it, if I were to be shot for it! +it is not _in_ me!" + +He does not immediately answer; still, he is looking aside, and his +color changes. + +"Ask mother, ask the boys, ask Barbara," cry I, in great excitement, +"whether I ever _could_ wrap up any thing neatly, if I wished it ever so +much? Always, _always_, I have to blurt it out! _I_ hint!" + +"Hint! no!" he repeats, in a tone of vexed bitterness. "Well, no! no one +could accuse you of _hinting_! Yours is honest, open cut and thrust!" + +"If it is," retort I, bluntly, still speaking with a good deal of heat, +"it is your own fault! I have no wish to quarrel, being such near +neighbors, and--and--altogether--of course I had rather be on good terms +than bad ones! When you _let_ me--when you leave me alone--I _almost_-- +sometimes I _quite_ like you. I am speaking seriously! I _do_" + +"You do not say so?" again turning his head aside, and speaking with the +objectionable intonation of irony. + +"At home," pursue I, still chafing under the insult to my amiability, "I +never was reckoned quarrelsome--_never!_ Of course I was not like +Barbara--there are not many like her--but I did very well. Ask _any one_ +of them--it does not matter which--they will all tell you the same-- +whether I did not!" + +"You were a household angel, in fact?" + +"I was nothing of the kind," cry I, very angry, and yet laughing: the +laughter caused by the antagonism of the epithet with the many +recollected blows and honest sounding cuffs that I have, on and off, +exchanged with Bobby. + +A pause. + +The sun has quite gone now: sulky and feeble, he has shrunk to his cold +bed in the west, and the victor-mist creeps, crawls, and soaks on +unopposed. + +"Good-night!" cry I, suddenly. "I am going!" and I am as good as my +word. + +With the triple agility of health, youth, and indignation, I scurry away +through the melancholy grass, and the heaped and fallen leaves, home. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +Ding-dong bell! The Christmas bells are ringing. Christmas has come-- +Christmas as it appears on a Christmas card, white and hard, and beset +with puffed-out, ruffled robins. Only Nature is wise enough not to +express the ironical wish that we may have a "merry one." For myself, I +have but small opinion of Christmas as a time of jollity. Solemn-- +_blessed_, if you will--but no, not jovial. At no time do the dead so +clamor to be remembered. Even those that went a long time ago, the +regret for whose departure has settled down to a tender, almost pleasant +pain; whom at other times we go nigh to forget; even they cry out loud, +"Think of us!" + +When all the family is gathered, when the fire burns quick and clear, +and the church-bells ring out grave and sweet, neither will _they_ be +left out. But, on the other hand, to one who has paid his bills, and in +whose family Death's cannon have as yet made no breaches, I do not see +why it may not be a season of moderate, placid content. + +Festivity! jollity! _never!_ I have paid my bills, and there are no gaps +among my people. Sometimes I tremble when I think how many we are; one +of us must go soon. But, as yet, when I count us over, none lacks. +Father, mother, Algy, Bobby, the Brat, Tou Tou. Slightly as I have +spoken of them to myself, and conscientiously as I have promised myself +to derive no pleasure from their society, and even to treat them with +distant coolness, if they are, any of them, and Bobby especially--it is +he that I most mistrust--more joyfully disposed than I think fitting, +yet my heart has been growing ever warmer and warmer at the thought of +them, as Christmas-time draws nigh; and now, as I kiss their firm, cold, +healthy cheeks--(I declare that Bobby's cheeks are as hard as marbles), +I know how I have lied to myself. + +Father is not in quite so good a humor as I could have wished, his man +having lost his hat-box _en route_, and consequently his nose is rather +more aquiline than I think desirable. + +"Do not be alarmed!" says Bobby, in a patronizing aside, introducing me, +as if I were a stranger, to father's peculiarities; "a little infirmity +of temper, but the _heart_ is in the right place." + +"Bobby," say I, anxiously, in a whisper, "has he--has he brought the +_bag?_" + +Bobby shakes his head. + +"I _knew_ he would not," cry I, rather crestfallen. Then, with sudden +exasperation: "I wish I had not given it to him; he always _hated_ it. I +wish I had given it to Roger instead." + +"Never you mind!" cries Bobby, while his round eyes twinkle +mischievously; "I dare say he has got one by now, a nice one, all beads +and wampums, that the old Begum has made him." + +I laugh, but I also sigh. What a long time it seems since I was jealous +of Bobby's Begum! We are a little behind father, whispering with our +heads together, while he, in his raspingest voice, is giving his +delinquent a month's warning. That tone! it still makes me feel sneaky. + +"Bobby," say I, putting my arm through his substantial one, and speaking +in a low tone of misgiving, "how is he? how has he been?" + +"We have been a little fractious," replies Bobby, leniently--"a little +disposed to quarrel With our bread-and-butter; but, as you may remember, +my dear, from _your_ experience of our humble roof, Christmas never was +our happiest time." + +"No, never," reply I, pensively. + +The storm is rising: at least father's voice is. It appears that the +valet is not only to go, but to go without a character. + +"Never you mind," repeats Bobby, reassuringly, seeing me blench a little +at these disused amenities, pressing the hand that rests on his arm +against his stout side; "it is nothing to _you!_ bless your heart, you +are the apple of his eye." + +"Am I?" reply I, laughing. "It has newly come to me, if I am." + +"And I am his 'good, brave Bobby!'--his 'gallant boy! '--do you know +why?" + +"No." + +"Because I am going to Hong-Kong, and he hears that they are keeping two +nice roomy graves open all the time there!" + +"You are _not?_" (in a tone of keen anxiety and pain); then, with a +sudden change of tone to a nervous and constrained amenity: "Yes, it +_is_ a nice-sized room, is not it? My only fault with it is, that the +windows are so high up that one cannot see out of them when one is +sitting down." + +For father, having demolished his body-servant, and reduced mother to +her usual niche-state, now turns to me, and, in his genialest, happiest +society-manner, compliments me on my big house. That is a whole day +ago. Since then, I have grown used to seeing father's austere face, +unbent into difficult suavity, at the opposite end of the dinner-table +to me, to hearing the well-known old sound of Tou Tou's shrieks of mixed +anguish and delight, as Bobby rushes after her in headlong pursuit, down +the late so silent passages; and to looking complacently from one to +another of the holiday faces round the table, where Barbara and I have +sat, during the last noiseless month, in stillest dialogue or +preoccupied silence. + +I _love_ noise. You may think that I have odd taste; but _I love_ +Bobby's stentor laugh, and Tou Tou's ear-piercing yells. I even forget +to think whether their mirth passes the appointed bounds I had set it. I +have mislaid my receipt of cold repression. My heart goes out to them. + +I have been a little disturbed as to how to dispose of father during the +day, but he mercifully takes that trouble off my hands. Providence has +brought good out of evil, congenial occupation out of the hat-box. He +has spent all the few daylight-hours in telegraphing for it to every +station on the line; in telling several home-truths to the porters at +our own station, which--it being Christmas-time, and they consequently +all more or less tipsy--they have taken with a bland playfulness that he +has found a little trying; and, lastly, in writing a long letter to the +_Times._ And I, meanwhile, being easy in my mind on his score, knowing +that he is happy, am at leisure to be happy myself. In company with my +brother, I have spent all the little day in decorating the church, +making it into a cheerful, green Christmas bower. We always did it at +home. + +The dusk has come now--the quick-hurrying, December dusk, and we have +all but finished. We have had to beg for a few candles, in order to put +our finishing touches here and there about the sombre church. They +flame, throwing little jets of light on the glossy laurel-leaves that +make collars round the pillars' stout necks; on the fresh moss-beds, +vividly green, in the windows; on the dull, round holly-berries. In the +glow, the ivy twines in cunning garlands round the rough-sculptured +font, and the oak lectern; and, above God's altar, a great white cross +of hothouse flowers blooms delicately, telling of summer, and matching +the words of old good news beneath it, that brought, as some say, +summer, or, at least, the hope of summer, to the world. + +Yes, we have nearly done. The Brat stands on the top of a step-ladder, +dexterously posing the last wintry garland; and all we others are +resting a moment--we and our coadjutors. For we have _two_ coadjutors. +Mr. Musgrave, of course. Now, at this moment, through the gray light, +and across the candles, I can see him leaning against the font, while +Barbara kneels with bent head at his feet, completing the ornamentation +of the pedestal. I always knew that things would come right if we waited +long enough, and _coming_ right they are--_coming_, not _come_, for +still, he has not spoken. I have consulted each and all of my family, +father excepted, as to the average length of time allotted to _unspoken_ +courtship, and each has assigned a different period; the _longest_, +however, has been already far exceeded by Frank. Tou Tou, indeed, +adduces a gloomy case of a young man, who spent two years and a half in +dumb longing, and broke a blood-vessel and died at the end of them; but +this is so discouraging an anecdote, that we all poo-poohed it as +unauthentic. + +"Perhaps he does not mean to speak at all!" says the Brat, starting a +new and hazardous idea; "perhaps he means to take it for granted!" + +"Walk out with her, some fine morning," says Algy, laughing, "and say, +like Wemmick, 'Hallo! here's a church! let's have a wedding!'" + +"It would be a good thing," retorts the Brat, gravely, "if there were a +printed form for such occasions; it would be a great relief to people." + +This talk did not happen in the church, but at an evening _séance_ +overnight. Our second coadjutor is Mrs. Huntley. + +"I am afraid I am not very efficient," she says, with a pathetic smile. +"I can't _stand_ very long, but, if I might be allowed to sit down now +and then, I might perhaps be some little help." + +And sat down she has, accordingly, ever since, on the top pulpit-step. +It seems that Algy cannot stand very long, either; for he has taken +possession of the step next below the top one, and there he abides. +Thank Heaven! they are getting dark now! If _legitimate_ lovers, whose +cooing is desirable and approved, are a sickly and sickening spectacle, +surely the sight of illegitimate lovers would make the blood boil in the +veins of Moses, Miriam, or Job. + +Bobby, Tou Tou, and I, having no one to hang over us, or gawk amorously +up at us, are sitting in a row in our pew. Bobby has garlanded Tou Tou +preposterously with laurel, to give us an idea, as he says, of how he +himself will look by-and-by, after some future Trafalgar. Now, he is +whispering to me--a whisper accompanied by one of those powerful and +painful nudges, with which he emphasizes his conversation on his +listener's ribs. + +"Look at him!" indicating his elder brother, and speaking with a tone of +disgust and disparagement; "did you ever see such a _beast_ as he +looks?" + +"Not often!" reply I, readily, with that fine intolerance which one +never sees in full bloom after youth is past. + +"I say, Nancy!" with a second and rather lesser nudge, "if ever you see +any symptoms of--of _that_--" (nodding toward the pulpit) "in me--" + +"If--" repeat I, scornfully, "of course I shall!" + +"Well, that is as it may be, but if you _do_, mind what I tell you--do +not say any thing to anybody, but--_put an end to me!_ it does not +matter _how_; smother me with bolsters; run your bodkin up to its hilt +in me--" + +"Even if I _did_," interrupt I, laughing, "I should never reach any +vital part--you are _much_ too fat!" + +"I should not be so fat then," returns he, gravely, amiably overlooking +the personality of my observation; "love would have pulled me down!" + +The Brat has nearly finished. He is nimbly descending the ladder, with a +long, guttering dip in his right hand. + +"The other two--" begins Bobby, thoughtfully, turning his eyes from +pulpit to font. + +"I do not mind _them_ half so much," interrupt I, indulgently; "they are +not half so disgusting." + +"Has he done it yet?" (lowering his cheerful loud voice to an important +whisper). + +I shake my head. + +"Not unless he has done it since luncheon! he had not _then_; I asked +her." + +"I am beginning to think that _your_ old man's plan was the best, after +all," continues Bobby, affably. "I thought him rather out of date, at +the time, for applying to your parents, but, after all, it saved a great +deal of trouble, and spared us a world of suspense." + +I am silent; swelling with a dumb indignation at the epithet bestowed on +my Roger; but unable to express it outwardly, as I well know that, if I +do, I shall be triumphantly quoted against myself. + +"Who will break it to Toothless Jack?" says Bobby, presently, with a +laugh; "after all the expense he has been at, too, with those teeth! it +is not as if it were a beggarly two or three, but a whole complete new +set--thirty-two individual grinders!" + +"Such beauties, too!" puts in Tou Tou, cackling. + +"It is a thousand pities that they should be allowed to go out of the +family," says Bobby, warmly. "Tou Tou, my child--" (putting his arm +round her shoulders)--"a bright vista opens before you!--your charms +are approaching maturity!--with a little encouragement he might be +induced to lay his teeth--two and thirty, mind--at your feet!" + +Tou Tou giggles, and asserts that she will "kick them away, if he does." +Bobby mildly but firmly remonstrates, and points out to her the +impropriety and ingratitude of such a line of conduct. But his +arguments, though acute and well put, are not convincing, and the +subject is continued, with ever-increasing warmth, all the way home. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +It is Christmas-day--a clean white Christmas, pure and crisp. Wherever +one looks, one's eyes water cruelly. For my part, I am very thankful +that it did not occur to God to make the world always white. I hate +snow's blinding livery. Each tiniest twig on the dry harsh trees is +overladen with snow. It is a wonder that they do not break under it; nor +is there any wind to shake down and disperse it. Tempest is white; the +church is white: the whole world colorless and blinding. I have been in +the habit of looking upon Vick as a white dog; to-day she appears +disastrously dark--dirty brunette. Soap-and-water having entirely failed +to restore her complexion. Bobby kindly proposes to _pipeclay_ her. + +We have all been to church, and admired our own decorations. And through +all the prayer and the praise, and the glad Christmas singing, my soul +has greatly hungered for Roger. Yes, even though all the boys are round +me--Bobby on this side, the Brat on that--Algy directly in front; all +behaving nicely, too; for are not they right under father's eyes? Yes, +and, for the matter of that, under the rector's too, as he towers +straight above us, under his ivy-bush--the ivy-bush into which Bobby was +so anxious yesterday to insert some misletoe. + +Church is over now, and the short afternoon has also slipped by. We are +at dinner; we are dining early to-night--at half-past six o'clock, and +we are to have a dance for the servants afterward. Any hospitality to my +equals I have steadily and stoutly declined, but it seems a shame to +visit my own loneliness on the heads of the servants, to whom it is +nothing. They have always had a Christmas-dance in Roger's reign, and so +a dance they are to have now. We have religiously eaten our beef and +plum-pudding, and have each made a separate little blue fire of burnt +brandy in our spoon. + +It is dessert now, and father has proposed Roger's health. I did not +expect it, and I never was so nearly betrayed into feeling fond of +father in my life. They all drink it, each wishing him something good. +As for me, I have been a fool always, and I am a fool now. I can wish +him nothing, my voice is choked and my eyes drowned in inappropriate +tears; only, from the depths of my heart, I ask God to give him every +thing that He has of choicest and best. For a moment or two, the +wax-lights, the purple grapes, the gleaming glass and shining silver, +the kindly, genial faces swim blurred before my vision. Then I hastily +wipe away my tears, and smile back at them all. As I raise my glistening +eyes, I meet those of Mr. Musgrave fixed upon me--(he is the only +stranger present). His look is not one that wishes to be returned; on +the contrary, it is embarrassed at being met. It is a glance that +puzzles me, full of inquiring curiosity, mixed with a sort of mirth. In +a second--I could not tell you why--I look hastily away. + +"I wonder what he is doing _now, this very minute_!" says Tou Tou, who +is dining in public for the first time, and whose conversation is +checked and her deportment regulated by Bobby, who has been at some +pains to sit beside her, and who guides her behavior by the help of many +subtle and unseen pinches under the table; from revolting against which +a fear of father hinders her, a fact of which Bobby is most basely +aware. + +"Had not you better telegraph?" asks Algy, with languid irony (Algy +certainly is not quite so nice as he used to be). "Flapping away the +blue-tailed fly, with a big red-and-yellow bandana, probably." + +"Playing the banjo for a lot of little niggers to dance to!" suggests +the Brat. + +"They are all wrong, are not they, Nancy?" says Bobby, in a lowered +voice, to me, on whose left hand he has placed himself; "he is sitting +in his veranda, is not he? in a palm hat and nankeen breeches, with his +arm around the old Wampoo." + +"I dare say," reply I, laughing. "I hope so," for, indeed, I am growing +quite fond of my dusky rival. + +The ball is to be in the servants' hall; it is a large, long room, and +thither, when all the guests are assembled, we repair. We think that we +shall make a greater show, and inspire more admiration, if we appear in +pairs. I therefore make my entry on father's arm. Never with greater +trepidation have I entered any room, for I am to open the ball with the +butler, and the prospect fills me with dismay. If he were a venerable +family servant, a hoary-headed old seneschal, who had known Roger in +petticoats, it would have been nothing. I could have chattered filially +to him; but he is a youngish man, who came only six months ago. On what +subjects can we converse? I feel small doubt that his own sufferings +will be hardly inferior in poignancy to mine. + +The room is well lit, and the candles shine genially down from the +laurel garlands and ivy festoons which clothe the walls. They light the +faces and various dresses of a numerous assembly--every groom, footman, +housemaid, and scullion, from far and near. The ladies seem largely to +preponderate both in number and _aplomb_; the men appearing, for the +more part, greatly disposed to run for shelter behind the bolder +petticoats; particularly the stablemen. The footmen, being more +accustomed to ladies' society, are less embarrassed by their own hands, +and by the exigencies of chivalry. This inversion of the usual attitude +of the sexes, will, no doubt, be set more than right when we have +retired. The moment has arrived. I quit father's arm--for the first time +in my life I am honestly sorry to drop it--and go up to my destined +partner. + +"Ashton," say I, with an attempt at an easy and unembarrassed smile, +"will you dance this quadrille with me?" + +"Thank you, my lady." + +How calm he is! how self-possessed. Oh, that he would impart to me the +secret of his composure! I catch sight of the Brat, who is passing at +the moment. + +"Brat!" cry I, eagerly, snatching at his coat-sleeve, like a drowning +man at a straw. "Will _you_ be our _vis-à-vis?_" + +"All right," replies the Brat, gayly, "but I have not got a partner +yet." + +Off he goes in search of one, and Ashton and I remain _tête-à-tête._ I +suppose I ought to take his arm, and lead him to the top of the room. +After a moment of hot hesitation, I do this. Here we are, arrived. Oh, +why did I ask him so soon? Two or three minutes elapse before the Brat's +return. + +"How nicely you have all done the decorations!" + +"I am glad you think so, my lady." + +"They are better than ours at the church." + +"Do you think so, my lady?" + +A pause. Everybody is choosing partners. Tou Tou, grinning from ear to +ear, is bidding a bashful button-boy to the merry dance. Father--do my +eyes deceive me?--father himself is leading out the house-keeper. +Evidently he is saying something dignifiedly humorous to her, for she is +laughing. I wish that he would sometimes be dignifiedly humorous to us, +or even humorous without the dignity. Barbara, true to her life-long +instincts, is inviting the clergyman's shabby, gawky man-of-all-work, at +whom the ladies'-maids are raising the nose of contempt. Mr. Musgrave is +soliciting a kitchen-wench. + +"Are there as many here as you expected?" + +"Quite, my lady." + +Another pause. + +"I hope," with bald affability, in desperation of a topic, "that you +will all enjoy yourselves!" + +"Thank you, my lady!" + +Praise God! here is the Brat at last! Owing, I suppose, to the +slenderness and fragile tenuity of his own charms, the Brat is a great +admirer of fine women, the bigger the better; quantity, not quality; +and, true to his colors, he now arrives with a neighboring cook, a lady +of sixteen stone, on his arm. + +We take our places. While chassezing and poussetting, thank Heaven, a +very little talk goes a very long way. My mind begins to grow more easy. +I am even sensible of a little feeling of funny elation at the sound of +the fiddles gayly squeaking. I can look about me and laugh inwardly at +the distant sight of Tou Tou and the button-boy turning each other +nimbly round; of father, in the fourth figure, blandly backing between +Mrs. Mitchell and a cook-maid. + +We have now reached the fifth. At the few balls I have hitherto +frequented it has been a harmless figure enough; hands all round, and a +repetition of _l'été._ But _now_--oh, horror! what do I see? Everybody +far and near is standing in attitude to gallopade. The Brat has his +little arm round the cook's waist--at least not all the way round--it +would take a lengthier limb than his to effect _that_; but a bit of the +way, as far as it will go. An awful idea strikes me. Must Ashton and I +gallopade too? I glance nervously toward him. He is looking quite as +apprehensive at the thought that I shall expect him to gallopade with +me, as I am at the thought that he will expect me to gallopade with him. +I do not know how it is that we make our mutual alarm known to each +other, only I know that, while all the world is gallopading round us, we +gallopade not. Instead, we take hands, and jig distantly round each +other. + +The improvised valse soon ends, and I look across at the Brat. Gallant +boy! the beads of perspiration stand on his young brow, but there is no +look of blenching! When the time comes he will be ready to do it again. + +As I stand in silent amusement watching him, having, for the moment, no +dancing duties of my own, I hear a voice at my elbow, Bobby's, who, +having come in later than the rest of us, has not been taking part in +the dance, + +"Nancy! Nancy!" in a tone of hurried excitement, "for the love of Heaven +look at _father_! If you stand on tiptoe you will be able to see him; he +has been _gallopading!_ When I saw his venerable coat-tails flying, a +feather would have knocked me down! You really ought to see it" +(lowering his voice confidentially), "it might give you an idea about +your own old man, and the old Wam--" + +"_Hang_ the old Wampoo!" cry I, with inelegant force, laughing. + +The duty part of the evening is over now. We have all signalized +ourselves by feats of valor. I have scampered through an unsociable +country-dance with the head coachman, and have had my smart gown of +faint pink and pearl color nearly torn off my back by the +ponderous-footed pair that trip directly after me. We have, in fact, +done our duty, and may retire as soon as we like. But the music has got +into our feet, and we promise ourselves one valse among ourselves before +we depart. + +The Brat is the only exception. He still cleaves to his cook; dancing +with her is a _tour de force_, on which he piques himself. Mrs. Huntley +and Algy are already flying down the room in an active, tender embrace. +I have been asked as long ago as before dinner by Mr. Musgrave. I was +rather surprised and annoyed at his inviting _me_ instead of Barbara; +but as, with this exception, his conduct has been unequivocally +demonstrative, I console myself with the notion that he looks upon me as +the necessary pill to which Barbara will be the subsequent jam. + +The first bars of the valse are playing when Bobby comes bustling up. +Healthy jollity and open mirth are written all over his dear, fat face. + +"Come along, Nancy! let us have _one_ more scamper before we die!" + +"I am engaged to Mr. Musgrave," reply I, with a graceless and +discontented curl of lip, and raising of nose. + +"All right!" says Bobby, philosophically, walking away; "I am sure I do +not mind, only I had a fancy for having _one_ more spin with you." + +"So you shall!" cry I, impulsively, with a sharp thought of Hong-Kong, +running after him, and putting his solid right arm round my waist. + +Away we go in mad haste. Like most sailors, Bobby dances well. I am +nothing very wonderful, but I suit _him._ In many musicless waltzings of +winter evenings, down the lobby at home, we have learned to fit each +other's step exactly. At our first pausing to recover breath, I become +sensible of a face behind me, of a fierce voice in my ear. + +"I had an idea, Lady Tempest, that this was _our_ dance!" + +"So it was!" reply I, cheerfully; "but you see I have cut you!" + +"So I perceive!" + +"Had not you better call Bobby out!" cry I, with a jeering laugh, tired +of his eternal black looks. "You really are _too_ silly! I wish I had a +looking-glass here to show you your face!" + +"Do you?" (very shortly). + +Repartee is never Frank's forte. This is all that he now finds with +which to wither me. However, even if he had any thing more or more +pungent to say, I should not hear him, for I am beginning to dance off +again. + +"What a fool he is to care!" says Bobby, contemptuously; "after all, he +is an ill-tempered beast! I suppose if one kicked him down-stairs it +would put a stop to his marrying Barbara, would not it?" + +I laugh. + +"I suppose so." + +It is over now. The last long-drawn-out notes have ceased to occupy the +air. As far as _we_ are concerned, the ball is over, for we have quitted +it. We have at length removed the _gêne_ of our presence from the +company, and have left them to polka and schottische their fill until +the morning. We have reached our own part of the house. My cheeks are +burning and throbbing with the quick, unwonted exercise. My brain is +unpleasantly stirred: a hundred thoughts in a second run galloping +through it. I leave the others in the warm-lit drawing-room, briskly +talking and discussing the scene we have quitted, and slip away through +the door, into a dark and empty adjacent anteroom, where the fire lies +at death's door, low and dull, and the candles are unlighted. + +I draw the curtains, unbar the shutters, and, lifting the heavy sash, +look out. A cold, still air, sharp and clear, at once greets my face +with its frosty kisses. Below me, the great house-shadow projects in +darkness, and beyond it lies a great and dazzling field of shining snow, +asleep in the moonlight. + +Snow-trees, snow-bushes, sparkle up against the dusk quiet of the sky. +No movement anywhere! absolute stillness! perfect silence! It is broken +now, this silence, by the church-clock with slow wakefulness chiming +twelve. Those slow strokes set me a thinking. I hear no longer the loud +and lively voices next door, the icy penetration of the air is unfelt by +me, as I lean, with my elbow on the sill, looking out at the cold grace +of the night. My mind strays gently away over all my past life--over the +last important year. I think of my wedding, of my little live wreath of +sweet Nancies, of our long, dusty journey, of Dresden. + +With an honest, stinging heart-pang, I think of my ill-concealed and +selfish weariness in our twilight walks and scented drives, of the look +of hurt kindness on his face, at his inability to please me. I think of +our return, of the day when he told me of the necessity for his voyage +to Antigua, and of my own egotistic unwillingness to accompany him. I +think of our parting, when I shed such plenteous tears--tears that seem +to me now to have been so much more tears of remorse, of sorrow that I +was not sorrier, than of real grief. In every scene I seem to myself to +have borne a most shabby part. + +My meditations are broken in upon by a quick step approaching me, by a +voice in my ear--Algy's. + +"You are _here_, are you? I have been looking for you everywhere! Why, +the window is _open_! For Heaven's sake let me get you a cloak! you know +how delicate your chest is. For _my_ sake, _do!_" + +It is too dark to see his face, but there is a quick, excited tenderness +in his voice. + +"_My_ chest delicate!" cry I, in an accent of complete astonishment. +"Well, it is news to me if it is! My dear boy, what has put such an idea +into your head? and if I got a cloak, I should think it would be for my +_own_ sake, not yours!" + +He has been leaning over me in the dusk. At my words he starts violently +and draws back. + +"It is _you_ is it?" he says, in an altered voice of constraint, whence +all the mellow tenderness has fled. + +"To be sure!" reply I, matter-of-factly. "For whom did you take me?" + +But though I ask, alas! I know. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +How are unmusical people to express themselves when they are glad? +People with an ear and a voice can sing, but what is to become of those +who have not? Must they whoop inarticulately? For myself, I do not know +one tune from another. I am like the man who said that he knew two +tunes, one was "God save the Queen," and the other was not. And yet +to-day I have as good a heart for singing as ever had any of the most +famous songsters. In tune, out of tune, I must lift up my voice. It is +as urgent a need for me as for any mellow thrush. For my heart--oh, rare +case!--is fuller of joy than it can hold. It brims over. + +Roger is coming back. It is February, and he has been away nearly seven +months. All minor evils and anxieties--Bobby's departure for Hong-Kong, +Algy's increasing besotment about Mrs. Huntley, and consequent slight +estrangement from me--(to me a very bitter thing)--Frank's continued +silence as regards Barbara--all these are swallowed up in gladness. + +When _he_ is back, all will come right. Is it any wonder that they have +gone wrong, while _I_ only was at the helm? My good news arrived only +this morning, and yet, a hundred times in the short space that has +elapsed since then, I have rehearsed the manner of our meeting, have +practised calling him "Roger," with familiar ease, have fixed upon my +gown and the manner of my coiffure, and have wearied Barbara with +solicitous queries, as to whether she thinks that I have grown +perceptibly plainer in the last seven months, whether she does not think +one side of my face better looking than the other, whether she thinks-- +(with honest anxiety this)--that my appearance is calculated to repel +a person grown disused to it. To all which questions, she with untired +gentleness gives pleasant and favorable answers. + +The inability under which I labored of refraining from imparting _bad_ +news is tenfold increased in the case of good. I must have some one to +whom to relate my prosperity. It will certainly _not_ be Mrs. Huntley +this time. Though I have struggled against the feeling as unjust, and +disloyal to my faith in Roger, I still cannot suppress a sharp pang of +distrust and jealousy, as often as I think of her, and of the relation +made to me by Frank, as to her former connection with my husband. +Neither am I in any hurry to tell Frank. To speak truth, I am in no +good-humor with him or with his unhandsome shilly-shallying, and +unaccountable postponement of what became a duty months ago. + +Never mind! this also will come right when Roger returns. The delightful +stir and hubbub in my soul hinder me from working or reading, or any +tranquil in-door occupation; and, as afternoon draws on, fair and not +cold, I decide upon a long walk. The quick exercise will perhaps +moderately tire me, and subdue my fidgetiness by the evening, and nobody +can hinder me from thinking of Roger all the way. + +Barbara has a cold--a nasty, stuffy, choky cold; so I must do without +her. Apparently I must do without Vick too. She makes a feint, indeed, +of accompanying me halfway to the front gate, then sits down on her +little shivering haunches, smirks, and when I call her, looks the other +way, affecting not to hear. On my calling more peremptorily, "Vick! +Vick!" she tucks her tail well in, and canters back to the house on +three legs. + +So it comes to pass that I set out quite alone. I have no definite idea +where to go--I walk vaguely along, following my nose, as they say, +smiling foolishly, and talking to myself--now under my breath--now out +loud. A strong southwest wind blows steadily in my face: it sounded +noisy and fierce enough as I sat in the house; but there is no vice or +malevolence in it--it is only a soft bluster. + +Alternate clouds and sunshine tenant the sky. The shadows of the +tree-trunks lie black and defined across the road--branches, twigs, +every thing--then comes a sweep of steely cloud, and they disappear, +swallowed up in one uniform gray: a colorless moment or two passes, and +the sun pushes out again; and they start forth distinct and defined, +each little shoot and great limb, into new life on the bright ground. I +laugh out loud, out of sheer jollity, as I watch the sun playing at +hide-and-seek with them. + +What a good world! What a handsome, merry, sweetly-colored world! +Unsatisfying? disappointing?--not a bit of it! It must be people's own +fault if they find it so. + +I have walked a mile or so before I at length decide upon a goal, toward +which to tend--a lone and distant cottage, tenanted by a very aged, +ignorant, and feudally loyal couple--a cottage sitting by the edge of a +brown common--one of the few that the greedy hand of Tillage has yet +spared--where geese may still stalk and hiss unreproved, and +errant-tinker donkeys crop and nibble undisturbed-- + + "Where the golden furze + With its green thin spurs + Doth catch at the maiden's gown." + +It is altogether a choice and goodly walk; next to nothing of the tame +high-road. The path leads through a deep wooded dell; over purple +plough-lands; down retired lanes. + +After an hour and a quarter of smartish walking, I reach the door. There +are no signs of ravaging children about. Long, long ago--years before +this generation was born--the noisy children went out; some to the +church-yard; some, with clamor of wedding-bells, to separate life. I +knock, and after an interval hear the sound of pattens clacking across +the flagged floor, and am admitted by an old woman, dried and pickled, +by the action of the years, into an active cleanly old mummy, and whose +fingers are wrinkled even more than time has done it, by the action of +soapsuds. I am received with the joyful reverence due to my exalted +station, am led in, and posted right in front of the little red fire and +the singing kettle, and introduced to a very old man, who sits on the +settle in the warm chimney-corner, dressed in an ancient smock-frock, +and with both knotted hands clasped on the top of an old oak staff. He +is evidently childish, and breaks now and then into an anile laugh at +the thought, no doubt, of some dead old pothouse jest. A complication +arises through his persisting in taking me for a sister of Roger's, who +died thirty years ago, in early girlhood, and addressing me accordingly. +I struggle a little for my identity, but, finding the effort useless, +resign it. + +"This poor ould person is quoite aimless," says his wife with +dispassionate apology; "but what can you expect at noinety-one?" + +(Her own years cannot be much fewer.) + +I say tritely that it is a great age. + +"He's very fatiguin' on toimes!--that he is!" she continues, eying him +with contemplated candor--"he crumbles his wittles to that extent that I +'ave to make him sit upo' the _News of the World_" + +As it seems to me that the conversation is taking a painful direction, I +try to divert it by telling my news; but the bloom is again taken off it +by the old man, who declines to be disabused of the idea that the +Peninsular is still raging, and that it is Roger's _grandfather_ who is +returning from that field of glory. After a few more minutes, during +which the old wife composedly tells me of all the children she has +buried--she has to think twice before she can recollect the exact +number--and in the same breath remarks, "How gallus bad their 'taters +were last year," I take my departure, and leave the old man still +nodding his weak old head, and chuckling to the kettle. + +On first leaving the house, I feel dashed and sobered. The inertness and +phlegmatic apathy of dry and ugly old age seem to weigh upon and press +down the passionate life of my youth, but I have not crossed a couple of +ploughed fields and seen the long slices newly ploughed, lying rich and +thick in the sun; I have not heard two staves of the throstle's loud +song, before I have recovered myself. I also begin to sing. I am not +very harmonious, perhaps, I never am; and I wander now and then from the +tune; but it is good enough for the stalking geese, my only audience, +except a ragged jackass, who, moved by my example, lifts his nose and +gives vent to a lengthy bray of infinite yearning. + +I am half-way home now. I have reached the wood--Brindley Wood; +henceforth I am not very likely to forget its name. The path dips at +once and runs steeply down, till it reaches the bottom of the dell, +along which a quick brook runs darkling. In summer, when the leaves are +out it is twilight here at high noonday. Hardly a peep of sky to be seen +through the green arch of oak and elm; but now, through the net-work of +wintry twigs one looks up, and sees the faint, far blue, for the loss of +which no leafage can compensate. Winter brownness above, but a more than +summer green below--the heyday riot of the mosses. Mossed tree-trunks, +leaning over the bustling stream; emerald moss carpets between the +bronze dead leaves; all manner of mosses; mosses with little nightcaps; +mosses like doll's ferns; mosses like plump cushions; and upon them here +and there blazes the glowing red of the small peziza-cups. + +I am still singing; and, as no wind reaches this shadowed hollow, I have +taken off my hat, and walk slowly along, swinging it in my hand. It is a +so little-frequented place, that I give an involuntary start, and my +song suddenly dies, when, on turning a corner, I come face to face with +another occupant. In a moment I recover myself. It is only Frank, +sitting on a great lichened stone, staring at the brook and the trees. + +"You seem very cheerful!" he says, rising, stretching out his hand, and +not (as I afterward recollect) expressing the slightest surprise at our +unlikely rencontre. "I never heard you lift up your voice before." + +"I seem what I am," reply I shortly. "I _am_ cheerful," + +"You mostly are." + +"That is all that _you_ know about it," reply I, brusquely, rather +resenting the accusation. "I have not been _at all_ in good spirits all +this--this autumn and winter, not, that is, compared to what I usually +am." + +"Have not you?" + +"I _am_ in good spirits to-day, I grant you," continue I, more affably; +"it would be very odd if I were not. I should jump out of my skin if I +were quite sure of getting back into it again; I have had _such_ good +news." + +"Have you? I wish _I_ had" (sighing). "What is it?" + +"I will give you three guesses," say I, trying to keep grave, but +breaking out everywhere, as I feel, into badly-suppressed smiles. + +"Something about the boys, of course!"--(half fretfully)--"it is +always the boys." + +"It is nothing about the boys--quite wrong. That is _one._" + +"The fair Zéphine is no more!--by-the-by, I suppose I should have heard +of that." + +"It is nothing about the fair Zéphine--wrong again! That is _two_!" + +"Barbara has got leave to stay till Easter!" + +"Nothing about Barbara! "--(with a slight momentary pang at the ease and +unconcern with which he mentions her name).--"By-the-by, I wish you +would give up calling her Barbara;' she never calls you 'Frank!' There, +you have had your three guesses, and you have never come within a mile +of it--I shall have to tell you--_Roger is coming back!_" opening my +eyes and beginning to laugh joyously. + +"_Soon?_" with a quick and breathless change of tone, that I cannot help +perceiving, turning sharply upon me. + +"_At once_!" reply I, triumphantly; "we may expect him _any day_!" + +He receives this information in total silence. He does not attempt the +faintest or slightest congratulation. + +"I wish I had not told you!" cry I, indignantly; "what a fool I was to +imagine that you would feel the slightest interest in any thing that did +not concern yourself personally! Of course" (turning a scarlet face and +blazing-eyes full upon him), "I did not expect you _to feel_ glad--I +have known you too long for that--but you might have had the common +civility to _say_ you were!" + +We have stopped. We stand facing each other in the narrow wood-path, +while the beck noisily babbles past, and the thrushes answer each other +in lovely dialogue. He is deadly pale; his lips are trembling, and his +eyes--involuntarily I look away from them! + +"I am _not_ glad!" he says, with slow distinctness; "often--often you +have blamed me for _hinting_ and _implying_ for using innuendoes and +half-words, and once--_once_, do you recollect?--you told me to my face +_I lied!_ Well, I will not _lie_ now; you shall have no cause to blame +me to-day. I will tell you the truth, the truth that you know as well as +I do--I am _not_ glad!" + +Absolute silence. I could no more answer or interrupt him than I could +soar up between the dry tree-boughs to heaven. I stand before him with +parted lips, and staring eyes fixed in a stony, horrid astonishment on +his face. + +"Nancy," he says, coming a step nearer, and speaking in almost a +whisper, "_you_ are not glad either! For once speak the truth! Hypocrisy +is always difficult to you. You are the worst actress I ever saw--speak +the truth for once! Who is there to hear you but me? I, who know it +already--who have known it ever since that first evening in Dresden! Do +you recollect?--but of course you do--why do I ask you? Why should you +have forgotten any more than I?" + +Still I am silent. Though I stand in the free clear air of heaven, I +could not feel more choked and gasping were I in some close and stifling +dungeon, hundreds of feet underground. I think that the brook must have +got into my brain, there is such a noise of bubbling and brawling in it. +Barbara, Roger, Algy, a hundred confused ideas of pain and dismay jostle +each other in my head. + +"Why do you look at me so?" he says, hoarsely. "What have I done? For +God's sake, do not think that I blame you! I never have been so sorry +for any one in my life as I have been for you--as I was for you from the +first moment I saw you! I can see you now, as I first caught sight of +you--weariness and depression in every line of your face--" + +I can bear no more. At his last words, a pain like a knife, sharp to +agony, runs through me. It is the grain of truth in his wicked, lying +words that gives them their sting. I _was_ weary; I _was_ depressed; I +_was_ bored, I fling out my arms with a sudden gesture of despair, and +then, throwing myself down on the ground, bury my face in a great moss: +cushion, and put my fingers in my ears. + +"O my God!" I cry, writhing, "what _shall I_ do?--_how can_ I bear it?" + +After a moment or two I sit up. + +"How _shameful_ of you!" I cry, bursting into a passion of tears. "What +sort of women can you have lived among? what a hateful mind you must +have! And I thought that you were a nice fellow, and that we were all so +comfortable together!" + +He has drawn back a pace or two, and now stands leaning against one of +the bent and writhen trunks of the old trees. He is still as pale as the +dead, and looks all the paler for the burning darkness of his eyes. + +"Is it possible," he says, in a low tone of but half-suppressed fury, +"that you are going to _pretend_ to be surprised?" + +"_Pretend_!" cry I, vehemently; "there is no pretense about it! I never +was so horribly, miserably surprised in all my life!" + +And then, thinking of Barbara, I fall to weeping again, in utter +bitterness and discomfiture. + +"It is _impossible_!" he says, roughly. "Whatever else you are, you are +no fool; and a woman would have had to be blinder than any mole not to +see whither I--yes, and _you_, too--have been tending! If you meant to +be _surprised_ all along when it came to this, why did you make yourself +common talk for the neighborhood with me? Why did you press me, with +such unconventional eagerness to visit you? Why did you reproach me if I +missed one day?" + +"_Why did I_?" cry I, eagerly. "Because--" + +Then I stop suddenly. How, even to clear myself, can I tell him my real +reason? + +"And now," he continues, with deepening excitement, "now that you reap +your own sowing, you are _surprised--miserably surprised!_" + +"I am!" cry I, incoherently. "You may not believe me, but it is true--as +true as that God is above us, and that I never, _never_ was tired of +Roger!" + +I stop, choked with sobs. + +"Yes," he says, sardonically, "about as true. But, be that as it may, +you must at least be good enough to excuse me from expressing _joy_ at +his return, seeing that he fills the place which I am fool enough to +covet, and which, but for him, _might_--yes, say what you please, deny +it as much as you like--_-would_ have been mine!" + +"It _never_ would!" cry I, passionately. "If you had been the last man +in the world--if we had been left together on a desert island--I _never_ +should have liked you, _never_! I _never_ would have seen more of you +than I could help! There is _no one_ whose society I grow so soon tired +of. I have said so over and over again to the boys." + +"Have you?" + +"What good reason can you give me for preferring you to him?" I ask, my +voice trembling and quivering with a passionate indignation; "I am here, +ready to listen to you if you can! How are you such a desirable +substitute for him? Are you nobler? cleverer? handsomer? unselfisher?-- +if you are" (laughing bitterly), "you keep it mighty well hid." + +No reply: not a syllable. + +"It is a _lie_" I cry, with growing vehemence, "a vile, base, groundless +lie, to say that I am not glad he is coming back! Barbara knows--they +_all_ know how I have been _wearying_ for him all these months. I was +not _in love_, as you call it, when I married him--often I have told him +that--and perhaps at Dresden I missed the boys a little--he knows that +too--he understands! but now--_now_--" (clasping my hands upon my +heart, and looking passionately upward with streaming eyes), "I want no +one--_no one_ but him! I wish for nothing better than to have _him_-- +_him only!--and_ to-day, until I met _you_--till you made me loathe +myself and you, and every living thing--it seemed to me as if all the +world had suddenly grown bright and happy and good at the news of his +coming." + +Still he is silent. + +"Even if I had not liked _him_" pursue I, finding words come quickly +enough now, and speaking with indignant volubility, as, having risen, I +again face him--"even if I had wanted to flirt with some one, why on +earth should I have chosen _you_?" (eying him with scornful slowness, +from his wide-awake to his shooting-boots), "_you_, who never even +_amused_ me in the least! Often when I have been talking to you, I have +yawned till the tears came into my eyes! I have been afraid that you +would notice it. If I had known" (speaking with great bitterness), "I +should have taken less pains with my manners." + +He does not answer a word. What answer _can_ he make? He still stands +under the wintry tree, white to lividness; drops of cold sweat stand on +his brows; and his fine nostrils dilate and contract, dilate and +contract, in an agony of anger and shame. + +"What _could_ have put such an idea into your head?" cry I, clasping my +hands, while the tears rain down my cheeks, as--my thoughts again flying +to Barbara--I fall from contempt and scorn to the sharpest reproach. +"Who would have thought of such a thing? when there are so many better +and prettier people who, for all I know, might have liked you. What +wicked perversity made you fix upon _me_ who, even if I had not belonged +to any one else, could never, _never_ have fancied you!" + +"Is that true?" he says, in a harsh, rough whisper; "are you sure that +you are not deceiving yourself? are you sure that under all your rude +words you are not nearer loving me than you think?--that it is not that +--with that barrier between us--you cannot reconcile it to your +conscience--" + +"Quite, _quite_ sure!" interrupt I, with passionate emphasis, looking +back unflinchingly into the angry depths of his eyes, "it has nothing to +say to conscience! it has nothing to say to the _wrongness_ of it" +(crimsoning as I speak). "If it were quite right--if it were my _duty--_ +it were the only way to save myself from _hanging_" (reaching after an +ever higher and higher climax), "I _never_, NEVER could say that I was +fond of you! I do not see what there is to be fond of _in_ you! before +God, I do not!" + +"There!" he says, hoarsely stretching out his hand, as if to ward off a +blow, "that will do!--stop!--you will never outdo that!" + +A moment's pause. + +Down in the loneliness of this dell, the twilight is creeping quickly +on: when once it begins it tarries not. Out in the open country I dare +say that it is still broad daylight; but here, the hues of the moss +carpet are growing duller, and the brook is darkening. In a sudden +panic, I hastily catch up my hat, which has fallen to the ground, and +without a word or look of farewell, begin to run fast along the homeward +path. Before I have gone ten yards he has overtaken me. His face is +distorted by passion out of all its beauty. + +"Nancy," he says, in a voice rendered almost unrecognizable by extreme +agitation, walking quickly alongside of me, "we are not going to part +like this!" + +"Do not call me Nancy!" cry I, indignantly; "it makes me _sick!_" + +"What does it matter what I call you?" he cries, impatiently; "of what +consequence is such a trifle? I will call you by what name you please, +but for this once you _must_ listen to me. I know, as well as you do, +that it is my last chance!" + +"_That_ it is!" put in I, viciously. + +The path is beginning to rise. After mounting the slope, we shall soon +be out of the wood, and in the peopled open again. + +"How can I help it, if I have gone mad?" he cries violently, evidently +driven to desperation by the shortness of the time before him. + +"Mad!" echo I, scornfully, "not a bit of it! you are as sane as I am!" + +All this time we are posting along in mad haste. Thank God! the +high-road is in sight, the cheerful, populous, light high-road. The +trees grow thinner, and the path broadens. Even from here, we can +plainly see the carts and carters. He stops, and making me stop, too, +snatches both my hands. + +"Nancy!" he says, harshly, stooping over me, while his eyes flame with a +haggard light. "Yes, I _will_ call you so this once--to me now you _are_ +Nancy! I will _not_ call you by _his_ name! Is it _possible_? You may +say that it is my egotism; but, at a moment like this, what is the use +of shamming--of polite pretense? Never, _never_ before in all my life +have I given love without receiving it, and I _cannot_ believe"--(with +an accent of passionate entreaty)--"that I do now! Feeling for you as I +do, do you feel absolutely _nothing_ for me?" + +"_Feel_!" cry I, driven out of all moderation by disgust and +exasperation. "Would you like to know how I feel? I feel _as if a slug +had crawled over me_!" + +His face contracts, his eyes darken with a raging pain. He _throws_ my +hands--the hands a moment ago so jealously clasped--away from him. + +"Thank you!" he says, after a pause, in a stiff voice of constraint. "I +am satisfied!" + +"And a very good thing too!" say I, sturdily, still at boiling-point, +and diminishing with quick steps the small space still intervening +between me and the road. + +"Stay!" he says, overtaking me once again, as I reach it, and laying his +hand in detention on my arm. "One word more! I should be sorry to part +from you--such friends as we have been"--(with a sneer)--"without _one_ +good wish. Lady Tempest, I hope"--(smiling with malevolent irony)--"that +your fidelity will be rewarded as it deserves." + +"I have no doubt of it!" reply I, steadily; but even as I speak, a sharp +jealous pain runs through my heart. Thank God! he cannot see it! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +Yes, here out in the open it is still quite light; it seems two hours +earlier than it did below in the dark dingle--light enough as plainly to +see the faces of those one meets as if it were mid-day. I suppose that +my late companion and I were too much occupied by our own emotions to +hear, or at least notice the sound of wheels approaching us; but no +sooner have I turned and left him, before I have gone three paces, than +I am quickly passed by an open carriage and pair of grays--_quickly_ and +yet slowly enough for me to recognize the one occupant. As to her--for +it is Mrs. Huntley--she must have seen me already, as I stood with Mr. +Musgrave on the edge of the wood, exchanging our last bitter words. + +It is impossible that she could have helped it; but even had it been +possible--had there been any doubt on the subject, that doubt would be +removed by the unusual animation of her attitude, and the interest in +her eyes, that I have time to notice, as she rolls past me. + +I avert my face, but it is too late. She has seen my hat thrown on +anyhow, as it were with a pitchfork--has seen my face swollen with +weeping, and great tears still standing unwiped on my flushed cheeks. +What is far, _far_ worse, she has seen him, too. This is the last drop +in an already over-full cup. + +There is nothing in sight now--not even a cart--so I sit down on a heap +of stones by the road-side, and, covering my hot face with my hands, cry +till I have no more eyes left to cry with. Can _this_ be the day I +called good? Can _this_ be that bright and merry day, when I walked +elate and laughing between the deep furrows, and heard the blackbird and +thrush woo their new loves, nor was able myself to refrain from singing? + +My brain is a black chaos of whirling agonies, now together, now +parting; so that each may make their separate sting felt, and, in turn, +each will have to be faced. Preeminent among the dark host, towering +above even the thought of Barbara, is the sense of my own degradation. +There must have been something in my conduct to justify his taking me so +confidently for the bad, light woman he did. One does not get such a +character for nothing. I have always heard that, when such things happen +to people, they have invariably brought them on themselves. In +incoherent misery, I run over in my head, as well as the confusion of it +will let me, our past meetings and dialogues. In almost all, to my +distorted view, there now seems to have been an unseemly levity. Things +I have said to him; easy, familiar jokes that I have had with him; not +that _he_ ever had much sense of a jest--(even at this moment I think +this incidentally)--course through my mind. + +Our many _tête-à-têtes_ to which, at the time, I attached less than no +importance: through many of which I unfeignedly, irresistibly _gaped_; +our meetings in the park--accidental, as I thought--our dawdling +saunters through the meadows, as often as not at twilight; all, _all_ +recur to me, and, recurring, make my face burn with a hot and stabbing +shame. + +And _Roger_! This is the way in which I have kept things straight for +him! This is the way in which I have rewarded his boundless trust! he, +whose only fear was lest I should be dull! lest I should not amuse +myself! Well, I have amused myself to some purpose now. I have made +myself _common talk for the neighborhood! He_ said so. I have brought +discredit on Roger's honored name! Not even the consciousness of the +utter cleanness of my heart is of the least avail to console me. What +matter how clean the heart is, if the conduct be light? None but God can +see the former; the latter lies open to every carelessly spiteful, +surface-judging eye. And Barbara! Goaded by the thought of her, I rise +up quickly, and walk hastily along the road, till I reach a gate into +the park. Arrived there, and now free from all fear of interruption from +passers-by, I again sit down on an old dry log that lies beneath a great +oak, and again cover my face with my hands. + +What care I for the growing dark? the darker the better! Ah! if it were +dark enough to hide me from myself! How shall I break it to her--I, who, +confident in my superior discernment, have always scouted her misgivings +and turned into derision her doubts? If I thought that she would rave +and storm, and that her grief would vent itself in _anger_, it would not +be of half so much consequence. But I know her better. The evening has +closed in colder. The birds have all ceased their singing, and I still +sit on, in the absolute silence, unconscious--unaware of any thing round +me; living only in my thoughts, and with a resolution growing ever +stronger and stronger within me. I will _not_ tell her! I will _never_ +tell _any one_. I, that have hitherto bungled and blundered over the +whitest fib, will wade knee-deep in falsehoods, before I will ever let +any one guess the disgrace that has happened to me. Oh that, by long +silence, I could wipe it out of my own heart--out of the book of +unerasable past deeds! + +Of course, by the cessation of his visits, Barbara will learn her fate +in time. _In time_. Yes! but till then--till the long weeks in their +lapse have brought the certainty of disappointment and mistake? How can +I--myself knowing--watch her gentle confidence (for latterly her doubts +--and whose would not?--have been set at rest) decline through all the +suffering stages of uneasy expectation and deferred hope, to the blank, +dull sickness of despair? How, without betraying myself, see her daily +with wistful eyes looking--with strained ears listening--for a face and +a step that come not? If she were one to love lightly, one of the many +women who, when satisfied that it is no longer any use to cry and strive +for the unattainable, the out of reach, clip and pare their affections +to fit the unattainable, the within reach--! But I know differently. + +Hitherto, whenever love has been offered to her--and the occasions have +been not few--she has put it away from her; most gently, indeed, with a +most eager desire to pour balm and not vinegar into the wounds she has +made; with a most sincere sorrow and a disproportioned remorse at being +obliged to cause pain to any living thing; yet, with a quiet and +indifferent firmness, that left small ground for lingering hopes. And +now, having once loved, she will be slow to unlove again. + +It is quite dark now--as dark, at least, as it will be all night--and +two or three stars are beginning to quiver out, small and cold, in the +infinite distances of the sky. The sight of them, faintly trembling +between the bare boughs of the trees, is the first thing that calls me +back to the consciousness of outward things. Again I rise, and begin to +walk, stumbling through the long wet knots of the unseen grass, toward +the house. But when I reach it--when I see the red gleams shining +through the chinks of the window-shutters--my heart fails me. Not yet +can I face the people, the lights--Barbara! I turn into the garden, and +pace up and down the broad, lonely walks: I pass and repass the cold +river-gods of the unplaying fountain. I stand in the black night of the +old cedar's shade. On any other day no possible consideration would have +induced me to venture within the jurisdiction of its inky arms after +nightfall; to-day, I feel as if no earthly or unearthly thing would have +power to scare me. How long I stay, I do not know. Now and then, I put +up my hands to my face, to ascertain whether my cheeks and eyes feel +less swollen and burning; whether the moist and searching night-air is +restoring me to my own likeness. At length, I dare stay no longer for +fear of being missed, and causing alarm in the household. So I enter, +steal up-stairs, and open the door of my boudoir, which Barbara and I, +when alone, make our usual sitting-room. The candles are unlit; and the +warm fire--evidently long undisturbed--is shedding only a dull and +deceiving light on all the objects over which it ranges. So far, at +least. Fortune favors me. Barbara and Vick are sitting on the +hearth-rug, side by side. As I enter, they both jump up, and run to meet +me. One of them gives little raptured squeaks of recognition. The other +says, in a tone of relief and pleasure: + +"Here you are! I was growing so frightened about you! What can have made +you so late?" + +"It was so--so--pleasant! The thrushes were singing so!" reply I thus +happily inaugurating my career of invention. + +"But, my dear child, the thrushes went to bed two hours ago!" + +"Yes," I answer, at once entirely nonplussed, "so they did!" + +"Where _have_ you been?" she asks, in a tone of ever-increasing +surprise. "Did you go farther than you intended?" + +"I went--to see--the old Busseys," reply I, slowly; inwardly pondering, +with a stupid surprise, as to whether it can possibly have been no +longer ago than this very afternoon, that the old man mistook me for the +dead Belinda--and that I held the old wife's soapy hand in farewell in +mine; "the--old--Busseys!" I repeat, "and it took--me a long--_long_ +time to get home!" + +I shiver as I speak. + +"You are cold!" she says, anxiously. "I hope you have not had a chill--" +(taking my hands in her own slight ones)--"yes--_starved_!--poor dear +hands; let me rub them!" (beginning delicately to chafe them). + +Something in the tender solicitude of her voice, in the touch of her +gentle hands, gives me an agony of pain and remorse. I snatch away my +hands. + +"No! no!" I cry, brusquely, "they do very well!" + +Again she looks at me, with a sort of astonishment, a little mixed with +pain; but she does not say any thing. She goes over to the fire, and +stoops to take up the poker. + +"Do not!" cry I, hastily, "there is plenty of light!--I mean--" +(stammering) "it--it--dazzles me, coming in out of the dark." + +As I speak, I retire to a distant chair, as nearly as possible out of +the fire-light, and affect to be occupied with Vick, who has jumped up +on my lap, and--with all a dog's delicate care not to hurt you _really_ +--is pretending severely to bite every one of my fingers. Barbara has +returned to the hearth-rug. She looks a little troubled at first; but, +after a moment or two, her face regains its usual serene sweetness. + +"And I have been here ever since you left me!" she says, presently, with +a look of soft gayety. "I have had _no_ visitors! Not even"--(blushing +a little)--"the usual one." + +"No?" say I, bending down my head over Vick, and allowing her to have a +better and more thorough lick at the bridge of my nose than she has ever +enjoyed in her life before. + +"_You_ did not meet him, I suppose?" she says, interrogatively. + +"_I_" cry I, starting guiltily, and stammering. "Not I! Why--why should +I?" + +"Why should not you, rather?" she says, laughing a little. "It is not +such a _very_ unusual occurrence?" + +"Do you think not?" I say, in a voice whose trembling is painfully +perceptible to myself. "You do not think I--" ("You do not think I meet +him on purpose," I am going to say; but I break off suddenly, aware that +I am betraying myself). + +"He will come earlier to-morrow to make up for it"--she says, in a low +voice, more to herself than to me--"yes"--(clasping her hands lightly +in her lap, while the firelight plays upon the lovely mildness of her +happy face, and repeating the words softly)--"yes, he will come earlier +to-morrow!" + +I _cannot_ bear it. I rise up abruptly, trundling poor Vick, to whom +this reverse is quite unexpected, down on the carpet, and rushing out of +the room. + + * * * * * + +It is evening now--late evening, drawing toward bedtime. I am sitting +with my back to the light, and have asked for a shade for the lamp, on +the plea that the wind has cut my eyes--but, in spite of my precautions, +I am well aware that the disfigurement of my face is still unmistakably +evident to the most casual eye; and, from the anxious care with which +Barbara looks _away from me_, when she addresses me, I can perceive that +she has observed it, as, indeed, how could she fail to do? If Tou Tou +were here, she would overwhelm me with officious questions--would stare +me crazy, but Barbara averts her eyes, and asks nothing. + +We have been sitting in perfect silence for a long while; no noise but +the click of Barbara's knitting-pins, the low flutter of the fire-flame, +and the sort of suppressed choked _inward_ bark, with which Vick attacks +a phantom tomcat in her dreams. + +Suddenly I speak. + +"Barbara!" say I, with a hard, forced laugh, "I am going to ask you a +silly question: tell me, did you ever observe--has it ever struck you +that there was something rather--rather _offensive_ in my manner to +men?" + +Her knitting drops into her lap. Her blue eyes open wide, like +dog-violets in the sun; she is _obliged_ to look at me now. + +"_Offensive_!" she echoes, with an accent of the most utter surprise and +mystification. "Good Heavens, no! What has come to the child? Oh!"-- +(with a little look of dawning intelligence)--"I see! You mean, do not +you smite them too much? Are not you sometimes a little too _hard_ upon +them?" + +"No," say I, gravely; "I did not mean that." + +She looks at me for explanation, but I can give none. More silence. + +Vick is either in hot pursuit of, or hot flight from, the tomcat; all +her four legs are quivering and kicking in a mimic gallop. + +"Do you remember," say I, again speaking, and again prefacing my words +by an uneasy laugh, "how the boys at home used always to laugh at me, +because I never knew how to flirt, nor had any pretty ways? Do you +think"--(speaking slowly and hesitatingly)--"that boys--one's brothers, +I mean--would be good judges of that sort of thing?" + +"As good as any one else's brothers, I suppose," she says, with a low +laugh, but still looking puzzled; "but why do you ask?" + +"I do not know," reply I, trying to speak carelessly; "it came into my +head." + +"Has any one been accusing you?" she says, a little curiously, "But no! +who _could_? You have seen no one, not even--" + +"No, no!" interrupt I, shrinking from the sound of the name that I know +is coming; "of course not; no one!" + +The clock strikes eleven, and wakes Vick. Barbara rises, rolls up her +knitting, and, going over to the fireplace, stands with one white elbow +resting on the chimney-piece, and slender neck drooped, pensively gazing +at the low fire. + +"Do you know," she says, with a half-confused smile, that is also tinged +with a little anxiety, "I have been thinking--it is the first time for +three months that he has not been here at all, either in the morning, +the afternoon, or the evening!" + +"Is it?" say I, slightly shivering. + +"I think," she says, with a rather embarrassed laugh, "that he must have +heard _you_ were out, and that that was why he did not come. You know I +always tell you that he likes you best." + +She says it, as a joke, and yet her great eyes are looking at me with a +sort of wistfulness, but neither to _them_ nor to her words can I make +any answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +Next morning I am sitting before my looking-glass--never to me a +pleasant article of furniture--having my hair dressed. I am hardly awake +yet, and have not quite finished disentangling the real live +disagreeables which I have to face, from the imaginary ones from which +my waking has freed me. At least, in real life, I am not perpetually +pursued, through dull abysses, by a man in a crape mask, from whom I am +madly struggling to escape, and who is perpetually on the point of +overtaking and seizing me. + +It was a mistake going to sleep at all last night. It would have been +far wiser and better to have kept awake. The _real_ evils are bad +enough, but the dream ones in their vivid life make me shiver even now, +though the morning sun is lying in companionable patches on the floor, +and the birds are loudly talking all together. Do _no_ birds ever +listen? + +Distracted for a moment from my own miseries, by the noise of their soft +yet sharp hubbub, I am thinking this, when a knock comes at the door, +and the next moment Barbara enters. Her blond hair is tumbled about her +shoulders; no white rose's cheeks are paler than hers; in her hand she +has a note. In a moment I have dismissed the maid, and we are alone. + +"I want you to read this!" she says, in an even and monotonous voice, +from which, by an effort whose greatness I can dimly guess, she keeps +all sound of trembling. + +I have risen and turned from the glass; but now my knees shake under me +so much that I have to sit down again. She comes behind me, so that I +may no longer see her: and putting her arms round my neck, and hiding +her face in my unfinished hair, says, whisperingly: + +"Do not fret about it, Nancy!--I do not mind much." + +Then she breaks into quiet tears. + +"Do you mean to say that he has had the _insolence_ to write to you," I +cry, in a passion of indignation, forgetting for the moment Barbara's +ignorance of what has occurred, and only reminded of it by the look of +wonder that, as I turn on my chair to face her, I see come into her +eyes. + +"Have not you been expecting him every day to write to me?" she asks, +with a little wonder in her tone; "but _read!_" (pointing to the note, +and laughing with a touch of bitterness), "you will soon see that there +is no _insolence_ here." + +I had quite as lief, in my present state of mind, touch a yard-long +wriggling ground-worm, or a fat wood-louse, as paper that his fingers +have pressed; but I overcome my repulsion, and unfold the note. + +"DEAR MISS GREY: + +"Can I do any thing for you in town? I am going-up there to-morrow, and +shall thence, I think, run over to the Exhibition. I have no doubt that +it is just like all the others; but _not_ to have seen it will set one +at a disadvantage with one's fellows. I am afraid that there is no +chance of your being still at Tempest when I return. I shall be most +happy to undertake any commissions. + +"Yours sincerely, + +"F. MUSGRAVE." + +The note drops from my fingers, rolls on to my lap, and thence to the +ground. I sit in stiff and stupid silence. To tell the truth, I am +trying strongly to imagine how I should look and what I should say, were +I as ignorant of causes as Barbara thinks me, and to look and speak +accordingly. + +She kneels down beside me, and softly drawing down my face, till it is +on a level with hers, and our cheeks touch, says in a tone of gentle +entreaty and compassion, as if _I_ were the one to be considered--the +prime sufferer: + +"Do not fret about it. Nancy! it is of no--no consequence!--there is no +harm done!" + +I struggle to say _something_, but for the life of me I can frame no +words. + +"It was my own fancy!" she says, faltering, "I suppose my vanity misled +me!" + +"It is all my fault!" cry I, suddenly finding passionate words, starting +up, and beginning to walk feverishly to and fro--"_all!_--there never +was any one in all this world so blind, so ill-judging, so miserably +mistaken! If it had not been for me, you never would have thought twice +of him--never; and I"--(beginning to speak with weeping indistinctness) +--"I thought it would be so nice to have you near me--I thought that +there was nothing the matter with him, but his temper; _many_ men are +ill-tempered--nearly _all_. If" (tightly clinching my hands, and setting +my teeth) "I had had any idea of his being the _scoundrel_ that he is--" + +"But he is not," she interrupts quickly, wincing a little at my words; +"indeed he is not! What ill have we heard from him? If you do not mind" +(laying her hand with gentle entreaty on my arm), "I had rather, _far_ +rather, that you did not say any thing hard of him! I was always so glad +that you and he were such friends--always--and I do not know why--there +is no sense in it; but I am glad of it still." + +"We were _not_ friends," say I, writhing a little; "why do you say so?" + +She looks at me with a great and unfeigned astonishment. + +"_Not friends_!" she echoes, slowly repeating my words; then, seeing the +expression of my face, stops suddenly. + +"Are you _sure_," cry I, feverishly snatching her hands and looking with +searching anxiety into her face, "that you spoke truth just now?--that +you do not mind much--that you will get over it!--that it will not +_kill_ you?" + +"_Kill_ me!" she says, with a little sorrowful smile of derision; "no, +no! I am not so easily killed." + +"Are you _sure_?" persist I, with a passionate eagerness, still reading +her tear-stained face, "that it will not take the taste out of every +thing?--that it will not make you hate all your life?--it would me." + +"_Quite_ sure!--certain!" she says, looking back at me with a steady +meekness, though her blue eyes brim over; "because God has taken from me +_one_ thing--one that I never had any right to expect--should I do well, +do you think, to quarrel with all that He has left me?" + +I cannot answer; her godly patience is too high a thing for me. + +"Even if my life _were_ spoilt," she goes on, after a moment or two, her +voice gaining firmness, and her face a pale serenity, "even if it were-- +but it is _not_--indeed it is not. In a very little while it will seem +to me as good and pleasant and full as ever; but even if it _were_" +(looking at me with a lovely confidence in her eyes), "it would be no +such very great matter--_this_ life is not every thing!" + +"Is not it?" say I, with a doubting shiver. "Who can tell you that? who +knows?" + +"No_one_ has been to blame," she continues, with a gentle persistence. +"I should like you to see that! There has been only a--a--_mistake_"-- +(her voice failing a little again), "a mistake that has been corrected +in time, and for which no one--_no one_, Nancy, is the worse!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +So this is the way in which Barbara's hope dies! Our hopes have as many +ways of dying as our bodies. Sometimes they pine and fall into a slow +consumption, we nursing, cockering, and physicking them to the last. +Sometimes they fall down dead suddenly, as one that in full health, with +his bones full of marrow, and his eyes full of light, drops wordless +into the next world unaware. This last has been Barbara's case. When she +thought it healthiest, and most vigorous in its stalwart life, then the +death-mark was on it. To most of us, O friends, troubles are as great +stones cast unexpectedly on a smooth road; over which, in a dark night, +we trip, and grumblingly stumble, cursing, and angrily bruising our +limbs. To a few of us, they are ladders, by which we climb to God; +hills, that lift us nearer heaven--that heaven, which, however certainly +--with whatever mathematical precision--it has been demonstrated to us +that it exists not here, nor there, nor yet anywhere, we still dimly, +with yearning tears and high longings, grasp at. Barbara has always +looked heavenward. In all her mirth, God has mixed. Now, therefore, in +this grief that He has sent her--this ignoble grief, that yet cuts the +none less deeply for being ignoble, and excluding the solace of human +sympathy, she but thrusts her hand with a fuller confidence in his, and +fixes her sweet eyes with a more reverent surety on the one prime +consoler of humankind, who, from his Cross, has looked royally down the +toiling centuries--the king, whom this generation, above all +generations, is laboring--and, as not a few think, _successfully_--to +discrown. To her, his kingship is as unquestioned as when heretics and +paynims burnt to prove it. + +Often, since then, in those vain longings that come to each of us, I +suppose, I tried in after-days--sometimes I try now, to stretch my arms +out wide-backward toward the past--to speak the words that would have +been as easily spoken then as any other--that no earthly power can ever +make spoken words now, of sympathy and appreciation to Barbara. + +I did say loving things, but they seem to me now to have been but scant +and shabby. Why did not I say a great many more? Oh, all of you who live +with those that are dearer to you than they seem, tell them every day +how much you love them! at the risk of _wearying_ them, tell them, I +pray you: it will save you, perhaps, many after-pangs. + +I think that, at this time, there are in me _two_ Nancys--Barbara's +Nancy, and Roger's Nancy; the one so vexed, thwarted, and humiliated in +spirit, that she feels as if she never could laugh quite heartily again; +the other, so utterly and triumphantly glad, that any future tears or +trials seem to her in the highest degree improbable. And Barbara herself +is on the side of this latter. From her hopeful speech and her smiles, +you would think that some good news had come to her--that she was on the +eve of some long-looked-for, yet hardly-hoped prosperity. Not that she +is unnaturally or hysterically lively--an error into which many, making +such an effort and struggle for self-conquest, would fall. Barbara's +mirth was never noisy, as mine and the boys' so often was. Perhaps--nay, +I have often thought since, _certainly_--she weeps as she prays, in +secret; but God is the only One who knows of her tears, as of her +prayers. She has always been one to go halves in her pleasures, but of +her sorrows she will give never a morsel to any one. + +Her very quietness under her trouble--her silence under it--her +equanimity--mislead me. It is the impulse of any hurt thing to cry +out. I, myself, have always done it. Half unconsciously, I am led by +this reasoning to think that Barbara's wound cannot be very deep, else +would she shrink and writhe beneath it. So I talk to her all day, with +merciless length, about Roger. I go through all the old queries. I again +critically examine my face, and arrive--not only at the former +conclusion, that one side is worse-looking than the other, but also that +it looks ten years older. + +I have my flax hair built in many strange and differing fashions, and +again unbuilt: piled high, to give me height; twisted low, in a vain +endeavor to liken me to the Greeks; curled, plaited, frizzed, and again +unfrizzed. I institute a searching and critical examination of my +wardrobe, rejecting this and that; holding one color against my cheek, +to see whether my pallor will be able to bear it; turning away from +another with a grimace of self-disgust. + +And this is the same "_I_," who thought it so little worth while to win +the good opinion of father's blear-eyed old friend, that I went to my +first meeting with him with a scorched face, loose hair, tottering, all +through prayers, on the verge of a descent about my neck, and a large +round hole, smelling horribly of singeing, burnt in the very front of my +old woolen frock. + +His coming is near now. This _very_ day I shall see him come in that +door. He will sit in that chair. His head will dent that cushion. I +shall sit on a footstool at his feet. The better to imagine the +position, I push a footstool into the desired neighborhood to Roger's +arm-chair, and already see myself, with the eye of faith, in solid +reality occupying it. I rehearse all the topics that will engage my +tongue. The better to realize their effect upon him, I give utterance +out loud to the many greetings, to the numberless fond and pretty things +with which I mean to load him. + +He always looked so very joyful when I said any little civil thing to +him, and I so seldom, _seldom_ did. Ah! we will change all that! He +shall be nauseated with sweets. And then, still sitting by him, holding +his hand, and with my head (dressed in what I finally decide upon as the +becomingest fashion) daintily rested on his arm, I will tell him all my +troubles, I will tell him of Algy's estrangement, his cold looks and +harsh words. Without any outspoken or bitter abuse of her, I will yet +manage cunningly to set him on his guard against Mrs. Huntley. I will +lament over Bobby to him. Yes, I will tell him _all_ my troubles-- +_all_, that is, with one reservation. + +Barbara is no longer here. She has gone home. + +"You will be better by yourselves," she says, gently, when she announces +her intention of going. "He will like it better. I should if I were he. +It will be like a new honey-moon." + +"_That_ it will not," reply I, stoutly, recollecting how much I yawned, +and how largely Mr. Musgrave figured in the first. "I have no opinion of +honey-moons; no more would _you_ if you had _had_ one." + +"_Should_ not I?" speaking a little absently, while her eyes stray +through the window to the serene coldness of the sky, and the pallid +droop of the snow-drops in the garden-border. + +"You are sure," say I, earnestly, taking her light hand in mine, "that +you are not going because you think that you are not _wanted_ now--that +now, that I have my--my own property again" (smiling irrepressibly), "I +can do very well without you." + +"_Quite_ sure, Nancy!" looking back into my eager eyes with confident +affection. + +"And you will come back _very_ soon? _very?_" + +"When you quarrel," she answers, her face dimpling into a laugh, "I will +come and make it up between you." + +"You must come before _then_" say I, with a proud smile, "or your visit +is likely to be indefinitely postponed." + +Roger and I quarrel! We both find the idea so amusing that we laugh in +concert. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + "_Gertrude_. Is my knight come? O the Lord, my hand! Sister, do my +cheeks look well? Give me a little box o' the ear, that I may seem to +blush."--EASTWARD HOE. + + +She is gone now. The atmosphere of the house seems less clear, less +pure, now that she has left it. As she drives away, it seems to me, +looking after her, that no flower ever had a modester face, a more +delicate bloom. If I had time to think about it, I should fret sorely +after her, I should grievously miss her; but I have none. + +The carriage that takes her to the station is to wait half an hour, and +then bring back Roger. There is, therefore, not more than enough time +for me to make the careful and lengthy toilet, on which I have expended +so much painstaking thought. I have deferred making it till now, so that +I may appear in perfect dainty freshness, as if I had just emerged from +the manifold silver papers of a bandbox, before him when he arrives-- +that not a hair of my flax head may be displaced from its silky sweep; +that there may be no risk of Vick jumping up, and defiling me with muddy +paws that know no respect of clothes. + +I take a long time over it. I snub my maid more than I ever did in my +life before. But I am complete now; to the last pin I am finished. +Perhaps--though this does not strike me till the last moment--perhaps I +am rather, nay, more than _rather_, overdressed for the occasion. But +surely this, in a person who has not long been in command of fine +clothes, and even in that short time has had very few opportunities of +airing them, is pardonable. + +You remember that it is February. Well, then, this is the warm splendor +in which I am clad. Genoa velvet, of the color of a dark sapphire, +trimmed with silver-fox fur; and my head crowned with a mob-cap, +concerning which I am in doubt, and should be nervously glad to have the +boys here to enlighten me as to whether it is very becoming or rather +ridiculous. The object of the mob-cap is to approximate my age to +Roger's, and to assure all such as the velvet and fur leave in doubt, +that I am entitled to take my stand among the portly ranks of British +matrons. + +"Algy was right," say I, soliloquizing aloud, as I stand before the long +cheval glass, with a back-hair glass in one hand, by whose aid I correct +my errors in the profile, three-quarters or back view; "mine is not the +most hopeless kind of ugliness. It is certainly modifiable by dress." + +So saying, I lay down the hand-glass, and walk sedately down-stairs, +holding my head stiffly erect, and looking over my shoulder, like a +child, at the effect of my blue train sweeping down the steps after me. + +Arrived in my boudoir, I go and stand by the window, though there are +yet ten minutes before he is due. Once I open the casement to listen, +but hastily close it again, afraid lest the wintry wind should ruffle +the satin smoothness of my hair, or push the mob-cap awry. Then I sit +carefully down, and, harshly repulsing an overture on the part of Vick +to jump into my lap, fix my eyes upon the dark bare boughs of the tall +and distant elms, from between which I shall see him steal into sight. +The time ticks slowly on. He is due now. Five more lame, crawling +minutes--ten!--no sign of him. Again I rise, unclose the casement, and +push my matronly head a little way out to listen. Yes! yes! there is the +distant but not doubtful sound of a horse's four hoofs smartly trotting +and splashing along the muddy road. Three minutes more, and the sun +catches and brightly gleams on one of the quickly-turning wheels of the +dog-cart as it rolls toward me, between the wintry trees. + +At first I cannot see the occupants; the boughs and twigs interpose to +hide them; but presently the dog-cart emerges into the open. There is +only one person in it! + +At first I decline to believe my own eyes. I rub them. I stretch my head +farther out. Alas! self-deception is no longer possible: the groom +returns as he went--alone. Roger has _not_ come! + +The dog-cart turns toward the stables, and I run to the bell and pull it +violently. I can hardly wait till it is answered. At last, after an +interval, which seems to me like twenty minutes, but which that false, +cold-blooded clock proclaims to be _two_, the footman enters. + +"Sir Roger has not come," I say more affirmatively than interrogatively, +for I have no doubt on the subject. "Why did not the groom wait for the +next train?" + +"If you please, my lady, Sir Roger _has_ come." + +"_Has come!_" repeat I, in astonishment, opening my eyes; "then where is +he?" + +"He is walking up, my lady." + +"What! all the way from Bishopsthorpe?" cry I, incredulously, thinking +of the five miry miles that intervene between us and that station. +"_Impossible!_" + +"No, my lady, not all the way; only from Mrs. Huntley's." + +I feel the color rushing away from my cheeks, and turn quickly aside, +that my change of countenance may not be perceived. + +"Did he get out there?" I ask, faintly. + +"Mrs. Huntley was at the gate, my lady, and Sir Roger got down to speak +to her, and bid James drive on and tell your ladyship he would be here +directly." + +"Very well," say I, unsteadily, still averting my face, "that will do." + +He is gone, and I need no longer mind what color my face is, nor what +shape of woeful jealousy my late so complacent features assume. + +So _this_ is what comes of thinking life such a grand and pleasant +thing, and this world such a lovely, satisfying paradise! Wait long +enough--(I have not had to wait very long for my part)--and every sweet +thing turns to gall-like bitterness between one's teeth! The experience +of a few days ago might have taught me _that_, one would think, but I +was dull to thick-headedness. I required _two_ lessons--the second, oh +how far harsher than even the first! + +In a moment I have taken my resolution. I am racing up-stairs. I have +reached my room. I do not summon my maid. One requires no assistance to +enable one to _un_build, deface, destroy. In a _second_--in much less +time than it takes me to write it--I have torn off the mob-cap, and +thrown it on the floor. If I had done what I wished, if I had yielded to +my first impulse, I should also have trampled upon it; but from the +extremity of petulance, I am proud to be able to tell you that I +refrain. With rapid fingers I unbutton my blue-velvet gown, and step out +of it, leaving it in a costly heap on the floor. Then I open the high +folding-doors of the wardrobe, and run my eye over its contents; but the +most becoming is no longer what I seek. For a moment or two I stand +undecided, then my eye is caught by a venerable garment, loathly and +ill-made, which I had before I married, and have since kept, more as a +relic than any thing else--a gown of that peculiar shade of sallow, +bilious, Bismarck brown, which is the most trying to the paleness of my +skin. Before any one could say "Jack Robinson," it is down, and I am in +it. Then, without even a parting smooth to the hair, which the violent +off-tearing of my cap must have roughened and disheveled, I go +down-stairs and reënter the boudoir. As I do so, I catch an accidental +glimpse of myself in a glass. Good Heavens! Can three minutes (for I +really have not been longer about it) have wrought such a monstrous +metamorphosis? Is every woman as utterly dependent for her charms upon +her _husk_ as I am? Can this sad, sallow slip of a girl be the beaming, +shapely, British matron I contemplated with so innocently pleased an eye +half an hour ago? If, in all my designs, I could have the perfect +success which has crowned my efforts at self-disfigurement, I should be +among the most prosperous of my species. + +I sit down as far from the window as the dimensions of the room will +allow, call Vick, who comes at first sneakingly and doubtful of her +reception, up on my lap, and take a book. It is the one nearest to my +hand, and I plunge into it haphazard in the middle. + +This is the sentence that first greets me: "Her whole heart was in her +boy. She often feared that she loved him too much--more than God +himself--yet she could not bear to pray to have her love for her child +lessened." + +Not a very difficult one to construe, is it? and yet, having come to the +end, and found that it conveyed no glimmering of an idea to my mind, I +begin it over again. + +"Her whole heart was in her boy. She often feared that she loved him too +much--more than God himself--yet she could not bear to pray to have her +love for her child lessened." + +Still no better! What _is_ it all about? + +I begin over again. + +"Her whole heart was in her boy," etc. I go through this process ten +times. I should go through it twenty, or even thirty, for I am resolved +to go on reading, but at the end of the tenth, my ear--unconsciously +strained--catches the sound of a step at the stair-foot. It is not the +footman's. It is firmer, heavier, and yet quicker. + +Eight weary months is it since I last heard that footfall. My heart +pulses with mad haste, my cheeks throb, but I sit still, and hold the +book before my eyes. I will _not_ go to meet him. I will be as +indifferent as he! When he opens the door, I will not even look round, I +will be too much immersed in the page before me. + +"Her whole heart was in her boy. She often feared that--" + +The door-handle is turning. I _cannot_ help it! Against my will, my head +turns too. With no volition of my own--against my firmest intention--my +feet carry me hastily toward him. My arms stretch themselves out. Thank +God! thank God! whatever happens afterward, I shall still thank God, and +call him good for allowing it. I am in Roger's embrace. No more +mistakes! no more delays! he is here, and I am kissing him as I never +kissed any one--as I certainly never kissed _him_ in my life before. + +Well, I suppose that in every life there are _some_ moments that are +_absolutely_ good--that one could not mend even if one were given the +power to try! I suppose that even those who, looking back over their +history, say, most distinctly and certainly, "It was a failure," can yet +lay the finger of memory on _some_ such gold minutes--it may be only +half a dozen, only four, only _two_--but still on some. + +This is one of my gold moments, one of those misplaced ones that have +strayed out of heaven, where, perhaps, they are _all_ such--_perhaps_-- +one can't be _sure_, for what human imagination can grasp the idea of +even a _day_, wholly made of such minutes? + +I have forgotten Mrs. Huntley--Mr. Musgrave. Every ill suspicion, every +stinging remembrance, is dead or fallen into a trance. All bad thoughts +have melted away from the earth. Only joyful love and absolute faith +remain, only the knowledge that Roger is mine, and I am his, and that we +are in each other's arms. I do not know how long we remain without +speaking. I do not imagine that souls in bliss ever think of looking at +the clock. He is the first to break silence. For the first time for +eight months I hear his voice again--the voice that for so many weeks +seemed to me no better than any other voice--whose tones I _now_ feel I +could pick out from those of any other living thing, did all creation +shout together. + +"Let me look at my wife!" he says, taking my countenance in his tender +hands, as if it were made of old china, and would break if he let it it +fall. "I feel as if I had never _had_ a wife before, as if it were quite +a new plaything." + +I make no verbal answer. I am staring up with all my eyes into his face, +thinking, with a sort of wonder, how much goodlier, younger, statelier +it is than it has appeared to me in any of those dream-pictures, which +yet mostly flatter. + +"My wife! my wife!" he says, speaking the words most softly, as if they +greatly pleased him, and replacing with carefullest fingers a stray and +arrant lock that has wandered from its fellows into my left eye. "What +has come to you? Had I forgotten what you were like? How pretty you are! +How well you look!" + +"Do I?" say I, with a pleasant simper; then, with a sudden and +overwhelming recollection of the bilious gingery frock, and the tousled +hair, "No, nonsense!" I say, uneasily, "impossible! You are laughing at +me! Ah!"--(with a sigh of irrepressible regret and back-handed pride)-- +"you should have seen me half an hour ago! I _did_ look nice _then_, if +you like." + +"Why nicer than now?"--(with a puzzled smile that both plays about his +bearded lips and gayly shines in his steel-gray eyes). + +"Oh, never mind! never mind!" reply I, in some confusion, "it is a long +story; it is of no consequence, but I _did._" + +He does not press for an explanation, for which I am obliged to him. + +"Nancy!" he says, with a sort of hesitating joy, a diffident triumph in +his voice, "do you know, I believe you have kept your promise! I +believe, I _really_ believe, that you are a little glad to see me!" + +"Are _you_ glad to see _me_, is more to the purpose?" return I, +descending out of heaven with a pout, and returning to the small +jealousies and acerbities of earth, and to the recollection of that yet +unexplained alighting at Aninda's gate. + +"_Am I?_" + +He seems to think that no asseverations, no strong adjectives or +intensifying adverbs, no calling upon sun and moon and stars to bear +witness to his gladness, can increase the force of those two tiny words, +so he adds none. + +"I wonder, then," say I, in a rather sneaky and shamefaced manner, +mumbling and looking down, "that you were not in a greater hurry to get +to me?" + +"_In a greater hurry!_" he repeats, in an accent of acute surprise. +"Why, child, what are you talking about? Since we landed, I have neither +slept nor eaten. I drove straight across London, and have been in the +train ever since." + +"But--between--this--and the--station?" suggest I, slowly, having taken +hold of one of the buttons of his coat; the very one that in former +difficulties I used always to resort to. + +"You mean about my walking up?" he says readily, and without the +slightest trace of guilty consciousness, indeed with a distinct and open +look of pleasure; "but, my darling, how could I tell how long she would +keep me? poor little woman!" (beginning to laugh and to put back the +hair from his tanned forehead). "I am afraid I did not bless her when I +saw her standing at her gate! I had half a mind to ask her whether +another time would not do as well, but she looked so eager to hear about +her husband--you know I have been seeing him at St. Thomas--such a +wistful little face--and I knew that she could not keep me more than ten +minutes; and, altogether when I thought of her loneliness and my own +luck--" + +He breaks off. + +"Are you so sure she _is_ lonely?" I say, with an innocent air of asking +for information, and still working hard at the button; "are people +always lonely when their husbands are away?" + +He looks at me strangely for a moment; then, "Of course she is lonely, +poor little thing!" he says, warmly; "how could she help it?" + +A slight pause. + +"_Most_ men," say I, jealously, "would not have thought it a hardship to +walk up and down between the laurustinus with Mrs. Zéphine, I can tell +you!" + +"Would not they?" he answers, indifferently. "I dare say not! she always +_was_ a good little thing!" + +"Excellent!" reply I, with a nasty dryness, "bland, passionate, and +deeply religious!" + +Again he looks at me in surprise--a surprise which, after a moment's +reflection, melts and brightens into an expression of pleasure. + +"Did you care so much about my coming that ten minutes seemed to make a +difference?" he asks, in an eager voice. "Is it possible that you were +_in a hurry_ for me?" + +Why cannot I speak truth, and say yes? Why does an objectlessly lying +devil make its inopportune entry into me? Through some misplaced and +crooked false shame I answer, "Not at all! not at all! of course a few +minutes one way or the other could not make much difference; I was only +puzzled to know what had become of you?" + +He looks a shade disappointed, and for a moment we are both silent. We +have sat down side by side on the sofa. Vick is standing on her hinder +legs, with her forepaws rested on Roger's knee. Her tail is wagging with +the strong and untiring regularity of a pendulum, and a smirk of welcome +and recognition is on her face. Roger's arm is round me, and we are +holding each other's hands, but we are no longer in heaven. I could not +tell you _why_ but we are not. Some stupid constraint--quite of earth-- +has fallen upon me. Where are all those most tender words, those profuse +endearments with which I meant to have greeted him? + +"And so it is actually true!" he says, with a long-drawn sigh of relief; +his eyes wandering round the room, and taking in all the familiar +objects; "there is no mistake about it! I am actually holding your real +live hand" (turning it gently about and softly considering the long +slight fingers and pink palm)--"in mine! Ah! my dear, how often, how +often I have held it so in my dreams! Have you ever" (speaking with a +sort of doubtfulness and uncertain hope)--"have you ever--no, I dare say +not--so held mine?" + +The diffident passion in his voice for once destroys that vile +constraint, dissipates that idiotic sense of bashfulness. + +"_Scores_ of times!" I answer, letting my head drop on his shoulder, and +not taking the trouble to raise it again. + +"I never _used_ to think myself of a very nervous turn!" he says, +presently, with a smile. "Nancy, you will laugh at me, but I assure you +upon my honor that all the way home I have been in the most abject and +deadly fright: at every puff of wind I thought we were infallibly going +to the bottom: whenever the carriage rocked in the least to-day on the +way down, I made up my mind we were going to smash! Little woman, what +can a bit of a thing like you have done to me to make me seem so much +more valuable to myself than I have ever done these eight-and-forty +years?" + +I think no answer to this so suitable and seemly as a dumb friction of +my left cheek against the rough cloth of the shoulder on which it has +reposed itself. + +"Talk to me, Nancy!" he says, in a quiet half-whisper of happiness. "Let +me hear the sound of your voice! I am sick of my own; I have had a glut +of that all these weary eight months; tell me about them all! How are +they all? how are the boys?" (with a playful smile of recollection at +what used to be my _one_ subject, the one theme on which I was wont to +wax inimitably diffuse). But now, at the magic name no pleasant +garrulity overcomes me; only the remembrance of my worries; of all those +troubles that I mean now to transfer from my own to Roger's broad +shoulders, swoop down upon me. + +I raise my head and speak with a clouded brow and a complaining tone. + +"The Brat has gone back to Oxford," I say, gloomily; "Bobby has gone to +Hong-Kong, and Algy has gone to _the dogs_--or at least is going there +as hard as he can!" + +"_To the dogs_?" (with an accent of surprise and concern); "what do you +mean? what has sent him there?" + +"You had better ask Mrs. Zéphine," reply I, bitterly, thinking, with a +lively exasperation, of the changed and demoralized Algy I had last +seen--soured, headstrong, and unhinged. + +"_Zéphine!_" (repeating the name with an accent of thorough +astonishment), "what on earth can _she_ have to say to it?" + +"Ah, _what_?" reply I, with oracular spite; then, overcome with remorse +at the thought of the way in which I was embittering the first moments +of his return, I rebury my face in his shoulder. + +"I will tell you about that to-morrow," I say; "to-day is a good day, +and we will talk only of good things and of good people." + +He does not immediately answer. My remark seems to have buried him in +thought. Presently he shakes off his distraction and speaks again. + +"And Barbara? how is she? _She_ has not" (beginning to laugh)--"_she_ +has not gone to the dogs, I suppose!" + +"No," say I, slowly, not thinking of what I am saying, but with my +thoughts wandering off to the greatest and sorest of my afflictions, +"not yet." + +"And" (smiling) "your plan. See what a good memory I have--your plan of +marrying her to Musgrave, how does that work?" + +"_My_ plan!" cry I, tremulously, while a sudden torrent of scarlet pours +all over my face and neck. "I do not know what you are talking about! I +never had any such plan! Phew!" (lifting up the arm that is round my +waist, hastily removing it, rising and going to the window), "how hot +this room grows of an afternoon!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +So the king enjoys his own again, and Roger is at home. Not yet--and now +it is the next morning--has his return become _real_ to me. Still there +is something phantom and visionary about it: still it seems to me open +to question whether, if I look away from him for a moment, he may not +melt and disappear into dream-land. + +All through breakfast I am dodging and peeping from behind the urn to +assure myself of the continued presence and substantial reality of the +strong shoulders and bronze-colored face that so solidly and certainly +face me. As often as I catch his eye--and this is not seldom, for +perhaps he too has his misgivings about me--I smile, in a manner, half +ashamed, half sneaky, and yet most wholly satisfied. + +The sun, who is not by any means _always_ so well-judging, often hiding +his face with both hands from a wedding, and hotly and gaudily flaming +down on a black funeral, is shining with a temperate February comeliness +in at our windows, on our garden borders; trying (and failing) to warm +up the passionless melancholy of the chilly snow-drop families, trying +(and succeeding) to add his quota to the joy that already fills and +occupies our two hearts. + +"How fine it is!" I cry, flying with unmatronly agility to the window, +and playing a waltz on the pane. "That is right! I should have been so +angry if it had rained; let us come out at once--I want to hear your +opinion about the laurels; they want cutting badly, but I could not have +them touched while you were away, though Bobby's fingers--when he was +here--itched to be hacking at them. Come, I have got on my strong boots +on purpose!--_at once_" + +"_At once?_" he repeats, a little doubtfully turning over the letters +that lie in a heap beside his plate. "Well, I do not know about _that_-- +duty first, and pleasure afterward. Had not I better go to Zéphine +Huntley's, and get it over?" + +"To _Zéphine Huntley's?_" repeat I, my fingers suddenly breaking off in +the middle of their tune, as I turn quickly round to face him; the smile +disappearing from my face, and my jaw lengthening; "you do not mean to +say that you are going there _again_?" + +"Yes, _again_!" he answers, laughing a little, and slightly mimicking my +tragic tone; "why not, Nancy?" + +I make no answer. I turn away and look out; but I see a different +landscape. It looks to me as if I were regarding it through dark-blue +glass. + +"I have got a whole sheaf of letters and papers from her husband for +her," pursues Roger, apparently calmly, and utterly unaware of my +discomfiture, "and I do not want to keep her out of them longer than I +can help." + +Still I make no rejoinder. My fingers stray idly up and down the glass; +but it is no longer a giddy waltz that they are executing--if it is a +tune at all, it is some little dirge. + +"What has happened to you, Nancy?" says Roger, presently, becoming aware +of my silence, rising and following me; "what are you doing--catching +flies?" + +"No," reply I, with an acrid smartness, "not I! I leave that to Mrs. +Zéphine." + +Once again he regards me with that look of unfeigned surprise, tinged +with a little pain which yesterday I detected on his face. When I look +at him, when my eyes rest on the brave and open honesty of his, my ugly, +nipping doubts disappear. + +"Do not go," say I, standing on tiptoe, so that my hands may reach his +neck, and clasp it, speaking in my most beguiling half-whisper; "why +should you fetch and carry for her? let John or William take her +letters. Are you so sure" (with an irresistible sneer) "that she is in +such a hurry for them?--stay with me this _one first_ day!--_do, please +--Roger_." + +It is the first time in all my history that I have succeeded in +delivering myself of his Christian name to his face--frequently as I +have fired it off in dialogues with myself, behind his back. It shoots +out now with the loud suddenness of a mismanaged soda-water cork. + +"_Roger!_" he repeats, in an accent of keen pleasure, catching me to his +heart; "what! I am _Roger_ after all, am I? The 'general' has gone to +glory at last, has he?--thank God!" + +"I will ring and tell John at once," say I, with subtile amiability, +disengaging myself from his arms, and walking quickly toward the bell. + +"Stay!" he says, putting his hand on me in detention, before I have made +two steps; "you must not! it is no use! John will not do, or William +either: it is a matter of business. I have" (sighing) "to go through +many of these papers with her." + +"_You?_" + +"Yes, _I_; why is that so surprising?" + +"What possible concern is it of _yours_?" ask I, throwing the reins on +the neck of my indignation, and urging that willing steed to a sharp +gallop, crimsoning as I speak, and raising my voice, as has ever been +our immemorial wont in home-broils. "For my part, I never saw any good +come of people putting their fingers into their neighbors' pies!" + +"Not even if those neighbors are the oldest friends they have in the +world?" he says, gently, yet eying with some wonder--perhaps +apprehension, for odd things frighten men--the small scarlet scold who +stands swelling with ruffled feathers, and angry eyes, winking to keep +the tears out of them, before him. + +"I thought _father_ was the oldest friend you had in the world!" say I, +with a jealous tartness; "you always _used_ to tell us so." + +"_Some_ of my oldest friends, then," he answers, looking a little +amused, "since you will have me so exact." + +"If Mrs. Huntley is the oldest friend you have in the world," say I, +acrimoniously, still sticking to his first and most offensive form of +expression, and _heavily_ accenting it, "I wonder that you never +happened to mention her existence before you went." + +"So do I," he says, a little thoughtfully. "I am not much of a friend, +am I? but--" (looking at me with that sincere and hearty tenderness +which, as long as I am under its immediate influence, always disarms me) +"my head was full of other things; and people drop out of one's life so; +I had neither seen nor heard of her since--since she married." + +("Since she was engaged to you," say I, mentally interlining this +statement, "and threw you over because you were not rich enough! why +cannot you be honest and say so?") but aloud I give utterance to nothing +but a shrewish and disbelieving "Hm!" + +A pause. I do not know what Roger is thinking of, but I am following out +my own train of thought; the fruit of which is this observation, made +with an air of reflection: + +"Mr. Huntley is a very rich man, I suppose?" + +Roger laughs. + +"_Rich!_ poor Huntley! that is the very last thing his worst enemy could +accuse him of! why, he was obliged to run the constable two years ago." + +"But I suppose," say I, slowly, "that he was better off--_well_ off +once--when she married him, for instance?" + +"How did you know that?" he asks, a little surprised. "Who told you? +Yes; at that time he was looked upon as quite _a parti_." + +"Better off than _you_, I suppose?" say I, still speaking slowly, and +reading the carpet. "I mean than you were then?" + +Again he laughs. + +"He might easily have been that? I had nothing but my younger son's +portion and my pay; why, Nancy, I had an idea that I had told you that +before." + +"I dare say you did," reply I, readily, "but I like to hear it again." + +Yet another pause. + +"He is badly off _now_, then," say I, presently, with a faintly +triumphant accent. + +"About as badly off as it is possible to be," answers Roger, very +gravely; "that is my business with his wife; she and I are trying to +make an arrangement with his creditors, to enable him to come home." + +"To come home!" echo I, raising my eyebrows in an artless astonishment; +"but if he _does_ come home, what will become of Algy and the _rest of +them?_" + +"The rest of _whom?_" asks Roger, but there is such a severity in his +eye as he puts the question that it is not too much to say I _dare not_ +explain. The one thing hated of Roger's soul--the one thing for which he +has no tolerance, and on which he brings to bear all the weight of his +righteous wrath, is _scandal_. Not even me will he allow to nibble at a +neighbor's fame. + +"Is she much changed since you saw her last?" pursue I presently, with +infantile guilelessness; "was her hair _red_ then? some people say it +_used_ to be black!" + +I raise my eyes to his face as I put this gentle query, in order the +better to trace its effect; but the concern that I see in his +countenance is so very much greater than any that I had intended to have +summoned that I have no sooner hurled my dart than I repent me of having +done it. + +"Nancy!" he says, putting one hand under my chin, and stroking my hair +with the other--"am I going to have a _backbiting_ wife? Child! child! +there was neither hatred nor malice in the little girl I found sitting +at the top of the wall." + +I do not answer. + +"Nancy," he says again, in a voice of most thorough earnestness, "I have +a favor to ask of you--I know when I put it _that way_, that you will +not say 'No;' if you do not mind, I had rather you did not abuse Zéphine +Huntley!--for the matter of that, I had rather you did not abuse any +one--it does not pay, and there is no great fun in it; but Zéphine +_specially_ not." + +"Why _specially?_" cry I, breathing short and speaking again with a +quick, raised voice. "I know that it is a bad plan abusing people, you +need not tell me _that_, I know it as well as you do, and I never did it +at home, before I married, _never!_--none of them ever accused me of it +--I was always quite good-natured about people, _quite_; but why _she +specially?_ why is she to be more sacred than any one else?" + +"It is an old story," he answers, passing his hand across his forehead +with what looks to me like a rather weary gesture and sighing, "I do not +know why I did not tell you before--did not I ever?--no, by-the-by, I +remember I never did; well, I will tell you now, and then you will +understand!" + +"Do not!" cry I, passionately, putting my fingers in my ears, and +growing scarlet, while the tears rush in mad haste to my eyes, for I +imagine that I well know what is coming. "I do not want to hear! I had +rather not! I _hate_ old stories." He looks at me in silent dismay. "I +mean," say I, seeing that some explanation is needed, "that I know all +about it!--I have heard it already! I have been told it." + +"Been told it? By whom?" + +"Never mind by whom!" reply I, removing my fingers from my ears, and +covering with both hot hands my hotter face. "I _have_ been told it! I +_have_ heard it, and, what is more, I _will not hear it again!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +When I rose this morning, I did not think that I should have cried +before night; indeed, nothing would have seemed to me so unlikely. Cry! +on the day of Roger's first back-coming! absurd! And yet now the morning +is still quite young, and I have wept abundantly. I am always rather +good at crying. Tears with me do not argue any very profound depth of +affliction. My tears have always been somewhat near my eyes, a fact well +known to the boys, whom my pearly drops always leave as stolid and +unfeeling as they found them. But the case is different with Roger. +Either he is ignorant, or he has forgotten the facility with which I +weep, and his distress is proportioned to his ignorance. + +My eyes are dried again now, though they and my nose still keep a brave +after-glow; and Roger and I are at one again. But, for my part, on this +first day, I think it would have been pleasanter if we had never been at +two. However, smiling peace is now again restored to us, and no one, to +look at us, as we sit in my boudoir after breakfast, would think that +we, or perhaps I should say I, had been so lately employed in chasing +her away. As little would any one, looking at the blandness of Vick's +profile, as she slumbers on the window-seat in the sun, conjecture of +her master-passion for the calves of strangers' legs. + +"So you see that I _must_ go, Nancy," says Roger, with a rather wistful +appeal to my reason, of whose supremacy he is not, perhaps, quite so +confident as he was when he got up this morning. "You understand, don't +you, dear?" + +I nod. + +"Yes, I understand." + +I still speak in a subdued and snuffly voice, but the wrath has gone out +of me. + +"Well, you--would you mind," he says, speaking rather hesitatingly, as +not quite sure of the reception that his proposition may meet with-- +"would you mind coming with me as far as Zéphine's?" + +"Do you mean come all the way, and go in with you, and stay while you +are there?" cry I, with great animation, as a picture of the strict +supervision which, by this course of conduct, I shall be enabled to +exercise over Mrs. Zéphine's oscillades, poses, and little verbal +tendernesses, flashes before my mind's eye. + +Roger looks down. + +"I do not know about _that_" he says, slowly. "Perhaps she would not +care to go into her husband's liabilities before a--a str--before a +third person!" + + "Two is company and three is none, in fact," say I, with a slight +relapse into the disdainful and snorting mood. + +He looks distressed, but attempts no argument or explanation. + +"How far did you mean me to come, then?" say I, half ashamed of my +humors, but still with an after-thought of pettishness in my voice. +"Escort you to the hall-door, I suppose, and kick my heels among the +laurestines until such time as all Mr. Huntley's bills are paid?" + +He turns away. + +"It is of no consequence," he says, with a slight shade of impatience, +and a stronger shade of disappointment in his voice. "I see that you do +not wish it, but what I meant was, that you might have walked with me as +far as the gate, so that on this first day we might lose as little of +each other's society as possible." + +"And so I will!" cry I, impulsively, with a rush of tardy repentance. +"I--I--_meant_ to come all along. I was only--only--_joking!_" + +But to both of us it seems but a sorry jest. We set forth, and walk side +by side through the park. Both of us are rather silent. Yes, though we +have eight months' arrears of talk to make up, though it seemed to me +before he came that in a whole long life there would scarce be time for +all the things I had to say to him, yet, now that we are reunited, we +are stalking dumbly along through the withered white grass, pallid from +the winter storms. Certainly, we neither of us could say any thing so +well worth hearing as what the lark, in his most loud and godly joy, is +telling us from on high. Perhaps it is the knowledge of this that ties +our tongues. + +The sun shines on our heads. He has not much power yet, but great +good-will. And the air is almost as gentle as June. We have left our own +domain behind us, and have reached Mrs. Huntley's white gate. Through +the bars I see the sheltered laurestines all ablow. + +"May I wait for you here?" say I, with diffident urgency, reflecting +hopefully, as I make the suggestion, on the wholesome effect, on the +length of the interview that the knowledge of my being, flattening my +nose against the bars of the gate all through it, must necessarily have. + +Again he looks down, as if unwilling to meet my appealing eyes. + +"I think not, Nancy," he answers, reluctantly. "You see, I cannot +possibly tell how long I might be obliged to keep you waiting." + +"I do not mind waiting at all," persist I, eagerly. "I am not very +impatient; I shall not expect you to be very quick, and" (going on very +fast, to hinder him from the second refusal which I see hovering on his +lips), "and it is not at all cold; just now you yourself said that you +had felt many a chillier May-day, and I am so warmly wrapped up, pet!" +(taking hold of one of his fingers, and making it softly travel up and +down the fur of my thick coat). + +He shakes his head, with a gesture unwilling, yet decided. + +"No, Nancy, it could not be! I had rather that you would go home." + +"I have no doubt you would!" say I, turning sharply and huffily away; +then, with a sudden recollecting and repenting myself, "May I come back, +then?" I say, meekly. + +"Come and fetch you, I mean, after a time--any long time that you like!" + +"_Will_ you?" he cries, with animation, the look of unwilling refusal +vanishing from his face. "Would you _like_? would not it be too much +trouble?" + +"Not at all! not at all!" reply I, affably. "How soon, then?" (taking +out my watch); "in half an hour?" + +Again his face falls a little. + +"I think it must be longer than _that_, Nancy." + +"An hour, then?" say I, lifting a lengthened countenance wistfully to +his; "people may do a good deal in an hour, may not they?" + +"Had not we better be on the safe side, and say an hour and a half?" +suggests he, but somewhat apprehensively--or I imagine so. "I shall be +sure not to keep you a minute then--I do not relish the notion of my +wife's tramping up and down this muddy road all by herself." + +"And I do not relish the notion of my husband--" return I, beginning to +speak very fast, and then suddenly breaking off--"Well, good-by!" + +"Say, good-by, Roger," cries he, catching my hand in detention, as I +turn away. "Nancy, if you knew how fond I have grown of my own name! In +despite of Tichborne, I think it _lovely_." + +I laugh. + +"Good-by, _Roger_!" + +He has opened the gate, and turned in. I watch him, as he walks with +long, quick steps, up the little, trim swept drive. As I follow him with +my eyes, a devil enters into me. I cry-- + +"Roger!" + +He turns at once. + +"Ask her to show you Algy's bracelet," I say, with an awkward laugh; and +then, thoroughly afraid of the effect of my bomb-shell, and not daring +to see what sort it is, I turn and run quickly away. + +The end of the hour and a half finds me punctually peering through the +bars again. Well, I am first at the rendezvous. This, perhaps, is not +very surprising, as I have not given him one moment's law. For the first +five minutes, I am very fairly happy and content. The lark is still +fluttering in strong rapture up in the heights of the sky; and for these +five minutes I listen to him, soothed and hallowed. But, after they are +past, it is different. God's bird may be silent, as far as I am +concerned: not a verse more of his clear psalm do I hear. An uneasy +devil of jealousy has entered into me, and stopped my ears. I take hold +of the bars of the gate, and peer through, as far as my head will go: +then I open it, and, stealing on tiptoe up the drive a little way, to +the first corner, look warily round it. Not a sign of him! Not a sound! +Not even a whisper of air to rustle the glistening laurel-leaves, or +stir the flat laurestine-sprays. + +I return to the road, and inculcate patience on myself. Why may not I +take a lesson in easy-mindedness from Vick? Was not it Hartley Coleridge +who suggested that perhaps dogs have a language of smell; and that what +to us is a noisome smell, is to them a beautiful poem? If so, Vick is +searching for lyrics and epics in the ditch. I stroll along the wintry +brown hedge-row, and begin to pick Roger a little, scant nosegay. He +shall see how patient I am! how _un_sulky! with what sunny mildness I +can wait his leisure! I have already two or three snow-drops in my +breast, that I picked as I came through the garden. To these I add a +drooping hazel-tassel or two, and a little bit of honeysuckle-leaf, just +breaking greenly into life. This is all I can find--all the scentless +first-fruits of the baby year. + +It is ten minutes past the due time now. Again I listen intently, as I +listened yesterday, for his coming. There is a sound now; but, alas! not +the right one! It is the rumbling of an approaching carriage. A +pony-chaise bowls past. The occupants are acquaintances of mine, and we +bow and smile to each other. As long as they are in sight, I affect to +be diligently botanizing in the hedge. When they have disappeared, I sit +down on a heap of stones, and take out my watch for the hundredth time; +a whole quarter of an hour! + +"He does not relish the notion of his wife's tramping up and down this +muddy road by herself, does not he?" say I, speaking out loud, and +gnashing my teeth. + +Then I hurl my little posy away from me into the mud, as far as it will +go. What has become of my patience? my sunny mildness? Then, as the +recollection of the velvet-gown and mob-cap episode recurs to me, I +repent me, and, crossing the road, pick up again my harmless catkins and +snow-drops, and rearrange them. I have hardly finished wiping the mire +from the tender, lilac-veined snowdrop petals, before I hear his voice +in the distance, in conversation with some one. Clearly, Delilah is +coming to see the last of him! I expect that she mostly escorts them to +the gate. In my present frame of mind, it would be physically impossible +for me to salute her with the bland civility which society enjoins on +people of our stage of civilization. I therefore remain sitting on my +heap. + +Presently, Roger emerges alone. He does not see me at first, but looks +up the road, and down the road, in search of me. When, at last, he +perceives me, no smile--(as has ever hitherto been his wont)--kindles +his eyes and lips. With unstirred gravity, he approaches me. + +"Here you are _at last!_" cry I, scampering to meet him, but with a +stress, from which human nature is unable to refrain, on the last two +words. + +"At last?" he repeats in a tone of surprise; "am I over time?--Yes"-- +(looking at his watch)--"so I am! I had no idea of it; I hope you have +not been long waiting." + +"I was here to the minute," reply I, curtly; and again my tongue +declines to refrain from accentuation. + +"I beg your pardon!" he says, still speaking with unnecessary +seriousness, as it seems to me, "I really had no idea of it." + +"I dare say not," say I, with a little wintry grin; "I never heard that +they had a clock in paradise." + +"_In paradise!_" he repeats, looking at me strangely with his keen, +clear eyes, that seem to me to have less of a caress in them than they +ever had before on meeting mine. "What has _paradise_ to say to it? Do +you imagine that I have been in _paradise_ since I left you here?" + +"I do not know, I am sure!" reply I, rather confused, and childishly +stirring the stiff red mud with the end of my boot, "I believe _they_ +mostly do; Algy does--" then afraid of drawing down the vial of his +wrath on me a second time for my scandal-mongering propensities, I go on +quickly; "Were you talking to yourself as you came down the drive? I +heard your voice as if in conversation. I sometimes talk to myself when +I am by myself, quite loud." + +"Do you? I do not think I do; at least I am not aware of it; I was +talking to Zéphine." + +"Why did not she come to the gate, then?" inquire I, tartly; "did she +know I was there? did not she want to see me?" + +"I do not know; I did not ask her." + +I look up at him in strong surprise. We are in the park now--our own +unpeopled, silent park, where none but the deer can see us; and yet he +has not offered me the smallest caress; not once has he called me +"Nancy;" he, to whom hitherto my homely name has appeared so sweet. It +is only an hour and three-quarters since I parted from him, and yet in +that short space an indisputable shade--a change that exits not only in +my imagination, but one that no most careless, superficial eye could +avoid seeing--has come over him. Face, manner, even gait, are all +altered, I think of Algy--Algy as he used to be, our jovial pet and +playfellow, Algy as he now is, soured, sulky, unloving, his very beauty +dimmed by discontent and passion. Is this the beginning of a like change +in Roger? + +A spasm of jealous agony, of angry despair, contracts my heart as I +think this. + +"Well, are all Mr. Huntley's debts paid?" I ask, trying to speak in a +tone of sprightly ease; "is there a good hope of his coming back soon?" + +"Not yet a while; in time, perhaps, he may." + +Still there is not a vestige of a smile on his face. He does not look at +me as he speaks; his eyes are on the long, dead knots of the colorless +grass at his feet; in his expression despondency and preoccupation +strive for supremacy. + +"Have you made your head ache?" I say, gently stealing my hand into his; +"there is nothing that addles the brains like muddling over accounts, is +there?" + +_Am_ I awake? _Can_ I believe it? He has dropped my hand, as if he +disliked the touch of it. + +"No, thanks, no. I have no headache," he answers, hastily. + +Another little silence. We are marching quickly along, as if our great +object were to get our _tête-à-tête_ over. As we came, we dawdled, stood +still to listen to the lark, to look at the wool-soft cloud-heaps piled +in the west--on any trivial excuse indeed; but now all these things are +changed. + +"Did you talk of business _all_ the time?" I ask, by-and-by, with timid +curiosity. + +It is _not_ my fancy; he does plainly hesitate. + +"Not quite _all_" he answers, in a low voice, and still looking away +from me. + +"About _what_, then?" I persist, in a voice through whose counterfeit +playfulness I myself too plainly hear the unconquerable tremulousness; +"may not I hear?--or is it a secret?" + +He does not answer; it seems to me that he is considering what response +to make. + +"Perhaps," say I, still with a poor assumption of lightness and gayety, +"perhaps you were talking of--of old times." + +He laughs a little, but _whose_ laugh has he borrowed? in that dry, +harsh tone there is nothing of my Roger's mellow mirth! + +"Not we; old times must take care of themselves; one has enough to do +with the new ones, I find." + +"Did she--did she say any thing to you about--about _Algy_, then?"-- +hesitatingly. + +"We did not mention his name." + +There is something so abrupt and trenchant in his tone that I have not +the spirit to pursue my inquiries any further. In deep astonishment and +still deeper mortification, I pursue my way in silence. + +Suddenly Roger comes to a stand-still. + +"Nancy!" he says, in a voice that is more like his own, stopping and +laying his hands on my shoulders; while in his eyes is something of his +old kindness; yet not quite the old kindness either; there is more of +unwilling, rueful yearning in them than there ever was in that--"Nancy, +how old are you?--nineteen, is it not?" + +"Very nearly twenty," reply I, cheerfully, for he has called me "Nancy," +and I hail it as a sign of returning fine weather; "we may call it +twenty; will not it be a comfort when I am well out of my teens?" + +"And I am forty-eight," he says, as if speaking more to himself than to +me, and sighing heavily; "it is a _monstrous_, an _unnatural_ +disparity!" + +"It is not nearly so bad as if it were _the other way_," reply I, +laughing gayly; "I forty-eight, and _you_ twenty, is it?" + +"My child! my child!"--speaking with an accent of, to me, unaccountable +suffering--"what possessed me to _marry_ you? why did not I _adopt_ you +instead? It would have been a hundred times more seemly!" + +"It is a little late to think of that now, is not it?" I say, with an +uncomfortable smile; then I go on, with an uneasy laugh, "that was the +very idea that occurred to us the first night you arrived; at least, it +never struck us as possible that you would take any notice of _me_, but +we all said what a good thing it would be for the family if you would +adopt Barbara or the Brat." + +"Did you?" (very quickly, in a tone of keen pain); "it struck you all in +the same light then?" + +"But that was before we had seen you," I answer, hastily, repenting my +confession as soon as I see its effects. "When we _had_, we soon changed +our tune." + +"_If_ I _had_ adopted you," he pursues, still looking at me with the +same painful and intent wistfulness, "if I had been your father, you +would have been fond of me, would not you? Not _afraid_ of me--not +afraid to tell me any thing that most nearly concerned you--you would +perhaps"--(with a difficult smile)--"you would perhaps have made me your +_confidant_, would you, Nancy?" + +I look up at him in utter bewilderment. + +"What are you talking about? Why do I want a confidant? What have I to +confide? What have I to tell any one?" + +Our eyes are resting on each other, and, as I speak, I feel his go with +clean and piercing search right through mine into my soul. In a moment I +think of Musgrave, and the untold black tale now forever in my thought +attached to him, and, as I so think, the hot flush of agonized shame +that the recollection of him never fails to call to my face, invades +cheeks, brow, and throat. To hide it, I drop my head on Roger's breast. +Shall I tell him _now_, this instant? Is it possible that he has already +some faint and shadowy suspicion of the truth--some vague conjecture +concerning it, as something in his manner seems to say? But no! it is +absolutely impossible! Who, with the best will in the world, could have +told him? Is not the tale safely buried in the deep grave of Musgrave's +and my two hearts? + +I raise my head, and twice essay to speak. Twice I stop, choked. How can +I put into words the insult I have received? How can I reveal to him the +slack levity, the careless looseness, with which I have kept the honor +confided to me? + +As my eyes stray helplessly round in a vain search for advice or help +from the infinite unfeeling apathy of Nature, I catch sight of the +distant chimneys of the abbey! How near it is! After all, why should I +sow dissension between such close neighbors? why make an irreparable +breach between two families, hitherto united by the kindly ties of +mutual friendship and good-will? + +Frank is young, very young; he has been--so Roger himself told me--very +ill brought up. Perhaps he has already repented, who knows? I try to +persuade myself that these are the reasons--and sufficient reasons--of +my silence, and I take my resolution afresh. I will be dumb. The flush +slowly dies out of my face, and, when I think it is almost gone, I +venture to look again at Roger. I think that his eyes have never left +me. They seem to be expecting me to speak, but, as I still remain +silent, he turns at length away, and also gently removes his hands from +my shoulders. We stand apart. + +"Well, Nancy," he says, sighing again, as if from the bottom of his +soul, "my poor child, it is no use talking about it. I can never be your +father now." + +"And a very good thing too!" rejoin I, with a dogged stoutness. "I do +not see what I want with _two_ fathers; I have always found _one_ amply +enough--quite as much as I could manage, in fact." + +He seems hardly to be listening to me. He has dropped his eyes on the +ground, and is speaking more to himself than to me. + +"Husband and wife we are!" he says, with a slow depression of tone, +"and, as long as God's and man's laws stand, husband and wife we must +remain!" + +"You are not very polite," I cry, with an indignant lump rising in my +throat; "you speak as if you were _sorry_ for it--_are_ you?" + +He lifts his eyes again, and again their keen search investigates the +depths of my soul; but no human eye can rightly read the secrets of any +other human spirit; they find what they expect to find, not what is +there. Clear and cuttingly keen as they are, Roger's eyes do not read my +soul aright. + +"Are _you_, Nancy?" + +"If _you_ are, I am," I reply, with a half-smothered sob. + +He makes no rejoinder, and we begin again to walk along homeward, but +slowly this time. + +"We have made a mistake, perhaps," he says, presently, still speaking +with the same slow and ruminating sadness in his tone. "The inscrutable +God alone knows why He permits his creatures to mar all their seventy +years by one short false step--yes--a _mistake_!" + +(Ah me! all me! I always mistrusted those laurestines! They sent me back +my brother churlish and embittered, but oh! that in my steadfast Roger +they should have worked such a sudden deadly change!) + +"Is it more a mistake," I cry, bursting out into irrepressible anger, +"than it was two hours ago, when I left you at that gate? You did not +seem to think it a mistake _then_--at least you hid it very well, if you +did"--(then going on quickly, seeing that he is about to interrupt me)-- +"have you been _comparing notes_, pray? Has _she_ found it a mistake, +too?" + +"Yes, _that_ she has! Poor soul! God help her!" he answers, +compassionately. + +Something in the pity of his tone jars frightfully on my strung nerves. + +"If God has to help all the poor souls who have made mistakes, He will +have his hands full!" I retort, bitterly. + +Another silence. We are drawing near the pleasure-grounds--the great +rhododendron belt that shelters the shrubbery from the east wind. + +"Nancy," says Roger, again stopping, and facing me too. This time he +does not put his hands on my shoulders; the melancholy is still in his +eyes, but there is no longer any harshness. They repossess their natural +kindly benignity. "Though it is perhaps impossible that there should be +between us that passionate love that there might be between people that +are nearer each other in age--more fitly mated--yet there is no reason +why we should not _like_ each other very heartily, is there, dear? why +there should not be between us absolute confidence, perfect frankness-- +that is the great thing, is not it?" + +He is looking with such intense wistfulness at me, that I turn away. Why +should not there be passionate love between us? Who is there but himself +to hinder it? So I make no answer. + +"I dare say," he says, taking my right hand, and holding it with a cool +and kindly clasp, "that you think it difficult--next door to impossible +--for two people, one at the outset, one almost on the confines of life, +to enter very understandingly into each other's interests! No doubt the +thought that I--being so much ahead of you in years"--(sighing again +heavily)--"cannot see with your eyes, or look at things from your +stand-point--would make it harder for you to come to me in your +troubles; but indeed, dear, if you believe me, I will _try_, and, as we +are to spend our lives together, I think it would be better, would not +it?" + +He speaks with a deprecating humility, an almost imploring gentleness, +but I am so thoroughly upset by the astounding change that has come over +the tone of his talk--by the clouds that have suddenly darkened the +morning sunshine of my horizon--that I cannot answer him in the same +tone. + +"Perhaps we shall not have to spend all our lives together!" I say, with +a harsh laugh. "Cheer up! One of us may _die_! who knows?" + +After that we neither of us say any thing till we reach the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +"Yea, by God's rood, I trusted you too well!" + + +In the hall we part without a word, and I, spiritlessly, mount the +staircase alone. How I flew down it this morning, three steps at a time, +and had some ado to hinder myself from sliding down the banisters, as we +have all often, with dangerous joy, done at home! Now I crawl up, like +some sickly old person. When I reach my bedroom, I throw myself into the +first chair, and lie in it-- + + "... quiet as any water-sodden log + Stayed in the wandering warble of a brook." + +I do not attempt to take off my hat and jacket. Of what use is it to +take them off more than to leave them on, or to leave them on more than +to take them off? Of what use is _any thing_, pray? What a weary round +life is! what a silly circle of unfortunate repetitions! eating only to +be hungry again; waking only to sleep; sleeping only to wake! + +At first I am too inert even to think, even to lift my hand to protect +my cheek from Vick's muddy paws, who, annoyed at my evident inattention +to her presence, is sitting on my lap, making little impatient +_clawings_ at my defenseless countenance. But gradually on the river of +recollection all the incidents of the morning flow through my mind. In +more startling relief than ever, the astounding change in Roger, wrought +by those ill-starred two hours, stands out. Is it possible that I may +have been attributing it to a wrong cause? Doubtless, the first +interview with the woman he had loved, and who had thrown him over +(by-the-by, how forgiving men are!)--yes, the first, probably, since +they had stood in the relation of betrothed people to each other--must +have been full of pain. Doubtless, the contrast between the crude +gawkiness of the raw girl he has drifted into marrying--for I suppose it +was more accident than any thing else--with the mature and subtile +grace, the fine and low-voiced sweetness of the woman whom his whole +heart and soul and taste chose and approved, must have struck him with +keen force. I expected _that_: it would not have taken me by surprise. +If he had emerged from among the laurestines, depressed, and vainly +struggling for a factitious cheerfulness, I think I could have +understood it. I think I could have borne with it, could have tried +meekly to steal back into his heart again, to win him back, in despite +of ignorance, gawkiness, and all other my drawbacks, by force of sheer +love. + +But the change was surely too abrupt to be accounted for on this +hypothesis. Would _Roger_, my pattern of courtesy--Roger, who shrinks +from hurting the meanest beggar's feelings--would he, in such plain +terms, have deplored and wished undone our marriage, if it were only +suffering to _himself_ that it had entailed? Has his unselfish chivalry +gone the way of Algy's brotherly love? Impossible! the more I think of +it, the more unlikely it seems--the more certain it appears to me that I +must look elsewhere for the cause of the alteration that has so heavily +darkened my day. + +I have risen, and am walking quickly up and down. I have shaken off my +stolid apathy, or, rather, it has fallen off of itself. Can she have +told him any ill tales of me? any thing to my disadvantage? Instantly +the thought of Musgrave--the black and heavy thought that is never far +from the portals of my mind--darts across me, and, at the same instant, +like a flash of lightning, the recollection of my meeting her on the +fatal evening, just as (with tear-stained, swollen face) I had parted +from Frank--of the alert and lively interest in her eyes, as she bowed +and smiled to me, flames with sudden illumination into my soul. Still I +can hardly credit it. It would, no doubt, be pleasant to her to sow +dissension between us, but would even _she_ dare to carry ill tales of a +wife to a husband? And even supposing that she had, would he attach so +much importance to my being seen with wet cheeks? I, who cry so easily-- +I, who wept myself nearly blind when Jacky caught his leg in the snare? +If he thinks so much of that part of the tale, _what would he think of +the rest?_ + +As I make this reflection I shudder, and again congratulate myself on my +silence. For beyond our parting, and my tears, it is _impossible_ that +she can have told him aught. + +Men are not prone to publish their own discomfitures; even _I_ know that +much. I exonerate Mr. Musgrave from all share in making it known--and +have the mossed tree-trunks lips? or the loud brook an articulate +tongue? Thank God! thank God! _no!_ Nature never blabs. With infinite +composure, with a most calm smile she _listens_, but she never tells +again. + +A little reassured by this thought, I resolve to remain in doubt no +longer than I can help, but to ascertain, if necessary, by direct +inquiry, whether my suspicions are correct. This determination is no +sooner come to than it puts fresh life and energy into my limbs. I take +off my hat and jacket, smooth my hair, and prepare with some alacrity +for luncheon. + +It is evening, however, before I have an opportunity of putting my +resolve in practice. At luncheon, there are the servants; all afternoon, +Roger is closeted with his agent: before we set off this morning, he +never mentioned the agent: he never figured at all in our day's plan--(I +imagined that he was to be kept till to-morrow); and at dinner there are +the servants again. Thank God, they are gone now! We are alone, Roger +and I. We are sitting in my boudoir, as in my day-dreams, before his +return, I had pictured us; but, alas! where is caressing proximity which +figured in all my visions? where is the stool on which I was to sit at +his feet, with head confidently leaned on his arm? As it happens, Vick +is sitting on the stool, and we occupy two arm-chairs, at civil distance +from each other, much as if we had been married sixty years, and had +hated each other for fifty-nine of them. I am idly fiddle-faddling with +a piece of work, and Roger--is it possible?--is stretching out his hand +toward a book. + +"You do not mean to say that you are going to _read_?" I say, in a tone +of sharp vexation. + +He lays it down again. + +"If you had rather talk, I will not." + +"I am afraid," say I, with a sour laugh, "that you have not kept much +conversation _for home use_! I suppose you exhausted it all, this +morning, at Laurel Cottage!" + +He passes his hand slowly across his forehead. + +"Perhaps!--I do not think I am in a very talking vein." + +"By-the-by," say I, my heart beating thick, and with a hurry and tremor +in my voice, as I approach the desired yet dreaded theme, "you have +never told me what it was, besides Mr. Huntley's debts, that you talked +of this morning!--you owned that you did not talk of business _quite_ +all the time!" + +"Did I?" + +He has forgotten his book now; across the flame of the candles, he is +looking full and steadily at me. + +"When I asked you, you said it was not about old times?--of course--" +(laughing acridly)--"I can imagine your becoming inimitably diffuse +about _them_, but you told me, that, 'No,' you did not mention them." + +"I told truth." + +"You also said," continue I, with my voice still trembling, and my +pulses throbbing, "that it was not _Algy_ that you were discussing!--if +_I_ had been in your place, I could, perhaps, have found a good deal to +say about _him_; but you told me that you never mentioned him." + +"We did not." + +"Then what _did_ you talk about?" I ask, in strong excitement; "it must +have been a very odd theme that you find such difficulty in repeating." + +Still he is looking, with searching gravity, full in my face. + +"Do you _really_ wish to know?" + +I cannot meet his eyes: something in me makes me quail before them. I +turn mine away, but answer, stoutly: + +"Yes, I _do_ wish. Why should I have asked, if I did not?" + +Still he says nothing: still I feel, though I am not looking at him, +that his eyes are upon me. + +"Was it--" say I, unable any longer to bear that dumb gaze, and +preferring to take the bull by the horns, and rush on my fate--"was it +any thing about _me_? has she been telling you any tales of--of--_me_?" + +No answer! No sound but the clock, and Vick's heavy breathing, as she +peacefully snores on the footstool. I _cannot_ bear the suspense. Again +I lift my eyes, and look at him. Yes, I am right! the intense anxiety-- +the overpowering emotion on his face tell me that I have touched the +right string. + +"Are there--are there--are you aware that there are any tales that she +_could_ tell of you?" + +Again I laugh harshly. + +"Ha! ha! if we came to mutual anecdotes, I am not quite sure that I +might not have the best of it!" + +"That is not the question," he replies, in a voice so exceedingly stern, +so absolutely different from any thing I have ever hitherto contemplated +as possible in my gentle, genial Roger, that again, to the depths of my +soul, I quail; how could I ever, in wildest dreams, have thought I +should dare to tell him?--"it is nothing to me what tales _you_ can tell +of _her!--she_ is not my wife!--what I wish to know--what I _will_ know, +is, whether there is any thing that she _could_ say of you!" + +For a moment, I do not answer. I cannot. A coward fear is grasping my +heart with its clammy hands. Then-- + +"_Could!_" say I, shrugging my shoulders, and feebly trying to laugh +derisively; "of course she could! it would be difficult to set a limit +to the powers of a lady of her imagination!" + +"What do you mean?" he cries, quickly, and with what sounds like a sort +of hope in his voice; "have you any reason--any grounds for thinking her +inventive?" + +I do not answer directly. + +"It is true, then," I cry, with flashing eyes, and in a voice of great +and indignant anguish. "I have not been mistaken! I was right! Is it +possible that _you_, who, only this morning, warned me with such +severity against backbiting, have been calmly listening to scandalous +tales about me from a stranger?" + +He does not interrupt me: he is listening eagerly, and that sort of hope +is still in his face. + +"I _knew_ it would come, sooner or later," I continue, speaking +excitedly, and with intense bitterness, "sooner or later, I knew that it +would be a case of Algy over again! but I did not--did not think that it +would have been quite so soon! Great Heaven!" (smiting my hands sharply +together, and looking upward), "I _have_ fallen low! to think that I +should come to be discussed by _you_ with _her_!" + +"I have _not_ discussed you with her," he answers, very solemnly, and +still looking at me with that profound and greedy eagerness in his eyes; +"with _no_ living soul would I discuss my wife--I should have hardly +thought I need tell you that! What I heard, I heard by accident. She--as +I believe, in all innocence of heart--referred to--the--the-- +circumstance, taking it for granted that I knew it--that _you_ had told +me of it, and I--_I_--" (raising his clinched right hand to emphasize +his speech)--"I take God to witness, I had no more idea to what she was +alluding--as soon as I understood--she must have thought me very dull--" +(laughing hoarsely)--"for it was a long time before I took it in--but as +soon as I understood to what manner of anecdote it was that she was +referring--then, _at once_, I bade her be silent!--not even with _her_, +would I talk over my wife!" + +He stops. He has risen from his chair, and is now standing before me. +His breath comes quick and panting; and his face is not far from being +as white as mine. + +"But what I have learned," he continues presently, in a low voice, that, +by a great effort, he succeeds in making calm and steady, "I cannot +again unlearn! I would not if I could!--I have no desire to live in a +fool's paradise! I tried hard this morning--God knows what constraint I +had to put upon myself--to induce you to tell me of your own accord--to +_volunteer_ it--but you would not--you were _resolutely_ silent. Why +were you? Why were you?" (breaking off with an uncontrollable emotion). +"I should not have been hard upon you--I should have made allowances. +God knows we all need it!" + +I sit listening in a stony silence: every bit of me seems turned into +cold rock. + +"But _now_" he says, regathering his composure, and speaking with a +resolute, stern quiet; "I have no other resource--you have left me none +--but to come to you, and ask point-blank, is this true, or is it +false?" + +For a moment, my throat seems absolutely stopped up, choked; there seems +no passage for my voice, through its dry, parched gates. Then at length +I speak faintly: "Is _what_ true? is what false? I suppose you will not +expect me to deny it, before I know what it is?" + +He does not at once answer. He takes a turn once or twice up and down +the silent room, in strong endeavor to overcome and keep down his +agitation, then he returns and speaks; with a face paler, indeed, than I +could have imagined any thing so bronzed could be; graver, more austere +than I ever thought I should see it, but still without bluster or +hectoring violence. + +"Is it true, then?" he says, speaking in a very low key. "Great God! +that I should have to put such a question to my wife; that one evening, +about a week ago, on the very day, indeed, that the news of my intended +return arrived, you were seen parting with--with--_Musgrave_" (he seems +to have an intense difficulty in pronouncing the name) "at or after +nightfall, on the edge of Brindley Wood, _he_ in a state of the most +evident and extreme agitation, and _you_ in floods of tears!--is it +true, or is it false?--for God's sake, speak quickly!" + +But I cannot comply with his request. I am _gasping_. His eyes are upon +me, and, at every second's delay, they gather additional sternness. Oh, +how awful they are in their just wrath! When was father, in his worst +and most thunderous storms, half so dreadful? half so awe-inspiring? + +"What sort of an interview could it have been to which there was such a +close?" he says, as if making the reflection more to himself than to me; +"speak! is it true?" + +I can no longer defer my answer. One thing or another I must say: both +eyes and lips imperatively demand it. Twice, nay _thrice_ I struggle-- +struggle mightily to speak, and speak well and truly, and twice, nay, +three times, that base fear strangles my words. Then, at length--O +friends! do not be any harder upon me than you can help, for indeed, +_indeed_ I have paid sorely for it, and it is the first lie that ever I +told; then, at length, with a face as wan as the ashes of a dead fire-- +with trembling lips, and a faint, scarcely audible voice, I say, "No, it +is not true!" + +"_Not true?_" he echoes, catching up my words quickly; but in his voice +is none of the relief, the restored amenity that I had looked for, and +for the hope of which I have perjured myself; equally in voice and face, +there is only a deep and astonished anger. + +"_Not true!_--you mean to say that it is _false!_" + +"Yes, false!" I repeat in a sickly whisper. Oh, why, if I _must_ lie, do +not I do it with a bold and voluble assurance? whom would my starved +pinched falsehood deceive? + +"You mean to say," speaking with irrepressible excitement, while the +wrathful light gathers and grows intenser in the gray depths of his +eyes, "that this--this _interview_ never took place? that it is all a +delusion; a mistake?" + +"Yes." + +I repeat it mechanically now. Having gone thus far, I must go on, but I +feel giddy and sick, and my hands grasp the arms of my chair. I feel as +if I should fall out of it if they did not. + +"You are _sure_?" speaking with a heavy emphasis, and looking +persistently at me, while the anger of his eyes is dashed and crossed by +a miserable entreaty. Ah! if they had had that look at first, I could +have told him. "Are you _sure_?" he repeats, and I, driven by the fates +to my destruction, while God hides his face from me, and the devil +pushes me on, answer hazily, "Yes, quite sure!" + +Then he asks me no more questions; he turns and slowly leaves the room, +and I know that I have lied in vain! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + +And thus I, ingenious architect of my own ruin, build up the barrier of +a lie between myself and Roger. It is a barrier that hourly grows +higher, more impassable. As the days go by, I say to myself in +heart-sickness, that I shall never now cross it--never see it leveled +with the earth. Even when we too are dead it will still rise between us +in the other world; if--as all the nations have agreed to say--there +_be_ another. For my part, I think at this time that, if there is any +chance of its bearing aught of resemblance to this present world, I had +far fainer there were none. + +With all due deference to Shakespeare--and I suppose that even the one +supreme genius of all time must, in his day, have made a mistake or two +--I have but faint belief in the "sweet uses of adversity." I think that +they are about as mythical as the jewels in the toad's ugly skull, to +which he likened them. It is in _prosperity_ that one looks up, with +leaping heart and clear eyes, and through the clouds see God sitting +throned in light. In adversity one sees nothing but one's own dunghill +and boils. + +At least such has been my experience. I think I could have borne it +better if I had not looked forward to his return so much--if he had been +an austere and bitter tyrant, to _whose coming_ I had looked with dread, +I could have braced my nerves and pulled myself together, to face with +some stoutness the hourly trials of life. But when one has counted the +days, hours, and moments, till some high festival, and, when it comes, +it turns out a drear, black funeral, one cannot meet the changed +circumstances with any great fortitude. + +It is the horrible contrast between my dreams and their realization that +gives the keenest poignancy to my pangs. + +To his return I had referred the smoothing of all my difficulties, the +clearing up of all my doubts, the sweeping of all clouds from my sky; +and now he is back! and, oh, how far, _far_ gloomier than ever is my +weather! What a sullen leaden sky overhangs me! + +I never tell him about Algy after all! I do not often laugh now; but I +_did_ laugh loudly and long the other day, although I was quite alone, +when I thought of my wily purpose of setting Roger on his guard against +Mrs. Huntley's little sugared unveracities. + +No, I never tell him about Algy! Why should I? it would be wasted +breath--spent words. He would not believe me. In the more important case +has not he taken her word in preference to mine? Would not he in _this_ +too? For I know that he knows, as well as I know it myself, that in that +matter I lied. + +Sometimes, when I am by myself, a mighty yearning--a most constraining +longing seizes me to go to him--fall at his feet, and tell him the truth +even yet. After all, God knows that I have no ugly fault to confess to +him--no infidelity even of thought. But as soon as I am in his presence +the desire fades; or at least the power to put it in practice melts +away. For he never gives me an opening. After that first evening never +does he draw nigh the subject: never once is the detested name of +Musgrave mentioned between us. If he had been one most dear to us both +and had died untimely, we could not avoid with more sacred care any +allusion to him. And, even if, by doing infinite violence to myself, I +could bring myself to overcome the painful steepness of the hill of +difficulty that lies between me and the subject, and tell the tardy +truth, to what use, pray? Having once owned that I had lied, could I +resent any statement of mine being taken with distrust? Would he believe +me? Not he! He would say, "If you were as innocent as you say, why did +you _lie_? If you were innocent, what had you to fear?" So I hold my +peace. And, as the days go, and the winter wanes, it seems to me that I +can plainly see, with no uncertain or doubtful eyes, Roger's love wane +too. + +After all, why should I wonder? I may be sorry, for who ever saw gladly +love--the one all-good thing on this earth, most of whose good things +are adulterated and dirt-smirched--who ever saw it _gladly_ slip away +from them? But I cannot be surprised. + +With Roger, love and trust must ever go hand-in-hand; and, when the one +has gone, the other must needs soon follow. + +After all, what he loved in me was a delusion--had never existed. It was +my blunt honesty, my transparent candor, the open-hearted downrightness +that in me amounted to a misfortune, that had at first attracted him. +And now that he has found that the unpolished abruptness of my manners +can conceal as great an amount of deception as the most insinuating +silkiness of any one else's, I do not see what there is left in me to +attract him. Certainly I have no beauty to excite a man's passions, nor +any genius to enchain his intellect, nor even any pretty accomplishment +to amuse his leisure. + +Why _should_ he love me? Because I am his wife? Nay, nay! who ever loved +because it was their duty? who ever succeeded in putting love in +harness, and _driving_ him? Sooner than be the object of such up-hill +conscientious affection, I had far rather be treated with cold +indifference--active hatred even. Because I am young? That seems no +recommendation in his eyes! Because I love him? He does not believe it. +Once or twice I have tried to tell him so, and he has gently pooh-poohed +me. + +Sometimes it has occurred to me that, perhaps, if I had him all to +myself, I might even yet bring him back to me--might reconcile him to my +paucity of attractions, and persuade him of my honesty; but what chance +have I, when every day, every hour of the day if he likes to put himself +to such frequent pain, he may see and bitterly note the contrast between +the woman of his choice and the woman of his fate--the woman from whom +he is irrevocably parted, and the woman to whom he is as irrevocably +joined. And I think that hardly a day passes that he does not give +himself the opportunity of instituting the comparison. + +Not that he is unkind to me; do not think that. It would be impossible +to Roger to be unkind to any thing, much more to any weakly woman thing +that is quite in his own power. No, no! there is no fear of that. I have +no need to be a grizzle. I have no cross words, no petulances, no +neglects even, to bear. But oh! in all his friendly words, in all his +kindly, considerate actions, what a _chill_ there is! It is as if some +one that had been a day dead laid his hand on my heart! + +How many, _many_ miles farther apart we are now, than we were when I was +here, and he in Antigua; albeit then the noisy winds roared and sung, +and the brown billows tumbled between us! If he would but _hit_ me, or +box my ears, as Bobby has so often done--a good swinging, tingling box, +that made one see stars, and incarnadized all one side of one's +countenance--oh, how much, _much_ less would it hurt than do the frosty +dullness of his smiles, the uncaressing touch of his cool hands! + +I have plenty of time to think these thoughts, for I am a great deal +alone now. Roger is out all day, hunting or with his agent, or on some +of the manifold business that landed property entails, or that the +settlement of Mr. Huntley's inextricably tangled affairs involves. Very +often he does not come in till dressing-time. I never ask him where he +has been--never! I think that I know. + +Often in these after-days, pondering on those ill times, seeing their +incidents in that duer proportion that a stand-point at a little +distance from them gives, it has occurred to me that sometimes I was +wrong, that not seldom, while I was eating my heart out up-stairs, with +dumb jealousy picturing to myself my husband in the shaded fragrance, +the dulcet gloom of the drawing-room at Laurel Cottage, he was in the +house with me, as much alone as I, in the dull solitude of his own room, +pacing up and down the carpet, or bending over an unread book. + +I will tell you why I think so. One day--it is the end of March now, the +year is no longer a swaddled baby, it is shooting up into a tall +stripling--I have been straying about the brown gardens, _alone_, of +course. It is a year to-day since Bobby and I together strolled among +the kitchen-stuff in the garden at home, since he served me that ill +turn with the ladder. Every thing reminds me of that day: these might be +the same crocus-clumps, as those that last year frightened away winter +with their purple and gold banners. I remember that, as I looked down +their deep throats, I was humming Tou Tou's verb, "J'aime, I love; Tu +aimes, Thou lovest; Il aime, He loves." + +I sigh. There was the same purple promise over the budded woods; the +same sharpness in the bustling wind. Since then, Nature has gone through +all her plodding processes, and now it is all to do over again. A sense +of fatigue at the infinite repetitions of life comes over me. If Nature +would but make a little variation! If the seasons would but change their +places a little, and the flowers their order, so that there might be +something of unexpectedness about them! But no! they walk round and +round forever in their monotonous leisure. + +I am stooping to pick a little posy of violets as these languid thoughts +dawdle through my mind--blue mysteries of sweetness and color, born of +the unscented, dull earth. As I pass Roger's door, having reëntered the +house, the thought strikes me to set them on his writing-table. Most +likely he will not notice them, not be aware of them: but even so they +will be able humbly to speak to him the sweet things that he will not +listen to from me. I open the door and listlessly enter. If I had +thought that there was any chance of his being within, I should not have +done so without knocking; indeed, I hardly think I should have done it +at all, but this seems to me most unlikely. Nevertheless, he is. + +As I enter, I catch sudden sight of him. He is sitting in his arm-chair, +his elbows leaned on the table before him, his hand passed through his +ruffled hair, and his gray eyes straying abstractedly away from the +neglected page before him. I see him before he sees me. I have time to +take in all the dejection of his attitude, all its spiritless idleness. +At the slight noise my skirts make, he looks up. I stop on the +threshold. + +"I--I thought you were out," say I, hesitatingly, and reddening a +little, as if I were being caught in the commission of some little +private sin. + +"No, I came in an hour ago." + +"I beg your pardon," I say, humbly; "I will not disturb you; I would +have knocked if I had known!" + +He has risen, and is coming toward me. + +"Knock! why, in Heaven's name, _should_ you knock?" he says, with +something of his old glad animation; then, suddenly changing his tone to +one of courteous friendly coldness, "Why do you stand out there? will +not you come in?" + +I comply with this invitation, and, entering, sit down in another +arm-chair not far from Roger's, but, now that I am here, I do not seem +to have much to say. + +"You have been in the gardens?" he says, presently, glancing at my +little nosegay, and speaking more to hinder total silence from reigning, +than for any other reason. + +"Yes," I reply, trying-to be cheerful and chatty, "I have been picking +_these_; the Czar have not half their perfume, though they are three +times their size! _these_ smell so good!" + +As I speak, I timidly half stretch out the little bunch to him, that he, +too, may inhale their odor, but the gesture is so uncertain and faint +that he does not perceive it--at least, he takes no notice of it, and I +am sure that if he had he would; but yet I am so discouraged by the +failure of my little overture that I have not resolution enough to tell +him that I had gathered them for him. Instead, I snubbedly and +discomfortedly put them in my own breast. + +Presently I speak again. + +"Do you remember," I say--"no, I dare say you do not, but yet it is so-- +it is a year to-day since you found me sitting on the top of the wall!-- +such a situation for a person of nineteen to be discovered in!" + +At the recollection I laugh a little, and not bitterly, which is what I +do not often do now. I can only see his profile, but it seems to me that +a faint smile is dawning on his face, too. + +"It was a good jump, was not it?" I go on, laughing again; "I still +wonder that I did not knock you down." + +He is certainly smiling now; his face has almost its old, tender mirth. + +"It will be a year to-morrow," continue I, emboldened by perceiving +this, and beginning to count on my fingers, "since Toothless Jack and +the curates came to dine, and you staid so long in the dining-room that +I fell asleep; the day after to-morrow, it will be a year since we +walked by the river-side, and saw the goslings flowering out on the +willows; the day after that it will be a year since--" + +"Stop!" he cries, interrupting me, with a voice and face equally full of +disquiet and pain; "do not go on, where is the use?--I hate +anniversaries." + +I stop, quenched into silence; my poor little trickle of talk +effectually dried. After a pause, he speaks. + +"What has made you think of all these dead trivialities?" he asks in a +voice more moved--or I think so--less positively steady than his has +been of late; "at your age, it is more natural to look on than to look +back." + +"Is it?" say I, sadly, "I do not know; I seem to have such a great deal +of time for _thinking_ now; this house is so _extraordinarily_ silent! +did you never notice it?--of course it is large, and we are only two +people in it, but at home it never seemed to me so _deadly_ quiet, even +when I was alone in the house." + +"_Were_ you ever alone?" he asks, with a smile. He is thinking of the +noisy multitude that are connected in his memory with my father's +mansion; that, during all his experience of it, have filled its rooms +and passages with the hubbub of their strong-lunged jollity. + +"Yes, I have been," I reply; "not often, of course! but several times, +when the boys were away, and father and mother and Barbara had gone out +to dinner; of course it seemed still and dumb, but not--" (shuddering a +little)--"not so _aggressively loudly_ silent as this does!" + +He looks at me, with a sort of remorseful pain. + +"It _is_ very dull for you!" he says, compassionately; "shut up in +endless duet, with a person treble your age! I ought to have thought of +that; in a month or so, we shall be going to London, _that_ will amuse +you, will not it? and till then, is there any one that you would like to +have asked here?--any friend of your own?--any companion of your own +age?" + +"No," reply I, despondently, staring out of the window, "I have no +friends." + +"The boys, then?" speaking with a sudden assurance of tone, as one that +has certainly hit upon a pleasant suggestion. + +I shake my head. + +"I could not have Bobby and the Brat, if I would, and I would not have +Algy if I could!" I reply with curt dejection. + +"Barbara, then?" + +Again I shake my head. Not even Barbara will I allow to witness the +failure of my dreams, the downfall of my high castles, the sterility of +my Promised Land. + +"No, I will not have Barbara!" I answer; "last time that she was here--" +but I cannot finish my sentence. I break away weeping. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + + "I think you hardly know the tender rhyme + Of 'Trust me not at all or all in all!'" + + +There are some wounds, O, my friends, that Time, by himself, with no +clever physician to help him, will surely cure. You all know that, do +not you? some wounds that he will lay his cool ointment on, and +by-and-by they are well. Among such, are the departures hence of those +we have strongly loved, and to whom we have always been, as much as in +us lay, tender and good. But there are others that he only worsens-- +yawning gaps that he but widens; as if one were to put one's fingers in +a great rent, and tear it asunder. And of these last is mine. + +As the year grows apace, as the evenings draw themselves out, and the +sun every day puts on fresh strength, we seem to grow ever more +certainly apart. Our bodies, indeed, are nigh each other, but our souls +are sundered. It never seems to strike any one, it is true, that we are +not a happy couple; indeed, it would be very absurd if it did. We never +wrangle--we never contradict each other--we have no tiffs; but we are +_two_ and not _one_. Whatever may be the cause, whether it be due to his +shaken confidence in me, or (I myself assign this latter as its chief +reason) to the constant neighborhood of the woman whom I know him to +have loved and coveted years before he ever saw me; whatever may be the +cause, the fact remains; I no longer please him. It does not surprise me +much. After all, the boys always told me that men would not care about +me; that I was not the sort of woman to get on with them! Well, perhaps! +It certainly seems so. + +I meet Mrs. Huntley pretty often in society nowadays, at such staid and +sober dinners as the neighborhood thinks fit to indulge in, in this +lenten season; and, whenever I do so, I cannot refrain from a stealthy +and wistful observation of her. + +She is ten-twelve years older than I. Between her and me lie the ten +years best worth living of a woman's life; and yet, how easily she +distances me! With no straining, with no hard-breathed effort, she +canters lightly past me. So I think, as I intently and curiously watch +her--watch her graceful, languid silence with women, her pretty, +lady-like playfulness with men. And how successful she is with them! how +highly they relish her! While I, in the uselessness of my round, white +youth, sit benched among the old women, dropping spiritless, pointless +"yeses" and "noes" among the veteran worldliness of their talk, how they +crowd about her, like swarmed bees on some honeyed, spring day! how they +scowl at each other! and _finesse_ as to who shall approach most nearly +to her cloudy skirts! + +Several times I have strained my ears to catch what are the utterances +that make them laugh so much, make them look both so fluttered and so +smoothed. Each time that I succeed, I am disappointed. There is no touch +of genius, no salt of wit in any thing she says. Her utterances are +hardly more brilliant than my own. + +You will despise me, I think, friends, when I tell you that in these +days I made one or two pitiful little efforts to imitate her, to copy, +distantly and humbly indeed, the fashion of her clothes, to learn the +trick of her voice, of her slow, soft gait, of her little, surprised +laugh. But I soon give it up. If I tried till my death-day, I should +never arrive at any thing but a miserable travesty. Before--ere Roger's +return--I used complacently to treasure up any little civil speeches, +any small compliments that people paid me, thinking, "If such and such a +one think me pleasing, why may not Roger?" But now I have given this up, +too. + +I seem to myself to have grown very dull. I think my wits are not so +bright as they used to be. At home, I used to be reckoned one of the +pleasantest of us: the boys used to laugh when I said things: but not +even the most hysterically mirthful could find food for laughter in my +talk now. + +And so the days pass; and we go to London. Sometimes I have thought that +it will be better when we get there. At least, _she_ will not be there. +How can she, with her husband gnashing his teeth in lonely discomfiture +at his exasperated creditors, and receiptless bills, in sultry St. +Thomas? But, somehow, she is. What good Samaritan takes out his twopence +and pays for her little apartment, for her stacks of cut flowers, for +her brougham and her opera-boxes, is no concern of mine. But, somehow, +there always _are_ good Samaritans in those cases; and, let alone +Samaritans, there are no priests or Levites stonyhearted enough to pass +by these dear, little, lovely things on the other side. + +We go out a good deal, Roger and I, and everywhere he accompanies me. It +bores him infinitely, though he does not say so. One night, we are at +the play. It is the Prince of Wales's, the one theatre where one may +enjoy a pleasant certainty of being rationally amused, of being free +from the otherwise universal dominion of _Limelight_ and _Legs_. The +little house is very full; it always is. Some of the royalties are here, +laughing "_à gorge déployée!_" I have been laughing, too; laughing in my +old fashion; not in Mrs. Zéphine's little rippling way, but with the +thorough-paced, unconventional violence with which I used to reward the +homely sallies of Bobby and the Brat. I am laughing still, though the +curtain has fallen between the acts, and the orchestra are fiddling +gayly away, and the turned-up gas making everybody look pale. My +opera-glasses are in my hand, and I am turning them slowly round the +house, making out acquaintances in the stalls, prying into the secrets +of the boxes, examining the well-known features of my future king. + +Suddenly my smile dies away, and the glasses drop from my trembling +hands into my lap. Who is it that has just entered, and is slipping +across the intervening people in the stalls to his own seat, one of the +few that have hitherto remained vacant beneath us? Can I help +recognizing the close-shorn, cameo-like beauty--to me _no_ beauty; to me +deformity and ugliness--of the dark face that for months I daily saw by +my fireside? Can there be _two_ Musgraves? No! it is _he!_ yes, _he!_ +though now there is on his features none of the baffled passion, none of +the wrathful malignity, which they always wear in my memory, as they +wore in the February dusk of Brindley Wood. Now, in their handsome +serenity, they wear only the look of subdued sadness that a male Briton +always assumes when he takes his pleasure. Do you remember what +Goldsmith says?--"When I see an Englishman laugh, I fancy I rather see +him hunting after joy than having caught it." + +As soon as my eyes have fallen upon, and certainly recognized him, by a +double impulse I draw back behind the curtain of the box, and look at +Roger. He, too, has seen him; I can tell it in an instant by his face, +and by the expression of his eyes, as they meet mine. I try to look back +unflinchingly, indifferently, at him. I would give ten years of my life +for an unmoved complexion, but it is no use. Struggle as I will against +it, I feel that rush, that torrent of vivid scarlet, that, retiring, +leaves me as white as my gown. Oh! it _is_ hard, is not it, that the +lying changefulness of a deceitful skin should have power to work me +such hurt? + +"Are you faint?" Roger asks, bending toward me, and speaking in a low +and icy voice; "shall I get you a glass of water?" + +"No, thank you!" I reply, resolutely, and with no hesitation or stammer +in my tone, "I am not at all faint." + +But, alas! my words cannot undo what my false cheeks, with their +meaningless red and their causeless white, have so fully done. + +The season is over now; every one has trooped away from the sun-baked +squares, and the sultry streets of the great empty town. I have never +_done_ a season before, and the heat and the late hours have tired me +wofully. Often, when I have gone to a ball, I have longed to go to bed +instead. And, now that we are home again, it would seem to me very +pleasant to sit in leisurely coolness by the pool, and to watch the +birth, and the prosperous short lives, of the late roses, and the great +bright gladioli in the garden-borders. Yes, it would have seemed very +pleasant to me--if--(why is life so full of _ifs?_ "Ifs" and "Buts," +"Ifs" and "Buts," it seems made up of them! Little ugly words! in heaven +there will be none of you!)--if--to back and support the outward good +luck, there had been any inward content. But there is none! The trouble +that I took with me to London, I have brought back thence whole and +undiminished. + +"It is September now; so far has the year advanced! We are well into the +partridges. Their St. Bartholomew has begun. Roger is away among the +thick green turnip-ridges and the short white stubble all the day. I +wish to Heaven that I could shoot, too, and hunt. It would not matter if +I never killed any thing--indeed, I think--of the two--I had rather not; +I had rather have a course of empty bags and blank days than snuff out +any poor, little, happy lives; but the occupation that these amusements +would entail would displace and hinder the minute mental torments I now +daily, in my listless, luxurious idleness, endure. I am thinking these +thoughts one morning, as I turn over my unopened letters, and try, with +the misplaced ingenuity and labor one is so apt to employ in such a +case, to make out from the general air of their exteriors--from their +superscriptions--from their post-marks, whom they are from. About one +there is no doubt. It is from Barbara. I have not heard from Barbara for +a fortnight or three weeks. It will be the usual thing, I suppose. +Father has got the gout in his right toe, or his left calf, or his +wrist, or all his fingers, and is, consequently, fuller than usual of +hatred and malice; mother's neuralgia is very bad, and she is sadly in +want of change, but she cannot leave him. Algy has lost a lot of money +at Goodwood, and they are afraid to tell father, etc., etc. Certainly, +life is rather uphill! I slowly tear the envelope open, and languidly +throw my eyes along the lines. But, before I have read three words, my +languor suddenly disappears. I sit upright in my chair, grasp the paper +more firmly, bring it nearer my eyes, which begin greedily to gallop +through its contents. They are not very long, and in two minutes I have +mastered them. + +"MY DEAREST NANCY: + +"I have _such_ a piece of news for you! I cannot help laughing as I +picture to myself your face of delight; I would make you guess it, only +I cannot bear to keep you in suspense. _It has all come right! I am +going to marry Frank, after all_! What _have_ I done to deserve such +luck! How can I ever thank God enough for it? Do you know that my very +first thought, when he asked me, was, '_How_ pleased Nancy will be!' You +dear little soul! I think, when he went away that time from Tempest, +that you took all the blame of it to yourself! O Nancy, do you think it +is wrong to be so _dreadfully_ happy? Sometimes I am afraid that I love +him _too_ much! it seems so hard to help it. I have no time for more +now; he is waiting for me; how little I thought, a month ago, that I +should be ending a letter to you for such a reason! When all is said and +done, what a pleasant world it is! Do not think me quite mad. I know I +_sound_ as if I were! + +"Yours, BARBARA." + +My hand, and the letter with it, fall together into my lap; my head +sinks back on the cushion of my chair; my eyes peruse the ceiling. + +"Engaged to Musgrave! engaged to Musgrave! engaged to Musgrave!" + +The words ring with a dull monotony of repetition through my brain. Poor +Barbara! I think she would be surprised if she were to see my "_face of +delight!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + + +My eyes are fixed on the mouldings of the ceiling, while a jumble of +thoughts mix and muddle themselves in my head. Was Brindley Wood a +dream? or is this a dream? Surely one or other must be, and, if this is +not a dream, what is it? Is it reality, is it truth? And, if it is, how +on earth did any thing so monstrous ever come about? How did he dare to +approach her? How could he know that I had not told her? Is it possible +that he cares for her really?--that he cared for her all along?--that he +only went mad for one wicked moment? Is he sorry? how soon shall I have +to meet him? On what terms shall we be? Will Roger be undeceived at +last? Will he believe me? As my thoughts fall upon him, he opens the +door and enters. + +"Well, I am off, Nancy!" he says, speaking in his usual cool, friendly +voice, to which I have now grown so accustomed that sometimes I could +almost persuade myself that I had never known any lovinger terms; and +standing with the door-handle in his hand. + +He rarely kisses me know; never upon any of these little temporary +absences. We always part with polite, cold, verbal salutations. Then, +with a sudden change of tone, approaching me as he speaks. + +"Is there any thing the matter? have you had bad news?" + +My eyes drop at length from the scroll and pomegranate flower border of +the ceiling. I sit up, and, with an involuntary movement, put my hand +over the open letter that lies in my lap. + +"I have had news," I answer, dubiously. + +"If it is any thing that you had rather not tell me!" he says, hastily, +observing my stupid and unintentional gesture, and, I suppose, afraid +that I am about to drift into a second series of lies--"please do not. I +would not for worlds thrust myself on your confidence!" + +"It is no secret of mine," I answer, coldly, "everybody will know it +immediately, I suppose: it is that Barbara--" I stop, as usual choked as +I approach the abhorred theme. "Will you read the letter, please? that +will be better!--yes--I had rather that you did--it will not take you +long; yes, _all_ of it!" (seeing that he is holding the note in his hand +and conscientiously looking away from it as if expecting limitation as +to the amount he is to peruse). + +He complies. There is silence--an expectant silence on my part. It is +not of long duration. Before ten seconds have elapsed the note has +fallen from his hand; and, with an exclamation of the profoundest +astonishment, he is looking with an expression of the most keenly +questioning wonder at me. + +"To MUSGRAVE!" + +I nod. I have judiciously placed myself with my back to the light, so +that, if that exasperating flood of crimson bathe my face--and bathe it +it surely will--is not it coming now?--do not I feel it creeping hotly +up?--it may be as little perceptible as possible. + +"It must be a great, great _surprise_ to you!" he says, interrogatively, +and still with that sound of extreme and baffled wonder in his tone. + +"Immense!" reply I. + +I speak steadily if low; and I look determinedly back in his face. +Whatever color my cheeks are--I believe they are of the devil's own +painting--I feel that my eyes are honest. He has picked up the note, and +is reading it again. + +"She seems to have no doubt"--(with-rising wonder in face and voice)-- +"as to its greatly pleasing _you_!" + +"So it would have done at one time," I answer, still speaking (though no +one could guess with what difficulty), with resolute equanimity. + +"And does not it now?" (very quickly, and sending the searching scrutiny +of his eyes through me). + +"I do not know," I answer hazily, putting up my hand to my forehead. "I +cannot make up my mind, it all seems so sudden." + +A pause. Roger has forgotten the partridges. He is sunk in reflection. + +"Was there ever any talk of this before?" he says, presently, with a +hesitating and doubtful accent, and an altogether staggered look. "Had +you any reason--any ground for thinking that he cared about her?" + +"Great ground," reply I, touching my cheeks with the tips of my fingers, +and feeling, with a sense of self-gratulation, that their temperature is +gradually, if slowly, lowering, "_every_ ground--at _one_ time!" + +"At _what_ time!" + +"In the autumn," say I, slowly; my mind reluctantly straying back to the +season of my urgent invitations, of my pressing friendlinesses, "and at +Christmas, and after Christmas." + +"Yes?" (with a quick eagerness, as if expecting to hear more). + +"The boys," continue I, speaking without any ease or fluency, for the +subject is always one irksome and difficult to me, "the boys took it +quite for granted--looked upon it as a certain thing that he meant +seriously until--" + +"Until what?" (almost snatching the words out of my mouth). + +"Until--well!" (with a short, forced laugh), "until they found that he +did not." + +"And--do you know?--but of course you do--can you tell me how they +discovered that?" + +He is looking at me with that same greedy anxiety in his eyes, which I +remember in our last fatal conversation about Musgrave. + +"He went away," reply I, unable any longer to keep watch and ward over +my countenance and voice, rising and walking hastily to the window. + +The moment I have done it, I repent. _However_ red I was, _however_ +confused I looked, it would have been better to have remained and faced +him. For several minutes there is silence. I look out at the stiff +comeliness of the variously tinted asters, at the hoary-colored dew that +is like a film along the morning grass. I do not know what _he_ looks +at, because I have my back to him, but I think he is looking at +Barbara's note again. At least, I judge this by what he says next--"Poor +little soul!" (in an accent of the honestest, tenderest pity), "how +happy she seems!" + +"Ah!" say I, with a bitter little laugh, "she will mend of _that_, will +not she?" + +He does not echo my mirth; indeed, I think I hear him sigh. + + "'Romances paint at full length people's wooings, + But only give a bust of marriages!'" + +say I, in soft quotation, addressing rather myself and my thoughts than +my companion. + +He has joined me; he, too, is looking out at the serene aster-flowers, +at the glittering glory of the dew. + +"Since when you have learned to quote 'Don Juan?'" he asks, with a sort +of surprise. + +"Since _when_?" I reply, with the same tart playfulness--"oh! since I +married! I date all my accomplishments from then!--it is my anno +Domini." + +Another silence. Then Sir Roger speaks again, and this time his words +seem as slow and difficult of make as mine were just now. + +"Nancy!" he says, in a low voice, not looking at me, but still facing +the flowers and the sunshiny autumn sward, "do you believe that--that-- +_this fellow_ cares about her really?--she is too good to be made--to be +made--a mere _cat's-paw_ of!" + +"A _cat's-paw_!" cry I, turning quickly round with raised voice; the +blood that so lately retired from it rushing again headlong all over my +face; "I do not know--what you mean--what you are talking about!" + +He draws his breath heavily, and pauses a moment before he speaks. + +"God knows," he says, looking solemnly up, "that I had no wish to broach +this subject again--God knows that I meant to have done with it forever +--but now that it has been forced against my will--against both our +wills--upon me, I must ask you this one question--tell me, Nancy--tell +me truly _this_ time"--(with an accent of acute pain on the word +"_this_")--"can you say, _on your honor--on your honor_, mind--that you +believe this--this man loves Barbara, as a man should love his wife?" + +If he had worded his interrogation differently, I should have been +sorely puzzled to answer it; as it is, in the form his question takes, I +find a loop-hole of escape. + +"As a man should love his wife?" I reply, with a derisive laugh, "and +how is that? I do not think I quite know!--very dearly, I suppose, but +not quite so dearly as if she were his neighbor's--is that it?" + +As I speak, I look up at him, with a malicious air of pseudo-innocence. +But if I expect to see any guilt--any conscious shrinking in his face--I +am mistaken. There is pain--infinite pain--pain both sharp and +long-enduring in the grieved depths of his eyes; but there is no guilt. + +"You will not answer me?" he says, in an accent of profound +disappointment, sighing again heavily. "Well, I hardly expected it-- +hardly hoped it!--so be it, then, since you will have it so; and yet--" +(again taking up the note, and reading over one of its few sentences +with slow attention), "and yet there is one more question I must put to +you, after all--they both come to pretty much the same thing. Why"-- +(pointing, as he speaks, to the words to which he alludes)--"why should +_you_ have taken on yourself the blame of--of his departure from +Tempest? what had _you_ to say to it?" + +In his voice there is the same just severity; in his eyes there is the +same fire of deep yet governed wrath that I remember in them six months +ago, when Mrs. Huntley first threw the firebrand between us. + +"I do not know," I reply, in a half whisper of impatient misery, turning +_my_ head restlessly from side to side; "how should I know? I am _sick_ +of the subject." + +"Perhaps!--so, God knows, am I; but _had_ you any thing to say to it?" + +He does not often touch me now; but, as he asks this, he takes hold of +both my hands, more certainly to prevent my escaping from under his +gaze, than from any desire to caress me. + +It is my last chance of confession. I little thought I should ever have +another. Late as it is, shall I avail myself of it? Nay! if not before, +why _now?_ Why _now_?--when there are so much stronger reasons for +silence--when to speak would be to knock to atoms the newly-built +edifice of Barbara's happiness--to rake up the old and nearly dead ashes +of Frank's frustrated, and for aught I know, sincerely repented sin? So +I answer, faintly indeed, yet quite audibly and distinctly: + +"Nothing." + +"NOTHING?" (in an accent and with eyes of the keenest, wistfulest +interrogation, as if he would wring from me, against my will, the +confession I so resolutely withhold). + +But I turn away from that heart-breaking, heart-broken scrutiny, and +answer: + +"Nothing!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + + "She dwells with beauty--beauty that must die, + And joy whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu!" + + +Thus I accomplished my second lie: I that, at home, used to be a proverb +for blunt truth-telling. They say that "_facilis descensus Averni_." I +do not agree with them. I have not found it easy. To me it has seemed a +very steep and precipitous road, set with sharp flints that cut the +feet, and make the blood flow. + +I think the second falsehood was almost harder to utter than the first: +but, indeed, they were both very disagreeable. I cannot think why any +one should have thought it necessary to invent the doctrine of a future +retribution for sin. + +It appears to me that, in this very life of the present, each little +delinquency is so heavily paid for--so exorbitantly overpaid, indeed. +Look, for instance, at my own case. I told a lie--a lie more of the +letter than the spirit--and since then I have spent six months of my +flourishing youth absolutely devoid of pleasure, and largely penetrated +with pain. + +I have stood just outside my paradise, peeping under and over the +flaming sword of the angel that guards it. I have been near enough to +smell the flowers--to see the downy, perfumed fruits--to hear the song +of the angels as they go up and down within its paths; but I have been +outside. + +Now I have told another lie, and I suppose--nay, what better can I +hope?--that I shall live in the same state of weary, disproportioned +retribution to the end of the chapter. + +These are the thoughts, interspersed and diversified with loud sighs, +that are employing my mind one ripe and misty morning a few days later +than the incidents last detailed. + +Barbara is to arrive to-day. She is coming to pay us a visit--coming, +like the lady mentioned by Tennyson, in "In Memoriam"--not, indeed, "to +bring her babe," but to "make her boast." And how, pray, am I to listen +with complacent congratulation to this boast? For the first time in my +life I dread the coming of Barbara. How am I, whose acting, on the few +occasions when I have attempted it, has been of the most improbably +wooden description--how am I, I say, to counterfeit the extravagant joy, +the lively sympathy, that Barbara will expect--and naturally expect-- +from me? + +I get up and look at myself in the glass. Assuredly I shall have to take +some severe measures with my countenance before it falls under my +sister's gaze. Small sympathy and smaller joy is there in it now--it +wears only a lantern-jawed, lack-lustre despondency. I practise a +galvanized smile, and say out loud, as if in dialogue with some +interlocutor: + +"Yes, _delightful_!--I am _so_ pleased!" but there is more mirth in the +enforced grin of an unfleshed skull than in mine. + +That will never take in Barbara. I try again--once, twice--each time +with less prosperity than the last. Then I give it up. I must trust to +Providence. + +As the time for her coming draws nigh, I fall to thinking of the +different occasions since my marriage, on which I have watched for +expected comings from this window--have searched that bend in the drive +with impatient eyes--and of the disappointment to which, on the two +occasions that rise most prominently before my mind's eye, I became a +prey. + +Well, I am to be subject to no disappointment--if it _would_ be a +disappointment--to-day. + +Almost before I expect her--almost before she is due--she is here in the +room with me, and we are looking at one another. I, indeed, am staring +at her with a black and stupid surprise. + +"Good Heavens!" say I, bluntly; "what _have_ you been doing to yourself? +_how_ happy you look!" + +I have always known theoretically that happiness was becoming; and I +have always thought Barbara most fair. + + "Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well, + Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn, + Fair as the angel that said, 'Hail!' she seemed," + +but now_, what a lovely brightness, like that of clouds remembering the +gone sun, shines all about her! What a radiant laughter in her eyes! +What a splendid carnation on her cheeks! (How glad I am that I did not +tell!) + +"Do I?" she says, softly, and hiding her face, with the action of a shy +child, on my shoulders. "I dare say." + +"_Good_ Heavens!" repeat I, again, with more accentuation than before, +and with my usual happy command and variety of ejaculation. + +"And _you_?" she says, lifting her face, and speaking with a joyful +confidence of anticipation in her innocent eyes, "and _you_? you are +pleased too, are not you?" + +"Of course," reply I, quickly calling to my aid the galvanized smile and +the unnatural tone in which I have been perfecting myself all the +forenoon, "_delighted!_ I never was so pleased in my life. I told you so +in my letters, did not I?" + +A look of nameless disappointment crosses her features for a moment. + +"Yes," she says, "I know! but I want you to tell me again. I thought +that you--would have such a--such a great deal to say about it." + +"So I have!" reply I, uncomfortably, fiddling uneasily with a +paper-knife that I have picked up, and trying how much ill-usage it will +bear without snapping, "an immensity! but you see it is--it is difficult +to begin, is not it? and you know I never was good at expressing myself, +was I?" + +We have sat down. I am not facing her. With a complexion that serves one +such ill turns as mine does, one is not over-fond of _facing_ people. I +am beside her. For a moment we are both silent. + +"Well," say I, presently, with an unintentional tartness in my tone, +"why do not you begin? I am waiting to hear all about it! Begin!" + +So Barbara begins. + +"I am afraid," she says, smiling all the while, but growing as red as +the bunch of late roses in my breast, "that I looked horribly _pleased_! +One ought to look as if one did not care, ought not one?" + +"Ought one?" say I, with interest, then beginning to laugh vociferously. +"At least you were not as bad as the old maid who late in life received +a very wealthy offer, and was so much elated by it that she took off all +her clothes, and kicked her bonnet round the room!" + +Barbara laughs. + +"No, I was not quite so bad as that." + +"And how did he do it?" pursue I, inquisitively. "Did he write or speak" + +"He spoke." + +"And what did he say? How did he word it? Ah!"--(with a sigh)--"I +suppose you will not tell me _that_?" + +She has abandoned her chair, and has fallen on her knees before me, +hiding her face in my lap. Delicious waves of color, like the petals of +a pink sweet-pea, are racing over her cheeks and throat. + +"Was ever any one known to tell it?" she says, indistinctly. + +"Yes," reply I, "_I_ was. I told you what Roger said, word for word--all +of you!" + +"_Did_ you?"--(with an accent of astonished incredulity). + +"Yes," say I, "do not you remember? I promised I would before I went +into the drawing-room that day, and, when I came out, I wanted the boys +to let me off, but they would not." + +A pause. + +"I wish," say I, a little impatiently, "that you would look up! Why need +you mind if you _are_ rather red? What do _I_ matter? and so--and so-- +you are _pleased_!" + +"_Pleased!_" + +She has raised her head as I bid her, and on her face there is a sort of +scorn at the poverty and inadequacy of the expression, and yet she +replaces it with no other; only the sapphire of her eyes is dimmed and +made more tender by rising tears. + +Clearly we were never meant to be joyful, we humans! In any bliss +greater than our wont, we can only hang out, to demonstrate our +felicity, the sign and standard of woe. + +"Nancy!"--(taking my hand, and looking at me with wistful earnestness)-- +"do you think it _can_ last? Did ever any one feel as I do for _long_?" + +"I do not know--how can I tell?" reply I, discomfortably, as I absently +eye the two halves of my paper-knife, which, after having given one or +two warning cracks, has now snapped in the middle. Then Roger enters, +and our talk ends. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + + "God made a foolish woman, making me!" + + +"Have you any idea whom we shall meet?" + +It is Barbara who asks this one morning at breakfast. The question +refers to a three days' visit that it has become our fate to pay to a +house in the neighborhood--a house not eight miles distant from Tempest, +and over which we are grumbling in the minute and exhaustive manner +which people mostly employ when there is a question of making merry with +their friends. + +I shake my head. + +"I have not an idea, that is to say, except Mrs. Huntley, and she goes +without saying!" + +"Why?" + +"We are known to be such inseparables, that she is always asked to meet +us," reply I, with that wintry smile, which is my last accomplishment. +"We pursue her round the country, do not we, Roger?" + +Barbara opens her great eyes, but, with her usual tact, she says +nothing. She sees that she has fallen on stony ground. + +"She is _the oldest friend that we have in the world!_" continue I, +laughing pleasantly. + +Roger does not answer, he does not even look up, but by a restless +movement that he makes in his chair, by a tiny contraction of the brows, +I see that my shot has told. I am becoming an adept in the infliction of +these pin-pricks. It is one of the few pleasures I have left. + +The day of our visit has come. We have relieved our feelings by +grumbling up to the hall-door. Our murmuring must per force be stilled +now, though indeed, were we to _shout_ our discontents at the top of our +voices, there would be small fear of our being overheard by the master +of the house, he being the boundlessly deaf old gentleman who paid his +respects at Tempest on the day of Mrs. Huntley's first call, and +insisted on mistaking Barbara for me. Whether he is yet set right on +that head is a point still enveloped in Cimmerian gloom. + +It is a bachelor establishment, as any one may perceive by a cursory +glance at the disposition of the drawing-room furniture, and at the +unfortunate flowers, tightly jammed, packed as thickly as they will go +in one huge central bean-pot. + +As we arrived rather late and were at once conducted to our rooms, we +still remain in the dark as to our co-guests. Personally, I am not much +interested in the question. There cannot be anybody that it will cause +me much satisfaction to meet. It would give me a faint relief, indeed, +to find that there were some matron of exalteder rank than mine to save +me from my probable fate of bowling dark sayings at our old host, +General Parker, from the season of clear soup to that of peaches and +nuts. I dress quickly. The toilet is never to me a work of art. It is +not that from my lofty moral stand-point I look down upon meretricious +aids to faulty Nature. If I thought that it would set me on a fairer +standing with Mrs. Zéphine, I would paint my cheeks an inch thick; would +prune my eyebrows; daub my eyes, and make my hair yellower than any +buttercups in the meadow; but I know that it would be of no avail. I +should still be, compared to her, as a sign-painting to a Titian. For a +long time now I have cared naught for clothes. I used greatly to respect +their power, but they have done _me_ no good; and so my reverence for +them is turned into indifference and contempt. + +I think that I must be late. Roger went down some minutes ago, at my +request, so that there might be _one_ representative of the family in +time. + +I hasten down-stairs, fastening my last bracelet as I go, and open the +drawing-room door. I was wrong. There is no one down yet: even Roger has +disappeared. I am the first. This is my impression for a moment: then I +perceive that there is some one in the bow-window, half hidden by the +drooped curtains; some one who, hearing my entry, is advancing to meet +me. It is Musgrave! My first impulse, a wrong one, I need hardly say, is +to turn and flee. I have even laid hold of the just abandoned handle, +when he speaks. + +"Are you going?" he says in a low voice, marked by great and evidently +ungovernable agitation; "do not! if you wish, I will leave the room." + +I look at him, and our eyes meet. He always was a pale young man--no +bucolic beef-and-beer ruddiness about him--always of a healthy swart +pallor; but now he is deadly white!--so, by-the-by, I fancy am I! His +dark eyes burn with a shamed yet eager glow. + +With the words and tones of our last parting ringing in our ears, we +both feel that it would be useless affectation to attempt to meet as +ordinary acquaintance. + +"No," say I, faintly, almost in a whisper, "it--it does not matter! only +that I did not know that you were to be here!" + +"No more did I, until this morning!" he answers, eagerly; "this morning +--at the last moment--young Parker asked me to come down with him--and I +--I knew we must meet sooner or later--that it could not be put off +forever, and so I thought we might as well get over it here as anywhere +else!" + +Neither of us has thought of sitting down. He is speaking with rapid, +low emotion, and I stand stupidly listening. + +"I suppose so," I answer lazily. I cannot for the life of me help it, +friends. I am back in Brindley Wood. He has come a few steps nearer me. +His voice is always low, but now it is almost a whisper in which he is +so rapidly, pantingly speaking. + +"I shall most likely not have another opportunity, probably we shall not +be alone again, and I _must_ hear, I _must_ know--have you forgiven +me?". + +As he speaks, the recollection of all the ill he has done me, of my lost +self-respect, my alienated Roger, my faded life, pass before my mind. + +"_That_ I have not!" reply I, looking full at him, and speaking with a +distinct and heavy emphasis of resentment and aversion, "and, by God's +help, I never will!" + +"You will _not_!" he cries, starting back with an expression of the +utmost anger and discomfiture. "You will _not_! you will carry vengeance +for one mad minute through a whole life! It is _impossible! impossible!_ +if _you_ are so unforgiving, how do you expect God to forgive you your +sins?" + +I shrug my shoulders with a sort of despairing contempt. God has seemed +to me but dim of late. + +"He may forgive them or leave them unforgiven as He sees best; but--_I +will never forgive you!_" + +"What!" he cries, his face growing even more ash-white than it was +before, and his voice quivering with a passionate anger; "not for +_Barbara's_ sake?" + +I shudder. I hate to hear him pronounce her name. + +"No," say I, steadily, "not for Barbara's sake!" + +"You will have to," he cries violently; "it is nonsense! think of the +close connection, of the _relationship_ that there will be between us! +think of the remarks you will excite! you will defeat your own object!" + +"I will excite no remark!" I reply resolutely. "I will be quite civil to +you! I will say 'good-morning' and 'good-evening' to you; if you ask me +a question I will answer it; but--I will _never_ forgive you!" + +We are standing, as I before observed, close together, and are so wholly +occupied--voices, eyes, and ears--with each other, that we do not +perceive the approach of two hitherto unseen people who are coming +dawdling and chatting up the conservatory that opens out of the room; +two people that I suppose have been there, unknown to us, all along. +They have come quite close now, and we must needs perceive them. + +In a second our eager talk drops into silence, and we look with +involuntary, startled apprehension toward them. They are Roger and Mrs. +Huntley. This is why he acceded with such alacrity to my request. This +is why he was so afraid of being late. He has been helping her to smell +the jasmine, and to look down the datura's great white trumpet-throats. + +Even at this agitated moment I have time to think this with a jeering +pain. The next instant all other feelings are swallowed up in breathless +dread as to how they will meet. My fears are groundless. On first +becoming aware, indeed, whose _tête-à-tête_ it is that he has +interrupted, whose low, quick voices they are that have dropped into +such sudden, suspicious silence at his approach--I can see him start +perceptibly, can see his gray eyes dart with lightning quickness from +Musgrave to me, and from me to Musgrave; and in his voice there is to me +an equally perceptible tone of ice-coldness; but to an ordinary observer +it would seem the greeting, neither more nor less warm, exchanged +between two moderately friendly acquaintances meeting after absence. + +"How are you, Musgrave? I had no idea that you were in this part of the +world!" + +"No more had I!" answers Musgrave, with an exaggerated laugh. "No more I +was, until--until _to-day_." + +He has not caught the infection of Roger's stately calm. His face has +not recovered a _trace_ of even its usual slight color, and his eyes are +twitching nervously. Mrs. Huntley appears unaware of any thing. Her +artistic eye has been caught by the tight bean-pot, and her fingers are +employed in trying to give a little air of ease and liberty to its +crowded inmates. Then, thank God, the others come in, and dinner is +announced, and the situation is ended. + +The old host, still under the influence of his hallucination, is bearing +down like a hawk (with his old bent elbow extended) on Barbara, until +intercepted and redirected by a whispered roar and graphic pantomime on +the part of his nephew. Then, at last, he realizes Roger's bad taste, +and we go in. + +As soon as we are seated, I look about me. It is a round table. For my +part, I hate a round table. There is no privacy in it. Everybody seems +eavesdropping on everybody else. + +There are only eight of us in all--those I have enumerated, and Algy. +Yes, he is here. Bellona is a goddess who can always spare her sons when +there is any chance of their getting into mischief. Roger has taken Mrs. +Huntley. _That_, poor man, he could hardly help, his only alternative +being his own sister-in-law. Musgrave has taken Barbara. He is still as +white as the table-cloth, and hardly speaks. It is clear that _he_ will +not get up his conversation again, until after the champagne has been +round. Algy has taken no one; and, consequently, a bear is an amiable +and affable beast in comparison of him. I am placed between our host and +his nephew. The latter comes in for a good deal of my conversation, as +most of my remarks have to be taken up and rebellowed by him with a loud +emphasis, that contrasts absurdly with their triviality; and even then +they mostly miscarry, and turn into something totally different. + +Talking to the old man is not a dialogue, but a couple of soliloquies, +carried on mostly on different subjects, which in vain try to become the +same, between two interlocutors. Through soup we prospered--that is to +say, we talked of the weather; and though I said several things about it +that surprised me a good deal, yet we both knew that we _were_ talking +of the weather. But since then we have been diverging ever more and more +hopelessly. _He_ is at the shah's visit, and so he imagines am I. I, on +the contrary, am at the Bishop of Winchester's death, and, for the last +five minutes have been trying, with all the force of my lungs, and with +a face rendered scarlet by the double action of heat and of the +consciousness of being the object of respectful attention to the whole +company, to convey to him that, in my opinion, the deceased prelate +ought to have been buried in Westminster Abbey. I have at last +succeeded, at least in so far as to make him understand that I wish +_somebody_ to be buried in Westminster Abbey; but, as he still persists +in thinking it the shah, we are perhaps not much better off than we were +before. I lean back with a sense of despairing defeat, and, behind my +fan, turn to the young man on the other side. He is a jolly-looking +fellow, with an aureole of fiery red hair. + +"Would you mind," say I, with panting appeal, "trying to make him +understand that it _is not_ the shah?" + +He complies, and, while he is trying to make it clear to his uncle that +he wrongs me in crediting me with any wish to thrust the Persian monarch +among the ashes of the Plantagenets, I take breath, and look round +again. Algy is eating nothing, and is drinking every thing that is +offered to him. His face is not much redder than Musgrave's, and he is +glancing across the table at Mrs. Huntley, with the haggard anger of his +eyes. Of this, however, she seems innocently unaware. She is leaning +back in her chair; so is Roger. They are talking low and quickly, and +looking smilingly at each other. When does his face ever light up into +such alert animation when he is talking to me? There can be no doubt of +it! Why blink a thing because it is unpleasant? I _bore him_. + +I have no intention of listening, and yet I hear some of their words-- +enough to teach me the drift of their talk. "Residency!" "Cawnpore!" +"Simlah!" "_Cursed_ Simlah!" "_Cursed_ Cawnpore!" My attention is +recalled by the voice of my old neighbor. + +"Talking of that--" he says--(talking of _what_, in Heaven's name?)--"I +once knew a man--a doctor, at Norwich--who did not marry till he was +seventy-eight, and had four as fine children as any man need wish to +see." + +By the extraordinary irrelevancy of this anecdote, I am so taken aback +that, for a moment, I am unable to utter. Seeing, however, that some +comment is expected from me, I stammer something about its being a great +age. He, however, imagines that I am asking whether they were boys or +girls. + +"Three boys and a girl, or three girls and a boy!" he answers, with loud +distinctness--"I cannot recollect which; but, after all--" (with an +acrid chuckle)--"that is not the point of the story!" + +I sink back in my chair, with a slight shiver. + +"Give it up!" says my other neighbor, with a compassionate smile, and +speaking in a voice not a whit lower than usual--"_I_ would!--it really +is no good!" + +"Why does not he have a _trumpet_?" ask I, with a slight accent of +irritation, for I have suffered much, and it is hot. + +"He had one once," replies my companion, still pityingly regarding the +flushed discomposure of my face; "but people _would_ insist on bawling +so loudly down it, that they nearly broke the drum of his ear, and so +_he_ broke _it_." + +I laugh a little, but in a puny way. There is not much laugh in me. +Again I look round the table. Musgrave is better; he is a better color +than he was. Under the influence of Barbara's gentle talk, his features +have reassumed almost serenity. Algy is _no_ better. I see him lean +back, and speak to the servant behind him. He is asking for more +champagne. I wish he would not. He has had quite enough already. Roger +and Mrs. Huntley are much as they were. They are still leaning back in +their chairs--still looking with friendly intimacy into each other's +eyes--still smiling. Again a few words of their talk reach me. + +"Do you recollect?" + +"Do you remember?" + +"Have you forgotten?" + +Clearly, they have fallen upon old times. I wish--I dearly wish--that I +might bite a piece out of somebody. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + + "I saw pale kings, and princes, too; + Pale warriors, death-pale were they all, + They cried, 'La Belle Dame, sans merci,' + Hath thee in thrall." + + +The long penance of dinner is over at last, thank God! I may intermit my +hopeless roarings, melancholy as those of any caged zoological beast. +Roger and Zéphine must also fain suspend their reminiscences. There +being no lady of the house, I have taken upon myself to hasten the date +of our departure. Before Mrs. Zéphine has finished her last grape, I +have swept her incontinently away into the drawing-room. But I might as +well have let it alone: almost before you could say "Knife" they are +after us. I suppose that when three are eager to come, and only two +anxious to stay--(I acquit my old friend and his nephew of any +over-hurry to rejoin us)--the three must needs get their way. Anyhow, +here they all five are! I am so hot! so hot! Nothing heats one like +bellowing and being miserable and a failure. I have again taken +advantage of the mistressless condition of the establishment, have drawn +back the window-curtains, and lifted the heavy sash. The night always +soothes me. There is something so stilling in the far placidity of the +high stars--in the sweet sharpness of the night winds. I have sat down +on a couch in the embrasure, alone. + +When the men come in, I remain alone. It does not at all surprise or +much vex me. I have nothing pleasant to say to any one. Also, I think I +must be almost hidden by the droop of the curtains. Roger, indeed, sent +his eyes round the room on his first entry, as if searching for +something or somebody. It cannot be Mrs. Huntley, who is right under his +nose, and who is, indeed, saying something playful to him over the top +of her black fan. For once, he does not hear her. He is still looking. +Then he catches a glimpse of my skirts, and comes straight toward me. +Thank God! it _was_ me he was looking for. I feel a little throb of +disused gladness, as I realize this. + +"Are not you cold?" he says, perceiving the open window. + +"Not I!" reply I, brusquely--"naught never comes to harm." + +"I wish you would have a shawl!" he says, as the evening wind comes, +with the tartness of autumn, to his face. + +"Why do not you say, '_do, for my sake_!' as Algy once said to me, when +he mistook me in the dark for Mrs. Huntley?" reply I, with a mocking +laugh--"I am not sure that he did not add _darling_, but I will excuse +_that_!" + +At the mention of Algy, a shade crosses his face, and his eye travels to +where, in the dignified solitude of a corner, my eldest brother is +sitting, biting his lips, and reading "Alice Through the Looking-glass," +upside down. + +"Foolish fellow! I wish he had not come!" + +"I dare say he returns the compliment." + +"I wish she would leave him alone!" he says, with an accent of +impatience, more to himself than to me. + +"That is so likely," say I, quickly, "so much her way, is not it?" + +I suppose that something in the exceeding bitterness of my tone strikes +him, for his eyes return from Algy to me. + +"Nancy," he says, speaking with a sort of hesitating impulse, while a +dark flush crosses his face, "it has occurred to me once or twice--if +the idea had been less unspeakably absurd, it would have occurred to me +many times--that you are--are _jealous_ of Zéphine and me!--YOU jealous +of ME!!" + +There is such a depth of emphasis in his last words--such a wealth of +reproachful appeal in the eyes that are bent on me--that I can answer +nothing. I say neither yea nor nay. He has sat down on the couch beside +me. + +"Tell me," he says, with low, quick excitement--"and for God's sake do +not grow scarlet, and turn your head aside as you mostly have done--did +you, or did you not know that--that _Musgrave_ was to be here to-day?" + +"I _did not--indeed_ I _did not!_" I cry, with passionate eagerness; +thankful for once to be able to tell the truth; "we none of us did--not +even Barbara!" + +He repeats my last words with a slightly sarcastic inflection, "_not +even Barbara_!" + +A moment's pause. + +"Why did you stop talking so suddenly, the moment that we interrupted +you?" he asks, with an abruptness that is almost harsh--"what were you +talking about?" + +Phew! how hot it is! even though one is by the open window!--even +despite the cool moistness of the night wind. + +"I was--I was--I was--congratulating him!" I say, doing the very thing +he has forbidden me, reddening and turning half away. He makes no +rejoinder; only I hear him sigh, and put his hand with a quick, +impatient movement to his head. + +"You believe me?" I ask, timidly, laying my hand on his arm. + +"No, _I do not_!" he replies, shaking off my touch, and turning his +stern and glittering eyes full upon me, "I should be a _fool_ and an +_idiot_ if I did!" + +Then he rises hastily and leaves me. I watch him as he joins the other +men. They are _all_ round her now--all but Musgrave. + +Algy has left his corner and his reversed picture-book, moved thereto by +the unparalleled audacity of young Parker, who has pulled one of the +sofa-cushions down on the floor, and is squatting on it, like a great +toad at her feet, examining a gnat-bite on her sacred arm. + +Even the old host is doing the agreeable according to his lights. In a +very loud voice he is narrating a long anecdote about a pretty girl that +he once saw at a windmill near Seville, during the Peninsular. With a +most unholy chuckle he is trying to hint that there was more between him +and the young lady than it well beseems him to tell; but fortunately no +one, but I, is listening to him. + +I turn away my head, and look out of the window up at Charles's Wain, +and all my other bright old friends. No one is heeding me--no one sees +me; so I drop my hot cheek on the sill. + +Suddenly I start up. Some one is approaching me: some one has thrown +himself with careless freedom on the couch beside me. It is Algy. + +Having utterly failed in dislodging Mr. Parker from his cushion--having +had a suggestion on his part, on the treatment of the gnat-bite, passed +over in silent contempt--he has retired from the circle in dudgeon. + +"This is lively, is not it?" he says, in an aggressively loud voice, as +if he were quarrelsomely anxious to be overheard. + +I say "Hush!" apprehensively + +"As no one makes the slightest attempt to entertain _us_, we must +entertain each other, I suppose!" + +"Yes, dear old boy!" I say, affectionately, "why not?--it would not be +the first time by many." + +"That does not make it any the more amusing!" he says, harshly.--"I say, +Nancy"--his eyes fixing themselves with sullen greediness on the central +figure of the group he has left--on the slight round arm (after all, not +half so round or so white as Barbara's or mine)--which is still under +treatment, "_is_ eau de cologne good for those sort of bites?--her arm +_is_ bad, you know!" + +"_Bad!_" echo I, scornfully; "_bad!_ why, I am _all_ lumps, more or +less, and so is Barbara! who minds _us_!" + +"You ought to make your old man--'_auld Robin Gray_'--mind you," he +says, with a disagreeable laugh. "It is _his_ business, but he does not +seem to see it, does he? ha! ha!" + +"I _wish_!" cry I, passionately; then I stop myself. After all, he is +hardly himself to-night, poor Algy! + +"By-the-by," he says, presently, with a wretchedly assumed air of +carelessness, "is it true--it is as well to come to the fountain-head at +once--is it true that _once_, some time in the dark ages, he--he-- +thought fit to engage himself to, to _her_?" (with a fierce accent on +the last word). + +A pain runs through my heart. Well, that is nothing new nowadays. He too +has heard it, then. + +"I do not know!" I answer, faintly. + +"What! he has not told you? _Kept it dark!_ eh?" (with the same hateful +laugh). + +"He has kept nothing dark!" I answer, indignantly. "One day he began to +tell me something, and I stopped him! I would not hear; I did not want +to hear, I believe; I am sure that they are--only--only--old friends." + +"_Old friends!_" he echoes, with a smile, in comparison of which our +host's satyr-leer seems pleasant and chaste. "_Old friends!_ you call +yourself a woman of the world" (indeed I call myself nothing of the +kind), "you call yourself a woman of the world, and believe _that_! They +looked like _old friends_ at dinner to-day, did not they? A little less +than kin, and more than kind! Ha! ha!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + + +Partridges are not General Parker's strong point, and the few he ever +had his nephew has already shot. Roger must, therefore, for one day +abstain from the turnip-ridges. To amuse us, however, and keep us all +sociably together, and bridge the yawning gulf between breakfast and +dinner, we are to be sent on an expedition. Not only an expedition, but +a picnic. This is perhaps a little risky in such a climate as ours, and +in a month so doubtfully hovering on the borders of winter as September; +but the sun is shining, and we therefore make up our minds, contrary to +all precedent, that he must necessarily go on shining. + +Some ten miles away there is a spot whence one can see seven counties, +not to speak of the sea, a mountain or two, and some other trifles; and +thither Mr. Parker is kindly going to bowl us down on his coach. + +A drive on a coach is always to me a most doubtful joy; the ascent, +labor; the drive itself, long anxiety and peril; the descent, agony, and +sometimes shame. However, that is neither here nor there. I am going. It +is still half an hour till the time appointed for our departure, and I +am sitting alone in my room when Roger enters. + +"Nancy," he says, coming quickly toward me, "have you any idea what sort +of a whip that boy is?" + +"Not the slightest!" reply I, shortly. + +I feel as hard as a flint to-day. Algy's words last night seem to have +confirmed and given a solider reality to my worst fears. He has walked +to the window and is looking out. + +"Are you _nervous?_" say I, with a slightly sarcastic smile. + +He does not appear to notice the sarcasm. + +"Yes," he says, "that is just what I am. He is a mad sort of fellow, and +a coach is not a thing to play tricks with!" + +"No," say I, indifferently. It seems to me of infinitely little +consequence whether we are upset or not. + +"That is what I came to speak to you about!" he says, still looking out +of the window. + +"Zéphine--" + +"Is nervous, too?" ask I, smiling disagreeably. "What a curious +coincidence!" + +"I do not know whether she is nervous or not!" he answers, quickly; "I +never asked her, but it seems that Huntley never would let her go on a +drag; he had seen some bad accident, and it had given him a fright--" + +"And so you and she are going to stay at home?" say I, coldly, but +breathing a little heavily, and whitening. + +"Stay at home!" he echoes, impatiently, "of course not; why should we? +The fact is" (beginning to speak quickly in clear and eager explanation) +"that I heard them talking of this plan yesterday, and so I thought I +would be on the safe side, and send over to Tempest for the +pony-carriage, and it is here now, and--" + +"And you are going to drive her in it?" I say, still speaking quietly, +and smiling. "I see! nothing could be nicer!" + +"I wish to Heaven that you would not take the words out of my mouth," he +cries, losing his temper a little; while his brows contract into a +slight and most unwonted frown. "What I wish to know is, will _you_ +drive her?" + +"Yes, _you_; I know--" (speaking with a sort of hurried deprecation) "I +know that you are not fond of her; she is not a woman that other women +are apt to get on with; but it would not be for long! I tell you +candidly" (with a look of sincere anxiety) "I do not half like trusting +you to Parker!--I think you are as likely as not to come to grief." + +"To come to grief!" repeat I, with a harsh, dry laugh; "ha! ha! perhaps +I have done that already!" + +"But will you?" he asks, eagerly; not heeding my sorry mirth, and taking +my hand. "I would drive you myself, if I could, and if--" (almost +humbly) "if it would not bore you; but you see--" (rather slowly) "about +the carriage, she--she _asked_ me, and one does not like to say 'No' to +such an old friend!" + +_Old friend!_ At the phrase, Algy's sneering white face rises before my +mind's eye. + +"Will you?" he repeats, looking pleadingly at me, with the gray darkness +of his eyes. + +"No, I will not!" I reply, resolutely, and still with that unmirthful +mirth; "what ever else I may be, I will not be a _spoil-sport!_" + +"A _spoil-sport!_" he echoes, passionately, while his face darkens, and +hardens with impatient anger; "good God! will you _never_ understand?" + +Then he hastily leaves the room. And so it comes to pass that, half an +hour later, I am crawling up with a sick heart to the box-seat, +piteously calling on all around me to hold down my garments during my +ascent. The grooms have let go the horses' heads, and have climbed up in +dapper lightness at the back: we are through the first gate! Bah! that +was a near shave of the post; yes, we are off, off for a long day's +pleasuring! The very thought is enough to put any one in low spirits, is +not it? + +Barbara and Musgrave are behind us; and at the back, our old host and +Algy. The two latter are, I think, specially likely to enjoy themselves; +as the raw morning air has got down the old gentleman's throat, and he +is coughing like a wheezy old squirrel; and Algy is in a dumb frenzy. I +am no great judge of coachmanship, but we have not gone a quarter of a +mile, before it is borne in on my mind that Mr. Parker has about as much +idea of driving as a tomcat. The team do what is good in their eyes; we +must throw ourselves on their clemency and discretion, for clearly our +only hope is in them. He has not an idea of keeping them together; they +are all over the place; the wheelers' reins are all loose on their +backs. We seem to have an irresistible tendency toward bordering to the +right which keeps us hovering over the ditch. However, fortunately, the +road is very broad--one of the old coach-roads--and the vehicles we meet +are few and anxious to get out of our way. Such as they are, I will do +ourselves the justice to say that we try our best to run down each and +all of them. + +It is September, as I have before said. The leaves are still all green, +only a stray bramble reddening here and there; but most of the midsummer +hedge-row peoples are gathered to their rest. Only a lagging few, the +slight-throated blue-bell, the uncouth ragwort, the little, tight +scabious, remain. At least, the berries are here, however. While each +red hip shows where a faint rose blossomed and fell; while the elder +holds stoutly aloft her flat, black clusters; while the briony clasps +the hawthorn-hedge, we cannot complain. Not only the _main_ things of +Nature, but all her odds and ends, are so exceedingly fair and daintily +wrought. + +It is one of those days that look charming, when seen through the +window; bright and sunny, with lights that fly, and shadows that pursue; +but it is a very different matter when one comes to _feel_ it. There is +a bleak, keen wind, that sends the clouds racing through the heavens, +and that blows right in our teeth; nearly strangling me by the violence +with which it takes held of my head. + +There has been no rain for a week or two, and it is a chalky country. +The dust is waltzing in white whirlwinds along the road. High up as we +are, it reaches us, and thrusts its fine and choking powder up our +noses. + +"I suppose," say I, doubtfully, looking up at the shifting uncertainty +of the heavens, and trying to speak in a sprightly tone, a feat which I +find rather hard of accomplishment, with such a blast cutting my eyes, +and making me _gasp_--"I suppose that it will not rain!" + +"_Rain!_ not it!" replies our coachman, with contemptuous cheerfulness. + +"The glass was going down!" I say, humbly, "and I think I felt a drop +just now!" + +"_Impossible!_ it _could_ not rain with this wind." + +He says this with such a jovial and robust certainty of scorn, that I am +half inclined to distrust the sky's evidence--to disbelieve even in the +big drop that so indisputably splashed into my eye just now. "But in +case it _does_ rain," continue I, pertinaciously, "I suppose that there +is a house near, or some place where we can take refuge?" + +"No, there is no house nearer than a couple of miles"--making the +statement with the easiest composure--"but it will not rain." + +"Perhaps"--say I, with a sinking heart--"there is a wood--trees?" + +"Well, no, there is not much in the way of trees--except Scotch firs-- +there are plenty of them--it is a bare sort of place--that is the beauty +of it, you know"--(with a tone of confident pride)--"there is a +monstrously fine view from it!--one can see _seven_ counties!" + +"Yes," say I, faintly, "so I have heard!" + +At this point, the old gentleman is understood to be bawling something +from the back. By the utter morosity of Algy's face--faintly seen in the +distance--I conjecture that it is a joke; and, by the chuckling agony of +zest with which the old man is delivered of it, I further conclude that +it is something slightly unclean, but, thanks to the wind, none of us +overtake a word of it. The wind's spirits are rising. Its play is +becoming ever more and more boisterous. It would be difficult to imagine +any thing disagreeabler than it is making itself; but perhaps it _will_ +keep off the rain. Thinking this, I try to bear its blows and buffets-- +its slaps on the face--its boxes on the ear--with greater patience, We +have left the broad and safe high-road; Mr. Parker having, in an evil +moment, bethought himself of a short-cut. We are, therefore, entangled +in a labyrinth of cross-roads--finger-postless, guideless, solitary. +_So_ solitary, indeed, that we meet only one vacant boy of tender years, +of whom, when we inquire the way, the wind absolutely refuses to allow +us to hear a word of the broad Doric of his answer. At last--after many +bold and stout declarations on the part of Mr. Parker, that he _will +not_ be beaten--that he knows the way as well as he does his ABC--and +that he will find it if he stays till midnight--he is compelled, by the +joint and miserable clamor of us all, to turn back--(a frightful +process, as the road is narrow, and the coach will not lock)--to retrace +our steps, and take up again the despised high-road, where we had left +it. These manoeuvres have naturally taken some time. It is three o'clock +in the afternoon before we at length reach the great spread of desolate, +broad, moorland, which is our destination. For more than an hour, +absolute silence has fallen upon us. Like poor Yorick, we are "quite, +quite chapfallen!" Even the gallant old gentleman could not make a dirty +jest if he were to be shot for it. Mr. Parker alone maintains his +exasperating good spirits. We find Roger and Mrs. Huntley sitting on the +heather waiting for us. There is a good deal of relief--as it seems to +me--in the former's eye, as he sees us appear on the scene; and a good +deal of another expression, as he watches the masterly manner in which +we pull up: all the four horses floundering together on their haunches; +the leaders, moreover, exhibiting a mysterious desire to turn round and +look in the wheelers' faces. + +"Here we are!" cries Mr. Parker, joyously; "I have brought you along +capitally, have not I?--but I am afraid we are a little late--eh, Mrs. +Huntley? I hope we have not kept you long." + +"_Is_ it late?" she replies, with a smile and a fine hypocrisy--for she +_looks_ hungry--"I did not know; we have been quite happy!" + +Roger has risen, and is coming to help me down, but I say, crossly, "Do +not, please; Algy manages best!" Algy, however, has no intention of +helping anybody down. He has helped _himself_ down; and, without a word +or a look to any of his fellow-travellers, has thrown himself down on +the heather at Mrs. Huntley's feet, and is relieving his mind by audible +animadversions on our late triumphal progress. I am therefore left to +the tender mercies of the grooms; at least, I should have been, if Mr. +Musgrave had not taken pity on me, and guided my uncertain feet and the +petticoats, which Zephyr is doing his playful best to turn over my head, +down the steep declivity of the ladder. This, as you may guess, does not +help to restore my equanimity. However, I am down now, on firm ground; +and, at least, we are rid of the dust. My eyes are still full of grit, +but I suppose they will get over that. I turn them disconsolately about. + +On a fine sunny day--with butterflies hovering over the heather-flowers, +and bees sucking honey from the gorse--with little mild airs playing +about, and a torquoise sky shining overhead--it might be a spot on which +to lie and dream dreams of paradise; but _now_! The sun has finally +retired, and hid his sulky face for the day; the heather is over; and, +though the gorse is not, yet it gives no fragrance to the raw air. All +over the great rolling expanse there is a heavy, leaden look, caught +from the angry heavens above. The great clouds are gathering themselves +together to battle; and the mighty wind, with nothing to check its +progress, is sweeping over the great plain, and singing with eerie, loud +mournfulness. + +I shudder. + +"Where are the Scotch firs?" (I say, querulously, to Mr. Parker, who by +this time had joined me); "you said there were plenty of them! where are +they?" + +"_Where?_" (looking cheerfully round), "oh, _there_!" (pointing to where +one lightning-riven little wreck bends its sickly head to the gale). +"Ah! I see there is only _one_, after all. I thought that there had been +more." + +My heart sinks. Is that one withered, scathed little stick to be our +sole protection against the storm, so evidently quickly coming up? + +"Fine view, is not it?" pursues my companion, not in the least +perceiving my depression, and complacently surveying the prospect. "Of +course it might have been clearer, but, after all, you get a very good +idea of it." + +I turn my faint eyes in the same direction as his. Down on the horizon +the sullen rain-clouds are settling, and, to meet them, there stretches +a dead, colorless flat, dotted with little round trees, little +church-spires, little houses, little fields, little hedges--one of those +mappy views, that lack even the beauties of a map--the nice pink and +green and blue lines which so gayly define the boundaries of each +county. + +"Very extensive, is not it?" he says, proudly; "you know you can see--" + +"Seven counties!" interrupt I, sharply, snapping the words out of his +mouth. "Yes, I know; you told me." + +The horses have been led away to the distant ale-house. The coach stands +forlorn and solitary on the moor. Some of us, looking at the threatening +aspect of the weather, have suggested that _we_ too should make for +shelter; but this suggestion is indignantly vetoed by Mr. Parker. + +"_Rain!_ not a bit of it! It is not _thinking_ of raining! The wind! +what is the matter with the wind? Nice and fresh! Much better than one +of those muggy days, when you can hardly breathe!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + + +The cloth is therefore laid, with the dead heather-flowers beneath it, +and the low leaden sky above. As large stones as can be found have to be +sought on the moorland road to weight it, and hinder our banquet from +flying bodily away. It is at last spread--cold lamb, cold partridges, +chickens, _mayonnaise_, cakes, pastry--they have just been arranged in +their defenceless nakedness under the eye of heaven, when the rain +begins. And, when it begins, it begins to some purpose. It deceives us +with no false hopes--with no breakings in the serried clouds--with no +flying glimpses of blue sky. Down it comes, straight,_straight_ down, on +the lamb, on the _mayonnaise_, splash into the bitter. Each of us seizes +the viand dearest to his or her heart, and tries to shelter it beneath +his or her umbrella. But in vain! The great slant storm reaches it under +the puny defense. Even Mr. Parker has to change the _form_ of his +consolation, though not the spirit. He can no longer deny that it is +raining; but what he now says is that it will not last--that it is only +a shower--that he is very glad to see it come down so hard at first, as +it is all the more certain to be soon over. + +Nobody has the heart to contradict him, though everybody knows that it +is a lie. Mrs. Huntley, at the first drop, has made for the coach, and +now sits in it, serene and dry. Algy follows her, with a chicken and a +champagne bottle. I sit doggedly still, where I am, on the cold moor. + +Roger has not spoken to me since my rude reception of him on arriving, +but he now comes up to me. + +"Had not you better follow her example?" he asks, speaking rather +formally, and looking toward the coach, where, with, smiling profile and +neat hair, my rival is sitting, reveling among the flesh-pots. + +Something in the sight of her sleek, smooth tidiness, joined to the +consciousness of my own miserable, blowsed disorder, stings me more even +than the rain-drops are doing. + +"Not I," I answer, brusquely; "that is what I trust I shall never +do!" + +He passes by my sneer without notice. + +"In this rain you will be drenched in two minutes." + +"Après!" + +"_Après_!" repeats, impatiently, "_après_? you will catch your death of +cold!" + +"And you will be a widower!" reply I, with a bitter smile. + +Barbara is as obstinate as I am. She, too, seems to prefer the spite of +the elements to disturbing the _tête-à-tête_ in the coach. Musgrave has +made her as comfortable as he can, with her back against the poor little +Scotch fir, and a plaid over both their heads. + +The feast proceeds in solemn silence. Even if we had the heart to talk, +the difficulty of making ourselves heard would quite check the +inclination. + +There are little puddles in all our plates--the bread and cakes are +_pap_--lamb is damp and flabby, and the _mayonnaise_ is reduced to a +sort of watery whey. + +Mr. Parker is the only one who, under these circumstances, makes any +attempt to pretend that we are enjoying ourselves. + +"This is not so bad, after all," he says, still with that same +unconquerable accent of joviality. He has to say it three times, and to +put up his hands to his mouth like a speaking-trumpet, before any one +hears him. When they do, "answer comes there none!" + +I, indeed, am not in a position for conversation at the exact moment +that the demand is made upon me. I have just come to the end of a long +wrestle with my umbrella. It has at last got its wicked will, and has +turned right inside out! All its whalebones are aspiring heavenward. It +is transformed into a melancholy _cup_--like a great ugly flower, on a +bare stalk. I lay the remains calmly down beside me, and affront the +blast and the tempest alone! I have a brown hat on--at least it _was_ +brown when we set off--I am just wondering, therefore, with a sort of +stupid curiosity, why the _rill_ that so plenteously distills from its +brim, and so madly races down my cold nose, should be _sky blue_, when I +perceive that Barbara has left her shelter, and her lover, and is +standing beside me. + +"Poor Nancy!" she says, with a softly compassionate laugh, "how wet you +are! come under the plaid with me! you have no notion how warm it keeps +one; and the tree, though it does not _look_ much, saves one a bit, too +--and Frank does not mind being wet--come quick!" + +I am too wretched to object. No water-proof could stand the deluge to +which mine has been subjected. My shoulder-blades feel moist and +_sticky_: my hair is in little dismal ropes, and dreadful runlets are +coursing down my throat, and under my clothes. + +Without any remonstrance, I snuggle under the plaid with Barbara--with a +little of the feeling of soothing and dependence with which, long ago, +in the dear old dead days at home, I used, when I was a naughty child, +or a bruised child--and I was very often both--to creep to her for +consolation. + +Thanks to the wind, and to our proximity, we are able to talk without a +fear of being overheard. + +"You are wrong!" Barbara says, glancing first toward the coach, and then +turning the serene and limpid gravity of her blue eyes on me; "you are +making a mistake!" + +I do not affect to understand her. + +"_Am I_?" I say, indignantly; "I am doing nothing of the kind! it is not +only my own idea!--ask Algy!" + +"_Algy_!" (with a little accent of scorn), "poor Algy!--he is in such a +fit state for judging, is not he?" + +We both involuntarily look toward him. + +It is _his_ turn now, and his morosity is exchanged for an equally +uncomfortable hilarity. His cheeks are flushed; he is laughing loudly, +and going in heavily for the champagne. The next moment he is scowling +discourteously at his old host, who, with his poor old chuckle entirely +drowned, and overcome by an endless sort of choking monotony of cough, +is clambering on tottery old legs into the coach, to try and get his +share of shelter. + +We both laugh a little; and then Barbara speaks again. + +"Nancy, I want to say something to you. Just now I heard Roger ask +whether there was a fly to be got at the public-house where the horses +are put up, and it seems there _is_; and he has sent for it. You may +think that it is for _her_, but it is not--it is for _you_! Will you +promise me to go home in it, if he asks you?" + +I am silent. + +"Will you?" she repeats, taking hold of one of my froggy hands, while +her eyes shine with a soft and friendly urgency; "you know you always +used to take my advice when we were little--will you?" + +Somehow, at her words, a little warmth of comfortable reassurance steals +about my heart. At home she always used to be right: perhaps she is +right now--perhaps _I_ am wrong. I will be even better than her +suggestion. + +Roger is standing not far from us. The rain has drenched his beard and +his heavy mustache: the great drops stand on his eyelashes, and on his +straight brows. Perhaps I only imagine it, but to me he looks sad and +out of heart. It is not the weather that makes him so, if he is. Much he +cares for that! + +I call him "Roger!" My voice is small and low, and the wind is large and +loud, but he hears me. + +"Yes?" (turning at the sound with a surprised expression). + +"May I go home in the fly?" I ask impulsively, yet humbly, "I mean with +--with _her_!" (a gulp at the pronoun), then, under the influence of a +fear that he may think that I am driven by a hankering after creature +comforts to this overture, I go on quickly, "it is not because I want to +be kept dry--if I were to be dragged through the sea I could not be +wetter than I am--but if you wish--Barbara thought--Barbara said--" + +I mumble off into shy incoherency. + +"_Will_ you?" he says, with a tone of eagerness and pleasure, which, if +not real, is at least admirably feigned. "It is what I was just wishing +to ask you, only" (laughing with a sort of constraint and a touch of +bitterness) "I really was _afraid_!" + +"Am I such a _shrew_?" I say, looking at him with a feeling of growing +lightheartedness. "Ah! I always was! was not I, Barbara?" Then, a moment +after, in a tone that is almost gay, I say, "May Barbara come, too? is +there room?" + +"Of course!" he answers readily; "surely there is plenty of room for +all!" + +While the words are yet on his lips, while I am still smiling up at +him, under the soaked tartan there comes a voice from the coach. + +"Roger!" He obeys the summons. It is just five paces off, and I hear +each of the slow and softly-enunciated words that follow. + +"I hear that you have sent for a fly! how very thoughtful of you! did +you ever forget _any thing_ I wonder? I was--no--not _dreading_ my drive +home; but now I am _quite_ looking forward to it. Why did you not bring +a pack of cards? we might have had a game of bézique." + +"I think we have made another arrangement," he answers, quietly. "I +think Nancy will be your companion instead of me." + +"_Lady Tempest!_" (with a slight but to me quite perceptible raising of +eyebrows, and accenting of words). + +"Yes, Nancy." + +I can see her face, but not his. To my acutely listening, sharply +jealous ears there sounds a tone of faint and carefully hidden annoyance +in his voice. It seems to me, too, that her features would not dare to +wear such an expression of open disappointment if they were not answered +and meeting something in his. I therefore take my course. I jump up +hastily, flinging off the plaid, and advance toward the interlocutors. + +She is just saying, "Oh, I understand! very nice!" in a little formal +voice when I break in. + +"I am going to do nothing of the kind!" I cry, hurriedly. "I have +altered my mind; I shall keep to the coach, that is" (with a nervous +laugh, and a miserable attempt at coquetry), "if Mr. Parker is not tired +of me." + +This is the way in which I take Barbara's advice. The fly arrives +presently, and the original pair depart in it. Roger neither looks at +nor speaks to me again; in fact, he ignores my existence; although, +under the influence of one of those speedy and altogether futile +repentances which always follow hard on the heels of my tantrums, I have +waylaid him once or twice in the hope that he would be induced to +recognize it. But no! this time I have outdone myself. I have tried his +patience a little too far. I am in disgrace. + +It is long, _long_ after their departure before _we_ get under way. The +grooms have either misunderstood Mr. Parker's directions, or are +enjoying their mulled beer over the pot-house fire too much to be in any +violent haste again to meet the raw air and the persisting deluge. + +It is past six o'clock before the horses arrive on the ground; it is +half-past before we are off. + +And meanwhile Mr. Parker has been rivaling Algy in the ardor with which +he calls in the aid of the champagne to keep out the wet. At each fresh +tumbler his joviality goes up a step, until at length it reaches a pitch +which produces an opposite effect on me, and engenders a depressed +fright. + +"Barbara," say I, in a low voice, when at length the moment of departure +draws near, and only Musgrave is within ear-shot--"Barbara, has it +struck you? do not you think he is rather--" + +Barbara, however, is diffident of her own opinion, and repeats my +question to her lover. + +He shrugs his shoulders. + +"Is he? I have not noticed him; nothing more likely; last time I saw him +he was _flying_! It was in India at a great pig-sticking meeting, and +after dinner he got up to the top of a big mango-tree, and tried to +_fly_! Of course he fell down, but he was so drunk that he was not in +the least hurt." + +Mr. Musgrave seems to think this an amusing anecdote; but we do not. + +"Why do not _you_ drive?" I ask, contrary to all my resolutions +addressing my future brother-in-law, and indeed forgetting in my alarm +that I had ever made such. I am reminded of it, however, by the look of +gratification that flashes--for only one moment and is gone--but still +flashes into the depths of his great dark eyes. + +"It is so likely that he would let me!" he says, laughing. + +"I would not mind so much if I were at the _back_!" I say, piteously, +turning to Barbara. "At the back one does not know what is coming, but +on the box one sees whatever is happening." + +"That is rather an advantage I think," she answers, laughing. "I do not +mind; I will go on the box." + +"Will you?" say I, eagerly. "_Do!_ and I will take care of the old +general at the back." + +So it is settled. We are on the point of starting now. Mr. Parker is up +and is already beginning to struggle with the hopeless muddle of his +reins. I think we have perhaps done him an injustice; at all events, his +condition is not at all what it must have been when he mounted the +mango. Algy's morosity has returned tenfold, and he is performing the +evolution familiarly known as "pulling your nose to vex your face." That +is to say, he is standing about in the pouring rain utterly unprotected +from it. He entirely declines to put on any mackintosh or overcoat. Why +he does this, or how it punishes Mrs. Huntley, I cannot say, but so it +is. + +We are off at last. I, in accordance with my wishes, up at the back, +facing the grooms; but not at all in accordance with my wishes, Mr. +Musgrave, and not the old host, is my companion. + +"This is all wrong!" I cry, with vexed abruptness, as I see who it is +that is climbing after me. "Where is the general? We settled that he--" + +"I am afraid you will have to put up with me!" interrupts Musgrave, +coldly, with that angry and mortified darkening of the whole face, and +sudden contraction of the eyeballs that I used so well to know. "We +could not make him hear; we all tried, but none of us could make him +understand." So I have to submit. + +Well, we are off now. The night is coming quickly down: it will be +_quite_ dark an hour sooner than usual tonight, so low does the great +black cloud-curtain stoop to the earth's wet face. Ink above us, so +close above us, too, that it seems as if one might touch it with lifted +hand; ink around us; a great stretch of dull and sulky heather; and, +maddening around us with devilish glee, hitting us, buffeting us, +bruising us, taking away our breath, and making our eyelids smart, is a +wind--such a wind! I should have laughed if any one had told me an hour +ago that it would rise. I should have said it was impossible, and yet it +certainly has. + +The wind which turned my umbrella inside out was a zephyr compared to +that which is now _thundering_ round us. Sometimes, for one, for two +false moments, it lulls (the lulls are almost awfuller than the +whirlwind that follows them), then with gathered might it comes tearing, +howling, whooping down on us again, gnashing its angry teeth; bellowing +with a voice like ten million lost devils. And on its pinions what rain +it brings; what stinging, lacerating, bitter rain! And now, to add to +our misfortunes, to pile Pelion on Ossa, we _lose our way_. Mr. Parker +cannot be persuaded to abandon the idea of the short-cut. The natural +result follows. + +If we were hopelessly bewildered--utterly at sea among the maze of +lonely roads into which he has again betrayed us at high noon--what must +we be now in the angry dark of the evening? This time we have to go into +a field to turn, a field full of tussocks, which in the dark we are +unable to see, and over which the horses flounder and stumble. However, +now at length--now that we have wasted three-quarters of an hour, and +that it is quite pitch dark--(I need hardly say that we have no lamps)-- +we have at length regained the blessed breadth of the high-road, and I +think that not even our coachman, to whose faith most things seem +possible, will attempt to leave it a second time. I give a sigh of +relief. + +"It is all plain sailing now!" Musgrave says, reassuringly. + +"There is one bad turn," reply I, gloomily--"very bad, at the bottom of +the village by the bridge." + +We relapse into silence, and into our unnatural battle with the +elements. I have to grasp my hat firmly with one hand, and the side of +the coach with the other, to prevent being blown off. If my companion +were any one else, I should grasp _him_. + +We are only a mile and a half from our haven now; the turn I dread is +nearing. + +"Are you frightened?" asks Musgrave, in a pause of the storm. + +"_Horribly!_" I answer. + +I have forgotten Brindley Wood--have forgotten all the mischief he has +done. I recollect only that he is human, and that we are sharing what +seems to me a great and common peril. + +"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. + +"_You_ take 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + + "... Peace, pray you, now, + No dancing more. Sing sweet, and make us mirth. + We have done with dancing measures; sing that song + You 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 the +_less_ 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 the +_more_. She does not appear until late--not until near luncheon-time. +Her cold is in the head, the _safest_ but 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 to _us_, as one is not expected to laugh at a _cough_ nor +does its _dénoûment_ ever put one to the blush. + +Mr. Parker has no cold at all, and has even had the shameless audacity +to propose _another_ expedition 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 for _himself_ at least--it is always by his _hair_ (with a laugh) +that people know _him_--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 +as _me_, 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 to _any_ proposition, 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 I _am_ belle! 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 is _delightful_ to 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--"_is_ it 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 pleased _myself_ +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--rather _en délicatesse_--this morning, +but we both seem to have forgotten this. + +"I must not dance _much_!" say I, anxiously turning again to the glass, +and closely examining my complexion--"must I?--or my rouge will _run_!" + +After a moment-- + +"You must be sure to tell me if I grow to look at all _smeary_, 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 even _Barbara_. 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, _bushels_ of 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 than _three_ times 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 look +_hard_--really _very_ hard--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 how _delightful_ to be +pretty! + +Does Barbara _always_ feel 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 not _often_ do 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. + +"_What_ are they?" he says, in a tone of extreme disapprobation. "_Who_ +are they? Are they _Christy 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 any +_mauvaise 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 not _meant_ for 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, _very_ tight. 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, "_how_ I pity them! What on earth did they do it for?" + +"Oh, I do not know," I reply; "for _fun_ I 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. _How_ I +_am_ enjoying 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 he _was_ +watching 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 really _dare 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, have _my_ +cheeks 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. Where _can_ they +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 +absolutely _sJiut_, 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. They _are_ here. +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 it +_possible?_--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. + +"You _knew_ they were there!" I cry in a whisper of passionate +resentment, snatching my hand from his arm; "you brought me here _on +purpose_!" + +Then, regardless of appearances, I turn quickly away, and walk back down +the passage alone! + + + + +CHAPTER-XLVII. + + +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 only _possible_, 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 am _burning_. 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. +They _all_ see 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 with _me_, 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 jet 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 us _all_ home again!" I +say, with a tight, pale smile--"send us packing back again, Algy and +Barbara and _me_--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 you _torment_ me? +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--" + +"You _would_, then, if you _could_?" cry I, breathing short and hard. +"You _own_ it!" + +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 I _would_." + +"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 what _looks_--what, at least, I should have once said +_looked_--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 a _lump_! that is all the +difference! I had mine in a _lump_--all crowded into nineteen years that +is, nineteen _very 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 this _now_, to-night?" he asks, earnestly. "I +have been deceiving myself with the hope that you were having _one_ +happy 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 one_ would have said that you were enjoying yourself," he pursues, +eagerly--"_were_ not 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--"And _you_?" + +"_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 there _were_ one--have _I_ ever told _you_ a 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 the _draughts_ that 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 I _enjoyed_ it? I _hate_ to see a woman weep! it +makes me _miserable_! 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." + +"Her _child_!" 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 that _you_ were too much of a man of the +world, that she knew _you_ too 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 know _that_?" + +"How do _you_ know it?" (speaking quickly)--"how did _you_ hear it?" + +"I was told." + +"But _who_ told 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 one_ has! 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 the _misery_ of it," he goes on, that dark flush +that colored his bronzed face the other night again spreading over it, +"I could _laugh_ at the gross absurdity of the idea! To begin such +fooleries at _my_ age! 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, that _you_ should suspect _me_?" + +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 whom_ you +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 are _miserable_, are not we?" he goes on, in a low voice--"_most_ +miserable! 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 have _peace_!" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + + "I made a posy while the day ran by, + Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie + My life within this band; + But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they + By 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 she _is_ engaged, 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, I _still_ love 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 of +_us_, 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 +are _obliged_ to 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 is _ill_" + +"_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 he _did_, 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 he _would_ come; 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 me +_miserable_ to leave him! If I consulted my own wishes, I need not tell +you that 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. "I _know_ he will! I always said we were +too prosperous. Nothing has ever happened to us. None of us have ever +gone! I _know_ he will die; and I said yesterday that I liked him the +least of all the boys. Oh, I _wish_ I had not said it.--Barbara! +Barbara! I _wish_ I 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 not _God_ here--God _our 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 of _told-you-so_ expression, 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 are _cracked_ to-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, _very_ tired, but what of that? it would be unnatural, _most_ +unnatural 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!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + + "So mayst thou die, as I do; fear and pain + Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!" + + +All right! Yes, for Barbara it _is_ all right. Friends, I no more doubt +that than I doubt that I am sitting here now, with the hot tears on my +cheeks, telling you about it; but oh! not--_not_ for us! + +"Much laughing will end in much crying." The Brat was right. God knows +the old saw has come true enough in my case. I exulted too soon. Too +soon I said that the all-victor was vanquished. He might have left us +our one little victory, might not he?--knowing that at best it was but a +reprieve, that soon or late--soon or late, Algy--we all, every human +flower that ever blossomed out in this world's sad garden, must be +embraced in the icy iron of his arms. + +I always said that we were too many and too prosperous; long ago I said +it. I always wondered that he had so long overlooked us. And now that he +comes, he takes our choicest and best. With nothing less is he content. +Barbara sickens. Not until the need for her tender nursing is ended, not +until Algy can do without her, does she go; and then she makes haste to +leave us. + +On the morning after my mad and premature elation, it is but too plain +that the fever has laid hold of her too, and in its parching, withering +clasp, our unstained lily fades. We take her back to Tempest at her +wish, and there she dies--yes, _dies_. + +Somehow, I never thought of Barbara dying. Often I have been nervous +about the boys; out in the world, exposed to a hundred dangers and rough +accidents, but about Barbara--_never_^ hardly more than about myself, +safely at home, scarcely within reach of any probable peril. And now the +boys are all alive and safe, and Barbara is going. One would think that +she had cared nothing for us, she is in such a hurry to be gone; and yet +we all know that she has loved us well--that she loves us still--none +better. + +Alas! we have no long and tedious nursing of her. She has never given +any trouble in her life, and she gives none now. Almost before we +realize the reality and severity of her sickness, she is gone. Neither +does she make any struggle. She never was one to strive or cry; never +loud, clamorous, and self-asserting, like the boys and me; she was +always most meek, and with a great meekness she now goes forth from +among us--meekness and yet valor, for with a full and collected +consciousness she looks in the face of Him from whom the nations +shuddering turn away their eyes, and puts her slight hand gently into +his, saying, "Friend, I am ready!" + +And the days roll by; _but_ few, _but_ few of them, for, as I tell you, +she goes most quickly, and it comes to pass that our Barbara's death-day +dawns. Most people go in the morning. God grant that it is a good omen, +that for them, indeed, the sun is rising! + +We are all round her--all we that loved her and yet so lightly--for +every trivial thing called upon her, and taxed her, and claimed this and +that of her, as if she were some certain common thing that we should +always have within our reach. Yes, we are all about her, kneeling and +standing in a hallowed silence, choking back our tears that they may not +stain the serenity of her departure. + +Musgrave is nearest her; her hand is clasped in his; even at this sacred +and supreme moment a pang of most bitter earthly jealousy contracts my +heart that it should be so. What is he to her? what has he to do with +our Barbara?--_ours, not his, not his!_ But it pleases her. + +_She_ has never doubted him. Never has the faintest suspicion of his +truth dimmed the mirror of her guileless mind, nor will it ever now. She +goes down to the grave smiling, holding his hand, and kissing it. Now +and then she wanders a little, but there is nothing painful or uneasy in +her wanderings. + +Her fair white body lies upon the bed, but by the smile that kindles all +the dying loveliness of her face, by the happy broken words that fall +from her sweet mouth, we know that she is already away in heaven. Now +and again her lips part as if to laugh--a laugh of pure pleasantness. + +"As the man lives, so shall he die!" As Barbara has lived, so does she +die--meekly, unselfishly--with a great patience, and an absolute peace. +O wise man! O philosophers! who would take from us--who have all but +taken from us--our Blessed Land, the land over whose borders our +Barbara, at that smile, seems setting her feet--you _may_ be right--I, +for one, know not! I am weary of your pros and cons! But when you take +it away, for God's sake give us something better instead! + +Who, while they kneel, with the faint hand of their life's life in +theirs, can be satisfied with the _probability_ of meeting again? God! +God! give us _certainty_. + +The night has all but waned, the dawn has come. God has sent his +messenger for Barbara. An awful hunger to hear her voice once more +seizes me, _masters_ me. I rise from my knees, and lean over her. + +"Barbara!" I say, in a strangling agony of tears, "you are not _afraid_, +are you?" + +_Afraid!_ She has all but forgotten our speech--she, who is hovering on +the confines of that other world, where our speech is needed not, but +she just repeats my word, "_Afraid_!" + +Her voice is but a whisper now, but in all her look there is such an +utter, tender, joyful disdain, as leaves no room for misgiving. + +Nay, friends, our Barbara is not at all afraid. She never was reckoned +one of the bravest of us--never--timorous rather! Often we have laughed +at her easy fears, we bolder ones. But which of us, I pray you, could go +with such valiant cheer to meet the one prime terror of the nations as +she is doing? + +And it comes to pass that, about the time of the sun-rising, Barbara +goes. + +"She is gone! God bless her!" Roger says, with low and reverent +tenderness, stooping over our dead lily, and, putting his arm round me, +tries to lead me away. But I shake him off, and laugh out loud. + +"Are you _mad_?" I cry, "she is _not_ dead! She is no more dead than +_you_ are! Only a moment ago, she was speaking to me! Do dead people +speak?" + +But rave and cry as I may, she _is_ dead. In smiling and sweetly +speaking, even while yet I said "She is here!" yea, in that very moment +she went. + +Our Barbara is asleep!--to awake--when?--where?--we know not, only we +altogether hope, that, when next she opens her blue eyes, it will be in +the sunshine of God's august smile--God, through life and in death, _her +friend_. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + + "Then, breaking into tears, 'Dear God,' she cried, 'and must we see, + All blissful things depart from us, or e'er we go to Thee; + We cannot guess Thee in the wood, or hear Thee in the wind: + Our cedars must fall round us e'er we see the light behind. + Ay, sooth, we feel too strong in weal to need Thee on that road; + But, woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on God.'" + + +I am twenty years old now, barely twenty; and seventy is the appointed +boundary of man's date, often exceeded by ten, by fifteen years. During +all these fifty--perhaps sixty--years, I shall have to do without +Barbara. I have not yet arrived at the _pain_ of this thought: _that_ +will come, quick enough, I suppose, by-and-by!--it is the _astonishment_ +of it that is making my mind reel and stagger! + +I suppose there are few that have not endured and overlived the +frightful _novelty_ of this idea. + +I am sitting in a stupid silence; my stiff eyes--dry now, but dim and +sunk with hours of frantic weeping--fixed on vacancy, while I try to +think _exactly_ of her face, with a greedy, jealous fear lest, in the +long apathy of the endless years ahead of me, one soft line, one lovely +line, may become faint and hazy to me. + +How often I have sat for hours in the same room with her, without one +glance at her! It seems to me, now, _monstrous_, incredible, that I +should ever have moved my eyes from her--that I should ever have ceased +kissing her, and telling her how altogether beloved she was by me. + +If all of us, while we are alive, could stealthily, once a year, and +during a moment long enough to exchange but two words with them, behold +those loved ones whom we have lost, death would be no more death. + +But, O friends, that one moment, for whose sake we could so joyfully +live through all the other minutes of the year, to us never comes. + +I suppose trouble has made me a little light-headed. I think to-day I am +foolisher than usual. Thoughts that would not tease other people, tease +me. + +If I ever see her again--if God ever give me that great felicity--I do +not quite know why He should, but if--if--(ah! what an if it is!)--my +mind misgives me--I have my doubts that it will not be _quite_ Barbara-- +not the Barbara that knitted socks for the boys, and taught Tou Tou, and +whose slight, fond arms I can--now that I have shut my eyes--so plainly +feel thrown round my shoulders, to console me when I have broken into +easy tears at some silly tiff with the others. Can even the omnipotent +God remember all the unnumbered dead, and restore to them the shape and +features that they once wore, and by which they who loved them knew +them? + +The funeral is over now--over two days ago. She lies in Tempest +church-yard, at her own wish. The blinds are drawn up again; the sun +looks in; and life goes on as before. + +Already there has grown a sacredness about the name of Barbara--the name +that used to echo through the house oftener than any other, as one and +another called for her. Now, it is less lightly named than the names of +us live ones. + +I shall always _wince_ when I hear it. Thank God! it is not a common +name. After a while, I know that she will become a sealed subject, never +named; but as yet--while my wound is in its first awful rawness, I must +speak of her to some one. + +I am talking of her to Roger now; Roger is very good to me--very! I do +not seem to care much about him, nor about anybody for the matter of +that, but he is very good. + +"You liked her," I say, in a perfectly collected, tearless voice, "did +not you? You were very kind and forbearing to them all, always--I am +very grateful to you for it--but you liked _her_ of your own accord--you +would have liked her, even if she had not been one of us, would not +you?" + +I seem greedy to hear that she was dear to everybody. + +"I was very fond of her," he answers, in a choked voice. + +"And you are _sure_ that she is happy now?" say I, with the same keen +agony of anxiety with which I have put the question twenty times before +--"well off--better than she was here--you do not say so to comfort me, +I +suppose; you would say it even if I were talking--not of her--but of +some one like her that I did not care about?" + +He turns to me, and clasps my dry, hot hands. + +"Child!" he says, looking at me with great tears standing in his gray +eyes--"I would stake all my hopes of seeing His face myself, that she +has gone to God!" I look at him with a sort of wistful envy. How is it +that he and Barbara have attained such a certainty of faith? He can +_know_ no more than I do. After a pause-- + +"I think," say I, "that I should like to go home for a bit, if you do +not mind. Everybody was fond of her there. Nobody knew any thing about +her, nobody cared for her here." + +So I go home. As I turn in at the park-gates, in the gray, wet gloom of +the November evening, I think of my first home-coming after my +wedding-tour. + +Again I see the divine and jocund serenity of the summer evening--the +hot, red sunset making all the windows one great flame, and they all, +Barbara, Algy, Bobby, Tou Tou, laughing welcome to me from the opened +gate. Tonight I feel as if they were _all_ dead. I reach the house. I +stand in the empty school-room!--I, alone, of all the noisy six. The +stains of our cookery still discolor the old carpet; there is still the +great ink-splash on the wall, that marks the spot where the little +inkstand, aimed by Bobby at my head, and dodged by me, alighted. + +How little I thought that those stains and that splash would ever speak +to me with voices of such pathos! I have asked to be allowed to sleep in +Barbara's and my old room. I am there now. I have thrown myself on +Barbara's little white bed, and am clasping her pillow in my empty arms. +Then, with blurred sight and swimming eyes, I look round at all our +little childish knick-knacks. + +There is the white crockery lamb that she gave me the day I was six +years old! Poor little trumpery lamb! I snatch it up, and deluge its +crinkly back, and its little pink nose, with my scalding tears. + +At night I cannot sleep. I have pulled aside the curtains, that through +the windows my eyes may see the high stars, beyond which she has gone. +Through the pane they make a faint and ghostly glimmer on the empty bed. + +I sit up in the dead middle of the night, when the darkness and +so-called silence are surging and singing round me, while the whole room +feels full of spirit presences. _I alone_! I am accompanied by a host--a +bodiless host. + +I stretch out my arms before me, and cry out: + +"Barbara! Barbara! If you are here, make some sign! I _command_ you, +touch me, speak to me! I shall not be afraid!--dead or alive, can I be +afraid of _you_?--give me some sign to let me know where you are-- +whether it is worth while trying to be good to get to you! I _adjure_ +you, give me some sign!" + +The tears are raining down my cheeks, as I eagerly await some answer. +Perhaps it will come in the cold, _cold_ air, by which some have known +of the presence of their dead; but in vain. The darkness and the silence +surge round me. Still, still I feel the spirit-presences; but Barbara is +dumb. + +"You have been away such a short time!" I cry, piteously. "You cannot +have gone far! Barbara! Barbara! I _must_ get to you! If _I_ had died, +and _you_ had lived, a hundred thousand devils should not have kept me +from you. I should have broken through them all and reached you. Ah! +cruel Barbara! you do not _want_ to come to me!" + +I stop, suffocated with tears; and through the pane the high stars still +shine, and Barbara is dumb! + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + + "The last touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and by + night. + Their last step on the stairs, at the door, still throbs through me, + if ever so light. + Their last gift which they left to my childhood, far off in the + long-ago years, + Is now turned from a toy to a relic, and seen through the crystals of + tears. + 'Dig the snow,' she said, + For my church-yard bed; + Yet I, as I sleep, shall not fear to freeze, + If one only of these, my beloveds, shall love with heart-warm tears, + As I have loved these.'" + + +It seems to me in these days as if, but for the servants, I were quite +alone in the house. Father is ill. We always thought that he never would +care about any thing, or any of us, but we are wrong. Barbara's death +has shaken him very much. Mother is with him always, nursing him, and +being at his beck and call, and I see nothing of her. + +Tou Tou has gone to school, and so it comes to pass that, in the late +populous school-room, I sit alone. Where formerly one could hardly make +one's voice heard for the merry clamor, there is now no noise, but the +faint buzzing of the house-flies on the pane, and now and again, as it +grows toward sunset, the loud wintry winds keening and calling. + +The Brat indeed runs over for a couple of days, but I am so glad when +they are over, and he is gone. I used to like the Brat the best of all +the boys, and perhaps by-and-by I shall again; but, for the moment, do +you know, I almost hate him. + +Once or twice I _quite_ hate him, when I hear him laughing in his old +thorough, light-hearted way--when I hear him jumping up-stairs three +steps at a time, whistling the same tune he used to whistle before he +went. + +Poor boy! He would be always sorrowful if he could, and is very much +ashamed of himself for not being, but he cannot. + +Life is still pleasant to him, though Barbara is dead, and so I unjustly +hate him, and am glad when he is gone. Have not I come home because here +she was loved, here, at least, through all the village--the village +about which she trod like one of God's kind angels--I shall be certain +of meeting a keen and assured sympathy in my sorrow. + + "....Where indeed + The roof so lowly but that beam of heaven + Dawned some time through the door-way?" + +And yet, now that I am here, the village seems much as it was. Still the +same groups of fat, frolicking children about the doors; still the same +busy women at the wash-tub; about the house still the same coarse +laughs. + +It would be most unnatural, impossible that it should not be so, and yet +I feel angry--sorely angry with them. + +One day when this sense of rawness is at its worst and sharpest, I +resolve that I will pay a visit to the almshouse. There, at least, I +shall find that she is remembered; there, out of mere selfishness, they +must grieve for her. When will they, in their unlovely eld, ever find +such a friend again? + +So I go there. I find the old women, some crooning over the fire, half +asleep, some squabbling. I suppose they are glad to see me, though not +_so_ glad when they discover that I have brought no gift in my hand, for +indeed I have forgotten--no quarter-pounds of tea--no little +three-cornered parcels of sugar. + +They begin to talk about Barbara at once. Among the poor there is never +any sacredness about the names of the dead, and though I have hungered +for sorrowful talk about her, for assurance that by some one besides +myself the awful emptiness of her place is felt, yet I wince and shrink +from hearing her lightly named in common speech. + +They are sorry about her, certainly--quite sorry--but it is more what +they have lost by her, than her that they deplore. And they are more +taken up with their own little miserable squabbles--with detracting +tales of one another--than with either. + +"Eh? she's a bad 'un, she is! I says to her, says I, 'Sally,' says I, +'if you'll give yourself hully and whully to the Lord for one week, I'll +give you a _hounce_ of baccy,' and she's that wicked, she actilly would +not." + +Is _this_ the sort of thing I have come to hear? I rise up hastily, and +take my leave. + +As I walk home again through the wintry roads, and my eyes fix +themselves with a tired languor on the green ivy-flowers--on the little +gray-green lichen-cups on the almshouse-wall, I think, "Does _no one_ +remember her? Is she already altogether forgotten?" + +It is still early in the afternoon when I reach home. The dark is +_coming_ indeed, for it comes soon nowadays, but it has not yet come. + +I go into the garden, and begin to pace up and down the gravel walks, +under the naked lime-trees that have forgotten their July perfume, and +are tossing their bare, cold arms in the evening wind. + +Only _one_ of my old playfellows is left me. Jacky still stands on the +gravel as if the whole place belonged to him; still stands with his head +on one side, roguishly eying the sunset. + +Thank Heaven, Jacky is still here, sly and nefarious, as when I bent +down to give him my tearful good-by kiss on my wedding-morning. I kneel +down, half laughing, half crying, on the damp walk, to stroke his round +gray head, and hear his dear cross croak. Whether he resents the +blackness of my appearance as being a mean imitation of his own, I do +not know, but he will not come near me; he hops stiffly away, and stands +eying me from the grass, with an unworthy affectation of not knowing who +I am. I am still wasting useless blandishments on him, when my attention +is distracted by the sound of footsteps on the walk. + +I look up. Who is this man that is coming, stepping toward me in the +gloaming? + +I am not long left in doubt. With a slight and sudden emotion of +surprised distaste, I see that it is Musgrave. I rise quickly to my +feet. + +"It is you, is it?" I say, with a cold ungraciousness, for I have not +half forgiven him yet--still I bear a grudge against him--still I feel +an angry envy that Barbara died with her hand in his. + +"Yes, it is I!" + +He is dressed in deep mourning. His cheeks are hollow and pale; he looks +dejected, and yet fierce. We walk alongside of each other in silence for +a few yards. + +"Why do not you ask what has brought me here?" he asks suddenly, with a +harsh abruptness. "I know that that is what you are thinking of." + +"Yes," I reply, gravely, without looking at him, "it is!--what has?" + +"I have come to bid you all good-by," he answers, in a low, quick voice, +with his eyes bent on the ground; "you know"--raising them, and +beginning to laugh hoarsely--"if--if--things had gone right--you would +have been my nearest relation by now." + +I shudder. + +"Yes," say I, "I know." + +"I am going away," he goes on, raising his voice to a louder tone of +reckless unrest, "_where?_--God knows!--_I_ do not, and do not care +either!--going away for good!--I am going to let the abbey." + +"To _let_ it!" + +"You are _glad_!" he cries in a tone of passionate and sombre +resentment, while his great eyes, lifted, flash a miserable resentment +into mine; "I _knew_ you would be! I have not given you much pleasure +very often, have I?"--(still with that same harsh mirth).--"Well, it is +something to have done it _once_!" + +I clasp my down-hanging hands loosely together. I lift my eyes to the +low, dark sky. + +"_Am_ I glad?" I say, hazily. "I do not know!--I do not think I am!--I +do not think I care one way or another!" + +"Nancy!" he says, presently, in a tone no longer of counterfeit mirth, +but of deep and serious earnestness, "I do not know why I told you just +now that I had come to bid them all good-by--it was not true--you know +it was not. What are they to me, or I to them, now? I came--" + +"For what did you come, then?" cry I, interrupting him, pantingly, while +my eyes wide and aghast, grow to his face. What is it that he is going +to say? He--from whose clasp Barbara's dead hand was freed! + +"Do not look at me like that!" he cries, wildly, putting up his hands +before his eyes. "It reminds me--great God! it reminds me--" + +He breaks off; then goes on a little more calmly: + +"You need not be afraid! Brute and blackguard as I am, I am not quite +brute and blackguard enough for _that!_--that would be past _even_ me! I +have come to ask you once again to forgive me for that--that old +offense" (with a shamed red flush on the pallor of his cheeks); "I asked +you once before, you may remember, and you answered"--(my words with a +resentful accuracy)--"that you '_would not, and by God's help, you never +would!_'" + +"Did I?" say I, with that same hazy feeling. Those old emotions seem +grown so distant and dim, "I dare say!--I did not recollect!" + +"And so I have come to ask you once again," he goes on, with a heavy +emphasis--"it will do me no great harm if you say 'No' again!--it will +do me small good if you say 'Yes.' And yet, before I go _away forever_-- +yes"--(a bitter smile)--"cheer up!--_-forever!_--I must have one more +try!" + +I am silent. + +"You may as well forgive me!" he says, taking my cold and passive hand, +and speaking with an intense though composed mournfulness. "After all, I +have not done you much harm, have I?--that is no credit to me, I know. I +would have done, if I could, but I could not! You may as well forgive +me, may not you? God forgives!--at least"--(with a sigh of heavy and +apathetic despair)--"so they say!--would _you_ be less clement than He?" + +I am looking back at him, with a quiet fixedness. I no longer feel the +slightest embarrassment in his presence; it no longer disquiets me, that +he should hold my hand. + +"Yes," say I, speaking slowly, and still with my sunk and tear-dimmed +eyes calmly resting on the dull despair of his, "yes--if you wish--it is +all so long ago--and _she_ liked you!--yes!--I forgive you!" + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + + "Love is enough." + + +And so, as the days go by, the short and silent days, it comes to pass +that a sort of peace falls upon my soul; born of a slow yet deep +assurance that with Barbara it is well. + +One can do with probabilities in prosperity, when to most of us careless +ones it seems no great matter whether there be a God or no? When all the +world's wheels seem to roll smoothly, as if of themselves, and one can +speculate with a confused curiosity as to the nature of the great far +cause that moves them; but in grief--in the destitute bareness, the +famished hunger of soul, when "one is not," how one craves for +_certainties_! How one yearns for the solid heaven of one's childhood; +the harping angels, the never-failing flowers; the pearl gates and +jeweled walls of God's great shining town! + +They may be gone; I know not, but at least _one_ certainty remains-- +guaranteed to us by no outside voice, but by the low yet plain tones +that each may listen to in his own heart. That, with him who is pure and +just and meek, who hates a lie worse than the sharpness of death, and +loves others dearer than himself, it shall be well. + +Do you ask where? or when? or how? We cannot say. We know not; only we +know that it shall be well. + +Never, never shall I reach Barbara's clear child-faith; Barbara, to whom +God was as real and certain as I; never shall I attain to the steady +confidence of Roger. I can but grope dimly with outstretched hands; +sometimes in the outer blackness of a moonless, starless night; +sometimes, with strained eyes catching a glimpse of a glimmer in the +east, I can but _feel_ after God, as a plant in a dark place feels after +the light. + +And so the days go by, and as they do, as the first smart of my despair +softens itself into a slow and reverent acquiescence in the Maker's +will, my thoughts stray carefully, and needfully back over my past life: +they overleap the gulf of Barbara's death and linger long and +wonderingly among the previous months. + +With a dazed astonishment I recall that even then I looked upon myself +as one most unprosperous, most sorrowful-hearted. + +What in Heaven's name ailed me? What did I lack? My jealousy of Roger, +such a living, stinging, biting thing _then_; how dead it is now! + +Barbara always said I was wrong; always! + +As his eyes, in the patient mournfulness of their reproachful appeal, +answer again in memory the shrewish violence of my accusation on the +night of the ball--the last embers of my jealousy die. He does not love +me as he did; of that I am still persuaded. There is now, perhaps, there +always will be, a film, a shade between us. + +By my peevish tears, by my mean and sidelong reproaches, by my sulky +looks, I have necessarily diminished, if not quite squandered the stock +of hearty, wholesome, honest love that on that April day he so +diffidently laid at my feet. I have already marred and blighted a year +and three-quarters of his life. I recollect how much older, than me he +is, how much time I have already wasted; a pang of remorse, sharp as my +knife, runs through my heart; a great and mighty yearning to go back to +him at once, to begin over again _at once, this very minute_ to begin +over again--overflows and floods my whole being. Late in the day as it +is--doubly unseemly and ungracious as the confession will seem now--I +will tell him of that lie with which I first sullied the cleanness of +our union. With my face hidden on his broad breast, so that I may not +see his eyes, I will tell him--yes, I will tell him. "I will arise, and +go to him, and say, 'I have sinned against Heaven and before thee.'" + +So I go. I am nearing Tempest: as I reach the churchyard gate, I stop +the carriage, and get out. + +Barbara was always the one that, after any absence from home, I used +first to run in search of. I will go and seek her now. + +It is drawing toward dusk as I pass, in my long black gown, up the +church-path, between the still and low-lying dead, to the quiet spot +where, with the tree-boughs waving over her, with the ivy hanging the +loose luxuriance of its garlands on the church-yard wall above her head, +our Barbara is taking her rest. + +As I near the grave, I see that I am not its only visitor. Some one, a +man, is already there, leaning pensively on the railings that surround +it, with his eyes fixed on the dark and winterly earth, and on the +newly-planted, flagging flowers. It is Roger. As he hears my approaching +steps, the swish of my draperies, he turns; and, by the serene and +lifted gravity of his eyes, I see that he has been away in heaven with +Barbara. He does not speak as I come near; only he opens his arms +joyfully, and yet a little diffidently, too, and I fly to then. + +"Roger!" I cry, passionately, with a greedy yearning for human love +here--at this very spot, where so much of the love of my life lies in +death's austere silence at my feet--"love me a little--_ever so little_! +I know I am not very lovable, but you once liked me, did not you?--not +nearly so much as I thought, I know, but still _a little_!" + +"_A little_!" + +"I am going to begin all over again!" I go on, eagerly, speaking very +quickly, with my arms clasped about his neck, "quite all over again; +indeed I am! I shall be so different that you will not know me for the +same person, and if--if--" (beginning to falter and stumble)--"if you +still go on liking _her_ best, and thinking her prettier and pleasanter +to talk to--well, you cannot help it, it will not be your fault--and I-- +I--will try not to mind!" + +He has taken my hands from about his neck, and is holding them warmly, +steadfastly clasped in his own. + +"Child! child!" he cries, "shall I _never_ undeceive you? are you still +harping on that old worn-out string?" + +"_Is_ it worn out?" I ask, anxiously, staring up with my wet eyes +through the deep twilight into his. "Yes, yes!" (going on quickly and +impulsively), "if you say so, I will believe it--without another word I +will believe it, but--" (with a sudden fall from my high tone, and lapse +into curiosity)--"you know you must have liked her a good deal once--you +know you were engaged to her." + +"_Engaged to her!_" + +"Well, _were not_ you?" + +"I never was engaged to any one in my life," he answers with solemn +asseveration; "odd as it may seem, I never in my life had asked any +woman to marry me until I asked you. I had known Zéphine from a child; +her father was the best and kindest friend ever any man had. When he was +dying, he was uneasy in his mind about her, as she was not left well +off, and I promised to do what I could for her--one does not lightly +break such a promise, does one? I was fond of her--I would do her any +good turn I could, for old sake's sake, but _marry_ her--be _engaged_ to +her!--" + +He pauses expressively. + +"Thank God! thank God!" cry I, sobbing hysterically; "it has all come +right, then--Roger!--Roger!"--(burying my tear-stained face in his +breast)--"I will tell you _now_--perhaps I shall never feel so brave +again!--do not look at me--let me hide my face; I want to get it over in +a hurry! Do you remember--" (sinking my voice to an indistinct and +struggling whisper)--"that night that you asked me about--about +_Brindley Wood_?" + +"Yes, I remember." + +Already, his tone has changed. His arms seem to be slackening their +close hold of me. + +"Do not loose me!" cry I, passionately; "hold me tight, or I can _never_ +tell you--how could you expect me? Well, that night--you know as well as +I do--I _lied_." + +"You _did_?" + +How hard and quick he is breathing! I am glad I cannot see his face. + +"I _was_ there! I _did_ cry! she _did_ see me--" + +I stop abruptly, choked by tears, by shame, by apprehension. + +"Go on!" (spoken with panting shortness). + +"He met me there!" I say, tremulously. "I do not know whether he did it +on purpose or not, and said dreadful things! must I tell you them?" +(shuddering)--"pah! it makes me sick--he said" (speaking with a +reluctant hurry)--"that he loved me, and that I loved him, and that I +_hated_ you, and it took me so by surprise--it was all so horrible, and +so different from what I had planned, that I cried--of course I ought +not, but I did--I _roared!_" + +There does not seem to me any thing ludicrous in this mode of +expression, neither apparently does there to him. + +"Well?" + +"I do not think there is any thing more!" say I, slowly and timidly +raising my eyes, to judge of the effect of my confession, "only that I +was so _deadly, deadly_ ashamed; I thought it was such a shameful thing +to happen to any one that I made up my mind I would never tell anybody, +and I did not." + +"And is that _all_?" he cries, with an intense and breathless anxiety in +eyes and voice, "are you sure that that is _all_?" + +"All!" repeat I, opening my eyes very wide in astonment; "do not you +think it is _enough_?" + +"Are you sure," he cries, taking my face in his hands, and narrowly, +searchingly regarding it--"Child! child!--to-day let us have nothing-- +_nothing_ but truth--are you sure that you did not a little regret that +it must be so--that you did not feel it a little hard to be forever tied +to my gray hairs--my eight-and-forty years?" + +"Hush!" cry I, snatching away my hands, and putting them over my ears. +"I will not listen to you!--what do I care for your forty-eight years?-- +If you were a hundred--two hundred--what is it to me?--what do I care--I +love you! I love you! I love you--O my darling, how stupid you have been +not to see it all along!" + +And so it comes to pass that by Barbara's grave we kiss again with +tears. And now we are happy--stilly, inly happy, though I, perhaps, am +never quite so boisterously gay as before the grave yawned for my +Barbara; and we walk along hand-in-hand down the slopes and up the hills +of life, with our eyes fixed, as far as the weakness of our human sight +will let us, on the one dread, yet good God, whom through the veil of +his great deeds we dimly discern. Only I wish that Roger were not +nine-and-twenty years older than I! + + THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nancy, by Rhoda Broughton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NANCY *** + +***** This file should be named 12304-8.txt or 12304-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/3/0/12304/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Carol David and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.net/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. For example: + + http://www.gutenberg.net/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + http://www.gutenberg.net/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + http://www.gutenberg.net/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/old/12304-8.zip b/old/old/12304-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a834b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12304-8.zip diff --git a/old/old/12304.txt b/old/old/12304.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b813df1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12304.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15196 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nancy, by Rhoda Broughton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Nancy + +Author: Rhoda Broughton + +Release Date: May 9, 2004 [EBook #12304] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NANCY *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Carol David and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +NANCY: + +A NOVEL. + +BY +RHODA BROUGHTON. + + +AUTHOR OF +"'GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART!'" "RED AS A ROSE IS SHE," ETC., ETC. + + + + "As through the land at eve we went, + And plucked the ripened ears, + We fell out, my wife and I, + Oh, we fell out, I know not why, + And kissed again with tears." + + +1874 + + + + +NANCY. + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +"Put into a small preserving pan three ounces of fresh butter, and, as +soon as it is just melted, add one pound of brown sugar of moderate +quality--" + +"Not moderate; the browner the better," interpolates Algy. + +"Cannot say I agree with you. I hate brown sugar--filthy stuff!" says +Bobby, contradictiously. + +"Not half so _filthy_ as white, if you come to that," retorts Algy, +loftily, looking up from the lemon he is grating to extinguish his +brother. "They clear white sugar with but--" + +"Keep these stirred gently over a clear fire for about fifteen minutes," +interrupt I, beginning to read again very fast, in a loud, dull +recitative, to hinder further argument, "or until a little of the +mixture dipped into cold water breaks clear between the teeth without +sticking to them. When it is boiled to this point it must be poured out +immediately or it will burn." + +Having galloped jovially along, scorning stops, I here pause out of +breath. We are a large family, we Greys, and we are _all_ making taffy. +Yes, every one of us. It would take all the fingers of one hand, and the +thumb of the other, to count us, O reader. Six! Yes, six. A Frenchman +might well hold up his hands in astonied horror at the insane +prolificness--the foolhardy fertility--of British householders. We come +very _improbably_ close together, except Tou Tou, who was an +after-thought. There are no two of us, I am proud to say, exactly +simultaneous, but we have come tumbling on each other's heels into the +world in so hot a hurry that we evidently expect to find it a pleasant +place when we get there. Perhaps we do--perhaps we do not; friends, you +will hear and judge for yourselves. + +A few years ago when we were little, people used to say that we were +quite a pretty sight, like little steps one above another. We are big +steps now, and no one any longer hazards the suggestion of our being +pretty. On the other hand, nobody denies that we are each as well +furnished with legs, arms, and other etceteras, as our neighbors, nor +can affirm that we are notably more deficient in wits than those of our +friends who have arrived in twos and threes. + +We are in the school-room, the big bare school-room, that has seen us +all--that is still seeing some of us--unwillingly dragged, and painfully +goaded up the steep slopes of book-learning. Outside, the March wind is +roughly hustling the dry, brown trees and pinching the diffident green +shoots, while the round and rayless sun of late afternoon is staring, +from behind the elm-twigs in at the long maps on the wall, in at the +high chairs--tall of back, cruelly tiny of seat, off whose rungs we have +kicked all the paint--in at the green baize table, richly freaked with +splashes. Hardly less red than the sun's, are our burnt faces gathered +about the fire. + +This fire has no flame--only a glowing, ruddy heart, on which the bright +brass saucepan sits; and kneeling before it, stirring the mess with a +long iron spoon, is Barbara. Algy, as I have before remarked, is grating +a lemon. Bobby is buttering soup-plates. The Brat--the Brat always takes +his ease if he can--is peeling almonds, fishing delicately for them in a +cup of hot water with his finger and thumb; and I, Nancy, am reading +aloud the receipt at the top of my voice, out of a greasy, dog's-eared +cookery-book, which, since it came into our hands, has been the innocent +father of many a hideous compound. Tou Tou alone, in consideration of +her youth, is allowed to be a spectator. She sits on the edge of the +table, swinging her thin legs, and kicking her feet together. + +Certainly we deteriorate in looks as we go downward. In Barbara we made +an excellent start: few families a better one, though we say it that +should not. Although in Algy there was a slight falling off, it was not +much to complain of. But I am sensibly uglier than Algy (as indeed he +has, on several occasions, dispassionately remarked to me); the Brat +than me; Bobby than the Brat; and so steadily on, till we reach our +nadir of unhandsomeness in Tou Tou. Tou Tou is our climax, and we +certainly defy our neighbors and acquaintances to outdo her. + +Hapless young Tou Tou! made up of the thinnest legs, the widest mouth, +the invisiblest nose, and over-visiblest ears, that ever went to the +composition of a child of twelve years. + +"Keep stirring always! You must take care that it does not stick to the +bottom!" say I, closing the receipt-book, and speaking on my own +account, but still as one having authority. + +"All very well to say 'Keep stirring always,'" answers Barbara, turning +round a face unavoidably pretty, even though at the present moment +deeply flame-colored; eyes still sweetly laughing with gay good-humor, +even though half burnt out of her head, to answer me; "but if you had +been stirring as long as I have, you would wonder that you had any arm +left to stir with, however feebly. Here, one of you boys, take a turn! +You Brat, you never do any thing for your living!" + +The Brat complies, though not with eagerness. They change occupations: +the Brat stirs, and she fishes for almonds. Ten minutes pass: the taffy +is done, and what is more it really is taffy. The upshot of our cookery +is in general so startlingly indifferent from what we had intended, that +the result in the present case takes us by surprise. We all prove +practically that, in the words of the receipt-book, it "breaks clear +between the teeth without sticking to them." It is poured into Bobby's +soup-plate, and we have thrown up the window-sashes, and set it on the +ledge to cool. The searching wind blows in dry and biting. Now it is +rushing in a violent current through the room, for the door has opened. +Mother enters. + +"To what may we attribute the honor of this visit?" says Algy, turning +away from the window to meet her, and setting her a chair. Bobby gives +her a kiss, and the Brat a lump of taffy, concerning which it would be +invidious to predicate which were the stickier; so exceedingly adhesive +are both. + +"Your father says," begins she, sitting down. She is interrupted by a +loud and universal groan. + +"Says what? Something unpleasant of course, who is it now? Who has done +any thing now? I do hope it is the Brat," cries Bobby, viciously; "it is +quite his turn; he has been good boy of the family for the last week." + +"I dare say it is," replies the Brat, resignedly; "one can't expect such +prosperity as mine to last forever." + +"Of course it is _I_," says Algy, rather bitterly, "it is always I. I +have never been good boy since I was ploughed; and, please God, I never +will be again." + +"But what is it? what is it? About how bad is it? Is it to be one of our +worst rows?" + + +We are all speaking together at the top of our voices; indeed, we rarely +employ a lower key. + +"It is no one; no one has done any thing," replies mother, when, at +last, we allow her to make herself heard, "only your father sends you a +message that, as Sir Roger Tempest is coming here to-day, he hopes you +will make less noise this evening in here than you did last night: he +says he could hardly hear the sound of his own voice." + +"Ahem!" "Very likely!" "I dare say!" in different tones of angry +incredulity. + +"He begs you to see that the swing-door is shut, as he does not wish his +friend to imagine that he keeps a private lunatic asylum." + +A universal snort of indignation. + +"If we are bedlamites, we know who made us so. We will tell old Roger if +he asks," etc. + +"For my part," say I, resolutely pinching my lips together as I kneel on +the carpet, and violently hammer the now cold and hard taffy with the +handle of the poker, which in its day has been put to many uses vile, "I +can tell you that I shall not dine with you to-night: I should +infallibly say something to father--something unfortunate--I feel it +rising; and it would be unseemly to have one of our _emeutes_ before +this old gentleman, would not it?" + +"They are nice breezy things when you are used to them," says Barbara, +laughing; "but one requires to be brought up to them." + +"Do not you dine either, Brat," say I, looking up, and waving the poker +with suave command at him, "and we will broil bones for tea, and roast +potatoes on the shovel." + +"Some of you must dine," says poor mother, rather wearily, "or your +father--" + +"He cannot complain if we send our two specimen ones," say I, again +looking up, and indicating Barbara and Algy with my weapon, "our sample +figs: if Sir Robert--Sir Robin--Sir Roger--what is he?--does not see the +rest of us, he may perhaps imagine that we are all equally presentable, +which would be more to your credit, mother, than if Bobby and Tou Tou +and I were to be submitted to the poor old thing's notice." + +Mother looks rather at sea. + +"What are you talking about? What poor old thing? Oh! I understand." + +"He will have to see us," says Tou Tou, rather lugubriously, "he cannot +help it--at prayers." + +Tou Tou has descended from the table, and is standing propped against +mother's knee, twisting one leg with ingenious grace round the other. + +"Bless your heart," says the Brat, comfortingly, "he will never find out +that we are there: do you suppose that his blear old eyes will see all +across that big room, economically lit up by one pair of candles?" + +Mother smiles. + +"Wait till you see whether he has blear eyes!" + +"He must be very ancient," says Algy, in all the insolence of twenty, +leaning his flat back against the mantel-shelf, "as he was at school +with father." + +"Father has not blear eyes," remarks Bobby, dryly. "Would God he had! +For then perhaps he would not see our little vices quite so clearly with +them as he does." + +"But then father has not been in India," retorts Algy, stretching. +"India plays the deuce with one's organs and appurtenances." + +"I wish you joy of him," say I, rising flushed and untidy from my knees, +having successfully smashed the taffy into little bits; "from soup to +walnuts, you will have to undergo a ceaseless tyranny of tales about +hitmaghars and dak bungalows and Choto Lazery: which of us has not +suffered in our day from the horrible monotony of ideas of an old +Indian?" + +"Never you mind, Barbara!" cries the Brat, giving her a sounding +brotherly pat on the back. "Pay no attention to her." + +"'What great events from trivial causes spring!' as the poet says: you +may live to bless the day that old Roger Crossed our doors." + +"As how?" says Barbara, laughing, and rocking herself backward and +forward in a veteran American rocking-chair which, at different periods +of our history, has served most of us the dirty turn of tipping us over, +and presenting us reversed to the eyes of our family. + +"Never you mind," repeats the Brat, oracularly; "truth is stranger than +fiction! odd things happen: I read in the paper the other day of a man +who pulled up the window for an old woman in the train, and she died at +once--I do not mean on the spot, but very soon after, and when she died +--listen, please, all of you--" (speaking very slowly and impressively) +--"she left him _two thousand pounds_ a year." + +"I wish I saw the application," answers Barbara, still rocking and +sighing. + +"Mind that you set a stool for his gouty foot," says Algy, feeling for +his faint mustache, "and run and search for his spectacle-case, when he +has mislaid it." + +"Seriously," say I, "what a grand thing it would be for the family if he +were to adopt you, Barbara!" + +"Or me," suggests the Brat, standing before the fire with his coat-tails +under his arm. "Why not _me_? My manners to the aged are always +considered particularly happy." + +"Here he is!" cries Tou Tou from the window, whither she has retired, +and now stands, like a heron, on one leg, leaning her elbow on the sill. +"Here is the dog-cart turning the corner!" + +We all make a rush to the casement. + +"Yes, there he is! sure enough! our future benefactor!" says Algy, +looking over the rest of our heads, and making a counterfeit greeting.-- +"Welcome, welcome, good old man!" + +"And father, all affability, pointing out the house," supplements Bobby. + +We laugh grimly. + +"But who is it he has in the fly?" say I, as the second vehicle follows +the first. "His harem, I suppose! half a dozen old Wampoos." + +"His valet, to be sure," replies the Brat, chidingly, "with his stays, +and his evening wig, and the calves of his legs." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The wind is even colder than it was, stronger and more withering now +that the sun's faint warmth is withdrawn, and that the small and chilly +stars possess the sky. Nevertheless, both the school-room windows are +open. We are all huddled shivering round the hearth, yet no one talks of +closing them. The fact is, that amateur cooking, though a graceful +accomplishment, has its penalties, and that at the present moment the +smell of broiled bones and fried potatoes that fills our place of +learning is something appalling. Why may not it penetrate beneath the +swing-door, through the passages, and reach the drawing-room? Such a +thing has happened once or twice before. At the bare thought we all +quake. I am in the pleasant situation, just at present, of owning a +chilled body and a blazing face. + +Chiefest among the cooks have I been, and now I am sitting trying to fan +my red cheeks and redder nose, with the back of an old atlas, gutted in +some ancient broil, trying, in deference to Sir Roger, to cool down my +appearance a little against prayer-time. Alas! that epoch is nearer than +I think. Ting! tang! the loud bell is ringing through the house. My hair +is loosened and tumbled with stooping over the fire, and I have burnt a +hole right in the fore front of my gown, by letting a hot cinder fall +from the grate upon it. There is, however, now no time to repair these +dilapidations. We issue from our lair, and _en route_ meet the long +string of servants filing from their distant regions. How is it that the +cook's face is so much, _much_ less red than mine? Prayers are held in +the justicing-room, and thither we are all repairing. The accustomed +scene bursts on my eye. At one end the long, straight row of the +servants, immovably devout, staring at the wall, with their backs to us. +In the middle of the room, facing them, father, kneeling upon a chair +with his hands clutched, and his eyes closed, repeating the church +prayers, as if he were rather angry with them than otherwise. Mother, +kneeling on the carpet beside him, like the faithful, ruffed, and +farthingaled wife on a fifteenth-century tomb. Behind them, again, at +some little distance, we and our visitor. With the best will in the +world to do so, I can get but a meagre view of the latter. The room is +altogether rather dark, it being one of our manners and customs not to +throw much light on prayers, and he has chosen the darkest corner of it. +I only vaguely see the outline of a kneeling figure, evidently neither +bulky nor obese, of a flat back and vigorous shoulders. His face is +generally hidden in his hands, but once or twice he lifts it to scan the +proportions of my late grandfather's preposterously fat cob, whose +portrait hangs on the wall above his head. + +There is no doubt that on some days the devil reigns with a more potent +sway over people than on others. Tonight he has certainly entered into +the boys. He often does a little, but this evening he is holding a great +and mighty carnival among them. While father's strong, hard voice +vibrates in a loud, dull monotone through the silent room, they are +engaged in a hundred dumb yet ungodly antics behind his back. + +Algernon has thrust his head far out between the rungs of his +chair-back, and affects to be unable to withdraw it again, making +movements of simulated suffocation. The Brat is stealthily walking on +his knees across the space that intervenes between them to Barbara, with +intent, as I too well know, of unseemly pinchings. If father unbutton +his eyes, or move his head one barley-corn, we are all dead men. I hold +my breath in a nervous agony. Thank Heaven! the harsh recitation still +flows on with equable loud slowness. In happy ignorance of his +offspring's antics, father is still asking, or rather ordering, the +Almighty (for there is more of command than entreaty in his tone) to +prosper the High Court of Parliament. Also the Brat is now returning to +his place, travelling with surprising noiseless rapidity over the Turkey +carpet, dragging his shins and his feet after him. I draw a long breath +of relief, and drop my hot face into my spread hands. My peace, however, +is not of long duration. I am aroused again by a sort of choking snort +from Tou Tou, who is beside me--a snort that seems compounded of mingled +laughter and pain, and, looking up, detect Bobby in the act of deftly +puncturing one of her long bare legs with a long brass pin, which he has +found straying, after the vagabond manner of pins, over the carpet. + +I raise myself, and lean over Tou Tou, to give the offender a silent +buffet of admonition, and, lifting my eyes apprehensively to see if I am +noticed, I meet the blear eyes of Sir Roger fixed upon mine. He has +turned his face quite toward me, and a ray from the candles falls full +upon it. _Blear_! Well, if his eyes are blear, then henceforth blear +must bear a different signification from the unhandsome one it has +hitherto worn. Henceforth it must mean blue as steel: it must mean clear +as a glass of spring water; keen as a well-tempered knife; kindly as the +early sunshine. + +I am so astonished at my discovery, that I remain for full two minutes +staring blankly at the object of it, while he also looks stealthily at +me; then, recollecting my manners, I burrow my face into my +chair-bottom, and so remain until mother's gentle Amen, and a noise of +shuffling and scrambling to their feet on the part of the congregation, +tell me that the end has come. + +We all go up to father, and coldly and stiffly kiss him. While I am +waiting for my turn to receive our parent's chilly salute, I steal a +second glance at our guest. Yes, he is old certainly. Despite the youth +of his eyes, despite the uprightness, the utter freedom from superfluous +flesh--from the ugly shaky bulkiness of age--in his tall and stalwart +figure, still he is old--old in the eyes of nineteen--as old as father, +perhaps--though in much better preservation--forty-eight or forty-nine; +for is not his hair iron-gray, and his heavy mustache, and the thick and +silky beard that falls on his broad breast, are they not iron-gray too? +I have dropped my small and unwilling kiss on father's forehead--and +said "good-night" in a tone as suppressedly hostile as his own. Now I +may go. We may all go. I am the last, or I think I am, to pass through +the swing-door. I hurry along the passage to join the rest in the +school-room. I upbraid the boys for the rash impiety of their demeanor. +I feel a foot on my garments behind, and hear a long cracking sound that +I too, too well know to mean _gathers_. + +"You beast!" cried I, in good nervous English, turning sharply round +with my hand raised in act to strike, "that is the third time this week +that you have torn out my--" + +I stop dumfounded. If I mean to box the offender's ears, I must raise my +hand considerably higher than it is at present. Angels and ministers of +grace! what has happened? I have called General Sir Roger Tempest a +_beast_, and offered to cuff him. For a moment, I am dumfounded. Then, +for shyness has never been my besetting sin, and something in the genial +laughter of his eyes reassures me. + +I hold out the injured portion of my raiment, and say: + +"Look! when you see what you have done, I am sure you will forgive me; +but of course I meant it for Bobby. I never dreamt it was you." + +He takes hold of one end of the rent, I of the other, and we both +examine it. + +"How exceedingly clumsy of me! how could it have happened? I beg your +pardon ten thousand times." + +In his words there is polite remorse and solicitude; in his face only a +friendly mirth. He is old, that is clear. Had he been young, he would +have said, with that variety and suitability of epithets so +characteristic of this generation: + +"I am awfully sorry! how awfully stupid of me! what an awful duffer I +am!" + +The gas is shining in its garish yellow brightness full down upon us, as +we stand together, illuminating my plain, scorched face, the slatternly +looseness of my hair, and the burnt hole in my gown. + +"You will have to give me another," I say, looking up at him and +smiling. I should not have thought of saying it if he had been a young +man, but with a _vieux papa_ one may be at one's ease. + +"There is nothing in the world I should like better," he says, with a +sort of hurry and eagerness, not very suggestive of a _vieux papa_; "but +really--" (seeing me look rather ashamed of my proposition)--"is it +_quite hopeless?_ the damage quite irremediable?" + +"On the contrary," reply I, tucking my gathers in, with a graceful +movement, at the band of my gown, "five minutes will make it as good as +new--at least" (casting a disparaging eye over its frayed and +taffy-marked surface), "as good as it _ever_ will be in this world." + +A little pause. + +"I suppose I have lost my way," he says, thinking, I fancy, that I look +rather eager to be gone. "I am never very good at the geography of a +strange house." + +"Yes," say I, promptly; "you came through _our_ door, instead of your +own; shall I show you the way back?" + +"Since I have come so far, may not I come a little farther?" he asks, +glancing rather longingly at the half-open school-room door, whence +sounds of pious mirth are again beginning to reissue. + +"Do you mean _really?_" ask I, with a highly-dissuasive inflection of +voice. "Please not to-night; we are all higgledy-piggledy--at sixes and +sevens! To tell you the truth, we have been _cooking_. I wonder you did +not smell it in the drawing-room." + +Again he looks amused. + +"May not I cook too? I _can_, though you look disbelieving; there are +few people that can beat me at an Irish stew when I set my mind to it." + +A head (Bobby's) appears round the school-room door. + +"I say, Nancy, who are you colloquing with out there? I believe you have +got hold of our future benefact--" + +An "oh!" of utter discomfiture, and the head is withdrawn. + +"I am keeping you," Sir Roger says. "Well, I will say good-night. You +will shake hands, won't you, to show that you bear no malice?" + +"That I will," reply I, heartily stretching out my right hand, and +giving his a cordial shake. For was not he at school with father? + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Day has followed night. The broiled smell has at length evacuated the +school-room, but a good deal of taffy, spilt in the pouring out, still +adheres to the carpet, making it nice and sticky. The wind is still +running roughly about over the earth, and the yellow crocuses, in the +dark-brown garden-borders, opened to their widest extent, are staring up +at the sun. How _can_ they stare so straight up at him without blinking? +I have been trying to emulate them--trying to stare, too, up at him, +through the pane, as he rides laughing, aloft in the faint far sky; and +my presumptuous eyes have rained down tears in consequence. I am trying +now to read; but a hundred thousand things distract me: the sun shining +warm on my shoulder, as I lean against the window; the divine morning +clamor of the birds; their invitations to come out that will take no +nay; and last, but oh! not, _not_ least, the importunate voices of +Barbara and Tou Tou. Every morning at this hour they have a weary tussle +with the verb "aimer," "to love." It is hard that they should have +pitched upon so tenderhearted a verb for the battle-field of so grim a +struggle: + + J'aime, I love. + Tu aimes, Thou lovest. + Il aime, He loves. + Nous aimons, We love. + Vous aimez, You love. + Ils aiment, They love. + +This, with endless variations of ingenious and hideous inaccuracies-- +this, interspersed with foolish laughter and bitter tears, is what I +have daily been audience to, for the last two months. The day before +yesterday a great stride was taken; the present tense was pronounced +vanquished, and Barbara and her pupil passed on in triumph to the +imperfect, "j'aimais, I loved, or was loving." To-day, in order to be +quite on the safe side, a return has been made to "j'aime," and it has +been discovered that it has utterly disappeared from our young sister's +memory. "J'aimais, I loved, or was loving," has entirely routed and +dispersed his elder brother, "j'aime, I love." The old strain is, +therefore, desperately resumed: + + J'aime, I love. + Tu aimes, Thou lovest. + Il aime, He loves, etc. + +It is making me drowsy. Ten minutes more, and I shall be asleep in the +sun, with my head down-dropped on the window-sill. I get up, and, +putting on my out-door garments, stray out into the sun, leaving +Barbara--her pretty forehead puckered with ineffectual wrath, and Tou +Tou blurred with grimy tears, to their death-struggle with the restive +verb "to love." It is the end of March, and when one can hide round a +corner from the wind, one has a foretaste of summer, in the sun's warm +strength. I gaze lovingly at the rich brown earth, so lately freed from +the frost's grasp, through which the blunt green buds are gently forcing +themselves. I look down the flaming crocus throats--the imperial purple +goblets with powdery gold stamens--and at the modest little pink faces +of the hepaticas. All over our wood there is a faint yet certain purply +shade, forerunner of the summer green, and the loud and sweet-voiced +birds are abroad. O Spring! Spring! with all your searching east winds, +with your late, shriveling frosts, with your occasional untimely sleets +and snows, you are yet as much better than summer as hope is better than +fruition. + + J'aime, I love. + Tu aimes, Thou lovest. + Il aime, He loves. + +It runs in my head like some silly refrain. I meet Bobby. I also meet +Vick, my little shivering, smooth, white terrier. They both join me. The +one wriggles herself into the shape of a trembling comma, and, foolishly +chasing herself, rolls over on her back, to demonstrate her joy at my +advent. The other says: + +"Come into the kitchen-garden, and see whether the apricot-flowers are +out on the south wall." + +We pace along the broad and even gravel walk among the red cabbages and +the sea-kale, basking in the sun, whose heat we feel undiminished by the +influence of any bitter blast, in the prison of these four high walls, +against which the long tree-branches are pinioned. In one place, the +pinioning has failed. Along, flower-laden arm has burst from its bonds, +and is dangling loosely down. There is a ladder against the wall, set +for the gardener to replace it. + +"Is it difficult to get up a ladder, Bobby?" ask I, standing still. + +"Difficult! Bless your heart, no! Why?" + +"One can see nothing here," I answer. "I should like to climb up and sit +on the top of the wall, where one can look about one." + +My wish is easy of gratification. Bobby holds the ladder, and I climb +cautiously, rung by rung. Having reached the summit, I sit at ease, +with, my legs loosely dangling. There is no broken glass, there are no +painful bottoms of bottles to disturb my ruminant quiet. The air bites a +little, but I am warmly clad, and young. Bobby sits beside me, whistling +and kicking the bricks with his heels. There is the indistinctness of +fine weather over the chain of low round hills that bound our horizon, +giving them a dignity that, on clearer days, they lack. As I sit, many +small and pleasant noises visit my ears, sometimes distinct, sometimes +mixed together; the brook's noise, as it runs, quick and brown, between +the flat, dry March fields; the gray geese's noise, as they screech all +together from the farm-yard; the church-bells' noise, as they ring out +from the distant town, whose roofs and vanes are shining and glinting in +the morning sun. + +"Do you hear the bells?" say I. "Some one has been married this +morning." + +"Do not you wish it was you?" asks Bobby, with a brotherly grin. + +"I should not mind," reply I, picking out a morsel of mortar with my +finger and thumb. "It is about time for one of us to move off, is not +it? And Barbara has made such a signal failure hitherto, that I think it +is but fair that I should try my little possible." + +"All I ask of you is," says Bobby, gravely, "not to take a fellow who +has not got any shooting." + +"I will make it a _sine qua non_," I answer, seriously. + +A louder screech than ever from the geese, accompanied with +wing-flappings. How unanimous they are! There is not a voice wanting. + +"I wonder how long Sir Roger will stay?" I say presently. + +"What connection of ideas made you think of him?" asks Bobby, curiously. + +"Do you suppose that he has any shooting?" + +I break into a laugh. + +"I do not know, I am sure. I do not think it matters much whether he has +or not." + +"I dare say that there are a good many women--old ones, you know--who +would take him, old as he is," says Bobby, with liberality. + +"I dare say," I answer. "I do not know. I am not old, but I am not sure +that I would not rather marry him than be an old maid." + +A pause. Again I laugh--this time a laugh of recollection. + +"What a fool you did look last night!" I say with sisterly candor, "when +you put your head round the schoolroom door, and found that you had been +witty about him to his face!" + +Bobby reddens, and aims a bit of mortar at a round-eyed robin that has +perched near us. + +"At all events, I did not call him a _beast_" + +"Well, never mind; do not get angry! What did it matter?" say I, +comfortingly. "You did not mention his name. How could he tell that he +was our benefactor? He did not even know that he was to be; and I begin +to have misgivings about it myself." + +"I cannot say that I see much sign of his putting his hand into his +breeches-pocket," says Bobby, vulgarly. + +There is the click of a lifted latch. We both look in the direction +whence comes the sound. He of whom we speak is entering the garden by a +distant door. + +"Get down, Bobby!" cry I, hurriedly, "and help me down. Make haste! +quick! I would not have him find me perched up here for _worlds_" + +Bobby gets down as nimbly as a monkey. I prepare to do likewise. + +"Hold it steady!" I cry nervously, and, so saying, begin to turn round +and to stretch out one leg, with the intention of making a graceful +descent backward. + +"Stop!" cries Bobby from the bottom, with a diabolical chuckle. "I think +you observed just now that I looked a fool last night! perhaps you will +not mind trying how it feels!" + +So saying, he seizes the ladder--a light and short one--and makes off +with it. I cry, "Bobby! Bobby!" suppressedly, several times, but I need +hardly say that my appeal is addressed to deaf ears. I remain sitting on +the wall-top, trying to look as if I did not mind, while grave +misgivings possess my soul as to the extent of strong boot and ankle +that my unusual situation leaves visible. Once the desperate idea of +jumping presents itself to my mind, but the ground looks so distant, and +the height so great, that my heart fails me. + +From my watch-tower I trace the progress of Sir Roger between the +fruit-trees. As yet, he has not seen me. Perhaps he will turn into +another walk, and leave the garden by an opposite door, I remaining +undiscovered. No! he is coming toward me. He is walking slowly along, a +cigar in his mouth, and his eyes on the ground, evidently in deep +meditation. Perhaps he will pass me without looking up. Nearer and +nearer he comes, I hold my breath, and sit as still as stone, when, as +ill-luck will have it, just as he is approaching quite close to me, +utterly innocent of my proximity, a nasty, teasing tickle visits my +nose, and I sneeze loudly and irrepressibly. Atcha! atcha! He starts, +and not perceiving at first whence comes the unexpected sound, looks +about him in a bewildered way. Then his eyes turn toward the wall. Hope +and fear are alike at an end. I am discovered. Like Angelina, I-- + + ....'"stand confessed, + A maid in all my charms." + +"How--on--earth--did you get up there?" he asks, in an accent of slow +and marked astonishment, not unmixed with admiration. + +As he speaks, he throws away his cigar, and takes his hat off. + +"How on earth am I to get down again? is more to the purpose," I answer, +bluntly. + +"I could not have believed that any thing but a cat could have been so +agile," he says, beginning to laugh. "Would you mind telling me how +_did_ you get up?" + +"By the ladder," reply I, laconically, reddening, and, under the +influence of that same insupportable doubt concerning my ankles, trying +to tuck away my legs under me, a manoeuvre which all but succeeds in +toppling me over. + +"The _ladder_!" (looking round). "Are you quite sure? Then where has it +disappeared to?" + +"I said something that vexed Bobby," reply I, driven to the humiliating +explanation, "and he went off with it. Never mind! once I am down, I +will be even with him!" + +He looks entertained. + +"What will you do? What will you say? Will you make use of the same +excellently terse expression that you applied to me last night?" + +"I should not wonder," reply I, bursting out into uncomfortable +laughter; "but it is no use talking of what I shall do when I am down: I +am not down yet; I wish I were." + +"It is no great distance from the ground," he says, coming nearer the +wall, standing close to where the apricot is showering down her white +and pinky petals. "Are you afraid to jump? Surely not! Try! If you will, +I will promise that you shall come to no hurt." + +"But supposing that I knock you down?" say I, doubtfully. "I really am a +good weight--heavier than you would think to look at me--and coming from +such a height, I shall come with great force." + +He smiles. + +"I am willing to risk it; if you do knock me down, I can but get up +again." + +I require no warmer invitation. With arms extended, like the sails of a +windmill, I hurl myself into the embrace of Sir Roger Tempest. The next +moment I am standing beside him on the gravel-walk, red and breathless, +but safe. + +"I hope I did not hurt you much," I say with concern, turning toward him +to make my acknowledgments, "but I really am very much obliged to you; I +believe that, if you had not come by, I should have been left there till +bedtime." + +"It must have been a very unpleasant speech that you made to deserve so +severe a punishment," he says, looking back at me, with a kindly and +amused curiosity. + +I do not gratify his inquisitiveness. + +"It was something not quite polite," I answer, shortly. + +We walk on in silence, side by side. My temper is ruffled. I am planning +five distinct and lengthy vengeances against Bobby. + +"I dare say," says my companion presently, "that you are wondering what +brought me in here now--what attraction a kitchen-garden could have for +me, at a time of year when not the most sanguine mind could expect to +find any thing good to eat in it." + +"At least, it is sheltered," I answer, shivering, thrusting my hands a +little farther into the warm depths of my muff. + +"I was thinking of old days," he says, with a hazy, wistful smile. "Ah! +you have not come to the time of life for doing that yet. Do you know, I +have not been here since your father and I were lads of eleven and +twelve together?" + +"_You_ were eleven, and _he_ was twelve, I am sure," say +I, emphatically. + +"Why?" + +"You look _so much_ younger than he," I answer, looking frankly and +unembarrassedly up into his face. + +"Do I?" (with a pleased smile). "It is clear, then, that one cannot +judge of one's self; on the rare occasions when I look in the glass it +seems to me that, in the course of the last five years, I have grown +into a _very_ old fogy." + +"He looks as if he had been so much oftener vexed, and so much seldomer +pleased than you do," continued I, mentally comparing the smooth though +weather-beaten benignity of the straight-cut features beside me, with +the austere and frown-puckered gravity of my father's. + +"Does he?" he answers, with an air of half-surprised interest, as if the +subject had never struck him in that light before. "Poor fellow! I am +sorry if it is so. Ah, you see"--with a smile--"he has _six_ more +reasons for wrinkles than I have." + +"You mean us, I suppose," I answer matter-of-factly. "As to that, I +think he draws quite as many wrinkles on our faces as we do on his." +Then, rather ashamed of my over-candor, I add, with hurried bluntness, +"You have never been married, I suppose?" + +He half turns away his head. + +"No--not yet! I have not yet had that good fortune." + +I am inwardly amused at the power of his denial. Surely, surely he might +say in the words of Lancelot: + + "Had I chosen to wed, + I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine." + +"And you?" he asks, turning with an accent of playfulness toward me. + +"Not yet," I answer, laughing, "and most likely I shall have to answer +'not yet' to that question as often as it is put to me till the end of +the chapter." + +"Why so?" + +I shrug my shoulders. + +"In moments of depression it strikes Barbara and me, that me and Tou Tou +shall end by being three old cats together." + +"Are you so anxious to be married?" he asks with an air of wonder, "in +such a hurry to leave so happy a home?" + +"Every one knows best where his own shoe pinches," I answer +vernacularly. "I am afraid that it does not sound very lady-like, but +since you ask me the question, I _am_ rather anxious. Barbara is not: +_I_ am." + +A shade of I cannot exactly say what emotion--it _looks_ like +disappointment, but surely it cannot be that--passes across the sunshine +of his face. + +"All my plans hinge on my marrying," I continue, feeling drawn, I do not +know how or why, into confidential communication to this almost total +stranger, "and what is more, on my marrying a rich man." + +"And what are your plans?" he asks, with an air of benevolent interest, +but that unexplained shade is still there. + +"Their name is Legion," I answer; "you will be very tired before I get +to the end of them." + +"Try me." "Firstly then," say I, narratively, "my husband must have a +great deal of interest in several professions--the army, the navy, the +bar--so as to give the boys a helping hand; then he must have some +shooting--good shooting for them; for them all, that is, except Bobby! +_never_ shall _he_ fire a gun in my preserves!" + +My mind again wanders away to my vengeances, and I break off. + +"Well!" + +"He must also keep two or three horses for them to hunt: Algy _loves_ +hunting, but he hardly ever gets a day. He is so big, poor dear old boy, +that nobody ever gives him a mount--" + +"Yes?" + +"Well, then, I should like to be able to have some nice parties--dancing +and theatricals, and that sort of thing, for Barbara--father will never +hardly let us have a soul here--and to buy her some pretty dresses to +set off her beauty--" + +"Yes?" + +"And then I should like to have a nice, large, cheerful house, where +mother could come and stay with me, for two or three months at a time, +and get _clear_ away from the worries of house-keeping and--" the +tyranny of father, I am about to add, but pull myself up with a jerk, +and substitute lamely and stammeringly "and--and--others." + +"Any thing else?" + +"I should not at all mind a donkey-carriage for Tou Tou, but I shall not +_insist_ upon that." + +He is smiling broadly now. The shade has fled away, and only sunshine +remains. + +"And what for yourself? you seem to have forgotten yourself!" + +"For myself!" I echo, in surprise, "I have been telling you--you cannot +have been listening--all these things are for myself." + +Again he has turned his face half away. + +"I hope you will get your wish," he says shortly and yet heartily. + +I laugh. "That is so probable, is not it? I am so likely to fall in with +a rich young man of weak intellect who is willing to marry all the whole +six of us, for that is what he would have to do, and so I should explain +to him." + +Sir Roger is looking at me again with an odd smile--not disagreeable in +any way--not at all hold-cheap, or as if he were sneering at me for a +simpleton, but merely _odd_. + +"And you think," he says, "that when he hears what is expected of him he +will withdraw?" + +Again I laugh heartily and rather loudly, for the idea tickles me, and, +in a large family, one gets into the habit of raising one's voice, else +one is not heard. + +"I am so sadly sure that he will never come forward, that I have never +taken the trouble to speculate as to whether, if he did, my greediness +would make him retire again." + +No answer. + +"Now that I come to think of it, though," continue I, after a pause, "I +have no manner of doubt that he would." + +Apparently Sir Roger is tired of the subject of my future prospects, for +he drops it. We have left the kitchen-garden--have passed through the +flower-garden--have reached the hall-door. I am irresolutely walking up +the stone steps that mount to it, not being able to make up my mind as +to whether or no I should make some sort of farewell observation to my +companion, when his voice follows me. It seems to me to have a +dissuasive inflection. + +"Are you going in?" + +"Well, yes," I answer uncertainly, "I suppose so." + +He looks at his watch. + +"It is quite early yet--not near luncheon-time--would it bore you very +much to take a turn in the park? I think" (with a smile) "that you are +quite honest enough to say so if it would: or, if you did not, I should +read it on your face." + +"Would you?" say I, a little piqued. "I do not think you would: I assure +you that my face can tell stories, at a pinch, as well as its neighbor." + +"Well, _would_ it bore you?" + +"Not at all! not at all!" reply I briskly, beginning to descend again; +"but one thing is very certain, and that is that it will bore _you_" + +"Why should it?" + +"If I say what I was going to say you will think that it is on purpose +to be contradicted," I answer, unlatching the gate in the fence, and +entering the park. + +"And if I do, much you will mind," he answers, smiling. + +"Well, then," say I, candidly, looking down at my feet as they trip +quickly along through the limp winter grass, "there is no use blinking +the fact that I have no conversation--none of us have. We can gabble +away among ourselves like a lot of young rooks, about all sorts of silly +home jokes, that nobody but us would see any fun in; but when it comes +to real talk--" + +I pause expressively. + +"I do not care for _real talk_," he says, looking amused; "I like +_gabble_ far, far better. I wish you would gabble a little now." + +But the request naturally ties my tongue tight up. + +"This is the tree that they planted when father was born," I say, +presently, in a stiff, _cicerone_ manner, pointing to a straight and +strong young oak, which is lifting its branchy head, and the fine +net-work of its brown twigs, to the cold, pale sky. + +Sir Roger leans his arms on the top of the palings that surround the +tree. + +"Ah! eight-and-forty years ago! eight-and-forty years ago!" he repeats +to himself with musing slowness. "Hard upon half a century!" + +I turn over in my own mind whether I should do well to make some +observation of a trite and copy-book nature on the much greater duration +of trees than men, but reflecting that the application of the remark may +be painful to a person so elderly as the gentleman beside me, I abstain. +However, he does something of the kind himself. + +"To think that it should be such a stripling," he says, looking with a +half-pensive smile at the straight young trunk, "hardly out of the +petticoat age, and _we_--he and I--such a couple of old wrecks!" + +It never occurs to me that it would be polite, and even natural, to +contradict him. Why should not he call himself an old wreck, if it +amuses him? I suppose he only means to express a gentleman decidedly in +the decline of life, which, in my eyes, he is; so I say kindly and +acquiescingly-- + +"Yes, it _is_ rather hard, is it not?" + +"Forty-one--forty-two--yes, forty-two years since I first saw him," he +continues, reflectively, "running about in short, stiff, white +petticoats and bare legs, and going bawling to his mother, because he +tumbled up those steps to the hall-door, and cut his nose open." + +I lift my face out of my muff, in which, for the sake of warmth, I have +been hiding it, and, opening my mouth, give vent to a hearty and +undutiful roar of laughter. + +"Cut his nose open!" repeat I, indistinctly. "How pleased he must have +been, and what sort of a nose was it? already hooked? It never _could_ +have been the conventional button, _that_ I am sure of; _yours_ was, I +dare say, but _his_--_never._ Good Heavens!" (with a sudden change of +tone, and disappearance of mirth) "here he is! Come to look for you, no +doubt! I--I--think I may go now, may not I?" + +"Go!" repeats he, looking at me with unfeigned wonder. "Why? It is more +likely _you_ that he has missed, _you_, who are no doubt his daily +companion." + +"Not quite daily," I answer, with a fine shake of irony, which, by +reason of his small acquaintance with me, is lost on my friend. "Two, +you know, is company, and three none. Yes, if you do not mind, I think +it must be getting near luncheon-time. I will go." + +So I disappear through the dry, knotted tussocks of the park grass. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +"Friends, Romans, and countrymen!" say I, on that same afternoon, +strutting into the school-room, with my left hand thrust oratorically +into the breast of my frock, and my right loftily waving, "I wish to +collect your suffrages on a certain subject. Tell me," sitting down on a +hard chair, and suddenly declining into a familiar and colloquial tone, +"have you seen any signs of derangement in father lately?" + +"None more than usual," answers Algy, sarcastically, lifting his pretty, +disdainful nose out of his novel. "If, as the Eton Latin Grammar says, +_ira_ is a _brevis furor_, you will agree with me that he is pretty +often out of his mind, in fact, a good deal oftener than he is in it." + +"No, but _really?_" + +"Of course not. What do you mean?" + +"Put down all your books!" say I, impressively. "Listen attentively. +Bobby, stop see-sawing that chair, it makes me feel deadly sick. Ah! my +young friend, _you_ will rue the day when you kept me sitting on the top +of that wall--" + +I break off. + +"Go on! go on!" in five different voices of impatience. + +"Well, then, father has sent a message by mother to the effect that I am +to dine with them to-night--_I_, if you please--_I_!--you must own" +(lengthening my neck as I speak, and throwing up my untidy flax head) +"that sweet Nancies are looking up in the world." + +A silence of stupefaction falls on the assembly. After a pause-- + +"YOU?" + +"Yes, _I!_" + +"And how do you account for it?" + +"I believe," reply I, simpering, "that our future benefac--, no! I +really must give up calling him that, or I shall come out with it to his +face, as Bobby did last night. Well, then, Sir Roger asked me why I did +not appear yesterday. I suppose he thought that I looked so _very_ grown +up, that they must be keeping me in pinafores by force." + +Algy has risen. He is coming toward me. He has pulled me off my chair. +He has taken me by the shoulders, and is turning me round to face the +others. + +"Allow me!" he says, bowing, and making me bow, too, "to introduce you +to the future legatee!--Barbara, my child, you and I are _nowhere_. This +depraved old man has clearly no feeling for symmetry of form or face; a +long career of Begums has utterly vitiated his taste. To-morrow he will +probably be clamoring for Tou Tou's company." + +"Brat!" says Barbara, laughing, "where has the analogy between me and +the man who pulled up the window in the train for the old woman gone +to?" + +"Mother said I was to look as nice as I could," say I, casting a rueful +glance at the tea-board, at the large plum loaf, at the preparations for +temperate conviviality. I have sat down on the threadbare blue-and-red +hearth-rug, and am shading my face with a pair of cold pink hands, from +the clear, quick blaze. "What _am_ I to wear?" I say, gloomily. "None of +my frocks are ironed, and there is no time now. I shall look as if I +came out of the dirty clothes-basket! Barbara, dear, will you lend me +your blue sash? Last time I wore mine the Brat upset the gum-bottle over +my ends." + +"Let us each have the melancholy pleasure of contributing something +toward the decking of our victim," says Algy, with a grin; "have my +mess-jacket!" + +"Have as many beads as you can about you," puts in Bobby. "Begums always +have plenty of beads." + +A little pause, while the shifting flame-light makes small pictures of +us on the deep-bodied teapot's sides, and throws shadowy profiles of us +on the wall. + +"Mother said, too, that I was to try and not say any of my unlucky +things!" I remark, presently. + +"Do not tell him," says Bobby, ill-naturedly, "as you told poor Captain +Saunders the other day, that 'they always put the fool of the family +into the army.'" + +"I did not say so of myself," cry I, angrily. "I only told it him as a +quotation." + +"Abstain from quotations, then," retorts Bobby, dryly; "for you know in +conversation one does not see the inverted commas." + +"What _shall_ I talk about?" say I, dropping my shielding hand into my +lap, and letting the full fire-warmth blaze on eyes, nose, and cheeks. +"Barbara, what _did_ you talk about?" + +"Whatever I talked about," replies Barbara, gayly, "they clearly were +not successful topics, so I will not reveal what they were." + +Barbara is standing by the tea-table, thin and willowy, a tea-caddy in +one hand, and a spoon in the other, ladling tea into the deep-bodied +pot--a spoonful for each person and one for the pot. + +"I will draw you up a list of subjects to be avoided," says Algy, +drawing his chair to the table, and pulling a pencil out of his +waistcoat-pocket. "Here, Tou Tou, tear a leaf out of your copy-book-- +imprimis, _old age_." + +"You are wrong there," cry I, triumphantly, "_quite_ wrong; he is rather +fond of talking of his age, harps upon it a good deal. He said to-day +that he was an _old wreck!_" + +"Of course he meant you to contradict him!" says Bobby, cackling, "and, +from the little I know of you, I am morally certain that you did not-- +_did_ you, now?" + +"Well, no!" reply I, rather crestfallen; "I certainly did not. I would, +though, in a minute, if I had thought that he wanted it." + +"I wish," says Barbara, shutting the caddy with a snap, "that Providence +had willed to send the dear old fellow into the world twenty years later +than it did. In that case I should not at all have minded trying to be a +comfort to him." + +"He must have been very good-looking, must not he?" say I, pensively, +staring at the red fire-caverns. "Very--before his hair turned gray. I +wonder what color it was?" + +Visions of gold yellow, of sunshiny brown, of warm chestnut locks, +travel in succession before my mind's eye, and try in turn to adjust +themselves to the good and goodly weather-worn face, and wide blue eyes +of my new old friend. + +"It is so nice and curly even now," I go on, "twice as curly as Algy's." + +"Tongs," replies Algy, with short contempt, looking up from his list of +prohibitions. + +"_Very_ good-looking!" repeat I, dogmatically, entirely ignoring the +last suggestion. + +"Perhaps when this planet was young!" retorts he, with the superb +impertinence of twenty. + +"You talk as if he were eighty years old," cry I, with an unaccountably +_personal_ feeling of annoyance. "He is _only_ forty-seven!" + +"_Only_ forty-seven!" + +And they all laugh. + +"Well, I must be going, I suppose," cry I, leisurely rising, stretching, +sighing, and beginning to collect the various articles of my wardrobe, +scattered over the furniture. "Good-by, dear teapot! good-by, dear plum +loaf! _how_ I wish I was going to stay with you! It really is ten +minutes past dressing--time, and father is always so pleased when one +keeps him waiting for his soup." + +"He would not say any thing to you to-day if you _were_ late," says +Bobby, astutely. "You might tumble over his gouty foot, and he would +smile! Are we not the most united family in Christendom--_when we have +company?_" + +After all, I need not have disquieted myself; I am in very good time. +When I open the drawing-room door, and make my entrance in the borrowed +splendor of Barbara's broad blue-sash tails, and the white virginity of +my own muslin frock, I find that neither of my parents have as yet made +their appearance. Sir Roger has the hearth-rug to himself; at least he +only shares it with Vick, and she is asleep; sitting very upright, it is +true, with her thin tail round her toes, like a cat's, her head and +whole body swaying from side to side in indisputable slumber. At sight +of the chaste and modest apparition that the opened door yields to his +gaze, an exclamation of pleasure escapes him--at least it sounds like +pleasure. + +"Ah! this is all right! You are here to-night at all events; but, +by-the-by, what became of you yesterday?" + +"What always becomes of me?" reply I, bluntly, lifting my grave gray +eyes to his face, and to the hair which sweeps thick and waved above his +broad brown forehead. (Tongs indeed!) + +"I remember that you told me you had been _cooking_, but you cannot +cook _every_ night." + +"Not quite," reply I, with a short smile, stretching my hands to the +blaze. + +"But do not you dine generally?" + +"Never when I can possibly help it," I reply, with emphasis. And no +sooner are the words out of my mouth than I see that I have already +transgressed my mother's commands, and given vent to one of "my unlucky +things." I stand silent and ashamed, reflecting that no after-tinkering +will mend my unfortunate speech. + +"And to-night you could not help it?" he asks, after a slight, hardly +perceptible pause. + +I look up to answer him. He is forty-seven years old. He is a general, +and a sir, and has been in every known land; has killed big and little +beasts, and known big and little people, and I am nineteen and nobody, +and have rarely been beyond our own park and parish, and my acquaintance +is confined to half a dozen turnipy squires and their wives; and yet he +is looking snubbed, and it is I that have snubbed him. Well, I cannot +help it. Truth is truth; and so I answer, in a low voice: + +"No, father said I was to." + +"And you look upon it as a great penance?" he says, still with that +half-disappointed accent. + +"To be sure I do," reply I, briskly. "So does Barbara. Ask her if she +does not. So would you, if you were I." + +"And why?" + +"Hush!" say I, hearing a certain heavy, well-known, slow footfall. "He +is coming! I will tell you by-and-by--when we are by ourselves." + +After all, how convenient an elderly man is! I could not have said that +to any of the young squires! + +His blue eyes are smiling in the firelight, as, leaning one strong +shoulder against the mantel-piece, he turns to face me more fully. + +"And when are we likely to be by ourselves?" + +"Oh, I do not know," reply I, indifferently. "Any time." + +And then father enters, and I am dumb. Presently, dinner is announced, +and we walk in; I on father's arm. He addresses me several times with +great _bonhomie_ and I respond with nervous monosyllables. Father is +always suavity itself to us, when we have guests; but, when one is not +in the habit of being treated with affability, it is difficult to enter +into the spirit of the joke. Several times I catch our guest's frank +eyes, watching me with inquiring wonder, as I respond with brief and +low-voiced hurry to some of my parent's friendly and fatherly queries as +to the disposition of my day. And I sit tongue-tied and hungry--for, +thank God, I have always had a large appetite--dumb as the butler and +footman--dumb as the racing-cups on the sideboard--dumber than Vick, +who, being a privileged person, is standing--very tall--on her +hind-legs, and pawing Sir Roger's coat-sleeve, with a small, impatient +whine. + +"Why, Nancy, child!" says father, helping himself to sweetbread, and +smiling, "what made you in such a hurry to get away this morning out of +the park?" + +(Why can't he always speak in that voice? always smile?--even his nose +looks a different shape.) + +"Near--luncheon-time," reply I, indistinctly, with my head bent so low +that my nose nearly touches the little square of bare neck that my +muslin frock leaves exposed. + +"Not a bit of it--half an hour off.--Why, Roger, I am afraid you had not +been making yourself agreeable! eh, Nancy?" + +"No," say I, mumbling, "that is--yes--quite so." + +"I was _very_ agreeable, as it happened--rather more brilliant than +usual, if possible, was not I? And, to clear my character, and prove +that you thought so, you will take me out for another walk, some day, +will not you?" + +At the sound of his voice so evidently addressing me, I look up--look at +him. + +"Yes! with pleasure! when you like!" I answer heartily, and I neither +mumble nor stutter, nor do I feel any disposition to drop my eyes. I +_like_ to look at him. For the rest of dinner I am absolutely mute, I +make only one other remark, and that is a request to one of the footmen +to give me some water. The evening passes. It is but a short one--at +least, as regards the company of the gentlemen, for they sit late; +father's port, I am told, not being to be lightly left for any female +frippery. I retire to the school-room, and regale my brethren with +lively representations of father's unexampled benignity. I also resume +with Algy the argument about _tongs_, at the very point where I had +dropped it. It lasts till prayer-time; and its monotony is relieved by +personalities. The devil in the boys is fairly quiescent to-night, and +our evening devotions pass over with tolerable peace; the only +_contretemps_ being that the Brat, having fallen asleep, remains on his +knees when "Amen" raises the rest of the company from theirs, and has to +be privily and heavily kicked to save him from discovery and ruin. +Having administered the regulation embrace to father, and heartily +kissed mother--not but what I shall see her again; she always comes, as +she came when we were little, to kiss us in bed--I turn to find Sir +Roger holding open the swing-door for us. + +"Are you quite sure about it to-night?" I, say, stretching out my hand +to him to bid him good-night. "_Ours_ on the right--_yours_ on the left +--do you see?" + +"_Yours_ on the right--_mine_ on the left," he repeats. "Yes--I see--I +shall make no more mistakes--unless I make one on purpose." + +"Do not come without telling us beforehand!" I cry, earnestly. "I mean +_really_: if you hold a vague threat of paying us a visit over our +heads, you will keep us in a state of unnatural tidiness for days." + +I make a move toward retiring, but he still has hold of my hand. + +"And about our walk?" + +The others--boys and girls--have passed us: the servants have melted out +of sight; so has mother; father is speaking to the butler in the +passage--we are alone. + +"Yes? what about it?" I ask, my eyes calmly resting on his. + +"You will not forget it?" + +"Not I!" reply I, lightly. "I want to hear the end of the anecdote about +father's nose! I cannot get over the idea of him in a stiff white +petticoat: I thought of it at dinner, whenever I looked at him!" + +At the mention of father, his face falls a little. + +"Nancy," he says, abruptly, taking possession of my other hand also, +"why did you answer your father so shortly to-day? Why did you look so +scared when he tried to joke with you?" + +"Ah, why?" reply I, laughing awkwardly. + +"You are not _afraid_ of him, surely?" + +"Oh, no--not at all!" + +"Why do you speak in that sneering voice? It is not your own voice; I +have known you only twenty-four hours, and yet I can tell that." + +"I will not answer any more questions," reply I, recovering both hands +with a sudden snatch: "and if you ask me any more, I will not take you +out walking! there!" So I make off, laughing. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +"A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom," say I slowly next +morning, as I stand by the window, trying to see clearly through the +dimmed and tearful pane. "The king would have to do without his ransom +to-day." + +It is raining _mightily_: strong, straight, earnest rain, that harshly +lashes the meek earth, that sends angry runlets down the gravel walks, +that muddies the gold goblets of the closed crocuses. + +"And you without your walk!" says Barbara, lifting her face from her +stitching. "Poor Miss Nancy!" + +"There is not enough blue sky to make a cat a pair of breeches!" cries +Bobby, despondently, and with his usual vulgarity. + +Sometimes I am tempted to fear that Bobby is hopelessly ungenteel-- +ungenteel for life. He has now taken possession of another window, and +is consulting the eastern sky. + +"A ransomless king, and a trouserless cat! That is about the state of +the case!" say I, turning away from the window with a grin. + +After all, now I come to think of it, I am nearly as vulgar as Bobby. +But I am right. Through the day, through the long, light, cold evening, +the posture of the weather changes not. To-day, Barbara, Algy, and I, +are all constrained to dine; for have not we a dinner-party, or rather a +mild simulation of one?--a squire or two, a squiress or two, a curate or +two--such odd-come-shorts as can be got together in a scattered country +neighborhood at briefest notice. Barbara and I, as it happens, are both +late. It is five minutes past eight, when with the minor details of our +toilets a good deal slurred, with a paucity of bracelets and lack of +necessary pins, we hurriedly and sneakingly enter the drawing-room, and +find all our guests already come together. Mother gives us an almost +imperceptible glance of gentle reproach, but father is so occupied in +bantering a strange miss--banter in which the gallant and the fatherly +happily join to make that manner which is the envy and admiration of the +neighborhood--that he seems unconscious of our entrance. An intuition, +however, tells us that this is not the case, but that he is making a +note of it. This depresses us so much that, until song and sherry have +comforted and emboldened us, we have not spirits to make any effort +toward the entertainment of our neighbors. We have been paired with a +couple of curates. Mine is a strong-handed, ingenuous Ishmael, who tells +everybody that he hates his trade, and that he thinks it is very hard +that he may not get out of it, now that his elder brother is dead. I am +thankful to say that his appetite is as vast as his shoulders; so, after +I have told him that I _love_ raw oysters, and that Barbara cannot sit +in the room with a roast hare; and have heard in return that he does not +care about brill, but worships John Dory, we slide into a gluttonous +silence, and abide in it. Barbara's man of God is in a wholly different +pattern to mine. He is a macerated little saint, with the eyes of a +ferret and the heart of a mouse. As the courses pass by, in savory +order, I, myself unemployed, watch my sister gradually reassuring, +comforting, heartening him, as is her way with all weakly, maimed, and +unhandsome creatures. She has succeeded in thawing him into a thin +trickle of parochial talk, when mother bends her laced and feathered +head in distant signal from the table-top, and off we go. We drink +coffee, we drink tea, we pick clever little holes in our absent +neighbors, in brisk duet and tortuous solo we hammer the blameless +spinnet, we sing affecting songs about "fair doves," and "cleansing +fires," and people "far away," and still our deliverers come not. They +_must_ hear our appealing melodies clearly through the walls and doors, +but still they come not. Sunk in sloth and old port, still they come +not. I seem to have said every possible thing that is to be said on +every known subject to the young woman beside me, and now I am falling +asleep. I feel it. Lulled by the warm glow diffused through the room, by +the smell of the jonquils, lilies of the valley and daphnes, by the low +even talk, I am slipping into slumber. The door opens, and I jump into +wakefulness; Sir Roger to the rescue. I am afraid that I look at him +with something not unlike invitation in my eyes, for he makes straight +toward me. + +"Wish me good-morning," say I, rubbing my eyes, "for I have been sweetly +asleep. I fell asleep wondering which of you would come first--somehow I +thought it would be you. Are you going to sit here? Oh! that is all +right!" as he subsides into the next division of the ottoman to mine. +"What have you been talking about?" I continue, with a contented, chatty +feeling, leaning my elbow on the blue-satin ottoman-top; "any thing +pleasant? Did not you hear our screams for help through the wall?" + +"Have not we come in answer to them?" + +Yes; they are all here now, at last; all, from father down to the +curates; some sitting resolutely down, some standing uncertainly up. +Barbara's _protege_ with frightened stealth, is edging round the +furniture to where she sits on a little chair alone. Barbara is +locketless, braceletless, chainless, head-dressless! such was our +unparalleled haste to abscond. Ornaments has she none but those that God +has given her: a sweep of blond hair, a long, cool throat, and two +smooth arms that lie bare and white as any milk on her lap. As he +nervously draws near, she lifts her eyes with a lovely friendliness to +his face. He is poor, slightly thought of, sickly, not over-clever; +probably she will talk to him all the evening. + +"Look at Barbara!" say I, with deep admiration, familiarly laying my +hand on Sir Roger's coat-sleeve, to make sure of engaging his attention, +"that is always her way! Did you ever see any thing so cruelly shy as +that poor little man is? See! he is wriggling all over like an eel! He +came to call the other day, and while he was talking to mother I watched +him. He tore a pair of quite new tea-green gloves into thin strips, like +little thongs! He must find it rather expensive work, if he makes many +morning calls, must he not?" + +"Rather!" + +"I am sure that you and Barbara would get on," continue I, loquaciously, +leaning my head on my hand, and talking in that low, comfortable voice +that our proximity warrants; "I cannot understand how it was that you +did not make great friends that first night! I suppose that you are not +poor and ugly and depressed enough for her to make much of you! Shall I +make a sign to her to come over and talk to us?" + +Sir Roger does not accept my proposal with the alacrity I had expected. + +"Do not you think that she looks very comfortable where she is?" he +asks, rather doubtfully. + +I am a little disappointed. + +"I am sure she would like you," I say, with a dogmatic shake of the +head. "I told her that you were--well, that _I_ got on with you, and we +always like the same people." + +"That must be awkward sometimes?" + +"What do you mean? Oh! not in _that_ way--" (with an unblushing +heart-whole laugh). "Lucky for me that we do not." + +"Lucky for _you?_" (interrogatively). + +"Why _will_ you make me say things that sound mock-modest?" cry I, +reddening a little this time. "You know perfectly well what I mean--it +is not likely that any one would _look_ at me when Barbara was by--you +can have no notion," continue I, speaking very fast to avoid +contradiction, "how well she looks when she is dancing--never gets hot, +or flushed, or _mottled_ as so many people do." + +"And _you?_ how do _you_ look?" + +"I grow purple," I answer, laughing--"a rich imperial purple, all over. +If you had once seen me, you would never forget me." + +"Go on: tell me something more about Barbara!" + +He has settled himself with an air of extreme repose and enjoyment. We +really _are_ very comfortable. + +"Well," say I, nothing loath, for I have always dearly loved the sound +of my own voice, "do you see that man on the hearth-rug?--do not look at +him this very minute, or he will know that we are speaking of him. I +cannot imagine why father has asked him here to-night--he wants to marry +Barbara; he has never said it, but I know he does: the boys--we all, +indeed--call him _Toothless Jack_! he is not old _really_, I suppose-- +not more than fifty, that is; but for Barbara!--" + +I think that Sir Roger is beginning to find me rather tiresome: +evidently he is not listening: he has even turned away his head. + +There is a movement among the guests, the first detachment are bidding +good-night, the rest speedily do the like. Father follows his favorite +miss into the hall, cloaks her with gallant care, and through the door I +hear him playfully firing off parting jests at her as she drives away, + +Then he returns to the drawing-room. Sir Roger has gone to put on his +smoking-coat, I suppose. Father is alone with his wife and his two +lovely daughters. We make a faint movement toward effacing ourselves, +but our steps are speedily checked. + +"Barbara! Nancy!" + +"Yes, father" (in a couple of very small voices). + +"May I ask what induced you to keep my guests waiting half an hour for +their dinner to-night?" + +No manner of answer. _How_ hooked his nose looks! how fearfully like a +hawk he has grown all in a minute! + +"When you have houses of your own," he continues with iced politeness, +"you may of course treat your visitors to what vagaries you please, but +as long as you deign, to honor _my_ roof with your presence, you will be +good enough to behave to my guests with decent civility, do you hear?" + +"Well, Roger, how is the glass? up or down? What is it doing? Are we to +have a fine day to-morrow?" + +For Roger apparently has got quickly into his smoking-coat: at least he +is here: he has heard all. Barbara and I _crawl_ away with no more +spring or backbone in us than a couple of torpid, wintery flies. + +Five minutes later, "Do you wonder that we hate him?" cry I, with +flaming cheeks, holding a japanned candlestick in one hand, and Sir +Roger's right hand in the other. + +"I do not care if he _does_ hear me!--yes, I do, though" (giving a great +jump as a door bangs close to me). + +Sir Roger is looking down at me with an expression of most thorough +discomfiture and silent pain in his face. + +"He did not mean it, Nancy!" he says, hesitatingly, and with a sort of +look of shamed wonder in his friendly eyes. + +"_Did_ not he?" (ironically). + +A little pause, the position of the japanned candlestick and of Sir +Roger's hand still remaining the same. "_How_ I wish that _you_ were my +father instead!" I say with a sort of sob. He does not, as I fully +expect, say, "So do I!" and I go to bed, feeling rather small, as one +who has _gushed_, and whose gush has not been welcome to the recipient. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +A fortnight has passed. Two Sundays, two Mondays, two Tuesdays, etc. +Fourteen times have I sleepily laid head on pillow. Fourteen times have +I yawningly raised it from my pillow. Fourteen times have I hungrily +eaten my dinner, since the night when I stood in the hall with Sir +Roger's hand in mine, raging against my parent. And Sir Roger is here +still. After all, there is nothing like the tenacity of boyish +friendship, is there? + +I suppose that, to Sir Roger, father is still the manly, debonair youth +that he remembers thirty years ago. In happy ignorance he slurs over the +thirty intervening years of moroseness, and goes back to that blest +epoch in which I have so much difficulty in believing, and about which +he, walking beside me now and again through the tender, springing grass +of the meadows, has told me many a tale. For our promised walk has come +off, and so has many others like it. + +He _must_ be dotingly fond of father. It is the 15th of April. I dare +say, O reader, that it seems to you much like any other date, but to me, +through every back-coming year, it seems to gain fresh significance--the +date that marks the most important day--take it for all in all--of my +life, though, whether for good or ill, who shall say, until I am dead, +and my life's sum reckoned up. I awake on that morning with no forecast +of what is coming? I tear myself from my morning dreams with as sleepy +unwillingness as usual. I eat my bread-and-butter with as stolidly +healthy an appetite. I run with as scampering feet, as evenly-beating a +heart as is my wont, with little Vick along the garden-walks, in the +royal morning sun. For one of God's own days has come--one that must +have lost his way, and strayed from paradise. + +It has the steady heat of June, though we are only in mid-April, and the +freshness of the prune. The leaves on the trees are but tender and tiny, +and through them the sun sends his might. The tulips are all a-blaze and +a-stare, making one blink with the dazzle of their odorless beauty: the +frolicsome young wind is shaking out their balm from the hyacinth-bells, +and the sweet Nancies--my flowers--blowing all together, are swaying and +_congeeing_ to the morning airs. + +O wise men, who know all things, do you know this? Can you tell it me? +Where does the flower hide her scent? From what full cup of hidden +sweets does one suck it? + +It is one of those days when one feels most convinced of being +immortal--when the spirits of men stretch out longing arms toward the +All-Good, the Altogether Beautiful--when souls thirst for God, yearn +most deeply for the well of his unfathomed truth--when, to those who +have lost, their dead come back in most pleasant, gentle guise. As for +me, I have lost nothing and no one as yet. All my treasures are still +about me; I can stretch out live hands, and touch _them_ alive; none of +my dear names are yet to be spoken sparingly with bated breath, as too +holy for common talk. And yet I, too, as I walk and bask, and bend to +smell the hyacinth-blooms, feel that same vague and most unnamed +yearning--a delicate pain that he who has it would barter for no +boisterous joy. The clocks tick out the scented hours, and with loud +singing of happy birds, with pomp of flowers and bees, and freaked +butterflies, God's day treads royally past. + +It is afternoon, and the morning wind, heaving with too much fragrance, +has lain down to sleep. A great warm stillness is on the garden and +house. The sweet Nancies no longer bow. They stand straight up, all +a-row, making the whole place honeyed. The school-room is one great +nosegay. Every vase and jug, and cup, and pot and pan and pipkin that we +can command, is crammed with heavy-headed daffodils, with pale-cheeked +primroses, with wine-colored gilly-flowers, every thing that spring has +thrust most plentifully into our eager hands. + +The boys have been out fishing. + +Algy and Bobby have been humorously trying to drown the Brat. + +He looks small and cold in consequence, and his little pert nose is +tinged with a chilly pink. Half an hour ago, mother called me away to a +private conference, exciting thereby a mighty curiosity not unmixed with +envy in my brethren. + +Our colloquy is ended now, and I am reentering the school-room. + +"Well, what was it? out with it," cries Algy, almost before I am inside +the door again. Algy is sitting more than half--more than three-quarters +out of the window, balancing himself with great nicety on the sill. He +is in the elegant _neglige_ of a decrepit shooting-jacket, no waistcoat, +and no collar. + +"What have you been doing to your face?" says Bobby, drawing nigh, and +peering with artless interest into the details of my appearance; "it is +the color of this" (pointing to a branch of red rhibes, which is hanging +its drooped flowers, and joining its potent spice to the other +flower-scents). + +"Is it?" I answer, putting both hands to my cheeks, to feel their +temperature. "I dare say! so would yours be, perhaps, if you had, like +me, been having a--" I stop suddenly. + +"Having a _what_?" + +"I will not say what I was going to say," I cry, emphatically, "it was +nonsensical!" + +"But what _has_ she told you, Nancy?" asks Barbara, who, enervated by +the first hot day, is languishing in the rocking-chair, slowly +seesawing. "What could it have been that she might not as well have said +before us all?" + +"You had better try and guess," I reply, darkly. + +"I will not, for one," says Bobby, doggedly, "I never made out a +conundrum in my life, except, 'What is most like a hen stealing?'" + +"It is not much like that," say I, demurely, "and, in fact, when one +comes to think of it, it can hardly be called a conundrum at all!" + +"I do not believe it is any thing worth hearing," remarks the Brat, +skeptically, "or you would have come out with it long ago! you never +could have kept in to yourself!" + +"Not worth hearing!" cry I, triumphantly raising my voice, "is not it? +That is all _you_ know about it!" + +"Do not wrangle, children," says Algy from the window; "but, Nancy, if +you have not told us before the clock gets to the quarter" (looking +impressively at the slowly-traveling hands), "I shall think it right +to--" + +What awful threats would have followed will never now be certainly +known, for I interrupt. + +"I _will_ tell you! I _mean_ to tell you!" I cry, excitedly covering my +face with my hands, and turning my back to them all; "only do not _look_ +at me! look the other way, or I _cannot_ tell you." + +A little pause. + +"You have only three minutes, Nancy." + +"Will you _promise_" cry I, with indistinct emphasis from under my +hands, "none of you to _laugh_--none, even Bobby!" + +"Yes!"--"Yes!"--"Yes!" + +"Will you _swear?_" + +"What is the use of swearing?--you have only half a minute now. Well, I +dare say it is nothing very funny. Yes, we will swear!" + +"Well, then, Sir Roger--I _hear_ Bobby laughing!" + +"He is not!"--"He is not!"--"I am not!--I am only beginning to sneeze!" + +"Well, then, Sir Roger--" + +I come to a dead stop. + +"_Sir Roger?_ What about him? There is not a smile on one of our faces: +if you do not believe, look for yourself!--What about our future +benefactor?" + +"He _is_ not our future benefactor," cry I, energetically, whisking +swiftly round to face them again, and dropping my hands, "he _never_ +will be!--he does not _want_ to be! He wants to--to--to MARRY ME! +there!" + +The murder is out. The match is set to the gunpowder train. Now for the +explosion! + +The clock-hand reaches the quarter--passes it; but in all the assembly +there is no sound. The westering sun shines in on four open mouths (the +youthful Tou Tou is absent), on four pairs of stupidly-staring eyes. The +rocking-chair has ceased rocking. Bobby's sneeze has stopped half-way. +There is a petrified silence. + +At length, "_Marry you_!" says the Brat, in a deeply-accented tone of +low and awed disbelief. "Why, he was at school with father!" + +"I wish to heavens that he had never been at school anywhere!" cry I, in +a fury. "I am sick to death of hearing that he was at school with +father. Will no one ever forget it?" + +"He is for-ty-sev-en!" says Algy, at last closing his mouth, and +speaking with slow impressiveness. "Nineteen from forty-seven! how many +years older than you?" + +"Do not count!" cry I, pettishly; "what is the use? not all the counting +in the world will make him any younger." + +"It is not true!" cries Bobby, with boisterous skepticism, jumping up +from his seat, and making a plunge at me; "it is a _hoax_! she has been +taking us all in! Really, Nancy, for a beginner, you did not do it +badly!" + +"It is _not_ a hoax!" cry I, scornfully, standing scarlet and deeply +ashamed, facing them all; "it is real, plain, downright, simple truth." + +Another pause. No sound but the monotonous, unemotional clock, and the +woodpecker's fluty laugh from the orchard. + +"And so you _really_ have a lover at last, Nancy?" says Algy, the +corners of his mouth beginning to twitch in a way which looks badly for +the keeping of his oath. + +"Yes!" say I, beginning to laugh violently, but quite uncomfortably; +"are you surprised? you know I always told you that if you half shut +your eyes, and looked at me from a great way off, I really was not so +bad-looking." + +"You have distanced the Begums!" cries the young fellow, joining in my +mirth, but with a good deal more enjoyment than I can boast. + +"So I have!" I answer; and my sense of the ludicrous overcoming all +other considerations, I begin to giggle with a good-will. + +"Let us look at you, Nancy!" says the Brat, taking hold of me by both +arms, and bringing the minute impertinence of his face into close +neighborhood to mine. "I begin to think that there must be more in you +than we have yet discovered! we never looked upon you as one of our most +favorable specimens, did we?" + +"Do not you remember old Aunt Williams?" reply I, merrily; "how she used +to say I was not pretty, my dears, but I was a pleasant little devil!' +perhaps I am a pleasant little devil!" + +"_Poor_--_dear_--old fellow!" says Barbara, in an accent of the +profoundest, delicatest, womanliest pity, "_how_ sorry I am for him! +Nancy, how will you break it to him most kindly? I am afraid he will be +sadly hurt! will you speak to him, or do it by letter?" + +Barbara has risen. We are all standing up, more or less; it is +impossible to sit through such news; Barbara's garden-hat is in her +hand. The warm and mellow sun that is making Africa's dreary expanse in +the map on the wall, one broad fine sheet, is enkindling, too, the silk +of her hair, the flower-petals of her cheeks, the blue compassion of her +eyes. My pretty, tall Barbara! Let them say what they like, I am sure +that somewhere--_somewhere_--you are pretty now! + +"If you write," says Algy, still laughing, but with more moderation, "I +should advise you to depute me to make a fair copy of the letter; else, +from the extreme ambiguity of your handwriting, he will most likely +mistake your drift, and imagine that you are saying yes." + +"How do you know that I am not going to say yes?" I ask, abruptly. + +Rivers of additional scarlet are racing to my cheeks, over my forehead-- +in among the roots of my hair--all around and about my throat, but I +stand, looking the assembled multitude full in the face, fairly, well, +and boldly. + +"Listen!" I continue, holding up my right hand in deprecation, "let me +speak!--do not interrupt me!--Bobby, I know that he was at school with +father--Algy, I know that he is forty-seven--all of you, I know that his +hair is gray, and that there are crows'-feet about his eyes--but still-- +but still--" + +"Do you mean to say that you are _in love_ with him?" breaks in Bobby, +impressively. + +Instances of enamored humanity have been rare in Bobby's experience. +With the exception of Toothless Jack, he has never had a near and +familiar view of an authentic specimen. I therefore see him now +regarding me with a reverent interest, not unmixed with awe. + +"I mean nothing so silly!" I answer, with lofty petulance. "I am a great +deal too old for any such nonsense!" + +"There I go with you," says Algy, not without grandeur. "I believe that +it is the greatest humbug out, and that it rarely occurs between the +ages of sixteen and sixty." + +"Father's and mother's was a love-match," says Bobby, gravely. "Did not +Aunt Williams tell us that they used always to sit hand-in-hand before +they were married?" + +A shout of laughter at our parents' expense greets this piece of +information. + +"_All_ married people grow to hate one another after a bit," say I, +comprehensively; "it is only a question of time." + +"But if you do not love him _now_, and if you are sure that you will +hate him by-and-by," says Barbara, looking rather puzzled, "what makes +you think of taking him?" + +"It would be such a fine thing for all the family: I could give all the +boys such a shove," say I, with homely shrewdness. + +"They killed seven hundred head of game on his big day last year; I +heard him tell father so," says Bobby, with his mouth watering. + +"He has a moor in Scotland," throws in the Brat. + +"He must ride a stone heavier than I do," says Algy, thoughtfully, "his +horses would certainly carry me: I wonder would he give me a mount now +and then?" + +"I would have you _all_ staying with me _always_," I cry, warming with +my theme, and beginning to dance, "all except father: he should come +once a year for a week, if he was good, and _not at all_, if he was +not." + +"What will you call him, Nancy?" asks the Brat, inquisitively. "What +shall _we_ call him?" + +"He will be Tou Tou's _brother_" cries Bobby, with a yell of delight. + +"Hush!" says Barbara, apprehensively, "he will hear you." + +"No he will not," I answer, composedly. "A person would have to bawl +even louder than Bobby does, to make him hear: he has gone away for a +week; he said he did not wish me to decide in a hurry: he has given me +till this day week; I wish it were this day ten years--" + +"This day week, then," says Algy, walking about with his hands in his +pockets, and smiling to himself, "we may hope to see him return in +triumph in a blue frock-coat, with the ring and the parson: at that age +one has no time to lose." + +"Haste to the wedding!" cries the Brat at the top of his voice, seizing +me by both hands, and forcing me to execute an uncouth war-dance, in +unwilling celebration of my approaching nuptials. + +"I hope that there will be lots of almonds in the cake!" says Bobby, +gluttonously. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The week's reprieve has ended; my Judgment Day has come. Never, never, +surely, did seven days race so madly past, tumbling over each other's +heels. Even Sunday--Sunday, which mostly contains at least forty-eight +hours--has gone like a flash. Morning service, afternoon service, good +looks, sermon to the servants, supper, they all run into one another +like dissolving views. For the first time in my life, my sleep is +broken. I fall asleep in a fever of irresolution. I awake in one. I walk +about in one. I feed the jackdaw in one. I box Bobby's ears in one. My +appetite (oh, portent!) flags. In intense excitement, who can eat yards +of bread-and-butter, pounds of oatmeal-porridge, as has ever been my +bucolic habit? Shall I marry Sir Roger, or shall I not? The birds, the +crowing cocks, the church-bells, the gong for dinner, the old pony +whinnying in the park, they all seem to say this. It seems written on +the sailing clouds, on the pages of every book that I open. Armies of +_pros_ wage battle against legions of _cons_, and every day the issue +of the fight seems even more and more doubtful. + +The morning of the day has arrived, and I am still undecided. I dress in +a perfect storm of doubts and questionings. I put on my gown, without +the faintest idea of whether it is inside out, or the reverse. I go +slowly downstairs, every banister marked by a fresh decision. I open the +dining-room door. Father's voice is the first thing that I hear; +father's voice, raised and rasping. He is standing up, and has a letter +in his hand; from the engaging blue of its color, and the harmony of its +shape, too evidently a bill. + +"I regret to have to hurt your feelings," he is saying, in that awful +civil voice, at which we all--small and great--quake, "but the next time +that _this_ occurs" (pointing to the bill), "I must request you to find +accommodation for yourself elsewhere, as really my poor house is not a +fit place for a young gentleman with such princely views on the subject +of expenditure." + +The object of this pleasant harangue is Algy, who, also standing, with +his face very white, his lips very much compressed, and his eyes +flashing with a furious light, is fronting his parent on the hearth-rug. + +Behind the tea-urn, mother is mingling her drink with tears, and making +little covert signs to Algy, at all rates to hold his tongue. + +My mind is made up, never to be unmade again. I will marry Sir Roger. He +shall pay all Algy's debts, and forever dry mother's sad, wet eyes. + + * * * * * + +The weather of paradise is gone back to paradise. This day is very +earthly. There has been a sharp, cold shower, and there is still a +strong rain-wind, which has snapped a score of tulip-heads. Poor, brave +_Jour ne sols_! Prone they lie on the garden-beds, defiled, dispetalled. +Even the survivors are stained and dashed, and the sweet Nancies look +pinched and small. If you were to go down on your knees to them, they +could not give you any scent. I am walking up and down the room, in a +state of the utmost agitation. My heart is beating so as to make me feel +quite sick. My fingers are very hot, but hardly so hot as my face. + +"For Heaven's sake do not make me laugh! do not!" cry I, nervously, "it +would be _too_ dreadful if I were to receive his overtures with a broad +grin, would not it? There! is it gone? Do I look quite grave?" + +I take half a dozen hurried turns along the floor, and try to think of +all our most depressing family themes--father; Algy's college-bills; Tou +Tou's shrunk face and thin legs; nothing will do. When I stop before the +glass and consult it, that hysterical smile is there still. + +"Do you remember the day, when we were children, that we all went to the +dentist?" says the Brat, chuckling, "and father gave Bobby a New +Testament because he had his eye-tooth out? Does to-day at all remind +you of it, Nancy?" + +"I had far rather have _both_ my eye-teeth out, and several of my double +ones, too," reply I, sincerely. + +A little pause. + +"I must not keep him waiting any longer," cry I, desperately. "Tell me!" +(appealing piteously to them all), "do I look all right? do I look +pretty natural?" + +"You do not look _middle-aged_ enough," says Bobby, bluntly. + +"Put on your bonnet," suggests Algy. "You look twenty years older in +that, particularly when you cock it well over your nose, as you did last +Sunday." + +"You are all very unkind!" say I, in a whimpering voice, walking toward +the door. + +"And if he becomes too demonstrative," says the Brat, overtaking me with +a rush before I reach it, "say-- + + 'Unhand me, graybeard loon!'" + +Then I go. As I know perfectly well, that if I give myself time to +think, I shall stand with the drawing-room door-handle in my grasp for +half an hour, before I can make up my mind to enter, I take the bull by +the horns, and whisking in suddenly and noisily, find myself +_tete-a-tete_ with my lover. + +Certainly, I never felt such a fool in my life. How _awful_ it will be +if I burst out laughing in his face! It is quite as likely as not that I +shall do it out of sheer hysterical fright. Oh, how different! how much +nicer it was when we last parted! I had taken him to see the jackdaw, +and the little bear that Bobby brought from foreign parts; and jacky had +bitten his finger so humorously, and we had been so merry, and I had +told him again how much I wished that he could change places with +father. And now! _I feel_--more than see--that he is drawing nigh me. +Through my eyelids--for I am very sure that I never lift my eyes--get an +idea of his appearance. + +Under his present aspect I am much more disposed to be critical, and to +pick holes in him, than I was under his former one. Any attempt at +youthfulness, any effort at _smartness_, will not escape my vigilant +reprobation--down-eyed and red-cheeked as I appear to be. But none such +do I find. There is no false juvenility--there is no trace of dandyism +in the plain and quiet clothes, in the hair sparsely sprinkled with +snow, in the mature and goodly face. + +An iron-gray, middle-aged gentleman stands before me, more vigorous, +more full of healthy life than two-thirds of the puny youth, nourished +on sherry and bitters, of the present small generation, but with no +wish, no smallest effort to take away one from the burden of years that +God has laid on his strong shoulders. + +There is no doubt that I shall not speak first, so for a moment there is +a profound silence. Then I find my hot hand in Sir Roger's where it has +so often and so familiarly lain before, and I hear Sir Roger's voice +addressing me. + +"I am an old fool, Nancy, and you have come to tell me so?" + +Somehow I know that the bronze of his face is a little paled by emotion, +but there is no sawny sentiment in his tone, none of the lover's whine. +It is the same voice--as manly, as sustained--that made comments on +Bobby's little bear. And yet, for the moment, I am physically unable to +answer him. Who _can_ answer the simplest question ever put with a lump +the size of a cocoa-nut in their throat? My eyelids are still hopelessly +drooped over my eyes, but, by some sense that is not eyesight, I am +aware that there is a sort of shyness in his face, a diffidence in his +address. + +"Nancy, have I come back too soon? am I hurrying you?" + +I raise my eyes for an instant, and then let them fall. + +"No, thank you," I say, demurely, "not at all. I have had plenty of +time!" + +And then, somehow, there seems to me something so ludicrous in the sound +of my own speech, that I tremble on the verge of a burst of loud and +unwilling laughter. + +"Speak out all your thought to me, whatever it is," he says, in a tone +of grave entreaty, moved and tender, yet manly withal. "Look at me with +the same friendly, fearless eyes that you did last week! I know, my +dear, that you always think of others more than yourself, and I dare say +that _now_ you are afraid of hurting me! Indeed, you need not be! I am +tough and well-seasoned; I have known what pain is before now--it would +be very odd, at my time of life, if I had not! I can well bear a little +more, and be the better for it, perhaps." + +I stand stupidly silent. One's outer man or woman often does an +injustice to one's inner feelings. As he speaks, my heart goes out to +him, but I can find no words in which to dress my thought. + +"Nancy!" in a tone of thorough distress. "I can bear any thing but +seeing you shrink and shiver away from me, as I have seen you do from +your father." + +"You _never_ will see that," reply I, laconically, gathering bravery +enough to look him in the face, as I deliver this encouraging remark. + +"Do you think," he says, beginning to walk restlessly about the room-- +(long ago he dropped my limp hand)--"that all this week I have had much +hope? Every time that I have caught a glimpse of myself in the glass, I +have said, 'Is this a face likely to take a child's fancy? Do you bear +much resemblance to the hero of her storybooks?' My dear"--(stopping +before me)--"you cannot think my presumption more absurd than I do +myself." + +"I do not think it at all absurd," reply I, beginning to speak quite +stoutly, and to be rather diffuse than otherwise. "Perhaps I did, just +at first, when they were all laughing, and saying about your having been +at school with father; but _now_ I do not in the least--I do not care +what the boys say--I do not, really. I am not joking." + +At my words he half stretches out his hand to take mine; but, as if +repressing some strong impulse, withdraws it again, and speaks quietly, +with a rather sober smile. + +"I am afraid that one's soul ages more slowly than one's body, Nancy! +Even at my age it has seemed difficult to me to be brought into hourly +companionship with all that was most fresh and womanly, and spirited, +and pretty." + +"_Pretty_!" think I. "I wish the boys could hear him! they will never +believe me if I tell them." + +"And not wish to have it for my own, to take and make much of. I that +have never had any thing very lovely or lovable in my life. And then, +dear, it was all your good-nature, you did not know what you were doing; +you seemed to find some little pleasure in my society--even chose it by +preference now and then. My talk did not weary you, as I should have +thought it would have done, and so I grew to think--to think--Bah!" +(with a movement of impatience) "it was a foolish thought! what can +there be in common between me and a child like you?" + +"I think that there is a great deal," reply I, speaking very steadily, +and so saying, I stretch out my hand and of my own accord put it in his +again. He cannot well return it to me, so he keeps it. + +"And yet it is impossible?" he says, with hesitating interrogation, +while his steel-blue eyes look anxiously into mine. + +"Is it?" say I, a wily smile beginning to creep over my features. "If it +is, what was the use of asking me?" I have the grace to grow extremely +red as I make this observation. + +"Nancy!" seizing my other hand, too, and speaking in a hurried; low +voice that slightly shakes with the force of his emotion, "what are you +saying? You do not know what you are implying." + +"Yes I do," reply I, firmly. "I know perfectly. And it is _not_ +impossible. Not at all, I should say." + +Upon this explicit declaration an ordinary lover would have had me in +his arms and smothered me with kisses before you could look round, but +my lover is abnormal. He does nothing of the kind. + +"Are you sure," he says, with an earnest gravity and imploring emphasis, +"that you understand what you are doing? Are you certain, Nancy, that if +we had not been friends, if you had not been loath to pain me, that you +would not have answered differently? Think, child! think well of it! +this is not a matter of months or even years, but of your whole long +young life." + +"Yes," say I, gravely, looking down. "I know it is." + +And put thus solemnly before me, the idea of the marriage state seems to +me, hardly less weightily oppressive than the idea of eternity. + +"How should I feel," he continues (he has put a hand on each of my +shoulders, and is looking-at me with a serious yet tender fixity), "if, +by-and-by, in the years ahead of us, you came and told me that by my +selfishness, taking advantage of your youth, I had destroyed your life?" + +"And do you think," say I, with a flash of indignation, "that even if +you had done it, I should come and tell you?" + +"Are you _quite_ sure that among all the men of your acquaintance, men +nearer you in age, more akin in tastes, men _not_ gray-haired, _not_ +weather-beaten, _not_ past their best years--there is not one with whom +you would more willingly spend your life than with me? If it is so, I +_beseech_ you to tell me, as you would tell your mother!" + +"If there were," reply I, smiling broadly, a smile which greatly widens +my mouth, and would show my dimples if I had any, "I should _indeed_ be +susceptible! The two curates that you saw the other night--the one who +tore his gloves into strips, you know, and the other who ate so much-- +Toothless Jack--these are the sort of men among whom my lines have lain. +Do you think I am likely to be very much in love with any of _them_?" + +My speech does not seem so altogether reassuring as I had expected. + +"I am very suspicious," he says, half apologetically, "but you have seen +so little of the world, you have led such a nun's life! how can you +answer for it that hereafter out in the world you may not meet some one +more to your liking? You are a dear little, kindly, tender-hearted sort, +and you do not tell me so, but you do not like me _much_ Nancy! Indeed, +dear, I could far better do without you now, than see you by-and-by +wishing me away and yet be unable to rid you of me." + + + +"People can help falling in love," say I, with matter-of-fact +common-sense. "If I belonged to you, of course I should never think of +any one else in that way." + +"Are you sure--?" + +"I wish that you would not ask me any more questions," say I, +interrupting him with a pout. "I am quite sure of everything you can +possibly think of." + +"I will only ask _one_ more--are you quite sure that it is not for your +brothers' and sisters' sakes--not your own--that you are doing this? Do +you remember" (with a smile half playful, half sad) "what you told me +about your views of marriage on that first day when I found you in the +kitchen-garden?" + +"I hope to Heaven that you did not think I was _hinting_," say I, +growing crimson; "it certainly sounded very like it, but I really and +truly was not. I was thinking of a _young_ man! I assure you" (speaking +with great earnestness) "that I had as much idea of marrying you as of +marrying _father!_" + +Looking back with mature reflection at this speech, I think that it may +be safely reckoned among my unlucky things. + +"No," he says, wincing a little, a very little. "I know you had not; +but--you have not answered my question." + +For a moment I look down irresolute, then, through some fixed belief in +him, I look up and tell him the plain, bare truth. + +"I _did_ think that it would be a nice thing for the boys," I say, "and +so it will, there is no doubt; you will be as good as a fa--, as a +brother to them; but--I like you _myself_ besides, you may believe it or +not as you please, but it is quite, _quite_, QUITE true." + +As I speak, the tears steal into my eyes. + +"And _I_ like _you!_" he answers very simply, and so saying, stoops, and +with a sort of diffidence, kisses me. + +"Well, how did it go off?" cries Bobby, curiously, when I next rejoin my +compeers. "Did you laugh?" + +"_Laugh!_" I echo, with lofty anger, "I do not know what you mean! I +never felt in the least inclined." Then seeing my brethren look rather +aghast at this sudden change in the wind, I add gayly: "Bobby, you must +never again breathe a word about Sir Roger's having been at school with +father; let it be supposed that he did without education." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +This is my wooing: thus I am disposed of. Without a shadow of previous +flirtation with any man born of woman--without any of the ups and downs, +the ins and outs of an ordinary love-affair, I place my fate in Sir +Roger's hands. Henceforth I must have done with all girlish +speculations, as to the manner of man who is to drop from the clouds to +be my wooer. Well, I have not many daydreams to relinquish. When I have +built Spanish castles--in a large family, one has not time for many--a +lover for myself has been less the theme of my aspirations than a +benefactor for the family. One, who will exercise a wholesomely +repressive influence over father, has been more than any thing the theme +of my longings; on the unlikely hypothesis of my marrying at all. For, O +friends, it has seemed to me _most_ unlikely; I dare say that I might +not have been over-difficult--might have thankfully and heartily loved +some one not quite a Bayard, but one cannot love _any thing_--any odd +and end--and, say what you will, the choice of a country girl, with a +little dowry and a plain face, is but small. For--do not dislike me for +it if you can help--I _am_ plain. I know it by the joint and honest +testimony of all my brethren. I have had no trouble in gathering the +truth from them. A hundred times they have volunteered it, with that +healthy disregard of any sickly sensitiveness which arms one against +blows to one's vanity through all after-life. Yes: I am plain; not +offensively so, not largely, fatly, staringly plain, but in a small, +blond, harmless way. However, Sir Roger thinks me pretty. Did not he say +so, in unmistakable English? I have tried darkly to hint this to the +boys, but have been so decisively pooh-poohed that I resolve not to +allude to the subject again. Not only am I plain now, but I shall remain +plain to my life's end. Unlike the generality of ugly heroines, you will +not see me develop and effloresce into beauty toward the end of my +story. + +The interval between my betrothal and my marriage is but short. On April +22d, I put my hand into Sir Roger's. On May 20th, I am to put it into +his for good. When the bridegroom is forty-seven, and the bride one of +six, why should there be any delay? Why should a man keep and lodge his +daughter any longer than he can help, when he has found some one else +willing to do it for him? This, I think, is father's view. And, +meanwhile, father himself is more like an _angel_ than a man. Not once +do we hear the terrible polite voice that chills the marrow of our +bones. Not once is his nose more than becomingly hooked. Not once does +he look like a hawk. _Another_ long bill comes in for Algy, and is +dismissed with the benevolent comment that you cannot put gray heads +upon green shoulders. I dine every day now; and father and I converse +agreeably upon indifferent topics. Once--oh, prodigious!--we take a walk +round the Home Farm together, and he consults me about the Berkshire +pigs. Then comes a mad rush for clothes. I am involved in a whirlwind of +haberdashery, Brussels lace, diamonds. It feels very odd--the becoming +possessed of a great number of stately garments, to which Barbara has no +fellows--Barbara and I, who hitherto have been always stitch for stitch +alike. And meanwhile I see next to nothing of my future husband. This is +chiefly my own doing. + +"You will not mind," I say, standing before him one day in the +drawing-room window, and speaking rather bashfully--somehow I do not +feel so comfortably easy and outspoken with him as I did before the +catastrophe--"you will not mind if I do not see much of you--do not go +out walking--do not talk to you very much till--till _it_ is over!" + +"And why am I not to mind?" he asks, half jestingly, and yet a little +gravely, too. + +"You will have quite enough--_too much_ of me afterward," I say, with a +shy laugh, "and _they_--they will never have much of me again--never so +much, at least--and" (with rather a tremble in my voice) "we have had +_such_ fun together!" + +And so Sir Roger keeps away. Whether his self-denial costs him much, I +cannot say. It never occurs to me at the time that it does. He may think +me a very nice little girl, and that I shall be a great comfort to him, +but he cannot care much about having any very long conversations with +me--he that has seen so many lands, and known so many great and clever +people, and read so many books. He has always been _most_ +undemonstrative to me. At _his_ age, no doubt, he does not care much for +the foolish endearments of lovers; so, with an easy conscience, I devote +myself, for my short space, to the boys, to Barbara, to Vick, and the +jackdaw. Once, indeed--just once--I have a little talk with him, and +afterward I almost wish that I had not had it. We are sitting under a +horse-chestnut-tree in the garden--a tree that, under the handling of +the warm air, is breaking into a thousand tender faces. We did not begin +by being _tete-a-tete_; indeed, several lately-occupied chairs intervene +between us, but first one and then another has slipped away, and we are +alone. + +"Nancy!" says Sir Roger, his eyes following the Brat, who is lightly +tripping up the stone steps, looking very small and agile in his +white-flannel cricketing things, "what is that boy's real name? Why do +you call him 'the Brat?'" + +"Because he _is_ such a _Brat_," reply I, fondly, picking up from the +grass a green chestnut-bud that the squirrels or the rooks have untimely +nipped. "Did you ever see any thing so little, so white and pert? He has +sadly mistaken his vocation in life: he ought to have been a street +Arab." + +"One gets rather sick of one's surname," says my companion. "Except your +father, hardly any one calls me Roger now! I should be glad to answer to +it again." + +He turns and looks at me with a kind of appeal as he says this. If he +were not forty-seven and a man, I should say that he was coloring a +little. After all, blushing is confined to no age. I have seen a veteran +of sixty-five redden violently. + +"Do you mean to say," cry I, looking rather aghast, and speaking, as +usual, without thinking, "that you mean _me_ to call you _Roger!_ +indeed, I could not think of such a thing! it would sound so--so +_disrespectful_! I should as soon think of calling my father _James_." + +"Should you?" he answers, turning away his face toward the garden-beds, +where the blue forget-me-not is unrolling her sky-colored sheet, and the +double daisies are stiffly parading their tight pink buttons. "Then call +me what you like!" + +I am not learned in the variations of his voice, as I am in those of +father and Algy, in either of which I can at once detect each fine +inflection of anger, contest, or pain; but, comparatively unversed as I +am in it, there sounds to me a slight, carefully smothered, yet still +perceptible, intonation of disappointment--mortification. I wish that +the air would give me back my words; but that it never yet was known to +do. + +"I will try if you like," say I, cheerfully, but a little shyly, as, +like the March Hare and the Hatter in the "Mad Sea Party," I move up +past the empty chairs to the one next him. "I do not see, after all, why +I should not get quite used to it in time! Roger! Roger! it is a name I +have always been very partial to until" (laughing a little) "the +Claimant threw discredit on all Rogers!" + +He is looking at me again. After all, I must have been mistaken. There +is no shadow of disappointment or mortification near him. He is smiling +with some friendliness. + +"You must never mind what _I_ say," I continue, dragging my wicker chair +along the shortly-shorn sward a little nearer to him."_Never!_ nobody +ever does; I am a proverb and a by-word for my malapropos speeches. +Mother always _trembles_ when she hears me talking to a stranger. The +first day that I dined after you came, Algy made me a list of things +that I was not to talk about to you." + +"A list of sore subjects?" says my lover, laughing. "But how did the boy +know what _were_ my sore subjects? What were they, Nancy?" + +"Oh, I do not know! I have forgotten," reply I, in some confusion. "I've +made some very bad shots." + +And so we slip away from the subject; but, all the same, I wish that I +had not said it. + +We have come to the day before the wedding. My spirits, which held up +bravely during the first two weeks of my engagement, have now fallen-- +fallen, like a wind at sundown. I am as limp, lachrymose, and +lamentable, a young woman as you would find between the three seas. I +have cried with loud publicity in full school-room conclave; I have +cried with silent privacy in bed. I have cried over the jackdaw. I have +cried over the bear. I have not cried over Vick, as I am to take her +with me. To-day we have _all_ cried--boys and all; and have moistened +the bun-loaf and the gooseberry-jam at tea with our tears. Our spirits +being now temporarily revived, I am undergoing the operation of trying +my wedding-dress. I am having a private rehearsal, in fact, in mother's +boudoir, with only mother, Barbara, and the maid, for audience. + +"Mine is the most hopeless kind of ugliness," say I, with an admirable +dispassionateness, as if I were talking of some one else, as, armed in +full panoply, I stand staring at my white reflection in a long mirror +let into the wall--staring at myself from top to toe--from the highest +jasmine star of my wreath to the lowest edge of my Brussels flounce. "If +I were very fat, I might fine down; if I were very thin, I might plump +up; if I were very red, I might grow pale; if I were--hush! here are the +boys. I would not for worlds that they should see me!" + +So saying, I run behind the folding-screen--the screen which, through so +many winter evenings, we have adorned with gay and ingenious pictures, +and which, after having worked openly at it under her nose for a year +and a half, we presented to mother _as a surprise_, on her last +birthday. + +"Come out, ostrich!" cries Algy, laughing. "Do you suppose that you are +hidden? Did it never occur to you that we could see your reflection in +the glass?" + +Thus adjured, I reissue forth. + +"Did you ever see such a fool as I look?" say I, feeling very sneaky, +and going through a few uncouth antics to disguise my confusion, + +"Talk of _me_ being a Brat," cries the Brat, triumphantly. "I am not +half such a brat as you are! You look about ten years old!" + +"Mark my words!" cries Bobby. "Wherever you go, on the Continent, you +will be taken for a good little girl making a tour with her grandpapa!" + +Bobby is speaking at the top of his voice; as, indeed, we have all of us +rather a bad habit of doing. Bobby has the most excuse for it, as, being +a sailor, I suppose that he has to bellow a good deal at the +blue-jackets. In the present case, he has _one_ more listener than he +thinks. Sir Roger is among us. The door has been left ajar, and he, +hearing the merry clamor, and having always the _entree_ to mother's +room, has entered. By the pained smile on his face, I can see that he +has heard. + +"You are right, my boy," he says, quite gently, looking kindly at the +unfortunate Bobby; "she _does_ look very--_very_ young!" "I shall mend +of that!" cry I, briskly, putting my arm through his, in anxious amends +for Bobby's hapless speech. "We are a family who age particularly early. +I have a cousin whose hair was gray at five-and-twenty, and I am sure +that any one who did not know father, would say that he was sixty, if he +was a day--would not they, mother?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +The preparations are ended; the guests are come; no great number. A few +unavoidable Tempests, a few necessary Greys (I have told you, have not +I, that my name is Grey?). The heels have been amputated from a large +number of white satin slippers, preparatory to their being thrown after +us. The school-children have had their last practice at the +marriage-hymn. + +I have resolved to rise at five o'clock on my wedding-morning, so as to +make a last gloomy progress round every bird and beast and +gooseberry-bush on the premises. I have exacted--binding her by many +stringent oaths--a solemn promise from Barbara to make me, if I do not +do so of my own accord, at the appointed hour. I am sunk in heavy sleep, +and wake only very gradually, to find her, in conformity with her +engagements, giving my shoulder reluctant and gentle pushes, and softly +calling me. + +"Is it five?" say I, sitting up and yawning. Then as the recollection of +my position flashes across my mind, "I will _not_ be married!" I cry, +turning round, and burying all my face in my pillow again. "Nobody shall +induce me! Let some one go and tell Sir Roger so." + +"Sir Roger is not awake," replied Barbara, laughing rather sleepily, +"you forget that." + +And by the time he is awake, I have come to a saner mind. We dress, for +the last time, _alike_. The thought that never again shall I have a +holland frock like Barbara's is nearly too much for us both. We run +quietly downstairs, and out into as August a morning as God ever gave +his poor pensioners. + +We walk along soberly and silently, hand-in-hand, as we used to do when +we were little children. My heart is _very, very full_. I may be going +to be happy in my new life. I fully expect to be. At nineteen, happiness +seems one's right, one's matter of course; but it will not be in the +same way. _This_ chapter of my life is ended, and it has been _such_ a +good chapter, so full of love, of healthy, strong affection, of +interchanged, kind offices, and little glad self-denials, so abounding +in good jokes and riotous laughter, in little pleasures that--looked +back on--seem great; in little wholesome pains that--in retrospect--seem +joys. And, as we walk, the birds + + "Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men + To woo them from their beds, still murmuring + That men can sleep while they their matins sing. + Most divine service, whose so early lay + Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day." + +The old singers have said many a fine and lovely thing about lusty +spring. From their pages there seems to come a whiff of clean and +healthy perfume from many dead Mays. In sweet and matterful verse they +have sung their praises; but, oh! no singer, old or new--none, at least, +that was but human--none but a God-intoxicated man could tell the +glories of that serenely shining and suave morn. + +One so seldom sees the best part of a summer day! Buried in swinish +slumber, with window-curtains heedfully drawn, and shutters closely +fastened, between us and it, we know nothing of the stately pageant +spread outside our doors. + +It is wasted; nay, not wasted, for the birds have it. It is so early, +that the gardening-men are not yet come to their work. Every thing is as +wet as though there had been a shower, but there has been none. + +Talk of the earth moving round the sun--he himself the while stupidly +stock-still--let _them_ believe it who like; is not he now placidly +sailing through the turquoise sea? Below, the earth is unfolding all her +freshened meadows, bravely pied with rainbow flowers. There is a very +small soft wind, that comes in honeyed puffs and little sighs, that wags +the lilac-heads, and the long droop of the laburnum-blooms. The grass is +so wet--so wet--as we swish through it, every blade a separate green +sparkle. The young daisies give our feet little friendly knocks as we +pass. + +All round the old flowering thorn there is a small carpet, milk-white +and rose-red, of strewn petals. Every flower that has a cup, is holding +it brimful of cool dew. Vick is sitting on the top of the stone steps, +her ears pricked, and her little black nose working mysteriously as she +sniffs the morning air. + +On the bright gravel walk stands the jackdaw, looking rather a funereal +object in his black suit, on this gaudy-colored day; his gray head very +much on one side, his round, sly eyes turned upward in dishonest +meditation. A worse bird than Jacky does not hop. His life is one long +course of larceny, and I know that if he had the gift of speech, he +would also be a consummate liar. I kneel on the walk, and, holding out a +bit of cake, call him softly and clearly, "Jacky! Jacky!" He snatches it +rudely, with a short hoarse caw, puts one black foot on it, and begins +to peck. + +"Jacky! Jacky!" say I, sorrowfully, "I am going to be married! Oh, you +know that? You may thank your stars that you are not." + +As I speak, my tears fall on his sleek black wings and his dear gray +head. I try to kiss him; but he makes such a spiteful peck at my nose, +that I have to give up the idea. Thus one of my good-byes is over. By +the time that they are all ended, and we have returned to the house, I +am drowned in tears, and my appearance for the day is irretrievably +damaged. My nose is certainly _very_ red. It surprises even myself, who +have known its capabilities of old. Bobby, always prosaic, suggests that +I shall hold it in the steam of boiling water, to reduce the +inflammation. But I have not the heart to try this remedy. It may be sky +blue, for all I care. Nose or no nose, I am dressed now. + +Instead of the costly artificial wreath that Madame Elise sent me, +Barbara has made a little natural garland of my own flowers--my Nancies. +I smell them all the time that I am being married. I have no female +friends--Barbara has always been friend enough for me--so I have +stipulated that I shall have no other bridesmaids but her and Tou Tou. +They are not much to brag of in the way of a match. Algy indeed +suggested that in order to bring them into greater harmony, Tou Tou +shall clothe her thin legs with long petticoats, or Barbara abridge her +garments to Tou Tou's length; but the proposition has met with as little +favor in the family's eyes as did Squire Thornhill's proposal, that +every gentleman should sit on a lady's lap, in the Vicar of Wakefield. + +The guests are all off to the church. I follow with my parents. Mother +is inclined to cry, until snubbed and withered into dry-eyedness by her +consort. He is, however, all benignity to me. I catch myself wondering +whether I _can_ be his own daughter; whether I am not one of the train +of neighboring misses who have sometimes made me the depository of their +raptures about him. + +We reach the church. I am walking up the aisle on red cloth: the +wedding-hymn is in my ears, gayly and briskly sung, though it _is_ a +hymn, and not an _Epithalamium_: a vague idea of many people is in my +head. I am standing before the altar--the altar smothered in flowers. +The old vicar who christened me is to marry me. I have declined the +intervention of all strange bishops and curates whatsoever. He is a +clergyman of the old school, and spares us not a word of the ritual. + +Truly in no squeamish age was the marriage-service composed! I know-- +that is, I could have told you if you had asked me--that I am standing +beside a large and stately person, to whom, if neither God nor man +interpose to prevent it, I shall, within five minutes, be lawfully wed; +but I do not in the least degree realize it. + +Now and again a strong sense of the ludicrous rushes over me. There +seems to me something acutely ridiculous in the idea of myself standing +here, so finely dressed--of the boys, demure and prim in their tall hats +and Sunday coats, gathered to see _me_ married--_me_ of all people! + +Like lightning-flash there darts into my head the recollection of the +_last time that I was married!_ when, long ago we were little children, +one wet Sunday afternoon, for want of a job, I had espoused Bobby; and +Algy, standing on a chair, with his night-gown on for a surplice, had +married us. It is over now. I am aware that several persons of different +genders have kissed me. I have signed my name. I am walking down the +church-yard path, the bells jangling gayly above my head, drowning the +sweet thrushes; and the school-children flinging bountiful garden +flowers before my feet. It seems to me a sin to tread upon them. It goes +to my heart. We reach the house. Vick comes out to meet us in a +crawling, groveling manner, which owes its birth to the _shame_ caused +in her mind by the huge favor which my maid has tied round her little +neck. We go into breakfast and feed--the _women_ with easy minds; the +_men_, with such appetites as the fear of impending speeches, of +horrible shattered commonplaces leaves them. + +I suppose that, despite my change of name, I cannot yet be wholly a +Tempest; for, while I remain perfectly serene and calm during Sir +Roger's few plain words, I am one red misery while Algy is returning +thanks for the bridesmaids, which he does in so appallingly lame, +stammering, and altogether agonizing a manner, that I have serious +thoughts of slipping from my bridegroom's side under the friendly shade +of the table, among its sheltering legs. + +Thank God it is over, and I am gone to put on my traveling-dress! The +odious parting moment has come. The carriage is at the door: the maid +and valet are in the dickey. What a pity that they are not bride and +bridegroom too! Vick has jumped in--alert and self-respecting again now +that she has bitten off her favor. + +I have begun my voluminous farewells. I have kissed them all round once, +and am beginning again. How can one make up one's mind where to stop? +with whom to end? + +"Never you marry, Barbara!" say I, in a sobbing whisper, as I clasp her +in my last embrace, greatly distorting my new bonnot, "it is _so_ +disagreeable!" + +We are off, followed by a tornado of shoes--one, aimed with dexterous +violence by that unlucky Bobby, goes nigh to cut the bridegroom's left +eye open, as he waves his good-byes. + +As we trot smartly away, I turn round in the carriage and look at them +through my tears. There they all are! After all, what a nice-looking +family! Even Tou Tou! there is something pretty about her, and standing +as she is now, her legs look quite nice and thick. + + * * * * * + +We reach Dover before dinner-time. Sir Roger has gone out to speak to +the courier who meets us there. I am left alone in our great stiff +sitting-room at the Lord Warden. Instantly I rush to the +writing-materials. + +"What, writing already?" says my husband, reentering, and coming over +with a smile toward me. "Have you forgotten any of your finery?" + +"No, no!" cry I, impulsively, spreading both hands over the sheet; "do +not look! you must not look!" + +"Do you think I _should?_" he says, reproachfully, turning quickly away. + +"But you may," cry I, with one of my sudden useless remorses, holding +out the note to him. "Do! I should like you to!--I do not know why I +said it!--I was only sending them a line, just to tell them how +_dreadfully_ I missed them all!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +I have been married a week. A _week_ indeed! a week in the sense in +which the creation of the world occupied a week!--seven geological ages, +perhaps, but _not_ seven days. We have been to Brussels, to Antwerp, to +Cologne. We have seen--(with the penetrating incense odor in our +nostrils, and the kneeling peasants at our feet)--the Descent from the +Cross, the Elevation of the Cross--dead Christs manifold. Can it be +possible that the brush which worthily painted Christ's agony, can be +the same that descended to eternize redundant red fishwives, and call +them goddesses? We have given ourselves cricks in the necks, staring up +at the divine incompleteness of Cologne Cathedral. And all through +Crucifixions, cathedrals, table d'hotes, I have been deadly, _deadly_ +homesick--homesick as none but one that has been a member of a large +family and has been out into the world on his or her own account, for +the first time, can understand. When first I drove away through the +park, my sensations were something like those that we all used to +experience, on the rare occasions when father, as a treat, took one or +other of us out on an excursion with him--the _honor_ great, but the +_pleasure_ small. + +It seems to myself, as if I had not laughed once since we set off!--yes +--_once_ I did, at the recollection of an old joke of Bobby's, that we +all thought very silly at the time, but that strikes me as irresistibly +funny now that it recurs to me in the midst of strange scenes, and of +jokeless foreigners. + +After forty, people do not laugh at absolutely _nothing_. They may be +very easily moved to mirth, as, indeed, to do him justice, Sir Roger is; +but they do not laugh for the pure physical pleasure of grinning. The +weight of the absolute _tete-a-tete_ of a honey-moon, which has proved +trying to a more violent love than mine, is oppressing me. + +At home, if I grew tired of talking to one, I could talk to another. If +I waxed weary of Bobby's sea-tales, I might refresh myself with +listening to the Brat's braggings about Oxford--with Tou Tou's murdered +French lesson: + + J'aime, I love. + Tu aimes, Thou lovest. + Il aime, He loves. + +How many thousand years ago, the labored conjugation of that verb seems +to me! + +_Now_, if I do not converse with Sir Roger, I must remain silent. And, +somehow, I cannot talk to him now as fluently as I used. Before--during +our short previous acquaintance--where I used to pester the poor man +with filial aspirations that he could not reciprocate, there seemed no +end to the things I had to say to him. I felt as if I could have told +him any thing. I bubbled over with silly jests. + +It never occurred to me to think whether I pleased him or not; but _now +--now_, the sense of my mental inferiority--of the gulf of years and +inequalities that yawns between us--weighs like a lump of lead upon me. + +I am in constant fear of falling below his estimate of me. Before I +speak, I think whether what I am going to say will be worth saying, and, +as very few of my remarks come up to this standard, I become extremely +silent. Oh, if we could meet some one we knew--even if it were some one +that we rather disliked than otherwise: some one that would laugh and +have as few wits as I, and be _young_. + +But it is too early in the year for many people to be yet abroad, and, +so far, we have fallen upon no acquaintances. Once, indeed, at Antwerp, +I see in the distance a man whose figure bears a striking resemblance to +that of "Toothless Jack," and my heart leaps--detestable as I have +always thought Barbara's aspirant; but on coming nearer the likeness +disappears, and I relapse into depression. + +Long ago, I had told my husband--on the first day I had made his +acquaintance indeed--that I had no conversation, and now he is proving +experimentally the truth of my confession. At home, our talk has always +been made up of allusions, half-words, petrified witticisms, that have +become part of our language. Each sentence would require a dictionary of +explanation to any strange hearer. _Now_, if I wish to be understood, I +must say my meaning in plain English, and very laborious I find it. + +To-day, we are on our way from Cologne to Dresden; sixteen hours and a +half at a stretch. This of itself is enough to throw the equablest mind +off its balance. + +We have a _coupe_ to ourselves. This is quite opposed to my wishes, nor +is it Sir Roger's doing, but Schmidt, the courier, knowing what is +seemly on those occasions--what he has always done for all former +freshly-wed couples whom he has escorted--secured it before we could +prevent him. As for me, it would have amused me to see the people come +in and out, to air my timid German in little remarks about the weather; +albeit I have thus early discovered that the German, which we have been +exhorted to talk among ourselves in the school-room, to perfect us in +that tongue, bears no very pronounced likeness to the language as talked +by the indigenous inhabitants. They _will_ talk so fast, and they never +say any thing in the least like Ollendorff. + +_Sixteen hours and a half_ of a _tete-a-tete_ more complete and unbroken +than any we have yet enjoyed. All day I watch the endless, treeless, +hedgeless German flats fly past; the straight-lopped poplars, the spread +of tall green wheat, the blaze of rape-fields--the villages and towns, +with two-towered German churches, over and over, and over again. Oh, for +a hill, were it no bigger than a molehill! Oh, for a broad-armed English +oak! + +At Minden we stop to lunch. The whole train pushes and jostles into the +refreshment-room, and, in ten galloping minutes, we devour three filthy +_plats_; a nauseous potage, a terrible dish of sickly veal, and a ragged +Braten. Then a rush and tumble-off again. + +The day rolls past, dustily, samely, wearily. There have been flying +thunder-storms--lightning-flashes past the windows. I hide my face in my +dusty gloves to avoid seeing the quick red forks, and leave a smear on +each grimy cheek. Every moment, I am a rape-field--a corn-field, a +bean-field, farther from Barbara, farther from the Brat, farther from +the jackdaw. + +"This is rather a long day for you, child!" says Sir Roger, kindly, +perceiving, I suppose, the joviality of the expression with which I am +eying the German landscape. "The most tedious railway-journey you ever +took, I suppose?" + +"Yes," reply I, "far! It seems like three Sundays rolled into one, does +not it? What time is it now?" + +He takes out his watch and looks. + +"Twenty past five." + +"_Seven_ hours more!" say I, with a burst of desperateness. + +"I am so sorry for you, Nancy! what can one do for you?" says my +husband, looking thoroughly discomfited, concerned, and helpless. "Would +you care to have a book?" + +"I cannot read in a train," reply I, dolorously, "it makes me _sick_!" +Then feeling rather ashamed of my peevishness--"Never mind me!" I say, +with a dusty smile; "I am quite happy! I--I--like looking out." + +The day falls, the night comes. On, on, on! There is a bit of +looking-glass opposite me. I can no longer see any thing outside. I have +to sit staring at my own plain, grimed, bored face. In a sudden fury, I +draw the little red silk curtain across my own image. Thank God! I can +no longer see myself. Sir Roger ceases to try his eyes with the print of +the _Westminster_, and closes it. + +"I wonder," say I, pouring some eau-de-cologne on my +pocket-handkerchief, and trying to cleanse my face therewith, but only +succeeding in making it a muddy instead of a dusty smudge--"I wonder +whether we shall meet any one we know at Dresden?" + +"I should not wonder," replies Sir Roger, cheerfully. + +"Is the Hotel de Saxe the place where most English go?" inquire I, +anxiously. "Ah, you do not know! I must ask Schmidt." + +"Yes, do." + +"I hope we shall," say I, straining my eyes to make out the objects in +the dark outside. "We have been very unlucky so far, have not we?" + +"Are you so anxious to meet people? are you so dull already, Nancy?" he +asks, in that voice of peculiar gentleness which I have already learned +to know hides inward pain. + +"Oh, no, no!" cry I, with quick remorse. "Not at all! I have always +_longed_ to travel! At one time Barbara and I were always talking about +it, making plans, you know, of where we would go. I enjoy it, of all +things, especially the pictures--but do not you think it would be +amusing to have some one to talk to at the _tables d'hote_, some one +English, to laugh at the people with?" + +"Yes," he answers, readily, "of course it would. It is quite natural +that you should wish it. I heartily hope we shall. We will go wherever +it is most likely." + +After long, _long_ hours of dark rushing, Dresden at last. We drive in +an open carriage through an unknown town, moonlit, silent, and asleep. +German towns go to bed early. We cross the Elbe, in which a second moon, +big and clear as the one in heaven, lies quivering, waving with the +water's wave; then through dim, ghostly streets, and at last--at last-- +we pull up at the door of the Hotel de Saxe, and the sleepy porter comes +out disheveled. + +"There is no doubt," say I, aloud, when I find myself alone in my +bedroom, Sir Roger not having yet come up, and the maid having gone to +bed--addressing the remark to the hot water in which I have been bathing +my face, stiff with dirt, and haggard with fatigue. "There is no use +denying it, I _hate_ being married!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +We have been in Dresden three whole days, and as yet my aspirations +have not met their fulfillment. We have met no one we know. We have +borrowed the Visitors' Book from the porter, and diligently searched it. +We have expectantly examined the guests at the _tables d'hote_ every +day, but with no result. It is too early in the year. The hotel is not +half full. Of its inmates one half are American, a quarter German, and +the other quarter English, such as not the most rabidly social mind can +wish to forgather with. At the discovery of our ill-success, Sir Roger +looks so honestly crestfallen that my heart smites me. + +"How eager you are!" I say, laying my hand on his, with a smile. "You +are far more anxious about it than I am! I begin to think that you are +growing tired of me already! As for me," continue I, nonchalantly, +seeing his face brighten at my words, "I think I have changed my mind. +Perhaps it would be rather a _bore_ to meet any acquaintance, and--and-- +we do very well as we are, do not we?" + +"Is that true, Nancy?" he says, eagerly. "I have been bothering my head +rather with the notion that I was but poor company for a little young +thing like you; that you must be wearying for some of your own friends." + +"I never had a friend," reply I, "_never_--that is--except _you_! The +boys"--(with a little stealing smile)--"always used to call you my +friend--always from the first, from the days I used to take you out +walking, and keep wishing that you were my father, and be rather hurt +because I never could get you to echo the wish." + +"And you are not much disappointed _really?_" he says, with a wistful +persistence, as if he but half believed the words my lips made. "If you +are, mind you tell me, child--tell me every thing that vexes you-- +_always!_" + +"I will tell you every thing that happens to me, bad and good," reply I, +quite gayly, "and all the unlucky things I say--there, that is a large +promise, I can tell you!" + +I am no longer dusty and grimy; quite spick and span, on the contrary; +so freshly and prettily dressed, indeed, that the thought _will_ occur +to me that it is a pity there are not more people to see me. However, no +doubt some one will turn up by-and-by. The weather is serenely, evenly +fine. It seems as if no rain _could_ come from such a high blue sky. It +is late afternoon or early evening. Since dinner is over--dinner at the +godless hour of half-past four--I suppose we must call it evening. Sir +Roger and I are driving out in an open carriage beyond the town, across +the Elbe, up the shady road to Weisserhoisch. The calm of coming night +is falling with silky softness upon every thing. The acacias stand on +each side of the highway, with the delicate abundance of their airy +flowers, faintly yet most definitely sweet on the evening air. + +I look up and see the crowded blooms drooping in pensive beauty above my +head. The guelder-rose's summer snow-balls, and the mock-orange with its +penetrating odor, whiten the still gardens as we pass. The billowy +meadow-grass, the tall red sorrel, the untidy, ragged robin, all the +yearly-recurring May miracles! What can I say, O my friends, to set them +fairly before you? + +Under the trees the townsfolk are walking, chatting low and friendly. A +soldier has his arm round a fat-faced Maedchen's waist, an attention +which she takes with the stolidity engendered by long habit. Dear, +willing, panting dogs, are laboriously dragging the washer-women's +little carts up-hill. + +"Vick," say I, gravely, "how would you like to drag a little cart to the +wash?" + +Vick does not answer verbally, but she stretches her small neck over the +carriage-side, and gives a disdainful yet inquisitive _smell_ at her low +brethren. No words could express a fuller contempt for a dog that earns +his own living. + +The driver is taking his horses along very easily, but we do not care to +hurry him. I have not felt so happy, so at ease, so gay, since I was +wed. + +"This _is_ nice," say I, making a frantic snatch at a long acacia-droop; +"_how_ I wish they were _all_ here!" + +Sir Roger laughs a little, and raises his eyebrows slightly. + +"Do you mean _with us_--_now_--_in the carriage_? Should not we be +rather a tight fit?" + +"Rather," say I, laughing too. "We should be puzzled how to pack them +all, should not we? We would be like the animals in a Noah's ark." + +A little pause. + +"General," say I, impulsively, "it has just occurred to me, are not you +sometimes deadly, _deadly_ tired of hearing about the boys? I am sure I +should be, if I were you. Confess! I will try not to be any angrier with +you than I can help; but do not you sometimes wish that Algy and Bobby, +and the Brat--not to speak of Tou Tou--were drowned in the Bed Sea, or +in the horse-pond, at home?" + +"At least you gave me fair warning," he says, with a smile. "Do you +remember telling me that whoever married you would have to marry all +six?" + +"I wish you would not remind me of that," say I, reddening. + +It was quite the broadest hint any one ever gave. The evening is +deepening. We have reached Weisserhoisch. Now our faces are turned +homeward again. As we pass the entrance to the Gardens of the Linnisches +Bad, we see the lamps springing into light, and the people gayly yet +quietly trooping in, while on the soft evening air comes the swell of +merry music. + +"Stop! stop!" cry I, springing up, excitedly. "Let us go in. I _love_ a +band! It is almost as good as a circus. May we, general? Do you mind? +Would it bore you?" + +Five minutes more, and we are sitting at a little round table, each with +a tall green glass of Mai. Frank [Transcriber's note: sic] before us, +and a brisk Uhlanenritt in our ears. I look round with a pleasant sense +of dissipation. The still, green trees; the cluster of oval lamps, like +great bright ostrich-eggs; the countless little tables like our own; the +happy social groups; the waiters running madly about with bif-tecks; the +great-lidded goblets of amber-colored Bohemian beer; the young Bavarian +officers, in light-blue uniforms, at the next table to us--stalwart, +fair-haired boys--I should not altogether mind knowing a few of them; +and, over all, the arch of suave, dark, evening sky. + +"What shall we have for supper?" cry I, vivaciously. "I never can see +anybody eating without longing to eat too. _Blutwurst!_ That means +black-pudding, I suppose--certainly not _that_--how they do call a spade +a spade in German! By-the-by, what are the soldiers having? Can you see? +I think I saw a vision of _prawns!_ I saw things sticking out like their +legs. I _must_ find out!" + +I rise, on pretense of getting a little wooden stool from under an +unoccupied table close to the object of my curiosity, and, as I stoop to +pick it up, I fraudulently glance over the nearest warrior's shoulder. +My sin finds me out. He turns and catches me in the act, and at the same +time a young man--_not_ a warrior, at least not in uniform, but in loose +gray British clothes--turns, too, and fixes me with a stony, British +stare. I am returning in some confusion, having moreover incidentally +discovered that they were _not_ prawns, when to my extreme surprise, I +hear my husband addressing the young gentleman in gray. + +"Why, Frank, my dear boy, is that you? Who would have thought of seeing +_you_ here?" + +"As to that," replies the young man, stretching out a ready right hand, +"who would have thought of seeing _you?_ What on earth has brought _you_ +here?" + +Sir Roger laughs, but with a sort of shyness. + +"Like the man in the parable, I have married a wife," he says; then, +putting his hand kindly on the young fellow's shoulder--"Nancy, you have +been wishing that we might meet some one we knew, have not you? Well, +here is some one. I suppose that I must introduce you formally to each +other. Lady Tempest--Mr. Musgrave." + +Despite the searching, and, I should have thought, exhaustive +examination of my appearance, that my new friend has already indulged +in, he thinks good to look at me again, as he bows, and this time with a +sort of undisguisable surprise in his great dark eyes. + +"I must apologize," he says, taking off his hat. "I had heard that you +were going to be married, but I am so behind the time, have been so out +of the way of hearing news, that I did not know that it had come off +yet." + +He says this with a little of that doubtful stiffness, which sometimes +owes its birth to shyness, and sometimes to self-consciousness; but he +seems in no hurry to return to his friends, the big, blond soldiers. On +the contrary, he draws a chair up to our table. + +"Do they ever get _prawns_ here?" say I, with apparent irrelevancy, not +being able to disengage my mind from the thought of shell-fish, "or is +it too far inland? I am _so_ fond of them, and I fancied that these +gentlemen--" (slightly indicating the broad, blue warrior-backs)--"were +eating some." + +His mouth curves into a sudden smile. + +"Was that why you came to look?" + +I laugh. + +"I did not mean to be seen: that person must have had eyes in the back +of his head." + +I relapse into silence, and fish for the sprigs of woodruff floating in +my Mai-Trank, while the talk passes to Sir Roger. Presently I become +aware that the stranger is addressing me by that new title which makes +me disposed to laugh. + +"Lady Tempest, have you seen those lamps that they have here, in the +shape of flowers? Cockney sort of things, but they are rather pretty." + +"No," say I, eagerly, dropping my spoon and looking up; "_in the shape +of flowers?_ Where?" + +"You cannot see them from here," he answers; "they are over there, +nearer the river." + +"I should like to see them," say I, decisively; "shall we, general?" + +"Will you spare Lady Tempest for five minutes?" says the young man, +addressing my husband; "it is not a hundred yards off." + +At _my_ words Sir Roger had made a slight movement toward rising; but, +at the stranger's, he resettles himself in his chair. + +"Will you not come, too? Do!" say I, pleadingly; and, as I speak, I half +stretch out my hand to lay it on his arm; then hastily draw it back, +afraid and ashamed of vexing him by public demonstrations. + +He looks up at me with a smile, but shakes his head. + +"I think I am lazy," he says; "I will wait for you here." + +We set off; I with a strongish, but unexplained feeling of resentment +against my companion. + +"Where are they?" I ask, pettishly; "not far off, I hope! I do not fancy +I shall care about them!" + +"I did not suppose that you would," he replies, in an extremely happy +tone; "would you like us to go back?" + +"No," reply I, carelessly, "it would not be worth while now we have +started." + +We march on in solemn silence, not particularly pleased with each other. +I am staring about me, with as greedily wondering eyes as if I were a +young nun let loose for the first time. We pass a score--twoscore, +threescore, perhaps--of happy parties, soldiers again, a _bourgeois_ +family of three generations, the old grandmother with a mushroom-hat +tied over her cap--soldiers and Fraeuleins _coketteering._ The air comes +to our faces, dry, warm, and elastic, yet freshened by the river, far +down in whose quiet heart all the lamps are burning again. + +"Have you been here long?" says Mr. Musgrave, presently, in a formal +voice, from which I see that resentment is not yet absent. + +"Yes," say I, having on the other hand fully recovered my good-humor, "a +good while--that is, not very long--three, four, three whole days." + +"Do you call that a _good while_?" + +"It seems more," reply I, looking frankly back at him in the lamplight, +and thinking that he cannot be much older than Algy, and that, in +consequence, it is rather a comfort not to be obliged to feel the +slightest respect for him. + +"And how long have you been abroad altogether?" + +We have reached the flower-lamps. We are standing by the bed in which +they are supposed to grow. There are half a dozen of them: a fuchsia, a +convolvulus, lilies. + +"I do not think much of them," say I, disparagingly, kneeling down to +examine them. "What a villainous rose! It is like an _artichoke_!" + +"I told you you would not like them," he says, not looking at the +flowers, but switching a little stick nonchalantly about; then, after a +moment: "How long did you say you had been abroad?" + +"You asked me that before," reply I, sharply, rising from my knees, and +discovering that the evening grass has left a disfiguring green trace on +my smart _trousseau_ gown. + +"Yes, and you did not give me any answer," he replies, with equal +sharpness. + +"Because I cannot for the life of me recollect," reply I, looking up for +inspiration to the stars, which the great bright lamps make look small +and pale. "I must do a sum: what day of the month is this?--the 31st? +Oh, thanks, so it is; and we were married on the 20th. It is ten days, +then. Oh, it _must_ be more--it seems like ten _months_" + +I am looking him full in the face as I say this, and I see a curious, +and to me _puzzling_, expression of inquiry and laughter in the shady +darkness of his eyes. + +"Has the time seemed so long to you, then?" + +"No," reply I, reddening with vexation at my own _betise_; "that is-- +yes--because we have been to so many places, and seen so many things-- +any one would understand _that_" + +"And when do you go home?" + +"In less than three weeks now," I reply, in an alert, or rather joyful +tone; "at least I hope so--I mean" (again correcting myself)--"I _think_ +so." + +Somehow I feel dissatisfied with my own explanations, and recommence: + +"The boys--that is, my brothers--will soon be scattered to the ends of +the earth; Algy has got his commission, and Bobby will soon be sent to a +foreign station--he is in the navy, you will understand; and so we all +want to be together once again before they go." "You are not going home +_really_, then?" inquires my companion, with a slight shade of +disappointment in his tone; "not to _Tempest_--that is?" + +"What a number of questions you do ask!" say I, impatiently. "Of what +possible interest can it be to you where we are going?" + +"Only that I shall be your nearest neighbor," replies he, stiffly; "and, +as Sir Roger has hardly ever been down hitherto, I am rather tired of +living next an empty house." + +"Our nearest neighbor!" cry I, with animation, opening my eyes. "Not +_really?_ Well, I am rather glad! Only yesterday I was asking Sir Roger +whether there were many young people about. And _how_ near are you? +_Very_ near?" + +"About as near as I well can be," answers he, dryly. "My lodge exactly +faces yours." + +"Too close," say I, shaking my head. "We shall quarrel." + +"And do you mean to say," in a tone of attempted lightness that but +badly disguises a good deal of hurt conceit, "that you never heard my +name before?" + +Again I shake my head. + +"Never! and, what is more, I do not think I know what it is now: I +suppose I did not listen very attentively, but I do not think I caught +it." + +"And your tone says" (with a very considerable accession of huffiness) +"that you are supremely indifferent as to whether you _ever_ catch it." + +I laugh. + +"_Catch_ it! you talk as if it were a _disease_. Well" (speaking +demurely), "perhaps on the whole it _would_ be more convenient if I were +to know it." + +Silence. + +"Well! what is it?" + +No answer. + +"I shall have to ask at your lodge!" + +"Who _can_ pronounce his _own_ name in cold blood?" he says, reddening a +little. "I, for one, cannot--there--if you do not mind looking at this +card--" + +He takes one out of his pocket, and I stop--we are slowly strolling +back--under a lamp, to read it: + + MR. FRANCIS MUSGRAVE, + MUSGRAVE ABBEY. + +"Oh, thanks--_Musgrave_--yes." + +"And Sir Roger has never mentioned me to you--_really?_" he says, +recurring with persistent hurt vanity to the topic. "How very odd of +him!" + +"Not in the least odd!" reply I, brusquely. "Why should he? He knew that +I was not aware of your existence, and that therefore you would not be a +very interesting subject to me; no doubt"--(smiling a little)--"I shall +hear all about you from him now." + +He is silent. + +"And do you live _here_ at this abbey"--(pointing to the card I still +hold in my hand)--"_all by yourself?_" + +"Do you mean without a _wife?_" he asks, with a half-sneering smile. +"Yes--I have that misfortune." + +"I was not thinking of a _wife_," say I, rather angrily. "It never +occurred to me that you could have one! you are too young--a great deal +too young!" + +"_Too young_, am I? At what age, then, may one be supposed to deserve +that blessing? forty? fifty? sixty?" + +I feel rather offended, but cannot exactly grasp in my own mind the +ground of offense. + +"I meant, of course, had you any father? any mother?" + +"Neither. I am that most affecting spectacle--an orphan-boy." + +"You have no brothers and sisters, I am _sure_," say I, confidently. + +"I have not, but why you should be _sure_ of it, I am at a loss to +imagine." + +"You seem to take offense rather easily," I say, ingenuously. "You +looked quite cross when I said I did not think much of the flowers--and +again when I said I had forgotten your name--and again when I told you, +you were too young to have a wife: now, you know, in a large family, one +has all that sort of nonsense knocked out of one." + +"Has one?" (rather shortly). + +"Nobody would mind whether one were huffy or not," continue I; "they +would only laugh at one." + +"What a pleasant, civil-spoken thing a large family must be!" he says, +dryly. + +We have reached Sir Roger. I had set off on my little expedition feeling +rather out of conceit with my young friend, and I return with those +dispositions somewhat aggravated. We find my husband sitting where we +left him, placidly smoking and listening to the band. + + "Four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row!" + +They have long finished the Uhlanenritt, and are now clashing out a +brisk Hussarenritt, in which one plainly hears the hussars' thundering +gallop, while the conductor madly waves his arms, as he has been doing +unintermittingly for the last two hours. + +"You were quite wise," say I, laying my hand on the back of his chair; +"you had much the best of it! they were a great imposture!" + +"Were they?" he says, taking his cigar out of his mouth, and lifting his +handsome and severe iron-gray eyes to mine. "They were farther off than +you thought, were not they? I began to think you had not been able to +find them." + +"Have we been so long?" I say, surprised. "It did not _seem_ long! I +suppose we dawdled. We began to talk--bah! it is growing chill! let us +go home!" + +Mr. Musgrave accompanies us to the entrance to the gardens. + +"Good-night, Frank!" cries Sir Roger, as he follows me into the +carriage. + +As soon as I am in, I recollect that I have ungratefully forgotten to +shake hands with my late escort. + +"Good-night!" cry I, too, stretching out a compunctious hand, over Sir +Roger and the carriage-side. "I am so sorry! I forgot all about you!" + +"What hotel are you at?" asks Sir Roger, closing the carriage-door after +him. "The Victoria? Oh, yes. We are at the Saxe. You must come and look +us up when you have nothing better to do. Our rooms are number--what is +it, Nancy? I never can recollect." + +"No. 5." reply I. "But, indeed, it is not much use any one coming to +call upon us, is it? For we are always out--morning, noon, and night." + +With this parting encouragement on my part, we drive off, and leave our +young friend trying, with only moderate success, to combine a gracious +smile to Sir Roger, with a resentful scowl at me, under a lamp-post. We +roll along quickly and easily, through the soft, cool, lamplit night. + +"Well, how did you get on with him, Nancy?" asks Sir Roger. +"Good-looking fellow, is not he?" + +"Is he?" say I, carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is, only that I never +_can_ admire _dark_ men: I am so glad that all the boys are fair--I +should have hated a _black_ brother." + +"How do you know that my hair was not coal-black before it turned gray?" +he asks, with a smile. "It may have been the hue of the carrion-crow for +all you know." + +"I am _sure_ it was not," reply I, stoutly; then, after a little pause, +"I do not think that I _did_ get on well with him--not what _I_ call +getting on--he seems rather a touchy young gentleman." + +"You must not quarrel with him, Nancy," says Sir Roger, laughing. "He +lives not a stone's-throw from us." + +"So he told me!" + +"Poor fellow!" with an accent of compassion. "He has never had much of a +chance; he has been his own master almost ever since he was born--a bad +thing for any boy--he has no parents, you know." + +"So he told me." + +"Neither has he any brothers or sisters." + +"So he told me!" + +"He seems to have told you a great many things." + +"Yes," reply I, "but then I asked him a great many questions: our +conversation was rather like the catechism: the moment I stopped asking +_him_ questions, he began asking me!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Three long days--all blue and gold--blue sky and gold sunshine--roll +away. If Schmidt, the courier, _has_ a fault, it is over-driving us. We +visit the Gruene Gewoelbe, the Japanese Palace, the Zwinger--and we visit +them _alone_. Dresden is not a very large place, yet in no part of it, +in none of its bright streets--in neither its old nor its new market, in +none of its public places, do I catch a glimpse of my new acquaintance. +Neither does he come to call. This last fact surprises me a little, and +disappoints me a good deal. Our walk at the Linnisches Bad in the gay +lamplight, his character, his conversation, even his appearance, begin +to undergo a transformation in my mind. After all, he was not _really_ +dark--not one of those black men, against whom Barbara and I have +always lifted up our testimonies; by daylight, I think his eyes would +have been hazel. He certainly was very easy to talk to. One had not to +pump up conversation for him, and I do not suppose that, _as men go_, he +was _really_ very touchy. One cannot expect everybody to be so +jest-hardened and robustly good-tempered as the boys. Often before now I +have only been able to gauge the unfortunateness of my speeches to men, +by the rasping effect they have had on their tempers, and which has +often taken me honestly by surprise. + +"_Again_, Mr. Musgrave has not been to call," say I, one afternoon, on +returning from a long and rather grilling drive, speaking in a slightly +annoyed tone. + +"Did you expect that he would?" asks Sir Roger, with a smile. "I think +that, after the searching snub you gave him, he would have been a bolder +man than I take him for, if he had risked his head in the lion's mouth." + +"_Am_ I such a lion?" say I, with an accent of vexation. "_Did_ I snub +him? I am sure I had no more idea of snubbing him than I had of snubbing +_you_; that is the way in which I always cut my own throat!" + +I draw a chair into the balcony, where he has already established +himself with his cigar, and sit down beside him. + +"I foresee," say I, beginning to laugh rather grimly, "that a desert +will spread all round our house! your friends will disappear before my +tongue, like morning mist." + +"Let them!" + +After a pause, edging a little nearer to him, and, regardless of the +hay-carts in the market below--laying my fair-haired head on his +shoulder: + +"What _could_ have made you marry such a _shrew?_ I believe it was the +purest philanthropy." + +"That was it!" he answers, fondly. "To save any other poor fellow from +such an infliction!" + +"Quite unnecessary!" rejoin I, shaking my head. "If you had not married +me, it is very certain that nobody else would!" + +Another day has come. It is hot afternoon. Sir Roger is reading the +_Times_ in our balcony, and I am strolling along the dazzling streets by +myself. What can equal the white glare of a foreign town? I am strolling +along by myself under a big sun-shade. My progress is slow, as my nose +has a disposition to flatten itself against every shop-window--saving, +perhaps, the cigar ones. A grave problem is engaging my mind. What +present am I to take to father? It is this question which moiders our +young brains as often as his birthday recurs. My thoughts are trailing +back over all our former gifts to him. This year we gave him a +spectacle-case (he is short-sighted); last year a pocket-book; the year +before, an inkstand. What is there left to give him? A cigar-case? He +does not smoke. A hunting-flask? He has half a dozen. A Norwegian stove? +He does not approve of them, but says that men ought to be satisfied +with sandwiches out shooting. A telescope? He never lifts his eyes high +enough above our delinquencies to look at the stars. I cannot arrive at +any approximation to a decision. As I issue from a china-shop, with a +brown-paper parcel under my arm, and out on the hot and glaring flags, I +see a young man come stepping down the street, with a long, loose, +British stride; a young man, pale and comely, and a good deal worn out +by the flies, that have also eaten most of me. + +"How are you?" cry I, hastily shifting my umbrella to the other hand, so +as to have my right one ready to offer him. "Are not these streets +blinding? I am blinking like an owl in daylight!--so you never came to +see us, after all!" + +"It was so likely that I should!" he answers, with his nose in the air. + +"Very likely!" reply I, taking him literally; "so likely that I have +been expecting you every day." + +"You seem to forget--confound these flies!"--(as a stout blue-bottle +blunders into one flashing eye)--"you seem to forget that you told me, +in so many words, to stay away." + +"You _were_ huffy, then!" say I, with an accent of incredulity. "Sir +Roger was right! he said you were, and I could not believe it; he was +quite sorry for you. He said I had snubbed you so." + +"_Snubbed_ me!" reddening self-consciously, and drawing himself up as if +he did not much relish the application of the word. "I do not often give +any one the chance of doing that _twice!_" + +"You are not going to be offended _again_, I suppose," say I, +apprehensively; "it must be with Sir Roger this time, if you are! it was +he that was sorry for you, not I." + +We look at each other under my green sunshade (his eyes _are_ hazel, by +daylight), and then we both burst into a duet of foolish friendly +laughter. + +"I want you to give me your advice," say I, as we toddle amicably along, +side by side. "What would be a nice present for a gentleman--an elderly +gentleman--at least _rather_ elderly, who _has_ a spectacle-case, a +pocket-book, an inkstand, six Church services, and who does not smoke." + +"But he _does_ smoke," says Mr. Musgrave, correcting me. "I _saw_ him +the other day." + +"Saw _whom?_ What--do you mean?" + +"Are not you talking of Sir Roger?" he asks, with an accent of surprise. + +"_Sir Roger_!" (indignantly). "No, indeed! do you think _he_ wants +spectacles? No! I was talking of my father." + +"_Your father?_ You are not, like me, a poor misguided orphan, then; you +have a father." + +"I should think I _had_," reply I, expressively. + +"Any brothers? Oh, yes, by-the-by, I know you have! you held them up for +my imitation the other day--half a dozen fellows who never take offense +at any thing." + +"No more they do!" cry I, firing up. "If I tell them when I go home, as +I certainly shall, if I remember, that you were out of humor and bore +malice for _three_ whole days, because I happened to say that we were +generally out-of-doors most of the day--they will not believe it--simply +they will not." + +"And have you also six sisters?" asks the young man, dexterously +shifting the conversation a little. + +"No, two." + +"And are they _all_ to have presents?--six and two is eight, and your +father nine, and--I suppose you have a mother, too?" + +"Yes." + +"Nine and one is ten--ten brown-paper parcels, each as large as the one +you now have under your arm--by-the-by, would you like me to carry it? +_What_ a lot you will have to pay for extra luggage!" + +His offer to carry my parcel is so slightly and incidentally made, and +is so unaccompanied by any gesture suited to the words, that I decline +the attention. The people pass to and fro in the sun as we pace +leisurely along. + +"Have you nearly done your shopping?" asks my companion, presently. + +"Very nearly." + +"What do you say to taking a tour through the gallery?" he says, "or are +you sick of the pictures?" + +"Far from it," say I, briskly, "but, all the same, I cannot do it; I am +going back at once to Sir Roger; we are to drive to Loschwitz: I only +came out for a little prowl by myself, to think about father's present! +Sir Roger cannot help me at all," I continue, marching off again into +the theme which is uppermost in my thoughts. "_He_ suggested a +traveling-bag, but I know that father would _hate_ that." + +"To _drive!_ this time of day!" cried Mr. Musgrave, in a tone of extreme +disapprobation; "will not you get well baked?" + +"I dare say," I answer, absently; then, in a low tone to myself, "_why_ +does not he smoke? it would be so easy then--a smoking-cap, a +tobacco-pouch, a cigar-holder, a hundred things!" + +"Is it _quite_ settled about Loschwitz?" asks the young man, with an air +of indifference. + +"Quite," say I, still not thinking of what I am saying. "That is, no-- +not quite--nearly--a bag _is_ useful, you know." + +"I passed the Saxe just now," he says, giving his hat a little tilt over +his nose, "and saw Sir Roger sitting in the balcony, with his cigar and +his _Times_, and he looked so luxuriously comfortable that it seemed a +sin to disturb him. Do not you think, taking the dust and the +blue-bottles into consideration, that it would be kinder to leave him in +peace in his arm-chair?" + +"No, I do not," reply I, flatly. "I suppose he knows best what he likes +himself; and why a strong, hearty man in the prime of life should be +supposed to wish to spend a whole summer afternoon nodding in an +arm-chair, any more than you would wish it yourself, I am at a loss to +inquire!" The suggestion has irritated me so much that for the moment I +forget the traveling-bag. + +"When I am as old as he," replies the young man, coldly, shaking the ash +off his cigar, "if I ever am, which I doubt, and have knocked about the +world for as many years, and imperiled my liver in as many climates, and +sent as many Russians, and Chinamen, and Sikhs to glory as he has, I +shall think myself entitled to sit in an armchair--yes, and sleep in it +too--all day, if I feel inclined." + +I do not answer, partly because I am exasperated, partly because at this +moment my eye is caught by an object in a shop-window--a traveling-bag, +with its mouth invitingly open, displaying all manner of manly +conveniences. I hastily furl my green umbrella, and step in. My squire +does not follow me. I hardly notice the fact, but suppose that he is +standing outside in the sun. However, when I reissue forth, I find that +he has disappeared. I look up the street, down the street. There is no +trace of him. I walk away, feeling a little mortified. I go into a few +more shops: I dawdle over some china. Then I turn my steps homeward. + +At a narrow street-corner, in the grateful shade cast by some tall +houses, I come face to face with him again. + +"Did not you wonder where I had disappeared to?" he asks; "or perhaps +you never noticed that I had?" + +He is panting a little, as if he had been running, or walking fast. + +"I thought that most likely you had taken offense again," reply I, with +a laugh, "and that I had lost sight of you for three more days." + +"I have been to the Hotel de Saxe," he replies, with a rather triumphant +smile on his handsome mustacheless lips. "I thought I would find out +about Loschwitz." + +"Find out _what?_" cry I, standing still, raising my voice a little, and +growing even redder than the sun, the flies, the brown-paper parcel, and +the heavy umbrella, have already made me. "There was nothing to find +out! I wish you would leave things alone; I wish you would let me manage +my own business." + +The smile disappears rather rapidly. + +"You have not been telling the general," continue I, in a tone of rapid +apprehension, "that I did not want to go with him? because, if you have, +it was a great, great _mistake._" + +"I told him nothing of the kind," replies Mr. Musgrave, looking, like +me, fierce, but--unlike me--cool and pale. "I was not so inventive. I +merely suggested that sunstroke would most likely be your portion if you +went now, and that it would be quite as easy, and a great deal +pleasanter, to go three hours later." + +"Yes? and he said--what?" + +"He was foolish enough to agree with me." + +We are standing in a little quiet street, all shade and dark shops. +There are very few passers-by. I feel rather ashamed of myself, and my +angry eyes peruse the pavement. Neither does he speak. Presently I look +up at him rather shyly. + +"How about the gallery? the pictures?" + +"Do you wish to go there?" he asks, with rather the air of a polite +martyr. "I shall be happy to take you if you like." + +"Do!" say I, heartily, "and let us try to be friends, and to spend five +minutes without quarreling!" + + * * * * * + +We have spent more than five, a great deal more--thirty, forty, perhaps, +and our harmony is still unbroken, _uncracked_ even. We have sat in awed +and chastened silence before the divine meekness of the Sistine Madonna. +We have turned away in disgust from Jordain's brutish "Triumphs of +Silenus," and tiresome repetitions of Hercules in drink. We have admired +the exuberance of St. Mary of Egypt's locks, and irreverently compared +them to the effects of Mrs. Allen's "World-wide Hair Restorer." We have +observed that the forehead of Holbein's great Virgin is too high to +please _us_, and made many other connoisseur-like remarks. I have +pointed out to Mr. Musgrave the Saint Catherine which has a look of +Barbara, and we have both grown rather tired of St. Sebastian, stuck as +full of darts as a pin-cushion of pins. Now we are sitting down resting +our eyes and our strained powers of criticism, and have fallen into easy +talk. + +"I am glad you are coming to dine at our _table d'hote_ to-night," say +I, in a friendly tone. "It will be nice for the general to have an +Englishman to talk to. I hope you will sit by him; he has been so much +used to men all his life that he must get rather sick of having nothing +but the chatter of one woman to depend upon." + +"At least he has no one but himself to blame for that," replies the +young fellow, laughing. "I suppose it was his own doing." + +"How do you know that?" cry I, gayly, and then the recollection of my +_hint_ to Sir Roger--a remembrance that always makes me rather hot-- +comes over me, and causes me to turn my head quickly away with a red +blush. "It certainly _has_ a look of Barbara," I say, glancing toward +the Saint Catherine, and rushing quickly into another subject. + +"Has it?" he says, apparently unaware of the rapidity of my transition. +"Then I wish I knew Barbara." + +I laugh. + +"I dare say you do." + +"She is not much like you, I suppose?" he says, turning from the +saint's straight and strict Greek profile to the engaging irregularity +of mine. + +"Not exactly," say I, with emphasis. "Ah!" (in a tone of prospective +triumph), "wait till you see her!" + +"I am afraid that I shall have to wait some time." + +"The Brat--that is one of my brothers, you know--is the one like me," I +say, becoming diffuse, as I always do, when the theme of my family is +started; "we _are_ like! We can see it ourselves." + +"Is he one of the thick-skinned six that you told me about?" + +"There are _not_ six," cry I, impatiently. "I do not know what put it +into your head that there were _six_ there are only _three._" + +"You certainly told me there were six." + +"I am _he_ in petticoats," say I, resuming the thread of my own +narrative; "everybody sees the likeness. One day when he was three or +four years younger, we dressed him up in my things--my gown and bonnet, +you know--and all the servants took him for me; they only found him out +because he held up his gown so awkwardly high, and gave it such great +kicks to keep it out of his way, that they saw his great nailed boots! +Sir Roger thought we were twins the first time he saw us." + +"Sir Roger!" repeats the young man, as if reminded by the name of +something he had meant to say. "Oh, by-the-by, if you will not think me +impertinent for asking, where did you first fall in with Sir Roger? I +should have thought that he was rather out of your beat; you do not hail +from his part of the world, do you?" + +"No," reply I, my thoughts traveling back to the day when we made taffy, +and tumbled over each other, hot and sticky to the window, to see the +dog-cart bearing the stranger roll up the drive. "I never saw him till +this last March, when he came to stay with us." + +"To stay with you?" + +"Yes," reply I, thinking of our godless jokes about his wig and his +false calves, and smiling gently to myself; "he was an old friend of +father's." + +"A contemporary, I suppose?" (a little inquisitively). + +"Yes, he was at school with father," I answer; and the moment I have +given utterance to the abhorred formula I repent. + +"At school with him?" (speaking rather slowly, and looking at me, with a +sort of flickering smile in lips and eyes). "Oh, I see!" + +"What do you see?" cry I, sharply. + +"Nothing, nothing! I only meant to say I understand, I comprehend." + +"There is nothing to understand," reply I, brusquely, and rising. "I am +tired--I shall go home!" + +We walk back rather silently; there is nothing so trying to eyes and +mind as picture-seeing, and I am fagged, and also indefinitely, yet +certainly, cross. As we reach the door of the Saxe, I hold out my hand. + +"Now that we have come to the end of our walk," say I, "and that you +cannot think that I am _hinting_ to you, I will tell you that I think it +was very ill-mannered and selfish of you not to _insist_ on carrying +_this_" (holding out the brown-paper parcel); "there is not _one_ of the +boys--not even Bobby, whom we always call so rough, who would have +_dreamed_ of letting a lady carry a parcel for herself, when he was by +to take it. There! I am better now! I _had_ to tell you; I wish you +good-day!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +"If he does not like it," say I, setting it on the floor, and regarding +it from a little distance, with my head on one side, while friendly +criticism and admiration meet in happy wedlock in my eyes, "I can give +it to you; I had much rather make you a present than _him_" + +"Then Heaven grant that it may find disfavor in his sight!" says Sir +Roger, piously. + +We are talking of the traveling-bag, which at last, in despair of any +thing suitable occurring to my mind, I have bought, and now regard with +a sort of apprehensive joy. The blinds are half lowered for the heat, +but, through them and under them, the broad gold sunshine is streaming +and pushing itself, washing the careful twists of my flax hair, the +bag's stout red leather sides, and Sir Roger's nose, as he leans over +it, with manly distrust, trying the clasp by many searching snappings. + +"I never gave you a present in my life--never--did I?" say I, squatting +down on the floor beside him, crumpling my nice crisp muslin frock with +the recklessness of a woman who knows that there are many more such +frocks in the cupboard, and to whom this knowledge has but newly come; +"never mind! next birthday I will give you one--a really nice, handsome, +rather expensive one--all bought with your own money, too--there!" + +This is on the morning of our last day in Dresden. Yes! _to-morrow_ we +set off homeward. Our wedding-tour is nearly ended: tyrant Custom, which +sent us off, permits us to rejoin our fellows. Well, it really has not +been so bad! I do not know that I should care to have it over again-- +that is, just immediately; but it has gone off very well altogether-- +quite as well as most other people's, I fancy. These are my thoughts in +the afternoon, as (Sir Roger having gone to the post-office, and I +having made myself very hot by superintending the packing of the +presents--most of them of a brittle, _crackable_ nature) I am leaning, +to cool myself, over our balcony, and idly watching the little events +that are happening under my nose. The omnibus stands, as usual, in the +middle of the square, about to start for Blasewitz. Mysterious 'bus! +always about to start--always full of patient passengers, and that yet +was never seen by mortal man to set off. As I watch it with the +wondering admiration with which I have daily regarded it, I hear the +door of our sitting-room open, and Vick give a little shrewish shrill +bark, speedily changed into an apologetic and friendly whiffling and +whoffling. + +"Is that you?" cry I, holding on by the balcony, and leaning back to +peep over my own shoulder into the interior. "Come out here, if it is." + +"Sir Roger is out," I say, a second later, putting my hand into that of +Mr. Musgrave (for it is he), as he comes stepping, in his usual +unsmiling, discontented beauty, to meet me. + +"I know he is! I met him!" + +"I am seeing the people start for Blasewitz for the last time! it makes +me quite low!" I say, replacing my arms on the balcony, and speaking +with an irrepressibly jovial broad smile on my face that rather +contradicts my words. + +"You _look_ low," he answers, ironically, standing beside me, and +looking rather provoked at my urbanity. + +"This time to-morrow we shall be off," say I, beginning to laugh out of +pure light-heartedness, though there is no joke within a mile of me, and +to count on my fingers; "this time the day after to-morrow we shall be +at Cologne--this time the day after _that_ we shall be getting toward +Brussels--this time the day after _that_ we shall be getting toward +Dover--this time the day after _that_--" + +"You will all be rushing higgledy-piggledy, helter-skelter, into each +other's arms," interrupts my companion, looking at me with a lowering +eye. + +"Yes," say I, my eyes dancing. "You are quite right." + +"Algy, and the Brat, and--what is the other fellow's name?--Dicky?-- +Jacky?--Jemmy?--" + +"Bobby," say I, correcting him. "But you are not quite right; the Brat +will not be there!--worse luck--he is in Paris!" + +"Well, Barbara will not be in Paris," says the young man, still in the +same discontented, pettish voice. "_She_ will be there, no doubt--well +to the front--in the thickest of the osculations." + +"_That_ she will!" cry I, heartily. "But you must give up calling her +Barbara; that is not at all pretty manners." + +"We will make a bargain," he says, beginning to smile a little, but +rather as if it were against his will and intention. "I will allow her +to call me 'Frank,' if she will allow me to call her 'Barbara.'" + +"I dare say you will" (laughing). + +A little pause. Another person has got into the omnibus; it is growing +extremely full. + +"I _hate_ last days," says my companion, hitting viciously at the iron +balcony rails with his stick, and scowling. + +"'The Last Days of Pompeii,'" say I, stupidly, and yet laughing again; +not because I think my witticism good, which no human being could do, +but because I _must_ laugh for very gladness. Another longer pause. +(Shall I present the bag the night we arrive, or wait till next day?) + +"I have got a riddle to ask you," says Frank; abruptly, and firing the +observation off somewhat like a bomb-shell. + +"Have you?" say I, absently. "I hope it is a good one." + +"Of course, _you_ must judge of that--'_Mon premier_--'" + +"It is in _French!_" cry I, with an accent of disgust. + +"Well, why should not it be?" (rather tartly). + +"No reason whatever, only that I warn you beforehand I shall not +understand it: I always _shiver_ when people tell me a French anecdote; +I never know when the point has arrived: I always laugh too soon or too +late." + +He says nothing, but looks black. + +"Go on!" say I, laughing. "We will try, if you like." + +"_Mon--premier--est--le--premier--de tout_," he says, pronouncing each +word very separately and distinctly. "Do you understand _that?_" + +I nod. "My first is the first of all--yes." + +"_Mon second n'a pas de second._" + +"My second has no second--yes." + +"_Mon tout_"--(turning his long, sleepy eyes sentimentally toward me)-- +"_je ne saurai vous le dire._" + +"My whole--I cannot tell it you!--then why on earth did you ask me?" cry +I, breaking out into hearty, wholesome laughter. + +Again he blackens. + +"Well, have you guessed it?" + +"Guessed it!" I echo, recovering my gravity. "Not I!--my first is the +first of all--my second has no second--my whole, I cannot tell it you!-- +I do not believe it is a riddle at all! it is a hoax--a take-in, like +'Why does a miller wear a white hat?'" + +"It is nothing of the kind," he answers, looking thoroughly annoyed. +"Must I tell you the answer?" + +"I shall certainly never arrive at it by my unassisted genius," I reply, +yawning. "Ah! there is M. Dom going out riding! Alas! never again shall +I see him mount that peacocking steed!" + +"It is 'Adieu!'" says my companion, blurting it out in a rage, seeing +that I _will_ not be interested in or excited by it. + +"_Adieu!_" repeat I, standing with my mouth wide open, looking perfectly +blank. "_How?_" + +"You do not see?" he says. (His face has grown scarlet.) "Well, you must +excuse me for saying that you are rather--" He breaks off and begins +again, very fast this time. "My first is the first of all--is not _A_ +the first letter in the alphabet? My second has no second--has God +_(Dieu)_ any second? My whole--I cannot say it to you--_Adieu!_" + +The contrast between the sentimentality of the words, and the brusque +and defiant anger of his tone, is so abrupt, that I am sorry to say, I +laugh again: indeed, I retire from the balcony into the saloon inside, +throw myself into a chair, and, covering my face with my handkerchief, +roar-- + +"It is very good," say I, in a choked voice; "very--so civil and pretty +--but it is not _very funny_, is it?" + +I receive no answer. I am still in my pocket-handkerchief, and he might +be gone, but that I hear his quick, angry breathing, and know, by +instinct, that he is standing over me, looking like a handsome +thunder-cloud. I dare not look up at him, lest another mad cachinnation, +such as sometimes overtakes one for the punishment of one's sins in +church, should again lay violent hands upon me. + +"I think I like 'Why was Balaam like a Life-Guardsman?' better, _on the +whole_" I say, presently, peeping through my fingers, and speaking with +a suspicious tremble in my voice. + +"I have no doubt it is far superior," he answers, in a fierce and sulky +tone, that he in vain tries to make sound playful. "'_Balaam like a +Life-Guardsman?_' and why was he, may I ask? Something humorous about +his donkey, I suppose." + +"Because he had a queer ass (cuirass)," reply I, again exploding, and +hiding my face in the back of the chair. + +"A _queer ass!_" (in a tone of the profoundest contempt); "you have no +more sentiment in you than _this table!_" smiting it with his bare hand. + +"I know I have not," say I, sitting up, and holding my hand to my side +to ease the pain my excessive mirth has caused; "they always said so at +home. Oh, here is the general! we will make _him_ umpire, which is +funniest, yours or mine!" + +Sir Roger enters, and glances in some surprise from Frank's crimson face +to my convulsed one. + +"Oh, general, do we not look as if we had been having an affecting +parting?" cry I, jumping up and running to him. "Do not I look as if I +had been crying? Quite the contrary, I assure you. But Musgrave and I +have been asking each other such amusing riddles--would you like to hear +them? _Mine_ is good, plain, vulgar English; but his is French, so we +will begin with _it_--'_Mon premier_--'" + +I stop suddenly, for Mr. Musgrave is looking at me with an expression +simply _murderous_. + +"Well, what are you stopping for? I am on the horns of expectation-- +'_Mon premier_--'" + +"After all, it is not so funny as I thought," I answer, brusquely. "I +think we will keep it for some wet Sunday afternoon, when we are short +of something to do." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +The day of departure has really come. "We have eaten our last bif-teck +_aux pommes frites_" and drank our last cup of coffee in the Saxe. I +have had my last look at the familiar square, at the great dome of the +Frauen Kirchen, at the high houses with their dormer-windows, at the +ugly big statue standing with its stiff black back rudely turned to the +hotel, at the piled hay-carts. We are really and truly off. Our faces +are set Barbara-ward, Bobby-ward, jackdaw-ward. I am in such rampaging +spirits, that I literally do not know what to do with myself. I feel +that I should like to tuck my tail, if I had one, between my legs, like +Vick; and race round and round in an insane and unmeaning circle, as she +does on the lawn at home, when oppressed by the overflow of her own +gayety. + +It seems to me as if there never had been such a day. I look at the sky +as we drive along to the station. Call it sapphire, turquoise--indeed! +What dull stone that ever lived darkling in a mine is fit to be named +even in metaphor with this pale yet brilliant arch that so softly leans +above us? It seems to me as if all the people we meet were handsome and +well-featured--as if the Elbe were the noblest river that ever ran, +carrying the sunlight in flakes of gold and diamond on its breast--as if +all life were one long and kindly jest. + +As we reach the station I see Mr. Musgrave standing on the pavement +awaiting us, with a sort of mixed and compound look on his face. + +"Here is Mr. Musgrave come to see us off!" I cry, jocundly. "Come to say +_'Adieu' ha! ha!_! I must not forget to ask him whether he has any more +riddles." + +"For Heaven's sake do not!" cries Sir Roger, smiling in spite of +himself, yet seriously and earnestly desirous of checking my wit. "Let +the poor boy have a little peace! He no more understands chaff than I +understand Parsee." + +I hop out of the carriage like a parched pea, scorning equally the step +and Frank's hand extended to help me. I feel to-day as if I need only +stand on tiptoe, and stretch out my arms in order to be able to fly. + +"So you have come to see the last of us," I say, trying to pull a long +face, and walking with him into the waiting-room. + +"Yes; rather a mistake, is not it?" he says, somewhat gloomily, but +loading himself at once, with ostentatious haste (in memory of my former +reproof), with my bag, parasol, and novel. + +"The day after--the day after--the day after to-morrow," say I, smiling +cheerfully up in his dismal face. "You may fancy us just turning in at +the park-gates--by-the-by, have you any message to send to the boys, to +Barbara?" + +"None to the boys," he answers, half smiling, too. "I hate boys: you may +give my love to Barbara if you like, and if you are quite sure that she +is like the St. Catherine." + +"Wait till you see her," say I, oracularly. + +"But when _shall_ I see her?" he asks, roused into an eagerness which I +think promises admirably for Barbara; "when are you coming home, +really?" + +"Keep a good lookout at your lodge," I say, gayly, "and you will no +doubt see us arrive some fine day, looking very foolish, most probably-- +crawling along like snails, dragged by our tenants." + +"Were you _ever_ known to answer a plain question plainly since you were +born?" he cries, petulantly. "When are you likely to come _really_?" + +"'I know not! What avails to know?'" reply I, pompously spouting a line +out of some forgotten poem that has lurked in my memory, and now struts +out, to the anger and discomfiture of Mr. Musgrave. + +"Ah! here are the doors opening." + +Everybody pours out on to the platform, and into the empty and expectant +train. + +Sir Roger and I get into a carriage--_not_ a _coupe_ this time--and +dispose our myriad parcels above our heads, under our feet. Trucks roll, +and porters bawl past; luggage is violently shot into vans. The last +belated, panting passenger has got in. The doors are slammed-to. Off we +go! The train is already in motion when the young man jumps on the step +and thrusts in his hand for one parting shake. + +"_Mon tout_," say I, screwing up my face into a crying shape, and +speaking in a squeaky, pseudo-tearful voice, "_je ne saurai vous le +dire!_" + +Then he is hustled off by an indignant guard and three porters, and we +see him no more. I throw myself back into my corner laughing. + +"General," say I, "I think your young friend is nearly as soft-hearted +as the girl in Tennyson who was + + 'Tender over drowning flies.' + +He looked as if he were going to _weep_, did not he? and what on earth +about?" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + "How mother, when we used to stun + Her head wi' all our noisy fun, + Did wish us all a-gone from home; + But now that some be dead and some + Be gone, and, oh, the place is dumb, + How she do wish wi' useless tears + To have again about her ears + The voices that be gone!" + + +We have passed Cologne; have passed Brussels; have passed Calais and +Dover; have passed London; we are drawing near home. How refreshing +sounds the broad voice of the porters at Dover! Squeamish as I am, after +an hour and three-quarters of a nice, short, chopping sea, the sight of +the dear green-fustian jackets, instead of the slovenly blue blouses +across-Channel, goes nigh to revive me. Adieu, O neatly aquiline, +broad-shaved French faces! Welcome, O bearded Britons, with your +rough-hewn noses! + +To avoid the heat of the day, we go down from London by a late afternoon +train. It is evening when, almost _before_ the train has stopped, I +insist on jumping out at our station. Imagine if through some accident +we were carried on to the next by mistake! + +Such a thing has never happened in the annals of history, but still it +_might_. + +Sir Roger has some considerable difficulty in hindering me from shaking +hands with the whole staff of officials. One veteran porter, who has +been here ever since I was born, has a polite but improbable trick of +addressing _every_ female passenger as "my lady." Well, with regard to +_me_, at least, he is right now. I _am_ "my lady." Ha! ha! I have not +nearly got over the ridiculousness of this fact yet, though I have been +in possession of it now these _four_ whole weeks. + +It has been a hot, parching summer day, and now that the night draws on +all the flagging flowers in the cottage-borders are straightening +themselves anew, and lifting their leaves to the dews. The pale +bean-flowers, in the broad bean-fields, as we pass, send their delicate +scent over the hedge to me, as if it were some fair and courteous +speech. To me it seems as if they were saying, as plainly as may be, +"Welcome home, Nancy!" + +The sky that has been all of one hue during the livelong day--wherever +you looked, nothing but pale, _pale_ azure--is now like the palette of +some God-painter splashed and freaked with all manner of great and noble +colors--a most regal blaze of gold--wide, plains of crimson, as if all +heaven were flashing at some high thought--little feathery cloud-islands +of tenderest rose-pink. We are coming very near now. There, down below, +set round its hips with tall rushes, is our pool, all blood-red in the +sunset! Can _that_ be colorless water--that great carmine fire? There +are our elms, with their heads in the sunset, too. + +"General," say I, very softly, putting my hand through his arm, and +speaking in a small tone of unutterable content, "I should like to kiss +everybody in the world." + +"Perhaps you would not mind beginning with _me_" returns he, gayly; +then--for I look quite capable of it--glancing slightly over his +shoulder at the vigilant couple in the dickey. + +"No, I did not mean _really_." + +We are trotting alongside of the park-paling. I stand up and try to +catch a glimpse between the coachman and footman, of the gate, to see +whether they have come to meet me. + +We are slackening our speed; we are going to turn in; the lodge-keeper +runs out to open the gate; but no, it is needless. It is already open. I +could have told _her_ that. Here they all are!--Barbara, Algy, Bobby, +Tou Tou. + +"Here they are!" cry I, in a fidgety rapture. "Oh, general, just look +how Tou Tou has grown; her frock is nearly up to her knees!" + +"Do you think she _can_ have grown that much in four weeks?" asks he, +not contradictiously, but a little _doubtfully_, as Don Quixote may have +asked the Princess Micomicona her reasons for landing at Ossime. "But +pray, madam," says he, "why did your ladyship land at Ossime, seeing +that it is not a seaport town?" + +"I suppose not," I reply, a little disappointed. "I suppose that her +frock must have run up in the washing." + +To this day I have not the faintest idea how I got out of the carriage. +My impression is that I _flew_ over the side with wings which came to my +aid in that one emergency, and then for evermore disappeared. + +I do not know _this_ time _where_ I begin, or whom I end with. I seemed +to be kissing them _all_ at once. All their arms seem to be round _my_ +neck, and mine round all of theirs at the same moment. The only wonder +is that, at the end of our greetings, we have a feature left among us. +When at length they are ended-- + +"Well," say I, studiedly, with a long sigh of content, staring from one +countenance to another, with a broad grin on my own. "Well!" and though +I have been away _four_ weeks, and been to foreign parts, and dined at +_table d'hotes_ and seen Crucifixions and Madonnas, and seem to have +more to tell than could be crowded into a closely-packed twelvemonth of +talk, this is all I can find to say. + +"Well," reply they, nor do they seem to be much richer in conversation +than I. + +Bobby is the first to regain the use of his tongue. He says, "My eye!" +(oh, dear and familiar expletive, for a whole calendar month I have not +heard you!)--"my eye! what a swell you are!" + +Meanwhile Sir Roger stands aloof. If he _ever_ thought of himself, he +might be reasonably and equitably huffy at being so entirely neglected, +for I will do them the justice to say that I think they have all utterly +forgotten his existence: but, as he never does, I suppose he is not; at +least there is only a friendly entertainment, and no hurt dignity, in +the gentle strength of his face. + +In the exuberance of my happiness, I have given him free leave to kiss +Barbara and Tou Tou, but the poor man does not seem to be likely to have +the chance. + +"Are not you going to speak to the general?" I say, nudging Barbara. +"You have never said 'How do you do?' to him." + +Thus admonished, they recover their presence of mind and turn to salute +him. There are no kissings, however, only some rather formal +hand-shakings; and then Algy, as being possessed of the nearest approach +to manners of the family, walks on with him. The other three adhere to +me. + +"Well," say I, for the third time, holding Barbara by one hand, and +resting the other on Bobby's stout arm, dressed in cricketing-flannel, +while Tou Tou _backs_ before us with easy grace. "Well, and how is +everybody? How is mother?" + +"She is all right!" + +"And HE? Is anybody in disgrace now? At least of course _somebody_ is, +but _who?_" + +"_In disgrace_!" cries Bobby, briskly. "Bless your heart, no! we are + + 'Like the young lambs, + A sporting about by the side of their dams.' + +_In disgrace_, indeed! we are 'Barbara, child,' and 'Algy, my dear +fellow,' and 'Bobby, love.'" + +"_Bobby!_" cries Tou Tou, in a high key of indignation at this +monstrously palpable instance of unveracity, and nearly capsizing, as +she speaks, into a rabbit-hole, which, in her backward progress--we are +crossing the park--she has not perceived. + +"Well," replies Bobby, candidly, "that last yarn may not be _quite_ a +fact, I own _that_; but I appeal to _you_, Barbara, is not it true _i' +the main?_ Are not we all 'good fellows,' and 'dear boys?'" + +"I am thankful to say that we are," replies Barbara, laughing; "but how +long we shall remain so is quite another thing." + +"I have brought a present for him," say I, rather nervously; "do you +think he will be pleased?" + +"He will say that he very much regrets that you should have taken the +trouble to waste your money upon _him_, as he did last birthday, when we +exerted ourselves to lay out ten shillings and sixpence on that +spectacle-case," answers Bobby, cheerfully. + +"But what is it?" + +"What is it?" cry Barbara and Tou Tou in a breath. + +"It is a--a _traveling-bag_," reply I, with a little hesitation, looking +imploringly from Barbara to Bobby. "Do you think he will like it?" "A +_traveling-bag!_" echoes Bobby; then, a little bluntly, "but he never +travels!" + +"No more he does!" reply I, feeling a good deal crestfallen. "I thought +of that myself; it was not quite my own idea--it was the general's +suggestion!" + +"The general!" says Bobby, "whew--w!" (with a long whistle of +intelligence)--"well, _he_ ought to know what he likes and dislikes, +ought not he? He ought to understand his tastes, being the same age, and +having been at schoo--" + +"Look!" cry I, hastily, breaking into the midst of these soothing facts, +which are daily becoming more distasteful to me, and pointing to the +windows of the house, which are all blazing in the sunset, each pane +sending forth a sheaf of fire, as if some great and mighty feast were +being held within. "I see you are having an illumination in honor of +us." + +"Yes," answers Bobby, kindly entering into my humor, "and the reason why +father did not come to meet you at the gate was that he was busy +lighting the candles." + +My spirits are so dashed by the more implied than expressed disapproval +of my brethren, that I resolve to defer the presentation of the bag till +to-morrow, or perhaps--to-morrow being Sunday, always rather a dark day +in the paternal calendar--till Monday. + +Dinner is over, and, as it is clearly impossible to stay in-doors on +such a night, we are all out again. The three elders--father, mother, +and husband--sitting sedately on three rustic chairs on the dry +gravel-walk, and we young ones lying about in different attitudes of +restful ease, on rugs and cloaks that we have spread upon the dewy +grass. We are not far off from the others, but just so far as that our +talk should be out of ear-shot. In my own mind, I am not aware that Sir +Roger would far rather be with _us_, listening to our quick gabble, and +laughing with us at our threadbare jests, which are rewarded with mirth +so disproportioned to their size, than interchanging sober talk with the +friend of his infancy. Once or twice I see his gray eyes straying a +little wistfully toward us, but he makes no slightest movement toward +joining us. I should like, if I had my own way, to ask him to come to +us, to ask him to sit on the rugs and make jokes too, but some sort of +false shame, some sneaky shyness before the boys, hinders me. I am +leaning my elbow on the soft fur of the rug, and my head on my hand, and +am staring up at the stars, cool and throbbing, so like little +stiletto-holes pricked in heaven's floor, as they steal out in systems +and constellations on the night. + +"There is dear old Charles Wain," say I, affectionately; "I never knew +where to look for him in Dresden; _how_ nice it is to be at home again!" + +"Nancy!" says Algy, gravely, "do you know I have counted, and that is +the _sixteenth_ time that you have made that _ejaculation_ since your +arrival! Do you know--I am sorry to have to say it--that it sounds as if +you had not enjoyed your honey-moon very much?" + +"It sounds quite wrong, then," cry I, coming down from the stars, and +speaking rather sharply. "I enjoyed it immensely; yes, _immensely_!" + +I say this with an emphasis which is calculated to convince not only +everybody else, but even myself. + +"Come, now," cries Bobby, who is farthest off from me, and, to remedy +this disadvantage, begins to travel quickly, in a sitting posture, along +the rugs toward me, "tell the truth--_gospel_ truth, mind!--the truth, +the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God. Would you +like to be setting off on it over again, to-morrow morning?" + +"Of course not," reply I, angrily; "what a silly question! Would _any +one_ like to begin _any thing_ over again, just the very minute that +they had finished it? You might as well ask me would I like to have +dinner over again, and begin upon a fresh plate of soup." + +No one is convinced. + +"When _I_ marry," continues Bobby, lying flat on his back, with his +hands clasped under his head (we all laugh)--"when _I_ marry, no one +shall succeed in packing me off to foreign parts, with my young woman. I +shall take her straight home, as if I was not ashamed of her, and we +will have a _dance_, and make a clean sweep of our own cake." + +"Nancy!" cries Tou Tou, innocently, joining in the conversation for the +first time, "_did_ any one take him for your _grandfather_ as the Brat +said they would?" + +"Of course not!" cry I, crossly, making a spiteful lunge, as I speak, at +a _startle-de-buz_, which has lumbered booming into my face. "Who on +earth supposed they would _really_?" + +Tou Tou collapses, with a hazy impression of having been snubbed, and +there is a moment's silence. A faint, fire-like flush still lingers in +the west--all that is left of the dazzling pageant that the heavens sent +to welcome me home. I am looking toward it--away from my brothers and +sisters--away from everybody--across the indistinct garden-beds--across +the misty park, and the dark tree-tops, when a voice suddenly brings me +back. + +"Nancy, child!" it says, "is not it rather damp for you? Would you mind +putting _this_ on?" + +I look up in a hurry, and see Sir Roger stooping over me, with an +outspread cloak in his hands. + +"Oh, thank you!" cry I, hurriedly, reddening--I do not quite know why-- +and with that same sort of sneaky feeling, as if the boys were laughing; +"I am not one much apt to catch cold--none of us are--but I will, if +you like." + +So saying, I drew it round my shoulders. Then he goes, _in a minute_, +without a second's lingering, back to the gravel-walk, to his +wicker-chair, to grave, dry talk, to the friend of his infancy! I have +an uncomfortable feeling that there is a silent and hidden laugh among +the family. + +"Barbara, my treasure!" says Algy, presently, in a mocking voice, +"_might_ I be allowed to offer you our umbrella, and a pair of goloshes +to defend you from the evening dews?" + +"Hush!" cries Barbara, gently pushing him away, and stretching out her +hand to me. She is the only one that understands. (Oh, why, _why_ did I +ever laugh at him with them? What is there to laugh at in him?) + +"My poor Barbara!" continues Algy, in a tone of affected solicitude. "If +you had not a tender brother to look after you, your young limbs might +be cramped with rheumatism, and twitched with palsy, before any one +would think of bringing _you_ a cloak." + +"Wait a bit!" say I, recovering my good-humor with an effort, reflecting +that it is no use to be vexed--that they _mean_ nothing--and that, +lastly, _I have brought it on myself_! + +"Wait for _what_?" asks Barbara, laughing. "Till Toothless Jack has +grown used to his new teeth?" + +"By-the-by," cries Bobby, eagerly, "that was since you went away, Nancy: +he has set up a stock of _new_ teeth--_beauties_--like Orient pearl--he +wore them in church last Sunday for the first time. We tell Barbara that +he has bought them on purpose to propose in. Now, do not you think it +looks _promising_?" + +"We do not mean, however," says Algy, lighting a cigar, "to let Barbara +go _cheap_! Now that we have disposed of you so advantageously, we are +beginning to be rather ambitious even for _Tou Tou_" + +"We think," says Bobby, giving a friendly but severe pull to our +youngest sister's outspread yellow locks, "that Tou Tou would adorn the +_Church_. Bishops have mostly _thin_ legs, so it is to be presumed that +they admire them: we destine Tou Tou for a bishop's lady!" + +Hereupon follows a lively fire of argument between Bobby and his sister; +she protesting that she will _not_ espouse a bishop, and he asseverating +that she shall. It lasts the best part of a quarter of hour, and ends by +reducing Tou Tou to tears. + +"But come," says Algy, taking his cigar out of his mouth, throwing his +head back, and blowing two columns of smoke out of his nose, "let us +take up our subject again where we dropped it. I should be really glad +if I could get you to own that you and _he_"--(indicating my husband by +a jerk of his head)--"grew rather sick of each other! Whether you own it +or not, I know you _did_; and it would give me pleasure to hear it. You +need not take it personally. I assure you that it is no slur upon him-- +_everybody_ does. I have talked to lots of fellows who have gone through +it, and they all say the same." + +"Nancy!" says Bobby, abandoning, at length, his persecution of Tou Tou, +and pretending not to hear her last persevering assertion of her +determination not to be episcopally wed--"tell the truth, and shame the +devil. It would be different if we were strangers, but _we_ that have +sported with you since you wore frilled trousers and a bib--come now-- +did you, or did you not, kneel three times a day, like the prophet +Daniel, looking eastward or westward, or whichever way it _did_ look, +and yearn for us, and Jacky, and the bun-loaf--come, now?" + +"Well, yes," say I, reluctantly making the admission. "I do not say that +I did not! Of course, after having been used to you all my life, it +would have been very odd if I had not missed you rather badly; but that +is a very different thing from being _sick of him_!" + +"Well, we will not say _sick_" returns Algy, with the air of one who is +making a handsome concession, "it is a disagreeable, bilious expression, +but it would be useless to try and convince me that _any_ human +affection could stand the wear and tear of twenty-eight whole days of an +absolute duet and not be rather the worse for it!" + +"But it was _not_ an absolute duet," cry I, raising my voice a little, +and speaking with some excitement; "you are talking about what you do +not know! you are quite wrong." + +"Well, it is not the first time in my life that I have been that," he +says, philosophically; "but come--who did you the Christian office of +interrupting it? tell us." + +"I told you in my letters," say I, rather petulantly. "I certainly +mentioned--yes, I know I did--we happened at Dresden to fall in with a +friend of the general's--at least, a person he knew." + +"A person he knew? What kind of a person? Man or woman?" + +"Man." + +"Old or young?" + +"Young." + +"Ugly or pretty?" + +"Pretty," answer I, laughing. "Ah! what a rage he would be in, if he +could hear such an epithet applied to him!" + +"A young, well-looking, man-friend!" says Algy, slowly recapitulating +all my admissions as he lies gently puffing on the rug beside me. +"Well?" + +"_Well_!" echo I, rather snappishly. "Nothing! only that I wanted to +show you that it was not quite such a _duet_ as you imagined! Of course +--Dresden is not a big place--of course we met very often, and went here +and there together." + +"And where was Sir Roger meanwhile?" + +"Sir Roger was there, too, of course," reply I, still a little crossly, +"except once or twice--certainly not more than twice--he said he did not +feel inclined to come, and so we went without him." + +"You left him at home, in fact!" says Algy, with a rather malicious +smile, "out of harm's way, while you and the young friend marauded about +the town together; it must have been very lively for him, poor man! Oh, +fie! Nancy, fie!" + +"We did not do any thing of the kind," cry I, now thoroughly vexed and +uncomfortable. "I wish you would not misunderstand things on purpose! +there is not any fun in it! _Both_ times I _wanted_ him to come! I +_asked_ him particularly!" + +"And, if I may make so bold as to inquire," asks Bobby, striking in, +"how did the young friend call himself? What was his name?" + +"Musgrave," reply I, shortly. "Frank Musgrave!" for the stream of my +conversation seems dried. + +"Was he _nice_? Should _we_ like him?" ask Tou Tou, who has recovered +her equanimity, dried her tears, and forgotten the bishop. + +"He was nice _to look at_!" reply I cautiously. + +"That is a very different thing!" says Barbara, laughing. "But was he +nice in himself?" + +I reflect. + +"No," say I, "I do not think he was: at least, he wanted a great deal of +alteration." + +"As I have no doubt that you told him," says Algy, with a smile. + +"I dare say I did," reply I, distantly, for I am not pleased with Algy. + +A little pause. + +"I think he _was_ nice, too, _in a way_" say I, rather compunctiously. +"I used to tell him about all of you, and--I dare say it was pretense-- +but he _seemed_ to like to hear about you! When I came away, he sent his +love to Barbara; he would not send any messages to you boys--he said he +hated boys!" + +"Humph!" Another short silence. The elders have gone in to tea. Through +the windows, I see the lamp-light shining on the tea-cups. + +"Algy!" say I, in a rather low voice, edging a little nearer to where he +lies gracefully outspread, "you did not mean it, _really?_ You do not +think I--I--I--_neglected_ the general, do you?--you do not think I--I-- +_liked_ to be away from him?" + +"My lady!" replies he, teasingly, "I _think_ nothing! I only know what +your ladyship was good enough to tell me!" + +Then we all get up, shoulder our rugs, and walk in. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Well, no one will deny that Sunday comes after Saturday; and it was +Saturday evening, when the heavens painted themselves with fire, and the +sun lit up all the house-windows to welcome us home. Sunday is not +usually one of our blandest days, but we must hope for the best. + +"General," say I, standing before him, dressed for morning church, after +having previously turned slowly round on the point of my toes, to favor +him with the back view of as delightful a bonnet, and as airily fresh +and fine a muslin gown, as ever young woman said her prayers in-- +"by-the-by, do you like my calling you general?" + +"At least I understand who you mean by it," he says, a little evasively; +"which, after all, is the great thing, is not it?" + +"It is my own invention," say I, rather proudly; "nobody put it into my +head, and nobody else calls you by it, do they?" + +"Not now." + +"_Not now?_" cry I, surprised; "but did they ever?" + +"Yes," he says, "for about a year, most people did; I was general a year +before my brother died." + +"_Your brother died?_" cry I, again repeating his words, and arching my +eyebrows, which have not naturally the slightest tendency toward +describing a semicircle. "What! _you_ had a brother, too, had you? I +never knew that before." + +"Did you think _you_ had a monopoly of them?" laughing a little. + +"So you were not 'Sir' always?" + +"No more than _you_ are," he answers, smiling. "No, I was not born in +the purple; for thirty-seven years of my life I earned my own bread--and +rather dry bread too." + +"You do not say so!" cry I, in some astonishment. + +"If I had come here seven years ago," he says, taking both my pale +yellow hands in his light gray ones, and looking at me with eyes which +seem darker and deeper than usual under the shade of the brim of his +tall hat--"by-the by, you would have been a little girl then--as little +as Tou Tou--" + +"Yes," interrupt I, breaking in hastily; "but, indeed, I never was a bit +like her, never. I _never_ had such legs--ask the boys if I had!" + +"I did not suppose that you had," he answers, bursting into a hearty and +most unfeigned laugh! "but" (growing grave again), "Nancy, suppose that +I had come here then! I should have had no shooting to offer the boys-- +no horses to mount Algy--no house worth asking Barbara to--" + +"No more you would!" say I, too much impressed with surprise at this new +light on Sir Roger's past life to notice the sort of wistfulness and +inquiry that lurks in his last words; then, after a second, perceiving +it: "And you think," say I, loosing my hands from his, and growing as +pink as the delicate China rose-bud that is peeping round the corner of +the trellis in at the window, "that there would not have been as much +inducement _then_ for me to propose to you, as there was in the present +state of things!" + +I am laughing awkwardly as I speak; then, eagerly changing the +conversation, and rushing into another subject: "By-the-by, I had +something to say to you--something quite important--before we +digressed." + +"Yes?" + +"O general!" taking hold of the lapel of his coat, and looking up at him +with appealing earnestness, "do you know that I have made up my mind to +give _him_ the _bag_ to-day! it is no use putting off the evil day--it +_must_ come, after supper--they all say _after supper!_" + +"Yes?" + +"Well, I want you to talk to him _all day_, and get him into a +good-humor by then, if you can, that is all!" + +"_That is all!_" repeats my husband, with the slightest possible +ironical accent. Then we go to church. It is too near to drive, so we +all walk. The church-yard elms are out in fullest leaf above our heads. +There are so many leaves, and they are so close together, that they hide +the great brown rooks' nests. They do not hide the rooks themselves. It +would take a good deal to do that. Dear pleasant-spoken rooks, talking +so loudly and irreverently about their own secular themes--out-cawing +the church-bells, as we pace by, devout and smart, to our prayers. + +Last time I walked up this path, it was hidden with red cloth, and +flowers were tumbling under my feet. Ah! red cloth comes but once in a +lifetime. It is only the queen who lives in an atmosphere of red cloth +and cut flowers. + +We are in church now. The service is in progress. Can it be only _five_ +Sundays ago that I was standing here as I am now, watching all the +little well-known incidents? Father standing up in frock-coat and +spectacles, keeping a sharp lookout over the top of his prayer-book, to +see _how_ late the servants are. The ill-behaved charity-boys emulously +trying who shall make the hind-legs of his chair squeak the loudest on +the stone floor. Toothless Jack leering distantly at Barbara from the +side aisle. Something apparently is amusing him. He is smiling a little. +I see his teeth. They, at least, are new. _They_ were not here five +weeks ago. The little starved curate--the one who tore his gloves into +strips--loses his place in the second lesson, and madly plunges at three +different wrong verses in succession, before he regains the thread of +his narrative. + +We have come to the sermon. The text is, "I have married a wife, and +therefore I cannot come." No sooner is it given out than Algy, Bobby, +and Tou Tou, all look at me and grin; but father, who has a wily way of +establishing himself in the corner of the pew, so as to have a +bird's-eye view of all our demeanors, speedily frowns them down into a +preternatural gravity. Ah, why _to-day_, of all days, did they laugh? +and why _to-day_, of all days, did the servants file noisily in, +numerous and out of breath, in the middle of the psalms? I tremble when +I thing of the bag. + +Well, who will may laugh again now: we are out in the sunshine, with the +church-yard grass bowing and swaying in the wind, and the little +cloud-shadows flying across the half-effaced names of the forgotten +dead, who lie under their lichen-grown tombs. + +"Did you see his _teeth?_" asks Tou Tou, joining me with a leap, almost +before I am outside the church-porch. + +"They are not comfortable yet," remarks Bobby, gravely, as he walks +beside me carrying my prayer-book. "I could see that: he was taking them +out, and putting them in again, with his tongue all through the Litany." + +"When once he has secured Barbara, I expect that they will go back with +the box for good and all--eh, Barbara?" say I, laughing, as I speak; but +Barbara is out of ear-shot. She is lingering behind to shake hands with +the curate, and ask all the poor old people after their diseases. _I_ +never can recollect clearly _who_ has _what_. I always apportion the +rheumatism wrongly, but _she_ never does. There she stands just by the +church-gate, with the little sunny lights running up and down upon her +snow-white gown, shaking each grimy old hand with a kind and friendly +equality. + +The day rolls by; afternoon service; walk round the grounds; early +dinner (we always embitter our lives on Sundays by dining at _six_, +which does the servants no good, and sours the tempers of the whole +family); then prayers. Prayers are always immediately followed by that +light refection which we call supper. + +As the time approaches, my heart sinks imperceptibly lower in my system +than the place where it usually resides. + + "Be ready, Sister Nancy, + For the time is drawing nigh," + +says Algy, solemnly, putting his arm round my shoulders, as, the +prayer-bell having rung, we set off for the wonted justicing-room. + +"Have a pull at my flask," suggests Bobby, seriously; "there is some +cognac left in it since the day we fished the pool. It would do you all +the good in the world, and, if you took _enough_, you would feel able to +give him _ten_ bags, or, indeed, throw them at his head at a pinch." + +"Have you got it?" say I, faintly, to the general, who at this moment +joins us. + +"Yes, here it is." + +"But what will you do with it _meanwhile?_" cry I, anxiously; "he must +not see it _first_" + +"Sit upon it," suggests Algy, flippantly. + +"Hang it round his neck while he is at prayers," bursts out Bobby, with +the air of a person who has had an illumination; "you know he always +pretends to have his eyes shut." + +"And at 'Amen,' he would awake to find himself famous," says Algy, +pseudo-pompously. + +But this suggestion, although I cannot help looking upon it as +ingenious, I do not adopt. + +Prayers on Sunday are a much _finer_ and larger ceremonial than they are +on week-days. In the first place, instead of a few of the church prayers +quickly pattered, which are ended in five minutes, we have a whole long +sermon, which lasts twenty. In the second place, the congregation is so +much greater. On week-days it is only the in-door servants; on Sundays +it is the whole staff--coachman, grooms, stablemen. I think myself that +it is more in the nature of a _parade_, to insure that none of the +establishment are out _sweethearting_, than of a religious exercise. +Usually I am delighted when the sermon is ended. Even Barrow or Jeremy +Taylor would sound dull and stale if fired off in a flat, fierce +monotone, without emphasis or modulation. Tonight, at every page that +turns, my heart declines lower and lower down. It is ended now; so is +the short prayer that follows it. We all rise, and father stands with +his hawk-eyes fixed on the servants, as they march out, _counting_ them. +The upper servants are all right; so are the housemaids, cookmaids, and +lesser scullions. Alas! alas! there is a helper wanting. + +Having listened to and _dis_believed the explanation of his absence, +father leads the way into supper, but the little incident has taken the +bloom off his suavity. + +Sir Roger has deposited the bag--still wrapped in its paper coverings-- +on a chair, in a modest and unobtrusive corner of the dining-room, ready +for presentation. He did this just before prayers. As we enter the room, +father's eyes fall on it. + +"What is _that_?" he cries, pointing with his forefinger, and turning +severely to the boys. "How many times have I told you that I will not +have parcels left about, littering the whole place? Off with it!" + +"If you please, father," say I, in a very small and starved voice, "it +is not the boys', it is _mine_." + +"_Yours_, is it?" with a sudden change of tone, and return to amenity. +"Oh, all right!" (Then, with a little accent of sudden jocosity)--"One +of your foreign purchases, eh?" + +We sit round the snowy table, in the pleasant light of the shaded lamps, +eating chicken-salad, and abasing and rifling the great red pyramids of +strawberries and raspberries, but talking not much. We young ones never +_can_ talk out loud before father. He has never heard our voices raised +much above a whisper. I do not think he has an idea what fine, loud, +Billingsgate voices his children _really_ have. He has said grace--we +always have a longer, _gratefuller_ grace than usual on Sundays--and has +risen to go. + +"Now for it!" cries Bobby, wildly excited, and giving me an awful dig in +the ribs with his elbow. + +"Shall I get it?" asks the general, in an encouraging whisper. "Cheer +up, Nancy! do not look so _white!_ it is all right." + +He rises and fetches it, slips it quickly out of its coverings, and puts +it into my hand. Father has reached the door, I run after him. + +"Father!" cry I, in a choked and trembling voice. "Stop!" + +He turns with the handle in his grasp, and looks at me in some surprise. + +"Father!" cry I, beginning again, and holding my gift out nervously +toward him, "here's--here's--here's a _bag_!" + +This is my address of presentation. I hear the boys tittering at the +table behind me--a sound which, telling me how ill I am speeding, makes +my confusion tenfold worse. I murmur, helplessly and indistinctly, +something about his never traveling, and my knowing that fact--and +having been always sure that he would hate it--and then I glance +helplessly round with a wild idea of flight. But at the same moment an +arm of friendly strength comes round my shoulders--a friendly voice +sounds in my buzzing ears. + +"James," it says, simply and directly, "she has brought you a present, +and she is afraid that you will not care about it." + +"A _present_!" echoes my father, the meaning of the inexplicable object +which has suddenly been thrust into his grasp beginning to dawn upon +him. "Oh, I see! I am sure, my dear Nancy"--with a sort of embarrassed +stiffness that yet means to be gracious--"that I am extremely obliged to +you, extremely; and though I regret that you should have wasted your +money on me--yet--yet--I assure you, I shall always prize it very +highly." + +Then he goes out rather hastily. I return to the supper-table. + +"Shake hands!" cries Algy, pouring me out a glass of claret. "_Now_, +perhaps, you have some faint idea of what _I_ felt when I had to return +thanks for the bridesmaids." + +"Nancy!" cries Bobby, holding out the fruit to which he alludes, and +speaking in a wobbly, quivering voice, with a painfully _literal_ +imitation of my late address, "here's--here's--here's a _peach_!" + +But I am burying my face in Sir Roger's shoulder, like a shy child. + +"I _like_ you!" I say, creeping up quite close to him. "You were the +only one that came to help me. If it had not been for _you_, I should be +there still!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +The bag-affair is quite an old one now--a fortnight old. The bag itself +has, I believe, retired into the decent privacy of a cupboard, nor is it +much more likely to reissue thence than was one of the frail nuns built +into the wall in the old times likely to come stepping out again. Bobby +has at length ceased to offer me every object which it devolves upon him +to hand me, with a quavering voice and a prolonged stammer, since, +though I was at first excellently vulnerable by this weapon of offense, +I am now becoming _hornily_ hard and indifferent to it. We have stepped +over the boundaries of June into July. + +Yes, June has gone to look for all its dead brothers, wherever--since +they say nothing is ever really lost--they lie with their stored sweets. +To me, this has been as merry and good a June as any one of my nineteen. + +Sir Roger is beginning to talk of going home--_his_ home, that is--but +rather diffidently and tentatively, as if not quite sure whether the +proposal will meet with favor in my eyes. He need not be nervous on this +point. I, too, am rather anxious and eager to see my house--_my_ house, +if you please!--I, who have never hitherto possessed any larger +residence than a doll's house, whose whole front wall opened at once, +giving one an improbably simultaneous view of kitchen-range, best +four-poster, and drawing-room chairs. I have, it is true, seen +photographs of my new house, photographs of its east front, of its west +front--photographs, in its park, of the great old cedar; in its gardens, +of its woody pool--but, to tell you the truth, I want to see _it._ I +have already planned a house-warming, and invited them all to it, a +house-warming in which--oh, absurd!--_I_ shall sit at the head of the +table, and father and mother only at the sides--_I_ shall tell the +people who they are to take in to dinner, and nod my head from the top +when dessert is ended. + +To-day lam going to write and secure the Brat's company--that is, later +in the day--but now it is quite, _quite_, early, even the letters have +not come in. We have all--viz., the boys, the girls, and I--risen (in +pursuance of a plan made overnight) preternaturally early, almost as +early as I did on my wedding-morning, and are going out to gather +mushrooms in the meadow, by the river. Indignation against the +inhabitants of the neighboring town is what has torn us from our morning +dreams, the greedy townsfolk, by whom, on every previous occasion, we +have found our meadow rifled before we could reach it. To-day we shall, +at least, meet them on equal terms. We are all rather gapy at first, +more especially Algy, who has deferred the making of the greater part of +his toilet till his return, looks disheveled, and sounds grumbling But +before long both gapes and grumbles depart. + +Who would see the day when he is old, and stale, and shabby, when, like +us, they could come out to meet him as he walks across the meadow with a +mantle of dew wrapped round him, and a garland of paling rose-clouds, +that an hour ago were crimson, about his head? + +The place toward which we tend is at some little distance, and our road +thither leads through all manner of comely rustic places, flowered +fields, where the buttercups crowd their little varnished cups, and the +vigilant ox-eyes are already wakefully staring up from among the +grass-spears; a little wood; a deep and ruddy-colored lane, along whose +unpruned hedges straggle the riches of the wild-rose, most delicately +flushed, as if God in passing had called her very good, and she had +reddened at his praise; where the honey-suckle, too, is holding stilly +aloft the open cream-colored trumpets and closed red trumpet-buds of her +heaven-sweet crown. + +In an instant Tou Tou is scrawling and scrambling like a great spider up +the steep bank: in an instant more she is tugging, tearing, devastating; +while the faint petals that no mightiest king can restore, but that any +infant with a touch can destroy, are showering in scented ruin around +her. It gives me a pain to see it, as if I saw some sentient thing in +agony. I think I feel, with Walter Savage Landor-- + + "I never pluck the rose; the violet's head + Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank + And not reproached me: the ever-sacred cup + Of the pure lily hath between my hands + Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold." + +"You will have your basket filled before we get there," I say, +remonstrating, but she does not heed me. + +Hot and scratched--at least I am glad that in their death-pain they were +able to scratch her--she still tugs and mauls. I walk on. We reach the +meadow. Well, at least _to-day_ we are in time. It has the silence and +solitude of the dawn of Creation's first still day, broken only by the +sheep that are cropping + + "The slant grass, and daisies pale." + +The slow, smooth river washes by, sucking in among the rushes. Our +footsteps show plainly shaped as we step along through the hoary dew. We +separate--going one this way, one that--and, in silence and gravity, +pace with bent heads and down-turned eyes through the fine, short grass. +Excitement and emulation keep us dumb, for let who will--_blase_ and +used up--deny it, but there is an excitement, wholesome and hearty, in +_seeking_, and a joy pure and unadulterated in finding, mushrooms in a +probable field in the hopeful morning; whether the mushroom be a +patriarch whose gills are browned with age, and who is big enough to be +an umbrella for the fairy people, or a little milk-white button, half +hidden in daisies and trefoil. Sometimes a cry of rage and anguish +bursts from one or other of us who has been the dupe of a puff-ball +family, and who is satiating his or her revenge by stamping on the +deceiver's head, and reducing its fair, round proportions to a fiat and +fleshy pulp. We search long and diligently, and our efforts are blessed +with an unwonted success. By the time that the sun has attained height +enough in the heavens to make his power tyrannically felt, our baskets +are filled. Tou Tou has to throw away her wild-roses, limp and flaccid, +into the dust of the lane. We walk home, singing, and making poor jokes, +as is our wont. As we draw near the house with joyful foretastes of +breakfast in our minds, with redly-flushed cheeks and merry eyes, I see +Sir Roger leaning on the stone balustrade of the terrace, looking as if +he were watching for us, and, indeed, no sooner does he catch sight of +us, than he comes toward us. + +"Do you like mushrooms?" cry I, at the top of my voice, long before I +have reached him, holding up my basket triumphantly. "See, I have got +the most of anybody, except Tou Tou!" + +I have met him by the end of this sentence. + +"Do you like mushrooms?" I repeat, lifting the lid, and giving him a +peep into the creamy and pink-colored treasures inside, "oh, you _must_! +if you do not, I shall have a _divorce_! I could not bear a difference +of opinion upon such a subject." + +I have never given him time to speak, and now I look with appealing +laughter into his silent face. + +"Why, what is the matter?" I cry, with an abrupt change of tone. "What +has happened? How odd you look!" + +"Nothing has happened," he answers, trying to smile, but I see that it +is quite against the grain, "only that I have had some not very pleasant +news." + +"It is not any thing about--about the _Brat_!" cry I, stopping suddenly, +seizing his arm with both hands, and turning, as I feel, extremely pale, +while my thoughts fly to the only one of my beloveds that is out of my +sight. + +"About the _Brat_!" he echoes in surprise, "oh, dear no! nothing!" + +"Then I do not much care _who_ is dead?" I answer, unfeelingly, drawing +a long breath; "he is the only person _out_ of this house whose death +would afflict me much, and I do not think that there is any one besides +_us_ that _you_ are very devoted to, is there?" + +"Why are you so determined that some one is _dead_?" he asks, smiling +again, but this time a little more naturally; "is there nothing +vexatious in the world but _death_?" + +"Yes," say I, laughing, despite myself, as my thoughts revert to my late +employment, "there are _puff-balls!_"--then, ashamed of having been +flippant, and afraid of having been unsympathetic, I add hastily: "I +wish you would tell me what it is! I am sure, _when I hear_, I shall be +vexed too; but you see as long as I do not know what it is, I cannot, +can I?" + +"There is no time now," he says, glancing toward father, whose head +appears through the dining-room windows. "See! they are going to +breakfast!--afterward I will tell you--afterward--and child--" (putting +his hands on my shoulders, and essaying to look at me with an altogether +cheered and careless face,) "do not you worry your head about it!--eat +your breakfast with an easy mind; after all, it is nothing very bad!--it +could not be any thing _very_ bad, as long as--." He stops abruptly, and +adds hastily, "let us have a look at your mushrooms! well, you _have_ a +quantity!" + +"Yes, have not I?" say I, triumphantly, "more than any of them, except +Tou Tou--." Then, not quite satisfied with the impression our late talk +has left upon me: "General!" say I, lowering my face and reddening, "I +hope you do not think that I am _quite_ a baby because I like childish +things--gathering mushrooms--running about with the boys--talking to +Jacky. I can understand serious things _too_, I assure you. I think I +could enter into your trouble--I think, if you gave me the chance, that +you would find that I could!" + +Then a sort of idiotic false shame overtakes me, and without waiting for +his answer I disappear. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +I meet Bobby retiring to the kitchen to cook his mushrooms himself. He +invites me to join him, but I refuse. It is the first time in the annals +of history that I was ever known to say no to such an offer. Bobby +regards me with reproachful anger, and makes a muffled remark, the drift +of which I understand to be that, though I may _pretend_ not to be, I +_am_ grown fine, as he always said I should. To-day it seems to me as if +breakfast would _never_ end. It is one of our fixed laws that no one +shall leave the table until father gives the signal by saying grace. +Sometimes, when he is in one of his unfortunate moods, he keeps us all +staring at our empty cups and platters for half an hour. To-day I watch +with warm anxiety the progress downward of the tea in his cup. At last +he has come to the grounds. He lays down the _Times_. We all joyfully +half bow our heads, in expectation of the wonted "For what we have +received." etc., but speedily and disappointedly raise them again. + +"Jane, can you spare me another cup?" and reburies himself in a long +leader. Behind the shelter of the great sheet, I make a hideous +contortion across the table at Sir Roger, who has fallen with great +docility into our ways, and is looking back at me now with that gentle, +steadfast serenity which is the leading characteristic of his face, but +which this morning is, I cannot help thinking, a dood [Transcriber's +note: sic] deal disturbed, hard as he is trying to hide it. There are, +thank Heaven, no more false starts. Next time that he lays down the +paper, we are all afraid to bend our heads, for fear that the movement +shall break the charm, and induce him to send for a fourth cup--he has +already had _three_--but no! release has come at last. + +"For what we have received the Lord make us truly thankful!" + +Almost before we have reached "thankful," there is a noise of several +chairs pushed back. Before you could say "knife!" we are all out of the +room. All but Sir Roger! In deference, I suppose, to the feelings of the +friend of his infancy, and not to appear _too_ anxious to leave him--Sir +Roger ought to have married Barbara, they two are always thinking of +other people's feelings--he delays a little, and indeed they emerge +together and find me sitting on one of the uncomfortable, stiff +hall-chairs, on which nobody ever sits. To my dismay, I hear father say +something about the chestnut colt's legs, and I know that another delay +is in store for me. Sir Roger comes over to me, and takes his wide-awake +from the stand beside me. + +"We are going to the stables," he says, patting my shoulder. + +I make a second hideous face. Often have I been complimented by the +boys, on the flexibility of my features. + +"I shall be back in ten minutes," he says, in a low voice; "will you +wait for me in the morning-room?" + +"I suppose I must," say I, reluctantly, with a disgusted and +disappointed drawing down of the corners of my mouth. + +Ten minutes pass; twenty, five-and-twenty! Still he has not come back. I +walk up and down the room; I look out of window at the gardeners rolling +the grass; I rend a large and comely rose into tatters, while all manner +of unpleasant possibilities stalk along in order before my mind's eye. +Perhaps Tempest is burnt down. Perhaps some bank, in which he has put +all his money, has broken. Perhaps he has found out that his brother is +not _really_ dead after all! I dismiss this last _worst_ suggestion as +improbable. The door opens, and he enters. + +"Here you are!" I cry, making a joyous rush at him. "I thought you were +never coming! Please, is _that_ your idea of ten minutes?" + +"I could not help it," he answers; "he kept me talking; I could not get +away any sooner." + +"Why did you go?" say I, dutifully. "Why did not you say, when he asked +you, 'No, I will not?' He would have done it to you as soon as look at +you." + +"That would have been so polite to one's host and father-in-law, would +not it?" he answers, a little ironically. "After all, Nancy, where is +the use of vexing people for nothing?" + +"Not _people_ generally," reply I, still chafed; "but I _should_ like +some one who was not his child, and in whom it would not be +disrespectful, to pay him out for keeping us all as he did this morning; +he knew as well as possible that we were dying to be off; _that_ was why +he had that last cup: he did not _want_ it any more than I did. He did +not drink it; did not you see? he left three-quarters of it." + +Sir Roger does not answer, unless a slight shrug and a passing his hand +across his face with a rather dispirited gesture be an answer. I feel +ashamed of my petulance. + +"Do you feel inclined to tell me about your ill news?" I say, gently, +going over to him, and putting my hand on his shoulder. "I have been +making so many guesses as to what it can be?" + +"Have you?" he says, looking up. "I dare say. Well, I will tell you. Do +you remember--I dare say you do not--my once mentioning to you that I +had some property in the West Indies--in Antigua?" + +I nod. + +"To be sure I do; I recollect I had not an idea where Antigua was, and I +looked out for it at once in Tou Tou's atlas." + +"Well, a fortnight--three weeks ago--it was when we were in Dresden, I +had a letter telling me of the death of my agent out there. I knew +nothing about him personally--had never seen him--but he had long been +in my poor brother's employment, and was very highly thought of by him." + +"_Poor_ brother!" think I; "well, thank Heaven! at least _he_ has not +revived; he would not be 'poor' if he had," but I say only, "Yes?" with +a delicately interrogative accent. + +"And to-day comes this letter"--(pulling one out of his pocket)-- +"telling me that now that his affairs have been looked into, they are +found to be in the greatest confusion--that he has died bankrupt, in +fact; and not only _that_, but that he has been cheating me right and +left for years and years, appropriating the money which ought to have +been spent on the estate to his own uses; and, as misfortunes never come +single, I also hear"--(unfolding the sheet, and glancing rather +disconsolately over it)--"that there has been a hurricane, which has +destroyed nearly all the sugar-canes." + +The thought of _Job_ and his successive misfortunes instantly occurs to +me--the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, the great wind from the wilderness--but +being a little doubtful as to his example having a very consoling +effect, with some difficulty, and at the cost of a great pressure +exercised on myself, I abstain from mentioning him. + +"To make a long story short," continues Sir Roger, "and not to bother +you with unnecessary details--" + +"But indeed they would not bother me," interrupt I, eagerly, putting my +hand through his arm, and turning my face anxiously up to him; "I should +_enjoy_ hearing them. I wish you would not think that all sensible, +sober things _bother_ me." + +"My dear," he says, gently pinching my cheek, "I think nothing of the +kind, but I know that not all the explanations in the world will alter +the result, which is, that I shall not get a farthing from the property +_this_ year, and very likely not _next_ either." + +"You do not say so!" cry I, trying to impart a tragic tone to my voice, +and only hoping that my face _looks_ more distressed and aghast than it +feels. + +To tell you the truth, I am mightily relieved. At this period of my +history, money troubles seem to me the lightest and airiest of all +afflictions. I have sat down, and Sir Roger is walking up and down, with +a restlessness unlike his usual repose; on his face there is a vexed and +thwarted look, that is unfamiliar to me. The old parrot sits in the sun, +outside his cage, scratching his head, and chuckling to himself. Tou +Tou's voice comes ringing from the garden. It has a tone of mingled +laughter and pain, which tells me that she is undergoing severe and +searching discipline at the hands of Bobby. + +"I suppose," say I, presently, speaking with some diffidence, "that +_that_ is _all_. Of course I do not mean to say that it is not very bad, +but is there nothing _worse_?" + +"Is not it _bad enough_?" he asks, half laughing. "What did you expect?" + +"You know," say I, still hesitatingly, "I have not an idea _how_ well +off you are; I mean, how much a year you have. Mercenary as I am"-- +(laughing nervously)--"I never thought of asking you; but I suppose, +even if the earth were to open and swallow Antigua--even if there were +no such things as West Indies--we should still have money enough to buy +us bread and cheese, should not we?" + +"Well, it is to be hoped so," he answers, a gleam of amusement flashing +like a little sunshiny arrow across his vexation; "it would be a bad +lookout for you and me, would not it, considering the size of our +appetites, if we should not?" + +A little pause. Tou Tou's voice again. The anguish has conquered the +laughter, and is now mixed with a shrill treble wrath. Polly is +alternately barking like Vick, and laughing with a quiet amusement at +his own performance. + +"Do you think," say I, still airing my opinion with timidity, as one +that has no great opinion of their worth, "that it does one much good to +be rich beyond a certain point?--that a large establishment, for +instance, gives one much pleasure? I am sure it does not in _our_ case; +if you were to know the number of nails that the servants and their +iniquities have knocked into mother's coffin--yes, and father's, too." + +"Have they?" (a little absently). He is still pacing up and down +restlessly--to and fro--along and across--he that is usually so innocent +of fidget or fuss. "Nancy," he says, half seriously, half in rueful +jest, "if you want a thing done, do it yourself: mind that, all your +life. I am a standing instance of the disadvantage of having let other +people do it for me. The fact is, I ought to have gone out there long +ago, to look after things myself." + +"If you _had_ been there, you could not have stopped the hurricane +coming, any more than Canute could stop the waves," say I, filching a +piece of history from "Little Arthur," and pushing it to the front. + +He smiles. + +"Not the hurricane--no; but the hurricane was the lesser evil. I might +have done something to avert, or, at least, lessen the greater one. To +tell the truth, I meant to have gone out there this spring--had, indeed, +almost fixed upon a day for starting, when--_you_ stopped me." + +"_I!_" + +"Yes," he says, pausing in his walk in front of me, and looking at me +with a face full of sunshine, content, and laughter; a face whence +hurricanes, West Indies, and agents have altogether fled; "you called me +a '_beast_,' and the expression startled me so much--I suppose from not +being used to it--that it sent the West Indies, yes, and the East ones +too, clean out of my head." + +"I hope," say I, anxiously, "that you will never tell any one that I +said _that_. They would think that I was in the habit of calling people +''_beasts_', and indeed--_indeed_, I very seldom use so strong a word, +_even_ to Bobby." + +"Well," he says, not heeding my request, not, I am sure, hearing it, and +resuming his walk, "what is done cannot be undone, so there is no use +whining about it, Nancy" (again stopping before me, and this time taking +my face in his two hands). "Will you mind much, or will you not?--do you +ever mind _any thing much_, I wonder?" (eagerly and wistfully scanning +my face, as if trying to read my character through the mask of my pale +skin, and small and unremarkable features). "Well, there is no help for +it--as I did not go then, I must go now." + +"Go!" repeat I, panting in horrid surprise, "go where?--to Antigua?" + +"Yes, to Antigua." + +No need now to dress my voice in the tones of factitious tragedy--no +need to lengthen my face artificially. It feels all of a sudden quite a +yard and a half long. Polly has stopped barking: he is now calling, +"Barb'ra! Barbara!" in father's voice, and he hits off the pompous +severity of his tone with such awful accuracy, that did not my eyes +assure me to the contrary, I could swear that my parent was in the room. + +After a moment I rise, throw my arms round Sir Roger, and lay my head on +his breast--a most unwonted caress on my part, for we are not a couple +by any means given to endearments. + +"Do not go!" I say in a coaxing whisper, "do nothing of the kind!--stay +at home!" + +"And will _you_ go instead of me?" he asks with a gentle irony, +stroking, the while, my plaits as delicately as if he were afraid that +they would _come off_, which indeed, _indeed_, they would not. + +"By myself," say I, laughing, but not raising my head. + +"Oh! of course; nothing I should like better, and I should be so +invaluable in mending the sugar-canes, and keeping the new agent on his +P's and Q's, should not I?" + +He laughs. + +"Stay!" say I, again whispering, as being more persuasive; "where would +be the use of going _now_? It would be shutting the stable-door after +the steed was stolen, and--" (this in a still lower voice)--"we are +beginning to get on so nicely, too." + +"Beginning!" he echoes, with a half-melancholy smile, "only _beginning_ +have not we always got on nicely?" + +"And if we are poorer," continue I, insinuatingly, "I believe we shall +get on better still. I am sure that poor people are fonder of one +another than rich ones--they have less to distract them from each +other." + +I have now raised my head, and perceive that Sir Roger does not look +very much convinced. + +"But granting that poverty _is_ better than riches, do you believe that +it _is_, Nancy?--for my part I doubt it--for myself I will own to you +that I have found it pleasant not to be obliged to look at sixpence upon +both sides; but _that_" he says with straightforward simplicity, "is +perhaps because I have not long been used to it--because once, long ago, +I wanted money badly--I would have given my right hand for it, and could +not get it!" + +"What did you want it for?" cry I, curiously, pricking my ears, and for +a moment forgetting my private troubles in the hope of a forthcoming +anecdote. + +"Ah! would not you like to know?" he says, playfully, but he does not +explain: instead, he goes on: "Even granting that it is so, do you think +it would be very manly to let a fine estate run to ruin, because one was +too lazy to look after it? Do you think it would be quite _honest_-- +quite fair to those that will come after us?" + +"_Those that will come after us_!" cry I, scornfully, making a face for +the third and last time this morning. "And who are they, pray? Some +sixteenth cousin of yours, I suppose?" + +"Nancy," he says, gravely, but in a tone whose gentleness takes all +harshness from the words, "you are talking nonsense, and you know as +well as I do that you are!" + +Then I know that I may as well be silent. After a pause: + +"And when," say I, in as lamentable a voice as King Darius sent down +among the lions in search of Daniel--"how soon, I mean, are we to set +off?" + +"_We_!" he cries, a sudden light springing into his eyes, and an accent +of keen pleasure into his voice. "Do you mean to say that _you_ thought +of coming too?" + +I look up in surprise. + +"Do not wives generally go with their husbands?" + +"But would you _like_ to come?" he asks, seizing my hands, and pressing +them with such unconscious eagerness, that my wedding-ring makes a red +print in its neighborfinger. + +O friends, I wish to Heaven that I had told a lie! It would have been, I +am sure, one of the cases in which a lie would have been justifiable-- +nay, praiseworthy, too. But, standing there, under the truth of his +eyes, I have to be true, too. + +"Like!" say I, evasively, casting down my eyes, and fiddling uneasily +with one of the buttons of his coat, "it is hardly a question of +'_like_,' is it? I do not imagine that you _like_ it much yourself?--one +cannot always be thinking of what one likes." + +The pressure of his fingers on mine slackens; and, though, thanks to my +wedding-ring, it was painful, I am sorry. After a minute: + +"But you have not," say I, trying to speak in a tone of light and airy +cheerfulness, "answered my question yet--how soon we must set off? You +know what a woman always thinks of first--her _clothes_, and I must be +seeing to my packing." + +"The sooner the better," he answers, with a preoccupied look. "Not later +than ten days hence!" + +"_Ten days_!" + +Again my jaw falls. He has altogether loosed my hands now, and resumed +his walk. I sit down by the table, lean my elbows on it, and push my +fingers through my hair in most dejected musing. Polly has been dressing +himself; turning his head over his shoulder, and arranging his feathers +with his aquiline nose. He has finished now, and has just given vent, in +a matter-of-fact, unemotional voice, to an awful oath! There is the +sound of brisk feet on the sunny gravel outside. Bobby's face looks in +at the window--broad, sunburnt, and laughing. + +"Well! what is up now?" cries he, catching a glimpse of my disconsolate +attitude. "You look as if the fungi had disagreed with you!" + +"Then appearances are deceitful," reply I, trying to be merry, "for they +have not." + +He has only glanced in upon us in passing: he is gone again now. I +rebury my hands in my locks, which, instead of a highly-cultivated +garden, I am rapidly making into a wilderness. + +"I suppose," say I, in a tone which fitly matches the length of my face, +"that Bobby will have got a ship before I come back; I hope they will +not send him to any very unhealthy station--Hong-Kong, or the Gold +Coast." + +"I hope not." + +"What port shall we sail from?" + +"Southampton." + +"And how long--about how long will the voyage be?" + +"About seventeen days to Antigua." + +"And how long"--(still in the same wretched and resignedly melancholy +voice)--"shall we have to stay there?" + +"It depends upon the state in which I find things?" + +A good long pause. My elbows are growing quite painful, from the length +of time during which they have been digging into the hard _marqueterie_ +table, and my hair is as wild as a red Indian's. _Ten_ days! ten little +galloping days, and then _seventeen_ long, slow, monstrous ones! +_Seventeen_ days at sea! seventeen days and seventeen nights, too--do +not let us forget that--of that deadly nausea, of that unspeakable +sinking of all one's inside to the very depths of creation--of the smell +of boiling oil, and the hot, sick, throbbing of engines! + +"I hope," say I, in a voice so small that I hardly recognize it for my +own, "that I shall not be _quite_ as ill all the way as I was crossing +from Calais to Dover; and the steward," continue I, in miserable +meditation, "kept telling me all the while what a fine passage we were +having, too!" + +"So we were!" + +Another pause. I am still thinking of the horrid theme; living over +again my nearly-forgotten agonies. + +"Do you remember," say I, presently, "hearing about that Lady Somebody-- +I forget her name--but she was the wife of one Governor-General of +India, and she always suffered so much from sea-sickness that she +thought she should suffer less in a sailing-vessel, and so returned from +India in one, and just as she came in sight of the shores of England +_she died_!" + +As I reach this awful climax, I open my eyes very wide, and sink my +voice to a tragic depth. + +"The moral is--" says Sir Roger, stopping beside me, laying his hand on +my chair back, and regarding me with a mixture of pain and diversion in +his eyes, "stick to steam!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +A heavy foot along the passage, a hand upon the door, a hatted head +looking in. + +"Roger," says father, in that laboriously amiable voice in which he +always addresses his son-in-law, "sorry to interrupt you, but could you +come here for a minute--will not keep you long." + +"All right!" cries Sir Roger, promptly. + +(How _can_ he speak in that flippantly cheerful voice, with the prospect +of seventeen days' sea before him?) + +"Now, where did I put my hat, Nancy? did you happen to notice?" + +"It is here," say I, picking it up from the window-seat, and handing it +to him with lugubrious solemnity. + +As he reaches the door, following father, he turns and nods to me with a +half-humorous smile. + +"Cheer up," he says, "it shall not be a sailing-vessel." + +He is gone, and I return to my former position, and my former +occupation, only that now--the check of Sir Roger's presence being +removed--I indulge in two or three good hearty groans. To think how +the look of all things is changed since this morning! + +As we came home through the fields singing, if any one had given me +three wishes, I should have been puzzled what to ask--and _now_! All the +good things I am going to lose march in gloomy procession before my +mind. _No house-warming!_ It will have to be put off till we come back, +and, by the time that we come back, Bobby will almost certainly have +been sent to some foreign station for three or four years. And who knows +what may happen before he returns? Perhaps--for I am in the mood when +all adversities seem antecedently probable--he will _never_ come back. +Perhaps never again shall I be the willing victim of his buffets, never +again shall I buffet him in return. + +And the _sea_! It is all very fine for Sir Roger to take it so easily, +to laugh and make unfeeling jokes at my expense! _He_ does not lie on +the flat of his back, surrounded by the horrid paraphernalia of +sea-sickness. _He_ walks up and down, with his hands in his pockets, +smoking a cigar, and talking to the captain. _He_ cares nothing for the +heaving planks. The taste of the salt air gives _him_ an appetite. An +_appetite_! Oh, prodigious! I must say I think he might have been a +_little_ more feeling, might have expressed himself a _little_ more +sympathetically. + +By dint of thinking over Sir Roger's iniquities on this head, I +gradually work myself up into such a state of righteous indignation and +injury against him, that when, after a longish interval, the door again +opens to readmit him, I affect neither to see nor hear him, nor be in +anyway conscious of his presence. Through the chinks of my fingers, +dolorously spread over my face, I see that he has sat down on the other +side of the table, just opposite me, and that he is smiling in the same +unmirthful, gently sarcastic way, as he was when he left me. + +"Nancy," he says, "I have been thinking what a pity it is that I have +not a _yacht_! We might have taken our own time then, and done it +enjoyably--made quite a pleasure-trip of it." + +I drop my hands into my lap. + +"People's ideas of pleasure differ," I say, with trite snappishness. + +"Yes," he answers, a little sadly, "no two people look at any thing in +_quite_ the same way, do they?--not even husband and wife." + +"I suppose not," say I, still thinking of the steward. + +"Do you know," he says, leaning his arms and his crossed hands on the +table between us, and steadfastly regarding me, "that I never saw you +look miserable before, never? I did not even know that you _could_!" + +"I am not _miserable_" I answer, rather ashamed of myself, "that is far +too strong a word! Of course I am a little disappointed." Then I mumble +off into an indistinctness, whence the nouns "House--warming," "Bobby," +"Gold Coast," crop out audibly. + +"After all," he says, still regarding me, and speaking kindly, yet a +little coldly too, "you need not look so woebegone. They say second +thoughts are best, do not they? Well, I have been thinking second +thoughts, and--I have altered my mind." + +"You are going to stay at home?" cry I, at the top of my voice, jumping +up in an ecstasy, and beginning to clap my hands. + +"No," he says, gently, "not quite _that_, as I explained to you before, +that is impossible: but--do not be downcast--something nearly as good. I +am going to leave _you_ at home!" + +To leave me at home! My first feeling is one of irrepressible relief. No +sea! no steward! no courtesying ship! no swaying waves after all! Then +comes a quick and strong revulsion, shame, mortification, and pain. + +"To--leave--me--at home!" I repeat slowly, hardly yet grasping the idea, +"to--go--_without_--me!--by yourself?" + +"By myself," he answers, gently. "You see, it is no thing to me. I have +been by myself for forty-seven years." + +A quick, remorseful pain runs through my heart. + +"But you are not by yourself any longer," I cry, eagerly. "Why do you +talk as if you were? Do you count _me_ for nothing?" + +"For nothing?" he answers, smiling quietly. "I am glad of an excuse to +be rid of you for a bit--that is it!" + +"But _is_ that it?" cry I, excitedly, rising and running round to him. +"If you are sure of that--if you will _swear_ it to me--I will not say +another word. I will hold my tongue, and try to bear as well as I can, +your having grown tired of me so soon--but--" speaking more slowly, and +hesitating, "if--if--it is that you fancied--you thought--you imagined-- +that I did not _want_ to come with you--" + +"My dear," he says, laughing not at all bitterly, but with a genuine +amusement, "I should have been even less bright than I am, if I had not +gathered that much." + +I sink down on a chair, and cover my face with my hands. My _attitude_ +is the same as it was ten minutes ago, but oh, how different are my +feelings! What bitter repentance, what acute self-contempt, invade my +soul! As I so sit, I feel an arm round my waist. + +"Nancy," says Sir Roger, "it was ill-naturedly said; do not fret about +it; you were not in the least to blame. I should not like you half so +much--should not think nearly so well of you, if you had been willing to +give up all your own people, to throw them lightly over, all of a +sudden, for a comparative stranger, treble your age, too"--(with a +sigh)--"like me." + +He generously ignores the selfish fear of sea-sickness, of _personal_ +suffering, which had occupied the fore-front of my mind. + +"It will be much, _much_ better, and a far more sensible plan for both +of us," he continues, cheerfully. "Where would be the use of exposing +you to the discomfort and misery of what you hate most on earth for no +possible profit? I shall not be long away, shall be back almost before +you realize that I am gone, and meanwhile I should be far happier +thinking of you merry, and enjoying yourself with your brothers and +sisters at Tempest, than I should be seeing you bored and suffering, +with no one but me to amuse you--you know, dear--" (smiling pensively); +"do not be angry with me, it was no fault of yours; but you _did_ grow +rather tired of me at Dresden." + +"I did not! I did not!" cry I, bursting into a passion of tears, and +asseverating all the more violently because I feel, with a sting of +remorse, that there is a tiny grain of truth--not so large a one as he +thinks, but still a _grain_ in his accusations. "It seemed rather +_quiet_ at first--I had always been used to such a noisy house, and I +missed the boys' chatter a little, perhaps; but _indeed_, INDEED, that +was all!" + +"Was it? I dare say! I dare say!" he says, soothingly. + +"You shall _not_ leave me behind," say I, still weeping with stormy +bitterness. "I _will not_ be left behind! What business have you to go +without me? Am I to be only a fair-weather wife to you? to go shares in +all your pleasant things, and then--when any thing hard or disagreeable +comes--to be left out. I tell you" (looking up at him with streaming +eyes) "that I _will not_! I WILL NOT!" + +"My darling!" he says, looking most thoroughly concerned, I do not fancy +that crying women have formed a large part of his life-experience--"you +misunderstand me! I will own to you, that five minutes ago I did you an +injustice; but _now_ I know, I am thoroughly convinced, that you would +follow me without a murmur or a sulky look to the world's end--and" +(laughing) "be frightfully sea-sick all the way; but" (kindly patting my +heaving shoulder) "do you think that I want to be hampered with a little +invalid? and, supposing that I took you with me, whom should I have to +look after things at Tempest, and keep them straight for me against I +come home?" + +"I know what it is," I cry, passionately clinging round his neck, "you +think I do not like you! I _see_ it! twenty times a day, in a hundred +things that you do and leave undone! but indeed, _indeed_, you never +were more mistaken in all your life! I will own to you that I did not +care _very_ much about you at first. I thought you good, and kind, and +excellent, but I was not _fond_ of you; but _now_, every day, every hour +that I live, I like you better! Ask Barbara, ask the boys if I do not! I +like you ten thousand times better than I did the day I married you!" + +"_Like_ me!" he repeats a little dreamily, looking with a strong and +bitter yearning into my eyes; then, seeing that I am going to +asseverate, "for God's sake, child," he says, hastily, "do not tell me +that you _love_ me, for I know it is not true! you can no more help it +than I can help caring for you in the idiotic, mad way, that I do! +Perhaps, on some blessed, far-off day, you may be able to say so, and I +to believe it, but not now!--_not now_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +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. + +"What _is_ up?" cries Bobby, advancing toward me with an overpowering +curiosity, not unmixed with admiration, legible on his burnt face; "what +_has_ summoned 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 not _what_?" + +"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 not _this moment_ +stop sighing like a wind-mill 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 a _jelly_!" + +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 is _so_ changed, and I know I shall miss +him _so_ much!" 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 I_" 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--a _black_ one--and he thinks it is _her_ turn +now!" + +Barbara says, "Hush!" and Tou Tou is beginning to embark on a long +argument to prove that a man _cannot_ have more than one wife at a time, +when she is summarily _hustled_ into 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 +mantelshelf. + +"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 from +_you_, would not it?" + +"And you are to be left _alone_ at 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 _of ghosts_?" + +"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 feel _at all_ lonely," 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 keep _all_ his 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, "_have_ a +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 have _one_ of you!" cry I, rising with a face pale, as I +feel with anger--with flashing eyes and a trembling voice, "not _one_ of +you shall enter his doors, except Barbara!--I _hate_ you _all!_--you are +all g--g--_glad_ that 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," + +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!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +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, if _alone_, than if weighted by a +woman, and a woman's paraphernalia, and also on the desirability of +having in me a _locum tenens_ for 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 on _then?_" + +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 minded _that_ much--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, they _shall not_ give a ball!" say I, resolutely, "but"--(in a +tone of melancholy helplessness)--"they may throw down _all_ the +horses, for any thing _I_ can do to prevent them! A horse's knees would +have to be _very much broken_ before 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 +expect _him_ to 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?" + +"_That_ I 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. + +"By _Christmas_!" interrupt I, aghast, "one, two, three, four, _five_ +months--but you _must_!--you MUST!" clasping both hands on his arm. + +"I hope I shall, certainly," replies he; "but one never knows what may +happen! If I am _not_--" + +"But you _must_," 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 a _sailing-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--_quite_ happy, 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--_I_ do 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 you _now_, 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, nay +_three_, for I shall 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. _He_ has 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! I _must_ utter 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!" I _cannot_ stand another repast--three times longer than the +last too--for one _can_ abridge 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 have _tea_ in 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? Am I not +living by myself at a _hall_? + +Vick recognizes him at about the same moment as I do. Having first +sprung at him with that volubility of small but hostile _yaps_, with +which she strikes terror into the hearts of tramps, she has now--having +_smelt_ him 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'm _so_ glad!" + +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 do _you_ know? +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 are _alone_--Sir Roger has left you quite _alone_ here?" + +"Yes," say I, lachrymosely; "is not it _dreadful?_ I never was so +miserable in my life; I do not think I _ever_ was by myself for a +_whole_ night 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 gives _such_ cracks!" + +"And--he has gone _by 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 it _is_ difficult 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." + +"But _you_" 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, "I _wished_ to 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; if _you_ were dying to go, and _he_ were +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 yourself _all_ the 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 _the first_ turn?" 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 Barbara _were_ to have come to-day," reply I, feeling a covert +resentment against something of faintly _gibing_ in 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 they _had_, +should I be sitting moping here with nobody but Vick to talk to?" + +"You forget _me!_ may I not run in couples even with a _dog?_" 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 rather _odd_, 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 of _father_, 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? +for _none_--he never has any reasons, or if he has, he does not give +them. I sometimes think" (laughing maliciously) "that _you_ will not be +unlike him, when you grow old and gouty." + +"Thank you." + +"_You_ have 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 it _too_ much, 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). + +"Not _certainly_, 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 are _sore!_ You may not believe me" (passing my bare fingers +lightly over them as I speak), "but they feel quite _raw_. I wonder" +(with a little dismal laugh) "why tears were made _salt_!--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 a _dark_ night!" 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 they _will_,'" cry I, petulantly; "they _must_! I cannot do without +them! I believe some people do not _mind_ being alone--not even in the +evenings, when the furniture cracks and the door-handles rattle. I dare +say _you_ do 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--_too_ much, 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. "_You_ will be by +yourself too, will not you? Tell me" (speaking with lowered confidential +tone), "do _your_ chairs and tables ever make odd noises?" + +"Awful!" he answers, laughing. "I can hardly bear 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 are _going_ to 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! +What _should_ I 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 they _do not_ come to-morrow--" + +"_Fourth time_!" interject I, counting on my fingers and smiling. + +"If you _wish_--if you _like_--if it would be any comfort to you--I +shall be happy--! mean I shall be very glad to come up again about the +same time to-morrow evening." + +"_Will_ you?" (eagerly, with a great accession of exhilaration in my +voice). "Are you serious? I shall be so much obliged if you will, but--" + +"It is _impossible_ that any one can say any thing-," he interrupts, +hastily. "There _could_ be 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! _but_ you will most +likely forget I Do not!" I continue, bringing down my eyes again, and +speaking in a coaxing tone. "If you do, it will be play to you, but +_death_ to me; the thought of it will keep me up all the day!" + +"Will it?" in a tone of elated eagerness. "You are not _gibing_, 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 hands _again_ for? +We have done that _twice_ already. You are like the man who, the moment +he had finished reading prayers to his family, began them all over +again. _Mind_ you do not forget! and" (laughing) "if you cannot come +yourself, _send some one else! any one_ will do--I am not particular, +but I _must_ have _some one_ to 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Suppose that in all this world, during all its ages, there never was a +case of a person being _always_ in an ill-humor. I believe that even +Nantippe 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 longer _raw_; 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. If _he_ +is 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 he _had_ an 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 more _married_ than 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 grow + Before rude hands have touched it? + Have you marked but the fall of the snow + Before the soil hath smutched it? + Have you felt the wool of the beaver + Or 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 a _bonnet_? + +"I wish that people might be allowed to go to church without their +bonnets these hot Sundays," I say, grumblingly. "_You_ especially, +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 think _where_ we 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 a _pis aller_, I look +at Algy. No absorption in prayer on _his_ part 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 at _her_ once, I look again. I could not tell you _why_ I 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 of _mauvaise +honte_ and 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 be _relays_ +of 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." + +"I _did_ hear 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. + +"You _forgot_? Ah, I told you you would!" + +"I did _not_ forget." + +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 self _cheap_, is there?" he +says, with a bitter little laugh. "What is the use of going to a place +where you are told that _any one else_ will 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. + +"You _do 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 have _never_ heard 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?-- +_Algy_ and _Barbara_?" + +"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, "_what_ St. +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, you _have_ a short memory!" + +"Have I?" he answers, dryly; "perhaps for _some_ things; for _others_ 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 of _them_! 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; with _me_ they 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 the _other_ Magdalen--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; "have _you_ forgotten 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, "he _must_ see the likeness now!" To insure his having the +chance of telling her that he does, I fall behind with Algy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +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 is my house, 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 manoeuvres, 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. + +"_Dear_ Dresden!" 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 that +_then_ I 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!" + +"_You_ had not, I dare say," reply I, carelessly, "but _we_ had. 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 have _not_ been 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 there _is_ any such history." + +"I dare say not." + +More silence. Swish through the butter-cups 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 is _not_ true," 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 is _impossible!_ I stop. I stand stock-still in the summer grass. + +"I _hate_ your 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 in _my_ case. If you had +put me on the rack, I could have confessed nothing!" + +"I do not see the analogy," he answers, coldly; "_you_ are--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 not _stir_ until 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 liar _rumor_ is--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, I _vouch_ for 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; "it _does_ seem 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 shall _certainly_ be 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 a _widow?_" 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 not _she_ ask the +same question with regard to _me?_ + +"She did not like the _sea_, perhaps," answers Frank, demurely. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +A day--two days pass. + +"More callers," say I, hearing the sound of wheels, and running to the +window; "I thought we _must_ have 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 so _determined_ to 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 uncertain _which_ to 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, but _now_ more 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 I _think_--nay, let me tell truth--I _hope_ +that in a low gown she would be _scraggy_, 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. + +_One_ hope remains to me. Perhaps she may be stupid! Certainly she is +not _affording_. + +How heavily poor Barbara is driving through the fine weather and the +_Times!_ 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. _Mine_ rushes forth like a +desolating bombshell. + +"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, she _is_ baffling! 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. + +(It _must_ have been a lie!) + +"_Your_ husband, 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 where +_mine_ is 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 of _esprit_, whose possible existence I +had not conjectured. Certainly, she showed no symptom of playfulness or +_esprit_ during our late talk. I have yet to learn that to some women, +the presence of a man--not _the_ man, but _a_ man--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 to _his_ voice, 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 a +_soldier_; one can mostly tell." + +He laughs the flattered, fluttered laugh, that _my_ rough 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 who _you_ were," 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 know +_him_?" + +"I know him! I should think so: he is quite a tame cat here." + +"Yes?" + +"Have you any _children?_" 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, she _had_ a child, and +it is _dead_. She is going to _cry_! At this awful thought, I grow +scarlet, and Algy darts a furious look at me. What _have_ I 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! + +"I am so sorry," I stammer--"I never thought--I did not know--" + +"It is of no consequence," she answers, speaking with some difficulty, +and with a slight but quite musical tremor in her voice--very different +from the ugly gulpings and catchings of the breath which always set off +_my_ tears--"but the fact is, that I _have_ one little one--and--and-- +she no longer lives with me; my husband's people have taken her; I am +sure that they meant it for the best; only--only--I am afraid I cannot +quite manage to talk of her yet" (turning away from me, and looking up +into Algy's face with a showery smile). Then, as if unable to run the +risk of any other further shock to her feelings, she rises and takes her +leave; Algy eagerly attending her to the door. + +The old deaf gentleman departs at the same time, loading Barbara with +polite parting messages to her husband, and bowing distantly to _me_. +Algy reenters presently, looking cross and ruffled. + +"You really are _too_ bad, Nancy!" he says, harshly, throwing himself +into the chair lately occupied by Mrs. Huntley. "You grow worse every +day--one would think you did it on purpose--riding rough-shod over +people's feelings." + +I stand aghast. Formerly, I used not to mind rough words; but I think +Roger must have spoilt me; they make me wince now. + +"But--but--it was not _dead!_" I say, whimpering; "it had only gone to +visit its grandmother." + +"Never you mind, my Nancy!" says Barbara, in a whisper, drawing me away +to the window, and pressing her soft, cool lips, to the flushed misery +of my cheeks; "she was not hurt a bit! her eyes were as dry as a bone!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +One more day is gone. We are one day nearer Roger's return. This is the +way in which I am growing to look at the flight of time; just as, in +Dresden, I joyfully marked each sunset, as bringing me twenty-four hours +nearer home and the boys. And now the boys are within reach; at a wish I +could have them all round me; and still, in my thoughts, I hurry the +slow days, and blame them for dawdling. With all their broad, gold +sunshine, and their rainbow-colored flowers, I wish them away. + +Alas! that life should be both so quick and so lagging! + +It is afternoon, and I am lying by myself on a cloak at the bottom of +the punt--the _unupsettable_, broad-bottomed punt. My elbow rests on the +seat, and a book is on my lap. But, in the middle of the pool, the glare +from the water is unbearably bright, but _here_, underneath those +dipping, drooped trees, the sun only filters through in little flakes, +and the shade is brown, and the reflections are so vivid that the flags +hardly know which are themselves--they, or the other flags that grow in +the water at their feet. + +A while ago I tried to read; but a private vexation of my own--a small +new one--interleaved with its details each page of the story, and made +nonsense of it. I have shut the volume, therefore, and, with my hat +tilted over my eyes, and my cheek on my hand, am watching the long blue +dragon-flies, and the numberless small peoples that inhabit the summer +air. All at once, I hear some one coming, crashing and pushing through +the woody undergrowth. Perhaps it is Algy come to say that he has +changed his mind, and that he will not go after all! No! it is only Mr. +Musgrave. I am a little disappointed, but, as my fondness for my own +company is always of the smallest, I am able to smile a sincere welcome. + +"It is you, is it?" I say, with a little intimate nod. "How did you know +where I was?" + +"Barbara told me." + +"_Barbara_, indeed!" (laughing). "I wish father could hear you." + +"I am very glad he does not." + +"And so you found her at home?" I say, with a feeling of pleased +curiosity, as to the details of the interview. (He cannot well have +volunteered the abbey _already_, can he?) + +"I suppose I may come in," he says, hardly waiting my permission to jump +into the punt, which, however, by reason of the noble broadness of its +bottom, is enabled to bid defiance to any such shock. "She was making a +flannel petticoat for an old woman," he goes on, sitting down opposite +me, and looking at me from under his hat-brim, with gravely shining +eyes; "_herring-boning_, she called it. She has been teaching me how to +herring-bone, I like Barbara." + +"How kind of you!" I say, ironically, and yet a little gratified too. +"And does she return the compliment, may I ask?" + +He nods. + +"Yes, I think so." + +"She would like you better still if you were to lose all your money, and +one of your legs, and be marked by the small-pox," I say, thoughtfully; +"to be despised, and out at elbows, and down in the world, is the sure +way to Barbara's heart." + +I had meant to have drawn for him a pleasant and yet most true picture +of her sweet disinterestedness, but his uneasy vanity takes it amiss. + +"As it entails being enrolled among the blind and lame," he says, +smiling sarcastically, and flushing a little, "I am afraid I shall never +get there." + +A moment ago I had felt hardly less than sisterly toward him. Now I look +at him with a disgustful and disapprobative eye. What a very great deal +of alteration he needs, and, with that face, and his abbey, and all his +rooks to back it, how very unlikely he is to get it! Well, _I_ at least +will do my best! + +We both remain quiet for a few moments. Vick sits at the end of the +punt, a shiver of excitement running all over her little white body, her +black nose quivering, and one lip slightly lifted by a tooth, as she +gazes with eager gravity at the distant wild-ducks flying along in a +row, with outstretched--necks, making their pleasant quacks. How low +they fly; so low that their feet splash in the water, that makes a +bright spray-hue in the sun! + +"Algy is going away to-morrow!" say I, presently. + +"So he told me." + +"This is his last evening here!" (in a rather dolorous tone). + +"So I should gather," laughing a little at the obviousness of my last +piece of information. + +"And yet," say I, looking down through the clear water at a dead +tree-bough lying at the bottom, and sighing, "he is going to dine out +to-night--to dine with Mrs. Huntley." + +"With Mrs. Huntley! when?" with a long-drawn whistle of intelligence. + +"Tell me," cry I, impulsively, raising myself from my reclining pose, +and sitting upright, "you will understand better than I do--perhaps it +is my mistake--but, if you had seen a person only _once_ for five or ten +minutes, would you sign yourself 'Yours very sincerely' to them?" + +He laughs dryly. + +"Not unless I was writing _after dinner_--why?" + +"Nothing--no reason!" + +Again he laughs. + +"I think I can guess." + +"Her name is Zephine," say I again, leaning over the boat-side and +pulling my forefinger slowly to and fro through the warm brown water. + +"I am well aware of that fact" (smiling). + +How near the swans are drawing toward us! One, with his neck well thrown +back, and his wings raised and ruffled, sailing along like a lovely +snow-white ship; another, with less grace and more homeliness, standing +on his head, with black webs paddling out behind. + +"You were quite wrong on Sunday--_quite_," say I, speaking with sudden +abruptness, and reddening. + +"On Sunday!" (throwing his luminous dark eyes upward to the light clouds +and faint blue of the August sky above us, as if to aid his +recollection), "nothing more likely--but what about?" + +"About--Roger," I answer, speaking with some difficulty ("and Mrs. +Huntley," I was going to add, but some superstition hinders me from +coupling their names even in a sentence). + +"I dare say"--carelessly--"but what new light have you had thrown upon +the matter?" + +"I asked her," I say, looking him full in the face, with simple +directness. + +"_Asked her_!" repeats he, with an accent of profound astonishment. +"Asked the woman whether she had been engaged to him, and jilted him? +Impossible!" + +"No! no!" cry I, with tremulous impatience, "of course not; but I asked +her whether she used not to know him in India, and she said, 'Yes, we +met several times,' just like _that_--she no more blushed and looked +confused than _I_ should if any one asked me whether I knew you!" + +He is still leaning over the punt, and has begun to dabble as I did. + +"You certainly have a way of putting things very strongly," he says in a +rather low voice, "_convincingly_ so!" + +"She did not even know what part of the world he was in!" I cry, +triumphantly. + +"Did she say so?" (lifting up his face, and speaking quickly). + +"Well, no--o--" I answer, reluctantly; "but I said, 'He is in the West +Indies,' and she answered 'Yes,' or 'Indeed,' or 'Is he?' I forget +which, but at any rate it implied that it was news to her." + +A pike leaps not far from us, and splashes back again. I watch to see +whether the widening faint circles will have strength to reach us, or +whether the water's smile will be smoothed and straightened before it +gets to us. + +"Did Mrs. Huntley happen to say" (leaning lazily back, and speaking +carelessly), "how she liked her house?" + +"No; why?" + +"She has only just got into it," he answers, slightly; "only about a +fortnight, that is." + +"I wonder," say I, ruminatingly, "what brought her to this part of the +world, for she does not seem to know anybody." + +He does not answer. + +"We _ought_ to be friends, ought not we?" say I, beginning to laugh +nervously, and looking appealingly toward him, "both of us coming to +sojourn in a strange land! It is a curious coincidence our both settling +here in such similar circumstances, at almost the same time, is not it?" + +Still he is silent. + +"_Is not it_?" cry I, irritably, raising my voice. + +Again he has thrown his head back, and is perusing the sky, his hands +clasped round one lifted knee. + +"What _is_ a coincidence?" he says, languidly. "I do not think I quite +know--I am never good at long words--two things that happen accidentally +at the same time, is not it?" + +He lays the faintest possible stress on the word accidentally. + +"And you mean to say that this in not accidental?" I cry, quickly. + +"I mean nothing; I only ask for information." + +How still the world is to-day! The feathery water-weeds sway, indeed, to +and fro, with the motion of the water, but the tall cats'-tails, and all +the flags, stand absolutely motionless. I feel vaguely ruffled, and take +up my forgotten book. Holding it so as to hide my companion's face from +me, I begin to read ostentatiously. He seems content to be silent; lying +on the flat of his back, at the bottom of the punt, staring at the sky, +and declining the overtures, and parrying the attacks, of Vick, who, +having taken advantage of his supine position to mount upon his chest, +now stands there wagging her tail, and wasting herself in efforts, +mostly futile, but occasionally successful, to lick the end of his nose. +A period of quiet elapses, during which, for the sake of appearances, I +turn over a page. By-and-by, he speaks. + +"Algy is your eldest brother, is not he?--get away, you little beast!"-- +(the latter clause, in a tone of sudden exasperation, is addressed, not +to me, but to Vick, and tells me that my pet dog's endeavors have been +crowned with a tardy prosperity.) + +"Yes" (still reading sedulously). + +"I thought so," with a slight accent of satisfaction. + +"Why?" cry I, again letting fall my volume, and yielding to a curiosity +as irresistible as unwise; for he had meant me to ask, and would have +been disobliged if I had not. + +"We all have our hobbies, don't you know?" he says, shifting his eyes +from the sky, and fixing them on the less serene, less amiable object of +my face--"some people's is old china--some Elzevir editions--_I_ have a +mania for _clocks_--I have one in every room in my house--by-the-by, you +have never been over my house--Mrs. Huntley's--she is a dear little +woman, but she has her fancies, like the rest of us, and hers is-- +_eldest sons!_" + +"But she is married!" exclaim I, stupidly. "What good can they do her, +now?"--then, reddening a little at my own simplicity, I go on, +hurriedly: "But he is such a boy!--younger than _you_--young enough, to +be her _son_--it _can_ be only out of good-nature that she takes notice +of him." + +"Yes--true--out of good-nature!" he echoes, nodding, smiling, and +speaking with that surface-assent which conveys to the hearer no +impression less than acquiescence. + +"Boys are not much in her way, either," he pursues, carelessly; +"generally she prefers such as are of _riper_ years--_much_ riper!" + +"How spiteful you are!" I say, glad to give my chafed soul vent in +words, and looking at him with that full, cold directness which one can +employ only toward such as are absolutely indifferent to one. "How she +_must_ have snubbed you!" + +For an instant, he hesitates; then--"Yes," he says, smiling still, +though his face has whitened, and a wrathy red light has come into his +deep eyes; "in the pre-Huntley era, I laid my heart at her feet-- +by-the-way, I must have been in petticoats at the time--and she kicked +it away, as she had, no doubt, done--_others_" + +The camel's backbone is broken. This last innuendo--in weight a straw-- +has done it. I speak never a word; but I rise up hastily, and, letting +my novel fall heavily prone on the pit of its stomach at the +punt-bottom, I take a flying leap to shore--_toward_ shore, I should +rather say:--for I am never a good jumper--Tou Tou's lean spider-legs +can always outstride me--and now I fall an inch or two short, and draw +one leg out booted with river-mud. But I pay no heed. I hurry on, +pushing through the brambles, and leaving a piece of my gown on each. +Before I have gone five yards--his length of limb and freedom from +petticoats giving him the advantage over me--he overtakes me. + +"What _has_ happened? at this rate you will not have much gown left by +the time you reach the house." + +To my excited ears, there seems to be a suspicion of laughter in his +voice. I disdain to answer. The path we are pursuing is not the regular +one; it is a short cut through the wood. At its widest it is very +narrow; and, a little ahead of us, a bramble has thrown a strong arm +right across it, making a thorny arch, and forbidding passage. By a +quick movement, Mr. Musgrave gets in advance of me, and, turning round, +faces me at this defile. + +"What _has_ happened?" + +Still I remain stubbornly silent. + +"We are not going to fight, at this time of day, such old friends as we +are?" + +The red-anger light has died out of his eyes. They look softer, and yet +less languid, than I have ever seen them before; and there is subdued +appeal and entreaty in his lowered voice. At the present moment, I +distinctly dislike him. I think him altogether trying and odious, and I +should be glad--yes, _glad_, if Vick were to bite a piece out of his +leg; but, at the same time, I cannot deny that I have seldom seen any +thing comelier than the young man who now stands before me, with the +green woodland lights flickering about the close-shorn beauty of his +face--he is well aware that his are not features that need _planting out +_--while a lively emotion quickens all his lazy being. + +"We are _not_ old friends! Let me pass!" + +"_New_ friends, then--_-friends_ at all events!" coming a step nearer, +and speaking without a trace of sneer, sloth, or languor. + +"Not friends at all! Let me pass!" + +"Not until you tell me my offense--not until you own that we are +friends!" (in a tone of quick excitement, and almost of authority, that, +in him, is new to me). + +"Then we shall stay here all night!" reply I, with a fine obstinacy, +plumping down, as I speak, on the wayside grass, among the St. +John's-worts, and the red arum-berries. In a moment he has stepped +aside, and is holding the stout purple bramble-stem out of my way. + +"Pass, then!" he says, in a tone of impatience, frowning a little; "as +you have said it, of course you will stick to it--right or wrong--or you +would not be a woman; but, whether you confess it or not, we _are_ +friends!" + +"We are NOT!" cry I, resolute to have the last word, as I spring up and +fly past him, with more speed than dignity, lest he should change his +mind, and again detain me. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +The swallows are gone: the summer is done: it is October. The year knows +that I am in a hurry, and is hasting with its shortened days--each day +marked by the loss of something fair--toward the glad Christmas-time-- +Christmas that will bring me back my Roger--that will set him again at +the foot of his table--that will give me again the sound of his foot on +the stairs, the smile in his fond gray eyes. So I thought yesterday, and +to-day I have heard from him; heard that though he is greatly loath to +tell me so, yet he cannot be back by Christmas; that I must hear the +joy-bells ring, and see the merry Christmas cheer _alone._ It is true +that he earnestly and insistantly begs of me to gather all my people, +father, mother, boys, girls, around me. But, after all, what are father, +mother, boys, girls, to me? Father never _was_ any thing, I will do +myself that justice, but at this moment of sore disappointment as I lean +my forehead on the letter outspread on the table before me, and dim its +sentences with tears, I _belittle_ even the boys. No doubt that +by-and-by I shall derive a little solace from the thought of their +company; that when they come I shall even be inveigled into some sort of +hilarity with them; but at present, "No." + +There are some days on which all ills gather together as at a meeting. +This is one. Barbara is prostrated by a violent headache, and is in such +thorough physical pain that even she cannot sympathize with me. Mr. +Musgrave never makes his now daily appearance--he comes, as I jubilantly +notice, as regularly as the postman--until late in the afternoon. All +day, therefore, I must refrain myself and be silent. And I am never one +for brooding with private dumbness over my woes. I much prefer to air +them by expression and complaint. About noon it strikes me that, _faute +de mieux_, I will go and see Mrs. Huntley, tell her _suddenly_ that +Roger is not coming back, and see if she looks vexed or confused or +grieved. Accordingly, soon after luncheon, I set off in the +pony-carriage. It is a quiet sultry-looking unclouded day. One uniform +livery of mist clothes sky and earth, dimming the glories of the dying +leaves, and making them look dull and sodden. Every thing has a drenched +air: each crimson bramble-leaf is clothed in rain-drops, and yet it is +not raining. The air is thick and heavy, and one swallows it like +something solid, but it is not raining: in fact, it is an English fine +day. + +Under the delusive idea that it is warm, or at least not cold, I have +protected my face with no veil, my hands with no mittens; so that, long +before I reach the shelter of the Portugal laurels that warmly hem in +and border Mrs. Huntley's little graveled sweep, the end of my nose +feels like an icy promontory at a great distance from me, and my hands +do not feel at all. Mrs. Huntley _is_ at home. Wise woman! I knew that +she would be. I suppose that I follow on the footsteps of the butler +more quickly than is usual, for, as the door opens, and before I can get +a view of the inmate or inmates, I hear a hurried noise of scrambling, +as of some one suddenly jumping up. For a little airy woman who looks as +if one could blow her away--puff!--like a morsel of thistle-down or a +snowball, what a heavy foot Mrs. Huntley has! The next moment, I am +disabused. Mrs. Huntley has clearly not moved. It was not _she_ that +scrambled. She is lying back in a deep arm-chair, her silky head gently +denting the flowered cushion, the points of two pretty shoes slightly +advanced toward the fire, and a large feather fan leisurely waving to +and fro, in one white hand. Beyond the _fan_ movement she is not _doing_ +any thing that I can detect. + +"How do you do?" say I, bustling in, in a hurry to reach the fire. "How +comfortable you look! how cold it is!--Algy!" For the enigma of the +noise is solved. It was Algy who shuffled and scuffled--yes, scuffled up +from the low stool which he has evidently been sharing with the pretty +shoes--at Mrs. Huntley's feet, on to his long legs, on which he is now +standing, not at all at ease. He does not answer. + +"ALGY!" repeat I, in a tone of the profoundest, accentedest surprise, +involuntarily turning my back upon my hostess and facing my brother. + +"Well, what about me?" he cries tartly, irritated (and no wonder) by my +open mouth and tragical air. + +"What _has_ brought you here?" I ask slowly, and with a tactless +emphasis. + +"The fly from the White Hart," he answers, trying to laugh, but looking +confused and angry. + +"But I mean--I thought you told me, when I asked you to Tempest this +week, that you could not get away for an _hour_!" + +"No more I could," he answers impatiently, yet stammering; "quite +unexpected--did not know when I wrote--have to be back to-night." + +"Will not you come nearer the fire?" says Mrs. Huntley, in her slow +sugared tones, with a well-bred ignoring of our squabble. "I am sure +that you must be perished with cold." + +I recollect myself and comply. As I sit down I catch a glimpse of myself +in the glass. It is indeed difficult to abstain from the sight of one's +self, however little fond one may be of it, so thickly is the room set +round with rose-draped mirrors. For the moment, O friends, I will own to +you that I appear to myself nothing less than _brutally_ ugly. I know +that I am not so in reality, that the disfigurement is only temporary, +but none the less does the consciousness deeply, deeply depress me. My +nose is of a lively scarlet, which the warmth of the room is quickly +deepening into a lowering purple. My quick passage through the air has +set my hat a little awry, giving me a falsely rakish air, and the wind +has loosened my hair--not into a picturesque and comely disorder, but +into mere untidiness. And, meanwhile, how admirably small and cool _her_ +nose looks! What rest and composure in her whole pose! What a neat +refinement in the disposition of her hair! What a soft luxury in her +dress! Even my one indisputable advantage of _youth_ seems to me as +dirt. Looking at the completeness of her native grace, I _despise_ +youth. I think it an ill and ugly thing in its green unripeness. I look +round the room. After the thick outside air, saturated with moisture, I +think that the warm atmosphere would, were my spirit less disquieted, +lull me quickly to sleep. How perfumed it is, not with any meretricious +artificial scents, but with the clean and honest smell of sweet live +flowers. Yes, though I am aware that Mrs. Huntley has no conservatory, +yet hot-house flowers and airy ferns are scattered about the room in far +greater profusion than in mine, with all Roger's imposing range of +glass--scattered about here, there, and everywhere; not as if they were +a rare and holiday treat, but a most common, every-day occurrence. There +is not much work to be seen about, and _not a book!_ On the other hand, +lounging-chairs, suited to the length or shortness of _any_ back; rococo +photograph stands, framing either a great many men, or a few men in a +great many attitudes; soothing pictures--_decollete_ Venuses, Love's +_greuze_ heads--tied up with rose-ribbon, and a sleepy half-light. On a +small table at the owner's elbow, a blue-velvet jeweler's case stands +open. On its white-satin lining my long-sighted eyes enable me to +decipher the name of Hunt and Roskell; and it does not need any long +sight to observe the solid breadth of the gold band bracelet, set with +large, dull turquoises and little points of brilliant light, which is +its occupant. As I note this phenomenon, my heart burns within me--yea, +burns even more hotly than my nose,' For father keeps Algy very tight, +and I know that he has only three hundred pounds a year, besides his +pay. + +"I have had such bad news to-day," I say, suddenly, looking my +_vis-a-vis_ full and directly in the face. + +"Yes?" + +So far she certainly shows no signs of emotion. Her fan is still waving +with slow steadiness. I see the diamonds on her hands (whence did _they_ +owe their rise, I wonder?) glint in the fire-light. + +"Roger is not coming back!" + +"Not at all?" with a slight raising of the eyebrows. + +"Not before Christmas, certainly." + +"Really! how disappointing! I am very sorry!" + +There is not a particle of sorrow in face or tone: only the counterfeit +grief of an utterly indifferent acquaintance. My heart feels a little +lightened. + +"And have _you_ no better luck, either?" I say, more cheerfully. "Is +there no talk of your--of Mr. Huntley coming back?" + +Her eyelids droop: her breast heaves in a placid sigh. + +"Not the slightest, I am afraid." + +What to say next? I have had enough of asking after her child. I will +not fall into _that_ error again. Ask who all the men in the rococo +frames are?--which of them, or whether any, is _Mr._ Huntley? On +consideration, I decide not to do this either; and, after one or two +more stunted attempts at talk, I take my leave. I ask Algy to accompany +me just down the drive, and with a most grudging and sulky air of +unwillingness he complies. Alas! he always used to like to be with us +girls. The ponies are fresh, and we have almost reached the gate before +I speak, with a difficult hesitation. + +"Algy," say I, "did you happen to notice that--that _bracelet?_" + +He does not answer. He is looking the other way, and turns only the back +of his head toward me. + +"It was from Hunt and Roskell," I say. + +"Oh!" + +"It must have--must have--_come to_ a good deal," I go on, timidly. + +He has turned his face to me now. I cannot complain, but indeed, as it +now is, I prefer the back of his head, so white and headstrong does he +look. + +"I wish to God," he says, in a voice of low anger, "that you would be so +obliging as to mind your own business, and allow me to mind mine!" + +"But it _is_ mine!" I cry, passionately; "what right has she to be +sitting all day with young men on stools at her feet?--she, a married +woman, with her husband--" + +"This comes extremely well from _you_," he says, in a voice of +concentrated anger, with a bitterly-sneering tone; "_how is Musgrave?_" + +Before I can answer, he has jumped out, and is half-way back to the +house. But indeed I am dumb. Is it possible that _he_ makes such a +mistake?--that he does not see the difference? + +For the next half-mile, I see neither ponies, nor misty hedges, nor +wintry high-road, for tears. I _used_ to get on so well with the boys! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +I return home, I find that Barbara is still no better. She is still +lying in her darkened room, and has asked not to be disturbed. And even +my wrongs are not such as to justify my forcing myself upon the painful +privacy of a sick-headache. How much the better am I then than I was +before my late expedition? I have brought home my old grievance quite +whole and unlightened by communication, and I have got a new and fresh +one in addition, with absolutely no one to whom to impart it; for, even +when Frank comes, I will certainly not tell _him_. I am too restless to +remain in-doors over the fire, though thoroughly chilled by my late +drive, and resolve to try and restore my circulation by a brisk walk in +the park. + +The afternoon is still young, and the day is mending. A wind has risen, +and has pulled aside the steel-colored cloud-curtain, and let heaven's +eyes--blue, though faint and watery--look through. And there comes +another strong puff of autumnal wind, and lo! the sun, and the leaves +float down in a sudden shower of amber in his light. I march along +quickly and gravely through the long drooped grass--no longer sweet and +fresh and upright, in its green summer coat--through the frost-seared +pomp of the bronze bracken, till I reach a little knoll, whose head is +crowned by twelve great brother beeches. From time immemorial they have +been called the Twelve Apostles, and under one apostle I now stand, with +my back against his smooth and stalwart trunk. + +How _beaming_ is death to them! Into what a glorious crimson they +decline! My eyes travel from one tree-group to another, and idly +consider the many-colored majesty of their decay. Over all the landscape +there is a look of plaintive uncontent. The distant town, with its two +church-spires, is choked and effaced in mist: the very sun is sickly and +irresolute. All Nature seems to say, "Have pity upon me--I die!" + +It is not often that our mother is in sympathy with her children. Mostly +when we cry she broadly laughs; when we laugh and are merry she weeps; +but to-day my mood and hers match: The tears are as near my eyes as +hers--as near hers as mine. + + "See the leaves around us falling!" + +say I, aloud, stretching out my right arm in dismal recitation. We had +the hymn last Sunday, which is what has put it into my head: + + "See the leaves around us falling, + Dry and withered to the ground--'" + +Another voice breaks in: + + "Thus to thoughtless mortals calling--.'" + +"How you made me jump!" cry I, descending with an irritated leap to +prose, and at least making the leaves say something entirely different +from what they had ever been known to say before. + +"Why did not you bring your sentinel, Vick?" + +He--it is Musgrave, of course--has joined me, and is leaning his flat +back also against the apostle, and, like me, is looking at the mist, at +the red and yellow leaves--at the whole low-spirited panorama. + +"She is ill," say I, lamentably, drawing a portrait in lamp-black and +Indian-ink of the whole family; "we are _all_ ill--Barbara is ill!" + +"Poor Barbara!" + +"She has got a headache." + +"POOR Barbara!" + +"And I have got a heartache," say I, more for the sake of preserving the +harmony of my sketch, and for making a pendant to Barbara, than because +the phrase accurately describes my state. + +"Poor _you_!" + +"_Poor me, indeed_!" cry I, with emphasis, and to this day I cannot make +up my mind whether the ejaculation were good grammar or no. + +"I have had _such_ bad news," I continue, feeling, as usual, a sensible +relief from the communication of my grief. "Roger is not coming back!" + +"_Not at all?_" + +The words are the same as those employed by Mrs. Huntley; but there is +much more alacrity and liveliness in the tone. + +"_Not at all!_" repeat I, scornfully, looking impatiently at him; "that +is so likely, is not it?"--then "No not _at all_"--I continue, +ironically, "he has run off with some one else--some one _black_!" (with +a timely reminiscence of Bobby's happy flight of imagination). + +"Not till _when_, then?" + +"Not till after Christmas," reply I, sighing loudly, "which is almost as +bad as not at all." + +"I knew _that_!" he says, rather petulantly; "you told me _that_ +before!" + +"_I told you that before?_" cry I, opening my eyes, and raising my +voice; "why, how could I? I only heard it myself this morning!" + +"It was not you, then," he says, composedly; "it must have been some one +else!" + +"It _could_ have been no one else," retort I, hastily. "I have told no +one--no one at least from whom _you_ could have heard it." + +"All the same, I _did_ hear it" (with a quiet persistence); "now, who +could it have been?" throwing back his head, elevating his chin, and +lifting his eyes in meditation to the great depths of burning red in the +beech's heart, above him--"ah!"--(overtaking the recollection)--"I +know!" + +"Who?" say I, eagerly, "not that it _could_ have been any one." + +"It was Mrs. Huntley!" he answers, with an air of matter-of-fact +indifference. + +I laugh with insulting triumph. "Well, that _is_ a bad hit! What a pity +that you did not fix upon some one else! I have once or twice suspected +you of drawing the long bow--_now_ I am sure of it! As it happens, I +have just come from Mrs. Huntley, and she knew no more about it than the +babe unborn!" + +I am looking him full in the face, but, to my surprise, I cannot detect +the expression of confusion and defeat which I anticipate. There is only +the old white-anger look that I have such a happy knack of calling up on +his features. + +"I _am_ a consummate liar!" he says, quietly, though his eyes flash. +"Every one knows _that_; but, all the same, she _did_ tell me." + +"I do not believe a word of it!" cry I, in a fury. + +He makes no answer, but, lifting his hat, begins to walk quickly away. +For a hundred yards I allow him to go unrecalled; then, as I note his +quickly-diminishing figure and the heavy mists beginning to fold him, my +resolution fails me; I take to my heels and scamper after him. + +"Stop!" say I, panting as I come up with him, "I dare say--perhaps--you +_thought_ you were speaking truth!--there must, must be some _mistake!_" + +He does not answer, but still walks quickly on. + +"Tell me!" cry I, posting on alongside of him, breathless and +distressed--"when was it? where did you hear it? how long ago?" + +"I never heard it?" + +"Yes, you did," cry I, passionately, asseverating what I have so lately +and passionately denied. "You know you did; but when was it? how was it? +where was it?" + +"It was _nowhere_," he answers with a cold, angry smile. "I was _drawing +the long bow_!'" + +I stop in baffled rage and misery. I stand stock-still, with the long, +dying grass wetly and limply clasping my ankles. To my surprise he stops +too. + +"I wish you were _dead_!" I say tersely, and it is not a figure of +speech. For the moment I do honestly wish it. + +"Do you?" he answers, throwing me back a look of hardly inferior +animosity; "I dare say I do not much mind." A little pause, during which +we eye each other, like two fighting-cocks. "Even if I _were_ dead," he +says, in a low voice--"mind, I do not blame you for wishing it-- +sometimes I wish it myself--but even if I _were_, I do not see how that +would hinder Sir Roger and Mrs. Huntley from corresponding." + +"They _do not_ correspond," cry I, violently; "it is a falsehood!" Then, +with a quick change of thought and tone: "But if they do, I--I--do not +mind! I--I--am very glad--if Roger likes it! There is no harm in it." + +"Not the slightest." + +"Do you _always_ stay at home?" cry I, in a fury, goaded out of all +politeness and reserve by the surface false acquiescence of his tone; +"do you _never_ go away? I _wish_ you would! I wish"--(speaking between +laughing and crying)--"that you could take your abbey up on your back, +as a snail does its shell, and march off with it into another county." + +"But unfortunately I cannot." + +"What have I done to you?" I cry, falling from anger to reproach, "that +you take such delight in hurting me? You can be pleasant enough to--to +other people. I never hear you hinting and sneering away any one else's +peace of mind; but as for me, I never--_never_ am alone with you that +you do not leave me with a pain--a tedious long ache _here_"-- +(passionately clasping my hands upon my heart). + +"Do not I?"--(Then half turning away in a lowered voice)--"_nor you +me_!" + +"_I_" repeat I, positively laughing in my scorn of this accusation. "_I_ +hint! _I_ imply! why, I _could_ not do it, if I were to be shot for it! +it is not _in_ me!" + +He does not immediately answer; still, he is looking aside, and his +color changes. + +"Ask mother, ask the boys, ask Barbara," cry I, in great excitement, +"whether I ever _could_ wrap up any thing neatly, if I wished it ever so +much? Always, _always_, I have to blurt it out! _I_ hint!" + +"Hint! no!" he repeats, in a tone of vexed bitterness. "Well, no! no one +could accuse you of _hinting_! Yours is honest, open cut and thrust!" + +"If it is," retort I, bluntly, still speaking with a good deal of heat, +"it is your own fault! I have no wish to quarrel, being such near +neighbors, and--and--altogether--of course I had rather be on good terms +than bad ones! When you _let_ me--when you leave me alone--I _almost_-- +sometimes I _quite_ like you. I am speaking seriously! I _do_" + +"You do not say so?" again turning his head aside, and speaking with the +objectionable intonation of irony. + +"At home," pursue I, still chafing under the insult to my amiability, "I +never was reckoned quarrelsome--_never!_ Of course I was not like +Barbara--there are not many like her--but I did very well. Ask _any one_ +of them--it does not matter which--they will all tell you the same-- +whether I did not!" + +"You were a household angel, in fact?" + +"I was nothing of the kind," cry I, very angry, and yet laughing: the +laughter caused by the antagonism of the epithet with the many +recollected blows and honest sounding cuffs that I have, on and off, +exchanged with Bobby. + +A pause. + +The sun has quite gone now: sulky and feeble, he has shrunk to his cold +bed in the west, and the victor-mist creeps, crawls, and soaks on +unopposed. + +"Good-night!" cry I, suddenly. "I am going!" and I am as good as my +word. + +With the triple agility of health, youth, and indignation, I scurry away +through the melancholy grass, and the heaped and fallen leaves, home. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +Ding-dong bell! The Christmas bells are ringing. Christmas has come-- +Christmas as it appears on a Christmas card, white and hard, and beset +with puffed-out, ruffled robins. Only Nature is wise enough not to +express the ironical wish that we may have a "merry one." For myself, I +have but small opinion of Christmas as a time of jollity. Solemn-- +_blessed_, if you will--but no, not jovial. At no time do the dead so +clamor to be remembered. Even those that went a long time ago, the +regret for whose departure has settled down to a tender, almost pleasant +pain; whom at other times we go nigh to forget; even they cry out loud, +"Think of us!" + +When all the family is gathered, when the fire burns quick and clear, +and the church-bells ring out grave and sweet, neither will _they_ be +left out. But, on the other hand, to one who has paid his bills, and in +whose family Death's cannon have as yet made no breaches, I do not see +why it may not be a season of moderate, placid content. + +Festivity! jollity! _never!_ I have paid my bills, and there are no gaps +among my people. Sometimes I tremble when I think how many we are; one +of us must go soon. But, as yet, when I count us over, none lacks. +Father, mother, Algy, Bobby, the Brat, Tou Tou. Slightly as I have +spoken of them to myself, and conscientiously as I have promised myself +to derive no pleasure from their society, and even to treat them with +distant coolness, if they are, any of them, and Bobby especially--it is +he that I most mistrust--more joyfully disposed than I think fitting, +yet my heart has been growing ever warmer and warmer at the thought of +them, as Christmas-time draws nigh; and now, as I kiss their firm, cold, +healthy cheeks--(I declare that Bobby's cheeks are as hard as marbles), +I know how I have lied to myself. + +Father is not in quite so good a humor as I could have wished, his man +having lost his hat-box _en route_, and consequently his nose is rather +more aquiline than I think desirable. + +"Do not be alarmed!" says Bobby, in a patronizing aside, introducing me, +as if I were a stranger, to father's peculiarities; "a little infirmity +of temper, but the _heart_ is in the right place." + +"Bobby," say I, anxiously, in a whisper, "has he--has he brought the +_bag?_" + +Bobby shakes his head. + +"I _knew_ he would not," cry I, rather crestfallen. Then, with sudden +exasperation: "I wish I had not given it to him; he always _hated_ it. I +wish I had given it to Roger instead." + +"Never you mind!" cries Bobby, while his round eyes twinkle +mischievously; "I dare say he has got one by now, a nice one, all beads +and wampums, that the old Begum has made him." + +I laugh, but I also sigh. What a long time it seems since I was jealous +of Bobby's Begum! We are a little behind father, whispering with our +heads together, while he, in his raspingest voice, is giving his +delinquent a month's warning. That tone! it still makes me feel sneaky. + +"Bobby," say I, putting my arm through his substantial one, and speaking +in a low tone of misgiving, "how is he? how has he been?" + +"We have been a little fractious," replies Bobby, leniently--"a little +disposed to quarrel With our bread-and-butter; but, as you may remember, +my dear, from _your_ experience of our humble roof, Christmas never was +our happiest time." + +"No, never," reply I, pensively. + +The storm is rising: at least father's voice is. It appears that the +valet is not only to go, but to go without a character. + +"Never you mind," repeats Bobby, reassuringly, seeing me blench a little +at these disused amenities, pressing the hand that rests on his arm +against his stout side; "it is nothing to _you!_ bless your heart, you +are the apple of his eye." + +"Am I?" reply I, laughing. "It has newly come to me, if I am." + +"And I am his 'good, brave Bobby!'--his 'gallant boy! '--do you know +why?" + +"No." + +"Because I am going to Hong-Kong, and he hears that they are keeping two +nice roomy graves open all the time there!" + +"You are _not?_" (in a tone of keen anxiety and pain); then, with a +sudden change of tone to a nervous and constrained amenity: "Yes, it +_is_ a nice-sized room, is not it? My only fault with it is, that the +windows are so high up that one cannot see out of them when one is +sitting down." + +For father, having demolished his body-servant, and reduced mother to +her usual niche-state, now turns to me, and, in his genialest, happiest +society-manner, compliments me on my big house. That is a whole day +ago. Since then, I have grown used to seeing father's austere face, +unbent into difficult suavity, at the opposite end of the dinner-table +to me, to hearing the well-known old sound of Tou Tou's shrieks of mixed +anguish and delight, as Bobby rushes after her in headlong pursuit, down +the late so silent passages; and to looking complacently from one to +another of the holiday faces round the table, where Barbara and I have +sat, during the last noiseless month, in stillest dialogue or +preoccupied silence. + +I _love_ noise. You may think that I have odd taste; but _I love_ +Bobby's stentor laugh, and Tou Tou's ear-piercing yells. I even forget +to think whether their mirth passes the appointed bounds I had set it. I +have mislaid my receipt of cold repression. My heart goes out to them. + +I have been a little disturbed as to how to dispose of father during the +day, but he mercifully takes that trouble off my hands. Providence has +brought good out of evil, congenial occupation out of the hat-box. He +has spent all the few daylight-hours in telegraphing for it to every +station on the line; in telling several home-truths to the porters at +our own station, which--it being Christmas-time, and they consequently +all more or less tipsy--they have taken with a bland playfulness that he +has found a little trying; and, lastly, in writing a long letter to the +_Times._ And I, meanwhile, being easy in my mind on his score, knowing +that he is happy, am at leisure to be happy myself. In company with my +brother, I have spent all the little day in decorating the church, +making it into a cheerful, green Christmas bower. We always did it at +home. + +The dusk has come now--the quick-hurrying, December dusk, and we have +all but finished. We have had to beg for a few candles, in order to put +our finishing touches here and there about the sombre church. They +flame, throwing little jets of light on the glossy laurel-leaves that +make collars round the pillars' stout necks; on the fresh moss-beds, +vividly green, in the windows; on the dull, round holly-berries. In the +glow, the ivy twines in cunning garlands round the rough-sculptured +font, and the oak lectern; and, above God's altar, a great white cross +of hothouse flowers blooms delicately, telling of summer, and matching +the words of old good news beneath it, that brought, as some say, +summer, or, at least, the hope of summer, to the world. + +Yes, we have nearly done. The Brat stands on the top of a step-ladder, +dexterously posing the last wintry garland; and all we others are +resting a moment--we and our coadjutors. For we have _two_ coadjutors. +Mr. Musgrave, of course. Now, at this moment, through the gray light, +and across the candles, I can see him leaning against the font, while +Barbara kneels with bent head at his feet, completing the ornamentation +of the pedestal. I always knew that things would come right if we waited +long enough, and _coming_ right they are--_coming_, not _come_, for +still, he has not spoken. I have consulted each and all of my family, +father excepted, as to the average length of time allotted to _unspoken_ +courtship, and each has assigned a different period; the _longest_, +however, has been already far exceeded by Frank. Tou Tou, indeed, +adduces a gloomy case of a young man, who spent two years and a half in +dumb longing, and broke a blood-vessel and died at the end of them; but +this is so discouraging an anecdote, that we all poo-poohed it as +unauthentic. + +"Perhaps he does not mean to speak at all!" says the Brat, starting a +new and hazardous idea; "perhaps he means to take it for granted!" + +"Walk out with her, some fine morning," says Algy, laughing, "and say, +like Wemmick, 'Hallo! here's a church! let's have a wedding!'" + +"It would be a good thing," retorts the Brat, gravely, "if there were a +printed form for such occasions; it would be a great relief to people." + +This talk did not happen in the church, but at an evening _seance_ +overnight. Our second coadjutor is Mrs. Huntley. + +"I am afraid I am not very efficient," she says, with a pathetic smile. +"I can't _stand_ very long, but, if I might be allowed to sit down now +and then, I might perhaps be some little help." + +And sat down she has, accordingly, ever since, on the top pulpit-step. +It seems that Algy cannot stand very long, either; for he has taken +possession of the step next below the top one, and there he abides. +Thank Heaven! they are getting dark now! If _legitimate_ lovers, whose +cooing is desirable and approved, are a sickly and sickening spectacle, +surely the sight of illegitimate lovers would make the blood boil in the +veins of Moses, Miriam, or Job. + +Bobby, Tou Tou, and I, having no one to hang over us, or gawk amorously +up at us, are sitting in a row in our pew. Bobby has garlanded Tou Tou +preposterously with laurel, to give us an idea, as he says, of how he +himself will look by-and-by, after some future Trafalgar. Now, he is +whispering to me--a whisper accompanied by one of those powerful and +painful nudges, with which he emphasizes his conversation on his +listener's ribs. + +"Look at him!" indicating his elder brother, and speaking with a tone of +disgust and disparagement; "did you ever see such a _beast_ as he +looks?" + +"Not often!" reply I, readily, with that fine intolerance which one +never sees in full bloom after youth is past. + +"I say, Nancy!" with a second and rather lesser nudge, "if ever you see +any symptoms of--of _that_--" (nodding toward the pulpit) "in me--" + +"If--" repeat I, scornfully, "of course I shall!" + +"Well, that is as it may be, but if you _do_, mind what I tell you--do +not say any thing to anybody, but--_put an end to me!_ it does not +matter _how_; smother me with bolsters; run your bodkin up to its hilt +in me--" + +"Even if I _did_," interrupt I, laughing, "I should never reach any +vital part--you are _much_ too fat!" + +"I should not be so fat then," returns he, gravely, amiably overlooking +the personality of my observation; "love would have pulled me down!" + +The Brat has nearly finished. He is nimbly descending the ladder, with a +long, guttering dip in his right hand. + +"The other two--" begins Bobby, thoughtfully, turning his eyes from +pulpit to font. + +"I do not mind _them_ half so much," interrupt I, indulgently; "they are +not half so disgusting." + +"Has he done it yet?" (lowering his cheerful loud voice to an important +whisper). + +I shake my head. + +"Not unless he has done it since luncheon! he had not _then_; I asked +her." + +"I am beginning to think that _your_ old man's plan was the best, after +all," continues Bobby, affably. "I thought him rather out of date, at +the time, for applying to your parents, but, after all, it saved a great +deal of trouble, and spared us a world of suspense." + +I am silent; swelling with a dumb indignation at the epithet bestowed on +my Roger; but unable to express it outwardly, as I well know that, if I +do, I shall be triumphantly quoted against myself. + +"Who will break it to Toothless Jack?" says Bobby, presently, with a +laugh; "after all the expense he has been at, too, with those teeth! it +is not as if it were a beggarly two or three, but a whole complete new +set--thirty-two individual grinders!" + +"Such beauties, too!" puts in Tou Tou, cackling. + +"It is a thousand pities that they should be allowed to go out of the +family," says Bobby, warmly. "Tou Tou, my child--" (putting his arm +round her shoulders)--"a bright vista opens before you!--your charms +are approaching maturity!--with a little encouragement he might be +induced to lay his teeth--two and thirty, mind--at your feet!" + +Tou Tou giggles, and asserts that she will "kick them away, if he does." +Bobby mildly but firmly remonstrates, and points out to her the +impropriety and ingratitude of such a line of conduct. But his +arguments, though acute and well put, are not convincing, and the +subject is continued, with ever-increasing warmth, all the way home. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +It is Christmas-day--a clean white Christmas, pure and crisp. Wherever +one looks, one's eyes water cruelly. For my part, I am very thankful +that it did not occur to God to make the world always white. I hate +snow's blinding livery. Each tiniest twig on the dry harsh trees is +overladen with snow. It is a wonder that they do not break under it; nor +is there any wind to shake down and disperse it. Tempest is white; the +church is white: the whole world colorless and blinding. I have been in +the habit of looking upon Vick as a white dog; to-day she appears +disastrously dark--dirty brunette. Soap-and-water having entirely failed +to restore her complexion. Bobby kindly proposes to _pipeclay_ her. + +We have all been to church, and admired our own decorations. And through +all the prayer and the praise, and the glad Christmas singing, my soul +has greatly hungered for Roger. Yes, even though all the boys are round +me--Bobby on this side, the Brat on that--Algy directly in front; all +behaving nicely, too; for are not they right under father's eyes? Yes, +and, for the matter of that, under the rector's too, as he towers +straight above us, under his ivy-bush--the ivy-bush into which Bobby was +so anxious yesterday to insert some misletoe. + +Church is over now, and the short afternoon has also slipped by. We are +at dinner; we are dining early to-night--at half-past six o'clock, and +we are to have a dance for the servants afterward. Any hospitality to my +equals I have steadily and stoutly declined, but it seems a shame to +visit my own loneliness on the heads of the servants, to whom it is +nothing. They have always had a Christmas-dance in Roger's reign, and so +a dance they are to have now. We have religiously eaten our beef and +plum-pudding, and have each made a separate little blue fire of burnt +brandy in our spoon. + +It is dessert now, and father has proposed Roger's health. I did not +expect it, and I never was so nearly betrayed into feeling fond of +father in my life. They all drink it, each wishing him something good. +As for me, I have been a fool always, and I am a fool now. I can wish +him nothing, my voice is choked and my eyes drowned in inappropriate +tears; only, from the depths of my heart, I ask God to give him every +thing that He has of choicest and best. For a moment or two, the +wax-lights, the purple grapes, the gleaming glass and shining silver, +the kindly, genial faces swim blurred before my vision. Then I hastily +wipe away my tears, and smile back at them all. As I raise my glistening +eyes, I meet those of Mr. Musgrave fixed upon me--(he is the only +stranger present). His look is not one that wishes to be returned; on +the contrary, it is embarrassed at being met. It is a glance that +puzzles me, full of inquiring curiosity, mixed with a sort of mirth. In +a second--I could not tell you why--I look hastily away. + +"I wonder what he is doing _now, this very minute_!" says Tou Tou, who +is dining in public for the first time, and whose conversation is +checked and her deportment regulated by Bobby, who has been at some +pains to sit beside her, and who guides her behavior by the help of many +subtle and unseen pinches under the table; from revolting against which +a fear of father hinders her, a fact of which Bobby is most basely +aware. + +"Had not you better telegraph?" asks Algy, with languid irony (Algy +certainly is not quite so nice as he used to be). "Flapping away the +blue-tailed fly, with a big red-and-yellow bandana, probably." + +"Playing the banjo for a lot of little niggers to dance to!" suggests +the Brat. + +"They are all wrong, are not they, Nancy?" says Bobby, in a lowered +voice, to me, on whose left hand he has placed himself; "he is sitting +in his veranda, is not he? in a palm hat and nankeen breeches, with his +arm around the old Wampoo." + +"I dare say," reply I, laughing. "I hope so," for, indeed, I am growing +quite fond of my dusky rival. + +The ball is to be in the servants' hall; it is a large, long room, and +thither, when all the guests are assembled, we repair. We think that we +shall make a greater show, and inspire more admiration, if we appear in +pairs. I therefore make my entry on father's arm. Never with greater +trepidation have I entered any room, for I am to open the ball with the +butler, and the prospect fills me with dismay. If he were a venerable +family servant, a hoary-headed old seneschal, who had known Roger in +petticoats, it would have been nothing. I could have chattered filially +to him; but he is a youngish man, who came only six months ago. On what +subjects can we converse? I feel small doubt that his own sufferings +will be hardly inferior in poignancy to mine. + +The room is well lit, and the candles shine genially down from the +laurel garlands and ivy festoons which clothe the walls. They light the +faces and various dresses of a numerous assembly--every groom, footman, +housemaid, and scullion, from far and near. The ladies seem largely to +preponderate both in number and _aplomb_; the men appearing, for the +more part, greatly disposed to run for shelter behind the bolder +petticoats; particularly the stablemen. The footmen, being more +accustomed to ladies' society, are less embarrassed by their own hands, +and by the exigencies of chivalry. This inversion of the usual attitude +of the sexes, will, no doubt, be set more than right when we have +retired. The moment has arrived. I quit father's arm--for the first time +in my life I am honestly sorry to drop it--and go up to my destined +partner. + +"Ashton," say I, with an attempt at an easy and unembarrassed smile, +"will you dance this quadrille with me?" + +"Thank you, my lady." + +How calm he is! how self-possessed. Oh, that he would impart to me the +secret of his composure! I catch sight of the Brat, who is passing at +the moment. + +"Brat!" cry I, eagerly, snatching at his coat-sleeve, like a drowning +man at a straw. "Will _you_ be our _vis-a-vis?_" + +"All right," replies the Brat, gayly, "but I have not got a partner +yet." + +Off he goes in search of one, and Ashton and I remain _tete-a-tete._ I +suppose I ought to take his arm, and lead him to the top of the room. +After a moment of hot hesitation, I do this. Here we are, arrived. Oh, +why did I ask him so soon? Two or three minutes elapse before the Brat's +return. + +"How nicely you have all done the decorations!" + +"I am glad you think so, my lady." + +"They are better than ours at the church." + +"Do you think so, my lady?" + +A pause. Everybody is choosing partners. Tou Tou, grinning from ear to +ear, is bidding a bashful button-boy to the merry dance. Father--do my +eyes deceive me?--father himself is leading out the house-keeper. +Evidently he is saying something dignifiedly humorous to her, for she is +laughing. I wish that he would sometimes be dignifiedly humorous to us, +or even humorous without the dignity. Barbara, true to her life-long +instincts, is inviting the clergyman's shabby, gawky man-of-all-work, at +whom the ladies'-maids are raising the nose of contempt. Mr. Musgrave is +soliciting a kitchen-wench. + +"Are there as many here as you expected?" + +"Quite, my lady." + +Another pause. + +"I hope," with bald affability, in desperation of a topic, "that you +will all enjoy yourselves!" + +"Thank you, my lady!" + +Praise God! here is the Brat at last! Owing, I suppose, to the +slenderness and fragile tenuity of his own charms, the Brat is a great +admirer of fine women, the bigger the better; quantity, not quality; +and, true to his colors, he now arrives with a neighboring cook, a lady +of sixteen stone, on his arm. + +We take our places. While chassezing and poussetting, thank Heaven, a +very little talk goes a very long way. My mind begins to grow more easy. +I am even sensible of a little feeling of funny elation at the sound of +the fiddles gayly squeaking. I can look about me and laugh inwardly at +the distant sight of Tou Tou and the button-boy turning each other +nimbly round; of father, in the fourth figure, blandly backing between +Mrs. Mitchell and a cook-maid. + +We have now reached the fifth. At the few balls I have hitherto +frequented it has been a harmless figure enough; hands all round, and a +repetition of _l'ete._ But _now_--oh, horror! what do I see? Everybody +far and near is standing in attitude to gallopade. The Brat has his +little arm round the cook's waist--at least not all the way round--it +would take a lengthier limb than his to effect _that_; but a bit of the +way, as far as it will go. An awful idea strikes me. Must Ashton and I +gallopade too? I glance nervously toward him. He is looking quite as +apprehensive at the thought that I shall expect him to gallopade with +me, as I am at the thought that he will expect me to gallopade with him. +I do not know how it is that we make our mutual alarm known to each +other, only I know that, while all the world is gallopading round us, we +gallopade not. Instead, we take hands, and jig distantly round each +other. + +The improvised valse soon ends, and I look across at the Brat. Gallant +boy! the beads of perspiration stand on his young brow, but there is no +look of blenching! When the time comes he will be ready to do it again. + +As I stand in silent amusement watching him, having, for the moment, no +dancing duties of my own, I hear a voice at my elbow, Bobby's, who, +having come in later than the rest of us, has not been taking part in +the dance, + +"Nancy! Nancy!" in a tone of hurried excitement, "for the love of Heaven +look at _father_! If you stand on tiptoe you will be able to see him; he +has been _gallopading!_ When I saw his venerable coat-tails flying, a +feather would have knocked me down! You really ought to see it" +(lowering his voice confidentially), "it might give you an idea about +your own old man, and the old Wam--" + +"_Hang_ the old Wampoo!" cry I, with inelegant force, laughing. + +The duty part of the evening is over now. We have all signalized +ourselves by feats of valor. I have scampered through an unsociable +country-dance with the head coachman, and have had my smart gown of +faint pink and pearl color nearly torn off my back by the +ponderous-footed pair that trip directly after me. We have, in fact, +done our duty, and may retire as soon as we like. But the music has got +into our feet, and we promise ourselves one valse among ourselves before +we depart. + +The Brat is the only exception. He still cleaves to his cook; dancing +with her is a _tour de force_, on which he piques himself. Mrs. Huntley +and Algy are already flying down the room in an active, tender embrace. +I have been asked as long ago as before dinner by Mr. Musgrave. I was +rather surprised and annoyed at his inviting _me_ instead of Barbara; +but as, with this exception, his conduct has been unequivocally +demonstrative, I console myself with the notion that he looks upon me as +the necessary pill to which Barbara will be the subsequent jam. + +The first bars of the valse are playing when Bobby comes bustling up. +Healthy jollity and open mirth are written all over his dear, fat face. + +"Come along, Nancy! let us have _one_ more scamper before we die!" + +"I am engaged to Mr. Musgrave," reply I, with a graceless and +discontented curl of lip, and raising of nose. + +"All right!" says Bobby, philosophically, walking away; "I am sure I do +not mind, only I had a fancy for having _one_ more spin with you." + +"So you shall!" cry I, impulsively, with a sharp thought of Hong-Kong, +running after him, and putting his solid right arm round my waist. + +Away we go in mad haste. Like most sailors, Bobby dances well. I am +nothing very wonderful, but I suit _him._ In many musicless waltzings of +winter evenings, down the lobby at home, we have learned to fit each +other's step exactly. At our first pausing to recover breath, I become +sensible of a face behind me, of a fierce voice in my ear. + +"I had an idea, Lady Tempest, that this was _our_ dance!" + +"So it was!" reply I, cheerfully; "but you see I have cut you!" + +"So I perceive!" + +"Had not you better call Bobby out!" cry I, with a jeering laugh, tired +of his eternal black looks. "You really are _too_ silly! I wish I had a +looking-glass here to show you your face!" + +"Do you?" (very shortly). + +Repartee is never Frank's forte. This is all that he now finds with +which to wither me. However, even if he had any thing more or more +pungent to say, I should not hear him, for I am beginning to dance off +again. + +"What a fool he is to care!" says Bobby, contemptuously; "after all, he +is an ill-tempered beast! I suppose if one kicked him down-stairs it +would put a stop to his marrying Barbara, would not it?" + +I laugh. + +"I suppose so." + +It is over now. The last long-drawn-out notes have ceased to occupy the +air. As far as _we_ are concerned, the ball is over, for we have quitted +it. We have at length removed the _gene_ of our presence from the +company, and have left them to polka and schottische their fill until +the morning. We have reached our own part of the house. My cheeks are +burning and throbbing with the quick, unwonted exercise. My brain is +unpleasantly stirred: a hundred thoughts in a second run galloping +through it. I leave the others in the warm-lit drawing-room, briskly +talking and discussing the scene we have quitted, and slip away through +the door, into a dark and empty adjacent anteroom, where the fire lies +at death's door, low and dull, and the candles are unlighted. + +I draw the curtains, unbar the shutters, and, lifting the heavy sash, +look out. A cold, still air, sharp and clear, at once greets my face +with its frosty kisses. Below me, the great house-shadow projects in +darkness, and beyond it lies a great and dazzling field of shining snow, +asleep in the moonlight. + +Snow-trees, snow-bushes, sparkle up against the dusk quiet of the sky. +No movement anywhere! absolute stillness! perfect silence! It is broken +now, this silence, by the church-clock with slow wakefulness chiming +twelve. Those slow strokes set me a thinking. I hear no longer the loud +and lively voices next door, the icy penetration of the air is unfelt by +me, as I lean, with my elbow on the sill, looking out at the cold grace +of the night. My mind strays gently away over all my past life--over the +last important year. I think of my wedding, of my little live wreath of +sweet Nancies, of our long, dusty journey, of Dresden. + +With an honest, stinging heart-pang, I think of my ill-concealed and +selfish weariness in our twilight walks and scented drives, of the look +of hurt kindness on his face, at his inability to please me. I think of +our return, of the day when he told me of the necessity for his voyage +to Antigua, and of my own egotistic unwillingness to accompany him. I +think of our parting, when I shed such plenteous tears--tears that seem +to me now to have been so much more tears of remorse, of sorrow that I +was not sorrier, than of real grief. In every scene I seem to myself to +have borne a most shabby part. + +My meditations are broken in upon by a quick step approaching me, by a +voice in my ear--Algy's. + +"You are _here_, are you? I have been looking for you everywhere! Why, +the window is _open_! For Heaven's sake let me get you a cloak! you know +how delicate your chest is. For _my_ sake, _do!_" + +It is too dark to see his face, but there is a quick, excited tenderness +in his voice. + +"_My_ chest delicate!" cry I, in an accent of complete astonishment. +"Well, it is news to me if it is! My dear boy, what has put such an idea +into your head? and if I got a cloak, I should think it would be for my +_own_ sake, not yours!" + +He has been leaning over me in the dusk. At my words he starts violently +and draws back. + +"It is _you_ is it?" he says, in an altered voice of constraint, whence +all the mellow tenderness has fled. + +"To be sure!" reply I, matter-of-factly. "For whom did you take me?" + +But though I ask, alas! I know. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +How are unmusical people to express themselves when they are glad? +People with an ear and a voice can sing, but what is to become of those +who have not? Must they whoop inarticulately? For myself, I do not know +one tune from another. I am like the man who said that he knew two +tunes, one was "God save the Queen," and the other was not. And yet +to-day I have as good a heart for singing as ever had any of the most +famous songsters. In tune, out of tune, I must lift up my voice. It is +as urgent a need for me as for any mellow thrush. For my heart--oh, rare +case!--is fuller of joy than it can hold. It brims over. + +Roger is coming back. It is February, and he has been away nearly seven +months. All minor evils and anxieties--Bobby's departure for Hong-Kong, +Algy's increasing besotment about Mrs. Huntley, and consequent slight +estrangement from me--(to me a very bitter thing)--Frank's continued +silence as regards Barbara--all these are swallowed up in gladness. + +When _he_ is back, all will come right. Is it any wonder that they have +gone wrong, while _I_ only was at the helm? My good news arrived only +this morning, and yet, a hundred times in the short space that has +elapsed since then, I have rehearsed the manner of our meeting, have +practised calling him "Roger," with familiar ease, have fixed upon my +gown and the manner of my coiffure, and have wearied Barbara with +solicitous queries, as to whether she thinks that I have grown +perceptibly plainer in the last seven months, whether she does not think +one side of my face better looking than the other, whether she thinks-- +(with honest anxiety this)--that my appearance is calculated to repel +a person grown disused to it. To all which questions, she with untired +gentleness gives pleasant and favorable answers. + +The inability under which I labored of refraining from imparting _bad_ +news is tenfold increased in the case of good. I must have some one to +whom to relate my prosperity. It will certainly _not_ be Mrs. Huntley +this time. Though I have struggled against the feeling as unjust, and +disloyal to my faith in Roger, I still cannot suppress a sharp pang of +distrust and jealousy, as often as I think of her, and of the relation +made to me by Frank, as to her former connection with my husband. +Neither am I in any hurry to tell Frank. To speak truth, I am in no +good-humor with him or with his unhandsome shilly-shallying, and +unaccountable postponement of what became a duty months ago. + +Never mind! this also will come right when Roger returns. The delightful +stir and hubbub in my soul hinder me from working or reading, or any +tranquil in-door occupation; and, as afternoon draws on, fair and not +cold, I decide upon a long walk. The quick exercise will perhaps +moderately tire me, and subdue my fidgetiness by the evening, and nobody +can hinder me from thinking of Roger all the way. + +Barbara has a cold--a nasty, stuffy, choky cold; so I must do without +her. Apparently I must do without Vick too. She makes a feint, indeed, +of accompanying me halfway to the front gate, then sits down on her +little shivering haunches, smirks, and when I call her, looks the other +way, affecting not to hear. On my calling more peremptorily, "Vick! +Vick!" she tucks her tail well in, and canters back to the house on +three legs. + +So it comes to pass that I set out quite alone. I have no definite idea +where to go--I walk vaguely along, following my nose, as they say, +smiling foolishly, and talking to myself--now under my breath--now out +loud. A strong southwest wind blows steadily in my face: it sounded +noisy and fierce enough as I sat in the house; but there is no vice or +malevolence in it--it is only a soft bluster. + +Alternate clouds and sunshine tenant the sky. The shadows of the +tree-trunks lie black and defined across the road--branches, twigs, +every thing--then comes a sweep of steely cloud, and they disappear, +swallowed up in one uniform gray: a colorless moment or two passes, and +the sun pushes out again; and they start forth distinct and defined, +each little shoot and great limb, into new life on the bright ground. I +laugh out loud, out of sheer jollity, as I watch the sun playing at +hide-and-seek with them. + +What a good world! What a handsome, merry, sweetly-colored world! +Unsatisfying? disappointing?--not a bit of it! It must be people's own +fault if they find it so. + +I have walked a mile or so before I at length decide upon a goal, toward +which to tend--a lone and distant cottage, tenanted by a very aged, +ignorant, and feudally loyal couple--a cottage sitting by the edge of a +brown common--one of the few that the greedy hand of Tillage has yet +spared--where geese may still stalk and hiss unreproved, and +errant-tinker donkeys crop and nibble undisturbed-- + + "Where the golden furze + With its green thin spurs + Doth catch at the maiden's gown." + +It is altogether a choice and goodly walk; next to nothing of the tame +high-road. The path leads through a deep wooded dell; over purple +plough-lands; down retired lanes. + +After an hour and a quarter of smartish walking, I reach the door. There +are no signs of ravaging children about. Long, long ago--years before +this generation was born--the noisy children went out; some to the +church-yard; some, with clamor of wedding-bells, to separate life. I +knock, and after an interval hear the sound of pattens clacking across +the flagged floor, and am admitted by an old woman, dried and pickled, +by the action of the years, into an active cleanly old mummy, and whose +fingers are wrinkled even more than time has done it, by the action of +soapsuds. I am received with the joyful reverence due to my exalted +station, am led in, and posted right in front of the little red fire and +the singing kettle, and introduced to a very old man, who sits on the +settle in the warm chimney-corner, dressed in an ancient smock-frock, +and with both knotted hands clasped on the top of an old oak staff. He +is evidently childish, and breaks now and then into an anile laugh at +the thought, no doubt, of some dead old pothouse jest. A complication +arises through his persisting in taking me for a sister of Roger's, who +died thirty years ago, in early girlhood, and addressing me accordingly. +I struggle a little for my identity, but, finding the effort useless, +resign it. + +"This poor ould person is quoite aimless," says his wife with +dispassionate apology; "but what can you expect at noinety-one?" + +(Her own years cannot be much fewer.) + +I say tritely that it is a great age. + +"He's very fatiguin' on toimes!--that he is!" she continues, eying him +with contemplated candor--"he crumbles his wittles to that extent that I +'ave to make him sit upo' the _News of the World_" + +As it seems to me that the conversation is taking a painful direction, I +try to divert it by telling my news; but the bloom is again taken off it +by the old man, who declines to be disabused of the idea that the +Peninsular is still raging, and that it is Roger's _grandfather_ who is +returning from that field of glory. After a few more minutes, during +which the old wife composedly tells me of all the children she has +buried--she has to think twice before she can recollect the exact +number--and in the same breath remarks, "How gallus bad their 'taters +were last year," I take my departure, and leave the old man still +nodding his weak old head, and chuckling to the kettle. + +On first leaving the house, I feel dashed and sobered. The inertness and +phlegmatic apathy of dry and ugly old age seem to weigh upon and press +down the passionate life of my youth, but I have not crossed a couple of +ploughed fields and seen the long slices newly ploughed, lying rich and +thick in the sun; I have not heard two staves of the throstle's loud +song, before I have recovered myself. I also begin to sing. I am not +very harmonious, perhaps, I never am; and I wander now and then from the +tune; but it is good enough for the stalking geese, my only audience, +except a ragged jackass, who, moved by my example, lifts his nose and +gives vent to a lengthy bray of infinite yearning. + +I am half-way home now. I have reached the wood--Brindley Wood; +henceforth I am not very likely to forget its name. The path dips at +once and runs steeply down, till it reaches the bottom of the dell, +along which a quick brook runs darkling. In summer, when the leaves are +out it is twilight here at high noonday. Hardly a peep of sky to be seen +through the green arch of oak and elm; but now, through the net-work of +wintry twigs one looks up, and sees the faint, far blue, for the loss of +which no leafage can compensate. Winter brownness above, but a more than +summer green below--the heyday riot of the mosses. Mossed tree-trunks, +leaning over the bustling stream; emerald moss carpets between the +bronze dead leaves; all manner of mosses; mosses with little nightcaps; +mosses like doll's ferns; mosses like plump cushions; and upon them here +and there blazes the glowing red of the small peziza-cups. + +I am still singing; and, as no wind reaches this shadowed hollow, I have +taken off my hat, and walk slowly along, swinging it in my hand. It is a +so little-frequented place, that I give an involuntary start, and my +song suddenly dies, when, on turning a corner, I come face to face with +another occupant. In a moment I recover myself. It is only Frank, +sitting on a great lichened stone, staring at the brook and the trees. + +"You seem very cheerful!" he says, rising, stretching out his hand, and +not (as I afterward recollect) expressing the slightest surprise at our +unlikely rencontre. "I never heard you lift up your voice before." + +"I seem what I am," reply I shortly. "I _am_ cheerful," + +"You mostly are." + +"That is all that _you_ know about it," reply I, brusquely, rather +resenting the accusation. "I have not been _at all_ in good spirits all +this--this autumn and winter, not, that is, compared to what I usually +am." + +"Have not you?" + +"I _am_ in good spirits to-day, I grant you," continue I, more affably; +"it would be very odd if I were not. I should jump out of my skin if I +were quite sure of getting back into it again; I have had _such_ good +news." + +"Have you? I wish _I_ had" (sighing). "What is it?" + +"I will give you three guesses," say I, trying to keep grave, but +breaking out everywhere, as I feel, into badly-suppressed smiles. + +"Something about the boys, of course!"--(half fretfully)--"it is +always the boys." + +"It is nothing about the boys--quite wrong. That is _one._" + +"The fair Zephine is no more!--by-the-by, I suppose I should have heard +of that." + +"It is nothing about the fair Zephine--wrong again! That is _two_!" + +"Barbara has got leave to stay till Easter!" + +"Nothing about Barbara! "--(with a slight momentary pang at the ease and +unconcern with which he mentions her name).--"By-the-by, I wish you +would give up calling her Barbara;' she never calls you 'Frank!' There, +you have had your three guesses, and you have never come within a mile +of it--I shall have to tell you--_Roger is coming back!_" opening my +eyes and beginning to laugh joyously. + +"_Soon?_" with a quick and breathless change of tone, that I cannot help +perceiving, turning sharply upon me. + +"_At once_!" reply I, triumphantly; "we may expect him _any day_!" + +He receives this information in total silence. He does not attempt the +faintest or slightest congratulation. + +"I wish I had not told you!" cry I, indignantly; "what a fool I was to +imagine that you would feel the slightest interest in any thing that did +not concern yourself personally! Of course" (turning a scarlet face and +blazing-eyes full upon him), "I did not expect you _to feel_ glad--I +have known you too long for that--but you might have had the common +civility to _say_ you were!" + +We have stopped. We stand facing each other in the narrow wood-path, +while the beck noisily babbles past, and the thrushes answer each other +in lovely dialogue. He is deadly pale; his lips are trembling, and his +eyes--involuntarily I look away from them! + +"I am _not_ glad!" he says, with slow distinctness; "often--often you +have blamed me for _hinting_ and _implying_ for using innuendoes and +half-words, and once--_once_, do you recollect?--you told me to my face +_I lied!_ Well, I will not _lie_ now; you shall have no cause to blame +me to-day. I will tell you the truth, the truth that you know as well as +I do--I am _not_ glad!" + +Absolute silence. I could no more answer or interrupt him than I could +soar up between the dry tree-boughs to heaven. I stand before him with +parted lips, and staring eyes fixed in a stony, horrid astonishment on +his face. + +"Nancy," he says, coming a step nearer, and speaking in almost a +whisper, "_you_ are not glad either! For once speak the truth! Hypocrisy +is always difficult to you. You are the worst actress I ever saw--speak +the truth for once! Who is there to hear you but me? I, who know it +already--who have known it ever since that first evening in Dresden! Do +you recollect?--but of course you do--why do I ask you? Why should you +have forgotten any more than I?" + +Still I am silent. Though I stand in the free clear air of heaven, I +could not feel more choked and gasping were I in some close and stifling +dungeon, hundreds of feet underground. I think that the brook must have +got into my brain, there is such a noise of bubbling and brawling in it. +Barbara, Roger, Algy, a hundred confused ideas of pain and dismay jostle +each other in my head. + +"Why do you look at me so?" he says, hoarsely. "What have I done? For +God's sake, do not think that I blame you! I never have been so sorry +for any one in my life as I have been for you--as I was for you from the +first moment I saw you! I can see you now, as I first caught sight of +you--weariness and depression in every line of your face--" + +I can bear no more. At his last words, a pain like a knife, sharp to +agony, runs through me. It is the grain of truth in his wicked, lying +words that gives them their sting. I _was_ weary; I _was_ depressed; I +_was_ bored, I fling out my arms with a sudden gesture of despair, and +then, throwing myself down on the ground, bury my face in a great moss: +cushion, and put my fingers in my ears. + +"O my God!" I cry, writhing, "what _shall I_ do?--_how can_ I bear it?" + +After a moment or two I sit up. + +"How _shameful_ of you!" I cry, bursting into a passion of tears. "What +sort of women can you have lived among? what a hateful mind you must +have! And I thought that you were a nice fellow, and that we were all so +comfortable together!" + +He has drawn back a pace or two, and now stands leaning against one of +the bent and writhen trunks of the old trees. He is still as pale as the +dead, and looks all the paler for the burning darkness of his eyes. + +"Is it possible," he says, in a low tone of but half-suppressed fury, +"that you are going to _pretend_ to be surprised?" + +"_Pretend_!" cry I, vehemently; "there is no pretense about it! I never +was so horribly, miserably surprised in all my life!" + +And then, thinking of Barbara, I fall to weeping again, in utter +bitterness and discomfiture. + +"It is _impossible_!" he says, roughly. "Whatever else you are, you are +no fool; and a woman would have had to be blinder than any mole not to +see whither I--yes, and _you_, too--have been tending! If you meant to +be _surprised_ all along when it came to this, why did you make yourself +common talk for the neighborhood with me? Why did you press me, with +such unconventional eagerness to visit you? Why did you reproach me if I +missed one day?" + +"_Why did I_?" cry I, eagerly. "Because--" + +Then I stop suddenly. How, even to clear myself, can I tell him my real +reason? + +"And now," he continues, with deepening excitement, "now that you reap +your own sowing, you are _surprised--miserably surprised!_" + +"I am!" cry I, incoherently. "You may not believe me, but it is true--as +true as that God is above us, and that I never, _never_ was tired of +Roger!" + +I stop, choked with sobs. + +"Yes," he says, sardonically, "about as true. But, be that as it may, +you must at least be good enough to excuse me from expressing _joy_ at +his return, seeing that he fills the place which I am fool enough to +covet, and which, but for him, _might_--yes, say what you please, deny +it as much as you like--_-would_ have been mine!" + +"It _never_ would!" cry I, passionately. "If you had been the last man +in the world--if we had been left together on a desert island--I _never_ +should have liked you, _never_! I _never_ would have seen more of you +than I could help! There is _no one_ whose society I grow so soon tired +of. I have said so over and over again to the boys." + +"Have you?" + +"What good reason can you give me for preferring you to him?" I ask, my +voice trembling and quivering with a passionate indignation; "I am here, +ready to listen to you if you can! How are you such a desirable +substitute for him? Are you nobler? cleverer? handsomer? unselfisher?-- +if you are" (laughing bitterly), "you keep it mighty well hid." + +No reply: not a syllable. + +"It is a _lie_" I cry, with growing vehemence, "a vile, base, groundless +lie, to say that I am not glad he is coming back! Barbara knows--they +_all_ know how I have been _wearying_ for him all these months. I was +not _in love_, as you call it, when I married him--often I have told him +that--and perhaps at Dresden I missed the boys a little--he knows that +too--he understands! but now--_now_--" (clasping my hands upon my +heart, and looking passionately upward with streaming eyes), "I want no +one--_no one_ but him! I wish for nothing better than to have _him_-- +_him only!--and_ to-day, until I met _you_--till you made me loathe +myself and you, and every living thing--it seemed to me as if all the +world had suddenly grown bright and happy and good at the news of his +coming." + +Still he is silent. + +"Even if I had not liked _him_" pursue I, finding words come quickly +enough now, and speaking with indignant volubility, as, having risen, I +again face him--"even if I had wanted to flirt with some one, why on +earth should I have chosen _you_?" (eying him with scornful slowness, +from his wide-awake to his shooting-boots), "_you_, who never even +_amused_ me in the least! Often when I have been talking to you, I have +yawned till the tears came into my eyes! I have been afraid that you +would notice it. If I had known" (speaking with great bitterness), "I +should have taken less pains with my manners." + +He does not answer a word. What answer _can_ he make? He still stands +under the wintry tree, white to lividness; drops of cold sweat stand on +his brows; and his fine nostrils dilate and contract, dilate and +contract, in an agony of anger and shame. + +"What _could_ have put such an idea into your head?" cry I, clasping my +hands, while the tears rain down my cheeks, as--my thoughts again flying +to Barbara--I fall from contempt and scorn to the sharpest reproach. +"Who would have thought of such a thing? when there are so many better +and prettier people who, for all I know, might have liked you. What +wicked perversity made you fix upon _me_ who, even if I had not belonged +to any one else, could never, _never_ have fancied you!" + +"Is that true?" he says, in a harsh, rough whisper; "are you sure that +you are not deceiving yourself? are you sure that under all your rude +words you are not nearer loving me than you think?--that it is not that +--with that barrier between us--you cannot reconcile it to your +conscience--" + +"Quite, _quite_ sure!" interrupt I, with passionate emphasis, looking +back unflinchingly into the angry depths of his eyes, "it has nothing to +say to conscience! it has nothing to say to the _wrongness_ of it" +(crimsoning as I speak). "If it were quite right--if it were my _duty--_ +it were the only way to save myself from _hanging_" (reaching after an +ever higher and higher climax), "I _never_, NEVER could say that I was +fond of you! I do not see what there is to be fond of _in_ you! before +God, I do not!" + +"There!" he says, hoarsely stretching out his hand, as if to ward off a +blow, "that will do!--stop!--you will never outdo that!" + +A moment's pause. + +Down in the loneliness of this dell, the twilight is creeping quickly +on: when once it begins it tarries not. Out in the open country I dare +say that it is still broad daylight; but here, the hues of the moss +carpet are growing duller, and the brook is darkening. In a sudden +panic, I hastily catch up my hat, which has fallen to the ground, and +without a word or look of farewell, begin to run fast along the homeward +path. Before I have gone ten yards he has overtaken me. His face is +distorted by passion out of all its beauty. + +"Nancy," he says, in a voice rendered almost unrecognizable by extreme +agitation, walking quickly alongside of me, "we are not going to part +like this!" + +"Do not call me Nancy!" cry I, indignantly; "it makes me _sick!_" + +"What does it matter what I call you?" he cries, impatiently; "of what +consequence is such a trifle? I will call you by what name you please, +but for this once you _must_ listen to me. I know, as well as you do, +that it is my last chance!" + +"_That_ it is!" put in I, viciously. + +The path is beginning to rise. After mounting the slope, we shall soon +be out of the wood, and in the peopled open again. + +"How can I help it, if I have gone mad?" he cries violently, evidently +driven to desperation by the shortness of the time before him. + +"Mad!" echo I, scornfully, "not a bit of it! you are as sane as I am!" + +All this time we are posting along in mad haste. Thank God! the +high-road is in sight, the cheerful, populous, light high-road. The +trees grow thinner, and the path broadens. Even from here, we can +plainly see the carts and carters. He stops, and making me stop, too, +snatches both my hands. + +"Nancy!" he says, harshly, stooping over me, while his eyes flame with a +haggard light. "Yes, I _will_ call you so this once--to me now you _are_ +Nancy! I will _not_ call you by _his_ name! Is it _possible_? You may +say that it is my egotism; but, at a moment like this, what is the use +of shamming--of polite pretense? Never, _never_ before in all my life +have I given love without receiving it, and I _cannot_ believe"--(with +an accent of passionate entreaty)--"that I do now! Feeling for you as I +do, do you feel absolutely _nothing_ for me?" + +"_Feel_!" cry I, driven out of all moderation by disgust and +exasperation. "Would you like to know how I feel? I feel _as if a slug +had crawled over me_!" + +His face contracts, his eyes darken with a raging pain. He _throws_ my +hands--the hands a moment ago so jealously clasped--away from him. + +"Thank you!" he says, after a pause, in a stiff voice of constraint. "I +am satisfied!" + +"And a very good thing too!" say I, sturdily, still at boiling-point, +and diminishing with quick steps the small space still intervening +between me and the road. + +"Stay!" he says, overtaking me once again, as I reach it, and laying his +hand in detention on my arm. "One word more! I should be sorry to part +from you--such friends as we have been"--(with a sneer)--"without _one_ +good wish. Lady Tempest, I hope"--(smiling with malevolent irony)--"that +your fidelity will be rewarded as it deserves." + +"I have no doubt of it!" reply I, steadily; but even as I speak, a sharp +jealous pain runs through my heart. Thank God! he cannot see it! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +Yes, here out in the open it is still quite light; it seems two hours +earlier than it did below in the dark dingle--light enough as plainly to +see the faces of those one meets as if it were mid-day. I suppose that +my late companion and I were too much occupied by our own emotions to +hear, or at least notice the sound of wheels approaching us; but no +sooner have I turned and left him, before I have gone three paces, than +I am quickly passed by an open carriage and pair of grays--_quickly_ and +yet slowly enough for me to recognize the one occupant. As to her--for +it is Mrs. Huntley--she must have seen me already, as I stood with Mr. +Musgrave on the edge of the wood, exchanging our last bitter words. + +It is impossible that she could have helped it; but even had it been +possible--had there been any doubt on the subject, that doubt would be +removed by the unusual animation of her attitude, and the interest in +her eyes, that I have time to notice, as she rolls past me. + +I avert my face, but it is too late. She has seen my hat thrown on +anyhow, as it were with a pitchfork--has seen my face swollen with +weeping, and great tears still standing unwiped on my flushed cheeks. +What is far, _far_ worse, she has seen him, too. This is the last drop +in an already over-full cup. + +There is nothing in sight now--not even a cart--so I sit down on a heap +of stones by the road-side, and, covering my hot face with my hands, cry +till I have no more eyes left to cry with. Can _this_ be the day I +called good? Can _this_ be that bright and merry day, when I walked +elate and laughing between the deep furrows, and heard the blackbird and +thrush woo their new loves, nor was able myself to refrain from singing? + +My brain is a black chaos of whirling agonies, now together, now +parting; so that each may make their separate sting felt, and, in turn, +each will have to be faced. Preeminent among the dark host, towering +above even the thought of Barbara, is the sense of my own degradation. +There must have been something in my conduct to justify his taking me so +confidently for the bad, light woman he did. One does not get such a +character for nothing. I have always heard that, when such things happen +to people, they have invariably brought them on themselves. In +incoherent misery, I run over in my head, as well as the confusion of it +will let me, our past meetings and dialogues. In almost all, to my +distorted view, there now seems to have been an unseemly levity. Things +I have said to him; easy, familiar jokes that I have had with him; not +that _he_ ever had much sense of a jest--(even at this moment I think +this incidentally)--course through my mind. + +Our many _tete-a-tetes_ to which, at the time, I attached less than no +importance: through many of which I unfeignedly, irresistibly _gaped_; +our meetings in the park--accidental, as I thought--our dawdling +saunters through the meadows, as often as not at twilight; all, _all_ +recur to me, and, recurring, make my face burn with a hot and stabbing +shame. + +And _Roger_! This is the way in which I have kept things straight for +him! This is the way in which I have rewarded his boundless trust! he, +whose only fear was lest I should be dull! lest I should not amuse +myself! Well, I have amused myself to some purpose now. I have made +myself _common talk for the neighborhood! He_ said so. I have brought +discredit on Roger's honored name! Not even the consciousness of the +utter cleanness of my heart is of the least avail to console me. What +matter how clean the heart is, if the conduct be light? None but God can +see the former; the latter lies open to every carelessly spiteful, +surface-judging eye. And Barbara! Goaded by the thought of her, I rise +up quickly, and walk hastily along the road, till I reach a gate into +the park. Arrived there, and now free from all fear of interruption from +passers-by, I again sit down on an old dry log that lies beneath a great +oak, and again cover my face with my hands. + +What care I for the growing dark? the darker the better! Ah! if it were +dark enough to hide me from myself! How shall I break it to her--I, who, +confident in my superior discernment, have always scouted her misgivings +and turned into derision her doubts? If I thought that she would rave +and storm, and that her grief would vent itself in _anger_, it would not +be of half so much consequence. But I know her better. The evening has +closed in colder. The birds have all ceased their singing, and I still +sit on, in the absolute silence, unconscious--unaware of any thing round +me; living only in my thoughts, and with a resolution growing ever +stronger and stronger within me. I will _not_ tell her! I will _never_ +tell _any one_. I, that have hitherto bungled and blundered over the +whitest fib, will wade knee-deep in falsehoods, before I will ever let +any one guess the disgrace that has happened to me. Oh that, by long +silence, I could wipe it out of my own heart--out of the book of +unerasable past deeds! + +Of course, by the cessation of his visits, Barbara will learn her fate +in time. _In time_. Yes! but till then--till the long weeks in their +lapse have brought the certainty of disappointment and mistake? How can +I--myself knowing--watch her gentle confidence (for latterly her doubts +--and whose would not?--have been set at rest) decline through all the +suffering stages of uneasy expectation and deferred hope, to the blank, +dull sickness of despair? How, without betraying myself, see her daily +with wistful eyes looking--with strained ears listening--for a face and +a step that come not? If she were one to love lightly, one of the many +women who, when satisfied that it is no longer any use to cry and strive +for the unattainable, the out of reach, clip and pare their affections +to fit the unattainable, the within reach--! But I know differently. + +Hitherto, whenever love has been offered to her--and the occasions have +been not few--she has put it away from her; most gently, indeed, with a +most eager desire to pour balm and not vinegar into the wounds she has +made; with a most sincere sorrow and a disproportioned remorse at being +obliged to cause pain to any living thing; yet, with a quiet and +indifferent firmness, that left small ground for lingering hopes. And +now, having once loved, she will be slow to unlove again. + +It is quite dark now--as dark, at least, as it will be all night--and +two or three stars are beginning to quiver out, small and cold, in the +infinite distances of the sky. The sight of them, faintly trembling +between the bare boughs of the trees, is the first thing that calls me +back to the consciousness of outward things. Again I rise, and begin to +walk, stumbling through the long wet knots of the unseen grass, toward +the house. But when I reach it--when I see the red gleams shining +through the chinks of the window-shutters--my heart fails me. Not yet +can I face the people, the lights--Barbara! I turn into the garden, and +pace up and down the broad, lonely walks: I pass and repass the cold +river-gods of the unplaying fountain. I stand in the black night of the +old cedar's shade. On any other day no possible consideration would have +induced me to venture within the jurisdiction of its inky arms after +nightfall; to-day, I feel as if no earthly or unearthly thing would have +power to scare me. How long I stay, I do not know. Now and then, I put +up my hands to my face, to ascertain whether my cheeks and eyes feel +less swollen and burning; whether the moist and searching night-air is +restoring me to my own likeness. At length, I dare stay no longer for +fear of being missed, and causing alarm in the household. So I enter, +steal up-stairs, and open the door of my boudoir, which Barbara and I, +when alone, make our usual sitting-room. The candles are unlit; and the +warm fire--evidently long undisturbed--is shedding only a dull and +deceiving light on all the objects over which it ranges. So far, at +least. Fortune favors me. Barbara and Vick are sitting on the +hearth-rug, side by side. As I enter, they both jump up, and run to meet +me. One of them gives little raptured squeaks of recognition. The other +says, in a tone of relief and pleasure: + +"Here you are! I was growing so frightened about you! What can have made +you so late?" + +"It was so--so--pleasant! The thrushes were singing so!" reply I thus +happily inaugurating my career of invention. + +"But, my dear child, the thrushes went to bed two hours ago!" + +"Yes," I answer, at once entirely nonplussed, "so they did!" + +"Where _have_ you been?" she asks, in a tone of ever-increasing +surprise. "Did you go farther than you intended?" + +"I went--to see--the old Busseys," reply I, slowly; inwardly pondering, +with a stupid surprise, as to whether it can possibly have been no +longer ago than this very afternoon, that the old man mistook me for the +dead Belinda--and that I held the old wife's soapy hand in farewell in +mine; "the--old--Busseys!" I repeat, "and it took--me a long--_long_ +time to get home!" + +I shiver as I speak. + +"You are cold!" she says, anxiously. "I hope you have not had a chill--" +(taking my hands in her own slight ones)--"yes--_starved_!--poor dear +hands; let me rub them!" (beginning delicately to chafe them). + +Something in the tender solicitude of her voice, in the touch of her +gentle hands, gives me an agony of pain and remorse. I snatch away my +hands. + +"No! no!" I cry, brusquely, "they do very well!" + +Again she looks at me, with a sort of astonishment, a little mixed with +pain; but she does not say any thing. She goes over to the fire, and +stoops to take up the poker. + +"Do not!" cry I, hastily, "there is plenty of light!--I mean--" +(stammering) "it--it--dazzles me, coming in out of the dark." + +As I speak, I retire to a distant chair, as nearly as possible out of +the fire-light, and affect to be occupied with Vick, who has jumped up +on my lap, and--with all a dog's delicate care not to hurt you _really_ +--is pretending severely to bite every one of my fingers. Barbara has +returned to the hearth-rug. She looks a little troubled at first; but, +after a moment or two, her face regains its usual serene sweetness. + +"And I have been here ever since you left me!" she says, presently, with +a look of soft gayety. "I have had _no_ visitors! Not even"--(blushing +a little)--"the usual one." + +"No?" say I, bending down my head over Vick, and allowing her to have a +better and more thorough lick at the bridge of my nose than she has ever +enjoyed in her life before. + +"_You_ did not meet him, I suppose?" she says, interrogatively. + +"_I_" cry I, starting guiltily, and stammering. "Not I! Why--why should +I?" + +"Why should not you, rather?" she says, laughing a little. "It is not +such a _very_ unusual occurrence?" + +"Do you think not?" I say, in a voice whose trembling is painfully +perceptible to myself. "You do not think I--" ("You do not think I meet +him on purpose," I am going to say; but I break off suddenly, aware that +I am betraying myself). + +"He will come earlier to-morrow to make up for it"--she says, in a low +voice, more to herself than to me--"yes"--(clasping her hands lightly +in her lap, while the firelight plays upon the lovely mildness of her +happy face, and repeating the words softly)--"yes, he will come earlier +to-morrow!" + +I _cannot_ bear it. I rise up abruptly, trundling poor Vick, to whom +this reverse is quite unexpected, down on the carpet, and rushing out of +the room. + + * * * * * + +It is evening now--late evening, drawing toward bedtime. I am sitting +with my back to the light, and have asked for a shade for the lamp, on +the plea that the wind has cut my eyes--but, in spite of my precautions, +I am well aware that the disfigurement of my face is still unmistakably +evident to the most casual eye; and, from the anxious care with which +Barbara looks _away from me_, when she addresses me, I can perceive that +she has observed it, as, indeed, how could she fail to do? If Tou Tou +were here, she would overwhelm me with officious questions--would stare +me crazy, but Barbara averts her eyes, and asks nothing. + +We have been sitting in perfect silence for a long while; no noise but +the click of Barbara's knitting-pins, the low flutter of the fire-flame, +and the sort of suppressed choked _inward_ bark, with which Vick attacks +a phantom tomcat in her dreams. + +Suddenly I speak. + +"Barbara!" say I, with a hard, forced laugh, "I am going to ask you a +silly question: tell me, did you ever observe--has it ever struck you +that there was something rather--rather _offensive_ in my manner to +men?" + +Her knitting drops into her lap. Her blue eyes open wide, like +dog-violets in the sun; she is _obliged_ to look at me now. + +"_Offensive_!" she echoes, with an accent of the most utter surprise and +mystification. "Good Heavens, no! What has come to the child? Oh!"-- +(with a little look of dawning intelligence)--"I see! You mean, do not +you smite them too much? Are not you sometimes a little too _hard_ upon +them?" + +"No," say I, gravely; "I did not mean that." + +She looks at me for explanation, but I can give none. More silence. + +Vick is either in hot pursuit of, or hot flight from, the tomcat; all +her four legs are quivering and kicking in a mimic gallop. + +"Do you remember," say I, again speaking, and again prefacing my words +by an uneasy laugh, "how the boys at home used always to laugh at me, +because I never knew how to flirt, nor had any pretty ways? Do you +think"--(speaking slowly and hesitatingly)--"that boys--one's brothers, +I mean--would be good judges of that sort of thing?" + +"As good as any one else's brothers, I suppose," she says, with a low +laugh, but still looking puzzled; "but why do you ask?" + +"I do not know," reply I, trying to speak carelessly; "it came into my +head." + +"Has any one been accusing you?" she says, a little curiously, "But no! +who _could_? You have seen no one, not even--" + +"No, no!" interrupt I, shrinking from the sound of the name that I know +is coming; "of course not; no one!" + +The clock strikes eleven, and wakes Vick. Barbara rises, rolls up her +knitting, and, going over to the fireplace, stands with one white elbow +resting on the chimney-piece, and slender neck drooped, pensively gazing +at the low fire. + +"Do you know," she says, with a half-confused smile, that is also tinged +with a little anxiety, "I have been thinking--it is the first time for +three months that he has not been here at all, either in the morning, +the afternoon, or the evening!" + +"Is it?" say I, slightly shivering. + +"I think," she says, with a rather embarrassed laugh, "that he must have +heard _you_ were out, and that that was why he did not come. You know I +always tell you that he likes you best." + +She says it, as a joke, and yet her great eyes are looking at me with a +sort of wistfulness, but neither to _them_ nor to her words can I make +any answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +Next morning I am sitting before my looking-glass--never to me a +pleasant article of furniture--having my hair dressed. I am hardly awake +yet, and have not quite finished disentangling the real live +disagreeables which I have to face, from the imaginary ones from which +my waking has freed me. At least, in real life, I am not perpetually +pursued, through dull abysses, by a man in a crape mask, from whom I am +madly struggling to escape, and who is perpetually on the point of +overtaking and seizing me. + +It was a mistake going to sleep at all last night. It would have been +far wiser and better to have kept awake. The _real_ evils are bad +enough, but the dream ones in their vivid life make me shiver even now, +though the morning sun is lying in companionable patches on the floor, +and the birds are loudly talking all together. Do _no_ birds ever +listen? + +Distracted for a moment from my own miseries, by the noise of their soft +yet sharp hubbub, I am thinking this, when a knock comes at the door, +and the next moment Barbara enters. Her blond hair is tumbled about her +shoulders; no white rose's cheeks are paler than hers; in her hand she +has a note. In a moment I have dismissed the maid, and we are alone. + +"I want you to read this!" she says, in an even and monotonous voice, +from which, by an effort whose greatness I can dimly guess, she keeps +all sound of trembling. + +I have risen and turned from the glass; but now my knees shake under me +so much that I have to sit down again. She comes behind me, so that I +may no longer see her: and putting her arms round my neck, and hiding +her face in my unfinished hair, says, whisperingly: + +"Do not fret about it, Nancy!--I do not mind much." + +Then she breaks into quiet tears. + +"Do you mean to say that he has had the _insolence_ to write to you," I +cry, in a passion of indignation, forgetting for the moment Barbara's +ignorance of what has occurred, and only reminded of it by the look of +wonder that, as I turn on my chair to face her, I see come into her +eyes. + +"Have not you been expecting him every day to write to me?" she asks, +with a little wonder in her tone; "but _read!_" (pointing to the note, +and laughing with a touch of bitterness), "you will soon see that there +is no _insolence_ here." + +I had quite as lief, in my present state of mind, touch a yard-long +wriggling ground-worm, or a fat wood-louse, as paper that his fingers +have pressed; but I overcome my repulsion, and unfold the note. + +"DEAR MISS GREY: + +"Can I do any thing for you in town? I am going-up there to-morrow, and +shall thence, I think, run over to the Exhibition. I have no doubt that +it is just like all the others; but _not_ to have seen it will set one +at a disadvantage with one's fellows. I am afraid that there is no +chance of your being still at Tempest when I return. I shall be most +happy to undertake any commissions. + +"Yours sincerely, + +"F. MUSGRAVE." + +The note drops from my fingers, rolls on to my lap, and thence to the +ground. I sit in stiff and stupid silence. To tell the truth, I am +trying strongly to imagine how I should look and what I should say, were +I as ignorant of causes as Barbara thinks me, and to look and speak +accordingly. + +She kneels down beside me, and softly drawing down my face, till it is +on a level with hers, and our cheeks touch, says in a tone of gentle +entreaty and compassion, as if _I_ were the one to be considered--the +prime sufferer: + +"Do not fret about it. Nancy! it is of no--no consequence!--there is no +harm done!" + +I struggle to say _something_, but for the life of me I can frame no +words. + +"It was my own fancy!" she says, faltering, "I suppose my vanity misled +me!" + +"It is all my fault!" cry I, suddenly finding passionate words, starting +up, and beginning to walk feverishly to and fro--"_all!_--there never +was any one in all this world so blind, so ill-judging, so miserably +mistaken! If it had not been for me, you never would have thought twice +of him--never; and I"--(beginning to speak with weeping indistinctness) +--"I thought it would be so nice to have you near me--I thought that +there was nothing the matter with him, but his temper; _many_ men are +ill-tempered--nearly _all_. If" (tightly clinching my hands, and setting +my teeth) "I had had any idea of his being the _scoundrel_ that he is--" + +"But he is not," she interrupts quickly, wincing a little at my words; +"indeed he is not! What ill have we heard from him? If you do not mind" +(laying her hand with gentle entreaty on my arm), "I had rather, _far_ +rather, that you did not say any thing hard of him! I was always so glad +that you and he were such friends--always--and I do not know why--there +is no sense in it; but I am glad of it still." + +"We were _not_ friends," say I, writhing a little; "why do you say so?" + +She looks at me with a great and unfeigned astonishment. + +"_Not friends_!" she echoes, slowly repeating my words; then, seeing the +expression of my face, stops suddenly. + +"Are you _sure_," cry I, feverishly snatching her hands and looking with +searching anxiety into her face, "that you spoke truth just now?--that +you do not mind much--that you will get over it!--that it will not +_kill_ you?" + +"_Kill_ me!" she says, with a little sorrowful smile of derision; "no, +no! I am not so easily killed." + +"Are you _sure_?" persist I, with a passionate eagerness, still reading +her tear-stained face, "that it will not take the taste out of every +thing?--that it will not make you hate all your life?--it would me." + +"_Quite_ sure!--certain!" she says, looking back at me with a steady +meekness, though her blue eyes brim over; "because God has taken from me +_one_ thing--one that I never had any right to expect--should I do well, +do you think, to quarrel with all that He has left me?" + +I cannot answer; her godly patience is too high a thing for me. + +"Even if my life _were_ spoilt," she goes on, after a moment or two, her +voice gaining firmness, and her face a pale serenity, "even if it were-- +but it is _not_--indeed it is not. In a very little while it will seem +to me as good and pleasant and full as ever; but even if it _were_" +(looking at me with a lovely confidence in her eyes), "it would be no +such very great matter--_this_ life is not every thing!" + +"Is not it?" say I, with a doubting shiver. "Who can tell you that? who +knows?" + +"No_one_ has been to blame," she continues, with a gentle persistence. +"I should like you to see that! There has been only a--a--_mistake_"-- +(her voice failing a little again), "a mistake that has been corrected +in time, and for which no one--_no one_, Nancy, is the worse!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +So this is the way in which Barbara's hope dies! Our hopes have as many +ways of dying as our bodies. Sometimes they pine and fall into a slow +consumption, we nursing, cockering, and physicking them to the last. +Sometimes they fall down dead suddenly, as one that in full health, with +his bones full of marrow, and his eyes full of light, drops wordless +into the next world unaware. This last has been Barbara's case. When she +thought it healthiest, and most vigorous in its stalwart life, then the +death-mark was on it. To most of us, O friends, troubles are as great +stones cast unexpectedly on a smooth road; over which, in a dark night, +we trip, and grumblingly stumble, cursing, and angrily bruising our +limbs. To a few of us, they are ladders, by which we climb to God; +hills, that lift us nearer heaven--that heaven, which, however certainly +--with whatever mathematical precision--it has been demonstrated to us +that it exists not here, nor there, nor yet anywhere, we still dimly, +with yearning tears and high longings, grasp at. Barbara has always +looked heavenward. In all her mirth, God has mixed. Now, therefore, in +this grief that He has sent her--this ignoble grief, that yet cuts the +none less deeply for being ignoble, and excluding the solace of human +sympathy, she but thrusts her hand with a fuller confidence in his, and +fixes her sweet eyes with a more reverent surety on the one prime +consoler of humankind, who, from his Cross, has looked royally down the +toiling centuries--the king, whom this generation, above all +generations, is laboring--and, as not a few think, _successfully_--to +discrown. To her, his kingship is as unquestioned as when heretics and +paynims burnt to prove it. + +Often, since then, in those vain longings that come to each of us, I +suppose, I tried in after-days--sometimes I try now, to stretch my arms +out wide-backward toward the past--to speak the words that would have +been as easily spoken then as any other--that no earthly power can ever +make spoken words now, of sympathy and appreciation to Barbara. + +I did say loving things, but they seem to me now to have been but scant +and shabby. Why did not I say a great many more? Oh, all of you who live +with those that are dearer to you than they seem, tell them every day +how much you love them! at the risk of _wearying_ them, tell them, I +pray you: it will save you, perhaps, many after-pangs. + +I think that, at this time, there are in me _two_ Nancys--Barbara's +Nancy, and Roger's Nancy; the one so vexed, thwarted, and humiliated in +spirit, that she feels as if she never could laugh quite heartily again; +the other, so utterly and triumphantly glad, that any future tears or +trials seem to her in the highest degree improbable. And Barbara herself +is on the side of this latter. From her hopeful speech and her smiles, +you would think that some good news had come to her--that she was on the +eve of some long-looked-for, yet hardly-hoped prosperity. Not that she +is unnaturally or hysterically lively--an error into which many, making +such an effort and struggle for self-conquest, would fall. Barbara's +mirth was never noisy, as mine and the boys' so often was. Perhaps--nay, +I have often thought since, _certainly_--she weeps as she prays, in +secret; but God is the only One who knows of her tears, as of her +prayers. She has always been one to go halves in her pleasures, but of +her sorrows she will give never a morsel to any one. + +Her very quietness under her trouble--her silence under it--her +equanimity--mislead me. It is the impulse of any hurt thing to cry +out. I, myself, have always done it. Half unconsciously, I am led by +this reasoning to think that Barbara's wound cannot be very deep, else +would she shrink and writhe beneath it. So I talk to her all day, with +merciless length, about Roger. I go through all the old queries. I again +critically examine my face, and arrive--not only at the former +conclusion, that one side is worse-looking than the other, but also that +it looks ten years older. + +I have my flax hair built in many strange and differing fashions, and +again unbuilt: piled high, to give me height; twisted low, in a vain +endeavor to liken me to the Greeks; curled, plaited, frizzed, and again +unfrizzed. I institute a searching and critical examination of my +wardrobe, rejecting this and that; holding one color against my cheek, +to see whether my pallor will be able to bear it; turning away from +another with a grimace of self-disgust. + +And this is the same "_I_," who thought it so little worth while to win +the good opinion of father's blear-eyed old friend, that I went to my +first meeting with him with a scorched face, loose hair, tottering, all +through prayers, on the verge of a descent about my neck, and a large +round hole, smelling horribly of singeing, burnt in the very front of my +old woolen frock. + +His coming is near now. This _very_ day I shall see him come in that +door. He will sit in that chair. His head will dent that cushion. I +shall sit on a footstool at his feet. The better to imagine the +position, I push a footstool into the desired neighborhood to Roger's +arm-chair, and already see myself, with the eye of faith, in solid +reality occupying it. I rehearse all the topics that will engage my +tongue. The better to realize their effect upon him, I give utterance +out loud to the many greetings, to the numberless fond and pretty things +with which I mean to load him. + +He always looked so very joyful when I said any little civil thing to +him, and I so seldom, _seldom_ did. Ah! we will change all that! He +shall be nauseated with sweets. And then, still sitting by him, holding +his hand, and with my head (dressed in what I finally decide upon as the +becomingest fashion) daintily rested on his arm, I will tell him all my +troubles, I will tell him of Algy's estrangement, his cold looks and +harsh words. Without any outspoken or bitter abuse of her, I will yet +manage cunningly to set him on his guard against Mrs. Huntley. I will +lament over Bobby to him. Yes, I will tell him _all_ my troubles-- +_all_, that is, with one reservation. + +Barbara is no longer here. She has gone home. + +"You will be better by yourselves," she says, gently, when she announces +her intention of going. "He will like it better. I should if I were he. +It will be like a new honey-moon." + +"_That_ it will not," reply I, stoutly, recollecting how much I yawned, +and how largely Mr. Musgrave figured in the first. "I have no opinion of +honey-moons; no more would _you_ if you had _had_ one." + +"_Should_ not I?" speaking a little absently, while her eyes stray +through the window to the serene coldness of the sky, and the pallid +droop of the snow-drops in the garden-border. + +"You are sure," say I, earnestly, taking her light hand in mine, "that +you are not going because you think that you are not _wanted_ now--that +now, that I have my--my own property again" (smiling irrepressibly), "I +can do very well without you." + +"_Quite_ sure, Nancy!" looking back into my eager eyes with confident +affection. + +"And you will come back _very_ soon? _very?_" + +"When you quarrel," she answers, her face dimpling into a laugh, "I will +come and make it up between you." + +"You must come before _then_" say I, with a proud smile, "or your visit +is likely to be indefinitely postponed." + +Roger and I quarrel! We both find the idea so amusing that we laugh in +concert. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + "_Gertrude_. Is my knight come? O the Lord, my hand! Sister, do my +cheeks look well? Give me a little box o' the ear, that I may seem to +blush."--EASTWARD HOE. + + +She is gone now. The atmosphere of the house seems less clear, less +pure, now that she has left it. As she drives away, it seems to me, +looking after her, that no flower ever had a modester face, a more +delicate bloom. If I had time to think about it, I should fret sorely +after her, I should grievously miss her; but I have none. + +The carriage that takes her to the station is to wait half an hour, and +then bring back Roger. There is, therefore, not more than enough time +for me to make the careful and lengthy toilet, on which I have expended +so much painstaking thought. I have deferred making it till now, so that +I may appear in perfect dainty freshness, as if I had just emerged from +the manifold silver papers of a bandbox, before him when he arrives-- +that not a hair of my flax head may be displaced from its silky sweep; +that there may be no risk of Vick jumping up, and defiling me with muddy +paws that know no respect of clothes. + +I take a long time over it. I snub my maid more than I ever did in my +life before. But I am complete now; to the last pin I am finished. +Perhaps--though this does not strike me till the last moment--perhaps I +am rather, nay, more than _rather_, overdressed for the occasion. But +surely this, in a person who has not long been in command of fine +clothes, and even in that short time has had very few opportunities of +airing them, is pardonable. + +You remember that it is February. Well, then, this is the warm splendor +in which I am clad. Genoa velvet, of the color of a dark sapphire, +trimmed with silver-fox fur; and my head crowned with a mob-cap, +concerning which I am in doubt, and should be nervously glad to have the +boys here to enlighten me as to whether it is very becoming or rather +ridiculous. The object of the mob-cap is to approximate my age to +Roger's, and to assure all such as the velvet and fur leave in doubt, +that I am entitled to take my stand among the portly ranks of British +matrons. + +"Algy was right," say I, soliloquizing aloud, as I stand before the long +cheval glass, with a back-hair glass in one hand, by whose aid I correct +my errors in the profile, three-quarters or back view; "mine is not the +most hopeless kind of ugliness. It is certainly modifiable by dress." + +So saying, I lay down the hand-glass, and walk sedately down-stairs, +holding my head stiffly erect, and looking over my shoulder, like a +child, at the effect of my blue train sweeping down the steps after me. + +Arrived in my boudoir, I go and stand by the window, though there are +yet ten minutes before he is due. Once I open the casement to listen, +but hastily close it again, afraid lest the wintry wind should ruffle +the satin smoothness of my hair, or push the mob-cap awry. Then I sit +carefully down, and, harshly repulsing an overture on the part of Vick +to jump into my lap, fix my eyes upon the dark bare boughs of the tall +and distant elms, from between which I shall see him steal into sight. +The time ticks slowly on. He is due now. Five more lame, crawling +minutes--ten!--no sign of him. Again I rise, unclose the casement, and +push my matronly head a little way out to listen. Yes! yes! there is the +distant but not doubtful sound of a horse's four hoofs smartly trotting +and splashing along the muddy road. Three minutes more, and the sun +catches and brightly gleams on one of the quickly-turning wheels of the +dog-cart as it rolls toward me, between the wintry trees. + +At first I cannot see the occupants; the boughs and twigs interpose to +hide them; but presently the dog-cart emerges into the open. There is +only one person in it! + +At first I decline to believe my own eyes. I rub them. I stretch my head +farther out. Alas! self-deception is no longer possible: the groom +returns as he went--alone. Roger has _not_ come! + +The dog-cart turns toward the stables, and I run to the bell and pull it +violently. I can hardly wait till it is answered. At last, after an +interval, which seems to me like twenty minutes, but which that false, +cold-blooded clock proclaims to be _two_, the footman enters. + +"Sir Roger has not come," I say more affirmatively than interrogatively, +for I have no doubt on the subject. "Why did not the groom wait for the +next train?" + +"If you please, my lady, Sir Roger _has_ come." + +"_Has come!_" repeat I, in astonishment, opening my eyes; "then where is +he?" + +"He is walking up, my lady." + +"What! all the way from Bishopsthorpe?" cry I, incredulously, thinking +of the five miry miles that intervene between us and that station. +"_Impossible!_" + +"No, my lady, not all the way; only from Mrs. Huntley's." + +I feel the color rushing away from my cheeks, and turn quickly aside, +that my change of countenance may not be perceived. + +"Did he get out there?" I ask, faintly. + +"Mrs. Huntley was at the gate, my lady, and Sir Roger got down to speak +to her, and bid James drive on and tell your ladyship he would be here +directly." + +"Very well," say I, unsteadily, still averting my face, "that will do." + +He is gone, and I need no longer mind what color my face is, nor what +shape of woeful jealousy my late so complacent features assume. + +So _this_ is what comes of thinking life such a grand and pleasant +thing, and this world such a lovely, satisfying paradise! Wait long +enough--(I have not had to wait very long for my part)--and every sweet +thing turns to gall-like bitterness between one's teeth! The experience +of a few days ago might have taught me _that_, one would think, but I +was dull to thick-headedness. I required _two_ lessons--the second, oh +how far harsher than even the first! + +In a moment I have taken my resolution. I am racing up-stairs. I have +reached my room. I do not summon my maid. One requires no assistance to +enable one to _un_build, deface, destroy. In a _second_--in much less +time than it takes me to write it--I have torn off the mob-cap, and +thrown it on the floor. If I had done what I wished, if I had yielded to +my first impulse, I should also have trampled upon it; but from the +extremity of petulance, I am proud to be able to tell you that I +refrain. With rapid fingers I unbutton my blue-velvet gown, and step out +of it, leaving it in a costly heap on the floor. Then I open the high +folding-doors of the wardrobe, and run my eye over its contents; but the +most becoming is no longer what I seek. For a moment or two I stand +undecided, then my eye is caught by a venerable garment, loathly and +ill-made, which I had before I married, and have since kept, more as a +relic than any thing else--a gown of that peculiar shade of sallow, +bilious, Bismarck brown, which is the most trying to the paleness of my +skin. Before any one could say "Jack Robinson," it is down, and I am in +it. Then, without even a parting smooth to the hair, which the violent +off-tearing of my cap must have roughened and disheveled, I go +down-stairs and reenter the boudoir. As I do so, I catch an accidental +glimpse of myself in a glass. Good Heavens! Can three minutes (for I +really have not been longer about it) have wrought such a monstrous +metamorphosis? Is every woman as utterly dependent for her charms upon +her _husk_ as I am? Can this sad, sallow slip of a girl be the beaming, +shapely, British matron I contemplated with so innocently pleased an eye +half an hour ago? If, in all my designs, I could have the perfect +success which has crowned my efforts at self-disfigurement, I should be +among the most prosperous of my species. + +I sit down as far from the window as the dimensions of the room will +allow, call Vick, who comes at first sneakingly and doubtful of her +reception, up on my lap, and take a book. It is the one nearest to my +hand, and I plunge into it haphazard in the middle. + +This is the sentence that first greets me: "Her whole heart was in her +boy. She often feared that she loved him too much--more than God +himself--yet she could not bear to pray to have her love for her child +lessened." + +Not a very difficult one to construe, is it? and yet, having come to the +end, and found that it conveyed no glimmering of an idea to my mind, I +begin it over again. + +"Her whole heart was in her boy. She often feared that she loved him too +much--more than God himself--yet she could not bear to pray to have her +love for her child lessened." + +Still no better! What _is_ it all about? + +I begin over again. + +"Her whole heart was in her boy," etc. I go through this process ten +times. I should go through it twenty, or even thirty, for I am resolved +to go on reading, but at the end of the tenth, my ear--unconsciously +strained--catches the sound of a step at the stair-foot. It is not the +footman's. It is firmer, heavier, and yet quicker. + +Eight weary months is it since I last heard that footfall. My heart +pulses with mad haste, my cheeks throb, but I sit still, and hold the +book before my eyes. I will _not_ go to meet him. I will be as +indifferent as he! When he opens the door, I will not even look round, I +will be too much immersed in the page before me. + +"Her whole heart was in her boy. She often feared that--" + +The door-handle is turning. I _cannot_ help it! Against my will, my head +turns too. With no volition of my own--against my firmest intention--my +feet carry me hastily toward him. My arms stretch themselves out. Thank +God! thank God! whatever happens afterward, I shall still thank God, and +call him good for allowing it. I am in Roger's embrace. No more +mistakes! no more delays! he is here, and I am kissing him as I never +kissed any one--as I certainly never kissed _him_ in my life before. + +Well, I suppose that in every life there are _some_ moments that are +_absolutely_ good--that one could not mend even if one were given the +power to try! I suppose that even those who, looking back over their +history, say, most distinctly and certainly, "It was a failure," can yet +lay the finger of memory on _some_ such gold minutes--it may be only +half a dozen, only four, only _two_--but still on some. + +This is one of my gold moments, one of those misplaced ones that have +strayed out of heaven, where, perhaps, they are _all_ such--_perhaps_-- +one can't be _sure_, for what human imagination can grasp the idea of +even a _day_, wholly made of such minutes? + +I have forgotten Mrs. Huntley--Mr. Musgrave. Every ill suspicion, every +stinging remembrance, is dead or fallen into a trance. All bad thoughts +have melted away from the earth. Only joyful love and absolute faith +remain, only the knowledge that Roger is mine, and I am his, and that we +are in each other's arms. I do not know how long we remain without +speaking. I do not imagine that souls in bliss ever think of looking at +the clock. He is the first to break silence. For the first time for +eight months I hear his voice again--the voice that for so many weeks +seemed to me no better than any other voice--whose tones I _now_ feel I +could pick out from those of any other living thing, did all creation +shout together. + +"Let me look at my wife!" he says, taking my countenance in his tender +hands, as if it were made of old china, and would break if he let it it +fall. "I feel as if I had never _had_ a wife before, as if it were quite +a new plaything." + +I make no verbal answer. I am staring up with all my eyes into his face, +thinking, with a sort of wonder, how much goodlier, younger, statelier +it is than it has appeared to me in any of those dream-pictures, which +yet mostly flatter. + +"My wife! my wife!" he says, speaking the words most softly, as if they +greatly pleased him, and replacing with carefullest fingers a stray and +arrant lock that has wandered from its fellows into my left eye. "What +has come to you? Had I forgotten what you were like? How pretty you are! +How well you look!" + +"Do I?" say I, with a pleasant simper; then, with a sudden and +overwhelming recollection of the bilious gingery frock, and the tousled +hair, "No, nonsense!" I say, uneasily, "impossible! You are laughing at +me! Ah!"--(with a sigh of irrepressible regret and back-handed pride)-- +"you should have seen me half an hour ago! I _did_ look nice _then_, if +you like." + +"Why nicer than now?"--(with a puzzled smile that both plays about his +bearded lips and gayly shines in his steel-gray eyes). + +"Oh, never mind! never mind!" reply I, in some confusion, "it is a long +story; it is of no consequence, but I _did._" + +He does not press for an explanation, for which I am obliged to him. + +"Nancy!" he says, with a sort of hesitating joy, a diffident triumph in +his voice, "do you know, I believe you have kept your promise! I +believe, I _really_ believe, that you are a little glad to see me!" + +"Are _you_ glad to see _me_, is more to the purpose?" return I, +descending out of heaven with a pout, and returning to the small +jealousies and acerbities of earth, and to the recollection of that yet +unexplained alighting at Aninda's gate. + +"_Am I?_" + +He seems to think that no asseverations, no strong adjectives or +intensifying adverbs, no calling upon sun and moon and stars to bear +witness to his gladness, can increase the force of those two tiny words, +so he adds none. + +"I wonder, then," say I, in a rather sneaky and shamefaced manner, +mumbling and looking down, "that you were not in a greater hurry to get +to me?" + +"_In a greater hurry!_" he repeats, in an accent of acute surprise. +"Why, child, what are you talking about? Since we landed, I have neither +slept nor eaten. I drove straight across London, and have been in the +train ever since." + +"But--between--this--and the--station?" suggest I, slowly, having taken +hold of one of the buttons of his coat; the very one that in former +difficulties I used always to resort to. + +"You mean about my walking up?" he says readily, and without the +slightest trace of guilty consciousness, indeed with a distinct and open +look of pleasure; "but, my darling, how could I tell how long she would +keep me? poor little woman!" (beginning to laugh and to put back the +hair from his tanned forehead). "I am afraid I did not bless her when I +saw her standing at her gate! I had half a mind to ask her whether +another time would not do as well, but she looked so eager to hear about +her husband--you know I have been seeing him at St. Thomas--such a +wistful little face--and I knew that she could not keep me more than ten +minutes; and, altogether when I thought of her loneliness and my own +luck--" + +He breaks off. + +"Are you so sure she _is_ lonely?" I say, with an innocent air of asking +for information, and still working hard at the button; "are people +always lonely when their husbands are away?" + +He looks at me strangely for a moment; then, "Of course she is lonely, +poor little thing!" he says, warmly; "how could she help it?" + +A slight pause. + +"_Most_ men," say I, jealously, "would not have thought it a hardship to +walk up and down between the laurustinus with Mrs. Zephine, I can tell +you!" + +"Would not they?" he answers, indifferently. "I dare say not! she always +_was_ a good little thing!" + +"Excellent!" reply I, with a nasty dryness, "bland, passionate, and +deeply religious!" + +Again he looks at me in surprise--a surprise which, after a moment's +reflection, melts and brightens into an expression of pleasure. + +"Did you care so much about my coming that ten minutes seemed to make a +difference?" he asks, in an eager voice. "Is it possible that you were +_in a hurry_ for me?" + +Why cannot I speak truth, and say yes? Why does an objectlessly lying +devil make its inopportune entry into me? Through some misplaced and +crooked false shame I answer, "Not at all! not at all! of course a few +minutes one way or the other could not make much difference; I was only +puzzled to know what had become of you?" + +He looks a shade disappointed, and for a moment we are both silent. We +have sat down side by side on the sofa. Vick is standing on her hinder +legs, with her forepaws rested on Roger's knee. Her tail is wagging with +the strong and untiring regularity of a pendulum, and a smirk of welcome +and recognition is on her face. Roger's arm is round me, and we are +holding each other's hands, but we are no longer in heaven. I could not +tell you _why_ but we are not. Some stupid constraint--quite of earth-- +has fallen upon me. Where are all those most tender words, those profuse +endearments with which I meant to have greeted him? + +"And so it is actually true!" he says, with a long-drawn sigh of relief; +his eyes wandering round the room, and taking in all the familiar +objects; "there is no mistake about it! I am actually holding your real +live hand" (turning it gently about and softly considering the long +slight fingers and pink palm)--"in mine! Ah! my dear, how often, how +often I have held it so in my dreams! Have you ever" (speaking with a +sort of doubtfulness and uncertain hope)--"have you ever--no, I dare say +not--so held mine?" + +The diffident passion in his voice for once destroys that vile +constraint, dissipates that idiotic sense of bashfulness. + +"_Scores_ of times!" I answer, letting my head drop on his shoulder, and +not taking the trouble to raise it again. + +"I never _used_ to think myself of a very nervous turn!" he says, +presently, with a smile. "Nancy, you will laugh at me, but I assure you +upon my honor that all the way home I have been in the most abject and +deadly fright: at every puff of wind I thought we were infallibly going +to the bottom: whenever the carriage rocked in the least to-day on the +way down, I made up my mind we were going to smash! Little woman, what +can a bit of a thing like you have done to me to make me seem so much +more valuable to myself than I have ever done these eight-and-forty +years?" + +I think no answer to this so suitable and seemly as a dumb friction of +my left cheek against the rough cloth of the shoulder on which it has +reposed itself. + +"Talk to me, Nancy!" he says, in a quiet half-whisper of happiness. "Let +me hear the sound of your voice! I am sick of my own; I have had a glut +of that all these weary eight months; tell me about them all! How are +they all? how are the boys?" (with a playful smile of recollection at +what used to be my _one_ subject, the one theme on which I was wont to +wax inimitably diffuse). But now, at the magic name no pleasant +garrulity overcomes me; only the remembrance of my worries; of all those +troubles that I mean now to transfer from my own to Roger's broad +shoulders, swoop down upon me. + +I raise my head and speak with a clouded brow and a complaining tone. + +"The Brat has gone back to Oxford," I say, gloomily; "Bobby has gone to +Hong-Kong, and Algy has gone to _the dogs_--or at least is going there +as hard as he can!" + +"_To the dogs_?" (with an accent of surprise and concern); "what do you +mean? what has sent him there?" + +"You had better ask Mrs. Zephine," reply I, bitterly, thinking, with a +lively exasperation, of the changed and demoralized Algy I had last +seen--soured, headstrong, and unhinged. + +"_Zephine!_" (repeating the name with an accent of thorough +astonishment), "what on earth can _she_ have to say to it?" + +"Ah, _what_?" reply I, with oracular spite; then, overcome with remorse +at the thought of the way in which I was embittering the first moments +of his return, I rebury my face in his shoulder. + +"I will tell you about that to-morrow," I say; "to-day is a good day, +and we will talk only of good things and of good people." + +He does not immediately answer. My remark seems to have buried him in +thought. Presently he shakes off his distraction and speaks again. + +"And Barbara? how is she? _She_ has not" (beginning to laugh)--"_she_ +has not gone to the dogs, I suppose!" + +"No," say I, slowly, not thinking of what I am saying, but with my +thoughts wandering off to the greatest and sorest of my afflictions, +"not yet." + +"And" (smiling) "your plan. See what a good memory I have--your plan of +marrying her to Musgrave, how does that work?" + +"_My_ plan!" cry I, tremulously, while a sudden torrent of scarlet pours +all over my face and neck. "I do not know what you are talking about! I +never had any such plan! Phew!" (lifting up the arm that is round my +waist, hastily removing it, rising and going to the window), "how hot +this room grows of an afternoon!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +So the king enjoys his own again, and Roger is at home. Not yet--and now +it is the next morning--has his return become _real_ to me. Still there +is something phantom and visionary about it: still it seems to me open +to question whether, if I look away from him for a moment, he may not +melt and disappear into dream-land. + +All through breakfast I am dodging and peeping from behind the urn to +assure myself of the continued presence and substantial reality of the +strong shoulders and bronze-colored face that so solidly and certainly +face me. As often as I catch his eye--and this is not seldom, for +perhaps he too has his misgivings about me--I smile, in a manner, half +ashamed, half sneaky, and yet most wholly satisfied. + +The sun, who is not by any means _always_ so well-judging, often hiding +his face with both hands from a wedding, and hotly and gaudily flaming +down on a black funeral, is shining with a temperate February comeliness +in at our windows, on our garden borders; trying (and failing) to warm +up the passionless melancholy of the chilly snow-drop families, trying +(and succeeding) to add his quota to the joy that already fills and +occupies our two hearts. + +"How fine it is!" I cry, flying with unmatronly agility to the window, +and playing a waltz on the pane. "That is right! I should have been so +angry if it had rained; let us come out at once--I want to hear your +opinion about the laurels; they want cutting badly, but I could not have +them touched while you were away, though Bobby's fingers--when he was +here--itched to be hacking at them. Come, I have got on my strong boots +on purpose!--_at once_" + +"_At once?_" he repeats, a little doubtfully turning over the letters +that lie in a heap beside his plate. "Well, I do not know about _that_-- +duty first, and pleasure afterward. Had not I better go to Zephine +Huntley's, and get it over?" + +"To _Zephine Huntley's?_" repeat I, my fingers suddenly breaking off in +the middle of their tune, as I turn quickly round to face him; the smile +disappearing from my face, and my jaw lengthening; "you do not mean to +say that you are going there _again_?" + +"Yes, _again_!" he answers, laughing a little, and slightly mimicking my +tragic tone; "why not, Nancy?" + +I make no answer. I turn away and look out; but I see a different +landscape. It looks to me as if I were regarding it through dark-blue +glass. + +"I have got a whole sheaf of letters and papers from her husband for +her," pursues Roger, apparently calmly, and utterly unaware of my +discomfiture, "and I do not want to keep her out of them longer than I +can help." + +Still I make no rejoinder. My fingers stray idly up and down the glass; +but it is no longer a giddy waltz that they are executing--if it is a +tune at all, it is some little dirge. + +"What has happened to you, Nancy?" says Roger, presently, becoming aware +of my silence, rising and following me; "what are you doing--catching +flies?" + +"No," reply I, with an acrid smartness, "not I! I leave that to Mrs. +Zephine." + +Once again he regards me with that look of unfeigned surprise, tinged +with a little pain which yesterday I detected on his face. When I look +at him, when my eyes rest on the brave and open honesty of his, my ugly, +nipping doubts disappear. + +"Do not go," say I, standing on tiptoe, so that my hands may reach his +neck, and clasp it, speaking in my most beguiling half-whisper; "why +should you fetch and carry for her? let John or William take her +letters. Are you so sure" (with an irresistible sneer) "that she is in +such a hurry for them?--stay with me this _one first_ day!--_do, please +--Roger_." + +It is the first time in all my history that I have succeeded in +delivering myself of his Christian name to his face--frequently as I +have fired it off in dialogues with myself, behind his back. It shoots +out now with the loud suddenness of a mismanaged soda-water cork. + +"_Roger!_" he repeats, in an accent of keen pleasure, catching me to his +heart; "what! I am _Roger_ after all, am I? The 'general' has gone to +glory at last, has he?--thank God!" + +"I will ring and tell John at once," say I, with subtile amiability, +disengaging myself from his arms, and walking quickly toward the bell. + +"Stay!" he says, putting his hand on me in detention, before I have made +two steps; "you must not! it is no use! John will not do, or William +either: it is a matter of business. I have" (sighing) "to go through +many of these papers with her." + +"_You?_" + +"Yes, _I_; why is that so surprising?" + +"What possible concern is it of _yours_?" ask I, throwing the reins on +the neck of my indignation, and urging that willing steed to a sharp +gallop, crimsoning as I speak, and raising my voice, as has ever been +our immemorial wont in home-broils. "For my part, I never saw any good +come of people putting their fingers into their neighbors' pies!" + +"Not even if those neighbors are the oldest friends they have in the +world?" he says, gently, yet eying with some wonder--perhaps +apprehension, for odd things frighten men--the small scarlet scold who +stands swelling with ruffled feathers, and angry eyes, winking to keep +the tears out of them, before him. + +"I thought _father_ was the oldest friend you had in the world!" say I, +with a jealous tartness; "you always _used_ to tell us so." + +"_Some_ of my oldest friends, then," he answers, looking a little +amused, "since you will have me so exact." + +"If Mrs. Huntley is the oldest friend you have in the world," say I, +acrimoniously, still sticking to his first and most offensive form of +expression, and _heavily_ accenting it, "I wonder that you never +happened to mention her existence before you went." + +"So do I," he says, a little thoughtfully. "I am not much of a friend, +am I? but--" (looking at me with that sincere and hearty tenderness +which, as long as I am under its immediate influence, always disarms me) +"my head was full of other things; and people drop out of one's life so; +I had neither seen nor heard of her since--since she married." + +("Since she was engaged to you," say I, mentally interlining this +statement, "and threw you over because you were not rich enough! why +cannot you be honest and say so?") but aloud I give utterance to nothing +but a shrewish and disbelieving "Hm!" + +A pause. I do not know what Roger is thinking of, but I am following out +my own train of thought; the fruit of which is this observation, made +with an air of reflection: + +"Mr. Huntley is a very rich man, I suppose?" + +Roger laughs. + +"_Rich!_ poor Huntley! that is the very last thing his worst enemy could +accuse him of! why, he was obliged to run the constable two years ago." + +"But I suppose," say I, slowly, "that he was better off--_well_ off +once--when she married him, for instance?" + +"How did you know that?" he asks, a little surprised. "Who told you? +Yes; at that time he was looked upon as quite _a parti_." + +"Better off than _you_, I suppose?" say I, still speaking slowly, and +reading the carpet. "I mean than you were then?" + +Again he laughs. + +"He might easily have been that? I had nothing but my younger son's +portion and my pay; why, Nancy, I had an idea that I had told you that +before." + +"I dare say you did," reply I, readily, "but I like to hear it again." + +Yet another pause. + +"He is badly off _now_, then," say I, presently, with a faintly +triumphant accent. + +"About as badly off as it is possible to be," answers Roger, very +gravely; "that is my business with his wife; she and I are trying to +make an arrangement with his creditors, to enable him to come home." + +"To come home!" echo I, raising my eyebrows in an artless astonishment; +"but if he _does_ come home, what will become of Algy and the _rest of +them?_" + +"The rest of _whom?_" asks Roger, but there is such a severity in his +eye as he puts the question that it is not too much to say I _dare not_ +explain. The one thing hated of Roger's soul--the one thing for which he +has no tolerance, and on which he brings to bear all the weight of his +righteous wrath, is _scandal_. Not even me will he allow to nibble at a +neighbor's fame. + +"Is she much changed since you saw her last?" pursue I presently, with +infantile guilelessness; "was her hair _red_ then? some people say it +_used_ to be black!" + +I raise my eyes to his face as I put this gentle query, in order the +better to trace its effect; but the concern that I see in his +countenance is so very much greater than any that I had intended to have +summoned that I have no sooner hurled my dart than I repent me of having +done it. + +"Nancy!" he says, putting one hand under my chin, and stroking my hair +with the other--"am I going to have a _backbiting_ wife? Child! child! +there was neither hatred nor malice in the little girl I found sitting +at the top of the wall." + +I do not answer. + +"Nancy," he says again, in a voice of most thorough earnestness, "I have +a favor to ask of you--I know when I put it _that way_, that you will +not say 'No;' if you do not mind, I had rather you did not abuse Zephine +Huntley!--for the matter of that, I had rather you did not abuse any +one--it does not pay, and there is no great fun in it; but Zephine +_specially_ not." + +"Why _specially?_" cry I, breathing short and speaking again with a +quick, raised voice. "I know that it is a bad plan abusing people, you +need not tell me _that_, I know it as well as you do, and I never did it +at home, before I married, _never!_--none of them ever accused me of it +--I was always quite good-natured about people, _quite_; but why _she +specially?_ why is she to be more sacred than any one else?" + +"It is an old story," he answers, passing his hand across his forehead +with what looks to me like a rather weary gesture and sighing, "I do not +know why I did not tell you before--did not I ever?--no, by-the-by, I +remember I never did; well, I will tell you now, and then you will +understand!" + +"Do not!" cry I, passionately, putting my fingers in my ears, and +growing scarlet, while the tears rush in mad haste to my eyes, for I +imagine that I well know what is coming. "I do not want to hear! I had +rather not! I _hate_ old stories." He looks at me in silent dismay. "I +mean," say I, seeing that some explanation is needed, "that I know all +about it!--I have heard it already! I have been told it." + +"Been told it? By whom?" + +"Never mind by whom!" reply I, removing my fingers from my ears, and +covering with both hot hands my hotter face. "I _have_ been told it! I +_have_ heard it, and, what is more, I _will not hear it again!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +When I rose this morning, I did not think that I should have cried +before night; indeed, nothing would have seemed to me so unlikely. Cry! +on the day of Roger's first back-coming! absurd! And yet now the morning +is still quite young, and I have wept abundantly. I am always rather +good at crying. Tears with me do not argue any very profound depth of +affliction. My tears have always been somewhat near my eyes, a fact well +known to the boys, whom my pearly drops always leave as stolid and +unfeeling as they found them. But the case is different with Roger. +Either he is ignorant, or he has forgotten the facility with which I +weep, and his distress is proportioned to his ignorance. + +My eyes are dried again now, though they and my nose still keep a brave +after-glow; and Roger and I are at one again. But, for my part, on this +first day, I think it would have been pleasanter if we had never been at +two. However, smiling peace is now again restored to us, and no one, to +look at us, as we sit in my boudoir after breakfast, would think that +we, or perhaps I should say I, had been so lately employed in chasing +her away. As little would any one, looking at the blandness of Vick's +profile, as she slumbers on the window-seat in the sun, conjecture of +her master-passion for the calves of strangers' legs. + +"So you see that I _must_ go, Nancy," says Roger, with a rather wistful +appeal to my reason, of whose supremacy he is not, perhaps, quite so +confident as he was when he got up this morning. "You understand, don't +you, dear?" + +I nod. + +"Yes, I understand." + +I still speak in a subdued and snuffly voice, but the wrath has gone out +of me. + +"Well, you--would you mind," he says, speaking rather hesitatingly, as +not quite sure of the reception that his proposition may meet with-- +"would you mind coming with me as far as Zephine's?" + +"Do you mean come all the way, and go in with you, and stay while you +are there?" cry I, with great animation, as a picture of the strict +supervision which, by this course of conduct, I shall be enabled to +exercise over Mrs. Zephine's oscillades, poses, and little verbal +tendernesses, flashes before my mind's eye. + +Roger looks down. + +"I do not know about _that_" he says, slowly. "Perhaps she would not +care to go into her husband's liabilities before a--a str--before a +third person!" + + "Two is company and three is none, in fact," say I, with a slight +relapse into the disdainful and snorting mood. + +He looks distressed, but attempts no argument or explanation. + +"How far did you mean me to come, then?" say I, half ashamed of my +humors, but still with an after-thought of pettishness in my voice. +"Escort you to the hall-door, I suppose, and kick my heels among the +laurestines until such time as all Mr. Huntley's bills are paid?" + +He turns away. + +"It is of no consequence," he says, with a slight shade of impatience, +and a stronger shade of disappointment in his voice. "I see that you do +not wish it, but what I meant was, that you might have walked with me as +far as the gate, so that on this first day we might lose as little of +each other's society as possible." + +"And so I will!" cry I, impulsively, with a rush of tardy repentance. +"I--I--_meant_ to come all along. I was only--only--_joking!_" + +But to both of us it seems but a sorry jest. We set forth, and walk side +by side through the park. Both of us are rather silent. Yes, though we +have eight months' arrears of talk to make up, though it seemed to me +before he came that in a whole long life there would scarce be time for +all the things I had to say to him, yet, now that we are reunited, we +are stalking dumbly along through the withered white grass, pallid from +the winter storms. Certainly, we neither of us could say any thing so +well worth hearing as what the lark, in his most loud and godly joy, is +telling us from on high. Perhaps it is the knowledge of this that ties +our tongues. + +The sun shines on our heads. He has not much power yet, but great +good-will. And the air is almost as gentle as June. We have left our own +domain behind us, and have reached Mrs. Huntley's white gate. Through +the bars I see the sheltered laurestines all ablow. + +"May I wait for you here?" say I, with diffident urgency, reflecting +hopefully, as I make the suggestion, on the wholesome effect, on the +length of the interview that the knowledge of my being, flattening my +nose against the bars of the gate all through it, must necessarily have. + +Again he looks down, as if unwilling to meet my appealing eyes. + +"I think not, Nancy," he answers, reluctantly. "You see, I cannot +possibly tell how long I might be obliged to keep you waiting." + +"I do not mind waiting at all," persist I, eagerly. "I am not very +impatient; I shall not expect you to be very quick, and" (going on very +fast, to hinder him from the second refusal which I see hovering on his +lips), "and it is not at all cold; just now you yourself said that you +had felt many a chillier May-day, and I am so warmly wrapped up, pet!" +(taking hold of one of his fingers, and making it softly travel up and +down the fur of my thick coat). + +He shakes his head, with a gesture unwilling, yet decided. + +"No, Nancy, it could not be! I had rather that you would go home." + +"I have no doubt you would!" say I, turning sharply and huffily away; +then, with a sudden recollecting and repenting myself, "May I come back, +then?" I say, meekly. + +"Come and fetch you, I mean, after a time--any long time that you like!" + +"_Will_ you?" he cries, with animation, the look of unwilling refusal +vanishing from his face. "Would you _like_? would not it be too much +trouble?" + +"Not at all! not at all!" reply I, affably. "How soon, then?" (taking +out my watch); "in half an hour?" + +Again his face falls a little. + +"I think it must be longer than _that_, Nancy." + +"An hour, then?" say I, lifting a lengthened countenance wistfully to +his; "people may do a good deal in an hour, may not they?" + +"Had not we better be on the safe side, and say an hour and a half?" +suggests he, but somewhat apprehensively--or I imagine so. "I shall be +sure not to keep you a minute then--I do not relish the notion of my +wife's tramping up and down this muddy road all by herself." + +"And I do not relish the notion of my husband--" return I, beginning to +speak very fast, and then suddenly breaking off--"Well, good-by!" + +"Say, good-by, Roger," cries he, catching my hand in detention, as I +turn away. "Nancy, if you knew how fond I have grown of my own name! In +despite of Tichborne, I think it _lovely_." + +I laugh. + +"Good-by, _Roger_!" + +He has opened the gate, and turned in. I watch him, as he walks with +long, quick steps, up the little, trim swept drive. As I follow him with +my eyes, a devil enters into me. I cry-- + +"Roger!" + +He turns at once. + +"Ask her to show you Algy's bracelet," I say, with an awkward laugh; and +then, thoroughly afraid of the effect of my bomb-shell, and not daring +to see what sort it is, I turn and run quickly away. + +The end of the hour and a half finds me punctually peering through the +bars again. Well, I am first at the rendezvous. This, perhaps, is not +very surprising, as I have not given him one moment's law. For the first +five minutes, I am very fairly happy and content. The lark is still +fluttering in strong rapture up in the heights of the sky; and for these +five minutes I listen to him, soothed and hallowed. But, after they are +past, it is different. God's bird may be silent, as far as I am +concerned: not a verse more of his clear psalm do I hear. An uneasy +devil of jealousy has entered into me, and stopped my ears. I take hold +of the bars of the gate, and peer through, as far as my head will go: +then I open it, and, stealing on tiptoe up the drive a little way, to +the first corner, look warily round it. Not a sign of him! Not a sound! +Not even a whisper of air to rustle the glistening laurel-leaves, or +stir the flat laurestine-sprays. + +I return to the road, and inculcate patience on myself. Why may not I +take a lesson in easy-mindedness from Vick? Was not it Hartley Coleridge +who suggested that perhaps dogs have a language of smell; and that what +to us is a noisome smell, is to them a beautiful poem? If so, Vick is +searching for lyrics and epics in the ditch. I stroll along the wintry +brown hedge-row, and begin to pick Roger a little, scant nosegay. He +shall see how patient I am! how _un_sulky! with what sunny mildness I +can wait his leisure! I have already two or three snow-drops in my +breast, that I picked as I came through the garden. To these I add a +drooping hazel-tassel or two, and a little bit of honeysuckle-leaf, just +breaking greenly into life. This is all I can find--all the scentless +first-fruits of the baby year. + +It is ten minutes past the due time now. Again I listen intently, as I +listened yesterday, for his coming. There is a sound now; but, alas! not +the right one! It is the rumbling of an approaching carriage. A +pony-chaise bowls past. The occupants are acquaintances of mine, and we +bow and smile to each other. As long as they are in sight, I affect to +be diligently botanizing in the hedge. When they have disappeared, I sit +down on a heap of stones, and take out my watch for the hundredth time; +a whole quarter of an hour! + +"He does not relish the notion of his wife's tramping up and down this +muddy road by herself, does not he?" say I, speaking out loud, and +gnashing my teeth. + +Then I hurl my little posy away from me into the mud, as far as it will +go. What has become of my patience? my sunny mildness? Then, as the +recollection of the velvet-gown and mob-cap episode recurs to me, I +repent me, and, crossing the road, pick up again my harmless catkins and +snow-drops, and rearrange them. I have hardly finished wiping the mire +from the tender, lilac-veined snowdrop petals, before I hear his voice +in the distance, in conversation with some one. Clearly, Delilah is +coming to see the last of him! I expect that she mostly escorts them to +the gate. In my present frame of mind, it would be physically impossible +for me to salute her with the bland civility which society enjoins on +people of our stage of civilization. I therefore remain sitting on my +heap. + +Presently, Roger emerges alone. He does not see me at first, but looks +up the road, and down the road, in search of me. When, at last, he +perceives me, no smile--(as has ever hitherto been his wont)--kindles +his eyes and lips. With unstirred gravity, he approaches me. + +"Here you are _at last!_" cry I, scampering to meet him, but with a +stress, from which human nature is unable to refrain, on the last two +words. + +"At last?" he repeats in a tone of surprise; "am I over time?--Yes"-- +(looking at his watch)--"so I am! I had no idea of it; I hope you have +not been long waiting." + +"I was here to the minute," reply I, curtly; and again my tongue +declines to refrain from accentuation. + +"I beg your pardon!" he says, still speaking with unnecessary +seriousness, as it seems to me, "I really had no idea of it." + +"I dare say not," say I, with a little wintry grin; "I never heard that +they had a clock in paradise." + +"_In paradise!_" he repeats, looking at me strangely with his keen, +clear eyes, that seem to me to have less of a caress in them than they +ever had before on meeting mine. "What has _paradise_ to say to it? Do +you imagine that I have been in _paradise_ since I left you here?" + +"I do not know, I am sure!" reply I, rather confused, and childishly +stirring the stiff red mud with the end of my boot, "I believe _they_ +mostly do; Algy does--" then afraid of drawing down the vial of his +wrath on me a second time for my scandal-mongering propensities, I go on +quickly; "Were you talking to yourself as you came down the drive? I +heard your voice as if in conversation. I sometimes talk to myself when +I am by myself, quite loud." + +"Do you? I do not think I do; at least I am not aware of it; I was +talking to Zephine." + +"Why did not she come to the gate, then?" inquire I, tartly; "did she +know I was there? did not she want to see me?" + +"I do not know; I did not ask her." + +I look up at him in strong surprise. We are in the park now--our own +unpeopled, silent park, where none but the deer can see us; and yet he +has not offered me the smallest caress; not once has he called me +"Nancy;" he, to whom hitherto my homely name has appeared so sweet. It +is only an hour and three-quarters since I parted from him, and yet in +that short space an indisputable shade--a change that exits not only in +my imagination, but one that no most careless, superficial eye could +avoid seeing--has come over him. Face, manner, even gait, are all +altered, I think of Algy--Algy as he used to be, our jovial pet and +playfellow, Algy as he now is, soured, sulky, unloving, his very beauty +dimmed by discontent and passion. Is this the beginning of a like change +in Roger? + +A spasm of jealous agony, of angry despair, contracts my heart as I +think this. + +"Well, are all Mr. Huntley's debts paid?" I ask, trying to speak in a +tone of sprightly ease; "is there a good hope of his coming back soon?" + +"Not yet a while; in time, perhaps, he may." + +Still there is not a vestige of a smile on his face. He does not look at +me as he speaks; his eyes are on the long, dead knots of the colorless +grass at his feet; in his expression despondency and preoccupation +strive for supremacy. + +"Have you made your head ache?" I say, gently stealing my hand into his; +"there is nothing that addles the brains like muddling over accounts, is +there?" + +_Am_ I awake? _Can_ I believe it? He has dropped my hand, as if he +disliked the touch of it. + +"No, thanks, no. I have no headache," he answers, hastily. + +Another little silence. We are marching quickly along, as if our great +object were to get our _tete-a-tete_ over. As we came, we dawdled, stood +still to listen to the lark, to look at the wool-soft cloud-heaps piled +in the west--on any trivial excuse indeed; but now all these things are +changed. + +"Did you talk of business _all_ the time?" I ask, by-and-by, with timid +curiosity. + +It is _not_ my fancy; he does plainly hesitate. + +"Not quite _all_" he answers, in a low voice, and still looking away +from me. + +"About _what_, then?" I persist, in a voice through whose counterfeit +playfulness I myself too plainly hear the unconquerable tremulousness; +"may not I hear?--or is it a secret?" + +He does not answer; it seems to me that he is considering what response +to make. + +"Perhaps," say I, still with a poor assumption of lightness and gayety, +"perhaps you were talking of--of old times." + +He laughs a little, but _whose_ laugh has he borrowed? in that dry, +harsh tone there is nothing of my Roger's mellow mirth! + +"Not we; old times must take care of themselves; one has enough to do +with the new ones, I find." + +"Did she--did she say any thing to you about--about _Algy_, then?"-- +hesitatingly. + +"We did not mention his name." + +There is something so abrupt and trenchant in his tone that I have not +the spirit to pursue my inquiries any further. In deep astonishment and +still deeper mortification, I pursue my way in silence. + +Suddenly Roger comes to a stand-still. + +"Nancy!" he says, in a voice that is more like his own, stopping and +laying his hands on my shoulders; while in his eyes is something of his +old kindness; yet not quite the old kindness either; there is more of +unwilling, rueful yearning in them than there ever was in that--"Nancy, +how old are you?--nineteen, is it not?" + +"Very nearly twenty," reply I, cheerfully, for he has called me "Nancy," +and I hail it as a sign of returning fine weather; "we may call it +twenty; will not it be a comfort when I am well out of my teens?" + +"And I am forty-eight," he says, as if speaking more to himself than to +me, and sighing heavily; "it is a _monstrous_, an _unnatural_ +disparity!" + +"It is not nearly so bad as if it were _the other way_," reply I, +laughing gayly; "I forty-eight, and _you_ twenty, is it?" + +"My child! my child!"--speaking with an accent of, to me, unaccountable +suffering--"what possessed me to _marry_ you? why did not I _adopt_ you +instead? It would have been a hundred times more seemly!" + +"It is a little late to think of that now, is not it?" I say, with an +uncomfortable smile; then I go on, with an uneasy laugh, "that was the +very idea that occurred to us the first night you arrived; at least, it +never struck us as possible that you would take any notice of _me_, but +we all said what a good thing it would be for the family if you would +adopt Barbara or the Brat." + +"Did you?" (very quickly, in a tone of keen pain); "it struck you all in +the same light then?" + +"But that was before we had seen you," I answer, hastily, repenting my +confession as soon as I see its effects. "When we _had_, we soon changed +our tune." + +"_If_ I _had_ adopted you," he pursues, still looking at me with the +same painful and intent wistfulness, "if I had been your father, you +would have been fond of me, would not you? Not _afraid_ of me--not +afraid to tell me any thing that most nearly concerned you--you would +perhaps"--(with a difficult smile)--"you would perhaps have made me your +_confidant_, would you, Nancy?" + +I look up at him in utter bewilderment. + +"What are you talking about? Why do I want a confidant? What have I to +confide? What have I to tell any one?" + +Our eyes are resting on each other, and, as I speak, I feel his go with +clean and piercing search right through mine into my soul. In a moment I +think of Musgrave, and the untold black tale now forever in my thought +attached to him, and, as I so think, the hot flush of agonized shame +that the recollection of him never fails to call to my face, invades +cheeks, brow, and throat. To hide it, I drop my head on Roger's breast. +Shall I tell him _now_, this instant? Is it possible that he has already +some faint and shadowy suspicion of the truth--some vague conjecture +concerning it, as something in his manner seems to say? But no! it is +absolutely impossible! Who, with the best will in the world, could have +told him? Is not the tale safely buried in the deep grave of Musgrave's +and my two hearts? + +I raise my head, and twice essay to speak. Twice I stop, choked. How can +I put into words the insult I have received? How can I reveal to him the +slack levity, the careless looseness, with which I have kept the honor +confided to me? + +As my eyes stray helplessly round in a vain search for advice or help +from the infinite unfeeling apathy of Nature, I catch sight of the +distant chimneys of the abbey! How near it is! After all, why should I +sow dissension between such close neighbors? why make an irreparable +breach between two families, hitherto united by the kindly ties of +mutual friendship and good-will? + +Frank is young, very young; he has been--so Roger himself told me--very +ill brought up. Perhaps he has already repented, who knows? I try to +persuade myself that these are the reasons--and sufficient reasons--of +my silence, and I take my resolution afresh. I will be dumb. The flush +slowly dies out of my face, and, when I think it is almost gone, I +venture to look again at Roger. I think that his eyes have never left +me. They seem to be expecting me to speak, but, as I still remain +silent, he turns at length away, and also gently removes his hands from +my shoulders. We stand apart. + +"Well, Nancy," he says, sighing again, as if from the bottom of his +soul, "my poor child, it is no use talking about it. I can never be your +father now." + +"And a very good thing too!" rejoin I, with a dogged stoutness. "I do +not see what I want with _two_ fathers; I have always found _one_ amply +enough--quite as much as I could manage, in fact." + +He seems hardly to be listening to me. He has dropped his eyes on the +ground, and is speaking more to himself than to me. + +"Husband and wife we are!" he says, with a slow depression of tone, +"and, as long as God's and man's laws stand, husband and wife we must +remain!" + +"You are not very polite," I cry, with an indignant lump rising in my +throat; "you speak as if you were _sorry_ for it--_are_ you?" + +He lifts his eyes again, and again their keen search investigates the +depths of my soul; but no human eye can rightly read the secrets of any +other human spirit; they find what they expect to find, not what is +there. Clear and cuttingly keen as they are, Roger's eyes do not read my +soul aright. + +"Are _you_, Nancy?" + +"If _you_ are, I am," I reply, with a half-smothered sob. + +He makes no rejoinder, and we begin again to walk along homeward, but +slowly this time. + +"We have made a mistake, perhaps," he says, presently, still speaking +with the same slow and ruminating sadness in his tone. "The inscrutable +God alone knows why He permits his creatures to mar all their seventy +years by one short false step--yes--a _mistake_!" + +(Ah me! all me! I always mistrusted those laurestines! They sent me back +my brother churlish and embittered, but oh! that in my steadfast Roger +they should have worked such a sudden deadly change!) + +"Is it more a mistake," I cry, bursting out into irrepressible anger, +"than it was two hours ago, when I left you at that gate? You did not +seem to think it a mistake _then_--at least you hid it very well, if you +did"--(then going on quickly, seeing that he is about to interrupt me)-- +"have you been _comparing notes_, pray? Has _she_ found it a mistake, +too?" + +"Yes, _that_ she has! Poor soul! God help her!" he answers, +compassionately. + +Something in the pity of his tone jars frightfully on my strung nerves. + +"If God has to help all the poor souls who have made mistakes, He will +have his hands full!" I retort, bitterly. + +Another silence. We are drawing near the pleasure-grounds--the great +rhododendron belt that shelters the shrubbery from the east wind. + +"Nancy," says Roger, again stopping, and facing me too. This time he +does not put his hands on my shoulders; the melancholy is still in his +eyes, but there is no longer any harshness. They repossess their natural +kindly benignity. "Though it is perhaps impossible that there should be +between us that passionate love that there might be between people that +are nearer each other in age--more fitly mated--yet there is no reason +why we should not _like_ each other very heartily, is there, dear? why +there should not be between us absolute confidence, perfect frankness-- +that is the great thing, is not it?" + +He is looking with such intense wistfulness at me, that I turn away. Why +should not there be passionate love between us? Who is there but himself +to hinder it? So I make no answer. + +"I dare say," he says, taking my right hand, and holding it with a cool +and kindly clasp, "that you think it difficult--next door to impossible +--for two people, one at the outset, one almost on the confines of life, +to enter very understandingly into each other's interests! No doubt the +thought that I--being so much ahead of you in years"--(sighing again +heavily)--"cannot see with your eyes, or look at things from your +stand-point--would make it harder for you to come to me in your +troubles; but indeed, dear, if you believe me, I will _try_, and, as we +are to spend our lives together, I think it would be better, would not +it?" + +He speaks with a deprecating humility, an almost imploring gentleness, +but I am so thoroughly upset by the astounding change that has come over +the tone of his talk--by the clouds that have suddenly darkened the +morning sunshine of my horizon--that I cannot answer him in the same +tone. + +"Perhaps we shall not have to spend all our lives together!" I say, with +a harsh laugh. "Cheer up! One of us may _die_! who knows?" + +After that we neither of us say any thing till we reach the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +"Yea, by God's rood, I trusted you too well!" + + +In the hall we part without a word, and I, spiritlessly, mount the +staircase alone. How I flew down it this morning, three steps at a time, +and had some ado to hinder myself from sliding down the banisters, as we +have all often, with dangerous joy, done at home! Now I crawl up, like +some sickly old person. When I reach my bedroom, I throw myself into the +first chair, and lie in it-- + + "... quiet as any water-sodden log + Stayed in the wandering warble of a brook." + +I do not attempt to take off my hat and jacket. Of what use is it to +take them off more than to leave them on, or to leave them on more than +to take them off? Of what use is _any thing_, pray? What a weary round +life is! what a silly circle of unfortunate repetitions! eating only to +be hungry again; waking only to sleep; sleeping only to wake! + +At first I am too inert even to think, even to lift my hand to protect +my cheek from Vick's muddy paws, who, annoyed at my evident inattention +to her presence, is sitting on my lap, making little impatient +_clawings_ at my defenseless countenance. But gradually on the river of +recollection all the incidents of the morning flow through my mind. In +more startling relief than ever, the astounding change in Roger, wrought +by those ill-starred two hours, stands out. Is it possible that I may +have been attributing it to a wrong cause? Doubtless, the first +interview with the woman he had loved, and who had thrown him over +(by-the-by, how forgiving men are!)--yes, the first, probably, since +they had stood in the relation of betrothed people to each other--must +have been full of pain. Doubtless, the contrast between the crude +gawkiness of the raw girl he has drifted into marrying--for I suppose it +was more accident than any thing else--with the mature and subtile +grace, the fine and low-voiced sweetness of the woman whom his whole +heart and soul and taste chose and approved, must have struck him with +keen force. I expected _that_: it would not have taken me by surprise. +If he had emerged from among the laurestines, depressed, and vainly +struggling for a factitious cheerfulness, I think I could have +understood it. I think I could have borne with it, could have tried +meekly to steal back into his heart again, to win him back, in despite +of ignorance, gawkiness, and all other my drawbacks, by force of sheer +love. + +But the change was surely too abrupt to be accounted for on this +hypothesis. Would _Roger_, my pattern of courtesy--Roger, who shrinks +from hurting the meanest beggar's feelings--would he, in such plain +terms, have deplored and wished undone our marriage, if it were only +suffering to _himself_ that it had entailed? Has his unselfish chivalry +gone the way of Algy's brotherly love? Impossible! the more I think of +it, the more unlikely it seems--the more certain it appears to me that I +must look elsewhere for the cause of the alteration that has so heavily +darkened my day. + +I have risen, and am walking quickly up and down. I have shaken off my +stolid apathy, or, rather, it has fallen off of itself. Can she have +told him any ill tales of me? any thing to my disadvantage? Instantly +the thought of Musgrave--the black and heavy thought that is never far +from the portals of my mind--darts across me, and, at the same instant, +like a flash of lightning, the recollection of my meeting her on the +fatal evening, just as (with tear-stained, swollen face) I had parted +from Frank--of the alert and lively interest in her eyes, as she bowed +and smiled to me, flames with sudden illumination into my soul. Still I +can hardly credit it. It would, no doubt, be pleasant to her to sow +dissension between us, but would even _she_ dare to carry ill tales of a +wife to a husband? And even supposing that she had, would he attach so +much importance to my being seen with wet cheeks? I, who cry so easily-- +I, who wept myself nearly blind when Jacky caught his leg in the snare? +If he thinks so much of that part of the tale, _what would he think of +the rest?_ + +As I make this reflection I shudder, and again congratulate myself on my +silence. For beyond our parting, and my tears, it is _impossible_ that +she can have told him aught. + +Men are not prone to publish their own discomfitures; even _I_ know that +much. I exonerate Mr. Musgrave from all share in making it known--and +have the mossed tree-trunks lips? or the loud brook an articulate +tongue? Thank God! thank God! _no!_ Nature never blabs. With infinite +composure, with a most calm smile she _listens_, but she never tells +again. + +A little reassured by this thought, I resolve to remain in doubt no +longer than I can help, but to ascertain, if necessary, by direct +inquiry, whether my suspicions are correct. This determination is no +sooner come to than it puts fresh life and energy into my limbs. I take +off my hat and jacket, smooth my hair, and prepare with some alacrity +for luncheon. + +It is evening, however, before I have an opportunity of putting my +resolve in practice. At luncheon, there are the servants; all afternoon, +Roger is closeted with his agent: before we set off this morning, he +never mentioned the agent: he never figured at all in our day's plan--(I +imagined that he was to be kept till to-morrow); and at dinner there are +the servants again. Thank God, they are gone now! We are alone, Roger +and I. We are sitting in my boudoir, as in my day-dreams, before his +return, I had pictured us; but, alas! where is caressing proximity which +figured in all my visions? where is the stool on which I was to sit at +his feet, with head confidently leaned on his arm? As it happens, Vick +is sitting on the stool, and we occupy two arm-chairs, at civil distance +from each other, much as if we had been married sixty years, and had +hated each other for fifty-nine of them. I am idly fiddle-faddling with +a piece of work, and Roger--is it possible?--is stretching out his hand +toward a book. + +"You do not mean to say that you are going to _read_?" I say, in a tone +of sharp vexation. + +He lays it down again. + +"If you had rather talk, I will not." + +"I am afraid," say I, with a sour laugh, "that you have not kept much +conversation _for home use_! I suppose you exhausted it all, this +morning, at Laurel Cottage!" + +He passes his hand slowly across his forehead. + +"Perhaps!--I do not think I am in a very talking vein." + +"By-the-by," say I, my heart beating thick, and with a hurry and tremor +in my voice, as I approach the desired yet dreaded theme, "you have +never told me what it was, besides Mr. Huntley's debts, that you talked +of this morning!--you owned that you did not talk of business _quite_ +all the time!" + +"Did I?" + +He has forgotten his book now; across the flame of the candles, he is +looking full and steadily at me. + +"When I asked you, you said it was not about old times?--of course--" +(laughing acridly)--"I can imagine your becoming inimitably diffuse +about _them_, but you told me, that, 'No,' you did not mention them." + +"I told truth." + +"You also said," continue I, with my voice still trembling, and my +pulses throbbing, "that it was not _Algy_ that you were discussing!--if +_I_ had been in your place, I could, perhaps, have found a good deal to +say about _him_; but you told me that you never mentioned him." + +"We did not." + +"Then what _did_ you talk about?" I ask, in strong excitement; "it must +have been a very odd theme that you find such difficulty in repeating." + +Still he is looking, with searching gravity, full in my face. + +"Do you _really_ wish to know?" + +I cannot meet his eyes: something in me makes me quail before them. I +turn mine away, but answer, stoutly: + +"Yes, I _do_ wish. Why should I have asked, if I did not?" + +Still he says nothing: still I feel, though I am not looking at him, +that his eyes are upon me. + +"Was it--" say I, unable any longer to bear that dumb gaze, and +preferring to take the bull by the horns, and rush on my fate--"was it +any thing about _me_? has she been telling you any tales of--of--_me_?" + +No answer! No sound but the clock, and Vick's heavy breathing, as she +peacefully snores on the footstool. I _cannot_ bear the suspense. Again +I lift my eyes, and look at him. Yes, I am right! the intense anxiety-- +the overpowering emotion on his face tell me that I have touched the +right string. + +"Are there--are there--are you aware that there are any tales that she +_could_ tell of you?" + +Again I laugh harshly. + +"Ha! ha! if we came to mutual anecdotes, I am not quite sure that I +might not have the best of it!" + +"That is not the question," he replies, in a voice so exceedingly stern, +so absolutely different from any thing I have ever hitherto contemplated +as possible in my gentle, genial Roger, that again, to the depths of my +soul, I quail; how could I ever, in wildest dreams, have thought I +should dare to tell him?--"it is nothing to me what tales _you_ can tell +of _her!--she_ is not my wife!--what I wish to know--what I _will_ know, +is, whether there is any thing that she _could_ say of you!" + +For a moment, I do not answer. I cannot. A coward fear is grasping my +heart with its clammy hands. Then-- + +"_Could!_" say I, shrugging my shoulders, and feebly trying to laugh +derisively; "of course she could! it would be difficult to set a limit +to the powers of a lady of her imagination!" + +"What do you mean?" he cries, quickly, and with what sounds like a sort +of hope in his voice; "have you any reason--any grounds for thinking her +inventive?" + +I do not answer directly. + +"It is true, then," I cry, with flashing eyes, and in a voice of great +and indignant anguish. "I have not been mistaken! I was right! Is it +possible that _you_, who, only this morning, warned me with such +severity against backbiting, have been calmly listening to scandalous +tales about me from a stranger?" + +He does not interrupt me: he is listening eagerly, and that sort of hope +is still in his face. + +"I _knew_ it would come, sooner or later," I continue, speaking +excitedly, and with intense bitterness, "sooner or later, I knew that it +would be a case of Algy over again! but I did not--did not think that it +would have been quite so soon! Great Heaven!" (smiting my hands sharply +together, and looking upward), "I _have_ fallen low! to think that I +should come to be discussed by _you_ with _her_!" + +"I have _not_ discussed you with her," he answers, very solemnly, and +still looking at me with that profound and greedy eagerness in his eyes; +"with _no_ living soul would I discuss my wife--I should have hardly +thought I need tell you that! What I heard, I heard by accident. She--as +I believe, in all innocence of heart--referred to--the--the-- +circumstance, taking it for granted that I knew it--that _you_ had told +me of it, and I--_I_--" (raising his clinched right hand to emphasize +his speech)--"I take God to witness, I had no more idea to what she was +alluding--as soon as I understood--she must have thought me very dull--" +(laughing hoarsely)--"for it was a long time before I took it in--but as +soon as I understood to what manner of anecdote it was that she was +referring--then, _at once_, I bade her be silent!--not even with _her_, +would I talk over my wife!" + +He stops. He has risen from his chair, and is now standing before me. +His breath comes quick and panting; and his face is not far from being +as white as mine. + +"But what I have learned," he continues presently, in a low voice, that, +by a great effort, he succeeds in making calm and steady, "I cannot +again unlearn! I would not if I could!--I have no desire to live in a +fool's paradise! I tried hard this morning--God knows what constraint I +had to put upon myself--to induce you to tell me of your own accord--to +_volunteer_ it--but you would not--you were _resolutely_ silent. Why +were you? Why were you?" (breaking off with an uncontrollable emotion). +"I should not have been hard upon you--I should have made allowances. +God knows we all need it!" + +I sit listening in a stony silence: every bit of me seems turned into +cold rock. + +"But _now_" he says, regathering his composure, and speaking with a +resolute, stern quiet; "I have no other resource--you have left me none +--but to come to you, and ask point-blank, is this true, or is it +false?" + +For a moment, my throat seems absolutely stopped up, choked; there seems +no passage for my voice, through its dry, parched gates. Then at length +I speak faintly: "Is _what_ true? is what false? I suppose you will not +expect me to deny it, before I know what it is?" + +He does not at once answer. He takes a turn once or twice up and down +the silent room, in strong endeavor to overcome and keep down his +agitation, then he returns and speaks; with a face paler, indeed, than I +could have imagined any thing so bronzed could be; graver, more austere +than I ever thought I should see it, but still without bluster or +hectoring violence. + +"Is it true, then?" he says, speaking in a very low key. "Great God! +that I should have to put such a question to my wife; that one evening, +about a week ago, on the very day, indeed, that the news of my intended +return arrived, you were seen parting with--with--_Musgrave_" (he seems +to have an intense difficulty in pronouncing the name) "at or after +nightfall, on the edge of Brindley Wood, _he_ in a state of the most +evident and extreme agitation, and _you_ in floods of tears!--is it +true, or is it false?--for God's sake, speak quickly!" + +But I cannot comply with his request. I am _gasping_. His eyes are upon +me, and, at every second's delay, they gather additional sternness. Oh, +how awful they are in their just wrath! When was father, in his worst +and most thunderous storms, half so dreadful? half so awe-inspiring? + +"What sort of an interview could it have been to which there was such a +close?" he says, as if making the reflection more to himself than to me; +"speak! is it true?" + +I can no longer defer my answer. One thing or another I must say: both +eyes and lips imperatively demand it. Twice, nay _thrice_ I struggle-- +struggle mightily to speak, and speak well and truly, and twice, nay, +three times, that base fear strangles my words. Then, at length--O +friends! do not be any harder upon me than you can help, for indeed, +_indeed_ I have paid sorely for it, and it is the first lie that ever I +told; then, at length, with a face as wan as the ashes of a dead fire-- +with trembling lips, and a faint, scarcely audible voice, I say, "No, it +is not true!" + +"_Not true?_" he echoes, catching up my words quickly; but in his voice +is none of the relief, the restored amenity that I had looked for, and +for the hope of which I have perjured myself; equally in voice and face, +there is only a deep and astonished anger. + +"_Not true!_--you mean to say that it is _false!_" + +"Yes, false!" I repeat in a sickly whisper. Oh, why, if I _must_ lie, do +not I do it with a bold and voluble assurance? whom would my starved +pinched falsehood deceive? + +"You mean to say," speaking with irrepressible excitement, while the +wrathful light gathers and grows intenser in the gray depths of his +eyes, "that this--this _interview_ never took place? that it is all a +delusion; a mistake?" + +"Yes." + +I repeat it mechanically now. Having gone thus far, I must go on, but I +feel giddy and sick, and my hands grasp the arms of my chair. I feel as +if I should fall out of it if they did not. + +"You are _sure_?" speaking with a heavy emphasis, and looking +persistently at me, while the anger of his eyes is dashed and crossed by +a miserable entreaty. Ah! if they had had that look at first, I could +have told him. "Are you _sure_?" he repeats, and I, driven by the fates +to my destruction, while God hides his face from me, and the devil +pushes me on, answer hazily, "Yes, quite sure!" + +Then he asks me no more questions; he turns and slowly leaves the room, +and I know that I have lied in vain! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + + +And thus I, ingenious architect of my own ruin, build up the barrier of +a lie between myself and Roger. It is a barrier that hourly grows +higher, more impassable. As the days go by, I say to myself in +heart-sickness, that I shall never now cross it--never see it leveled +with the earth. Even when we too are dead it will still rise between us +in the other world; if--as all the nations have agreed to say--there +_be_ another. For my part, I think at this time that, if there is any +chance of its bearing aught of resemblance to this present world, I had +far fainer there were none. + +With all due deference to Shakespeare--and I suppose that even the one +supreme genius of all time must, in his day, have made a mistake or two +--I have but faint belief in the "sweet uses of adversity." I think that +they are about as mythical as the jewels in the toad's ugly skull, to +which he likened them. It is in _prosperity_ that one looks up, with +leaping heart and clear eyes, and through the clouds see God sitting +throned in light. In adversity one sees nothing but one's own dunghill +and boils. + +At least such has been my experience. I think I could have borne it +better if I had not looked forward to his return so much--if he had been +an austere and bitter tyrant, to _whose coming_ I had looked with dread, +I could have braced my nerves and pulled myself together, to face with +some stoutness the hourly trials of life. But when one has counted the +days, hours, and moments, till some high festival, and, when it comes, +it turns out a drear, black funeral, one cannot meet the changed +circumstances with any great fortitude. + +It is the horrible contrast between my dreams and their realization that +gives the keenest poignancy to my pangs. + +To his return I had referred the smoothing of all my difficulties, the +clearing up of all my doubts, the sweeping of all clouds from my sky; +and now he is back! and, oh, how far, _far_ gloomier than ever is my +weather! What a sullen leaden sky overhangs me! + +I never tell him about Algy after all! I do not often laugh now; but I +_did_ laugh loudly and long the other day, although I was quite alone, +when I thought of my wily purpose of setting Roger on his guard against +Mrs. Huntley's little sugared unveracities. + +No, I never tell him about Algy! Why should I? it would be wasted +breath--spent words. He would not believe me. In the more important case +has not he taken her word in preference to mine? Would not he in _this_ +too? For I know that he knows, as well as I know it myself, that in that +matter I lied. + +Sometimes, when I am by myself, a mighty yearning--a most constraining +longing seizes me to go to him--fall at his feet, and tell him the truth +even yet. After all, God knows that I have no ugly fault to confess to +him--no infidelity even of thought. But as soon as I am in his presence +the desire fades; or at least the power to put it in practice melts +away. For he never gives me an opening. After that first evening never +does he draw nigh the subject: never once is the detested name of +Musgrave mentioned between us. If he had been one most dear to us both +and had died untimely, we could not avoid with more sacred care any +allusion to him. And, even if, by doing infinite violence to myself, I +could bring myself to overcome the painful steepness of the hill of +difficulty that lies between me and the subject, and tell the tardy +truth, to what use, pray? Having once owned that I had lied, could I +resent any statement of mine being taken with distrust? Would he believe +me? Not he! He would say, "If you were as innocent as you say, why did +you _lie_? If you were innocent, what had you to fear?" So I hold my +peace. And, as the days go, and the winter wanes, it seems to me that I +can plainly see, with no uncertain or doubtful eyes, Roger's love wane +too. + +After all, why should I wonder? I may be sorry, for who ever saw gladly +love--the one all-good thing on this earth, most of whose good things +are adulterated and dirt-smirched--who ever saw it _gladly_ slip away +from them? But I cannot be surprised. + +With Roger, love and trust must ever go hand-in-hand; and, when the one +has gone, the other must needs soon follow. + +After all, what he loved in me was a delusion--had never existed. It was +my blunt honesty, my transparent candor, the open-hearted downrightness +that in me amounted to a misfortune, that had at first attracted him. +And now that he has found that the unpolished abruptness of my manners +can conceal as great an amount of deception as the most insinuating +silkiness of any one else's, I do not see what there is left in me to +attract him. Certainly I have no beauty to excite a man's passions, nor +any genius to enchain his intellect, nor even any pretty accomplishment +to amuse his leisure. + +Why _should_ he love me? Because I am his wife? Nay, nay! who ever loved +because it was their duty? who ever succeeded in putting love in +harness, and _driving_ him? Sooner than be the object of such up-hill +conscientious affection, I had far rather be treated with cold +indifference--active hatred even. Because I am young? That seems no +recommendation in his eyes! Because I love him? He does not believe it. +Once or twice I have tried to tell him so, and he has gently pooh-poohed +me. + +Sometimes it has occurred to me that, perhaps, if I had him all to +myself, I might even yet bring him back to me--might reconcile him to my +paucity of attractions, and persuade him of my honesty; but what chance +have I, when every day, every hour of the day if he likes to put himself +to such frequent pain, he may see and bitterly note the contrast between +the woman of his choice and the woman of his fate--the woman from whom +he is irrevocably parted, and the woman to whom he is as irrevocably +joined. And I think that hardly a day passes that he does not give +himself the opportunity of instituting the comparison. + +Not that he is unkind to me; do not think that. It would be impossible +to Roger to be unkind to any thing, much more to any weakly woman thing +that is quite in his own power. No, no! there is no fear of that. I have +no need to be a grizzle. I have no cross words, no petulances, no +neglects even, to bear. But oh! in all his friendly words, in all his +kindly, considerate actions, what a _chill_ there is! It is as if some +one that had been a day dead laid his hand on my heart! + +How many, _many_ miles farther apart we are now, than we were when I was +here, and he in Antigua; albeit then the noisy winds roared and sung, +and the brown billows tumbled between us! If he would but _hit_ me, or +box my ears, as Bobby has so often done--a good swinging, tingling box, +that made one see stars, and incarnadized all one side of one's +countenance--oh, how much, _much_ less would it hurt than do the frosty +dullness of his smiles, the uncaressing touch of his cool hands! + +I have plenty of time to think these thoughts, for I am a great deal +alone now. Roger is out all day, hunting or with his agent, or on some +of the manifold business that landed property entails, or that the +settlement of Mr. Huntley's inextricably tangled affairs involves. Very +often he does not come in till dressing-time. I never ask him where he +has been--never! I think that I know. + +Often in these after-days, pondering on those ill times, seeing their +incidents in that duer proportion that a stand-point at a little +distance from them gives, it has occurred to me that sometimes I was +wrong, that not seldom, while I was eating my heart out up-stairs, with +dumb jealousy picturing to myself my husband in the shaded fragrance, +the dulcet gloom of the drawing-room at Laurel Cottage, he was in the +house with me, as much alone as I, in the dull solitude of his own room, +pacing up and down the carpet, or bending over an unread book. + +I will tell you why I think so. One day--it is the end of March now, the +year is no longer a swaddled baby, it is shooting up into a tall +stripling--I have been straying about the brown gardens, _alone_, of +course. It is a year to-day since Bobby and I together strolled among +the kitchen-stuff in the garden at home, since he served me that ill +turn with the ladder. Every thing reminds me of that day: these might be +the same crocus-clumps, as those that last year frightened away winter +with their purple and gold banners. I remember that, as I looked down +their deep throats, I was humming Tou Tou's verb, "J'aime, I love; Tu +aimes, Thou lovest; Il aime, He loves." + +I sigh. There was the same purple promise over the budded woods; the +same sharpness in the bustling wind. Since then, Nature has gone through +all her plodding processes, and now it is all to do over again. A sense +of fatigue at the infinite repetitions of life comes over me. If Nature +would but make a little variation! If the seasons would but change their +places a little, and the flowers their order, so that there might be +something of unexpectedness about them! But no! they walk round and +round forever in their monotonous leisure. + +I am stooping to pick a little posy of violets as these languid thoughts +dawdle through my mind--blue mysteries of sweetness and color, born of +the unscented, dull earth. As I pass Roger's door, having reentered the +house, the thought strikes me to set them on his writing-table. Most +likely he will not notice them, not be aware of them: but even so they +will be able humbly to speak to him the sweet things that he will not +listen to from me. I open the door and listlessly enter. If I had +thought that there was any chance of his being within, I should not have +done so without knocking; indeed, I hardly think I should have done it +at all, but this seems to me most unlikely. Nevertheless, he is. + +As I enter, I catch sudden sight of him. He is sitting in his arm-chair, +his elbows leaned on the table before him, his hand passed through his +ruffled hair, and his gray eyes straying abstractedly away from the +neglected page before him. I see him before he sees me. I have time to +take in all the dejection of his attitude, all its spiritless idleness. +At the slight noise my skirts make, he looks up. I stop on the +threshold. + +"I--I thought you were out," say I, hesitatingly, and reddening a +little, as if I were being caught in the commission of some little +private sin. + +"No, I came in an hour ago." + +"I beg your pardon," I say, humbly; "I will not disturb you; I would +have knocked if I had known!" + +He has risen, and is coming toward me. + +"Knock! why, in Heaven's name, _should_ you knock?" he says, with +something of his old glad animation; then, suddenly changing his tone to +one of courteous friendly coldness, "Why do you stand out there? will +not you come in?" + +I comply with this invitation, and, entering, sit down in another +arm-chair not far from Roger's, but, now that I am here, I do not seem +to have much to say. + +"You have been in the gardens?" he says, presently, glancing at my +little nosegay, and speaking more to hinder total silence from reigning, +than for any other reason. + +"Yes," I reply, trying-to be cheerful and chatty, "I have been picking +_these_; the Czar have not half their perfume, though they are three +times their size! _these_ smell so good!" + +As I speak, I timidly half stretch out the little bunch to him, that he, +too, may inhale their odor, but the gesture is so uncertain and faint +that he does not perceive it--at least, he takes no notice of it, and I +am sure that if he had he would; but yet I am so discouraged by the +failure of my little overture that I have not resolution enough to tell +him that I had gathered them for him. Instead, I snubbedly and +discomfortedly put them in my own breast. + +Presently I speak again. + +"Do you remember," I say--"no, I dare say you do not, but yet it is so-- +it is a year to-day since you found me sitting on the top of the wall!-- +such a situation for a person of nineteen to be discovered in!" + +At the recollection I laugh a little, and not bitterly, which is what I +do not often do now. I can only see his profile, but it seems to me that +a faint smile is dawning on his face, too. + +"It was a good jump, was not it?" I go on, laughing again; "I still +wonder that I did not knock you down." + +He is certainly smiling now; his face has almost its old, tender mirth. + +"It will be a year to-morrow," continue I, emboldened by perceiving +this, and beginning to count on my fingers, "since Toothless Jack and +the curates came to dine, and you staid so long in the dining-room that +I fell asleep; the day after to-morrow, it will be a year since we +walked by the river-side, and saw the goslings flowering out on the +willows; the day after that it will be a year since--" + +"Stop!" he cries, interrupting me, with a voice and face equally full of +disquiet and pain; "do not go on, where is the use?--I hate +anniversaries." + +I stop, quenched into silence; my poor little trickle of talk +effectually dried. After a pause, he speaks. + +"What has made you think of all these dead trivialities?" he asks in a +voice more moved--or I think so--less positively steady than his has +been of late; "at your age, it is more natural to look on than to look +back." + +"Is it?" say I, sadly, "I do not know; I seem to have such a great deal +of time for _thinking_ now; this house is so _extraordinarily_ silent! +did you never notice it?--of course it is large, and we are only two +people in it, but at home it never seemed to me so _deadly_ quiet, even +when I was alone in the house." + +"_Were_ you ever alone?" he asks, with a smile. He is thinking of the +noisy multitude that are connected in his memory with my father's +mansion; that, during all his experience of it, have filled its rooms +and passages with the hubbub of their strong-lunged jollity. + +"Yes, I have been," I reply; "not often, of course! but several times, +when the boys were away, and father and mother and Barbara had gone out +to dinner; of course it seemed still and dumb, but not--" (shuddering a +little)--"not so _aggressively loudly_ silent as this does!" + +He looks at me, with a sort of remorseful pain. + +"It _is_ very dull for you!" he says, compassionately; "shut up in +endless duet, with a person treble your age! I ought to have thought of +that; in a month or so, we shall be going to London, _that_ will amuse +you, will not it? and till then, is there any one that you would like to +have asked here?--any friend of your own?--any companion of your own +age?" + +"No," reply I, despondently, staring out of the window, "I have no +friends." + +"The boys, then?" speaking with a sudden assurance of tone, as one that +has certainly hit upon a pleasant suggestion. + +I shake my head. + +"I could not have Bobby and the Brat, if I would, and I would not have +Algy if I could!" I reply with curt dejection. + +"Barbara, then?" + +Again I shake my head. Not even Barbara will I allow to witness the +failure of my dreams, the downfall of my high castles, the sterility of +my Promised Land. + +"No, I will not have Barbara!" I answer; "last time that she was here--" +but I cannot finish my sentence. I break away weeping. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + + "I think you hardly know the tender rhyme + Of 'Trust me not at all or all in all!'" + + +There are some wounds, O, my friends, that Time, by himself, with no +clever physician to help him, will surely cure. You all know that, do +not you? some wounds that he will lay his cool ointment on, and +by-and-by they are well. Among such, are the departures hence of those +we have strongly loved, and to whom we have always been, as much as in +us lay, tender and good. But there are others that he only worsens-- +yawning gaps that he but widens; as if one were to put one's fingers in +a great rent, and tear it asunder. And of these last is mine. + +As the year grows apace, as the evenings draw themselves out, and the +sun every day puts on fresh strength, we seem to grow ever more +certainly apart. Our bodies, indeed, are nigh each other, but our souls +are sundered. It never seems to strike any one, it is true, that we are +not a happy couple; indeed, it would be very absurd if it did. We never +wrangle--we never contradict each other--we have no tiffs; but we are +_two_ and not _one_. Whatever may be the cause, whether it be due to his +shaken confidence in me, or (I myself assign this latter as its chief +reason) to the constant neighborhood of the woman whom I know him to +have loved and coveted years before he ever saw me; whatever may be the +cause, the fact remains; I no longer please him. It does not surprise me +much. After all, the boys always told me that men would not care about +me; that I was not the sort of woman to get on with them! Well, perhaps! +It certainly seems so. + +I meet Mrs. Huntley pretty often in society nowadays, at such staid and +sober dinners as the neighborhood thinks fit to indulge in, in this +lenten season; and, whenever I do so, I cannot refrain from a stealthy +and wistful observation of her. + +She is ten-twelve years older than I. Between her and me lie the ten +years best worth living of a woman's life; and yet, how easily she +distances me! With no straining, with no hard-breathed effort, she +canters lightly past me. So I think, as I intently and curiously watch +her--watch her graceful, languid silence with women, her pretty, +lady-like playfulness with men. And how successful she is with them! how +highly they relish her! While I, in the uselessness of my round, white +youth, sit benched among the old women, dropping spiritless, pointless +"yeses" and "noes" among the veteran worldliness of their talk, how they +crowd about her, like swarmed bees on some honeyed, spring day! how they +scowl at each other! and _finesse_ as to who shall approach most nearly +to her cloudy skirts! + +Several times I have strained my ears to catch what are the utterances +that make them laugh so much, make them look both so fluttered and so +smoothed. Each time that I succeed, I am disappointed. There is no touch +of genius, no salt of wit in any thing she says. Her utterances are +hardly more brilliant than my own. + +You will despise me, I think, friends, when I tell you that in these +days I made one or two pitiful little efforts to imitate her, to copy, +distantly and humbly indeed, the fashion of her clothes, to learn the +trick of her voice, of her slow, soft gait, of her little, surprised +laugh. But I soon give it up. If I tried till my death-day, I should +never arrive at any thing but a miserable travesty. Before--ere Roger's +return--I used complacently to treasure up any little civil speeches, +any small compliments that people paid me, thinking, "If such and such a +one think me pleasing, why may not Roger?" But now I have given this up, +too. + +I seem to myself to have grown very dull. I think my wits are not so +bright as they used to be. At home, I used to be reckoned one of the +pleasantest of us: the boys used to laugh when I said things: but not +even the most hysterically mirthful could find food for laughter in my +talk now. + +And so the days pass; and we go to London. Sometimes I have thought that +it will be better when we get there. At least, _she_ will not be there. +How can she, with her husband gnashing his teeth in lonely discomfiture +at his exasperated creditors, and receiptless bills, in sultry St. +Thomas? But, somehow, she is. What good Samaritan takes out his twopence +and pays for her little apartment, for her stacks of cut flowers, for +her brougham and her opera-boxes, is no concern of mine. But, somehow, +there always _are_ good Samaritans in those cases; and, let alone +Samaritans, there are no priests or Levites stonyhearted enough to pass +by these dear, little, lovely things on the other side. + +We go out a good deal, Roger and I, and everywhere he accompanies me. It +bores him infinitely, though he does not say so. One night, we are at +the play. It is the Prince of Wales's, the one theatre where one may +enjoy a pleasant certainty of being rationally amused, of being free +from the otherwise universal dominion of _Limelight_ and _Legs_. The +little house is very full; it always is. Some of the royalties are here, +laughing "_a gorge deployee!_" I have been laughing, too; laughing in my +old fashion; not in Mrs. Zephine's little rippling way, but with the +thorough-paced, unconventional violence with which I used to reward the +homely sallies of Bobby and the Brat. I am laughing still, though the +curtain has fallen between the acts, and the orchestra are fiddling +gayly away, and the turned-up gas making everybody look pale. My +opera-glasses are in my hand, and I am turning them slowly round the +house, making out acquaintances in the stalls, prying into the secrets +of the boxes, examining the well-known features of my future king. + +Suddenly my smile dies away, and the glasses drop from my trembling +hands into my lap. Who is it that has just entered, and is slipping +across the intervening people in the stalls to his own seat, one of the +few that have hitherto remained vacant beneath us? Can I help +recognizing the close-shorn, cameo-like beauty--to me _no_ beauty; to me +deformity and ugliness--of the dark face that for months I daily saw by +my fireside? Can there be _two_ Musgraves? No! it is _he!_ yes, _he!_ +though now there is on his features none of the baffled passion, none of +the wrathful malignity, which they always wear in my memory, as they +wore in the February dusk of Brindley Wood. Now, in their handsome +serenity, they wear only the look of subdued sadness that a male Briton +always assumes when he takes his pleasure. Do you remember what +Goldsmith says?--"When I see an Englishman laugh, I fancy I rather see +him hunting after joy than having caught it." + +As soon as my eyes have fallen upon, and certainly recognized him, by a +double impulse I draw back behind the curtain of the box, and look at +Roger. He, too, has seen him; I can tell it in an instant by his face, +and by the expression of his eyes, as they meet mine. I try to look back +unflinchingly, indifferently, at him. I would give ten years of my life +for an unmoved complexion, but it is no use. Struggle as I will against +it, I feel that rush, that torrent of vivid scarlet, that, retiring, +leaves me as white as my gown. Oh! it _is_ hard, is not it, that the +lying changefulness of a deceitful skin should have power to work me +such hurt? + +"Are you faint?" Roger asks, bending toward me, and speaking in a low +and icy voice; "shall I get you a glass of water?" + +"No, thank you!" I reply, resolutely, and with no hesitation or stammer +in my tone, "I am not at all faint." + +But, alas! my words cannot undo what my false cheeks, with their +meaningless red and their causeless white, have so fully done. + +The season is over now; every one has trooped away from the sun-baked +squares, and the sultry streets of the great empty town. I have never +_done_ a season before, and the heat and the late hours have tired me +wofully. Often, when I have gone to a ball, I have longed to go to bed +instead. And, now that we are home again, it would seem to me very +pleasant to sit in leisurely coolness by the pool, and to watch the +birth, and the prosperous short lives, of the late roses, and the great +bright gladioli in the garden-borders. Yes, it would have seemed very +pleasant to me--if--(why is life so full of _ifs?_ "Ifs" and "Buts," +"Ifs" and "Buts," it seems made up of them! Little ugly words! in heaven +there will be none of you!)--if--to back and support the outward good +luck, there had been any inward content. But there is none! The trouble +that I took with me to London, I have brought back thence whole and +undiminished. + +"It is September now; so far has the year advanced! We are well into the +partridges. Their St. Bartholomew has begun. Roger is away among the +thick green turnip-ridges and the short white stubble all the day. I +wish to Heaven that I could shoot, too, and hunt. It would not matter if +I never killed any thing--indeed, I think--of the two--I had rather not; +I had rather have a course of empty bags and blank days than snuff out +any poor, little, happy lives; but the occupation that these amusements +would entail would displace and hinder the minute mental torments I now +daily, in my listless, luxurious idleness, endure. I am thinking these +thoughts one morning, as I turn over my unopened letters, and try, with +the misplaced ingenuity and labor one is so apt to employ in such a +case, to make out from the general air of their exteriors--from their +superscriptions--from their post-marks, whom they are from. About one +there is no doubt. It is from Barbara. I have not heard from Barbara for +a fortnight or three weeks. It will be the usual thing, I suppose. +Father has got the gout in his right toe, or his left calf, or his +wrist, or all his fingers, and is, consequently, fuller than usual of +hatred and malice; mother's neuralgia is very bad, and she is sadly in +want of change, but she cannot leave him. Algy has lost a lot of money +at Goodwood, and they are afraid to tell father, etc., etc. Certainly, +life is rather uphill! I slowly tear the envelope open, and languidly +throw my eyes along the lines. But, before I have read three words, my +languor suddenly disappears. I sit upright in my chair, grasp the paper +more firmly, bring it nearer my eyes, which begin greedily to gallop +through its contents. They are not very long, and in two minutes I have +mastered them. + +"MY DEAREST NANCY: + +"I have _such_ a piece of news for you! I cannot help laughing as I +picture to myself your face of delight; I would make you guess it, only +I cannot bear to keep you in suspense. _It has all come right! I am +going to marry Frank, after all_! What _have_ I done to deserve such +luck! How can I ever thank God enough for it? Do you know that my very +first thought, when he asked me, was, '_How_ pleased Nancy will be!' You +dear little soul! I think, when he went away that time from Tempest, +that you took all the blame of it to yourself! O Nancy, do you think it +is wrong to be so _dreadfully_ happy? Sometimes I am afraid that I love +him _too_ much! it seems so hard to help it. I have no time for more +now; he is waiting for me; how little I thought, a month ago, that I +should be ending a letter to you for such a reason! When all is said and +done, what a pleasant world it is! Do not think me quite mad. I know I +_sound_ as if I were! + +"Yours, BARBARA." + +My hand, and the letter with it, fall together into my lap; my head +sinks back on the cushion of my chair; my eyes peruse the ceiling. + +"Engaged to Musgrave! engaged to Musgrave! engaged to Musgrave!" + +The words ring with a dull monotony of repetition through my brain. Poor +Barbara! I think she would be surprised if she were to see my "_face of +delight!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + + +My eyes are fixed on the mouldings of the ceiling, while a jumble of +thoughts mix and muddle themselves in my head. Was Brindley Wood a +dream? or is this a dream? Surely one or other must be, and, if this is +not a dream, what is it? Is it reality, is it truth? And, if it is, how +on earth did any thing so monstrous ever come about? How did he dare to +approach her? How could he know that I had not told her? Is it possible +that he cares for her really?--that he cared for her all along?--that he +only went mad for one wicked moment? Is he sorry? how soon shall I have +to meet him? On what terms shall we be? Will Roger be undeceived at +last? Will he believe me? As my thoughts fall upon him, he opens the +door and enters. + +"Well, I am off, Nancy!" he says, speaking in his usual cool, friendly +voice, to which I have now grown so accustomed that sometimes I could +almost persuade myself that I had never known any lovinger terms; and +standing with the door-handle in his hand. + +He rarely kisses me know; never upon any of these little temporary +absences. We always part with polite, cold, verbal salutations. Then, +with a sudden change of tone, approaching me as he speaks. + +"Is there any thing the matter? have you had bad news?" + +My eyes drop at length from the scroll and pomegranate flower border of +the ceiling. I sit up, and, with an involuntary movement, put my hand +over the open letter that lies in my lap. + +"I have had news," I answer, dubiously. + +"If it is any thing that you had rather not tell me!" he says, hastily, +observing my stupid and unintentional gesture, and, I suppose, afraid +that I am about to drift into a second series of lies--"please do not. I +would not for worlds thrust myself on your confidence!" + +"It is no secret of mine," I answer, coldly, "everybody will know it +immediately, I suppose: it is that Barbara--" I stop, as usual choked as +I approach the abhorred theme. "Will you read the letter, please? that +will be better!--yes--I had rather that you did--it will not take you +long; yes, _all_ of it!" (seeing that he is holding the note in his hand +and conscientiously looking away from it as if expecting limitation as +to the amount he is to peruse). + +He complies. There is silence--an expectant silence on my part. It is +not of long duration. Before ten seconds have elapsed the note has +fallen from his hand; and, with an exclamation of the profoundest +astonishment, he is looking with an expression of the most keenly +questioning wonder at me. + +"To MUSGRAVE!" + +I nod. I have judiciously placed myself with my back to the light, so +that, if that exasperating flood of crimson bathe my face--and bathe it +it surely will--is not it coming now?--do not I feel it creeping hotly +up?--it may be as little perceptible as possible. + +"It must be a great, great _surprise_ to you!" he says, interrogatively, +and still with that sound of extreme and baffled wonder in his tone. + +"Immense!" reply I. + +I speak steadily if low; and I look determinedly back in his face. +Whatever color my cheeks are--I believe they are of the devil's own +painting--I feel that my eyes are honest. He has picked up the note, and +is reading it again. + +"She seems to have no doubt"--(with-rising wonder in face and voice)-- +"as to its greatly pleasing _you_!" + +"So it would have done at one time," I answer, still speaking (though no +one could guess with what difficulty), with resolute equanimity. + +"And does not it now?" (very quickly, and sending the searching scrutiny +of his eyes through me). + +"I do not know," I answer hazily, putting up my hand to my forehead. "I +cannot make up my mind, it all seems so sudden." + +A pause. Roger has forgotten the partridges. He is sunk in reflection. + +"Was there ever any talk of this before?" he says, presently, with a +hesitating and doubtful accent, and an altogether staggered look. "Had +you any reason--any ground for thinking that he cared about her?" + +"Great ground," reply I, touching my cheeks with the tips of my fingers, +and feeling, with a sense of self-gratulation, that their temperature is +gradually, if slowly, lowering, "_every_ ground--at _one_ time!" + +"At _what_ time!" + +"In the autumn," say I, slowly; my mind reluctantly straying back to the +season of my urgent invitations, of my pressing friendlinesses, "and at +Christmas, and after Christmas." + +"Yes?" (with a quick eagerness, as if expecting to hear more). + +"The boys," continue I, speaking without any ease or fluency, for the +subject is always one irksome and difficult to me, "the boys took it +quite for granted--looked upon it as a certain thing that he meant +seriously until--" + +"Until what?" (almost snatching the words out of my mouth). + +"Until--well!" (with a short, forced laugh), "until they found that he +did not." + +"And--do you know?--but of course you do--can you tell me how they +discovered that?" + +He is looking at me with that same greedy anxiety in his eyes, which I +remember in our last fatal conversation about Musgrave. + +"He went away," reply I, unable any longer to keep watch and ward over +my countenance and voice, rising and walking hastily to the window. + +The moment I have done it, I repent. _However_ red I was, _however_ +confused I looked, it would have been better to have remained and faced +him. For several minutes there is silence. I look out at the stiff +comeliness of the variously tinted asters, at the hoary-colored dew that +is like a film along the morning grass. I do not know what _he_ looks +at, because I have my back to him, but I think he is looking at +Barbara's note again. At least, I judge this by what he says next--"Poor +little soul!" (in an accent of the honestest, tenderest pity), "how +happy she seems!" + +"Ah!" say I, with a bitter little laugh, "she will mend of _that_, will +not she?" + +He does not echo my mirth; indeed, I think I hear him sigh. + + "'Romances paint at full length people's wooings, + But only give a bust of marriages!'" + +say I, in soft quotation, addressing rather myself and my thoughts than +my companion. + +He has joined me; he, too, is looking out at the serene aster-flowers, +at the glittering glory of the dew. + +"Since when you have learned to quote 'Don Juan?'" he asks, with a sort +of surprise. + +"Since _when_?" I reply, with the same tart playfulness--"oh! since I +married! I date all my accomplishments from then!--it is my anno +Domini." + +Another silence. Then Sir Roger speaks again, and this time his words +seem as slow and difficult of make as mine were just now. + +"Nancy!" he says, in a low voice, not looking at me, but still facing +the flowers and the sunshiny autumn sward, "do you believe that--that-- +_this fellow_ cares about her really?--she is too good to be made--to be +made--a mere _cat's-paw_ of!" + +"A _cat's-paw_!" cry I, turning quickly round with raised voice; the +blood that so lately retired from it rushing again headlong all over my +face; "I do not know--what you mean--what you are talking about!" + +He draws his breath heavily, and pauses a moment before he speaks. + +"God knows," he says, looking solemnly up, "that I had no wish to broach +this subject again--God knows that I meant to have done with it forever +--but now that it has been forced against my will--against both our +wills--upon me, I must ask you this one question--tell me, Nancy--tell +me truly _this_ time"--(with an accent of acute pain on the word +"_this_")--"can you say, _on your honor--on your honor_, mind--that you +believe this--this man loves Barbara, as a man should love his wife?" + +If he had worded his interrogation differently, I should have been +sorely puzzled to answer it; as it is, in the form his question takes, I +find a loop-hole of escape. + +"As a man should love his wife?" I reply, with a derisive laugh, "and +how is that? I do not think I quite know!--very dearly, I suppose, but +not quite so dearly as if she were his neighbor's--is that it?" + +As I speak, I look up at him, with a malicious air of pseudo-innocence. +But if I expect to see any guilt--any conscious shrinking in his face--I +am mistaken. There is pain--infinite pain--pain both sharp and +long-enduring in the grieved depths of his eyes; but there is no guilt. + +"You will not answer me?" he says, in an accent of profound +disappointment, sighing again heavily. "Well, I hardly expected it-- +hardly hoped it!--so be it, then, since you will have it so; and yet--" +(again taking up the note, and reading over one of its few sentences +with slow attention), "and yet there is one more question I must put to +you, after all--they both come to pretty much the same thing. Why"-- +(pointing, as he speaks, to the words to which he alludes)--"why should +_you_ have taken on yourself the blame of--of his departure from +Tempest? what had _you_ to say to it?" + +In his voice there is the same just severity; in his eyes there is the +same fire of deep yet governed wrath that I remember in them six months +ago, when Mrs. Huntley first threw the firebrand between us. + +"I do not know," I reply, in a half whisper of impatient misery, turning +_my_ head restlessly from side to side; "how should I know? I am _sick_ +of the subject." + +"Perhaps!--so, God knows, am I; but _had_ you any thing to say to it?" + +He does not often touch me now; but, as he asks this, he takes hold of +both my hands, more certainly to prevent my escaping from under his +gaze, than from any desire to caress me. + +It is my last chance of confession. I little thought I should ever have +another. Late as it is, shall I avail myself of it? Nay! if not before, +why _now?_ Why _now_?--when there are so much stronger reasons for +silence--when to speak would be to knock to atoms the newly-built +edifice of Barbara's happiness--to rake up the old and nearly dead ashes +of Frank's frustrated, and for aught I know, sincerely repented sin? So +I answer, faintly indeed, yet quite audibly and distinctly: + +"Nothing." + +"NOTHING?" (in an accent and with eyes of the keenest, wistfulest +interrogation, as if he would wring from me, against my will, the +confession I so resolutely withhold). + +But I turn away from that heart-breaking, heart-broken scrutiny, and +answer: + +"Nothing!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + + "She dwells with beauty--beauty that must die, + And joy whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu!" + + +Thus I accomplished my second lie: I that, at home, used to be a proverb +for blunt truth-telling. They say that "_facilis descensus Averni_." I +do not agree with them. I have not found it easy. To me it has seemed a +very steep and precipitous road, set with sharp flints that cut the +feet, and make the blood flow. + +I think the second falsehood was almost harder to utter than the first: +but, indeed, they were both very disagreeable. I cannot think why any +one should have thought it necessary to invent the doctrine of a future +retribution for sin. + +It appears to me that, in this very life of the present, each little +delinquency is so heavily paid for--so exorbitantly overpaid, indeed. +Look, for instance, at my own case. I told a lie--a lie more of the +letter than the spirit--and since then I have spent six months of my +flourishing youth absolutely devoid of pleasure, and largely penetrated +with pain. + +I have stood just outside my paradise, peeping under and over the +flaming sword of the angel that guards it. I have been near enough to +smell the flowers--to see the downy, perfumed fruits--to hear the song +of the angels as they go up and down within its paths; but I have been +outside. + +Now I have told another lie, and I suppose--nay, what better can I +hope?--that I shall live in the same state of weary, disproportioned +retribution to the end of the chapter. + +These are the thoughts, interspersed and diversified with loud sighs, +that are employing my mind one ripe and misty morning a few days later +than the incidents last detailed. + +Barbara is to arrive to-day. She is coming to pay us a visit--coming, +like the lady mentioned by Tennyson, in "In Memoriam"--not, indeed, "to +bring her babe," but to "make her boast." And how, pray, am I to listen +with complacent congratulation to this boast? For the first time in my +life I dread the coming of Barbara. How am I, whose acting, on the few +occasions when I have attempted it, has been of the most improbably +wooden description--how am I, I say, to counterfeit the extravagant joy, +the lively sympathy, that Barbara will expect--and naturally expect-- +from me? + +I get up and look at myself in the glass. Assuredly I shall have to take +some severe measures with my countenance before it falls under my +sister's gaze. Small sympathy and smaller joy is there in it now--it +wears only a lantern-jawed, lack-lustre despondency. I practise a +galvanized smile, and say out loud, as if in dialogue with some +interlocutor: + +"Yes, _delightful_!--I am _so_ pleased!" but there is more mirth in the +enforced grin of an unfleshed skull than in mine. + +That will never take in Barbara. I try again--once, twice--each time +with less prosperity than the last. Then I give it up. I must trust to +Providence. + +As the time for her coming draws nigh, I fall to thinking of the +different occasions since my marriage, on which I have watched for +expected comings from this window--have searched that bend in the drive +with impatient eyes--and of the disappointment to which, on the two +occasions that rise most prominently before my mind's eye, I became a +prey. + +Well, I am to be subject to no disappointment--if it _would_ be a +disappointment--to-day. + +Almost before I expect her--almost before she is due--she is here in the +room with me, and we are looking at one another. I, indeed, am staring +at her with a black and stupid surprise. + +"Good Heavens!" say I, bluntly; "what _have_ you been doing to yourself? +_how_ happy you look!" + +I have always known theoretically that happiness was becoming; and I +have always thought Barbara most fair. + + "Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well, + Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn, + Fair as the angel that said, 'Hail!' she seemed," + +but now_, what a lovely brightness, like that of clouds remembering the +gone sun, shines all about her! What a radiant laughter in her eyes! +What a splendid carnation on her cheeks! (How glad I am that I did not +tell!) + +"Do I?" she says, softly, and hiding her face, with the action of a shy +child, on my shoulders. "I dare say." + +"_Good_ Heavens!" repeat I, again, with more accentuation than before, +and with my usual happy command and variety of ejaculation. + +"And _you_?" she says, lifting her face, and speaking with a joyful +confidence of anticipation in her innocent eyes, "and _you_? you are +pleased too, are not you?" + +"Of course," reply I, quickly calling to my aid the galvanized smile and +the unnatural tone in which I have been perfecting myself all the +forenoon, "_delighted!_ I never was so pleased in my life. I told you so +in my letters, did not I?" + +A look of nameless disappointment crosses her features for a moment. + +"Yes," she says, "I know! but I want you to tell me again. I thought +that you--would have such a--such a great deal to say about it." + +"So I have!" reply I, uncomfortably, fiddling uneasily with a +paper-knife that I have picked up, and trying how much ill-usage it will +bear without snapping, "an immensity! but you see it is--it is difficult +to begin, is not it? and you know I never was good at expressing myself, +was I?" + +We have sat down. I am not facing her. With a complexion that serves one +such ill turns as mine does, one is not over-fond of _facing_ people. I +am beside her. For a moment we are both silent. + +"Well," say I, presently, with an unintentional tartness in my tone, +"why do not you begin? I am waiting to hear all about it! Begin!" + +So Barbara begins. + +"I am afraid," she says, smiling all the while, but growing as red as +the bunch of late roses in my breast, "that I looked horribly _pleased_! +One ought to look as if one did not care, ought not one?" + +"Ought one?" say I, with interest, then beginning to laugh vociferously. +"At least you were not as bad as the old maid who late in life received +a very wealthy offer, and was so much elated by it that she took off all +her clothes, and kicked her bonnet round the room!" + +Barbara laughs. + +"No, I was not quite so bad as that." + +"And how did he do it?" pursue I, inquisitively. "Did he write or speak" + +"He spoke." + +"And what did he say? How did he word it? Ah!"--(with a sigh)--"I +suppose you will not tell me _that_?" + +She has abandoned her chair, and has fallen on her knees before me, +hiding her face in my lap. Delicious waves of color, like the petals of +a pink sweet-pea, are racing over her cheeks and throat. + +"Was ever any one known to tell it?" she says, indistinctly. + +"Yes," reply I, "_I_ was. I told you what Roger said, word for word--all +of you!" + +"_Did_ you?"--(with an accent of astonished incredulity). + +"Yes," say I, "do not you remember? I promised I would before I went +into the drawing-room that day, and, when I came out, I wanted the boys +to let me off, but they would not." + +A pause. + +"I wish," say I, a little impatiently, "that you would look up! Why need +you mind if you _are_ rather red? What do _I_ matter? and so--and so-- +you are _pleased_!" + +"_Pleased!_" + +She has raised her head as I bid her, and on her face there is a sort of +scorn at the poverty and inadequacy of the expression, and yet she +replaces it with no other; only the sapphire of her eyes is dimmed and +made more tender by rising tears. + +Clearly we were never meant to be joyful, we humans! In any bliss +greater than our wont, we can only hang out, to demonstrate our +felicity, the sign and standard of woe. + +"Nancy!"--(taking my hand, and looking at me with wistful earnestness)-- +"do you think it _can_ last? Did ever any one feel as I do for _long_?" + +"I do not know--how can I tell?" reply I, discomfortably, as I absently +eye the two halves of my paper-knife, which, after having given one or +two warning cracks, has now snapped in the middle. Then Roger enters, +and our talk ends. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + + "God made a foolish woman, making me!" + + +"Have you any idea whom we shall meet?" + +It is Barbara who asks this one morning at breakfast. The question +refers to a three days' visit that it has become our fate to pay to a +house in the neighborhood--a house not eight miles distant from Tempest, +and over which we are grumbling in the minute and exhaustive manner +which people mostly employ when there is a question of making merry with +their friends. + +I shake my head. + +"I have not an idea, that is to say, except Mrs. Huntley, and she goes +without saying!" + +"Why?" + +"We are known to be such inseparables, that she is always asked to meet +us," reply I, with that wintry smile, which is my last accomplishment. +"We pursue her round the country, do not we, Roger?" + +Barbara opens her great eyes, but, with her usual tact, she says +nothing. She sees that she has fallen on stony ground. + +"She is _the oldest friend that we have in the world!_" continue I, +laughing pleasantly. + +Roger does not answer, he does not even look up, but by a restless +movement that he makes in his chair, by a tiny contraction of the brows, +I see that my shot has told. I am becoming an adept in the infliction of +these pin-pricks. It is one of the few pleasures I have left. + +The day of our visit has come. We have relieved our feelings by +grumbling up to the hall-door. Our murmuring must per force be stilled +now, though indeed, were we to _shout_ our discontents at the top of our +voices, there would be small fear of our being overheard by the master +of the house, he being the boundlessly deaf old gentleman who paid his +respects at Tempest on the day of Mrs. Huntley's first call, and +insisted on mistaking Barbara for me. Whether he is yet set right on +that head is a point still enveloped in Cimmerian gloom. + +It is a bachelor establishment, as any one may perceive by a cursory +glance at the disposition of the drawing-room furniture, and at the +unfortunate flowers, tightly jammed, packed as thickly as they will go +in one huge central bean-pot. + +As we arrived rather late and were at once conducted to our rooms, we +still remain in the dark as to our co-guests. Personally, I am not much +interested in the question. There cannot be anybody that it will cause +me much satisfaction to meet. It would give me a faint relief, indeed, +to find that there were some matron of exalteder rank than mine to save +me from my probable fate of bowling dark sayings at our old host, +General Parker, from the season of clear soup to that of peaches and +nuts. I dress quickly. The toilet is never to me a work of art. It is +not that from my lofty moral stand-point I look down upon meretricious +aids to faulty Nature. If I thought that it would set me on a fairer +standing with Mrs. Zephine, I would paint my cheeks an inch thick; would +prune my eyebrows; daub my eyes, and make my hair yellower than any +buttercups in the meadow; but I know that it would be of no avail. I +should still be, compared to her, as a sign-painting to a Titian. For a +long time now I have cared naught for clothes. I used greatly to respect +their power, but they have done _me_ no good; and so my reverence for +them is turned into indifference and contempt. + +I think that I must be late. Roger went down some minutes ago, at my +request, so that there might be _one_ representative of the family in +time. + +I hasten down-stairs, fastening my last bracelet as I go, and open the +drawing-room door. I was wrong. There is no one down yet: even Roger has +disappeared. I am the first. This is my impression for a moment: then I +perceive that there is some one in the bow-window, half hidden by the +drooped curtains; some one who, hearing my entry, is advancing to meet +me. It is Musgrave! My first impulse, a wrong one, I need hardly say, is +to turn and flee. I have even laid hold of the just abandoned handle, +when he speaks. + +"Are you going?" he says in a low voice, marked by great and evidently +ungovernable agitation; "do not! if you wish, I will leave the room." + +I look at him, and our eyes meet. He always was a pale young man--no +bucolic beef-and-beer ruddiness about him--always of a healthy swart +pallor; but now he is deadly white!--so, by-the-by, I fancy am I! His +dark eyes burn with a shamed yet eager glow. + +With the words and tones of our last parting ringing in our ears, we +both feel that it would be useless affectation to attempt to meet as +ordinary acquaintance. + +"No," say I, faintly, almost in a whisper, "it--it does not matter! only +that I did not know that you were to be here!" + +"No more did I, until this morning!" he answers, eagerly; "this morning +--at the last moment--young Parker asked me to come down with him--and I +--I knew we must meet sooner or later--that it could not be put off +forever, and so I thought we might as well get over it here as anywhere +else!" + +Neither of us has thought of sitting down. He is speaking with rapid, +low emotion, and I stand stupidly listening. + +"I suppose so," I answer lazily. I cannot for the life of me help it, +friends. I am back in Brindley Wood. He has come a few steps nearer me. +His voice is always low, but now it is almost a whisper in which he is +so rapidly, pantingly speaking. + +"I shall most likely not have another opportunity, probably we shall not +be alone again, and I _must_ hear, I _must_ know--have you forgiven +me?". + +As he speaks, the recollection of all the ill he has done me, of my lost +self-respect, my alienated Roger, my faded life, pass before my mind. + +"_That_ I have not!" reply I, looking full at him, and speaking with a +distinct and heavy emphasis of resentment and aversion, "and, by God's +help, I never will!" + +"You will _not_!" he cries, starting back with an expression of the +utmost anger and discomfiture. "You will _not_! you will carry vengeance +for one mad minute through a whole life! It is _impossible! impossible!_ +if _you_ are so unforgiving, how do you expect God to forgive you your +sins?" + +I shrug my shoulders with a sort of despairing contempt. God has seemed +to me but dim of late. + +"He may forgive them or leave them unforgiven as He sees best; but--_I +will never forgive you!_" + +"What!" he cries, his face growing even more ash-white than it was +before, and his voice quivering with a passionate anger; "not for +_Barbara's_ sake?" + +I shudder. I hate to hear him pronounce her name. + +"No," say I, steadily, "not for Barbara's sake!" + +"You will have to," he cries violently; "it is nonsense! think of the +close connection, of the _relationship_ that there will be between us! +think of the remarks you will excite! you will defeat your own object!" + +"I will excite no remark!" I reply resolutely. "I will be quite civil to +you! I will say 'good-morning' and 'good-evening' to you; if you ask me +a question I will answer it; but--I will _never_ forgive you!" + +We are standing, as I before observed, close together, and are so wholly +occupied--voices, eyes, and ears--with each other, that we do not +perceive the approach of two hitherto unseen people who are coming +dawdling and chatting up the conservatory that opens out of the room; +two people that I suppose have been there, unknown to us, all along. +They have come quite close now, and we must needs perceive them. + +In a second our eager talk drops into silence, and we look with +involuntary, startled apprehension toward them. They are Roger and Mrs. +Huntley. This is why he acceded with such alacrity to my request. This +is why he was so afraid of being late. He has been helping her to smell +the jasmine, and to look down the datura's great white trumpet-throats. + +Even at this agitated moment I have time to think this with a jeering +pain. The next instant all other feelings are swallowed up in breathless +dread as to how they will meet. My fears are groundless. On first +becoming aware, indeed, whose _tete-a-tete_ it is that he has +interrupted, whose low, quick voices they are that have dropped into +such sudden, suspicious silence at his approach--I can see him start +perceptibly, can see his gray eyes dart with lightning quickness from +Musgrave to me, and from me to Musgrave; and in his voice there is to me +an equally perceptible tone of ice-coldness; but to an ordinary observer +it would seem the greeting, neither more nor less warm, exchanged +between two moderately friendly acquaintances meeting after absence. + +"How are you, Musgrave? I had no idea that you were in this part of the +world!" + +"No more had I!" answers Musgrave, with an exaggerated laugh. "No more I +was, until--until _to-day_." + +He has not caught the infection of Roger's stately calm. His face has +not recovered a _trace_ of even its usual slight color, and his eyes are +twitching nervously. Mrs. Huntley appears unaware of any thing. Her +artistic eye has been caught by the tight bean-pot, and her fingers are +employed in trying to give a little air of ease and liberty to its +crowded inmates. Then, thank God, the others come in, and dinner is +announced, and the situation is ended. + +The old host, still under the influence of his hallucination, is bearing +down like a hawk (with his old bent elbow extended) on Barbara, until +intercepted and redirected by a whispered roar and graphic pantomime on +the part of his nephew. Then, at last, he realizes Roger's bad taste, +and we go in. + +As soon as we are seated, I look about me. It is a round table. For my +part, I hate a round table. There is no privacy in it. Everybody seems +eavesdropping on everybody else. + +There are only eight of us in all--those I have enumerated, and Algy. +Yes, he is here. Bellona is a goddess who can always spare her sons when +there is any chance of their getting into mischief. Roger has taken Mrs. +Huntley. _That_, poor man, he could hardly help, his only alternative +being his own sister-in-law. Musgrave has taken Barbara. He is still as +white as the table-cloth, and hardly speaks. It is clear that _he_ will +not get up his conversation again, until after the champagne has been +round. Algy has taken no one; and, consequently, a bear is an amiable +and affable beast in comparison of him. I am placed between our host and +his nephew. The latter comes in for a good deal of my conversation, as +most of my remarks have to be taken up and rebellowed by him with a loud +emphasis, that contrasts absurdly with their triviality; and even then +they mostly miscarry, and turn into something totally different. + +Talking to the old man is not a dialogue, but a couple of soliloquies, +carried on mostly on different subjects, which in vain try to become the +same, between two interlocutors. Through soup we prospered--that is to +say, we talked of the weather; and though I said several things about it +that surprised me a good deal, yet we both knew that we _were_ talking +of the weather. But since then we have been diverging ever more and more +hopelessly. _He_ is at the shah's visit, and so he imagines am I. I, on +the contrary, am at the Bishop of Winchester's death, and, for the last +five minutes have been trying, with all the force of my lungs, and with +a face rendered scarlet by the double action of heat and of the +consciousness of being the object of respectful attention to the whole +company, to convey to him that, in my opinion, the deceased prelate +ought to have been buried in Westminster Abbey. I have at last +succeeded, at least in so far as to make him understand that I wish +_somebody_ to be buried in Westminster Abbey; but, as he still persists +in thinking it the shah, we are perhaps not much better off than we were +before. I lean back with a sense of despairing defeat, and, behind my +fan, turn to the young man on the other side. He is a jolly-looking +fellow, with an aureole of fiery red hair. + +"Would you mind," say I, with panting appeal, "trying to make him +understand that it _is not_ the shah?" + +He complies, and, while he is trying to make it clear to his uncle that +he wrongs me in crediting me with any wish to thrust the Persian monarch +among the ashes of the Plantagenets, I take breath, and look round +again. Algy is eating nothing, and is drinking every thing that is +offered to him. His face is not much redder than Musgrave's, and he is +glancing across the table at Mrs. Huntley, with the haggard anger of his +eyes. Of this, however, she seems innocently unaware. She is leaning +back in her chair; so is Roger. They are talking low and quickly, and +looking smilingly at each other. When does his face ever light up into +such alert animation when he is talking to me? There can be no doubt of +it! Why blink a thing because it is unpleasant? I _bore him_. + +I have no intention of listening, and yet I hear some of their words-- +enough to teach me the drift of their talk. "Residency!" "Cawnpore!" +"Simlah!" "_Cursed_ Simlah!" "_Cursed_ Cawnpore!" My attention is +recalled by the voice of my old neighbor. + +"Talking of that--" he says--(talking of _what_, in Heaven's name?)--"I +once knew a man--a doctor, at Norwich--who did not marry till he was +seventy-eight, and had four as fine children as any man need wish to +see." + +By the extraordinary irrelevancy of this anecdote, I am so taken aback +that, for a moment, I am unable to utter. Seeing, however, that some +comment is expected from me, I stammer something about its being a great +age. He, however, imagines that I am asking whether they were boys or +girls. + +"Three boys and a girl, or three girls and a boy!" he answers, with loud +distinctness--"I cannot recollect which; but, after all--" (with an +acrid chuckle)--"that is not the point of the story!" + +I sink back in my chair, with a slight shiver. + +"Give it up!" says my other neighbor, with a compassionate smile, and +speaking in a voice not a whit lower than usual--"_I_ would!--it really +is no good!" + +"Why does not he have a _trumpet_?" ask I, with a slight accent of +irritation, for I have suffered much, and it is hot. + +"He had one once," replies my companion, still pityingly regarding the +flushed discomposure of my face; "but people _would_ insist on bawling +so loudly down it, that they nearly broke the drum of his ear, and so +_he_ broke _it_." + +I laugh a little, but in a puny way. There is not much laugh in me. +Again I look round the table. Musgrave is better; he is a better color +than he was. Under the influence of Barbara's gentle talk, his features +have reassumed almost serenity. Algy is _no_ better. I see him lean +back, and speak to the servant behind him. He is asking for more +champagne. I wish he would not. He has had quite enough already. Roger +and Mrs. Huntley are much as they were. They are still leaning back in +their chairs--still looking with friendly intimacy into each other's +eyes--still smiling. Again a few words of their talk reach me. + +"Do you recollect?" + +"Do you remember?" + +"Have you forgotten?" + +Clearly, they have fallen upon old times. I wish--I dearly wish--that I +might bite a piece out of somebody. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + + "I saw pale kings, and princes, too; + Pale warriors, death-pale were they all, + They cried, 'La Belle Dame, sans merci,' + Hath thee in thrall." + + +The long penance of dinner is over at last, thank God! I may intermit my +hopeless roarings, melancholy as those of any caged zoological beast. +Roger and Zephine must also fain suspend their reminiscences. There +being no lady of the house, I have taken upon myself to hasten the date +of our departure. Before Mrs. Zephine has finished her last grape, I +have swept her incontinently away into the drawing-room. But I might as +well have let it alone: almost before you could say "Knife" they are +after us. I suppose that when three are eager to come, and only two +anxious to stay--(I acquit my old friend and his nephew of any +over-hurry to rejoin us)--the three must needs get their way. Anyhow, +here they all five are! I am so hot! so hot! Nothing heats one like +bellowing and being miserable and a failure. I have again taken +advantage of the mistressless condition of the establishment, have drawn +back the window-curtains, and lifted the heavy sash. The night always +soothes me. There is something so stilling in the far placidity of the +high stars--in the sweet sharpness of the night winds. I have sat down +on a couch in the embrasure, alone. + +When the men come in, I remain alone. It does not at all surprise or +much vex me. I have nothing pleasant to say to any one. Also, I think I +must be almost hidden by the droop of the curtains. Roger, indeed, sent +his eyes round the room on his first entry, as if searching for +something or somebody. It cannot be Mrs. Huntley, who is right under his +nose, and who is, indeed, saying something playful to him over the top +of her black fan. For once, he does not hear her. He is still looking. +Then he catches a glimpse of my skirts, and comes straight toward me. +Thank God! it _was_ me he was looking for. I feel a little throb of +disused gladness, as I realize this. + +"Are not you cold?" he says, perceiving the open window. + +"Not I!" reply I, brusquely--"naught never comes to harm." + +"I wish you would have a shawl!" he says, as the evening wind comes, +with the tartness of autumn, to his face. + +"Why do not you say, '_do, for my sake_!' as Algy once said to me, when +he mistook me in the dark for Mrs. Huntley?" reply I, with a mocking +laugh--"I am not sure that he did not add _darling_, but I will excuse +_that_!" + +At the mention of Algy, a shade crosses his face, and his eye travels to +where, in the dignified solitude of a corner, my eldest brother is +sitting, biting his lips, and reading "Alice Through the Looking-glass," +upside down. + +"Foolish fellow! I wish he had not come!" + +"I dare say he returns the compliment." + +"I wish she would leave him alone!" he says, with an accent of +impatience, more to himself than to me. + +"That is so likely," say I, quickly, "so much her way, is not it?" + +I suppose that something in the exceeding bitterness of my tone strikes +him, for his eyes return from Algy to me. + +"Nancy," he says, speaking with a sort of hesitating impulse, while a +dark flush crosses his face, "it has occurred to me once or twice--if +the idea had been less unspeakably absurd, it would have occurred to me +many times--that you are--are _jealous_ of Zephine and me!--YOU jealous +of ME!!" + +There is such a depth of emphasis in his last words--such a wealth of +reproachful appeal in the eyes that are bent on me--that I can answer +nothing. I say neither yea nor nay. He has sat down on the couch beside +me. + +"Tell me," he says, with low, quick excitement--"and for God's sake do +not grow scarlet, and turn your head aside as you mostly have done--did +you, or did you not know that--that _Musgrave_ was to be here to-day?" + +"I _did not--indeed_ I _did not!_" I cry, with passionate eagerness; +thankful for once to be able to tell the truth; "we none of us did--not +even Barbara!" + +He repeats my last words with a slightly sarcastic inflection, "_not +even Barbara_!" + +A moment's pause. + +"Why did you stop talking so suddenly, the moment that we interrupted +you?" he asks, with an abruptness that is almost harsh--"what were you +talking about?" + +Phew! how hot it is! even though one is by the open window!--even +despite the cool moistness of the night wind. + +"I was--I was--I was--congratulating him!" I say, doing the very thing +he has forbidden me, reddening and turning half away. He makes no +rejoinder; only I hear him sigh, and put his hand with a quick, +impatient movement to his head. + +"You believe me?" I ask, timidly, laying my hand on his arm. + +"No, _I do not_!" he replies, shaking off my touch, and turning his +stern and glittering eyes full upon me, "I should be a _fool_ and an +_idiot_ if I did!" + +Then he rises hastily and leaves me. I watch him as he joins the other +men. They are _all_ round her now--all but Musgrave. + +Algy has left his corner and his reversed picture-book, moved thereto by +the unparalleled audacity of young Parker, who has pulled one of the +sofa-cushions down on the floor, and is squatting on it, like a great +toad at her feet, examining a gnat-bite on her sacred arm. + +Even the old host is doing the agreeable according to his lights. In a +very loud voice he is narrating a long anecdote about a pretty girl that +he once saw at a windmill near Seville, during the Peninsular. With a +most unholy chuckle he is trying to hint that there was more between him +and the young lady than it well beseems him to tell; but fortunately no +one, but I, is listening to him. + +I turn away my head, and look out of the window up at Charles's Wain, +and all my other bright old friends. No one is heeding me--no one sees +me; so I drop my hot cheek on the sill. + +Suddenly I start up. Some one is approaching me: some one has thrown +himself with careless freedom on the couch beside me. It is Algy. + +Having utterly failed in dislodging Mr. Parker from his cushion--having +had a suggestion on his part, on the treatment of the gnat-bite, passed +over in silent contempt--he has retired from the circle in dudgeon. + +"This is lively, is not it?" he says, in an aggressively loud voice, as +if he were quarrelsomely anxious to be overheard. + +I say "Hush!" apprehensively + +"As no one makes the slightest attempt to entertain _us_, we must +entertain each other, I suppose!" + +"Yes, dear old boy!" I say, affectionately, "why not?--it would not be +the first time by many." + +"That does not make it any the more amusing!" he says, harshly.--"I say, +Nancy"--his eyes fixing themselves with sullen greediness on the central +figure of the group he has left--on the slight round arm (after all, not +half so round or so white as Barbara's or mine)--which is still under +treatment, "_is_ eau de cologne good for those sort of bites?--her arm +_is_ bad, you know!" + +"_Bad!_" echo I, scornfully; "_bad!_ why, I am _all_ lumps, more or +less, and so is Barbara! who minds _us_!" + +"You ought to make your old man--'_auld Robin Gray_'--mind you," he +says, with a disagreeable laugh. "It is _his_ business, but he does not +seem to see it, does he? ha! ha!" + +"I _wish_!" cry I, passionately; then I stop myself. After all, he is +hardly himself to-night, poor Algy! + +"By-the-by," he says, presently, with a wretchedly assumed air of +carelessness, "is it true--it is as well to come to the fountain-head at +once--is it true that _once_, some time in the dark ages, he--he-- +thought fit to engage himself to, to _her_?" (with a fierce accent on +the last word). + +A pain runs through my heart. Well, that is nothing new nowadays. He too +has heard it, then. + +"I do not know!" I answer, faintly. + +"What! he has not told you? _Kept it dark!_ eh?" (with the same hateful +laugh). + +"He has kept nothing dark!" I answer, indignantly. "One day he began to +tell me something, and I stopped him! I would not hear; I did not want +to hear, I believe; I am sure that they are--only--only--old friends." + +"_Old friends!_" he echoes, with a smile, in comparison of which our +host's satyr-leer seems pleasant and chaste. "_Old friends!_ you call +yourself a woman of the world" (indeed I call myself nothing of the +kind), "you call yourself a woman of the world, and believe _that_! They +looked like _old friends_ at dinner to-day, did not they? A little less +than kin, and more than kind! Ha! ha!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + + +Partridges are not General Parker's strong point, and the few he ever +had his nephew has already shot. Roger must, therefore, for one day +abstain from the turnip-ridges. To amuse us, however, and keep us all +sociably together, and bridge the yawning gulf between breakfast and +dinner, we are to be sent on an expedition. Not only an expedition, but +a picnic. This is perhaps a little risky in such a climate as ours, and +in a month so doubtfully hovering on the borders of winter as September; +but the sun is shining, and we therefore make up our minds, contrary to +all precedent, that he must necessarily go on shining. + +Some ten miles away there is a spot whence one can see seven counties, +not to speak of the sea, a mountain or two, and some other trifles; and +thither Mr. Parker is kindly going to bowl us down on his coach. + +A drive on a coach is always to me a most doubtful joy; the ascent, +labor; the drive itself, long anxiety and peril; the descent, agony, and +sometimes shame. However, that is neither here nor there. I am going. It +is still half an hour till the time appointed for our departure, and I +am sitting alone in my room when Roger enters. + +"Nancy," he says, coming quickly toward me, "have you any idea what sort +of a whip that boy is?" + +"Not the slightest!" reply I, shortly. + +I feel as hard as a flint to-day. Algy's words last night seem to have +confirmed and given a solider reality to my worst fears. He has walked +to the window and is looking out. + +"Are you _nervous?_" say I, with a slightly sarcastic smile. + +He does not appear to notice the sarcasm. + +"Yes," he says, "that is just what I am. He is a mad sort of fellow, and +a coach is not a thing to play tricks with!" + +"No," say I, indifferently. It seems to me of infinitely little +consequence whether we are upset or not. + +"That is what I came to speak to you about!" he says, still looking out +of the window. + +"Zephine--" + +"Is nervous, too?" ask I, smiling disagreeably. "What a curious +coincidence!" + +"I do not know whether she is nervous or not!" he answers, quickly; "I +never asked her, but it seems that Huntley never would let her go on a +drag; he had seen some bad accident, and it had given him a fright--" + +"And so you and she are going to stay at home?" say I, coldly, but +breathing a little heavily, and whitening. + +"Stay at home!" he echoes, impatiently, "of course not; why should we? +The fact is" (beginning to speak quickly in clear and eager explanation) +"that I heard them talking of this plan yesterday, and so I thought I +would be on the safe side, and send over to Tempest for the +pony-carriage, and it is here now, and--" + +"And you are going to drive her in it?" I say, still speaking quietly, +and smiling. "I see! nothing could be nicer!" + +"I wish to Heaven that you would not take the words out of my mouth," he +cries, losing his temper a little; while his brows contract into a +slight and most unwonted frown. "What I wish to know is, will _you_ +drive her?" + +"Yes, _you_; I know--" (speaking with a sort of hurried deprecation) "I +know that you are not fond of her; she is not a woman that other women +are apt to get on with; but it would not be for long! I tell you +candidly" (with a look of sincere anxiety) "I do not half like trusting +you to Parker!--I think you are as likely as not to come to grief." + +"To come to grief!" repeat I, with a harsh, dry laugh; "ha! ha! perhaps +I have done that already!" + +"But will you?" he asks, eagerly; not heeding my sorry mirth, and taking +my hand. "I would drive you myself, if I could, and if--" (almost +humbly) "if it would not bore you; but you see--" (rather slowly) "about +the carriage, she--she _asked_ me, and one does not like to say 'No' to +such an old friend!" + +_Old friend!_ At the phrase, Algy's sneering white face rises before my +mind's eye. + +"Will you?" he repeats, looking pleadingly at me, with the gray darkness +of his eyes. + +"No, I will not!" I reply, resolutely, and still with that unmirthful +mirth; "what ever else I may be, I will not be a _spoil-sport!_" + +"A _spoil-sport!_" he echoes, passionately, while his face darkens, and +hardens with impatient anger; "good God! will you _never_ understand?" + +Then he hastily leaves the room. And so it comes to pass that, half an +hour later, I am crawling up with a sick heart to the box-seat, +piteously calling on all around me to hold down my garments during my +ascent. The grooms have let go the horses' heads, and have climbed up in +dapper lightness at the back: we are through the first gate! Bah! that +was a near shave of the post; yes, we are off, off for a long day's +pleasuring! The very thought is enough to put any one in low spirits, is +not it? + +Barbara and Musgrave are behind us; and at the back, our old host and +Algy. The two latter are, I think, specially likely to enjoy themselves; +as the raw morning air has got down the old gentleman's throat, and he +is coughing like a wheezy old squirrel; and Algy is in a dumb frenzy. I +am no great judge of coachmanship, but we have not gone a quarter of a +mile, before it is borne in on my mind that Mr. Parker has about as much +idea of driving as a tomcat. The team do what is good in their eyes; we +must throw ourselves on their clemency and discretion, for clearly our +only hope is in them. He has not an idea of keeping them together; they +are all over the place; the wheelers' reins are all loose on their +backs. We seem to have an irresistible tendency toward bordering to the +right which keeps us hovering over the ditch. However, fortunately, the +road is very broad--one of the old coach-roads--and the vehicles we meet +are few and anxious to get out of our way. Such as they are, I will do +ourselves the justice to say that we try our best to run down each and +all of them. + +It is September, as I have before said. The leaves are still all green, +only a stray bramble reddening here and there; but most of the midsummer +hedge-row peoples are gathered to their rest. Only a lagging few, the +slight-throated blue-bell, the uncouth ragwort, the little, tight +scabious, remain. At least, the berries are here, however. While each +red hip shows where a faint rose blossomed and fell; while the elder +holds stoutly aloft her flat, black clusters; while the briony clasps +the hawthorn-hedge, we cannot complain. Not only the _main_ things of +Nature, but all her odds and ends, are so exceedingly fair and daintily +wrought. + +It is one of those days that look charming, when seen through the +window; bright and sunny, with lights that fly, and shadows that pursue; +but it is a very different matter when one comes to _feel_ it. There is +a bleak, keen wind, that sends the clouds racing through the heavens, +and that blows right in our teeth; nearly strangling me by the violence +with which it takes held of my head. + +There has been no rain for a week or two, and it is a chalky country. +The dust is waltzing in white whirlwinds along the road. High up as we +are, it reaches us, and thrusts its fine and choking powder up our +noses. + +"I suppose," say I, doubtfully, looking up at the shifting uncertainty +of the heavens, and trying to speak in a sprightly tone, a feat which I +find rather hard of accomplishment, with such a blast cutting my eyes, +and making me _gasp_--"I suppose that it will not rain!" + +"_Rain!_ not it!" replies our coachman, with contemptuous cheerfulness. + +"The glass was going down!" I say, humbly, "and I think I felt a drop +just now!" + +"_Impossible!_ it _could_ not rain with this wind." + +He says this with such a jovial and robust certainty of scorn, that I am +half inclined to distrust the sky's evidence--to disbelieve even in the +big drop that so indisputably splashed into my eye just now. "But in +case it _does_ rain," continue I, pertinaciously, "I suppose that there +is a house near, or some place where we can take refuge?" + +"No, there is no house nearer than a couple of miles"--making the +statement with the easiest composure--"but it will not rain." + +"Perhaps"--say I, with a sinking heart--"there is a wood--trees?" + +"Well, no, there is not much in the way of trees--except Scotch firs-- +there are plenty of them--it is a bare sort of place--that is the beauty +of it, you know"--(with a tone of confident pride)--"there is a +monstrously fine view from it!--one can see _seven_ counties!" + +"Yes," say I, faintly, "so I have heard!" + +At this point, the old gentleman is understood to be bawling something +from the back. By the utter morosity of Algy's face--faintly seen in the +distance--I conjecture that it is a joke; and, by the chuckling agony of +zest with which the old man is delivered of it, I further conclude that +it is something slightly unclean, but, thanks to the wind, none of us +overtake a word of it. The wind's spirits are rising. Its play is +becoming ever more and more boisterous. It would be difficult to imagine +any thing disagreeabler than it is making itself; but perhaps it _will_ +keep off the rain. Thinking this, I try to bear its blows and buffets-- +its slaps on the face--its boxes on the ear--with greater patience, We +have left the broad and safe high-road; Mr. Parker having, in an evil +moment, bethought himself of a short-cut. We are, therefore, entangled +in a labyrinth of cross-roads--finger-postless, guideless, solitary. +_So_ solitary, indeed, that we meet only one vacant boy of tender years, +of whom, when we inquire the way, the wind absolutely refuses to allow +us to hear a word of the broad Doric of his answer. At last--after many +bold and stout declarations on the part of Mr. Parker, that he _will +not_ be beaten--that he knows the way as well as he does his ABC--and +that he will find it if he stays till midnight--he is compelled, by the +joint and miserable clamor of us all, to turn back--(a frightful +process, as the road is narrow, and the coach will not lock)--to retrace +our steps, and take up again the despised high-road, where we had left +it. These manoeuvres have naturally taken some time. It is three o'clock +in the afternoon before we at length reach the great spread of desolate, +broad, moorland, which is our destination. For more than an hour, +absolute silence has fallen upon us. Like poor Yorick, we are "quite, +quite chapfallen!" Even the gallant old gentleman could not make a dirty +jest if he were to be shot for it. Mr. Parker alone maintains his +exasperating good spirits. We find Roger and Mrs. Huntley sitting on the +heather waiting for us. There is a good deal of relief--as it seems to +me--in the former's eye, as he sees us appear on the scene; and a good +deal of another expression, as he watches the masterly manner in which +we pull up: all the four horses floundering together on their haunches; +the leaders, moreover, exhibiting a mysterious desire to turn round and +look in the wheelers' faces. + +"Here we are!" cries Mr. Parker, joyously; "I have brought you along +capitally, have not I?--but I am afraid we are a little late--eh, Mrs. +Huntley? I hope we have not kept you long." + +"_Is_ it late?" she replies, with a smile and a fine hypocrisy--for she +_looks_ hungry--"I did not know; we have been quite happy!" + +Roger has risen, and is coming to help me down, but I say, crossly, "Do +not, please; Algy manages best!" Algy, however, has no intention of +helping anybody down. He has helped _himself_ down; and, without a word +or a look to any of his fellow-travellers, has thrown himself down on +the heather at Mrs. Huntley's feet, and is relieving his mind by audible +animadversions on our late triumphal progress. I am therefore left to +the tender mercies of the grooms; at least, I should have been, if Mr. +Musgrave had not taken pity on me, and guided my uncertain feet and the +petticoats, which Zephyr is doing his playful best to turn over my head, +down the steep declivity of the ladder. This, as you may guess, does not +help to restore my equanimity. However, I am down now, on firm ground; +and, at least, we are rid of the dust. My eyes are still full of grit, +but I suppose they will get over that. I turn them disconsolately about. + +On a fine sunny day--with butterflies hovering over the heather-flowers, +and bees sucking honey from the gorse--with little mild airs playing +about, and a torquoise sky shining overhead--it might be a spot on which +to lie and dream dreams of paradise; but _now_! The sun has finally +retired, and hid his sulky face for the day; the heather is over; and, +though the gorse is not, yet it gives no fragrance to the raw air. All +over the great rolling expanse there is a heavy, leaden look, caught +from the angry heavens above. The great clouds are gathering themselves +together to battle; and the mighty wind, with nothing to check its +progress, is sweeping over the great plain, and singing with eerie, loud +mournfulness. + +I shudder. + +"Where are the Scotch firs?" (I say, querulously, to Mr. Parker, who by +this time had joined me); "you said there were plenty of them! where are +they?" + +"_Where?_" (looking cheerfully round), "oh, _there_!" (pointing to where +one lightning-riven little wreck bends its sickly head to the gale). +"Ah! I see there is only _one_, after all. I thought that there had been +more." + +My heart sinks. Is that one withered, scathed little stick to be our +sole protection against the storm, so evidently quickly coming up? + +"Fine view, is not it?" pursues my companion, not in the least +perceiving my depression, and complacently surveying the prospect. "Of +course it might have been clearer, but, after all, you get a very good +idea of it." + +I turn my faint eyes in the same direction as his. Down on the horizon +the sullen rain-clouds are settling, and, to meet them, there stretches +a dead, colorless flat, dotted with little round trees, little +church-spires, little houses, little fields, little hedges--one of those +mappy views, that lack even the beauties of a map--the nice pink and +green and blue lines which so gayly define the boundaries of each +county. + +"Very extensive, is not it?" he says, proudly; "you know you can see--" + +"Seven counties!" interrupt I, sharply, snapping the words out of his +mouth. "Yes, I know; you told me." + +The horses have been led away to the distant ale-house. The coach stands +forlorn and solitary on the moor. Some of us, looking at the threatening +aspect of the weather, have suggested that _we_ too should make for +shelter; but this suggestion is indignantly vetoed by Mr. Parker. + +"_Rain!_ not a bit of it! It is not _thinking_ of raining! The wind! +what is the matter with the wind? Nice and fresh! Much better than one +of those muggy days, when you can hardly breathe!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + + +The cloth is therefore laid, with the dead heather-flowers beneath it, +and the low leaden sky above. As large stones as can be found have to be +sought on the moorland road to weight it, and hinder our banquet from +flying bodily away. It is at last spread--cold lamb, cold partridges, +chickens, _mayonnaise_, cakes, pastry--they have just been arranged in +their defenceless nakedness under the eye of heaven, when the rain +begins. And, when it begins, it begins to some purpose. It deceives us +with no false hopes--with no breakings in the serried clouds--with no +flying glimpses of blue sky. Down it comes, straight,_straight_ down, on +the lamb, on the _mayonnaise_, splash into the bitter. Each of us seizes +the viand dearest to his or her heart, and tries to shelter it beneath +his or her umbrella. But in vain! The great slant storm reaches it under +the puny defense. Even Mr. Parker has to change the _form_ of his +consolation, though not the spirit. He can no longer deny that it is +raining; but what he now says is that it will not last--that it is only +a shower--that he is very glad to see it come down so hard at first, as +it is all the more certain to be soon over. + +Nobody has the heart to contradict him, though everybody knows that it +is a lie. Mrs. Huntley, at the first drop, has made for the coach, and +now sits in it, serene and dry. Algy follows her, with a chicken and a +champagne bottle. I sit doggedly still, where I am, on the cold moor. + +Roger has not spoken to me since my rude reception of him on arriving, +but he now comes up to me. + +"Had not you better follow her example?" he asks, speaking rather +formally, and looking toward the coach, where, with, smiling profile and +neat hair, my rival is sitting, reveling among the flesh-pots. + +Something in the sight of her sleek, smooth tidiness, joined to the +consciousness of my own miserable, blowsed disorder, stings me more even +than the rain-drops are doing. + +"Not I," I answer, brusquely; "that is what I trust I shall never +do!" + +He passes by my sneer without notice. + +"In this rain you will be drenched in two minutes." + +"Apres!" + +"_Apres_!" repeats, impatiently, "_apres_? you will catch your death of +cold!" + +"And you will be a widower!" reply I, with a bitter smile. + +Barbara is as obstinate as I am. She, too, seems to prefer the spite of +the elements to disturbing the _tete-a-tete_ in the coach. Musgrave has +made her as comfortable as he can, with her back against the poor little +Scotch fir, and a plaid over both their heads. + +The feast proceeds in solemn silence. Even if we had the heart to talk, +the difficulty of making ourselves heard would quite check the +inclination. + +There are little puddles in all our plates--the bread and cakes are +_pap_--lamb is damp and flabby, and the _mayonnaise_ is reduced to a +sort of watery whey. + +Mr. Parker is the only one who, under these circumstances, makes any +attempt to pretend that we are enjoying ourselves. + +"This is not so bad, after all," he says, still with that same +unconquerable accent of joviality. He has to say it three times, and to +put up his hands to his mouth like a speaking-trumpet, before any one +hears him. When they do, "answer comes there none!" + +I, indeed, am not in a position for conversation at the exact moment +that the demand is made upon me. I have just come to the end of a long +wrestle with my umbrella. It has at last got its wicked will, and has +turned right inside out! All its whalebones are aspiring heavenward. It +is transformed into a melancholy _cup_--like a great ugly flower, on a +bare stalk. I lay the remains calmly down beside me, and affront the +blast and the tempest alone! I have a brown hat on--at least it _was_ +brown when we set off--I am just wondering, therefore, with a sort of +stupid curiosity, why the _rill_ that so plenteously distills from its +brim, and so madly races down my cold nose, should be _sky blue_, when I +perceive that Barbara has left her shelter, and her lover, and is +standing beside me. + +"Poor Nancy!" she says, with a softly compassionate laugh, "how wet you +are! come under the plaid with me! you have no notion how warm it keeps +one; and the tree, though it does not _look_ much, saves one a bit, too +--and Frank does not mind being wet--come quick!" + +I am too wretched to object. No water-proof could stand the deluge to +which mine has been subjected. My shoulder-blades feel moist and +_sticky_: my hair is in little dismal ropes, and dreadful runlets are +coursing down my throat, and under my clothes. + +Without any remonstrance, I snuggle under the plaid with Barbara--with a +little of the feeling of soothing and dependence with which, long ago, +in the dear old dead days at home, I used, when I was a naughty child, +or a bruised child--and I was very often both--to creep to her for +consolation. + +Thanks to the wind, and to our proximity, we are able to talk without a +fear of being overheard. + +"You are wrong!" Barbara says, glancing first toward the coach, and then +turning the serene and limpid gravity of her blue eyes on me; "you are +making a mistake!" + +I do not affect to understand her. + +"_Am I_?" I say, indignantly; "I am doing nothing of the kind! it is not +only my own idea!--ask Algy!" + +"_Algy_!" (with a little accent of scorn), "poor Algy!--he is in such a +fit state for judging, is not he?" + +We both involuntarily look toward him. + +It is _his_ turn now, and his morosity is exchanged for an equally +uncomfortable hilarity. His cheeks are flushed; he is laughing loudly, +and going in heavily for the champagne. The next moment he is scowling +discourteously at his old host, who, with his poor old chuckle entirely +drowned, and overcome by an endless sort of choking monotony of cough, +is clambering on tottery old legs into the coach, to try and get his +share of shelter. + +We both laugh a little; and then Barbara speaks again. + +"Nancy, I want to say something to you. Just now I heard Roger ask +whether there was a fly to be got at the public-house where the horses +are put up, and it seems there _is_; and he has sent for it. You may +think that it is for _her_, but it is not--it is for _you_! Will you +promise me to go home in it, if he asks you?" + +I am silent. + +"Will you?" she repeats, taking hold of one of my froggy hands, while +her eyes shine with a soft and friendly urgency; "you know you always +used to take my advice when we were little--will you?" + +Somehow, at her words, a little warmth of comfortable reassurance steals +about my heart. At home she always used to be right: perhaps she is +right now--perhaps _I_ am wrong. I will be even better than her +suggestion. + +Roger is standing not far from us. The rain has drenched his beard and +his heavy mustache: the great drops stand on his eyelashes, and on his +straight brows. Perhaps I only imagine it, but to me he looks sad and +out of heart. It is not the weather that makes him so, if he is. Much he +cares for that! + +I call him "Roger!" My voice is small and low, and the wind is large and +loud, but he hears me. + +"Yes?" (turning at the sound with a surprised expression). + +"May I go home in the fly?" I ask impulsively, yet humbly, "I mean with +--with _her_!" (a gulp at the pronoun), then, under the influence of a +fear that he may think that I am driven by a hankering after creature +comforts to this overture, I go on quickly, "it is not because I want to +be kept dry--if I were to be dragged through the sea I could not be +wetter than I am--but if you wish--Barbara thought--Barbara said--" + +I mumble off into shy incoherency. + +"_Will_ you?" he says, with a tone of eagerness and pleasure, which, if +not real, is at least admirably feigned. "It is what I was just wishing +to ask you, only" (laughing with a sort of constraint and a touch of +bitterness) "I really was _afraid_!" + +"Am I such a _shrew_?" I say, looking at him with a feeling of growing +lightheartedness. "Ah! I always was! was not I, Barbara?" Then, a moment +after, in a tone that is almost gay, I say, "May Barbara come, too? is +there room?" + +"Of course!" he answers readily; "surely there is plenty of room for +all!" + +While the words are yet on his lips, while I am still smiling up at +him, under the soaked tartan there comes a voice from the coach. + +"Roger!" He obeys the summons. It is just five paces off, and I hear +each of the slow and softly-enunciated words that follow. + +"I hear that you have sent for a fly! how very thoughtful of you! did +you ever forget _any thing_ I wonder? I was--no--not _dreading_ my drive +home; but now I am _quite_ looking forward to it. Why did you not bring +a pack of cards? we might have had a game of bezique." + +"I think we have made another arrangement," he answers, quietly. "I +think Nancy will be your companion instead of me." + +"_Lady Tempest!_" (with a slight but to me quite perceptible raising of +eyebrows, and accenting of words). + +"Yes, Nancy." + +I can see her face, but not his. To my acutely listening, sharply +jealous ears there sounds a tone of faint and carefully hidden annoyance +in his voice. It seems to me, too, that her features would not dare to +wear such an expression of open disappointment if they were not answered +and meeting something in his. I therefore take my course. I jump up +hastily, flinging off the plaid, and advance toward the interlocutors. + +She is just saying, "Oh, I understand! very nice!" in a little formal +voice when I break in. + +"I am going to do nothing of the kind!" I cry, hurriedly. "I have +altered my mind; I shall keep to the coach, that is" (with a nervous +laugh, and a miserable attempt at coquetry), "if Mr. Parker is not tired +of me." + +This is the way in which I take Barbara's advice. The fly arrives +presently, and the original pair depart in it. Roger neither looks at +nor speaks to me again; in fact, he ignores my existence; although, +under the influence of one of those speedy and altogether futile +repentances which always follow hard on the heels of my tantrums, I have +waylaid him once or twice in the hope that he would be induced to +recognize it. But no! this time I have outdone myself. I have tried his +patience a little too far. I am in disgrace. + +It is long, _long_ after their departure before _we_ get under way. The +grooms have either misunderstood Mr. Parker's directions, or are +enjoying their mulled beer over the pot-house fire too much to be in any +violent haste again to meet the raw air and the persisting deluge. + +It is past six o'clock before the horses arrive on the ground; it is +half-past before we are off. + +And meanwhile Mr. Parker has been rivaling Algy in the ardor with which +he calls in the aid of the champagne to keep out the wet. At each fresh +tumbler his joviality goes up a step, until at length it reaches a pitch +which produces an opposite effect on me, and engenders a depressed +fright. + +"Barbara," say I, in a low voice, when at length the moment of departure +draws near, and only Musgrave is within ear-shot--"Barbara, has it +struck you? do not you think he is rather--" + +Barbara, however, is diffident of her own opinion, and repeats my +question to her lover. + +He shrugs his shoulders. + +"Is he? I have not noticed him; nothing more likely; last time I saw him +he was _flying_! It was in India at a great pig-sticking meeting, and +after dinner he got up to the top of a big mango-tree, and tried to +_fly_! Of course he fell down, but he was so drunk that he was not in +the least hurt." + +Mr. Musgrave seems to think this an amusing anecdote; but we do not. + +"Why do not _you_ drive?" I ask, contrary to all my resolutions +addressing my future brother-in-law, and indeed forgetting in my alarm +that I had ever made such. I am reminded of it, however, by the look of +gratification that flashes--for only one moment and is gone--but still +flashes into the depths of his great dark eyes. + +"It is so likely that he would let me!" he says, laughing. + +"I would not mind so much if I were at the _back_!" I say, piteously, +turning to Barbara. "At the back one does not know what is coming, but +on the box one sees whatever is happening." + +"That is rather an advantage I think," she answers, laughing. "I do not +mind; I will go on the box." + +"Will you?" say I, eagerly. "_Do!_ and I will take care of the old +general at the back." + +So it is settled. We are on the point of starting now. Mr. Parker is up +and is already beginning to struggle with the hopeless muddle of his +reins. I think we have perhaps done him an injustice; at all events, his +condition is not at all what it must have been when he mounted the +mango. Algy's morosity has returned tenfold, and he is performing the +evolution familiarly known as "pulling your nose to vex your face." That +is to say, he is standing about in the pouring rain utterly unprotected +from it. He entirely declines to put on any mackintosh or overcoat. Why +he does this, or how it punishes Mrs. Huntley, I cannot say, but so it +is. + +We are off at last. I, in accordance with my wishes, up at the back, +facing the grooms; but not at all in accordance with my wishes, Mr. +Musgrave, and not the old host, is my companion. + +"This is all wrong!" I cry, with vexed abruptness, as I see who it is +that is climbing after me. "Where is the general? We settled that he--" + +"I am afraid you will have to put up with me!" interrupts Musgrave, +coldly, with that angry and mortified darkening of the whole face, and +sudden contraction of the eyeballs that I used so well to know. "We +could not make him hear; we all tried, but none of us could make him +understand." So I have to submit. + +Well, we are off now. The night is coming quickly down: it will be +_quite_ dark an hour sooner than usual tonight, so low does the great +black cloud-curtain stoop to the earth's wet face. Ink above us, so +close above us, too, that it seems as if one might touch it with lifted +hand; ink around us; a great stretch of dull and sulky heather; and, +maddening around us with devilish glee, hitting us, buffeting us, +bruising us, taking away our breath, and making our eyelids smart, is a +wind--such a wind! I should have laughed if any one had told me an hour +ago that it would rise. I should have said it was impossible, and yet it +certainly has. + +The wind which turned my umbrella inside out was a zephyr compared to +that which is now _thundering_ round us. Sometimes, for one, for two +false moments, it lulls (the lulls are almost awfuller than the +whirlwind that follows them), then with gathered might it comes tearing, +howling, whooping down on us again, gnashing its angry teeth; bellowing +with a voice like ten million lost devils. And on its pinions what rain +it brings; what stinging, lacerating, bitter rain! And now, to add to +our misfortunes, to pile Pelion on Ossa, we _lose our way_. Mr. Parker +cannot be persuaded to abandon the idea of the short-cut. The natural +result follows. + +If we were hopelessly bewildered--utterly at sea among the maze of +lonely roads into which he has again betrayed us at high noon--what must +we be now in the angry dark of the evening? This time we have to go into +a field to turn, a field full of tussocks, which in the dark we are +unable to see, and over which the horses flounder and stumble. However, +now at length--now that we have wasted three-quarters of an hour, and +that it is quite pitch dark--(I need hardly say that we have no lamps)-- +we have at length regained the blessed breadth of the high-road, and I +think that not even our coachman, to whose faith most things seem +possible, will attempt to leave it a second time. I give a sigh of +relief. + +"It is all plain sailing now!" Musgrave says, reassuringly. + +"There is one bad turn," reply I, gloomily--"very bad, at the bottom of +the village by the bridge." + +We relapse into silence, and into our unnatural battle with the +elements. I have to grasp my hat firmly with one hand, and the side of +the coach with the other, to prevent being blown off. If my companion +were any one else, I should grasp _him_. + +We are only a mile and a half from our haven now; the turn I dread is +nearing. + +"Are you frightened?" asks Musgrave, in a pause of the storm. + +"_Horribly!_" I answer. + +I have forgotten Brindley Wood--have forgotten all the mischief he has +done. I recollect only that he is human, and that we are sharing what +seems to me a great and common peril. + +"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. + +"_You_ take 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + + "... Peace, pray you, now, + No dancing more. Sing sweet, and make us mirth. + We have done with dancing measures; sing that song + You 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 the +_less_ 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 the +_more_. She does not appear until late--not until near luncheon-time. +Her cold is in the head, the _safest_ but 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 to _us_, as one is not expected to laugh at a _cough_ nor +does its _denoument_ ever put one to the blush. + +Mr. Parker has no cold at all, and has even had the shameless audacity +to propose _another_ expedition 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 for _himself_ at least--it is always by his _hair_ (with a laugh) +that people know _him_--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 +as _me_, 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 to _any_ proposition, 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 etre belle_" and I do not +grumble; for I _am_ belle! 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 is _delightful_ to 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--"_is_ it 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 pleased _myself_ +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--rather _en delicatesse_--this morning, +but we both seem to have forgotten this. + +"I must not dance _much_!" say I, anxiously turning again to the glass, +and closely examining my complexion--"must I?--or my rouge will _run_!" + +After a moment-- + +"You must be sure to tell me if I grow to look at all _smeary_, 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 even _Barbara_. 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, _bushels_ of 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 than _three_ times 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 look +_hard_--really _very_ hard--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 how _delightful_ to be +pretty! + +Does Barbara _always_ feel 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 not _often_ do 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. + +"_What_ are they?" he says, in a tone of extreme disapprobation. "_Who_ +are they? Are they _Christy 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 any +_mauvaise 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 not _meant_ for 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, _very_ tight. 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, "_how_ I pity them! What on earth did they do it for?" + +"Oh, I do not know," I reply; "for _fun_ I 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. _How_ I +_am_ enjoying 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 he _was_ +watching 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 really _dare 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, have _my_ +cheeks 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. Where _can_ they +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 +absolutely _sJiut_, 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. They _are_ here. +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 it +_possible?_--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. + +"You _knew_ they were there!" I cry in a whisper of passionate +resentment, snatching my hand from his arm; "you brought me here _on +purpose_!" + +Then, regardless of appearances, I turn quickly away, and walk back down +the passage alone! + + + + +CHAPTER-XLVII. + + +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 only _possible_, 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 am _burning_. 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. +They _all_ see 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 with _me_, 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 jet 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 us _all_ home again!" I +say, with a tight, pale smile--"send us packing back again, Algy and +Barbara and _me_--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 you _torment_ me? +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--" + +"You _would_, then, if you _could_?" cry I, breathing short and hard. +"You _own_ it!" + +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 I _would_." + +"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 what _looks_--what, at least, I should have once said +_looked_--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 a _lump_! that is all the +difference! I had mine in a _lump_--all crowded into nineteen years that +is, nineteen _very 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 this _now_, to-night?" he asks, earnestly. "I +have been deceiving myself with the hope that you were having _one_ +happy 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 one_ would have said that you were enjoying yourself," he pursues, +eagerly--"_were_ not 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--"And _you_?" + +"_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 there _were_ one--have _I_ ever told _you_ a 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 the _draughts_ that 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 I _enjoyed_ it? I _hate_ to see a woman weep! it +makes me _miserable_! 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." + +"Her _child_!" 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 that _you_ were too much of a man of the +world, that she knew _you_ too 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. Zephine not making the +slightest objection, but, on the contrary, being heartily glad to be rid +of it--do you like to know _that_?" + +"How do _you_ know it?" (speaking quickly)--"how did _you_ hear it?" + +"I was told." + +"But _who_ told 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 one_ has! 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 the _misery_ of it," he goes on, that dark flush +that colored his bronzed face the other night again spreading over it, +"I could _laugh_ at the gross absurdity of the idea! To begin such +fooleries at _my_ age! 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, that _you_ should suspect _me_?" + +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 whom_ you +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 are _miserable_, are not we?" he goes on, in a low voice--"_most_ +miserable! 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 have _peace_!" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + + "I made a posy while the day ran by, + Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie + My life within this band; + But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they + By 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 she _is_ engaged, 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, I _still_ love 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 of +_us_, 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 +are _obliged_ to 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 is _ill_" + +"_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 he _did_, 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 he _would_ come; 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 me +_miserable_ to leave him! If I consulted my own wishes, I need not tell +you that 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. "I _know_ he will! I always said we were +too prosperous. Nothing has ever happened to us. None of us have ever +gone! I _know_ he will die; and I said yesterday that I liked him the +least of all the boys. Oh, I _wish_ I had not said it.--Barbara! +Barbara! I _wish_ I 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 not _God_ here--God _our 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 Zephine. 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 of _told-you-so_ expression, 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 are _cracked_ to-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, _very_ tired, but what of that? it would be unnatural, _most_ +unnatural 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!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + + "So mayst thou die, as I do; fear and pain + Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!" + + +All right! Yes, for Barbara it _is_ all right. Friends, I no more doubt +that than I doubt that I am sitting here now, with the hot tears on my +cheeks, telling you about it; but oh! not--_not_ for us! + +"Much laughing will end in much crying." The Brat was right. God knows +the old saw has come true enough in my case. I exulted too soon. Too +soon I said that the all-victor was vanquished. He might have left us +our one little victory, might not he?--knowing that at best it was but a +reprieve, that soon or late--soon or late, Algy--we all, every human +flower that ever blossomed out in this world's sad garden, must be +embraced in the icy iron of his arms. + +I always said that we were too many and too prosperous; long ago I said +it. I always wondered that he had so long overlooked us. And now that he +comes, he takes our choicest and best. With nothing less is he content. +Barbara sickens. Not until the need for her tender nursing is ended, not +until Algy can do without her, does she go; and then she makes haste to +leave us. + +On the morning after my mad and premature elation, it is but too plain +that the fever has laid hold of her too, and in its parching, withering +clasp, our unstained lily fades. We take her back to Tempest at her +wish, and there she dies--yes, _dies_. + +Somehow, I never thought of Barbara dying. Often I have been nervous +about the boys; out in the world, exposed to a hundred dangers and rough +accidents, but about Barbara--_never_^ hardly more than about myself, +safely at home, scarcely within reach of any probable peril. And now the +boys are all alive and safe, and Barbara is going. One would think that +she had cared nothing for us, she is in such a hurry to be gone; and yet +we all know that she has loved us well--that she loves us still--none +better. + +Alas! we have no long and tedious nursing of her. She has never given +any trouble in her life, and she gives none now. Almost before we +realize the reality and severity of her sickness, she is gone. Neither +does she make any struggle. She never was one to strive or cry; never +loud, clamorous, and self-asserting, like the boys and me; she was +always most meek, and with a great meekness she now goes forth from +among us--meekness and yet valor, for with a full and collected +consciousness she looks in the face of Him from whom the nations +shuddering turn away their eyes, and puts her slight hand gently into +his, saying, "Friend, I am ready!" + +And the days roll by; _but_ few, _but_ few of them, for, as I tell you, +she goes most quickly, and it comes to pass that our Barbara's death-day +dawns. Most people go in the morning. God grant that it is a good omen, +that for them, indeed, the sun is rising! + +We are all round her--all we that loved her and yet so lightly--for +every trivial thing called upon her, and taxed her, and claimed this and +that of her, as if she were some certain common thing that we should +always have within our reach. Yes, we are all about her, kneeling and +standing in a hallowed silence, choking back our tears that they may not +stain the serenity of her departure. + +Musgrave is nearest her; her hand is clasped in his; even at this sacred +and supreme moment a pang of most bitter earthly jealousy contracts my +heart that it should be so. What is he to her? what has he to do with +our Barbara?--_ours, not his, not his!_ But it pleases her. + +_She_ has never doubted him. Never has the faintest suspicion of his +truth dimmed the mirror of her guileless mind, nor will it ever now. She +goes down to the grave smiling, holding his hand, and kissing it. Now +and then she wanders a little, but there is nothing painful or uneasy in +her wanderings. + +Her fair white body lies upon the bed, but by the smile that kindles all +the dying loveliness of her face, by the happy broken words that fall +from her sweet mouth, we know that she is already away in heaven. Now +and again her lips part as if to laugh--a laugh of pure pleasantness. + +"As the man lives, so shall he die!" As Barbara has lived, so does she +die--meekly, unselfishly--with a great patience, and an absolute peace. +O wise man! O philosophers! who would take from us--who have all but +taken from us--our Blessed Land, the land over whose borders our +Barbara, at that smile, seems setting her feet--you _may_ be right--I, +for one, know not! I am weary of your pros and cons! But when you take +it away, for God's sake give us something better instead! + +Who, while they kneel, with the faint hand of their life's life in +theirs, can be satisfied with the _probability_ of meeting again? God! +God! give us _certainty_. + +The night has all but waned, the dawn has come. God has sent his +messenger for Barbara. An awful hunger to hear her voice once more +seizes me, _masters_ me. I rise from my knees, and lean over her. + +"Barbara!" I say, in a strangling agony of tears, "you are not _afraid_, +are you?" + +_Afraid!_ She has all but forgotten our speech--she, who is hovering on +the confines of that other world, where our speech is needed not, but +she just repeats my word, "_Afraid_!" + +Her voice is but a whisper now, but in all her look there is such an +utter, tender, joyful disdain, as leaves no room for misgiving. + +Nay, friends, our Barbara is not at all afraid. She never was reckoned +one of the bravest of us--never--timorous rather! Often we have laughed +at her easy fears, we bolder ones. But which of us, I pray you, could go +with such valiant cheer to meet the one prime terror of the nations as +she is doing? + +And it comes to pass that, about the time of the sun-rising, Barbara +goes. + +"She is gone! God bless her!" Roger says, with low and reverent +tenderness, stooping over our dead lily, and, putting his arm round me, +tries to lead me away. But I shake him off, and laugh out loud. + +"Are you _mad_?" I cry, "she is _not_ dead! She is no more dead than +_you_ are! Only a moment ago, she was speaking to me! Do dead people +speak?" + +But rave and cry as I may, she _is_ dead. In smiling and sweetly +speaking, even while yet I said "She is here!" yea, in that very moment +she went. + +Our Barbara is asleep!--to awake--when?--where?--we know not, only we +altogether hope, that, when next she opens her blue eyes, it will be in +the sunshine of God's august smile--God, through life and in death, _her +friend_. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + + "Then, breaking into tears, 'Dear God,' she cried, 'and must we see, + All blissful things depart from us, or e'er we go to Thee; + We cannot guess Thee in the wood, or hear Thee in the wind: + Our cedars must fall round us e'er we see the light behind. + Ay, sooth, we feel too strong in weal to need Thee on that road; + But, woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on God.'" + + +I am twenty years old now, barely twenty; and seventy is the appointed +boundary of man's date, often exceeded by ten, by fifteen years. During +all these fifty--perhaps sixty--years, I shall have to do without +Barbara. I have not yet arrived at the _pain_ of this thought: _that_ +will come, quick enough, I suppose, by-and-by!--it is the _astonishment_ +of it that is making my mind reel and stagger! + +I suppose there are few that have not endured and overlived the +frightful _novelty_ of this idea. + +I am sitting in a stupid silence; my stiff eyes--dry now, but dim and +sunk with hours of frantic weeping--fixed on vacancy, while I try to +think _exactly_ of her face, with a greedy, jealous fear lest, in the +long apathy of the endless years ahead of me, one soft line, one lovely +line, may become faint and hazy to me. + +How often I have sat for hours in the same room with her, without one +glance at her! It seems to me, now, _monstrous_, incredible, that I +should ever have moved my eyes from her--that I should ever have ceased +kissing her, and telling her how altogether beloved she was by me. + +If all of us, while we are alive, could stealthily, once a year, and +during a moment long enough to exchange but two words with them, behold +those loved ones whom we have lost, death would be no more death. + +But, O friends, that one moment, for whose sake we could so joyfully +live through all the other minutes of the year, to us never comes. + +I suppose trouble has made me a little light-headed. I think to-day I am +foolisher than usual. Thoughts that would not tease other people, tease +me. + +If I ever see her again--if God ever give me that great felicity--I do +not quite know why He should, but if--if--(ah! what an if it is!)--my +mind misgives me--I have my doubts that it will not be _quite_ Barbara-- +not the Barbara that knitted socks for the boys, and taught Tou Tou, and +whose slight, fond arms I can--now that I have shut my eyes--so plainly +feel thrown round my shoulders, to console me when I have broken into +easy tears at some silly tiff with the others. Can even the omnipotent +God remember all the unnumbered dead, and restore to them the shape and +features that they once wore, and by which they who loved them knew +them? + +The funeral is over now--over two days ago. She lies in Tempest +church-yard, at her own wish. The blinds are drawn up again; the sun +looks in; and life goes on as before. + +Already there has grown a sacredness about the name of Barbara--the name +that used to echo through the house oftener than any other, as one and +another called for her. Now, it is less lightly named than the names of +us live ones. + +I shall always _wince_ when I hear it. Thank God! it is not a common +name. After a while, I know that she will become a sealed subject, never +named; but as yet--while my wound is in its first awful rawness, I must +speak of her to some one. + +I am talking of her to Roger now; Roger is very good to me--very! I do +not seem to care much about him, nor about anybody for the matter of +that, but he is very good. + +"You liked her," I say, in a perfectly collected, tearless voice, "did +not you? You were very kind and forbearing to them all, always--I am +very grateful to you for it--but you liked _her_ of your own accord--you +would have liked her, even if she had not been one of us, would not +you?" + +I seem greedy to hear that she was dear to everybody. + +"I was very fond of her," he answers, in a choked voice. + +"And you are _sure_ that she is happy now?" say I, with the same keen +agony of anxiety with which I have put the question twenty times before +--"well off--better than she was here--you do not say so to comfort me, +I +suppose; you would say it even if I were talking--not of her--but of +some one like her that I did not care about?" + +He turns to me, and clasps my dry, hot hands. + +"Child!" he says, looking at me with great tears standing in his gray +eyes--"I would stake all my hopes of seeing His face myself, that she +has gone to God!" I look at him with a sort of wistful envy. How is it +that he and Barbara have attained such a certainty of faith? He can +_know_ no more than I do. After a pause-- + +"I think," say I, "that I should like to go home for a bit, if you do +not mind. Everybody was fond of her there. Nobody knew any thing about +her, nobody cared for her here." + +So I go home. As I turn in at the park-gates, in the gray, wet gloom of +the November evening, I think of my first home-coming after my +wedding-tour. + +Again I see the divine and jocund serenity of the summer evening--the +hot, red sunset making all the windows one great flame, and they all, +Barbara, Algy, Bobby, Tou Tou, laughing welcome to me from the opened +gate. Tonight I feel as if they were _all_ dead. I reach the house. I +stand in the empty school-room!--I, alone, of all the noisy six. The +stains of our cookery still discolor the old carpet; there is still the +great ink-splash on the wall, that marks the spot where the little +inkstand, aimed by Bobby at my head, and dodged by me, alighted. + +How little I thought that those stains and that splash would ever speak +to me with voices of such pathos! I have asked to be allowed to sleep in +Barbara's and my old room. I am there now. I have thrown myself on +Barbara's little white bed, and am clasping her pillow in my empty arms. +Then, with blurred sight and swimming eyes, I look round at all our +little childish knick-knacks. + +There is the white crockery lamb that she gave me the day I was six +years old! Poor little trumpery lamb! I snatch it up, and deluge its +crinkly back, and its little pink nose, with my scalding tears. + +At night I cannot sleep. I have pulled aside the curtains, that through +the windows my eyes may see the high stars, beyond which she has gone. +Through the pane they make a faint and ghostly glimmer on the empty bed. + +I sit up in the dead middle of the night, when the darkness and +so-called silence are surging and singing round me, while the whole room +feels full of spirit presences. _I alone_! I am accompanied by a host--a +bodiless host. + +I stretch out my arms before me, and cry out: + +"Barbara! Barbara! If you are here, make some sign! I _command_ you, +touch me, speak to me! I shall not be afraid!--dead or alive, can I be +afraid of _you_?--give me some sign to let me know where you are-- +whether it is worth while trying to be good to get to you! I _adjure_ +you, give me some sign!" + +The tears are raining down my cheeks, as I eagerly await some answer. +Perhaps it will come in the cold, _cold_ air, by which some have known +of the presence of their dead; but in vain. The darkness and the silence +surge round me. Still, still I feel the spirit-presences; but Barbara is +dumb. + +"You have been away such a short time!" I cry, piteously. "You cannot +have gone far! Barbara! Barbara! I _must_ get to you! If _I_ had died, +and _you_ had lived, a hundred thousand devils should not have kept me +from you. I should have broken through them all and reached you. Ah! +cruel Barbara! you do not _want_ to come to me!" + +I stop, suffocated with tears; and through the pane the high stars still +shine, and Barbara is dumb! + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + + "The last touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and by + night. + Their last step on the stairs, at the door, still throbs through me, + if ever so light. + Their last gift which they left to my childhood, far off in the + long-ago years, + Is now turned from a toy to a relic, and seen through the crystals of + tears. + 'Dig the snow,' she said, + For my church-yard bed; + Yet I, as I sleep, shall not fear to freeze, + If one only of these, my beloveds, shall love with heart-warm tears, + As I have loved these.'" + + +It seems to me in these days as if, but for the servants, I were quite +alone in the house. Father is ill. We always thought that he never would +care about any thing, or any of us, but we are wrong. Barbara's death +has shaken him very much. Mother is with him always, nursing him, and +being at his beck and call, and I see nothing of her. + +Tou Tou has gone to school, and so it comes to pass that, in the late +populous school-room, I sit alone. Where formerly one could hardly make +one's voice heard for the merry clamor, there is now no noise, but the +faint buzzing of the house-flies on the pane, and now and again, as it +grows toward sunset, the loud wintry winds keening and calling. + +The Brat indeed runs over for a couple of days, but I am so glad when +they are over, and he is gone. I used to like the Brat the best of all +the boys, and perhaps by-and-by I shall again; but, for the moment, do +you know, I almost hate him. + +Once or twice I _quite_ hate him, when I hear him laughing in his old +thorough, light-hearted way--when I hear him jumping up-stairs three +steps at a time, whistling the same tune he used to whistle before he +went. + +Poor boy! He would be always sorrowful if he could, and is very much +ashamed of himself for not being, but he cannot. + +Life is still pleasant to him, though Barbara is dead, and so I unjustly +hate him, and am glad when he is gone. Have not I come home because here +she was loved, here, at least, through all the village--the village +about which she trod like one of God's kind angels--I shall be certain +of meeting a keen and assured sympathy in my sorrow. + + "....Where indeed + The roof so lowly but that beam of heaven + Dawned some time through the door-way?" + +And yet, now that I am here, the village seems much as it was. Still the +same groups of fat, frolicking children about the doors; still the same +busy women at the wash-tub; about the house still the same coarse +laughs. + +It would be most unnatural, impossible that it should not be so, and yet +I feel angry--sorely angry with them. + +One day when this sense of rawness is at its worst and sharpest, I +resolve that I will pay a visit to the almshouse. There, at least, I +shall find that she is remembered; there, out of mere selfishness, they +must grieve for her. When will they, in their unlovely eld, ever find +such a friend again? + +So I go there. I find the old women, some crooning over the fire, half +asleep, some squabbling. I suppose they are glad to see me, though not +_so_ glad when they discover that I have brought no gift in my hand, for +indeed I have forgotten--no quarter-pounds of tea--no little +three-cornered parcels of sugar. + +They begin to talk about Barbara at once. Among the poor there is never +any sacredness about the names of the dead, and though I have hungered +for sorrowful talk about her, for assurance that by some one besides +myself the awful emptiness of her place is felt, yet I wince and shrink +from hearing her lightly named in common speech. + +They are sorry about her, certainly--quite sorry--but it is more what +they have lost by her, than her that they deplore. And they are more +taken up with their own little miserable squabbles--with detracting +tales of one another--than with either. + +"Eh? she's a bad 'un, she is! I says to her, says I, 'Sally,' says I, +'if you'll give yourself hully and whully to the Lord for one week, I'll +give you a _hounce_ of baccy,' and she's that wicked, she actilly would +not." + +Is _this_ the sort of thing I have come to hear? I rise up hastily, and +take my leave. + +As I walk home again through the wintry roads, and my eyes fix +themselves with a tired languor on the green ivy-flowers--on the little +gray-green lichen-cups on the almshouse-wall, I think, "Does _no one_ +remember her? Is she already altogether forgotten?" + +It is still early in the afternoon when I reach home. The dark is +_coming_ indeed, for it comes soon nowadays, but it has not yet come. + +I go into the garden, and begin to pace up and down the gravel walks, +under the naked lime-trees that have forgotten their July perfume, and +are tossing their bare, cold arms in the evening wind. + +Only _one_ of my old playfellows is left me. Jacky still stands on the +gravel as if the whole place belonged to him; still stands with his head +on one side, roguishly eying the sunset. + +Thank Heaven, Jacky is still here, sly and nefarious, as when I bent +down to give him my tearful good-by kiss on my wedding-morning. I kneel +down, half laughing, half crying, on the damp walk, to stroke his round +gray head, and hear his dear cross croak. Whether he resents the +blackness of my appearance as being a mean imitation of his own, I do +not know, but he will not come near me; he hops stiffly away, and stands +eying me from the grass, with an unworthy affectation of not knowing who +I am. I am still wasting useless blandishments on him, when my attention +is distracted by the sound of footsteps on the walk. + +I look up. Who is this man that is coming, stepping toward me in the +gloaming? + +I am not long left in doubt. With a slight and sudden emotion of +surprised distaste, I see that it is Musgrave. I rise quickly to my +feet. + +"It is you, is it?" I say, with a cold ungraciousness, for I have not +half forgiven him yet--still I bear a grudge against him--still I feel +an angry envy that Barbara died with her hand in his. + +"Yes, it is I!" + +He is dressed in deep mourning. His cheeks are hollow and pale; he looks +dejected, and yet fierce. We walk alongside of each other in silence for +a few yards. + +"Why do not you ask what has brought me here?" he asks suddenly, with a +harsh abruptness. "I know that that is what you are thinking of." + +"Yes," I reply, gravely, without looking at him, "it is!--what has?" + +"I have come to bid you all good-by," he answers, in a low, quick voice, +with his eyes bent on the ground; "you know"--raising them, and +beginning to laugh hoarsely--"if--if--things had gone right--you would +have been my nearest relation by now." + +I shudder. + +"Yes," say I, "I know." + +"I am going away," he goes on, raising his voice to a louder tone of +reckless unrest, "_where?_--God knows!--_I_ do not, and do not care +either!--going away for good!--I am going to let the abbey." + +"To _let_ it!" + +"You are _glad_!" he cries in a tone of passionate and sombre +resentment, while his great eyes, lifted, flash a miserable resentment +into mine; "I _knew_ you would be! I have not given you much pleasure +very often, have I?"--(still with that same harsh mirth).--"Well, it is +something to have done it _once_!" + +I clasp my down-hanging hands loosely together. I lift my eyes to the +low, dark sky. + +"_Am_ I glad?" I say, hazily. "I do not know!--I do not think I am!--I +do not think I care one way or another!" + +"Nancy!" he says, presently, in a tone no longer of counterfeit mirth, +but of deep and serious earnestness, "I do not know why I told you just +now that I had come to bid them all good-by--it was not true--you know +it was not. What are they to me, or I to them, now? I came--" + +"For what did you come, then?" cry I, interrupting him, pantingly, while +my eyes wide and aghast, grow to his face. What is it that he is going +to say? He--from whose clasp Barbara's dead hand was freed! + +"Do not look at me like that!" he cries, wildly, putting up his hands +before his eyes. "It reminds me--great God! it reminds me--" + +He breaks off; then goes on a little more calmly: + +"You need not be afraid! Brute and blackguard as I am, I am not quite +brute and blackguard enough for _that!_--that would be past _even_ me! I +have come to ask you once again to forgive me for that--that old +offense" (with a shamed red flush on the pallor of his cheeks); "I asked +you once before, you may remember, and you answered"--(my words with a +resentful accuracy)--"that you '_would not, and by God's help, you never +would!_'" + +"Did I?" say I, with that same hazy feeling. Those old emotions seem +grown so distant and dim, "I dare say!--I did not recollect!" + +"And so I have come to ask you once again," he goes on, with a heavy +emphasis--"it will do me no great harm if you say 'No' again!--it will +do me small good if you say 'Yes.' And yet, before I go _away forever_-- +yes"--(a bitter smile)--"cheer up!--_-forever!_--I must have one more +try!" + +I am silent. + +"You may as well forgive me!" he says, taking my cold and passive hand, +and speaking with an intense though composed mournfulness. "After all, I +have not done you much harm, have I?--that is no credit to me, I know. I +would have done, if I could, but I could not! You may as well forgive +me, may not you? God forgives!--at least"--(with a sigh of heavy and +apathetic despair)--"so they say!--would _you_ be less clement than He?" + +I am looking back at him, with a quiet fixedness. I no longer feel the +slightest embarrassment in his presence; it no longer disquiets me, that +he should hold my hand. + +"Yes," say I, speaking slowly, and still with my sunk and tear-dimmed +eyes calmly resting on the dull despair of his, "yes--if you wish--it is +all so long ago--and _she_ liked you!--yes!--I forgive you!" + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + + "Love is enough." + + +And so, as the days go by, the short and silent days, it comes to pass +that a sort of peace falls upon my soul; born of a slow yet deep +assurance that with Barbara it is well. + +One can do with probabilities in prosperity, when to most of us careless +ones it seems no great matter whether there be a God or no? When all the +world's wheels seem to roll smoothly, as if of themselves, and one can +speculate with a confused curiosity as to the nature of the great far +cause that moves them; but in grief--in the destitute bareness, the +famished hunger of soul, when "one is not," how one craves for +_certainties_! How one yearns for the solid heaven of one's childhood; +the harping angels, the never-failing flowers; the pearl gates and +jeweled walls of God's great shining town! + +They may be gone; I know not, but at least _one_ certainty remains-- +guaranteed to us by no outside voice, but by the low yet plain tones +that each may listen to in his own heart. That, with him who is pure and +just and meek, who hates a lie worse than the sharpness of death, and +loves others dearer than himself, it shall be well. + +Do you ask where? or when? or how? We cannot say. We know not; only we +know that it shall be well. + +Never, never shall I reach Barbara's clear child-faith; Barbara, to whom +God was as real and certain as I; never shall I attain to the steady +confidence of Roger. I can but grope dimly with outstretched hands; +sometimes in the outer blackness of a moonless, starless night; +sometimes, with strained eyes catching a glimpse of a glimmer in the +east, I can but _feel_ after God, as a plant in a dark place feels after +the light. + +And so the days go by, and as they do, as the first smart of my despair +softens itself into a slow and reverent acquiescence in the Maker's +will, my thoughts stray carefully, and needfully back over my past life: +they overleap the gulf of Barbara's death and linger long and +wonderingly among the previous months. + +With a dazed astonishment I recall that even then I looked upon myself +as one most unprosperous, most sorrowful-hearted. + +What in Heaven's name ailed me? What did I lack? My jealousy of Roger, +such a living, stinging, biting thing _then_; how dead it is now! + +Barbara always said I was wrong; always! + +As his eyes, in the patient mournfulness of their reproachful appeal, +answer again in memory the shrewish violence of my accusation on the +night of the ball--the last embers of my jealousy die. He does not love +me as he did; of that I am still persuaded. There is now, perhaps, there +always will be, a film, a shade between us. + +By my peevish tears, by my mean and sidelong reproaches, by my sulky +looks, I have necessarily diminished, if not quite squandered the stock +of hearty, wholesome, honest love that on that April day he so +diffidently laid at my feet. I have already marred and blighted a year +and three-quarters of his life. I recollect how much older, than me he +is, how much time I have already wasted; a pang of remorse, sharp as my +knife, runs through my heart; a great and mighty yearning to go back to +him at once, to begin over again _at once, this very minute_ to begin +over again--overflows and floods my whole being. Late in the day as it +is--doubly unseemly and ungracious as the confession will seem now--I +will tell him of that lie with which I first sullied the cleanness of +our union. With my face hidden on his broad breast, so that I may not +see his eyes, I will tell him--yes, I will tell him. "I will arise, and +go to him, and say, 'I have sinned against Heaven and before thee.'" + +So I go. I am nearing Tempest: as I reach the churchyard gate, I stop +the carriage, and get out. + +Barbara was always the one that, after any absence from home, I used +first to run in search of. I will go and seek her now. + +It is drawing toward dusk as I pass, in my long black gown, up the +church-path, between the still and low-lying dead, to the quiet spot +where, with the tree-boughs waving over her, with the ivy hanging the +loose luxuriance of its garlands on the church-yard wall above her head, +our Barbara is taking her rest. + +As I near the grave, I see that I am not its only visitor. Some one, a +man, is already there, leaning pensively on the railings that surround +it, with his eyes fixed on the dark and winterly earth, and on the +newly-planted, flagging flowers. It is Roger. As he hears my approaching +steps, the swish of my draperies, he turns; and, by the serene and +lifted gravity of his eyes, I see that he has been away in heaven with +Barbara. He does not speak as I come near; only he opens his arms +joyfully, and yet a little diffidently, too, and I fly to then. + +"Roger!" I cry, passionately, with a greedy yearning for human love +here--at this very spot, where so much of the love of my life lies in +death's austere silence at my feet--"love me a little--_ever so little_! +I know I am not very lovable, but you once liked me, did not you?--not +nearly so much as I thought, I know, but still _a little_!" + +"_A little_!" + +"I am going to begin all over again!" I go on, eagerly, speaking very +quickly, with my arms clasped about his neck, "quite all over again; +indeed I am! I shall be so different that you will not know me for the +same person, and if--if--" (beginning to falter and stumble)--"if you +still go on liking _her_ best, and thinking her prettier and pleasanter +to talk to--well, you cannot help it, it will not be your fault--and I-- +I--will try not to mind!" + +He has taken my hands from about his neck, and is holding them warmly, +steadfastly clasped in his own. + +"Child! child!" he cries, "shall I _never_ undeceive you? are you still +harping on that old worn-out string?" + +"_Is_ it worn out?" I ask, anxiously, staring up with my wet eyes +through the deep twilight into his. "Yes, yes!" (going on quickly and +impulsively), "if you say so, I will believe it--without another word I +will believe it, but--" (with a sudden fall from my high tone, and lapse +into curiosity)--"you know you must have liked her a good deal once--you +know you were engaged to her." + +"_Engaged to her!_" + +"Well, _were not_ you?" + +"I never was engaged to any one in my life," he answers with solemn +asseveration; "odd as it may seem, I never in my life had asked any +woman to marry me until I asked you. I had known Zephine from a child; +her father was the best and kindest friend ever any man had. When he was +dying, he was uneasy in his mind about her, as she was not left well +off, and I promised to do what I could for her--one does not lightly +break such a promise, does one? I was fond of her--I would do her any +good turn I could, for old sake's sake, but _marry_ her--be _engaged_ to +her!--" + +He pauses expressively. + +"Thank God! thank God!" cry I, sobbing hysterically; "it has all come +right, then--Roger!--Roger!"--(burying my tear-stained face in his +breast)--"I will tell you _now_--perhaps I shall never feel so brave +again!--do not look at me--let me hide my face; I want to get it over in +a hurry! Do you remember--" (sinking my voice to an indistinct and +struggling whisper)--"that night that you asked me about--about +_Brindley Wood_?" + +"Yes, I remember." + +Already, his tone has changed. His arms seem to be slackening their +close hold of me. + +"Do not loose me!" cry I, passionately; "hold me tight, or I can _never_ +tell you--how could you expect me? Well, that night--you know as well as +I do--I _lied_." + +"You _did_?" + +How hard and quick he is breathing! I am glad I cannot see his face. + +"I _was_ there! I _did_ cry! she _did_ see me--" + +I stop abruptly, choked by tears, by shame, by apprehension. + +"Go on!" (spoken with panting shortness). + +"He met me there!" I say, tremulously. "I do not know whether he did it +on purpose or not, and said dreadful things! must I tell you them?" +(shuddering)--"pah! it makes me sick--he said" (speaking with a +reluctant hurry)--"that he loved me, and that I loved him, and that I +_hated_ you, and it took me so by surprise--it was all so horrible, and +so different from what I had planned, that I cried--of course I ought +not, but I did--I _roared!_" + +There does not seem to me any thing ludicrous in this mode of +expression, neither apparently does there to him. + +"Well?" + +"I do not think there is any thing more!" say I, slowly and timidly +raising my eyes, to judge of the effect of my confession, "only that I +was so _deadly, deadly_ ashamed; I thought it was such a shameful thing +to happen to any one that I made up my mind I would never tell anybody, +and I did not." + +"And is that _all_?" he cries, with an intense and breathless anxiety in +eyes and voice, "are you sure that that is _all_?" + +"All!" repeat I, opening my eyes very wide in astonment; "do not you +think it is _enough_?" + +"Are you sure," he cries, taking my face in his hands, and narrowly, +searchingly regarding it--"Child! child!--to-day let us have nothing-- +_nothing_ but truth--are you sure that you did not a little regret that +it must be so--that you did not feel it a little hard to be forever tied +to my gray hairs--my eight-and-forty years?" + +"Hush!" cry I, snatching away my hands, and putting them over my ears. +"I will not listen to you!--what do I care for your forty-eight years?-- +If you were a hundred--two hundred--what is it to me?--what do I care--I +love you! I love you! I love you--O my darling, how stupid you have been +not to see it all along!" + +And so it comes to pass that by Barbara's grave we kiss again with +tears. And now we are happy--stilly, inly happy, though I, perhaps, am +never quite so boisterously gay as before the grave yawned for my +Barbara; and we walk along hand-in-hand down the slopes and up the hills +of life, with our eyes fixed, as far as the weakness of our human sight +will let us, on the one dread, yet good God, whom through the veil of +his great deeds we dimly discern. Only I wish that Roger were not +nine-and-twenty years older than I! + + THE END. + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nancy, by Rhoda Broughton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NANCY *** + +***** This file should be named 12304.txt or 12304.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/2/3/0/12304/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Carol David and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.net/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. For example: + + http://www.gutenberg.net/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + http://www.gutenberg.net/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + http://www.gutenberg.net/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/old/12304.zip b/old/old/12304.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c404f18 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12304.zip |