A NEW EXPERIENCE.
The next time that Georgie found herself alone with Mr. Anstruthers,
she read him a very severe little lecture on the subject of his
shortcomings.
“I knew that you liked to be satirical, and make fine, cutting
speeches,” she said, with the prettiest indignation; “but I did not
think you would have gone so far as to be openly rude, and to Lisbeth,
of all people! Lisbeth, who is so good, and unselfish, and kind, and
who is my dearest friend.”
Hector Anstruthers looked at her sweet face almost mournfully. “Is
she good, and unselfish, and kind?” he said. But the question was not
a satire. He only asked it in a tender wonder at the girl’s innocent
faith.
“There is no one like her. No one so good, unless it is mamma herself,”
exclaimed Miss Georgie, with warmth.
“But Lisbeth’s is not a common surface goodness, and I suppose that is
the reason that you cannot see it. You, too, who are so far-sighted
and clever. I, for one, am glad I am not a genius, if to be a genius
one must be blind to everything but the failings of one’s friends. Ah,
Hector!” a sudden pity kindling in her gentle breast, as she met his
eyes, “Ah, Hector, people often envy you, and call you fortunate, but
there are times when I am sorry for you--sorry from my heart.”
“Georgie,” answered the young man, not quite able to control a tremor
in his voice, “there are more times than you dream of, when I am sorry
for myself.”
“Sorry for yourself?” said Georgie, softening at once. “Then you must
be more unhappy than I thought. To be sorry for one’s self, one must be
unhappy indeed. But why is it? Why should you be unhappy, after all?
Why should you be cynical and unbelieving, Hector? The world has been
very good to you, or, as I think we ought to say, God has been very
good to you. What have you not got, that you can want? What is there
that you lack? Not money, not health, not friends. Isn’t it a little
ungrateful to insist on being wretched, when you have so much?”
“Yes,” answered Anstruthers, gloomily. “It is very ungrateful, indeed.”
“Ungrateful? I should think it was,” returned Georgie, with her
favorite dubious shake of the head. “Ah, poor fellow! I am afraid it is
a little misfortune that you need, and I am very sorry to see it.”
It was no marvel that Georgie Esmond was popular. She was one of those
charming girls who invariably have a good effect upon people. She was
so good herself, so innocent, so honest, so trustful, that she actually
seemed to create a sweeter atmosphere wherever she went. The worst of
men, while listening to her gentle, bright speeches, felt that the
world was not so bad after all, and that there was still sweetness and
purity left, to render sin the more shameful by their white contrast.
“A fellow wants to forget his worst side, when he is with her,” said
one. “She makes a man feel that he would like to hide his shadinesses
even from himself.” Her effect upon Hector Anstruthers was a curious,
and rather a dangerous one. She made him ashamed of himself, too, and
she filled his heart with a tender longing and regret. Had it not
been for his experience with Lisbeth, he would have loved the girl
passionately. As it was, his affection for her would never be more
than a brotherly, though intensely admiring one. He was constantly
wishing that Fate had given Georgie to him; Georgie, who seemed to
him the purest and loveliest of young home goddesses; Georgie, who
would have made his life happy, and pure, and peaceful. If it had
only been Georgie instead of Lisbeth. But it had been Lisbeth, and
his altar-fires had burned out, and left to him nothing but a waste
of cold, gray ashes. And yet, knowing this, he could not quite give
Georgie up. The mere sight of her fresh, bright-eyed face was a help
to him, and the sound of her voice a balm. He grew fonder of her every
day, in his way. Her kindly, little girlish homilies touched and warmed
him. As Lisbeth had made him worse, so Georgie Esmond made him better.
But the danger! The danger was not for himself, it was for Georgie.
The day was slowly dawning when the girl’s innocent friendship and
admiration for him would become something else. When she began to pity
him, she began to tread on unsafe ground. She had lived through no
miserable experience; she had felt no desolating passion; her heart was
all untried, and his evident affection stirred it softly, even before
she understood her own feelings. She thought her budding love was pity,
and her tenderness sympathy. He had gone wrong, poor fellow, somehow,
and she was sorry for him.
“I am sure he does not mean the hard things he sometimes says,” she
said to Lisbeth. “I think that satirical way of speaking is more a bad
habit than anything else. Mamma thinks so, too, but,” with a little
guileless blush, “we are both so fond of him, that we cannot help being
sorry that he has fallen into it.”
“It is a sort of fashion in these days,” returned Lisbeth, and she
longed to add a scorching little sneer to the brief comment, but she
restrained it for Georgie’s sake.
Positively such a thing had become possible. She, who had never
restrained her impulses before, had gradually learned to control them
for this simple girl’s sake. On the one or two occasions, early in
their acquaintance, when she had let her evil spirit get the better
of her, the sudden pain and wonder in Georgie’s face had stung her so
quickly, that she had resolved to hide her iniquities, at least in her
presence. Sometimes she had even wished that she had been softer at
heart and less selfish. It was so unpleasant to see herself just as she
was, when she breathed that sweet atmosphere of which I have spoken.
Georgie Esmond caused her to lose patience with Lisbeth Crespigny, upon
more than one occasion.
“I am a hypocrite,” she said to herself. “If she knew me as I am,
what would she think of me? What would Mrs. Esmond say if she knew
how cavalierly her ‘dear Lisbeth’ had treated those three loving old
souls at Pen’yllan? I am gaining everything on false pretenses.” And
one night, as she sat combing her hair before her mirror, she added,
fiercely, “I am false and selfish all through; and I believe they are
teaching me to be ashamed of myself.”
The fact was, these two sweet women, this sweet mother and daughter,
were teaching her to be ashamed of herself. She quite writhed under her
conviction, for she felt herself convicted. Her self-love was wounded,
but the day came when that perfect, obstinate self-confidence, which
was her chief characteristic, was not a little shaken.
“I should like to be a better woman,” she would say, in a kind of
stubborn anger. “It has actually come to this, that I would be a better
woman, if I could, but I cannot. It is not in me. I was not born to be
a good woman.”
The more she saw of the Esmonds, the more she learned. The household
was such a pleasant one, and was so full of the grace of home and
kindly affection. How proud the good old colonel was of his pretty
daughter. How he enjoyed her triumphs, and approved of the taste of her
many admirers. How delighted he was to escort her to evening parties,
or to the grandest of balls, and to spend the night in watching her
dance, and smile, and hold her gay little court, entirely ignoring the
fact that his gout was apt to be troublesome, when he wore tight boots
instead of his huge slippers. It was quite enough for him that his
girl was enjoying herself, and that people were admiring her grace,
and freshness, and bloom. How fond the half-dozen small brothers and
sisters were of Georgie! and what a comfort and pleasure the girl was
to her mother! It was an education to Lisbeth Crespigny to see them all
together. It even seemed that in time she fell somewhat into Georgie’s
own way of caring for other people. How could she help caring for the
kind hearts that beat so warmly toward her. Then, through acquiring, as
it were, a habit of graciousness, she remembered things she had almost
forgotten. If she was not born to be a good woman, why not try and
smooth the fact over a little, was her cynical fancy. Why not give the
three good spinsters at Pen’yllan the benefit of her new experience?
It would be so little trouble to gladden their hearts. So, with an
impatient pity for herself and them, she took upon herself the task
of writing to them oftener, and at greater length; and frequently.
Before her letters were completed, she found herself touched somewhat,
and even prompted to be a trifle more affectionate than had been her
wont. A poor little effort to have made, but the dear, simple souls at
Pen’yllan greeted the change with tenderest joy, and Aunt Millicent,
and Aunt Clarissa, and Aunt Hetty, each shed tears of ecstasy in
secret--in secret, because, to have shed them openly, would have been
to admit to one another that they had each felt their dear Lisbeth’s
former letters to be cold, or at least not absolutely all that could be
desired.
“So like dear, dear Philip’s own child,” said Miss Clarissa, who was
generally the family voice. “You know how often I have remarked, sister
Henrietta, that our dear Lisbeth was like brother Philip in every
respect, even though at times she is, perhaps, a little more--a little
more reserved, as it were. Her nature, I am sure, is most affectionate.”
That fortunate and much-caressed young man, Mr. Hector Anstruthers, not
only met Miss Crespigny frequently, but heard much of her. Imperfect as
she may appear to us, who sit in judgment upon her, the name of her
admirers was Legion. Her intimacy with the Esmonds led her into very
gay and distinguished society, far more illustrious society than Mrs.
Despard’s patronage had been able to afford her. And having this, her
little peculiarities did the rest. Her immense, dusky eyes; her small,
pale, piquant face; her self-possession; her wit, and her numerous
capabilities, attracted people wondrously. Even battered old beaux,
who had outlived two or three generations of beauties, and who were
fastidious accordingly, found an indescribable charm in this caustic,
clever young person who was really not a beauty at all, if measured
according to the usual standard. She was too small, too pale, too odd;
but then where could one find such great, changeable, dark eyes, such
artistic taste, such masses of fine hair, such a voice?
“And, apart from that,” it was said of her, “there is something else.
Hear her talk, by Jove! See how she can manage a man, when she chooses
to take the trouble; see how little she cares for the fine speeches
that would influence other women. See her dance, hear her sing, and you
will begin to understand her. A fellow can never tire of her, for she
is everything she has the whim to be, and she is everything equally
well.”
“So she is, Heaven knows,” Hector Anstruthers muttered, bitterly,
looking across the room at her, as she stood talking to Colonel Esmond.
Old Denbigh’s laudatory speech fell upon his ears with a significance
of its own. She could be anything she chose so long as her whim lasted;
and there was the end of it. It all meant nothing. She was as false
when she played her pretty part for the benefit of the Esmonds, young
and old, as when she encouraged these dandies, and ensnared them. With
Georgie she took up the _rôle_ of _ingénue_, that was all. She was bad
through and through. He felt all this sincerely, this night, when he
heard the men praising her, and he was savage accordingly.