A CONFESSION.
Georgie turned to her, taking sudden courage.
“Lisbeth,” she said, “you never told me much about your acquaintance
with Hector Anstruthers. I wonder how it was. You knew him very well,
it seems.”
“I wish,” broke out Lisbeth, almost angrily, “that I had never known
him at all.”
The faithful heart, beating in the breast of the girl at her side,
leaped nervously.
“It was Lisbeth,” said she to herself. “It was Lisbeth.”
“I wish,” repeated Lisbeth, frowning at the sea, “that I had never seen
him.”
“Why?” was Georgie’s quiet question.
“Because--because it was a bad thing for us both,” in greater
impatience than ever.
Georgie looked up at her sadly.
“Why, again?” she ventured, in her soft voice. She could not help it.
But for a moment Lisbeth did not answer. She had risen, and stood
leaning against the rock, a queer look on her face, a queer darkening
in her eyes. At length she broke into a little, hard laugh, as if she
meant to defy herself to be emotional.
“How horror-stricken you would be, if I were to tell you why,” she said.
“Does that mean,” Georgie put it to her “that you were unkind to him?”
“It means,” was her strange reply--“it means that it was I who ruined
his life forever.”
She made the confession fairly, in spite of herself. And she was
emotional--vehement. She could not stand this innocent Georgie, and
her beliefs any longer. She had been slowly approaching this mood for
months, and now every inner and outer influence seemed to combine
against her natural stubborn secretiveness. Perhaps Pen’yllan, the sea,
the shore, the sky, helped her on to the end. At any rate, she must
tell the truth this once, and hear what this innocent Georgie would say
to it.
“I ruined his life for him,” she repeated. “I broke his faith. I
believe I am to blame for every evil change the last few years have
wrought in him. I, myself--Lisbeth. Do you hear, Georgie?”
The face under Georgie’s straw hat was rather pale, but it was not
horror-stricken.
“You were too young,” she faltered, “to understand.”
“Too young?” echoed Lisbeth. “I never was young in my life. I was born
old. I was born a woman, and I was born cold and hard. That was it. If
I had been like other girls, he would have touched my heart, after he
had touched my vanity, or he might even have touched my heart first.
You would have loved him with all your soul. Are you willing to hear
the whole history, Georgie?”
“Quite willing. Only,” and she raised her face with a bright, resolute,
affectionate look, “you cannot make me think harshly of you. So, don’t
try, Lisbeth.”
Lisbeth regarded her with an entirely new expression, which had,
nevertheless, a shade of her old wonder in it.
“I really do not believe I could,” she said. “You are very hard to
deal with; at least I find it hard to deal with you. You are a new
experience. If there was just a little flavor of insincerity or
uncharitableness in you, if you would be false to your beliefs now and
then, I should know what to do; but, as it is, you are perplexing.
Notwithstanding, here comes the story.”
She put her hands behind her, and bracing herself against the rock,
told it from beginning to end, in her coolest, most daring way, even
with a half-defiant air. If she had been telling some one else’s story,
she could not have been more caustic and unsparing, more determined
to soften no harsh outline, or smooth over anything. She set the girl
Lisbeth before her listener, just as Lisbeth Crespigny at seventeen
had been. Selfish, callous, shallow, and deep, at once: restless,
ungrateful, a half-ripe coquette, who, notwithstanding her crudeness,
was yet far too ripe for her age. She pictured the honest, boyish
young fellow, who had fallen victim to her immature fascinations,
simply because he was too guileless and romantic to see in any woman
anything but a goddess. She described his sincerity, his unselfish
willingness to bear her caprices, and see no wrong in them; his lavish
affection for every thing and every one who shared his love for her;
his readiness to believe, his tardiness to doubt and see her as she
really was; the open-hearted faith which had made the awakening so much
harder to bear, when it forced itself upon him at last. She left out
the recital of no petty wrong she had done him, and no small tyranny
or indignity she had made him feel. She told the whole story, in fact,
as she saw it now; not as she had seen it in that shallow, self-ruled
girlhood; and when she had touched upon everything, and ended with that
last scene in the garden, among Aunt Clarissa’s roses, she stopped.
And there was a silence.
Georgie’s eyelashes were wet, and so were her cheeks. A tear or so
stained her pink cravat. It was so sorrowful. Poor Hector again! And
then, of course, poor Lisbeth! By her own showing, Lisbeth deserved
no pity; but the warm young heart gave her pity enough, and to spare.
Something had been wrong somewhere. Indeed, it seemed as if everything
had been wrong, but--Poor Lisbeth! She was so fond of Lisbeth herself,
and mamma was so fond of her, and the Misses Tregarthyn. So many people
were fond of Lisbeth.
And then Lisbeth’s voice startled her. A new voice, tremulous and as if
her mood was a sore and restive one.
“You are crying, of course, Georgie? I knew you would.”
“I have been crying.”
Pause enough to allow of a struggle, and then--
“Well, since you are crying, I suppose I may cry, too. It is queer
enough that I should cry, but--” And to Georgie’s amazement and
trouble, Lisbeth put her hand up on the rough rock, and laid her face
against it.
“Lisbeth!” cried the girl.
“Wait a moment,” said Lisbeth. “I don’t know what has come over me. It
is a new thing for me. I--I----”
It was a new thing, indeed, and it did not last very long. When she
raised her head, and turned again, her eyelashes were wet, too, and she
was even pale.
“Ah, Lisbeth!” said Georgie, pitying her, “you are sorry.”
Lisbeth smiled, faintly.
“I never was sorry before for anything I had done; never, in my life,”
she answered. “I have had a theory that people should take care of
themselves, as I did. But now--Well, I suppose I am sorry--for Hector
Anstruthers; and perhaps a little for myself. No one will offer me
such an unreasoning love again. Very few women are offered such a love
once; but I always got more than my share of everything. It is my way.
I suppose I was born under a lucky star. Georgie, what do you think of
me now?”
Georgie got up, and kissed her, in a most earnest fashion.
“What?” cried Lisbeth, with a dubious smile. “You can’t be moral, and
improving, and sanctimonious, even now. Think what an eloquent lecture
you might read me! I have sometimes thought I was merely created to
point a moral, or adorn a tale! See how reckless I am, after all. You
ought to be down on me, Georgie. It is your duty, as a well-trained
young woman of the period.”
“Then,” said Georgie, “I can’t do my duty. You are so different from
other people. How can I pretend to understand what has made you do
things that other people are not tempted to do? And then you know how
fond I am of you, Lisbeth.”
“You are a good, pure little soul!” cried Lisbeth, her pale face
flushing excitedly. “And the world is a thousand times better for your
being in it. I am better myself, and Heaven knows I need something to
make me better. Here, let me take hold of your hand, and let us go
home.”
And as they turned homeward, on the beach, hand-in-hand, like a couple
of children, Georgie saw that there were tears in the inconsistent
creature’s eyes again.
They did not say much upon the subject after this. That wise young
woman, Miss Esmond, felt that it was a subject of far too delicate a
nature to be lightly touched upon. It had been Lisbeth’s secret so
long, that, even after this confidence, she could not help regarding
it as Lisbeth’s secret still. Perhaps she felt in private that there
were certain little confidences of her own, which she would scarcely
be willing even for Lisbeth to refer to, as if they were her own
property. For instance, that accidental confession, made in the
bedroom, on the first night they had spent in it together. How glad
she had been that Lisbeth had let it pass, as if she had not noticed
it very particularly. But though the subject was not discussed, is
it to be supposed that it was not brought to mind at all, but was
buried in oblivion? Certainly not. While that terse young woman, Miss
Esmond, said little, she thought much, and deeply. She had constantly
before her a problem, which she was very anxious to work out. Was
it not possible that these two interesting beings might be brought
to--might be induced to--well, not to put too fine a point upon it--to
think better of each other, and the unfortunate past, and the world
generally? Would it not be dreadful to think that so much poetic
material had been lost? That these two who might have been so happy,
should drift entirely apart, and leave their romance incomplete, as
the most unsatisfactory of novels? Probably, having sensibly, even if
with a little pang, given up that bud of a romance of her own, the
girl felt the need of some loving plot to occupy her mind; and if so,
it was quite natural and very charming, that she should turn to her
friend. Hector would make his appearance one of these fine days, and
then, perhaps, Pen’yllan, and its old familiar scenes, would soften
his heart, as she had an idea they had softened Lisbeth’s. Surely,
old memories would touch him tenderly, and make him more ready to
forgive his injuries. In fact, Miss Georgie painted for herself
some very pretty mental pictures, in which the figures of Lisbeth
and her ex-lover were always the prominent features. Lisbeth in the
trysting-place, the sea-breeze blowing her beautiful hair about, and
coloring her pale face; that queer mist of tears in her mysterious
eyes. Lisbeth, in one of her soft moods, making those strange,
restive, unexpected speeches, which were so fascinating, because so
unlookedfor, and Hector Anstruthers standing by, and listening. Such
interesting little scenes as these she imagined, and, having imagined
them, positively drew some consolation from their phantom existence.