GOOD-BY.
Surely, so serious a question was never so dismissed in so short a
time. For these few busy moments, the matter was as completely disposed
of, as if they had spent hours in arguing it. He scarcely knew how it
was that he felt so sure that he need say no more; that the brave,
simple, pretty Georgie had set his poor, weak plans aside so easily,
and yet so tenderly. Much as he admired and reverenced her, there was
a depth in her girlish nature which he had never sounded. It was all
over for him with Georgie Esmond, though he need not fear that her
friendship would ever waver.
“If I was only wise enough to help you,” she repeated; “if you would
only trust me, and let me try.”
“If any one could help me, you could,” he said, “but there is no help
for me.”
He had never once admitted to himself that this miserable passion
could ever make him happy. It had never occurred to his mind that its
termination would be anything but a wretched and humiliating one. As
Georgie had suggested, he loved, but had not forgiven, and he told
himself that his love was degraded infatuation. What was there to tie
to in such a feeling? Did he trust the woman to whom he was in secret a
slave? No, he trusted her no more to-day than he had done before. But
she had a hold upon his heart-strings, nevertheless. The old witchery
was exercising its full power upon him. It had been so strong, at last,
that he had been maddened into making this coward’s effort to free
himself. If Georgie would stretch out her hand, she might save him a
fatal weakness, and so, even while he despised himself for his selfish
folly, he had resolved to throw himself upon Georgie’s mercy. And here
was the end of it! Georgie was wiser than himself, clearer of sight,
truer of soul, stronger, with a brave simplicity; and she had proved to
him what a shameful folly it was. Georgie would have none of him; and
yet how sweet she was, God bless her!
“I shall leave Pen’yllan, in the morning,” he said. “There is nothing
to keep me here now, since you do not want me. Say that you forgive me,
Georgie, and we will bid each other good-by, for the present.”
“You must not think that I have anything to forgive,” she answered;
“but I do not say that you will be wrong in going. I believe it will
be best. You do not quite understand yourself yet. Go away, and give
yourself time to find out, whether you can conquer your heart, or not.
The time will come when you will know.”
“And then?” somewhat bitterly.
“Something will happen, I think,” her simple faith in the kindness of
Fortune asserting itself. “I cannot believe that you will always be as
unhappy as you are now. One of you will be sure to do or say something
that will help the other.”
A sudden color leaped to his face. Her words held a suggestion of which
he had never once thought, and which set his pulses beating hard and
fast.
“What?” he exclaimed, his new feeling giving him no time to check
himself. “You do not think the time will ever come, when she--when she
might feel, too----”
“I think,” said the girl, in a grave, almost reverent voice, “I think
the time has come now.”
When they returned to the house, Lisbeth, seeing them from the parlor
window, made a mental comment.
“Judging from his face,” she observed, “I should say that he had asked
her to marry him, and had been accepted. Judging from hers, I should
say her answer had been ‘No.’ You are not easy to read, for once,
Georgie. What does it mean?”
Georgie came into the house, with a more composed look than her face
had worn for several days. She laid her garden hat upon the hall table
and walked straight into the parlor to her dear Lisbeth. She had a
very shrewd idea that her dear Lisbeth knew nothing of their guest’s
intended departure, and she wanted to be the first to break the news
to her. It would not matter if any little secrets were betrayed to
herself. So she went to the window, and laid her hand on Lisbeth’s
shoulder.
“Did Hector tell you that he was going?” she asked, as if his having
done so would have been the most natural thing in the world.
“That he was going?” repeated Lisbeth.
Georgie gazed considerately out into the garden.
“Yes. Back to London, you know--to-morrow. I suppose he thinks he has
been idle long enough.”
Lisbeth shrugged her shoulders.
“Rather sudden, isn’t it?” she commented. “I think you have been the
first to hear the news.”
“Gentlemen always do things suddenly,” remarked Georgie, astutely.
She had no need to have been so discreet. Lisbeth had been very cool
under the information. An indifferent observer might have easily
concluded that she cared very little about it; that her interest in
Hector Anstruthers’ going and coming was an extremely well-controlled
feeling. When he came into the room himself, a few minutes later, she
was quite composed enough to touch upon the subject with polite regrets.
“Aunt Clarissa will positively mourn,” she ended, with one of her
incomprehensible smiles. “She has been almost radiant during your
visit.” And there her share in the matter seemed to terminate. She
said nothing when the three old ladies, hearing the news, poured forth
affectionate plaints, from the first course at dinner until the last.
She listened composedly, without remark, though once or twice she
looked at Georgie with rather an interested air. It was her turn to
feel curious now, and she was curious enough. Georgie blushed when she
was looked at scrutinizingly, but her manner was decidedly not that of
a girl who had just accepted a lover.
“And,” said Lisbeth, examining her coolly, “she would not refuse
him. She must be fond of him; and if she is fond of him, she is too
sweet-natured and straightforward to coquet with him. And yet--well, it
is decidedly puzzling.”
She found the evening rather a bore, upon the whole. How was it that it
dragged so, in spite of her efforts? She thought it would never come
to an end. When, with long-suffering good-nature, Hector drew out the
chess-table, and challenged the delighted Miss Clarissa to a game, her
patience fairly gave way. She turned to the piano for refuge, and sang
song after song, until she could sing no more. Then, when Georgie took
her place, she made a furtive exit, and slipped out through the hall
and a side door into the garden. What made her turn her steps toward
Miss Clarissa’s rose-thicket? She did not know. But she went there.
There she had bidden her boy-lover good-by, and broken his heart; there
she had sung her little song to Georgie and Hector. On both occasions
it had been warm, and balmy, and moonlight; and now it was warm, and
balmy, and moonlight again. She stood and looked through the trees,
catching silvery glimpses of the sea. In a minute or so she moved her
hand in an impatient gesture.
“I am sick of it all,” she cried, breaking the silence. “I am sick of
the whole world, and of myself more than the rest. How I wish I was
like Aunt Clarissa.”
She began to wander about restlessly, pulling at the roses with no
particular object, but because she could not keep still. Buds and
blossoms, red, and cream, and white, were torn from their stems
ruthlessly, until her hands were full, and then she stopped again, half
wondering at herself.
“What am I thinking of?” she said. “What do I want them for? Poor
things!” remembering her parable bitterly. “They might have been very
sweet to-morrow.”
She held the cool, fresh things close up to her face, breathing in
their fragrance eagerly; and when she took them away, their blossoms
were bright here and there--perhaps with dew; certainly with dew, if it
was dew that wet her fevered cheeks, and softened her eyes so strangely.
Scarcely three minutes later she turned with a start, and then stood
listening. Some one had left the house, and was coming across the lawn
toward her. She waited a few seconds, to make sure that she was not
mistaken, and then she bent down over a bush, and began leisurely to
gather more roses, though she was overloaded already.
“Where is Georgie?” she asked, calmly, of the intruder, when he reached
her side.
“Georgie,” returned a rather constrained voice, “is talking to Miss
Hetty. Miss Clarissa sent me here to remind you that the dew is
falling, and that you are not strong enough to bear the night air.”
“Miss Clarissa is very good,” Lisbeth answered. “And so are you. But
dear Miss Clarissa has been threatening me with an untimely grave, as
the result of night air, ever since I was six months old; so, perhaps,
I am not so grateful as I ought to be. I love darkness rather than
light, upon the whole, and don’t find that it disagrees with me;
perhaps because my deeds are evil.”
“Perhaps,” dryly.
For fully two minutes, she gathered her flowers in silence, while
Anstruthers waited, and looked at her; but at last she stood upright,
and their eyes met.
“It is a beautiful night,” she remarked, sententiously.
“Yes.”
“We have had a great number of lovely nights, lately.”
“Yes.”
She busied herself with her roses for a little while, to the exclusion
of everything else, and then she gave it up.
“Well,” she said, “suppose we go into the house. I can do nothing with
them here. The fact is, I don’t know why I gathered them, unless it was
from an impulse of destructiveness. Let us go.”
“Stop a moment,” he said; nay, almost commanded her.
She paused, not seeming in the least disturbed, however. She would have
cut off her right hand, almost, before she would have exhibited an
emotion.
“I had a reason of my own for coming here,” he went on, “apart from
Miss Clarissa’s commands. I want to bid you good-by.”
“You must be going,” she commented, “very early in the morning.” And
yet her heart was beating like a trip-hammer.
“It is not that,” was his reply, “though I am going early. I had a
whim--you remember my whim about the song--a fancy that I should like
to say my good-by here, where I said a good-by once before.”
“It is easily said,” answered Lisbeth, and held out one of her hands.
“Good-by.”
He took it, with a pretense at a coolness as masterly as her own,
but he could not keep it up. He gave way to some swift, passionate,
inexplicable prompting, and in an instant had covered it with kisses,
had even fiercely kissed her slender wrist.
She snatched it from his grasp, breathless with anger, forgetting her
resolve to control herself.
“What do you mean?” she cried. “You are mad. How dare you?”
He drew back a step, confronting her defiantly.
“I do not know what I mean,” he answered, “unless, as you say, I am
mad. I think I am mad; so, being a madman, I will not ask you to pardon
me. It was a farewell. It is over now, however. Will you let me take
your roses, and carry them to the house?”
She vouchsafed him no answer, but turned away, and left him to follow,
if he chose. Her helplessness against him drove her fairly wild.
Nothing she could say, or do, would ever wipe out the memory of those
mad kisses. He either loved or despised her utterly; and remembering
his manner toward Georgie, she could only conclude that he despised
her, and had offered her a deadly insult. The blood shot into her
cheeks, like a rush of fire, and her eyes blazed ominously.
“My dear Lisbeth,” bleated good little Miss Clarissa, the moment she
saw her, “you have caught fresh cold, I am convinced. You are in a high
fever.”
Fever, indeed! She had never been in such a fever in her life; but it
was a fever of anger and humiliation.
“I think it probable,” she said, seriously, “that I am going to have
measles, or scarlatina, Aunt Clarissa. Which would you prefer?”
Georgie came up stairs, long after she had shut herself in her room, to
find her sitting by the open window, looking worn out and wretched.
“Lisbeth,” she ventured, “is it possible that you _are_ going to be
ill?”
Probably Georgie Esmond had never been so spoken to in her life, as she
was when her dear Lisbeth turned upon her at this simple remark.
“Georgie, my dear,” she said, “if you ask me such a question again, I
believe I shall turn you out of the room, and lock the door.”
Georgie regarded her for a moment in mute amazement; but after that she
managed to recover herself.
“I--I beg pardon, Lisbeth,” she faltered, and then discreetly turned
her attention to the performance of her nightly toilet, preparatory to
going to bed.
But in the morning, it was Lisbeth to whose share the meekness fell.
Her mood had changed altogether, and she was so astoundingly humble,
that Georgie was alarmed.
“You have more patience with me than I have with myself, Georgie,” she
said, “or I should know it was not worth my while to say a word to you.
Do have pity on me. I--well, I was out of sorts, or something. And I
have such a horrible temper.”
Really, her demon might have departed from her that night. She showed
no more temper; she became almost as amiable as a more commonplace
young woman. She made so few caustic speeches, that the Misses
Tregarthyn began to fear that her delicate health had affected her
usual flow of spirits; and accordingly mourned over her in secret, not
feeling it discreet to do so openly.
“She used to be so spirited,” sighed Miss Hetty, over her sewing, to
Georgie. “Don’t you observe an alteration in her, my love? Sister
Clarissa, and sister Millicent, and myself really do not know what to
think. It would be such a comfort to us, if she could only be persuaded
to see Dr. Puddifoot. He is such a dear man, and so extremely talented.”
“Because I have been trying to behave myself decently, they think I am
ill,” said Lisbeth, smiling a little mournfully. “Just think how I must
have treated them, Georgie. They are so used to my humors, that, if I
am not making myself actively unpleasant, they fancy it is because I
have not the strength to do it. If I were to snub Aunt Hetty, and snap
at Aunt Clarissa, I believe they would shed tears of joy.”