Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honor,
My heart!
_Song from "Pippa Passes."_
The dinner was a most hilarious repast. It was impossible to resist the
infectious good spirits of the Allonby girls, and Godfrey was duly awed
and held in check by the presence of Mr. Fowler.
Elsa sat, her eyes wide open, drinking in, word by word, all this fresh
thrilling life which was opening round her. Girls and their ways were
becoming less and less of a mystery to her; the expression which had
been so wanting was now informing all the pretty features, making her
beauty a thing to be wondered at and rejoiced over by the impressionable
Osmond. Dinner over, all dispersed to seek their pleasure as seemed best
to them; and Mr. Fowler, who appeared to have constituted himself surety
for Godfrey's good behavior, ordered the boy to come out in the same
boat with him. But he was not cunning enough for the spoilt child.
"Likely," remarked Master Brabourne, "that I'm going to pass the
afternoon dangling from that old joker's watch-chain. Not much; no,
thank you; I'd sooner be on my own hook this journey, any way; so you
may whistle for me, Mr. Fowler."
After this muttered soliloquy, he at once obliterated himself, so
completely, that nobody noticed that he was missing, and Henry embarked
with Hilda Allonby and Miss Emily Willoughby, and was half-way across
the bay before he remembered the tiresome child's existence. Miss Fanny
declined the perils of the deep, and stayed on shore; Wynifred remained
with her for a few minutes, to see that she was happy and comfortable
and, on turning away at last, found that there was nobody left for her
to pair off with but Mr. Cranmer, who stood doggedly at a short
distance, watching her.
"What shall we do?" he asked.
"I don't mind. What is everyone else doing?"
"Going out in boats. Are you anxious to be in the fashion?"
"Yes, I think so. Is there a boat left?"
"There is. Come down this way."
It rather vexed Wynifred to find herself thus appropriated. It had been
her intention to steer clear of Claud, and now here he was, glued to her
side for the afternoon. However, there was really no reason for
disquiet; since her momentary lapse she had taken herself well in hand,
and felt that she had the advantage over him by the fact of being
warned.
As they slipped through the blue water, she turned her eyes to land, and
there saw a sight which, for no special reason, seemed to cast a tinge
of sadness over her mood. It was only Osmond and Elsa, side by side,
wandering inland, slowly, and evidently in deep conversation. In a few
seconds the chalk boulders would hide them from view; Wyn watched their
progress wistfully, and then, suddenly withdrawing her gaze, found that
of her companion fixed upon her.
"I ought to apologize for saying anything," he said, deprecatingly, "but
that is a pretty obvious case, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
He suddenly aimed one of his shafts of ridicule at her.
"A novelist and so unobservant?"
"Oh, no," said Wyn, gravely, leaning forward, her chin on her hand, and
still following the couple with her eyes. "I am not unobservant."
"Yet you don't see that your brother is attracted?"
"I see it quite well."
"Your tone implies dissatisfaction. Don't you like Miss Brabourne?"
"You ask home questions; I hardly feel able to answer you. I know so
little of her."
He arched his eyebrows.
"Is hers such a very intricate character?"
"I don't know about intricate; perhaps not, but it is remarkably
undeveloped."
"Don't you like what you have seen of her?"
Wyn hesitated.
"I think I ought not to make her the subject of discussion; it doesn't
seem quite kind."
"I beg your pardon, it is my fault. I have been trying to make you talk
about her, because I honestly wanted your opinion. I have studied the
young lady in question a good deal; but I am one who believes that you
should go to a woman to get a fair opinion of a woman."
"What!" cried Wyn, with animation. "Take care! You could not mean that,
surely! It is too good to be true. Have I at last discovered a man who
believes that woman can occasionally be impartial--who is not convinced
that the female mind is swayed exclusively by the two passions of love
and jealousy? This is really refreshing! Yes, I do believe you are
right. A woman should be judged by the vote of her own sex. Of course,
one particular woman's opinion of her may very likely be biassed. I
don't pretend to say that women are not sometimes spiteful--I have known
those who were. But to say that some fair young girl will be
deliberately tabooed by all the girls she knows, simply because she
happens to be attractive to gentlemen, is a fiction which is the
monopoly of the male novelist. I have never known a woman really
unpopular among women without very good cause for it."
"Exactly. Well, this being so, I shall attach great weight to your
opinion of Miss Elsa."
"In that case, I had far better not give it; besides, I am only one
woman, and the fact that my brother is evidently much attracted by the
subject of our conversation is very likely to make my judgment
one-sided. You know, I think nobody good enough for Osmond."
"Most natural; yet I would go bail for the candor of your judgment."
"Would you? I am not sure whether I would. I have not much to go upon,"
she said, musingly.
"You have allowed me to gather this much--that you are not particularly
favorably impressed," he said, cunningly. "You had better give me your
reasons."
She made a protesting gesture.
"It is not fair--I have said nothing," she answered. "I tell you I can
form no opinion worth having. I only know two points concerning
Elsa--she is very beautiful and very unsophisticated. I don't know that,
in my eyes, to be unsophisticated is to be charming; I know it is so in
the opinion of many. I should say that where the instincts of a nature
are noble, it _is_ very delightful to see those impulses allowed free
and natural scope--no artificial restraint--no repression; but I think,"
she continued, slowly, "that some natures are better for training--some
impulses decidedly improved by being controlled."
"I should think Miss Brabourne had been controlled enough, in all
conscience."
"No," said Wyn, "she has only not been allowed to develop. The Misses
Willoughby have never taught her to restrain one single impulse, because
they have failed to recognise the fact that she has impulses to
restrain. They do not know her any better than I do--perhaps not so
well."
"Very likely," said Claud; "I see what you mean. You think it would be
unjust to her to pronounce on a character which has had, as yet, no
chance of self-discipline?"
"Exactly," agreed Wyn, with a sigh of relief at having partly evaded
this narrow questioning. She did not like to say to him what had struck
her several times in her intercourse with Elsa, namely, that there was a
certain want in the girl's nature--a something lacking--an absence of
traits which in a disposition originally fine would have been pretty
sure to show themselves.
Wynifred was anxious for Osmond. She had never seen him seriously
attracted before. Claud did not know, as she did, how significant a fact
was his present exclusive devotion, and was naturally not aware of the
consistency with which the young artist had always held himself aloof
from the aimless flirtations which are so much the fashion of the day.
In the present state of society it needs a clever man to steer clear of
the charge of flirting, but Osmond Allonby had done it, whilst eminently
sociable, and avowedly fond of women's society, he had managed that his
name should never be coupled on the tongues of the thoughtless with that
of any girl he knew.
But now----! Every rule and regulation which had hitherto governed his
life seemed swept away. Old limits, old boundaries were no more. The
power of marshalling his emotions and finding them ready to obey when he
cried "Halt!"--a power he possessed in common with his sister
Wynifred--was a thing of the past. Even Wyn's loving eyes, following him
so sympathetically, could not guess the completeness of his surrender.
All the deep, carefully-guarded treasure of his love was ready to be
poured out at the feet of the golden-haired, white-robed Elsa at his
side. He would not own to himself that his attachment was likely to
prove a hopeless one. With the swiftness of youth in love, his thoughts
had ranged over the future. He was making a career--Wyn was following
his example, in her own line. Jacqueline and Hilda were too pretty to
remain long unmarried.
Concerning Elsa's heiress-ship he was not half so well-informed as Claud
Cranmer. But indeed the question of ways and means only floated lightly
on the top of the deep waves of feeling that filled his soul. His Elaine
seemed to him a creature from another sphere--isolated, innocent, and
wilful as the Maid of Astolat herself. Probably few young men in the
modern Babylon could have brought her such an unspent, single-hearted,
ideal devotion; his love was hardly that of the nineteenth century.
The only difficulty he experienced, in walking at her side, was to check
himself, to so curb his passion as to be able to talk lightly to her;
and, even through his most ordinary remarks, there ran a vibration, a
thrill of feeling, "the echo in him broke upon the words that he was
speaking," and perhaps communicated itself to the mood of the
uncomprehending girl.
"Now," he said, as after several minutes' silence they seated themselves
at last, sheltered from sun and breeze, under the shadow of a chalk
cliff. "Now at last I claim your promise."
"My promise?"
"Yes, you know what I asked you when we met to-day. You were looking
like Huldy in the American poem,
'All kind o' smily round the lips,
An' teary round the lashes.'
You said that when we were alone you'd tell me why. What was it?"
A flash of sudden, angry resentment crossed the girl's fair face, and
tears again welled up to the edges of her limpid eyes. Osmond thought he
had never seen anything so lovely as her expression and attitude. If one
could but paint the quick, panting heave of a white throat, the quiver
of a sad, impetuous mouth.
"You can guess--it was the usual thing--Godfrey," she said, struggling
to command her voice, but in vain. She could say no more, but turned her
face away from him, swallowing tears.
Osmond felt a sudden movement of helpless indignation, which almost
carried him away. He mentally applied the brake before he could answer
rationally.
"It is abominable--unheard of!" was the calmest expression he could
think of. "Something must be done--quickly too! I should like to wring
the insolent little beggar's neck for him! What did he do, to-day?"
For answer she pushed up her sleeve, showing him two livid bruises on a
dazzlingly white arm--an arm with a dimpled round elbow.
"I caught him smoking in the stable, which is forbidden because of
setting fire to the straw," she faltered, "and I told him he ought not
to do it, so he did what he calls the 'screw.' You don't know how it
hurts!"
Osmond's wrath surmounted even his love.
"But why don't you box his ears--why don't you give him a
lesson--cowardly little beggar!" he cried. "You are bigger than he, Miss
Brabourne, you ought to be more than a match for him!"
A burst of tears came.
"I don't even know how to hit," she sobbed, childishly. "I don't know
anything that other people know; and, if I tell of him, he pays me out
so dreadfully! He puts frogs in my bed, and takes away my candle, and
the other night he dressed up in a sheet, and made phosphorous eyes, and
nearly frightened me out of my senses, and I don't dare tell
because--because he would do something even worse if I did! Oh, you
don't know what he is. He catches birds and mice, and cuts them up
alive--he says he is going to be a doctor, and he is practising
vivisection; and he makes me look while he is doing it--if I don't he
has ways of punishing me. He made me smoke a cigar, and I was so
terribly sick, and he made me steal the sideboard keys, and get whiskey
for him, and said if I did not he would tell aunts something that would
make them forbid me to come to the picnic. He was tipsy last night," she
shuddered, "really tipsy. He made me help him up to his room, and tell
aunts he was not well, and could not come down to supper. Oh!" she burst
out, "you don't know what my life is! He makes me miserable! I hate him!
But I daren't tell, you don't know what he would do if I told!" Her face
crimsoned with remembrance of insult. "I _can't_ tell you the worst
things, I can't!" she cried, "but he is dreadful. Every little thing I
say or do, he remembers, and seems to see how he can make me suffer for
it. I have no peace, day or night; and he is so good when aunts are
there. They don't know how wicked he is."
"But surely," urged Osmond, gently, "if you were to tell the Misses
Willoughby, they would send him home, and then you would be free from
him?"
She dashed away the tears from her eyes, and shook her head with a smile
full of bitterness.
"They wouldn't believe me," she said, "they never have believed me; that
is, Aunt Charlotte wouldn't, and she is the one who rules. They would
call Godfrey and ask if it was true, and he--he thinks nothing of
telling a lie. Oh! he is a sneak and a coward! If you knew how he has
curried favor since he has been here! Aunt Charlotte likes him--she will
give him things she would never give me! She would never believe my word
against his."
"Miss Brabourne--Elsa," faltered the young man tenderly, "Don't sob
so--you break my heart--you--you make me--forget myself!"
He leaped to his feet. Poor fellow, his self-command was rapidly
failing. It had needed but this, the sight of helpless distress in his
ladylove, to finish his subjugation. He was raging with love, and a
burning impotent desire to thrash Master Godfrey Brabourne within an
inch of his life. Yet, as Henry Fowler had said, how could one touch
such a scrap of a child, such a delicate, puny boy?
He knew well enough the power such a young scoundrel would have to
render miserable the life of a timid girl, unused to brothers. Elsa had
never learned to hold her own, never learned to be handy or helpful. She
was most probably what boys call a muff, a fit butt for the coarse
ridicule and coarser bullying of the ill-brought-up Godfrey. That
helplessness which in the eyes of her lover was her culminating charm
was exactly what to the boy was an irresistible incentive to cruelty.
Osmond turned his eyes on the drooping figure of the girl. She was
leaning forward, her elbow on her knee. Her hollowed hand made a niche
for her chin to rest in, and her profile was turned towards him as she
gazed sadly seawards. On her cheek lay one big tear, and the long, thick
lashes were wet.
He came again to her side, and knelt there. Flushing at his own
boldness, he took her hand. It trembled in his own, but lay passive.
"Elsa," he said, tenderly, soothingly, "it will not be for long, you
must not let this wretched child's mischief prey upon you so. I know how
badly you feel it, but consider--he will be gone in a few days."
"Oh, no, no, that is just what is so hateful! He will be here for weeks!
Mr. Orton has been taken ill at Homburg, and aunts have promised to
keep him till they come back. Oh,"--she snatched away her hand and
clasped it with the other, as if hardly conscious of what she did,--"oh,
I can bear it now, when you are all here; but next week--next week--when
there will be no Wynifred, no Hilda, no Jacqueline ... no you!... what
shall I do then?"
"Elaine!"
"When I think of it, I could kill him!" cried the girl, her face
reddening with the remembrance of insults which she could not repeat to
Osmond. "You don't know what a wicked mind he has--he is like an evil
spirit, sent to lure me on to do something dreadful! When he speaks so
to me, I feel as if I must silence him--as if I could strike him with
all my force. Suppose--suppose one day I could not restrain myself...."
She was as white as a sheet, as she suddenly paused.
"What was that noise?" she panted.
"What noise?" he asked.
"I thought I heard Godfrey's whistle--there is a noise he
makes sometimes".... Her face seemed paralysed with fear and
dislike--involuntarily, she drew nearer to Osmond. "If he should have
heard me!" she breathed, with her mouth close to his ear.
"How could he hurt you when I am with you?" cried he, passionately. "My
darling, my own, you are quite safe with me!"
His arms were round her before he had realised what he was doing. It
seemed his divine right to shield her--his vocation, his purpose in life
to come between her and any danger, real or fancied.
A yell, quite unlike anything human--a rush of loose pebbles and white
dust, a crash on the path close to the unwary couple, and a long
discordant peal of laughter.
"Cotched 'em! Cotched 'em! Cotched 'em by all that's lovely! Done 'em
brown, bowled 'em out clean! Oh, my dears, if you only did know what
jolly asses you both look, spooning away there like one o'clock! I'm
hanged if I ever saw anything like it. I wouldn't have missed it--no,
not for--come, I say, let go of a feller, Mr. Allonby. Lovers are fair
game, don't yer know!"
If ever any man felt enraged it was Osmond at that moment; the more,
because he saw how undignified it was to be in a rage at all. Revulsion
of feeling is always unpleasant, and nothing could be more complete than
the revulsion from the purest of sentiment to the most contemptible of
practical jokes.
Elsa cried out in a mingled anger and terror--the ludicrous side of a
situation never struck her by any chance. Osmond, as he sprang up and
collared the impudent young miscreant, was divided between a desire to
storm and a desire to roar with laughter. The former gained the
ascendency as he looked back at Elsa's white face.
"You impertinent young scamp," he said, between his teeth, "I've a great
mind to give you such a punishment as you never had in your life, to
make you remember this day!"
"You daren't," said Godfrey, coolly, "you daren't flog me, I'm delicate.
You'll have to settle accounts with my uncle if you bring on the
bleeding from my lungs. My tutor ain't allowed to touch me."
"You sickening little coward--you sneak," said Osmond, with scathing
contempt. "A spy--that's what you are. I hope you are proud of yourself.
Look how you have startled your sister."
"Pretty little dear--a great lump, twice my size," sneered Godfrey,
grinning. "Look at her, blubbing again! She does nothing but blub. Stop
that, Elaine, will you?"
"All right, young man," said Osmond, "I can't flog you, but I think I
can take it out of you another way just as well. Don't flatter yourself
you are going to get off so easily. I'll teach you a lesson of manners,
and I'll make it my business that the Miss Willoughbys and Mr. Fowler
know how you have behaved--not to-day only. You little cur, how dare
you?"
"Who's old Fowler? He can't touch me. Keep your hair on. What are you
going to do with me?"
"I'm going to keep you out of mischief for a bit," said Osmond, as he
skilfully laid the boy down on the grass with one dexterous motion of
his foot, and, producing two thick straps from his pocket, he proceeded
to strap first his feet and then his hands together.
"Pooh! What do I care? I've had my fun, and I'm ready to pay for it. Oh,
my stars, wasn't it rich to hear Elsa coming the injured innocent and
laying it on thick for her beloved's benefit? I heard every word you
both said!" cried Godfrey, convulsed with laughter.
"If you say another word, I'll gag you."
"Gag away! I've heard all I want to, and said all I want to, too. Good
old Allonby, so you believe all the humbug she's been telling you? You
old silly, don't you know girls always say that sort of thing to draw
the men on? I told her she ought to bring you to the point to-day.... I
say ... I can't breathe!"
He was skilfully and rapidly gagged by Osmond, who afterwards picked up
his prisoner and carried him to a high steep shelf of rock, where he
laid him down.
"You can cool your heels up there till I come and take you down," he
said between his teeth. "If you roll over, you'll roll down, and most
likely break your spine, so I advise you to be quiet, and think of your
sins."