Lady Isabel was returning from her accustomed housekeeping morning
visit to Mrs. Dixon, when she was startled by the sharp outcry of an
electric bell.
"Dick's room!" she said to herself, beginning to hurry; she hardly
knew why.
A housemaid ran down the long passage in front of her, flying to the
summons. Through the open door of the dining-room Lady Isabel saw
Christian giving the dogs their breakfast.
"Papa's bell is ringing, dear," said Lady Isabel, breathing hard.
"I heard someone go up to his room just now," said Christian,
languidly; "I haven't seen him this morning; I was in the yard with
the dogs--"
Someone came down the stairs, headlong, two steps at a time. Larry's
voice shouted:
"Christian! Cousin Isabel! Anyone--!"
There was urgency and alarm in the voice.
Lady Isabel and Christian were in the hall in an instant, and met
Larry at the foot of the stairs.
"Cousin Dick's ill! A heart attack, I think--I didn't know what to do
for him--"
"I do!" said Christian, speeding upstairs.
Her mother followed her, and Larry remained in the hall. Of one thing
he was quite certain, that he had better keep out of Cousin Dick's
sight. His nerves were quivering from the interview that had been so
shatteringly abbreviated. Had the friendly old setter, whose head at
this moment was on his knee, while her limpid eyes swore to him that
all her love was his, suddenly turned and rent him, it would scarcely
be a shock worse than that he had received. He had been undeterred by
the ominous gloom of the Major's greeting; few young men have very
keen perception of mood, and Larry, deeply self-engrossed, wildly
happy, had flung at once into his theme, which, it need hardly be
said, was Christian. Then the storm broke, and the lightning blazed,
and the thunders of the house uttered their voice, while Larry,
amazed, horrified, gradually, as the invective gathered volume and
venom, becoming angry, stood in silence, and received in a single
cloud-burst the bitter flood of long-pent prejudice, jealousy, and
sense of injury.
"Dead!" Dick had roared; "I'd rather see her dead in her coffin than
married to--"
The epithets that a hoarded hatred finds ready to hand when its pent
force is released, come horribly from the lips of an old man. Yet,
almost more horrible than the full tide of rage, was to see its ebb,
as "the sick old servant" in Major Dick's bosom failed him, and his
heart staggered and fainted in its effort to abet him in denouncing
the young cousin who he thought had wronged him.
Larry sat, fondling the old setter's chestnut head, thinking it all
over, flaming again at the remembered insults, quailing at the
possibilities as they concerned Christian. Once she had appeared at
the top of the stairs, and said the single word, "Better!" before she
vanished.
One half of Larry's mind said "Better? What do I care? Better if he
dies, if he comes between me and her!" The other, which was his deeper
self, preserved the memory of Dick's greying face and frightened eyes,
and was glad that relief had come.
At last Christian came to him, slowly and with a dragging step, down
the wide staircase. Her face was white, her eyes were set in shadows.
"How is he?"
"Round the corner, I think. We've wired for Mangan."
"Christian, I want to explain--I said nothing--I never meant to annoy
him, I began about you, and that--that we loved each other. For we do,
Christian, don't we?" He had her hands in his, he crushed them in his
anxiety, his eyes implored her. "Then suddenly he began to abuse me
like a madman! My religion, my politics, my treachery to my class--I
can't tell you what he didn't say! And then he swore he'd rather see
you dead than married to me. I don't know what I said--nothing, I
think; he began to look as if he were dying himself, and I rang the
bell and bolted for you."
"Poor boy!" said Christian.
He thought that her face as she looked at him was as it were the face
of an angel, but the sorrow in it frightened him.
"Come into the study," she said, freeing her hands from his grasp; "we
can't talk here."
The study door was open; he followed her in silence, and, shutting the
door, sat down beside her on the sofa.
"Larry, we've got to face it, you know; we've got to face it," she
began, and gave back to him her slender sensitive hand, as if to heal
the wound of what the words implied.
"Face what?" said Larry, stubbornly, girding himself for resistance.
"Face delay--opposition--"
"I'll face opposition as much as you like, but I won't face delay! Why
should we? We're of age. There's nothing against me!"
Christian smiled faintly.
"Dear child, I know that. It's not the facts that are against us, it's
the fancies--"
"I won't be patronised!" said Larry, vehemently. "I'm not your dear
child! I'm the man you've promised to marry! No one's fancies have a
right to interfere with us!"
His arm was round her, and he felt her tremble. He loosed her hand,
and with his hand that had held it he turned her face to his. Then he
kissed her, many times, with an ever-growing abandonment as he felt
the response that she tried in vain to withhold.
At length, in spite of him, she hid her face in his shoulder.
"No, Larry, no!" she gasped, her breath coming short. "Dearest, don't
be cruel to me! How can I keep that promise! If you had seen Papa just
now and Mother--her terror and her helplessness! How could I leave
them? Supposing that I defied him, and married you, and that he died
in one of these furies! Just think what that would be for us!"
"He wouldn't die!" said Larry, obstinately. "People don't die as easy
as all that!" he added, with a fierce thought of regret that Dick had
not gone out in this latest storm.
"Listen," said Christian, beseechingly. "Don't let us be in such a
hurry. Everything needn't be settled at once. We'll ask Dr. Mangan how
Papa is, and if there is real danger for him in these rages. He was
nearly as bad on Saturday after the Priest and the tenants had been
here."
Larry's face was dark; he was not used to opposition. His guardians
and his spiritual directors had alike found that while he was easy to
lead, he was a difficulty and a danger to drive. He was stirred to the
depths now. The strain of receiving Dick's onslaught in silence, the
shock of his collapse, and now the fire that Christian's nearness and
dearness had lit in him, all broke his self-control. He held her to
him.
"I will never let you go! Never--!" His lips were on hers again, life,
with all its difficulties, was again forgotten, the rhyme of the
Fairies' Well galloped in his hot brain:
"My heart in your hands, your heart in me."
The sound of the hall door opening, and the grinding roar of a motor
engine running down, recalled them both to this troublesome world.
But in Christian's heart, whether from within or from without, a voice
had spoken, telling the kisses, one by one, as though they were the
petals of a flower. "This year, next year, sometime, never!" If the
last word had been "sometime," or "never," she knew not; she knew only
that if what before her was the way of renunciation, she would find it
a hard way to walk in.
Dr. Mangan stood, a massive presence, at the top of the stairs, and
talked massively to Lady Isabel of Dick's condition.
"Very critical--no worries--nourishment--would he have a nurse?"
To which Lady Isabel, a poor, shaken, pallid Lady Isabel, with no more
backbone than the shape of blancmange, which, it must be said, she
somewhat resembled, replied: "_Nothing_ would induce him!"
"Then I should like to have a little talk with Miss Christian," said
the Big Doctor, beginning to walk downstairs, slowly, solemnly,
solidly, like a trick-elephant at a circus.
Christian's quick ears had heard his voice on the stairs, and she met
him in the hall. Larry stood irresolute at the door of the study. His
eyes met those of the Doctor, and something during the interchange of
glances suggested that his presence was not desired. He returned to
the study and shut the door, and wished that he could have a word
alone with the Doctor, just to put him up to what to say to Christian.
He could hear the heavy rumble of the Doctor's bass voice, and the
soft alto murmur of Christian's replies. She had the Irish voice,
pitched on a low note, an instrument more apt for pathos than for
gaiety, which is, perhaps, what gives to its gaiety so special a
charm.
Larry stood by the window with his hands in his pockets, trying to
steady himself. Deep under his panic uncertainty as to the strength of
his hold on Christian, was the anger that Dick's denunciation had
roused in him, and momently, as his mind went back over the interview,
remembrance of the insults became more unendurable. Abuse from the old
to the young, and from a sick man to a sound one, cannot fail to
rankle, since it cannot be flung back. Generosity may impose silence,
but it cannot obliterate an insult or heal a wound.
Christian came into the room; he heard her come, but he would not look
round. She slid her hand into his arm.
"Larry! Dear! Listen to me; there's no way out of it but patience! Dr.
Mangan says he _must_ be kept absolutely quiet, and have nothing
to annoy him. He says he might die in an instant in one of those
attacks. He's not himself now, Larry--so little makes him lose
self-control--" She paused, but Larry did not speak. "You couldn't
want me to sacrifice the little share of life left to him to our
happiness; I know you couldn't! Larry, he's an old man; it can't be
for very long--"
"I don't see that that follows," said Larry, implacably. "He had
strength enough to blackguard me very thoroughly, and it hasn't done
him any harm. It seems to me, _I'm_ the one to be sacrificed!"
"He spoke to Mother about us--about what you said to him. He began
about it the instant he could speak. She--" Christian hesitated,
"she could only quiet him by saying there was no engagement between
us."
"Then she said what wasn't true!"
"Oh, it _must_ be true!" said Christian, desperately; "it's got
to be true--"
"Very well," said Larry, moving away, so that her hand fell from his
arm. "If it's got to be true I suppose there's no more to be said. I
may as well go. After all, I daresay you're well quit of me. Your
father says I'm a damned Papist and--"
"I won't listen to you!" broke in Christian. "What's the use of
hurting me and hurting yourself like this? Larry, I'll wait for you
for ever--you know that--time will make no difference. Don't make it
harder for me than it must be!"
"You don't seem to think much about _me_" said Larry, with a
still rage that was a new thing with him. He left her side, and walked
steadily to the door; then he turned, and in a few quick steps came
back to her. He put his hands on her shoulders; he was not much taller
than she, and his eyes looked straight into hers.
"Then it's true, is it? You're off it? You've given me the chuck?"
He spoke roughly, and gripped her harder than he knew, and in the
tension of her nerves, the roughness of the words and action cut her
like the stroke of a whip. Almost as if he had struck her, a splash of
colour came in her face.
Larry was blind to the torture in her eyes, but he saw the quick red,
and knew he had hurt her high spirit, and was glad.
"If you like to put it in that way!" said Christian, her head up, her
mood answering his, "apparently it is the only thing to be done!"
There came a tap at the door. Dr. Mangan's voice said: "I'm going back
to Cluhir now. Haven't you to meet Father Greer at twelve o'clock,
Larry? I could give you a lift if you like--"
* * * * *
From an early work on the Fauna of the Indian Forest the following
extract may be quoted:
"The elephant's trunk then encircled the young man's body, and placing
him gently upon its back, the huge creature ambled away with its prize
to the depths of the jungle."