Sprats was of an eminently practical turn of mind. She wanted to know
what was to come of all this. To her astonishment she discovered that
Lucian was already full of plans for assuring bread and butter and many
other things for himself and his bride, and had arranged their future on
a cut-and-dried scheme. He was going to devote himself to his studies
more zealously than ever, and to practise himself in the divine art
which was his gift. At twenty he would publish his first volume of
poems, in English and in Italian; at the same time he would produce a
great blank verse tragedy at Milan and in London, and his name would be
extolled throughout Europe, and he himself probably crowned with laurel
at Rome, or Florence, or somewhere. He would be famous, and also rich,
and he would then claim the hand of Haidee, who in the meantime would
have waited for him with the fidelity of a Penelope. After that, of
course, there would follow eternal bliss--it was not necessary to look
further ahead. But he added, with lordly condescension, that he and
Haidee would always love Sprats, and she, if she liked, might live with
them.
‘Did Haidee tell you to tell me so?’ asked Sprats, ‘because the prospect
is not exactly alluring. No, thank you, my dear--I’m not so fond of
Haidee as all that. But I will teach her to mend your clothes and darn
your socks, if you like--it will be a useful accomplishment.’
Lucian made no reply to this generous offer. He knew that there was no
love lost between the two girls, and could not quite understand why, any
more than he could realise that they were sisters under their skins. He
understood the Sprats of the sisterly, maternal, good-chum side; but
Haidee was an ethereal being though possessed of a sound appetite. He
wished that Sprats were more sympathetic about his lady-love; she was
sympathetic enough about himself, and she listened to his rhapsodies
with a certain amount of curiosity which was gratifying to his pride.
But when he remarked that she too would have a lover some day, Sprats’s
rebellious nature rose up and kicked vigorously.
‘Thank you!’ she said, ‘but I don’t happen to want anything of that
sort. If you could only see what an absolute fool you look when you are
anywhere within half a mile of Haidee, you’d soon arrive at the
conclusion that spooniness doesn’t improve a fellow! I suppose it’s all
natural, but I never expected it of you, you know, Lucian. I’m sure I’ve
acted like a real pal to you--just look what a stuck-up little monkey
you were when I took you in hand!--you couldn’t play cricket nor climb a
tree, and you used to tog up every day as if you were going to an old
maid’s muffin-worry. I did get you out of all those bad ways--until the
Dolly came along (she _is_ a Dolly, and I don’t care!). You didn’t mind
going about with a hole or two in your trousers and an old straw hat and
dirty hands, and since then you’ve worn your best clothes every day, and
greased your hair, and yesterday you’d been putting scent on your
handkerchief! Bah!--if lovers are like that, I don’t want one--I could
get something better out of the nearest lunatic asylum. And I don’t
think much of men anyhow--they’re all more or less babies. You’re a
baby, and so is his Vicarness’ (this was Sprats’s original mode of
referring to her father), ‘and so is your uncle Pepperdine--all babies,
hopelessly feeble, and unable to do anything for yourselves. What would
any of you do without a woman? No, thank you, I’m not keen about
men--they worry one too much. And as for love--well, if it makes you go
off your food, and keeps you awake at night, and turns you into a
jackass, I don’t want any of it--it’s too rotten altogether.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Lucian pityingly, and with a deep sigh.
‘Don’t want to,’ retorted Sprats. ‘Oh, my--fancy spending your time in
spooning when you might be playing cricket! You have degenerated,
Lucian, though I expect you can’t help it--it’s inevitable, like measles
and whooping-cough. I wonder how long you will feel bad?’
Lucian waxed wroth. He and Haidee had sworn eternal love and
faithfulness--they had broken a coin in two, and she had promised to
wear her half round her neck, and next to the spot where she believed
her heart to be, for ever; moreover, she had given him a lock of her
hair, and he carried it about, wrapped in tissue paper, and he had
promised to buy her a ring with real diamonds in it. Also, Haidee
already possessed fifteen sonnets in which her beauty, her soul, and a
great many other things pertaining to her were praised, after love’s
extravagant fashion--it was unreasonable of Sprats to talk as if this
were an evanescent fancy that must needs pass. He let her see that he
thought so.
‘All right, old chap!’ said Sprats. ‘It’s for life, then. Very well;
there is, of course, only one thing to be done. You must act on the
square, you know--they always do in these cases. If it’s such a serious
affair, you must play the part of a man of honour, and ask the
permission of the young lady’s mamma, and of her distinguished relative
the Earl of Simonstower--mouldy old ass!--to pay your court to her.’
Lucian seemed disturbed and uneasy.
‘Yes--yes--I know!’ he answered hurriedly. ‘I know that’s the right
thing to do, but you see, Sprats, Haidee doesn’t wish it, at present at
any rate. She--she’s a great heiress, or something, and she says it
wouldn’t do. She wishes it to be kept secret until I’m twenty.
Everything will be all right then, of course. And it’s awfully easy to
arrange stolen meetings at present; there are lots of places about the
Castle and in the woods where you can hide.’
‘Like a housemaid and an under-footman,’ remarked Sprats. ’Um--well, I
suppose that’s inevitable, too. Of course the earl would never look at
you, and it’s very evident that Mrs. Brinklow would be horrified--she
wants the Dolly kid to marry into the peerage, and you’re a nobody.’
‘I’m not a nobody!’ said Lucian, waxing furious. ‘I am a gentleman--an
Italian gentleman. I am the earl’s equal--I have the blood of the
Orsini, the Odescalchi, and the Aldobrandini in my veins! The
earl?--why, your English noblemen are made out of tradesfolk--pah! It is
but yesterday that they gave a baronetcy to a man who cures bacon, and a
peerage to a fellow who brews beer. In Italy we should spit upon your
English peers--they have no blood. I have the blood of the Cæsars in
me!’
‘Your mother was the daughter of an English farmer, and your father was
a macaroni-eating Italian who painted pictures,’ said Sprats, with
imperturbable equanimity. ‘You yourself ought to go about with a
turquoise cap on your pretty curls, and a hurdy-gurdy with a monkey on
the top. _Tant pis_ for your rotten old Italy!--anybody can buy a
dukedom there for a handful of centesimi!’
Then they fought, and Lucian was worsted, as usual, and came to his
senses, and for the rest of the day Sprats was decent to him and even
sympathetic. She was always intrusted with his confidence, however much
they differed, and during the rest of the time which Haidee spent at the
Castle she had to listen to many ravings, and more than once to endure
the reading of a sonnet or a canzonet with which Lucian intended to
propitiate the dark-eyed nymph whose image was continually before him.
Sprats, too, had to console him on those days whereon no sight of Miss
Brinklow was vouchsafed. It was no easy task: Lucian, during these
enforced abstinences from love’s delights and pleasures, was
preoccupied, taciturn, and sometimes almost sulky.
‘You’re like a bear with a sore head,’ said Sprats, using a homely
simile much in favour with the old women of the village. ‘I don’t
suppose the Dolly kid is nursing her sorrows like that. I saw Dicky
Feversham riding up to the Castle on his pony as I came in from taking
old Mother Hobbs’s rice-pudding.’
Lucian clenched his fists. The demon of jealousy was aroused within him
for the first time.
‘What do you mean?’ he cried.
‘Don’t mean anything but what I said,’ replied Sprats. ‘I should think
Dickie has gone to spend the afternoon there. He’s a nice-looking boy,
and as his uncle is a peer of the rel-lum, Mrs. Brinklow doubtless loves
him.’
Lucian fell into a fever of rage, despair, and love. To think that
Another should have the right of approaching His Very Own!--it was
maddening; it made him sick. He hated the unsuspecting Richard
Feversham, who in reality was a very inoffensive, fun-loving,
up-to-lots-of-larks sort of schoolboy, with a deadly hatred. The thought
of his addressing the Object was awful; that he should enjoy her society
was unbearable. He might perhaps be alone with her--might sit with her
amongst the ruined halls of the Castle, or wander with her through the
woods of Simonstower. But Lucian was sure of her--had she not sworn by
every deity in the lover’s mythology that her heart was his alone, and
that no other man should ever have even a cellar-dwelling in it? He
became almost lachrymose at the mere thought that Haidee’s lofty and
pure soul could ever think of another, and before he retired to his
sleepless bed he composed a sonnet which began--
/p
‘Thy dove-like soul is prisoned in my heart
With gold and silver chains that may not break,’
p/
and concluded--
/p
‘While e’er the world remaineth, thou shalt be
Queen of my heart as I am king of thine.’
p/
He had an assignation with Haidee for the following afternoon, and was
looking forward to it with great eagerness, more especially because he
possessed a new suit of grey flannel, a new straw hat, and new brown
boots, and he had discovered from experience that the young lady loved
her peacock to spread his tail. But, as ill-luck would have it, the
earl, with the best intention in the world, spoiled the whole thing.
About noon Lucian and Sprats, having gone through several pages of
Virgil with the vicar, were sitting on the gate of the vicarage garden,
recreating after a fashion peculiar to themselves, when the earl and
Haidee, both mounted, came round the corner and drew rein. The earl
talked to them for a few minutes, and then asked them up to the Castle
that afternoon. He would have the tennis-lawn made ready for them, he
said, and they could eat as many strawberries as they pleased, and have
tea in the garden. Haidee, from behind the noble relative, made a _moue_
at this; Lucian was obliged to keep a straight face, and thank the earl
for his confounded graciousness. Sprats saw that something was wrong.
‘What’s up?’ she inquired, climbing up the gate again when the earl had
gone by. ‘You look jolly blue.’
Lucian explained the situation. Sprats snorted.
‘Well, of all the hardships!’ she said. ‘Thank the Lord, I’d rather play
tennis and eat strawberries and have tea--especially the Castle
tea--than go mooning about in the woods! However, I suppose I must
contrive something for you, or you’ll groan and grumble all the way
home. You and the Doll must lose yourselves in the gardens when we go
for strawberries. I suppose ten minutes’ slobbering over each other
behind a hedge or in a corner will put you on, won’t it?’
Lucian was overwhelmed at her kindness. He offered to give her a
brotherly hug, whereupon she smacked his face, rolled him into the dust
in the middle of the road, and retreated into the garden, bidding him
turn up with a clean face at half-past two. When that hour arrived she
found him awaiting her in the porch; one glance at him showed that he
had donned the new suit, the new hat, and the new boots. Sprats shrieked
with derision.
‘Lord have mercy upon us!’ she cried. ‘It might be a Bank Holiday! Do
you think I am going to walk through the village with a thing like that?
Stick a cabbage in your coat--it’ll give a finishing touch to your
appearance. Oh, you miserable monkey-boy!--wouldn’t I like to stick you
in the kitchen chimney and shove you up and down in the soot for five
minutes!’
Lucian received this badinage in good part--it was merely Sprats’s way
of showing her contempt for finicking habit. He followed her from the
vicarage to the Castle--she walking with her nose in the air, and from
time to time commiserating him because of the newness of his boots; he
secretly anxious to bask in the sunlight of Haidee’s smiles. And at last
they arrived, and there, sprawling on the lawn near the basket-chair in
which Haidee’s lissome figure reposed, was the young gentleman who
rejoiced in the name of Richard Feversham. He appeared to be very much
at home with his young hostess; the sound of their mingled laughter fell
on the ears of the newcomers as they approached. Lucian heard it, and
shivered with a curious, undefinable sense of evil; Sprats heard it too,
and knew that a moral thunderstorm was brewing.
The afternoon was by no means a success, even in its earlier stages.
Mrs. Brinklow had departed to a friend’s house some miles away; the earl
might be asleep or dead for all that was seen of him. Sprats and Haidee
cherished a secret dislike of each other; Lucian was proud, gloomy, and
taciturn; only the Feversham boy appeared to have much zest of life left
in him. He was a somewhat thick-headed youngster, full of good nature
and high spirits; he evidently did not care a straw for public or
private opinion, and he made boyish love to Haidee with all the
shamelessness of depraved youth. Haidee saw that Lucian was jealous, and
encouraged Dickie’s attentions--long before tea was brought out to them
the materials for a vast explosion were ready and waiting. After
tea--and many plates of strawberries and cream--had been consumed, the
thick-headed youth became childishly gay. The tea seemed to have mounted
to his head--he effervesced. He had much steam to let off: he suggested
that they should follow the example of the villagers at the
bun-struggles and play kiss-in-the-ring, and he chased Haidee all round
the lawn and over the flower-beds in order to illustrate the way of the
rustic man with the rustic maid. The chase terminated behind a hedge of
laurel, from whence presently proceeded much giggling, screaming, and
confused laughter. The festive youngster emerged panting and triumphant;
his rather homely face wore a broad grin. Haidee followed with highly
becoming blushes, settling her tumbled hair and crushed hat. She
remarked with a pout that Dickie was a rough boy; Dickie replied that
you don’t play country games as if you were made of egg-shell china.
The catastrophe approached consummation with the inevitableness of a
Greek tragedy. Lucian waxed gloomier and gloomier; Sprats endeavoured,
agonisingly, to put things on a better footing; Haidee, now thoroughly
enjoying herself, tried hard to make the other boy also jealous. But the
other boy was too full of the joy of life to be jealous of anything; he
gambolled about like a young elephant, and nearly as gracefully; it was
quite evident that he loved horseplay and believed that girls were as
much inclined to it as boys. At any other time Sprats would have fallen
in with his mood and frolicked with him to his heart’s content; on this
occasion she was afraid of Lucian, who now looked more like a young
Greek god than ever. The lightning was already playing about his eyes;
thunder sat on his brows.
At last the storm burst. Haidee wanted to shoot with bow and arrow at a
target; she despatched the two youngsters into the great hall of the
Castle to fetch the materials for archery. Dickie went off capering and
whistling; Lucian followed in sombre silence. And inside the vaulted
hall, mystic with the gloom of the past, and romantic with suits of
armour, tattered banners, guns, pikes, bows, and the rest of it, the
smouldering fires of Lucian’s wrath burst out. Master Richard Feversham
found himself confronted by a figure which typified Wrath, and
Indignation, and Retribution.
‘You are a cad!’ said Lucian.
‘Cad yourself!’ retorted Dickie. ‘Who are _you_ talking to?’
‘I am talking to you,’ answered Lucian, stern and cold as a stone figure
of Justice. ‘I say you are a cad--a cad! You have grossly insulted a
young lady, and I will punish you.’
Dickie’s eyes grew round--he wondered if the other fellow had suddenly
gone off his head, and if he’d better call for help and a strait
waistcoat.
‘Grossly insulted--a young lady!’ he said, puckering up his face with
honest amazement. ‘What the dickens do you mean? You must be jolly well
dotty!’
‘You have insulted Miss Brinklow,’ said Lucian. ‘You forced your
unwelcome attentions upon her all the afternoon, though she showed you
plainly that they were distasteful to her, and you were finally rude and
brutal to her--beast!’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Dickie, now thoroughly amazed, ‘I never forced
any attention on her--we were only larking. Rude? Brutal? Good
heavens!--I only kissed her behind the hedge, and I’ve kissed her many a
time before!’
Lucian became insane with wrath.
‘Liar!’ he hissed. ‘Liar!’
Master Richard Feversham straightened himself, mentally as well as
physically. He bunched up his fists and advanced upon Lucian with an
air that was thoroughly British.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I don’t know who the devil you are, you
outrageous ass, but if you call me a liar again, I’ll hit you!’
‘Liar!’ said Lucian, ‘Liar!’
Dickie’s left fist, clenched very artistically, shot out like a small
battering-ram, and landed with a beautiful _plunk_ on Lucian’s cheek,
between the jaw and the bone. He staggered back.
‘I kept off your nose on purpose,’ said Dickie, ‘but, by the Lord, I’ll
land you one there and spoil your pretty eyes for you if you don’t beg
my pardon.’
‘Pardon!’ Lucian’s voice sounded hollow and strange. ‘Pardon!’ He swore
a strange Italian oath that made Dickie creep. ‘Pardon!--of you? I will
kill you--beast and liar!’
He sprang to the wall as he spoke, tore down a couple of light rapiers
which hung there, and threw one at his enemy’s feet.
‘Defend yourself!’ he said. ‘I shall kill you.’
Dickie recoiled. He would have faced anybody twice his size with fists
as weapons, or advanced on a battery with a smiling face, but he had no
taste for encountering an apparent lunatic armed with a weapon of which
he himself did not know the use. Besides, there was murder in Lucian’s
eye--he seemed to mean business.
‘Look here, I say, you chap!’ exclaimed Dickie, ‘put that thing down.
One of us’ll be getting stuck, you know, if you go dancing about with it
like that. I’ll fight you as long as you like if you’ll put up your
fists, but I’m not a fool. Put it down, I say.’
‘Coward!’ said Lucian. ‘Defend yourself!’
He made at Dickie with fierce intent, and the latter was obliged to pick
up the other rapier and fall into some sort of a defensive position.
‘Of all the silly games,’ he said, ‘this is----’
But Lucian was already attacking him with set teeth, glaring eyes, and
a resolute demeanour. There was a rapid clashing of blades; then Dickie
drew in his breath sharply, and his weapon dropped to the ground. He
looked at a wound in the back of his hand from which the blood was
flowing rather freely.
‘I knew you’d go and do it with your silliness!’ he said. ‘Now there’ll
be a mess on the carpet and we shall be found out. Here--wipe up that
blood with your handkerchief while I tie mine round my hand. We....
Hello, here they all are, of course! Now there _will_ be a row! I say,
you chap, swear it was all a lark--do you hear?’
Lucian heard but gave no sign. He still gripped his rapier and stared
fixedly at Haidee and Sprats, who had run to the hall on hearing the
clash of steel and now stood gazing at the scene with dilated eyes.
Behind them, gaunt, grey, and somewhat amused and cynical, stood the
earl. He looked from one lad to the other and came forward.
‘I heard warlike sounds,’ he said, peering at the combatants through
glasses balanced on the bridge of the famous Simonstower nose, ‘and now
I see warlike sights. Blood, eh? And what may this mean?’
‘It’s all nothing, sir,’ said Dickie in suspicious haste, ‘absolutely
nothing. We were larking about with these two old swords, and the other
chap’s point scratched my hand, that’s all, sir--’pon my word.’
‘Does the other chap’s version correspond?’ inquired the earl, looking
keenly at Lucian’s flushed face. ‘Eh, other chap?’
Lucian faced him boldly.
‘No, sir,’ he answered; ‘what he says is not true, though he means
honourably. I meant to punish him--to kill him.’
‘A candid admission,’ said the earl, toying with his glasses. ‘You
appear to have effected some part of your purpose. And his offence?’
‘He----’ Lucian paused. The two girls, fascinated at the sight of the
rapiers, the combatants, and the blood, had drawn near and were staring
from one boy’s face to the other’s; Lucian hesitated at sight of them.
‘Come!’ said the earl sharply. ‘His offence?’
‘He insulted Miss Brinklow,’ said Lucian gravely. ‘I told him I should
punish him. Then he told lies--about her. I said I would kill him. A man
who lies about a woman merits death.’
‘A very excellent apothegm,’ said the earl. ‘Sprats, my dear, draw that
chair for me--thank you. Now,’ he continued, taking a seat and sticking
out his gouty leg, ‘let me have a clear notion of this delicate
question. Feversham, your version, if you please.’
‘I--I--you see, it’s all one awfully rotten misunderstanding, sir,’ said
Dickie, very ill at ease. ‘I--I--don’t like saying things about anybody,
but I think Damerel’s got sunstroke or something--he’s jolly dotty, or
carries on as if he were. You see, he called me a cad, and said I was
rude and brutal to Haidee, just because I--well, because I kissed her
behind the laurel hedge when we were larking in the garden, and I said
it was nothing and I’d kissed her many a time before, and he said I was
a liar, and then--well, then I hit him.’
‘I see,’ said the earl, ‘and of course there was then much stainless
honour to be satisfied. And how was it that gentlemen of such advanced
age resorted to steel instead of fists?’
The boys made no reply: Lucian still stared at the earl; Dickie
professed to be busy with his impromptu bandage. Sprats went round to
him and tied the knot.
‘I think I understand,’ said the earl. ‘Well, I suppose honour is
satisfied?’
He looked quizzingly at Lucian. Lucian returned the gaze with another,
dark, sombre, and determined.
‘He is still a liar!’ he said.
‘I’m _not_ a liar!’ exclaimed Dickie, ‘and as sure as eggs are eggs I’ll
hit you again, and on the nose this time, if you say I am,’ and he
squared up to his foe utterly regardless of the earl’s presence. The
earl smiled.
‘Why is he a liar?’ he asked, looking at Lucian.
‘He lies when he says that--that----’ Lucian choked and looked, almost
entreatingly, at Haidee. She had stolen up to the earl’s chair and
leaned against its high back, taking in every detail of the scene with
eager glances. As Lucian’s eyes met hers, she smiled; a dimple showed in
the corner of her mouth.
‘I understand,’ said the earl. He twisted himself round and looked at
Haidee. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘this is one of those cases in which one may
be excused if one appeals to the lady. It would seem, young lady, that
Mr. Feversham, while abstaining, like a gentleman, from boasting of
it----’
‘Oh, I say, sir!’ burst out Dickie; ‘I--didn’t mean to, you know.’
‘I say that Mr. Feversham, like a gentleman, does not boast of it, but
pleads that you have indulged him with the privileges of a lover. His
word has been questioned--his honour is at stake. Have you so indulged
it, may one ask?’
Haidee assumed the airs of the coquette who must fain make admissions.
‘I--suppose so,’ she breathed, with a smile which included everybody.
‘Very good,’ said the earl. ‘It may be that Mr. Damerel has had reason
to believe that he alone was entitled to those privileges. Eh?’
‘Boys are so silly!’ said Haidee. ‘And Lucian is so serious and
old-fashioned. And all boys like to kiss me. What a fuss to make about
nothing!’
‘I quite understand your position and your meaning, my dear,’ said the
earl. ‘I have heard similar sentiments from other ladies.’ He turned to
Lucian. ‘Well?’ he said, with a sharp, humorous glance.
Lucian had turned very pale, but a dark flush still clouded his
forehead. He put aside his rapier, which until then he had held tightly,
and he turned to Dickie.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said; ‘I was wrong--quite wrong. I offer you my
sincere apologies. I have behaved ill--I am sorry.’
Dickie looked uncomfortable and shuffled about.
‘Oh, rot!’ he said, holding out his bandaged hand. ‘It’s all right, old
chap. I don’t mind at all now that you know I’m not a liar. I--I’m
awfully sorry, too. I didn’t know you were spoons on Haidee, you
know--I’m a bit dense about things. Never mind, I shan’t think any more
of it, and besides, girls aren’t worth--at least, I mean--oh, hang it,
don’t let’s say any more about the beastly affair!’
Lucian pressed his hand. He turned, looked at the earl, and made him a
low and ceremonious bow. Lord Simonstower rose from his seat and
returned it with equal ceremony. Without a glance in Haidee’s direction
Lucian strode from the hall--he had forgotten Sprats. He had, indeed,
forgotten everything--the world had fallen in pieces.
An hour later Sprats, tracking him down with the unerring sagacity of
her sex, found him in a haunt sacred to themselves, stretched full
length on the grass, with his face buried in his arms. She sat down
beside him and put her arm round his neck and drew him to her. He burst
into dry, bitter sobs.
‘Oh, Sprats!’ he said. ‘It’s all over--all over. I believed in her ...
and now I shall never believe in anybody again!’