The very first and most lasting impression made upon Lewis Pryor’s
boyish mind was that a subtile difference existed between him and
every other boy he had ever known in his life. At the first glance the
difference would seem to have been altogether in Lewis’s favour, for he
always had a plenty of pocket money, and a pony to ride, and a servant
to wait on him; but, being a very healthy-natured, honest-hearted boy,
he regarded these things with admirable indifference, and instinctively
rated them at their true value, which was small. In fact, he came, in
the course of his boyish experiences, to hate these distinctions in
his favour, as he imagined sometimes that it accounted for the shyness
of other boys towards him. From his very earliest recollection there
had been this strange and mystifying avoidance, and the boy’s heart
swelled and his eyes filled with tears whenever he thought of it. Not
only was it strange, but it was cruelly undeserved, for he felt himself
worthy of respect. He had never told a lie in his life, and such
boyish naughtinesses as he had been guilty of were merely the ordinary
lapses of impetuous young creatures. But poor Lewis was perforce a
model boy, for it is tolerably hard for a boy to get in mischief by
himself. Lewis, gazing with melancholy eyes at others of his own age,
would feel, with a tightening at his heart, that he would cheerfully
give his pony and all his fine belongings to be one with those merry,
happy fellows. He remembered dimly his mother--a gentle creature who
lavished tenderness upon him; his father--Thomas Pryor, the tutor--a
tall, thin, spectacled man; and they all lived very quietly somewhere
in the country in England. But even then he had no playmates. Then he
remembered quite distinctly his father and his mother both dying, and
Bulstrode and Bob Skinny being there and taking him to Skelton. Lewis
was then about five years old. After that came a dreary existence of
splendid suites of rooms in foreign hotels, where he and Bulstrode were
usually waiting for Skelton and Bob Skinny to turn up, when they would
all go on to some other splendid suite of rooms in another place, all
equally dreary to the lonely boy. Bulstrode was his guardian, and was
supposed to be his tutor, and Lewis did his lessons with tolerable
regularity. But he had a little store of books--some old romances,
dear to every boy’s heart, and some of Scott’s novels, which were
coming out, and a few other imaginative books, which he devoured with
insatiate delight. Sometimes, with one of these darling dog’s-eared
volumes, he could be perfectly happy, lying on the rug before the fire,
with his dog Service poking his cold nose affectionately into his face,
or flat on his back in the summer time, with the dog on the grass
near him, and the trees murmuring softly overhead. For want of other
companionship he made a friend and confidant of Service; and the two
would exchange queer confidences, and understood each other as only a
boy and a dog can. But more than the dog--even more than his cherished
romances--Lewis’s most beloved possession were certain books inscribed
“Thomas Pryor, M. A.,” and a miniature of his father--a lanky person,
as unlike Lewis’s dark, clear-cut little face as could be imagined--and
a quaint picture in black and white of his mother. But he thought
of her so often and so much that he had in his mind’s eye a perfect
portrait of her. Bulstrode was always ready enough to talk to the boy
about his father and mother, but Lewis soon found that Bulstrode’s
talk amounted to nothing at all, as he had seen but little of either
Mr. or Mrs. Pryor. As for Skelton, Lewis could not make him out. He
was always kind, always indulgent, and Lewis was quite sharp enough
to see that, however Bulstrode might be his guardian, Skelton had the
real authority over both Bulstrode and himself. But there was a perfect
formality between them. The boy remembered, though, once when he was
ill, that Skelton scarcely left him day or night. He always dined with
Skelton, and at dinner had one very small glass of wine, after which he
might have been expected to leave the table. Occasionally after dinner
Skelton would thaw, and would talk to the boy in a way that quite
charmed him, telling him of Skelton’s own boyhood and his travels.
When they came to Virginia, Lewis found the new country more like
his faintly remembered English home than he could express, and was a
thousand times happier than he had been in the splendid lodgings where
so much of his boyhood had been passed. He liked much better riding
over the country on his pony than taking a tiresome canter in a public
park; Service and himself had much jollier times in the woods and
fields than in prim city gardens. And then the negroes were so amusing,
and called him “Little Marse” so obsequiously, and he had a boat to
sail on the river. This last gave him the most acute and intense
pleasure. Skelton, for the first time in his life, taught him something
in teaching him to sail the boat.
“Now, Lewis,” Skelton said, the first morning the boat was put into
the water, “I foresee that you will live in this boat, and as you will
no doubt be upset dozens of times, and be caught in squalls and all
sorts of accidents, the only thing to do is to teach you to depend upon
yourself. The river is not more than fifteen feet deep anywhere, except
in the channel, and with ordinary intelligence and care nothing worse
ought to happen to you than a good wetting once in a while. The boat
is staunch. I myself watched Jim, the wheelwright, making it, and gave
him the dimensions”--for the boat had been built at Deerchase--“and the
sail is quite large enough for it”--Lewis did not agree with this last,
as his ambition was to have the smallest boat and the biggest sail on
the river--“and if you are drowned it will be your own fault.”
Lewis was wonderfully apt at learning anything, and Skelton, in his
quiet way, showed an excellent knack of teaching. Every day, for a
week or more, the two were out in the boat together upon the bright
river glowing in the August sunshine. Lewis often wondered if Skelton
were not bored as they sailed up and down the river, and then beyond
out into the bay, Skelton sitting in the stern, with a book in his
hand, reading when he was not showing Lewis how to manage the boat.
It puzzled the boy because there was usually such a distance, so much
reserve between them. More than once Lewis caught Skelton’s black,
expressive eyes fixed on him with a look that was almost fondness, and
at such moments the boy’s heart would thrill with a strange emotion. He
had often thought that he would ask Skelton some time about his father
and mother, and what better opportunity could he have than when sailing
together for hours upon the blue water? But he never did it. In spite
of Skelton’s interest, and his evident desire to secure Lewis from
danger by making him a good sailor, the barrier remained. In a very
short while, though, Lewis mastered the whole science of a sailboat,
with one exception. Nothing could induce him to take the sail down
until a squall was actually upon him, and in consequence of this he got
into the water several times unnecessarily. But he was a cool-headed
fellow, and a good swimmer besides, so that his various upsets did him
no harm. Skelton, on these occasions, would send for him and give him
lectures upon his foolhardiness, which Lewis would receive respectfully
enough, saying “Yes, sir,” every time Skelton paused. But when the
door was closed Skelton would sigh, and smile too, and say to himself,
“There is no frightening the fellow.”
There was but one boy in the neighbourhood near Lewis’s age. This was
Hilary Blair, a handsome, fair-haired, freckle-faced boy, who began
the acquaintance with a sturdy contempt for Lewis’s prowess. Hilary
was a year older than Lewis, and a heavier and stouter boy. But at the
first personal encounter between the two young gentlemen, which was
precipitated by a dispute over a game of marbles in the main road,
Lewis showed so much science in the manly art, that Hilary was knocked
out ignominiously about the fourth round. Hilary displayed excellent
good sense in the affair. He got up with a black eye, but an undaunted
soul.
“Look here,” he said, “you’ve taken lessons of some sort.”
“Yes,” responded Lewis, shamefacedly, remembering that he had had
lessons of all sorts--boxing, fencing, dancing, riding, everything, in
short--while this country gentleman’s son knew nothing of many of these
things; “but if you want to, I’ll teach you all I know, and then”--here
the fighting instinct in the boy cropped out--“I’ll lick you just as
easy as I do now.”
“I reckon you won’t,” answered Hilary coolly, and it turned out that
he was right; for, with the addition of such scientific instruction
as Lewis could impart, the two boys were very evenly matched in their
future encounters, which were purely friendly and in the interests of
sport.
The boys became fond of each other in a surreptitious way, for Hilary
never came to see Lewis, and an instinctive delicacy kept Lewis from
going to Newington. But they met on the river, out fishing, and in the
woods setting their hare-traps, and they exchanged whispers during
church-time.
On Sundays Lewis sat alone in one of the great square high-backed
pews, which still remained in the old colonial church of Abingdon.
That unlucky singularity of luxury which was the bane of poor Lewis’s
life actually followed him to church, for Skelton’s was the only
upholstered pew in the church; and instead of the faded moreen curtains
of the other pews, when they were curtained at all, there was a fine
purple-silk drapery, behind which the lonely boy sat forlornly. He was
the only person who went to church regularly from Deerchase. Bulstrode
scoffed at the notion, and Skelton alleged usually that he was too
busy. Once in a great while, though, he would saunter into church about
the second lesson. Conyers, who feared no man, not even Skelton, would
stop deliberately in the midst of the sermon as a rebuke to Skelton.
Skelton, however, would be perfectly unmoved by it, as well as by
the hundreds of curious eyes bent upon him, and would walk down the
aisle with his inimitable grace and a half-smile on his lips. Conyers,
though, by that strange contrariety which seems to govern human
affairs, found his best supporters in Skelton and Bulstrode, whom he
expected to be his most powerful foes. So far from antagonising Conyers
on account of the public rebuke administered upon his tardiness,
Skelton respected him for it, and never failed to speak to the parson
politely before all the people as they gossiped in the churchyard. It
was not Skelton’s way to withhold the meed of justice due any man,
and he saw at a glance that the stern, scruple-ridden, conscientious
moralist had a very hard time with his merry, free-handed,
pleasure-loving congregation--the pastor intolerant of pleasure, the
flock intolerant of pain.
As for Bulstrode, Conyers’s sad heart had glowed when he first heard
of the advent of this great scholar in the county. Perhaps here was
light at hand. But the very first sight of Bulstrode was enough for
him. Bulstrode’s guzzling of liquor, his unbridled license of tongue,
were repelling to a natural born ascetic and enthusiast. But Bulstrode
was instantly attracted by the parson with the distressed eyes, which
always seemed to be looking for something which they never could
find. He pursued the acquaintance, and actually tracked Conyers to
his lair in the tumble-down rectory. Here Bulstrode would sit for
hours, clawing his unkempt hair, and drinking innumerable cups of
tea out of a cracked teapot from sheer force of habit. He talked on
every imaginable subject, and poured out the stores of his learning
lavishly. But he never touched, in the remotest degree, upon religion.
Conyers found out, though, that Bulstrode was deeply skilled in that
science called theology, and at last the impulse came to unburden his
mind and heart, which Bulstrode had long foreseen. They were sitting,
one night soon after their acquaintance began, in the shabby rectory
study, when Conyers made his confession--telling it all recklessly, his
sallow face glowing, his deep eyes burning. Bulstrode heard patiently,
even that greatest grievance of all to Conyers--the unwillingness of
people to _think_ upon the great affair of religion, and their perfect
willingness to accept anything rather than to bestow consideration or
thought upon it.
“And do you imagine,” asked Bulstrode gravely, stopping in the midst of
his tea-drinking, “that religion is an intellectual exercise?”
Poor Conyers admitted that he thought it had an intellectual side.
“So it has, so it has; but it has a great emotional side too,” answered
Bulstrode; “that’s where the women are nearer right than men think.
The Christian religion undertakes to make a human being better, but it
doesn’t pretend to make him wiser or happier--or only incidentally; so
you see, it must work in the heart of man as in the brain. And I tell
you, my clerical friend, that the great defect in all the other systems
I’ve studied--and I know ’em all--is that they are meant for thinkers,
and that leaves out nine tenths of the human race. The intellectual
side of man’s relation to the Great First Cause was worked out long
ago by those clever old Greeks. All these modern fellows have been
threshing over old straw.”
Conyers was surprised at this, and said so. It seemed to him that
men who dared to meddle with so vast a subject must be of gigantic
strength and heroic mould. Through the mists of his own ignorance and
inexperience their figures loomed large, but when he expressed this in
halting language, Bulstrode shouted with laughter.
“You think a man must be a second Plato to start a new philosophic
system--a new religion, in fact! Why, look you, parson, most
undergraduates have doubts about a Great First Cause even; and there
are monstrous few university men who don’t expect to make a new
religion some time or other. They have the disease, like measles or
whooping-cough, and get over it and are better afterwards.”
Conyers had an idea that among men of true learning the Christian
religion was treated as a lot of old women’s fables, while all systems
of philosophy were regarded with the utmost respect. This, too, he
expressed to Bulstrode.
“Don’t know, I’m sure, how it is in this queer country,” answered
Bulstrode, pouring himself out a ninth cup of tea, “but, comparing
things according to their size, the biggest system is small compared
with that enormous fact of Christianity. Mind, I ain’t a Christian
myself, though I lean that way, and when I’m drunk and my mind works
rapidly, and I see the relations of things better, I lean that way
still more; for, know you, Wat Bulstrode drunk is a better man than Wat
Bulstrode sober.”
If this was meant as a hint for Conyers to produce something stronger
than tea, it failed of its object, for not even to make Bulstrode
talk like a Christian, would Conyers so far outrage his conscience
as to give liquor to a man already too fond of it. Bulstrode really
threw out the remark more as a test of the man than a hint, but when
Conyers refused the bait a strange glitter came into Bulstrode’s dull
eyes. Here was that honest man, whose untarnished integrity was like
the sun at noonday. Bulstrode, in admiration for this, conceived the
idea of establishing in Conyers a sincere belief of Christianity;
for, half-educated, starved spiritually, and the prey of scruples
that were really doubts, Conyers scarcely knew where he stood. So,
then, the extraordinary spectacle was presented of a man little better
than a heathen preaching the gospel to a man after God’s own heart.
Bulstrode was fully sensible of the grotesqueness of the thing, but
all disposition to laugh was checked by the sublime earnestness with
which Conyers followed him. Bulstrode marshalled with singular power
and precision all the arguments in favour of the immortality of the
soul, beginning with Plato. He then argued profoundly and subtly in
favour of a revealed religion. He pointed out all the weak spots in the
various substitutes for religion that had been offered in various ages,
and laid bare their defects mercilessly. He sat until late in the night
talking, Conyers’s eyes all the time growing less and less sombre.
“Now,” said Bulstrode, getting up toward midnight, “I’ve given you all
the weapons I have, and taught you how to thrust and parry the best I
know how; and, hang me, parson, I’ve almost argued myself into being a
Christian too while I’ve been trying to convert you!”
Conyers smiled involuntarily as he looked at Bulstrode. There was
nothing apostolic in that bulky figure and careless, dissipated face.
Bulstrode went back to Deerchase, and complained next morning that he
had been kept up late the night before labouring with Conyers to make
him a Christian.
Conyers, however, felt that he had been more helped by this boozy
heathen than by all the theologians he had ever met with in his life.
Meanwhile Skelton and his affairs continued to be of prodigious
interest among the county people, who regarded him as their local
prodigy. There was, of course, great speculation about his wife’s
fortune, and much indignation expressed that it could not be bestowed
upon some of the numerous young women who would have presided so
admirably at Deerchase. The universal conviction was that Skelton would
never marry, but, in the strange event that he did, conjecture ran wild
as to what would become of the money.
Some said it went to found a great charity hospital somewhere; others,
that it returned to the late Mrs. Skelton’s family; others still, that,
Mrs. Skelton having quarrelled with her relations, they would get none
of it, but that it would go to Skelton’s next of kin, which, wonderful
to say, were Elizabeth Blair and her children; but everybody was agreed
in thinking that, before Skelton would see the Blairs benefitted by
him, he would turn his back on Helen of Troy could she come back to
earth. However, the solution seemed far enough off. It was perfectly
well known that the late Mrs. Skelton had put an embargo of some sort
upon her place being filled, and they would have to wait until Skelton,
who was in the perfection of physical health, should be laid in his
grave before the mystery would be solved.
Skelton had come home in the early summer, and, although he had been
formally called upon by all the gentry in the county, including Blair,
as soon as he arrived, and the visits had been returned, but little had
been seen of him. Even when the autumn meeting of the Jockey Club had
come off, and when all the people from four counties had assembled and
Skelton’s horses had carried everything before them, Skelton himself
had scarcely appeared on the course at all. The truth was he was
making a desperate effort to work. He shut himself up every day in the
library, and actually got some little way upon his Introduction, but
in a very short while a strange and irritating torpor seized upon him
mentally. He had no distractions--he had all his books close by him,
his notes tabulated; the whole thing was ready to his hand. The hand,
though, refused to work; the mind refused to drive the hand. Skelton
found he did as little in the scholastic retirement which he had
adopted as in the whirl of cities.
He turned to racing as a faint and unsatisfying distraction. He had had
the pleasure of beating Blair all along, even at the autumn meeting;
he had had the savage enjoyment of knowing that Blair was as unlucky
as usual when pitted against him. Skelton’s own secret dissatisfaction
with himself fanned his resentment against Blair. He turned feverishly
to the only thing that interested him--the determination to make Jack
Blair know what it was to oppose Richard Skelton. Blair’s imprudent
speeches, his constant reminders of the why and wherefore of Skelton’s
rivalry, were not lost on him, and men of his type are always dangerous
to trifle with.
Skelton’s doubled subscription to the Jockey Club had had a wonderful
stimulating effect upon that institution, and it also caused Mrs.
Blair to sign her name to a bit of paper which enabled Blair to raise
some money, not only for his own increased subscription, but for that
horse of old Tom Shapleigh’s which Skelton himself had professed to be
afraid of. If once a match could be brought about between Alabaster and
Jaybird, Blair, who was irrepressibly sanguine, believed that he could
wipe out all old scores between them. And, of course, he could buy the
horse--old Tom had not seriously meant that Sylvia was to have for a
riding nag a horse that could beat Jaybird. Blair thought that raising
a certain sum of money, which was in effect an extravagant price, must
certainly buy Alabaster. But he had to go through with some unpleasant
processes before raising that money. He was terribly hard up at that
time, and one of the most necessary conditions was the signing of his
wife’s name to a bit of paper that to him represented Alabaster, money,
coming out ahead of Skelton--everything, in short.
When he went after Elizabeth to sign that paper she was sewing
together the leaves of Hilary’s Latin grammar, and wishing she could
buy some new books that the boy needed--for she taught him herself,
under the womanly pretense that they might thereby save up money for
his university expenses. But she knew in her heart of hearts that no
money was saved or thought of being saved. Only her pride was saved
by that subterfuge. The drawing-room at Newington where she sat was
very unlike the splendid drawing-rooms at Deerchase or the gaudy
show-rooms at Belfield. It was large, plain, and old-fashioned. The
mahogany furniture was scanty, and the ornaments consisted of those
daubs of family portraits which all Virginians possess. It was a
gloomy afternoon early in October, and neither the room nor anything
in it looked cheerful. Blair came in whistling, and stated the case to
Elizabeth. As she had brought him no fortune, it seemed ungracious in
her to refuse him that which was his own, but she thought of Hilary,
and her heart sank. Nevertheless, she signed the paper with the quill
pen that Blair cut for her with his penknife. When asking her to make
the sacrifice for him he did not insult her by any endearments; there
were certain fine points of delicacy about him which well pleased her
woman’s soul. He profoundly respected the love between them, and would
have scorned to use it directly as a means of wheedling anything out of
her. But when her name was signed, he tipped her chin up and kissed her
with ineffable tenderness.
“By heaven, my girl,” he said, “you deserve a better husband than I
have ever made you! But you could never find one that loves you half as
much.”
This gave Elizabeth a chance to air a grievance which she had been
cherishing ever since the dinner at Belfield. Mrs. Blair was an
uncommonly level-headed woman, and if any one had suggested a doubt
of her husband to her, nothing could have exceeded her righteous
resentment towards the suggestor. But there never had been a time
in all their married life that Mrs. Blair had not fancied Blair’s
admiration fixed upon some girl in the county, who nine times out of
ten bored him to death, and Mrs. Blair was always ready with a few
tears and a reproach or two on the subject of these imaginary injuries.
“Yes,” she said, withdrawing with an offended air from his encircling
arm, “you can say these things to me now, but ever since that night at
Belfield, when you never took your eyes off Sylvia Shapleigh, you have
been thinking a great deal too much about her.”
“Elizabeth,” said Blair solemnly, “you are a fool,” and then he
suddenly burst out laughing--a genuine laugh, inspired by the perfect
absurdity of the thing.
“And you won’t deny it?” asked Elizabeth, trying feebly to maintain her
position.
“Of course not,” answered Blair, becoming serious. “If you were a man
I should knock you down. As you are a woman, I can’t, but I decline
to take any notice of what you say. This is the seventeenth girl, I
believe, that you have accused me of making eyes at.”
Elizabeth condescended to smile at this, and harmony was in a fair way
to be restored between them. But after a moment Elizabeth said:
“There is something else, though, which troubled me that night. It was
at the dinner table.”
Blair knew in an instant that she meant his increased subscription to
the Jockey Club, but he asked what she meant.
“Can you ask me?” replied Elizabeth.
“The devil I can,” cried Blair, dropping at once into the ordinary,
every-day, vexed-husband’s tone. “Look here, Elizabeth, didn’t you
encourage me?”
“What could I do,” answered his wife with a piteous smile, “with
Richard Skelton looking on and pitying me?”
“And what could _I_ do, with Skelton challenging me in every tone of
his voice and look of his eye? Don’t I know that Miles Lightfoot has
got his orders to ruin me at any cost? And do you think that a man
would quietly draw out and yield the field to another man under the
circumstances? No, Elizabeth, I beat Skelton in the race for you, and
I’ll beat him again on the Campdown course. And it isn’t so hard as
you think. You know that black colt Alabaster, of old Tom Shapleigh’s?
Well, that colt is more than three fourths thoroughbred--he has a
strain of blood in him that goes straight back to Diomed. Now, that
three fourths thoroughbred can beat any thoroughbred in Skelton’s
stable; and Skelton himself said so in effect the night of that
confounded dinner, and I’m going to have that horse. I shall have him
with this money that you have enabled me to raise, and which I regard
as a gift from you.”
Blair kissed her again--he certainly knew how to express his thanks.
Elizabeth had heard the story about Alabaster and Diomed before.
“But I thought you said Mr. Shapleigh wouldn’t sell him?”
“He _shall_ sell him, by George!” cried Blair violently, and bringing
his fist down on the mantel. “Elizabeth, you can’t imagine how the
desire to own that horse has taken possession of me. You make yourself
jealous about a lot of pink-faced girls that I never looked at twice,
and, if you only knew it, your real rival is Alabaster. I swear I am
in love with that horse! I dream about him at night. I never saw such
quarters in my life--so strong, so sinewy, yet so light! And in the
daytime, as I ride by the pasture and see him roaming around, not half
attended to, it maddens me that such a creature should not be more
appreciated. If I had him I could pay off all the mortgages on this
place. I could send Hilary to school, and have a governess for Mary.
I could give you a new carriage, and, better than all, I could beat
Skelton at his own game.”
He spoke with a strange fierceness, he so debonair and full of
careless good humor. Elizabeth looked at him in amazement. In all their
fifteen years of married life she had never seen this trait in him.
He was so intense, so wrought up over the horse, that she was glad it
was only a horse that excited him. Suppose it had been one of those
pink-faced girls that Blair spoke of so contemptuously, but who liked
his dashing manners and captivating ways only too well, Mrs. Blair
thought.
“But suppose, for an instant, Mr. Shapleigh won’t sell him,” persisted
Elizabeth.
“But he _shall_ sell him!” shouted Blair for the second time. “What
does he want with him--to drive him to old lady Shapleigh’s chaise?
I assure you he talks about Sylvia’s wanting to keep the horse as a
riding horse. It made me grind my teeth. It would be cruel--yes, cruel,
Elizabeth, if I didn’t own that horse!”
Elizabeth was startled; she said nothing more about Alabaster, and
Blair went off with his hands in his pockets toward Belfield, and in
a little while she saw him leaning on the fence that divided the two
places, as the lands came together at the river, eying the black horse
that browsed about in the pasture in the late October afternoon.
The red-brown pasture-land glowed in the setting sun, and the masses
of gorgeous sumac that bordered the field made great dashes of colour
in the landscape. A worm fence divided the two plantations, and upon
this fence Blair leaned, meditatively watching the horses as they
champed about the field. Elizabeth, who was far-sighted, could see him
perfectly well, his stalwart and somewhat overgrown figure outlined
against the twilight sky. A negro boy came through the field whistling,
and singing, to drive the horses into the stable lot at Belfield. He
shied a stick at Alabaster to make him move on. At that Blair sprang
over the fence, and, seizing the boy, shook him so violently that
Elizabeth was frightened, thinking he might really be harmed by Blair
in his rage.
He came home moodily, and told Elizabeth that he believed he could kill
any creature that hurt an animal as valuable as Alabaster. Elizabeth
believed him, after what she had just seen.
Next morning Blair went over to bargain for the horse. Old Tom was
disinclined to sell, and as he talked Blair grew paler and paler. At
last old Tom declared that Sylvia might decide. He had told her the
horse was hers. He didn’t care for the money particularly, although the
horse was certainly worth a good price, and was very speedy, but if
Sylvia chose to part with him it was all right.
Sylvia, on getting a message from her father, tripped down to the
stable lot, where the two men were talking. The morning was warm and
bright, even for the bright October season, and Sylvia wore a white
dress and a large black hat. She had a wild-rose bloom in her cheek,
and was altogether uncommonly pretty that morning. Blair was usually
very observant and appreciative of women’s looks, but no woman that
lived could have taken his attention off from Alabaster at that moment.
Old Tom stated the case, and then walked away, laughing.
“You and Sylvia settle it between you,” he cried. “If she chooses to
sell him I’ll take what you offered me. If not, she wouldn’t let me
sell him for the whole of Newington plantation.”
“I wouldn’t either, if he were my property,” answered Blair, with a
smile upon his handsome ruddy face that had, however, quite a strange
look upon it.
“Now, Miss Sylvia, can’t you let me have him?” he asked, as soon as old
Tom was out of the way.
Sylvia did not at all take in Blair’s intense desire to own the horse.
“Why, Mr. Blair,” she said pettishly, “_I_ want the horse. He is a
splendid riding horse, and I have looked forward to having him for such
a long time.”
Blair threw up his hands in a kind of despair. What creatures women
were! Could they ever be made to understand the great affairs of life?
Sylvia, who was quick of apprehension, caught in a moment the look
which revealed an unsuspected turn in Blair’s character. His expression
was desperate.
“But--but--do you _want_ him very much?” suddenly asked Sylvia.
“Want him!” cried Blair. “Great God!”
Sylvia looked at him in dumb amazement. Blair’s features were
working--he seemed to be asking for something as dear to him as his own
children.
“I don’t think you know how much I want this horse,” he said, with
furious entreaty in his voice and his eyes. “This horse is worth
everything to me, and without him life itself is worth nothing to
me, because I am undoubtedly ruined unless I can get a horse to beat
Skelton’s Jaybird. Alabaster can do it. I don’t know of any other horse
that can. It is not only that I may recoup what I have lost--for I tell
you I’d risk my own soul almost on Alabaster’s coming under the wire
first with Jaybird--but there is feud between Skelton and me, feud such
as you never dreamed of. I hate him, and he hates me.”
Sylvia hesitated for a moment. Blair hung upon her words. She was
serious enough now. Her lips moved once or twice as she patted the
grass with her foot. Of course, it was all over, that childish romance
about Skelton. She was now a young woman nearly out of her twenties,
and he was nearing his fortieth birthday; and, besides, she had nothing
to do with any rivalry on the turf between him and Mr. Blair, nor did
she believe that Alabaster was as certain to carry everything before
him as Blair thought. But--but--she recoiled from being the means of a
possible defeat to Skelton. She knew well enough that there was great
feeling on both sides in these matters between Blair and Skelton, and
she knew Skelton to be unforgiving to the last degree. She raised her
clear grey eyes to Blair’s face, but the expression on it made her
turn a little pale. It was not only fiercely entreating, but it had
a menace in it. Blair, indeed, felt a savage impulse to seize this
slight creature and actually force her to let him have the horse. But
the pity that dwells in every woman’s heart now rose in Sylvia’s. She
felt so sorry for him--he had told her he would be ruined if he did not
get Alabaster; so, after a few moments, painful on both sides, Sylvia
suddenly held out her hand, and said:
“Yes, you may have him.”
Blair seized her hands and kissed them. His face changed to something
like what it usually was. Sylvia’s eyes were full of tears; she
realised that he was really ruined then, although Blair spoke of
Alabaster as destined to prevent it. Blair was so eager, that he had
to take the horse home with him. Sylvia walked slowly back to the
house through the old-fashioned garden, while Blair, in triumph, rode
home, leading his treasure. He made Hilary go with the horse to the
stable, while he went in the house. He felt the need of rest--he, this
great, strong country squire felt a nervous reaction after the singular
excitement of the morning.
“Elizabeth,” he said to his wife, “you accused me of looking at Sylvia
Shapleigh too often. Let me tell you something. I never felt an impulse
of violence towards a woman in my life until this morning. But when I
saw her standing before me so unconcerned and smiling, and making up
her mind so deliberately about the horse, I declare to you, I longed
to--to seize her and throttle her until she came to her senses and
agreed to let me have the horse. There is destiny in this. I wouldn’t
so have longed for the creature if there were not something quite out
of the usual run of events connected with him.”
Elizabeth looked at her husband and said nothing. How unintelligible is
human nature, after all! Here, this man, to whom she had been married
fifteen years, suddenly developed an intensity, a savagery, that she
had no more suspected than she suspected a whirlpool in the placid
river that began its course up in the green marshes and made its broad
and shallow way to the sea. And it came to her again and again, Suppose
it had been not a horse, but a human being that had aroused this
vehement desire of possession? It was enough to make her turn pale.
“And,” continued Blair, with a smile that had something ferocious in
it, “I shall beat Skelton again through a woman. Imagine, he might fall
in love with Sylvia Shapleigh, and then find that she had furnished me
with the means to be revenged on him! Perhaps Sylvia is in love with
him, and that’s why she didn’t want to let me have the horse.”
“But he can’t marry, you know, without giving up his wife’s fortune,
and that he would be most unlikely to do,” said Elizabeth; and she
adroitly got Blair off the subject of Skelton, and Skelton’s plans and
his horses, and horses in general, and Alabaster in particular, on to
some less exciting topic.