PERCIVAL'S HOLIDAY.
"Hey for the South, the sunny South!" said Percival Heron, striding into
his friend Vivian's room with a lighted cigar between his teeth and a
letter in his hand. "I'm off to Italy to-morrow."
"I wish to Heaven that I were off, too!" returned Rupert, leaning back
in a lounging-chair with a look of lazy discontent. "The fogs last all
the year round in London. This is May; I don't know why I am in town at
all."
"Nor I," said his friend, briskly. "Especially when you have the cash to
take you out of town as often as you like, and whenever you like, while
I have to wait on the tender mercies of publishers and editors before I
can put fifty pounds in my pocket and go for a holiday."
"You're in luck just now, then, I am to understand?"
"Very much so. Look at that, my boy." And he flourished a piece of thin
paper in Vivian's face. "A cheque for a hundred. I am going to squander
it on railway lines as soon as possible."
"You are going to join your family?"
"Yes, I am going to join my family. What a sweetly domestic sound! I
don't care a rap for my family. I am going to see the woman I love best
in the world, and, if she were not in Italy, I doubt whether wild horses
would ever draw me from this vast, tumultuous, smoky, beloved city of
mine--Alma Mater, indeed, to me, and to scores of men who are your
brothers and mine----"
"Now, look here, Percival," said Rupert, in a slightly wearied tone, "if
you are going to rant and rave, I'll go out. My room is quite at your
disposal, but I am not. I've got a headache. Why don't you go to a
theatre or a music hall, and work off your superfluous energy there by
clapping and shouting applause?"
Percival laughed, but seated himself and spoke in a gentler tone.
"I'll remember your susceptibilities, my friend. Let me stay and smoke,
that's all. Throw a book at my head if I grow too noisy. Or hand me that
'Review' at your elbow. I'll read it and hold my tongue."
He was as good as his word. He read so long and so quietly that Vivian
turned his head at last and addressed him of his own accord.
"What makes your people stay so long abroad?" he said. "Are they going
to stop there all the summer? I never heard that a summer in Italy was a
desirable thing."
"It's Elizabeth's doing," answered Percival, coolly. "She and my father
between them got up an Italian craze; and off they went as soon as ever
she came into that property, dragging the family behind them, all laden
with books on Italian art, and quoting Augustus Hare, Symonds, and
Ruskin indiscriminately. I don't suppose Kitty will have a brain left to
stand on when she comes back again--if ever she does come back."
"What do you mean?" said Rupert, with a sudden deep change of voice.
"I mean--nothing. I mean, if she does not marry an Italian count or an
English adventurer, or catch malaria and die in a swamp."
"Good Heavens, Percival! how can you talk so coolly? One would think
that it was a joke!"
Vivian had risen from his chair, and was standing erect, with a decided
frown upon his brow. Percival glanced at him, and answered lightly.
"Don't make such a pother about nothing. She's all right. They're in a
very healthy place; a little seaside village, where it has been quite
cool, they say, so far. And they will return before long, because they
mean to spend the autumn in Scotland. Yes, they say it is 'quite cool'
at present. Don't see how it can be cool myself; but that's their look
out. They've all been very well, and there's no immediate prospect of
the marriage of either of the girls with an Italian or an English
adventurer; not even of Miss Murray with your humble servant."
Rupert threw himself back into his chair again as if relieved, and a
half-smile crossed his countenance.
"How is Miss Murray?" he asked, rather maliciously.
"Very well, as far as I know," said Percival, turning over a page and
smoothing out the "Review" upon his knee. He read on for two or three
minutes more, then suddenly tossed the book from him, gave it a
contemptuous kick, and discovered that his cigar had gone out. He got
up, walked to the mantelpiece, found a match, and lighted it, and then
said, deliberately--
"They've done a devilish imprudent thing out there."
"What?"
"Hired a fellow as tutor to the boys without references or
recommendations, solely because he was good-looking, as far as I can
make out."
"Who told you?"
"My father."
"Did he do it?"
"He and Elizabeth between them. Kitty sings his praises in every letter.
He teaches the girls Italian."
Rupert said nothing.
"So I am going to Italy chiefly to see what the fellow is like. I can't
make out whether he is young or old. Kitty calls him divinely handsome;
and my father speaks of his grey hairs."
"And Miss Murray?"
"Miss Murray," said Percival, rather slowly, "doesn't speak of him at
all." Then, he added, in quicker tones--"Doubtless he isn't worth her
notice. Elizabeth can be a very grand lady when she likes. Upon my word,
Vivian, there are times when I wonder that she ever deigned to bestow a
word or look even upon me!"
"You are modest," said Rupert, drily.
"Modesty's my foible; it always was. So, Hey for the sunny South, as I
said before.
'O, swallow, swallow, flying, flying South,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.'
Any message for the swallow, sir?" touching an imaginary cap. "Shall I
say that 'Dark and true and tender is the North,' and 'Fierce and false
and fickle is the South,' or any similar statement?"
"I have no message," said Rupert.
"So be it. Do you know anything of young Luttrell--Hugo
Luttrell--by-the-bye?"
"Very little. My sister is interested in him."
"He is going to the bad at an uncommonly swift pace--that is all."
"Old Mrs. Luttrell talks of making him her heir," said Vivian. "She
asked him down last winter but he wouldn't go."
"I don't wonder at it. She must be a very tough old lady if she thinks
that he could shoot there with much pleasure after his cousin's
accident."
"I don't suppose that Mrs. Luttrell asked him with any such notion,"
returned Rupert. "She merely wanted him to spend a few days with her at
Netherglen."
"Has she much to leave? I thought the estates were entailed," said
Percival.
"She has a rather large private fortune. I expected to find that you
knew all about it," said Rupert, with a smile.
"It's the last thing that I should concern myself about," said Percival,
superbly. And Vivian was almost sorry that he had made the remark, for
it overset all the remains of his friend's good temper, and brought into
ugly prominence the upright, black mark upon his forehead caused by his
too frequent frown.
Matters were not mended when Rupert asked, by way of changing the
conversation, whether Percival's marriage were to take place on Miss
Murray's return to England.
"Marriage? No! What are you thinking of?" said he, starting up
impatiently. "Don't you know that our engagement--such, as it is--is a
profound secret from the world in general? You are nearly the only
person who knows anything about it outside our own family; and even
there it isn't talked about. Marriage! I only wish there was a chance of
it. But she is in no hurry to give up her liberty; and I can't press
her."
And then he took his departure, with an injured feeling that Rupert had
not been very sympathetic.
"I've a good mind to offer to go with him," said Mr. Vivian to himself
when his friend was gone. "I should like to see them all again; I should
like to enjoy the Italian sunshine and the fresh, sweet air with Kitty,
and hear her innocent little comments on the remains of mediaeval art
that her father is sure to be raving about. But it is better not. I
might forget myself some day. I might say what could not be unsaid. And
then, poor, little Kitty, it would be hard both for you and for me. No,
I won't go. Stay in Italy and get married, Kitty: that is the best thing
for us both. You will have forgotten your old friend by the time you
come back to London; and I shall drag on at the old round, with the same
weary, clanking chain at my heels which nobody suspects. Good God!"
cried Rupert, with a sudden burst of passion which would have startled
the friends who had seen in him nothing but the perfectly
self-possessed, cold-natured, well-mannered man of the world, "what a
fool a man can make of himself in his youth, and repent it all his life
afterwards in sackcloth and ashes--yet repent it in vain--in vain!"
Percival Heron did not choose to announce his coming to his friends. He
travelled furiously, as it was his fashion to travel when he went
abroad, and arrived at the little village, on the outskirts of which
stood the Villa Venturi, so late in the evening that he preferred to
take a bed at the inn, and sup there, rather than disturb his own people
until morning. He enjoyed the night at the inn. It was a place much
frequented by fishermen, who came to fill their bottles before going out
at night, or to talk over the events of the previous day's fishing.
There was a garden behind the house--a garden full of orange and I lemon
trees--from which sweet breaths of fragrance were wafted to the nostrils
of the guests as they sat within the little hostelry. Percival could
speak Italian well, and understood the _patois_ of the fishermen. He had
a wonderful gift for languages; and it pleased him to sit up half the
night, drinking the rough wine of the country, smoking innumerable
cigarettes, and laughing heartily at the stories of the fisher-folk,
until the simple-minded Italians were filled with admiration and
astonishment at this _Inglese_ who was so much more like one of
themselves than any of the _Inglesi_ that they had ever met.
Owing to these late hours and the amount of talking, perhaps, that he
had got through, Percival slept late next morning, and it was not until
eleven o'clock that he started, regardless of the heat, for the Villa
Venturi. He had not very far to go, and it was with a light heart that
he strode along holding a great, white umbrella above his head, glancing
keenly at the view of sea and land which made the glory of the place,
turning up his nose fastidiously at the smells of the village, and
wondering in his heart what induced his relations to stay so long out of
London. He rang the bell at the gateway with great decision, and told
the servant to inform Mr. Heron that "an English gentleman" wished to
speak to him. He was ushered into a little ante-room, requested to wait
there until Mr. Heron was found, and left alone.
But he was not content to wait very patiently. He was sure that he heard
voices in the next room. Being quite without the scruples which had made
Stretton, not long before, refuse to push open a door one single inch in
order to see what was not meant to meet his eyes, he calmly advanced to
an archway screened by long and heavy curtains, parted them with his
fingers, and looked in.
It was an innocent scene, and a pretty scene enough, on which his eyes
rested, and yet it was one that gave Percival little pleasure. The room
was not very light, and such sunshine as entered it fell through the
coloured panes of a stained-glass window high in the wall. At an old oak
table, black and polished with age, sat two persons--a master and a
pupil. They had one book between them, and the pupil was reading from
it. Papers, dictionaries, and copybooks strewed the table; it was
evident that other pupils had been there before, but that they had
abandoned the scene. Percival set his teeth, and the brightness went out
of his eyes. If only the pupil had not been Elizabeth!
It was not that she showed any other feeling than that of interest in
the book that she was reading. Her eyes were fixed upon the printed
page; her lips opened only to pronounce slowly and carefully the
unfamiliar syllables before her. The tutor was quiet, grave, reserved;
but Percival noticed, quickly and jealously, that he once or twice
raised his eyes as if to observe the expression of Elizabeth's fair
face; and, free from all offence as that glance certainly was, it made a
wild and unreasoning fury rise up in the lover's heart. He looked, he
heard an interchange of quiet question and answer, he saw a smile on her
face, a curiously wistful look on his; then came a scraping sound, as
the chairs were pushed back over the marble floor, and master and pupil
rose. The lesson was over. Percival dropped the curtain.
He was so pale when Elizabeth came to him in the little ante-room that
she was startled.
"Are you not well, Percival?" she asked, as she laid her hand in his.
She did not allow him to kiss her; she did not allow him to announce her
engagement; and, as he stood looking down into her eyes, he felt that
the present state of things was very unsatisfactory.
"I shall be better if you administer the cure," he said. "Give me a
kiss, Elizabeth; just one. Remember that I have not seen you for nearly
eight months."
"I thought we made a compact," she began, trying to withdraw her hand
from his; but he interrupted her.
"That I should not kiss you--often; not that I should never kiss you at
all, Elizabeth. And as I have come all the way from England, and have
not seen you for so long, you might as well show me whether you are glad
or not."
"I am very glad to see you," said Elizabeth, quietly.
"Are you? Then kiss me, my darling,--only once!"
He put one arm round her. His face was very near her own, and his breath
came thick and fast, but he waited for her permission still. In his own
heart he made this kiss the crucial test of her faithfulness to him. But
Elizabeth drew herself away. It seemed as though she found his eagerness
distasteful.
"Then you don't care for me? You find that you don't love me!" said
Percival, almost too sharply for a lover. "I may go back to England as
soon as I like? I came only to see you. Tell me that my journey has been
a useless one, and I'll go."
She smiled as she looked at him. "You have not forgotten how to be
tyrannical," she said. "I hardly knew you when I first came in, because
you looked so quiet and gentle. Don't be foolish, Percival."
"Oh, of course, it is folly for a man to love you," groaned Percival,
releasing her hands and taking a step or two away from her. "You have
mercy on every kind of folly but that. Well, I'll go back."
"No, you will not," said Elizabeth, calmly. "You will stay here and
enjoy yourself, and go for a sail in the boat with us this evening, and
eat oranges fresh from the trees, and play with the children. We are all
going to take holiday whilst you are here, and you must not disappoint
us."
"Then you must kiss me once, Elizabeth." But Percival's face was
melting, and his voice had a half-laughing tone. "I must be bribed to do
nothing."
"Very well, you shall be bribed," she answered, but with a rather
heightened colour upon her cheek. And then she lifted up her face; but,
as Percival perceived with a vague feeling of irritation, she merely
suffered him to kiss her, and did not kiss him in return.
His next proceeding was to put his father through a searching catechism
upon the antecedents and abilities of the tutor, Mr. John Stretton, who
was by this time almost domiciled at the Villa Venturi. Mr. Heron's
replies to his son's questions were so confused, and finished so
invariably by a reference to Elizabeth, that Percival at last determined
to see what he could extract from her. He waited for a day or two before
opening the subject. He waited and watched. He certainly discovered
nothing to justify the almost insane dislike and jealousy which he
entertained with respect to Mr. Stretton; when he reasoned with himself
he knew that he was prejudiced and unreasonable; but then he had a habit
of considering that his prejudices should be attended to. He examined
the children, hoping to find that the new tutor's scholarship might give
him a loophole for criticism; but he could find nothing to blame. In
fact, he was driven reluctantly to admit that the tutor's knowledge was
far wider and deeper than his own, although Percival was really no mean
classical scholar, and valued himself upon a thorough acquaintance with
modern literature of every kind. He was foiled there, and was therefore
driven back upon the subject of the tutor's antecedents.
"Who is this man Stretton, Elizabeth?" he asked one day. "My father says
you know all about him."
"I?" said Elizabeth, opening her eyes. "I know nothing more than Uncle
Alfred does."
"Indeed. Then you engaged him with remarkably little prudence, as it
appears to me."
"Prudence is not quite the highest virtue in the world."
"Now, my dear Queen Bess, as Jack calls you, don't be didactic. Where
did you pick up this starveling tutor? Was he fainting by the roadside?"
"Mr. Stretton teaches very well, and is much liked by the boys,
Percival. You heard Aunt Isabel tell the story of his first meeting with
Uncle Alfred."
"Ah, yes; the rescue of the umbrella. Well, what else? Of course, he got
somebody to introduce him in proper form after that?"
"No," said Elizabeth.
"No! Then you had friends in common? You knew his family?"
"No."
"Then how, in Heaven's name, Elizabeth, did he make good his footing
here?"
There was a silence. The two were sitting upon the low bench on the
cliff. It was evening, and the sun was sinking to rest over the golden
waters; the air was silent and serene, Percival had been smoking, but he
flung his cigar away, and looked full into Elizabeth's face as he asked
the question.
She spoke at last, tranquilly as ever.
"He was poor, Percival, and we wanted to help him. You and I are not
likely to think the worse of a man for being poor, are we? He had been
ill; he seemed to be in trouble, and we were sorry for him; and I do not
think that my uncle made a mistake in taking him."
"And I," said Percival, with an edge in his voice, "think that he made a
very great mistake."
"Why?"
"Why?" he repeated, with a short, savage laugh. "I shall not tell you
why."
"Do you know anything against Mr. Stretton?"
"Yes."
"What, Percival?" Her tone was indignant; the colour was flaming in her
cheeks.
"I know that Stretton is not his name. My father told me so." There was
a pause, and then Percival went on, in a low voice, but with a gathering
intensity which made it more impressive than his louder tones. "I'll
tell you what I should do if I were my father. I should say to this
fellow--'Now, you may be in trouble through no fault of your own, but
that is no matter to me. If you cannot bear your own name, you have no
business to live in an honest man's house under false pretences; you
may, therefore, either tell me your whole story, and let me judge
whether it is a disgraceful one or not, or you may go--the quicker the
better.' That's what I should say to Mr. Stretton; and the sooner it is
said to him the more I shall be pleased."
"Fortunately," said Elizabeth, "the decision does not rest in your
hands." She rose, and drew herself to her full height; her cheeks were
crimson, her eyes gleamed with indignation. "Mr. Stretton is a
gentleman; as long as he is in my employment--mine, if you please; not
yours, nor your father's, after all--he shall be treated as one. You
could not have shown yourself more ungenerous, more poor-spirited,
Percival, than by what you have said to-day."
And then she walked with a firm, resolute step and head erect, towards
the house. Percival did not attempt to follow her. He watched her until
she was out of sight, then he re-seated himself, and sank into deep
meditation. It was night before he roused himself, and struck a blow
with his hand upon the arm of the seat, which sent the rotten woodwork
flying, as he gave utterance to his conclusion.
"I was right after all. My father will live to own it some day. He has
made a devil of a mistake."
Then he rose and took the path to the house. Before he entered it,
however, he looked vengefully in the direction in which the twinkling
lights of the little village inn could be seen.
"If you have a secret," he said, slowly and resolutely, from between his
clenched teeth, "I'll find it out. If you have a disgraceful story in
your life, I'll unmask it. If you have another name you want to hide,
I'll publish it to the world. So help me, God! Because you have come, or
you are coming, between me and the woman that I love. And if I ever get
a chance to do you a bad turn, Mr. John Stretton, I'll do it."