THE SHADOW OF THE STORM.
Dolly met me the next morning, looking shy and half-frightened as a
child caught fruit-picking. She gave me her hand with no show of
heartiness, and withdrew it at once as if its fingers were the
delicate antennae of her innocent soul and I her natural enemy.
“Where shall we go, Renny?” she asked, glancing timidly up at me.
“To Epping again, Dolly, dear. I’ve set my heart on it.”
She seemed at first as if about to ask me why; then to shrink from a
subject she dreaded appearing to have a leading interest in.
“Very well,” she answered, faintly. “It will be lovely there now.”
“Won’t you help a poor woman to a crust of bread, kind lidy?” said a
voluble whining voice at our ears, and a sturdy mendicant thrust her
hand between us. She was a very frouzy and forbidding-looking
mendicant, indeed, with battered bonnet askew and villainous small
eyes, and her neighborhood was redolent of gin.
“Spare a copper, kind lidy and gentleman,” she entreated, with a
bibulous smirk, “and call down the blessings of ’eving on a widowed
’art as ’an’t tysted bit or sup since yesterday come to-morrer, and
five blessed children wantin’ a ’ome, which it’s the rent overdue and
these ’ands wore to knife powder scrapin’ in the gutters for scraps
which one crust of bread would ease. Kind lidy, oh, just a copper.”
Dolly was for putting a charitable hand into her pocket as the
creature followed us, but I peremptorily stopped her and would not
have her imposed upon.
“Kind lidy,” continued the woman, “I’ve walked the streets all night
since yesterday morning and the soles off my feet, kind lidy; won’t
you spare a copper? And I dursn’t go ’ome for fear of my man, and I
buried the youngest a week come yesterday, and praise ’eving I’m a
lonely widder, without child or ’usband, kind lidy; just a copper for
the funeral--and rot the faces off of you for a couple of bloomin’
marks in your silks and satings and may you die of the black thirst
with the ale foamin’ in barrils out of reach. You a lidy? Oh, yes,
sich as cocks her nose at a honest woman starvin’ in her rags, and so
will you some day, for all your pink cheeks, when you’ve been thrown
over like this here bloomin’ bonnet!”
She screamed after us and caught the moldy relic from her head and
slapped it upon the pavement in a drunken frenzy, and she reviled us
in worse language than I can venture to record. Poor Dolly was
frightened and urged me tremblingly to hurry on out of reach of that
strident, cursing voice. I was so angry that I would have liked to
give the foul-mouthed harridan into custody, but the nervous tremors
of my companion urged me to the wiser course of leaving bad alone, and
we were soon out of earshot of the degraded creature.
“Renny,” whispered the girl in half-terrified tones, “did you hear
what she said?”
“What does it matter what she said, Dolly?”
“She cursed me. God wouldn’t allow a curse from a woman like that to
mean anything, would He?”
“My dear, you must cure yourself of those fancies. God, you may be
sure, wouldn’t use such a discordant instrument for His divine
thunders. The market value of her curse, you see, she put at a
copper.”
She looked up at me with her lips quivering a little. She was
evidently upset, and it was some time before I could win her back to
her own pretty self.
“I wish the day hadn’t begun like this,” she said in a low voice.
“It shall come in like the lion of March, Dolly, and go out like a
lamb--at least, I hope so.”
“So do I,” she whispered, but with the fright still in her eyes.
“Why, Dolly,” I said, “I could almost think you superstitious--and you
a Ripley hand!”
She laughed faintly.
“I never knew I was, Renny. But everything seemed bright and peaceful
till her horrible voice ground it with dust. I wonder why she said
that?”
“Said what, Dolly?”
“That about being thrown over.”
“Now, Doll, I’ll have no more of it. Leave her to her gin palace and
set your pretty face to the forest. One, two, three and off we go.”
We caught our train by the tail, as one may say, and took our seats
out of breath and merry. The run had brought the bloom to my
companion’s face once more and the breeze had ruffled and swept her
shining hair rebellious. She seemed a very sweet little possession for
a dusty Londoner to enjoy--a charming garden of blossom for the
fancies to rove over.
Ah, me; how can I proceed; how write down what follows? The fruit was
to fall and never for me. The blossoms of the garden were to be
scattered underfoot and trodden upon and their sweet perfume
embittered in death.
As we walked down the platform a voice hailing me made the blood jump
in my heart.
“Renny--Renny! What brings you here? Why, what a coincidence! Well
met, old fellow! And I say, won’t you introduce me?”
“Miss Mellison--this is my brother.” I almost added a curse under my
breath.
I was striving hard for self-command, but my voice would only issue
harsh and mechanical. He had overreached me--had watched, of course,
and followed secretly in pursuit.
“How delighted I am to meet you,” he said. “Here was I--only lately
come to London, Miss Mellison--sick for country air again and looking
to nothing better than a lonely tramp through the forest and fate
throws a whole armful of roses at me. Are you going there, too? Do let
me come with you.”
Dolly looked timidly up at me. We had left the station and were
standing on the road outside.
“Oh, Miss Mellison’s shy in company,” I said. “Let’s each go our way
and we can meet at the station this evening.”
“I’m sure you won’t echo that,” said Jason, looking smilingly at the
girl. “I see heaven before me and he wants to shut me out. There’s an
unnatural brother for you.”
“It seems unkind, don’t it, Renny? We hadn’t thought to give you the
slip, Mr. Trender. Why, really, till now I didn’t even know of your
existence.”
“That’s Renalt’s way, of course. He always wanted to keep the good
things to himself. But I’ve been in London quite a long time now, Miss
Mellison, and he hasn’t even mentioned me to you.”
Dolly gave me a glance half-perplexed, half-reproachful.
“Why didn’t you, Renny?”
I struggled to beat down the answer that was on my lips: “Because I
thought him no fit company for you.”
“I didn’t see why I should,” I said, coolly. “I’m not bound to make my
friends his.”
“How rude you are--and your own brother! Don’t mind him, Mr. Trender.
He can be very unpleasant when he chooses.”
She smiled at him and my heart sunk. Was it possible that his
eyes--his low musical voice--could he be taking her captive already?
“Come,” I said, roughly. “We’re losing the morning chattering here,
Dolly. You’re not wanted, Jason. That’s the blunt truth.”
Dolly gave a little, pained cry of deprecation.
“Don’t, Renny! It’s horrible of you.”
“I can’t help it,” I said, savagely. “He’s as obtuse as a tortoise. He
ought to see he’s in the way.”
“You give me credit for too delicate a discrimination, my good
brother. But I’ll go if I’m not wanted.”
“No, you sha’n’t, Mr. Trender. I won’t be a party to such behavior.”
I turned upon the girl with a white face, I could feel.
“Dolly,” I said, hoarsely. “If he goes with you, I don’t!”
Her face flushed with anger for the first time in my knowledge of her.
“You can do just as you like, Renny, and spoil my day if you want to.
But I haven’t given you the right to order me about as if I was a
child.”
Without another word I turned upon my heel and left them. I was
furious with a conflicting rage of emotions--detestation of my
brother, anger toward Dolly, baffled vanity and mad disappointment. In
a moment the sunshine of the day had been tortured into gloom. The
sting of that was the stab I felt most keenly in the first tumult of
my passion. That this soft caprice of sex I had condescended to so
masterfully in my thoughts should turn upon and defy me! I had not
deemed such a thing possible. Had she only played with me after all,
coquetting and humoring and rending after the manner of her kind? Were
it so, she should hear of the mere pity that had driven me to
patronizing consideration of her claims; should learn of my essential
indifference to her in a very effectual manner.
I am ashamed to recall the first violence with which, in my mind, I
tortured that poor gentle image. As my rage cooled, it wrought, I must
confess, an opposite revenge. Then Dolly became in my eyes a treasure
more desirable than ever, now my chance of gaining her seemed shaken.
I thought of all her tender moods and pretty ways, so that my eyes
filled with tears. I had behaved rudely, had shocked her gentle sense
of decorum. And here, by reason of an exaggerated spleen, had I thrown
her alone into the company of the very man whose influence over her I
most dreaded.
And what would Duke say--Duke, who in noble abrogation of his own
claims had so pathetically committed to my care this child of his deep
unselfish love?
I had been walking rapidly in the opposite direction to that I fancied
the other two would take; and now I stopped and faced about, scared
with a sudden shock of remorse.
What a fool, a coward, a traitor to my trust I had been! I must
retrace my steps at once and seek them up and down the forest alleys.
I started off in panic haste, sweating with the terror of what I had
done. I plunged presently into the woods, and for a couple of hours
hurried hither and thither without meeting them.
By and by, breaking into the open again, I came upon an inn, favored
of tourists, that stood back from a road. I was parched and exhausted,
and thought a glass of beer would revive me to a fresh start. Walking
into the tap I passed by the open door of the coffee-room, and there
inside were they seated at a table together, and a waiter was
uncorking a bottle of champagne behind them.
Why didn’t I go in then and there? I had found my quarry and the game
might yet be mine. Ask the stricken lover who will pursue his lady
hotly through anxious hours and then, when he sees her at last, will
saunter carelessly by as if his heart were cold to her attractions.
Some such motive, in a form infinitely baser, was mine. I may call it
pride, and hear the wheel creak out a sardonic laugh.
“They seem happy enough without me,” my heart said, but my conscience
knew the selfishness that must nurse an injury above any sore need of
the injurer.
Their voices came to me happy and merry. They had not seen me. I drank
my beer and stole outside miserably temporizing with my duty.
“She sha’n’t escape again,” I thought; “I’ll go a little distance off
and watch.”
I waited long, but they never came. At length, stung to desperation, I
strode back to the inn and straight into the coffee-room. It was
empty. Seeing a waiter, I asked him if the lady and gentleman who had
lunched at such a table had left.
“Yes,” he said. He believed the lady and gentleman had gone into the
forest by the garden way.
Then I was baffled again. Surely the curse of the virago of the
morning was operating after all.
Evening drew on, and at last there was no help for it but to make for
the station and catch our usual train back to town.
They were standing on the platform when I reached it. I walked
straight up to them. Dolly flushed crimson when she saw me and then
went pale as a windflower, but she never spoke a word.
“Hullo!” said Jason. “The wanderer returned. We’ve had a rare day of
it; and you have, too, no doubt.”
I spoke steadily, with a set determination to prove master of myself.
“I’ve been looking for you all day. Dolly, I’m sorry I left you in a
temper. Please forgive me, dear.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, indifferently and weariedly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does matter to me, Dolly, very much, to keep your good
opinion.”
She turned and looked at me with a strange expression, as if she were
on the point of bursting into tears, but she only ended with a little
formless laugh and looked away again.
“I don’t think you can value my good opinion much, and I’m sure I
don’t know why you should.”
The train lunging in at this point stopped our further talk; and, once
seated in it, the girl lay back in her corner with closed eyes as if
asleep.
Jason sat silent, with folded arms, the lamplight below the shadow
cast by his hat brim emphasizing the smile on his firmly curved lips;
and I, for my part, sat silent also, for my heart seemed sick unto
death.
At the terminus Dolly would have no further escort home. She was tired
out, she said, and begged only we would see her into an omnibus and go
our ways without her.
As the vehicle lumbered off I turned fiercely upon my brother.