"You coward!"
The word cut crisply and sharp through the clear frosty air, lashing and
keen as the wind that stirred the crystal-spangled pines, and the
musical ring of skate-blades upon the ice-bound surface of the mere.
She who uttered it stood, her flower-like face and deep blue eyes all
a-quiver with contemptuous disgust. He to whom it was addressed,
started, blenched ever so slightly, his countenance immediately resuming
its mask of bronze impassibility. Those who heard it echoed it,
secretly or in deep and angry mutter, the while proceeding with their
task--to wit, the restoring of animation to a very nearly drowned human
being, rescued, at infinite risk, from the treacherous spring hole which
had let him through the surface of the ice.
"Say it again," was the answer. "It is such a kind and pleasant thing
to hear, coming from you. So just, too. Do say it again."
"I will say it again," went on the first speaker; and, exasperated by
the bitter sneering tone of the other, her voice rang out high and
clear, "You coward!"
Piers Lamont's dark face took on a change, but it expressed a sneer as
certain retrospective pictures rose before his mental gaze. Such
indeed, in his case, drew the sting of about the most stinging epithet
that lips can frame; yet, remembering that the lips then framing it were
those of the girl with whom he was passionately in love, and to whom he
had recently become engaged, it seemed to hurt.
"Say something. Oh, do say something!" she went on, speaking quickly.
"The boy might have been drowned, and very nearly was, while you stood,
with your hands in your pockets, looking on."
"If your people see fit to throw open the mere to the rabble, the rabble
must take care of itself," he answered. "I daresay I can risk my life,
with an adequate motive. That--isn't one."
The words, audible to many of the bystanders, the contemptuous tone, and
nod of the head in the direction of the ever-increasing group on the
bank, deepened the prevailing indignation. Angry murmurs arose, and
some "booing." Perhaps the presence of the Squire's daughter alone
restrained this demonstration from taking a more active form of
hostility; or it may even have been a something in the hard, bronzed
face and firm build of the man who had just been publicly dubbed
"coward."
"For shame!" hotly retorted the girl. "I have no wish to talk to you
any more, or ever again. Please go."
He made no reply. Lifting his hat ceremoniously he turned away. A few
yards' glide brought him to the bank. He sat down, deliberately removed
his skates, lit a cigar, then started upon his way; the no-longer
restrained jeers which followed him falling upon his ears with no other
effect than to cause him to congratulate himself upon having given
others the opportunity of performing the feat from which he had
refrained.
The subject of all this disturbance was showing signs of restoration to
life and consciousness. Seen in the midst of the gaping--and for the
most part useless--crowd which hemmed him in, he was an urchin of about
thirteen or fourteen, with a debased type of countenance wherein the
characteristics of the worst phase of guttersnipe--low cunning,
predatoriness, boundless impudence, and aggressive brutality--showed
more than incipient. Such a countenance was it, indeed, as to suggest
that the rescue of its owner from a watery death went far to prove the
truth of a certain homely proverb relating to hanging and drowning. And
now, gazing upon it, Violet Courtland was conscious of an unpleasant
truth in those last words spoken by her _fiance_. She was forced to own
to herself that the saving of this life assuredly was not worth the
risking of his. Yet she had implored him to do something towards the
rescue, and he had done nothing. He had replied that there was nothing
to be done; had stood, calmly looking on while others had risked their
lives, he fearing for his. Yes, _fearing_. It looked like that.
And yet--and yet! She knew but little of his past, except what he had
told her. She had taken him on trust. He had led something of an
adventurous life in wild parts of Africa. Two or three times, under
pressure, he had told of an adventurous incident, wherein assuredly he
himself had not played a coward's part. Yet the recollection so far
from clearing him in her estimation produced a contrary effect, and her
lips curled as she decided that he had merely been bragging on these
occasions; that if the events had happened at all they must have
happened to somebody else. For, when all was said and done, he had
shown himself a coward in her sight. Her hastily formed judgment
stood--if anything--stronger than before. And--she was engaged to marry
a coward!
With a sad sinking of heart she left the spot, and, avoiding all escort
or companionship, took her way homeward alone. The short winter
afternoon was waning, and a red afterglow was already fast fading into
the grey of dusk. Against it the chimney stacks of Courtland Hall stood
silhouetted blackly, while farther down, among the leafless and frost
spangled tree-tops, the old church-tower stood square and massive.
It was Christmas Eve, and now the bells in the tower rang out in sudden
and tuneful chime, flinging their merry peal far and wide over leafless
woodland and frozen meadow. They blended, too, with the ring of belated
blades on the ice-bound mere behind, and the sound of voices mellowed by
distance. To this girl, now hurrying along the field path, her little
skates dangling from her wrist, but for the events of the last half-hour
how sweet and hallowed and homelike it would all have been; glorified,
too, by the presence of _one_! Now, anger, disgust, contempt filled her
mind; and her heart was aching and sore with the void of an ideal cast
out.
One was there as she struck into the garden path leading up to the
terrace. He was pacing up and down smoking a cigar.
"Well?" he said, turning suddenly upon her. "Well, and have you had
time to reconsider your very hastily expressed opinion?"
"It was not hastily expressed. It was deliberate," she replied quickly.
"I have no words for a coward. I said that before."
"Yes, you said that before--for the amusement of a mob of grunting
yokels, and an odd social equal or two. And now you repeat it. Very
well. Think what you please. It is utterly immaterial to me now and
henceforward. I will not even say good-bye."
He walked away from her in the other direction, while she passed on. A
half impulse was upon her to linger, to offer him an opportunity of
explanation. Somehow there was that about his personality which seemed
to belie her judgment upon him. But pride, perversity, superficiality
of the deductive faculty, triumphed. She passed on without a word.
The hour was dark for Piers Lamont--dark indeed. He was a hardened man,
and a strong-willed one, but now he needed all his hardness, all his
strength. He had loved this girl passionately and almost at first
sight, secretly and at a distance for some time before accident had
brought about their engagement, now a matter of three months' duration.
And she had returned his love in full, or had seemed to, until this
disastrous afternoon. And now his sense of justice was cruelly
outraged, and that he felt as if he could never forgive. Moreover, his
was one of those natures to which an occurrence of this kind was like
chipping a piece out of a perfect and valuable vase or statue. The
piece may be restored, but, however skilfully such be done, the rift
remains, the object is no longer perfect. It is probable that at that
moment he felt more bitterly towards Violet than she did towards him,
which is saying a great deal. He had been rudely thrown out of his
fool's paradise, and with grim resolution he must accept the position
and live down the loss. But the flower-like face, and the deep blue
eyes which had brimmed up at him with love, and the soft, wavy brown
hair which had pillowed against his breast in restful trust--could he
ever tear the recollection from his mind? Pest take those jangling
Christmas bells though, cleaving the night with their mockery of peace
and good-will!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Here, Violet. What the dickens is the meaning of this?" said her
father, an hour or two later, as he met her going upstairs to dress for
dinner. "Here's Lamont cleared at a moment's notice, without the
civility even to say good-bye. Leaves this,"--holding out an open
letter--"saying he's been called away on urgent business--a qualified
lie you know, because no one does business on Christmas Day, and it's
nearly that now--and won't be able to return; may have to go abroad
immediately; and all the stock balderdash men write under the
circumstances; though how they imagine anybody is going to be such an
idiot as to believe them, I can't make out. Now, _you_ are at the back
of all this. Had a row?"
"Oh, I don't care to talk about it," she said, with a movement as though
to pass on.
"But you must care to talk about it, my dear girl; at any rate for my
satisfaction. You had to consult me, didn't you, in order to bring
about this engagement? and now if you've thrown the man over--and it
looks deucedly as if you had--I've a right to know why. Here--come in
here."
Squire Courtland was by no means of the type usually described as "one
of the old school," except in so far that he was very much master in his
own house. For the rest, he prided himself on being exceedingly
up-to-date--and his estimate of woman was almost savage in its cynicism.
Between himself and Violet there was an utter lack of sympathy;
resulting, now that she was grown up, in an occasional and very
unpleasant passage of arms.
"If I've thrown the man over!" quoted Violet angrily, when they were
alone in her father's own private `den,' "of course you are sure to take
his part."
"I must know what `his part' is before taking it or not. You women
always expect us to hang a man first and try him afterwards; or rather
to hang him on your sweet evidence alone, and not try him at all."
"Oh, father, please don't talk to me in that horrid tone," restraining
with vast effort the paroxysm of sobbing which threatened, and which she
knew would only irritate him. "I am not feeling so extra happy, I can
tell you."
"Well, get it over then. What has Lamont done?"
"I can't marry a coward."
"Eh? A coward? Lamont? Have you taken leave of your senses, girl?"
"Well, listen. You shall hear," she said crisply. And then she gave
him an account of the whole affair.
"Is that all?" he said when she had done.
"All?"
"Yes. All?"
"Yes, it is. I don't see what more there could be. I urged him to try
and save the boy, and he refused. Refused!"
"And, by the Lord, he was right!" cried the Squire. "The answer he gave
you was absolutely the right one, my child. If it had been yourself
you'd have seen how he'd have gone in, but for a man of Lamont's strong
common-sense to go and throw away his life for a gallows' brat that has
only been fished out of the mere to be hanged later on in due course--
why, I'm glad he's justified the good opinion I had of him."
"Then, father, you think he was justified in refusing to save life under
any circumstances?" said Violet, very white and hard. There was no fear
of her breaking down now. The fact of her father siding so entirely
with her cast-off lover was as a tonic. It hardened and braced her.
"Certainly I do. He gave you the right answer, and on your own showing
you insulted him--taking advantage of being a woman--several times over,
for the fun of a squalid rabble that I am fool enough to allow to come
and disport themselves on my property; but I'll have them all cleared
off tomorrow. Coward, indeed! Lamont a coward! No--no. That won't
do. I know men too well for that."
"Then he was a brute instead," retorted Violet, lashing herself into
additional anger, as a dismal misgiving assailed her that she might have
made a hideous and lifelong error of judgment. "A coldblooded,
calculating brute, and that's just as bad."
"I don't fancy you'll get many to agree with you as to the last, my
dear. Any man would rather be a brute than a coward," said the Squire
sneeringly. "And every man is a brute in the eyes of a woman if he
doesn't lie down flat and let her waltz over him, or fetch and carry,
and cringe like a well-trained water-spaniel. Well, that's neither here
nor there. You've been engaged to a strong, level-headed, sensible
man--one of the most sensible I've ever known--and you've publicly
insulted him and thrown him over for no adequate cause whatever, I
suppose if ever I see him again I shall have to apologise to him for the
way he's been treated."
Violet could hardly contain herself throughout this peroration.
"Apologise to him?" she flashed. "Good Heavens! if the man went down on
his knees to me, after what has happened, I wouldn't look at him."
"Well, you're not likely to get the chance. Lamont is no such imbecile
as to embark on any silliness of that kind. You've had such a chance as
you'll never get again, and you'll live to regret it, mark me."
The girl went from her father's presence in a whirlwind of passion,
but--it was mixed. Inwardly she raged against him for not sympathising
with--not applauding her action. He had thrown another light upon the
matter; hard, cynical, even brutal, but--still another light. And the
sting lay in his last words. She would live to regret it, he had said.
Why, she regretted it already.