RIVALRY.
And he was jealous, tho’ he would not show it,
For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.—BYRON.
For an instant the rivals glared at each other; and then remembering in
whose presence they stood, they lowered their eyes.
Richard Hammond shook hands with his uncle and his Cousin Anna and then
turned towards Alexander, and the kindness of his heart overcoming all
his jealousy for the moment, he frankly held out his hand, saying:
“How do you do, Alick? I hope you are well!”
“Thanks, quite so,” returned Lyon, stiffly.
The general, a frank-hearted old soldier, did not like the reception
that Alick had given Dick. He thought the successful rival, the accepted
lover, the promised husband, might well afford to be more generous; and
so to make up to Richard for the coldness of Alexander, he turned to the
former and clapping him on the shoulder, exclaimed:
“Come, my boy! what are you standing there for? Sit down! sit down! and
make yourself at home. Stay and dine with us. We shall be quite a family
party!”
Dick laughed, thanked his uncle and took the offered seat.
And really soon his presence seemed to be a godsend to the constrained
party. His gay, good-humored manner and conversation soon raised the
spirits and warmed the hearts of all the little group. Even Alexander
had the grace to come out of his sulks, and to say:
“I must congratulate you, Dick, upon your accession to a large fortune.”
“Thank you, Alick. It came in good time, I tell you that. But Lord,
Alick, maybe after all this fortune is only so much more steam clapped
on the engine with which the demon is driving me on the road to ruin!”
said Dick, with his usual outspoken truthfulness.
“I hope not; I hope not,” said Alick.
“And I _believe_ not,” put in the general. “I am very glad to know that
my nephew Dick has given up all his wild companions, who having spent
one fortune for him, would be very glad to spend another.”
“Ran away from them, uncle, ran away from them. I hadn’t courage to give
them up, so I gave them ‘leg bail’ and left them all behind in
Richmond.”
“Right my boy! right! whatever may be said of the heroism of braving
bodily perils, it is much wiser to run away from moral danger than to
face it.”
“Dick cannot bear to give any one pain. And if he had stayed among his
old associates in Richmond, he would have let them ruin him again,
rather than he would have hurt their feelings by cutting their
acquaintance,” explained Anna.
“Exactly. Therefore I say it was wiser to run away, as it will also be
wisest to stay away,” said the general. “But here comes the waiter to
lay the cloth for dinner.”
They all dined together; and afterwards, as there seemed scarcely any
way of eluding the engagement, Alick took Anna to the Opera.
It seemed really discourteous, as Alexander had a whole private box to
himself and Anna, that he would not invite Dick to take a seat in it;
but in fact he could not bring himself to do such violence to his own
feelings of rivalry.
Dick went to the opera, however; and he occupied an orchestra chair in a
much better position for seeing and hearing than was Alexander’s and
Anna’s private box.
And when the curtain fell upon the first act, he came around to the box,
without seeming to think that he was intruding, and gayly and
good-humoredly talked and laughed with his cousins, until the curtain
rose upon the second act. And in the intervals of all the succeeding
acts he came round to their box. Though there were two vacant seats,
Alexander never once invited him to take one of them. Anna always did,
however, and pressed him cordially to sit down. But Dick always gayly
declined, and merely leaning over the back of one of the unoccupied
chairs, talked and laughed until the rising of the curtain warned him to
make his bow and retreat.
The performance was a very long one, so that it was some time after
twelve o’clock when Alexander took Anna back to the hotel and gave her
up to the charge of her grandfather.
And it was after two o’clock, when, half frozen and half famished, worn
out in body and harassed in mind, he reached his home.
As on the evening previous the lights from the little drawing-room
windows, gleaming through the wintry woods, cheered him on his approach
and warned him that his loving wife was still up and waiting to welcome
him home.
And there he found a bright fire, a warm supper and a happy face to
comfort him. As before she forbore to reproach or to question him, and
she received his voluntary explanation without hesitation and without
doubt;—but this explanation, while true to the letter as far as it went,
was false in the spirit—giving her the impression that still “the
troublesome business connected with his father’s will” detained him in
town.
Much of his conversation now, while being true to the letter, was false
in the spirit. But how could this possibly be expected to last?
Day after day Alexander rode in to town. Night after night he came back,
never earlier than one o’clock, sometimes as late as three or four; for
on these occasions he would have to escort his cousin to a ball where
the festivities were kept up until near daylight. And though Anna being
in half mourning refrained from dancing, she seldom retired from the
scene until one or two o’clock.
For many days and nights Drusilla bore this state of things with
exceeding patience and cheerfulness; always accepting his excuses for
leaving her in the morning, and always having the lighted windows, the
warm drawing-room, the bright fire and the hot supper to welcome him at
night. But ah! worship him as she would, she was but a soul encased in
flesh and blood, and her health and spirits from loneliness and late
hours, long continued, began to suffer. There was another cause, too,
for the poor child’s failing strength, which had her husband known it,
should have appealed strongly to his tenderness. But to do him justice
in this particular, he did not know it any more than his wife did. She
became nervous and irritable, and she wondered what could ail her, to
make her so unlike her old self. She tried very hard first to overcome
her nervous irritability, then to keep it from annoying him.
After he would leave her each day she would begin to occupy herself
diligently, so that her spirits might not droop. She inspected every
portion of her house from roof to cellar, and kept all in perfect order.
She did a great deal of needle-work, she read many books, she painted
some pictures, and she perfected herself in some of the most difficult
pieces of music. So at first she managed to get through her lonely days.
When the day’s work was done, and the sky grew dark, and she knew that a
long, lonely night was before her, she would have a bright fire lighted
in the drawing-room and an exquisite little supper planned out for her
husband.
And then, when bed time came, in her kindness of heart she would send
her servants to rest, and she would sit alone by the fire, reading and
watching until his return. Sometimes, in the loneliness of the place,
and of the hour, the stillness would grow almost awful to her, and she
would feel that she must speak to some human creature, or go mad, and
she would be tempted to go and call Pina up to sit with her. But there
again her compassion came in and saved her servant from being disturbed.
And so, rather than inconvenience another, she would sit on alone
“through the dead waste and middle of the night,” until she became so
nervous as to dread to hear the sound of her own low breathing, or to
see the reflection of her own scared face in the glass.
But then how welcome the sound of his horse’s feet, which her listening
ears could hear in the deep silence even when he was riding along the
open road before he turned into the wood.
Then in a moment all was changed. The flush of joy chased the paleness
from her cheeks; the light of love beamed from her eye; and she was
ready to welcome him with her happy face.