"I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
* * * * *
Oh! I could play the woman with mine eyes."--_Macbeth._
"To tell him herself" has some strange attraction for Clarissa. To
hear face to face, what this her oldest friend will say to her
engagement with Horace is a matter of great anxiety to her. She will
know at once by his eyes and smile whether he approves or disapproves
her choice.
Driving along the road to Scrope, behind her pretty ponies, "Cakes"
and "Ale," with her little rough Irish terrier, "Secretary Bill,"
sitting bolt upright beside her, as solemn as half a dozen judges, she
wonders anxiously how she shall begin to tell James about it.
She hopes to goodness he won't be in his ultra-grave mood, that, as a
rule, leads up to his finding fault with everything, and picking
things to pieces, and generally condemning the sound judgment of
others. (As a rule, Clarissa is a little unfair in her secret comments
on James Scrope's character.) It will be so much better if she can
only come upon him out of doors, in his homeliest mood, with a cigar
between his lips, or his pipe. Yes, his pipe will be even better. Men
are even more genial with a pipe than with the goodliest habana.
Well, of course, if he is the great friend he _professes_ to
be,--heavy emphasis on the verb, and a little flick on the whip on
"Cakes's" quarters, which the spirited but docile creature resents
bitterly,--he must be glad at the thought that she is not going to
leave the country,--is, in fact, very likely to spend most of her time
still in Pullingham.
Not all of it, of course. Horace has duties, and though in her secret
soul she detests town life, still there is a joy In the thought that
she will be with him, helping him, encouraging him in his work,
rejoicing in his successes, sympathyzing with his fai----, but no, of
course there will be no failures! How stupid of her to think of that,
when he is so clever, so learned, so----
Yet it would be sweet, too, to have him fail once or twice (just a
little, insignificant, not-worth-speaking-about sort of a defeat), if
only to let him see how she could love him even the more for it.
She blushes, and smiles to herself, and, turning suddenly, bestows a
most unexpected caress upon "Secretary Bill," who wags his short tail
in return--that is, what they left him of it--lovingly, if somewhat
anxiously, and glances at her sideways out of his wonderful eyes, as
though desirous of assuring himself of her sanity.
Oh, yes, of course James will be delighted. And he will tell her so
with the gentle smile that so lights up his face, and he will take her
hand, and say he is so glad, so pleased, and----
With a sharp pang she remembers how her father was neither pleased nor
glad when she confided her secret to him. He had been, indeed,
distressed and confounded. He had certainly tried his hardest to
conceal from her these facts, but she had seen them all the same. She
could not be deceived where her father was concerned. He had felt
unmistakable regret----"Be quiet, Bill! You sha'n't come out driving
again if you can't sit still! What a bore a dog is sometimes!"
Well, after all, he is her father. It is only natural he should
dislike the thought of parting from her. She thinks, with an instant
softening of her heart, of how necessary she has become to him, ever
since her final return home. Before that he had been dull and
_distrait_; now he is bright and cheerful, if still rather too devoted
to his books to be quite good for him.
He might, indeed, be forgiven for regarding the man who should take
her from him as an enemy. But Jim is different; he is a mere
friend,--a dear and valued one, it is true, but still only a
friend,--a being utterly independent of her, who can be perfectly
happy without her, and therefore, of course, unprejudiced.
He will, she feels sure, say everything kind and sweet to her, and
wish her joy sincerely.
James, too, is very sensible, and will see the good points in Horace.
He evidently likes him; at least, they have always appeared excellent
friends when together. Dorian, of course, is the general
favorite,--she acknowledges that,--just because he is a little more
open, more outspoken perhaps,--easier to understand; whereas, she
firmly believes, she alone of all the world is capable of fully
appreciating the innate goodness of Horace!
Here she turns in the huge gateway of Scrope; and the terrier, growing
excited, gives way to a sharp bark, and the ponies swing merrily down
the avenue; and just before she comes to the hall door her heart fails
her, and something within her--that something that never errs--tells
her that James Scrope will not betray any pleasure at her tidings.
Before she quite reaches the hall door, a groom comes from a
side-walk, and, seeing him, Clarissa pulls up the ponies sharply, and
asks the man,--
"Is Sir James at home?"
"Yes, miss; he is in the stables, I think; leastways, he was half an
hour agone. Shall I tell him you are here?"
"No, thank you. I shall go and find him myself."
See flings her reins to her own groom, and, with Bill trotting at her
heels, goes round to the yard, glad, at least, that her first hope is
fulfilled,--that he is out of doors.
As she goes through the big portals into the ivied yard, she sees
before her one of the stablemen on his knees, supporting in his arms
an injured puppy: with all a woman's tenderness he is examining the
whining little brute's soft, yellow paw, as it hangs mournfully
downwards.
Sir James, with a pipe in his mouth,--this latter fact Clarissa hails
with rapture,--is also bending anxiously over the dog, and is so
absorbed in his contemplation of it as not to notice Clarissa's
approach until she is close beside him.
"What is the matter with the poor little thing?" she asks, earnestly,
gazing with deep pity at the poor puppy, that whines dismally and
glances up at her with the peculiarly tearful appealing expression
that belongs to setters.
"A knock of a stone, miss, nayther more nor less," exclaims the man,
angrily. "That's the honest truth, Sir James, you take my word for't.
Some o' them rascally boys as is ever and allus about this 'ere yard,
and spends their lives shyin' stones at every blessed sign they sets
their two eyes on, has done this. 'Ere's one o' the best pups o' the
season a'most ruined, and no satisfaction for it. It's a meracle if he
comes round (quiet there, my beauty, and easy there now, I tell ye),
and nobody does anything."
The old man stops, and regards his master reprovingly, nay, almost
contemptuously.
"I really don't see why you should think it was the boys, Joe?" says
Sir James, meekly.
"'Twarn't anythin' else, anyway," persists Joe, doggedly.
"Poor little fellow!--dear fellow!" murmurs Miss Peyton, caressingly,
to the great soft setter pup, patting its head lovingly, as it barks
madly, and makes frantic efforts to get from Joe's arms to hers, while
Bill shrieks in concert, being filled with an overwhelming amount of
sympathy.
"Better leave him to me, miss," says Joe, regarding the injured
innocent with a parent's eye. "He knows me. I'll treat him proper,"
raising his old honest weather-beaten face to Clarissa, in a solemn
reassuring manner, "you be bound. Yet them pups" (disgustedly) "is
like children, allus ungrateful. For the sake o' your handsome face,
now, he'd go to you if he could, forgetful of all my kindness to him.
Well, 'tis the way o' the world, I believe," winds up old Joe, rising
from his knees,--cheered, perhaps, by the thought that his favorite
pup, if only following the common dictates of animals, is no worse
than all others.
He grumbles something else in an undertone, and finally carries off
the puppy to his kennel.
"I am too amazed for speech," says Sir James, rising also to his feet,
and contemplating Clarissa with admiration. "That man," pointing to
Joe's retiring figure, "has been in my father's service, and in mine,
for fifty years, and never before did I hear a civil word from his
lips. I think he said your face was handsome, just now?--or was I
deceived?"
"I like Joe," says Miss Peyton, elevating her rounded chin: "I
downright esteem him. He knows where beauty lies."
"How he differs from the rest of the world!" says Scrope, not looking
at her.
"Does he? That is unkind, I think. Why," says Clarissa, with a soft
laugh, full of mischief, "should any one be blind to the claims of
beauty?"
"Why, indeed? It is, as I have been told, 'a joy forever.' No one
nowadays disputes anything they are told, do they?"
"Don't be cynical, Jim," says Miss Peyton, softly. What an awful thing
it will be if, now when her story is absolutely upon her lips, he
relapses into his unsympathetic mood!
"Well, I won't, then," says Scrope, amiably, which much relieves her.
And then he looks lovingly at his pipe, which he has held (as in duty
bound) behind his back ever since her arrival, and sighs heavily, and
proceeds to knock the ashes out of it.
"Oh, don't do that," says Clarissa, entreatingly. "I really wish you
wouldn't!" (This is the strict truth.) "You know you are dying for a
smoke, and I--I perfectly love the smell of tobacco. There is,
therefore, no reason why you should deny yourself."
"Are you really quite sure?" says Scrope, politely and hopefully.
"Quite,--utterly. Put it in your mouth again. And--do you mind?"--with
a swift glance upwards, from under her soft plush hat,--"I want you to
come for a little walk with me."
"To the end of the world, with _you_, would be a short walk," says
Scrope, with a half laugh, but a ring in his tone that, to a woman
heart-whole and unoccupied with thoughts of another man, must have
meant much. "Command me, madam."
"I have something very--very--_very_ important to tell you," says
Miss Peyton, earnestly. This time she looks at her long black gloves,
not at him, and makes a desperate effort to button an already obedient
little bit of ivory.
They have turned into the orchard, now bereft of blossom, and are
strolling carelessly along one of its side-paths. The earth is looking
brown, the trees bare; for Autumn--greedy season--has stretched its
hand "to reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold."
"Are you listening to me?" asks she, presently, seeing he makes no
response to her first move.
"Intently." He has not the very faintest idea of her meaning, so
speaks in a tone light and half amused, that leads her to betray her
secret sooner than otherwise she might have done. "Is it an honest
mystery," he says, carelessly, "or a common ghost story, or a state
secret? Break it to me gently."
"There is nothing to break," says Clarissa, softly. Then she looks
down at the strawberry borders at her side,--now brown and aged,--and
then says, in a very low tone, "I am going to be married!"
There is a dead silence. Sir James says nothing. He walks on beside
her with an unfaltering footstep, his head erect as ever, his hands
clasped in their old attitude behind his back. The sun is shining;
some birds are warbling faintly (as though under protest) in some
neighboring thicket; yet, I think Scrope neither sees the sun, nor
heeds the birds, nor knows for the moment that life flows within him,
after that little, low-toned speech of hers.
Then he awakes from his stupor, and, rousing himself, says, huskily,
yet with a certain amount of self-possession that deceives her,--
"You were saying----?"
"Only that I am going to be married," repeats Clarissa, in a somewhat
changed tone. The nervousness had gone out of it, and the natural
hesitation; she is speaking now quite composedly and clearly, as if
some surprise betrays itself in her voice.
Scrope is aware that his heart is beating madly. He has stopped, and
is leaning against the trunk of an apple-tree, facing Clarissa, who is
standing in the middle of the path. His face is ashen gray, but his
manner is quite calm.
"Who is it?" he asks, presently, very slowly.
"Mr. Branscombe,"--coldly.
"Dorian?"
"No. Horace."
"I wish it had been Dorian," he says, impulsively.
It is the last straw.
"And why?" demands she, angrily. She is feeling wounded, disappointed
at his reception of her news; and now the climax has come. Like her
father, he, too, prefers Dorian,--nay, by his tone, casts a slur upon
Horace. The implied dislike cuts her bitterly to the heart.
"What evil thing have you to say of Horace," she goes on, vehemently,
"that you so emphatically declare in favor of Dorian? When you are
with him you profess great friendship for him, and now behind his back
you seek to malign him to the woman he loves."
"You are unjust," says Scrope, wearily. "I know nothing bad of Horace.
I merely said I wished it had been Dorian. No, I have nothing to say
against Horace."
"Then why do you look as if you had?" says Miss Peyton, pettishly,
frowning a little, and letting her eyes rest on him for a moment only,
to withdraw them again with a deeper frown. "Your manner suggests many
things. You are like papa--" She pauses, feeling she has made a false
move, and wishes vainly her last words unsaid.
"Does your father disapprove, then?" asks he, more through idleness
than a desire to know.
Instinctively he feels that, no matter what obstacles may be thrown in
this girl's way, still she will carry her point and marry the man she
has elected to love. Nay, will not difficulties but increase her
steadfastness, and make strong the devotion that is growing in her
heart?
Not until now, this moment, when hope has died and despair sprung into
life, does he know how freely, how altogether, he has lavished the
entire affection of his soul upon her. During all these past few
months he has lived and thought and hoped but for her; and now--all
this is at an end.
Like a heavy blow from some unseen hand this terrible news has fallen
upon him, leaving him spent and broken, and filled with something that
is agonized surprise at the depth of the misfortune that has overtaken
him. It is as a revelation, the awakening to a sense of the longing
that has been his,--to the knowledge of the cruel strength of the
tenderness that binds his heart to hers.
With a slow wonder he lifts his eyes and gazes at her. There is a
petulant expression round her mobile lips, a faint bending of her
brows that bespeaks discontent, bordering upon anger, yet, withal, she
is quite lovely,--so sweet, yet so unsympathetic; so gentle, yet so
ignorant of all he is at present feeling.
With a sickening dread he looks forward to the future that still may
lie before him. It seems to him that he can view, lying stretched out
in the far distance, a lonely cheerless road, over which he must
travel whether he will or not,--a road bare and dusty and
companionless, devoid of shade, or rest, or joy, or that love that
could transform the barrenness into a "flowery mead."
"He that loses hope"--says Congreve--"may part with anything." To
Scrope, just now, it seems as though hope and he have parted company
forever. The past has been so dear, with all its vague beliefs and
uncertain dreamings,--all too sweet for realization,--that the present
appears unbearable.
The very air seems dark, the sky leaden, the clouds sad and lowering.
Vainly he tries to understand how he has come to love, with such a
boundless passion, this girl, who loves him not at all, but has
surrendered herself wholly to one unworthy of her,--one utterly
incapable of comprehending the nobility and truthfulness of her
nature.
The world, that only yesterday seemed so desirable a place, to-day has
lost its charm.
"What is life, when stripped of its disguise? A thing to be desired it
cannot be." With him it seems almost at an end. An unsatisfactory
thing, too, at its best,--a mere "glimpse into the world of might have
been."
Some words read a week ago come to him now, and ring their changes on
his brain. "Rien ne va plus,"--the hateful words return to him with a
pertinacity not to be subdued. It is with difficulty he refrains from
uttering them aloud.
"No; he does not disapprove," says Clarissa, interrupting his
reflections at this moment: "he has given his full consent to my
engagement." She speaks somewhat slowly, as if remembrance weighs
upon her. "And, even if he had not, there is still something that must
give me happiness: it is the certainty that Horace loves me, and that
I love him."
Though unmeant, this is a cruel blow. Sir James turns away, and,
paling visibly,--had she cared to see it,--plucks a tiny piece of bark
from the old tree against which he is leaning.
There is something in his face that, though she understands it not,
moves Clarissa to pity.
"You will wish me some good wish, after all, Jim, won't you?" she
says, very sweetly, almost pathetically.
"No, I cannot," returns he with a brusquerie foreign to him. "To do so
would be actual hypocrisy."
There is silence for a moment: Clarissa grows a little pale, in her
turn. In _his_ turn, he takes no notice of her emotion, having his
face averted. Then, in a low, faint, choked voice, she breaks the
silence.
"If I had been wise," she says, "I should have stayed at home this
morning, and kept my confidences to myself. Yet I wanted to tell you.
So I came, thinking, believing, I should receive sympathy from you;
and now what have I got? Only harsh and cruel words! If I had known--"
"Clarissa!"
"Yes! If any one had told me you would so treat me, I
should--should--"
It is this supreme moment she chooses to burst out crying; and she
cries heartily (by which I mean that she gives way to grief of the
most vehement and agonized description) for at least five minutes,
without a cessation, making her lament openly, and in a carefully
unreserved fashion, intended to reduce his heart to water. And not in
vain is _her_ "weak endeavor."
Sir James, when the first sob falls upon his ear, turns from her, and,
as though unable to endure the sound, deliberately walks away from her
down the garden path.
When he gets quite to the end of it, however, and knows the next turn
will hide him from sight of her tears or sound of her woe, he
hesitates, then is lost, and finally coming back again to where she is
standing, hidden by a cambric handkerchief, lays his hand upon her
arm. At his touch her sobs increase.
"Don't do that!" he says, so roughly that she knows his heart is
bleeding. "Do you hear me, Clarissa? Stop crying. It isn't doing you
any good, and it is driving me mad. What has happened?--what is making
you so unhappy?"
"_You_ are," says Miss Peyton, with a final sob, and a whole octave of
reproach in her voice. "Anything so unkind I never knew. And just when
I had come all the way over here to tell you what I would tell nobody
else except papa! There was a time, Jim" (with a soft but upbraiding
glance), "when you would have been sweet and kind and good to me on an
occasion like this."
She moves a step nearer to him, and lays her hand--the little, warm,
pulsing hand he loves so passionately--upon his arm. Her glance is
half offended, half beseeching: Scrope's strength of will gives way,
and, metaphorically speaking, he lays himself at her feet.
"If I have been uncivil to you, forgive me," he says, taking her hand
from his arm, and holding it closely in his own. "You do not know; you
cannot understand; and I am glad you do not. Be happy! There is no
substantial reason why you should not extract from life every sweet it
can afford: you are young, the world is before you, and the love you
desire is yours. Dry your eyes, Clarissa: your tears pierce my heart."
He has quite regained his self-control by this time, and having
conquered emotion, speaks dispassionately. Clarissa, as he has said,
does not understand the terrible struggle it costs him to utter these
words in an ordinary tone, and with a face which, if still pale,
betrays no mental excitement.
She smiles. Her tears vanish. She sighs contentedly, and moves the
hand that rests in his.
"I am so glad we are friends again," she says. "And now tell me why
you were so horrid at first: you might just as well have begun as you
have ended: it would have saved trouble and time, and" (reproachfully)
"all my tears."
"Perhaps I value you so highly that I hate the thought of losing you,"
says Scrope, palliating the ugliness of his conduct as best he may.
His voice is very earnest.
"How fond you are of me!" says Miss Peyton, with some wonder and much
pleasure.
To this he finds it impossible to make any answer.
"Whenever I wish I had had a brother, I always think of you," goes on
she, pleasantly, "you are so--so--quiet, and your scoldings so
half-hearted. Now, even though rather late, wish me joy."
"My dear, dear girl," says Scrope, "if I were to speak forever, I
could not tell you how I long for and desire your happiness. If your
life proves as calm and peaceful as I wish it, it will be a desirable
life indeed! You have thought of me as your brother: let me be your
brother indeed,--one in whom you can confide and trust should trouble
overtake you."
He says this very solemnly, and again Clarissa's eyes fill with tears.
She does now what she has not done since she was a little, impulsive,
loving girl: she lifts her head and presses her lips to his cheek.
For one brief moment he holds her in his arms, returning her caress,
warmly, it is true, but with ineffable sadness. To her, this embrace
is but the sealing of a fresh bond between them. To him it is a silent
farewell, a final wrenching of the old sweet ties that have endured so
long.
Up to this she has been everything to him,--far more than he ever
dreamed until the rude awakening came,--the one bright spot in his
existence; but now all is changed, and she belongs to another.
He puts her gently from him, and, with a kindly word and smile, leads
her to the garden gate, and so round to where her ponies are
impatiently awaiting her coming: after which he bids her good-by, and,
turning, goes indoors, and locks himself into his own private den.