"Known mischiefs have their cure, but doubts have none;
And better is despair than friendless hope
Mixed with a killing fear."--MAY.
It is two o'clock on the following day. Horace,--who came down from
town for the ball, and is staying with Dorian,--sauntering leisurely
into the smoking-room at Sartoris, finds Branscombe there, overlooking
some fishing-tackle.
This room is a mingled and hopelessly entangled mass of guns, pipes,
whips, spurs, fishing-rods, and sporting pictures; there are, too, a
few other pictures that might not exactly come under this head, and a
various and most remarkable collection of lounging-chairs.
There is a patriarchal sofa, born to create slumber; and an ancient
arm-chair, stuffed with feathers and dreams of many sleepers. Over the
door stand out the skeleton remains of a horse's head, bleached and
ghastly, and altogether hideous, that, even now, reminds its master of
a former favorite hunter that had come to a glorious but untimely end
upon the hunting-field. A stuffed setter, with very glassy eyes, sits
staring, in an unearthly fashion, in one corner. Upon a window-sill a
cat sits, blinking lazily at the merry spring sunshine outside.
"Are you really going back to town this evening, Horace?" asks the
owner of all these gems, in a somewhat gloomy fashion, bending over a
fishing line as he speaks.
"Yes. I feel I am bound to be back there again as soon as possible."
"Business?"
"Well, I can hardly say it is exactly press of business," says the
candid Horace; "but if a man wants to gain any, he must be on the
spot, I take it?"
"Quite so. Where have you been all the morning? Sleeping?"
"Nothing half so agreeable." By this time Horace is looking at him
curiously, and with a gleam in his eyes that is half amusement, half
contempt: Dorian, whose head is bent over his work, sees neither the
amusement nor the scorn. "I did not go to bed at all. I walked down
to to the farms to try to get some fresh air to carry back with me to
the stifling city."
"Ah! past the mill? I mean in that direction?--towards the upper
farms?"
"No; I went past Biddulph's," says Horace, easily, half closing his
eyes, and Dorian believes him. "It is lighter walking that way; not so
hilly. Did you put in a good time last night?"
"Rather so. I don't know when I enjoyed an affair of the kind so
much."
"Lucky you!" yawns Horace, languidly. "Of all abominations, surely
balls are the worst. One goes on when one ought to be turning in, and
one turns in when one ought to be going out. They upset one's whole
calculations. When I marry I shall make a point of forgetting that
such things be."
"And Clarissa?" asks Dorian, dryly; "I can't say about the dancing
part of it,--you may, I suppose, abjure that if you like,--but I think
you will see a ball or two more before you die. She likes that sort of
thing. By the by, how lovely she looked last night!"
"Very. She cut out all the other women, I thought; they looked right
down cheap beside her."
"She had it very much her own way," says Dorian; yet, even as he
speaks, there rises before him the vision of a little lithe figure
gowned in black and crowned with yellow hair, whose dark-blue eyes
look out at him with a smile and a touch of wistfulness that adds to
their beauty.
"That little girl at the vicarage isn't bad to look at," says Horace,
idly, beating a tattoo on the window-pane.
"Miss Broughton? I should call her very good to look at," says Dorian,
for the first time making the discovery that there may be moments when
it would be a sure and certain joy to kick even one's own brother.
"Here is Arthur," says Horace, presently, drawing himself up briskly
from his lounging position. "A little of him goes a long way; and I
should say, judging from the expression of his lips, that he is in his
moodiest mood to day. You may interview him, Dorian: I feel myself
unequal to the task. Give him my love and a kiss, and say I have gone
for a ramble in the innocent woods."
He leaves the room, and, crossing the halls, makes his way into the
open air through the conservatory; while Lord Sartoris, entering by
the hall door, and being directed by a servant, goes on to Dorian's
den.
He is looking fagged and care-worn, and has about him that look of
extreme lassitude that belongs to those to whom sleep overnight has
been a stranger. Strong and painful doubts of Dorian's honesty of
purpose had kept him wakeful, and driven him now down from his own
home to Sartoris.
A strange longing to see his favorite nephew again, to look upon the
face he had always deemed so true, to hear the voice he loves best on
earth, had taken possession of him; yet now he finds himself
confronting Dorian with scarcely a word to say to him.
"I hardly hoped to find you at home," he says, with an effort.
"What a very flattering speech! Was that why you came? Sit here,
Arthur: you will find it much more comfortable."
He pushes towards him the cosily-cushioned chair in which Horace had
been sitting a minute ago.
"Do I look tired enough to require this?" says Sartoris, sinking,
however, very willingly into the chair's embrace. As he does so,
something lying on the ground (that has escaped Dorian's notice)
attracts him.
"What is this?" he asks, stooping to pick it up.
It is a lace handkerchief, of delicate and exquisite workmanship, with
some letters embroidered in one corner.
"You have been receiving gentle visitors very early," says Lord
Sartoris, turning the pretty thing round and round curiously.
"Not unless you can count Horace as one," says Dorian, with a light
laugh. "How on earth did that come here?" Stooping, he, too, examines
minutely the fragile piece of lace and cambric his uncle is still
holding. Sartoris turning it again, the initials in the corner make
themselves known, and stand out, legibly and carefully worked, as "R.
A."
Dorian's face changes. He knows the handkerchief only too well now. He
himself had given it to Ruth at Christmas; but how had it come here?
No one had entered the room to-day except himself and--Horace!
Notwithstanding the scene with Ruth the night before, when she had so
unmistakably betrayed her love for Horace, Dorian had never for one
moment suspected that things had gone farther than a mere foolish
girlish liking for a man rather handsomer than the ordinary run of
men. His brother's honor he had not doubted, nor did he deem him
capable of any act calculated to bring misery upon one who had trusted
him.
Now, in spite of himself, a terrible doubt arises, that will not be
suppressed; like a blow conviction falls; and many past actions and
past words crowd to his mind that, at the time of their occurrence,
seemed as mere nothings, but now are "confirmations strong" of the
truth that has just flashed upon him.
Had he lied to him when he told him a few minutes since he had been to
Biddulph's farm and not anywhere in the direction of the Old Mill?
Doubt, having once asserted itself, makes him now distrustful of his
brother's every look and every tone. And the handkerchief! He must
have had it from Ruth herself, and dropped it here inadvertently
before leaving the room. To him the idea that Horace should have
chosen a timid, fragile, gentle girl, like Ruth Annersley, upon whom
to play off the fascinations and wiles taught him by a fashionable
world, is nothing less than despicable. A deep sense of contempt for
the man who, to pass away pleasantly a few dull hours in the country,
would make a target of a woman's heart, fills his mind. He is frowning
heavily, and his face has grown very white Looking up, he becomes
aware that his uncle is watching him narrowly.
To the old man, the altered countenance of his nephew, his pallor and
hesitation, all betoken guilt. Dorian's eyes are still clear and calm,
as usual, but his expression has strangely altered.
"'R. A.,'" remarks Lord Sartoris, slowly. "Why, that might mean Ruth
Annersley."
"It might," returns Dorian, absently. He dares not speak his inmost
thoughts. After all, Horace may not be in the wrong: the girl's own
vanity, or folly, may have led her to believe a few words spoken in
jest to mean more than was ever intended. And, at all events, no
matter what comes of it, he cannot betray his brother.
"How could it have come here?" asks Lord Sartoris, without raising his
eyes from the luckless handkerchief. "Do you know anything of it?"
"Nothing; except that it belongs to Ruth. I gave it to her last
Christmas."
"You! A curious gift to a girl in her rank in life?"
"She wished for it," returns Branscombe, curtly.
"Then she is no doubt heart-broken, imagining she has lost it. Return
it to her, I advise you, without delay," says his uncle,
contemptuously, throwing it from him to a table near. "I need not
detain you any longer, now,"--rising, and moving towards the door.
"Going so soon?" says the younger man, roused from his galling
reflections, by his uncle's abrupt departure, to some sense of
cordiality. "Why, you have hardly stayed a moment."
"I have stayed long enough,--too long," says Lord Sartoris, gloomily,
fixing his dark eyes (that age have failed to dim) upon the man who
has been to him as his own soul.
"Too long?" repeats Branscombe, coloring darkly.
"Yes. Have you forgotten altogether the motto of our race?--'Leal
friend, leal foe.' Let me bring it to your memory."
"Pray do not trouble yourself. I remember it perfectly," says Dorian,
haughtily, drawing up his figure to its fullest height. "I am sorry,
my lord, you should think it necessary to remind me of it."
He bows and opens the door as he finishes his speech. Lord Sartoris,
though sorely troubled, makes no sign; and, without so much as a
pressure of the hand, they part.