"A goodly apple, rotten at the heart.
Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"--_Merchant of Venice._
"No hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on."--_Othello._
Dorian has been two months gone, and it is once again close on
Christmas-tide. All the world is beginning to think of gifts, and
tender greetings, and a coming year. Clarissa is dreaming of wedding
garments white as the snow that fell last night.
The post has just come in. Clarissa, waking, stretches her arms over
her head with a little lazy delicious yawn, and idly turns over her
letters one by one. But presently, as she breaks the seal of an
envelope, and reads what lies inside it, her mood changes, and,
springing from her bed, she begins to dress herself with nervous
rapidity.
Three hours later, Sir James, sitting in his library, is startled by
the apparition of Clarissa standing in the door-way with a very
miserable face.
"What on earth has happened?" says Sir James, who is a very practical
young man and always goes at once to the root of a mystery.
"Horace is ill," says Miss Peyton, in a tone that might have suited
the occasion had the skies just fallen. "Oh, Jim, what shall I do?"
"My dearest girl," says Scrope, going up to her and taking her hands.
"Yes, he is very ill! I had not heard from him for a fortnight, and
was growing wretchedly uneasy, when to-day a letter came from Aunt
Emily telling me he has been laid up with low fever for over ten days.
And he is very weak, the doctor says, and no one is with him. And papa
is in Paris, and Lord Sartoris is with Lady Monckton, and Dorian--no
one knows where Dorian is!"
"Most extraordinary his never getting any one to write you a line!"
"Doesn't that only show how fearfully ill he must be? Jim, you will
help me, won't you?"
This appeal is not to be put on one side.
"Of course I will," says Scrope: "you know that--or you ought. What do
you want me to do?"
"To take me to him. I want to see him with my own eyes."
"To go yourself?" says Sir James, extreme disapprobation in his tone.
"You must be out of your mind."
"I am not," returns she, indignantly. "I never was more in it. And I
am going, any-way."
"What will your father say?"
"He will say I was quite right. Dear, _dear_, DEAR Jim,"--slipping her
hand through his arm, and basely descending from _hauteur_ to
coaxing,--"do say you will take me to him. It can't be wrong! Am I not
going to be his wife in a month's time?"
Sir James moves a chair out of his way with most unnecessary
vehemence.
"How that alters the case I can't see," he says, obstinately.
"You forsake me!" says Miss Peyton, her eyes filling with tears. "Do.
I can't be much unhappier than I am, but I did depend on you, you were
always so much my friend." Here two large tears run down her cheeks,
and they, of course, decide everything.
"I will take you," he says, hastily. "To-day?--The sooner the better,
I suppose."
"Yes; by the next train. Oh, how obliged to you I am! Dear Jim, I
shall never forget it to you!"
This is supposed to be grateful to him, but it is quite the reverse.
"I think you are very foolish to go at all," he says, somewhat
gruffly.
"Perhaps I am," she says, with a rueful glance. "But you cannot
understand. Ah! if you loved, yourself, you could sympathize with me."
"Could I?" says Sir James, with a grimace that is meant for a smile,
but as such is a most startling specimen of its class.
So they go up to town, and presently arrive at the house where Horace
lies unconscious of all around him. The door is opened to them by an
unmistakable landlady,--a fat, indolent person, with sleepy eyes, and
a large mouth, and a general air about her suggestive of perpetual
beef-steaks and bottled stout.
This portly dame, on being questioned, tells them, "Mr. Branscum has
just bin given his draft, and now he is snoozin' away as peaceable as
a hinfant, bless 'im."
"Is he--in bed?" asks Sir James, diffidently, this large person having
the power to reduce him to utter subjection.
"Lawks! no, sir. He wouldn't stay there he's that contrairy. Beggin'
yore parding, sir, he's yore brother?"
Sir James nods. She may prove difficult, this stout old lady, if he
declares himself no relative.
"To be shore!" says she. "I might 'a' knowed by the speakin' likeness
between you. You're the born himage of 'im. After his draft we laid
'im on the sofy, and there he is now, sleepin' the sleep of the just.
Just step up and see him; do, now. He is in a state of comus, and not
expectit to get out of it for two hours."
"The young--lady--will go up," says Sir James, feeling, somehow, as if
he has insulted Clarissa by calling her "a young lady." "She would
like" (in a confidential tone that wins on the stout landlady) "to see
him alone, just at first."
"Just so," says Mrs. Goodbody, with a broad wink; and Clarissa is
forthwith shown up-stairs, and told to open the first door she comes
to.
"And you," says Mrs. Goodbody to Sir James, "will please just to step
in 'ere and wait for her, while I see about the chicking broth!"
"What a charming room!" says Sir James, hypocritically; whereupon the
good woman, being intensely flattered, makes her exit with as much
grace as circumstances and her size will permit.
Clarissa opening the door with a beating heart, finds herself in a
pretty, carefully-shaded room, at the farther end of which, on a sofa,
Horace lies calmly sleeping. He is more altered than even her worst
fears had imagined, and as she bends over him she marks, with quick
grief, how thin and worn and haggard he has grown.
The blue veins stand out upon his nerveless hands. Tenderly, with the
very softest touch, she closes her own fingers over his. Gently she
brushes back the disordered hair from his flushed forehead, and then,
with a quick accession of coloring, stoops to lay a kiss upon the
cheek of the man who is to be her husband in one short month.
A hand laid upon her shoulder startles and deters her from her
purpose. It is a light, gentle touch, but firm and decided and
evidently meant to prevent her from giving the caress. Quickly raising
herself, Clarissa draws back, and, turning her head, sees----
Who is it? Has time rolled backwards? A small, light, gray-clad figure
stands before her, a figure only too well remembered! The brown hair
brushed back from the white temples with the old Quakerish neatness,
the dove-like eyes, the sensitive lips, cannot be mistaken. Clarissa
raises her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight.
Oh! not that! Anything but that! Not Ruth Annersley!
A faint sick feeling overcomes her; involuntarily she lays a hand upon
the back of a chair near her, to steady herself; while Ruth stands
opposite to her, with fingers convulsively clinched, and dilated
nostrils, and eyes dark with horror.
"What brings you here?" asks Ruth, at length, in a voice hard and
unmusical.
"To see the man whose wife I was to have been next month," says
Clarissa, feeling compelled to answer. "And"--in a terrible tone--"who
are you?"
"The woman who ought to be his wife," says Ruth, in the same hard
tone, still with her hands tightly clasped.
Clarissa draws her breath hard, but returns no answer; and then there
falls upon them a long, long silence, that presently becomes
unbearable. The two women stand facing each other, scarcely breathing.
The unnatural stillness is undisturbed save by the quick irregular
gasps of the sick man.
Once he sighs heavily, and throws one hand and arm across his face.
Then Ruth stirs, and, going swiftly and noiselessly to his side, with
infinite tenderness draws away the arm and replaces it in its former
position. She moves his pillows quietly, and passes her cool hand
across his fevered brow.
"Ruth?" he moans, uneasily, and she answers, "I am here, darling," in
the faintest, sweetest whisper.
Something within Clarissa's heart seems to give way. At this moment,
for the first time, she realizes the true position in which he has
placed her. A sensation of faintness almost overcomes her, but by a
supreme effort she conquers her weakness, and crushes back, too, the
rising horror and anger that have sprung into life. A curious calm
falls upon her,--a state that often follows upon keen mental anguish.
She is still completing the victory she has gained over herself, when
Ruth speaks again.
"This is no place for you!" she says, coldly, yet with her hand up to
her cheek, as though to shield her face from the other's gaze.
Clarissa goes up to her then.
"So you are found at last," she says, somewhat monotonously. "And, of
all places, here! Is there any truth in the world, I wonder? Was it
shame kept you from writing, all these months, to your unhappy father?
Do you know that an innocent man--his brother"--pointing with a
shivering gesture to the unconscious Horace--"has been suffering all
this time for his wrong-doing?"
"I know nothing," replies Ruth, sternly. "I seek to know nothing. My
intercourse with the world ceased with my innocence."
"You knew of my engagement to him?" says Clarissa, again motioning
towards the couch.
"Yes."
"Before you left Pullingham?"
"No! oh, no!--not then," exclaims Ruth, eagerly. "I did not believe it
then. Do not judge me more harshly than you can help."
The dull agony that flashes into her eyes quickens into life some
compassionate feeling that still lies dormant in Clarissa's breast.
"I do not judge you at all," she says, with infinite gentleness. Then,
with an impulsive movement, she turns and lays her hand upon her
shoulder. "Come home with me--now!" she says. "Leave this place, Ruth,
I implore you, listen to me!"
"Do not," says Ruth, shrinking from her grasp; "I am not fit for you
to touch. Remember all that has passed."
"Do you think I shall ever forget!" says Clarissa, slowly. "But for
your father's sake: he is ill,--perhaps dying. Come. For his sake you
will surely return?"
"It is too late!" says the girl, in a melancholy voice. And then,
again, "It is impossible." Yet it is apparent that a terrible struggle
is taking place within her breast: how it might have ended, whether
the good or bad angel would have gained the day, can never now be
said; a sigh, a broken accent, decided her.
"My head!" murmurs the sick man, feebly, drawing his breath wearily,
and as if with pain. "Ruth, Ruth, are you there?" The querulous
dependent tone rouses into instant life all the passionate tenderness
that is in Ruth's heart. Having soothed him by a touch, she turns once
more to Clarissa.
"He too is sick,--perhaps dying," she says, feverishly. "I cannot
leave him! I have sacrificed all for him, and I shall be faithful unto
the end. Leave me: I have done you the greatest wrong one woman can do
another. Why should you care for my salvation?" Through all the
defiance there is bitter misery in her tone.
"I don't know why; yet I do," says poor Clarissa, earnestly.
"You are a saint," says Ruth, with white lips. And then she falls upon
her knees. "Oh, if it be in your heart," she cries, "grant me your
forgiveness!"
Clarissa bursts into tears.
"I do grant it," she says. "But I would that my tongue possessed such
eloquence as could induce you to leave this house." She tries to raise
Ruth from her kneeling position.
"Let me remain where I am," says Ruth, faintly. "It is my right
position. I tell you again to go; this is no place for you. Yet stay
you, sweet woman,"--she cries, with sudden fervor, catching hold of
the hem of Clarissa's gown and pressing it to her lips,--"let me look
at you once again! It is my final farewell to all that is pure; and I
would keep your face fresh within my heart."
She gazes at her long and eagerly.
"What! tears?" she says; "and for me? Oh, believe me, though I shall
never see you again, the recollection of these tears will soothe my
dying hours, and perhaps wash out a portion of my sins!"
Her head drops upon her hands. So might the sad Magdalen have knelt.
Her whole body trembles with the intensity of her emotion, yet no
sound escapes her.
"Ruth, for the last time, I implore you to come with me," says
Clarissa, brokenly. And once more the parched lips of the crouching
woman frame the words, "It is too late!"
A moment after, the door is opened, and closed again and Clarissa has
looked her last upon Ruth Annersley.
How she makes her way down to the room where Sir James sits awaiting
her, Clarissa never afterwards remembers.
"It is all over: take me away!" she says, quietly, but somewhat
incoherently.
"He isn't dead?" says Sir James, who naturally conceives the worst
from her agitation.
"No: it is even worse," she says. And then she covers her face with
her hands, and sinks into a chair. "Ruth Annersley is here!" When she
has said this, she feels that life has almost come to an end. How
shall she make this wretched revelation to her father, to Georgie, to
all the rest of the world?
As for Sir James, he stands at some distance from her, literally
stunned by the news. Words seem to fail him. He goes up to her and
takes one of her small icy-cold hands in his.
"Did you see her?"
"Yes."
"The scoundrel!" says Sir James, in a low tone. Then, "Is he very
ill?" There is unmistakable meaning in his tone.
"Very." And here she falls to bitter weeping again.
It is a cruel moment: Sir James still holds her hand, but can find no
words to say to comfort her; indeed, where can comfort lie?
At this instant a heavy footfall resounds along the passage outside.
It warns them of the sylph-like approach of Mrs. Goodbody. Sir James
going quickly to the door, intercepts her.
"My--my sister is quite upset," he says, nervously. "Mr. Branscombe
was--was worse than she expected to find him."
"Upset!--and no wonder, too," says Mrs. Goodbody, with heavy sympathy,
gazing approvingly at Miss Peyton. "There's no denying that he's so
worn out, the pore dear, as it's quite dispiritin' to see 'im, what
with his general appearings and the fear of a bad turn at any mingit.
For myself, I take my meals quite promiscuous like, since he fell
ill,--just a bit here and a bit there, it may be, but nothing reg'lar
like. I ain't got the 'art. Howsoever, 'hope on, hope never,' is my
motter, miss; and we must allus hope for the best, as the sayin' is."
"Just so," says Sir James, who doesn't know, in the very least, what
to say.
"A good wife, sir, I allus say, is half the battle; and that lady
up-stairs, she is a reg'lar trump, she is, and so devoted, as it's
quite affectin' to witness. Good-mornin' sir--thank you, sir. I'll see
to him, you be bound; and, with his good lady above, there ain't the
smallest----"
Sir James, opening the hall door in despair, literally pushes Clarissa
out and into the cab that is awaiting them. For a long time she says
nothing; and just as he is beginning to get really anxious at her
determined silence, she says, with some difficulty,--
"Jim, promise me something?"
"Anything," says Jim.
"Then never again allude to this day, or to anything connected with
it; and never again mention--his--name to me, unless I first speak to
you."
"Never!" returns he, fervently. "Be sure of it."
"Thank you," she says, like a tired child; and then, sinking back in
her corner of the cab, she cries long and bitterly.