"Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of her lips."--_Twelfth Night._
The dark day is growing colder and more drear. The winds are sighing
sadly. A shivering sobbing breeze, that rushes in a mournful fashion
through the naked twigs, tells one the year is drawing to a close, and
that truly it is "faint with cold, and weak with old."
Clarissa, riding along the forest path that leads to Sartoris, feels
something akin to pleasure in the sound of the rushing torrent that
comes from above and falls headlong into the river that runs on her
right hand.
There is, too, a desolation in the scene that harmonizes with her own
sad thoughts. She has watched the summer leaves and flowers decay, but
little thought her own hopes and longings should have died with them.
Is she never to know peace, or joy, or content again? On her "rests
remembrance like a ban:" she cannot shake it off.
"Rest! rest! Oh, give me rest and peace!" she cries aloud to her soul,
but no rest cometh. The world seems colorless, without tint or
purpose. She would gladly forget, if that might be, but it seems
impossible to her.
"Ourselves we cannot recreate,
Nor get our souls to the same key
Of the remembered harmony."
The past--that is, her happy past--seems gone; the present is full of
grief; the future has nothing to offer. This fact comes to her, and,
with her eyes full of tears, she turns the corner and finds herself
face to face with Horace Branscombe.
The old smile is on his face; he comes to her and holds out both his
hands to take hers. He is worn and thin, and very handsome.
"I am too fortunate to meet you so soon," he says. "Yet I hardly think
I should shake hands with you." Evidently, some thought unknown to her
is in his mind.
"I am glad you have come to that conclusion," she says, "as there is
no desire whatever on my part that our hands should meet."
He is plainly puzzled.
"What a strange welcome!" he says, reproachfully. "My letters during
the past week should have explained everything to you."
"I have had none," says Clarissa, shortly.
"No? Was that why I received no answers? I have risen from a sick-bed
to come to you, and demand the reason of your silence."
"I am sorry you troubled yourself so far. Ruth Annersley could have
given you the answer you require."
His face blanches perceptibly; and his eyes, in their usual stealthy
fashion, seek the ground.
"What have I to do with her?" he says, sullenly.
"Coward!" says Miss Peyton, in a low tone. "Do you, then, deny even
all knowledge of the woman you have so wronged?"
"Take care! do not go too far," cries he, passionately, laying his
hand upon her bridle, close to the bit. "Have you no fear?"
"Of you? none!" returns she, with such open contempt as stings him to
the quick. "Remove your hand, sir."
"When I have said all I wish to say," returns he, coarsely, all his
real brutality coming to the surface. "You shall stay here just as
long as I please, and hear every word I am going to say. You
shall----"
"Will you remove your hand?"
"When it suits me," returns he; "not before."
Passionate indignation conquers her self-control. Raising her arm, she
brings down her riding-whip, with swift and unexpected violence, upon
his cheek. The blow is so severe that, for the moment, he loses his
presence of mind, and, swaying backward, lets the bridle go. Clarissa,
finding herself free, in another moment is out of his reach and on her
way to Sartoris.
As she reaches the gate, she meets James Scrope coming out, and,
drawing rein, looks at him strangely.
"Have you seen a ghost?" asks he, slipping from his saddle, and coming
up to her. "Your face is like death."
"I have, the ghost of an old love, but, oh, how disfigured! Jim, I
have seen Horace."
She hides her face with her hands. She remembers the late scene with
painful distinctness, and wonders if she has been unwomanly, coarse,
undeserving of pity. She will tell him,--that is, Scrope,--and, if he
condemns her, her cup will be indeed full.
Sir James--who, as a rule, is the most amiable of men--is now dark
with anger.
"Branscombe--here?" he says, indignantly.
"Yes. He had evidently heard nothing. But I told him; and--and then he
said things he should not have said; and he held my reins; and I
forgot myself," says poor Clarissa, with anguish in her eyes; "and I
raised my whip, and struck him across the face. Jim, if you say I was
wrong in doing this thing, you will kill me."
"Wrong!" says Scrope. "Hanging would be too good for him. Oh, to think
you should have been alone on such an occasion as that!"
"But it was a hateful thing to do, wasn't it?" says Miss Peyton,
faintly.
"Hateful? Why? I only wish you had laid his cheek open," says Sir
James, venomously. "But of course this poor little hand could not
manage so much." Stooping involuntarily, he presses his lips to the
hand that rests upon her knee.
"That wasn't the hand at all," says Miss Peyton, feeling inexpressibly
consoled by his tone and manner.
"Wasn't it? Then I shall kiss the right one now," says Sir James, and
caresses the other hand right warmly.
"I can't go on to Sartoris to-day," says Clarissa, in a troubled tone,
checking her horse in the middle of the broad avenue.
"No; come home instead," says Scrope; and, turning, they go slowly,
and almost silently, back to Gowran.
* * * * *
Horace, rousing himself after his encounter with Clarissa, puts his
hand impulsively to his face, the sting of the blow still remaining.
His illness has left him somewhat prostrate and weak; so that he feels
more intensely than he otherwise would the pain that has arisen from
the sudden stroke. A bitter execration rises to his lips; and then,
feeling that all hope of reconciliation with Clarissa is at an end, he
returns to Langham Station, and, with a mind full of evil thoughts
and bitter revenge, goes back to town.
Wild and disturbed in appearance, he breaks in upon Ruth as she sits
reading alone in the very room where she had last seen Clarissa. As he
enters, she utters a glad little cry of welcome, and, springing to her
feet, goes over to him.
"So soon returned?" she says, joyfully; and then something she sees in
his face freezes within her all further expressions of pleasure: his
eyes are dark, his whole face is livid with rage.
"So you betrayed me?" he says, pushing her away from him. "Now, no
lies! I saw Clarissa Peyton to-day, and I know everything."
"You have been to Pullingham?" exclaims she, with a little gasp.
"Horace, do not blame me. What was I to do? When she came in here, and
saw me----"
"Clarissa, here?"
"Yes, here. I was afraid to tell you of it before, you seemed so weak,
so fretful. Last Tuesday week--the day you had the sleeping-draught
from Dr. Gregson--she came; she entered the room, she came near you,
she touched you, she would"--faintly--"have kissed you. But how could
I bear that? I stepped forward just in time to prevent her lips from
meeting yours."
"And so," he says, with slow vindictiveness, taking no notice of her
agony, "for the sake of a mere bit of silly sentimentality you spoiled
every prospect I have in life."
"Horace, do not look at me like that," she entreats, painfully.
"Remember all that has passed. If for one moment I went mad and forgot
all, am I so much to be blamed? You had been mine--altogether
mine--for so long that I had not strength in one short moment to
relinquish you. When she would have kissed you, it seemed to me more
than I could endure."
"Was it? It is but a little part of what you will have to endure for
the future," he says, brutally. "You have wilfully ruined me, and must
take the consequences. My marriage with Clarissa Peyton would have set
me straight with the world once more, and need not have altered our
relations with each other one iota."
"You would have been false to your wife?" murmurs she, shrinking back
from him. "Oh, no! that would have been impossible!"
He laughs ironically.
"I tell you candidly," he says, with reckless emphasis, "I should have
been false to one or other of you, and it certainly would not have
been to you."
"You malign yourself," she says, looking at him with steadfast love.
"Do I? What a fool you are!" he says, roughly. "Well, by your own mad
folly you have separated us irretrievably. Blame yourself for this,
not me. My affairs are so hopelessly entangled that I must quit the
country without delay. Your own mad act has rolled an ocean between
us."
He turns, and goes towards the door. Wild with grief and despair, she
follows him, and lays a detaining hand upon his arm.
"Not like this, Horace!" she whispers, desperately. "Do not leave me
like this. Have pity. You shall not go like this! Be merciful: you are
my all!"
"Stand out of my way," he says, between his teeth: and then, as she
still clings to him in her agony, he raises his hand and deliberately
strikes her. Not violently, not severely, but still with sufficient
force to make her stagger backwards and catch hold of a chair to keep
her from falling.
He is gone: and she, stunned, quivering, half blind with nervous
horror, still stands by the chair and tries to realize all that has
passed. As she draws a deep breath, she places her hand, with a
spasmodic movement, to her left side, as though to quell some darting
pain that lies there. The action brings back consciousness, and that
saddest of all things, memory.
"He did not mean it," she whispers to herself, with white set lips.
"It was not a blow; it was only that he wished to put me to one side,
and I was in his way, no doubt: I angered him by my persistency.
Darling! How could I think that he would hurt me?"
Languid, heart-broken, she creeps to her bed, and, flinging herself
upon it, dressed as she is, sleeps heavily until the morn, "diffusing
round a trembling flood of light," wakes her to grief once more.