Faith and Unfaith: A Novel
Miss Peyton is plainly entranced with the whole scene, and for a full minute says nothing.
"I feel as though I were a child again," she says, presently, as though half regretful. "Everything comes back to me with such a strange yet tender vividness. This, I remember, was my favorite table, this my favorite chair. And that little winged monster over there, he used to whisper in my ears more thrilling tales than either Grimm or Andersen. Have you never moved anything in all these years?"
"Never. It is your own room by adoption, and no one shall meddle with it. When I went abroad I locked it, and carried the key of it with me wherever I went; I hardly know why myself." He glances at her curiously, but her face is averted, and she is plainly thinking less of him than of the many odd trifles scattered around. "When I returned, dust reigned, and spiders; but it has been made spick and span to day for its mistress. Does it still please you? or will you care to alter anything?"
"No, nothing. I shall pay a compliment to my childish taste by letting everything stay just as it is. I must have been rather a nice child, Jim, don't you think? if one passes over the torn frocks and the shrewish tongue."
"I don't think I ever saw a tear in your frocks," says Sir James, simply, "and if your tongue was shrewish I never found it out."
Miss Peyton gives way to mirth. She sits down on a wretchedly uncomfortable, if delightfully mediæval, chair and laughs a good deal.
"Oh, wad some power the giftie gie usTo see oursels as others see us!"she quotes, gayly. "Those lines, meant by poor Burns as a censure on frail humanity, rather fall short at this moment. Were I to see myself as you see me, Jim, I should be a dreadfully conceited person, and utterly unbearable What a good friend you make!"
"A bad one, you mean. A real friend, according to my lights, is a fellow who says unpleasant things all round and expects you to respect his candor. By and by, when I tell you a few home truths, perhaps you will not like me as you do now."
"Yes, I shall always like you," says Clarissa. "Long ago, when you used to scold me, I never bore malice. I suppose you are one of those rare people who can say the ungracious thing in such a manner that it doesn't grate. But then you are old, you know, Jim, very old, – though, in appearance, wonderfully young for your years. I do hope papa, at your age, will look as fresh."
She has risen, and has slipped her hand through his arm, and is smiling up at him gayly and with a sweetness irresistible. Sir James looks as pleased as though he had received a florid compliment.
"What a baby you are!" he says, after a pause, looking down at her admiringly. Judging by his tone, babies, in his eyes, must possess very superior attractions. "There are a good many babies in the world, don't you think?" he goes on, presently. "You are one, and Geoffrey Branscombe is another. I don't suppose he will ever quite grow up."
"And Horace," says Clarissa, idly, "is he another?"
But Sir James, though unconsciously, resents the question.
"Oh, no!" he says, hastily. "He does not come within the category at all. Why," with a faint smile, "he is even older than I am! There is no tender baby-nonsense about him."
"No, he is so clever, – so far above us all, where intellect is concerned," she says, absently. A slight smile plays about her lips, and a light, that was not there a moment since, comes to life within her eyes. With an effort, she arouses herself from what were plainly happy daydreams, and comes back to the present, which, just now, is happy too.
"I think nature meant me to be a nun," she says, smiling. "This place subdues and touches me so. The sombre lights and shadows are so impressive! If it were indeed mine (in reality), I should live a great part of my time in it. Here, I should write my pleasantest letters, and read my choicest books, take my afternoon tea, and make welcome my dearest friends, – you among them. In fact, if it were practicable," nodding her pretty head emphatically, "I should steal this room. There is hardly anything I would not do to make it my own."
Scrope regards her earnestly, with a certain amount of calm inquiry. Is she a coquette, or merely unthinking? If, indeed, the face be the index of the mind, one must account her free of all unworthy thought or frivolous design. Here is
"A countenance in which do meetSweet records, promises as sweet."Her eyes are still smiling up at him; her whole expression is full of a gentle friendliness; and in his heart, at this moment, arises a sensation that is not hope, or gladness, or despair, but yet is a faint wild mingling of all three.
As for Clarissa, she stands a little apart, unconscious of all that is passing in his heart, and gazes lovingly upon the objects that surround her, as one will gaze now and then on things that have been fondly remembered through the haze of many years. She is happy, wrapped in memories of a past all sunshine and no shade, and is ignorant of the meaning he would gladly attach to her last words.
"While I stay here I sin, – that is, I covet," she says, at length, surprised by his silence, "and it grows late. Come, walk with me a little way through the park: I have not yet seen the old path we used to call the 'short cut' to Gowran, long ago."
So, down the dark stairs he follows her, across the stone flooring, and into the hall outside, that seems so brilliant by contrast, and so like another world, all is so changed, so different. Behind, lie silence, unbroken, perfect, a sad and dreamy light, Old-World grandeur; here, all is restless life, full of uncertain sounds, and distant footsteps, and voices faint but positive.
"Is it not like a dream?" says Clarissa, stopping to point backwards to the turret they have just quitted.
"The past is always full of dreams," replies he, thoughtfully.
CHAPTER V
"A violet by a mossy stoneHalf hidden from the eye!Fair as a star, when only oneIs shining in the sky." – Wordsworth.The baby morn has flung aside its robes, and grown to perfect strength. The day is well advanced. Already it is making rapid strides towards rest and evening; yet still no cooling breeze has come to refresh the heart of man.
Below, in the quiet fields, the cattle are standing, knee-deep in water, beneath the spreading branches of the kindly alder. They have no energy to eat, but munch, sleepily, the all-satisfying cud, and, with gentle if expressionless eyes, look out afar for evening and the milkmaid.
"'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sunDarts on the head direct his forceful rays.O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eyeCan sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all,From pole to pole, is undistinguished blaze.Distressful Nature pants!The very streams look languid from afar,Or, through th' unsheltered glade, impatient, seemTo hurl into the covert of the grove."A tender stillness reigns over everything. The very birds are mute. Even the busy mill-wheel has ceased to move.
Bright flashes of light, that come and go ere one can catch them, dart across the gray walls of the old mill, – that holds its gaunt and stately head erect, as though defying age, – and, slanting to the right, fall on the cottage, quaint and ivy-clad, that seems to nestle at its feet. The roses that climb its walls are drooping; the casements all stand wide. No faintest breath of air comes to flutter Ruth's white gown, as she leans against the rustic gate.
All millers' daughters should be pretty. It is a duty imposed upon them by tradition. Romance, of the most floral description, at once attaches itself to a miller's daughter. I am not at all sure it does not even cast a halo round the miller himself. Ruth Annersley at least acknowledges this fact, and does her duty nobly; she gives the lie to no old legends or treasured nursery superstitions; she is as pretty as heart can desire, —
"Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair."
She is small, piquant, timid, with large almond-shaped eyes and light-brown hair, a rounded supple figure, and hands delicately white. Perhaps there is a lack of force in her face, an indefinable want, that hardly detracts from her beauty, yet sets one wondering, vaguely, where it lies, and what it can be. The mouth, mobile and slightly parted, betrays it most.
Her lashes, covering her brown eyes, are very long, and lie a good deal on her cheeks. Her manner, without a suspicion of gaucherie, is nervous, almost appealing; and her smile, because so rare, is very charming, and apt to linger in the memory.
She is an only child, and all through her young life has been petted and caressed rather more than is good for any one. Her father had married, somewhat late in life, a woman in every way his superior, and, she dying two years after her marriage, he had fallen back for consolation upon the little one left to his sole care. To him, she was a pride, a delight, a creature precious beyond words, on whom the sun must shine gently and the rain fall not at all.
A shy child from the first, Ruth had declined acquaintance with the villagers, who would, one and all, have been glad to succor the motherless girl. Perhaps the little drop of gentle blood inherited from her mother had thriven in her veins, and thus rendered her distant and somewhat repellent in her manners to those in her own rank of life.
She had been sent early to a private school, had been carefully educated far above her position, and had come home again to her father, with all the pretty airs and unconscious softness of manner that, as a rule, belong to good birth.
She is warm-hearted, passionate, impulsive, and singularly reserved, – so much so that few guess at the terrible power to love, or hate, or suffer, in silence, that lies within her. She is a special favorite with Miss Peyton and the vicarage people (Mr. and Mrs Redmond and their five children), with those at Hythe, and indeed with most of the country people, Miss Scrope excepted, who gives it freely as her opinion that she will come to no good "with her books and her high society and general fiddle-faddling." Nobody knows what this last means, and every one is afraid to ask.
Just now, with her pretty head bare, and her hand shading her eyes, she is gazing down the dusty road. Her whole attitude denotes expectancy. Every feature (she is off her guard) expresses intense and hopeful longing, —
"Fiery Titan, who– with his peccant heatHas dried up the lusty liquor newUpon the herbis in the greene mead,"has plainly fallen in love with her to-day, as he has clothed her in all his glory, and seems reluctant to pass her by on his homeward journey.
The heat has made her pale and languid; but just at this moment a faint delicate color springs into her face; and as the figure of a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, turns the corner of the road, she raises her hand to her cheek with a swift involuntary gesture. A moment later, as the figure comes closer, so near that the face is discernible, she pales again, and grows white as an early snow drop.
"Good-morning, Ruth," says Dorian Branscombe, with a smile, apparently oblivious of the fact that morning has given place to noon many hours agone.
Ruth returns his salutation gently, and lets her hand lie for an instant in his.
"This is a summer's day, with a vengeance," says Dorian, genially, proceeding to make himself comfortable on the top of the low wall near which she is standing. He is plainly making up his mind to a long and exhaustive conversation. "Talk of India!" he says disparagingly; "this beats it to fits!"
Ruth acquiesces amiably.
"It is warm, – very," she says, calmly, but indifferently.
"'Ot I call it, – werry 'ot," returns he, making his quotation as genially as though she understands it, and, plucking a little rose-bud from a tree near him, proceeds to adorn his coat with it.
"It seems a long time since I have seen you," he goes on, presently; and, as he speaks, his eyes again seek hers. Something in her face touches some chord in his careless kindly nature.
"How pale you are!" he says, abruptly.
"Am I? The heat, no doubt," – with a faint smile.
"But thin, too, are you not? And – and – " he pauses. "Anything wrong with you, Ruth?"
"Wrong? No! How should there be?" retorts she, in a curious tone, in which fear and annoyance fight for mastery. Then the storm dies away, and the startled look fades from her pretty face.
"Why should you think me unhappy because I am a little pale?" she asks, sullenly.
Branscombe looks surprised.
"You altogether mistake me," he says, gently. "I never associated you in my mind with unhappiness. I merely meant, had you a headache, or any other of those small ills that female flesh is heir to? I beg your pardon, I'm sure, if I have offended you."
He has jumped off the wall, and is now standing before her, with only the little gate between them. Her face is still colorless, and she is gazing up at him with parted lips, as though she would fain say something difficult to form into satisfactory speech. At this moment, Lord Sartoris, coming suddenly round the angle of the road, sees them.
Ruth lowers her eyes, and some slight transient color creeps into her cheeks. Sartoris, coming quickly up to them, makes some conventional speech to her, and then turns to his nephew.
"Where are you going?" he asks, coldly.
"I was going to Hythe," returned the young man, easily. "Just as well I didn't, eh? Should have found you out."
"Found me out, – yes," repeats his uncle, looking at him strangely. How long – how long it takes to find out some people, on whom our very hearts are set. "I am going to the village."
"Then so am I," says Branscombe. "Though I should think it would run the original 'deserted' one close on such a day as this. Good-by, Ruth."
He holds out his hand; and the girl, silently returning his warm pressure, makes a faint courtesy to Lord Sartoris. There is no servility, but some nervousness, in the slight salutation.
"How is your father, Ruth?" asks he, detaining her by a quick movement of the hand.
"Quite well, thank you, my lord." Some timidity is discernible in her tone, caused by the unmistakable reproof and sternness in his.
"I am glad to hear it. There is no worthier man in all the parish than John Annersley. I hope nothing will ever occur to grieve or sadden that good old man."
"I hope not, my lord," returns she, steadily, although his voice has meaning in it. In another moment she is gone.
"How does your farming go on, Dorian?" asks Lord Sartoris, presently, rousing himself from a puzzling revery.
"Quite in the model line," says Dorian, cheerful. "That Sawyer is an invaluable fellow. Does all the work, you know, – which is most satisfactory. Looks after the men, pays their wages, and takes all trouble off my shoulders. Never could understand what a perfect treasure is till I got him. Every one says I am most fortunate in my choice of a steward."
"I dare say. It is amazing the amount of information people possess about other people's servants. But you look after things yourself, of course? However faithful and trustworthy one's hirelings may be, one's own eyes should also be in the matter."
"Oh, of course," acquiesces Dorian, still cheerfully. "Nothing like personal supervision, and so on. Every now and then, you know, I do look over the accounts, and ask a few questions, and show myself very learned in drainages, and so forth. But I don't see that I gain much by it. Horrid stupid work, too," – with a yawn. "Luckily, Sawyer is one of the most knowing fellows in the world, or I suppose I should go to smash. He is up to everything, and talks like a book. Quite a pleasure, I give you my word, – almost a privilege, – to hear him converse on short-horns and some eccentric root they call mangels."
"It is possible to be too knowing," says his uncle, depreciatingly.
"Eh? oh, no; Sawyer is not that sort of person. He is quite straight all through. And he never worries me more than he can help. He looks after everything, and whatever he touches (metaphorically speaking) turns to gold. I'm sure anything like those pheasants – "
"Yes, yes, I dare say. But pheasants are not everything."
"Well, no; there are a few other things," says Dorian, amicably, – "notably, grouse. Why this undying hatred to Sawyer, my dear Arthur? In what has he been found wanting?"
"I think him a low, under-hand, sneaking sort of fellow," says Sartoris, unhesitatingly. "I should not keep him in my employ half an hour. However," relentingly, and somewhat sadly, "one cannot always judge by appearances."
They have reached the village by this time, and are walking leisurely through it. Almost as they reach the hotel that adorns the centre of the main street, they meet Mr. Redmond, the rector, looking as hearty and kindly as usual. Lord Sartoris, who has come down on purpose to meet him, having asked his question and received his answer, turns again and walks slowly homeward, Dorian still beside him.
As they again catch sight of the old mill, Sartoris says, quietly, with a laudable attempt at unconcern that would not have deceived the veriest infant, but is quite successful with Dorian, whose thoughts are far away, —
"What a nice girl that little Ruth has grown!"
"Awfully pretty girl," returns Dorian, carelessly.
"Yes," – gravely, – "very pretty; and I think – I hope – upright, as she is beautiful. Poor child, hers seems to me a very desolate lot. Far too well educated to associate with those of her own class, she is still cut off by the laws of caste from mixing with those above her. She has no friends, no mother, no sister, to love and sympathize with her."
"My dear Arthur, how you do agonize yourself!" says Dorian. "She has her father, and about as comfortable a time altogether as I know of."
"She reminds me of some lowly wayside flower," goes on the old man, musingly, heedless of the brilliant interlude, "raising its little head sadly among gay garden-plants that care not for her, whilst beyond the hedge that bounds her garden she can watch her own species grow and flourish in wild luxuriance. Her life can scarcely be called happy. There must always be a want, a craving for what can never be obtained. Surely the one that could bring sorrow to that pure heart, or tears to those gentle eyes, should be – "
"Asphyxiated," puts in Dorian, idly. He yawns languidly and pulls the head off a tall dandelion, that adorns the wayside, in a somewhat desultory fashion. The color in the older man's cheeks grows a shade deeper, and a gesture, as full of impatience as of displeasure, escapes him.
"There are some subjects," he says, with calm severity, "that it would be well to place beyond the reach of ridicule."
"Am I one of them?" says Dorian, lightly. Then, glancing at his uncle's face, he checks himself, and goes on quickly. "I beg your pardon, I'm sure. I have been saying something unlucky, as usual. Of course I agree with you on all points, Arthur, and think the man who could wilfully bring a blush to Ruth Annersley's cheek neither more nor less than a blackguard pur et simple. By the by, that last little homely phrase comes in badly there, doesn't it? Rather out of keeping with the vituperative noun, eh!"
"Rather," returns Sartoris, shortly. He drops his nephew's arm, and walks on in silence. As a rule, Dorian's careless humor suits him; it amuses and adds a piquancy to a life that without it (now that Dorian's society has become indispensable to him) would prove "flat, stale, and unprofitable." But to-day, he hardly knows why, – or, perhaps, hardly dares to know why, – his nephew's easy light-heartedness jars upon him, vexing him sorely.
As they turn the corner of the road and go down the hill, they meet Horace, coming towards them at a rapid pace. As he sees them, he slackens his speed and approaches more slowly.
"Just as well I met you," he says, with an airy laugh, "as my thoughts were running away with me, and Phœbus Apollo is in the ascendant: veritably he 'rules the roast.' This uphill work is trying on the lungs."
"Where have you been?" asks Dorian, just because he has nothing else to say, and it is such a bore to think.
"At Gowran."
"Ah! I'm going there now. You saw Clarissa, then?" says Sartoris, quickly. "When do you return to town, Horace?"
"To-morrow, I think, – I hope," says Horace; and, with a little nod on both sides, they part. But when the bend in the road again hides him from view, it would occur to a casual on-looker that Horace Branscombe's thoughts must once more have taken his physical powers into captivity, as his pace quickens, until it grows even swifter than it was before.
Sartoris goes leisurely down the hill, with Dorian beside him, whistling "Nancy Lee," in a manner highly satisfactory to himself, no doubt, but slightly out of tune. When Sartoris can bear this musical treat no longer, he breaks hurriedly into speech of a description that requires an answer.
"What a pretty girl Clarissa Peyton is! don't you think so?"
When Dorian has brought Miss Lee to a triumphant finish, with a flourish that would have raised murderous longings in the breast of Stephen Adams, he says, without undue enthusiasm, —
"Yes, she is about the best-looking woman I know."
"And as unaffected as she is beautiful. That is her principal charm. So thoroughly bred, too, in every thought and action. I never met so lovable a creature!"
"What a pity she can't hear you!" says Branscombe. "Though perhaps it is as well she can't. Adulation has a bad effect on some people."
"She is too earnest, too thorough, to be upset by flattery. I sometimes wonder if there are any like her in the world."
"Very few, I think," says Dorian, genially.
Another pause, somewhat longer than the last, and then Sartoris says, with some hesitation, "Do you never think of marrying, Dorian?"
"Often," says Branscombe, with an amused smile.
"Yet how seldom you touch on the matter! Why, when I was your age, I had seen at least twenty women I should have married, had they shown an answering regard for me."
"What a blessing they didn't!" says Branscombe. "Fancy, twenty of them! You'd have found it awkward in the long run, wouldn't you? And I don't think they'd have liked it, you know, in this illiberal country. So glad you thought better of it."
"I wish I could once see you as honestly" – with a slight, almost unconscious, stress on the word – "in love as I have been scores of times."
"What a melancholy time you must have put in! When a fellow is in love he goes to skin and bone, doesn't he? slights his dinner, and refuses to find solace in the best cigar. It must be trying, – very; especially to one's friends. I doubt you were a susceptible youth, Arthur. I'm not."
"Then you ought to be," says Sartoris, with some anger. "All young men should feel their hearts beat, and their pulses quicken, at the sight of a pretty woman."
"My dear fellow," says Branscombe, severely, removing his glass from his right to his left eye, as though to scan more carefully his uncle's countenance, "there is something the matter with you this morning, isn't there? You're not well, you know. You have taken something very badly, and it has gone to your morals; they are all wrong, – very unsound indeed. Have you carefully considered the nature of the advice you are giving me? Why, if I were to let my heart beat every time I meet all the pretty women I know, I should be in a lunatic asylum in a month."
"Seriously, though, I wish you would give the matter some thought," says Lord Sartoris, earnestly: "you are twenty-eight, – old enough to make a sensible choice."
Branscombe sighs.
"And I see nothing to prevent your doing so. You want a wife to look after you, – a woman you could respect as well as love, – a thoughtful beautiful woman, to make your home dearer to you than all the amusements town life can afford. She would make you happy, and induce you to look more carefully to your own interests, and – and – "
"You mean you would like me to marry Clarissa Peyton," says Dorian, good-humoredly. "Well, it is a charming scheme, you know; but I don't think it will come off. In the first place, Clarissa would not have me, and in the next, I don't want to marry at all. A wife would bore me to death; couldn't fancy a greater nuisance. I like women very much, in fact, I may say, I am decidedly fond of a good many of them, but to have one always looking after me (as you style it) and showing up my pet delinquencies would drive me out of my mind. Don't look so disgusted! I feel I'm a miserable sinner; but I really can't help it. I expect there is something radically wrong with me."