Portia by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (great novels .TXT) 📕

by scene the events of the last hour spread themselves before her: the maddened brute rushing violently over the soft, smooth lawn to where the treacherous stream awaits him, running gently between its damp green banks--Sir Christopher's danger--Fabian's unexpected interference--the short, but terrible fear for him--and then the sudden fall from the extreme agony of suspense to comparative calm.

And yet, perhaps, all this does not haunt her so much as one or two other things, that, in reality, were of little moment. That time, for instance, when he--Fabian--stood beneath the balcony, and when he, with a glance, a half-spoken word, accused her of coldness and indifference. He had condemned her all too willingly. But this was only fair, no doubt. Had not she, in her innermost heart, condemned him, unheard, unquestioned.

And what was it he had said to Dulce? "Take example by your cousin; see how sensible _she_ can be," or something like that. Sensible! When this terrible pain was tugging at her heart strings, and prolonged nervousness had made speech impossible.

And why had he said "_your_ cousin," instead of "our cousin?" Was it that he did not care to claim kinship with her, or because--because--he did not count himself worthy--to--

Again she raises her hand, and presses it with undue force against her left side. She is unhappy and alone, and full of a vague uncertainty.

"Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows," and all the shadows of her grief seem now to hem her in, and encompass her on every side. The old troublesome pain in her heart, that drove her from the dissipations of town life to seek a shelter in the quiet country, returns to her again. At this moment the pain of which I speak grows almost past endurance. A faint, gray pallor supersedes the vivid carmine of a while ago. She sighs with evident difficulty, and sinks back heavily amongst her cushions.


CHAPTER XII.


"Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love."
--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.


"I SHOULD think if we are going to give our dance at all, it ought to be soon," says Dulce, with a shrug and a somewhat listless little yawn.

"So we ought," says Dicky Browne, briskly. It seems the most natural thing in the world that he should use the first person plural, and that he should appear to be the chief promoter of the dance in question. "We've been talking of it a considerable lot, you know," he goes on, confidentially, "and they will all think it a dodge on your part if you don't give it within the next fortnight."

"A dodge!" says Miss Blount, very justly incensed. "What dodge?"

"Well, look here," says Dicky--"there once was a fellow--"

He breaks off at this interesting juncture, and, fixing his glass in his best eye, stares at a figure coming slowly towards them from the house. They all follow his gaze, and find themselves criticising the approaching form in a vague, surprised fashion.

"Great hat! look at Julia!" says Dicky, at last, giving way to speech that will not be repressed. The exclamation is quite in keeping with the scene. Julia, in a head gear of the style usually described as a Rubens, of the very largest description, comes simpering up to them, filled with the belief that now, if ever, she is looking her very best. "Great" _is_ the word for it. She is indeed all that.

"My dear Julia, where have you been!" says Dulce, ignoring the hat.

"Searching every room in the house for that last book of Ouida's," says Julia, promptly, who has in reality been posing before a mirror in her own room, crowned with a Rubens. "I'm always losing my things, you know--and my way; my boat, for example, and my train, and my umbrella." She is plainly impressed with the belief that she is saying something smart, and looks conscious of it.

"Why don't you add your temper," says Dicky Browne, with a mild smile--which rather spoils the effect of her would-be smartness.

"We were talking about our ball," says Dulce, somewhat quickly. "Dicky seems to think that we shall lose caste in the neighborhood if we put it off much longer."

"You'll create ill feeling," says Mr. Browne. "The Stanley girls have new gowns, and they want to show them. They'll say nasty things about you."

"That's your second hint on that subject," says Sir Mark. "Get it out, Dicky, you are dying to say something. What was it you were going to say a few minutes ago about some fellow who--?"

"Who for seven years was going to give a ball, and was asked everywhere on the strength of it. His friends hoped against hope, don't you see, but nothing ever came of it. At the end of the seven years he was as far off it as ever."

"And what did his friends do to him then," asks Julia, who is one of those people who always want _more_ than enough.

"Deponent sayeth not," says Mr. Browne. "Perhaps it was too dark a tale for publication. I suppose they either smote him between the joints of his harness till he died, or else they fell upon him in a body and rent him in pieces."

"What nonsense you can talk at times," says Mrs. Beaufort, mindful of his speech of a few moments ago.

"Not I," says Dicky Browne.

It is about four o'clock, and already the shadows are lengthening upon the grass, the soft, cool grass upon which they are all sitting beneath the shade of the huge chestnut trees, that fling their branches in all directions, some east, some west, some heavenwards.

A little breeze is blowing towards them sweet essences of pinewood and dark fir. Above in the clear sky the fleecy clouds assume each moment a new form--a yet more tender color--now pale blue, now gray, now a soft pink that verges upon crimson. Down far in the hollows a white mist is floating away, away, to the ocean, and there, too, can be seen (playing hide and seek amongst the great trunks of the giant elms) the flitting forms of the children dancing fantastically to and fro.

The scent of dying meadow-sweet is on the air, and the hush and the calm of evening.

"Dulce, command us to have tea out here," says Sir Mark, removing his cigarette from his lips for a moment.

"Dear Dulce, yes; that will be sweet," says Portia, who is very silent and very pale and very beautiful to-day.

"Dicky, go and tell some one to bring tea here directly," says Dulce; "and say they are to bring peaches for Portia, because she loves them, and say anything else you like for yourself."

"Thanks; Curacao will do me very nicely," says Dicky, with all the promptitude that distinguishes him.

"And Maraschino," suggests Sir Mark, in the mildest tone.

"And just a suspicion of brandy," puts in Roger, almost affectionately. Overpowered by their amiability and their suggestions, Dicky turns towards the house.

"I fly," he says. "Think of me till my return."

"Do tell them to hurry, Dicky," says Dulce, anxiously. "They are always so slow. And tell them to bring lots of cake."

"You shall have it all in a couple of shakes," says Mr. Browne, encouragingly, if vulgarly.

"What's that?" asks Dulce, meaning reproof. "It isn't English, is it? How soon will it be?"

"Oh--half a jiff," returns he, totally unabashed.

Presently tea is brought, and they are all happy, notably Dicky, who walks round and into the cakes with unceasing fervor.

"By-the-by, I wonder Stephen hasn't been here to-day," says Julia, addressing no one in particular.

"Something better to do, perhaps," says Portia.

"Yes--where _can_ he be?" says Dulce, waking into sudden animation. "'Something better to do?' Why, what could that be?"

"Writing sonnets to your eyebrow," answers Roger in an unpleasant tone.

"How clever you are!" retorts she, in a tone even more unpleasant, letting her white lids fall until they half-conceal the scorn in her eyes. _Only_ half!

"He is such a jail bird--I beg his pardon, a town bird," says Sir Mark, lazily, "that I didn't think anything could keep him in the country so long. Yet, he doesn't _look_ bored. He bears the solitary confinement very well."

"There is shooting, isn't there?" suggests Portia.

"Any amount of it," says Dicky; "but that don't solve the mystery. He couldn't shoot a haystack flying, not if his life depended on it. It's suicide to go out with him! He'd as soon shoot you or me as anything else. I always say the grouse ought to love him; because I don't believe he knows the barrel of his gun from the stock."

"How perfectly dreadful!" exclaims Julia, who always takes everything _au grand serieux_.

"There is other game in the country besides grouse," says Roger, in a peculiar tone.

"I dare say he can't bear to leave that dear old house now he has got into it," says Dulce; "it is so lovely, so quaint, so--"

"Now, is it?" asks Dicky Browne, meditatively. "I've seen nicer, I think. I always feel, when there, as if everything, ceilings, roof and all were coming down on my unfortunate head."

"But it is so old, so picturesque; a perfect dream, _I_ think," says Dulce, rather affectedly.

"It isn't half a bad place, but not to be compared to The Moors, surely," says Sir Mark, gently, looking with some reproof at Dulce--reproof the spoiled child resents--The Moors is Roger's home. "I think The Moors one of the most beautiful places in England."

"And one of the draughtiest," says Miss Blount, ungraciously. "I was there once. It was a year ago. It occurred to me, I remember, that the sun had forgotten it; indeed, I had but one thought all the time I stayed."

"And that was?" asks Roger, defiantly.

"How to get away from it again as soon as possible."

"I am sorry my old home found such disfavor in your sight," says Roger, so quietly that remorse wakes within her breast, bringing with it, however, no good result, rather adding fuel to the flame that has been burning brightly since breakfast time. His rebuke is so abominably mild that it brings Miss Blount to the very verge of open wrath.

"I think Stephen such a dear fellow," says Julia, at this critical juncture. "So--er--well read, and that."

"Yes; though, I think, I have known better," says Sir Mark, looking at Dulce.

"Poor Mr. Gower," says that young lady, airily; "everyone seems determined to decry him. What has he done to everybody, and why should comparisons be drawn? There _may_ be better people, and there may be worse; but--I like him."

"Lucky he," says Roger, with a faint but distinct sneer, his temper forsaking him; "I could almost wish that I were he."

"I could almost wish it, too," says Dulce, with cruel frankness.

"Thank you." Roger, by this time, is in a very respectable passion, though nobody but he and Dulce have heard the last three sentences. "Perhaps," he says, deliberately, "it will be my most generous course to resign in favor of--"

"More tea, Portia?" interrupts Dulce, very quickly, in a tone that trembles ever so slightly.

"No, thank you. But, Dulce, I want you near me. Come and