Sophia by Stanley J. Weyman (romantic books to read .TXT) 📕

this, the last of many disappointments, the girl's courage snapped, as a rush snaps. With a wild outburst of weeping, she flung herself down on the sloping ground, and rubbed her face in the grass, and tore the soil with her fingers in an agony of abandonment. "Oh, I left her! I left her!" she wailed, when sobs allowed words to pass. "I left her, and saved myself. And she's dead! Oh, why didn't I stay with her? Why didn't I stay with her?"

The young man listened awhile, awkward, perturbed; when he spoke his voice was husky. "'Tis no use," he said peevishly. "No use, child! Don't--don't go on like this! See here, you'll have a fever, if you lie there. You will, I know," he repeated.

"I wish I had!" she cried with passion, and beat her hands on the ground. "Oh why did I leave her?"

He cleared his throat. "It's folly this!" he urged. "It's--it's of no use to any one. No good! And there, now it's dark. I told you so--and we shall have fine work getting to the road again!"

She did not answer, but little by little his meaning reached her brain, and after a minute or two she sat up, her crying less violent. "That's better," he said. "But you are too tired to go farther. Let me help you to climb the fence. There's a log the other side--I stumbled over it. You can sit on it until you are rested."

She did not assent, but she suffered him to help her through the hedge and seat her on the fallen tree. The tide of grief had ebbed; she was regaining her self-control, though now and again a sob shook her. But he saw that an interval must pass before she could travel, and he stood, shy and silent, seeing her dimly by the light which the moon still shed through a flying wrack of clouds. Round and below them lay the country, still, shadowy, mysterious; stretching away into unknown infinities, framing them in a solitude perfect and complete. They might have been the only persons in the world.

By-and-by, whether he was tired, or really had a desire to comfort her at closer quarters, he sat down on the tree; and by chance his hand touched her hand. She sprang a foot away, and uttered a cry. He laughed softly.

"You need not be afraid," he said. "I've seen enough of women to last me my life. If you were the only woman in the world, and the most beautiful, you would be safe enough for me. You may be quite easy, my dear."

She ceased to sob, but her voice was a little broken and husky when she spoke. "I'm very sorry," she said humbly. "I am afraid I have given you a vast deal of trouble, sir."

"Not so much as a woman has given me before this," he answered.

She looked at him furtively out of the tail of her eye, as a woman at that would be likely to look. And if the truth be told she felt, amid all her grief, an inclination to laugh. But with feminine tact she suppressed this. "And yet--and yet you came to help me?" she muttered.

He shrugged his shoulders. "One has to do certain things," he said.

"I am afraid somebody has--has behaved badly to you," she murmured; and she sighed.

Somehow the sigh flattered him. "As women generally behave," he replied with a sneer. "She lied to me, she cheated me, she robbed me, and she would have ruined me."

"And men don't do those things," she answered meekly, "to women." And she sighed again.

He started. It could not be that she was laughing at him. "Anyway, I have done with women," he said brusquely.

"And you'll never marry, sir?"

"Marry? Oh, I say nothing as to that," he answered contemptuously. "Marry I may, but it won't be for love. And 'twill be a lady anyway; I'll see to that. I'll know her father and her mother, and her grandfather and her grandmother," Tom continued. For poor Tom it was, much battered and weathered by a week spent on the verge of 'listing. "I'll have her pedigree by heart, and she shall bring her old nurse with her to speak for her, if marry I must. But no more ladies in distress for me. No more ladies picked up off the road, I thank you. That's all."

"You are frank, sir, at any rate," she said; and she laughed in a sort of wonder, taking it to herself.

At the sound, Tom, who had meant nothing personal, felt ashamed of himself. "I beg your pardon, my dear," he answered. "But--but I wished to put you at your ease. I wished to show you, you were safe with me; as your mistress would be."

"Oh, thank you," Betty answered. "For the matter of that, sir, I've had a lover myself, and said no to him, as well as my betters. But it wasn't before he asked me," she continued ironically. And she tossed her head again.

"I didn't mean--I mean I thought you were afraid of me," Tom stammered, wondering she took it so ill.

"No more than my mistress would be," she retorted sharply. "And I'm just as particular as she is--in one thing."

"What's that?" he asked.

"I don't take gentlemen off the road, either."

He laughed, seeing himself hit; and as if that recalled her to herself, she sprang up with a sob of remorse. "Oh," she said, wringing her hands, "we sit here and play, while she suffers! We don't think of her! Do something! do something if you are a man!"

"But we don't know where we are, or where she is."

"Then let us find her," she cried; "let us find her!"

"We can do nothing in the dark," he urged. "It is dark as the pit now. If we can find our way to the road again, it will be as much as we can do."

"Let us try! let us try!" she answered, growing frantic. "I shall go mad if I stay here."

He gave way at that, and consented to try. But they had not gone fifty yards before she tripped and fell, and he heard her gasp for breath.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, stooping anxiously over her.

"No," she said. But she rose with difficulty, and he knew by her voice that she was shaken.

"It's of no use to go on," he said. "I told you so. We must stay here. It is after midnight now. In an hour, or a little more, dawn will appear. If we find the road now we can do no good."

She shivered. "Take me back," she said miserably. "I--I don't know where we are."

He took her hand, and with a little judgment found the tree again. "If you could sleep awhile," he said, "the time would pass."

"I cannot," she cried, "I cannot." And then, "Oh Sophy! Sophy!" she wailed, "why did I leave you? Why did I leave you?"

He let her weep a minute or two, and then as much to distract her as for any other reason, he asked her if she had been brought up with her mistress.

She ceased to sob. "Why?" she asked, startled.

"Because--you called her by her name," he said. "I noticed because I've a sister of that name."

"Sophia?"

"Yes. If I had listened to her--but there, what is the use of talking?" And he broke off brusquely.

Lady Betty was silent awhile, only betraying her impatience by sighing or beating the trunk with her heels. By-and-by, the hour before the dawn came, and it grew cold. He heard her teeth chatter, and after fumbling with his coat, he took it off, and, in spite of her remonstrances, wrapped her in it.

"Don't!" she said, feebly struggling with him. "Don't! You're a gentleman, and I am only----"

"You're a woman as much as your mistress," he answered roughly.

"But--you hate women!" she cried.

"You don't belong to me," he answered with disdain, "and you'll not die on my hands! Do as you are bidden, child!"

After that he walked up and down before the tree; until at last the day broke, and the grey light, spreading and growing stronger, showed them a sea of mist, covering the whole world--save the little eminence on which they sat--and flowing to their very feet. It showed them also two haggard faces--his weary, hers beautiful in spite of its pallor and her long vigil. For in some mysterious way she had knotted up her hair and tied her kerchief. As she gave him back his coat, and their eyes met, he started and grew red.

"Good heavens, child!" he cried, "you are too handsome to be wandering the country alone; and too young."

She had nothing to say to that, but her cheeks flamed, and she begged him to come quickly--quickly; and together they went down into the mist. At that hour the birds sing in chorus as they never sing in the day; and, by the time the two reached the road the sun was up and the world round them was joyous with warmth and light and beauty. The dew besprinkled every bush with jewels as bright as those which Betty carried in her bosom--for she had thrown away the case--and from the pines on the hill came the perfume of a hundred Arabys. Tom wondered why his heart beat so lightly, why he felt an exhilaration to which he had been long a stranger. Heartbroken, a woman-hater, a cynic, it could not be because a pair of beautiful eyes had looked kindly into his? because a waiting-maid had for a moment smiled on him? That was absurd.

For her, left to herself, she would have pursued the old plan, and gone wildly, frantically up and down, seeking at random the place where she had left Sophia. But he would not suffer it. He led her to the nearest cottage, and learning from the staring inhabitants the exact position of Beamond's Farm, got his companion milk and bread, and saw her eat it. Then he announced his purpose.

"I shall leave you here," he said. "In two hours at the most I shall be back with news."

"And you think I'll stay?" she cried.

"I think you will, for I shall not take you," he answered coolly. "Do you want the smallpox, silly child? Do you think your ladies will be as ready to hire you when you have lost your looks? Stay here, and in two hours I shall be back."

She cried that she would not stay; she would not stay! "I shall not!" she cried a third time. "Do you hear me? I shall go with you!"

"You will not!" Tom said. "And for a good reason, my girl. You heard that woman ask us whether we came from Beamond's, and you saw the way she looked at us. If it's known we've been there, there's not a house within ten miles will take us in, nor a coach will give us a lift. You have had one night out, you'll not bear another. Now, with me it is different."

"It is not," she cried. "I shall go."

"You will not," he said; and their eyes met. And presently hers dropped. "You will not," he repeated masterfully; "because I am the stronger, and I will tie you to a gate before you shall go. And you, little fool, will be thankful to me to-morrow. It's for your own good."

She gave way at that, crying feebly, for the night had shaken her. "Sit here in sight of the cottage," he continued, thrusting aside the brambles and making a place for her beside a tree, "and if you can sleep a little, so much the better. In two