FOOTNOTES:
[A] The statue was restored to Segesta by Scipio.
"FOR PERCIVAL."
CHAPTER IX.
SISSY LOOKS INTO THE MIRROR.
A lady's hero generally has ample leisure. He may write novels or poems, or paint the picture or carve the statue of the season, or he is a statesman and rules the destinies of nations, or he makes money mysteriously in the city, or even, it may be, not less mysteriously on the turf; but he does it in his odd minutes. That is his characteristic. Perhaps he spends his morning in stupendous efforts to gratify a wish expressed in smiling hopelessness by the heroine; later, he calls on her or he rides with her; evening comes, he dances with her till the first gray streak of dawn has touched the eastern sky. He goes home. His pen flies along the paper—he is knee-deep in manuscript; he is possessed with burning enthusiasm and energy; her features grow in idealized loveliness beneath his chisel, or the sunny tide of daylight pours in to irradiate the finished picture as well as the exhausted artist with a golden glory. He has a talent for sitting up. He gets up very early indeed if he is in the country, but he never goes to bed early, or when would he achieve his triumphs? Some things, it is true, must be done by day, but half an hour will work wonders. The gigantic intellect is brought to bear on the confidential clerk: the latter is, as it were, wound up, and the great machine goes on. Or a hasty telegram arrives as the guests file in to dinner. "Pardon me, one moment;" and instantly something is sent off in cipher which shall change the face of Europe. Unmoved, the hero returns to the love-making which is the true business of life.
There are poetry and romance enough in many an outwardly prosaic life. How often have we been told this! Nay, we have read stories in which the hero possesses a season-ticket, and starts from his trim suburban home after an early breakfast, to return in due time to dine, perhaps to talk a little "shop" over the meal, and, it may be, even to feel somewhat sleepy in the evening. But, as far as my experience goes, the day on which the story opens is the last on which he does all this. That morning he meets the woman with the haunting eyes or the old friend who died long ago—did not the papers say so?—and whose resurrection includes a secret or two. Or he is sent for to some out-of-the-way spot in the country where there is a mysterious business of some kind to be unravelled. At any rate, he needs his season-ticket never again, but changes more or less into the hero we all know.
It is hard work for these unresting men, no doubt, yet what is to be done? Unless the double-shift system can in any way be applied for their relief, I fear they must continue to toil by night that they may appear to be idle men.
And, after all, were the hero not altogether heroic, one is tempted to doubt if this abundant leisure is quite a gain.
Addie Blake, planning some bright little scheme which needed a whole day and an unoccupied squire, said once to Godfrey Hammond, "You can't think what a comfort it is to get some one who hasn't to go to business every day. I hate the very name of business! Now, you are always at hand when you are wanted."
"Yes," he said, "we idle men have a great advantage over the busy ones, no doubt; but I think it almost more than counterbalanced by our terrible disadvantage."
"We are at hand when we are not wanted," said Godfrey seriously.
And I think he was right. One may have a great liking—nay, something warmer than liking—for one's companions in endless idle tête-à-têtes, but they are perilous nevertheless. Some day the pale ghost—weariness, ennui, dearth of ideas, I hardly know what its true name is—comes into the room to see if the atmosphere will suit it, and sits down between you. You cannot see the colorless spectre, but are conscious of a slight exhaustion in the air. Everything requires a little effort—to breathe, to question, to answer, to look up, to appear interested. You feel that it is your own fault, perhaps: you would gladly take all the blame if you could only take all the burden. Perhaps the failing is yours, but it is your fault only as it is the fault of an electric eel that after many shocks his power is weakened and he wants to be left alone to recover it.
Still, though there may be no fault, it is a terrible thing to feel one's heart sink suddenly when one's friend pauses for a moment in the doorway as if about to return. One thinks, If weariness cannot be kept at bay in the society of those we love, where can we be safe from the cold and subtle blight? As soon as we are conscious of it, it seems to become part of us, and we shrink from the popular idea of the Hereafter, assured of finding our spectre even in the courts of heaven.
Godfrey Hammond expressed the fear of too much companionship in speech, Percival Thorne in action. He was given to lonely walks if the weather were fine—to shutting himself in his own room with a book if it were wet. He would dream for hours, for I will frankly confess that when he was shut up with a book, his book as often as not was in that condition too.
His grandfather had complained more than once, "You don't often come to Brackenhill, Percival, except to solve the problem of how little you can see of us in a given time." He did not suspect it, but much of the strong attraction which drew him to his grandson lay in that very fact. The latter confronted him in grave independence, just touched with the courteous deference due from youth to age, but nothing more. Mr. Thorne would have thanked Heaven had the boy been a bit of a spendthrift, but Percival was too wary for that. He did not refuse his grandfather's gifts, but he never seemed in want of them. They might help him to pleasant superfluities, but his attitude said plainly enough, "I have sufficient for my needs." He was not to be bought: the very aimlessness of his life secured him from that. You cannot earn a man's gratitude by helping him onward in his course when he is drifting contentedly round and round. He was not to be bullied, being conscious of his impregnable position. He was not to be flattered in any ordinary way. It was so evident to him that the life he had chosen must appear an unwise choice to the majority of his fellow-men that he accepted any assurance to the contrary as the verdict of a small minority. Nor was he conscious of any especial power or originality, so that he could be pleased by being told that he had broken conventional trammels and was a great soul. Mr. Thorne did not know how to conquer him, and could not have enough of him.
It is needful to note how the day after the agricultural show was spent at Brackenhill.
Godfrey Hammond left by an early train. Mrs. Middleton came down to see about his breakfast with a splitting headache. The poor old lady's suffering was evident, and Sissy's suggestion that it was due to their having walked about so much in the broiling sun the day before was unanimously accepted. Mrs. Middleton countenanced the theory, though she privately attributed it to a sleepless night which had followed a conversation with Hammond about Horace.
Percival vanished immediately after breakfast. As soon as he had ascertained that there were no especial plans for the day, he slipped quietly away with his hands in his pockets, strolled through the park, whistling dreamily as he went, and passing out into the road, crossed it and made straight for the river. He lay on the grass for half an hour or so, studying the growth of willows and the habits of dragon-flies, and then sauntered along the bank. Had he gone to the left it would have led him past Langley Wood to Fordborough. He went to the right.
It was a gentle little river, which had plenty of time to spare, and amused itself with wandering here and there, tracing a bright maze of curves and unexpected turns. At times it would linger in shady pools, where, half asleep, it seemed to hesitate whether it cared to go on to the county-town at all that day. But Percival defied it to have more leisure than he had, and followed the silvery clue till all at once he found himself face to face with an artist who sat by the river-side sketching.
The young man looked up with a half smile as Percival came suddenly upon him from behind a clump of alders. A remark of some kind, were it but concerning the weather, was inevitable. It was made, and was followed by others. Young Thorne looked, admired and questioned, and they drifted into an aimless talk about the art which the painter loved. Even to an outsider, such as Percival, it was full of color and grace and a charm half understood, vaguely suggestive of a world of beauty—not far off and inaccessible, but underlying the common, every-day world of which we are at times a little weary. It was as if one should tell us of virtue new and strange in the often-turned earth of our garden-plot. Percival was rather apt to analyze his pains and pleasures, but his ideal was enjoyment which should defy analysis, and he found something of it that morning in the summer weather and his new friend's talk.
It was past noon. The young artist looked at his watch and ascertained the fact. "Do you live near here?" he asked.
Percival shook his head: "I live anywhere. I am a wanderer on the face of the earth. But my grandfather lives in that gray house over yonder, and I am free to come and go as I choose. I am staying there now."
"Brackenhill, do you mean? That fine old house on the side of the hill? I am lodging at the farm down there, and the farmer—"
"John Collins," said Percival.
"Entertains me every night with stories of its magnificence. Since we have smoked our pipes together I have learnt that Brackenhill is the eighth wonder of the world."
"Not quite," said Thorne. "But it is a good old manor-house, and, thank Heaven, my ancestors for a good many generations wasted their money, and had none to spare for restoring and beautifying. I don't mean my grandfather: he wouldn't hurt it. It's a quaint old place. Come some afternoon and look at it. He shall show you his pictures."
"Thanks," the other said, but he hesitated and looked at his unfinished work. "I should like, but I don't quite know. The fact is, when I have done for to-day I'm to have old Collins's gig and drive into Fordborough to see if there are any letters for me. I am not sure I shall not have to leave the first thing to-morrow."
"And I have made you waste your time this morning."
"Don't mention it," said the young artist with the brightest smile. "I'm not much given to bemoaning past troubles, and I shall be in a very bad way indeed before I begin to find fault with past pleasures. I may not find my letter after all, and in that case I should like very much to look you up. To-morrow?"
"Pray do." The tone was unmistakably cordial.
"Your grandfather's name is Thorne, isn't it? Shall I ask for young Mr. Thorne?"
"Percival Thorne," was the quick correction: "I have a cousin."
They shook hands, but as Thorne turned away the other called after him: "I say! is there any name to that little wood out there, looking like a dark cloud on the green?"
"Yes—Langley Wood." Percival nodded a second farewell, and went on his way pondering. And this was the subject of his thoughts: "Then, my brother, I have to go through Langley Wood to-morrow evening, and I am afraid to go alone."
Of course he had not forgotten his promise to Addie, but having made his arrangements and worked it all out in his own mind, he had dismissed it from his thoughts. Now, however, it rose up before him as a slightly disagreeable puzzle.
What on earth did Addie want toward nine at night in Langley Wood? The day before, in haste to answer her request and anxiety not to betray her, he had not considered whether the service he had promised to render were pleasant to him or not. In very truth, he was willing to serve Addie, and he had professed his willingness the more eagerly that he had expected a harder task. She asked so slight a thing that only eager readiness could give the service any grace at all.
But when he came to consider it he half wished that his task had been harder if it might have been different. He liked Addie, he was ready to serve her, but he foresaw possible annoyances to them both from her hasty request. He had no confidence in her prudence.
"Some silly freak of hers," he thought while he walked along, catching at the tops of the tall flowering weeds as he went. "Some silly girlish freak. Why didn't she ask Horace? Wouldn't run any risk of getting him into trouble, I suppose."
Did Horace know? he wondered. "I'm not going to be made use of by him and her: they needn't think it!" vowed Percival in sudden anger. But next moment he smiled at his own folly: "When I have given my word, and must go if fifty Horaces had planned it! I had better save my resolutions for next time." He did not think, however, that Horace did know. "Which makes it all the worse," he reflected. "A charming complication it will be if I get into trouble with him about Addie. Suppose some one sees us? Suppose Mrs. Blake is down upon me, questioning, and I, pledged to secrecy, haven't a word to say for myself? Suppose Lottie—Oh, I say, a delightful arrangement this is and no mistake!"
He could only hope that no one would see them, and that Addie's mystery would prove a harmless one.
He got in just as they were sitting down to luncheon. Horace and Sissy had spent the morning in archery and idleness, Mrs. Middleton in nursing her headache. Mr. Thorne was not there.
"Been enjoying a little solitude?" Horace inquired.
"Not much of that," was the answer. "A good deal of talk instead."
"What! did you find a friend out in the fields?"
"Yes," said Percival, "a young artist." As he spoke he remembered that he was ignorant of his new friend's name. At least he knew it was "Alf," owing to some story the painter had told: "I heard my brother calling 'Alf! Alf!' so I," etc. Alf—probably therefore Alfred—surname unknown.
They were halfway through their meal when Mr. Thorne came noiselessly in and took his accustomed place. He was very silent, and had a curiously intent expression. Horace, who was telling Sissy some trifling story about himself (Horace's little stories generally were about himself), finished it lamely in a lowered voice. Mr. Thorne smiled.
There was a silence. Percival went steadily on with his luncheon, but Horace pushed away his plate and sipped his sherry. The birds were twittering outside in the sunshine, but there was no other sound. It was like a breathless little pause of expectation.
At last Mr. Thorne spoke, in such sweetly courteous tones that they all knew he meant mischief. "Are you particularly engaged this afternoon?" he inquired of Horace.
"Not at all engaged," said the young man. His heart gave a great throb.
"Then perhaps you could give me a few minutes in the library?"
"I shall be most—" Horace began. But he checked himself and said, "Certainly. When shall I come?"
"As soon as you have finished your luncheon, if that will suit you?"
"I have finished." He drank off his wine, and, without looking at the others, walked defiantly to the door, stood aside for his grandfather to pass, and followed him out.
Mrs. Middleton and Sissy exchanged glances. "Oh, my dear!" the old lady exclaimed. "Oh, I'm so frightened! I am afraid poor Horace is in trouble. Godfrey Hammond was saying only last night—"
She paused suddenly, looking at Percival. He sat with his back to the window, and the dark face was very dark in the shadow. It was just as well perhaps, for he was thinking "Told you so!" a train of thought which seldom produces an agreeable expression.
"What did Godfrey Hammond say?" Sissy asked. But nothing was to be got out of Aunt Middleton, so they adjourned to the drawing-room to wait for Horace's return. Percival read the paper; Mrs. Middleton lay on the sofa; Sissy flitted to and fro, now taking up a book, now her work, then at the piano, playing idly with one hand or singing snatches of her favorite songs. There was a mirror in which, looking sideways, she could see herself reflected as she played and Percival as he read—as much of him, at least, as was not swallowed up in the Times. There is something ghostly about a little picture like this reflected in a glass. It is so silent and yet so real: the people stir, look up, their lips move, they have every sign of life, but there is no sound. There are noises in the room behind you, but the people in the mirror make none. The Times may be rustling and crackling elsewhere, but Percival's ghost turns a ghostly paper whence no sound proceeds. Sissy is playing a little tinkling treble tune, but at the piano yonder slim white fingers are silently wandering over the ivory keys, and the girl's eyes look strangely out from the polished surface.
Sissy gazed and mused. Perhaps some day Percival will reign at Brackenhill. And who will sit at that piano where the ghost-girl sits now, and what soundless melodies will be played in that silent room?
Sissy's left hand steals down to the bass, striking solemn chords. "If one could but look into the glass," she thinks, "and see the future there, as people do in stories! What eyes would look out at me instead of mine? Ah, well! If I could but see Percival there I would try to be content, even if the girl turned away her face. I would be content. I would! I would!"
She turns resolutely away from the mirror, and begins that old royalist song in which yearning for the vanished past and mourning for the dreary present cannot triumph over the hope of far-off brightness—"When the king enjoys his own again." To Mrs. Middleton, to Percival, a mere song—to Sissy a solemn renunciation of all but the one hope. Let her king enjoy his own, and the rest be as Fate wills.
The last note dies away. Moved by a sudden impulse, she lifts her eyes to the ghost Percival. He has lowered his paper a little, and is looking at her with a wondering smile. A voice behind her exclaims, "Why, Sissy!" She darts across the room to the speaker and pushes the Times away altogether. "Percival," she says in a low, breathless voice, "does Miss Lisle play?"
"Miss Lisle!" He is surprised. "Oh yes, she plays. But not as well as her brother, I believe."
"And does she sing?"
"Yes. I heard her once. But no better than you sang just now. What has come to you, Sissy? You have found the one thing that was wanting."
"What was that?"
"Earnestness, depth. You sang it as if your soul and the soul of the song were one. Now I can tell you that I fancied you only skimmed over the surface of things—like a bird over the sea. I can tell you now, since I was wrong."
Her cheeks are glowing. "And Miss Lisle?" she says.
"What, now, about Miss Lisle?" He is amused and perplexed at Sissy's persistence.
"She is one of your heroic women;" and Miss Langton nods her pretty head. "Oh, I know! Jael and Judith and Charlotte Corday."
"I don't think I said anything about Judith: surely you suggested her. And, to tell you the truth, Sissy, I looked in the Apocrypha, and I thought I liked I her the least of the trio. It wasn't a swift impulse like Jael's, who suddenly saw the tyrant given into her hands, and it wanted the grace of Charlotte Corday's utter self-sacrifice and quick death. Judith had great honor, and lived to be over a hundred, didn't she? I wonder if she often talked about Holofernes when she was eighty or ninety, and about her triumph—how she was crowned with a garland and led the dance? She ran an awful risk, no doubt, but she was in awful peril: it was glory or death. Charlotte Corday had no chance of a triumph: she must have known that success, as well as failure, meant the death-cart and the guillotine. Judith seems to have played her part fairly well to the end, I allow, but don't you think the praises and the after-life spoil it rather?"
Sissy, passing lightly over Percival's views about Charlotte Corday and the widow of a hundred and five who was mourned by all Israel, pounced on a more interesting avowal: "So you looked Judith out and studied her? Oh, Percival!"
"My dear Sissy, shall I tell you how many times I have seen Miss Lisle?" He was answering her arch glance rather than her spoken question. "How few times, I should say. Twice."
"I've made up my mind about people when I've only seen them once," said Sissy, apparently addressing the carpet.
"Very likely: some people have that power," said Percival. "Besides, seeing them once may mean that you had a good long interview under favorable circumstances. Now," with a smile, "shall I tell you all that Miss Lisle and I said to each other in our two meetings?" He paused, encountering Sissy's eyes, brilliantly and wickedly full of meaning.
"What! do you remember every word? Oh, Percival!"
"Hush!" said Mrs. Middleton, lifting her head from the cushion: "listen! isn't that Horace?"
"I think so;" and Percival stooped for the Times, which had fallen on the floor. Sissy stood with her hand on his chair, making no attempt to conceal her anxiety. The old lady noted her parted lips and eager eyes. "Ah! she does care for Horace. I knew it! I knew it!" she thought.
He came in, looking white and angry: his mouth was sternly set, and there was a fierce spark in his gray eyes. Mrs. Middleton beckoned him to her sofa, and would have drawn the proud head down to her with a tender whisper of "Tell me, my dear." But the young fellow straightened himself and faced them all as he stood by her side. She clasped and fondled his passive hand. "What is the matter, Horace?" she said at last.
"As it happens, there is nothing much the matter," he replied,
"You look as if a good deal might be the matter," said Sissy.
He made no answer for the moment. Then he looked at her with a curious sort of smile: "Sissy, when we were little—when you were very little indeed—do you remember old Rover?"
"That curly dog? Oh yes."
"I used to have him in a string sometimes, and take him out: it was great fun," said Horace pensively. "I liked to feel him all alive, scampering and tugging at the end of the string. It was best of all, I think, to give him an unexpected jerk just when he was going to sniff at something, and take him pretty well off his legs: he was so astonished and disappointed. But it was very grand too, if he would but make up his mind he wanted to go one way, to pull at him and make him go just the opposite. He was obstinate, was old Rover, but that was the fun of it. I was obstinate too, and the stronger. How long has he been dead?"
"I'm sure I don't know—twelve or thirteen years. Why?"
"Is it as long as that? Well, I dare say it is. It has occurred to me to-day for the first time that perhaps it was rather hard on Rover now and then.—Aunt Harriet, why did you let me have the poor old fellow and ill-use him?"
"My dear boy, what do you mean? I don't think you were ever cruel—not really cruel, you know. Children always will be heedless, but I think Rover was fond of you."
"I doubt it," said Horace.
"But what do you mean?" The old lady was fairly perplexed. "What makes you think of having poor old Rover in a string to-day? I don't understand."
"Which things are an allegory." Horace looked more kindly down at the suffering face, and attempted to smile. "It was very nice then, but to-day I'm the dog."
"String pulled tight?" said Percival.
"Jerked." He disengaged his hand. "I think I'll go and have a cigar in the park." Percival was going to rise, but Horace as he passed pressed his fingers on his shoulder: "No, old fellow! not to-day—many thanks. You lecture me, you know, and generally I don't care a rap, so you are quite welcome. But to-day I'm a little sore, rubbed up the wrong way: I might take it seriously. Another time."
And he departed, leaving his lecturer to reflect on this brilliant result of all his outpourings of wisdom.
CHAPTER X.
IN LANGLEY WOOD.
At Brackenhill they invariably dined at six o'clock, nor was the meal a lengthy one. Mr. Thorne drank little wine, and Horace was generally only too happy to escape to the drawing-room at the earliest opportunity. Percival could very well dine at home and yet be true to his rendezvous in Langley Wood.
As the time drew near he became thoughtful and, to tell the truth, a little out of temper. He liked his dinner, and Addie Blake interfered with his quiet enjoyment of it. He would have chosen to lie on the sofa in the cool, quaint, rose-scented drawing-room, and get Sissy to sing to him. Instead of which he must tramp three miles along a dusty white road that July evening to meet a girl he didn't particularly want to see, and to hear a secret which he didn't much want to know, and which he distinctly didn't want to be bound to keep. Decidedly a bore!
It was only twenty minutes past seven when they joined the ladies. Sissy represented the latter force, Aunt Middleton having gone to lie down in the hope of being better later in the evening. Mr. Thorne fidgeted about the room for a minute, and then went off to the library, whereupon Horace stretched himself with a sigh of relief. "Come out, Sissy, and have a turn in the garden."
"But, Percival," she hesitated, "what are you going to do?"
"Don't think about me: I must go out for a little while." He left them on the terrace and started on his mysterious errand. As he let himself out into the road by a little side-gate of which he had pocketed the key, it was five-and-twenty minutes to eight. He had abundance of time. It was not three miles to the white gate into Langley Wood, a little more than three miles to the milestone beyond which he was on no account to go, and he had almost an hour to do it in. Nevertheless, he started on his walk like a man in haste.
The great Fordborough agricultural show lasted two days, and on the second the price of admission was considerably reduced. It had occurred to Percival that the roads in every direction would probably be crowded with people making their way home—people who would have had more beer than was good for them. Addie would never think of such a possibility. It was true that the road from Fordborough which led past Brackenhill would be quieter than any other, but still young Thorne was seriously uneasy as he strode along. It was also true that he met hardly any one as he went, but even that failed to reassure him. "A little too early for them to have come so far, I suppose," was his comment to himself: "at any rate, she shall not wait for me."
He passed the white gate, having encountered only a few stragglers, but before he reached the milestone he saw Addie Blake coming along the road to meet him.
She was flushed, eager, excited, and looked even handsomer than usual. Percival would never fall in love with Addie. That was very certain, but the certainty did not prevent a quick thrill of admiration which tingled through his blood as she advanced in her ripe dark beauty to meet him. By it, as by a charm, the service which had been almost a weariness was transmuted to a happy privilege, and the half-reluctant squire became willing and devoted.
"You are more than punctual," was his greeting.
She smiled as she held out her hand: "I may say the same of you."
"I was anxious," he confessed. "The roads are not likely to be very quiet to-day. And after sunset—"
"Yes," said Addie. "No doubt it seems strange to you that I should choose this day and this time—"
"I hardly know what I should have done if I had seen nothing of you when I reached the milestone," he went on, interrupting her. His curiosity was awakened now that he was so close to Addie's little mystery, but he was anxious that she should not feel bound to tell him anything she would rather keep to herself—very anxious that she should understand that he would not pry into her secrets.
"If you had gone much farther you would have missed me," she said.
"Which way did you come?"
"I did not come straight from home. Do you see that little red house? I am drinking tea there, and spending a quiet evening."
"How very pleasant!" said Percival. "And who has the privilege of entertaining you?"
"Mrs. Wardlaw. She is the widow of an officer—quite young. She is a friend of mine: she lives with an invalid aunt, an old Mrs. Watson."
"And what does Mrs. Wardlaw think of your taking a little stroll by yourself in the evening?"
"Mrs. Wardlaw asked me there on purpose. Yesterday I saw her at the show, and gave her a little note as we shook hands. This morning came an invitation to me to go and drink tea there. I told mamma and Lottie I should go—papa is out—so one of the servants walked there with me at half-past six, and will call for me again at ten or a little after."
"Very ingeniously managed," said Percival. "And the invalid aunt?"
"Went up to her room and left Mary and me to our devices," smiled Addie. "A delightful old lady. Ah, here is the wood."
"We shall probably have this part of our walk to ourselves," Percival remarked as he swung the gate open. "People going home from the show are not likely to stop to take a turn in Langley Wood."
The sound of a rattling cart and shouts of discordant laughter, mixed with what was intended for a song, came along the road they had just quitted. Addie took a few hurried steps along the path, which curved enough to hide her from observation in a moment. Safe behind a screen of leaves, she paused: "What horrible people! Is that a sample of what I may expect as I go back?"
"I fear so," said Percival. "I shall see you safe to Mrs. Wardlaw's door."
"You shall see me safe if you have good eyes," she answered. "But you will not go to the door with me."
"Ah!" he said. "Mrs. Wardlaw is only half trusted?"
Addie smiled: "What people don't know they can't let out, can they?"
"Pray understand that you are quite at liberty to apply that very wise—mark me, that very wise—discovery of yours to my case," said Thorne, looking straight at her. "You talked about good eyes just now. Mine are good or bad as it suits me." At any rate, they were earnest as they met hers.
"Don't shut them on my account," said Addie. "No, Percival: you are not like Mrs. Wardlaw. I mean to tell you all about it."
But for a moment she did not speak. They were fairly in the wood; the trees were arching high above their heads; their steps were noiseless on the turf below; outside were warmth and daylight still, but here the shadows and the coolness of the night. A leathern-winged bat flitted across their path through the gathering dusk. "They always look like ghosts," said Addie. "Doesn't it seem, Percival, as if the night had come upon us unawares?"
As she spoke they reached a little open space. The path forked right and left. "Which way?" said Thorne.
"I don't know, I'm sure. There's a cottage on the farther side of the wood, toward the river—"
"Is that your destination? To the right, then." And to the right they went.
"When you promised to help me," Addie began, "do you remember what you said? I was to consider you as—" She paused, fixing her questioning eyes on him.
"As a brother. What then? Have I failed in my duty already?"
She shook her head, smiling: "Percival, what do you think that means to me?"
"Ah, that's a difficult question. Of course we who have no brothers can only imagine—we cannot know. But I have sometimes fancied that the idea we attach to the word brother is higher because no commonplace reality has ever stepped in to spoil it. For it is an evident fact that some people have brothers who are prosaic, and even disagreeable, while all the noble brothers of history and romance are ours. We may take Lord Tresham for our ideal (you remember Tresham in A Blot in the 'Scutcheon?), and declare with him—
I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds
All the world's love in its unworldliness."
"Stop!" said Addie. "You are going into the question much too enthusiastically and much too poetically. I don't know anything about your Tresham. And you mustn't class me with yourself, 'we who have no brothers.' I have one, Percival."
"A brother? You have one? Why, I always fancied—"
"Well, a half-brother." Addie made this concession to strict truth with something of reluctance in her tone, as if she did not like to own that her brother could possibly have been any nearer than he was. "It is my brother I am going to meet to-night."
Percival, fluent on the subject of brothers in general, was so astonished at the idea of this particular brother or half-brother that he said "Oh!"
"Papa married twice," Addie explained—"the first time when he was very young. I don't think his first wife was quite a lady," she said, lowering her voice as if the beeches might be given to gossiping.
Percival would not have been happy as a dweller in the Palace of Truth. He thought, "Then Mr. Blake's two wives were alike in one respect."
"And though Oliver was a dear boy," she went on, "he hasn't been very steady. He has had a good deal of money at one time or another, and wasted it; and he and mamma don't get on at all."
"Ah! I dare say not."
"Naturally, she thinks more about Lottie and me; and Oliver has been very tiresome. He was to be in the business with papa, but he didn't do anything, and he got terribly into debt, and then he ran away and enlisted. Papa bought him off, and found him something else to do; but mamma was dreadfully vexed: she said it was a disgrace to the family."
"Did he do better after that?"
"Not much," Addie owned. "In fact, I think he has spent most of his time since then in running away and enlisting. I really believe he has been in a dozen regiments. We were always having to write to him, 'Private Oliver Blake, Number so and so, C company, such a regiment.' It didn't look well at all."
(Addie, as she spoke, remembered how her mother used to sneer, "No doubt some day you'll meet your brother in a red jacket with a little cane, his cap very much on one side, and a tail of nursemaids wheeling their perambulators after him." Such remarks had been painful to Addie, but even then she had felt that Mrs. Blake had cause to complain.)
"He was always bought off, I suppose?" said Percival.
"Once papa declared he wouldn't. Oliver went on very quietly for a little while, and was to be a corporal. Then he wrote and said he was going to desert that day week, and he was afraid it might be very awkward for him afterward, especially if he ever enlisted again, but he would take his chance sooner than stop. Papa knew he would do it, so he had to buy him off again."
"But is this going on for ever?"
"No: for the last three years Oliver has been in dreadful disgrace, I don't exactly know why, and we were not allowed to mention his name at home. But I don't care," said Addie impetuously: "if he were ever so foolish, and if he had enlisted in every regiment under the sun, he's my brother."
"And Lottie? Does she stand by him as valiantly?"
"Oliver is nothing to Lottie: he never was. He is nine years older than she is, and when she would really begin to remember him he and mamma were always quarrelling. Besides, he always petted me—not Lottie. And now she despises him because he doesn't stick to anything and get on. No—poor old Noll is my brother, only mine. No one else cares for him, except papa."
"Mr. Blake hasn't given him up, then?"
"Oh, he is angry with Oliver when they are apart, but he always forgives him when they meet. He was really angry this last time, but Oliver wrote to him, and they made it up. Only, my poor old Noll is to be sent over the sea to Canada with a man papa knows something of."
"And this is good-bye? But surely they can't mind your meeting him before he goes?"
"They do," said Addie. "Papa and mamma saw him in London ten days ago, and he was only forgiven on condition that he went away quietly and said nothing to any one. As if he wasn't sure to tell me! Mamma knows how it has been before: she thinks if papa or I saw him alone he might get round us, and then he wouldn't go. If he is steady and does well there, he is to come and see us all in two years."
"That isn't very long, is it?" said Percival cheerfully. It was evident to him that this black sheep would be much better away.
"Long! Oh no! Only, you see, Oliver won't do well unless there's something very converting in Canadian air. So I may as well say good-bye to him, mayn't I? Mind, Percival, you are not to think he's wicked. He won't do anything dreadful. He'll spend all the money he can get, and then drift away somewhere."
"A sort of Prodigal Son," Thorne suggested.
"Yes. You won't understand him—how should you? You are always wise and well-behaved, and a credit to every one—more like the son who stayed at home."
"Not an attractive character," was his reply. And he remembered Horace a few hours before: "Not to-day, old fellow: you lecture me, you know." He was startled. "Good Heavens!" he thought, "am I a prig?"
Addie laughed: "Well, I am trusting to you to understand me, at any rate. Just like Oliver!" she went on. "He came once, years ago, to stay with old Miss Hayward, who left us the house, and he knew something then of the man at this cottage; so he tells me to meet him there, without ever thinking how I should get to the place by myself at nine at night. Hush! what's that?—Oh, Noll! Noll!"
A man's voice was heard at a little distance singing, and she darted forward, her eyes alight with joy. Percival followed, slackening his pace and listening to Mr. Oliver Blake's rendering of "Champagne Charlie is my name." It ceased abruptly. He doubted what to do, took a step or two mechanically, and came suddenly out on the open space at the farther side of the wood, where was the cottage in question. Addie had run forward and forgotten him. He strolled with elaborate unconsciousness to some palings near by, turning his back on Addie and her brother, rested his folded arms there and gazed at the placid landscape. Below ran the little stream by which he had loitered in the morning, hurrying now in a straighter course, like an idle messenger who finds that time has fled much faster than he thought. The river-mist hung white above the level meadows, and it seemed to Percival as if Nature, falling asleep, had glided into a pallid and melancholy dream. The last gleams of day were blending with a misty flood of moonlight, beneath which the world lay dwarfed and dark. On the horizon a little black windmill with motionless sails stood high against the sky, looking like a toy, as if a child had set it there and gone to bed.
To Percival, as he stood, came the sound, though not the words, of a rapid flow of talk, broken by a short, often-recurring laugh. But at last there was a pause, and the two came toward him. He turned to meet them, and saw in the moonlight that Oliver Blake was big and broad-shouldered, with black hair, curling thickly under a jaunty cap, and bright restless eyes. Addie had her arm drawn fondly through her brother's.
"Oliver," she said, "this is Percival: you have heard me speak of him."
Oliver bent his head in a blunt, constrained way and looked doubtfully at the other. Percival, who was going to extend his hand, withheld it, and made a stately little bow in return.
"That's very magnificent," said Addie to him.—"Why, Noll," she laughed, "you needn't be so cautious. Percival knows. He is to be trusted."
"Ah!" said Oliver. "What does that feel like, now?"
"What does what feel like?" said Thorne as they shook hands. "Being trusted, do you mean?"
"Ay. Being trusted or being to be trusted. I don't know either sensation myself."
"Not likely, dear boy," said Addie, "with your way of going on. And yet Mr. Osborne must have trusted you, or how did you get the money and get away? You weren't to have any till you sailed, were you?"
"Would you like to know?" said Oliver, his dark eyes twinkling. "I tried to persuade him—no good. Then I told him a—don't be horrified—it was a very fine specimen of fiction—"
"Oliver!"
"Which is no doubt set down to the governor's account."
"Did he believe you?"
"Well, he didn't know what to do. I don't think he would have, only if it wasn't true it was so stupendous, you see. He hesitated, and that made him relax his watchfulness a little. So I gave him the slip and pawned part of my outfit, which we bought together the day before."
"You bad boy!"
"I left him a bit of a note. I told him that if he held his tongue I would surely be there again to-morrow, we'd get the things, and no one would be any the wiser. But if he made a row he might whistle for me, and catch me if he could."
"And you don't know the effect of that, I suppose?" said Percival.
"Well, no. I read it over when I'd done to try and judge it impartially. And I made up my mind—considering the character he'd had of me—that if I were Osborne I should say that Blake meant to back out of his bargain with all he could lay his hands on, and was trying to secure two days' start.—What do you think I did, Addie?"
"Something silly, I've no doubt."
"Well," he said, looking at her with an admiring gaze, which partly explained to Percival the secret of her fondness for her brother, "I thought it was rather clever. I just popped in the letter I had from you, and your photograph, and if that doesn't convince him, I give him up."
"Oh, Noll! How could you? What is he like?"
Blake burst out laughing: "Listen to her! A man has got her photograph: he instantly becomes an interesting object.—Oh, he isn't a bad-looking fellow, Addie. I dare say he's glaring at you now through his spectacles."
"Spectacles! Oliver, you've no business to go giving my photograph to all sorts of people. And I hate him too, because if it hadn't been for him perhaps you wouldn't have been going away to Canada."
"What then?" said he philosophically. "Your mother would have had a dear friend on the point of starting for the Cannibal Islands."
Percival began to feel a little anxious about time, and to wonder when the real leave-taking was to commence. He looked at his watch after the manner of a stage-aside, and Addie took the hint.
Five minutes later she came toward him with bent head and averted eyes: "I'm ready, Percival." But they had not gone a dozen steps when she sobbed, "Oh, my poor Noll!" and rushed back. As young Thorne looked after her he heard the quick spurt of a match. Oliver had turned on his heel already and was lighting his cigar. "Heartless brute!" said Percival.
The verdict was unjust. Oliver had taken infinite pains to secure this glimpse of his sister, but since it was over it was over. He loved her, and she knew it, but he was not the man to stand sentimentally staring at Addie's back as she disappeared into the shadows of Langley Wood. Now, Percival could not have failed in such a matter, though he might have thought no more about it than did Oliver Blake.
When he and Addie were once more on their way he occupied himself solely with the slight difficulties of her path, but before they had gone halfway she was making an effort to talk in her usual style, and succeeding fairly well. They were just at the place where the paths branched off, and Percival was stooping to disentangle her dress, which was caught on a bramble. As he raised himself he heard an approaching step, and quick as thought he laid his hand on Addie's arm. A couple of yards farther and they would be in the one path, and must meet the newcomer. Standing where they were, it was an even chance: he might pass them or might go the other way. Addie stood breathless, and Percival's heart gave a quick throb, more for Addie's sake than his own. But, after all, it might be no one who knew them, and in that dim light—
The moon glided with startling swiftness from behind a fleecy cloud and shone on their white faces. The man, passing close by, started and stepped back, recovered himself with a muttered ejaculation, and said, "Fine evening, Mr. Thorne," as he passed.
"Very," Percival replied. "Good-night."
The other returned a "Good-night, sir," and disappeared in the twilight.
"He knew you," said Addie. She looked frightened. Her parting from Oliver had unnerved her: difficulties which she had made light of in the happiness of anticipation seemed more formidable now. Standing there in the white moonlight and dim shadows of the wood, she suddenly realized the strange and doubtful aspect her expedition with Percival Thorne must wear to ordinary eyes. Nor was her companion likely to reassure her. An air of sombre resolution was more in his line than the light-hearted confidence which would have treated the whole affair as a trifle. He was, as Addie herself had called him, "well behaved." She would have trusted him to the death, only just at that moment a little touch of happy recklessness would have been a greater comfort to her than his anxious loyalty. But Percival could never be reckless: deliberately indifferent he might be, but reckless never.
"He knew you," said Addie, as they resumed their walk.
"Yes, but he would not know you. It does not signify much," was Percival's reply.
"But he does know me."
"Impossible! Oh, you mean he knows your name."
She nodded: "He often passes our house. Always on Thursday, when a lot of people go by. Isn't it a market somewhere?"
"Brookley market. Oh yes, he would go there, no doubt."
"Once or twice I have been walking on the road, and he has driven past. I know his face quite well, and I'm sure—I should think—he knows mine."
"Very likely he may not have recognized you in this half-light," said Percival.
She shivered: "He did. I felt him look right through me."
"Well, suppose he did. After all, there is no reason why we should not take a walk together on a summer evening if we like, is there?"
"Where is he going?" said Addie. "To the cottage?"
"Oh dear, no! There are endless paths in the wood. He will turn off still more to the right: he cuts off a corner so going from Fordborough to his home."
"Who and what is he?" was Miss Blake's next question as they emerged into the road.
"Silas Fielding. He farms a little bit of old Garnett's land, and I rather think he rents an outlying field or two of my grandfather's. A horsey sort of fellow. I am not particularly fond of Mr. Silas Fielding," said Percival, and they walked a little way in silence.
"You mustn't come any farther," said Addie. "Percival, I don't know how to thank you."
"Don't do it, then. I see no occasion."
"But I see occasion—very great occasion."
"Then we will consider it done," said Percival.
Mrs. Wardlaw's house was very near. "I'm not late, am I?" said Addie.
He looked at his watch: "A little more than a quarter to ten—very good time. I shall watch you along this last little bit of road, and see you let in. Good-night."
"Good-night." She went quickly away, and he waited as he had promised. She looked back at him once, and saw him stand, dark and motionless like a bronze statue. She reached the garden-gate, and just as a farmer's gig, with one man in it, dashed past, she ran up the little flight of steps, knocked, and was instantly admitted, as if Mrs. Wardlaw stood inside with her hand on the latch. Percival, seeing this, turned to begin his homeward walk, but as the gig rattled up to him its speed was slackened.
"Mr. Thorne! Isn't it Mr. Percival Thorne?"
It was the young artist driving back to the farm in Mr. Collins's old gig, and inducing Mr. Collins's old horse to go at a headlong pace. "I thought it was you standing in the moonlight," he said. "Can't I give you a lift?"
Percival accepted, and they started off, if possible more vehemently than before.
"I must look sharp," explained the young man whose name was Alf, "or I shall be late at the farm."
"You have only just come from Fordborough?" said Percival.
"No. I put up the horse and stayed later than I meant. I'd no idea that dull little hole of a town could wake up so. Why, it is flapping with flags from one end to the other. I never saw such a lot of tramps and drunken men in my life."
"Charming idea you have of waking up!"
"And brass bands and gypsies," the other went on. "When I wanted to come away the hostler was drunk and couldn't find the horse, and I couldn't find the gig; that is, I could find a score all exactly like this one, but as to knowing which of all the gigs in the yard belonged to old Collins, I couldn't have told to save my life."
"You got it at last, I suppose?" said Thorne.
The other was cautious: "Well, I got this. The man put the horse in somehow, and then he was so far gone he began to talk to himself and undo the harness again. I believe he thought he'd put in a pair by mistake, and was trying to take one out. However, I stopped that, and got away after a fashion."
"They are early birds at the farm, no doubt?"
"Early? Rather! At half-past nine old Collins creaks up stairs, and Mrs. Collins goes into the kitchen and rakes out the cinders for fear of fire. I was out late one night last week, and she couldn't wake the old man up to let me in. It was twenty minutes to eleven."
"Did she come herself?" said Percival. "I know Mrs. Collins by daylight, but I can't imagine Mrs. Collins aroused from her first sleep."
"'Where ignorance is bliss.' The dear old lady kept me on the doorstep for ten minutes or so while she was trying to make up her mind whether she would keep her nightcap on, or whether she would take it off and put on the light-brown front she ordinarily wears. At last she made up her mind to retain the nightcap and add the front by way of a finish. But I have it on her own authority that she was flurried and all of a shake, so she didn't carry out her idea skilfully. The cap was half off and the front was only half on. I saw her forehead getting lower and lower as she spoke to me."
"Could she ever forgive you for seeing her so?"
"Oh yes. I'm rather a favorite, I think. She beamed on me just the same the next morning."
"She did?" said Thorne. "A wonderful woman!"
"I think I shall ask her for a lock of her chestnut hair to-morrow before I go, to show that my faith in it is—well, as implicit as ever. Ah! by the way, I got my letter. I thought most likely I should. I leave the first thing in the morning."
"Sorry to hear it," said Percival. But it occurred to him that the artist's departure would prevent any talk the next day of the circumstances of their meeting that evening. He jumped down, with hasty thanks to his new friend when they came to the little gate. "You'll be in a ditch if you don't look out," he called after him.
"All right!" was shouted back, and old Collins's gig vanished into the outer darkness with the young artist, whom Percival Thorne has never chanced to meet again to this day.
He let himself in with his key and hurried up to the house. The door which opened on the terrace was unfastened as usual. The lights were burning in the drawing-room, but no one was there, and the bright vacant room had a strange ghostly aspect, a little island of mellow radiance in the vast silence and darkness of the night. He felt like one in a dream, and stood idly thinking of the young painter rattling in old Collins's gig to Willow Farm; of Silas Fielding striding across the meadows with thoughts intent on his bargains; of Oliver Blake turning in with a yawn when his cigar was done; of Addie forcing back her unshed tears and hiding deep in her heart the well-spring of her tenderness for her poor Noll. He had not done justice to Addie Blake. Something of the feeling of underlying beauty, unsought or ignored, which he gained from his artist-friend's talk in the morning, had come to him in a slightly altered form with Addie that evening. With Alf it was the every-day world which revealed new beauty—with Addie it was shown in what Percival had taken for a prosaic and commonplace character. He found himself wondering whether he might not have failed to do justice to others besides Addie. He had looked far away for his ideal, and had found a fair faint dream, when it might be that the reality was close at hand. Since the wayside had blossomed with unexpected loveliness, what grace and charm and hidden treasure might be his prize who should win his way into the fenced garden of Sissy's sweet soul!
He started from his reverie, and was surprised to find that it had lasted only two or three minutes: it seemed to him as if he had been dreaming a long while in that bright loneliness. He walked to the window, with "Where can they all be?" on his lips. And for an answer to his question, standing at the far end of the terrace was Sissy. As he hurried through the hall to join her the library-door opened an inch or two and a voice inquired, "Who is that?"
"It is I—Percival," he answered in haste.
At the word "Percival" the door opened wider, and Mr. Thorne looked out: "Oh! where is Sissy?"
"On the terrace."
"And Horace?"
"I don't know," still chafing to be gone.
"Sissy ought to come in. It's a quarter-past ten." He looked up at the great hall-clock. "Yes, a quarter-past ten, and she will be catching cold."
"I'll tell her."
"Did you come in for a shawl for her? Take her one—anything."
"I will;" and Percival made a dash at the row of pegs and caught down the first thing which looked moderately like a cloak. Then he escaped.
Sissy was coming to the house, but so leisurely that the journey was likely to take her a considerable time. "At last!" she said as he came up to her: "Why, which way—Oh, it's you, Percival!"
"You thought I was Horace?" he said as he put the cloak round her.
"Yes, for the moment I did. What are you muffling me up like this for?"
"Orders," said Percival. "My grandfather said you were to come in, and that I was to bring you a shawl."
"What is the good of this thing if I'm to go in?"
"Very sensibly put. Evidently no good at all. So we will turn round and go to the end of the terrace and back, unless you are tired."
She was not tired.
"And you took me for Horace? I always said we were alike."
"You are not a bit alike."
"Oh no, of course not."
"Don't be absurd," said Sissy. "Anybody's like anybody if it's pitch dark and they don't speak."
"I rather suspect Horace and I might be alike if it were a half-light, and if we did speak," said Percival. "Remember the photograph. But where is Horace all this time? What have you been doing with yourself?"
"He's somewhere about," said Sissy. "First of all, we had a little croquet. Then it got too dark to play, so I went to see after Aunt Harriet. Her head was worse; so she said she would go to bed."
"Poor old lady! Best thing she could do. She'll be better to-morrow, I hope."
"Then Horace and I thought we would go and look up his old nurse. She has been teasing me ever so long, wanting to see 'Master Horace,' and it's only across a couple of fields. But she wasn't at home, and the cottage was shut up."
"Gone to Fordborough for the day, most likely."
"I dare say. She has a niece there. Then we came back, and Horace didn't much want to go in, because of this afternoon, you know; so we stayed in the long walk, and he smoked and we listened to the nightingales."
"Very delightful," said Percival. "The long walk and the nightingales, I mean."
"And then there was a little pinkish light in the sky, and he thought there was a fire somewhere. So he went into the park to get a better view, and after I had waited for him a little while I came up here and met you."
A quick step was heard on the gravel behind them.
"Oh, here you are!" said Horace. "The fire doesn't seem to be anything, Sissy, after all. The light got fainter and fainter, and it's all gone now."
"Where did you think it was?" Percival inquired.
"Well, I thought from the direction that it must be at old Garnett's Upland Farm, but it can't have been much. So you have got back?"
"Yes. Hadn't we better go in? You must mind what you are about, Horace, though it is warm. That cough of yours—"
"Stuff and nonsense about my cough!" But he turned to go in nevertheless.
"By the way," said Percival, as he walked between them, "you've been out all the evening: does any one know I've been away?"
"No," said Sissy. "Why, don't you want—"
"I would rather they didn't," he replied. (The stars in their courses seemed to fight for Addie and her secret, had it not been for that untoward meeting with Silas Fielding.)
Horace wore a knowing expression. He was rather pleased that his lecturer should be compelled to seek a pledge of secrecy from him. It made him feel more on a level with the well-conducted and independent Percival. "All right!" he said.
"You may trust me," in a softly earnest voice on the other side.
"Thank you both," said Percival, but his eyes thanked Sissy.
"What have you been after?" asked Horace. "I thought most likely you were off to the friend you met this morning."
The astonishing way in which circumstances conspired to aid in guarding the mystery! "I have been with him," said Percival.
(We value the opinion of others too much very often for our own peace. Queer, unsubstantial things those opinions often are. "I have been with him." Sissy felt a little glow of kindliness toward the unknown: it might have been, "I have been with her." She was prejudiced in his favor, and sure that he was a nice fellow. Horace was ready to stake something on his conviction that he was a bad lot, this fellow Percy had picked up, and that Percy knew it.)
Percy was still warm with the chivalrous devotion which had been kindled in him that evening. It was reserved for the colder morning light to reveal to him that what with Lottie on the hillside and Addie in Langley Wood he was plunging into little adventures which were hardly consistent with the character of a most prudent young man. Yet such was the character he was supposed to have undertaken to support in the world's drama.
They reached the door, and Horace went in, but Sissy lingered yet a moment on the threshold. "Isn't it all beautiful?" she said, taking one more look: "if it could only last!"
Percival smiled: "Sissy, have you learnt that?"
"November—bare boughs and bitter winds—I hate to think of it," she said.
"I would say, 'Don't think of it,' but it would be no good," he replied. "When the thought of change has once occurred to you while you look at a landscape, it is a part of every landscape thenceforward. But it gives a bitter charm."
"Spring will come again," she said; "but death and parting and loss—they are so dreadful! And growing old! Oh, Percival, why must they all be?"
He shrugged his shoulders: "The whole world echoes your 'Why?' Sissy, I wish I could help you, but I can't. I can only tell you that I understand what you feel. It is very terrible looking forward to age—to loss of powers, hopes and friends. One feels sometimes as if one could not tread that long gray road to the grave."
Sissy shivered, as if she saw it drawn out before her eyes.
"But after all it may be brighter than we think," he went on after a pause. "There is joy and beauty in change, as well as bitterness. If everything in the world were fixed and unalterable, would not that be far more terrible? As it is, we have all the possibilities on our side. Who knows what gladness may grow out of endless change?" Yet even as he spoke he was conscious of a wild, impotent longing to snatch her—she was so delicate and sweet—from beneath the great revolving wheels of time, with a cry of
Stay as you are, and be loved for ever.
But the poet's very words carry the sentence of doom in the memory that the blossom to which they were uttered must have perished years ago.
"Sissy," he said suddenly, "surely there cannot be much suffering reserved for you. Oh, poor child! I wish I could take it all in your place." He spoke in all earnestness, yet could he have looked into the future he would have seen that her suffering would not be long, but very keen, and his not to bear, but to inflict.
CHAPTER XI.
MEANWHILE.
Percival Thorne had never thought much on the subject of revenge. He rather took it for granted that deliberate revenge was an extraordinary and altogether exceptional thing. People give way to bursts of passion which pass away and leave no trace: they are so hot with fury which comes to nothing at all that at the first glance it seems as if the anger which bears fruit must be something different in kind. But it is possible that if Percival had considered the matter he might have arrived at the conclusion that revenge does not depend only on intensity of passion, but on intensity of passion and aptness of opportunity together. Disembodied hate soon dies unless it is fiendish in its strength.
"ADDIE STOOD BREATHLESS, AND PERCIVAL'S HEART GAVE A QUICK THROB."—Page 676.
He had had fair warning at the birthday party. Lottie, smarting with humiliation, had looked him full in the face with a flash of such bitter enmity as springs from the consciousness of one's own folly. And Lottie's eyes conveyed their meaning well. That very afternoon, when Percival looked up as he lay on the turf at her feet, they had been most eloquent of love. "Foolish child!" he had thought, "she is only seventeen to-day, and childish still." When he encountered the sudden flash of hate he would hardly have been surprised at some instant manifestation of it. Had she carried a dagger, like
Our Lombard country-girls along the coast,
vengeance might have come at once. But she spoke to him later in her ordinary voice, and touched his hand when she bade him good-night; and it was only natural to conclude that nothing would follow her glance of fury. Something of bitterness might linger for a while, but Lottie was only seventeen, and that afternoon she had loved him.
He was right enough. There was nothing fiendish in Lottie's hatred: it would soon have spent its strength in helpless longings and died. But that very night it flew straight to Horace Thorne, and unobserved found shelter there. It assumed a shape not clearly defined as yet, but a shape which time would surely reveal. It drew Lottie to the young man's side while the tears of pain and shame were hardly yet dry upon her burning cheeks.
In spite of the talk on her birthday morning, Lottie hardly understood the relative positions of the Thornes. Percival was disinherited and Horace was the heir. Naturally, she supposed that Horace was the favorite, and that the old man was displeased with Percival. She concluded that the small income of which the latter had spoken was probably a grudging allowance from Mr. Thorne. His grandfather protected and patronized him now, and no doubt it would be in Horace's power to protect and patronize him hereafter. Lottie hardly knew what she dreamed or wished, but she felt that she should indeed be avenged if the dole might in any way be regulated by her caprice, given or withheld according to the mood of the moment.
Meanwhile, Percival drifted contentedly on, unconscious that Lottie had vowed vengeance and Sissy devotion. Mr. Thorne went about with an air of furtive triumph, as if he were tasting the sweetness of having outwitted somebody. Horace divided his time between divers pleasures, but contrived to run down to Fordborough once just before he went yachting with a friend. He took to letter-writing with praiseworthy regularity, and yet his accustomed correspondents were curiously unaware of his sudden energy. He too had his look of triumph sometimes, but it was uneasy triumph, as if he were not absolutely certain that some one might not have outwitted him. Oliver Blake on board the good ship Curlew had passed the period of sea-sickness, and was flirting desperately with a lively fellow-passenger, while Addie followed him with anxious thoughts. About this time his father went in secret to consult a London doctor, and came away with a grave face and a tender softening of his heart toward his only son. A visit to his lawyer ensued, and of this also Mrs. Blake knew nothing. The girls played croquet as before, Lottie won the ivory mallet on the great field-day of the Fordborough club, and Mrs. Rawlinson and Miss Lloyd hated her with their sweetest smiles. Week after week of glorious weather went by. Brackenhill lay stretched in the sleepy golden sunshine, and the leaves in Langley Wood, quivering against the unclouded blue, had lost the freshness of the early summer. The shadows and the sadness were to come.