Ungracious as the speeches sounded, they did not so strike Sylvester, even though Lucian parted from him with only an ordinary hand-shake, and with no softening of eye or lip.
He went away as he had said, by himself, and spun along through the long night hours, till the morning found him in fresh air, in new scenes, all his past ruined. He walked far and fast, climbed heights, and changed from one place to another, fished by way of occupation, fell in with a reading party of old college acquaintances and joined their expeditions, got invitations for future shooting, planned further travel, wrote short letters home, never about himself. He was exceptionally strong and vigorous, so that his health did not suffer from his trouble; he turned away as much as he could, both by instinct and of set purpose, from thoughts of his past happiness, indeed he thought very little of anything; but now and then he became suddenly conscious of intense misery, and once, poor fellow, as he sat alone on the heather, found himself, before he knew it, shedding bitter tears, not called up by any special image, but by a wave of desolate feeling. His mother wrote that she trusted that he would get over it, but he could not look forward to any change in a feeling that had once possessed him. It was there; why should it alter? But he began to wonder if he ever could “do his duty,” and live at Toppings by himself. What else could he do? He could not invent a new sort of life. He did not feel the least impulse to drown his trouble in any sort of dissipation. He hated London, and gaieties, and rowdyism of all sorts. He liked a country gentleman’s duties, varied with a good deal of sport. But he liked nothing now; he could not even imagine anything that he should like.
Chapter Sixteen.
Better.
The last day of July had come, the day that should have been the wedding-day was over and past, the fresh green turf of the Cleverley garden was brown and dry, with long hours of scorching sunshine, the flowers looked hot and overblown in the blazing afternoon light. Some empty chairs, and a tea-table with empty tea-cups, stood on the edge of a group of trees, and on the rug in front of them lay Una in a faded shabby frock, and with a face in which there seemed to be no girlish freshness remaining. Her long hair hung heavily round her, her eyes stared wearily out of their dark circles; she had nothing to do but to play with every morbid and unwholesome fancy that can enter the brain of an ill-trained and unhappy girl.
Tony’s wedding-day was fixed. He did not love her now. By and by, when she was grown-up, she would meet him, and make him care for her again, if she didn’t die first. Why not drown herself in the pond in the wood? Una pictured the plunge, the stillness, and herself and her hair floating on the top, like ‘The Christian Martyr.’ But Amethyst did not love her now. How should she? Her life was a ruin too; dying would be much better for them both. Una thought again of the cool dark pond in the wood, with a sense of desire; but her exceeding weariness and languor kept her still. It was not worth while to get up, even to commit suicide.
As she lay still, getting a dreary sort of amusement out of these miserable fancies, she saw Amethyst come out of the house, walk slowly across the brown scorched grass, and sit down on one of the chairs, without noticing her sister’s presence.
She sat perfectly still, with a hard unsmiling face, at variance with the gay trim dress in which she had been entertaining some recent visitors. They were gone, and she could sit still now, and think—think the bitter thoughts in which her cruel disappointment took form.