Patty was pressing forward, parting the leaves with one hand, heedless of the thorns which pricked and tore her soft fingers, before she was able to obtain a passing glance of dark, study-paled Harry Clayton, rising with a smile from the feet of a young lady seated upon a garden-chair—a maiden who, at that distance, seemed to Patty to be very beautiful in her light muslin dress, and framed as it were in the soft verdure around.
Then the listeners’ ears were saluted by a merry burst of laughter, drowning the expostulating tones of a man’s voice; while, with bleeding hands, ay! and bleeding heart, head bent, and the tears running from her great grey eyes, Patty turned and almost staggered away, closely followed by Janet; who, taking her arm, hurried her along, till, crossing a stile, they sat down beside the softly undulating corn.
The stillness was complete around, only broken by the cawing of a colony of rooks amongst some distant elms.
“Oh Patty, Patty, darling!” whispered Janet, taking the bended head to her breast, when, giving way to the desolation of her young heart in the fresh trouble that seemed to have come over her so suddenly, Patty wept long and bitterly, awakened as she was so rudely from a dream in which she had allowed herself to indulge.
“Oh Patty, Patty!” softly whispered Janet again, as, down upon her knees, she rocked the little head that rested against her to and fro—hushing her friend as if she had been a child, murmuring, too, as she bent over her—“And I thought so differently—so differently!”
“Let us go—let us go away from here,” sobbed Patty, after vainly struggling to repress her feelings.
“Not yet—not yet,” said Janet, as she played with the hair which fell upon her breast. “There is no one to see us here, and you are not yet fit for people to look at you. You must not think me cruel if I say I am glad to see you suffer—glad your poor breast can be torn and troubled; for I thought so differently, little one, and that it was the gay handsome boy who had stolen the little heart away; for I knew—I knew—I’ve known that there was something wrong for weeks and weeks; and I’ve been angry and bitter, and hated you; for, Patty, Patty,” she cried, passionately, hiding now her own swarthy face, “I feel that if he would but take me, to beat me, or to be as his dog that he fondles so—to wait upon him—to be his slave—I could be happy. You don’t know—you cannot tell—the misery, the wretchedness of such a heart as mine. Do you think I am blind? Do I not know that he would laugh and jeer at me? Would he not think me mad for looking up at him?” she cried passionately, as she struck her face—her bosom—cruelly with her long, bony fingers. “Do you think I don’t know what a toad I am—how ugly and foul I must be in the eyes of men? And yet I have a woman’s heart; and though I’ve tried not to worship his bold insolent face, I could almost have died again and again for one—only one—of those sweet words he has flung at you so often, when I have thought you were trying to lead him on. If I could but have had one word, to have lived on it for a few moments; even to have known directly after that it was false and delusive! Patty, Patty, darling! you must forgive me, because I have hated you for all this, and without reason. I have been madly jealous, and I believe that I am mad now. Oh! hold me! hold me! and help me to tear out this cruel love that is breaking my heart—killing me—but you cannot understand—even you cannot tell what it is to live without hope.”
“Oh Janet!” sobbed Patty, reproachfully.
“I know, I know,” cried Janet, passionately; “you love him and he is another’s. But you are pretty; your face is fair, and bright, and sweet; and you will soon forget all this, and love again. But look at me—at this face—at this shape! Oh! why did I not die when I was little? instead of living to become such a burden even to myself? They say that the crippled and deformed are vain, and blind to all their failings; but do you think that I am? Oh! no; I could loathe and trample upon myself for being what I am; while he is so brave, and straight, and handsome.”
She clung, sobbing passionately the while, to Patty’s breast—clinging to her with a frightened, wild aspect, as if she almost feared herself, till, by slow degrees, the laboured sobs became less painful, and the flowers which she still clutched in her poor thin fingers withered away upon their bruised stalks.