Laid up in Lavender

by Stanley John Weyman

Wibberley tried to master, but could not, the impulse--the traitor impulse?--which urged him to glance at his wrist. The idea that the bracelet might be visible--that the damning evidence might be plain to every eye--overcame him. He looked down. Of course there was nothing to be seen; he might have known it, for he felt the hot grip of the horrible thing burning his arm inches higher. But when he looked up again--fleeting as had been his glance--he found that something had happened. He faltered, and the chair dropped from his hands. He read in every face save one suspicion or condemnation. Thief and liar! He read the words in their eyes. Yet he would, he must, brazen it out. And though he could not utter a word he looked from them to--Joanna.

The girl's face was pale. But her eyes answered his eagerly, and they were ablaze with indignation. They held doubt, no suspicion. The moment his look fell on her, she spoke. "Show them your arm!" she cried impulsively. "Show them that you have not got it, Ernest!" she repeated with such scorn, such generous passion that it did not need the tell-tale name which fell from her lips to betray the secret to every woman in the room.

"Show them your arm!" Ah, but that was just what he could not do! And as he comprehended this he gnashed his teeth. He saw himself entrapped, and his misery was so plainly written in his face that the best and most merciful of those about him turned from him in pity. Even the girl who loved him shrank back, clutching the mantelpiece in the first spasm of doubt, and fear, and anguish. Her words, her suggestion, had taken from him his last chance. He saw that it was so. He felt the Nemesis the more bitterly on that account; and with a wild gesture, and some reckless word of defiance, he turned blindly and hurried from the room, seized his hat, and went down to the street.

His feelings when he found himself outside were such as it is impossible to describe in passionless sentences. He had wrecked his honour and happiness in an hour. He had lost his place among men through a thoughtless word. We talk and read of a thunderbolt from the blue; still the thing is to us unnatural. Some law-abiding citizen whom a moment's passion has made a murderer, some strong man whom a stunning blow has left writhing on the ground, a twisted cripple--only these could fitly describe his misery and despair as he passed through the streets. It was misery he had brought on himself; and yet how far the punishment exceeded the offence! How immensely the shame exceeded the guilt! He had lied in careless will, with no evil intent; and the lie had made him a thief!

He went up to his rooms like one in a dream, and, scarcely knowing what he did, he tore the bauble from his arm and flung it on the mantel-shelf. By his last act--by bringing it away--he had made his position a hundred times more serious. But he did not at once remember this. After he had sat a while, however, with his head between his hands, wondering if this really were himself--if this really had happened to himself, this irrevocable thing!--he began to see things more clearly. But he could not at once make up his mind what to do. Beyond a hazy idea of returning the bracelet by the first post, and going on the Continent--of course, he must resign his employment--he had settled nothing, when a step mounting the staircase made him start to his feet. Some one knocked at the door of his chambers. He stood pallid and listened, struck by a sudden fear.

"The police!" he said to himself.

A moment's thought satisfied him that it was improbable, if not impossible, that they could be on his track so soon; and he went to the door listlessly and threw it open. On the mat stood Burton Smith, in a soft slouched hat, his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat. Wibberley glanced at him, and saw that he was alone; then leaving him to shut the door, he returned to his chair, and sat down in his old attitude, with his head between his hands. He looked already a broken man.

Burton Smith followed him in, and stood a moment looking at him uncomfortably enough. It is bad to have had such a scene as has been described in your house; it is worse, if a man be a man, to face a fellow-creature in his hour of shame. At any rate, Burton Smith felt it so. "Look here, Wibberley," he said at length, as much embarrassed as if he had been the thief. "Look here, it will be better to hush this up. Give me the d----d bracelet to hand back to Lady Linacre, and the thing shall go no farther."

His tone was suggestive both of old friendship and of present pity. But when he had to repeat his question, when Wibberley gave him no answer, his voice grew more harsh. Even then the man with the hidden face did not speak, but pointed with an impatient gesture to the mantel-shelf.

Burton Smith stepped to the fire-place and looked. He was anxious to spare the culprit as far as possible. Yes, there was the bracelet. He took possession of it, anxious to escape from the place with all speed. But he laid it down the next instant as quickly as he had taken it up; and his brows came together as he turned upon his companion.