She said to Celia one day, without ceasing to push her gathering needle, “You know who Judy Bray thinks you like?... in looks?... Well, you never would guess it! Not ’cause there ain’t nothin’ in it, though ... for after you’ve been told, you’ll see it at once. She says she can never see Beech—Beechnut, your dog, you know—without it makes her think of you.”
Celia felt an inward start. The dog had been given her by some one very dear, and she saw at once by what perhaps unconscious association of ideas it was probable the animal had been selected for her. Some vague resemblance unmistakably existed between herself and the red-haired setter, with his delicate long face and air at once noble and mournful. She felt no inclination to resent the comparison in itself, though she knew it had been meant ill-naturedly; but she chafed under the sense of the power possessed by the first-comer to belittle one at pleasure, if it be only in words.
The remark might have passed from her mind, as originating in Judith’s, but for an event forming a complement to it. Walking down the main street with Beech, she came, as she approached the Emporium, in sight of a bull-dog, hideous enough surely to take a first prize—bow-legged, goggle-eyed, crooked-toothed, a stranger in the village, where no dog had ever happened before who constituted a real danger to Beech. He was decorated with a spiked collar and a splashing cherry ribbon bow. Hurriedly Celia got her hand upon her dog’s collar and drew him to the other side of the road. The bull-dog sat upon the top step of the Emporium stoop, sleepily blinking in the sun, a goodly beast of his sort, in his loose soft coat of brindled plush, but to Celia more hateful than Cerberus. “Whose is that brute?” she asked a boy lounging near the village horse-trough, and heard what she had expected, for she had not failed to notice Judith’s cart in waiting near the Emporium door. A flame of real hatred shot up within her and burned earnestly for a moment. Those who have not a dog cannot conceive the sensitiveness of the spot in their master’s heart reserved for them. The contemplation of this constant menace henceforth to Beech, with the alternative of a confinement he had never known, generated in Celia desires almost murderous toward the heavy-jawed antagonist, over there. She seized the full reach of Judith’s clumsy attempt at esprit: Having pointed out the likeness between Beech and his mistress, she had procured a pet resembling herself, as it was her humour to suppose she appeared in the eyes of Celia. She had succeeded this time to the extent of her intention in embittering existence to Celia. A nervous fear lest there should be an encounter between the proud, gentle Beech and that ruffian—the report reached her that his facetious name was Punch—destroyed all possible enjoyment of walks even in the remotest by-paths and woods, for, supposing Judith to maintain this dog for her annoyance, what sense of bounds or fairness would constrain her?
A long time passed, however, without sign of the enemy in her remoter walks; and she had come to feel secure once more and let her dog range along unleashed, when one day, nothing being further from her thoughts, Beech’s voice came to her ear, tangled in quarrel with another, and her heart told her that the event so dreaded was upon them. She ran, with shaking knees, and saw at a glance the worst she had feared. Celia was not a coward, but a certain permanent sense of the physical means at her command compelled her to stand helpless, crying out and beating the air with her hands. Judith, appearing upon the scene a moment later, white with fright, too, plunged at the fighters, and having by force of rage and fury of muscle got mastery over her dog, was with one hand belaboring his big head, while with the other twisted in his collar she shook and choked him. She stopped, suddenly without strength, and looked over at Celia, who, trembling from head to foot, was clinging to Beech. As their 425 glances met, concentrated indignation shot from Celia’s eyes. “I hope you are satisfied!” she said.
Judith, after a moment’s pause, which appeared owing to amazement, flourished in the air, for Celia to see, a bitten and bleeding hand, and said in her harsh, impudent laugh, “I hope you are!” while yet Celia could not fail to remark that pain or some other emotion was forcing tears into her eyes. Too angry to be in the least moved by them, she turned away.
It was only in recollection that she did grudging justice to Judith’s conduct; but the initial wrong and the whole blame of the occurrence being so signally hers, she felt under no obligation of acknowledgement. What became of Punch she never inquired. He was not seen again in those latitudes. The injury received, however, was of a kind which the tender mistress of Beech was not likely to remit, and the remembrance of it went to intensify the effect of scorn with which upon another occasion she met an impulsive tender of Judith’s, prompted by penitence.... And after that there was no more question between the women of anything but hate to the extent of their respective capacities.
The reinforcement of ill-will in this case arose from a question of so innocent and fragile a thing as wild orchids. Celia alone in all the country-side knew where any were to be found. Her grandmother had taken her as a child to the solitary place in the woods, and it had been her fancy to preserve the secret, but for one exception or two. The donor of Beech had visited the fairy recess with her, and the odor of it now had power to evoke past words and scenes almost more than anything left of that poor romance. The thoughts she had there thought first seemed year after year to be still lying in wait for her there. It was her habit to gather the flowers with discretion and reverence, distributing them as if they had been so much gold. Any wild orchid seen in a village sitting-room was sure to be noticed with the remark, “I see you’ve had a call from Miss Compton,” and it seemed agreed that one should expect them only from her hand. Celia, seeking the hushed green haunt one summer morning, her head as always on those pilgrimages lost in its old dream, upon reaching the dell where her eyes looked for sparks of pink against the lace of ferns, was startled by the sight of Judith, solid and ample. One hand grasped a bunch of orchids, the other was still busily harvesting. What she saw in Celia’s face as Celia recognized her, Judith alone could tell. But instead of anything their immediately preceding intercourse could have led Celia to look for, Judith went to her quickly, and, holding out the flowers for her to take, blurted forth, “It’s a burning shame!... Of course they belong to you, and I’d no business....” But Celia looked at her with eyes of judgment, and, with a gesture of utter rejection, turned. Judith scattered her nosegay angrily upon the earth, and the two women, as fast as ever they could, widened the distance between them.
After that, each according to her nature entertained her aversion. In Celia the act consisted in as perfect an exclusion from her thoughts of the other, now altogether outside the pale of consideration, as her will could compass. She refused to be concerned with such ugliness, or have her life vulgarized by the sentiments which befitted it. In Judith it formed an undercurrent of excitement, never quite below consciousness, and at the root of many an action of hers which from the surface would have seemed to have no relation with it. Other factors in Judith’s life there were combining with her sense of Celia’s disesteem and her revolt against it and requital of hatred, to give her character a touch of lawlessness in its audacity; her wealth, her power over her father, her ascendency over the imaginations of the plain villagers. It was finally felt that she believed everything permitted to her, and an occasional exaggeration in hard, hare-brained boldness made a beginning of division in opinion about her among those whom her generosity and good-humor had first made all alike her adherents. From time to time inevitably the rivals crossed each other’s path, when Celia’s superiority was confirmed to her by the cold freedom of mind she could maintain under the test, while Judith’s tortures were manifest in the loud fool she made of herself, with the cheap drama of her flashing eye and imperial attitudes.
Thus, while weeks grew to months and months to years, under the genial light of day and the beauty of the nights, amid innocent occupations and simple pleasures and natural relations satisfying to the heart, the two carried about, with as little fear as if it had been some such thing as Judith’s diminutive pet alligator brought home from the South, or the diamond snake with which Celia fastened her lace, the sentiment destined to find its termination in such tragic horror.