Faith And Unfaith Part 50

"I am. I have walked enough, and talked enough, to last me a month."

"I am afraid I rather broke in upon your conversation just now," says Brans...o...b.., looking earnestly at her. "But for my coming, Kennedy would have stayed on with you; and he is a--a rather amusing sort of fellow, isn't he?"

"Is he? He was exceedingly stupid to-day, at all events. I don't believe he has a particle of brains, or else he thinks other people haven't. I enjoyed myself a great deal more with the old duke, until that ridiculous Sir John Lincoln came to us. I don't think he knew a bit who the duke was, because he kept saying odd little things about the grounds and the guests, right under his nose; at least, right behind his back: it is all the same thing."

"What is? His nose and his back?" asks Dorian; at which piece of folly they both laugh as though it was the best thing in the world.

Then they make their way over the smooth lawns, and past the glowing flower-beds, and past Sir John Lincoln, too, who is standing in an impossible att.i.tude, that makes him all elbows and knees, talking to a very splendid young man--all bone and muscle and good humor--who is plainly delighted with him. To the splendid young man he is nothing but one vast joke.

Seeing Mrs. Brans...o...b.., they both raise their hats, and Sir John so far forgets the tulips as to give it as his opinion that she is "Quite too, too intense for every-day life." Whereupon the splendid young man, breaking into praise too, declares she is "Quite too awfully jolly, don't you know," which commonplace remark so horrifies his companion that he sadly and tearfully turns aside, and leaves him to his fate.

Georgie, who has been brought to a standstill for a moment, hears both remarks, and laughs aloud.

"It is something to be admired by Colonel Vibart, isn't it?" she says to Dorian; "but it is really very sad about poor Sir John. He has bulbous roots on the brain, and they have turned him as mad as a hatter."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"There's not a scene on earth so full of lightness That withering care Sleeps not beneath the flowers and turns their brightness To dark despair."--HON. MRS. NORTON.

It is a day of a blue and goldness so intense as to make one believe these two are the only colors on earth worthy of admiration. The sky is cloudless; the great sun is wide awake; the flowers are drooping, sleeping,--too languid to lift their heavy heads.

"The gentle wind, that like a ghost doth pa.s.s, A waving shadow on the cornfield keeps."

And Georgie descending the stone steps of the balcony, feels her whole nature thrill and glow beneath the warmth and richness of the beauty spread all around with lavish hand. Scarcely a breath stirs the air; no sound comes to mar the deep stillness of the day, save the echo of the "swallows' silken wings skimming the water of the sleeping lake."

As she pa.s.ses the rose-trees, she puts out her hand, and, from the very fulness of her heart, touches some of the drowsy flowers with caressing fingers. She is feeling peculiarly happy to-day: everything is going so smoothly with her; her life is devoid of care; only suns.h.i.+ne streams upon her path; storm and rain and nipping frosts seem all forgotten.

Going into the garden, she pulls a flower or two and places them in the bosom of her white gown, and bending over the basin of a fountain, looks at her own image, and smiles at it, as well she may.

Then she blushes at her own vanity, and, drawing back from nature's mirror, tells herself she will go a little farther, and see what Andrews, the under-gardener (who has come to Sartoris from Hythe), is doing in the shrubbery.

The path by which she goes is so thickly lined with shrubs on the right-hand side that she cannot be seen through them, nor can she see those beyond. Voices come to her from the distance, that, as she advances up the path, grow even louder. She is not thinking of them, or, indeed, of anything but the extreme loveliness of the hour, when words fall upon her ear that make themselves intelligible and send the blood with a quick rush to her heart.

"It is a disgraceful story altogether; and to have the master's name mixed up with it is shameful!"

The voice, beyond doubt, belongs to Graham, the upper-housemaid, and is full of honest indignation.

Hardly believing she has heard aright, and without any thought of eaves-dropping, Georgie stands still upon the walk, and waits in breathless silence for what may come next.

"Well, I think it is shameful," says another voice, easily recognized as belonging to Andrews. "But I believe it is the truth for all that.

Father saw him with his own eyes. It was late, but just as light as it is now, and he saw him plain."

"Do you mean to tell me," says Graham, with increasing wrath (she is an elderly woman, and has lived at Sartoris for many years), "that you really think your master had either hand, act, or part in inducing Ruth Annersley to leave her home?"

"Well, I only say what father told me," says Andrews, in a half-apologetic fas.h.i.+on, being somewhat abashed by her anger. "And he ain't one to lie much. He saw him with her in the wood the night she went to Lunnun, or wherever 'twas, and they walked together in the way to Langham Station. They do say, too, that----"

A quick light footstep, a putting aside of branches, and Georgie, pale, but composed, appears before them. Andrews, losing his head, drops the knife he is holding, and Graham grows a fine purple.

"I don't think you are doing much good here, Andrews," says Mrs.

Brans...o...b.., pleasantly. "These trees look well enough: go to the eastern walk, and see what can be done there."

Andrews, only too thankful for the chance of escape, picks up his knife again and beats a hasty retreat.

Then Georgie, turning to Graham, says slowly,--

"Now, tell me every word of it, from beginning to end."

Her a.s.sumed unconsciousness has vanished. Every particle of color has flown from her face, her brow is contracted, her eyes are s.h.i.+ning with a new and most unenviable brilliancy. Perhaps she knows this herself, as, after the first swift glance at the woman on Andrews's departure, she never lifts her eyes again, but keeps them deliberately fixed upon the ground during the entire interview. She speaks in a low concentrated tone, but with firm compressed lips.

Graham's feelings at this moment would be impossible to describe.

Afterwards--many months afterwards--she herself gave some idea of them when she declared to the cook that she thought she should have "swooned right off."

"Oh, madam! tell you what?" she says, now, in a terrified tone, shrinking away from her mistress, and turning deadly pale.

"You know what you were speaking about just now when I came up."

"It was nothing, madam, I a.s.sure you, only idle gossip, not worth----"

"Do not equivocate to me. You were speaking of Mr. Brans...o...b... Repeat your 'idle gossip.' I will have it word for word. Do you hear?" She beats her foot with quick impatience against the ground.

"Do not compel me to repeat so vile a lie," entreats Graham, earnestly. "It is altogether false. Indeed, madam,"--confusedly,--"I cannot remember what it was we were saying when you came up to us so unexpectedly."

"Then I shall refresh your memory. You were talking of your master and--and of that girl in the village who----" The words almost suffocate her; involuntarily she raises her hand to her throat. "Go on," she says, in a low, dangerous tone.

Graham bursts into tears.

"It was the gardener at Hythe--old Andrews--who told it to our man here," she sobs, painfully. "You know he is his father, and he said he had seen the master in the copsewood the evening--Ruth Annersley ran away."

"He was in London that evening."

"Yes, madam, we all know that," says the woman, eagerly. "That alone proves how false the whole story is. But wicked people will talk, and it is wise people only who will not give heed to them."

"What led Andrews to believe it was your master?" She speaks in a hard constrained voice, and as one who has not heard a word of the preceding speech. In truth, she has not listened to it, her whole mind being engrossed with this new and hateful thing that has fallen into her life.

"He says he saw him,--that he knew him by his height, his figure, his side-face, and the coat he wore,--a light overcoat, such as the master generally uses."

"And how does he explain away the fact of--of Mr. Brans...o...b..'s being in town that evening?"

At this question Graham unmistakably hesitates before replying. When she does answer, it is with evident reluctance.

"You see, madam," she says, very gently, "it would be quite possible to come down by the mid-day train to Langham, to drive across to Pullingham, and get back again to London by the evening train."

"It sounds quite simple," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., in a strange tone.

Then follows an unbroken silence that lasts for several minutes and nearly sends poor Graham out of her mind. She cannot quite see her mistress's face as it is turned carefully aside, but the hand that is resting on a stout branch of laurel near her is steady as the branch itself. Steady,--but the pretty filbert nails show dead-white against the gray-green of the bark, as though extreme pressure, born of mental agitation and a pa.s.sionate desire to suppress and hide it, has compelled the poor little fingers to grasp with undue force whatever may be nearest to them.