Faith And Unfaith Part 56

Then, "You are coming from Gowran?"

"Yes; from Clarissa."

"She is well?"

"Yes, and, I suppose, happy,"--with a shrug. "She expects Horace to-morrow." There is a certain scorn in her manner, that attracts his notice.

"Is that sufficient to create happiness?" he says, some what bitterly, in spite of himself. "But of course it is. You know Horace?"

"Not well, but well enough," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., with a frown. "I know him well enough to hate him."

She pauses, rather ashamed of herself for her impulsive confidence, and not at all aware that by this hasty speech she has made a friend of Sir James for life.

"Hate him?" he says, feeling he could willingly embrace her on the spot were society differently const.i.tuted. "Why, what has he done to you?"

"Nothing; but he is not good enough for Clarissa," protests she, energetically. "But then who is good enough? I really think," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., with earnest conviction, "she is far too sweet to be thrown away upon any man."

Even this awful speech fails to cool Sir James's admiration for the speaker. She has declared herself a non-admirer of the all-powerful Horace, and this goes so far a way with him that he cannot bring himself to find fault with her on any score.

"I don't know why I express my likes and dislikes to you so openly,"

she says, gravely, a little later on; "and I don't know, either, why I distrust Horace. I have only a woman's reason. It is Shakespeare slightly altered: 'I hate him so, because I hate him so.' And I hope, with all my heart, Clarissa will never marry him."

Then she blushes again at her openness, and gives him her hand, and bids him good-by, and presently he goes on his way once more to Gowran.

On the balcony there stands Clarissa, the solemn Bill close beside her. She is leaning on the parapet, with her pretty white hands crossed and hanging loosely over it. As she sees him coming, with a little touch of coquetry, common to most women, she draws her broad-brimmed hat from her head, and, letting it fall upon the balcony, lets the uncertain sunlight touch warmly her fair brown hair and tender exquisite face.

Bill, sniffing, lifts himself, and, seeing Sir James, shakes his s.h.a.ggy sides, and, with his heavy head still drooping, and his most hang-dog expression carefully put on, goes cautiously down the stone steps to greet him.

Having been patted, and made much of, and having shown a scornful disregard for all such friendly attentions, he trots behind Sir James at the slow funeral pace he usually affects, until Clarissa is reached.

"Better than my ordinary luck to find you here," says Sir James, who is in high good humor. "Generally you are miles away when I get to Gowran. And--forgive me--how exceedingly charming you are looking this morning!"

Miss Peyton is clearly not above praise. She laughs,--a delicious rippling little laugh,--and colors faintly.

"A compliment from you!" she says. "No wonder I blush. Am I really lovely, Jim, or only commonly pretty? I should hate to be commonly pretty." She lifts her brows disdainfully.

"You needn't hate yourself," says Scrope, calmly. "Lovely is the word for you."

"I'm rather glad," says Miss Peyton, with a sigh of relief. "If only for--Horace's sake!"

Sir James pitches his cigar over the balcony, and frowns. Always Horace! Can she not forget him for even one moment?

"What brought you?" asks she, presently.

"What a gracious speech!"--with a rather short laugh. "To see you, I fancy. By the by, I met Mrs. Brans...o...b.. on my way here. She didn't look particularly happy."

"No." Clarissa's eyes grow sad. "After all, that marriage was a terrible mistake, and it seemed such a satisfactory one. Do you know,"

in a half-frightened tone, "I begin to think they hate each other?"

"They don't seem to hit it off very well, certainly," says Sir James, moodily. "But I believe there is something more on Brans...o...b..'s mind than his domestic worries: I am afraid he is getting into trouble over the farm, and that, and nothing hits a man like want of money. That Sawyer is a very slippery fellow, in my opinion: and of late Dorian has neglected everything and taken no interest in his land, and, in fact, lets everything go without question."

"I have no patience with Georgie," says Clarissa, indignantly. "She is positively breaking his heart."

"She is unhappy, poor little thing," says Scrope, who cannot find it in his heart to condemn the woman who has just condemned Horace Brans...o...b...

"It is her own fault if she is. I know few people so lovable as Dorian. And now to think he has another trouble makes me wretched. I do hope you are wrong about Sawyer."

"I don't think I am," says Scrope; and time justifies his doubt of Dorian's steward.

"SARTORIS, Tuesday, four o'clock.

"DEAR SCROPE,--

"Come up to me at _once_, if possible. Everything here is in a deplorable state. You have heard, of course, that Sawyer bolted last night; but perhaps you have _not_ heard that he has left things in a ruinous state. I must see you with as little delay as you can manage. Come straight to the library, where you will find me alone.

"Yours ever,

"D. B."

Sir James, who is sitting in his sister's room, starts to his feet on reading this letter.

"Patience, I must go at once to Sartoris," he says, looking pale and distressed.

"To see that mad boy?"

"To see Dorian Brans...o...b..."

"That is quite the same thing. You don't call him sane, do you? To marry that chit of a girl without a grain of common sense in her silly head, just because her eyes were blue and her hair yellow, forsooth.

And then to go and get mixed up with that Annersley affair--"

"My dear Patience!"

"Well, why not? Why should I not talk? One must use one's tongue, if one isn't a dummy. And then there is that man Sawyer: he could get no one out of the whole country but a creature who----"

"Hus.h.!.+" says Sir James, hastily and unwisely. "Better be silent on that subject." Involuntarily he lays his hand upon the letter just received.

"Ha!" says Miss Scrope, triumphantly, with astonis.h.i.+ng sharpness. "So I was right, was I? So that pitiful being has been exposed to the light of day, has he? I always said how it would be; I knew it!--ever since last spring, when I sent to him for some cuc.u.mber-plants, and he sent me instead (with wilful intent to insult me) two vile gourds.

I always knew how it would end."

"Well, and how has it ended?" says Sir James, with a weak effort to retrieve his position, putting on a small air of defiance.

"Don't think to deceive me," says Miss Scrope, in a terrible tone; whereupon Sir James flies the apartment, feeling in his heart that in a war of words Miss Scrope's match is yet to be found.

Entering the library at Sartoris, he finds Dorian there, alone, indeed, and comfortless, and sore at heart.

It is a dark dull day. The first breath of winter is in the air. The clouds are thick and sullen, and are lying low, as if they would willingly come down to sit upon the earth and there rest themselves,--so weary they seem, and so full of heaviness.