Dross Part 35

"I am penniless unless you marry me."

"Yes--I know."

Her voice was quiet and composed. Isabella was younger than I, but in her presence I always felt myself her inferior and junior, as, no doubt, I had always been in mind though not in years.

"You have always been my enemy, Isabella."

"Why should I be that?" she asked.

"I suppose it is on account of the squire's will."

"I care nothing for that."

"Then, if you are not my enemy, if you do not hate me--I do not recollect doing you an injury--if you do not hate me, why have you poisoned Lucille's mind against me and made Alphonse distrust me? Why did you encourage Devar, whom you knew to be my enemy?"

"So you have ridden over in order to bring these charges against me,"

answered Isabella, in her coldest voice; "and you came at a time when you knew you would find me alone, so as to do it the more effectually."

"I am letting you know that I am aware that you dislike me, and want to be told why. Do you remember long ago at the gate over there leading to Drake's Spinney? It was the first time you had put your hair up and had a long dress on. I was a clumsy oaf and did not know that those things made such a difference. I gave you a push as you were climbing over, and you fell."

"Yes," said Isabella; "I remember."

"You hurt yourself, and cried, and said you hated me then. And I believe you did, for you have never been the same since. That was fourteen years ago, Isabella--my first year at Cambridge. You were eighteen then."

"Yes," answered Isabella, in a chilly voice. "You have all your dates very correct, and a simple addition sum will tell you that I am thirty-two now--a middle-aged woman, whose hair is turning grey!

Thirty-two!"

And I was too stupid, or too wise, to tell her that she did not look it.

"I do not know," I said instead, "why you should have turned against me then, and remembered so long a mere boyish jest; for I thought we were to be good friends always--as we had been--and never dreamt that a few hairpins could make us different."

Isabella sat with her still, white hands clasped in her lap, and looked towards the gate that had caused this childish breach; but I could not see the expression on her face.

"My father," I went on, determined to speak out that which was in my mind, "had no business to make such a will, which could only lead to trouble. And I should have been a scoundrel had I sacrificed your happiness to my own cupidity--or, rather, had I attempted to do so.

You might have thought it your duty to take me, Isabella, had I asked you to, for the sake of the money--though you have always spared me any doubts as to your opinion of me. You have always known my faults, and been less charitable towards them than anyone else. I should have been a scoundrel indeed had I asked you to sacrifice yourself."

She sat quite still, and was breathing quietly now.

"So I came to talk it over with you--as old friends, as if we were two men."

"Which we are not," put in Isabella, with her bitter laugh; and G.o.d knows what she meant.

"We were placed in an impossible position by being thus asked to marry against our will. I did not ever think of you in that way--think of loving you, I mean. And you have made it plain enough, of course, that you do not love me. On the contrary--"

"Of course," she echoed, in a queer, tired voice. "On the contrary."

I somehow came to a stop, and sat mutely seeking words. At last, however, I broke the silence.

"Then," I said, making an effort to speak lightly and easily, "we understand each other now."--

"Yes," she answered; "we understand each other now."

I rose, for there seemed nothing more to be said, and yet feeling that I was no further on--that there was something yet misunderstood between us.

"And we are friends again, Isabella."

I held out my hand, and, after a momentary pause, she placed her fingers in it. They were cold.--"Yes, I suppose so," she said, and her lips were quivering.

I left her slowly, and with a feeling of reluctance. My way lay over the gate, where fourteen years earlier I had made that mistake. As I climbed it, I looked back. Isabella had turned sideways on the seat, and her face was hidden in her arms folded on the back of it. She seemed to be weeping. I stood for a minute or two in indecision. Then, remembering how she disliked me, went slowly on to the stable, and found my horse.

Chapter XXV

Paris Again

"Le courage commence l'oeuvre et ... "

The same afternoon John Turner and I quitted Hopton. I with a heavy enough heart, which, _d'ailleurs_, I always carried when leaving Lucille. There was, however, work to be done, and a need for instant action is one of the surest antidotes to sad thought. I was engaged, moreover, in affairs intimately concerning Lucille. A man, it appears, whose heart is taken from him, is best employed in doing something for the woman who has it. No other occupation will fully satisfy him.

We journeyed to London, and there took the night train to Paris, crossing the Channel in a boat crowded with Frenchmen, who had contented themselves with deploring their country's evil day from across seas. As we drove through the streets of Paris in the early morning, John Turner sat looking out of the window of a cab. Never, surely, has a city been so wasted and destroyed.

"The d----d fools; the d----d fools!" my companion muttered under his breath. And I believe the charred walls of each ruined landmark burnt into his soul.

I left John Turner in his rooms in the Avenue d'Antan, where everything seemed to be in order, and drove across to the Quartier St.

Germain. It was my intention to dwell in the Hotel Clericy until that house could be made habitable for the ladies. The _concierge_, I found, had been killed in one of the sorties, and his wife had, with the quick foresight of her countrywomen, secured the safety of the house by letting a certain portion of it in apartments to the officers of the National Guard as soon as the Commune was declared.

These gentlemen (one arrogant captain, I was informed, sold cat's meat in times of peace) had lived with a fine military freedom, and left marks of their boots on all the satin chairs. They had made a practice of throwing cigar ends and matches on the carpets, had stabbed a few pictures and bespattered the walls with wine, but a keen regard for their own comfort had prevented further wanton damage, and all could be repaired within a few days.

The woman made me some coffee, and while I was drinking it brought me a telegram.

"Sander wires that he has run Miste to earth in Nice. Wait for me. I follow by day mail."

The message was from Alphonse Giraud.

I laboured all day in Madame's interests, and re-engaged some of the servants who had been scattered by the war and Commune, and a fear, perhaps, of acknowledging any sympathy for the n.o.bility.

In the evening I met Alphonse Giraud on his arrival at the Gare du Nord, and found him in fine feather, carrying a stick of British oak, which he had bought, he told me, for Miste's back.

"It will not be a matter of hitting each other with walking sticks," I answered.

We drove across to the Lyons station, and took the night mail to Ma.r.s.eilles. It was my second night out of bed. But I was hardy in those days, and can still thank G.o.d that I am stronger than many of my contemporaries.

"Confound you!" cried Alphonse to me the next morning as the train raced down the valley of the Loire. "You have slept all night!"

"Of course."