Leonore Stubbs Part 12

Glad? The general stepped back as though she had hit him. Glad?

"They are all so down upon me about that stupid old parson of ours,"

continued Leonore, glibly. "They won't listen to anything I say against him, but I know _you_ will believe me. He really does follow me about the roads, you know; and of course any one might guess what for. He's a money-grabber, that's what he is. Not a 'money-grubber'! I know that kind; we had it in plenty at Deeside, but a 'grabber,' and a 'grabber'

of the worst type. He thinks of nothing else but getting money out of you for his poor people. Well, I daresay they _are_ poor, but then so am I, and as I can't tell him so--for you know you forbade me yourself--all I can do is to flee. Yet they laugh me to scorn when I say I flee, and he pursues."

She paused for breath, and moved a little more in front of Sue.

"Humph!" said the general, twirling his moustache. He was arrested, but by no means appeased. She set to work again.

"I know you would not wish me to be mulcted, father, and it _is_ so difficult to say 'no' when a good sort like Mr. Custance----"

"You didn't call him that just now," burst forth the general.

"Oh, I always call him 'Euty' to myself," said Leo, serenely. "Girls do, you know. We always give people nicknames,--and though he is a parson, there's no harm in it, is there? Sue thinks it dreadful, and that there ought to be a sort of halo round the clerical head; and that's why I was teasing her just now----"

"You used most ridiculous, I may say most offensive terms;" he bristled up again.

"Just to have a little rise out of Sue. For Sue was so very positive that the saintly Euty never chased me on the road, supposing me to be rich and generous and likely to give him oceans of money for his poor people, that I had to go at her back. But _you_ know it's true, don't you, father?"

"True enough." He rose to the fly at once. "Why, aye, if this is the case, it certainly--hum, ha--certainly it alters the case. You are a tolerably sharp little piece of goods, Leo, and have discovered what your numskulls of sisters never could. That man would have us all in the workhouse, if he had his way. Directly he crosses this threshold out comes a subscription list, or note-book, or something. It's sheer robbery, that's what it is. Often and often I have to skulk down a back lane, or go into a door I never meant to enter, because I see him coming. I know if once he b.u.t.tonholes me, I'm done for."

"And as I simply can't be 'done for' in that way, I flee for my life.

Now do say a good word for me, father,"--and, to the general's unspeakable amazement, the next moment a little friendly figure was nestling against him, holding on to his coat, and looking up into his face.

The sensation this gave General Boldero was more than novel, it was extraordinary. He was a tolerably old man, he had been twice married, and had always lived surrounded by the gentler s.e.x, but it is safe to say he had never been nestled against in his life. He looked down, he looked up, and then he looked down again.

"Deuced pretty little rogue!" he muttered.

"They think Mr. Custance doesn't know one of us from another, and that it is the most presumptuous cheek on my part to imagine he has ever given me a thought," proceeded Leonore, still intent upon her task; "they think he is far, far above all sublunary affairs----"

"Rubbish. He is no more above them than I am. I don't say Custance isn't well enough, and I have a--a sort of regard for him. But you have the sense to see what your sisters have not----"

"That one simply can't be mulcted at every turn." She had heard "mulcted" on his own lips on more than one occasion; it should serve as a weapon to shield Sue now. Sue, still mute and motionless, cringed behind, but Leo had an intuition that she breathed relief.

"That's it; that's it exactly," cried the general, delighted, and again he appended a mental comment: "Deuced clever little rat!" "Well, I'm glad to find there is some explanation of what really sounded a most outrageous statement;" he turned to depart, now in excellent humour. "I must say, however, that you would do well to see that the dining-room door is shut when next you are amusing yourself with that kind of tomfoolery. Any of the servants coming along had only to step inside and listen behind the screen, and there would have been a fine t.i.ttle-tattle among them--aye, and it wouldn't have stopped there. It would have been all through the village that Miss Boldero----"

"Oh, dear, how funny!" laughed Leo. She had felt Sue's fingers clutch her dress behind. She stepped with her father's step, as he moved to pa.s.s, and made a face at him.

"There--there--you absurd monkey!" but the monkey was pushed aside with a gentle hand, and marching off with all the honours of the field in his own esteem, the general never once looked at Sue.

CHAPTER VII.

"I HAVE LOST SOMETHING THAT I NEVER HAD."

Throughout the foregoing scene Leonore had evinced a quickness of perception and a delicacy beyond what might have been expected from one so young and volatile,--but directly she was alone a revulsion of feeling took place.

Sue had tottered from the dining-room without so much as a glance towards herself. That was nothing. She understood, and did not in the least resent it--since any recognition of her protecting agency would have openly acknowledged what the hapless spinster might still hope was only vaguely guessed at; but it was the thing itself, the incredible, incomprehensible thing which staggered, and, it must be owned, in a sense revolted her.

She flew out of doors. There only, out of sight and hearing, could her bewildered senses realise what had pa.s.sed, and grasp its full significance. There only dared she give way to the spasms of pa.s.sionate amazement and incredulity which found vent in reiterated e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of Sue's name.

Sue? _Sue?_ SUE? She found herself crying it over and over again, and each time with a fresh intonation.

Sue? It was impossible--it was unnatural--it was horrible. Sue? She stamped her foot, and sent a pebble flying down the path.

Sue--poor old Sue--dear old Sue--"Old" Sue, whichever way you took it, how could she, how _could_ she?

In Leo's eyes, Sue, verging on middle age, had never been young; earliest reminiscences pictured her the same composed and tranquil creature, with the same detachment from life as regarded herself, the same contented absorption in the concerns of others, that was present now to the eyes of all.

No one ever thought of Sue in connection with love or matrimony; not even in years gone by; not even when Leo was a child.

True, she had her own niche in the family and household, and it was by no means an unimportant one--but it was high upon a shelf as regarded affairs of the heart.

Her dress, her habits, her punctilio in small matters--all that she did or said marked her the typical old maid, and had done so for years out of mind--so that the present revelation was worse than shocking, it was cruel.

For the best part of an hour the storm raged. She found herself repeating her father's words "preposterous!"--"outrageous!"--and endorsing them with throbs of scorn and anger. The sister she loved, the woman she venerated was lowered in her eyes. She was pained, as well as shocked....

But presently there ensued a change. After all, what had poor Sue done?

Certainly she had at no time given the faintest outward indication of her folly, till powerless to help herself; she had endured what must have been a painful ordeal beforehand with fort.i.tude, and there must have been many similar occasions when calmness and self-restraint were needed, and had never failed.

Was it not rather wonderful of Sue? The weakness was there, but she had had strength to hide it. Maud and Sybil knew nothing of it; no one knew; least of all the man himself.

And apparently Sue was content to have it so,--here was another marvel; she loved and asked for nothing in return. She could go quietly on week after week, month after month, hugging her secret,--yet its power was such that Leo herself trembled to recall the hour that so nearly laid it bare. It was terrible to see Sue blanch and blench; to watch the fluttering of her lace jabot as her bosom heaved beneath. She trembled as she had never trembled at any emotions of her own.

She perceived that love was a strange, unknown force of which she, happily wooed, happily wedded, and sorrowfully widowed, nevertheless knew nothing. She had loved her husband--indeed she had loved him; he had been uniformly kind and pleasant and indulgent towards her, and she had honestly reciprocated his attachment,--but sometimes, sometimes she had wondered? She had heard, she had read of--more: she had never felt it.

And vague fancies had been put aside as disloyal; reasoned away as disturbing elements of a very real if sober felicity. She was married; and it was wrong and wicked to imagine how things might have been if she had never seen G.o.dfrey, and was going about free and unfettered like other girls?

She did not, of course she did not, wish to be free, and was ashamed to find the thought obtruding itself; but there had been moments--and these recurred to her now.

How strange it must be to feel as--as Sue did, for instance? To start at the sound of a footstep, to thrill at a voice; to be wrapt in a golden haze--oh, she knew all that could be told about that curious, fantastic, elusive mystery, which was yet a sealed book as regarded herself.

And was it not a little hard that it should be so? Had something been missed out of her nature? Was she really formed without warmth, ardour, sensibility? A smile played upon her lips.

Was she then not inviting? Was there nothing desirable, attractive, alluring--nothing to create in another the feeling which might have awakened her own slumbering soul?

It might be so, and yet----

Again her thoughts reverted to Sue; to the staid, gaunt elderly Sue,--and with a new and sharp sensation. Sue had not waited to be sought; Sue could give without asking to receive--she envied Sue from the bottom of her soul.

To her own small public Leo, before her widowhood, had always appeared the gayest of the gay. It was her _role_ to be jocund and amusing, and no one took her seriously. But there was another side to her character which she had always been at pains to conceal, partly because it would have met with but scant sympathy from others, partly because she was afraid of it herself,--and of late she had been more and more conscious of the existence of this undercurrent of thought and feeling.

Even had there been no cause for sadness, she would frequently have felt sad. The influences of Nature moved her. Certain sights and sounds oppressed her. From her dreams she often woke in tears.

And now that the first fury as regarded Sue had spent itself, this causeless dejection of spirit took its place. She was no longer bitter against Sue; she would have liked to take her sister to her heart and comfort her. She would have liked--oh, how she would have liked--to confide to her, to some one, to any one the dim confused tumult of half-formed regrets and yearnings--"Oh, I have lost something that I never had!"--she cried aloud.