Portia Part 24

"You are hurt," she says, hastily, going nearer to him. "Where?--how?"

There is deep, unrestrained anxiety in her tone.

"My arm," confesses Fabian, who is, indeed, suffering greatly, laying his left hand upon his right arm, high up above the elbow.

"Is it a sprain or a bruise?"

"A little of both, perhaps. I came up-stairs just now to ring for Parkins to help me off with my coat, and do something for me."

"Parkins!" says Portia, with fine contempt; "of what use is a man in a case like this. Why not ask Dulce--"

"Oh! it is really nothing; and you saw how frightened she was already. I had pity on her nerves."

"Then let me be Parkins for a few minutes," says Portia, with a little smile. "I used to be of great use to George" (her brother, Colonel Vibart) "occasionally when he came to grief at football, or in the hunting field. Let me see if my hand has lost its cunning."

"You won't like it," says Blount, hesitating; "it will look nasty, you know, and there will be blood, I think, and perhaps it will be better for me to--"

"This is my sitting-room," interrupts Portia, calmly, throwing open a door on the opposite side of the corridor. "Come in here, and let me see what has happened to you."

Fabian follows her obediently. It all seems to him something like a dream, that this girl, usually so listless, should now brighten into life, and grow energetic and anxious for his sake.

With gentle fingers she helps him to take off his coat, and, in a business-like, very matter-of-fact fashion, unfastens the gold link at his wrist, and, though paling a little as she sees the blood upon his sleeve, resolutely rolls it up and lays bare the injured arm.

It is looking dark and swollen, and the skin has been knocked off it in several places. The flesh has been a good deal bruised, and altogether the wound is an ugly one without being in any way serious. In spite of her efforts to the contrary, she blanches perceptibly, and shudders, and lets her lids droop rather heavily over her eyes.

"You are unfit for this sort of work," says Fabian, angry with himself, as he marks her agitation. "It was unpardonable of me even to permit you to attempt it." He moves back from her, and tries his shirt sleeve once more over his injured arm.

"Ah! do not touch it," says Portia, hastily; "the sleeve will only rub against it and make it worse."

Involuntarily she lays her hand on his to prevent his covering the wound, and looks at him with a glance full of sympathy and entreaty. So standing, with her eyes large and dark with pity, and her soft white hand trembling upon his, she seems to him so far

"Beyond all women, womanly, He dreads to think how he should fare Who came so near as to despair!"

A pang desolates his heart. Alas! is not despair the only portion that can be meted out for him! The joy and the gladness of living, and the one great treasure of all--the heart's love--that beautifies and refines all it touches, can never be his; never for him, while this shadow rests upon him, will there be home or "hearthstone," or that deeper, more perfected sense of fellowship that exists between two souls only.

And this girl, with her hand on his, and

"With eyes like open lotus flowers Bright in the morning rain."

looking straight up at him, with gentlest concern in her regard, how might it have been with him and her, if life had flowed in a pleasant stream, and no turbulent waves had come to disturb its calm and musical ripple?

How short have been his days of grace, how long must be his years of misery; just in the very opening of his life, in the silken morning of his youth, the blow had fallen, deadening his sky, and rendering all things gray.

In what a very little s.p.a.ce, indeed, lie all our happy moments; even the most successful of us can count them one by one, as it might be, on the fingers of one hand; and how tardy, how wearying, are those where sorrow, and trouble, and despair hold their own.

"Ce qui nous charme s'en va, et ce qui fait peine reste. La rose vit une heure, et le cypres cent ans."

Portia has gone into an inner room, and now returns with a basin and a sponge. Very gently (and as though afraid each movement may increase his pain) she bathes his arm, glancing up at him every now and then to see if, indeed, she is adding to or decreasing his agony.

If the truth be told, I believe he feels no agony at all, so glad he is to know her touch, and see her face. When she has sponged his arm with excessive tenderness, she brings a cambric handkerchief, and, tearing it into strips, winds it round and round the torn flesh.

"Perhaps that will do until Dr. Bland can see it," she says hopefully.

"At least tell me you are in less pain now, and that I have done you some small good."

"Small!" says Fabian.

"Ah! well," she says, lightly, "then I suppose I have succeeded, but you must promise me, nevertheless, that you will have a doctor to look at you."

Her tone is still exquisitely kind; but there is now a studied indifference about it that hurts him keenly. Perhaps in his surprise at this sudden change of manner he overlooks the fact that the difference _is_ studied!

"I have given you too much trouble," he says, stupidly, in a leaden sort of way. "But, as you say, you have been successful, I feel hardly any pain now."

"Then I suppose I may dismiss you," she says, with a frugal little smile, just glancing at the half opened door. The nervousness, the sympathy is over, and she remembers how lost to social consideration is the man to whose comfort she has been contributing for the past twenty minutes.

"I have taken up too much of your time already," he says in a frozen tone, and then he turns and goes toward the door. But, after a moment's reflection, he faces round again abruptly, and comes up to her, and stands before her with set lips and eyes aflame. His nostrils are dilated, there is intense mental pressure discernible in every line of his face.

"I do not mistake you," he says, with slow vehemence; "I am not such a dullard that I should count your bare charity as friendship. You have succoured me, as you would, of your grace, no doubt have succoured the vilest criminal that walks the earth, were he in death or pain."

She has grown very pale, and is rather frightened, if her eyes speak truly.

"Now that the reaction has set in," he goes on, bitterly, "you believe you have demeaned yourself in that you have a.s.sisted one who----"

"You are saying what is not true," she says, in a low but clear voice; speaking slowly, and with difficulty, because her lips are white and dry.

"Am I?" exclaims he, pa.s.sionately. "Say, if you can, that you believe me innocent of all guilt, and I will believe you!"

He pauses--she is silent. A terrible moment ensues, fraught with agony for Fabian, and still she makes no sign. Her hands, tightly clasped, are hanging before her; her head is turned aside; her eyes persistently seek the floor. As if every nerve in her body is strung to excess, she stands so motionless that she might almost be a statue cut in marble.

Her silence is painfully eloquent. Fabian, in an excess of pa.s.sion, tears off the cambric bandages from his arm, and flings them at her feet.

"I will have none of your charity," he says, with pale lips, and, throwing wide the door, strides down the corridor, and is soon beyond recall.

When the last echo of his feet has died away Portia rouses herself, and, moving towards a low chair near the fireplace, sinks into it, and presses her hands convulsively against her heart.

Now that she is at last alone, the excitement of the last hour begins to tell upon her. Her cheeks and lips, that up to this have been positively bloodless, now grow dyed with richest crimson, that is certainly not of this earth--earthy, as it gives no promise of health or youthful strength. She leans back in her chair as if exhausted; and, in truth, in the fair sh.e.l.l that harbors her soul but very little power remains to battle with the varied thoughts that rise within her.

Scene by scene the events of the last hour spread themselves before her: the maddened brute rushing violently over the soft, smooth lawn to where the treacherous stream awaits him, running gently between its damp green banks--Sir Christopher's danger--Fabian's unexpected interference--the short, but terrible fear for him--and then the sudden fall from the extreme agony of suspense to comparative calm.

And yet, perhaps, all this does not haunt her so much as one or two other things, that, in reality, were of little moment. That time, for instance, when he--Fabian--stood beneath the balcony, and when he, with a glance, a half-spoken word, accused her of coldness and indifference.

He had condemned her all too willingly. But this was only fair, no doubt. Had not she, in her innermost heart, condemned him, unheard, unquestioned.

And what was it he had said to Dulce? "Take example by your cousin; see how sensible _she_ can be," or something like that. Sensible! When this terrible pain was tugging at her heart strings, and prolonged nervousness had made speech impossible.

And why had he said "_your_ cousin," instead of "our cousin?" Was it that he did not care to claim kinship with her, or because--because--he did not count himself worthy--to--

Again she raises her hand, and presses it with undue force against her left side. She is unhappy and alone, and full of a vague uncertainty.

"Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows," and all the shadows of her grief seem now to hem her in, and encompa.s.s her on every side. The old troublesome pain in her heart, that drove her from the dissipations of town life to seek a shelter in the quiet country, returns to her again. At this moment the pain of which I speak grows almost past endurance. A faint, gray pallor supersedes the vivid carmine of a while ago. She sighs with evident difficulty, and sinks back heavily amongst her cushions.