Portia Part 27

Just as well with his left as with his right."

"A rather useless accomplishment, I should think."

"I don't know. It occurred to me we should all learn how to do it, in case we should break our arms, or our legs, or anything."

"What on earth would our legs have to do with it," says Miss Blount, with a gay little laugh, which he echoes.

"Oh? well, in case we should sprain our right wrists, then. When Mayne went away I tried if _I_ could make use of my left hand, and succeeded rather well. Look here, you hold your hand like this."

"It sounds difficult," says Dulce, doubtfully.

"It isn't though, really. Will you try?" Taking a pencil and an envelope from his pocket, he lays the latter on her knee, and hands her the former. "Now let me hold your hand just at first to guide you, and you will soon see how simple it is. Only practice is required."

"It will take a good deal of practice and a good deal of guidance, I shouldn't wonder," says Miss Blount, smiling.

"That will be my gain," returns he in a low tone. As he speaks he lays his hand on hers, and directs the pencil; so the lesson begins; and so it continues uninterrupted for several minutes; Dulce is getting on quite smoothly; Mr. Gower is plainly interested in a very high degree, when Roger, coming up to them, lays his hand lightly upon Dulce's shoulder. He is still pa.s.sionately angry, and almost unable to control himself. To see Dulce's fingers clasped by those of Gower, however innocently, has fired his wrath, and driven him to open expression of his displeasure.

"If you have forgotten how to write, Dulce," he says in a low, strained voice, "I daresay it will be possible to find a master to re-instruct you. In the meantime, why trouble Gower?"

"Does it trouble you, Mr. Gower?" asks she, sweetly, looking straight at Stephen and ignoring Roger.

"Need I answer that?" responds he, flushing warmly, and in his turn ignoring Dare.

"Then you need not worry yourself to get me a master, Roger," says Dulce, still quite sweetly. "It is very good of you to wish to take such trouble about me, but you see I have got one already."

"Not a master--a slave!" says Gower, impulsively. There's such evident and earnest meaning in his tone that she colors violently, and, with a rather open manifestation of shrinking, withdraws her hand from his clasp; the pencil falls to the ground, but Roger has turned aside, and this last act on her part is unseen by him.

"Is anything the matter with Roger?" says Gower, slowly.

"What should be the matter with him?" asks she, coldly.

"Do you remember what we were reading yesterday? Do you remember even one particular line? It comes to me now. 'So loving jealous.' You recollect?"

"No; and even if I did, what has it to do with Roger?"

"Nothing--_perhaps_." There is a small fine smile around his lips that incenses her, she scarcely knows why.

"Then what does your quotation mean?"

"Nothing, too, no doubt. Shall we go on with our lesson?"

"No, I am tired of it," she says, petulantly. "I like nothing, I think, for very long." She has grown somewhat restless, and her eyes are wistful. They are following Roger, who has thrown himself at Portia's feet.

"Are your friendships, too, short-lived?" asks Gower, biting his lips.

You can see that he is lounging on the gra.s.s, and at this moment, having raised his hand, it falls again, by chance upon her instep.

Remorse and regret have been companions of her bosom for the past minute, now they quicken into extreme anger. Pushing back the garden chair on which she has been sitting, she stands up and confronts the stricken Gower with indignant eyes.

"Don't do that again," she says, with trembling lips. Her whole att.i.tude--voice and expression--are undeniably childish, yet she frightens Gower nearly out of his wits.

"I beg your pardon," he stammers, eagerly, growing quite white. "I must _insist_ on your understanding I did not mean it. How could you think it? I--"

At this instant Roger laughs. The laugh comes to Dulce as she stands before Gower grieved and angry and repentant, and her whole face changes. The grief and the repentance vanish, the very anger fades into weariness.

"Yes, I believe you--I was foolish--it doesn't matter," she says, heavily; and then she sinks into her seat again, and taking a small volume of selected poetry from a rustic table at her elbow, throws it into his lap.

"Read me something," she says, gently.

"What shall I select?" asks Stephen, puzzled by the sudden change in her manner, but anxious to please her.

"Anything. It hardly matters; they are all pretty," she says, disconnectedly, and so indifferently that he is fairly piqued; his reading being one of his strongest points; and taking up the book, he opens it at random, and begins to read in a low, sweet, rhyming voice that certainly carries its own charm.

Dulce, in spite of herself, is by degrees drawn to listen to it; yet though the words so softly spoken attract her and chain her attention, there is always a line of discontent around her lovely mouth, and a certain angry petulance within her eyes, and in the gesture with which she furls and unfurls her huge black fan.

d.i.c.ky Browne, who has confiscated all the cake, and is therefore free to go where he lists, has drawn near to her, and, under cover of a cigarette, is pretending to be absorbed in the poetry. Gower has fallen now upon Gray's Elegy in a Churchyard, and is getting through it most effectively. All the others have grown silent, either touched by the beauty of the dying daylight, or the tender lines that are falling on the air. When at length Stephen finishes the poem, and his voice ceases to break the stillness of the coming eve, no one stirs, and an utter calm ensues. It is broken by the irrepressible Julia.

"What a charming thing that is," she says, alluding, they presume, to the Elegy. She pauses here, but no one takes her up or seems to care to continue the praise of what is almost beyond it. But Julia is not easily discouraged.

"One can almost see the gaunt trees," she says, sentimentally, "and the ivied walls of the old church, and the meadows beyond, and the tinkling of the tiny bells, and the soft white sheep as they move perpetually onward in the far, far distance."

She sighs, as though overcome by the perfect picture she has so kindly drawn for their benefit.

"I wish to goodness she would move on herself," says d.i.c.ky Browne. "It is enough to make poor Gray turn in his grave."

"I think she describes rather prettily, and quite as if she meant it,"

says Portia, softly.

"Not a bit of it," growls d.i.c.ky; "she _don't_ mean it; she couldn't; It's all put on--regular plaster! She doesn't feel it; she knows as much about poetry as I do."

"You underrate yourself, my darling boy," says Roger, fondly.

"Oh! you get out," says Mr. Brown, most ungratefully.

"I think to be able to read _really_ well is an intense charm," goes on Julia, glancing sweetly at Stephen. "If one had only some one to give one a kindly hint now and then about the correct intonation and emphasis and that, it would be a regular study, of course. I really have half a mind to go in for it."

"So glad she has at last arrived at a just appreciation of her own powers," says d.i.c.ky, _sotto voce_. "I should think she has just half a mind and no more, to do anything with."

He is hushed up; and then Stephen goes on again, choosing pa.s.sages from Shakespeare this time, for a change, while silence once more reigns.

Roger is looking sulky and unkindly critical. Sir Mark has been guilty of a small yawn or two. Julia, in spite of the most heroic efforts to the contrary, is openly and disgracefully sleepy. Portia's eyes are full of tears. d.i.c.ky Browne, who is tired of not hearing his own voice, and whose only belief in the divine William is that he gave him "a jolly lot of trouble in his schooldays," is aweary, and is only waiting an opportunity to cut in and make himself heard, in spite of all opposition.

It comes--the opportunity--and d.i.c.ky seizes it. Mr. Gower is at his very best. He has thrown his whole soul into his voice, and is even himself wrapt up in the piece he has before him.

"'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,'" his voice rings out clear and full of melancholy prophecy; it is a voice that should have impressed any right-minded individual, but d.i.c.ky's mind is below par.

"I should think he'd lie considerably more uneasy without it," he says, cheerfully. "He'd feel like being scalped, wouldn't he? And get dreaming about Comanches and tomahawks and Fenimore Cooper, eh?"

For once d.i.c.ky scores. The men have grown tired of Mr. Gower's performance, and hail the interruption with delight. Roger turns on his side, and laughs aloud. This attention, so unprecedented on his part, fills d.i.c.ky's soul with rapture. He instantly bestows upon his supporter a smile rich with grat.i.tude; yet perhaps it is not Mr. Browne's wit alone that has called forth such open manifestation of mirth from Roger.

There is, I think, just the faintest touch of malice in his merriment.