Portia Part 41

"Have you not been making love to my cousin behind my back? Deny that if you can!"

"I won't deny that I love her, certainly."

"Will you deny anything else? That you have acted as few men would have done. Without honor--without--"

This of course puts an end to even enforced civility; Mr. Gower instantly and most naturally strikes out with the most exemplary vigor, and presently these two most mistaken young men are clasped in an embrace, warm indeed, but hardly so loving as one might desire.

How things might have ended, whether with death or only with b.l.o.o.d.y noses, no one now can tell, because Sir Mark Gore, coming on the scene just at this awful moment, seizes Roger by the shoulder and by sheer force of arm and will, forces him back from his adversary.

"What do you two boys mean by this burst of insanity?" he says, angrily.

"Such an example to the young fellows in the yard; you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Roger." This is plainly meant for two stable boys in the distance, who, with open mouths, are staring at the combatants, and have been plainly enjoying themselves to the utmost.

"Well, I'm not," says Roger, doggedly, who is still thirsting for blood.

"If shame should attach itself to any one, it should be to that fellow there," pointing contemptuously to Gower.

"Well, I forbid any more of this," says Sir Mark. "Stop it at once. It is all about that child indoors, I suppose; I never heard of--"

"At all events, I have told him what I think of him," says Roger, panting. "Low, underhand sneak."

"What?" says Stephen, fiercely, making a step forward.

"I insist on knowing what it is all about," says Sir Mark, authoritatively. "Of course, one understands a disgraceful scene like this _always_ means a woman, but _is_ it Dulce?"

"To come here under the guise of friendship and deliberately make love to the girl to whom he _knew_ I was engaged; was there ever such treachery since the world began?" says Roger. "Would any fellow, with any claim to the word gentleman, do that? Now, I leave it to you, Gore?"

"My dear fellow, you must remember it is apparent to everybody that _you_ don't want her," says Sir Mark, taking Stephen's part, though in his soul he is on Roger's side. "Would you act the part of the dog in the manger? You don't affect her yourself, yet n.o.body else must look at her. She has found out, I _suppose_, that she prefers some one else to you. Women, as a rule, will choose for themselves, and who shall blame them! When, later on, you choose for yourself too, you will be very grateful to her and Stephen for this hour. Just now self-love is disagreeing with you. If I were you I should clear out of this for a bit."

"Oh? as for _that_, I'm going," says Roger; "but I'm glad I have had a chance of speaking to him before I go; he undermined me, and poisoned her mind with regard to me from first to last. I wasn't _quite_ blind, though I said nothing. He spoke evilly of me behind my back, I have no doubt, and maligned me most falsely when there was a chance; a more blackguardly transaction--"

"You shall answer to me for this," says Gower, in a white rage; "you have lied in your statement from beginning to end."

"No one shall answer for anything," says Sir Mark, promptly; "I won't hear of it. Are you both gentlemen! and to dream of dragging a woman's name into a scandalous quarrel of this kind? For shame! Take my advice, Roger, and go abroad, or to the--or anywhere you like for a month or two, and see what that will do for you. You know you are only trying to make a grievance out of nothing; you never _really_ cared for her, as a man should for his wife." Sir Mark's eyes sadden as he says this, and an irrepressible sigh escapes him; is he thinking of the time when he could have cared for a woman with all his heart and soul?

"No, of course not; you and she and all are quite agreed about _that_,"

says Roger, bitterly.

"My good boy, all your world knows it," says Sir Mark, persistently.

"My world is wiser than even _I_ gave it credit for," says Roger, sneeringly. But there is a sob in his voice as he turns away that sends a pang through Sir Mark's heart. What has happened? Have they all been mistaken, then? Even have the princ.i.p.al actors in this small drama been blind until now, when the awakening has come too late.

Without another word to Stephen, Sir Mark goes slowly indoors, and, pa.s.sing through the hall, meets Portia coming toward him, a troubled expression in her large sad eyes.

"What is it, Mark?" she says, laying her hand on his arm, "Something has happened to Dulce; she is lying on her bed, and will not speak to me or any one. Has she really quarreled finally with Roger?"

"Oh, it is worse than that," says Gore, with something that is almost a groan.

"It can't be true that she has thrown him over for Mr. Gower?" says Portia, recoiling.

"One never knows what a woman will do," says Mark, gloomily, "I think she has."

"But what is it all about? How did it begin?"

"With a chocolate cream," says Sir Mark, sententiously. "I a.s.sure you, my dear Portia, for the sake of a paltry box of bon-bons she has sacrificed the entire happiness of her life!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

"The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lerne, Is to restreine, and kepen wel thy tonge."

--THE MANCIPLE'S TALE--CHAUCER.

THE days have grown shorter and shorter. Daylight now is to be prized, not sported with, as in the gay and happy Summer. "The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time" has carried us from "Golden September" to bleakest Winter, and into that month which claims Christmas for its own.

At the hall, everything is very much the same as it was when last we saw it, if we except the fact that Roger is absent. He is abroad; _so_ much abroad, indeed, that n.o.body knows where he is. A week after his departure he had written to Sir Christopher, and the week after that again to Mark Gore; but, beyond these two meagre attempts at correspondence, no news has been heard of him. Whether, as Mr. Browne has elegantly expressed it, "he is up the Nile, or up the Spout," is a matter of speculation.

Sir Christopher is looking a little older, a little graver. He is not so testy as of yore, a change that fills Dulce's heart with misgivings.

That he has fretted greatly over her broken engagement with Roger (who is to the old Baronet as dear as his own son should have been, and second only to Fabian in his affections) she well knows; she well knows, too, how magnanimously--to please her--he has tried to be civil to Stephen Gower, and to welcome him with cordiality as his future nephew.

But the effort to do all this has aged and saddened him; and from time to time his mind wanders restlessly to the young man who left his home full of anger and indignant grief.

As for Stephen, living in his "Fool's Paradise, he drinks delight," nor heeds how false is all the happiness that seems to surround him. Bitter is the fruit he feeds on, though he will not acknowledge it even to himself; and, looking on his dainty lady-love, he is still happy, and content to bear all things, and suffer all things, for the few grains of adulterated sweetness doled out by her every now and then with a n.i.g.g.ard hand. He will see no cloud on his horizon, although it sits there heavily; nor will he notice aught but what is good and lovable in this girl, upon whom he has centred all his dearest hopes.

For the rest, there has been but little change amongst them. Julia Beaufort and the children had gone away for a month, but returned to the Hall a fortnight ago, and are now--that is, the children, at all events--anxiously awaiting Christmas Day with all its affectations of gaiety and goodwill, and its hideous paddings.

Sir Mark did pretty much the same as Julia. He went away, too, and came back again, thus filling up the measure of his days. Mr. Browne had declined to stir for any pretense whatever, and has been enjoying himself to the utmost, now at Portia's feet, now at Dulce's, and, when all things fail, at Julia's.

Perhaps to Fabian the days have seemed longest. He is silent, cold, self-contained as ever; but now there is something else, a settled melancholy, that yet has in it a mixture of extreme pride, that forbids any approach to it; a melancholy born of despair, and the knowledge that there is laid upon him "a burden greater than he can bear."

"Time, the subtle thief of youth," is stealing from him his best years; his life is going, and with it all chance of joy and gladness. Ever since that memorable evening in the garden, after the ball, a strange reserve has arisen between him and Portia. That morning, as the soft pink dawn came up from behind the hills--when pa.s.sion, pale but triumphant, had held full sway--has never been forgiven by either. A sense of terror has possessed Portia ever since--the knowledge of a danger barely overcome; and with him there has been the memory of pain, and terrible self-restraint that has scathed him as it pa.s.sed him by.

And withal a settled coldness has fallen upon them, the greater because of the weakness that had characterised the hour of which I write.

He does not condemn her, but in his heart he does not forgive her want of faith, her almost openly avowed distrust. Of his own will he never lets his eyes rest upon the fair beauty of her face, and turns aside when unlucky chance has flung him in her path.

And she--a contempt for her own want of self-control, together with the miserable knowledge that her heart is irrevocably his, has rendered her almost repellent in her manner toward him. When he is near, her eyelids droop, her lips take a harder curve, she is dumb, silent, unsympathetic; and yet when he is gone, when the door has closed behind him, the fever of her blood runs high, and but for social training, she would gladly rise, and, in spite of all things, call to him and implore him to return to her side once more.

To a casual observer, of course, all this is not apparent; but to these two, between whom Fate sits relentless, the pain and sorrow of it is deep and cruel. More deep, more sorrowful for him, of course. His whole life is a ruin; he had thought of many things when first the blight fell upon him; but that he should fall in love, and because of this curse that has blasted his best days, should be compelled to turn aside from the love of his heart, had not occurred to him. His life has grown too bitter to be borne with fort.i.tude, almost he is "half in love with easeful death." Oh, the joy--the rapture! to pa.s.s away from all the tortures of this "work-a-day world" to a land unknown, but surely full of rest. To die--to disappear! To court a glad forgetfulness! In this alone lies hope, and, that sweetest of all sweet things, indifference.

Not coward enough to compel death, he still longs for it; he would slip away from all and sink into oblivion, and gladly deem himself and his sad history forgotten. "To cease upon the midnight with no pain?" What sweeter, kinder fate could visit him than that for which Keats longed--not vainly.

Into his life, too, some smaller worries are thrown. The old man Slyme, the secretary, has been going rapidly from bad to worse, of late. His intemperate habits are growing on him, and now seldom comes the day when he is not discovered to be unfit for duty of any kind.

Naturally such conduct incenses Sir Christopher to the last degree. The old man has been for years in his service, but time wears out all things, and even regard and use can be forgotten. Fabian, falling into the breach, seeks to mend it, although Slyme has never been a favorite of his, and although he is fully aware that he is very distasteful to the secretary for reasons unknown; still he pleads his cause, princ.i.p.ally because the man is old and friendless; and this, too, he does secretly, the secretary being ignorant of the force brought to bear upon his delinquencies, a force that keeps a roof over his head, and leaves him a competence without which the world would be a barren spot to him indeed, with only the poor-house--that most degrading of all places--to which to turn.

To-day is melancholy, cold and bleak. The winds are sighing; the earth is bare and naked; no vestige of a fresh and coming life can yet be seen. Upon the gray sands, far away, the white waves dash themselves tumultuously, the sea birds shriek, and, "blasting keen and loud, roll the white surges to the sounding sh.o.r.e."

Indoors there is warmth and comfort. Julia, sitting over the fire, finding she cannot get Dulce to gossip with--Dulce, indeed, is not come-at-able of late--turns gratefully to Portia, who happens to come into the room at this moment.