Ralph Wilton's weird Part 16

"No; politically disreputable; dreamers of utopian dreams, troublesome items to governments; amiable men, who will make martyrs of themselves.

You have no idea in England what a nuisance these fellows are; of course there are plenty of desperate fanatics mixed up with them. I do not remember the name of Rivers among those I have met, but I imagine that picturesque girl at Brosedale was among the better cla.s.s. She really looks like a gentlewoman; with her knowledge of language and air of refinement she would make a charming travelling companion."

As the accomplished _attache_ uttered this with a soft arch smile, as though it were an infantine jest, he little thought what a large amount of self-control he called into action in his cousin's mind. To have seized him by the collar, and shaken him till he retracted the insulting words, would have been a great relief; to have rebuked him sternly for speaking lightly of a girl of whom he knew no evil, would have been some satisfaction; but modern manners forbade the first, and a due sense of the ridiculous the second. Control himself as Wilton might, he could not call up the answering smile which St. George expected, but instead stared at him with a fixed haughty stare, which, although rather unaccountable to its object, seemed sufficiently disagreeable to make him turn away and seek more congenial companionship.

Wilton, too, talked and laughed, and played his part with a proper degree of animation; but a bruised, galled sensation clung to him all the evening. There is a large cla.s.s of men for whom such a remark as St.

George Wilton's would have been fatally destructive to the charm and romance enfolding an object of admiration. To find what is precious to them, common and unholy in the eyes of another, would destroy the preciousness and desecrate the holiness! But there is another, a smaller, though n.o.bler and stronger cla.s.s, whom the voice of the scoffer, scoff he never so subtly, cannot incite to doubt or disloyalty--to whom love is still lovely, and beauty still beautiful; although others apply different terms to what they have recognized as either one or the other. These are the men who see with their own eyes, and Wilton was one of them. It was with the sort of indignation a crusader might have felt to see an infidel handling a holy relic, that he thought of his cousin's careless words. Nay, more, reflecting that St. George was but one of many who would have thus felt and spoken of a girl to whom he dared not address a word of love lest it might check or destroy the sweet, frank friendliness with which she treated him, he asked himself again, what was to be the end thereof? Then he for the first time acknowledged to himself what he had often indistinctly felt before, that to tell her he loved her, to ask her to be his wife, to read astonishment, perhaps dawning tenderness, in her wonderful eyes, to hold her to his heart, to own her before the world, to shelter her from difficulty so far as one mortal can another, would be heaven to him!

She had struck some deeper, truer chord in his nature than had ever been touched before; and his whole being answered; all that seemed impossible and insurmountable gradually faded into insignificance compared to his mighty need for that quiet, pale, dark-eyed little girl!

The day after Wilton's return from D---- Castle, feeling exceedingly restless and unaccountably expectant, he sallied forth with his gun on his shoulder, more as any excuse than with any active sporting intentions. As he pa.s.sed the gate into the road, a large half-bred mastiff, belonging to Sir Peter Fergusson, rushed up, and Wilton, knowing he was an ill-tempered brute, called his own dogs to heel, but the mastiff did not notice them; he kept snuffing about as though he had lost his master, and then set off in a long, swinging gallop toward Brosedale.

Wilton, deep in thought, went on to the brae he so often visited in the commencement of his stay at Glenraven. He had not long quitted the high road, when he perceived a well-known figure, as usual clothed in gray, walking rather slowly before him, and looking wonderfully in accordance with the soft, neutral tints of sky and stones and hill-side--it was one of those still, mild winter days that have in them something of the tenderness and resignation of old age; and which, in our variable climate, sometimes come with a startling change of atmosphere immediately after severe cold. As he hastened to overtake her, Wilton fancied her step was less firm and elastic than usual; that her head drooped slightly as if depressed; yet there was a little more color than was ordinary in her cheek, and certainly an expression of pleasure in her eyes that made his heart beat when she turned at his salutation. She wore a small turban hat of black velvet, with a rosette in front, which looked Spanish, and most becoming to her dark eyes and pale, refined face.

"At last, Miss Rivers! I thought you must have abjured this brae since Moncrief and myself became temporary proprietors. I began to fear I should never meet you out of doors again."

"I have not been out for a long time alone," she replied; "but to-day some great man from London, a doctor, was to see poor Donald, and I was free for awhile, so I rambled away far up that hill-side. It was delightful--so still, so grave, so soft."

"You have been up the hill," cried Wilton, infinitely annoyed to think he had been lounging and writing in the house when he might have had a long walk with his companion. "I wish I had been with you. I imagine it must double one's enjoyment of scenery to look at it with a thorough artist like yourself."

Miss Rivers did not reply at once, but, after a moment's pause, asked, "Are you going out now to shoot?"

"Well, yes--at least it is my first appearance to-day."

"Would it be very inconvenient to you to walk back to Brosedale, or part of the way, with me?" She spoke with a slight, graceful hesitation.

"Inconvenient! No, certainly not," returned Wilton, trying to keep his eyes and voice from expressing too plainly the joy her request gave him.

"It is a charity to employ me. You know I have lost my chum, Major Moncrief, and I feel somewhat adrift. But I thought young Fergusson was better. Miss Saville said so."

Miss Rivers shook her head. "They know nothing about it. He will never be better; but it is not because he is worse that this great doctor comes. He pays periodical visits. Donald always suffers; and I think he frets because his step-sisters and that cousin of yours come and sketch and talk in our room so often; it does him no good."

"Am I wrong in interpreting your emphasis on '_that_ cousin of yours' as an unfavorable expression?"

"Do you like him?" she asked, looking straight into his eyes.

"No," replied Wilton, uncompromisingly; while he gave back her gaze with interest.

"It is curious," she said, musingly, "for he never offends; he is accomplished; his voice is pleasant. Why do you not like him?"

"I cannot tell. Why don't you?"

"Ah! it is different. I--I am foolish, perhaps, to be so influenced by unreasoning instinct; but I fancy--I feel--he is not honest--not true.

Are you really kinsmen?--of the same race, the same blood?"

"Yes, I believe so! And may I infer from your question that you believe I am tolerably honest--beyond deserving to be intrusted with the forks and spoons, I mean?"

"I do--I do, indeed." She spoke quite earnestly, and the words made Wilton's heart beat. Before, however, he had time to reply, a gentleman came round an angle of broken bank, crowned by a group of mountain ash, which in summer formed a very picturesque point, and to Wilton's great surprise he found himself face to face with St. George. Involuntarily he looked at Ella Rivers, but she seemed not in the least astonished; rather cold and collected. Suddenly it flashed into his mind that she had asked his escort to avoid a _tete-a-tete_ with the agreeable _attache_, with a crowd of a.s.sociated inferences not calculated to increase his cousinly regard. St. George raised his hat with a gentle smile.

"I did not expect to have the pleasure of meeting you, Colonel, though I had intended paying you a visit. Miss Rivers, one has seldom a chance of finding you so far afield. I presume it is a favorable indication of the young laird's health that you can be spared to enjoy a ramble with Colonel Wilton."

There was just the suspicion of a sneer about his lips as he spoke, which completed the measure of Wilton's indignation. But Miss Rivers replied with the most unmoved composure that Donald was as usual, and then walked on in silence. After a few remarks, very shortly answered by Wilton, the bland _attache_ accepted his defeat.

"Did you see a large brown dog along here? I had the brute with me this morning, and he has strayed. I do not like to return without him, for he is rather a favorite with Sir Peter."

"Yes, I saw him just now further up the road, close to my gate,"

returned Wilton quickly, without adding what direction the animal had taken.

"Thank you. Then I will prosecute my search instead of spoiling your _tete-a-tete_"--with which parting shot St. George left them.

For some paces Wilton and his companion walked on in silence. He stole a glance at her face; it was composed and thoughtful. "I suppose you were not surprised by that apparition? Perhaps it was a choice of the smaller evil that induced you to adopt a _tete-a-tete_ with me, instead of with him?" He looked earnestly for her reply.

"It was," she said, without raising her eyes to his. "He pa.s.sed me just now in the dog-cart with another gentleman, and I thought it possible he might return; so, as you have always been kind and friendly, I thought I might ask you to come with me."

Another pause ensued, for Wilton's heated imagination conjured up an array of serious annoyances deserving the severest castigation, and he scarcely dared trust himself to speak, so fearful was he of checking her confidence, or seeming to guess too much of the truth. At last he exclaimed, with a sort of suppressed vehemence that startled Miss Rivers into looking at him quickly, "By heaven, it is too bad that you should be bored, in your rare moments of freedom, with the idle chatter of that fellow."

"It is a bore, but that is all. It amuses him to speak Italian with me"--an expression of superb disdain gleamed over her face for an instant, and left it quiet and grave. "Though wonderfully civil, even complimentary, he conveys, more than any one I ever met, the hatefulness of cla.s.s distinctions."

"I feel deeply thankful for the doubt you expressed just now that he belonged to the same race as myself."

"You are quite different; but I dare say you have plenty of the prejudices peculiar to your caste."

"I wish you would undertake my conversion. It might not be so difficult.

Your denunciation of soldiers has rung in my ears--no--rather haunted my imagination ever since you showed me your sketch-book in that desolate waiting-room."

"I remember," said she, gravely. "No, I shall never convert you; even if I wrote a political thesis for your benefit." After a short pause, she resumed abruptly, "Do you know, I fear poor Donald has not much of life before him?"

"Indeed! What induces you to think so?"

"He is so weak, and feverish, and sleepless. He often rings for me to read to him in the dead of the night. And then, with all his ill temper and selfishness, he has at times such gleams of n.o.ble thought, such flashes of intellectual light, that I cannot help feeling it is the flicker of the dying lamp. I shall be profoundly grieved when his sad, blighted life is over. No one knows him as I do; and no one cares for me as he does. I have ventured to speak to Lady Fergusson, but she cannot or will not see, and forbids my addressing Sir Peter on the subject."

"And if this unfortunate boy dies, what is to become of you?" asked Wilton, too deeply interested to choose his words, yet a little apprehensive lest he might offend.

"I do not know; I have never thought," she replied, quite naturally. "I suppose I should go back to Mrs. Kershaw. She is fond of me in her way, especially since I nursed her through that fever."

"And then," persisted Wilton, looking earnestly at her half-averted face with an expression which, had she turned and caught it, would probably have destroyed the pleasant, friendly tone of their intercourse.

"I do not know; but I do not dread work. To do honest service is no degradation to me. I have always heard of work as the true religion of humanity. No. I have very little fear of the future, because, perhaps, I have so little hope."

"You are a strange girl," exclaimed Wilton, with a certain degree of familiarity, which yet was perfectly respectful. "I fancy few men have so much pluck I dare say Lady Fergusson would not like to lose so charming a companion for her daughters."

"Lady Fergusson does not think me at all charming; and Miss Saville does not like me, nor I her. But whether they like it or not, I shall not remain if Donald dies."

"Mrs. Kershaw is the person in whose house your father died?" said Wilton softly, and in the same confidential tone their conversation had taken.

Miss Rivers bent her head.

"Where does she live?"

"At Kensington."