Rutledge Part 43

"Very much," said Mrs. Arnold, relapsing slowly into her ordinary manner. "I should like you to go with me some day to see them."

The archives of the Parish School, and many minor matters of interest, served to occupy our tongues, if not our minds, for the next half hour, and it was only the sudden recollection of having left Mr. Shenstone and Victor, two entire strangers, at each other's mercy, that brought an end to the interview. Starting up, I said:

"It is time for me to go. Come down, Mrs. Arnold, and see whether you think Mr. Viennet as handsome as Kitty does."

She very reluctantly followed me downstairs, and waited in the porch to see us, and say good bye as we should pa.s.s out.

I found Victor and Mr. Shenstone talking. Victor, it seemed to me, treated his entertainer with several degrees more of reverence than I had imagined he could either feel or affect toward any one. Mr.

Shenstone's manner was rather less tranquil than ordinary, though, it struck me. He accompanied us to the door, and looked very earnestly at Victor as we came into the stronger light.

"I shall hope for the pleasure of another visit before you leave the country, Mr. Viennet," he said slowly, as we parted at the threshold.

"I shall not fail to do myself the honor," returned Victor, in a manner less French, and more sincere than usual, bowing very low.

"Isn't he handsome?" I whispered, in a careless aside to Mrs. Arnold, as we pa.s.sed her on the porch. But to my surprise, she had started back, with the same dilated, agitated look in her eyes, that she had worn upstairs, and the fluttering color coming and going on her face as she watched Victor, while her pale lips opened, but no sound pa.s.sed them. I stared in wonder, but she drew back hastily, and disappeared in the house.

"You will have a pleasant walk," said Mr. Shenstone, thoughtfully, as he watched us down the path.

"I'm afraid not," muttered Victor, between his teeth, as at the gate Dr.

Hugh joined us with a most affable bow. He proposed to accompany us on our way, he said, if agreeable to us. He was going as far as the Park, to see that delicate-looking young Mr. Wynkar, to whom he had just been summoned.

"Over-eaten himself, no doubt," said Victor, impatiently,

"Ah?" said the doctor, nodding intelligently, "is that his trouble? I fancied as much. Your pale, cadaverous-looking people generally are the very mischief among the provisions."

Victor's lip curled; I could see he chafed under this familiarity. Why does he endure it, I thought. His imperious temper brooks no annoyance from those around him; daily there is some new evidence of his self-will and determination; why does he so tamely submit to what, there wants no penetration to see, is galling him to distraction.

It was almost impossible to realize that this was my gay, sparkling companion of an hour ago. Pale and abstracted he walked beside me, answering, at random, the doctor's many questions--gnawing his lip at the occasional familiarities of his manner, but offering no affront or slight.

Our constrained and uncomfortable walk brought us to the house just as the Masons were getting into their carriage. The whole party stood on the piazza, and the approach for us was anything but a pleasant thing.

"Courage," whispered Victor, seeing me falter as every eye turned toward us. "Be as queenly as you can. You had a right to go; there was no intimation given you that there was to be company at lunch. It would be cowardly indeed to mind _their_ slights."

Victor had touched the right chord; the color flashed back into my cheeks, and with as queenly a step as he could have desired, I advanced to meet the strangers.

"You must excuse my cousin," cried Grace, interrupting our rather formal greetings. "She never allows anything to interfere with her rural tastes, and as she is addicted to tete-a-tete rows and lonely rambles, we are quite cut off from her society."

The Misses Mason looked at me as if they were afraid of me, the Messrs.

Mason as if they would have been, if they had not been such brave men. I do not know exactly what I said, it was all a kind of dream, I was so intensely worked up; but whatever my answer was, it must have been clever, and a good retort, for Victor's clear laugh rang in the air, and the young ladies t.i.ttered, and looked at Grace to see how she bore it, and the least ponderous of the two young gentlemen slapped the captain on the back with a low:

"By George! She's not to be put down! I like her spirit."

A month ago, perhaps, the interview that I had to go through with my aunt after the departure of the guests, would have made me quite miserable; but now, it was utterly powerless. We were openly at war, and no hostile message could alter the state of affairs. I could have laughed in her face, for all the impression that it made on me, but of course I preserved the external respect I owed her, and neither by look nor word betrayed how indifferent a matter it was to me whether she approved or dissented.

"A word with you, my friend," I heard the doctor say to Victor, pa.s.sing his arm through his and leading him off toward the terrace. Victor set his lips firmly together, and his face darkened; there was a storm brewing; the wily doctor was going too far, if he did not wish to feel the wrath of it. For half an hour, I watched them from my window; they had gone to a retired walk in the shrubbery, where only at a certain turn I could catch sight of them. Victor's face, whenever I could see it, was white and pa.s.sionate, and his gestures showed that he had dashed aside the restraint he had set upon himself. His was not an impotent and childish anger either; it was the strong wrath of a strong man, snared and trapped, exasperated and tortured by an enemy wily and powerful, with some secret hold upon his victim, that gave his weakness and meanness the strength of a giant. I watched, fascinated and terrified, for every glimpse of the two faces, as the two men strode up and down the alley. If Victor's tormentor had seen his face as I did, surely he would have paused. How could confidence and pride so blind a man as to make him insensible to the danger of rousing to such a pitch, such a fierce southern nature? They had blinded him, however, for Dr. Hugh's face expressed nothing but cunning and triumph, guarded and subdued by habitual self-control.

That night, as we were separating for our rooms, Victor announced carelessly that his pleasant visit was nearly at an end. He had that day received letters that made it necessary for him to sail in next week's steamer, and he should have to tear himself away from Rutledge in a day or two. The color went and came in my face as I met Mr. Rutledge's eye; Victor studiously avoided looking at me, and the others were too much absorbed in the announcement to heed me.

"Why, Victor!" exclaimed Phil, heartily, stung perhaps with some slight self-reproach for his recent neglect; "why, old fellow, we shan't know what to do without you! It's a shame to break up a pleasant party like this. Make it the next steamer, and stay over another week, and we'll all go together."

"Do, I beg of you, Victor," echoed Ellerton.

"And you couldn't go without that day's woodc.o.c.k shooting we've been talking of," said the captain. "The law's up next week, you know."

"And you've forgotten the masquerade!" exclaimed Josephine.

"And the Masons' tableaux!" cried Ella.

"And my cousin's feelings," added Grace, slily.

"And what of your own, my pretty Miss Grace?" said Victor, carrying the war so abruptly over into her territory that she had no time to collect her wits for a retort. "My own heart is broken at the idea of leaving you. Are you perfectly unmoved at the sight of my sorrow? I shall never believe in woman again."

"I do not know," said Mr. Rutledge, "what other inducements we can hold out of sufficient power to detain Mr. Viennet longer. If there is anything so imperative as he suggests, however, I imagine that our persuasions will be thrown away."

"Quite thrown away, sir, I regret to admit," said Victor, with a low and significant bow. "I can enjoy your hospitality no longer than Wednesday morning."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"And as the dove, to far Palmyra flying From where her native founts of Antioch beam, Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing, Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream,

"So many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring, Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed, Suffers--recoils--then, thirsty and despairing Of what it would, descends, and sips the nearest draught."

"You are cruel," said Victor, in a low tone, as I followed the rest of the party into the library after dinner. "This is my last day, and you will not give me a moment."

"Who's for a ride? Mr. Rutledge wants to know," said Grace, coming in from the piazza.

"Not I, for one," exclaimed Ella, throwing herself back on the sofa.

"I'm going to save myself for this evening."

"And you, too, Josephine, dear," said her mother, "had better not tire yourself any more. You will be perfectly f.a.gged if you go to drive, and you want to keep yourself fresh for the Masons."

"Aren't you made of sterner stuff?" whispered Victor. "Aren't you equal to a drive and a party in the same twenty-four hours? It is heavy work, I know, but your const.i.tution seems a good one."

"I think I'll venture," I said, following Grace into the hall. "There's Kitty on the stairs. Mr. Viennet, tell her to bring me my bonnet, please."

Kitty was only too glad to obey Mr. Viennet's orders at any time, and she flew to get my things.

"Get mine at the same time, young woman," drawled Grace.

Before Kitty had returned from her double errand, the horses were at the door.

"Our friends, the bays," said Victor. "But I think our host means to drive them himself. He has the reins in his hands."