Читать книгу Faith and Unfaith: A Novel - Duchess - Страница 10

"I have no other but a woman's reason:

I think him so, because I think him so." – Shakespeare.

"Where is papa?" she asks, meeting one of the servants in the hall. Hearing he is out, and will not be back for some time, she, too, turns again to the open door, and, as though the house is too small to contain all the thoughts that throng her breast, she walks out into the air again, and passes into the garden, where autumn, though kindly and slow in its advances, is touching everything with the hand of death.

With a sigh she quits her beloved garden, and wanders still! farther abroad into the deep woods that "have put their glory on," and are dressed in tender russets, and sad greens, and fading tints, that meet and melt into each other.

The dry leaves are falling, and lie crackling under foot. The daylight is fading, softly, imperceptibly, but surely. There is yet a glow from the departing sunlight, that, sinking lazily beyond the distant hills, tinges with gold the browning earth that in her shroud of leaves is lying.

But death, or pain, or sorrow, has no part with Clarissa to-day. She is quite happy, – utterly content. She marks not the dying of the year, but rather the beauty of the sunset. She heeds not the sullen roar of the ever-increasing streamlets, that winter will swell into small but angry rivers; hearing only the songs of the sleepy birds as they croon their night-songs in the boughs above her.

When an hour has passed, and twilight has come up and darkened all the land, she goes back again to her home, and, reaching the library, looks in, to find her father sitting there, engrossed as usual with some book, which he is carefully annotating as he reads.

"Are you very busy?" asks she, coming slowly up to him. "I want to be with you for a little while."

"That is right. I am never too busy to talk to you. Why, it is quite an age since last I saw you! – not since breakfast; where have you been all day?"

"You are a pet," says Miss Peyton, in a loving whisper, rubbing her cheek tenderly against his, as a reward for his pretty speech. "I have been at the vicarage, and have pleaded Georgie's cause so successfully that I have won it; and have made them half in love with her already."

"A special pleader indeed. Diplomacy is your forte: you should keep to it."

"I mean to. I shouldn't plead in vain with you, should I?" She has grown somewhat earnest.

"Oh! with me!" says her father, with much self-contempt; "I have given up all that sort of thing, long ago. I know how much too much you are for me, and I am too wise to swim against the tide. Only I would entreat you to be merciful as you are strong."

"What a lot of nonsense you do talk, you silly boy!" says Clarissa, who is still leaning over his chair in such a position that he cannot see her face. Perhaps, could he have seen it, he might have noticed how pale it is beyond its wont. "Well, the Redmonds seemed quite pleased, and I shall write to Georgie to-morrow. It will be nice for her to be here, near me. It may keep her from being lonely and unhappy."

"Well, it ought," says George Peyton. "What did the vicar say?"

"The vicar always says just what I say," replies she, a trifle saucily, and with a quick smile.

"Poor man! his is the common lot," says her father; and then, believing she has said all she wants to say, and being filled with a desire to return to his book and his notes, he goes on: "So that was the weighty matter you wanted to discuss, eh? Is that all your news?"

"Not quite," returns she, in a low tone.

"No? You are rich in conversation this evening. Who is it we are now to criticise?"

"The person you love best, – I hope."

"Why, that will be you," says George Peyton.

"You are sure?" says Clarissa, a little tremulously; and then her father turns in his chair and tries to read her face.

"No; stay just as you are; I can tell you better if you do not look at me," she whispers, entreatingly, moving him with her hands back to his former position.

"What is it, Clarissa?" he asks, hastily, though he is far from suspecting the truth. Some faint thought of James Scrope (why he knows not) comes to him at this moment, and not unpleasingly. "Tell me, darling. Anything that concerns you must, of necessity, concern me also."

"Yes, I am glad I know that," she says, speaking with some difficulty, but very earnestly. "To-day I met Horace Branscombe."

"Yes?" His face changes a little, from vague expectancy to distinct disappointment; but then she cannot see his face.

"And he asked me to be his wife – and – I said, Yes – if – if it pleases you, papa."

It is over. The dreaded announcement is made. The words that have cost her so much to utter have gone out into the air; and yet there is no answer!

For a full minute silence reigns, and then Clarissa lays her hand imploringly upon her father's shoulder. He is looking straight before him, his expression troubled and grave, his mouth compressed.

"Speak to me," says Clarissa, entreatingly.

After this he does speak.

"I wish it had been Dorian," he says, impulsively.

Then she takes her hand from his shoulder, as though it can no longer rest there in comfort, and her eyes fill with disappointed tears.

"Why do you say that?" she asks, with some vehemence. "It sounds as if – as if you undervalued Horace! Yet what reason have you for doing so? What do you know against him?"

"Nothing, literally nothing," answers Mr. Peyton, soothingly, yet with a plaintive ring in his voice that might suggest the idea of his being sorry that such answer must be made. "I am sure Horace is very much to be liked."

"How you say that!" – reproachfully. "It sounds untrue! Yet it can't be. What could any one say against Horace?"

"My dear, I said nothing."

"No, but you insinuated it. You said Dorian was his superior."

"Well, I think he is the better man of the two," said Mr. Peyton, desperately, hardly knowing what to say, and feeling sorely aggrieved in that he is compelled to say what must hurt her.

"I cannot understand you; you said you know nothing prejudicial to Horace (it is impossible you should), and yet you think Dorian the better man. If he has done no wrong, why should any one be a better man? Why draw the comparison at all? For the first time in all your life, you are unjust."

"No, Clarissa, I am not. At least, I think not. Injustice is a vile thing. But, somehow, Sartoris and I had both made up our minds that you would marry Dorian, and – "

He pauses.

"Then your only objection to poor Horace is that he is not Dorian?" asks she, anxiously, letting her hand once more rest upon his shoulder.

"Well, no doubt there is a great deal in that," returns he, evasively, hard put to it to answer his inquisitor with discretion.

"And if Dorian had never been, Horace would be the one person in all the world you would desire for me?" pursues she, earnestly.

George Peyton makes no reply to this, – perhaps because he has not one ready. Clarissa, stepping back, draws her breath a little quickly, and a dark fire kindles in her eyes. In her eyes, too, large tears rise and shine.

"It is because he is poor," she says, in a low tone, that has some contempt in it, and some passionate disappointment.

"Do not mistake me," says her father, speaking hastily, but with dignity. Rising, he pushes back his chair, and turning, faces her in the gathering twilight. "Were he the poorest man alive, and you loved him, and he was worthy of you, I would give you to him without a murmur. Not that" – hurriedly – "I consider Horace unworthy of you, but the idea is new, strange, and – the other day, Clarissa, you were a child."

"I am your child still, – always." She is sitting on his knee now, with her arms round his neck, and her cheek against his; and he is holding her svelte lissome figure very closely to him. She is the one thing he has to love on earth; and just now she seems unspeakably – almost painfully – dear to him.

"Always, my dear," he reiterates, somewhat unsteadily.

"You have seen so little of Horace lately," she goes on, presently, trying to find some comfortable reason for what seems to her her father's extraordinary blindness to her lover's virtues. "When you see a great deal of him, you will love him! As it is, darling, do —do say you like him very much, or you will break my heart!"

"I like him very much," replies he, obediently, repeating his lesson methodically, while feeling all the time that he is being compelled to say something against his will, without exactly knowing why he should feel so.

"And you are quite pleased that I am going to marry him?" reading his face with her clear eyes; she is very pale, and strangely nervous.

"My darling, my one thought is for your happiness." There is evasion mixed with the affection in this speech; and Clarissa notices it.

"No: say you are glad I am going to marry him," she says, remorselessly.

"How can you expect me to say that," exclaims he, mournfully, "when you know your wedding-day must part us?"

"Indeed it never shall!" cries she, vehemently; and then, overcome by the emotion of the past hour, and indeed of the whole day, she gives way and bursts into tears. "Papa, how can you say that? To be parted from you! We must be the same to each other always: my wedding-day would be a miserable one indeed if it separated me from you."

Then he comforts her, fondly caressing the pretty brown head that lies upon his heart, as it had lain in past years, when the slender girl of to-day was a little lisping motherless child. He calls her by all the endearing names he had used to her then, until her sobs cease, and only a sigh, now and again, tells of the storm just past.

"When is it to be?" he asks her, after a little while. "Not too soon, my pet, I hope?"

"Not for a whole year. He said something about November, but I could not leave you in such a hurry. We must have one more Christmas all to ourselves."

"You thought of that," he says, tenderly. "Oh, Clarissa, I hope this thing is for your good. Think of it seriously, earnestly, while you have time. Do not rush blindly into a compact that must be binding on you all your life."

"I hope it will be for all my life," returns she, gravely. "To be parted from Horace would be the worst thing that could befall me. Always remember that, papa. I am bound to him with all my heart and soul."

"So be it!" says George Peyton, solemnly. A sigh escapes him.

For some time neither speaks. The twilight is giving place to deeper gloom, the night is fast approaching, yet they do not stir. What the girl's thoughts may be at this moment, who can say? As for her father, he is motionless, except that his lips move, though no sound comes from them. He is secretly praying, perhaps, for the welfare of his only child, to her mother in heaven, who at this time must surely be looking down upon her with tenderest solicitude. Clarissa puts her lips softly to his cheek.

"Our engagement will be such a long one, that we think – "

"Yes?"

"We should like it keep it secret. You will say nothing about it to any one?"

"Not until you give me leave. You have acted wisely, I think, in putting off your marriage for a while." Almost unconsciously he is telling himself how time changes all things, and how many plans and affections can be altered in twelve months.

"But surely you will tell James Scrope," he goes on, after a while: "that will not be making it public. He has known you and been fond of you ever since you were a baby; and it seems uncivil and unfriendly to keep him in the dark."

"Then tell him; but no one else now, papa. I quite arranged for James, he is such an old friend, and so nice in every way."

Here she smiles involuntarily, and, after a little bit, laughs outright, in spite of herself, as though at some ridiculous recollection.

"Do you know," she says, "when I told Horace I thought I should like Sir James to know of our engagement, I really think he felt a little jealous! At least, he didn't half like it. How absurd! – wasn't it? Fancy being jealous of dear old Jim?"

"Old! – old! He is a long way off that. Why, all you silly little girls think a man past twenty-nine to be hovering on the brink of the grave. He can not be more than thirty-three, or so."

"He is very dreadfully old, for all that," says Miss Peyton, wilfully. "He is positively ancient; I never knew any one so old. He is so profound, and earnest, and serious, and – "

"What on earth has he done to you, that you should call him all these terrible names?" says Mr. Peyton, laughing.

"He scolds me," says Clarissa, "he lectures me, and tells me I should have an aim in life. You have been my aim, darling, and I have been very devoted to it, haven't I?"

"You have, indeed. But now I shall be out in the cold, of course." His tone is somewhat wistful. "That is all one gains by lavishing one's affection upon a pretty child and centring one's every thought and hope upon her."

"No, you are wrong there; it must be something to gain love that will last for ever." She tightens her arm around his neck. "What a horrid little speech! I could almost fancy James dictated it to you. He is a sceptic, an unbeliever, and you have imbibed his notions. Cynical people are a bore. You wouldn't, for example, have me fall in love with James, would you?"

"Indeed I would," says George Peyton, boldly. "He is just the one man I would choose for you, – 'not Launcelot, nor another.' He is so genuine, so thorough in every way. And then the estates join, and that. I really wish you had fallen in love with Scrope."

"I love you dearly, – dearly," says Miss Peyton; "but you are a dreadful goose! James is the very last man to grow sentimental about any one, – least of all, me. He thinks me of no account at all, and tells me so in very polite language occasionally. So you see what a fatal thing it would have been if I had given my heart to him. He would have broken it, and I should have died, and you would have put up a touching, and elaborate tablet to my memory, and somebody would have planted snowdrops on my grave. There would have been a tragedy in Pullingham, with Jim for its hero."

"You take a different view of the case from mine. I believe there would have been no broken heart, and no early grave, and you would have been happy ever after."

"That is a more comfortable theory, certainly for me. But think what a miserable life he would have had with me forever by his side."

"A very perfect life, I think," says Mr. Peyton, looking with pardonable pride upon the half-earnest, half-laughing, and wholly lovely face so near him. "I don't know what more a fellow could expect."

"You see I was right. I said you were a goose," says Miss Peyton, irreverently. But she pats his hand, in the very sweetest manner possible, as she says it. Then she goes on:

"Horace said he would come up to-morrow to speak to you."

"Very well, dear. That is the usual thing, I suppose. I hope he won't be long-winded, or lachrymose, or anything that way. When a thing is done it is done, and discussion is so unnecessary."

"Promise me to be very, very kind to him."

"I shan't eat him, if you mean that," says Mr. Peyton, half irritably. "What do you think I am going to say to him? 'Is thy father an ogre, that he should do this thing?' But have you quite made up your mind to this step? Remember there will be no undoing it."

"I know that; but I feel no fear." She has grown pale again. "I love him. How should I know regret when with him? I believe in him, and trust him; and I know he is worthy of all my trust."

Mr. Peyton sighs. Some words come to his memory, and he repeats them, – slowly, beneath his breath, —

"There are no tricks in plain and simple faith!"

Truly, her faith is pure and simple, and free from thought of guile.

"I wonder what James Scrope will say to it all?" he says, presently.