Faith and Unfaith: A Novel. Duchess
conceited person, and utterly unbearable What a good friend you make!"
"A bad one, you mean. A real friend, according to my lights, is a fellow who says unpleasant things all round and expects you to respect his candor. By and by, when I tell you a few home truths, perhaps you will not like me as you do now."
"Yes, I shall always like you," says Clarissa. "Long ago, when you used to scold me, I never bore malice. I suppose you are one of those rare people who can say the ungracious thing in such a manner that it doesn't grate. But then you are old, you know, Jim, very old, – though, in appearance, wonderfully young for your years. I do hope papa, at your age, will look as fresh."
She has risen, and has slipped her hand through his arm, and is smiling up at him gayly and with a sweetness irresistible. Sir James looks as pleased as though he had received a florid compliment.
"What a baby you are!" he says, after a pause, looking down at her admiringly. Judging by his tone, babies, in his eyes, must possess very superior attractions. "There are a good many babies in the world, don't you think?" he goes on, presently. "You are one, and Geoffrey Branscombe is another. I don't suppose he will ever quite grow up."
"And Horace," says Clarissa, idly, "is he another?"
But Sir James, though unconsciously, resents the question.
"Oh, no!" he says, hastily. "He does not come within the category at all. Why," with a faint smile, "he is even older than I am! There is no tender baby-nonsense about him."
"No, he is so clever, – so far above us all, where intellect is concerned," she says, absently. A slight smile plays about her lips, and a light, that was not there a moment since, comes to life within her eyes. With an effort, she arouses herself from what were plainly happy daydreams, and comes back to the present, which, just now, is happy too.
"I think nature meant me to be a nun," she says, smiling. "This place subdues and touches me so. The sombre lights and shadows are so impressive! If it were indeed mine (in reality), I should live a great part of my time in it. Here, I should write my pleasantest letters, and read my choicest books, take my afternoon tea, and make welcome my dearest friends, – you among them. In fact, if it were practicable," nodding her pretty head emphatically, "I should steal this room. There is hardly anything I would not do to make it my own."
Scrope regards her earnestly, with a certain amount of calm inquiry. Is she a coquette, or merely unthinking? If, indeed, the face be the index of the mind, one must account her free of all unworthy thought or frivolous design. Here is
"A countenance in which do meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet."
Her eyes are still smiling up at him; her whole expression is full of a gentle friendliness; and in his heart, at this moment, arises a sensation that is not hope, or gladness, or despair, but yet is a faint wild mingling of all three.
As for Clarissa, she stands a little apart, unconscious of all that is passing in his heart, and gazes lovingly upon the objects that surround her, as one will gaze now and then on things that have been fondly remembered through the haze of many years. She is happy, wrapped in memories of a past all sunshine and no shade, and is ignorant of the meaning he would gladly attach to her last words.
"While I stay here I sin, – that is, I covet," she says, at length, surprised by his silence, "and it grows late. Come, walk with me a little way through the park: I have not yet seen the old path we used to call the 'short cut' to Gowran, long ago."
So, down the dark stairs he follows her, across the stone flooring, and into the hall outside, that seems so brilliant by contrast, and so like another world, all is so changed, so different. Behind, lie silence, unbroken, perfect, a sad and dreamy light, Old-World grandeur; here, all is restless life, full of uncertain sounds, and distant footsteps, and voices faint but positive.
"Is it not like a dream?" says Clarissa, stopping to point backwards to the turret they have just quitted.
"The past is always full of dreams," replies he, thoughtfully.
CHAPTER V
"A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky." – Wordsworth.
The baby morn has flung aside its robes, and grown to perfect strength. The day is well advanced. Already it is making rapid strides towards rest and evening; yet still no cooling breeze has come to refresh the heart of man.
Below, in the quiet fields, the cattle are standing, knee-deep in water, beneath the spreading branches of the kindly alder. They have no energy to eat, but munch, sleepily, the all-satisfying cud, and, with gentle if expressionless eyes, look out afar for evening and the milkmaid.
"'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye
Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all,
From pole to pole, is undistinguished blaze.
Distressful Nature pants!
The very streams look languid from afar,
Or, through th' unsheltered glade, impatient, seem
To hurl into the covert of the grove."
A tender stillness reigns over everything. The very birds are mute. Even the busy mill-wheel has ceased to move.
Bright flashes of light, that come and go ere one can catch them, dart across the gray walls of the old mill, – that holds its gaunt and stately head erect, as though defying age, – and, slanting to the right, fall on the cottage, quaint and ivy-clad, that seems to nestle at its feet. The roses that climb its walls are drooping; the casements all stand wide. No faintest breath of air comes to flutter Ruth's white gown, as she leans against the rustic gate.
All millers' daughters should be pretty. It is a duty imposed upon them by tradition. Romance, of the most floral description, at once attaches itself to a miller's daughter. I am not at all sure it does not even cast a halo round the miller himself. Ruth Annersley at least acknowledges this fact, and does her duty nobly; she gives the lie to no old legends or treasured nursery superstitions; she is as pretty as heart can desire, —
"Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair."
She is small, piquant, timid, with large almond-shaped eyes and light-brown hair, a rounded supple figure, and hands delicately white. Perhaps there is a lack of force in her face, an indefinable want, that hardly detracts from her beauty, yet sets one wondering, vaguely, where it lies, and what it can be. The mouth, mobile and slightly parted, betrays it most.
Her lashes, covering her brown eyes, are very long, and lie a good deal on her cheeks. Her manner, without a suspicion of gaucherie, is nervous, almost appealing; and her smile, because so rare, is very charming, and apt to linger in the memory.
She is an only child, and all through her young life has been petted and caressed rather more than is good for any one. Her father had married, somewhat late in life, a woman in every way his superior, and, she dying two years after her marriage, he had fallen back for consolation upon the little one left to his sole care. To him, she was a pride, a delight, a creature precious beyond words, on whom the sun must shine gently and the rain fall not at all.
A shy child from the first, Ruth had declined acquaintance with the villagers, who would, one and all, have been glad to succor the motherless girl. Perhaps the little drop of gentle blood inherited from her mother had thriven in her veins, and thus rendered her distant and somewhat repellent in her manners to those in her own rank of life.
She had been sent early to a private school, had been carefully educated far above her position, and had come home again to her father, with all the pretty airs and unconscious softness of manner that, as a rule, belong to good birth.
She is warm-hearted, passionate, impulsive, and singularly reserved, –