Part 8 (2/2)
He looked at her again, sorely embarra.s.sed, hating himself, yet inwardly sure of her. Her small frame shook with weeping. And presently she turned from him and said in a fierce voice:
”Go and tell all that to Elsie Maddison!”
Infinitely relieved, Roger gave a quick, excited laugh.
”She'd soon send me about my business! I should be a day too late for the fair, in _that_ quarter. What do you think she and I have been talking about all this time, Daphne?”
”I don't care,” said Daphne hastily, with face still averted.
”I'm going to tell you, all the same,” cried Roger triumphantly, and diving into his coat pocket he produced ”my tutor's letter.” Daphne sat immovable, and he had to read it aloud himself. It contained the rapturous account of Herbert French's engagement to Miss Maddison, a happy event which had taken place in England during the Eton holidays, about a month before this date.
”There!” cried the young man as he finished it. ”And she's talked about nothing all the time, nothing at all--but old Herbert--and how good he is--and how good-looking, and the Lord knows what! I got precious sick of it, though I think he's a trump, too. Oh, Daphne!--you were a little fool!”
”All the same, you have behaved abominably!” Daphne said, still choking.
”No, I haven't,” was Roger's firm reply. ”It was you who were so cross.
I couldn't tell you anything. I say! you do know how to stick pins into people!”
But he took up her hand and kissed it as he spoke.
Daphne allowed it. Her breast heaved as the storm departed. And she looked so charming, so soft, so desirable, as she sat there in her white dress, with her great tear-washed eyes and fluttering breath, that the youth was really touched and carried off his feet; and the rest of his task was quite easy. All the familiar things that had to be said were said, and with all the proper emphasis and spirit. He played his part, the spring woods played theirs, and Daphne, worn out by emotion and conquered by pa.s.sion, gradually betrayed herself wholly. And so much at least may be said to the man's credit that there were certainly moments in the half-hour between them when, amid the rush of talk, laughter, and caresses, that conscience which he owed so greatly to the exertions of ”my tutor” p.r.i.c.ked him not a little.
After losing themselves deliberately in the woods, they strolled back to join the rest of the party. The sounds of conversation were already audible through the trees in front of them, when they saw Mrs. Verrier coming towards them. She was walking alone and did not perceive them.
Her eyes were raised and fixed, as though on some sight in front of them. The bitterness, the anguish, one might almost call it, of her expression, the horror in the eyes, as of one ghost-led, ghost-driven, drew an exclamation from Roger.
”There's Mrs. Verrier! Why, how ill she looks!”
Daphne paused, gazed, and shrank. She drew him aside through the trees.
”Let's go another way. Madeleine's often strange.” And with a superst.i.tious pang she wished that Madeleine Verrier's face had not been the first to meet her in this hour of her betrothal.
PART II
THREE YEARS AFTER
CHAPTER V
In the drawing-room at Heston Park two ladies were seated. One was a well-preserved woman of fifty, with a large oblong face, good features, a double chin, and abundant gray hair arranged in waved _bandeaux_ above a forehead which should certainly have implied strength of character, and a pair of challenging black eyes. Lady Barnes moved and spoke with authority; it was evident that she had been accustomed to do so all her life; to trail silk gowns over Persian carpets, to engage expensive cooks and rely on expensive butlers, with a strict attention to small economies all the time; to impose her will on her household and the clergyman of the parish; to give her opinions on books, and expect them to be listened to; to abstain from politics as unfeminine, and to make up for it by the strongest of views on Church questions. She belonged to an English type common throughout all cla.s.ses--quite harmless and tolerable when things go well, but apt to be soured and twisted by adversity.
And Lady Barnes, it will be remembered, had known adversity. Not much of it, nor for long together; but in her own opinion she had gone through ”great trials,” to the profit of her Christian character. She was quite certain, now, that everything had been for the best, and that Providence makes no mistakes. But that, perhaps, was because the ”trials” had only lasted about a year; and then, so far as they were pecuniary, the marriage of her son with Miss Daphne Floyd had entirely relieved her of them. For Roger now made her a handsome allowance and the chastened habits of a most uncomfortable year had been hastily abandoned.
Nevertheless, Lady Barnes's aspect on this autumn afternoon was not cheerful, and her companion was endeavouring, with a little kind embarra.s.sment, both to soothe an evident irritation and to avoid the confidences that Roger's mother seemed eager to pour out. Elsie French, whom Was.h.i.+ngton had known three years before as Elsie Maddison, was in that bloom of young married life when all that was lovely in the girl seems to be still lingering, while yet love and motherhood have wrought once more their old transforming miracle on sense and spirit. In her afternoon dress of dainty sprigged silk, with just a touch of austerity in the broad muslin collar and cuffs--her curly brown hair simply parted on her brow, and gathered cla.s.sically on a shapely head--her mouth a little troubled, her brow a little puckered over Lady Barnes's discontents--she was a very gracious vision. Yet behind the gentleness, as even Lady Barnes knew, there were qualities and characteristics of a singular strength.
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