Part 35 (1/2)
”Come in,” he calls out, impatiently; and Simon Gale, opening the door, comes slowly in.
He is a very old man, and has been butler in the family for more years than he himself can count. His head is quite white, his form a little bent; there is, at this moment, a touch of deep distress upon his face that makes him look even older than he is.
”Are you busy, my lord?” asks he, in a somewhat nervous tone.
”Yes; I am very much engaged. I can see no one, Gale. Say I am starting for town immediately.”
”It isn't that, my lord. It is something I myself have to say to you.
If you could spare me a few minutes----.” He comes a little nearer, and speaks even more earnestly. ”It is about Ruth Annersley.”
Lord Sartoris, laying down his pen, looks at him intently.
”Close the door, Simon,” he says, hurriedly, something in the old servant's manner impressing him. ”I will hear you. Speak, man: what is it?”
”A story I heard this morning, my lord, which I feel it my duty to repeat to you. Not that I believe one word of it. You will remember that, my lord,--_not one word_.” The grief in his tone belies the truth of his avowal. His head is bent. His old withered hands clasp and unclasp each other nervously.
”You are trembling,” says Lord Sartoris. ”Sit down. This news, whatever it is, has unstrung you.”
”It has,” cries Simon, with vehemence. ”I _am_ trembling; I _am_ unstrung. How can I be otherwise when I hear such a slander put upon the boy I have watched from his cradle?”
”You are speaking of----?” demands Sartoris, with an effort.
”Mr. Dorian.” He says this in a very low tone; and tears, that always come so painfully and so slowly to the old, s.h.i.+ne in his eyes. ”His sad complexion wears grief's mourning livery.” He covers his face with his hands.
Sartoris, rising from his seat, goes over to the window, and so stands that his face cannot be seen.
”What have you got to say about Mr. Brans...o...b..?” he asks, in a harsh, discordant tone.
”My lord, it is an impertinence my speaking at all,” says Gale.
”Go on. Let me know the worst. I can hardly be more miserable than I am,” returns Sartoris.
”It was Andrews, the under-gardener, was telling me,” begins Simon, without any further attempt at hesitation. ”This morning, early, I met him near the Ash Grove. 'Simon,' he says, 'I want to speak wi'ye. I have a secret on my mind.'
”'If you have, my man, keep it,' says I. 'I want none o' your secrets.' For in truth he is often very troublesome, my lord, though a well-meaning youth at bottom.
”'But it is on my conscience,' says he, 'and if I don't tell it to you I shall tell it to some one else, because tell it I must, or bust!'
”So when he went that far, my lord, I saw as how he was real uneasy, and I made up my mind to listen. And then he says,--
”'Night before last feyther was coming through the copse wood that runs t'other side o' the fence from Master Annersley's, and there, in the thickest part o' it, he saw Miss Ruth a standing, and wi' her was Mr. Brans...o...b...'
”'Which Mr. Brans...o...b..?' says I.
”'Mr. Dorian,' he says, 'He seen him as plain as life, though it was dusk, standing wi' his back half turned towards him, but not so turned but what he could see his ear and part o' his face. He had a hold o'
Miss Ruth's hands; and was speaking very earnest to her, as though he were persuading her to something she were dead against. And she were crying very bitter, and trying to draw her hands away; but presently she got quiet like; and then they went away together, slowly at first, but quicker afterwards, in the direction of the wood that leads to Langham. He did not stir a peg until they was out o' sight, he was so afeard o' being seen. And now it is on his conscience that he did not speak sooner, ever since he saw old Mr. Annersley yesterday, like a mad creature, looking for his girl.'