Part 50 (1/2)
”I am. I have walked enough, and talked enough, to last me a month.”
”I am afraid I rather broke in upon your conversation just now,” says Brans...o...b.., looking earnestly at her. ”But for my coming, Kennedy would have stayed on with you; and he is a--a rather amusing sort of fellow, isn't he?”
”Is he? He was exceedingly stupid to-day, at all events. I don't believe he has a particle of brains, or else he thinks other people haven't. I enjoyed myself a great deal more with the old duke, until that ridiculous Sir John Lincoln came to us. I don't think he knew a bit who the duke was, because he kept saying odd little things about the grounds and the guests, right under his nose; at least, right behind his back: it is all the same thing.”
”What is? His nose and his back?” asks Dorian; at which piece of folly they both laugh as though it was the best thing in the world.
Then they make their way over the smooth lawns, and past the glowing flower-beds, and past Sir John Lincoln, too, who is standing in an impossible att.i.tude, that makes him all elbows and knees, talking to a very splendid young man--all bone and muscle and good humor--who is plainly delighted with him. To the splendid young man he is nothing but one vast joke.
Seeing Mrs. Brans...o...b.., they both raise their hats, and Sir John so far forgets the tulips as to give it as his opinion that she is ”Quite too, too intense for every-day life.” Whereupon the splendid young man, breaking into praise too, declares she is ”Quite too awfully jolly, don't you know,” which commonplace remark so horrifies his companion that he sadly and tearfully turns aside, and leaves him to his fate.
Georgie, who has been brought to a standstill for a moment, hears both remarks, and laughs aloud.
”It is something to be admired by Colonel Vibart, isn't it?” she says to Dorian; ”but it is really very sad about poor Sir John. He has bulbous roots on the brain, and they have turned him as mad as a hatter.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
”There's not a scene on earth so full of lightness That withering care Sleeps not beneath the flowers and turns their brightness To dark despair.”--HON. MRS. NORTON.
It is a day of a blue and goldness so intense as to make one believe these two are the only colors on earth worthy of admiration. The sky is cloudless; the great sun is wide awake; the flowers are drooping, sleeping,--too languid to lift their heavy heads.
”The gentle wind, that like a ghost doth pa.s.s, A waving shadow on the cornfield keeps.”
And Georgie descending the stone steps of the balcony, feels her whole nature thrill and glow beneath the warmth and richness of the beauty spread all around with lavish hand. Scarcely a breath stirs the air; no sound comes to mar the deep stillness of the day, save the echo of the ”swallows' silken wings skimming the water of the sleeping lake.”
As she pa.s.ses the rose-trees, she puts out her hand, and, from the very fulness of her heart, touches some of the drowsy flowers with caressing fingers. She is feeling peculiarly happy to-day: everything is going so smoothly with her; her life is devoid of care; only suns.h.i.+ne streams upon her path; storm and rain and nipping frosts seem all forgotten.
Going into the garden, she pulls a flower or two and places them in the bosom of her white gown, and bending over the basin of a fountain, looks at her own image, and smiles at it, as well she may.
Then she blushes at her own vanity, and, drawing back from nature's mirror, tells herself she will go a little farther, and see what Andrews, the under-gardener (who has come to Sartoris from Hythe), is doing in the shrubbery.
The path by which she goes is so thickly lined with shrubs on the right-hand side that she cannot be seen through them, nor can she see those beyond. Voices come to her from the distance, that, as she advances up the path, grow even louder. She is not thinking of them, or, indeed, of anything but the extreme loveliness of the hour, when words fall upon her ear that make themselves intelligible and send the blood with a quick rush to her heart.
”It is a disgraceful story altogether; and to have the master's name mixed up with it is shameful!”
The voice, beyond doubt, belongs to Graham, the upper-housemaid, and is full of honest indignation.
Hardly believing she has heard aright, and without any thought of eaves-dropping, Georgie stands still upon the walk, and waits in breathless silence for what may come next.
”Well, I think it is shameful,” says another voice, easily recognized as belonging to Andrews. ”But I believe it is the truth for all that.
Father saw him with his own eyes. It was late, but just as light as it is now, and he saw him plain.”
”Do you mean to tell me,” says Graham, with increasing wrath (she is an elderly woman, and has lived at Sartoris for many years), ”that you really think your master had either hand, act, or part in inducing Ruth Annersley to leave her home?”
”Well, I only say what father told me,” says Andrews, in a half-apologetic fas.h.i.+on, being somewhat abashed by her anger. ”And he ain't one to lie much. He saw him with her in the wood the night she went to Lunnun, or wherever 'twas, and they walked together in the way to Langham Station. They do say, too, that----”
A quick light footstep, a putting aside of branches, and Georgie, pale, but composed, appears before them. Andrews, losing his head, drops the knife he is holding, and Graham grows a fine purple.
”I don't think you are doing much good here, Andrews,” says Mrs.