Part 55 (2/2)

Brans...o...b.. draws his breath quickly. His pale face flushes; and a gleam, that is surely born of tears, s.h.i.+nes in his eyes. Clarissa, who, up to this, has been talking to some of the children, comes up to him at this moment and slips her hand through his arm. Is he not almost her brother?

Only his wife stands apart, and, with white lips and dry eyes and a most miserable heart, watches him without caring--or daring--to go near to him. She is silent, _distraite_, and has altogether forgotten the fact of Kennedy's existence (though he still stands close beside her),--a state of things that young gentleman hardly affects.

”Has your cla.s.s been too much for you? Or do other things--or people--distress you?” he asks, presently, in a meaning tone. ”Because you have not uttered one word for quite five minutes.”

”You have guessed correctly: some people do distress me--after a time,” says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., so pointedly that Kennedy takes the hint, and, shaking hands with her somewhat stiffly, disappears through the door-way.

”Oh, yes,” the vicar is saying to Clarissa, in a glad tone, that even savors of triumph, ”the Batesons have given up the Methodist chapel and have come back to me. They have forgiven about the bread, though they made a heavy struggle for it. Mrs. Redmond and I put our heads together and wondered what we should do, and if we couldn't buy anything there so as to make up for the loss of the daily loaves, because she would not consent to poison the children.”

”And you would!” says Clarissa, reproachfully. ”Oh, what a terrible admission!”

”We won't go into that, my dear Clarissa, if you please,” says the vicar, contritely. ”There are moments in every life that one regrets.

But the end of our cogitations was this: that we went down to the village,--Mrs. Redmond and I,--and, positively, for one bar of soap and a package of candles we bought them all back to their pew in church. You wouldn't have thought there was so much grace in soap and candles, would you?” says the vicar, with a curious gleam in his eyes that is half amus.e.m.e.nt, half contempt.

Even Georgie laughs a little at this, and comes nearer to them, and stands close beside Clarissa, as if shy and uncertain, and glad to have a sure partisan so near to her,--all which is only additional pain to Dorian, who notices every lightest word and action of the woman he has married.

”How did you get on to-day with your little people?” asks Mr. Redmond, taking notice of her at once,--something, too, in her downcast att.i.tude appealing to his sense of pity. ”Was that boy of the Brixton's more than usually trying?”

”Well, he was bad enough,” says Georgie, in a tone that implies she is rather letting off the unfortunate Brixton from future punishment.

”But I have known him worse; indeed, I think he improves.”

”Indeed, I think a son of his father could never improve,” says the vicar, with a melancholy sigh. ”There isn't an ounce of brains in all that family. Long ago, when first I came here, Sam Brixton (the father of your pupil) bought a cow from a neighboring farmer called George Gilbert, and he named it John. I thought that an extraordinary name to call a cow, so I said to him one day, 'Sam, why on earth did you christen that poor inoffensive beast John?' 'John?' said he, somewhat indignantly, 'John? Why wouldn't I call him John, when I bought him from George Gilbert?' I didn't see his meaning then,--and, I confess, I haven't seen it since,--but I was afraid to expose my stupidity, so I held my tongue. Do you see it?” He turns to Dorian.

”Not much,” says Dorian, with a faint laugh.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

”One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow.”--_Hamlet._

”One, that was a woman, sir.”--_Hamlet._

Across the autumn gra.s.s, that has browned beneath the scorching summer rays, and through the fitful suns.h.i.+ne, comes James Scrope.

Through the woods, under the dying beech-trees that lead to Gowran, he saunters slowly, thinking only of the girl beyond, who is not thinking of him at all, but of the man who, in his soul, Sir James believes utterly unworthy of her.

This thought so engrosses him, as he walks along, that he fails to hear Mrs. Brans...o...b.., until she is close beside him, and until she says, gently,--

”How d'ye do, Sir James?” At this his start is so visible that she laughs, and says, with a faint blush,--

”What! is my coming so light that one fails to hear it?”

To which he, recovering himself, makes ready response:

”So light a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.”

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