Part 78 (2/2)
His colour rose. ”Ungrateful? That I am not madam. Why do you call me so?”
”You are--you are. What have I done to you that you run from me to the very servants? However, she shall be packed off this very night, and you to thank for it.”
This was the way to wound the generous youth. ”Now it is you that are ungenerous,” he said. ”What harm has the poor girl done? She had a virtuous movement and pitied me for the heartless fraud I suffer by; that is all. Pray, do you never pity me?”
”Was it this virtuous movement set her kissing you?” said the Archbold, clenching her teeth as if the word stung her, like the sight.
”She didn't, now,” said Alfred; ”it was I kissed her.”
”And yet you pretend to love your Julia so truly?”
”This is no place for that sacred name, madam. But be sure I have no secrets from her, and kiss n.o.body she would not kiss herself.”
”She must be a very accommodating young lady.”
At this insult Alfred rose pale with anger, and was about to defy his monitor mortally; but the quick-witted woman saw and disarmed him. In one moment, before ever he could speak, she was a transformed creature, a penitent; she put her hands together supplicatingly, and murmured--
”I didn't mean it; I respect _her;_ and your love for her; forgive me, Alfred: I am so unhappy, oh forgive me.”
And behold she held his hand between her soft, burning palms, and her proud head sank languidly on his shoulder, and the inevitable tears ran gently.
Morals apart, it was glorious love-making.
”Bother the woman,” thought Alfred.
”Promise me not to do it again,” she murmured, ”and the girl shall stay.”
”Oh, lord, yes, I promise; though I can't see what it matters to you.”
”Not much, cruel boy, alas! but it matters to her; for----” She kissed Alfred's hand gently, and rose to her feet and moved away; but at the second step turned her head sudden as a bird and finished her sentence--”if you kiss her before me, I shall kill her before you.”
Here was a fresh complication! The men had left off blistering, torturing, and bullying him; but his guardian angels, the women, were turning up their sleeves to pull caps over him, and plenty of the random scratches would fall on him. If anything could have made him pine more to be out of the horrid place, this voluptuous prospect would. He hunted everywhere for Brown. But he was away the day with a patient. At night he lay awake for a long time, thinking how he should open the negotiation. He shrank from it. He felt a delicacy about bribing Beelzebub's servant to betray him.
As Hannah had originated the idea, he thought he might very well ask her to do the dirty work of bribing Brown, and he would pay her for it; only in money, not kisses. With this resolution he sank to sleep, and his spirit broke prison: he stood with Julia before the altar, and the priest made them one. Then the church and the company and daylight disappeared, and her own sweet low moving voice came thrilling, ”My own, own, own,” she murmured. ”I love you ten times more for all you have endured for me;” and with this her sweet lips settled on his like the dew.
Impartial sleep flies at the steps of the scaffold and the gate of Elysium: so Alfred awoke at the above; but doubted whether he was quite awake; for two velvet lips seemed to be still touching his. He stirred, and somebody was gone like the wind, with a rustle of flying petticoats, and his door shut in a moment. It closed with a catch-lock; this dastardly vision had opened it with her key, and left it open to make good her retreat if he should awake. Alfred sat up in bed indignant, and somewhat fluttered. ”Confound her impudence,” said he. But there was no help for it; he grinned and bore it, as he had the blisters, and boluses, &c., rolled the clothes round his shoulders, and off to the sleep of the just again. Not so the pa.s.sionate hypocrite, who, maddened by a paroxysm of jealousy, had taken this cowardly advantage of a prisoner. She had sucked fresh poison from those honest lips, and filled her veins with molten fire. She tossed and turned the livelong night in a high fever of pa.s.sion, nor were the cold chills wanting of shame and fear at what she had done.
In the morning, Alfred remembered this substantial vision, and determined to find out which of those two it was. ”I shall know by her looks,” said he; ”she won't be able to meet my eye.” Well, the first he saw was Mrs. Archbold. She met his eye full with a mild and pensive dignity. ”Come, it is not you,” thought Alfred. Presently he fell in with Hannah. She wore a serene, infantine face, the picture of un.o.btrusive modesty. Alfred was dumbfoundered. ”It's not this one, either,” said he. ”But then, it must. Confound her impudence for looking so modest.” However, he did not speak to her; he was looking out for a face that interested him far more: the weather-beaten countenance of Giles Brown. He saw him once or twice, but could not get him alone till the afternoon. He invited him into his room: and when he got him there, lost no time. ”Just look me in the face, Brown,” said he quietly. Brown looked him in the face.
”Now, sir, am I mad or sane?”
Brown turned his head away. Alfred laughed. ”No, no, none of your tricks, old fellow: look me in the face while you answer.”
The man coloured. ”I can't look a gentleman like you in the face, and tell him he is mad.”
”I should think not. Well, now; what shall I give you to help me escape?”
”Hus.h.!.+ don't mention that, sir; it's as much as my place is worth even to listen to you.”
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