by Ellen Wood
Had she been in a more amiable mood, Herbert would have told her that she was a simpleton for spending her money; he would have told her that Tasso, read in the original, would have been to him unintelligible as Sanscrit. He had a faint remembrance of saying to mademoiselle that he should like to read Tasso, in answer to a remark that Tasso was her favourite of the Italian poets: but he had only made the observation carelessly, without seriously meaning anything. And she had been so foolish as to go and buy it!
“Will you come this evening and hear it begun?” she continued, breaking the pause, and speaking rather more graciously.
“Upon my word of honour, Bianca, I can’t to-night,” he answered, feeling himself, between the two — the engagement made, and the engagement sought to be made — somewhat embarrassed. “I will come another evening; you may depend upon me.”
“You say to me yesterday that you would come this evening; that I might depend upon you. Much you care!”
“But I could not help myself. An engagement arose, and I was obliged to fall in with it. I was, indeed. I’ll hear Tasso another evening.”
“You will not break your paltry engagement at billiards to keep your word to a lady! C’est bien!”
“It — it is not altogether that,” replied Herbert, getting out of the reproach in the best way he could. “I have some business as well.”
She fastened her glistening eyes upon him. There was an expression in them which Herbert neither understood nor liked. “C’est très bien!” she slowly repeated. “I know where you are going, and for what!”
A smile — at her assumed knowledge, and what it was worth — flitted over Herbert Dare’s face. “You are very wise,” said he.
“Take care of yourself, mon ami! C’est tout ce que je vous dis.”
“Now, mademoiselle, what is the matter, that you should look and speak in that manner?” he asked, still in the same good-humoured tone, as if he would fain pass the affair away in a joke. “I’m sure I have enough bother upon me, without your adding to it.”
“What is your bother?”
“Never mind: it would give you no pleasure to know it. It is caused by Anthony — and be hanged to him!”
“Anthony is worth ten of you!” fiercely responded mademoiselle.
“Every one to his own liking,” carelessly remarked Herbert. “It’s well for me that all the world does not think as you do, mademoiselle.”
Mademoiselle looked as though she would like to beat him. “So!” she foamed, drawing back her bloodless lips; “now that your turn is served, Bianca Varsini may just be sent to the enfer! Garde-toi, mon camarade!”
“Garde your voice,” replied Herbert. “The cows yonder will think it’s a tempest. I wish my turn was served, in more ways than one. What particular turn do you mean? If it’s buying Tasso, I’ll purchase it from you at double price.”
He could not help giving her a little chaff. It was what he would have called it: chaff. Exacting people fretted his generally easy temper, and he was beginning to fear that she would detain him until it was too late to see Anna.
But, on the latter score, he was set at rest. With a few words, spoken in Italian, she nodded her head angrily at him, and turned away. Fierce words, in spite of their low tone, Herbert was sure they were, but he could not catch one of them. Had he caught them all, it would have come to the same, so far as his understanding went. Excellent as Signora Varsini’s method of teaching Italian may have been, her lessons had not as yet been very efficient for Herbert Dare.
She crossed her hands before her, and went down the walk, taking the path to the house. Proceeding straight up to the school-room, she met Cyril on the stairs. He had apparently been dressing himself for the evening, and was going out to spend it. The governess caught him abruptly, pulled him inside the school-room, and closed the door.
“I say, mademoiselle, what’s that for?” asked Cyril, believing, by the fierce look of the young lady, that she was about to take some summary vengeance upon him.
“Cyril! you tell me. Where is it that Herbert goes to of an evening? Every evening — every evening?”
Cyril stared excessively. “What does it concern you to know where he goes, mademoiselle?” returned he.
“I want to know for my own reasons, and that’s enough for you, Monsieur Cyril. Where does he go?”
“He goes out,” responded Cyril.
The governess stamped her foot petulantly. “I could tell you that he goes out. I ask you where it is that he goes?”
“How should I know?” was Cyril’s answer. “It’s not my business.”
“Don’t you know?” demanded mademoiselle.
“No, that I don’t,” heartily spoke Cyril. “Do you suppose I watch him, mademoiselle? He’d pretty soon pitch into me, if he caught me at that game. I dare say he goes to billiards.”
The suggestion excited the ire of the governess. “He has been telling you to say so!” she said, menace in every tone of her voice, every gesture of her lifted hand.
Cyril opened his eyes to their utmost width. He could not understand why the governess should be asking him this, or why Herbert’s movements should concern her. “I know nothing at all about it,” he answered; and, so far, he spoke the truth. “I don’t know that Herbert goes anywhere in particular of an evening. If he does, he would not tell me.”
She laid her hand heavily on his shoulder; she brought her face — terrible in its livid earnestness — almost into contact with his. “Ecoutez, mon ami,” she whispered to the amazed Cyril. “If you are going to play this game with me, I will play one with you. Who wore the cloak to that boucherie, and got the money? — who ripped out the écossais side afterwards, leaving it all mangled and open? Think you, I don’t know? Ah, ha! Monsieur Cyril, you cannot play the farce with me!”
Cyril’s face turned ghastly, drops of sweat broke out over his forehead. “Hush!” he cried, looking round in the instinct of terror, lest listeners should be at hand.
“Yes; you say, ‘Hush!’” she resumed. “I will hush if you don’t make me speak. I have hushed ever since. You tell me what I want to know, and I’ll hush always.”
“Mademoiselle Varsini!” he cried, his manner too painfully earnest for her to doubt now that he spoke the truth: “I declare that I know nothing of Herbert’s movements. I don’t know where he goes or what he does. When I told you I supposed he went to billiards, I said what I thought might be the case. He may go to fifty places of an evening, for all I can tell. Tell me what it is you want found out, and I will try and do it.”
Cyril was not one to play the spy on his brother; in fact, as he had just classically observed to the young lady, Herbert would have “pitched into” him, had he found him attempting it. And serve him right! But Cyril saw that he was in her power; and that made all the difference. He would now have tracked Herbert to the ends of the earth at her bidding.
But she did not bid him. Quite the contrary. She took her hand from Cyril’s shoulder, opened the door, and said she did not want him any longer. “It is no matter,” cried she; “I wanted to learn something about Monsieur Herbert, for a reason; but if you do not know it, let it pass. It is no matter.”
Cyril departed; first of all lifting his cowardly face. It looked a coward’s then. “You’ll keep counsel, mademoiselle?”
“Yes. When people don’t offend me, I don’t offend them.”
She stood at the door after he had gone down, half in, half out of the room, apparently in deep thought. Presently footsteps were heard coming up, and she retreated and closed the door.
They were those of Herbert. He went on to his room, remained there a few minutes, and then came out again. Mademoiselle had the door ajar as he descended. Her quick eye detected that he had been giving a few finishing touches to his toilette — brushing his hair, pulling down his wristbands, and various other little odds and ends of dandyism.
“And you do that to play billiards!” nodded she, inwardly, as she looked after him. “I’
ll see, monsieur.”
Upstairs with a soft step, went she, to her own chamber. She reached from her box a long and loose dark-green cloak, similar to those worn by the women of France and Flanders, and a black silk quilted bonnet. It was her travelling attire, and she put it on now. Then she locked her chamber door behind her, and slipped down into the dining-room, with as soft a step as she had gone up.
Passing out at the open window, she kept tolerably under cover of the trees, and gained the road. It was quite dusk then, but she recognized Herbert before her, walking with a quick step. She put on a quick step also, keeping a safe distance between herself and him. He went through the town, to the London road, and turned into Atterly’s field. The governess turned into it after him.
There she stopped under the hedge, to reconnoitre. A few minutes, and she could distinguish that he was joined by some young girl, whom he met with every token of respect and confidence. A strange cry went forth on the evening air.
Herbert Dare was startled. “What noise was that?” he exclaimed.
Anna had heard nothing. “It must have been one of the lambs in the field, Herbert.”
“It was more like a human voice in pain,” observed Herbert. But they heard no more.
They began their usual walk — a few paces backward and forward, beneath the most sheltered part of the hedge, Anna taking his arm. Mademoiselle could see, as well as the darkness allowed her; but she could not hear. Her face, peeping out of the shadowy bonnet, was not unlike the face of a tiger.
She crawled away. She had noticed as she turned into the field an iron gate that led into the garden, which the hedge skirted. She crept round to it, found it locked, and mounted it. It had spikes on the top, but the signora would not have cared just then had she found herself impaled. She got safe over it, and then considered how to reach the spot where they stood without their hearing her.
Would she be baffled? She be baffled! No. She stooped down, unlaced her boots, and stole softly on in her stockings. And there she was! almost as close to them as they were to each other.
Where had the signora heard those gentle, timid tones before? A lovely girl, looking little more than a child, in her modest Quaker dress, rose to her mind’s eye. She had seen her with Miss Ashley. She — the signora — knelt down upon the earth, the better to catch what was said.
“Listeners never hear any good of themselves.” It is a proverb too often exemplified, as the signora could have told that night. Herbert Dare was accounting for his late appearance, which he laid to the charge of the governess. He gave a description of the interview she had volunteered him in the garden at home — more ludicrous, perhaps, than true, but certainly not complimentary to the signora. Anna laughed; and the lady on the other side gathered that this was not the first time she had formed a topic of merriment between them. You should have seen her face. Pour plaisir, as she herself might have said.
She stayed out the interview. When it was over, and Herbert Dare had departed, she put on her boots and mounted the gate again; but she was not so agile this time, and a spike entered her wrist. Binding her handkerchief round it, to arrest the blood, she returned to Pomeranian Knoll.
Five hundred questions were showered upon her when she entered the drawing-room, looking calm and impassible as ever. Not a tress of her elaborate braids of hair was out of place; not a fold awry in her dress. Much wonder had been excited by her failing to appear at tea; Minny had drummed a waltz on her chamber door, but mademoiselle would not open it, and would not speak.
“I cannot speak when I am lying down with those vilaine headaches,” remarked mademoiselle.
“Have you a headache, mademoiselle?” asked Mrs. Dare. “Will you have a cup of tea brought up?”
Mademoiselle declined the tea. She was not thirsty.
“What have you done to your wrist, mademoiselle?” called out Herbert, who was stretched on a sofa, at the far end of the room.
“My wrist? Oh, I scratched it.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Ah, bah! it’s nothing,” responded mademoiselle.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE QUARREL.
It is grievous, when ill-feeling arises between brothers, that that ill-feeling should be cherished instead of being subdued. But such was the case with Anthony and Herbert Dare. By the time the sunny month of May came in, matters had grown to such a height between them, that Mr. Dare found himself compelled to interfere. It was beginning to make things in the house uncomfortable. They would meet at meals, and not only abstain from speaking to each other, but take every possible opportunity of showing mutual and marked discourtesy. No positive outbreak between them had as yet taken place in the presence of the family: but it was only smouldering, and might be daily looked for.
Mr. Dare, so far as the original cause went, blamed his eldest son. Undoubtedly Anthony had been solely in fault. It was a dishonourable, ungenerous, unmanly act, to draw his brother into trouble, and to do it plausibly and deceitfully. At the present stage of the affair, Mr. Dare saw occasion to blame Herbert more than Anthony. “It is you who keep up the ball, Herbert,” he said to him. “If you would suffer the matter to die away, Anthony would do so.” “Of course he would,” Herbert replied. “He has served his turn, and would be glad that it should end there.”
It was in vain that Mr. Dare talked to them. A dozen times did he recommend them to “shake hands and make it up.” Neither appeared inclined to take the advice. Anthony was sullen. He would have been content to let the affair drop quietly into oblivion: perhaps, as Herbert said, had been glad that it should so drop; but, make the slightest move towards it, he would not. Herbert openly said that he’d not shake hands. If Anthony wanted ever to shake hands with him again, let him pay up.
There lay the grievance; “paying up.” The bills, not paid, were a terrible thorn in the side of Herbert Dare. He was responsible, and he knew not one hour from another but he might be arrested on them. To soothe matters between his sons, Mr. Dare would willingly have taken the charge of payment upon himself, but he had positively not the money to do it with. In point of fact, Mr. Dare was growing seriously embarrassed on his own score. He had had a great deal of trouble with his sons, with Anthony in particular, and he had grown sick and tired of helping them out of pecuniary difficulties. Still, he would have relieved Herbert of this one nightmare, had it been in his power. Herbert had been deluded into it, without any advantage to himself; therefore Mr. Dare had the will, could he have managed it, to help him out. He told Herbert that he would see what he could do after a while. The promise did not relieve Herbert of present fears; neither did it restore peace between the malcontents. Had Herbert been relieved of that particular embarrassment, others would have remained to him; but that fact did not in the least lessen his soreness, as to the point in question.
It was an intensely hot day; far hotter than is usual at the season; and the afternoon sun streamed full on the windows of Pomeranian Knoll, suggesting thoughts of July, instead of May. A gay party — at any rate, a party dressed in gay attire — were crossing the hall to enter a carriage that waited at the door. Mr. Dare, Mrs. Dare, and Adelaide. Mrs. Dare had always been given to gay attire, and her daughters had inherited her taste. They were going to dine at a friend’s house, a few miles’ distance from Helstonleigh. The invitation was for seven o’clock. It was now striking six, the dinner-hour at Mr. Dare’s.
Minny, looking half melted, had perched herself upon the end of the balustrades to watch the departure.
“You’ll fall, child,” said Mr. Dare.
Minny laughed, and said there was no danger of her falling. She wondered what her father would think if he saw her sometimes at her gymnastics on the balustrades, taking a sweeping slide from the top to the bottom. She generally contrived that he should not see her; or mademoiselle either. Mademoiselle had caught sight of the performance once, and had given her a whole French fable to learn by way of punishment.
“Are we to have s
trawberries for dinner, mamma?” asked Minny.
“You will have what I have thought proper to order,” replied Mrs. Dare rather sharply. She was feeling hot and cross. Something had put her out while dressing.
“I think you might wait for strawberries until they are ripe in our own garden; not buy them regardless of cost,” interposed Mr. Dare, speaking for the general benefit, but not to any one in particular.
Minny dropped the subject. “Your dress is turned up, Adelaide,” said she.
Adelaide looked languidly behind her, and a maid, who had followed them down, advanced and put right the refractory dress: a handsome dress of pink silk, glistening with its own richness. At that moment Anthony entered the hall. He had just come home to dinner, and looked in a very bad humour.
“How late you’ll be!” he cried.
“Not at all. We shall drive there in an hour.”
They swept out at the door, Mrs. Dare and Adelaide. Mr. Dare was about to follow them when a sudden thought appeared to strike him, and he turned back and addressed Anthony.
“You young men take care that you don’t get quarrelling with each other. Do you hear, Anthony?”
“I hear,” ungraciously replied Anthony, not turning to speak, but continuing his way up to his dressing-room. He probably regarded the injunction with contempt, for it was too much in Anthony Dare’s nature so to regard all advice, of whatever kind. Nevertheless it had been well that he had given heed to it. It had been well that that last word to his father had been one of affection!
Dinner was served. Anthony, in the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Dare, took the head. Rosa, with a show of great parade and ceremony, assumed the seat opposite to him and said she should be mistress. Minny responded that Rosa was not going to be mistress over her, and the governess desired Miss Rosa not to talk so loudly. Rather derogatory checks, these, to the dignity of a “mistress.”