“You do not think very highly of friendship itself, it seems,” said Constance with an attempt to laugh.
“I do not know of any reason why I should. I know very little in its favour.”
“Opinions differ so much!” exclaimed the young girl, gaining courage gradually. “I suppose you and I have not at all the same ideas about it.”
“Evidently not.”
“How would you define friendship?”
“I never define things. It is my business to describe people, facts and events. Bond is a lawyer and a man of concise definitions. Ask him.”
“I prefer to talk to you,” said Constance, who had by this time overcome her sensitive timidity and began to think that she could revive something of the old confidence in conversation. Unfortunately for her intentions, Mamie had either overheard the last words, or did not like the way things were going. She rose and pushed her light straw chair before her with her foot until it was opposite the two.
“What do you do with yourself all day long?” she asked as she sat down. “I am sure you are giving my cousin the most delightful accounts of your existence!”
“As a matter of fact, we were talking of friendship,” said George, watching the outlines of Mamie’s exquisite figure and mentally comparing them with Constance’s less striking advantages.
“How charming!” Mamie exclaimed sweetly. “And you have always been such good friends.”
With a wicked intuition of the mischief she was making, Mamie paused and looked from the one to the other. Constance very nearly lost her temper, but George’s dark face betrayed no emotion.
“The best of friends,” he said calmly. “What do you think of this question, Mamie? Miss Fearing says she thinks that a good book might be written about friendship. I answered that I thought it would be far from popular with the public. What do you say?”
Constance looked curiously at Mamie, as though she were interested in her reply. It seemed as though she must agree with one or the other. But Mamie was not easily caught.
“Oh, I am sure you could, George!” she exclaimed. “You are so clever — you could do anything. For instance, why do you not describe your friendship? You two, you know you would be so nice in a book. And besides, everybody would read it and it could not be a failure.” Mamie smiled again, as she looked at her two hearers.
“I should think Mr. Wood might do something in a novel with you as well as with me,” said Constance.
George was not sure whether Mamie turned a shade whiter or not. She was naturally pale, but it seemed to him that her grey eyes grew suddenly dark and angry.
“You might put us both into the same book, George,” she suggested.
“Both as friends?” asked Constance, raising her delicate eyebrows a little, while her nostrils expanded. She was thoroughly angry by this time.
“Why, of course!” Mamie exclaimed with an air of perfect innocence. “What could you suppose I meant? I do not suppose he would be rude enough to fall in love with either of us in a book. Would you, George?”
“In books,” said George quietly, “all sorts of strange things happen.”
Thereupon he turned and addressed Grace, who was on the other side of him, and kept up an animated conversation with her throughout the remainder of the visit. It seemed to him to be the only way of breaking up an extremely unpleasant situation. Constance was grateful to him for what he did, for she felt that if he had chosen to forget his courtesy even for an instant he would have found it easy to say many things which would have wounded her cruelly and which would not have failed to please his cousin. George, on his part, had acquired a clearer view of the real state of things.
“How I hate her!” Mamie said to herself, when Constance was gone.
“What a hateful, spiteful little thing she is!” thought Constance as she stepped into the boat.
CHAPTER XIX.
GEORGE WAS NOT altogether pleased by what had happened during the visit. He had expected that Constance would be satisfied with exchanging a few words of no import, and that she would make no attempt to lead him into conversation. Instead of this, however, she had seemed to be doing her best to make him talk, and had really been the one to begin the trouble which had ensued. If she had not allowed herself to refer in the most direct manner to the past, she would not have exposed herself to Mamie’s subsequent attack. As for Mamie, though she had successfully affected a look of perfect innocence, and had spoken in the gentlest and most friendly tone of voice, there was no denying the fact that her speeches had made a visible impression upon Constance Fearing. The latter had done her best to control her anger, but she had not succeeded in hiding it altogether. It was impossible not to make a comparison between the two girls, and, on the whole, the comparison was in Mamie’s favour, so far as self-possession and coolness were concerned.
“You were rather hard on Miss Fearing yesterday,” George said on the following morning, when they were alone during the quarter of an hour he allowed to elapse between breakfast and going to work.
“Hard on her? What do you mean?” asked Mamie with well-feigned surprise.
“Why — I mean when you suggested that I should put you both into a book together. Oh, I know what you are going to say. You meant nothing by it, you had not thought of what you were going to say, you would not have said anything disagreeable for the world. Nevertheless you said it, and in the calmest way, and it did just what you expected of it — it hurt her.”
“Well — do you mind?” Mamie inquired, with amazing frankness.
“Yes. You made her think that I had been talking to you about her.”
“And what harm is there in that? You did talk about her a little a few days ago — on a certain evening. And, moreover, Master George, though you are a great man and a very good sort of man, and a dear, altogether, besides possessing the supreme advantage of being my cousin, you cannot prevent me from hating your beloved Constance Fearing nor from hurting her as much as I possibly can whenever we meet — especially if she sits down beside you and makes soft eyes at you, and tries to get you back!”
“Do not talk like that, Mamie. I do not like it.”
Mamie laughed, and showed her beautiful teeth. There was a vicious sparkle in her eyes.
“You want to be taken back, I suppose,” she said. “Tell me the truth — do you love her still?”
George suddenly caught her by the two wrists and held her before him. He was annoyed and yet he could not help being amused.
“Mamie, you shall not say such things! You are as spiteful as a little wild-cat!”
“Am I? I am glad of it — and I am not in the least afraid of you, or your big hands or your black looks.”
George laughed and dropped her hands with a little shake, half angry, half playful.
“I really believe you are not!” he exclaimed.
“Of course not! Was she? Or were you afraid of her? Which was it? Oh, how I would have liked to see you together when you were angry with each other! She can be very angry, you know. She was yesterday. She would have liked to tear me to pieces with those long nails of hers. I hate people who have long nails!”
“You seem to hate a great many people this morning. I wish you would leave her alone.”
“Oh, now you are going to be angry, too! But then, it would not matter.”
“Why would it not matter?”
“Because I am only Mamie,” answered the girl, looking up affectionately into his face. “You never care what I say, do you?”
“I do not know about that,” George said. “What do you mean by saying that you are only Mamie?”
“Mamie is nobody, you know. Mamie is only a cousin, a little girl who wants nothing of George but toys and picture-books, a silly child, a foolish, half-witted little thing that cannot understand a great man — much less tease him. Can she?”
“Mamie is a witch,” George answered with a laugh. There was indeed something strangely bewitching about the girl. She could say things to
him which he would not have suffered his own sister to say if he had had one.
“I wish I were! I wish I could make wax dolls, like people I hate, as the witches used to do, and stick pins into their hearts and melt them before the fire, little by little.”
“What has got into your head this morning, you murderous, revengeful little thing?”
“There are many things in my head,” she answered, suddenly changing her manner, and speaking in an oddly demure tone, with downcast eyes and folded hands. “There are more things in my head than are dreamt of in yours — at least, I hope so.”
“Tell me some of them.”
“I dare do all that becomes — a proper little girl,” said Mamie, laughing, “but not that.”
“Dear me! I had no idea that you were such a desperate character.”
“Tell me, George — if you did what I suggested yesterday and put us both into a book, Conny Fearing and me, which would you like best?”
“I would try and make you like each other, though I do not know exactly how I should go about it.”
“That is not an answer. It is of no use to be clever with me, as I have often told you. Would you like me better than Conny Fearing? Yes — or no! Come, I am waiting! How slow you are.”
“Which do you want me to say? I could do either — in a book, so that it can make no difference.”
“Oh — if it would make no difference, I do not care to know. You need not answer me.”
“All the better for me,” said George with a laugh. “Good-bye — I am going to work. Think of some easier question.”
George went away, wondering how it was all going to end. Mamie was certainly behaving in a very strange way. Her conduct during the visit on the previous afternoon had been that of a woman at once angry and jealous, and he himself had felt very uncomfortable. The extreme gentleness of her manner and expression while speaking with Constance had not concealed her real feelings from him, and he had felt something like shame at being obliged to sit quietly in his place while she wounded the woman he once loved so dearly, and of whom he still thought so often. He had done everything in his power to smooth matters, but he had not been able to do much, and his own humour had been already ruffled by the conversation that had gone before. He was under the impression that Constance had gone away feeling that he had been gratuitously disagreeable, and he was sorry for it.
Before very long, he had an opportunity of ascertaining what Constance felt and thought about his doings. On the afternoon of the Sunday following the one on which she had been to the Trimms’, George had crossed to the opposite side of the river, alone, had landed near a thick clump of trees and was comfortably established in a shady spot on the shore with a book and a cigar. The day was hot and it was about the middle of the afternoon. Mamie and her mother had driven to the neighbouring church, for Totty was punctual in attending to her devotions, whereas George, who had gone with them in the morning, considered that he had done enough.
He was not sure to whom the land on which he found himself belonged, and he had some misgiving that it might be a part of the Fearing property. But he had been too lazy to pull higher up the stream when he had once crossed it, and had not cared to drop down the current as that would have increased the distance he would have had to row when he went home. He fancied that on such a warm day and at such a comparatively early hour, none of the Fearings were likely to be abroad, even if he were really in their grounds.
Under ordinary circumstances he would have been safe enough. It chanced, however, that Constance had been unusually restless all day, and it had occurred to her that if she could walk for an hour or more in her own company she would feel better. The place where George was sitting was actually in her grounds, and she, knowing it to be a pretty spot, where there was generally a breeze, had naturally turned towards it. He had not been where he was more than a quarter of an hour when she came upon him. He heard a light step upon the grass, and looking up, saw a figure all in white within five paces of him. He recognised Constance, and sprang to his feet, dropping his book and his cigar at the same moment. Constance started perceptibly, but did not draw back. George was the first to speak.
“I am afraid I am trespassing here,” he said quickly. “If so, pray forgive me.”
“You are welcome,” Constance answered, recovering herself. “It is one of the prettiest places on the river,” she added a moment later, resting her hands upon the long handle of her parasol and looking out at the sunny water.
There was nothing to be done but to face an interview. She could hardly turn her back on him and walk away without exchanging a few phrases, and he, on his part, could not jump into his boat and row for his life as though he were afraid of her. Of the two she was the one best pleased by the accidental meeting. To George’s surprise she seated herself upon the grass, against the root of one of the great old trees.
“Will you not sit down again?” she asked. “I disturbed you. I am so sorry.”
“Not at all,” said George, resuming his former attitude.
“Why do you say ‘not at all’ in that way? Of course I disturbed you, and I am disturbing you now, out of false politeness, because I am on my own ground and feel that you are a guest.”
She was a little confused in trying to be too natural, and George felt the false note, and was vaguely sorry for her. She was much less at her ease than he, and she showed it.
“I came here out of laziness,” he said. “It was a bore to pull that heavy boat any farther up, and I did not care to lose way by going farther down. I did not feel sure whether this spot was yours or not.”
Constance said nothing for a moment, but she tapped the toe of her shoe rather impatiently with her parasol.
“You would not have landed here if you had thought that there was a possibility of meeting me, would you?”
The question was rather an embarrassing one and was put with great directness. It seemed to George that the air was full of such questions just now. He considered that his answer might entail serious consequences and he hesitated several seconds before speaking.
“It seems to me,” he answered at last, “that although I have but little reason to seek a meeting with you, I have none whatever for avoiding one.”
“I hope not, indeed,” said Constance, in a low voice. “I hope you will never try to avoid me.”
“I have never done so.”
“I think you have,” said the young girl, not looking at him. “I think you have been unkind in never taking the trouble to come and see us during all these months. Why have you never crossed the river?”
“Did you expect that after what has passed between us I should continue to make regular visits?” George spoke earnestly, without raising or lowering his tone, and waited for an answer. It came with some hesitation.
“I thought that — after a time, perhaps, you would come now and then. I hoped so. I cannot see why you should not, I am sure. Are we enemies, you and I? Are we never to be friends again?”
“Friendship is a relation I do not understand,” George answered. “I think I said as much the other day when you mentioned the subject.”
“Yes. Somebody interrupted the conversation. I think,” said Constance, blushing a little, “that it was your cousin. I wanted to say several things to you then, but it was impossible before all those people. Since we have met by accident, will you listen to me? If you would rather not, please say so and I will go away. But please do not say anything unkind. I cannot bear it and I am very unhappy.”
There was something simple and pathetic in her appeal to his forbearance, which moved him a little.
“I will do whatever you wish,” he said, in a tone that reminded her of other days. He folded his hands upon one knee and prepared to listen, looking out at the broad river.
“Thank you. I have longed for a chance of saying it to you, ever since we last met in New York. It has always seemed very easy to say until now. Yes. It is about friendship. Last Sunday I was tryin
g to speak of it, and you were very unkind. You laughed at me.”
“I am sincerely sorry, if I did. I did not know that you were in earnest.”
“I was, and I am, very much in earnest. It is the only thing that can make my life worth living.”
“Friendship?” asked George quietly. He meant to keep his word and say nothing that could hurt her.
“Your friendship,” she answered. “Because I once made a great mistake, is there to be no forgiveness? Is it impossible that we should ever be good friends, see each other often and talk together as we did in the old days? Are you always to meet me with a stony face and hard, cruel words? Was my sin so great as that?”
“You have not committed any sin. You should not use such words.”
“Oh, do not find fault with the way I say it — it is so hard to say it at all! Try and understand me.”
“I do understand you, I think, but what you propose does not look possible to me. There has been that between us which makes it very hard to try such experiments. Do you not think so?”
“It may seem hard, but it is not impossible, if you will only try to think more kindly of me. Do you know what my mistake was — where I was most wrong? It was in not telling you — what I did — a year sooner. Let us be honest. Break through this veil there is between us, if it is only for to-day. What is formality to you or me? You loved me once — I could not love you. Is that a reason why you should treat me like a stranger when we meet, or why I should pick and choose my words with you, as though I feared you instead of — of being very fond of you? Think it all over, even if it pains you a little. You would have done anything for my sake once. If I had told you a year earlier — as I ought to have told you — that I could never love you enough to marry you, would you then have been so angry and have gone away from me as you did?”
“No. I would not,” said George. “But there was that difference — —”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 516