Oh! I could play the woman with mine eyes."--_Macbeth._
"To tell him herself" has some strange attraction for Clarissa. To hear face to face, what this her oldest friend will say to her engagement with Horace is a matter of great anxiety to her. She will know at once by his eyes and smile whether he approves or disapproves her choice.
Driving along the road to Scrope, behind her pretty ponies, "Cakes"
and "Ale," with her little rough Irish terrier, "Secretary Bill,"
sitting bolt upright beside her, as solemn as half a dozen judges, she wonders anxiously how she shall begin to tell James about it.
She hopes to goodness he won"t be in his ultra-grave mood, that, as a rule, leads up to his finding fault with everything, and picking things to pieces, and generally condemning the sound judgment of others. (As a rule, Clarissa is a little unfair in her secret comments on James Scrope"s character.) It will be so much better if she can only come upon him out of doors, in his homeliest mood, with a cigar between his lips, or his pipe. Yes, his pipe will be even better. Men are even more genial with a pipe than with the goodliest habana.
Well, of course, if he is the great friend he _professes_ to be,--heavy emphasis on the verb, and a little flick on the whip on "Cakes"s" quarters, which the spirited but docile creature resents bitterly,--he must be glad at the thought that she is not going to leave the country,--is, in fact, very likely to spend most of her time still in Pullingham.
Not all of it, of course. Horace has duties, and though in her secret soul she detests town life, still there is a joy In the thought that she will be with him, helping him, encouraging him in his work, rejoicing in his successes, sympathyzing with his fai----, but no, of course there will be no failures! How stupid of her to think of that, when he is so clever, so learned, so----
Yet it would be sweet, too, to have him fail once or twice (just a little, insignificant, not-worth-speaking-about sort of a defeat), if only to let him see how she could love him even the more for it.
She blushes, and smiles to herself, and, turning suddenly, bestows a most unexpected caress upon "Secretary Bill," who wags his short tail in return--that is, what they left him of it--lovingly, if somewhat anxiously, and glances at her sideways out of his wonderful eyes, as though desirous of a.s.suring himself of her sanity.
Oh, yes, of course James will be delighted. And he will tell her so with the gentle smile that so lights up his face, and he will take her hand, and say he is so glad, so pleased, and----
With a sharp pang she remembers how her father was neither pleased nor glad when she confided her secret to him. He had been, indeed, distressed and confounded. He had certainly tried his hardest to conceal from her these facts, but she had seen them all the same. She could not be deceived where her father was concerned. He had felt unmistakable regret----"Be quiet, Bill! You sha"n"t come out driving again if you can"t sit still! What a bore a dog is sometimes!"
Well, after all, he is her father. It is only natural he should dislike the thought of parting from her. She thinks, with an instant softening of her heart, of how necessary she has become to him, ever since her final return home. Before that he had been dull and _distrait_; now he is bright and cheerful, if still rather too devoted to his books to be quite good for him.
He might, indeed, be forgiven for regarding the man who should take her from him as an enemy. But Jim is different; he is a mere friend,--a dear and valued one, it is true, but still only a friend,--a being utterly independent of her, who can be perfectly happy without her, and therefore, of course, unprejudiced.
He will, she feels sure, say everything kind and sweet to her, and wish her joy sincerely.
James, too, is very sensible, and will see the good points in Horace.
He evidently likes him; at least, they have always appeared excellent friends when together. Dorian, of course, is the general favorite,--she acknowledges that,--just because he is a little more open, more outspoken perhaps,--easier to understand; whereas, she firmly believes, she alone of all the world is capable of fully appreciating the innate goodness of Horace!
Here she turns in the huge gateway of Scrope; and the terrier, growing excited, gives way to a sharp bark, and the ponies swing merrily down the avenue; and just before she comes to the hall door her heart fails her, and something within her--that something that never errs--tells her that James Scrope will not betray any pleasure at her tidings.
Before she quite reaches the hall door, a groom comes from a side-walk, and, seeing him, Clarissa pulls up the ponies sharply, and asks the man,--
"Is Sir James at home?"
"Yes, miss; he is in the stables, I think; leastways, he was half an hour agone. Shall I tell him you are here?"
"No, thank you. I shall go and find him myself."
See flings her reins to her own groom, and, with Bill trotting at her heels, goes round to the yard, glad, at least, that her first hope is fulfilled,--that he is out of doors.
As she goes through the big portals into the ivied yard, she sees before her one of the stablemen on his knees, supporting in his arms an injured puppy: with all a woman"s tenderness he is examining the whining little brute"s soft, yellow paw, as it hangs mournfully downwards.
Sir James, with a pipe in his mouth,--this latter fact Clarissa hails with rapture,--is also bending anxiously over the dog, and is so absorbed in his contemplation of it as not to notice Clarissa"s approach until she is close beside him.
"What is the matter with the poor little thing?" she asks, earnestly, gazing with deep pity at the poor puppy, that whines dismally and glances up at her with the peculiarly tearful appealing expression that belongs to setters.
"A knock of a stone, miss, nayther more nor less," exclaims the man, angrily. "That"s the honest truth, Sir James, you take my word for"t.
Some o" them rascally boys as is ever and allus about this "ere yard, and spends their lives shyin" stones at every blessed sign they sets their two eyes on, has done this. "Ere"s one o" the best pups o" the season a"most ruined, and no satisfaction for it. It"s a meracle if he comes round (quiet there, my beauty, and easy there now, I tell ye), and n.o.body does anything."
The old man stops, and regards his master reprovingly, nay, almost contemptuously.
"I really don"t see why you should think it was the boys, Joe?" says Sir James, meekly.
""Twarn"t anythin" else, anyway," persists Joe, doggedly.
"Poor little fellow!--dear fellow!" murmurs Miss Peyton, caressingly, to the great soft setter pup, patting its head lovingly, as it barks madly, and makes frantic efforts to get from Joe"s arms to hers, while Bill shrieks in concert, being filled with an overwhelming amount of sympathy.
"Better leave him to me, miss," says Joe, regarding the injured innocent with a parent"s eye. "He knows me. I"ll treat him proper,"
raising his old honest weather-beaten face to Clarissa, in a solemn rea.s.suring manner, "you be bound. Yet them pups" (disgustedly) "is like children, allus ungrateful. For the sake o" your handsome face, now, he"d go to you if he could, forgetful of all my kindness to him.
Well, "tis the way o" the world, I believe," winds up old Joe, rising from his knees,--cheered, perhaps, by the thought that his favorite pup, if only following the common dictates of animals, is no worse than all others.
He grumbles something else in an undertone, and finally carries off the puppy to his kennel.
"I am too amazed for speech," says Sir James, rising also to his feet, and contemplating Clarissa with admiration. "That man," pointing to Joe"s retiring figure, "has been in my father"s service, and in mine, for fifty years, and never before did I hear a civil word from his lips. I think he said your face was handsome, just now?--or was I deceived?"
"I like Joe," says Miss Peyton, elevating her rounded chin: "I downright esteem him. He knows where beauty lies."
"How he differs from the rest of the world!" says Scrope, not looking at her.
"Does he? That is unkind, I think. Why," says Clarissa, with a soft laugh, full of mischief, "should any one be blind to the claims of beauty?"
"Why, indeed? It is, as I have been told, "a joy forever." No one nowadays disputes anything they are told, do they?"
"Don"t be cynical, Jim," says Miss Peyton, softly. What an awful thing it will be if, now when her story is absolutely upon her lips, he relapses into his unsympathetic mood!
"Well, I won"t, then," says Scrope, amiably, which much relieves her.
And then he looks lovingly at his pipe, which he has held (as in duty bound) behind his back ever since her arrival, and sighs heavily, and proceeds to knock the ashes out of it.
"Oh, don"t do that," says Clarissa, entreatingly. "I really wish you wouldn"t!" (This is the strict truth.) "You know you are dying for a smoke, and I--I perfectly love the smell of tobacco. There is, therefore, no reason why you should deny yourself."
"Are you really quite sure?" says Scrope, politely and hopefully.
"Quite,--utterly. Put it in your mouth again. And--do you mind?"--with a swift glance upwards, from under her soft plush hat,--"I want you to come for a little walk with me."
"To the end of the world, with _you_, would be a short walk," says Scrope, with a half laugh, but a ring in his tone that, to a woman heart-whole and unoccupied with thoughts of another man, must have meant much. "Command me, madam."
"I have something very--very--_very_ important to tell you," says Miss Peyton, earnestly. This time she looks at her long black gloves, not at him, and makes a desperate effort to b.u.t.ton an already obedient little bit of ivory.
They have turned into the orchard, now bereft of blossom, and are strolling carelessly along one of its side-paths. The earth is looking brown, the trees bare; for Autumn--greedy season--has stretched its hand "to reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold."
"Are you listening to me?" asks she, presently, seeing he makes no response to her first move.
"Intently." He has not the very faintest idea of her meaning, so speaks in a tone light and half amused, that leads her to betray her secret sooner than otherwise she might have done. "Is it an honest mystery," he says, carelessly, "or a common ghost story, or a state secret? Break it to me gently."
"There is nothing to break," says Clarissa, softly. Then she looks down at the strawberry borders at her side,--now brown and aged,--and then says, in a very low tone, "I am going to be married!"