"Eh? No, do you really?" asks Sir Christopher, waking as if by magic from his distasteful reverie. "Then, my dear, I can recommend this. Very old. Very fruity. Just what your poor father used to like."
"Yes--your _poor_ father," says d.i.c.ky Browne _sotto voce_, feelingly and in a tone rich with delicate encouragement.
"Thank you. Half a gla.s.s please. I--I never take more," say Portia, hastily but sweetly, to Sir Christopher, who is bent on giving her a goodly share of what he believes to be her heart"s desire. Then she drinks it to please him, and smiles faintly behind her fan and tells herself d.i.c.ky Browne is the very oddest boy she has ever met in her life, and amusing, if a little troublesome.
Sir Christopher once roused, chatters on ceaselessly about the old days when he and Charles Vibart, her father, were boys together, and before pretty Clara Blount fell in love with Vibart and married him. And Portia listens dreamily, and gazing through the open window lets part of the music of the scene outside sink into his ancient tales, and feels a great longing rise within her to get up and go out into the mystic moonbeams, and bathe her tired hands and forehead in their cool rays.
Dulce and Roger are, as usual, quarreling in a deadly, if carefully-subdued fashion. d.i.c.ky Browne, as usual, too, is eating anything and everything that comes within his reach, and is apparently supremely happy. At this moment Portia"s longing having mastered her, she turns to Dulce and asks softly:
"What is that faint streak of white I see out there, through, and beyond, the branches?"
"Our lake," says Dulce, half turning her head in its direction.
"Our pond," says Roger, calmly.
"Our _lake_," repeats Dulcinea, firmly; at which Portia, feeling war to be once more imminent, says hastily--
"It looks quite lovely from this--so faint, so silvery."
"It shows charmingly when the moon is up, through that tangled ma.s.s of roses, far down there," says Dulce, with a gesture toward the tangle.
"I should like to go to it," says Portia, with unusual animation.
"So you shall, to-morrow."
"The moon will not be there to-morrow. I want to go now."
"Then so you shall," says Dulce, rising; "have you had enough strawberries? Yes? Will you not finish your wine? No? Come with me, then, and the boys may follow us when they can tear themselves away from their claret!" This, with a scornful glance at Roger, who returns it generously.
"I shall find it very easy to tear myself away to-night," he says, bent on revenge, and smiling tenderly at Portia.
"So!" says Dulce, with a shrug and a light laugh that reduces his attempt at scorn to a puerile effort unworthy of notice; "a compliment to _you_ Portia; and--the other thing to me. We thank you, Roger. Come."
She lays her hand on Portia"s, and draws her toward the window. Pa.s.sing by Uncle Christopher"s chair, she lets her fingers fall upon his shoulder, and wander across it, so as just to touch his neck, with a caressing movement. Then she steps out on the verandah, followed by Portia, and both girls running down the stone steps are soon lost to sight among the flowers.
CHAPTER IV.
""Tis not mine to forget. Yet can I not Remember what I would or what were well.
Memory plays tyrant with me, by a wand I cannot master!"
--G. MELLEN.
PAST the roses, past the fragrant mignonette they go, the moon"s soft radiance rendering still more fair the whiteness of their rounded arms.
The dew lies heavy on leaf and flower. Motionless stand the roses, and the drooping lilies, and the pansies, purple and yellow. "G.o.d Almighty,"
says Bacon, "first planted a garden; and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man!"
Here, now, in this particular garden, where all is so deeply tranquil, it seems as if life itself is at a standstill, and sin and suffering, joy and ambition, are alike unknown. A "pure pleasure" it is indeed to gaze upon it, and a great refreshment to any soul tired, or overwrought, or sorrowful.
The stars are coming out slowly one by one, studding brilliantly the pale, blue vault of heaven, while from a
"Thin fleecy cloud, Like a fair virgin veil"d, the moon looks out With such serene and sweet benignity That night unknits his gloomy brows and smiles."
Dulce, plucking some pale blossom, lifts it to her lips, and kisses it lightly. Portia, drawing a deep breath of intensest satisfaction, stands quite still, and letting her clasped hands fall loosely before her, contemplates the perfect scene in mute delight.
Presently, however, she shivers, a pa.s.sing breeze has cast a chill upon her.
"Ah! you are cold," says Dulce, anxiously; "how thoughtless I am; yes, you are quite pale."
"Am I?" says Portia. "It was the standing here, I fancy. India gave me bad habits, that, after three years, I find myself unable to conquer.
Every silly little wind strikes a chill to my heart."
"I shall get you a shawl in no time," says Dulcinea; "but keep walking up and down while I am away, so as to keep your blood warm."
"Your command shall be obeyed," says Portia, smiling, and then Dulce, turning, disappears quickly amongst the shadows, moving as swiftly as her light young feet can carry her.
Portia, left alone, prepares to keep her promise, and walks slowly along the graveled path once more. Turning a corner, again a glimpse of the distant lake comes to her. It is entrancing; calm as sleep, and pure as the moon above, whose image lies upon its breast.
Even as she looks the image fades--the "fleecy cloud" (jealous, perhaps, of the beauty of the divine Artemis, and of Portia"s open admiration of her) has floated over her again, and driven her, for a little moment, into positive obscurity.
The path grows dark, the lake loses its color. Portia, with a sigh, moves on, confessing to herself the mutability of all things, and pushing aside some low-lying branches of a heavily-scented shrub, finds herself face to face with a tall young man, who, apparently, is as lost in wonder at her appearance as she is at his!
She starts, perceptibly, and, only half-suppressing a faint exclamation of fear, shrinks backwards.
"I beg your pardon," says the stranger, hastily. "I am afraid I have frightened you. But, really, it was all the fault of the moon."
His voice is rea.s.suring, and Portia, drawing her breath more freely, feels just a little ashamed of her momentary terror.
"I am not frightened now," she says, with an upward glance, trying to read, through the darkness, the face of him she addresses. The clouds are scurrying swiftly across the sky, and now the moon shines forth again triumphant, and all things grow clearer. She can see that he is tall, dark, handsome, with a strange expression round his mouth that is surely more acquired than natural, as it does not suit his other features at all, and may be termed hard and reckless, and almost defiant. His jaw is exquisitely turned. In his eyes is a settled melancholy--altogether his face betrays strong emotions, severely repressed, and is half-morbid and wholly sad, and, when all is said, more attractive than forbidding.
Portia, gazing at him with interest, tells herself that years of mental suffering could alone have produced the hard lines round the lips and the weariness in the eyes. She has no time for further speculation, however, and goes on quickly: "It was more than foolish of me; but I quite forgot, I"--with some uncertainty--"should have remembered."
"What do you forget? and what should you have remembered?"
"I forgot that burglars do not, as a rule, I suppose, go about in evening clothes; and I should have remembered"--with a smile--"that there was yet another cousin to whom I had not been introduced."
"Yes; I am Fabian Blount," he says indifferently. He does not return her smile. Almost he gives her the impression that at this moment he would gladly have subst.i.tuted another name for his own.
"Ah! you are Fabian," she says, half-puzzled by his manner.
"If you will take my word for it." His tone is even more strange as he says this, and now he _does_ smile, but disagreeably.
Portia colors faintly.
"You have not asked me my name?" she says quietly. "I am Portia."