Читать книгу: «Leonore Stubbs», страница 14

"Indeed? There is a good deal of influenza about;" replied Maud carelessly. Before anyone could rejoin she changed the subject. "They tell us the weather look-out is favourable, and we ought to have a good passage." She never once looked at Leo, nor spoke to her.

And she rose to go as soon as decency permitted. But though a good deal was said about future home-comings, and Val declared that he for one would never rest till he was back in Old England again, there was a general feeling that the impending separation would prove if not absolutely final, at least of long duration. Maud was evidently longing to be off. Her voice as she hurried to the door was sharp and impatient. She could scarcely wait for Val to make his adieux properly, and sprang into the hansom while he was still in the hall.

Then she leaned forward and beckoned, and Leo ran out. Leo was yearning for one little word, one kind look to prove her dreadful fears unfounded, but, "It was not you I wanted," said Maud, rearing her chin; "send my husband to me."

She turned her face aside, and Leonore, like Paul, cried within herself, "She knows".

CHAPTER XVIII.
"A TURN OF THE WHEEL."

"Hoots, it's in the blood," said Dr. Craig, briefly.

An old friend had come to visit him, and started the topic which had ceased to be a nine days' wonder in the neighbourhood.

"There's a wild strain in the Bolderos somewhere," continued the doctor, crossing his legs, and settling down for a chat. "Those lassies have had a gay lady among their forebears at some time or other, for they didn't get their pranks from old Brown-boots. To do Brown-boots justice, he was respectable—I'm thinking it was his one virtue. Proud as Lucifer, and vain as a peacock—they say you can't be both, but he was—and so was Maud—and it was just her vanity that got the whip hand of her pride at the last. It must have been," musing; "nothing else could account for her throwing over a nice fellow like Foster, and a good match too, for poor loony Val without a sixpence. She didn't know he hadn't a sixpence, mind you; she meant to come back and queen it at Claymount,—where I doubt not she would soon have ruled the roost, if she hadn't had the ill-luck to kill the old lady instead. She wanted to show she had two strings to her bow, d'ye see?" He smoked and nodded, then started afresh:—

"Aye, aye, and there was Leonore—Leonore Stubbs—the widow. Her that played the mischief with that poor lad of mine, Tommy Andrews, and lost me the best assistant I ever had. I tried to get Tommy back after the Bolderos left, but no; he scunnered the place; she had just eaten the heart out of him, Leonore had. My word, she was a jaunty bit creature. I fair weakened to her myself, when she would stand by the road-side looking up at me in the gig, with those big, laughing eyes of hers—and her wee bit moothie, it was the prettiest bit thing—though mind you, I ran her down to Tommy. Poor Tommy!"

"He wouldn't take a telling," resumed the speaker, after a pause. "They never will, you know—those dour, close, machine-like lads; they'll make no resistance; they'll let you talk and talk and think you've convinced them—and it just rolls like water off a duck's back. Tommy garred me believe it was all over and done with. He went about his work, and kept out of little pussycat's way, and then, phew! all at once the murder was out! It was simply bottled up; and one fine day—I don't know what happened, for cart-ropes wouldn't drag it out of him—but something did, and he came in, looking battle and murder and sudden death. He was off at crack of dawn,—and that was just a few days before Maud's fine elopement took place. We had never had such an excitement before in these humdrum parts, and we never shall again."

To all of this the friend, also a Scot, hearkened without emitting a syllable.

When, however, his ear detected the accents of finality, he shook the ashes from his pipe and opened his lips: "I fell in with the rejected gentleman the other day".

"Foster? No? Did you? Did you really? How was that?" In an instant the doctor was on the alert.

"I was on my holiday, doing a bit of fishing in an out-of-the-way part of Sutherland, and there were only two or three of us in the hotel. Foster was one."

"A tall, thin man, with a lantern-jawed face?"

"That's him. One of the others had got wind of this tale, and told me. We were talking of you, I fancy; and he had been down here a whiley ago, when the affair was fresh."

"What was Foster doing there?"

"Fishing like the rest of us—but always by himself. He wasn't uncivil, only unsociable. I had a walk with him one day, and he talked about India. A good part of his life had been spent in India, and he could tell a lot about it, but when the talk came round home, he shut up like a knife, and I kind of jaloused there was something wrong. That was before I knew what it was."

"He looked—how did he look?"

"How? I can't tell you how. He just looked. That was enough for me."

"Well, you saw the sort of chap he was, just the one to take a woman's fancy,—and to think that Maud Boldero could be so blind daft as to throw him over for that poor Val, whom she could have picked up at any time!"

"What has become of the others? Do you ever hear anything of them?"

"Sybil has married. She married pretty quickly after they left. A London man; a barrister, I think. Sybil is good-looking enough, they are all good-looking; though Maud's the pick of the bunch. Stop a bit, I'm not sure that the little rascal Leonore—but no, no; she hadn't the air, the style; it was just a way she had,—eh, she was a bit beguiling thing. There's that new boy of mine, he has twice the go that poor Tommy had, though nothing like the brains—but he's all over the place among the lasses, and when I hear him whistling here and whistling there, with his nose in at every open door, thinks I to myself, 'Thank the Lord, Leonore Stubbs is out of Jock's way'."

Leonore was out of everybody's way, it seemed,—or it might have been that she had ceased to be beguiling. People who met her during the next year of her life, found a quiet young girl—she still looked very young—with rather an interesting countenance; but if drawn thereby to prosecute her acquaintance, they tried to engage her in their pursuits and pleasures, they were disappointed. She did not respond to buoyant propositions; games and pastimes did not attract her; they thought she did not know how to flirt.

In short she was dull, and rather tiresomely devoted to her half-sister, whom no one thought of inviting to join in youthful escapades—so after a time Leo was not invited either.

This was a trouble to Sue, and one day she made a suggestion. Was there any use in remaining in London, if the life there was not in accordance with either of their tastes? If Leo no longer cared for society—though she owned she thought that a pity at her age—and here the speaker paused.

"I don't—at present," owned Leo, frankly. "I may again—some time,"—but to herself she wondered, would that some time ever come?

Then news came from America, sad news, which put all other thoughts aside for the moment. A child had been born, but its birth had cost the mother her life, and the next cable announced that poor Val had lost his little son also. He was begged to return home, and assured of welcome and maintenance there,—but to the surprise of all replied evasively. He would see how matters were by-and-by; he could not bring himself to move just yet.

The next letter expatiated on the wonderful beauty and climate of California, and the kindness and hospitality of friends, who had carried him off for a trip, to distract his thoughts.

Again another letter was full of nothing but these friends. Poor simple Val had not the art of concealment, and long before he knew himself, the sisters knew what to expect. He had been "most awfully sad and lonely," and he "would never forget Maud,"—but he had found a dear girl who reminded him of her, and (here the pen had raced) by the time dear Sue and Leo received the letter, he would be married to the richest heiress in California. A newspaper followed, announcing that the ceremony had actually taken place.

"So we need not go out to Val," said Leo, with a smile.

She and Sue were wandering hither and thither with no particular reason for being anywhere, and it had been in contemplation to cross the Atlantic. Sue's investments had prospered of late, and there would have been no difficulty about funds—yet each sister was conscious of a sense of relief when the expedition was abandoned. Sue was timorous and a bad traveller,—while Leo, from whom the suggestion had emanated, no sooner found it taking shape than she repented. What was she going for? What could the new country yield that the old could not? Could it heal her sore heart? Could it banish remembrance? Could it give her news of Paul? Paul, who had vanished from the face of the earth?

Rather she would be turning her back upon any possibility of either hearing of or seeing him again; and though, of course, she could not wish that they should meet, and in the natural sequence of events, they were most unlikely to meet, it would be something only to—oh, anything would be better than that bitter blank, that desolation of ignorance which was so impenetrable, so insurmountable.

Sue knew now about Paul. When Maud died there was no further reason for concealment, and albeit the shock was great, it was a consolation to both sisters to drop the veil between them.

"But you do understand, don't you, that he never—never even when I almost forced it from him, said that it was I?" murmured Leo. "I knew it; I felt it; but he did not, he would not say it. Oh, I did so long for him to say it just once—but he never did. Sue, you know that little old jug I have upstairs?" suddenly she broke off, as it appeared inconsequently.

"Little old jug?" Sue reflected, but could not remember. And she wondered somewhat. What could "a little old jug" have to do with the present conversation?

"The one with the French soldier's motto. It used to be on the anteroom mantelpiece at Boldero. Oh, you must remember it, Sue."

"We had so much china, dear–"

"But this was the one I asked you to give me for my own—however, listen. The motto was:—

 
"Mon âme â Dieu,
Ma vie au Roi,
Mon coeur aux Dames,
L'honneur pour moi."
 

"Paul noticed it one day, and turned round and said, 'That's splendid,'—and read it again. That was when he first came. And afterwards, when things were getting very bad, I came upon him standing in front of the mantelpiece, staring at the jug. I rather liked it myself, but I didn't see it as he did, for on that dreadful day," she looked down, even when it was only Sue, she looked down—"when Paul saved me from myself–"

"When you were too ill to know what you were doing, darling."

"He looked at me and said with a sort of smile, 'L'honneur pour moi.' Sue?"

Sue looked attention.

"You know how poor Maud bored us—I mean how she insisted on Paul's religion as if it were something which gave him a sort of cachet—something quite over our heads?—and how father—oh, Sue, I must say it—do you remember how father once shut her up by declaring that Paul was too much of a gentleman to introduce unpleasant subjects? It was only father's way, you know. He didn't mean any harm, and I do think, don't you, that father was changed a little, that he was different those last few weeks? He said to me once: 'There's more in it than you think'. Anyway, Sue, he did like and admire Paul."

"Yes—yes, he did."

"Now I want to say something," Leo changed the subject, which each felt to be a sad one. "Sue, what really—what I shall never forget, is, that when the worst moment of all came, when Paul and I were together, all alone, and I was ready—oh, I was ready to fall into his arms if he had held out his little finger—he didn't hold it. He stood there like a statue. And I know, I know what held him back. If all the world had called Paul a good man, and he had preached goodness from morning to night, it wouldn't have had the least effect, but when he said 'L'honneur pour moi'"—her tears overflowed, and Sue wept likewise....

They often wondered how much and how little had been suspected by Maud, inducing her own line of action. In the light of her subsequent attitude it seemed more than probable that she had either learnt or divined that all was not as it appeared, but so cleverly had she kept up a show of being in good spirits up to the close of the day which was to Leo like the day of judgment, that nothing could be certain.

Sue could recall that after Leo had been seen to bed, obviously ill, on her return to the house before dinner, Maud had expressed a sort of satisfaction, pointing out that this accounted for the peculiarities of her sister's behaviour throughout the day. "Really one is glad to know it was that," she had exclaimed more than once.

She had also rallied Paul for his indifference on the subject. It appeared he had been out with Leo, and on such a raw evening he might have seen that it was rash and foolish of her not to keep within doors. "But I suppose you thought as it wasn't me——?" she had wound up; and Sue, conscious that Sybil was watching also, owned that the triumphant smile by which the words were accompanied, made her strangely uncomfortable.

"And the next morning she pored over a new set of illustrated papers," continued she; "it is odd that I should remember it all so clearly, but I do. What happened afterwards stamped it on my memory, no doubt. I racked my brains to think if Paul could have offended her in any way, and if a sudden angry impulse—you know poor Maud was apt to get angry, and to be very implacable too—but they seemed quite as friendly as usual. We had grown to think, Sybil and I, that Paul had not—not perhaps found Maud all that he expected, and that sometimes he looked a little grave after they had been together. Sybil spoke to me about it, but we kept it to ourselves, as we fancied you saw nothing."

"Well?" said Leo, slowly. "Well?" She was drinking in every word.

"The next evening—the evening you were in bed—stop, let me consider: no, I don't think there was any palpable difference; nothing to attract attention, of that I am sure. Maud had great command over herself. She told us as if it were an ordinary piece of news, that she had had a long visit from Val—but whether she intended Paul to take any notice of that, or not, I cannot tell. I cannot tell anything about that evening, because my own thoughts were rather taken up with you, and I was up in your room a good deal, you may remember?"

Yes, Leo remembered. Remembered also how she tried every means to get rid of the kindly, patient intruder, who tortured her by her presence and anxiety. "I never thought I should be able to tell you the truth, Sue. And oh, I was so miserable, I was in hell–"

"Darling Leo, don't; don't say that. It is not quite right, you know."

"Yet we talk of being in heaven, why is the other place worse?"

Sue however could not tell why, and only shook her head gently.

"Well, then, I was, you know where," resumed Leo, with a nod; "and what's more, I had been there for ages. I was wicked for quite a long time before that, you know;" and she leaned her elbows on Sue's lap, and looked up into her face. "It began soon after I came home. I did so hate being a widow—oh, poor Godfrey! Sue, it had nothing to do with Godfrey; it was the awful clothes, and the being shut up in dark corners–"

"Dark corners, Leo?"

"That was what it seemed like to me. I was hustled out of the way when people came, and whatever happened, it didn't happen for me. Sometimes I could hardly believe it was me; I used to pinch myself and say 'You horrid little black thing, who are you? Are you "Leonore," or "Leonore Stubbs"?—because they are two quite different people. Leonore is a harmless little tom-fool—but Leonore Stubbs is an odious, artificial creature, a sham all round.' And then, Sue, something, never mind what, started a new idea, I felt that I had never really been in love, nor had any one really been in love with me. Godfrey and I had just been fond of each other, and I couldn't help—yes, I could have helped, but I didn't—trying to get up the real thing. I longed for it, I craved for it—and I made several shots for it. Oh, I am ashamed,"—and she hid her face.

"My poor little Leo!"

"Your poor little Leo is a mighty bad lot. However, it wasn't till Paul came that she was—no, I don't think that she really was to blame, I don't indeed;" said Leo, earnestly. "Because directly she suspected—I mean directly she began to feel—it, she was frightened to death. She was in a vile temper all the time, but she kept her secret, and Paul does not know it yet. Oh, Sue, do you think, do you think he does?" she broke off suddenly.

"No, dear, how should he?"

"I hoped perhaps he might. Of course I don't want him to, but still if he did–"

"You yourself said he never gave you to understand he had any feeling for you."

"But I didn't say he might not have—understood that I had any feeling for him."

"Would you wish it, Leo?"

"No."

But after a long pause the face was turned up again. "Yes."

Still nothing was heard of Paul, and the sisters grew to talk of him less and less. They laid plans for their future irrespective of his existence, they visited Sybil, who had now a home on the south coast, her husband having become a County Court judge; and they flitted quietly up and down the various highways and byeways of rural England.

One April they found themselves in a land of hills, and lakes, and green, leafy foregrounds.

"Let us stay here for a while," said Sue.

Beautiful scenery always appealed to Sue, and a good hotel was not to be despised. The lapping of the waters of the lake beneath her window was pleasant, even when the wind sent tiny wavelets running along the shore in a sort of mock animosity—and when the surface was calm as a mirror, she thought it was Paradise.

"It really is very nice," said Leo. "I have been out exploring. There is a lovely glen about a mile off, with woods and a stream—a little splashing stream—and the banks are simply covered with blue-bells. I should have picked some, but the path looked suspiciously well cared for, and there were little gates, as if it belonged to some big place; to tell the truth, I had an inkling I was trespassing, though there were no boards up. It would have been awkward to have been met by the owner, with my hands full of blue-bells. However, I mean to go again to-morrow, and spy out the land. If it's safe, you shall come."

"Could I walk so far?"

"You can have a little carriage, and leave it at the gate. You could not get it up the valley, as there is only a footpath, but I think you could walk that part. I can't tell you how delightful it was,—the sunlight speckling through the trees, and the cuckoos answering each other across the brook;—I could have stayed forever, but I remembered you and flew home."

She flew back, however, the following evening. It was an equally calm, bright evening, after a day of heat and growth,—and buds that had been fast closed at dawn, had burst on every side. Tassels hung from the larches, giving forth their resinous fragrance; and the pink buds of young oaks, and sprays of waving yellow broom mingled with the many shades of green above and beneath.

"What a heavenly spot!" sighed Leonore, enraptured. She could not resist wandering on and on; the woods at Boldero were nothing to this fairy dell, and at every tinkling waterfall, she was down the thymy bank overhanging it.

But she noted anew that she was neither preceded nor followed by other invaders. She also experienced a little thrill of dismay at seeing through a vista—a long vista, it is true—a country house towards which a byepath led direct. Oh, well, she must risk it; if met—? She started and the courage of a moment before began to ebb, for something certainly moved behind the trees, and now she distinctly saw a figure on the path in front.

To put a bold face upon it when no one challenged the face was easy, but it was another matter to—her pulses beat a little faster.

Conning an apology, and prepared to offer it with the best grace she could muster, she walked slowly forward, with downcast eyes,—then, oh, what?—oh, who was this? She stood face to face with—Paul.

Often and often afterwards she wondered how she felt, how she looked and what she did at that supreme moment? In the retrospect it was all a mist—a blurred canvas—a confused phantasm.

"Paul!"

"Leonore!"

An outcry—then a terrible silence; agitation on his part, trepidation on hers—each alike stupefied, breathless.

And Leonore's heart sank, and her eyelids fell.

Was this all? Was this the end? Oh, misery, misery.

Was it amazement alone which had first forced her name from his lips, and then shut them fast? Was he shocked, perhaps sore that a thing had happened which he had resolved should never happen? Was it pain, disgust, horror, she heard in that single involuntary utterance?

Ah, then, she knew what she must do.

Sick disappointment sent a shiver through her frame, and all at once she felt her limbs totter.

But to fall? To betray emotions which were not his emotions? To be weak where he was bold and strong? No, a thousand times, no; she drew herself upright and made a passionate effort.

"Paul, I am—so sorry. I did not know, I never dreamt—of this. Indeed, indeed I never did. Believe me, oh, do believe me, Paul."

"Believe you, Leo? I do not understand?" He gazed at her, bewildered, then took a step forward, and she felt him trying to take her hand. She drew it back hurriedly.

"Wait. Wait a moment. Let me speak. We did not know you were here, we did not indeed. We have not known anything of you, for a long, long time. It was only yesterday we, Sue and I, came to this place; and we can go away again to-morrow—or to-night. We would not trouble you, Paul."

"Trouble me?" He laughed, a curious laugh, bitter and sweet, scornful and surpassingly tender. It might have enlightened her, but she was past listening.

"You will believe, Paul, that we—that to annoy you, to distress you,—oh, not for worlds, not for worlds. We will go to-night." And she turned as though to fly on the spot, but he caught her arm.

"Leo?"

She was faintly trying to free herself. The arm went further and held her fast.

"Can you think," said a voice in her ear, "can you suppose that the sight of you, you who have been with me night and day in dreams, and thoughts, and hopes, and fears, that this could—what did you call it?—'annoy' me? Leo, my own, my beloved, don't you, can't you see—now?"

"Paul!"

"You whom I might not love, and yet could not but love? Listen. You say you had lost sight of me—that was because I dared not come to you. I dared not trust myself—perhaps, may I say it?—I could not trust either of us. We had once—and that must never happen again. You are listening? My darling, how you tremble, why do you tremble so, Leo? There is nothing to fear now. Let me go on, and you will see. It was only the other day I learned the tidings that set me free. You see I had no means of knowing; and then when I did hear, I could not—it would have been horrible to be in haste to take advantage of it. So, though life opened anew, I meant to wait quietly till the time came when perhaps I might hope to prevail—but, oh, to think of this!"

And then at last she ventured to raise her eyes, and what did those eyes behold? It was the look—the look—on the face of Paul!

And now her head was on his breast, and his kisses on her cheek. "Cruel doubts tortured me often," he whispered, "for how could I tell what changes time might not have wrought? It had left my love untouched, but what right had I to expect that you might not have lost the feeling you had—yes, I did know you once had for me? Leo, darling, can you think how terrible it was to know that, and have to affect ignorance? To have every beat of my heart go out towards you, and to feign indifference? To meet your poor, piteous eyes, and keep the answer to their appeal out of mine? Not that you meant to show, dear; oh, no, you never dreamed your secret was revealed—and it was not, to others,—but to me–"

"Oh, Paul! Oh, Paul!"

"Hush, you were not to blame. It was no fault of yours, you poor, brave, little thing. You played your part nobly–"

"Oh, no—oh, no."

"You may think not, but I know you did. I know, for I shared the struggle. There was once," he paused and considered, "there was that day when we were together in the green-house. You were cold and careful at first, but gradually the mask wore off and—and mine too slipped. We were happy, too happy. I think we both knew it. We did not look at each other as we came away, but I gave you a red vine leaf, and I saw that you did not put it with the others, even with those I had picked for you before."

"I have it now, Paul."

"After that, I began to suspect myself. I had hardly done so before, for there was only a vague sense of disappointment, and dissatisfaction with things as they were. Your sister was not—but no matter. I reasoned myself out of this over and over again. I argued that I was not well, was not fully recovered from my late attack of fever—in short, that I was hipped, and would certainly take a more cheerful view of things as my strength came back. I really had been rather bad, you know—and was low and easily depressed. But what might have opened my eyes to the truth was that all depression vanished, and all inertia ceased, directly you appeared,—and that was after I had ceased to hear your gay little laugh and merry voice. For though you soon grew grave as myself, my heart would jump when you came into the room, or when I came upon you in some distant corner, not knowing you were there."

"Paul, Paul, my heart jumped too."

He drew her closer—ah, she was very close now. "I scarcely ever spoke to you, do you remember? We avoided each other; and I cannot even now imagine how I came to know you so well,"—and so on, and so on....

Presently Leo had a question to ask. Where had he been during those three blank days when no communications from Boldero Abbey reached him? He had disposed of them in a fashion that satisfied others, but not her.

"No, you were too clear-sighted. I knew that," said he. "But what could I do? I could not tell the truth, which was that I never went near the place whose address I gave Maud! My one desire was to be out of range of her letters; for Leonore—I had—I cannot tell how, a sort of dreadful certainty that she would recall me. For those three days I wandered about,—I went down to a wild, little, sea place, and fought the demon within. Then because I simply felt weaker, I fancied soul as well as body brought into subjection. You all told me I looked bad when I returned—now you know why."

But though they thus skirted round and round one dread remembrance which was—how could it help being?—in both their minds, each shrank from approaching a subject avoided by the other; until at length Leonore, tremulous but resolute, realised that it was for her, not him, to speak.

"Paul, dear Paul, I don't want to leave anything unsaid. Paul, on that worst day of all," she hesitated, and his hand pressed the little hand within it. "Dear Paul," she whispered, "I did not know what I was doing; indeed, indeed I did not. Something in my head seemed to have snapped, and I felt so strange—I never felt like it before. And it was not only about you that I was so unutterably wretched, there was—there was—something else."

"Something else?"

"A man told me the day before that I had broken his heart,—oh, Paul, don't start. He was not a man I could ever have given a thought to. He was not one I should ever have spoken to—in that way. Only our village doctor's assistant, and the rest of us hardly knew that he existed,—but I, I was so unhappy, even before you came to Boldero, that I let myself go,—that is, I let the poor silly creature run up a kind of friendship with me. That was all, Paul; truthfully it was—on my part. I amused myself with him—a little; and then—and then–"

"What was fun to you was death to him?"

"It had no right to be," said Leo, with dignity. "It never went any length; we only just met each other once or twice, and–"

"Flirted?"

"Not even that. I let him adore," she laughed, but shamefacedly—"and he mistook."

"I see."

"Paul, dear, I am not excusing myself; only I do not think, I do not think that wretched Tommy Andrews ought ever to have presumed—it was frightful, it was untrue what he said. I did not break his disgusting heart–"

"Oh, Leo!" Paul tried not to laugh.

"But he made me think I had. He accused me of it, and I was in such a state at the time that I believed him, and it drove me wild. It was the last straw, the finishing touch. I seemed not only to have made a mess of my own poor life, but of another's—and while I was very angry and contemptuous, I was enraged with myself for being so. I stormed and raved when I was alone, and vowed to end it all,—but I know now that I—Sue says I was not accountable, Paul,—" wistfully.

"Sue is right, dearest. Your nerves were altogether unstrung. You were overstrained and off your balance for the time being."

"Had—had you noticed anything, Paul?"

"Everything. It was that which made me fear—and follow you."

"At night I hardly slept at all. And, I couldn't eat; I loathed food. I may tell you all this, mayn't I? It just kills me to keep things to myself; doing that was what, I think, began it all."

"You shall tell me everything," said he.

"Well, but Paul," after an interlude, "there is still a mystery; what are you doing here? And was it not the strangest thing our meeting here?"

He smiled. "Not so very strange, seeing that this is my usual walk about this hour."

"Your—what did you say?—your 'usual' walk?"

"Look, Leo." He drew her along to the opening of the vista she had passed before, and pointed to the mansion beyond, now glistening in the setting sun. "That is my home—and yours."