Doctor Cupid: A Novel
always blamed me for not speaking truth; learn your own lesson: tell me
the truth. Is it all over--all at an end?'
She has withdrawn herself again from him, and now stands holding him at
arm's length, a hand upon each shoulder, her dimmed eyes fixed upon his
face, searching for the least sign of faltering or evasion upon it. But
she finds none.
'You know,' he answers, in a low quiet voice, whose gentleness is the
cover for a bottomless depression, 'that there will never be an end to
it until you make one.'
Something in his tone dries her tears.
'Then why do you want to stay here?' asks she, her voice still shaking
from her late gust of passion.
He is silent. Her words find an echo in his own heart. Why indeed? Seen
in the hell-light of his renewed bondage, his plan for that one little
halcyon week ahead seems to him to have been a monstrosity of folly and
unreason. How could he, for even a moment, have entertained it?
Betty has sat down again upon the sofa; and wiping rather viciously the
eyes in which an ireful light is flashing, she says softly, as if she
were saying something rather pleasant:
'I am sure you would not wish to hurt _her_, or blight _her_ young
affections; and yet it seems to me that you are on the high-road to do
both.'
He writhes, but he could not speak, if flaying alive were to be the
penalty of his dumbness.
'I do not think'--still in that silky key--'that you have any right to
turn the poor thing's head with attentions such as she has probably
never received before.'
At that he laughs out loud, and insultingly:
'Turn her head! Ha! ha!'
'It is very amusing, no doubt,' rejoins Betty, her false suavity giving
way to a most real fury, breast heaving, and colour rising, 'and such
hilarity becomes you extremely; but, as she has probably never seen any
one more attractive than the village apothecary, it would be no great
excess of coxcombry on your part to suppose that you might be his
successful rival.'
But this taunt fails to extract any reply. Exasperated by her insuccess
in driving him into angry speech, she goes on:
'I do not think you have had to complain of her rigour; how many
days'--with an innocent air of inquiry--'has she allowed you to mow her
lawn, and milk her cow, and feed her pig for her? Six? Seven? I suppose
you have been with her to-day, too?'
At that he unwisely abandons his fortress of silence, and speaks:
'You had better ask Lily; you have set her on more than once as a spy.
Have your child in and ask her!'
To this cold and withering taunt her own weaker sarcasms succumb; and
again abandoning all self-control, she bursts into an agony of weeping,
burying her head in the sofa-cushions, and convulsed from head to foot
by her sobs.
'Is it any wonder,' she moans, 'that I do not want to see the only thing
I have in the world go from me? What am I saying?'--pulling herself up
suddenly--'how dare I say the only thing? have not I my Franky? I shall
always have my Franky!'
The grief of her tone is so poignant and so real that his heart softens
to her, despite her former gibes. He lays his hand upon her shoulder.
'What is all this about?' he asks kindly. 'You know as well as I do that
you will have me--such as I am--as long as you choose to keep me!'
'Then you will not stay here?' cries she precipitately, quitting her
desperate posture, and springing back with startling suddenness into
life and animation again; 'then you will go to-morrow?'
There is a pause. He walks to the window. Through it there comes the
peaceful sound of bleating sheep; and the distant sharp bark of a little
dog. Can it be Mink? He has a sharp bark. Poor little Mink! He will
probably never see Mink again. And to-morrow, according to Peggy, Mink
had promised to tell them all about the Dogs' Home!
He smiles transiently at the recollection of her childish jest. How many
things they were to have done to-morrow! Then he walks slowly back from
the window and says:
'I will go to-morrow!'
Perhaps there is something in the tone of this concession which takes
away from the value of it, for Betty begins to sob again; this time more
in wrath than in sorrow.
'I do not think you need make such a favour of it; I do not think it is
much to ask, considering all things--considering how I have
com--com--compromised my reputation for your sake for the last five
years!' cries she hysterically.
He does not defend himself; only a thought, whose want of generosity
shocks him, flashes across his mind, that that was already a _fait
accompli_ when he had first made her acquaintance.
'_We_ know that there is no harm in our friendship,' pursues she, a
slight red staining her tear-washed cheeks; 'but nobody else knows it.
The world is always only too pleased to think the worst, and in one
sense'--again mastered by her emotion--'it is right! I would have given
up _anything--everything_ for you--you know I would! and you--you--will
give up _nothing_ for me, not even such a trifle as this!'
Once again pity gets the upper hand of him; but a pity crossed by such a
bottomless regret and remorse at having let himself slide into this
tangled labyrinth of wrong, when honour and dishonour have changed
coats, and he does not know which is which, as the Lost Souls in Hell,
if such there be, might feel in looking back upon their earthly course.
'You are right,' he says; 'we must do the best we can for each other! We
must not make life harder for one another than it already is. I will do
what you wish! I ought! I will! Such a trifle, too!'
CHAPTER XIII
'At length burst in the argent revelry,
With plume, tiara and all rich array,
Numerous as shadows haunting fairily
The brain new stuffed in youth with triumphs gay
Of old Romance.'
The 'argent revelry' has burst into the Manor in the shape of what Lady
Roupell, with more vigour than elegance, is apt to call one of her
'Beast Parties,' _i.e._ one of those miscellaneous gatherings of the
whole neighbourhood to which she thinks herself bound twice or thrice in
the year--gatherings which, though dictated by hospitality, are not
usually very successful. It is Lady Roupell's principle to override all
the small social distinctions of the neighbourhood, to invite all the
people who quarrel, all the people who look down upon each other, all
the people who are bored by one another, all the people who are trying
to avoid each other, to hobnob at her bounteous board.
'They all go to God's house together, my dear; why should not they come
to mine?' asks she, with a logic that she thinks unanswerable. And so
they do; but they do not enjoy themselves.
That, however, is no concern of milady's. The 'Beasts' _must_ like to
talk to one another, or, if they do not, they ought to like it.
Having thrown open her house to them, having given them every
opportunity of over-eating themselves on her excellent food, and being
exhilarated by her admirable wines, she washes her hands of them; and
having enjoyed her own champagne and venison, sits down to her
Patience-table, which is set out for her every night of her life, and
would be were Queen Victoria to honour her with a visit.
Of the Beast Parties the Evans pair invariably form a constituent part.
'I always ask the Evanses,' says milady good-naturedly. 'It is quite
pretty to see the way in which he enjoys his dinner; and she likes to
wear her dyed gown, good woman, and smuggle candied apricots into her
pockets for those ugly urchins of hers, and look out my friends in her
"Peerage" next day!'
So the Evanses are here, and several harmless rural clergy; like them to
the outer eye, though no doubt to the inner as dissimilar as each
island-like human soul is from its neighbour. There are some large
landowners with their wives, and some very small lawyers and doctors
with theirs. There is a tallow-merchant, who to-day grovels in hides and
tallow, but to-morrow will probably--oh, free and happy England!--soar
to a seat in the Cabinet. There is a Colonial Bishop imported by one
neighbour, and a fashionable buffoon introduced by another; and lastly,
there are Peggy and Prue.
Never before has Peggy set off to a Beast Party with so light a heart.
She knows how little chance of rational or even irrational entertainment
such a feast affords; and yet, do what she will, she feels gay. Prue is
gay too, extravagantly gay, for did not Freddy stroll in half an hour
ago with a flower for her, and a request to her to wear her green gown
for his sake?
Before setting off Peggy bids her eleven birds good-night, telling them
that to-morrow they shall have a swinging ladder in their large cage to
remind them of the swinging tree-tops. Has not Talbot promised to make
them a ladder?
The girls have timed their arrival better than on a former occasion. The
room is already full when they walk in with their breeze-freshened
cheeks and their simple clothes.
Margaret has not even her best dress on. She had looked at it waveringly
and hankeringly at dressing-time; but a sort of superstition--an
undefined feeling that she is not going to meet any one for whom she has
a right to prank herself out, prevents her wearing it. But she cannot
help having her best face on. There is sunshiny weather in her heart.
Even her repulsion for Lady Betty is weakened. Possibly she has been
unjust towards her. Certainly she is not the human octopus from whose
grasp no prey can escape alive, for which she took her. She herself has
the best reason for knowing that from this octopus's arms prey can and
does escape alive and well. After all, she has condemned her upon mere
loose hearsay evidence. Henceforth she will trust only the evidence of
her own eyes and ears. At present her eyes tell her that Betty is very
highly rouged, and rather naked; and her ears--thanks to the din of
tongues--tell her nothing.
For a wonder, Lady Roupell is down in time, her gown properly
laced--usually, from excessive hurry, her maid has to skip half the
eyelet-holes--and with her ornaments duly fastened on. She is following
her usual rule, talking to the person who amuses her most, and leaving
all the others to take care of themselves.
As soon as dinner is announced, and Freddy has walked off with his
allotted lady, she turns with an easy smile to her company, and says:
'Will everybody take in somebody, please?'
At this command, so grateful and natural in a small and intimate party,
so extremely ill-suited to this large and miscellaneous crowd, there is
a moment of hesitating and consternation. The hearts of those who know
that they are never anybody's voluntary choice, but whom conventionality
generally provides with a respectable partner, sink to the soles of
their shoes. The young men hang back from the girls, because they think
that some one else may have a better right to them. All fear to grasp at
a precedence not their due.
At length there is a movement. The tallow-merchant, true to his
principle of soaring, offers his arm to the wife of the Lord-Lieutenant.
The parsons and doctors begin timidly to exchange wives. The Colonial
Bishop casts his landing-net over Prue. Margaret's is one of the few
breasts in the room in which the order for promiscuous choice has
excited a spark of pleasure. In the ordinary course of things she is
aware that it is improbable that Talbot would be her portion. If it is a
case of selection, the improbability vanishes. She smiles slightly to
herself as she recalls the surly indignation with which she had
discovered that he was to be her fate on the last occasion of her dining
here. She is still smiling when he passes her by with Betty on his arm.
For a few seconds it seems as if the handsomest girl in the room were to