Greatheart, Ethel May Dell [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

But I'm not going to bear with it much longer. You may be useful to me, but—you're not indispensable. Remember that!"

Scott started at the words, as a well-bred horse starts at the flicker of the whip. He controlled himself instantly, but his eyelids quivered a little as he answered, "I will remember it."

Sir Eustace's hand fell. "I think that is all that need be said," he observed. "We will get to business."

He turned from the window, but in the same moment Scott wheeled also and took him by the arm. "One moment!" he said. "Eustace, we are not going to quarrel over this. You don't imagine, do you, that I interfere with you in this way for my own pleasure?"

He spoke urgently, an odd wistfulness in voice and gesture.

Sir Eustace paused. The sternness still lingered in his eyes though his face softened somewhat as he said, "I haven't gone into the question of motives, Stumpy. I have no doubt they are—like yourself—very worthy, though it might not soothe me greatly to know what they are."

Scott still held his arm. "Oh, man," he said very earnestly, "don't miss the best thing in life for want of a little patience! She's such a child. She doesn't understand. For your own sake give her time!"

There was that in his tone that somehow made further offence impossible. A faint, half-grudging smile took the place of the grimness on his brother's face.

"You take things so mighty seriously," he said. "What's the matter? What has she been saying?"

Scott hesitated. "I can't tell you that. I imagine it is more what she doesn't say that makes me realize the state of her mind. I can tell you one thing. She would rather go shopping with Isabel to-morrow than picnicking in the wilderness with you, and if you're wise, you'll give in and let her go. You'll run a very grave risk of losing her altogether if you ask too much."

"What do you mean?" Eustace's voice was short and stern; the question was like a sword thrust.

Again Scott hesitated. Then very steadily he made reply. "I mean that—with or without reason, you know best—she is beginning not to trust you. It is more than mere shyness with her. She is genuinely frightened."

His words went into silence, and in the silence he took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. It had been a more difficult interview for him than Eustace would ever realize. His powers of endurance were considerable, but he had an almost desperate desire now to escape.

But some instinct kept him where he was. To fail at the last moment for lack of perseverance would have been utterly uncharacteristic of him. It was his custom to stand his ground to the last, whatever the cost.

And so he forced himself to wait while his brother contemplated the unpleasant truth that he had imparted. He knew that it was not in his nature to spend long over the process, but he was still by no means sure of the final result.

Eustace spoke at length very suddenly. "See here, Stumpy!" he said. "There may be something in what you say, and there may not. But in any case, you and Dinah are getting altogether too intimate and confidential to please me. It's up to you to put the brake on a bit. Understand?"

He smiled as he said it, but there was a gleam as of cold steel behind his smile.

Scott straightened himself. It was as if something within him leapt to meet the steel. Spent though he was, this was a matter no man could shirk.

"I shall do nothing of the kind," he said. "Do you think I'd destroy her trust in me too? I'd sell my soul sooner."

The words were passionate, and the man as he uttered them seemed suddenly galvanized with a new force, a force irresistible, elemental, even sublime. The elder brother's brows went up in amazement. He did not know Stumpy in that mood. He found himself confronted with a power colossal manifested in the meagre frame, and before that power instinctively, wholly involuntarily, he gave ground.

"I see you mean to please yourself," he said, and turned to go with a sub-conscious feeling that if he lingered he would have the worst of it. "But I warn you if you get in my way, you'll be kicked. So look out!"

It was not a conciliatory speech, but it was the outcome of undoubted discomfiture. He was so accustomed to submission from Scott that he had come to look upon it as inevitable. His sudden self-assertion was oddly disconcerting.

So also was the laugh that followed his threat, a careless laugh wholly devoid of bitterness which yet in some fashion inexplicable pierced his armour, making him feel ashamed.

"You know exactly what I think of that sort of thing, don't you?" Scott said. "That's the best of having no special physical attractions. One doesn't need to think of appearances."

Sir Eustace made no rejoinder. He could think of nothing to say; for he knew that Scott's attitude was absolutely sincere. For physical suffering he cared not one jot. The indomitable spirit of the man lifted him above it. He was fashioned upon the same lines as the men who faced the lions of Rome. No bodily pain could ever daunt him.

He went from the room haughtily but in his heart he carried an odd misgiving that burned and spread like a slow fire, consuming his pride. Scott had withstood him, Scott the weakling, and in so doing had made him aware of a strength that exceeded his own.

As for Scott, the moment he was alone he drew a great breath of relief, and almost immediately after opened the French window and passed quietly out into the garden.

The dusk was falling, and the air smote chill; yet he moved slowly forth, closing the window behind him and so down into the desolate shrubberies where he paced for a long, long time….

When he went to Isabel's room more than an hour later, his eyes were heavy with weariness, and he moved like a man who bears a burden.

She was alone, and looked up at his entrance with a smile of welcome. "Come and sit down, Stumpy! I've seen nothing of you. Dinah has only just left me. She tells me Eustace is talking of a picnic for to-morrow, but really she ought to give her mind to her trousseau if she is ever to be ready in time. Do you think Eustace can be induced to see reason?"

"I don't know," Scott said. He seated himself by Isabel's side and leaned back against the cushions, closing his eyes.

"You are tired," she said gently.

"Oh, only a little, Isabel!" He spoke without moving, making no effort to veil his weariness from her.

"What is it, dear?" she said.

"I am very anxious about Dinah." He spoke the words deliberately; his face remained absolutely still and expressionless.

"Anxious, Stumpy!" Isabel echoed the word quickly, almost as though it gave her relief to speak. "Oh, so am I—terribly anxious. She is so young, so utterly unprepared for marriage. I believe she is frightened to death when she lets herself stop to think."

"I blame myself," Scott said heavily.

"My dear, why?" Isabel's hand sought and held his. "How could you be to blame?"

"I forced it on," he said. "I—in a way—compelled Eustace to propose. He wasn't serious till then. I made him serious."

"Oh, Stumpy, you!" Incredulity and reproach mingled in Isabel's tone.

She would have withdrawn her hand, but his fingers closed upon it. "I made a mistake," he said, with dreary conviction, "a great mistake, though God knows I meant well; and now it is out of my power to set it right. I thought her heart was involved. I know now it was not. It's hard on him too in a way, because he is very much in earnest now, whatever he was before. I was a fool—I was a fool—not to let things take their course. She would have suffered, but it would have been soon over. Whereas now—" He stopped himself abruptly. "It's no good talking. There's nothing to be done. He may—after marriage—break her in to loving him, but if he does—if he does—" his hand clenched with sudden force upon Isabel's—"it won't be Dinah any more," he said. "It'll be—another woman; one who is satisfied with—a very little."

His hand relaxed as suddenly as it had closed. He lay still with a face like marble.

Isabel sat motionless by his side for several seconds. She was gazing straight before her with eyes that seemed to read the future.

"How did you compel him to propose?" she asked presently.

He shrugged his narrow shoulders slightly. "I can do these things,
Isabel, if I try. But I wish I'd killed myself now before I interfered.
As I tell you, I was a fool—a fool."

He ceased to speak and sat in the silence of a great despair.

Isabel said nought to comfort him. Her tragic eyes still seemed to be gazing into the future.

After many minutes Scott turned his head and looked at her. "Isabel, I wish you would try to keep her with you as much as possible. Tell Eustace what you have just told me! There is certainly no time to lose if she is really to be married in three weeks from now!"

"I suppose he would never consent to put it off," Isabel said slowly.

"He certainly would not." Scott rose with a restless movement that said more than words. "He is on fire for her. Can't you see it? There is nothing to be done unless she herself wishes to be released. And I don't think that is very likely to happen."

"He would never give her up," Isabel said with conviction.

"If she desired it, he would," Scott's reply held an even more absolute finality.

Isabel looked at him for a moment; then: "Yes, but the poor little thing would never dare," she said. "Besides—besides—there is the glamour of it all."

"Yes, there is the glamour." Scott spoke with a kind of grim compassion.
"The glamour may carry her through. If so, then—possibly—it may soften
life for her afterwards. It may even turn into romance. Who knows?
But—in any case—there will probably be—compensations."

"Ah!" Isabel said. A wonderful light shone for a moment in her eyes and died; she turned her face aside. "Compensations don't come to everyone, Stumpy," she said. "What if the glamour fades and they don't come to take its place?"

Scott was standing before the fire, his eyes fixed upon its red depths. His shoulders were still bent, as though they bore a burden well-nigh overwhelming. An odd little spasm went over his face at her words.

"Then—God help my Dinah!" he said almost under his breath.

In the silence that followed the words, Isabel rose impulsively, came to him, and slipped her hand through his arm.

She neither looked at him nor spoke, and in silence the matter passed.

CHAPTER X THE HOURS OF DARKNESS

Dinah could not sleep that night. For the first time in all her healthy young life she lay awake with grim care for a bed-fellow. When in trouble she had always wept herself to sleep before, but to-night she did not weep. She lay wide-eyed, feeling hot and cold by turns as the memory of her lover's devouring passion and Biddy's sinister words alternated in her brain. What was the warning that Biddy had meant to convey? And how—oh, how—would she ever face the morrow and its fierce, prolonged courtship, from the bare thought of which every fibre of her being shrank in shamed dismay?

"There won't be any of me left by night," she told herself, as she sought to cool her burning face against the pillow. "Oh, I wish he didn't love me quite so terribly."

It was no good attempting to bridle wish or fears. They were far too insistent. She was immured in the very dungeons of Doubting Castle, and no star shone in her darkness.

Towards morning her restlessness became unendurable. She arose and tremblingly paced the room, sick with a nameless apprehension that seemed to deprive her alike of the strength to walk or to be still.

Her whole body was in a fever as though it had been scourged with thongs; in fact, she still seemed to feel the scourge, goading her on.

To and fro, to and fro, she wandered, scarcely knowing what she wanted, only urged by that