Eleanor, Mrs. Humphry Ward [best books to read now .txt] 📗

effort.

Eleanor made no reply. She lay with her face hidden. When Lucy bent down to her she said with a sudden sob:

'Don't you understand? I have been near two griefs since I came here--his and the Contessa's. And mine didn't stand the comparison.'

'Father Benecke had no right to take matters into his own hands,' said Lucy stubbornly.

'I think he was afraid--I should die in my sins,' said Eleanor wildly. 'He is an apostle--he took the license of one.'

Lucy frowned, but did not speak.

'Lucy! what makes you so hard--so strange?'

'I am not hard. But I don't want to see Mr. Manisty again. I want to take you safely back to England, and then to go home--home to Uncle Ben--to my own people.'

Her voice showed the profoundest and most painful emotion. Eleanor felt a movement of despair. What could he have said or done to set this tender nature so on edge? If it had not been for that vision on the _loggia_, she would have thought that the girl's heart was in truth untouched, and that Manisty would sue in vain. But how was it possible to think it?

She lost herself in doubts and conjectures, while Lucy still moved up and down.

Presently Cecco brought up their meal, and Eleanor must needs eat and drink to soothe Lucy's anxiety. The girl watched her every movement, and Eleanor dared neither be tired nor dainty, lest for every mouthful she refused Manisty's chance should be the less.

After dinner she once more laid a detaining hand on her companion.

'Dear, I can't send him away, you know--at once--to please you.'

'Do _you_ want him to stay?' said Lucy, holding herself aloof.

'After all, he is my kinsman. There are many things to discuss--much to hear.'

'Very well. It won't be necessary for me to take part.'

'Not unless you like. But, Lucy, it would make me very unhappy--if you were unkind to him. You have made him suffer, my dear; he is not the meekest of men. Be content.'

'I will be quite polite,' said the girl, turning away her head. 'You will be able to travel--won't you--very soon?'

Eleanor assented vaguely, and the conversation dropped.

In the afternoon Marie took a note to the cottage by the river.

'Ask Father Benecke to let you stay a few days. Things look bad. What did you say? If you attacked me, it has done you harm.'

* * * * *

Meanwhile Lucy, who felt herself exiled from the woods, the roads, the village, by one threatening presence, shut herself up for a while in her own room, in youth's most tragic mood, calling on the pangs of thought to strengthen still more her resolve and clear her mind.

She forced her fingers to an intermittent task of needlework, but there were long pauses when her hands lay idle on her lap, when her head drooped against the back of her chair, and all her life centred in her fast beating heart, driven and strained by the torment of recollection.

That moment when she had stepped out upon the road from the shelter of the wood--the thrill of it even in memory made her pale and cold. His look--his cry--the sudden radiance of the face, which, as she had first caught sight of it, bent in a brooding frown over the dusty road, had seemed to her the very image of discontent.

'Miss Foster!--_Lucy!_'

The word had escaped him, in his first rush of joy, his spring towards her. And she had felt herself tottering, in a sudden blindness.

What could she remember? The breathless contradiction of his questions--the eager grasp of her hand--the words and phrases that were the words and phrases of love--dictated, justified only by love--then her first mention of Eleanor--the short stammering sentences, which as she spoke them sounded to her own ear so inconclusive, unintelligible, insulting--and his growing astonishment, the darkening features, the tightening lips, and finally his step backward, the haughty bracing of the whole man.

'Why does my cousin refuse to see me? What possible reason can you or she assign?' And then her despairing search for the right word, that would not come! He must please, please, go away--because Mrs. Burgoyne was ill--because the doctors were anxious--because there must be no excitement. She was acting as nurse, but it was only to be for a short time longer. In a week or two, no doubt Mrs. Burgoyne would go to England, and she would return to America with the Porters. But for the present, quiet was still absolutely necessary.

Then--silence!--and afterwards a few sarcastic interrogations, quick, practical, hard to answer--the mounting menace of that thunderbrow, extravagant, and magnificent,--the trembling of her own limbs. And at last that sharp sentence, like lightning from the cloud, as to 'whims and follies' that no sane man could hope to unravel, which had suddenly nerved her to be angry.

'Oh! I was odious--odious!'--she thought to herself, hiding her face in her hands.

His answering indignation seemed to clatter through her room.

'And you really expect me to do your bidding calmly,--to play this ridiculous part?--to leave my cousin and you in these wilds--at this time of year--she in the state of health that you describe--to face this heat, and the journey home, without comforts, without assistance? It is a great responsibility, Miss Foster, that you take, with me, and with her! I refuse to yield it to you, till I have given you at least a little further time for consideration. I shall stay here a few hours longer. If you change your mind, send to me--I am with Father Benecke. If not--good-bye! But I warn you that I will be no party to further mystification. It is undesirable for us all. I shall write at once to General Delafield-Muir, and to my aunt. I think it will be also my duty to communicate with your friends in London or in Boston.'

'Mr. Manisty!--let me beg of you to leave my personal affairs alone!'

She felt again the proud flush upon her cheek, the shock of their two wills, the mingled anguish and relief as she saw him turn upon his heel, and go.

Ah! how unready, how _gauche_ she had shown herself! From the beginning instead of conciliating she had provoked him. But how to make a plausible story out of their adventure at all? There was the deciding, the fatal difficulty! Her face burnt anew as she tried to think his thoughts, to imagine all that he might or must guess; as she remembered the glow of swift instinctive triumph with which he had recognised her, and realised from it some of the ideas that must have been his travelling companions all these weeks.

No matter: let him think what he pleased! She sat there in the gathering dark; at one moment, feeling herself caught in the grip of a moral necessity that no rebellion could undo; and the next, childishly catching to her heart the echoes and images of that miserable half-hour.

No wonder he had been angry!

'_Lucy!_'

Her name was sweetened to her ear for ever. He looked way-worn and tired; yet so eager, so spiritually alert. Never had that glitter and magic he carried about with him been more potent, more compelling.

Alack! what woman ever yet refused to love a man because he loved himself? It depends entirely on how she estimates the force of his temptation. And it would almost seem as though nature, for her own secret reasons, had thrown a special charm round the egotist of all types, for the loving and the true. Is it that she is thinking of the race--must needs balance in it the forces of death and life? What matters the separate joy or pain!

Yes. Lucy would have given herself to Manisty, not blind to risks, expecting thorns!--if it had been possible.

But it was not possible. She rose from her seat, and sternly dismissed her thoughts. She was no conscious thief, no willing traitor. Not even Eleanor should persuade her. Eleanor was dying because she, Lucy, had stolen from her the affections of her inconstant lover. Was there any getting over that? None! The girl shrank in horror from the very notion of such a base and plundering happiness.


CHAPTER XXIV

On the following morning when Lucy entered Eleanor's room she found her giving some directions to Marie.

'Tell Mamma Doni that we give up the rooms next week--Friday in next week. Make her understand.'

'_Parfaitement_, Madame.' And Marie left the room. Lucy advanced with a face of dismay.

'Ten days more!--Eleanor.

Eleanor tapped her lightly on the cheek, then kissed her, laughing.

'Are you too hot?'

'Dear!--don't talk about me! But you promised me to be gone before August.'

She knelt down by Eleanor's bedside, holding her hands, imploring her with her deep blue eyes.

'Well, it's only a few days more,' said Eleanor, guiltily. 'Do let's take it leisurely! It's so horrid to be hurried in one's packing. Look at all these things!'

She waved her hand desperately round the little room, choked up with miscellaneous boxes; then laid both hands on Lucy's shoulders, coaxing and smiling at her like a child.

Lucy soon convinced herself that it was of no use to argue. She must just submit, unless she were prepared to go to lengths of self-assertion which might excite Eleanor and bring on a heart attack.

So, setting her teeth, she yielded.

'Friday week, then--for the last, last day!--And Mr. Manisty?'

She had risen from her knees and stood looking down at Eleanor. Her cheek had reddened, but Eleanor admired her stateliness.

'Oh, we must keep Edward. We want him for courier. I gave you trouble enough, on the journey here.'

Lucy said nothing. Her heart swelled a little. It seemed to her that under all this sweetness she was being treated with a certain violence. She went to the balcony, where the breakfast had just been laid, that she might bring Eleanor's coffee.

'It _is_ just a little crude,' Eleanor thought, uneasily. 'Dear bird!--the net is sadly visible. But what can one do?--with so little time--so few chances! Once part them, and the game is up!'

So she used her weakness once more as a tyranny, this time for different ends.

The situation that she dictated was certainly difficult enough. Manisty appeared, by her summons, in the afternoon, and found them on the _loggia_. Lucy greeted him with a cold self-possession. Of all that had happened on the previous day, naturally, not a word. So far indeed as allusions to the past were concerned, the three might just have travelled together from Marinata. Eleanor very flushed, and dressed in her elegant white dress and French hat, talked fast and well, of the country folk, the _padre parroco_, the Contessa. Lucy looked at her with alarm, dreading the after fatigue. But Eleanor would not be managed; would have her way.

Manisty, however, was no longer deceived. Lucy was aware of some of the glances that he threw his cousin. The trouble which they betrayed gave the girl a bitter satisfaction.

Presently she left them alone. After her disappearance Eleanor turned to Manisty with a smile.

'On your peril--not another word to her!--till I give you leave. That would finish it.'