Sophia, Stanley J. Weyman [new ebook reader TXT] 📗

Her next words seemed strangely ill-directed to the issue. "You never told me that you had been betrothed before," she said, "and that she died. If you had told me, and if I had seen her face--I should have been wiser. I should have foreseen what would happen. I do not wonder that such a face seen again has"--she paused, stammering and pale, "has recalled old times and your youth. I have no right to blame you. I do not blame you. At least, I--I try not to blame you," she repeated, her voice sinking lower and lower. "I have told her, and it is true, that if I could bear all the consequences of our error I would bear them. That if I could release you and set you free to marry the--the woman you have learned to love--I would, sir, willingly. That, at any rate, I would not raise a finger to prevent such a marriage."

"And did you--mean that," he asked in a low voice, his face averted.

"As God sees me, I did."

"You are in earnest, Sophia?" For an instant he turned his head and looked at her.

"I am."

"Yet--you were for sending her away," he said. "This morning? Before I could return? That I might not see her again."

She looked at him with astonishment, with indignation. "Cannot you understand," she cried, "that that was not on my account, but on hers?"

"It seems to have been rather on my account," he muttered doggedly, his fingers toying with the teaspoon, his eyes on the table. He seemed strangely changed. He did not seem to be himself.

She shuddered. "At any rate, it was not on my account," she said.

"And you are still fixed that she must go?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll tell you what it is," he answered with sudden determination, "I'll take you at your word!" He raised his cup, which was half full, and held it in front of his lips, looking at her across it as he spoke. "You said just now that if there was a way to--to give me the woman I loved--you would take it."

She started. For a moment she did not answer.

He waited. At last: "You didn't mean it?" he said, his tone cold.

The room, the high window with its stained escutcheons, the dark oak walls, the dark oak table, the leafage reflected cool and green in the tall mirror opposite the door, went round with her; she swallowed something that rose in her throat, and set her teeth hard, and at length she found her voice. "Yes," she said, "I meant it."

"Well, there is a way," he answered; and he rose from the table, and, moving to the door which led to the main hall and the staircase, he closed it. "There is a way of doing it. But it is not quite easy to explain it to you in a moment. 'Twas a hurried marriage, as you know, and informal, and a marriage only in name. And something has happened since then."

He paused there; she asked in a low tone, "What?"

"Well, it is what took me to Lewes yesterday," he answered. "I should have told you of it then, but I was in doubt how you would take it. And Betty persuaded me not to tell it. The man Hawkesworth----"

He paused, as she rose stiffly from the table. "Have they taken him?" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he said gently. "They took him in hiding near Chichester. But he was ill, dying, it was thought, when they surprised him."

She had a strange prevision. "Of the smallpox?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. And then, "He died last night," he continued softly. "My dear, let me get you a little cordial."

"No, no! Did you see him?"

"I did. And I did what I could for him. I was with him when he died."

She sat down at the table, hiding her face in her hands. Presently she shuddered. "Heaven forgive him!" she whispered. "Heaven forgive him, as I do!" And again she was silent for some minutes, while he stood watching her. At last, "Was it about him," she asked in a low voice, "that Lady Betty was talking to you on the terrace yesterday?"

"Yes. I asked her advice. I did not know what you might do, if you knew. And I did not wish you to see him."

"But she had another reason," Sophia murmured, behind her hands. "There was another motive, which she urged for keeping it from me. What was it?"

He did not answer.

"What was it?" she repeated, and lowered her hands and looked at him, her lips parted.

He walked up the hall and back again under her eyes. "Well," he said, in a tone elaborately easy, "she is but a child, you know, and does not understand things. She knew a little of the circumstances of our marriage, and she thought she knew more. She fancied that a little jealousy might foster love; and so it may, perhaps, where a spark exists. But not otherwise. That was her mistake."

"But--but I do not understand!" Sophia cried, her hands shaking, her face bewildered. "You said--you told her that you were perfectly indifferent to me."

"Oh, pardon me," Sir Hervey answered lightly. "Never, I am sure. I said, perhaps, that I had done everything to show that I was indifferent to you. That was part of her foolish plan. But there is a distinction, you see?"

"Yes," Sophia faltered, her face growing slowly scarlet. "There is a distinction, I see."

She wanted to cry, and she wanted to think; and she wanted to hide her face from his eyes, but had not the will to do it while he looked at her. Her head was going round. If she had misinterpreted Betty's words on the terrace, and it seemed certain now that she had, what had she done? Or, rather, what had she not done? She had fallen into Betty's trap; she had proclaimed her own folly; she had misjudged her--and him! She had done them foul, dreadful wrong; she had insulted them horribly, horribly insulted them by her suspicions! She had proved the meanness and lowness of her mind! While he had been thinking of her, and for her, still shielding her, as he had shielded her from the beginning--she had been slandering him, accusing him, wronging him, and along with him this young girl, her guest, her friend, living under her roof! It was infamous! Infamous! What had so warped her?

And then, as she sat overwhelmed by shame, a ray of light pierced the darkness. She looked at him, feeling on a sudden cold and weak. "But you--you have not yet explained!" she muttered.

"What?"

"How I can help you to--to----" Her voice failed her.

She could not finish.

"To Betty," he said, seeing her stuck in a quagmire of perplexities. "I do not want Betty."

"Then what did you mean?" she stammered.

"I never said I wanted Betty," he answered, smiling.

"But you said----"

"I said that there was a way by which you could help me to the woman I loved. And there is a way. Betty, in her note to me, will have it that you can do it at slight cost to yourself. That is for you to decide. Only remember, Sophia," Sir Hervey continued gravely, "you are free, free as air. I have kept my word to the letter. I shall continue to keep it. If there is to be a change, if we are to come nearer to one another, it must come from you, not from me."

She turned to the window; and waiting for her answer--which did not come quickly--he saw that she was shaking. "You don't help me," she whispered at last.

"What, child?"

"You don't help me. You don't make it easy for me." And then she turned abruptly to him and he saw that the tears were running down her face. "Don't you know what you ought to do?" she cried, holding out her hands and lifting her face to him. "You ought to beat me, you ought to shake me, you ought to lock me in a dark room! You ought to tell me every hour of the day how mean, how ungrateful, how poor and despicable a thing I am--to take all and give nothing!"

"And that would help you?" he said. "'Tis a new way of making love, sweet."

"'Tis an old one," she cried impetuously. "You are too good to me. But if you will take me, such as I am--and--and I suppose you have not much choice," she continued, with an odd, shy laugh, "I shall be very much obliged to you, sir. And--and I shall thank you all my life."

He would have taken her in his arms, but she dropped, as she spoke, on the bench beside the table, and hiding her face in her hands, began to weep softly--in the same posture, and in the same place, in which she had sat the day before, but with feelings how different! Ah, how different!

Sir Hervey stood over her a moment, watching her. Her riding-cap had fallen off and lay on the table beside her. Her hair, clubbed for the journey, hung undressed and without powder on her neck. He touched it gently, almost reverently with his hand. It was the first caress he had ever given her.

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HER HAIR ... HUNG UNDRESSED ON HER NECK. HE TOUCHED IT
GENTLY ... IT WAS THE FIRST CARESS HE HAD EVER GIVEN HER

"Child," he whispered, "you are not unhappy?"

"Oh, no, no," she cried. "I am thankful, I am so thankful!"

* * * * *

"I said I would let you kiss me?" Lady Betty exclaimed with indignation. And her eyes scorched poor Tom. "It's quite sure, sir, I said nothing of the kind."

"But you said," Tom stammered, "that if I didn't do what you wanted, you wouldn't! And that meant that if I did, you would. Now, didn't it?"

Lady Betty shrugged her shoulders in utter disdain of such reasoning. "Oh, la, sir, you are too clever for me!" she cried. "I wasn't at college." And she turned from him contemptuously.

They were at the horseblock under the oak, whither Tom had followed her, with thoughts bent on bold emprise. And at the first he had put a good face on it; but the lesson of the day before, and of the day before that, had not been lost. The spirit had gone out of him. The pout of her lips silenced him, a glance from her eyes--if they were cold or distant, harsh or contemptuous--sent his heart into his boots. He grovelled before her; it may be that he was of a nature to benefit by the experience.

Having snubbed him, she was silent awhile, that the iron might enter into his soul. Then she looked to see if he was sullen; she found that he was not. He was only heartbroken, and her majesty relented. "I said, it is true," she continued, "that--that you might earn your pardon. Well, you are pardoned, sir; and we are where we were."

"May I call you Betty, then?"

Lady Betty's eyes fell modestly on her fan. "Well, you may," she said. "I think that is part of your pardon, if it gives you any pleasure to call me by my name. It seems vastly foolish to me."

He was foolish. "Betty!" he cried softly. "Betty! Betty! It'll be the only name for me as long as I live. Betty! Betty! Betty!"

"What nonsense!" Lady Betty answered; but her gaze fell before his.

"Do you remember," he ventured, "what it was I said of your eyes?"

"Of my eyes?" she cried, recovering herself. "No; of the maid's eyes, if you please. There was some nonsense said of them,