Faith and Unfaith: A Novel. Duchess

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СКАЧАТЬ heart. He makes no reply, but gazes with an earnestness that almost amounts to scrutiny at Clarissa, as she stands in the open window leaning against a background of ivy, through which pale rose-buds are struggling into view. Within her slender fingers the knitting-needles move slowly, glinting and glistening in the sun's hot rays, until they seem to emit tiny flashes as they cross and recross each other. Her eyes are downcast, the smile still lingers on her lips, her whole attitude, and her pretty graceful figure, clad in its white gown, is

      "Like a picture rich and rare."

      "On Thursday, then, I shall see you," he says, not because he has tired of looking at her, but because she has raised her eyes and is evidently wondering at his silence. "Good-by."

      "Good-by," says Clarissa, genially. Then she lays down the neglected knitting (that, indeed, is more a pretence than a reality), and comes out into the middle of the room. "For the sake of old days I shall see you to the hall door," she says, brightly. "No, papa, do not ring: I myself shall do the honors to Jim."

      CHAPTER IV

      "All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

      Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

      All are but ministers of Love,

      And feed his sacred flame." – Coleridge.

      All round the drawing-room windows at Scrope a wide balcony has been built up, over which the creepers climb and trail. Stone steps leads to it from the scented garden beneath, and up these runs Clarissa, gayly, when Thursday morning had dawned, and deepened, and given place to noon.

      Within the drawing-room, before a low table, sits Miss Scrope, tatting industriously. Tatting is Miss Scrope's forte. She never does anything else. Multitudinous antimacassars, of all shapes, patterns, and dimensions, grow beneath her untiring touch with the most alarming rapidity. When finished, nobody knows what becomes of them, as they instantly disappear from view and are never heard of afterwards. They are as good as a ghost in Pullingham, and obstinately refuse to be laid. It was charitably, if weakly, suggested at one time, by a member of the stronger sex, that probably she sent them out in bales as coverings for the benighted heathen; but when it was explained to this misguided being that tatted antimacassars, as a rule, run to holes, and can be seen through, even he desisted from further attempts to solve the mystery.

      Miss Peyton, throwing up one of the window-sashes, steps boldly into the drawing-room and confronts this eminent tatter.

      "Good-morning," she says, sweetly, advancing with smiling lips.

      Miss Scrope, who has not heard her enter, turns slowly round: to say she started would be a gross calumny. Miss Scrope never starts. She merely raises her head with a sudden accession of dignity. Her dignity, as a rule, is not fascinating, and might go by another name.

      "Good-afternoon, Clarissa," she says, austerely. "I am sorry you should have been forced to make an entrance like a burglar. Has the hall door been removed? It used to stand in the front of the house."

      "I think it is there still," Miss Peyton ventures, meekly. "But" – prettily – "coming in through the window enabled me to see you at least one moment sooner. Shall I close it again?"

      "I beg you will not distress yourself about it," says Miss Scrope, rising to ring the bell. "When Collins comes in he will see to it."

      It is a wild day, though warm and sweet, and the wind outside is tearing madly over lawn and shrubberies into the wood beyond.

      "But in the mean time you will perhaps catch cold, of rheumatism, or something," says Clarissa, hesitating.

      "Rheumatism! pugh! nonsense!" says Miss Scrope, disdainfully. "I simply don't believe in rheumatism. It is nothing but nerves. I don't have those ridiculous pains and aches people hug nowadays, and I don't believe they have either; it employs their idle time trying to invent them."

      "Is Jim in?" asks Clarissa, presently, having seated herself in a horribly comfortless but probably artistic chair.

      "James is in," says Miss Scrope, severely. "Do you mean my brother? It is really almost impossible to understand young people of the present age."

      "Don't you like the name Jim?" asks Clarissa, innocently, leaning slightly forward, and taking up the edge of Miss Scrope's last antimacassar to examine it with tender interest. "I think it such a dear little name, and so happily wanting in formality. I have never called him anything else since I can remember, so it comes most naturally to me."

      "I think it a most unmaidenly way of addressing any gentleman whose priest christened him James," says Miss Scrope, unflinchingly. "What would you think of him werehe to call you by some hideous pet name, or, more properly speaking, nickname?"

      "I shouldn't mind it in the least; indeed, I think I should rather like it," returns Clarissa, mildly.

      "I believe that to be highly probable," retorts Miss Jemima, with considerable scorn.

      Clarissa laughs, – not an irritating laugh, by any means, but a little soft, low, girlish laugh, very good to hear.

      "If you scold me any more I shall cry," she says, lightly. "I always give way to tears when driven into a corner. It saves time and trouble. Besides," returning with some slight perversity to the charge, "shall I tell you a secret? Your brother likes that little name. He does, indeed. He has told me so a thousand times in the days gone by. Very frivolous of him, isn't it? But – ah! here he is," as the door opens, and Sir James comes in. "You are a little late, are you not?" leaning back in her chair with a certain amount of languid, but pleasing, grace, and holding out to him a slender ungloved hand, on which some rings sparkle brilliantly.

      "Have I kept you waiting?" asks he, eagerly, foolishly, glad because of her last words, that seem to imply so much and really mean so little. Has she been anxious for his coming? Have the minutes appeared tedious because of his absence? "I hurried all I knew," he says; "but stewards will be stewards."

      "I have been quite happy with Miss Scrope; you need not look so penitent," says Clarissa. "And who am I, that I should compete with a steward? We have been having quite a good time, and an excellent argument. Come here, and tell your sister that you think Jim the prettiest name in the world."

      "Did any one throw a doubt on the subject? Lives there a soul so dead to euphony as not to recognize the music in those three letters? – Jim! Why, it is poetry itself," says Sir James, who is not so absent that he cannot scent battle on the breeze. As he speaks, he smiles: and when James Scrope smiles he is almost handsome.

      "Some day you will regret encouraging that child in her folly," remarks Miss Scrope, severely. At which the child makes a saucy little grimace unseen, and rises to her feet.

      "What a solemn warning!" says Scrope, with a shrug. "I hope," turning to Clarissa, "you have taken it to heart, and that it will keep you out of imaginary mischief. It ought, you know. It would be a shabby thing to bring down public censure on the head of one who has so nobly espoused your cause."

      "My conduct from this day forth shall be above suspicion," says Clarissa. "Good-by, Miss Scrope," stooping to press her fresh warm lips to the withered cross old cheek beneath her: "I am going to tread old ground with – James."

      She follows him across hall and corridor, through two modern rooms, and past a portière, into another and larger hall beyond. Here, standing before a heavy oaken doer, he turns the handle of it, and, as it swings back slowly and sleepily, they pass into another room, so unexpectedly and so strangely different from any they have yet entered, as almost to make one start.

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