Faith and Unfaith: A Novel. Duchess

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER V

      The baby morn has flung aside its robes, and grown to perfect strength. The day is well advanced. Already it is making rapid strides towards rest and evening; yet still no cooling breeze has come to refresh the heart of man.

      Below, in the quiet fields, the cattle are standing, knee-deep in water, beneath the spreading branches of the kindly alder. They have no energy to eat, but munch, sleepily, the all-satisfying cud, and, with gentle if expressionless eyes, look out afar for evening and the milkmaid.

      A tender stillness reigns over everything. The very birds are mute. Even the busy mill-wheel has ceased to move.

      Bright flashes of light, that come and go ere one can catch them, dart across the gray walls of the old mill, – that holds its gaunt and stately head erect, as though defying age, – and, slanting to the right, fall on the cottage, quaint and ivy-clad, that seems to nestle at its feet. The roses that climb its walls are drooping; the casements all stand wide. No faintest breath of air comes to flutter Ruth's white gown, as she leans against the rustic gate.

      All millers' daughters should be pretty. It is a duty imposed upon them by tradition. Romance, of the most floral description, at once attaches itself to a miller's daughter. I am not at all sure it does not even cast a halo round the miller himself. Ruth Annersley at least acknowledges this fact, and does her duty nobly; she gives the lie to no old legends or treasured nursery superstitions; she is as pretty as heart can desire, —

      She is small, piquant, timid, with large almond-shaped eyes and light-brown hair, a rounded supple figure, and hands delicately white. Perhaps there is a lack of force in her face, an indefinable want, that hardly detracts from her beauty, yet sets one wondering, vaguely, where it lies, and what it can be. The mouth, mobile and slightly parted, betrays it most.

      Her lashes, covering her brown eyes, are very long, and lie a good deal on her cheeks. Her manner, without a suspicion of gaucherie, is nervous, almost appealing; and her smile, because so rare, is very charming, and apt to linger in the memory.

      She is an only child, and all through her young life has been petted and caressed rather more than is good for any one. Her father had married, somewhat late in life, a woman in every way his superior, and, she dying two years after her marriage, he had fallen back for consolation upon the little one left to his sole care. To him, she was a pride, a delight, a creature precious beyond words, on whom the sun must shine gently and the rain fall not at all.

      A shy child from the first, Ruth had declined acquaintance with the villagers, who would, one and all, have been glad to succor the motherless girl. Perhaps the little drop of gentle blood inherited from her mother had thriven in her veins, and thus rendered her distant and somewhat repellent in her manners to those in her own rank of life.

      She had been sent early to a private school, had been carefully educated far above her position, and had come home again to her father, with all the pretty airs and unconscious softness of manner that, as a rule, belong to good birth.

      She is warm-hearted, passionate, impulsive, and singularly reserved, – so much so that few guess at the terrible power to love, or hate, or suffer, in silence, that lies within her. She is a special favorite with Miss Peyton and the vicarage people (Mr. and Mrs Redmond and their five children), with those at Hythe, and indeed with most of the country people, Miss Scrope excepted, who gives it freely as her opinion that she will come to no good "with her books and her high society and general fiddle-faddling." Nobody knows what this last means, and every one is afraid to ask.

      Just now, with her pretty head bare, and her hand shading her eyes, she is gazing down the dusty road. Her whole attitude denotes expectancy. Every feature (she is off her guard) expresses intense and hopeful longing, —

      has plainly fallen in love with her to-day, as he has clothed her in all his glory, and seems reluctant to pass her by on his homeward journey.

      The heat has made her pale and languid; but just at this moment a faint delicate color springs into her face; and as the figure of a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, turns the corner of the road, she raises her hand to her cheek with a swift involuntary gesture. A moment later, as the figure comes closer, so near that the face is discernible, she pales again, and grows white as an early snow drop.

      "Good-morning, Ruth," says Dorian Branscombe, with a smile, apparently oblivious of the fact that morning has given place to noon many hours agone.

      Ruth returns his salutation gently, and lets her hand lie for an instant in his.

      "This is a summer's day, with a vengeance," says Dorian, genially, proceeding to make himself comfortable on the top of the low wall near which she is standing. He is plainly making up his mind to a long and exhaustive conversation. "Talk of India!" he says disparagingly; "this beats it to fits!"

      Ruth acquiesces amiably.

      "It is warm, – very," she says, calmly, but indifferently.

      "'Ot I call it, – werry 'ot," returns he, making his quotation as genially as though she understands it, and, plucking a little rose-bud from a tree near him, proceeds to adorn his coat with it.

      "It seems a long time since I have seen you," he goes on, presently; and, as he speaks, his eyes again seek hers. Something in her face touches some chord in his careless kindly nature.

      "How pale you are!" he says, abruptly.

      "Am I? The heat, no doubt," – with a faint smile.

      "But thin, too, are you not? And – and – " he pauses. "Anything wrong with you, Ruth?"

      "Wrong? No! How should there be?" retorts she, in a curious tone, in which fear and annoyance fight for mastery. Then the storm dies away, and the startled look fades from her pretty face.

      "Why should you think me unhappy because I am a little pale?" she asks, sullenly.

      Branscombe looks surprised.

      "You altogether mistake me," he says, gently. "I never associated you in my mind with unhappiness. I merely meant, had you a headache, or any other of those small ills that female flesh is heir to? I beg your pardon, I'm sure, if I have offended you."

      He has jumped off the wall, and is now standing before her, with only the little gate between them. Her face is СКАЧАТЬ