Phyllis. Duchess

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СКАЧАТЬ me sorely. I begin to compare dear Roly with my younger brother in a manner highly unflattering to the latter. If Roland had been here in Billy's place to day, instead of being as he always is with that tiresome regiment in some forgotten corner, all might have been different. He at least being a man, would have felt for me. How could I have been mad enough to look for sympathy from a boy?

      Dear Roland! The only fault he has is his extreme and palpable selfishness. But what of that? Are not all men so afflicted? Why should he be condemned for what is only to be expected and looked for in the grander sex? What I detest more than anything else is a person who, while professing to be friends with one, only—

      I grow morose, and decline all further conversation, until we come so near our home that but one turn more hides it from our view.

      Here Billy remonstrates.

      "Of course you can sulk if you like," he says in an injured tone, "and not speak to a fellow, all for nothing; but you can't go into the house with your arm like that, unless you wish them to discover the battle in which you have been engaged."

      I hesitate and look ruefully at my arm. The sleeve of my dress is rolled up above the elbow, having refused obstinately to come down over the bandage, and consequently I present a dishevelled, not to say startling appearance.

      "I must undo it, I suppose," I return, disinclination in my tone, and Billy says, "Of course," with hideous briskness. Therewith he removes the guarding-pin and proceeds to unfold the handkerchief with an air that savors strongly of pleasurable curiosity, while I stand shrinking beside him, and vowing mentally never again to trust myself at an undue distance from mother earth.

      At length the last fold is undone, and, to my unspeakable relief, I see that the wound, though crimson round the edges, has ceased to bleed. Hastily and carefully drawing the sleeve of my dress over it, I thrust the stained handkerchief into my pocket and make for the house.

      When I have exchanged a word or two with Dora (who is always in the way when not wanted—that being the hall at the present moment), I escape upstairs without being taken to task for my damaged garments, and carefully lock my door. Nevertheless, though now, comparatively speaking, in safety, there is still a weight upon my mind. If to-morrow I am to return the handkerchief to its owner, it must in the meantime be washed, and who is to wash it?

      Try as I will, I cannot bring myself to make a confidante of Martha: therefore nothing remains for me but to undertake the purifying of it myself. I have still half an hour clear before the dinner-bell will ring: so, plunging my landlord's cambric into the basin, I boldly commence my work. Five minutes later. I am getting on: it really begins to look almost white again; the stains have nearly vanished, and only a general pinkiness remains. But what is to be done with the water?—if left, it will surely betray me, and betrayal means punishment.

      I begin to feel like a murderess. In every murder case I have ever read (and they have a particular fascination for me), the miserable perpetrator of the crime finds a terrible difficulty in getting rid of the water in which he has washed off the traces of his victim's blood. I now find a similar difficulty in disposing of the water reddened by my own. I open the window, look carefully out, and, seeing no one, fling the contents of my basin into the air. "It falls to earth I know not where," as I hurriedly draw in my head and get through the remainder of my self-imposed duty.

      After that my dressing for dinner is a scramble; but I get through it in time, and come down serene and innocent, to take my accustomed place at the table.

      All goes well until towards the close of the festivities, when papa, fixing a piercing eye on me, says, generally—

      "May I inquire which of you is in the habit of throwing water from your bedroom windows upon chance passers by?"

      A ghastly silence follows. Dora looks up in meek surprise. Billy glances anxiously at me. My knees knock together. Did it fall upon him? Has he discovered all?

      "Well, why do I receive no answer? Who did it?" demands papa, in a voice of suppressed thunder, still with his eye on me.

      "I threw some out this evening," I acknowledge, in a faint tone, "but never before—I—"

      "Oh! it was you, was it?" says papa, with a glare. "I need scarcely have inquired; I might have known the one most likely to commit a disreputable action. Is that an established habit of yours? Are there no servants to do your bidding? It was the most monstrous proceeding I ever in my life witnessed."

      "It was only—" I begin timidly.

      "'It was only' that it is an utterly impossible thing for you ever to be a lady," interrupted papa, bitterly. "You are a downright disgrace to your family. At times I find it a difficult matter to believe you a Vernon."

      Having delivered this withering speech, he leans back in his chair, with a snort that would not have done discredit to a war-horse, which signifies that the scene is at an end. Two large tears gather in my eyes and roll heavily down my cheeks. They look like tears of penitence, but in reality are tears of relief. Oh, if that tell-tale water had but fallen on the breast of his shirt, or on his stainless cuffs, where would the inquiries have terminated?

      Billy—who, I feel instinctively, has been suffering tortures during the past five minutes—now, through the intensity of his joy at my escape, so far forgets himself as to commence a brilliant fantasia on the tablecloth with a dessert-fork. It lasts a full minute without interruption: I am too depressed to give him a warning glance. At length—

      "Billy, when you have quite done making that horrid noise, perhaps you will ring the bell," says Dora, smoothly, with a view to comfort. Certainly the tattoo is irritating.

      "When I have quite done I will," returns Billy, calmly, and continues his odious occupation, with now an addition to it in the form of an unearthly scraping noise, caused by his nails, that makes one's flesh creep.

      Papa, deep in the perusal of the Times, hears and sees nothing. Mother is absent.

      "Papa," cries Dora, whose delicate nerves are all unstrung, "will you send Billy out of the room, or else induce him to stop his present employment?"

      "William," says papa, severely, "cease that noise directly." And William, casting a vindictive glance at Dora, lays down the dessert-fork and succumbs.

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      I have wandered down to the river side and under the shady trees. As yet, October is so young and mild the leaves refuse to offer tribute, and still quiver and rustle gayly on their branches.

      It is a week since my adventure in the wood—five days since Mr. Carrington's last visit. On that occasion having failed to obtain one minute with him alone, the handkerchief still remains in my possession, and proves a very skeleton in my closet, the initials M. J. C.—that stand for Marmaduke John Carrington, as all the world knows—staring out boldly from their corner, and threatening at any moment to betray me: so that, through fear and dread of discovery, I carry it about with me, and sleep with it beneath my pillow. Looking back upon it all now, I wonder how I could have been so foolish, so wanting in invention. I feel with what ease I could now dispose of anything tangible and obnoxious.

      There is a slight chill in the air, in СКАЧАТЬ