you at least persuade the man himself?'
'Only one person can do that, Viola.'
'But I can't! That's the horrid part of it. I can't get rid of it. Mamma says I am a foolish child. I could tell her of other people more foolish than I am. I can see the difference between sham and reality, if they can't.'
'I don't think he means to be sham,' I rambled into defence of Eustace.
'Means it! No, he hasn't the sense. I believe he really thinks it was he who saved Dermot's life as entirely as mamma does.'
'No. Now do they really?'
'Of course, as they do with everything. It's always 'The page slew the boar, the peer had the gloire.''
'It's the page's own fault,' I said. 'He only wants the peer to have the gloire.'
'And very disagreeable and deceitful it is of him,' cried Viola; 'only he hasn't got a scrap of deceit in him, and that's the reason he does it so naturally. No, you may tell them that borrowed plumes won't always serve, and there are things that can't be done by deputy.'
And therewith Viola, perhaps perceiving what she had betrayed, turned more crimson than ever, and hid her face against me with a sob in her breath, and then I was quite sure of what I did not dare to express, further than by saying, while I caressed her, 'I believe they honestly think it is all the same.'
'But it isn't,' said Viola, recovering, and trying to talk and laugh off her confusion. 'I don't think so, and poor Dermot did not find it so when the wrong one was left to lift him, and just ran his great stupid arm into the tenderest place in his side, and always stepped on all the boards that creak, and upset the table of physic bottles, and then said it was Harold's way of propping them up! And that's the creature they expect me to believe in!'
We turned at the moment and saw a handkerchief beckoning to us from the window; and going in, found Dermot established on a couch under it, and Harold packing him up in rugs, a sight that amazed both of us; but Dermot said, 'Yes, he treats me like Miss Stympson's dog, you see. Comes over by stealth when I want him.'
Dermot did look very ill and pain-worn, and his left arm lay useless across him, but there was a kind of light about his eyes that I had not seen for a long time, as he made Harold set a chair for me close to him, and he and Viola told the adventures of their journey, with mirth in their own style, and Harold stood leaning against the shutter with his look of perfect present content, as if basking in sunshine while it lasted.
When the mother and uncle came in, it was manifestly time for us to convey ourselves away. Harold had come on foot from Mycening, but I was only too glad to walk my pony along the lanes, and have his company in the gathering winter twilight.
'You have spoken to her?' he said.
'Yes. Harold, it is of no use. She will never have him.'
'Her mother thinks she will.'
'Her mother knows what is in Viola no more than she knows what is in that star. Has Dermot never said anything--'
'Lady Diana made everyone promise not to say a word to him.'
'Oh!'
'But, Lucy, what hinders it? There's nothing else in the way, is there?'
I did not speak the word, but made a gesture of assent.
'May I know who it is,' said Harold in a voice of pain. 'Our poor fellow shall never hear.'
'Harold,' said I, 'are you really so ridiculous as to think any girl could care for Eustace while you are by?'
'Don't!' cried Harold, with a sound as of far more pain than gladness.
'But why not, Harry? You asked me.'
'Don't light up what I have been struggling to quench ever since I knew it.'
'Why?' I went on. 'You need not hold back on Eustace's account. I am quite sure nothing would make her accept him, and I am equally convinced--'
'Hush, Lucy!' he said in a scarcely audible voice. 'It is profanation. Remember--'
'But all that is over,' I said. 'Things that happened when you were a mere boy, and knew no better, do not seem to belong to you now.'
'Sometimes they do not,' he said sadly; but--'
'What is repented,' I began, but he interrupted.
'The fact is not changed. It is not fit that the purest, gentlest, brightest creature made by Heaven should be named in the same day with one stained with blood--aye, and deeds I could not speak of to you.'
I could not keep from crying as I said, 'If I love you the more, Harry, would not she?'
'See here, Lucy,' said Harry, standing still with his hand on my rein; 'you don't know what you do in trying to inflame what I can hardly keep down. The sweet little thing may have a fancy for me because I'm the biggest fellow she knows, and have done a thing or two; but what I am she knows less than even you do; and would it not be a wicked shame either to gain the tender heart in ignorance, or to thrust on it the knowledge and the pain of such a past as mine?' And his groan was very heavy, so that I cried out:
'Oh, Harry! this is dreadful. Do you give up all hope and joy for ever because of what you did as an ungovernable boy left to yourself?'
We went on for some time in silence; then he said in an indescribable tone, between wonder, disgust, and pity, 'And I thought I loved Meg Cree!'
'You knew no one else,' I said, feeling as if, when Dora threw away that ring, the wild, passionate animal man had been exorcised; but all the answer I had was another groan, as from the burthened breast, as if he felt it almost an outrage to one whom he so reverenced to transfer to her the heart that had once beat for Meg Cree. There was no more speech for a long time, during which I feared that I had merely made him unhappy by communicating my conjecture, but just as we were reaching our own grounds he said, 'You will say nothing, Lucy?'
'No, indeed.'
'I thought it was all over, and for ever,' he said, pausing; 'it ought to have been. But the gates of a new world were opened to me when I saw her and you walking in the garden! If it had only been five or six years sooner!'
He could not say any more, for Dora, who had been watching, here burst on us with cries of welcome, and it was long before there was any renewal of the conversation, so that I could not tell whether he really persuaded himself that he had no hopes, or was waiting to see how matters should turn out.
It was never easy to detect expressions of feeling or spirits on his massive face, and he could hardly be more silent than usual; but it was noticeable that he never fell asleep after his former wont when sitting still. Indeed, he seldom was still, for he had a great deal of business both for the estate and the potteries on his hands, and stayed up late at night over them; and not only over them, for my room was next to his, and I heard the regular tramp, tramp of his feet, and the turn at the end of the room, as he walked up and down for at least an hour when the rest of the house were asleep, or the closing of the door when he returned from wandering on the moor at night. And in the early morning, long before light, he always walked or rode over to Arked House, bestowed on Dermot's hurts the cares which both had come to look on as essential, and stayed with him till the family were nearly ready to appear at their nine o'clock breakfast, not seeing Viola at all, unless any special cause led to a meeting later in the day, and then his eyes glowed, and he would do her devoted, unobserved service--no, not unobserved by her, whom it made blush and sparkle--and utter little words of thanks, not so gay as of old, but deeper, as if for a great honour and delight. And then he would bow his head, colour, and draw into the background, where, with folded arms, he could watch her.
Once, when Dora, in her old way, claimed to be his wife, Harold told her with some impatience that she was growing too old for that nonsense. The child looked at him with bent brows and questioning eyes for a moment, then turned and fled. An hour later, after a long search, I found her crouched up in the corner of the kangaroo's stall among the straw, having cried herself to sleep, with her head on the creature's soft back.
As soon as Dermot was able to bear any strain on mind or attention, he gave his keys to Harold. All his long and unhappy accumulation of bills and bonds were routed out from their receptacles at Biston, and brought over by Harold to his office, where he sorted them, and made them intelligible, before harassing his friend with the questions he alone could explain. An hour a day was then spent over them--hours that cost poor Dermot more than he was equal to; but his mind was made up, as he told me, 'to face anything rather than go on in the old miserable way.' It was much that he had learnt to think it miserable.
