“You are not false, Celia,” Laura answered gravely, “but I have good reason to know that your brother is my husband’s enemy.”
“Poor Edward,” sighed Celia. “It’s very cruel of you to say such a thing, Laura. You know how devotedly he loved you, and what a blow your marriage was to him.”
“Was it really, Celia? He did not take much trouble to avert the blow.”
“You mean that he never proposed,” said Celia, “My dear Laura, what would have been the use of his asking you to marry him when he was without the means of keeping a wife? It is quite as much as he can do to clothe himself decently by the uttermost exertion of his genius, though he is really second only to Swinburne, as you know. He has too much of the poetic temperament to face the horrors of poverty,” concluded Celia, quoting her brother’s own account of himself.
“I think a few poets—and some of the first quality—have faced those horrors, Celia.”
“Because they were obliged, dear. They were in the quagmire, and couldn’t get out; like Chatterton and Burns, and ever so many poor dears. But surely those were not of the highest order. Great poets are like Byron and Shelley. They require yachts and Italian villas, and thoroughbred horses, and Newfoundland dogs, and things,” said Celia, with conviction.
“Well, dearest, I bear Edward no ill-will for not having proposed to me, because if he had I could have only refused him; but don’t you think there is an extremity of folly and weakness in his affecting to feel injured by my marrying someone else?”
“It isn’t affectation,” protested Celia. “It’s reality. He does feel deeply, cruelly injured by your marriage with Mr. Treverton. You can’t be angry with him, Laura, for a prejudice that results from his affection for you.”
“I am very angry with him for his unjust and unreasonable hatred of my husband. I believe, Celia, if you knew the extent of his enmity, you too, would feel indignant at such injustice.”
“I don’t know anything, Laura, except that poor Edward is very unhappy. He mopes in his den all day, pretending to be hard at work; but I believe he sits brooding over the fire half the time—and he smokes like—I really can’t find a comparison. Locomotives are nothing to him.”
“I am glad he is not without a conscience,” said Laura, gloomily.
“That means you are glad he is unhappy,” retorted Celia, “for it seems to me that the chief function of conscience is to make people miserable, Conscience never stops us when we are going to do anything wrong. It only torments us afterwards. But now don’t let’s talk any more about disagreeable things. Mother told me I was to do all I could to cheer and enliven you, She is quite anxious about you, thinking you will get low-spirited while your husband is away.”
“Life is not very bright for me without him, Celia; but I have had a cheering letter this morning, and I expect him home very soon, so I will be as hopeful as you like. Take off your hat and jacket, dear, and make up your mind to stay with me. I have been very bearish and ungrateful in shutting the door against my faithful little friend. I shall write your mother a few lines to say I am going to keep you till Saturday.”
“You may, if you like,” said Celia. “It won’t break my heart to be away from home for a day or two; though of course I fully concur with that drowsy old song about pleasures and palaces, and little dickey-birds and all that kind of thing.”
Celia threw off her hat, and slipped herself out of her sealskin jacket as gracefully as Lamia, the serpent woman, escaped from her scaly covering. Laura rang the bell for afternoon tea. The sky was darkening outside the window, the rooks were sailing westwards with a mighty clamour, and the shadows were gathering in the corners of the room. It was that hour in a winter afternoon when the firelight is pleasantest, the hearth cosiest, and when one thinks half regretfully that the days are lengthening, and that this friendly fireside season is passing away.
The tea table was drawn up to the hearth, and Celia poured out the tea. Laura had eaten nothing with any appetite since that fatal Sunday, but her heart was lighter this evening, and she sat back in her chair, restful and placid, sipping her tea, and enjoying the delicate homemade bread and butter. Celia was unusually quiet during the next ten minutes.
“You say your mother gave you particular instructions about being cheerful, Celia,” said Laura, presently; “you are certainly not obeying her. I don’t think I ever knew you hold your tongue for ten consecutive minutes before this evening.”
“Let’s talk,” exclaimed Celia, jerking herself out of a reverie. “I’m ready.”
“What shall we talk about?”
“Well, if you wouldn’t object, I think I should like to talk about a young man.”
“Celia!”
“It sounds rather dreadful, doesn’t it?” asked Celia, naively, “but, to tell you the truth, there’s nothing else that particularly interests me just now. I’ve had a young man on my mind for the last three days.”
Laura’s face grew graver. She sat looking at the fire for a minute or so in gloomy silence.
“Mr. Gerard, I suppose?” she said at last.
“How did you guess?”
“Very easily. There are only two eligible young men in Hazlehurst, and you have told me a hundred times that you don’t care about either of them. Mr. Gerard is the only stranger who has appeared at the Vicarage. You might easily arrange that as a syllogism.”
“Laura, do you think I am the kind of girl to marry a poor man?” asked Celia, with sudden intensity.
“I think it is a thing you are very likely to do; because you have always protested most vehemently that
