Edward gave a short impatient sigh, and turned his head fretfully upon the cushion which maternal hands had worked in softest wool. That movement, expressive of disgust with life in general, did not escape the sharp eyes of his sister.
“Ted, dear, I’m afraid you have not left off being unhappy about Laura,” she murmured sympathetically.
“I am only unhappy about her when I think she is married to a scoundrel.”
“Oh, Ted, how can you say such a thing?”
“Celia, a man who can give no account of seven years of his life must be a scoundrel,” Edward Clare said, decisively. “Say nothing to alarm Laura, I beg you. I am talking to you today as if you were a man, and to be trusted. Wait and watch. Wait and watch, as I shall.”
“Edward, how you frighten me. You make me feel as if we were living in one of those villages at the foot of Vesuvius, with a fiery mountain getting itself ready to explode and destroy us.”
“There will be an explosion some day, Celia, depend upon it; an explosion that will blow up the Manor House as surely as Kirk o’ Field was blown up the night Darnley was slain.”
He said no more, though Celia did not willingly let the subject drop. Indeed, he was inclined to be angry with himself for having said so much, though he had not given his sister his confidence without a motive. He wanted to know all that could be known about John Treverton, and Celia was in a position to learn much that he could not discover for himself.
“I really thought you were beginning to like Mr. Treverton,” the girl said, presently. “You and he seem to get on so well together.”
“I am civil to him for Laura’s sake. I would be guilty of a worse hypocrisy if I thought it would serve her interests.”
Edward sighed, and gave his head another angry jerk upon the cushion. He wanted to do John Treverton deadly harm; and yet he knew that the worst he could do to his rival would bring about no good result to himself. There was nothing to be gained by it. The injury would be irrevocable, deadly; a blight upon name and fortune—perchance the gallows—a shame so deep that a loving wife would scarcely survive the blow. All this was in Edward Clare’s mind as a not impossible revenge. And unhappily there was no smaller revenge possible. He felt himself possessed of a deadly power; but of no power to wound without slaying. He was like the cobra, whose poisonous fangs are provided with an ingenious mechanism which keeps them in reserve until the creature wants to use them. Two hinged teeth lie back against the roof of the snake’s mouth. When he attacks his victim the hinge moves, the fangs descend, the poison gland is pressed, and the deadly poison runs down a groove in the tooth, and drops into the puncture prepared to receive it. Lop off the wounded limb ere the shadow on the dial has marked the passage of twenty seconds, or the venom will have done its work. Medicine has yet to discover the antidote that can save the life of the victim.
XXIV
“And Purple Light Shone Over All”
Christmas was at hand, the first Christmas in Laura’s married life, and to her happy fancy it seemed the most wonderful season that had ever been marked on the calendar of the ages. How could she and John Treverton be thankful enough for the blessings Providence had given them? How could they do enough to make other people happy? About a fortnight before the sacred festival she carried Celia off to Beechampton in the pony carriage, to buy a tremendous stock of blankets, and flannel petticoats for the old women, and comfortable homespun coats for the rheumatic old men.
“Have you any idea as to the amount you are spending, Laura?” asked the practical Celia.
“No, dear; but I have one fixed idea, and that is that no one near Hazlehurst shall be cold and wretched this Christmas, if I can help it.”
“I’m afraid you are encouraging pauperism,” said Celia.
“No, Celia; I am waging war against rheumatism.”
“I hope you don’t expect gratitude.”
“I only expect the blankets to keep out Jack Frost. And now for the grocer’s.”
She shook the reins gaily, and drove on to the chief grocer of Beechampton, in whose plate-glass windows a pair of tall Japanese jars announced the superior character of the trade transacted inside. Here Mrs. Treverton ordered a hundred parcels of plums, currants, sugar, spice, and candied peel, each parcel containing an ample supply for a family Christmas pudding. The shopman rejoiced as he booked the order, and was eloquent in his praise of “our new fruit.”
From the grocer’s they drove to the confectioner’s, and there Laura ordered such a supply of plum cake and buns, muffins and tea cakes, all to be delivered at the Manor House on Christmas Eve, that Celia began to be seriously alarmed for her friend’s sanity.
“What can you want with all that indigestible rubbish?” she exclaimed. “Are you going to open a pastrycook’s shop?”
“No, dear. These things are for my juvenile party.”
“A juvenile party—already! I can’t understand your motive, unless it is to get your hand in for the future. Who are you going to have? All Lady Parker’s nursery, of course—and Lady Barker’s grandchildren, and Mrs. Pendarvis’s seven boys, the Briggses, and the Dropmores, and the Seymours. You’ll want dissolving views, and a conjuror; and you might have tableaux vivants, as you don’t seem to care how much money you waste. People expect so much at juvenile parties nowadays.”
“I think my guests will be quite happy without tableaux vivants, or even a conjuror.”
“I doubt it. Those little Barkers are intensely old for their age.”
“The little Barkers are not coming to my party.”
“And the Pendarvis boys give themselves as many airs as undergraduates after their first
