Portia - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (top 100 books of all time checklist txt) 📗

take a harder curve, she is dumb, silent, unsympathetic; and yet when he is gone, when the door has closed behind him, the fever of her blood runs high, and but for social training, she would gladly rise, and, in spite of all things, call to him and implore him to return to her side once more.

To a casual observer, of course, all this is not apparent; but to these two, between whom Fate sits relentless, the pain and sorrow of it is deep and cruel. More deep, more sorrowful for him, of course. His whole life is a ruin; he had thought of many things when first the blight fell upon him; but that he should fall in love, and because of this curse that has blasted his best days, should be compelled to turn aside from the love of his heart, had not occurred to him. His life has grown too bitter to be borne with fortitude, almost he is "half in love with easeful death." Oh, the joy--the rapture! to pass away from all the tortures of this "work-a-day world" to a land unknown, but surely full of rest. To die--to disappear! To court a glad forgetfulness! In this alone lies hope, and, that sweetest of all sweet things, indifference.

Not coward enough to compel death, he still longs for it; he would slip away from all and sink into oblivion, and gladly deem himself and his sad history forgotten. "To cease upon the midnight with no pain?" What sweeter, kinder fate could visit him than that for which Keats longed--not vainly.

Into his life, too, some smaller worries are thrown. The old man Slyme, the secretary, has been going rapidly from bad to worse, of late. His intemperate habits are growing on him, and now seldom comes the day when he is not discovered to be unfit for duty of any kind.

Naturally such conduct incenses Sir Christopher to the last degree. The old man has been for years in his service, but time wears out all things, and even regard and use can be forgotten. Fabian, falling into the breach, seeks to mend it, although Slyme has never been a favorite of his, and although he is fully aware that he is very distasteful to the secretary for reasons unknown; still he pleads his cause, principally because the man is old and friendless; and this, too, he does secretly, the secretary being ignorant of the force brought to bear upon his delinquencies, a force that keeps a roof over his head, and leaves him a competence without which the world would be a barren spot to him indeed, with only the poor-house--that most degrading of all places--to which to turn.

To-day is melancholy, cold and bleak. The winds are sighing; the earth is bare and naked; no vestige of a fresh and coming life can yet be seen. Upon the gray sands, far away, the white waves dash themselves tumultuously, the sea birds shriek, and, "blasting keen and loud, roll the white surges to the sounding shore."

Indoors there is warmth and comfort. Julia, sitting over the fire, finding she cannot get Dulce to gossip with--Dulce, indeed, is not come-at-able of late--turns gratefully to Portia, who happens to come into the room at this moment.

"The fire is the only delicious thing in the house," she says, fretfully. "_Do_ come here and enjoy it with me."

"Anything the matter with you?" asks Portia, gently, seating herself on a low lounging chair at her side.

"Oh! nothing, nothing. But Dulce is very strange of late, is she not? Ever since Roger's going, don't you think? And all that affair was quite absurd, according to my lights. Stephen won't suit her half as well. Fancy any woman throwing over the man she likes, for a mere chimera. Wrecking her entire happiness for the sake of a chocolate cream!"

"It sounds absurd," says Portia; "but I cannot believe such a paltry thing as that has separated them. There must have been something else."

"Well, perhaps so. Sir Christopher, one can see, is very distressed about it. He is unfortunate about them all, is he not? poor old man. Fabian's affair was so wretched, so unlooked for, too," says Julia, in the comfortably gossiping tone one knows so well, drawing her chair a little nearer to the fire. "I can't think what could have tempted him to do it."

Portia turns abruptly toward her.

"Do you, too, question his innocence?" she says, her breath coming quickly.

"Well--er--you see one doesn't like to talk about it," says Mrs. Beaufort with a faint yawn. "It seems pleasanter to look upon him as a suffering angel, but there are some who don't believe in him you know. Do come closer to the fire, Portia, and let us have a good chat."

"Go on," says Portia, "you were talking of Fabian, you were saying--"

"Yes, just so. Was I uncharitable? It doesn't make him a bit the worse in my eyes, you know, not a bit. It is all done and over years ago, and why remember nasty things. Really, do you know, Portia--it may be horrid of me--but really I think the whole story only makes him a degree more interesting."

Portia shivers, and ignores this suggestion.

"Do other people doubt him, too?" she asks in a strangely cold tone. Though she may disbelieve in him herself, yet it is agony to her that others should do the same.

"My dear, yes, of course; a great many; in fact, pretty nearly everybody but just those you see here--Sir Mark excepted, I think, and then Dicky Browne. But Dicky hasn't enough brains to believe or disbelieve in anybody."

"Ah!" says Portia. She leans back in her chair, and holds up a fan between her and the fire and Julia. She can hardly analyze her own thoughts; but, even at this moment, when all her finest feelings are ajar, she tells herself that surely--surely she cordially detests Julia Beaufort. She tells herself, too, that she loves Mark Gore.

"You see, in your doubt of him, you are not a solitary exception," says Julia, with elephantine playfulness. "Others think with you. It is the plainest case in the world, I think. I don't blame you."

"How do you know I _do_ doubt him?" asks Portia, suddenly, turning her large eyes upon her, that are glittering in the firelight. At this Julia recoils a little and looks somewhat uncomfortable.

"Your voice, your manner, led me to believe so," she says, slowly, and with hesitation. "If you don't, of course it is so much to your credit."

"You mean--" asks Portia.

"Well, his whole bearing would preclude the thought of dishonor of any kind," says Julia, boldly, and with the utmost effrontery, considering all she had said a moment since. "Suspicion could hardly rest with such a man as Fabian. Of course, the whole thing is a wretched mistake, that will be cleared up sooner or later, let us hope sooner, as surely he has suffered enough already, poor dear fellow!"

She pauses; Portia puzzled, and secretly indignant, says nothing. Seeing she will not speak, Julia goes on again even more impressively than before.

"I never entertained a shadow of a doubt with regard to him," she says, nobly, "never! Who could? I was always one of his very warmest supporters."

This is too much! Portia murmuring something civil, but distinct, rises abruptly, and, going to the door, opens it, and is soon beyond call, and beyond hearing of the voice that has grown hateful to her.

Just at this moment, Julia's absurd shufflings, and equivocations, and barefaced changes from one asseveration to another fill her with wrath. She is distressed, and at war with her own heart; and so, crossing the hall, makes for the one room that is especially dear to all women when in trouble, namely, her own bedroom.

But passing by Dulce's door, and finding it open, she pauses before it, and finally, after some hesitation, she crosses the threshold only to find it empty.

The fire is burning brightly; a little crushed glove lies upon the hearth-rug, showing how its owner but lately had knelt before the fire, or stood near it to gaze into its depths, and call up fancied faces from its coals.

A little low chair attracts her attention; sinking into it, she lets her chin fall into the palm of her hands, and presently is lost in painful and half-angry reflection.

"Pretty nearly everybody." The words ring in her ears; does the whole county, then, look upon Fabian with averted eyes? And perhaps--who knows--the very people beneath the roof may distrust him, too; she had not known until this evening Julia's private opinion; the others may agree with her, but naturally shrink from saying so. Roger, perhaps, believed him guilty; and Dicky Browne, it may be, in his secret soul, regards him with contempt, and Sir Mark--

No, _not_ Sir Mark! She could not mistake him. However foolish it may be, certainly his belief in Fabian is genuine. And somehow of late, she has grown rather fond of Sir Mark; and here she sighs, and laying her hand upon her heart, presses it convulsively against it as though to still the pain that has sprung into life there, because of the agitation that has been hers for the past half hour.

Dulce, coming up-stairs, presently, finds her still sitting over the fire, in an attitude that betokens the very deepest dejection.

"You here, _tres chere_, and alone," she says, gaily, stooping over her in caressing fashion. "Naughty girl. You should have told me you were going to honor me with your presence, and I would have made my room gay to receive you."

"I don't want you to make a stranger of me. I like your room as it is," says Portia, with a smile.

"Well, don't sit crouching over the fire; it will spoil your complexion; come over to the window and see what the storm has done, and how lovely nature can look even when robed in Winter's garb."

Portia, rising, follows her to the window, but as she reaches it she sinks again wearily into a lounging chair, with all the air of one whose limbs refuse obstinately to support her.

As both girls gaze out upon the chilly landscape, white here and there with the snow that fell last night, Fabian, coming from between the dark green branches of an ancient lauristinus, with two red setters at his heels, and a gun upon his shoulder, passes beneath the window, going in the direction of the home wood.

Leaning forward, Dulce taps lightly on the pane, and Fabian, heating the quick sound, stops short, and lifts his eyes to the window. As he sees his pretty sister, he nods to her, and a bright smile creeps round his lips, rendering his always handsome face actually beautiful for the moment.

Only for a moment; his gaze wandering, instinctively, falls on Portia, standing pale and calm beside her cousin. Their eyes meet, and, as if by magic, the smile dies, his lips grow straight and cold again, and, without another glance, he whistles to his dogs, and, turning the corner, is rapidly out of sight.

"Dear Fabian--poor darling," says Dulce, tenderly, who has noticed only the kindly smile vouchsafed to her. "How sad he always looks. Even his smile is more mournful than the tears of others. What a terrible pressure Fate has laid upon him. He----; how pale you are, Portia! What is it, dearest? I am sure you are not well to-day."

"I am quite well. I am only cold;