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

go on," speaking with some difficulty; "you were saying something about--Fabian."

"I _think_ so much of him that it is a relief to talk sometimes; but I won't make you doleful. Come over to the fire if you are cold."

"No, I like being here; and--do go on, I like listening to you."

"Well, I wasn't going to say anything very particular, you know. It has all been said so often. _So_ often, and to no use. What a little thing, Portia, gives rise to the most terrible consequences; the mere fact that two people wrote alike, and formed their capitals in the same fashion, has been the utter ruin of a man's life. It sounds dreadful--cruel! sometimes--_often_--I lie awake thinking of it all, and wondering can nothing be done, and no hope ever comes to me. That is the saddest part of it, it will go on like this forever, he will go to his grave," mournfully, "and his very memory will be associated with disgrace."

She pauses and sighs heavily, and folds her fingers tightly together. Not Stephen, nor Roger, but this dishonored brother, is the love of her life--as yet.

"Of course you heard a good deal about it in town," she says, sadly. "He had many friends there at one time. Fair-weather friends! They, as a rule, are cruellest when evil comes; and they never remember. You heard him often discussed?"

This is a downright question to which Portia is constrained to give an answer.

"Yes; often," she says, sorely against her will.

"Aunt Maud would enlarge upon it, of course," says Dulce, bitterly. "She likes whisperings and slanderous tongues. And you, when first you heard it, what did you think?"

Portia shrinks from her. Must she answer this question, too?

"Think?" she says, evasively.

"Yes; what did you think of Fabian?"

"Very little," says Portia, who has grown quite white; "why should I think at all? I did not know him then. It was most natural, was it not? He was a stranger to me."

"A stranger, yes. But still your cousin--your own blood. I should have thought much, I think. It was natural, I daresay, but even _then_--you must recollect--did you believe in him? Did you guess the truth?"

"I don't think I quite understand," said Portia, faintly.

Dulce, in a vague fashion, takes note of her confusion.

"Not understand! But it is such a simple matter," she says, in a changed tone. She looks puzzled, surprised, and a distressed look comes into her eyes. "I mean even _then_, did you believe him innocent?"

"How can I remember?" says Portia, drawing her breath quickly.

The distrust grows upon Dulce's tell-tale face. She comes a step nearer to her cousin.

"No," she says, slowly--her eyes are fixed attentively upon Portia--"it is some time ago. But you can at least tell me _this_. Now--_now_--that you know him--when you have been beneath the same roof with him for some months, how is it with you? You _feel_ that he is innocent?"

There is a terrible amount of almost agonized earnestness in her tone.

"How you catechise one," says Portia, with a painfully bald attempt at indifference that does not impose upon the slowly awakening suspicions of the other for one instant. "Let us change the subject."

"In one moment. I want an answer to my question first. Now that you have seen and known Fabian, do you believe him innocent?"

A most fatal silence follows. Had the question referred to any one else--had even any one else asked the question, she might have evaded it successfully, or even condescended to an actual misstatement of her real thoughts on the subject rather than give pain or be guilty of a social error. She would, in all probability, have smiled and said, "Yes, oh! yes; one must see that he is incapable of such an act," and so on. But just now she seems tongue-tied, unable to say one word to allay her companion's fears. A strange sense of oppression that weighs upon her breast grows heavier and more insupportable at each moment, and Dulce's great gleaming eyes of blackest gray are reading her very soul, and scorching her with their reproachful fire.

"Speak," she cries at last, in a vehement tone, laying her hand on Portia's arm, and holding her with unconscious force. "Say--say," with a miserable attempt at entreaty, and a cruel sob, "that you do not believe him guilty of this cursed thing."

Portia's lips are so dry and parched that they absolutely refuse to give utterance to any words. In vain she tries to conquer the deadness that is overpowering her, but without avail. She lifts her eyes beseechingly, and then grows literally afraid of the girl leaning over her, so intense and bitter is the hatred and scorn that mar the beauty of her usually fair, childish face.

This upward, nervous glance, breaks the spell of silence, and gives voice to Dulce's wrath. It does more, it betrays to her the truth--the bitter fact--that in Portia's eyes her brother--her beloved--is neither more nor less than a successful criminal.

"No, do not trouble yourself to answer me," she says, in cold, cutting tones. "I want no lies, no pretty speeches. I thank you, at least, that you have spared me those. In your soul--I can see--you think him guilty of this shameful deed. Oh! it is horrible!" She covers her face with both her hands, and sways a little, as one might, who is, indeed, hurt to death. "And you, too," she says, faintly; "the only one of all our _friends_. And I so trusted you. I so _loved_ you!"

"Dulce!" cries poor Portia, in an agonized tone. "Hear me!" She springs to her feet, but Dulce, removing her hands from her face, holds them both towards her in such a repellant manner, that she dares not approach. In the last half hour, this girl, so pliant, so prone to laughter and childish petulance, has sprung from the happy insolence of youth into the sad gravity of womanhood.

"What a fool I was," she says, in a low concentrated tone. "I watched all, and I was so _sure_. I thought--the idea will make you laugh, no doubt--but I thought that you _loved_ him. Yet why should you laugh," she says with a sudden passion of remembrance. "Many women have loved him, the best, the loveliest--nay, all the world loved him, till this false blight fell upon him. And even since--"

She hesitates. It may be emotion, it may be recollection and a thought that he may not wish further disclosures, check her.

"Yes, and even since?" echoes Portia, bending eagerly forward. Some feeling even greater than the anguish of the moment compels her to ask the question. But it is never answered. Dulce, with quivering lips and flashing eyes, follows out her own train of thought.

"I congratulate you upon your complete success as a coquette," she says. "No doubt, a London season can develop talents of that sort. You at least deserve praise as an apt pupil. Step by step, day by day, you led him on to his destruction--nay, I am not blind--until at last he laid his whole heart at your feet; you made him adore you only to--"

"Dulce--Dulce," cries Portia, throwing out her arms in passionate protest. "It is not true, I--"

"I _will_ speak," says Dulce, pressing her back from her, "I _will_ tell you what I think of you. Scorning him in your heart you still encouraged him, until his very soul was your own. Do you think I can't see how it is? Have you forgotten he is my own flesh and blood, and that I can read him as no one else can? He thinks you sweet and noble, and perfect, no doubt. Alas! how he has been deceived!"

"Listen to me."

"No, I will not listen. I have trusted you too far already. Oh!" piteously, "you who have seen him, and have noticed the beauty, the sweetness of his life, how could you have misjudged him? But," with vehement anger, "your narrow mind could not appreciate his! You lack generosity. You could not grasp the fact that there might be in this wide world such a thing as undiscovered wrong. You condemned without a hearing. Why," growing calmer, "there have been _hundreds_ of cases where the innocent have suffered for the guilty."

"I know it," says Portia, feverishly, taking Dulce's hand and trying to draw her towards her; but the girl recoils.

"Do not touch me," she says. "There is no longer any friendship between us."

"Oh! Dulce, do not say that," entreats Portia, painfully.

"I will say it. All is at an end as far as love between us is concerned. Fabian is part of me. I cannot separate myself from him. His friends are mine. His detractors are mine also. I will not forgive them. I believe him a saint, you believe him defiled, and tainted with the crime of _forgery_."

She draws her breath quickly; and Portia turns even whiter than before.

"Whereas I protest to you," goes on Dulce, rapidly losing all constraint, and letting her only half-suppressed passion have full sway. "I believe you to be less pure than him, less noble, less self-denying; _he_ would be slow to believe evil of anyone. And this one thing I am resolved on. He shall no longer be left in ignorance of your scorn; he shall not any more spend his affection upon one who regards him with disdain; he shall know the truth before the day dies."

"Have you no pity?" says Portia, faintly.

"Have you none? You condemned him willingly."

"Oh! not willingly!"

"I don't care, you _have_ condemned him."

"If you will only think, you will see--"

"Don't speak to me, I _hate_ you," says Miss Blount, growling undignified because of her deep grief and agitation. "And don't think you can turn me from my purpose. I shall tell him what you think of him before this evening passes, be sure of that."

"There is no need to tell him," says Portia, in so low a tone that Dulce can scarcely hear her. "He--he knows already!"

"What!" cries Dulce, aghast. But her rout only lasts for a moment. "I don't care," she says, recklessly, "that is only another reason why I should warn him to beware of you!"

Then, as though some cruel thought strikes her, she suddenly bursts into tears.

"Were there not _others_?" she sobs, bitterly. "If a slave was indispensable to your happiness, was there not Roger, or Stephen, or Dicky Browne, or even Sir Mark, that you must needs claim _him_? He was heart-whole when you came; if not happy, he had at least conquered the first awful pain; could there be greater wickedness than to add another grief to his life? He had suffered as no man ever yet suffered, and yet you came to add another pang, and to destroy him, body and soul! When I think of it all, and the deliberate cruelty of it," cries she, with a gesture of uncontrollable passion, "if I could lay you dead at my feet this moment by a word I would do it!"

"I wish you could do it," says Portia, quite calmly. The terrible grief of the poor child before her is almost more than she can bear. Her calmness that is born of despair, brings Dulce back to something that resembles quietude.

"I shall go now," she says; "you have had enough of me, no doubt; but remember I shall tell Fabian all that has passed. I warn