Portia; Or, By Passions Rocked

CHAPTER XXII

From Christmas Day to New Year's Day we all know is but a week – but what a week it is! For my part I think this season of supposed jollity the most uncomfortable and forlorn of any in the year. During all these seven interminable days the Boodie still clings to her belief in Roger, and vows he will surely return before the first day of '82 shall have come to an end. It is very nearly at an end now; the shadows have fallen long ago; the night wind has arisen; the snow that all day long has been falling slowly and steadily, still falls, as if quite determined never again to leave off.

They are all sitting in the library, it being considered a snugger room on such a dreary evening that the grander drawing-room. Stephen Gower, who has just come in, is standing by the centre-table with his back to it, and is telling them some little morsel of scandal about a near neighbor. It is a bare crumb, yet it is received with avidity and gratitude, and much laughter, so devoid of interest have been all the other hours of the day.

Nobody quite understands how it now is with Dulce and Stephen. That they have patched up their late quarrel is apparent to everybody, and as far as an ordinary eye can see, they are on as good terms with each other as usual.

Just now she is laughing even more merrily than the rest at his little story, when the door opens, and Sir Christopher and Fabian enter together.

Sir Christopher is plainly very angry, and is declaring in an extremely audible voice that "he will submit to it no longer;" he furthermore announces that he has "seen too much of it," whatever "it" may be, and that for the future he "will turn over a very different leaf." I wonder how many times in the year this latter declaration is made by everybody?

Fabian, who is utterly unmoved by his vehemence, laying his hand upon his uncle's shoulder, leads him up to the fireplace and into the huge arm-chair, that is his perpetual abiding-place.

"What is it?" asks Sir Mark, looking up quickly.

"Same old story," says Fabian, in a low voice, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "Slyme. Drink. Accounts anyhow. And tipsy insolence, instead of proper explanation." As Fabian finishes, he draws his breath hastily, as though heartily sick and tired of the whole business.

Now that he is standing within the glare of the fire, one can see how altered he is of late. His cheeks are sunken, his lips pale. There is, too, a want of energy about him, a languor, a listlessness, that seems to have grown upon him with strange rapidity, and which suggests the possibility that life has become rather a burden than a favor.

If I say he looks as dead tired as a man might look who has been for many hours engaged in a labor trying both to soul and body, you will, perhaps, understand how Fabian looks now to the eyes that are gazing wistfully upon him from out the semi-darkness.

Moving her gown to one side, Portia (impelled to this action by some impulsive force) says, in a low tone:

"Come and sit here, Fabian," motioning gently to the seat beside her.

But, thanking her with great courtesy, he declines her invitation, and, with an unchanged face, goes on with his conversation with Sir Mark.

Portia, flushing hotly in the kindly dark, shrinks back within herself, and linking her fingers tightly together, tries bravely to crush the mingled feelings of shame and regret that rise within her breast.

"I can stand almost anything myself, I confess, but insolence," Sir Mark is saying, à propos of the intoxicated old secretary. "It takes it out of one so. I have put up with the most gross carelessness rather than change any man, but insolence from that class is insufferable. I suppose," says Sir Mark, meditatively, shifting his glass from his left to his right eye, "it is because one can't return it."

"One can dismiss the fellow, though," says Sir Christopher, still fuming. "And go Slyme shall. After all my kindness to him, too, to speak as he did to-night! The creature is positively without gratitude."

"Don't regret that," says Dicky Browne, sympathetically. "You are repining because he declines to notice your benefits; but think of what Wordsworth says —

Look here, Sir Christopher, my experience is, that if once you do a fellow a good turn he'll stick to you through life, and make you feel somehow as if he belonged to you, and that isn't pleasant, is it?"

Dicky pauses. Wordsworth is his strong point, and freely he quotes and misquotes him on all occasions. Indeed, I am of the opinion he is the only poet Dicky ever read in his life, and that because he was obliged to.

"I have done with Slyme," goes on Sir Christopher, hotly. "Yes, forever. Now, not a word, Fabian; when my mind is made up (as you all know) it is made up, and nothing can alter it." This is just what they do not all know. "As for you," continues Sir Christopher, indignantly, addressing himself solely to Fabian, "you plead for that miserable old sot out of nothing but sheer obstinacy – not because you like him. Now, do you like him? Come now, I defy you to say it."

Fabian laughs slightly.

"There, I knew it!" exclaims Sir Christopher, triumphantly, though Fabian in reality has said nothing; "and as for him, he positively detests you. What did he say just now? – that he – "

"Oh, never mind that," says Fabian, poking the fire somewhat vigorously.

"Do let us hear it," says Julia, in her usual lisping manner. "Horrid old man; I am quite afraid of him, he looks so like a gnome, or – or – one of those ugly things the Germans write about. What did he say of dear Fabian?"

"That he had him in his power," thunders Sir Christopher, angrily. "That he could make or unmake him, as the fancy seized him, and so on. Give you my honor," says Sir Christopher, almost choking with rage, "it was as much as ever I could do to keep my hands off the fellow!"

Portia, sinking further into her dark corner, sickens with apprehension at these words. Suspicion, that now, alas! has become a certainty, is crushing her. Perhaps before this she has had her doubts – vague doubts, indeed, and blessed in the fact that they may admit of contradiction. But now —now—

What was it Slyme had said? That he could either "make or unmake him," that he "had him in his power." Does Slyme, then, know the – the truth about him? Was it through fear of the secretary that Fabian had acted as his defender, supporting him against Sir Christopher's honest judgment? How quickly he had tried to turn the conversation; how he had seemed to shrink from deeper investigation of Slyme's impertinence. All seems plain to her, and with her supposed knowledge comes a pain, too terrible almost to be borne in secret.

Fabian, in the meantime, had seated himself beside Julia, and is listening to some silly remarks emanated by her. The Boodie, who is never very far from Fabian when he is in the room, is sitting on his knee with her arms around his neck.

"Come here, Boodie," says Dicky Browne, insinuatingly. "You used to say you loved me."

"So I do," says the Boodie, in fond remembrance of the biggest doll in Christendom. "But – "

She hesitates.

"'I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not Fabian more,'" parodies Mr. Browne, regretfully. "Well, I forgive you. But I thought it was Roger on whom you had set your young affections. By the by, he has disappointed you, hasn't he? Here is New Year's Day, and he has not returned to redeem his promise."

"He will come yet," says the Boodie, undauntedly.

"'He will return; I know him well,'" again quotes Mr. Browne; "that's your motto, I suppose, like the idiotic young woman in the idiotic song. Well, I admire faith myself; there's nothing like it."

"Don't mind him," says Fabian, tenderly, placing his arm round the discomfited Boodie, and pressing her pretty blonde head down upon his breast. "I don't understand him, so, of course, you don't."

"But why?" says Dicky Browne, who is evidently bent on mischief; "she has a great deal more brains than you have. Don't be aspersed by him, Boodie; you can understand me, I know, but I dare say I can soar higher than he can follow, and what I say to you contains 'thoughts that lie beyond the reach of his few words of English speech.'"

"Thank you," says Fabian.

The Boodie is plainly puzzled.

"I don't know what you mean," she says to Dicky; "I only know this," defiantly, "that I am certain Roger will return to-night, even if I am in bed when he comes."

The words are hardly out of her mouth when the door opens and somebody appears upon the threshold. This somebody has had an evident tussle with the butler outside, who, perhaps, would fain have announced him, but having conquered the king of the servants' hall, the somebody advances slowly until he is midway between the centre of the room and the direct glare of the firelight.

Every one grows very silent. It is as though a spell has fallen upon them all; all, that is, except Dulce. She, rising hurriedly from her seat, goes toward the stranger.

"It is Roger!" she cries suddenly, in so glad a voice, in a voice so full of delight and intense thankfulness, that every one is struck by it.

Then Roger is in their midst, a very sunburnt Roger, but just at first his eyes are only upon Dulce, and after a little bit it becomes apparent to everybody that it is Dulce alone he sees; and that she is in fact the proud possessor of all the sight he owns.

He has taken between both his the two little trembling hands she has extended to him, and is pressing them warmly, openly, without the slightest idea of concealing the happiness he feels in being at her side again.

A little happy smile wreathes her lips as she sees this, and with her white fingers she smooths down the gray sleeve of his coat, as if he were a priceless treasure, once lost, but now restored to her again.

I think Dare likes being looked upon as a long-lost priceless treasure, because he does not move, and keeps his eyes still on her as though he would never like to remove them, and makes no objection to his sleeve being brushed up the wrong way.

"It seems like a hundred thousand years since you went away," says Dulce, with a little happy sigh, after which every one crowds around him, and he is welcomed with extreme joy into the family circle again. Indeed, the Boodie exhibits symptoms of insanity, and dances round him with a vivacity that a dervish might be proud of.

This is, of course, very delightful, specially to Stephen Gower, who is sitting glooming upon space, and devoured with something he calls disgust, but might be more generally termed the commonest form of jealousy. The others are all crowding round Roger, and are telling him, in different language, but in one breath, how welcome he is.

This universal desire to light mythical tar-barrels in honor of the wanderer's return suggests at last to Mr. Gower the necessity of expressing his delight likewise. Rising, therefore, from his seat, he goes up to Roger, and insists on shaking him cordially by the hand. This proceeding on his part, I am bound to say, is responded to by Roger in a very niggardly manner – a manner that even undergoes no improvement when Mr. Gower expresses his overwhelming satisfaction at seeing him home again.

"We are all more pleased to see you again than we can say," declares Mr. Gower, purposely forgetful of that half-hour in the back-yard, when they had been bent on pommeling each other, and doubtless would have done so but for Sir Mark.

He says this very well indeed, and with quite an overflow of enthusiasm – perhaps rather too great an overflow; because Roger, looking at him out of his dark eyes, decides within himself that this whilom friend of his is now his bitterest enemy, hating him with all the passionate hatred of a jealous heart.

The Boodie is in a state of triumph bordering on distraction. "She had always said he (Roger) would return on New Year's Day; she had believed in his promise; she had known he would not disappoint," and so on. Every now and then she creeps up to the returned wanderer, to surreptitiously pat his sleeve or his cheek, looking unutterable things all the time. Finally she crowns herself by pressing into his hand a neatly tied little square parcel, with a whisper to the effect that it is his Christmas-box, that she has been keeping for him all the week.