Portia; Or, By Passions Rocked

CHAPTER X

With a continuous sob and a roar from the distant ocean the storm beats on. All night it has hurled itself upon path and lawn with impotent fury; towards morning it still rages, and even now, when noonday is at its height, its anger is not yet expended.

The rain falls in heavy torrents, the trees bow and creak most mournfully, the rose leaves – sweet-scented and pink as glowing morn – are scattered along the walks, or else, lifted high in air by vehement gusts of wind, are dashed hither and thither in a mazy dance full of passion and despair.

"Just three o'clock," says Dulce, drearily, "and what weather!"

"It is always bad on your day," says Julia, with a carefully suppressed yawn. Julia, when yawning, is not pretty. "I remember when I was here last year, that Thursday, as a rule, was the most melancholy day in the week."

Indeed, as she speaks, she looks more than melancholy, almost aggrieved. She has donned her most sensational garments (there is any amount of red about them) and her most recherché cap to greet the country, and naught cometh but the rain.

"I don't know anything more melancholy at any time than one's at-home day," says Dicky Browne, meditatively, and very sorrowfully; "It is like Sunday, it puts every one out of sorts, and creates evil tempers all round. I never yet knew any family that didn't go down to zero when brought face to face with the fact that to-day they must receive their friends."

"It's a pity you can't talk sense," says Dulce, with a small curl of her upper lip.

"It's a pity I can, you mean. I am too above-board, too genuine for the times in which we live. My candor will be my ruin!" says Mr. Browne, hopelessly unabashed.

"It will!" declares Roger, in a tone that perhaps it will be wise not to go into.

"I suppose nobody will come here to-day," says Portia, somewhat disappointedly; they have been indoors all day, and have become so low in spirit, that even the idea of possible visitors is to be welcomed with delight.

"Nobody," returns Sir Mark, "except the Boers and Miss Gaunt, and they are utter certainties; they always come; they never fail us; they are thoroughly safe people in every respect."

"If Miss Gaunt inflicts herself upon us to-day (which the gods forbid), be sure you pitch into her about the cook she sent you," says Roger, gloomily, turning to Dulce. "That will be a topic of conversation at all events; you owe me a debt of gratitude for suggesting it."

"Well I shan't pay it," says Miss Blount, with decision.

"Well you ought. As a rule, the attempts at conversation down here are calculated to draw tears to the eyes of any intellectual person."

"But why?" asks Portia, indolently.

"It is utterly simple," says Roger, mildly. "There is nothing to talk about; you cannot well ask people what they had for dinner yesterday, without being rude, and there are no theatres, or concerts, or clubs to discuss, and nobody ever dies (the country is fatally healthy), and nobody ever gets married (because there is nobody to marry), and nothing is ever born, because they were all born years ago, or else have made up their minds never to be born at all. It is, in fact, about as unsatisfactory a neighborhood as any one could wish to inhabit."

"I dare say there are worse," says Dulce.

"You have strong faith," retorts Roger.

"Well, it would be a nice question to decide," says Sir Mark, amiably, with a view to restoring order.

"I don't think it is half a bad place," says Dicky Browne, genially, addressing nobody in particular, and talking for the mere sake of hearing his own voice.

"Dicky, I love you," says Dulce, triumphantly.

"Lucky Dicky," says Roger, with an only half-suppressed sneer, which brings down upon him a withering glance from his betrothed.

"How I hate rain," she says, pettishly, tapping the window with two impatient little fingers.

"I love it," says Roger, unpleasantly.

"Love rain!" with an air of utter disbelief. "How can you make such a ridiculous remark! I never heard of any one who liked rain."

"Well, you hear of me now. I like it."

"Oh! nonsense," says Miss Blount, contemptuously.

"It isn't nonsense!" exclaims he, angrily, "I suppose I am entitled to my own likes and dislikes. You can hate rain as much as you do me if you wish it; but at least allow me to – "

"Love it, as you do me," with an artificial laugh, and a soft shrug of her rounded shoulders. "It is perfectly absurd, in spite of your obstinate determination to say you do, I don't believe you can have a desire for wet weather."

"Thank you!" indignantly. "That is simply giving me the lie direct. I must say you can be uncivil when you choose."

"Uncivil!"

"Decidedly uncivil, and even more than that."

"What do you mean! I insist on knowing what you mean by more."

"They're at it again," says Mr. Browne, at this auspicious moment, waving his hand in an airy fashion in the direction of our two belligerents.

Mr. Browne is a person who can always say and do what he likes for several reasons, the principal being that nobody pays the smallest attention to either his sayings or doings. Everybody likes Dicky, and Dicky, as a rule, likes everybody. He has a father and a home somewhere, but where (especially with regard to the former), is vague.

The home, certainly, is kept up for nobody except the servants, as neither Dicky nor his father ever put in an appearance there. The latter (who has never yet mastered the fact that he is growing old), spends all his time in the favorite window of his Club in Pall Mall, with his nose pressed against the pane and his attention irrevocably fixed upon the passers-by on the other side of the way. This is his sole occupation from morning till night; unless one can take notice of a dismal and most diabolical tattoo that at unfortunate moments he is in the habit of inflicting upon the window, and the nerves of the other occupants of the room in which he may be.

Dicky puts in most of his time at Blount Hall. Indeed, it has grown to be a matter of speculation with the Blount's whether in the event of his marriage he will not elect to bring his bride also to stay with them for good and all! They have even gone so far as to hope he will marry a nice girl, and one whom they can receive in the spirit of love.

"I don't think they really ever quite enjoy themselves, until they are on the verge of bloodshed," says Sir Mark, in answer to Dicky's remark. "They are the very oddest pair I ever met."

All this is said quite out loud, but so promising is the quarrel by this time, that neither Dulce nor Roger hear one word of it.

"You do it on purpose," Dulce is saying in a tone in which tears and extreme wrath fight for mastery, "You torment me from morning till night. You are both rude and unkind to me. And now —now– what is it you have just said?"

"What have I said?" asks Roger, who is plainly frightened.

"What indeed! I should be ashamed to repeat it. But I know you said I was uncivil, and that I told lies, and any amount of things that were even worse."

"What on earth is the matter now with you two children?" asks Sir Mark, coming for the second time to the rescue.

"I'm sure I don't know," says Roger, desperately. "It was all about the rain, I think. She is angry because I like it. How can I help that? I can't be born again with other preferences just to oblige her."

"There is some comfort in that thought," says Miss Blount, vindictively. "One of you in a century is quite sufficient."

"Oh! come now, Dulce," protests Sir Mark, kindly. "You don't mean that, you know. And besides only pretty speeches should come from pretty lips."

"Well, he does nothing but tease me," says Dulce, tearfully. "He makes my life perfectly wretched to me."

"How can you say that!" exclaims Dare, indignantly. "I spend my whole time trying to please you – in vain! It is your own temper is at fault."

"You hear that?" exclaims Dulce, triumphantly, turning to Sir Mark, who is trying vainly to edge in one word.

"I maintain what I say," goes on Roger, hurriedly, fearful lest Sir Mark if he gets time, will say something to support Dulce's side of the question. "It can't be my fault. You know I am very fond of you. There have even been moments," says Mr. Dare, superbly, "when if you had asked me to lie down and let you trample on me, I should have done it!"

"Then do it!" says Dulce, with decision. "Now this moment. I am in an awful temper, and my heels are an inch and a half high. I should perfectly love to trample on you. So make haste" – imperiously, "hurry, I'm waiting."

"I shan't," says Dare; "I shan't make myself ridiculous for a girl who detests me."

"Now, isn't that just like him?" says Dulce, appealing to the company at large, who are enjoying themselves intensely – notably Mr. Brown. "Simply because I told him it would give me some slight pleasure if he fulfilled his promise, he has decided on breaking it. He has refused to keep his solemn word, just to vex me."

"That is not my reason."

"Then you are afraid of the high-heeled shoes," with a scornful laugh.

"I am afraid of nothing," hotly.

"Not even of ridicule?"

"Well, yes, I am afraid of that. Most fellows are. But I don't wish to carry on the argument, I have nothing more to say to you."

"Nor I to you. I hope you will never address me again as long as you live. Ah!" glancing out of the window, with an assumption of the most extreme relief and joy – "Here is Mr. Gower coming across the lawn. I am glad. Now, at least, I shall have some one to talk to me, who will not scold and quarrel incessantly, and who can sometimes behave like a gentleman."

"Tell him so. It will raise him to the seventh heaven of delight, no doubt," says Roger, in an indescribable tone.

"I thought it was arranged that we were not to speak to each other again," says Dulce, with considerable severity.

Now Portia, being strange to the household, is a little frightened, and a good deal grieved by this passage at arms.

"Is it really so bad as they would have us think?" she says, in a low tone, to Sir Mark, whom she has beckoned to her side. "Is it really all over between them?"

"Oh, dear, no!" says Sir Mark, with the fine smile that characterizes his lean, dark face. "Don't make yourself unhappy; we are quite accustomed to their idiosyncrasies by this time; you, of course, have yet much to learn. But, when I tell you that, to my certain knowledge, they have bid each other an eternal adieu every week during the past three years, you will have your first lesson in the art of understanding them."

"Ah! you give me hope," says Portia, smiling.

At this moment Mr. Gower enters the room.

"Ah! how d'ye do!" says Dulce, nestling up to him, her soft skirts making a gentle frou-frou as she moves; "so glad you have come. You are late, are you not?" She gives him her hand, and smiles up into his eyes. To all the others her excessive cordiality means only a desire to chagrin Dare, to Stephen Gower it means – well, perhaps, at this point of their acquaintance he hardly knows what it means – but it certainly heightens her charms in his sight.

"Am I?" he says, in answer to her remark. "That is just what has been puzzling me. My watch has gone to the bad, and all the way here I have felt as if the distance between my place and the Hall was longer than I had ever known it before. If I am to judge by my own impatience to be here, I am late, indeed."

She smiles again at this, and says, softly:

"You are not wet, I hope? Such a day to come out. It was a little rash, was it not?"

With the gentlest air of solicitude she lays one little white jeweled hand upon his coat sleeve, as though to assure herself no rain had alighted there. Gower laughs gaily.

"Wet? No," he says, gazing at her with unmistakable admiration. His eyes betray the fact that he would gladly have lifted the small jeweled hand from his arm to his lips; but, as it is, he does not dare so much as to touch it though never so lightly. "Rain does me more good than harm," he says.

"How did you come?" asks she, still charmingly anxious about his well-being.

"I rode. A very good mare, too; though it seemed to me she never traveled so slowly as to-day."

"You rode? Ah! then you got all that last heavy shower," says Dulce, who has plainly made up her mind to go in for compassion of the very purest and simplest.

"My dear fellow!" puts in Roger at this juncture, "you don't half consider yourself. Why on earth didn't you order out the covered carriage and a few fur rugs?"

Gower colors; but Roger is smiling so naturally that he cannot, without great loss of courtesy, take offence. Treating Dare's remark, however, as beneath notice, he turns and addresses himself solely to Dulce.

"To tell you the truth," he says, calmly, "I adore rain. A sunny hour is all very well in its way, and possesses its charms, no doubt, but for choice give me a rattling good shower."

To Roger, of course, this assertion, spoken so innocently, is quite too utterly delicious. Indeed, everybody smiles more or less, as he or she remembers the cause of the quarrel a moment since. Had Gower been thinking for ever, he could hardly have made a speech so calculated to annoy Dulce as that just made. To add to her discomfiture, Roger laughs aloud, a somewhat bitter, irritating laugh, that galls her to the quick.

"I must say I cannot sympathize with your taste," she says, very petulantly, to Gower; and then, before that young man has time to recover from the shock received through the abrupt change of her manner from "sweetness and light" to transcendental gloom, she finishes his defeat by turning her back upon him, and sinking into a chair beside Portia.

"A gleam of sunshine at last," exclaims Sir Mark, at this moment, coming for the third time to the surface, in the fond hope of once more restoring peace to those around.

"Ah, yes, it is true," says Portia, holding up her hand to let the solitary beam light upon it. It lies there willingly enough, and upon her white gown, and upon her knitting needles, that sparkle like diamonds beneath its touch.

"And the rain has ceased," says Julia. "How nice of it. By-the-by, where is Fabian?"

"You know he never sees anyone," says Dulce, a little reproachfully, and in a very low tone.

"But why?" asks Portia, turning her face to Dulce. Even as she speaks she regrets her question, and she colors a hot, beautiful crimson as the quick vehemence of her tone strikes on her own ears.

Sir Mark, leaning over her chair, says:

"Two lessons in one day? Ambitious pupil! Well, if you must learn, know this: Fabian never goes anywhere, except to church, and never receives anybody even in his own home, for a reason that, I suppose, even you are acquainted with." He looks keenly at her as he speaks.

"Yes – I know – that is, I have heard, of course," says Portia, in a very still fashion, bending her eyes upon her knitting once more.

"How suddenly the rain has ceased," says some one; "it will be a very charming evening after all."