CHAPTER XXVII.

"But 'mid his mirth, 'twas often strange How suddenly his cheer would change, His look o'ercast and lower--

Even so 'twas strange how, evermore, Soon as the passing pang was o'er, Forward he rushed, with double glee, Into the stream of revelry."

SCOTT.

The _fête champêtre_ proved a success; it was a perfect day; the house, a very fine modern one, and the grounds, had appeared to the best advantage; the dancing tent had been just full enough, the toilettes lovely, and the whole thing so well got up and successful, that Josephine began half to repent not having decided upon such an entertainment for the Fourth instead of the proposed masquerade.

"This is just the place for a fête," she said, as we were all sitting in the parlor next morning "talking it over." "This lawn is twice the size of the Emersons', and this piazza, inclosed and decorated, would be the prettiest thing in the world. Indeed, there is no doubt in my mind but that it would have been an infinitely handsomer affair than theirs, if we had decided upon a _fête_."

"It would not have been dignified, Miss Josephine," said Mr. Rutledge, with a smile, "to have followed so closely in their steps, and I do not think we need have any fears for the masquerade."

"Not the smallest," said Mrs. Churchill. "With Mr. Rutledge as leader, and Josephine as aid-de-camp, I am certain there is no such word as fail. This absurd child," she continued, bending gracefully over her pretty daughter, "this absurd child, Mr. Rutledge, enters so with all her heart into whatever she undertakes, that I have to laugh at her continually. She can think of nothing now, but this masquerade, and only this morning"----

"Now, mamma!" remonstrated Josephine.

"Only this morning," her mother went on, "she said to me, 'I was so worried, mamma, I couldn't sleep last night, for Mr. Rutledge has trusted to my taste about the decorations, and if he should be disappointed, I should be perfectly miserable.' Did you ever hear of anything so silly?" she continued, with a light caress.

"Never," said Mr. Rutledge, looking admiringly at Josephine's averted conscious face. "Am I so very terrible, then?"

"No," said Josephine with a pretty shyness, "oh no! but then, you know--you see--I should be so sorry to disappoint or displease you. I know you wouldn't say a word, but I should be perfectly miserable if you were not pleased."

"Where are you going, Phil?" asked Grace, as her cousin strode out into the hall.

"Anywhere, Gracie," I heard him say, under his breath. "It doesn't make much difference where."

Poor Phil! There was a sharp pain at his honest heart, I knew. I watched him from the window, as with hasty strides he crossed the lawn, and disappeared into the woods. But Josephine didn't see; Mr. Rutledge was sketching a plan for the decorations, and she was leaning over the paper with fixed attention.

"If those people are coming to lunch," said Ella Wynkar, getting up from a tête-à-tête chat with the captain, "it is time we were dressed to receive them. Come, Josephine, it would never be forgiven, if we should not be ready."

"Yes," exclaimed Mr. Rutledge, starting up and looking at his watch, "I had forgotten about that. They will be here in half an hour. Miss Josephine, did you ever effect your toilet in half an hour, in your life?"

"You shall see!" cried Josephine, dancing out of the room. Mrs. Churchill followed, with a laughing apology for her daughter's wild spirits; since she had been at this delightful place, she had, she declared, been like a bird let loose.

"The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods,"

I longed to say to my aunt, would hardly know how to enjoy them. The miserable prisoner that had spent all its life, in narrow cramped limits, on the sill of a city window, hopped on a smooth perch, and eaten canary-seed and loaf-sugar since its nativity, would hardly be at home in wide, sunny fields, or "groves deep and high," would shudder to clasp with its tender claws the rough bark of the forest twigs, and would be doubtful of the flavor of a wild strawberry, and think twice before it would stoop to drink of the roaring mountain-stream. It would, I fancy, before nightfall, creep miserably back to its cage, as the fittest, safest, most comfortable place for its narrowed and timid nature.

"So!" said Victor, looking at me with a curl on his handsome lip, as the drawing-room was vacated by all but ourselves. "Are you going to spend an hour of this splendid fresh morning in making yourself fine?"

"Not if I know myself intimately!" I exclaimed, cramming my work, thimble, and scissors into my workbox, and springing up. "I do not fancy devoting three hours to those tiresome Mason girls nor their horse-and-dog brothers. I shall never be missed, and I am going to the village for a walk."

"Why to the village?" said Victor, following me, and reaching down my flat hat from the deer's horns that it had been decorating in the hall. "Why will you not come to the lake and let me row you up to the pines?"

"I ought to have paid my devoirs to the housekeeper at the Parsonage the very day I arrived," I answered, as we descended the steps. "She is a great friend of mine, and she will be hurt if I neglect her any longer. Indeed, it's a very pleasant walk, and you'll be repaid for taking it, if we should find Mr. Shenstone at home. He is so kind, and the very best man in the world."

"That's the clergyman?" said Victor, making a grimace. "I don't affect clergymen, as a general thing, but for your sake I will try to be favorably impressed; your friends I always try to admire; our host, for instance, who just passed down the terrace, without so much as a look toward us, though he could not possibly have avoided seeing us. Why do you bite your lip?" continued he, watching me narrowly. "I cannot learn the signs of your face. Pale and red, smiling and frowning, like any April day. There! what chord have I touched now? The thought gave you actual pain."

"Nothing!" I exclaimed, hurriedly. "There's Stephen on the lawn. I want to talk to him," and I ran across to where he stood, leaning on his rake, watching us. While I talked to him, Victor threw himself upon the heap of new-cut hay at a little distance from us, and played with Tigre. I saw that Stephen's eyes often wandered to where he lay, his hat off, the wind lifting the dark hair from his handsome face.

"If I might make so bold," said Stephen, in a low tone, as I was turning away, "has that young gentleman lived long in this country?"

"I do not know, really," I said, with a laugh. "Shall I ask him, Stephen?"

"No, Miss, I shouldn't like you to ask him; but I should like to know."

"I'll find out for you sometime," I said, as I nodded a good bye and rejoined Victor.

It was, as he said, a splendid day--all sultriness dissipated by the strong wind. We had a beautiful walk through the woods, though I couldn't quite forget "our rustic friend," as Victor called his unknown enemy; but he made such a joke of it that it was impossible to have much feeling of alarm connected with it. The village, however, he seemed not to care to visit.

"Had I not better wait for you here?" he said, lingering as we passed out of the woods into the lane that led to the village.

"No, indeed," I said, perversely; "if you stay here I shall go home another way."

He laughed, but rather uneasily, and followed me.

I bent my head so that my hat hid my face as we entered the low gate of the Parsonage, for I dreaded Victor's inquiring eyes just then. I preceded him down the little path bordered with flowers, and, stepping on the porch, raised the knocker. We waited for several minutes, and still no answer; so, telling my companion to follow me, I passed on into the study.

"What a cool, shady, pleasant room!" said Victor, as he gave me a seat and threw himself into another. "I am sure I could write a sermon myself against the pomps and vanities if I had such a sweet, calm retreat to repose in meantime."

"Pshaw!" he exclaimed impatiently, "what do these men know of temptation, who have never felt a passion stronger than this summer wind, nor seen a rood beyond their own study windows! These calm, slow natures, bred in the retirement and quiet of the country, can preach, perhaps with profit, to their humble flocks; but to men who have been in the thick of the fight, never."

I shook my head. "You will not say that after you have seen Mr. Shenstone; but here he comes."

The clergyman stood for a moment in the doorway before he entered, his tall, stooping figure nearly filling it. I advanced to meet him, and Victor rose. The room was so dark that at first he did not recognize me, and, of course, saw but indistinctly my companion. But as I spoke, he extended his hand cordially, and gave us both a kind reception.

"I have been expecting a visit from you," he said, sitting down beside me, and speaking in the quiet tone that was habitual with him, and looking at me with his kind smile. "You have been here some days, have you not?"

"Yes, sir, and I've meant to come; but there has been something going on every day that has interfered, and I have supposed every day, sir, that you would be there."

"Ah!" he said, with the slightest perceptible fading of the smile, "I have been so long out of gay company that I should not be at home there now. The quiet of my little village suits me best."

I knew this would be a confirmation of Victor's judgment, so I hurried on to say, "But, sir, you sometimes go among gay people. I am sure you are often at Windy Hill, and at the Emersons, are you not?"

"Sometimes--oh! yes; but it seems different with Rutledge. It would be to me," he went on in a lower tone, "unspeakably grating and painful to see that place throw off the gloom and silence that it has worn for twenty years--twenty years and more. But you cannot be expected to understand this. I had forgotten you were nearly a child as yet. You only know regret and sorrow by name, I suppose."

There must have been an involuntary denial of this on my face, for he looked at me attentively for a moment; then, in a tone that had a little sadness in it, he said:

"But you are older than you were last fall, my child, I see; one takes quick strides sometimes toward maturity after one has crossed the threshold. This little girl and I, Mr. Viennet, were very good friends last year and I hope that the world has not separated us quite, though it has changed one of us a little, I fear."

I could not keep back the sudden tears that rushed into my eyes; the tone of sympathy so strange to my ears exorcised the evil tempers that had swayed me so long. If it had not been for Victor's presence, I should have thrown off the reserve and silence that I had so long maintained toward all around me, and have saved myself perhaps from years of misery.

Only Mr. Shenstone's compassionate eyes saw the emotion that flashed through mine; murmuring some excuse about finding Mrs. Arnold, I quitted the room. I found her in the apartment that had been my sick-room, busy as ever with her silent, rapid needle. Throwing my arms around her neck, I kissed her affectionately.

"Why have you not been before?" she said, quietly.

"Because I haven't done anything right or pleasant since I came," I returned, with a little bitterness.

Mrs. Arnold shook her head. "Mr. Shenstone would tell you not to let that go on."

"Don't!" I exclaimed, with an impatient gesture; "don't tell me what I ought to do--don't talk to me about my duty. I am sick and tired of it all. I want to forget all about everything that makes me miserable, and only be petted and made much of," and, throwing myself down on a low stool at her feet, I drew her hand around my neck.

"You were always willful," she said, sadly; "but you used to like to hear about your duty."

"I don't now; I've got over that. I shall never come to the Parsonage if you talk to me about it. We don't have time for duty at Rutledge now-a-days. Oh! Mrs. Arnold, it seems like a different place. Why don't you come and see how fine the house looks. There's to be a masquerade on the Fourth. You should come and see how beautifully it will be decorated, and how pretty all our dresses will be."

The hand around my neck was quickly withdrawn; with a sudden start, she rose and walked nervously about the room, the color fluttering in her cheeks, and her hand passing rapidly over her smooth, grey hair.

"Yes, yes," she said at last, sitting down and trying to command herself. "I know it is all right; you are young and you ought to enjoy yourself. I hope you are happy there."

"You need not imagine that I am!" I exclaimed bitterly. "You may be sure I have enough to keep me down, and make me wretched, gay as they all are. But I'm not going to talk about it," I said, interrupting myself, "for you'll begin to tell me how I ought to bear it, and that I can't listen to now. Tell me how the school goes on. Does the new teacher work well, and do the children like her?"

"Very much," said Mrs. Arnold, relapsing slowly into her ordinary manner. "I should like you to go with me some day to see them."

The archives of the Parish School, and many minor matters of interest, served to occupy our tongues, if not our minds, for the next half hour, and it was only the sudden recollection of having left Mr. Shenstone and Victor, two entire strangers, at each other's mercy, that brought an end to the interview. Starting up, I said:

"It is time for me to go. Come down, Mrs. Arnold, and see whether you think Mr. Viennet as handsome as Kitty does."

She very reluctantly followed me downstairs, and waited in the porch to see us, and say good bye as we should pass out.

I found Victor and Mr. Shenstone talking. Victor, it seemed to me, treated his entertainer with several degrees more of reverence than I had imagined he could either feel or affect toward any one. Mr. Shenstone's manner was rather less tranquil than ordinary, though, it struck me. He accompanied us to the door, and looked very earnestly at Victor as we came into the stronger light.

"I shall hope for the pleasure of another visit before you leave the country, Mr. Viennet," he said slowly, as we parted at the threshold.

"I shall not fail to do myself the honor," returned Victor, in a manner less French, and more sincere than usual, bowing very low.

"Isn't he handsome?" I whispered, in a careless aside to Mrs. Arnold, as we passed her on the porch. But to my surprise, she had started back, with the same dilated, agitated look in her eyes, that she had worn upstairs, and the fluttering color coming and going on her face as she watched Victor, while her pale lips opened, but no sound passed them. I stared in wonder, but she drew back hastily, and disappeared in the house.

"You will have a pleasant walk," said Mr. Shenstone, thoughtfully, as he watched us down the path.

"I'm afraid not," muttered Victor, between his teeth, as at the gate Dr. Hugh joined us with a most affable bow. He proposed to accompany us on our way, he said, if agreeable to us. He was going as far as the Park, to see that delicate-looking young Mr. Wynkar, to whom he had just been summoned.

"Over-eaten himself, no doubt," said Victor, impatiently,

"Ah?" said the doctor, nodding intelligently, "is that his trouble? I fancied as much. Your pale, cadaverous-looking people generally are the very mischief among the provisions."

Victor's lip curled; I could see he chafed under this familiarity. Why does he endure it, I thought. His imperious temper brooks no annoyance from those around him; daily there is some new evidence of his self-will and determination; why does he so tamely submit to what, there wants no penetration to see, is galling him to distraction.

It was almost impossible to realize that this was my gay, sparkling companion of an hour ago. Pale and abstracted he walked beside me, answering, at random, the doctor's many questions--gnawing his lip at the occasional familiarities of his manner, but offering no affront or slight.

Our constrained and uncomfortable walk brought us to the house just as the Masons were getting into their carriage. The whole party stood on the piazza, and the approach for us was anything but a pleasant thing.

"Courage," whispered Victor, seeing me falter as every eye turned toward us. "Be as queenly as you can. You had a right to go; there was no intimation given you that there was to be company at lunch. It would be cowardly indeed to mind _their_ slights."

Victor had touched the right chord; the color flashed back into my cheeks, and with as queenly a step as he could have desired, I advanced to meet the strangers.

"You must excuse my cousin," cried Grace, interrupting our rather formal greetings. "She never allows anything to interfere with her rural tastes, and as she is addicted to tête-à-tête rows and lonely rambles, we are quite cut off from her society."

The Misses Mason looked at me as if they were afraid of me, the Messrs. Mason as if they would have been, if they had not been such brave men. I do not know exactly what I said, it was all a kind of dream, I was so intensely worked up; but whatever my answer was, it must have been clever, and a good retort, for Victor's clear laugh rang in the air, and the young ladies tittered, and looked at Grace to see how she bore it, and the least ponderous of the two young gentlemen slapped the captain on the back with a low:

"By George! She's not to be put down! I like her spirit."

A month ago, perhaps, the interview that I had to go through with my aunt after the departure of the guests, would have made me quite miserable; but now, it was utterly powerless. We were openly at war, and no hostile message could alter the state of affairs. I could have laughed in her face, for all the impression that it made on me, but of course I preserved the external respect I owed her, and neither by look nor word betrayed how indifferent a matter it was to me whether she approved or dissented.

"A word with you, my friend," I heard the doctor say to Victor, passing his arm through his and leading him off toward the terrace. Victor set his lips firmly together, and his face darkened; there was a storm brewing; the wily doctor was going too far, if he did not wish to feel the wrath of it. For half an hour, I watched them from my window; they had gone to a retired walk in the shrubbery, where only at a certain turn I could catch sight of them. Victor's face, whenever I could see it, was white and passionate, and his gestures showed that he had dashed aside the restraint he had set upon himself. His was not an impotent and childish anger either; it was the strong wrath of a strong man, snared and trapped, exasperated and tortured by an enemy wily and powerful, with some secret hold upon his victim, that gave his weakness and meanness the strength of a giant. I watched, fascinated and terrified, for every glimpse of the two faces, as the two men strode up and down the alley. If Victor's tormentor had seen his face as I did, surely he would have paused. How could confidence and pride so blind a man as to make him insensible to the danger of rousing to such a pitch, such a fierce southern nature? They had blinded him, however, for Dr. Hugh's face expressed nothing but cunning and triumph, guarded and subdued by habitual self-control.

That night, as we were separating for our rooms, Victor announced carelessly that his pleasant visit was nearly at an end. He had that day received letters that made it necessary for him to sail in next week's steamer, and he should have to tear himself away from Rutledge in a day or two. The color went and came in my face as I met Mr. Rutledge's eye; Victor studiously avoided looking at me, and the others were too much absorbed in the announcement to heed me.

"Why, Victor!" exclaimed Phil, heartily, stung perhaps with some slight self-reproach for his recent neglect; "why, old fellow, we shan't know what to do without you! It's a shame to break up a pleasant party like this. Make it the next steamer, and stay over another week, and we'll all go together."

"Do, I beg of you, Victor," echoed Ellerton.

"And you couldn't go without that day's woodcock shooting we've been talking of," said the captain. "The law's up next week, you know."

"And you've forgotten the masquerade!" exclaimed Josephine.

"And the Masons' tableaux!" cried Ella.

"And my cousin's feelings," added Grace, slily.

"And what of your own, my pretty Miss Grace?" said Victor, carrying the war so abruptly over into her territory that she had no time to collect her wits for a retort. "My own heart is broken at the idea of leaving you. Are you perfectly unmoved at the sight of my sorrow? I shall never believe in woman again."

"I do not know," said Mr. Rutledge, "what other inducements we can hold out of sufficient power to detain Mr. Viennet longer. If there is anything so imperative as he suggests, however, I imagine that our persuasions will be thrown away."

"Quite thrown away, sir, I regret to admit," said Victor, with a low and significant bow. "I can enjoy your hospitality no longer than Wednesday morning."