Back in the greenhouse, sitting on a stool, he ruefully contemplated those chapletted beasts.They consisted of a crow, a sheep, a turkey, two doves, a pony, and sundry fragments.She had fastened the jessamine sprigs to the tops of their heads by a tiny daub of wet clay, and had evidently been surprised trying to put a sprig into the mouth of one of the doves, for it hung by a little thread of clay from the beak.He detached it and put it in his buttonhole.Poor little Sylvia! she took things awfully to heart.
He would be as nice as ever he could to her all day.And, balancing on his stool, he stared fixedly at the wall against which she had fallen back; the line of her soft chin and throat seemed now to be his only memory.It was very queer how he could see nothing but that, the way the throat moved, swallowed--so white, so soft.And HE had made it go like that! It seemed an unconscionable time till breakfast.
As the hour approached he haunted the hall, hoping she might be first down.At last he heard footsteps, and waited, hidden behind the door of the empty dining-room, lest at sight of him she should turn back.He had rehearsed what he was going to do--bend down and kiss her hand and say: "Dulcinea del Toboso is the most beautiful lady in the world, and I the most unfortunate knight upon the earth," from his favourite passage out of his favourite book, 'Don Quixote.' She would surely forgive him then, and his heart would no longer hurt him.Certainly she could never go on making him so miserable if she knew his feelings! She was too soft and gentle for that.Alas! it was not Sylvia who came; but Anna, fresh from sleep, with her ice-green eyes and bright hair; and in sudden strange antipathy to her, that strong, vivid figure, he stood dumb.
And this first lonely moment, which he had so many times in fancy spent locked in her arms, passed without even a kiss; for quickly one by one the others came.But of Sylvia only news through Mrs.
Doone that she had a headache, and was staying in bed.Her present was on the sideboard, a book called 'Sartor Resartus.' "Mark--from Sylvia, August 1st, 1880," together with Gordy's cheque, Mrs.
Doone's pearl pin, old Tingle's 'Stones of Venice,' and one other little parcel wrapped in tissue-paper--four ties of varying shades of green, red, and blue, hand-knitted in silk--a present of how many hours made short by the thought that he would wear the produce of that clicking.He did not fail in outer gratitude, but did he realize what had been knitted into those ties? Not then.
Birthdays, like Christmas days, were made for disenchantment.
Always the false gaiety of gaiety arranged--always that pistol to the head: 'Confound you! enjoy yourself!' How could he enjoy himself with the thought of Sylvia in her room, made ill by his brutality! The vision of her throat working, swallowing her grief, haunted him like a little white, soft spectre all through the long drive out on to the moor, and the picnic in the heather, and the long drive home--haunted him so that when Anna touched or looked at him he had no spirit to answer, no spirit even to try and be with her alone, but almost a dread of it instead.
And when at last they were at home again, and she whispered:
"What is it? What have I done?" he could only mutter:
"Nothing! Oh, nothing! It's only that I've been a brute!"At that enigmatic answer she might well search his face.
"Is it my husband?"
He could answer that, at all events.
"Oh, no!"
"What is it, then? Tell me."
They were standing in the inner porch, pretending to examine the ancestral chart--dotted and starred with dolphins and little full-rigged galleons sailing into harbours--which always hung just there.
"Tell me, Mark; I don't like to suffer!"
What could he say, since he did not know himself? He stammered, tried to speak, could not get anything out.
"Is it that girl?"
Startled, he looked away, and said:
"Of course not."
She shivered, and went into the house.But he stayed, staring at the chart with a dreadful stirred-up feeling--of shame and irritation, pity, impatience, fear, all mixed.What had he done, said, lost? It was that horrid feeling of when one has not been kind and not quite true, yet might have been kinder if one had been still less true.Ah! but it was all so mixed up.It felt all bleak, too, and wintry in him, as if he had suddenly lost everybody's love.Then he was conscious of his tutor.
"Ah! friend Lennan--looking deeply into the past from the less romantic present? Nice things, those old charts.The dolphins are extremely jolly."It was difficult to remember not to be ill-mannered then.Why did Stormer jeer like that? He just managed to answer:
"Yes, sir; I wish we had some now."
"There are so many moons we wish for, Lennan, and they none of them come tumbling down."The voice was almost earnest, and the boy's resentment fled.He felt sorry, but why he did not know.
"In the meantime," he heard his tutor say, "let us dress for dinner."When he came down to the drawing-room, Anna in her moonlight-coloured frock was sitting on the sofa talking to--Sylvia.He kept away from them; they could neither of them want him.But it did seem odd to him, who knew not too much concerning women, that she could be talking so gaily, when only half an hour ago she had said:
"Is it that girl?"
He sat next her at dinner.Again it was puzzling that she should be laughing so serenely at Gordy's stories.Did the whispering in the porch, then, mean nothing? And Sylvia would not look at him;he felt sure that she turned her eyes away simply because she knew he was going to look in her direction.And this roused in him a sore feeling--everything that night seemed to rouse that feeling--of injustice; he was cast out, and he could not tell why.He had not meant to hurt either of them! Why should they both want to hurt him so? And presently there came to him a feeling that he did not care: Let them treat him as they liked! There were other things besides love! If they did not want him--he did not want them! And he hugged this reckless, unhappy, don't-care feeling to him with all the abandonment of youth.
But even birthdays come to an end.And moods and feelings that seem so desperately real die in the unreality of sleep.
