Chapter XXXII

Lady Isabel was returning from her accustomed housekeeping morning visit to Mrs. Dixon, when she was startled by the sharp outcry of an electric bell.

"Dick's room!" she said to herself, beginning to hurry; she hardly knew why.

A housemaid ran down the long passage in front of her, flying to the summons. Through the open door of the dining-room Lady Isabel saw Christian giving the dogs their breakfast.

"Papa's bell is ringing, dear," said Lady Isabel, breathing hard.

"I heard someone go up to his room just now," said Christian, languidly; "I haven't seen him this morning; I was in the yard with the dogs--"

Someone came down the stairs, headlong, two steps at a time. Larry's voice shouted:

"Christian! Cousin Isabel! Anyone--!"

There was urgency and alarm in the voice.

Lady Isabel and Christian were in the hall in an instant, and met Larry at the foot of the stairs.

"Cousin Dick's ill! A heart attack, I think--I didn't know what to do for him--"

"I do!" said Christian, speeding upstairs.

Her mother followed her, and Larry remained in the hall. Of one thing he was quite certain, that he had better keep out of Cousin Dick's sight. His nerves were quivering from the interview that had been so shatteringly abbreviated. Had the friendly old setter, whose head at this moment was on his knee, while her limpid eyes swore to him that all her love was his, suddenly turned and rent him, it would scarcely be a shock worse than that he had received. He had been undeterred by the ominous gloom of the Major's greeting; few young men have very keen perception of mood, and Larry, deeply self-engrossed, wildly happy, had flung at once into his theme, which, it need hardly be said, was Christian. Then the storm broke, and the lightning blazed, and the thunders of the house uttered their voice, while Larry, amazed, horrified, gradually, as the invective gathered volume and venom, becoming angry, stood in silence, and received in a single cloud-burst the bitter flood of long-pent prejudice, jealousy, and sense of injury.

"Dead!" Dick had roared; "I'd rather see her dead in her coffin than married to--"

The epithets that a hoarded hatred finds ready to hand when its pent force is released, come horribly from the lips of an old man. Yet, almost more horrible than the full tide of rage, was to see its ebb, as "the sick old servant" in Major Dick's bosom failed him, and his heart staggered and fainted in its effort to abet him in denouncing the young cousin who he thought had wronged him.

Larry sat, fondling the old setter's chestnut head, thinking it all over, flaming again at the remembered insults, quailing at the possibilities as they concerned Christian. Once she had appeared at the top of the stairs, and said the single word, "Better!" before she vanished.

One half of Larry's mind said "Better? What do I care? Better if he dies, if he comes between me and her!" The other, which was his deeper self, preserved the memory of Dick's greying face and frightened eyes, and was glad that relief had come.

At last Christian came to him, slowly and with a dragging step, down the wide staircase. Her face was white, her eyes were set in shadows.

"How is he?"

"Round the corner, I think. We've wired for Mangan."

"Christian, I want to explain--I said nothing--I never meant to annoy him, I began about you, and that--that we loved each other. For we do, Christian, don't we?" He had her hands in his, he crushed them in his anxiety, his eyes implored her. "Then suddenly he began to abuse me like a madman! My religion, my politics, my treachery to my class--I can't tell you what he didn't say! And then he swore he'd rather see you dead than married to me. I don't know what I said--nothing, I think; he began to look as if he were dying himself, and I rang the bell and bolted for you."

"Poor boy!" said Christian.

He thought that her face as she looked at him was as it were the face of an angel, but the sorrow in it frightened him.

"Come into the study," she said, freeing her hands from his grasp; "we can't talk here."

The study door was open; he followed her in silence, and, shutting the door, sat down beside her on the sofa.

"Larry, we've got to face it, you know; we've got to face it," she began, and gave back to him her slender sensitive hand, as if to heal the wound of what the words implied.

"Face what?" said Larry, stubbornly, girding himself for resistance.

"Face delay--opposition--"

"I'll face opposition as much as you like, but I won't face delay! Why should we? We're of age. There's nothing against me!"

Christian smiled faintly.

"Dear child, I know that. It's not the facts that are against us, it's the fancies--"

"I won't be patronised!" said Larry, vehemently. "I'm not your dear child! I'm the man you've promised to marry! No one's fancies have a right to interfere with us!"

His arm was round her, and he felt her tremble. He loosed her hand, and with his hand that had held it he turned her face to his. Then he kissed her, many times, with an ever-growing abandonment as he felt the response that she tried in vain to withhold.

At length, in spite of him, she hid her face in his shoulder.

"No, Larry, no!" she gasped, her breath coming short. "Dearest, don't be cruel to me! How can I keep that promise! If you had seen Papa just now and Mother--her terror and her helplessness! How could I leave them? Supposing that I defied him, and married you, and that he died in one of these furies! Just think what that would be for us!"

"He wouldn't die!" said Larry, obstinately. "People don't die as easy as all that!" he added, with a fierce thought of regret that Dick had not gone out in this latest storm.

"Listen," said Christian, beseechingly. "Don't let us be in such a hurry. Everything needn't be settled at once. We'll ask Dr. Mangan how Papa is, and if there is real danger for him in these rages. He was nearly as bad on Saturday after the Priest and the tenants had been here."

Larry's face was dark; he was not used to opposition. His guardians and his spiritual directors had alike found that while he was easy to lead, he was a difficulty and a danger to drive. He was stirred to the depths now. The strain of receiving Dick's onslaught in silence, the shock of his collapse, and now the fire that Christian's nearness and dearness had lit in him, all broke his self-control. He held her to him.

"I will never let you go! Never--!" His lips were on hers again, life, with all its difficulties, was again forgotten, the rhyme of the Fairies' Well galloped in his hot brain:

"My heart in your hands, your heart in me."

The sound of the hall door opening, and the grinding roar of a motor engine running down, recalled them both to this troublesome world.

But in Christian's heart, whether from within or from without, a voice had spoken, telling the kisses, one by one, as though they were the petals of a flower. "This year, next year, sometime, never!" If the last word had been "sometime," or "never," she knew not; she knew only that if what before her was the way of renunciation, she would find it a hard way to walk in.

Dr. Mangan stood, a massive presence, at the top of the stairs, and talked massively to Lady Isabel of Dick's condition.

"Very critical--no worries--nourishment--would he have a nurse?"

To which Lady Isabel, a poor, shaken, pallid Lady Isabel, with no more backbone than the shape of blancmange, which, it must be said, she somewhat resembled, replied: "_Nothing_ would induce him!"

"Then I should like to have a little talk with Miss Christian," said the Big Doctor, beginning to walk downstairs, slowly, solemnly, solidly, like a trick-elephant at a circus.

Christian's quick ears had heard his voice on the stairs, and she met him in the hall. Larry stood irresolute at the door of the study. His eyes met those of the Doctor, and something during the interchange of glances suggested that his presence was not desired. He returned to the study and shut the door, and wished that he could have a word alone with the Doctor, just to put him up to what to say to Christian. He could hear the heavy rumble of the Doctor's bass voice, and the soft alto murmur of Christian's replies. She had the Irish voice, pitched on a low note, an instrument more apt for pathos than for gaiety, which is, perhaps, what gives to its gaiety so special a charm.

Larry stood by the window with his hands in his pockets, trying to steady himself. Deep under his panic uncertainty as to the strength of his hold on Christian, was the anger that Dick's denunciation had roused in him, and momently, as his mind went back over the interview, remembrance of the insults became more unendurable. Abuse from the old to the young, and from a sick man to a sound one, cannot fail to rankle, since it cannot be flung back. Generosity may impose silence, but it cannot obliterate an insult or heal a wound.

Christian came into the room; he heard her come, but he would not look round. She slid her hand into his arm.

"Larry! Dear! Listen to me; there's no way out of it but patience! Dr. Mangan says he _must_ be kept absolutely quiet, and have nothing to annoy him. He says he might die in an instant in one of those attacks. He's not himself now, Larry--so little makes him lose self-control--" She paused, but Larry did not speak. "You couldn't want me to sacrifice the little share of life left to him to our happiness; I know you couldn't! Larry, he's an old man; it can't be for very long--"

"I don't see that that follows," said Larry, implacably. "He had strength enough to blackguard me very thoroughly, and it hasn't done him any harm. It seems to me, _I'm_ the one to be sacrificed!"

"He spoke to Mother about us--about what you said to him. He began about it the instant he could speak. She--" Christian hesitated, "she could only quiet him by saying there was no engagement between us."

"Then she said what wasn't true!"

"Oh, it _must_ be true!" said Christian, desperately; "it's got to be true--"

"Very well," said Larry, moving away, so that her hand fell from his arm. "If it's got to be true I suppose there's no more to be said. I may as well go. After all, I daresay you're well quit of me. Your father says I'm a damned Papist and--"

"I won't listen to you!" broke in Christian. "What's the use of hurting me and hurting yourself like this? Larry, I'll wait for you for ever--you know that--time will make no difference. Don't make it harder for me than it must be!"

"You don't seem to think much about _me_" said Larry, with a still rage that was a new thing with him. He left her side, and walked steadily to the door; then he turned, and in a few quick steps came back to her. He put his hands on her shoulders; he was not much taller than she, and his eyes looked straight into hers.

"Then it's true, is it? You're off it? You've given me the chuck?"

He spoke roughly, and gripped her harder than he knew, and in the tension of her nerves, the roughness of the words and action cut her like the stroke of a whip. Almost as if he had struck her, a splash of colour came in her face.

Larry was blind to the torture in her eyes, but he saw the quick red, and knew he had hurt her high spirit, and was glad.

"If you like to put it in that way!" said Christian, her head up, her mood answering his, "apparently it is the only thing to be done!"

There came a tap at the door. Dr. Mangan's voice said: "I'm going back to Cluhir now. Haven't you to meet Father Greer at twelve o'clock, Larry? I could give you a lift if you like--"

* * * * *

From an early work on the Fauna of the Indian Forest the following extract may be quoted:

"The elephant's trunk then encircled the young man's body, and placing him gently upon its back, the huge creature ambled away with its prize to the depths of the jungle."