A Rent In A Cloud Part 6

"Good-bye, Sir," said Loyd, as he left the room.

Calvert sat down and took up a book, but though he read three full pages, he knew nothing of what they contained. He opened his desk, and began a letter to Loyd, a farewell letter, a justification of himself, but done more temperately than he had spoken; but he tore it up, and so with a second and a third. As his pa.s.sion mounted, he bethought him of his cousin and her approaching marriage. "I can spoil some fun there,"

cried he, and wrote as follows:

"Lago d'Orta, August 12.

"Dear Sir,--In the prospect of the nearer relations which a few days more will establish between us, I venture to address you thus familiarly. My cousin, Miss Sophia Calvert, has informed me by a letter I have just received that she deemed it her duty to place before you a number of letters written by me to her, at a time when there subsisted between us a very close attachment. With my knowledge of my cousin's frankness, her candour, and her courage--for it would also require some courage--I am fully persuaded that she has informed you thoroughly on all that has pa.s.sed. We were both very young, very thoughtless, and, worse than either, left totally to our own guidance, none to watch, none to look after us. There is no indiscretion in my saying that we were both very much in love, and with that sort of confidence in each other that renders distrust a crime to one's own conscience. Although, therefore, she may have told you much, her womanly dignity would not let her dwell on these circ.u.mstances, explanatory of much, and palliative of all that pa.s.sed between us. To you, a man of the world, I owe this part declaration, less, however, for your sake or for mine, than for her, for whom either of us ought to make any sacrifice in our power.

"The letters she wrote me are still in my possession. I own they are very dear to me; they are all that remain of a past, to which nothing in my future life can recall the equal. I feel, however, that your right to them is greater than my own, but I do not know how to part with them. I pray you advise me in this. Say how you would act in a like circ.u.mstance, knowing all that has occurred, and be a.s.sured that your voice will be a command to your very devoted servant,

"H.C.

"P.S.--When I began this letter, I was minded to say my cousin should see it: on second thoughts, I incline to say not, decidedly not."

When this base writer had finished writing he flung down the pen, and said to himself, half aloud, "I'd give something to see him read this!"

With a restless impatience to do something--anything, he left the house, walking with hurried steps to the little jetty where the boats lay.

"Where's my boat, Onofrio?" said he, asking for the skiff he generally selected.

"The other signor has taken her across the lake."

"This is too much," muttered he. "The fellow fancies that because he skulks a satisfaction, he is free to practise an impertinence. He knew I preferred this boat, and therefore he took her."

"Jump in, and row me across to La Rocca," said he to the boatman. As they skimmed across the lake, his mind dwelt only on vengeance, and fifty different ways of exacting it pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed before him. All, however, concentrating on the one idea--that to pa.s.s some insult upon Loyd in presence of the ladies would be the most fatal injury he could inflict, but how to do this without a compromise of himself was the difficulty.

"Though no woman will ever forgive a coward," thought he, "I must take care that the provocation I offer be such as will not exclude myself from sympathy." And, with all his craft and all his cunning, he could not hit upon a way to this. He fancied, too, that Loyd had gone over to prejudice the ladies against him by his own version of what had occurred in the morning. He knew well how, of late, he himself had not occupied the highest place in their esteem--it was not alone the insolent and overbearing tone _he_ a.s.sumed, but a levity in talking of things which others treated with deference, alike offensive to morals and manners--these had greatly lowered him in their esteem, especially of the girls, for old Miss Grainger, with a traditional respect for his name and family, held to him far more than the others.

"What a fool I was ever to have brought the fellow here! What downright folly it was in me to have let them ever know him. Is it too late, however, to remedy this? Can I not yet undo some of this mischief?" This was a new thought, and it filled his mind till he landed. As he drew quite close to the sh.o.r.e he saw that the little awning-covered boat, in which the ladies occasionally made excursions on the lake, was now anch.o.r.ed under a large drooping ash, and that Loyd and the girls were on board of her. Loyd was reading to them; at least so the continuous and equable tone of his voice indicated, as it rose in the thin and silent air. Miss Grainger was not there--and this was a fortunate thing--for now he should have his opportunity to talk with her alone, and probably ascertain to what extent Loyd's representations had damaged him.

He walked up to the villa, and entered the drawing-room, as he was wont, by one of the windows that opened on the green sward without. There was no one in the room, but a half-written letter, on which the ink was still fresh, showed that the writer had only left it at the instant. His eye caught the words, "Dear and Reverend Sir," and in the line beneath the name Loyd. The temptation was too strong, and he read on:

"Dear and Reverend Sir,--I hasten to express my entire satisfaction with the contents of your letter. Your son, Mr.

Loyd, has most faithfully represented his position and his prospects, and, although my niece might possibly have placed her chances of happiness in the hands of a wealthier suitor, I am fully a.s.sured she never could have met with one whose tastes, pursuits, and general disposition--"

A sound of coming feet startled him, and he had but time to throw himself on a sofa, when Miss Grainger entered. Her manner was cordial--fully as cordial as usual--perhaps a little more so, since, in the absence of her nieces, she was free to express the instinctive regard she felt towards all that bore his name.

"How was it that you did not come with Loyd?" asked she.

"I was busy, writing letters I believe--congratulations on Sophy's approaching marriage; but what did Loyd say--was that the reason he gave?"

"He gave none. He said he took a whim into his head to row himself across the lake; and indeed I half suspect the exertion was too much for him. He has been coughing again, and the pain in his side has returned."

"He's a wretched creature--I mean as regards health and strength. Of course he always must have been so: but the lives these fellows lead in London would breach the const.i.tution of a really strong man."

"Not Loyd, however; he never kept late hours, nor had habits of dissipation."

"I don't suppose he ever told you that he had," said he, laughing. "I conclude that he has never shown you his diary of town life."

"But do you tell me, seriously, that he is a man of dissipated habits?"

"Not more so than eight out of every ten, perhaps, in his cla.s.s of life.

The student is everywhere more given to the excitements of vice than the sportsman. It is the compensation for the wearisome monotony of brain labour, and they give themselves up to excesses from which the healthier nature of a man with country tastes would revolt at once. But what have I to do with his habits? I am not his guardian nor his confessor."

"But they have a very serious interest for _me_."

"Then you must look for another counsellor. I am not so immaculate that I can arraign others; and, if I were, I fancy I might find some pleasanter occupation."

"But if I tell you a secret, a great secret--"

"I'd not listen to a secret I detest secrets, just as I'd hate to have the charge of another man's money. So, I warn you, tell me nothing that you don't want to hear talked of at dinner, and before the servants."

"Yes; but this is a case in which I really need your advice."

"You can't have it at the price you propose. Not to add, that I have a stronger sentiment to sway me in this case, which you will understand at once, when I you tell that he is a man of whom I would like to speak with great reserve, for the simple reason that I don't like him."

"Don't like him! You don't like him!"

"It does seem very incredible to you; but I must repeat it, I don't like him."

"But will you tell me why? What are the grounds of your dislike?"

"Is it not this very moment I have explained to you that my personal feeling towards him inspires a degree of deference which forbids me to discuss his character? He may be the best fellow in Europe, the bravest, the boldest, the frankest, the fairest All I have to say is, that if I had a sister, and he proposed to marry her I'd rather see her a corpse than his wife; and now you have led me into a confession that I told you I'd not enter upon. Say another word about it and I'll go and ask Loyd to come up here and listen to the discussion, for I detest secrets and secrecy, and I'll have nothing to say to either."

"You'd not do anything so rash and inconsiderate?"

"Don't provoke me, that's all. You are always telling me you know the Calverts, their hot-headedness, their pa.s.sionate warmth, and so on. I leave it to yourself, is it wise to push me further?"

"May I show you a letter I received yesterday morning, in reply to one of mine?"

"Not if it refers to Loyd."

"It does refer to him."

"Then I'll not read it. I tell you for the last time, I'll not be cheated into this discussion. I don't desire to have it said of me some fine morning, You talked of the man that you lived with on terms of intimacy. You chummed with him, and yet you told stories of him."

"If you but knew the difficulty of the position in which you have placed me--"

"I know at least the difficulty in which you have placed _me_, and I am resolved not to incur it. Have I given to you Sophy's letter to read?"

said he with a changed voice. "I must fetch it out to you and let you see all that she says of her future happiness." And thus, by a sudden turn, he artfully engaged her in recollections of Rocksley, and all the persons and incidents of a remote long ago!

When Loyd returned with the girls to the house, Calvert soon saw that he had not spoken to them on the altercation of the morning--a reserve which he ungenerously attributed to the part Loyd himself filled in the controversy. The two met with a certain reserve; but which, however felt and understood by each, was not easily marked by a spectator. Florence, however, saw it, with the traditional clearness of an invalid. She read what healthier eyes never detect She saw that the men had either quarrelled, or were on the brink of a quarrel, and she watched them closely and narrowly. This was the easier for her, as at meal times she never came to table, but lay on a sofa, and joined in the conversation at intervals.

Oppressed by the consciousness of what had occurred in the morning, and far less able to conceal his emotions or master them than his companion, Loyd was disconcerted and ill at ease: now answering at cross-purposes, now totally absorbed in his own reflections. As Calvert saw this, it encouraged him to greater efforts to be agreeable. He could, when he pleased, be a most pleasing guest. He had that sort of knowledge of people and life which seasons talk so well, and suits so many listeners.

He was curious to find out to which of the sisters Loyd was engaged, but all his shrewdness could not fix the point decisively. He talked on incessantly, referring occasionally to Loyd to confirm what he knew well the other's experience could never have embraced, and asking frankly, as it were, for his opinion on people he was fully aware the other had never met with.

Emily (or Milly, as she was familiarly called) Walter showed impatience more than once at these sallies, which always made Loyd confused and uncomfortable, so that Calvert leaned to the impression that it was she herself was the chosen one. As for Florence, she rather enjoyed, he thought, the awkward figure Loyd presented, and she even laughed outright at his bashful embarra.s.sment.