The Tree of Knowledge Part 33

"But surely," urged Osmond, gently, "if you were to tell the Misses Willoughby, they would send him home, and then you would be free from him?"

She dashed away the tears from her eyes, and shook her head with a smile full of bitterness.

"They wouldn't believe me," she said, "they never have believed me; that is, Aunt Charlotte wouldn't, and she is the one who rules. They would call G.o.dfrey and ask if it was true, and he--he thinks nothing of telling a lie. Oh! he is a sneak and a coward! If you knew how he has curried favor since he has been here! Aunt Charlotte likes him--she will give him things she would never give me! She would never believe my word against his."

"Miss Brabourne--Elsa," faltered the young man tenderly, "Don't sob so--you break my heart--you--you make me--forget myself!"

He leaped to his feet. Poor fellow, his self-command was rapidly failing. It had needed but this, the sight of helpless distress in his ladylove, to finish his subjugation. He was raging with love, and a burning impotent desire to thrash Master G.o.dfrey Brabourne within an inch of his life. Yet, as Henry Fowler had said, how could one touch such a sc.r.a.p of a child, such a delicate, puny boy?

He knew well enough the power such a young scoundrel would have to render miserable the life of a timid girl, unused to brothers. Elsa had never learned to hold her own, never learned to be handy or helpful. She was most probably what boys call a m.u.f.f, a fit b.u.t.t for the coa.r.s.e ridicule and coa.r.s.er bullying of the ill-brought-up G.o.dfrey. That helplessness which in the eyes of her lover was her culminating charm was exactly what to the boy was an irresistible incentive to cruelty.

Osmond turned his eyes on the drooping figure of the girl. She was leaning forward, her elbow on her knee. Her hollowed hand made a niche for her chin to rest in, and her profile was turned towards him as she gazed sadly seawards. On her cheek lay one big tear, and the long, thick lashes were wet.

He came again to her side, and knelt there. Flus.h.i.+ng at his own boldness, he took her hand. It trembled in his own, but lay pa.s.sive.

"Elsa," he said, tenderly, soothingly, "it will not be for long, you must not let this wretched child's mischief prey upon you so. I know how badly you feel it, but consider--he will be gone in a few days."

"Oh, no, no, that is just what is so hateful! He will be here for weeks!

Mr. Orton has been taken ill at Homburg, and aunts have promised to keep him till they come back. Oh,"--she s.n.a.t.c.hed away her hand and clasped it with the other, as if hardly conscious of what she did,--"oh, I can bear it now, when you are all here; but next week--next week--when there will be no Wynifred, no Hilda, no Jacqueline ... no you!... what shall I do then?"

"Elaine!"

"When I think of it, I could kill him!" cried the girl, her face reddening with the remembrance of insults which she could not repeat to Osmond. "You don't know what a wicked mind he has--he is like an evil spirit, sent to lure me on to do something dreadful! When he speaks so to me, I feel as if I must silence him--as if I could strike him with all my force. Suppose--suppose one day I could not restrain myself...."

She was as white as a sheet, as she suddenly paused.

"What was that noise?" she panted.

"What noise?" he asked.

"I thought I heard G.o.dfrey's whistle--there is a noise he makes sometimes".... Her face seemed paralysed with fear and dislike--involuntarily, she drew nearer to Osmond. "If he should have heard me!" she breathed, with her mouth close to his ear.

"How could he hurt you when I am with you?" cried he, pa.s.sionately. "My darling, my own, you are quite safe with me!"

His arms were round her before he had realised what he was doing. It seemed his divine right to s.h.i.+eld her--his vocation, his purpose in life to come between her and any danger, real or fancied.

A yell, quite unlike anything human--a rush of loose pebbles and white dust, a crash on the path close to the unwary couple, and a long discordant peal of laughter.

"Cotched 'em! Cotched 'em! Cotched 'em by all that's lovely! Done 'em brown, bowled 'em out clean! Oh, my dears, if you only did know what jolly a.s.ses you both look, spooning away there like one o'clock! I'm hanged if I ever saw anything like it. I wouldn't have missed it--no, not for--come, I say, let go of a feller, Mr. Allonby. Lovers are fair game, don't yer know!"

If ever any man felt enraged it was Osmond at that moment; the more, because he saw how undignified it was to be in a rage at all. Revulsion of feeling is always unpleasant, and nothing could be more complete than the revulsion from the purest of sentiment to the most contemptible of practical jokes.

Elsa cried out in a mingled anger and terror--the ludicrous side of a situation never struck her by any chance. Osmond, as he sprang up and collared the impudent young miscreant, was divided between a desire to storm and a desire to roar with laughter. The former gained the ascendency as he looked back at Elsa's white face.

"You impertinent young scamp," he said, between his teeth, "I've a great mind to give you such a punishment as you never had in your life, to make you remember this day!"

"You daren't," said G.o.dfrey, coolly, "you daren't flog me, I'm delicate.

You'll have to settle accounts with my uncle if you bring on the bleeding from my lungs. My tutor ain't allowed to touch me."

"You sickening little coward--you sneak," said Osmond, with scathing contempt. "A spy--that's what you are. I hope you are proud of yourself.

Look how you have startled your sister."

"Pretty little dear--a great lump, twice my size," sneered G.o.dfrey, grinning. "Look at her, blubbing again! She does nothing but blub. Stop that, Elaine, will you?"

"All right, young man," said Osmond, "I can't flog you, but I think I can take it out of you another way just as well. Don't flatter yourself you are going to get off so easily. I'll teach you a lesson of manners, and I'll make it my business that the Miss Willoughbys and Mr. Fowler know how you have behaved--not to-day only. You little cur, how dare you?"

"Who's old Fowler? He can't touch me. Keep your hair on. What are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to keep you out of mischief for a bit," said Osmond, as he skilfully laid the boy down on the gra.s.s with one dexterous motion of his foot, and, producing two thick straps from his pocket, he proceeded to strap first his feet and then his hands together.

"Pooh! What do I care? I've had my fun, and I'm ready to pay for it. Oh, my stars, wasn't it rich to hear Elsa coming the injured innocent and laying it on thick for her beloved's benefit? I heard every word you both said!" cried G.o.dfrey, convulsed with laughter.

"If you say another word, I'll gag you."

"Gag away! I've heard all I want to, and said all I want to, too. Good old Allonby, so you believe all the humbug she's been telling you? You old silly, don't you know girls always say that sort of thing to draw the men on? I told her she ought to bring you to the point to-day.... I say ... I can't breathe!"

He was skilfully and rapidly gagged by Osmond, who afterwards picked up his prisoner and carried him to a high steep shelf of rock, where he laid him down.

"You can cool your heels up there till I come and take you down," he said between his teeth. "If you roll over, you'll roll down, and most likely break your spine, so I advise you to be quiet, and think of your sins."

CHAPTER XXII.

We walked beside the sea After a day which perished, silently, Of its own glory.

Nor moon nor stars were out: They did not dare to tread so soon about, Though trembling in the footsteps of the sun; The light was neither night's nor day's, but one Which, lifelike, had a beauty in its doubt.

E. B. BROWNING.

On turning his flushed and excited face again towards the seat where he had left Elsa, he found that she was gone. It did not surprise him, but made him resolve instantly to follow and console her. He wandered about for some time amongst the sunny windings of the cliffs before he found the object of his search.

She was crouched down on the gra.s.s, her face hidden, her whole frame shaken with sobs. It brought the tears to his own eyes to witness such distress, yet his feeling towards G.o.dfrey was not all anathema. Only exceptional circ.u.mstances could have enabled him to a.s.sume the post of comforter, and those circ.u.mstances had been brought about by the impudent boy.

"Miss Brabourne," he said, gently, looking down at her.

She started, and checked her grief.

"Forgive my intruding," he went on, seating himself on a ledge of cliff just above her, "but I have said too much already not to say more. You must feel with me, our interview can't be broken off at this point; you must hear me out now, and, if I have shattered all my hopes by my reckless haste, why, I shall only have myself to thank for it."

She but half heard, and hardly understood him; her whole mind was at work on one point.

"What must you think of me?" she cried. "Did you believe it?--what he said of me?"

"Believe it! Believe what?" cried Osmond. "Don't allude to it, please, please don't. It makes me lose my temper and feel inclined to rave. I heard little that was said; what I did hear could inspire me only with one sensation--anger at his impudence, sympathy for you."

"Then you don't--believe--you don't think that I was--trying to make you flirt with me?"