Framley Parsonage Part 30

"Where can you find any one who will counsel you so truly?"

"But, nevertheless, I must rule myself. I do not know whether my suspicions may be perfectly just, but I fancy that she has created this estrangement between you and me. Has it not been so?"

"Certainly not by speaking to me," said Lucy, blus.h.i.+ng ruby-red through every vein of her deep-tinted face. But though she could not command her blood, her voice was still under her control--her voice and her manner.

"But has she not done so? You, I know, will tell me nothing but the truth."

"I will tell you nothing on this matter, Lord Lufton, whether true or false. It is a subject on which it does not concern me to speak."

"Ah! I understand," he said; and rising from his chair, he stood against the chimney-piece with his back to the fire. "She cannot leave me alone to choose for myself my own friends, and my own--;"

but he did not fill up the void.

"But why tell me this, Lord Lufton?"

"No! I am not to choose my own friends, though they be among the best and purest of G.o.d's creatures. Lucy, I cannot think that you have ceased to have a regard for me. That you had a regard for me, I am sure."

She felt that it was almost unmanly of him thus to seek her out, and hunt her down, and then throw upon her the whole weight of the explanation that his coming thither made necessary. But, nevertheless, the truth must be told, and with G.o.d's help she would find strength for the telling of it.

"Yes, Lord Lufton, I had a regard for you--and have. By that word you mean something more than the customary feeling of acquaintance which may ordinarily prevail between a gentleman and lady of different families, who have known each other so short a time as we have done."

"Yes, something much more," said he, with energy.

"Well, I will not define the much--something closer than that."

"Yes, and warmer, and dearer, and more worthy of two human creatures who value each other's minds and hearts."

"Some such closer regard I have felt for you--very foolishly. Stop!

You have made me speak, and do not interrupt me now. Does not your conscience tell you that in doing so I have unwisely deserted those wise old grandmother's tramways of which you spoke just now?

It has been pleasant to me to do so. I have liked the feeling of independence with which I have thought that I might indulge in an open friends.h.i.+p with such as you are. And your rank, so different from my own, has doubtless made this more attractive."

"Nonsense!"

"Ah! but it has. I know it now. But what will the world say of me as to such an alliance?"

"The world!"

"Yes, the world! I am not such a philosopher as to disregard it, though you may afford to do so. The world will say that I, the parson's sister, set my cap at the young lord, and that the young lord had made a fool of me."

"The world shall say no such thing!" said Lord Lufton, very imperiously.

"Ah! but it will. You can no more stop it, than King Canute could the waters. Your mother has interfered wisely to spare me from this; and the only favour that I can ask you is, that you will spare me also."

And then she got up as though she intended at once to walk forth to her visit to Mrs. Podgens' baby.

"Stop, Lucy!" he said, putting himself between her and the door.

"It must not be Lucy any longer, Lord Lufton; I was madly foolish when I first allowed it."

"By heavens! but it shall be Lucy--Lucy before all the world. My Lucy, my own Lucy--my heart's best friend, and chosen love. Lucy, there is my hand. How long you may have had my heart, it matters not to say now."

The game was at her feet now, and no doubt she felt her triumph. Her ready wit and speaking lip, not her beauty, had brought him to her side; and now he was forced to acknowledge that her power over him had been supreme. Sooner than leave her he would risk all. She did feel her triumph; but there was nothing in her face to tell him that she did so.

As to what she would now do she did not for a moment doubt. He had been precipitated into the declaration he had made, not by his love, but by his embarra.s.sment. She had thrown in his teeth the injury which he had done her, and he had then been moved by his generosity to repair that injury by the n.o.blest sacrifice which he could make.

But Lucy Robarts was not the girl to accept a sacrifice.

He had stepped forward as though he were going to clasp her round the waist, but she receded, and got beyond the reach of his hand. "Lord Lufton!" she said, "when you are more cool you will know that this is wrong. The best thing for both of us now is to part."

"Not the best thing, but the very worst, till we perfectly understand each other."

"Then perfectly understand me, that I cannot be your wife."

"Lucy! do you mean that you cannot learn to love me?"

"I mean that I shall not try. Do not persevere in this, or you will have to hate yourself for your own folly."

"But I will persevere till you accept my love, or say with your hand on your heart that you cannot and will not love me."

"Then I must beg you to let me go," and having so said, she paused while he walked once or twice hurriedly up and down the room. "And, Lord Lufton," she continued, "if you will leave me now, the words that you have spoken shall be as though they had never been uttered."

"I care not who knows that they have been uttered. The sooner that they are known to all the world, the better I shall be pleased, unless indeed--"

"Think of your mother, Lord Lufton."

"What can I do better than give her as a daughter the best and sweetest girl I have ever met? When my mother really knows you, she will love you as I do. Lucy, say one word to me of comfort."

"I will say no word to you that shall injure your future comfort. It is impossible that I should be your wife."

"Do you mean that you cannot love me?"

"You have no right to press me any further," she said; and sat down upon the sofa, with an angry frown upon her forehead.

"By heavens," he said, "I will take no such answer from you till you put your hand upon your heart, and say that you cannot love me."

"Oh, why should you press me so, Lord Lufton?"

"Why! because my happiness depends upon it; because it behoves me to know the very truth. It has come to this, that I love you with my whole heart, and I must know how your heart stands towards me."

She had now again risen from the sofa, and was looking steadily in his face.

"Lord Lufton," she said, "I cannot love you," and as she spoke she did put her hand, as he had desired, upon her heart.

"Then G.o.d help me! for I am very wretched. Good-bye, Lucy," and he stretched out his hand to her.

"Good-bye, my lord. Do not be angry with me."

"No, no, no!" and without further speech he left the room and the house, and hurried home. It was hardly surprising that he should that evening tell his mother that Griselda Grantly would be a companion sufficiently good for his sister. He wanted no such companion.

And when he was well gone--absolutely out of sight from the window--Lucy walked steadily up to her room, locked the door, and then threw herself on the bed. Why--oh! why had she told such a falsehood? Could anything justify her in a lie? Was it not a lie--knowing as she did that she loved him with all her loving heart?