Mildred Arkell Volume Ii Part 30

"Yes, thank you, Miss Beauclerc," he replied, some hesitation, or surprise, visible in his tone.

"Ah, but I mean to _us_, after the dinner. Mamma has what she calls one of her quiet soirees. You'll be sure to come."

One glance from his brilliant eyes, beneath which her blue ones fell, and he drew away. The rest were already off. Georgina walked forward to meet the dean, and she put her arm within his in her loving manner.

"Oh, papa, the boys are so envious of the medal. I stopped them and made them show it me. That ugly Lewis is ready to cut his throat."

"Random-spoken as usual, my darling. Who's throat?"

"Henry Arkell's of course, papa. But I knew no one else would gain it.

They are not fit to tie his shoes."

"In learning, they certainly are not. You can't imagine what a ludicrous display we have had! And some of them go soon to the university!"

"It's not the fault of the boys, papa. If they are never taught anything but Greek and Latin, how can they be expected to know anything else?"

"Very true, Georgie," mused Dr. Beauclerc. "Some of these old systems are stupid things."

The audit dinner in the evening went off as those dinners generally did.

The boys dined at a table by themselves, and Henry, as their senior, had to exert firm authority over some, for the supply of wine was unlimited. Later in the evening, he pa.s.sed through the gallery to the drawing-room, as invited by Miss Beauclerc. A few ladies were a.s.sembled: the canons' wives and daughters, Mrs. Wilberforce, and two or three other inhabitants of the Grounds; all very quiet, and what in these later days might have been called "slow:" Mrs. Beauclerc's parties mostly were so. They were talking of Frederick St. John when Henry went in, who was again absent from Westerbury, visiting somewhere with his mother and Lady Anne.

Henry wore his medal; the broad blue ribbon conspicuous. Some time was taken up examining that, and then he was asked to sing. It was a treat to hear him; and his voice as yet gave forth no token of losing its power and sweetness, though he was close upon sixteen.

He sang song after song--for they pressed for it--accompanying himself.

One song that he was especially asked for, he could not remember without the music. Mrs. Wilberforce suggested that he should fetch it from home, but Georgina said she could play it for him, and sat down. It was that fine song called "The Treasures of the Deep," by Mrs. Hemans. It was found, however, that she could not play it; and after two or three attempts, she began a waltz instead; and the ladies, in the distance round the fire, forgot at length that they had wanted it.

Georgina wore an evening dress of white spotted muslin, a broad blue sash round her waist, and a bit of narrow blue velvet suspending a cross on her neck. She had taken off her bracelets to play, and her pretty white arms were bare. Her eyes were blue as the ribbon, and altogether she looked very attractive, very _young_, and she was that night in one of her wild and inexplicable humours.

What she really said, how he responded, will never be wholly known: certain it is, that she led him on, on, until he resigned himself wholly to the fascination and "told his love;" although he might have known that to do so was little less than madness. She affected to ridicule him; she intimated that her love was not for a college boy; but all the while her looks gave the lie to her words; her blue eyes spoke of admiration still; her flushed face of triumphant, gratified vanity.

_They_ were engaged round the fire, round the tables, anywhere; and Georgina had it all to herself, and played bars of music now and then, as if she were essaying different pieces.

"Let us put aside this nonsense," she suddenly said. "It _is_ nonsense, and you know it, Harry. Here's a song," s.n.a.t.c.hing the first that came to hand--"sing this; I'll play it for you."

"Do you think I can _sing_?--now? with your cold words blighting me. Oh, tell me the worst!" he added, his tone one of strange pain. "Tell me----"

"Goodness, Henry Arkell. If you look and talk in that serious manner, I shall think you have become crazy. Come; begin."

"I seem to be in a sort of dream," he murmured, putting his hands to his temples. "Surely all the past, all our pleasant intercourse, is not to be forgotten! You will not throw me away like this?"

"Where's the use of my playing this symphony, if you don't begin?"

"Georgina!--let me call you so for the first, perhaps for the last time--dear Georgina, you cannot forget the past! You cannot mean what you have just said."

"How unpleasant you are making things to-night!" she said, with a laugh.

"I shall begin to think you have followed the example of those wretched little juniors, and taken plentifully of wine."

"Perhaps I have; perhaps it is owing to that that I have courage freely to talk to you now. Georgina, you _know_ how I have loved you; you know that for years and years my life has been as one long blissful dream, filled with the image of you."

She stole a glance at him from her blue eyes; a smile hovered on her parted lips. He bent his head until his brown wavy curls mingled with her lighter hair.

"Georgina, you know--you know that you can be life or death to me."

He could not speak with consecutive smoothness; his heart was beating as if it would burst its bounds, his whole frame thrilled, his fingers were trembling.

"Tell me that it is not all to be forgotten!"

"Indeed, if you have been cultivating a wrong impression--I can only advise you to forget it. I have liked you;" her voice sank to the lowest whisper--"very much; I have been so stupid as to let you see it; but I never meant you to--to--presume upon it in this uncomfortable manner."

"One question!" he urged. "Only one. Is it that you have played with me, loving another?"

Her right hand was on the keys of the piano, striking chords continually; a false note grating now and then on the ear. Her left hand lay pa.s.sive on her lap, as she sat, slightly turned to him.

"Stuff and nonsense! No, I have not. You will have them overhear you, Harry."

"Do not equivocate--dearest Georgina--let me hear the truth. It may be better for me; I can bear anything rather than deceit. Let me know the truth; I beseech it of you by all the hours we have pa.s.sed together."

"Harry, you are decidedly beside yourself to-night. Don't suffer the world behind to get a notion of it."

"You are playing with me now," he said, quite a wail in his low voice.

"Let me, one way or the other, be at rest. I never shall bear this suspense, and live. Give me an answer, Georgina; one that shall abide for ever."

"An answer to what?"

"Have you all this while loved another?"

She took her hand off the keys, and began picking out the treble notes of a song with her forefinger, bending her head slightly.

"The answer might not be palatable."

"No, it may not. Nevertheless, I pray you give it me. You are killing me, Georgina."

She looked up hastily; she saw that the bright, transparent complexion of the face had turned to a deadly whiteness; and, perhaps, in that one moment, Georgina Beauclerc's heart smote her with a slight reproach of cruelty. But she may have deemed it well to put an end to the suspense, and she bent her head again as she spoke.

"Even though I had loved another, what of that? I don't admit that I have; and I say that it is a question you have no right to ask me.

Harry! be reasonable; though I had loved _you_, it could not come to anything; you know it could not; so what does it signify?"

"But you have _not_ loved me?"

"Well--no. Not in that way. Here's the dean coming in; and here's pompous old Ferraday. You must sing a song; papa's sure to ask for one."

She hastened from the piano, as if glad to escape. The dean did ask for a song. But when they came to look for him who was to sing it, he was nowhere to be seen.

"Bless me!" cried the dean, "I thought Henry Arkell was here. Where is he?"

"I dare say he has gone home for the 'Treasures of the Deep,' papa,"

readily replied Georgina. "Somebody asked him to fetch it just now."

He had not gone for the "Treasures of the Deep;" and, as she guessed pretty accurately, he had no intention of returning. He was walking slowly towards the master's house, his temporary home; his head was aching, his brain was burning, and he felt as if all life had gone out of him for ever. That she had been befooling him; that she loved Frederick St. John with an impa.s.sioned lasting love, appeared to him as clear as the stars in a frosty sky.