sprats was of an eminently practical turn of mind. she wanted to know what was to come of all this. to her astonishment she discovered that lucian was already full of plans for assuring bread and butter and many other things for himself and his bride, and had arranged their future on a cut-and-dried scheme. he was going to devote himself to his studies more zealously than ever, and to practise himself in the divine art which was his gift. at twenty he would publish his first volume of poems, in english and in italian; at the same time he would produce a great blank verse tragedy at milan and in london, and his name would be extolled throughout europe, and he himself probably crowned with laurel at rome, or florence, or somewhere. he would be famous, and also rich, and he would then claim the hand of haidee, who in the meantime would have waited for him with the fidelity of a penelope. after that, of course, there would follow eternal bliss—it was not necessary to look further ahead. but he added, with lordly condescension, that he and haidee would always love sprats, and she, if she liked, might live with them.
‘did haidee tell you to tell me so?’ asked sprats, ‘because the prospect is not exactly alluring. no, thank you, my dear—i’m not so fond of haidee as all that. but i will teach her to mend your clothes and darn your socks, if you like—it will be a useful accomplishment.’
lucian made no reply to this generous offer. he knew that there was no love lost between the two girls, and could not quite understand why, any more than he could realise that they were sisters under their skins. he understood the sprats of the sisterly, maternal, good-chum side; but haidee was an ethereal being{72} though possessed of a sound appetite. he wished that sprats were more sympathetic about his lady-love; she was sympathetic enough about himself, and she listened to his rhapsodies with a certain amount of curiosity which was gratifying to his pride. but when he remarked that she too would have a lover some day, sprats’s rebellious nature rose up and kicked vigorously.
‘thank you!’ she said, ‘but i don’t happen to want anything of that sort. if you could only see what an absolute fool you look when you are anywhere within half a mile of haidee, you’d soon arrive at the conclusion that spooniness doesn’t improve a fellow! i suppose it’s all natural, but i never expected it of you, you know, lucian. i’m sure i’ve acted like a real pal to you—just look what a stuck-up little monkey you were when i took you in hand!—you couldn’t play cricket nor climb a tree, and you used to tog up every day as if you were going to an old maid’s muffin-worry. i did get you out of all those bad ways—until the dolly came along (she is a dolly, and i don’t care!). you didn’t mind going about with a hole or two in your trousers and an old straw hat and dirty hands, and since then you’ve worn your best clothes every day, and greased your hair, and yesterday you’d been putting scent on your handkerchief! bah!—if lovers are like that, i don’t want one—i could get something better out of the nearest lunatic asylum. and i don’t think much of men anyhow—they’re all more or less babies. you’re a baby, and so is his vicarness’ (this was sprats’s original mode of referring to her father), ‘and so is your uncle pepperdine—all babies, hopelessly feeble, and unable to do anything for yourselves. what would any of you do without a woman? no, thank you, i’m not keen about men—they worry one too much. and as for love—well, if it makes you go off your food, and keeps you awake at night, and turns you into a jackass, i don’t want any of it—it’s too rotten altogether.’{73}
‘you don’t understand,’ said lucian pityingly, and with a deep sigh.
‘don’t want to,’ retorted sprats. ‘oh, my—fancy spending your time in spooning when you might be playing cricket! you have degenerated, lucian, though i expect you can’t help it—it’s inevitable, like measles and whooping-cough. i wonder how long you will feel bad?’
lucian waxed wroth. he and haidee had sworn eternal love and faithfulness—they had broken a coin in two, and she had promised to wear her half round her neck, and next to the spot where she believed her heart to be, for ever; moreover, she had given him a lock of her hair, and he carried it about, wrapped in tissue paper, and he had promised to buy her a ring with real diamonds in it. also, haidee already possessed fifteen sonnets in which her beauty, her soul, and a great many other things pertaining to her were praised, after love’s extravagant fashion—it was unreasonable of sprats to talk as if this were an evanescent fancy that must needs pass. he let her see that he thought so.
‘all right, old chap!’ said sprats. ‘it’s for life, then. very well; there is, of course, only one thing to be done. you must act on the square, you know—they always do in these cases. if it’s such a serious affair, you must play the part of a man of honour, and ask the permission of the young lady’s mamma, and of her distinguished relative the earl of simonstower—mouldy old ass!—to pay your court to her.’
lucian seemed disturbed and uneasy.
‘yes—yes—i know!’ he answered hurriedly. ‘i know that’s the right thing to do, but you see, sprats, haidee doesn’t wish it, at present at any rate. she—she’s a great heiress, or something, and she says it wouldn’t do. she wishes it to be kept secret until i’m twenty. everything will be all right then, of course. and it’s awfully easy to arrange stolen meetings at{74} present; there are lots of places about the castle and in the woods where you can hide.’
‘like a housemaid and an under-footman,’ remarked sprats. ’um—well, i suppose that’s inevitable, too. of course the earl would never look at you, and it’s very evident that mrs. brinklow would be horrified—she wants the dolly kid to marry into the peerage, and you’re a nobody.’
‘i’m not a nobody!’ said lucian, waxing furious. ‘i am a gentleman—an italian gentleman. i am the earl’s equal—i have the blood of the orsini, the odescalchi, and the aldobrandini in my veins! the earl?—why, your english noblemen are made out of tradesfolk—pah! it is but yesterday that they gave a baronetcy to a man who cures bacon, and a peerage to a fellow who brews beer. in italy we should spit upon your english peers—they have no blood. i have the blood of the c?sars in me!’
‘your mother was the daughter of an english farmer, and your father was a macaroni-eating italian who painted pictures,’ said sprats, with imperturbable equanimity. ‘you yourself ought to go about with a turquoise cap on your pretty curls, and a hurdy-gurdy with a monkey on the top. tant pis for your rotten old italy!—anybody can buy a dukedom there for a handful of centesimi!’
then they fought, and lucian was worsted, as usual, and came to his senses, and for the rest of the day sprats was decent to him and even sympathetic. she was always intrusted with his confidence, however much they differed, and during the rest of the time which haidee spent at the castle she had to listen to many ravings, and more than once to endure the reading of a sonnet or a canzonet with which lucian intended to propitiate the dark-eyed nymph whose image was continually before him. sprats, too, had to console him on those days whereon no sight of miss brinklow was vouchsafed. it was no easy task: lucian, during these enforced abstinences from love’s{75} delights and pleasures, was preoccupied, taciturn, and sometimes almost sulky.
‘you’re like a bear with a sore head,’ said sprats, using a homely simile much in favour with the old women of the village. ‘i don’t suppose the dolly kid is nursing her sorrows like that. i saw dicky feversham riding up to the castle on his pony as i came in from taking old mother hobbs’s rice-pudding.’
lucian clenched his fists. the demon of jealousy was aroused within him for the first time.
‘what do you mean?’ he cried.
‘don’t mean anything but what i said,’ replied sprats. ‘i should think dickie has gone to spend the afternoon there. he’s a nice-looking boy, and as his uncle is a peer of the rel-lum, mrs. brinklow doubtless loves him.’
lucian fell into a fever of rage, despair, and love. to think that another should have the right of approaching his very own!—it was maddening; it made him sick. he hated the unsuspecting richard feversham, who in reality was a very inoffensive, fun-loving, up-to-lots-of-larks sort of schoolboy, with a deadly hatred. the thought of his addressing the object was awful; that he should enjoy her society was unbearable. he might perhaps be alone with her—might sit with her amongst the ruined halls of the castle, or wander with her through the woods of simonstower. but lucian was sure of her—had she not sworn by every deity in the lover’s mythology that her heart was his alone, and that no other man should ever have even a cellar-dwelling in it? he became almost lachrymose at the mere thought that haidee’s lofty and pure soul could ever think of another, and before he retired to his sleepless bed he composed a sonnet which began—
‘thy dove-like soul is prisoned in my heart
with gold and silver chains that may not break,’
and concluded—{76}
‘while e’er the world remaineth, thou shalt be
queen of my heart as i am king of thine.’
he had an assignation with haidee for the following afternoon, and was looking forward to it with great eagerness, more especially because he possessed a new suit of grey flannel, a new straw hat, and new brown boots, and he had discovered from experience that the young lady loved her peacock to spread his tail. but, as ill-luck would have it, the earl, with the best intention in the world, spoiled the whole thing. about noon lucian and sprats, having gone through several pages of virgil with the vicar, were sitting on the gate of the vicarage garden, recreating after a fashion peculiar to themselves, when the earl and haidee, both mounted, came round the corner and drew rein. the earl talked to them for a few minutes, and then asked them up to the castle that afternoon. he would have the tennis-lawn made ready for them, he said, and they could eat as many strawberries as they pleased, and have tea in the garden. haidee, from behind the noble relative, made a moue at this; lucian was obliged to keep a straight face, and thank the earl for his confounded graciousness. sprats saw that something was wrong.
‘what’s up?’ she inquired, climbing up the gate again when the earl had gone by. ‘you look jolly blue.’
lucian explained the situation. sprats snorted.
‘well, of all the hardships!’ she said. ‘thank the lord, i’d rather play tennis and eat strawberries and have tea—especially the castle tea—than go mooning about in the woods! however, i suppose i must contrive something for you, or you’ll groan and grumble all the way home. you and the doll must lose yourselves in the gardens when we go for strawberries. i suppose ten minutes’ slobbering over each other behind a hedge or in a corner will put you on, won’t it?’
lucian was overwhelmed at her kindness. he offered to give her a brotherly hug, whereupon she{77} smacked his face, rolled him into the dust in the middle of the road, and retreated into the garden, bidding him turn up with a clean face at half-past two. when that hour arrived she found him awaiting her in the porch; one glance at him showed that he had donned the new suit, the new hat, and the new boots. sprats shrieked with derision.
‘lord have mercy upon us!’ she cried. ‘it might be a bank holiday! do you think i am going to walk through the village with a thing like that? stick a cabbage in your coat—it’ll give a finishing touch to your appearance. oh, you miserable monkey-boy!—wouldn’t i like to stick you in the kitchen chimney and shove you up and down in the soot for five minutes!’
lucian received this badinage in good part—it was merely sprats’s way of showing her contempt for finicking habit. he followed her from the vicarage to the castle—she walking with her nose in the air, and from time to time commiserating him because of the newness of his boots; he secretly anxious to bask in the sunlight of haidee’s smiles. and at last they arrived, and there, sprawling on the lawn near the basket-chair in which haidee’s lissome figure reposed, was the young gentleman who rejoiced in the name of richard feversham. he appeared to be very much at home with his young hostess; the sound of their mingled laughter fell on the ears of the newcomers as they approached. lucian heard it, and shivered with a curious, undefinable sense of evil; sprats heard it too, and knew that a moral thunderstorm was brewing.
the afternoon was by no means a success, even in its earlier stages. mrs. brinklow had departed to a friend’s house some miles away; the earl might be asleep or dead for all that was seen of him. sprats and haidee cherished a secret dislike of each other; lucian was proud, gloomy, and taciturn; only the feversham boy appeared to have much zest of life left in him. he was a somewhat thick-headed youngster, full of good nature and high spirits; he evidently did not care a{78} straw for public or private opinion, and he made boyish love to haidee with all the shamelessness of depraved youth. haidee saw that lucian was jealous, and encouraged dickie’s attentions—long before tea was brought out to them the materials for a vast explosion were ready and waiting. after tea—and many plates of strawberries and cream—had been consumed, the thick-headed youth became childishly gay. the tea seemed to have mounted to his head—he effervesced. he had much steam to let off: he suggested that they should follow the example of the villagers at the bun-struggles and play kiss-in-the-ring, and he chased haidee all round the lawn and over the flower-beds in order to illustrate the way of the rustic man with the rustic maid. the chase terminated behind a hedge of laurel, from whence presently proceeded much giggling, screaming, and confused laughter. the festive youngster emerged panting and triumphant; his rather homely face wore a broad grin. haidee followed with highly becoming blushes, settling her tumbled hair and crushed hat. she remarked with a pout that dickie was a rough boy; dickie replied that you don’t play country games as if you were made of egg-shell china.
the catastrophe approached consummation with the inevitableness of a greek tragedy. lucian waxed gloomier and gloomier; sprats endeavoured, agonisingly, to put things on a better footing; haidee, now thoroughly enjoying herself, tried hard to make the other boy also jealous. but the other boy was too full of the joy of life to be jealous of anything; he gambolled about like a young elephant, and nearly as gracefully; it was quite evident that he loved horseplay and believed that girls were as much inclined to it as boys. at any other time sprats would have fallen in with his mood and frolicked with him to his heart’s content; on this occasion she was afraid of lucian, who now looked more like a young greek god than ever. the lightning was already playing about his eyes; thunder sat on his brows.{79}
at last the storm burst. haidee wanted to shoot with bow and arrow at a target; she despatched the two youngsters into the great hall of the castle to fetch the materials for archery. dickie went off capering and whistling; lucian followed in sombre silence. and inside the vaulted hall, mystic with the gloom of the past, and romantic with suits of armour, tattered banners, guns, pikes, bows, and the rest of it, the smouldering fires of lucian’s wrath burst out. master richard feversham found himself confronted by a figure which typified wrath, and indignation, and retribution.
‘you are a cad!’ said lucian.
‘cad yourself!’ retorted dickie. ‘who are you talking to?’
‘i am talking to you,’ answered lucian, stern and cold as a stone figure of justice. ‘i say you are a cad—a cad! you have grossly insulted a young lady, and i will punish you.’
dickie’s eyes grew round—he wondered if the other fellow had suddenly gone off his head, and if he’d better call for help and a strait waistcoat.
‘grossly insulted—a young lady!’ he said, puckering up his face with honest amazement. ‘what the dickens do you mean? you must be jolly well dotty!’
‘you have insulted miss brinklow,’ said lucian. ‘you forced your unwelcome attentions upon her all the afternoon, though she showed you plainly that they were distasteful to her, and you were finally rude and brutal to her—beast!’
‘good lord!’ exclaimed dickie, now thoroughly amazed, ‘i never forced any attention on her—we were only larking. rude? brutal? good heavens!—i only kissed her behind the hedge, and i’ve kissed her many a time before!’
lucian became insane with wrath.
‘liar!’ he hissed. ‘liar!’
master richard feversham straightened himself, mentally as well as physically. he bunched up his{80} fists and advanced upon lucian with an air that was thoroughly british.
‘look here,’ he said, ‘i don’t know who the devil you are, you outrageous ass, but if you call me a liar again, i’ll hit you!’
‘liar!’ said lucian, ‘liar!’
dickie’s left fist, clenched very artistically, shot out like a small battering-ram, and landed with a beautiful plunk on lucian’s cheek, between the jaw and the bone. he staggered back.
‘i kept off your nose on purpose,’ said dickie, ‘but, by the lord, i’ll land you one there and spoil your pretty eyes for you if you don’t beg my pardon.’
‘pardon!’ lucian’s voice sounded hollow and strange. ‘pardon!’ he swore a strange italian oath that made dickie creep. ‘pardon!—of you? i will kill you—beast and liar!’
he sprang to the wall as he spoke, tore down a couple of light rapiers which hung there, and threw one at his enemy’s feet.
‘defend yourself!’ he said. ‘i shall kill you.’
dickie recoiled. he would have faced anybody twice his size with fists as weapons, or advanced on a battery with a smiling face, but he had no taste for encountering an apparent lunatic armed with a weapon of which he himself did not know the use. besides, there was murder in lucian’s eye—he seemed to mean business.
‘look here, i say, you chap!’ exclaimed dickie, ‘put that thing down. one of us’ll be getting stuck, you know, if you go dancing about with it like that. i’ll fight you as long as you like if you’ll put up your fists, but i’m not a fool. put it down, i say.’
‘coward!’ said lucian. ‘defend yourself!’
he made at dickie with fierce intent, and the latter was obliged to pick up the other rapier and fall into some sort of a defensive position.
‘of all the silly games,’ he said, ‘this is——’
but lucian was already attacking him with set teeth,{81} glaring eyes, and a resolute demeanour. there was a rapid clashing of blades; then dickie drew in his breath sharply, and his weapon dropped to the ground. he looked at a wound in the back of his hand from which the blood was flowing rather freely.
‘i knew you’d go and do it with your silliness!’ he said. ‘now there’ll be a mess on the carpet and we shall be found out. here—wipe up that blood with your handkerchief while i tie mine round my hand. we.... hello, here they all are, of course! now there will be a row! i say, you chap, swear it was all a lark—do you hear?’
lucian heard but gave no sign. he still gripped his rapier and stared fixedly at haidee and sprats, who had run to the hall on hearing the clash of steel and now stood gazing at the scene with dilated eyes. behind them, gaunt, grey, and somewhat amused and cynical, stood the earl. he looked from one lad to the other and came forward.
‘i heard warlike sounds,’ he said, peering at the combatants through glasses balanced on the bridge of the famous simonstower nose, ‘and now i see warlike sights. blood, eh? and what may this mean?’
‘it’s all nothing, sir,’ said dickie in suspicious haste, ‘absolutely nothing. we were larking about with these two old swords, and the other chap’s point scratched my hand, that’s all, sir—’pon my word.’
‘does the other chap’s version correspond?’ inquired the earl, looking keenly at lucian’s flushed face. ‘eh, other chap?’
lucian faced him boldly.
‘no, sir,’ he answered; ‘what he says is not true, though he means honourably. i meant to punish him—to kill him.’
‘a candid admission,’ said the earl, toying with his glasses. ‘you appear to have effected some part of your purpose. and his offence?’
‘he——’ lucian paused. the two girls, fascinated at the sight of the rapiers, the combatants, and the{82} blood, had drawn near and were staring from one boy’s face to the other’s; lucian hesitated at sight of them.
‘come!’ said the earl sharply. ‘his offence?’
‘he insulted miss brinklow,’ said lucian gravely. ‘i told him i should punish him. then he told lies—about her. i said i would kill him. a man who lies about a woman merits death.’
‘a very excellent apothegm,’ said the earl. ‘sprats, my dear, draw that chair for me—thank you. now,’ he continued, taking a seat and sticking out his gouty leg, ‘let me have a clear notion of this delicate question. feversham, your version, if you please.’
‘i—i—you see, it’s all one awfully rotten misunderstanding, sir,’ said dickie, very ill at ease. ‘i—i—don’t like saying things about anybody, but i think damerel’s got sunstroke or something—he’s jolly dotty, or carries on as if he were. you see, he called me a cad, and said i was rude and brutal to haidee, just because i—well, because i kissed her behind the laurel hedge when we were larking in the garden, and i said it was nothing and i’d kissed her many a time before, and he said i was a liar, and then—well, then i hit him.’
‘i see,’ said the earl, ‘and of course there was then much stainless honour to be satisfied. and how was it that gentlemen of such advanced age resorted to steel instead of fists?’
the boys made no reply: lucian still stared at the earl; dickie professed to be busy with his impromptu bandage. sprats went round to him and tied the knot.
‘i think i understand,’ said the earl. ‘well, i suppose honour is satisfied?’
he looked quizzingly at lucian. lucian returned the gaze with another, dark, sombre, and determined.
‘he is still a liar!’ he said.
‘i’m not a liar!’ exclaimed dickie, ‘and as sure as eggs are eggs i’ll hit you again, and on the nose this time, if you say i am,’ and he squared up to his foe{83} utterly regardless of the earl’s presence. the earl smiled.
‘why is he a liar?’ he asked, looking at lucian.
‘he lies when he says that—that——’ lucian choked and looked, almost entreatingly, at haidee. she had stolen up to the earl’s chair and leaned against its high back, taking in every detail of the scene with eager glances. as lucian’s eyes met hers, she smiled; a dimple showed in the corner of her mouth.
‘i understand,’ said the earl. he twisted himself round and looked at haidee. ‘i think,’ he said, ‘this is one of those cases in which one may be excused if one appeals to the lady. it would seem, young lady, that mr. feversham, while abstaining, like a gentleman, from boasting of it——’
‘oh, i say, sir!’ burst out dickie; ‘i—didn’t mean to, you know.’
‘i say that mr. feversham, like a gentleman, does not boast of it, but pleads that you have indulged him with the privileges of a lover. his word has been questioned—his honour is at stake. have you so indulged it, may one ask?’
haidee assumed the airs of the coquette who must fain make admissions.
‘i—suppose so,’ she breathed, with a smile which included everybody.
‘very good,’ said the earl. ‘it may be that mr. damerel has had reason to believe that he alone was entitled to those privileges. eh?’
‘boys are so silly!’ said haidee. ‘and lucian is so serious and old-fashioned. and all boys like to kiss me. what a fuss to make about nothing!’
‘i quite understand your position and your meaning, my dear,’ said the earl. ‘i have heard similar sentiments from other ladies.’ he turned to lucian. ‘well?’ he said, with a sharp, humorous glance.
lucian had turned very pale, but a dark flush still clouded his forehead. he put aside his rapier, which until then he had held tightly, and he turned to dickie.{84}
‘i beg your pardon,’ he said; ‘i was wrong—quite wrong. i offer you my sincere apologies. i have behaved ill—i am sorry.’
dickie looked uncomfortable and shuffled about.
‘oh, rot!’ he said, holding out his bandaged hand. ‘it’s all right, old chap. i don’t mind at all now that you know i’m not a liar. i—i’m awfully sorry, too. i didn’t know you were spoons on haidee, you know—i’m a bit dense about things. never mind, i shan’t think any more of it, and besides, girls aren’t worth—at least, i mean—oh, hang it, don’t let’s say any more about the beastly affair!’
lucian pressed his hand. he turned, looked at the earl, and made him a low and ceremonious bow. lord simonstower rose from his seat and returned it with equal ceremony. without a glance in haidee’s direction lucian strode from the hall—he had forgotten sprats. he had, indeed, forgotten everything—the world had fallen in pieces.
an hour later sprats, tracking him down with the unerring sagacity of her sex, found him in a haunt sacred to themselves, stretched full length on the grass, with his face buried in his arms. she sat down beside him and put her arm round his neck and drew him to her. he burst into dry, bitter sobs.
‘oh, sprats!’ he said. ‘it’s all over—all over. i believed in her ... and now i shall never believe in anybody again!’
