Chapter 23

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_ CHAPTER XXIII

A FEW words avail to describe the sluggish waters of the Dead Sea, but what pen can portray the Indian Ocean lashed and tormented by a cyclone?

Even so a few words have sufficed to show that Ina Klosking's heart was all benumbed and deadened; and, with the help of insult, treachery, loss of blood, brain-fever, and self-esteem rebelling against villainy, had outlived its power of suffering poignant torture.

But I cannot sketch in a few words, nor paint in many, the tempest of passion in Zoe Vizard. Yet it is my duty to try and give the reader some little insight into the agony, the changes, the fury, the grief, the tempest of passion, in a virgin heart; in such a nature, the great passions of the mind often rage as fiercely, or even more so, than in older and experienced women.

Literally, Zoe Vizard loved Edward Severne one minute and hated him the next; gave him up for a traitor, and then vowed to believe nothing until she had heard his explanation; burned with ire at his silence, sickened with dismay at his silence. Then, for a while, love and faith would get the upper hand, and she would be quite calm. Why should she torment herself? An old sweetheart, abandoned long ago, had come between them; he had, unfortunately, done the woman an injury, in his wild endeavor to get away from her. Well, what business had she to use force? No doubt he was ashamed, afflicted at what he had done, being a man; or was in despair, seeing that lady installed in her brother's house, and her story, probably a parcel of falsehoods, listened to.

Then she would have a gleam of joy; for she knew he had not written to Ina Klosking. But soon Despondency came down like a dark cloud; for she said to herself, "He has left us both. He sees the woman he does not love will not let him have the one he does love; and so he has lost heart, and will have no more to say to either."

When her thoughts took this turn she would cry piteously; but not for long. She would dry her eyes, and burn with wrath all round; she would still hate her rival, but call her lover a coward--a contemptible coward.

After her day of raging, and grieving, and doubting, and fearing, and hoping, and despairing, night overtook her with an exhausted body, a bleeding heart, and weeping eyes. She had been so happy--on the very brink of paradise; and now she was deserted. Her pillow was wet every night. She cried in her very sleep; and when she woke in the morning her body was always quivering; and in the very act of waking came a horror, and an instinctive reluctance to face the light that was to bring another day of misery.

Such is a fair, though loose, description of her condition.

The slight fillip given to her spirits by the journey did her a morsel of good, but it died away. Having to nurse Aunt Maitland did her a little good at first. But she soon relapsed into herself, and became so distraite that Aunt Maitland, who was all self, being an invalid, began to speak sharply to her.

On the second day of her visit to Somerville Villa, as she sat brooding at the foot of her aunt's bed, suddenly she heard horses' feet, and then a ring at the hall-door. Her heart leaped. Perhaps he had come to explain all. He might not choose to go to Vizard Court. What if he had been watching as anxiously as herself, and had seized the first opportunity! In a moment her pale cheek rivaled carmine.

The girl brought up a card--

"LORD UXMOOR."

The color died away directly. "Say I am very sorry, but at this moment I cannot leave my aunt."

The girl stared with amazement, and took down the message.

Uxmoor rode away.

Zoe felt a moment's pleasure. No, if she could not see the right man, she would not see the wrong. That, at least, was in her power.

Nevertheless, in the course of the day, remembering Uxmoor's worth, and the pain she had already given him, she was almost sorry she had indulged herself at his expense.

Superfluous contrition! He came next day, as a matter of course. She liked him none the better for coming, but she went downstairs to him.

He came toward her, but started back and uttered an exclamation. "You are not well," he said, in tones of tenderness and dismay.

"Not very," she faltered; for his open manly concern touched her.

"And you have come here to nurse this old lady? Indeed, Miss Vizard, you need nursing yourself. You know it is some time since I had the pleasure of seeing you, and the change is alarming. May I send you Dr. Atkins, my mother's physician?"

"I am much obliged to you. No."

"Oh, I forgot. You have a physician of your own sex. Why is she not looking after you?"

"Miss Gale is better employed. She is at Vizard Court in attendance on a far more brilliant person--Mademoiselle Klosking, a professional singer. Perhaps you know her?"

"I saw her at Homburg."

"Well, she met with an accident in our hall--a serious one; and Harrington took her in, and has placed all his resources--his lady physician and all--at her service: he is so fond of Music."

A certain satirical bitterness peered through these words, but honest Uxmoor did not notice it. He said, "Then I wish you would let me be your doctor--for want of a better."

"And you think you can cure me?" said Zoe, satirically.

"It does seem presumptuous. But, at least, I could do you a little good if you could be got to try my humble prescription."

"What is it?" asked Zoe, listlessly.

"It is my mare Phillis. She is the delight of every lady who mounts her. She is thorough-bred, lively, swift, gentle, docile, amiable, perfect. Ride her on these downs an hour or two very day. I'll send her over to-morrow. May I?"

"If you like. Rosa would pack up my riding-habit."

"Rosa was a prophetess."

Next day came Phillis, saddled. and led by a groom on horseback, and Uxmoor soon followed on an old hunter. He lifted Zoe to her saddle, and away they rode, the groom following at a respectful distance.

When they got on the downs they had a delightful canter; but Zoe, in her fevered state of mind, was not content with that. She kept increasing the pace, till the old hunter could no longer live with the young filly; and she galloped away from Lord Uxmoor, and made him ridiculous in the eyes of his groom.

The truth is, she wanted to get away from him.

He drew the rein, and stood stock-still. She made a circuit of a mile, and came up to him with heightened color and flashing eyes, looking beautiful.

"Well?" said she. "Don't you like galloping?"

"Yes, but I don't like cruelty."

"Cruelty?"

"Look at the mare's tail how it is quivering, and her flanks panting! And no wonder. You have been over twice the Derby course at a racing pace. Miss Vizard, a horse is not a steam engine."

"I'll never ride her again," said Zoe. "I did not come here to be scolded. I will go home."

They walked slowly home in silence. Uxmoor hardly knew what to say to her; but at last he murmured, apologetically, "Never mind the poor mare, if you are better for galloping her."

She waited a moment before she spoke, and then she said, "Well, yes; I am better. I'm better for my ride, and better for my scolding. Good-by." (Meaning forever.)

"Good-by," said he, in the same tone. Only he sent the mare next day, and followed her on a young thorough-bred.

"What!" said Zoe; "am I to have another trial?"

"And another after that."

So this time she would only canter very slowly, and kept stopping every now and then to inquire, satirically, if that would distress the mare.

But Uxmoor was too good-humored to quarrel for nothing. He only laughed, and said, "You are not the only lady who takes a horse for a machine."

These rides did her bodily health some permanent good; but their effect on her mind was fleeting. She was in fair spirits when she was actually bounding through the air, but she collapsed afterward.

At first, when she used to think that Severne never came near her, and Uxmoor was so constant, she almost hated Uxmoor--so little does the wrong man profit by doing the right thing for a woman. I admit that, though not a deadly woman-hater myself.

But by-and-by she was impartially bitter against them both; the wrong man for doing the right thing, and the right man for not doing it.

As the days rolled by, and Severne did not appear, her indignation and wounded pride began to mount above her love. A beautiful woman counts upon pursuit, and thinks a man less than man if he does not love her well enough to find her, though hid in the caves of ocean or the labyrinths of Bermondsey.

She said to herself, "Then he has no explanation to offer. Another woman has frightened him away from me. I have wasted my affections on a coward." Her bosom boiled with love, and contempt, and wounded pride; and her mind was tossed to and fro like a leaf in a storm. She began, by force of will, to give Uxmoor some encouragement; only, after it she writhed and wept.

At last, finding herself driven to and fro like a leaf, she told Miss Maitland all, and sought counsel of her. She must have something to lean on.

The old lady was better by this time, and spoke kindly to her. She said Mr. Severne was charming, and she was not bound to give him up because another lady had past claims on him. But it appeared to her that Mr. Severne himself had deserted her. He had not written to her. Probably he knew something that had not yet transpired, and had steeled himself to the separation for good reasons. It was a decision she must accept. Let her then consider how forlorn is the condition of most deserted women compared with hers. Here was a devoted lover, whom she esteemed, and who could offer her a high position and an honest love. If she had a mother, that mother would almost force her to engage herself at once to Lord Uxmoor. Having no mother, the best thing she could do would be to force herself--to say some irrevocable words, and never look back. It was the lot of her sex not to marry the first love, and to be all the happier in the end for that disappointment, though at the time it always seemed eternal.

All this, spoken in a voice of singular kindness by one who used to be so sharp, made Zoe's tears flow gently and somewhat cooled her raging heart.

She began now to submit, and only cry at intervals, and let herself drift; and Uxmoor visited her every day, and she found it impossible not to esteem and regard him. Nevertheless, one afternoon, just about his time, she was seized with such an aversion to his courtship, and such a revolt against the slope she seemed gliding down, that she flung on her bonnet and shawl, and darted out of the house to escape him. She said to the servant, "I am gone for a walk, if anybody calls."

Uxmoor did call, and, receiving this message, he bit his lip, sent the horse home and walked up to the windmill, on the chance of seeing her anywhere. He had already observed she was never long in one mood; and as he was always in the same mind, he thought perhaps he might be tolerably welcome, if he could meet her unexpected.

Meantime Zoe walked very fast to get away from the house as soon as possible, and she made a round of nearly five miles, walking through two villages, and on her return lost her way. However, a shepherd showed her a bridle-road which, he told her, would soon take her to Somerville Villa, through "the small pastures;" and, accordingly, she came into a succession of meadows not very large. They were all fenced and gated; but the gates were only shut, not locked. This was fortunate; for they were new five-barred gates, and a lady does not like getting over these, even in solitude. Her clothes are not adapted.

There were sheep in some of these, cows in others, and the pastures wonderfully green and rich, being always well manured, and fed down by cattle.

Zoe's love of color was soothed by these emerald fields, dotted with white sheep and red cows.

In the last field, before the lane that led to the village, a single beast was grazing. Zoe took no notice of him, and walked on; but he took wonderful notice of her, and stared, then gave a disagreeable snort. He took offense at her Indian shawl, and, after pawing the ground and erecting his tail, he came straight at her at a tearing trot, and his tail out behind him.

Zoe saw, and screamed violently, and ran for the gate ahead, which, of course, was a few yards further from her than the gate behind. She ran for her life; but the bull, when he saw that, broke into a gallop directly, and came up fast with her. She could not escape.

At that moment a man vaulted clean over the gate, tore a pitchfork out of a heap of dung that luckily stood in the corner, and boldly confronted the raging bull just in time; for at that moment Zoe lost heart, and crouched, screaming, in the side ditch, with her hands before her eyes.

The new-comer, rash as his conduct seemed, was country-bred and knew what he was about: he drove one of the prongs clean through the great cartilage of the bull's mouth, and was knocked down like a nine-pin, with the broken staff of the pitch-fork in his hand; and the bull reared in the air with agony, the prong having gone clean through his upper lip in two places, and fastened itself, as one fastens a pin, in that leathery but sensitive organ.

Now Uxmoor was a university athlete; he was no sooner down than up. So, when the bull came down from his rearing, and turned to massacre his assailant, he was behind him, and seizing his tail, twisted it, and delivered a thundering blow on his backbone, and followed it up by a shower of them on his ribs. "Run to the gate, Zoe!" he roared. Whack! whack! whack!--"Run to the gate, I tell you!"--whack!--whack!--whack!--whack!--whack!

Thus ordered, Zoe Vizard, who would not have moved of herself, being in a collapse of fear, scudded to the gate, got on the right side of it, and looked over, with two eyes like saucers. She saw a sight incredible to her. Instead of letting the bull alone, now she was safe, Uxmoor was sticking to him like a ferret. The bull ran, tossing his nose with pain and bellowing: Uxmoor dragged by the tail and compelled to follow in preposterous, giant strides, barely touching the ground with the point of his toe, pounded the creature's ribs with such blows as Zoe had never dreamed possible. They sounded like flail on wooden floor, and each blow was accompanied with a loud jubilant shout. Presently, being a five's player, and ambidexter, he shifted his hand, and the tremendous whacks resounded on the bull's left side. The bull, thus belabored, and resounding like the big drum, made a circuit of the field, but found it all too hot: he knew his way to a certain quiet farmyard; he bolted, and came bang at Zoe once more, with furious eyes and gore-distilling nostrils.

But this time she was on the right side of the gate.

Yet she drew back in dismay as the bull drew near: and she was right; for, in his agony and amazement, the unwieldy but sinewy brute leaped the five-barred gate, and cleared it all but the top rail; that he burst through, as if it had been paper, and dragged Uxmoor after him, and pulled him down, and tore him some yards along the hard road on his back, and bumped his head against a stone, and so got rid of him: then pounded away down the lane, snorting, and bellowing, and bleeding; the prong still stuck through his nostrils like a pin.

Zoe ran to Uxmoor with looks of alarm and tender concern, and lifted his head to her tender bosom; for his clothes were torn, and his cheeks and hands bleeding. But he soon shook off his confusion, and rose without assistance.

"Have you got over your fright?" said he; "that is the question."

"Oh yes! yes! It is only you I am alarmed for. It is much better I should be killed than you."

"Killed! I never had better fun in my life. It was glorious. I stuck to him, and hit--there, I have not had anything I could hit as hard as I wanted to, since I used to fight with my cousin Jack at Eton. Oh, Miss Vizard, it was a whirl of Elysium! But I am sorry you were frightened. Let me take you home."

"Oh, yes, but not that way; that is the way the monster went!" quivered Zoe.

"Oh, he has had enough of us."

"But I have had too much of him. Take me some other road--a hundred miles round. How I tremble!"

"So you do. Take my arm.--No, putting the tips of your fingers on it is no use; take it really--you want support. Be courageous, now--we are very near home."

Zoe trembled, and cried a little, to conclude the incident, but walked bravely home on Uxmoor's arm.

In the hall at Somerville Villa she saw him change color, and insisted on his taking some port wine.

"I shall be very glad," said he.

A decanter was brought. He filled a large tumbler and drank it off like water.

This was the first intimation he gave Zoe that he was in pain, and his nerves hard tried; nor did she indeed arrive at that conclusion until he had left her.

Of course, she carried all this to Aunt Maitland. That lady was quite moved by the adventure. She sat up in bed, and listened with excitement and admiration. She descanted on Lord Uxmoor's courage and chivalry, and congratulated Zoe that such a pearl of manhood had fallen at her feet. "Why, child," said she, "surely, after this, you will not hesitate between this gentleman and a beggarly adventurer, who has nothing, not even the courage of a man. Turn your back on all such rubbish, and be the queen of the county. I'd be content to die to-morrow if I could see you Countess of Uxmoor."

"You shall live, and see it, dear aunt," said Zoe, kissing her.

"Well," said Miss Maitland, "if anything can cure me, that will. And really," said she, "I feel better ever since that brave fellow began to bring you to your senses."

Admiration and gratitude being now added to esteem, Zoe received Lord Uxmoor next day with a certain timidity and half tenderness she had never shown before; and, as he was by nature a rapid wooer, he saw his chance, and stayed much longer than usual, and at last hazarded a hope that he might be allowed to try and win her heart.

Thereupon she began to fence, and say that love was all folly. He had her esteem and her gratitude, and it would be better for both of them to confine their sentiments within those rational bounds.

"That I cannot do," said Uxmoor; "so I must ask your leave to be ambitious. Let me try and conquer your affection."

"As you conquered the bull?"

"Yes; only not so rudely, nor so quickly, I'll be bound."

"Well, I don't know why I should object. I esteem you more than anybody in the world. You are my beau ideal of a man. If you can make me love you, all the better for me. Only, I am afraid you cannot."

"May I try?"

"Yes," said Zoe, bushing carnation.

"May I come every day?"

"Twice a day, if you like."

"I think I shall succeed--in time."

"I hope you may."

Then he kissed her hand devotedly--the first time in his life--and went away on wings.

Zoe flew up to her aunt Maitland, flushed and agitated. "Aunt, I am as good as engaged to him. I have said such unguarded things. I'm sure he will understand it that I consent to receive his addresses as my lover. Not that I really said so."

"I hope," said Aunt Maitland, "that you have committed yourself somehow or other, and cannot go back."

"I think I have. Yes; it is all over. I cannot go back now."

Then she burst out crying. Then she was near choking, and had to smell her aunt's salts, while still the tears ran fast.

Miss Maitland received this with perfect composure. She looked on them as the last tears of regret given to a foolish attachment at the moment of condemning it forever. She was old, and had seen these final tears shed by more than one loving woman just before entering on her day of sunshine.

And now Zoe must be alone, and vent her swelling heart. She tied a handkerchief round her head and darted into the garden. She went round and round it with fleet foot and beating pulses.

The sun began to decline, and a cold wind to warn her in. She came, for the last time, to a certain turn of the gravel walk, where there was a little iron gate leading into the wooded walk from the meadows.

At that gate she found a man. She started back, and leaned against the nearest tree, with her hands behind her.

It was Edward Severne--all in black, and pale as death; but not paler than her own face turned in a moment.

Indeed, they looked at each other like two ghosts. _

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