"Oh, Matilda!" he cried, "if you only knew the hidgeous position I'm
in--if you could only advise me what to do--I could bear it better!"
And then he resolved that he would ask that advice without delay, and
decide nothing until she replied. There was no reason for any further
concealment: she had seen the statue herself, and must know the worst.
What she could not know was his perfect innocence of any real
unfaithfulness to her, and that he must explain.
He sat up all night composing a letter that should touch her to the
heart, with the following result:--
"MY OWN DEAREST GIRL,
"If such you will still allow me to qualify you, I write to you in
a state of mind that I really 'ardly know what I am about, but I
cannot indure making no effort to clear up the gaping abiss which
the events of the past fatal afternoon has raised betwixt us.
"In spite of all I could do, you have now seen, and been justly
alarmed at, the Person with whom I allowed myself to become
involved in such a unhappy and unprecedented manner, and having
done so, you can think for yourself whether that Art of Stone was
able for to supplant yours for a single moment, though the way in
which such a hidgeous Event transpired I can not trust my pen to
describe except in the remark that it was purely axidental. It all
appened on that ill-ominous Saturday when we went down to those
Gardens where my Doom was saving up to lay in wait for me, and I
scorn to deny that Bella's sister Ada was one of the party. But as
to anything serous in that quarter, oh Tilly the ole time I was
contrasting you with her and thinking how truly superior, and never
did I swerve not what could be termed a swerve for a instant. I did
dance arf a walz with her--but why? Because she asked me to it and
as a Gentleman I was bound to oblige! And that was afterwards too,
when I had put that ring on which is the sauce of all my recent
aggony. All the while I was dancing my thoughts were elsewhere--on
how I could get the ring back again, for so I still hoped I could,
though when I came to have a try, oh my dear girl no one couldn't
persuade her she's that obstinate, and yet unless I do it is all
over with me, and soon too!
"And now if it's the last time I shall ever write words with a
mortal pen, I must request your support in this dilemmer which is
sounding its dread orns at my very door!
"You know what she is and who she is, and you cannot doubt but what
she's a _goddess_ loath as you must feel to admit such a thing, and
I ask you if it would be downright wicked in me to do what she
tells me I must do. Indeed I wont do it, being no less than flying
with her immediate to a distant climb, and you know how repugnant I
am to such a action--not if you advise me against it or even if you
was but to assure me your affections were unchanged in spite of
all! But you know we parted under pigulier circs, and I cannot
disgise from myself that you may be thinking wuss of me than what
Matilda I can honestly say I deserve!
"Now I tell you solimly that if this is the fact, and you've been
thinking of your proper pride and your womanly dignity and things
like that--there's _no time for to do it in_ Matilda, if you don't
want to break with me for all Eternity!
"For she's pressing me to carry out the pledge, as she calls it,
and I must decide before this time to-morrow, and I want to feel
you are not lost to me before I can support my trial, and what with
countless perplexities and burglars threatening, and giving false
informations, and police searching, there's no saying what I may do
nor what I mayn't do if I'm left to myself, for indeed I am very
unappy Matilda, and if ever a man was made a Victim through acting
without intentions, or if with, of the best--I am that Party! O
Matilda don't, don't desert me, unless you have seased to care for
me, and in that contingency I can look upon my Fate whatever it be
with a apathy that will supply the courage which will not even
winch at its approach, but if I am still of value, come, and come
precious soon, or it will be too late to the Asistance of
"Your truly penitent and unfortunate
"LEANDER TWEDDLE.
"P.S.--You will see the condition of my feelings from my
spelling--I haven't the hart to spell."
Dawn was breaking as he put the final touches to this appeal, and read
it over with a gloomy approbation. He had always cherished the
conviction that he could "write a good letter when he was put to it,"
and felt now that he had more than risen to the occasion.
"William shall take it down to Bayswater the first thing to-morrow--no,
to-day, I mean," he said, rubbing his hot eyes. "I fancy it will do my
business!"
And it did.
THE LAST STRAW
XIII.
"Thou in justice,
If from the height of majesty we can
Look down upon thy lowness and embrace it,
Art bound with fervour to look up to me."
MASSINGER, _Roman Actor._
Haggard and distraught was Leander as he went about his business that
morning, so mechanically that one customer, who had requested to have
his luxuriant locks "trimmed," found himself reduced to a state of penal
bullet-headedness before he could protest, and another sacrificed his
whiskers and part of one ear to the hairdresser's uninspired scissors.
For Leander's eyes were constantly turning to the front part of his
shop, where his apprentice might come in at any moment with the answer
to his appeal.
At last the moment came when the bell fixed at the door sounded sharply,
and he saw the sleek head and chubby red face he had been so anxiously
expecting. He was busy with a customer; but that could not detain him
then, and he rushed quickly into the outer shop. "Well, William," he
said, breathlessly, "a nice time you've been over that message! I gave
you the money for your 'bus."
"Yusser, but it was this way: you said a green 'bus, and I took a green
'bus with 'Bayswater' on it, and I didn't know nothing was wrong, and
when it stopped I sez to the conductor, 'This ain't Kensington
Gardings;' and he sez, 'No, it's Archer Street;' and I sez----"
"Never mind that now; you got to the shop, didn't you?"
"Yes, I got to the shop, sir, and I see the lady; but I sez to that
conductor, 'You should ha' told me,' I sez----"
"Did she give you anything for me?" interrupted Leander, impatiently.
"Yessur," said the boy.
"Then where the dooce is it?"
"'Ere!" said William, and brought out an envelope, which his master tore
open with joy. It contained his own letter!
"William," he said unsteadily, "is this all?"
"Ain't it enough, sir?" said the young scoundrel, who had guessed the
state of affairs, and felt an impish satisfaction at his employer's
rejection.
"None of that, William; d'ye hear me?" said Leander. "William, I ain't
been a bad master to you. Tell me, how did she take it?"
"Well, she didn't seem to want to take it nohow at first," said the boy.
"I went up to the desk where she was a-sittin' and gave it her, and
by-and-by she opened it with the tips of her fingers, as if it would
bite, and read it all through very careful, and I could see her nose
going up gradual, and her colour coming, and then she sez to me, 'You
may go now, boy; there's no answer.' And I sez to her, 'If you please,
miss, master said as I was not to go away without a answer.' So she sez,
uncommon short and stiff, 'In that case he shall have it!'--like that,
she says, as proud as a queen, and she scribbles a line or two on it,
and throws it to me, and goes on casting up figgers."
"A line or two! where?" cried Leander, and caught up the letter again.
Yes, there on the last page was Matilda's delicate commercial
handwriting, and the poor man read the cruel words, "_I have nothing to
advise; I give you up to your 'goddess'!_"
"Very well, William," he said, with a deadly calm; "that's all. You
young devil! what are you a-sniggering at?" he added, with a sudden
outburst.
"On'y something I 'eard a boy say in the street, sir, going along, sir;
nothing to do with you, sir."
"Oh, youth, youth!" muttered the poor broken man; "boys don't grow
feelings, any more than they grow whiskers!"
And he went back to his saloon, where he was instantly hailed with
reproaches from the abandoned customer.
"Look here, sir! what do you mean by this? I told you I wanted to be
shaved, and you've soaped the top of my head and left it to cool!
What"--and he made use of expletives here--"what are you about?"
Leander apologized on the ground of business of a pressing nature, but
the customer was not pacified.
"Business, sir! your business is _here_: _I'm_ your business! And I come
to be shaved, and you soap the top of my head, and leave me all alone to
dry! It's scandalous! it's----"
"Look here, sir," interrupted Leander, gloomily; "I've a good deal of
private trouble to put up with just now, without having _you_ going on
at me; so I must ask you not to 'arris me like this, or I don't know
what I might do, with a razor so 'andy!"
"That'll do!" said the customer, hastily. "I--I don't care about being
shaved this morning. Wipe my head, and let me go; no, I'll wipe it
myself,--don't you trouble!" and he made for the door. "It's my belief,"
he said, pausing on the threshold for an instant, "that you're a
dangerous lunatic, sir; you ought to be shut up!"
"I dessay I shall have a mad doctor down on me after this," thought
Leander; "but I shan't wait for _him_. No, it is all over now; the die
is fixed! Cruel Tillie! you have spoke the mandrake; you have thrust me
into the stony harms of that 'eathen goddess--always supposing the
police don't nip in fust, and get the start of her."
No more customers came that day, which was fortunate, perhaps, for them.
The afternoon passed, and dusk approached, but the hairdresser sat on,
motionless, in his darkening saloon, without the energy to light a
single gas-jet.
At last he roused himself sufficiently to go to the head of the stairs
leading to his "labatry," and call for William, who, it appeared, was
composing an egg-wash, after one of his employer's formulæ, and came up,
wondering to find the place in darkness.
"Come here, William," said Leander, solemnly. "I just want a few words
with you, and then you can go. I can do the shutting-up myself. William,
we can none of us foretell the future; and it may so 'appen that you are
looking on my face for the last time. If it should so be, William,
remember the words I am now about to speak, and lay them to 'art!...
This world is full of pitfalls; and some of us walk circumspect and keep
out of 'em, and some of us, William--some of us don't. If there's any
places more abounding in pitfalls than what others are, it is the
noxious localities known under the deceitful appellation of 'pleasure'
gardens. And you may take that as the voice of one calling to you from
the bottom of about as deep a 'ole as a mortal man ever plumped into.
And if ever you find a taste for statuary growing on you, William, keep
it down, wrastle with it, and don't encourage it. Farewell, William! Be
here at the usual time to-morrow, though whether you will find _me_ here
is more than I can say."
The boy went away, much impressed by so elaborate and formal a parting,
which seemed to him a sign that, in his parlance, "the guv'nor was going
to make a bolt of it."
Leander busied himself in some melancholy preparations for his impending
departure, dissolution, or incarceration; he was not very clear which it
might be.
He went down and put his "labatry" in order. There he had worked with
all the fiery zeal of an inventor at the discoveries which were to
confer perpetual youth, in various sized bottles, upon a grateful world.
He must leave them all, with his work scarcely begun! Another would step
in and perfect what he had left incomplete!
He came up again, with a heavy heart, and examined his till. There was
not much; enough, however, for William's wages and any small debts. He
made a list of these, and left it there with the coin. "They must settle
it among themselves," he thought, wearily; "I can't be bothered with
business now."
He was thinking whether it was worth while to shut the shop up or not;
when a clear voice sounded from above--
"Leander, where art thou? Come hither!"
And he started as if he had been shot. "I'm coming, madam," he called
up, obsequiously. "I'll be with you in one minute!"
"Now for it," he thought, as he went up to his sitting-room. "I wish I
wasn't all of a twitter. I wish I knew what was coming next!"
The room was dark, but when he got a light he saw the statue standing in
the centre of the room, her hood thrown back, and the fur-lined mantle
hanging loosely about her; the face looked stern and terrible under its
brilliant tint.
"Have you made your choice?" she demanded.
"Choice!" he said. "I haven't any choice left me!"
"It is true," she said triumphantly. "Your friends have deserted you;
mortals are banded together to seize and disgrace you: you have no
refuge but with me. But time is short. Come, then, place yourself within
the shelter of these arms, and, while they enfold you tight in their
marble embrace, repeat after me the words which complete my power."
"There's no partickler hurry," he objected. "I will directly. I--I only
want to know what will happen when I've done it. You can't have any
objection to a natural curiosity like that."
"You will lose consciousness, to recover it in balmy Cyprus, with
Aphrodite (no longer cold marble, but the actual goddess, warm and
living), by your side! Ah! impervious one, can you linger still? Do you
not tremble with haste to feel my breath fanning your cheek, my soft arm
around your neck? Are not your eyes already dazzled by the gleam of my
golden tresses?"
"Well, I can't say they are; not at present," said Leander. "And, you
see, it's all very well; but, as I asked you once before, how are you
going to _get_ me there? It's a long way, and I'm ten stone, if I'm an
ounce!"
"Heavy-witted youth, it is not your body that will taste perennial
bliss."
"And what's to become of that, then?" he asked, anxiously.
"That will be left here, clasped to this stone, itself as cold and
lifeless."
"Oh!" said Leander, "I didn't bargain for that, and I don't like it."
"You will know nothing of it; you will be with me, in dreamy grottoes
strewn with fragrant rushes and the new-stript leaves of the vine, where
the warm air woos to repose with its languorous softness, and the water
as it wells murmurs its liquid laughter. Ah! no Greek would have
hesitated thus."
"Well, I ain't a Greek; and, as a business man, you can't be surprised
if I want to make sure it's a genuine thing, and worth the risk, before
I commit myself. I think I understand that it's the gold ring which is
to bind us two together?"
"It is," she said; "by that pure and noble metal are we united."
"Well," said Leander, "that being so, I should wish to have it tested,
else there might be a hitch somewhere or other."
"Tested!" she cried; "what is that?"
"Trying it, to see if it's real gold or not," he said. "We can easily
have it done."
"It is needless," she replied, haughtily. "I will not suffer my power to
be thus doubted, nor that of the pure and precious metal through which I
have obtained it!"
Leander might have objected to this as an example of that obscure feat,
"begging the question;" for, whether the metal _was_ pure and precious,
was precisely the point he desired to ascertain. And this desire was
quite genuine; for, though he saw no other course before him but that
upon which the goddess insisted, he did wish to take every reasonable
precaution.
"For all I know," he reasoned in his own mind, "if there's anything
wrong with that ring, I may be left 'igh and dry, halfway to Cyprus; or
she may get tired of me, and turn me out of those grottoes of hers! If I
must go with her, I should like to make things as safe as I could."
"It won't take long," he pleaded; "and if I find the ring's real gold, I
promise I won't hold out any longer."
"There is no time," she said, "to indulge this whim. Would you mock me,
Leander? Ha! did I not say so? Listen!"
The private bell was ringing loudly. Leander rushed to the window, but
saw no one. Then he heard the clang of the shop bell, as if the person
or persons had discovered that an entrance was possible there.
"The guards!" said the statue. "Will you wait for them, Leander?"
"No!" he cried. "Never mind what I said about the ring; I'll risk that.
Only--only, don't go away without me.... Tell me what to say, and I'll
say it, and chance the consequences!"
"Say, 'Aphrodite, daughter of Olympian Zeus, I yield; I fulfil the
pledge; I am thine!'"
"Well," he thought, "here goes. Oh, Matilda, you're responsible for
this!" And he advanced towards the white extended arms of the goddess.
There were hasty steps outside; another moment and the door would be
burst open.
"Aphrodite, daughter of----" he began, and recoiled suddenly; for he
heard his name called from without in a voice familiar and once dear to
him.
"Leander, where are you? It's all dark! Speak to me; tell me you've
done nothing rash! Oh, Leander, it's Matilda!"
That voice, which a short while back he would have given the world to
hear once more, appalled him now. For if she came in, the goddess would
discover who she was, and then--he shuddered to think what might happen
then!
Matilda's hand was actually on the door. "Stop where you are!" he
shouted, in despair; "for mercy's sake, don't come in!"
[Illustration: "STOP WHERE YOU ARE!... FOR MERCY'S SAKE, DON'T COME
IN!"]
"Ah! you are there, and alive!" she cried. "I am not too late; and I
_will_ come in!"
And in another instant she burst into the room, and stood there, her
tear-stained face convulsed with the horror of finding him in such
company.
THE THIRTEENTH TRUMP
XIV.
"Your adversary having thus secured the lead with the last trump,
you will be powerless to prevent the bringing-in of the long suit."
ROUGH'S _Guide to Whist._
"What! thinkest thou that utterly in vain
Jove is my sire, and in despite my will
That thou canst mock me with thy beauty still?"
_Story of Cupid and Psyche._
Leander, when he wrote his distracted appeal to Matilda, took it for
granted that she had recognized the statue for something of a
supernatural order, and this, combined with his perplexed state of mind,
caused him to be less explicit than he might have been in referring to
the goddess's ill-timed appearance.
But, unfortunately, as will probably have been already anticipated, the
only result of this reticence was, that Matilda saw in his letter an
abject entreaty for her consent to his marriage with Ada Parkinson, to
avoid legal proceedings, and, under this misapprehension, she wrote the
line that abandoned all claims upon him, and then went on with her
accounts, which were not so neatly kept that day as usual.
What she felt most keenly in Leander's conduct was, that he should have
placed the ring, which to all intent was her own, upon the finger of
another. She could not bear to think of so unfeeling an act, and yet she
thought of it all through the long day, as she sat, outwardly serene, at
her high desk, while her attendants at her side made up sprays for
dances and wreaths for funerals from the same flowers.
And at last she felt herself urged to a course which, in her ordinary
mind, she would have shrunk from as a lowering of her personal dignity:
she would go and see her rival, and insist that this particular
humiliation should be spared her. The ring was not Leander's to dispose
of--at least, to dispose of thus; it was not right that any but herself
should wear it; and, though the token could never now be devoted to its
rightful use, she wanted to save it from what, in her eyes, was a kind
of profanation.
She would not own it to herself, but there was a motive stronger than
all this--the desire to relieve her breast of some of the indignation
which was choking her, and of which her pride forbade any betrayal to
Leander himself.
This other woman had supplanted her; but she should be made to feel the
wrong she had done, and her triumphs should be tempered with shame, if
she were capable of such a sensation. Matilda knew very well that the
ring was not hers, and she wanted it no longer; but, then, it was Miss
Tweddle's, and she would claim it in her name.
She easily obtained permission to leave somewhat earlier that evening,
as she did not often ask such favours, and soon found herself at Madame
Chenille's establishment, where she remembered to have heard from Bella
that her sister was employed.
She asked for the forewoman, and begged to be allowed to speak to Miss
Parkinson in private for a very few minutes; but the forewoman referred
her to the proprietress, who made objections: such a thing was never
permitted during business hours, the shop would close in an hour, till
then Miss Parkinson was engaged in the showroom, and so on.
But Matilda carried her point at last, and was shown to a room in the
basement, where the assistants took their meals, there to wait until
Miss Parkinson could be spared from her duties.
Matilda waited in the low, dingy room, where the tea-things were still
littering the table, and as she paced restlessly about, trying to feel
an interest in the long-discarded fashion-plates which adorned the
walls, her anger began to cool, and give place to something very like
nervousness.
She wished she had not come. What, after all, was she to say to this
girl when they met? And what was Leander--base and unworthy as he had
shown himself--to her any longer? Why should she care what he chose to
do with the ring? And he would be told of her visit, and think----No!
that was intolerable: she would not gratify his vanity and humble
herself in this way. She would slip quietly out, and leave her rival to
enjoy her victory!
But, just as she was going to carry out this intention, the door opened,
and a short, dark young woman appeared. "I'm told there was a young
person asking to speak to me," she said; "I'm Ada Parkinson."
At the name, Matilda's heart swelled again with the sense of her
injuries; and yet she was unprepared for the face that met her eyes.
Surely her rival had both looked and spoken differently the night
before? And yet, she had been so agitated that very likely her
recollections were not to be depended upon.
"I--I did want to see you," she said, and her voice shook, as much from
timidity as righteous indignation. "When I tell you who I am, perhaps
you will guess why. I am Matilda Collum."
Miss Parkinson showed no symptoms of remorse. "What!" she cried, "the
young lady that Mr. Tweddle is courting? Fancy!"
"After what happened last night," said Matilda, trembling exceedingly,
"you know that that is all over. I didn't come to talk about that. If
you knew--and I think you must have known--all that Mr. Tweddle was to
me, you have--you have not behaved very well; but he is nothing to me
any more, and it is not worth while to be angry. Only, I don't think you
ought to keep the ring--not _that_ ring!"
"Goodness gracious me!" cried Ada. "What in the world is all this about?
What ring oughtn't I to keep?"
"You know!" retorted Matilda. "How can you pretend like that? The ring
he gave you that night at Rosherwich!"
"The girl's mad!" exclaimed the other. "He never gave me a ring in all
his life! I wouldn't have taken it, if he'd asked me ever so. Mr.
Tweddle indeed!"
"Why do you say that?" said Matilda. "He has not got it himself, and
your sister said he gave it to you, and--and I saw it with my own eyes
on your hand!"
"Oh, _dear_ me!" said Ada, petulantly, holding out her hand, "look
there--is that it?--is this? Well, these are all that I have, whether
you believe me or not; one belonged to my poor mother, and the other was
a present, only last Friday, from the gentleman that's their head
traveller, next door, and is going to be my husband. Is it likely that
I should be wearing any other now?--ask yourself!"
"You wouldn't wish to deceive me, I hope," said Matilda; "and oh, Miss
Parkinson, you might be open with me, for I'm so very miserable! I don't
know what to think. Tell me just this: did you--wasn't it you who came
last night to Miss Tweddle's?"
"No!" returned Ada, impatiently--"no, as many times as you please! And
if Bella likes to say I did, she may; and she always was a
mischief-making thing! How could I, when I didn't know there was any
Miss Tweddle to come to? And what do you suppose I should go running
about after Mr. Tweddle for? I wonder you're not ashamed to say such
things!"
"But," faltered Matilda, "you did go to those gardens with him, didn't
you? And--and I know he gave the ring to somebody!"
Ada began to laugh. "You're quite correct, Miss Collum," she said; "so
he did. Don't you want to know who he gave it to?"
"Yes," said Matilda, "and you will tell me. I have a right to be told. I
was engaged to him, and the ring was given to him for me--not for any
one else. You _will_ tell me, Miss Parkinson, I am sure you will?"
"Well," said Ada, still laughing, "I'll tell you this much--she's a
foreign lady, very stiff and stuck-up and cold. She's got it, if any one
has. I saw him put it on myself!"
"Tell me her name, if you know it."
"I see you won't be easy till you know all about it. Her name's
Afriddity, or Froddity, or something outlandish like that. She lives at
Rosherwich, a good deal in the open air, and--there, don't be
ridiculous--it's only a _statue_! There's a pretty thing to be jealous
of!"
"Only a statue!" echoed Matilda. "Oh! Heaven be with us both, if--if
that was It!"
Certain sentences in the letter she had returned came to her mind with a
new and dreadful significance. The appearance of the visitor last
night--Leander's terror--all seemed to point to some unsuspected
mystery.
"It can't be--no, it can't! Miss Parkinson, you were there: tell me all
that happened, quick! You don't know what may depend on it!"
"What! not satisfied even now?" cried Ada. "_Well_, Miss Collum, talk
about jealousy! But, there, I'll tell you all I know myself."
And she gave the whole account of the episode with the statue, so far as
she knew it, even to the conversation which led to the production of the
ring.
"You see," she concluded, "that it was all on your account that he tried
it on at all, and I'm sure he talked enough about you all the evening. I
really was a little surprised when I found _you_ were his Miss Collum.
(You won't mind my saying so?) If I was you, I should go and tell him I
forgave him, now. I do think he deserves it, poor little man!"
"Yes, yes!" cried Matilda; "I'll go--I'll go at once! Thank you, Miss
Parkinson, for telling me what you have!" And then, as she remembered
some dark hints in Leander's letter: "Oh, I must make haste! He may be
going to do something desperate--he may have done it already!"
And, leaving Miss Parkinson to speculate as she pleased concerning her
eccentricity, she went out into the broad street again; and,
unaccustomed as she was to such expenditure, hailed a hansom; for there
was no time to be lost.
She had told the man to drive to the Southampton Row Passage at first,
but, as she drew nearer, she changed her purpose; she did not like to go
alone, for who knew what she might see there? It was out of the question
to expect her mother to accompany her, but her friend and landlady would
not refuse to do so; and she drove to Millman Street, and prevailed on
Miss Tweddle to come with her without a moment's delay.
The two women found the shop dark, but unshuttered; there was a light in
the upper room. "You stay down here, please," said Matilda; "if--if
anything is wrong, I will call you." And Miss Tweddle, without very well
understanding what it was all about, and feeling fluttered and out of
breath, was willing enough to sit down in the saloon and recover
herself.
And so it came to pass that Matilda burst into the room just as the
hairdresser was preparing to pronounce the inevitable words that would
complete the goddess's power. He stood there, pale and dishevelled, with
eyes that were wild and bordered with red. Opposite to him was the being
she had once mistaken for a fellow-creature.
Too well she saw now that the tall and queenly form, with the fixed eyes
and cold tinted mask, was inspired by nothing human; and her heart died
within her as she gazed, spellbound, upon her formidable rival.
"Leander," she murmured, supporting herself against the frame of the
door, "what are you going to do?"
"Keep back, Matilda!" he cried desperately; "go away--it's too late
now!"
A moment before, and, deserted as he believed himself to be by love and
fortune alike, he had been almost resigned to the strange and shadowy
future which lay before him; but now--now that he saw Matilda there in
his room, no longer scornful or indifferent, but pale and concerned, her
pretty grey eyes dark and wide with anguish and fear for him--he felt
all he was giving up; he had a sudden revulsion, a violent repugnance to
his doom.
She loved him still! She had repented for some reason. Oh! why had she
not done so before? What could he do now? For her own sake he must steel
himself to tell her to leave him to his fate; for he knew well that if
the goddess were to discover Matilda's real relations to him, it might
cost his innocent darling her life!
For the moment he rose above his ordinary level. He lost all thought of
self. Let Aphrodite take him if she would, but Matilda must be saved.
"Go away!" he repeated; and his voice was cracked and harsh, under the
strain of doing such violence to his feelings. "Can't you see
you're--you're not wanted? Oh, do go away--while you can!"
Matilda closed the door behind her. "Do you think," she said, catching
her breath painfully, "that I shall go away and leave you with That!"
"Leander," said the statue, "command your sister to depart!"
"I'm _not_ his"--Matilda was beginning impetuously, till the hairdresser
stopped her.
"You _are_!" he cried. "You know you're my sister--you've forgotten it,
that's all.... Don't say a syllable now, do you hear me? She's going,
Lady Venus, going directly!"
"Indeed I'm not," said Matilda, bravely.
"Leave us, maiden!" said the statue. "Your brother is yours no longer,
he is mine. Know you who it is that commands? Tremble then, nor oppose
the will of Aphrodite of the radiant eyes!"
"I never heard of you before," said Matilda, "but I'm not afraid of you.
And, whoever or whatever you are, you shall not take my Leander away
against his will. Do you hear? You could never be allowed to do that!"
The statue smiled with pitying scorn. "His own act has given me the
power I hold," she said, "and assuredly he shall not escape me!"
"Listen," pleaded Matilda; "perhaps you are not really wicked, it is
only that you don't know! The ring he put--without ever thinking what he
was doing--on your finger was meant for mine. It was, really! He is my
lover; give him back to me!"
"Matilda!" shrieked the wretched man, "you don't know what you're doing.
Run away, quick! Do as I tell you!"
"So," said the goddess, turning upon him, "in this, too, you have tried
to deceive me! You have loved--you still love this maiden!"
"Oh, not in that way!" he shouted, overcome by his terror for Matilda.
"There's some mistake. You mustn't pay any attention to what she says:
she's excited. All my sisters get like that when they're excited--they'd
say _any_thing!"
"Silence!" commanded the statue. "Should not I have skill to read the
signs of love? This girl loves you with no sister's love. Deny it not!"
Leander felt that his position was becoming untenable; he could only
save Matilda by a partial abandonment. "Well, suppose she does," he
said, "I'm not obliged to return it, am I?"
Matilda shrank back. "Oh, Leander!" she cried, with a piteous little
moan.
"You've brought it on yourself!" he said; "you will come here
interfering!"
"Interfering!" she repeated wildly, "you call it that! How can I help
myself? Am I to stand by and see you giving yourself up to, nobody can
tell what? As long as I have strength to move and breath to speak I
shall stay here, and beg and pray of you not to be so foolish and wicked
as to go away with her! How do you know where she will take you to?"
"Cease this railing!" said the statue. "Leander loves you not! Away,
then, before I lay you dead at my feet!"
"Leander," cried the poor girl, "tell me: it isn't true what she says?
You didn't mean it! you _do_ love me! You don't really want me to go
away?"
For her own sake he must be cruel; but he could scarcely speak the words
that were to drive her from his side for ever. "This--this lady," he
said, "speaks quite correct. I--I'd very much rather you went!"
She drew a deep sobbing breath. "I don't care for anything any more!"
she said, and faced the statue defiantly. "You say you can strike me
dead," she said: "I'm sure I hope you can! And the sooner the
better--for I will not leave this room!"
The dreamy smile still curved the statue's lips, in terrible contrast to
the inflexible purpose of her next words.
"You have called down your own destruction," she said, "and death shall
be yours!"
"Stop a bit," cried Leander, "mind what you're doing! Do you think I'll
go with you if you touch a single hair of my poor Tillie's head? Why,
I'd sooner stay in prison all my life! See here," and he put his arm
round Matilda's slight form; "if you crush her, you crush me--so now!"
"And if so," said the goddess, with cruel contempt, "are you of such
value in my sight that I should stay my hand? You, whom I have sought
but to manifest my power, for no softer feelings have you ever
inspired! And now, having withstood me for so long, you turn, even at
the moment of yielding, to yonder creature! And it is enough. I will
contend no longer for so mean a prize! Slave and fool that you have
shown yourself, Aphrodite rejects you in disdain!"
Leander made no secret of his satisfaction at this. "Now you talk
sense!" he cried. "I always told you we weren't suited. Tillie, do you
hear? She gives me up! She gives me up!"
"Aye," she continued, "I need you not. Upon you and the maiden by your
side I invoke a speedy and terrible destruction, which, ere you can
attempt to flee, shall surely overtake you!"
Leander was so overcome by this highly unexpected sentence that he lost
all control over his limbs; he could only stand where he was, supporting
Matilda, and stare at the goddess in fascinated dismay.
The goddess was raising both hands, palm upwards, to the ceiling, and
presently she began to chant in a thrilling monotone: "Hear, O Zeus,
that sittest on high, delighting in the thunder, hear the prayer of thy
daughter, Aphrodite the peerless, as she calleth upon thee, nor suffer
her to be set at nought with impunity! Rise now, I beseech thee, and
hurl with thine unerring hand a blazing bolt that shall consume these
presumptuous insects to a smoking cinder! Blast them, Sire, with the
fire-wreaths of thy lightning! blast, and spare not!"
"Kiss me, Tillie, and shut your eyes," said Leander; "it's coming!"
She was nestling close against him, and could not repress a faint
shivering moan. "I don't mind, now we're together," she whispered, "if
only it won't hurt much!"
The prayer uttered with such deadly intensity had almost ceased to
vibrate in their ears, but still the answer tarried; it tarried so long
that Leander lost patience, and ventured to open his eyes a little way.
He saw the goddess standing there, with a strained expectation on her
upturned face.
"I don't wish to hurry you, mum," he said tremulously; "but you ought to
be above torturing us. Might I ask you to request your--your relation to
look sharp with that thunderbolt?"
"Zeus!" cried the goddess, and her accent was more acute, "thou hast
heard--thou wilt not shame me thus! Must I go unavenged?"
Still nothing whatever happened, until at last even Matilda unclosed her
eyes. "Leander!" she cried, with a hysterical little laugh, "_I don't
believe she can do it!_"
[Illustration: "LEANDER!" SHE CRIED, ... "I DON'T BELIEVE SHE CAN DO
IT!"]
"No more don't I!" said the hairdresser, withdrawing his arm, and coming
forward boldly. "Now look here, Lady Venus," he remarked, "it's time
there was an end of this, one way or the other; we can't be kept up here
all night, waiting till it suits your Mr. Zooce to make cockshies of us.
Either let him do it now, or let it alone!"
The statue's face seemed to be illumined by a stronger light. "Zeus, I
thank thee!" she exclaimed, clasping her pale hands above her head; "I
am answered! I am answered!"
And, as she spoke, a dull ominous rumble was heard in the distance.
"Matilda, here!" cried the terrified hairdresser, running back to his
betrothed; "keep close to me. It's all over this time!"
The rumble increased to a roll, which became a clanking rattle, and
then lessened again to a roll, died away to the original rumble, and was
heard no more.
Leander breathed again. "To think of my being taken in like that!" he
cried. "Why, it's only a van out in the street! It's no good, mum; you
can't work it: you'd better give it up!"
The goddess seemed to feel this herself, for she was wringing her hands
with a low wail of despair. "Is there none to hear?" she lamented. "Are
they all gone--all? Then is Aphrodite fallen indeed; deserted of the
gods, her kinsmen; forgotten of mortals; braved and mocked by such as
these! Woe! woe! for Olympus in ruins, and Time the dethroner of
deities!"
Leander would hardly have been himself if he had forborne to take
advantage of her discomfiture. "You see, mum," he said, "you're not
everybody. You mustn't expect to have everything your own way down here.
We're in the nineteenth century nowadays, mum, and there's another
religion come in since you were the fashion!"
"_Don't_, Leander!" said Matilda, in an undertone; "let her alone, the
poor thing!"
She seemed to have quite forgotten that her fallen enemy had been
dooming her to destruction the moment before; but there was something so
tragic and moving in the sight of such despair that no true woman could be indifferent to it. |
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