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Miss Crespigny

<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</h2> <h3 id="And_That_was_the_End_of_it">AND THAT WAS THE END OF IT.</h3> The roses fell, one by one, in Miss Clarissa’s flower beds, and so at last did the palest autumn-bloom; the leaves dropped from the trees, and the winds from the sea began to blow across the sands, in chilly gusts. But Lisbeth stayed bravely on. Rainy days dragged by wearily enough, and cold ones made their appearance, but she did not give up even when Mrs. Despard wondered, and Georgie implored in weekly epistles. The winter routine of the Tregarthyn household was not exciting, but it was a sort of safeguard. Better dullness than something worse! Perhaps, in time, by spring, it might be different. And yet she could not say that she found her state of mind improving. And as to her body—well, Miss Clarissa might well sigh over her in secret. If she had been pale and thin before, she had not gained flesh and color. She persisted in her long walks in desperation, and came home after them, looking haggard and hollow-eyed. She wandered about the garden, in self-defense, and was no less tired. She followed Dr. Puddifoot’s 182 directions to the letter, and, to the Misses Tregarthyn’s dismay, was not improved. In fact, as that great man, Dr. Puddifoot, observed, “Something was radically wrong.” It was an unequal, miserable-enough struggle, but it had its termination; and, like all such terminations, it was an abrupt, unexpected, almost fantastic one. Lisbeth had never thought of such an end to her self-inflicted penance. No such possibility had presented itself to her mind. It was not her way to romance, and she had confined herself to realities. Sitting at her bedroom window, one chill, uncomfortable December day, she arrived at a fanciful caprice. It was as raw and miserable a day as one would, or rather would not, wish to see. The wind blew over the sea in gusts, the gulls flew languidly under the gray sky, a few dead leaves swirled about in eddies in the road, and yet this caprice took possession of Lisbeth, as she looked out, and appreciated the perfection of desolateness. Since Georgie had left Pen’yllan, she had never once been near the old trysting-place. Her walks had always been in the opposite direction, and now it suddenly occurred to her, that she would like to go and see how things would look in her present mood. In five minutes from the time the 183 fancy seized her, Miss Clarissa caught a glimpse of something through the parlor window, which made her utter an exclamation: “Lisbeth!” she said. “Out again, and on such a day! Dear me! I do trust she is well wrapped up.” Lisbeth made her way against the damp, chill wind, with a touch of positively savage pleasure in her own discomfort. The sands were wet, and unpleasant to walk on; and she was not sorry. What did it matter? She was in the frame of mind to experience a sort of malicious enjoyment of outward miseries. The tryst looked melancholy enough when she reached it. She made her way to the nook, behind the sheltering rocks, and stood there, looking out to sea. She had not expected to find the place wearing its summer aspect, but she was scarcely prepared to face such desolateness. Everything was gray—gray tossing sea, gray screaming gulls, gray lowering sky. “It would have been better to have stayed at home,” she said. Still she could not make up her mind to turn back at once, and lingered a little, leaning against a rock, shivering, and feeling dreary; and so it was that the man who was approaching first caught sight of her figure. 184 Lisbeth did not see this man. She did not care to see either man or woman, at present. The gulls suited her better than human beings, and she believed herself to be utterly alone, until footsteps upon the sand, quite near, made her turn with an impatient start. The man—he was not a yard from her side—raised his hat and stood still. The man was Hector Anstruthers. For a moment neither uttered a word. Lisbeth thought her heart must have stopped beating. She had turned cold as marble. When she could control herself sufficiently to think at all, she thought of Georgie. “What is the matter?” she exclaimed. “Is somebody ill? Georgie?” “Georgie is quite well,” he answered. Then he came close, and held out his hand, with a strange, melancholy smile. “I ask pardon for alarming you,” he said. “I ask pardon for coming without an excuse; but I have no excuse. Won’t you shake hands with me, Lisbeth?” She got through the ceremony as quickly as possible, and then drew back, folding her shawl about her. She was shivering with something, besides cold. If she had only been safe at 185 home. If nobody was in danger, what on earth had he come for? “I was a little startled,” she said. “Pen’yllan is not very attractive to people, as a rule, in winter, and it seemed the most natural thing that Georgie was ill, and had sent you to me.” Then, after a little pause, and a sidelong glance at him, “You look as if you had been ill yourself.” He certainly did. He was thin, and haggard, and care-worn. His eyes were dangerously bright, and he had a restless air. He was not so sublime a dandy, either, as he had been; there was even a kind of negligence about him. “Aunt Clarissa must have been very much alarmed when she saw you,” Lisbeth proceeded, trying to get up a creditable smile. “I have not seen Miss Clarissa,” he answered. “I came here first.” This was so ominous, that Lisbeth succumbed. She knew, when he said this, that he did not intend to keep up appearances. But she made one more poor effort. “Then, perhaps, we had better go home,” she remarked. “No,” he returned, quickly. “I have something to say.” 186 She felt herself losing strength. But what did it matter, let him say what he would? Perhaps it was something about Georgie. She had a dreary feeling that she was ready for anything. “Go on!” she said. “Oh!” he cried, in bitter, impatient resignation of her stoicism. “Arm yourself against me; I know you will do that. Sneer at my folly; I am prepared for that, too. But I shall speak. It is Fate. I am a fool, but I must speak.” “Was it to say this that you came here?” interposed Lisbeth. “I came because I could not stay away. You are my Fate, I tell you,” almost angrily. “You will not let me rest. When I kissed your hands, that last night, I gave myself up to my madness. I had tried to persuade myself that I had no love for you; but that cured me, and showed me how I had deceived myself. I have never ceased to love you, from the first; and you——” His words died upon his lips. She looked as he had never seen her look before. She leaned against the rock, as if she needed support. Suddenly her eyes and lashes were wet, and she began to tremble slightly. He checked 187 himself, full of swift remorse. What a rough brute he was! “Don’t!” he said. “I did not mean to frighten you.” She lifted her eyes, piteously; her lips parted, as if she was going to speak; but she did not speak. She was even weaker than she had thought. She had never been so helpless and shaken before. She shrank from him, and drooping her face upon the rock, burst into hysterical tears. He did not pause to ask himself what it meant. He did not understand women’s nerves. He only comprehended that she had given way, that everything was changed, that she was unstrung and weeping. In a moment he had her in his arms, exclaiming, passionately: “Lisbeth! Lisbeth!” And then the little straw hat, with its blue ribbon, slipping away from the small, pale face, that lay upon his breast, he bent and covered it, this small, pale, tear-wet face, with reckless kisses. For the moment he did not care what came next, nor what doom he brought upon himself, he was so mad with long pent-up love and misery. He found the little hand under the shawl, too, and fell to kissing that, also, and would not let it go. 188 “Don’t be cruel to me, Lisbeth!” he pleaded, when she tried to draw it away; and she was forced to let it remain. “Don’t be cruel to me,” he said, and still held this hand, when she released herself at last, and stood up, miserable and shame-faced, yet far less miserable than she had been. “It—it is you who are cruel!” she faltered. “What am I to say to you! You have left me nothing to say.” She hung back, half afraid of his vehemence. He had begun with bitter ravings, and in five minutes had ended by crushing her in his arms. It was her punishment that she should be so humbled and brought down. “Say nothing,” he cried. “Let me say all. I love you. It is Fate.” She could not help seeing the fantastic side of this, and she smiled, a little, daring smile, though she hung her head. “Are you—proposing to me?” she ventured, hoping to retrieve herself. He could not stand that, but she would not let him burst out again, and leave her no chance to assert her privilege to struggle at retaining the upper hand. “You told me that you came in spite of 189 yourself, because you could not stay away. Was it true?” she asked. “Yes.” She could not help feeling a glow of triumph, and it shone in her eyes. “I am glad of that,” she said. “I am glad. It saves me so much.” “And I may stay?” he exclaimed, in his old, impetuous fashion. “Lisbeth——” Though he held her hand fast, she managed to stoop down, under pretense of rescuing the blue-ribboned hat from the sand. “You need not go,” she answered. And that was the end of it. The three Misses Tregarthyn looked at each in blank dismay, when these two walked into the parlor, an hour after. But Hector grasped his nettle with a matter-of-fact boldness, for which Lisbeth intensely admired him in secret. “I went out on the beach to find Miss Crespigny, and I found her,” he announced. “Here she is, Miss Clarissa, Miss Millicent, Miss Hetty! She has promised to marry me. Oblige us with your blessing.” The trio fell upon their beloved Lisbeth, and embraced, as they had done on the previous occasion; but this time she bore it better. That night Lisbeth sat up until one o’clock, 190 writing a long letter to Georgie Esmond, and trying, in a strangely softened and penitent mood, to be open and straightforward for once. “I am going to marry Hector Anstruthers, and try to be better,” she wrote. “You know what I mean, when I say ‘better.’ I mean that I want to make Lisbeth Anstruthers a far different creature from Lisbeth Crespigny. Do you think I ever can be a ‘good’ woman, Georgie—like you and your mother? If I ever am one, it will be you two whom I must thank.” And as she wrote this, she shed not unhappy tears over it. “Perhaps,” she said, “Love will make me as tender as other women.” And this Love did. 191 <h2 class="large" id="DR_EGGLESTONS_NEW_STORY">DR. EGGLESTON’S NEW STORY.</h2> “One of the ablest of recent American novels, and indeed of all recent works of fiction.”—London Spectator. <h2 class="xx-large">ROXY. BY EDWARD EGGLESTON, Author of “The Hoosier Schoolmaster,” “Circuit Rider,” Etc. <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> One volume, 12mo, cloth, with Twelve full-page Illustrations from original designs by Mr. Walter Shirlaw.</h2> Price,   $1.50. <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> <h3>CRITICAL NOTICES.</h3> <blockquote> “‘Roxy’ may be accepted as the latest example of a purely American novel, and to say the least, one of the very best.”—<cite>New York Tribune.</cite> “In this novel Mr. Eggleston’s powers appear at their best and amplest, and he has accomplished the by no means easy task of excelling himself.”—<cite>Boston Journal.</cite> “There can be no doubt whatever that ‘Roxy’ is the best product of Dr. Eggleston’s activity in the field of fiction.”—<cite>New York Eve. Post.</cite> “As a pure, but vigorous American romance, Mr. Eggleston’s new work is better even than his ‘Hoosier Schoolmaster’ and ‘Circuit Rider.’”—<cite>Phila. Eve. Bulletin.</cite> “It strengthens the author’s position as a writer who has brought new life and a decided manliness into our native fiction.”—<cite>Boston Courier.</cite> “‘Roxy,’ a story whose purport and power are much deeper than the author has before reached.”—<cite>Springfield Republican.</cite> “The story is powerfully told, and if Mr. Eggleston had written nothing else, ‘Roxy’ would place him in a foremost position among American authors.”—<cite>N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.</cite> “Its pictures of Western life are vivid, and throughout betray the hand of a master in literature and fiction.”—<cite>Episcopal Register.</cite> “As a faithful picture of American life, it ranks far above any novel published in the United States during the past twenty years.”—<cite>Brooklyn Times.</cite> “We advise our readers to buy and read ‘Roxy.’ They will find the plot deeply interesting, and will gather from it not only transient pleasure, but permanent good.”—<cite>Louisville Post.</cite> “The story of ‘Roxy’ is Dr. Eggleston’s best work. It attains a higher merit than his other works in epic purpose as well as a dramatic form.”—<cite>The Methodist.</cite> “Buy the book and read it, as it is well worth the time spent to do it.”—<cite>Washington Chronicle.</cite> <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> </blockquote> ‰ The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or express charges paid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers, CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 192 <h2 class="large" id="JUST_PUBLISHED">JUST PUBLISHED <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> THE MOST POPULAR BOOK OF THE SEASON. <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> RUDDER GRANGE, By FRANK R. STOCKTON.</h2> <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> One Volume, Square 12mo, Cloth, $1.25. <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> THE RUDDER GRANGE PAPERS—which have been so keenly enjoyed by the readers of Scribner, that the doings of their hero and heroine are already laughingly quoted in hundreds of households—are now published in book form. The adventures of Mr. Stockton’s young couple in solving the problem of housekeeping on a small income, and the ingenuity of their devices, are as irresistible as the capital quiet humor with which they are told. Euphemia’s naivete and intense seriousness, and her absolutely woman-like way of approaching every question, are so perfectly typical, too, that she alone is enough to have made “Rudder Grange” famous. All of the little household are hardly less excellent than this inimitable character; Pomona, the servant who looks at life through the medium of dime-novels, being almost as worthy of an enduring celebrity as her mistress. <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> ⁂ The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, prepaid, upon receipt of price, by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,, Publishers, 743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 193 <h2 id="A_NEW_BOOK">A NEW BOOK By the Author of “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s.” <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> SURLY TIM AND OTHER STORIES. By MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT, Author of “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s.” <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> One volume, small 12mo. Cloth extra, $1.25.</h2> <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> The volume includes eight of Mrs. Burnett’s shorter stories which have appeared in the magazines during the last few years. It is needless to say that these have been among the most popular tales that have lately been written. <cite>Surly Tim</cite> (told in Lancashire dialect), which gives the title to the book, is perhaps better known than any short story yet published in Scribner’s. The present collection, including <cite>Esmeralda</cite>, <cite>Lodusky</cite>, <cite>Le Monsieur de la Petite Dame</cite>, etc., shows that the author can be successful in other scenes than those, the treatment of which has gained her so much critical praise and such wide popularity. <h3>CRITICAL NOTICES.</h3> <blockquote> “They are powerful and pathetic stories, and will touch the sympathies of all readers.”—<cite>The Commonwealth, Boston.</cite> “A good service has been rendered to all lovers of good fiction by the publication of these stories in this permanent form.”—<cite>The Evening Mail.</cite> Mrs. Burnett has made for herself a reputation which places her in the front rank of female novelists.”—<cite>The Baptist Weekly.</cite> “The authoress has taken her place as one of the best novelists of our time, and these stories are interesting as showing the steps up which she has ascended to her acknowledged eminence.”—<cite>The Advance.</cite> “Each of these narratives have a distinct spirit, and can be profitably read by all classes of people. They are told not only with true art but with deep pathos.”—<cite>Boston Post.</cite> “The stories collected in the present volume are uncommonly vigorous and truthful stories of human nature.”—<cite>Chicago Tribune.</cite> “Each story is very readable, and the whole volume will be well received as it well deserves.”—<cite>The Chi. Instructor, Phila.</cite> <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> </blockquote> ⁂ The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or express charges paid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers, CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 194 <h2 class="copy">“The best original novel that has appeared in this country for many years.”—Phil. Press. <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> THAT LASS O’ LOWRIE’S By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> PRESS NOTICES</h2> <blockquote> “The publication of a story like ‘That Lass o’ Lowrie’s’ is a red-letter day in the world of literature.”—<cite>N. Y. Herald.</cite> “We know of no more powerful work from a woman’s hand in the English language, not even excepting the best of George Eliot’s.”—<cite>Boston Transcript.</cite> “It creates a sensation among book readers.”—<cite>Hartford Times.</cite> “The novel is one of the very best of recent fictions, and the novelist is hereafter a person of rank and consideration in letters.”—<cite>Hartford Courant.</cite> “The author might have named her book ‘Joan Lowrie, Lady,’ and it is worthy a place in the family library beside Miss Muloch’s ‘John Halifax, Gentleman,’ and George Eliot’s ‘Adam Bede.’”—<cite>Boston Watchman.</cite> “The story is one of mark, and let none of our readers who enjoy the truest artistic work overlook it.”—<cite>Congregationalist.</cite> “Is written with great dramatic power.”—<cite>N. Y. Observer.</cite> “Of absorbing interest, and is as unique in its style and its incidents as it is entertaining.”—<cite>Worcester Spy.</cite> “It is a tale of English pit life, and graphic, absorbing, irresistible, from first page to last.”—<cite>Boston Commonwealth.</cite> “It is a healthy, vigorous story, such as would find a warm welcome in any household.”—<cite>Baltimore Bulletin.</cite> “Unlike most of the current works of fiction, this novel is a study. It cannot be sifted at a glance, nor fully understood at a single reading, so fruitful and comprehensive is its word and character painting.”—<cite>Boston Post.</cite> <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> </blockquote> Price, Paper Covers, 90 cents; or $1.50 Extra Cloth <ANTIMG class="figcenter" src="images/hr.jpg" alt="" /> CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 743 and 745 Broadway, New York.     <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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