Robert Chambers - The Fighting Chance

Mrs. Ferrall’s wits returned nimbly from woolgathering, and she shot a startled, inquiring glance at the girl beside her.

“You—you mean the matter of heredity, Sylvia?”

“Yes. I think my uncle Major Belwether chose you as his august mouthpiece for that little sermon on the dangers of heredity—the danger of being ignorant concerning what women of my race had done—before I came into the world they found so amusing.”

“I told you several things,” returned Mrs. Ferrall composedly. “Your uncle thought it best for you to know.”

“Yes. The marriage vows sat lightly upon some of my ancestors, I gather. In fact,” she added coolly, “where the women of my race loved they usually found the way—rather unconventionally. There was, if I understood you, enough of divorce, of general indiscretion and irregularity to seriously complicate any family tree and coat of arms I might care to claim—”

“Sylvia!”

The girl lifted her pretty bare shoulders. “I’m sorry, but could I help it? Very well; all I can do is to prove a decent exception. Very well; I’m doing it, am I not?—practically scared into the first solidly suitable marriage offered—seizing the unfortunate Howard with both hands for fear he’d get away and leave me alone with only a queer family record for company! Very well! Now then, I want to ask you why everybody, in my case, didn’t go about with sanctimonious faces and dolorous mien repeating: ‘Her grand-mother eloped! Her mother ran away. Poor child, she’s doomed! doomed!’”

“Sylvia, I—”

“Yes—why didn’t they? That’s the way they talk about that boy out there!” She swept a rounded arm toward the veranda.

“Yes, but he has already broken loose, while you—”

“So did I—nearly! Had it not been for you, you know well enough I might have run away with that dreadful Englishman at Newport! For I adored him—I did! I did! and you know it. And look at my endless escapes from compromising myself! Can you count them?—all those indiscretions when mere living seemed to intoxicate me that first winter—and only my uncle and you to break me in!”

“In other words,” said Mrs. Ferrall slowly, “you don’t think Mr. Siward is getting what is known as a square deal?”

“No, I don’t. Major Belwether has already hinted—no, not even that—but has somehow managed to dampen my pleasure in Mr. Siward.”

Mrs. Ferrall considered the girl beside her—now very lovely and flushed in her suppressed excitement.

“After all,” she said, “you are going to marry somebody else. So why become quite so animated about a man you may never again see?”

“I shall see him if I desire to!”

“Oh!”

“I am not taking the black veil, am I?” asked the girl hotly.

“Only the wedding veil, dear. But after all your husband ought to have something to suggest concerning a common visiting list—”

“He may suggest—certainly. In the meantime I shall be loyal to my own friends—and afterward, too,” she murmured to herself, as her hostess rose, calmly dropping care like a mantle from her shoulders.

“Go and be good to this poor young man then; I adore rows—and you’ll have a few on your hands I’ll warrant. Let me remind you that your uncle can make it unpleasant for you yet, and that your amiable fiancé has a will of his own under his pompadour and silky beard.”

“What a pity to have it clash with mine,” said the girl serenely.

Mrs. Ferrall looked at her: “Mercy on us! Howard’s pompadour would stick up straight with horror if he could hear you! Don’t be silly; don’t for an impulse, for a caprice, break off anything desirable on account of a man for whom you really care nothing—whose amiable exterior and prospective misfortune merely enlist a very natural and generous sympathy in you.”

“Do you suppose that I shall endure interference from anybody?—from my uncle, from Howard?”

“Dear, you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Don’t be emotional; don’t let loose impulses that you and I know about, knew about in our school years, know all about now, and which you and I have decided must be eliminated—”

“You mean subdued; they’ll always be there.”

“Very well; who cares, as long as you have them in leash?”

Looking at one another, the excited colour cooling in the younger girl’s cheeks, they laughed, one with relief, the other a little ashamed.

“Kemp will be furious; I simply must cut in!” said Mrs. Ferrall, hastily turning toward the gun-room. Miss Landis looked after her, subdued, vaguely repentant, the consciousness dawning upon her that she had probably made considerable conversation about nothing.

“It’s been so all day,” she thought impatiently; “I’ve exaggerated; I’ve worked up a scene about a man whose habits are not the slightest concern of mine. Besides that I’ve neglected Howard shamefully!” She was walking slowly, her thoughts outstripping her errant feet, but it seemed that neither her thoughts nor her steps were leading her toward the neglected gentleman within; for presently she found herself at the breezy veranda door, looking rather fixedly at the stars.

The stars, shining impartially upon the just and the unjust, illuminated the person of Siward, who sat alone, rather limply, one knee crossed above the other. He looked up by chance, and, seeing her star-gazing in the doorway, straightened out and rose to his feet.

Aware of him apparently for the first time, she stepped across the threshold meeting his advance half-way.

“Would you care to go down to the rocks?” he asked. “The surf is terrific.”

“No—I don’t think I care—”

They stood listening a moment to the stupendous roar.

“A storm somewhere at sea,” he concluded.

“Is it very fine—the surf?”

“Very fine—and very relentless—” he laughed; “it is an unfriendly creature, the sea, you know.”

She had begun to move toward the cliffs, he fell into step beside her; they spoke little, a word now and then.

The perfume of the mounting sea saturated the night with wild fragrance; dew lay heavy on the lawns; she lifted her skirts enough to clear the grass, heedless that her silk-shod feet were now soaking. Then at the cliffs’ edge, as she looked down into the white fury of the surf, the stunning crash of the ocean saluted her.

For a long while they watched in silence; once she leaned a trifle too far over the star-lit gulf and, recoiling, involuntarily steadied herself on his arm.

“I suppose,” she said, “no swimmer could endure that battering.”

“Not long.”

“Would there be no chance?”

“Not one.”

She bent farther outward, fascinated, stirred, by the splendid frenzy of the breakers.

“I—think—,” he began quietly; then a firm hand fell over her left hand; and, half encircled by his arm she found herself drawn back. Neither spoke; two things she was coolly aware of, that, urged, drawn by something subtly irresistible she had leaned too far out from the cliff, and would have leaned farther had he not taken matters into his own keeping without apology. Another thing; the pressure of his hand over hers remained a sensation still—a strong, steady, masterful imprint lacking hesitation or vacillation. She was as conscious of it as though her hand still tightened under his—and she was conscious, too, that nothing of his touch had offended; that there had arisen in her no tremor of instinctive recoil. For never before had she touched or suffered a touch from a man, even a gloved greeting, that had not in some measure subtly repelled her, nor, for that matter, a caress from a woman without a reaction of faint discomfort.

“Was I in any actual danger?” she asked curiously.