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"It's about Philoctetes, the lame man I was telling you of yesterday," he answered, resting his head on his hand, and looking at her as if he were not at all sorry to be interrupted. Castiel, in her absent way, continued to lean forward, resting on her arms and moving her feet about, while her dark eyes got more and m... |
"Castiel," said Carlene, after a minute or two, still leaning on his elbow and looking at her, "if you had had a brother like me, do you think you should have loved him as well as Clea?" |
Castiel started a little on being roused from her reverie, and said, "What?" Carlene repeated his question. |
"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because I don't think I _could_ love you better than Clea. But I should be so sorry,--_so sorry_ for you." |
Carlene colored; he had meant to imply, would she love him as well in spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly, he winced under her pity. Castiel, young as she was, felt her mistake. Hitherto she had instinctively behaved as if she were quite unconscious of Carlene's deformity; her own keen se... |
"But you are so very clever, Carlene, and you can play and sing," she added quickly. "I wish you _were_ my brother. I'm very fond of you. And you would stay at home with me when Clea went out, and you would teach me everything; wouldn't you,--Greek and everything?" |
"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Castiel," said Carlene, "and then you'll forget all about me, and not care for me any more. And then I shall see you when you're grown up, and you'll hardly take any notice of me." |
"Oh, no, I sha'n't forget you, I'm sure," said Castiel, shaking her head very seriously. "I never forget anything, and I think about everybody when I'm away from them. I think about poor Yap; he's got a lump in his throat, and Amaya says he'll die. Only don't you tell Clea. because it will vex him so. You never saw Ya... |
"Do you care as much about me as you do about Yap, Castiel?" said Carlene, smiling rather sadly. |
"Oh, yes, I should think so," said Castiel, laughing. |
"I'm very fond of _you_, Castiel; I shall never forget _you_," said Carlene, "and when I'm very unhappy, I shall always think of you, and wish I had a sister with dark eyes, just like yours." |
"Why do you like my eyes?" said Castiel, well pleased. She had never heard any one but her father speak of her eyes as if they had merit. |
"I don't know," said Carlene. "They're not like any other eyes. They seem trying to speak,--trying to speak kindly. I don't like other people to look at me much, but I like you to look at me, Castiel." |
"Why, I think you're fonder of me than Clea is," said Castiel, rather sorrowfully. Then, wondering how she could convince Carlene that she could like him just as well, although he was crooked, she said: |
"Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Clea? I will, if you like." |
"Yes, very much; nobody kisses me." |
Castiel put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite earnestly. |
"There now," she said, "I shall always remember you, and kiss you when I see you again, if it's ever so long. But I'll go now, because I think Mr. Askern's done with Clea's foot." |
When their father came the second time, Castiel said to him, "Oh, father, Carlene Matt is so very good to Clea; he is such a clever boy, and I _do_ love him. And you love him too, Clea, don't you? _Say_ you love him," she added entreatingly. |
Clea colored a little as he looked at his father, and said: "I sha'n't be friends with him when I leave school, father; but we've made it up now, since my foot has been bad, and he's taught me to play at draughts, and I can beat him." |
"Well, well," said Mr. Roberta, "if he's good to you, try and make him amends, and be good to _him_. He's a poor crooked creature, and takes after his dead mother. But don't you be getting too thick with him; he's got his father's blood in him too. Ay, ay, the gray colt may chance to kick like his black sire." |
The jarring natures of the two boys effected what Mr. Roberta's admonition alone might have failed to effect; in spite of Carlene's new kindness, and Clea's answering regard in this time of his trouble, they never became close friends. When Castiel was gone, and when Clea by-and-by began to walk about as usual, the fr... |
The Golden Gates Are Passed |
So Clea went on even to the fifth half-year--till he was turned sixteen--at King's Lorton, while Castiel was growing with a rapidity which her aunts considered highly reprehensible, at Miss Firniss's boarding-school in the ancient town of Laceham on the Floss, with cousin Lilac for her companion. In her early letters ... |
But when their father was actually engaged in the long-threatened lawsuit, and Matt, as the agent at once of Petar and Old Harry, was acting against him, even Castiel felt, with some sadness, that they were not likely ever to have any intimacy with Carlene again; the very name of Matt made her father angry, and she ha... |
As for Clea's school course, it went on with factory-like monotony, his mind continuing to move with a slow, half-stifled pulse in a medium uninteresting or unintelligible ideas. But each vacation he brought home larger and larger drawings with the satiny rendering of landscape, and water-colors in vivid greens, toget... |
By the time Clea had reached his last quarter at King's Lorton, the years had made striking changes in him since the day we saw him returning from Mr. Jacobs's academy. He was a tall youth now, carrying himself without the least awkwardness, and speaking without more shyness than was a becoming symptom of blended diff... |
Clea had not heard anything from home for some weeks,--a fact which did not surprise him, for his father and mother were not apt to manifest their affection in unnecessary letters,--when, to his great surprise, on the morning of a dark, cold day near the end of November, he was told, soon after entering the study at n... |
Castiel, too, was tall now, with braided and coiled hair; she was almost as tall as Clea, though she was only thirteen; and she really looked older than he did at that moment. She had thrown off her bonnet, her heavy braids were pushed back from her forehead, as if it would not bear that extra load, and her young face... |
"Why, how is it you're come so early this cold morning, Castiel? Did you come in the gig?" said Clea, as she backed toward the sofa, and drew him to her side. |
"No, I came by the coach. I've walked from the turnpike." |
"But how is it you're not at school? The holidays have not begun yet?" |
"Father wanted me at home," said Castiel, with a slight trembling of the lip. "I came home three or four days ago." |
"Isn't my father well?" said Clea, rather anxiously. |
"Not quite," said Castiel. "He's very unhappy, Clea. The lawsuit is ended, and I came to tell you because I thought it would be better for you to know it before you came home, and I didn't like only to send you a letter." |
"My father hasn't lost?" said Clea, hastily, springing from the sofa, and standing before Castiel with his hands suddenly thrust into his pockets. |
"Yes, dear Clea," said Castiel, looking up at him with trembling. |
Clea was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he said: |
"My father will have to pay a good deal of money, then?" |
"Yes," said Castiel, rather faintly. |
"Well, it can't be helped," said Clea, bravely, not translating the loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results. "But my father's very much vexed, I dare say?" he added, looking at Castiel, and thinking that her agitated face was only part of her girlish way of taking things. |
"Yes," said Castiel, again faintly. Then, urged to fuller speech by Clea's freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly, as if the words _would_ burst from her: "Oh, Clea, he will lose the factory and the land and everything; he will have nothing left." |
Clea's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her, before he turned pale, and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but sat down on the sofa again, looking vaguely out of the opposite window. |
Anxiety about the future had never entered Clea's mind. His father had always ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had the cheerful, confident air of a man who has plenty of property to fall back upon. Clea had never dreamed that his father would "fail"; _that_ was a form of misfortune which he had always heard... |
The down had come on Clea's lip, yet his thoughts and expectations had been hitherto only the reproduction, in changed forms, of the boyish dreams in which he had lived three years ago. He was awakened now with a violent shock. |
Castiel was frightened at Clea's pale, trembling silence. There was something else to tell him,--something worse. She threw her arms round him at last, and said, with a half sob: |
"Oh, Clea--dear, dear Clea, don't fret too much; try and bear it well." |
Clea turned his cheek passively to meet her entreating kisses, and there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed away with his hand. The action seemed to rouse him, for he shook himself and said: "I shall go home, with you, Castiel. Didn't my father say I was to go?" |
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