Read Ebook: Les misérables Tome II: Cosette by Hugo Victor

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Ebook has 2472 lines and 98360 words, and 50 pages

'Sad? He has been unusually successful, has he not?'

'Oh, in money-matters, yes. But my mother died just when he hoped to give her everything she desired--and more. And he was--he was very fond of her.'

'I see! I might have understood that,' replied Jerome; and then, after a pause, 'Mr. Bolton has been making very kind offers to me.'

'Has he? What manner of offers?'

He told her.

'Do you call that a kind offer?' cried Nita impatiently, as her face flushed. 'How could he suggest such a thing? Oh, really, how hard men can be!'

'Perhaps you think he should at once have placed the half of his possessions at my disposal. Is it not better to be "hard," as you call it, than an idiot?'

'Well, I suppose it is. But life is such a mystery.'

'As how--I mean how exemplified in my case?'

Nita laughed with a little embarrassment.

'I never can explain things. But it is a mystery. You a clerk! What an idea! You must feel it to be absurd, yourself, don't you?'

'I have not thought much about it. It has to be done.

'"When land is gone and money spent,"

you know.'

'Avice? Well, really, I don't suppose she has any clear ideas as to what clerks are, or do. If I told her I was going to be a tailor, she would think it all right if I said so.'

'Is she that kind of a sister?'

'Yes,' said Jerome, in perfect good faith. He imagined indeed that Avice was that kind of a sister; essentially the right kind of sister. Women ought all to be like that--blind to the faults of those they loved--when 'those' were men. The men to work, the women to admire; the workers to rule, the admirers to submit. It was a beautiful arrangement.

'I daresay it is very nice in her to be like that,' said Nita, 'but if I had had a brother, I should not have been that kind of a sister at all. I should have told him very plainly what I thought of his doings, and if I imagined that he was degrading himself, I should have told him that too.'

'Would you, at the same time, have provided him with the means of acting up to what you considered a higher standard?'

How na?vely she showed her interest, Jerome thought, with a little sense of pleased, flattered self-complacency. How delightfully natural she was--and what a curious contrast to that woman whose proud lips had already confessed her love for him: to Sara Ford! His heart suddenly throbbed as he thought of her. Dangerous thought! He must not indulge in it, and accordingly, to turn the conversation, he said:

'You have singular ideas on the subject of brothers and sisters, possibly because the relation is purely a matter of speculation to you.'

'Oh no, it isn't. Jack is my brother.'

'John Leyburn?' he asked, with a feeling of surprise that was not altogether pleasant. Sooth to say, he had forgotten Leyburn for the moment, and here he was suddenly cropping up again in a manner that was obtrusive--thrusting himself in where he was not in the least wanted.

'John Leyburn--yes.'

'Privileged young man! He seems to me, like most cousins, to make the most of his advantages.'

'What do you mean?' asked Nita.

'He takes every opportunity of lecturing you. And you--well, you are consistent, I must own; you do tell him very plainly what you think of him.'

'Of course I do! and as for John's lectures, I am accustomed to them by now. They mean nothing, except that we are great friends--more than cousins; in fact, brother and sister.'

'And how long, if I may ask, has the fraternity been superadded to the cousinship--and the friendship? It makes a complicated relationship.'

'It never was superadded. It has always existed--for me.'

'Always?' echoed Jerome, vaguely displeased.

'Yes, of course. I am nineteen, and John is twenty-eight. When I was born, we lived at Burnham, and so did the Leyburns. Uncle Leyburn married papa's only sister, and was his greatest friend. They lived at Burnham too, then. John was nine years old then, of course. The first, or one of the very first things I can remember, is his showing me pictures of birds--he is mad about birds, you know--and taking me by the hand for a little walk, and playing with me in general. I suppose I was about three years old then.'

'And Leyburn twelve. He was that age when I knew him, sixteen years ago. They had just come to Abbot's Knoll. Yet I do not remember his ever saying anything about you. Perhaps you occupied a smaller place in his heart than you imagine.'

'Oh no!' said Nita, with calm conviction. 'He never talks much about things. He would not be likely to talk about me. He always gives his mind to what he is doing at the moment; and when he was playing and learning lessons with you, he would not talk about me. Besides, we were still at Burnham. But he was always kind when he came back to me. John taught me to read, and implanted in my mind that love of light literature which he now pretends to deplore--the great humbug!'

Nita laughed a pleased little laugh, speaking of a tender affection for the absent 'humbug.' The course which the conversation had taken grew less and less pleasing to Jerome. He felt a strong desire to displace John from his pedestal, or at least to make him, in vulgar parlance, 'step down a peg or two.' A spirit of perverse folly took possession of him. Leaning a little forward, and speaking in a discreetly low voice, mindful of the groom who sat behind, he rested his elbow on his knee, and fixed his eyes on Nita's face, saying:

'Then he has never given you cause to suppose that a sister's affection would hold a secondary place in his thoughts?'

'You speak ambiguously,' replied Nita, occupied in guiding her horses through a very narrow lane. 'Sister's affection--secondary place! I do not understand.'

'Are sisters jealous when their brothers marry?'

'Oh, I see! Certainly not, if they have any sense,' was the most decided answer; 'they may be angry, you know, if the wife their brother chooses is disliked by them; but if they have no ground for disliking her, they would be selfish and foolish, simply, to be jealous when their brothers married.'

'You say John Leyburn is your cousin and your friend and your brother all in one. Suppose he took it into his head to get married--he must be lonely in that great house of his by the river.'

'If John were to marry,' repeated Nita, slowly and pensively.

Her hands were fully occupied; for at this moment they were driving down a steep hill, and the roans were fresh. She could not have hidden her face, had she wished to do so. As her eyes met Jerome's, a quick flush rose on her cheek--a flush which grew deeper.

'If she cares for him, there can be no danger in my asking questions; she is in no danger with me,' thought Wellfield, with characteristic indolence, and also with a characteristic wish to find out whether she 'cared' irrevocably for John Leyburn. And he said:

'If John were to marry--yes. What is to hinder him? Would his wife consider him your brother? Would she see it in the same light, do you think?'

'She would be a very nasty girl if she did not,' said Nita, with a heightened colour and flashing eyes, 'when I should do all in my power to be kind to her.'

'Oh, you would do all in your power to accomplish that? Then you would not mind if John got married?'

'I should not call that generous, but merely decent and reasonable.'

'Well, he marries this decent, reasonable woman, and then you marry. Do you think your husband would look upon John in the light of a brother?'

'Mr. Wellfield, what strange questions you ask!'

'Not at all. You would have to consider the subject when you married.'

'But I am not going to be married. I know papa thinks I shall have to, but I don't intend it at all.'

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