David's Little Lad
Page 16
I _know_ that she wasworthy of David."
Owen turned away his face, looked on the ground; in a moment he spoke ina different tone, on a different subject.
"I was quite glad to see that little bit of enthusiasm in you; you usedto be a very affectionate, warm-hearted child, and I thought it had alldied out."
I felt my face growing crimson. I tried not to speak, then the wordsburst forth--
"It has not died away; I can love still."
"I make no doubt of that, my dear," continued he, carelessly, "but youhave not the same pleasant way of showing it."
He dropped my hand and walked towards the house, but his indifferentwords had renewed the feeling with which I had parted from Nan. He toomight be indifferent, but at least he should know. I would tell himNan's words.
"Owen, I want to ask you a question."
"Well!" turning round, and leaning his graceful figure against theporch.
"We are going to be rich again, before long?"
"Perhaps; I cannot say."
"But you are getting up a lot of coal now out of the mine?"
"Certainly; the weekly supply is nearly double what it was six monthsago."
"Then of course we must be rich before long?"
"There is the possibility, but mines are uncertain things." A pause, ascarcely suppressed yawn, then Owen turned on his heel. "I am going in,Gwladys; I don't care to talk business out of business hours, and I wantto have a chat with mother."
His tone of easy indifference, coming so soon after seeing Nan'ssuffering face, and hearing her words of intense anxiety, half maddenedme. I know I forgot myself. I ran forward and caught his arm, and madehim look me full in the face. No fear then, as he gazed at mycrimsoning cheek and angry eye, that he should say I lacked mychildhood's enthusiasm.
"You are not going in yet," I said, "for I have got something to say toyou--something, I repeat, which I _will_ say. You need not pretend tome, Owen, that we are not getting rich, for I _know_ we are. But I askyou one question, Is it right that we should have this money at the riskof the colliers' lives? is it right, in order that we should have alittle more gold, that the coal pillars should be cut away, until theroofs are in danger of falling? and is it right that the timber supportsshould be made thinner than is safe? All this adds to our money, Owen;is it right that we should grow rich in that way?"
"Good God! Gwladys;" a pause, then vehemently, "How dare you say suchthings to me! who has been telling you such lies?"
"I won't mention the name of the person who has told me the truth, but Ihave heard it through the colliers; the colliers themselves are speakingof it."
Owen covered his face with his hand; he was trembling, but whether withanger or pain, I could not say. I stood silent, waiting for him tospeak; he did not, perhaps for two minutes; those minutes watching histrembling hand, seemed like twenty.
"You and the colliers have both made a mistake," he said then; "theyhave exaggerated notions of the necessary thickness of the coal pillars.I never have them worked beyond what is safe. As to the timbersupports, they are measured with the nicest mathematical accuracy. Youand they both forget that I am an engineer, that I work the mine with aknowledge which they cannot possess. Good God! to think that I amcapable of risking willingly men's lives to win gold; to think that_you_, Gwladys, should believe me capable of it; but you are not whatyou were. Once, such words could never have been said to _you_ of _me_.You are changed to me utterly, and I am _utterly_ disappointed in you."He pushed his hat over his eyes, and before I could reply was severalpaces away, walking rapidly in the direction of the still romantic andonce beautiful Rhoda Vale.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
PRIDE'S PIT.
During the long and dull winter months which preceded this spring, I hadbeen gradually, yet surely, sinking into a state of indifference aboutOwen. What had commenced with a sense of poignant pain, had by thistime subsided into at most an uncomfortable feeling of dissatisfaction.I knew there was a chord in my heart which when struck could set mywhole nature out of tune. But was it not possible, in the airs whichlife played, she might leave this harsh note unsounded? Thispossibility took place. During the winter months mother, Owen, and Ispent together, I grew accustomed to being near and yet far from him.
Our little home was very bright, a cloud which I had but dimly andunawares partaken in for years, had been removed. Why should not I tooenjoy this season of serenity and bliss? Calling pride to my aid, I didenjoy it. I even loved Owen, not in the old way, but with a veryconsiderable affection. I tried to forget all the past, to give him aplace in my heart beside mother and David. And in a measure I wassuccessful, in a measure I put out of sight the ugly cloud, the darkdisappointment which had shattered my air castle, and made mychildhood's hero dust. So by the hearth on winter evenings, I listenedto brilliant stories from Owen's lips, stories of his foreignexperience, of things he had learned when studying in the German mines;tales of adventure, funny nothings dropped from his lips at these times,pleasant things to listen to, and to think of afterwards, when I laycurled up in my warmly-curtained bed. But though Owen's mind directedhis words at these times, imagination supplying the needful colour, adue sense of either absurdity or pathos supplying the necessary point, amusical voice adding intensity to the narrative; yet I think he waiteduntil I had gone to bed, to let his heart speak. Then how near maymother and he have drawn, how truly, in a figurative sense, did the handof one take the hand of the other, did the soul of one respond to thesoul of the other, as they whispered of hopes and fears, of a dark pastto be atoned for and wiped away by a bright future! For never, neveronce during the winter, did Owen's heart speak to my heart; never, untilnow, to-day--now, when it leaped up into his eyes, and addressed me witha passionate cry of pain. My whole heart responded to those words, tothat bitter cry; trembling I ran up to my room and locked myself in,trembling I threw myself on my bed, fought and wrestled for a fewmoments with my tears, then let them come. Strange as it may seem, mytears flowed with as much pleasure as sorrow. I had made a discovery inthat bitter moment. Owen still loved me. Owen had not forgotten theold days. This was a pleasure to me, this was a joy, greater than mypain; for I had made so sure that it had all passed from him, all theold happy life, the old day dreams. Now, for the first time, holding myhands before my burning, tear-dimmed eyes, did it occur to me, that _Itoo had sinned_. Owen had not forgotten me, that was plain; perhapsduring the sad years of his exile, some of his softest and best thoughtshad been given to the child, whose warm love, whose quick appreciationand sympathy, whose unselfish attentions had won so much from him in hisboyhood and youth. However or in whatever way he had sinned, he hadnever forgotten his home or his own people; as soon as possible he hadreturned to them, not to idle, but to work, and so to work that he mightatone for the past. No, Owen had not returned perfect, but was Iperfect? How had I treated him--with any true love, with any realsympathy? Alas! he had looked for it, and had been--he himself told meto-day--bitterly disappointed.
And of what had I not accused him? How I admired him with something ofthe old admiration, something of the old hero-worship, as the stingingwords of indignant denial dropped from his lips. _He_ do so base, socruel, so wicked a thing! how could I possibly so misunderstand him! Isat up on my bed, I wished earnestly then to put Owen in the right, andmyself in the wrong, but try as I would, I could not quite come to thiswished-for conclusion. Nan's words had not been the only hints I hadreceived. I saw daring the winter months, that the great popularitywith which Owen had been received on his first arrival, had hardlyabated, but still was clouded and tempered with a scarcely perceptibletone of dissatisfaction. The last manager had been most inefficient; inhis time the mine was badly worked, it also was dangerous. Owen hadbegun promptly to remedy both these defects. The question now was,which did he care most for, the gold he would win from the mine, or thesafety he would secure for the people? and the evil thought, kept comingand coming, he thinks most of the gold,
he values the gold more than thelives of the men!
This evil thought had been with me for weeks past; not stirring intoactive life, lying, indeed, so dormant that it scarcely gave me pain,but none the less had it been there. And now, to-day, this living thinghad leaped to the surface of my mind, had trembled in my voice andglittered in my eye, and I had accused Owen of what I suspected.
With what an agony of pain, and yet joy, I recalled his unfeigned anger,distress, reproach, that _I_ should think of him so, that any one couldaccuse him of so base an act. As I recalled his look, his face, hiswords, the old love which I had thought dead, came surging back. I had,I must have been mistaken; the colliers and I both, in our ignorance,had misunderstood Owen, the safety of their lives _was_ his firstconsideration. But what an unaccommodating