OUTSIDE THE PALE.
TTHE races were over at four o'clock, with the exception of the "Consolation Stakes," and a few other informal affairs, upon which Mr. Thornley did not condescend to adjudicate; and the Adelonga party, swelled to fifteen, set off on their long drive home.
It was a time of year when the twilight fell early and it was dark between six andseven; but to-night there was a moon, and there was no need to hurry; all that was necessary was to get back in comfortable time to dress for an eight o'clock dinner.
There was a great deal of conversation, but Rachel had not much share in it. The break was crowded, of course.
The two servants sat on the box with Mr. Thornley; the boot was full of portmanteaus. There was no room for the children inside, except on the knees of their elders; and one of them Rachel insisted on nursing (and she went fast asleep), while Miss O'Hara sat beside her with the other. Buxom Miss Hale was wedged opposite, with (Rachel was sure, and it offended her sense of propriety deeply) her lover's arm round her waist.Mr. Dalrymple sat by the door, almost out of sight and sound.
Rachel had scarcely spoken to him all day; the profuse attentions of the other gentlemen to her had interposed between them, and perhaps, though she was not aware of it, her aunt's little manœuvres also. But her thoughts were full of him, as she sat, tired and silent, in her corner, with the sleeping child in her arms.
Her imagination was fascinated by the story of his life, which, given to her in so brief an outline, she filled in for herself elaborately, dwelling most of course upon the dramatic Newmarket episode, and wondering whether that woman was worthy or unworthy of the sacrifice of fame and fortune that he had made for her.
"What a lovely night!" remarked Miss Hale, breaking in upon her reverie.
Rachel looked up, with an absent smile. The moon was beginning to outshine the fading after-glow of a gorgeous sunset; stars were stealing out, few and pale, in a clear, pale sky; the distant ranges were growing sharp and dark, with that velvety sort of bloom on them, like the bloom of ripe plums, which is the effect of the density of their forest clothing, seen through the luminous transparency of their native air.
There was a sound of curlews far away, making their melancholy wail—broken now and then by the screaming of cockatoos, or the delirious mirth of laughing jackasses, or the faint "cluck, cluck" of native companions sailing at an immensedistance overhead. The frogs were serenading the coming night in every pool and watercourse; the cold night wind made a sound like the sea in the gums and sheoaks under which they swept along, crashing and jingling, at the rate of ten miles an hour. The lonely bush was full of its own weird twilight beauty.
"It is a very lovely night," assented Rachel; and she sighed, and laid her cheek on Dolly Thornley's head. She was a little tired, a little sad, and she did not want to talk just now. Seeing which, Miss Hale gave herself with an easy mind to her lover's entertainment.
However, when the four horses drew up at the most central of the Adelonga front doors, panting and steaming, withtheir exuberance all evaporated, the naturally light heart became light and gay again. It was such a cheery arrival too. The charming old house was lit up from end to end; blazing logs on bedroom hearths sent ruddy gleams through a dozen windows; doors stood wide like open arms ready to receive all comers.
Mr. Thornley handed his guests out of the break with profuse gestures of welcome, shouting to his servants, who were trained as he was himself, to all hospitable observances, and hurried to take traps and bags.
Mrs. Thornley, looking girlish and pretty in a pale blue evening dress, stood on the doorstep, eager and smiling, scattering her graceful and cordial salutations all around her.
"Oh, Lucilla," exclaimed Rachel, when she had given her charge to a nursemaid, running up to kiss her cousin, between whom and herself very tender relations—based on the baby—existed, "we have had such alovelyday. I am sorry you were not with us."
"I am glad you enjoyed yourself," responded Mrs. Thornley affectionately. "You have had splendid weather. Run and see if the fire is burning nicely in Mrs. Digby's room, there's a dear child."
It took some time to get all the guests collected in the house, and then to disperse them, with their wraps and portmanteaus, to their respective rooms. Rachel assisted her cousin in this pleasant business, trotting about to carry shawls, and poke up fires, and get cups oftea and cans of hot water. It was the kind of service that she delighted in.
When everybody was disposed of, and she went to her own room, she found she had barely half-an-hour in which to dress herself. What, she wondered, should she put on to make herself look very, very nice. With all these strangers in the house it behoved her to sustain the credit of the family, as far as in her lay. She set about her toilet with a flush of hurry and excitement in her face.
All her weariness was gone now; she was looking as bright and lovely as it was possible for her to look. Discarding the black dress that was her ordinary dinner costume, she arrayed herself all in white—the fine white Indian muslin which hadbeen brought to Adelonga for possible state occasions, and which was, therefore, made to leave her milky throat and arms uncovered. She put on her diamond bracelet, but she took it off again. She fastened a pearl necklace—another of her lover's presents—round her soft neck, but she unfastened it, and laid it back in its velvet case.
She went into the drawing-room at last with her beauty unadorned, save only by a bit of pink heath in her bosom—without a single spark of that newly-acquired jewellery that her soul loved—lest she should help, ever so infinitesimally, to flaunt the wealth and prosperity of the family in the eyes of impecunious gentlemen. And it is needless to inform the experienced reader that Mr. Dalrymple, turning to look at heras she entered, thought she was one of the loveliest girls he had ever seen.
He was far away on the other side of the room, and she did not go near him. The ladies were rustling about in their long trains and tinkling ornaments; the men were trooping in, white-tied and swallow-tailed, rubbing their hands and sniffing the grateful aroma of dinner.
Then the gong began to clang and vibrate through the house, and the company, who were getting hungry, paired themselves to order, and set forth through sinuous passages to the dining-room. Rachel being, conventionally, the lady of least consequence, was left without a gentleman to go in with; and she sat at the long table on the same sidewith Mr. Dalrymple, too far off to see or speak to him.
When dinner was over and the ladies rose, she took advantage of a good opportunity to pay a visit to the baby, whom she had not seen all day—a terrible deprivation.
She whispered her proposed errand to Lucilla, who gratefully sent her off; and the baby being discovered awake and amiable, she spent nearly an hour in his apartment, nursing and fondling him in her warm, white arms. It was her favourite occupation, from which she never could tear herself voluntarily.
By and bye the baby dropped asleep, and was tenderly lowered into his cradle; and then having nothing more to do for him, she tucked him up, kissedhim, and went back to her social duties.
When she entered the drawing-room she found the whole party assembled, and some exciting discussion was going on. Mrs. Hale sitting square on a central sofa was evidently the leading spirit; and Mrs. Hardy sitting beside her, indicated to the girl's experienced eye, by the expression of her face and the elevation of her powerful Roman nose, that she was supporting her neighbour's views—whatever they were—in a determined and defiant manner. Miss Hale and Mr. Lessel had retired to a distant alcove, but they had suspended their whispered confidences to listen to the public debate. Mr. Thornley and Mr. Hale were trying to play chess, but were also distracted. Mr. Digby loungedagainst a side table pretending to be absorbed inThe Argus, but peeping furtively at intervals over the top of the sheet. Miss O'Hara sat apart knitting, with an expression of rigid disapproval.
Mrs. Digby, in a very central position, full in the light, lay back in a low easy chair, and fanned herself with gentle, measured movements. Her eyes were fixed on a picture in front of her, her soft mouth was set, her face was pale, proud, and grave; very different from Mrs. Thornley's beside her, which was disturbed and downcast, as that of a hostess whose affairs were not going well. Rachel saw in Mrs. Digby for the first time a strong resemblance to her brother.
Mr. Roden Dalrymple stood alone onthe hearthrug with his back against the wall, and his elbows on a corner of the mantelpiece. His face was hard and cold, yet not without signs of strong emotion.
It was evidently between him and Mrs. Hale that the discussion lay, and it was equally evident that the "feeling of the meeting" was against him. Rachel, taking in the situation at a glance, longed to walk over to the hearthrug and publicly espouse her hero's cause, whatever it might happen to be. What she did instead was to glide noiselessly to the back of her cousin's chair, and leaning her arms upon it, to "watch the case" on his behalf. They were all too preoccupied to notice her.
"It is all very well," Mrs. Hale was saying in an aggressive manner, "but itwas nothing short of murder in cold blood. And if you had been in any other quarter of the globe when you did it, you would not have escaped to tell the tale to us here."
"My dear Mrs. Hale—excuse me—I am not telling the tale to you here. I have not the slightest intention of doing so."
"But everybody knows it, of course."
"I think not," said Mr. Dalrymple.
"That you had a quarrel with a man who had once been your friend," proceeded Mrs. Hale, with a vulgar woman's unscrupulousness about trespassing on sacred ground; "and that you hunted him round the world, and then, when you met him in that Californian diggings place, shot him across a billiard-table where he stood, without a moment's warning."
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dalrymple, calmly; "he had plenty of warning—five years at least."
"Not five minutes after you met him. Mr. Gordon was there, and said that he was a dead man five minutes after you came into the room and recognised him."
"Gordon can tell you, then, that I satisfied all the laws of honour. The meeting had been arranged and expected; there were no preliminaries to go through—except to borrow a couple of revolvers and get somebody to see fair play. There were at least a dozen to do that; Gordon was one."
"Poor fellow," ejaculated Mrs. Hardy with solemn indignation. "Andhefired in the air, I suppose?"
"He would have fired in the air, Idaresay, if he had any hope that I would do so," replied Mr. Dalrymple, with a face as hard as flint, and a deep blaze of passion in his eyes. "But he well knew that there was no chance of that. He was obliged to shoot his best in self-defence."
"Then you might have been killed yourself!—and what then?"
"That was a contingency I was quite prepared for, of course. What then?—I should have done my duty."
"Don't say 'duty,' Roden," interposed Mrs. Digby, very gently and gravely.
"My dear Lily, the word has no arbitrary sense; we all interpret it to suit our own views. It was my idea of duty."
"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Mrs.Hardy again. "It is a dreadful story. And did he leave any family?"
"I would rather not pursue the subject, Mrs. Hardy—if you have no objection."
"I wonder you are not afraid to go to bed," Mrs. Hale persisted, undeterred by the darkness of his face. "The ghost of that poor wretch would hauntmenight and day. I should never know what it was to sleep in peace."
Rachel listened to this fragment of a conversation, which had evidently been going on for some time; and her heart grew cold within her. Mr. Dalrymple happened to turn his head, and saw her looking at him with her innocent young face scared and pale; and he was almost as much shocked as she. A swift change in himself—astraightening of his powerful, tall frame, and a flash of angry surprise and pain in his imperious eyes—aroused a general attention to her presence.
"You here, my dear?" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, much discomposed by the circumstance. "That is the worst of these irregular shaped rooms—with so many doors and corners, one never sees people go out and come in."
"How is baby?" inquired Mrs. Thornley eagerly, thankful for the diversion. "Is he sleeping nicely?"
Mr. Dalrymple strode across the room and wheeled up a chair. "Won't you sit down, Miss Fetherstonhaugh?" he said, looking at her with a little appeal in his still stern face. "You must be tired after your long day."
"Thank you," said she; and she satdown. But she felt incapable of talking—incapable of sitting still, with her hands before her. General conversation of a more comfortable and conventional kind than that which she had interrupted was set going all around her.
The lovers resumed theirtête-à-têtein the corner; the chess-players continued their game; Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hardy, suffering from a very justifiable suspicion that they had been a trifle rude, endeavoured to make themselves particularly entertaining. But she sat silent and miserable with downcast eyes, picking at the embroidery on her dress, and wishing the evening over—this disappointing evening which had counteracted all the brightness and pleasure of the day—so that she could slip away to bed.
"You have had no tea," said Mr.Dalrymple presently, when all the married ladies were absorbed in discussing the merits of their respective cooks. "It came in while you were out of the room. Won't you have some now?"
Grateful for any interruption of the spell of embarrassment which was holding her painfully under his watchful eyes, she thanked him, and rising hastily went over to one of the numerous recesses of that charmingly arranged room, where the evening tea-table usually stood between a curtained archway and a glass door that led into the conservatory.
Of course he followed her. The curtains were looped back so as to permit the glow of lamps and firelight to stream in from the room, and on the other side a full moon shone palelydown through a network of flowering shrubs and fern trees. They could hear the conversation of the rest distinctly—particularly Mrs. Hale's share of it. But it was a very retired place.
"You had better sit down," said Mr. Dalrymple, "and let me pour it out for you. Yes—I do it every night for my sister. She, too, likes to have the teapot brought in. But I doubt if it is fit to drink; it has been in half an hour. I thought you were tired and had gone to bed."
"Did you?"
"Yes; I am afraid youarevery tired. You ought not to have come back."
"I—I wish I had not," she said, hardly above a whisper, as she took the cup from his hands. She looked into his face for a moment with her timid,troubled eyes, and then looked down hastily and blushed her brightest scarlet.
"I know, I know," he replied, in a low tone of emotion that had a touch of fierceness in it. "I saw how shocked you were, and I could have bitten my tongue out. But I should never have spoken ofthatif Mrs. Hale had not badgered me into it. If it had been one of the men—but they know better! A woman, though she may be the most prodigious fool, is privileged. I am very sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am."
"It is nothearingit that matters," stammered Rachel, stirring her tea with wild and tremulous splashes; "it is knowing—it is thinking—of its being true."
He paused for a moment, and looked at her with a look that she was afraid to meet, but which shefeltthrough all her shrinking consciousness: and then he said quietly. "Drink your tea, and let us go into the conservatory for five minutes."
It was a bold proposal under the circumstances; but it did not occur to her to question it. She drank her tea hastily, and put down her cup; and Mr. Dalrymple opened the glass door, which swung on noiseless hinges, and passing out after her, coolly closed it behind them both. It was very dim and still out there. The steam of the warm air, full of strong earthy and piney odours, clung to the glass roofs through which the moon was shining, and made the light vague and misty. The immensebrown stems of the tree ferns, barnacled with stag horns, and the great green feathers spreading and drooping above them, took all kinds of phantom shapes.
Rachel herself looked like a ghost in her white dress, as she flitted down the dim alleys by that tall man's side, tapping the tiled floor with her slippered feet with no more noise than a woodpecker.
"Is that the lapageria?" asked Mr. Dalrymple, when he thought they had gone far enough for privacy, pausing beside a comfortable seat, and pointing upward to a lattice-work of dark leaved shoots, from which hung clusters of dusky flower bells. "How well it grows here, to be sure!"
"Everything grows well here," respondedRachel, relieved from some restraint by this harmless opening of their clandestinetête-à-tête; "and that creeper is Mr. Thornley's favourite. The flowers are the loveliest red in daylight."
"Now I want to tell you a little about that story you heard just now," he proceeded gravely. "Sit down; it won't take long."
"You said you would rather not talk about it," murmured Rachel.
"I would much rather not. There is nothing I would not sooner do—except let you go away thinking so badly of me as you do now. I don't usually care what people think of me," he added; "I am sure I don't know why I should care now. But you looked so terribly shocked! It hurtsme to see you looking at me in that way. And I should like to try if I could to make you believe that I am not necessarily a bad man, more than other men, though bad enough, because I fought a duel once and killed my adversary."
"Meaningto kill him," interposed Rachel. "That is the dreadful part of it!"
"Yes; I meant to kill him. I staked my own life on the same chance, if that is any justification, but—oh, yes, I meant to kill him, if I could. I had a reason for that, Miss Fetherstonhaugh. Shall I tell you what it was?"
"Yes," whispered Rachel. "But howcouldthere be any sufficient reason for such a terrible crime?"
"Don't call it a crime," he protested."That is how they speak of it who know nothing about it—that is how they will represent all my life, which has been different from theirs—to make you shun and shrink from me as if I had the small-pox. Wait till you know a little more."
He was leaning forward with an elbow on his knee, and looking into her face. She met his eyes now in the uncertain moonlight, which was shining on her and not on him; and he saw no sign of shrinking yet.
"Why did you do it?" she asked sorrowfully.
"Long ago," he said, after a pause, "he and I fell in love with—some one; and she loved him best. At least I think she did—I don't know. Sometimes I fancy she would have cared most forme, if we had had our chances. But we had no chances; I had to give my word of honour not to stand between her and him—not to try to win her, unless she distinctly showed a preference for me."
"I understand," whispered Rachel. She knew this part of the story already.
"At any rate," he continued, "she made choice of him. He sold out of the service, and they went away together. I had sold out myself not long before, and went away too—travelling about the world. I was very lonely at that time; I didn't much care where I went or what became of me. It was several years before I saw or heard of her again."
"Yes?"
"And one night, when I had come back home to look after my property, I met her in London streets. It was the middle of winter—it was raining—she was all alone—she was almost in rags—"
"Don't tell me any more!" implored Rachel, beginning to tremble and cry.
"No," he said, and he drew a deep long breath, "Ican'ttell you any more. Only this—she died. I did all I could to save her, but it was too late. She died of consumption—brought on by exposure and want, and misery of all sorts—a week or two after I found her. And now you know why I killed him.Thatwas why!"
There was a long pause, broken once or twice by Rachel's audible emotion. She had still her own views asto the right and justice of what he had done; but she did not dream of the presumption of giving them now.
This tremendous tragedy of love and revenge dwarfed all her theories of life to the merest trivialities. She could only wonder, and tremble, and cry.
"It is an old story now," said Mr. Dalrymple, more gently. "And I try not to think too much of it. It was all fair, thank Heaven!—I comfort myself with that. I could have shot him once before in Canada; but he was unprepared then. He did not see me, and I would not take him at a disadvantage. I try not to think of it now. I don't want you to think of it either—after to-night. Will you try not to? And try not to let thempersuade you that I am quite a fiend in human shape?"
Rachel blew her nose for the last time, put her handkerchief in her pocket, and smiled a tearful smile.
"I am afraid you are not very good," she said, shaking her head, "but I know you can't be a really wicked man."
"How do you know it?" he asked eagerly.
"How? I'm sure I don't know—I feel it."
"Thank you, thank you," he said, in a low, rapid under tone. "You don't know how I thank you for saying that. At any rate, I havesomerudimental morality. I am honest, to the best of my power. I tell no lies to myself, or to any man—or woman. What I sayI mean, and what I do I own to—if called upon, that is. You may trust me that far. And Ihopeyou will."
"I will," said Rachel, without a moment's hesitation.
How often they thought afterwards of their first strange talk, all alone in that shadowy place. It was as if they had known one another in some other world, and had met after long absence; they felt—widely unlike as they were—so little as strangers usually do beginning a conventional acquaintance in the conventional way. However, it did occur to both of them that it would be as well to go back to the drawing-room before they should be missed.
"I am glad to have had this opportunity," said Mr. Dalrymple, who rosefirst. "I shall hope—I shall feel sure—that you will not let yourself be prejudiced unfairly by anything you may hear. For the rest, I hope you will try not to think of this painful story again."
And he began to saunter back, and she to saunter beside him.
As they entered the drawing-room by the glass door, they heard Mrs. Hardy calling:
"Rachel! Rachel! Why, where is Rachel gone to?"
The girl glided into the broad, warm light, a little confused and dazzled, and, of course, dyed in blushes, which deepened to the deepest pink of oleanders—nay, to the still richer red of that lapageria which had attracted Mr. Dalrymple's attention just now—as she became conscious of the curious observation of the assembled guests, who, she well knew, would not regard this characteristic demonstration as lightly as those did who knew her.
"I am here, Aunt Elizabeth," she replied, in an abject voice, as if she had been caught in something very disgraceful.
"Oh!" responded Mrs. Hardy, "I thought you were gone to bed." She looked sharply at the girl's downcast face, and then more sharply at Mr. Dalrymple, who met her eyes with a stately and distant air of not putting himself to the trouble of remembering who she was that she found very offensive and aggravating. "You had better go, my dear," she said peremptorily."It is late, and you have had a tiring day. I shall be having Mr. Kingston complaining if I let you knock yourself up."
Rachel was only too glad to say good night and go. The other ladies began to rise and stir about, gathering up fans and fancy work, but she left the room before they had come to any unanimous decision about separating. Mr. Dalrymple held open the door for her. "Good night," she whispered hurriedly, not looking at him. He answered by a strong pressure of her hand in silence. She did not understand it then, but looking back afterwards she knew that that first brief hand-clasp stirred her erstwhile latent woman's soul to life. She was never the same afterwards.
Half an hour later, when she was sitting by her own fireside, dreamily brushing her long auburn hair over a blue dressing-gown (blue was her specially becoming colour), Mrs. Hardy tapped at her door, and entered.
"I have brought you a little wine and water, dear," said she, looking very friendly and amiable. "I know you seldom take it, but to-night it will do you good. And Lucilla says you are to be sure not to get up to breakfast if you feel tired in the morning."
"Oh, thank you, auntie, but you know Ineverlie in bed! And I am not in the veryleasttired. I have had a delightful day."
"Yes; it has been a pleasant day. I am glad you have enjoyed it so much.I am only sorry we had to bring that Mr. Dalrymple back with us. I consider him a most objectionable, a most disreputable, young man—not so very young either; he will never see forty again, unless I am much mistaken. But Lucilla and Mr. Thornley are both so much attached to Mrs. Digby; for her sake they are obliged to be civil to him."
Rachel was silent.
"You will, however, be careful, dear, I know, not to get more intimate with him than necessary," Mrs. Hardy continued. "Mr. Kingston would dislike it very much. He is a very wild young man—he has not at all a good character."
"You said Mr. Kingston was wild, auntie," the girl suggested timidly. Itwas her sole feeble effort in defence of her absent friend.
"Nonsense! I'm sure I said nothing of the kind. He is a man whom everybody looks up to. There is no question of comparison between them. At any rate," she added, with solemn severity, "Mr. Kingston has not taken a fellow-creature's life, as this man has.Thatis reason enough why we must none of us have more to do with him than is absolutely necessary. You will remember that, Rachel? Be civil to him, my dear, of course, but no more. I should not have allowed you to come into contact with such a man if I could have helped it, and we had no idea of seeing him to-day. However, they will all be gone after to-morrow, and you need not recognisehim again. The Digbys are coming to the dance next week, but Mrs. Hale says he means to start again for Queensland on Monday. Let us hope they won't break their traces a second time. Good night, my dear; you will remember what I say? It is what Mr. Kingston would wish if he were here, I know."
And Mrs. Hardy kissed her niece affectionately and went away to bed, with a sense of having done her duty, and without the least suspicion that as a domestic diplomatist, she had covered herself with disgrace.
MR. DALRYMPLE HAS TO CONSULT GORDON.
OOF course it is well understood, without further explanation, that Mr. Dalrymple and Rachel were in the position of the Sleeping Beauty and her prince when the spell that held life in abeyance was—or was about to be—broken. At the same time it is not to be inferred that the man, with his years and experience, fell in love at first sight with a merely pretty face, nor that the girl wasmore than ordinarily impressionable and inconstant, or had any constitutional weakness for wild young men.
Perhaps it is not necessary to essay the difficult task of finding a theory to account for it. Everybody knows that if there is a law of nature that will not lend itself to system, it is that which governs these affairs.
The greatest force and factor in human life comes to birth by a mere chance—in Roden Dalrymple's case by the breaking of a trace, which was in itself the result of a whole series of trivial and quite avoidable circumstances; and then it thrives or languishes by the favour of petty accidents—until time and sanctifying associations put it beyond the reach of accident. That isits superficial history, taking a general average.
Quality and potency are questions of temperament; vigour of growth depends in great measure on what may be called climatic influences. But, as with some other great mysteries of this world, human understanding can make very little of it.
At the same time people do not fall in love with each other absolutely without rhyme or reason. And these two did not. Of course personal appearance had, in the first instance, something to do with it.
To a girl of Rachel's disposition (or, indeed, of any other disposition), nothing in the whole catalogue of manly graces could have been more captivating than that quiet air of power and dignitywhich was the chief characteristic of her hero's person and bearing.
And Mr. Dalrymple, who was not the kind of man to be at any time insensible to the charm of a sweet face, had had sufficient experience to understand and appreciate the peculiar charm of this one—its unaffected modesty and candour; and he had had, moreover, little of anything to charm him in his later wandering years.
And Rachel was not merely a pretty girl, by any means. Being of a most unselfish, unassuming, kindly nature, and having a subtle apprehension of the general fitness of things, her manners were exceedingly gracious and winning—not always conventional, perhaps, but always refined and modest; and that honest youthful enthusiasm for life andits good things, which more or less flavoured all she said and did, though inimical to the prejudices of the British matron, was a charming thing to men.
Then Mr. Dalrymple had the faculty to perceive what made her look at him with so peculiarly wistful and earnest a look; he recognised his friend, if not his love and mate, in the earliest hours of their acquaintance. A friend in so fair a shape was doubly a friend naturally; and the strong appetite that he had for friendship, as a rudimental phase of passion, had had little to feed on but bitter memories for more than a dozen years.
As for Rachel, it was almost inevitable that she should lose her heart to this hero of romance—this Paladin witha touch of the demon in him—whom circumstances combined to present to her under such singularly impressive auspices. If the truth must be told, she fell in love much more suddenly and hopelessly than he did; and the fates—incarnate in the persons of his enemies—did their best to precipitate the catastrophe.
On the morning following their strange interview in the conservatory—of which she had been dreaming all night—she awoke with a dim sense of something being wrong. It was so very dim a sense that she did not consciously apprehend it, and therefore made no investigation into its origin. But instead of jumping out of bed as usual, eager to plunge at once into the unknown joys of a new day, she laystill until obliged to get up to receive her tea, and gazed pensively into vacancy.
It was just such a morning as yesterday—the sun shining in through the white blind, the fresh wind rustling along the leafy verandahs, the magpies gossiping cheerily in great flocks about the garden; and there was that sweetest baby cooing like a little wood pigeon as he was carried past her door in his nurse's arms. But she was deaf to these erewhile potent influences.
"Your hot water, miss," quoth a housemaid in the passage.
"Thank you, Susan," she responded absently, and continued to gaze into vacancy.
"Your tea, miss," came, with another tap, presently.
And then it was she had to get out of bed. She took in her tea, set it down on a chair and forgot it; she put on her slippers and dressing-gown, and armed herself with towel and sponge, but had to make three visits to the bath-room before she could get in.
Then she woke up to the fact that she was late, and scampered excitedly about the room in her anxiety to make a becoming toilet in the shortest possible space of time. Finally, she went to breakfast five minutes after the gong was supposed to have assembled the family, and found that the gentlemen had all gone out early on a shooting expedition.
"Isn't it too bad?" exclaimed Miss Hale. "They arranged it in the smoking-roomlast night, after we were gone to bed; and Haroldknewthat we wanted to play croquet."
Croquet, it may be remarked, had not yet "gone out," and Harold was Mr. Lessel.
"They had their breakfast at six o'clock," said Mrs. Thornley, smiling. "And you know, dear Miss Hale, it is nearly the last day of the open season, and my husband has been trying to preserve those lagoons in the forest on purpose. There were a great many ducks there last week, and they will have good sport and enjoy themselves, I hope. They said they would be back to luncheon."
"Oh, don't you believe it!" snorted Mrs. Hale, who, having given her lord orders to stay at home, which had beengrossly violated, was in an aggrieved and aggressive mood. "Iknow them!—never a thought will they give to luncheon, or to us either, until they are tired of their sport. If they are in time for dinner, that's quite as much as you can expect."
Rachel sat down, feeling fully as much as anybody the blank that the five gentlemen had left behind them. She did not exactly say to herself that it had been waste of time and trouble to put fresh frills into her dress, but that was the nature of her sentiments.
It was not a lively morning. None of them expected it would be, so they were not disappointed. The matrons beguiled the dull hours with sympathetic gossip on domestic themes.
Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hardy had a banquet of Melbourne news and scandal, in the discussion of which they incidentally glorified their respective connections, each for the other's edification, until a suggestion of Mrs. Hale's (to the effect that Mr. Kingston was not much better than he should be, in spite of his wealth) caused a slight coolness to arise between them.
Mrs. Thornley and Mrs. Digby, both young wives and mothers, with many tender interests in common, whispered pleasantly over their needlework, chiefly of their nursery affairs.
The two girls had no resource but to keep each other company. They went first to see the baby; but Miss Hale was not an enthusiast in babies. Then they had a little music; and hereRachel did not greatly distinguish herself.
After that they walked about the garden and talked. Rachel was told all about Mr. Lessel—how charming and how good he was—what his father meant to settle on him when he married—when the wedding was to be, and what the bridesmaids were to wear. Then she was enticed into a few reluctant confidences about her own engagement, which led to a detailed description of the new house, and an invitation to Miss Hale, when she should be Mrs. Lessel, to pay a visit there some day with her husband. And so the morning wore away, and luncheon-time came.
They waited luncheon until past two o'clock, and, to the sombre satisfactionof Mrs. Hale, the sportsmen did not return, and the made dishes were spoiled.
Then the mail arrived, and there was a letter for Rachel from herfiancé, begging her to write at once to relieve his mind of a fear that she was ill, and to tell him at the same time that she acquiesced in the arrangements he had proposed for their early marriage, and whether she preferred Sydney or Tasmania for the introductory wedding trip.
He particularly wanted her to settle these little matters without further delay, as the spring was so much the pleasantest time for travelling, and he had had the offer of a charming house in Sydney, on the shores of the bay, for the first two or three weeks in October,which would only be open for a few days.
When she had read this letter, she was in a frantic hurry to answer it. Holding it in her hand, she excused herself to her companions, who were all setting forth for a gentle walk; begging to be allowed to stay at home with an anxious eagerness that provoked significant and indulgent smiles, which said, "Oh, pray don't mind us," as plainly as smiles could speak.
So when they were gone, she made herself comfortable in the smoking-room, in one of the screened compartments of which there was a sort of public writing-table, supplied with great bowls of ink, and sheafs of pens, and reams of paper, on which "Adelonga" wasprinted—as if Adelonga had been a club—for the use of all-comers; and where there was always a glorious fire of big logs whenever there was the least excuse for a fire.
Here she began her second letter to Mr. Kingston—with effusive conciliatory excuses for having been such a very bad correspondent. She had really been so much engaged—time had slipped away, she didn't know how—the post had gone once or twice without her knowing it—yesterday they had been away from home; altogether, fate had been against her writing as often as she had intended, but she would promise him to be more regular in future.
Then followed a description of the races, and an enumeration of the guests they had brought back with them—who they all were, what they were like, andher estimation of them respectively. One was dismissed without comment—"and a Mr. Dalrymple, Mrs. Digby's brother" (and of course her dearest Graham remarked the extreme simplicity of this phrase, and was curious about the interesting details that were conspicuous by their absence). And then, after a few inquiries about the progress of the house, she plunged into the really important matter.
"I have been thinking about your proposal agreatdeal, and I want you,please, not to be angry with me if I cannot accede to it," she began in an abject and deprecating manner that was significant of her state of mind. "I want to stay a little longer with my dear aunt, to whom I have had so little opportunity as yet of making what return is in mypower for all her kindness to me; and I want a little time to improve myself, too, for my future position as your wife, dear Graham. Lucilla is a beautiful housekeeper and is teaching me lots of things; and I am brushing up my French and German with Miss O'Hara, who said my accent (but it is much better now) was enough to set one's teeth on edge. Moreover, I amreallytoo young to be married just yet. I am hardly nineteen, and Laura Buxton was nineteen and a half. Perhaps next year——"
At this point she was interrupted by the arrival of the sportsmen. They had been to the drawing-room, apparently, for they came in by way of the conservatory, through a door just opposite the writing-table. She put down her pen and rose in haste.
"Hullo, Rachel! Good-morning, my dear. Don't get up—we won't disturb you," shouted Mr. Thornley, cheerily. "Come in, Lessel—come in, Dalrymple. Here's where the guns go."
"What sport have you had? And are you not very hungry?" she asked, moving away from her chair and standing on the hearthrug. According to her primitive ideas of propriety, she was bound to stay a little while and see to their hospitable entertainment, there being no proper hostess available.
"Hungry? I should think so. And we had very good sport, though not much to show for it," responded Mr. Thornley. "Only five ducks to five guns, and Dalrymple shot four of them. They are wild enough at the best of times; but atthe end of the season there is no getting near them."
"You must be a very good shot," she said, lifting her eyes meekly to Mr. Dalrymple's face. And then, the moment the words were spoken, she would have given worlds to recall them, and looked at him again with a dumb entreaty to be forgiven.
He smiled gently, reading her like a book.
"Oh, no," he said; "I was only lucky in having the birds."
They all came round her as she stood on the hearthrug, except Mr. Thornley, who had gone to order some bread and cheese and beer; and they looked pleased with the situation.
Mr. Digby began to tell her what a lovely day it was, and to ask her whyshe had not gone out for a walk, too; and then, when she explained that she had had letters to write, and found herself, unfortunately, unable to do so without blushing over it (blushing because she feared she wasgoingto blush), Mr. Hale broke in; and Mr. Hale in conversation was, in his very different way, worse than Mrs. Hale.
"To Melbourne, I presume?" insinuated this little monster, with an arch smile. Rachel, the colour of a peony, lifted her head an inch nearer to the ceiling.
"I only heard last night," he continued, rubbing his hands, and looking a whole volume of vulgar pleasantries, "that the redoubtable Kingston has been vanquished at last, and that it is to your bow and spear that he has fallen.Allow me to congratulate you, Miss Fetherstonhaugh."
"To congratulatehim, I should think you mean," broke in Mr. Dalrymple, who was studying the effect of sunset on a picture of the Adelonga homestead and pulling his moustaches violently. "Hadn't we better go and wash our hands, Digby, and make ourselves more fit for ladies' company?"
"To congratulate him, too, certainly," said Mr. Hale; "very much so, of course. But still it is a great conquest on the part of Miss Fetherstonhaugh. Perhaps you don't know Kingston?"
"I have not that honour," replied Mr. Dalrymple stiffly; and the tone of his voice strongly implied that he did not in the least degree desire it.
"Well, I do; and I know that hehas openly defied the combined powers of her charming sex for—I am afraid to say how many years—as long as I can remember."
"I daresay that has not distressed them," said Mr. Dalrymple.
"Come, come, Hale," said Mr. Digby, who thought his kinsman's allusion to Mr. Kingston's age a terrible slip of the tongue; "let us go and wash our hands. Come along, Lessel."
"And my wife tells me," continued the irrepressible little man, "that the—a—the interesting event is to take place very shortly!"
Rachel came out of her majestic reticence with a rush that astonished everybody.
"Oh,no, Mr. Hale—not for alongtime—not for a year, at the very least!Whocouldhave told Mrs. Hale such a thing? I assure you it is quite, quite wrong!Doyou know who told her? Was it my aunt?"
She looked at him with an earnest, imploring look that aroused Mr. Dalrymple to regard her with considerably sharpened interest. The alarming thought had struck her that her lover might have privately enlisted Mrs. Hardy's support for his new scheme; and if so, how should she be able to resist so formidable a pressure?
"I think it was Mrs. Thornley told Mrs. Hale. She had a letter from her sister, Mrs. Reade, yesterday; and Mrs. Reade had mentioned it. Ladies' gossip, Miss Fetherstonhaugh!—ladies never can keep secrets, you know. They tell everything to one another, and thento us. And we—we tell them nothing. We know better, eh, Digby?"
"Come along," said Digby, who was getting a little savage, "and don't talk like a fool."
At this critical juncture Mr. Thornley appeared to announce that there was bread and cheese in the dining-room for anybody who was hungry. Whereupon the men trooped out—all but Mr. Dalrymple, who apparently was not hungry. He was lounging at Rachel's side, with an elbow on the mantelpiece, pulling his moustache meditatively; and he did not move.
Rachel was fluttered and excited.
"Howdopeople get hold of those things?" she exclaimed, with a vexed, embarrassed laugh. "It is very true that everybody knows one's businessbetter than one does one's self. Ihatethat kind of impertinent gossip. No one has theleastground for supposing that I am going to be married shortly. I have no intention of being married for ever so long."
"Why do you care what people say?" said Mr. Dalrymple. "I never care. It is much the best plan."
"I would not, if I could help it; but I can't," she responded, turning round and mechanically spreading her pink palms to the fire.
"And, after all," he continued, slowly, "all the talking in the world can't make you marry if you don't want to."
She did not look up, but the blood flew over her face.
"I did not say I didn't want to,"she murmured. "Of course I want to—not yet, for a long time, but some day—or I should not be engaged."
"I don't think thatalwaysfollows, Miss Fetherstonhaugh. I think many people engage themselves, and live to think better of it. And then, if they don't refuse to consummate an admitted mistake, they—well, they ought to, that's all. Forgive me, I am speaking in the abstract of course. I have had a great deal of experience, you know."
"Of broken engagements?" queried Rachel, smiling faintly at the fire.
"No, not of them—not personally. The curse of my life was an engagement that was kept. And I have seen so much misery, such everlasting wreck and ruin, come upon people I have known and cared for—people who keptthe letter of the law of honour and disregarded the spirit—who preferred sacrificing all that made life worth having, for certainly two people, and probably four, to breaking an engagement that had no longer any sense or reason in it."
"But surely an engagement—it is the initial marriage ceremony—should be kept sacred," protested Rachel, daring at last to look up, in defence of pious principles.
"Yes," he said, "certainly—when it isreallythe initial marriage ceremony."
"And how—what—what is the proof of that?"
"Shall I tell you what I think it is? When the people who are engaged long and weary for the consummation—forthe time to be over which keeps them from one another."
There was a dead silence. Rachel continued to gaze into the fire, but her eyes were dim, and all her pretty colour sank out of her face. He had given her a great shock, and she had to take a little time to recover. Presently she looked up, pale and grave, with a fuller and more open look than she had ever given him.
"You should not have told me," she said gently; "you should not talk to me so."
"No—you are right—I should not—forgive me," he replied, speaking low and hurriedly, with something new and strange in his voice. And then they became simultaneously aware of the dangerous ways into which their discussionhad led them, and, by tacit consent, turned back. Rachel moved away to the writing-table, and began to gather her papers together; Mr. Dalrymple brought his arm down from the chimney-piece and looked at his watch.
"It is five o'clock," he said; "the ladies are having a long walk, are they not?"
"No; it was nearly four when they started. They will be in directly for their tea."
Then, without looking to right or left, Rachel hurried out of the room; and Mr. Dalrymple, after silently holding the door for her, strode away to the dining-room, where he was still in time for some bread and cheese.
The first thing Rachel did on reachingher room, was to sit down and cry—why or wherefore she never asked herself. She had not yet learned the art of analysing her emotions.
She felt vaguely perplexed and hurt, and ashamed and indignant; and a few tears were necessary to put her to rights. They were very few, and soon over.
In less than ten minutes she had again addressed herself to Mr. Kingston's letter, which she finished up with the suggestion that their marriage should take place "next year," and a profusion of unwonted endearments.
At dusk she went to the drawing-room, where the reunited guests were having tea in the pleasant firelight, the gentlemen lounging about in their knickerbockers and leggings, the ladiessitting with hats tilted on the back of their heads, Mrs. Hale victorious over her subdued husband. Miss Hale happy with her recovered beau. She sat a little outside the circle and talked in under-tones to Lucilla; Mr. Dalrymple stood far away on the other side of the room, and talked to nobody.
That night Rachel was the first to go to dress; she was the last to come back when the gong announced dinner. And when she came she was arrayed in all her glory—pearl necklace, diamond pendant, diamond bracelet, jewelled fan—all her absent lover's love-gifts that good taste permitted her to wear, and a few more. And there was no repetition of the conservatory scene.
Mrs. Hardy was perfectly satisfied with the result of her diplomatic measures. Rachel sat by her aunt's side, and sewed industriously all the evening at a pinafore for her precious baby, who was about to be short-coated. Mr. Dalrymple sat rather apart, gnawing his moustache, apparently absorbed in a photographic album of Lucilla's, which he had discovered in a cabinet near him.
Two or three times, when Rachel stole a look across the room, unable to repress her restless curiosity to know what he was doing, she saw him gazing meditatively at this open book, and always on the first page of it. She wondered whose photographs they were that interested him so much, and she felt that she could not go to bedwithout satisfying her anxiety on this point.
When after tea, music and cards and other gentle entertainments were set going, and Mr. Dalrymple was at last enticed by his host from his corner and his album to make a fourth at the whist-table, she watched her opportunity and stole round to the chair on which he had been sitting. He had his back to her, but he was facing a mirror in which he could see her distinctly; and while he watched her movements, he trumped his partner's trick for the first time in his life, and otherwise disgraced a notorious reputation.
"I suppose," said Mrs. Hale, who was his partner, with considerable asperity, "that you don't trouble toplay well if you haven't some great stake to play for."
"I beg your pardon," he replied, gravely bending his head. Rachel was stealing back to her aunt's side and her baby's pinafore, and he left off looking into the mirror and making mistakes.
Meanwhile Rachel had satisfied her curiosity. When she opened the album on the first page she saw two familiar faces—one of a young, bright girl, with pensive eyes, conspicuous for "that royalty which subjects kings;" the other angular, aquiline, hollow, full of the lines of age, and smirking with the sprightliness of youth—herself and Mr. Kingston, to whom, unknown to her, Lucilia had lately given this place of honour.
She stood still for a few minutes, looking down on them, with the colour deepening in her cheeks. She seemed to see for the first time how incongruous a pair they made, and how mean a presence her lover really bore.
It was a bad likeness of him, she said to herself; but in point of fact she was shocked by a faithful representation of his meagre features and his peculiar smile—which after all was too frivolous and artificial to be worthy of comparison with the smile of Mephistopheles.
She did not consciously judge his by the standard of that other face, which was so impressively dignified and resolute; but she had looked at this same photograph two days ago, and then ithad not struck her unpleasantly, as it did now.
Without thinking what she was doing, she tore out her own likeness, and also the last photograph in the book, which was an old one of her Cousin Lucilla as a child, and she made them change places. Having effected which—surreptitiously, as she thought—she closed the album softly, laid it away in the cabinet, and returned to her seat by her aunt's side.
When the ladies were gone to bed, the first thing Mr. Dalrymple did was to get out that album again and look at it; and he had some very serious thoughts when he found out what she had done.
In the morning all the visitors left early, for they had a long distance totravel. Mr. Thornley was to take them part of the way home, and the break and the four horses were brought round at eight o'clock. Rachel came out to the verandah with her aunt and cousin to see them start.
"Good-bye, dear Mrs. Digby," said Lucilla, affectionately kissing her particular friend. "Good-bye, Mrs. Hale. Good-bye, Miss Hale. I am so sorry you could not stay longer, but we shall expect you back next week. Good-bye, Mr. Dalrymple, I hear you are off to Queensland again on Monday?"
Mr. Dalrymple shook hands and lifted his hat, and then said very quietly, but with great distinctness, "Not quite so soon as that, I think, Mrs. Thornley. I shall consult Gordon before I make another start."
"Oh, well, in that case we shall hope to see you again, too. Of course you'll come with your sister next week, if youshouldbe still with her?"
"Thank you," said Mr. Dalrymple. "I shall be most happy."
Rachel was not looking at anybody in particular; and nobody was looking at her. But her rather pale and pensive face suddenly became of a colour that might have put even the lapageria rosea to shame.