“Will you tell me, Mr. Richard, have you any friends you wish to go to?”
He watched her face intently, and she felt sure that he understood her perfectly. A look of deeper sadness came into his face as he shook his head.
“Why, then, do you want to escape?”
Although he said nothing in answer, Chris thought he understood this question also. For his face, which was singularly expressive, instantly clouded with a dark and angry look. It occurred to Chris that the objects of his anger were the people who kept him in confinement. She knew that mad people are credited with this feeling, and, indeed, Mr. Richard had given very strong proofs of it.
Being rather alarmed, in spite of herself, by the sudden change which came over his face at her last question, she drew back a step, turning towards the door. He followed her, and took her left hand, which was nearest to him, very gently in his, and by a little gesture, eloquent, though silent, entreated her not to go yet. Chris began to tremble, not with fear, but with pity. The expression of this poor fellow seemed to her one of eloquent entreaty. Knowing, as she did, that he would soon be back in the gloomy confinement of the east wing, she had not the heart to leave him, as she rightly judged that he would have let her do, if she had insisted.
Still, deep as one’s sympathy may be, it is an embarrassing thing to find oneself locked up with a madman, and Chris found it hard to make conversation for a person who never replied to her, except by nods and shakings of the head, or by puzzled signs that she was not understood.
In this dilemma, she could not but be glad when at last she heard footsteps outside. After trying the door, and finding it locked from within, the newcomer having provided himself with a ladder from the stables, entered the hay-loft at the top of the barn, and put his face through the trap above their heads.
It was Stelfox.
At the sight of this man, Mr. Richard made at once for the door. But Stelfox came down the ladder which led from the loft with surprising agility, and seizing the gentleman by the arm, proceeded to struggle with him. But Mr. Richard was more than his match, and he threw Stelfox off, and again made for the door.
“Stop him, miss. For his own sake, stop him if you can,” cried Stelfox to Chris, who was standing near the door, watching the struggle with much anxiety.
She at once ran forward and lightly put her hand on Mr. Richard’s arm. As Stelfox had expected, this was enough. It gave him time to approach Mr. Richard from behind, to seize his arms, and to bind them together in such a way that the madman was helpless.
Chris burst into tears.
It seemed to her as if she had betrayed him into the hands of his enemies, and she sobbed out:
“Oh, let him go! let him go! What have you made me do?”
And all the time that she was speaking and drying her tears, Mr. Richard, without showing any anger at his capture, kept his mild eyes fixed upon her. When she looked up at him, with entreaties for forgiveness in her face, he smiled quite kindly at her and stood still, while Stelfox, keeping his hand upon his prisoner, explained:
“It’s better for him to go home quietly with me than for him to be brought back with a bad cold, and without more consideration for his feelings than if he was a carted deer, at five o’clock in the morning.”
But Chris was not satisfied, although Mr. Richard himself seemed reconciled to his fate. Then Stelfoxwent on, exactly as if Mr. Richard had not been present:
“I’ll tell you what you can do, miss, if you feel so sorry for him. Ask him to come back with you to the house and he will do so without any trouble.”
Chris was reluctant to do this for several reasons.
“But he won’t understand,” she said, softly, turning so that Mr. Richard should not hear.
Stelfox’s straight mouth lengthened into a smile.
“Just you try him, miss,” said he.
So Chris turned again to the silent man.
“Will you come back with me to the house?” she asked, with a gesture in the direction of the mansion.
His face lighted up at once, and as Stelfox freed his arm he turned and walked beside her along the path through the meadow. They went in silence, for although Chris was so full of pity and of sympathy that she longed to express her feelings in some way, his silence made intercourse difficult. When they reached the gate into the garden, Stelfox came up to them.
“You had better go on by yourself, miss, now,” said he.
It was evident that Mr. Richard understood this too, for his face clouded.
Chris held out her hand to him with a smile. He took it in both his and held it for some seconds, while his wistful eyes gazed upon her face with a look of despair which touched her to the quick.
When she had withdrawn her hand and run along the path for a few paces, she heard again the weird, harsh sounds which seemed the only form of speech of which the poor fellow was capable. Glancing round, she saw that he was engaged in some sort ofaltercation with Stelfox over which he was getting very much excited. A few moments after, Stelfox left him and ran up to her.
“The poor young gentleman is in a great way, miss,” he said, “because he’s afraid he won’t see you again.”
Chris drew a sharp breath. This very thought had been troubling her.
“CanI see him again, Stelfox?” she asked, almost eagerly. “Would Mr. Bradfield allow it?”
One of the dry smiles peculiar to Stelfox for a moment expanded his features without brightening them.
“Maybe we won’t trouble him by enquiring, miss,” he said; “but if you would care to see Mr. Richard again, though he isn’t much of a companion for a young lady, I’m afraid, I could manage it. And I can warrant he won’t hurt you.”
“Oh, no, I’m sure of that! I wasn’t thinking of that!”
“It will be a great kindness, miss, if you’re not afraid,” said Stelfox, almost gratefully.
But Chris was looking in perplexity back in the direction of Mr. Richard, who was waiting as quietly as possible by the gate.
“Tell me one thing,” said Chris in a puzzled tone. “No, I mean tell me half-a-dozen things.”
Stelfox seemed to draw back into himself at her words.
“Won’t it do another time, miss, please?” said he, respectfully. “Mr. Richard’s there waiting for me, and he might——”
“Oh, no, you’re not afraid of his running away now; that’s one of the curious things in the case.And another is that you can trust him not to hurt anybody, although I have myself seen him try to do so. And how is it that he seems to understand what one says at one time and that the next moment one may say something to him of which he won’t take the least notice? And why does he make those dreadful noises, and yet be able to make you understand what he means? It doesn’t sound like a language that he talks at all; but is it?”
Stelfox’s face had become a discreet blank.
“Yes, it’s a foreign language, miss. One of the South African languages, I believe. You see, he was born and brought up in South Africa, and being as he is, not quite like other folks, he hasn’t been able to pick up English yet, but I manage to make him out, through being with him so much.”
Chris smiled a little as she turned to go into the house.
“Thank you very much for your explanation, Stelfox,” she said, “even though I know it isn’t true.”
She thought she heard a dry chuckle behind her as she went up the steps.
Chris was more excited than she had ever been before in her life. She did not quite understand the nature of the emotions which seemed to be waging war upon one another within her.
Chris was going upstairs, when, as she passed the study door, it flew open as if by a spring, and disclosed Mr. Bradfield, looking rather ashamed of himself. He wanted to find out whether she had seen him at the barn-door, and he hoped she had not. Chris, on the other hand, was feeling both hurt and surprised at his having left her with the madman, instead of comingto her rescue. While she had laughed at her mother for thinking Mr. Bradfield must be honest because he was rough, she had herself on the same grounds, thought he must be courageous.
“Well, what have you been doing with yourself this afternoon?” asked he, in a jocular tone, under which she thought she detected some uneasiness.
“Since I saw you last, Mr. Bradfield?” asked Chris, demurely; “at the door of the barn?”
“Yes, yes,” said he, hastily; “at least, since that, and before that—all the afternoon, I mean?”
“First I worked in the Chinese-room, making the dresses for to-morrow night,” began Chris.
“Oh! that tomfoolery,” interrupted Mr. Bradfield. “I wouldn’t have anything to do with it if I were you. Everything will go wrong, and all the blame will be put on to your shoulders. I know my gushing cousin—and her methods!”
“I can’t get out of it now, even if I wanted to,” said she, rather ruefully. “I don’t feel myself that there will be much glory accruing to us from the entertainment.”
“Glory? I should think not. I’m going to be miles away myself.”
“Oh! Mr. Bradfield, do you mean that? They’ll all be dreadfully disappointed.”
“Can’t help that. Business must be considered beforepleasure, you know,” he added, drily.
Both were talking, as it were, to fill up the time until they were ready for attack and defence on the subject which was occupying the minds of both. Then, as Chris moved as if to go on her way upstairs, Mr. Bradfield came out of his study, and shut the door.
“I’ve bought a new picture,” said he, as he invited her by gesture to accompany him to the dining-room, “by one of these French fellows. Very high art; gives one the creeps.”
Before they stood in front of the picture, which was one of those heart-breaking war-pictures, tired soldiers trudging along under grey, wet skies, which form part of the legacy of the Franco-Prussian war, each knew that the tussle was coming.
“You take an encounter with a madman very philosophically, Miss Christina,” said he.
“Not more philosophically than you did, Mr. Bradfield, when you looked into the barn, and left me there with him!” cried she.
He was rather disconcerted by this retort.
“Oh—er—well,” he began, “you see, I could not quite make out, from where I was, who was with him, and——”
“And you knew, of course, what I did not, that he would not do me any harm.”
Mr. Bradfield seemed to find this difficult to answer. It was not until after a minute’s reflection of an apparently unpleasant kind that he said, rather shortly:
“I could see that he was not in one of his frenzied fits, and I thought it best to go away quickly while the quiet mood lasted, and send Stelfox, who knows how to manage him. Surely you don’t suppose I should have left you alone with him if I had thought it likely he would do you any harm?”
“No, I don’t suppose so. Only——”
“Only what?”
“I can hardly believe that he is ever so very dangerous. I can’t help thinking he would be betterif he were allowed to come out sometimes and see people. Do you know, I think I should go mad myself if I lived in two rooms, and never saw anybody but Stelfox!”
Chris hurried out this speech hastily, regardless of the evident fact that the subject was extremely distasteful to Mr. Bradfield, who walked up and down the room impatiently, with his hands behind him, and repeatedly looked at his watch, as if he could hardly spare the time to listen to such nonsense. When she had finished, he said, shortly:
“I am afraid you must allow me to know best. My knowledge of him dates from many years back, you see, while yours is of the slightest possible kind. But you yourself saw him in one of his fits, when he threw something at you through the window. Do you want better proof than that of his dangerous temper? And do you think a person who is born without intelligence enough to learn to speak is fit to be trusted among other human beings?”
“Never learned to speak!” echoed Chris, doubtfully. “Stelfox said it was an African language he talked!”
Angry as he was, Mr. Bradfield burst into an uncontrollable laugh at this. Then, at once recovering his gravity, he said quickly:
“Stelfox is an old woman! Never mind what he says. When you want to know anything, come to me.”
“I want to know something now, Mr. Bradfield, please.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Whether my mother has told you I’m going to be a hospital nurse?”
“A what?”
“A nurse at one of the London hospitals.”
“What on earth do you want to do that for?”
She hesitated a little before replying, in some embarrassment:
“Well, you see, in spite of all your kindness, it is rather a difficult position for me here, isn’t it? Or rather, it isn’t any position at all. I’m not a servant, and I’m not a visitor, and I’m not a daughter of the house, but I’m treated as all three——”
“Who treats you as a servant?” interrupted Mr. Bradfield, angrily. “At least, you needn’t tell me. Of course it’s my pretentious old porpoise of a cousin! I’ll give her a talking-to she won’t forget in a hurry! But why do you trouble your head about the maunderings of a snob?”
“I don’t trouble my head more about her treatment than about yours, Mr. Bradfield,” answered Chris, smiling. “I shouldn’t mind being a parlour-maid here at all. Your parlour-maids have rather a good time of it, I think. And I shouldn’t mind being a visitor, nor a daughter; but a combination of the duties of all three is too much for one pair of feminine hands, and one simple feminine understanding.”
“Oh! And who’s to take care of my china when you’re gone?”
“Miss Graham-Shute.”
“Which one?”
“Rose. Mrs. Graham-Shute says dusting would spoil the shape of Lilith’s hands.”
“And who is to play the piano in the evenings?”
“Oh, Mrs. Shute herself could do that.”
Mr. Bradfield groaned.
“Shade of Instruction-book Hamilton! What has the piano done that it should be exposed to that?” he exclaimed. Then, turning to Chris with a frown, he went on, “You say I have been kind to you. Well, don’t you know that you are here to protect me from these people? I told you so when you first came.”
“But you didn’t quite mean it! You like them really, or you wouldn’t have asked them to spend Christmas with you!”
“I like them—in moderation. But now the old lady has made up her mind to settle down here, I see that I’m in for too much of a good thing. I shall have to forbid them the house, or they will be in and out like rabbits all day long.”
“You won’t be too rigorous, will you? For the sake of the poor girls?”
“You like the girls, then?”
“I’m sorry for them. One is rather spoilt, the other is rather down-trodden.”
“And the son? He’s been making love to you, hasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“You take it very coolly. Has he asked you to marry him?”
Chris laughed.
“Why, no, Mr. Bradfield. He’s only a boy, and I’ve only known him two days!”
Mr. Bradfield glanced at her, looked away quickly, took up his stand on the hearth-rug, and drummed on his chin with his fingers.
Chris looked at the door, and hoped he would let her go. She had an idea what these signs might portend.
“It wouldn’t surprise me now,” he began, in a rather nervous tone, “to hear of a man wanting to marry you when he had only known you two days. But it would surprise me,” he went on, with a little awkward laugh, “to hear that he had plucked up courage to ask you.”
Before he had reached the last word, Chris was at the door. But Mr. Bradfield reached it nearly as soon as she.
“No, no, I want to ask you a question before you go. Tell me, you’ve had offers of marriage made to you before now, haven’t you?”
“Oh, yes, I have, but—but I don’t like them; I don’t like them at all. It’s very unpleasant, you know,” she went on rapidly, looking anywhere but at him, “to have to say things people don’t want to hear.”
“Well, I suppose,” said Mr. Bradfield, who was not to be put off now that he had strung himself up to the required pitch, “the man will come some day to receive an answer which is not unpleasant?”
Chris shook her head doubtfully.
“Perhaps. I don’t know.”
“You say you’ve had plenty of offers?”
“I didn’t say that. I said I had had some.”
“Any from men like—like me?”
Chris glanced at him quickly, and shook her head with a little smile, half demure, half mischievous. She answered decidedly:
“No, not at all like you. In the first place, they hadn’t any of them sixpence; in the second place, they were mostly boys, at least what I call boys,” she added, in a tone of patronage.
This delighted Mr. Bradfield. Nobody could reproach him with being a boy.
“And you didn’t care for any of them?”
“Oh, yes, I did. For some of them. In a way.”
“Well, do you think you could ever care for me—in a way, in any way?”
Chris did not want to be unkind, but she shook her head decidedly.
“Oh, Mr. Bradfield, what do you want to ask me for? I couldn’t help seeing you were going to, you know, and I’ve been trying to put off the e—I mean, I’ve been trying to stave it off. I wanted you to see it was no use, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to go away and be a hospital nurse. So it isn’t my fault, really.”
“No, it’s my misfortune,” said Mr. Bradfield, shortly. “But I think you’re very silly.”
“Yes, and my mother will think so too, that’s the worst of it,” said Chris, ruefully.
“And don’t you think the opinion of two people like your mother and me is worth more than yours?” asked Mr. Bradfield, good-humouredly.
Chris, though she was glad that he was not angry, did not like the way in which he took her refusal. For he treated it as a joke, as a matter of no consequence, and he stood very close to her, and stared at her, as she told her mother afterwards, in a way she did not like. This manner of receiving her answer piqued her, while it perhaps frightened her a little.
“I think my opinion is worth the most,” she answered, with the colour rising in her cheeks, “for I can act upon mine, while you can’t act upon yours.”
Mr. Bradfield drew back a little way, amused, surprised, and pleased at her spirit.
“You’re not afraid of being married against your will, then?”
At this rather ironically put question, the very soul of pretty Chris seemed to flash through her eyes.
“No, indeed I’m not.”
Then Mr. Bradfield, who had lost his nervousness, and who went about his wooing with a will now that he had fairly started, changed his tone. In a voice which had become surprisingly tender—or which perhaps only sounded tender because he did not shout so much as usual—he said——
“Wouldn’t you like to make a man happy, little Chris?”
She was too womanly to hear this speech quite unmoved, even from a man she did not care about. So she evaded it.
“I don’t think a woman can make a man happy,” she said.
“I don’t think every woman could. But I’m sure you could; at least, you could makemehappy.”
“Well, if I really have the power of giving happiness, which I very much doubt,” said Chris, laughing, “I think I ought to exercise it on some man who hasn’t so many sources of happiness as you have already, Mr. Bradfield.”
“Sources of happiness,” echoed he scoffingly. “And, pray, what are they?”
“You have your collection, your curiosities, your pictures, your first editions!”
“All sources of torment, not of happiness. I can honestly say that I suffer more if I find that oldGeneral Wadham has a duplicate of anything I buy, than I should rejoice over the discovery of a new and genuine Raphael. I buy, I collect, to pass away the time.”
“But you can do so much good, and give so much pleasure. Doesn’t that make you happy?”
“Not a bit.”
“Yet you are very kind-hearted. You give away a great deal in charity,” objected Chris, incredulously. “It makes you happy to help the poor and needy,” she ended, feeling that she was talking rather like a tract.
“No, it doesn’t. I help ’em to get rid of ’em!” rejoined Mr. Bradfield, tartly. “I hate the poor and needy. I’ve been poor and needy myself, and,” he wound up with a sudden viciousness in his tone, “I know just how they feel towards me, because I remember how I used to feel towards anyone better off than myself.”
Chris was almost frightened. For Mr. Bradfield’s private feelings had, for the moment, run away with him, and he showed the girl, unconsciously, into a dark corner of his mind, which it would have been better for him to have kept hidden while his wooing lasted. She felt as if she had overheard something not intended for her ear, and it was almost with the manner of an eavesdropper who has been caught in the act, that she moved towards the door. She had long since lost the position she had taken up by it, having been followed up by her unwanted admirer, until she was back again by the fireplace. He seemed to become aware of her intention to escape quite suddenly, but he had apparently lost the wish to detain her.
As she opened the door, he only called out——
“Good-bye, Miss Christina. But mind, I shall make you give me another answer by-and-by.”
Chris pretended not to hear.
Chris went upstairs feeling uncomfortable and unhappy. Instead of opening a way out of the awkward position in which, as she had truly said, she found herself now that the Graham-Shutes had come down, she had drawn upon herself a proposal which had served only to complicate the situation. She had settled nothing, moreover. Mr. Bradfield had treated her suggestion of going away in the lightest manner, and she could scarcely doubt that his persuasions would be successfully exercised upon her mother, who was already strongly averse from the idea of her daughter’s departure. She knew also that her mother would be disappointed to hear that she had not given more encouragement to Mr. Bradfield’s hopes of marrying her. These thoughts all troubled her, but there was one other which distressed her still more, the remembrance of the unhappy madman, whose treatment at the hands of Mr. Bradfield and of Stelfox was as perplexing to her as his own conduct.
Everything in connection with Mr. Richard was a puzzle. She had herself witnessed one of his fits of fury, culminating in savage violence, and yet Mr. Bradfield, whose regard for her she could not helpknowing to be real, had left her alone with him in the barn. She remembered seeing Stelfox come breathless, panting and disordered out of the east wing after a struggle with his charge, and yet he had scoffed at the notion that Mr. Richard would do her any harm, and had even offered to let her meet him again.
Mr. Richard’s own conduct was more bewildering still. At one moment he would seem to understand everything she said, the next he would pay no attention whatever to her words. For a little while he would be silent and perfectly gentle, then he would begin to frighten her by curious moans and incoherent sounds. Neither of the explanations offered was a satisfactory one. Stelfox had said that the language he talked was a South African one, but at the idea of this Mr. Bradfield had burst into uncontrollable laughter. His own explanation that Mr. Richard had not enough intelligence to pick up even the rudiments of speech, was more incredible still. The girl’s experience of madness in any form was very slight, but she had never heard of any idiot or lunatic who was not able to talk at all, and whatever his mental deficiencies in certain directions might be, whatever mania he might be suffering from, it was clear to Chris he was far from being utterly devoid of intelligence.
Rather luckily, so Chris thought a little later, Mrs. Abercarne was not upstairs, for the girl thus had an opportunity of thinking the events of the afternoon over carefully before she saw her mother, and decided not to mention any of them. Poor Mrs. Abercarne had quite enough to worry her, not only in accommodating the housekeeping arrangements to Mrs.Graham-Shute’s erratic habits and projects, but in parrying that lady’s persistent attempts to cast slights upon her and her daughter. If now she were to hear, all in one breath, as it were, of her daughter’s encounter with the madman, of her quarrel with “that most objectionable young person,” Donald, and her refusal of the rich Mr. Bradfield’s attentions, Chris felt that her poor mother would spend a Christmas even less merry than she expected to do.
So the girl kept her little secrets to herself, which proved easy enough to do, as the preparations for thetableauxkept her fully employed, and away from her mother.
The following day was a long, confused nightmare to Chris. The din of Mrs. Graham-Shute’s voice was in her ears all the morning, and until the time when the hastily-summoned guests began to arrive.
They had been invited for four, with a promise of tea. This, not being within the jurisdiction of Mrs. Graham-Shute, duly came to hand. Thetableauxdid not. So the guests “stood about,” cold, bored, and critical, and waited. They had assembled in the drawing-room, whence Mrs. Graham-Shute, at the last moment, had had most of the chairs removed to the barn, with a sudden and unnecessary spasm of fear that there would not be seats enough for the audience.
Mr. Bradfield, in whose name the invitations had been issued, was “not at home,” in his study. Mrs. Abercarne, whom he desired to play the part of hostess, was completely overshadowed by Mrs. Graham-Shute, who not only occupied a good deal ofspace, and made her voice resound to the furthest extremities of the rooms, but who had a way of looking over the heads of the assembly as if she was counting her flock, which suggested to the meanest intelligence that she considered them all to be for the time being her property.
Mrs. Abercarne, seeing that the message summoning the company to the barn tarried in its coming, ordered some chairs to be brought in from the dining-room, since people who are cold and shy and bored look more comfortable sitting than they do standing. Mrs. Graham-Shute countermanded the order.
So the guests continued to stand, and to try to talk, and to wonder whether the fat and fussy lady was in her right mind.
Even Mrs. Graham-Shute, happy as she was in the consciousness that she was doing “the right thing,” began to get rather “fidgety,” and to send messages to the performers to know whether they were ready.
And Lilith’s answers, more frantically worded every time, were always to the effect that they were not.
At last Mrs. Graham-Shute, telling the lady nearest to her, in the innocence of her heart, that “if they waited about any longer the affair would be completely spoilt,” insisted on “making a move” in the direction of the barn. And, it having by this time grown quite dark, while the wind had got up, and sleet begun to fall, the whole party provided themselves with such shelter as was to hand in the shape of waterproofs and umbrellas, and started on their way across the meadow.
When they reached the barn, they found the auditorium dimly lighted with a few lamps and candles, while sounds of hurrying and scuffling behind the curtains gave them a pleasing assurance that they had still some time to wait. It was very cold and very draughty, and the spirits of the miserable audience sank too low for the strains of “Il Trovatore,” arranged as a pianoforte duet, and very indifferently performed, to revive them.
For it had been discovered that Chris Abercarne was the only person who could be trusted to ring the curtain up and down, and to be scene-shifter, property-master, as well as wardrobe-mistress and dresser. Therefore the local amateur musical talent had been summoned in the shape of a young lady, whose performance was of the slap-dash order, for the treble, and a young gentleman, whose forte lay in a steady thumping power, for the bass. Mrs. Graham-Shute had followed the usual rule in such small musical affairs. When in doubt play pianoforte duets.
The fiction upon which this maxim is founded is probably that two bad performers are equal to one good one. Besides, there is always the chance that when one performer is wrong the other may be right, and that the sounds made by the one who is right may drown those made by the one who is wrong.
“Il Trovatore” having come to an end, there was a little faint applause, and then a long interval, filled up chiefly with coughs in front of the curtain, and loud, excited whispers behind it.
At last, when nobody had any hope left but the ever-buoyant Mrs. Graham-Shute, the curtain did at last wobble apart, and disclose a group of maleperformers, in nondescript attire, belonging to a period so vague that one could only say that it was not the present. They held in their hands sombrero hats, each adorned by a long ostrich feather; but this indication of the Stuart period was contradicted by the table-cloths which they wore round them after the fashion of the Roman toga. On a small table in the centre of the stage was a large open volume, on which the principal performer laid one hand, while he raised the other in the direction of the roof.
In the bewildered audience there was a rustle of programmes, which, written out hastily by Mrs. Graham-Shute while she was “superintending” some other work, were not too legible.
“Taking theBath!” exclaimed a perplexed old lady plaintively, addressing Mrs. Graham-Shute, who hastened to explain that thetableauwas meant to illustrate “Taking the Oath.”
But the unconscionable old lady was not yet satisfied.
“Oh, yes, of course. Very interesting, and very well done. And—let me see, I’m afraid my history is getting rather rusty,” she said, apologetically. “What oath was it?”
“Oh!” answered Mrs. Graham-Shute, with a little impatience in her voice—for really, you know, people might be contented with the pleasure you gave them, and take things for granted a little!—“it was the Covenanters or the Wyckliffites, or some of those people in the Middle Ages. They were always taking the oath for something or other then, you know!”
“Oh, yes, so they were, of course,” murmured theold lady, ashamed at her momentary thirst for exact knowledge.
“It makes an effective picture, you know,” said Mrs. Graham-Shute, relenting when she found her questioner so meek. “And we wanted to use the feathers and the hats.”
Then the curtains wobbled back again across the picture, and there was a little more applause, and another duet. Then another long interval before the curtains opened upon “The Sleeping Beauty.”
As Beauty herself and her Court ladies were all in low-necked light dresses, and as thetableauhad taken some time to arrange, they shook so much from cold, and looked so blue and pinched, that they set the teeth of the whole audience chattering for sympathy.
The nexttableau, “Mary Queen of Scots on her way to Execution,” was a more ambitious one, the effect being heightened by a recitation from a gentleman with a slight lisp. It would have gone very well but for the fact that something had amused Her Majesty, Lilith, Queen of Scots, who shook with laughter as long as the picture lasted.
Then followed an illustration of Millais’s picture “Yes.” This was easy, though it was not very like the original; for, as all the male talent among the performers was occupied in making itself up for the next and more ambitioustableau, the gentleman who makes the lady say “Yes” had to be impersonated by Miss Browne, in her brother’s ulster and a burnt-cork moustache.
Then followed “The Fall of Wolsey.” This was a great success, and nobody minded that Wolsey wore a moustache, thickly coated with flour indeed, butyet perfectly visible to the naked eye. The onlycontretempswas the failure of memory on the part of the reciter, who spoke Wolsey’s speech from Henry VIII., got hopelessly “mixed” in the middle of it, and had to be audibly prompted by Cromwell.
The lasttableauof all was, unhappily, too ambitious. It was an attempt to illustrate Long’s “Babylonian Marriage-Market”; but the presence of the realistically blacked Africans unluckily suggested a nigger entertainment on the sands to the unthinking minds among the audience, and, the contagion rapidly spreading, the curtains were hastily drawn amid a chorus of titters impossible to repress.
Then everybody, anxious to get home to eat the dinners which would, undoubtedly, be spoiling, made a rush for Mrs. Graham-Shute, and told her they had enjoyed themselvessomuch, and that thetableauxwerebeautifullydone, and that she must be quite proud to have such clever daughters, and such a clever son.
And Mrs. Graham-Shute, quite happy, said, in her best Bayswater manner, that she thought they were rather good, “considering they were got up quite in a hurry, you know, and with no help at all.” And she kindly added that she was coming to live at Wyngham, and that she would get up “a lot more things” when she had settled down among the delighted inhabitants.
In the meantime, Lilith, who had had an opportunity, while posing as one of the beauties in the marriage-market, to survey the audience as well as the dim lights would allow, was running to Chris in great excitement.
“Do you know who the very handsome man is, sitting near the door?” she asked eagerly.
Chris, who was tired out, and past interest in mundane affairs, answered, wearily, that she did not know anybody, that if there was a handsome man among the audience he didn’t belong to Wyngham, where there were only ugly ones. Then Rose, who was present, spoke sedately:
“Oh, you don’t know Lilith, Miss Abercarne! She’s always in love with somebody or other, and as she’s had time to forget the man she was in love with when we left town, she is obliged to fall in love with somebody here to fill up the time.”
However, Chris could give no information, and would not interest herself in the matter. Her head ached; she had been too hard at work to spare the time for a proper luncheon, but had had a sandwich brought out to her, which she had scarcely found time to eat. Nobody had thought of bringing her a cup of tea. She had promised her mother, who was in dread lest the barn should be set on fire, as the result of the afternoon’s entertainment, not to leave the building until everybody else had gone away, and a servant had been sent to put out the lights.
While the performers were changing their dress, therefore, in the screened-off spaces on either side of the stage, which had been fitted up as dressing-rooms, she occupied herself in putting out such of the footlights as had not put themselves out, and in taking down the curtains and folding them up.
By the time this was done, the performers were leaving the building in a body, tired and rather cross, smarting as they were with the sense that the whole thing had been something like a failure, and thatthey had not been well treated by somebody. Donald, who had not dared to come near Chris since the severe snub he had received on the previous day, hung about for a brief space in the rear of the rest, talking loudly, though somewhat vaguely, and pushing about the chairs, in the hope of attracting her attention.
But Chris never once looked round; so he presently followed the others, feeling more bitterly than they, that he had been made a fool of, and rendered ridiculous to the eyes of the world.
Chris was busy with the “properties,” which had been collected from different parts of the house, without any formality of asking Mr. Bradfield’s permission to use them. Curtains, carpets, valuable Persian rugs, swords, spears, ancient armour (some of it from Birmingham), and “antique” cabinets (chiefly from Germany, by way of Wardour Street).
These had all been treated with scant consideration by the performers, and they now lay scattered about the stage, or were piled in heaps at the back of it, behind the curtains which served as a back-cloth.
Chris knelt down, and began to look over the things, to see what mischief had been done. But she had not been long on her knees when she heard the door of the barn creak, and someone enter softly.Supposing the intruder to be Donald, she did not look round until he had got upon the stage. When she did glance in his direction, she found that the visitor was not Donald, but Mr. Richard. He wore a caped cloak, and held his hat in his hand; and it suddenly occurred to Chris that he was the handsome stranger who had roused the admiration of Lilith. She rose from her knees, and held out her hand with a smile. Mr. Richard’s face became instantly bright with pleasure. But as his smile of greeting died away, a look of anxiety came over his features, which it was easy enough to understand. He was troubled because she looked so tired. It was in answer to his look, for he uttered no word, that she said:
“I am very tired; it has been hard work, I assure you.”
For a few moments he held her hand, and looked anxiously into her face. Then a bright thought seemed to strike him, and he led her to one of the chairs which had been piled up at the back, disencumbered it of various “properties” which had been thrown upon it, and drew it forward, inviting her to be seated. But she shook her head.
“I have too much to do,” she said.
Again he seemed to understand, for he shook his head, took gently from her hands the curtains she had been folding, and again invited her, this time with a gesture more emphatic than before, to take the chair he had brought. She had lost all fear of him, and without giving him any further answer than a little smile and bend of the head in acquiescence, she sat down with a sigh. It struck her, even at that moment, as being rather curious that she should feel more at her ease, and more in sympathy with thisafflicted recluse even than with her own mother. As this idea flitted through her mind she looked up, and became conscious of a look on Mr. Richard’s face which sent a thrill through her, whether of pleasure or pain she scarcely knew. All that she was sure of was that the glimpse that she caught before she cast her eyes hastily down again, was of the handsomest face she had ever seen. No eyes at once so bright and so tender, no mouth so firmly closed, and yet so kindly, no profile so clean cut, had she ever seen before. She had forgotten her work; she leaned back languidly in the carved chair, resting, and conscious of a sensation, an indescribable sensation of vivid excitement in which there was no fear. As for Mr. Richard, he stood for a few minutes quite still, looking at her. Then she felt his hand upon her arm, and looking up, saw that he was impressing upon her, still by gesture only, that she was to remain where she was, and that he was going away. Then he turned, leaped down from the stage upon the floor of the barn, and made his way rapidly through and over the rows of chairs and benches towards the door.
But Chris had felt so much soothed by his silent sympathy and attentions, that she uttered a little cry, unwilling to let him leave her. She was disappointed to find that he paid no heed, and the tears came to her tired eyes. Tears caused chiefly by physical fatigue they were, although it was this sudden desertion of her strange, silent friend which had set them flowing. Once started, however, they continued to flow for some minutes pretty freely, and she was still drying her eyes disconsolately when Mr. Richard came back again.
And then the reason of his short absence was made plain. He held in his hands a cup of tea.
Before he could reach the stage, Chris, quite as much ashamed as she would have been if a person reputed sane had caught her in her act of childish weakness, sprang up, and pretended to be again very busy. But Mr. Richard’s intellect was evidently clear enough as far as she was concerned, and he shook his head and smiled at her as he gently took from her hands for the second time the “properties” she had hastily snatched up.
She yielded even more meekly than before to his mute persuasions, sat down again, and accepted the tea with genuine gratitude.
“How very kind of you! It is just what I have been wanting all the afternoon,” she said.
To show that he understood—that he sympathised, he just patted her hand two or three times. This was absolutely the only movement of his which differed in any way from the conventional manners of a well-bred man towards a lady.
When she had finished her tea, he gently took the cup from her, and, commanding her with a gesture of gentle authority to remain where she was, he set about the work on which she had been engaged on his first appearance.
Under her directions he folded up curtains, examined tables, collected weapons and otherbric-à-brac, until there was nothing left for her to do. From time to time, however, she saw him glance towards the door, evidently watching for someone, and when at last the servant appeared who had been sent to put the lights out, Mr. Richard slid quickly behind the stage out of sight.
Chris was sorry that she had had no opportunity of bidding him good-bye. She knew that he would not dare to come out in the presence of the parlour-maid, and she had no excuse to make to remain behind when the girl had put the lights out. All she could do was to make sure that the barn door was left unlocked when they came out.
On the way across the meadow Chris took care to be left behind, though she thought the girl looked at her curiously. She wanted to see that Mr. Richard got safely out of his hiding-place, although from the intelligence he had shown she had little doubt that he would do so. Just as she was passing the copse of beeches and American oaks which hid the stables from the house, he came up with her. As she turned towards him with a start he held out his hand. As she had placed hers within it, Chris was startled to hear Mr. Bradfield’s voice shouting some order to one of the gardeners. He was standing at the bottom of the flight of steps which led up to the house.
At first Mr. Richard did not appear to recognise his voice. But when Chris started, and threw a frightened glance towards the house, he followed the direction of her eyes, and saw as clearly as she did the figure of Mr. Bradfield in the light thrown by the hall lamps through the open door.
In an instant his whole aspect changed. The tender look in his eyes gave place to an expression of the fiercest anger; his face seemed transformed; he snatched his hand from hers, and uttering again the wild sounds which had so much alarmed her on the first occasion of her meeting him, he sprang away from Chris in the direction of the master of Wyngham House.
But, quick as he was, Chris was quicker still. Having long since lost all fear of Mr. Richard, and being anxious only to save him from the pains and penalties he might draw down upon himself if Mr. Bradfield should find out that he was at liberty, she sprang after the unhappy man, and almost threw herself upon him. She was afraid to speak, lest Mr. Bradfield, who had turned sharply at the wild cries uttered by the young man, should recognise her voice and come to meet her. But she pleaded by the touch of her hands, by the expression of her upturned face, which he could see dimly in the darkness.
And she conquered. Under the touch of her hands his own clenched fists fell to his sides, while his eyes regained their tenderness as he looked at her. His feet faltered, and stopped.
Not until then did Chris grow afraid; not until she found that she was resting on the arms of a young and handsome man, whose face was alight with passion indeed, but with passion which was neither hatred nor fear.
Chris Abercarne had had sweethearts at every period of her young life—little boys of eight and nine had presented her, when she was of a similar age, with bull’s-eyes, half-apples, pieces of sealing-wax, and odds and ends of string and slate-pencil; in fact, with the best and most treasured of their worldly goods. Later than this, boys of a larger growth had written her notes on pink paper, couched in tender terms, and doubtful orthography; while, later still, offerings of flowers and sweets, of sighs and pretty speeches, had been laid freely at her feet.
While complacently sensible that these contributions were not to be despised, Chris had become so used to tributes of admiration of all sorts as to be hard to impress, and to have earned the reputation of coldness. When, therefore, as she held the arms of Mr. Richard to prevent his making an attack on his guardian, she was conscious of a sensation that was not cold, the experience was so new and strange that it frightened her.
Her success had been immediate and remarkable. He had at once desisted from his intention of making an onslaught upon Mr. Bradfield, and had stood quite still and submissive under the gentle touch of her hands.
Chris glanced up in his face, which was benttowards hers. She withdrew her eyes at once, glad that it was too dark for him to see the blush which she could feel rising hot in her cheeks; and as her eyelids fell, after one glance at Mr. Richard’s impassioned face, she knew, with a woman’s quick, intuitive knowledge which could give no very good reason for itself, that the reputed maniac was sane.
But this thought she found quite as alarming as, and even more exciting than, her previous belief that Mr. Richard was mad. For to struggle with a madman is one thing, and to find oneself in the arms of a lover is another; and this latter was undoubtedly the situation in which her own action had placed her.
Mr. Richard’s arms, instead of remaining passive under her touch, had, for a moment, closed round her—only for a moment—then, in response to her look of alarm, to her movement to free herself, he had let her go. But the moment had been long enough for each of the two young people to make a discovery. Mr. Richard had found out that he was possessed by a mad hope: Chris, that he was dominated by a sane one. She drew back from him modestly, and not without a touch of maidenly fear; but Mr. Richard saw clearly enough that her alarm was neither very deep nor very wounding to his self-esteem. Still, he did not speak, but stood before her with a contrite expression on his face; and at last when, Mr. Bradfield having disappeared into the house, Chris made a movement in that direction, he felt bold enough to hold out both his hands towards her with a gesture which seemed to entreat forgiveness, if he had offended her.
For answer, Chris, who was getting used to thiscourtship without words, put out her hand as she said, “Good-bye.”
Mr. Richard took it in his at first with just the measure of sedate courtesy which was conventionally correct; but the moment she tried to withdraw her fingers from his grasp, he seemed to realise suddenly that he was losing her, that the joy he felt in her presence might never be given him again. With rapid and passionate action, his left hand also had closed upon hers; and, before she realised what he was going to do, he had seized both her hands and pressed them to his lips.
Chris, much agitated, snatched away her hands, the more quickly, perhaps, that Stelfox at that moment became visible to her, standing motionless at a little distance, close to the evergreens which bordered the copse. He made a sign to Mr. Richard, who, raising his hat to Chris, followed his custodian in the direction of the house, which they entered by a side door.
Chris went slowly towards the principal entrance. She wanted to speak to Stelfox, and she wanted to avoid Mr. Bradfield, whose head, bending over the desk in his study, she could seeen silhouetteagainst the lamp-light. The blind had not been drawn down. Just before she reached the steps, Chris saw Mr. Bradfield rise from his chair; and by the time she reached his study door, on her way upstairs, he was standing there waiting for her. He scanned her face narrowly as she came up. Chris, having lost the flush of intense excitement brought into her cheeks by her interview with Mr. Richard, was again looking pale and over-tired.
“They’ve worked you to death over theirtomfoolery at the barn,” he exclaimed, angrily, as she came up the stairs. “Why did you have anything to do with it?” Before she could answer he went on, in a more inquisitive tone, “But where have you been? All the others have been back an hour or more. I’ve been looking out for you.”
“I’ve been at the barn clearing up, putting things straight, and seeing that the lights were put out,” answered Chris, looking down rather guiltily.
“Didn’t they send someone to help you?” inquired Mr. Bradfield, sharply. “Harriet said she put out the lights.”
“So she did.”
“But that’s a quarter of an hour ago. What have you been doing with yourself since? You have not been staying at the barn in the dark—byyourself?”
There flashed quickly through the mind of Chris a kaleidoscopic view of the question whether or not she should tell Mr. Bradfield with whom she had been. In that brief moment of hesitation she saw the matter in all its bearings, and repugnant as the idea of concealment was to her, she decided, for Mr. Richard’s sake, not to betray the fact that she had been with him.
She answered, therefore:
“No, I was not alone,” and as she said this she unceremoniously ran away up the stairs, with the hurried excuse that she should be late for dinner.
“Are you letting that young fool of a Shute boy worry you to death?” Mr. Bradfield called out after her, in displeased tones.
“Oh, he doesn’t worry me,” replied Chris, disingenuously as she disappeared into the corridor.
Chris was angry and puzzled with herself. It was quite right and proper that she should feel sorry for Mr. Richard, seeing, as she believed, that he was not being quite fairly treated by his guardian. But why should she feel more than this for him? Why should she, Chris Abercarne, who had been so cold to all men, and so proud of her coldness, feel in this poor fellow an interest more tender than any she had felt before for any man—an interest so strong, that she was ashamed of it, and could not think of it without feeling her cheeks flush, and her heart beat faster?
She hurried to her dressing-room and changed her gown for dinner, delighted to find that her mother had already dressed and gone downstairs. For she wanted to have time to exchange a few words before dinner with Stelfox. This man, she felt sure, knew more about his patient’s case than he chose to admit. It was he who had given Mr. Richard his liberty on that day; he whose influence over the young man was strong enough to induce the poor prisoner to return to his prison without a protest.
Chris, who knew that this was about the time when Stelfox would be coming out from the east wing with a tray to fetch Mr. Richard’s dinner, waited in one of the alcoves in the long corridor, and at the first sound of the key turning in the lock of the shut-up apartments, she ran to meet him.
But Stelfox, who was always cautious, glanced towards the door of the study, and then at her without a word, but with a gesture of warning to her to hold her peace for a while. Then, while the young lady waited, mute as a mouse, with her eyes fixed on the study door, Stelfox very deliberately locked the door through which he had just come,and walked towards a small apartment on the right, which contained a telescope and a cupboard full of chemicals, used by Mr. Bradfield when the whim took him, either as an observatory or a laboratory. Chris followed him with noiseless steps. When she had entered the room Stelfox shut the door.
“You wish to speak to me, ma’am?” he asked, looking straight at her, and putting the question with his usual directness of manner.
“Yes,” answered Chris, softly; “and I’m quite sure you know what it is about.”
“I suppose, ma’am,” he answered, without any fencing, “it is about Mr. Richard.”
“Yes. You let him come out to-day. Surely you would not let a madman go about by himself, and expect him to come back quietly as Mr. Richard did? It seems to me, Stelfox, that his only mania is a great dislike to Mr. Bradfield.”
A little gleam of surprise, or of amusement, Chris hardly knew which, shot out of the man’s steady eyes. But the next moment he looked drier, he spoke more cautiously than ever.
“They do take fancies into their heads, ma’am, people that are not quite right do,” he answered.
“Butishe not quite right? Isn’t he only pretending? And isn’t that why he will not speak?” asked Chris, running the questions one into another in her eagerness. “The more I see of him the more absurd it seems to suppose that he is not in his right senses. Do, Stelfox, tell me all about him, and why he is shut up here.”
“I give you my word, ma’am,” answered Stelfox at once and straightforwardly, “that I know no more than the dead.”
Chris was petrified with astonishment.
“You don’t know why he is shut up?” she repeated, slowly.
“No, ma’am. I do know a little more than you do, though I don’t want to tell it yet. But why he is shut up here is more than I can tell you.”
Chris was utterly bewildered. Before she could recover sufficiently from her astonishment to put another question, Stelfox went on:
“And now, ma’am, I believe you’re interested enough in the poor gentleman to do just one thing for him?”
“Yes, oh, yes. What is it?” asked Chris, eagerly. “Is it to speak to Mr. Bradfield? Is it to try to persuade him to let Mr. Richard come out? Is it——”
Stelfox shook his head with a dry smile.
“No, ma’am, it’s precisely the opposite of that. What I wish to ask you is not to speak to Mr. Bradfield at all about him, and, above all, not to let him know that you have seen him anywhere but at the windows of the east wing.”
Chris was much troubled by this request, and after a few moments spent in thought, she said, earnestly:
“But, Stelfox, I think you are doing Mr. Bradfield a great injustice. He is a very kind-hearted man, and if he were once persuaded that it would do his ward good to come out——”
“He would keep him in all the more securely,” said Stelfox, with a dry laugh.
And before Chris could recover from the horror she felt at these words, Stelfox had disappeared from the room in his usual noiseless manner.