CHAPTER XXXVIBY MOONLIGHT
Asit was a lovely evening, many other couples were on the links or the shore, lured abroad by the beauty of the scene, the clear radiance of the northern sky, and the brilliance of a harvest moon. A soft, almost languorous little breeze, stirred the long coarse grass among the dunes—perhaps it had stolen across the bay from those dark mountains of Rossshire, carrying tender messages from the purple heather? To-night, the great burners in the lighthouse had a sinecure, for it was as bright as day. From a villa overlooking the sea, a violin and piano flooded the air with sounds that seemed to evoke the very spirit of romance—a passionate triumph of the greatest gift in life.
As Aurea and her companion descended to the shore, they had scarcely exchanged a word beyond Wynyard’s “Mind that stone,” and “Let us get away from the crowd, right down to the sea.”
Aurea felt inwardly agitated, but determined to do her utmost to exercise self-control. She knew instinctively that the most critical hour in her life was about to strike. In a somewhat unsteady voice she broke the silence—a woman sometimes does speak first.
“You are the very last person in the world I expected to see.”
He turned and faced her.
“Why?”
“For several reasons.”
“Can you guess the reason why I came up to Lossiemouth, and why I have asked you to come out with me? I am a free man since yesterday; the yoke is off, the gag is out of my mouth, and I want to repeat what I told you on Yampton Hill—that I love you.”
There was a long pause, broken by the soft whispering of the ebbing waves.
“I wonder you do!” said the girl at last; her voice broke as she added, “after Monte Carlo.”
“Well, yes; I admit that that was pretty bad, and quite bowled me over; but Mrs. Ramsay explained—she has been a good friend to me.”
“I did not know you had a sister,” continued Aurea, with a sort of sob.
“You knew nothing about me, and now you shall hear everything;” and in a few hurried sentences he told her of India, Canterbury, and the bill, his debts, of the City office, and the ranch.
“You see, Uncle Dick’s patience was fairly worn out, and, honestly, I don’t wonder. I was always coming back on his hands; so he gave me the two years’ sentence to earn my own bread, and be independent. I’m an awful duffer in many ways, and I talked it over with Leila—my sister, you know. I had to make a start at once, for one thing, and I’d no chance of any good billet—everything now is examinations, or capital. I suggested enlisting or breaking horses, but she put forward the chauffeur scheme; it was rather a crazy idea, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. You were a capital driver—even Bertie Woolcock allowed that!”
“Well, anyway, Leila foisted me on your aunts—it was pretty cool, I’ll admit—and just at first—I—well—I felt I couldn’t stand it. I’d had a fairly rough time in the Argentine—it wasn’t that—but——”
“I know,” she broke in, “it was Aunt Bella.”
“I was not used to old ladies, and she was so—er—peculiar; I believe, to the last, she thought I sold or drank the petrol. Well, I’d made up my mind to clear out, and then—I saw you, and I decided to hold on—yes, like grim death. It was a lucky day for me when you came to the Manor—otherwise, I’d have gone away, and no doubt drifted about, and become a regular slacker; but you held me fast. I settled down, I made the best of the job, and took everything as it came in the day’s work—for your sake.”
Aurea nodded.
“I got to like the Ottinge folk, and to know them and their rustic ways, and, living as a working man, it was a splendid chance for me to learn many things I was as ignorant of, as that stone. I used to sit in the tap and listen to the talk, and got to see things from a different perspective. And I’d some good times, too, at choir practice, and penny readings, and the night of the servants’ ball at Westmere, when I had one delicious waltz with you—do you remember?”
“I do, indeed, and how Bertie Woolcock snatched me away, and said ladies should never dance with men-servants, and I replied, that his mother had opened the ball with the butler!”
“You had him there; and then came my London situation, and the time with Masham, and now it’s all over. I met Uncle Dick yesterday by chance, and he has been a brick. We had a rare good old talk last night, and I told him the history of the last eighteen months. I’m to manage the property, go into the Yeomanry, live at Wynyard—it’s a big rambling old house—and he thinks I ought to marry; what doyousay?”
Aurea was silent.
“My sister declares that in all her life she never heard of anything so outrageously audacious and impertinent, as my imploring you to accept me blindfold; and, as it is—you know so little of me. Why, we never sat at table together till to-night. I’ve always been below the salt!”
As he ceased speaking and awaited her reply, Aurea plucked up her courage and said: “But I do know you—I know you are kind and patient, and good-tempered, and to be trusted.”
“And you do care for me?”
“Yes—I—always did—though I fought against it; and most of the time I knew your name was Wynyard, and that you’d been in the Service.”
“But how on earth did you find it out?”
“By chance, from a Hussar in Brodfield; as he passed I heard him say to his companion, ‘That’s Lieutenant Wynyard,’ but I kept the information to myself.”
“And now there are no longer any secrets between us—you and I belong to one another, don’t we?”
As Aurea, with a slight but significant gesture, assented, he drew her close to him, she yielded, and he stooped and kissed her.
Someone in the villa above was playing Tschaikowsky’s “Chant sans paroles,” and its tender and exquisite harmonies seemed an appropriate accompaniment to the scene upon the shore.
It was ten o’clock, and Mrs. Morven, who was knitting and counting, frowning and thinking, suddenly overheard a long-legged lassie, with a tawny mane, say to her mother, in a tone of repressed excitement—
“Mother—only think! You know the pretty girl—the one we all admire—I saw her on the beach just now, a good bit away, and she was crying I’m sure—and the young gentleman who came at dinner timekissed her!”
Mrs. Morven rolled up her stocking, arose with deliberate dignity, and sailed forth into the hall, where she found her husband and Sir Richard talking to one another, with great animation, on the subject of rubber shares.
“Where,” she inquired, with a dramatic gesture, “is Aurea? and,” casting a keen glance at Sir Richard, “where is Mr. Wynyard?”
The General could put two and two together as well as most men. Yes, it would do—nice young fellow—old family—baronetcy—and lots of money; and, nodding at his companion with undisguised significance, he said, as he rose—
“I say, Sir Richard, I suppose you and I will have to make a search-party and bring our young people home!” (Our young people!)
Perhaps it is unnecessary to add that the same young people were by no means grateful for their disinterested exertions. That night, at a very late hour, Aurea confided to her aunt that she was engaged to Owen Wynyard. Mrs. Morven, who had accompanied her niece to her bedroom, stood by the table, knitting in hand—an embodiment of the judicial British matron.
“Engaged! What nonsense, my dear girl! Why, you don’t know him! Where have you met him?”
“Oh yes, I do; I knew him at Ottinge. He was Aunt Bella’s chauffeur for six months.”
Mrs. Morven took two hurried steps to a chair, sat down upon it, and gasped.
“Your aunts’ chauffeur!” she exclaimed at last. New and bright ideas suddenly dawned upon her mental horizon. She never remembered to have heard her niece mention the chauffeur—though more than once she had spoken disparagingly of the green car. Thissilence, she now realised, had held a most deadly significance. Yes, she saw it all—the good-looking chauffeur had been at the bottom ofeverything: of Aurea’s indifference to young men, her indifference to amusement—was he the reason that last winter her niece’s brilliant young beauty had become tarnished? She looked up at her to-night; Aurea was supremely lovely.
“I see I have stunned you, Aunt Maggie.”
“And he was at Monte Carlo. Yes; I now remember him perfectly. I thought the face was familiar; but why a chauffeur?”
“For the reason I refer you to his humpy little old uncle; but it’s all right now.”
“Of course he is Leila Hesters’ brother, and Sir Richard’s heir—Wynyard of Wynyard. Yes; I remember hearing that the young man was very wild and extravagant, raced and gambled. However, he is remarkably good-looking, and has charming manners; no doubt he has sown his wild oats—I don’t envy him being in your Aunt Parrett’s service for six months!” (These ladies had detested one another.) “Thatwas enough punishment for anything! I suppose he really was employed—not make-believe?”
“Make-believe! Employed! I should just think so—washing the car, gardening, clipping hedges, cleaning windows——”
“Good heavens!” throwing up her delicate hands; “what possessed him to stay?”
Aurea laughed and coloured, and then said—
“Well, Aunt Maggie—I—I supposeIhad something to say to it.”
“He must be extraordinarily devoted! Why, he must adore you, my dear! I’m sure your uncle would never have cleaned windows and washed cars forme! Ha! ha! well, Aurea, I confess I like your—er—chauffeur.”
“But he’s not a chauffeur now, and will soon have a motor of his own. He is his uncle’s agent; we are to live at Wynyard, and have a splendid allowance. Owen means to do a lot for the tenants, and I’m to take over the village girls—oh, we have had such a talk!”
“A talk! Yes, no doubt. What will your father and Susan say?”
“They will be enchanted; they are both fond of Owen; indeed, for one whole day, the village was thrilled with the idea that Susan and Owen hadeloped!” and she related the story with so much of her old spirit, that her aunt lay back in her chair and laughed till she wept.
“I believe I shall like young Wynyard,” she repeated, as she dried her eyes, “and you know your uncle and I look on you, Aurea, as our own child, so the General will have a word in the settlements; and when you marry, you shall have my emerald necklace. Good-night, dearest. I must go off and talk this over with my old man. I declare I feel so excited, that I’m sure I shall not sleep a wink.”
And what of Aurea, to whom Destiny had brought a rapturous fate within the last two hours? She pulled up the blind, opened wide the window, and, leaning her arms on the sill, gazed upon the scene—the gently heaving ocean, the vast, limitless firmament, the silver moonlight—and wondered, was any girl in all the wide world as happy as herself?
THE END
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