As it happened, Dick called the very next day, a Wednesday, and the last day in June. Alice received him coldly. There was a natural restraint on both sides, but she thawed before he went. As he was saying good-bye, she asked him (casually) if he would come on Friday afternoon—the day of her dance—and help with the floor and things. She really wished him to come very much, for she foresaw an opportunity for explanation, without which the evening would be a misery to her; besides, they could talk over Mr. Miles fairly and confidentially. Dick jumped at it, poor fellow, brightened up at once, and walked home a happier man.
The following day Alice accompanied her father to town, on pleasure bent. The little jaunt had beenlong arranged, and Mr. Miles was their efficient escort.
That was on Thursday, July 1st.
Unfortunately for Mr. Biggs, M.L.C., he could not spend all his days at the Exhibition, so that a certain little drama, not widely differing from that astute legislator's preconception, was at last played to an altogether unappreciative house. The facts are these:
About four in the afternoon, an old gentleman, with snowy whiskers and hair, and with a very charming girl upon his arm, looked into the Settler's Hut. They did not remain within above ten seconds; but during those ten seconds the genus loci—who was in his customary place on the bunk—heard a voice without which caused him to start, pull the brim of his cabbage-tree hat further over his eyes, and draw a long breath through his teeth.
"I won't come in," said this voice, which was low and unconcerned; "I've seen it before; besides, I know the kind of thing rather too well."
The shadows of the old gentleman and the girl had hardly disappeared from the threshold when the man in the cabbage-tree hat and side-spring boots rose swiftly, and peered stealthily after them. What he saw caused him to smile with malignant triumph. A tall, well-dressed man walked beside the old gentleman and his daughter.
The watcher allowed them to pass almost out of sight, then followed warily. He followed them all the afternoon, keeping so far behind, and dodging so cleverly, that they never saw him. When the trio at length quitted the building and took a cab, thisman followed through the streets at a double. He followed them to Waterloo. He got into the same train with them. They got out at a station on the loop line; he got out also, paid his fare to the ticket collector, and once more dogged his quarry. An hour later the cabbage-tree hat was attracting attention on that same suburban platform; later still the occupants of a third-class smoking carriage in an up train thought that they had never before seen such an evil expression as that which the broad brim of the cabbage-tree hat only partially concealed.
This also was on the 1st of July.
A DANCING LESSON AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Toenter a cricket-field in mid-winter and a ballroom at midday are analogous trials, and serious ones to enthusiasts in either arena; but the former is a less depressing sight in January than in December, while there is something even inspiriting about a ballroom the day before the dance.
When, quite early in the afternoon, Alice slipped unobserved into the cool and empty dining-room, her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled, and the hard boards yielded like air beneath her airy feet. She shut the door quietly, though with an elbow; her hands were full. She carried two long wax candles that knew no flame, two gleaming dinner-knives, and a pair of scissors. These were deposited on a chair—provisionally—while the young lady inspected the floor with critical gaze.
She frowned—the floor was far from perfect. She slid out one small foot, as if trying dubious ice—yes, most imperfect. The other foot followed; it would be impossible to dance on a floor like this. Next instant the lie was given to this verdict by the judge herself, for Miss Bristo was skimming like a swallow round the room.
Would you see a graceful maiden at her best? Then watch her dancing. Would you behold her most sweet? Then catch her unawares—if you can. Most graceful and most sweet, then—I admit that the combination is a rare one, but she should be dancing all alone; for, alas! the ballroom has its mask, and the dual dance its trammels.
In this instance it was only that Alice desired to try the floor, and to assure herself that her feet had lost none of their cunning; and only once round. No, twice; for, after all, the floor was not so very bad, while the practice was very good, and—the sensation was delicious. Yet a third round—a last one—with quickened breath and heightened colour, and supple curves and feet more nimble, and a summer gown like a silver cloud, now floating in the wake of the pliant form, now clinging tenderly as she swiftly turned. And none to see her!
What, none?
As Alice came to an abrupt pause in front of her cutlery and candles, a deep soft voice said, "Bravo!"
She looked quickly up, and the base of a narrow open window at the end of the room was filled by a pair of broad shoulders; and well set up on the shoulders was a handsome, leonine face, with a blond beard and a pair of bold, smiling eyes.
"Bravo, Miss Bristo!"
"Well, really, Mr. Miles—"
"Now don't be angry—you can't be so unreasonable. I was out here; I saw something white and dazzling pass the window twice; and the third time I thought I'd see what it was. I came and looked,and thought it was an angel turned deserter, and dancing for joy to be on earth again! There was no harm in that, was there?"
"There is a great deal of harm in compliments," said Alice severely; "especially when they are wicked as well as rude."
Mr. Miles smiled up at her through the window, completely unabashed.
"I forgot. Of course it was rude to liken you to gods I never saw, and never hope to see. Forgive me!"
But Alice was thinking that her freak required a word of explanation.
"I was only just trying the floor," she said. "I never dreamt that anyone would be so mean as to watch me."
"Unfortunately one can't learn from merely watching," Mr. Miles replied, quietly raising himself upon the sill. "You surely haven't forgotten the lesson you promised to give me?"—swinging his legs into the room—"I claim that lesson now." He towered above her, a column of gray tweed, his arms folded lightly across his massive chest.
The window by which Miles entered was five feet above the river lawn, and one of three at that end of the room—the other walls had none. Standing with one's back to these windows, the door was on the right hand side, and, facing it, a double door communicating with the conservatory. Before this double door, which was ajar, hung a heavy curtain, awaiting adjustment for the evening.
"I did not ask you in," remarked Alice with someindignation. It was just like Mr. Miles, this; and for once he really was not wanted.
"Unfortunately, no; you forced me to ask myself. But about the lesson? You know I never danced in my life; am I to disgrace my country to-night?"
"You should have come to me this morning."
"You were—cooking, I believe."
"Thank you, Mr. Miles! Then yesterday."
"We were all in town. Now do be the angel you looked a minute since, Miss Bristo, and show me the ropes. It won't take you ten minutes; I assure you I'm a quick learner. Why, if it's time you grudge, we have wasted ten minutes already, talking about it."
Impudence could no higher climb; but Mr. Miles was not as other men are—at least, not in this house. There was nothing for it but to give in, show him the rudiments, and get rid of them as quickly as possible; for Dick might arrive at any moment.
"Ten minutes is all I shall give you, then. Attention! One, two, three; one, two, three; so! Can you do it?"
Of course he could not, after a niggardly example of half-a-dozen steps: he did not try; he insisted on her waltzing once right round the room very slowly.
"Then it is your last chance," exclaimed Alice. "Now watch: you begin so: one—a long one, remember—then two, three—little quick ones. Now try. No, you needn't lift your feet; you are not stamping for an encore, Mr. Miles. It is all done by sliding, like this. Now, try again."
Miles bent his six feet three into five feet nothing,and slid gravely round with an anxious watch upon his feet.
"Why, you are bent double," cried Miss Bristo, sharply; "and, let me tell you, you will never learn while you look at your feet."
Miles stopped short.
"Then how am I to learn?" he asked, gazing helplessly at his instructress.
Alice burst out laughing.
"You had better lock yourself in your room and practise hard until evening. The ten minutes are up; but you have exactly six hours and twenty-nine minutes before you, if you make haste."
"Well, you shall suffer if I cut a poor figure to-night, Miss Bristo, and it will serve you right, for I intend to have my share of your dances."
"That remains to be seen," said Alice tritely.
"Stay, though," said Miles, drawing himself up to the last of his seventy-five inches, and speaking in that smooth, matter-of-fact tone that ushered in his most astounding audacities, "suppose we two try—in double harness—now?"
"Mr. Miles!"
"Miss Bristo, I am sure I should get on a thousand times better. Is it so very much to ask?" he added humbly—for him.
The inner Alice echoed the question: Was it so very much to ask—or to grant? The answer came at once: To anyone else, yes; to Mr. Miles, no; grave, heroic, middle-aged Mr. Miles! With a mighty show of condescension, Miss Bristo agreed to one round, and not a step more. She would not have been calledprude for the world; but unluckily, prudery and prudence so often go hand in hand.
The two went whirling round the empty room. Before they were half-way round, Alice exclaimed:
"You have cheated; never danced, indeed!"
He murmured that it was so many years ago, he thought he had forgotten. Having thus discovered that she could teach her pupil nothing, it was Alice's plain duty to stop; but this she forgot to do. Mr. Miles, for his part, said not a word, but held her firmly. He, in fact, waltzed better than any man she had ever danced with. Two rounds—three—six—without a word.
Even if they had not been dancing they might have failed to hear a buoyant footstep that entered the conservatory at this time; for the worst of an india-rubber sole is the catlike tread that it gives the most artless wearer. But it was an unfortunate circumstance that they did just then happen to be dancing.
There is no excuse for Miss Bristo, that I know of. Pleas of faulty training or simplicity within her years would, one feels, be futile. Without doubt she behaved as the girl of this period is not intended to behave; let her be blamed accordingly. She did not go unpunished.
After waltzing for no less a space than five minutes—in a ballroom bare as a crypt, in broad daylight, and in silence—Alice, happening to look up, saw a look on her partner's face which made her tremble. She had never seen a similar expression.
It was pale and resolute—stern, terrible. She disengagedherself with little ado, and sank quietly into a chair by the window.
"A fine 'one round'!" she said demurely; "but it shall be deducted from your allowance this evening."
She could not see him; he was behind her. His eyes were devouring the shapely little head dipped in the gold of the afternoon sun. Her face he could not see—only the tips of two dainty ears and they were pink. But a single lock of hair—a wilful lock that had got astray in the dance, and lay on her shoulder like a wisp of sunlit hay—attracted his attention, and held it. When he managed to release his eyes, they roved swiftly round the room, and finally rested upon another chair within his reach, on which lay two wax-candles, two dinner-knives, and a pair of scissors.
A click of steel an inch from her ear caused Alice to start from her chair and turn round. Mr. Miles—pale, but otherwise undisturbed—stood holding the scissors in his right hand, and in his left was a lock of her hair. For one moment Miss Bristo was dumb with indignation. Then her lips parted; but before she could say a word the door-handle turned, Mr. Miles dropped the scissors upon the chair and put his left hand in his pocket, and the head and shoulders of Colonel Bristo were thrust into the room.
"Ah, I have found you at last!" the old gentleman cried with an indulgent smile. "If you are at liberty, and Alice don't mind, we will speak of—that matter—in my study."
"My lesson is just over," said Miles, bowing to Alice. He moved towards the door; with his fingersupon the handle, he turned, and for an instant regarded Alice with a calm, insolent, yet tender gaze; then the door closed, and Alice was alone.
She heard the footsteps echo down the passage; she heard another door open and shut. The next sound that reached her ears was at the other side of the room in which she sat. She glanced quickly toward the curtained door: a man stood between it and her. It was Dick.
Alice recoiled in her chair. She saw before her a face pale with passion; for the first time in her life she encountered the eyes of an angry man. She quailed; a strange thrill crept through her frame; she could only look and listen. It seemed an age before Dick spoke. When he did speak, it was in a voice far calmer than she expected. She did not know that the calm was forced, and therefore the more ominous.
"I have only one thing to ask," he began hurriedly, in a low tone: "was this a plot? If it was, do say so, and so far as I am concerned its effect shall be quick enough: I will go at once. Only I want to know the worst, to begin with."
Alice sat like a stone. She gave no sign that she had so much as heard him. Poor girl, the irony of Fate seemed directed against her! She had invited Dick on purpose to consult him about Mr. Miles, and now—and now—
"You don't speak," pursued Dick, less steadily; "but you must. I mean to have my answer before either of us leaves this room. I mean to know all there is to know. There shall be an end to this fooling between us two!"
"What right have you to speak to me like this?"
"The right of a true lover—hopeless of late, yet still that! Answer me: had you planned this?"
"You know that is absurd."
How coldly, how evenly she spoke! Was her heart of ice? But Dick—there was little of the "true lover" in his looks, and much of the true hater. Yet even now, one gentle word, one tender look from him, and tears of pity and penitence might still have flowed. His next words froze them.
"No conspiracy, then! Merely artless, honest, downright love-making; dancing—alone—and giving locks of hair and (though only by coincidence!) the man you loved once and enslaved for ever—this man of all others asked by you to come at this very hour, and, in fact, turning up in the middle of it! And this was chance. I am glad to hear it!"
Men have been called hard names for speaking to women less harshly than this—even on greater provocation; but let it be remembered that he had loved her long years better than his life; that he had wrenched himself from England and from her—for her sake; that during all that time her image had been graven on his soul. And, further, that he had led a rough life in rough places, where men lose their shallower refinements, and whence only the stout spirits emerge at all.
When recrimination becomes insult a woman is no longer defenceless; right or wrong in the beginning, she is right now; she needs no more than the consciousness of this to quicken her wit and whet her tongue.
"I do not understand you," exclaimed Alice, looking him splendidly in the face. "Have the goodness to explain yourself before I say the last word that shall ever pass between you and me."
"Yes, I will explain," cried Dick, beside himself—"I will explain your treatment of me! While you knew I was on my way to you—while I was on the very sea—you took away your love from me, and gave it to another man. Since then see how you have treated me! Well, that man—the man you flatter, and pet, and coquette with; the man who kennels here like a tame dog—is a rogue: a rogue and a villain, mark my words!"
In the midst of passion that gathered before his eyes a marble statue, pure and cold, seemed to rise out of the ground in front of him.
"One word," said Alice Bristo, in the kind of voice that might come from marble: "the last one. You spoke of putting an end to something existing between us—'fooling' was the word you used. Well, there was something between us long ago, though you might have found a prettier word for it; but it also ended long ago; and you have known that some weeks. There has since been friendship; yes, you shall have an end put to that too, though you might have asked it differently. Stay, I have not finished. You spoke of Mr. Miles; most of what you said was beneath notice; indeed, you have so far lost self-control that I think you cannot know now what you said a minute ago. But you spoke of Mr. Miles in a cruel, wicked way. You have said behind his back what you dare not say to his face. He at least isgenerous and good; he at least never forgets that he is a gentleman; but then, you see, he is so infinitely nobler, and truer, and greater than you—this man you dare to call a villain!"
"You love him!" cried Dick fiercely.
Instead of answering, Alice lowered her eyes. Stung to the quick—sick and sore at heart—revenge came within her reach in too sweet a form to be resisted.
Never was lie better acted. Dick was staggered. He approached her unsteadily.
"It is a villain that you love!" he gasped. "I know it—a villain and an impostor! But I will unmask him with my own hands—so help me God!"
He raised his pale face upward as he spoke, smiting his palms together with a dull dead thud. Next moment he had vaulted through the open window by which Miles had entered so short a time before—and was gone.
Meanwhile an interview of a very different character took place in Colonel Bristo's sanctum. It ended thus:
"Then you are quite sure that this hundred will be enough for you to go on with?"
"More than enough; fifty would have done. Another Queensland mail is due a month hence; and they can never fail me twice running."
"But you say you are so far up country that you do not send down to meet every mail. Your partner may not have thought you likely to run short."
"I wired him some weeks ago that I had miscalculateddamages. I should have had my draft by this mail but for the floods. I feel confident they have prevented him sending down in time; there has been mention of these floods several times in the papers."
"Well, my dear Miles, if you want more, there is more where this came from. I cashed the cheque myself this morning, by the way; I happened to be in the bank, and I thought you would like it better. Here they are—ten tens."
"Colonel Bristo, I can never express—"
"Don't try, sir. You saved my life."
AN OLD FRIEND AND AN OLD MEMORY
When Dick Edmonstone opened the garden gate of Iris Lodge he was no longer excited. The storm that had so lately shaken his frame and lashed his spirit had spent its frenzy; no such traces as heaving breast or quickened pulse remained to tell of it. The man was calm—despair had calmed him; the stillness of settled gloom had entered his soul. His step was firm but heavy; the eye was vacant; lips like blanched iron; the whole face pale and rigid.
These are hall-marks graven by misery on the face of man; they are universal and obvious enough, though not always at the first glance. For instance, if prepared with a pleasant surprise for another, one is naturally slow to detect his dismal mood. Thus, no sooner had Dick set foot upon the garden path than the front door was flung open, and there stood Fanny, beaming with good-humour, good news on the tip of her tongue. It was like sunrise facing a leaden bank of western clouds.
"Oh, Dick, there is someone waiting to see you! You will never guess; it is a bush friend of yours. Such an amusing creature!" she added sotto voce.
Dick stood still on the path and groaned. "Biggs!" he muttered in despair.
Nothing directs attention to the face so surely as the voice. There was such utter weariness in this one word that Fanny glanced keenly at her brother, saw the dulness of his eyes, read for apathy agony, and knew that instant that there had been a cruel crisis in his affair with Alice Bristo.
Instead of betraying her insight, she went quickly to him with a bright smile, laid her hand on his arm, and said:
"His name is not Biggs, Dick dear. It is—but you will be very glad to see him! Come in at once."
A flash of interest lit up Dick's clouded face; he followed Fanny into the hall, and there, darkening the nearest doorway, stood a burly figure. The light of the room being behind this man, Dick could not at once distinguish his features. While he hesitated, a well-remembered falsetto asked if he had forgotten his old mate. Then Dick sprang forward with outstretched hand.
"Dear old Jack, as I live!"
"Dear old humbug! Let me tell you you've done your level best to miss me. An hour and a half have I been here, a nuisance to these ladies—"
"No, no, Dick; Mr. Flint has done nothing but entertain us," put in Mrs. Edmonstone.
"A charitable version," said Flint, bowing clumsily. "But I tell you, my boy, in half-an-hour my train goes."
"Don't delude yourself," said Dick; "you won't get off so easily to-night, let alone half-an-hour."
"Must, sir," Jack Flint replied. "Leave Dover by to-night's boat—holiday. If you'd only come insooner! I wonder now where he's been?" Flint added, with a comic expression on his good-natured face.
"No place that I wouldn't have left for an hour or two with you, old chap," said Dick in a strange tone; "nowhere very pleasant."
Nothing better could have happened to Dick just then than seeing the chum from whom he had parted nearly three years ago. It was as though his good angel had stored up for him a sovereign simple, and administered it at the moment it was most needed. In the presence of Flint he had escaped for a few minutes from the full sense of his anguish. But now, by an unlucky remark, Jack had undone his good work as unconsciously as he had effected it. Dick remembered bitterly that long ago he had told his friend all about his love—as it then stood.
"Mr. Flint has been telling us some of your adventures, which it seems we should never have heard from you," observed Fanny, reproachfully.
This was quite true. Once snubbed at Graysbrooke, his system of silence on that subject had been extended to Iris Lodge. One set of people had voted his experiences tiresome; that was enough for him. This was doubtless unfair to his family, but it was not unnatural in Dick. He was almost morbid on the point.
"Indeed!" he replied; "but suppose he gives us some of his Irish adventures instead? How many times have they tried to pot you, my unjust landlord? You must know, mother, that this is not only my ex-partner in an honourable commercial enterprise—notonly 'our Mr. Flint' that used to be—but John Flint, Esq., J.P., of Castle Flint, county Kerry; certainly a landholder, and of course—it goes without saying—a tyrant."
"Really?" said Mrs. Edmonstone. "He did not tell us that."
"It's the unhappy fact," said Flint, gloomily. "A few hundred acres of hills and heather, and a barn called by courtesy 'Castle'; those are my feudal possessions. The scenery is gorgeous, but the land—is a caution!"
"Barren?" asked Dick.
"As Riverina in a drought."
"And the tenants?"
"Oh, as to the tenants, we hit it off pretty well. It's in North Kerry they're lively. I'm in the south, you see, and there they're peaceable enough. Laziness is their worst crime. I do all I can for 'em, but I don't see how I can hold on much longer."
"Evict?"
"No," said Flint, warmly; "I'd rather emigrate, and take the whole boiling of them with me; take up new country, and let them select on it. Dick, you savage, don't laugh; I'm not joking. I've thought about it often."
"Would you really like to go back to Australia, Mr. Flint?" Mrs. Edmonstone asked, glancing at the same time rather anxiously at her son.
"Shouldn't mind, madam," returned Flint.
"No more should I!" broke in Dick, in a harsh voice.
Flint looked anxiously at his friend, and made amental note that Dick had not found all things quite as he expected. For a minute no one spoke; then Fanny took the opportunity of returning to her former charge.
"We have heard some of your adventures which you seemed determined to keep to yourself. I think it was very mean of you, and so does mamma. Oh, Dick, why—why did you never tell us about the bush-ranger?"
Mrs. Edmonstone gazed fondly at her son—and shivered.
"Has he told you that?" Dick asked quickly. "Jack, old chap"—rather reproachfully—"it was a thing I never spoke of."
"Nonsense, my dear fellow!"
"No, it's a fact. I never cared to talk about it, I felt it so strongly."
"Too strongly," said Flint; "I said so at the time."
For a little while Dick was silent; then he said:
"Since he has told you, it doesn't matter. I can only say it nearly drove me out of my mind; it was the bitterest hour of my life!"
A little earlier that day this would have been true.
His mother's eyes filled with tears. "I can understand your feeling, dear Dick," she murmured; "yet I wish you had told us—though, indeed, it would have made me miserable if you had written it. But now Mr. Flint has given us a graphic account of the whole incident. Thank Heaven you were spared, my boy!"
"Thank Sundown," said Dick dryly.
"Oh, yes!" cried Fanny. "Noble fellow! Poor, wicked, generous man! I didn't think such robbers existed; I thought they went out with wigs and patches, a hundred years ago."
"So they did," muttered Flint. "They're extinct as the dodo. I never could make this one out—a deep dog."
"Oh, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Edmonstone, "do you think there is no spark of goodness in the worst natures? of truth in the falsest? of generosity in the most selfish?"
Jack Flint looked quaintly solemn; his face was in shadow, luckily.
"Yes," said Dick, gravely, "my mother is right; there was a good impulse left in that poor fellow, and if you find gold in an outlaw and a thief, you may look for it anywhere. But in my opinion there was more than a remnant of good in that man. Think of it. He saved me from being knifed, to begin with; well, it was to his own interest to do that. But after that he took pity, and left us our money. That needed more than a good impulse; it needed a force of character which few honest men have. Try and realise his position—a price upon him, his hand against the world and the world's hand against him, a villain by profession, not credited with a single virtue except courage, not bound by a single law of God or man; a man you would have thought incapable of compassion; and yet—well, you know what he did."
There was a manly fervour in his voice which went straight to the hearts of his mother and sister. They could not speak. Even Flint forgot to look sceptical.
"If it had not meant so much to me, that hundred pounds," Dick continued, as though arguing with himself, "it is possible that I might think less of the fellow. I don't know, but I doubt it, for we had no notion then what that hundred would turn to. As it is, I have thought of it very often. You remember, Jack, how much more that hundred seemed to me at that time than it really was, and how much less to you?"
"It was a hundred and thirty," said Flint; "I remember that you didn't forget the odd thirty then."
"Dick," Fanny presently exclaimed, out of a brown study, "what do you think you would do if—you ever met that bushranger again. I mean, if he was at your mercy, you know?"
Flint sighed, and prepared his spirit for heroics.
"No use thinking," Dick answered. "By this time he's a life—if they didn't hang him."
Flint became suddenly animated.
"What?" he cried, sharply.
"Why, the last I heard of him—the day I sailed from Melbourne—was, that he was captured somewhere up in Queensland."
"If you had sailed a day later you would have heard more."
"What?" asked Dick, in his turn.
"He escaped."
"Escaped?"
"The same night. He got clean away from the police-barracks at Mount Clarence—that was the little Queensland township. They never caught him.They believe he managed to clear out of the country—to America, probably."
"By Jove, I'm not sorry!" exclaimed Dick.
"Here are some newspaper cuttings about him," continued Flint, taking the scraps from his pocketbook and handing them to Dick. "Read them afterwards; they will interest you. He was taken along with another fellow, but the other fellow was taken dead—shot through the heart. That must have been the one he called Ben; for the big brute who tried to knife you had disappeared some time before. When they were taken they were known to have a lot of gold somewhere—I mean, Sundown was—for they had just stuck up the Mount Clarence bank."
"Yes, I heard that when I heard of the capture."
"Well, it was believed that Sundown feared an attack from the police, and planted the swag, went back to it after his escape, and got clear away with the lot. But nothing is known; for neither Sundown nor the gold was ever seen again."
"Mamma, aren't you glad he escaped," cried Fanny, with glowing cheeks. "It may be wicked, but I know I am! Now, what would you do, Dick?"
"What's the good of talking about it?" said Dick.
"Then I'll tell you what I'd do; I'd hide this poor Sundown from justice; I'd give him a chance of trying honesty, for a change—that's what I should do! And if I were you, I should long and long and long to do it!"
Flint could not help smiling. Dick's sentiment on the subject was sufficiently exaggerated; but this young lady! Did this absurd romanticism run in thefamily? If so, was it the father, or the grandfather, or the great-grandfather that died in a madhouse?
But Dick gazed earnestly at his sister. Her eyes shone like living coals in the twilight of the shaded room. She was imaginative; and the story of Dick and the bushranger appealed at once to her sensibilities and her sympathy. She could see the night attack in the silent forest, and a face of wild, picturesque beauty—the ideal highwayman—was painted in vivid colour on the canvas of her brain.
"Fanny, I half think I might be tempted to do something like that," said Dick gently. "I have precious few maxims, but one is that he who does me a good turn gets paid with interest—though I have a parallel one for the man who works me a mischief."
"So it is a good turn not to rob a man whom you've already assaulted!" observed Flint ironically.
"It is a good turn to save a man's life."
"True; but you seem to think more of your money than your life!"
"I believe I did four years ago," said Dick, smiling, but he checked his smile when Flint looked at his watch and hastily rose.
Dick expostulated, almost to the extent of bluster, but quite in vain; Flint was already shaking hands with the ladies.
"My dear fellow," said he, "I leave these shores to-night; it's my annual holiday. I'm going to forget my peasants for a few weeks in Paris and Italy. If I lose this train I lose to-night's boat—I found out that before I came; so good-bye, my—"
"No, I'm coming to the station," said Dick; "at least I stickle for that last office."
Mrs. Edmonstone hoped that Mr. Flint—her boy's best friend, as she was assured—would see his way to calling on his way home and staying a day or two. Mr. Flint promised; then he and Dick left the house.
They were scarcely in the road before Flint stopped, turned, laid a hand on each of Dick's shoulders, and quickly delivered his mind:
"There's something wrong. I saw it at once. Tell me."
Dick lowered his eyes before his friend's searching gaze.
"Oh, Jack," he answered, sadly, "it is all wrong!"
And before they reached the station Flint knew all that there was to know—an abridged but unvarnished version—of the withering and dying of Dick's high hopes.
They talked softly together until the train steamed into the station; and then it was Dick who at the last moment returned to a matter just touched in passing:
"As to this dance to-night—you say I must go?"
"Of course you must go. It would never do to stay away. For one thing, your friend, the Colonel might be hurt and bothered, and he is now your best friend, mind. Then you must put a plucky face on it; she mustn't see you cave in after the first facer. I half think it isn't all up yet; you can't tell."
Dick shook his head.
"I would rather not go; it will be wormwood to me; you know what it will be: the two together. AndI know it's all up. You don't understand women, Jack."
"Do you?" asked the other, keenly.
"She couldn't deny that—that—I can't say it, Jack."
"Ah, but you enraged her first! Anyway, you ought to go to-night for your people's sake. Your sister's looking forward to it tremendously; never been to a ball with you before; she told me so. By Jove! I wished I was going myself."
"I wish you were, instead of me."
"Nonsense! I say, stand clear. Good-bye!"
Away went the train and Jack Flint. And Dick stood alone on the platform—all the more alone because his hand still tingled from the pressure of that honest grip; because cheering tones still rang in his ears, while his heart turned sick, and very lonely.
DRESSING, DANCING, LOOKING ON
The Bristos dined early that evening, and dressed afterwards; but only the Colonel and Miles sat down. Mrs. Parish was far too busy, adding everywhere finishing touches from her own deft hand; while as for Alice, she took tea only, in her room.
When Mr. Miles went up-stairs to dress, the red sunlight still streamed in slanting rays through the open window. His room was large and pleasant, and faced the drive.
Mr. Miles appeared to be in excellent spirits. He whistled softly to himself—one of Alice's songs; a quiet smile lurked about the corners of his mouth; but since his yellow moustache was long and heavy, this smile was more apparent in the expression of the eyes. He moved about very softly for such a heavy man—almost noiselessly, in fact; but this practice was habitual with him.
His dress-clothes were already laid out on the bed; they seemed never to have been worn. His portmanteau, which stood in one corner, also appeared to have seen little service: it would have been hard to find a scratch on the leather, and the glossy surface bore but one porter's label. But, naturally enough, Miles's belongings were new: a fresh outfit fromhead to heel is no slight temptation to the Australian in London.
The first step towards dressing for a ball is to undress; the first step towards undressing is to empty one's pockets. With Miles this evening this was rather an interesting operation. It necessitated several niceties of manipulation, and occupied some little time. Miles carefully drew down the blinds as a preliminary, and bolted the door.
He then crossed to the mantel-piece, lit the gas, and felt in his breast-pocket.
The first thing to be removed from this pocket was an envelope—an envelope considerably thickened by its contents, which crackled between the fingers. Miles dropped the envelope into the fender after withdrawing the contents. These he smoothed out upon the mantel-piece; he fairly beamed upon them; they were ten Bank of England ten-pound notes. Then he counted them, folded them into small compass, and transferred them to the trousers-pocket of his evening dress. In doing this his smile became so broad that his whistling ended rather abruptly. It was a pleasant smile.
The next incumbrance of which he relieved himself came from that same breast-pocket; but it was less easily placed elsewhere—so much less that the whistling was dropped altogether, and, instead of smiling, Mr. Miles frowned. Nay, a discovery that his dress-coat had no breast-pocket was followed by quite a volley of oaths. Swearing, however, is a common failing of the most estimable bushmen; so that, coming from a man like Miles, the words meant simply nothing.Miles then tried the trousers-pocket which did not contain the bank-notes; but though the article was—of its kind—remarkably small, it was obviously too large for such a pocket, and for the tail-pockets it was too heavy. Mr. Miles looked seriously put out. His face wore just that expression which might be produced by the rupture of a habit or rule of life that has become second nature. In despair and disgust he dropped the thing into his travelling bag, which he was careful to lock at once, and placed the key in the pocket with the notes: the thing was a small revolver.
There followed, from the waistcoat, penknife, pencilcase, watch and chain, and, lastly, something that created a strange and instant change in the expression of Mr. Miles; and this, though it was the veriest trifle, lying in a twisted scrap of printed paper. He spread and smoothed out the paper just as he had done with the notes, and something was displayed on its surface: something—to judge by the greedy gaze that devoured it—of greater value than the bank-notes, and to be parted with less willingly than the revolver. It was a lock of light-coloured hair.
Mr. Miles again unlocked his travelling bag, and took from it a packet of oiled-silk, a pair of scissors, tape, a needle and thread. It is a habit of many travellers to have such things always about them. Miles, for one, was very handy in the use of them, so that in about ten minutes he produced a very neat little bag, shaped like an arc, and hung upon a piece of tape with ends sewn to the ends of the chord. Holding this bag in his left hand, he now took very carefully, between the thumb and finger of his right hand, thelock of light-coloured hair. He let it roll in his palm, he placed his finger tips in the mouth of the little bag, then paused, as if unwilling to let the hair escape his hand, and, as he paused, his face bent down until his beard touched his wrist. Had not the notion been wildly absurd, one who witnessed the action might have expected Mr. Miles to press his lips to the soft tress that nestled in his palm; but, indeed, he did nothing of the kind. He jerked up his head suddenly, slipped the tress into its little case, and began at once to stitch up the opening. As he did this, however, he might have been closing the tomb upon all he loved—his face was so sad. When the thread was secured and broken, he loosed his collar and shirt-band and hung the oiled-silk bag around his neck.
At that moment a clock on the landing, chiming the three-quarters after eight, bade him make haste. There was good reason, it seemed, why he should be downstairs before the guests began to arrive.
In the drawing-room he found Colonel Bristo and Mrs. Parish. In face benevolent rather than strong, there was little in Colonel Bristo to suggest at any time the Crimean hero; he might have been mistaken for a prosperous stockbroker, but for a certain shyness of manner incompatible with the part. To-night, indeed, the military aspect belonged rather to the lady housekeeper; for rustling impatiently in her handsome black silk gown, springing up repeatedly at the sound of imaginary wheels, Mrs. Parish resembled nothing so much as an old war horse scenting battle. She welcomed the entrance of Miles with effusion, but Miles paid her little attention, and as little to hishost. He glanced quickly round the room, and bit his lip with vexation; Miss Bristo was as yet invisible. He crossed the hall by a kind of instinct, and looked into the ballroom, and there he found her. She had flitted down that moment.
Her dress was partly like a crystal fall, and partly like its silver spray; it was all creamy satin and tulle. Or so, at least, it seemed to her partners whose knowledge, of course, was not technical. One of them, who did not catch her name on introduction—being a stranger, brought under the wing of a lady with many daughters—described her on his card simply as "elbow sleeves;" and this must have been a young gentleman of observation, since the sleeves—an artful compromise between long and short—were rather a striking feature to those who knew. Others remembered her by her fan; but the callow ones saw nothing but her face, and that haunted them—until the next ball.
Mr. Miles, however, was the favoured man who was granted the first glimpse of this lovely apparition. He also looked only at her face. Was she so very indignant with him? Would she speak to him? Would she refuse him the dances he had set his heart on? If these questions were decided against him he was prepared to humble himself at her feet; but he soon found there was no necessity for that.
For, though Alice was deeply angry with Mr. Miles, she was ten times angrier with herself, and ten times ten with Dick. Her manner was certainly cold, but she seemed to have forgotten the gross liberty Miles had taken in the afternoon; at any rate, shemade no allusion to it. She gave him dances—then and there—since he brought her a programme, but in doing so her thoughts were not of Miles. She gave him literal carte blanche, but not to gratify herself or him. There were too few ways open to her to punish the insults she had received that day; but here was one way—unless the object of her thoughts stayed away.
She hurried from the ballroom at the sound of wheels. In a few minutes she was standing at her father's side shaking hands with the people. She seemed jubilant. She had a sunny smile and a word or two for all. She was like a tinkling brook at summer noon. Everyone spoke of her prettiness, and her dress (the ladies whispered of this), and above all, her splendid spirits. She found out, when it was over, that she had shaken hands with the Edmonstones among the rest. She had done so unconsciously, and Dick, like everybody else, had probably received a charming welcome from her lips.
If that was the case he must have taken the greeting for what it was worth, for he seized the first opportunity to escape from Fanny and Maurice, who were bent upon enjoying themselves thoroughly in unsentimental fashion. He saw one or two men whom he had known before he went to Australia, staring hard at him, but he avoided them; he shrank into a corner and called himself a fool for coming.
He wanted to be alone, yet was painfully conscious of the wretched figure cut by a companionless man in a room full of people. If he talked to nobody people would point at him. Thus perhaps: "The man whomade a fool of himself about Miss Bristo, don't you know; went to Australia, made his fortune, and all the rest of it, and now she won't look at him, poor dog!" He was growing morbid. He made a pretence of studying the water-colours on the wall, and wished in his soul that he could make himself invisible.
A slight rustle behind him caused him to turn round. His heart rose in his throat; it was Alice.
"You must dance with me," she said coldly; and her voice was the voice of command.
Dick was electrified; he gazed at her without speaking. Then a scornful light waxed in his eyes, and his lips formed themselves into a sneer.
"You can hardly refuse," she continued cuttingly. "I do not wish to be questioned about you; there has been a little too much of that. Therefore, please to give me your arm. They have already begun."
That was so; the room in which they stood was almost empty. Without a word Dick gave her his arm.
The crowd about the doorway of the ballroom made way for them to pass, and a grim conceit which suggested itself to Dick nearly made him laugh aloud.
As they began to waltz Alice looked up at him with flashing eyes.
"If you hate this," she whispered between her teeth, "imagine my feelings!"
He knew that his touch must be like heated irons to her; he wanted her to stop, but she would not let him. As the couples thinned after the first few rounds she seemed the more eager to dance on. One moment, indeed, they had the floor entirely to themselves. Thus everyone in the room had an opportunity of noticingthat Alice Bristo had given her first dance to Dick Edmonstone.
The Colonel saw it, and was glad; but he said to himself, "The boy doesn't look happy enough; and as for Alice—that's a strange expression of hers; I'll tell her I don't admire it. Well, well, if they only get their quarrels over first, it's all right, I suppose."
Fanny noted it with delight. The one bar to her complete happiness for the rest of the evening was now removed. The best of dancers herself, she was sought out by the best. To her a ball was a thing of intrinsic delight, in no way connected with sentiment or nonsense.
Mrs. Parish also saw it, but from a very different point of view. She bustled over to Mr. Miles, who was standing near the piano, and asked him confidentially if he had not secured some dances with Alice? He showed her his card, and the old schemer returned triumphant to her niche among the dowagers.
He followed her, and wrote his name on her empty card opposite the first square dance; a subtle man, this Mr. Miles.
At the end of the waltz Miss Bristo thanked her partner coldly, observed below her breath that she should not trouble him again, bowed—and left him.
Dick was done with dancing; he had not wished to dance at all; but this one waltz was more than enough for him—being with her. Love is responsible for strange paradoxes.
He found two men to talk to: men who gloried in dancing, without greater aptitude for the art (for it is one) than elephants shod with lead. Being notorious,these men never got partners, save occasional ladies from remote districts, spending seasons with suburban relatives. These men now greeted Dick more than civilly, though they were accustomed to cut his brother, the bank-clerk, every morning of their lives. They remembered him from his infancy; they heard he had done awfully well abroad, and congratulated him floridly. They were anxious to hear all about Australia. Dick corrected one or two notions entertained by them respecting that country. He assured them that the natives were frequently as white as they were. He informed them, in reply to a question, that lions and tigers did not prowl around people's premises in the majority of Australian towns; nor, indeed, were those animals to be found in the Colonies, except in cages. He set them right on the usual points of elementary geography. He explained the comprehensive meaning of the term, "the bush."
As Dick could at a pinch be fluent—when Australia was the subject—and as his mood to-night was sufficiently bitter, his intelligent questioners shortly sheered off. They left him at least better-informed men. Thereupon Dick returned to the ballroom with some slight access of briskness, and buried himself in a little knot of wall-flowers of both sexes.
A dance had just begun—scarcely necessary to add, a waltz. Every man blessed with a partner hastened to fling his unit and hers into the whirling throng. After a round or two, half the couples would pause, and probably look on for the rest of the time; but it seems to be a point of honour to begin with the music. As Dick stood watching, his sister passed quite closeto him; she happened to be dancing with Maurice, her very creditable pupil, but neither of them saw Dick. Close behind them came a pair of even better dancers, who threaded the moving maze without a pause or a jar or a single false step; they steered so faultlessly that a little path seemed always to open before them; human teetotums, obstacles to every one else, seemed mysteriously to melt at the graceful approach of these two. But, in fact, it was impossible to follow any other pair at the same time, so great were the ease, and beauty, and harmony of this pair. They seemed to need no rest; they seemed to yield themselves completely—no, not to each other—but to the sweet influence of the dreamy waltz.
Dick watched the pair whose exquisite dancing attracted so much attention; his face was blank, but the iron was in his soul. The other wallflowers also watched them, and commented in whispers. Dick overheard part of a conversation between a young lady whose hair was red (but elaborately arranged), and a still younger lady with hair (of the same warm tint) hanging in a plait, who was presumably a sister, not yet thoroughly "out." Here is as much of it as he listened to:
"Oh, how beautifully they dance!"
"Nonsense, child! No better than many others."
"Well, of course, I don't know much about it. But I thought they danced better than anyone in the room. Who are they?"
"Don't speak so loud. You know very well that is Miss Bristo herself; the man is—must be—Mr. Edmonstone."
"Are they engaged?"
"Well, I believe they used to be. He went out to Australia because he couldn't afford to marry (his family were left as poor as mice!), but now he has come back with a fortune, and of course it will be on again now. I used to know him—to bow to—when they lived on the river; I never saw anyone so much altered, but still, that must be he."
"Oh, it must! See how sweet they——"
"Hush, child! You will be heard. But you are quite right; didn't you see how——"
That was as much as Dick could stand. He walked away with a pale face and twitching fingers. He escaped into the conservatory, and found a solitary chair in the darkest corner. In three minutes the waltz ended, and the move to the conservatory was so general that for some minutes the double doors were all too narrow. Before Dick could get away, a yellow-haired youth with a pretty partner, less young than himself, invaded the dark corner, and by their pretty arrangement of two chairs effectually blocked Dick's egress. They were somewhat breathless, having evidently outstripped competitors for this nook only after considerable exertion. The yellow-haired youth proceeded to enter into a desperate flirtation—according to his lights—with the pretty girl his senior: that is to say, he breathed hard, sought and received permission to manipulate the lady's fan, wielded it execrably, and uttered commonplaces in tones of ingenuous pathos. The conservatory, the plashing fountain, and the Chinese lantern are indeed the accepted concomitants of this kind of business, to judge by that class of moderndrawing-room songs which is its expositor. At length, on being snubbed by the lady (he had hinted that she should cut her remaining partners in his favour), the young gentleman relapsed with many sighs into personal history, which may have been cunningly intended as an attack on her sympathy, but more probably arose from the egotism of eighteen. He inveighed against the barbarous system of superannuation that had removed him from his public school; inquired repeatedly, Wasn't it awfully hard lines? but finally extolled the freedom of his present asylum, a neighbouring Army crammer's, where (he declared) a fellow was treated like a gentleman, not like a baby. He was plainly in the confidential stage.
All this mildly amused Dick, if anything; but presently the victim of an evil system abruptly asked his partner if she knew Miss Bristo very well.
"Not so very well," was the reply; "but why do you ask?"
"Because—between you and me, you know—I don't like her. She doesn't treat a fellow half civilly. You ask for a waltz, and she gives you a square. Now I know she'd waltzes to spare, 'cause I heard her give one——"
"Oh, so she snubbed you, eh?"
"Well, I suppose it does almost amount to that. By the bye, is she engaged to that long chap who's been dancing with her all the evening?"
"I believe she is; but——"
It was a promising "but;" a "but" that would become entre nous with very little pressing.
"But what?"
"It is a strange affair."
"How?"
"Oh, I ought not to say; but of course you would never repeat——"
"Rather not; surely you can trust a fel——"
"Well, then, she used to be engaged—or perhaps it wasn't an absolute engagement—to someone else: he went out to Australia, and made money, and now that he has come back she's thrown him over for this Mr. Miles, who also comes from Australia. I know it for a fact, because Mrs. Parish told mamma as much."
"Poor chap! Who is he?"
"Mr. Edmonstone; one of the Edmonstones who lived in that big house across the river—surely you remember?"
"Oh, ah!"
"I believe he is here to-night—moping somewhere, I suppose."
"Poor chap! Hallo, there's the music! By Jove! I say, this is awful; we shall have to part!"
They went; and Dick rose up with a bitter smile. He would have given much, very much, for the privilege of wringing that young whippersnapper's neck. Yet it was not the boy's fault; some fate pursued him: there was no place for him—no peace for him—but in the open air.
A soft midsummer's night, and an evening breeze that cooled his heated temples with its first sweet breath. Oh, why had he not thought of coming out long ago! He walked up and down the drive, slowly at first, then at speed, as his misery grew upon him,and more times than he could count. The music stopped, began again, and again ceased; it came to him in gusts as he passed close to the front of the conservatory on his beat. At last, when near the house, he fancied he saw a dark motionless figure crouching in the shrubbery that edged the lawn at the eastern angle of the house.
Dick stopped short in his walk until fancy became certainty; then he crept cautiously towards the figure.