"She whom I have praised so,Yields delight for reason too:Who could dote on thing so commonAs mere outward-handsome woman?Such half-beauties only winFools to let affection in."
"She whom I have praised so,Yields delight for reason too:Who could dote on thing so commonAs mere outward-handsome woman?Such half-beauties only winFools to let affection in."
Wither.
Mrs. Rebellwas sitting by her god-mother's couch, pouring out tea. She had just come in from a walk on the downs, and as she sat there, her eyes shining, the colour coming and going in her cheeks, Madame Sampiero's gaze rested on her with critical pleasure and approval, lingering over every detail of the pretty brown cloth gown and neat plumed hat, both designed by a famous French arbiter of fashion who in the long ago had counted Madame Sampiero as among his earliest and most faithful patronesses.
The last few days had been to Mrs. Rebell days of conquest. She had conquered the right to come in and out of her god-mother's room without first asking formal leave of Doctor McKirdy, and he had given in with a good grace. She had won the heart of Mrs. Turke, and was now free of the old housekeeper's crowded sitting-room; and she had made friends also with all the dumb creatures about the place.
Then again, the pretty gowns, the many charming trifles which had come from Paris, and which she had been made to try on, one by one, in her god-mother's presence, contributed, though she felt rather ashamed of it, to her feeling of light-heartedness. BarbaraRebell, moving as one at home about the Priory, looked another creature from the shrinking sad-eyed woman who had arrived at Chancton a fortnight before, believing that youth, and all the glad things that youth represents, lay far behind her.
There came a knock, McGregor's discreet knock, at the door. Barbara sprang up, and a moment later came back with a letter, one which the bearer had apparently not dared to put by, as was the rule with such missives, and indeed with all letters addressed to the mistress of the Priory, till Doctor McKirdy was ready to read them, and to transmit such portions of their contents as he thought fit to his friend and patient.
"A note for you, Marraine!" The French equivalent for god-mother had always been used by Barbara Rebell both as child and girl in her letters to Madame Sampiero, and she had now discovered that it was preferred to its more formal English equivalent, or to the "Madam" which all those about her used. "Shall I read it to you?"
Barbara was looking down at the letter which she held in her hand with some surprise. The ink was not yet dry,—it must therefore have been written, in great haste, just now in the hall, and must call for an immediate answer. She waited for a sign of assent, and then opened the envelope:—
"Dear Madame Sampiero,—I am sorry to trouble you, but I fear I must ask you to see me at your early convenience about a certain matter concerning which your personal opinion and decision are urgently required. Perhaps you will kindly send me word as to what time will suit you for me to come and see you."Yours faithfully,"Oliver Boringdon."
"Dear Madame Sampiero,—I am sorry to trouble you, but I fear I must ask you to see me at your early convenience about a certain matter concerning which your personal opinion and decision are urgently required. Perhaps you will kindly send me word as to what time will suit you for me to come and see you.
"Yours faithfully,
"Oliver Boringdon."
Madame Sampiero's eyelids flickered, "Would you like to see him, child—our Chanctonjeune premier?" and the ghost of a satirical smile hovered over the still face and quivering mouth.
"Yes, indeed, Marraine, if it would not tire you! You know it was his sister who was so kind to me in Santa Maria. May I send for him now? He evidently wants to see you about something very important—"
But McGregor, convinced that there would be no answer to the note he had most unwillingly conveyed upstairs, had not waited, as Barbara had expected to find, in the corridor. She hesitated a moment, then, gathering up her long brown skirts, ran down to the hall.
Boringdon was walking up and down, waiting with dogged patience for the message which might, after all, not be sent to him. "Will you kindly come up—now—to Madame Sampiero? She is quite ready to see you!" To the young man the low, very clear voice, seemed at that moment the sweetest in the world: he turned round quickly and looked at the messenger with a good deal of curiosity.
No thought that this elegant-looking girl could be Mrs. Rebell came to his mind. Doubtless she was one of the few people connected with Madame Sampiero's past life—perhaps one of the cousins who sometimes came to Chancton, and whom, occasionally, but very rarely as the years had gone on, the paralysed woman consented to receive.
Rather bewildered at the ease with which the fortress had been stormed and taken, he followed the unknown young lady upstairs. But once in the corridor, when close to Madame Sampiero's door, Barbara stopped, and with heightened colour she said, "I know that you are Grace Johnstone's brother, I have been hoping thelast few days to go and see your mother. Will you please tell her how much I look forward to meeting her?" And before he could make any answer, she whom Boringdon now knew to be Mrs. Rebell had opened the door, and was motioning him to precede her into the room into which he had not been allowed to come for two months.
A moment later he stood at the foot of Madame Sampiero's couch, feeling the place in which he found himself curiously transformed, the atmosphere about him more human, less frigid than in those days when his weekly conferences with the owner of Chancton had been regarded by him with such discomfort and dread.
The presence of the low table on which now lay a tea-tray and a bowl of freshly-gathered roses affected him agreeably, though he still quailed inwardly when his eyes met those of the paralysed woman stretched out before him: Boringdon was not imaginative, and yet these wide open blue eyes had often haunted him—to-day they rested on him kindly, and then looked beyond him, softening as they met those of her god-daughter.
Before he was allowed to begin on what he felt to be such disagreeable business, Mrs. Rebell—the woman whom he now knew to be his sister's friend, and regarding whom he was being compelled to alter, moment by moment, all his preconceived notions—had poured him out a cup of tea, and had installed him by her side. Later, when she made a movement as if to leave him alone with Madame Sampiero, she was stopped with a look, and Boringdon, far from feeling the presence of a third person as disagreeable and as unwarranted as he had always felt that of McKirdy or of Mrs. Turke, was glad that Mrs. Rebell had been made to stay, and aware, in some odd way, that in her he would have an ally andnot, as had always been the case with McKirdy, a critic, if not an enemy.
After a short discussion, he was allowed to go with the point settled to his satisfaction. Madame Sampiero had retained all her shrewdness, and all her essential justness of character; moreover, his case, presented partly through the medium of Barbara's voice, had seemed quite other than what it would have done explained inimically by Alexander McKirdy. Indeed, during the discussion Boringdon had the curious feeling that this soft-voiced stranger, who, after all, was in no position to judge between himself and the peccant farmer, was being made to give the ultimate decision. It was Barbara also who had to repeat, to make clear to him, reddening and smiling as she did so, her god-mother's last words, "If you're not busy, you might take Mrs. Rebell down to the Beeches. The trees won't look as well as they are doing now in a week's time;" and while murmuring the words Madame Sampiero's eyes had turned with indefinable longing towards the high windows which commanded the wide view she loved and knew so well, but which from where she lay only showed the sky.
A rude awakening awaited both Barbara and Boringdon in the hall below; and a feeling of guilt,—an absurd unwarrantable feeling, so he told himself again and again when he thought over the scene later,—swept over the young man when he saw Doctor McKirdy pacing, with quick angry steps, that very stretch of flag-stones where he himself had walked up and down so impatiently half an hour before.
"So you've been up to see her? Against my very strict orders—orders, mind ye, given as Madam's medical man! Well, well! All I can say is, that I'm notresponsible for what the consequences may be. Madam's not fit to be worried o'er business—not fit at all!" The words came out in sharp jerky sentences, and as he spoke Doctor McKirdy scowled at the young man, twisting his hands together, a trick he had when violently disturbed.
As the two culprits came towards him he broke out again, almost turning his back on them as he spoke, "I cannot think what possessed the man McGregor! He will have to be dismissed, not a doubt about it! He has the strictest, the very strictest orders—he must have been daft before he could take up a stranger to Madam's room!" There was a world of scorn in the way in which McKirdy pronounced the word "stranger."
Angry as Boringdon had now become, indignant with the old man for so attacking him in the presence of one who was, as Oliver did not fail to remind himself, the real stranger to all their concerns, he yet felt that to a certain extent the doctor's anger and indignation were justified. Boringdon knew well enough that, but for McKirdy's absence from the Priory that afternoon, he could never have penetrated into Madame Sampiero's presence. He had also been aware that McGregor was acting in direct contravention of the doctor's orders, and that nothing but his own grim determination to be obeyed had made the man take his note upstairs. All this being so, he was about to say something of a conciliatory nature, when suddenly Mrs. Rebell came forward—
"It is I," she said—and Boringdon saw that she showed no sign of quailing before Doctor McKirdy's furious looks—"who asked my god-mother to see Mr. Boringdon, and so it is I alone, Doctor McKirdy, who should be blamed for what has happened. MadameSampiero asked my advice as to whether she should see him, and as the matter seemed urgent, I decided that she had better do so at once, instead of waiting, as I should perhaps have done, to ask you if she was fit to do so."
She looked inquiringly from one man to the other—at the old Scotchman whose face still twitched with rage, and whose look of aversion at herself she felt to be cruelly unjust, almost, she would have said, had she not become really fond of him, impertinent; and at Boringdon, who also looked angry, but not as surprised as she would have expected him to be before so strange an outburst.
There was a moment of tense silence, and then, suddenly, Barbara herself caught fire. Like most gentle, self-restrained natures, she was capable of feeling deep instant gusts of anger, and one of these now swept over her.
"If you will go up and see Madame Sampiero," she spoke very coldly, "I think you will admit, Doctor McKirdy, that my god-mother has not been in any way injured by seeing Mr. Boringdon." She turned, rather imperiously, to the young man. "I think," she said, "that now we had better go out. I suppose it will take at least half an hour to walk round by the Beeches, and later my god-mother will be expecting me back to read to her."
Without again glancing at Doctor McKirdy, Mrs. Rebell walked across to the vestibule, and so out into the open air, Boringdon following her rather shamefacedly, and in silence they struck off down the path which led round the great meadow-like enclosure to the broad belt of beeches which were the glory of Chancton Priory.
Then, somewhat to his own surprise, Boringdonfound himself making excuses for the old Scotchman, while explaining to Mrs. Rebell the odd position in which he often found himself. The conversation which followed caused strides, which might otherwise have taken weeks or even months to achieve, in his own and Barbara's intimacy.
Very little was said of Grace Johnstone and of Santa Maria; it was of the Priory, and of its stricken mistress, of Chancton and of Doctor McKirdy, that they talked, and it was pleasant to Boringdon to hear his own part being taken to himself, to hear McKirdy severely censured in the grave low voice whose accents had sounded so sweetly in his ears when it had come to call him to Madame Sampiero's presence.
So eager was their talk, so absorbed were they in what they were saying, that neither had eyes for the noble trees arching overhead; and when at last they came out, from the twilight of the beeches, into the open air, Barbara felt respect and liking for the young man.
When they were once more close to the house, she put up her hand with a quick gesture. "Don't come up with me to the porch," she said, "I am sure you had better not meet Doctor McKirdy—I mean for the present." He obeyed her silently, though for the moment he felt not unkindly towards the old man he had conquered in what, he confessed to himself, had been unfair fight. With Mrs. Rebell on his side he could afford to smile at McKirdy's queer susceptibilities and jealousies. He must come and see her to-morrow; there seemed so much more to say, to ask too, about Grace—dear Grace, who had written with such warm-hearted feeling of this charming, interesting woman who ought to be, so Boringdontold himself, a most agreeable and softening influence at the Priory.
That same evening, Mrs. Boringdon, after much hesitation and searching of heart, ventured to ask her son a question.
"How did you find them all at the Grange? It seems a long time since I have seen Lucy."
Oliver's face clouded over, but he was surprised at his own calmness, his absence of annoyance; that disagreeable episode at the Grange now seemed to have happened long ago.
"Everything was as usual," he answered hesitatingly; "—at least, no, I should not say that, for General Kemp's manner to me was far from being usual. I cannot help thinking, mother, that you made a mistake the other day—I mean as regards Lucy;"—a note of reserve and discomfort crept into his voice as he pronounced her name,—"The General's manner was unmistakable, he all but showed me the door! I think it would be as well, both for you and for me, if we were to put all thought of her from our minds, and to see, in the future, less of her."
Boringdon found it less easy to answer his mother's next question, "And Madame Sampiero,—I suppose you did not see her to-day? I wonder if she sees anything of Mrs. Rebell?"
"Yes," he said, rather reluctantly, "McKirdy was out, and I had, on the whole, a satisfactory interview with Madame Sampiero, owing it, in a measure, to Mrs. Rebell. Madame Sampiero is evidently very fond of her. By the way, she—I mean Mrs. Rebell—sent you a nice message about Grace."
"Oh! then she's a pleasant woman—I'm so glad! Everything makes a difference in a little place likeChancton. I suppose," Mrs. Boringdon spoke absently, but her son knew that she would require an answer, "that Mrs. Rebell did not mention Miss Berwick, or the Duchess?"
"Oh! no, mother," Oliver answered rather drily, "Why should she have done so—to me?"
"Oh! well—as a kind of hint that I ought to have called. I hope you explained the matter to her? I mean to go there to-morrow."
Boringdon made no remark. He had no intention, nay, he had an instinctive dislike to the idea, of discussing Mrs. Rebell with his mother, and he vaguely hoped that they would never become intimate.
Arabella Berwick was sitting in the little room, originally a powder closet, which was set aside for her use at Fletchings. It was well out of the way, on the first floor of the old manor-house, tucked away between the drawing-room, which was very little used except in the evening, and the long music gallery, and it was characteristic of Miss Berwick that very few among the many who came and went each summer and autumn to Fletchings were aware of the existence of this, her favourite retreat.
In the Powdering Room, as it was still called, Lord Bosworth's niece wrote her letters, scrutinised with severely just eyes the various household accounts, and sometimes allowed herself an hour of complete relaxation and rest. The panelled walls, painted a pale blue, were hung with a few fine engravings of the more famous Stuart portraits, including two of that Arabella Stuart after whom Miss Berwick had been herself named. There was also, on the old-fashioned davenport at which she wrote her letters, a clever etching of her brother, done when James Berwick was at Oxford.
The mistress of such a house has a well-filled, and indeed often a tiring, life, unless she be blessed with a highly paid, and what is not always the same thing, a highly competent, housekeeper and factotum, to take the material cares off her shoulders. Lord Bosworth was nothing if not hospitable. There was a constant coming and going of agreeable men and women in whatever place he happened to find himself. He disliked solitude, and in the long years Miss Berwick had kept her uncle's house, she could scarcely remember a day in which they had been absolutely alone together.
As a high-spirited, clever girl, brought suddenly from the companionship of an austere aunt and chaperon, she had found the life a very agreeable one, and she had set her whole mind to making it successful. Even now, she had pleasant, nay delightful, moments, but as she grew older, and above all, as Lord Bosworth grew older, much in the life weighed upon her, and any added trouble or anxiety was apt to prove almost unbearable.
To-day, she had received a letter from her brother which had caused her acute annoyance. James Berwick was coming back, a full fortnight before she had expected him,—his excuse, that of wishing to be present at the coming-of-age festivities of Lord Pendragon, the Duke of Appleby and Kendal's only son, which were shortly to take place at Halnakeham Castle. He had always had,—so his sister reminded herself with curling lip,—a curious attachment to this neighbourhood, a great desire to play a part in all local matters; this was the more strange as the Berwicks' only connection with Sussex had been the purchase of Fletchings by their uncle, and James Berwick's own inheritance from his wife of Chillingworth, the huge place, full of a rather banal grandeur, where its present possessor spent but little of his time.
There were three reasons why Miss Berwick would have much preferred that her brother should carry out his original plan. The first, and from her point of view the most important, concerned, as did most important matters to Arabella, Berwick himself. She had just learned, from one of the guests who had arrived at Fletchings the day before, that the woman whom, on the whole, she regarded as having most imperilled her brother, would almost certainly be one of the ducal house-party at Halnakeham. This lady, a certain Mrs. Marshall, was now a widow, and the sister feared her with a great fear.
The second reason was one more personal to herself. Miss Berwick was trying to make up her mind about a certain matter, and she felt that her brother's presence—nay, even the mere fact of his being in the neighbourhood—would make it more difficult for her to do so. She knew herself to be on the eve of receiving a very desirable offer of marriage. Its acceptance by her would be, in a sense, the crowning act of her successful life. The man was an ambassador, one of the most distinguished of her uncle's friends, a childless widower, who, as she had long known, both liked and respected her. In a few days he would be at Fletchings, and she knew that the time had come when she must make up her mind to say yes or to say no.
The third complication, from the thought of which Miss Berwick shrank with a pain which surprised herself, was the fact that both Lord Bosworth, and now her brother in this letter which lay before her, had requested her to write and ask Daniel O'Flaherty—the man whom she had once loved—to come and spend a few days at Fletchings. They had met many times since that decisive interview in Kensington Gardens which had been so strangely interrupted byOliver Boringdon—for such meetings are the unforeseen penalties attendant on such conduct as had been that of Arabella—but both had hitherto contrived to avoid staying under the same roof. Now, however, she felt she could no longer put off giving this invitation, the more so that it was for her brother's sake that Lord Bosworth wished O'Flaherty to be asked to Fletchings.
Miss Berwick had early found it advisable, when something painful had to be done, to "rush her fences." She took up her pen and wrote, in her fine, characteristic hand-writing, the words, "Dear Mr. O'Flaherty."
Then she laid the pen down, lay back in her chair, and closed her eyes. Even after so long a time had gone by, the memory of what had passed between Daniel O'Flaherty and herself was intolerably bitter. Arabella even now never thought of him without asking herself how it happened that she had not realised what manner of man he really was, and why she had not foreseen how sure he was to make his way. She never saw his name printed, never heard it uttered, without this feeling of shamed surprise and acute self-reproach coming over her.
The strong attraction she had felt for the then untried Irishman had in a sense blinded her—made her distrustful of his real power. Her uncle, Lord Bosworth, had been more clear-sighted, in those far-off days when he had encouraged the unknown barrister to come about Bosworth House, just before she herself so ruthlessly sent him away.
And now she found the wording, as well as the writing, of her letter difficult: she wished to leave the matter of Daniel O'Flaherty's coming to Fletchings, or his staying away, entirely to his own sense of what was fitting. He had become, as she had reason to know, aman much sought after: perhaps the dates which she was able to offer him would all be filled up.
There came a slight sound; Miss Berwick opened her eyes, she sat up, an alert look on her face, ready to repel the intruder whoever he might be. Lord Bosworth, introducing his ample person through the narrow door of the tiny room, was struck by the look of age and fatigue which had come over—it seemed to him only since yesterday—his niece's delicate clear-cut features and shadowed fairness. Arabella Berwick had always been a good-looking replica of her remarkable-looking brother, but youth, which remains so long with many women, had gone from her. She often looked older than thirty-eight, and her deep-set compelling bright blue eyes, of which the moral expression was so different from that produced by those of James Berwick, gave an impression of singular disenchantment.
"Am I disturbing you?"—Lord Bosworth spoke very courteously—"if so, I will speak to you some other time." Arabella at once hid the great surprise she felt at seeing him here, for this was, as far as she could remember, her uncle's first visit to the Powdering Room: "Oh! no," she said, "I was only writing to Mr. O'Flaherty. You would like him to come soon, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, certainly! I am told he will have to be Attorney-General. He is the sort of man James ought to have got hold of long ago. We seem to have lost sight of him. I know I went to some trouble for him years ago—and then somehow he disappeared. Perhaps it was my fault—in that case I ought to write him a line myself."
Then he became silent, looking at his niece with acurious persistent gaze which embarrassed her. There had never been any real intimacy between the uncle and niece, and the thought that Lord Bosworth had suspected anything concerning what had occurred between herself and O'Flaherty would have been intensely disagreeable to Arabella. She felt herself flushing, but met his look with steady eyes, comforted by the knowledge that, whatever he knew or suspected, he would most certainly say nothing.
"I see," he said, "that you guess what I have come to tell you. I have had a letter from Umfraville—you know he comes to-morrow? It is a very good letter, a better letter than I should have thought he could have written on such a subject, but it amounts to this: before offering himself, he wishes to be sure of what your answer will be, and he wants you to make up your mind within the next few days,—in fact before he leaves us. It would be a great position, my dear, and one which you would fill admirably."
As he spoke the colour had faded from Miss Berwick's face. She felt relieved and rather touched. "But what wouldyoudo?" she said involuntarily.
Lord Bosworth made none of the answers which might have been expected from him. He said no word as to his niece's happiness being of more consequence than his own comfort, and if he had done so, Miss Berwick would not have believed him.
"I do not suppose that you are aware,"—he put his strong hands on the table before him, and looked at her with a sudden pleading look which sat oddly on his shrewd, powerful face—"I do not suppose, Arabella, that you are aware that I made Madame Sampiero an offer of marriage some six or seven years ago, not long after the death of—of Sampiero. I believe her answer was contained in one of the very last lettersshe ever wrote with her own hand. Well, now—in fact for a long time past—I have been contemplating a renewal of that offer. Nay more, should she again refuse, which I know well to be more than probable, I cannot see why, at our time of life, especially in view of her present state, we should even so not be together."
His niece looked at him in frank incredulous astonishment. She felt mortified to think how little she had known this man with whom she had lived for so long.
"Surely," she said, "surely you would find such an existence absolutely intolerable?"
"I do not know what I have done that you should judge me so severely."—Lord Bosworth's answer was made in a very low tone. "You are a clever woman, Arabella, and I have always done full justice to your powers, but, believe me, there are certain things undreamt of in your philosophy, and I do not think"—he stopped abruptly, and finished the sentence to himself, "I do not think Umfraville is likely to bring them any nearer to you."
He got up. "I thought I ought to tell you," he said, with a complete change of tone, "because my intention may influence your decision. Otherwise, I should not have troubled you with the matter." Then his heart softened to her: he suddenly remembered her long and loyal, if loveless, service. "Quite apart from any question of our immediate future, you must remember, my dear, that I'm an old man. I cannot help thinking that your life alone would be very dreary, and, much as you care for James, I cannot see either of you making in a permanent sense any kind of life with the other. In your place—and I have thought much about it—I should accept Umfraville. The doingso would enable you to lead the same life that you have led for the last twenty years, with certain great added advantages. Then Umfraville, after all, is a very good fellow,—good yet not too good, clever and yet not too clever!"
She smiled at him an answering but rather wavering smile, and he went out, closing the door behind him, leaving her alone with her thoughts, and with her scarcely begun letter to O'Flaherty lying before her.
"I beg to hint to all Equestrian MissesThat horses' backs are not their proper place;A woman's forte is music—love—or kisses,Not leaping gates, or galloping a race;I sometimes used to ride with them of yore,And always found them an infernal bore."
"I beg to hint to all Equestrian MissesThat horses' backs are not their proper place;A woman's forte is music—love—or kisses,Not leaping gates, or galloping a race;I sometimes used to ride with them of yore,And always found them an infernal bore."
Ascribed toLord Byron.
Itwas the morning of the first meet of the South Sussex Hunt, and in spite of the humble status of that same hunt among sporting folk, the whole neighbourhood was in an agreeable state of excitement.
Even in a country district where hunting plays a subordinate part in the local life, the first meet of the season is always made the occasion for a great gathering. There had been a time when it had taken place on the lawn of Chancton Priory, and the open-handed hospitality of that Squire Rebell who had been Madame Sampiero's father was still regretfully remembered by the older members of the S.S.H.
Nowadays the first meet was held at a place known locally as Whiteways, which, though close to no hospitable house, had the advantage of proximity to the town of Halnakeham, being situated just outside the furthest gate of the park stretching behind Halnakeham Castle.
Whiteways was a singularly beautiful and desolate spot, forming the apex of a three-sided hill commanding an amazing view of uplands and lowlands, and reached by various steep ways, cut through the chalk, whichgave the place its name, and which circled ribbon-wise round the crest of the down, the highest of the long range which there guards the coasts of Sussex.
General Kemp had taken to hunting in his old age, and though in theory he disapproved of hunting women, in practice he often allowed his daughter many a happy hour with the hounds, although she had to be contented with the sturdy pony, "warranted safe to ride and drive," a gift from Captain Laxton to Mrs. Kemp.
At the Grange breakfast was just over. The General looking his best—so Mrs. Kemp assured herself with wifely pride—in his white riding breeches and grey coat, stood by the window of the pretty room opening out on to the lawn.
"I think it's time you went up and dressed, Lucy. You know it's a good way to Whiteways, and we don't want the horses blown."
Lucy looked up obediently from a letter she was reading, "Yes, father, I'll go up at once. It won't take me long to dress."
The girl would have given much to have been allowed to stay at home. But she knew that her doing so would probably mean the giving up on the part of her mother of one of the few local festivities which Mrs. Kemp heartily enjoyed. Even more, Lucy feared her father's certain surprise and disappointment, followed, after the first expression of these feelings, by one of those ominous silences, those tender questioning glances she had come to look for and to dread.
General Kemp was treating his daughter with a consideration and gentleness which were growing daily more bitter to Lucy. The poor child wondered uneasily what she could have done to make her father see so clearly into her heart. She would have given muchto hear him utter one of his old sharp jokes at her expense.
Nothing was outwardly changed in the daily life of the village, Chancton had been rather duller than usual. Mrs. Rebell's back had been seen at church in the Priory pew, but she had gone out, as she had come in, by the private door leading into the park. Mrs. Boringdon had been away for nearly a fortnight, staying with an invalid sister, and so there had been very little coming and going between the Cottage and the Grange, although the Kemps and Oliver had met more than once on neutral ground.
To-day, as Lucy well knew, was bound to be almost an exact replica of that first day out last autumn. Then, as now, it had been arranged that Mrs. Boringdon should drive Mrs. Kemp to Whiteways; then, as now, Lucy and her father were to ride there together, perhaps picking up Captain Laxton on the way. But, a year ago, Oliver Boringdon had ridden to the meet in their company, while this time nothing had been said as to whether he was even going to be there. A year ago, the day had been one full of happy enchantment to Lucy: for her father had allowed her to follow the hounds for over an hour, with Boringdon as pilot, and he,—or so it seemed to the happy girl,—had had no eyes, no thought for anyone else! The knowledge that to-day would be so like, and yet, as a subtle instinct warned her, so unlike, was curiously painful.
Still, no thought of trying to escape from the ordeal entered Lucy's mind. But mothers—such mothers as Mrs. Kemp—often have a sixth sense placed at their disposal by Providence, and the girl's mother divined something of what Lucy was thinking and feeling.
"I wonder," she said, "if you would rather stop at home? You look tired, child, and you know it is along way to Whiteways, and a rather tiring experience altogether! Of course I should go just the same."
General Kemp turned to his wife inquiringly, as if asking for a lead, and Lucy intercepted the look which passed between them. "Why, mother," she cried, "I shouldn't think of doing such a thing! I've been looking forward to to-day for ever so long! I know what you are thinking"—she flushed vividly, "but I'm sure Captain Laxton is much too old a friend to bear me a grudge, or to feel any annoyance as to meeting me. After all, he need not have come back——" and without giving either of her parents time to answer, she ran out of the room.
General Kemp was much taken aback. This was the first time he had heard Lucy allude to Captain Laxton's affection for herself, or to the offer which she had rejected. To his mind such an allusion savoured almost of indelicacy. He did not like to think his daughter guilty of over-frankness, even to her father and mother.
"Can it be, Mary," he said, puzzled, "that she's thinking of Laxton after all?"
Mrs. Kemp shook her head. She knew very well why Lucy had mentioned her lover—that his image had been evoked in order to form as it were a screen between herself and what she had divined to be her mother's motive in suggesting that she should stay at home, but it would be hopeless to try and indicate such feminine subtleties to Lucy's father.
In the country, as in life, there are always many ways of reaching the same place. The pleasantest carriage road to Whiteways lay partly through the Priory park, and it was that which was chosen by Mrs. Boringdon and Mrs. Kemp. Lucy and her father preferred a lessfrequented and lonelier path, one which skirted for part of the way the high wall of James Berwick's property, Chillingworth.
They had now left this place far behind, and were riding slowly by the side of a curving down: Captain Laxton had evidently gone on before, or deliberately chosen to linger behind, and the father and daughter were alone. Soon they left the road for the short turf, broken here and there with hawthorn bushes; and Lucy, cheered by the keen upland air, was making a gallant effort to bear herself as she had always done on what had been such happy hunting days last winter. Already she could see, far away to her left, a broad shining white road, dotted with carriages, horsemen and horsewomen, and groups of walkers all making their way up towards the castellated gate-way which frowned on the summit of the hill above them.
When the father and daughter reached the large circular space, sheltered on one side by two wind-blown fir-trees, they found that they were rather late, and so had missed the pretty sight of the coming of the huntsman and his hounds over the brow of the down. Lucy made her way at once through the crowd close to where Mrs. Boringdon's low pony-carriage was drawn up just beneath the high stone gate-way, next to that of Mrs. Sampson, the Chancton rector's wife, who had weakly consented to bring Miss Vipen. Even Doctor McKirdy had vouchsafed to grace the pretty scene, and he was sitting straightly and lankily on the rough old pony he always rode, which now turned surprised and patient eyes this way and that, for the doctor had never before attended a meet of the S.S.H.
As yet Lucy could see nothing of Captain Laxton or of Boringdon, and she felt at once relieved and disappointed. Perhaps Oliver was too busy to give upa whole day to this kind of thing, and yet she knew he always enjoyed a day with the hounds, and that he had theories concerning the value of sport in such a neighbourhood as this. She reminded herself that if he had not been really very busy, more so than usual, he would certainly have found time to come to the Grange during his mother's absence from Chancton.
As these thoughts were coming and going through her mind in between the many greetings, the exchange of heavy banter such an occasion always seems to provoke, she suddenly heard Boringdon's voice, and realised that he was trying to attract her attention. Lucy's pony, feeling the agitation his young mistress was quite successfully concealing from the people around her, began to quiver and gave a sudden half-leap in the air.
"What has come over sober Robin?"—Boringdon was smiling; he looked in a good-tempered, happy mood—"I did so hope you would be here! I looked out for you on the road for I wanted to introduce——"
There was a sudden babel of voices; an old gentleman and his two talkative daughters, all three on foot, were actually pulling Lucy's habit to make her attend to what they were saying. Oliver shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and to Lucy's bitter, at the moment almost intolerable disappointment, turned his horse through the crowd towards the fir-trees close to which were drawn up several carriages, including the Fletchings phaeton, driven, so the girl observed, by Miss Berwick, by whose side an elderly man was looking about him with amused indulgent eyes.
Still, the day was turning out pretty well. Oliver would surely come back soon,—doubtless with whoever it was he wished to introduce to her. It was always a great pleasure to Lucy to meet any of Boringdon's old political acquaintances. Such men were often atFletchings. Of course Lucy Kemp knew Miss Berwick, but by no means well,—besides, an instinct had told her long ago that Oliver had no liking for his friend's sister.
There was a pause. Then Lucy saw that Oliver was riding towards her, and that he was accompanied by a lady, doubtless one of the Fletchings party, for she was mounted on a fine hunter, a certain Saucebox, locally famous, which belonged to James Berwick, and which was often ridden by his sister.
The unknown horsewoman was habited, booted, and hatted, in a far morecap-à-piemanner than was usual with the fair followers of the South Sussex Hunt, and she and her mount together, made, from the sportsman's point of view, a very perfect and pretty picture, though she was too pale, too slight, perhaps a thought too serious, to be considered pretty in the ordinary sense.
Still, both horse and rider were being looked at by many with eyes that were at first critical but soon became undisguisedly admiring, and the Master, old Squire Laxton, was noticed to cut short a confidential conversation with the huntsman in order to give the stranger an elaborate salutation.
Even Mrs. Kemp felt a slight touch of curiosity. "Who is that with whom your son is riding?" she inquired of Mrs. Boringdon.
"I don't know—perhaps one of the Halnakeham party. The Duke always makes a point of being here to-day."
Mrs. Boringdon's eyes rested appreciatively on the group formed by her son and the unknown horsewoman; they took in every detail of the severely plain black habit, the stiff collar, neat tie, and top hat. Oliver seemed to be on very good terms with his companion—doubtless she was one of his old London acquaintances. What a pity, thought Mrs. Boringdon with genuineregret, that he saw so few of that sort of people now—prosperous, well-dressed, well-bred women of the world, who can be so useful to the young men they like!
Lucy, also becoming conscious of the nearness of Oliver and his companion, looked at the well-appointed horsewoman with less kindly eyes than the two older ladies sitting in the pony carriage had done. The girl told herself that such perfection of attire, worn at such a meet as this of Whiteways, was almost an affectation on the part of the lady towards whom Oliver was bending with so pleased and absorbed a glance. A moment later the two had ridden up close to her, and Boringdon was saying, "Miss Kemp——Mrs. Rebell, may I introduce to you Miss Lucy Kemp?"
Barbara's eyes rested very kindly on the girl. She remembered what Doctor McKirdy had told her, during that walk that he and she had taken together on the downs on the morning of her first day at Chancton. It was nice of Oliver Boringdon to have brought her up at once, like this, to the young lady whom he admired, but who was not,—so Barbara thought she remembered McKirdy saying,—as yet hisfiancée.
Mrs. Rebell had lately seen a great deal of Grace Johnstone's brother, in fact he was constantly at the Priory and always very much at her service; they had become quite good friends, and since she had "made it up" with the old doctor, she had taken pains to show both him and Madame Sampiero that Oliver Boringdon had a right to more consideration than they seemed willing to give him.
Then Lucy's steady gaze rather disconcerted her; she became aware of the girl's scanty riding habit—General Kemp's favourite form of safety skirt—of the loose well-worn covert coat, and the small bowler hat resting on her bright brown hair.
"I feel rather absurdly dressed"—Lucy was struck by Barbara's soft full voice—"but my god-mother, Madame Sampiero, ordained that I should look like this. My last riding habit was made of khaki!"
The note of appeal in Mrs. Rebell's accent touched Lucy at once. "Why, of course you look absolutely right! My father often says what a pity it is that so many women have given up wearing plain habits and top hats," Lucy spoke with pretty sincere eagerness——
"She is a really nice girl," decided Barbara to herself; and Oliver also looked at his old friend Lucy very cordially. To his mind both young women looked exactly right, that is, exactly as he liked each of them to look—Lucy Kemp perhaps standing for the good serviceable homespuns of life, Barbara Rebell for those more exquisite, more thrilling moments with which he had, as yet unconsciously, come to associate her.
"Of course," he said, a little quickly, "this is Mrs. Rebell's first experience of hunting, though she has ridden a great deal,—in fact, all her life. Otherwise Madame Sampiero would hardly have suggested sending over to Chillingworth for Saucebox. Hullo, Laxton!"—his voice became perceptibly colder, but Lucy noticed with some surprise that Mrs. Rebell bowed and smiled at the newcomer, but Boringdon gave her no time to speak to him—"You had better come over here," he said urgently, "we shall be getting to work soon," and in a moment, or so it seemed to Lucy, he and the lady whom she knew now to be Mrs. Rebell had become merged in the crowd, leaving Captain Laxton by her side looking down on her with the half bold, half fearful look she knew so well.
Boringdon had taken Barbara to the further side of the great stone gateway, and she was enjoying everymoment of the time which seemed to many of those about her so tedious. She was even amused at listening to the quaint talk going on round her. "Scent going to be good to-day?" "Well, theysaythere's always a scent some time of the day, and if you can find the foxthen, why you're all right!"—and the boastful tone of a keen weather-beaten elderly man, "I never want a warranty,—why should a man expect to find a perfect horse?—he don't look for perfection when he's seeking a wife, eh?" "Oh! but there's two wanted to complete that deal. The old lady 'as not come up to the scratch yet, 'as she, John?" "Well, when she does, I shan't ask for any warranty, and I bet you I'll not come out any worse than other folk do!"—and then the old joke, one of Solomon's wise sayings, uttered by an old gentleman to a nervous girl, "Their strength shall be in sitting still!"
Mrs. Rebell looked straight before her. Of all the cheerful folk gathered together near her, none seemed to have eyes for the beauty, the amazing beauty of the surrounding country. To the right of the kind of platform upon which the field was now gathered together, the hill dropped abruptly into a dark wood, a corner of the ancient forest of Anderida, that crossed by Cæsar when he came from Gaul—a forest stretching from end to end of the South Downs, broken by swift rivers running down to the sea. It was here—but Barbara, gazing with delighted eyes down over the treetops, did not know this—it was here, in this patch of primeval woodland, that the first fox of the season was always sought for and often found.
Yet another "white way" wound down towards the red-roofed farmhouses which lined the banks of the tidal stream glistening in the vale below; and opposite, in front, a gleaming cart-track led up to a strip of fineshort grass, differing in quality and even in colour from the turf about it, and marking the place where, according to tradition, Boadicea made her last stand. From thence, by climbing up the low bank on which a hedge was now set, the lover of the downs looked upon one of the grandest views in the South of England—that bounded on one side by the sea, on the other, beyond the unrolled map-like plain, by the long blue barrier of the Surrey hills.
Barbara's eyes dilated with pleasure. The fresh autumn wind brought a faint colour to her cheeks. She felt a kind of rapture at the beauty of the sight before her. It was amazing to her that these people could be talking so eagerly to one another, gazing so critically at the huntsman and at the hounds gathered on their haunches, while this marvellous sight lay spread out around and before them.
Mrs. Kemp, sitting by the side of Mrs. Boringdon in the pony-carriage, had something of the same feeling. She turned—foolishly, as she somewhat ruefully admitted to herself a moment later—to her companion and contemporary for sympathy—"I never saw Whiteways looking so beautiful as it does to-day!"
Mrs. Boringdon looked deliberately away from the sight which lay before her, and gazed thoughtfully at the sham Norman gateway. "Yes," she said, "very pretty indeed! Such a charming background to the men's red coats and to the dogs! Still, I wonder the Duke allows so many poor and dirty people to come streaming through the park. It rather spoils the look of the meet, doesn't it? If I were he, I should close the gates on this one day of the year at any rate."
Mrs. Kemp made no answer, but she bethought herself it was surely impossible that Lucy should be happy,in any permanent sense, if made to live in close proximity to Oliver Boringdon's mother.
Time was going on. The walkers and those who had driven to Whiteways were asking one another uneasily what the Master was waiting for. Miss Vipen, sitting bolt upright by Mrs. Sampson's side, addressing now and again a sharp word of reproof to the two young Sampsons sitting opposite to her, alone divined the cause of the delay. The Master of the South Sussex Hunt, that is, Tom Laxton—she had known him all her life, and even as a boy he had been afraid of her—was, of course, waiting for the Duke, for the Duke and the Halnakeham party! It was too bad to keep the whole field waiting like this, and probably the fault of the Duchess, who was always late at all local functions. Miss Vipen told Mrs. Sampson her opinion of the Duke, of the Duchess, and last but not least of the Master, whose subserviences to the great she thoroughly despised.
All at once there was a stir round the gate-way: "The Duke at last!" looking for all the world, so Miss Vipen observed to Mrs. Sampson, like an old fat farmer, and apparently quite pleased at having kept everybody waiting. As for Lord Pendragon, he was evidently very much the fine gentleman—or, stay, the weedy scholar from Oxford who despised the humble sports of a dull neighbourhood. But the time would come—Miss Vipen nodded her head triumphantly—when he, Lord Pendragon, would become very fat, like his mother, who, it was well known, was now too stout to ride. "They say," whispered Miss Vipen in Mrs. Sampson's unwilling ear, "that he is in love with a clergyman's daughter, and that the Duke won't hear of it! If they made her father a Bishop, I suppose it would be less objectionable— Ah! there's the Duchess. Theysay her carriages are always built just about a foot broader than anybody else's in order that her size may not show so much."
A move was now made for Whitecombe wood, and the Master trotted down towards a point from which on many a former occasion he had viewed a fox break away in the direction of the open down, and had been able to get a good start before he could be overtaken by what he used to call "all these confounded holiday jostlers."
While all this was going on, Captain Laxton had not stirred from Lucy's side, and together they rode over up towards Boadicea's camp. "If they find soon, which I think very doubtful," he said quietly, "and if, what is even less likely, the fox breaks, he is sure to head this way"—he pointed to the left—"because of the wind."
Lucy looked at him with a certain respect: she herself would never have thought of that! Captain Laxton, in the past, had often surprised her by his odd little bits of knowledge. She suddenly felt glad that he was there, and that apparently he bore her no grudge. More, she reminded herself that during the whole of the past summer she had missed his good-natured presence—that they had all missed him, her mother even more than herself. If he had not come to Whiteways to-day, she would now be by herself, down among those foolish people who were riding quickly and aimlessly up and down the steep roads near the wood, her father throwing her a word now and then no doubt, but Oliver giving her neither look, word, nor thought.
Lucy had become aware that Boringdon and Mrs. Rebell had chosen, as she and Laxton had done, a point of vantage away from the rest of the field, and that Oliver, with eager glowing face, was explainingthe whole theory of hunting to his companion—further, that she was hanging on his words with great interest.
Meanwhile, Captain Laxton was looking at Lucy Kemp no less ardently than Boringdon was gazing at Barbara Rebell. The young man had come out to-day with the definite intention of saying something to the girl, and now he wished to get this something said and over as quickly as possible.
"I hope that what happened last time I saw you won't make any difference, Lucy—I mean as to our being friends, and my coming to the Grange?"
He had always called her Lucy—always, that is, since her parents had come home from India when she was twelve years old. Now it is difficult, or so at least thought Lucy Kemp, to cherish any thought of romance in connection with a man who has called you by your Christian name ever since you were a little girl!
She hesitated. To her mind what had happened when they had last met ought to make a difference. She remembered how wretched his evident disappointment and unhappiness had made her at the time, and how kindly, since that time, had been her thoughts of him, how pained her father and mother had been. And now? Even after so short a time as three months, here he was, looking as cheerful and as good-tempered as ever! It was clear he had not cared as much as she had thought, and yet, according to her mother, he had wanted to speak to her nearly two years ago, and had been asked to bide his time. It was the knowledge of this constancy on his part which had made Lucy very tender to him in her thoughts.
Laxton misunderstood her silence: "You need not be afraid, Lucy, that—that I will bother you again in the same way. But honestly, you don't know how Ihave missed you all, how awfully lonely I've felt sometimes."
Lucy became aware that he was looking at her with a troubled, insistent face, and she suddenly remembered how much he used to be with them, making the Grange his home when she was still a very young girl, though he was more than welcome at another house in the neighbourhood. As for old Squire Laxton, Lucy knew only too well why he now always looked at her so disagreeably; the coming and going of this young soldier cousin to Laxgrove had been the old sporting bachelor's great pleasure, apart of course from hunting, and he had missed him sorely that summer.
Why should not everything go on as it had done before, if Captain Laxton really wished it to do so? And so she said in a low tone, "Of course we have missed you too, all of us, very much."
"Oh! well then, that's all right! I will come over to the Grange to-morrow—I suppose you would all be tired out this evening? I've been at Laxgrove nearly a week already, and I must be back at Canterbury on Monday, worse luck! I say, Lucy——"
"Yes?" Lucy smiled up at him quite brightly, but her mind was absorbed in the scene below her: the Duke, the great potentate of the neighbourhood, had come up to Mrs. Rebell—she was now following him towards the victoria in which sat the ample Duchess, and Boringdon had ridden off, galloping his mare down the steep rough road where the Master, with anxious eyes, was watching the hounds slipping in and out of the wood. Lucy was rather puzzled. How was it that this strange lady, who had only arrived at the Priory some three weeks ago, and who never came into the village—she had been out driving when Mrs. Boringdon had called on her—knew everybody? Shesaid suddenly, "I did not know that you knew Mrs. Rebell: we have none of us seen her excepting in church."
"I can't say I know her, but old Cousin Tom has made great friends with her. You know she's been riding Saucebox every morning, and they, she and Boringdon, always go past Laxgrove about twelve o'clock. The first morning there was quite a scene. The mare didn't quite understand Mrs. Rebell, I suppose, for a steam roller came up, and in a minute she was all over the place. Mrs. Rebell sat tight, but it gave her rather a turn, and Tom made her come into the house. Then yesterday—you know what a down-pour there was—well, she and Boringdon came in again. I was rather glad to see them, for he and Tom have had rather an unpleasantness over the Laxgrove shooting. However, now, thanks to this Mrs. Rebell, they've quite made it up. She's a nice-looking woman, isn't she?—quite the kind of figure for a showy beast like Saucebox!"
But Lucy made no answer: could it be, so thought Laxton uneasily, that she did not like to hear another woman praised? To some girls, the young man would never have said anything complimentary concerning another lady, but Lucy Kemp was different; that was the delightful thing about Lucy,—both about the girl and her mother.
Old Tom, sitting over the smoking-room fire the evening before, had told his young kinsman to give up all thought of Lucy Kemp. "Whoever you marry now, it will be all the same about ten years hence!" so the cynical bachelor had observed, but then, what did Tom Laxton know about it? The younger man was well aware, in a general sense, that this was true of many men and their wives. It would probably betrue of him were he to choose, and to be chosen, from among the group of pleasant girls with whom he had flirted, danced, and played games during the last few months. But with Lucy, ah! no,—Lucy Kemp had become a part of his life, and he could not imagine existence without her somewhere in the background. Of course, to his old cousin, to Tom Laxton, Miss Kemp was simply a quiet rather dull girl who could not even ride really well—ride as women ought to ride if they hunted at all. The old sportsman had only two feminine ideals,—that of the loud, jolly, hail-fellow-well-met sort of girl, or else the stand-offish, delicate, high-bred sort of woman, like this Mrs. Rebell.
Lucy was looking straight before her, seeing nothing, thinking much. Oliver's absence from the Grange was now explained: he had been riding every morning with Mrs. Rebell, putting off the dull hours which he had to spend in the estate office till the afternoons. The girl thought it quite reasonable that Boringdon should ride with Madame Sampiero's guest, in fact, that sort of thing was one of those nondescript duties of which he had sometimes complained to her as having been more than he had bargained for. But how strange that he had not asked her, Lucy Kemp, to come too! When a certain girl cousin of Oliver's was at the Cottage, the three young people often enjoyed delightful riding expeditions,—in fact, that was how Lucy had first come to know Oliver so well.
"They've found at last! This way, Lucy!—"
Lucy woke up as if from a dream. The sharp unmistakable cry of Bluebell, one of the oldest hounds in the pack, broke on her ears. She and Laxton galloped down to the left—then waited—Laxton smiling broadly as the whole field swept past them just below, the men jostling one another in their eagernessto get first to a gate giving access to a large meadow which enclosed a stretch of down.
Rather on one side Lucy saw Mrs. Rebell and Boringdon, and Oliver—quiet, prudent Oliver—was actually giving Saucebox a lead over a low hedge! A group of town-folk from Halnakeham clapped their hands on seeing the lady clear the obstacle. Laxton laughed. "Miss Vipen would talk about circus performances, eh! Lucy?" He had never liked Boringdon, the two men had nothing in common. "But, of course, Mrs. Rebell may have told him she wanted to jump. They were doing that sort of thing yesterday down at Laxgrove, and I must say I thought it very sensible of Boringdon."
But in point of fact the hounds had not found. They had struck a strong drag in the lower end of the cover, but, after running for only thirty or forty yards, scent had quickly failed, and a few minutes afterwards the majority of the field had reappeared near the old gate on the crest of the hill.
"Well, it's not been much use so far, has it? I see that Mrs. Boringdon and your mother have gone home"—General Kemp seemed in high good humour. "And now that the Duchess is off, too, we shall be able to try the Bramber wood." The speaker's eyes twinkled; the Duchess of Appleby and Kendal had been a keen sportswoman in her day, and it had been hoped that the hounds would find in the ducal covers. "Would you like to go on, child?" He thought Lucy had been quite long enough with Laxton—that is, if, as his wife assured him, she had not changed her mind about the young man whom he himself liked so cordially.
"I think, father, if you don't mind, I'd rather gohome." The General's face fell—it seemed such a pity to turn back now, just when the real work of the day was to begin. He had heard the Master's dry words:—"The Duchess is gone, isn't she? Then let's make for Highcombe without losing a minute." But Laxton was interposing eagerly—"May I take Lucy home, sir? I will look after her all right, and perhaps Mrs. Kemp will give me a little lunch."
The General looked doubtfully at the two young people. They had remained close to one another during the last hour—what did it all mean? He wished his wife were there to give him a word, a glance, of advice.
"All right!" he said, "but in that case, I should advise you to go back over the downs. It's a pleasanter way, and you'll be at Chancton twice as quickly."
Lucy looked gratefully at the young man: it was really nice of him to do this—to give up his afternoon to her, and to brave, as he was certainly about to do, old Squire Laxton's anger: the Master of the S.S.H. had never understood his favourite kinsman's attitude to the noblest sport ever devised by man. And so she assented eagerly to the proposal that they should ride back over the downs.
"But wouldn't you rather stay?"
"I'm really glad of the excuse to get away!"—he smiled down on her—"I've been simply longing to see your mother!"
Slowly they made their way over the brow of the hill, and then down the wide grassy slopes skirting the high wall which shut off Chillingworth from the rest of the world.
Lucy was very subdued, and very gentle. It was a relief to be with someone who did not suspect, as her parents seemed to do, the truth as to her feeling forOliver Boringdon. Soon she and her companion were talking quite happily together, he asking her about all sorts of familiar matters. Again she bethought herself that she really had missed him, and that it was nice to have him back again.
Then there was a pause—Laxton had felt the kindness, the confidence of her manner. Suddenly bending down, he saw that the tears were in her eyes—that her lips were trembling. Could it be—? Oh! God, was it possible that she relented—that his intense feeling had at last roused an answering chord? A flood of deep colour swept over his fair sunburnt face. "Lucy!" he said hoarsely, "Lucy!" She looked up at him with sudden mute appeal, but alas! he misunderstood the meaning of the look. "If it is ever any good—any good now, my asking you again, you will let me know—you will be kind?" Poor, inadequate words, so he felt them to be, but enough, more than enough, if he had interpreted aright the look he had surprised.
But Lucy shook her head, "It is no good, I only wish it were—though I don't know why you should care so much."
They rode on into the village, and Laxton showed the good stuff he was made of by coming, as he had said he would, to the Grange, where Mrs. Kemp, after glancing at Lucy, entertained him with a pitying and heavy heart.