CHAPTER XXXVITHE SHADOW
It seemed as if, when Otho came in, joy went out. Eleanor, as she viewed his sinister figure, and saw his haggard countenance, felt a chill steal over her in the midst of the August warmth. It was like the first breath of winter, sent as a warning when autumn days are mild and life delicious.
‘You have come back at last, Otho. Are you going to stay at Thorsgarth?’
‘Just for two or three days. I’ve been there and put up my traps, and I meant to stay there, but it is such a dismal hole. It makes me creep all over. I could not stand it, so I thought I would look in upon you.’
‘I am glad you did,’ she said, wondering a little why he had chosen rather to visit her than Magdalen. But she did not ask, and he did not mention the subject. He did not stay very long. She asked him if he came from London, and he said yes. She did not ask him about Gilbert. She had nearly forgotten him. The strength of the love she felt for Michael had effaced almost the recollection of the uncomfortable days she had passed during Gilbert’s Christmas visit, and the fears she had felt with regard to him.
‘I thought you would be coming before,’ she said,‘for the shooting. People are saying it is something unheard of for you to be without a party at Thorsgarth just now.’
‘People may mind their own business. It doesn’t suit me to have a party. I can’t afford.’
‘Are you poor, Otho? Have you been losing money?’
‘What a question to ask! If you inquired whether I’d got any money lefttolose, it would be more to the point.’
‘I am very sorry to hear it. Are you going already?’ For he had risen.
‘Yes, I arranged with a fellow to meet me at home at eight, and it’s nearly that now.’
‘I shall see you to-morrow?’
‘I shall be busy in the day, but at night—yes, I’ll come and dine with you, Eleanor. What time?’
‘Seven, Otho; but come as soon as you like, and I’ll invite Magdalen to spend the evening too.’
‘Magdalen!’ He looked startled, as he had done on a former occasion, and not too well pleased. Then he said, with an attempt at indifference—
‘Oh, all right. That will be the best way.’
He departed, and as it was not too late, Eleanor sent a note by that night’s post, telling Miss Wynter that Otho was over, and would dine with her the following evening. Would she (Magdalen) join them and spend the evening?
Magdalen sent a man the next day with her acceptance of the invitation, and Eleanor awaited her two guests with the feelings of one who is heroically going through a most disagreeable duty.
It was the end of August, and on quiet, cloudy days it was twilight by seven o’clock. Just before that hourEleanor had occasion to go into one of the front rooms;—her dining and drawing-rooms were at the back, looking upon a pleasant garden and orchard, and the front rooms were small ones, separated from these others by folding doors.
She got what she wanted, and then paused for a moment beside the window, looking out upon the street, which was gray with the dusk, and the houses over the way did not show very clearly. No one was about except, as Eleanor noticed, a woman, whom she had seen earlier in the afternoon, in another part of the town; an itinerant singer, who had been going from door to door, singing ballads and collecting money. Eleanor had noticed her, and had been struck with the decency of her appearance, and the unusual quietness and modesty of her look. She had told her servants, if the young woman came to her house, to take her into the kitchen, and give her a meal. This had been done, and the girl now seemed not to intend to sing any more. She had been going about bareheaded; now she had put on a small straw bonnet, and placed a woollen shawl about her shoulders. She stood near the doorsteps, and looked this way and that, as if not certain in which direction to go. The window was open, and Eleanor was about to throw it still higher up, and suggest to the young woman where she might find a lodging for the night, when quick steps approached from that side of her own house at which she stood. Then a man’s figure, in a light summer overcoat and a round hat, appeared; it was Otho, and he had one foot on the doorstep, when the young woman turned, and began rather timidly—‘If you please, sir——’
‘Good God! what do you mean!’ he exclaimed, in avoice in which both fear and anger struggled. ‘Have you no more——’
‘Sir!’ exclaimed the young woman, facing him fully, and in evident astonishment, ‘I was not going to beg—I——’
‘Confound you!’ burst from Otho’s lips, and his voice trembled, with what emotion Eleanor could not guess. ‘You made me think—what do you want, loafing about here?’
‘I am doing no such thing as loafing,’ said the young woman in high dudgeon. I am a respectable woman, and I was going to ask you a civil question—that’s all. But I’ll go farther on, now.’
She turned away, indignation quivering in her every movement. Otho stood still a moment, Eleanor noticed, as she breathlessly watched and listened, with his hand resting against the door pillar, as if to support himself. And she saw that he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his brow; and she heard something muttered between his teeth, and then the words, ‘cursed hole like this!’ Then he came into the house, for the door opened from the outside, and she mechanically went out to meet him, disturbed more than she would have cared to own. For whom, for what had he mistaken the young woman, that he should show such alarm and such fear?
He was standing in the hall, having laid his hat upon the table, and was pulling off his overcoat. His face was quite white, or rather, gray, and his eyes looked wild and startled.
‘Halloa!’ said he, evidently with an effort—at least, it was evident to her now that she knew what had gone before. ‘How are you? Has Magdalen come?’
‘No. I am expecting her every minute,’ she replied.‘Ah, there are the carriage wheels. She is here now.’
Otho was now master of himself again. He waited in the hall till Magdalen had come in, and received her, looking into her eyes with a sort of eagerness, and kissing her as he looked at her.
The evening proved, in a way, less depressing than Eleanor had expected. Magdalen was unusually sweet and gracious; Otho more genial and expansive than his sister had ever seen him. Magdalen openly and unreservedly put questions to him about his affairs and intentions, which Eleanor would never have dreamed of asking. He was not very explicit as to his business, but said it was business that brought him to Thorsgarth, adding with candour that nothing else would induce him to set foot in the place, for he had got a horror of it. From some hints that he let fall, the two young women gathered that his stables and stud were to come to the hammer—when, he did not say. Also, that he was at present somewhat straitened for any considerable sum of money. But he did not hint at any wish to borrow money, or receive assistance, only saying that Gilbert would see him safe through present difficulties, and that the Friarsdale stables would bring in ‘a pot of money.’
‘I’m going to Friarsdale to-morrow,’ he added, ‘and back here the same night. The day after, I’m off again.’
‘Are you? Where?’
‘London first. Then Paris, I expect. I’ve got some business there,’ he condescended to inform them, ‘in connection with theGrand Prixnext spring.’
‘Racing again!’ said Magdalen. ‘But you’ve got no horse in it.’
‘Yes, but I have. I’ve Crackpot again.’
‘Again!’ repeated Miss Wynter, with emphasis and meaning.
‘Oh, it’s all straight this time. You need not be sneering, Mag; and Eleanor need not turn up her eyes in that lackadaisical fashion. When Crackpot has won theGrand Prix, as I intend him to, I shall sell him for—well, a good lot of money. Then I shall be fairly on my legs again. Thorsgarth may stay as it is, yet awhile, and the timber can remain in the woods.’
‘I should hope so!’ exclaimed Eleanor, in a voice of alarm.
‘And if you’d only marry me now, Magdalen, out of hand, you should have the purse-strings, and keep me in order. Come, let it be a bargain!’
Magdalen’s eyes glittered. It was a bargain she would have clinched that moment if she could.
‘You know it is utterly impossible, Otho, now. But if you’ll come home again before Christmas—well before Christmas, you know, I might be able to settle things.’
‘Oh, do promise, Otho!’ Eleanor urged him eagerly. ‘If only you and Magdalen could get married at the end of this year or the beginning of next—why, you might go abroad; and when you had got this money that you speak of, you might live abroad.’
Her heart leaped up at the idea that Magdalen, if she once had him in hand, and was as he said mistress of the purse-strings, might have a strong influence over him, and that, having broken from his sporting associates, both here and in London, something different—something a little better, might surely be made of him.
‘If you would marry him, Magdalen,’ she went on, ‘I would spend the rest of the winter myself with MissStrangforth, if she would have me; or you could find her another niece to come and live with her.’
‘I would do my best,’ Magdalen said, ‘if he’ll promise to come home before Christmas.’
Otho h’md and ha’d, and said at last, he could not promise more than she did. He would do his best too.
‘It would be very nice,’ Magdalen said, reflectively. ‘Bradstaneisdull to the carnally minded. People given up to good works and acts of mercy, like Miss Askam, may find it bearable. I think it is awful. And there is hardly any one left in it now. All my old friends are gone. You away, Otho; Gilbert away; Roger Camm gone.’
‘Camm lives in Leeds now, doesn’t he?’ asked Otho; and there was something in his voice as he spoke—an inflexion, a shade, which caused Eleanor to glance at him quickly. But he looked as usual, except that he was still haggard and worn-looking, and appeared indifferent about the answer.
‘Yes,’ said his sister. ‘He has a very good post there.’
‘What has become of that little girl he was going to marry?’ asked Otho; and Magdalen gave a little laugh, saying—
‘Well, that is good, I must say. After the way you behaved to her——’
‘What?’ stammered Otho, and there was the same look on his face that Eleanor had seen there as he stood in the hall just before Magdalen’s arrival.
‘He pretends not to know,’ said Magdalen, mockingly. ‘It is not a hundred years since there was a concert in the Bradstane schoolroom, sir.’
And she laughed her measured, cold laugh.
‘Oh, bah!’
‘Ada Dixon was very much out of health, and was sent away into Devonshire into a warmer climate,’ said Eleanor, gravely. ‘She has been away all the summer, and has not yet returned.’
‘Ah!’ said Otho, stifling a yawn. ‘I used to see her in former days, going up and down the village, and going to see you, Mag——’
‘Yes. You put a stop to that by your behaviour that night. After that it was impossible for me to have anything more to do with her.’
He laughed.
‘I never saw anything of her this time, so I thought she might have got married to some one, and cleared out.’
Neither his sister nor Magdalen saw how, as he spoke, he looked sideways at them. Magdalen was opening and shutting her fan. Eleanor had some trifle of fancy work in her hands.
He did not stay much longer, but had some talk with Magdalen at the door before he went away. He did not wait till Miss Strangforth’s carriage came, nor offer, as on a former occasion, to see her home. Magdalen returned to Eleanor when the door had closed behind Otho.
‘He is really exasperating. He will not give me his address now; says he is so uncertain: I must write through Gilbert, as usual. I declare he grows more and more mysterious. One might almost think he had some reason for wishing to conceal his whereabouts,’ Magdalen went on, reflectively. ‘Suppose one wanted to get at him suddenly, in any emergency, and everything had to be done through Gilbert. It might be most awkward.’
She spoke with entire tranquillity of mien and voice, and stood before the looking-glass over the mantelpiece,arranging the flowers in her corsage, with drooped eyelids and leisurely fingers. It was evidently a purely imaginary picture that she drew. But Eleanor looked up sharply, remembering what she had witnessed that very evening. Magdalen, however, was no person to whom she could disclose her vague and shadowy fears. There was nothing for it but silence. She gave a troubled sigh.