It was of course impossible for Haverford to leave London immediately after his mother's funeral. He had to charge himself with the arrangements of her affairs, a matter in which his half-brother should have taken his share. But Cuthbert Baynhurst had hastened away as quickly as he could go.
He seemed to be haunted by the dread of infection if he set foot again in the house where his mother had suffered and died. More than this, he had put into his mind the morbid fear that he had in him already the seeds of this complaint which his mother had endured in silence for so long. He was not even present at the funeral.
At the time the coffin was being lowered into the ground Camilla and he were travelling in hot haste away from London, from England, from the mere possibility of breathing the air the poor dead woman had breathed.
"This will be the beginning of the end," Caroline said to herself. "Her eyes may be blinded for a little while, and he may attempt to tyrannize through this power he has over her now, but Camilla is not his mother. She will tire so soon, and his selfishness has no limits."
She was sitting out in the garden alone. There was a moon, and the world was wrapped about in the hush of the summer night.
The children were asleep. They had been in a great excitement all day because it had suddenly been decided that there was to be a departure from the country to the sea.
Mrs. Brenton had expected to have relinquished her little charges to the care of their mother, but this was now postponed indefinitely.
The note Camilla had scribbled just before leaving London had touched Agnes Brenton almost in the old way.
She wrote so lovingly. One could see that her heart yearned for her children, and yet that she could not separate herself from this new tie.
She burdened both Mrs. Brenton and Caroline with all sorts of charges for her two little ones; above all, she entreated them pathetically to keep her always vividly in front of her children's eyes.
"If I did not know that they were so safe with you, that they were put completely out of the reach of Ned's people, I should never be able to leave them."
At once Mrs. Brenton decided that they would go away from Yelverton.
"A change will be good for all of us," she declared, with something of her old briskness. "You have never been to Normandy, have you, Caroline? Well, prepare yourself for a delightful experience!"
On the morrow the packing would commence, and Caroline smiled half faintly to herself as she conjured up the importance of this occasion to Betty and Baby. How busy they would be, and what a muddle they would make!
Caroline leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes.
It was deliciously cool and quiet. This was the moment that she loved to be alone, when the gardens had greater beauty for her and the healing tranquillity of the country spoke to her eloquently.
She was glad to go away, and yet it would be a wrench to leave this place, which now seemed sown with the most precious of her thoughts, watered with her heart's tears, and warmed with that joy which, though it had come in secret, had remained to illumine her whole life.
She had written him a few words of sympathy. They were not framed in the usual conventional formula; she wrote from her heart. She seemed to know that his mother's death would have a far greater significance to him now than at any other time; that, as he had stood and looked on his mother, dead, there must have come a new and a deeper rush of bitterness.
The grave Camilla had dug had been the burial-ground of all those sweet hopes and dreams which had clustered about him like children of late. His heart must have been barren as he had stood by his mother's grave.
She had not seen him since that most memorable evening; it did not seem likely or probable that they should see him again before they went away.
Betty had been writing him a number of epistles. It appeared that she required a great many things to go abroad with, and she had already learned to turn to Rupert for the fulfilment of all her wishes. Nothing touched Caroline so much as his attitude to the children; he was, if possible, more tender than before. He adopted a little more serious air, and in every sort of way made it known to all that he was their guardian.
"I was afraid," Mrs. Brenton had said once to the girl—"I was afraid that he might have changed in this, but I ought to have known him better!" Another time she said, "Did I tell you he had refused to take back a single thing he had given her? She told me all this in the first letter she wrote from Italy, and yet even now," Mrs. Brenton added, in a low tone, "I don't believe she grasps the full meaning of his generosity. After telling me all this, she added that, of course, if it had been any other man than Cuthbert she could not have kept the jewels; but that, as Cuthbert was his brother, he had a right to share in so much wealth."
"That was not her own suggestion," Caroline had said quickly.
Her thoughts hovered pityingly about Camilla this night, and about the memory of the woman who was just dead.
That year in his mother's house had taught her to know Cuthbert Baynhurst through and through.
His desertion now of his duty, his cowardice and exacting selfishness were made doubly contemptible, when she remembered his mother's clinging love, her heart-whole devotion, her pride in him.
"He is not worthy to be walked on by Rupert," Caroline determined hotly. And at that very moment some one spoke her name, and, starting violently, she turned to find Rupert himself standing just behind her chair.
"Do forgive me," he said quickly, realizing how much he had startled her. "Mrs. Brenton sent me to find you. She told me you are always out here at this time."
"I fancied I was quite alone," said Caroline nervously; then she added, "Have you been here long? Did you motor down?"
He said "Yes."
Their hands had clasped and unclasped.
"I felt I must come down and see you all before you fly away. In particular, I want to speak to you."
"Yes," said Caroline.
"Are you tired?" Haverford asked rather abruptly. "Shall we walk?"
She got up at once.
"It is so delightful out here at this time. I will take you to Betty's garden. There is a rose waiting for you, Mr. Haverford. It was going to be sent by post in a box to-morrow. I don't know that I dare pick it, but you may look at it."
As they passed under the interlacing branches of the trees, he said—
"I thought you would like to know that my mother spoke of you several times. She has bequeathed to you some odds and ends of jewellery which I fancy must have belonged to your mother. I cannot say that she spoke kindly," he said, with half a sigh; "but at least she remembered."
"It grieved me," said Caroline, in a low voice, "to know that she suffered so much."
He sighed.
"At times it was terrible. What stuff some of you women are made of! She had her faults, my poor mother, but she had marvellous qualities. In some ways you remind me of her, only you are not in the least masculine."
When they reached Betty's garden he knelt down and put his lips to the rose.
"Tell her I have been here, that I have left a kiss for her. I won't pick it. Dear little creature, let her send it on, if she wants to."
"But are you going back to-night?" Caroline asked.
In her white muslin gown she looked wraith-like, part of the mist which hovered like a white veil over the ground.
"I think so. I have a sort of fever in my bones.... I want to be moving all the time." Then quite abruptly he turned, and put his hand on her shoulder. "There is something else I want to say to you."
She trembled and drew back, and he at once removed his hand.
"Yes?"
"I am told that Sir Samuel Broxbourne has been coming here very often of late, coming apparently for the purpose of seeing you."
"Who has told you this?" Caroline asked very coldly.
"It has been told me by a friend, and from the very best of reasons."
"I know Mrs. Brenton is everything that is kind and good," said the girl, in a hard and cold tone; "yet I fail to see why she should approach you on such a matter as this."
"Do you?" said Haverford. "She does it because she knows that I have the right to know what is passing with you, the right to enter into all that is important in your life. You are in my charge, subject to my command for the next two years."
Caroline laughed half bitterly and half weakly.
"Oh, don't let us talk such nonsense!" she exclaimed, and she moved away, but he followed her.
"It is not nonsense," he spoke irritably. "I have established myself as your guardian, and by my mother's will you are bequeathed to my care, therefore I have a right to put questions to you which might seem impertinent if asked by anybody else."
"I think Mrs. Brenton makes a mistake," said Caroline, still walking on.
"In what way?"
"Sir Samuel is an old friend of the house, he has been in the habit of coming here freely, I understand; why, therefore, should it be supposed that he comes now only because of me?"
"I don't know why, but I hope to God he does not come for that reason!" His voice grew harder. "You know what I think of this man; I have spoken to you freely about him, and, better than that, your own instinct, which has carried you to such rare judgments, must tell you that he is no fit associate for a girl. I was going to say for any decent woman."
Caroline was silent for a long time. Suddenly she said—
"All women are unreasonable, you know; that is a tradition, and sometimes they see things in a light that is hidden to you men. I don't suppose Sir Samuel is a paragon of perfection, but, at the same time, I don't think he is half so bad as he has been painted. At least he is very harmless, and rather amusing."
Rupert Haverford looked at her, and a great amazement which bordered on pain took possession of him.
"You like him?" he said, going to the point in his peculiarly direct way.
Caroline shrugged her shoulders.
"I really think I do, but I am not sure; at any rate, I don't bother myself about it very much." Her tone was flippant. "How youdolove catechising!" she said. It might have been Camilla speaking.
They passed up the garden again in silence; beyond the wide expanse of lawn the house stood hospitably open. Lights gleamed everywhere, Mr. Brenton's tall figure with stooping shoulders was coming slowly towards them.
"Well," Haverford said, in a cold, dry way, "if you regard him in this uncertain way it is easier for me to act."
Caroline looked round sharply. There was indignation in her tone.
"How do you mean ... act?"
"I mean I shall take steps to prevent this acquaintance from becoming an intimate one. However much it may annoy you, the fact remains that I am your guardian, and that until you are twenty-one you are not free to do anything of which I do not approve, and I assuredly donotapprove of your friendship with this man."
Caroline paused and caught her breath.
"This surveillance," she said coldly, "is not only very ridiculous, it is very objectionable. You may arrogate to yourself a certain authority where my money is concerned, but in the matter of choosing my friends I demand absolute liberty. Please understand I can recognize no law you may make in this." She stood a few seconds, then she said "Good night" abruptly, and she walked away from him quickly. Indeed, halfway across the lawn she broke into a run, and had gained the house almost before he realized she was gone.
Mr. Brenton called out something to her as she passed him so fleetly, but she made no answer.
"What's wrong with Caroline?" he asked as he reached Rupert Haverford.
The young man sat down, and did not reply for a moment; then he said shortly—
"I have been speaking to her about Broxbourne."
"Oh!" said Mr. Brenton. He stretched himself comfortably in another chair. "That's what my wife has been putting you up to, I suppose? Aggie has worked herself into a rare state over this business of Sammy. You know, my dear fellow," Dick Brenton said, in his pleasant, tranquil voice, "I don't quite go with you both. I know Sammy is a bit wild, his father was before him, but he will settle down. He's got the nicest old mother in the world. Seems to me he is in earnest."
"The thing is preposterous," said Rupert Haverford, in his decisive way. "I am not speaking of his position, his title, or his family; it is the man himself I abhor. I should be sorry to see any woman I care about married to him."
"Well, my experience teaches me," said Mr. Brenton, after a little silence, "that these things right themselves. I don't suppose Caroline gives Sammy two thoughts, but, on the other hand, she may. I am rather sorry you spoke."
"I am not," said Haverford shortly. A moment later he said, "I thought she was unusually sensible, and able to take care of herself; but I see now I have made a mistake."
He was extraordinarily disturbed. If he had not questioned her himself he would not have believed this thing. There had been something so fresh and clear to him about Caroline, she had matched himself in straightforwardness; her word had been charged with truth, and over and again she had given evidence of such unusual qualities that he had unconsciously endowed her with wisdom beyond her years, and regarded her mental outlook as peculiarly well balanced. Not even the great overthrow of his life's sweetest task had moved him more sharply than he was moved now. Indeed, then he had been partially prepared. As he had put it himself to Caroline, he had felt that the creature he loved was slipping gradually but surely out of his grasp; he had been conscious that the butterfly he had caught and chained was fluttering restlessly (albeit the chain was a glittering one), and he had nerved himself for the pronouncement that his love was wearying, his devotion exacting. And when all this had come, he had met it quietly, as something that was inevitable. But he had suffered none the less.
All things he had expected from Camilla except the thing she had done. And the astounding conviction of her disloyalty had been hardly more startling than this curious phase of her nature which Caroline had revealed this night.
He had, like Agnes Brenton, found it possible to pardon in Camilla many, many things that would have been unforgivable in others, because he took her mental construction into consideration first of all; because he regarded her as a child, a headstrong, foolish, sweet, irresponsible child, with all the innocence that belongs to extreme youth, and because he knew she had been from the beginning surrounded by the most disastrous influences. And Camilla had shown him how mistaken he had been to treat her with such tender thought.
So now with Caroline. He had placed her apart; he realized now that he had thought of her as something fragrant and beautifying, and with her own lips she had confessed herself capable of a sympathy for a man who was brutal, vulgar, coarse in heart and mind.
Were all women so framed? Or was it merely his destiny to be denied knowledge of woman in her true personification? The woman of sweetest compassion and bravest comradeship; that figure of nobility and modesty of whom poets had sung from ages uncounted and for whose purity and honour men had died in centuries gone. His mother had shown him one side of the picture, Camilla the reverse; now Caroline added her touch.
He sat a long time after Mr. Brenton had smoked his cigar and gone indoors. He was both angry and miserable. His feeling, as he had approached Yelverton that evening, had been one nearly akin to pleasure. He was glad to meet Agnes Brenton, glad to see Caroline again; and after the first greeting Mrs. Brenton had swept him into a fresh element for trouble and regret. "The fault is in myself," he mused, "it must be so. I am in my wrong groove; that's what is at the bottom of it all."
He delivered himself up wholly in this moment to that old yearning to shake off the trammels of his present existence, to be stripped of all that made the world envy him.
For a brief while he had sunned himself in the glory of a false paradise, and for that brief while the clamour of his old ambitions had been silenced, the weighty responsibility of his money had been changed into satisfaction. But once that glory had been darkened his spirit had gone back with a rush to the old habits, the old desires.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that he should turn against this environment of wealth and luxury, of soft raiment and cultivated beauty, since he had been taught the hollowness of this social life, since trickery and selfishness, lies and banalities, had swept so destructively across his path. Not that he condemned wholesale; he made distinctions. There was good everywhere. These very people whose guest he was this night were in themselves the surest testimony to that. Brought in contact now with all sorts and conditions of people, he was quick to recognize that there were hearts as honest and as simple in the ranks of the moneyed class as in any other walk of life. Nevertheless, Haverford's real sympathies were with those who worked; it seemed to him there must always be more possibility for finding gold in the natures of those who toiled and suffered and even died together in their grind to put bread into the mouths of their children, than could be possible to the idlers and the well-cared-for.
Back in the old days he had seen many an evidence of this golden nature packed away in a rough frame, an uncouth personality.
And the women of those old days, was not their history such as to place them apart for honour and admiration? Why, he could bring back memories now of fidelity, and courage, and dogged endurance among those working women that made his eyes wet and his heart thrill as he recalled them.
And he remembered, too, that till this night there had always been something about Caroline Graniger to remind him of those people who had been once so dear to him, to whom his heart still turned, despite their recent churlish treatment of him; who made such a close bond between his boyhood and his present self.
Yes, Caroline had surely possessed something of the simplicity, that quiet, reticent strength of those North Country people. He was conscious now of how much he had relied on her. He got up with a sigh at last, and before he went indoors he made his way to Betty's little garden again. He stooped and touched the rose once more with his lips, but it seemed as if the fragrance had gone from the flower, as if the soft beauty of the garden had lost something. Certain it was that as he slowly moved under the trees he had a sense of loss heavily upon him, as if in the flitting away of that girl's white-robed figure, not merely the little world about him was robbed of a potent charm, but that there had gone with her a sympathy, an influence that all unconsciously had suggested to him consolation.
The sea had gone out a long way, and between the tiny digue and the beach there stretched a large expanse of rich wet sand, broken here and there by large smooth pools which reflected as in a mirror the wondrous opalescent colouring of the sky, made inexpressibly glorious by the sinking of the hot, tired sun.
At least Caroline felt that it ought to be tired, it had been shining so fiercely for so many hours.
She sat in a low canvas chair on the sands, and watched her two small people scampering here and there absolutely regardless of fatigue. They had their dainty clothes pinned up carefully, and their pretty little legs were burnt dark brown. Betty looked quite tall, especially with her sunny hair bunched on her head.
Every now and then Caroline would call—
"Bed-time, chicks."
But she said it dreamily, and no one took any notice.
She was spellbound by the marvellous beauty of the sea and sky. As the sun descended slowly and reluctantly the world was alive with colour. Fiery streaks of orange, mingled with the tenderest rose-pink flung themselves upwards in the sky, forming a diadem for the departing monarch; and hovering near (creeping every instant closer like ministering spirits) clustered the clouds, some deepest purple, and some misty grey. Below, the sea murmured its evening hymn, whilst its surface caught the reflected pageantry, shifting from one wondrous scheme of colour to another. Caroline's heart contracted with emotion as she watched the golden glory melt into a sea of red, then the red fade into a wondrous mauve, that in its turn glided into turquoise blue; and lastly into the melancholy green that heralded the dark shades of night.
It was really growing late; Caroline got up with an effort and called the children.
Baby nestled in her arms at once, a flushed and sandy little individual. It was only a few steps fortunately to the annex of the hotel. Betty was taking farewell of an admirer. There was not a masculine heart, even of the tenderest age, that had not succumbed to Betty's fascinations.
At the children's ball every week at the Casino the little "Anglaise" was the acknowledged beauty. Just before they left the sands Caroline turned and looked at the sea; it was growing cold and grey now, the pale moon gave it a touch of sadness.
Somewhere over where the sea and the night sky met lay the land where he was. If only her spirit could wing itself through these thousands of miles and look upon him!
He seemed lost. It was not only distance that divided him.
Since that June night in the old garden there had been silence between them—a silence that was fraught with the most hurtful significance to Caroline.
She turned away and cuddled baby closer.
"News from Camilla," said Mrs. Brenton, as the little cavalcade turned into the hotel gardens. "She is in Dieppe. We shall see her to-morrow. She writes in a great hurry, but seems in the best of spirits. It is useless," added Mrs. Brenton, with a faint smile, "to pretend that I can keep up a defensive attitude with Camilla. She writes for all the world as if she had never given me an hour's uneasiness in all her life!"
Caroline dressed for dinner an hour later with a nervous feeling, that was almost apprehension, weighting her.
"Why has she come to Dieppe?" she asked herself. "Can she know that he is there? I wish I could be more sure of him. It is just because he never speaks of her now that he makes me so anxious."
As luck would have it, that night when they went for their usual stroll after dinner Agnes Brenton introduced Broxbourne's name.
It was her husband who had urged her to let the matter stand all this time. She would not have spoken now only that she really was perplexed by Caroline's manner, and could not rid herself of the suggestion that though the girl was so bright, and her spirit seemed so unflagging, she was in reality not at all happy. From this it was a very short step to imagine that the man who was undoubtedly hovering about Caroline was the cause of this unhappiness.
They stood a long time in silence watching the moonlit sea; then Mrs. Brenton said, with a sigh—
"I shall be sorry to go away from here;" and Caroline said—
"So shall I." A moment later she said, "I wish I knew what my future is going to be."
Mrs. Brenton looked at her.
"What do you mean, dear child?"
"I mean," said Caroline, "that everything before me is uncertain. Undoubtedly the children's mother will make an attempt to have them with her; but this cannot possibly be a lasting arrangement, because I know something about Cuthbert Baynhurst, and I can hardly picture him living in the same house, however large, with children. And," said Caroline, with a little catch in her voice, "assuredly in that house there would be no place for me."
Mrs. Brenton was silent a minute, and then she said—
"Camilla knows there is always room at Yelverton for the children, and I should be happy if I could hope that you would be with them for a long time to come. But this is unreasonable. So too isourdesire to keep you with us. Indeed, I have been preparing myself to hear that you were thinking of having a home of your own." Then Agnes Brenton slipped her arms round the girl's shoulder. "Imustknow!" she said. "Caroline, are you going to marry Sammy?"
She was almost amazed by the emphatic way in which Caroline denied this.
"But he wants to marry you? That is patent to all the world. Is it so hard for you to speak to me, Caroline?"
"I know so well what you have had in your mind all this time," the girl answered. "I know you think it most extraordinary that I should encourage Sir Samuel, and I know that a lot of people would think it very wrong of me to seem to encourage him. He has asked me four times already if I will marry him, and if he asked me four hundred times I should answer the same thing."
"Then, ..." said Mrs. Brenton, and she stopped and all at once she drew Caroline round and looked at her almostly sternly. "I think I begin to understand.... There is something you are hiding, Caroline...."
And Caroline made no attempt to deny it.
"There is something that I have tried to deal with singlehanded, but it is growing too difficult for me," she said, and she spoke almost wearily. "It is not my secret, and I cannot share it even with you."
"What an ass I have been!" said Agnes Brenton, suddenly. Then she bent forward and kissed Caroline. "Now," she said, "we stand together. I don't ask you to tell me what this trouble is. I only want you to answer two questions. Does it affect Camilla?"
Caroline said "Yes."
"Does it affect others besides Camilla?"
Again Caroline said "Yes." And then the words broke from her involuntarily, "It might do lasting harm to the children.... It might spoil their future. I don't believe," the girl said half passionately, "that she for one instant realizes this. I don't believe she has grasped for a single instant the danger that has threatened her."
Mrs. Brenton sighed.
"Oh, to put some depth into Camilla!" she said. Then, "And you have managed to stand between her and this danger; but how, my dear, dear child?"
"How?" said Caroline, she laughed, but it was a wretched laugh. "Indeed, I scarcely know. I think I have attracted him just because I have been truthful with him. I have never once pretended that I liked him. I have given him more home-thrusts than I fancy he has had from anybody else. And he only wants me because he thinks I am not easy to get. At the same time," Caroline said, "I must do him this justice. He gave me a promise, it was not a little thing, indeed, remembering what he is, it was a big thing; and up to now he has kept this promise. I am only afraid he won't keep it much longer. He is getting tired," Caroline said, with a break in her voice. "I saw a difference in his manner when he was here the other day. If I lose my power of attraction," the girl's voice was bitter, "I am afraid all I have tried to do will be so much wasted work."
They paced to and fro and were silent a long time. Then Agnes Brenton said—
"I must enter into this. I have every right to do so. I am glad now that Sammy is so near. I shall send and ask him to come and see me without further delay." Then she reproached Caroline. "Why did you not bring this trouble to me at once?"
Caroline caught her breath with a sigh.
"I suppose we all try to do clever things once in our life." Then she took Mrs. Brenton's hand and carried it to her lips. "I did not want you to have more to bear, dear friend. You were so unhappy, and I believed I should be able to keep this away from you always."
In a low voice a moment later, Caroline said—
"When she comes to-morrow, you will say nothing to her?" and Agnes Brenton promised this.
Later, when she was alone with her husband, she surprised him by observing with some vehemence.
"Dick, I give you full permission to call me a fool whenever you feel inclined to do so."
Mr. Brenton looked up from his latest treasure, an old French book which he had picked up in a day's excursion to Rouen.
"I will start at once, if it will give you any satisfaction, my dear," he said, in his gentle way.
The children were in the wildest state of excitement at the prospect of seeing "mother." They quarrelled when they were having their hair brushed as to the time she would arrive, and what she would come in.
Baby declared Mummy would arrive in a boat, at which Betty scoffed openly.
"A boat doesn't go on the road. She'll come in a motor."
And Betty was right.
Camilla arrived in the smartest and latest of automobiles; she was exquisitely dressed in white, and caused a flutter in the little toy watering-place, which, with so many of its kind, stud the coast of Normandy. She came not alone. There were two men and another woman with her.
Mrs. Brenton and Caroline and the children were down on the digue when she arrived, and as the children caught sight of their pretty mother and rushed to greet her, Agnes Brenton caught Caroline by the wrist.
"There is no occasion to send for Sammy," she said; "Camilla has brought him."
And when a little mist had cleared away from Caroline's eyes she saw that Mrs. Brenton had made no mistake.
It was Broxbourne himself. He looked sheepish and uncomfortable as he caught Caroline's eyes, and he made no attempt to approach her.
There was never any one so gay as Camilla. The moment she arrived she seemed to radiate the whole place. The little crowded digue concentrated its whole attention on her. She provoked universal admiration.
When the whole party made a move towards the hotel for luncheon, she caught Caroline by the hand.
"I want you, Caroline—I want to ask you something," she said. She sent the children on ahead; then, when there was no one near, she said, "Can you give me news of Rupert?"
"No," said Caroline, "but I have no doubt Mrs. Brenton can."
Camilla threw back her long gauze veil.
"Oh dear, how hot it is here!" she said; "there is absolutely no air. The place lies in such a hole, but the chicks look splendid." Then, in her restless way, "Well, if you know nothing, I must ask Agnes, for we have heard the most extraordinary rumour about him"—she meant Haverford. "I thought perhaps you could tell me if it was true; I mean about his having gone to America because he has found some relations of Matthew Woolgar, and that he intends to give them all the money."
Caroline answered almost impatiently.
"I assure you I know nothing whatever about Mr. Haverford, or what he is doing. How should I?"
"Well, I hope to goodness there is no truth in this report," said Mrs. Cuthbert Baynhurst. "If there is, it is a very bad look-out for all of us."
Caroline crimsoned.
"Have you not enough already?"
This made Camilla look at her; then she stood still and gave Caroline a little pull.
"Now, don't be cross with me," she said, and, just like Betty, she added, "Nasty, unkind Caroline!" Then, becoming serious again, "You know it is not at all impossible that he might do this. He is so extraordinary about some things. I wonder who put the idea into his mind? I always understood that old Woolgar had no relations."
They walked on, and then, with a little laugh, Camilla said—
"If you want to know the truth, we have not gothalfenough. I find Cuthbert is every bit as extravagant as I am. I wanted him to come with me to-day, but do you think I could get him away from the 'petits chevaux'? Not I! And let me tell you one can lose a fair amount of money at that game, silly as it is."
Caroline stood still; there were tears in her eyes.
"Oh, dearest!" she said, "is ... is it always to be the same? Is...."
Camilla whipped her round, and they walked sharply back towards the sands.
"You shan't cry for me," she said; "I'm a beast. I'm not worth it. You don't know how little I deserve your tears."
"Yes, I do," said Caroline; "but I can't help crying; because I love you, because you are the first person, you and the children, who have belonged to me, who have made life real, and because I want the children to have a proper mother. Not just a pretty doll dressed up every time they see her in something new. You had it in your power once to turn your back deliberately on all this worthlessness; but I won't go into that now.... Only I must speak, I must try to let you realize...." Once again her voice broke; then, with an effort, Caroline said, "Though you have lost so much, there is still so much left.... I know it will be a little bit harder for you now, but still you can do it if you like. Everybody can rise...." The words ended abruptly.
"Don't!" said Camilla, and then she added, "When I am with you I want to be as you want me to be, but when I am away I have not the strength to change, and it all seems so useless; the trying, I mean...." There was real depth in her voice as she said, "Do you think I don't know what I have lost? I have known it more and more every day. I expect I shall know it a good deal more surely before I come to the end of my life. It's only this excitement that makes me want to go on at all."
"I thought you were happy," Caroline said in a low, moved voice.
The other woman shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. Then, quite abruptly, she began speaking about Broxbourne.
"Do you know that ever so many people assured me you were going to marry him. I wouldn't believe it, and when I saw him in Dieppe yesterday I determined all at once that I would speak to him myself. I don't mind telling you, Caroline, that I have been deadly afraid of Sammy all this time; he ... I mean ... I did something to make an enemy of him, and he can be horribly nasty when he likes.... But yesterday, the moment I saw him, I was no longer afraid."
Caroline was staring at the white-flecked sea. Her heart was throbbing in her throat; to speak was beyond her.
"Yes," said Camilla, "I saw at once that the worst of his anger had burned out, and so I took my courage in both hands and went straight up to him, and I asked him boldly if I had to congratulate him. I think I rather startled him," Camilla said composedly; "anyhow, he would not speak at first, and then, when he had thawed, he told me that he had proposed to you half a dozen times, but that you would not have anything to do with him. He said something more; that you were the best sort he had ever come across, and that if there was anybody in the world who could pull him up and make a decent fellow of him, he thought you were the person who could do it, and I could see he was in earnest. Fancy you and Sammy being such friends. You funny, quiet Caroline! Perhaps it is you who have made him so amiable to me!" But Camilla rejected this idea even as she said it. "No, I expect he knows I have done for myself this time, and as I am going to be paid out for all my sins, he feels, perhaps, he can afford to be a little generous. Anyhow, I am glad you won't have anything to do with him. I have a good mind to make up a match between him and this girl who is with us to-day. She would jump at him, if only for his title. Funny," Camilla mused. "That was never one of my weaknesses."
At this moment Betty came flying after them, announcing thatdéjeûnerwas ready, and that everybody was waiting.
It was a merry meal, thanks entirely to Camilla and the children, and very shortly afterwards the motor-party started again from Dieppe. When they were gone, Mrs. Brenton said to Caroline—
"I don't fancy Sammy will come here any more. I tried to get five minutes alone with him, but he avoided me."
Betty pushed a letter into Caroline's hands.
"You're to read that when you're quite alone. Sammy gived it to me," she said mysteriously; then she danced off, and Mrs. Brenton, with one quick glance at the girl, turned and went into the hotel.
Caroline walked into the garden. She crossed the bridge under which the clear white water of the mountain spring ran down to the sea, and opened Broxbourne's letter. Inside the envelope there was a sheet of paper on which nothing was written. Inside this paper there was a cheque.
She just glanced at it and then crushed it in her hand.
Rupert Haverford came back from America about the beginning of October. He went down immediately to Yelverton.
The children were still with Mrs. Brenton—that is to say, they had gone for a brief while to stay with their mother; but the visit had not been a success, and Camilla herself proposed that she should make some arrangement to let the little folk stay for a few months longer under Mrs. Brenton's care.
"You see, we haven't got a house yet," she said; "nothing would induce Cuthbert to live in the house his mother left him. We must get that off our hands before we settle ourselves in another, and then I think we shall go to the Riviera this winter. He has several portraits that he wants to paint there."
Once, with a laugh, she had said—
"I have two minds to ask Rupert to lend us that big house of his. It is absurd to shut it up for months at a time when we are homeless."
It was, therefore, as much on the children's account as anything else that Haverford went to Yelverton.
Nevertheless, he found himself travelling down to Mrs. Brenton's comfortable house with a sense of eagerness that was half pleasure.
The reason for his visit to the States had not been wrongly reported; chance had brought to his knowledge the fact that there were some connections of Matthew Woolgar settled in America—humble, struggling people to whom money would be a godsend.
He spent at least a couple of months before he came across a trace of these people, and then, to his disappointment, found that the family had dwindled to two old people, who were quite unfit to take the voyage to England, and for whom little was possible except placing them in comfortable circumstances.
So he said to Agnes Brenton when he told her of all this.
"You see, I can't get rid of my money."
"It seems to me," said Mrs. Brenton, "you have made a very good attempt at it." Then, with a little colour in her face, she added, "I go back to my old theory about you. I want to see you well married. I should like you to take a prominent part in the life of the day."
He made no remark for a little while, then he said—
"Yes, I shall marry; I hope soon."
To herself Mrs. Brenton confessed a great disappointment.
"An American woman!" she said to herself. "I did hope he would have married somebody over here."
The welcome the children gave him was a royal one; but Caroline barely touched his hand, and expressed no pleasure at seeing him again. It seemed however, that he had something to say to her.
"I want to talk to you about the children," he said. "Will you come out into the garden?"
"I thought everything was settled for the time being," Caroline said.
"There are various things I should like to discuss with you."
She stole a little glance at him as they walked into the well-remembered path, where now the rose-bushes were barren of bloom and the ground was carpeted with faded leaves.
He was looking wonderfully well, with that bronzed look in his skin, which made his teeth so white, and his eyes so delightful. She noticed that he seemed altogether brisker, and his first speech touched on this.
"Do you know that my trip to America has done me a lot of good? It has shaken me up—hustled me out of my old groove. The Americans are a wonderful nation! There are no rich idle men there, they have given me enough hints to keep me employed for the rest of my existence."
He looked at her with half a smile.
"I am glad," said Caroline.
"Are you? Well say it a little more as if you meant it."
Against herself she laughed.
Then he stretched out his hand.
"You don't bear me any grudge, Caroline?"
"Why should I?"
She did not take his hand, and with a quick frown he let it drop to his side.
"Well, you know you have not written me a line since I have been away."
She looked at him with open eyes at this.
"Did you expect me to write?"
"Of course," he said, with a smile. "It would have been the proper thing for a ward to do. And that brings me to the question I put to you just now. Are you still angry with me because I tried to enforce my authority when last I saw you?"
"No," she said, "I am not angry."
"Then look more pleasant."
Again she had to laugh, but it was a very transitory laugh.
"I thought you wanted to talk about the children."
"You are one of the children," he answered.
As she made an impatient movement he changed his tone.
"I want to talk to you about myself. I'm not exactly a child, but I find I want some one to give me just a little of the attention that you give Betty and Baby."
She grew very hot, and found it rather difficult to breathe.
"I am not satisfied with you only as a ward," Haverford said, and there was an indescribable note of tenderness in his voice, "because there are such difficulties in the way of seeing you. I want you for something closer, better, more helpful. Caroline, will you be my wife?"
She stopped dead, and looked at him with eyes ablaze, then, in a choked voice, she said—
"No!" and then again, "No!" and then she walked on very quickly. He followed her.
"You can't mean that," he said, his tone one of absolute astonishment.
She answered him over her shoulders.
"I do most emphatically." He looked quite dismayed, and the girl broke in hurriedly, "Of course it is very astonishing, I suppose; but call it a caprice, if you like, I have an objection to marry a very rich man. I have an objection," she said, with quivering lips, "to be chosen for a wife just as somebody would choose a carpet, or a piece of furniture."
"Good God!" said Haverford. "Do you suppose that I want to buy you?"
"I don't suppose anything," said Caroline, "except that I thank you very much for your offer; and I decline it."
He let her walk on, and stood looking after her bewildered and pained. She had grown so closely into his thoughts of late, she had become so individualized with all his new schemes for the future, she was so necessary, so dear, so precious (especially since he had learned how he had misjudged her, and Mrs. Brenton had lost very little time in making him acquainted with this) that he could hardly realize that she had turned so deliberately away from him.
He made no effort to follow her, however; there had been something authoritative in her voice and in her manner—something that stung him almost reproachfully. But his chief sensation was a rueful realization of failure.
"I am a vain, clumsy fool!" he said to himself, with a vast amount of irritation.
And after he had walked about for some considerable time, and had pondered the situation carefully, this unflattering estimate of himself strengthened.
If he could have comfortably taken himself away from Yelverton he would have done so; but as he had proposed himself for this visit it would have been difficult to have found a tangible reason for ending it in so abrupt a fashion.
The quiet, comfortable influence of the house, and particularly the presence of the children, worked pleasantly on his troubled mood, however, and at dinner-time he sat chatting briskly away over his American experiences, and noting with some satisfaction (and a good deal more vexation) that the girl in the white gown on the opposite side of the table matched himself in ease of manner and flow of spirit.
"I find him wonderfully improved," said Mrs. Brenton, as she and Caroline sat having their coffee in the hall.
"Oh, he was always fairly good looking," said the girl, carelessly.
She had let Betty decorate her for dinner, and there was a large red flower tucked in among the masses of her dark hair just behind one small ear. She had grown taller, but was just as slim as ever; although Mrs. Brenton invented all sorts of fattening dishes entirely for Caroline's consumption, she refused to grow fat.
"Oh, I don't mean his looks, I mean his manner! Don't you find him ever so much brighter and brisker? He seems quite happy too. I am glad of that!"
Caroline put down her coffee-cup. She heard the dining-room door open.
"I am just going to run upstairs to see if Betty has dropped off. She looked very wakeful."
Her white gown whisked out of sight as Mr. Brenton and his guest came out of the dining-room, and though they sat a long time chatting and smoking, Miss Graniger never came back.
"I am trying to divide her a little from this devotion to the children, but it is not very successful," Mrs. Brenton said to Rupert, "and yet she cannot remain with them all her life."
"I am afraid she is rather obstinate," Haverford remarked, a trifle grimly.
The next morning he left Yelverton early—so early that the children were only half dressed when he went.
Betty lamenting, recalled a score of promises unfulfilled, and wept bitterly; and Caroline, as she listened to the child, felt almost ashamed.
"Although," she argued with herself, "he need not have gone away if he had not wanted to go."
Mrs. Brenton at luncheon gave it as her opinion that the change she had remarked in Rupert Haverford denoted more than a surface alteration.
"I am convinced," she said, "he is going to marry an American. Isn't it too abominable? I am so disappointed."
"When I marry," observed Betty, "I'm going to keep hens, speckley yellow ones. You know the sort, Baby, same as the one you chooced out of Aunt Brenny's garden."
"Chased," corrected Caroline.
"Chased," said Betty, then, in a different tone, "Howredyou are, Caroline, quite like as if you was boiled."
"Well," said Mr. Brenton in his quiet way, "you were saying the other day you wanted him to marry, you know."
"So I do," agreed Agnes Brenton, "but I did not suppose he would care about an American wife."
They discussed the probable union for some time.
It struck Caroline as so strange that both these people should regard it as natural and certain that he should marry, and not from a mere sense of duty, but from inclination, even from affection.
"Do they forget so easily?" she asked herself.