Chapter Twenty One.A blank silence followed Dreda’s announcement. Dismay, disappointment, and distress seemed printed on every face. Mr Rawdon and Miss Drake gazed first at each other, then at the girl, then at the paper which she had laid upon the table. Their foreheads were fretted with perplexity. For the first few moments they seemed unable to speak; but presently, bending towards Dreda, they appeared to question her in whispered tones, to question anxiously, to cross-question,—to draw her attention to page after page of the typed essay, as if searching for a refutation of her statement. But Dreda shook her head, and could not be shaken. Then Miss Drake turned aside and sat down, turning her chair so that her face was hidden from the audience, and two little patches of red showed themselves on Mr Rawdon’s cheek bones.“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “a mistake has arisen—a most regrettable mistake. The numbers attached to two of the essays submitted to me have apparently been misplaced. It is impossible to say how this confusion has arisen. Neither Miss Drake nor I can think of any satisfactory explanation. If by chance it should be due to any carelessness of my own, I can only say that I am most deeply sorry, and that I feel myself painfully punished. It appears that the writer of the prize essay is not Etheldreda Saxon, as we believed. She herself discovered the mistake when glancing at the paper which I had returned to her while I was giving my address just now, and has taken the first possible opportunity of making public her discovery. I regret more than I can say that she should have had so painful an experience, and I am sure that you will all share my sorrow. Miss Saxon’s essay was one of the four chosen from the rest, and I can only hope that the prophecies which I have already made as to her future will in all truth be fulfilled.” (Great applause.) “I now call upon Miss Susan Webster, the author of the selected essay, to come up to the platform and receive her prize.” (Faint clapping of hands.)There is no doubt that it was a painful anticlimax. It is not often that a literary genius looks the part so delightfully as Dreda had done twenty minutes before—Dreda, in her new blue dress, with her flaxen mane floating past her waist, her beautiful eyes darkened with excitement, her complexion of clearest pink and white. As she had mounted the steps to the platform the watching faces had shone with pure artistic pleasure in the sight. So young, so strong, so lovely, and so gifted—it was a privilege even to look upon so fortunate a creature. And now! Guided by Miss Drake’s thoughtful hand, the fairy princess had slipped behind the screen which hid the back of the platform, and creeping slowly across the floor came the mouselike figure of Susan in her dun brown dress, her plain little face fretted with embarrassment and distress, a victor with the air of a martyr, a conqueror who shrank from her spoils.Despite himself, Mr Rawdon’s voice took a colder tone as, for the second time, he presented the pile of books; despite herself, Miss Drake’s smile was mechanical and forced; while the visitors made only a show of applause. “Hard luck for that fine, bright girl!” whispered the fathers one to another; the mothers almost without exception had tears in their eyes. “And she looks so sweet and pretty! It’s ashame!” cried the sisters rebelliously. Even the girls on the benches at the back of the room—Susan’s companions who loved her and appreciated her worth—even they looked oppressed and discomfited. The romance of Dreda’s triumph had appealed to their young imaginations; they understood even more keenly than their elders the suffering involved in that humiliating confession. “Poor Dreda!” they whispered to each other. “Oh! poor old Dreda!”At tea in the drawing-room the tone of the teachers was distinctly apologetic—the high spirits characteristic of the early hours had ebbed away, and the visitors were glad to beat an early retreat. Mr and Mrs Saxon received Miss Drake’s apologies in the kindest and most sympathetic manner, and would not allow her to take any blame to herself.“It was an accident—no one can be blamed. We are so sorry for you, too!” Mrs Saxon said sweetly. “It is a disappointment, of course; it was a very happy moment when we believed our dear girl had gained such a prize. We were so proud of her!”“We are proud of her now,” interrupted Dreda’s father quickly, and at that both his hearers smiled and nodded their heads in sympathetic understanding. “Yes, yes; we are proud of hernow.”To Dreda herself her parents made no allusion to the tragic mistake. The girl only made her appearance when the motor drove up to the door, and her cool, somewhat haughty manner showed that sympathy was the last thing which she desired at the moment.“Good-bye, darling, till Thursday. Only two days more before we have you back among us.”“Good-bye, my girl. I’ll drive over for you on Thursday morning.”“Dreda, darling, I’msoglad you are coming. I’ve such lots to tell you!”“You’ve got your belt fastened on the wrong hook. The point’s crooked.”For once Maud’s literal mind was a blessed relief. Her parting words made everyone laugh, and the car drove off with the cheery sound of that laughter ringing in the air, and the remembrance of merry faces to cheer Dreda’s aching heart. She turned and crept upstairs to the study. She had shed her own gala dress, thrusting it away in the cupboard as if she never wished to behold it again. The study was filled with odd pieces of furniture which had been taken out of the big classrooms, and the fire was dying out upon the grate.“Here sit I, and my broken heart!” sighed Dreda dramatically, as she subsided into a chair and drew her shoulders together in an involuntary shiver. It had been cold work standing at the door watching the departure of the car, and the atmosphere of the deserted room was not calculated to cheer her spirits. “When you’ve had a great shock your constitution is enfeebled; when you’re enfeebled, you are sensitive to chills; a chill on an enfeebled constitution is generally fatal. Perhaps I’ve received my death blow this afternoon in more ways than one.” Dreda sniffed and shivered miserably once more. The stream of visitors was still departing, saying good-bye to Miss Bretherton and the teachers in the drawing-room and making their way to the door. Dreda would not risk leaving the study and encountering strange faces on the staircase; besides which, it did not seem her place to seek her companions at this moment. It was her companions who should seekher.“In the hour of my triumph they all crowded round me; now I am a pelican on the housetop, and no one cares if I am dead or alive. I must get accustomed to it, I suppose. Shame and humiliation must henceforth be my portion. Only fifteen and a half—inyears. In suffering I’m an old, old woman! Mr Rawdon was sorry; I saw it in his face; but he liked Susan’s best. Susan has won the prize. Where is Susan now? Has she forgotten all about me?”As if in answer to this question the handle of the door turned, and a head was thrust round the corner. A voice exclaimed: “Here she is!” and Nancy entered the room, followed closely by Susan herself. They stood and looked at Dreda, and Dreda looked at them, but none of the three uttered a word. Then suddenly Susan whispered something in Nancy’s ear, and while that young person hurried from the room with a most unusual celerity, Susan dropped quietly on her knees beside the dying fire and began coaxing it into a blaze.Dreda sat back in her chair and watched the process with a dull, detached curiosity. Susan’s back looked so narrow and small; the brown dress fastened at the back with a row of ugly bone buttons; as she knelt the soles of her new slippers seemed to fill up the entire foreground. They were startlingly, shockingly white! As she bent fromside to side blowing skilfully upon the struggling flames, one could catch a glimpse of her profile, white and wan, with red circles round the eyes. Such a poor, weary little conqueror, on her knees striving to serve her fallen rival. Something stirred in Dreda’s heart; the ice melted, she cleared her throat, and addressed her friend by name.“Susan!”Susan sat back on her heels, lifting scared, pitiful eyes.“Susan,” said Dreda regally, “I don’t hate you. You needn’t be frightened. I don’t hate you a bit—I’msorryfor you. This should have been your triumph, and I have spoiled it. It’s very hard on you too, Susan!”“Oh, Dreda!” gasped Susan breathlessly. “Dreda, you’remagnificent!” She was wan and white no longer; her eyes blazed. No one seeing Susan at that moment could possibly have called her plain; the lovely soul of her shone through the flesh, working its transformation, even as the leaping flames were now turning the dull hearth into a thing of beauty and life.Still on her knees, Susan crawled across the few intervening yards of floor, and rested her head against Dreda’s knee.“I’d have given it up a hundred times - a thousand over, Dreda, rather than let you have this experience!” she said brokenly. And Dreda knew that she spoke the truth.It was in this attitude that Nancy discovered the two girls when she entered the room a few minutes later, bearing in her hands a temptingly spread tea-tray. One glance of the red-brown eyes testified to her satisfaction at such eloquent signs of peace, but manner and speech disdained sentiment.“Corn in Egypt!” she cried cheerfully. “The Duck fairly showered dainties upon me—scones, sandwiches, cakes,anda fresh pot of tea. Let’s fall to at once. I am fainting with hunger.”She placed three chairs round the table, seated herself in front of the tray, and, pouring out three cups of tea, handed them round with hospitable zeal. Dreda ate and drank and felt comforted, in spite of herself. It was wonderful how the mere creature comforts of warmth and food seemed to soothe the pain at her heart. She even began to feel a faint enjoyment in the dramatic element of her position, to realise that if she had failed she had failed in a noticeable, even in a tragic, fashion. To Susan belonged the glory, yet she, the beaten one, remained unquestionably the heroine of the day!By the time that second cups of tea had been handed round, and an attack made upon the iced cake, Dreda was ready and eager to discuss her trouble.“Howcouldthose numbers have been altered, Susan? Mine was five and yours was ten. They aren’t in the least alike!”“Dreda, I don’t know—I can’tthink! If they had come loose and Mr Rawdon had clipped them on again, he would have remembered doing it. At least, an ordinary person would; but he is a genius. Perhaps geniuses are different.”“Youare a genius, Susan. You ought to know!” said Dreda, whereat the poor little genius flushed miserably, and Nancy, rattling the tea-tray, rushed hastily into the breach.“Accidentswillhappen! It’s no earthly use worrying your head about the how and the why. There it is, and you’ve got to make the best of it, and forget it as soon as possible.”Dreda rolled tragic eyes to the ceiling.“I shall never forget. You can’t reach the height of your ambition and then see your treasure crumble to pieces in your hands in less than ten minutes, and fall down into a very pit of humiliation without wearing a mark for life.”“Don’t say humiliation, Dreda,” cried Susan tremulously. “Don’t, dear; I can’t bear it. It was dreadful for you; but there was no humiliation. There was nothing—nothing of which you could be ashamed. Your essay was very good, too; it has been mentioned as one of the best.”But Dreda was not in the mood to accept comfort. She was miserable, and she intended to be miserable in a thorough, systematic fashion, so that for the moment alleviations seemed rather to irritate than to cheer—“My essay was only one of the best four. That’s nothing. Except our three selves and Barbara Morton, there’s not another girl in the school who can write a decent essay to save her life. The others were all as dull and stupid as could be. You have seen them, and know that that’s true. If mine was only the fourth best, that’s no praise at all. Mr Rawdon made no special mention of any but yours, except when he—Oh–h!” Dreda’s voice shrilled with sudden panic; she dropped her cake on to her plate and clasped her hands together, staring before her with wide, startled eyes. “Oh–h! Do you remember? He said that he had beenamusedby one of the four essays. His lips twitched, and he tried not to laugh. Amused at the ‘high-flown eloquence.’ That was the expression—wasn’t it? High-flown eloquence! That means rubbish, of course—bombastic, stupid, exaggerated rubbish! Girls,that was mine! I feel it—I know it! Susan, you know it, too. You wouldn’t say that it was good, even when I asked you straight out. You were too honest to say ‘Yes.’ Oh! I am not angry. You needn’t look so miserable. It was true, and down at the very, very bottom of my heart I knew it myself. When I thought I had won the prize I was only really happy for a few minutes; after that I grew frightened, for I knew it was a mistake, and that I was not really a genius at all, only a rather sharp-witted girl, a ready girl,”—she gave a dreary little laugh—“who could pick up other people’s ideas, and string them together as if they were her own. The girls weren’t clever enough to know the real from the sham, but Mr Rawdon knew it at once. He saw how—how—” (she paused, groping in her extensive vocabulary for a word to express her meaning) “howmeretriciousit was! He was—amused!”The last word came with an involuntary quiver of pain, and there was silence round the impromptu tea-table. Dreda saw without surprise that the tears were rolling down Susan’s cheeks—it seemed natural that Susan should cry. What did give her a real shock of surprise was to hear a sound of subdued snuffling on her right, and on turning her head to behold the imperturbable Nancy suspiciously red about the eyes and nose.“Nancy!” she cried involuntarily. “You are crying! I never believed that it was possible that youcouldcry! Why are you crying, Nancy? Is it about—me?”But Nancy only jerked the tea-tray, tossing her head the while in her most nonchalant fashion.“Can’t I cry if I like? Can’t I cry for myself? If I don’t, no one else will. No one thinks about Me!Itried for the prize as well as you, and I’ve far more right to be disappointed. No one ever said I might be great!”She tossed her head and frowned and pouted, but Dreda was not deceived by the pretence. At her heart lay a warm feeling of comfort and gratitude. In recalling the incidents of this tragic day, it would always bring a throb of consolation to remember that Nancy, the imperturbable, had shed tears on her behalf!
A blank silence followed Dreda’s announcement. Dismay, disappointment, and distress seemed printed on every face. Mr Rawdon and Miss Drake gazed first at each other, then at the girl, then at the paper which she had laid upon the table. Their foreheads were fretted with perplexity. For the first few moments they seemed unable to speak; but presently, bending towards Dreda, they appeared to question her in whispered tones, to question anxiously, to cross-question,—to draw her attention to page after page of the typed essay, as if searching for a refutation of her statement. But Dreda shook her head, and could not be shaken. Then Miss Drake turned aside and sat down, turning her chair so that her face was hidden from the audience, and two little patches of red showed themselves on Mr Rawdon’s cheek bones.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “a mistake has arisen—a most regrettable mistake. The numbers attached to two of the essays submitted to me have apparently been misplaced. It is impossible to say how this confusion has arisen. Neither Miss Drake nor I can think of any satisfactory explanation. If by chance it should be due to any carelessness of my own, I can only say that I am most deeply sorry, and that I feel myself painfully punished. It appears that the writer of the prize essay is not Etheldreda Saxon, as we believed. She herself discovered the mistake when glancing at the paper which I had returned to her while I was giving my address just now, and has taken the first possible opportunity of making public her discovery. I regret more than I can say that she should have had so painful an experience, and I am sure that you will all share my sorrow. Miss Saxon’s essay was one of the four chosen from the rest, and I can only hope that the prophecies which I have already made as to her future will in all truth be fulfilled.” (Great applause.) “I now call upon Miss Susan Webster, the author of the selected essay, to come up to the platform and receive her prize.” (Faint clapping of hands.)
There is no doubt that it was a painful anticlimax. It is not often that a literary genius looks the part so delightfully as Dreda had done twenty minutes before—Dreda, in her new blue dress, with her flaxen mane floating past her waist, her beautiful eyes darkened with excitement, her complexion of clearest pink and white. As she had mounted the steps to the platform the watching faces had shone with pure artistic pleasure in the sight. So young, so strong, so lovely, and so gifted—it was a privilege even to look upon so fortunate a creature. And now! Guided by Miss Drake’s thoughtful hand, the fairy princess had slipped behind the screen which hid the back of the platform, and creeping slowly across the floor came the mouselike figure of Susan in her dun brown dress, her plain little face fretted with embarrassment and distress, a victor with the air of a martyr, a conqueror who shrank from her spoils.
Despite himself, Mr Rawdon’s voice took a colder tone as, for the second time, he presented the pile of books; despite herself, Miss Drake’s smile was mechanical and forced; while the visitors made only a show of applause. “Hard luck for that fine, bright girl!” whispered the fathers one to another; the mothers almost without exception had tears in their eyes. “And she looks so sweet and pretty! It’s ashame!” cried the sisters rebelliously. Even the girls on the benches at the back of the room—Susan’s companions who loved her and appreciated her worth—even they looked oppressed and discomfited. The romance of Dreda’s triumph had appealed to their young imaginations; they understood even more keenly than their elders the suffering involved in that humiliating confession. “Poor Dreda!” they whispered to each other. “Oh! poor old Dreda!”
At tea in the drawing-room the tone of the teachers was distinctly apologetic—the high spirits characteristic of the early hours had ebbed away, and the visitors were glad to beat an early retreat. Mr and Mrs Saxon received Miss Drake’s apologies in the kindest and most sympathetic manner, and would not allow her to take any blame to herself.
“It was an accident—no one can be blamed. We are so sorry for you, too!” Mrs Saxon said sweetly. “It is a disappointment, of course; it was a very happy moment when we believed our dear girl had gained such a prize. We were so proud of her!”
“We are proud of her now,” interrupted Dreda’s father quickly, and at that both his hearers smiled and nodded their heads in sympathetic understanding. “Yes, yes; we are proud of hernow.”
To Dreda herself her parents made no allusion to the tragic mistake. The girl only made her appearance when the motor drove up to the door, and her cool, somewhat haughty manner showed that sympathy was the last thing which she desired at the moment.
“Good-bye, darling, till Thursday. Only two days more before we have you back among us.”
“Good-bye, my girl. I’ll drive over for you on Thursday morning.”
“Dreda, darling, I’msoglad you are coming. I’ve such lots to tell you!”
“You’ve got your belt fastened on the wrong hook. The point’s crooked.”
For once Maud’s literal mind was a blessed relief. Her parting words made everyone laugh, and the car drove off with the cheery sound of that laughter ringing in the air, and the remembrance of merry faces to cheer Dreda’s aching heart. She turned and crept upstairs to the study. She had shed her own gala dress, thrusting it away in the cupboard as if she never wished to behold it again. The study was filled with odd pieces of furniture which had been taken out of the big classrooms, and the fire was dying out upon the grate.
“Here sit I, and my broken heart!” sighed Dreda dramatically, as she subsided into a chair and drew her shoulders together in an involuntary shiver. It had been cold work standing at the door watching the departure of the car, and the atmosphere of the deserted room was not calculated to cheer her spirits. “When you’ve had a great shock your constitution is enfeebled; when you’re enfeebled, you are sensitive to chills; a chill on an enfeebled constitution is generally fatal. Perhaps I’ve received my death blow this afternoon in more ways than one.” Dreda sniffed and shivered miserably once more. The stream of visitors was still departing, saying good-bye to Miss Bretherton and the teachers in the drawing-room and making their way to the door. Dreda would not risk leaving the study and encountering strange faces on the staircase; besides which, it did not seem her place to seek her companions at this moment. It was her companions who should seekher.
“In the hour of my triumph they all crowded round me; now I am a pelican on the housetop, and no one cares if I am dead or alive. I must get accustomed to it, I suppose. Shame and humiliation must henceforth be my portion. Only fifteen and a half—inyears. In suffering I’m an old, old woman! Mr Rawdon was sorry; I saw it in his face; but he liked Susan’s best. Susan has won the prize. Where is Susan now? Has she forgotten all about me?”
As if in answer to this question the handle of the door turned, and a head was thrust round the corner. A voice exclaimed: “Here she is!” and Nancy entered the room, followed closely by Susan herself. They stood and looked at Dreda, and Dreda looked at them, but none of the three uttered a word. Then suddenly Susan whispered something in Nancy’s ear, and while that young person hurried from the room with a most unusual celerity, Susan dropped quietly on her knees beside the dying fire and began coaxing it into a blaze.
Dreda sat back in her chair and watched the process with a dull, detached curiosity. Susan’s back looked so narrow and small; the brown dress fastened at the back with a row of ugly bone buttons; as she knelt the soles of her new slippers seemed to fill up the entire foreground. They were startlingly, shockingly white! As she bent fromside to side blowing skilfully upon the struggling flames, one could catch a glimpse of her profile, white and wan, with red circles round the eyes. Such a poor, weary little conqueror, on her knees striving to serve her fallen rival. Something stirred in Dreda’s heart; the ice melted, she cleared her throat, and addressed her friend by name.
“Susan!”
Susan sat back on her heels, lifting scared, pitiful eyes.
“Susan,” said Dreda regally, “I don’t hate you. You needn’t be frightened. I don’t hate you a bit—I’msorryfor you. This should have been your triumph, and I have spoiled it. It’s very hard on you too, Susan!”
“Oh, Dreda!” gasped Susan breathlessly. “Dreda, you’remagnificent!” She was wan and white no longer; her eyes blazed. No one seeing Susan at that moment could possibly have called her plain; the lovely soul of her shone through the flesh, working its transformation, even as the leaping flames were now turning the dull hearth into a thing of beauty and life.
Still on her knees, Susan crawled across the few intervening yards of floor, and rested her head against Dreda’s knee.
“I’d have given it up a hundred times - a thousand over, Dreda, rather than let you have this experience!” she said brokenly. And Dreda knew that she spoke the truth.
It was in this attitude that Nancy discovered the two girls when she entered the room a few minutes later, bearing in her hands a temptingly spread tea-tray. One glance of the red-brown eyes testified to her satisfaction at such eloquent signs of peace, but manner and speech disdained sentiment.
“Corn in Egypt!” she cried cheerfully. “The Duck fairly showered dainties upon me—scones, sandwiches, cakes,anda fresh pot of tea. Let’s fall to at once. I am fainting with hunger.”
She placed three chairs round the table, seated herself in front of the tray, and, pouring out three cups of tea, handed them round with hospitable zeal. Dreda ate and drank and felt comforted, in spite of herself. It was wonderful how the mere creature comforts of warmth and food seemed to soothe the pain at her heart. She even began to feel a faint enjoyment in the dramatic element of her position, to realise that if she had failed she had failed in a noticeable, even in a tragic, fashion. To Susan belonged the glory, yet she, the beaten one, remained unquestionably the heroine of the day!
By the time that second cups of tea had been handed round, and an attack made upon the iced cake, Dreda was ready and eager to discuss her trouble.
“Howcouldthose numbers have been altered, Susan? Mine was five and yours was ten. They aren’t in the least alike!”
“Dreda, I don’t know—I can’tthink! If they had come loose and Mr Rawdon had clipped them on again, he would have remembered doing it. At least, an ordinary person would; but he is a genius. Perhaps geniuses are different.”
“Youare a genius, Susan. You ought to know!” said Dreda, whereat the poor little genius flushed miserably, and Nancy, rattling the tea-tray, rushed hastily into the breach.
“Accidentswillhappen! It’s no earthly use worrying your head about the how and the why. There it is, and you’ve got to make the best of it, and forget it as soon as possible.”
Dreda rolled tragic eyes to the ceiling.
“I shall never forget. You can’t reach the height of your ambition and then see your treasure crumble to pieces in your hands in less than ten minutes, and fall down into a very pit of humiliation without wearing a mark for life.”
“Don’t say humiliation, Dreda,” cried Susan tremulously. “Don’t, dear; I can’t bear it. It was dreadful for you; but there was no humiliation. There was nothing—nothing of which you could be ashamed. Your essay was very good, too; it has been mentioned as one of the best.”
But Dreda was not in the mood to accept comfort. She was miserable, and she intended to be miserable in a thorough, systematic fashion, so that for the moment alleviations seemed rather to irritate than to cheer—
“My essay was only one of the best four. That’s nothing. Except our three selves and Barbara Morton, there’s not another girl in the school who can write a decent essay to save her life. The others were all as dull and stupid as could be. You have seen them, and know that that’s true. If mine was only the fourth best, that’s no praise at all. Mr Rawdon made no special mention of any but yours, except when he—Oh–h!” Dreda’s voice shrilled with sudden panic; she dropped her cake on to her plate and clasped her hands together, staring before her with wide, startled eyes. “Oh–h! Do you remember? He said that he had beenamusedby one of the four essays. His lips twitched, and he tried not to laugh. Amused at the ‘high-flown eloquence.’ That was the expression—wasn’t it? High-flown eloquence! That means rubbish, of course—bombastic, stupid, exaggerated rubbish! Girls,that was mine! I feel it—I know it! Susan, you know it, too. You wouldn’t say that it was good, even when I asked you straight out. You were too honest to say ‘Yes.’ Oh! I am not angry. You needn’t look so miserable. It was true, and down at the very, very bottom of my heart I knew it myself. When I thought I had won the prize I was only really happy for a few minutes; after that I grew frightened, for I knew it was a mistake, and that I was not really a genius at all, only a rather sharp-witted girl, a ready girl,”—she gave a dreary little laugh—“who could pick up other people’s ideas, and string them together as if they were her own. The girls weren’t clever enough to know the real from the sham, but Mr Rawdon knew it at once. He saw how—how—” (she paused, groping in her extensive vocabulary for a word to express her meaning) “howmeretriciousit was! He was—amused!”
The last word came with an involuntary quiver of pain, and there was silence round the impromptu tea-table. Dreda saw without surprise that the tears were rolling down Susan’s cheeks—it seemed natural that Susan should cry. What did give her a real shock of surprise was to hear a sound of subdued snuffling on her right, and on turning her head to behold the imperturbable Nancy suspiciously red about the eyes and nose.
“Nancy!” she cried involuntarily. “You are crying! I never believed that it was possible that youcouldcry! Why are you crying, Nancy? Is it about—me?”
But Nancy only jerked the tea-tray, tossing her head the while in her most nonchalant fashion.
“Can’t I cry if I like? Can’t I cry for myself? If I don’t, no one else will. No one thinks about Me!Itried for the prize as well as you, and I’ve far more right to be disappointed. No one ever said I might be great!”
She tossed her head and frowned and pouted, but Dreda was not deceived by the pretence. At her heart lay a warm feeling of comfort and gratitude. In recalling the incidents of this tragic day, it would always bring a throb of consolation to remember that Nancy, the imperturbable, had shed tears on her behalf!
Chapter Twenty Two.Home again, and home with quite a festival air aboutitin honour of your return. Flowers in every corner, silver candelabra on the dining-table, favourite dishes for every course, a fire in one’s bedroom, chocolates lying ready at every turn—it was all most grateful and soothing! Dreda sunned herself in the atmosphere of tenderness and approval, and though no one referred in words to her disappointment, she knew that it was an underlying thought in every mind, and her sore heart was soothed afresh by each new instance of kindliness and care. The first evening was spent according to good old-fashioned custom, sitting round the schoolroom fire, brothers and sisters together, talking over the events of the term, and comparing exploits and adventures. In the dim firelight Dreda edged close to Gurth’s side and slipped her hand through his arm; and, wonder of wonders! instead of pushing her away, Gurth gave it a quick little grip, and leant his broad shoulder against hers in response. The boys were on their best behaviour, amiable and conciliatory, without a hint of the overbearing condescension which was apt to mark the end of the holidays. If there was a blot on the general harmony it was to be found in the air of detachment with which Rowena took part in the conversation. She was perfectly amiable, perfectly sweet, conscientiously interested in the different exploits, yet one and all felt disagreeably conscious that she was no longer one of their number, and that her thoughts were continually straying off on excursions of their own. Dreda remembered the parting promise of “Lots to tell!” and looked forward to hair-brushing confidences later on, but none were forthcoming. Rowena remained loving, preoccupied, and inscrutable.Alone with Maud, Dreda discussed the change in her sister’s manner; but Maud’s explanation, though verbose, was hardly enlightening.“She’s nineteen. She’ll be twenty on the twenty-first of October next. She’s got a train to her last new dress. And then there’s teaching me... She orders me about as if she were a hundred, but lately she’s grown moony. If I keep quite still and ask no questions she begins staring, and stares and stares and smiles to herself. So silly! But it passes the time. When the clock strikes she gives such a jump! I’m not getting on a bit; but I’m glad, because then I shall go to school. She takes no interest in me. I did the same exercises four times over and she never knew, and when I told mother she said, ‘Poor darling!’ I thought she meant me, but she meant Rowena. Well, if you grow up, you grow up, but you needn’t be silly!”Three afternoons after Dreda’s return home a sharp rat-tat sounded at the door, and Maud, flattening her nose against the window, made one of her characteristic announcements.“Mr Seton’s horse. He’s got on his new breeches!”Dreda gave a glad exclamation.“Mr Seton! Already! The dear thing! How did he know I was home?”There was a short, tense pause, while Mrs Saxon and Rowena kept their eyes glued to the ground. A sensitive hearer would have felt that pause significant, but Dreda was too self-engrossed to be sensitive; she never doubted that Guy Seton’s object in calling was to welcome herself on her return from school, and her first words informed him of the fact.“Oh, Mr Seton, itisnice of you to come so soon! Have you got the horse yet? It’s lovely of you to remember your promise.”“My—my—whathorse? What promise?”“The horse for me—my mount! You said you would take me out riding—”“Oh—er—yes! Did I? Delighted, I’m sure!” stammered Guy Seton awkwardly. He looked bigger and stronger and handsomer than ever, but even Dreda could not delude herself that he looked “delighted” at that moment. There had been an expression of blankest surprise upon his face as she had stepped forward to greet him, as if he had been unprepared for her presence, and he had flushed uncomfortably at being reminded of his promise. Dreda stood looking on somewhat blankly while he greeted the other occupants of the room—Mrs Saxon with punctilious politeness, Maud with a smile and a jest, Rowena in silence with a short grip of the hand. Why did he not speak to Rowena? Were they still at cross purposes as on the occasion of their first meeting? Dreda watched with curious eyes and felt confirmed in her suspicion, for Rowena stitched steadily at her embroidery, and Guy Seton never turned as much as a glance in her direction. It was true that on one occasion when she required her scissors he had pounced upon them as they lay on the table, and handed them to her before she had had time to reach them herself; but instead of forming the beginning of a conversation, as such an action should naturally have done, they both appeared overcome with embarrassment, and ignored each other’s presence more persistently than before.A quarter of an hour passed in a desultory and broken conversation, in which each member of the party seemed to continue his or her own train of thought, with little or no attention to the preceding remarks. As, for example:Guy Seton: “It’s such a ripping day. I thought I could ride over and see how you all were.”Maud: “Mr Morris dropped his spectacles in the stable when he was feeding his new mare. He heard something grind, so he thought she had eaten them by mistake. He sent off for a vet., and he gave her things and charged a guinea, and all the while they were on the dressing-table in his room.”Dreda: “I’m always losing things! There’s been a perfect fate against me at school this term. It’s not my fault, for I have grown hideously careful, and they all turn up again in time, but it’s most wearing for your nerves!”Mrs Saxon: “I met your mother in the village on Thursday, Mr Seton. I was glad to see her looking so well.”Guy Seton: “This brisk weather braces people up. There’s a meet at Newstead Market Square on Monday at eleven. Ought to be a good run.”Maud: “Mr Morris’s mare cost eighty pounds. Their coachman told our gardener. He said he thought she was gone for sure when the eyeglasses were missing. They’ve got a gold rim.”Dreda: “People always lose glasses. Flora Mason wears them at school. She draws most beautifully. She had caricatures of all the mistresses inside an atlas. She put them on the back of Balkan States because no one ever looks at them; but there was an earthquake or something, and The Duck turned them up. As a punishment, she made Flora stand up before all the class and draw a copy of her portrait on the board. Flora kept trying to make it pretty, and she said:—“‘Look at your copy, please, Flora; the nose goes to a point, and isincheslarger!’ Flora waspurplewith embarrassment, and so were we all.”Guy Seton: “I was wondering if you would care to follow with us on Monday, Miss Saxon? We’d take good care of you. My cousin is a very careful rider, and you need not be at all nervous of being led into awkward places. We could turn back as soon as you were tired.”Dreda’s gasp of dismay sounded clearly through the room, but Guy Seton was apparently deaf to the sound. Rowena had raised her head from her embroidery, revealing a face of almost startling beauty—cheeks as pink as a wild rose, eyes deeply, darkly blue, lips curving into the sweetest and shyest of smiles.“Thank you so much. I should love to go. I should not be at all afraid.”“That’s settled, then!” cried Mr Seton, and breathed a sigh of relief. The air of restraint which he had worn since entering the room gave place to his usual genial, happy manner. He turned to Dreda, questioned her about her work and games, joked and teased, recalled his own experiences, was everything that was kind and friendly, but never a word did he say about the promised “mount”—not a hint that she also might like to attend the meet! Verily it was a world of grief and disappointment.Gurth opined that it was a “beastly fag” having no horses, but saw no reason why the younger members of the party should not follow on bicycles. Dreda protested haughtily that if she could not go properly she would not go at all; but when the day of the meet arrived and she saw the little party complacently preparing to start, pride gave way before the thought of a long, dull day alone; she rushed to get ready, and pedalled down the drive looking her old complacent self.Rowena led the cavalcade on Mr Seton’s brown hunter, with her fair locks coiled tightly at the back and her hat pressed down on her forehead. She was not quite so pretty, perhaps, as in ordinary attire, but she looked delightfully trim and business-like, and her young brothers and sisters were proud of her and made favourable comparisons between her and the other lady riders assembled in the square. It was a picturesque sight to see the motley collection of vehicles drawn up by the kerbstones, the riders pacing to and fro, greeting fresh arrivals, who kept trotting in from every direction, the pink coats of the men making welcome touches of colour, and finally the appearance of the hounds themselves, preceded by the huntsmen in their velvet caps and smart white breeches.A long table was laid out in front of the village inn, on which were set refreshments for those who had driven from a distance. The Saxon quartette strolled up and down, wheeling their bicycles as they went, exchanging greetings with acquaintances, and quizzing the peculiarities of strangers, after the merciless fashion of youth. It was just as they reached the farthest corner of the square, and were about to turn back, that Dreda’s glance came into contact with a pair of eyes fixed upon her with a coldly antagonistic gaze with which she was painfully familiar.Norah! By all that was inexplicable, Norah West herself, standing calmly in the midst of Newstead Market Square, more than a hundred miles distant from her home, to which she had travelled a short week before!Dreda gazed back in stupefied amazement, and even as she looked a second figure detached itself from the crowd and advanced towards her.“Dreda! I didn’t expect to meet you here. I was going to write!”“Susan! What is Norah doing with you? Don’t tell me you have asked her tostay!”“I didn’t—but sheishere, all the same. Her brother came home ill from school, and the others had all to be sent off at once in case it was something infectious. She telegraphed to know if she might come to us.”“Like her cheek!”“Oh, Dreda, it was horrid for her, too. Just think if you missed your holidays at home! And she had often invited me there.”“Oh, of course, she adores you, so you enjoy having her company. Don’t let me interfere! It’s delightful that you are so well entertained. I congratulate you, I’m sure.”Susan’s lips quivered. Her face was pinched by the chill wind, which gave increased pathos to her look.“Dreda, I always tell you the truth; it’s horrid of me—but I’mnotglad! I didn’t want her one bit. I thought you and I would be often together, and now that she is here that can’t be, I’m afraid. But—poor Norah! None of the girls like her very much; there were so few places she could go to, and just because she isn’t—isn’tquitewhat one would wish, there is all the more reason why one should be nice to her. You remember what you said yourself.”“What did I say?”“It wasn’t about Norah exactly, but one day we were talking about people we didn’t like, and you said the best way was to be perfectly sweet oneself, and to behave always as if we loved them, and expected only good things from them, and so elevate them in spite of themselves. I thought it was such a beautiful idea. I’ve never forgotten it, and now I’m trying to putitinto practice.”“Oh–h!” exclaimed Dreda blankly. She herself had forgotten her fine sentiments almost as soon as they were uttered, and was not pleased to be reminded of them at the moment. “Oh–h! Well, if you want to experiment, you must; but I do think it’s a little inconsiderate to choose Norah as your subject, and in the Christmas holidays, too! Where do I come in, please? Really, Susan, you are too appallingly inconsiderate!”Susan smiled her sweet, illuminating little smile.“I know I am; dear; but be patient with me, please, because I’m disappointed, too, and you’d have done the same yourself if you’d been in my place. You may rage and storm, but youneverrefuse to do a good turn! I’ll keep Norah out of your way!”For this morning at least the promise could not be kept; for, once having joined forces, it was difficult to separate again, and throughout the exciting chase which followed Norah made herself so agreeable that Harold and Gurth pronounced her “a ripping girl, worth a dozen of that mumpy little Susan Webster.”“Now they’ll want her asked over on every occasion. We shall besaturatedwith Norah! Miserable wretch that I am! Misfortunes dog my footsteps!” sighed Dreda to herself.
Home again, and home with quite a festival air aboutitin honour of your return. Flowers in every corner, silver candelabra on the dining-table, favourite dishes for every course, a fire in one’s bedroom, chocolates lying ready at every turn—it was all most grateful and soothing! Dreda sunned herself in the atmosphere of tenderness and approval, and though no one referred in words to her disappointment, she knew that it was an underlying thought in every mind, and her sore heart was soothed afresh by each new instance of kindliness and care. The first evening was spent according to good old-fashioned custom, sitting round the schoolroom fire, brothers and sisters together, talking over the events of the term, and comparing exploits and adventures. In the dim firelight Dreda edged close to Gurth’s side and slipped her hand through his arm; and, wonder of wonders! instead of pushing her away, Gurth gave it a quick little grip, and leant his broad shoulder against hers in response. The boys were on their best behaviour, amiable and conciliatory, without a hint of the overbearing condescension which was apt to mark the end of the holidays. If there was a blot on the general harmony it was to be found in the air of detachment with which Rowena took part in the conversation. She was perfectly amiable, perfectly sweet, conscientiously interested in the different exploits, yet one and all felt disagreeably conscious that she was no longer one of their number, and that her thoughts were continually straying off on excursions of their own. Dreda remembered the parting promise of “Lots to tell!” and looked forward to hair-brushing confidences later on, but none were forthcoming. Rowena remained loving, preoccupied, and inscrutable.
Alone with Maud, Dreda discussed the change in her sister’s manner; but Maud’s explanation, though verbose, was hardly enlightening.
“She’s nineteen. She’ll be twenty on the twenty-first of October next. She’s got a train to her last new dress. And then there’s teaching me... She orders me about as if she were a hundred, but lately she’s grown moony. If I keep quite still and ask no questions she begins staring, and stares and stares and smiles to herself. So silly! But it passes the time. When the clock strikes she gives such a jump! I’m not getting on a bit; but I’m glad, because then I shall go to school. She takes no interest in me. I did the same exercises four times over and she never knew, and when I told mother she said, ‘Poor darling!’ I thought she meant me, but she meant Rowena. Well, if you grow up, you grow up, but you needn’t be silly!”
Three afternoons after Dreda’s return home a sharp rat-tat sounded at the door, and Maud, flattening her nose against the window, made one of her characteristic announcements.
“Mr Seton’s horse. He’s got on his new breeches!”
Dreda gave a glad exclamation.
“Mr Seton! Already! The dear thing! How did he know I was home?”
There was a short, tense pause, while Mrs Saxon and Rowena kept their eyes glued to the ground. A sensitive hearer would have felt that pause significant, but Dreda was too self-engrossed to be sensitive; she never doubted that Guy Seton’s object in calling was to welcome herself on her return from school, and her first words informed him of the fact.
“Oh, Mr Seton, itisnice of you to come so soon! Have you got the horse yet? It’s lovely of you to remember your promise.”
“My—my—whathorse? What promise?”
“The horse for me—my mount! You said you would take me out riding—”
“Oh—er—yes! Did I? Delighted, I’m sure!” stammered Guy Seton awkwardly. He looked bigger and stronger and handsomer than ever, but even Dreda could not delude herself that he looked “delighted” at that moment. There had been an expression of blankest surprise upon his face as she had stepped forward to greet him, as if he had been unprepared for her presence, and he had flushed uncomfortably at being reminded of his promise. Dreda stood looking on somewhat blankly while he greeted the other occupants of the room—Mrs Saxon with punctilious politeness, Maud with a smile and a jest, Rowena in silence with a short grip of the hand. Why did he not speak to Rowena? Were they still at cross purposes as on the occasion of their first meeting? Dreda watched with curious eyes and felt confirmed in her suspicion, for Rowena stitched steadily at her embroidery, and Guy Seton never turned as much as a glance in her direction. It was true that on one occasion when she required her scissors he had pounced upon them as they lay on the table, and handed them to her before she had had time to reach them herself; but instead of forming the beginning of a conversation, as such an action should naturally have done, they both appeared overcome with embarrassment, and ignored each other’s presence more persistently than before.
A quarter of an hour passed in a desultory and broken conversation, in which each member of the party seemed to continue his or her own train of thought, with little or no attention to the preceding remarks. As, for example:
Guy Seton: “It’s such a ripping day. I thought I could ride over and see how you all were.”
Maud: “Mr Morris dropped his spectacles in the stable when he was feeding his new mare. He heard something grind, so he thought she had eaten them by mistake. He sent off for a vet., and he gave her things and charged a guinea, and all the while they were on the dressing-table in his room.”
Dreda: “I’m always losing things! There’s been a perfect fate against me at school this term. It’s not my fault, for I have grown hideously careful, and they all turn up again in time, but it’s most wearing for your nerves!”
Mrs Saxon: “I met your mother in the village on Thursday, Mr Seton. I was glad to see her looking so well.”
Guy Seton: “This brisk weather braces people up. There’s a meet at Newstead Market Square on Monday at eleven. Ought to be a good run.”
Maud: “Mr Morris’s mare cost eighty pounds. Their coachman told our gardener. He said he thought she was gone for sure when the eyeglasses were missing. They’ve got a gold rim.”
Dreda: “People always lose glasses. Flora Mason wears them at school. She draws most beautifully. She had caricatures of all the mistresses inside an atlas. She put them on the back of Balkan States because no one ever looks at them; but there was an earthquake or something, and The Duck turned them up. As a punishment, she made Flora stand up before all the class and draw a copy of her portrait on the board. Flora kept trying to make it pretty, and she said:—
“‘Look at your copy, please, Flora; the nose goes to a point, and isincheslarger!’ Flora waspurplewith embarrassment, and so were we all.”
Guy Seton: “I was wondering if you would care to follow with us on Monday, Miss Saxon? We’d take good care of you. My cousin is a very careful rider, and you need not be at all nervous of being led into awkward places. We could turn back as soon as you were tired.”
Dreda’s gasp of dismay sounded clearly through the room, but Guy Seton was apparently deaf to the sound. Rowena had raised her head from her embroidery, revealing a face of almost startling beauty—cheeks as pink as a wild rose, eyes deeply, darkly blue, lips curving into the sweetest and shyest of smiles.
“Thank you so much. I should love to go. I should not be at all afraid.”
“That’s settled, then!” cried Mr Seton, and breathed a sigh of relief. The air of restraint which he had worn since entering the room gave place to his usual genial, happy manner. He turned to Dreda, questioned her about her work and games, joked and teased, recalled his own experiences, was everything that was kind and friendly, but never a word did he say about the promised “mount”—not a hint that she also might like to attend the meet! Verily it was a world of grief and disappointment.
Gurth opined that it was a “beastly fag” having no horses, but saw no reason why the younger members of the party should not follow on bicycles. Dreda protested haughtily that if she could not go properly she would not go at all; but when the day of the meet arrived and she saw the little party complacently preparing to start, pride gave way before the thought of a long, dull day alone; she rushed to get ready, and pedalled down the drive looking her old complacent self.
Rowena led the cavalcade on Mr Seton’s brown hunter, with her fair locks coiled tightly at the back and her hat pressed down on her forehead. She was not quite so pretty, perhaps, as in ordinary attire, but she looked delightfully trim and business-like, and her young brothers and sisters were proud of her and made favourable comparisons between her and the other lady riders assembled in the square. It was a picturesque sight to see the motley collection of vehicles drawn up by the kerbstones, the riders pacing to and fro, greeting fresh arrivals, who kept trotting in from every direction, the pink coats of the men making welcome touches of colour, and finally the appearance of the hounds themselves, preceded by the huntsmen in their velvet caps and smart white breeches.
A long table was laid out in front of the village inn, on which were set refreshments for those who had driven from a distance. The Saxon quartette strolled up and down, wheeling their bicycles as they went, exchanging greetings with acquaintances, and quizzing the peculiarities of strangers, after the merciless fashion of youth. It was just as they reached the farthest corner of the square, and were about to turn back, that Dreda’s glance came into contact with a pair of eyes fixed upon her with a coldly antagonistic gaze with which she was painfully familiar.
Norah! By all that was inexplicable, Norah West herself, standing calmly in the midst of Newstead Market Square, more than a hundred miles distant from her home, to which she had travelled a short week before!
Dreda gazed back in stupefied amazement, and even as she looked a second figure detached itself from the crowd and advanced towards her.
“Dreda! I didn’t expect to meet you here. I was going to write!”
“Susan! What is Norah doing with you? Don’t tell me you have asked her tostay!”
“I didn’t—but sheishere, all the same. Her brother came home ill from school, and the others had all to be sent off at once in case it was something infectious. She telegraphed to know if she might come to us.”
“Like her cheek!”
“Oh, Dreda, it was horrid for her, too. Just think if you missed your holidays at home! And she had often invited me there.”
“Oh, of course, she adores you, so you enjoy having her company. Don’t let me interfere! It’s delightful that you are so well entertained. I congratulate you, I’m sure.”
Susan’s lips quivered. Her face was pinched by the chill wind, which gave increased pathos to her look.
“Dreda, I always tell you the truth; it’s horrid of me—but I’mnotglad! I didn’t want her one bit. I thought you and I would be often together, and now that she is here that can’t be, I’m afraid. But—poor Norah! None of the girls like her very much; there were so few places she could go to, and just because she isn’t—isn’tquitewhat one would wish, there is all the more reason why one should be nice to her. You remember what you said yourself.”
“What did I say?”
“It wasn’t about Norah exactly, but one day we were talking about people we didn’t like, and you said the best way was to be perfectly sweet oneself, and to behave always as if we loved them, and expected only good things from them, and so elevate them in spite of themselves. I thought it was such a beautiful idea. I’ve never forgotten it, and now I’m trying to putitinto practice.”
“Oh–h!” exclaimed Dreda blankly. She herself had forgotten her fine sentiments almost as soon as they were uttered, and was not pleased to be reminded of them at the moment. “Oh–h! Well, if you want to experiment, you must; but I do think it’s a little inconsiderate to choose Norah as your subject, and in the Christmas holidays, too! Where do I come in, please? Really, Susan, you are too appallingly inconsiderate!”
Susan smiled her sweet, illuminating little smile.
“I know I am; dear; but be patient with me, please, because I’m disappointed, too, and you’d have done the same yourself if you’d been in my place. You may rage and storm, but youneverrefuse to do a good turn! I’ll keep Norah out of your way!”
For this morning at least the promise could not be kept; for, once having joined forces, it was difficult to separate again, and throughout the exciting chase which followed Norah made herself so agreeable that Harold and Gurth pronounced her “a ripping girl, worth a dozen of that mumpy little Susan Webster.”
“Now they’ll want her asked over on every occasion. We shall besaturatedwith Norah! Miserable wretch that I am! Misfortunes dog my footsteps!” sighed Dreda to herself.
Chapter Twenty Three.The first three hours of the hunt passed somewhat slowly as the hounds sought in vain for a scent, or “found,” only to be rewarded by a short, illusive chase. The waits were so frequent that the riders had little chance of growing fatigued, and the Saxon contingent, being refreshed with pocketed stores of biscuits and chocolate, boldly announced its intention of following to the bitter end.At last the longed-for baying of excitement sounded from within a spinney which was being drawn, while the field waited in scattered groups to right and left. The next moment the long-looked-for fox dashed swiftly across the meadow, making for the nearest woodland, and, presto! all was excitement and bustle. Led by the huntsmen and hounds, the horsemen went streaming across country in a long, irregular line, leaping lightly across intervening barriers, while the less fortunate riders on wheels were obliged to follow thedétoursof the road.Dreda felt an almost unbearable impatience as she watched Rowena’s graceful figure swaying lightly in her saddle beside Guy Seton in his picturesque pink coat. Hateful to come to a meet if you couldn’t come properly! Hateful of Guy Seton to have forgotten his promise! Hateful to follow a mile behind and be out of all the fun. She set her teeth, and decided that she would not condescend to follow meekly in the wake of her companions, but, by taking a short cut in the shape of a ploughed road which led across three meadows, would cut off a corner a good half-mile in length. The path was rough, exceedingly rough—but, granted that it was a trifle dangerous, what else could you expect at a hunt? No sooner thought than done. Dreda deliberately slackened pace until Hereward and Gurth had passed on ahead, then turned in at the opened gate, and after a few minutes’ painful wobbling to and fro found a deep rut along which her wheels could make a fairly easy progress. The sound of agitated puffings and pantings from behind made her aware that another rider had been rash enough to follow her lead; but she dared not turn her head to see who it might be. The road grew worse instead of better, and the different ruts seemed to merge together in the most annoying fashion. The bicycle bumped and strained, and only by the most careful steering could be kept upright at all. She was a good and fearless rider, but, to judge from the gasps and groans which sounded from behind, her follower was not equally skilful, and Dreda began to realise a fresh danger in her nearness. She determined to cross to the far side of the road, chose what seemed to be the smoothest passage, and swerved violently to the right. What exactly happened it would be difficult to say, as it is always difficult to account for any accident after the event. It was impossible to decide whether the second rider was too close on Dreda’s heels, and so volleyed into her at the first sideways movement or whether Dreda’s front wheel struck against a rut, and in so doing blocked the way. The only thing that was certain was that the two machines came violently into contact, and that their respective riders were thrown headlong to the ground.A moment of stunned surprise, and then Dreda sat up slowly; very red, very angry, conscious of a sore elbow, a dusty skirt, and a hat screwed rakishly to one side. She was convinced that she had not been to blame, and that her downfall was absolutely and entirely the fault of that stupid other person who had followed too quickly behind; but on the point of declaiming reproaches, she was suddenly silenced by two startling discoveries: first, that the other person was none other than Norah West, and secondly, that she was lying very still, with her head falling limply to one side.Dreda felt a sudden chilling of the blood. Her heart pounded against her side, and an inner voice cried in her ear: “Norah is dead! You were saying horrid things about her an hour ago, and now she is dead. You led the way along this dangerous path, and she followed and got killed, and it isyourfault! Norah is dead, and it is you who have killed her!”She crawled forward on hands and knees, and peered fearfully at the still face. The spectacles had fallen off Norah’s nose. The freckles looked browner than ever against the pallor of the skin. Her face looked pinched and wan, but she was not dead: the breath came faintly from between the parted lips, the cheeks were warm to the touch. Dreda gave a great sigh of relief, and seating herself in the middle of the road, lifted Norah’s head with her strong young arms until it lay pillowed on her knee. She searched for her handkerchief, wiped the dust from the unconscious face, and stroked back the heavy hair, crooning over her the while in tones of fondest affection.“Norah! Norah dear! Norah, wake up! I’m here. Dreda’s with you, dear!”Hitherto Dreda had felt no affection for Norah West; there had been little sympathy between them, and the rivalry for Susan’s favour had been a constant cause of friction; but at this moment it seemed the most important thing in life that Norah should open her eyes and speak once more.In the silent tension of those waiting moments Dreda had a flash of rare insight into the feelings of another. Poor old Norah! She had been snappy at times, but what wonder! It must have been hateful to have a new girl come to school and become the chosen chum of the girl you wanted for yourself; to see her take the lead, while you remained in your insignificant corner. Norah was neither pretty, clever, nor amusing; she was not popular in the school; but, indeed, she had never striven after popularity. The one thing she had desired above all others was Susan’s friendship, and that she had failed to gain. Dreda had been accustomed to jeer at the limitations of others; but now, for the first time in her life, she felt a pang of whole-hearted sympathy towards the girl who was so much less fortunate than herself. “It’s no credit to me that I’m pretty, but I should have hated to be plain. It would have warped my disposition to look in the glass every day and see nothing but freckles and glittering gold specs. Perhaps it warped Norah’s. I ought to have been sorry, instead of proud and superior. And I’m not clever, either—I thought I was—and it was dreadful finding out. I expect she hated it, too. Norah! Oh, Norah, I have behaved like a blind, self-satisfied bat. If you go and die now I shall be miserable all my life—bowed down with remorse! Oh, Norah, do,doopen your eyes!”But Norah lay quiet and unresponsive. Where and how had she been injured? There was no sign of blood, no cut or bruise on the still white face. Dreda gently moved each arm, but still without awakening any sign of consciousness. Then, leaning forward, she tried to straighten out the twisted legs. Instantly there came a flinch and a groan, the heavy lids rolled upward, and two startled eyes searched her face.“What is it? Where am I? What has happened? Oh—the pain! the pain!”“You are quite safe, dear. You fell from your bicycle. I am afraid you have hurt your leg; but I’m here. I’ll take care of you. You know me, don’t you? You know Dreda Saxon?”Norah gave a moan of acquiescence. The consciousness of Dreda’s near neighbourhood did not appear to be especially soothing, for she turned her head restlessly from side to side, and tried to lift herself on her elbow. The effort failed, and she was obliged to lie back in the same position, pillowed against Dreda’s knee, shivering with mingled cold and pain.“My leg! I can’t move it. Don’t move! Don’t shake me! The least movement is torture. Oh! how shall I ever get home?”The same thought was beginning to agitate Dreda’s mind. Far off, over the distant fences, the heads of a few riders could be seen bobbing away out of sight, as the field swept across the sloping meadows. As well call to the trees themselves as seek to attract their attention! The cross road was too rough and muddy to be much used in winter; it was quite possible that not a soul might pass by for the rest of the day. Dreda shivered at the thought of the long hours of the afternoon during which Norah might be obliged to lie—cold, cramped, suffering, waiting for the help which never came; of the horror of darkness falling over the land.“I must go for help. There are some farmhouses about half a mile away. I could get men to carry you back. Could you let me lift you—very, very gently—and lay you down on the bank?”But Norah was terrified to face the slightest movement. So long as she lay perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, the pain was bearable; but the moment that she attempted to stir such a darting torture seized her in its grip that she was ready to face any waiting, any darkness, rather than allow herself to be moved. She gripped Dreda’s hand and the tears welled up in her eyes.“No, no! You mustn’t! You mustn’t! I should go mad. Let me lie still. Some one will come. If they don’t, let me just die quietly here. Don’t move!Don’tshake me! I can’t bear it. I shall die straight off.”There seemed nothing to be done but to soothe and sympathise, sitting as still as possible, stroking Norah’s hair, and striving to shield her from the biting wind. The short-sighted eyes looked quite different bereft of their glittering glasses. The aggressive expression had given place to one of pitiful appeal. Norah had never before experienced severe physical pain; it seemed to her like some savage monster lying in wait to grip her with its claws. She lay with her eyes strained on Dreda’s face, feeling herself in Dreda’s power, terrified lest Dreda should fail her in her need.“Dreda, am I heavy? Does it tire you to hold me? I’ve read that people get cramped sitting in one position—that it hurts like a real pain. Oh, Dreda, but it can’t be like my pain! Something terrible has happened to my leg. It is broken—or fractured. You can’t imagine how it feels. The least movement seems to stab through my whole body. Even if youdoget cramped, Dreda, will you promise me to sit still—not to move or shake me until some one comes?”Dreda hesitated miserably.“I’ll try, Norah. Iwilltry! I can’t bear to say no when you ask me, but I feel as if it were wrong to promise. Itcan’tbe good for you toliehere in the cold and the damp. And you ought to see a doctor at once. You will have to be moved some time, and it is bound to hurt. Couldn’t you make up your mind and be very, very brave, and let me put you down and run for helpnow? Indeed, indeed it would be best!”But poor Norah did not feel at all brave. She shuddered and cried, and clutched Dreda tight with her trembling hands, so that it seemed impossible to deny her request.The time seemed terribly slow, the wind grew colder and colder, and a thin grey mist began to spread over the meadows. Dreda turned up the collar of her coat, but even that slight movement brought a groan of pain from Norah’s lips and a piteous plea to keep still. She set her teeth hard in the effort to refrain from trembling. Her feet were alternately numb and tingling with “pins and needles,” but still no sign of a living creature could be seen. After an hour had passed by Dreda was almost more miserable than Norah, who had passed into a dull stupor from which she was aroused only by occasional darting pains. She lay with closed eyes, refusing to speak, but clutching with both hands at Dreda’s dress as if even in her semi-unconsciousness the terror of movement still remained, and the cold mist crept nearer and nearer, shutting out the landscape like a heavy screen. Dreda looked at the little watch strapped round her wrist, and saw that the hands pointed to three o’clock. In these short winter days it was often necessary to ring for lamps before four o’clock—only another hour of daylight, and then! What would happen if no help came within the next hour? Would they have to spend the night together—Norah and she? Out in that lonely path? Would they be found lying cold and stark when at last the searchers came with the morning light?Dreda was beginning to feel a little dazed herself. Even before the accident had happened she had been feeling somewhat tired and chilled, and the mental and physical sufferings of the past two hours had been severe. Perhaps she had been weak in submitting to Norah’s entreaties; perhaps it would have been truer kindness to have inflicted the momentary torture, so as to have gone in search of aid; but be that as it might, the opportunity was past, and whether she wished it or not she was now too cramped to move. Her limbs felt so paralysed that she believed that she would never walk again. But the thought brought with it no regret; she did not care. Nothing mattered any more, except that there was no support against which to lean her weary back. She was so tired, so sleepy; Norah’s head was so heavy on her lap. Dreda’s eyelids drooped and opened; drooped again and remained closed; her head fell forward on her chest. The grey mist crept nearer and covered her from sight!
The first three hours of the hunt passed somewhat slowly as the hounds sought in vain for a scent, or “found,” only to be rewarded by a short, illusive chase. The waits were so frequent that the riders had little chance of growing fatigued, and the Saxon contingent, being refreshed with pocketed stores of biscuits and chocolate, boldly announced its intention of following to the bitter end.
At last the longed-for baying of excitement sounded from within a spinney which was being drawn, while the field waited in scattered groups to right and left. The next moment the long-looked-for fox dashed swiftly across the meadow, making for the nearest woodland, and, presto! all was excitement and bustle. Led by the huntsmen and hounds, the horsemen went streaming across country in a long, irregular line, leaping lightly across intervening barriers, while the less fortunate riders on wheels were obliged to follow thedétoursof the road.
Dreda felt an almost unbearable impatience as she watched Rowena’s graceful figure swaying lightly in her saddle beside Guy Seton in his picturesque pink coat. Hateful to come to a meet if you couldn’t come properly! Hateful of Guy Seton to have forgotten his promise! Hateful to follow a mile behind and be out of all the fun. She set her teeth, and decided that she would not condescend to follow meekly in the wake of her companions, but, by taking a short cut in the shape of a ploughed road which led across three meadows, would cut off a corner a good half-mile in length. The path was rough, exceedingly rough—but, granted that it was a trifle dangerous, what else could you expect at a hunt? No sooner thought than done. Dreda deliberately slackened pace until Hereward and Gurth had passed on ahead, then turned in at the opened gate, and after a few minutes’ painful wobbling to and fro found a deep rut along which her wheels could make a fairly easy progress. The sound of agitated puffings and pantings from behind made her aware that another rider had been rash enough to follow her lead; but she dared not turn her head to see who it might be. The road grew worse instead of better, and the different ruts seemed to merge together in the most annoying fashion. The bicycle bumped and strained, and only by the most careful steering could be kept upright at all. She was a good and fearless rider, but, to judge from the gasps and groans which sounded from behind, her follower was not equally skilful, and Dreda began to realise a fresh danger in her nearness. She determined to cross to the far side of the road, chose what seemed to be the smoothest passage, and swerved violently to the right. What exactly happened it would be difficult to say, as it is always difficult to account for any accident after the event. It was impossible to decide whether the second rider was too close on Dreda’s heels, and so volleyed into her at the first sideways movement or whether Dreda’s front wheel struck against a rut, and in so doing blocked the way. The only thing that was certain was that the two machines came violently into contact, and that their respective riders were thrown headlong to the ground.
A moment of stunned surprise, and then Dreda sat up slowly; very red, very angry, conscious of a sore elbow, a dusty skirt, and a hat screwed rakishly to one side. She was convinced that she had not been to blame, and that her downfall was absolutely and entirely the fault of that stupid other person who had followed too quickly behind; but on the point of declaiming reproaches, she was suddenly silenced by two startling discoveries: first, that the other person was none other than Norah West, and secondly, that she was lying very still, with her head falling limply to one side.
Dreda felt a sudden chilling of the blood. Her heart pounded against her side, and an inner voice cried in her ear: “Norah is dead! You were saying horrid things about her an hour ago, and now she is dead. You led the way along this dangerous path, and she followed and got killed, and it isyourfault! Norah is dead, and it is you who have killed her!”
She crawled forward on hands and knees, and peered fearfully at the still face. The spectacles had fallen off Norah’s nose. The freckles looked browner than ever against the pallor of the skin. Her face looked pinched and wan, but she was not dead: the breath came faintly from between the parted lips, the cheeks were warm to the touch. Dreda gave a great sigh of relief, and seating herself in the middle of the road, lifted Norah’s head with her strong young arms until it lay pillowed on her knee. She searched for her handkerchief, wiped the dust from the unconscious face, and stroked back the heavy hair, crooning over her the while in tones of fondest affection.
“Norah! Norah dear! Norah, wake up! I’m here. Dreda’s with you, dear!”
Hitherto Dreda had felt no affection for Norah West; there had been little sympathy between them, and the rivalry for Susan’s favour had been a constant cause of friction; but at this moment it seemed the most important thing in life that Norah should open her eyes and speak once more.
In the silent tension of those waiting moments Dreda had a flash of rare insight into the feelings of another. Poor old Norah! She had been snappy at times, but what wonder! It must have been hateful to have a new girl come to school and become the chosen chum of the girl you wanted for yourself; to see her take the lead, while you remained in your insignificant corner. Norah was neither pretty, clever, nor amusing; she was not popular in the school; but, indeed, she had never striven after popularity. The one thing she had desired above all others was Susan’s friendship, and that she had failed to gain. Dreda had been accustomed to jeer at the limitations of others; but now, for the first time in her life, she felt a pang of whole-hearted sympathy towards the girl who was so much less fortunate than herself. “It’s no credit to me that I’m pretty, but I should have hated to be plain. It would have warped my disposition to look in the glass every day and see nothing but freckles and glittering gold specs. Perhaps it warped Norah’s. I ought to have been sorry, instead of proud and superior. And I’m not clever, either—I thought I was—and it was dreadful finding out. I expect she hated it, too. Norah! Oh, Norah, I have behaved like a blind, self-satisfied bat. If you go and die now I shall be miserable all my life—bowed down with remorse! Oh, Norah, do,doopen your eyes!”
But Norah lay quiet and unresponsive. Where and how had she been injured? There was no sign of blood, no cut or bruise on the still white face. Dreda gently moved each arm, but still without awakening any sign of consciousness. Then, leaning forward, she tried to straighten out the twisted legs. Instantly there came a flinch and a groan, the heavy lids rolled upward, and two startled eyes searched her face.
“What is it? Where am I? What has happened? Oh—the pain! the pain!”
“You are quite safe, dear. You fell from your bicycle. I am afraid you have hurt your leg; but I’m here. I’ll take care of you. You know me, don’t you? You know Dreda Saxon?”
Norah gave a moan of acquiescence. The consciousness of Dreda’s near neighbourhood did not appear to be especially soothing, for she turned her head restlessly from side to side, and tried to lift herself on her elbow. The effort failed, and she was obliged to lie back in the same position, pillowed against Dreda’s knee, shivering with mingled cold and pain.
“My leg! I can’t move it. Don’t move! Don’t shake me! The least movement is torture. Oh! how shall I ever get home?”
The same thought was beginning to agitate Dreda’s mind. Far off, over the distant fences, the heads of a few riders could be seen bobbing away out of sight, as the field swept across the sloping meadows. As well call to the trees themselves as seek to attract their attention! The cross road was too rough and muddy to be much used in winter; it was quite possible that not a soul might pass by for the rest of the day. Dreda shivered at the thought of the long hours of the afternoon during which Norah might be obliged to lie—cold, cramped, suffering, waiting for the help which never came; of the horror of darkness falling over the land.
“I must go for help. There are some farmhouses about half a mile away. I could get men to carry you back. Could you let me lift you—very, very gently—and lay you down on the bank?”
But Norah was terrified to face the slightest movement. So long as she lay perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, the pain was bearable; but the moment that she attempted to stir such a darting torture seized her in its grip that she was ready to face any waiting, any darkness, rather than allow herself to be moved. She gripped Dreda’s hand and the tears welled up in her eyes.
“No, no! You mustn’t! You mustn’t! I should go mad. Let me lie still. Some one will come. If they don’t, let me just die quietly here. Don’t move!Don’tshake me! I can’t bear it. I shall die straight off.”
There seemed nothing to be done but to soothe and sympathise, sitting as still as possible, stroking Norah’s hair, and striving to shield her from the biting wind. The short-sighted eyes looked quite different bereft of their glittering glasses. The aggressive expression had given place to one of pitiful appeal. Norah had never before experienced severe physical pain; it seemed to her like some savage monster lying in wait to grip her with its claws. She lay with her eyes strained on Dreda’s face, feeling herself in Dreda’s power, terrified lest Dreda should fail her in her need.
“Dreda, am I heavy? Does it tire you to hold me? I’ve read that people get cramped sitting in one position—that it hurts like a real pain. Oh, Dreda, but it can’t be like my pain! Something terrible has happened to my leg. It is broken—or fractured. You can’t imagine how it feels. The least movement seems to stab through my whole body. Even if youdoget cramped, Dreda, will you promise me to sit still—not to move or shake me until some one comes?”
Dreda hesitated miserably.
“I’ll try, Norah. Iwilltry! I can’t bear to say no when you ask me, but I feel as if it were wrong to promise. Itcan’tbe good for you toliehere in the cold and the damp. And you ought to see a doctor at once. You will have to be moved some time, and it is bound to hurt. Couldn’t you make up your mind and be very, very brave, and let me put you down and run for helpnow? Indeed, indeed it would be best!”
But poor Norah did not feel at all brave. She shuddered and cried, and clutched Dreda tight with her trembling hands, so that it seemed impossible to deny her request.
The time seemed terribly slow, the wind grew colder and colder, and a thin grey mist began to spread over the meadows. Dreda turned up the collar of her coat, but even that slight movement brought a groan of pain from Norah’s lips and a piteous plea to keep still. She set her teeth hard in the effort to refrain from trembling. Her feet were alternately numb and tingling with “pins and needles,” but still no sign of a living creature could be seen. After an hour had passed by Dreda was almost more miserable than Norah, who had passed into a dull stupor from which she was aroused only by occasional darting pains. She lay with closed eyes, refusing to speak, but clutching with both hands at Dreda’s dress as if even in her semi-unconsciousness the terror of movement still remained, and the cold mist crept nearer and nearer, shutting out the landscape like a heavy screen. Dreda looked at the little watch strapped round her wrist, and saw that the hands pointed to three o’clock. In these short winter days it was often necessary to ring for lamps before four o’clock—only another hour of daylight, and then! What would happen if no help came within the next hour? Would they have to spend the night together—Norah and she? Out in that lonely path? Would they be found lying cold and stark when at last the searchers came with the morning light?
Dreda was beginning to feel a little dazed herself. Even before the accident had happened she had been feeling somewhat tired and chilled, and the mental and physical sufferings of the past two hours had been severe. Perhaps she had been weak in submitting to Norah’s entreaties; perhaps it would have been truer kindness to have inflicted the momentary torture, so as to have gone in search of aid; but be that as it might, the opportunity was past, and whether she wished it or not she was now too cramped to move. Her limbs felt so paralysed that she believed that she would never walk again. But the thought brought with it no regret; she did not care. Nothing mattered any more, except that there was no support against which to lean her weary back. She was so tired, so sleepy; Norah’s head was so heavy on her lap. Dreda’s eyelids drooped and opened; drooped again and remained closed; her head fell forward on her chest. The grey mist crept nearer and covered her from sight!
Chapter Twenty Four.Rowena and Guy Seton gave themselves up to the pleasures of the hunt, blissfully forgetful of the young brothers and sisters who were following on wheels; and, indeed, of everything and everyone but just their own two selves. There seemed always to be some incontrovertible reason why they should keep by themselves, a little apart from the rest of the field. Rowena’s hunting experiences had been few, and her escort was too anxious about her safety to allow her to try any but the very simplest and smallest of jumps. This excess of precaution necessitated many a détour, but neither of the two seemed anxious to make up for lost time by putting on extra speed to catch up with their friends; and the interest in the pursuit of the fox was of so perfunctory a nature that it often seemed more by chance than by design that they took the right turnings at all!It was after two o’clock when Rowena was refreshing herself with sandwiches produced from Guy Seton’s case during an interval of rest, when the hounds were drawing a spinney, that she cast her eyes to right and left over the scattered field, and remarked carelessly:“I don’t see Dreda! The boys are there, and the Websters and Maud; but I don’t see Dreda anywhere—do you?”Guy Seton cast a cursory glance in the direction indicated.“She is probably behind a tree or a hedge, hiding from the wind. Miss Dreda strikes me as a young woman who can take remarkably good care of herself. Do take another sandwich! To please me! I’m so afraid you will feel faint.”Evidently Rowena was considered less able to look after herself than her younger sister; for on this, as at every moment of the afternoon, she was guarded, directed, and cared for as though she had been the most helpless and timid of children; and the extraordinary thing about it was that Rowena, who was in reality a most capable and self-confident young woman, made not the slightest objection, but seemed thoroughly to enjoy the experience.Half an hour later on Gurth took the opportunity of another halt to ride up to Rowena’s side with a repetition of her own question.“I say, Ro—have you seen anything of Dreda? She and Norah West seem to have disappeared altogether. I can’t think what’s happened to them.”“Perhaps they felt tired, and have gone home. Dreda’s all right if she has someone with her,” returned Rowena easily, and Gurth accepted the explanation and immediately dismissed the subject from his mind.Guy Seton was troubled with no fears about the missing girls; but hearing Rowena mention the word “tired,” became straightway devoured with anxiety lest the epithet should in any way apply to herself. In vain did she protest with the most radiant and dimpling of smiles. She could no more deny that four hours in the saddle was an unusual exertion than that the weather had taken a change for the worse, and that home lay a good eight miles away. The exhilaration of the moment was such that she felt as if it were impossible ever to be tired again; nevertheless, it was sweet to be cared for, sweet to subject her own will to that of Guy Seton. So the end of the discussion was that the hunt was abandoned, and while the field went gaily chasing after a fresh scent, these two riders turned their horses’ heads and jogged slowly in the direction of home.Suddenly an overpowering feeling of shyness seized upon Rowena. Every moment took her farther away from her companions; the country ahead looked misty and solitary; Guy Seton’s eyes were fixed upon her face with an expression at once so wistful and so ardent that it seemed impossible to meet it with her own. In her heart of hearts Rowena knew perfectly well what that look meant; but with the curious inconsistency of her sex the impulse was strong upon her to fly from what she had most longed for and desired. Conversation was the best refuge for the moment, and she plunged hastily into the first subject which presented itself.“I wonder if we shall find Dreda waiting at home! Poor Dreda, she was so disgusted at having to follow on wheels. She refused point blank to come, as she had not a mount; but at the last moment it seemed too dull to stay at home all by herself. She is such a good horsewoman—far better than I am. Perhaps next meet you will be very, very kind and take her with you?”Guy Seton’s face suddenly assumed an expression of acute anxiety and discomfort.“Why should I take her? You are not—surely you are notgoing away?”“Oh, no—oh, no; but it is Dreda’s holiday. She would love it so! It would be such a treat.”“And you? Does that mean that youdon’tenjoy it? That you would rather stay at home and let her come in your place?”Rowena blushed.“Of course it doesn’t. I love it, too; but I wasn’t thinking of myself. Dreda thinks—she believes that you made some sort of promise that you would give her a mount, and she is counting upon you to keep it. She would be so disappointed—”But Guy Seton had forgotten all about his lightly spoken words, and was in no mood to be reminded.“I think she must be mistaken, don’t you know!” he protested easily. “It’s always the same thing with youngsters of that age. If one is foolish enough to say a word, they leap to the conclusion that it is a definite arrangement. I’ve learnt that with my own nephews and nieces. I saw so very little of Miss Dreda before she went off to school that I could hardly have had time to promise.”“I don’t think it took very much time. So far as I understand, it was on the afternoon when you first met—”“The afternoon when I came over to call? I remember nothing whatever about that afternoon except that I saw you, for the first time, and that you were unkind to me, and wouldn’t speak.”The blush on Rowena’s cheeks flamed up again more rosily than before.“Don’t speak of it, please! It makes me hot and so furious with Maud even now. You are not a girl, so you can’t understand; but I was so wretchedly embarrassed, and angry, and ashamed.”“But why? That’s what I could not understand! You had been sweet enough, and unselfish enough, and hospitable enough to go to the trouble of putting on a pretty frock—I adore that blue frock—for the benefit of a casual stranger whom you had never even seen. Why should you be ashamed of that? I think it was jolly unselfish. It’s such a fag changing one’s kit. You ought to have been very complacent and pleased. Youwouldhave been if you could have changed places with me for a minute, and seen yourself walking into the room. If you knew what I thought—”He paused, and Rowena, scenting danger, resolved that nothing on earth would make her put the obvious question. The resolution lasted for a whole half-minute, at the end of which time a feeble little voice demanded softly:“Wh–at did you think?”“I thought—oh, Rowena! so many, many things! I thought that I had dreamt of you all my life, and had found you at last. I thought you were the loveliest thing in the whole wide world. I wished I had been a better man for your sake! I was so happy to have met you, and so miserable because you were cross. It was such a bad beginning that I was afraid you would always be prejudiced—always dislike me.”Again he paused, and Rowena bent over her horse’s head, stroking its mane, keeping her eyes persistently downcast. They traversed another hundred yards before the low, insistent tones again struck on her ear.“Doyou, Rowena?”“Do I—what?”“Dislike me still?”“I? Oh, what a question! I never disliked you. I was angry with Maud, and with myself—not with you at all.”“But I want so much more. Don’t you know that, Rowena? I tumbled headlong in love with you that very afternoon, and I’ve gone on tumbling deeper and deeper ever since. Do you care for me a little bit, Rowena?Couldyou care? I’m such a stupid, ordinary sort of fellow. I don’t know how I dare ask such a thing of a girl like you—the loveliest, sweetest girl that ever lived—but I justhaveto, and that’s the truth! I can’t stand the suspense another hour.—If I waited long enough would there be a chance for me in the end? If I were very, very patient!”A dimple dipped in the lovely curve of Rowena’s cheek. She was sure now—quite, quite sure! It was not merely a foolish, girlish imagination. Guy loved her. Guy wanted her for his wife. She had entered into her woman’s kingdom, and, womanlike, began instantly to adopt provocative little airs and graces.“But I—I don’t want you to be—to be—”“To be what?Whatdon’t you want me to be, Rowena?”“P–atient!” sighed Rowena, and turned her head with a smile and a glance and a blush which transformed the grey winter landscape into a very Garden of Eden for the man by her side.Ah, well! it was a blissful half-hour which followed, filled with the inevitable questionings and recollections which every fresh Adam and Eve believe to be their own exclusive property. “What did you think?”“What did you mean?”“Why did you say?”“What was the first—the very first moment when you began to care?” Hand in hand they passed along the country lanes, the reins lying slack on the necks of their tired steeds; hand in hand they turned in at the farther gate of the ploughed roads which lay across the fields, and halfway along its length came suddenly upon the two still, half-conscious figures of Dreda and Norah West.
Rowena and Guy Seton gave themselves up to the pleasures of the hunt, blissfully forgetful of the young brothers and sisters who were following on wheels; and, indeed, of everything and everyone but just their own two selves. There seemed always to be some incontrovertible reason why they should keep by themselves, a little apart from the rest of the field. Rowena’s hunting experiences had been few, and her escort was too anxious about her safety to allow her to try any but the very simplest and smallest of jumps. This excess of precaution necessitated many a détour, but neither of the two seemed anxious to make up for lost time by putting on extra speed to catch up with their friends; and the interest in the pursuit of the fox was of so perfunctory a nature that it often seemed more by chance than by design that they took the right turnings at all!
It was after two o’clock when Rowena was refreshing herself with sandwiches produced from Guy Seton’s case during an interval of rest, when the hounds were drawing a spinney, that she cast her eyes to right and left over the scattered field, and remarked carelessly:
“I don’t see Dreda! The boys are there, and the Websters and Maud; but I don’t see Dreda anywhere—do you?”
Guy Seton cast a cursory glance in the direction indicated.
“She is probably behind a tree or a hedge, hiding from the wind. Miss Dreda strikes me as a young woman who can take remarkably good care of herself. Do take another sandwich! To please me! I’m so afraid you will feel faint.”
Evidently Rowena was considered less able to look after herself than her younger sister; for on this, as at every moment of the afternoon, she was guarded, directed, and cared for as though she had been the most helpless and timid of children; and the extraordinary thing about it was that Rowena, who was in reality a most capable and self-confident young woman, made not the slightest objection, but seemed thoroughly to enjoy the experience.
Half an hour later on Gurth took the opportunity of another halt to ride up to Rowena’s side with a repetition of her own question.
“I say, Ro—have you seen anything of Dreda? She and Norah West seem to have disappeared altogether. I can’t think what’s happened to them.”
“Perhaps they felt tired, and have gone home. Dreda’s all right if she has someone with her,” returned Rowena easily, and Gurth accepted the explanation and immediately dismissed the subject from his mind.
Guy Seton was troubled with no fears about the missing girls; but hearing Rowena mention the word “tired,” became straightway devoured with anxiety lest the epithet should in any way apply to herself. In vain did she protest with the most radiant and dimpling of smiles. She could no more deny that four hours in the saddle was an unusual exertion than that the weather had taken a change for the worse, and that home lay a good eight miles away. The exhilaration of the moment was such that she felt as if it were impossible ever to be tired again; nevertheless, it was sweet to be cared for, sweet to subject her own will to that of Guy Seton. So the end of the discussion was that the hunt was abandoned, and while the field went gaily chasing after a fresh scent, these two riders turned their horses’ heads and jogged slowly in the direction of home.
Suddenly an overpowering feeling of shyness seized upon Rowena. Every moment took her farther away from her companions; the country ahead looked misty and solitary; Guy Seton’s eyes were fixed upon her face with an expression at once so wistful and so ardent that it seemed impossible to meet it with her own. In her heart of hearts Rowena knew perfectly well what that look meant; but with the curious inconsistency of her sex the impulse was strong upon her to fly from what she had most longed for and desired. Conversation was the best refuge for the moment, and she plunged hastily into the first subject which presented itself.
“I wonder if we shall find Dreda waiting at home! Poor Dreda, she was so disgusted at having to follow on wheels. She refused point blank to come, as she had not a mount; but at the last moment it seemed too dull to stay at home all by herself. She is such a good horsewoman—far better than I am. Perhaps next meet you will be very, very kind and take her with you?”
Guy Seton’s face suddenly assumed an expression of acute anxiety and discomfort.
“Why should I take her? You are not—surely you are notgoing away?”
“Oh, no—oh, no; but it is Dreda’s holiday. She would love it so! It would be such a treat.”
“And you? Does that mean that youdon’tenjoy it? That you would rather stay at home and let her come in your place?”
Rowena blushed.
“Of course it doesn’t. I love it, too; but I wasn’t thinking of myself. Dreda thinks—she believes that you made some sort of promise that you would give her a mount, and she is counting upon you to keep it. She would be so disappointed—”
But Guy Seton had forgotten all about his lightly spoken words, and was in no mood to be reminded.
“I think she must be mistaken, don’t you know!” he protested easily. “It’s always the same thing with youngsters of that age. If one is foolish enough to say a word, they leap to the conclusion that it is a definite arrangement. I’ve learnt that with my own nephews and nieces. I saw so very little of Miss Dreda before she went off to school that I could hardly have had time to promise.”
“I don’t think it took very much time. So far as I understand, it was on the afternoon when you first met—”
“The afternoon when I came over to call? I remember nothing whatever about that afternoon except that I saw you, for the first time, and that you were unkind to me, and wouldn’t speak.”
The blush on Rowena’s cheeks flamed up again more rosily than before.
“Don’t speak of it, please! It makes me hot and so furious with Maud even now. You are not a girl, so you can’t understand; but I was so wretchedly embarrassed, and angry, and ashamed.”
“But why? That’s what I could not understand! You had been sweet enough, and unselfish enough, and hospitable enough to go to the trouble of putting on a pretty frock—I adore that blue frock—for the benefit of a casual stranger whom you had never even seen. Why should you be ashamed of that? I think it was jolly unselfish. It’s such a fag changing one’s kit. You ought to have been very complacent and pleased. Youwouldhave been if you could have changed places with me for a minute, and seen yourself walking into the room. If you knew what I thought—”
He paused, and Rowena, scenting danger, resolved that nothing on earth would make her put the obvious question. The resolution lasted for a whole half-minute, at the end of which time a feeble little voice demanded softly:
“Wh–at did you think?”
“I thought—oh, Rowena! so many, many things! I thought that I had dreamt of you all my life, and had found you at last. I thought you were the loveliest thing in the whole wide world. I wished I had been a better man for your sake! I was so happy to have met you, and so miserable because you were cross. It was such a bad beginning that I was afraid you would always be prejudiced—always dislike me.”
Again he paused, and Rowena bent over her horse’s head, stroking its mane, keeping her eyes persistently downcast. They traversed another hundred yards before the low, insistent tones again struck on her ear.
“Doyou, Rowena?”
“Do I—what?”
“Dislike me still?”
“I? Oh, what a question! I never disliked you. I was angry with Maud, and with myself—not with you at all.”
“But I want so much more. Don’t you know that, Rowena? I tumbled headlong in love with you that very afternoon, and I’ve gone on tumbling deeper and deeper ever since. Do you care for me a little bit, Rowena?Couldyou care? I’m such a stupid, ordinary sort of fellow. I don’t know how I dare ask such a thing of a girl like you—the loveliest, sweetest girl that ever lived—but I justhaveto, and that’s the truth! I can’t stand the suspense another hour.—If I waited long enough would there be a chance for me in the end? If I were very, very patient!”
A dimple dipped in the lovely curve of Rowena’s cheek. She was sure now—quite, quite sure! It was not merely a foolish, girlish imagination. Guy loved her. Guy wanted her for his wife. She had entered into her woman’s kingdom, and, womanlike, began instantly to adopt provocative little airs and graces.
“But I—I don’t want you to be—to be—”
“To be what?Whatdon’t you want me to be, Rowena?”
“P–atient!” sighed Rowena, and turned her head with a smile and a glance and a blush which transformed the grey winter landscape into a very Garden of Eden for the man by her side.
Ah, well! it was a blissful half-hour which followed, filled with the inevitable questionings and recollections which every fresh Adam and Eve believe to be their own exclusive property. “What did you think?”
“What did you mean?”
“Why did you say?”
“What was the first—the very first moment when you began to care?” Hand in hand they passed along the country lanes, the reins lying slack on the necks of their tired steeds; hand in hand they turned in at the farther gate of the ploughed roads which lay across the fields, and halfway along its length came suddenly upon the two still, half-conscious figures of Dreda and Norah West.