CHAPTER XIIIt was in the early morning, a few days after her arrival at Scarfedale Manor, the house of her two maiden aunts, that Connie, while all the Scarfedale household was still asleep, took pen and paper and began a letter to Nora Hooper.On the evening before Connie left Oxford there had been a long and intimate scene between these two. Constance, motherless and sisterless, and with no woman friend to turn to more understanding than Annette, had been surprised in passionate weeping by Nora, the night after the Marmion catastrophe. The tact and devotion of the younger girl had been equal to the situation. She humbly admired Connie, and yet was directly conscious of a strength in herself, in which Connie was perhaps lacking, and which might be useful to her brilliant cousin. At any rate on this occasion she showed so much sweetness, such power, beyond her years, of comforting and understanding, that Connie told her everything, and thenceforward possessed a sister and a confidante. The letter ran as follows:—“DEAREST NORA,—I have only been at Scarfedale Manor a week, and already I seem to have been living here for months. It is a dear old house, very like the houses one used to draw when one was four years old—a doorway in the middle, with a nice semicircular top, and three windows on either side; two stories above with seven windows each, and a pretty dormered roof, with twisted brick chimneys, and a rookery behind it; also a walled garden, and a green oval grass-plot between it and the road. It seems to me that everywhere you go in England you find these houses, and, I dare say, people like my aunts living in them.“They are very nice to me, and as different as possible from each other. Aunt Marcia must have been quite good-looking, and since she gave up wearing a rational dress which she patented twenty-five years ago, she has always worn either black silk or black satin, a large black satin hat, rather like the old ‘pokes,’ with black feathers in winter and white feathers in summer, and a variety of lace scarves—real lace—which she seems to have collected all over the world. Aunt Winifred says that the Unipantaloonicoat’—the name of the patented thing—lost Aunt Marcia all her lovers. They were scared by so much strength of character, and could not make up their minds to tackle her. She gave it up in order to capture the last of them—a dear old general who had adored her—but he shook his head, went off to Malta to think it out, and there died of Malta fever. She considers herself his widow and his portrait adorns her sitting-room. She has a poor opinion of the lower orders, especially of domestic servants. But her own servants don’t seem to mind her much. The butler has been here twenty years, and does just what he pleases. The amusing thing is that she considers herself extremely intellectual, because she learnt Latin in her youth—she doesn’t remember a word of it now!—because she always read the reviews of papa’s books—and because she reads poetry every morning before breakfast. Just now she is wrestling with George Meredith; and she asks me to explain ‘Modern Love’ to her. I can’t make head or tail of it. Nor can she. But when people come to tea she begins to talk about Meredith, and asks them if they don’t think him very obscure. And as most people here who come to tea have never heard of him, it keeps up her dignity. All the same, she is a dear old thing—and she put a large case of chocolate in my room before I arrived!“Aunt Winifred is quite different. Aunt Marcia calls her a ‘reactionary,’ because she is very high church and great friends with all the clergy. She is a very quiet little thing, short and fair, with a long thin nose and eyes that look you through. Her two great passions are—curates, especially consumptive curates—and animals. There is generally a consumptive curate living the open-air life in the garden. Mercifully the last patient has just left. As for animals, the house is full of stray dogs and tame rabbits and squirrels that run up you and look for nuts in your pocket. There is also a mongoose, who pulled the cloth off the tea-table yesterday and ran away with all the cakes. Aunt Marcia bears it philosophically, but the week before I came there was a crisis. Aunt Winifred met some sheep on the road between here and our little town. She asked where they were going to. And the man with them said he was taking them to the slaughter-house. She was horrified, and she bought them all—there and then! And half an hour later, she appeared here with the sheep, and Aunt Marcia was supposed to put them up in the garden. Well, that was too much, and the aunts had words. What happened to the sheep I don’t know. Probably Aunt Winifred has eaten them since without knowing it.“Dear Nora—I wonder why I write you all these silly things when there is so much else to say—and I know you want to hear it. But it’s horribly difficult to begin.—Well, first of all, Mr. Sorell and Otto Radowitz are about three miles from here, in a little vicarage that has a wide lookout upon the moors and a heavenly air. The aunts have found me a horse, and I go there often. Otto is in some ways very much better. He lives an ordinary life, walks a fair amount, and is reading some classics and history with Mr. Sorell, besides endless books of musical theory and biography. You know he passed his first musical exam last May. For the second, which will come off next year, he has to write a composition in five-part harmony for at least five stringed instruments, and he is beginning work for it now. He writes and writes, and his little study at the vicarage is strewn deep in scribbled music-paper. With his left hand and his piano he does wonders, but the poor right hand is in a sling and quite useless, up to now. He reads scores endlessly, and he said to me yesterday that he thought his intellectual understanding of music—his power of grasping it through the eye—of hearing it with the mind—‘ditties of no tone!’—had grown since his hand was injured. But the pathetic thing is that the sheer pleasure—the joy and excitement—of his life is gone; those long hours of dreaming and composing with the piano, when he could not only make himself blissfully happy, but give such exquisite pleasure to others.“He is very quiet and patient now—generally—and quite determined to make a name for himself as a composer. But he seems to me extraordinarily frail. Do you remember that lovely French poem of Sully Prudhomme’s I read you one night—‘Le Vase Brisé’? The vase has had a blow. No one knew of it. But the little crack widens and grows. The water ebbs away—the flowers die. ‘Il est brisé—n’y touchez pas!’ I can see it is just that Mr. Sorell feels about Otto.“What makes one anxious sometimes, is that he has hours of a kind of fierce absent-mindedness, when his real self seems to be far away—as though in some feverish or ugly dream. He goes away and wanders about by himself. Mr. Sorell does not attempt to follow him, though he is always horribly anxious. And after some hours he comes back, limp and worn out, but quite himself again—as though he had gone through some terrible wrestle and escaped.“Mr. Sorell gave him, a little while ago, a wonderful new automatic thing—a piano-player, I think they call it. It works with a roll like a musical box and has pedals. But Otto can’t do much with it. To get any expression out of it you must use your hands—both hands; and I am afraid it has been more disappointment than joy. But there are rumours of some development—something electric—that plays itself. They say there is an inventor at work in Paris, who is doing something wonderful. I have written to a girl I know at the Embassy to ask her to find out. It might just help him through some weary hours—that’s all one can say.“The relation between him and Mr. Sorell is wonderful. Oh, what an angel Mr. Sorell is! How can any human being, and with no trouble at all apparently, be so unselfish, so self-controlled? What will any woman do who falls in love with him? It won’t make any difference that he’ll think her so much better than himself—because she’ll know the truth. I see no chance for her. My dear Nora, the best men are better than the best women—there! But—take note!—I am not in love with him, though I adore him, and when he disapproves of me, I feel a worm.“I hear a good deal of the Fallodens, but nobody sees them. Every one shrinks from pestering them with society—not from any bad feeling—but because every one knows by now that they are in hideous difficulties, and doesn’t want to intrude. Lady Laura, they say, is very much changed, and Sir Arthur looks terribly ill and broken. Aunt Marcia hears that Douglas Falloden is doing all the business, and impressing the lawyers very much. Oh, I do hope he is helping his father!“I can’t write about him, Nora darling. You would wonder how I can feel the interest in him I do. I know that. But I can’t believe, as Otto does, that he is deliberately cruel—a selfish, hard-hearted monster. He has been a spoilt child all his life. But if some great call were made upon him, mightn’t it stir up something splendid in him, finer things than those are capable of ‘who need no repentance’?“There—something has splashed on my paper. I have written enough. Now you must tell me of yourselves. How is your father? Does Aunt Ellen like Ryde? I am so delighted to hear that Mr. Pryce is actually coming. Tell him that, of course, I will write to Uncle Langmoor, and Lord Glaramara, whenever he wishes, about that appointment. I am sure something can be done. Give Alice my love. I thought her new photographs charming. And you, darling, are you looking after everybody as usual? I wish I could give you a good hug. Good-bye.”To which Nora replied, a couple of days later—“Your account of Aunt Marcia and Aunt Winifred amused father tremendously. He thinks, however, that he would like Aunt Marcia better than Aunt Winifred, as he—and I—get more anticlerical every year. But we keep it to ourselves. Mamma and Alice wouldn’t understand. Ryde is very full, and mamma and Alice want nothing more than the pier and the sands and the people. Papa and I take long walks along the coast, or across the island. We find a cliff to bask on, or a wood that comes down to the water, and then papa gets out a Greek book and translates to me. Sometimes I listen to the sea, instead of to him, and go to sleep. But he doesn’t mind. He is looking better, but work is loading up for him again as soon as we get back to Oxford about a week from now. If only he could get rid of drudgery, and write his best about the things he loves. Nobody knows what a mind he has. He is not only a scholar—he is a poet. He could write things as beautiful as Mr. Pater’s, but his life is ground out of him.“I won’t go on writing this—it’s no good.“Herbert Pryce came down yesterday, and has taken mother and Alice out boating to-day. If he doesn’t mean to propose to Alice, it is very odd he should take the trouble to come here. But he doesn’t say anything definite; he doesn’t propose; and her face often makes me furious. His manner to mamma—and to me—is often brusque and disagreeable. It is as though he felt that in marrying Alice—if he is going to marry her—he is rather unfairly burdened with the rest of us. And it is no good shirking the fact that you count for a good deal in the matter. He was delighted with your message, and if you can help him he will propose to Alice. Goodness, fancy marrying such a man!“As to Mr. Falloden, I don’t believe he will ever be anything but hard and tyrannical. I don’t believe in conversion and change of heart, and that kind of thing. I don’t—I don’t! You are not to be taken in, Connie! You are not to fall in love with him again out of pity. If he does lose all his money, and have to work like anybody else, what does it matter? He was as proud as Lucifer—let him fall like Lucifer. You may be sure he won’t fall so very far. That kind never does. No, I want him put down. I want him punished. He won’t repent—he can’t repent—and there was never any one less like a lost sheep in the world.“After which I think I will say good-night!”A few days later, Connie, returning from a ramble with one of Lady Winifred’s stray dogs along the banks of the Scarfe, found her two aunts at tea in the garden.“Sit down, my dear Connie,” said Lady Marcia, with a preoccupied look. “We have just heard distressing news. The clergy are such gossips!”The elevation of Aunt Winifred’s sharp nose showed her annoyance.“And you, Marcia, are always so dreadfully unfair to them. You were simply dying for Mr. Latimer to tell you all he knew, and then you abuse him.”“Perfectly true,” said Lady Marcia provokingly, “but if he had snubbed me, I should have respected him more.”Whereupon it was explained to Connie that a Mr. Latimer, rector of the Fallodens’ family living of Flood Magna, had just been paying a long visit to the two ladies. He was a distant cousin and old crony of theirs, and it was not long before they had persuaded him to pour out all he knew about the Falloden affairs. “They must sell everything!” said Lady Marcia, raising her hands and eyes in protest—“the estates, the house, the pictures—my dear, think of the pictures! The nation of course ought to buy them, but the nation never has a penny. And however much they sell, it will only just clear them. There’ll be nothing left but Lady Laura’s settlement—and that’s only two thousand a year.”“Well, they won’t starve,” said Aunt Winifred, with a sniff, applying for another piece of tea-cake. “It’s no good, Marcia, your trying to stir us up. The Fallodens are not beloved. Nobody will break their hearts—except of course we shall all be sorry for Lady Laura and the children. And it will be horrid to have new people at Flood.”“My dear Connie, it is a pity we haven’t been able to take you to Flood,” said Lady Marcia to her niece, handing a cup of tea. “You know Douglas, so of course you would have been shown everything. Such pictures! Such lovely old rooms! And then the grounds—the cedars—the old gardens! It really is a glorious place. I can’t think why Winifred is so hard-hearted about it!”Lady Winifred pressed her thin lips together.“Marcia, excuse me—but you really do talk like a snob. Before I cry over people who have lost their property, I ask myself how they have lost it, and also how they have used it.” The little lady drew herself up fiercely.“We have all got beams in our own eyes,” cried Aunt Marcia. “And of course we all know, Winifred, that Sir Arthur never would give you anything for your curates.”“That has nothing to do with it,” said Lady Winifred angrily. “I gave Sir Arthur a sacred opportunity—which he refused. That’s his affair. But when a man gambles away his estates, neglects his duties and his poor people, wastes his money in riotous living, and teaches his children to think themselves too good for this common world, and then comes to grief—I am not going to whine and whimper about it. Let him take it like a man!”“So he does,” said her sister warmly. “You know Mr. Latimer said so, and also that Douglas was behaving very well.”“What else can he do? I never said he wasn’t fond of his father. Well, now let him look after his father.”The two maiden ladies, rather flushed and agitated, faced each other nervously. They had forgotten the presence of their niece. Constance sat in the shade, her beautiful eyes passing intently from one sister to the other, her lips parted. Aunt Marcia, by way of proving to her sister Winifred that she was a callous and unkind creature, began to rake up inconsequently a number of incidents throwing light on the relations of father and son; which Lady Winifred scornfully capped by another series of recollections intended to illustrate the family arrogance, and Douglas Falloden’s full share in it. For instance:Marcia—“I shall never forget that charming scene when Douglas made a hundred, not out, the first day of the Flood cricket week, when he was sixteen. Sir Arthur’s face! And don’t you remember how he went about half the evening with his arm round the boy’s shoulders?”Winifred—“Yes, and how Douglas hated it! I can see him wriggling now. Do you remember that just a week after that, Douglas broke his hunting-whip beating a labourer’s boy, whom he found trespassing in one of the coverts, and how Sir Arthur paid fifty pounds to get him out of the scrape?”Marcia, indignantly—“Of course that was just a lad’s high spirits! I have no doubt the labourer’s boy richly deserved it.”Winifred—“Really, Marcia, your tone towards the lower orders! You don’t allow a labourer’s boy any high spirits!—not you! And I suppose you’ve quite forgotten that horrid quarrel between the hunt and the farmers which was entirely brought about by Douglas’s airs. ‘Pay them!—pay them!’ he used to say—‘what else do the beggars want?’ As if money could settle everything! And I remember a farmer’s wife telling me how she had complained to Douglas about the damage done by the Flood pheasants in their fields. And he just mocked at her. ‘Why don’t you send in a bigger bill?’ ‘But it’s not only money, my lady,’ she said to me. ‘The fields are like your children, and you hate to see them wasted by them great birds—money or no money. But what’s the good of talking? Fallodens always best it!’”Marcia—with the air of one defending the institutions of her country—“Shooting and hunting have to be kept up, Winifred, for the sake of the physique of our class; and it’s the physique of our class that maintains the Empire. What do a few fields of corn matter compared with that! And what young man could have done a more touching—a more heroic thing—than—”Winifred, contemptuously—“What?—Sir Arthur’s accident? You always did lose your head about that, Marcia. Nothing much, I consider, in the story. However, we shan’t agree, so I’d better go to my choir practice.”When she was out of sight, and Marcia, who was always much agitated by an encounter with her sister, was still angrily fanning herself, Connie laid a hand on her aunt’s knee. “What was the story, Aunt Marcia?”Lady Marcia composed herself. Connie, in a thin black frock, with a shady hat and a tea-rose at her waist, was looking up at the elder lady with a quiet eagerness. Marcia patted the girl’s hand.“Winifred never asked your opinion, my dear!—and I expect you know him a great deal better than either of us.”“I never knew him before this year. That’s a very little while. I—I’m sure he’s difficult to know. Perhaps he’s one of the people—who”—she laughed—“who want keeping.”“That’s it!” cried Lady Marcia, delighted. “Of course that’s it. It’s like a rough fruit that mellows. Anyway I’m not going to damn him for good at twenty-three, like Winifred. Well, Sir Arthur was very badly thrown, coming home from hunting, six years ago now and more, when Douglas was seventeen. It was in the Christmas holidays. They had had a run over Leman Moor and Sir Arthur and Douglas got separated from the rest, and were coming home in the dark through some very lonely roads—or tracks—on the edge of the moor. They came to a place where the track went suddenly into a wood, and a pheasant was startled by the horses, and flew right across Sir Arthur, almost in his face. The horse—it was always said no one but Sir Arthur Falloden could ride it—took fright, bolted, dashed in among the trees, threw Sir Arthur, and made off. When Douglas came up he found his father on the ground, covered with blood, and insensible. There was no one anywhere near. The boy shouted—no one came. It was getting dark and pouring with rain—an awful January night—I remember it well! Douglas tried to lift his father on his own horse, but the horse got restive, and it couldn’t be done. If he had ridden back to a farm about a mile away he could have got help. But he thought his father was dying, and he couldn’t make up his mind, you see, to leave him. Then—imagine!—he somehow was able—of course he was even then a splendid young fellow, immensely tall and strong for his age—to get Sir Arthur on his back, and to carry him through two fields to a place where he thought there was a cottage. But when he got there, the cottage was empty—no lights—and the door padlocked. He laid his father down under the shelter of the cottage, and called and shouted. Not a sign of help! It was awfully cold—a bitter north wind—blowing great gusts of rain. Nobody knows quite how long they were there, but at last they were found by the vicar of the village near, who was coming home on his bicycle from visiting a sick woman at the farm. He told me that Douglas had taken off his own coat and a knitted waistcoat he wore, and had wrapped his father in them. He was sitting on the ground with his back to the cottage wall, holding Sir Arthur in his arms. The boy himself was weak with cold and misery. The vicar said he should never forget his white face, when he found them with his lamp, and the light shone on them. Douglas was bending over his father, imploring him to speak to him—in the tenderest, sweetest way. Then, of course, when the vicar, Mr. Burton, had got a cart and taken them to the farm, and a carriage had come from Flood with two doctors, and Sir Arthur had begun to recover his senses, Douglas—looking like a ghost—was very soon ordering everybody about in his usual lordly manner. ‘He slanged the farmer,’ said Mr. Burton, ‘for being slow with the cart; he sent me off on errands as though I’d been his groom; and when the doctors came, you’d have thought he was more in charge of the case than they were. They thought him intolerable; so he was. But I made allowances, because I couldn’t forget how I had seen them first—the boy’s face, and his chattering teeth, and how he spoke to his father. He’s spoilt, that lad! He’s as proud as Satan. If his father and mother don’t look out, he’ll give them sore hearts some day. But he can feel!—and—if he could have given his life for his father’s that night, he would have done it with joy.’—Well, there it is, Connie!—it’s a true story anyway, and why shouldn’t we remember the nice things about a young man, as well as the horrid ones?”“Why not, indeed?” said Connie, her chin on her hands, her eyes bent on the ground.Lady Marcia was silent a moment, then she said with a tremulous accent that belied her height, her stateliness and her black satin gown:“You see, Connie, I know more about men than Winifred does. We have had different experiences.”“She’s thinking about the General,” thought Connie. “Poor old dear!” And she gently touched her aunt’s long thin hand.Lady Marcia sighed.“One must make allowances for men,” she said slowly.Connie offered no reply, and they sat together a few more minutes in silence. Then Connie rose.“I told the coachman, Aunt Marcia, I should ride for an hour or so after tea. If I take the Lawley road, does that go anywhere near Flood?”“It takes you to the top of the moor, and you have a glorious view of the castle and all its woods. Yes, do go that way. You’ll see what the poor things have lost. You did like Douglas, didn’t you?”“‘Like’ is not exactly the word, is it?” said Constance with a little laugh, vexed to feel that she could not keep the colour out of her cheeks. “And he doesn’t care whether you like him or not!”She went away, and her elderly aunt watched her cross the lawn. Lady Marcia looked puzzled. After a few moments’ meditation a half light broke on her wrinkled face. “Is it possible? Oh, no!”It was a rich August evening. In the fields near the broad river the harvest had begun, and the stubbles with their ranged stocks alternated with golden stretches still untouched. The air was full of voices—the primal sounds of earth, and man’s food-gathering; calling reapers, clattering carts, playing children. And on the moors that closed the valley there were splashes and streaks of rose colour, where the heather spread under the flecked evening sky.Constance rode in a passion of thought. “On the other side of that moor—five miles away—there he is! What is he doing now—at this moment? What is he thinking of?”Presently the road bent upward, and she followed it, soothed by the quiet movement of her horse and by the evening air. She climbed and climbed, till the upland farms fell behind, and the road came out upon the open moor. The distance beyond began to show—purple woods in the evening shadow, dim valleys among them, and wide grassy stretches. A little more, and she was on the crest. The road ran before her—westward—a broad bare whiteness through the sun-steeped heather. And, to the north, a wide valley, where wood and farm and pasture had been all fashioned by the labour of generations into one proud setting for the building in its midst. Flood Castle rose on the green bottom of the valley, a mass of mellowed wall and roof and tower, surrounded by its stately lawns and terraces, and girdled by its wide “chase,” of alternating wood and glade—as though wrought into the landscape by the care of generations, and breathing history. A stream, fired with the sunset, ran in loops and windings through the park, and all around the hills rose and fell, clothed with dark hanging woods.[Illustration: ]Lady Connie held in her horse, feeding her eyes upon Flood Castle and its woodsConstance held in her horse, feeding her eyes upon the castle and its woods. Her mind, as she looked, was one riot of excuse for Douglas Falloden. She knew very well—her own father had been an instance of it—that a man can be rich and well-born, and still remain modest and kind. But—but—“How hardly shall they that have riches—!”She moved slowly on, thinking and gazing, till she had gone much further than she intended, and the light had begun to fail. She would certainly be late for dinner. Looking round her for her bearings, she saw on the Scarfedale side of the hill, about three miles away, what she took to be her aunts’ house. Surely there must be a short cut to it. Yes! there was a narrow road to be seen, winding down the hill, and across the valley, which must certainly shorten the distance. And almost immediately she found herself at the entrance to it, where it abutted on the moor; and a signpost showed the name of Hilkley, her aunts’ village. She took the road at once, and trotted briskly along, as the twilight deepened.A gate ahead! Well, never mind. The horse was quiet; she could easily manage any ordinary latch.But the gate was difficult, and she fumbled at, it. Again and again, she brought up her horse, only to fail. And the cob began to get nervous and jump about—to rear a little. Whenever she stooped towards the gate, it would swerve violently, and each unsuccessful attempt made it more restive. She began to get nervous herself.“How abominable! Must I go back? Suppose I get off? But if I do, can I get on again?” She looked round her for a log or a stone.Who was that approaching? For suddenly she saw a horse and rider coming from the Hilkley direction towards the gate. A moment—then through the dusk she recognised the rider; and agitation—suffocating, overwhelming—laid hold upon her.A sharp movement on the part of the horseman checked his horse. Falloden pulled up in amazement on the further side of the gate.“You?—Lady Constance!”She controlled herself, with a great effort.“How do you do? My horse shies at the gate. He’s so tiresome—I was just thinking of getting off. It will be most kind if you will let me through.”She drew aside, quieting and patting the cob, while he opened the gate. Then she passed through and paused, looking back.“Thank you very much. Are there any more gates?”“Two more I am afraid,” he said formally, as he turned and joined her. “Will you allow me to open them for you?”“It would be very good of you,” she faltered, not knowing how to refuse, or what to say.They walked their horses side by side, through the gathering darkness. An embarrassed and thrilling silence reigned between them, till at last he said: “You are staying at Scarfedale—with your aunts?”“Yes.”“I heard you were there. They are only five miles from us.”She said nothing. But she seemed to realise, through every nerve, the suppressed excitement of the man beside her.Another couple of minutes passed. Then he said abruptly:“I should like to know that you read my last letter to you—only that! I of course don’t ask for—for any comments upon it.”“Yes, I received it. I read it.”He waited a little, but she said no more. He sharply realised his disappointment, and its inconsequence. The horses slowly descended the long hill. Falloden opened another gate, with the hurried remark that there was yet one more. Meanwhile he saw Connie’s slender body, her beautiful loosened hair and black riding-hat outlined against the still glowing sky behind. Her face, turned towards the advancing dusk, he could hardly see. But the small hand in its riding-glove, so close to him, haunted his senses. One movement, and he could have crushed it in his.Far away the last gate came into sight. His bitterness and pain broke out.“I can’t imagine why you should feel any interest in my affairs,” he said, in his stiffest manner, “but you kindly allowed me to talk to you sometimes about my people. You know, I presume, what everybody knows, that we shall soon be leaving Flood, and selling the estates.”“I know.” The girl’s voice was low and soft. “I am awfully, awfully sorry!”“Thank you. It doesn’t of course matter for me. I can make my own life. But for my father—it is hard. I should like you to know”—he spoke with growing agitation—“that when we met—at Cannes—and at Oxford—I had no knowledge—no idea—of what was happening.”She raised her head suddenly, impetuously.“I don’t know why you say that!”He saw instantly that his wounded pride had betrayed him into a blunder—that without meaning it, he had seemed to suggest that she would have treated him differently, if she had known he was not a rich man.“It was a stupid thing to say. Please consider it unsaid.”The silence deepened, till she broke it again—“I see Mr. Radowitz sometimes. Won’t you like to know that he is composing a symphony for his degree? He is always working at it. It makes him happy—at least—contented.”“Yes, I am glad. But nothing can ever make up to him. I know that.”“No—nothing,” she admitted sadly.“Or to me!”Constance started. They had reached the last gate.Falloden threw himself off his horse to open it and as she rode through, she looked down into his face. Its proud regularity of feature, its rich colour, its brilliance, seemed to her all blurred and clouded. A flashing insight showed her the valley of distress and humiliation through which this man had been passing. His bitter look, at once of challenge and renunciation, set her trembling; she felt herself all weakness; and suddenly the woman in her—dumbly, unguessed—held out its arms.But he knew nothing of it. Rather her attitude seemed to him one of embarrassment—even ofhauteur. It was suddenly intolerable to him to seem to be asking for her pity. He raised his hat, coldly gave her a few directions as to her road home, and closed the gate behind her. She bowed and in another minute he was cantering away from her, towards the sunset.Connie went on blindly, the reins on her horse’s neck, the passionate tears dropping on her hands.
It was in the early morning, a few days after her arrival at Scarfedale Manor, the house of her two maiden aunts, that Connie, while all the Scarfedale household was still asleep, took pen and paper and began a letter to Nora Hooper.
On the evening before Connie left Oxford there had been a long and intimate scene between these two. Constance, motherless and sisterless, and with no woman friend to turn to more understanding than Annette, had been surprised in passionate weeping by Nora, the night after the Marmion catastrophe. The tact and devotion of the younger girl had been equal to the situation. She humbly admired Connie, and yet was directly conscious of a strength in herself, in which Connie was perhaps lacking, and which might be useful to her brilliant cousin. At any rate on this occasion she showed so much sweetness, such power, beyond her years, of comforting and understanding, that Connie told her everything, and thenceforward possessed a sister and a confidante. The letter ran as follows:—
“DEAREST NORA,—I have only been at Scarfedale Manor a week, and already I seem to have been living here for months. It is a dear old house, very like the houses one used to draw when one was four years old—a doorway in the middle, with a nice semicircular top, and three windows on either side; two stories above with seven windows each, and a pretty dormered roof, with twisted brick chimneys, and a rookery behind it; also a walled garden, and a green oval grass-plot between it and the road. It seems to me that everywhere you go in England you find these houses, and, I dare say, people like my aunts living in them.
“They are very nice to me, and as different as possible from each other. Aunt Marcia must have been quite good-looking, and since she gave up wearing a rational dress which she patented twenty-five years ago, she has always worn either black silk or black satin, a large black satin hat, rather like the old ‘pokes,’ with black feathers in winter and white feathers in summer, and a variety of lace scarves—real lace—which she seems to have collected all over the world. Aunt Winifred says that the Unipantaloonicoat’—the name of the patented thing—lost Aunt Marcia all her lovers. They were scared by so much strength of character, and could not make up their minds to tackle her. She gave it up in order to capture the last of them—a dear old general who had adored her—but he shook his head, went off to Malta to think it out, and there died of Malta fever. She considers herself his widow and his portrait adorns her sitting-room. She has a poor opinion of the lower orders, especially of domestic servants. But her own servants don’t seem to mind her much. The butler has been here twenty years, and does just what he pleases. The amusing thing is that she considers herself extremely intellectual, because she learnt Latin in her youth—she doesn’t remember a word of it now!—because she always read the reviews of papa’s books—and because she reads poetry every morning before breakfast. Just now she is wrestling with George Meredith; and she asks me to explain ‘Modern Love’ to her. I can’t make head or tail of it. Nor can she. But when people come to tea she begins to talk about Meredith, and asks them if they don’t think him very obscure. And as most people here who come to tea have never heard of him, it keeps up her dignity. All the same, she is a dear old thing—and she put a large case of chocolate in my room before I arrived!
“Aunt Winifred is quite different. Aunt Marcia calls her a ‘reactionary,’ because she is very high church and great friends with all the clergy. She is a very quiet little thing, short and fair, with a long thin nose and eyes that look you through. Her two great passions are—curates, especially consumptive curates—and animals. There is generally a consumptive curate living the open-air life in the garden. Mercifully the last patient has just left. As for animals, the house is full of stray dogs and tame rabbits and squirrels that run up you and look for nuts in your pocket. There is also a mongoose, who pulled the cloth off the tea-table yesterday and ran away with all the cakes. Aunt Marcia bears it philosophically, but the week before I came there was a crisis. Aunt Winifred met some sheep on the road between here and our little town. She asked where they were going to. And the man with them said he was taking them to the slaughter-house. She was horrified, and she bought them all—there and then! And half an hour later, she appeared here with the sheep, and Aunt Marcia was supposed to put them up in the garden. Well, that was too much, and the aunts had words. What happened to the sheep I don’t know. Probably Aunt Winifred has eaten them since without knowing it.
“Dear Nora—I wonder why I write you all these silly things when there is so much else to say—and I know you want to hear it. But it’s horribly difficult to begin.—Well, first of all, Mr. Sorell and Otto Radowitz are about three miles from here, in a little vicarage that has a wide lookout upon the moors and a heavenly air. The aunts have found me a horse, and I go there often. Otto is in some ways very much better. He lives an ordinary life, walks a fair amount, and is reading some classics and history with Mr. Sorell, besides endless books of musical theory and biography. You know he passed his first musical exam last May. For the second, which will come off next year, he has to write a composition in five-part harmony for at least five stringed instruments, and he is beginning work for it now. He writes and writes, and his little study at the vicarage is strewn deep in scribbled music-paper. With his left hand and his piano he does wonders, but the poor right hand is in a sling and quite useless, up to now. He reads scores endlessly, and he said to me yesterday that he thought his intellectual understanding of music—his power of grasping it through the eye—of hearing it with the mind—‘ditties of no tone!’—had grown since his hand was injured. But the pathetic thing is that the sheer pleasure—the joy and excitement—of his life is gone; those long hours of dreaming and composing with the piano, when he could not only make himself blissfully happy, but give such exquisite pleasure to others.
“He is very quiet and patient now—generally—and quite determined to make a name for himself as a composer. But he seems to me extraordinarily frail. Do you remember that lovely French poem of Sully Prudhomme’s I read you one night—‘Le Vase Brisé’? The vase has had a blow. No one knew of it. But the little crack widens and grows. The water ebbs away—the flowers die. ‘Il est brisé—n’y touchez pas!’ I can see it is just that Mr. Sorell feels about Otto.
“What makes one anxious sometimes, is that he has hours of a kind of fierce absent-mindedness, when his real self seems to be far away—as though in some feverish or ugly dream. He goes away and wanders about by himself. Mr. Sorell does not attempt to follow him, though he is always horribly anxious. And after some hours he comes back, limp and worn out, but quite himself again—as though he had gone through some terrible wrestle and escaped.
“Mr. Sorell gave him, a little while ago, a wonderful new automatic thing—a piano-player, I think they call it. It works with a roll like a musical box and has pedals. But Otto can’t do much with it. To get any expression out of it you must use your hands—both hands; and I am afraid it has been more disappointment than joy. But there are rumours of some development—something electric—that plays itself. They say there is an inventor at work in Paris, who is doing something wonderful. I have written to a girl I know at the Embassy to ask her to find out. It might just help him through some weary hours—that’s all one can say.
“The relation between him and Mr. Sorell is wonderful. Oh, what an angel Mr. Sorell is! How can any human being, and with no trouble at all apparently, be so unselfish, so self-controlled? What will any woman do who falls in love with him? It won’t make any difference that he’ll think her so much better than himself—because she’ll know the truth. I see no chance for her. My dear Nora, the best men are better than the best women—there! But—take note!—I am not in love with him, though I adore him, and when he disapproves of me, I feel a worm.
“I hear a good deal of the Fallodens, but nobody sees them. Every one shrinks from pestering them with society—not from any bad feeling—but because every one knows by now that they are in hideous difficulties, and doesn’t want to intrude. Lady Laura, they say, is very much changed, and Sir Arthur looks terribly ill and broken. Aunt Marcia hears that Douglas Falloden is doing all the business, and impressing the lawyers very much. Oh, I do hope he is helping his father!
“I can’t write about him, Nora darling. You would wonder how I can feel the interest in him I do. I know that. But I can’t believe, as Otto does, that he is deliberately cruel—a selfish, hard-hearted monster. He has been a spoilt child all his life. But if some great call were made upon him, mightn’t it stir up something splendid in him, finer things than those are capable of ‘who need no repentance’?
“There—something has splashed on my paper. I have written enough. Now you must tell me of yourselves. How is your father? Does Aunt Ellen like Ryde? I am so delighted to hear that Mr. Pryce is actually coming. Tell him that, of course, I will write to Uncle Langmoor, and Lord Glaramara, whenever he wishes, about that appointment. I am sure something can be done. Give Alice my love. I thought her new photographs charming. And you, darling, are you looking after everybody as usual? I wish I could give you a good hug. Good-bye.”
To which Nora replied, a couple of days later—
“Your account of Aunt Marcia and Aunt Winifred amused father tremendously. He thinks, however, that he would like Aunt Marcia better than Aunt Winifred, as he—and I—get more anticlerical every year. But we keep it to ourselves. Mamma and Alice wouldn’t understand. Ryde is very full, and mamma and Alice want nothing more than the pier and the sands and the people. Papa and I take long walks along the coast, or across the island. We find a cliff to bask on, or a wood that comes down to the water, and then papa gets out a Greek book and translates to me. Sometimes I listen to the sea, instead of to him, and go to sleep. But he doesn’t mind. He is looking better, but work is loading up for him again as soon as we get back to Oxford about a week from now. If only he could get rid of drudgery, and write his best about the things he loves. Nobody knows what a mind he has. He is not only a scholar—he is a poet. He could write things as beautiful as Mr. Pater’s, but his life is ground out of him.
“I won’t go on writing this—it’s no good.
“Herbert Pryce came down yesterday, and has taken mother and Alice out boating to-day. If he doesn’t mean to propose to Alice, it is very odd he should take the trouble to come here. But he doesn’t say anything definite; he doesn’t propose; and her face often makes me furious. His manner to mamma—and to me—is often brusque and disagreeable. It is as though he felt that in marrying Alice—if he is going to marry her—he is rather unfairly burdened with the rest of us. And it is no good shirking the fact that you count for a good deal in the matter. He was delighted with your message, and if you can help him he will propose to Alice. Goodness, fancy marrying such a man!
“As to Mr. Falloden, I don’t believe he will ever be anything but hard and tyrannical. I don’t believe in conversion and change of heart, and that kind of thing. I don’t—I don’t! You are not to be taken in, Connie! You are not to fall in love with him again out of pity. If he does lose all his money, and have to work like anybody else, what does it matter? He was as proud as Lucifer—let him fall like Lucifer. You may be sure he won’t fall so very far. That kind never does. No, I want him put down. I want him punished. He won’t repent—he can’t repent—and there was never any one less like a lost sheep in the world.
“After which I think I will say good-night!”
A few days later, Connie, returning from a ramble with one of Lady Winifred’s stray dogs along the banks of the Scarfe, found her two aunts at tea in the garden.
“Sit down, my dear Connie,” said Lady Marcia, with a preoccupied look. “We have just heard distressing news. The clergy are such gossips!”
The elevation of Aunt Winifred’s sharp nose showed her annoyance.
“And you, Marcia, are always so dreadfully unfair to them. You were simply dying for Mr. Latimer to tell you all he knew, and then you abuse him.”
“Perfectly true,” said Lady Marcia provokingly, “but if he had snubbed me, I should have respected him more.”
Whereupon it was explained to Connie that a Mr. Latimer, rector of the Fallodens’ family living of Flood Magna, had just been paying a long visit to the two ladies. He was a distant cousin and old crony of theirs, and it was not long before they had persuaded him to pour out all he knew about the Falloden affairs. “They must sell everything!” said Lady Marcia, raising her hands and eyes in protest—“the estates, the house, the pictures—my dear, think of the pictures! The nation of course ought to buy them, but the nation never has a penny. And however much they sell, it will only just clear them. There’ll be nothing left but Lady Laura’s settlement—and that’s only two thousand a year.”
“Well, they won’t starve,” said Aunt Winifred, with a sniff, applying for another piece of tea-cake. “It’s no good, Marcia, your trying to stir us up. The Fallodens are not beloved. Nobody will break their hearts—except of course we shall all be sorry for Lady Laura and the children. And it will be horrid to have new people at Flood.”
“My dear Connie, it is a pity we haven’t been able to take you to Flood,” said Lady Marcia to her niece, handing a cup of tea. “You know Douglas, so of course you would have been shown everything. Such pictures! Such lovely old rooms! And then the grounds—the cedars—the old gardens! It really is a glorious place. I can’t think why Winifred is so hard-hearted about it!”
Lady Winifred pressed her thin lips together.
“Marcia, excuse me—but you really do talk like a snob. Before I cry over people who have lost their property, I ask myself how they have lost it, and also how they have used it.” The little lady drew herself up fiercely.
“We have all got beams in our own eyes,” cried Aunt Marcia. “And of course we all know, Winifred, that Sir Arthur never would give you anything for your curates.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” said Lady Winifred angrily. “I gave Sir Arthur a sacred opportunity—which he refused. That’s his affair. But when a man gambles away his estates, neglects his duties and his poor people, wastes his money in riotous living, and teaches his children to think themselves too good for this common world, and then comes to grief—I am not going to whine and whimper about it. Let him take it like a man!”
“So he does,” said her sister warmly. “You know Mr. Latimer said so, and also that Douglas was behaving very well.”
“What else can he do? I never said he wasn’t fond of his father. Well, now let him look after his father.”
The two maiden ladies, rather flushed and agitated, faced each other nervously. They had forgotten the presence of their niece. Constance sat in the shade, her beautiful eyes passing intently from one sister to the other, her lips parted. Aunt Marcia, by way of proving to her sister Winifred that she was a callous and unkind creature, began to rake up inconsequently a number of incidents throwing light on the relations of father and son; which Lady Winifred scornfully capped by another series of recollections intended to illustrate the family arrogance, and Douglas Falloden’s full share in it. For instance:
Marcia—“I shall never forget that charming scene when Douglas made a hundred, not out, the first day of the Flood cricket week, when he was sixteen. Sir Arthur’s face! And don’t you remember how he went about half the evening with his arm round the boy’s shoulders?”
Winifred—“Yes, and how Douglas hated it! I can see him wriggling now. Do you remember that just a week after that, Douglas broke his hunting-whip beating a labourer’s boy, whom he found trespassing in one of the coverts, and how Sir Arthur paid fifty pounds to get him out of the scrape?”
Marcia, indignantly—“Of course that was just a lad’s high spirits! I have no doubt the labourer’s boy richly deserved it.”
Winifred—“Really, Marcia, your tone towards the lower orders! You don’t allow a labourer’s boy any high spirits!—not you! And I suppose you’ve quite forgotten that horrid quarrel between the hunt and the farmers which was entirely brought about by Douglas’s airs. ‘Pay them!—pay them!’ he used to say—‘what else do the beggars want?’ As if money could settle everything! And I remember a farmer’s wife telling me how she had complained to Douglas about the damage done by the Flood pheasants in their fields. And he just mocked at her. ‘Why don’t you send in a bigger bill?’ ‘But it’s not only money, my lady,’ she said to me. ‘The fields are like your children, and you hate to see them wasted by them great birds—money or no money. But what’s the good of talking? Fallodens always best it!’”
Marcia—with the air of one defending the institutions of her country—“Shooting and hunting have to be kept up, Winifred, for the sake of the physique of our class; and it’s the physique of our class that maintains the Empire. What do a few fields of corn matter compared with that! And what young man could have done a more touching—a more heroic thing—than—”
Winifred, contemptuously—“What?—Sir Arthur’s accident? You always did lose your head about that, Marcia. Nothing much, I consider, in the story. However, we shan’t agree, so I’d better go to my choir practice.”
When she was out of sight, and Marcia, who was always much agitated by an encounter with her sister, was still angrily fanning herself, Connie laid a hand on her aunt’s knee. “What was the story, Aunt Marcia?”
Lady Marcia composed herself. Connie, in a thin black frock, with a shady hat and a tea-rose at her waist, was looking up at the elder lady with a quiet eagerness. Marcia patted the girl’s hand.
“Winifred never asked your opinion, my dear!—and I expect you know him a great deal better than either of us.”
“I never knew him before this year. That’s a very little while. I—I’m sure he’s difficult to know. Perhaps he’s one of the people—who”—she laughed—“who want keeping.”
“That’s it!” cried Lady Marcia, delighted. “Of course that’s it. It’s like a rough fruit that mellows. Anyway I’m not going to damn him for good at twenty-three, like Winifred. Well, Sir Arthur was very badly thrown, coming home from hunting, six years ago now and more, when Douglas was seventeen. It was in the Christmas holidays. They had had a run over Leman Moor and Sir Arthur and Douglas got separated from the rest, and were coming home in the dark through some very lonely roads—or tracks—on the edge of the moor. They came to a place where the track went suddenly into a wood, and a pheasant was startled by the horses, and flew right across Sir Arthur, almost in his face. The horse—it was always said no one but Sir Arthur Falloden could ride it—took fright, bolted, dashed in among the trees, threw Sir Arthur, and made off. When Douglas came up he found his father on the ground, covered with blood, and insensible. There was no one anywhere near. The boy shouted—no one came. It was getting dark and pouring with rain—an awful January night—I remember it well! Douglas tried to lift his father on his own horse, but the horse got restive, and it couldn’t be done. If he had ridden back to a farm about a mile away he could have got help. But he thought his father was dying, and he couldn’t make up his mind, you see, to leave him. Then—imagine!—he somehow was able—of course he was even then a splendid young fellow, immensely tall and strong for his age—to get Sir Arthur on his back, and to carry him through two fields to a place where he thought there was a cottage. But when he got there, the cottage was empty—no lights—and the door padlocked. He laid his father down under the shelter of the cottage, and called and shouted. Not a sign of help! It was awfully cold—a bitter north wind—blowing great gusts of rain. Nobody knows quite how long they were there, but at last they were found by the vicar of the village near, who was coming home on his bicycle from visiting a sick woman at the farm. He told me that Douglas had taken off his own coat and a knitted waistcoat he wore, and had wrapped his father in them. He was sitting on the ground with his back to the cottage wall, holding Sir Arthur in his arms. The boy himself was weak with cold and misery. The vicar said he should never forget his white face, when he found them with his lamp, and the light shone on them. Douglas was bending over his father, imploring him to speak to him—in the tenderest, sweetest way. Then, of course, when the vicar, Mr. Burton, had got a cart and taken them to the farm, and a carriage had come from Flood with two doctors, and Sir Arthur had begun to recover his senses, Douglas—looking like a ghost—was very soon ordering everybody about in his usual lordly manner. ‘He slanged the farmer,’ said Mr. Burton, ‘for being slow with the cart; he sent me off on errands as though I’d been his groom; and when the doctors came, you’d have thought he was more in charge of the case than they were. They thought him intolerable; so he was. But I made allowances, because I couldn’t forget how I had seen them first—the boy’s face, and his chattering teeth, and how he spoke to his father. He’s spoilt, that lad! He’s as proud as Satan. If his father and mother don’t look out, he’ll give them sore hearts some day. But he can feel!—and—if he could have given his life for his father’s that night, he would have done it with joy.’—Well, there it is, Connie!—it’s a true story anyway, and why shouldn’t we remember the nice things about a young man, as well as the horrid ones?”
“Why not, indeed?” said Connie, her chin on her hands, her eyes bent on the ground.
Lady Marcia was silent a moment, then she said with a tremulous accent that belied her height, her stateliness and her black satin gown:
“You see, Connie, I know more about men than Winifred does. We have had different experiences.”
“She’s thinking about the General,” thought Connie. “Poor old dear!” And she gently touched her aunt’s long thin hand.
Lady Marcia sighed.
“One must make allowances for men,” she said slowly.
Connie offered no reply, and they sat together a few more minutes in silence. Then Connie rose.
“I told the coachman, Aunt Marcia, I should ride for an hour or so after tea. If I take the Lawley road, does that go anywhere near Flood?”
“It takes you to the top of the moor, and you have a glorious view of the castle and all its woods. Yes, do go that way. You’ll see what the poor things have lost. You did like Douglas, didn’t you?”
“‘Like’ is not exactly the word, is it?” said Constance with a little laugh, vexed to feel that she could not keep the colour out of her cheeks. “And he doesn’t care whether you like him or not!”
She went away, and her elderly aunt watched her cross the lawn. Lady Marcia looked puzzled. After a few moments’ meditation a half light broke on her wrinkled face. “Is it possible? Oh, no!”
It was a rich August evening. In the fields near the broad river the harvest had begun, and the stubbles with their ranged stocks alternated with golden stretches still untouched. The air was full of voices—the primal sounds of earth, and man’s food-gathering; calling reapers, clattering carts, playing children. And on the moors that closed the valley there were splashes and streaks of rose colour, where the heather spread under the flecked evening sky.
Constance rode in a passion of thought. “On the other side of that moor—five miles away—there he is! What is he doing now—at this moment? What is he thinking of?”
Presently the road bent upward, and she followed it, soothed by the quiet movement of her horse and by the evening air. She climbed and climbed, till the upland farms fell behind, and the road came out upon the open moor. The distance beyond began to show—purple woods in the evening shadow, dim valleys among them, and wide grassy stretches. A little more, and she was on the crest. The road ran before her—westward—a broad bare whiteness through the sun-steeped heather. And, to the north, a wide valley, where wood and farm and pasture had been all fashioned by the labour of generations into one proud setting for the building in its midst. Flood Castle rose on the green bottom of the valley, a mass of mellowed wall and roof and tower, surrounded by its stately lawns and terraces, and girdled by its wide “chase,” of alternating wood and glade—as though wrought into the landscape by the care of generations, and breathing history. A stream, fired with the sunset, ran in loops and windings through the park, and all around the hills rose and fell, clothed with dark hanging woods.
[Illustration: ]Lady Connie held in her horse, feeding her eyes upon Flood Castle and its woods
Lady Connie held in her horse, feeding her eyes upon Flood Castle and its woods
Constance held in her horse, feeding her eyes upon the castle and its woods. Her mind, as she looked, was one riot of excuse for Douglas Falloden. She knew very well—her own father had been an instance of it—that a man can be rich and well-born, and still remain modest and kind. But—but—“How hardly shall they that have riches—!”
She moved slowly on, thinking and gazing, till she had gone much further than she intended, and the light had begun to fail. She would certainly be late for dinner. Looking round her for her bearings, she saw on the Scarfedale side of the hill, about three miles away, what she took to be her aunts’ house. Surely there must be a short cut to it. Yes! there was a narrow road to be seen, winding down the hill, and across the valley, which must certainly shorten the distance. And almost immediately she found herself at the entrance to it, where it abutted on the moor; and a signpost showed the name of Hilkley, her aunts’ village. She took the road at once, and trotted briskly along, as the twilight deepened.
A gate ahead! Well, never mind. The horse was quiet; she could easily manage any ordinary latch.
But the gate was difficult, and she fumbled at, it. Again and again, she brought up her horse, only to fail. And the cob began to get nervous and jump about—to rear a little. Whenever she stooped towards the gate, it would swerve violently, and each unsuccessful attempt made it more restive. She began to get nervous herself.
“How abominable! Must I go back? Suppose I get off? But if I do, can I get on again?” She looked round her for a log or a stone.
Who was that approaching? For suddenly she saw a horse and rider coming from the Hilkley direction towards the gate. A moment—then through the dusk she recognised the rider; and agitation—suffocating, overwhelming—laid hold upon her.
A sharp movement on the part of the horseman checked his horse. Falloden pulled up in amazement on the further side of the gate.
“You?—Lady Constance!”
She controlled herself, with a great effort.
“How do you do? My horse shies at the gate. He’s so tiresome—I was just thinking of getting off. It will be most kind if you will let me through.”
She drew aside, quieting and patting the cob, while he opened the gate. Then she passed through and paused, looking back.
“Thank you very much. Are there any more gates?”
“Two more I am afraid,” he said formally, as he turned and joined her. “Will you allow me to open them for you?”
“It would be very good of you,” she faltered, not knowing how to refuse, or what to say.
They walked their horses side by side, through the gathering darkness. An embarrassed and thrilling silence reigned between them, till at last he said: “You are staying at Scarfedale—with your aunts?”
“Yes.”
“I heard you were there. They are only five miles from us.”
She said nothing. But she seemed to realise, through every nerve, the suppressed excitement of the man beside her.
Another couple of minutes passed. Then he said abruptly:
“I should like to know that you read my last letter to you—only that! I of course don’t ask for—for any comments upon it.”
“Yes, I received it. I read it.”
He waited a little, but she said no more. He sharply realised his disappointment, and its inconsequence. The horses slowly descended the long hill. Falloden opened another gate, with the hurried remark that there was yet one more. Meanwhile he saw Connie’s slender body, her beautiful loosened hair and black riding-hat outlined against the still glowing sky behind. Her face, turned towards the advancing dusk, he could hardly see. But the small hand in its riding-glove, so close to him, haunted his senses. One movement, and he could have crushed it in his.
Far away the last gate came into sight. His bitterness and pain broke out.
“I can’t imagine why you should feel any interest in my affairs,” he said, in his stiffest manner, “but you kindly allowed me to talk to you sometimes about my people. You know, I presume, what everybody knows, that we shall soon be leaving Flood, and selling the estates.”
“I know.” The girl’s voice was low and soft. “I am awfully, awfully sorry!”
“Thank you. It doesn’t of course matter for me. I can make my own life. But for my father—it is hard. I should like you to know”—he spoke with growing agitation—“that when we met—at Cannes—and at Oxford—I had no knowledge—no idea—of what was happening.”
She raised her head suddenly, impetuously.
“I don’t know why you say that!”
He saw instantly that his wounded pride had betrayed him into a blunder—that without meaning it, he had seemed to suggest that she would have treated him differently, if she had known he was not a rich man.
“It was a stupid thing to say. Please consider it unsaid.”
The silence deepened, till she broke it again—
“I see Mr. Radowitz sometimes. Won’t you like to know that he is composing a symphony for his degree? He is always working at it. It makes him happy—at least—contented.”
“Yes, I am glad. But nothing can ever make up to him. I know that.”
“No—nothing,” she admitted sadly.
“Or to me!”
Constance started. They had reached the last gate.
Falloden threw himself off his horse to open it and as she rode through, she looked down into his face. Its proud regularity of feature, its rich colour, its brilliance, seemed to her all blurred and clouded. A flashing insight showed her the valley of distress and humiliation through which this man had been passing. His bitter look, at once of challenge and renunciation, set her trembling; she felt herself all weakness; and suddenly the woman in her—dumbly, unguessed—held out its arms.
But he knew nothing of it. Rather her attitude seemed to him one of embarrassment—even ofhauteur. It was suddenly intolerable to him to seem to be asking for her pity. He raised his hat, coldly gave her a few directions as to her road home, and closed the gate behind her. She bowed and in another minute he was cantering away from her, towards the sunset.
Connie went on blindly, the reins on her horse’s neck, the passionate tears dropping on her hands.