He took up one of the books and read a page or two; but the simple story could not hold him, and he dropped the volume, and, leaning his head on his sound arm, stared listlessly at the old-fashioned wall paper. But he did not see the pattern; the panorama of his own life's story was passing before him, and it was not at all a pleasing panorama. A life of pleasure, of absolute uselessness, of unthinking selfishness. What a dreary pilgrimage it seemed to him, as he lay in the little bedroom, with the scent of Nell's flowers floating up to him from the garden beneath, with the sound of the sea, flinging itself against the cliffs, burring like agiant bumble bee in his ears. If any one had asked him whether his life had been worth living, he would have answered with a decided negative; and yet he was young, the gods had been exceeding good to him in many ways, almost every way, and there was no great sorrow to cast its shadow over him.
"Pity I didn't break my neck," he muttered. "No one would have cared—unless it were Luce, and perhaps even she, now——"
He broke off the reverie with a short laugh that was more bitter than a sigh, and turned his face to the wall.
Doctor Spence, when he paid his visit later in the day, found him thus, and eyed him curiously.
"Arm's getting on all right, Mr. Vernon," he said; "but the rest of you isn't improving. I think you'd better get up to-morrow and go downstairs. I'd keep you here, of course; but lying in bed isn't a bracing operation, especially when you think; and you think, don't you?"
"When I can't help it," replied Vernon, rather grimly. "I'm glad you have given me permission to get up; though I dare say I should have got up without it."
"I dare say," commented the old doctor. "Always have your own way, as a rule, don't you?"
"Always," assented the patient listlessly.
"Ye-s; it's a bad thing for most men; a very bad thing for you, I should say. By the way, if you should go downstairs, you must keep quiet——"
"Good heavens, you don't suppose I intend to dance or sing!" broke in Vernon, with a smile, of irritation.
"No; I mean that you must sit still and avoid any exertion. You'll find that you are not capable of much in the way of dancing or singing," he added, with a short laugh. "Try and amuse yourself, and don't—worry."
"Thanks," said Mr. Vernon.
Then, after a pause, he added:
"I must seem an ill-conditioned beast, I'm afraid, doctor; but the fact is—well, I have been worried lately, and this ridiculous accident hasn't tended to soothe me."
The doctor nodded.
"Life's too short for worry," he said, with the wisdom of age.
"No, you're right; nothing matters!" assented Mr. Vernon. "Well, I'm glad I can get up to-morrow. I'll clear out of here as soon as possible."
"I shouldn't hurry," remarked Doctor Spence. "They're glad enough to have you."
Vernon nodded impatiently.
"So they say—the boy's been in here this morning—but that's nonsense, of course."
On his way down the steep village street the doctor met Nell coming up, with her quick, bright step, and he stopped the gray cob to speak to her.
"Well, Miss Nell," he said, with a smile twinkling in his keen eyes as they scanned the beautiful face with the dark tendrils of hair blown across her brow, beneath her old sailor hat, the clear gray eyes shining like crystal, the red lips parted slightly with the climb. "Just left your interesting patient. He'll come down to-morrow. Don't let him fag himself; and, see here, Nell, try and amuse him."
The gray eyes opened still wider, then grew thoughtful and doubtful, and the doctor laughed.
"Rather difficult, eh?" he said, reading her thoughts. "Well, I should say it was somewhat of a large order. But you can play draughts or cat's-cradle with him, or read, or play the piano. That's the kind of thing he wants. There's something on his mind, and that's worse than having a splint on his arm, believe me, Nell."
Nell nodded.
"I thought—that is, I fancied—he looked as if he were in trouble," she said musingly. "Poor man!"
"Oh, I don't know that he wants your pity," remarked the doctor dryly. "As a rule, when a man's got something on his mind, he has put it there himself."
"That does not make it any the better to have," said Nell absently.
"True, Queen Solomon!" he returned banteringly. "There's not much on your mind, I should imagine?"
Nell laughed, and her frank eyes laughed, too, as she met the quizzical, admiring gaze of the sharp old eyes.
"What should there be, Doctor Spence?" she responded.
"What, indeed?" he said. "May it be many a day before the black ox treads on your foot, my dear!"
With a nod, he sent the cob on again, and Nell continued her climb.
Something on his mind! She wondered what it was. Had some one he cared for died? But if that were so, he would be in mourning. Perhaps he had lost his money, as her father had done? Well, anyway, she was sorry for him.
It need scarcely be said that Mrs. Lorton did not permit the interesting stranger to move from bed to sitting room without a fuss. The most elaborate preparations were made by Molly, under her mistress' supervision. The sofa was wheeled to the window, a blanket was warmed and placed over the sofa, so that the patient might be infolded in it; a glass of brandy and water was placed on a small table, incase he should feel faint, and a couple of huge walking sticks were ready for the support of the patient—as if he had broken his leg as well as his arm.
"No, remember, please, Eleanor, that there must be no noise; absolute quiet, Doctor Spence insisted on. He was most emphatic about the 'absolute.' Pull down that blind, Molly; nothing is so trying to an invalid as a glare of sunlight—and close the window first. There must be no draft, for a chill in such a case as this might prove fatal. Fatal! I wonder whether it would be better to light a fire?"
"It is very hot, mamma," ventured Nell, who had viewed the closing of the window with dismay.
"It may seem hot to you, who are in robust, not to say vulgar, health; but to one in Mr. Vernon's condition——"
At this moment he was heard coming down the stairs. He walked firmly though slowly, and it was evident to Nell that he was trying to look as little like an invalid as possible. He had dressed himself with the assistance of Dick, who walked behind with a pillow—which he made as if to throw at Nell, who passed quickly through the hall as they descended—and, though he looked pale and wan, Mr. Drake Vernon held himself erect, like a soldier, and began to make light of his accident, and succeeded in concealing any sign of the irritation which he felt when Mrs. Lorton fluttered forward with the two sticks and the blanket.
"Thank you—thank you very much; but I don't need them. Put it on? No, I think I'd better not. I'm quite warm." He looked round the carefully closed room—Dick's complaining "phew!" was almost audible behind him. "No, I won't have any brandy, thanks."
"Are you sure, quite sure, you do not feel faint? I know what it is to rise from a sick bed for the first time, Mr. Vernon, and I can enter into your feelings perfectly."
"Not at all—not at all; I mean that I'm not at all faint," he said hastily; "and I'm quite strong, quite."
"Let me see you comfortably rangé," said Mrs. Lorton, who was persuaded that she had hit upon a French word for "arranged." "Then I will get you some beef tea. I have made it with my own hands."
"It's to be hoped not!" said Dick devoutly, as she fluttered out. "Molly's beef tea is bad enough; but mamma's——What shall I do with the pillow?"
"Well, you might swallow it, my dear boy," said Mr. Vernon, with a short laugh. "Anything but put it under me. Good heavens! Any one would think I was dying of consumption! But it is really very kind."
"All right; I'll take it upstairs again," said Dick cheerfully. But he met Nell in the passage. There was the soundof a thud, a clear, low voice expostulating, and a girl's footstep on the stairs, as Nell, smoothing her hair, carried up the pillow.
When she came down Mrs. Lorton met her.
"Get some salt, Eleanor, and take it in to Mr. Vernon. And please say, if he should ask for me, that I'm making him some calf's-foot jelly."
Nell took in the salt. Mr. Vernon rose from the sofa on which he had seated himself, and bowed with a half-impatient, half-regretful air.
"I'm too ashamed for words," he said. "Why did you trouble? The beef tea is all right."
"It's no trouble," said Nell. "Are you comfortable?"
"Quite—quite," he replied; but for the life of him he could not help glancing at the window.
Nell suppressed a smile.
"Isn't it rather hot?" she said.
"Now you mention it, I—I think it is, rather," he assented. "I'll open the window."
"No, no," said Nell. "I'll do it; you'll hurt your arm."
She opened the window.
"If—if there was a chair," he said hesitatingly. "I'm not used to a sofa—and—I'm afraid you'll think me very ungrateful! Let me get the chair. Thanks, thanks!" as she swiftly pulled the sofa out of the way and put an easy-chair in its place.
"You see, it will be a change to sit up," he said apologetically.
Nell nodded. She quite understood his dislike of the part of interesting invalid.
"And there's really nothing the matter with me, don't you know," he said earnestly; "nothing but this arm, which doesn't exactly lame me. Won't you sit down?"
Nell hesitated a moment, then took a chair at the other side of the window.
"You've a splendid view here," he remarked, staring steadily out of the window, for he felt rather than saw that the girl was a little shy—not shy, but, rather, that she scarcely knew what to say.
"Oh, yes," she assented, in a voice in which there was certainly no shyness. "There is a good view from all the windows; we are so high. Won't you have your beef tea?"
"Certainly. I'd forgotten it. Don't get up. I'll——"
But Nell had got up before he could rise. As she brought the tray to him he glanced up at her. He had been staring at the bedroom wall paper for some days, and perhaps the contrast offered by Nell's fresh, young loveliness made it seem all the fresher and more striking. There was somethingin the curve of the lips, in the expression of the gray eyes, a "sweet sadness," as the poet puts it, which impressed him.
"It's very good to be down again," he said. She had not gone back to her chair, but leaned in the angle of the bay window, and looked down at the village below. "I seem to have been in bed for ages."
She nodded.
"I know. I remember feeling like that when I got up after the measles, years ago."
"Not many years ago," he suggested, with a faint smile.
"It seems a long time ago to me," said Nell. "I remember that for weeks and months after I got well I hated the sight and smell of beef tea and arrowroot. And Doctor Spence—your doctor, you know—gave me a glass of ale one day, and stood over me while I drank it. He can be very firm when he likes, not to say obstinate."
Mr. Vernon listened to the musical voice, and looked at the slim, girlish figure and spirituelle face absently; and when there fell a silence he showed no disposition to break it. It was difficult to find anything to talk about with so young and inexperienced a girl, and it was almost with an air of relief that he turned as Mrs. Lorton entered.
"And how do you feel now?" she asked, with bated breath. "Weak and faint, I'm afraid. I know how exhausting one feels the first time of getting down. Eleanor, I do hope you have not been tiring Mr. Vernon by talking too much."
Mr. Vernon struggled with a frown.
"Miss Lorton has scarcely said two words," he said. "I assure you, my dear madame, that there is absolutely nothing the matter with me, and that—that I could stand a steam phonograph."
"I am so glad!" simpered Mrs. Lorton. "I have brought this week'sSociety News. I thought it might amuse you if I read some of the paragraphs—Eleanor, I think you might read them. Don't you think indolence is one of the greatest sins of the day, Mr. Vernon?" she broke off to inquire.
Vernon smiled grimly, and glanced at Nell, who colored under the amused expression in his eyes.
"I dare say it is," he said. "Speaking for myself, I can honestly say that I never do anything unless I am compelled."
Nell laughed, her short, soft laugh; but Mrs. Lorton was not at all discomfited.
"That is all very well for a man, though I am sure you do yourself an injustice, Mr. Vernon; but for a young girl! I think you will find something interesting on the third page, under the heading of 'Doings of the Elite,' Eleanor."
Nell took the paper—the journal she especially detested, and Dick never failed to mock at—and glanced at Mr. Vernon; but he looked straight before him, down at the jetty below; and, not shyly, but, with a kind of resignation, she began:
"'Lord and Lady Bullnoze have gone on a visit to the Countess of Crowntires. Her ladyship is staying at the family seat, Cromerspokes, which is famous for its old oak and stained glass. It is not generally known that Lady Crowntires inherited this princely estate from her aunt, the Duchess of Bogshire.'"
"A most beautiful place," commented Mrs. Lorton. "I've seen a photograph of it—a private photograph."
Nell looked appealingly and despairingly at Mr. Vernon, but his face was perfectly impassive; and, smothering a sigh, she went on:
"'Lord Pygskin will hunt the Clodford hounds next season. His lordship has been staying at Blenheim for some weeks, recovering from an attack of the gout. It is said that his engagement with the charming and popular Miss Bung has been broken off.'"
"Dear me! How sad!" murmured Mrs. Lorton. "I am always so sorry to hear of these broken engagements of the aristocracy. Miss Bung—I think it said last week—is the daughter of the great brewer. Poor girl! it will be a blow for her!"
Not a smile crossed the impassive face; Nell thought that perhaps he was not listening, but she went on mechanically:
"'The marriage of the Earl of Angleford has caused quite a flutter of excitement among the elite. His lordship, as our readers are aware, is somewhat advanced in years, and had always been regarded as a confirmed bachelor——'"
At this point Nell became aware that the dark eyes had turned from the window to her face, and she paused and looked up. There was a faint dash of color on Mr. Vernon's cheeks, and a tightening of the lips. It seemed to Nell, judging by his expression, that he had suddenly become impatient of the twaddle, and she instantly dropped the paper on her lap. But Mrs. Lorton was enjoying herself too much to permit of such an interruption.
"Why do you stop, Eleanor?" she inquired. "It is most interesting. Pray, go on."
Nell again glanced at Mr. Vernon, but his gaze had returned to the window, and he shrugged his shoulders slightly, as if he were indifferent, as if he could bear it.
----"'A confirmed bachelor,'" resumed Nell, "'and his sudden and unexpected marriage must have been a surprise, and a very unpleasant surprise to his family; especially to hisnephew, Lord Selbie, who is the heir presumptive to the title and estates. We say "presumptive," because in the event of the earl being blessed with a son and heir of his own, Lord Selbie will, of course, not inherit the title or the vast lands and moneys of the powerful and ancient family.'"
"How disappointed he must be!" said Mrs. Lorton, sympathetically. "Really, such a marriage should not be permitted. What do you think, Mr. Vernon?"
Mr. Vernon started slightly, and looked at the weak and foolish face as if he scarcely saw it.
"Why not!" he said, rather curtly. "It's a free country, and a man may marry whom he pleases."
"Yes, certainly; that is, an ordinary man—one of the middle class; but not, certainly not, a nobleman of Lord Angleford's rank and position. How old did it say he is, Eleanor?"
"It doesn't say, mamma," replied Nell.
"Ah, well, I know he is quite old; for I remember reading a paragraph about him a few weeks ago. They were describing the ancestral home of the Anglefords—Anglemere, it is called; one of the historic houses, like Blenheim and Chatsworth, you know. And this poor Lord Selbie, the nephew, will lose the title and everything. Dear me! how interesting! Is there anything more about him?'
"Oh, yes; a great deal more," said Nell despairfully.
"Then pray continue—that is, if Mr. Vernon is not tired; though, speaking from experience, there is nothing so soothing as being read to."
Mr. Vernon did not look as if he found the impertinent paragraphs in theSociety Newsparticularly soothing, but he said:
"I'm not at all tired. It's very interesting, as you say. Please go on, Miss Lorton."
Nell looked at him doubtfully, for there was a kind of sarcasm in his voice. But she took up the parable.
"'Lord Selbie is, in consequence of this marriage of his uncle, the object of profound and general sympathy; for, as the readers must be aware, he is a persona grata in society——' What is a persona grata?" Nell broke off to inquire.
"Lord knows!" replied Mr. Vernon grimly. "I don't suppose the bounder who wrote these things does."
Mrs. Lorton simpered.
"It's Italian, and it means that he is very popular, a general favorite."
"Then why don't they say so?" asked Nell, in a patiently disgusted fashion. "'Is a persona grata in society. He is strikingly handsome——'"
Mr. Vernon's lips curved with something between a grin and a sneer.
—"'And of the most charming manners.'"
"Who writes this kind of rot?" he muttered.
"'Since his first appearance in the circles of the London elite, Lord Selbie has been the cynosure of all eyes. To quote Hamlet again, he may truthfully be described as the "glass of fashion and the mould of form." His lordship is also a good all-round sportsman. He spent two or three years traveling in the Rockies and in Africa, and his exploits with the big game in both countries are well known. Like most young men of his class, Lord Selbie was rather wild at Oxford, and displayed a certain amount of diablerie in London during his quite early manhood. He is a splendid whip, and his four-in-hand was eclipsed by none other in the club. Lord Selbie is also an admirable horseman, and has won several cups in regimental races.'
"That is the end of that paragraph," said Nell, stifling a yawn, and glancing longingly through the window at the sea dancing in the sunlight. "Do you want any more?"
"Is there any?" asked Mr. Vernon grimly. "If so, we'd better have it, perhaps."
"Certainly," said Mrs. Lorton. "If there is anything I dislike more than another, it is incomplete information. Go on Eleanor."
Nell sighed and took up the precious paper again.
"'As is well known'—they always say that, because it flatters the readers, I suppose," she went on parenthetically—"'Lord Selbie is a "Lord" in consequence of his father, Mr. Herbert Selbie, the famous diplomatist, having been created a viscount; but, though he bears this title, we fancy Lord Selbie cannot be well off. The kind of life he has led since his advent in society must have strained his resources to the utmost, and we should not be far wrong if we described him as a poor man. This marriage of his uncle, the Earl of Angleford, must, therefore, be a serious blow to him, and may cause his complete retirement from the circles oftonin which he has shone so brilliantly. Lord Selbie, as we stated last week, is engaged to the daughter of Lord Turfleigh.'"
Nell dropped the paper and struggled with a portentous yawn.
"Thank you very much, Miss Lorton," said Mr. Vernon politely, with a half smile on his impassive face. "It is, as Mrs. Lorton says, very interesting."
Nell stared at him; then, seeing the irony in his eyes and on his lips, smiled.
"I thought for the moment that you meant it," she said quietly.
Mrs. Lorton heard, and sniffed at her.
"My dear Eleanor, what do you mean?" she inquired stiffly. "Of course, Mr. Vernon is interested. Why should he say so if he were not? I'm afraid, Eleanor, that you are of opinion that nothing but fiction has any claim on our attention, and that anything real and true is of no account. I may be old-fashioned and singular, but I find that these small details of the lives of our aristocracy are full of interest, not to say edifying. What do you think, Mr. Vernon?"
He had been gazing absently out of the window, but he pulled himself together, and came up to the scratch with a jerk.
"Certainly, certainly," he said.
Mrs. Lorton smiled triumphantly.
"You see, Eleanor, Mr. Vernon quite agrees with me. I must go and see if Molly has put the jelly in the window to cool. Meanwhile, Mr. Vernon may like you to continue reading to him."
Mr. Vernon rose to open the door for her—Nell noticed the act of courtesy—then sank down again.
"You don't want any more?" she said, looking at the paper on her knee.
"No, thanks," he said.
She tossed it onto a chair at the other end of the room.
"It is the most awful nonsense," she said, with a girlish frankness. "Why did you tell mamma that it was interesting?"
He met the direct gaze of the clear gray eyes, and smiled.
"Well—as it happened—it was," he said.
The clear gray eyes opened wider.
"What! All this gossip about the Earl of Angleford, and his nephew, Lord Selbie?"
He looked down, then raised his eyes, narrowed into slits, and fixed them above her head.
"I fancy it's true—in the main," he said, half apologetically.
"Well, and if it is," she retorted impatiently, "of what interest can it be to us? We don't know the Earl of Angleford, and don't care a button that he is married, and that his nephew is—what do you say?—disinherited."
"N-o," he admitted.
"Very well, then," she said triumphantly. "It is like reading the doings of people living in the moon."
"The moon is a long ways off," he ventured.
"Not farther from us than the world in which these earls and lords have their being," she retorted. "It all seems so—soimpertinent to me, when I am reading it. Of what interest can the lives of these people be to us, to me, Nell Lorton? I never heard of Lord Angleford, and Lord—what is it?—Lord Selbie, before; did you?"
He glanced at her, then looked fixedly through the window.
"I've heard of them—yes," he said reluctantly.
"Ah, well, you are better informed than I am," said Nell, laughing softly. "There's Dick; he's calling me. Do you mind being left? He will make an awful row if I don't go out."
"Certainly not. Go by all means!" he said. "And thank you for—all the trouble you have taken."
Nell nodded and hurried out, and Mr. Vernon leaned back and bit at his mustache thoughtfully, not to say irritably.
"I feel like a bounder," he muttered. "Why the blazes didn't I give my right name? I wonder what they'd say—how that girl would look—if I told them that I was the Lord Selbie this rag was cackling about? Shall I tell them? No. It would be awkward now. I shall be gone in a day or two, and they needn't know."
The following morning, the carrier's cart stopped at the cottage, and Dick, having helped the carrier to bring in a big portmanteau, burst into the sitting room with:
"Your togs have arrived, Mr. Vernon; and the carrier says that there are a couple of horses at the station. They're directed 'Drake Vernon, Esquire,' so they must be for you!"
Vernon nodded.
"That's all right," he said. "They were doing nothing in—where they were, and I thought I'd have them sent down here. I suppose I must get some one to exercise them?"
Dick's eyes sparkled and his mouth stretched in an expressive grin.
"Not much difficulty about that," he said. "For instance, I don't mind obliging you—as a favor."
Mr. Vernon smiled.
"I thought perhaps you might be so good," he said; and he added casually: "Anybody here who could be trusted to bring them from the station?"
"I know a most trustworthy person; his name is Richard Lorton, and he will go for 'em in a brace of jiffs," said Dick.
Mr. Vernon flicked a five-pound note across the table.
"There may be some carriage. By the way, one of them is a lady's nag, and I fancy they may have sent a sidesaddle."
Dick nodded and repeated the grin.
"I can get them put up at Sandy's," he said. "Sandy used to keep some stables going for post horses before the coach ran to Hartland, you know. I've got your horse there. Oh, they'll be all right. You trust to me."
"I do," said Mr. Vernon. "One moment," as Dick was rushing out to put on his well-worn riding suit. "I don't think I'd say anything about—the sidesaddle to Miss Lorton—yet."
Once again Dick nodded—a nod so full of comprehension as to be almost supernal.
Mr. Vernon went upstairs, and, with Molly's assistance, unpacked the huge portmanteau, and, when she had got out of the room, examined the contents. Strangely enough, the linen was all new and unmarked. Only on the silver fittings of the dressing case were a monogram—in which the initial "S" was decipherable—and a coronet.
"Sparling's an idiot!" Vernon muttered. "Why didn't he buy a new case? I shall have to keep this locked."
When he came down again, having changed into a blue serge suit, Nell was in the drawing-room, arranging some flowers, and she looked up with a smile of recognition at his altered appearance.
"Your box has arrived, I see," she said, with the frankness of—well, Shorne Mills. "You must be glad. And where has Dick dashed off to? He nearly knocked me down in his hurry."
"To Shallop," he said. "I had a couple of horses sent down."
"But you couldn't ride, with your arm in a sling; and you've a horse here already."
"Don't suppose it's fit to ride yet," he said, "and I'm not going to carry a sling forever. Besides, they were eating their heads off—where they were."
He said nothing about the sidesaddle.
"I see. Well, I'm sorry Dick's gone this morning, for I wanted him to come out in the boat. It's a good day for mackerel." She looked wistfully at the sea shining below them. "Of course I could go by myself, but I promised Mr. Gadsby that I wouldn't."
"Who's Mr. Gadsby?"
"The vicar. I got caught in a squall off the Head one day, and—I really wasn't in the least danger—but they were all waiting for me at the jetty, and they made a fuss—and so I had to promise that I wouldn't go out alone. And old Brownie's out with his nets—he goes with me sometimes. It's a nuisance."
He stood by the window silently for a moment, then he glanced at her wistful face, and said:
"I should be a poor substitute, in my present condition, for old Brownie, or old anybody else; but if you'll allow me to go with you, I shall be very grateful. I can manage the tiller, at any rate."
Nell's face lit up; she wanted to go very badly; it was a "real" mackerel day, and, like the days of other fishing, not to be missed.
"Will you? That's awfully kind of you! Not that I want any help; it isn't that, for I can manage theAnnie Lauriein half a gale; but there's a feeling that, because I'm only a girl, I'm not to be trusted alone."
"I quite understand," he said. "I'll promise not to interfere, if you'll let me come."
"And it may do you good—it's sure to!" she said eagerly. "There's the loveliest of breezes—you must have some wind for mackerel—and——Can you go at once?"
"This very minute. I'm all ready," he said.
"All right," she exclaimed, just as Dick might have done. "I'll be ready before you can say Jack Robinson!"
She ran out of the room and was down again in a very few minutes. Vernon glanced at her as they left the cottage and descended the steep road. She had put on a short skirt of rough serge, with a jersey, which accentuated every flowing line of her girlish, graceful figure, and the dark hair rippled under a red tam-o'-shanter. He was familiar enough with the yachting costumes of fashion, but he thought that he had never seen anything so workmanlike and becoming as this get-up which Nell had donned so quickly and carelessly. As they walked down the steps which led to the jetty, Nell exchanging greetings at every step, an old fisherman, crippled with rheumatism, limped beside them, and helped to bring the boat to the jetty steps.
Nell eyed theAnnie Laurielovingly, but said apologetically:
"She's a very good boat. Old, of course. She is a herring boat, and though she isn't fascinatingly beautiful, she can sail. Dick—helped by Brownie—decked her over, and Dick picked up a new set of sails last year from a man who was selling off his gear. Have you put in the bait and the lines, Willy?"
"Aye, aye, Miss Nell; I'm thinkin' you'll be gettin' some mackerel if the wind holds. Let me help 'ee wi' the sail."
"No, no," said Nell, "I can manage. Oh, please don't you trouble!" she added to Vernon. "If you'll give me the sheet—that's the rope by your hand."
Vernon nodded, and suppressed a smile.
"She'll go a bit tauter still, I think," he said, as Nell hoisted the mainsail.
She looked at him.
"You understand?" she said, with a little surprise.
Vernon thought of his crack yacht, but answered casually:
"I've done some yachting—yes."
"Yachting!" said Nell. "This isn't yachting. You must feel a kind of contempt for our poor old tub."
"Not at all; she's a good boat, I can see," he said.
Nell took up the oars, but she had to pull only a few strokes, for the wind soon filled the sail, and theAnnie Laurie, as if piqued by the things that had been said of her, sprang forward before the wind.
Nell shipped the oars, looked up at the sail, and glanced at Vernon, who had taken his seat in the stern, and got hold of the tiller with an accustomed air.
"Make for the Head," she said. "I'll get the lines ready."
There was silence for a minute or two while she baited the lines and paid them out, and Vernon watched her with a kind of absent-minded interest.
She was quite intent on her work, and he felt that, so far as she was concerned, he might have been old Brownie, or the rheumatic Willy, or her brother Dick; and something in her girlish indifference to his presence and personality impressed him; for Drake, Viscount Selbie, was not accustomed to be passed over as a nonentity by the women in whose company he chanced to be.
"That ought to fetch them," she said, eying the baited line with an air of satisfaction. "You might keep her to the wind a little more, Mr. Vernon; she can carry all we've got, and more."
"Aye, aye!" he responded, in sailor fashion. "You only did her bare justice, Miss Lorton," he added. "She's a good boat."
Nell looked round at him with a gratified smile.
"She's a dear old thing, really," she said; "and she behaves like an angel in a gale. Many's the time Dick and I have sailed her when half the other boats were afraid to leave the harbor."
"Wasn't that rather dangerous, a tempting of Providence?" he said, rather gravely, at the thought of the peril incurred by these two thoughtless children—for what else were they?
"Oh, I don't know," she replied carelessly. "We know every inch of the coast and every current, and if it should ever come on too stiff, we should make for the open. It would have to be a bad sea to sink theAnnie Laurie; and if we came to grief——Well, we can die but once, youknow; and, after all, there are meaner ways of slipping off the mortal coil than doing it in a hurricane off Windy Head. There's the first fish! If Brownie were here, we should 'wet it'; but I haven't any whisky to offer you."
Her low but clear laugh rang musical over the billowing water, and she nodded at her companion as if he were one of the fishing men or Dick.
Vernon leaned back and gazed in turn at the sea and the sky and the slim, girlish form and beautiful face, and half unconsciously his mind concentrated itself upon her.
She was not the first young girl he had known, but she was quite unlike any young girl he had hitherto met. He could recall none so free and frank and utterly unselfconscious.
Most young girls with whom he had become acquainted had bored him by their insipidity or disgusted him by their precocity; but from this one there emanated a kind of charm which rested while it attracted him. It was pleasant to lean back and look at and listen to her; to watch the soft tendrils of dark hair stirred by the wind, to see the frank smile light up the gray eyes and curve the sweet red lips; to listen to the musical voice, the low brief laugh, which was so distinct from the ordinary girl's giggle or forced and affected gayety.
The fish were biting, and soon a pile of silver lay wet and glittering in the bottom of the boat.
"Haven't you got enough?" asked Vernon, with your sportsman's dislike of "pot hunting."
"For ourselves? Oh, yes; but some of the old people of the Mills like mackerel," replied Nell, "and they'll be waiting on the jetty for theAnnie Laurie'sreturn. Are you getting tired?" she asked, for the first time directing her attention to him. "I quite forgot you were an invalid."
"Go on forgetting it, please," he said. "In fact, the invalid business is played out. I'm far too hungry to keep up the character."
She laughed.
"So am I."
She raised herself on her elbow and looked toward the shore.
"If you'll take her to that cove just opposite us, we'll have some lunch. You can eat fish, I hope? It was awfully stupid of me not to remember——"
"I can eat anything," he said quickly. "I was just going to propose that we should cast lots, in cannibalistic fashion, to decide who should lunch on the other."
She laughed, and pulled in her line.
"That's a beauty for the last. Do you know how to cook mackerel?"
"No; but I can learn."
"Very well, then; you'll find a spirit lamp and stove in that locker under the tiller. Yes, that's it. And there ought to be some bread and butter, and some coffee. Milk, as we don't carry a cow, we shall have to do without. We shall be in smooth water presently, and then we can lunch."
He sailed the boat into a sheltered cove, and, rather awkwardly, with his one hand, extracted the cooking utensils from the locker. Nell lowered the sail, dropped the anchor, and came aft.
"I'm afraid I shall have to cook," she said. "Dick generally does it, but you've only one hand. There's one fish;" as she cut it open skillfully. "How many can you eat?"
"Two—three dozen," he said gravely.
She laughed, and placed three of the silver mackerel in the frying pan.
"Now don't, please, don't say that you haven't a match!" she said, half aghast with dread.
He took his silver match box from his pocket, and was on the point of handing it to her. Then he remembered the coronet engraved on it, and holding it against his side, managed to strike a light and ignite the spirit.
"Of course, you have to pretend that you don't mind the smell of cooking fish; but it really isn't so bad when one is hungry," she said, as the pan began to hiss and the fish to brown.
"There's salt and pepper somewhere," she remarked. "You put them on while the fish is cooking; it is half the battle, as Dick says. They're in the back of the locker, I think. If you'll move just a little——"
He screwed himself into as small a compass as possible, and she dived into the locker and got out a couple of tin boxes.
"And here's the bread—rather stale, I'm afraid—and some biscuits. The coffee's in that tin, and the water in this jar. Do you know how to make coffee?"
"Rather!" he said, with mock indignation. "I've made coffee under various circumstances and in various climes; in the galley of a Porto Rico coaster; in an American ravine, waiting for the game; on a Highland moor, when the stags had got scent and the last chance of sport in the day was gone like a beautiful dream; in an artist's attic in Florence, where the tobacco smoke was too thick to cut with anything less than a hatchet; and after a skirmish with the dervishes, when a cup of coffee seemed almost as precious as the life one had just managed to save by the skin of one's teeth; but I never made it under more pleasant circumstances than these."
He looked up and round him as he spoke, with a brighterexpression on his face than she had as yet seen, and Nell regarded him with a sudden interest.
"How much you have traveled!" she said—"that mackerel wants turning; raise the pan so that the butter can run under the fish; that's it—and how much you must have seen! Italy, Egypt, Porto Rico—where is that? Oh, I remember! How delightful to have seen so much! You must be a very fortunate individual!"
She leaned her chin in her brown, shapely hands, and looked at him curiously, and with a frank envy in her gray eyes.
His face clouded for a moment.
"Count no man fortunate until he is dead!" he said, adapting the aphorism. "Believe me that I'd change places with you at this moment, and throw in all my experiences."
She laughed incredulously.
"With me? Oh, you can't mean it. It is very flattering, of course; but it's absurd. Why"—she paused and sighed—"I've never been anywhere, or seen anything. I've never been to London even, since I was quite a little girl, and——Change places with me!" She laughed again, just a little sadly. "Yes, it does sound absurd. For one thing, you wouldn't like to be poor; and we are poor, you know."
"Poor and content is rich enough," he remarked sententiously. Then he laughed. "I'm as good as a copy book with moral headings this morning."
Nell smiled.
"I think that is nonsense, like most copy-book headings. And yet——Yes, I should be content enough if it were not for Dick. After all, one can be happy though one is poor, especially if one lives in a beautiful place like Shorne Mills, and has a boat to sail in the summer, and books in the winter, and knows all the people round, and——"
"And happens to be young and full of the joy of life," he said, with a smile. "And it's only on your mind!"
She nodded gravely.
"Yes, of course I know that it's not right that he should be hanging about the Mills, doing nothing, and wasting his time. I'm always worrying about Dick's future. It's a sin that he should be wasted, for Dick is clever. You may not think so——"
"Oh, yes, I do," he said thoughtfully. "But I wouldn't worry. Something may turn up——"
She laughed.
"That is what he is always saying; but he says it rather bitterly sometimes, and——But I ought not to worry you, at any rate. Those fish are just done."
"Then my life is just saved," he responded solemnly.
"There are two plates; you hold them on the top of thestove to warm—that's it! And now you fill the kettle—oh! I see you've thought of that. It will boil while we eat the fish."
She helped him to some, and they ate in silence for some minutes. Only they who have eaten mackerel within a few minutes of their being caught, and eaten them while reclining in a boat, with a blue sky overhead and a sapphire sea all around, can know how good mackerel can taste. To Vernon, who possessed the appetite of the convalescent, the meal was an Olympian feast.
"No more?" he said, as Nell declined. "Pray don't say so, or I shall, from sheer decency, have to refuse also; and I could eat another half, and will do so if you will take the other. You wouldn't be so heartless as to deprive me of a second serve, surely!"
Nell laughed and held out her plate.
"I consent because I do not think the recently starving should eat too much at first. Didn't you say that you had been in Egypt fighting? You are in the army, then?"
He nodded casually, and she looked at him thoughtfully.
"Then we ought not to call you 'Mr.,'" she said. "What are you—a colonel?"
He laughed shortly as he picked the fish from the bones.
"Good heavens! do I look so old? No, not colonel. I'm a captain. But I'm not in the army now. I left it—worse luck!"
"Why did you leave it?" she asked.
He looked a little bored—not so much bored, perhaps, as reluctant.
"Oh, for a variety of reasons; the most important being the fact that a relative of mine wished me to do so."
His face clouded for a moment or two; then he said, with the air of one dismissing an unpleasant topic:
"This water's boiling like mad. Now is my time to prove my assertion that I am capable of making coffee. I want two jugs, or this jug and the tin will do. The coffee? Thanks. I'm afraid I'll have to get you to hold the tin. This is the native method: You make it in the tin—so; then, after a moment or two, you pour the liquid—not the coffee grounds—into the jug, then back, and then back again, and lo! you have café à la Français, or Cairo, or Clapham fashion."
"It's very good," she admitted, when it had cooled sufficiently for her to taste it. "And that is how you made it on the battlefield?"
"Scarcely," he said. "There was no jug, only an empty meat can; and the water—well, the water was almost as thick, with mud, before the coffee was put in as afterward, and themen would scarcely have had patience to wait for the patent process. Poor beggars! Some of them had not had a drop past their lips for twenty-four hours—and been fighting, too."
Nell listened, with her grave gray eyes fixed on his face.
"How sorry you must have been to leave the army!" she said thoughtfully.
"Does warfare seem so alluring?" he retorted, with a laugh. "But you're right; I was sorry to send in my papers, and I've been sorrier since the day I did it."
Nell curled herself up in the bottom of the boat like a well-fed and contented cat, and Vernon, having washed the plates by the simple process of dragging them backward and forward through the water, stretched himself and felt in his pockets. He relinquished the search with a sigh of resignation, and Nell, hearing it, looked up.
"Are you not going to smoke?" she asked. "Dick would have his pipe alight long before this; and, of course, I don't mind—if that is what you were waiting for. Why should I?"
"Thanks; but, like an idiot, I've forgotten my pipe. I've got some tobacco and cigarette paper."
"Then you are all right," she remarked.
"Scarcely," he said carelessly. "This stupid mummy of an arm of mine prevents me rolling a cigarette, you see."
"How stupid of me to forget that!" she said. "Give me the tobacco and the paper and let me try."
He produced the necessary articles promptly; and showed her how to do it.
"Not quite so much tobacco"—she had taken out enough for ten cigarettes, and spilled sufficient for another five—"and—er—if you could get it more equal along the paper. Like this—ah, thanks!"
In showing her, his fingers got "mixed" with hers, but Nell seemed too absorbed in her novel experiment to notice the fact.
"Like that? Rather like a miniature sausage, isn't it? And it will all come undone when I let go of it," she added apprehensively.
"If you'll be so good as just to wet the edge with your lips," he said, in a matter-of-fact way.
She looked at him, and a faint dash of color came into her face.
"You won't like to smoke it afterward," she said coolly.
He stared at her, then smiled.
"Try me!" he said succinctly.
She gave a little shrug of the shoulders, moistened the cigarette in the usual way, and handed it to him gravely.
"I'll try to make the next better," she said. "I suppose you will want another?"
"I'm afraid I shall want more than you will be inclined to make," he said, "and I shouldn't like to trespass on your good nature."
"Oh, it's not very hard work making cigarettes," she said. "I'd better set about the next at once. How is that?" and she held up the production for inspection.
"Simply perfect," he said. "You would amass a fortune out in the East as a cigarette maker."
She looked up at him, beyond him, wistfully.
"I wish I could amass a fortune; indeed, I'd be content if I could earn my living any way," she said, as if she were communing with herself rather than addressing him. "If I could earn some money, and help Dick!"
Her voice died away, and she sighed softly.
He regarded her dreamily.
"Don't think of anything so—unnatural," he said.
She raised her eyes, and looked at him with surprise.
"Is it unnatural for a woman—a girl—to earn her own living?" she said.
"Yes," he said emphatically. "Women were made for men to work for, not to toil themselves."
Nell laughed, in simple mockery of the sentiment.
"What nonsense! As if we were dolls or something to be wrapped up in lavender! Why, half the women in Shorne Mills work! You see them driving their donkeys down to the beach for sand—haven't you seen them with bags on each side?—and doing washing, and making butter and going to market. Why, I should have to work if anything happened to mamma. At least, she has often said so. She has—what is it?—oh, an annuity or something of the kind; and if she died, Dick and I would have to 'face the world,' as she puts it."
He said nothing, but looked at her through the thin blue cloud of his cigarette. She looked so sweet, so girlish, so—yes, so helpless—lying there in the sunlight, one brown paw supporting her shapely head, the other—after the manner of girls—dabbling in the water. A pang of compassion smote him.
"It's a devil of a world," he muttered, almost to himself.
"Do you think so?" she said, with surprise. "I don't. At any rate, I don't think so this afternoon."
"Why this afternoon?" he asked, half curiously.
"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps it's the sunshine, or—or—do you think it's the mackerel?"
She laughed.
"But I feel so happy and free from care. And yet all the old trouble remains. There's Dick's future—and—oh, allthe rest. But this afternoon everything seems bright and hopeful. I wonder why?"
She looked at him wistfully, as if he might perhaps explain; but Vernon said nothing.
"Have you really finished that cigarette? You smoke much less quickly than Dick. Well, there's another ready; and when you've finished that, I think we ought to be getting back. I want—let me see—yes, ten more fish, and I can get them when we get farther out."
They set the sail, and theAnnie Laurieglided out of the placid little cove into the open sea.
As Vernon steered for the Head, behind which Shorne Mills sheltered, he sighed unconsciously. He, too, had been happy and free from care that morning, and the afternoon seemed full of indescribable peace and happiness. He, like Nell, wondered why. A day or two ago—or was it a month, a year?—he had been depressed and low-spirited, and firmly convinced that life was not worth living; but this afternoon——
What a pretty picture she made in her jersey, that fitted her like a skin, with the soft black hair rippling beneath the edge of the tam-o'-shanter!
Suddenly the pretty picture called out, "Sail ahead, sir!" and Vernon, taking his eyes from her, saw a yacht skimming along the sapphire waves, almost parallel with theAnnie Laurie.
"That's a yacht," said Nell; "and a fine one, too."
He looked at it, shading his eyes with his practicable hand.
"I wonder who she is?" said Nell. "There's a field glass in the locker—get it. Can you see her name?"
He put the glass to his eyes and adjusted it; and, as he got the focus, an exclamation escaped him.
"What did you say?" inquired Nell.
"Nothing, only that she's a fine vessel," he said indifferently.
"Yes. I should like to be on her," said Nell. "Wouldn't you?"
He smiled grimly.
"I am content with theAnnie Laurie," he replied.
She stared at him incredulously, then laughed.
"Thank you for the compliment; but you can't seriously prefer this dear old tub to that! I wonder whom she belongs to? How fast she travels. I should like to have a yacht like that."
"Would you?" he said, eying her rather strangely. "Perhaps some day——"
He stopped, and knocked the ash from his cigarette.
Nell laughed.
"Were you going to say that perhaps some day I should own one like her? What nonsense! It is like the things one reads in books, when the benevolent and wise old gentleman tells the boy that perhaps, if he works hard, and is honest and persevering, he may own a carriage and a pair like that which happens to be passing at the moment."
Vernon laughed.
"Life is full of possibilities," he said, with his eyes fixed on the yacht, which, after sailing broadside to them for some time, suddenly put down the helm and struck out for sea.
"I thought they might be making for Shorne Mills," said Nell, rather regretfully. "Yachts put in there sometimes, and I should have liked to have seen this one."
"Would you?" he said, as curiously as he had spoken before.
"It doesn't matter whether I would or wouldn't; she's gone out into the channel now," said Nell.
He stifled a sigh which sounded like a sigh of relief, and steered theAnnie Lauriefor home.
Nell swept the fish into an old reed basket which had held many such a catch, and held it up to the admiring and anticipatory gaze of a small crowd of women and children which had gathered on the jetty steps at the approach of theAnnie Laurie.
As she stepped on shore and distributed the fish, receiving the short but expressive Devonshire "Thank 'ee, Miss Nell, thank 'ee," Vernon looked at the beautiful girlish face pensively, and thought—well, who can tell what a man thinks at such moments? Perhaps he was thinking of the hundred and one useless women of his class who, throughout the whole of their butterfly lives, had never won a single breath of gratitude from the poor in their midst.
"Come along," she said, turning to him, when she had emptied the basket. "I'm afraid we're in for a scolding. I quite forgot till this moment that mamma did not know you had gone out."
"What about you?" he said, remembering for the first time that he had spent so many hours with this girl alone and unchaperoned.
Nell laughed.
"Oh, she would not be anxious about me. Mamma is used to my going out for a ride—when I can borrow a horse from some one—or sailing theAnnie Lauriewith old Brownie; but she'll be anxious about you. You're an invalid, you know."
"Not much of the invalid about me, saving this arm," he said.
As they climbed the hill, they came upon Dick mountedupon a horse the like of which Nell had never seen; and she stopped dead short and stared at him.
"Hallo, Nell! Hallo, Mr. Vernon! Just giving him a run, after being shut up in that stuffy railway box."
"That's right," said Vernon. "Like him?"
"Like him?" responded Dick, with the superlative of approval; "never rode a horse to equal him, and the other is as good. And"—in an undertone—"the sidesaddle has come."
But Nell, whose ears were sharp, heard him.
"Who is the sidesaddle for?" she asked, innocently and ungrammatically.
Vernon took the bull by the horns.
"For you, if you will deign to use it, Miss Nell," he said.
It was the first time he had addressed her as "Miss Nell," but she did not notice it.
"For me?" she exclaimed.
They were opposite Sandy's stables, and Dick dropped off his horse and brought out the other.
"Look at her, Nell!" he exclaimed, with bated breath. "Perfect, isn't she?"
Nell looked at her with a flush that came and went.
"Oh, but I—I—could not!" she breathed.
Mr. Drake Vernon laughed.
"Why not?" he said argumentatively. "Fair play's a jewel. You can't expect to have all the innings your side, Miss Nell. You've treated me—well, like a prince; and you won't refuse to ride a horse of mine that's simply spoiling for want of exercise!"
Nell looked from him to the horse, and from the horse to him.
"I—I—am so surprised," she faltered. "I—I will ask mamma."
"That's all right," said Vernon, who had learned to know "mamma" by this time.
Nell left Dick and Vernon standing round the horses in man fashion. Dick was all aglow with satisfaction and admiration.
"Never saw a better pair than these, Mr. Vernon," he said. "I should think this one could jump."
She had just won a military steeplechase, and Vernon nodded assent.
"You must persuade your sister to ride her," he said.
As he spoke, he seated himself on the edge of the steep roadway which led to the jetty.
"Take the horses in," he said. "I'll come up in a few minutes."
But the minutes ran into hours. He looked out to sea with a meditative and retrospective mind. He was goingover the past which seemed so far away, so vague, since he had gone sailing in theAnnie Lauriethis morning.
Then suddenly the past became the present. There was a stir on the jetty below him. Voices—the voice of fashionable people, the voices of "society"—rose in an indistinguishable sound to his ears. He moved uneasily, and refilled and lit the pipe that he had borrowed of Dick. He heard the footsteps of several persons climbing the steep stairs. One seemed familiar to him. He pulled at his pipe, and crossed his legs with an air of preparation, of resignation.
The voices came nearer, and presently one said:
"I certainly, for one, decline to go any farther. I think it is too absurd to expect one to climb these ridiculous steps. And there is nothing to see up there, is there?"
At the sound of the voice, clear and bell-like, yet languid, with the languor of the fashionable woman, Mr. Drake Vernon bit his lips and colored. He half rose, but sank down again, as if uncertain whether to meet her, or to remain where he was; eventually he crossed his legs again, rammed down his pipe, and waited.
"Oh, but you'll come up to the top, Lady Lucille!" remonstrated a man's voice, the half-nasal drawl of the man about town—the ordinary club lounger. "There's a view, don't you know—there really is!"
"I don't care for views. Not another step, Archie. I'll wait here till you come back. You can describe the view—or, rather, you can't, thank Heaven!"
As she spoke, she mounted a few steps, and turned into the small square which offered a resting place on the steep ascent, and so came full upon Mr. Vernon.
He rose and raised his hat, and she looked at him, at first with the vagueness of sheer amazement, then with a start of recognition, and with her fair face all crimson for one instant, and, the next, pale, she said, in a suppressed voice, as if she were afraid of being overheard:
"Drake!"
He looked at her with a curious smile, as if something in the tone of her voice, in her sudden pallor following upon her; blush, were significant, and had told himself something.
"Well, Luce," he said; "and what brings you here?"