Una saw her last of Warden Forest through a mist of tears; while a tree remained in sight her face was turned toward it, and in silence she bade farewell to the leafy world in which her life had passed with so much uneventfulness—in silence listened to the soughing of the breeze that seemed to voice her a sad good-bye.
Her companion sat in silence, too, holding the soft, warm hand which clung to hers with an eloquent supplication for protection and sympathy.
But youth and tears are foes who cannot abide long together, and by the time the little railway village of Wermesley was reached, Una’s eyes were full of interest and curiosity.
As the fly rumbled over the unkept streets toward the station, past the few tame shops and the dead-and-alive hotel, her color came and went in rapid fluctuations.
“Is—is this the world?” she asked, in a low voice.
Mrs. Davenant looked at her with a smile, the first which Una had seen on the thin, pale face. She had yet to learn that Mrs. Davenant never smiled in her son’s presence.
“The world, my dear?” she replied. “Well, yes; but a very quiet part of it.”
“And yet there are so many people in the streets, and—ah!” she drew back with an exclamation as the train shrieked into the station.
Mrs. Davenant started—she was nervous herself, and had not yet realized that she had for companion one who was as ignorant of our modern high-pressure civilization as a North American Indian.
“That is the train; don’t be frightened, my dear,” she said.
“Forgive me. I know it is the train—I have read about it. I am not frightened,” she added, quietly, and with a touch of gentle dignity that puzzled Mrs. Davenant.
“My dear,” she said, “I am not finding fault, or chiding you, it is only natural that you should be surprised, but you will find a great deal more to be surprised at when we get to London.”
Una inclined her head as she mentally registered aresolution to conceal, at any cost, any surprise or alarm she might feel on the rest of the journey.
Nevertheless, she kept very close to Mrs. Davenant as they passed to the train, and shrank back into the corner of the carriage driven there by the stupid stare of one or two of the passengers.
“Now we are all right,” said Mrs. Davenant, gently. “We shall not sleep now till we get to town.”
“To London—we are going to London?” asked Una in a low voice.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant. “That is where I live; I live in a great square at the West-end.”
“I know the points of the compass,” said Una, with a smile; “my father taught me,” and she sighed—“poor father!”
“I think your father must be a very clever man, my dear. He appears to have taught you a great deal—I mean”—she hesitated—“you speak so correctly.”
“Do I?” said Una. “Yes, my father is very clever. He knows everything.”
“It is very curious,” she said. “I mean—I hope you won’t be offended—but men in his position are not generally so well informed.”
“Are they not?” said Una, quietly. “I don’t know. Perhaps my father learned all he knows from books.”
“And taught you in the same way. Tell me what books you have read.”
Una smiled softly, and as she did so, Mrs. Davenant started, and looked around at her with something like fright in her grave, still eyes.
“What is the matter?” asked Una.
“No—nothing,” replied the other. “I—you reminded me of somebody when you laughed, I can’t tell whom. But the books, you were going to tell me about the books.”
“I can’t remember all,” said Una, and then she mentioned the titles of some of the well-bound volumes which stood on the little bookshelf in the hut.
Mrs. Davenant regarded her curiously.
“Those are all books of a world that existed long ago,” she said. “You have never read any novels—any novels of present day life?”
“No, I think not.”
“Then you are absolutely ignorant of life as it is,” said Mrs. Davenant.
“Yes, I suppose so,” assented Una.
“I can understand now how useful fiction really is,” murmured Mrs. Davenant. “It is by it alone that a future age will understand what ours is. You are entering upon some strange experiences, Miss Rolfe.”
Una started; the name was so unfamiliar to her that she hardly recognized it.
“Please don’t call me that,” she said, laying her hand on Mrs. Davenant’s arm. “My name is Eunice—Una. Call me Una.”
“I will,” said Mrs. Davenant.
“You have promised to love me, you know.”
“A promise easy to keep, my dear,” she said, and her eyes grew moist. “I little thought when my son Stephen telegraphed to meet him that he was taking me to a daughter.”
“Your son Stephen—he sent for you!” said Una, with frank curiosity. “How did he know of my existence?”
“Through some friend,” said Mrs. Davenant, with much hesitation and nervous embarrassment. “My son is a very good man, and always interesting himself in some good cause or other—something that will benefit his fellow creatures. You—you will like my son when you know more of him,” she added, and though she spoke with pride there was a touch of something like fear in her voice, which always came when she mentioned his name or spoke of his goodness.
“Yes,” said Una, simply, “I will for your sake.”
“Thank you, my dear,” murmured Mrs. Davenant.
“But how,” went on Una, after thinking a moment, “how did his friend know anything about me? Did my father——”
“I don’t know, Una,” said Mrs. Davenant, nervously. “Stephen doesn’t always tell me everything; you see he has so much to think of, and just now he is in great trouble, you know.”
“Ah! yes,” said Una, gently; “and he had not time totell you. But he will. I am sorry he is in such trouble.” Then, after a pause, she said: “Are you rich?”
Mrs. Davenant started. The question, so unusual and so strange, bewildered her by its suddenness and its frankness.
“Rich, my dear?” she said. “Yes—I suppose I am rich.”
“And he is rich?”
“He will be, perhaps; we do not know until his uncle’s will is read.”
“I know what a will is,” said Una, with a smile. “It is the paper which a man leaves when he dies, saying to whom he wishes his money to go. And Stephen——”
“You should say Mr. Stephen, or Mr. Davenant, my dear,” she said. “I don’t mind your calling him Stephen, but—but——” She looked round in despair. How was she to explain to this frank, beautiful girl the laws of etiquette? “But everyone who speaks of those to whom they are not related say Mr., or Mrs., or Miss.”
“I see,” said Una. “Then Mr. Davenant expects to get his uncle’s money, and then he will be rich. I am very glad. And he does not live in the same house with you?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Davenant—and surely there was something like a tone of relief in her voice—“no; when he is in London he lives in chambers in rooms by himself; but he has been staying at Hurst Leigh.”
“At Hurst Leigh!” echoed Una, softly, and a faint color stole over her face. How wonderful it was! That other—he whose face was always with her, was going there!
“At Hurst Leigh,” repeated Mrs. Davenant. “Do you know it?”
Una shook her head silently. She longed to ask more, to ask if Mrs. Davenant knew the youth who had taken shelter in the cottage, but she simply could not. Love is a wondrous schoolmaster—he had already taught her frank, out-spoken nature the art of concealment.
“It is a grand place,” continued Mrs. Davenant. “A great, huge place,” and she shivered faintly, “and—and if Squire Davenant has left it to Stephen, he will live there.”
“You don’t like it?” said Una, with acute intuition.
“No,” replied Mrs. Davenant, with unusual earnestness. “No, oh no! it frightens me. I was never there but once, and then I was glad—very, very glad to get away, grand and beautiful as it was!”
“But why?” asked Una, eagerly.
“Because—have you never heard of Ralph Davenant?”
Una hesitated a moment. She had heard of him.
“He was a wonderful man, but terrible to me. His eyes looked through one, and then he had been so wicked.”
She stopped short, and Una sighed. So there was another person who was wicked.
“Why are men so wicked?” she asked, in a low voice.
“I—I—don’t know. What a singular question,” said Mrs. Davenant. “No one knows. Perhaps it is because they have different natures to ours. But you need not look so grieved, my dear,” she added, with a little smile, “you need not know any wicked men.”
“Who can tell? One does not know; wicked men are just like the others, only we like them better.”
Mrs. Davenant stared at her, and utterly overwhelmed by the strange reply, sank into her corner and into silence.
The panting engine tore along the line, and presently the clear atmosphere was left behind, and the cloud of smoke which hangs over the Great City came down upon them and took them in, and infolded them.
To Una’s amazement the train seemed to glide over the tops of houses, houses so thick that there seemed but two, or three inches between them. With suppressed excitement—she had resolved to express no surprise or fear—she watched through the window. Sometimes she caught sight of streets thronged with people, and with commingled alarm and curiosity, wondered what had happened to draw them all together so.
She would not ask Mrs. Davenant, for wearied by her double journey, she was leaning back with closed eyes.
Suddenly the train stopped—stopped amidst the noise and confusion of a large terminus—Mrs. Davenant woke, a porter came to the door, received instructions as to the luggage and handed them out.
Notwithstanding her resolution, Una felt herself turning pale.
From Warden Forest to a London railway station.
“Keep close to me, dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, who seemed only nervous and helpless in her son’s presence. “Come, there is a cab.”
In silence Una followed. Men—and women, too,—turned to look at the tall, graceful figure in its plain white dress, and stared at the lovely face, with its half-frightened, half-curious, downcast eyes, and Una felt the eyes fixed on her.
“Why—why do they look at me so?” she asked, when they had entered the cab.
Mrs. Davenant regarded her with a smile, and evaded the frank, open eyes. Was it possible that the girl was ignorant of her marvelous beauty?
“People in London always stare, my dear Una,” she replied, “and they see that you are strange.”
“It is my dress,” said Una, who had been looking out of the window at some of the fashionably-attired ladies. “It is different to theirs. See—look at that lady! Why does she wear so long a dress? she has to hold it up with one hand.”
“It is your dress, no doubt, my dear,” she said. “We must alter it when we get home.”
The cab rolled into the street, and Una was rendered speechless.
But for her resolve she would have shrunk back into the farthest corner of the cab. The number of people, the noise, alarmed her, and yet she felt fascinated.
Were all the people mad that they hurried on so with such grave and pre-occupied faces. She had never seen her father hurry unless he had cut down a tree that had been struck by lightning, and which might injure others in its fall unless cut down with greatest care.
Presently they passed into one of the leading thoroughfares, already lit up, its shops gleaming brightly with the gas-light, its ceaseless line of cabs, and omnibuses, and carriages.
At last, when her eyes were weary with looking, she murmured: “This—this—is the world then at last.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. “This is the world, Una!”
“And are those palaces!” asked Una, as they passed through the West End streets and squares.
“No,” said Mrs. Davenant; “they are only houses, in which rich people dwell, as you would call it.”
“And the trees! Are there no trees?” asked Una, with, for the first time, a sigh.
“Not here, dear. There are some in the parks; some even in the middle of the city itself. You will miss your trees, Una.”
“Yes, I shall miss my trees. But this—this world seems so large; I thought that——”
“Well,” said Mrs. Davenant, amused with her bewilderment.
“I thought that people in the world knew each other; but that is impossible.”
And she sighed, as she thought that, after all, now that she was in the world, she was no nearer that one being who, for her, was the principal person in it.
“Very few people know each other, Una. It’s a big world, this London. I wonder whether you will be happy?”
Una turned to her with a look upon her face that would have melted a sterner heart than Mrs. Davenant’s.
“I shall be happy, if you will love me,” she said.
Something in the frank, simple reply made Mrs. Davenant tremble. What had she undertaken in the charge of this simple, pure-natured girl, whose beauty caused people to turn and stare at her, and whose innocence was that of a child?
Through miles and miles of streets, as it seemed to Una, the cab made its slow, rumbling way; houses, that were palaces in her eyes, flitted past; and at last they stopped before a palace, as it seemed to Una, in a quiet square.
The door of the house opened, and a servant came out and opened the cab door.
In silent wonderment Una entered the hall, lit with its gas-lamps and lined with flowers, and followed Mrs. Davenant into what was really the drawing-room of a house in Walmington Square; but which seemed to Una to be the principal apartment in some enchanted castle.
But true to her resolve, she stood calm and silent, feeling,rather than seeing, that the eyes of the servant were fixed upon her with curious interest.
“Come upstairs, Una, dear,” said Mrs. Davenant, and Una followed her into another fairy chamber. Flowers, of which Mrs. Davenant, like most nervous persons, was inordinately fond, seemed everywhere: they lined the staircase and the landing, and bloomed in every available corner.
Mrs. Davenant entered her own room, then opened a door into an adjoining one.
“This is your room, my dear,” she said. “If—if—you like it——”
“Like it!” said Una, with open eyes and beating heart. “Is—is this really mine?” and she looked round the dainty room with incredulous admiration.
“If—if you like it, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant.
“How could I do otherwise? It is too beautiful for me——”
“I don’t think anything could be too beautiful for you, Una,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a significance that was entirely lost on Una. “If there is anything you want—I can’t give you any trees, you know.”
“I shan’t want trees while the flowers are here. It is nothing but flowers.”
“I am very fond of them,” said Mrs. Davenant, meekly. “You will hear a bell ring in half an hour; come to me then, I shall wait in the next room for you. I will not lock the door,” and she left her.
Una felt dazed and stunned for a few minutes, then she made what preparations were possible. She chose from her box, which had been conveyed to her room by some invisible agency apparently, a plain muslin dress, and, more by instinct than any prompting of vanity, fastened a rose in her hair.
She had scarcely completed her simple toilet when the bell rang, and she went into the next room.
A maid servant—Una noticed that it was not the one who had opened the door—was in attendance upon Mrs. Davenant, and dropped a courtesy as Mrs. Davenant said, in her nervous, hesitating fashion:
“This is Miss Rolfe, Jane.”
Una smiled, and was about to hold out her hand, but stopped, seeing no movement of a similar kind on the part of the neatly-dressed girl.
“Jane is my own maid, Una,” said Mrs. Davenant. “She will attend to you when you want her.”
Jane dropped another courtesy, but Una detected a glance of curiosity and scrutiny at the plain white muslin.
“Come,” said Mrs. Davenant, “let us go down. Dinner is ready,” and she led the way down-stairs.
Another fairy apartment broke upon Una’s astonished vision as they entered the dining-room.
Small as the houses are in Walmington Square, Una, accustomed only to the small room in the hut, thought that this dining-room was large enough to be the banquet hall of princes.
But, whatever surprise Una felt, she, mindful of her resolve, concealed.
Not even the maid in waiting could find anything to condemn. When she went down-stairs her verdict was favorable.
“Whoever she is,” she said, “she’s a lady. But where on earth she comes from, goodness only knows. A plain muslin dress that might have come out of the ark.”
Dinner was over at last. A “last” that seemed to Una an eternity. Mrs. Davenant rose and beckoned her to follow, and they went into the drawing-room.
“Are you very tired, Una?”
“No,” said Una, thinking of her long wanderings in Warden Forest, “not tired at all, but very surprised.”
“Surprised?” said Mrs. Davenant, questioningly.
“Yes. Do all the people in London live like this—in such beautiful houses, with people to wait upon them, and with so many things to eat, and with such pretty things in the houses?”
“Not all,” said Mrs. Davenant, watching the tall, graceful figure as it moved to and fro—“not all. But it would take too long to explain. You think these are pretty things; what will you say when you see the great sights—sights which we Londoners think nothing of?”
Una did not answer; she had been looking round the room at the pictures, mostly portraits, on the walls.
“Are these pictures of friends of yours?” she said. “Who is that?”
“That? That is the portrait of a man I was speaking of in the train. That is Ralph—Squire Davenant—when he was a young man.”
It was a portrait of Ralph Davenant in his best—and worst—days. It had been painted when men wore their hair long, and brushed from their foreheads. One hand, white as the driven snow, was thrust in his breast, the other held a riding-whip.
Una looked at it long and earnestly, and Mrs. Davenant, impressed by her long silence, rose and stood beside her.
“Yes,” she said, “that is Ralph Davenant. It was painted when he was about your age, my dear. Ah——”
“What is the matter?”
Mrs. Davenant, pale and excited, took up a hand-mirror from one of the tables and held it in front of Una.
“Look!” she exclaimed.
“Well?” she said.
“Well?” echoed Mrs. Davenant. “Don’t you see? Look again. The very image! It is himself come to life again; it is Ralph Davenant turned woman!” she exclaimed.
And before Una could glance at the glass a second time Mrs. Davenant threw it aside.
“Am I so like?” said Una, with a smile. “How mysterious! And that is so beautiful a face.”
“Beautiful eyes, and you are——” said Mrs. Davenant, but stopped in time, warned by Una’s frank, questioning gaze. “If you like to look at portraits,” she said, “there is an album there; look over that.”
Una took up the album and turned over its pages; suddenly she stopped, and the color flew to her face.
With unconcealed eagerness she came toward Mrs. Davenant with the open album in her hand.
“Look!” she said; “who is that?”
“That,” said Mrs. Davenant, peering at it, “that is—Jack Newcombe.”
“Jack Newcombe,” said Una, breathlessly. “You know him?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. “Poor Jack! Shut the book, my dear.”
“Why do you say ‘Poor Jack?’” said Una, with a hollow look in her beautiful eyes.
“Because—because he is a wicked young man, my dear,” said Mrs. Davenant. “Poor Jack!”
Amidst a profound silence Jack walked slowly and quietly out of the house. There was no anger in his heart against the old man whose favorite he had once been—for the moment there was scarcely any anger against Stephen; surprise and bewilderment overwhelmed every other feeling.
He had not expected a large sum of money—had certainly not expected the Hurst; and but for the words spoken by the dying man, he would not have expected anything at all, after having offended him in the matter of the money-lenders and the post-obit. But most assuredly the squire had intimated that there would be something—something, however small.
And now he was told that there was nothing, that his name was not even mentioned.
Apart from any mercenary consideration, Jack was cut up and disappointed; if there had been a simple mourning ring, a few of the old guns out of the armory—anything as a token of the old man’s forgiveness, he would have been satisfied; but nothing, not one word.
Then, again, he could not understand it, near his end as he was when he spoke to him. The squire was as sane and clear-headed as he had been at any time of his life, or at least so it seemed to Jack; and he certainly had given him to understand that he had left him some portion of his immense wealth.
It was another link in the chain of mysteries which had seemed to coil around Jack since he started from London.
Slowly and thoughtfully he made his way back to the “Bush,” and began to pack up the small portmanteau which had been sent from town.
Hurst Leigh was no place for him; every minute heremained in it seemed intolerable to him. He would go straight back to town by the next train.
Suddenly a thought struck him, and he paused in his task of packing the portmanteau, an operation which he reduced to its simplest by thrusting in anything that came first and jamming it down tight with his fist; he stopped and looked up with a red flush on his handsome face. Why shouldn’t he go to Warden Forest on his way back?
In a moment, the idea thrilled him with the delight of anticipation, the next, a shade came over his brow. Why shouldn’t he? Rather, whyshouldhe? What was the use of his going? If he had no business there before, he had less excuse now. He was next door to a beggar—and——
Realizing for the first time the blow that had been dealt him by the squire’s neglect, he continued at the jamming process, jumped and kicked at the portmanteau till it consented to be locked, and then went down to the bar and called for his bill.
There were several people hanging about—a funeral is a good excuse for a holiday in a country village—but Jack, in his abstraction, scarcely noticed the little group of men who sat and stood about, and merely nodded in response to the respectful and kindly greetings.
“But, Mr. Jack,” said Jobson, with a deeply respectful air of surprise, “you don’t think of going right away at once, sir?”
“Yes, I’m off, Jobson,” said Jack. “What’s the next train?”
“To London?” said a dry, thin voice behind him; and Jack turned and saw Mr. Hudsley’s clerk—old Skettle. “There’s no train to London till seven o’clock; there’s a train to Arkdale in an hour, but it stops there.”
“All right,” he said, “I’ll go to Arkdale; and, by the way, Jobson, I don’t want to be bothered with the portmanteau; send it on by rail to my address—Spider Court, the Temple, you know.”
Jobson touched his cap, and while he was making out the bill Jack lit his pipe and paced up and down, his hands in his pockets, the knot of men watching him out of the corners of their eyes with sympathetic curiosity.
Jack paid the bill—so moderate a one that he capped it with half a sovereign over; and with a “good-day” all round, started off. He had not got further than the signpost, when he felt a touch on his arm, and, turning, saw that old Skettle had followed him.
“Halloa,” said Jack, in his blunt way, “what’s the matter?”
The old man looked up at him from under his wrinkled lids, and fumbled at his mouth in a cautious sort of a way.
“I’m very sorry things have gone on so crooked up at the Hurst, Master Jack,” he said, respectfully.
“But not more sorry than I am, Skettle, thank you.”
“I’m afraid it’s rather unexpected, Master Jack,” he continued, his small, keen eyes fixed, not on Jack, but on his second waistcoat-button, counting from the top.
“Well, yes, it is,” said Jack, tugging at his mustache. “Very much so. I’ve got a hit in the bread-basket this time, Skettle, and I’m on my back again.”
Old Skettle looked a keen glance at the handsome face and frank eyes that were looking rather ruefully at the ground.
“Hitting below the belt is not considered fair, is it, Master Jack?” he asked.
“Eh, what?” said Jack, who had not been paying much attention. “No, according to the rules; but what do you mean by the question? You are always such a mysterious old idiot, you know. You can’t help it, I suppose.”
Old Skettle smiled, if the extraordinary contortion of the wrinkled face could be called by so flattering a designation.
“I’ve seen such mysterious things since I first went into Mr. Hudsley’s office to sweep the floor——”
“Now, then,” said Jack, “none of that game; going into the old story, which I have heard a hundred times, of how you went as an office boy, and have risen to the proud position of confidential clerk. You’re like one of the old fellows in the play, who draws a chair up to the footlights, and says, ‘It’s seven long years ago——’ and the people begin to clear out into the refreshment bar, and wait there till he’s done. Where were you? Oh, ‘mysterious experiences.’ Well, go on.”
But old Skettle had, apparently, nothing to say; he had, while Jack had been speaking, changed his mind.
“I beg pardon for stopping you, Master Jack,” he said. “I felt I couldn’t let you go out of the old place without expressing my sympathy.”
“Thanks, thanks,” said Jack, holding out his hand. “You’re one of the right sort, Skettle, and so’s Hudsley. I believe he’s sorry, too. Looks a little puzzled, too. Puzzled isn’t the word for what I feel. I’ve got the sensation one experiences when he’s been sitting through one of the old-fashioned melo-dramas. Not even a mourning-ring, or a walking-stick. Poor Squire—well, I forgive him. He had a right to do what he liked with his own.”
“Just so, Master Jack, but it’s hard for you,” said Skettle. “Not a mourning-ring. By the way, sir,” and something like a blush crept over his wrinkled face. “If—if you should be in want of a little money——”
Jack stared, then laughed grimly.
“Well, you certainly must be mad, Skettle,” he interrupted. “Want money! When didn’t I want it? But don’t you be idiot enough to lend me any. It would be a jolly bad speculation, old fellow. There is not a Jew in London would take my paper. No, Skettle, it would be downright robbery, and I don’t think I could rob you, you know.”
“Do you remember the day you swam across the mill-pond, and fished my little boy out, Master Jack?”
“You take care I shan’t forget it, Skettle,” said Jack, with a smile. “It was a noble deed, wasn’t it? Every time you mention it, I try to feel like a hero, but it won’t come. How is little Ned?”
“He’s well, sir; he’s in London now, working his way up. He’d have been in the church-yard if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Why, Skettle, this is worse than ‘’Twas seven long years ago!’” exclaimed Jack.
“On that day, Master Jack, I swore that if ever a time came when I’d a chance of serving you, I’d do it. It did not seem very likely then, for we all thought you’d be the next squire; but now, Master Jack, I should be grateful if you’d borrow ten pounds of me.”
“Nonsense,” cried Jack. “Don’t be an idiot, Skettle.Youa lawyer! why, you’re too soft for anything but a washerwoman. There, good-bye; remember me to little Ned when you write, and tell him I hope he’ll grow up a little harder than his father. Good-bye,” and he shook the thin, skinny claw heartily.
Old Skettle stood and looked after him, his right hand fumbling in his waistcoat pocket; and when Jack had got quite out of sight he pulled the hand out, and with it a small scrap of paper with a few words written on it, and a seal. It was just such a scrap of paper which might have been torn from a letter, and the seal was the Davenant seal, with its griffin and spear plainly stamped.
Old Skettle looked at it a moment curiously, then shook his head.
“No, I was right after all in not giving it to him; it may be nothing—nothing at all. And yet—it’s the squire’s handwriting, for it’s his seal, and what was it lying outside the terrace for? Where’s the other part of it, and what was the other part like? I’ll keep it. I don’t say that there’s any good in it, but I’ll keep it. Not a mourning-ring or a walking-stick! All—house, lands, money—to Mr. Stephen, with the sneaking face and the silky tongue. Poor Master Jack! I—I wish he’d taken that ten-pound note; it burns a hole in my pocket. Not—a—mourning-ring,” he muttered. “It’s not like the squire, for he was fond of Master Jack, and if I’m not half the idiot he called me, the old man hated Mr. Stephen. I seem to feel that there’s something wrong. I’ll keep this bit of paper;” and he restored the scrap to its place and returned to the “Bush” with as much expression on his face as one might expect to see on a blank skin of parchment.
Jack was more moved than he would have liked to admit by old Skettle’s sympathy and offer of assistance, and in a softened mood, produced by the little incident, sat and smoked his pipe with a lighter spirit.
After all he was young, and—and—well, things might turn up; at any rate, if the worst came to the worst, he could earn his living at driving a coach-and-four, or, say, as a navvy.
“I shouldn’t make a bad light porter,” he mused, “onlythere are no light porters now. I wonder what will become of me. Anyhow, I’d rather live on an Abernethy biscuit a day than take a penny from Stephen or borrow ten pounds from Skettle. Stephen. Squire of Hurst Leigh! He’ll make a funny squire. I don’t believe he knows a pheasant from a barn-door fowl, or a Berkshire pig from a pump-handle. I should have made a better squire than he. Never mind; it’s no use crying over spilt milk!”
Jack was certainly not the man to cry over milk spilt or strewn, and long before the train had reached Arkdale he had forgotten his ill-luck and the mystery attending the will, and all his thoughts were fixed on the beautiful girl who dwelt in a woodman’s hut in the midst of Warden Forest.
Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest, and Jack felt that the fruit was forbidden here. What on earth business had he, a ruined man, to be lounging about Warden, or any other forest, in the hope of getting a sight of, or a few words with, a girl, whom, be she as lovely as a peri, could be nothing to him? What good could he do? On the contrary, perhaps, a great deal of harm; for ten to one the woodman would cut up rough, and there would be a row.
But he felt, somehow, that he had made a promise, and promises were sacred things to Jack—excepting always promises to pay—and a row had rather a charm for him.
Nevertheless, when the train drew up at Arkdale Station, he had quite resolved to wait until the London train came up, and as such resolutions generally end, it ended in giving up the idea and starting for Warden.
Jack was not sentimental. Men with good appetites and digestions seldom are; but his heart beat as he entered the charmed center of the great elms and oaks which fringed the forest, and the whole atmosphere seemed full of a strange fascination.
“I wonder what she will say, how she will look?” he kept asking himself. “I’d walk a thousand miles to hear her voice, to look into her eyes. Oh, I’m a worse idiot than old Skettle! What can her eyes and her voice be to me? By Jove, though, I might turn woodman and—and——”marry her, he was going to say, but the thought seemed so bold, so—well, so coarse in connection with such a beautiful person, that Jack actually blushed and frowned at his effrontery.
He found no difficulty in recognizing the way, and strode along at a good pace, which, however, grew slower as he neared the clearing in which stood Gideon Rolfe’s cottage, and just before he emerged from the wood into it he stopped, and felt with a faint wonder that his heart was beating fast.
It was a new sensation for Master Jack, and it upset him.
“This won’t do,” he said; “I must keep cool. A child would get the better of me while I am like this; and I mustn’t forget I’ve got to face that wooden-faced woodman. Courage, my boy, courage!”
And with a resolute front he stepped into the clearing.
Yes, there was the cottage, but why on earth were the shutters up.
With a strange misgiving he walked up to the door and knocked.
There was no answer. He knocked again and again—still no answer.
Then he stepped back and looked up at the chimney. There was no smoky trail rising through the trees. He listened—there was no sound. His heart sank and sank till he felt as if it had entered his boots.
With a kind of desperate hope he knelt on the window-sill and looked through a hole in the shutter into the room.
It was bare of furniture—empty, desolate.
He got down again and looked about him like one who, having buried a treasure, goes to the spot and finds that it has gone.
Gone—that was the word—and no sign!
It was incredible. Three days—only three days. What had happened? Was—was anyone dead? And at this thought his face grew as pale as the tan would allow it.
No; that was absurd. People—she—could not have died and been buried in three days! Then, where was she? Was it possible that the old man had actually leftthe wood—thrown up his livelihood—because of his (Jack’s) visit to the cottage?
A great deal more disturbed and upset than he had been over the squire’s will, he paced up and down. He sat down on the seat outside the window—the seat where he had drunk his cider and eaten his cake—the seat where Mrs. Davenant sat so patiently—and he lit his pipe and smoked in utter bewilderment.
Disappointment is but a lukewarm word by which to describe his feelings.
He felt that he had looked forward to seeing Una as a sort of set-off against the terrible blow which the squire’s will had dealt him, and now she was gone!
I am afraid to say how many hours he sat smoking and musing, in the vain hope that she, or Gideon Rolfe, or someone would come to tell him something about it; but at last he realized that she had indeed flown; that the nest which had contained the beautiful bird was empty and void; and with a heart that felt like lead, he set out for Wermesley.
By chance, more than calculation, he caught the up-train, and was whirled into London.
Weary, exhausted rather, he signaled a hansom, and was driven to Spider Court.
Spider Court is not an easy place to find. It is in the heart of the Temple, and consists of about ten houses, every one of which, like a Chinese puzzle, contains a number of houses within itself.
Barristers—generally briefless—inhabit Spider Court; but it is the refuge of the hard-working literary man, and of the members of that strange class which is always waiting for “something to turn up.”
Jack ascended the stairs of No. 5, passed various doors bearing the names of the occupants on the other side of them, and opened a door which bore the legend:
“Leonard Dagle.“John Newcombe.”
painted in small black letters on its cross-panel.
It was not a large room, and it was plainly furnished; but it looked comfortable. Its contents looked rather incongruous.
At the end of the room, close by the window, which only allowed about four hours of daylight to enter it, stood a table crowded with papers, presenting that appearance which ladies generally call “a litter.” The table and book-shelf, filled with heavy-looking volumes, would give one the impression that the room belonged to a barrister or a literary man, if it were not for a set of boxing-gloves and a pair of fencing foils, which hung over the fireplace, and the prints of ballet-girls and famous actresses which adorned the walls.
As Jack entered the room, a man, who was sitting at the table, turned his head, and peering through the gloom which a single candle only served to emphasize, exclaimed:
“Jack, is that you?”
The speaker was the Leonard Dagle whose name appeared conjointly with Jack’s on the door of the chambers.
Seen by the light of the single candle, Leonard Dagle looked handsome; it was left for the daylight to reveal the traces which life’s battle had cut in his regular features. One had only to glance at the face to be reminded of the old saying of the sword wearing the scabbard. It was the face of a man who had fought the hard fight of one hand against the world, and had not yet won the victory.
Leonard Dagle was Jack’s old chum; friends he had in plenty—dangerous friends many of them—but Leonard was his brother and companion in arms. They had shared the same rooms, the same tankard of bitter, sometimes the same crust, for years.
There was not a secret between them. Either would have given the other his last penny and felt grateful for the acceptance of it. It was a singular friendship, for no two men could be more unlike than Leonard Dagle, the hard-working barrister, and Jack Newcombe, the spendthrift, the ne’er-do-well, and—the Savage.
“Is that you, Jack?” exclaimed Leonard, straightening his back. “Home already?”
“Yes, I’m back.”
“What’s the matter—tired?”
“Tired—bored—humbled—thoroughly used up! I’ve got news for you, Len.”
“Bad or good?”
“Bad as they can be. First the squire’s dead!”
“Dead?”
“Yes, dead and buried. Poor old fellow!”
“I am very sorry. Then you—then you—am I addressing the Squire of Hurst Leigh?”
“You are addressing the pauper of Spider Court.”
“Jack, what do you mean?”
“I mean that the poor old fellow has died and left me nothing—not even a mourning-ring.”
“I’m very sorry. Left you nothing, my dear old man!”
“Don’t pity me. I can’t stand that. Say serves you right, say anything. After all, what did I deserve?”
“But you expected something,” said Leonard.
“Yes, and no. I expected nothing till I got there, and then did. I saw him for a few minutes before he died, and he said—certainly said—that I—well, that there would be something for me.”
“And there is nothing.”
“Not a stiver. Mind I don’t complain, Len. I didn’t deserve it.”
“Where has it all gone? He was a rich man, was he not?” asked Leonard.
“Rich as a Crœsus,” replied Jack, “and it has all gone to Stephen Davenant.”
“That is the man that goes in for philanthropy and all that sort of thing.”
“That’s the man,” replied Jack.
“Tell me all about it,” said Leonard, after a long pause.
And, with many pauses, Jack told his story.
Leonard Dagle listened intently.
“It’s a strange story, Jack,” he said. “I—I—it rather puzzles me. There could be—of course, there could be nothing wrong.”
“Wrong, how do you mean?” exclaimed Jack.
“Well, Stephen Davenant’s conduct is rather peculiar—isn’t it?”
“Oh, he’s half out of his mind,” said Jack, carelessly. “He has been playing a close game for the money, and hanging about the old man till he has got as hysterical as a girl. What do you think could be wrong? Everythingwas as correct as it could be—family lawyer, who made out the will, and all the rest of it.”
“Then you think the squire was wandering in his mind at last?”
“That’s it,” said Jack. “He wanted to provide for me—to leave me something, and he fancied he’d done it. It’s often the case, isn’t it?”
“I’ve met with such cases,” said Leonard.
“Just so,” said Jack. “Is there anything to drink?” he asked, abruptly, as if he wanted to change the subject.
“There’s some whiskey——”
Jack mixed himself a tumbler and sat on the edge of the table, and Leonard Dagle leaned back and watched him.
“There’s something else, Jack,” he said. “Out with it; what is it?”
“What a fellow you are, Len. You are like one of those mesmeric men; there’s no keeping anything from you. Well, I’ve had an adventure.”
“An adventure?”
“Yes, I’m half under the impression that it’s nothing but a dream. Len, I’ve seen the most beautiful—the most—Len, do you believe in witches? Not the old sort, but the young ones—sirens, didn’t they call them; who used to haunt the woods and forests and tempt travelers into quagmires and ditches. The innocent-looking kind of sirens, you know. Well, I’ve seen one!”
“Jack, you’ve been drinking; put that glass down.”
“Have I? Then I haven’t. Look here,” and he told the story of his wanderings in Warden, and all it had led up to.
“How’s that for an adventure?” he said, when he had finished.
“It would do for a mediæval romance. And she has gone, you say?”
“Clean gone,” said Jack, with a sigh and a long pull at the tumbler. “Gone like a—a dream, you know. How is that for an adventure? You don’t believe in them, though.”
Leonard Dagle looked up, and there was a strange, half-shy expression in his face.
“You are right, Jack. I didn’t till the day before yesterday.”
“The day before yesterday? What do you mean?”
“Simply that I, too, have had an adventure.”
“Seems to me that we’re like those confounded nuisances who used to meet on a coach and tell stories to amuse themselves. Go on; it’s your turn now.”
“Mine’s soon told. After you started for Hurst Leigh I got a letter from a man at Wermesley——”
“Wermesley!” exclaimed Jack. “Why——”
“Yes, it is on the same line. He wanted me to go down to look over some deeds, and I went. I took a return ticket and got into the last train. When I got into the carriage—I went ‘first’ on the strength of the business—I saw a young lady—mind, a young lady—seated in a corner. It struck me as rather odd that a young girl should be traveling alone at this time of night, and I shifted about until I could get a good look at her. Jack, you’re not the only man that has seen a beautiful girl within the last week.”
“Beautiful, eh?” cried Jack, interested.
“Beautiful in my eyes. The sort of face that Cleopatra might have had when she was that girl’s age. I never saw such eyes, and I had plenty of opportunity of seeing them, for she seemed quite unconscious of my presence. Jack, I’m a shy man, and I’m often sorry for it, but I was never sorrier than I was then, for I’d have given anything to have been able to speak to her and hear her speak. There she sat, looking like a picture, quite motionless, with her eyes fixed on the flare of the lamp; and there I sat and couldn’t pluck up courage to say a word. At last we got to London; they came for the tickets, and she couldn’t find hers. I went down on my hands and knees, and at last I found the ticket under the seat. I looked at it as I gave it to the porter; and where do you think it was from?”
Jack shook his head. He didn’t think it much of an adventure after Una and Warden Forest.
“You’ll never guess. What do you say to Hurst Leigh?”
“Hurst Leigh! Why, who was she? Somebody I know, perhaps.”
“I found my tongue at last, and said, ‘You have had a long journey. Hurst Leigh is a beautiful place.’ And what do you think she said?”
Jack shook his head.
“She said, ‘I don’t know. I have never been there before today.’ That’s all until we got to the terminus, then I asked her if I could get her luggage. ‘I haven’t any,’ she said. ‘Could I get her a cab?’ I asked. Yes, I might get her a cab. I went and found a cab and put her in it; and, if I had a shadow of a doubt as to her being a lady, the way in which she thanked me would have dispelled it. I asked her where I should direct the cabman to drive, and she said 24 Cheltenham Terrace. And—and then she went.”
“Well?”
“Well, I—of course you’ll call me a fool, Jack, I am quite aware of that—I followed in another cab.”
“Good heavens! You’ve been drinking!”
“No. I followed, and when she had gone I knocked at the door of the next house and asked the name of the people who lived next door. They—for a wonder—were civil, and told me. She lives with her grandfather, and her name is Laura Treherne.”
“Her name is Laura Treherne,” said Leonard.
“Laura Treherne. Never heard the name before.”
“Nor I, but it belongs to the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen Una Rolfe,” put in Jack, coolly. “But I say, Len, what has come to us? We’ve both caught the universal epidemic at the same time. It’s nothing wonderful in me, you know—but you—you, who wouldn’t look at a woman! Have you got it bad, Len?”
“Very bad, Jack. Yes, the time which Rosseau calls the supremest in one’s life, has come to me. As a novice in the art of love-making, I come to you for advice.”
“Why, it’s easy enough in your case. You know where to put your hand upon the lady. What are you to do? Why, disguise yourself as a sweep, and go and sweep the chimneys at 24 Cheltenham Square, or pretend you’re the tax collector, or ‘come to look at the gas meter.’ You’ve got half a dozen plans, but I—what am I to do? I’ve seen the most beautiful creature in existence, and if I’m not in love with her——”
“I should say you were,” said Leonard, gently.
“Yes, I am. I knew it when I found that confounded cottage empty. But what am I to do? I haven’t the faintest clew to her whereabouts. The old gentleman with the hatchet may have murdered his whole family—her included—or emigrated to Australia.”
“It is very strange. Didn’t you notice any sign of a move about the place the first night you were there?”
“No, none. Everything looked as if it had been going on for a hundred years—excepting Una—and meant to go on for another hundred. Len, I’m afraid we’ve been bewitched. Perhaps it’s all a dream; I haven’t been down to Hurst and you haven’t been down to Wermesley. We shall wake up directly—oh, no! The poor squire! Len, it’s all true, and we’re a couple of young fools!”
“Speak for yourself, old fellow. I have been a fool until three days ago, now I am as wise as Solomon, for I have learned what love is.”
“So have I—I have also learned the vanity of human wishes, and the next thing I shall have to learn will be some way of earning a livelihood. I should prefer an honest one, but—poor men can’t afford to be particular, and honesty doesn’t seem to pay now-a-days. I feel so hard up and reckless that I could become a bank director or a member of Parliament without feeling a pang of conscience.”
Leonard looked up at him, for the vein of bitterness was plainly to be detected running through Jack’s banter; and Leonard knew that when Jack was bitter—which was but once a year, say—he was reckless.
“We must talk it over. Sit down—get off that table; you’re making a perfect hash of my papers—and let’s talk it over. You won’t go out tonight.”
“Yes, I shall. I shall go down to the club.”
“No, no, keep away from the club tonight, Jack.”
“What are you afraid of? Do you think I shall want to gamble? I’ve no money to lose.”
“That’s the very reason you’ll want to play. Do keep at home tonight.”
“I couldn’t do it, old man,” he said. “I’m on wires—I’m all on fire. If I sat here much longer, I should get up suddenly, murder you, and sack the place. The Savage has got his paint on, and is on the trail.”
“Don’t be a fool, Jack. You are hot and upset. Keep away from the club tonight. Well, well—let theecartealone, at any rate.”
“All right, I’ll promise you that. I won’t touch a card tonight.Ecarte!I couldn’t play beggar-my-neighbor tonight! Len, I wish you were a bigger man; I’d get up a row, and have a turn-to with you. Sit down here! I couldn’t do it. I want to be doing something—something desperate. You can sit here and dream over your complaint; I can’t—I should go mad! Don’t sit up for me.”
Leonard looked after him as he disappeared into one of the two bedrooms which adjoined the common sitting-room, and, with a shake of his head, muttered, “Poor Jack!” and returned to his work.
Jack took a cold bath, dressed himself, and merely pausing to shout a good-night, as he passed down the stairs, went into the street, and jumped into a hansom, telling the man to drive to the Hawks’ Club.
It was rather early for the “Hawks,” and only a few of them had fluttered in. It was about the last club that such a man as Jack should have been a member of. It was fast, it was expensive, it was fashionable, and the chief reason for its existence lay in the fact that play at any time, and to any extent, could be obtained there.
When Jack entered the cardroom, that apartment was almost empty, but the suspicious-looking tables were surrounded by chairs stuck up on two legs, denoting that they were engaged, and those men who were present were all playing.
Every head was turned as he entered, and a buzz of greeting rose to welcome him.
“Halloa; you back, Jack!” said a tall, military-looking man, who was known as the “Indian Nut,” because he was one of the most famous of our Indian colonels. “You’re just in time to take a hand at loo.”
“No; come and join us,” said young Lord Pierrepoint, from another table, at which nap was being played.
But if you could only wring a promise out of Jack, you could rest perfectly certain that he would keep it; and he shook his head firmly.
“Nary a card.”
“What! Don’t you feel well, Jack?”
“No, I’m hungry. I’m going to get something to eat.”
“Dear me, I didn’t know you did eat, Jack. However, man, come and sit down, and don’t fidget about the room like that.”
“Len’s right, the club won’t do neither. I couldn’t hold a card straight tonight. I’ll get some dinner, and go back, and we’ll have it all over again.”
It was a wise and virtuous resolution; and, unlike most resolves, Jack meant to keep it. But alas! before he had got through with his soup, the door opened and two men strolled in.
They were both young and well-known. The one was Sir Arkroyd Hetley; the other, the young Lord Dalrymple, whose coronet had scarcely yet warmed his forehead, as the French say.
Both of them uttered an exclamation at seeing Jack, and made straight for his table.
“Why, here’s the Savage!” exclaimed Dalrymple. “Back to his native forest primeval.”
“Been on the war trail, Jack?” asked Sir Arkroyd. “How are the squaws and wigwams? Seriously, where have you been, old man?”
“Yes, I have been on the war trail,” he said.
“And got some scalps, I hope,” said Dalrymple. “What are you doing—dining? What do you say, Ark, shall we join him? It’s so long since I’ve eaten anything that I should like to watch a man do it before I make an attempt.”
The footman put chairs and rearranged the table, and the two men chatted and conned over thecarte.
“You don’t look quite the thing, Jack. Been going it in the forest, or what?”
“Yes, I’ve been going it in the forest, Dally.”
“Been hunting the buffalo and chumming up with his old friend, Spotted Bull,” said Arkroyd. “Bet you anything he hasn’t been out of London, Dally.”
“Take him,” said Jack. “I’ve been out of London on a little matter of business.”
“He’s been robbing a bank,” said Arkroyd, “or breaking one.”
“Neither. Stop chaffing, you two, and tell a fellow what’s going on.”
“Shall we tell him, Dally? Perhaps he’ll try to cut us out. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to start a joint stock company, all club together, you know, and work it in that way, the one who wins to share with the other fellows.”
“Wins what? What on earth are you talking about? Is it a sweepstake, a handicap, or what——”
“No, my noble Savage. It’s the heiress.”
“Oh,” said Jack, indifferently, and he sipped his claret critically.
“What has come to you, Jack? Have you decided to cut the world or have heiresses become unnecessary? Perhaps someone has left you a fortune, old man; if so, nobody will be more delighted than I shall be—to help you spend it.”
A flush rose to Jack’s face, and his eyes flashed. He had been drinking great bumpers of the Hawks’ favorite claret—a heady wine which Jack should never have touched at any time, especially not tonight.
“No, no one has left me a fortune; quite the reverse. But you’d better tell me about this heiress, I see, or you’ll die of disappointment. Who is she—where is she?—what is she? Here’s her good health, whoever she is,” and down went another bumper of the Lafitte; and as it went down, it was to Una he drank, not to the unknown one.
“Do you remember Earlsley?” said Arkroyd. “Oh, no, of course not, you must have been in your cradle in the wigwam in that time. Well; old Wigsley died and left his money to a fifty-second cousin, who turned out to be a girl. No one knew anything about her; no one knew where to find her; but at last there comes a claimant inthe shape of a girl from one of the Colonies—Canada. That isn’t a colony, is it, though? Australia—anywhere—nobody knows, you know. She came over with her belongings—a rum-looking old fellow, with a white head of long hair, like, a—a—what’s got a long head of white hair, Dally?”
“Try patriarch,” murmured the marquis.
“Well, in addition to the money, and there’s about a million, more or less—she’s got the most beautiful, that isn’t the word, most charming, fascinating little face you ever saw. If she looks at you, you feel as if you never could feel an ache or pain again as long as you lived.”
“Ark, you’ve had too much champagne.”
“No; ’pon my honor. Isn’t it right, Dally?”
“Yes, and if she smiles,” said Dalrymple, “you never could feel another moment’s unhappiness. The prettiest mouth—and when it opens, her teeth——”
“Oh, confound it!” exclaimed Jack, brusquely. “You needn’t run over her points as if she were a horse; I don’t want to buy her.”
As a matter of fact, he had only caught the last word or two, for while Arkroyd had been talking he had been thinking of that other beautiful girl—not a doll, with teeth and a smile, but an angel, pure and ethereal—a dream—not a fascinating heiress.
“Buy her!” exclaimed Arkroyd. “Listen to him! Don’t I tell you she’s worth a million?”
“And I’d make her Countess of Dalrymple tomorrow if she hadn’t a penny, and would have me,” said Dalrymple.
“Try her,” said Jack, curtly.
“No use, my dear Savage,” he said, tugging at his incipient fringe of down ruefully. “She won’t have anything to say to yours truly, or to any one of us for that matter. She only smiles when we say pretty things, and shows her teeth at us. Besides, the title wouldn’t tempt her. She’s got one already. Don’t I tell you she’s one of the Earlsley lot? No; we’ve all had a try, even Arkroyd. He even went so far as to get a fellow to write a poem about her in one of the society journals, and signed it ‘A. H.;’ but she told him to his face that she didn’t care for poetry. It was a pretty piece, too, wasn’t it, Ark?”
“First-rate,” said Arkroyd, with as much modesty as if he had written it. “But it was all thrown away on Lady Bell.”
“On whom?” said Jack, waking up again.
“On Lady Bell—Isabel Earlsley is her name. You’re wool-gathering tonight, Jack.”
“Oh, Lady Bell, is it?” said Jack, carelessly. “Go ahead. Anything else?”
“No, that’s all, excepting that I’ll wager a cool thousand to a china orange that you’ll change your tone when you see her, Savage.”
“Perhaps,” said Jack, “but your description doesn’t move me; not much, Ark. You’re not good at that sort of thing. It isn’t in your line. The only things you seem to have remarked are her smile and her teeth.”
“Savage, you are, as usual, blunt, not to say rude. Let us have another bottle of Cliquot.”
Jack shook his head, but another bottle came up, and he sat and took his share in silence, and, indeed, almost unconsciously. For all the attention he paid to the chatter of his two friends they might not have been present.
His thoughts flew backward to the shady grove of Warden Forest, to the girl who, like a vision of purity and innocence and loveliness, had floated like a dream across his life.
He gave one passing thought to Len, too, and his story.
It was a strange coincidence that they should both have met their fates at one and the same time, or nearly so.
He would have thought it stranger still if he could have lifted the veil of the future and seen how closely the web of his life was woven with the woof, not only of Una’s, but of Laura Treherne, and also of Lady Bell Earlsley.
All unconscious he had turned a leaf of his life’s book, and had begun a new chapter in which these three women were to take a part.
But he sat and drank the champagne, knowing nothing of this, and—I am sorry to have to say it—he was rapidly arriving at that condition in which it is dangerous to be within a mile of that fascinating fluid. When a man passes from a state of half-feverish restlessness and dissatisfaction to one of comparative comfort, and that by theaid of the cheering glass, it is time to put the cheering glass aside and go home.
Jack did not go home; on the contrary, he went into the billiard-room, and Cliquot followed, as a matter of course.
For a time Jack had managed to forget everything excepting his promise to Len; he would not enter the card-room, but he stuck to pool and champagne.