All such things touch secret stringsFor heavy hearts to bear.
“And you don’t seem to care.”
Agatha smiled a little inward smile of triumph.
“Don’t I?” she answered, with a sidelong glance beneath her lashes.
Luke stared straight in front of him with set lips. He looked a dangerous man to trifle with, and what woman can keep her hands out of such danger as this?
They were walking backwards and forwards on the broad promenade deck of theCroonah, and theCroonahwas gliding through the grey waters of the Atlantic. To their left lay the coast of Portugal smiling in the sunshine. To their right the orb of day himself, lowering cloudless to the horizon. Ahead, bleak and lonely, lay the dread Burlings. The maligned Bay of Biscay lay behind, and already a large number of the passengers had plucked up spirit to leave the cabin stairs, crawling on deck to lie supine in long chairs and talk hopefully of calmer days to come.
Agatha had proved herself to be a good sailor. She walked beside Luke FitzHenry with her usual dainty firmness of step and confidence of carriage. Luke himself--in uniform--looked sternly in earnest.
They had been talking of Gibraltar, where theCroonahwas to touch the next morning, and Luke had just told Agatha that he could not go ashore with her and Mrs. Ingham-Baker.
“Don’t I?” the girl reiterated with a little sigh.
“Well, it does not sound like it.”
“The truth is,” said Agatha, “that I have an inward conviction that it would only be more trouble than it is worth.”
“What would be more trouble than it is worth?”
“Going ashore.”
“Then you will not go?” he asked eagerly.
“I think not,” she answered, with demure downcast eyes.
And Luke FitzHenry was the happiest man on board theCroonah. There was no mistaking her meaning. Luke, who knew himself to be a pessimist--a man who persistently looked for ill-fortune--felt that her meaning could not well be other than that she preferred remaining on board because he could not go ashore.
The dinner bell rang out over the quiet decks, and, with a familiar little nod, Agatha turned away from her companion.
The next morning saw theCroonahspeeding past Trafalgar’s heights. There was a whistling breeze from the west; and over the mountains of Tarifa and the far gloomy fastness of Ceuta hung clouds and squalls. The sea, lashed to white flecks, raced through the straits, and every now and then a sharp shower darkened the face of the waters. There was something forbidding and mysterious in the scene, something dark and foreboding over the coast-line of Africa. All eyes were fixed on the Rock, now slowly appearing from behind the hills that hide Algeciras.
Luke was on duty on the bridge, motionless at his post. It was a simple matter to these mariners to make for the anchorage of Gibraltar, and Luke was thinking of Agatha. He was recalling a thousand little incidents which came back with a sudden warm thrill into his heart, the chilled, stern heart of a disappointed man. He was recollecting words that she had said, silences which she had kept, glances which she had given him. And all told him the same thing. All went to the core of his passionate, self-consuming heart.
The bay now lay before him, dotted here and there by close-reefed sails. A few steamers lay at anchor, and, beyond the old Mole, black coal hulks peacefully stripped of rigging. Suddenly Luke lifted the lid of the small box affixed to the rail in front of him and sought his glasses. For some seconds he looked through the binoculars fixedly in the direction of the Mole. Then he moved towards the captain.
“That is theKittiwake,” he said.
“Thought it looked like her!” replied the captain, intent on his own affairs.
Luke went back to his post. TheKittiwake! And he was not glad. It was that that puzzled him. He was not glad. He was going to see Fitz after many years, and twins are different from other brothers. They usually see more of each other all through life. They are necessary to each other. Fitz and Luke had always corresponded as regularly as their roaming lives allowed. But for three years they had never met.
Luke stood with beating heart, his eyes fixed on the trim rakish-looking little gunboat lying at anchor immediately off the Mole. He was suddenly breathless. His light oil-skins oppressed him. There was a vague feeling within him that he had only begun to live within the last two weeks--all before that had been merely existence. And now he was living too quickly, without time to define his feelings. But the sensations were real enough. It does not take long to acquire a feeling.
After all he was not glad. His attention was required for a few moments to carry out an order, and he returned to his thought. He did not, however, think it out. He only knew that if Agatha had not been on board theCroonahhe would have been breathlessly impatient to see his brother. Therefore he did not want Agatha and Fitz to meet. And yet Fitz was quite different from other men. There was no harm in Fitz, and surely he could be trusted to see Agatha for a few hours without falling in love with her, without making Agatha love him.
Yet--Fitz had always succeeded where he, Luke, had failed. Fitz had always the good things of life. It was all luck. It had been luck from the very beginning. Another order required the second officer’s full mind and attention. There were a thousand matters to be attended to, for theCroonahwas enormous, unwieldy.
In the execution of his duties Luke began presently to forget himself. He did not attempt to define his thoughts. He did not even reflect that he knew so little of his brother that this meeting could not possibly cause him this sudden uneasiness, this foreboding care, fromthatside of the question. He did not fear for Fitz to meet Agatha, he really dreaded Agatha seeing Fitz.
TheCroonahmoved into her anchorage with that gentle strength which in a large steamer seems to indicate that she is thinking about it and doing it all herself. For in these days there is no shouting, no call of boatswain’s whistle; and the ordinary observer hardly notices the quietdeus ex machinâ, the man on the bridge.
Hardly had the anchor splashed home with a rattle of cable that vibrated through the ship, when a small white boat shot out from behind the smartKittiwake, impelled by the short and regular beat of ten oars. There was a man seated in the stern enveloped in a large black boat cloak--for Gibraltar harbour is choppy when the westerly breezes blow - a man who looked theCroonahup and down with a curious searching eye. The boat shot alongside the vast steamer--the bowman neatly catching a rope that was thrown to him--and the officer clambered up the swaying gangway.
He pushed his way gently through the passengers, the cloak flying partially open as he did so and displaying Her Majesty’s uniform. He treated all these people with that patient tolerance which belongs to the mariner when dealing with landsmen. They were so many sheep penned up in a conveyance. Well-dressed sheep, he admitted tacitly by the withdrawal of his dripping cloak from their contact, but he treated them in the bulk, failing to notice one more than another. He utterly failed to observe Agatha Ingham-Baker, dainty and fresh in blue serge and a pert sailor hat. She knew him at once, and his want of observation was set down in her mind against him. She did not want him to recognise her. Not at all. She merely wanted him to look at her, and then to look again--to throw a passing crumb of admiration to her greedy vanity, which lived on such daily food.
Fitz, intent on his errand, pushed his way towards the steps leading up through the awning to the bridge. He seemed to know by some sailor instinct where to find it. He paused at the foot of the iron steps to give an order to the man who followed at his heel, and the attitude was Luke’s. The onlookers saw at a glance who this must be. The resemblance was startling. There was merely Luke FitzHenry over again, somewhat fairer, a little taller, but the same man.
The captain gave a sudden bluff laugh when Fitz emerged on the little spidery bridge far above the deck.
“No doubt who you are, sir,” he said, holding out his hand.
Then he stepped aside, and the two brothers met. They said nothing, merely shaking hands, and Luke’s eyes involuntarily went to the smart, simple uniform half hidden by the cloak. Fitz saw the glance and drew his cloak hastily round him. It was unfortunate.
And this was their meeting after three years.
“By George!” exclaimed Fitz, after a momentary pause, “sheisa fine ship!”
Luke rested his hands on the white painted rail--almost a caress to the great steamer--and followed the direction of his brother’s glance,
“Yes,” he admitted slowly, “yes, she is a good boat.”
And then his deep eyes wandered involuntarily towards the tinyKittiwake- smart, man-of-war-like at her anchorage--and a sudden sharp sigh broke from his lips. He had not got over it yet. He never would.
“So you have got away,” he went on, “from Mahon at last?”
“Yes,” answered Fitz.
“I should think you have had enough of Minorca to last you the rest of your life,” said Luke, looking abruptly down at the quarrelling boatmen and the tangle of tossing craft beneath them.
“It is not such a bad place as all that,” replied Fitz. “I--I rather like it.”
There was a little pause, and quite suddenly Luke said--
“The Ingham-Bakers are on board.”
It would almost seem that these twin minds followed each other into the same train of thought. Fitz frowned with an air of reflectiveness.
“The Ingham-Bakers,” he said. “Who are they?”
Luke gave a little laugh which almost expressed a sudden relief.
“Don’t you remember?” he said. “She is a friend of Mrs. Harrington’s, and--and there is Agatha, her daughter.”
“I remember--stout. Not the daughter, the old woman, I mean. Oh--yes. Where are they going?”
“To Malta.”
It was perfectly obvious, even to Luke, that the Ingham-Bakers’ immediate or projective destination was a matter of the utmost indifference to Fitz, who was more interested in theCroonahthan in her passengers.
They were both conscious of an indefinite feeling of disappointment. This meeting after years of absence was not as it should be. Something seemed to stand between them--a shadow, a myth, a tiny distinction. Luke, with characteristic pessimism, saw it first--felt its chill, intangible presence before his less subtle-minded brother. Then Fitz saw it, and, as was his habit, he went at it unhesitatingly
“Gad!” he explained, “I am glad to see you, old chap. Long time, isn’t it, since we saw each other? You must come back with me, and have lunch or something. The men will be awfully glad to make your acquaintance. You can look over the ship, though she is not much to look at, you know! Not up to this. She is a fine ship, Luke! What can she steam?”
“She can do her twenty,” answered the second officer of theCroonah, indifferently.
“Yes, she looks it. Well, can you get away now?”
Luke shook his head.
“No,” he answered almost ungraciously, “I can’t leave the ship.”
“What! Not to come and look over theKittiwake?” Fitz’s face fell visibly. He did not seem to be able to realise that any one should be equal to relinquishing without a murmur the opportunity of looking over theKittiwake.
“No, I am afraid not. We have our discipline too, you know. Besides, we are rather like railway guards. We must keep up to time. We shall be under way by two o’clock.”
Fitz pressed the point no further. He had been brought up to discipline since childhood--moreover, he was rather clever in a simple way, and he had found out that it would be no pleasure but a pain to Luke to board a ship flying the white ensign.
“Can I stay on board to lunch with you?” he asked easily. “Goodness only knows when we shall run against each other again. It was the merest chance. We only got in last night. I was just going ashore to report when we saw the oldCroonahcome pounding in. That”--he paused and drew his cloak closer - “is why I am in my war-paint! We are going straight home.”
“Stay by all means,” said Luke.
Fitz nodded.
“I suppose,” he added as an afterthought, “that I ought to pay my respects to Mrs. Ingham-Baker?”
Luke’s face cleared suddenly. Fitz had evidently forgotten about Agatha.
“I will ask them to lunch with us in my cabin,” he said.
And presently they left the bridge.
In due course Fitz was presented to the Ingham-Bakers, and Agatha was very gracious. Fitz looked at her a good deal. Simply because she made him. She directed all her conversation and eke her bright eyes in his direction. He listened, and when necessary he laughed a jolly resounding laugh. How could she tell that he was drawing comparisons all the while? It is the simple-minded men who puzzle women most. Whenever Luke’s face clouded she swept away the gathering gloom with some small familiar attention - some reference to him in her conversation with Fitz which somehow brought him nearer and set Fitz further off.
Suddenly, on hearing that Fitz hoped to be in England within a week, Mrs. Ingham-Baker fell heavily into conversation.
“I am afraid,” she said, “that you will find our dear Mrs. Harrington more difficult to get on with than ever. In fact--he, he!--I almost feel inclined to advise you not to try. But I suppose you will not be much in London?”
Fitz looked at her with clear, keen blue eyes.
“I expect to be there some time,” he answered. “I hope to stay with Mrs. Harrington.”
Mrs. Ingham-Baker glanced at Agatha, and returned somewhat hastily to her galantine of veal.
Agatha was drumming on the table with her fingers.
To love is good, no doubt, but you love bestA calm safe life, with wealth and ease and rest.
TheCroonahran round Europa Point into fine weather, and the wise old captain--who felt the pulse of the saloon with unerring touch--deemed it expedient to pin upon the board the notice of a ball to be given on the following night. There was considerable worldly knowledge in this proceeding. The passengers still had the air of Europe in their lungs, the energy of Europe in their limbs. Nothing pulls a ship full of people together so effectually as a ball. Nothing gives such absorbing employment to the female mind which would otherwise get into hopeless mischief. Besides they had been at sea five days, and the captain knew that more than one ingenuous maiden, sitting in thoughtful idleness about the decks, was lost in vague forebodings as to the creases in her dresses ruthlessly packed away in the hold.
The passengers were, in fact, finding their sea-legs, which, from the captain’s point of view, meant that the inner men and the outer women would now require and receive a daily increasing attention. So he said a word to the head cook, and to the fourth officer he muttered -
“Let the women have their trunks!”
When, on the evening of the ball, Agatha appeared at the door of her mother’s cabin, that good lady’s face fell.
“What, dear? Your old black!”
“Yes, dear, my old black,” replied the dutiful daughter. She was arranging a small bouquet of violets in the front of her dress - a bouquet she had found in her cabin when she went to dress. Luke had, no doubt, sent ashore for them at Gibraltar--and there was something of the unknown, the vaguely possible, in his manner of placing them on her tiny dressing-table, without a word of explanation, which appealed to her jaded imagination.
There was some suggestion of recklessness about Agatha, which her mother almost detected--something which had never been suggested in the subtler element of London drawing-room. The girl spoke in a short, sharp way which was new to the much-snubbed rear-commander. Agatha still had this when Luke asked her for a dance.
“Yes,” she answered curtly, handing him the card and avoiding his eyes.
He stepped back to take advantage of the light of a swinging hurricane lamp, and leant against the awning which had been closed in all round.
“How many may I have?” he asked.
She continued to look anywhere except in his direction. Then quite suddenly she gave a little laugh.
“All.”
“What?” he added, with a catch in his breath.
“You may have them all.”
There was a pause; then Agatha turned with a half-mocking smile, and looked at him. For the first time in her life she was really frightened. She had never seen passion in a man’s face before. It was the one thing she had never encountered in the daily round of social effort in London. Not an evil passion, but the strong passion of love, which is as rare in human beings as is genius. He was standing in a conventional attitude, holding her programme--and that which took the girl’s breath away lay in his eyes alone.
She could not meet his look, for she felt suddenly quite puny and small and powerless. She realised in that flash of thought that there was a whole side of life of which she had never suspected the existence. After all, she was learning the lesson that millions of women have to learn before they quite realise what life is.
She smiled nervously, and looked hard at the little card in his strong, still hands--wondering what she had done. She saw him write his name opposite five or six dances. Then he handed her the card, and left her with a grave bow--left her without a word of explanation, to take his silence and explain it if she could. That sense of the unknown in him, which appealed so strongly to her, seemed to rise and envelop her in a maze of thought and imagination which was bewildering in its intensity--thrilling with a new life.
When he came back later to claim his first dance, he was quietly polite, and nothing else. They danced until the music stopped, and Agatha knew that she had met her match in this as in other matters.
The dancers trooped out to the dimly-lighted deck, while the quartermaster raised the awning to allow the fresh air to circulate. Luke and Agatha went with the rest, her hand resting unsteadily on his sleeve. She had never felt unsteady like this before. She was conscious, probably for the first time in her life, of a strange, creeping fear. She was distinctly afraid of the first words that her partner would say when they were alone. Spread out over the broad deck the many passengers seemed but a few. It was almost solitude--and Agatha was afraid of solitude with Luke. Yet she had selected a dress which she knew would appeal to him. She had dressed for him--which means something from a woman’s point of view. She had welcomed this ball with a certain reckless throb of excitement, not for its own sake, but for Luke’s. The unerring instinct of her vanity had not played her false. She had succeeded, and now she was afraid of her success. There is a subtle fear in all success, and an indefinite responsibility.
Luke knew the ship. He led the way to a deserted corner of the deck, with a deliberation which set Agatha’s heart beating.
“What did you mean when you said I could have all the dances?” asked Luke slowly. His eyes gleamed deeply as he looked down at her. And Agatha had no answer ready.
She stood before him with downcast eyes--like a chidden child who has been meddling with danger.
And suddenly his arms were round her. She gave a little gasp, but made no attempt to escape from him. This was all so different, so new to her. There was something in the strong salt air blowing over them which seemed to purify the world and raise them above the sordid cares thereof. There was something simple and strong and primitive in this man--at home on his own element, all filled with the strength of the ocean--mastering her, claiming her as if by force.
“What did you mean?” he asked again.
She pushed him away, and turning stood beside him with her two hands resting on the rail, her back turned towards him.
“Oh, Luke,” she whispered at length, “I can’t be poor--Ican’t--I can’t. You do not know what it is. It has always been such a struggle--there is no rest in it.”
It is said that women can raise men above the world. How often do they bring them down to it when they are raising themselves!
And Luke’s love was large enough to accept her as she was.
“And if I were not poor?” he asked, without any of the sullen pride that was his.
She answered nothing, and he read her silence aright.
“I will become rich,” he said, “somehow. I do not care how. I will, I will--Agatha!”
She did not dare to meet his eyes.
“Come,” she said. “Come--let us go back.”
They danced together again, but Agatha refused to sit anywhere but beneath the awning. While they were dancing they did not speak. He never took his eyes off her, and she never looked at him.
Then, just as he was, with a pilot jacket exchanged for his dress coat, Luke had to go on duty on the bridge. While he stood there, far above the lighted decks, alone at his post in the dark, keen and watchful, still as a statue, the sound of the dance music rose up and enveloped him like the echo of a happy dream.
Presently the music ceased, and the weary dancers went below, leaving Luke FitzHenry to his own thoughts.
All the world seemed to be asleep except these two men--one motionless on the bridge, the other alert in the dimly lighted wheelhouse. TheCroonahherself seemed to slumber with the regular beating of a great restless heart far down in her iron being.
The dawn was now creeping up into the eastern sky, touching the face of the waters with a soft, pearly light. A few straight streaks of cloud became faintly outlined. The moon looked yellow and deathlike.
Luke stood watching the rise of a new day, and with it there seemed to be rising within him a new life.
Beneath his feet, in her dainty cabin, Agatha Ingham-Baker saw that dawn also. She was standing with her arms folded on the upper berth breast high. She had been standing there an hour. She was alone in the cabin, for Luke had secured separate rooms for the two ladies.
Agatha had not moved since she came down from the ball. She did not seem to be thinking of going to bed. The large square port-hole was open, and the cool breeze fluttered the lace of her dress, stirring the dead violets at her breast.
Her finely cut features were set with a look of strong determination. “I can’t--I can’t be poor,” she was repeating to herself with a mechanical monotony.
’Tis better far to love and be poor,Than be rich with an empty heart.
Mrs. Harrington was sitting in the great drawing-room in Grosvenor Gardens, alone. The butler was fuming and cleaning plate in his pantry. The maid was weeping in the workroom. Mrs. Harrington had had a busy afternoon.
“’Tis always thus when she’s alone in the house,” the cook had said, with a grandiosity of style borrowed from theFamily Herald. It is easy for the cook to be grandiose when the butler and the lady’s-maid are in trouble. Thus philosophy walketh in at the back door.
Mrs. Harrington’s sharp grey face twitched at times with a certain restlessness which was hers when she had no one at hand to bully. She could not concentrate her attention on the newspaper she held in her hands, and at intervals her eyes wandered over the room in search of something to find fault with. She made the mistake common to persons under such circumstances--she forgot to look in the mirror. Mrs. Harrington was tired of herself. She wished someone would call. At the same time she felt a cordial dislike to all her friends.
It was a hopelessly grey afternoon early in December, and every one was out of London. Mrs. Harrington had a certain circle of friends - middle-aged or elderly women, rich like herself, lonely like herself - whom she despised. They all rather disliked each other, these women, but they visited nevertheless. They dined together seriously; keeping in mind the cook, and watchful over the wine. But the majority of these ladies had gone away for the winter. The Riviera was created for such.
Mrs. Harrington, however, never went abroad in the winter. She said that she had travelled too much when she was younger--in the lifetime of her husband--to care about it now. The Honourable George Henry Harrington had, in fact, lived abroad for financial reasons, and the name was not of sweet savour in the nostrils of hotel-keepers. The married life referred to occasionally in cold tones by the Honourable Mrs. Harrington had been of that order which is curtly called “cat and dog,” and likewise “hand to mouth.”
Therefore Mrs. Harrington avoided the Continent. She could easily, of her affluence, have paid certain large debts which she knew to be outstanding, but she held a theory that dead men owe nothing. And with this theory she lubricated an easy-going conscience.
The mistress of the large house in Grosvenor Gardens was wondering discontentedly what she was going to do with herself until tea-time, when she heard the sound of a bell ringing far down in the basement. Despite the grand drawing-room, despite the rich rustle of her grey silk dress, this great lady peeped from behind the curtain, and saw a hansom cab.
A few minutes later the door was thrown open by the angry butler.
“Miss Challoner--Captain Bontnor.”
Eve came in, and at her heels Captain Bontnor, who sheered off as it were from the butler, and gave him a wide berth.
Mrs. Harrington could be gracious when she liked. She liked now, and she would have kissed her visitor had that young lady shown any desire for such an honour. But there was a faint reflex of Spanish ceremony in Eve Challoner, of which she was probably unaware. A few years ago it would not have been noticeable, but to-day we are hail-fellow-well-met even with ladies--which is a mistake, on the part of the ladies.
“So you received my letter, my dear,” said Mrs. Harrington.
“Yes,” replied Eve. “This is my uncle--Captain Bontnor.”
Mrs. Harrington had the bad taste to raise her eyebrows infinitesimally, and Captain Bontnor saw it.
“How do you do?” said Mrs. Harrington, with a stiff bow.
“I am quite well, thank you, marm,” replied the sailor, with moreaplombthan Eve had yet seen him display.
Without waiting to hear this satisfactory intelligence, Mrs. Harrington turned to Eve again. She evidently intended to ignore Captain Bontnor systematically and completely.
“You know,” she said, “I am related to your father - ”
“By marriage,” put in Captain Bontnor, with simple bluntness. He was brushing his hat with a large pocket-handkerchief.
“And I have pleasant recollections of his kindness in past years. I stayed with him at the Casa d’Erraha more than once. I was staying there when--well, some years ago. I think you had better come and live with me until your poor father’s affairs have been put in order.”
Captain Bontnor raised his head and ceased his operations on the dusty hat. His keen old eyes, full of opposition, were fixed on Eve’s face. He was quite ready to be rude again, but women know how to avoid these shallow places better than men, with a policy which is not always expedient perhaps.
“Thank you,” replied Eve. “Thank you very much, but my uncle has kindly offered me a home.”
Mrs. Harrington’s grey face suggested a scorn which she apparently did not think it worth while to conceal from a person who wiped the inside of his hat with his pocket-handkerchief in a lady’s presence.
“But,” she said coldly, “I should think that your uncle cannot fail to see the superior advantages of the offer I am now making you, from a social point of view, if from no other.”
“I do see them advantages, marm,” said the captain bluntly. He looked at Eve with something dog-like peering from beneath his shaggy eyebrows.
“Of course,” continued Mrs. Harrington, ignoring the confession, “you have been brought up as a lady, and are accustomed to refinement, and in some degree to luxury.”
“You needn’t make it any plainer, marm,” blurted out Captain Bontnor. “I don’t need you to tell me that my niece is above me. I don’t set up for bein’ anything nor what I am. There’s not much of the gentleman about me. But--”
He paused, and half turned towards Eve.
“But, ’cording to my lights, I’m seeking to do my duty towards the orphan child of my sister Amelia Ann.”
“Not overlooking the fact, I suppose, that the orphan child of your sister Amelia Ann has a very fair income of her own.”
Captain Bontnor smiled blandly, and smoothed his hat with his sleeve.
“Not overlooking that fact, marm,” he said, “if you choose to take it so.”
Mrs. Harrington turned to Eve again with a faint reflex of her overbearing manner towards the Ingham-Bakers and other persons who found it expedient to submit.
“You will see at a glance,” she said, “that it is impossible for you to live with Captain Bontnor.”
“I have already accepted his kind offer,” returned the girl. “Thank you, nevertheless.”
“But,” said Mrs. Harrington, “that was before you knew that I was ready to make a home for you.”
Captain Bontnor had turned away. He blew his nose so loudly that Mrs. Harrington frowned. There was something trumpet-like and defiant in the sound. Opposition had ever a strange effect on this spoilt woman. She liked it, as serving to enhance the value of the wish which she rarely failed to gratify in the end.
“You must remember your position,” she continued. “These are very democratic days, when silly people think that all men are equal. A lady is nevertheless still a lady, and a gentleman a gentleman, though one does not often meet them. I wish you to come and live with me.”
Eve’s dark eyes flashed suddenly. She glanced at her uncle, and said nothing.
“A girl with money is a ready dupe to designing persons,” added Mrs. Harrington.
“I am saved that danger, for I have no money,” replied Eve.
“Nonsense, child! I know the value of land in Mallorca. I see already that you are being deceived.”
She glanced significantly towards the captain, who was again smiling blandly.
“The matter has been fully gone into,” explained Eve, “by competent persons. The Val d’Erraha does not belong to me. It was held by my father only on ‘rotas’--the Minorcan form of lease--and it has now been returned to the proprietor.”
Mrs. Harrington’s keen face dropped. She prided herself upon being a woman of business, and as such had always taken a deep interest in the affairs of other people. It is to be presumed that women have a larger mental grasp than men. They crave for more business when they are business-like, and thus by easy steps descend to mere officiousness.
Eve’s story was so very simple and, to the ears of one who had known her father, so extremely likely, that Mrs. Harrington had for the moment nothing to say. She knew the working of the singular system on which land is to this day held in tenure in Majorca and Minorca, and there was no reason to suppose that there was any mistake or deception respecting the estate of the Val d’Erraha.
A dramatist of considerable talent, who is not sufficiently studied in these modern times, has said that a man in his time plays many parts. He left it to be understood that a woman plays only one. The business woman is the business woman all through her life--she is never the charitable lady, even for a moment.
Mrs. Harrington had wished to have the bringing out of a beautiful heiress. She had no desire to support a penniless orphan. The matter had, in her mind, taken the usual form of a contract in black and white. Mrs. Harrington would supply position and a suitable home--Eve was to have paid for her own dresses--chosen by the elder contractor--and to have filled gracefully the gratifying, if hollow, position of a young person of means looking for a husband.
Mrs. Harrington’s business habits had, in fact, kept her fully alive to the advantages likely to accrue to herself; and the small fact that Eve was penniless reduced these advantages to a mythical reward in the hereafter. And business people have not time to think of the hereafter.
It is possible that simple old Captain Bontnor in part divined these thoughts in the set grey eyes, the grey wrinkled face.
“You’ll understand, marm,” he said, “that my niece will not be in a position to live the sort o’ life” - he paused, and looked round the vast room, quite without admiration - “the sort o’ life you’re livin’ here. She couldn’t keep up the position.”
“It would not be for long,” said Mrs. Harrington, already weighing an alternative plan. She looked critically at Eve, noting, with the appraising eye of a middle-aged woman of the world, the grace of her straight young form, the unusual beauty of her face. “If you could manage to allow her sufficient to dress suitably for one season, I dare say she would make a suitable marriage.”
Eve turned on her with a flash of bright dark eyes. “Thank you; I do not want to make a suitable marriage.”
Captain Bontnor laid his hand on her arm.
“My dear,” he said, “don’t take any heed of her. She doesn’t know any better. I have heard tell of such women, but”--he looked round the room--“I did not look to meet with one in a house like this. I did not know they called themselves ladies.”
Mrs. Harrington gasped. She lived in a world where people think such things as these, but do not say them. Captain Bontnor, on the other hand, had not yet encountered a person of whom he was so much afraid as to conceal a hostile opinion, should he harbour such.
He was patting Eve’s gloved hand as if she had been physically hurt, and Eve smiled down into his sympathetic old face. It is a singular fact that utter worldliness in a woman seems to hurt women less than it does men.
Mrs. Harrington, with frigid dignity, ignored Captain Bontnor, and addressed herself exclusively to Eve.
“You must be good enough to remember,” she said, “that I can scarcely have other motives than those of kindness.”
A woman is so conscious of the weak links in her chain of argument, that she usually examines them publicly.
“I do remember that,” replied Eve, rather softened by the grey loneliness of this woman’s life--a loneliness which seemed to be sitting on all the empty chairs--“and I am very grateful to you. I think, perhaps, my uncle misunderstood you. But--”
“Yes--but--”
“Under the circumstances, I think it will be wiser for me to accept his kind offer, and make my home with him. I hope to be able to find some work which will enable me to--to help somewhat towards the household expenses.”
Mrs. Harrington shrugged her shoulders.
“As you like,” she said. “After a few months of a governess’s life perhaps you may reconsider your decision. I know--”
She was going to say that she knew what it was, but she recollected herself in time.
“I know,” she said instead, “girls who have lived such lives.”
With the air of Spain Eve Challoner seemed to have inhaled some of the Spanish pride, which is as a stone wall against which charity and pity may alike beat in vain. From her superior height the girl looked down on the keen-faced little woman.
“I am not in a position to choose,” she said. “I am prepared for some small hardships.”
Mrs. Harrington turned to ring the bell. With the sudden caprice which her money had enabled her to cultivate, she had taken a liking to Eve.
“You will have some tea?” she said.
Eve turned to thank her, and suddenly her heart leaped to her throat. She caught her breath, and did not answer for a moment.
“Thank you,” she said; and her eyes stole back to the mantelpiece, where a large photograph of Fitz seemed to watch her with a quiet, thoughtful smile.
The whole room appeared to be different after that. Mrs. Harrington seemed to be a different woman--the world seemed suddenly to be a smaller place and less lonely.
During the remainder of the short visit they talked of indifferent topics, while Captain Bontnor remained silent. Mrs. Harrington’s caprice grew stronger, and before tea was over she said--
“My dear, if you will not come and live with me, at all events make use of me. Your uncle will, no doubt, have to make some small changes in his household. I propose that you stay with me a week or ten days, until he is ready for you.”
This with a slight conciliatory bow towards Captain Bontnor, who stared remorselessly at the clock.
“Thank you; I should very much like to,” said Eve, mindful of the mantelpiece.
There is so much that no one knows,So much unreached that none suppose.
“I want you to put on a nice dress to-night. I have two friends coming to dine.”
Eve looked up from the book she was reading, and Mrs. Harrington tempered her curt manner of expressing her wishes with a rare smile. She often did this for Eve’s benefit, almost unconsciously. In some indefinite way she was rather afraid of this girl.
“I will do my best,” answered Eve, her mind only half weaned from the pages.
She had been ten days in the house, and the somewhat luxurious comfort of it appealed to a faintly developed love of peace and ease which had been filtered into her soul with the air of a Southern land. She had found it easier to get on with Mrs. Harrington than she at first anticipated. Her nature, which was essentially womanly, had in reality long craved for the intimate sympathy and intercourse which only another woman could supply. There was something indolent and restful in the very atmosphere of the house that supplied a distinct want in the motherless girl’s life. There were a number of vague possibilities of trouble in the world, half perceived, half divined by Eve; which possibilities Mrs. Harrington seemed capable of meeting and fending off.
It was all indefinite and misty, but Eve felt at rest, and, as it were, under protection, in the house of this hard, cold woman of the world.
“It can only be a black one,” the girl answered.
“Yes; but people don’t know what a black dress is until they have seen one that has been made in Spain.”
Eve did not return at once to her book. She was, in fact, thinking about her dress--being in no way superior to such matters.
When she came down into the drawing-room, an hour later, she found awaiting her there the two men about whom she thought most.
Cipriani de Lloseta and Fitz were standing on the hearthrug together. Mrs. Harrington had not yet come down. They came forward together, the Count taking her hand first, with his courteous bow. Fitz followed, shaking hands in silence, with that simplicity which she had learned to look for and to like in him.
“I wonder,” said Eve, “why Mrs. Harrington did not tell me that you were the two friends she expected to dinner?”
The Count smiled darkly.
“Perhaps our hostess does not know that we have met before - ” he began; and stopped suddenly when the door opened, and the rustle of Mrs. Harrington’s silk dress heralded her coming.
Her quick eyes flashed over them with a comprehensive appreciation of the situation.
“You all seem to know each other,” she said sharply. “I knew that Fitz had been of some service to you at D’Erraha; but I was not aware that you knew the Count de Lloseta.”
“The Count de Lloseta was very kind to me at Barcelona--on a matter of business,” explained Eve innocently.
Mrs. Harrington turned upon the Spaniard quickly, but nevertheless too late to catch the warning frown which he had directed towards Eve. Mrs. Harrington looked keenly into his face, which was blandly imperturbable.
“Then you are the owner of D’Erraha?”
“I am.”
Mrs. Harrington gave a strange little laugh.
“What a rich man you are!” she said. “Come! Let us go to dinner.”
She took the Count’s arm, and led the way to the dining-room. She was visibly absent-minded at first, as if pondering over something which had come as a surprise to her. Then she woke from her reverie, and, turning to Fitz, said--
“And what do you think of the Baleares?”
“I like them,” returned Fitz curtly.
He thought it was bad taste thus to turn the conversation upon a subject which could only be painful to Eve. He only thought of Eve, and therefore did not notice the patient endurance of the Count’s face.
De Lloseta was taking his soup with a slow concentration of his attention upon its flavour, as if trying not to hear the conversation. Mrs. Harrington looked sharply at him, and in doing so failed to intercept a glance, exchanged by Fitz and Eve across the table.
“Why are you here?” Fitz seemed to be asking.
And Eve reassured him by a little smile.
“There is one advantage in your long exile at Mahon,” pursued the hostess inexorably. “It must have been economical. You could not have wanted money there.”
Fitz laughed.
“Hardly so Arcadian as that,” he said.
The Count looked up.
“I suppose,” he said, “that the port where one does not want money is yet to be discovered?”
Mrs. Harrington, sipping her sherry, glanced at the speaker.
“Surely,” she said lightly, “you are talking of what you know absolutely nothing.”
“Pardon me”--without looking up.
Mrs. Harrington laughed.
“Ah,” she said, “we three know too much about you to believe that. Now, what can a lone man like you want with money?”
“A lone man may happen to be saddled with a name of--well, of some repute--an expensive luxury.”
“And you think that a great name is worth spending a fortune upon, like a garden, merely to keep it up?”
“I do.”
“You think it worth all that?”
The dark, inscrutable eyes were raised deliberately to her face.
“Assuredly you must know that I do,” he said.
Mrs. Harrington laughed, and changed the subject. She knew this man’s face well, and her knowledge told her that he was at the end of his patience.
“So you saw Luke at Gibraltar?” she said, turning to Fitz.
“Yes, for a short time. I had never seen theCroonahbefore. She is a fine ship.”
“So I understand. So fine, indeed, that two friends of mine, the Ingham-Bakers, were induced to go to Malta in her. There is no limit now to feminine enterprise. Mothers are wonderful, and their daughters no less so.N’est-ce pas, Señor?”
“All ladies are wonderful!” said the Count, with a grave bow. “They are as the good God made them.”
“I don’t agree with you there,” snapped Mrs. Harrington. “So you saw the Ingham-Bakers also, Fitz?”
“Yes; they lunched with us.”
“And Agatha was very pleasant, no doubt?”
“Very.”
“She always is--to men. The Count admires her greatly. She makes him do so.”
“She has an easy task,” put in De Lloseta quietly. It almost seemed that there was some feeling about Agatha between these two people.
“You know,” Mrs. Harrington went on, addressing herself to Fitz, “that Luke and I have made it up. We are friends now.”
Fitz did not answer at once. His face clouded over. Seen thus in anger, it was almost a hard face, older and somewhat worn. He raised his eyes, and they as suddenly softened, for Eve’s eyes had met them, and she seemed to understand.
“I am not inclined to discuss Luke,” he said quietly.
“My dear, I did not propose doing so,” answered Mrs. Harrington, and her voice was so humble and conciliatory that De Lloseta looked up from his plate, from one face to the other.
That Mrs. Harrington should accept this reproof thus humbly seemed to come as a surprise to them all, except Fitz, who went on eating his dinner with a singular composure.
It would appear that Mrs. Harrington had been put out of temper by some small incident at the beginning of the dinner, and, like a spoilt child, proceeded to vent her displeasure on all and sundry. In the same way she would no doubt have continued, unless spoken sharply to, as Fitz had spoken.
For now her manner quite changed, and the rest of the meal passed pleasantly enough. Mrs. Harrington now devoted herself to her guests, and as carefully avoided dangerous subjects as she had hitherto appeared to seek them.
After dinner she asked the Count to tune his violin, while she herself prepared to play his accompaniment.
Fitz lighted the candles and set the music ready with a certain neatness of hand rarely acquired by landsmen, and then returned to the smaller drawing-room, where Eve was seated by the fire, needlework in hand.
He stood for a moment leaning against the mantelpiece. Perhaps he was waiting for her to speak. Perhaps he did not realise how much there was in his long, silent gaze.
“How long have you been here?” he asked, when the music began.
“Ten days,” she answered, without looking up.
“But you are not going to live here?”--with some misgiving.
“Oh no. I am going to live with my uncle in Suffolk.”
He moved away a few steps to pick up a fallen newspaper. Presently he came back to her, resuming his former position at the corner of the mantelpiece.
It was Eve who spoke next--smoothing out her silken trifle of needlework and looking at it critically.
“I never thanked you,” she said, “for all your kindness to me at D’Erraha. You were a friend in need.”
It was quite different from what it had been at D’Erraha. Possibly it was as different as were the atmospheres of the two places. Eve seemed to have something of London in the reserve of her manner - the easy insincerity of her speech. She was no longer a girl untainted by worldliness--sincere, frank, and open.
Fitz was rather taken aback.
“Oh,” he answered, “I could not do much. There was really nothing that I could do except to stand by in case I might be wanted.”
Eve took up her needle again.
“But,” she said, “that is already something. It is often a great comfort, especially to women, to know that there is some one ‘standing by,’ as you call it, in case they are wanted.”
She gave a little laugh, and then suddenly became quite grave. The recollection of a conversation they had had at D’Erraha had flashed across her memory, as recollections do--at the wrong time. The conversation she remembered was recorded at the time--it was almost word for word with this, but quite different.
Fitz was looking at her with his impenetrable simplicity.
“Will you oblige me,” he said, “by continuing to look upon me in that light?”
She had bent her head rather far over her work as he spoke, and as he said the last five words her breath seemed to come with a little catch, as if she had pricked her finger.
The musicians were just finishing a brilliant performance, and before answering Fitz she looked round into the other room, nodded, smiled, and thanked them. Then she turned to him, still speaking in the light and rather indifferent tone which was so new to him, and said -
“Thank you very much, but of course I have my uncle. How--how long will you be--staying on shore? You deserve a long leave, do you not?”
“Yes, I suppose I do,” said Fitz absently. He had evidently listened more to the voice than the words. He forgot to answer the question. But she repeated it.
“How long do you get?” she asked, hopelessly conversational.
“About three weeks.”
“Is that all? Ah! here is tea. I wonder whether I ought to offer to pour it out!”
But Mrs. Harrington left the piano, and said that her sight was failing her. She had had enough music.
During the rest of the evening Fitz took one or two opportunities of looking at Eve to discover, if he could, what the difference was that he found in her. He had left a girl in Majorca--he found a woman in London. That was the whole difference; but he did not succeed in reducing it to so many words. He had passed most of his life at sea among men. He had not, therefore, had much opportunity of acquiring that doubtful knowledge--the knowledge of women--the only item, by the way, which men will never include among the sciences of existence. Already they know more about the stars than they do about women. Even if Fitz had possessed this knowledge he would not have turned it to account. The wisest fail to do that. We only make use of our knowledge of women in the study of those women with whom other men have to do.
“Fitz has grown rather dull and stupid,” said Mrs. Harrington, when the two guests had taken their leave.
Eve was folding up her work, and did not answer.
“Was he like that in Mallorca?” continued the grey lady.
“Oh--I think so. He was very quiet always.”