Towards the first week in July two young men were seated in a smoking-carriage on the midday express from Paddington to Reading. They were alone in the compartment, and at the moment there existed between them that peculiar silence of sympathy which can be only the outcome of a perfect friendship. The Jonathan of the pair was slim, tall, and dark, with a military uprightness of bearing, and a somewhat haughty expression on his clean-shaven face. His David was younger in years, but considerably greater in size, and like his namesake of Judah, was ruddy and of a fair countenance. The one was an eager, anxious, highly-strung Celt, with his Irish impulse and impetuosity trained into well-nigh complete obedience by years of experience; the other a phlegmatic Saxon, of small brain and much muscle. Jonathan's nineteenth-century name was Laurence Mallow. David answered to the title of Lord Aldean. They had been tutor and pupil respectively, and they were still fast friends. The elder possessing the stronger and more imperious will, continued to control the younger.
Mallow was not popular, nor did he wish to be so. He chose to be feared rather than loved. He was brilliantly clever, and, therefore, had many admirers; on the other hand, his intolerance of stupidity lost him many friends, so that to his expressed satisfaction he moved more or less isolated amid a crowd of fair-spoken, back-biting acquaintances. And yet perhaps it was a knowledge of the guarded manner in which he was received that made him cling the more to the solitary friend he possessed. People thought and people said that there was but little about good-natured, thick-headed Aldean to attract the brilliant young Irishman. There were those who went so far as to hint that the boy's title and wealth explained all that, albeit Mallow was well-nigh aggressively independent.
Left an orphan with comparatively little money at an early age, he had won prizes and taken scholarships at a great public school, and had maintained himself at Oxford by these early efforts. He left the University with a full brain and empty pockets, and he had undertaken the tutorship of Aldean to gain breathing-time while he cast around him for choice of a career. When Aldean came of age, Mallow left him, a fair enough scholar and an admirable athlete, and went himself to London. He became a journalist and a power with his pen. He attached himself to a weekly publication of high aim and small circulation, conducted by a genius who had failed to profit by his pen because he could not write obviously enough for the taste of the general public.
Mallow became one of the props of this journal. When it failed, by reason of its too lofty aims, he went to India to write letters about the incomprehensible East, for a newspaper. A while after he returned, and published a novel which was much condemned and widely circulated. At the present time, having netted a few hundreds out of the book, he was going down to Casterwell to stay with Aldean, and to renew his friendship with Olive Bellairs, whom he loved ardently, though--knowing full well that she was engaged to a certain Mr. Carson--hopelessly, in his own peculiar, wrong-headed way.
Aldean, who was now twenty-four, and as good-naturedly stupid as ever, was in truth more akin to Goliath than to David. He was a gigantic son of Anak, considerably over six feet in height, and as wide as a church door. He was sparing of his words, and he usually assented to whatever was said to him as the safest way out of an argument. But in spite of his lack of conversation, and the rareness with which he gave expression to such ideas as he possessed, he had a fund of shrewd common sense, which, in his position, was worth far more to him than genius would have been. It was with all his heart and soul that he admired Mallow, and the verynaivetéwith which he would express his admiration endeared him to the young Irishman. Habitually Mallow's tongue was razor-like in its acerbity, but Aldean--though he took full advantage of the friendship between them, and spoke pretty plainly when he judged his lordship deserved correction--he invariably spared where he would have spared none else. They had indeed established their friendship on a very durable basis, by the extremely simple process of shutting their eyes to one another's faults and opening them very wide to one another's virtues. The young Irishman had his brilliant flashes of silence. It was on these occasions that he found Aldean so agreeable a companion--in fact, the boy was as a pet dog to Mallow; agreeable company, and not given to criticism.
"Aldean!"
"Eh yes, what?" asked his lordship, looking up fromAlly Sloper.
"Have you read the account of this Athelstane Place murder?"
"Yes--fellow killed with a knitting-needle, isn't it?"
"Yes, thrust into the heart--devilish queer case. TheMorning Planetseems to think the unfortunate beggar came from India."
"Who told the 'M.P.' so?"
"No one, apparently; it is a theory based on the fact that the man's clothes smelled of sandal-wood."
"Bosh! there's plenty of sandal-wood in England."
"No doubt; but Englishmen are not by way of scenting their clothes with it. I shouldn't be surprised to find that thePlanetwas right. At all events it's some sort of clue."
Aldean shook his head. "I thought you said it was a theory?"
"So it is; but a theory may develop into a clue," retorted Mallow, lighting another cigarette. "If only I had the time, there is nothing I would like better than to follow up a case like this."
"Well, surely you have the time?"
"I have not; I am giving you what spare moments I have."
"You are--now. But at Casterwell Miss Bellairs, I guess, will see a good deal more of you than I shall. The moth and the candle, eh?"
"Not at all, Aldean; your simile is quite inapt. I am not a moth, neither can Miss Bellairs be compared to a candle. She is not the kind of girl to scorch any poor butterfly that flutters round her."
"All right, old chap, you needn't take one quite so seriously. But as you do, I may as well be serious too. Do you know I am thinking of getting married?"
"No; that's news to me. And whom do you intend to honour so far, may I ask?"
"Miss Ostergaard, if she concurs." Aldean heaved a huge sigh. "By George! she's a ripping girl."
"Certainly, you might do worse," replied Laurence, musingly. "She's a very good girl, and clever too. Does she reciprocate?"
"I don't know; she laughs at me."
"That may be just her method of showing her affection. She will be hard to please if she is not satisfied with a titled Hercules like you."
"Oh, I don't think she bothers in the least about the title," said his lordship, dolefully, "she is quite a radical, a--a--what do you call it--Anarchist, you know. Dr. Drabble has been converting her. He's a proselytising beast, that Drabble."
"Oh, that's all rubbish. 'In the spring a young girl's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love'--not anarchy."
"But it isn't spring," said the literal Aldean, "and Miss Ostergaard isn't the girl to marry for rank."
"Then make love to her properly, and she'll marry you for love."
"I wish I could; but I'm not a clever chap like you, Mallow."
"My dear boy, I'm not clever; on the contrary, I'm a fool--a perfect fool, for do I not love Miss Bellairs like an idiot, when all the while I know well she is going to marry this Carson man from India?"
"So she is; that's queer," said Aldean, reflectively.
"Queer! how do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing, old man. I am thinking of this murder case; and the fact of both men coming from India struck me, that's all. You see Carson's just on his way home now."
"Is he? I didn't know that," said Mallow, alertly.
"Yes; Miss Slarge--you know, the Babylonian, mark-of-the-beast woman--told me that her sister in Bombay had written Carson was on his way home by the P. and O. linerPharaoh."
"ThePharaoharrived some time back," said Mallow, gloomily. "He must be at Casterwell by this time."
"He was not there two days ago when I ran up to town."
"Well, it must be quite two weeks since thePharaoharrived. What an ardent lover the chap must be. I wish I stood in his shoes, that's all. I wouldn't let the grass grow under them on the way to my 'own true love'--not that Miss Bellairs can strictly be said to stand in that relation to a man she has never set eyes upon. The very fact that she has to marry him should be sufficient to make her hate him."
"By Jove! What a rum go it would be if Carson turned out to be the man murdered in Athelstane Place!"
Mallow stared. "What on earth put such a wild idea into your head?" he said.
"I don't know; nor do I know why you should be so ready to call it wild. The man who was killed came from India--as you say----"
"I don't say so. It is the theory of theMorning Planet."
"It is just possible that it might be Carson, seeing that he hasn't turned up at Casterwell," continued Aldean, not heeding Mallow's interruption.
"Really, Jim, I didn't credit you with such a vivid imagination."
"Oh, of course it's merely an idea, Mallow. But what strikes me is that if Carson arrived two weeks ago, he certainly ought to have put in an appearance at Casterwell before this, if only out of curiosity to see his future wife."
"My dear fellow, Carson may need a kit before he calls on Miss Bellairs. He surely would wish to create a good impression, and I don't suppose he would present himself in sandal-wood scented clothes."
"I never said he would. But even so, that wouldn't take him a fortnight."
Mallow leaned back and pinched his chin reflectively. He had no great faith in his friend's prognostications, still he could not help being struck by the suggestion coupling Carson with the victim of Athelstane Place. It was certainly queer that this man from India should be two weeks in England without fulfilling the very object for which his journey had been made. He had arrived in thePharaohon the 24th of June the murder had been committed on the 26th, yet so far he had not presented himself at Casterwell. The prime facts certainly coincided. It was very odd; Mallow could not deny that.
"But the idea is incredible," he said aloud. "Hundreds of men arrive from India every week; besides, Carson never was in England in his life--Miss Bellairs told me so. Why should he be murdered immediately on his arrival--where was the motive? You have found a mare's nest, Jim."
"I dare say," replied Aldean, stolidly: "it's a bare idea."
"A very wild and a very absurd one, my boy. There is nothing to connect the sandal-wood man (as you call him) with Carson."
"Perhaps not, Mallow. But if Carson does not turn up soon I shall begin to think that my idea is not so ridiculous as you say."
"If he does not turn up," repeated Mallow with emphasis, "that's just it, but he will turn up if it is only to take from me the only girl I ever really cared about--a trite saying no doubt, but a true one in this case."
"Every fellow says the same thing," said Aldean, as the train slowed down into Reading Station. "Here we are."
Casterwell lies--as every one knows or should know, seeing that it is one of the prettiest villages in the home counties--amongst the Berkshire hills, some ten miles from Reading. Lord Aldean's cart was waiting for himself and his friend. Mallow walked leisurely out of the station into the sunshine, and watched the porter transfer his portmanteau to Aldean's groom. Whilst he was standing on the edge of the pavement a plump little man, rosy in face and neat in dress, stopped short before him. He carried a black bag, but dropped this to hold out a friendly hand to Mallow.
"Well, well," he chirped, just like an amiable robin; "and who would have thought of seeing you here, Mr. Mallow? You're here on business, I presume?"
"I have come down to stay with Lord Aldean at Casterwell, Mr. Dimbal," replied Mallow, graciously.
"Miss Bellairs' busi---- Ah, here is his lordship. How d'ye do, my lord? On the road to Casterwell, eh? I'm going there myself."
"To see Miss Bellairs, did you say?" asked Mallow, impatiently. "There's nothing wrong, I hope?"
"Good gracious, no. Why should there be anything wrong?"
"Why, indeed," said Aldean, laughing. "Lawyers and wrong never go together."
"Ha, ha! very good, my lord; but we are a much-maligned profession. No, Mr. Mallow, nothing is wrong with Miss Bellairs. On the contrary, everything is very right. I bring her the good news that Mr. Carson has arrived."
"Oh," said Mallow, with a glance at Aldean, "have you seen him?"
"Yes, he called yesterday at my office, and to-morrow he comes to Casterwell to see his future wife. Well, well; good-day, good-day, I see my fly, I must be off. Good-day, Mr. Mallow; my lord, good-day," and the little lawyer bustled off.
"So Carson isn't the sandal-wood man, after all," observed Aldean.
"No, God forgive me! I wish he were," replied Mallow, and frowned.
Casterwell is an aggressively antique village, the delight of landscape painters and enthusiasts of the hand camera. It has been painted and photographed times without number, and its two crooked streets, its market cross, its mediæval church and ruined castle are all of them familiar enough to the frequenters of London art galleries. Bicycles converge to it from the four quarters of England, transatlantic tourists twang the melodious American tongue under the gabled roof of its principal inn, the omnivorous kodaker clicks his shutter at donjon, battlement, and ivy-covered tower, and unscrupulous authors thieve its local legends for the harrowing of the public in Christmas numbers and magazines. The name is obviously of Latin origin, and from the Castraville of the middle ages we have the Casterwell of to-day. On the brow of an adjoining hill the circumvallations of the ubiquitous Romans show that the village originally received its name from a military post of the days of Caractacus and Boadicea. But the Imperial legions have marched into the outer darkness, the baron of the castle is a handful of dust, the founders of the church lie mouldering in their ornate tombs, and Casterwell survives them all: a quaint, pretty, peaceful spot, beautiful even in its decay.
The village lies in a dip of the ground--hardly to be called a valley--between two wooded hills swelling gently from the surrounding plain. On one of these rises a square palace of white free-stone ornate, and conspicuous by force of its many windows and lofty tower--this latter well-nigh offensively incongruous with the general architectural design. This grandiose barrack is "Kingsholme," the country seat of Lord Aldean. In it he lives like a mouse in a haystack. It is many times too large for a single young orphan, and it takes much more of the orphan's income to keep up than he likes.
Thither Aldean and his friend spun as fast as a quick-trotting mare could take them. As they turned into the park Mallow cast a wistful look towards the other hill, where, surrounded by its ancient woods, lay embosomed the dwelling of Miss Olive Bellairs--the lady of Casterwell Manor. The soul of this hapless lover was full of regret in that he was not the occupant of Mr. Dimbal's fly, and he sighed as he mastered his feelings, in subservience to the exigencies of social intercourse--a necessity for the moment, but one by no means to his taste.
Meanwhile the fly--the tortoise to the Aldean hare--crawled doggedly along the dusty road. Mr. Dimbal, with a complacent smile on his rosy face, and his black bag established safely on his knees, glanced absently out of the window. Through incessant clouds of dust he caught glimpses of the flowering hedges, and now and again behind them of the corn waving in the hot wind. Then a cottage or so with its thatched roof and tiny garden marked the proximity to the village, and soon he was rumbling through Casterwell High Street. At last the avenue leading to the Manor House came in sight, and, as his eye rested on the mansion, Mr. Dimbal heaved a sigh of relief to think that he was at his journey's end. Three hours of continuous travelling on a hot midsummer day are not exactly the height of bliss to a comfortable elderly gentleman.
The house was typical of its kind. Here were diamond-paned casements, tall oriel windows, lofty-tiled roofs surmounted by stacks of twisting chimneys, terraces of grey stone with urns and statues--in fact, all and everything which we are accustomed to associate with the conventional old English manor-house.
The whole place was radiant with roses. The walls of the house were draped with them; they clambered over the balustrades of the terraces; they flamed in the wide-mouthed urns; they clothed the antique statues, and rioted round the lawn in prodigal profusion, dazzling the eye with their glorious tints, and filling the air with their perfume. "A dwelling fit for Flora, truly"--it was an unusual flight of fancy for Dimbal, but he gave way to it even as he stepped from out his dusty old fly. He raised his eyes, and lo! the "lady of flowers" was waiting to greet him. In truth she was comely enough, this young woman, for the most beautiful of goddesses. Not an ideal Venus perhaps, or an imperial Juno, but an eminently healthy and withal dainty goddess of spring was Olive Bellairs--a trifle reminiscent maybe of Hebe, the girlish and ever young.
Neither divinely tall nor unduly slender, her figure was neatness exemplified. Her hair was brown, so were her eyes; while, did you seek to compare her complexion, you must perforce fall back upon the well-worn simile of the rose-leaf.
She was dressed in pure white. "And how are you, Mr. Dimbal?" she said. "For a whole hour have I been watching for you."
"If', like the Lord Chancellor in 'Iolanthe,' I were possessed of wings, my dear, you would not have had to wait at all."
"Well, now you are here, I'm sure you're very hungry. Lunch is quite ready; come along!"
"Yes, my dear, and I am quite ready, too; but I should not eat my luncheon in peace did I not first discharge, at least, the more important part of my mission."
"Oh dear," pouted Olive, "won't the horrid thing keep for an hour?"
"My dear," said Dimbal, taking the girl's hand in his own, "let me make myself quite clear. I am here to impress upon you the terms of your father's will, which, as you know, has been in my possession since you were a baby, and to hand to you a sealed letter which he left for you. Until this is done, I cannot eat my meal in comfort."
"A sealed letter?" queried Olive, leading the way into the drawing-room; "why was it not given to me before?"
"Because your father's instructions were that you were not to have possession of this letter until after the arrival of Mr. Carson in England. Well, Mr. Carson has arrived. He was in my office yesterday; so, you see, I have lost no time."
Olive sat down and took off her sun-bonnet. She looked put out. "I know that Mr. Carson is in England," she said; "I got a letter from him three or four days ago, in which he says he is coming down here at the end of the week."
"Oh, well, I hope you are pleased," said Dimbal, looking dubiously at her. The kind-hearted little lawyer feared, from her expression that she was not.
"No, Mr. Dimbal," replied the girl, decidedly. "I cannot pretend that I am. You must remember I have never seen the man. Indeed, I do not want to see him, and I am very sure I do not want to marry him."
"But you must marry him, Olive."
"I don't see that I must marry anybody I don't like. I am sure I shall hate him!"
"My dear, you really must not talk like that. Remember you lose a large sum of money if you do not fulfil the conditions of the will."
"I would rather lose anything than marry him," said Olive, recklessly. "I don't love the man; why, I have never seen him; how can you--how could papa expect me to marry him? He may be horrid--indeed, I am sure he is horrid."
"Mr. Carson is a very charming and handsome young man," was Dimbal's reply, as he opened his bag. "You will find that he is everything your heart can desire."
"My heart does not desire him at all. I object to being married without being consulted."
"But Olive--dear child, remember, you loved your father!"
"Yes"--the girl's face grew very tender, "my father was the dearest and best of men. I loved him very dearly--better than any one else in the world. You know I love his memory still."
"Then you will surely obey his last expressed wish?" said Dimbal, persuasively. "In that way alone can you show your love and affection for him."
"Mr. Bellairs's heart was set upon your marrying the son of his oldest and best friend."
"Where is this letter, Mr. Dimbal?" asked Olive, irrelevantly.
"All in good time, my dear. Let me first explain the will to you."
"Do you wish Miss Slarge to be present?" said Olive, as the lawyer spread out the formidable parchment.
"Oh, that is not necessary. I suppose she is busy?"
Olive shrugged her pretty shoulders. "She is hunting, I believe, through Layard's Nineveh in search of Nimrod," she answered. "Lucky Aunt Rubina, she hasn't got to marry a man she doesn't care two pins about."
"I don't suppose Miss Slarge would marry any one, my dear. She has always been the consistent advocate of celibacy."
"I only wish my father had been the same."
"Would that really please you?" said Dimbal; he knew a good deal more about Miss Olive's likes, if not about her dislikes, than she had any idea of. "I met Mr. Mallow at Reading Station," the artful lawyer continued, significantly.
"Oh!" said Olive, the colour mounting to her face.
"Yes; he has come down to stop for a week or two with Lord Aldean."
"I--I--well, I really don't care. Why do you look at me like that, Mr. Dimbal? Don't, please! Mr. Mallow is really nothing to me."
"Or you to Hecuba. Well, if you don't know, Olive, I'm sure I don't. Let us get to business. By this, my dear," he said, smoothing out the parchment, "you inherit all the real estate of your father, consisting of the house, lands, farms, tenements, etc., etc.--all of which combine to bring you in an income of some three thousand pounds per annum. Into possession of this you will enter upon your twenty-first birthday."
"That is next month," said Olive, nodding.
"Quite so. On August 24th you attain your majority. You will then receive your rents, and become absolute mistress of the estate."
"Without conditions?"
"Certainly--without conditions. Those of which I am about to speak apply only to the personal estate. This consists of some fifty thousand pounds, excellently well invested in railway stock and shares for the most part, though some small portion of it is in the Government funds. If within a month of your majority you become the wife of Angus Carson this money passes to your husband, and he is to use it for the benefit of you both."
"Oh, indeed and I have no say in the matter, I suppose?"
"Well, not legally speaking. Although Mr. Carson can only obtain this money by marrying you; that done, he has full legal possession of it; and, although there is no absolute charge upon the capital providing for it, there is a strong wish expressed by your father--so strong as to amount to an absolute obligation in the mind of any right-thinking man--that the sum of a thousand pounds per annum shall be set apart from out of the interest of this money by your husband for your own separate use. But of the principal, you understand, he has absolute control."
"But suppose Mr. Carson is a scamp and a spendthrift?"
"We will not suppose any such thing, my dear. I admit," added Dimbal, looking at the document--"I admit that the powers given to Mr. Carson are very great, and should perhaps have been controlled, if not restricted, in some measure--indeed, I suggested something of the sort to your father; but he contended you were amply provided for by the real estate, and he had every hope that young Mr. Carson would prove to be as good and as honourable a man as his father had been before him."
"What is your opinion of him?" asked Olive, abruptly.
"My dear, I saw Mr. Carson but for half an hour, so I can scarcely be expected to answer that question. He appeared to me to be an amiable and pleasant young gentleman, and I have no doubt he will make you an excellent husband."
"Oh, I dare say; that is, of course, provided I consent to marry him," said Miss Bellairs, tartly. "Well, Mr. Dimbal, thank you. I quite understand all you have told me. When I marry Mr. Carson, he gets fifty thousand pounds to do exactly as he likes with."
"Well, certainly that is one way of looking at it; but you must not forget that he is to pay you quarterly the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds," said Mr. Dimbal, hastily.
"Quite so. I get one thousand to his forty-nine!"
"No, no, my dear--not at all."
"Oh, well, in any case he has the best of it," said Olive, wilfully. "If he chooses to make ducks and drakes of the capital there will be but a small chance of my getting any income."
"That would be to argue Mr. Carson a thorough scamp, my dear. I do not think he is that."
"How do you know--you say yourself you only saw him for thirty minutes--you can't read a man's character in that time."
"Perhaps not; but Mr. Carson appears to me to be an exceptionally well-conducted young gentleman; and, after all, Olive, supposing he does waste this money, you have always three thousand a year of your own which he cannot touch."
"And a husband I don't want," she replied bitterly. "Well, Mr. Dimbal, suppose I refuse this arrangement?"
"Well, in that case, my dear, the whole of the money goes to the Reverend Manners Brock, Rector of Casterwell."
"Yes, so I remember you told me before. Why, may I ask, does it go to him?"
"Really, my dear, I can hardly say. Mr. Brock was the most intimate friend of your father and Dr. Carson. Failing the fulfilment of his primary wish, it is evident your father decided to pass on the money to his best friend. That is how the will stands, though, as I have said, it is not easy to approve of it in all respects."
"It is a hard and cruel will," said Olive, despondently. "I am sure I don't wish to rob Mr. Carson or any one else of the money, but, on the other hand, I have no wish to become the wife of a man who is a complete stranger to me. My affections are not a regiment of soldiers, to be ordered about in this way."
"Well," said Mr. Dimbal, fishing up a blue envelope with a red seal from the depths of his black bag--"well, Olive, here is your father's letter. It may perhaps explain his reason for making what, I allow, is a most extraordinary disposition of his personalty."
Olive took the letter in silence, and, rising from her chair, opened it at the window with her back to the lawyer. It contained a single sheet of paper, on which were written eight lines in her father's well-known hand. They were shaky and faint, as though they had been penned--as indeed they were--by a dying man.
"My Darling Olive,
"When you read these lines you will know that it is my last wish and command that you should marry Angus Carson, to whom you have been engaged since your birth. Marry him, I implore you--not so much for the money, as, because if you do not become his wife, evil, terrible evil, will come of your refusal. If you ever loved me, if my memory is dear to you, fulfil my dying wish, and marry Angus Carson within a month of your twenty-first birthday. If you refuse, God help you!
"Your loving father,
"Mark Bellairs."
As white as ashes Olive let the paper flutter to the floor.
"What does it mean?" she murmured faintly. "My God, what can it mean?"
"What about to-day, Mallow?" asked Aldean, as with his friend and mentor he enjoyed a morning pipe, pacing the terrace of Kingsholme.
"The day is right enough," replied Laurence, morosely; and he looked with a jaundiced eye on the green country stretching beyond a fringe of trees towards the blue and distant hills.
"I don't think you are," retorted his lordship; "you have not spoken two words the whole of breakfast."
"I'm never fit for rational conversation till noon, Aldean. I should be tied up this morning."
"Liver!" grunted Aldean, with a fond look at his pipe. "Let's get out the 'gees,' and shake ourselves into good humour."
Mallow placed his hands on the young man's shoulders and swayed him to and fro. "That is all the shaking you need, Jim," said he, in a more amiable tone. "If I were as good-humoured as you I should be content--all the same, I wish you would confine yourself to the Queen's English."
"Your speech is like a hornet, the sting's in the tail. Have you read the papers this morning?"
"No," replied Mallow, listlessly. "What's in them?"
"The usual nothing. France is abusing us, Germany is envying us, Russia is warning us, and the U.S.A. are beginning to see that blood is thicker than foreign ditch-water."
"And what are we doing?"
"Holding our tongues and picking up unconsidered geographical trifles. Silence is ever golden annexation with us."
"Upon my word, Jim," said Mallow, with good-humoured astonishment, "you are getting beyond words of one syllable. You can actually construct a sentence with a visible idea in it."
"I am growing up, Mallow; age is coming upon me."
"Well, Jim, suppose we take a walk."
Aldean laughed, and pointed with the stem of his pipe towards the red roofs of the distant manor house, "Over there, I suppose?"
"Jim, you have no tact. If our steps do tend in that direction, wandering in devious ways, I--I--well, I have not forgotten that Miss Ostergaard is paying a visit to--to--Miss Slarge."
"True enough," replied Jim, winking. "Let us pay a visit to--to--Miss Slarge."
"We might do worse," said Mallow; and sighed.
"I expect we'll do better," was Aldean's response.
Mallow groaned. "Oh, Jim, Jim, I am a fool. I know that she is going to marry this Carson; and yet--and yet I cannot help making myself miserable by calling to see her."
"Buck up, old man, she isn't spliced yet!"
"James, you are incurably vulgar."
"If you pay me any more compliments, Mallow, I shall forget the respect to my former tutor, and chuck you out of this gangway. Come for a walk."
So Mallow allowed himself to be persuaded, and in due time, as he knew they inevitably would do, they found themselves in the grounds of the Manor House.
Striding up and down the lawn was an elderly lady with a lack-lustre eye and the gait of a grenadier.
"How do you do, Miss Slarge," said the visitors, almost simultaneously. And they waited for the priestess of Minerva to wake up and return their salutation.
Miss Rubina Slarge was a maiden of forty-five years. She was sufficiently well-looking to have married a score of times. However, early in life she had become convinced that it was her mission to expose the errors of the Romish Church, and she felt that for this purpose she should dispense with a husband. Her knowledge was extensive, but apt to be inaccurate. It was her firm impression that the idol worship of Babylon still existed in the Papal Church, and she was writing a voluminous book to prove this. Nimrod and his wife Semiramis were still worshipped, she declared, and the festivals and ritual of modern Rome were identical with those of ancient Babylon. She thought of little else, and lived in a world of Biblical prophecy and mythological lore. Therefore, although she was supposed ostensibly to look after Olive, that clear-headed young lady looked after her, and the house to boot. Olive called her Aunt Ruby, but she was really only a distant cousin, connected by blood with the late Mrs. Bellairs. Absent-minded and dogmatic, Aunt Ruby was nevertheless amiable and kindly, and Olive was really fond of her. But it was rare for her to leave Rome or Babylon to speak on commonplace subjects. She was difficult to manage, and required no little humouring.
On seeing two young men standing bareheaded before her, she stopped and looked bewildered. Then she recognized them both and smiled. Finally she pointed a lean finger at Lord Aldean.
"Septem alta jugis toti quæ presidet orbi,'" said Miss Slarge, solemnly. "What does that mean, Lord Aldean?"
"Great Scott!" gasped Jim, cramming his hat on his head, "I don't know."
"Yet you call yourself a scholar, sir?"
"No, I don't, Miss Slarge. I call Mr. Mallow a scholar. What is it, Mallow?"
"The lofty city with seven hills which governs the whole world," translated Mallow.
"I know that," snapped Miss Slarge; "it is a simple sentence from Virgil. But what city?"
"Rome, of course; what other city has seven hills?"
"I was certain of it," cried Miss Slarge, triumphantly; "the chief seat of idolatry under the New Testament. Mystery, Babylon the great--that is Rome!"
"Is it indeed," said Aldean, for her eyes were fastened upon him. "What a rum idea!"
"Jim, Jim," reproved Mallow, smiling.
"It is a very wonderful idea," said Miss Slarge, reproachfully. "Do you know, Mr. Mallow, I made a most remarkable discovery last week? The two-horned mitre of the Romish bishops is nothing but the mitre worn by Dagon, the fish-god of the Babylonians."
"I do not quite understand, Miss Slarge."
"It is not difficult," replied the lady. "Dagon was depicted as half man, half fish."
"I know," cried Aldean; "he had a fish's tail, like a mermaid."
"True enough," assented Mallow; "but that does not explain the mitre."
Miss Slarge became excited. "The head of the fish, with open jaws, was worn on the god's head!" she cried, "and the scales and tail formed a cloak. The bishops of the papal church don't wear the tail, but they place the open-jawed head on their brows, and call it a mitre. Now do you see?"
"Oh yes. It is truly wonderful, Miss Slarge."
"Osiris also wore such a mitre, Mr. Mallow. How then can you doubt that the Pope of Rome is not the modern representative of the Philistine, of the Babylonian deity. Why, if----"
By this time Miss Slarge was taking a breather on her hobby horse, and might be expected to gallop that tiresome animal for a considerable time; so, leaving Mallow to endure the martyrdom, Lord Aldean edged away from the pair by degrees. The cunning rascal had caught a glimpse of Miss Ostergaard out of the tail of his eye, and, preferring flirtation to instruction, managed to place himself by her side whilst she was filling a small basket with roses. All this apparently without her knowledge.
The young lady from New Zealand was one of the most charming of young ladies; and Aldean went so far as to make no reservation in favour of any one. She had been sent to England to be educated, and, having gone to the same school as Olive, a close friendship had sprung up between them as rapidly as had grown Jonah's gourd. Happily the friendship was more enduring than the plant, and for three or four years these two had been like Helena and Hermia, two cherries on one stem. Miss Ostergaard, whose Christian, or rather Maori name, was Tui, loved Olive as her other self, and frequently came to stay at the Manor House. She was now twenty years of age, and so pretty that she won every heart left uncaptured by Olive. With dark hair, dark complexion, and two wonderful dark eyes like wells of liquid light, she made such havoc amongst young and susceptible males that she should have been shut up as a too delightful damsel dangerous to the youth of the community. Her last victim was the hapless Aldean. Having impaled him on a pin, she was watching him wriggle. Not that Jim objected to the process--indeed, he rather liked it--for if he wriggled on the pin no one else could, for the time being; and thus he secured all the sweet torment unto himself: a most gratifying monopoly.
Of course Tui knew that Olive was in love with Mallow, and equally, of course, Olive was aware of Aldean's passion for Tui; and of course both of them discussed their lovers to their hearts' content. Tui was distinctly in favour of Mallow as a suitor for her darling Olive, and was enraged at the mere thought of her friend being handed over, with fifty thousand pounds, to an unknown suitor from the back of beyond. Therefore she was glad to see him, and she hoped that he would rescue Olive from the Indian dragon as a true knight should; for Olive was very wretched and very tearful, and had been so ever since the departure of Mr. Dimbal.
"Poor dear!" sighed Miss Ostergaard, thinking of her friend.
"That is me, isn't it?" asked the artful Aldean.
"You?" said the lady, snipping vigorously--"as if I was thinking of you, Lord Aldean. Oh, you men, you men!--and they say that women are vain!"
"You have something to be vain about," said Aldean, seeing his way to a compliment.
"I have, indeed--with you. No, I was thinking of Olive. You know that she is going to be married?"
Aldean cast a commiserating look at his friend, who was still being assailed with Babylonic information by Miss Slarge, and nodded.
"But she may not marry the chap after all, you know?"
"Oh yes, she will. Mr. Carson is coming down here in three days, and Olive has fully made up her mind to accept him. I am so enraged," cried Tui, "that I could (snip) cut his (snip) head off (snip, snip)."
"She has never seen Carson, has she?"
"No; that's the worst of it. Fancy marrying a veiled prophet--a Mokanna!"
"Never heard of the Johnny, Miss Ostergaard. Who is he?"
"He is a fable, Lord Aldean."
"Pity this Carson man isn't," said his lordship, with a grin.
"I wish he were," sighed Tui, walking towards the house. "I am sure he is a beast--a beast with a big, big B!"
"Who deserves a big, big D!" cried Aldean, emphatically. "Oh, what a beast!"
"Are you talking of the beast from the Persian Gulf," cried Miss Slarge, who, having pulverized Mallow, had glided behind them; "the beast who taught the Babylonians arts and sciences?"
"This beast comes from India," said Aldean, smiling at Tui, and with a side glance at Mallow; "he is called Car----"
"Oh, there is Olive," interrupted Miss Ostergaard, waving her hand; "Olive, here are two visitors!" and Olive, pale and listless, descending the steps, turned yet paler at the sight of the man she loved and who loved her.