'The clouds that gather round the setting sunDo take a sober coloring from an eyeThat hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.'
'The clouds that gather round the setting sunDo take a sober coloring from an eyeThat hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.'
I could not help thinking of that, and of how true it was, as I watched the little red bits of cloud swimming in the blue, and it kept ringing in my head till I thought I must say it out loud—
'Another race has been, and other palms are won.'
'Another race has been, and other palms are won.'
I do not want him, my brother, to win his palm yet; I wanted to look at sunsets with him again, and hear him enjoy this beauty as he can enjoy it—so thoroughly. Oh, we are very selfish in wanting to keep people we love on earth, when they might win their palms! But it is only human nature after all, you know; and I do think Osmond's life is a happy one, though it is so full of care."
"I am sure it must be," said Claud, quietly, as he sat down on the grass beside her. "Life is a pleasant thing to every man who is young and has good health, more especially if he has love to brighten his lot. I think your brother a fort right, because you would have thought my denial an empty protestation, designed to make you say it again, with more decision; so I thought it better to let it drop."
"Do you think we are the best judges of our own courage, or, in short, of our own capabilities any way?" asked Mr. Cranmer, following her example by gathering a few pinks and putting them in his button-hole.
"I don't know; I think we ought to be—what do you think about it?" asked she, evidently with a genuine interest in the subject itself, and none to spare for Claud Cranmer.
It was strange how this manner of hers non-plussed him. He was accustomed enough to hear girls discuss abstract topics, inward feelings, and the reciprocity of emotion—who in these days is not? But in his experience the process was always intended to serve as a delicate vehicle for flirtation, and however much the two people so occupied might generalise verbally, they always mentally referred to the secret feelings of their own two selves, and nobody else.
He felt that Miss Allonby expected him to give a well thought out and adequate answer to her question, while he had been merely trifling with the subject, and had absolutely no intention of entering upon a serious discussion.
He hesitated, therefore, in his reply, and at last calmly remarked that he believed he knew his faults, intimately—he saw so much of them; but that his acquaintance with his virtues was so slight that he scarcely knew them by sight much less by heart.
She laughed, a clear fresh laugh of appreciation; but objected that this was not a fair answer.
"But, perhaps," said she, "you are one of those who don't think it right to analyse their own emotions?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know about thinking it right," he said. "Of course I have to do it, or pretend to do it, if I don't wish to be voted a fool by everyone I meet. And that reminds me, I have discovered, here in these wilds, a young lady who never even heard of the current topics of the day—who, far from dissecting the sentiments of her inmost being, does not even know herself the possessor of such a morbid luxury as an inmost being. You ought to see her; she is the most curious sample of modern young lady-hood it was ever my lot to meet. She has the mind and manners of an intelligent girl of ten; my sister tells me she is nineteen, but I really can scarcely believe it. She lives with some maiden aunts who have brought her to this pass between them. My sister is enthusiastic about her, and most anxious to have the pleasing task of teaching this backward young idea how to shoot. If she is as free from the follies as she is from the graces of girlhood, she is certainly unique."
"You make me very anxious to see her. She must be like one of Walter Besant's heroines—Phyllis, in the "Golden Butterfly," or one of those. I have often wondered if such a girl existed. Is she charming?"
"N—no. I don't think I could truthfully say I thought so; and yet she has all the makings of a beauty in her; but you can't attempt conversation—she wouldn't understand a word you said. She has seen nothing, heard nothing, read nothing. That last remark is absolutely, not relatively true; she really has read nothing. It gives, one an oppressive sense of responsibility; one has to pick one's words, for fear of being the first to suggest evil to such a primeval mind."
Wyn laughed softly, and took a deliberate look at him as he lay on the turf. He had put up his arms over his head, and looked very contented and a good deal amused. He enjoyed chattering to a girl who had some sense, and was for the moment almost prepared to pardon the paleness and thinness, and even the unconsciousness of his companion, which latter characteristic affected him far the most seriously of the three.
"Most undeveloped heroines turn out very charming when some one takes them in hand, and sophisticates them," said the girl. "I wonder if your discovery would do the same?"
"I can't say. She has a very fine complexion," said Claud, inconsequently. "Her skin is rather the color of that pinky reach of sky yonder. What a night it is! It feels like Gray's elegy to me. I wonder if you know what I mean?"
"Yes, I know. What an amount of quotations come swarming to one's mind on such a night! It is a consolation, I think, in the midst of one's own utter inadequacy to express one's feelings, to feel that some one else has done it for you so beautifully as Gray."
A step behind them on the gravel, and, turning quickly, Wyn beheld Dr. Forbes.
"Get up, young woman, get up this minute. I sent you to rest, not to come and amuse this young sprig of nobility with your conversation. Very nice for him, I've no manner of doubt; but, nice or not, you've got to bid him good-night and go to bed."
Wyn rose at once, but attempted to plead.
"I have been resting, doctor, indeed—drinking in this lovely air. I had to go out of doors—one must always go out of doors when one is feeling strongly, I think—roofs are so in the way. I wanted to look right up as far as that one star, and to send my heart up as far as my eyes could reach!"
The doctor looked down at the face raised to him—pale with watching, but alive with happiness.
"I'm of the opinion, Miss Allonby," said he, with a mouth sterner than his eyes, "that if the Honorable Claud Cranmer finds you so interesting when you're worn out with waking and fasting, you'll be simply irresistible after a good night's rest."
The girl had vanished almost before this dreadful remark was concluded. The doctor chuckled as he watched her flight.
"There's girls and girls," he remarked, sententiously; "some take to their heels when you joke them about the men. Some don't. I thought she'd go."
"I had rather," said Claud, nettled, "that you indulged your humor at anyone's expense but mine."
"Oh, that'll never hurt you," said the doctor, placidly, rubbing his eye-glasses with his red silk handkerchief, "nor her either. Young people get so fine-drawn and finikin now-a-days."
Claud smiled.
"I perceive, doctor, that you do not hold with the modern ideas concerning introspection. You are a refreshing exception. I regret that I was born a generation too late to adopt your habits of thought."
"Habits of thought! Why, t'would trouble you mighty little to adopt all I've got," was the genial reply. "I've avoided all habits of thought all my life, and that's what makes me so useful a man. I just think what I think without referring to any book to tell me which way to begin. Hoot! I'd never think on tram-lines, as you do: I go clean across country, that's my way, and I'm bound to get to the end long before you, in your coach-and-four.
"Yes," conceded Claud, "I expect you would; that is, if you didn't come a cropper on the way."
A low cottage in a sunny bayWhere the salt sea innocuously breaks,And the sea-breeze as innocently breathesOn Devon's leafy shores.Wordsworth.
A low cottage in a sunny bayWhere the salt sea innocuously breaks,And the sea-breeze as innocently breathesOn Devon's leafy shores.
Wordsworth.
"May I come in, Miss Willoughby? My brother is here, and has brought good news from Poole."
"Come in, pray, Lady Mabel; and Mr. Cranmer too," said Ellen, raising herself eagerly on her couch. "Tell me all about this good news. Mr. Allonby will live?"
"He will live, and is doing finely," said Claud, shaking hands with the invalid. "He has recognised his sister this morning, and spoken several coherent sentences. Dr. Forbes is much elated, and I must say I am greatly relieved; it would have been very tragic had he not recovered."
"I am deeply thankful," said Miss Ellen, with a sympathetic moisture in her eyes. "How delighted his sister must be!"
"She is. I fancy, from what I can gather, that she and her sisters are quite dependent on their brother; she told me they were orphans."
"Poor children!" said Lady Mabel, in her impulsive way. "It would have been terrible had it ended fatally. I feel quite a weight lifted from my mind. Miss Willoughby, I must express to you my hearty thanks for having been so long troubled with me. I have sent Joseph into Stanton with a telegram telling Edward to come and fetch me, as Claud does not seem inclined to come back to London just yet awhile."
"I want to try to get a clue to this affair before I go," said Claud, "for it has piqued my curiosity most amazingly. The fellow from Scotland Yard has quite made up his mind that we shall get the whole truth from Mr. Allonby's own lips; I'm inclined to think he must be right; but, of course, one can't torment the poor fellow about it while he is so weak."
"How very reserved Englishmen are!" burst out Lady Mabel. "All of them are alike! Claud tells me that this Miss Allonby knows absolutely nothing of her brother's affairs, though, from what she said, they seem to be on the most confidential terms. She had never heard that he had an enemy. Claud, my dear boy, draw a moral from this sad story. Write the names and addresses of your secret foes upon a slip of paper, seal it in an envelope, and give it to me, not to be opened till you are discovered mysteriously murdered in an unfrequented spot."
"A good idea, that, Mab," responded Claud, cheerfully, "and one that I shall certainly act upon. How would it be if I were to add a few memoranda to every name, hinting at the means of murder most likely to be employed by each? So that if I were knocked down with a cudgel, you might lay it to Smith; if prussic acid were employed, it would most likely be Jones; while a pistol-shot could be confidently ascribed as Robinson. Save the detectives a lot of trouble that way."
"Oh, how can you jest on such a subject!" said Miss Ellen, reproachfully.
The brother and sister were abashed, and Claud at once apoligised in his neat way.
"We're Irish, you know, we must laugh or die," he said. "Only an Irish mind could have evolved the idea of a wake; they feast at their funerals because the sources of their laughter and their tears lie so close together, if they didn't do the one they must do the other. I am so relieved this morning—such a load's off my mind. Faith! if I didn't talk nonsense, I'd explode, as sure as a gun."
"Bottle up your nonsense a bit, my boy, for the ears of one who's more used to it than Miss Willoughby," said Lady Mabel, patting him on the head admonishingly. "It's been something quite out of his line," she went on, explanatorily, "these last few days of anxiety and gravity. It has told upon him, poor fellow, and he must let off some steam. I am going to walk up to Poole with him, if you'll allow it, to call upon Miss Allonby. May we take Elsa with us?"
Lady Mabel had shortened Elaine's name into Elsa, because she declared her to be like the Elsa of the old German myth.
"She has just the expression," she said, "which I should imagine to have been worn by Elsa of Brabant, before the appearance of the champion on the scene. She has an unprotected appealing look, as if she were imploring some one to take her part. If I could get her to London she would not long appeal in vain."
Elsa worshipped Lady Mabel, as it was natural she should; and the idea of a visit to London being held out to her had caused such excitement as prevented her sleeping and almost bereft her of appetite. Every turn of their visitor's head, every sweep of her tasteful draperies, every puff of the faint delicate perfume she used, every tone of her deep vibrating voice was as the wave of an enchanter's wand to the bewildered girl. She looked now with aching misery on her own ill-cut, misfitting garments; she pondered with sharp misgivings over her face in the glass, as she remembered the thick artistic sweep of Lady Mabel's loose grey hair, as it made dark soft shadows over those mysterious, never-silent eyes. A passion of discontent, of longing, of unnamed desire was sweeping like a summer storm over the girl's waking heart and mind. The feminine impulses in her were all arousing. Slowly and imperfectly she was learning that she was a woman.
With the strange reticence which she had imbibed from her bringing up, she mentioned none of this. Lady Mabel had very little idea of the seething waves of feeling which every look and smile of hers was agitating afresh. She talked to the girl on various subjects, to be surprised anew at every venture by the intense and childish ignorance displayed; but on the subjects which were just then paramount in Elaine—dress, personal appearance, love—of these she never touched, and so never succeeded in striking a spark from the smouldering intelligence. It was Miss Charlotte who most noted a difference in her pupil.
In the old days, when the girl first came Edge, she had been the possessor of a temper which was furious in its paroxysms. This temper the combined aunts had set themselves soberly to subdue and to eradicate. They had succeeded admirably as far as the subduing went; no ebullition was ever seen; rebellion was as much a thing of the past as the Star Chamber or the Inquisition; but as regards eradication they had not succeeded at all.
In some dumb indescribable way, Miss Charlotte was now made by her pupil to feel this daily. In her looks and words, but chiefly in her manner, was an unspoken defiance. She still came when she was called, but she came slowly; she still answered when spoken to, but her manner was impertinent, if not her words. She was altered, and the fact of not being able to define the change made Miss Charlotte irritable.
Poor lady! she sat stewing in the hot school-room, hearing Elaine read French with praiseworthy patience and fortitude, little thinking how entirely a work of supererogation such patience was, nor how much more salutary it would have been for both if, instead of goading her own and her niece's endurance to its last ebb over the priggish observations of a lady named Madame Melville—who gave her impossible daughter bad advice in worse French with a persistency which would certainly have moved said daughter to suicide had she not been, as has been said, impossible—if instead of this Miss Charlotte had taken Elsa to see the world around her, the pleasant, wholesome world of rural England, with its innocuous society, its innocent delights, its tennis-parties and archery meetings, its picnics and pretty cool dresses, and light-hearted expeditions. Above all, its youthfulness.
To be young with the young—that was what this poor Elsa needed. That was what her aunts could not understand, and they could not see, moreover, what consequences might spring from this well-intentioned ignorance of theirs.
Says Mrs. Ewing, who perhaps best of all Englishwomen understood English girlhood:
"Girls' heads are not like jam-pots, which, if you do not fill them, will remain empty."
Every girl's head will be full of something. It is for her parents and guardians—spite of Mr. Herbert Spencer—to decide what the filling shall be.
Nothing of this recked Elaine's instructress, as she sat with frowning brow and compressed mouth, listening while the intolerable Madame Melville accosted her daughter thus:
"You are happy in your comparisons this morning, and express them pretty well."
In dreary monotone and excruciatingly English accent the girl read on, as the obsequious dancing master wished to know.
"Vous ne voulez point que je la fasse valser?"
"Non," replied his prophetic patroness, "je suis persuadee que cette mode n'est pas faite pour durer!"
And this volume bore date 1851.
To waltz! The very word had a secret charm for Elaine. What was this waltzing? she ignorantly wondered. Something pleasant it must have been, as Madame Melville declined to allow poor Lucy to learn it, and her meditations grew so interesting that she lost her place on the dreary page, and was only recalled to the present by Miss Charlotte's irritable tones:
"I am sure I cannot think what has come over you, Elaine! You seem quite unable to fix your attention on anything."
Meanwhile, upstairs in Miss Ellen's room, Elaine was the subject of conversation.
"May we take your Elsa with us on our walk to Poole? She will like to see Miss Allonby?" Lady Mabel suggested, instigated thereto by a hint from Claud that he should like to renew the acquaintance of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.
"If you could wait half an hour—Charlotte does not like her hours interfered with," said Miss Ellen, deprecatingly. "She will be free at four o'clock."
"Does Miss Brabourne never take a holiday?" asked Claud, tracing patterns with his stick on the carpet.
"Well—not exactly. She is not hard worked, I think," said Miss Ellen, feeling bound to support the family theory of education, in spite of her own decided mistrust of it. "It is very bad for a young girl to have nothing to occupy her time with—my sister considers some regularity so essential."
"I should have thought," Lady Mabel was unable to resist saying, "that a young woman of nineteen could have arranged her time for herself, if she had been properly taught the responsibilities of life."
The wavering pink flush stole over the invalid's kind face.
"I am afraid we middle-aged women forget the flight of years," she said, with gentle apology. "To us, Elaine is still the child she was when she came to us twelve years ago."
"It's most natural," said Claud. "Will Miss Brabourne always live with you? I remember, when Colonel Brabourne died, hearing that the terms of the will were confused, or that there was some mess about it. Was not the estate thrown into Chancery? I hope it is not rude of me to ask?"
"Not at all," answered Ellen, "I should be really glad to talk over the child's future with some one not so totally ignorant of the world as I am. The whole story is a painful one to me, I own, but it has to be faced," she added, with an effort, after a short pause; "it has to be faced."
"Don't you say a word if you would rather not," said Lady Mabel, earnestly. "But if you would really like my brother's opinion, he will be most interested to hear what you have to say. He is a barrister, and might be of some use to you."
The Honorable Claud grew rather red, and laughed at his sister.
"Don't let Mab mislead you, Miss Willoughby," he said. "I was called to the Bar in the remote past, but I have never practised. Still, I learnt some law once, and any scraps of legal knowledge I may have retained are most entirely at your service."
"You are very kind, and I will most willingly tell you as well as I can how matters stand," said Miss Ellen. "We had formerly another sister—Alice—she was the youngest except Emily, and she was very pretty."
"I can well believe it," said Lady Mabel, purely for the pleasure of seeing Miss Willoughby's modest blush.
"In those days," she went on, "we went every year to London for the months of May and June; my father was alive, you understand, and he always took us. There we met Colonel Brabourne, and he fell in love with our pretty Alice. My father saw no reason against the match, except that he was twenty years older than she; but she did not seem to mind that, and was desperately in love with him. When they had been engaged only a few weeks, my father died very suddenly, and, as soon as the mourning would allow, Colonel Brabourne insisted on being married. It was a very quiet wedding, of course, and there were no settlements of any kind—nothing that there should have been. Everything was very hurried; his regiment was just ordered to India, he wished her to accompany him; we knew nothing of business, and we had no relations at hand to do things for us. They were just married as soon as the banns could be called, and away they went to Bengal. My father left his fortune to be divided equally among his daughters, and secured it to their descendants, so that Elaine will have, in any case, more than £200 a year of her own; but now comes the puzzling part of the story. The climate of India proved fatal to my sister. She was never well after her marriage; and, when Elaine was born, her husband got leave to bring his wife and child to England, to see if it were possible to save her. It was not. She flagged, and drooped, and pined, and gradually we got to know that she was in a deep decline. It was just at this time, when her husband and all of us were almost crazy with anxiety, that Alice's godmother, a rich widow lady named Cheston, living in London, died. In consequence of Alice being named after her, she left her all her fortune—about fifty thousand pounds. This was left quite unconditionally.
"We were all so anxious about our sister, I think we scarcely noticed the bequest. She died about a fortnight afterwards, leaving a little will, dated before she knew of this legacy, bestowing everything she could upon her husband, with whom, poor darling, she was madly in love, then and always. She was, of course, sure of his doing all he could for little Elaine. My experience of the world is very limited," said Miss Willoughby, wiping her eyes, "but I must say I think men are the most incomprehensible beings in creation. You would have thought that Valentine Brabourne was absolutely inconsolable for the loss of his wife. He threw up his commission, and went to live in seclusion, taking his baby daughter with him. We saw nothing of him."
"Did he live on his wife's money?" asked Claud.
"He lived on the income of it chiefly. He had very little of his own, besides his pay. I did not see how we could interfere. His wife's will left the money to him, by implication, and of course I thought it would be Elaine's. But when she was three years old he married again—a person who—who——" Miss Willoughby faltered for an expression. "Well, a person of whom my sisters and I could not approve. She was a Miss Orton, and lived with her brother, who was what they call a book-maker, I believe. It did seem so strange that, after mourning such a wife as Alice, he should suddenly write from the midst of his retirement to announce himself married to such a person. We did not wish to be selfish or unpleasant—we invited him and his wife down here, but we really could not repeat the experiment."
Tears of pleading were in the poor lady's eyes.
"I hope you will not think me narrow," she said, "I know we lead too isolated a life; but I could not like Mrs. Brabourne. She smoked cigarettes, and drank brandy and soda water. She was always reading a pink newspaper called theSporting Times, and I think she betted on every horse-race that is run," said poor Miss Willoughby, vaguely. "She talked about Sandown and Chantilly, and other places I had never heard of. She never went to church, and appeared, from her conversation, to do more visiting and gambling on the Sunday than on any other day. She was a handsome young woman, with her gowns cut like a gentleman's coat. She drove very well, and used to wear a hard felt hat and dogskin gloves. I cannot say I liked her. My sisters could none of them approve. She was unwomanly, I cannot but think it, and I am sure she influenced her husband for evil. Soon after her stay here, she had a baby, but it died within twenty-four hours of its birth; so the next year, and the next. I am sure she took no proper care of herself, but when she had been four years married, she had a son, who did live, and was called Godfrey. Six months after his birth, his father was thrown in the hunting-field and killed. He left a will bequeathing the whole of his property—this fifty thousand which had been poor Alice's,—to his son Godfrey. Mrs. Brabourne was to have three hundred a year till her death, and a certain sum was set aside for the maintenance and education of both children till they were of age. And all this of Alice's money—our Alice! Do you call that a just will, Mr. Cranmer?"
"I call it simple theft," said Claud, shortly; "but, if the will your sister left be legally valid, I don't see what you are to do in the matter."
"So our solicitor said," sighed Miss Willoughby. "He thought we had no grounds at all for litigation; but I think that everyone must confess that it is a hard case. I wish it had been possible to throw it into Chancery, but it was not."
"I can just remember there being some talk about it," said Lady Mabel. "I call it a very hard case."
"If it had been half!" said Miss Willoughby. "I would not have grudged the boy half my sister's fortune; but that he should leave it all to him!"
The clock struck four as she spoke, and the sound of a closing door was heard.
"Here comes Elaine," she said. "Please mention nothing of all this to her. She does not know."
"Does she not? Why not tell her?" asked Lady Mabel.
"I thought it might set her against her brother," answered Miss Ellen, "or make her disrespect the memory of her father. But I cannot feel as I should towards the Ortons I must confess. There was something very underhand; something must have been done, some undue influence exerted to induce him to leave such a will, for I know he loved Alice as he never loved his second wife."
"Is she alive still, the second Mrs. Brabourne?" asked Claud.
"No; she died two years ago. The boy is more than twelve years old. The money will be worth having by the time he attains his majority; when Elaine is twenty-one, I shall make another effort on her behalf."
"I am sure I wish you success, but I am afraid you have no case," said Claud, regretfully.
As he spoke the door was opened, and Elaine walked in.
Ankle-deep in English grass I leaped,And clapped my hands, and called all very fair.
Ankle-deep in English grass I leaped,And clapped my hands, and called all very fair.
In the beginning, when God called all good,Even then was evil near us, it is writ;But we indeed, who call things good and fair,The evil is upon us while we speak;Deliver us from evil, let us pray.Aurora Leigh.
In the beginning, when God called all good,Even then was evil near us, it is writ;But we indeed, who call things good and fair,The evil is upon us while we speak;Deliver us from evil, let us pray.
Aurora Leigh.
As the young girl entered the room Claud Cranmer rose, with a quick gesture of courtesy.
Elaine, not prepared to see strangers, paused, and the ingenuous morning flush of youth passed over her face in a wave of exquisite carmine. Claud thought he had never beheld anything more lovely than that spontaneous recognition of his presence. She had not blushed when he met her first—her anxiety for Allonby had been paramount. And the pale girl up at Poole, with the sculptured chin, never blushed at all, but looked at him with frank and limpid eyes as if he were entirely a matter of course.
But for Elsa, dawn had begun; the sun was rising, and naturally the light was red. Oddly enough, an old country rhyme floated in Claud's mind—
"A red morning's a shepherd's warning."
"A red morning's a shepherd's warning."
He did not know quite why he should think of such a thing, but a good many varying emotions were stirred in him as he scrutinised this girl who had so nearly escaped the inheritance of a considerable fortune.
What a complexion she had! Her inexorable critic mentally compared her with the slim Wynifred. A throat like a slender pillar of creamy marble, lips to which still clung that delicate moist rose-red which usually evaporates with childhood, a cheek touched with a peach-like down, eyelashes long enough to shadow and intensify the light eyes in a manner most individual, but hard to describe. What a pity, what a thousand pities, that all this effect should be marred and lost by the cruel straining back of the abundant locks, and the shrouding of the finely-developed form in a garment which absolutely made Mr. Cranmer's eyes ache.
The girl smiled at him—a slow smile which dawned by degrees over her lovely, inanimate face. The look in her eyes was enough to shake a man's calmness; and when she asked, "How is Mr. Allonby?" he felt that she had some interest to spare for Mr. Allonby's messenger.
Here was a type of girlhood he could understand, for whose looks and smiles he could supply a motive.
He watched her every moment keenly, and soon found out that her awkwardness was the result of diffidence and restraint, not of native ungainliness. He determined that Mabel must have her to stay with her, and civilize her. She would more than repay the trouble, he was confident.
He saw the sudden ardent glow of pleasure succeed the restless chafing of suspense when at last permission was accorded for her to walk to Poole with Lady Mabel.
"Run and put on your hat," said Miss Ellen, indulgently, and away darted the girl with radiant face.
"Jane," she cried, bursting into theci-devantnursery where Miss Gollop reigned supreme, "where's my best hat—quick! I am going out with Lady Mabel and Mr. Cranmer!"
"Your best hat's in its box, where it'll stop till Sunday," answered Jane, placidly. "You ain't going trapesing along the lanes in it, I can tell you, Lady Mabel or no Lady Mabel."
"Oh, Jane, you are unkind! Do let me wear it."
"You shan't wear it, Miss Elaine, and that's flat. Once take it out in this sun, you'll have the straw burnt as yaller as them sunflowers."
"Where's my second best?" grumbled the girl, turning to the press.
"On the Philmouth Road, for all I knows; at least, that's where you last left it, ain't it?"
"And am I to go out in my garden-hat—with Lady Mabel Wynch-Frère?" cried Elaine, aghast.
"I don't see no other way for it," said Jane, calmly, drawing her thimble down a seam to flatten it, with a rasping noise which set her charge's teeth on edge.
"Well, Jane, I never heard of such a thing!" she burst forth after a pause of speechless indignation.
"I can't help it, miss; I must teach you to take care of your clothes. You're not going flaunting over to Mrs. Battishill's in that ostrich feather o' yours. Maybe, next time you drop your hat in the road, you'll remember to pick it up again."
Surely Elaine's fairy godmother spoke through the untutored lips of Jane Gollop!
Instead of presenting herself to Claud in a headgear covered with yellow satin ribbon and a bright blue feather, Elsa appeared downstairs in her wide-brimmed garden-hat, simply trimmed with muslin; and narrowly escaped looking picturesque.
How different was the road to Poole, now that she trod it with such companions! Her heart was light as air, her young spirits were all stretched eagerly, almost yearningly forward into the unknown country whose border she had crossed so lately.
Her fancy played sweetly around the image of the artist-hero, her pulses beat a glad chime because he was living, and not dead. She waxed less shy, and chatted to her companions,—even daring to ask questions, a thing her aunts never permitted. She gave them reminiscences of her childish days, when she lived in London, and of a dream she had constantly of streets full of houses, one after another, in endless succession, with very few trees among them.
"That is all I know of London," she said, "and I hardly remember anything that happened, except hearing the baby cry in the night. It was Godfrey. I used to wake up in my little bed, and see nurse sitting with the baby near the lamp, rocking him in her arms. I remember being taken in to kiss papa when he was dead; but that was not in London—it was somewhere in the country—at Fallowmead, where Godfrey's uncle has his racing-stud. I remember mamma; she was not my real mamma. I could not bear her. She used to whip me, and once I bit her in the arm."
"My dear Elsa!" said Lady Mabel.
"I did. I was a very naughty little girl—at least, Jane always says so. I remember being shut up alone for a punishment."
As she spoke, they turned a bend in the road, and came in sight of the spot where the crime had been perpetrated.
Two men stood there talking together. One was Mr. Dickens of Scotland Yard, the other Elsa greeted with a glad wave of the hand in greeting.
"Oh," cried she, springing forward, "it's Mr. Fowler, it's my godfather! I did not know he had come back!"
At the sound of her voice, Mr. Fowler turned round, and his face lighted up as she came towards him.
"Why, Elsie!" he said, "there you are, my child! And I'm hearing such doings of yours, it makes me quite proud of you. And you, sir," he went on, addressing Claud, "are Mr. Cranmer, I suppose, and entitled to my very hearty goodwill for your behavior in this matter."
Claud had heard of Mr. Fowler before, as a local justice of the place, and he gladly shook hands with him, scrutinizing, of course, as he did so, the general mien and bearing of his new acquaintance.
Mr. Fowler was short, square, sturdy, and plain. His hair and thick short beard had once been jet black, but were now iron grey. His skin was exceedingly dark, almost swarthy, and his eyes, big, soft, and luminous, were his one redeeming feature. His manner was a curious mixture of gentleness and strength; he never raised his voice, but his first order was always instantly obeyed. Something there was about him which invited confidence; he was not exactly polished, yet his manner to women was perfect. Gentle as was his eye, it yet had a curiously penetrating expression, and Lady Mabel, used as she was to what should be the best school of breeding in England, was yet struck with the simplicity and repose of his address.
"I only came back to Edge Combe yesterday," he said, and, though he had lived all his life in South Devon, Claud noticed at once that the rough burr of the "r" was absent from his quiet voice. "I am often absent for some months, on and off, managing some tin mines in Cornwall; and it was through the medium of the newspapers I learned what had been going forward in our little valley. And now, Mr. Cranmer, what do you think about it?"
"I'm afraid I must postpone my opinion till Mr. Allonby himself has been questioned," said Claud.
"Exactly what I've been telling Mr. Fowler," observed Mr. Dickens, who wore a baffled and humbled look. "Nothing can be done till Mr. Allonby speaks. It's a case ofvendetta, I'll go bail; and it's done by one that's accustomed to the work, too; accustomed to cut the stick and leave no traces."
"Cut the stick—the stick they knocked him down with?" asked Elsa in low, horrified tones.
Claud smiled.
"Your theory hardly holds with Dr. Forbes, Mr. Dickens," he said rather shortly. "He declares the blows were given by a novice—by a hand that didn't know where to plant his blows."
"Well, I don't know what to say," snapped the detective. "Here's a man beat almost to death on the high-road in broad daylight; some one must have done it. Where is he? There ain't a trace of him. Nobody has met a single soul that could be taken up on suspicion—nobody has seen anybody as so much as looked suspicious. Miss Brabourne and her servant met nobody as they came along not half-an-hour afterwards. It ought to be some one uncommon deep, and not a tramp nor a fishy-looking party of any kind."
All this was true. Claud was inclined to think that the detective had done his best, and his ill-success was owing to the very strange nature of the case, and not to his inability.
They left him sadly ruminating by the wayside, and crossed the Waste to the farm, Elaine with her hand clasped tightly in the square, short, hard palm of her godfather.
"This has been an adventure for you, little woman," he said. "What do the aunts say?"
"They are surprised," answered she, with her usual paucity of vocabulary.
"I should think they were! And horrified too—eh?"
"Yes, very. Aunt Fan nearly had hysterics."
"Poor Aunt Fan! I don't wonder. I have a great respect for the Misses Willoughby," he said, turning to Lady Mabel. "I have known them all my life."
His voice seemed to soften involuntarily as he said it, and, as his eyes rested lingeringly on Elaine's face, Lady Mabel could not help framing a romance of twenty years ago, in which he and pretty Alice Willoughby were the leading characters; and a swift bitter thought of the complications of life crossed her mind. Had Alice mated with the deep patient love that waited for her, and chosen a home by "Devon's leafy shores" instead of the hot swamps of the Ganges, she had probably been a happy blooming wife and mother now, with the enjoyment of her godmother's fortune duly secured to her children.
And now here stood Elsa, comparatively poor, fatherless, motherless; while Henry Fowler, like Philip Ray, had gone ever since "bearing a life-long hunger in his heart." All this, of course, was pure surmise, yet it seemed to invest the homely features and square figure of the Devonian with a halo of tender feeling in her eyes; for Lady Mabel had a romance of her own.
"Did you have hysterics, Elsie?" asked Mr. Fowler.
"No; I lost my hat," answered she, in a matter-of-fact way which made them all three laugh.
"It was a wiser thing to do," he answered, in his quiet voice. "But the whole affair must have been a great shock to you, lassie."
"Yes," said the girl—an inadequate, halting answer.
Dimly she was feeling that that day had been not all darkness—that it was the beginning of life. She did not know the inviolable law of humanity, that no new life is born without a pang; but imperfectly she felt that her pain had been followed by a feeling of gladness for which she could not account, and that the days now were not as the days that had been.
"What a solitude," says somebody in some book, "is every human soul." At that moment the solitude of Elaine Brabourne's soul was very great. She was standing where the brook and river met; vaguely she heard the sound of coming waters foaming down into the quiet valley. It awed her, but did not terrify. There was excitement, but no fear. And of all this those who walked beside her knew nothing.
Henry Fowler was one of those who surround womanhood with a halo, and his feminine divinity had taken form and shape. It had borne a name, the name of Alice Willoughby—for Lady Mabel's surmise had been correct.
Had he known how near the torrent stood near the untried feet of Alice's daughter, he would have flung out his strong right arm, caught her in a firm hold, and cried, "Beware!"
But he did not know. He saw only with his waking eyes, and those told him that Elaine had grown prettier—nothing more. She was safe and sound—she was walking at his side. The vital warmth of her young hand lay in his. No care for her future troubled him just then.
He chatted to Claud about the details of the mysterious assault. There seemed but one subject on which it was natural to converse, in the Combe, in those days.
When they came to the bridge, he made the girl pass over its crazy planks before him, and jumped her from the top of the stile.
As they neared the farm-house, a sound of loud crying, or rather roaring, greeted them; and when Mr. Fowler, with the privilege of old custom, walked into the house, and through to the kitchen, there lay Saul the idiot, his whole length stretched on the floor, his face purple with weeping, and kicking strenuously.
Clara Battishill stood against the table, the color in her pretty little cheeks, her chest heaving as with recent encounter, her mien triumphant.
"Saul Parker, hold your noise at once—get up off the flags—stand up, I say! What's all this about, eh?" said Mr. Fowler, in his even, unruffled tones.
Saul left off howling directly, and, after taking a furtive look at the company, hid his tear-strained visage with a wriggle of anguish.
Clara burst out in her shrill treble.
"I've give him a taste of the stick, I have," said she, brandishing a stout ash twig, "for killing o' my turkey. He's a cruel boy, he is, and I'm very angry wi' him. He took an' threw great rocks over into the poultry-yard, and Miss Allonby, she was there wi' me, and he might ha' killed both of us; but 'stead o' that, he goes an' kills my best turkey I set such store by. I'll l'arn him to throw stones, I will! I's take an' tell me mother I won't have un abaout the place if he's going to take to throwing stones."
"It won't do," said Mr. Fowler, lightly touching the recumbent Saul with his foot. "I always said it wouldn't do when the poor lad grew up. He's getting mischievous. Up, Saul!—up, my lad, now at once. You've had a beating, which you richly deserved. What made you so naughty, eh?"
For answer the big lad raised himself on his hands and knees, crawled towards Clara, and flung his arms humbly about her knees, saying, in his imperfect way,
"Poor! poor!"
His castigator was melted at once. She took his beautiful head of golden curls between her hands, and patted it energetically.
"There, you see, he don't mean anything; he's as good as gold all the time," she said. "But mind, you leave my birds a-be, Saul. If I ketch you in my poultry-yard, I'll give you such a licking! I will! So mind!"
He began to whimper penitently. Lady Mabel looked sorrowfully at him.
"Poor boy!" said she, "what an affliction! He ought to be put into an asylum."
"Please, your ladyship, his mother won't part with him," said Clara; "and he never does no harm, not if you're kind to him. There, there, boy, don't cry. I've got some butter-milk for you in t' dairy."
He began to smile through his tears, which he wiped away on her apron. Claud thought it the oddest group he had ever seen. The sight of the great fellow prone on the ground, meekly taking a beating from a girl half his size, was a mixture of the pathetic and the absurd. It half touched, half disgusted him. Suddenly a light step on the wooden stair made him turn.
Wynifred stood in the doorway.
"Oh,—Mr. Cranmer," she said, faltering somewhat at the presence of three strangers. "I beg your pardon, I thought you were alone. My brother would like to see you."
"I'll come at once, but first of all you must let me introduce you to my sister."