"'The startled little waves, that leapIn fiery ringlets from their sleep,'"
"'The startled little waves, that leapIn fiery ringlets from their sleep,'"
she managed to quote, with a feeling of amazement that she should have re-conquered her self-possession enough to be able to speak and think at all.
Her whole heart was going out to Claud in gratitude for his most delicate consideration. The whole affair had lasted but a few moments, but she had been very near a breakdown that evening—nearer than she herself knew. She had needed to say nothing—one look into her eyes had told him just what she was feeling, and instantly all his care had been to help her. She had no time to apply any of her habitual restraints to the spontaneous rush of kindness with which she was regarding him. All of a sudden she had discovered in him a delicacy of sympathy which she had never met with in his sex before. He appeared to know exactly what she stood in need of.
It seemed to give her whole nature a species of electric shock; the carefully-preserved moral equilibrium was being severely strained.
"Will you come now?" he said, presently, in her ear. "I think it would be better for you afterwards if you can walk quietly past; but don't if you had rather not; we will go the other way round."
"I will walk past, please."
He turned, and walked at her side.
"I heard an anecdote of the mysterious owner of theSwanthe other day," said he. "I fancy it was worth repeating;" and proceeded to relate said anecdote in even tones, making it last until they stood at the gate of the farm. There he broke off abruptly.
"I have brought you home just in time to say good-night to your brother," said he, brightly.
She turned, and gave him her hand.
"Thank you with all my heart," said she. "You don't know how grateful I am. Good-night."
She was gone—her tall slim form darting into the shadow of the doorway.
Claud propped himself against the gate, slowly drew out his cigar-case and matches, and lighted up. Then he turned, and leaning both arms on the topmost rail, smoked placidly, with his eyes fixed on the vanishing white sail, and its track on the phosphorescent water. Presently he withdrew his weed from his mouth a moment, and turned to where the lights of Edge gleamed in the valley.
"Elsa Brabourne," he mused. "A pretty name: and a lovely girl she will be in a year or two. Even if her brother allows her nothing, she will have more than two hundred pounds a year of her own, and the Misses Willoughby are sure to leave her every penny they possess. A younger son might do worse."
And he came back the pertest little apeThat ever affronted human shape:
And he came back the pertest little apeThat ever affronted human shape:
And chief in the chase his neck he perilledOn a lathy horse, all legs and length,With blood for bone, all speed, no strength.The Flight of the Duchess.
And chief in the chase his neck he perilledOn a lathy horse, all legs and length,With blood for bone, all speed, no strength.
The Flight of the Duchess.
"Colonel Wynch-Frère? Glad to see you, sir! Fine day for the wind-up, isn't it? Never seen Ascot so full on a Friday in my life! Everybody's here. Seen my wife, by chance?"
"Yes, a minute ago: in Mrs. Learmorth's box. I've got a little bet on with her about this event," answered the gentleman addressed, tapping his little book with a gold pencil-case, and smiling.
It was the lawn at Ascot: and it was brilliantly thronged, for the rain, which had emptied itself in bucketfuls on Cup day, had at last relented, and allowed the sun to burst forth with warmth and brightness for the running of the Hardwicke Stakes.
"Ah! I don't know when I have been so excited over a race in my life," said the first speaker. "I'm of the opinion that Invincible is going to the wall at last. Carter's on Castilian, you know, and he's going to ride to win."
"Can't do it," said the colonel, shortly.
"Can't he?"
"No. He'll try all he knows, but Invincible is—Invincible, you know."
"I know he has been hitherto; but he's never met Castilian in a short distance; I say all that bone will tell. I'll give you two to one on it."
The bet was accepted, and Frederick Orton nodded to himself in a confident way, which also made his companion anxious, for he knew his was an opinion not to be despised.
"Haven't seen my young nephew, have you?" asked Orton, as he made a memorandum in his book.
"Not that I know of. What nephew?"
"My young limb of Satan—confound him!" said Orton, with a laugh. "He's made his book as carefully as if he had been fifty years old. I've fetched him twice out of the ring by the scruff of his neck to-day; but Letherby, my old groom, is with him, so I suppose he's all right."
"He's beginning early," observed Colonel the Honorable Edward Wynch-Frère, in his slow way.
"He is. What do you think? He wants to ride Welsh Rabbit for the Canfield Cup. What do you think, eh? Should you let him do it?"
The colonel meditated for some moments.
"Is he strong enough in the wrists? That's where I should doubt him," he said, reflectively. "He rode splendidly at those private races of yours at Fallowmead; but then he knew his ground as well as his horse; he'd have to carry weight at Canfield."
"Of course. But Letherby says he could do it. The only thing is the risk of a bad throw. These things are done in a minute, you know; and he's heir to a big property. It's been well nursed, and, if anything happened to the poor little beggar, plenty of people would be kind enough to say——"
"I rode in a steeple-chase when I was sixteen," observed Colonel Wynch-Frère.
In fact, he looked more like a stud-groom than anything else you could fancy. No wonder; he had but two ideas in the world: one was horse-racing, the other was his wife. It seemed, on the whole, rather a pity that Lady Mabel's very wide range of sympathies should include neither horse-racing nor her husband. It was purgatory for her to go and stay at the house of Lord Folinsby, his father, the great Yorkshire earl, where the riding-school was the centre of attraction to all her brothers and sisters-in-law, and where the young men seemed always in training for some race or another, cut their whiskers like grooms, walked bandy-legged, and talked of the stables. Thus, the colonel indulged in his horse-racing and his wife separately; and endeavored, with all the force of his kind heart and limited intellect, not to talk of the first when in the presence of the second.
But to-day every faculty he had was centred on the question as to whether or not the duke's marvellous chestnut, Invincible, would have to lay down his laurels; and he moved along by Mr. Orton's side talking quite volubly, for him, on the all-engrossing theme, and the reports as to who was likely to drop money over the race.
Be it stated that he was eminently a racing, not a betting man; he was no gambler, though always ready to back his own opinion.
The grand stand was packed, and the ladies' dresses as brilliant as the June sky.
The two men, moving slowly on, at last caught the eyes of two ladies who were beckoning them, and accordingly went up and joined them.
"You are only just in time—they have cleared the course," said Mrs. Learmorth, a lady sparkling in diamonds but deficient in grammar.
"My dear Fred, where's Godfrey?" asked Mrs. Orton, a handsome, very dark young woman, with a high color and flashing eyes.
"Oh, he's somewhere about: Letherby's looking after him," was the nonchalant reply, as he lifted a pair of field glasses to his eye, and presently announced, in a tone of keen excitement; "They'll be out directly. Wait till they canter past the stand. Mrs. Learmorth, you've never seen Invincible, have you?"
"Never!" cried the lady, eagerly. "Mind you point him out to me."
"Here they come," said the colonel. "Look—that's Lord Chislehurst's Falcon—I've backed him for a place—lathy beast: but a good deal of pace. This one and this are both outsiders. There's the duke's daffodil livery, but that is only a second horse put on to make the running. Here comes the Castilian, Orton."
Mr. Orton was watching with an absorbed fascination.
"Ay, there's Carter," said he, studying the well-known jockey's face. "He means business, I tell you."
The Castilian was a large dark-brown horse, and the crimson and pale-blue colors of his rider set him off to advantage; but, like many good race-horses, he was not singularly beautiful to the eye of the unlearned. He cantered by with some dignity, amid a good deal of cheering, when suddenly there was a rush, something like a flash of light, a bright chestnut horse, with a jockey in daffodil satin, darted like a fairy thing past the stand, followed by a spontaneous shout from the crowded onlookers. The magic hoofs seemed scarcely to touch the turf over which they swept; and Mrs. Orton, watching with a somewhat sardonic smile, observed,
"You'll lose your money, Fred."
"You wait and see," said her husband, oracularly.
"I'm sure I hope he has been careful," she went on, with a laugh, to Mrs. Learmorth, "for he has promised to take me to Homburg if he wins."
"Don't talk, Ottilie," cried Frederick Orton, irritably; "don't you see they are just going to start!"
The race began—the memorable race which crowned Invincible with the chief of his triumphs. Not even with "Carter up" was the Castilian able to make so much as a hard fight for it. The lovely chestnut was like a creature of elfin birth—it seemed as if he went without effort; the field toiling after him looked like animals of a lower breed.
The wild yells of applause rang and echoed in the blue firmament—the mad excitement of racing for the moment mastered everyone, from the youth whose last sovereign hung on the event to the pretty, ignorant girl upon the drag, who had laid her pair of gloves with blind devotion on the daffodil satin as it flashed past.
One small boy, held up on the shoulders of an elderly groom, added his shrill screams with delight to the tumult around.
"Well done, Invincible! Well rode, Bartlett! Bravo! bravo! Didn't I tell my uncle he'd do it! Pulled it off easy! Knew he would! Look at poor old Carter! What a fool he looks! Ain't used to coming in a bad second! Let me down, Letherby, I want to find my uncle! I say, though, this is proper! I've made five pounds over this."
"You just wait one minute, Master Godfrey, till the crowd is cleared off a trifle—you'll be jammed to death in this 'ere mob if you don't look out, and the master said I was to see to you. You stop where you are."
"You old broken-winded idiot," shouted the child, a boy of fourteen, very small for his age, but handsome in a dark, picturesque style. "Do move on a bit, you are no good in a crowd. I can't stay here all day—elbow on!"
Letherby accordingly "elbowed on" through the yelling, shouting mass of betting-men, followed by the excited, dancing boy, who kept on talking at the top of his voice.
"Isn't it a sell for aunt, by Jove! She said she wouldn't give me five shillings to spend at Homburg next month, and now I've got five pounds! Why, Letherby, I knew a fellow who went to the table with five pounds, and came back with five hundred. I warrant you I have rare sport at Homburg!"
"That I can answer for it, you won't," said his uncle's voice suddenly in his ear, and the urchin felt himself abruptly seized by his coat-collar with no gentle hand. "Thanks to the upshot of this confounded race," said Mr. Orton, angrily, "you won't go to Homburg at all, for I can't afford to take you; and what the deuce do you mean by hiding away here when you're wanted? Your aunt's going home, and you'll go with her. I'll have you out of harm's way."
Godfrey Brabourne made no reply. He skulked at his uncle's heels with a look of sulky fury on his face which was not good to see. The spoilt boy knew that, on the occasions when his uncle was out of temper like this, silence was his sole refuge; but, if he did not speak, he thought, and his thoughts were not lovely, to judge from the expression of his eyes.
Letherby hurried away to put-to the horses, knowing that in this mood his master would not brook waiting; and, in half-an-hour from Invincible's winning of the Hardwicke Stakes, Mr. Orton and his party were spinning along towards the Oaklands Park hotel, where they were spending Ascot week.
A very subdued party they were. Spite of his winnings, Godfrey was silent and sullen. Mrs. Orton's temper was not proof against the shattering of all her plans for next month; she knew that, if she spoke at all, it would be to upbraid her husband, so she held her tongue; and he was in a state of mute fury, less at the loss of his money than at his own error of judgment in such a matter.
The very impression of his silent wife's face irritated him. "I told you so," seemed written on every feature.
When they arrived at the hotel, he petulantly flung his reins to the groom, and went indoors by himself, "as sulky as a bear with a sore head," mentally observed the wife of his bosom.
At dinner there was Colonel Wynch-Frère, who had come in a couple of hours later, having been invited by some other friends.
He was sitting at a table some distance from the Ortons, but afterwards joined them in the drawing-room. The dinner had been good, and Frederick's temper was improving; he was not an ill-tempered man, as a rule, and he was now half-ashamed of his late annoyance. Mrs. Orton was less placable; she sat aloof, and secretly longed to be able to say her say.
The colonel strolled up.
"Where's the boy?" he asked.
"In the stables, I suppose—where he always is," said the boy's aunt, snappishly.
How she had wanted to go to Homburg! The Davidsons were going, and the Lequesnes, and Charley Canova; what parties they would have got up! And now——
"Godfrey's not always in the stables, Ottilie," said Fred, seating himself on a sofa at her side. "He has only gone now with a message from me. He'll be back directly."
Frederick Orton was a rather picturesque young man of about five-and-thirty. He was dark, with brown eyes, and a short, pointed, Vandyck beard and moustache. The moustache hid his weak mouth. He was slight and pale, and looked delicate, which was probably the result of late hours and pick-me-ups.
His wife was handsome, and rather large, a year or two younger than he, and showing an inclination to stoutness. Her eyes and complexion were striking, her voice deep and rather loud—a fine contralto—and her disposition energetic.
She was very handsomely dressed for the evening in a dark-green dress covered with green beetle's wings, which flashed as she turned. The colonel rather liked her, though he never dared say so to Lady Mabel.
"How is your Lady Mabel?" she asked of him, just as this thought was crossing his mind.
"Lady Mabel is, as usual, having a good many adventures," he said, taking a chair near. "She has been on a driving-tour with her brother—"
"Mr. Cranmer? I know him slightly," said Frederick.
"Yes; they are in Devonshire, at a little place called Edge Combe, near Stanton."
"Dear me! Isn't that where all those old maids live—the Miss Willoughbys?" said Ottilie, turning to her husband.
He made one of the many English inarticulate sounds representing "Yes."
"I wonder if Lady Mabel has come across Godfrey's step-sister, Elaine Brabourne?" she went on, in her deep contralto accents.
"Oh, yes, certainly; she mentions a Miss—is your nephew's name Brabourne? I never knew it. Then his father used to be colonel of my regiment."
"That's it," said Frederick, calmly. "Yes, he has a step-sister, I'm sorry to say, who has been brought up by a set of puritanical old maids—old hags, my poor sister used to call them."
"Lady Mabel is staying with the Miss Willoughbys," said the colonel, rather red in the face.
There was an uncomfortable pause; then Mr. Orton laughed lazily.
"Put my foot into it," he said. "I usually do. Very sorry, I'm sure. I don't know the good ladies myself, and I expect my poor sister made them all sit up; she was as wild a girl as ever I saw, and they used to take her and set her down for hours in a rotting old church which smelt of vaults, and where the damp used to roll down the walls in great drops. She said it gave her the horrors. But that's a good many years back now, and I daresay they have changed all that."
"My wife says they are—well—very primitive," said the colonel. "But she speaks of Miss Brabourne as a most lovely girl, who only needs a little bringing out."
"Ottilie, you must have that girl up to town," remarked Frederick.
"Why?" said his wife, stifling a yawn.
"Because I think Godfrey ought to know her."
"Godfrey hates girls."
"Yes, because he is always alone, and gets spoilt—he ought to know his sister."
"She is coming to stay in town with Lady Mabel in the autumn, when we are settled," said the colonel; and at that moment some one came up and claimed his attention, so he bowed to Mrs. Orton and withdrew.
Later that night, Frederick, coming up to bed, tapped at his wife's door, and, on receiving a muffled "Come in," entered with a face full of news.
"I say, what do you think Wynch-Frère has been telling me? Poor old Allonby has got smashed up in this very place—I mean Edge Combe—and Elaine Brabourne found him lying by the roadside! So now we shall be able to hear whether she really is as good-looking as Lady Mabel wants to make out."
A ray of interest warmed Ottilie's face, and encouraged him to proceed. He acquainted her with all the details of the accident which he had been able to glean from the colonel; while she sat brushing out her long thick dark hair, and listening. When he had apparently chatted her into a better humor, he sat down on the dressing-table, and, leaning forward, looked at her wistfully.
"I say, old girl, were you fearfully set on Homburg?"
Her face hardened.
"You know I was," she said, shortly.
"Well, look here—can you think of anything we could do with that blessed child? I can't bear to disappoint you. I think it would run to it if we could get rid of him. He means an extra room and some one to look after him, and even then he's eternally in the way. Could we get rid of him for a little while? If so, I'll take you."
"You're very good, Fred," she said, with alacrity. "I—I'm sorry I was so cross. I'll think that over about Godfrey. It would be a hundred times nicer without him."
"My word, though, won't there be a shindy?" said Frederick, laughing. "I wonder what the young cub will say! He isn't used to being left behind; you've spoilt him, Ottilie."
"I indeed? I like that! Why, from the moment he was born you allowed him to do just whatever he chose, and taught him such language——"
"All right—of course it was all my fault, as usual; but now, am I a good boy?"
"Yes, you are."
"Well, then, kiss me."
So a peace was sealed for the time.
On their return to London, on the Monday following, two letters awaited them. One was from Wynifred Allonby, explaining that her brother was ill, and that she had gone to nurse him, and asking that he might have time allowed him to finish his commission pictures; the other was from Miss Ellen Willoughby, begging that Godfrey might spend his holidays at Edge.
"Just the very thing! I'll pack him off there the first minute I can!" cried Mrs. Orton, joyful and exultant.
Frederick smiled prophetically.
"He will probably try his sister's temper," he remarked, placidly, "and that in no common degree; but then, on the other hand, he will doubtless enlarge her vocabulary considerably, so he cannot be looked upon in the light of an unmixed evil."
"'Go to the hills,' said one remit a whileThis baneful diligence—at early mornCourt the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods;"... 'I infer that he was healedBy perseverance in the course prescribed'"You do not err; the powers that had been lost,By slow degrees were gradually regainedThe fluttering nerves composed; the beating heartIn rest established; and the jarring thoughtsTo Harmony restored."The Excursion
"'Go to the hills,' said one remit a whileThis baneful diligence—at early mornCourt the fresh air, explore the heaths and woods;"... 'I infer that he was healedBy perseverance in the course prescribed'"You do not err; the powers that had been lost,By slow degrees were gradually regainedThe fluttering nerves composed; the beating heartIn rest established; and the jarring thoughtsTo Harmony restored."
The Excursion
The fresh air had never seemed so gloriously sweet to Osmond Allonby before.
He sat in a roomy, comfortable arm chair, a shawl round his big limbs, and the light warm breeze that puffed up the valley bringing a faint color to his white face.
He had two companions, Wynifred and Mr. Fowler. The girl sat on the grass, busy over some little piece of needle-work; Henry Fowler lay beside her, throwing tiny pebbles idly at the terrier's nose. A great peace brooded over Poole Farm—a peace which seemed to communicate itself to the three as they sat enjoying their desultory conversation.
"And so," said Mr. Fowler, "Mr. Dickens returned to his own place yesterday, rendered absolutely despairing by his interview with your brother."
"I know; it was laughable," said Allonby, laughing gently. "He almost gave me the lie, so determined was he that I had a secret enemy somewhere; I was quite sorry I couldn't oblige him with one, his disappointment was so painful to witness."
"The worst of these detective police," returned his friend, "is that they will always pin their faith on some one particular feature of the case; they become imbued with a theory of their own, and in consequence blind and deaf to all that does not bear upon it. Mr. Dickens had settled that this was a vendetta, and he would entertain no other hypothesis."
"The notion is absurd in the highest degree," said Osmond, with animation. "No! It was some tramp, you may be sure, and he was frightened, and made off before securing his booty. I must have looked a very easy prey, for I was sitting, as I have told you before, with my head on my hands, feeling rather done up. I have a dim recollection of a violent blow; I suppose it stunned me at once. Not a soul had passed me, I am sure; whoever it was came up behind, along the Combe road."
"It would not be at all difficult for anyone who knew the country to conceal himself," said Mr. Fowler, meditatively, "but yet—the police watched well. Every neighboring village was searched, and all along the coast ... but these local police are easily deceived, you know. I wish I had been at home at the time."
"I wish you had," said Wynifred, impulsively; and then half repented her impulse, for she received such a very plain look of thanks and pleasure from Mr. Fowler's kind eyes.
From the first moment, he had been deeply struck with Miss Allonby; her character was as new to him as it was to Claud Cranmer, but he found her perfectly charming. Presents of fresh trout, of large strawberries, plump chickens, and invalid jellies daily arrived from the Lower House; and most afternoons the master would follow his gifts, and walk in, arrayed in his rough country clothes, very likely with a reminiscence of bricks or mortar somewhere on his coat sleeve, for he was building a house in the valley for some relations of his, and, as he was his own architect, the work necessitated a good deal of personal attention.
Wynifred had been down to see the house in question, and then to tea at Edge Willoughby, and had been escorted back to Poole by Mr. Fowler in the starlight; and a most interesting walk it had been, for he knew every constellation in the heavens, and exactly where to look for each at any season of the year.
A thorough liking for him had sprung up in her heart. The simplicity of his courteous manner was a rare charm; he was singularly unlike the London men of her acquaintance, with a modesty which was perhaps the most remarkable of his attributes.
The little silence which followed her remark was broken by Osmond.
"When is Cranmer coming down again?" he said.
"Next week, I hope; sooner if he can. I had a letter from him this morning; he asked to be most particularly remembered to you and Miss Allonby, and inquired much after your health," said Mr. Fowler.
"I am glad he was not down last week; the weather was so bad, he would not have known what to do," said Wyn.
In fact, Claud had been reluctantly torn from Edge Combe by his despotic sister, who, when she got to London, found that to choose a house without his assistance was quite an impossibility. In such a matter, the colonel's opinion was never even asked; neither did he resent the omission in the least. If Mabel liked the house, he liked it too, and Claud would see after the stabling.
So Claud went, and tramped Belgravia and even Kensington with submission; and, when at last a selection was made, found himself doomed to go down to Hunstanton with his tyrant and fetch up the children, the nurses, and the little governess for a week's shopping, previous to their being all swept off to Yorkshire, to be out of the way during the autumn at the castle of the earl, their grandpapa, whilst their mother went to make herself agreeable to her husband's constituents; in which last respect she certainly did her duty.
In Mr. Cranmer's absence, the wounded man had grown stronger daily; had sat at his bedroom window, had made the circuit of his chamber, and now was promoted to sit in the garden; and Dr. Forbes exulted in the rapidity of his convalescence.
"You see, there's everything in his favor," he said, complacently. "A fine constitution, a fine time of year—youth, and the best climate in England."
It was highly satisfactory that he should make such excellent use of his advantages.
"I feel to-day as if I could walk a mile," he said, with pride, stretching his long legs and arms and tossing his head.
"I am glad you are feeling so well. You are going to have a visitor this afternoon—Miss Brabourne, who found you lying by the roadside; she is so eager to see you."
Osmond blushed—actually blushed with pleasure. He was not very strong yet, and his heart beat stormily at thought of the coming meeting. All through his delirium a certain face had haunted him—a girl's face, which he always seemed to see when he closed his eyes. With returning consciousness the vision fled—he could not recall the features, but he had a feeling that they were the features of Elsa Brabourne, and that, if he saw her again, he should know her.
"I'll go down as far as the stile, and see if I can see her," said Wyn; and, tossing her work to the ground, she rose and went wandering off among the flower-beds, singing to herself, and picking a rosebud here and there.
"I envy you your sister, Mr. Allonby," said Henry Fowler.
"Who? Wyn?" asked Osmond. "Yes she is a very good sort; but you should see Hilda and Jacqueline; they are both uncommonly pretty girls, though I say it."
"I think Miss Allonby pretty."
"Wyn? Oh, no, she isn't," was the fraternal criticism. "I've seen her look well, but you can't call her pretty; but I suppose she is attractive—some men seem to find her so."
"Ah!" said Mr. Fowler.
"But she is not at all impressionable," said Wyn's brother.
Meanwhile Wyn was walking down the Waste in happy unconsciousness of being the subject of discussion, and presently was seen to wave her hand and begin to run forward. She and Elsa met in the middle of the Waste, and exchanged greetings. Jane Gollop was far behind—she was growing used to this now, and took it as a matter of course that the young feet which for years had dragged listlessly at her side should now, for very gaiety and youth, outstrip her.
Now that Elsa's face wore that sparkling look of animation, now that her luxuriant tresses were piled classically on the crown of her beautiful head, the barbarity of her costume really sank into insignificance, triumphed over by sheer force of her fresh loveliness. Her glow of color made the pale Wynifred look paler, the girls were a great contrast.
"How is Mr. Allonby? Is he going on well?" panted Elsa, before she had recovered her breath.
"Capitally, thank you. Dr. Forbes says he never knew such a quick convalescence."
"Oh, how glad I am! Is he ... do you think ... it is so very fine to-day ... is Mr. Allonby in the garden?"
The shyness and confusion were very pretty, thought Wyn.
"Yes," she said, delighted to be able to call the warm clear color into the speaking face. "He is sitting in the garden, and is so impatient to see you. Come this way."
No need to speak twice. Elsa's feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground in their transit across the space which intervened between her and the hero of her dreams.
Osmond would insist on rising from his chair to greet her; and his tall form looked taller than ever now that he was so thin.
Elsa drew near, hardly knowing where she was or what she was doing—little recking that he was to the full as excited as she.
They met; their hands touched; the girl could hardly see clearly through the mist of tears in her large speaking eyes. He looked straight at her, saw the crystal mist, saw one irrepressible drop over-brim the lid, and rest on the delicate cheek. A storm of feeling overcame him; he grew quite white.
It was the face of the mystic queen in his visions of Avilion—it was beauty of the type he most passionately admired; and beauty which was stirred to its depths by pity and sympathy for him.
He could say nothing articulate, neither could she. Their greeting was chiefly that of eyes, and of warmly grasping hands, for she had stretched both to him, and he had seized them.
How long did it last? They did not know. To Osmond it seemed, like the dreams of his fever, to last for hours, and yet be gone like a flash. He only knew that presently he found himself seated again in his chair, his fingers released from the warm touch of hers; that she was sitting by him on Wynifred's vacated seat; that the skies had not fallen, nor the shadows on the grass lengthened perceptibly; and that neither Wyn nor Mr. Fowler expressed any surprise in their countenances, as if anything unusual had transpired.
Apparently he had not openly made a fool of himself. He heaved a sigh of relief, and lay back among his cushions. There sat the lady of his dreams, no longer a phantom, a real girl of flesh and blood, with large eyes of morning grey fixed on him.
He fancied how those calm eyes, like the misty dawn of a glorious day, would gradually warm and deepen into the torrid splendor of noon; when what was now only sympathetic interest should have strengthened into passionate love, when his voice, his touch should alone have power to——
Alas! as usual, he was building an airy cloud-palace for his thoughts to live in; and here was the real earth, and here was himself, a poor, struggling young artist, a competitor in one of London's fiercest and most crowded fields of competition, and with three unmarried sisters to think of.
And there was she—could he dream of it for her? The future of a poor man's wife.Wife!The exquisite delight of that word, by force of contrast, calmed this enthusiast utterly. No. To him nothing nearer than a star, an ideal. His Beatrice, only to be longed for, never attained.
And all this he had time to think of, while Wyn was cheerfully telling Elsa that he had that day eaten a piece of lamb, and "quite a great deal" of milky pudding for his dinner, which hopeful bulletin of his appetite was received with marked interest both by Mr. Fowler and his god-daughter.
And then Elaine turned her bashful eyes on him, and he heard her voice saying,
"I am so glad you are getting well so fast. I was very unhappy when they thought you would not live."
"Were you?" he said, hoping his voice did not sound as queer to the others as it did to himself. "It was very philanthropical of you. That gift of pity is one of woman's most gracious attributes."
Elsa was developing very fast, but she was not yet equal to replying to this speech.
"I think I have been altogether far more fortunate than I deserve," went on Osmond. "Everyone in this fairy valley had vied in their efforts to be kind to me. Your good aunts, Mr. Fowler here, Mr. Cranmer and Lady Mabel, not to mention Dr. Forbes, Mrs. Battishill, and Mrs. Clapp."
Elsa was still tongue-tied; and, oh! it was hard, when she had so much to say to him. How kindly he spoke! How handsome he looked when he smiled! If only she knew what to say!
At this embarrassing juncture, Jane scrambled over the stile, grasping a covered basket. Like lightning the girl leaped up, ran to her nurse, and, taking her burden, carried it back to the young man's side.
"I brought these for you," she faltered. "The strawberries are over, but here are white currants and raspberries ... raspberries are very good with cream. Do you like them?"
"Like them? I should think so! My appetite is quite tremendous, as Wyn told you. Will you carry back my sincere thanks to Miss Willoughby for her kind thought?"
She blushed, and then smiled, rising her face to his.
"It was my thought," she said, timidly; "the aunts said they were not good enough to bring, and I went to Lower House for the currants," she concluded, nodding mischeviously to her godfather.
"Like your impudence!" he answered, pretending to shake a fist at her. "Now, Miss Allonby, I must be going; won't you show me the picture you are doing of Saul Parker?"
"Oh, yes, I should like to. I hope you will think it a good likeness," answered Wyn, eagerly.
She rose, and walked slowly into the house with Mr. Fowler, leaving the two seated together on the lawn, conscious of nothing in all the world but each other's presence.
There was a little pause; then Elaine gathered courage. It was easier for them to talk with no listeners.
"I saw you before you were hurt," she announced, blushing.
"You saw me?" cried Osmond, devoured with interest. "Where? I never saw you."
"No; I was behind your back. I was coming up to the farm; you were sitting at your easel. Your head was resting on your hands. I wanted to go and ask you if you were ill; but Jane hurried me on."
"And I never knew," said Osmond, in a slow, absorbed way.
"And so I asked Jane to go back round by the road because—because I wanted to see your face; and when we got there you were lying on the grass."
Here the lip quivered. Allonby threw himself forward in his chair, his chin on his elbow.
"I saw your face," he said, earnestly. "Tell me, did you not—were you not kneeling by me, and—andweeping?"
The girl nodded, hardly able to speak.
"You opened your eyes," she said, very low, after a pause, "and looked at me for a moment; but not as if you knew me."
"But I saw you. Do you know"—sinking his voice—"that your face was with me all through my illness—your face, as I saw it to-day, with tears on your eyelashes?... I knew even your voice, when I have heard it in the garden, and I have been lying in bed. I knew when you laughed and when you spoke ... and I counted the hours till I should be well enough to see you and thank you. You'll let me thank you, won't you?"
He took her hand again. The child—for she was no more—could not speak. It seemed as if light were breaking so swiftly in upon her soul that the glare dazzled her. She was helpless—almost frightened. Osmond saw that he must be careful not to startle or vex her. With a great effort he curbed his own excitement, and took a lighter tone.
"Think what a benefactor in disguise my unknown assailant has been!" he cried brightly. "What have I lost? Nothing—absolutely nothing but a pudding-basin; what have I gained?" He made an eloquent sweep of the hand. "Everything! In fact, I can hardly realise at present what my gain is. To be ill—to be tenderly nursed—to have enquiries made all day by kind friends—to have my name in all the local papers—to be interviewed at least once a day by gentlemen of the press. I assure you that I never before was the centre of attraction; I hope it will last. That day's sketching in the lane may turn out to be the best stroke of business I ever did."
"But," cried Elsa, remonstrating, "you don't count all the pain you had to bear?"
"Pain!" he said, almost incoherently. "Did I? Have I borne pain? Oh, it counts for nothing, for I have forgotten all about it."
"Really and truly? Have you forgotten it?"
"Really and truly, just now. I may remember it presently, when I am crawling upstairs to bed to-night, with my arm round Joe Battishill's neck; but just now it is clean gone, and every day I shall grow stronger, you know."
She did not answer. She saw fate, in the shape of Jane Gollop, bearing down upon her from the open farm-house door.
"Miss Elaine, my dear, you wasn't to stay but a very little while to-day; and, if we don't start back, you won't be in time to go to the station with your Aunt Charlotte to meet your brother, you know."
"To meet your brother!" echoed Osmond.
"Yes." She turned to him. "He is my step-brother; I have never seen him since he was a baby."
"Really? That sounds odd; but you are orphans; I suppose he is being brought up by other relations. I think it was cruel to separate you. How old is he?"
"Just fourteen. I am glad he is coming at last."
"I suppose so; and you will be so happy together that you will forget to come up to Poole and see the poor sick man?"
"YouknowI shall not. I shall bring Godfrey."
"Yes, do. Please come soon. But I ought not to be so grasping, and I have never thanked you properly for coming to-day. What an unmannerly brute I am. Please forgive me! Don't punish me by staying away, will you?"
She drew near, and spoke low, that Jane might not hear.
"I shall come whenever they let me," she said, with vehemence; "whenever I don't come, you will know it is because I was forbidden. If they would allow it, I'd comeevery single day."
I find you passing gentle.'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,And now I find report a very liar;For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring time flowers:Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will.Taming of the Shrew.
I find you passing gentle.'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,And now I find report a very liar;For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring time flowers:Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will.
Taming of the Shrew.
It was quite an unusual event for Miss Charlotte Willoughby to be standing on the platform watching the arrival of the London train. Her preparation for the expedition had been made in quite a flutter of expectation. She was resolved to do her duty thoroughly by Godfrey Brabourne, much as she had disliked his mother. She had hopes that a stay in a household of such strict propriety, where peace, order, and regularity reigned supreme, might perchance work an improvement in the boy, do something to eradicate the pernicious influence of early training, and cause him, in after life, to own with a burst of emotion that he dated the turning-point in his career from the moment when his foot first trod the threshold of Edge Willoughby. This was a consummation so devoutly to be wished, as to go far towards reconciling the good lady to the presence of a boy in the virgin seclusion of the house. Elsa, at her side, was stirred to the deepest depths of her excitable temperament, each faculty poised, each nerve a-quiver as she hung bashfully back behind her aunt.
There was a long wild howl, a dog's howl, followed by a series of sharp yelps and a sound of scuffling; a crowd collected round the dog-box. A small boy in an Eton suit dashed down the platform, parted the spectators right and left, and revealed to view the panic-stricken guard, with a bull-dog hanging to his trousers.
"Ven! Come off, you confounded brute! How dare you!" cried the little boy in shrill tones, as he seized the dog by the collar, and dragged him off. "Didn't I tell you, you idiot," he went on to the guard, "not to touch him till I came! What fools people are, always meddling with what ain't their concern. Why couldn't you let my dog alone, eh? I don't pity you, blessed if I do," concluded he in an off-hand manner, cuffing his dog heartily, and shaking him at the same time. "I'll teach you manners, you scoundrel," he said, furiously; "and now, what am I to be let in for over this job? Has he drawn blood?"
Elsa and her aunt were so absorbed, as was everyone else, in watching this episode, as to temporarily forget their errand at the station; but now the girl began to peer among the little crowd of bystanders, to see if she could spy anybody who looked like Godfrey.
"Auntie," she whispered, "hasn't Godfrey come?"
"I—am not sure."
A cold fear, a presentiment, was stealing over Miss Charlotte's mind. Something in the voice, the air, the face of the dreadful boy with the bull-dog, reminded her uncomfortably of her deceased brother-in-law, Valentine Brabourne. She wavered a little, while vehement and angry recriminations went on between him and the railway-officials, noticed with a shudder how he felt in his trousers' pockets and pulled out loose gold, and was still in a state of miserable uncertainty when he turned round, and demanded, in high, shrill tones:
"Isn't there anybody here to meet me from Edge Willoughby?"
Both aunt and niece started, and gasped. Then Miss Charlotte went bravely forward.
"Are you Godfrey Brabourne?" she asked, with shaking voice, more than half-ashamed to have to lay claim to such a boy before a little concourse of spectators who all knew her by sight. The guard lifted his cap, surprised, and half-apologetic.
"Pardon, mum," he grumbled, "but I do say as a young gentleman didn't oughter travel with that dog unmuzzled. He didn't ought to do it; for you never know where the beast'll take a fancy to bite, and a man with a family's got hydrophobia to consider."
"Hydrophobia! Hydro-fiddlestick!" cried Godfrey, making a grimace. "He ain't even broken the skin, and I've given you a couple of sovs.—a deuced lot more than those bags of yours ever cost." This speech elicited a laugh all round, and seemed to congeal Miss Charlotte's blood in her veins. "So now you just go round the corner and treat your friends. Why, if you had any sense, you wouldn't mind being bitten every day for a week at that price. How d'ye do, Miss Willoughby? My aunt Ottilie sent her kind regards, or something."
"Will you—come this way?" said Miss Charlotte, desperately, possessed only by the idea of hastening from this scene of public disgrace. "Come, my dear, come! If the guard is satisfied, let the matter rest. I am sure it is very imprudent to travel with so savage a dog unmuzzled. Dear, dear! what are you going to do with him?"
"Do with him? Nothing. He's all right; he's not mad. That ass must needs go dragging him out of the dog-box or something, that's all. He wouldn't hurt a fly."
Miss Charlotte paused in her headlong flight from the station.
"Godfrey, I regret—I deeply regret it, but I can on no account allow that beast to be taken up to the house. I cannot permit it—he will be biting everybody."
"Oh, he's all right," was the cool retort. "Chain him up in the stables, if you're funky. Leave him alone. He'll follow the trap right enough if I'm in it. Now then, where are your cattle?"
Miss Charlotte unconsciously answered this, to her, incomprehensible question by laying her lean hand, which trembled somewhat, on the handle of the roomy, well-cushioned wagonette which the ladies of Edge found quite good enough to convey them along the country lanes to shop in Philmouth, or call on a friend. The plump, lazy horse stood swishing his tail in the sunshine, and Acland, the deliberate, bandy-legged coachman, was in the act of placing a smart little portmanteau on the box.
"Now then—room for that inside—just put that portmanteau inside, will you? I'm going to drive," announced Master Godfrey; and, as he spoke, he turned suddenly, and for the first time caught sight of Elsa.
"Godfrey," said Miss Charlotte, "this is your sister Elaine."
The boy stared a moment. Elaine's face was crimson—tears stood in her eyes; her appearance was altogether as eccentric as it well could be, for she wore the Sunday dress and hat to do him honor. To him, used as he was to slim girls in tailor-made gowns, with horsy little collars and diamond pins, perfectly-arranged hair, and gloves and shoes leaving nothing to be desired, the effect was simply unutterably comic. He surveyed his half-sister from head to foot, and burst into a peal of laughter. It was all too funny. His aunt was funny, the horse and trap funnier still; but this Elaine was funniest of all.
"What a guy!" he said to himself, a sudden feeling of wrathful disgust taking the place of his mirth, as he angrily reflected that this strange object bore the name of Brabourne. Aloud he said:
"I beg your pardon for laughing, but you have got such a rum hat on; I suppose anything does for these lanes." Then before anyone could dare to remonstrate, he was up on the box with the reins in his hand. "Now then, Johnnie," said he to the outraged Acland, "up with you. I'm going to drive this thing—is it a calf or a mule? Or is it a cross between an elephant and a pig? I suppose you bring it down for the luggage. What sort of a show have you got in your stables, eh?"
To this ribald questioning, Acland, white with fury, made answer that the Misses Willoughbys had only one horse at present; at which the boy laughed loudly, and confided to him his opinion that "their friends must be an uncommon queer lot, for them to dare to show with such a turn-out."
This dust and ashes Acland had to swallow, watching meanwhile the stout horse, Taffy, goaded up the hills with a speed that threatened apoplexy, and dashing down them with a rattle which seemed to more than hint at broken springs.
And Elaine and her aunt sat inside, with Godfrey's portmanteau for company, and said never a word. Low as had been Miss Willoughby's expectations, little as she had been prepared to love the outcome of the Orton training, certainly this boy exceeded her severest thought; he out-heroded Herod.
Elsa was simply choked; she could not say one word. She scrambled out of the wagonette at the door with a face from which the eagerness of hope had gone, to be replaced by a burning, baleful rage. She was furious; her self-love had been cruelly wounded, and hers was not a nature to forget. Of course she said nothing to her aunts. They had never encouraged her to divulge her feelings to them, and she never did. She rushed away to her old nursery, to stamp and gesticulate in a wild frenzy of anger and hurt feeling.
Meanwhile Godfrey walked in, scowling. He had expected dulness, but nothing so terrible as this promised to be. Sulkily he ordered Venom, the bull-dog, to lie down in the hall, and stumbled into the drawing-room to shake hands, with ill-suppressed contempt, with all his step-aunts, who sat around in silent condemnation.
Miss Ellen spoke first, thinking in her kindness to set the shy boy at ease.
"You will be glad of some tea after your long journey; you must be thirsty."
"Yes, I am thirsty; but I'm not very keen on tea, thanks. I'd sooner have a B and S, if you have such a thing; or a lemon squash."
There was a dead silence.
"Oh, don't you mind if you haven't got it," he said, easily; "a glass of beer would do."
After a moment's hesitation Miss Ellen rang the bell, and ordered "a glass of ale," and then Miss Charlotte found her voice, and told their guest to go and chain up his dog in the stable.
"Oh, all right! I'll go and cheek the old Johnnie with the stiff collar," he said; and so sauntered out, leaving the ladies gazing helplessly each at the other.
All tea-time the visitor was considerably subdued, perhaps by the close proximity and severe expression of the sisterhood; but after tea Miss Charlotte told Elsa to put on her hat and take her brother round the garden. Once out of sight, Master Godfrey's tongue was loosed.
"Whew! What a set of old cats!" he cried. "Have you had to live with them all your life? I'm sure I'm sorry for you, poor beggar."
Elsa's smouldering resentment was very near ablaze.
"What's the matter with my aunts?" she asked, defiantly.
"What's the matter with your aunts? By Jove! that's good. What's the matter withyou, that you can't see it? Such a set of old cautions!" he burst into loud laughter. "But you've lived with them till you're almost as bad! I never saw such a figure of fun! I say, what would you take to walk down Piccadilly in that get-up? I'm hanged if I'd walk with you, though?"
"How dare you?" Elsa's cheeks and eyes flamed, she shook with passion. "How dare you speak to me like that? I hate you," she cried, "you rude, detestable child. I wish I had never seen you! Why do you come here? And I—I—I—was looking forward so to having you—I was! I was! I wish you had never been born—there!"
"If she isn't snivelling, I declare! Just because I don't admire her bed-gown! Pretty little dear, then, didn't it like to be told that it was unbecomingly dressed? There, there, it should wear its things hind-part-before, if it liked, and carry a tallow candle on the tip of its nose, or any other little fancy it may have. As to asking me why I came here," he went on, with a sudden vicious change of tone, "I can tell you I only came because I was sent, and not because I wanted to. Uncle Fred and Aunt Ottilie are off to Homburg, and want to be rid of me, so they shipped me off here; and Uncle Fred told an awful whopper, for he said it was no end of a jolly place, and I could ride and drive. Ride what? A bantam cock? Drive what? A fantail pigeon, for that's all the live stock I can see on the estate, unless you count the barrel on four legs that brought us from the station, and which the old boy calls a horse; and now where's the tennis-ground?"
"There isn't one."
"Not a tennis-ground? Well, this is pleasant, certainly. Brisk up, whiney-piney, and tell me where's the nearest place I can get any tennis."
"Now look here," said the girl, in a voice thick with emotion, "if you think you are going to speak to me like this, I can tell you you are dreadfully mistaken. How dare you!—howdareyou say such things! But I know. It is because the aunts all speak to me as if I were four years old, and order me about. You think you can do it too. But you shan't. I am taller and older than you. I will knock you down if you tease me again—do you hear? I will knock you down, I tell you, you impudent child!"
Godfrey shut his left eye, poked his tongue out of the right-hand corner of his mouth, and leered at his sister.
"You only try, my girl," he said, "you only try, and I'll make it hot for you. You'll find out you had better be civil to me, I can tell you, or I'll make you wish you were dead; so now."
"I shall tell my aunts——!"
"All right! You play the tell-tale, and you see what you'll get. I twig what you want—someone to lick you into shape—you've never had a brother. Well, now I've come, I'm going to spend my time in making you behave yourself and look like a Christian."
She stamped her foot at him; she could hardly speak for wrath.
"Do you know how old I am?"
"No, and don't want to; I only know you're the biggest ass a man ever had for a sister, and that if I can't improve you a little, I won't let Aunt Ottilie have you up to town—for I wouldn't be seen with you; so now you know my opinion."
"And you shall know mine. I think you the most cowardly, rude, detestable boy I ever met. I hate and despise you. I only hope you will be punished well one day for your cruelty to me."
"Well, you are a duffer! Crying if anyone says a word to you! I say, who's the old boy coming up the path, getting over the stile at the end of the terrace?"
The girl glanced up and recognised Mr. Fowler with a sense of passionate relief. He was the only person to whom she dared show her moods; in a moment she was sobbing in his arms.
"Why, Elsie, what's this?" asked the quiet voice, as he stroked back her tumbled hair with caressing hand. "Look up, child. Is that Godfrey yonder?"
"Oh, yes—yes—yes! And I hate him!... I ... hate him! I wish he had never come here to make me so unhappy! He is a bad boy! I wish I had never seen him!"