Here all the summer could I stay,For there's a Bishop's TeignAnd King's TeignAnd Coomb at the clear Teign's head,Where, close by the stream,You may have your cream,All spread upon barley bread.Then who would goInto dark SohoAnd chatter with dank-haired criticsWhen he can stayFor the new-mown hayAnd startle the dappled crickets?Keats.
Here all the summer could I stay,For there's a Bishop's TeignAnd King's TeignAnd Coomb at the clear Teign's head,Where, close by the stream,You may have your cream,All spread upon barley bread.Then who would goInto dark SohoAnd chatter with dank-haired criticsWhen he can stayFor the new-mown hayAnd startle the dappled crickets?
Keats.
A great bustle was rife in the little parlor of the "Fountain Head." A hamper was being packed, rugs strapped together, preparations in general being made. The excitement seemed to communicate itself to the village in some mysterious way; and small wonder. It was rarely that so many visitors from London haunted the Combe all at once; rarer still that so mysterious a celebrity attached to one of them; rarest of all that the Misses Willoughby should be giving a picnic-party.
Yet so it was; and the weather, which, under the iron rule of St. Swithun, had "gone to pieces," as Osmond said, for the past three weeks, had now revived anew, full of heat and beauty and sunshine.
In the doorway of the inn stood Osmond himself, and a tall, fine-looking girl with a brilliant complexion and large hazel eyes.
"What a day for a pic-nic!" she cried, jovially. "And this place—I must freely admit that Wyn, prone as she is to rhapsody, hasnotoverdone it in describing the Combe. Oh, here comes Mr. Haldane, just in time. I hope you know we were on the point of starting without you," said she, with an attempt at severity, as a young man came slowly along the road leading from the village.
"I should soon have caught you up," he said peacefully, raising his hat with a smile. "How are you this morning, Mr. Allonby? Still convalescent?"
"I don't think the present participle is any longer applicable. I am convalesced—completely convalesced, and, it seems to me all the better for my accident."
"So you are not cursing me for having recommended the Combe as a hunting-ground?"
"Not in the least, I assure you."
"Did you ever hear, Mr. Haldane," cried the girl, with a burst of laughter, "that the detective tried to assign poor old Osmond's blow on the head to your machinations?"
"No! Really! You flatter me; what made him do that?" asked he, with imperturbable and smiling composure.
"He thought you had somearrière penséein sending Osmond down here to paint."
"Well, so I had."
"You had?"
"Of course. I knew he'd like the place so much that he'd want to spend all the summer here; and then I thought you and your sisters would come down; and then I thought I'd come down; and I have, you see."
Jacqueline laughed merrily.
"We're going to have such a good time to-day," she cried, "and, please, listen to me. You and Wyn arenotto talk shop. The first of you that mentions the R. A. Schools, or the gold medal pictures, or the winter exhibition, shall be sent to Coventry at once! Remember! You are under orders."
"Well, I don't think I'm likely to forget it, as long as you are here to remind me, Miss Jacqueline. By-the-by, aren't you getting bored down here? Surely the Combe falls a trifle flat after the gaieties of Cowes?"
"We are getting on pretty well so far, thank you; a school-treat the day after we arrived, an expedition to the quarries yesterday, a pic-nic to-day! I am managing to exist, but I can't think what we shall do to-morrow. The blackberries are not yet ripe, there are no ruins to explore, and not another school-feast for miles; there will be nothing for it but to go out in a boat and get drowned."
"All right; I'll come too."
"You can go out in a boat and get drowned to-day, if you like," suggested Osmond. "Boats are in the programme."
"So they are! I had forgotten. How late this Mr. Fowler is! Don't you think we had better go on, Osmond, and leave you and Wyn to follow?"
"Certainly, if you like. Who is packing?"
"Needyou ask? Hilda, of course. She always does everything she should. Wyn! Wyn! Are you ready?"
"Coming!"
Wyn emerged from the dark entry, and shook hands with Mr. Haldane.
"I will send Hilda to you," she said, vanishing, and in a minute or two there appeared on the scene another tall girl, closely resembling Jacqueline in height and general appearance, and dressed exactly like her, down to the minutest detail. In fact the family likeness in all four Allonbys was strong, something distinctive in the curve of the chin, the setting on of the head, the steady glance of the eye, which made them all noticeable, whether handsome or not. They were, all four, people who, having once been seen, were not likely to be forgotten. Of his two younger sisters Osmond was justly proud. Their height, grace, and slenderness were striking, and the want of likeness in their dispositions completed the charm, by the rare virtue of being unexpected.
Hilda was as reserved as Jacqueline was communicative, as statuesque as she was animated, as diligent and capable as she was lavish and reckless. The difference between them was this morning, however, much less obvious than the likeness, for Hilda was full of spirits, the whole of her sweet face irradiated with pleasure.
They set off with young Haldane, chattering eagerly, the sound of their light laughter tossed behind them on the breeze as they climbed the steep grassy hillside to Edge, to join the rest of the party.
They were hardly out of sight when Mr. Fowler and his dog-cart appeared down the road, the black horse's glossy flanks and polished harness reflecting the brightness of the sun.
"Good morning," cried Osmond, blithely; "what a fresh lovely morning! We are ready and waiting for you."
"We? Then I am to have the pleasure of driving Miss Allonby! That's all right. Cranmer came down yesterday evening, looking rather jaded; he seemed very glad to get here. He has gone on foot to join the others," said Mr. Fowler, alighting and entering the dark cool passage of the inn.
"Are you there Miss Allonby?"
"Yes, here I am. Good morning, Mr. Fowler. Come and help me with this strap."
He entered, and took her hand.
"So you are all established here! What did Mrs. Battishill say to your desertion?"
"She was very unhappy, but I could not help it. She totally declined to accept a penny for rent, and I wanted to have Hilda and Jac down, so I was obliged to move. I could not quarter my entire family upon her, it was too barefaced. There, how neatly you fastened that buckle! Now everything is ready. I'll call Tom to carry the hamper to the carriage."
"You'll do no such thing; I shall take it myself. We are favored in our weather, are we not?"
"That we are. In fact, everything is favorable to-day. My mental barometer is up at 'set-fair.' I have a mind to tell you why, and receive your congratulations all to myself. I heard from Barclay's to-day that my novel is to be put into a second edition. What do you think of that?"
Mr. Fowler thought the occasion quite important enough to justify a second energetic grasping of Miss Allonby's little slim hand in his vigorous square palm; and the dialogue might have been for some time prolonged, had not Osmond cried out, from his position at the horse's head,
"Now then, you two!"
In a few minutes Wyn was enthroned beside Mr. Fowler in the high dog-cart, her brother had swung himself up behind with the hamper, and the swift Black Prince was off, delighted to be tearing along in the sunshine.
"I am going to enjoy myself to-day, and forget all vexations," said Henry Fowler, in his quiet voice.
"Vexations? Are you vexed? What is it?" asked Wyn, anxiously.
"I am—a good deal vexed—about my Elsie," he answered, with a sigh. "Poor little lass! I think she is deeply to be pitied."
"So do I," said Wyn, promptly; and Osmond cut in from behind.
"I should like to lick that cheeky little beast of a boy."
"There's the rub—you can't lick the child, he's too delicate," said Henry, with a sigh. "I took him by the shoulder and shook him the other day, and he turned as white as a sheet and almost fainted. He is a mass of nerves, and has no constitution; careful rearing might have done something for him, but he is accustomed to sit up all night, lie in bed all day, drink spirits, and smoke cigars—a poor little shrimp like that! It is a terrible trial to Elsie; one that I'm afraid she's not equal to," he concluded, slowly, his eyes rivetted on the lash of his whip, with which he was flicking the flies from Black Prince's pretty pricked-up ears.
"She ought never to be called upon to endure it—they ought to send the little imp away," said Osmond, indignantly.
"He does not show himself in his true colors before the Miss Willoughbys—this is where I can't forgive him," returned Mr. Fowler, sternly. "The child is a habitual liar—you never know for a moment whether he is telling the truth or not. His dog worried two of my sheep yesterday; the shepherd absolutely saw the brute in the field, and he—Godfrey—coolly told me that Ven had been chained in the yard all that morning. It was then," he added, with a half-smile, "that I shook him; I would have liked to lay my stick about him, but one can't touch such a little frail thing; and his language—ugh! That Elsa should ever hear such words makes one grind one's teeth. I never saw such a young child so completely vitiated."
"What a misfortune!" said Wyn.
"You are right; it is a real misfortune. I am very doubtful as to what steps I ought to take in the matter. Did you hear of his setting his bull-dog at Saul Parker, the idiot? The poor wretch had one of his fits, and his mother was up all night with him. Little cur! Cruelty and cowardice always go together: but think what his bringing up must have been."
"I wonder Mr. and Mrs. Orton are not ashamed to send him visiting; Osmond knows something of the Ortons, you know."
"Indeed!"
"Yes; they have one of the new big houses up in our part of London, and Mr. Orton is something of a connoisseur in pictures. Osmond is painting two for him now."
"Yes," said Osmond, laughing, "but now I go out armed, and escorted by acordonof sisters to keep off murderers; landscape-painting has become as risky a profession as that of newspaper-reporter at the seat of war. I really think I ought to allow for personal risk in my prices, don't you, Fowler?"
A brisk "Halloo!" startled them all; and, looking eagerly forward, they became aware of a group gathered together at some distance ahead, at the point where the road ended, and gave way to a winding pathway among the chalk cliffs. Very picturesque and very happy they all looked—Wyn longed to coax them to stand still, and take out her sketch-book.
The wagonette stood a short way off, with two Miss Willoughbys, Miss Fanny and Miss Emily, seated in it. Acland was unloading the provisions and handing them to Jane. Hilda, Jacqueline, and Elsa were sitting on the grassy chalk boulders, with Mr. Haldane, Claud Cranmer, Dr. Forbes, and Godfrey as their escort.
As the party in the dog-cart drew near, Osmond's eyes sought out Elsa. She was looking charming, for the aunts had taken Wyn into confidence on the subject of their niece's costume, and her white dress and shady hat left little to be desired. She and the Allonby girls had been plucking tall spires of fox-glove to keep off the annoying flies; Mr. Cranmer was arranging a big frond of diletata round Hilda's hat for coolness; and over all the lovely scene brooded the sultry grandeur of early August, and the murmur of the sea washing lazily at the feet of the scorched red cliffs.
The spot selected for pic-nicking was a shelving bit of coast known as the Landslip. A large mass of soil had broken away in the middle of the seventeenth century, carrying cottages and cattle to headlong ruin. Now it lay peacefully settled down into the brink of the bay, the great scar from whence it had been torn all riddled with gull's nests. The chatter and laughter of the birds was incessant, and there was something almost weird to Wynifred in the strange "Ha-ha!" which echoed along the cliffs as the busy white wings wheeled in and out, flashing in the light and disappearing.
"They are teaching the young to fly," explained Mr. Fowler. "If you came along here next week, you would find all silent as the grave."
"I am glad they are not flown yet," said Wyn. "I like their laughter, there is something uncanny about it."
Mr. Cranmer was passing, laden with a basket.
"Characteristic of Miss Allonby! She likes something because it is uncanny!" he remarked. "Is there anything uncanny aboutyou, Fowler, by any chance?"
"What has upset Cranmer?" asked Henry, arching his eyebrows.
"I don't know, really. Suppose you go and find out," said Wyn, laughing a little.
It was her greeting of him which had annoyed Claud; and Wyn was keen enough to gauge precisely the reason why it had annoyed him.
He had scarcely seen her since the evening when he and she had walked from the village to Poole together. A vivid remembrance of that walk remained in his mind, and he had been determined to meet her again in the most matter-of-fact way possible. He told himself that it would be ungentlemanly in the extreme to so much as hint at sentimental memories, when he was not in the least in love, and had no intention of becoming so. Accordingly his "How do you do, Miss Allonby?" had been the very essence of casual acquaintanceship. Wyn, on her side, was even more anxious than he that her momentary weakness should be treated merely as a digression. She had been very angry with herself for having been so stirred; for stirred she had been, to such an unwonted extent, that Claud had been scarcely a moment out of her thoughts for two days after. The very recollection made her angry with herself. She met him on his own ground; if his greeting was casual, hers was even more so. It was perfect indifference—not icy, not reserved, so as to hint at hidden resentment, hidden feeling of some kind, but simply the most complete lack ofempressement; his hand and himself apparently dismissed from her mind in a moment; and this should have pleased Claud, of course,—only it did not.
He asked himself angrily what the girl was made of. His usually sweet temper was quite soured for the moment; impossible to help throwing a taunt behind him as he passed her, impossible to help being furious when he perceived that the taunt had not stung at all. He looked round for Elsa Brabourne, that he might devote himself to her; but she was entirely absorbed in the occupation of finding a sheltered place for Allonby, where he might be out of the sun.
Jacqueline and young Haldane were laying the cloth together, and doing it so badly that Hilda seized it from them and dismissed them in disgrace, proceeding to lay it herself with the assistance of old Dr. Forbes, who had fallen a hopeless victim at first sight. Jacqueline and Haldane went off, apparently quarrelling violently, down to the shore, and were presently to be seen in the act of fulfilling their threat of going out in a boat and getting drowned. Mr. Fowler shouted to them not to go far, as dinner would be ready at once, and hastened off to pilot dear little Miss Fanny safely down the rocky pathway to a seat where she might enjoy her picnic in comfort. Everyone had been relieved, though nobody had liked to say so, when Miss Charlotte announced that picnics were not in her line.
Wyn had been bitterly disappointed that it was not possible to bring Miss Ellen; but the invalid's health was growing daily feebler, and she was now quite unequal to the exertion of the shortest drive. So Miss Fanny, fortified by Miss Emily, had set out, with as much excitement and trepidation as if she had joined a band for the discovery of the north-west passage; and now, clinging to Henry Fowler's arm, was carefully conducted down the perilous steps towards the place of gathering. Wyn was left standing by herself, watching with a smile the manoeuvres of Jac and Haldane in their boat below, and Claud was left with a scowl watching Wyn.
After standing silently aloof for several minutes, he went slowly up to her.
"Your brother has made wonderful progress since I left, Miss Allonby," he remarked, stiffly.
"Yes, hasn't he?" she said, with a smile, her eyes still fixed on the boat. "Do just look at my sister; she is trying to pull, and she is only accustomed to Thames rowing; she does not know what to do without a button to her oar."
He did not look, he kept his eyes rivetted on her calm face.
"You look much better for your stay in Devonshire, too," he said, determined to make the conversation personal.
"Yes, so the girls say. I was rather over-worked when I first came down. How calm it is, isn't it? Hardly a wavelet. I think even I could go out without feeling unhappy to-day."
"May I take you presently? I am pretty well used to sea-rowing. My brother's place in Ireland is on the coast."
"Thanks, I should like to come; we will make up a party—Hilda and Mr. Fowler——"
"You are determined to give me plenty of work. I suggested pulling one person—not three. There are four boats; let them take another; but perhaps you don't care to go without Mr. Fowler."
This speech approached nearer to being rude than anything she had ever heard from the courteous Claud. It made her very angry. She lifted her eyes and allowed them to meet his calmly.
"It certainly adds greatly to my pleasure to be in Mr. Fowler's society," she said very tranquilly; "he is one of the most perfect gentlemen I ever met."
"You are right, he is," said Claud, almost penitently; and just at this juncture Godfrey tore by like a whirlwind, shouting out at the top of his voice,
"Dinner! Dinner! Dinner's ready! Look alive, everybody! Come and tackle the grub!"
Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honor,My heart!Song from "Pippa Passes."
Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honor,My heart!
Song from "Pippa Passes."
The dinner was a most hilarious repast. It was impossible to resist the infectious good spirits of the Allonby girls, and Godfrey was duly awed and held in check by the presence of Mr. Fowler.
Elsa sat, her eyes wide open, drinking in, word by word, all this fresh thrilling life which was opening round her. Girls and their ways were becoming less and less of a mystery to her; the expression which had been so wanting was now informing all the pretty features, making her beauty a thing to be wondered at and rejoiced over by the impressionable Osmond. Dinner over, all dispersed to seek their pleasure as seemed best to them; and Mr. Fowler, who appeared to have constituted himself surety for Godfrey's good behavior, ordered the boy to come out in the same boat with him. But he was not cunning enough for the spoilt child.
"Likely," remarked Master Brabourne, "that I'm going to pass the afternoon dangling from that old joker's watch-chain. Not much; no, thank you; I'd sooner be on my own hook this journey, any way; so you may whistle for me, Mr. Fowler."
After this muttered soliloquy, he at once obliterated himself, so completely, that nobody noticed that he was missing, and Henry embarked with Hilda Allonby and Miss Emily Willoughby, and was half-way across the bay before he remembered the tiresome child's existence. Miss Fanny declined the perils of the deep, and stayed on shore; Wynifred remained with her for a few minutes, to see that she was happy and comfortable and, on turning away at last, found that there was nobody left for her to pair off with but Mr. Cranmer, who stood doggedly at a short distance, watching her.
"What shall we do?" he asked.
"I don't mind. What is everyone else doing?"
"Going out in boats. Are you anxious to be in the fashion?"
"Yes, I think so. Is there a boat left?"
"There is. Come down this way."
It rather vexed Wynifred to find herself thus appropriated. It had been her intention to steer clear of Claud, and now here he was, glued to her side for the afternoon. However, there was really no reason for disquiet; since her momentary lapse she had taken herself well in hand, and felt that she had the advantage over him by the fact of being warned.
As they slipped through the blue water, she turned her eyes to land, and there saw a sight which, for no special reason, seemed to cast a tinge of sadness over her mood. It was only Osmond and Elsa, side by side, wandering inland, slowly, and evidently in deep conversation. In a few seconds the chalk boulders would hide them from view; Wyn watched their progress wistfully, and then, suddenly withdrawing her gaze, found that of her companion fixed upon her.
"I ought to apologize for saying anything," he said, deprecatingly, "but that is a pretty obvious case, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
He suddenly aimed one of his shafts of ridicule at her.
"A novelist and so unobservant?"
"Oh, no," said Wyn, gravely, leaning forward, her chin on her hand, and still following the couple with her eyes. "I am not unobservant."
"Yet you don't see that your brother is attracted?"
"I see it quite well."
"Your tone implies dissatisfaction. Don't you like Miss Brabourne?"
"You ask home questions; I hardly feel able to answer you. I know so little of her."
He arched his eyebrows.
"Is hers such a very intricate character?"
"I don't know about intricate; perhaps not, but it is remarkably undeveloped."
"Don't you like what you have seen of her?"
Wyn hesitated.
"I think I ought not to make her the subject of discussion; it doesn't seem quite kind."
"I beg your pardon, it is my fault. I have been trying to make you talk about her, because I honestly wanted your opinion. I have studied the young lady in question a good deal; but I am one who believes that you should go to a woman to get a fair opinion of a woman."
"What!" cried Wyn, with animation. "Take care! You could not mean that, surely! It is too good to be true. Have I at last discovered a man who believes that woman can occasionally be impartial—who is not convinced that the female mind is swayed exclusively by the two passions of love and jealousy? This is really refreshing! Yes, I do believe you are right. A woman should be judged by the vote of her own sex. Of course, one particular woman's opinion of her may very likely be biassed. I don't pretend to say that women are not sometimes spiteful—I have known those who were. But to say that some fair young girl will be deliberately tabooed by all the girls she knows, simply because she happens to be attractive to gentlemen, is a fiction which is the monopoly of the male novelist. I have never known a woman really unpopular among women without very good cause for it."
"Exactly. Well, this being so, I shall attach great weight to your opinion of Miss Elsa."
"In that case, I had far better not give it; besides, I am only one woman, and the fact that my brother is evidently much attracted by the subject of our conversation is very likely to make my judgment one-sided. You know, I think nobody good enough for Osmond."
"Most natural; yet I would go bail for the candor of your judgment."
"Would you? I am not sure whether I would. I have not much to go upon," she said, musingly.
"You have allowed me to gather this much—that you are not particularly favorably impressed," he said, cunningly. "You had better give me your reasons."
She made a protesting gesture.
"It is not fair—I have said nothing," she answered. "I tell you I can form no opinion worth having. I only know two points concerning Elsa—she is very beautiful and very unsophisticated. I don't know that, in my eyes, to be unsophisticated is to be charming; I know it is so in the opinion of many. I should say that where the instincts of a nature are noble, itisvery delightful to see those impulses allowed free and natural scope—no artificial restraint—no repression; but I think," she continued, slowly, "that some natures are better for training—some impulses decidedly improved by being controlled."
"I should think Miss Brabourne had been controlled enough, in all conscience."
"No," said Wyn, "she has only not been allowed to develop. The Misses Willoughby have never taught her to restrain one single impulse, because they have failed to recognise the fact that she has impulses to restrain. They do not know her any better than I do—perhaps not so well."
"Very likely," said Claud; "I see what you mean. You think it would be unjust to her to pronounce on a character which has had, as yet, no chance of self-discipline?"
"Exactly," agreed Wyn, with a sigh of relief at having partly evaded this narrow questioning. She did not like to say to him what had struck her several times in her intercourse with Elsa, namely, that there was a certain want in the girl's nature—a something lacking—an absence of traits which in a disposition originally fine would have been pretty sure to show themselves.
Wynifred was anxious for Osmond. She had never seen him seriously attracted before. Claud did not know, as she did, how significant a fact was his present exclusive devotion, and was naturally not aware of the consistency with which the young artist had always held himself aloof from the aimless flirtations which are so much the fashion of the day.
In the present state of society it needs a clever man to steer clear of the charge of flirting, but Osmond Allonby had done it, whilst eminently sociable, and avowedly fond of women's society, he had managed that his name should never be coupled on the tongues of the thoughtless with that of any girl he knew.
But now——! Every rule and regulation which had hitherto governed his life seemed swept away. Old limits, old boundaries were no more. The power of marshalling his emotions and finding them ready to obey when he cried "Halt!"—a power he possessed in common with his sister Wynifred—was a thing of the past. Even Wyn's loving eyes, following him so sympathetically, could not guess the completeness of his surrender. All the deep, carefully-guarded treasure of his love was ready to be poured out at the feet of the golden-haired, white-robed Elsa at his side. He would not own to himself that his attachment was likely to prove a hopeless one. With the swiftness of youth in love, his thoughts had ranged over the future. He was making a career—Wyn was following his example, in her own line. Jacqueline and Hilda were too pretty to remain long unmarried.
Concerning Elsa's heiress-ship he was not half so well-informed as Claud Cranmer. But indeed the question of ways and means only floated lightly on the top of the deep waves of feeling that filled his soul. His Elaine seemed to him a creature from another sphere—isolated, innocent, and wilful as the Maid of Astolat herself. Probably few young men in the modern Babylon could have brought her such an unspent, single-hearted, ideal devotion; his love was hardly that of the nineteenth century.
The only difficulty he experienced, in walking at her side, was to check himself, to so curb his passion as to be able to talk lightly to her; and, even through his most ordinary remarks, there ran a vibration, a thrill of feeling, "the echo in him broke upon the words that he was speaking," and perhaps communicated itself to the mood of the uncomprehending girl.
"Now," he said, as after several minutes' silence they seated themselves at last, sheltered from sun and breeze, under the shadow of a chalk cliff. "Now at last I claim your promise."
"My promise?"
"Yes, you know what I asked you when we met to-day. You were looking like Huldy in the American poem,
'All kind o' smily round the lips,An' teary round the lashes.'
'All kind o' smily round the lips,An' teary round the lashes.'
You said that when we were alone you'd tell me why. What was it?"
A flash of sudden, angry resentment crossed the girl's fair face, and tears again welled up to the edges of her limpid eyes. Osmond thought he had never seen anything so lovely as her expression and attitude. If one could but paint the quick, panting heave of a white throat, the quiver of a sad, impetuous mouth.
"You can guess—it was the usual thing—Godfrey," she said, struggling to command her voice, but in vain. She could say no more, but turned her face away from him, swallowing tears.
Osmond felt a sudden movement of helpless indignation, which almost carried him away. He mentally applied the brake before he could answer rationally.
"It is abominable—unheard of!" was the calmest expression he could think of. "Something must be done—quickly too! I should like to wring the insolent little beggar's neck for him! What did he do, to-day?"
For answer she pushed up her sleeve, showing him two livid bruises on a dazzlingly white arm—an arm with a dimpled round elbow.
"I caught him smoking in the stable, which is forbidden because of setting fire to the straw," she faltered, "and I told him he ought not to do it, so he did what he calls the 'screw.' You don't know how it hurts!"
Osmond's wrath surmounted even his love.
"But why don't you box his ears—why don't you give him a lesson—cowardly little beggar!" he cried. "You are bigger than he, Miss Brabourne, you ought to be more than a match for him!"
A burst of tears came.
"I don't even know how to hit," she sobbed, childishly. "I don't know anything that other people know; and, if I tell of him, he pays me out so dreadfully! He puts frogs in my bed, and takes away my candle, and the other night he dressed up in a sheet, and made phosphorous eyes, and nearly frightened me out of my senses, and I don't dare tell because—because he would do something even worse if I did! Oh, you don't know what he is. He catches birds and mice, and cuts them up alive—he says he is going to be a doctor, and he is practising vivisection; and he makes me look while he is doing it—if I don't he has ways of punishing me. He made me smoke a cigar, and I was so terribly sick, and he made me steal the sideboard keys, and get whiskey for him, and said if I did not he would tell aunts something that would make them forbid me to come to the picnic. He was tipsy last night," she shuddered, "really tipsy. He made me help him up to his room, and tell aunts he was not well, and could not come down to supper. Oh!" she burst out, "you don't know what my life is! He makes me miserable! I hate him! But I daren't tell, you don't know what he would do if I told!" Her face crimsoned with remembrance of insult. "Ican'ttell you the worst things, I can't!" she cried, "but he is dreadful. Every little thing I say or do, he remembers, and seems to see how he can make me suffer for it. I have no peace, day or night; and he is so good when aunts are there. They don't know how wicked he is."
"But surely," urged Osmond, gently, "if you were to tell the Misses Willoughby, they would send him home, and then you would be free from him?"
She dashed away the tears from her eyes, and shook her head with a smile full of bitterness.
"They wouldn't believe me," she said, "they never have believed me; that is, Aunt Charlotte wouldn't, and she is the one who rules. They would call Godfrey and ask if it was true, and he—he thinks nothing of telling a lie. Oh! he is a sneak and a coward! If you knew how he has curried favor since he has been here! Aunt Charlotte likes him—she will give him things she would never give me! She would never believe my word against his."
"Miss Brabourne—Elsa," faltered the young man tenderly, "Don't sob so—you break my heart—you—you make me—forget myself!"
He leaped to his feet. Poor fellow, his self-command was rapidly failing. It had needed but this, the sight of helpless distress in his ladylove, to finish his subjugation. He was raging with love, and a burning impotent desire to thrash Master Godfrey Brabourne within an inch of his life. Yet, as Henry Fowler had said, how could one touch such a scrap of a child, such a delicate, puny boy?
He knew well enough the power such a young scoundrel would have to render miserable the life of a timid girl, unused to brothers. Elsa had never learned to hold her own, never learned to be handy or helpful. She was most probably what boys call a muff, a fit butt for the coarse ridicule and coarser bullying of the ill-brought-up Godfrey. That helplessness which in the eyes of her lover was her culminating charm was exactly what to the boy was an irresistible incentive to cruelty.
Osmond turned his eyes on the drooping figure of the girl. She was leaning forward, her elbow on her knee. Her hollowed hand made a niche for her chin to rest in, and her profile was turned towards him as she gazed sadly seawards. On her cheek lay one big tear, and the long, thick lashes were wet.
He came again to her side, and knelt there. Flushing at his own boldness, he took her hand. It trembled in his own, but lay passive.
"Elsa," he said, tenderly, soothingly, "it will not be for long, you must not let this wretched child's mischief prey upon you so. I know how badly you feel it, but consider—he will be gone in a few days."
"Oh, no, no, that is just what is so hateful! He will be here for weeks! Mr. Orton has been taken ill at Homburg, and aunts have promised to keep him till they come back. Oh,"—she snatched away her hand and clasped it with the other, as if hardly conscious of what she did,—"oh, I can bear it now, when you are all here; but next week—next week—when there will be no Wynifred, no Hilda, no Jacqueline ... no you!... what shall I do then?"
"Elaine!"
"When I think of it, I could kill him!" cried the girl, her face reddening with the remembrance of insults which she could not repeat to Osmond. "You don't know what a wicked mind he has—he is like an evil spirit, sent to lure me on to do something dreadful! When he speaks so to me, I feel as if I must silence him—as if I could strike him with all my force. Suppose—suppose one day I could not restrain myself...."
She was as white as a sheet, as she suddenly paused.
"What was that noise?" she panted.
"What noise?" he asked.
"I thought I heard Godfrey's whistle—there is a noise he makes sometimes".... Her face seemed paralysed with fear and dislike—involuntarily, she drew nearer to Osmond. "If he should have heard me!" she breathed, with her mouth close to his ear.
"How could he hurt you when I am with you?" cried he, passionately. "My darling, my own, you are quite safe with me!"
His arms were round her before he had realised what he was doing. It seemed his divine right to shield her—his vocation, his purpose in life to come between her and any danger, real or fancied.
A yell, quite unlike anything human—a rush of loose pebbles and white dust, a crash on the path close to the unwary couple, and a long discordant peal of laughter.
"Cotched 'em! Cotched 'em! Cotched 'em by all that's lovely! Done 'em brown, bowled 'em out clean! Oh, my dears, if you only did know what jolly asses you both look, spooning away there like one o'clock! I'm hanged if I ever saw anything like it. I wouldn't have missed it—no, not for—come, I say, let go of a feller, Mr. Allonby. Lovers are fair game, don't yer know!"
If ever any man felt enraged it was Osmond at that moment; the more, because he saw how undignified it was to be in a rage at all. Revulsion of feeling is always unpleasant, and nothing could be more complete than the revulsion from the purest of sentiment to the most contemptible of practical jokes.
Elsa cried out in a mingled anger and terror—the ludicrous side of a situation never struck her by any chance. Osmond, as he sprang up and collared the impudent young miscreant, was divided between a desire to storm and a desire to roar with laughter. The former gained the ascendency as he looked back at Elsa's white face.
"You impertinent young scamp," he said, between his teeth, "I've a great mind to give you such a punishment as you never had in your life, to make you remember this day!"
"You daren't," said Godfrey, coolly, "you daren't flog me, I'm delicate. You'll have to settle accounts with my uncle if you bring on the bleeding from my lungs. My tutor ain't allowed to touch me."
"You sickening little coward—you sneak," said Osmond, with scathing contempt. "A spy—that's what you are. I hope you are proud of yourself. Look how you have startled your sister."
"Pretty little dear—a great lump, twice my size," sneered Godfrey, grinning. "Look at her, blubbing again! She does nothing but blub. Stop that, Elaine, will you?"
"All right, young man," said Osmond, "I can't flog you, but I think I can take it out of you another way just as well. Don't flatter yourself you are going to get off so easily. I'll teach you a lesson of manners, and I'll make it my business that the Miss Willoughbys and Mr. Fowler know how you have behaved—not to-day only. You little cur, how dare you?"
"Who's old Fowler? He can't touch me. Keep your hair on. What are you going to do with me?"
"I'm going to keep you out of mischief for a bit," said Osmond, as he skilfully laid the boy down on the grass with one dexterous motion of his foot, and, producing two thick straps from his pocket, he proceeded to strap first his feet and then his hands together.
"Pooh! What do I care? I've had my fun, and I'm ready to pay for it. Oh, my stars, wasn't it rich to hear Elsa coming the injured innocent and laying it on thick for her beloved's benefit? I heard every word you both said!" cried Godfrey, convulsed with laughter.
"If you say another word, I'll gag you."
"Gag away! I've heard all I want to, and said all I want to, too. Good old Allonby, so you believe all the humbug she's been telling you? You old silly, don't you know girls always say that sort of thing to draw the men on? I told her she ought to bring you to the point to-day.... I say ... I can't breathe!"
He was skilfully and rapidly gagged by Osmond, who afterwards picked up his prisoner and carried him to a high steep shelf of rock, where he laid him down.
"You can cool your heels up there till I come and take you down," he said between his teeth. "If you roll over, you'll roll down, and most likely break your spine, so I advise you to be quiet, and think of your sins."
We walked beside the seaAfter a day which perished, silently,Of its own glory.Nor moon nor stars were out:They did not dare to tread so soon about,Though trembling in the footsteps of the sun;The light was neither night's nor day's, but oneWhich, lifelike, had a beauty in its doubt.E. B. Browning.
We walked beside the seaAfter a day which perished, silently,Of its own glory.Nor moon nor stars were out:They did not dare to tread so soon about,Though trembling in the footsteps of the sun;The light was neither night's nor day's, but oneWhich, lifelike, had a beauty in its doubt.
E. B. Browning.
On turning his flushed and excited face again towards the seat where he had left Elsa, he found that she was gone. It did not surprise him, but made him resolve instantly to follow and console her. He wandered about for some time amongst the sunny windings of the cliffs before he found the object of his search.
She was crouched down on the grass, her face hidden, her whole frame shaken with sobs. It brought the tears to his own eyes to witness such distress, yet his feeling towards Godfrey was not all anathema. Only exceptional circumstances could have enabled him to assume the post of comforter, and those circumstances had been brought about by the impudent boy.
"Miss Brabourne," he said, gently, looking down at her.
She started, and checked her grief.
"Forgive my intruding," he went on, seating himself on a ledge of cliff just above her, "but I have said too much already not to say more. You must feel with me, our interview can't be broken off at this point; you must hear me out now, and, if I have shattered all my hopes by my reckless haste, why, I shall only have myself to thank for it."
She but half heard, and hardly understood him; her whole mind was at work on one point.
"What must you think of me?" she cried. "Did you believe it?—what he said of me?"
"Believe it! Believe what?" cried Osmond. "Don't allude to it, please, please don't. It makes me lose my temper and feel inclined to rave. I heard little that was said; what I did hear could inspire me only with one sensation—anger at his impudence, sympathy for you."
"Then you don't—believe—you don't think that I was—trying to make you flirt with me?"
It was out at last, and, having managed to pronounce the words, she buried her face in her hands.
"Oh, Elsa!" was all that her lover could say; but the tone of it made her lift her humbled head and seek his eyes. Whatever his look, she could not meet it; her own sank again, she blushed pitifully, quivered, hesitated, finally let him take her hand.
Consciousness was fully awake now. The girl, whose fingers thrilled in his own, was a different being from the Elaine who had watched him sketching in the lane. She knew that she was a woman, knew also that she was beloved. Years of education would never have taught her so completely as she was now taught by her lover's eyes.
He began to speak. She listened, in a trance of delight. He begged her to forgive his weakness in failing to control his feelings for her. Poor fellow, he was lowly enough to satisfy an empress. He knew that he had no right to speak of love to this girl who had seen no men, had no experience of life. He felt that he had taken an unfair advantage of her ignorance, and the thought tortured his pride. He would not ask her if she returned his love, still less demand of her any promise; he should go to Edge Willoughby that very night, he said, and apologise to her aunts for his unguarded behavior. He loved her dearly, devotedly. In a year's time he would come and tell her so again. But not yet. He was poor, and he could not brook that anyone should think he wanted a rich wife, though, as has been said, his knowledge of Elaine's prospects was by no means so minute as Claud Cranmer's. All his passion, all his regret, were faltered forth; and the result was, to his utter astonishment, a burst of indignation from his lady-love.
He did not believe her—could not trust her! Oh, she had thought that he, at least, understood her, but she was wrong, of course! He, like everyone else, thought her a foolish child, incapable of judging, or knowing her own mind.
"Do you think that I have no feeling?" she asked, pitifully. "Do you think that I can bear to have you leave me next week, and go back to London and never be able to so much as hear from you, to know what you are doing, or if you still think of me? How can you love such a creature as you think me—foolish, ignorant, inconstant——"
Could it be Elsa who spoke? Elsa, whose lovely face glowed with expression and feeling? Her development had indeed been rapid. Lost in wonder and admiration, he could not answer her, but remained mutely looking at her, till, with a little cry of angry shame, she bounded up and ran away from him.
Leaping to his feet, he followed and captured her. Hardly knowing what he did, he took her in his arms. Her lovely cheek rested against his dark blue flannel coat, she was content to have it so, for the moment she believed that she loved him.
The great red sun had rolled into the sea, when the two came up to the camping place again. Tea was half over, and they were greeted with a derisive chorus. Wyn, however, looked apprehensively at her brother's illuminated expression and gleaming eye, and Claud, noting the same danger-signals, looked at her, and their eyes met.
"Where is Godfrey?" asked Mr. Fowler.
"Jove, I forgot! I must go and fetch him," cried Osmond, laughing, as he ran off.
"Mr. Allonby put him in punishment for behaving so badly," explained Elsa, with burning blushes.
"What had he done?" asked Dr. Forbes, with interest.
"He was very rude to Mr. Allonby," she faltered.
"I'm grateful indeed to Allonby for keeping him in order," laughed her godfather.
Godfrey appeared in a very cowed state, silent and sulky. His durance had been longer and more disagreeable than he had bargained for. He was quite determined to be ill if he could, and so wreak vengeance on his gaoler; and his evil expression boded ill to poor Elsa, as he passed her with a muttered, "You only wait, my lady, that's all!"
The twilight fell so rapidly that tea was obliged to be quickly cleared away. It was not so hilarious a meal as dinner had been, for Osmond and Elsa were quite silent, and Wyn too absorbed in thinking of them to be lively.
They all went down to the shore to wash up the tea-things, and lingered there a little, watching the tender violets and crimsons of the west, and listening to the soft murmur of the lucid little wavelets which hardly broke upon the sand.
Wyn leaned her chin upon her hand—her favorite attitude—and watched. Jacqueline and young Haldane were busily washing and wiping the same plate, an arrangement which seemed to provoke much lively discussion. Claud was drying the knives and forks which Hilda handed to him. Osmond and Elsa stood apart, doing nothing but look at one another. Wyn hated herself for the choking feeling of sadness which possessed her. Osmond had been so much to her; now, how would it be? Such jealousy was miserable, contemptible, she knew; but the pain of it would not be stilled at once.
Henry Fowler appeared, took the knives and forks, and carried them off, followed by Hilda. Claud turned, and looked at Wyn.
"What a night," he said.
"Yes."
"Is that all the answer I am to expect?"
"What more can I say? Do you want me to contradict you?"
He was silent, his eyes fixed on the pure reach of sky.
"I wonder why I always feel sad just after sunset?" he remarked, after a pause.
"Do you?" said Wyn, quickly.
"Yes; do you?"
"To-night I do."
"I thought so."
"Our holidays are nearly over," said the girl, with a sigh. "I must go back to work again. I must utilize my material," she added, a little bitterly. "All the splendor of these sunsets must go into the pages of a novel, if I can reproduce it."
"It would go better into a poem," said Claud, tossing a pebble into the water.
"That is one fault I may venture to say I am without," remarked Wynifred. "I never write verses."
"I do; it amounts to a positive vice with me," returned he, coolly.
"I am sure I beg your pardon," she said, confused.
"You need not. It is only a vent. Everyone must have a vent of some sort, otherwise the contents of their mind turn sour. Yours is fiction; you don't need the puny consolation of verse, which is my only outlet."
"You are very sarcastic."
"So were you."
"If you always take your tone from me——" she began, and stopped.
"I should have my tongue under better control, you were about to add," he suggested.
"Nothing of the sort. I forget what I meant. I am not in a mood for rational conversation this evening."
"Nor I. Let us talk nonsense."
"No, thank you. I can't do that well enough to be interesting. Go and talk to Mr. Haldane; he studies nonsense as a fine art."
"I accept my dismissal; thank you for giving it so unequivocally," he answered, huffily, and, turning on his heel, marched away, and spoke to her no more that evening.
Later, when the darkness had fallen, and the company were dispersed to their various homes, Henry Fowler, coming from the stable through the garden, was arrested by the scent of his guest's cigar, and joined him on the rustic seat under the trees.
It was a perfect summer night, moonless, but the whole purple vault of heaven powdered with stars.
The garden of Lower House was, of course, like all the land in Edge Valley, inclined at an angle of considerably more than forty-five degrees, which fact added greatly to its picturesqueness. Right through it flowed a brook which dashed over rough stones in a miniature cascade, and added its low murmuring rush to the influence of the hour.
Claud sat idly and at ease, smoking a final cigar. It was almost midnight, but on such a night it seemed impossible to go to bed.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Henry, as he sat down and struck a light.
The match flickered over the young man's moody face; such an expression was unusual with the cheerful brother of Lady Mabel. He merely shrugged his shoulders in answer to the question.
"The Miss Allonbys are certainly charming girls," said Mr. Fowler, after a pause. "The eldest, indeed, is most exceptional."
"You are right there," said Claud, suddenly, as though the remark unloosed his tongue. "I don't profess to understand such a nature, I must say."
His host looked inquiringly at him, surprised at the irritation of his tones.
"If I were a different fellow, I declare to you I'd make her fall in love with me," said the young man, vindictively, "if only for the pleasure of seeing her become human."
"And why don't you try it, being as you are?" asked Mr. Fowler, composedly, after a brief interval of astonishment. "Why this uncalled for modesty? Is it on account of your one defect, or because you have only one?"
Claud laughed, and flushed a little under cover of the friendly gloom.
"Miss Allonby is too near perfection to care for it in others," he said, with a suspicion of a sneer.
"Indeed? Do you think so? She seems full of faults to me."
His companion turned his head sharply towards him.
"Perhaps I hardly meant faults. I should say—amiable weakness. I only meant to express that to me she seems 'a being not too bright and good for human nature's daily food.' I am such a recluse, Mr. Cranmer, I must of necessity study my Wordsworth."
Claud was silent for a long time, and only the harmonious rushing of the brook broke the hush.
"Is that the idea she gives you?" he asked, at length. "Shall I tell you what I think of her? That she is incapable of passion, and so unfit for her century."
"Incapable of passion," said the elder man, slowly, "and so safe from the knowledge of infinite pain. For her sake I almost wish it were so. Have you read her books?"
"Yes."
"Don't you think the passion in them rings true?"
"True enough; she has wasted it there. There is her real world. I—we—" he corrected himself very hastily—"are only shadows."
"I think that remark of yours is truer than you know," said Mr. Fowler. "I am sure that Miss Allonby lives in a dream——"
"But you think she could be awakened?"
"If you could fuse her ideal with the real. I read a poem in the volume of Browning you lent me the other day. It told of a man who set himself to imagine the form of the woman he loved standing before him in the room. He summoned to his mind's eyes every detail of her personal appearance,—her dress, her expression,—till the power of his will brought the real woman to stand where the fancied shape had been. It is not altogether a pleasant poem, but it reminded me of her, in a way. She is standing, I conjecture, with her eyes and her heart fixed on an ideal. If a real man could take its place, he would know what the character of Wynifred Allonby really is. No other mortal ever will."
Claud smoked on for a minute or two in silence; then, taking his cigar from his mouth, he broke off the ash carefully against the sole of his boot.
"Your estimate of her is practically worthless," he remarked, "because you are supposing her to be consistent, which you know is an impossibility. No woman is consistent; if they were, not one in a hundred would ever marry at all. Who do you suppose ever married her ideal?"
"You are right, then," said his companion, thoughtfully. "The adaptability of woman is marvellous. Mercifully for us. But I have a fancy that the lady in question is an exception to most rules. One is so apt to argue from something taken for granted, and therefore most likely incorrect. We start here from the assumption that a girl's ideal is an ideal of perfection—a thing that never could be realized; and I should imagine that to be true in the majority of instances. But it's my idea that Miss Allonby has too much insight to build herself such a sand-castle. The hero of her novel is just a moderately intelligent man of the present day, with his faults fearlessly catalogued—he is no sentimental abstraction. And yet I am sure that he is not a man she has met, but a man she hopes to meet. That is to say, I am sure she had not met him when she wrote the book, but I see no reason why she should not come across him some day."
Claud made a restless movement. He tossed away the end of the cigar, threw himself back on the garden-seat, and locked his hands behind his head.
"The modern girl," he observed, "is complicated."
"Perhaps that is what makes her so interesting," said Mr. Fowler.
"Is she interesting—to you?"
"She is most interesting—to me," was the ready rejoinder.
There was no answer. In the dim starlight the elder man studied the face of the younger. He thought Claud Cranmer was better-looking than he had previously considered him. There was something sweet in the expression of his mouth, something lovable in the questioning gaze of his blue-grey eyes.
The silence was broken by the fretful barking of Spot, Claud's fox-terrier. He roused himself from his reverie.
"What's up with that little beggar now, I wonder?" he said, as he rose, half-absently, and sauntered over the bridge.
"Spot! Spot! Come here! Stop that row, can't you?"
He vanished gradually among the shadows, and Henry Fowler was left alone.
"Is he in love with her, or is he not?" he dreamily asked himself. "Talk of the complications of the modern girl—there's no getting to the bottom of the modern young man. I don't believe he knows himself."
He caught his breath with something like a sigh of regret for an irreclaimable past.
"I almost wish I were young again, with a heart and a future to lay at her feet!"
It was the nearest he had ever come to a treason against the memory of Alice Willoughby. Love in his early days had seemed such a different thing—meaning just the protecting, reverential fondness of what was in every sense strong for what was in every sense weak. Now it went so far deeper—it included so many emotions, some of them almost conflicting. Physically—in strength, size, and experience—Wynifred was his inferior. Intellectually, though she had read more books than he, he felt that they were equals. But there was a fine inner fibre—a something to which he could not give a name—an insight, a delicacy of hers which soared far above him. Something which was more than sex, which no intimacy could remove or weaken—a power of spirit, a loftiness which was new in his experience of women.
The men of his day had taken it for granted that woman, however charming, wassmall; they had smiled indulgently at pretty airs and graces, at miniature spites. They had thought it only natural that these captivating creatures should pout and fret if disappointed of a new gown, should shriek at a spider, go into hysterics if thwarted, and deny the beauty of their good-looking female friends. Such a being as this naturally called forth a different species of homage from that demanded by a Wynifred Allonby, to whom everything mean, or cramped, or trivial was as foreign as it was to Henry Fowler himself. It was not that she resisted the impulse to be small; it was not in her nature; she could no more be spiteful than a horse could scratch; she had been framed otherwise.