Decorated Heading.THE WELLFIELDS.Decorated Horizontal Rule.STAGE II—Continued.Decorated Horizontal Rule.CHAPTER VI.IN DANGER.‘Oh Death, that makest life so sweet!Oh fear, with mirth before thy feet!’Decorated First Letter.WhenNita and Jerome again arrived at the Abbey, they found that Mr. Bolton had returned from Burnham, and that the midday dinner, which was an institution in the family, was waiting for them.‘Have you settled anything?—has Nita helped you?’ inquired Mr. Bolton.‘Miss Bolton has been very kind indeed, and has probably saved me from wasting a great deal of my small stock of money,’ replied Jerome.‘Ah!’ said Mr. Bolton, appreciatively, ‘that’s always something gained.’He asked his daughter what she was going to do that afternoon, and Nita said she was going to drive to the town of Clyderhow to do a little shopping.‘Why Clyderhow? The shops in Burnham are a great deal better.’‘Because I like the drive to Clyderhow,’ said Nita; ‘and there is a wonderful milliner there. Aunt Margaret got a bonnet from her with five ostrich tips in it, and a bird, and three bows of black satin ribbon, and a great deal of velvet, for the sum of two guineas.’‘So you go by the quantity of stuff you get for your money when you choose bonnets?’ asked Mr. Bolton.‘Aunt Margaret does. She likes plumes. I thought I might perhaps findsomething sweetly modest and simple, with one feather and one bow, and a little flower or sprig for instance, for next to nothing.’‘Is this shopping considered a secret service affair?’ inquired Jerome; ‘or may I go too, if I sit quite still while you are in the shop, and promise not to look that way?’‘I am afraid you would think it a great bore,’ said Nita quickly, as her face flushed.‘I suppose it was because I love to bore and afflict myself that I asked permission to go,’ he answered, with a smile.‘I shall be most happy to take you if you would really like to go. Will you come too, papa?’‘What an idea!—I hope not!’ thought Jerome, within himself, and Mr. Bolton was obliging enough to say:‘I?—no. I never drive in the afternoon. I am going to my Italian, as usual.’But as the carriage was not ordered to be round until half an hour after dinner, Mr. Bolton proposed to Jerome that they should take awalk round the garden and have a cigar. Nita watched the two figures as they paced together towards the cloisters. The elder man, with the massive lines, broad, sturdy figure, somewhat below middle height, but still imposing in its power and strength; the somewhat bowed back and high shoulders; the round, bull-dog head, with its expression of dogged determination. The younger—Nita leaned against the side of the window and folded her arms, as she contemplated him with a strange mixture of sensations. What a contrast to that dear familiar figure of the man who was noted for his hardness and coldness to others, but who was so gentle, so tender and indulgent to her, and to the few friends who composed their small circle of intimates—a contrast indeed! The new-comer was—unconsciously she recalled those lines in ‘Esther’—‘He was a lovely youth; I guessThe panther in the wildernessWas not more fair than he.’‘The panther in the wilderness!’ That was an evil comparison; surely he was good as well as beautiful. Was it really only yesterday that he had arrived—not yet twenty-four hours ago? And how long would he still be here? And what would the Abbey, everything be, when he was gone? She turned hastily away from the window, and would not venture another look.The two men paced about the river walk for a time, till Mr. Bolton asked:‘Do you know any of the people about here?’‘I met an old acquaintance this morning—Father Somerville, from Brentwood.’‘Somerville! You know him? Is he any favourite of yours?’‘As to that, I can hardly say. I like what I have seen of him, but know very little of him. I fancy we have many tastes in common. He is a cultivated man, who has seen the world, I think.’‘Ay, ay! he’s clever, is Somerville, and attractive too, I couldfancy. I never let any of those gentry inside my house.’‘No?’ said Jerome, indifferently. ‘I hope you have no objection to your visitors knowing them, for I have promised to go and see him to-morrow.’‘Oh, my visitors do as they please, I hope. So long as he does not darken my doors, it’s all one to me what he does. Nita, I am thankful to say, is not of an hysterical temperament, for all she is so slight and delicate. She has never displayed any tendencies to being over-religious, or going in for Ritualism or that kind of mummery; else I should have had to send her to a good sharp school.’‘Miss Bolton has never been to school?’‘No; her mother died when she was two. By that time I was a rich man; and as I knew I should never marry again, I took Nita’s education into my own hands. She will inherit my money and my property; and I have given her the education of a man of business. She will know to a fraction what she is worth; and if she falls into any snares, it willbe with her eyes open.’‘That is well,’ said Jerome, gravely, wondering a little why Mr. Bolton, on so short an acquaintance, chose to discourse to him on this topic. And with Father Somerville’s advice fresh in his mind, he felt interested in that topic—wrongfully interested.‘Your daughter will marry some one who will administer her fortune wisely, it is to be hoped,’ he said.Mr. Bolton sighed. ‘I suppose she must marry,’ he said, slowly. A girl with that money ought to marry. One has heard of wealthy maiden ladies of large property living alone, and exercising power over all around them; but,’ he turned suddenly to Wellfield, ‘did you ever hear or read of one, in real life or even in a romance, who was not unhappy? I never did.’‘I really don’t feel to know much about the subject,’ said Jerome, feeling that they were skirting delicate ground, wondering more andmore that Mr. Bolton spoke thus to him, of all persons.‘Nita has told me about your sister, and your views about her,’ he went on. ‘I like you for your behaviour, Mr. Wellfield.’‘I?’ stammered Jerome, surprised. ‘Miss Bolton must have misunderstood.’‘No. She told me you had a half-sister, to whose use you intended to devote what money you had, while you sought for employment for yourself. I like to hear of a man treating his sister in that way.’Jerome was silent—surprised. He felt his tongue tied. His natural impulse was to please, when his companion showed a predisposition to be pleased. He felt a desire to say something which should still further excite Mr. Bolton’s goodwill, and make him—Jerome Wellfield—feel on still better terms with himself. But the thought of Sara Ford rose up, and forbade him to do so. He continued his walk in silence.‘I have a proposition to make to you,’ said Mr. Bolton, suddenly.Jerome turned to him with his lips apart, and a quick inquiring look upon his face. Could it be that Father Somerville had the gift of second-sight?‘It’s not a very brilliant proposition; and it is all founded on the assumption that you know nothing of business; no book-keeping for instance, no clerkship routine. Do you?’‘No, I do not; I know absolutely nothing of those things.’‘Well, if I found you capable—excuse my bluntness,’ he said, with the same pedantic little air which characterised his speech—‘we manufacturers are apt to be a little scornful of a want of practical talent; but if I found you capable, and you would care to try, I think I could find you some employment in my own office. But you would have to begin by learning the very elements of your work from my book-keeper and cashier. If you like to come over to Burnham two or three times a week, for a short time, and try, you are welcome.’‘You are very kind!’ said Jerome, astonished: ‘I have no possible claim upon such——’‘You do not in the least know my reasons for making you the offer,’ replied Mr. Bolton, with a calm superiority that made Jerome feel somewhat snubbed; ‘therefore, do not be in any haste to express your gratitude. My book-keeper will soon turn you out a finished article, if you are to be turned out at all.’‘Sublime destiny! The gods might envy me!’ thought Jerome, within himself; but he said: ‘I shall accept your offer with gratitude. I do not know how I should have found anything, with my ignorance and my utter want of influence.’‘That’s right! And in the meantime take holiday till next week, and enjoy yourself. There’s Nita’s phaeton going round, I see, and the groom; I suppose she will be ready.’With which laconical dismissal of the whole subject, he led the way to the house again.Nita drove a high phaeton, with a spirited pair of roans. In answer to Jerome’s suggestion that he should drive she looked so rueful that he laughed, saying:‘If that is the case I shall be only too glad tobedriven. I am indolent enough for anything.’‘I am glad to hear it,’ replied Nita, taking the ribbons. Very soon they were driving at a pleasant speed through the lanes leading towards Clyderhow, whose ancient castle, on a mound, confronted them for a great part of the distance.‘What does Mr. Bolton mean, when he speaks of “his Italian”?’ asked Jerome, reflectively.Nita laughed as she flicked the roans lightly.‘Of course you would not understand,’ she answered. ‘Italian is papa’s favourite weakness. Did you ever see anyone so unlike Italy as he is?Poor old dear! He always used to read in the afternoons, and one day he was perusing a little book aloud to me, and I was sewing. There came some allusion to “the fiery domes and cupolas of the city of Dis.” He asked me what it meant, and I told him about the “Inferno.” He said: “That’s very fine—those fiery domes and cupolas. I must know some more about it.” With which he took to studying Italian, and is now devoted to it. It is very seldom that he fails to give a few hours each day to it. He is translating the “Inferno,” in his rough, plodding way. I am glad he finds something to amuse himself with, for he has had a sad life.’‘Sad? He has been unusually successful, has he not?’‘Oh, in money-matters, yes. But my mother died just when he hoped to give her everything she desired—and more. And he was—he was very fond of her.’‘I see! I might have understood that,’ replied Jerome; and then, aftera pause, ‘Mr. Bolton has been making very kind offers to me.’‘Has he? What manner of offers?’He told her.‘Do you call that a kind offer?’ cried Nita impatiently, as her face flushed. ‘How could he suggest such a thing? Oh, really, how hard men can be!’‘Perhaps you think he should at once have placed the half of his possessions at my disposal. Is it not better to be “hard,” as you call it, than an idiot?’‘Well, I suppose it is. But life is such a mystery.’‘As how—I mean how exemplified in my case?’Nita laughed with a little embarrassment.‘I never can explain things. But it is a mystery. You a clerk! What an idea! You must feel it to be absurd, yourself, don’t you?’‘I have not thought much about it. It has to be done.‘“When land is gone and money spent,”you know.’‘Pray what would yoursistersay to it?’‘Avice? Well, really, I don’t suppose she has any clear ideas as to what clerks are, or do. If I told her I was going to be a tailor, she would think it all right if I said so.’‘Is she that kind of a sister?’‘Yes,’ said Jerome, in perfect good faith. He imagined indeed that Avice was that kind of a sister; essentially the right kind of sister. Women ought all to be like that—blind to the faults of those they loved—when ‘those’ were men. The men to work, the women to admire; the workers to rule, the admirers to submit. It was a beautiful arrangement.‘I daresay it is very nice in her to be like that,’ said Nita, ‘but if I had had a brother,I should not have been that kind of a sister atall. I should have told him very plainly what I thought of his doings, and if I imagined that he was degrading himself, I should have told him that too.’‘Would you, at the same time, have provided him with the means of acting up to what you considered a higher standard?’‘It is ashame!’ Nita burst out almost passionately, after a pause.How naïvely she showed her interest, Jerome thought, with a little sense of pleased, flattered self-complacency. How delightfully natural she was—and what a curious contrast to that woman whose proud lips had already confessed her love for him: to Sara Ford! His heart suddenly throbbed as he thought of her. Dangerous thought! He must not indulge in it, and accordingly, to turn the conversation, he said:‘You have singular ideas on the subject of brothers and sisters, possibly because the relation is purely a matter of speculation to you.’‘Oh no, it isn’t. Jack is my brother.’‘John Leyburn?’ he asked, with a feeling of surprise that was not altogether pleasant. Sooth to say, he had forgotten Leyburn for the moment, and here he was suddenly cropping up again in a manner that was obtrusive—thrusting himself in where he was not in the least wanted.‘John Leyburn—yes.’‘Privileged young man! He seems to me, like most cousins, to make the most of his advantages.’‘What do you mean?’ asked Nita.‘He takes every opportunity of lecturing you. And you—well, you are consistent, I must own; you do tell him very plainly what you think of him.’‘Of course I do! and as for John’s lectures, I am accustomed to them by now. They mean nothing, except that we are great friends—more than cousins; in fact, brother and sister.’‘And how long, if I may ask, has the fraternity been superadded to thecousinship—and the friendship? It makes a complicated relationship.’‘It never was superadded. It has always existed—for me.’‘Always?’ echoed Jerome, vaguely displeased.‘Yes, of course. I am nineteen, and John is twenty-eight. When I was born, we lived at Burnham, and so did the Leyburns. Uncle Leyburn married papa’s only sister, and was his greatest friend. They lived at Burnham too, then. John was nine years old then, of course. The first, or one of the very first things I can remember, is his showing me pictures of birds—he is mad about birds, you know—and taking me by the hand for a little walk, and playing with me in general. I suppose I was about three years old then.’‘And Leyburn twelve. He was that age when I knew him, sixteen years ago. They had just come to Abbot’s Knoll. Yet I do not remember hisever saying anything about you. Perhaps you occupied a smaller place in his heart than you imagine.’‘Oh no!’ said Nita, with calm conviction. ‘He never talks much about things. He would not be likely to talk about me. He always gives his mind to what he is doing at the moment; and when he was playing and learning lessons with you, he would not talk about me. Besides, we were still at Burnham. But he was always kind when he came back to me. John taught me to read, and implanted in my mind that love of light literature which he now pretends to deplore—the great humbug!’Nita laughed a pleased little laugh, speaking of a tender affection for the absent ‘humbug.’ The course which the conversation had taken grew less and less pleasing to Jerome. He felt a strong desire to displace John from his pedestal, or at least to make him, in vulgar parlance, ‘step down a peg or two.’ A spirit of perverse folly took possession of him. Leaning a little forward, and speaking in a discreetly low voice,mindful of the groom who sat behind, he rested his elbow on his knee, and fixed his eyes on Nita’s face, saying:‘Then he has never given you cause to suppose that a sister’s affection would hold a secondary place in his thoughts?’‘You speak ambiguously,’ replied Nita, occupied in guiding her horses through a very narrow lane. ‘Sister’s affection—secondary place! I do not understand.’‘Are sisters jealous when their brothers marry?’‘Oh, I see! Certainly not, if they have any sense,’ was the most decided answer; ‘they may be angry, you know, if the wife their brother chooses is disliked by them; but if they have no ground for disliking her, they would be selfish and foolish, simply, to be jealous when their brothers married.’‘You say John Leyburn is your cousin and your friend and your brother all in one. Suppose he took it into his head to get married—he must belonely in that great house of his by the river.’‘If John were to marry,’ repeated Nita, slowly and pensively.Her hands were fully occupied; for at this moment they were driving down a steep hill, and the roans were fresh. She could not have hidden her face, had she wished to do so. As her eyes met Jerome’s, a quick flush rose on her cheek—a flush which grew deeper.‘If she cares for him, there can be no danger in my asking questions; she is in no danger with me,’ thought Wellfield, with characteristic indolence, and also with a characteristic wish to find out whether she ‘cared’ irrevocably for John Leyburn. And he said:‘If John were to marry—yes. What is to hinder him? Would his wife consider him your brother? Would she see it in the same light, do you think?’‘She would be a very nasty girl if she did not,’ said Nita, with aheightened colour and flashing eyes, ‘when I should do all in my power to be kind to her.’‘Oh, you would do all in your power to accomplish that? Then you would not mind if John got married?’‘I should mind it very much if his wife were such an odious woman as you seem to think she would be. Stepping in and destroying——’‘The friendship of a lifetime; breaking every social tie, and so on. Let us put it in another light. Suppose he married, and married some one of so generous a disposition as to wish him not to lose his sister——’‘I should not call that generous, but merely decent and reasonable.’‘Well, he marries this decent, reasonable woman, and then you marry. Do you think your husband would look upon John in the light of a brother?’‘Mr. Wellfield, what strange questions you ask!’‘Not at all. You would have to consider the subject when you married.’‘But I am not going to be married. I know papa thinks I shall have to, but I don’t intend it at all.’‘Intentions have less than nothing to do with such a matter. When you fall in love with some one, and he asks you to marry him, you will do so of course, since you are neither a nun, nor a lunatic, nor in any way a perverse or ill-conditioned person,’ he answered tranquilly, while Nita looked at him in startled amazement, her heart beating with the same strange sense of a thrilling new emotion as she had this morning experienced. In all their nineteen years of brother and sisterhood, John had never dared—was ‘dared’ the word to use? No—it had never occurred to John to speak to her in such a manner as did this man whom she had first met yesterday. Yet she did not feel resentment towards him, though she tried to think she did, and answered as if she did.‘How can you speak to me in that manner? As if I had no strength of will—as if I were an idiot.’‘Not at all; but as if you were, what you are—a woman, and a good one,’ he replied. Then, before she could answer, he went on: ‘But I think you want to shirk my question, Miss Bolton. You are afraid to look your position fairly in the face.’‘I don’t see it.’‘You have not told me what you would do in case the man you married refused, or was unable to see, John Leyburn in the pure white light of brotherhood.’‘I don’t see the use of discussing such wildly improbable contingencies. But’—she suddenly burst into a laugh—‘if the worst came to the worst, I should have to sink John to the rank of a friend and cousin. He would have to—well, he would have to manage as well as he could. But you are very unkind to shatter my little day-dream in that way—so wantonly, too! You are the first person who ever cared to shakeme out of my pleasant delusion. I have always looked upon John as a brother.’‘Very pleasant for him, as I think I observed before.’‘Why only for him, pray? I owe far more to him than he owes to me. He has made me better and wiser than I ever should have been without him; not that I am much to boast of in the matter either of wisdom or goodness; but most of what little I have I owe to John. And then, he is almost my only friend.’‘Perhaps that is a matter in which I may find cause for rejoicing?’‘You!’ echoed Nita, turning suddenly to him, and finding his sombre eyes fixed upon her face. She turned her own quickly away again. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, a little confusedly.‘Yes, I; even I. If you had had many friends and many claims upon your time and your attention, would you have had leisure to do all thekind things you have performed for me in the short time since I came here?—to think all the kind thoughts which I know you have thought? Should I have been able to endure being under your father’s roof if I had found you engrossed with others—looking upon me as an alien and an interloper, instead of treating me as you have done? It would have maddened me, I think. No; do not try to deny your own goodness. I have felt it every hour since I met you; and to one in my position, every kind thought and gentle action on the part of others is as another bead added to one’s string of pearls.’Nita was perfectly silent. Her under-lip quivered a little. Tears rushed to her eyes and blinded her. She had kept up all along a brave show of light-heartedness and carelessness; but Wellfield had laid his spell upon her from the first moment of meeting him. So long as he merely talked nonsense to her, she could appear indifferent. The moment he touched deeper springs, her heart gave way, and her outward gaietycollapsed. They were both absorbed—both in danger. Nita was struggling to choke back her emotion; but the thought of this poor, proud, lonely fellow at her side, disinherited, and grateful even for her goodness, was an overpowering one. Wellfield himself was watching her with an agreeable sensation of power.At this juncture, while Nita’s hands retained scarcely any hold on the reins, they slowly turned a sharp corner in the road, arriving at the summit of a hill, and were suddenly confronted by a panting, groaning, snorting traction-engine, industriously toiling up the hill with two huge trucks full of blocks of white stone; and urged onwards by its engineer and stoker with loud phrases and ejaculations as if it had been a living creature.Nita’s roans failed to recognise any kinship in this strange and hideous monster. They shied, swerved, plunged for a moment; then bolting, tore along the short space of level ground at the top of the hill, and proceededto rush at full gallop down the next incline. Jerome saw that Nita turned suddenly pale, and set her teeth. She knew what was coming, and he did not. She tightened her hold on the reins, but the roans were young and strong and fresh; her wrists were small and slender. They dashed round the first curve of the road, and from Nita’s lips escaped a low ‘Ah!’ as they saw before them a straight steep hill, at the bottom of which was a deep mill-dam, then a mill-race, rushing swiftly along; a narrow stone bridge spanned the stream at the foot of the hill, and on the opposite side rose another hill as steep as the one down which they were tearing.Jerome quickly laid his hand on her wrist. Personal cowardice in moments like this was not amongst his faults.‘Let them alone!’ said Nita, between her teeth. ‘They don’t know your hand: you shall not touch them.’Without a word, he put forth his other hand, broke her clenched fingers apart, as ifthey had been straws, and took the ribbons from her hold. The frantic animals felt a new hand—a firmer, but a fresh one, and for the moment their terror increased. Down the hill they flew, and the carriage swayed ominously to and fro. Jerome with a side-glance saw the face of the girl beside him, white as death. She did not clutch at the rail, or in any way try to hold herself fast, but clenched her hands before her on her knees, and looked towards the mill-race—towards the deep, green pool above the bridge and the foaming fall below it, and to the grey-stone mill sleeping peacefully on the other side.Then Jerome perceived that, lumbering slowly towards them on the bridge, were two large lorries, piled with bales of cotton goods, and he knew that to run into them meant death. All the despondency he had felt—all the wish to be rid of life and its unasked-for, uncalled-for burdens disappeared, and only the desire to conquer this impending fate remained behind. He found himself mechanicallymeasuring either side of the road, to see if there was no side-way—no escape from the end to which they seemed to be rushing, and his hold on the reins tightened and tightened till it grew to a strain in which he expended all his strength.They were within twenty yards of the bridge, and as yet he had seen no way out of it. He saw every slightest action of all around him, and it recorded itself as indelibly upon his consciousness as if he had had hours of leisure in which to observe it all. He saw how the two stolid-looking carters suddenly became aware of the nature of the position—saw them cast up their hands and run to their horses’ heads, to pull them as far to one side as possible.‘Idiots!’ he thought, ‘as if that would do any good!’ and even as he thought it, he perceived to the left hand of the road a square embrasure, such as is found in the north of England frequently, though I know not if they exist in the south. In such an embrasure thestones are piled up which the breakers have to operate upon, and in this particular one were piles of stones already broken: it was walled round, and below the wall the bank of the field sloped steeply down. If he could not rein in the horses, and they leaped the wall, the results were not agreeable subjects of contemplation, but even they would be less dreadful than the gruesome fate proffered by the mill-race and the little stone bridge.He succeeded in turning the horses into the embrasure, and they, confronted suddenly by a four-feet high stone wall, plunged madly, and attempted to force their way out again. But the hand that held them had at last mastered them. They were curbed. Dancing about in the narrow space, they were forced to contain themselves, till the groom jumped down, and one of the carters, coming forward, took their heads, and Jerome was at last free to guide them back to the road, and to look at his companion.Now that the danger was over she had broken down. Her face was buried in her hands, and she was shaking with hysterical sobs. Jerome bent over her, removed her hands from her face, and said in a gentle, authoritative voice:‘Were you afraid? Look up! It is over now.’‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped. ‘It was my carelessness. They want careful driving, but they never shy if one keeps a firm hand, and I was not holding them in at all—oh, I thought I had killed you!’‘My dear child, don’t let that distress you!’ he exclaimed, still in the same low voice.The two carters were now holding the horses’ heads, while the groom looked to see if any damage had been done to the phaeton, and staring with stupid, yet well-meant compassion upon the young lady, whose agitation to them was quite accounted for, women not being reckoned very courageous amongst such as them.‘Don’t, don’t say so!’ she exclaimed, in uncontrollable agitation. ‘I shall never forget it. I thought I saw you in the water, drowning.’There was an ominous sound as of an hysterical laugh mingling with her sobs.‘You must control yourself,’ said he, composedly, ‘and get out of the phaeton for a short time. We will walk about a little, and go into the mill, and you can rest there.’ He jumped out, and took her hand. ‘Suppose you alight,’ he added, in a voice which was in reality a command.Nita stepped slowly forth, and wavered a little as she touched the ground. Jerome seated her on one of the stoneheaps, and then got into the phaeton. The horses were now perfectly quiet, but trembling and bathed in sweat.‘Thank you,’ he said to the men, giving them some money. ‘We need not keep you any longer.’‘Eh, but measter, thou tak’s it uncommon cool,’ said one of them,apparently desirous of improving the occasion. ‘Dost know thou wert nigh on being done for for ever in yon pond?’‘I know all about it,’ said Jerome, soothingly touching the horses’ necks.‘It were a mir’cle as thou comed na’ to grief o’er yon wa’, too,’ pursued he; ‘them’s skittish critters, I reckon.’‘Skittish or not, I can manage them, and worse than they are. Good-day, friends. I am obliged to you.’Dismissed thus curtly, the men were fain to move their lorries out of the way, thus leaving room for Jerome, followed by the groom, to drive the phaeton across the bridge and into the stable-yard of the corn-mill on the other side of the water. He related what had happened, and soon received the miller’s permission to leave the horses there for quarter of an hour, until Miss Bolton was sufficiently recovered to proceed. Then, leaving the man with the horses, he went back again to Nita, andfound her seated where he had left her, and sobbing still now and then.‘My dear Miss Bolton, you must try to control yourself, or you will make yourself ill, and alarm your father needlessly.’‘Alarm my father!’ she said, looking up; ‘what does alarm matter, after that deadly fear? I tell you, I felt as if I saw your face sinking beneath the pond there—all through me! Oh, it was horrible! It haunts me.’‘It is pure imagination. You were on that side, remember. Think what would have been my feelings if I had had to go home and tell Mr. Bolton that his daughter was drowned!’‘It would have served me right. I knew the horses. I knew they shied if one did not keep them well in.’‘Did you? Well, you see, I managed to restrain them, even after they had shied. Never mind my precious personality, I implore you. You are safe!’‘I—miserable little wretch that I am!’ exclaimed Nita, in so deep, so profoundly bitter a voice that he was surprised out of all caution.‘Nay—that is a strange thing to say,’ he remarked. ‘It would never do for poor old Wellfield to lose all its heirs. What would have become of it if you had been drowned? For my sake, don’t talk in that way.’‘Ah!’ she exclaimed passionately, ‘do not reproach me with that. Do you suppose that I shall ever again have one moment’s pleasure in that idea? After knowing you—what do you take me for?’‘I take you to be nervous and unstrung, and over-anxious. And I am sure it is my duty to get you home as soon as possible. Come! The carriage is at the other side of the bridge.’‘Oh, it is impossible to go in the carriage again. I will walk. I am an excellent walker, and it is only four miles.’‘And I?’‘You will walk too, with me. The groom will bring back the carriagewhen the horses are fit to come.’‘And what if I think it better to drive, and make a point of your driving with me?’She looked up in some surprise, and found him calmly surveying her in a manner which left no doubt as to his meaning. He was overruling her, and he intended to be obeyed. She rebelled, momentarily.‘Really, you are very—my nerves——’‘Are quite strong enough to carry you home, and point out to me the way round by Clyderhow, which is the road I intend to take to Wellfield Abbey. There is no reason why you should not do your shopping too,’ he added, gently.‘Impossible!’ said Nita, in so decided a voice that he at once resolved that it should, on the contrary, become possible. With the exercise of power grew the delight in it. Cost what it might, Nita should go to Clyderhow, and do her shopping, because he wished it. He knew perfectly well that hehad flirted with her, and had drawn her attention from her horses. He knew that she would not have been wrong had she reproached him with having caused the accident; but he was resolved that, far from that, she should continue to accuse herself, and the power and authority should remain on his side as before.‘Can you not trust me?’ he asked. ‘I will take great care of you. If you refuse, I shall know that you are offended, and have lost all confidence in me.’His voice was soft, his accent gentle and caressing; the expression on his lips and in his dark eyes had something in it partaking of tenderness. It all subdued Nita’s reluctance, and laid her fear, as it were, under a spell. Within the last day life and her own identity had grown strange to the girl. She knew herself no more. But she still hesitated, till Jerome said:‘By this I shall know whether I have lost your confidence or not. If you let me driveyou to Clyderhow,Ishall not forget to keep a firm hand on the reins.’Nita rose. ‘I will do as you wish,’ she said, with a tremor of the lip.‘Thank you, dear Miss Bolton,’ he replied, a tone of exultation in his voice, as he drew her hand through his arm, and placing his other hand upon it as if to steady her, he led her across the bridge to the mill.In a very short time they were in the phaeton, with Wellfield on this occasion in the driver’s seat, and Nita, subdued and soothed, was pointing out the way to him.They presently arrived in the main street of the town of Clyderhow, when Nita made a last abortive attempt to escape from the shopping expedition. But Jerome would not allow it.‘You are quite recovered,’ he said. ‘You are not going to faint. And you said you wanted a bonnet like your aunt’s, with five ostrich feathers in it.’‘I never did!’ cried Nita, indignation getting the better ofreluctance. ‘I think Aunt Margaret’s taste in bonnets is horrible.’‘Well, which is the shop? I shall consider myself entitled to go in and preside over the purchase, under the circumstances.’‘That is the shop at the end of the street, if you will go. But I am in no state to buy bonnets.’‘No?’ he said, looking at her, intently. ‘I should have thought—well, you do look a little pale, perhaps. But I shall be able to tell you what suits you. Here we are.’He handed her out, and pushing open the shop-door, he stood by for her to pass: then followed, saw her sudden start and recoil, and heard the exclamation:‘Aunt Margaret!’‘The deuce!’ murmured Jerome, discomfited for the moment; but instantly recovering himself, he too advanced, and, like Nita, confronted Miss Margaret Shuttleworth.She looked very stern and terrible. She was standing upright before a tall glass, attired in the full panoply requisite for a visit totown—perfectly upright, and perfectly self-possessed. One article only of her attire was wanting, and that was her bonnet, which lay on a chair hard by, while over her straight grey hair was visible a little black silk cap, such as elderly ladies wear, or did wear, beneath their bonnets—and which cap, when not yet covered by the superior headdress, imparts a look of hardness to the gentlest countenance. Its effect upon the severe features of Miss Shuttleworth gave an additional terror to her glance, and additional sternness to her eye. A slight young woman held in her hand a bonnet, which she was apparently about to place upon Miss Shuttleworth’s head, when that lady, with a wave of the hand, stopped her, and replied to Nita’s astonished exclamation:‘Yes, it is Aunt Margaret. What of that?’‘Nothing, aunt dear. But I was so astonished to see you. I thought you had got a bonnet.’‘So I had, but it does not suit me. Put it on now,’ to the young woman, who trembled visibly, but who obeyed at once.It was undoubtedlythebonnet, and it sat upon Miss Shuttleworth’s head like a plume upon a hearse. No other comparison is for a moment admissible. Slowly, and with dignity, she turned her head this way and that; and before formulating her objections, condescended to greet Wellfield.‘Good-afternoon, Mr. Wellfield. Have you come to help my niece to choose a bonnet?’‘Yes,’ said Jerome, composedly.‘I am sure you look as if you would give her valuable assistance in such a matter,’ was the reply, ambiguous in its nature. Was it to be considered complimentary, or otherwise? Jerome, with a gravity as imperturbable as her own, said he should feel highly honoured if he could be of any use to Miss Shuttleworth in the same matter. She turned away with a jerk. Having always had a monopoly in the sphere ofdisagreeable, if dubious remarks, she did not appreciate this intrusion on a province peculiarly her own.‘Nita,’ she said, sharply, ‘don’t you see what is wrong with this bonnet? It’s like a plume on a hearse.’‘It suits you admirably, Miss Shuttleworth,’ said Jerome, blandly.‘You must alter the feathers,’ said Miss Shuttleworth to the young woman; ‘you must make them lie flatter. You understand what I mean. Otherwise I shall never enter your shop again. Now, Nita,’ as she removed the bonnet, and reached her hand for her old one, ‘what doyouwant? Let us see whether, with Mr. Wellfield’s assistance, we cannot find something suitable. Poor John never could have helped anyone to choose a bonnet,’ she added, pointedly.Nita’s face flushed. Miss Shuttleworth continued to say disagreeable things, and Nita to grow more and more embarrassed, and the more disagreeable the one became, andthe more confused the other, the more utterly calm and self-possessed remained Jerome Wellfield; nor did he allow a single sharp speech of Miss Shuttleworth’s to go unanswered, nor did he abstain from paying a single compliment to Nita, in consideration of the new and discordant element introduced. The whole affair, a mere joke at the commencement, had grown more serious; for Jerome’s manner, in proportion as he was goaded by Miss Shuttleworth’s shafts, grew moreempressétowards Nita, while she, confused with the danger they had passed through, intoxicated and bewildered by the look which occasionally met hers when she encountered Jerome’s eyes, anxious to conceal all her emotion from her aunt, scarcely knew where she was or what she was doing. Nothing suited her: at last she threw off a bonnet which the young woman had tried her on, and said hastily and decidedly that she would call again another day. She was tired, and could not decide upon anything then.‘Not even with Mr. Wellfield’s help?’ inquired Miss Shuttleworth, blandly.‘As if Mr. Wellfield cared anything about bonnets!’ said Nita, sharply. ‘Can’t you see when you are being laughed at, aunt?’‘Nita!’ ejaculated Miss Shuttleworth, in a tone of the utmost pain and astonishment.But Nita was already on her way out of the shop. Jerome spoke to Miss Shuttleworth:‘Miss Bolton is upset,’ he said. ‘We have had a serious accident, and only just escaped with our lives. She is unnerved.’‘I don’t understand it at all,’ said Aunt Margaret, all her pugnacity gone, and looking as she felt, perfectly bewildered.‘I am sure Miss Bolton will explain later,’ he continued. Miss Shuttleworth looked at him, as if wondering who and what he was that he should thus take upon himself to make explanations; but with a stiff ‘Good-afternoon,’ she went out at the door, and he followed her.Nita saw her, and asked if she would not drive home with them. Miss Shuttleworth was on the point of refusing with decision and asperity, but something in her so-called ‘niece’s’ look caught her observant eye—a weariness, a whiteness, a languor. She said:‘I don’t mind if I do. That’s to say, if you leave me in peace to the back seat, for I hate the front one unless I know the driver.’‘Sit where you like, aunt,’ was the reply, as Jerome came forward and offered his help.But Miss Shuttleworth refused, and unaided clambered up to the back seat, presenting a liberal allowance of very spare leg and white cotton stocking to the enraptured view of Miss Bamford’s young ladies, who, from the work-room on the second floor, were gazing down upon the proceedings with the intensest interest, and speculating with a burning curiosity as to who that gentleman could be who had driven up with Miss Anita Bolton of the Abbey; who handed her into the phaeton with such assiduous care, and bentover her with such a look of attention as he spoke a word to her before driving off.‘He looks like a foreigner,’ and ‘He’s very handsome,’ were the most definite and the most general conclusions arrived at.Meantime the phaeton drove off, and arrived at the Abbey without further misadventure. Miss Shuttleworth intimated her intention of coming in and staying supper. Jerome whispered to Nita:‘You will go upstairs and take some rest before supper,for my sake! And I will find Mr. Bolton and tell him: no, I will not alarm him too much. Do not fear. Will you promise to rest?’‘Yes,’ said Nita, faintly, as he helped her down, and she and her aunt went upstairs together.
Decorated Heading.
Decorated Horizontal Rule.
STAGE II—Continued.
Decorated Horizontal Rule.
‘Oh Death, that makest life so sweet!Oh fear, with mirth before thy feet!’
‘Oh Death, that makest life so sweet!Oh fear, with mirth before thy feet!’
‘Oh Death, that makest life so sweet!Oh fear, with mirth before thy feet!’
‘Oh Death, that makest life so sweet!Oh fear, with mirth before thy feet!’
‘Oh Death, that makest life so sweet!
Oh fear, with mirth before thy feet!’
Decorated First Letter.
WhenNita and Jerome again arrived at the Abbey, they found that Mr. Bolton had returned from Burnham, and that the midday dinner, which was an institution in the family, was waiting for them.
‘Have you settled anything?—has Nita helped you?’ inquired Mr. Bolton.
‘Miss Bolton has been very kind indeed, and has probably saved me from wasting a great deal of my small stock of money,’ replied Jerome.
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Bolton, appreciatively, ‘that’s always something gained.’
He asked his daughter what she was going to do that afternoon, and Nita said she was going to drive to the town of Clyderhow to do a little shopping.
‘Why Clyderhow? The shops in Burnham are a great deal better.’
‘Because I like the drive to Clyderhow,’ said Nita; ‘and there is a wonderful milliner there. Aunt Margaret got a bonnet from her with five ostrich tips in it, and a bird, and three bows of black satin ribbon, and a great deal of velvet, for the sum of two guineas.’
‘So you go by the quantity of stuff you get for your money when you choose bonnets?’ asked Mr. Bolton.
‘Aunt Margaret does. She likes plumes. I thought I might perhaps findsomething sweetly modest and simple, with one feather and one bow, and a little flower or sprig for instance, for next to nothing.’
‘Is this shopping considered a secret service affair?’ inquired Jerome; ‘or may I go too, if I sit quite still while you are in the shop, and promise not to look that way?’
‘I am afraid you would think it a great bore,’ said Nita quickly, as her face flushed.
‘I suppose it was because I love to bore and afflict myself that I asked permission to go,’ he answered, with a smile.
‘I shall be most happy to take you if you would really like to go. Will you come too, papa?’
‘What an idea!—I hope not!’ thought Jerome, within himself, and Mr. Bolton was obliging enough to say:
‘I?—no. I never drive in the afternoon. I am going to my Italian, as usual.’
But as the carriage was not ordered to be round until half an hour after dinner, Mr. Bolton proposed to Jerome that they should take awalk round the garden and have a cigar. Nita watched the two figures as they paced together towards the cloisters. The elder man, with the massive lines, broad, sturdy figure, somewhat below middle height, but still imposing in its power and strength; the somewhat bowed back and high shoulders; the round, bull-dog head, with its expression of dogged determination. The younger—Nita leaned against the side of the window and folded her arms, as she contemplated him with a strange mixture of sensations. What a contrast to that dear familiar figure of the man who was noted for his hardness and coldness to others, but who was so gentle, so tender and indulgent to her, and to the few friends who composed their small circle of intimates—a contrast indeed! The new-comer was—unconsciously she recalled those lines in ‘Esther’—
‘He was a lovely youth; I guessThe panther in the wildernessWas not more fair than he.’
‘He was a lovely youth; I guessThe panther in the wildernessWas not more fair than he.’
‘He was a lovely youth; I guessThe panther in the wildernessWas not more fair than he.’
‘He was a lovely youth; I guessThe panther in the wildernessWas not more fair than he.’
‘He was a lovely youth; I guess
The panther in the wilderness
Was not more fair than he.’
‘The panther in the wilderness!’ That was an evil comparison; surely he was good as well as beautiful. Was it really only yesterday that he had arrived—not yet twenty-four hours ago? And how long would he still be here? And what would the Abbey, everything be, when he was gone? She turned hastily away from the window, and would not venture another look.
The two men paced about the river walk for a time, till Mr. Bolton asked:
‘Do you know any of the people about here?’
‘I met an old acquaintance this morning—Father Somerville, from Brentwood.’
‘Somerville! You know him? Is he any favourite of yours?’
‘As to that, I can hardly say. I like what I have seen of him, but know very little of him. I fancy we have many tastes in common. He is a cultivated man, who has seen the world, I think.’
‘Ay, ay! he’s clever, is Somerville, and attractive too, I couldfancy. I never let any of those gentry inside my house.’
‘No?’ said Jerome, indifferently. ‘I hope you have no objection to your visitors knowing them, for I have promised to go and see him to-morrow.’
‘Oh, my visitors do as they please, I hope. So long as he does not darken my doors, it’s all one to me what he does. Nita, I am thankful to say, is not of an hysterical temperament, for all she is so slight and delicate. She has never displayed any tendencies to being over-religious, or going in for Ritualism or that kind of mummery; else I should have had to send her to a good sharp school.’
‘Miss Bolton has never been to school?’
‘No; her mother died when she was two. By that time I was a rich man; and as I knew I should never marry again, I took Nita’s education into my own hands. She will inherit my money and my property; and I have given her the education of a man of business. She will know to a fraction what she is worth; and if she falls into any snares, it willbe with her eyes open.’
‘That is well,’ said Jerome, gravely, wondering a little why Mr. Bolton, on so short an acquaintance, chose to discourse to him on this topic. And with Father Somerville’s advice fresh in his mind, he felt interested in that topic—wrongfully interested.
‘Your daughter will marry some one who will administer her fortune wisely, it is to be hoped,’ he said.
Mr. Bolton sighed. ‘I suppose she must marry,’ he said, slowly. A girl with that money ought to marry. One has heard of wealthy maiden ladies of large property living alone, and exercising power over all around them; but,’ he turned suddenly to Wellfield, ‘did you ever hear or read of one, in real life or even in a romance, who was not unhappy? I never did.’
‘I really don’t feel to know much about the subject,’ said Jerome, feeling that they were skirting delicate ground, wondering more andmore that Mr. Bolton spoke thus to him, of all persons.
‘Nita has told me about your sister, and your views about her,’ he went on. ‘I like you for your behaviour, Mr. Wellfield.’
‘I?’ stammered Jerome, surprised. ‘Miss Bolton must have misunderstood.’
‘No. She told me you had a half-sister, to whose use you intended to devote what money you had, while you sought for employment for yourself. I like to hear of a man treating his sister in that way.’
Jerome was silent—surprised. He felt his tongue tied. His natural impulse was to please, when his companion showed a predisposition to be pleased. He felt a desire to say something which should still further excite Mr. Bolton’s goodwill, and make him—Jerome Wellfield—feel on still better terms with himself. But the thought of Sara Ford rose up, and forbade him to do so. He continued his walk in silence.
‘I have a proposition to make to you,’ said Mr. Bolton, suddenly.Jerome turned to him with his lips apart, and a quick inquiring look upon his face. Could it be that Father Somerville had the gift of second-sight?
‘It’s not a very brilliant proposition; and it is all founded on the assumption that you know nothing of business; no book-keeping for instance, no clerkship routine. Do you?’
‘No, I do not; I know absolutely nothing of those things.’
‘Well, if I found you capable—excuse my bluntness,’ he said, with the same pedantic little air which characterised his speech—‘we manufacturers are apt to be a little scornful of a want of practical talent; but if I found you capable, and you would care to try, I think I could find you some employment in my own office. But you would have to begin by learning the very elements of your work from my book-keeper and cashier. If you like to come over to Burnham two or three times a week, for a short time, and try, you are welcome.’
‘You are very kind!’ said Jerome, astonished: ‘I have no possible claim upon such——’
‘You do not in the least know my reasons for making you the offer,’ replied Mr. Bolton, with a calm superiority that made Jerome feel somewhat snubbed; ‘therefore, do not be in any haste to express your gratitude. My book-keeper will soon turn you out a finished article, if you are to be turned out at all.’
‘Sublime destiny! The gods might envy me!’ thought Jerome, within himself; but he said: ‘I shall accept your offer with gratitude. I do not know how I should have found anything, with my ignorance and my utter want of influence.’
‘That’s right! And in the meantime take holiday till next week, and enjoy yourself. There’s Nita’s phaeton going round, I see, and the groom; I suppose she will be ready.’
With which laconical dismissal of the whole subject, he led the way to the house again.
Nita drove a high phaeton, with a spirited pair of roans. In answer to Jerome’s suggestion that he should drive she looked so rueful that he laughed, saying:
‘If that is the case I shall be only too glad tobedriven. I am indolent enough for anything.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ replied Nita, taking the ribbons. Very soon they were driving at a pleasant speed through the lanes leading towards Clyderhow, whose ancient castle, on a mound, confronted them for a great part of the distance.
‘What does Mr. Bolton mean, when he speaks of “his Italian”?’ asked Jerome, reflectively.
Nita laughed as she flicked the roans lightly.
‘Of course you would not understand,’ she answered. ‘Italian is papa’s favourite weakness. Did you ever see anyone so unlike Italy as he is?Poor old dear! He always used to read in the afternoons, and one day he was perusing a little book aloud to me, and I was sewing. There came some allusion to “the fiery domes and cupolas of the city of Dis.” He asked me what it meant, and I told him about the “Inferno.” He said: “That’s very fine—those fiery domes and cupolas. I must know some more about it.” With which he took to studying Italian, and is now devoted to it. It is very seldom that he fails to give a few hours each day to it. He is translating the “Inferno,” in his rough, plodding way. I am glad he finds something to amuse himself with, for he has had a sad life.’
‘Sad? He has been unusually successful, has he not?’
‘Oh, in money-matters, yes. But my mother died just when he hoped to give her everything she desired—and more. And he was—he was very fond of her.’
‘I see! I might have understood that,’ replied Jerome; and then, aftera pause, ‘Mr. Bolton has been making very kind offers to me.’
‘Has he? What manner of offers?’
He told her.
‘Do you call that a kind offer?’ cried Nita impatiently, as her face flushed. ‘How could he suggest such a thing? Oh, really, how hard men can be!’
‘Perhaps you think he should at once have placed the half of his possessions at my disposal. Is it not better to be “hard,” as you call it, than an idiot?’
‘Well, I suppose it is. But life is such a mystery.’
‘As how—I mean how exemplified in my case?’
Nita laughed with a little embarrassment.
‘I never can explain things. But it is a mystery. You a clerk! What an idea! You must feel it to be absurd, yourself, don’t you?’
‘I have not thought much about it. It has to be done.
you know.’
‘Pray what would yoursistersay to it?’
‘Avice? Well, really, I don’t suppose she has any clear ideas as to what clerks are, or do. If I told her I was going to be a tailor, she would think it all right if I said so.’
‘Is she that kind of a sister?’
‘Yes,’ said Jerome, in perfect good faith. He imagined indeed that Avice was that kind of a sister; essentially the right kind of sister. Women ought all to be like that—blind to the faults of those they loved—when ‘those’ were men. The men to work, the women to admire; the workers to rule, the admirers to submit. It was a beautiful arrangement.
‘I daresay it is very nice in her to be like that,’ said Nita, ‘but if I had had a brother,I should not have been that kind of a sister atall. I should have told him very plainly what I thought of his doings, and if I imagined that he was degrading himself, I should have told him that too.’
‘Would you, at the same time, have provided him with the means of acting up to what you considered a higher standard?’
‘It is ashame!’ Nita burst out almost passionately, after a pause.
How naïvely she showed her interest, Jerome thought, with a little sense of pleased, flattered self-complacency. How delightfully natural she was—and what a curious contrast to that woman whose proud lips had already confessed her love for him: to Sara Ford! His heart suddenly throbbed as he thought of her. Dangerous thought! He must not indulge in it, and accordingly, to turn the conversation, he said:
‘You have singular ideas on the subject of brothers and sisters, possibly because the relation is purely a matter of speculation to you.’
‘Oh no, it isn’t. Jack is my brother.’
‘John Leyburn?’ he asked, with a feeling of surprise that was not altogether pleasant. Sooth to say, he had forgotten Leyburn for the moment, and here he was suddenly cropping up again in a manner that was obtrusive—thrusting himself in where he was not in the least wanted.
‘John Leyburn—yes.’
‘Privileged young man! He seems to me, like most cousins, to make the most of his advantages.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Nita.
‘He takes every opportunity of lecturing you. And you—well, you are consistent, I must own; you do tell him very plainly what you think of him.’
‘Of course I do! and as for John’s lectures, I am accustomed to them by now. They mean nothing, except that we are great friends—more than cousins; in fact, brother and sister.’
‘And how long, if I may ask, has the fraternity been superadded to thecousinship—and the friendship? It makes a complicated relationship.’
‘It never was superadded. It has always existed—for me.’
‘Always?’ echoed Jerome, vaguely displeased.
‘Yes, of course. I am nineteen, and John is twenty-eight. When I was born, we lived at Burnham, and so did the Leyburns. Uncle Leyburn married papa’s only sister, and was his greatest friend. They lived at Burnham too, then. John was nine years old then, of course. The first, or one of the very first things I can remember, is his showing me pictures of birds—he is mad about birds, you know—and taking me by the hand for a little walk, and playing with me in general. I suppose I was about three years old then.’
‘And Leyburn twelve. He was that age when I knew him, sixteen years ago. They had just come to Abbot’s Knoll. Yet I do not remember hisever saying anything about you. Perhaps you occupied a smaller place in his heart than you imagine.’
‘Oh no!’ said Nita, with calm conviction. ‘He never talks much about things. He would not be likely to talk about me. He always gives his mind to what he is doing at the moment; and when he was playing and learning lessons with you, he would not talk about me. Besides, we were still at Burnham. But he was always kind when he came back to me. John taught me to read, and implanted in my mind that love of light literature which he now pretends to deplore—the great humbug!’
Nita laughed a pleased little laugh, speaking of a tender affection for the absent ‘humbug.’ The course which the conversation had taken grew less and less pleasing to Jerome. He felt a strong desire to displace John from his pedestal, or at least to make him, in vulgar parlance, ‘step down a peg or two.’ A spirit of perverse folly took possession of him. Leaning a little forward, and speaking in a discreetly low voice,mindful of the groom who sat behind, he rested his elbow on his knee, and fixed his eyes on Nita’s face, saying:
‘Then he has never given you cause to suppose that a sister’s affection would hold a secondary place in his thoughts?’
‘You speak ambiguously,’ replied Nita, occupied in guiding her horses through a very narrow lane. ‘Sister’s affection—secondary place! I do not understand.’
‘Are sisters jealous when their brothers marry?’
‘Oh, I see! Certainly not, if they have any sense,’ was the most decided answer; ‘they may be angry, you know, if the wife their brother chooses is disliked by them; but if they have no ground for disliking her, they would be selfish and foolish, simply, to be jealous when their brothers married.’
‘You say John Leyburn is your cousin and your friend and your brother all in one. Suppose he took it into his head to get married—he must belonely in that great house of his by the river.’
‘If John were to marry,’ repeated Nita, slowly and pensively.
Her hands were fully occupied; for at this moment they were driving down a steep hill, and the roans were fresh. She could not have hidden her face, had she wished to do so. As her eyes met Jerome’s, a quick flush rose on her cheek—a flush which grew deeper.
‘If she cares for him, there can be no danger in my asking questions; she is in no danger with me,’ thought Wellfield, with characteristic indolence, and also with a characteristic wish to find out whether she ‘cared’ irrevocably for John Leyburn. And he said:
‘If John were to marry—yes. What is to hinder him? Would his wife consider him your brother? Would she see it in the same light, do you think?’
‘She would be a very nasty girl if she did not,’ said Nita, with aheightened colour and flashing eyes, ‘when I should do all in my power to be kind to her.’
‘Oh, you would do all in your power to accomplish that? Then you would not mind if John got married?’
‘I should mind it very much if his wife were such an odious woman as you seem to think she would be. Stepping in and destroying——’
‘The friendship of a lifetime; breaking every social tie, and so on. Let us put it in another light. Suppose he married, and married some one of so generous a disposition as to wish him not to lose his sister——’
‘I should not call that generous, but merely decent and reasonable.’
‘Well, he marries this decent, reasonable woman, and then you marry. Do you think your husband would look upon John in the light of a brother?’
‘Mr. Wellfield, what strange questions you ask!’
‘Not at all. You would have to consider the subject when you married.’
‘But I am not going to be married. I know papa thinks I shall have to, but I don’t intend it at all.’
‘Intentions have less than nothing to do with such a matter. When you fall in love with some one, and he asks you to marry him, you will do so of course, since you are neither a nun, nor a lunatic, nor in any way a perverse or ill-conditioned person,’ he answered tranquilly, while Nita looked at him in startled amazement, her heart beating with the same strange sense of a thrilling new emotion as she had this morning experienced. In all their nineteen years of brother and sisterhood, John had never dared—was ‘dared’ the word to use? No—it had never occurred to John to speak to her in such a manner as did this man whom she had first met yesterday. Yet she did not feel resentment towards him, though she tried to think she did, and answered as if she did.
‘How can you speak to me in that manner? As if I had no strength of will—as if I were an idiot.’
‘Not at all; but as if you were, what you are—a woman, and a good one,’ he replied. Then, before she could answer, he went on: ‘But I think you want to shirk my question, Miss Bolton. You are afraid to look your position fairly in the face.’
‘I don’t see it.’
‘You have not told me what you would do in case the man you married refused, or was unable to see, John Leyburn in the pure white light of brotherhood.’
‘I don’t see the use of discussing such wildly improbable contingencies. But’—she suddenly burst into a laugh—‘if the worst came to the worst, I should have to sink John to the rank of a friend and cousin. He would have to—well, he would have to manage as well as he could. But you are very unkind to shatter my little day-dream in that way—so wantonly, too! You are the first person who ever cared to shakeme out of my pleasant delusion. I have always looked upon John as a brother.’
‘Very pleasant for him, as I think I observed before.’
‘Why only for him, pray? I owe far more to him than he owes to me. He has made me better and wiser than I ever should have been without him; not that I am much to boast of in the matter either of wisdom or goodness; but most of what little I have I owe to John. And then, he is almost my only friend.’
‘Perhaps that is a matter in which I may find cause for rejoicing?’
‘You!’ echoed Nita, turning suddenly to him, and finding his sombre eyes fixed upon her face. She turned her own quickly away again. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, a little confusedly.
‘Yes, I; even I. If you had had many friends and many claims upon your time and your attention, would you have had leisure to do all thekind things you have performed for me in the short time since I came here?—to think all the kind thoughts which I know you have thought? Should I have been able to endure being under your father’s roof if I had found you engrossed with others—looking upon me as an alien and an interloper, instead of treating me as you have done? It would have maddened me, I think. No; do not try to deny your own goodness. I have felt it every hour since I met you; and to one in my position, every kind thought and gentle action on the part of others is as another bead added to one’s string of pearls.’
Nita was perfectly silent. Her under-lip quivered a little. Tears rushed to her eyes and blinded her. She had kept up all along a brave show of light-heartedness and carelessness; but Wellfield had laid his spell upon her from the first moment of meeting him. So long as he merely talked nonsense to her, she could appear indifferent. The moment he touched deeper springs, her heart gave way, and her outward gaietycollapsed. They were both absorbed—both in danger. Nita was struggling to choke back her emotion; but the thought of this poor, proud, lonely fellow at her side, disinherited, and grateful even for her goodness, was an overpowering one. Wellfield himself was watching her with an agreeable sensation of power.
At this juncture, while Nita’s hands retained scarcely any hold on the reins, they slowly turned a sharp corner in the road, arriving at the summit of a hill, and were suddenly confronted by a panting, groaning, snorting traction-engine, industriously toiling up the hill with two huge trucks full of blocks of white stone; and urged onwards by its engineer and stoker with loud phrases and ejaculations as if it had been a living creature.
Nita’s roans failed to recognise any kinship in this strange and hideous monster. They shied, swerved, plunged for a moment; then bolting, tore along the short space of level ground at the top of the hill, and proceededto rush at full gallop down the next incline. Jerome saw that Nita turned suddenly pale, and set her teeth. She knew what was coming, and he did not. She tightened her hold on the reins, but the roans were young and strong and fresh; her wrists were small and slender. They dashed round the first curve of the road, and from Nita’s lips escaped a low ‘Ah!’ as they saw before them a straight steep hill, at the bottom of which was a deep mill-dam, then a mill-race, rushing swiftly along; a narrow stone bridge spanned the stream at the foot of the hill, and on the opposite side rose another hill as steep as the one down which they were tearing.
Jerome quickly laid his hand on her wrist. Personal cowardice in moments like this was not amongst his faults.
‘Let them alone!’ said Nita, between her teeth. ‘They don’t know your hand: you shall not touch them.’
Without a word, he put forth his other hand, broke her clenched fingers apart, as ifthey had been straws, and took the ribbons from her hold. The frantic animals felt a new hand—a firmer, but a fresh one, and for the moment their terror increased. Down the hill they flew, and the carriage swayed ominously to and fro. Jerome with a side-glance saw the face of the girl beside him, white as death. She did not clutch at the rail, or in any way try to hold herself fast, but clenched her hands before her on her knees, and looked towards the mill-race—towards the deep, green pool above the bridge and the foaming fall below it, and to the grey-stone mill sleeping peacefully on the other side.
Then Jerome perceived that, lumbering slowly towards them on the bridge, were two large lorries, piled with bales of cotton goods, and he knew that to run into them meant death. All the despondency he had felt—all the wish to be rid of life and its unasked-for, uncalled-for burdens disappeared, and only the desire to conquer this impending fate remained behind. He found himself mechanicallymeasuring either side of the road, to see if there was no side-way—no escape from the end to which they seemed to be rushing, and his hold on the reins tightened and tightened till it grew to a strain in which he expended all his strength.
They were within twenty yards of the bridge, and as yet he had seen no way out of it. He saw every slightest action of all around him, and it recorded itself as indelibly upon his consciousness as if he had had hours of leisure in which to observe it all. He saw how the two stolid-looking carters suddenly became aware of the nature of the position—saw them cast up their hands and run to their horses’ heads, to pull them as far to one side as possible.
‘Idiots!’ he thought, ‘as if that would do any good!’ and even as he thought it, he perceived to the left hand of the road a square embrasure, such as is found in the north of England frequently, though I know not if they exist in the south. In such an embrasure thestones are piled up which the breakers have to operate upon, and in this particular one were piles of stones already broken: it was walled round, and below the wall the bank of the field sloped steeply down. If he could not rein in the horses, and they leaped the wall, the results were not agreeable subjects of contemplation, but even they would be less dreadful than the gruesome fate proffered by the mill-race and the little stone bridge.
He succeeded in turning the horses into the embrasure, and they, confronted suddenly by a four-feet high stone wall, plunged madly, and attempted to force their way out again. But the hand that held them had at last mastered them. They were curbed. Dancing about in the narrow space, they were forced to contain themselves, till the groom jumped down, and one of the carters, coming forward, took their heads, and Jerome was at last free to guide them back to the road, and to look at his companion.
Now that the danger was over she had broken down. Her face was buried in her hands, and she was shaking with hysterical sobs. Jerome bent over her, removed her hands from her face, and said in a gentle, authoritative voice:
‘Were you afraid? Look up! It is over now.’
‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped. ‘It was my carelessness. They want careful driving, but they never shy if one keeps a firm hand, and I was not holding them in at all—oh, I thought I had killed you!’
‘My dear child, don’t let that distress you!’ he exclaimed, still in the same low voice.
The two carters were now holding the horses’ heads, while the groom looked to see if any damage had been done to the phaeton, and staring with stupid, yet well-meant compassion upon the young lady, whose agitation to them was quite accounted for, women not being reckoned very courageous amongst such as them.
‘Don’t, don’t say so!’ she exclaimed, in uncontrollable agitation. ‘I shall never forget it. I thought I saw you in the water, drowning.’
There was an ominous sound as of an hysterical laugh mingling with her sobs.
‘You must control yourself,’ said he, composedly, ‘and get out of the phaeton for a short time. We will walk about a little, and go into the mill, and you can rest there.’ He jumped out, and took her hand. ‘Suppose you alight,’ he added, in a voice which was in reality a command.
Nita stepped slowly forth, and wavered a little as she touched the ground. Jerome seated her on one of the stoneheaps, and then got into the phaeton. The horses were now perfectly quiet, but trembling and bathed in sweat.
‘Thank you,’ he said to the men, giving them some money. ‘We need not keep you any longer.’
‘Eh, but measter, thou tak’s it uncommon cool,’ said one of them,apparently desirous of improving the occasion. ‘Dost know thou wert nigh on being done for for ever in yon pond?’
‘I know all about it,’ said Jerome, soothingly touching the horses’ necks.
‘It were a mir’cle as thou comed na’ to grief o’er yon wa’, too,’ pursued he; ‘them’s skittish critters, I reckon.’
‘Skittish or not, I can manage them, and worse than they are. Good-day, friends. I am obliged to you.’
Dismissed thus curtly, the men were fain to move their lorries out of the way, thus leaving room for Jerome, followed by the groom, to drive the phaeton across the bridge and into the stable-yard of the corn-mill on the other side of the water. He related what had happened, and soon received the miller’s permission to leave the horses there for quarter of an hour, until Miss Bolton was sufficiently recovered to proceed. Then, leaving the man with the horses, he went back again to Nita, andfound her seated where he had left her, and sobbing still now and then.
‘My dear Miss Bolton, you must try to control yourself, or you will make yourself ill, and alarm your father needlessly.’
‘Alarm my father!’ she said, looking up; ‘what does alarm matter, after that deadly fear? I tell you, I felt as if I saw your face sinking beneath the pond there—all through me! Oh, it was horrible! It haunts me.’
‘It is pure imagination. You were on that side, remember. Think what would have been my feelings if I had had to go home and tell Mr. Bolton that his daughter was drowned!’
‘It would have served me right. I knew the horses. I knew they shied if one did not keep them well in.’
‘Did you? Well, you see, I managed to restrain them, even after they had shied. Never mind my precious personality, I implore you. You are safe!’
‘I—miserable little wretch that I am!’ exclaimed Nita, in so deep, so profoundly bitter a voice that he was surprised out of all caution.
‘Nay—that is a strange thing to say,’ he remarked. ‘It would never do for poor old Wellfield to lose all its heirs. What would have become of it if you had been drowned? For my sake, don’t talk in that way.’
‘Ah!’ she exclaimed passionately, ‘do not reproach me with that. Do you suppose that I shall ever again have one moment’s pleasure in that idea? After knowing you—what do you take me for?’
‘I take you to be nervous and unstrung, and over-anxious. And I am sure it is my duty to get you home as soon as possible. Come! The carriage is at the other side of the bridge.’
‘Oh, it is impossible to go in the carriage again. I will walk. I am an excellent walker, and it is only four miles.’
‘And I?’
‘You will walk too, with me. The groom will bring back the carriagewhen the horses are fit to come.’
‘And what if I think it better to drive, and make a point of your driving with me?’
She looked up in some surprise, and found him calmly surveying her in a manner which left no doubt as to his meaning. He was overruling her, and he intended to be obeyed. She rebelled, momentarily.
‘Really, you are very—my nerves——’
‘Are quite strong enough to carry you home, and point out to me the way round by Clyderhow, which is the road I intend to take to Wellfield Abbey. There is no reason why you should not do your shopping too,’ he added, gently.
‘Impossible!’ said Nita, in so decided a voice that he at once resolved that it should, on the contrary, become possible. With the exercise of power grew the delight in it. Cost what it might, Nita should go to Clyderhow, and do her shopping, because he wished it. He knew perfectly well that hehad flirted with her, and had drawn her attention from her horses. He knew that she would not have been wrong had she reproached him with having caused the accident; but he was resolved that, far from that, she should continue to accuse herself, and the power and authority should remain on his side as before.
‘Can you not trust me?’ he asked. ‘I will take great care of you. If you refuse, I shall know that you are offended, and have lost all confidence in me.’
His voice was soft, his accent gentle and caressing; the expression on his lips and in his dark eyes had something in it partaking of tenderness. It all subdued Nita’s reluctance, and laid her fear, as it were, under a spell. Within the last day life and her own identity had grown strange to the girl. She knew herself no more. But she still hesitated, till Jerome said:
‘By this I shall know whether I have lost your confidence or not. If you let me driveyou to Clyderhow,Ishall not forget to keep a firm hand on the reins.’
Nita rose. ‘I will do as you wish,’ she said, with a tremor of the lip.
‘Thank you, dear Miss Bolton,’ he replied, a tone of exultation in his voice, as he drew her hand through his arm, and placing his other hand upon it as if to steady her, he led her across the bridge to the mill.
In a very short time they were in the phaeton, with Wellfield on this occasion in the driver’s seat, and Nita, subdued and soothed, was pointing out the way to him.
They presently arrived in the main street of the town of Clyderhow, when Nita made a last abortive attempt to escape from the shopping expedition. But Jerome would not allow it.
‘You are quite recovered,’ he said. ‘You are not going to faint. And you said you wanted a bonnet like your aunt’s, with five ostrich feathers in it.’
‘I never did!’ cried Nita, indignation getting the better ofreluctance. ‘I think Aunt Margaret’s taste in bonnets is horrible.’
‘Well, which is the shop? I shall consider myself entitled to go in and preside over the purchase, under the circumstances.’
‘That is the shop at the end of the street, if you will go. But I am in no state to buy bonnets.’
‘No?’ he said, looking at her, intently. ‘I should have thought—well, you do look a little pale, perhaps. But I shall be able to tell you what suits you. Here we are.’
He handed her out, and pushing open the shop-door, he stood by for her to pass: then followed, saw her sudden start and recoil, and heard the exclamation:
‘Aunt Margaret!’
‘The deuce!’ murmured Jerome, discomfited for the moment; but instantly recovering himself, he too advanced, and, like Nita, confronted Miss Margaret Shuttleworth.
She looked very stern and terrible. She was standing upright before a tall glass, attired in the full panoply requisite for a visit totown—perfectly upright, and perfectly self-possessed. One article only of her attire was wanting, and that was her bonnet, which lay on a chair hard by, while over her straight grey hair was visible a little black silk cap, such as elderly ladies wear, or did wear, beneath their bonnets—and which cap, when not yet covered by the superior headdress, imparts a look of hardness to the gentlest countenance. Its effect upon the severe features of Miss Shuttleworth gave an additional terror to her glance, and additional sternness to her eye. A slight young woman held in her hand a bonnet, which she was apparently about to place upon Miss Shuttleworth’s head, when that lady, with a wave of the hand, stopped her, and replied to Nita’s astonished exclamation:
‘Yes, it is Aunt Margaret. What of that?’
‘Nothing, aunt dear. But I was so astonished to see you. I thought you had got a bonnet.’
‘So I had, but it does not suit me. Put it on now,’ to the young woman, who trembled visibly, but who obeyed at once.
It was undoubtedlythebonnet, and it sat upon Miss Shuttleworth’s head like a plume upon a hearse. No other comparison is for a moment admissible. Slowly, and with dignity, she turned her head this way and that; and before formulating her objections, condescended to greet Wellfield.
‘Good-afternoon, Mr. Wellfield. Have you come to help my niece to choose a bonnet?’
‘Yes,’ said Jerome, composedly.
‘I am sure you look as if you would give her valuable assistance in such a matter,’ was the reply, ambiguous in its nature. Was it to be considered complimentary, or otherwise? Jerome, with a gravity as imperturbable as her own, said he should feel highly honoured if he could be of any use to Miss Shuttleworth in the same matter. She turned away with a jerk. Having always had a monopoly in the sphere ofdisagreeable, if dubious remarks, she did not appreciate this intrusion on a province peculiarly her own.
‘Nita,’ she said, sharply, ‘don’t you see what is wrong with this bonnet? It’s like a plume on a hearse.’
‘It suits you admirably, Miss Shuttleworth,’ said Jerome, blandly.
‘You must alter the feathers,’ said Miss Shuttleworth to the young woman; ‘you must make them lie flatter. You understand what I mean. Otherwise I shall never enter your shop again. Now, Nita,’ as she removed the bonnet, and reached her hand for her old one, ‘what doyouwant? Let us see whether, with Mr. Wellfield’s assistance, we cannot find something suitable. Poor John never could have helped anyone to choose a bonnet,’ she added, pointedly.
Nita’s face flushed. Miss Shuttleworth continued to say disagreeable things, and Nita to grow more and more embarrassed, and the more disagreeable the one became, andthe more confused the other, the more utterly calm and self-possessed remained Jerome Wellfield; nor did he allow a single sharp speech of Miss Shuttleworth’s to go unanswered, nor did he abstain from paying a single compliment to Nita, in consideration of the new and discordant element introduced. The whole affair, a mere joke at the commencement, had grown more serious; for Jerome’s manner, in proportion as he was goaded by Miss Shuttleworth’s shafts, grew moreempressétowards Nita, while she, confused with the danger they had passed through, intoxicated and bewildered by the look which occasionally met hers when she encountered Jerome’s eyes, anxious to conceal all her emotion from her aunt, scarcely knew where she was or what she was doing. Nothing suited her: at last she threw off a bonnet which the young woman had tried her on, and said hastily and decidedly that she would call again another day. She was tired, and could not decide upon anything then.
‘Not even with Mr. Wellfield’s help?’ inquired Miss Shuttleworth, blandly.
‘As if Mr. Wellfield cared anything about bonnets!’ said Nita, sharply. ‘Can’t you see when you are being laughed at, aunt?’
‘Nita!’ ejaculated Miss Shuttleworth, in a tone of the utmost pain and astonishment.
But Nita was already on her way out of the shop. Jerome spoke to Miss Shuttleworth:
‘Miss Bolton is upset,’ he said. ‘We have had a serious accident, and only just escaped with our lives. She is unnerved.’
‘I don’t understand it at all,’ said Aunt Margaret, all her pugnacity gone, and looking as she felt, perfectly bewildered.
‘I am sure Miss Bolton will explain later,’ he continued. Miss Shuttleworth looked at him, as if wondering who and what he was that he should thus take upon himself to make explanations; but with a stiff ‘Good-afternoon,’ she went out at the door, and he followed her.
Nita saw her, and asked if she would not drive home with them. Miss Shuttleworth was on the point of refusing with decision and asperity, but something in her so-called ‘niece’s’ look caught her observant eye—a weariness, a whiteness, a languor. She said:
‘I don’t mind if I do. That’s to say, if you leave me in peace to the back seat, for I hate the front one unless I know the driver.’
‘Sit where you like, aunt,’ was the reply, as Jerome came forward and offered his help.
But Miss Shuttleworth refused, and unaided clambered up to the back seat, presenting a liberal allowance of very spare leg and white cotton stocking to the enraptured view of Miss Bamford’s young ladies, who, from the work-room on the second floor, were gazing down upon the proceedings with the intensest interest, and speculating with a burning curiosity as to who that gentleman could be who had driven up with Miss Anita Bolton of the Abbey; who handed her into the phaeton with such assiduous care, and bentover her with such a look of attention as he spoke a word to her before driving off.
‘He looks like a foreigner,’ and ‘He’s very handsome,’ were the most definite and the most general conclusions arrived at.
Meantime the phaeton drove off, and arrived at the Abbey without further misadventure. Miss Shuttleworth intimated her intention of coming in and staying supper. Jerome whispered to Nita:
‘You will go upstairs and take some rest before supper,for my sake! And I will find Mr. Bolton and tell him: no, I will not alarm him too much. Do not fear. Will you promise to rest?’
‘Yes,’ said Nita, faintly, as he helped her down, and she and her aunt went upstairs together.