CHAPTER XV
To Jardine's infinite relief these two of his fellow-travellers did not reappear. Lloyd evidently had had the grace not to resist to the extreme of coercion, and thus had spared the ladies, and indeed Mr. Jardine's own delicate sensibilities, the indignity of being even remotely concerned in so sordid a scene. He hardly wondered whither they had gone, when the hack, with Frank and himself once more seated within with the ladies, rattled up to the door of the hotel at the New Helvetia Springs, for the officer would naturally be expected to hurry his prisoner to some wayside log cabin, and there await transportation to Colbury. It would have been a needless expense, as well as a gratuitous affront to the ladies and gentlemen at New Helvetia, to introduce amongst them so offensive a personality as a Federal prisoner.
The wide piazzas surrounding the hotel and overlooking a craggy precipice and a vast expanse of mountain landscape seemed spacious, rather than deserted. A group of ladies, mostly elderly, handsomely gowned, though accoutred with little knitted shawls, and here and there a "fascinator," against the chill, rare air of the evening, sat in rocking-chairs, surveyed the majestic prospect, and talked of many things, contentedly awaiting the white frost which should set them free and fleeing from the mountains. Many doors, already illumined with lamplight, stood open, casting great parallelograms of golden radiance on the shadowy floor without. No sign of the habitation of man, not a spark betokening a lamp-lit window or a glowing hearth, showed in all the stretches of wooded ranges, with dark and sombre valleys between, barely distinguishable now, with a river here, and a silent presence of mist there, and a sense of awful solemnity and infinite loneliness brooding over all. Perhaps the impressive and austere aspect of nature without rendered the fire of hickory logs, burning on the broad hearth of the large office, of so genial and friendly a suggestion. Before it a number of great rocking-chairs stood ranged in a semicircle, and here, too, sat guests, much at their ease. It was a coign of vantage from which one could observe all that went on in the great deserted hotel—the clerk at the desk was on the remote side of the spacious apartment and the fireside group need not be hampered by the very inconsiderable business that he was called upon to transact in these dull days, out of season. But the main staircase, a large pretentious structure of double flights, was in full view, and everyone coming and going paused for a word. The two intersecting hallways met in the office; the great bay-window, formed by the ground floor of the tower, was contrived at one corner of this apartment, and, overlooking the finest prospect to be seen for many a mile, was always occupied—by loiterers at gaze in the mornings with some trifling work of crochet or battenberg, and by a table of bridge at night. A pleasant place, a peaceful haven—and Jardine looked unwontedly benign and condescending as he received his key at the counter from the clerk, and responded affably to that functionary's "Glad to see you back, Mr. Jardine."
The hotel at New Helvetia had an effect of palatial dimensions in its wide, unpeopled, vacant expanses in the shrunken state of its patronage. The immense logs, flying long, broad pennants of red and yellow flames, and supported by glittering old-fashioned brass andirons, sent a rich illumination far down the spaces of the big dining-room. The glossy hard-wood floor glistening in the sheen gave a suggestion of expense quite spurious, for there was little other timber available in the building of New Helvetia. A few round tables were set near the genial glow and the high white-painted mantelpiece. The other tables had been removed, and there was a most comfortable sense of absolute monarchical possession in having such vast apartments at one's own disposal. There was a pervasive atmosphere of privacy, of seclusion. The place was difficult of access, and the usual touring population had never found it out. Year after year the same high-grade patrons came and went; their fathers, and in some instances their grand-fathers, in days agone, had likewise flitted to and fro, and drank the waters, and danced in the ballroom, and flirted on the piazzas, and played at the lawn sports and the games of cards fashionable in their time. There were white-haired couples in the dining-room this evening who had turned each other's heads, blonde or auburn then, on the moon-lit verandah there, or beside the spring of magic beneficence, or strolling beneath the trees of the grove that could have shown many rings of added girth and many feet of lengthened growth since those enchanted hours.
It was a decorous, pleasant scene, almost home-like, yet with an agreeable community geniality and informality, as now and again groups at table exchanged comments with other groups half across the room. It might well have been a shock to Mr. Jardine strolling in to tea, freshly attired, thankful to be once more in his accustomed niche, surrounded by "nobility, and tranquillity, burgomasters, and great one-yers," even if the sight had involved no other associations, to perceive at one of the tables, sitting in this bland glamour of firelight and mellow lamplight, and the radiance of the moon which poured in through one of the long uncurtained windows, the two strangers, erst his fellow-travellers, whom he fancied he had quitted forever in the ascent of the mountain. Both were freshly groomed, quiet, and gentlemanly of demeanour, sustaining without show of consciousness the covert observation of the other occupants of the room, who were all mutually acquainted, even to the earliest sprout and the latest twig of their respective family trees. It was naturally a point of speculation what could have brought these two strangers, thus out of season, to the remote resort of the New Helvetia Springs.
One glance at Lloyd's face and Jardine's keen perceptions were satisfied that he had experienced some great excitement, some nervous shock, an agitation from which he had hardly yet recovered. His companion's aspect was unchanged, placid, powerful, but otherwise null of facial expression.
Jardine hesitated, his hand still on the knob of the door. The head waiter had briskly crossed the shining floor, with a flourish drew out Jardine's accustomed chair at a table near the fire, and stood blandly awaiting his patron. Jardine hardly heeded. He was formulating in his mind such an explanation of his suspicions as it might be consistent with prudence to detail to young Laniston—a warning, lest he continue even for an evening, an hour, this derogatory association—or would it not be better to remonstrate plainly with the officer on the indecorum of his course in bringing such an association upon respectable, unsuspicious people?
The choice did not long remain possible to him. A side door opened suddenly and Frank Laniston, fresh, roseate, all handsomely bedight, for he was of the type that loves and beseems fine clothes, entered with an elastic step, and a gay greeting as he passed the table of the strangers.
"Got here, eh—all in one piece, I see—lost you on the road," and then he took his seat at his own table, bowing and smiling rosily to the greetings he encountered, and, with a half audible sigh of pleasant anticipation, he unfolded his napkin.
"Fi-i-ne." He exclaimed presently, in the interval, while his order was filled, replying to an inquiry from across the fireplace as to the outing to Colbury.
Jardine, once again coerced by circumstances, could only traverse the room to his waiting chair, and respond with his usual sedate and appropriate urbanity to the questions as to his enjoyment of the excursion. He kept a furtive, but stern, eye on the strangers, with little result, save that he observed that the portly man ate a somewhat elaborate and well-selected meal almost in absolute silence, giving his whole attention to the matter in hand. Lloyd, on the contrary, ate little, and was as silent. He seemed distrait, perturbed, preoccupied; now gazing drearily into the flashing flames, and once, for a long interval, with lifted face watching the beams from the unseen moon, falling through the window, the rays all differentiated like the fibres of a glittering skein, the more distinct because of the background of the dark foliage of a great oak without.
When a sudden alert attentiveness usurped this apathy of reverie, Jardine, too, looked up sharply. Lucia Laniston was entering the room. The unique character of her beautiful face, the poetic, indescribable charm of her eyes, the high intelligence and nobility of sentiment that her presence expressed, despite her extreme youth, all seemed curiously independent of fashion and superior to its behests. She might have been appropriately garbed in some severely simple and classic design, apart from the modiste's creation, exclusively her own. But naught was further from her desire—naught could more definitely accord with the prevailing mode than the costumes she affected. As she came forward the long, straight folds of her chiffon gown, worn over a shining silk of the same tint, accented her height and her slenderness; the gauzy material was of a sage green, embroidered here and there with a pattern of a Persian design in terra-cotta, and darker green and a thread of gold; it had sleeves to the elbow, but was cut low and square over a beautifully modelled, but somewhat thin, neck, and, in what she called "the region of the bones," was a delicate little necklace of five emeralds placed at intervals on an almost invisible chain whereon glimmered here and there a very small and very white diamond. Her soft light-brown hair was dressed high in fluffy puffs, and as she paused, waiting a moment and glancing over her shoulder, her cousin Ruth came in, her dress duplicating this costume in lilac.
To Jardine's consternation, as they took their seats, Lloyd gravely and circumspectly bowed to both. After they had ceremoniously returned the salutation, Jardine observed that each cast a swift, searching glance at Lloyd. They, too, saw that which had not been in his face before. Mrs. Laniston now joined the party, deceptively arrayed in what she called her "old black Chantilly," which seemed a very fine lace dress as long as its wear and tear were obliterated by the black satin beneath, but a sorry sight it might have been over white silk, which it had been designed to cover in its palmy days. It was quite good enough for New Helvetia, out of season, and, with the twinkle of a diamond lace-pin, and the flutter of a fan of inlaid pearl, not even her nearest neighbours knew how they had been cozened of a toilette of distinction. For it was rather a point at New Helvetia to maintain all the flattering delusions of a sojourn of pleasure and free will, rather than an enforced detention, and all the formalities of dressing, and dancing, and playing tenpins, and cards, and tennis were continued as long as the covey of summer birds could muster the numbers to sustain the diversion. Jardine suddenly bethought himself of this, and not to be forestalled anew he leaned backward and touched Frank Laniston, as he sat at the next table. Frank turned instantly, and leaned slightly to one side to hear the communication, made in a very low tone under Mrs. Laniston's voluble description of her experiences addressed to the occupants of the neighbouring table on the left—charming ride—somewhat fatigued—quaint little town—enjoyed the fair—how the storm must have frightened you, lightning terrific at such an altitude—must have been terrible—glad to escape it——
"Frank," said Jardine seriously, "for God's sake let's have no dancing this evening, no german——"
Frank's patience had worn well, but it had now waxed thin. He was no longer tucked up under Jardine's arm, so to speak, and off on their travels. New Helvetia, familiar to him since infancy, was like home, and he felt independent. He was not "looking for a row" with anybody, but, if one were forced upon him, there was no longer an obligatory association—there was elbow-room here—Jardine and he could move apart, each going his own way without embarrassment, or an open esclandre.
"You needn't adjure me," he said with spirit. "I am too tired to put one foot before the other.Idon't want to dance."
"But don't let the others——" Jardine began.
Frank Laniston had his own theories of the becoming. He had thought it well enough that Jardine, in escorting the young ladies under circumstances so unusual, should have special solicitude touching the decorous and the appropriate. But he felt, if he might venture to criticise anyone so assertivelyau fait, that Jardine was not infallible in his management, as the swing episode intimated, that he was prone to magnify any awkward little contretemps, and by much pother make something out of nothing. A man with feminine relatives is susceptible to a certain sensitiveness in their behalf, impossible for a man not so connected to appreciate. In Mr. Jardine's persuasions concerning these matters of propriety he overlooked one point—that he, himself, committed a solecism in mentioning them to Frank in this connection. The mere discussion was an offence in young Laniston's estimation. He would not longer suffer it.
"You are afraid that Lloyd, my coach, might get into the german—say as a rover?" he asked, with the infinitely exasperating, callow sarcasm, his big white strong teeth gleaming in his rosy square-jawed face. "Why, I don't know whetherhecan dance the german at all. I should say that a tight-rope fandango was more in his line."
Jardine turned without another word, and at all the white-draped tables the amicable plying of knife and fork continued, unaware of this provocation to a breach of the peace.
After tea Jardine lighted his cigar at the counter in the office and strolled out on the side piazza, puffing at it in a very ill frame of mind. He needed its solace, and the sedative influence to his nerves, after the vexatious incidents of the evening, and the perplexity that beset him as to how he should proceed—or indeed, with no seconding from this young cub, whose position as a near relative of the ladies authorised interference, what could he do? Of course Jardine realised that his solicitude in these troublous complications was entirely on Lucia's account, but he said to himself that any ladies of his acquaintance placed in a position so menacing to their dignity, with such inadequate protection as the shallow-pated Frank Laniston could afford, had a claim on his good offices to spare them a discreditable episode.
He paced to and fro in the chill air, pulling hard at his cigar and glancing now at its light wreaths of smoke, and now at the illuminated disk of the moon, riding high above the infinite solitudes of the mountains. He heard the wind stir in the leaves far below on the slope; he marked how the great ranges against the horizon fended off the world; he listened to the impetuous dash of the mountain torrent in the ravine leaping down the rocky abysses on its way to the valley. But as yet there was no flicker of light from the windows of the ballroom, a long, low building in the extremity of the west wing, remote from the more inhabited portion of the hotel that the sound of revelry should not reach the old, the invalids, the slumberers in the bedrooms. There was no vibration of the tuning of the fiddles or banjos, for the regular band had gone, and the music of an humble sort was furnished by several of the negro waiters, musically endowed and hired for the occasion. It seemed really as if the guests might not intend to dance to-night, their limited number being so reduced by the defection of the exhausted excursionists. From the front piazza, which extended along the whole façade of the building, came the sound of joyous young voices, and it occurred to Jardine that perhaps the youthful element might content themselves with promenading to and fro in the moonlight till the increasing chill of the air should drive them within to the fire blazing so ruddily on the broad hearth of the office.
He walked to the corner and stood for a moment, his cigar in his hand, casting his eye along the length of the piazza. It was much as he had expected. In the white sheen of the moon a young couple here and there slowly strolled, idly chatting. The columns supporting the roof were duplicated in shadowy pilasters that extended the effect of the colonnade. The bare boughs of a locust tree, always the earliest denuded by the autumnal blasts, were drawn on a clear space on the floor with the distinctness of a line engraving, and the dense foliage of a great oak close by cast a deeper gloom within the railing because of the clear lustre that elsewhere suffused mountain and valley, and sward and pillared portico. The parallelograms of light earlier cast on the floor from the lamp-lit windows and doors were now annulled by the lunar brilliancy, obliterated. Indeed he might scarcely have discerned from where he stood the position of the office door had not the light, elegant form of Lucia Laniston with its lily-like suggestions, suddenly issued from it, one hand holding up the sheer draperies of her dress, the other furling her fan of dark green ostrich tips. His heart throbbed at the sight of her; then he stood as one petrified.
For a man, who was leaning smoking against one of the pillars, suddenly threw his cigar over the balustrade into the lawn, and with perfect assurance approached and accosted her as she stood glancing about in loitering doubt.
"Miss Laniston," Jardine heard the words, for Lloyd's enunciation was very distinct and his voice carried well, "you spoke to me very kindly last evening—and I should like to tell you about something, sad and wrong and irrevocable in the past, and a very strange thing that has befallen me to-day and changed all my prospects."
Jardine woke to sudden life. He strode along the piazza and joined the two before the young lady had framed her reply.
"Good-evening, Miss Laniston," he said imperiously, taking no notice of the presence of Lloyd; "I hope that you are not too fatigued for a stroll on the piazza to enjoy this balmy air. Let me show you a charming view of the moonlight on the cascade. The stream has risen so since the storm that you can see the falls from the end of the piazza at the west wing."
He could not believe his ears. "Later, perhaps—thank you very much—but just now I am engaged."
She summoned Lloyd with a glance, and catching up the fleecy overdress with one jewelled hand, while the silken skirt below shimmered blue and shoaled green in the moonlight as it trailed, she paced slowly along with him in the opposite direction, and Jardine noted the sympathetic cadence in her voice as she invited the colloquy with a question.
Jardine was furious, on fire, not from jealousy, for he could not stoop to recognise rivalry from this quarter, but with the sense of the subjection of the highly placed and finely endowed woman whom he loved to ignoble association, which because of her youth and inexperience she knew not how to discern and repel, and from which by reason of the incompetence of her guardians and his own lack of authority she was altogether unprotected. He would not be still—he would no longer supinely submit. He turned into the office of the hotel animated with an intention that would brook neither denial nor delay.
In the summer this large apartment was almost entirely relinquished to business and to the masculine guests who were wont to wait here for the distribution of the mail, to read the in-coming newspapers, to discuss the phases of politics and public events they suggested, and pending all to smoke interminably. Though the number of habitués was so wofully decreased the autumn wrought an added cheer in the presence of great, alluring, genial fires and the change of feminine intrusion. Now it was almost given over to the ladies, but neither politics nor tobacco had been tabooed. Games of hazard for stakes had always sought more secluded quarters, and naught could better comport with the sentiment of the refining influences of woman's presence than the game of chess at which two elderly worthies sat, their eyes fixed on the board, as motionless as if they had been stricken into stone. A group of four ladies and gentlemen were deep in the allurements of bridge at the table in the bay-window. Several guests languidly swayed in rocking-chairs before the fire, aimlessly chatting. Among these was Mrs. Laniston cutting the leaves of a new magazine and theorising ably on the perishable impression of periodical literature. Frank Laniston was hooked on by the elbows to the counter, while he gazed up the staircase ever and anon, expecting the descent of a very young lady whose mamma had required her to procure her long red cloth coat before she ventured out with a party bound for the spring. The elderly stranger, fraternising with no one, had deliberately lighted a cigar after observing that the practice of smoking here was permitted, and sat in the chimney corner, very much at home, composed, observant, evidently enjoying the luxury of the fire and satisfied with his surroundings. He took his cigar from his lips and fixed his great, shiny, hazel eyes on Jardine with very much the air of being interrupted, before the stare of surprise effaced every other expression of his large, handsome florid face.
"I want to know what you mean by this?" Jardine said without preamble or disguise. His voice was tense and low, but so obviously freighted with passion that the bridge players paused in amaze.
"What—what?" sputtered the portly guest, seeming to collect himself with difficulty, and not till Jardine had repeated the question was he able to speak coherently. "Mean by what, my good sir?"
"Mean by letting that fellow go at large?" Jardine hissed out. He stood erect at a little distance leaning on the high back of one of the vacant rocking-chairs, and as his hands now and again quivered, responsive to the surge of excitement in his mind, the chair swayed slightly, and then was still again.
The portly guest stared with unavailing intentness, as if he sought with the physical eye to discern the mystery. Then he looked around at the group as if they, knowing Jardine, might be able to explain him. But they remained silent in blank astonishment; even the automata of the chess table turned dismayed and startled faces, and the knights and castles and pawns had surcease of their schemings for the nonce.
"What fellow?" gasped the stranger, seeming to doubt his senses. He burnt his fingers with the lighted end of his cigar in inadvertent handling, and he let it fall to the hearth unheeded.
"That fellow Lloyd—what do you mean by letting him go at large?" Jardine reiterated his question.
"My God, sir—he is perfectly sane—do you suppose thatIam his keeper?"
"No, I do not—I most certainly do not suppose that you are any such thing," Jardine replied with a significance not to be mistaken.
The portly stranger was recovering his composure. Under other circumstances he might have thought that Jardine was himself mentally unbalanced, but he had already noted him on the journey that day with the keen observation that little escaped, and he was aware that there must needs be other methods of accounting for his demonstration.
"I will tell you what I suppose that you and he are," Jardine declared. He had utterly lost his own self-control—he was tingling with the long-repressed irritation, vented at last and utterly beyond his power to check.
"Let me warn you, sir," said the newcomer, with a certain menacing dignity in his look, "how you dare asperse either that gentleman or myself." Then with a sudden, sinister, chuckling laugh, "He is more than capable physically of resenting any injury, and I tell you now that if you slander me I will have the law of you."
This utterance stirred the group.
"Permit me to remind you, Mr. Jardine, that ladies are present, and that this violence, now and here, is unbecoming," one of the chess players observed. He was an ancient bachelor and solicitous on the subject of the claims to delicacy of the fair sex. He thought this suggestion would induce the feminine members of the group to retire, when the men could have their difference out as best pleased them. But every woman sat immovable, absorbed, interested in the outcome. They had not achieved their enlarged liberties for naught. Not a soul thought of retiring from the scene—if ever they had known how to faint they had forgotten the accomplishment.
There was not an appreciable pause and the crisis was acute. One of the bridge players rose to the occasion, while the others stared petrified and round-eyed. He was a tall, lank, blond gentleman, bald and clean-shaven. "I think, Mr. Jardine, you must be under some mistake." His hand in the game was a dummy, and already lay exposed upon the board while the other players still clutched their cards tight. He approached Jardine thinking that by some miracle he might be intoxicated, and keenly eyed him as he spoke. "This gentleman—both, I am sure, are strangers to us all. I beg—in fact, Iinsistthat you say no more."
"Then, let him tell us who he is," Jardine persisted with a vehemence that amazed the coterie, "and why he has this Lloyd in his custody."
"My good sir, let me recommend you to discipline your tongue," said the stranger hotly, "or I warn you again that it will get you into trouble."
Jardine's expression of disdainful contempt was so definite that it constrained a reply.
"I never anticipated such a 'hold up' as this, I am sure," the portly guest remarked satirically. "Wearestrangers to all present, and I can't imagine why anyone here should take such a vital interest in us—flattering, very, but most uncommon."
"I desire you to observe," said one of the gentlemen who had been idly swaying in a rocking-chair, aimlessly chatting, till stricken motionless and dumb with amazement, "I desire you to observe that this intrusive interest in your personal affairs is manifested by only one individual. We do not ask nor desire to know anything concerning them."
There was a general civil murmur of unanimity.
"I assure you we have nothing to conceal," the stranger said with a sort of large, jocular scorn. "I am a lawyer—a member of the Glaston Bar. My name is George Conway Dalton—here is my professional card," he handed it to the blond bald bridge player, who received it reluctantly and civilly avoided looking at it. "I came here to ask Mr. Lloyd to execute a power of attorney to enable me to act in some property interests in which I have already been of counsel, and to acquaint him with the fact that he is a beneficiary under the will of a relative from whom he expected to receive nothing."