“If art be devoted to the increase of men’s happiness, to the redemption of the oppressed, or enlargement of our sympathies with each other, or to such presentment of new and old truth about ourselves and our relation to the world as may ennoble and fortify us in our sojourn here, or immediately, as with Dante, to the glory of God, it will be also great art.”—“Appreciations.”Walter Pater.
Mrs. Hereford who had readily divined Macneillie’s kindly intention in suggesting that they should see at any rate part of the rehearsal, wondered to herself whether his plan had been wise when about noon she found herself with Evereld and Bride in the dim dreariness of the theatre, which was quite empty save for a couple of charwomen who were scrubbing the floor of the pit. A civil attendant took them to the second row of the stalls where they had of course an excellent view of that inexpressibly dingy and forlorn looking place—a stage without scenery.
Macneillie wearing a Glengarry cap was sitting on a chair with his back to them directing the dialogue and criticising in his quiet voice the shortcomings of Paulina and Emilia in the prison scene. At the back of the stage, some pacing to and fro, some sitting on the floor, were the rest of the company chatting comfortably together in low tones.
“Do you think they are all Quakers?” observed Bride naughtily, “how queer it does look to see men indoors with their hats on, every variety too, bowlers, deerstalkers, sailors, and caps.”
“Perhaps it’s draughty on the stage,” said Evereld. “I believe that tall dark girl must be Miss Myra Kay. She was only married last month. See Ralph is talking to her, that pretty girl in the blue and white blouse. She is Hermione I think.”
“Don’t distract me,” said Bride. “Paulina is handling the stage baby very well, but it’s too small a doll, why Flo who was the tiniest of babies was more respectable than that. Ah, Antigonous lifts it from the floor. My good man you’ll break the child’s neck if you don’t support its head better. Talk about kites and ravens being instructed to nurse it, why he wants instruction himself. It’s as bad as seeing a young curate at a christening.”
Evereld was obliged to laugh a little, and her eyes were still bright and mirthful when suddenly she perceived Ralph emerging through a side door and approaching them.
“I thought you might like a book to follow with,” he said. “Are you getting thoroughly disillusioned? And shall you never be able to enjoy seeing a play again, now that you know how it’s done?”
“Indeed I shall enjoy it much more,” she said. “Oh there is still a good deal I see, before you come in. Who is your Perdita?”
“The fair-haired girl in blue serge, Miss Eva Carton. She is the daughter of that Major Carton who was killed in the Soudan.”
“I remember you had him in your gallery of heroes. Is she a nice girl?”
“Very, I think, but I have not seen much of her yet. They were left badly off and she has taken to the stage to help her mother. She has only just joined this company, so we are in the same box.”
After this Evereld watched with keen interest the progress of the play. It seemed to her that Macneillie was almost an ideal instructor. His patience was marvellous and his criticism though sometimes keen was always kindly. When the sheep-shearing scene began and Florizel and Perdita with no helpful accessories had to go through their love-making, while the working of a sewing-machine and the hammering of carpenters and the scrubbing of the charwomen could be plainly heard, Evereld realised more than she had ever done before the prosaic nature of some aspects of an actor’s life. Macneillie was as fidgetty as any dancing master about the precise way in which his arm should encircle her waist. Degville himself could not have laid more stress on the importance of every attitude, and when it came to the part where Florizel claimed Perdita as his bride in the presence of the disguised Polixenes he was promptly pulled up in the utterance of the words: “I take thy hand, this hand, as soft as dove’s down and as white as it.”
“Don’t take her hand as if you were taking a jam tart at a confectioner’s,” exclaimed Macneillie.
And over and over again that particular bit had to be rehearsed until it was precisely to the Manager’s mind. Finally a diversion was made by the arrival, long after the time when they should have put in an appearance, of a few members of the orchestra. In a leisurely way, as though they were conferring a great favour on the actors, they began to tune up, the pretty dance of shepherds and shepherdesses was rehearsed, and Bride and Evereld found themselves longing to join in it.
“I really wonder,” said Bride as they walked home, “that you dare to take me to such a beguiling place, Doreen. Don’t you expect me to be stage-struck?”
“There might be some danger if you only saw the performances,” said Mrs. Hereford laughing, “but I doubt if you would stand many rehearsals. You would certainly be fined every day for unpunctuality.”
“It must be a weary grind,” said Bride yawning. “One would have to love one’s art very absorbingly to be able to endure such endless repetition. I suppose that is the difference between an artist and an ordinary mortal. An artist never grudges trouble, the dullest little touches here and there all have an interest for him.”
“Certainly, if he is worth his salt,” said Mrs. Hereford. “That’s what Flo will have to learn if she is to develop as I hope into a singer.”
“Well,” said Bride good-humouredly, “I have only just enough energy for ordinary life, so I will stick to being an ordinary mortal. And you keep me company, Evereld. We will make the appreciative audiences for the others. What is the fun of acting or singing if there is no one to applaud.”
In fact she applauded much more heartily than Evereld that evening. Evereld’s appreciation was pretty plainly visible in her glowing face and bright eyes, but she left the hand-clapping to her companion, and sat in a sort of happy dream watching the play contentedly with the blissful consciousness that every minute the time drew nearer when Ralph would make his appearance.
After the heavier portions of “The Winter’s Tale,” the pastoral scenes always come as a relief, and Ralph could hardly have had a more taking part. Evereld who at rehearsal had never been able to watch him except as her friend and lover was now entirely absorbed by the play. He was Florizel to her and Florizel only, he looked the part to perfection, and there was a sincerity about his acting which carried all before it, and gave great promise for his future. Macneillie standing at the wings felt more than content with his pupil.
“If the boy can do as well as this at one and twenty, he ought to have a great career before him,” he thought to himself. “And perhaps like Phelps he will be one of those who will owe everything to an early and a happy marriage. That little girl is one of a thousand. It is to be hoped that Sir Matthew Mactavish will not step in to spoil the game.”
The rest of the week passed by only too swiftly. Almost every evening they went to the theatre, and in the afternoon Ralph would often join them at tennis. One day there was a cricket match between the members of the company and a local eleven, on another day a picnic to a ruined castle in the neighbourhood, and at length the doleful day arrived when the parting must come.
After all it proved to be the elders who were grave and anxious at the thought of the unknown future which Ralph and Evereld went forth to meet so confidently. Healthy youth is seldom troubled with forebodings, and the lovers though saddened for the time by the coming separation could not but reflect how much more propitious things were than at their last leave-taking.
“How I envied little Ivy Grant as she walked along Queen Anne’s Gate with you that Christmas day,” said Evereld with a smile. “Where shall you be this Christmas, Ralph?”
“We shall be in Yorkshire,” he replied, “still giving the set of plays you have seen here. What a good thing it is for me that you can take such an interest in the work. It must be hard on an actor to do without the sympathy of those nearest to him. Sometimes one does wish that old Mrs. Macneillie had not such a feeling against the stage. His life is hard and lonely enough without having that added to it. Still I think they understand each other, and it is good to see her pride in him.”
“Does she never see him act?” asked Evereld.
“Never. She won’t set foot in a theatre; she is not even one of those people who only object to the name of the thing, and will see a play at the Crystal Palace or in a Hall. She’s too sensible to take that view.”
“Why what is the special merit of a ‘Hall?’” asked Evereld laughing.
“Goodness only knows. I often wish those worthy but illogical folk could feel the discomforts and the woeful plight the company often find themselves in behind the scenes, with perhaps a couple of dressing-rooms for the whole lot of them, and no possible place in which to put their clothes. They would soon realise the advantages of proper theatres.”
“Have you seen your good notice in the Southbourne Weekly News?” said Evereld, glancing at the paper with loving pride.
“Yes. It’s rather decent, isn’t it? I always cut out and keep press notices for Mr. Macneillie. Sharing his lodgings there are a good many small things of that sort one can do for him.”
“Who does the catering?”
“Oh, he does all that. He is a first-rate hand at marketing, having had so much practice.”
“I shall have to come to him for lessons, some day,” said Evereld, blushing vividly as she realised what the words involved.
Whereupon Ralph forgot all about fortunes and guardians and time and patience, and taking her in his arms kissed her passionately.
That was their real parting, or rather the silent pledge that nothing could really part them. Ralph lingered for some little time afterwards in the next room talking with the others, and as usual there was the cheerful Irish babel of many voices, for no one thought in that household of talking one at a time. Then having received a kindly invitation from Mrs. Hereford to come and see them either in London or at Hollybrack, he took his departure, and with the memory of Evereld’s love to cheer him on his way, rejoined Macneillie’s company at the station.
“That is a case I suppose,” said Max Hereford finding himself just then alone with his wife.
“I thought you would guess it,” she said smiling.
“You were always a matchmaker at heart, Doreen,” he said teasingly. “But how about this guardian in the background? He will be playing the Assyrian and coming down on you like the wolf on the fold.”
“I can’t help it if he does,” said Mrs. Hereford, laughter lurking in her eyes. “Really and truly I have not been match-making. It’s ridiculous for Sir Matthew Mactavish to allow his ward to be brought up for six years with such a boy as that, and then to take me to task for allowing the two old friends to meet in a rational way, and after all if he is annoyed I believe I should rather like it, for you know Max I always did detest that man.”
“Yes, dear, we all know that you are the best hater in the world, and I know that you are the best lover,” he said stooping to kiss her.
“I don’t see how I could have done otherwise,” she said musingly. “Evidently Mr. Macneillie sees exactly how things are. And what can you do for a couple of homeless waifs like that but give them your help and sympathy? A girl with no mother is in such a wretched plight as soon as her love troubles begin. Don’t I know exactly how my own mistakes and miseries came from that very cause? Tell me what you really think of Ralph Denmead?”
“I like him,” said Max Hereford. “He seems an honest, straight-forward, clean-minded fellow, he has plenty of humour, too, in which perhaps Evereld is a trifle lacking, and just because he has a touch of the Welsh fire in him and is at times unreasonable and unpractical, as all Kelts are——”
“Now, now,” exclaimed Mrs. Hereford with her irresistible laugh. “No dark hints about Kelts, we all know what that leads to.”
“I was going to remark, if you won’t quite throttle me,” he continued suavely, “that marriages between Kelts and Saxons, though barbarously prohibited by the oppressive laws of the English conquerors when they annexed Ireland, always turn out eminently successful. That in fact the union of hearts is the thing to be aimed at.”
“They are not actually betrothed yet, and won’t be until she is of age, and until he has made his way a little. Then of course there will be a battle royal with the Mactavish, but he will have no authority over her, and you and I, Max, will stand by her. She shall be married from Hollybrack quietly, and they will be able to live very comfortably for, according to Bride, she will be rich.”
“I only hope her guardian is really trustworthy,” said Max Hereford. “I don’t altogether like what I heard of him the other day from old Marriott. But, of course, Marriott is one of those steady going old-fashioned solicitors who are excessively cautious, and it would be almost impossible for him to approve of a Company Promoter like Sir Matthew. He may be all right enough.”
“We shall see,” said Mrs. Hereford with an expressive little gesture of the hands, “For my part I wouldn’t trust him for a moment, but you will say that is my Irish imagination, and of course I have no great knowledge of the man.”
Bride O’Ryan, who had been more or less taken up with her own people during the past week, had guessed nothing at all as to what was going on. The two friends had both hitherto been somewhat young for their age, and they had never been the sort of girls given to premature talk as to lovers and love-making. Their heroes were either the patriots of the past or the great leaders of the present, and their school life had been too full of work and well-organised amusement to leave much time for desultory dreaming. Bride had of course heard of the life at the Mactavishs, but it had never entered her head that Ralph Denmead could ever be anything but Evereld’s adopted brother.
It was not until he had actually gone that the truth began to dawn upon her. She saw that Evereld was making an effort at cheerfulness, that her face when in repose had a quite new expression of wistfulness, and that all at once she had grown dreamy and absent.
That night, when the mystic hour of “hair brushing” came round, she could hold her tongue no longer.
“I wish,” she said impetuously, “you wouldn’t shut me out of it all. I know quite well you are unhappy, though you will play the ostrich and bury your head in the sand in that English way, supposing that no one will notice you.”
Evereld laughed at the old mixture of the similes.
“I never heard of an English ostrich,” she said merrily. “If there ever was one it must long ago have become extinct like the Dodo.”
“Ah, you laugh now,” said Bride, “but you have looked wretched all the afternoon, and I saw you crying in church.”
Evereld blushed guiltily.
“It was very stupid of me, but I couldn’t help remembering how different all had been last Sunday evening.”
“When Mr. Denmead was here,” said Bride boldly.
Evereld nodded.
Bride looked straight into her soft blue eyes.
“Well I’m sure I don’t wonder he lost his heart to you, but all the same I wish he hadn’t.”
“We are not engaged, you know,” said Evereld.
“Oh, it’s just as bad as if you were,” said Bride despondently.
“As bad? What an odd way you have of congratulating me.”
“I don’t congratulate you. I’m very sorry,” said Bride vigorously brushing her dark hair. “Why should he come disturbing us just when our life is beginning and we were going to have such a good time. You’ll never be at all the same to me again. It will be as the poem says:
‘One and one, with a shadowy third.’”
“Nonsense,” said Evereld. “It has made me care for you fifty times more than I did, Bride, and I need you now more than ever. Besides, can’t you see how different things are for me. You have your home with your sisters, and the children; and you have brothers often staying with you, and you are all sure of each other and everything is so happy that I’m sure I don’t know how you could leave it all just yet. But I have no real home, and the only one of the Mactavishs I do really like is to be married in November. Can’t you understand how beautiful it is to really belong to someone at last?”
“Yes,” said Bride. “It was selfish of me to think first of my own part of it. And after all perhaps you are right, you may need me still. Specially when the Mactavishs are horrid. They won’t like your engagement a bit.”
“No,” replied Evereld quietly. “That is very certain. There are storms ahead. But I shall know where to turn to. You will always be my friend, and Mrs. Hereford says I am to come to her in any trouble.”
“Of course, Doreen mothers everybody, she always did, Michael says, even when she was quite a little girl herself.”
“And no one will ever be such a friend to me as you, Bride. You and Aimée Magnay and I will always keep up with each other, whatever happens.”
“Talking of Aimée reminds me that I heard from her this morning,” said Bride. “She says that in September they are all going to Auvergne; her father has some commission for a picture. They will stay at Mabillon all the autumn and perhaps even for Christmas. Cousin Espérance thinks I had better come too for the sake of perfecting my French, but I’m not sure that I could leave Dermot.”
“Take him with you,” suggested Evereld. “The sunshine and the warmth down there would exactly suit him.”
“Why, I never thought of that. It would be a splendid idea, and the Magnays are so kind-hearted. I know they have lots of room, too, in that rambling old chateau. Don’t you remember the little picture of it that Aimée had in our bedroom at school? Come, after all things are not so dark. You will always be my friend in spite of Mr. Denmead, and perhaps later on when you are engaged there will be a regular row and you will have to come to us.”
“You look as if you quite longed for the row,” said Evereld smiling wistfully. “I wish I had a little of the love of fighting which you Irish people seem to have such stores of. How would you face an angry guardian under the circumstances, I wonder.”
“I should listen patiently to all his objections. Then I should say, ‘Now hear my side of the case,’ and if he wasn’t convinced by my burning eloquence why I should inevitably lose my temper and we should part on the worst of terms. Oh, I should love to have a quarrel with Sir Matthew Mactavish. It’s a pity we can’t change places just for that time.”
“Well, don’t let us talk about it till it comes,” said Evereld with a little shiver. “When I am quite my own mistress perhaps the mere fact of being independent will make me dislike the thought of the discussion less. After all, nothing will really matter when we are engaged; one will be too busy thinking of the life that will so soon begin.”
They were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“I want that naughty little sister of mine,” said Mrs. Hereford, looking in with a smiling face. “Mollie declares there is no getting her invalid to sleep while you two chatterboxes are overhead.”
“Evil take the Coercion Act that made him an invalid,” said Bride, gathering up her belongings and bidding her friend good-night.
Evereld, glancing at Mrs. Hereford, saw for the first time in her face an expression which startled her. A look of long endured pain, of heart-breaking disappointment and the wearily deferred hope which makes the heart sick, such a look as a martyr might have borne, dying in the darkest hour which heralded the sunrise of his cause.
And then even as she gazed the look passed and there was once more in the face nothing but cheerful, tender motherliness.
“Good night, dear little woman,” said Mrs. Hereford. “Don’t lie awake thinking too long. It is a shocking bad habit.”
“Oh,” cried Evereld, clinging with girlish devotion to her hostess. “I do so hope my love for Ralph will not make me grow narrow. I want to care for other people and for outside things just as you do.”
“You must manage much better than I did, dear,” said Mrs. Hereford, “perhaps after my own mistakes I may be able to help you.”
“He spoke of beauty: that the dull
Saw no divinity in grass,
Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;
Then looking as ’twere in a glass
He smooth’d his chin and sleek’d his hair
And said the earth was beautiful.”
Tennyson.
The last week at Southbourne proved a very happy one and Evereld went back to London feeling as though a veil had been lifted from before her eyes. It was not only that love had revealed his face to her; but for the first time since her childish days in India she had known what life could mean in a thoroughly happy family.
The Mactavishs had never encouraged her in making friends. For reasons of his own Sir Matthew had never allowed her to become really intimate with any one in town, though she had had the usual round of children’s parties and had occasionally been allowed to give a children’s dance in the house in Queen Anne’s Gate. At school, however, close friendships had naturally been made, and the permission to stay with Bride O’Ryan at Southbourne had been extorted from Sir Matthew rather reluctantly, and chiefly because it happened to be a little inconvenient to Lady Mactavish to have the charge of Evereld until they left for Switzerland.
It so happened that the whole course of the girl’s life was affected by the mere fact that Lady Mactavish and her elder daughter had accepted an invitation to stay with friends in the country, and that Minnie had been busy with her trousseau, and, having a particular friend of her own staying with her, quite declined to be troubled with the society of a little girl fresh from school.
Sir Matthew not caring to vex his daughter when he was so soon to lose her, answered Mrs. Hereford’s second request graciously, little guessing that in so doing he was signing the death-warrant of his selfish hopes and schemes.
He beamed approvingly on Evereld when she appeared in the drawing-room on the evening of her return.
“Come, that is a refreshing sight for a jaded city man,” he said, stroking her rosy cheek caressingly. “Never mind, Evereld, we are all going holiday-making now, and will forget all cares and troubles. Have you seen our route, my dear?”
“No,” said Evereld, “I’m longing to see it.”
She could not help reflecting that the months since the Easter holidays had wrought a very decided change in Sir Matthew, he looked worn and harassed, and as though he were longing for rest. He seemed, too, more fussy and dictatorial than ever, and Evereld’s heart sank at the prospect of travelling with him, for she knew that travelling is the great test of character. After the merry talk and the bantering discussions and the hot but always good-tempered arguments to which she had grown accustomed during the last fortnight, the talk which prevailed on various vexed questions, seemed highly distasteful.
“I really think,” pleaded Lady Mactavish, in her grumbling voice, “that considering how very soon Minnie’s marriage will be following our return it would be most advisable to take at least one maid with us. There are so many little things Greenway could be getting forward with if she were at hand.”
“Yes, Papa,” urged the bride-elect. “It will be a most awful nuisance if we have no maid with us.”
“If you think you will always have a maid, my dear, to dance attendance on you when you are married, you will find you are mistaken. The wife of an officer in a marching regiment has to learn to be independent, I assure you. And as to taking a maid to Switzerland I shall not hear of such a thing. You would find her a trouble in the hotels, useless on the steamers, and upset by the long journeys. Why Evereld will be wanting to take her old nurse next!”
Evereld laughed, but in her heart she would fain have had Bridget with her, for she loved her a great deal better than any other member of the household.
The question was thoroughly threshed out, and many disagreeable things were said on both sides; then Sir Matthew laid down the law as to the size and amount of the luggage.
“No great trunks, mind you,” he said in the voice that meant obedience at all costs: “a small portmanteau is all that can possibly be allowed. You don’t go to Switzerland to air your fine clothes but to enjoy yourself, and there is no enjoyment possible if you are burdened with luggage.”
A long wrangle followed upon this, and at the close of it, dinner being over, Lady Mactavish rose with an air of relief and went away to discuss the matter anew with her daughters, and to murmur over Sir Matthew’s extraordinary fussiness.
“The heat must be affecting his brain,” she said. “I never knew him so vexatious. What does he know about the clothes we shall require? And depend upon it he will be the first to complain if you look shabby. Evereld my dear, Sir Matthew is calling you I think. Run down and see.”
Evereld returned to the dining-room where Sir Matthew was sitting over his wine.
“In case I don’t see you to-morrow, my dear,” he said, “I will give you this cheque now. Get it cashed in five pound notes, they will pass anywhere.”
“Is this for my journey?” asked Evereld, who had never received a cheque for a hundred pounds in her life.
“No, no, I will manage all your money for you until you come of age. This is only for your dress and pocket money. I shall give you another cheque to the same amount in six months’ time. It will be well for you to learn the value of things and to get into the way of keeping accounts. By the bye, though I say so much about its not mattering what you wear in Switzerland you must be sure to take good strong boots. You know Mr. Bruce Wylie is coming with us?”
“Yes,” said Evereld, “I’m very glad.”
“Well, good-night, my dear. God bless you,” said Sir Matthew. “Tell them I shall not be in till late.”
Evereld having delivered her message, went slowly upstairs to the school-room, the most homelike place in the whole house. Here she found Bridget sitting by the open window with her knitting.
“My new life has begun, Bridget,” she said, taking her usual place on her old nurse’s lap. “Look, here is money, a heap of it. I am to go out and buy thick-soled boots to-morrow with it, and an account book. Bridget, did you ever keep accounts? And do you ever think it’s allowable to cook them?”
“I can’t say, dearie, I never kept any at all, excepting it was the savings bank book which the post office clerks keep for one.”
“Sir Matthew says I must learn how to manage money and to understand the value of things,” said Evereld. “So we will go out to-morrow morning, Bridget, together, and I shall choose you a black silk dress by way of learning.”
“Why then, dearie, it’s for your own dress and not for mine that you must be spending this upon,” protested Bridget.
“It’s to do what I like with, Nursie, and I like to get you the very nicest gown we can find,” said Evereld.
“Well, well, dearie, you were always one to think of other folk first, and if you will be getting me a dress, let it be a black poplin for the sake of the old country.”
So Bridget and her young mistress set forth the next morning and chose the best Irish poplin, warranted to wear for a life-time, and Evereld changed her cheque into twenty crisp five pound notes, eighteen of which Bridget securely sewed up for her that evening in an inner pocket.
“There’s many things you may be wanting to buy if you come back through Paris,” she said, “let alone its being a bad plan to leave the money behind you here.”
Evereld sighed a little; it somehow hurt her to remember that she had all this money for her personal wants and fancies, while Ralph thought himself extremely lucky to be earning three pounds a week. She had, however, a shrewd suspicion that he perhaps found more satisfaction out of the money he had honestly worked for, and she eagerly looked forward to the time when they could share her fortune and make it of real use.
The next morning the whole house was in a bustle, and the atmosphere seemed less oppressive than on the previous night. Sir Matthew, though looking ill and harassed, brightened up when Evereld appeared ready dressed for the journey in a trim little navy blue coat and skirt, a light blue shirt and a dainty white sailor hat. She looked so fresh and innocent and happy that for the time he quite forgot his schemes in the pleasure of just looking at her.
It was not until they were on the platform at Victoria, and he saw Bruce Wylie approaching, that he remembered how necessary it was that by the time Evereld returned to London she should be safely betrothed to her solicitor. The thought made him glance critically at his friend. As it happened Bruce Wylie never showed to more advantage than at such a time as the present. His well cut grey travelling suit and knickerbockers made him appear much younger than he really was, his fair hair and trim beard, his merry grey eyes, his easy, pleasant manner were all in his favour.
“It will be right enough,” reflected Sir Matthew, “The girl will be properly in love with him long before the end of the tour.”
He had no notion how differently people regard the same person when one looks from the standpoint of five-and-fifty and the other from the standpoint of nineteen.
Evereld saw merely the lawyer who had brought her chocolates when she was a little girl, she knew that he was at least nine-and-forty, and that from her point of view was elderly; the thirty years between them made a huge chasm which it would never have occurred to her to bridge over in any way but that of friendship. Even the friendship could not be the same sort of thing as that close friendship, that perfect understanding which comes between two people of the same generation. It would have had in it something of the position of master and pupil, which might have been delightful enough with some men, but she had never felt any desire to learn from Bruce Wylie. She liked him merely because he passed the time, because he had a fund of good stories and an easy natural way of telling them.
So when Sir Matthew complacently noticed the way in which her face lighted up as she greeted Bruce Wylie, he was wholly unable to guess that the reception meant about as much as a child’s joyful greeting of the appearance of the clown in a pantomime. “Now we shall have some fun,” reflected Evereld, gladly finding the new comer beside her in the railway carriage.
“I need have no scruples,” reflected Sir Matthew. “She evidently likes him and encourages him.”
Bruce Wylie was not so sure in his own heart how matters stood, for Evereld was almost too frank and open with him, it was perfectly impossible to flirt with her, she liked him in the most unabashed manner, just as she had done when she was a child of eleven. Her enjoyment of his talk was what it had been then, and he was quite without the power of kindling in her heart any deeper feeling.
Being a shrewd man he laid his plans warily, and worked patiently, never venturing to make actual love to her. At all costs he must avoid startling her, or making her draw back from that frank friendliness which was likely to prove so useful. But every day he was her special companion, and she could not help feeling grateful to him for the care he took of her, the pains he took to please her, and the real enjoyment which he managed to impart to what would otherwise have been rather a trying tour.
“Why do you hesitate longer,” urged Sir Matthew, during their stay at Zermatt, “September is nearly half gone, we have but another fortnight abroad. Why not propose to the girl here?”
“Not yet, not yet,” said Bruce Wylie, “I tell you, Mactavish, she has not a thought of anything of the kind. She treats me as if I were her grandfather.”
“It seems to me that she is devoted to you,” said Sir Matthew. “She has not a word to say to any of the young men in the hotel though they are ready enough to admire her. She deliberately avoids them, I have noticed her, and is hand and glove with you. What more would you have?”
“Oh, I will arrange it all before the end of the tour,” said Bruce Wylie, “by hook or crook it must be done. Let me see; to-morrow we go to Glion for a fortnight. It is there that we must contrive the finale.”
“If it were not such a serious matter,” said Sir Matthew with a grim smile, “One could have a hearty laugh over the irony of fate. Here we are with an unconscious little slip of a girl and she holds everything in her hands. For if the difficulty as to her fortune becomes known, then a dozen other things will collapse shortly after. God bless my soul—it’s awful to think of!”
“So much the more reason to play this part of the game warily,” said Bruce Wylie. “It is like the story of the child’s hand thrust into the leaking dam and saving the country from the deluge that would otherwise have come about. I must capture Evereld’s hand and hold it fast to save the general ruin; whether she likes it or not it will have to be done.”
“And the girl cares for you, there will be no harm in it,” said Sir Matthew suavely. “I tell you what, Wylie, at Glion we must gradually let people see that you are in love with her. That will be easy enough without alarming her. We will set some of the women folk clacking. And if Evereld’s pride is once touched, if she feels that she has been gossiped about, that people see that she has encouraged you, and that she is a little compromised, why then we shall win easily enough. She will very readily be persuaded into an engagement, and we will take good care to have her married before the year is out.”
“Very well,” said Bruce Wylie. “At Glion we will advance to the next stage. It will be a more amusing one than the present, and will need skilful management. I must think things over. By the bye, she never mentions Ralph Denmead, her old playfellow. Have you lost sight of him?”
“She told me last Christmas that he was going most likely on some tour in Scotland. Here she comes, we will just ask her, but you need fear nothing in that quarter. It was just a natural childish friendship between the two. They know each other’s faults too well to fall in love.”
“I see that young Oxonian is persecuting her,” observed Bruce Wylie, watching a sunburnt undergraduate who had taken to following Evereld about on all occasions. She did not seem to be at all responsive, and her face lighted up most satisfactorily when she perceived Sir Matthew, while her companion was visibly chagrined.
“Watching the afterglow?” said Sir Matthew, as they approached.
“It’s hardly worth watching to-night,” said the Oxonian sulkily, as he noticed the alacrity with which Evereld moved towards Bruce Wylie. What the girl could see in this conceited fellow he could not imagine.
“We were just speaking of Ralph Denmead, Evereld,” said Sir Matthew. “Have you heard of him lately?”
“Yes, I hear from him now and then, and I saw him not so very long ago,” said Evereld. “He was with Macneillie’s Company when they were at Southbourne.” By a strong effort of self-control she kept both voice and manner perfectly calm and natural.
“You saw him act?”
“Yes, he seems getting on very well. The Herefords knew something of Mr. Macneillie and they breakfasted with us sometimes. He has been very kind to Ralph.”
“Well I’m glad the boy has fallen on his feet,” said Sir Matthew. “I suppose there was a touch of genius about him, but he was not the least fit for the Indian Civil Service. Are you staying at Zermatt much longer?” he added, turning to young Dick Lewisham who was still one of the group.
“I am leaving to-morrow,” he replied, “and shall get on as far as Villeneuve, I think.”
“Ah yes, a charming hotel there,” said Sir Matthew, “and the lake in September is delightful.”
Having comfortably disposed of Mr. Lewisham in this fashion he was far from pleased when on the morning after their arrival at Glion he encountered him in the garden of the Rigi Vaudois.
“It was so abominably hot down below,” said Dick Lewisham cheerfully, “I was obliged to come on here.”
“I should advise you to go on still higher to Mont Caux,” said Sir Matthew. “It is a magnificent hotel up there.”
“Thanks, but this is more handy, and I like the look of the place.”
“You’ll find it over-crowded,” said Sir Matthew, “we should not have got rooms unless we had ordered them beforehand.”
“You are a large party,” said the Oxonian, making his way round to the main entrance.
“How that old buffer does detest me,” he reflected. “I begin to think he is bent on marrying his pretty ward to that beast Wylie, and is afraid I shall spoil sport. A likely thing when she will give me nothing but snubs the moment I show a spark of sentiment. Is it possible though that such a girl can care for a regular man of the world thirty years older than herself? I’ll never believe it. There’s a mystery somewhere. I shall stay here and watch how things go.”
Evereld greeted him pleasantly, but not at all warmly when she encountered him after table d’ hôte. She could have liked him extremely if his attentions had been a little less overwhelming, or if she could have told him of Ralph. As it was, he frightened her, and she was too much of a novice to know the best way to steer her course. She invariably fled for refuge to her old friend, Bruce Wylie, little dreaming that by so doing she might confirm the gentle hints which Sir Matthew and Lady Mactavish began to drop cautiously among their acquaintance in the hotel.
People enjoy few things more during their idle holiday hours in a health resort than watching any little drama that may happen to be taking place before them.
Evereld with her sweet innocent face turning to the old friend of her childhood and apparently encouraging him in every way while she sedulously snubbed the young Oxonian, was a spectacle that greatly pleased and edified the English visitors at the Rigi Vaudois. It began to be rumoured that Mr. Lewisham was only running after her money, that Bruce Wylie saw it all plainly enough, but that he was practically sure that little Miss Ewart was attached to him. That in fact an engagement might be declared at any moment.
Something of this sort reached the ears of Dick Lewisham, and so angered him that he determined to find out the truth for himself.
It happened that there was a dance in the hotel that evening, He knew that Evereld would not refuse to dance with him, and having secured her as his partner for the firstpas de quatre, he afterwards persuaded her to come out on to the terrace.
The garden was deserted, and Dick Lewisham plunged straight into the subject which was filling his mind. He was a very honest, outspoken sort of fellow, and he began to fancy that Evereld would not so openly encourage Bruce Wylie had she known that people were beginning to comment on it.
“Miss Ewart,” he said abruptly. “These little English colonies are always hot-beds of gossip. And in this case the gossip I have just heard tends to explain your marked coldness to me. I think there is no need for me to tell you of my love—of——”
“Oh, stop, stop,” said Evereld, “I can’t let you say that. I tried so hard to show you that I couldn’t care.”
Her distress struck him speechless for a moment; instinctively they walked on to a more sheltered corner of the garden.
“It is true then—you already care for—this other.”
“Yes,” she faltered. “But no one knows, here, oh, how can you have guessed?”
“Why it is the talk of the hotel,” said Dick Lewisham. “Every one sees that he cares for you and that you encourage him.”
Her eyes dilated. For a moment she stared at him blankly, “What can you mean?” she cried. “He is in England, and no one here knows—no one must know.”
“Everyone is saying that you and Mr. Wylie care for each other; if that is true I will trouble you no more.”
“They are saying that!” she exclaimed. “How perfectly ridiculous of them!” and in the sudden revulsion of feeling she burst out laughing, “Why I have known him since I was a little girl, and even then he seemed to me quite elderly. My chief reason for liking him as a friend is that he was always kind to Ralph as well as to me when we were children.”
Then in a flash it all came back to Dick Lewisham; once more he stood in the grounds of the hotel at Zermatt watching the afterglow, and listening to what was more or less meaningless talk to him about a young actor named Ralph Denmead. It was somehow less hard to him to retire before an unknown rival; it was Bruce Wylie he so cordially detested. Moreover in having thus surprised Evereld Ewart’s secret, his position had been changed whether he would or no, from that of lover to friend and protector. He knew what no one else in the place knew, and this gave him, in spite of his rejection, a sort of soothing sensation. His admiration for Evereld had been very genuine, but it had been the sort of love which strikes no very deep roots in the heart. He was now only chivalrously anxious to help her in any way he could.
“I will go away from the place at once if you would rather,” he said, after a somewhat prolonged pause. “But you may trust me always to respect what you have told me.”
“Then don’t go,” she said, giving him her hand. “I always knew I could like you as a friend if only you had understood how things were. I think I won’t dance again to-night. We are to have a long excursion to-morrow. I will say good-night to you and run in.”
“And if at any time I can serve you, be sure you remember me,” said Dick Lewisham looking into the truthful blue eyes lifted to his.
“I will indeed,” she said. “We only wait to be actually engaged till I am twenty-one. I wish the time would go faster.”
Dick Lewisham escorted her back to the hotel, and then lighting a cigarette returned once more to pace up and down the garden path they had just quitted. The night was sultry, every now and then he could see summer lightning playing about the peaks of the Savoy mountains on the other side of the lake. Still musing over his talk with Evereld he threw himself down on a sheltered garden seat which stood on a little lawn screened on all sides by bushes. From time to time he heard steps on the path just beyond, and caught curious scraps of conversation over which he smiled in a cynical fashion.
Now it was a woman’s voice.
“Well, what you can see to admire in her I can’t imagine, and her dress! why those sleeves might have come out of the ark. Oh you didn’t notice them. How curious men are.”
Next came a pair of lovers.
“Dearest!” said one voice.
“My own!” replied the other.
And Dick Lewisham cruelly coughed. After which dead silence reigned.
By and bye a mellow, manly voice startled him into keen attention; it was Bruce Wylie.
“I’ll propose to her to-morrow whatever happens. You can give the others just a hint and they will keep out of the way. We must have matters settled before leaving Switzerland. If she refuses me——”
“Why then,” said Sir Matthew Mactavish, “I shall step in with the authority of a guardian. We will have no nonsense about the matter. But she will not refuse you. She has too much good sense.”
The voices died away in the distance. Dick Lewisham laughed long and silently.
“So that is your game, my fine friend! It is you who are after little Miss Ewart’s money though you have had the slander set afloat that I was a fortune-hunter. Ho! ho!” he rubbed his hands with satisfaction, “how I should like to see your face when that little blue-eyed girl rejects you. I’ll at any rate stay on here to see you when you return.”
He was loitering about at the cable railway station the next morning when Evereld and Janet Mactavish walked from the hotel to take their places in the down-going carriage.
“And where are you off to this morning?” he inquired.
“We are going to see the Gorge de Trient,” said Evereld, “at least some of us are. You are going to sketch near that waterfall, are you not, Janet.”
“Yes,” said Janet, “but Major Gillot and Minnie and Mr. Wylie will be with you. Four makes a much better number and I want a quiet day.”
Dick Lewisham laughed in his sleeve, he felt sure that Janet had been taken into the plot. Then with some compunction he glanced at Evereld’s unsuspicious face; her manner to him was perfect, he felt glad to think that she trusted him, and wondered much in what fashion she would get through the excursion. It was hardly likely he feared to be a day of pleasure to her.
They were now joined by Minnie and herfiancé, and at the last moment Bruce Wylie walked coolly across the little platform and down the steps, taking his place just before the carriage slid down its steep incline.
“Oh be quick! take care!” said Evereld with a look of alarm; and Dick Lewisham turned away, musing over the words and the expression of the girl’s face.
“Evidently she likes him very much as an old friend,” he reflected. “I wonder how she will get on.”