The "Lion" Inn was a pleasant, old-fashioned little hostelry overlooking
the bay, with Bournemouth beyond the distant haze. My room was small
and clean, with white dimity curtains and hangings, and framed religious
texts upon the walls. As I sat at the window in the hour before my
dinner was ready, I reflected upon the strange incidents of those past
few days--a chain of curious circumstances that seemed to enmesh and to
entangle me.
Lucie Miller--the girl whose peril was such a mysterious and yet deadly
one--had actually known my Ella. That very fact seemed somehow as a
further link between us. What, I wondered, did she know of those later
days of my dead love's life? To me they were shrouded in mystery.
That cold winter's night in damp, dismal London, when I had met her in
secret at the corner of Queen's Gardens, would ever remain in my memory.
She was staying with an aunt in Porchester Terrace, and we had always
preserved the secret of our affection. She came dressed in black,
wearing a thick veil and carrying a muff in which was a bunch of
violets. Her voice, when I greeted her, was, alas! not the same. Quick
to recognise that something had occurred, I inquired the reason. Had
she had any difference with her father or her aunt--as she sometimes
had? No, she said, shaking her head, it was not that.
And then, almost in silence, we strolled on side by side over those wet
shining London pavements through the quieter streets and squares of
Bayswater, while I glanced wonderingly at her face showing pale behind
her spotted veil. At last her trembling hand suddenly rested upon my
wrist, and halting she turned to me. In hoarse tones quite unusual to
her she blurted forth the truth--the bitter truth that froze my heart.
I remember even the spot where we stood, beside a red letter-box at the
corner of Chepstow Place. There the greatest blow of all my life fell
upon me; and we parted.
I went straight along the Westbourne Grove, blinded by tears. She was
to wed the very last man she ought to have chosen. The coarse,
fat-necked parvenu had bought her from her father with his gold won in
gambles on the Stock Exchange. Yes, my Ella, my sweet-faced love, was
not satisfied with the prospect of being the wife of a man comfortably
off. Like so many other girls who are dazzled by the lights of life,
she longed to shine as a hostess, to wear Paquin frocks and have her
portraits in the papers. I was deeply disappointed with her, for, fool
that I was, I really believed that she honestly loved me. How often,
alas! is a man deceived! I was but one of thousands, after all. And
yet I had adored her with all my heart and all my soul.
Away in the country the very song of the birds seemed to be in praise of
her--she whose beauty was sweet and delicate as the petals of the
flowers; chaste and sweet as the rose itself. Love to the looker-on may
be blind, unwise, unworthily bestowed, a waste, a sacrifice, a crime;
yet none the less is love the only thing that, come weal or woe, is
worth the loss of every other thing; the one supreme and perfect gift of
earth in which all common things of daily life become transfigured and
divine.
I was crushed, benumbed, broken. At first my brain refused to accept
her declaration that that meeting was to be our last, until she told me
the truth in all its hideous detail, and that on the morrow her
engagement was to be announced in the _Morning Post_. I opened my lips
to upbraid her, but my tongue refused to utter a syllable of reproach.
I only bit my lips in silence. Ah! yes, I loved her!--I loved her!
From that moment we never again met. Next day I saw the announcement in
the papers, and, disappointed and heart-broken, I went abroad, and it
was a year after when one of my intimate friends, Jack Davies, a
lieutenant on board the _Cornwall_, in a letter which I received at a
lonely post-house on the snow-bound road in the extreme north of Russia,
wrote those words which caused my heart to burst within me:--
"You recollect little Ella Murray, who was, with her stepmother, up at
the Grainger's shoot two years ago? The poor little girl was engaged to
some City fellow, an entire outsider, I heard, but I hear she caught
typhoid at a hotel in Sheringham and died six months ago. A pity, isn't
it? I rather liked her--so did you, I remember."
I stood at the door of that filthy, log-built place with the letter in
my hand, gazing across the great snow-covered plain with its long row of
telegraph-wires and verst-posts stretching away from Pokrovskoi to the
grey horizon. My big bearded driver whispered to the post-house keeper,
for both saw that I had received bad news. The man in sheepskins who
kept the place went in without a word and returned with a glass of
vodka. I recognised his kindly thought, gulped down the spirit, and
mounting into the sledge drove on--on, whither I did not care. Ella--my
own dear Ella was dead!
All this came back vividly to me on that evening as I ate my dinner
alone in the little inn at Studland, and then in the golden sunset
strolled by the sea--that same wide, mysterious sea beside which I had
so long ago declared my love. She lived then, smiling, sighing, loving.
But now, alas! she was no more. Of her memory there only remained that
shadowy picture that I had seen in Miller's drawing-room, the portrait
of the dead that smiled upon me in such mocking happiness.
I threw myself upon a bank and watched the glorious crimson and purple
of the summer afterglow. Yes, the face of the world was for me now
changed. The past had been full enough of bitterness, what, I wondered,
did the future contain? Ah! if I could have but known at that moment!
Yet perhaps after all the Divine power is merciful in keeping from us
the happiness and tragedy that lie before.
Till the summer twilight darkened into night I sat therefore before the
sea, smoking and thinking. The dark vista of silent waters before me
harmonised with my thoughts. Mine was, alas! a wasted, useless life, I
had never known one moment's financial worry, and yet I had somehow
never found happiness. In my life where I might be, at home or abroad,
there was always something wanting--the love of a good woman.
Through the following day I idled, mostly in the Lion, for it was too
hot for walking. But at half-past two I sauntered to the station and,
unseen by Lucie, I saw her alight from the train from London, climb into
the smart dogcart that was awaiting her, and drive away in the direction
of the Manor.
Then when I returned and had my tea I remarked casually to the stout,
round-faced innkeeper:--
"I hear that Mr Miller is at the Manor House just now. I learnt so
yesterday."
"An' so did I," was his reply. "Dear me! wonders 'ull never cease.
Fancy Mr Miller coming back again! An' they say that Miss Lucie's
a-comin', too."
"Is she his daughter?" I inquired, as though in ignorance.
"Of course she is; an' a very good girl, too. When she's 'ere--which
ain't very often, more's the pity--she does a great deal of good in the
village--visits the old people, looks after the coal club, and gives
away quite a lot of money to the deserving people who are destitute. I
only wish there were more like 'er in these 'ere parts."
"Does she often come here?"
"Oh! two or three times a year," answered the landlord. "Some say she
lives up in London with 'er aunt, and others declare that she's mostly
abroad with 'er father. I believe the latter story. She 'as a foreign
way about 'er, and I've 'eard the servants say as 'ow all 'er things are
made abroad."
"Then nobody knows her address?" I said.
"Seems not. But she's very fond of 'er father, and no doubt is always
with him."
"Do they have many friends at the Manor when Mr Miller and his daughter
are at home?"
"Not many. Dr Haviland often dines with 'em."
"I don't mean local friends--visitors from London."
"Very few. I've known one or two, but they've all been forriners. Mr
Miller seems to like them forriners some'ow. But I don't," declared the
old fellow. "They're too infernal polite and sleeky for me. I wouldn't
trust any of 'em for a pint o' beer."
"They were gentlemen, I suppose?"
"Oh, dear, yes--full of fine graces and fine manners. They wore shoes
like women, and shirts pleated like women's blouses--great swells, I can
assure you."
"You never heard of any of their names?"
"No, how was I to 'ear? Once two of 'em came in one hot day and
jabbered, sayin' `_boch! boch_!' an' grinnin' all over their faces. It
was quite a long time before I discovered that they wanted two
half-pints o' bitter. I suppose _boch_ is what they calls it in
French."
"Yes," I laughed. "You're quite right."
The strangers had evidently been French, I reflected. Had they been
Italian they would have asked for _birra_.
Regarding Lucie, I learnt that on several occasions, while she had been
at home, a young, black-moustached foreigner had been guest at the
Manor, and that she frequently drove him out in the dogcart. My host
did not know the visitor's name. He described him, however, as tall and
thin with a narrow hatchet face, black eyes and moustaches that turned
up at the ends.
"They passed up and down the village once or twice on their way to the
post-office, and I 'eard 'em talking in some gibberish," added the old
fellow, as he raised his tankard to his lips. Like all his race in the
rural districts, he had no love for the foreigner, be he whatever he
might. In his estimation every person from beyond the Channel was "a
froggie."
That evening I went for my usual lonely stroll by the sea, while all
next day I spent in watchful vigil in the vicinity of the Manor. Though
for hours I idled concealed in the park, within view of the stately old
home of the Millers, my patience was unrewarded. No sign of Lucie did I
see, either at any of the windows or in the old rose-garden.
Next evening, however, having learnt from the landlord that she was much
interested in a decrepit old woman who had been her nurse, and who lived
in a cottage at the farther end of Studland, I idled in wait for her in
a narrow green lane which ran at the back of the church, and was at
length rewarded by seeing her approaching. She was dressed in white
muslin with a large lace garden hat, and beside her walked her pet dog,
a beautiful fawn collie.
Boldly I went towards her, my hat in my hand in respectful greeting.
In an instant she recognised me, and drew back, half in surprise, half
in alarm.
Her countenance went white as death.
"You--Why--Mr Leaf!" she gasped, attempting to smile. "Only fancy--to
meet you here!"
"Miss Miller," I said calmly, taking the hand she offered me, and
glancing around in order to see that we were not observed, "I came here
on purpose to meet you--to speak with you!"
"With me?" she cried in cold surprise, her brows contracting in marked
displeasure. "What have you to say? Explain quickly, for we must not
be seen together here." And I recognised from her trembling lips how
anxious and agitated she had become. She was in some great fear. I was
convinced of that.
She tried to smile me welcome, but it died from her white lips. The
expression upon her face told me that she was in deadly fear lest I
should discover her secret.