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(Harvard College Library)
WHEN LOVE CALLS
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE,"
"THE CASTLE INN," ETC., ETC.
BOSTON
BROWN AND COMPANY
144 Purchase Street
1899
_Copyright, 1899_
By Brown and Company
University Press
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
Contents
When Love Calls
I. Her Story
II. His Story
A Strange Invitation
The Invisible Portraits
Along the Garonne
When Love Calls
I.
HER STORY
"Clare," I said, "I wish that we had brought some better clothes, if
it were only one frock. You look the oddest figure."
And she did. She was lying head to head with me on the thick moss that
clothed one part of the river-bank above Breistolen near the Sogn
Fiord. We were staying at Breistolen, but there was no moss
thereabouts, nor in all the Sogn district, I often thought, so deep
and soft, and so dazzling orange and white and crimson as that
particular patch. It lay quite high upon the hills, and there were
great gray boulders peeping through the moss here and there, very fit
to break your legs if you were careless. Little more than a mile
higher up was the watershed, where our river, putting away with
reluctance a first thought of going down the farther slope towards
Bysberg, parted from its twin brother who was thither bound with
scores upon scores of puny green-backed fishlets; and instead, came
down our side gliding and swishing, and swirling faster and faster,
and deeper and wider, every hundred yards to Breistolen, full of
red-speckled yellow trout all half-a-pound apiece, and very good to
eat.
But they were not so sweet or toothsome to our girlish tastes as the
tawny-orange cloud-berries which Clare and I were eating as we lay. So
busy was she with the luscious pile we had gathered that I had to wait
for an answer. And then, "Speak for yourself," she said. "I'm sure you
look like a short-coated baby. He is somewhere up the river too."
Munch, munch, munch!
"Who is, you impertinent, greedy little chit?"
"Oh, you know," she answered. "Don't you wish you had your gray plush
here, Bab?"
I flung a look of calm disdain at her; but whether it was the berry
juice which stained our faces that took from its effect, or the free
mountain air which papa says saps the foundations of despotism, that
made her callous, at any rate she only laughed scornfully and got up
and went off down the stream with her rod, leaving me to finish the
cloud-berries, and stare lazily up at the snow patches on the
hillside--which somehow put me in mind of the gray plush--and follow
or not as I liked.
Clare has a wicked story of how I gave in to papa, and came to start
without anything but those rough clothes. She says he said--and Jack
Buchanan has told me that lawyers put no faith in anything that he
says she says, or she says he says, which proves how much truth there
is in this--that if Bab took none but her oldest clothes, and fished
all day and had no one to run upon her errands--he meant Jack and the
others, I suppose--she might possibly grow an inch in Norway. Just as
if I wanted to grow an inch! An inch indeed! I am five feet one and a
half high, and papa, who puts me an inch shorter, is the worst
measurer in the world. As for Miss Clare, she would give all her
inches for my eyes. So there!
After Clare left, it began to be dull and chilly. When I had pictured
to myself how nice it would be to dress for dinner again, and chosen
the frock I would wear upon the first evening, I grew tired of the
snow patches, and started up stream, stumbling and falling into holes,
and clambering over rocks, and only careful to save my rod and my
face. It was no occasion for the gray plush, but I had made up my mind
to reach a pool which lay, I knew, a little above me, having filched a
yellow-bodied fly from Clare's hat with a view to that particular
place.
Our river did the oddest things hereabouts--pleased to be so young, I
suppose. It was not a great churning stream of snow water foaming and
milky, such as we had seen in some parts, streams that affected to be
always in flood, and had the look of forcing the rocks asunder and
clearing their path even while you watched them with your fingers in
your ears. Our river was none of these: still it was swifter than
English rivers are wont to be, and in parts deeper, and transparent as
glass. In one place it would sweep over a ledge and fall wreathed in
spray into a spreading lake of black, rock-bound water. Then it would
narrow again until, where you could almost jump across, it darted
smooth and unbroken down a polished shoot with a swoop like a
swallow's. Out of this it would hurry afresh to brawl along a gravelly
bed, skipping jauntily over first one and then another ridge of stones
that had silted up weir-wise and made as if they would bar the
channel. Under the lee of these there were lovely pools.
To be able to throw into mine, I had to walk out along the ridge on
which the water was shallow, yet sufficiently deep to cover my boots.
But I was well rewarded. The "forellin"--the Norse name for trout, and
as pretty as their girls' wavy fair hair--were rising so merrily that
I hooked and landed one in five minutes, the fly falling from its
mouth as it touched the stones. I hate taking out hooks. I used at one
time to leave the fly in the fish's mouth to be removed by papa at the
weighing house; until Clare pricked her tongue at dinner with an
almost new, red tackle, and was so mean as to keep it, though I
remembered then what I had done with it, and was certain it was
mine--which was nothing less than dishonest of her.
I had just got back to my place and made a fine cast, when there
came--not the leap, and splash, and tug which announced the
half-pounder--but a deep, rich gurgle as the fly was gently sucked
under, and then a quiet, growing strain upon the line, which began to
move away down the pool in a way that made the winch spin again and
filled me with mysterious pleasure. I was not conscious of striking or
of anything but that I had hooked a really good fish, and I clutched
the rod with both hands and set my feet as tightly as I could upon the
slippery gravel. The line moved up and down, and this way and that,
now steadily and as with a purpose, and then again with an eccentric
rush that made the top of the rod spring and bend so that I looked
for it to snap each moment. My hands began to grow numb, and the
landing-net, hitherto an ornament, fell out of my waist-belt and went
I knew not whither. I suppose I must have stepped unwittingly into
deeper water, for I felt that my skirts were afloat, and altogether
things were going dreadfully against me, when the presence of an ally
close at hand was announced by a cheery shout from the far side of the
river.
"Keep up your point! Keep up your point!" some one cried briskly.
"That is better!"
The unexpected sound--it was a man's voice--did something to keep my
heart up. But for answer I could only shriek, "I can't! It will
break!" watching the top of my rod as it jigged up and down, very much
in the fashion of Clare performing what she calls a waltz. She dances
as badly as a man.
"No, it will not," he cried back, bluntly. "Keep it up, and let out a
little line with your fingers when he pulls hardest."
We were forced to shout and scream. The wind had risen and was adding
to the noise of the water. Soon I heard him wading behind me. "Where's
your landing net?" he asked, with the most provoking coolness.
"Oh, in the pool! Somewhere about. I am sure I don't know," I answered
wildly.
What he said to this I could not catch, but it sounded rude. And then
he waded off to fetch, as I guessed, his own net. By the time he
reached me again I was in a sad plight, feet like ice, and hands
benumbed, while the wind, and rain, and hail, which had come down upon
us with a sudden violence, unknown, it is to be hoped, anywhere else,
were mottling my face all sorts of unbecoming colors. But the line was
taut. And wet and cold went for nothing five minutes later, when the
fish lay upon the bank, its prismatic sides slowly turning pale and
dull, and I knelt over it half in pity and half in triumph, but wholly
forgetful of the wind and rain.
"You did that very pluckily, little one," said the on-looker; "but I
am afraid you will suffer for it by and by. You must be chilled
through."
Quickly as I looked up at him, I only met a good-humored smile. He did
not mean to be rude. And, after all, when I was in such a mess it was
not possible that he could see what I was like. He was wet enough
himself. The rain was streaming from the brim of the soft hat which he
had turned down to shelter his face, and trickling from his chin, and
turning his shabby Norfolk jacket a darker shade. As for his hands,
they looked red and knuckly enough, and he had been wading almost to
his waist. But he looked, I don't know why, all the stronger and
manlier and nicer for these things, because, perhaps, he cared for
them not one whit. What I looked like myself I dared not think. My
skirts were as short as short could be, and they were soaked: most of
my hair was unplaited, my gloves were split, and my sodden boots were
out of shape. I was forced, too, to shiver and shake from cold; which
was provoking, for I knew it made me seem half as small again.
"Thank you, I am a little cold, Mr.----, Mr.----," I said, grave, only
my teeth would chatter so that he laughed outright as he took me up
with--
"Herapath. And to whom have I the honor of speaking?"
"I am Miss Guest," I said, miserably. It was too cold to be frigid to
advantage.
"Commonly called Bab, I think," the wretch answered. "The walls of our
hut are not soundproof, you see. But, come, the sooner you get back to
dry clothes and the stove, the better, Bab. You can cross the river
just below, and cut off half-a-mile that way."
"I can't," I said, obstinately. Bab, indeed! How dared he?
"Oh, yes, you can," with intolerable good-temper. "You shall take your
rod and I the prey. You cannot be wetter than you are now."
He had his way, of course, since I did not foresee that at the ford he
would lift me up bodily and carry me over the deeper part without a
pretence of asking leave, or a word of apology. It was done so quickly
that I had no time to remonstrate. Still I was not going to let it
pass, and when I had shaken myself straight again, I said, with all
the haughtiness I could assume, "Don't you think, Mr. Herapath, that
it would have been more--more--"
"Polite to offer to carry you over, child? No, not at all. It will be
wiser and warmer for you to run down the hill. Come along!"
And without more ado, while I was still choking with rage, he seized
my hands and set off at a trot, lugging me through the sloppy places
much as I have seen a nurse drag a fractious child down Constitution
Hill. It was not wonderful that I soon lost the little breath his
speech had left me, and was powerless to complain when we reached the
bridge. I could only thank heaven that there was no sign of Clare. I
think I should have died of mortification if she had seen us come down
the hill hand-in-hand in that ridiculous fashion. But she had gone
home, and at any rate I escaped that degradation.
A wet stool-car and wetter pony were dimly visible on the bridge; to
which, as we came up, a damp urchin creeping from some crevice added
himself. I was pushed in as if I had no will of my own, the gentleman
sprang up beside me, the boy tucked himself away somewhere behind, and
the little "teste" set off at a canter, so deceived by the driver's
excellent imitation of "Pss," the Norse for "Tchk," that in ten
minutes we were at home.
"Well, I never!" Clare said, surveying me from a respectful distance,
when at last I was safe in our room. "I would not be seen in such a
state by a man for all the fish in the sea!"
And she looked so tall, and trim, and neat, that it was the more
provoking. At the moment I was too miserable to answer her, and had to
find comfort in promising myself, that when we were back in Bolton
Gardens I would see that Fraeulein kept Miss Clare's pretty nose to the
grindstone though it were ever so much her last term, or Jack were
ever so fond of her. Papa was in the plot against me, too. What right
had he to thank Mr. Herapath for bringing "his little girl" home safe?
He can be pompous enough at times. I never knew a stout Queen's
Counsel--and papa is stout--who was not, any more than a thin one, who
did not contradict. It is in their patents, I think.
Mr. Herapath dined with us that evening--if fish and potatoes and
boiled eggs, and sour bread and pancakes, and claret and coffee can be
called a dinner--but nothing I could do, though I made the best of my
wretched frock and was as stiff as Clare herself, could alter his
first impression. It was too bad: he had no eyes! He either could not
or would not see any one but the draggled Bab--fifteen at most and a
very tom-boy--whom he had carried across the river. He styled Clare,
who talked Baedeker to him in her primmest and most precocious way,
Miss Guest, and once at least during the evening dubbed me plain Bab.
I tried to freeze him with a look then, and papa gave him a taste of
the pompous manner, saying coldly that I was older than I seemed. But
it was not a bit of use: I could see that he set it all down to the
grand airs of a spoiled child. If I had put my hair up, it might have
opened his eyes, but Clare teased me about it and I was too proud for
that.
When I asked him if he was fond of dancing, he said good-naturedly, "I
don't visit very much, Miss Bab. I am generally engaged in the
evening."
Here was a chance. I was going to say that that no doubt was the
reason why I had never met him, when papa ruthlessly cut me short by
asking, "You are not in the law?"
"No," he replied. "I am in the London Fire Brigade."
I think that we all upon the instant saw him in a helmet sitting at
the door of the fire station by St. Martin's Church. Clare turned
crimson and papa seemed on a sudden to call his patent to mind. The
moment before I had been as angry as angry could be with our guest,
but I was not going to look on and see him snubbed when he was dining
with us and all. So I rushed into the gap as quickly as surprise would
let me with "Good gracious, how nice! Do tell me all about a fire!"
It made matters--my matters--worse, for I could have cried with
vexation when I read in his face next moment that he had looked for
their astonishment; while the ungrateful fellow set down my eager
remark to mere childish ignorance.
"Some time I will," he said with a quiet smile _de haut en bas_; "but
I do not often attend one in person. I am Captain ----'s private
secretary, aide-de-camp, and general factotum."
And it turned out that he was the son of a certain Canon Herapath, so
that papa lost sight of his patent box altogether, and they set to
discussing Mr. Gladstone, while I slipped off to bed feeling as small
as I ever did in my life and out of temper with everybody. It was a
long time since I had been used to young men talking politics to papa,
when they could talk--politics--to me.
Possibly I deserved the week of vexation which followed; but it was
almost more than I could bear. He--Mr. Herapath, of course--was always
about fishing or lounging outside the little white posting-house,
taking walks and meals with us, and seeming heartily to enjoy papa's
society. He came with us when we drove to the top of the pass to get a
glimpse of the Sulethid peak; and it looked so brilliantly clear and
softly beautiful as it seemed to float, just tinged with color, in a
far-off atmosphere of its own, beyond the dark ranges of nearer hills,
that I began to think at once of the drawing-room in Bolton Gardens
with a cosy fire burning, and afternoon tea coming up. The tears came
into my eyes, and he saw them before I could turn away from the view;
and said to papa that he feared his little girl was tired as well as
cold--and so spoiled all my pleasure. I looked back afterwards as papa
and I drove down: he was walking by Clare's carcole and they were
laughing heartily.
And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me--a
thing I never had and do not want--that a dozen times a day I set my
teeth viciously together and said to myself that if ever we met in
London--but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered
nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so
rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me
dislike him.
However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when
I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I
felt I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had before his
coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now
clambering up the hillsides to pick raspberries, and now counting the
magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and
contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually
fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I
was the more vexed to come suddenly upon him fishing; and fishing
where he had no right to be. Papa had spoken to him about the danger
of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet there
he was, thinking, I dare say, that we should not know. It was a spot
where one bank rose into quite a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at
the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water still ran with
the speed of a mill-race, so fast as to endanger a good swimmer. But
on the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water which
was tempting enough to have set some one's wits to work to devise
means to fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just
above the water was a ledge, a foot wide, perhaps, which might have
done, only it did not reach to this end of the cliff. However, that
foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the
latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away,
in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.
And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to
look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not
stand upright; the first person who got there must surely have learned
to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were
short for me. I thought of this oddly enough as I watched him, and
laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards,
meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all
sorts of foolish things would happen. I felt sure that I should have
no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I
would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of
course, he would do it.
I lost no time, but ran down the slope smartly and carelessly. My way
lay over loose shale mingled with large stones, and it was steep. It
is wonderful how quickly an accident happens; how swiftly a thing that
cannot be undone is done, and we are left wishing--oh, so vainly--that
we could put the world, and all things in it, back by a few seconds. I
was checking myself near the bottom, when a big stone on which I
stepped moved under me. The shale began to slip in a mass, and the
stone to roll. It was all done in a moment. I stayed myself, that was
easy enough, but the stone took two bounds, jumped sideways, struck
the piece of board which was only resting lightly at either end, and
before I could take it all in the little bridge plunged end first into
the current, which swept it out of sight in an instant.
He threw up his hands in affright, for he had turned, and we both saw
it happen. He made indeed as if he would try to save it, but that was
impossible; and then, while I cowered in dismay, he waved his arm to
me in the direction of home--again and again. The roar of the falls
drowned what he said, but I guessed his meaning. I could not help him
myself, but I could fetch help. It was three miles to Breistolen,
rough, rocky ones, and I doubted whether he could keep his cramped
position with that noise deafening him, and the endless whirling
stream before his eyes, while I was going and coming. But there was no
better way I could think of; and even as I wavered, he signalled to me
again imperatively. For an instant everything seemed to go round with
me, but it was not the time for that yet, and I tried to collect
myself, and harden my heart. Up the bank I went steadily, and once at
the top set off at a run homewards.
I cannot tell at all how I did it; how I passed over the uneven
ground, or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning papa
made afterwards. I can only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I
panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole,
breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I
slipped and dropped down places I should at other times have shrunk
from, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I
thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on
for his life, the clamor of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my
heart's beating with very fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted
over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the
afternoon sunshine, papa's stool-car even then at the door ready to
take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand in
broken words that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I
knew, and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the
porch, and climbed into the car. Papa was not slow either; he snatched
a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and boy whom
he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very little time,
but so much may happen in so little time.
We were forced to leave the car a quarter of a mile from that part of
the river, and walk or run the rest of the way. We all ran, even papa,
as I had never known him run before. My heart sank at the groan he let
escape him when I pointed out the spot. We came to it one by one and
we all looked. The ledge was empty. Jem Herapath was gone. I suppose
it startled me. At any rate I could only look at the water in a dazed
way, and cry quietly without much feeling that it was my doing; while
the men, shouting to one another in strange, hushed voices, searched
about for any sign of his fate--"Jem! Jem Herapath!" So he had written
his name only yesterday in the travellers' book at the posting-house,
and I had sullenly watched him from the window, and then had sneaked
to the book and read it. That was yesterday, and now! Oh, Jem, to hear
you say "Bab" once more!
"Bab! Why, Miss Bab, what is the matter?"
Safe and sound! Yes, there he was when I turned, safe, and strong, and
cool, rod in hand, and a quiet smile in his eyes. Just as I had seen
him yesterday, and thought never to see him again; and saying "Bab"
exactly as of old, so that something in my throat--it may have been
anger at his rudeness, but I do not think it was--prevented me saying
a word until all the others came round us, and a babel of Norse and
English, and something that was neither, yet both, set in.
"But how is this?" objected my father when he could be heard, "you are
quite dry, my boy?"
"Dry! Why not, sir? For goodness' sake, what is the matter?"
"The matter! Didn't you fall in, or something of the kind?" papa
asked, bewildered by this new aspect of the case.
"It does not look like it, does it? Your daughter gave me a very
uncomfortable start by nearly doing so."
Every one looked at him for an explanation. "How did you manage to get
from the ledge?" I said feebly. Where was the mistake? I had not
dreamed it.
"From the ledge? Why, by the other end, to be sure, so that I had to
walk back round the hill. Still I did not mind, for I was thankful
that it was the plank and not you that fell in.
"I--I thought--you could not get from the ledge," I muttered. The
possibility of getting off at the other end had never occurred to me,
and so I had made such a simpleton of myself. It was too absurd, too
ridiculous. It was no wonder that they all screamed with laughter at
the fool's errand they had come upon, and stamped about and clung to
one another. But when he laughed too--and he did until the tears came
into his eyes--there was not an ache or pain in my body--and I had cut
my wrist to the bone against a splinter of rock--that hurt me one-half
as much. Surely he might have seen another side to it. But he did not;
and so I managed to hide my bandaged wrist from him, and papa drove me
home. There I broke down entirely, and Clare put me to bed, and petted
me, and was very good to me. And when I came down next day, with an
ache in every part of me, he was gone.
"He asked me to tell you," said Clare, not looking up from the fly she
was tying at the window, "that he thought you were the bravest girl he
had ever met."
So he understood now, when others had explained it to him. "No,
Clare," I said coldly, "he did not say that exactly; he said 'the
bravest little girl.'" For indeed, lying upstairs with the window
open, I had heard him set off on his long drive to Laerdalsoeren. As
for papa, he was half-proud and half-ashamed of my foolishness, and
wholly at a loss to think how I could have made the mistake.
"You've generally some common-sense, my dear," he said that day at
dinner, "and how in the world you could have been so ready to fancy
the man was in danger, I--can--not--imagine!"
"Papa," put in Clare, suddenly, "your elbow is upsetting the salt."
And as I had to move my seat just then to avoid the glare of the stove
which was falling on my face, we never thought it out.
II
HIS STORY
I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my acquaintance
in town was limited, and something too because I cared little for it.
But these were pleasant people, the old gentleman witty and amusing,
the children, lively girls, nice to look at and good to talk with. The
party had too a holiday flavor about them wholesome to recall in
Scotland Yard: and as I had thought, play-time over, I should see no
more of them, I was proportionately pleased to find that Mr. Guest had
not forgotten me, and pleased also--shrewdly expecting that we might
kill our fish over again--to regard his invitation to dinner at a
quarter-to-eight as a royal command.
But if I took it so, I was sadly wanting in the regal courtesy to
match. What with one delay owing to work that would admit of none,
and another caused by a cabman strange to the ways of town, it was
twenty-five minutes after the hour named, when I reached Bolton
Gardens. A stately man, so like the Queen's Counsel, that it was plain
upon whom the latter modelled himself, ushered me straight into the
dining-room, where Guest greeted me very kindly, and met my excuses by
apologies on his part--for preferring, I suppose, the comfort of
eleven people to mine. Then he took me down the table, and said, "My
daughter," and Miss Guest shook hands with me and pointed to the chair
at her left. I had still, as I unfolded my napkin, to say "Clear, if
you please," and then I was free to turn and apologize to her, being a
little shy, and, as I have said, a somewhat infrequent diner out.
I think that I never saw so remarkable a likeness--to her younger
sister--in my life. She might have been little Bab herself, but for
her dress and some striking differences. Miss Guest could not be more
than eighteen, in form almost as fairy-like as the little one, with
the same child-like, innocent look on her face. She had the big, gray
eyes, too, that were so charming in Bab; but in her they were more
soft and tender and thoughtful, and a thousand times more charming.
Her hair too was brown and wavy: only, instead of hanging loose or in
a pig-tail anywhere and anyhow in a fashion I well remembered, it was
coiled in a coronal on the shapely little head, that was so Greek, and
in its gracious, stately, old-fashioned pose, so unlike Bab's. Her
dress, of some creamy, gauzy stuff, revealed the prettiest white
throat in the world, and arms decked in pearls, and, so far, no more
recalled my little fishing-mate than the sedate self-possession and
assured dignity of this girl, as she talked to her other neighbor,
suggested Bab making pancakes and chattering with the landlady's
children in her strangely and wonderfully acquired Norse. It was not
Bab in fact: and yet it almost might have been: an etherealized,
queenly, womanly Bab. Who presently turned to me--
"Have you quite settled down after your holiday?" she asked, staying
the apologies I was for pouring into her ear.
"I had until this evening, but the sight of your father is like a
breath of fiord air. I hope your sisters are well."
"My sisters?" she murmured wonderingly, her fork half-way to her
pretty mouth and her attitude one of questioning.
"Yes," I said rather puzzled. "You know they were with your father
when I had the good fortune to meet him. Miss Clare and Bab."
"Eh?" dropping her fork on the plate with a great clatter.
"Yes, Miss Guest, Miss Clare and Miss Bab."
I really began to feel uncomfortable. Her color rose, and she looked
me in the face in a half-proud, half-fearful way as if she resented
the inquiry. It was a relief to me, when, with some show of confusion,
she at length stammered, "Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, of course they
were! How very foolish of me. They are quite well, thank you," and so
was silent again. But I understood now. Mr. Guest had omitted to
mention my name, and she had taken me for some one else of whose
holiday she knew. I gathered from the aspect of the table and the room
that the Guests saw a good deal of company, and it was a very natural
mistake, though by the grave look she bent upon her plate it was clear
that the young hostess was taking herself to task for it: not without,
if I might judge from the lurking smile at the corners of her mouth, a
humorous sense of the slip, and perhaps of the difference between
myself and the gentleman whose part I had been unwittingly supporting.
Meanwhile I had a chance of looking at her unchecked; and thought of
Dresden china, she was so frail and pretty.
"You were nearly drowned, or something of the kind, were you not?" she
asked, after an interval during which we had both talked to others.
"Well, not precisely. Your sister fancied I was in danger, and behaved
in the pluckiest manner--so bravely that I can almost feel sorry that
the danger was not there to dignify her heroism."
"That was like her," she answered in a tone just a little scornful.
"You must have thought her a terrible tomboy."
While she was speaking there came one of those dreadful lulls in the
talk, and Mr. Guest overhearing, cried, "Who is that you are abusing,
my dear? Let us all share in the sport. If it's Clare, I think I can
name one who is a far worse hoyden upon occasion."
"It is no one of whom you have ever heard, papa," she answered,
archly. "It is a person in whom Mr.--Mr. Herapath--" I had murmured my
name as she stumbled--"and I are interested. Now tell me, did you not
think so?" she murmured, graciously leaning the slightest bit towards
me, and opening her eyes as they looked into mine in a way that to a
man who had spent the day in a dusty room in Great Scotland Yard was
sufficiently intoxicating.
"No," I said, lowering my voice in imitation of hers. "No, Miss Guest,
I did not think so at all. I thought your sister a brave little thing,
rather careless as children are apt to be, but likely to grow into a
charming girl."
I wondered, marking how she bit her lip and refrained from assent,
whether, impossible as it must seem to any one looking in her face,
there might not be something of the shrew about my beautiful neighbor.
Her tone when she spoke of her sister seemed to impart no great
goodwill.
"So that is your opinion?" she said, after a pause. "Do you know,"
with a laughing glance, "that some people think I am like her."
"Yes?" I answered, gravely. "Well, I should be able to judge, who have
seen you both and yet am not an old friend. And I think you are both
like and unlike. Your sister has very beautiful eyes"--she lowered
hers swiftly--"and hair like yours, but her manner and style were very
different. I can no more fancy Bab in your place than I can picture
you, Miss Guest, as I saw her for the first time--and on many after
occasions," I added, laughing as much to cover my own hardihood as at
the queer little figure I had conjured up.
"Thank you, Mr. Herapath," she replied, with coldness, though she had
blushed darkly to her ears. "That, I think, must be enough of
compliments, for to-night--as you are not an old friend." And she
turned away, leaving me to curse my folly in saying so much, when our
acquaintance was as yet in the bud, and as susceptible to over-warmth
as to a temperature below zero.
A moment later the ladies left us. The flush I had brought to her
cheek still lingered there, as she swept past me with a wondrous show
of dignity in one so young. Mr. Guest came down and took her place,
and we talked of the "land of berries," and our adventures there,
while the rest--older friends--listened indulgently or struck in from
time to time with their own biggest fish and deadliest flies.
I used to wonder why women like to visit dusty chambers; why they get
more joy--I am fain to think they do--out of a scrambling tea up three
pairs of stairs in Pump Court, than from the very same materials--and
comfort withal--in their own house. I imagine it is for the same
reason that the bachelor finds a singular charm in a lady's
drawing-room, and there, if anywhere, sees her with a reverent mind. A
charm and a subservience which I felt to the full in the Guests'
drawing-room--a room rich in subdued colors and a cunning blending of
luxury and comfort. Yet it depressed me. I felt alone. Mr. Guest had
passed on to others and I stood aside, the sense that I was not of
these people troubling me in a manner as new as it was absurd: for I
had been in the habit of rather despising "society." Miss Guest was at
the piano, the centre of a circle of soft light, which showed up also
a keen-faced, dark-whiskered man leaning over her with the air of one
used to the position. Every one else was so fully engaged that I may
have looked, as well as felt, forlorn, and meeting her eyes could have
fancied she was regarding me with amusement--almost triumph. It must
have been mere fancy, bred of self-consciousness, for the next moment
she beckoned me to her, and said to her cavalier:
"There, Jack, Mr. Herapath is going to talk to me about Norway now, so
that I don't want you any longer. Perhaps you won't mind stepping up
to the schoolroom--Fraeulein and Clare are there--and telling Clare,
that--that--oh, anything."
There is no piece of ill-breeding so bad to my mind as for a man who
is at home in a house to flaunt his favor in the face of other guests.
That young lawyer's manner as he left her, and the smile of perfect
intelligence which passed between them, were such a breach of good
manners as would have ruffled any one. They ruffled me--yes, me,
although it was no concern of mine what she called him, or how he
conducted himself--so that I could do nothing but stand by the piano
and sulk. One bear makes another, you know.
She did not speak; and I, content to watch the slender hands stealing
over the keys, would not, until my eyes fell upon her right wrist. She
had put off her bracelets and so disclosed a scar upon it, something
about which--not its newness--so startled me that I said abruptly:
"That is very strange! Pray tell me how you did it?"
She looked up, saw what I meant, and stopping hastily, put on her
bracelets; to all appearance so vexed by my thoughtless question, and
anxious to hide the mark, that I was quick to add humbly, "I asked
because your sister hurt her wrist in nearly the same place on the day
when she thought I was in trouble, and the coincidence struck me."
"Yes, I remember," looking at me, I thought, with a certain suspicion,
as though she were not sure that I was giving the right motive. "I did
this much in the same way. By falling, I mean. Isn't it a hateful
disfigurement?"
No, it was no disfigurement. Even to her, with a woman's love of
conquest, it must have seemed anything but a disfigurement had she
known what the quiet, awkward man at her side was thinking, who stood
looking shyly at it and found no words to contradict her, though she
asked him twice, and thought him stupid enough. A great longing to
kiss that soft, scarred wrist was on me--and Miss Guest had added
another to the number of her slaves. I don't know now why that little
scar should have so touched me any more than I then could guess why,
being a commonplace person, I should fall in love at first sight, and
feel no surprise at my condition, but only a half consciousness
(seeming fully to justify it) that in some former state of being I had
met my love, and read her thoughts, and learned her moods; and come to
know the bright womanly spirit that looked from her frank eyes as well
as if she were an old, old friend. And so vivid was this sensation,
that once or twice, then and afterwards, when I would meet her glance,
another name than hers trembled on my tongue and passed away before I
could shape it into sound.
After an interval, "Are you going to the Goldmace's dance?"
"No," I answered her, humbly. "I go out so little."
"Indeed," with an odd smile not too kindly; "I wish--no I don't--that
we could say the same. We are engaged, I think--" she paused, her
attention divided between myself and Boccherini's minuet, the low
strains of which she was sending through the room--"for every
afternoon--this week--except Saturday. By the way, Mr. Herapath--do
you remember what was the name--Bab told me you teased her with?"
"Wee bonnie Bab," I answered absently. My thoughts had gone forward to
Saturday. "We are always dropping to-day's substance for the shadow of
to-morrow; like the dog--a dog was it not?--in the fable."
"Oh, yes, wee bonnie Bab," she murmured softly. "Poor Bab!" and
suddenly cut short Boccherini's music and our chat by striking a
terrific discord and laughing merrily at my start of discomfiture.
Every one took it as a signal to leave. They all seemed to be going to
meet her again next day, or the day after that; they engaged her for
dances, and made up a party for the law courts, and tossed to and fro
a score of laughing catch-words, that were beyond my comprehension.
They all did this, except myself.
And yet I went away with something before me--that call upon Saturday
afternoon. Quite unreasonably I fancied I should see her alone. And
so when the day came and I stood outside the opening door of the
drawing-room, and heard voices and laughter within, I was hurt and
aggrieved beyond measure. There was quite a party, and a merry one,
assembled, who were playing at some game, as it seemed to me, for I
caught sight of Clare whipping off an impromptu bandage from her eyes,
and striving by her stiffest air to give the lie to a pair of flushed
cheeks. The black-whiskered man was there, and two men of his kind,
and a German governess, and a very old lady in a wheel-chair, who was
called "grandmamma," and Miss Guest herself looking, in the prettiest
dress of silvery plush, to the full as bright and fair and graceful as
I had been picturing her each hour since we parted.
She dropped me a stately courtesy. "Will you play the part of Miss
Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs, Mr. Herapath, while I act honest
Burchell, and say 'Fudge!' or will you burn nuts and play games with
neighbor Flamborough? You will join us, won't you? Clare does not so
misbehave every day, only it is such a wet afternoon and so cold and
wretched, and we did not think there would be any more callers--and
tea will be up in five minutes."
She did not think there would be any more callers! Something in her
smile belied the words and taught me that she had thought--she had
known--that there would be one more caller--one who would burn nuts
and play games with her, though Rome itself were afire, and Tooley
Street and the Mile End Road to boot.
It was a simple game enough, and not likely, one would say, to afford
much risk of that burning the fingers, which gave a zest to the Vicar
of Wakefield's nuts. One sat in the middle blindfolded, while the rest
disguised their own or assumed each other's voices, and spoke one by
one some gibe or quip at his expense. When he succeeded in naming the
speaker, the detected satirist put on the poke, and in his turn heard
things good--if he had a conceit of himself--for his soul's health.
Now this _role_ unhappily soon fell to me, and proved a heavy one,
because I was not so familiar with the others' voices as were the
rest; and Miss Guest--whose faintest tones I thought to have
known--had a wondrous knack of cheating me, now taking off Clare's
voice, and now--after the door had been opened to admit the tea--her
father's. So I failed again and again to earn my release. But when a
voice behind me cried with well-feigned eagerness--
"How nice! Do tell me all about a fire!"
Though no fresh creaking at the door had reached me, nor warning been
given of an addition to the players, I had not the smallest doubt who
was the speaker; but exclaimed at once, "That is Bab! Now I cry you
mercy. I am right this time. That was Bab!"
I looked for a burst of applause and laughter, such as had before
attended a good thrust home, but none came. On the contrary, with my
words so odd a silence fell upon the room that it was clear that
something was wrong, and I pulled off my handkerchief in haste,
repeating, "That was Bab, I am sure."
But if it was, I could not see her. What had come over them all?
Jack's face wore a provoking smile, and his friends were clearly bent
upon sniggering. Clare looked horrified, and grandmamma gently
titillated, while Miss Guest, who had risen and half turned away
towards the windows, seemed to be in a state of proud confusion. What
was the matter?
"I beg every one's pardon by anticipation," I said, looking round in a
bewildered way: "but have I said anything wrong?"
"Oh, dear no," cried the fellow they called Jack, with a familiarity
that was in the worst taste--as if I had meant to apologize to him!
"Most natural thing in the world!"
"Jack, how dare you?" exclaimed Miss Guest, stamping her foot.
"Well it seemed all right. It sounded very natural, I am sure."
"Oh, you are unbearable! Why don't you say something, Clare?"
"Mr. Herapath, I am sure that you did not know that my name was
Barbara."
"Certainly not," I cried. "What a strange thing!"
"But it is, and that is why grandmamma is looking so shocked, and Mr.
Buchanan is wearing threadbare an old friend's privilege of being
rude. I freely forgive you if you will make allowance for him. And you
shall come off the stool of repentance and have your tea first, since
you are the greatest stranger. It is a stupid game after all!"
She would hear no apologies from me. And when I would have asked why
her sister bore the same name, and thus excused myself, she was intent
upon tea-making, and the few moments I could with decency add to my
call gave me scant opportunity. I blush to think how I eked them out,
by what subservience to Clare, by what a slavish anxiety to help even
Jack to muffins--each piece I hoped might choke him. How slow I was to
find hat and gloves, calling to mind with terrible vividness, as I
turned my back upon the circle, that again and again in my experience,
an acquaintance begun by a dinner had ended with the consequent call.
And so I should have gone--it might have been so here--but that the
door-handle was stiff, and Miss Guest came to my aid, as I fumbled
with it. "We are always at home on Saturdays, if you like to call, Mr.
Herapath," she murmured carelessly, not lifting her eyes--and I found
myself in the street.
So carelessly she said it, that with a sudden change of feeling I
vowed I would not call. Why should I? Why should I worry myself with
the sight of those other fellows parading their favor? With the babble
of that society chit-chat, which I had so often scorned, and--and
still scorned, and had no part or concern in. They were not people
to suit me, or do me good. I would not go, I said, and repeated it
firmly on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday only so far modified it
that I thought at some distant time to leave a card--to avoid
discourtesy;--on Friday preferred an earlier date as wiser and more
polite, and on Saturday walked shame-faced down the street and knocked
and rang, and went upstairs--to taste a pleasant misery. Yes, and on
the next Saturday too, and the next, and the next; and that one on
which we all went to the theatre, and that other one on which Mr.
Guest kept me to dinner. Ay, and on other days that were not
Saturdays, among which two stand high out of the waters of
forgetfulness--high days indeed--days like twin pillars of Hercules,
through which I thought to reach, as did the seamen of old, I knew not
what treasures of unknown lands stretching away under the setting sun.
First that one on which I found Barbara Guest alone and blurted out
that I had the audacity to wish to make her my wife; and then heard,
before I had well--or badly--told my tale, the wheels of grandmamma's
chair outside.
"Hush!" the girl said, her face turned from me. "Hush, Mr. Herapath.
You don't know me, indeed. You have seen so little of me. Please say
nothing more about it. You are completely under a delusion."
"It is no delusion that I love you, Barbara!" I cried.
"It is, it is," she repeated, freeing her hand. "There, if you will
not take an answer--come--come at three to-morrow. But mind, I promise
you nothing--I promise you nothing," she added feverishly, and fled
from the room, leaving me to talk to grandmamma as best, and escape as
quickly as, I might.
I longed for a great fire that evening, and failing one, tired myself
by tramping unknown streets of the East-end, striving to teach myself
that any trouble to-morrow might bring was but a shadow, a sentiment,
a thing not to be mentioned in the same breath with the want and toil
of which I caught glimpses up each street and lane that opened to
right and left. In the main, of course, I failed: but the effort did
me good, sending me home tired out, to sleep as soundly as if I were
going to be hanged next day, and not--which is a very different
thing--to be put upon my trial.
"I will tell Miss Guest you are here, sir," the man said. I looked at
all the little things in the room which I had come to know well--her
workbasket, the music upon the piano, the table-easel, her
photograph--and wondered if I were to see them no more, or if they
were to become a part of my every-day life. Then I heard her come in,
and turned quickly, feeling that I should learn my fate from her
greeting.
"Bab!" The word was rung from me perforce. And then we stood and
looked at one another, she with a strange pride and defiance in her
eyes, though her cheek was dark with blushes, and I with wonder and
perplexity in mine,--wonder and perplexity that quickly grew into a
conviction, a certainty that the girl standing before me in the
short-skirted brown dress with tangled hair and loose neck-ribbon was
the Bab I had known in Norway; and yet that the eyes--I could not
mistake them now, no matter what unaccustomed look they might
wear--were Barbara Guest's!
"Miss Guest--Barbara," I stammered, grappling with the truth, "why
have you played this trick upon me?"
"It is Miss Guest and Barbara now," she cried, with a mocking
courtesy. "Do you remember, Mr. Herapath, when it was Bab? When you
treated me as a kind of toy, and a plaything, with which you might be
as intimate as you liked; and hurt my feelings--yes, it is weak to
confess it, I know--day by day, and hour by hour?"
"But surely, that is forgiven now?" I said, dazed by an attack so
sudden and so bitter. "It is atonement enough that I am at your feet
now, Barbara!"
"You are not," she retorted hotly. "Don't say you have offered love to
me, who am the same with the child you teased at Breistolen. You have
fallen in love with my fine clothes, and my pearls and my maid's work,
not with me. You have fancied the girl you saw other men make much of.
But you have not loved the woman who might have prized that which Miss
Guest has never learned to value."
"How old are you?" I said, hoarsely.
"Nineteen!" she snapped out. And then for a moment we were both
silent.
"I begin to understand now," I answered slowly as soon as I could
conquer something in my throat. "Long ago when I hardly knew you, I
hurt your woman's pride; and since that you have plotted----"
"No, you have tricked yourself!"
"And schemed to bring me to your feet that you might have the pleasure
of trampling on me. Miss Guest, your triumph is complete, more
complete than you are able to understand. I loved you this morning
above all the world--as my own life--as every hope I had. See, I tell
you this that you may have a moment's keener pleasure when I am gone."