“TOO LATE!”
Two days after that of the incident with Liz Lee, Harold Faradeane
walked with his slow, firm step up to the Grange, and inquired for
Mr. Vanley, and as he stood in the drawing-room, to which the footman
had conducted him, his handsome face wore a look of half-bitter,
half-cynical self-contempt. Only a few days ago he had assured Bertie
that nothing would induce him to emerge from his seclusion, and here he
was returning the squire’s visit.
“No man is so great a fool as he who knows himself to be one!” he
muttered; then, as the door opened, he turned to greet the squire.
He was received by the squire as if the latter had quite forgotten that
he had been refused admittance to The Dell; and Mr. Faradeane was too
cultivated a gentleman to offer any apologies for the denial.
The two men got into conversation at once, and the squire, who had been
much prejudiced against the newcomer, almost unconsciously began to be
“taken” with him. The grave and self-restrained manner and the handsome
face, which had fascinated Olivia, prepossessed her father.
Whatever mystery hung like a dark cloud about Mr. Faradeane, it was
patent that he was a gentleman, and anything but one of the common or
garden kind. No matter what topic the squire started, his visitor could
converse upon it, and, what was more, evidently knew something about it.
And he talked in that most pleasing of fashions, as if he were talking
for the sake of hearing what his host had to say, and with the easy
deference which marks the man of good birth and breeding and high
refinement.
Nearly three-quarters of an hour passed before Mr. Faradeane, glancing
at the clock on the mantelshelf, rose, and said:
“I have detained you an unconscionable time, Mr. Vanley; but, indeed,
that is more your fault than mine.”
“You have not detained me at all,” responded the squire, in his quiet,
direct way. “I am an old man, and am delighted to meet with one so well
informed, and, permit me to add, so good a talker as yourself. You must
have seen a great deal of life, Mr. Faradeane.”
A grave look seemed to settle for a moment on the handsome face, and
the dark eyes grew momentarily sadder, and the squire instantly saw
that he had touched a tender spot; but almost immediately the younger
man replied, with a smile:
“Yes, more than most men of my years, sir.”
“I am afraid you will find Hawkwood rather dull, and the inhabitants
very old fogies; but we must do our best to amuse you. I don’t know
whether you care for fishing; if you do, I hope you will flog the river
as often as you please. I am afraid to say how long it is since I threw
a fly.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Faradeane. “Yes, I am an angler.”
“And in the autumn I can promise you some fair shooting. The keepers
tell me that the birds are looking well. I hope you intend staying with
us. We’ve a very good pack of foxhounds, and I know that you ride, for
I have heard one of my grooms expatiating on the fine qualities of your
horse.”
“Thank you again, sir,” said Mr. Faradeane. “He is a fairish hunter,
and a very good companion. Yes, I intend remaining for some time, I
hope, in Hawkwood. I have purchased The Dell, as you may have heard.”
“Yes,” assented the squire, almost reddening angrily as he thought of
the unwarranted suspicions Mr. Sparrow had given expression to about
the newcomer.
“I came to The Dell for rest,” said Mr. Faradeane, “and had intended
playing the hermit, but”--and the rare smile shone in his eyes for a
moment--“but your kindness has rendered that impossible.”
“I should think so,” returned the squire, with unusual heartiness.
“You are not the stuff of which hermits are made, Mr. Faradeane, and
I am only afraid we shall trespass on your good nature. Hawkwood does
not get a novelty very often, and will, very properly, regard you as
an acquisition. I understand my sister Amelia has already cajoled you
into assisting at one of her local enterprises. Take care! If you give
an inch to one of these charitable ladies, they will take an ell!”
“It is a very small inch,” said Harold Faradeane, simply. “I am only
going to recite at some penny readings.”
“And the next thing she will want you to do will be to take a tray at a
tea-meeting,” said the squire, with a laugh.
“Would that be very difficult?” inquired the younger man, with such
quaint gravity that the squire burst into a laugh of keen appreciation.
It happened that Olivia was passing through the hall at the moment, and
the sound of her father’s laughter, which had become so rare of late,
almost startled her.
“Who is in the drawing-room?” she asked of the butler.
“The squire, miss, and Mr. Faradeane of The Dell,” he replied.
Olivia stopped short with a sudden throb of her heart that sent the
blood to her face, and she bent down and gathered the skirt of her
habit--she had just come in from a gallop--to hide it.
“Mr. Faradeane, the new gentleman, miss,” said the butler, and he moved
toward the door as if to open it for her, but Olivia shook her head.
“No, I am not going in,” she said, and went quickly upstairs. As she
did so, the drawing-room opened, and she heard the squire say, in his
most genial tone--the tone which indicated that he was peculiarly well
pleased, “You must let me show you round the old place, Mr. Faradeane,”
and she paused and listened for the grave, musical voice replying in
the affirmative; then, leaning over the old oak balustrade, looked down
at them as they passed out, with a strange expression on her lovely
face--an expression which it had never yet worn for any man she had
seen!
The squire and Mr. Faradeane made their way round the grounds, and
presently, as if unconsciously, the elder man linked his arm within
that of the younger, an action very unusual with the squire, and one
which indicated the favorable impression his visitor had made upon him.
“It is a very beautiful place,” said Mr. Faradeane, when they had made
the round of the flower gardens and lawns, and looked in at the great,
walled garden, with its hundreds of peach and nectarine trees, and at
the long length of green-houses in which the gardener grew the choice
flowers which would, if he had entered them, have taken the first prize
at all the local shows, “a very beautiful place; I think it would be
sinful not to be proud of it, Mr. Vanley.”
The squire looked at him with a nod of appreciation, then suddenly his
face clouded, and he stifled a sigh.
“There is plenty of room for improvement,” he said, as if to account
for the sigh.
“There always is,” said Faradeane. “Fortunately, no place is
perfect--we should tire of it very soon if it were. Don’t you think a
plantation on that rise to the left of the lawn would be a good thing?”
The squire nodded.
“Yes,” he said, moodily. “Yes; but it would cost----” He stopped and
glanced at the handsome face quickly. “I’m afraid you think I must be
very niggardly to grudge a few hundreds for so evident an improvement;
but----”
He paused; and Faradeane, with the tact which seemed so easy when he
chose to display it, said:
“In these days no man has too much money.”
“That is true,” assented the squire, as if glad of the excuse so
pleasantly offered. “Quite true; these are hard times for us landlords
everywhere.”
“Indeed they are,” acquiesced Faradeane.
The squire looked at him.
“Are you one of the unfortunate army of landowners?” he inquired.
Faradeane paused for half a second, then he laughed.
“You forget that I am the landlord of The Dell, and quite half an acre
of garden land! And that reminds me that I must be going. Thank you
very much, Mr. Vanley.”
The squire shook the strong, shapely hand warmly, and stood for a
moment looking after the tall, patrician figure as it made its way with
strong, easy stride across the grass; then he went back to the house
with a grave, wistful face. Perhaps he was wishing that Heaven had
given him such a son as a brother to his precious Olivia; or, perhaps
he was thinking of the plantation and the hard times which made the
expenditure of the “few hundreds” not only difficult, but impossible.
Olivia was standing at the door, waiting for him.
“You have had a visitor, papa?” she said, quietly, and in the tone
one uses when one has rehearsed a speech--almost too careless and
indifferent.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “Mr. Faradeane. He has just gone. I am sorry you
were not in to see him.”
“Was he worth seeing, then?” said Olivia, still too carelessly.
“He is one of the most cultivated men I have ever met,” replied the
squire, warmly and emphatically, “and when I think of the absurd
nonsense old Sparrow talked the other day, I am inclined to call him an
idiot. Mr. Faradeane is a gentleman every inch of him, and one of the
most charming young men possible.”
“I am very glad you like him, as he is so near a neighbor,” she said.
“Yes, liking is the word. He has quite taken a hold on me. The reason
for his coming and burying himself at The Dell may be a mystery, but it
is no unworthy one; I am quite convinced of that. He talks admirably;
not with the straining after-effect which is the great vice of the
present day, but with the pleasant manner of a man who wants to hear
you as well as himself. By the way, your aunt has caught him for that
entertainment of hers on the twenty-ninth. Do you think he would dine
with us?”
“Do I think?” replied Olivia, raising her dark brows with a smile. “You
know more of Mr. Faradeane than I do, papa? What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” said the squire, thoughtfully. “I’ve an idea that he
forced himself to call, and that he might decline. It isn’t pride;
no, that man couldn’t foster so vulgar a sentiment; not pride, but a
strange kind of reserve that crops up now and again in his manner and
conversation. Strange! Perhaps it is some past trouble. Well, we can
but ask him.”
Olivia turned her head aside, and toyed with a branch of Virginia
creeper.
“Very well, papa; any one else?”
“Eh? Oh, yes, if you like. Bartley Bradstone and Bertie. Bertie likes
him, I’m sure; and Annie and Mary Penstone. As many as you like--no,
don’t make it a large party. I fancy he would prefer a very small one.”
“You are more considerate of Mr. Faradeane’s whims and fancies than you
usually are of other people’s, papa,” she said, with a smile.
He looked at her as if the same idea had struck him.
“Am I? Well, I’ve taken a fancy to him, I suppose; at any rate, I
should like to know more of him. Ask him, and see what he says.”
Faradeane was sitting at his desk writing, when, the next morning, a
groom rode over with the invitation, and he took it and looked at the
address, in Olivia’s handwriting, for a good minute before opening the
envelope. Then he read the short, formal note, and reread it; got up
and lit a pipe, and paced up and down with the letter in his hand, a
troubled, wistful expression on his face, an expression of hesitation,
over which longing predominated.
“Too late!” he muttered; “too late to draw back now. I have passed the
Rubicon, and yet--oh, fool! fool!”
Then he sat down and wrote a formal acceptation.
People did not refuse an invitation to dine at the Grange unless they
were positively compelled, for the squire’s dinners were as nearly
perfect as they could be; and those who did not set their hearts on
the dinner found the prospect of a couple of hours spent in the Grange
drawing-room, with Olivia to talk to and perhaps to sing for them,
equally irresistible; and all the guests the squire had named to Olivia
came up to time on the twenty-ninth.
It was an early dinner, for the entertainment commenced at eight, and
all but the squire, whom wild horses would not have drawn out of his
house after dinner to an entertainment, were going to Aunt Amelia’s
concert.
Annie and Mary Penstone had driven over in the afternoon to snatch a
very precious quiet hour with Olivia, and they were both on the tiptoe
of feverish curiosity and excitement about the mysterious Mr. Faradeane.
“Is he so very strange, Olly dear?” asked Mary, eagerly, and in a
hushed voice. “We hear such extraordinary stories--all invented, of
course--but do tell us! What is he like? Of course, we know he is
handsome. Annie says that he is the handsomest man she has ever seen;
but that’s nonsense while Lord Granville is here. What does he seem
like? What does he talk about?”
“Papa could tell you better than I can,” replied Olivia, smiling. “I
have only spoken to him once or twice. He has a very pleasant voice
and--but you heard him speak at the picnic.”
“Oh, yes, wasn’t that awful! I shall never forget the look of his eyes!
If he had looked at me like that, so--so, not contemptuously quite, but
so calmly and indifferently--I can’t express it--as he looked at Mr.
Bradstone, I should have gone through the ground!”
“Like one of the patent tube wells,” said Olivia.
“Don’t laugh at me. I mean what I say, dear,” said Mary, pouting. “I’m
sure I shall be afraid to speak to him, in case he should snub me. He
looks as if he could be awfully severe.”
“He is not, I assure you; a child could play with him,” said Olivia.
“There you are, laughing again. It’s all very well for you; of course,
he’d be nice to you, everybody always is; nobody could be otherwise to
such a dear, beautiful girl; but poor Annie and me----”
“Poor Annie and me will be quite safe,” laughed Olivia. “Mr. Faradeane
does not even bark, least of all bite.”
This was a few minutes before dinner, and the entrance of Bertie and
Bartley Bradstone stopped the interesting conversation.
“We are only waiting for Mr. Faradeane,” said the squire, glancing at
his watch, after the usual greetings had been got through.
“Faradeane?” said Bartley Bradstone as he stood in an easy--too
easy--attitude, his evening suit cut in the very last fashion, and
a costly diamond blazing in the center of his white shirt-front.
“Faradeane? Is he coming?” and his brows came down with the
half-sullen, half-suspicious frown.
“Yes,” said the squire, “and I am glad to say we have struck up a
friendship. He is one of the pleasantest men----”
“He might be polite as well as pleasant,” said Bartley Bradstone,
looking at his watch. “It isn’t quite the thing for a newcomer to keep
us all waiting.”
Bertie cut in quickly.
“It wants two minutes to six,” he said; “your watch is fast, Mr.
Bradstone.”
“It’s one of Dent & Frodsham’s chronometers,” he retorted.
“It’s fast all the same,” said Bertie, firmly, but pleasantly. “I timed
mine at the station an hour or two ago.”
Before Bartley Bradstone could meet this argument, the door opened, and
the footman announced Mr. Faradeane, and the great hall clock chimed
the hour.
Every eye was, not unnaturally, turned upon the latest guest, and
Olivia thought that Annie was right as she glanced at the tall figure
and handsome face. Unlike Mr. Bartley Bradstone, his dress-suit was not
in the latest cut, and instead of a blazing diamond was a plain black
pearl.
An expression of approval shone in the squire’s eyes, for Faradeane’s
appearance in evening dress confirmed the squire in his good opinion of
him.
“You have just come in time to prevent a duel of time-pieces,” he said.
Aunt Amelia simpered.
“I, at any rate, was sure Mr. Faradeane was not late,” said she,
graciously.
“Then, as a reward, you shall be taken in by him,” said the squire,
offering his arm to Mary. Bertie, the highest in rank, escorted Annie;
and, Faradeane having Aunt Amelia, Olivia was left to Bartley Bradstone.
“This is a rough-and-scramble meal,” said the squire, as the butler
lifted the cover from the fish, “but if you will perpetrate such
follies as penny readings, you must pay the penalty.”
“My brother ridicules our humble efforts to amuse and instruct our
brethren, Mr. Faradeane; but he is always doing good himself, which he
never mentions.”
“Nor permits any one else to mention,” said the squire.
“‘Do not let your right hand know what your left hand doeth,’ as the
man said who put a bad shilling in the collecting-box,” said Faradeane.
Annie and Mary almost started. Was this the mysterious stranger whose
dark, contemptuous eyes had smitten them with awe? And could it be
possible that his first words should be a frivolous jest? They began by
being astonished, and continued so during the whole of the meal, for
Mr. Faradeane, if he did not quite “set the table in a roar,” kept them
all perpetually amused.
If it had not been so perfectly natural and free from the appearance
of effort, it would almost have seemed as if he were playing the part
of the wit with a purpose; but the musical voice was quite easy and
unstrained, and the dark eyes were cloudless and unreserved. The squire
glowed with sympathetic delight as epigram after epigram fell quite
naturally from his guest, and Bertie’s eyes sparkled with fun as he
laughed at the dry humor and happy repartee.
Only two persons seemed unmoved. One was Bartley Bradstone, who sat in
half-sullen, half-envious silence, taking no part in the conversation
beyond a monosyllabic response, and inwardly and palpably chafing at
the success the newcomer was obviously making.
The other was Olivia. At first she had smiled with the rest, but
presently she happened to glance round the _épergne_ which stood
between her and Mr. Faradeane, and at that instant she caught his face
off its guard, as it were, and saw a strange sadness falling like
a shadow on his eyes and hovering about his lips. It was gone in a
moment, but its remembrance haunted her, and she knew that the wit and
the humor and the light-heartedness were assumed, and magnificently
assumed, to hide some secret sorrow.
And as she listened as he told a story which convulsed Bertie and Annie
and Mary, and made the squire laugh the hearty laugh which was so
rare with him, there flashed upon her the well-known anecdote of the
comedian who succeeded in convulsing a theatre with laughter while his
thoughts were fixed upon his favorite child, who lay dying while he
played.
“A most delightful man!” exclaimed Aunt Amelia, as the ladies filed
into the drawing-room. “I never laughed so much in my life.”
“Nor I!” exclaimed Mary and Annie. “And he scarcely smiled himself.
Did you see the squire laugh, Olly, dear? Why, he isn’t at all what I
fancied he would be! I’m not a bit afraid of him. But you didn’t seem
so amused, dear; you didn’t laugh scarcely at all. Why was that?” and
she wound her arm round Olivia’s waist.
“It’s because I’m so stupid,” replied Olivia. “You must make
allowances, Annie.”
Meanwhile the butler--who had only succeeded in maintaining his solemn
gravity through the dinner by going out into the hall and getting rid
of his laughter--had placed the Hawkwood port on the table, and left
the gentlemen to discuss it.
“You have a wonderful memory, Faradeane----No, that’s unfair, a
wonderful vein of humor, I ought to say,” said the squire.
Faradeane, who had sunk into his chair after the ladies’ exodus, looked
up with a slight start. “Your first remark is the right one,” he said;
“I have a good memory.”
“Yes,” said Bartley Bradstone. “It reminds me of Russell, who said once
in the House that ‘a man was indebted to his memory for his wit, and to
his imagination for his facts.’”
There was a moment of ghostly silence; then Faradeane said, with
perfect ease and amiability:
“Quite right, Mr. Bradstone, your quotation hits me to a nicety. I have
a good memory.”
“I’ve heard most of the stories a score of times,” said Bartley
Bradstone, filling his glass.
“And I haven’t heard one,” said the squire; “but I have been out of the
world so long.”
“You couldn’t have heard them, squire,” said Bertie, warmly, “seeing
that Faradeane invented them on the spot.”
“Not all, Cherub,” put in Faradeane, with a faint smile.
“Well, nearly all. I remember you telling that one about Limerick
races----” He stopped and caught at his wine glass as Faradeane’s eyes
grew grave and warning. “I mean I remember that story years ago.”
“I never heard it before,” said the squire, “and am just as grateful
as if Mr. Faradeane had invented it,” and he laughed. “Well, now, take
some wine, for we must have a cup of tea with the ladies before you
start.”
Bartley Bradstone filled his glass, but Faradeane and Bertie left
theirs empty, and a few minutes afterward they went into the
drawing-room.