my arms as she fell. Beard and long hair, and scar and sunburn, and
strange dress--these which had deceived others were no disguise to
her--my wife. I bore her gently to the couch, and hung over her in a
new paroxysm of fear. "A doctor! Quick! A doctor!" I cried to Mrs.
Williams, who was already kneeling beside her. "Do not tell me," I
added piteously, "that I have killed her!"
"No! no! no!" the good woman answered, the tears running down her
face. "Joy does not kill!"
An hour later this fear had been lifted from me, and I was walking up
and down the library alone with my thankfulness; glad to be alone, yet
more glad, more thankful still, when John came in with a beaming face.
"You have come to tell me," I cried eagerly, pleased that the tidings
had come by his lips, "to go to her? That she will see me?"
"Her ladyship is sitting up," he replied.
"And Lord Wetherby?" I asked, pausing at the door to put the question.
"He left the house at once?"
"Yes, my lord, Mr. Wigram has been gone some time."
A BLORE MANOR
EPISODE.
Not very remarkable was this courtship: there was nothing very strange
about it, or more romantic than is apt to be the case with such
things. I doubt not that since the daughters of the children of men
were wooed, there have been many millions of such May-time passages of
greater interest, and that countless Pauls and Virginias have plucked
the sweet spring flowers together amid more picturesque surroundings.
Every matron--and some maids, if they will, though we deprecate the
omen--can recall at least one wooing which she can vouch as a thousand
million times more extraordinary than that of my commonplace hero and
heroine. That is so: but for that very reason let her read of this
one, and taking off the cover of her own potpourri savor some faint
scent of the dewy roses of the past springtime.
It had its origin in the 12:10 down train from Euston to Holyhead,
which carried, among other passengers, Charles Maitland of the Temple,
barrister by theory and idler by, or for want of, practice. He
traveled first-class. When you come to know him better you will
understand how superfluous was this last piece of information. Ten
minutes before the train was due out, he arrived at the station
in a hansom. A silk hat, a well-fitting light overcoat--the weather,
for March, was mild--gray trousers, and brown gaiters over his
patent-leather boots were the most salient details of a costume of
which the chief characteristic was an air of perfect correctness. At
the bookstall he did not linger, culling with loving eyes the backs of
many books, and reveling in his choice with florin in hand, as do
second-class passengers, but without hesitation he purchased a
_Saturday Review_ and a _Cornhill Magazine_. After he had taken his
seat a Smith's boy invited him to select from a tray, upon which
glowed half a dozen novels; but he gazed sublimely into vacancy over
the boy's head; who soon left him, and prompted by a vengeful spirit
only inferior to his precocious knowledge of passenger nature,
directed upon him the attacks of two kindred sprites with Banbury
cakes and British sherry. The window was slight protection against
their shrill voices, but soon the train started and freed him from
them. He changed his hat for a brown deer-stalker, and having the
compartment to himself, had recourse to his own thoughts. It was not
unlikely, he told himself, that he had been precipitate in undertaking
this journey. An Easter, coming somewhat early, seemed to have
forestalled his wonted invitations for that season: and, to stay in
London being out of the question, he had accepted Tom Quaritch's
offer. He began to have doubts of the wisdom of this course now, but
it was too late. He was bound for Tom Quaritch's. He had known
something of Tom at college; and recently he had done him a slight
service in town. No more genial soul than the latter existed, and he
did not rest satisfied until he had won from Maitland a half promise
to come and see his beagles at Easter. At the time our traveler had
but the remotest idea of doing so. He did not know enough of Tom's
people, while to have the acquaintance of the right people and of no
one else was part of his creed. But now he was between the horns of a
dilemma. These people, of whom he knew nothing, might not be the right
people; that was one horn. The other consisted in the fact that to
spend a vacation in town was not the thing. When we have chosen our
horn it is natural it should seem the sharper of the two. Mr. Charles
Maitland frowned as he cut the pages of his _Cornhill_. And then he
made up his mind to two things. Firstly, to bring his stay at Blore
Manor within the smallest possible limits, and secondly, to comport
himself while there with such a formal courtesy as should encourage
only the barest familiarity.
At Stafford he had to change into another train, which he did, even as
he cut his magazine, with characteristic precision and coolness. And
so he reached Blore Station about half-past five, still neat and
unsullied, with all the aroma of the street of scents about him.
He let down the window and put out his head. The country thereabouts
was flat and uninteresting, the farming untidy, the fences low, yet
straggling. A short distance away a few roofs peeping forth from a
clump of trees, above which the smoke gently curled, marked the
village. The station consisted of a mere shed and a long, bare
platform. There were but five persons visible, and of these one was a
porter, and one a man servant in a quiet, countrified livery. The
latter walked quickly toward him, but was forestalled by three girls,
the other occupants of the platform, who, at sight of the stranger,
came tearing from the far end of it at a headlong pace.
"Here he is! Here he is!" cried the foremost, her shrill voice drawing
a dozen heads to the windows of the train. She owed her success to an
extempore tug in the form of an excited bull terrier, which, dragging
violently at a strap attached to her wrist, jerked her after him much
as if she had been a kettle tied to his tail. She might be anything
between twenty and five-and-twenty--a tiny little creature of almost
fairylike proportions. Her color was high and her hair brown; she had
curiously opaque brown eyes, bright as well as opaque. Gloves she had
none, and her hair was disordered by her struggles with the dog. But,
after all, the main impression she made upon Maitland was that she was
excessively small. He had no eyes for the others at present. But one,
owing to the reckless method of her progression, gave him a dim notion
of being all legs.
"You are Mr. Maitland, are you not?" the first comer began volubly,
though loss of breath interfered a little with the symmetry of her
sentences. "Tom had to attend a meeting of the fox committee at
Annerley. I'm Maggie Quaritch, and this is Dubs--I beg your pardon,
how silly of me--Joan, I mean, and this is Agnes. Why, child, what
have you done with your hat? Pick it up at once! What wild things Mr.
Maitland will think us!"
The youngest girl, whose hat was lying upon the platform some distance
away, hung her head in a very pretty attitude of shy _gaucherie_. She
was about fifteen--rising sixteen in her brother's phrase--and taller
than the elder girls, with a peculiarly pale complexion, greenish-gray
eyes, and a mass of brownish-red hair. Her loosely made dress was more
in consonance with her style than Maitland, staggering under the shock
of such a reception, had time or mind to observe. He formally
acknowledged the introductions, but words did not come easily to him.
He was dumfounded. He was so unaccustomed to this, or to people like
these.
"And we must not forget Bill," resumed Miss Quaritch, if possible,
faster than before. "Isn't he a beauty now, Mr. Maitland? Look at his
chest, look at his head, look at his eyes. Yes, he lost that one in a
fight with Jack Madeley's retriever, and I'm afraid the sight of the
other is going, but he's the most beautiful, loveliest, faithfullest
dog in the whole world for all that, and his mother loves him, she
does!" All in a shrill tone, rising a note perhaps with the final
words.
The train was moving out. The last that the twelve faces, still glued
to the carriage windows, beheld of the scene was Miss Quaritch
rapturously kissing and hugging the bull terrier, while the Londoner
looked on sheepishly. He was horribly conscious of the presence of
those grinning faces and suffered as much until the train left as if
the onlookers had been a dozen of his club comrades. Whereas the fact
was that they found whatever amusement the scene afforded them not in
the girl's enthusiasm--she was young enough to gush prettily--but in
the strange gentleman's awkward consciousness.
"Now, Mr. Maitland, shall Abiah drive you up in the dog cart, or will
you walk with us? Agnes!" this suddenly in a loud scream to the
youngest girl, who had moved away, "you can let out the dogs! Down,
Juno! Go down, Jack o' Pack! Roy, you ill-conditioned little dog, you
are always quarreling! I'm afraid they will make you in a dreadful
pickle."
Indeed it seemed to Maitland that they would. An avalanche of
scurrying dogs descended upon him from some receptacle where they had
been penned. He had a vision of a red Irish setter with soft brown
eyes, not unlike to, but far finer than Miss Maggie's, with its paws
momentarily upon the breast of his overcoat; of a couple of wiry fox
terriers skirmishing and snarling round his trousers, and of a shy,
lop-eared beagle puppy casting miserable glances at them from an
outside place. And then the party got under way in some sort of order.
At first Maitland had much ado to answer yes and no.
He was still bewildered by these things, crushed, confounded.
He could have groaned as he sedately explained at what time he left
Euston, and where he changed. He was conscious that when their
attention was not demanded by the pack of dogs, the girls were
covertly scrutinizing him; but in his present state of mind, it
mattered not a straw to him whether they were calling him a prig, and
a "stick," and affected, and supercilious, or were admiring half in
scorn the fit of his clothes and boots, and his lordly air. All these
remarks were in fact made by some one or other of them before the day
was over. But he was, and would have been, supremely indifferent to
their criticisms.
The weight of the conversation did not fall heavily upon him: indeed,
when Miss Quaritch had a share in it, no one else was overburdened.
And from time to time they met upon the road old women or children to
whom the girls had always something to say. It was, "Well, Mrs.
Marjoram, and so the donkey is better," or, "Now, Johnny, get along
home to your mother," or, "How are you, daddy?" in the high-pitched
key so trying to the cockney's ear.
In these parleys Joan, the second girl, was foremost. Maitland glanced
at her. A young man may be very fastidious, but neck-ribbons awry and
brown hair in rich disorder do not entirely close his eyes to a
maiden's comeliness. It would be strange if they did, were she such an
one as Joan Quaritch. Not tall, yet tall enough, with a full, rounded
figure, to which her dress hardly did, hardly could do, justice, she
moved with the grace and freedom of perfect health. Her fair
complexion could afford to have its clearness marred by a freckle or
two, such as hers, mere clots in cream; and if her features were not
perfect, yet a nose too straight and a chin too heavy were more than
redeemed by great gray eyes that, sunny or tearful, could be nothing
but true--eyes whose frankness and good fellowship aggravated the
wounds they inflicted. Why she was called "Dubs" I cannot tell.
Perhaps no one can. But, in her good nature and her truth, her simple
pride and independence, it suited her.
He had just, to quote the language of this cynic's thoughts,
catalogued the last of the Graces, when the party reached the house,
which stood some way back from the road. Tom Quaritch had just
returned, and welcomed the guest warmly; his mother met Maitland at
the drawing-room door. She was a singularly comely woman, stately and
somewhat formal. Her greeting so differed from that of her daughters
that the visitor found himself speculating upon the extraordinary
flightiness of the late Mr. Quaritch. Wherein I doubt not he did him
injustice.
At dinner our hero had in some degree recovered himself, and he told
them the latest news of the theaters, the clubs, and the book world,
and while their ignorance filled him with a wonder he did not hide,
their attention propitiated him. He talked well, and if he was
inclined to lord it a little, a shrewd word from Mrs. Quaritch, or a
demure glance from Miss Joan's eyes, would lower his didactic tone.
The youngest girl promised to be an especial thorn in his side.
"Does everyone in London wear shiny boots in the daytime, Mr.
Maitland?" she asked suddenly, _a propos des bottes_, and nothing
else.
"A considerable number do, Miss Agnes."
"What sort of people? No, I'm not being rude, mother."
"Well, I hardly know how to answer that. The idle people, perhaps." He
smiled indulgently, which aggravated the young lady. She replied,
crumbling her bread the while in an absent, meditative way, her eyes
innocently fixed on his face:
"Then you are one of the idle people, Mr. Maitland? I don't think I
like idle people."
"How singularly unselfish of you, my dear Agnes!" put in Joan
vigorously--more vigorously than politely.
Maitland's last reflection as he got into bed was that he was quite
out of place here. These might be very nice people in their way, but
not in his way. He must make his visit as short as possible, and
forget all about it as quickly as he could. The girls would be
insufferable when they came to know him familiarly. Good gracious!
fancy young ladies who had never heard of "John Inglesant," or of W.
D. Howells' books, and confused the Grosvenor Gallery with the Water
Color Exhibition! and read Longfellow! and had but vague ideas of the
aesthetic! Miss Joan was pretty too, yes, really pretty, and had fine
eyes and a pleasant voice, and fine eyes--yes, fine eyes. And with
this thought he fell comfortably asleep.
He came down next morning to find her alone in the breakfast room. A
short-skirted beagling costume of scarlet and blue allowed him a
glimpse of neat ankles in scarlet hose. She was kneeling before the
fire playing with Roy. Her brown wavy hair fell in a heavy loose loop
upon her neck, and there was something wonderfully bright and fresh in
her whole appearance.
"How quickly you have fallen in with our barbarous ways!" she said
with a smile, as she rose. "I did not expect you to be up for hours
yet."
"I generally breakfast at nine, and it is nearly that now," he
answered, annoyed by some hint of raillery in her tone, and yet unable
to conceal a glance of admiration. "I think I must adopt the Blore
breakfast hour; it seems, Miss Joan, to agree with you all so well."
"Yes," was the indifferent reply; "we get the first of the three
rewards for early rising. The other two we leave for our betters."
And she turned away with a little nod as the others came in. In five
minutes a noisy, cheerful breakfast was in progress, and the chances
of finding a hare formed the all-engrossing subject of conversation.
On this calm gray morning, warm rather than cold, the little pack, to
the great delight of the household, found quickly, and found well. No
October leveret was before them, but a good, stout old hare, who gave
them a ringing run of two hours, the pleasure of which was not
materially diminished when she baffled them at last in the mysterious
way these old hares affect and huntsmen fail to fathom. The visitor
performed creditably, though in indifferent training. At Oxford he had
been something of a crack, and could still upon occasion forget to
keep his boots clean and his clothes intact.
Returning home, Maitland found himself again with Joan. The heat and
pleasure of the chase had for the time melted his reserve and thawed
his resolution. He talked well and freely to her of a great London
hospital over which one of the house surgeons had recently taken him;
of the quiet and orderliness of the lone, still wards; of the feeling
that came over him there that life was all suffering and death; and
how quickly in the bustle of the London streets, where the little
world of the hospital seemed distant and unreal, this impression faded
away. She listened eagerly, and he, tasting a stealthy and stolen
pleasure in seeing how deep and pitiful the gray eyes could grow,
prolonged his tale.
"I have enjoyed hearing about it so much," she said gratefully, as
they entered the village. And indeed she had passed several people
upon the road without a word of greeting. "I hope to be a nurse soon.
The dear mother does not think me old enough yet."
"You are going to be a nurse!" he said in tones of such incredulous
surprise that the amusement which first appeared in her face changed
to annoyance.
"Why not? One does not need a knowledge of art and the newest books
for that," she sharply answered.
"Perhaps not," he said feebly. "But after such a life as this, it--the
change I mean--would be so complete."
She looked at him, an angry gleam in her eyes, and the color high in
her cheeks.
"Do you think, Mr. Maitland, that because we run wild--oh, no, you
have not said so--and seem to do nothing but enjoy ourselves, we are
incapable of anything beyond hunting and playing tennis, and feeding
the dogs and the hens and the chickens? That we cannot have a thought
beyond pleasure, or a wish to do good like other people--people in
London? That we can never look beyond Blore--though Blore, I can tell
you, would manage ill without some of us!--nor have an aspiration
above the kennels and the--and the stables? If you do think so, I
trust you are wrong."
He would have answered humbly, but she was gone into the house in huge
indignation, leaving our friend strangely uncomfortable. It was just
twenty-four hours since his arrival: the opinion of one at least of
the madcaps had ceased to be a matter of indifference to him. The
change occurred to himself as he mounted the stairs, so that he
laughed when alone in his room and resolved to keep away from that
girl for the future. How handsome she had looked when she was flying
out at him, and how generous seemed her anger even at the time!
Somehow the prospect of the four days he had still to spend at Blore
was not so depressing as at first. Certainly the vista was shortened
by one day, and that may have been the reason.
Meanwhile Maggie, in her sister's bedroom, had much to say of the
day's doings. "Didn't he go well? My word! he is not half so stiff as
I thought him. I believe he'd be a very good fellow if he had some of
the conceit taken out of him."
"I think he's insufferable," was the chilling answer from Joan; "he
considers us savages, and treats us as such."
"He may consider us fit for the Zoo, if he likes; it won't hurt us,"
quoth Maggie indifferently. With which Joan expressed neither assent
nor dissent, but brushed her hair a little faster.
Maitland did not for a moment abandon his fresh resolution. Still he
thought he owed it to himself to set the matter right with the young
lady before he stiffened anew. As he descended he met her running up
two steps at a time.
"Miss Joan, I am afraid I vexed you just now," he said, with grave
humility. "Will you believe it unintentional--stupid, on my part, and
grant me your pardon?"
"Oh, dear!" she cried gayly. "We are not used to this here. It is
quite King Cophetua and the beggar maid." She dropped him a mock
courtesy, and held out her hand in token of amity, when the full
signification of what she had said rushed into her mind and flooded
her face with crimson. Without another word or look she fled upstairs,
and he heard her door bang behind her.
Mr. Charles Maitland, after this _rencontre_, went down smiling
grimly. In the hall he stood for a moment in deep thought; then sagely
shook his head several times at a stuffed fox and joined the party in
the drawing room.
[Illustration: MR. CHARLES MAITLAND, AFTER THIS RENCONTRE, WENT DOWN
SMILING GRIMLY.]
The next day and the next passed with surprising quickness, as the
latter days of a visit always do. In another forty-eight hours
Maitland's would be over. Yet singularly enough his spirits did not
rise, as he expected they would, at the near prospect of release. As
he closed his bedroom door he had a vision of a pair of gray eyes
smiling into his, and his palm seemed still to tingle with the touch
of a soft, warm hand. He had kept his resolution well--small credit to
him. Joan had seemed to avoid him since her unlucky speech upon the
stairs; when she did speak to him her words, or more often her tone,
stung him, and he smarted under a sense that she repaid with interest
the small account in which he was inclined to hold the family
generally. He resented her veiled contempt with strange bitterness, so
that Agnes remarked with her usual candor that he and Joan never spoke
to one another save to "jangle." Afterward, walking on the lawn, some
line about "sweet bells jangled out of tune," ran in his head. The
girl was a vixen, he said to himself, yet he tried to imagine how
tender and glorious the great gray eyes, that he only knew as cold or
saucy or defiant, could be when their depths were stirred by love. But
his imagination failing to satisfy even himself, he went to put on his
beagling dress in the worst of humors.
Possibly this made him a trifle reckless, for a promising run ended in
ten minutes so far as he was concerned, in a sprained ankle. In
jumping over a low fence into a lane his one foot came down sideways
on a large stone upon which some pauper had scamped his work, and the
mischief was done. The ominous little circle that hunting men know so
well soon gathered round him, and he was helped to his feet, or rather
foot. Then Agnes fetched the carriage, and he was driven back to
Blore. Now, under the circumstances, what could Mrs. Quaritch, without
an _arriere pensee_ in the world, do but press him to stay until at
least he could put the foot to the ground? Nothing. And what could he
do but consent? At any rate, that is what he did.
So he was established in the drawing room, a pretty, cozy room, and
told himself it was a terrible nuisance. But, for a cripple confined
to a couple of rooms, and surrounded by uncongenial people, without a
single new magazine or a word of the world's gossip, he kept up his
spirits wonderfully well. The ways of the three girls, and the calm
approval of their sedate mother, could not fail to amuse him. Lying
there and seeing and hearing many things which would not have come to
his knowledge as a mere visitor, he found them not quite what he had
judged them to be. He missed Joan one morning, and when with an
unconscious fretfulness he inquired the reason, learned that she had
been sitting up through the night with an old servant who was ill in
the village. He said some word about it to her--very diffidently, for
she took his compliments but ill at all times; now she flamed out at
him with twice her ordinary bitterness and disdain, and punished him
by taking herself out of the room at once.
"Confound it!" he cried, beating up his pillow fiercely, "I believe
the girl hates me."
Did he? and did she?
Then he fell into a fit of musing such as men approaching thirty, who
have lived in London, are very apt to indulge in. A club was not
everything, be it as good as it might be. And life was not a lounge in
Bond Street and Pall Mall, and nothing more. He thought how dull a
week spent on his sofa in the Adelphi would have been, even with the
newest magazines and the fifth and special _Globes_. In three days was
his birthday--his twenty-ninth. And did the girl really hate him? It
was a nice name, Joan; Dubs, umph! Dubs? Joan? And so he fell asleep.