But for once Lord Vansittart's good star seemed in the ascendant. Joan
was seated at the end of the long table in the big, finely furnished
diningroom, where luncheon was already being handed round by the men in
Sir Thomas' fawn-and-silver livery to some ladies and a man or two who
had dropped in and been invited to stay by Lady Thorne. As the kindly,
middle-aged, motherly-looking lady welcomed him with what he felt to be
pleasurable astonishment, he felt less sickened by the mingled scent of
savoury entrees and the pines, forced strawberries and rich rose blooms
that decorated the luncheon-table in profusion. Perhaps--she seemed to
smile upon him, almost to sympathize, indeed, as Sir Thomas had made no
secret of doing some months previously--his hostess might stand his
friend in his hitherto dismally unsuccessful wooing.
While he accepted a vacant place on her right hand, and chatted about
his travels, his ear was pitched to hear what Joan was talking so
brightly about to Lady Mound and her daughters at the other end of the
table. He lost the thread of Lady Thorne's remarks, until she startled
him agreeably by asking him whether they would meet him that afternoon
at the concert at Dulwich House.
"Are you--is Miss Thorne--going?" he stammered. "I--of course I only
arrived last night, but Lady Dulwich is such an old friend, I know I
should be quite the _bien-venu_!"
"Joan, you are coming with me to Lady Dulwich's this afternoon, of
course?" asked her aunt, when there was a lull in the conversation.
"No? Why not?"
"I am riding to Crouch Hill to see poor Nana," she said, and the
determined tones of her resonant young voice seemed to strike upon
Vansittart's hot, perturbedly beating heart. "I know it is not a month
yet since I went last--my uncle is an autocrat, as I daresay you know,
Lady Mound! He only allows me to see my poor old nurse once a month!
But I had a letter from her, she is worse than usual. I meant to have
told you, auntie, but you were busy, and I thought it did not matter."
"It matters very much, unless you drive, for I cannot accompany you this
afternoon," said her uncle, raising his voice so that his wife could
hear. "Joan can drive with her maid, my dear." He was well aware that
Joan detested driving accompanied by her maid. "You can postpone it
till to-morrow? I could not go with you then, Joan, I have to attend a
meeting. Perhaps Vansittart will spare time to escort you? You are not
deep in engagements yet I expect, my boy, are you?"
"I should be only too pleased, if Miss Thorne will accept my services,
as she has done on occasion in the hunting-field," he said, with an
effort not to betray his violent delight at such an opportunity to plead
his cause.
"London is not the country, Lord Vansittart, thanks," said Joan, calmly;
although she had suddenly paled to lividity with dread, with the
indescribable fear she felt of self betrayal to this man who loved her.
"I shall be perfectly safe, alone. One only meets a few wagons and
carts along the highroads."
There was a slightly displeased expostulation from her uncle, a
deprecatory word or two in favour of Vansittart as her squire on the
part of Lady Thorne; and Joan, desperate, capitulated, feeling unequal
to being focussed by all the pairs of eyes around the table. She went
upstairs to change her habit and hat for one more suited to the muddy
suburban roads, and presently found herself trotting northwards on her
spirited grey mare Nora, Vansittart at her side.
She had chosen Nora, she coldly remarked--she meant to be an icicle to
Vansittart, it was her only chance--because she "wanted a good gallop,"
and Nora had not been out that day. And as soon as the young mare had
frisked and capered through the suburbs in a manner which made
Vansittart somewhat anxious, and effectually prevented conversation, she
and her mistress bounded off in a canter, and literally tore along the
soft roads, startling the few pedestrians and drivers of tradesmen's
carts, Lord Vansittart's horse galloping after, and the groom scampering
in the rear to keep in sight of the pair. Joan only slackened speed for
more than a few moments when she saw the row of cottages where old Mrs.
Todd lived, at the foot of the wide sloping road that wound downhill.
"There is the cottage," she said, pointing with her whip. "The poor old
soul who lives in it loves me best in the world, and I think I return it
with interest! She was my nurse when I was a child, helped my mother
nurse my father through his long illness, then nursed her to her death,
and only left me because she felt too helpless to be of any use!"
"And now you make her life happy by seeing her now and then," he said,
gazing passionately at the pure, white, girlish profile under the felt
hat.
"She can hardly be happy--doubled up with rheumatism, lonely, poor--it
is ridiculous to suggest such a thing!" she said, disgustedly--then,
touching Nora's flank lightly with her heel, she rode off; he followed,
springing down to assist her to alight. But she frowned at him.
"You had better hold her, please," she suggested. "Where is that groom
of mine? Oh, there he is! I shall be quite half an hour. You might
inspect the neighbourhood."
"Thanks for the suggestion, perhaps I shall!" he good humouredly
returned, with a scrutinizing glance at a stern old face framed by the
cottage window panes, which disappeared as he looked; and as Joan
slipped nonchalantly off her panting steed and went within,
congratulating herself upon having furnished herself with a good chance
of losing or evading him and returning alone, he decided to remain well
out of sight of the cottage, but only where he could keep his eye on the
groom and the horses.
"Well, Nana, here I am, you see," said Joan, entering and embracing the
worn old crone who stood leaning on her stick in the middle of the
kitchen and parlour combined. It was a dark, low room, filled with some
old-fashioned furniture--remnants of Joan's vicarage home. A big old
arm-chair stood by the fireplace, where there was a bright little fire,
although in a few weeks it would be midsummer. "Sit down at once!" She
led her gently back to her chair. "Poor old dear! You have been bad
this time, haven't you? You mustn't spare the doctor--send his bill to
me! You got that chicken panada and jelly? That's right! I've brought
some money for little things----"
"Never mind money, dearie! but tell me who's the gentleman?" said the
old woman, whose large, shining eyes shone living in her emaciated,
deathly face--shading her eyes with her skinny, clawlike hand, and
gazing anxiously at Joan, who had drawn a low folding chair near and was
seated opposite the fire. "I like his face, that I do! I saw him as
you got down from your horse."
"It is Lord Vansittart," said Joan, frowning slightly.
The old woman bent forward, and scrutinized her nursling's expressive
features.
"You like him?" she suddenly asked. "Oh, if you do, may the Lord be
praised!"
Joan gave a bitter, hopeless laugh.
"What good would it do me if I did?" she mournfully said.
"What good?" The aged crone leant forward and clasped Joan's gauntleted
wrists with her dark, clawlike hands. "Oh, my blessed darlint! If you
could only be married--to a real gentleman like him--and would forget
all about that business, and that wretched chap, I should die happy,
that I should! You have forgot him, haven't you, dearie?"
Mrs. Todd gazed anxiously at Joan's gloomy, miserable, yet most
beautiful eyes. There was a far away look--a look of mingled dread and
aversion, as if beyond all, she could see some loathsome, terrible
object.
"Forget the curse of my life?" she bitterly exclaimed. "For, while I do
not know where he is, if he is alive or dead, my life is accursed....
How dare I--love--care for--any good man, saddle any one's life with my
miserable folly, confess to any honest person my--my--association with
_him_? Why, I blush and groan and grovel and tear my hair when I think
of it, and if my uncle knew-- Heavens! he might curse me and turn me
out of doors and leave me to starve! He does not love me as if I were
his own child, I know that--how can he when he was at daggers drawn with
my father all those years? And auntie, kind though she is, she is only
his wife--she is good to me because he wishes her to be! They are only
pleased with me because I please in society--people like me, like my
looks--if they knew--if they knew--oh! my God!"
She clasped her hands over her face, and writhed. The old woman's
features worked, but her brilliant, unearthly eyes were riveted firmly
on her darling.
"You were once a great fool, dearie! But don't 'ee be a fool now, never
no more," she said, sonorously, solemnly. "There was summat you once
used to say, poetry, when you was home from school--it did go right down
into my heart like a bullet dropped into a well--summat like 'a dead
past oughter bury its dead.' Can your uncle, or your aunt, or this lord
who loves you, or you, or me, or the finest parson or king or pope or
anything or body in this world, bring back one single blessed minnit,
let alone hours or days? That's where common sense comes in, as your
dear dead par used to say to me often and often! No, you can't bring it
back, nor he can't! It's dead! He's dead--that brute--and if he ain't
dead to you, he can't worry or annoy you, bein' in prison if he's alive,
as a fellow of his sort is safe as sure to be----"
"Hush! For Heaven's sake, Nana, don't talk like that!" Joan trembled,
and glanced a despairing, furtive glance out of the window--above the
pots of arums, and prickly cactus, and geranium cuttings, where the
long, attenuated tendrils of the "mother of thousands" in the wire
basket dangled in the draught. Much and often as she thought of her
past, that secret past which only this faithful old soul really knew the
facts of, she felt as if she could not bear it put into words.
"Who's to hear? The girl's out!" exclaimed the old woman, who was
roused, excited. Her nursling's troubles, the obstacles to her becoming
a great lady, were to her the worst trials of her suffering, lonely
life.
"I tell you this, dearie, if you won't have anything to do with that
splendid lord who loves you, and you say you like, I shall think you
hanker after _him_--that viper who ain't fit to live, let alone to black
that noble gentleman's boots! What--you don't? Then what should stand
between you and him as loves you? That--that nonsense of that fellow's?
What do it matter if he's dead, or in prison? It's four years ago,
ain't it? If you are so partickler, you could wait another three, and
then he wouldn't have any sort of claim upon ye, if he has any now,
which I doubt! He was humbuggin' of you, dearie! I'm not to talk about
it? I must! I can't die happy till I know ye're safe with a good man
as'll take care of ye, my pretty, and that's a fact. And I am sick and
tired of all these aches and pains, it's such a weary world! Now, my
dearie, when he asks ye to be his'n, and he'll do it, too--ah! I can
see he's done it a'ready--just you listen to him. Be engaged as they
call it, secret-like, for a time. Then don't go and tell him about all
that which is dead and done with--never tell living soul a word about
_that_! But let him think it's one of the whimsies beauties like you
are supposed to have. Make him wait! And then--find out what's become
of _him_! I'll help ye! I'll help ye!"
"You--you have heard--from--of him!" gasped Joan, wildly. "Nana! When!
How?"
"Gawd is my witness, I've never set eyes on him, the vagabond, since ye
showed him to me that day when he came with us in the fields, five year
ago, when you was at school, and your poor mar was nearin' her end," she
said, solemnly. "Letters? Not likely! You've had a letter from 'im?
No, I knew you couldn't 'ave had. Them convicts--hush? All right, then!
If you'll listen to me, I'll hush and welcome."
When Joan rose to go a few minutes later, her thoughts were in a frantic
whirl, but there was a gleam of hope shining upon those dismal memories
which stood between her and happiness.
Still she glanced round as she issued from the cottage, hoping that her
escort would not be in sight, and they would happen to miss each other.
She wanted time to think, to ponder over new possibilities suggested by
her old nurse's words, possibilities which seemed to her, numbed by her
long battle royal to overcome her passion for Vansittart, too
magnificent ever to become probable. And she mounted, and after a
pretence of waiting about for him as they walked their horses slowly
uphill, she said to her groom, "We had better go on, Simms," and
quickening her pace, was presently trotting homewards.
But Vansittart was calmly awaiting them at the cross roads, and reined
round and accompanied her as a matter of course. She gave him a
desperate glance as their eyes met, and it caused him to change his
tactics. He had meditated an onslaught upon her emotions during their
homeward ride. "It will keep," he sagely told himself, and after an
uneventful canter and a little ordinary small talk he left her at her
door without even an allusion to a next meeting.