Give her time--on grass and sky
Let her gaze, if she be fain:
As they looked, ere _he_ drew nigh
They will never look again!
JEAN INGELOW.
"Gone!" was Jane's quick response; "but he'd never go and leave his
picture sticking out there by itself for the first shower to spoil--he
can't be far off."
For a moment Elaine recoiled, every nerve thrilled with the thought that
the stranger, concealed in some bush in the immediate vicinity, had
heard her reckless and incautious exclamation. There was no movement and
no sound, and, after a pause fraught with more suspense than she could
remember to have ever felt before, she stepped about two paces forward,
and took another timid look. Something was lying on the ground near the
easel--a confused heap of gray, which outlined itself clearly in the
long rank wayside grass; and for a moment Elaine turned white and looked
as if she were going to faint; then, no longer hesitating, but urged on
by a wild impetuosity, she ran to the spot, and stood gazing down at
Allonby's pallid and stiffened features.
All her life long she would remember that moment--every detail, every
sensation, stamped on her brain with indelible distinctness. The soft
whisper of a newly-awakened diminutive breeze in the ash-trees, the
grass all yellow as corn in the golden evening light, the hot sweet
perfume that arose from the fragrant hedgerow, and the still hard face,
bloodless under its newly-acquired bronze. It was death--she was certain
of it. Death, that mystery in whose existence she had never really
believed, though she knew, as matter of history, that both her parents
were dead.
Into the heart of this strange, awful secret she seemed suddenly hurled
with a force which bewildered her. For a few moments she stood quite
speechless, swaying to and fro, and seeing through a mist, while Jane,
with her back towards her, was staring down the lane in hopes of seeing
the artist reappear.
Allonby had evidently come to the ground with force. His fall had
crushed the camp stool under him. He had fallen forward, but slightly
sideways; one arm was flung out under his head, and, owing to this, his
face was turned upward, leaving clearly visible a livid purple mark on
the left side of the forehead. The other hand was clenched, and the
lower limbs slightly contracted, as if from a sudden shock; the eyes
were closed and the brows drawn together with an expression of pain.
To this girl, who had scarcely in her life come into contact with a
young man socially her equal, this strange experience was overwhelming.
A moment she remained, as has been said, trembling and erect; then she
dropped on her knees in the long grass, and cried out, pierceingly,
"Jane! Jane! come here! What are you doing? He is dead! He is dead!"
Jane turned as if she had been shot.
"Lawk-a-mercy, Miss Elaine," she cried, hurrying to the spot; and then,
as is the manner of her class, she began to scream, and her shrill cries
rent the air three or four times in rapid succession. "Oh, good Lord!
Oh, mercy on me! What can have happened? He's been murdered, sure
enough! Oh, Miss Elaine, come away! Come away from the corpse, my dear!
You know your aunts would never hold with your touching a corpse. Oh,
dearie, dearie, all the years I've lived I never come across such a
thing! Never!"
"_Murdered!_"
The word dropped from Elaine's trembling lips with a wailing sound. Such
a thing had never suggested itself to her mind. Probably had she had the
usual training in the way of sensational novels, had she been accustomed
to read of crimes and follow up the details of their detection with the
zest of the true lover of late nineteenth-century romance, the idea of
murder would have at once occurred to her, and she might have proceeded
forthwith to search the long grass around for footprints, fragments of
clothing, or a blood-spattered weapon. But she never once thought of the
criminal, only of the victim. Neither did it dawn upon her that the
mysterious danger which had lurked for the artist in that smiling
landscape might lurk there also for her. She thought of nothing but him:
that idea swallowed up and eclipsed all others.
Poor Allonby! Barely four hours ago he had rejoiced over the
straightforward sincerity of the English summer. He had quoted with
smiling satisfaction the words in which a French writer describes the
Maremma:
"Cette Maremme fertile et meurtriere qui en deux annees vous enrichit et
vous tue."
Nothing less murderous could well be imagined than this peaceful
Devonshire lane. Here were no ghastly exhalations, no venomous reptiles
to glide through the long flowery grass: an Eden without the snake it
seemed at first gaze, and yet some unseen malign power had exerted
itself, and felled the lusty manhood of this young Englishman with a
blow.
To Elaine, the sight was horror and agony untold; it acted physically on
her nerves, and produced a dizzy faintness from which it took her
several moments to recover. Feverishly she laid her hand on that of the
young man, then on his brow, which was cold and rigid; she recoiled,
filled with panic, from the touch, and leaped impulsively to her feet.
"Oh, help! Help! Will nobody help? Will nobody hear us if we call?"
"Oh, dear heart, he's bleeding under his coat here somewhere," cried
Jane, holding out her hand, on which was something wet and glistening.
This sight robbed the girl of whatever nerve she might have possessed,
and she recoiled with a gasp of terror.
"Stay with him," she cried, frantically, "I will run for help;" and,
without waiting for reply, she started off to run at her topmost speed,
feeling only that the one need of her soul at the moment was violent
action, that something must be done at once.
The emergency, the first emergency of her life, had utterly scared away
her wits.
She ran blindly, not in the least knowing where she was running--almost
with an instinct of flight--escape from that terrible cold, still,
bleeding form among the grass.
She could see his face in fancy as she ran, could remember how a tall
daisy bent over and touched his brown moustache, and a huge curled
dock-leaf flung its shadow over his forehead. All so still, so
stiff--ah! how dreadful it was, dreadful beyond the bounds of belief.
In her dire perplexity, she never once thought of what was the only
obvious thing to do,--namely, to run to Poole, and tell the Battishills
to send down some men with a hurdle. She simply tore along the lane like
a mad thing, never stopping to ask herself what she intended, uttering
from time to time short sobs of terror and pity.
A little way beyond Poole, the lane joined the high coach-road which
runs from Stanton to Philmouth; into this road she dashed, and along it
her flying feet bounded, whither she neither knew nor cared. For the
first time in her life she was alone--alone and free. She was beyond
reach of her aunts and Jane, out by herself, alone in the wide road; and
without her being conscious of the fact, this unwonted loneliness added
to the terribleness of the situation. She soon lost her ugly hat, with
its prim bows of drab ribbon edged with black lace; but she never even
noticed its loss. On, on she flew, till at last the sound of wheels met
her ear, and her tearful eyes caught sight of a carriage approaching.
It was an open carriage, just large enough for two, very compactly
built. The man on the box looked like a private servant; within were a
lady and a gentleman.
It did not matter to Elaine who they were--they might have been the
Queen and the Prince of Wales for all she cared. Her one idea was that
she must stop them. She ran pantingly on till the carriage was within a
few yards of her, and then flung up both her arms, crying,
"Oh, stop, stop! I want to speak to you! Stop!"
The sudden apparition in the lonely road of a tall girl without a hat,
running as if hunted, was so astonishing, that the coachman reined in
his horses before he was quite clear of what he was doing, and the lady
in the carriage leaned forward with an eager expression, hearing the
cry, but not having clearly descried the speaker.
"What now, Goodman?" she said.
"A young lady, my lady," said Goodman. "Wants to speak to you, my lady,
I fancy."
"Here, Claud," said the lady, with a laugh, "is your adventure at last!
Make the most of it."
"This is the third time you have promised me an adventure. If this
proves to be as futile as the other two, I shall turn it up, and go
home. I have had too many disappointments--they begin to tell on my
nerves. Only a girl begging, is it?"
"Hush!" cried Lady Mabel, laughingly holding up a finger to her brother;
and by this time Elaine, crimson, trembling, on the verge of tears, was
at the carriage door.
The Honorable Claud Cranmer's eyes fell on the girlish figure, and took
in everything in an instant. He thought her the most beautiful girl he
had ever beheld; and beautiful she was in her passion and her
excitement.
Her hair-pins had all been scattered freely along the road as she
ran--the huge plait of her deep gold hair hung down her back half
uncoiled. It had been all loosened by her vehement motion, so that it
framed her lovely face in picturesque disorder. The most exquisite
carnation glowed in her transparent skin, crystal tears swam in her
large eyes, her whole face was alight and quivering with feeling, her
ivory throat heaved as if it would burst.
Never in his life had he seen anything so totally unconventional, never
heard anything to equal the music of the broken voice as she gasped out
the only words that occurred to her--
"Oh, I beg your pardon--do come--I must have help at once!"
"What is it?--something wrong?--an accident?" said Lady Mabel, rapidly,
in her deep, sympathetic, penetrating voice. In a flash she saw that the
girl was a lady, and that her tribulation was no acting, but terribly
sincere. "Try to tell me," she said, laying her hand over the trembling
one with which Elaine grasped the edge of the carriage.
"A gentleman has been murdered," cried the girl--"he has been murdered,
there!" waving dramatically with one arm. "He is lying in the grass,
dying, or dead. Perhaps it is only a faint--Jane is with him--won't you
come?"
Lady Mabel cast a sweeping glance at her travelling companion, as if to
ask if here was not his adventure with a vengeance.
"But oh, my dear child, I think and hope you are mistaken," said she.
"People are not murdered out in the road in broad daylight here in
England."
"Oh, won't you come?--won't you come? I tell you he is bleeding--I saw
the blood on Jane's hand!" cried Elaine, with a shudder of irrepressible
repugnance.
"Let us drive on at once and see to this," said Claud, with sudden
energy, rising and letting himself out into the road. "I will go on the
box with Goodman, if this young lady will take my seat--she looks
fearfully exhausted."
"I have run so fast," said Elaine, with a smile of apology, as, nothing
loth, she sank into the vacant seat. "Tell him to drive quickly, won't
you? He must take the first turning to the right."
Mr. Cranmer mounted to the box, and the horses started briskly, Goodman
being by no means less excited than his master and mistress at this
novel experience.
The girl leaned back in the carriage and hid her face. The whole of her
frame was shaking with feeling she could not repress.
Her companion looked at her with eager sympathy, and presently it seemed
as if the magnetism of her wonderful eyes drew Elaine to look up at her,
which she did in a timid, appealing way, as if imploring some solution
of the mysteries of life which were bursting upon her so suddenly.
It was a very remarkable face which bent down to hers--a face not so
much beautiful as expressive. The features were so strong that they
would have been masculine but for the eyes--such eyes! Of the darkest
iron-grey, darkened still more by the blackness of brows and
lashes--eyes which could flash, and melt, shine with laughter, brim with
tears--eyes which were never the same two moments together. Their effect
was heightened by the fact that, though Lady Mabel Wynch-Frere was
certainly not yet forty, her hair was ashen grey, as could be seen under
her travelling-hat.
She was very small, slender, thin, and active--a person impossible to
describe--genial, impetuous, yet one with whom no one dared take a
liberty; a creature of moods and fancies, delighting in the unusual and
the Quixotic.
To-day's adventure suited her exactly; her eyes were full of such
unutterable sympathy as she bent them on the frightened girl beside her,
that whatever secret Elaine might have possessed must infallibly have
been told to her; but Elaine's life, as we know, possessed no secrets.
"Don't you trouble," said that wonderful vibrating voice, "we shall find
it not so bad as you think. You have been sadly frightened, but it will
all come right. Do you live near here?"
"About three miles."
"Will you tell me your name?"
"Elaine Brabourne."
"Mine is Mabel Wynch-Frere, and that is my brother, Claud Cranmer."
"Taking my name in vain, Mab?" asked the Honorable Claud, half turning
round.
"Claud, this young lady's name is Brabourne," said Lady Mabel, in her
gracious way.
Claud lifted his hat and bowed, as if it were a formal introduction.
"Any relation of poor Val's, I wonder?" he said.
"Who was Val?"
"Colonel of the 102nd before Edward got it."
"Oh, I remember. Are you by chance related to the late Colonel
Brabourne?"
"He was my father," said Elaine, timidly.
"Oh, ho!--then this is one of the wards in chancery," said Claud, with
amusement in his eyes. "I beg your pardon, Miss Brabourne, but is it not
your unenviable lot to be a ward in Chancery?"
But Elaine heeded him not. The carriage had turned swiftly down the
lane, and she had caught sight of Jane's sunbonnet crouching over that
motionless figure in the grass. The sound of wheels made Jane look up;
and it would be beyond the power of any pen to describe the dismay
depicted in her countenance as the carriage stopped, and she caught
sight of her young mistress--flushed, dishevelled, her hat gone, and the
light of a tremendous excitement burning in her eyes.
Mr. Cranmer had opened the door in a moment, and Lady Mabel, in her neat
little travelling-dress, sprang to the ground as lightly as a girl of
eighteen, Elaine scrambling awkwardly after her.
"My word!" said Lady Mabel, impetuously, "what can be the meaning of
this?"
"I don't know who you are, mum," said Jane, bluntly, "but I can tell you
I'm right glad to see a fellow-creature's face. It's give me such a turn
as I never had in all my born days, sitting here alone, not knowing any
minute whether the hand that struck this poor young man mightn't strike
me next. There's been foul play here, sir, as sure as my name's Jane
Gollop; and not an hour back he was sitting here a-painting quite quiet
and happy, for Miss Elaine and me seen him as we went by to the farm."