Ankle-deep in English grass I leaped,
And clapped my hands, and called all very fair.
* * * * *
In the beginning, when God called all good,
Even then was evil near us, it is writ;
But we indeed, who call things good and fair,
The evil is upon us while we speak;
Deliver us from evil, let us pray.
AURORA LEIGH.
As the young girl entered the room Claud Cranmer rose, with a quick
gesture of courtesy.
Elaine, not prepared to see strangers, paused, and the ingenuous morning
flush of youth passed over her face in a wave of exquisite carmine.
Claud thought he had never beheld anything more lovely than that
spontaneous recognition of his presence. She had not blushed when he met
her first--her anxiety for Allonby had been paramount. And the pale girl
up at Poole, with the sculptured chin, never blushed at all, but looked
at him with frank and limpid eyes as if he were entirely a matter of
course.
But for Elsa, dawn had begun; the sun was rising, and naturally the
light was red. Oddly enough, an old country rhyme floated in Claud's
mind--
"A red morning's a shepherd's warning."
He did not know quite why he should think of such a thing, but a good
many varying emotions were stirred in him as he scrutinised this girl
who had so nearly escaped the inheritance of a considerable fortune.
What a complexion she had! Her inexorable critic mentally compared her
with the slim Wynifred. A throat like a slender pillar of creamy marble,
lips to which still clung that delicate moist rose-red which usually
evaporates with childhood, a cheek touched with a peach-like down,
eyelashes long enough to shadow and intensify the light eyes in a manner
most individual, but hard to describe. What a pity, what a thousand
pities, that all this effect should be marred and lost by the cruel
straining back of the abundant locks, and the shrouding of the
finely-developed form in a garment which absolutely made Mr. Cranmer's
eyes ache.
The girl smiled at him--a slow smile which dawned by degrees over her
lovely, inanimate face. The look in her eyes was enough to shake a man's
calmness; and when she asked, "How is Mr. Allonby?" he felt that she had
some interest to spare for Mr. Allonby's messenger.
Here was a type of girlhood he could understand, for whose looks and
smiles he could supply a motive.
He watched her every moment keenly, and soon found out that her
awkwardness was the result of diffidence and restraint, not of native
ungainliness. He determined that Mabel must have her to stay with her,
and civilize her. She would more than repay the trouble, he was
confident.
He saw the sudden ardent glow of pleasure succeed the restless chafing
of suspense when at last permission was accorded for her to walk to
Poole with Lady Mabel.
"Run and put on your hat," said Miss Ellen, indulgently, and away darted
the girl with radiant face.
"Jane," she cried, bursting into the _ci-devant_ nursery where Miss
Gollop reigned supreme, "where's my best hat--quick! I am going out with
Lady Mabel and Mr. Cranmer!"
"Your best hat's in its box, where it'll stop till Sunday," answered
Jane, placidly. "You ain't going trapesing along the lanes in it, I can
tell you, Lady Mabel or no Lady Mabel."
"Oh, Jane, you are unkind! Do let me wear it."
"You shan't wear it, Miss Elaine, and that's flat. Once take it out in
this sun, you'll have the straw burnt as yaller as them sunflowers."
"Where's my second best?" grumbled the girl, turning to the press.
"On the Philmouth Road, for all I knows; at least, that's where you last
left it, ain't it?"
"And am I to go out in my garden-hat--with Lady Mabel Wynch-Frere?"
cried Elaine, aghast.
"I don't see no other way for it," said Jane, calmly, drawing her
thimble down a seam to flatten it, with a rasping noise which set her
charge's teeth on edge.
"Well, Jane, I never heard of such a thing!" she burst forth after a
pause of speechless indignation.
"I can't help it, miss; I must teach you to take care of your clothes.
You're not going flaunting over to Mrs. Battishill's in that ostrich
feather o' yours. Maybe, next time you drop your hat in the road, you'll
remember to pick it up again."
Surely Elaine's fairy godmother spoke through the untutored lips of Jane
Gollop!
Instead of presenting herself to Claud in a headgear covered with yellow
satin ribbon and a bright blue feather, Elsa appeared downstairs in her
wide-brimmed garden-hat, simply trimmed with muslin; and narrowly
escaped looking picturesque.
How different was the road to Poole, now that she trod it with such
companions! Her heart was light as air, her young spirits were all
stretched eagerly, almost yearningly forward into the unknown country
whose border she had crossed so lately.
Her fancy played sweetly around the image of the artist-hero, her pulses
beat a glad chime because he was living, and not dead. She waxed less
shy, and chatted to her companions,--even daring to ask questions, a
thing her aunts never permitted. She gave them reminiscences of her
childish days, when she lived in London, and of a dream she had
constantly of streets full of houses, one after another, in endless
succession, with very few trees among them.
"That is all I know of London," she said, "and I hardly remember
anything that happened, except hearing the baby cry in the night. It was
Godfrey. I used to wake up in my little bed, and see nurse sitting with
the baby near the lamp, rocking him in her arms. I remember being taken
in to kiss papa when he was dead; but that was not in London--it was
somewhere in the country--at Fallowmead, where Godfrey's uncle has his
racing-stud. I remember mamma; she was not my real mamma. I could not
bear her. She used to whip me, and once I bit her in the arm."
"My dear Elsa!" said Lady Mabel.
"I did. I was a very naughty little girl--at least, Jane always says
so. I remember being shut up alone for a punishment."
As she spoke, they turned a bend in the road, and came in sight of the
spot where the crime had been perpetrated.
Two men stood there talking together. One was Mr. Dickens of Scotland
Yard, the other Elsa greeted with a glad wave of the hand in greeting.
"Oh," cried she, springing forward, "it's Mr. Fowler, it's my godfather!
I did not know he had come back!"
At the sound of her voice, Mr. Fowler turned round, and his face lighted
up as she came towards him.
"Why, Elsie!" he said, "there you are, my child! And I'm hearing such
doings of yours, it makes me quite proud of you. And you, sir," he went
on, addressing Claud, "are Mr. Cranmer, I suppose, and entitled to my
very hearty goodwill for your behavior in this matter."
Claud had heard of Mr. Fowler before, as a local justice of the place,
and he gladly shook hands with him, scrutinizing, of course, as he did
so, the general mien and bearing of his new acquaintance.
Mr. Fowler was short, square, sturdy, and plain. His hair and thick
short beard had once been jet black, but were now iron grey. His skin
was exceedingly dark, almost swarthy, and his eyes, big, soft, and
luminous, were his one redeeming feature. His manner was a curious
mixture of gentleness and strength; he never raised his voice, but his
first order was always instantly obeyed. Something there was about him
which invited confidence; he was not exactly polished, yet his manner to
women was perfect. Gentle as was his eye, it yet had a curiously
penetrating expression, and Lady Mabel, used as she was to what should
be the best school of breeding in England, was yet struck with the
simplicity and repose of his address.
"I only came back to Edge Combe yesterday," he said, and, though he had
lived all his life in South Devon, Claud noticed at once that the rough
burr of the "r" was absent from his quiet voice. "I am often absent for
some months, on and off, managing some tin mines in Cornwall; and it was
through the medium of the newspapers I learned what had been going
forward in our little valley. And now, Mr. Cranmer, what do you think
about it?"
"I'm afraid I must postpone my opinion till Mr. Allonby himself has been
questioned," said Claud.
"Exactly what I've been telling Mr. Fowler," observed Mr. Dickens, who
wore a baffled and humbled look. "Nothing can be done till Mr. Allonby
speaks. It's a case of _vendetta_, I'll go bail; and it's done by one
that's accustomed to the work, too; accustomed to cut the stick and
leave no traces."
"Cut the stick--the stick they knocked him down with?" asked Elsa in
low, horrified tones.
Claud smiled.
"Your theory hardly holds with Dr. Forbes, Mr. Dickens," he said rather
shortly. "He declares the blows were given by a novice--by a hand that
didn't know where to plant his blows."
"Well, I don't know what to say," snapped the detective. "Here's a man
beat almost to death on the high-road in broad daylight; some one must
have done it. Where is he? There ain't a trace of him. Nobody has met a
single soul that could be taken up on suspicion--nobody has seen anybody
as so much as looked suspicious. Miss Brabourne and her servant met
nobody as they came along not half-an-hour afterwards. It ought to be
some one uncommon deep, and not a tramp nor a fishy-looking party of any
kind."
All this was true. Claud was inclined to think that the detective had
done his best, and his ill-success was owing to the very strange nature
of the case, and not to his inability.
They left him sadly ruminating by the wayside, and crossed the Waste to
the farm, Elaine with her hand clasped tightly in the square, short,
hard palm of her godfather.
"This has been an adventure for you, little woman," he said. "What do
the aunts say?"
"They are surprised," answered she, with her usual paucity of
vocabulary.
"I should think they were! And horrified too--eh?"
"Yes, very. Aunt Fan nearly had hysterics."
"Poor Aunt Fan! I don't wonder. I have a great respect for the Misses
Willoughby," he said, turning to Lady Mabel. "I have known them all my
life."
His voice seemed to soften involuntarily as he said it, and, as his eyes
rested lingeringly on Elaine's face, Lady Mabel could not help framing
a romance of twenty years ago, in which he and pretty Alice Willoughby
were the leading characters; and a swift bitter thought of the
complications of life crossed her mind. Had Alice mated with the deep
patient love that waited for her, and chosen a home by "Devon's leafy
shores" instead of the hot swamps of the Ganges, she had probably been a
happy blooming wife and mother now, with the enjoyment of her
godmother's fortune duly secured to her children.
And now here stood Elsa, comparatively poor, fatherless, motherless;
while Henry Fowler, like Philip Ray, had gone ever since "bearing a
life-long hunger in his heart." All this, of course, was pure surmise,
yet it seemed to invest the homely features and square figure of the
Devonian with a halo of tender feeling in her eyes; for Lady Mabel had a
romance of her own.
"Did you have hysterics, Elsie?" asked Mr. Fowler.
"No; I lost my hat," answered she, in a matter-of-fact way which made
them all three laugh.
"It was a wiser thing to do," he answered, in his quiet voice. "But the
whole affair must have been a great shock to you, lassie."
"Yes," said the girl--an inadequate, halting answer.
Dimly she was feeling that that day had been not all darkness--that it
was the beginning of life. She did not know the inviolable law of
humanity, that no new life is born without a pang; but imperfectly she
felt that her pain had been followed by a feeling of gladness for which
she could not account, and that the days now were not as the days that
had been.
"What a solitude," says somebody in some book, "is every human soul." At
that moment the solitude of Elaine Brabourne's soul was very great. She
was standing where the brook and river met; vaguely she heard the sound
of coming waters foaming down into the quiet valley. It awed her, but
did not terrify. There was excitement, but no fear. And of all this
those who walked beside her knew nothing.
Henry Fowler was one of those who surround womanhood with a halo, and
his feminine divinity had taken form and shape. It had borne a name, the
name of Alice Willoughby--for Lady Mabel's surmise had been correct.
Had he known how near the torrent stood near the untried feet of
Alice's daughter, he would have flung out his strong right arm, caught
her in a firm hold, and cried, "Beware!"
But he did not know. He saw only with his waking eyes, and those told
him that Elaine had grown prettier--nothing more. She was safe and
sound--she was walking at his side. The vital warmth of her young hand
lay in his. No care for her future troubled him just then.
He chatted to Claud about the details of the mysterious assault. There
seemed but one subject on which it was natural to converse, in the
Combe, in those days.
When they came to the bridge, he made the girl pass over its crazy
planks before him, and jumped her from the top of the stile.
As they neared the farm-house, a sound of loud crying, or rather
roaring, greeted them; and when Mr. Fowler, with the privilege of old
custom, walked into the house, and through to the kitchen, there lay
Saul the idiot, his whole length stretched on the floor, his face purple
with weeping, and kicking strenuously.
Clara Battishill stood against the table, the color in her pretty little
cheeks, her chest heaving as with recent encounter, her mien triumphant.
"Saul Parker, hold your noise at once--get up off the flags--stand up, I
say! What's all this about, eh?" said Mr. Fowler, in his even, unruffled
tones.
Saul left off howling directly, and, after taking a furtive look at the
company, hid his tear-strained visage with a wriggle of anguish.
Clara burst out in her shrill treble.
"I've give him a taste of the stick, I have," said she, brandishing a
stout ash twig, "for killing o' my turkey. He's a cruel boy, he is, and
I'm very angry wi' him. He took an' threw great rocks over into the
poultry-yard, and Miss Allonby, she was there wi' me, and he might ha'
killed both of us; but 'stead o' that, he goes an' kills my best turkey
I set such store by. I'll l'arn him to throw stones, I will! I's take
an' tell me mother I won't have un abaout the place if he's going to
take to throwing stones."
"It won't do," said Mr. Fowler, lightly touching the recumbent Saul with
his foot. "I always said it wouldn't do when the poor lad grew up. He's
getting mischievous. Up, Saul!--up, my lad, now at once. You've had a
beating, which you richly deserved. What made you so naughty, eh?"
For answer the big lad raised himself on his hands and knees, crawled
towards Clara, and flung his arms humbly about her knees, saying, in his
imperfect way,
"Poor! poor!"
His castigator was melted at once. She took his beautiful head of golden
curls between her hands, and patted it energetically.
"There, you see, he don't mean anything; he's as good as gold all the
time," she said. "But mind, you leave my birds a-be, Saul. If I ketch
you in my poultry-yard, I'll give you such a licking! I will! So mind!"
He began to whimper penitently. Lady Mabel looked sorrowfully at him.
"Poor boy!" said she, "what an affliction! He ought to be put into an
asylum."
"Please, your ladyship, his mother won't part with him," said Clara;
"and he never does no harm, not if you're kind to him. There, there,
boy, don't cry. I've got some butter-milk for you in t' dairy."
He began to smile through his tears, which he wiped away on her apron.
Claud thought it the oddest group he had ever seen. The sight of the
great fellow prone on the ground, meekly taking a beating from a girl
half his size, was a mixture of the pathetic and the absurd. It half
touched, half disgusted him. Suddenly a light step on the wooden stair
made him turn.
Wynifred stood in the doorway.
"Oh,--Mr. Cranmer," she said, faltering somewhat at the presence of
three strangers. "I beg your pardon, I thought you were alone. My
brother would like to see you."
"I'll come at once, but first of all you must let me introduce you to my
sister."