Esmeralda did not again go to see Lord Norman. She did not even
ask after him; and she listened to Mother Melinda’s daily report
in silence, and without any comment; not even when Mother Melinda
remarked, one day:
“That there Rosebud is a-getting mighty fractious. Yesterday he
jawed me something fearful because I wouldn’t let him get up and
go out to the camp. I reckon he’s getting better. Men’s always
like that when they’re on the mend. The Rosebud shied a tumbler at
Taffy yesterday when he said he’d better lie there another day.
He’s always asking after you, Ralda. Seems mighty curious about you
altogether.”
Esmeralda made no response, but left the hut.
Lord Norman got about again presently, and was received by the men
with a kind of rough welcome. There was something about him that
took their fancy, and he speedily became a favorite. He wandered
about among the claims, and along the river, with the aid of a
stick, and the men kept a sort of protecting eye upon him, inviting
him to share their meals, and offering him unlimited whisky and
tobacco. Taffy took quite a paternal interest in him, and as Norman
sat upon the edge of the claim, watching the bearded giant at work,
Taffy poured out the vast stores of his experience for Norman’s
benefit and amusement, and inducted him into the mysteries of
mining. While he was wandering about, Norman was continually on the
look-out for Esmeralda, but he saw nothing of her. He asked where
she was, and was told that she was in the camp, or somewhere about;
and he wondered whether she was avoiding him. The idea made him
unhappy and uncomfortable, and he asked himself, all day long, what
he had done to offend her.
One evening he went into the Eldorado. The saloon was full; but the
men were listless and bored, for the night was hot. Billiards had
lost their charm, and there was no card-playing, for Varley Howard
was away. There was an old piano in a corner of the room, and
Norman, after wandering about, and declining innumerable offers of
whisky, limped up to the ancient instrument, and began to strum on
its yellow and worn keys.
The men stopped talking, and turned to look at him.
“Blest if the Rosebud ain’t a musician!” said Taffy. “Keep it up,
my gentle flower! Can you sing?”
Lord Norman blushed, as was his wont, and began to pipe a
drawing-room ballad. He had a particularly clear and sweet tenor,
and the men listened in profound silence and with unlimited
delight. When he had finished they shouted “Bravo!” and Taffy smote
him on the back, so as almost to send him through the piano.
“Bravo, little ’un!” he said. “We ought to ’a called you the
Nightingale! Pipe us something else.”
Lord Norman sung them a roystering sea song with a spirited chorus,
which the men caught up, and shouted with keen enjoyment. He was
kept at the piano singing and playing until he was nearly hoarse;
and when he gave in, Taffy seized him and perched him upon the top
of the instrument, and called for three cheers, which were given
with such heartiness that Dan MacGrath glanced at the tin roof
apprehensively.
Laughing and blushing, Norman got off the piano, and made his way
out into the open air. As he passed through the door-way he brushed
against something, and saw that it was Esmeralda. She wore a short
skirt, and had thrown a red shawl over her head.
“Ralda--I mean, Miss Howard!” he stammered, with a note of glad
surprise in his voice.
She shrunk back a little, and looked round as if about to fly;
then, as though she were ashamed of the impulse, she faced him, and
regarded him steadily. The moon shone down full upon her face, and
its beauty kept him silent for a moment. In her rough dress and
gypsy-like shawl she looked a totally different person to the young
lady he remembered in the Redfern habit and Heath hat.
“I’m so glad to see you,” he said at last. “Have you been quite
well?”
“I’m always well,” she said.
“I asked because I haven’t seen you about,” he said.
She looked down and made no response.
“Have you been outside, listening, long?” he asked.
“A little while,” she replied--she had been there for over an hour.
“Was that you singing?” she inquired, casually.
He laughed.
“Yes, I was howling to the boys.”
“You sing very well,” she said.
He muttered the conventional acceptation of her approval, then
looked at her wistfully.
“What a lovely night,” he said. “One never gets such a night as
this anywhere else than in Australia. The river would look jolly in
the moonlight. We could see it if we went down a little way. You
wouldn’t care to come, I suppose?”
She glanced from side to side, and then up at the moon, as if
undecided. He watched her maidenly calm face with unconcealed
eagerness.
“It’s not far,” he pleaded.
She said nothing, but moved forward, and with a leap of the heart
he walked by her side. They went down to the edge of the river in
silence. Esmeralda seated herself upon a bowlder bleached white by
the sun, and he dropped unobtrusively at her feet.
“Are you better?” she asked, breaking the silence.
“Oh! I’m all right, barring a little stiffness,” he replied; “and
that will go off in a day or two. Everybody has been awfully good
to me; and as for Mother Melinda--I hope she doesn’t mind being
called Mother Melinda?”
“She hasn’t got any other name that I ever heard of,” said
Esmeralda.
“Well, she’s been like a mother to me, at any rate. I couldn’t have
been better nursed if I’d been at home at the Manor; and I must
have given her a fearful amount of trouble. I was off my head for
some time. And--and, Miss Howard, speaking of that, I--I wanted to
ask you something.”
“What is it?” said Esmeralda.
He looked up at her slyly, as she sat in an exquisitely graceful
attitude, her brown hands folded loosely in her lap, her head
slightly thrown back as she looked up at the moonlit sky.
“Mother Melinda told me that the night I was raving like a lunatic
you came into the tent, and stayed for a little while. I--I hope I
didn’t say anything to offend you!”
“What makes you think that?” she said.
“Because--because--I’ve had an idea that you--you tried to avoid
me. I thought I might have said something about--about yourself
that made you angry. You know, people talk most awful rot when
they’re off their heads, as I was.”
“It wasn’t awful rot--all of it,” said Esmeralda, looking down at
the pattern she was tracing in the sand with her foot. “You didn’t
offend me.”
“I’m glad of that,” he said, drawing a long breath. “You can’t tell
what a load you’ve taken off my mind. I’ve been wishing that they’d
gagged me when I began to ramp.”
“You talked a lot about your people--I suppose, especially about
some one called Trafford. Who is he?”
He sat up, with sudden interest.
“Oh! did I talk about Trafford?” he said. “Dear old Trafford! He is
my cousin.”
“What’s his other name?” she asked.
He laughed.
“Oh! he has half a dozen; but we always call him Trafford, because
he’s the Marquis of Trafford.”
She turned her large, luminous eye upon him thoughtfully.
“The marquis? I don’t understand.”
Lord Norman dropped backward, with his arms behind his head, so
that he could look up at her face with perfect ease.
“He’s the Marquis of Trafford,” he explained, “because he is the
eldest son of the Duke of Belfayre.”
“The Duke of Belfayre?” she repeated; “that’s an awful swell, isn’t
it--something near a prince or a king?”
“Well, not exactly,” said Norman; “but he _is_ a swell. There are
not many dukes, you see, and the dukedom is a particularly old
one--I mean, that the title goes a long way back--and the duke
himself is an old man.”
“And your cousin will be the duke when his cousin dies?” she said,
as if she were trying to understand.
“Yes,” said Norman; “but we all hope that will be a long while; for
the duke is the dearest old chap, and Trafford is as fond of him as
he can be.”
“And you are fond of Trafford?” she asked.
“I should think so--rather! Why, there’s nobody in the world like
Trafford!”
“Why?” she asked, not unreasonably.
“Well, he’s a splendid fellow! I wish you could see him, and then
you’d understand, without my saying another word.”
“Why is he so splendid?” she asked. “What does he do?”
Norman sat up in his eagerness to explain.
“Oh, he does everything, and does it better than any one else can.
He’s a first-rate shot--you should see him stalking a deer! There’s
no tiring him. And then, he rides--it’s a treat to see him going
across country as straight as a line, and taking everything as it
comes, just like a bird. And then, he’s the best-looking fellow in
London.”
“What is he like?” she asked, with a woman’s curiosity on this most
important point.
“Oh,” said Norman, vaguely, “he’s tall--not too tall--and what you
women call graceful; all muscle, and not an ounce of fat. He can
knock a man down with a straight one from the shoulder.”
“There’s heaps of men who can do that,” she said, half jealously.
“And he’s got one of those dark, good-looking faces--something like
an Italian or a Spaniard; and yet it’s quite English, too--and dark
eyes, and--oh, I can’t describe him! You want to see him. All the
women rave about him.”
“And so he’s pretty conceited,” she said, with a little curl of
her lip. “We had a man here like that once. They called him the
‘Barber’s Block.’ They said he curled his hair. He went off with
Dan MacGrath’s niece, and Dan shot him in the arm and brought her
back.”
Lord Norman laughed.
“Trafford’s not at all like that,” he said; “and there is not a
bit of conceit or vanity about him. I don’t think he knows he’s
good-looking, or that most of the women are madly in love with
him. He’s not that sort of fellow. He’s grave and quiet. Poor old
Trafford!”
“Why do you say ‘poor old Trafford’?” she asked.
“Well, you see,” said Lord Norman, “he’s got a good deal to think
of and worry him. Although the duke is such a swell, he’s poor.”
“I thought a duke could never be poor,” she said.
“That’s what you thought about lords until you made my
acquaintance,” he laughed, ruefully. “It’s this way. The duke’s
father and grandfather were wild, and went the pace. They had to
borrow money, and they went to the Jews. Now, going to the Jews
is as bad as going to the dogs. They lend you money at sixty per
cent., and they take everything you’ve got as security.”
“I know,” said Esmeralda, with a nod. “There was a man here who
lent money like that. The boys tarred and feathered him.”
Lord Norman laughed approvingly.
“I wish they’d do that in England,” he said, with a sigh. “Though,
I suppose, it wouldn’t be quite fair; for, if you borrow money,
you must pay for it. Well, the duke is up to his neck in debt.
Everything is mortgaged that can be; and though there are thousands
of acres of land, and half a dozen big houses as well as Belfayre,
they’re all mortgaged, and really belonging to some one else if
they liked to swoop down upon them.”
“What does he want with half a dozen houses?” asked Esmeralda. “He
can’t live in them, though he is a duke.”
“Not all at once,” said Lord Norman, smiling. “In fact, he never
leaves Belfayre; and Trafford, when he isn’t there, has rooms in
the Albany and dines at his club--off the joint.”
Esmeralda looked at him with a puzzled frown. She was trying hard
to understand.
“Why don’t they shut up the houses,” she asked, “and go and live
somewhere where it wouldn’t cost much money.”
“That sounds easy enough,” said Lord Norman, “and any ordinary
person could do it; but a duke can’t. He’s got to live up to his
position. It’s a kind of duty. And so all the houses go on full
swing, and a kind of royal state is kept up. The duke is treated
like a prince. There’s an army of servants at Belfayre, and the
stables are full of horses and carriages, and the whole place is
like a palace. It’s a show-place.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, people go and see it because there’s a lot of pictures
there, and old plate and china, and curiosities that one duke after
another has collected. There are some pictures that are worth
thousands, and people come from the other end of the world to stare
at them.”
“Why don’t they sell them?” asked Esmeralda.
“They can’t,” said Lord Norman. “They’ve borrowed money on them,
and if they hadn’t they couldn’t sell them. It would be a kind of
sacrilege.”
“I don’t understand it all,” said Esmeralda. “I shouldn’t like to
live in a place that I might be turned out of any moment.”
“That’s why I said ‘poor Trafford,’” said Lord Norman. “He feels
just as you do. He said one day, when I was at Belfayre, that he
wished he was a farm laborer; and that he was a perfect slave.”
She was silent for a minute or two, and Lord Norman, gazing at her
with all his heart in his eyes, had forgotten the house of Belfayre
and its difficulties, and everything but the fact of her presence,
and her delicate profile standing out like a cameo, when she said,
suddenly:
“Who is ‘Ada’?”
He started slightly.
“Did I speak about her when I was raving?” he said. “That must be
Ada Lancing--Lady Ada Lancing.”
“All the people you know are lords and ladies,” she said.
He laughed apologetically.
“Oh, not all.”
“And who is she? Is she a great friend of yours?” she asked. “You
spoke of her almost as much as you did of this Lord Trafford.”
“Oh, yes, she’s a friend of mine,” said Lord Norman. “She has a
great many friends. She is one of the London belles.”
Esmeralda understood this, at any rate.
“Is she so very pretty?” she asked, with keen interest.
“Oh, yes, very,” he said. “Her portraits are in all the shop
windows.”
“Why do they put them there?” she asked, with wide-open eyes. “What
is she like?”
Lord Norman tilted his hat over his eyes and considered.
“What is she like? Oh, she’s fair, with a lot of yellow hair like
spun silk; and she’s tall. It’s difficult to describe her. Trafford
once said that she was a daughter of the gods. I don’t know what he
meant, excepting that she was very graceful, and stately, and all
that.”
“A daughter of the gods,” she repeated. It is needless to say that
she had never heard of Tennyson; but the well-known and oft-quoted
line conveyed something of its meaning to her. “And can she ride
and shoot and swim? Could she climb that tree there?”
She did not ask because she herself could do these things, but
because she wanted to know more about this grand young lady who was
“a daughter of the gods,” whose hair was like spun silk, and whose
portrait was in the shop windows.
“Yes; she can ride after a fashion, on a very tame gee-gee, and she
goes round the park like they do in a circus. As to shooting,” he
smiled. “I should like to see Lady Ada fire a gun; ‘let it off,’
she’d call it; and she couldn’t climb anything, except the stairs,
to save her life.”
Esmeralda looked surprised and thoughtful.
“I don’t think much of her,” she remarked, not contemptuously, but
as if she were stating an unprejudiced opinion. “And it’s only
because she’s pretty that she’s a belle? Do _you_ think her so very
beautiful?”
“I _did_,” he said; “I thought her the loveliest girl in the world;
but I don’t now.”
“Why?” she asked, looking at him with surprise.
“Because--because--Esmeralda”--his voice was almost a whisper, and
even her innocence, enlightened by her remembrance of his delirious
calling upon her name, could not but discern the meaning in his
eyes and his voice--“Esmeralda,” he whispered again, “don’t be
angry with me. I love you!”
She did not start to her feet, the ivory whiteness of her face
remained unchanged; she turned her eyes upon him with an expression
in them of half-troubled wonder.
“I love you, Esmeralda!” he said. He was on one knee by her side
and had got possession of her hand. “Won’t you speak to me? Are you
angry? Speak to me, Esmeralda. Tell me that I may go on loving you.”
She drew her hand from his and rose, and stood looking straight
before her at the river, almost as if she were in a dream, as if
the strangeness of his words had cast a spell over her.
He tried to take her hand again, but she drew back beyond his reach.
“No,” she said in so low a voice that he could just hear it; then
she turned away from him. He rose from his knees to follow her, to
urge his suit; but, looking over her shoulder, she shook her head
as if to bid him stay where he was, and then, not swiftly, but
slowly, as if she were a spirit of the moonlight, she glided away
from him.