AN ENCOUNTER UNFORESEEN.
The young people drove from Penton to the Hook very silent and overawed,
the two girls close together, and Walter opposite to them, looking very
heavy and dull, his eyes red with want of sleep and the air of one who
has been up all night in every line of him. It is curious what an air of
neglect this gives even to the clothes. He felt shabby, out of order, in
every way uncomfortable in body and dazed in mind, not feeling that he
knew anything about what had happened, nor that he cared to think of
that. He almost went to sleep with the closeness and the motion of the
carriage, and took no more notice of the presence of the stranger
opposite to him than if she had been another sister. It had annoyed him
for the first moment, to have her there, but by this time he was quite
indifferent to the fact, indifferent to everything, dazed with sleep and
agitation and the weakening influence of a struggle past. But there came
a moment as they neared home when his senses returned to him with a
bound. He was looking vaguely out of the carriage-window seeing nothing,
when suddenly, vaguely, there appeared at a distance, going up a road
which led away from the main road deep into the quiet of the fields, a
solitary figure. It was little more than a speck upon the road, a little
shadow almost like that of a child; but it woke Walter fully up in a
moment and made his heart beat. He called to the coachman to stop, to
the great astonishment of Ally, who thought that something more must
have happened in a day so full of fate, and cried out,
“What is it, Wat, what is the matter?” with anxiety in her tone.
“Nothing,” he said, opening the door as the horses drew up; “but I
should prefer to walk if you don’t mind; I think I shall go to sleep
altogether if I stay here.”
“Shall I come too?” said Ally; but a glance at her companion, showed her
that this was impracticable.
“Oh, Wat, don’t be long! Mother will want to ask you--she will want to
know--”
“You can tell her as much as I can,” he said, taking off his hat in
honor of Mab, who looked out with much surprise at this sudden
interruption of the drive, which was so dreary and yet so full of
novelty and interest. And then the carriage went on.
Ally looking out of the window saw with great perplexity and distress
that he turned back along the road. Was he going back to Penton? where
was he going? Mab by her side immediately interposed with a reason.
“Men don’t like close carriages,” she said; “they always prefer walking
coming home from places. I don’t wonder; I should walk if I might.”
“We might if we were to go together,” said Ally; “we always walk with
Walter, Anne and I. He likes it too. Let us--” But then she remembered
that Wat had given no sort of invitation. And when she looked out again
he had vanished from the road. Where had he gone? This was very
startling, not to be explained by anything that occurred to Ally. She
added quickly, “But it is very cold, and mother will be anxious.” And
the carriage rolled on without any further interruption through the
village and down the steep and stony way.
Walter could not have restrained himself even had the occasion of his
leaving them been now apparent. He felt as if all his life were involved
in getting speech of her, in receiving her sympathy and hearing her
voice. He had never had such an opportunity before, never met her,
scarcely in daylight seen her face, and to see her pursuing the
loneliest road, where nobody ever appeared, which led nowhere in
particular, where he could have her all to himself without the
possibility of being sent away! He hurried along after her, striking
across a field and dropping over a low wall, which brought him
immediately in front of her as she strolled along. She gave a little cry
at sight of him, or rather at the suddenness of the apparition, not
distinguishing at first who it was. She was dressed in very dark stuff
with some rough fur about her throat and a thick gauze veil shrouding
the upper part of her face. The little outline was so slim and pretty
that any imperfection in costume or appearance was lost in the
daintiness of the trim form. Indeed, how should Walter have seen any
imperfection? She was not like anybody he had ever known. What was
different could not but be an added grace.
“You didn’t expect to see me,” he said, coming up to her with his hat in
his hand.
“How should I? I thought no one knew this path but I. It is so quiet.
And I saw no one on the road, nothing but a carriage. Ah, I know! You
jumped out of the carriage. It was hot and stifling, and there were
ladies in it who made you do propriety. I know.”
“There was my sister,” said Walter, “but I saw you. That was my reason,
and the best one a man could have.”
“You are only a boy,” she said, shaking her head with a smile. Only her
chin and lips were clear of that envious thick veil. The rest of her
face was as if behind a mask, but how sweet the mouth was, and the smile
that curved it! “And how could you tell it was I? Everybody wears the
same sort of thing, tweed frock, and jacket, and--”
“There is nobody like you; it is cruel to ask me how I knew. If you
would only understand--”
“I have heard that sort of thing before, Mr. Penton.”
“Yes, I don’t doubt every fellow would say it, of course; but nobody
could mean it so much as I.”
“That’s what you all say; but I don’t believe it a bit; only I suppose
it amuses you to say it, and it does, a little, amuse me. There are so
few things,” she said, with a sigh, “to amuse one here.”
“That is what I feel,” cried the lad; “nothing--we have nothing to keep
you here. It is all so humdrum and paltry--a little country place. There
is nothing in it good enough for you.”
She laughed with an air of keen amusement, which in his present
condition slightly jarred upon Walter.
“It is a great deal too good for me,” she said, “old Crockford’s niece.
If anybody speaks to me I courtesy and say, ‘Yes, ma’am, it’s doing me
good, it is indeed, this fine fresh air.’”
“I wish,” said the boy, “you would drop this, and tell me once for all
who you really are. I’m not happy to-day. We are all in great trouble. I
wish you would not laugh, but just be serious once.”
“Oh, no, sir, I’ll not laugh if you don’t like it--nor nothing else as
you don’t like. I knows my place and how to behave to my betters. I’m
Emmy, old Crockford’s niece.” And she paused in the middle of the road
to make him a courtesy. “I’ve never said nothing else, now ’ave I, sir?”
He looked at her with irritation beyond expression. Could not she see
that he was in no humor for jest to-day? And yet he could not but feel
that the tone of her imitation was perfect, and that as she said these
latter words it was certainly in the voice and with the manner which old
Crockford’s niece would have employed.
“You don’t know,” he said, “how you fret me with all that. I thought
when I saw you that I’d fly to you and get comforted a little. I don’t
want to have jokes put upon me just now. All this is very amusing--it’s
so well done--and it’s so droll to think that it’s you; but I have been
through a great fight this morning,” said Walter, with that self-pity
which is so warm at his age. He felt his eyes moisten, something was in
his throat--he was so sorry for himself; and he almost thought it would
be best, after all, to hurry home to his mother, who always understood a
man, instead of lingering out here in the cold, even with the most
delightful, the most enthralling of women, who would do nothing but
laugh. He was in this mood, with his eyes cast down, his head bent,
standing still, yet with a sort of movement in his figure as if he would
have gone away again, when suddenly a shock, a thrill of sweeter
consciousness went through him--and his whole being seemed rapt in
delicious softness, comprehension, consolation. She had put her hand
suddenly on his arm with a quick, impulsive movement.
“Poor boy!” she said. “You have been in a great fight? Tell me all about
it.”
Her voice had changed to the tenderest, coaxing tone.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, in sudden ecstasy, holding close to his side the
hand that had stolen within his arm--and for some time could say no
more.
“Well?”
“Yes, yes!” cried Walter, “I’ll tell you presently. I don’t know that I
want to tell you at all. I want you to take an interest in me.”
“Oh, if that is all!” she said; then, after a moment, drew her arm away.
“If we should meet any one, Mr. Walter Penton, it would not look at all
pretty to see you walking arm in arm with a--girl who lives in the
village; a girl whom nobody knows, and, of course, whom everybody thinks
ill of; but I can hear you quite well without that. Come, tell me what
it is. Did you say a fright or a fight?”
“Both,” said Walter. He made various attempts to recover the hand again,
but they were all fruitless. The mere touch, however, had somehow--how
he could not tell--made things more natural, harmonized all the
contrarieties in life, brought back a better state of affairs. The fumes
of sleep and fatigue seemed to die away from his brain: the atmosphere
grew lighter. It did not occur to him that to disclose the most private
affairs of his family to this little stranger was anything
extraordinary. He told her all about the bargain between his father and
his cousin, and how he himself had been left out, and his consent never
asked, though he was the heir; and what had happened this morning--how
he had been sent to fetch the parties to this bargain, and the papers,
and how he had been tempted to delay or not to go.
“If I had not answered from my room when I heard them, if I had
pretended not to hear, if I had only held back, which would have been no
sin! Should I have done it? Shouldn’t I have done it?” cried Walter,
quite unaware of the absurdity of his appeal.
The girl listened to all this with her head raised to him in an attitude
of attention, but in reality with the most divided interest and a mind
full of perplexed impatience. What did she care about his doubts--doubts
and difficulties which she could not understand--which did not concern
her? Her attention even flagged, though her looks did not. She wanted
none of this grave talk: it was only the lighter kind of intercourse
which she fully understood.
“Then it was you,” she said, seizing the only tangible point in all this
outburst, “that I heard thundering past the cottage just before
daylight? I couldn’t think what it could be!”
“Did you hear me? I looked up at the windows, but they were all closed
and shut up. I wish,” cried the young man, “I had known you were awake,
I should not have felt so desolate.”
“Oh!” she cried, with a little toss of her head, “what good could that
have done you?” Then, seeing the cloud come over his face again which
had lifted for a moment, “And how has it all ended?” she asked.
“Ended?” He looked at her with surprise. He had not even asked himself
that question, or realized that there was a question at all. “How could
it end but in one way?”
“It is so good of you to tell me,” she resumed, “when I am only a
stranger and know nothing; but I hope they won’t succeed in cheating you
out of your money.”
“My money? oh, there is nothing about money. Money is not the question.”
“I know,” she said, with a pretty air of confusion--“your property I
mean; but they couldn’t really take it from you, could they? Tell me
what you will do when you come into your own. I should like to know.”
Walter’s heart stood still for the moment. He felt as if he had suddenly
come up against a blank world. Was this all she understood or would take
notice of, of the struggle he had gone through? Had she no feeling for
his moral difficulties or sympathy; or was it perhaps that she thought
that struggle too private to be discussed, and thus rebuked him by
turning the conversation aside from that too delicate channel? In the
shock of feeling himself misunderstood he paused, bewildered, and seized
upon the idea that she understood him too clearly, and checked him with
a more exquisite perception of her own. “You think I should not speak of
it?” he said. “You think I should not blame--you think--Oh, I
understand. A delicate mind would not say a word. But I would not,
except to you. It is only to you.”
“Now I wonder,” said the girl, “why it should be to me? for I don’t
understand anything about it. And all that you’ve been telling me about
wanting one thing and doing another, I can’t tell what you mean--except
that I hope it will end very well, and that you will get what you want
and be able to live very happy at the end. That’s how all the stories
end, don’t you know. And tell me, when you came into all that fine
property, what will you do?”
She wanted nothing but to bring him back to the badinage which she
understood and could play her part in. All this grave talk and
discussion of what he ought or ought not to have done embarrassed her.
She did not understand it, and yet she knew by instinct that to show
how little she understood would be to lose something of her attraction;
for though she was scarcely capable of comprehending the ideal woman
whom the youth supposed he had found in her, yet she divined that it was
not herself but an imaginary being who was so sweet in Walter’s eyes.
Perhaps it was even with a dull pang and sense of her inferiority that
she discovered this; but she could not make herself other than she was.
At any risk she had to regain that lighter tone which was alone possible
to her. She put up her veil a little and looked at him with a sort of
laughing provocation in her eyes. It was a vulgar version of the “Come,
woo me,” of the most delightful of heroines. She could understand him or
any man on that ground. She knew how to reply, to elude, or to lead on;
but in other regions she was not so well prepared; she preferred to lead
the conversation back to herself and him.
“I do not suppose,” he said, in a subdued tone, “that there will be any
property to come in to.”
“Oh, that is nonsense,” she said, putting this denial lightly away; “of
course there will be property some time or other. And when you come into
your fortune, tell me, what shall you do?”
Walter gave up with a sigh his hope of receiving support and
consolation; but even now he was not able to follow her lead. “I
suppose,” he said, very uncheerfully, “I shall have to go to Oxford.
That’s the only thing I shall be allowed to do.”
“Oh, to Oxford!” she cried, with disdain.
“I don’t know that I wish it, only it’s the right thing to do, I
suppose,” said Walter, with another sigh. “Don’t you think so?”
“_I_ think so? No, indeed! If I were you--oh, if I were you! That’s what
I should like to be, a young gentleman with plenty of money and able to
do whatever I pleased.”
“Oh,” he said, with a shudder, “don’t say so; you who are so much finer
a thing--so much--don’t you know--it is a sort of sacrilege to talk so.”
At this she laughed with frank contempt. “That’s nonsense,” she said;
“but I should not go to Oxford. I’d go into the Guards. It is they that
have the best of it: almost always in London, and going everywhere. I
should not marry, not for years and years!”
“Marry!” cried Walter, and blushed, which it did not occur to his
companion to do.
“No, I should not marry,” said the girl; “I should have my fun, that is,
if I were a gentleman. I should make the money go; I should go in for
horses and all sorts of things. I should just go to the other extremity
and do everything the reverse of what I have to do now. That’s because I
can do so little now. Come, tell me, Mr. Penton, what should you do?”
Walter was much discomposed by this inquiry. He was disturbed altogether
by the turn the conversation had taken. It was not at all what he had
intended. He felt baffled and put aside out of the way; but yet there
was an attraction in it, and in the arch look which was in her eyes. He
felt the challenge and it moved him, notwithstanding that in his heart
he was deeply disappointed that she had thrown back his confidences and
not allowed herself to be drawn into his thoughts. He half understood,
too, whither she wanted to lead him--into those encounters of wit in
which she had so easily the mastery, in which he was so serious,
pleading for her grace, and she so capricious, so full of mystery,
holding him at bay. But he could not all at once, after all the
experiences of the morning, begin to laugh again.
“I am stupid to-day,” he said. “I can’t think of fortune or anything
else. I dare say I should do just the reverse of what you say.”
“What! marry?” she said. “Oh, silly! You should not think of that for
years.”
“I should do more than think of it,” cried Walter, “if I--if you--if
there was any chance--” The boy blushed again, half with the shy emotion
of his years, the sudden leaping of his blood toward future wonders
unknown. And then he stopped short, breathing hard. “You tempt me to say
things only to mock me,” he said. “You think it is all fun; but I am in
earnest, deep in earnest, and I mean what I--”
He stopped suddenly, the words cut short on his lips. They had turned a
corner of the road, and close to them, so close that Walter stumbled
over the stones on which he was seated, slowly chipping away with his
hammer, was old Crockford, with ruddy old face, and white hair, and his
red comforter twisted about his neck.
“Is that you, baggage?” said the old man, who saw the girl first as they
came round the corner. “What mischief are ye after now? I never see one
like you for mischief. Why can’t ye let the lads alone? Why, Master
Walter!” he cried, in consternation, letting the hammer fall out of his
hand.
“Yes, Crockford. What’s the matter? Do you think I am a ghost?” said
Walter, in some confusion. It was cowardly, it was miserable, it was the
smallest thing in the world. Was he ashamed to be seen with her, she who
was (he said to himself) the most perfect creature, the sweetest and
fairest? No, it could not be that; it was only what every young man
feels when a vulgar eye spies upon his most sacred feelings. But he grew
very red, looking the old stone-breaker, the road-mender, humblest of
all functionaries, in the face as he spoke.
“Ghost!” said old Crockford, “a deal worse than that. A ghost could do
me no harm. I don’t believe in ’em. But the likes of _hur_, that’s
another pair o’ shoes. I know’d as she’d get me into trouble the moment
I set eyes on her. Be off with you home, and let the young gentleman
alone. You’ve made him think you’re a lady, I shouldn’t wonder. And if
Mr. Penton found out he’d put me out of my cottage. Don’t give me none
of your sauce, but run home.”
“I have done no harm,” said the girl. “Mr. Penton couldn’t put you out
of your cottage because I took a walk. And you can send me away when you
please. You know I’m not afraid of that.”
“I know you’re always up to mischief,” said the old man, “and that if it
isn’t one it’s another. I’ve had enough of you. There’s good and there’s
bad of women just like other creatures, but for making mischief there’s
naught like them, neither beasts nor man. Be off with you home.”
“Crockford, you forget yourself. That’s not a way to speak to a--to a
young lady,” cried Walter, wavering between boyish shame and boyish
passion. “And as for my father--”
“A young lady; that’s all you know! Do you know who she is, Mr. Walter?”
cried the old man.
“I am old Crockford’s niece,” said the girl, “and I know my place. I’ve
never given myself out for any more than I am; now have I, sir? Thank
you for walking up the hill with me, and talking so kind. But it’s time
I was going home. He’s quite right, is the old man; and my duty to you,
sir, and good-day; and I hope you will come into your fortune all the
same.”
How was it that she turned, standing before him there in the road in all
her prettiness and cleverness, into Crockford’s niece, with the diction
and the air proper to her “place,” was what Walter could not tell. She
cast him a glance as she turned round which transfixed him in the midst
of his wonder and trouble, then turned and took the short cut across the
field, running, getting over the stile like a bird. Which was she, one
or the other? Walter stood and gazed stupidly after her, not knowing
what to think or say.