Claire shrank back for a moment, and her natural womanly timidity urged
her to turn and hurry home by the way she had come.
But that would be showing Major Rockley that she was afraid of him, and
this she wished to keep a secret in her own breast.
Bowing slightly, then, she declined the offer of his hand, stepped over
the stile, and went on.
With anyone else Rockley would have felt bound to retire, but he only
laughed. Claire was the daughter of the poor minister of fashion, who
lived by the fees and offerings he received from new-comers; and he did
not feel himself called upon to treat her as a lady.
"Why, my dear Miss Denville," he said, laughing, "what have I done that
you should try to cut me like this? I am ignorant. Come, shake hands."
He held his out, as he walked by her side, and she turned upon him a
look full of indignation.
"Are you not making a mistake, sir?" she said coldly.
"Mistake? No. My dear Claire, why do you treat me like this? How
absurd it is to refuse my letters, and play coquette when we meet. Here
have I been watching for such an opportunity as this for weeks."
Claire's eyes flashed at his assumption, but she made no reply, and
walked on.
"How can you be so absurd," he whispered, as he kept pace with her step
for step, "when you know how I love you?"
"Major Rockley!" she cried, stopping short and facing him, "by what
right do you insult me like this?"
"How beautiful she is!" he said in a low tone.
Claire bit her lips, and, divining that he was disposed to treat her as
one in an entirely different rank of life, she hurried on along the
path, with the tall corn waving on either side, trembling with dread and
indignation, as she realised that he was behaving to her as he might to
some servant-girl.
"Say what you like to me. Be angry. Punish me. I cannot help it," he
whispered. "Your beauty maddens me, as it has done all these weary
months, and I must speak to you now."
"Major Rockley, I am alone and unprotected. I ask you, as a gentleman,
to leave me."
"And as an officer and a gentleman I would leave you, but my passion
masters me. Sweet Claire, whom I love so dearly, how can you be so
cruel and so hard?"
He tried to take her hand, but she shrank from him and turned back.
"No, no, little one, you are not going to serve me like that!" he cried,
darting before her. "Come, how can you be so absurd?" he whispered.
"We are quite alone. No one can see our meeting, and yet you are
trifling with me, and wasting golden moments. You know I love you."
"Once more, Major Rockley, will you leave me? You insult me by
staying."
"No, I will not leave you," he whispered excitedly; "and I do not insult
you."
"I am alone now, sir, but I have a father--brothers, who shall call you
to account for this!" she cried, with her eyes full of indignation.
"Don't," he whispered imploringly. "You make your eyes flash and your
face light up in a way that drives me frantic. Claire, if you speak to
me like that again, I shall risk being seen, and take you to my heart to
cover those lips with kisses. No, no; don't shrink away; only be gentle
with me, and talk sensibly. Let us be closer friends, dear. Come, let
there be an end to all this coy nonsense. There, we understand one
another now. That's better."
He seized her hand, and drew it through his arm; but, with a display of
strength that he had not expected, she snatched it away, and stood pale
with anger and indignation.
She hurried forward the next moment, but he laughingly kept at her side.
Claire turned and retreated, but he was still there; and, choking down
her sobs, she walked as fast as she could towards the stile she had
crossed.
It seemed evident to her that the Major must know the reason for her
visit to the fisherman's cottage, or he would never have dared to treat
her with such bold insolence; and as she walked on he kept close beside
her, pressing his suit in the most daringly insulting manner, while she
ceased her protests now, and walked on in silence.
"It is the only way to deal with her," he said to himself; "and, after
this outburst to keep up appearances, we shall be on the best of terms."
Claire had gone farther in her excitement than she had thought possible,
and it seemed now that she would never reach the stile. Beyond that,
there might be people who would help her; and in any case, the
fishermen's cottages were not many hundred yards away.
In spite of her silence, the Major kept on his passionate addresses and
protestations, pleading his inability to obtain a hearing from her
before; and at last, irritated by her silence, he caught her by the arm
and held it fast.
"No, no; you are not going yet," he said, speaking angrily. "What sort
of a man do you take me for, that you play with me like this?"
"Major Rockley, will you loose my arm?"
"Claire Denville, will you promise to meet me to-night where I will
name?"
"I am a defenceless woman, sir, and this is an insult--an outrage. Will
you loose my arm?"
"You are a cruel coquette," he cried passionately. "Is this your
treatment, after the months of glances you have given me to lure me on?"
"Will you loose my arm, sir?"
"Will you be a sensible girl?" he whispered. "How can you be so absurd?
Look about you: we are too far off for anyone to see who we are, and if
they could see us, why should we care? What is the world to us? Come,
Claire, my darling."
He tried to draw her towards him, but she struggled to get free and
reach the stile in the tall hedge that separated them from the bare
downs beyond.
The tears of rage and indignation were in Claire's eyes as she felt her
helplessness, and saw how thoroughly she was in Rockley's power. There
seemed to be nothing she could do but scream for help, and from that she
shrank.
Turning suddenly upon him, with her eyes flashing, she exclaimed:
"Major Rockley! as a gentleman I ask you to cease this cowardly
pursuit."
"Claire Denville, as the woman I adore and have set my mind to win, I
ask you to cease this silly heroic nonsense. My dear child, is it to
make terms?"
She snatched her hand by an angry movement from his grasp, and reached
the stile; but he was too quick for her, catching her and drawing her
back to clasp her in his arms.
"You shall not say I wasted my opportunity," he whispered. "If I am to
be punished by you, it shall be for something more than words. This
kiss is to be the first of millions that you shall pay me back, and--
Curse the fellow!"
There was a quick step, a hand was laid on the stile, and Richard
Linnell vaulted over, white with jealous anger. For, coming along the
downs, he had seen Claire cross the stile, followed by Rockley, and,
half mad with rage, he had gazed at them for a moment or two, and then,
feeling that all was over, and that there was no more love for him in
the world, since the woman he had worshipped could be so light as to
make appointments with the greatest libertine in the town, he walked
straight back for the parade.
It was all plain enough; there had been an understanding between Claire
and the Major, and hence that serenade. But for the horrible accident
that night Claire would have come to the window and answered to the
musical call.
What a boyish, childish idiot he had been: dreaming always of a vain,
weak, frivolous woman, whom he had in his blind idolatry endowed with
all the beauties and virtues of her sex.
"Well," he said with a scornful laugh, "I ought to have known how
artificial she would be. Like father, like daughter; but it is cruel,
cruel work."
He laughed bitterly.
"What an idiot I am!" he cried angrily. "A boy in such matters--a
child. Well, it is a lesson. I might have known that she would be as
ready to receive attentions as her sister, and now I may go, and console
myself by making love to the handsome actress who is ready to make love
to me."
"Another actress," he said aloud, as he strode on with his jealous anger
up to boiling-point, his face flushed, and his teeth set fast.
"Liar!" he exclaimed. "Fool! Idiot again! I will not believe it.
Claire Denville is too true and sweet to listen to a man like that."
He turned and went back faster than he had come, but he had walked some
distance, and the return journey gave him time to cool a little and to
ask himself whether he was going to watch--to act the eavesdropper--and
whether this was a manly part to play.
His indecision increased as he approached the down side of the stile,
and he was about to turn and retreat when an excited voice, speaking
loudly, sent a thrill through him, and running to the opening he leaped
over into the cornfield.
At the sight of Linnell, Claire, who had been up to now strong and
heroic, grew feeble and helpless.
"Mr Linnell! Help!" she cried, as she struggled to reach him; and as
Rockley, white with fury at the interruption, loosed his hold, Richard
Linnell was upon him, striking him a blow full in the chest, which sent
him staggering back to fall amongst the corn.
Linnell would have followed, but he caught sight of Claire tottering
towards the stile, and he turned to help her, but Rockley had sprung up
and, with a hoarse cry of rage, struck at Linnell with his riding-whip,
the plaited whalebone falling upon his cheek, and making a weal right
across his face.
Major Rockley had better have restrained his rage, for in an instant
that blow transformed Richard Linnell, the calm and quiet, into a
savage.
He turned round with a roar more than a cry, and sprang upon Rockley;
there was a fierce struggle, ending in the riding-whip being torn from
its owner's grasp, and for the space of a couple of minutes there was
the sound of the lash cutting through the air, and the blows that fell
upon the tight undress uniform.
No words were uttered, but there was the scuffling of feet, the hoarse
panting of excited men, and the corn was trampled down.
"There," cried Linnell at last, flinging Rockley from him, and throwing
the whip in his face, "dog and coward! You have had the thrashing you
deserved. Strike me again if you dare."
Major Rockley picked up the whip, and brushed the dust from his uniform.
He strove hard to make his convulsed face smooth and to force a smile,
while he mastered the desire to writhe and utter impatient cries, so
keen was the agony he felt.
"No," he said, in a low hissing whisper, "you are a stronger man than I,
and when we meet again it shall be on equal terms."
He accompanied his words with a vindictive look that told Richard
Linnell plainly enough how they would encounter next.
He repressed a shudder, and then a pang that seemed to pierce his heart
shot through him, for with a malicious smile Rockley said:
"I did not know the lady had made an appointment with you. Of course,
she had to keep up appearances. But there: I'll say no more."
He raised his cap mockingly, and went off across the cornfield, leaving
Richard Linnell stung to the heart, his brow knit, and his eyes fixed
upon Claire, who, white as ashes, and her face convulsed by the agony
within her breast, crouched where she had sunk upon the lower steps of
the stile.
Volume Two, Chapter II.
"IMPOSSIBLE!"
"Claire--Miss Denville," cried Richard Linnell, mastering the cruel
thoughts suggested by Rockley's words, "how dared that scoundrel insult
you like this!"
"Hush!" said Claire agitatedly. "Don't--pray don't speak to me. I
cannot bear it."
"You are ill. You are faint. Let me help you over these bars and get
you to one of the cottages."
"No; I shall be better directly. Don't speak to me now."
She bent down, covered her face with her hands, and the tears came now
in a passionate burst, while he went down on his knee beside her, laid
one hand upon her arm, and, his doubts and suspicions all driven away by
her grief, tried to whisper words of comfort as he bade her be calm.
Major Rockley had walked with jaunty military stride for the first two
or three hundred yards with assumed calmness; then he gave vent to his
rage in a torrent of oaths, and strode on rapidly out of sight, beating
the air fiercely with his whip, and leaving the fields clear of his
presence as Richard Linnell knelt by the sobbing girl.
"Miss Denville--Claire," he said again, as he now possessed himself of
her hand, while in his anger and remorse at having doubted her he poured
forth his words in quick, excited tones.
"I had not thought to speak to you like this, and at such a time, but I
cannot bear to see you weep--it cuts me to the heart, for I love you--
Claire, dear Claire, I love you dearly as man can love."
"Oh, hush, hush!" she moaned piteously, weak now with her emotion and
the scene she had gone through.
"I must speak now," he went on. "I have no opportunities of seeing you
and telling you all I feel. Claire, I would have come and asked
permission to address you, but I have been obliged to feel that my
presence was not welcome to Mr Denville, and you--you have been so cold
and distant to me of late."
She did not speak, but kept one hand to her bent-down face, while he
held the other tightly clasped in his.
"You do not speak," he whispered. "Claire--you are not angry? I have
suffered so--there, I confess--such jealous thoughts, such bitter cruel
thoughts, though I had no right--no claim upon your love. But now,
forgive me--only tell me--there was nothing between you and that man?"
She raised her head quickly, and dropped her hand.
"You ask me that!" she said proudly.
"Forgive me. You would if you knew all. I felt that you had come to
meet him, and I was tortured with these jealous doubts, but I would not
believe, and I came, as you saw. And now, Claire, one word--my love!"
Her eyes half closed as he drew her towards him; her lips trembled, and
her colour went and came. Then, as if her memory, that had been veiled
for the moment, tore aside the film of forgetfulness, she thrust him
from her, and, with a look of anguish in her eyes, started to her feet.
"No, no!" she cried with a shiver; "it is impossible!"
"Hush! don't say that," he whispered. "Claire, I could not bear it. I
know I am not well-to-do, but I love you. I cannot offer you a rich
home, but I give you a love that is wholly yours. Don't--don't refuse
me--don't make me think that you despise me."
"No, no, it is not that," she sobbed wildly. "You must not speak to me.
It is impossible."
"Impossible?" he cried, holding her hands tightly.
"Yes, impossible."
"No," he said with a quiet smile, "it is not impossible. You will grow
to the knowledge by-and-by that there is one who lives for your sake,
whose every thought is yours, and these little obstacles will melt away
when you know me as I am. Claire, I only ask for a little hope--to go
away with the thought that I have no rival for your love."
"Don't speak to me--don't think of me again!" she cried, with a wild
look in her face. "Heaven bless you, Mr Linnell! Think well of me,
whatever comes, but all that is over now."
"Over? No, no; don't say that. Claire--my love!"
He still held her hands in his, and as their eyes met her lips quivered,
and her sweet face was drawn with anguish. It was a hard fight, but she
conquered, and tearing herself away, she crossed the stile, and he saw
her with bent head hurrying towards her home.
"It is impossible--impossible," he muttered, as he stood leaning against
the stile. "No; she may say that a thousand times, but I shall hold to
my faith, and this affair will give me strength."
He walked slowly homeward, dreaming for a time of Claire's anguished
face, and then the sight of a uniform brought back the thought of the
Major, and the punishment he had received.
"Will he resent it?" he asked himself.
The answer was awaiting him later on at home, where he encountered Cora
Dean just going out for a drive.
The pony-carriage was at the door, and there was nothing for it but to
hand the ladies in, Mrs Dean receiving the attention with a most
ungracious look, while Cora smiled and looked flushed and pleased as she
drove off, with Sir Harry Payne, in Colonel Mellersh's room, watching
her with admiring eyes.
"Won't be long, you know. Very kind of you to see me about it; as it's
his father he lives with," said Sir Harry. "Handsome woman that,
Colonel. Precious unfortunate, all this. I say, how lucky you were at
the tables last night. Very handsome woman that. Ever act now, do you
know?"
"Every day," said Colonel Mellersh drily. "Here, I'll ask Linnell to
step in."
Volume Two, Chapter III.