BY NORTHERN SEAS.
Here, in front of the great, square, old-fashioned Scotch mansion, which
was pleasantly lit up by the morning sun, stood the family waggonette
which had just been filled by those of the house-party who were bound
for church; and here, too, in the spacious porch, was Mrs. Ellison,
smiling her adieux with rather a sad air.
"Good-bye, dear," said her kindly hostess. "I hope you will have got
rid of your headache by the time we get back." And therewith the
carriage was driven away along the pebbled pathway, through an avenue of
magnificent wide-spreading elms.
Then the tall and graceful young widow, who carried a book in her hand,
glanced around her. There was no living thing near except a white
peacock that was solemnly stalking across the lawn. Mrs. Ellison
strolled towards a hammock slung between two maples, and stood there for
a moment, and considered. Should she attempt it? There was no onlooker,
supposing some slight accident befell. Finally, however, her courage
gave way; she returned to the front of the house; and took possession of
a long, low lounging-chair, where she could sit in the sun, and yet have
the pages of her book in shadow.
There was a footfall behind her: Lord Musselburgh made his appearance,
smoking a cigarette.
"Why," said she, with a prettily affected surprise, "haven't you gone to
church? I made sure you had walked on."
"How could I leave you all by yourself," said the young man, with tender
sympathy, "and you suffering from a headache?"
Then she professed to be vexed and impatient.
"Oh, do go away to church!" she said. "You can be in plenty of time, if
you walk fast enough. If you stop here you know what will go on at
lunch. Those Drexel girls can look more mischief than any other twenty
girls could say or do."
"Oh, no," said he, plaintively, "don't send me away! Let us go for a
walk rather. You know, a woman's headache is like her hat--she can put
it on or off when she likes. Come!"
"I consider you are very impertinent," said she, with something of
offended dignity. "Do you think I shammed a headache in order to stay
behind?"
"I don't think anything," said he, discreetly.
"You will be saying next that it was to have this meeting with you?"
"Why, who could dare to imagine such a thing!"
"Oh, very well, very well," said she, with a sudden change to
good-nature, as she rose from the chair. "I forgive you. And I will be
with you in a second."
She was hardly gone a couple of minutes; but in that brief space of time
she had managed to make herself sufficiently picturesque; for to the
simple and neat grey costume which clad her tall and slim and elegant
figure she had added a bold-sweeping hat of black velvet and black
feathers, while round her neck she had wound a black boa, its two long
tails depending in front. Thus there was no colour about her, save what
shone in her perfect complexion, and in the light and expression of her
shrewd, and dangerous, and yet grave and demure blue eyes.
"And really and frankly," said she, as they left the house together, "I
am not sorry to have a chance of a quiet talk with you; for I want to
tell you about my nephew; I am sure you are almost as much interested in
him as I am; and you would be as sorry as I could be if anything were to
happen to him. And I am afraid something is going to happen to him.
His letters to me have entirely changed of late. You know how proud Vin
is by nature--and scornful, too, when you don't act up to his lofty
standard; and when I ventured to hint that he might keep his eyes open
in dealing with that old mountebank and his pretty granddaughter, oh!
the tempestuous indignation of my young gentleman! He seemed to think
that a creature such as I--filled with such base suspicions--was not fit
to live. Well, I did not quarrel with my handsome boy; in fact, I
rather admired his rage and disdain of me; it was part of the singleness
of his nature; for he believes everybody to be as straightforward and
sincere as himself; and he has a very fine notion of loyalty towards his
friends. And vindictive, too, the young villain was; I can tell you I
was made to feel the enormity of my transgression; I was left to wallow
in that quagmire of unworthy doubt in which I had voluntarily plunged
myself. So matters went on; and I could only hope for one of two
things--either that he might find out something about those people that
would sever his connection with them, or that his passing fancy for the
girl would gradually fade away. I made sure he would tire of that
oracular old humbug; or else he would discover there was nothing at all
behind the mysterious eyes and the tragic solemnity of that artful young
madam. Oh, mind you," she continued, as they walked along under the
over-branching maples, amid a rustle of withered October leaves, "mind
you, I don't suspect her quite as much as I suspect the venerable Druid;
and I don't recall anything that I said about her. I admit that she
beglamoured me with her singing of a French Canadian song; but what is
that?--what can you tell of any one's moral or mental nature from a
trick of singing--the thrill of a note--some peculiar quality of voice?
Why, the greatest wretch of a man I ever knew had the most beautiful,
innocent, honest brown eyes--they could make you believe anything--all
the women said he was so good, and so different from other men--well, I
will tell you that story some other time--I found out what the honesty
of the clear brown eyes was worth."
Here she was interrupted by his having to open an iron gate for her.
When they passed through, they came in sight of a solitary little bay of
cream-white sand, touched here and there with russet weed, and ending in
a series of projecting rocky knolls covered with golden bracken; while
before them lay the wide plain of the sea, ruffled into the intensest
blue by a brisk breeze from the north. Still further away rose the great
mountains of Mull, and the long stretch of the Morven hills, all of a
faint, ethereal crimson-brown in the sunlight, with every glen and
water-course traced in lines of purest ultramarine. They had all this
shining world to themselves; and there was an absolute silence save for
the continuous whisper of the ripples that broke along the rocks; whilst
the indescribable murmur--the strange inarticulate voices--of the
greater deep beyond seemed to fill all the listening air.
"And I might have known I was mistaken in Vin's case," she went on,
absently. "He was never the one to be caught by a pretty face, and be
charmed with it for a time, and pass on and forget. He always kept aloof
from that kind of thing--perhaps with a touch of impatient scorn. No; I
might have known it was something more serious: so serious, indeed, is
it, that he has at last condescended to appeal to me--fancy that!--fancy
Vin coming down from his high horse, and appealing to me to be
reasonable, to be considerate, and to stand his friend. And the pages
he writes to persuade me! Really, if you were to believe him, you would
think this old man one of the most striking and interesting figures the
world has ever seen--so fearless in his pride, so patient in his
poverty, so stout-hearted in his old age. Then his splendid enthusiasm
about fine things in literature; his magnanimity over the wrongs he has
suffered; his pathetic affection for his granddaughter and his tender
care of her--why, you would take him to be one of the grandest human
creatures that ever breathed the breath of life! Then about the girl:
don't I remember _La Claire Fontaine_? Oh, yes, I remember _La Claire
Fontaine_--and little else! You see, that is just where the trouble
comes in as regards my nephew. Hard-headed as he is, and brusque of
speech--sometimes, not always--he is just stuffed full of Quixotism; and
I daresay it is precisely because this girl is shy and reserved, and has
rather appealing eyes, that he imagines all kinds of wonderful things
about her, and has made a saint of her, to be worshipped. A merry lass,
with a saucy look and a clever tongue, would have no chance with Vin; he
would stare at her--perhaps only half-disguising his contempt; and then,
if you asked him what he thought of her he would probably say, with a
curl of the lip, 'Impertinent tomboy!' But when he comes to speak of
this one, why, you would think that all womanhood had undergone some
process of deification in her solitary self. Come here, and by this
divine lamp you shall read and understand whatever has been great and
noble and pure and beautiful in all the song and story of the world! And
yet perhaps it is not altogether absurd," the pretty Mrs. Ellison
continued, with a bit of a sigh. "It is pathetic, rather. I wish there
were a few more such men as that; the world could get on very well with
a few more of them. But they don't seem to exist nowadays."
"Ah, if you only knew! Perhaps your experience has been unfortunate,"
her companion said, wistfully: whereupon the young widow, without
turning her head towards him, perceptibly sniggered.
"Oh, _you_!" she exclaimed, in derision. "You! You needn't pretend to
come into that exalted category--no, indeed----"
"I suppose people have been saying things about me to you," said he,
with a certain affectation of being hurt. "But you needn't have
believed them all the same."
"People!" she said. "People! Why, everybody knows what you are! A
professional breaker of poor young innocent girls' hearts. Haven't we
all heard of you? Haven't we all heard how you went on in America? No
such stories came home about Vin, I can assure you. Oh, we all know
what you are!"
"You may have heard one story," said he, somewhat stiffly; "but if you
knew what it really was, you would see that it was nothing to joke
about. Some time I will tell you. Some other time when you are in a
more friendly, a more believing and sympathetic, mood."
"Oh, yes," she said, laughing. "A very heart-rending story, no doubt!
And you were deeply injured, of course, being so extremely innocent! You
forget that I have seen you in a good many houses; you forget that I
have been watching your goings-on with Louie Drexel, in this very place.
Do you think I can't recognise the old hand--the expert--the artist?
Lord Musselburgh, you can't deceive me."
"Probably not," said he, sharply. "If all tales be true you have
acquired some experience yourself."
"Oh, who said that about me!" she demanded, with indignation (but her
eyes were not indignant, they were rather darkly amused, if only he had
made bold to look at them.) "Who dared to say such a thing? And of
course you listened without a word of protest: probably you assented!
What it is to have friends! But perhaps some day I, also, may have a
little story to tell you; and then you may understand me a little
better."
Here there was another farm-gate for him to open, so that their talk was
again interrupted. Then they passed under a series of lofty grey crags
hung with birch, and hazel, and rowan, all in their gorgeous autumnal
tints; until they came in sight of another secluded little bay, with
silver ripples breaking along the sand, and with small outlying islands
covered with orange seaweed where they were not white with gulls. And
here was a further stretch of that wind-swept, dark blue, striated sea,
with the lonely hills of Morven and Kingairloch, sun-dappled and
cloud-dappled, rising into the fair turquoise sky. There was a scent of
dew-wet grass mingling with the stronger odour of the seaweed the breeze
was blowing freshly in. And always there came to them the long,
unceasing, multitudinous murmur of those moving waters, that must have
sounded to them so great and vast a thing beside the small trivialities
of their human speech.
"Have you read Vin's article in the _Imperial Review_?" said Mrs.
Ellison, flicking at a thistle with her sun-shade.
"Not yet. But I saw it announced. About American State Legislatures,
isn't it, or something of that kind?"
"It seemed to me very ably and clearly written," she said. "But that is
not the point. I gather that Vin has been contemplating all kinds of
contingencies; and that he is now trying to qualify for the post of
leader-writer on one of the daily newspapers. What does that mean?--it
means that he is determined to marry this girl, and that he thinks it
probable there may be a break between himself and his father in
consequence. There may be?--there will be, I give you my word! My
amiable brother-in-law's theories of Socialism and Fraternity and
Universal Equality are very pretty toys to play with--and they have even
gained him a sort of reputation through his letters to the _Times_; but
he doesn't bring them into the sphere of actual life. Of course, Vin
has his own little money; and I, for one, why, I shouldn't see him
starve in any case; but I take it that he is already making provision
for the future and its responsibilities. Now isn't that dreadful? I
declare to you, Lord Musselburgh, that when I come down in the morning
and find a letter from him lying on the hall-table, my heart sinks--just
as if I heard the men on the stair bringing down a coffin. Because I
know if he is captured by those penniless adventurers, it will be all
over with my poor lad; he will be bound to them; he will have to support
them; he will have to sacrifice friends and fortune, and a future surely
such as never yet lay before any young man. Just think of it! Who ever
had such possibilities before him? Who ever had so many friends, all
expecting great things of him? Who ever was so petted and caressed and
admired by those whose slightest regard is considered by the world at
large an honour; and--I will say this for my boy---who ever deserved it
more, or remained all through it so unspoiled, and simple, and manly?
Oh, you don't know what he has been to me--what I have hoped for him--as
if he were my only brother, and one to be proud of! His father is well
known, no doubt; he has got a sort of academic reputation; but he is not
liked; people don't talk about him as if--as if they cared for him. But
Vincent could win hearts as well as fame: ah, do you think I don't
know?--trust a woman to know! There is a strange kind of charm and
fascination about him: I would put the most accomplished lady-killer in
England in a drawing-room, and I know where the girls' eyes would go the
moment my Vin made his appearance: perhaps it is because he is so
honestly indifferent to them all. And it isn't women only; it isn't
merely his good looks; every one, young and old, man and woman, is taken
with him; there is about him a sort of magic and glamour of
youth--and--and bright promise--and straightforward intention--oh, I
can't tell you what!--but--but--it's something that makes me love him!"
"That is clear enough," said he; and indeed there was a ring of
sincerity in her tone, sometimes even a tremor in her voice--perhaps of
pride.
"Well," she resumed, as they strolled along under the beetled crags that
were all aflame with golden-yellow birch and blood-red rowan, "I am not
going to stand aside and see all that fair promise lost. I own I am a
selfish woman; and hitherto I have kept aloof, as I did not want to get
myself into trouble. I am going to hold aloof no longer. The more I
hear the more I am convinced that Vin has fallen into the hands of an
unscrupulous sharper--perhaps a pair of them; and I mean to have his
eyes opened. Here is this new revelation about that American book,
which simply means that you were swindled out of L50----"
"One moment," her companion said hastily, and there was a curious look
of mortification on his face. "I had no right to tell you that story. I
broke confidence: I am ashamed of myself. And I assure you I was not
swindled out of any L50. When the old man came to me, with his Scotch
accent, and his Scotch patriotism, and his Scotch plaid thrown over his
shoulder--well, 'my heart warmed to the tartan'; and I was glad of the
excuse for helping him. I did not want any book; and I certainly did
not want the money back. But when Vin came to me, and made
explanations, and finally handed me a cheque for L50, there was
something in his manner that told me I dared not refuse. It was
something like 'Refuse this money, and you doubt the honour of the woman
I am going to marry.' But seeing that I did take it, I have now nothing
to say. My mouth is shut--ought to have been shut, rather, only you and
I have had some very confidential chats since we came up here."
"All the same, it was a downright swindle," said she, doggedly; "and the
fact that Vin paid you back the money makes it none the less a swindle.
Now I will tell you what I am about to do. I must be cruel to be kind.
I am going to enlist the services of George Morris----"
"Sir George?" he asked.
"No, no; George Morris, the solicitor--his wife and I are very great
friends--and I know he would do a great deal for me. Very well; he must
get to know simply everything about this old man--his whole history--and
if it turns out to be what I imagine, then some of us will have to go to
Vin and tell him the truth. It won't be a pleasant duty; but duty never
is pleasant. I know I shall be called a traitor for my share in it.
Here is Vin appealing to me to be his friend--as if I were not his
friend!--begging me to come and take this solitary and friendless girl
by the hand, and all the rest of it; and instead of that I go behind his
back and try to find out what will destroy his youthful romance for
ever. But it's got to be done," said the young widow, with a sigh. "It
will be a wrench at first; then six months' despair; and a life-time of
thankfulness thereafter. And of course I must give George Morris all
the help I can. He must make enquiries, for one thing, at the office of
the _Edinburgh Chronicle_: I remember at Henley the old gentleman spoke
of the proprietor as a friend of his. Then the man you know in New York,
who gave Mr. Bethune a letter of introduction to you: what is his name
and address?"
"Oh, no," said Lord Musselburgh, shrinking back, as it were. "No; I
don't want to take part in it. Of course, you may be acting quite
rightly; no doubt you are acting entirely in Vin's interests; but--but I
would rather have nothing to do with it."
"And yet you call yourself Vin's friend! Come, tell me!" she said,
coaxingly.
Again he refused.
"Mind you, I believe I could find out for myself," she went on. "I know
that he is the editor of a newspaper in New York--a Scotch newspaper:
come, Lord Musselburgh, give me his name, or the name of the newspaper!"
He shook his head.
"No--not fair," he said.
Then she stopped, and faced him, and regarded him with arch eyes.
"And yet it was on this very pathway, only yesterday morning, that you
swore that there was nothing in the world that you wouldn't do for me!"
"That was different," said he, with some hesitation. "I meant as regards
myself. This concerns some one else."
"Oh, very well," said she, and she walked on proudly. "I dare say I can
find out."
He touched her arm to detain her.
"Have you a note-book?" he asked.
She took from her pocket a combined purse and note-book; and without a
word--or a smile--she pulled out the pencil.
"'Hugh Anstruther, _Western Scotsman_ Office, New York,'" said he,
rather shamefacedly.
"There, that is all right!" she said, blithely, and she put the
note-book in her pocket again. "That is as far as we can go in that
matter at present; and now we can talk of something else. What is the
name of this little bay?"
"Little Ganovan, I believe."
"And the other one we passed?"
"Port Ban."
"What is the legend attached to the robber's cave up there in the
rocks?"
"The legend? Oh, some one told me the gardener keeps his tools in that
cave."
"What kind of a legend is that!" she said, impatiently; and then she
went on with her questions. "Why doesn't anybody ever come round this
way?"
"I suppose because they know we want the place to ourselves."
"And why should we want the place to ourselves?"
This was unexpected. He paused.
"Ah," said he, "what is the use of my telling you? All your interest is
centred on Vin. I suppose a woman can only be interested in one man at
any one time."
"Well, I should hope so!" the young widow said, cheerfully. "Shall we
go round by the rocks or through the trees?"
For they were now come to a little wood of birch and larch and pine; and
without more ado he led the way, pushing through the outlying tall
bracken and getting in underneath the branches.
"I suppose," said he, in a rather rueful tone, "that you don't know what
is the greatest proof of affection that a man can show to a woman? No,
of course you don't!"
"What is it, then?" she demanded, as she followed him stooping.
"Why, it's going first through a wood, and getting all the spider's-webs
on his nose."
But presently they had come to a clearer space, where they could walk
together, their footfalls hushed by the carpet of withered fir-needles;
while here and there a rabbit would scurry off, and again they would
catch a glimpse of a hen-pheasant sedately walking down a glade between
the trees. And now their talk had become much more intimate and
confidential; it had even assumed a touch of more or less affected
sadness.
"It's very hard," he was saying, "that you should understand me so
little. You think I am cold, and cynical, and callous. Well, perhaps I
have reason to be. I have had my little experience of womankind--of one
woman, rather. I sometimes wonder whether the rest are anything like
her, or are capable of acting as she did."
"Who was she?" his companion asked, timidly.
And therewith, as they idly and slowly strolled through this little
thicket, he told his tragic tale, which needs not to be set down here:
it was all about the James river, Virginia, and a pair of southern eyes,
and betrayal, and farewell, and black night. His companion listened in
the deep silence of sympathy; and when he had finished she said, in a
low voice, and with downcast eyes--
"I am sorry--very sorry. But at least there was one thing spared you:
you did not marry out of spite."
He glanced at her quickly.
"Oh, yes," she said, and she raised her head, and spoke with a proud and
bitter air, "I have my story too! I do not tell it to everyone.
Perhaps I have not told it to anyone. But the man I loved was separated
from me by lies--by lies; and I was fool and idiot enough to believe
them! And the one I told you about--the one with the beautiful, clear,
brown eyes--so good and noble he was, as everyone declared!--it was he
who came to me with those falsehoods; and I believed them--I believed
them--like the fool I was! Oh, yes," she said, and she held her head
high, for her breast was heaving with real emotion this time, "it is
easy to say that every mistake meets with its own punishment; but I was
punished too much--too much; a life-long punishment for believing what
lying friends had said to me!" She furtively put the tips of her
fingers to her eyes, to wipe away the tears that lay along the lashes.
"And then I was mad; I was out of my senses; I would have married
anybody to show that--that I cared nothing for--for the other one;
and--and I suppose he was angry too--he would not speak--he stood aside,
and knew that I was going to kill my life, and never a single word!
That was his revenge--to say nothing--when he saw me about to kill my
life! Cruel, do you call it? Oh, no!--what does it matter? A woman's
heart broken--what is that? But now you know why I think so of
men--and--and why I laugh at them----"
Well, her laughing was strange: she suddenly burst into a violent fit of
crying and sobbing, and turned away from him, and hid her face in her
handkerchief. What could he do? This was all unlike the gay young
widow who seemed so proud of her solitary estate and so well content.
Feeble words of comfort were of small avail. And then, again, it hardly
seemed the proper occasion for offering her more substantial
sympathy--though that was in his mind all the while, and very nearly on
the tip of his tongue. So perforce he had to wait until her weeping was
over; and indeed it was she herself who ended the scene by exclaiming
impatiently--
"There--enough of that! I did not intend to bother you with my small
troubles when I stayed behind for you this morning. Come, shall we go
out on to the rocks, and round by the little bay? What do you call
it--Ganovan?"
"Yes; I think they call it Little Ganovan," he said, absently, as he and
she together emerged from the twilight of larch and pine, and proceeded,
leisurely and in silence, to cross the semicircular sweep of yellow
sand.
When they got to the edge of the rocks, they sat down there: apparently
they had nothing to do on this idle morning but to contemplate that
vast, far-murmuring, dark blue plain--touched here and there with a
sharp glimmer of white--and the range upon range of the Kingairloch
hills, deepening in purple gloom, or shining rose-grey and yellow-grey
in the sun. In this solitude they were quite alone save for the
sea-birds that had wheeled into the air, screaming and calling, at their
approach; but the terns and curlews were soon at peace again; a cloud of
gulls returned to one of the little islands just in front of them; while
a slow-flapping heron winged its heavy flight away to the north. All
once more was silence; and the world was to themselves.
And yet what was he to say to this poor suffering soul whose tragic
sorrows and experiences had been thus unexpectedly disclosed? He really
wished to be sympathetic; and, if he dared, he would have reminded her
that
'Whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.'
only he knew how difficult it is to quote poetry without making one's
self ridiculous; and also he knew that the pretty young widow's eyes had
a dangerous trick of sudden laughter. However, it was she who first
spoke.
"I wonder what those who have gone to church will say when they discover
that we have spent all the morning here?"
"They may say what they like," he made answer, promptly. "There are
things one cannot speak about in drawing-rooms, among a crowd. And how
could I ever have imagined that you, with your high spirits and merry
temperament, and perpetual good-humour, had come through such trials? I
wonder that people never think of the mischief that is done by
intermeddling----"
"Intermeddling?" said she proudly. "It wasn't of intermeddling I had to
complain: it was a downright conspiracy--it was false stories--I was
deceived by those who professed to be my best friends. There is
intermeddling and intermeddling. You might say I was intermeddling in
the case of my nephew. But what harm can come of that? It is not lies,
it is the truth, I want to have told him. And even if it causes him
some pain, it will be for his good. Don't you think I am right?"
He hesitated.
"I hope so," he said. "But you know things wear such a different
complexion according to the way you look at them----"
"But facts, Lord Musselburgh, facts," she persisted. "Do you think a
man like George Morris would be affected by any sentimental
considerations one way or the other? Won't he find out just the truth?
And that is all I honestly want Vin to know--the actual truth: then let
him go on with his eyes open if he chooses. Facts, Lord Musselburgh:
who can object to facts?" Then she said--as she gave him her hand that
he might assist her to rise--
"We must be thinking of getting back home now, for if we are late for
lunch, those Drexel girls will be grinning at each other like a couple
of fiends."
Rather reluctantly he rose also, and accompanied her. They made their
way across a series of rough, bracken-covered knolls projecting into the
sea until they reached the little bay that is known as Port Ban; and
here, either the beauty and solitude of the place tempted them, or they
were determined to defy sarcasm, for instead of hastening home, they
quietly strolled up and down the smooth cream-white beach, now and again
picking up a piece of rose-red seaweed, or turning over a limpet-shell,
or watching a sandpiper making his quick little runs alongside the
clear, crisp-curling ripples. They did not speak; they were as silent
as the transparent blue shadows that their figures cast on the
soft-yielding surface on which they walked. And sometimes Lord
Musselburgh seemed inclined to write something, with the point of his
stick, on that flawless sand; and then again he desisted; and still they
continued silent.
She took up a piece of pink seaweed, and began pulling it to shreds. He
was standing by, looking on.
"Don't you think," said he at last, "that there should be a good deal of
sympathy--a very unusual sympathy--between two people who have come
through the same suffering?"
"Oh, I suppose so," she said, with affected carelessness--her eyes still
bent on the seaweed.
"Do you know," said he, again, "that I haven't the least idea what your
name is!"
"My name? Oh, my name is Madge," she answered.
"Madge?" said he. "I wonder if you make the capital M this way?" and
therewith he traced on the sand an ornamental _M_ in the manner of the
last century.
"No, I don't," she said, "but it is very pretty. How do you write the
rest?"
Thus encouraged, he made bold to add the remaining letters, and seemed
rather to admire his handiwork when it was done.
"By the way," she said, "I don't know your Christian name either!"
"Hubert."
"Can you write that in the same fashion?" she suggested, with a simple
ingenuousness.
So, grown still bolder, he laboriously inscribed his name immediately
underneath her own. But that was not all. When he had ended he drew a
circle right round both names.
"That is a ring to enclose them," said he: and he turned from the scored
names to regard her downcast face. "But--but I know a much smaller ring
that could bring them still closer together. Will you let me
try--Madge?"
He took her hand.
"Yes," she said, in a low voice.
And then--Oh, very well, then: then--but after a reasonable delay--then
they left those creamy sands, and went up by the edge of the blue-green
turnip-field to the pathway, and so to the iron gate; and as he opened
the gate for her, she said--
"Oh, I don't know what happened down there, and what I've pledged myself
to; but at all events there will now be one more on my side, to help me
about Vin, and get him out of all this sad trouble. You will help me,
won't you--Hubert?"
Of course he was eager to promise anything.
"And you say he is sure to get in for Mendover? Why, just think of him
now, with everything before him; and how nice it would be for all of us
if he had a smart and clever wife, who would hold her own in society,
and do him justice, and make us all as proud and fond of her as we are
of him. And just fancy the four of us setting out on a winter-trip to
Cairo or Jerusalem: wouldn't it be simply too delicious? The four of
us--only the four of us--all by ourselves. Louie Drexel is rather
young, to be sure; yet she knows her way about; she's sharp; she's
clever; she will have some money; and she has cheek enough for anything.
And by the way--Hubert--" said she (and always with a pretty little
hesitation when she came to his Christian name) "I must really ask
you--with regard to Louie Drexel--well--you know--you have been--just a
little----"
He murmured something about the devotion of a lifetime--the devotion
which he had just promised to her--being a very different thing from
trivial drawing-room dallyings; whereupon she observed--
"Oh, yes, men say so by way of excuse----"
"How many men have said so to you?" he demanded, flaring up.
"I did not say they had said so to me," she answered sweetly. "Don't go
and be absurdly jealous without any cause whatever. If any one has a
right to be jealous, it is I, considering the way you have been going on
with Louie Drexel. But of course if there's nothing in it, that's all
well and done with; and I am of a forgiving disposition, when I'm taken
the right way. Now about Vin: can you see anybody who would do better
for him than Louie Drexel?"
Be sure it was not of Vin Harris, much as he was interested in him, that
Lord Musselburgh wished to talk at this moment; but, on the other hand,
in the first flush of his pride and gratitude, any whim of hers was law
to him; and perhaps it was a sufficient and novel gratification to be
able to call her Madge.
"I'm afraid," said he, "that Vin is not the kind of person to have his
life arranged for him by other people. And besides you must remember,
Madge, dear, that you are assuming a great deal. You are assuming that
you can show Vin that this old man is an impostor----"
"Oh, can there be any doubt of it!" she exclaimed. "Isn't the story you
have told me yourself enough?"
Lord Musselburgh looked rather uncomfortable; he was a good-natured kind
of person, and liked to think the best of everybody.
"I had no right to tell you that story," said he.
"But now I have the right to know about that and everything else,
haven't I--Hubert?" said she, with a pretty coyness.
"And besides," he continued, "Vin has a perfect explanation of the whole
affair. There is no doubt the old man was just full of this subject,
and believed he could write about it better than anyone else, even
supposing the idea had occurred to some other person; he was anxious
above all things that his poetical countrymen over there in the States
and Canada should be done justice to; and when he heard that the volume
was actually published he immediately declared that he would do
everything in his power to help it----"
"But what about the L50--Hubert?"
"Oh, well," her companion said, rather uneasily, "I have told you that
that was a gift from me to him. I did not stipulate for the publication
of any book."
She considered for a moment: then she said, with some emphasis----
"And you think it no shame--you think it no monstrous thing--that our
Vin should marry a girl who has been in the habit of going about with
her grandfather while he begged money, and accepted money, from
strangers? Is that the fate you wish for your friend?"
"No, I don't wish anything of the kind," said he, "if--if matters were
so. But Vin and you look at these things in a very different light; and
I can hardly believe that he has been so completely imposed on. I
confess I liked the old man: I liked his splendid enthusiasm, his
magnificent self-reliance, yes, and his Scotch plaid; and I thought the
girl was remarkably beautiful--and more than that--refined and
distinguished-looking--something unusual about her somehow----"
"Oh, yes, you are far too generous, Hubert," his companion said. "You
accept Vin's representations without a word. But I see more clearly.
And that little transaction about the book and the L50 gives me a key to
the whole situation. You may depend on it, George Morris will find out
what kind of person your grandiloquent old Scotchman is like. And then,
when Vin's eyes are opened----"
"Yes, when Vin's eyes are opened?" her companion repeated.
"Then he will see into what a terrible pit he was nearly falling."
"Are you so sure of that?" Musselburgh said. "I know Vin a little. It
isn't merely a pretty face that has taken his fancy, as you yourself
admit. If he has faith in that girl, it may not be easy to shake it."
"I should not attempt to shake it," she made answer at once, "if the
girl was everything she ought to be, and of proper upbringing and
surroundings. But even if it turned out that she was everything she
should be, wouldn't it be too awful to have Vin dragged down into an
alliance with that old--that old--oh, I don't know what to call
him!----"
"Madge, dear," said he, "don't call him anything, until you learn more
about him. And in the meantime," he continued, rather plaintively,
"don't you think we might talk a little about ourselves, considering
what has just happened?"
"There is such a long time before us to talk about ourselves," said she.
"And you know--Hubert--you've come into our family, as it were; and you
must take a share in our troubles."
They were nearing the house: five minutes more would bring them in sight
of the open lawn.
"Wait a minute, Madge, dear," said he, and he halted by the side of a
little bit of plantation. "Don't be in such a hurry. I wish to speak to
you about----"
"About what?" she asked, with a smile.
"Oh, a whole heap of things! For example, do you want the Somervilles
to know?"
"I don't particularly want them to know," she answered him, "but I fear
they will soon find out."
"I should like you to tell Mrs. Somerville, anyway."
"Very well."
"Indeed, I don't care if all the people in the house knew!" said he,
boldly.
"Hubert, what are you saying!" she exclaimed, with a fine simulation of
horror. "My life would be made a burden to me! Fancy those Drexel
girls: they would shriek with joy at the chance of torturing me! I
should have to fly from the place. I should take the first train for
the South to-morrow morning!"
"Really!" said he, with considerable coolness. "For I have been thinking
that those names we printed on the sands----"
"That you printed, you mean!"
"----were above high-water mark. Consequently they will remain there
for some little time. Now it is highly probable that some of our friends
may be walking along to Port Ban this afternoon; and if they were to
catch sight of those hieroglyphics----"
"Hubert," said she, with decision. "You must go along immediately after
luncheon and score them out. I would not for the world have those
Drexel girls suspect what has happened!"
"Won't you come with me, Madge, after luncheon?"
"Oh, we can't be haunting those sands all day like a couple of
sea-gulls!"
"But I think you might come!" he pleaded.
"Very well," said she, "I suppose I must begin with obedience."
And yet they seemed in no hurry to get on to the house. A robin perched
himself on the wire fence not four yards away, and jerked his head, and
watched them with his small, black, lustrous eye. A weasel came trotting
down the road, stopped, looked, and glided noiselessly into the
plantation. Two wood-pigeons went swiftly across an opening in the
trees; a large hawk soared far overhead. On this still Sunday morning
there seemed to be no one abroad; and then these two had much to say
about a ring, and a locket, and similar weighty matters. Moreover,
there was the assignation about the afternoon to be arranged.
But at length they managed to tear themselves away from this secluded
place; they went round by the front of the big grey building; and in so
doing had to pass the dining-room window.
"Oh my gracious goodness!" Mrs. Ellison exclaimed--and in no stimulated
horror this time. "They're all in at lunch, every one of them, and I
don't know how long they mayn't have been in! What shall I do!"
And then a sudden thought seemed to strike her.
"Hubert, my headache has come back! I'm going up to my room. Will you
give my excuses to Mrs. Somerville? I'd a hundred times rather starve
than--than be found out."
"Oh, that is all nonsense!" said he--but in an undertone, for they were
now in the spacious stone-paved hall. "Go to your room, if you like;
and I'll tell Mrs. Somerville, and she'll send you up something. You
mustn't starve, for you're going round with me to Port Ban in the
afternoon."
And, of course, the gentle hostess was grieved to hear that her friend
had not yet got rid of her headache; and she herself went forthwith to
Mrs. Ellison's room, to see what would most readily tempt the appetite
of the poor invalid. The poor invalid was at her dressing-table, taking
off her bonnet. She wheeled round.
"I am so sorry, dear, about your headache--" her hostess was beginning,
when the young widow went instantly to the door and shut it. Then she
came back; and there was a most curious look--of laughter, perhaps--in
her extremely pretty eyes.
"Never mind about the headache!" she said to her astonished friend, who
saw no cause for this amused embarrassment, nor yet for the exceedingly
affectionate way in which both her hands had been seized. "The headache
is gone. I've--I've something else to tell you--oh, you'd never guess
it in the world! My dear, my dear," she cried in a whisper, and her
tell-tale eyes were full of confusion as well as laughter. "You'd never
guess--but--but I've gone and made a fool of myself for the second
time!"