another direction than that taken by Mr. Winstanley.
It was over. He had done with Posey Winstanley and all her kind. If
she were so capricious as her actions indicated, this decision was a
thoroughly good thing.
But all the same, like Lot's wife, he looked back. Posey had taken out
her pocket handkerchief, and was wiping her eyes with the little wisp
half the ship had picked up after her. Clandonald, in two strides,
returned to her side.
"I am not going to push myself into your company. Just two minutes, and
I'll be off. But I think you owe it to me to say why you are treating me
like a scoundrel or an impostor."
"Oh! not that, not that!" she cried piteously.
"Have I done anything to forfeit a place among your decent acquaintances
since that time you clung to my arm and--I mean since you let me feel
that I might stand between you and insult----"
"Nothing. I believe in you just the same, and always shall."
"Thank you for so much, at any rate. But--you believe in me, in _spite_
of what?"
"Oh! Lord Clandonald, how can I say it to you?" she exclaimed, driven
to the wall.
"I have stood a good deal of evil speaking in my time," he said, in a
grim undertone. "And if it helps to clear the atmosphere between us, I
can stand more."
"It is not you only, I, too, have been the victim of cruel and
slanderous sayings. I have not told my dear father, who is so
unsuspicious. I wouldn't have him suffer as I have for the world. For
the last twenty-four hours I have been receiving, in all sorts of odd
ways that I cannot trace, anonymous notes about you and me that have cut
me to the quick."
"Let me see one of them," he said, growing slightly pale.
"Do you think I'd keep the horrid, poisonous things? Not a half hour
since I tore the whole batch into little bits, and threw them overboard.
Perhaps ... I ought to tell you, they were written by a woman, who
says----"
"Go on, Miss Winstanley."
"--That you wronged her cruelly and ruined her whole life."
"I thought so," he said, between his teeth. His face had grown so dark
and bitter that Posey hardly knew the man. "There is only one who
could--but how, in God's name, did she get aboard this ship?"
"I suppose the writer thought I would not have courage to tell you--but
I always believe in speaking out, you know."
"It may be some low practical joke at our expense," he suggested, his
eyes lightening.
"No, even I, who never saw an anonymous letter before, could tell that
this is horridly real. Whoever it is, Lord Clandonald, you--and now
I--have a desperate enemy. I am threatened with a scene, an exposure,
she calls it, that will disgrace me utterly, if I am seen again with
you."
"Let me risk it for you! Let me stand between you and all liars, evil
speakers and slanderers, for always--" the man exclaimed passionately,
then stopped short.
There was that in the girl's look that startled him from his
unconsidered speech. The staring white light of the electric globe
immediately above them showed the bloom forsaking her young face, the
lips trembling violently.
"It proves how little we know of each other that I should let you say
such words to one who has no right to hear them," she said, recovering
herself to speak in her natural tone. "But if we mayn't be friends,
after this, please remember that I have believed you, not your
slanderer. Now, as my father doesn't seem to be coming back, and this
is not my native air, if it is yours, I will say good-by. We'll be too
busy and too cross to want to speak to each other to-morrow morning,
even if it were wise. If you meet me again, it will be a different
Pamela Winstanley, one who knows more, perhaps, and makes fewer
mistakes, but who'll never forget your kindness on this voyage."
Clandonald was bewildered at her rapid change back into the speech of
conventionality, her self-control, her determination to put him
definitely away from her. His brain was also dizzy with thoughts of the
dread presence on shipboard of the one woman he had hoped never to see
on earth again. What he might, could or would have answered Miss
Winstanley was not said.
They stood together uncertainly for one confusing moment in what seemed
a moist gray world, haunted by skulking shadows in tarpaulin, the chill
wind of the Channel whipping them, overhead the repeated raucous roar of
the fog-horn--and then she was gone, melted away into encompassing
gloom! His ship-idyl, his mad brief temptations of a few moments since,
were past. He was back again in England with his bitter memories and
cheerless future.
To Mariol he gave, before bed-time, an account of the outrage to which
Miss Winstanley had been subjected, begging him to try to trace out the
offender, and silence her at any cost.
The Frenchman, promising to do this, and relieved at the collapse of his
friend's nascent affair with Miss Winstanley, was hardly surprised, on
awaking next day, and finding their ship safely alongside her dock in
Liverpool, to be told that his lordship, impatient of delay, had gone
ashore during the night in the tender that had nosed its way to the
fog-bound liner to carry off the mails, leaving his servant to follow
with his luggage.
Mariol, after attending unsuccessfully to the business entrusted to him
by Clandonald, encountered Miss Carstairs, her chaperon and maid, on
deck awaiting the summons to go ashore. He stood by them, commenting
with amusement upon the sudden disintegration of the ardent intimacies
of the voyage. To judge from appearances, the chief aim of the
passengers was now to rid themselves of one another as promptly as
possible. People who had sworn fidelity over night were offish,
mysterious, absorbed in petty anxieties about customs, telegrams, trains
and tips. As usual to inexperienced tourists, the latter question arose
to be a cloud that was ultimately to overshadow the glories of European
travel. What attendants had been remunerated according to service done,
what countenances had darkened, who had seemed satisfied, was discussed
in whispers between anxious family groups. Farewell sentiments bestowed
upon friends one thought one had seen the last of were found to be
superfluous, since the recipients were sure to be found again
provokingly popping up everywhere; on the gangway, on the docks, and
facing the customs officers. Lucky if one were not to be thrust
together with them into the same railway carriage, all to arrive in
London hating each other heartily!
M. de Mariol, without appearing to do so, had scanned narrowly the
outgoing crowd from the steamer. No trace had appeared, here or
elsewhere, of the familiar figure of Clandonald's former wife. A
suggestion occurring to him that the excursive Ruby had been last heard
of in America, and was probably returning under an alias, made the
search in the passenger lists a futile one. Whatever were the facts in
the history of this obnoxious and insufferable woman, he must give her
up for the present as a bad job. He felt almost inclined to believe
that some one else had thrown suspicion upon her, in order to cover a
low attack upon Miss Winstanley and Clandonald.
As he and Miss Carstairs started a little later to walk together up the
inclined plane leading to the Euston Special, they beheld, in the
street, Mr. and Miss Winstanley getting into a four-wheeler laden with
archaic trunks, from the window of which Posey waved to them a sober
last good-by.
At the same moment they were asked to step aside to give place to an
invalid chair containing Mr. Vereker, greenish-gray of complexion,
scowling at all the world, and escorted by his nurse and doctor. No
vestige remained of the effusive host, the ladies' gallant, the purveyor
of choicest scandal from the clubs! His wife and valet, with Mr.
Charley Brownlow and a train of servants and porters, brought up the
rear of the cortege, pressing importantly forward to reach their private
car.
Miss Bleecker, whose soul always melted tenderly to the sorrows of the
rich, could not lose this opportunity. Stepping up briskly, she
proffered her condolence to the suffering magnate, to be repelled by a
savage gesture and a snarl of annoyance at being spoken to, that caused
the irate lady to retire in crimson confusion.
She was the more perturbed by the incident, because not only did her
dear friend Mrs. Vereker decline to make amends for her husband's
ill-manners, but she murmured audibly to Mr. Brownlow that "Sally
Bleecker never did know how to stay in the back row." Additionally, the
chaperon's discomfiture was increased by the appearance of Lord and Lady
Channel Fleet, who with their depressed maid hugging a jewel-case
containing the well-known turquoises, were hastening away to the joys of
home and their native land. Lady Channel Fleet enjoyed the little
scene. She had just whispered to her husband that she'd be thankful to
get to their own house, where at last they wouldn't see Americans or
hear them talk.
The next acquaintance to pass by Mariol and Miss Carstairs was Prince
Zourikoff, who, from between two porters carrying some Aztec images he
had secured in Mexico, gave them an abstracted nod to supplement his
polite farewell achieved on board. Dear old Graf von Bau was already in
the embraces of his loving spouse and two gigantic daughters, who were
kissing him violently upon both cheeks, and, attended by a secretary,
governess and maid, had come over from Berlin to meet and reclaim their
wanderer.
"Thus vanish Miss Winstanley and her little court!" said Mariol in Miss
Carstairs' ear. "It is true, Bobby Vane clung to her till forcibly
taken possession of by his elder brother, whom the Kenningtons sent down
to fetch him safely home. The lad was sufficiently hard hit, and if the
young lady had been ambitious of making an English alliance of rank, she
might have secured him--to the disgust of the Kenningtons, of course,
since Bobby has nothing, and the Winstanleys are evidently in modest
circumstances."
"I believe I can surprise you there," said Helen. "As we are all
scattering, it can make no difference to any one--certainly on this side
the globe," she added, with a faint sigh.
"I like an _apres coup_. Please tell me," answered he, smiling.
"First, tell me something. If you like, that is, if not, let it go.
From what you have observed, does it strike you that a friend of Miss
Winstanley's would be justified in thinking that Lord Clandonald has
fallen in love with her?"
"Lord Clandonald left the ship without making any arrangement for a
future meeting with the young lady," said Mariol, diplomatically. "And
to my best knowledge, there is no likelihood of his seeing her, unless
by chance."
Helen drew a long breath, but not one of relief.
"Because," she went on, "her good old father came yesterday to thank me
for some imagined kindness to his daughter, and, in the course of
conversation, told me that he had recently become the owner of a
large--very large--fortune, but in his desire to protect her from
'interested' suitors, had determined to keep the knowledge of it from
her. He asked my advice as to the wisdom of the step, poor soul! I told
him that I had had some experience of paternal mismanagement in this
regard, in the case of a friend of mine--and that I thought Posey ought
certainly to know."
"I agree with you," commented Mariol, astonished, and, for Clandonald's
sake, just a tiny bit depressed. "What a difference it would have made
on board, had it been suspected that our social sovereign was possessed
of a golden foundation for her throne. And since you have mentioned my
friend Clandonald's fancy for the young lady----"
"It was rather unfair for me not to have told you at once," interrupted
Miss Carstairs, "that I am aware of reasons why such a fancy on his part
for Mr. Winstanley's heiress, or of her for him, would have produced
disastrous results in America."
"She is, then--" began Mariol, trying to keep the vexation from his
voice.
"Mr. Winstanley said that he thought it best for any one interested in
his daughter that there should be no concealment of her engagement to
marry a man whom she has long known--of whom he thoroughly approves, and
that his daughter was willing to have it known. A man whom such a
marriage will help in the best way, since when they became engaged, he
knew nothing whatever, nor does he now, of her improved fortunes."
"Lucky fellow!" said Mariol, swallowing a grimace. "But I must own to
you that the circumstance robs the fair Posey of a good deal of her
interest in my eyes. You, Miss Carstairs, are so far removed from their
estate of happy barbarism, you are so broad, so far-seeing, you won't
object to my suggesting that the image of Miss Winstanley's mate chosen
from among her friends of early years does not allure me. He is, in
fact, a total extinguisher of my desire to meet her after she shall have
become his wife. Now, own that you yourself have a shudder of mild
distaste when you think of what he must be!"
"On the contrary," said Miss Carstairs, distinctly, "I have the pleasure
of knowing Miss Winstanley's fiance; and I consider him not only one of
the most manly men, but the truest gentleman in the circle of my
acquaintance."
"Helen, here is a compartment that will just hold you and me and
Eulalie, comfortably, and we will tip the guard to let us have it to
ourselves," came in Miss Bleecker's penetrating tones. "Good-by, M. de
Mariol, we shall always remember our pleasant voyage, and I shall
treasure that clever thing you wrote in my birthday book. Sorry not to
have seen Lord Clandonald to say good-by, but we shall all meet again,
of course, people always do. Don't forget if you are in town, any time,
we are in Curzon Street for a fortnight, and then Paris, Hotel
Westminster. Eulalie, you have Miss Carstairs' black jacket? Porter,
look out for those umbrellas in the netting, put my dressing bag beside
me, the tea-basket overhead--where is the other rug? Oh! I see. Ten
pieces, all right, porter, here you are, for you and your mate. _What_,
not enough? Ample, and more than you deserve. Helen, how could you
give him another shilling, when you know that is what shows any one with
half an eye you are just from the other side?"
*CHAPTER VI*
The luncheon at Beaumanoir, although lacking the young lady for whose
delectation it had been proposed, came off to the satisfaction of at
least four of the five people present, viz., Miss Bleecker, whom it had
been impossible to omit; M. de Mariol, who, cynicism to the contrary,
was delighted with a chance of showing Helen Carstairs the noble old
place in a lambent day of mid-October; Helen, herself, frankly pleased
with the entertainment; and good old Lady Campstown, whose mind having
long set itself upon the thought of her nephew's remarriage with a
wealthy American girl, as a happy issue out of all his difficulties,
chose to construe the occasion into a presentation to her of the future
chatelaine whose dollars were to stop the chinks in Clandonald's
ancestral roofs, and her virtues to gild anew the escutcheon dimmed by
her unworthy predecessor.
"If she's an American, she'll probably go straight," thought Lady
Campstown, after having first informed herself through a New York lady
so long resident in London as to suffer acute pangs upon being reminded
of the place of her nativity, that Helen's father was "_the_ Mr.
Carstairs whom everybody had heard about." When Clandonald had proposed
to his aunt to preside over his little party, her ladyship had not dared
ask him the direct question that was burning upon her lips. She had
contented herself with his answer to her rallying query whether upon his
travels he had met any of those wonderful girls from the States the
modern novelists write about, that he fancied the supply would always be
equal to the demand for that commodity. And when Miss Carstairs, so
quiet, lovely and distinguished in mien and manner, appeared amid the
faded chintz of the great drawing-room at Beaumanoir, admiring its
choice contents with knowledge and without gush, treating Lady Campstown
exactly as she ought to be treated, the reality of the old gentlewoman's
hopes seemed as near as it was grateful.
Even Miss Bleecker shone in a reflected light, and Lady Campstown
pronounced her, afterwards, a most agreeable, chatty person. As she
conducted both visitors through the principal rooms of her childhood's
home, her little ladyship's frail face and figure seemed to have stepped
down for the occasion from a frame of which the gilding had worn away.
Helen was in turn charmed by her simplicity and frankness, and the two
gravitated together naturally. The men found them in the picture
gallery, where Lady Campstown was destined to receive her first
disillusion, in the fact that her nephew in asking Miss Carstairs if she
were ready to see the white peacocks on their famous strutting ground,
invited M. de Mariol to come, too!
But the good aunt utilized her talk alone with Miss Bleecker to speak
openly about Lord Clandonald's excellences, his wrongs at the hands of
Ruby Darien, his desirable domestic traits, the subjects, in fine,
rarely neglected when the female proprietor or backer of a man in the
marriage market sees her chance. Lady Campstown was so genuinely
unselfish in her desire to build up again the shattered fabric of her
dear Clan's life, that another than the pachydermatous Miss Bleecker
would have perceived the pathos of the situation, and condoned the
openness of the attack. Miss Bleecker, however, was quite on her guard.
She did not consider Clandonald anything to jump at in the way of a
match for Helen. She was certain of Mr. Carstairs' disapproval; she
knew that he could not be brought to supply cash for the palpably
exigent repairs at Beaumanoir, and lastly, and more to the point, she
had no idea of relinquishing while she could hold it, her comfortable
billet as Miss Carstairs' chaperon. But she was aware that Lady
Campstown, while possessing but a small and meagre establishment in
London, had a pretty villa at Cannes, where she was a personage of
undoubted influence and wide acquaintance. And as Miss Bleecker's doctor
had advised the air of that favored resort for her relaxed throat, and
Helen did not care where they went, Cannes was the secret object of the
chaperon's intended movement southward at the season's height.
Therefore, the conversation, while the two elders strolled or sat under
immemorial yews, and enjoyed grapes and peaches plucked in an enchanting
old walled garden, waxed upon one side, more gracious and evasive, on
the other, more perplexed and yet more hopeful. From all she could
gather, Lady Campstown was convinced that Helen had been sent by
Providence for Clan's regeneration. The hint given on their return to
the house, that the American ladies would be in Cannes after Christmas,
to remain there until joined probably by Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs in the
well-known yacht, "Sans Peur," seemed to fit into her plans. A further
suggestion from the dowager, that Miss Bleecker and her charge would
allow Lady Campstown to have the pleasure of introducing them to some
people and places in the south, came so quickly, and was accepted so
suavely, that the stately little lady was herself a little startled and
taken aback by it.
At this moment Clandonald and his other guests stepped in through a
window opening upon a stone-paved court with fountains and statues and
ancient trees, enclosed in walls of ivy and maiden-hair fern,
reproducing prettily one of those haunts of Pan at Villa d'Este in
Tivoli, adored by a former owner. Helen had been sitting upon a
lichen-grown stone bench, too lapped in pure pleasure to want to move.
A stable-clock striking somewhere back of shrubberies, had warned her
that it was time for them to be thinking of their train up to town; and
she rose regretfully.
"It has been a day to string upon Time's rosary," she said to her host,
to whom she yielded the greater credit for his hospitality, because she
saw that he had been worried and abstracted, and that it was Mariol's
continued sparkle of wit and bonhomie that had really lent the occasion
its subtle charm.
"It is very kind of you to have been willing to give me so much of your
valuable time," he answered, with an effort to throw off what was
possessing him, "and it has been a pleasant second chapter of our
voyage."
"I wanted to tell you and M. de Mariol before we separate," went on Miss
Carstairs, who had all day been trying for an opportunity to bring this
in, and failed, simple as the matter seemed, "that I had, this morning
only, a letter from Miss Winstanley. They decided, you know, to put off
their visit to London till some later date, and have been wandering
through the apple country of South Devon, to see the orchards and the
cider-making. Some book Mr. Winstanley read had tempted him. They were
to stop at Torquay, thence going to Dover and the Continent."
"Very nice--and very American," said Clandonald. "Fancy running after
an apple-crop the moment one lands in Britain, because some man has put
it into a novel! I hope Miss Winstanley has recovered from her
indisposition?"
"She seemed to be well and happy. She asked to be kindly remembered to
you and M. de Mariol."
Clandonald's courtesy had taken wings, in the emotion of a deeper sort
that overcame him inconveniently. He had hoped to carry off easily this
inevitable talk about the girl who had laid so strong a hold upon his
broken life. But he said nothing at all, while Mariol, as usual, came
to the rescue.
"I have been telling Clandonald the two interesting facts developed by
you concerning our Alabama friend," he said, gracefully. "And we both
unite in asking you to convey to her our best congratulations upon her
intended marriage."
"What a glorious copper beech!" exclaimed Helen, suddenly looking away
past its owner to where the trees arose like a fire fountain from velvet
sward. "I beg your pardon. I will give her the message when I answer
her characteristic letter. Perhaps I ought to have said before that, in
a postscript, she asked me to tell you both of her engagement to Mr.
Glynn, should I not have already done so."
Lady Campstown, having taken cordial leave of her nephew's guests, whom
de Mariol escorted back to their private hotel in Curzon Street,
remained over with Clandonald at Beaumauoir for tea. They drank it,
thanks to a perfectly warm and well-aired afternoon, under the beech
tree extolled by Miss Carstairs. Clandonald's dogs, the only friends of
man who do not disappoint or change, clustered around his knee, a homely
but human Schipperke gluing her faithful head upon her master's boot.
The day, the hour, the pleasant rite, the dear old woman whose thin,
pearl-white fingers twinkled among the tea cups as she looked over at
him from time to time in a sort of speechless longing, touched and
pleased the returned traveller, but could not cheer his melancholy.
Finally Lady Campstown took heart of grace to go to the point direct.
"I'm sorry to see you so down, Clan, my dear boy," she said, in handing
him his second cup. "To-day, of all days, when you have had such a
charming visitor. I can't tell you how well I am pleased with Miss
Carstairs. You must know."
"Delighted, I'm sure, Aunt Lucy," he answered, with refrigerating
vagueness. "But to talk of less agreeable subjects, I'm sorry to say
Ruby has broken loose again, and is annoying me horribly. Having failed
recently to make a scene for me--and another person--after her own
heart, she has taken to writing me infernal hypocritical letters, saying
she's back in England, stone-broke, ill, penitent, Lord knows what, and
must have money."
"The old cry!" exclaimed Lady Campstown hotly. "Don't answer her, Clan,
treat her as if you were locked in behind walls, and she in the street,
outside."
"Her capacity for inventing malice and mischief is too great. She will
find some way to circumvent me. Her price of peace is hard cash, and so
for the present, I can breathe free again."
"You have been weak enough----" began his aunt, despairingly.
"I am not the only one involved," he said shortly. "Now, Aunt Lucy, say
no more to me about it. I only wished to put you on your guard against
any assault she might make upon your compassion."