“He spoke of beauty: that the dull
Saw no divinity in grass,
Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;
Then looking as ’twere in a glass
He smooth’d his chin and sleek’d his hair
And said the earth was beautiful.”
Tennyson.
|The last week at Southbourne proved a very happy one and Evereld went
back to London feeling as though a veil had been lifted from before her
eyes. It was not only that love had revealed his face to her; but for
the first time since her childish days in India she had known what life
could mean in a thoroughly happy family.
The Mactavishs had never encouraged her in making friends. For reasons
of his own Sir Matthew had never allowed her to become really intimate
with any one in town, though she had had the usual round of children’s
parties and had occasionally been allowed to give a children’s dance in
the house in Queen Anne’s Gate. At school, however, close friendships
had naturally been made, and the permission to stay with Bride O’Ryan at
Southbourne had been extorted from Sir Matthew rather reluctantly,
and chiefly because it happened to be a little inconvenient to Lady
Mactavish to have the charge of Evereld until they left for Switzerland.
It so happened that the whole course of the girl’s life was affected by
the mere fact that Lady Mactavish and her elder daughter had accepted an
invitation to stay with friends in the country, and that Minnie had
been busy with her trousseau, and, having a particular friend of her own
staying with her, quite declined to be troubled with the society of a
little girl fresh from school.
Sir Matthew not caring to vex his daughter when he was so soon to lose
her, answered Mrs. Hereford’s second request graciously, little guessing
that in so doing he was signing the death-warrant of his selfish hopes
and schemes.
He beamed approvingly on Evereld when she appeared in the drawing-room
on the evening of her return.
“Come, that is a refreshing sight for a jaded city man,” he said,
stroking her rosy cheek caressingly. “Never mind, Evereld, we are all
going holiday-making now, and will forget all cares and troubles. Have
you seen our route, my dear?”
“No,” said Evereld, “I’m longing to see it.”
She could not help reflecting that the months since the Easter holidays
had wrought a very decided change in Sir Matthew, he looked worn and
harassed, and as though he were longing for rest. He seemed, too,
more fussy and dictatorial than ever, and Evereld’s heart sank at the
prospect of travelling with him, for she knew that travelling is
the great test of character. After the merry talk and the bantering
discussions and the hot but always good-tempered arguments to which she
had grown accustomed during the last fortnight, the talk which prevailed
on various vexed questions, seemed highly distasteful.
“I really think,” pleaded Lady Mactavish, in her grumbling voice, “that
considering how very soon Minnie’s marriage will be following our return
it would be most advisable to take at least one maid with us. There are
so many little things Greenway could be getting forward with if she were
at hand.”
“Yes, Papa,” urged the bride-elect. “It will be a most awful nuisance if
we have no maid with us.”
“If you think you will always have a maid, my dear, to dance attendance
on you when you are married, you will find you are mistaken. The wife
of an officer in a marching regiment has to learn to be independent, I
assure you. And as to taking a maid to Switzerland I shall not hear of
such a thing. You would find her a trouble in the hotels, useless on the
steamers, and upset by the long journeys. Why Evereld will be wanting to
take her old nurse next!”
Evereld laughed, but in her heart she would fain have had Bridget with
her, for she loved her a great deal better than any other member of the
household.
The question was thoroughly threshed out, and many disagreeable things
were said on both sides; then Sir Matthew laid down the law as to the
size and amount of the luggage.
“No great trunks, mind you,” he said in the voice that meant obedience
at all costs: “a small portmanteau is all that can possibly be allowed.
You don’t go to Switzerland to air your fine clothes but to enjoy
yourself, and there is no enjoyment possible if you are burdened with
luggage.”
A long wrangle followed upon this, and at the close of it, dinner being
over, Lady Mactavish rose with an air of relief and went away to discuss
the matter anew with her daughters, and to murmur over Sir Matthew’s
extraordinary fussiness.
“The heat must be affecting his brain,” she said. “I never knew him so
vexatious. What does he know about the clothes we shall require? And
depend upon it he will be the first to complain if you look shabby.
Evereld my dear, Sir Matthew is calling you I think. Run down and see.”
Evereld returned to the dining-room where Sir Matthew was sitting over
his wine.
“In case I don’t see you to-morrow, my dear,” he said, “I will give
you this cheque now. Get it cashed in five pound notes, they will pass
anywhere.”
“Is this for my journey?” asked Evereld, who had never received a cheque
for a hundred pounds in her life.
“No, no, I will manage all your money for you until you come of age.
This is only for your dress and pocket money. I shall give you another
cheque to the same amount in six months’ time. It will be well for
you to learn the value of things and to get into the way of keeping
accounts. By the bye, though I say so much about its not mattering what
you wear in Switzerland you must be sure to take good strong boots. You
know Mr. Bruce Wylie is coming with us?”
“Yes,” said Evereld, “I’m very glad.”
“Well, good-night, my dear. God bless you,” said Sir Matthew. “Tell them
I shall not be in till late.”
Evereld having delivered her message, went slowly upstairs to the
school-room, the most homelike place in the whole house. Here she found
Bridget sitting by the open window with her knitting.
“My new life has begun, Bridget,” she said, taking her usual place on
her old nurse’s lap. “Look, here is money, a heap of it. I am to go
out and buy thick-soled boots to-morrow with it, and an account
book. Bridget, did you ever keep accounts? And do you ever think it’s
allowable to cook them?”
“I can’t say, dearie, I never kept any at all, excepting it was the
savings bank book which the post office clerks keep for one.”
“Sir Matthew says I must learn how to manage money and to understand the
value of things,” said Evereld. “So we will go out to-morrow morning,
Bridget, together, and I shall choose you a black silk dress by way of
learning.”
“Why then, dearie, it’s for your own dress and not for mine that you
must be spending this upon,” protested Bridget.
“It’s to do what I like with, Nursie, and I like to get you the very
nicest gown we can find,” said Evereld.
“Well, well, dearie, you were always one to think of other folk first,
and if you will be getting me a dress, let it be a black poplin for the
sake of the old country.”
So Bridget and her young mistress set forth the next morning and chose
the best Irish poplin, warranted to wear for a life-time, and Evereld
changed her cheque into twenty crisp five pound notes, eighteen of which
Bridget securely sewed up for her that evening in an inner pocket.
“There’s many things you may be wanting to buy if you come back through
Paris,” she said, “let alone its being a bad plan to leave the money
behind you here.”
Evereld sighed a little; it somehow hurt her to remember that she had
all this money for her personal wants and fancies, while Ralph thought
himself extremely lucky to be earning three pounds a week. She had,
however, a shrewd suspicion that he perhaps found more satisfaction out
of the money he had honestly worked for, and she eagerly looked forward
to the time when they could share her fortune and make it of real use.
The next morning the whole house was in a bustle, and the atmosphere
seemed less oppressive than on the previous night. Sir Matthew, though
looking ill and harassed, brightened up when Evereld appeared ready
dressed for the journey in a trim little navy blue coat and skirt, a
light blue shirt and a dainty white sailor hat. She looked so fresh and
innocent and happy that for the time he quite forgot his schemes in the
pleasure of just looking at her.
It was not until they were on the platform at Victoria, and he saw Bruce
Wylie approaching, that he remembered how necessary it was that by the
time Evereld returned to London she should be safely betrothed to her
solicitor. The thought made him glance critically at his friend. As it
happened Bruce Wylie never showed to more advantage than at such a time
as the present. His well cut grey travelling suit and knickerbockers
made him appear much younger than he really was, his fair hair and trim
beard, his merry grey eyes, his easy, pleasant manner were all in his
favour.
“It will be right enough,” reflected Sir Matthew,
“The girl will be properly in love with him long before the end of the
tour.”
He had no notion how differently people regard the same person when
one looks from the standpoint of five-and-fifty and the other from the
standpoint of nineteen.
Evereld saw merely the lawyer who had brought her chocolates when she
was a little girl, she knew that he was at least nine-and-forty, and
that from her point of view was elderly; the thirty years between them
made a huge chasm which it would never have occurred to her to bridge
over in any way but that of friendship. Even the friendship could not
be the same sort of thing as that close friendship, that perfect
understanding which comes between two people of the same generation.
It would have had in it something of the position of master and pupil,
which might have been delightful enough with some men, but she had never
felt any desire to learn from Bruce Wylie. She liked him merely because
he passed the time, because he had a fund of good stories and an easy
natural way of telling them.
So when Sir Matthew complacently noticed the way in which her face
lighted up as she greeted Bruce Wylie, he was wholly unable to guess
that the reception meant about as much as a child’s joyful greeting
of the appearance of the clown in a pantomime. “Now we shall have some
fun,” reflected Evereld, gladly finding the new comer beside her in the
railway carriage.
“I need have no scruples,” reflected Sir Matthew. “She evidently likes
him and encourages him.”
Bruce Wylie was not so sure in his own heart how matters stood, for
Evereld was almost too frank and open with him, it was perfectly
impossible to flirt with her, she liked him in the most unabashed
manner, just as she had done when she was a child of eleven. Her
enjoyment of his talk was what it had been then, and he was quite
without the power of kindling in her heart any deeper feeling.
Being a shrewd man he laid his plans warily, and worked patiently,
never venturing to make actual love to her. At all costs he must avoid
startling her, or making her draw back from that frank friendliness
which was likely to prove so useful. But every day he was her special
companion, and she could not help feeling grateful to him for the care
he took of her, the pains he took to please her, and the real enjoyment
which he managed to impart to what would otherwise have been rather a
trying tour.
“Why do you hesitate longer,” urged Sir Matthew, during their stay at
Zermatt, “September is nearly half gone, we have but another fortnight
abroad. Why not propose to the girl here?”
“Not yet, not yet,” said Bruce Wylie, “I tell you, Mactavish, she has
not a thought of anything of the kind. She treats me as if I were her
grandfather.”
“It seems to me that she is devoted to you,” said Sir Matthew. “She has
not a word to say to any of the young men in the hotel though they are
ready enough to admire her. She deliberately avoids them, I have noticed
her, and is hand and glove with you. What more would you have?”
“Oh, I will arrange it all before the end of the tour,” said Bruce
Wylie, “by hook or crook it must be done. Let me see; to-morrow we go to
Glion for a fortnight. It is there that we must contrive the finale.”
“If it were not such a serious matter,” said Sir Matthew with a grim
smile, “One could have a hearty laugh over the irony of fate. Here we
are with an unconscious little slip of a girl and she holds everything
in her hands. For if the difficulty as to her fortune becomes known,
then a dozen other things will collapse shortly after. God bless my
soul--it’s awful to think of!”
“So much the more reason to play this part of the game warily,” said
Bruce Wylie. “It is like the story of the child’s hand thrust into the
leaking dam and saving the country from the deluge that would otherwise
have come about. I must capture Evereld’s hand and hold it fast to save
the general ruin; whether she likes it or not it will have to be done.”
“And the girl cares for you, there will be no harm in it,” said Sir
Matthew suavely. “I tell you what, Wylie, at Glion we must gradually
let people see that you are in love with her. That will be easy enough
without alarming her. We will set some of the women folk clacking.
And if Evereld’s pride is once touched, if she feels that she has been
gossiped about, that people see that she has encouraged you, and that
she is a little compromised, why then we shall win easily enough. She
will very readily be persuaded into an engagement, and we will take good
care to have her married before the year is out.”
“Very well,” said Bruce Wylie. “At Glion we will advance to the next
stage. It will be a more amusing one than the present, and will need
skilful management. I must think things over. By the bye, she never
mentions Ralph Denmead, her old playfellow. Have you lost sight of him?”
“She told me last Christmas that he was going most likely on some tour
in Scotland. Here she comes, we will just ask her, but you need fear
nothing in that quarter. It was just a natural childish friendship
between the two. They know each other’s faults too well to fall in
love.”
“I see that young Oxonian is persecuting her,” observed Bruce Wylie,
watching a sunburnt undergraduate who had taken to following Evereld
about on all occasions. She did not seem to be at all responsive, and
her face lighted up most satisfactorily when she perceived Sir Matthew,
while her companion was visibly chagrined.
“Watching the afterglow?” said Sir Matthew, as they approached.
“It’s hardly worth watching to-night,” said the Oxonian sulkily, as he
noticed the alacrity with which Evereld moved towards Bruce Wylie. What
the girl could see in this conceited fellow he could not imagine.
“We were just speaking of Ralph Denmead, Evereld,” said Sir Matthew.
“Have you heard of him lately?”
“Yes, I hear from him now and then, and I saw him not so very long ago,”
said Evereld. “He was with Macneillie’s Company when they were at
Southbourne.” By a strong effort of self-control she kept both voice and
manner perfectly calm and natural.
“You saw him act?”
“Yes, he seems getting on very well. The Herefords knew something of Mr.
Macneillie and they breakfasted with us sometimes. He has been very kind
to Ralph.”
“Well I’m glad the boy has fallen on his feet,” said Sir Matthew. “I
suppose there was a touch of genius about him, but he was not the
least fit for the Indian Civil Service. Are you staying at Zermatt much
longer?” he added, turning to young Dick Lewisham who was still one of
the group.
“I am leaving to-morrow,” he replied, “and shall get on as far as
Villeneuve, I think.”
“Ah yes, a charming hotel there,” said Sir Matthew, “and the lake in
September is delightful.”
Having comfortably disposed of Mr. Lewisham in this fashion he was
far from pleased when on the morning after their arrival at Glion he
encountered him in the garden of the Rigi Vaudois.
“It was so abominably hot down below,” said Dick Lewisham cheerfully, “I
was obliged to come on here.”
“I should advise you to go on still higher to Mont Caux,” said Sir
Matthew. “It is a magnificent hotel up there.”
“Thanks, but this is more handy, and I like the look of the place.”
“You’ll find it over-crowded,” said Sir Matthew, “we should not have got
rooms unless we had ordered them beforehand.”
“You are a large party,” said the Oxonian, making his way round to the
main entrance.
“How that old buffer does detest me,” he reflected. “I begin to think he
is bent on marrying his pretty ward to that beast Wylie, and is afraid
I shall spoil sport. A likely thing when she will give me nothing but
snubs the moment I show a spark of sentiment. Is it possible though that
such a girl can care for a regular man of the world thirty years older
than herself? I’ll never believe it. There’s a mystery somewhere. I
shall stay here and watch how things go.”
Evereld greeted him pleasantly, but not at all warmly when she
encountered him after table d’ hôte. She could have liked him extremely
if his attentions had been a little less overwhelming, or if she could
have told him of Ralph. As it was, he frightened her, and she was
too much of a novice to know the best way to steer her course. She
invariably fled for refuge to her old friend, Bruce Wylie, little
dreaming that by so doing she might confirm the gentle hints which
Sir Matthew and Lady Mactavish began to drop cautiously among their
acquaintance in the hotel.
People enjoy few things more during their idle holiday hours in a health
resort than watching any little drama that may happen to be taking place
before them.
Evereld with her sweet innocent face turning to the old friend of
her childhood and apparently encouraging him in every way while she
sedulously snubbed the young Oxonian, was a spectacle that greatly
pleased and edified the English visitors at the Rigi Vaudois. It began
to be rumoured that Mr. Lewisham was only running after her money, that
Bruce Wylie saw it all plainly enough, but that he was practically sure
that little Miss Ewart was attached to him. That in fact an engagement
might be declared at any moment.
Something of this sort reached the ears of Dick Lewisham, and so angered
him that he determined to find out the truth for himself.
It happened that there was a dance in the hotel that evening, He knew
that Evereld would not refuse to dance with him, and having secured her
as his partner for the first _pas de quatre_, he afterwards persuaded
her to come out on to the terrace.
The garden was deserted, and Dick Lewisham plunged straight into the
subject which was filling his mind. He was a very honest, outspoken
sort of fellow, and he began to fancy that Evereld would not so openly
encourage Bruce Wylie had she known that people were beginning to
comment on it.
“Miss Ewart,” he said abruptly. “These little English colonies are
always hot-beds of gossip. And in this case the gossip I have just heard
tends to explain your marked coldness to me. I think there is no need
for me to tell you of my love--of----”
“Oh, stop, stop,” said Evereld, “I can’t let you say that. I tried so
hard to show you that I couldn’t care.”
Her distress struck him speechless for a moment; instinctively they
walked on to a more sheltered corner of the garden.
“It is true then--you already care for--this other.”
“Yes,” she faltered. “But no one knows, here, oh, how can you have
guessed?”
“Why it is the talk of the hotel,” said Dick Lewisham. “Every one sees
that he cares for you and that you encourage him.”
Her eyes dilated. For a moment she stared at him blankly, “What can you
mean?” she cried. “He is in England, and no one here knows--no one must
know.”
“Everyone is saying that you and Mr. Wylie care for each other; if that
is true I will trouble you no more.”
“They are saying that!” she exclaimed. “How perfectly ridiculous of
them!” and in the sudden revulsion of feeling she burst out laughing,
“Why I have known him since I was a little girl, and even then he seemed
to me quite elderly. My chief reason for liking him as a friend is that
he was always kind to Ralph as well as to me when we were children.”
Then in a flash it all came back to Dick Lewisham; once more he stood
in the grounds of the hotel at Zermatt watching the afterglow, and
listening to what was more or less meaningless talk to him about a young
actor named Ralph Denmead. It was somehow less hard to him to retire
before an unknown rival; it was Bruce Wylie he so cordially detested.
Moreover in having thus surprised Evereld Ewart’s secret, his position
had been changed whether he would or no, from that of lover to friend
and protector. He knew what no one else in the place knew, and this
gave him, in spite of his rejection, a sort of soothing sensation. His
admiration for Evereld had been very genuine, but it had been the sort
of love which strikes no very deep roots in the heart. He was now only
chivalrously anxious to help her in any way he could.
“I will go away from the place at once if you would rather,” he said,
after a somewhat prolonged pause. “But you may trust me always to
respect what you have told me.”
“Then don’t go,” she said, giving him her hand. “I always knew I could
like you as a friend if only you had understood how things were. I think
I won’t dance again to-night. We are to have a long excursion to-morrow.
I will say good-night to you and run in.”
“And if at any time I can serve you, be sure you remember me,” said Dick
Lewisham looking into the truthful blue eyes lifted to his.
“I will indeed,” she said. “We only wait to be actually engaged till I
am twenty-one. I wish the time would go faster.”
Dick Lewisham escorted her back to the hotel, and then lighting a
cigarette returned once more to pace up and down the garden path they
had just quitted. The night was sultry, every now and then he could see
summer lightning playing about the peaks of the Savoy mountains on the
other side of the lake. Still musing over his talk with Evereld he threw
himself down on a sheltered garden seat which stood on a little lawn
screened on all sides by bushes. From time to time he heard steps on the
path just beyond, and caught curious scraps of conversation over which
he smiled in a cynical fashion.
Now it was a woman’s voice.
“Well, what you can see to admire in her I can’t imagine, and her dress!
why those sleeves might have come out of the ark. Oh you didn’t notice
them. How curious men are.”
Next came a pair of lovers.
“Dearest!” said one voice.
“My own!” replied the other.
And Dick Lewisham cruelly coughed. After which dead silence reigned.
By and bye a mellow, manly voice startled him into keen attention; it
was Bruce Wylie.
“I’ll propose to her to-morrow whatever happens. You can give the others
just a hint and they will keep out of the way. We must have matters
settled before leaving Switzerland. If she refuses me----”
“Why then,” said Sir Matthew Mactavish, “I shall step in with the
authority of a guardian. We will have no nonsense about the matter. But
she will not refuse you. She has too much good sense.”
The voices died away in the distance. Dick Lewisham laughed long and
silently.
“So that is your game, my fine friend! It is you who are after little
Miss Ewart’s money though you have had the slander set afloat that I was
a fortune-hunter. Ho! ho!” he rubbed his hands with satisfaction, “how I
should like to see your face when that little blue-eyed girl rejects
you. I’ll at any rate stay on here to see you when you return.”
He was loitering about at the cable railway station the next morning
when Evereld and Janet Mactavish walked from the hotel to take their
places in the down-going carriage.
“And where are you off to this morning?” he inquired.
“We are going to see the Gorge de Trient,” said Evereld, “at least some
of us are. You are going to sketch near that waterfall, are you not,
Janet.”
“Yes,” said Janet, “but Major Gillot and Minnie and Mr. Wylie will be
with you. Four makes a much better number and I want a quiet day.”
Dick Lewisham laughed in his sleeve, he felt sure that Janet had been
taken into the plot. Then with some compunction he glanced at Evereld’s
unsuspicious face; her manner to him was perfect, he felt glad to think
that she trusted him, and wondered much in what fashion she would get
through the excursion. It was hardly likely he feared to be a day of
pleasure to her.
They were now joined by Minnie and her _fiancé_, and at the last moment
Bruce Wylie walked coolly across the little platform and down the steps,
taking his place just before the carriage slid down its steep incline.
“Oh be quick! take care!” said Evereld with a look of alarm; and Dick
Lewisham turned away, musing over the words and the expression of the
girl’s face.
“Evidently she likes him very much as an old friend,” he reflected. “I
wonder how she will get on.”