AN UNKNOWN VISITOR.
"Ah! what a little Time to Love is lent,
Yet half that time is in unkindness spent."
As Sir Geoffrey proceeded up the avenue, at the end of which stood
Fanshawe Manor--an ancient house that for years had belonged to a
family bearing the same name as itself, and had then passed into the
hands of that family's kinsmen, the Thornes--he looked ahead of him,
expecting to see the light dress of Ariadne on the verandah; the spot
where, whenever she knew he was coming from Portsmouth to visit her,
she placed herself.
But to-night, very much to his disappointment as well as to his
astonishment--she was not there. This disconcerted him a little, since
it was the first time that he had ever known her to be absent from
that point of observation. The first time! and this on the evening
when, of all other evenings, he had encountered that grimacing,
pranked-up fop who had spoken as though, forsooth, he had some
intimate knowledge of her and her doings. What did it mean? he asked
himself in consequence. What? Was it possible that she, his modest,
winsome Ariadne, in whose eyes truth shone, in whose every accent
truth was proclaimed, could be--a--a coquette! Was it possible, too,
that she, who knew that he was riding from Portsmouth on that very
evening to pass an hour with her, had been whiling away the previous
hour with that fellow--that creature whom he believed was what they
called, in their London jargon, a macaroni--a swaggerer--a beau!
If so--but no! He could never believe that!
He had resolved at first, after quitting his unknown antagonist, that
he would tell Ariadne all and make her laugh at his description of the
man, and especially at the encounter they had had, as well as its
result; but, now--would it not be best to say nothing whatever on the
subject--to see, instead, what she would say to him? Surely the
stranger must have been there to visit her, and, equally surely, if
such were the case, she would tell him all about it.
So he went on towards the house, yet with, he knew not why, his
feelings a little dashed--his heart a little sore, in spite of his
certainty in Ariadne's truth and honour.
These two had known each other almost from boy and girl, and from that
time, notwithstanding he was ten years older than she, had loved each
other, the love not being, however, spoken of openly until a year or
so ago. They had known each other from the time when his father, the
late Sir Geoffrey Barry, had returned to his mortgaged, encumbered
estate near Alverstoke, "a battered and shattered man," as he had
frankly, and without shame, described himself to be.
"Foregad!" the late baronet used to say, he never having ceased to use
the quaint expressions of his earlier days of nearly fifty years ago;
those days of Queen Anne and the first George--which now seemed so far
off--when he had wassailed and drunk deep at Locket's, Pontack's, and
Rummer's, amidst such company as Vanbrugh, Nokes, and gentle George
Farquhar. "Foregad, what would you have? Why should I not be battered,
broken? I'fags, I have laced myself with claret all my days, and done
other things as well, equally dashing to one's constitution.
Wherefore, behold the result. A broken, ruined old man; a beggar,
where once I owned every acre I could see from my blue saloon window.
And with nothing to leave poor little Geoff--nothing. Not a stiver!"
And then, when he spoke of the boy, he would almost weep; nor was he
able to find consolation until his old butler (who served him now
without wage) said that he thought--"he was not sure, but still he
thought there might be yet a bottle or so of the yellow seal in the
cellar," which, when found, revived his drooping spirits so much that
soon he would be singing snatches of songs he should have forgotten,
or warbling "Ianthe the Lovely" in a cracked and quavering voice, or
other snatches from "Charming Creature," and, by midnight, would go
reeling and staggering to bed. In one way, this was a bad example for
his son; in another, it proved a good one; for the boy grew up hating
and despising such habits as those of his father, and contemning the
sight of an old man who had outlived all his dissolute companions yet
had never outlived their dissolute ways. And he also grew up resolved
that his life should be a different one from that. He did not know the
French proverb, "_Autres temps, autres m[oe]urs_," but he felt it, and
he resolved to put it into action. Wherefore, when the old satyr, the
man of so many unclean memories, sometimes maundered on over his
second bottle of yellow seal about the miserable remnants of a
fortune, once so substantial, which would be all he could possibly
leave behind, Geoffrey would turn almost fiercely on him and say:
"Enough, sir, enough. The past is past, and cannot be undone. Suffice
it that I have a calling, an honourable profession; that I am a
sailor. I want nothing more. Yet, since our calling--mine is one in
which in these days interest is of greater value than merit, and a
friend at Court of more use than courage and determination, if you
have any interest, use it on my behalf. There must be some amongst
your old boon companions still alive who will lend a helping hand,
even though only in memory of the Iphigenias and Roxanas with whom you
all revelled once."
This was not, perhaps, a dutiful speech, nor one which a son should
very willingly make to a father, yet, in the circumstances, it was
pardonable enough; and, at least, the old baronet did not resent it,
as how, indeed, could he, remembering the ruin he had brought upon
himself and his son after him?
That he acted upon the hint was, however, probable; it was most
probable, too, that he brought influence to bear upon some of those
admirals and captains whose seamanship had never been as great as
their social power and influence (for it was the latter, as often as
not, which made admirals and captains in those days). At any rate, the
young man rose fast, and shifting from ship to ship, serving at one
time as lieutenant in some great vessel of war, at another in command
of a bomb-ketch, and, next, of a third-rate; and then woke up one day
to learn that he was a captain, though without a ship. He was getting
on, he told himself; he was eradicating the disorders caused by his
now dead father's life; the name of Sir Geoffrey Barry should lose its
tarnish and should be borne once more with honour.
And all the time he was in love with a child, a girl with whom he had
often played, a sailor's daughter; the child of a man whose memory was
honoured and esteemed. This was the softer side, the romantic portion
of his life; this--his love for Ariadne Thorne; a romance that had
only one drawback to its perfection--the fact that she was rich, and
he, although now one of the King's captains, was poor. How, therefore,
should they wed?
Yet love sometimes ran smoothly in those brave, sweet old days; a man
of rank who followed an honourable calling, whose prospects were good,
might hope to win an even richer woman than Ariadne was, especially
when she loved him. And if his girl did not love him, then--then!
there was no truth in womankind; no truth in whispered words, in
glances, and, later, in vows and protestations. For, a year before the
time which had now arrived when he was drawing close to the house in
which she dwelt, Ariadne told him that she loved him, and had loved
him always; that she would be his wife the moment that he asked her.
Even as he thought upon all this, he saw her appear on the verandah;
he caught a glance of her white summer dress, and could see that she
was fastening some lace about her throat; he saw, too, that she
perceived him, for now she took her handkerchief and waved it to him,
and then, leaning forward with both hands upon the balcony-rail,
watched his approach. And a moment later, descending to the path
beneath, she came towards him.
It was dark now, or almost so--dark enough, at least, to prevent
them from doing more than recognise each other's forms; but--for
lovers--that is enough. Whereon Geoffrey Barry, putting now her hand
within his arm, led her back to the verandah from which she had
descended.
"For the first time," he said, after a tender greeting, "for the first
time, sweet, you were not in your accustomed place. Almost I began to
fear you might be unwell. Lovers are difficult to satisfy, you know,
and that which they have grown used to expect----"
"I had to change my dress," Ariadne said, glancing up at him. "I wore
a darker one but lately, and it got torn. Otherwise I should not have
failed." Then she asked, as now they entered the great saloon to which
a domestic had by this time brought a large branch-candelabra, in
which were a dozen white wax candles, "How is it you have come so
late? What is there to do at Portsmouth that should keep you from me?"
"Much. You know, sweetheart, that I have gotten a ship. No great
affair at present--a small frigate, a capture; yet the time is coming.
France itches for another great defeat; she is never satisfied! Soon
it will come, And then, my Ariadne---- Ah!" he said, breaking off,
"ah! I see you have already been taking the air to-night," and he
directed her eyes to a dark hood lying on a table close by. "Did you
get your dress torn in the bushes of the park?"
"No," she said. "No. I have not been out since the afternoon. But if I
go with you partway down the avenue, the hood will be necessary. The
dews are heavy sometimes on these summer nights," and she lifted her
soft eyes to his.
"You have had a visitor," he said, as now he took a place by her side
on a vast couch in the saloon. "A person----"
"I have had no visitor here to-day, Geoffrey," she said, interrupting
him. "Why should you suppose that?"
"No one to see you?"
"No one. Why do you ask?" And there came now a blush upon her face, a
deeper colour than before.
"I met," he said, "a man who, without doubt, hinted that he had been
to see you."
"It is impossible!" she exclaimed.
"Impossible, perhaps, that he saw you. Undoubtedly possible, however,
that I saw him--and--and--conversed with him. A gallant spark, too, if
rich clothes and gauds make a man such. A gentleman figged out in
London fashion, scarlet coat, yellow peruke, and such things. One who
might be a rich man, if, too, such things mean wealth."
"Geoffrey!" the girl cried, and now he saw that she had turned very
white. "I cannot understand. And--and--you conversed with him. What,
then, did he say?"
"He said," her lover continued, "on my asking him if he had not lost
his way, if he had not wandered by accident into private property,
that it was possible you might receive other visitors sometimes than
the rural inhabitants of this place."
"Oh!" Ariadne exclaimed. "It is impossible! Impossible! He must have
been some stranger--some man who had been drinking----"
"He had not been drinking," Geoffrey answered, with quiet emphasis.
"Who, then, could he have been?" she asked now, while he saw that she
was still very white; whiter even than before. He felt certain, too,
that her hands were trembling. "Could he be lurking here with a view
to entering the house at night?" she added.
"Not in that apparel."
"Then seeking one of the maids. Perhaps 'twas that. There are evil men
everywhere, men of rank and wealth, who---- Oh!" she exclaimed, "I
will summon Mrs. Pottle;" and so speaking, she went towards the
bell-pull and rang it.
"Has Mrs. Pottle gone to her room yet?" she asked the servant who
answered the summons. "If not, bid her come here." While on receiving
an answer to the effect that Mrs. Pottle was in the housekeeper's
room, she repeated her order.
Then, a moment or so later, the heavy footfall of Ariadne's old nurse
was heard outside the door, and Ariadne, going towards it, went out
into the passage to speak with her. It would, however, have been wiser
for her to have bidden the woman come in and tell her story before Sir
Geoffrey Barry, since, thereby, he would better have believed in his
mistress's good faith; for now this action on her part, this going
outside to converse with her principal servant, her confidante, seemed
a strange one on the girl's part; and, alas! he also heard a word, a
few whispered words, that confirmed his worst suspicions. He heard her
say, the door not being quite closed to, "Then he has seen him." He
heard the words clearly, in spite of their being uttered in that
whisper. Heard them, and made up his mind at once as to what his
future course must be.
A moment later Ariadne came back, and still she was pale, and, he
thought, trembling as she advanced towards him.
"None of the maids," she said, "have left the house this evening to
Mrs. Pottle's knowledge. Therefore this [oe]---"
"Ariadne," he interrupted, and she thought how handsome he looked as
he stood there before her, the lights from the candelabra illuminating
his face. "Ariadne, let us say no more on the matter. There is no
need. I will go now----"
"Now! So soon! Oh, God! Geoffrey!" regarding his face, "you do not
believe me! Instead, you believe that I have met--seen this man. Is
that it?"
For answer he looked at her--once; yet said nothing. What could he
say, he asked himself, having heard those words?
"You do not believe me," she insisted. "Speak, then; say so in as many
words, Sir Geoffrey Barry. I command you!" And now, slim girl as she
was, and only as yet on the threshold of womanhood, she stood before
him as calm and full of dignity as though her years were far riper.
If she were an actress, he told himself, at least she was a good one!
"Say it," she repeated; "let there be no misunderstanding. Say that
you do not believe me!"
"You forgot," he answered at last, his eyes upon the floor, "to close
that door when you spoke to your woman. And I heard your words--'that
I had seen him!'"
"Ah!" And now the girl gave a cry of despair, her dignity and her
defiance leaving her in a moment, while, as she uttered that cry, she
sank prostrate on to the couch where but a little while before they
had sat together. "You heard them!"
"Yes. I heard them."
"And you suspect that this man, this stranger, is my lover? Mine! The
lover of the woman who is your affianced wife!"
"What can I suspect, Heaven help me! Since you deny all. Since you
will tell me nothing."