The crash of the prayer gong was the first thing that Francie heard next
morning. She had not gone to sleep easily the night before. It had been
so much pleasanter to lie awake, that she had done so till she had got
past the stage when the process of going to sleep is voluntary, and she
had nearly exhausted the pleasant aspect of things and got to their
wrong side when the dawn stood at her window, a pallid reminder of the
day that was before her, and she dropped into prosaic slumber. She came
downstairs in a state of some anxiety as to whether the chill that she
had perceived last night in Lady Dysart’s demeanour would be still
apparent. Breakfast was nearly over when she got into the room, and when
she said good morning to Lady Dysart, she felt, though she was not
eminently perceptive of the shades in a well-bred manner, that she had
not been restored to favour.
She sat down at the table, with the feeling that was very familiar to
her of being in disgrace, combating with the excitement and hurry of her
nerves in a way that made her feel almost hysterical; and the fear that
the strong revealing light of the long windows opposite to which she was
sitting would show the dew of tears in her eyes, made her bend her head
over her plate and scarcely raise it to respond to Pamela’s good-natured
efforts to put her at her ease. Miss Hope-Drummond presently looked up
from her letters and took a quiet stare at the discomposed face opposite
to her. She had no particular dislike for Francie beyond the ordinary
rooted distrust which she felt as a matter of course for those whom she
regarded as fellow-competitors, but on general principles she was
pleased that discomfiture had come to Miss Fitzpatrick. It occurred to
her that a deepening of the discomfiture would suit well with Lady
Dysart’s present mood, and might also be to her own personal advantage.
“I hope your dress did not suffer last night, Miss Fitzpatrick? Mine was
ruined, but that was because Mr. Dysart _would_ make me climb on to the
box for the last scene.”
“No, thank you, Miss Hope-Drummond--at least, it only got a little sign
of dust.”
“Really? How nice! How lucky you were, weren’t you!”
“She may have been lucky about her dress,” interrupted Garry, “but I’m
blowed if she could have seen much of the acting! Why on earth did you
let Hawkins jam you into that old brougham, Miss Fitzpatrick?”
“Garry,” said Lady Dysart with unusual asperity, “how often am I to tell
you not to speak of grown-up gentlemen as if they were little boys like
yourself? Run off to your lessons. If you have finished, Miss
Fitzpatrick,” she continued, her voice chilling again, “I think we will
go into the drawing-room.”
It is scarcely to be wondered at that Francie found the atmosphere of
the drawing-room rather oppressive. She was exceedingly afraid of her
hostess; her sense of her misdoings was, like a dog’s, entirely shaped
upon other people’s opinions, and depended in no way upon her own
conscience; and she had now awakened to a belief that she had
transgressed very badly indeed. “And if she” (“she” was Lady Dysart, and
for the moment Francie’s standard of morality) “was so angry about me
sitting in the brougham with him,” she thought to herself, as, having
escaped from the house, she wandered alone under the oaks of the shady
back avenue, “what would she think if she knew the whole story?”
In Francie’s society “the whole story” would have been listened to with
extreme leniency, if not admiration; in fact, some episodes of a similar
kind had before now been confided by our young lady to Miss Fanny
Hemphill, and had even given her a certain standing in the eyes of that
arbiter of manners and morals. But on this, as on a previous occasion,
she did not feel disposed to take Miss Hemphill into her confidence. For
one thing, she was less distinct in her recollection of what had
happened than was usual. It had seemed to her that she had lost her
wonted clear and mocking remembrance of events from the moment when he
had taken her hand, and what followed was blurred in her memory as a
landscape is blurred by the quiver of heat in the air. For another, she
felt it all to be so improbable, so uncertain, that she could not quite
believe in it herself. Hawkins was so radically different from any other
man she had ever known; so much more splendid in all ways, the very
texture of his clothes, the scent on his handkerchief, breathed to her
his high estate. That she should have any part in this greatness was
still a little beyond belief, and as she walked softly in the deep grass
under the trees, she kept saying to herself that he could not really
care for her, that it was too good to be true.
It was almost pathetic that this girl, with her wild-rose freshness and
vivid spring-like youth, should be humble enough to think that she was
not worthy of Mr. Hawkins, and sophisticated enough to take his
love-making as a matter of common occurrence, that in no way involved
anything more serious. Whatever he might think about it, however, she
was certain that he would come here to-day, and being wholly without the
power of self-analysis, she passed easily from such speculations to the
simpler mental exercise of counting how many hours would have to crawl
by before she could see him again. She had left the avenue, and she
strolled aimlessly across a wide marshy place between the woods and the
lake, that had once been covered by the water, but was now so far
reclaimed that sedgy grass and bog-myrtle grew all over it, and creamy
meadow-sweet and magenta loose-strife glorified the swampy patches and
the edges of the drains. The pale azure of the lake lay on her right
hand, with, in the distance, two or three white sails just tilted enough
by the breeze to make them look like acute accents, gaily emphasising
the purpose of the lake and giving it its final expression. In front of
her spread a long, low wood, temptingly cool and green, with a gate
pillared by tall fir-trees, from which, as she lifted the latch, a bevy
of wood-pigeons dashed out startling her with the sudden frantic
clapping of their wings. It was a curious wood--very old, judging by
its scattered knots of hoary, weather-twisted pine-trees; very young,
judging by the growth of ash saplings and slender larches that made
dense every inch of space except where rides had been cut through them
for the woodcock shooting. Francie walked along the quiet path, thinking
little of the beauty that surrounded her, but unconsciously absorbing
its rich harmonious stillness. The little grey rabbits did not hear her
coming, and hopped languidly across the path, “for all the world like
toys from Robinson’s,” thought Francie; the honeysuckle hung in
delicious tangle from tree to tree; the wood-pigeons crooned shrilly in
the fir-trees, and every now and then a bumble-bee started from a clover
blossom in the grass with a deep resentful note, as when one plucks the
lowest string of a violoncello. She had noticed a triple wheel-track
over the moss and primrose leaves of the path, and vaguely wondered what
had brought it there; but at a turn where the path took a long bend to
the lake she was no longer left in doubt. Drawn up under a solemn
pine-tree near the water’s edge was Sir Benjamin’s bath-chair, and in it
the dreaded Sir Benjamin himself, vociferating at the top of his cracked
old voice, and shaking his oaken staff at some person or persons not
apparent.
Francie’s first instinct was flight, but before she had time to turn,
her host had seen her, and changing his tone of fury to one of hideous
affability he called to her to come and speak to him. Francie was too
uncertain as to the exact extent of his intellect to risk disobedience,
and she advanced tremblingly.
“Come here, Miss,” said Sir Benjamin, goggling at her through his gold
spectacles. “You’re the pretty little visitor, and I promised I’d take
you out driving in my carriage and pair. Come here and shake hands with
me Miss. Where’s your manners?”
This invitation was emphasised by a thump of his stick on the floor of
the chair, and Francie, with an almost prayerful glance round for James
Canavan, was reluctantly preparing to comply with it, when she heard
Garry’s voice calling her.
“Miss Fitzpatrick! Hi! Come here!”
Miss Fitzpatrick took one look at the tremulous, irritable old claw
outstretched for her acceptance, and plunged incontinently down a ride
in the direction of the voice. In front of her stood a sombre ring of
immense pine-trees, and in their shadow stood Garry and James Canavan,
apparently in committee upon some small object that lay on the thick mat
of moss and pine-needles.
“I heard the governor talking to you,” said Garry with a grin of
intelligence, “and I thought you’d sooner come and look at the rat
that’s just come out of this hole. Stinking Jemima’s been in there for
the last half hour after rabbits. She’s my ferret, you know, a regular
ripper,” he went on in excited narration, “and I expect she’s got the
muzzle off and is having a high old time. She’s just bolted this brute.”
The brute in question was a young rat that lay panting on its side,
unable to move, with blood streaming from its face.
“Oh! the creature!” exclaimed Francie with compassionate disgust;
“what’ll you do with it?”
“I’ll take it home and try and tame it,” replied Garry; “it’s quite
young enough. Isn’t it, Canavan?”
James Canavan, funereal in his black coat and rusty tall hat, was
regarding the rat meditatively, and at the question he picked up Garry’s
stick and balanced it in his hand.
“Voracious animals that we hate,
Cats, rats, and bats deserve their fate,”
he said pompously, and immediately brought the stick down on the rat’s
head with a determination that effectually disposed of all plans for its
future, educational or otherwise.
Garry and Francie cried out together, but James Canavan turned his back
unregardingly upon them and his victim, and stalked back to Sir
Benjamin, whose imprecations, since Francie’s escape, had been
pleasantly audible.
“The old beast!” said Garry, looking resentfully after his late ally;
“you never know what he’ll do next. I believe if mother hadn’t been
there last night, he’d have gone on jumping on Kitty Gascogne till he
killed her. By the bye, Miss Fitzpatrick, Hawkins passed up the lake
just now, and he shouted out to me to say that he’d be at the turf-boat
pier at four o’clock, and he hoped none of you were going out.”
Then he had not forgotten her; he was going to keep his word, thought
Francie, with a leap of the heart, but further thoughts were cut short
by the sudden appearance of Pamela, Christopher, and Miss Hope-Drummond
at the end of the ride. The treacherous slaughter of the rat was
immediately recounted to Pamela at full length by Garry, and Miss
Fitzpatrick addressed herself to Christopher.
“How sweet your woods are, Mr. Dysart,” she began, feeling that some
speech of the kind was suitable to the occasion. “I declare, I’d never
be tired walking in them!”
Christopher was standing a little behind the others, looking cool and
lank in his flannels, and feeling a good deal less interested in things
in general than he appeared. He had an agreeably craven habit of
simulating enjoyment in the society of whoever fate threw him in contact
with, not so much from a wish to please as from a politeness that had in
it an unworthy fear of exciting displeasure; and so ably had he played
the part expected of him that Miss Hope-Drummond had felt, as she
strolled with him and his sister through the sunshiny wood, that he
really was far more interested in her than she had given him credit for,
and that if that goose Pamela were not so officious in always pursuing
them about everywhere, they would have got on better still. She did not
trouble her brothers in this way, and the idea that Mr. Dysart would not
have come at all without his sister did not occur to her. She was,
therefore, by no means pleased when she heard him suggest to Miss
Fitzpatrick that she should come and see the view from the point, and
saw them walk away in that direction without any reference to the rest
of the party.
Christopher himself could hardly have explained why he did it. It is
possible that he felt Francie’s ingenuous, unaffected vulgarity to be
refreshing after the conversation in which Miss Hope-Drummond’s own
especial tastes and opinions had shed their philosophy upon a
_rechauffé_ of the society papers, and recollections of Ascot and
Hurlingham. Perhaps also, after his discovery that Francie had a soul to
be saved, he resented the absolute possession that Hawkins had taken of
her the night before. Hawkins was a good little chap, but not the sort
of person to develop a nascent intellectuality, thought this sage of
seven-and-twenty.
“Why did you come out here by yourself?” he said to her, some little
time after they had left the others.
“And why shouldn’t I?” answered Francie, with the pertness that seldom
failed her, even when, as on this morning, she felt a little
uninterested in every subject except one.
“Because it gave us the trouble of coming out to look for you.”
“To see I didn’t get into mischief, I suppose!”
“That hadn’t occurred to me. Do you always get into mischief when you go
out by yourself?”
“I would if I thought you were coming out to stop me!”
“But why should I want to stop you?” asked Christopher, aware that this
class of conversation was of a very undeveloping character, but feeling
unable to better it.
“Oh, I don’t know; I think everyone’s always wanting to stop me,”
replied Francie with a cheerful laugh; “I declare I think it’s
impossible for me to do anything right.”
“Well, you don’t seem to mind it very much,” said Christopher, the
thought of how like she was to a typical “June” in a Christmas Number
striking him for the second time; “but perhaps that’s because you’re
used to it.”
“Oh, then, I can tell you I _am_ used to it, but, indeed, I don’t like
it any better for that.”
There was a pause after this. They scrambled over the sharp loose rocks,
and between the stunted fir-trees of the lake shore, until they gained a
comparatively level tongue of sandy gravel, on which the sinuous line of
dead rushes showed how high the fretful waves had thrust themselves in
winter. A glistening bay intervened between this point and the
promontory of Bruff, a bay dotted with the humped backs of the rocks in
the summer shallows, and striped with dark green beds of rushes, among
which the bald coots dodged in and out with shrill metallic chirpings.
Outside Bruff Point the lake spread broad and mild, turned to a
translucent lavender grey by an idly-drifting cloud; the slow curve of
the shore was followed by the woods, till the hay fields of Lismoyle
showed faintly beyond them, and, further on, the rival towers of church
and chapel gave a finish to the landscape that not even conventionality
could deprive of charm. Christopher knew every detail of it by heart.
He had often solaced himself with it when, as now, he had led forth
visitors to see the view, and had discerned their boredom with a
keenness that was the next thing to sympathy; he had lain there on quiet
Autumn evenings, and tried to put into fitting words the rapture and the
despair of the sunset, and had gone home wondering if his emotions were
not mere self-conscious platitudes, rather more futile and contemptible
than the unambitious adjectives, or even the honest want of interest, of
the average sight-seer. He waited rather curiously to see whether Miss
Fitzpatrick’s problematic soul would here utter itself. From his
position a little behind her he could observe her without seeming to do
so; she was looking down the lake with a more serious expression than he
had yet seen on her face, and when she turned suddenly towards him,
there was a wistfulness in her eyes that startled him.
“Mr. Dysart,” she began, rather more shyly than usual; “d’ye know whose
is that boat with the little sail, going away down the lake now?”
Christopher’s mood received an unpleasant jar.
“That’s Mr. Hawkins’ punt,” he replied shortly.
“Yes, I thought it was,” said Francie, too much preoccupied to notice
the flatness of her companion’s tone.
There was another pause, and then she spoke again.
“Mr. Dysart, d’ye think--would you mind telling me, was Lady Dysart mad
with me last night?” She blushed as she looked at him, and Christopher
was much provoked to feel that he also became red.
“Last night?” he echoed in a tone of as lively perplexity as he could
manage; “what do you mean? Why should my mother be angry with you?” In
his heart he knew well that Lady Dysart had been, as Francie expressed
it, “mad.”
“I know she was angry,” pursued Francie. “I saw the look she gave me
when I was getting out of the brougham, and then this morning she was
angry too. I didn’t think it was any harm to sit in the brougham.”
“No more it is. I’ve often seen her do it herself.”
“Ah! Mr. Dysart, I didn’t think you’d make fun of me,” she said with an
accent on the “you” that was flattering, but did not altogether please
Christopher. “You know,” she went on, “I’ve never stayed in a house like
this before. I mean--you’re all so different--”
“I think you must explain that remarkable statement,” said Christopher,
becoming Johnsonian as was his wont when he found himself in a
difficulty. “It seems to me we’re even depressingly like ordinary human
beings.”
“You’re different to me,” said Francie in a low voice, “and you know it
well.”
The tears came to her eyes, and Christopher, who could not know that
this generality covered an aching thought of Hawkins, was smitten with
horrified self-questioning as to whether anything he had said or done
could have wounded this girl, who was so much more observant and
sensitive than he could have believed.
“I can’t let you say things like that,” he said clumsily. “If we are
different from you, it is so much the worse for us.”
“You’re trying to pay me a compliment now to get out of it,” said
Francie, recovering herself; “isn’t that just like a man?”
She felt, however, that she had given him pain, and the knowledge seemed
to bring him more within her comprehension.