BY RIGHT OF PURCHASE
Sallie had been far too happily occupied since she had come to
Loquhariot to have been conscious of the wheels within wheels revolving
about her there.
She could scarcely at once accustom herself to look upon the great,
grey, age-old castle as her home; but there was Janet M'Kissock always
eager to help her in that respect, with endless stories of bygone days
which made the place seem always more familiar and friendly to her. She
grew, by degrees, to know and love it almost as if she had lived there
all her life.
It was much more difficult to grasp the idea that the whole of the
beautiful white world beyond its windows was also hers, and hers alone;
from the rugged, snow-clad mountains towering behind and on either hand,
even to the Small Isles, like bergs in the sun amid the smoking seas in
that turbulent weather. But Slyne missed no opportunity to impress that
important fact upon her. And she was finding it always easier to forget
her unhappy past, to enjoy the marvellous present and the most
inspiriting part in it, to leave the over-difficult future to evolve
itself.
The men and women about the place were all devoted to her. She had very
soon won the staunch good-will of the cottagers at the cliff-foot. And
her soft sway was everywhere undisputed, although Slyne had at first
been inclined to contest it himself. But he soon seemed to realise that
it would be best, in the meantime, to order events from the background
and in her voice.
He had shown some disposition, too, to question the extent of the
liberty she might now assume to herself. But he had not pressed that
point unduly either, and they continued on that footing of pleasant
comradeship which he had been at such ceaseless pains to promote. His
debonair courtesy to her, his easy deference to most of her wishes, were
very different indeed from his off-hand manner of former days. And she
could not but be grateful to him, in the meantime, for the almost
over-ample fulfilment of his original promise.
Regarding her pledge to him, he had said nothing more, although she
spent long afternoons and evenings in his company when the weather was
at its worst, while Mr. Jobling was away. Captain Dove left the two of
them very much to themselves, and Slyne had offered to teach her to play
billiards, to pass the time.
She would have been entirely content, indeed, but for the hardship her
coming had entailed on Justin Carthew. She had met him more than once
out of doors, and he had always seemed pleased to see her, but--it was
of common report that he was a poor man, and she could not help feeling
that he had shown himself very much more generous to her than she to
him. She found comfort, however, in the conclusion that circumstances
were quite beyond her control, and that he would understand better by
and by the complications through which she had had to find her way as
best she could.
She had gone down to the village on the afternoon when the _Olive
Branch_ arrived in the loch, and she walked back as far as the castle
with Carthew. The reappearance of that ill-omened craft had alarmed her
more than a little, and she could see that Carthew was becoming always
more sorely puzzled. But he had promised her to await events without
question for three short months; and he was keeping his promise loyally.
She could have told him nothing, in any case.
She met Slyne in the hall, on her way indoors, and he reassured her as
to her perfect safety from any further risk of evil-doing by Captain
Dove. He pointed out, too, that the steamer's crew was too scanty now to
cope with the force he could call to her aid from the village in case
the old man should attempt to make any mischief, which was most
unlikely. And she went on to her own cosy quarters, quite content again.
She was changing her outdoor dress for one of her pretty Parisian
tea-gowns, when word was brought her that the Duchess of Dawn and Lord
Ingoldsby had come across the mountains to pay her a call.
She remembered Lord Ingoldsby, and wondered what could have brought him
to Loquhariot. The idea of entertaining a duchess dismayed her a little;
she had no notion at all what the conventions called for under
circumstances so unusual in her own experience--although Slyne had been
at some pains to explain a number of other conventions to her. But she
went along to the blue drawing-room at once, and was relieved to find
Slyne there before her, unconcernedly chatting with a very beautiful
young woman in a sadly splashed habit, her back to the fire, booted feet
a little apart, hunting-crop in clasped hands, laughter in her clear
eyes; while Lord Ingoldsby, looking much less imbecile and more of a
man in his travel-soiled riding-kit, stood listening gloomily.
His face cleared at sight of Sallie, however. "Here's Lady Josceline,
Aunt Jane," he cried, and the duchess, after a single swift, appraising
glance at her, came forward with outstretched hands and kissed her
without any more ado.
"Oh! my dear," said the duchess impulsively, "you can't imagine what a
relief you are. Ingoldsby has been simply raving about you, and--I was
so anxious, don't you know. But I don't blame him now.
"I've seen you before, too--one night at the Savoy. If I had only known
then who you were--But some one said you were a Miss Harris! You've kept
it all such a close secret! We wouldn't have known even now if we hadn't
heard, quite by chance, that the beacon had been lighted one night. And
we've been wondering ever since--So you must tell me all about
everything now, if you will." And she drew Sallie down beside her on a
low couch at one side of the white marble fireplace, leaving the two men
to their own devices while she went on to explain herself no less
volubly.
"It was madness, of course, to cross the Pass in weather like this,
but--Ingoldsby would give me no peace; and I've been so curious myself
to find out who could be here. I'm your nearest neighbour, you know,
although Castle Dawn is ten miles away; those are worse than twenty
anywhere else. So, when the rain stopped this forenoon we set out--and
here we are, covered with mud! The road's in a dreadful state, but you
must come over and stay with me as soon as the bridges are mended. We're
going to be great friends. I knew your father--although I'm not quite so
old as you might imagine from that, for I wasn't out of short
petticoats the last time he spoke to me. And, as for being the aunt of
that scapegrace there, he's five years older than I am in years--and
fifty in--"
"Don't be too rough on a fellah, Aunt Jane!" interrupted her noble
nephew, who had been regarding Sallie with fixed vacuity through his
eye-glass. "An' don't you believe all you hear about me, Lady Josceline:
I'm not so black as I'm painted, at any rate."
"He's been simply raving about you," the duchess declared again, in a
laughing whisper. "I couldn't imagine what had brought him down to Dawn
in midwinter, until he confided in me that he had been searching the
wide world for you ever since he met you first: and he imagined that you
might, after all, be here, at home."
She had a great many questions to ask Sallie then, questions which
Sallie, in such a situation, might have found it very difficult to
answer but for Jasper Slyne's sharp ears and tactful tongue. And the
duchess was not slow to understand.
"Of course you can't confide in me yet," she declared laughingly. "But
some day you must tell me all your adventures. Your home-coming after
all these years will make a nine days' wonder once the papers get to
hear of it."
A servant came in to light the lamps, and Slyne sauntered to a window
before the curtains were drawn.
"It's snowing again, Ingoldsby," said he. "You won't get back to Dawn
to-night."
The duchess looked a little alarmed, but was soon laughing again.
"All right," she agreed, in response to Sallie's prompt proffer of
hospitality. "I'll be most happy to stay over-night--and so will
Ingoldsby, I'm sure."
"I'll go and let Mrs. M'Kissock know," Slyne volunteered. "Will you look
into the gun-room when you pass, Lady Josceline?"
"Is old Janet still here?" the duchess asked as he left the room. "I
must have a chat with her. She and I used to be great friends
before--when Torquil St. Just was still alive and my mother would bring
me over to Loquhariot when she came to call on yours. I was Jane
Gairloch in those days."
Lord Ingoldsby sat listening very patiently for a time while they talked
to each other, and then he became possessed by a strangled cough--to
which the duchess paid no attention.
"You might give a fellah a chance, Aunt Jane," he at length suggested
desperately, and she rose from the couch with a most penitent
expression.
"Bless my heart, child!" she said. "I had almost forgotten--But--I'll go
and talk to old Janet now." And she disappeared without other apology.
Sallie looked surprised. But Lord Ingoldsby, having cleared his throat
again, claimed her attention.
"You've no idea, Lady Josceline," he said hurriedly, "what a deuce of a
bat I've been in for nearly a fortnight. I was afraid I'd never find you
again. And, now that I've found you, don't y'know, what I want to say to
you is--It's very difficult to express--But I mean--What I'm trying to
tell you is that I thought we might maybe make a match of it. Will you
marry me, Lady Josceline?"
Sallie looked still more surprised. But she was not slow in answering
such a preposterous question.
"I can't," she said, concisely.
"But why not?" he cried. "For heaven's sake! don't go so fast. Give me
time to--"
"Time couldn't make any difference," she said, seeing that he was very
much in earnest. "I can't--"
"But--why not?" he insisted. "Is--is there some one else already? It's
not that fellah I met in Monte Carlo with you, I'm sure; he's such a
rank outsider--you _couldn't_ care for him, I'm sure. And why not give
me just a chance to show you--
"There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, Lady Josceline. Give me just a
chance."
"I can't," she repeated for the third time, and he stared at her as if
in abject despair.
"Why can't you?" he demanded in a difficult, husky voice.
She could scarcely answer that question, a question which he had no
right to ask. But--she felt sorry for him in his very obvious
disappointment.
"If you care to ask Captain Dove, perhaps he will tell you," she said,
unable to think of any other safe way out of that difficulty, and not
caring very much what Captain Dove might say.
But Lord Ingoldsby was not so easily to be got rid of. He stayed where
he was, arguing and imploring by turns until his youthful aunt appeared
again, looking somewhat serious; she seemed to take in the situation
between them at a shrewd glance.
He left the room then for a little, and when he returned Sallie and the
duchess were on the point of retiring.
"I'm going to have a hot bath and a rest before dinner, Ingoldsby," his
aunt informed him.
"Your rooms will be ready now, too," Sallie added, unwilling to be left
alone there with him again. And he went off, very glumly, under convoy
of a servant, toward the bachelor apartments in the Warder's Tower.
Sallie saw the duchess settled in the suite which had been prepared for
her, and having provided her with a plentiful choice of evening frocks,
went on to the gun-room, to see what Slyne wanted with her.
Captain Dove and he were seated on either side of the fireplace, and
looked round rather uncertainly as she came into the room.
"I've made the duchess quite comfortable, Jasper," she said with a
smile, "and she's been exceedingly nice to me. I hope you'll look as
well after Lord Ingoldsby."
"I've told them to give him the run of my wardrobe," Slyne answered
indifferently. "So he'll be all right.
"And--what I wanted to say to you, Sallie, is that--I've just heard--All
my hard work for you has been successful at last," he stammered, in a
changed voice. "The claim I made for you has been allowed by the law.
We're all going up to London to-morrow to get matters finally settled,
and then--you'll be Countess of Jura in your own right."
He paused, effectively. Captain Dove was glancing from one to the other
of them with judicial gravity.
"So that you can keep your promise to me now, without any further
delay," said Slyne. "I want you to tell the others at dinner
to-night--that you've chosen me for your husband."
The happy light in her eyes died out instantly. A faint frown furrowed
her smooth white forehead. Her curved lips trembled a little. The old
unhappiness and dread were plucking at her heart again. But she did not
shirk the issue.
"But you agreed to wait--for three months, Jasper," she said in a low,
pleading voice.
"That was only in case it took so long to fix things up for you," he
lied easily. "Our signed agreement makes that quite clear, and it's
absolutely binding, you know. Mr. Jobling will tell you that--and he's a
lawyer."
She was gazing at him with something very like horror in her wide eyes.
"Was that in the paper I signed?" she asked breathlessly. But her lips
had grown set and resolute. "I thought--"
"You must have misunderstood me, then," Slyne interrupted with assumed
impatience. "But--you signed it of your own free will, before
responsible witnesses. I've kept my part of our bargain; and now--you
must keep yours, or the law will make you."
Her heart was beating almost painfully. To her, in her ignorance, the
law was merely an instrument of injustice. She believed herself to be
bound without hope of release by the document she had signed, and that
the same inexorable law which had, only the other day, ruined Justin
Carthew to raise her up in his place, would now force her to abide by
whatever was written above her disastrous signature. The whole fair
fabric of that wonderful new world to which she had so recently gained
admittance had in these minutes come tumbling about her ears. And the
crash of its falling palaces left her helpless and stupefied. She looked
dizzily round at Captain Dove. But his features were quite unreadable.
"There's another point, Sallie," said Slyne, all his quick wits at work
again as he saw the impression his words had made, determined to hammer
home every argument that might weigh with her in her ignorance,
"another point that I'd never have mentioned if you had been prepared to
deal fairly with me after all I've done for you."
She shivered at that further thrust; she, who had never dealt unfairly
with either friend or enemy.
"Even without your promise, you're mine--by right of purchase. You were
Captain Dove's property before, as you know very well. He bought you and
paid for you. And he sold you to me, to save you from a worse master.
"You can't say now that you didn't know what was ahead of you, for I
told you, in Genoa. And I gave you a last chance, too, before we left
Monte Carlo, to draw back and go your own way with him. Now you're
doubly mine. Ask him, if you don't believe me."
The girl glanced in agonised appeal at the old man sitting motionless in
his chair, his eyes on the ground. But Captain Dove merely nodded, like
some mechanical figure.
Slyne scowled, as if at an end of his patience, and, striding across to
the door, locked it, pocketing the key.
"However," said he, "I'm not going to argue with you. I've evidently
wasted my time in treating you reasonably. Now, there are only two
courses open to you. You can come my way, with me, or--"
He crossed the room again and pulled back the loose panel in the
wainscot, pointed to the dark cavity it had concealed.
"There's a boat from the _Olive Branch_ at the water-gate at the end of
this passage. You're perfectly free to go back on board with Captain
Dove, and--if you do, I wish you joy of your choice. I'm maybe not much
of a catch as a husband, but--" He left the inference unspoken,
significantly, daring her to go back to that dreadful fate by hinting
at which he had once before forced her to change her mind.
Captain Dove got on to his feet with a puzzled scowl. Slyne had turned
aside, to light a couple of candles, as if in preparation for a descent
underground.
Captain Dove slowly drew the back of one hand across his mouth and from
behind it whispered a few words to Sallie. "Humour him just now," he
advised with suppressed vehemence. "I'll see you safe."
"Well?" Slyne demanded and came toward her. "Which is it to be? Time's
up."
His hands hung open but tense at his sides. His teeth were set between
parted lips, his knees bent a little as he braced himself to spring at
her wrists before she could make any movement in self-defence. Captain
Dove had stepped up behind her and she did not doubt that, unless she
fell in with their wishes, they meant now to overpower her and carry her
off.
She did not move for a moment, but her clouded eyes slowly cleared, and
Slyne, studying her features intently, relaxed his own strained attitude
a little as if in fore-knowledge of final success.
Sallie's expression of utter despair had given place to one of
resignation, almost of peace. She had made up her mind to have done with
the seemingly endless, unequal struggle.
"Very well, Jasper," she said slowly at last, in a very hurtful voice.
"You may tell the others--whatever you like--at dinner to-night, if
you'll wait till then."
Captain Dove drew back and returned to his chair, as if satisfied for
the moment. Slyne's dogged glance had dropped before the tragedy in her
eyes.
"You can surely trust me, Sallie," he said, "after all I've done for
you. And, listen! I'm not trying to rush you, either. If you'll tell the
others at dinner to-night just that you take me for your husband--I'll
wait till the end of the three months for our real wedding in church."
She could not quite understand what he really wanted, and looked her
perplexity. But her mind was made up. She meant to keep any promise she
might have made him, whether in writing or otherwise, and even
mistakenly.
"Will you let me go now?" she begged brokenly, and he went to open the
door for her.
"You'll say nothing about it to anyone till--the time comes," he
stipulated before he would turn the key, and to that also she agreed
with a nod, not trusting herself to speak.
She was very thankful that she met no one on her way to her own rooms,
for her eyes were wet. She had never felt so utterly forlorn and
friendless as now. There was no one in whom she might safely confide, no
one who could help her safely past the promise into which she had been
tricked, that promise to which, she did not doubt, the law would hold
her firmly. And, in any case, she could not have gone back on board the
_Olive Branch_--to a fate even worse.
Ambrizette was awaiting her, to dress her for dinner, but, on a sudden
impulse, she sat down at the escritoire in her boudoir to write a few
hurried lines to Carthew. She thought she would like to see him again,
before--
Her letter ready, she bade Ambrizette ring the bell. It was the maid
Mairi who answered it, and, when Sallie looked up again, she saw that
the girl was silently crying.
"What's the matter, Mairi?" she asked in her gentle voice, forgetting
her own cruel cares for the moment, and at that the half-hysterical
maid broke into a storm of unintelligible explanations in Gaelic, with
here and there a broken sentence that Sallie could understand.
Her heavy-hearted mistress rose and put a protecting arm about her.
"You must tell me what the trouble is," said Sallie softly, "and I'll
try to help you. What is it that has gone wrong?"
"_Ochon--ochon--ochanorie!_" the girl sobbed. "It is for your
ladyship--not for me--and I was not to tell you, whatever. But--it is
not right at all that I must not speak. Your ladyship should be told in
time--it is that the White Lady has come to the castle again--and--there
will be doom to follow before daylight. _Ochon, ochon!_"
Sallie shivered in spite of herself, as she recalled the uncanny legend
which Mr. Jobling had related on the evening of their arrival. She had
scarcely thought of it since, but now--
"Who has seen the White Lady, Mairi?" she asked patiently, and the girl
grew a little calmer.
"I, with my own eyes, your ladyship," she declared. "It was at a turn of
the passage not far from Mistress M'Kissock's room. And I did not run
from it, moreover. I stood and watched till it disappeared, for I was
afraid to move. And Mistress M'Kissock will say that it is all havers
and nonsense, but I am sure. For it was seen in the woods as well, on
the way to the hut that was Lord St. Just's, and Donuil Mohr, the
forester, it was who saw it there."
Sallie sighed. She did not know what to think of it all, she who had so
much else to think about. But she comforted the distressed Mairi, and
presently sent her off on her errand, dry-eyed at last, and with word
for the other servants that her ladyship was not in the least afraid of
any such shadow seen in the dusk.
Sallie had almost forgotten the matter, indeed, before Ambrizette--much
exercised in her mind by her beloved mistress's very evident and unusual
preoccupation--had finished brushing out her beautiful hair and heaped
it about her bent head in a heavy red-gold crown. When her toilette was
quite complete, she looked wistfully round the luxurious rooms in which
she had dreamed such happy dreams, and then went quietly through, a
tall, slender, white-robed figure herself in the firelight, to one of
the windows that look down Loch Jura and out to sea. She stopped there,
and stayed for a time gazing out at the silver sheen of the ripple among
which the Small Isles were set. The snow had ceased for the moment, but
it looked as if there were more to come.
She looked directly downward, at the quiet village below. There was only
a single light visible, and that at the inn. It was suddenly
extinguished and Sallie turned away from the window.
"I wonder--I think he will come," she told herself, if a little
doubtfully, as she passed through her boudoir again on her way to rejoin
her guests; she paused for an instant to throw two warm, white arms
about Ambrizette watching her as she went, out of dog-like eyes with a
world of dumb devotion in them.
"I think he will come," she encouraged herself as she entered the
distant drawing-room. "He promised--
"Oh, Mr. Herries!"
She had stopped, a little startled, at sight of the solitary figure
before the fire. But it was none other than the old factor, a very
cadaverous spectacle in evening clothes much too ample for one so
emaciated, who came forward with a hasty apology for his intrusion.
"I'm quite well again now," he assured her, in reply to her anxious
questions, "and--I thought I would risk taking the liberty--if you will
grant me permission to sit at table with you to-night. I always had that
privilege with the earl."
Sallie thought she knew his real reason for being there, and it touched
her sore heart to think that he was so eager to be at her side, sick or
well, while the strange portent of which Mairi had told her was still
impending.
"Do you really believe in the White Lady, Mr. Herries?" she asked with a
little laugh that was half a sigh, as she put her hands into his and so
set him down on a chair.
"I couldn't exactly say either yes or no," the old man answered with
native caution. "But, at any rate, I've never seen--any such nonsense
myself."
"I don't," declared Sallie, with simple conviction, and, turning as some
one else entered the room, "He _will_ come," said she to herself.