THE OLD COUNTRY.
A month had passed since Vane said good-bye to Kitty, when he and
Carroll alighted one evening at a little station in the north of
England.
The train went on, and Vane stood still, looking about him with a
poignant recollection of how he had last waited on that platform, sick
at heart, but gathering his youthful courage for the effort that he must
make. It all came back to him; the dejection, the sense of loneliness;
for he was then going out to the Western Dominion in which he had not a
friend. Now he was returning prosperous and successful. But once again
the feeling of loneliness was with him--most of those whom he had left
behind had made a longer journey than his.
Then he noticed an elderly man in livery approaching, and held out his
hand with a smile of pleasure.
"You haven't changed a bit, Jim," he said.
"A bit stiffer in the joints, and maybe a bit sourer," was the answer;
then the man's wrinkled face relaxed. "I'm main glad to see thee, Mr.
Wallace. Master wad have come, only he'd t' gan t' Manchester suddenly."
Vane helped him to place their baggage in the trap, and then, gathering
up the reins, bade him sit behind. After half an hour's ride through a
country rolled in ridge and valley, Vane pulled up where a stile path
led across a strip of meadow.
"You can drive round; we'll be there before you," he said to the groom
as he got down.
Carroll and he crossed the meadow, and passing round a clump of larches,
came suddenly into sight of an old grey house with a fir wood rolling
down the hillside close behind it. The building was long and low,
weather-worn and stained with lichens where the creepers and climbing
roses left the stone exposed. The bottom row of mullioned windows opened
upon a terrace, and in front of the latter ran a low wall with a mossy
coping on which was placed urns bright with geraniums. It was pierced by
an opening approached by shallow stairs on which a peacock stood, and
between them and the two men stretched a sweep of lawn. A couple of
minutes later a lady met them in the hall, and held out her hand to Vane
effusively. She was middle-aged, and had once been handsome, Carroll
thought, but there were wrinkles about her eyes, which had a hint of
hardness in them.
"Welcome home, Wallace," she said. "It should not be difficult to look
upon the Dene as that--you were here so often once upon a time."
"Thank you," said Vane. "I felt tempted to ask Jim to drive me round by
the Low Wood; I wanted to see the place again."
"I'm glad you didn't," and the lady smiled sympathetically. "The house
is shut up and going to pieces. It would have been depressing to-night."
Vane presented Carroll. Mrs. Chisholm's manner was gracious; but for no
particular reason Carroll wondered if she would have extended the same
welcome to either, had his comrade not come back the discoverer of a
mine.
"Tom was sorry he couldn't wait to meet you, but he had to leave for
Manchester on some urgent business," she informed Vane, and looked round
as a girl with disordered hair came up to them.
"This is Mabel," she said. "I hardly think you will remember her."
"I've carried her across the meadow," smilingly remarked Vane.
The girl greeted the strangers demurely, and favoured Vane with a
critical gaze. "So you're Wallace Vane--who found the Clermont mine.
Though I don't remember you, I've heard a good deal about you lately.
Very pleased to make your acquaintance."
Vane's eyes twinkled as he shook hands with her. Her manner was quaintly
formal, but he fancied there was a spice of mischief hidden behind it,
and in the meanwhile Carroll, watching his hostess, surmised that her
daughter's remarks had not altogether pleased her. She, however, chatted
with them until the man who had driven them appeared with their baggage,
when they were shown their respective rooms.
Vane was the first to go down, and reaching the hall found nobody there,
though a clatter of dishes and clink of silver suggested that a meal was
being laid out in an adjoining room. Sitting down near the hearth, he
looked about him.
His eyes rested on many objects that he recognised, but as his glance
travelled to and fro it occurred to him that much of what he saw
conveyed a hint that economy was needful.
By and by he heard a patter of feet, and looking up saw a girl
descending the stairs in the fading stream of light. She was clad in
trailing white, which gleamed against the dark oak and rustled softly as
it flowed about a tall, finely-outlined and finely-poised figure. She
had hair of dark brown with paler lights in its curling tendrils,
gathered back from a neck that showed a faintly warmer whiteness, than
the snowy fabric beneath it. It was, however, her face which seized
Vane's attention; the level brows, the quiet, deep brown eyes, the
straight, cleanly-cut nose, and the subtle suggestion of steadfastness
and pride which they all conveyed. He rose with a cry that had pleasure
and eagerness in it: "Evelyn!"
She came down, moving lightly but, as he noticed, with a rhythmic grace,
and laid a firm, cool hand in his.
"I'm glad to see you back, Wallace," she said. "But you have changed."
"I'm not sure that's kind. In some ways you haven't changed at all; I
would have known you anywhere."
"Nine years is a long time to remember any one."
Vane had seen few women during that period; but he was not a fool, and
he recognised that this was no occasion for an attempt at gallantry.
There was nothing coquettish in Evelyn's words, nor were they ironical.
She had answered in the tranquil, matter-of-fact manner which, as he
remembered, usually characterised her.
"It's a little while since you landed, isn't it?" she added.
"A week," said Vane. "I'd some business in London, and then I went on to
look up Lucy. She had just gone up to town, and I missed her. I shall go
up again to see her as soon as she answers my note."
"It won't be necessary. She's coming here for a fortnight very soon."
"That's kind," said Vane. "Whom have I to thank for suggesting it?"
"Does it matter? It was a natural thing to ask your only sister--who is
a friend of mine. We have plenty of room, and the place is quiet."
"It used not to be. If I remember, your mother generally had it full
part of the year."
"Things have changed," said Evelyn quietly.
Vane was baffled by something in her manner. Evelyn had never been
effusive--that was not her way--but now, while she was cordial, she did
not seem disposed to resume their acquaintance where it had been broken
off. After all, he could hardly have expected this.
"Mabel is like you, as you used to be," he said. "It struck me as soon
as I saw her; but when she began to talk there was a difference."
"Yes," she said. "I think you're right in both respects. Mopsy has the
courage of her convictions. She's an open rebel."
There was no bitterness in her tone. Evelyn's manner was never pointed,
but Vane fancied that she had said a meaning thing, one that might
explain what he found puzzling in her attitude, when he held the key to
it. Then she went on: "Mopsy was dubious about you before you arrived,
but I'm pleased to say she now seems reassured."
Then Carroll came down, and a few moments later Mrs. Chisholm appeared
and they went in to dinner in a low-ceilinged room. Nobody said anything
of importance, but by and by Mabel turned to Vane.
"I suppose you have brought your pistols with you," she said.
"I never owned one," Vane informed her.
The girl looked at him with an excellent assumption of incredulity.
"Then you have never shot anybody in British Columbia?"
Carroll laughed, as if this greatly pleased him, but Vane's face was
rather grave as he answered her.
"No," he said. "I'm thankful I haven't."
"Then the West must be getting what the Archdeacon--he's Flora's
husband, you know--calls decadent," the girl retorted.
"She's incorrigible," Mrs. Chisholm interposed with a smile.
Carroll, who was sitting next to Mabel, leaned towards her
confidentially. "In case you feel badly disappointed, I'll let you into
a secret," he said. "When we feel real savage, we take the axe instead."
Evelyn fancied that Vane winced at this, but Mabel looked openly
regretful.
"Can either of you pick up a handkerchief going at full gallop on
horseback?" she inquired.
"I'm sorry I can't, and I've never seen Wallace do so," Carroll
answered, laughing, and Mrs. Chisholm shook her head at her daughter.
"Miss Clifford complained of your inattention to the study of English
last quarter," she said severely.
Mabel made no answer, though Vane thought it would have relieved her to
grimace, and by and by the meal came to an end. Some time afterwards,
Mrs. Chisholm rose from her seat in the drawing-room.
"We keep early hours at the Dene, but you will retire when you like,"
she said. "As Tom is away, I had better tell you that you will find
syphons and whisky in the smoking-room. I have had the lamp lighted."
"Thank you," Vane replied with a smile. "I'm afraid you have taken more
trouble on our account than you need have done. Except on special
occasions we have generally confined ourselves to strong green tea."
Mabel looked at him in amazement. "Oh!" she said, "the West is certainly
decadent. You should be here when the otter hounds are out. Why, it was
only----"
She broke off abruptly beneath her mother's withering glance, and when
they were left alone, Vane and Carroll strolled out upon the terrace,
pipe in hand.
"I suppose you could put in a few weeks here," Vane remarked.
"I could," Carroll replied. "There's an--atmosphere--about these old
houses that appeals to me, perhaps because we have nothing like it in
Canada. Besides, I think your friends mean to make things pleasant."
"I'm glad you like them."
Carroll understood that his comrade would not resent a candid expression
of opinion. "I do; the girls in particular. They interest me. The
younger one's of a type that's common in our country, though it's
generally given room for free development into something useful there.
Mabel's chaffing at the curb. It remains to be seen if she'll kick, and
hurt herself in doing so, presently."
Vane, who remembered that Evelyn had said something to the same effect,
had already discovered that Carroll possessed a keen insight in certain
matters.
"And her sister?" he suggested.
"You won't mind my saying that I'm inclined to be sorry for her? She has
learned repression--been driven into line. That girl has character, but
it's being cramped and stunted. You live in walled-in compartments in
this country."
Vane strolled along the terrace thoughtfully. He was not offended, and
he understood his companion's attitude. Like other men of education and
good upbringing, driven by unrest or disaster to the untrammelled life
of the bush, Carroll had gained sympathy as well as knowledge. Facing
facts candidly, he seldom indulged in decided protest against any of
them. On the other hand, Vane was on occasion liable to outbreaks of
indignation.
"Well," said the latter at length, "I guess it's time to go to bed."