THE NEMESIS OF A COWARD
Two days later the Andrews drove up the glen to Etterick, taking with
them the unwilling Mr. Wishart. Alice had escaped the ordeal with some
feigned excuse, and the unfortunate Mr. Thompson, deeply grieving, had
been summoned by telegram from cricket to law. The lady had chattered
all the way up the winding moorland road, crying out banalities about
the pretty landscape, or questioning her very ignorant companions about
the dwellers in Etterick. She was full of praises for the house when it
came in view; it was "quaint," it was "charming," it was everything
inappropriate. But the amiable woman's prattle deserted her when she
found herself in the cold stone hall with the great portraits and the
lack of all modern frippery. It was so plainly a man's house, so
clearly a place of tradition, that her pert modern speech seemed for one
moment a fatuity.
It was an off-day for the shooters, and so for a miracle there were men
in the drawing-room at tea-time. The hostess for the time was an aunt
of Lewis's, a certain Mrs. Alderson, whose husband (the famous big-game
hunter) had but recently returned from the jaws of a Zambesi lion.
George's sister, Lady Clanroyden, a tall, handsome girl in a white
frock, was arranging flowers in a bowl, and on the sill of the open
window two men were basking in the sun. From the inner drawing-room
there came an echo of voices and laughter. The whole scene was sunny
and cheerful, youth and age, gay frocks and pleasant faces amid the old
tapestry and mahogany of a moorland house.
Mr. Andrews sat down solemnly to talk of the weather with the two men,
who found him a little dismal. One--he of the Zambesi lion episode--was
grizzled, phlegmatic, and patient, and in no way critical of his
company. So soon he was embarked on extracts from his own experience to
which Mr. Andrews, who had shares in some company in the neighbourhood,
listened with flattering attention. Mrs. Alderson set herself to
entertain Mr. Wishart, and being a kindly, simple person, found the
task easy. They were soon engaged in an earnest discussion of
unsectarian charities.
Lady Clanroyden, with an unwilling sense of duty, devoted herself to
Mrs. Andrews. That simpering matron fell into a vein of confidences
and in five brief minutes had laid bare her heart. Then came the
narrative of her recent visit to the Marshams, and the inevitable
mention of the Hestons.
"Oh, you know the Hestons?" said Lady Clanroyden, brightening.
"Very well indeed." The lady smiled, looking round to make sure that
Lewis was not in the room.
"Julia is here, you know. Julia, come and speak to your friends."
A dark girl in mourning came forward to meet the expansive smile of Mrs.
Andrews. Earnestly the lady hoped that she remembered the single brief
meeting on which she had built a fictitious acquaintance, and was
reassured when the newcomer shook hands with her pleasantly. Truth to
tell, Lady Julia had no remembrance of her face, but was too
good-natured to be honest.
"And how is your dear mother? I was so sorry to hear from a mutual
friend that she had been unwell." How thankful she was that she read
each week various papers which reported people's doings!
A sense of bewilderment lurked in her heart. Who was this Lewis
Haystoun who owned such a house and such a kindred? The hypothesis of
money made in coal seemed insufficient, and with much curiosity she set
herself to solve the problem.
"Is Mr. Haystoun coming back to tea?" she asked by way of a preface.
"No, he has had to go to Gledsmuir. We are all idle this afternoon, but
he has a landowner's responsibilities."
"Have his family been here long? I seem never to have heard the name."
Lady Clanroyden looked a little surprised. "Yes, they have been rather
a while. I forget how many centuries, but a good many. It was about
this place, you know, that the old ballad of 'The Riding of Etterick'
was made, and a Haystoun was the hero."
Mrs. Andrews knew nothing about old ballads, but she feigned a happy
reminiscence.
"It is so sad his being beaten by Mr. Stocks," she declared. "Of
course an old county family should provide the members for a district.
They have the hearts of the people with them."
"Then the hearts of the people have a funny way of revealing
themselves," Lady Clanroyden laughed. "I'm not at all sorry that Lewie
was beaten. He is the best man in the world, but one wants to shake him
up. His motto is 'Thole,' and he gets too few opportunities of
'tholing.'"
"You all call him 'Lewie,'" commented the lady. "How popular he must
be!"
Mabel Clanroyden laughed. "I have known him ever since I was a small
girl in a short frock and straight-brushed hair. He was never anything
else than Lewie to his friends. Oh, here is my wandering brother and my
only son returned," and she rose to catch up a small, self-possessed boy
of some six years, who led the flushed and reluctant George in tow.
The small boy was very dirty, ruddy and cheerful. He had torn his
blouse, and scratched his brow, and the crown of his straw hat had
parted company with the brim.
"George," said his sister severely, "have you been corrupting the
manners of my son? Where have you been?"
The boy--he rejoiced in the sounding name of Archibald--slapped a small
leg with a miniature whip, and counterfeited with great skill the pose
of the stable-yard. He slowly unclenched a smutty fist and revealed
three separate shillings.
"I won um myself," he explained.
"Is it highway robbery?" asked his mother with horrified eyes.
"Archibald, have you stopped a coach, or held up a bus or anything of
the kind?"
The child unclenched his hand again, beamed on his prize, smiled
knowingly at the world, and shut it.
"What has the dreadful boy been after? Oh, tell me, George, please. I
will try to bear it."
"We fell in with a Sunday-school picnic along in the glen, and Archie
made me take him there. And he had tea--I hope the little chap won't be
ill, by the by. And he made a speech or a recitation or something of
the sort. Nobody understood it, but it went down like anything."
"And do you mean to say that the people gave him money, and you allowed
him to take it?" asked an outraged mother.
"He won it," said George. "Won it in fair fight. He was second in the
race under twelve, and first in the race under ten. They gave him a
decent handicap, and he simply romped home. That chap can run, Mabel.
He tried the sack race, too, but the first time he slipped altogether
inside the thing and had to be taken out, yelling. But he stuck to it
like a Trojan, and at the second shot he got started all right, and
would have won it if he hadn't lost his head and rolled down a bank. He
isn't scratched much, considering he fell among whins. That also
explains the state of his hat."
"George, you shall never, never, as long as I live, take my son out with
you again. It is a wonder the poor child escaped with his life. You
have not a scrap of feeling. I must take the boy away or he will shame
me before everybody. Come and talk to Mrs. Andrews, George. May I
introduce my brother, Mr. Winterham?"
George, who wanted to smoke, sat down unwillingly in the chair which his
sister had left. The lady, whose airs and graces were all for men, put
on her most bewitching manner.
"Your sister and I have just been talking about this exquisite place,
Mr. Winterham. It must be delightful to live in such a centre of old
romance. That lovely 'Riding of Etterick' has been running in my head
all the way up."
George privately wondered at the confession. The peculiarly tragic and
ghastly fragments which made up "The Riding of Etterick," seemed
scarcely suited to haunt a lady's memory.
"Had you a long drive?" he asked in despair for a topic.
"Only from Glenavelin."
He awoke to interest. "Are you staying at Glenavelin just now? The
Wisharts are in it, are they not? We were a great deal about the place
when the Manorwaters were there."
"Oh yes. I have heard about Lady Manorwater from Alice Wishart. She
must be a charming woman; Alice cannot speak enough about her."
George's face brightened. "Miss Wishart is a great friend of mine, and
a most awfully good sort."
"And as you are a great friend of hers I think I may tell you a great
secret," and the lady patted him playfully. "Our pretty Alice is going
to be married."
George was thoroughly roused to attention. "Who is the man?" he asked
sharply.
"I think I may tell you," said Mrs. Andrews, enjoying her sense of
importance. "It is Mr. Stocks, the new member."
George restrained with difficulty a very natural oath. Then he looked
at his informant and saw in her face only silliness and truth. For the
good woman had indeed persuaded herself of the verity of her fancy. Mr.
Stocks had told her that he had her father's consent and good wishes,
and misinterpreting the girl's manner she had considered the affair
settled.
It was unfortunate that Mr. Wishart at this moment showed such obvious
signs of restlessness that the lady rose to take her leave, otherwise
George might have learned the truth. After the Glenavelin party had
gone he wandered out to the lawn, pulling his moustache in vast
perplexity and cursing the twisted world. He had no guess at Lewis's
manner of wooing; to him it had seemed the simple, straightforward love
which he thought beyond resistance. And now, when he learned of this
melancholy issue, he was sore at heart for his friend.
He was awakened from his reverie by Lewis himself, who, having ridden
straight to the stables, was now sauntering towards the house. A trim
man looks at his best in riding clothes, and Lewis was no exception. He
was flushed with sun and motion, his spirits were high, for all the
journey he had been dreaming of a coming meeting with Alice, and the
hope which had suddenly increased a thousand-fold. George marked his
mood, and with a regret at his new role caught him by the arm and
checked him.
"I say, old man, don't go in just yet. I want to tell you something,
and I think you had better hear it now."
Lewis turned obediently, amazed by the gravity of his friend's face.
"Some people came up from Glenavelin this afternoon and among them a
Mrs. Andrews, whom I had a talk to. She told me that Al--Miss Wishart
is engaged to that fellow Stocks."
Lewis's face whitened and he turned away his eyes. He could not credit
it. Two days ago she had been free; he could swear it; he remembered
her eyes at parting. Then came the thought of his blindness, and in a
great horror of self-mistrust he seemed to see throughout it all his
criminal folly. He, poor fool, had been pleasing himself with dreams of
a meeting, when all the while the other man had been the real lover.
She had despised him, spared not a thought for him save as a pleasing
idler; and he--that he should ever have ventured for one second to hope!
Curiously enough, for the first time he thought of Stocks with respect;
to have won the girl seemed in itself the proof of dignity and worth.
"Thanks very much for telling me. I am glad I know. No, I don't think
I'll go into the house yet."
* * * * *
The days passed and Alice waited with anxious heart for the coming of
the very laggard Lewis. To-day he will come, she said each morning; and
evening found her--poor heart!--still expectant. She told herself a
thousand times that it was sheer folly. He meant nothing, it was a mere
fashion of speech; and then her heart would revolt and bid common sense
be silent. He came indeed with some of the Etterick party on a formal
call, but this was clearly not the fulfilment of his promise. So the
girl waited and despaired, while the truant at Etterick was breaking his
heart for the unattainable.
Mr. Stocks, having won the official consent, conducted his suit with
commendable discretion. Suit is the word for the performance, so full
was it of elaborate punctilios. He never intruded upon her unhappiness.
A studied courtesy, a distant thoughtfulness were his only compliments.
But when he found her gayer, then would he strive with subtle delicacies
of manner to make clear the part he desired to play.
The girl saw his kindness and was grateful. In the revulsion against
the Andrews he seemed a link with the more pleasant sides of life, and
soon in her despair and anger his modest merits took heroic proportions
in her eyes. She forgot her past dislike; she thought only of this, the
simple good man, contrasted with the showy and fickle-hearted--true
metal against glittering tinsel. His very weaknesses seemed homely and
venial. He was of her own world, akin to the things which deep down in
her soul she knew she must love to the last. It is to the credit of the
man's insight that he saw the mood and took pains to foster it.
Twice he asked her to marry him. The first time her heart was still
sore with disappointment and she refused--yet half-heartedly.
He waited his time and when the natural cheerfulness of her temper was
beginning to rise, he again tried his fortune.
"I cannot," she cried. "I cannot. I like you very much, but oh, it is
too much to ask me to marry you."
"But I love you with all my heart, Alice." And the honesty of his tone
and the distant thought of a very different hope brought the tears to
her eyes.
He had forgotten all pompous dreams and the stilted prospects with which
he had aforetime hoped to beguile his wife. The man was plain and
simple now, a being very much on fire with an honest passion. He may
have left her love-cold, but he touched the sympathy which in a true
woman is love's nearest neighbour. Before she knew herself she had
promised, and had been kissed respectfully and tenderly by her delighted
lover. For a moment she felt something like joy, and then, with a
dreadful thought of the baselessness of her pleasure, walked slowly
homewards by his side.
* * * * *
The next morning Alice rose with a dreary sense of the irrevocable. A
door seemed to have closed behind her, and the future stretched before
her in a straight dusty path with few nooks and shadows. This was not
the blithe morning of betrothal she had looked for. The rapturous
outlook on life which she had dreamed of was replaced by a cold and
business-like calculation of profits. The rose garden of the "god
unconquered in battle" was exchanged for a very shoddy and huckstering
paradise.
Mrs. Andrews claimed her company all the morning, and with the
pertinacity of her kind soon guessed the very obvious secret. Her
gushing congratulations drove the girl distracted. She praised the good
Stocks, and Alice drank in the comfort of such words with greedy ears.
From one young man she passed to another, and hung lovingly over the
perfections of Mr. Haystoun. "He has the real distinction, dear," she
cried, "which you can never mistake. It only belongs to old blood and
it is quite inimitable. His friends are so charming, too, and you can
always tell a man by his people. It is so pleasant to fall in with old
acquaintances again. That dear Lady Clanroyden promised to come over
soon. I quite long to see her, for I feel as if I had known her for
ages."
After lunch Alice fled the house and sought her old refuge--the hills.
There she would find the deep solitude for thought. She was not
broken-hearted, though she grieved now and again with a blind longing of
regret. But she was confused and shaken; the landmarks of her vision
seemed to have been removed, and she had to face the grim narrowing-down
of hopes which is the sternest trial for poor mortality.
Autumn's hand was lying heavy on the hillsides. Bracken was yellowing,
heather passing from bloom, and the clumps of wild-wood taking the soft
russet and purple of decline. Faint odours of wood smoke seemed to flit
over the moor, and the sharp lines of the hill fastnesses were drawn as
with a graving-tool against the sky. She resolved to go to the Midburn
and climb up the cleft, for the place was still a centre of memory. So
she kept for a mile to the Etterick road, till she came in view of the
little stone bridge where the highway spans the moorland waters.
There had been intruders in Paradise before her. Broken bottles and
scraps of paper were defacing the hill turf, and when she turned to get
to the water's edge she found the rushy coverts trampled on every side.
From somewhere among the trees came the sound of singing--a silly
music-hall catch. It was a sharp surprise, and the girl, in horror at
the profanation, was turning in all haste to leave.
But the Fates had prepared an adventure. Three half-tipsy men came
swinging down the slope, their arms linked together, and bowlers set
rakishly on the backs of their heads. They kept up the chorus of the
song which was being sung elsewhere, and they suited their rolling gait
to the measure.
"For it ain't Maria," came the tender melody; and the reassuring phrase
was repeated a dozen times. Then by ill-luck they caught sight of the
astonished Alice, and dropping their musical efforts they hailed her
familiarly. Clearly they were the stragglers of some picnic from the
town, the engaging type of gentleman who on such occasions is drunk by
midday. They were dressed in ill-fitting Sunday clothes, great flowers
beamed from their button-holes, and after the fashion of their kind
their waistcoats were unbuttoned for comfort. The girl tried to go back
by the way she had come, but to her horror she found that she was
intercepted. The three gentlemen commanded her retreat.
They seemed comparatively sober, so she tried entreaty. "Please, let me
pass," she said pleasantly. "I find I have taken the wrong road."
"No, you haven't, dearie," said one of the men, who from a superior
neatness of apparel might have been a clerk. "You've come the right
road, for you've met us. And now you're not going away." And he came
forward with a protecting arm.
Alice, genuinely frightened, tried to cross the stream and escape by the
other side. But the crossing was difficult, and she slipped at the
outset and wet her ankles. One of the three lurched into the water
after her, and withdrew with sundry oaths.
The poor girl was in sad perplexity. Before was an ugly rush of water
and a leap beyond her strength; behind, three drunken men, their mouths
full of endearment and scurrility. She looked despairingly to the level
white road for the Perseus who should deliver her.
And to her joy the deliverer was not wanting. In the thick of the idiot
shouting of the trio there came the clink-clank of a horse's feet and a
young man came over the bridge. He saw the picture at a glance and its
meaning; and it took him short time to be on his feet and then over the
broken stone wall to the waterside. Suddenly to the girl's delight
there appeared at the back of the roughs the inquiring, sunburnt face of
Lewis.
The men turned and stared with hanging jaws. "Now, what the dickens is
this?" he cried, and catching two of their necks he pulled their heads
together and then flung them apart.
The three seemed sobered by the apparition. "And what the h-ll is your
business?" they cried conjointly; and one, a dark-browed fellow, doubled
his fists and advanced.
Lewis stood regarding them with a smiling face and very bright, cross
eyes. "Are you by way of insulting this lady? If you weren't drunk,
I'd teach you manners. Get out of this in case I forget myself."
For answer the foremost of the men hit out. A glance convinced Lewis
that there was enough sobriety to make a fight of it. "Miss
Wishart ... Alice," he cried, "come back and go down to the road
and see to my horse, please. I'll be down in a second."
The girl obeyed, and so it fell out that there was no witness to that
burn-side encounter. It was a complex fight and it lasted for more than
a second. Two of the men had the grace to feel ashamed of themselves
half-way through, and retired from the contest with shaky limbs and
aching faces. The third had to be assisted to his feet in the end by
his antagonist. It was not a good fight, for the three were
pasty-faced, overgrown young men, in no training and stupid with liquor.
But they pressed hard on Lewis for a little, till he was compelled in
self-defence to treat them as fair opponents.
He came down the road in a quarter of an hour with a huge rent in his
coat-sleeve and a small cut on his forehead. He was warm and
breathless, still righteously indignant at the event, and half-ashamed
of so degrading an encounter. He found the girl standing statue-like,
holding the bridle-rein, and looking into the distance with vacant eyes.
"Are you going back to Glenavelin, Miss Wishart?" he asked. "I think I
had better go with you if you will allow me."
Alice mutely assented and walked beside him while he led his horse. He
could think of nothing to say. The whole world lay between them now,
and there was no single word which either could speak without showing
some trace of the tragic separation.
It was the girl who first broke the silence.
"I want to thank you with all my heart," she stammered. And then by an
awkward intuition she looked in his face and saw written there all the
hopelessness and longing which he was striving to conceal. For one
moment she saw clearly, and then the crooked perplexities of the world
seemed to stare cruelly in her eyes. A sob caught her voice, and before
she was conscious of her action she laid a hand on Lewis's arm and burst
into tears.
The sight was so unexpected that it deprived him of all power of action.
Then came the fatally easy solution that it was but reaction of
over-strained nerves. Always ill at ease in a woman's presence, a
woman's tears reduced him to despair. He stroked her hair gently as he
would have quieted a favourite horse.
"I am so sorry that these brutes have frightened you. But here we are
at Glenavelin gates."
And all the while his heart was crying out to him to clasp her in his
arms, and the words which trembled on his tongue were the passionate
consolations of a lover.