MR. BRADFIELD RECEIVES A SHOCK.
Mr. Bradfield commanded rather than invited Chris to be seated, and
planted himself in a rather menacing than lover-like attitude before
her. He had just remembered, luckily for him, that he must tone down
his martinet-like manner, as he had no claim whatever on the girl to
give him a right to be offended.
“So you’ve found a sweetheart?” he began, in a voice which he had
subdued to the pitch of a confidential _tête-à-tête_, but which
betrayed his feelings more clearly than he had intended.
A bright pink blush rose in the pale face of Chris to the very roots of
her hair. She hesitated a moment before replying, but her hesitation
was not of a kind to inspire her interlocutor with hopeful feelings.
She looked frightened, but she looked also as if she did not mean to be
bullied. He did not wait for her to reply before he said:
“Did you tell your mother what I said to you the other day?”
Chris just glanced up into his face, and resolved not to pretend to
misunderstand.
“No, Mr. Bradfield.”
“Why not?”
“It would make no difference.”
“You’ve found someone else you like better?”
Again Chris hesitated. She had grown very white, and was chilled by
a fear of this man. There was something hard, something cruel in his
manner, which let her, for the first time, into the secret of those
qualities of doggedness and remorselessness in his nature, which had
helped him to get on in the world. She rose quickly, with the feeling
that she could hold her own better at her full height, than when she
was under the direct fire of those strange eyes. She was in terror lest
he should find out who her companion had been on her walk through the
park that afternoon. The truth was that it had been Mr. Richard, who,
after evidently lying in wait for her among the trees, had accompanied
her a little way, as usual in silence, but with a manner in which there
was no longer any attempt at concealment of the fact that he loved her.
But this was the one fact beyond all others which Chris was anxious to
hide from Mr. Bradfield. For the unhappy Mr. Richard would certainly be
made to suffer for it, if his guardian had any suspicion that he was
his rival.
Mr. Bradfield, impatient at her silence, spoke again:
“I suppose you will think I have no right to ask you such questions;
but you are under my roof. If I cannot be your accepted husband, I
am, at any rate for the time, your guardian, and I hear that you meet
someone else,” added he, his tone betraying the jealous anger that he
felt.
Now Chris knew what his information was, and who his informant had
been. She turned to him quickly, and laughed uneasily.
“Lilith told you; she saw me in the park.” Then, with a fast beating
heart, dreading the answer, she asked, “Didn’t she say who it was?”
“She said she didn’t know. But perhaps it’s some plot between you
girls, and she knows his name as well as you do.”
“There is no plot between us, and I never said anything to her about
him,” said Chris, quickly. “But I don’t deny that I have met a
gentleman belonging to the place once or twice by accident, by accident
entirely; and as you take it so seriously, I shall certainly take great
care not to tell you his name.”
Mr. Bradfield was evidently furious; but he only said, drily:
“Does your mother know of it?”
“No. But,” added Chris, defiantly, “you can tell her if you like.”
Her spirits had risen, for during the last few moments she had felt
pretty sure that either her words or her manner, or both, had diverted
his suspicions, if he had had any, from the right quarter.
And all that poor Mr. Bradfield got by his talk with her was the loss
of his dance; for Chris went away and hid herself, rather than walk
through the quadrille with him.
The next day was the faded, uncomfortable, heavy-eyed day which usually
succeeds to a night of unusual dissipation. Mrs. Graham-Shute put the
climax to the general discomfort by insisting that they should all,
directly luncheon was over, drive some miles in the cold to inspect
ruins.
“But why in the world to-day?” as Lilith grumbled aloud. “As they’ve
stood there since A.D. 250, mightn’t they manage to stand there a few
days longer?”
But Mrs. Graham-Shute saw no reason in an point of view but her own.
They had an afternoon to spare; there were ruins to be seen; therefore
ruins must be seen on that spare afternoon. So they all drove off in
the cold, looking very blue about the nose, and feeling too cold to go
to sleep, even under a mountain of rugs and furs, and nobody at all got
any pleasure out of the expedition except John Bradfield, who drove
Lilith over in his dog-cart, and managed, by steady persistence, to get
Chris to consent to drive back with him. He was so gentle, so humble,
touched just the right chords of gratitude in her so deftly, under
his seeming clumsiness, that the girl could not hold out against him.
However, she made her own conditions.
“Mind,” she said, holding up a warning forefinger in its pretty glove,
as he made a collection of rugs for her comfort, and held out his hand
to help her to mount, radiant with his victory, “you are not to try to
converse with me except upon the subjects I specially choose, for I’m
too cold to be civil, unless I have everything my own way.”
Mr. Bradfield, glad to get her upon any terms, consented with a roar of
laughter. But Mrs. Graham-Shute, who overheard this speech from Chris,
was overwhelmed by the girl’s audacity.
“I wonder how my cousin puts up with such impudence,” she said, in
a tone of exasperation, as she floundered, panting, through the mud
which, at this season, was an indispensable adjunct to the ruins. “She
puts on all the airs of a person of consequence, like her horrible old
mother. Thank goodness, I’ve escaped an afternoon with _her_, at any
rate.”
“That’s just what she said of you when she refused to go, my dear,”
said her husband, gently, in her ear, as, tottering under her weight,
he helped her into the landau.
Chris need not have felt apprehensive. Mr. Bradfield had thought
matters over, and decided that the fortress was not to be stormed, that
his best plan lay in starving out the garrison by a long and careful
siege. Besides, it was too cold for ardent lovemaking; their jaws were
stiff as they drove in the face of the winter wind. So that Chris was
pleased to find that her drive back with Mr. Bradfield was a good
deal pleasanter than her drive out had been in the company of Mrs.
Graham-Shute.
It was Mr. Bradfield who chose the topics of conversation after all.
For he was so anxious to prove his good faith that he gave her no
opportunity of starting any subject of her own, but beguiled the way
by stories of his life on Australian sheep farms. His experience had
been hard, and some of his tales of hardship and privation, while they
had the desired effect of securing the young girl’s sympathy, made her
shudder.
“Why, I would rather have remained as poor as you say you were all my
life than have made a large fortune in such hard ways as those!” she
exclaimed.
Mr. Bradfield’s face clouded suddenly at her words, so that Chris began
to wonder what there was in her speech to offend him.
To break the silence which followed, she said:
“You must be very glad those hard times are over?”
As he answered, one of the hard looks his face could assume at times
made his features look repulsive in their rugged harshness.
“Glad!” he exclaimed. “There isn’t a crime I wouldn’t commit sooner
than go through them again.”
Chris glanced at his face, and a sudden remembrance of Mr. Bradfield’s
unfortunate ward flashed into her mind. Without reason, by a woman’s
sensitive instinct, she connected the words he had just uttered, the
hard, harsh spirit which they betrayed, with the treatment of the man
whom he kept shut up in such a mysterious manner in the east wing.
By this time they were passing Wyngham Station. A few passengers were
coming out in a straggling thread, for the London train had just come
in. Although the afternoon was light for the time of year, it was
too dark to distinguish clearly the faces of these people, although
something of their figures was discernible. Mr. Bradfield’s gaze was
suddenly attracted by the appearance of a man who was walking in the
road a little in front of the dog-cart. As soon as he caught sight of
him, he stopped abruptly in the middle of a remark he was making to
Chris. As his voice, besides being very gruff, was very loud, Chris saw
nothing remarkable in the fact that as he stopped speaking, the man in
the road turned quickly round.
“John Bradfield!” he cried, stepping back to the roadside. He had not
spoken loudly, so there was nothing surprising in the fact that Mr.
Bradfield drove on, apparently without hearing the stranger’s voice.
But glancing at him as they drove on, Chris was able to see, even in
the twilight which was fast closing in, that his face was distorted and
drawn with a strong emotion.
And the emotion was fear.