A LOVE SCENE.
Although Mr. Bradfield kept close watch from the study window, and saw
Gilbert Wryde’s son safely out of the grounds, he was no more a match
than other astute middle-aged persons have been for the wiles of a pair
of lovers.
Richard Wryde, although he had let himself be “talked over” by Mr.
Bradfield, was not quite so simple as his guardian supposed. Before
he was out of the house, therefore, it had occurred to him to doubt
whether Mr. Bradfield’s information about Chris were correct. It was,
at any rate, worth while, he thought, to make the tour of the eastern
end of the grounds, on the outer side of the wall, and then to saunter
past the sea-front of the mansion, keeping a careful eye on the windows.
And when he was within sight of the window of the Chinese room, he was
rewarded for his perspicacity by the sight of Chris, engaged in her
favourite occupation of looking out at the sea.
She saw him in a moment, without his having to exert himself to attract
her attention. He saw her spring up, clasping her hands. And he knew
that all he had to do was to wait for her to come to him.
He went back, therefore, towards the east end of the house, so that the
trees might hide him from the curious eyes within. In a few minutes Mr.
Bradfield heard the creaking of the gate again. He got up and looked
out; but Chris had gone through like an arrow, and he saw no one.
When she was once outside the gates, however, shyness, excitement,
one does not know what, stayed her flying feet, and brought a flutter
to her heart. And when she caught sight of Dick, as he came round the
angle of the wall to meet her, she stopped altogether.
Dick was timid too. It seemed to him, as it seemed to her, that the
happiness at their lips was too great, that the cup must be dashed away
before the draught was taken. The man, of course, recovered first from
the stupor of joy following weeks of longing.
Chris, with her eyes upon the ground, felt a hand on her shoulder, warm
breath upon her face.
“You are glad to see me? Then tell me so.”
She looked up suddenly, saw, in place of the wistful face she
remembered, eyes full of the fire of recovered light, of youth renewed.
Her lover was no longer the deaf and dumb recluse; he was as other men
are, but with a charm of gentleness, of sadness past, but remembered,
which made him infinitely more attractive in her eyes than any other
man could ever be.
“I am so glad,” she whispered, “that I hardly dare to speak for fear I
should cry!”
And, with a sob she tried hard to suppress, she brought out from under
her cloak, and held out towards him, the little sketch of the sea seen
between the trees of Wyngham House.
“When I saw this,” she said, brokenly, “I knew, oh, I knew that you
were alive. But you might have let me know before. For I have been so
miserable, I wanted to die.”
Her lover took her in his arms; they were under the trees on one side,
and in the shelter of the high wall of Wyngham House on the other; and
in words a little old-fashioned, a little more fanciful than the modern
lover of every day dares to use, he told her of the light which the
sight of her from his prison windows had brought into his life, of the
new energy she had unconsciously put into him, of the longing he had
felt to stand beside her and to feel the touch of her hand.
“Before you came here,” he said, pouring his words into her willing
ears with an impetuosity which, in truth, made him well-nigh
unintelligible, “Stelfox did not dare to let me out of the rooms in
which I was kept, even for ten minutes. He had tried it once, not long
ago, and he had only with great difficulty prevented me from attacking
that old rascal Bradfield. But when you came, I became at once a
different man. I thought no more of Bradfield, or of anybody but you,
always you. I lost the dead, sullen patience that my confinement had
taught me; I raged like a wild beast shut up for the first time. When
I saw Bradfield touch you, as he did that day under my windows, on
purpose, I believe, to provoke me, I lost my self-command, and threw at
him the first thing that came to my hand. You remember, I dare say. I
smashed the window, and nearly frightened you out of your senses. Then
Stelfox gave me a lecture which made me ill, really ill, with misery
and want of sleep, for two or three days and nights.
“He told me that I had frightened you so much that you would never
come near my windows again; that you thought my savage attack was upon
yourself, and that, in all probability, you would not dare to stay
at Wyngham afterwards. So that at last I became so wretched that he
had to be merciful, and to tell me that you were not going to leave
Wyngham, and that he would contrive for me to see you again. In the
meantime, however, I overheard something said by the men working in
the garden, which told me that Bradfield himself was in love with you.
This, indeed, I had already guessed; but to hear it confirmed made me
so furious that I contrived to pick the lock of my outer door and to
get out, with the fixed intention of braining the brute, or, at least,
of doing him some severe injury, if I got the chance. I saw him go out,
on foot, across the meadows for a walk. I lost sight of him behind the
shrubbery, so I thought I would hide among the farm-buildings until he
came back. I found the barn door unlocked, so I hid myself there; and
presently you came in, as you know. I can’t tell you how I felt. At
first it made me giddy to be near you; it seemed as if my brain would
burst, as if I must cry aloud or shout for the very joy of looking into
your eyes. When your hand touched mine--it was when you put out your
hand to take the lantern, I think--I felt a joy so keen, that it was
almost like the pain of a stab. When I put my hand over your mouth so
that you should not scream, it was almost more than I could do not to
kiss you, as I do now.”
He pressed his lips again and again to hers with a passionate vehemence
which almost frightened Chris, accustomed as she was to the utmost
gentleness on his part. She tried to draw herself out of his arms,
but with a sudden change from passion to wistful tenderness, he partly
released her, and drew her hands against his breast with a melancholy
smile.
“I am a savage!” he exclaimed. “I have frightened you. Let me at least
hold your hands; I will not hurt them. I will hold them like this!”
He relaxed the grasp in which he had held her fingers, and she let her
hands lie lightly in his as he went on:
“You must civilise me. And don’t be afraid. The block is very rough,
but your skill is very great.”
As he bent his head to kiss her hands very gently, Chris felt that he
was trembling.
“I want to ask you something,” said Chris timidly. “Those cries, those
strange cries you gave--that evening in the barn! And your strange
silence, too! I don’t understand. Why didn’t you speak to me!”
“I was stone deaf, you know; I had been so ever since I was a small
child, when I had scarlet fever badly. It left me absolutely without
hearing, so that I could not hear the sound of my own voice.”
“Yes, yes, but you could speak?”
“I had learnt to talk when I was a child, but under the treatment of
the brute who calls himself my guardian, I had forgotten how. I had got
into the way of making cries and noises like a person deaf and dumb
from birth.”
“But you could speak, for you spoke to me on Christmas Day?”
“Yes; but that is a long story. It was Stelfox who found out, four or
five years ago, that I was neither dumb nor insane, and with great
patience he taught me what I had almost forgotten, how to speak again.
But I did not dare to speak to you, because, as I told you, I could not
hear myself; I had only spoken to Stelfox for years; I distrusted my
own powers. When I made the strange cries which frightened you, I was
not conscious of it myself. You see, it is true that I am a savage.”
Chris, seeing that the avowals he had been making caused him pain and
bitter mortification, took his hands, and raising them to her face,
laid them tenderly against her cheek.
“That is a trouble you will have no more,” she said, softly. “And you
can hear now, can you not?”
“I can hear fairly well on one side now,” he answered. “I can hear
some days better than others. I am under treatment by one of the great
London aurists. He says that if I had been brought to him sooner he
could have cured me completely; as it is, the hearing in the right ear
is completely gone, and in the left it is permanently impaired.”
Chris began to sob, and Dick had to comfort her.
“Don’t, don’t cry, my darling; I shall make you as melancholy as myself
if I don’t take care--you, who used to be all life and brightness.”
“I haven’t been very lively since you went away,” answered Chris. “I
have been very ill. I thought you were de--ead!” And she shuddered. “I
thought I saw you carried out--dead--over the grass--hanging over a
man’s shoulder!”
“I was carried over a man’s shoulder, I believe, only I wasn’t dead,”
answered Dick simply. “It was Stelfox’s doing.”
Chris looked puzzled.
“It was in the evening of the day that they found out I had been
writing to you,” said she. “Had that anything to do with it?”
Dick listened with interest.
“Everything, I should think,” he answered drily. “Stelfox’s account
is, that he found me lying on the sofa insensible, when he came in to
clear away the dessert on that evening. He examined the decanters on
the table, and finding that I had drunk very little wine, came to the
conclusion that what little I had taken had been tampered with. He
succeeded in rousing me, but left me for the night in such a drowsy
condition that he came back again after I was in bed, to find out if I
was all right. His suspicions were then aroused by finding that someone
had been in the room, so he woke me with difficulty, told me to dress,
and made me go downstairs.”
“Ah!” interrupted Chris quickly, “that was what I heard, what I almost
saw. Well, what then?”
Dick went on:
“By the time we got downstairs I had grown so drowsy that when he
left me for a minute I tumbled off to sleep again. He had no idea, he
said, at that time of going further with me than the garden, where he
thought the fresh air would revive me, while he went upstairs again to
make investigations. But my continued drowsiness alarmed him so much
that he thought it best to take me first at once into the open air.
When we had got outside, however, he found that I was again in a state
of stupor, so he lifted me up and carried me bodily across the garden
towards the beach, where he thought that he could revive me effectually
by splashing the sea-water in my face. In the meantime he saw smoke and
flames coming from the east wing, and at once made up his mind that I
could not go back. He left me, therefore, having brought me to myself,
while he borrowed a horse and cart from a man he knew; driving slowly,
and resting frequently, so as to spin out the time, we went towards
Ashford, where we arrived in plenty of time for him to put me into the
first morning train for London. He telegraphed to a brother of his to
meet me, and he returned himself to Wyngham in time to escape awkward
questions; for in the commotion caused by the fire he had not been
missed.”
“I don’t understand Stelfox,” said Chris, doubtfully. “I have never
been able to make out whether he was a good man who was sorry for you,
and was kind to you, or a bad one who found it to his interest to serve
Mr. Bradfield in his wicked treatment of you.”
“You’d better ask him,” said Dick, smiling. “But he says he doesn’t
know himself. Anyhow, he’s been a good friend to me. There is no piece
of good fortune, from my recovery of speech down to my escape, that I
do not owe to him. So when he tells me not to look too closely into his
motives, I take care to humour him.”
“But I should like to understand,” persisted Chris. “He could have let
you out long ago if he had liked then?”
“He says it would not have paid either him nor me. He wanted me to
remain here until he had succeeded in finding out who I was, and what
that rascal Bradfield’s motive was in keeping me shut up. But he hasn’t
been able to find out yet, and beyond the fact that I now know my
surname, a piece of information which I owe to you, I am as much in the
dark as I was when he first shut me up.”
Chris mused for a few minutes without speaking. Then she said, half to
herself:
“I wonder whether Mr. Marrable could help us?” Then in a different
tone, “Won’t you see Mr. Bradfield? Won’t you ask him for an
explanation? He has been kind to mamma and me. I don’t want to think he
is so wicked as to have known that you were sane! And yet----”
She thought of the drugged wine, of the fire, and she shuddered.
Dick interrupted her.
“I have seen him,” he said, shortly. “I have asked for an explanation.
But he will give none, at least none to satisfy me.”
“And you are going to rest satisfied _not_ to be satisfied?” cried
Chris, almost with indignation.
“I don’t know what I shall do. At present I am going back to town.
I had some work to do here.” He touched the little sketch which she
still held in her hand. “My pastime in the days of captivity has become
something more than a pastime now. I had undertaken to make a series of
sketches of the sea and shore down here for a dealer----”
“Yes, yes, I know. I found that out,” said Chris, blushing at his look
of tender surprise.
He kissed her again as he went on:
“But I have found that I must see my cunning old Stelfox first, and
tell him what Bradfield has said. Knowing the man better than I do,
he may understand better than I Bradfield’s motive for behaving
generously.”
“Behaving generously?” echoed Chris, interrogatively.
“Yes, he will pay my passage out to Melbourne to make enquiries about
some property which he believes has been left to me.”
“Then don’t go,” cried Chris, impulsively. “You have had no reason for
trusting him before; why should you trust him now?”
Dick hesitated.
“It does seem rather a slender chance of fortune, doesn’t it?” he said
at last. “But it’s the only one I have. Remember, I not only have to
live, but I want to keep a wife too.” She bent her head, but he heard a
little sigh which had no sorrow in it. “Now I can just keep myself by
my sketches; I can do nothing else, and I shouldn’t like to see you in
anything but pretty frocks.”
“I believe,” said Chris, solemnly, jumping to a conclusion, “that Mr.
Bradfield has got some money belonging to you, for they say that your
father was a rich man.”
Dick looked thoughtful, but not hopeful. Little opportunity as he had
had of knowing the world, he guessed that it would require superhuman
energy to set the law in motion to make a rich man disgorge for the
benefit of a poor one. For he was too ignorant to know that he could
attack Capital in the person of Mr. Bradfield, by invoking the great
god Labour. It did not occur to him, therefore, that a smart solicitor
could have made a fortune both for himself and his client by bringing
an action against John Bradfield, the rich man who had oppressed the
poor one.
“I couldn’t prove it, even if it were true. And I know nothing of the
kind,” said he.
Then Chris had another inspiration.
“You ought to consult a lawyer,” said she promptly.
The suggestion was so obviously a good one, that Dick agreed to this.
And then their talk began to drift from the realms of fact to the
pleasanter paths of feeling and fancy, and was carried on chiefly in
whispers, and in sentences which had no beginnings and no endings.