MR. DALRYMPLE HAS TO CONSULT GORDON.
Of course it is well understood, without further explanation, that Mr.
Dalrymple and Rachel were in the position of the Sleeping Beauty and her
prince when the spell that held life in abeyance was--or was about to
be--broken. At the same time it is not to be inferred that the man, with
his years and experience, fell in love at first sight with a merely
pretty face, nor that the girl was more than ordinarily impressionable
and inconstant, or had any constitutional weakness for wild young men.
Perhaps it is not necessary to essay the difficult task of finding a
theory to account for it. Everybody knows that if there is a law of
nature that will not lend itself to system, it is that which governs
these affairs.
The greatest force and factor in human life comes to birth by a mere
chance--in Roden Dalrymple's case by the breaking of a trace, which was
in itself the result of a whole series of trivial and quite avoidable
circumstances; and then it thrives or languishes by the favour of petty
accidents--until time and sanctifying associations put it beyond the
reach of accident. That is its superficial history, taking a general
average.
Quality and potency are questions of temperament; vigour of growth
depends in great measure on what may be called climatic influences. But,
as with some other great mysteries of this world, human understanding
can make very little of it.
At the same time people do not fall in love with each other absolutely
without rhyme or reason. And these two did not. Of course personal
appearance had, in the first instance, something to do with it.
To a girl of Rachel's disposition (or, indeed, of any other
disposition), nothing in the whole catalogue of manly graces could have
been more captivating than that quiet air of power and dignity which
was the chief characteristic of her hero's person and bearing.
And Mr. Dalrymple, who was not the kind of man to be at any time
insensible to the charm of a sweet face, had had sufficient experience
to understand and appreciate the peculiar charm of this one--its
unaffected modesty and candour; and he had had, moreover, little of
anything to charm him in his later wandering years.
And Rachel was not merely a pretty girl, by any means. Being of a most
unselfish, unassuming, kindly nature, and having a subtle apprehension
of the general fitness of things, her manners were exceedingly gracious
and winning--not always conventional, perhaps, but always refined and
modest; and that honest youthful enthusiasm for life and its good
things, which more or less flavoured all she said and did, though
inimical to the prejudices of the British matron, was a charming thing
to men.
Then Mr. Dalrymple had the faculty to perceive what made her look at him
with so peculiarly wistful and earnest a look; he recognised his friend,
if not his love and mate, in the earliest hours of their acquaintance. A
friend in so fair a shape was doubly a friend naturally; and the strong
appetite that he had for friendship, as a rudimental phase of passion,
had had little to feed on but bitter memories for more than a dozen
years.
As for Rachel, it was almost inevitable that she should lose her heart
to this hero of romance--this Paladin with a touch of the demon in
him--whom circumstances combined to present to her under such singularly
impressive auspices. If the truth must be told, she fell in love much
more suddenly and hopelessly than he did; and the fates--incarnate in
the persons of his enemies--did their best to precipitate the
catastrophe.
On the morning following their strange interview in the conservatory--of
which she had been dreaming all night--she awoke with a dim sense of
something being wrong. It was so very dim a sense that she did not
consciously apprehend it, and therefore made no investigation into its
origin. But instead of jumping out of bed as usual, eager to plunge at
once into the unknown joys of a new day, she lay still until obliged to
get up to receive her tea, and gazed pensively into vacancy.
It was just such a morning as yesterday--the sun shining in through the
white blind, the fresh wind rustling along the leafy verandahs, the
magpies gossiping cheerily in great flocks about the garden; and there
was that sweetest baby cooing like a little wood pigeon as he was
carried past her door in his nurse's arms. But she was deaf to these
erewhile potent influences.
"Your hot water, miss," quoth a housemaid in the passage.
"Thank you, Susan," she responded absently, and continued to gaze into
vacancy.
"Your tea, miss," came, with another tap, presently.
And then it was she had to get out of bed. She took in her tea, set it
down on a chair and forgot it; she put on her slippers and
dressing-gown, and armed herself with towel and sponge, but had to make
three visits to the bath-room before she could get in.
Then she woke up to the fact that she was late, and scampered excitedly
about the room in her anxiety to make a becoming toilet in the shortest
possible space of time. Finally, she went to breakfast five minutes
after the gong was supposed to have assembled the family, and found that
the gentlemen had all gone out early on a shooting expedition.
"Isn't it too bad?" exclaimed Miss Hale. "They arranged it in the
smoking-room last night, after we were gone to bed; and Harold _knew_
that we wanted to play croquet."
Croquet, it may be remarked, had not yet "gone out," and Harold was Mr.
Lessel.
"They had their breakfast at six o'clock," said Mrs. Thornley, smiling.
"And you know, dear Miss Hale, it is nearly the last day of the open
season, and my husband has been trying to preserve those lagoons in the
forest on purpose. There were a great many ducks there last week, and
they will have good sport and enjoy themselves, I hope. They said they
would be back to luncheon."
"Oh, don't you believe it!" snorted Mrs. Hale, who, having given her
lord orders to stay at home, which had been grossly violated, was in an
aggrieved and aggressive mood. "_I_ know them!--never a thought will
they give to luncheon, or to us either, until they are tired of their
sport. If they are in time for dinner, that's quite as much as you can
expect."
Rachel sat down, feeling fully as much as anybody the blank that the
five gentlemen had left behind them. She did not exactly say to herself
that it had been waste of time and trouble to put fresh frills into her
dress, but that was the nature of her sentiments.
It was not a lively morning. None of them expected it would be, so they
were not disappointed. The matrons beguiled the dull hours with
sympathetic gossip on domestic themes.
Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hardy had a banquet of Melbourne news and scandal, in
the discussion of which they incidentally glorified their respective
connections, each for the other's edification, until a suggestion of
Mrs. Hale's (to the effect that Mr. Kingston was not much better than he
should be, in spite of his wealth) caused a slight coolness to arise
between them.
Mrs. Thornley and Mrs. Digby, both young wives and mothers, with many
tender interests in common, whispered pleasantly over their needlework,
chiefly of their nursery affairs.
The two girls had no resource but to keep each other company. They went
first to see the baby; but Miss Hale was not an enthusiast in babies.
Then they had a little music; and here Rachel did not greatly
distinguish herself.
After that they walked about the garden and talked. Rachel was told all
about Mr. Lessel--how charming and how good he was--what his father
meant to settle on him when he married--when the wedding was to be, and
what the bridesmaids were to wear. Then she was enticed into a few
reluctant confidences about her own engagement, which led to a detailed
description of the new house, and an invitation to Miss Hale, when she
should be Mrs. Lessel, to pay a visit there some day with her husband.
And so the morning wore away, and luncheon-time came.
They waited luncheon until past two o'clock, and, to the sombre
satisfaction of Mrs. Hale, the sportsmen did not return, and the made
dishes were spoiled.
Then the mail arrived, and there was a letter for Rachel from her
_fiance_, begging her to write at once to relieve his mind of a fear
that she was ill, and to tell him at the same time that she acquiesced
in the arrangements he had proposed for their early marriage, and
whether she preferred Sydney or Tasmania for the introductory wedding
trip.
He particularly wanted her to settle these little matters without
further delay, as the spring was so much the pleasantest time for
travelling, and he had had the offer of a charming house in Sydney, on
the shores of the bay, for the first two or three weeks in October,
which would only be open for a few days.
When she had read this letter, she was in a frantic hurry to answer it.
Holding it in her hand, she excused herself to her companions, who were
all setting forth for a gentle walk; begging to be allowed to stay at
home with an anxious eagerness that provoked significant and indulgent
smiles, which said, "Oh, pray don't mind us," as plainly as smiles could
speak.
So when they were gone, she made herself comfortable in the
smoking-room, in one of the screened compartments of which there was a
sort of public writing-table, supplied with great bowls of ink, and
sheafs of pens, and reams of paper, on which "Adelonga" was printed--as
if Adelonga had been a club--for the use of all-comers; and where there
was always a glorious fire of big logs whenever there was the least
excuse for a fire.
Here she began her second letter to Mr. Kingston--with effusive
conciliatory excuses for having been such a very bad correspondent. She
had really been so much engaged--time had slipped away, she didn't know
how--the post had gone once or twice without her knowing it--yesterday
they had been away from home; altogether, fate had been against her
writing as often as she had intended, but she would promise him to be
more regular in future.
Then followed a description of the races, and an enumeration of the
guests they had brought back with them--who they all were, what they
were like, and her estimation of them respectively. One was dismissed
without comment--"and a Mr. Dalrymple, Mrs. Digby's brother" (and of
course her dearest Graham remarked the extreme simplicity of this
phrase, and was curious about the interesting details that were
conspicuous by their absence). And then, after a few inquiries about the
progress of the house, she plunged into the really important matter.
"I have been thinking about your proposal a _great_ deal, and I want
you, _please_, not to be angry with me if I cannot accede to it," she
began in an abject and deprecating manner that was significant of her
state of mind. "I want to stay a little longer with my dear aunt, to
whom I have had so little opportunity as yet of making what return is in
my power for all her kindness to me; and I want a little time to
improve myself, too, for my future position as your wife, dear Graham.
Lucilla is a beautiful housekeeper and is teaching me lots of things;
and I am brushing up my French and German with Miss O'Hara, who said my
accent (but it is much better now) was enough to set one's teeth on
edge. Moreover, I am _really_ too young to be married just yet. I am
hardly nineteen, and Laura Buxton was nineteen and a half. Perhaps next
year----"
At this point she was interrupted by the arrival of the sportsmen. They
had been to the drawing-room, apparently, for they came in by way of the
conservatory, through a door just opposite the writing-table. She put
down her pen and rose in haste.
"Hullo, Rachel! Good-morning, my dear. Don't get up--we won't disturb
you," shouted Mr. Thornley, cheerily. "Come in, Lessel--come in,
Dalrymple. Here's where the guns go."
"What sport have you had? And are you not very hungry?" she asked,
moving away from her chair and standing on the hearthrug. According to
her primitive ideas of propriety, she was bound to stay a little while
and see to their hospitable entertainment, there being no proper hostess
available.
"Hungry? I should think so. And we had very good sport, though not much
to show for it," responded Mr. Thornley. "Only five ducks to five guns,
and Dalrymple shot four of them. They are wild enough at the best of
times; but at the end of the season there is no getting near them."
"You must be a very good shot," she said, lifting her eyes meekly to Mr.
Dalrymple's face. And then, the moment the words were spoken, she would
have given worlds to recall them, and looked at him again with a dumb
entreaty to be forgiven.
He smiled gently, reading her like a book.
"Oh, no," he said; "I was only lucky in having the birds."
They all came round her as she stood on the hearthrug, except Mr.
Thornley, who had gone to order some bread and cheese and beer; and they
looked pleased with the situation.
Mr. Digby began to tell her what a lovely day it was, and to ask her
why she had not gone out for a walk, too; and then, when she explained
that she had had letters to write, and found herself, unfortunately,
unable to do so without blushing over it (blushing because she feared
she was _going_ to blush), Mr. Hale broke in; and Mr. Hale in
conversation was, in his very different way, worse than Mrs. Hale.
"To Melbourne, I presume?" insinuated this little monster, with an arch
smile. Rachel, the colour of a peony, lifted her head an inch nearer to
the ceiling.
"I only heard last night," he continued, rubbing his hands, and looking
a whole volume of vulgar pleasantries, "that the redoubtable Kingston
has been vanquished at last, and that it is to your bow and spear that
he has fallen. Allow me to congratulate you, Miss Fetherstonhaugh."
"To congratulate _him_, I should think you mean," broke in Mr.
Dalrymple, who was studying the effect of sunset on a picture of the
Adelonga homestead and pulling his moustaches violently. "Hadn't we
better go and wash our hands, Digby, and make ourselves more fit for
ladies' company?"
"To congratulate him, too, certainly," said Mr. Hale; "very much so, of
course. But still it is a great conquest on the part of Miss
Fetherstonhaugh. Perhaps you don't know Kingston?"
"I have not that honour," replied Mr. Dalrymple stiffly; and the tone of
his voice strongly implied that he did not in the least degree desire
it.
"Well, I do; and I know that he has openly defied the combined powers
of her charming sex for--I am afraid to say how many years--as long as I
can remember."
"I daresay that has not distressed them," said Mr. Dalrymple.
"Come, come, Hale," said Mr. Digby, who thought his kinsman's allusion
to Mr. Kingston's age a terrible slip of the tongue; "let us go and wash
our hands. Come along, Lessel."
"And my wife tells me," continued the irrepressible little man, "that
the--a--the interesting event is to take place very shortly!"
Rachel came out of her majestic reticence with a rush that astonished
everybody.
"Oh, _no_, Mr. Hale--not for a _long_ time--not for a year, at the very
least! Who _could_ have told Mrs. Hale such a thing? I assure you it is
quite, quite wrong! _Do_ you know who told her? Was it my aunt?"
She looked at him with an earnest, imploring look that aroused Mr.
Dalrymple to regard her with considerably sharpened interest. The
alarming thought had struck her that her lover might have privately
enlisted Mrs. Hardy's support for his new scheme; and if so, how should
she be able to resist so formidable a pressure?
"I think it was Mrs. Thornley told Mrs. Hale. She had a letter from her
sister, Mrs. Reade, yesterday; and Mrs. Reade had mentioned it. Ladies'
gossip, Miss Fetherstonhaugh!--ladies never can keep secrets, you know.
They tell everything to one another, and then to us. And we--we tell
them nothing. We know better, eh, Digby?"
"Come along," said Digby, who was getting a little savage, "and don't
talk like a fool."
At this critical juncture Mr. Thornley appeared to announce that there
was bread and cheese in the dining-room for anybody who was hungry.
Whereupon the men trooped out--all but Mr. Dalrymple, who apparently was
not hungry. He was lounging at Rachel's side, with an elbow on the
mantelpiece, pulling his moustache meditatively; and he did not move.
Rachel was fluttered and excited.
"How _do_ people get hold of those things?" she exclaimed, with a vexed,
embarrassed laugh. "It is very true that everybody knows one's business
better than one does one's self. I _hate_ that kind of impertinent
gossip. No one has the _least_ ground for supposing that I am going to
be married shortly. I have no intention of being married for ever so
long."
"Why do you care what people say?" said Mr. Dalrymple. "I never care. It
is much the best plan."
"I would not, if I could help it; but I can't," she responded, turning
round and mechanically spreading her pink palms to the fire.
"And, after all," he continued, slowly, "all the talking in the world
can't make you marry if you don't want to."
She did not look up, but the blood flew over her face.
"I did not say I didn't want to," she murmured. "Of course I want
to--not yet, for a long time, but some day--or I should not be engaged."
"I don't think that _always_ follows, Miss Fetherstonhaugh. I think many
people engage themselves, and live to think better of it. And then, if
they don't refuse to consummate an admitted mistake, they--well, they
ought to, that's all. Forgive me, I am speaking in the abstract of
course. I have had a great deal of experience, you know."
"Of broken engagements?" queried Rachel, smiling faintly at the fire.
"No, not of them--not personally. The curse of my life was an engagement
that was kept. And I have seen so much misery, such everlasting wreck
and ruin, come upon people I have known and cared for--people who kept
the letter of the law of honour and disregarded the spirit--who
preferred sacrificing all that made life worth having, for certainly two
people, and probably four, to breaking an engagement that had no longer
any sense or reason in it."
"But surely an engagement--it is the initial marriage ceremony--should
be kept sacred," protested Rachel, daring at last to look up, in defence
of pious principles.
"Yes," he said, "certainly--when it is _really_ the initial marriage
ceremony."
"And how--what--what is the proof of that?"
"Shall I tell you what I think it is? When the people who are engaged
long and weary for the consummation--for the time to be over which
keeps them from one another."
There was a dead silence. Rachel continued to gaze into the fire, but
her eyes were dim, and all her pretty colour sank out of her face. He
had given her a great shock, and she had to take a little time to
recover. Presently she looked up, pale and grave, with a fuller and more
open look than she had ever given him.
"You should not have told me," she said gently; "you should not talk to
me so."
"No--you are right--I should not--forgive me," he replied, speaking low
and hurriedly, with something new and strange in his voice. And then
they became simultaneously aware of the dangerous ways into which their
discussion had led them, and, by tacit consent, turned back. Rachel
moved away to the writing-table, and began to gather her papers
together; Mr. Dalrymple brought his arm down from the chimney-piece and
looked at his watch.
"It is five o'clock," he said; "the ladies are having a long walk, are
they not?"
"No; it was nearly four when they started. They will be in directly for
their tea."
Then, without looking to right or left, Rachel hurried out of the room;
and Mr. Dalrymple, after silently holding the door for her, strode away
to the dining-room, where he was still in time for some bread and
cheese.
The first thing Rachel did on reaching her room, was to sit down and
cry--why or wherefore she never asked herself. She had not yet learned
the art of analysing her emotions.
She felt vaguely perplexed and hurt, and ashamed and indignant; and a
few tears were necessary to put her to rights. They were very few, and
soon over.
In less than ten minutes she had again addressed herself to Mr.
Kingston's letter, which she finished up with the suggestion that their
marriage should take place "next year," and a profusion of unwonted
endearments.
At dusk she went to the drawing-room, where the reunited guests were
having tea in the pleasant firelight, the gentlemen lounging about in
their knickerbockers and leggings, the ladies sitting with hats tilted
on the back of their heads, Mrs. Hale victorious over her subdued
husband. Miss Hale happy with her recovered beau. She sat a little
outside the circle and talked in under-tones to Lucilla; Mr. Dalrymple
stood far away on the other side of the room, and talked to nobody.
That night Rachel was the first to go to dress; she was the last to come
back when the gong announced dinner. And when she came she was arrayed
in all her glory--pearl necklace, diamond pendant, diamond bracelet,
jewelled fan--all her absent lover's love-gifts that good taste
permitted her to wear, and a few more. And there was no repetition of
the conservatory scene.
Mrs. Hardy was perfectly satisfied with the result of her diplomatic
measures. Rachel sat by her aunt's side, and sewed industriously all the
evening at a pinafore for her precious baby, who was about to be
short-coated. Mr. Dalrymple sat rather apart, gnawing his moustache,
apparently absorbed in a photographic album of Lucilla's, which he had
discovered in a cabinet near him.
Two or three times, when Rachel stole a look across the room, unable to
repress her restless curiosity to know what he was doing, she saw him
gazing meditatively at this open book, and always on the first page of
it. She wondered whose photographs they were that interested him so
much, and she felt that she could not go to bed without satisfying her
anxiety on this point.
When after tea, music and cards and other gentle entertainments were set
going, and Mr. Dalrymple was at last enticed by his host from his corner
and his album to make a fourth at the whist-table, she watched her
opportunity and stole round to the chair on which he had been sitting.
He had his back to her, but he was facing a mirror in which he could see
her distinctly; and while he watched her movements, he trumped his
partner's trick for the first time in his life, and otherwise disgraced
a notorious reputation.
"I suppose," said Mrs. Hale, who was his partner, with considerable
asperity, "that you don't trouble to play well if you haven't some
great stake to play for."
"I beg your pardon," he replied, gravely bending his head. Rachel was
stealing back to her aunt's side and her baby's pinafore, and he left
off looking into the mirror and making mistakes.
Meanwhile Rachel had satisfied her curiosity. When she opened the album
on the first page she saw two familiar faces--one of a young, bright
girl, with pensive eyes, conspicuous for "that royalty which subjects
kings;" the other angular, aquiline, hollow, full of the lines of age,
and smirking with the sprightliness of youth--herself and Mr. Kingston,
to whom, unknown to her, Lucilia had lately given this place of honour.
She stood still for a few minutes, looking down on them, with the colour
deepening in her cheeks. She seemed to see for the first time how
incongruous a pair they made, and how mean a presence her lover really
bore.
It was a bad likeness of him, she said to herself; but in point of fact
she was shocked by a faithful representation of his meagre features and
his peculiar smile--which after all was too frivolous and artificial to
be worthy of comparison with the smile of Mephistopheles.
She did not consciously judge his by the standard of that other face,
which was so impressively dignified and resolute; but she had looked at
this same photograph two days ago, and then it had not struck her
unpleasantly, as it did now.
Without thinking what she was doing, she tore out her own likeness, and
also the last photograph in the book, which was an old one of her Cousin
Lucilla as a child, and she made them change places. Having effected
which--surreptitiously, as she thought--she closed the album softly,
laid it away in the cabinet, and returned to her seat by her aunt's
side.
When the ladies were gone to bed, the first thing Mr. Dalrymple did was
to get out that album again and look at it; and he had some very serious
thoughts when he found out what she had done.
In the morning all the visitors left early, for they had a long distance
to travel. Mr. Thornley was to take them part of the way home, and the
break and the four horses were brought round at eight o'clock. Rachel
came out to the verandah with her aunt and cousin to see them start.
"Good-bye, dear Mrs. Digby," said Lucilla, affectionately kissing her
particular friend. "Good-bye, Mrs. Hale. Good-bye, Miss Hale. I am so
sorry you could not stay longer, but we shall expect you back next week.
Good-bye, Mr. Dalrymple, I hear you are off to Queensland again on
Monday?"
Mr. Dalrymple shook hands and lifted his hat, and then said very
quietly, but with great distinctness, "Not quite so soon as that, I
think, Mrs. Thornley. I shall consult Gordon before I make another
start."
"Oh, well, in that case we shall hope to see you again, too. Of course
you'll come with your sister next week, if you _should_ be still with
her?"
"Thank you," said Mr. Dalrymple. "I shall be most happy."
Rachel was not looking at anybody in particular; and nobody was looking
at her. But her rather pale and pensive face suddenly became of a colour
that might have put even the lapageria rosea to shame.