THE MASTER OF DISCOMBE.
Mrs. Wornock's frank revelation of her girlish love and self-sacrifice
lifted a burden from Allan's heart and mind. He had been interested in
her, and attracted towards her from that first summer noontide when
he studied her thoughtful face in the village church, and when he
lingered among the villagers' graves to hear her play. His sympathy had
grown with every hour he spent in her society, and he had been deeply
grateful for the friendship which had so cordially included him and the
girl he loved. It had been very painful to him to believe that this
sweet-mannered woman belonged to the fallen ones of the earth, that her
graces were the graces of a Magdalen, most painful to think that she
was no fitting companion for the girl who had so readily responded to
her friendly advances.
The cloud was lifted now, and he felt ashamed of all his past doubts
and suspicions. He respected Mrs. Wornock for her refusal to meet his
father in the beaten way of friendship. He was touched by the devotion
which had brought her creeping to his windows under the cover of night
to look upon the face of her beloved. He resolved that he would do
all that in him lay to atone for the wrong his thoughts had done her,
that he would be to her, indeed, as a second son, and that he would
cultivate her son's friendship in a brotherly spirit.
He stopped in the corridor on the morning after that interview to
study the portrait of the young man whose likeness to himself had now
resolved itself into a psychological mystery, and he could but see that
it was a likeness of the mind rather than of the flesh, a resemblance
in character and expression far more than in actual lineaments.
"He is vastly my superior in looks," thought Allan, as he studied
the lines of that boldly painted face. "He has his mother's finely
chiselled features, his mother's delicate colouring. There is a shade
of effeminacy, otherwise the face would be almost faultless. And to
mistake this face for that! Absurd!" muttered Allan, catching the
reflection of his sunburnt forehead, and strongly marked nose and chin,
in the Venetian glass that hung at right angles with the picture.
He heard the organ while the butler paused with his hand on the door,
waiting to announce the visitor. The simpler music, the weaker touch,
told him that the pupil was playing.
"Please don't stop," he cried, as he went in; "I want to hear if the
pupil is worthy of her mistress."
Mrs. Wornock came to meet him, and Suzette went on playing, with only a
smile and a nod to her sweetheart.
"She is getting on capitally. She has a real delight in music,"
announced Mrs. Wornock.
"How happy you are looking this morning!"
"I have had good news. My son is on his way home."
"I congratulate you."
"He is coming home for his long leave. I shall have him for nearly a
year."
"How happy you will be! I have just been studying his portrait."
"You are so like him."
"Oh, only a rough copy--a charcoal sketch on coarse paper,--nothing to
boast of," said Allan, with a curious laugh.
He was watching Suzette, to see if she were interested in the expected
arrival. She played on, her eyes intent alternately upon the page of
music in front of her, and upon the stops which she was learning to
use. There was no stumbling in the notes, or halting in the time. She
played the simple legato passages smoothly and carefully, and seemed to
pay no heed to their talk.
Allan would have been less than human, perhaps, if his first thought on
hearing of Geoffrey's return had not been of the influence he might
exercise upon Suzette--whether in him she would recognize the superior
and more attractive personality.
"No," he thought, ashamed of that jealous fear which was so quick to
foresee a rival, "Suzette has given me her heart, and it must be my
own fault if I can't keep it. Women are our superiors, at least in
this, that they are not so easily caught by the modelling of a face,
or the rich tones of a complexion. And shall I think so meanly of my
sweet Suzette as to suppose that my happiness is in danger because some
one more attractive than myself appears upon the scene? When we spend
our first season in London as man and wife, she will have to run the
gauntlet of all the agreeable men in town, soldiers and sailors, actors
and painters, ingenuous young adorers and hoary-headed flatterers. The
whole army of Satan that maketh war upon innocence and beauty. No, I am
not afraid. She has a fine brain and a noble heart. She is not the kind
of woman to jilt a lover or betray a husband. I am safe in loving her."
He had need to comfort himself, for the hour of trial was nearer than
he thought.
He went to Discombe before luncheon on the morning after he had heard
of Geoffrey's return. He went expecting to find Suzette at the organ,
and to hear the latter part of the lesson. He was not a connoisseur,
but he loved music well enough to love to hear his sweetheart play, and
to be able to distinguish every stage of progress in her performance.
To-day, however, the organ was silent; the youth who blew the bellows
was chasing a wasp in the corridor, and the room into which Allan was
ushered was empty.
"The ladies are in the garden, sir," said the butler. "Shall I tell my
mistress that you are here?"
"No, thanks, I'll go and look for the ladies."
The autumn morning was bright and mild, and one of the French windows
was open.
Allan hurried out to the garden, and looked down the cypress avenue.
The long perspective of smooth-shaven lawn was empty. There was no one
loitering by the fountain. They were in the summer-house--the classic
temple where Mrs. Wornock had sunk into unconsciousness at the sound
of his father's name, where he had lived through the most embarrassing
experience of his life.
He could distinguish Mrs. Wornock's black gown, and Suzette's
terra-cotta frock, a cloth frock from a Salisbury tailor, which he had
greatly admired. But there was another figure that puzzled him--an
unfamiliar figure in grey--a man's figure.
Never had the grass walk seemed so long, or the temple so remote.
Yes, that third figure was decidedly masculine. There was no optical
delusion as to the sex of the stranger--no petticoat hidden behind the
marble table. As he drew nearer he saw that the intruder was a young
man, sitting in a lounging attitude with his arms resting on the table,
and his shoulders leaning forward to bring him nearer to the two
ladies seated opposite.
He felt that it would be undignified to run, but he walked so fast in
his eagerness to discover the identity of the interloper that he was in
an undignified perspiration when he arrived.
"Allan, poor Allan, how you have been running!" exclaimed Suzette.
"I was vexed with myself for losing the whole of your organ lesson,"
said Allan, shaking hands with Mrs. Wornock, and gazing at the stranger
as at a ghost.
Yes, it was Geoffrey Wornock. Even his hurried reflections during
that hurried walk had told Allan that it must be he, and none other.
No one else would be admitted to the familiarity of the garden and
summer-house. Mrs. Wornock had no casual visitors, no intimate friends,
except Suzette and himself.
"There has been no organ lesson this morning, Allan," Mrs. Wornock
told him, her face radiant with happiness. "Suzette and I have been
surprised out of all sober occupations and ideas. This son of mine took
it into his head to come home nearly a fortnight before I expected him.
He arrived as suddenly as if he had dropped from the skies. He did not
even telegraph to be met at the station."
"A telegram would have taken the bloom off the surprise, mother," said
the man in grey, standing up tall and straight, but slenderly built.
Allan felt himself a coarse gladiatorial sort of person beside
this elegant and refined-looking young man. Nor was there anything
effeminate about that graceful figure to which an envious critic could
take exception. Soldiering had given that air of manliness which can
co-exist with slenderness and grace.
"Geoffrey, this is Allan, of whom you know so much."
"They tell me that you and I are very much alike, Mr. Carew," said
Geoffrey, with a pleasant laugh, "and my mother tells me that you and
I are to take kindly to each other, and in fact she expects to see
us by way of being adopted brothers. I don't quite know what that
means--whether we are to ride each other's horses, and make free with
each other's guns, or go halves in a yacht or a racehorse?"
"I want you to like each other--to be real friends," said Mrs. Wornock,
earnestly.
"Then don't say another word about it, mother. Friendship under that
kind of protecting influence rarely comes to any good; but I am quite
prepared to like Mr. Carew on his own account, and I hope he may be
able to like me on the same poor grounds."
He had an airy way of dismissing the subject which set them all
at their ease, and steered them away from the rocks and shoals of
sentiment. Mrs. Wornock, who had been on the verge of weeping, smiled
again, and led Geoffrey off to look at the gardens, and all the
improvements which had been effected during his three years' absence,
leaving the lovers to follow or not as they pleased.
The lovers stayed in the summer-house, feeling that mother and son
would like to be alone; and mother and son strolled on side by side,
looking like brother and sister.
"My dearest," said Mrs. Wornock, tenderly, slipping her arm through
her son's directly they were really alone, and out of sight, in an
old flower-garden walled round by dense hedges of clipped ilex, a
garden laid out in a geometrical pattern, and with narrow gravel paths
intersecting the flower-beds. The glory of all gardens was over. There
were only a few lingering dahlias, and prim asters lifting up their
gaudy discs to the sun, and beds of marigolds of different shades, from
palest yellow to deepest orange.
"My dearest, how glad I am to have you! I begin to live again now you
have come home."
"And I am very glad to be at home, mother," answered her son, smiling
down upon her, fondly, protectingly, but with that light tone which
marked all he said. "But it seems to me you have been very much alive
while I have been away, with this young man of yours who is almost an
adopted son."
"My heart went out to him, Geoffrey, because of his likeness to you."
"A dangerous precedent. You might meet half a dozen such likenesses in
a London season. It would hardly do for your heart to go out to them
all. You would be coming home with a large family--by adoption."
"There is no fear of that. I don't go into society, and I don't think,
if I did, I should meet any one like Allan Carew."
Geoffrey could but note the tenderness in her tone as she spoke Allan's
name.
"And who is this double of mine, mother; and what is he, and how does
he come to be engaged to that dainty, dark-eyed girl?"
"You like Suzette?"
"Yes, I like her--she is a nice, winning thing--not startlingly pretty;
but altogether nice. I like the way that dark silky hair of hers breaks
up into tiny curls about her forehead--and she has fine eyes----"
"India has made you critical, Geoffrey."
"Not India, but a native disposition, mother dearest. In India we
have often to put up with second best in the way of beauty, faded
carnations, tired eyes, hollow cheeks; but the young women have
generally plenty to say for themselves. They can talk, and they can
dance. They are educated for the marriage market before they are sent
out."
His mother laughed, and hung on to his arm admiringly. In her opinion,
whatever he said was either wise or witty. All his impertinences were
graceful. His ignorance was better than other people's knowledge.
"You have not neglected your violin, I hope, Geoffrey?"
"No, mother. My good little Strad has been my friend and comrade in
many a quiet hour while the other fellows were at cards, or telling
stale stories. I shall be very glad to play the old de Beriot duets
again. Your fingers have not lost their cunning, I know."
"I have played a great deal while you were away. I have had nothing
else to think about."
"Except Allan Carew."
"He has not made much difference. He comes and goes as he
likes--especially when Suzette is here. I sit at my organ or piano and
let them wander about and amuse themselves."
"What an indulgent chaperon!"
"I knew what the end must be, Geoffrey. I knew from the first that they
were in love with each other. At least I knew from the very first that
he was in love with her."
"You were not so sure about the lady?"
"A girl is too shy to let her feelings be read easily; but I could see
she liked his society. They used to roam about the garden together like
children. They were too happy not to be in love."
"Does being in love mean happiness, mother? Don't you think there is a
middle state between indifference and passion--a cordial, comfortable,
sympathetic friendship which is far happier than love? It has no
cold fits of doubt, no hot fits of jealousy. From your account of
these young people, I question if they were ever really in love. Your
Carew looks essentially commonplace. I don't give him credit for much
imagination."
"You will understand him better by-and-by, dearest."
The mother was looking up at the newly regained son, admiring him, and
beginning to fancy that she had done him an injustice in thinking that
Allan resembled him. He was much handsomer than Allan, and there was
something picturesque and romantic in his countenance and bearing which
appealed to a woman's fancy; a look as of the Lovelaces and Dorsets of
old, the courtiers and soldiers who could write a love-song on the eve
of a bloody battle, or dance a minuet at midnight, and fight a duel at
dawn. His manner to his mother was playful and protecting. He had not
the air of thinking her the wisest of women, but no one could doubt
that he loved her.
The summer-house was empty when they went back to it, and there was a
pencilled note on the marble table addressed to Mrs. Wornock.
"Allan is going to see me home in time to give father his tiffin,
and I think you and Mr. Wornock will like to have the day to
yourselves. I shall come for my organ lesson to-morrow at eleven,
unless you tell me to stop away--
"Ever, dear Mrs. Wornock, your own
"SUZETTE."
"Pretty tactful soul! Of course we want to be alone," said Geoffrey,
reading the note over his mother's shoulder. "First you shall give me
the best lunch that Discombe can provide; and then we will drive round
and look at everything. And we will devote the evening to de Beriot. I
must go up to town by an early train to-morrow."
"Running away from me so soon, Geoffrey?"
"Now, mother, it's base ingratitude to say that. I've hardly given
myself breathing time since I landed at Brindisi, because I wanted
to push home to you, first of the very first. I shall only be in
London a day or two. I want to see what kind of horses are being sold
at Tattersall's, and I may run down to look at the Belhus hunters.
Remember I haven't a horse to ride."
"There are your old hunters, Geoffrey?"
"Three dear old crocks. Admirable as pensioners, not to carry eleven
stone to hounds. No, mother, I'm afraid there's nothing in your stables
that will be good for more than a cover-hack."
Mrs. Wornock sighed faintly in the midst of her bliss. She had a
womanly horror of hunting and all its perils, and in her heart of
hearts was always on the side of the fox; but she knew that without
hunting and shooting Discombe Manor would very soon pall upon
her son, dilettante and Jack-of-all-trades though he was. Music
alone--passionately as he loved it--would not keep him contented.
Allan and Suzette strolled home under the bright blue sky. These
late days in October were the Indian summer of the year, a season in
which it was a joy to live, especially in a land where the smoke from
domestic hearths curling upward here and there in silvery wreaths from
wood fires, only suggested homeliness and warmth, not filth and fog.
They sauntered slowly homeward through the rustic lanes, and their talk
was naturally of the new arrival.
"Is he the kind of young man you expected him to be?" asked Suzette.
There was no occasion to be more specific in one's mention of
_him_. There could but be one young man in their thoughts to-day.
"I don't know that I had formed any expectations about him."
"Oh, Allan, that can't be true! You must have thought about him, after
everybody telling you of the likeness. Remember what you told me in our
very first dance--how dreadfully bored you had been about him, and how
glad you were that I didn't know him."
"My being bored--and I was horribly--was no reason why my imagination
should dwell upon him. If I thought of him at all, I thought of him
just as he is--the image of his portrait by Millais--and a very
good-looking and well set-up young man--so much better looking than my
humble self, that I wonder at any one's seeing a likeness between the
two faces."
"Is he better looking, Allan? I know I like your face best."
"I'm glad of that, since you will have to put up with my face for a
lifelong companion."
"Allan, how grumpily you said that."
"Did I, Suzie? I'm afraid I'm a brute. I am beginning to find out
disagreeable depths in my character."
She looked at him with a puzzled air--so sweetly innocent, so free from
any backward-reaching thought--that made him happy again. He took up
the little hand hanging loose at her side and kissed it.
"Let us drop in upon Aunt Mornington, and ask her for lunch," he said
as they came within sight of the Grove. "I don't feel like parting with
you just yet, Suzie."
"Quite impossible. I must be at home for father's tiffin."
"I forgot that sacred institution. Well, Suzie, do you think it's
possible the General might ask me to share that important meal if he
saw me hanging about? We could go to the links afterwards, so that you
might have the pleasure of seeing how wildly I can beat the air?"
Suzie laughed her assent to this proposition, and General Vincent,
overtaking them five minutes afterwards on his useful hack, sustained
an Anglo-Indian's reputation for hospitality by immediately inviting
Allan to luncheon.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphens left as printed.]