"And are we near Firleigh?"
"We are going to cut across part of it now." He opened the gate as he
spoke, and she walked by his side for some minutes in silence. Then she
said--
"It is curious that we should have met. Of course, I knew that Oakwood
and Firleigh were near each other, but--it seemed unlikely that you
should be here. Poor Hugh!"
"He would like to know he was remembered."
"He asked me to think of him sometimes. If that were all--it would be
easier to satisfy the dead than the living, for who can help
remembering?"
"Not I," said Wareham, with a sigh.
"His grave?"
"You must see it."
"And his father--?"
"Sir Michael is too ill to receive visitors." Wareham spoke hastily.
"Ah, poor old man! But I must drive over and see his sister." A touch
of hesitation reaching her, she said sharply, "No?"
"Remember that they were irritated, rather, I should say, Sir Michael
was irritated, by your dismissal of Hugh. Something of displeasure you
must expect."
They faced the west and a fir wood as they walked. Grey clouds covered
and contracted the sky, but at the horizon lifted sufficiently to show a
fiercely burning line of red, cut by the stems of the fir-trees. Anne
stared before her, with her head thrown back. Wareham let his fancy
skip to possible futures when they two should walk together, side by
side, with no shadows between them. But he would keep faith with Hugh,
control voice and look.
"They are unjust," slowly said Anne, at last, and he started, brought
back from rapturous dreams.
"He is an old man, very feeble, and had but one son," he pleaded.
"Ella, I am sure, judges more fairly."
"Unlike a woman, then. If that is their feeling, I wish I had not come
here. I assure you, though you may not believe it, that there was
some--sentiment in my visit. I believed I should be welcomed. I should
be, if they understood. That was the one time in my life in which I
acted unselfishly. And if I had been left alone--if you, for instance,
had not taken upon yourself to set poor Hugh upon my track--it would all
have died gently away. Friends meddling. When has it not brought
mischief!" Anger suited her, and the darkening of her eyes. Wareham
felt no uneasiness from her wrath, so lost was he in admiration. "And
for a man to meddle! As if his fingers were delicate enough for the
task of dealing with our vanity!" She laughed shortly, disdainfully.
Suddenly she flashed out--"What did he tell you?"
"He?"
"He. Hugh." As he hesitated, she added impatiently--"He must have
spoken of me?"
"He told me"--Wareham spoke measuredly--"that he believed he should have
won you."
Her face softened, she turned dewy eyes towards him.
"I am glad, I am glad. He deserved to be happy. It is so dreadful to
die, and, poor fellow, I have thought since that I might have given him
more comfort. Dear Hugh!"
"You loved him!" Wareham exclaimed involuntarily.
Anne flung him another glance.
"Almost," she said.
"If he could only hear you!"
"Ah," she said, with a movement of her head, "almost would not have
satisfied him or--" She paused.
"Or?"
"Or me."
There was another silence, silence more significant than speech. When
Wareham spoke, his voice was hoarse.
"You have given up, then, that fiction that you are heartless?"
"I do not know," said Anne quietly. "Was it not you that tried to argue
me out of it?"
"You must learn it by something different from argument," he replied
slowly.
She made no answer. In one hand he carried a newspaper, unconscious
that he held it in a grasp like that of a vice. They reached the wood
at this moment, and stepped under the firs. Anne asked whether they
could see the house.
"By coming a little to the right. It lies in a hollow."
She stood still and looked.
"And I am not permitted to go there?"
"Illness excuses everything. I assure you Sir Michael's condition is
such that we don't know what a day may bring. That has kept me here."
"One hears of nothing but death," said Anne restlessly. "I do not like
the house. I cannot fancy Hugh in it. It is gloomy."
"You see it on a dark day, and saddened. It may be fancy, but I always
think that old family places share the feelings of their owners."
"Then Oakwood should be cheerful?"
"It is."
"You come there sometimes?" Anne asked. She had turned her back
sharply upon Firleigh, and was walking on.
"Sometimes. I shoot with Lord Oakleigh on Monday."
"That will not be of much use to us women."
"But I shall venture to call, and inquire for--"
"For Watkins," Anne broke in with a laugh. "Hers will be the
sufferings. We mistresses are made of sterner stuff. Well, we all have
what we ask for, and depend upon it, Watkins will get her sympathy."
He inquired whether her stay would be long. She smiled at the idea.
"You know what these autumn campaigns are like. A flying two or three
days, then, bag and baggage, away to the next station. A `prest' day no
longer exists. You would discomfit your host and hostess very much by
staying."
"Where has the change come from?"
"From superhuman efforts to exorcise the fiend--dullness. He is the
only evil power which the century has not whitewashed, and he takes
advantage of his position to keep us all in thraldom. The very flutter
of his shadow is enough."
She lapsed into silence. The wood by this time lay behind them, and
before, a rich country of broad outlines. The sky had lost its fire,
heavy clouds menaced, once or twice Wareham thought he felt a drop of
rain. Saying this to Anne, she turned her face upward. "Have we much
further to go?"
"A quarter of a mile to the lodge, half to the house. You can just see
the red chimneys."
"By walking fast, I dare say we shall escape it." She did not, however,
increase her pace. Her next remark was to suggest that he should turn
back. "Aren't you afraid that Sir Michael may hear that you have been
walking with me? And through part of his own land!"
"It is very probable that he will hear of it," said Wareham quietly.
"And you will be in disgrace!" She aimed at light ridicule, but there
was a touch of sharpness in her tone, which told him that the old man's
ill opinion had stung her. The next moment she owned it. "If only I
could see him! He must have got a distorted notion into his mind.
Perhaps you share it still?" Gladly would he have accepted these
invitations to the personal. All he dared say was that it was not
unnatural that Hugh's father should have brooded over his son's
disappointment.
"And his death has fixed it indelibly in his mind."
Anne moved a little faster.
"Perhaps he _lays_ that also to my charge?"
"He could not be so unjust."
Suddenly she stood still and faced him, soft entreaty in her eyes.
"Mr Wareham, are you my friend?"
Was it the pallor of the gathering clouds which whitened his face? He
stammered--
"That--" "And more," was on his lips, when he succeeded in turning it
into, "That I think you know."
"The only one, then, that I have here. Try to make them feel more
forgivingly. Once, I know, you felt as they do; now, if my heart is to
be trusted, you are kinder. After--what has past, it hurts to be so
harshly judged. Please be on my side."
Pride, worldliness had all vanished. She spoke like a child, and looked
at him beseechingly--so beseechingly that his heart rose in a wild
clamour of desire to take her into his arms. The force with which he
had to hold back this desire left him staring stupidly, only able to
stammer out--
"You need not ask me!"
Perhaps Anne read the turmoil in his face, for her eyes smiled at him,
but the next moment she turned away, and walked on silently. When she
spoke it was to say--
"Here is the lodge, and your labour ended."
"I can't leave you till we reach the house."
"Oh, very well." Her tone was indifferent, but presently she put an
unexpected question--"You remember Lord Milborough?"
"Certainly," said Wareham, wondering what he was to hear.
"He hopes you will come to Thorpe next month, when he has some big
shoots."
"Big shoots are not at all in my way."
"So I supposed. Still, as Lady Dalrymple and I and many other
delightful people will be there, your highness may perhaps condescend to
find attraction, if not in pheasants?"
Her tone was bantering, but did he dream when he read in it a touch of
pressure? Prudence shook a warning finger, Love laughed.
"It is very good of you to suggest it," said Wareham, "but I really
think you must be mistaken, for Lord Milborough and I only exchanged a
few words, and--"
"He is even less in your way than big shoots, you would like to say,"
broke in Anne, with a laugh. "Well, I own one may have too much of his
society."
"Then why go there?" asked Wareham bluntly.
"Can one choose just what one likes? When I can, I do." She quickened
her pace. "Here is the rain at last."
"And in three minutes the house."
The door was open, lights streamed out; evidently another arrival had
just taken place, and there was some amazement on the face of the
servants at seeing Miss Dalrymple appear in the dusk, escorted by Mr
Wareham.
"You will come in?" she said.
"Thank you, no. Sir Michael will be expecting me. I hope you won't be
the worse for your misadventure."
From the hall she waved her hand without answering. Wareham turned
away.
His walk back was mechanical, and he was scarcely conscious of the rain.
It was as if Hugh was by his side, asking if his promise had been kept,
demanding an inquiry into words and looks. If thoughts had been in the
compact, miserable failure would have been the verdict; as it was,
Wareham did not believe that he had betrayed himself. But was ever man
so hampered! From first to last since he had known Anne, Love and
Honour had struggled; there never had been a moment in which he felt
himself free to say, "Dear, I love you!" and yet all the bonds were
unseen, some might even say, fantastical. And now, at last, when Death
had stepped in between the combatants, even Death could not avail. What
must Anne think, if Anne thought at all about the matter? He counted
the days. A month had passed.
Nearing the house, he resolved that Sir Michael should hear from him who
it was to whom the accident had happened, for chance mention of her
name, which might very well occur, would give him a distrust of Wareham.
But he found that there had been an increase of illness which made all
speech impossible, and Ella was so much occupied with her father that he
did not see her until late, when she came in to the drawing-room to find
him sitting there with Mrs Newbold. The rain had increased to a wild
storm, and a log fire was burning. Ella slipped into a three-cornered
chair, close by the hearth.
"Better," she said, in answer to her aunt's inquiry, "and asking for
you."
Mrs Newbold bustled off. Wareham said something about the storm.
"And you were caught in it?"
"That was no hardship. I simply walked home and changed, and it did not
come on till late."
"But tell me about the accident."
"Ah, you've heard of it?"
"We hear everything," and she laughed. "If you would like to know how,
in this particular case, understand that the stable-boy's father lives
at a house where the lady's-maid was taken to rest, and she related that
her mistress was walking to Oakwood with a gentleman, whose description
Jem recognised as yours. He brought home the lady's name, and my maid
conveyed it to me."
"It is all true," Wareham said gravely, "and I should have taken Miss
Dalrymple by the short cut in front of the house, but that I was afraid
of annoying Sir Michael. We went round by the wood instead."
"And she was not hurt?" asked the girl, spreading out her hands to the
blaze. "I should like to see her--to talk to her."
"That is what she wishes very much. What do you think? Can she come?"
Ella shook her head. It was impossible.
"Perhaps," she said, "she may be at church to-morrow, and if father is
well enough I shall go. Did she speak of--Hugh?"
"And of Hugh's family. Evidently when she came here she meant to have
seen you all. But--as you say--it's impossible."
Wareham had also thought about the coming day, its delights and its
dangers. Dear delight to look at her, danger lest he should fail in his
promise. But here, he told himself, that could not happen; here, where
Hugh's face met him everywhere, here, where Hugh himself lay at rest,
neither friend nor love could forget him. When the day arrived it was
blustering and wet: Ella and he walked to church under drenched trees,
and she wondered whether Miss Dalrymple would be there. Wareham could
not doubt it. Nature would draw her to look at a grave. He felt it.
He had a curious desire, too, for her to see the lines of old Forbes'
linking past centuries to present, from whom Hugh drew his brave blood.
The Oakwood estates doubled, trebled the Firleigh ones, but Oakwood was
a mushroom compared to Firleigh, and Lord Oakleigh's a new title, while
the other belonged to the soil.
Anne, however, was not there. He was disappointed, but excuses tripped
promptly up. No other ladies came from the house, and to have seen
Hugh's grave in company with her jovial host would have been like
sitting with a jester to view a tragedy. He was sure that Anne had done
well to avoid it. Could he have taken her there! And a whisper
suggested that Anne could generally arrange what she liked. He flung it
from him. Here, after all that had passed, she must have walked warily,
or have attracted curious eyes. Ella, too, Ella would have been jealous
if Hugh had not his due. And the due meant much.
What Ella thought she did not say. The girl had a curiously reserved
nature; it seemed so impossible for her to express her feelings, that
she was not credited with many. Their walk back was silent; wind-driven
rain beat in their faces, and splashed heavily from the trees, sodden
flowers lay prostrate in the garden, an old grey dial turned its
weatherbeaten face vainly upwards. Wareham tried to shake off the
gloom.
"You don't mind rain, Ella," he said. "Come for a stretch this
afternoon."
"Perhaps, if father keeps better. But he may want me to sit with him."
"You don't get air enough."
"I find one can live very well without it."
"Live, but not thrive. We'll take the dogs, and get to the top of
Slopton ridge." The next moment she stopped, all the colour out of her
face.
"Dick--look!" she cried with anguish.
For all the blinds were down, and one more Forbes had joined his
forefathers.