Chapter Eleven.
Meeting.
If Wyn Warren had chanced to be in the right part of the wood at the right time on the afternoon after he found the owl’s nest, he might have seen all the three objects of his search. For while he was leading Dobbles across the park towards the wood in order that Mr Edgar might try to sketch the lily pond, and hoping while his master was so engaged to get another chance of hunting for the letter, a respectable-looking nurse with a little boy and girl in pretty summer clothes came along the path from Ravenshurst to the stile in the Raby road. They passed the tall red-bearded man who had given Wyn the letter; but, being strangers to Ashcroft, his appearance there struck them as nothing remarkable; the nurse was holding the little boy by the hand, and the girl, running round her, was picking up moss and twigs, when her eyes fell on the spot which Wyn’s had failed to find, and on which the red-bearded stranger’s had never lighted. She had found one pretty, funny, white puff-ball, and she thought this other white object lying under the ferns was such another, till she took it in her hand and found that it was something much more familiar to her, namely, a letter in an envelope, moistened, and ready to break with the damp of the woods.
Lily Carleton poked her little fat fingers under the seal till the paper gave way and the open letter was in her hand, and she threw the envelope away and spread out the letter.
“It’s a letter from the fairies,” she thought, nodding her head, for she was a fanciful little person. “I’ll take it home and get mother to read it to me.”
She stuffed the letter into her little pocket, and, all unknowing, passed the writer of it, close to the stile in the Raby road, talking to the man with the red beard—a combination which would certainly have led Wyn to think that the two mysterious strangers were plotting mischief.
“Shall you go then, sir, as you have had no answer?” said he of the red beard.
“Yes, on the chance. It can do no harm; it’s all a chance, you see. You’re sure the lad said he was at home?”
“Yes, he undertook to deliver the note. But he was so sure I was going to set night-lines, or do some damage here, that I had to walk off as straight as I could.”
“Ay, we can’t lurk about here in secret. That’s why I take this step. Maybe I’m going on a fool’s errand, but we’ll meet at the station in any case. I don’t look altogether like a poacher, do I, Harry?”
“Well, Mr Alwyn, if you do,” said Harry, laughing, “poachers must have improved since our time. Perhaps they have, for I didn’t think I was quite the cut of one myself, and, for sure, that lad took me for some such customer. Keep up heart, sir, I’ll be on the look-out.”
So saying, he jumped over the stile, while his companion turned round and walked slowly through the wood. He threaded the tracks and glades with perfect case; but at the point where the next turn would bring him into view of the great ash-tree and the open space overlooking the water-lily pond he paused and grew visibly paler.
“I must remember that it cannot be much to him; if he has answered my appeal it cannot be much to him—it cannot be agreeable. I wish I’d asked a little more about him. However, now for it.” He turned round the dump of trees by which he stood, and stopped with a start.
“What! someone else! Oh, of all the ill luck,” he thought, as he saw under the tree a grey pony and a wheeled chair, in which was a young man sketching the pond and the trees beyond it.
Edgar was half sitting up against his cushions, and had pushed the soft cap which he wore back from his brows, so that his face was clearly visible; but he himself was looking the other way, and, intent on his sketch, did not observe that anyone was approaching.
The new-comer looked at him at first without any recognition. Who could the invalid be who had permission to sketch in the Ashcroft wood and seemed so much at home there? He had better walk quietly on, and pass by as if by accident. But, as he came nearer, Edgar threw back his head to look at his drawing, and something in the gesture struck on the stranger with a sudden thrill. He saw the dark hair, the long, delicate features. Could it be—was it possible? Was this the one he came to meet—evidently unwarned and unexpectant—and—like this?
As he paused, bewildered, doubtful how to proceed, Edgar turned his head and saw him. He saw the dark man with a pointed beard, whom Wyn had described on the authority of Florence as having been in the wood the day before, and, laying down his pencil, said, courteously, but with some decision, and in a voice at once recognisable:
“Excuse me, but perhaps you are not aware that this wood is private?”
The stranger made three or four steps forward, till he stood close beside the pony chair.
“Oh yes,” he said, “of course I know that. You—you did not receive my letter?”
“You are—you are Alwyn!” gasped Edgar, breathless and dizzy with the shock that came without a moment’s doubt or a moment’s warning.
“Edgar! Yes, yes, I wrote. I did not mean to take you by surprise. But it is I—prepared for what welcome you will give me.”
Edgar was so near fainting that welcome of any sort was beyond his power; but, as his senses came back, he saw Alwyn leaning over him, looking at him with frightened eyes, not daring to lift, hardly to touch him, and almost as much taken aback as himself by the unexpected state in which he found him.
Edgar lay looking at him for a moment or two.
“Then—you are alive?” he said slowly.
“Yes,” said Alwyn, “I wrote to you to ask you if you would see me. I gave the letter to a boy, here in the wood—”
“He lost it,” said Edgar, still as if half awake.
“What can I do for you?” said Alwyn anxiously. “Are you better? but no—rest a little don’t mind about it yet.”
Edgar still looked at him. Yes, it was Alwyn—perfectly unmistakable—only as much altered as the eight years made inevitable—with the face he remembered so clearly; yes, and with the softened look he had seen in his dream.
He put out his hand, and Alwyn took it timidly, and still with the same shocked, startled look.
“Of course,” he said gently, “I did not know you had been ill, or I would not have written to you, nor risked startling you.”
“I’m not ill,” said Edgar, still rather confusedly. “It’s only my back, you know—quite an old thing.”
“But when—how?”
“I fell downstairs,” said Edgar; “never mind, tell me—”
“Not then? Not that flight? You did fall, I remember. What? then I was the cause.”
Alwyn started up and turned his back on his brother, evidently shocked and overpowered almost beyond control. The meeting was utterly unlike what either of them had fancied to himself as probable.
“Alwyn,” said Edgar, “there’s nothing to mind—I’m quite used to it. It was a mere chance, and it’s not so very bad. I can walk—a little, and I can get out here and have very jolly times, you see.”
But the boyish language, and the still boyish voice, so well remembered, completely overcame Alwyn, who had not expected to be agitated, only perhaps embarrassed, at seeing his brother. He struggled hard with himself before he could turn round, and, coming back and leaning against the tree beside Edgar, said:
“What would you like me best to do?”
“Why!” said Edgar, with recovered energy, “tell me something. I am dazed with surprise. Tell me everything.”
“I went to New York, as I suppose you know,” said Alwyn; “Whittaker with me. I wasn’t altogether a fool, and I accepted the introductions the New York bankers gave me, and with the money my father had lodged there for me I bought some land in Massachusetts. Well, after a good deal of uncertainty it not only proved a success in the farming way, but we found coal on it, which proved well worth working, and, in short, we have done well. Whittaker is what I suppose you would call my agent and manager, and a good friend into the bargain. Well, two years ago he married—well. He had quite made up his mind to give up the old country. And I—I only wished to be independent. We made no effort, you understand, at concealment—used our own names always. Anyone could have found us out. Well, I must tell you very briefly.
“I made an acquaintance in Boston—an Episcopal clergyman. We took a walking tour together—had sundry adventures. I went home with him. He has a sister. After a little while I felt what it was to have such a past behind me. And a Boston gentleman such as Mr Dallas was not likely to accept a wandering Englishman for a son-in-law without inquiry, nor to think it natural that my father’s eldest son should be living over there. I knew what sort of thing a few inquiries would tell him, and I knew what I had flung away.” Alwyn paused for a moment and then went on hurriedly—“All my views changed—changed utterly.”
“You decided to come home,” said Edgar.
“Yes,” said Alwyn, “but then something else happened.”
He took a pocket-book out of his pocket, opened it, and, unrolling a little packet of tissue paper, laid something bright and glittering on Edgar’s hand.
“Did you ever see that before?” he said. “Yes,” as Edgar looked at him with startled eyes, “I see you remember it. But say what it is.”
“It is one of Mrs Fletcher’s lost jewels,” said Edgar, as if under a spell.
It was a curious enamelled bird with a great ruby in its breast, and set in a sort of frame of emeralds, a curiosity as well as an object of intrinsic value.
“Yes. I didn’t steal it, though,” said Alwyn; “nor did Harry Whittaker.”
The cool dry tone in which this was said was exactly that of the old Alwyn.
“I know who did, though,” he said, “and I have come back to try to prove it. Curious proof, don’t you think, of innocence, to produce the stolen object?”
“What proof can be needed?” said Edgar, warmly.
Alwyn smiled.
“I never thought there would be—for you,” he said. “But it’s a very long story. I think I must write it for you. There are some things I must ask. Shall we be interrupted? How can I see you again alone? My father—is he well—is he altered?”
“He is pretty well,” said Edgar, “and—not altered. Wyn Warren will be back directly, I think I must tell him. You see I can’t get anywhere alone. I couldn’t even post a letter for myself. And my father, you know, unlocks the post-bag. I hardly ever get letters.”
Edgar spoke merely as if considering the difficulties of the case—quite cheerfully; but to Alwyn the words sounded most pitiful.
“Then try not to trouble about me,” he said; “you have given me a welcome. I must manage for myself. Of course I am only keeping quiet till I can get one or two things in train. I am staying in London. You mustn’t have to bear the brunt of any discovery.”
“I don’t care a straw for that,” said Edgar. “I’ll answer for little Wyn. He shall bring me here again to-morrow, if possible; in any case he shall come himself. When I understand dearly I can tell my father that I’ve seen you, and everything else you think proper.”
“No, no,” said Alwyn, almost laughing at the coolness with which this fragile, helpless brother proposed to face the difficulty for him. “You were always a plucky fellow, but when the time comes I’ll make my own confession. I’ll go now.”
But he still lingered.
“Ought you to be alone?” he said. “Do you want anything? You will not be the worse for the fright I gave you?”
“No. I’m quite jolly. If you’ll just put this cushion lower for me, that’s all, so that I can lie down.”
“I am too rough to touch you. There—is that right, dear boy?” said Alwyn, anxiously.
“Oh yes, you are very clever!” said Edgar.
He spoke lightly; but suddenly tears filled the keen eyes at the touch that was more tender than all the skilled attention at his command.
“I’m glad you’re found, Val; it’s been rather lonely,” he said.
“If I had guessed!” said Alwyn hoarsely; but at this moment a tremendous rush was heard, and Wyn’s voice in loud tones of dismay broke in on them.
“What are you about—you? Here I am, Mr Edgar. Father ain’t far off.”
Alwyn, who had been bending over his brother, started up, and Edgar began to laugh.
“All right, Wyn,” he said, “stop that row. This gentleman isn’t smothering me, nor stealing my watch; look at him—you’ll see him again. You’d better ask his pardon for losing his letter.”
Wyn’s mouth and eyes opened wider and wider.
“Please, sir,” he stammered, “he ain’t the one that gave me the letter; and please, sir, I’ve lighted on the envelope, and someone has took the letter out.”
Alwyn and Edgar looked at each other in dismay.
“There is my address,” said Alwyn, after a moment; “if anything unexpected turns up, send a telegram to me. But I shall be here to-morrow, and then you shall know all. Here, boy, Mr Edgar will tell you what you’re to do. Be sure you are very careful of him. Can you lead the pony safely?” Edgar laughed again at Wyn’s indignant stare, first at the speaker, and then at the half-sovereign dropped into his palm.
“All right, Wyn,” he said, “he has every right to order you; yes, and give you a tip too. Put it in your pocket, and come along.”
Wyn unfastened Dobbles, and turned him round, a light slowly breaking in on him as his master put both hands into the stranger’s, and a few rapid whispers were exchanged between them. Then Edgar made a sign to him to go on, and Wyn, with one shrewd glance at the face and figure of the object of his suspicions, drew a long breath and said:
“Sir—sir—that’s Mr Alwyn!”