CHAPTER II.
As soon as Mr Ridsdale and Miss Loraine found themselves alone, they seated themselves on the rustic seat lately vacated by the vicar and Dr M‘Murdo. Master Archie lighted a cigarette.
Clarice Loraine at this time had just left her nineteenth birthday behind her. She was tall and limber as any fabled nymph of the woods, with an easy, swaying grace in all her movements such as Art alone could never have taught her. She had a cloud of silky, pale-gold hair, that looked as if some sportive zephyr had ruffled it in passing; while her eyes were of the deepest and tenderest blue. Her habitual expression was one of sweet seriousness, of most gentle gravity; but when she smiled, which she did often, she smiled both with her lips and her eyes: it was like the lighting up of a beautiful landscape with a sudden flash of sunshine.
And the young man to whom she had given away her heart? Well, he was a stalwart, good-looking enough young fellow, about twenty-five years old, with dark-brown hair, and a moustache to match; with frank, clear-gazing eyes, which looked as if nothing in the world could cause them to flinch; in short, one of those manly, clear-skinned, resolute-looking young Englishmen of whom those who choose may see scores any day during the season in London town.
‘Are you sure, darling, that you are not too tired to go on the lake this evening?’ asked Archie presently.
‘I am just a little tired now; but I shall not be a bit tired when the time comes to start. To-night it will be full moon.’
Archie looked at his watch. ‘The afternoon post will be in in about half an hour. I wonder whether it will bring us anything from the pater?’
‘O Archie, if it should bring a letter from your father in which he orders you to give me up!’
‘As if I had not told you a hundred times already that I am not going to give you up for any one in the wide world!’
‘It would make me ever, ever so unhappy to think that I should come as an obstacle between your father and you.’
‘Don’t be a little goose. I’m old enough to choose a wife for myself; and I’ve chosen you, and mean to have you in spite of everybody. If the pater chooses to turn rusty about it, I can’t help it. He did the very same thing when he was a young fellow. He ran away with my mother—oh, I’ve heard all about it!—and I’m not aware that he ever had cause to regret having done so. Of course it would be pleasanter—a jolly sight pleasanter—to have his consent and good wishes and all that; but if he won’t give us them, I daresay we shall be able to get along somehow or other without them. There are worse things in the world than poverty, when two people love each other as you and I love each other, sweet one.’
What bold beings are these lovers! Nothing daunts them. They will take the world by storm and set Fortune herself at defiance. A very Paladin seemed Archie in the eyes of the girl who loved him. How beautifully he spoke—what noble sentiments fell from his lips!
‘I am not afraid to face poverty or anything else,’ she murmured, ‘so long as I know that you care for me.’ Tears trembled in her eyes.
‘And that I shall never, never cease to do!’ he responded fervently.
He had sidled a little closer to her on the rustic bench, and he now tried, after a fashion old as the hills, to insinuate one arm gently round her waist.
‘No—no, Archie, dear, you must not do that! We are not alone. Although that young curate pretends to be reading, he’s watching us all the time.’
‘Confound his impudence!’ growled Archie with a glance over his shoulder at the obnoxious individual. Then he drew exactly an inch and a half further away, and proceeded to light a fresh cigarette.
The fact was that, after the immemorial fashion of lovers, our two young lunatics had been so absorbed in themselves and their own affairs that they had had no eyes to note the fresh arrivals which the last steamer had brought to the hotel. One of these was a young man dressed in the garb of a modern curate. The afternoon was hot, and as he came slowly up the path that led from the level of the lake to the elevated ground on which the hotel was built, he fanned himself with the broad brim of his low-crowned felt hat. Behind him marched a porter carrying a bulky portmanteau, a mackintosh, and an exceedingly slim umbrella.
A little way from the path stood an immense elm, round the bole of which a seat had been fixed for the convenience of visitors. It looked cool and tempting; the young man glanced at it and hesitated.
‘Why go indoors just yet?’ he asked himself. Then turning to the porter, he said: ‘Take those traps into the hotel and secure a bedroom for me. Then find out whether you have a Lady Renshaw and a Miss Wynter staying in the hotel, and come back at once and let me know.’
‘Yes, sir—Lady Renshaw and Miss Wynter.—What name shall I have put down for the bedroom—your name, sir?’
‘My name? Um. By-the-bye, what is my name?’ the young man asked himself in some perplexity. Then his face brightened, and he said impressively: ‘My name is Mr Golightly.’
‘Yes, sir—the Reverend Mr Golightly.’
‘No, sir’—with severity—‘not the Reverend Mr Golightly. Plain Mr Golightly—of London.’
‘Yes, sir. Plain Mr Golightly. I’ll be sure not to forget. Back in five minutes, sir.’ Mr Golightly went and sat down in the welcome shade of the elm.
‘I’m fairly in for it now,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve passed the Rubicon, and there’s no going back. If they are not here already, they will be sure to arrive by the next train. Will Bella recognise me in this rig-out, I wonder? Upon my word, I don’t think she will.’
Presently the porter came back. ‘No ladies stopping here by the name you spoke of, sir,’ said the man.
‘At what hour is the table-d’hôte?’
‘At seven o’clock, sir.—Got you a very nice bedroom, sir—splendid view across the lake. No. 65, sir.’
‘When is the next train due in from London?’
‘One about due in now, sir. The drive from the station takes about twenty minutes. Thank ye, sir.’
‘About twenty minutes; I may as well wait here,’ remarked Mr Golightly to himself as soon as the man had left him. ‘This will be a capital “coign of vantage” from which to spot the arrivals.’
He yawned, crossed his legs, and produced from his pocket a soberly bound little volume, which might have been a volume of sermons, only it was not. He read a page or two, then he yawned again, and then he shut up the book.
‘No, not even Alphonse Daudet has power to charm me this afternoon. Will she come?—will she not come? Does she love me?—does she not love me? Upon my word, I’m in a regular fever; pulse about a hundred and twenty to the minute. I wonder why they can’t inoculate one for love, the same as they do for other things. A mild attack for about a week, and then we should get over it for life.’
Suddenly he started and threw a keen look at the two young people some little distance away, whom he had scarcely noticed before. ‘Archie Ridsdale, by all that’s wonderful! I’ve not seen him for a century. Does Lady Renshaw know that he’s here, I wonder? and is she dragging Bella down to this place that she may try to catch the rich baronet’s son for her niece’s husband? It’s just like one of her ladyship’s moves. Well, I’m not going to worry myself with jealousy. Besides, somebody at the club said that Archie had engaged himself to a girl without a penny. I wonder whether that is the demoiselle in question. She looks pretty enough to turn any fellow’s head.’
Mr Golightly whistled softly to himself for a minute or two; then he muttered: ‘Wretched slow work watching another fellow spoon and not be able to join in the fun one’s self! That must be the girl. By Jove! Master Archie seems about as hard hit as I am.’
This latter remark was elicited by the sight of Mr Ridsdale sidling up to Miss Loraine with the evident intention of encircling her waist with his arm; but, as we have already seen, he was very properly repulsed. Presently Clarice rose and gathered up her heap of ferns and grasses.
‘You are not going indoors already, Clarice?’
‘Already! Commend me to your sex for being unreasonable. A pretty scolding I shall get from Mora for having been out so long.’
‘I don’t believe Madame De Vigne could scold any one, were she to try ever so much.’
‘You don’t know her. She has a terrible temper. It runs in the family.’
‘I am glad you have told me. I shall be prepared for the worst.—We shall meet again at the table-d’hôte; meanwhile, I’ll go and look after the postman.’
‘Should there be a letter, you will let me know as soon as possible?’
‘Never fear.’
With a smile and a nod, she left him, and speeding across the lawn, entered the hotel by a French-window, one of a number which stood wide open this sunny afternoon.
Archie gazed after her admiringly till she was out of sight. Then he buried his hands in his pockets and turned and sauntered slowly up towards the main entrance to the hotel.
‘Ah! here’s Ridsdale coming this way,’ exclaimed Mr Golightly. ‘Wonder whether he’ll know me? What larks!’
But Mr Ridsdale was thinking his own thoughts, and he passed Mr Golightly, who was apparently deep in the perusal of his sober-looking volume, as though there was no such person in existence. But he had not got more than a few yards beyond the tree when he heard himself called.
‘Archie, dear!’ cried some one softly. If it were not a feminine voice that spoke, it was a very good imitation of one.
Mr Ridsdale started, and turned. Beyond two or three loungers round the door of the hotel, some distance away, not a creature was visible save the clerical-looking young man seated under the tree and intent on his book.
Archie’s eyes struck fire and his face flamed suddenly. He advanced three or four paces. ‘Did you address that remark to me, sir?’ he sternly demanded.
‘Of course I did, sir,’ answered Mr Golightly, looking up innocently in the other’s face. Then before Archie’s wrath had time to explode, he flung down his book and started laughingly to his feet. ‘Ridsdale, old chappie, how de do?’ he exclaimed. ‘Awfully glad to meet you. Don’t you know me?’
‘No, sir, I do not know you,’ answered Archie with a cold stare. ‘Never saw you before in my life, that I’m aware of.’
‘What! Not recollect Dick Dulcimer?’
‘Dick Dulcimer! You!’ eyeing him from top to toe. ‘It can’t be.’
‘But it is—at least I’ve every reason to believe so, and I think I ought to know.’
‘But’——, and again he eyed him critically over.
‘Why this thusness, you would ask. I’ll explain in a few words. But sit down for a minute or two; it’s too hot to stand.—You remember Bella Wynter?’
‘Rather. One of the prettiest girls out, the season before last. I was nearly a gone coon in that quarter myself.’
‘Well—I’m quite a gone coon.’
‘Glad to hear it. Congratulate you, old man.’
‘It’s the old story, of course. I’ve next to nothing, Bella has less. There’s a dragon in the path in the shape of Lady Renshaw, Bella’s aunt. But probably you remember her ladyship?’—Mr Ridsdale nodded.—‘Well, she detests me, and has set her heart on Bella marrying money.’
‘Of course. But what has Miss Wynter herself to say in the matter?’
‘Oh, I think Bella likes me—a little; in fact, I’ve not much doubt on that point, although, like the young person in the play, I’ve never told my love. But she has been brought up to think it a crime to marry a poor beggar without a fortune, and then she’s so completely under the dowager’s thumb that she dare scarcely call her bonnet her own. The Fates only know how it will end.’
‘And you are down here?’——
‘To meet them. I expect them by the next train. Bella corresponds with my sister, and Madge gave me the hint. I got a fortnight’s leave, and made up my mind to follow them; but apparently I’m here first. Of course it would never have done to let Lady R. find me here; she would have taken the alarm at once, and have carried off Bella by the next train. What was to be done? All at once it struck me that I had lately been playing the part of a curate in some amateur theatricals in town. A month hence we are going to play the same comedietta again for another charity, so that, as it happened, I had the togs, obtained for the first performance, still by me. I shaved off my beard and moustache, had my hair and eyebrows dyed black, donned my clerical garb, took a ticket from Euston, and here I am.’
‘Your own mother wouldn’t know you if she were to meet you.’
‘Not much fear of the dowager recognising me, eh?’ asked Mr Dulcimer with a chuckle. Then he added more seriously: ‘If I can only get Bella to myself for an hour while she’s down here—there was no chance of it in town—I’ll know my fate one way or the other. She’s an arrant young flirt, I know; but I’ll have no more of her shilly-shallying; she shall give me a plain Yes or a plain No.’
‘I commend your resolution, and wish you every success with the fair Bella. Of course your secret is quite safe in my hands, and if I can do anything to assist you’——
‘I’m sure you will. Thanks, Ridsdale. Don’t forget that there’s no Dick Dulcimer here. I am’——
‘The Reverend?’——
‘No; not the Reverend, but plain Mr Golightly. It may be all very well to play the part of a curate in a comedietta, but I don’t care to pose for the character in real life.’
‘But your clerical garb—everybody will take you for a parson.’
‘I can’t help that. If driven into a corner, I will tell people that I’m a preceptor of youth, in fact a tutor, which is no more than the truth, because, you see, I’m teaching Will Hanover to play the fiddle, so that he’s my pupil and I’m his tutor.’
‘But what made you choose such an outlandish name as Golightly?’ asked the other with a smile.
‘Because Golightly belongs to me, dear boy—it’s my own property. Know, good my lord, that my full name is Richard Golightly Dulcimer. My godfather was Dr Golightly, who’s now Bishop of Melminster. Many’s the tip I’ve had from him in the days when I wore a jacket and turn-down collar. But he wasn’t a bishop then, and my dad hadn’t lost his fortune, and things now in that quarter are by no means what they used to be.’
‘I’ll not forget the name. And now I must go; I’m expecting an important letter. We shall meet later on.’
‘For the present, ta, ta,’ said Mr Dulcimer.
‘Sly dog! Never said a word about his own little affair,’ muttered Dick. ‘Intolerably slow work waiting here. I wonder how much longer they’ll be? Ha! happy thought.—Hi!’
The last exclamatory remark was addressed to a waiter who was in the act of removing an empty bottle and some glasses from a garden-table a little way off.
Up came the waiter, a smiling, little, bullet-headed fellow, French or Swiss, with his black hair closely cropped, and clean-shaved, blue-black cheeks and chin.
‘Bring me a pint of bitter beer in a tankard,’ said Richard loftily.
‘Oui, m’sieu.’
He was not away more than a couple of minutes. Dick was very thirsty, and he seized the tankard eagerly.
‘Wait,’ he said laconically. Then he blew off the beads of creamy froth, raised the tankard to his lips, and slowly and deliberately proceeded to empty it.
While he was thus engaged, two ladies, followed by a maid carrying wraps and umbrellas, came round a corner of the shrubbery. They had driven from the station by way of the lower road, and hence had to walk through a portion of the grounds in order to reach the hotel.
‘A clergyman, and drinking beer out of a metal pot!’ exclaimed the elder of the two ladies. ‘What can the Establishment be coming to!’
Dick, whose back was towards the party, gave a great start and nearly dropped the tankard. ‘The dragon’s voice! I’m caught!’ Then giving the tankard back to Jules, he said with an affected lisp: ‘Thank you very much, my friend. On a sultry day like this, nothing can be more refreshing than a little iced lemonade.’
‘Lemonade! Ah-ha; monsieur s’amuse,’ murmured Jules with a slight lifting of the shoulders as he took back the tankard and marched away.
‘After all, dear, he was drinking nothing stronger than lemonade,’ remarked the elder lady, who was none other than Lady Renshaw, in a low voice to her niece. ‘No doubt he acquired the habit of drinking out of pewter while at college. I am told that they have many strange customs at the universities, which have been handed down from more barbarous times.—An interesting-looking young man.’
‘Very,’ assented Miss Wynter, who had started at the first sound of Dick’s voice, and was now looking inquiringly at him. ‘That voice!’ she said to herself. ‘I could fancy that it was Dick—I mean Mr Dulcimer, who was speaking. But that is impossible. And yet’——
Meanwhile, Dick had turned, and after gravely lifting his hat to the ladies, had resumed his seat, and was now intent again on his book.
Lady Renshaw was a fine, florid specimen of womanhood, who among her intimate friends gracefully acknowledged to being thirty-five years of age, but was probably at least ten years older. She still retained considerable traces of those good looks which several years previously had captured the elderly affections of the late Sir Timothy. Although her figure might display a greater amplitude of proportions than of yore, yet was her hair still black and glossy, her large dark eyes still as coldly bright as ever they had been, while if the fine bloom on her cheeks owed nothing of its tints to the lily, there are many people who prefer the rich damask of the rose even in the matter of complexion. Here, among the Westmoreland hills, her ladyship was dressed as richly and elaborately as if for a little shopping in Regent Street or a drive in the Park. Herein she showed her knowledge of the eternal fitness of things. Lady Renshaw in a cotton gown or a seaside wrapper would have looked little better than a dowdy. Simplicity and she had nothing in common. But Lady Renshaw fashionably attired in satins and laces was a sufficiently good imitation of a lady to pass current as such with nine people out of every dozen.
Miss Bella Wynter was a brunette, not very tall, but with a slender, graceful figure, black, sparkling eyes, and the sauciest little chin imaginable. Naturally, she was an unselfish, generous-hearted girl; but the circumstances of life and her aunt’s hard worldly training were doing their best to spoil her. She, too, was dressed in the extreme of the prevalent fashion, and looked as if she might just have stepped out of the show-room of a Parisian modiste.
‘There can be no harm in speaking to him,’ said Lady Renshaw in a low voice to her niece. ‘He may be the son of a bishop or the nephew of a lord; one never can tell whom one may encounter at these big hotels.’ Then going a little nearer to Dick, she said to him: ‘I presume, sir, that you are staying at the Palatine?’
Mr Dulcimer started, rose and bowed. ‘For a day or two, madam, on my way north.’ He spoke with the same little affected lisp with which he had addressed Jules the waiter.
‘I’m nearly certain it’s Dick,’ said Bella to herself with her heart all a-flutter. ‘But what daring! what effrontery!’
‘Then perhaps you can inform me at what hour the table-d’hôte takes place?’ said her ladyship.
Dick knew quite well, but was not going to tell. ‘I only arrived a couple of hours ago, madam; but I will at once ascertain.’
‘No, no, no! Greatly obliged to you, but we are going indoors presently, and can then ascertain for ourselves.’
‘It is he!’ exclaimed Miss Wynter under her breath. ‘O Dick, Dick!’
Lady Renshaw had turned, and was gazing through her eyeglass. ‘Really, my love, the view from this spot is too utterly exquisite,’ she said. ‘Such luminosity of atmosphere—such spontaneity of sunshine! Observe that magnificent effect of chiaro-oscuro among the hills. Quite Ruskinesque. I dote on nature—especially in her wilder moods.’
‘No doubt nature is infinitely obliged to your ladyship,’ murmured Richard under his breath.
Bella seemed as if she could not keep her eyes off him. ‘He has shaved off his darling beard and moustache, and come all this way on purpose to be near me!’ she mused. ‘Does any one else care enough for me to do as much as that? Heigh-ho! why is he so poor?’
‘And now, dear, I think we had better go indoors,’ said her ladyship blandly. ‘The heat is somewhat trying.’ Then turning to Dick: ‘We shall probably meet again, Mr—er—Mr—?’
‘Golightly, madam. Mr Richard Golightly, at your service.’
‘—— At the table-d’hôte, or somewhere, Mr Golightly.’ This very graciously.
‘I trust, madam, to have the honour,’ and Mr Dulcimer bowed deeply.
‘O you wicked boy!’ murmured Bella.
‘The old she-dragon suspects nothing,’ said the wicked boy to himself with a chuckle as soon as the ladies had turned their backs.
‘A Golightly, my dear,’ remarked Lady Renshaw to her niece. ‘There are several good families of that name. One in Devon and another in York. The young man may be worth cultivating. I hope you will endeavour to make yourself agreeable to him.’
‘I will do my best, aunt,’ answered the young hypocrite demurely.
‘How thankful I am that we have got rid of that odious Mr Dulcimer!’
Bella’s black eyes danced with mischief; it was all she could do to keep back a laugh. ‘O auntie, auntie, if you only knew!’ she whispered to herself.
When she reached the door of the hotel, she could not resist turning her head for a parting look. No one was about, and Dick blew her a kiss. She blushed, she knew not why, but it was certainly not with indignation.
‘Well,’ mused Mr Dulcimer with a sigh as he resumed his seat under the tree; ‘if she won’t have me, I’ll cut the old country and try sheep-farming at the antipodes. Capital cure for love, sheep-farming.’ Taking a pipecase out of his pocket, he extracted therefrom a highly coloured meerschaum. ‘Come along, old friend; let you and me have a confab together. Stay, though, is it the correct thing for a curate—and I suppose everybody will insist on taking me for one—to smoke a meerschaum? Well, if they don’t do it in public, lots of them do it in private. Jolly fellows, some curates—others awful duffers.’ He rose and stretched himself. ‘There must be a quiet nook somewhere among those trees where a fellow can enjoy a whiff without the world being the wiser?’ Whereupon he sauntered away towards the lower part of the grounds, his hands behind his back and his book under his arm, totally unaware that his movements were being watched by a pair of bright black eyes from an upper window of the hotel.