CHAPTER VI.
‘Phew! There’s not a breath of air in this valley. One had need be a salamander to appreciate a morning like this. But what a lovely nook it is—eh, Mac? Quite worth coming half-a-dozen miles to see.’
‘That it’s very pretty, I’ll not attempt to deny; but still’——
‘By no means equal to what you could show us t’other side of the Border,’ said the vicar with a twinkle. ‘That’s understood, of course.’
The time was the forenoon of the day following the evening on which Madame De Vigne had been so startled by the sudden appearance of one whom she had every reason to believe had died long years before.
The scene was a small but romantic glen. Over the summit of a cliff, at the upper end of a rocky ravine, a stream, which took its rise among the stern hills that shut in the background, leapt in a cascade of feathery foam. After a fall of some fifteen or twenty feet, it reached a broad, shallow basin, in which it spread itself out, as if to gather breath for its second leap, which, however, was not quite so formidable as its first one. After this, still babbling its own liquid music, it fretted its way among the boulders with which its channel was thickly strewn, and so, after a time, left the valley behind it; and then, less noisily, and lingering lovingly by many a quiet pool, it gradually crept onward to the lake, in the deep bosom of whose dark waters lay the peace for which it seemed to have been craving so long.
A steep and somewhat rugged pathway wound up either side of the glen to the tableland at the summit, overhung with trees and shrubs of various kinds, with a rustic seat planted here and there at some specially romantic point of view. Ferns, mosses, flowers, and grasses innumerable clothed the rocky sides of the ravine down almost to the water’s edge. At the foot of the glen the stream was spanned by a quaint old bridge, on which the vicar and Dr M‘Murdo were now standing. It was the day of the picnic of which Madame De Vigne had made mention to Colonel Woodruffe, and the party from the Palatine had driven over in a couple of wagonettes, which, together with the hampers containing luncheon, were stationed in a shady spot a quarter of a mile lower down the valley.
‘Look, Mac, look!’ exclaimed the vicar, ‘at those two speckled darlings lurking there in the shadow of the bridge. I must come and try my luck here one of these days.’
‘You look just a bit feckless this morning without your rod and basket.’
‘Where was the use of bringing them? No trout worth calling a trout would rise on a morning like this, when there’s not a cloud in the sky as big as one’s hand, and not breeze enough to raise a ripple on the water. I’ve brought my hammer instead, so that I shan’t want for amusement. Ah, Mac, what a pity it is that you care nothing either for angling or geology!’
‘I could not be fashed, as we used to say in the North. Every man to his likes. I’ve got a treatise in my pocket on The Diaphragm and its Functions, just down from London, with diagrams and plates. Now, if I can only find a shady nook somewhere, I’ve no doubt that I shall enjoy myself with my book for the next two or three hours quite as much as you with your rod or hammer.’
‘So that’s your idea of a picnic, is it?’ The question came from Miss Gaisford, who had come unperceived upon the two friends as they were leaning over the parapet of the bridge. ‘To bury yourself among the trees, eh,’ she went on, ‘and gloat over some dreadful pictures that nobody but a doctor could look at without shuddering? Allow me to tell you that you will be permitted to do nothing of the kind. You will just put your treatise in your pocket, and try for once to make yourself sociable. Perhaps, if you try very hard, you may even succeed in making yourself agreeable.’
‘My poor Mac!’ murmured the vicar as he settled his spectacles more firmly on his nose.
The doctor said nothing, but his eyes twinkled, and he pursed up his lips.
‘I have arranged my plans for both of you,’ said Miss Pen with emphasis.
‘For both of us!’ they exclaimed simultaneously.
‘Yes. Lady Renshaw’——
‘O-h!’ It was a double groan.
‘Don’t interrupt. Lady Renshaw will be here presently. As soon as she appears on the scene, you will take charge of her. I have special reasons for asking you to do this, which I cannot now explain. You will amuse her, interest her, keep her out of the way, and prevent her generally from making a nuisance of herself to any one but yourselves, till luncheon-time.’
‘My dear Pen,’ began the vicar.
‘My dear Miss Gaisford,’ pleaded the doctor.
‘You will do as you are told, and do it without grumbling,’ was the little woman’s reply as she shook a finger in both their faces. ‘I’ve arranged my plans for the day, and I can’t have them interfered with.’
‘My dear Pen,’ again persisted the vicar, in his mildest tones, ‘that your plan is a perfectly admirable one, I do not for one moment doubt, only, as you know very well, I am not and never have been a ladies’ man, and that in the company of your charming sex I’m just as shy at fifty-five as I was at eighteen. But with Mac here the case is altogether different. All doctors know how to please and flatter the sex—it’s part of their stock-in-trade, so that Mac would be quite at home with her ladyship; whereas I—well, the fact is I had made up my mind to walk as far as’——
‘Blackstone Hollow,’ interrupted his sister, ‘in order that you might have another look at that big trout about which you dream every night, but which you will never succeed in catching as long as you live.’
‘The traitor! eh, Miss Penelope?’ cried the doctor. ‘This is neither more nor less than prevarication—yes, sir, prevarication—there’s no other word for it—and you the vicar of a parish, whose example ought to be a shining light to all men! Septimus Gaisford, I’m ashamed of you! As for Lady Renshaw’—— He ended with a snap of his fingers.
‘Neither of you is afraid of her. Of course not,’ remarked Miss Penelope. ‘You would scorn to acknowledge that you are afraid of any woman. But why run any risk in the matter? Why allow her ladyship to attack you separately, when, by keeping together and combining your forces, you would render your position impregnable?’
‘Impregnable!’ both the gentlemen gasped out.
Miss Gaisford’s merry laugh ran up the glen. ‘What a pair of delicious, elderly nincompoops you are!’ she cried. ‘Septimus, you dear old simpleton, haven’t you discovered that this woman would like nothing better than to bring you to your knees with an offer of marriage?’
‘Good gracious, Pen!’ cried the vicar with a start that nearly shook the spectacles off his nose.
‘Doctor, did you not see enough of her ladyship’s tactics last evening to understand that her plan with you is to induce you to believe that she has fallen in love with you? and when one of your sex gets the idea into his head that one of our sex is in love with him, why, then, a little reciprocity of sentiment is the almost inevitable result.’
‘The hussy!’ exclaimed Mac. ‘I should like her to be laid up for a fortnight and let me have the physicking of her!’
‘I noticed that she did press my arm rather more than seemed needful, when we were walking last evening by the lake,’ remarked the vicar.
‘And I remember now that she squeezed my hand in a way that seemed to me quite unnecessary, when she bade me good-night on the steps of the hotel.’
‘Gentlemen, let there be no jealousy between you, I beg,’ said Miss Pen with mock-solemnity. ‘If you decline to combine your forces, then make up your minds which of you is to have her ladyship, and let the other one go and bewail his sorrows to the moon.’
‘By the way, who is Lady Renshaw?’ asked the vicar. ‘I never had the pleasure of hearing her name till yesterday.’
‘Her ladyship is the widow of an alderman and ex-sheriff of London, who was knighted on the occasion of some great event in the City. Her husband, who was much older than herself, left her very well off when he died. That pretty girl, her niece, who travels about with her, has no fortune of her own, and one of her ladyship’s chief objects in life would seem to be to find a rich husband for her. At the same time, from what I have already seen of her, it appears to me that Lady Renshaw herself would by no means object to enter the matrimonial state again, could she only find a husband to suit her views.’
‘A dangerous woman evidently. We must beware of her, Mac,’ said the vicar.
The doctor shook his head. ‘My dear friend, your caution doesn’t apply to me,’ he said. ‘Lady Renshaw is just one of those women that I would not think of making my wife, if she was worth her weight in gold.’
They had begun to stroll slowly forward during the last minute or two, and leaving the bridge behind them, were now presently lost to view down one of the many wooded paths which intersected the valley in every direction.
But a few minutes had passed, when Lady Renshaw and Miss Wynter appeared, advancing slowly in the opposite direction. They halted on the bridge as the others had done before them.
‘What a sweetly pretty place!’ exclaimed Miss Wynter. ‘I had no idea it would be half so lovely. I could wander about here for a week,’ adding under her breath, ‘especially if I had Dick to keep me company.’
‘Pooh! my dear; you will have had quite enough of it by luncheon-time,’ responded her aunt, who had seated herself on the low coping of the bridge with her back to the view up the glen.
‘I always thought you were an admirer of pretty scenery, aunt.’
‘So I am—when in society. But now that we are alone, there’s no need to go into ecstasies about it. On a broiling day like this, I would exchange all the scenery of the Lakes for an easy-chair in the veranda, a nice novel, and the music of a band in the distance.’ Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she gazed around and said: ‘By-the-bye, what has become of Mr Golightly?’
‘I saw him strolling in this direction a few minutes ago,’ was the innocent answer. ‘I have no doubt that he is somewhere about.’
‘Now that Archie Ridsdale has been called away, you will be able to give him the whole of your attention. There seem plenty of quiet nooks about where you will be able to get him for a time all to yourself. He certainly seems excessively infatuated, considering how short a time he has known you, and I should not be a bit surprised if that waterfall were to lead him on to make violent love to you before you are six hours older.’
‘Aunt!’
‘Oh, my dear, I’ve known stranger things than that happen. When a susceptible young man and a pretty girl sit and watch a waterfall together, he is almost sure before long to begin squeezing her hand, and then what follows is simply a question of diplomacy on her part.’
‘If—if—in the course of a few days—Mr Golightly were to propose?’——
‘He may do it this very day for aught one can tell. He seems infatuated enough for any thing. When he does propose, you will accept him—conditionally. You will take care to let him see that you care for him—a little. You have known him for so short a time that really you scarcely know your own feelings—&c., &c. Of course, before finally making up your mind, we must have some more definite information as to the position and prospects of the young man, and what his father the bishop has in view as regards his future. Besides, Mr Archie Ridsdale may possibly be back in the course of a day or two.’
‘But in what way can Archie’s return affect me?’
‘You stupid girl! have I not already told you that Sir William is nearly sure to refuse his consent, and that Archie’s engagement with this Miss Loraine may be broken off at any moment. Then will come your opportunity. Archie seemed very fond of you at one time, and there’s no reason why he should not become fond of you again. Young men’s fancies are as changeable as the wind, as you ought to know quite well by this time.’
Bella only shrugged her shoulders and sauntered slowly over the bridge.
The expression of Lady Renshaw’s face changed the moment she found herself alone, and her thoughts reverted to a topic over which they had busied themselves earlier in the day.
‘So this high and mighty Madame De Vigne—this person whom nobody seems to know anything about—could not condescend to come in the same wagonette with us poor mortals! She and her sister must follow in a carriage by themselves, forsooth! Last evening, when we got back from the lake, she had retired for the night; this morning, she breakfasted in her own room. I feel more convinced than ever that there’s some mystery about her. If I could but find out what it is! Of course, in such a case it would become my duty at once to communicate with Sir William.’
Miss Wynter came back over the bridge, but much more quickly than she had gone. ‘Oh, look, aunt!’ she exclaimed; ‘I declare there’s D—— I mean Mr Golightly, standing yonder, gazing at the water, and all alone.’
Lady Renshaw took a survey of the young man through her glasses. Feeling safe in his disguise, Richard had now discarded some portions of the clerical-looking costume he had worn yesterday, and was attired this morning more after the style of an ordinary tourist.
‘You had better stroll gently along in the same direction,’ remarked her ladyship. ‘Poor young man, he looks very lonely!’
‘But I can’t leave you alone, aunt.’
‘Never mind about me. Besides, I see that dear vicar and Dr M‘Murdo coming this way.’
Lady Renshaw turned to greet Miss Gaisford and the two gentlemen, who were still a little distance off.
‘Here they come. To which of my two admirers shall I devote myself to-day?’ she simpered. ‘Why not endeavour to play one off against the other, and so excite a little jealousy? It is so nice to make the men jealous. Poor dear Sir Timothy never would be jealous; but then he was so very stupid!’
Miss Gaisford was the first to speak. ‘We were just wondering what had become of you, Lady Renshaw.’
‘I lingered here to drink in this fairy scene. It is indeed too, too exquisitely beautiful.’
‘If they would only turn on a little more water at the top of the cliff it would be an improvement,’ answered Miss Pen.—‘Septimus, you might inquire whether they can’t arrange it specially for us to-day.’
‘My dear!’ protested the vicar with mild-eyed amazement.
‘Maybe, like myself,’ remarked the doctor, ‘your ladyship is a worshipper of beautiful scenery?’
‘O yes. I dote on it—I revel in it. After I lost poor dear Sir Timothy, I went to Switzerland, in the hope of being able to distract my mind by travel. Those darling Alps, I shall always feel grateful to them!’
‘What did the Alps do for you, Lady Renshaw?’ queried Miss Pen with the utmost gravity.
‘They gave me back my peace of mind; they poured consolation into my lacerated heart.’
‘Very kind of them—very kind indeed,’ answered Miss Pen drily.
Lady Renshaw threw a quick, suspicious glance at her. ‘What a very strange person!’ she murmured. The vicar’s sister was a puzzle to her. It could not be that she was covertly making fun of her, Lady Renshaw! No; the idea was too preposterous.
Dr Mac had not gone about for fifty years with his eyes shut. He had discovered that many persons, both male and female, who plume themselves on their knowledge of the world and their shrewdness in dealing with the common affairs of life, are yet as susceptible to flattery, even of the most fulsome kind, and just as liable to be led away by it into the regions of foolishness, as their far less sophisticated fellow-mortals. What if this woman, with all her worldly-mindedness and calculating selfishness, were one of those individuals who may be dexterously led by the nose and persuaded to dance to any tune so long as their ears are judiciously tickled? A peculiar gleam came into the doctor’s eyes as these thoughts passed through his mind. He cleared his voice and turned to her ladyship.
‘It appears to me, Lady Renshaw,’ he began, ‘speaking from a professional point of view, that you are gifted with one of those highly-strung, super-sensitive, and poetical organisations which render those who possess them peculiarly susceptible to all beautiful influences whether of nature or of art. Hem.’
‘How thoroughly you understand me, Dr M‘Murdo!’ responded her ladyship, beaming on him with one of her broadest smiles.
The vicar took off his spectacles and proceeded to rub them vigorously with his handkerchief. ‘Mac, you are nothing better than a barefaced humbug,’ he whispered to himself.
‘It would seem only natural, my dear madam,’ resumed the unblushing doctor, ‘that a temperament such as yours, which throbs responsive to beauty in all its thousand varied forms as readily as an Æolian harp responds to the faintest sigh of the summer breeze, should—should find an outlet for itself in one form or other. Have you never, may I ask, attempted to pour out your thick crowding fancies in verse? Have you never, while gazing on some such scene as this, felt as if you could float away on—on the wings of Poesy? Have you never, in brief, felt as if you could only find relief by rushing into song? Hem.’
The poor vicar fairly gasped for breath.
‘Yes, yes; that is exactly how I have felt a thousand times,’ gushed her ladyship. ‘At such moments I seem to exhale poetry.’
‘Dear me! rather a remarkable phenomenon,’ murmured Miss Pen.
‘I long to be a dryad—or a nymph—or one of Dian’s huntresses in some Arcadian grove of old.’
‘A nymph! Hum,’ remarked the vicar softly to himself.
‘But I have never yet ventured to—to’——
‘Gush into song,’ suggested Miss Pen.
‘To attempt to clothe my thoughts in rhythmic measures,’ went on her ladyship with a little wave of the hand, as though deprecating interruption, ‘although I have often felt an inward voice which impelled me to do so.’
‘Let me advise you to try, my dear madam,’ resumed the doctor with his gravest professional air. ‘If I may be allowed to say so, you have the eye of a poet—dreamy, imaginative, with a sort of far-away gaze in it, as though you were looking at something a long way off which nobody but yourself could see.’
‘Ought I to listen to these things in silence?’ asked the vicar of himself with a sudden qualm of conscience.
‘You are a great, naughty flatterer, Dr M‘Murdo,’ said the widow, shaking a podgy finger archly at him.
‘Madam, that is one of the points on which my education has been shamefully neglected.’
She turned with a smile. ‘I trust that our dear vicar is also a worshipper of the beautiful?’
‘With Lady Renshaw before my eyes, it would be rank heresy to doubt it,’ stammered the dear old boy with a blush that would have become a lad of eighteen.
‘Pass up one, Septimus,’ whispered his sister in his ear.
‘If you talk to me in that strain, I shall begin to think you a very, very dangerous man,’ simpered her ladyship.
‘There’s a charming view of the lake from an opening in the trees a little farther on,’ remarked Dr Mac. ‘Would not your ladyship like to walk as far?’
‘By all means, though I am loath to tear myself from this exquisite spot.’
‘We shall find our way back to it later on.’
‘With your permission, I will leave you good people for a little while,’ remarked Miss Pen. ‘I’ve other fish to fry.’
Her ladyship stared. ‘What an excessively vulgar remark!’ was her unspoken thought.
Miss Gaisford turned to her. ‘Lady Renshaw, I must intrust these two young sparks into your hands for a time.’
‘You could not leave us in more charming captivity,’ remarked the gallant doctor.
The vicar, as he fingered the hammer in his pocket, looked imploringly at his sister, but she pretended not to see.
‘Au revoir, then, dear Miss Gaisford,’ said her ladyship in her most affable tones.
‘Au revoir, au revoir.’
As the three went sauntering away, the vicar lagging a little behind the others, Miss Pen heard the doctor say: ‘You know the song, Lady Renshaw, When I view those Scenes so charming,’ after which nothing but a murmur reached her ears.
She turned away with a little laugh. ‘The doctor will fool her to the top of her bent. Who would have thought that high-dried piece of buckram had so much quiet fun in him?—And now to look after my hampers. If I trust to the servants, by luncheon-time the ice, like Niobe, will have wept itself away, the corkscrew will have taken a ramble on its own account, the vinegar and salt will have gone into housekeeping together, and the mustard will be making love to the blanc-mange. My reputation is at stake.’