CHAPTER VII.
A few minutes later, Madame De Vigne and her sister came slowly up the glen from that part of the valley where the wagonettes had been left behind. Presently Clarice paused and gazed around.
‘It looks exactly as it did that day last summer when we were here,’ she said. ‘We might have been away only a few hours.’
‘And then, as now, you had no Archie to bear you company.’
‘I did not know him then; and yet it seems now as if I must have known him all my life. I suppose that just about this time he will be engaged with Sir William and those dreadful lawyers. And he has to go through all this for the sake of me—of me, Mora!’
‘He would go through a hundred times more than that for your sake, dear.’
‘I often feel as if I don’t deserve to be loved so much. I hope there will be a telegram when we get back to the hotel. He promised to send one as soon as he had any news; but, suppose his news should be bad news!’
‘At your age you ought always to look at the sunny side of your apple.’
‘Thanks to you, dear, I have never had occasion to look at any other,’ answered the girl with a caress in her voice. ‘And to-day I will try not to be down-hearted. I will try to hope for the best.’ They went forward a few paces in silence, and then Clarice suddenly said: ‘What a selfish girl I am! Tell me, dear, is your headache any better?’
‘A little. I will sit awhile under the shade of this tree. This seems as pretty a spot as any. Perhaps by-and-by I may try to do a little sketching.’
She sat down on a rustic seat that had been placed on a jutting spur of rock nearly fronting the waterfall. The seat was partly hidden from chance passers-by by a screen of shrubs, ferns, and natural rockwork.
‘There! What a head I’ve got!’ exclaimed Clarice with something of dismay in her voice.
‘Mr Ridsdale thinks it a very pretty head. But what’s your trouble now?’
‘I’ve left your sketch-book behind in the wagonette.’
‘Is that all?’
‘It will not take me more than ten minutes to fetch it.’
‘It is of no consequence—not the slightest,’ answered Madame De Vigne a little wearily.
‘I prefer to fetch it. Some one will be prying into it who has no business to. Besides, I recollect something that I want to say to Miss Penelope.’
‘As you please, dear.’
‘You don’t mind my leaving you?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘I shall not be long away,’ cried Clarice as she turned and took the road that led down the valley.
The shadow on Mora De Vigne’s face deepened the moment she was left alone. She was very pale this morning, and she had that look about the eyes which tells of a sleepless night. Beyond her sister and Nanette, no one knew of her fainting-fit of the previous night. Miss Gaisford had not failed to notice the change in her looks, but had asked no questions: she was assured that when the proper time should arrive she would be told all that it was intended she should know.
‘Alone at last! For a little while I can drop my mask,’ she said with the same weariness in her voice. ‘Is it not like the act of a crazy woman to come here to-day, among all these happy people?—I! Oh, the mockery of it! And yet to have stayed all day indoors under the same roof with him, not knowing from minute to minute what to expect, would have been worse than all. And then, Harold promised to meet me at this spot—the man whom I love—the man who loves me. Alas! alas! he can never more be “Harold” to me after to-day.’
She rose and went forward to the edge of the rock, and stood gazing at the waterfall with eyes that knew not what they were looking at.
‘What to do?—what to do?’ she sighed. ‘The same question that kept knocking at my heart all through the long, dreadful, sleepless night; and here, with the summer sunshine all about me, it seems no nearer an answer than it was then. Sometimes I think that what I saw and heard can have been no more than a hideous nightmare fancy of my own. But no—no! That voice—that face!’ She shuddered, and pressed her fingers to her eyes, as if to shut out some sight on which she could not bear to look.
Presently, she moved slowly back to the rustic seat and sat down.
‘Has he tracked me?’ she asked herself. ‘Does he know that I am here, or is his presence merely one of those strange coincidences such as one so often hears tell of? If I only knew! If he has tracked me, why did he not make it his business to see me last night or this morning? What if he does not know or suspect? I must not go back to the hotel. I must not give him a chance of seeing me. I must make some excuse and go away—somewhere—straight from here. But first I must wait and see Harold and—and bid him farewell. What shall I say to him? What can I say?’
Her heart-stricken questionings were broken by the sound of voices a little distance away. She turned her head quickly. ‘Clarice and a stranger!’ she exclaimed. ‘And coming this way!’ A spasm of dread shot through her. What if this stranger were another messenger of evil come in search of her?
And yet he looked harmless enough. He was a rather tall, thin, worn-looking man of sixty-five years or thereabouts. He was dressed in a high-collared swallow-tailed coat, pepper-and-salt trousers, and shoes. His carefully brushed hat, of a fashion of many years previously, had, like the rest of his attire, seen better days than it would ever see again. He had short white whiskers, and rather long white hair, which straggled over his coat collar behind. His thick, bushy brows were still streaked with black; and his eyes, which were very large and bright, seemed to require no assistance from spectacles or glasses of any kind.
‘Here is your sketch-book, dear,’ said Clarice as she came up. ‘This gentleman is Mr Etheridge, Sir William Ridsdale’s secretary,’ she added.—‘Mr Etheridge, my sister, Madame De Vigne.—Mr Etheridge has travelled all the way from Spa, bringing with him an important letter from Sir William addressed to his son. The hotel people sent him on here after us.’
‘But’—— began Mora, half rising from her seat.
‘I have already explained to Mr Etheridge that Mr Archie was summoned by telegraph yesterday to meet his father in London this morning. It seems very strange.’
Mr Etheridge smiled a little deprecatingly, and resumed his hat, which he had doffed on being introduced to Madame De Vigne.
‘No doubt, ladies,’ he said, ‘it must appear strange to any one who is unacquainted with the peculiarities of Sir William. After writing the letter which I have in my pocket, and sending me off with it post-haste, he no doubt changed his mind (Sir William very often does change his mind), and set off for London with the intention of seeing Mr Archie in person, and never troubled himself more about me and the letter. Just like him—just like him.’
‘And what do you propose to do now, sir?’ asked Madame De Vigne.
‘My plan is a very simple one, madam. I shall telegraph to London that I am here, and here I shall stop till I receive further instructions.’
‘You must be somewhat tired after your long journey, Mr Etheridge,’ suggested Clarice.
‘Well—well. So—so. But I’m an old traveller, and it don’t matter.’
‘Luncheon won’t be ready for some time; but if you would like some refreshment at once, I’——
‘Not at present, thank you—not at present.’ Then he added: ‘This seems a very pretty spot; and with your leave, I’ll just ramble about and look round me a bit.’
‘Do so by all means, Mr Etheridge,’ said Madame De Vigne kindly, ‘only don’t forget to be in time for luncheon.’
Clarice hesitated a moment, and then she said: ‘There’s a charming view of the lake a little farther on; if you would like to see it, I will show you the way.’
‘Thank you. Nothing would please me better. Only, I don’t want to be a trouble.’
‘O Mr Etheridge, it will be no trouble!’
That gentleman made Madame De Vigne an old-fashioned bow, and moved a few steps away.
‘You won’t mind my leaving you for a little while?’ said Clarice to her sister.
‘Not in the least. Besides, I’m not in a talking mood this morning.’
‘It would be unkind to leave Mr Etheridge all alone.’
‘Of course it would. So now run off, and do your best to entertain him.’
‘This way, Mr Etheridge, please,’ said Clarice. And with that the two went off together, crossing the bridge and taking the same path that had been taken a little while previously by Lady Renshaw and her two cavaliers.
‘The transparent diplomacy of a girl in love!’ said Madame De Vigne as her eyes followed her sister’s retreating figure. ‘Not having her sweetheart with her to talk to, she must needs talk about him to some one else. Happy, happy days!’ She turned away with a sigh. ‘And now? Shall I sit here and wait for Harold, and try to think what I shall say to him? No; I cannot rest anywhere till the worst is over. He may be here at any moment. I will walk to the top of the hill and watch for him as he comes up the valley. O Harold, Harold, won only to be lost in one short hour!’
She took a narrow footpath to the right, which wound upwards through the trees and undergrowth to a small plateau, from which the whole of the valley was visible.
‘I did not think that I should be so fortunate as to have you all to myself for so long a time this morning.’
The speaker was Mr Richard Dulcimer, and it need scarcely be said to whom his words were addressed. They had been wandering about the glen at their own sweet will, penetrating into all sorts of odd nooks and corners, and now, emerging from the shade of the trees, found themselves on a small rocky table close to the shallow basin into which the stream fell and broke when it took its first leap from the summit of the cliff. It was a pretty spot, and just then the two young people had it all to themselves.
‘You have my aunt to thank for that,’ answered Miss Wynter, as she seated herself daintily on a fragment of rock. ‘It was she who sent me to you.’
‘Dear old damsel! I could almost find in my heart to kiss her,’ answered Richard as he deposited himself at his sweetheart’s feet and drew the brim of his straw hat over his eyes to shade them from the sun.
‘But of course she believes you to be a bishop’s son.’
‘Which I am, so far as having a bishop for a godfather goes. Otherwise—woe is me!—I’m only a poor beggar of a quill-driver in the Sealing-wax Office. Why wasn’t Providence kind to me? Why wasn’t I born with a rich father, like Archie Ridsdale?’
‘Why weren’t we all born with rich fathers?’
‘That would have been much nicer, if it could have been so arranged.’
‘I don’t at all see how you are going to extricate yourself from the awful scrape you have got into.’
‘I am not aware that I’m in any awful scrape, so far.’
‘But you will be, when my aunt finds out what a wicked impostor you are.’
‘Her ladyship’s anger doesn’t matter two farthings to me. It’s her influence over you that I’m afraid of.’
‘Her influence over me!’
‘The lessons she is continually preaching—the maxims she is for ever dinning into your ears.’
‘Yes; I know she looks upon it as a sacred duty which I owe to Society that I should marry myself to the highest bidder.’
‘And you?’ asked the young man as he sat up, pushed back his hat, and gazed into the pretty face above him.
She was drawing figures aimlessly with the point of her sunshade in the gravel. For a moment or two she did not answer; then she broke out with an emphasis that was full of bitterness: ‘What would you have? What can you expect? From the day I left school, and even earlier than that, the one lesson that has been instilled into my mind is, that I must marry money—money. Even my mother—— But she is dead, and I will not speak of her. And since then, my aunt. I am a chattel—a piece of bric-à-brac in the matrimonial market, to be appraised, and depreciated, and finally knocked down to the first bidder who is prepared to make a handsome settlement. I hate myself when I think of it! I hate everybody!’ Sudden passionate tears sprang to her eyes; she dashed them away impatiently.
‘Not quite everybody, ma belle,’ said Mr Dulcimer as he possessed himself of one of her hands. ‘There is one way of escape that you wot of,’ he added in a lower voice.
She turned on him with a flash: ‘By marrying you, I suppose?’
‘Even so, carissima.’
‘A government clerk on three hundred pounds a year.’
‘With another hundred of private income in addition.’
‘A truly munificent income on which to marry!’ she answered, not without a ring of scorn, real or assumed, in her voice as she withdrew her fingers from his grasp. ‘I think I know the kind of thing it implies. A stuffy little house in Camden Town or Peckham Rye—wherever those localities may be. Perhaps even furnished apartments. One small servant, not overclean. No opera, no brougham in the Park, no garden-parties, no carpet-dances, no more flirtations with nice young men. Locomotion by means of a twopenny ’bus or tram.; long, lonely days without a soul to talk to; now and then an order for the theatre; au reste, my husband’s buttons to sew on and his socks to keep in repair. Oh, I can guess it all!’
A tinge of colour had flickered into Dick’s cheeks while she was speaking, but it now died out again. He was quite aware that nothing would delight her more than to tease him till he should lose his temper; therefore, he answered as equably as before: ‘Evidently Lady Renshaw’s lessons have not been quite thrown away on you.’
One of her little feet began to tap the ground impatiently. ‘It seems to me, Mr Richard Dulcimer, that the best thing you can do is to take the next train back to town.’
‘Shan’t do anything of the kind.’
‘You are a very self-willed young man.’ To judge from her tone, she might have been twice his age. It is a way her sex sometimes have.
‘Obstinate as a mule,’ answered the philosophic Richard.
‘Suppose I tell you that I have had enough of your society? Suppose I order you to leave me here and at once?’
‘Shan’t go.’
‘Well, of all’—— She rose abruptly. ‘How much longer are you going to keep me here?’ she demanded in an injured tone, as though he were detaining her against her will.
‘Not one minute longer than you wish,’ he answered as he sprang to his feet. ‘Suppose we cross the stream.’
‘Cross the stream?’
‘By means of these stepping-stones. They are here for that purpose.’
‘Oh!’ With a slight accent of dismay. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Dulcimer, but I’d rather not.’
‘Everybody crosses by them—except, perhaps, a few superfine young-lady tourists who think more of wetting their boots and frills than of’——
‘Monster! Lead the way.’
‘Lend me your hand.’
‘Certainly not.’
Without another word, Dick stepped lightly from stone to stone till he reached the middle of the stream. There he halted and turned. Bella, not to be outdone, stepped after him on to the first stone and from that to the second; then all in a moment her courage seemed to desert her. ‘Dick, Dick, I shall slip into the water,’ she cried. ‘I know I shall.’
Dick grinned. He had been addressed as ‘Mr Dulcimer’ only a minute before. He went back and held out his hand, which Bella clutched without a moment’s demur. Having assisted her as far as the middle of the stream, he came to a stand.
‘Why don’t you go on?’ she demanded.
Dick ignored the question. ‘These stepping-stones, or others like them,’ he remarked didactically, ‘are said to have been here for hundreds of years. There is an old local rhyme in connection with them which is known to all the country-folk about. Listen while I recite to you that ancient rhyme.’
‘I am getting dizzy; I shall fall,’ remarked Bella, who, however, still kept tight hold of his hand.
Dick took no notice, but began:
‘Listen! listen! Every lass
That o’er these stepping-stones doth pass,
She shall clasp her sweetheart’s hand,
On the midmost stone shall stand,
And shall kiss him then and there’——
‘Oh, indeed,’ remarked Miss Wynter with a scornful sniff.
Dick continued:
‘But should she her lips deny,
Then shall she unwedded die,
And he wed another fair:
Listen, maids—beware! beware!
‘That is the midmost stone, ma petite, on which you are standing.’
Miss Wynter tossed her head. ‘Perhaps, sir, if you have quite done attitudinising, you will allow me to cross.’
‘Avec plaisir—when you have paid the customary toll.’
‘The what?’ with a drawing together of her pretty eyebrows.
‘The toll. When you have done that which every girl does who crosses the stepping-stones with her sweetheart.’
‘You are not my sweetheart.’
‘But you are mine, which comes to the same thing.’
‘I will go back.’
‘You dare not.’
‘I will’——
‘Go forward? You dare not.’ And with that he withdrew his hand.
Bella, finding herself without support, gave vent to a little shriek, whereupon Dick put out his hand again, at which she clutched wildly. Richard was hard-hearted enough to laugh.
‘This is mean—this is cowardly—this is contemptible!’ cried Bella with flaming eyes.
‘It is—but it’s nice.’
‘I hear voices. There’s some one coming!’
‘Let them come.’
‘And find me in this ridiculous predicament? Never!’
‘Not for worlds,’ assented Mr Dulcimer in his sweetest tones.
Bella gave vent to a little laugh: she could not help it. One of Dick’s arms found its way round her waist. The situation was embarrassing. If she were to push him away, she might slip into the water. Their faces were not far apart. Suddenly she protruded hers and touched his cheek lightly with her lips. ‘Wretch! There, then!’ she said. ‘And there,’ quoth the unabashed suitor, as he returned the toll, twofold. ‘And there!’ she added a moment after, as, with her disengaged hand, she gave him a sounding box on the ear.
Dick laughed and rubbed his ear. ‘For what we have just received’—— he said, and then grasping both her hands, he helped her across the remaining stepping-stones to the opposite bank of the stream.