CHAPTER IV.
oon after Easter Mrs. Rakely paid a visit to London. She was a person with a chronic grievance; and though she had done her utmost to bring about Joan’s marriage, she considered it necessary to feel ill-used, because her favourite companion was not at hand to amuse her.
She called on Embrance, and carried her off—almost without asking her consent—to spend a long afternoon.
“I wish I had had you yesterday, my dear. Horace Meade came to dinner. Joan begged me to ask him; and as I met him in Bond Street, I did; otherwise, I think it would have escaped my memory. I took a fancy to him at one time; but he was always eccentric, and he looks more so than ever since he has been in Italy.”
“I did not know that he had been in Italy.”
“Yes. He has only just returned. It was a foolish thing to do, flinging away his chance of getting his picture into the Royal Academy. Joan told me about it. But that’s my objection to young men taking to art—they are so eccentric. Now he is going abroad again—I have forgotten where, my memory is not what it used to be; but he did tell me.”
As long as Mrs. Rakely had someone to listen to her she was quite satisfied. She took Embrance to a picture gallery; trotted her through four or five milliners’ shops in search of an ideal bonnet; asked her advice about umbrellas, and then bought the one she liked best herself; and finally left her, thoroughly exhausted, at the corner of her own street.
A foreign letter was awaiting Embrance’s arrival. Mrs. Clemon was not a regular correspondent, but when she did write she sent a good budget of news, pouring out a complete history of her experiences for the benefit of the niece who had been to her as a daughter. She was happy; her son was doing well. Now and then there came a hint that Embrance would be heartily welcome, if she could make up her mind to come out. In the next page, much blotted and smudged, came the tidings that William was engaged to be married to a neighbour’s daughter, a pretty girl and well brought up; but, ah! it might have been so different! Still, she would not complain, only now would Embrance come? There was room, and to spare. William and his wife would rejoice to see her. Let her think over the proposal, and not decide in haste. Then the letter went on to tell of preparations for the wedding. There were little bits of information concerning the bride’s family, and there was a great deal about an Irish help who had run away and left them at a moment’s notice without rhyme or reason. At the very end of the page came another suggestion, in William’s hand, “Come for a year, and try how you like us”; after which his mother had taken up her pen again to say, “Bless you in all your doings, my child, whatever course you decide upon.”
Embrance kissed the letter and put it away carefully. There was no time to read it again to-night, or to think if she should follow her aunt’s wishes. She was wofully behindhand with her work, and to-morrow morning she had an extra lesson to give to a backward pupil who lived at South Kensington. The long day with Mrs. Rakely had tried her newly-gained strength to its utmost limits, and her ankle was very painful. She limped towards the chiffonier in search of a book; in the glass over the mantelpiece she saw the door open with the familiar jerk that always preluded Annie’s knock.
“Come in,” said Embrance; but the words died away on her lips as she recognised the figure in the doorway, whose shoulders towered above the little handmaiden.
“Mr. Horace Meade.”
There was no sign of eccentricity in Horace’s appearance; even Mrs. Rakely might have been satisfied. He wore a dark, grey coat, and in his hand he carried a hat which was scrupulously glossy and well brushed. When he spoke his manner and voice were very quiet, much of the fun seemed to have died out of him during his sojourn in Italy, and his first remark was commonplace to the last degree.
“I heard from Mrs. Rakely that you had met with an accident. I am exceedingly sorry; I called to inquire how you were before I leave town.”
“You are going away for some time, I suppose?” asked Embrance, when she had invited her visitor to sit down. He took a chair by the window, and seemed interested in the growth of some ferns that Joan had sent from her garden.
“I hardly know. I have several portraits on hand that must be finished as soon as possible. But my studio is not habitable yet; it is being painted, and the workpeople are lamentably slow. When these commissions are disposed of, I may go away for several months, perhaps I shall get as far as Constantinople.”
“I have often thought that Constantinople must be a most interesting city to visit.”
“Oh, very; it is so beautifully situated; there is no other place quite like it.”
“No, I have never seen any place like it.” (“I suppose,” Embrance was thinking while she uttered her brilliant remark, “that he was offended at my writing to him.”)
“I was a fool to come at all,” said Horace to himself, “but I wanted to see her once more; she looks horribly ill.”
“I am sorry to see that you are still lame,” he said, aloud, as Embrance subsided into silence after her last attempt at light conversation.
“I am much better,” she said, quickly; “I’m only a little tired this afternoon. Are you looking at the ferns? Joan sent them; she is very well and happy. I often hear from her.”
“I am glad of that; I only heard of her marriage by chance, about a fortnight after it took place. Well, I hope it is a happy ending to her many troubles.”
“Yes,” said Embrance, quietly, “I hope so.”
“You were in her confidence all along, of course, Miss Clemon?”
“No, I did not know of her engagement.”
“That was really heartless of Joan! I hope you were angry with her?”
“No,” said Embrance again, “but I miss her very much.”
“I hope that you mean to go and stay with her shortly; the change would do you good.”
“I don’t know. I must say good-bye to her, of course, if I go to New Zealand.”
It had not seemed so clear to her a quarter of an hour ago that she would accept her aunt’s invitation as it did now.
“You would go to your relations—to Mrs. Clemon?”
“She wishes it very much,” explained Embrance, remembering how he had once before made a similar question; “if I don’t like it, I am to come back again.”
“I think,” said Horace, with a desperate effort to speak naturally, “that the voyage would be an admirable thing for your health. I hope that you will be very happy there. If I can be of any assistance to you in arranging about your passage—in fact, in any way, pray make use of my services.”
Painfully conscious that he had delivered this speech very much after the manner of a stage father in a heavy melodrama, he rose to take his leave. Embrance sank back into her chair as he left the room. Five minutes by the clock, his visit had lasted, he had been most kind and considerate, but—she wished that she had never written that letter.
Horace met a friend at his club, with whom he dined. It was late when he got back to his own rooms. He opened the door of the studio to see what progress the workmen had made. The room presented a forlorn appearance. The carpets were up, and the furniture was covered with sheets; all about the floor were paint-pots, shavings, and workmen’s tools. A writing-table stood apart in the window; Horace bethought himself of a sketch-book which he had left somewhere about, perhaps in one of the drawers. The top drawer was unlocked, and as he pulled it open he saw a heap of letters and advertisements which had accumulated during his absence. He had opened a great many of them, leaving the rest to a more favourable opportunity. It occurred to him now that the opportunity had arrived. He lighted a cigarette, dragged a chair from a corner of the room, and began tearing up circulars and invitations to parties that had taken place weeks ago; they would have to be answered some day, not now. At last he came upon some bills, and underneath these a grey envelope. He opened it leisurely. The letter was dated, “February 2nd”—the day before he had gone abroad. “Dear Mr. Meade,—Please come and see me. I have made a mistake.—Yours truly, Embrance Clemon.”
He read it over and over again, turned it backwards and forwards, then he put it down with a sigh. It must have been written shortly after that conversation in the park that he had been trying to forget. It was an apology—a direct appeal to him—and he had taken no notice of it! Nay, worse than that! With a groan, he pushed away the candle and rested his head on his hands, exclaiming, “And I have been advising her to go to New Zealand!”
Never had the backward pupil seemed so backward as she did that day. She had made twelve mistakes in a simple dictation; she had written an essay on Catherine of Arragon, whom she persistently confused with Catherine of Medici; and she had worked her sums on a method of her own, involving one direct certainty—that the answers could not by any possibility be correct. Embrance succeeded in concealing her vexation, and the two hours’ lesson ended more happily than might have been expected. The girl (who was good as gold, though not gifted with a taste for study) helped her dear Miss Clemon into her ulster, and let her out of the hall-door, with many injunctions that she was to take a cab if she got tired, or if it rained too fast.
Embrance pined for a little air, and was determined to walk, in spite of the wet. It was a long way; her umbrella was dripping and her ankle was aching sadly before she reached the corner of the street. In the distance a policeman was slowly pacing along, the pavement was slippery, and the road was shining with puddles. There was not a break in the leaden-coloured sky or a breath of wind to interfere with the steady downpour. Embrance’s umbrella had seen hard work; the rain pattered through the little holes in the silk; she had the greatest difficulty in keeping the book she carried out of the wet.
Well, it was not far now, though the street was long. Number 11, number 12, number 13; that was the house with the door-knocker that Joan had made a sketch of (she said it was like her grandfather). Number 14. There was a quick step behind her, and another umbrella was walking side by side with her.
“MR. HORACE MEADE.”
“Good morning. I have been waiting to speak to you. I am so glad that you are come at last.”
The owner of the umbrella looked excited; his artistic eccentricity was to the fore; he held a scrap of grey paper in his left hand; his gaze was fixed on Embrance.
She said no word of greeting, but dropped the dictionary that she had been guarding with such care.
He picked it up for her. “Let me carry it.”
“Thank you. I do not like to trouble you”—and the rain trickled down on to her gloves and cuffs as she held out her hand towards him.
“Not at all,” said Horace, politely, as he pocketed the book, regardless of the mud. “The fact is, if you don’t mind listening, I’ve come to make an apology.”
Embrance glanced at the piece of paper that he was beginning to unfold, and the blood rushed to her cheeks.
“You see,” explained Horace, speaking very fast, “I don’t want to be a worry to you, only I should like you to know that this got put away with a heap of papers, and I only opened it last night. I hadn’t a notion yesterday that you had written to me. I wish I had. You are getting so wet. Will you let me hold my umbrella over you? It will be better so. Thank you,” as she murmured something that was not a refusal.
She had nothing now to carry; she clasped her hands, and looked straight in front of her down the rainy street.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had written to me?”
“I thought you had had the letter, and would rather not answer it.”
“Why did you write at all?”
“To explain my mistake,” said Embrance, confusedly.
“Then you did make a mistake, and I was the sufferer?”
With a flash, her dark eyes turned to his. The look of joy on his face brought peace and comfort to her.
“I am sorry,” she began.
“Are you?” he asked, tenderly. “Don’t be sorry on my account. If I had come to see you at once, would you have sent me away a second time, Embrance?”
They had passed number 25, and were walking towards the City, unmindful of the rain. In their hearts was the brightest sunshine.
“Would you, Embrance?”
She unclasped her hands; for a second she rested her fingers on his arm, as she answered, “No!”
[THE END.]