CHAPTER XXVII
ONE lovely September afternoon, when the Schiller touched at the pier at Mitzau, among the passengers who boarded her, were Cara, her mother, and Fritz. The boat was crowded with trippers and tourists, and when Letty had with difficulty arrived on the first-class upper deck, there was not a seat to be found. As she glanced about her vaguely, a tall, bronzed Englishman in grey tweed, got up and offered her his place. When she looked round to thank him and discovered no stranger’s face, but that of Lancelot Lumley, her amazement was such, that for a moment she felt dizzy; for his part, it was fully half a minute before Major Lumley realised, that this remarkably pretty girl in a summer gown and shady hat, was his lost love, Letty Blagdon!—Letty, who had befooled him, made him the prey of her indecision, and the laughing-stock of his acquaintance.
How often in camp and cantonment, had he sworn to himself to put her out of his head and his heart; he had even embarked on other love affairs; many ladies had smiled on Major Lumley, who was handsome, popular, and likely to have a distinguished career. But somehow his flirtations had never advanced; at the back of his mind, his heart, his vision, rose the figure of Letty. Now here she stood before him in real life, and as she looked up with her earnest Irish eyes, he knew that her hold upon him was stronger than ever. How young she seemed! like the sister of the tall girl, who had joined her.
“Letty!” he said at last; he had grown pale under his tan. “And—and”—holding out his hand—“I suppose—this must be Cara?”
Cara, agreeably conscious of her own appearance, was delighted to be accosted by this distinguished-looking Englishman. Her mother appeared to have no friends, except hateful Mrs. Hesketh—here, however, was another of a very different stamp!
At first it seemed to be he and Cara, who were so well acquainted, and carrying on a brisk conversation. Presently, she was summoned by Fritz to interview a monkey, and her mother and Lumley were alone.
“And so all these years you have hidden yourself in Switzerland,” he said, as together they moved to the side. “Frances would never divulge your address. What an amazing, miraculous, chance, this meeting. I just missed the earlier boat by one minute. I am not superstitious, but there is something uncannily significant in our coming across one another in this way.”
The couple, leaning over the bulwarks, indifferent to their surroundings, had much to say to one another as the Schiller forged along through water of a deep peacock blue, shaded in the distance to a silvered surface. By degrees, as Letty’s tongue became loosened, she gave her companion a rapid account of her life during the past seven years, and it was evident to her listener (though not to herself) that her existence had been one of entire self-sacrifice for the child. He on his part, talked of the death of his father, of Frances, of his brother officers, his work, and his prospects.
“I’ve just got a shove up,” he said, “and been posted to a good job. I’m on my way back from leave, and taking the Italian lakes en route, as I have a week to spare. I saw Mrs. Hesketh at home; she had lately come back from Switzerland. She never told me that she had seen you.”