'Excuse me,' said Miss Durham, 'you were saying something about strawberry-leaves—the wild Alpine strawberry is delicious.'
'Oh! you misunderstand me,' said Yeo, elevating himself to his full height, removing his hat, shaking the puggaree, and putting on his hat again; 'I was alluding to the coronet of an earl to which I lay claim.'
'Then you are not an earl yet?'
'I am not one, and yet I am one. The earldom of Schofield was attaindered—attaindered at the Jacobite rebellion. My great-grandfather took the wrong side and suffered accordingly—suffered ac—cor—ding—ly. The attainder was but for a while. Preston Pans was 1745; Culloden, 1746, April the sixteenth, and my great-grandfather's attainder next year, attainder for one hundred and twenty-five years—which lapses this year, one eight seven two. The earldom is secure—I have but to take it up—to take it up; in other words resume it, and Beaple Yeo is Earl Schofield.'
Salome and Janet appeared to call the three girls to them, and were a little surprised to find the colonel and the American young lady already on intimate terms. They were seated on a bench, side by side, and Colonel Yeo was gesticulating with his hand, and whisking his puggaree in explanation of the Schofield peerage claim; was following the genealogical tree on the palm of one hand with the finger of the other; was waving away objections with his hat, and clenching arguments by clapping both hands on his knees. He was a man so richly endowed by nature with imagination that he could not speak the truth. There are such men and women in the world—to whom romance and rhodomontade is a necessity, even when no object is to be gained by saying what is not true. Some people embroider on a substratum of fact, but Beaple Yeo; and others of the like kidney, spin the threads and then weave their own canvas out of their own fancies, and finally embroider thereon as imagination prompts.
Darkness set in, that night as on every other, and most of the tourists had retired to bed, wearied with their walks and climbs, and those tarrying at Andermatt had also gone into the uncomfortable Swiss-German beds, tired with having nothing to do. Only two were awake, in separate wings of the hotel. One was Salome, the other the American stranger.
Salome had two candles lighted on the table, and had been writing to Philip. She sat now, looking through the open window at the starry sky, with pen in hand, uncertain how to continue her letter. She wrote to her husband every few days, and expected from him, what she received without fail, letters informing her of the health and progress of the baby. His letters were formal and brief. When about to write he visited the nursery, inquired whether there were particulars to be sent to Mrs. Pennycomequick, and wrote verbatim the report of the nurse. Salome had, indeed, only received two letters, and the last had surprised and overwhelmed her. It contained news of the reappearance of Mr. Jeremiah. Her delight had been exceeding; its excess was now passed, and she sat wondering what would be the result of this return on the fortunes of Philip, and on their relations to each other. Philip's letter had been silent on both these points. He merely stated that his uncle had returned, was in robust health, and added a brief account of the circumstances of his escape and recovery. Not a word in his letter about his desire to see her again, not a hint that he was ready to forgive the wrong unintentionally done him. Both letters were stiff and colourless as if they had been business epistles, and many tears had they called from Salome's eyes.
Very different were her letters to him. Without giving utterance to her love, every line showed that her heart yearned for her husband, her baby, and for home. She wrote long letters, hoping to interest him in what she and her sister were about; she described the scenery, the novel sights, the flowers—she even enclosed two forget-me-nots with a wish that he would lay one on her baby's lips. She made no allusion to the past, and she did not tell him of her present trouble with Beaple Yeo, her father. She shrank from informing him that the man he hated was at Andermatt, the terror and distress of her sister and herself. She had written a letter to Uncle Jeremiah, to enclose in that to her husband, and in that was not an expression which could lead him to imagine that her husband was estranged from her. She left this note open, that Philip might look at it if he pleased, before delivering it. She had broken off in the midst of her letter to Philip to write this, and now she resumed the writing to her husband. She was describing the hotel guests, and had come to an account of the Chicago heiress. She had written about her beauty, her eyes, her carriage, her reputed wealth, only her dresses she did not describe, she knew they would not interest a man. Then she proceeded to give some account of her qualities of mind and heart, and thereat her pen was stayed. She knew nothing of either. She had imagined a good deal—but positively had no acquaintance with the lady on which to form an opinion.
What was there in the lady that so fascinated her? She was attracted to her, she felt the profoundest admiration for her—and yet she was unable to explain the reason of the attraction. It was the consciousness that in this stranger were faculties, experiences, knowledge she had not—it was an admiration bred of wonder. She had no ambition to be like her, and she was not envious of her—but she almost worshipped her, because she was strong in everything that she, Salome, was weak. That she was, or might be weak in everything wherein Salome was strong never occurred to her humble mind. Then, still holding her pen, and still looking dreamily into the night sky, Salome passed in thought to her own situation, rendered doubly difficult by her father having attached himself to her sister. She could not desert Janet under the circumstances. She must be at her side to protect her from his rapacity and insolence. And yet she yearned with all the hunger of a mother's heart for her baby, that she might clasp it to her and cover its innocent face and hands and feet with kisses. And Philip——. She loved him also, with the calm unimpassioned love that springs out of duty. She had liked him since first she saw him, and the liking had developed into love—a quiet, homely love, without hot fire in it, and yet a true, steady, honest love. She could not believe that her husband mistrusted her assurance that she had not knowingly deceived him. She did not know which was the most potent force acting on his mind—hatred of the man who was her father and anger at being unwittingly brought into relationship with him, or dread of the scandal that might come of the knowledge of the relationship. She had no confidence that her father would not become again involved in some disgraceful fraud which would bring his name before the public; and this dread, of course, must weigh on Philip as well. Beaple Yeo had already attempted to express money out of her. She was the wife of a rich Yorkshire manufacturer, and Janet was the widow of a rich Normandy manufacturer. He looked upon both as squeezable persons, only at first his efforts to squeeze had been directed upon Janet, who had not a husband to oppose him. Salome, however, saw that he would not be at rest till he had extorted money from Philip through her, and the dread of this kept her in constant unrest. How—she now asked herself, or the stars at which she was looking—how would the return of Jeremiah affect Philip's position and relieve her of this fear? If Jeremiah resumed the factory, then Philip would be no longer wealthy, and a prey for her father to fall upon.
As she sat thus, thinking and looking at the stars, so in the furthest wing of the same house was Artemisia Durham, also thinking and looking at the stars. She had extinguished her lights, and stood at the window. She was partly undressed, her dark hair flowed about her shoulders, and her arms were bare. She had her elbow resting on the window-sill, and her chin was nestled into her palm, her fingers clenched on her lips. Her brows were contracted into a scowl. The face was no longer set, haughty in its beauty, and yet with a condescending smile; it was now even haggard, and over it contending emotions played in the starlight, altering its expression, unresisted, undisguised.