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Beatrice

by H. Rider Haggard · English · Gutenberg #3096 · 622,757 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Beatrice

Author: H. Rider Haggard


        
Release date: April 6, 2006 [eBook #3096]
                Most recently updated: April 23, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3096

Credits: John Bickers, Dagny and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEATRICE ***




Beatrice

by H. Rider Haggard

First Published in 1893.


Contents

 CHAPTER I. A MIST WRAITH
 CHAPTER II. AT THE BELL ROCK
 CHAPTER III. A CONFESSION OF FAITH
 CHAPTER IV. THE WATCHER AT THE DOOR
 CHAPTER V. ELIZABETH IS THANKFUL
 CHAPTER VI. OWEN DAVIES AT HOME
 CHAPTER VII. A MATRIMONIAL TALE
 CHAPTER VIII. EXPLANATORY
 CHAPTER IX. WHAT BEATRICE DREAMED
 CHAPTER X. LADY HONORIA MAKES ARRANGEMENTS
 CHAPTER XI. BEATRICE MAKES AN APPOINTMENT
 CHAPTER XII. THE WRITING ON THE SAND
 CHAPTER XIII. GEOFFREY LECTURES
 CHAPTER XIV. DRIFTING
 CHAPTER XV. ONLY GOOD-NIGHT
 CHAPTER XVI. THE FLAT NEAR THE EDGWARE ROAD
 CHAPTER XVII. GEOFFREY WINS HIS CASE
 CHAPTER XVIII. THE RISING STAR
 CHAPTER XIX. GEOFFREY HAS A VISITOR
 CHAPTER XX. BACK AT BRYNGELLY
 CHAPTER XXI. THE THIRD APPEAL
 CHAPTER XXII. A NIGHT OF STORM
 CHAPTER XXIII. A DAWN OF RAIN
 CHAPTER XXIV. LADY HONORIA TAKES THE FIELD
 CHAPTER XXV. ELIZABETH SHOWS HER TEETH
 CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT BEATRICE SWORE
 CHAPTER XXVII. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
 CHAPTER XXVIII. I WILL WAIT FOR YOU
 CHAPTER XXIX. A WOMAN’S LAST WORD
 CHAPTER XXX. AVE ATQUE VALE
 CHAPTER XXXI. THE DUCHESS’S BALL




TO
BEATRICE


“Oh, kind is Death that Life’s long trouble closes,
Yet at Death’s coming Life shrinks back affright;
It sees the dark hand,—not that it encloses
A cup of light.

So oft the Spirit seeing Love draw nigh
As ‘neath the shadow of destruction, quakes,
For Self, dark tyrant of the Soul, must die,
When Love awakes.

Aye, let him die in darkness! But for thee,—
Breathe thou the breath of morning and be free!”

Rückert. Translated by F. W. B.




 BEATRICE




CHAPTER I.
A MIST WRAITH


The autumn afternoon was fading into evening. It had been cloudy
weather, but the clouds had softened and broken up. Now they were lost
in slowly darkening blue. The sea was perfectly and utterly still. It
seemed to sleep, but in its sleep it still waxed with the rising tide.
The eye could not mark its slow increase, but Beatrice, standing upon
the farthest point of the Dog Rocks, idly noted that the long brown
weeds which clung about their sides began to lift as the water took
their weight, till at last the delicate pattern floated out and lay
like a woman’s hair upon the green depth of sea. Meanwhile a mist was
growing dense and soft upon the quiet waters. It was not blown up from
the west, it simply grew like the twilight, making the silence yet more
silent and blotting away the outlines of the land. Beatrice gave up
studying the seaweed and watched the gathering of these fleecy hosts.

“What a curious evening,” she said aloud to herself, speaking in a low
full voice. “I have not seen one like it since mother died, and that is
seven years ago. I’ve grown since then, grown every way,” and she
laughed somewhat sadly, and looked at her own reflection in the quiet
water.

She could not have looked at anything more charming, for it would have
been hard to find a girl of nobler mien than Beatrice Granger as on
this her twenty-second birthday, she stood and gazed into that misty
sea.

Of rather more than middle height, and modelled like a statue, strength
and health seemed to radiate from her form. But it was her face with
the stamp of intellect and power shadowing its woman’s loveliness that
must have made her remarkable among women even more beautiful than
herself. There are many girls who have rich brown hair, like some
autumn leaf here and there just yellowing into gold, girls whose deep
grey eyes can grow tender as a dove’s, or flash like the stirred waters
of a northern sea, and whose bloom can bear comparison with the wilding
rose. But few can show a face like that which upon this day first
dawned on Geoffrey Bingham to his sorrow and his hope. It was strong
and pure and sweet as the keen sea breath, and looking on it one must
know that beneath this fair cloak lay a wit as fair. And yet it was all
womanly; here was not the hard sexless stamp of the “cultured” female.
She who owned it was capable of many things. She could love and she
could suffer, and if need be, she could dare or die. It was to be read
upon that lovely brow and face, and in the depths of those grey
eyes—that is, by those to whom the book of character is open, and who
wish to study it.

But Beatrice was not thinking of her loveliness as she gazed into the
water. She knew that she was beautiful of course; her beauty was too
obvious to be overlooked, and besides it had been brought home to her
in several more or less disagreeable ways.

“Seven years,” she was thinking, “since the night of the ‘death fog;’
that was what old Edward called it, and so it was. I was only so high
then,” and following her thoughts she touched herself upon the breast.
“And I was happy too in my own way. Why can’t one always be fifteen,
and believe everything one is told?” and she sighed. “Seven years and
nothing done yet. Work, work, and nothing coming out of the work, and
everything fading away. I think that life is very dreary when one has
lost everything, and found nothing, and loves nobody. I wonder what it
will be like in another seven years.”

She covered her eyes with her hands, and then taking them away, once
more looked at the water. Such light as struggled through the fog was
behind her, and the mist was thickening. At first she had some
difficulty in tracing her own likeness upon the glassy surface, but
gradually she marked its outline. It stretched away from her, and its
appearance was as though she herself were lying on her back in the
water wrapped about with the fleecy mist. “How curious it seems,” she
thought; “what is it that reflection reminds me of with the white all
round it?”

Next instant she gave a little cry and turned sharply away. She knew
now. It recalled her mother as she had last seen her seven years ago.




CHAPTER II.
AT THE BELL ROCK


A mile or more away from where Beatrice stood and saw visions, and
further up the coast-line, a second group of rocks, known from their
colour as the Red Rocks, or sometimes, for another reason, as the Bell
Rocks, juts out between half and three-quarters of a mile into the
waters of the Welsh Bay that lies behind Rumball Point. At low tide
these rocks are bare, so that a man may walk or wade to their
extremity, but when the flood is full only one or two of the very
largest can from time to time be seen projecting their weed-wreathed
heads through the wash of the shore-bound waves. In certain sets of the
wind and tide this is a terrible and most dangerous spot in rough
weather, as more than one vessel have learnt to their cost. So long ago
as 1780 a three-decker man-of-war went ashore there in a furious winter
gale, and, with one exception, every living soul on board of her, to
the number of seven hundred, was drowned. The one exception was a man
in irons, who came safely and serenely ashore seated upon a piece of
wreckage. Nobody ever knew how the shipwreck happened, least of all the
survivor in irons, but the tradition of the terror of the scene yet
lives in the district, and the spot where the bones of the drowned men
still peep grimly through the sand is not unnaturally supposed to be
haunted. Ever since this catastrophe a large bell (it was originally
the bell of the ill-fated vessel itself, and still bears her name,
“H.M.S. Thunder,” stamped upon its metal) has been fixed upon the
highest rock, and in times of storm and at high tide sends its solemn
note of warning booming across the deep.

But the bell was quiet now, and just beneath it, in the shadow of the
rock whereon it was placed, a man half hidden in seaweed, with which he
appeared to have purposely covered himself, was seated upon a piece of
wreck. In appearance he was a very fine man, big-shouldered and broad
limbed, and his age might have been thirty-five or a little more. Of
his frame, however, what between the mist and the unpleasantly damp
seaweed with which he was wreathed, not much was to be seen. But such
light as there was fell upon his face as he peered eagerly over and
round the rock, and glinted down the barrels of the double ten-bore gun
which he held across his knee. It was a striking countenance, with its
brownish eyes, dark peaked beard and strong features, very powerful and
very able. And yet there was a certain softness in the face, which
hovered round the region of the mouth like light at the edge of a dark
cloud, hinting at gentle sunshine. But little of this was visible now.
Geoffrey Bingham, barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple, M.A., was
engaged with a very serious occupation. He was trying to shoot curlew
as they passed over his hiding-place on their way to the mud banks
where they feed further along the coast.

Now if there is a thing in the world which calls for the exercise of
man’s every faculty it is curlew shooting in a mist. Perhaps he may
wait for an hour or even two hours and see nothing, not even an
oyster-catcher. Then at last from miles away comes the faint wild call
of curlew on the wing. He strains his eyes, the call comes nearer, but
nothing can he see. At last, seventy yards or more to the right, he
catches sight of the flicker of beating wings, and, like a flash, they
are gone. Again a call—the curlew are flighting. He looks and looks, in
his excitement struggling to his feet and raising his head incautiously
far above the sheltering rock. There they come, a great flock of thirty
or more, bearing straight down on him, a hundred yards
off—eighty—sixty—now. Up goes the gun, but alas and alas! they catch a
glimpse of the light glinting on the barrels, and perhaps of the head
behind them, and in another second they have broken and scattered this
way and that way, twisting off like a wisp of gigantic snipe, to vanish
with melancholy cries into the depth of mist.

This is bad, but the ardent sportsman sits down with a groan and waits,
listening to the soft lap of the tide. And then at last virtue is
rewarded. First of all two wild duck come over, cleaving the air like
arrows. The mallard is missed, but the left barrel reaches the duck,
and down it comes with a full and satisfying thud. Hardly have the
cartridges been replaced when the wild cry of the curlew is once more
heard—quite close this time. There they are, looming large against the
fog. Bang! down goes the first and lies flapping among the rocks. Like
a flash the second is away to the left. Bang! after him, and caught him
too! Hark to the splash as he falls into the deep water fifty yards
away. And then the mist closes in so densely that shooting is done with
for the day. Well, that right and left has been worth three hours’ wait
in the wet seaweed and the violent cold that may follow—that is, to any
man who has a soul for true sport.

Just such an experience as this had befallen Geoffrey Bingham. He had
bagged his wild duck and his brace of curlew—that is, he had bagged one
of them, for the other was floating in the sea—when a sudden increase
in the density of the mist put a stop to further operations. He shook
the wet seaweed off his rough clothes, and, having lit a short briar
pipe, set to work to hunt for the duck and the first curfew. He found
them easily enough, and then, walking to the edge of the rocks, up the
sides of which the tide was gradually creeping, peered into the mist to
see if he could find the other. Presently the fog lifted a little, and
he discovered the bird floating on the oily water about fifty yards
away. A little to the left the rocks ran out in a peak, and he knew
from experience that the tide setting towards the shore would carry the
curlew past this peak. So he went to its extremity, sat down upon a big
stone and waited. All this while the tide was rising fast, though,
intent as he was upon bringing the curlew to bag, he did not pay much
heed to it, forgetting that it was cutting him off from the land. At
last, after more than half-an-hour of waiting, he caught sight of the
curlew again, but, as bad luck would have it, it was still twenty yards
or more from him and in deep water. He was determined, however, to get
the bird if he could, for Geoffrey hated leaving his game, so he pulled
up his trousers and set to work to wade towards it. For the first few
steps all went well, but the fourth or fifth landed him in a hole that
wet his right leg nearly up to the thigh and gave his ankle a severe
twist. Reflecting that it would be very awkward if he sprained his
ankle in such a lonely place, he beat a retreat, and bethought him,
unless the curlew was to become food for the dog-fish, that he had
better strip bodily and swim for it. This—for Geoffrey was a man of
determined mind—he decided to do, and had already taken off his coat
and waistcoat to that end, when suddenly some sort of a boat—he judged
it to be a canoe from the slightness of its shape—loomed up in the mist
before him. An idea struck him: the canoe or its occupant, if anybody
could be insane enough to come out canoeing in such water, might fetch
the curlew and save him a swim.

“Hi!” he shouted in stentorian tones. “Hullo there!”

“Yes,” answered a woman’s gentle voice across the waters.

“Oh,” he replied, struggling to get into his waistcoat again, for the
voice told him that he was dealing with some befogged lady, “I’m sure I
beg your pardon, but would you do me a favour? There is a dead curlew
floating about, not ten yards from your boat. If you wouldn’t mind——”

A white hand was put forward, and the canoe glided on towards the bird.
Presently the hand plunged downwards into the misty waters and the
curlew was bagged. Then, while Geoffrey was still struggling with his
waistcoat, the canoe sped towards him like a dream boat, and in another
moment it was beneath his rock, and a sweet dim face was looking up
into his own.

Now let us go back a little (alas! that the privilege should be
peculiar to the recorder of things done), and see how it came about
that Beatrice Granger was present to retrieve Geoffrey Bingham’s dead
curlew.

Immediately after the unpleasant idea recorded in the last, or, to be
more accurate, in the first chapter of this comedy, had impressed
itself upon Beatrice’s mind, she came to the conclusion that she had
seen enough of the Dog Rocks for one afternoon. Thereon, like a
sensible person, she set herself to quit them in the same way that she
had reached them, namely by means of a canoe. She got into her canoe
safely enough, and paddled a little way out to sea, with a view of
returning to the place whence she came. But the further she went out,
and it was necessary that she should go some way on account of the
rocks and the currents, the denser grew the fog. Sounds came through it
indeed, but she could not clearly distinguish whence they came, till at
last, well as she knew the coast, she grew confused as to whither she
was heading. In this dilemma, while she rested on her paddle staring
into the dense surrounding mist and keeping her grey eyes as wide open
as nature would allow, and that was very wide, she heard the report of
a gun behind her to the right. Arguing to herself that some wild-fowler
on the water must have fired it who would be able to direct her, she
turned the canoe round and paddled swiftly in the direction whence the
sound came. Presently she heard the gun again; both barrels were fired,
in there to the right, but some way off. She paddled on vigorously, but
now no more shots came to guide her, therefore for a while her search
was fruitless. At last, however, she saw something looming through the
mist ahead; it was the Red Rocks, though she did not know it, and she
drew near with caution till Geoffrey’s shout broke upon her ears.

She picked up the dead bird and paddled towards the dim figure who was
evidently wrestling with something, she could not see what.

“Here is the curlew, sir,” she said.

“Oh, thank you,” answered the figure on the rock. “I am infinitely
obliged to you. I was just going to swim for it, I can’t bear losing my
game. It seems so cruel to shoot birds for nothing.”

“I dare say that you will not make much use of it now that you have got
it,” said the gentle voice in the canoe. “Curlew are not very good
eating.”

“That is scarcely the point,” replied the Crusoe on the rock. “The
point is to bring them home. _Après cela——_”

“The birdstuffer?” said the voice.

“No,” answered Crusoe, “the cook——”

A laugh came back from the canoe—and then a question.

“Pray, Mr. Bingham, can you tell me where I am? I have quite lost my
reckoning in the mist.”

He started. How did this mysterious young lady in a boat know his name?

“You are at the Red Rocks; there is the bell, that grey thing,
Miss—Miss——”

“Beatrice Granger,” she put in hastily. “My father is the clergyman of
Bryngelly. I saw you when you and Lady Honoria Bingham looked into the
school yesterday. I teach in the school.” She did not tell him,
however, that his face had interested her so much that she had asked
his name.

Again he started. He had heard of this young lady. Somebody had told
him that she was the prettiest girl in Wales, and the cleverest, but
that her father was not a gentleman.

“Oh,” he said, taking off his hat in the direction of the canoe. “Isn’t
it a little risky, Miss Granger, for you to be canoeing alone in this
mist?”

“Yes,” she answered frankly, “but I am used to it; I go out canoeing in
all possible weathers. It is my amusement, and after all the risk does
not matter much,” she added, more to herself than to him.

While he was wondering what she meant by that dark saying, she went on
quickly:

“Do you know, Mr. Bingham, I think that you are in more danger than I
am. It must be getting near seven o’clock, and the tide is high at a
quarter to eight. Unless I am mistaken there is by now nearly half a
mile of deep water between you and the shore.”

“My word!” he said. “I forgot all about the tide. What between the
shooting and looking for that curlew, and the mist, it never occurred
to me that it was getting late. I suppose I must swim for it, that is
all.”

“No, no,” she answered earnestly, “it is very dangerous swimming here;
the place is full of sharp rocks, and there is a tremendous current.”

“Well, then, what is to be done? Will your canoe carry two? If so,
perhaps you would kindly put me ashore?”

“Yes,” she said, “it is a double canoe. But I dare not take you ashore
here; there are too many rocks, and it is impossible to see the ripple
on them in this mist. We should sink the canoe. No, you must get in and
I must paddle you home to Bryngelly, that’s all. Now that I know where
I am I think that I can find the way.”

“Really,” he said, “you are very good.”

“Not at all,” she answered, “you see I must go myself anyhow, so I
shall be glad of your help. It is nearly five miles by water, you know,
and not a pleasant night.”

There was truth in this. Geoffrey was perfectly prepared to risk a swim
to the shore on his own account, but he did not at all like the idea of
leaving this young lady to find her own way back to Bryngelly through
the mist and gathering darkness, and in that frail canoe. He would not
have liked it if she had been a man, for he knew that there was great
risk in such a voyage. So after making one more fruitless suggestion
that they should try and reach the shore, taking the chance of rocks,
sunken or otherwise, and then walk home, to which Beatrice would not
consent, he accepted her offer.

“At the least you will allow me to paddle,” he said, as she skilfully
brought the canoe right under his rock, which the tide was now high
enough to allow her to do.

“If you like,” she answered doubtfully. “My hands are a little sore,
and, of course,” with a glance at his broad shoulders, “you are much
stronger. But if you are not used to it I dare say that I should get on
as well as you.”

“Nonsense,” he said sharply. “I will not allow you to paddle me for
five miles.”

She yielded without another word, and very gingerly shifted her seat so
that her back was towards the bow of the canoe, leaving him to occupy
the paddling place opposite to her.

Then he handed her his gun, which, together with the dead birds, she
carefully stowed in the bottom of the frail craft. Next, with great
caution, he slid down the rock till his feet rested in the canoe.

“Be careful or you will upset us,” she said, leaning forward and
stretching out her hand for him to support himself by.

Then it was, as he took it, that he for the first time really saw her
face, with the mist drops hanging to the bent eyelashes, and knew how
beautiful it was.




CHAPTER III.
A CONFESSION OF FAITH


“Are you ready?” he said, recovering himself from the pleasing shock of
this serge-draped vision of the mist.

“Yes,” said Beatrice. “You must head straight out to sea for a
little—not too far, for if we get beyond the shelter of Rumball Point
we might founder in the rollers—there are always rollers there—then
steer to the left. I will tell you when. And, Mr. Bingham, please be
careful of the paddle; it has been spliced, and won’t bear rough
usage.”

“All right,” he answered, and they started gaily enough, the light
canoe gliding swiftly forward beneath his sturdy strokes.

Beatrice was leaning back with her head bent a little forward, so that
he could only see her chin and the sweet curve of the lips above it.
But she could see all his face as it swayed towards her with each
motion of the paddle, and she watched it with interest. It was a new
type of face to her, so strong and manly, and yet so gentle about the
mouth—almost too gentle she thought. What made him marry Lady Honoria?
Beatrice wondered; she did not look particularly gentle, though she was
such a graceful woman.

And thus they went on for some time, each wondering about the other and
at heart admiring the other, which was not strange, for they were a
very proper pair, but saying no word till at last, after about a
quarter of an hour’s hard paddling, Geoffrey paused to rest.

“Do you do much of this kind of thing, Miss Granger?” he said with a
gasp, “because it is rather hard work.”

She laughed. “Ah,” she said, “I thought you would scarcely go on
paddling at that rate. Yes, I canoe a great deal in the summer time. It
is my way of taking exercise, and I can swim well, so I am not afraid
of an upset. At least it has been my way for the last two years since a
lady who was staying here gave me the canoe when she went away. Before
that I used to row in a boat—that is, before I went to college.”

“College? What college? Girton?”

“Oh, no, nothing half so grand. It was a college where you get
certificates that you are qualified to be a mistress in a Board school.
I wish it had been Girton.”

“Do you?”—you are too good for that, he was going to add, but changed
it to—“I think you were as well away. I don’t care about the Girton
stamp; those of them whom I have known are so hard.”

“So much the better for them,” she answered. “I should like to be hard
as a stone; a stone cannot feel. Don’t you think that women ought to
learn, then?”

“Do you?” he asked.

“Yes, certainly.”

“Have you learnt anything?”

“I have taught myself a little and picked up something at the college.
But I have no real knowledge, only a smattering of things.”

“What do you know—French and German?”

“Yes.”

“Latin?”

“Yes, I know something of it.”

“Greek?”

“I can read it fairly, but I am not a Greek scholar.”

“Mathematics?”

“No, I gave them up. There is no human nature about mathematics. They
work everything to a fixed conclusion that must result. Life is not
like that; what ought to be a square comes out a right angle, and _x_
always equals an unknown quantity, which is never ascertained till you
are dead.”

“Good gracious!” thought Geoffrey to himself between the strokes of the
paddle, “what an extraordinary girl. A flesh-and-blood blue-stocking,
and a lovely one into the bargain. At any rate I will bowl her out this
time.”

“Perhaps you have read law too?” he said with suppressed sarcasm.

“I have read some,” she answered calmly. “I like law, especially Equity
law; it is so subtle, and there is such a mass of it built upon such a
small foundation. It is like an overgrown mushroom, and the top will
fall off one day, however hard the lawyers try to prop it up. Perhaps
you can tell me——”

“No, I’m sure I cannot,” he answered. “I’m not a Chancery man. I am
Common law, and _I_ don’t take all knowledge for _my_ province. You
positively alarm me, Miss Granger. I wonder that the canoe does not
sink beneath so much learning.”

“Do I?” she answered sweetly. “I am glad that I have lived to frighten
somebody. I meant that I like Equity to study; but if I were a
barrister, I would be Common law, because there is so much more life
and struggle about it. Existence is not worth having unless one is
struggling with something and trying to overcome it.”

“Dear me, what a reposeful prospect,” said Geoffrey, aghast. He had
certainly never met such a woman as this before.

“Repose is only good when it is earned,” went on the fair philosopher,
“and in order to fit one to earn some more, otherwise it becomes
idleness, and that is misery. Fancy being idle when one has such a
little time to live. The only thing to do is to work and stifle
thought. I suppose that you have a large practice, Mr. Bingham?”

“You should not ask a barrister that question,” he answered, laughing;
“it is like looking at the pictures which an artist has turned to the
wall. No, to be frank, I have not. I have only taken to practising in
earnest during the last two years. Before I was a barrister in name,
and that is all.”

“Then why did you suddenly begin to work?”

“Because I lost my prospects, Miss Granger—from necessity, in short.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” she said, with a blush, which of course he
could not see. “I did not mean to be rude. But it is very lucky for
you, is it not?”

“Indeed! Some people don’t think so. Why is it lucky?”

“Because you will now rise and become a great man, and that is more
than being a rich man.”

“And why do you think that I shall become a great man?” he asked,
stopping paddling in his astonishment and looking at the dim form
before him.

“Oh! because it is written on your face,” she answered simply.

Her words rang true; there was no flattery or artifice in them.
Geoffrey felt that the girl was saying just what she thought.

“So you study physiognomy as well,” he said. “Well, Miss Granger, it is
rather odd, considering all things, but I will say to you what I have
never said to any one before. I believe that you are right. I shall
rise. If I live I feel that I have it in me.”

At this point it possibly occurred to Beatrice that, considering the
exceeding brevity of their acquaintance, they were drifting into
somewhat confidential conversation. At any rate, she quickly changed
the topic.

“I am afraid you are growing tired,” she said; “but we must be getting
on. It will soon be quite dark and we have still a long way to go. Look
there,” and she pointed seaward.

He looked. The whole bank of mist was breaking up and bearing down on
them in enormous billows of vapour. Presently, these were rolling over
them, so darkening the heavy air that, though the pair were within four
feet of each other, they could scarcely see one another’s faces. As yet
they felt no wind. The dense weight of mist choked the keen, impelling
air.

“I think the weather is breaking; we are going to have a storm,” said
Beatrice, a little anxiously.

Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when the mist passed away from
them, and from all the seaward expanse of ocean. Not a wrack of it was
left, and in its place the strong sea-breath beat upon their faces. Far
in the west the angry disc of the sun was sinking into the foam. A
great red ray shot from its bent edge and lay upon the awakened waters,
like a path of fire. The ominous light fell full upon the little boat
and full upon Beatrice’s lips. Then it passed on and lost itself in the
deep mists which still swathed the coast.

“Oh, how beautiful it is!” she cried, raising herself and pointing to
the glory of the dying sun.

“It is beautiful indeed!” he answered, but he looked, not at the
sunset, but at the woman’s face before him, glowing like a saint’s in
its golden aureole. For this also was most beautiful—so beautiful that
it stirred him strangely.

“It is like——” she began, and broke off suddenly.

“What is it like?” he asked.

“It is like finding truth at last,” she answered, speaking as much to
herself as to him. “Why, one might make an allegory out of it. We
wander in mist and darkness shaping a vague course for home. And then
suddenly the mists are blown away, glory fills the air, and there is no
more doubt, only before us is a splendour making all things clear and
lighting us over a deathless sea. It sounds rather too grand,” she
added, with a charming little laugh; “but there is something in it
somewhere, if only I could express myself. Oh, look!”

As she spoke a heavy storm-cloud rolled over the vanishing rim of the
sun. For a moment the light struggled with the eclipsing cloud, turning
its dull edge to the hue of copper, but the cloud was too strong and
the light vanished, leaving the sea in darkness.

“Well,” he said, “your allegory would have a dismal end if you worked
it out. It is getting as dark as pitch, and there’s a good deal in
_that_, if only _I_ could express myself.”

Beatrice dropped poetry, and came down to facts in a way that was very
commendable.

“There is a squall coming up, Mr. Bingham,” she said; “you must paddle
as hard as you can. I do not think we are more than two miles from
Bryngelly, and if we are lucky we may get there before the weather
breaks.”

“Yes, _if_ we are lucky,” he said grimly, as he bent himself to the
work. “But the question is where to paddle to—it’s so dark. Had not we
better run for the shore?”

“We are in the middle of the bay now,” she answered, “and almost as far
from the nearest land as we are from Bryngelly, besides it is all
rocks. No, you must go straight on. You will see the Poise light beyond
Coed presently. You know Coed is four miles on the other side of
Bryngelly, so when you see it head to the left.”

He obeyed her, and they neither of them spoke any more for some time.
Indeed the rising wind made conversation difficult, and so far as
Geoffrey was concerned he had little breath left to spare for words. He
was a strong man, but the unaccustomed labour was beginning to tell on
him, and his hands were blistering. For ten minutes or so he paddled on
through a darkness which was now almost total, wondering where on earth
he was wending, for it was quite impossible to see. For all he knew to
the contrary, he might be circling round and round. He had only one
thing to direct him, the sweep of the continually rising wind and the
wash of the gathering waves. So long as these struck the canoe, which
now began to roll ominously, on the starboard side, he must, he
thought, be keeping a right course. But in the turmoil of the rising
gale and the confusion of the night, this was no very satisfactory
guide. At length, however, a broad and brilliant flash sprung out
across the sea, almost straight ahead of him. It was the Poise light.

He altered his course a little and paddled steadily on. And now the
squall was breaking. Fortunately, it was not a very heavy one, or their
frail craft must have sunk and they with it. But it was quite serious
enough to put them in great danger. The canoe rose to the waves like a
feather, but she was broadside on, and rise as she would they began to
ship a little water. And they had not seen the worst of it. The weather
was still thickening.

Still he held on, though his heart sank within him, while Beatrice said
nothing. Presently a big wave came; he could just see its white crest
gleaming through the gloom, then it was on them. The canoe rose to it
gallantly; it seemed to curl right over her, making the craft roll till
Geoffrey thought that the end had come. But she rode it out, not,
however, without shipping more than a bucket of water. Without saying a
word, Beatrice took the cloth cap from her head and, leaning forward,
began to bale as best she could, and that was not very well.

“This will not do,” he called. “I must keep her head to the sea or we
shall be swamped.”

“Yes,” she answered, “keep her head up. We are in great danger.”

He glanced to his right; another white sea was heaving down on him; he
could just see its glittering crest. With all his force he dug the
paddle into the water; the canoe answered to it; she came round just in
time to ride out the wave with safety, but the paddle _snapped_. It was
already sprung, and the weight he put upon it was more than it could
bear. Right in two it broke, some nine inches above that blade which at
the moment was buried in the water. He felt it go, and despair took
hold of him.

“Great heavens!” he cried, “the paddle is broken.”

Beatrice gasped.

“You must use the other blade,” she said; “paddle first one side and
then on the other, and keep her head on.”

“Till we sink,” he answered.

“No, till we are saved—never talk of sinking.”

The girl’s courage shamed him, and he obeyed her instructions as best
he could. By dint of continually shifting what remained of the paddle
from one side of the canoe to the other, he did manage to keep her head
on to the waves that were now rolling in apace. But in their hearts
they both wondered how long this would last.

“Have you got any cartridges?” she asked presently.

“Yes, in my coat pocket,” he answered.

“Give me two, if you can manage it,” she said.

In an interval between the coming of two seas he contrived to slip his
hand into a pocket and transfer the cartridges. Apparently she knew
something of the working of a gun, for presently there was a flash and
a report, quickly followed by another.

“Give me some more cartridges,” she cried. He did so, but nothing
followed.

“It is no use,” she said at length, “the cartridges are wet. I cannot
get the empty cases out. But perhaps they may have seen or heard them.
Old Edward is sure to be watching for me. You had better throw the rest
into the sea if you can manage it,” she added by way of an
afterthought; “we may have to swim presently.”

To Geoffrey this seemed very probable, and whenever he got a chance he
acted on the hint till at length he was rid of all his cartridges. Just
then it began to rain in torrents. Though it was not warm the
perspiration was streaming from him at every pore, and the rain beating
on his face refreshed him somewhat; also with the rain the wind dropped
a little.

But he was becoming tired out and he knew it. Soon he would no longer
be able to keep the canoe straight, and then they must be swamped, and
in all human probability drowned. So this was to be the end of his life
and its ambitions. Before another hour had run its course, he would be
rolling to and fro in the arms of that angry sea. What would his wife
Honoria say when she heard the news, he wondered? Perhaps it would
shock her into some show of feeling. And Effie, his dear little
six-year-old daughter? Well, thank God, she was too young to feel his
loss for long. By the time that she was a woman she would almost have
forgotten that she ever had a father. But how would she get on without
him to guide her? Her mother did not love children, and a growing girl
would continually remind her of her growing years. He could not tell;
he could only hope for the best.

And for himself! What would become of him after the short sharp
struggle for life? Should he find endless sleep, or what? He was a
Christian, and his life had not been worse than that of other men.
Indeed, though he would have been the last to think it, he had some
redeeming virtues. But now at the end the spiritual horizon was as dark
as it had been at the beginning. There before him were the Gates of
Death, but not yet would they roll aside and show the traveller what
lay beyond their frowning face. How could he tell? Perhaps they would
not open at all. Perhaps he now bade his last farewell to
consciousness, to earth and sky and sea and love and all lovely things.
Well, that might be better than some prospects. At that moment Geoffrey
Bingham, in the last agony of doubt, would gladly have exchanged his
hopes of life beyond for a certainty of eternal sleep. That faith which
enables some of us to tread this awful way with an utter confidence is
not a wide prerogative, and, as yet, at any rate, it was not his,
though the time might come when he would attain it. There are not very
many, even among those without reproach, who can lay them down in the
arms of Death, knowing most certainly that when the veil is rent away
the countenance that they shall see will be that of the blessed
Guardian of Mankind. Alas! he could not be altogether sure, and where
doubt exists, hope is but a pin-pricked bladder. He sighed heavily,
murmured a little formula of prayer that had been on his lips most
nights during thirty years—he had learnt it as a child at his mother’s
knee—and then, while the tempest roared around him, gathered up his
strength to meet the end which seemed inevitable. At any rate he would
die like a man.

Then came a reaction. His vital forces rose again. He no longer felt
fearful, he only wondered with a strange impersonal wonder, as a man
wonders about the vital affairs of another. Then from wondering about
himself he began to wonder about the girl who sat opposite to him. With
the rain came a little lightning, and by the first flash he saw her
clearly. Her beautiful face was set, and as she bent forward searching
the darkness with her wide eyes, it wore, he thought, an almost defiant
air.

The canoe twisted round somewhat. He dug his broken paddle into the
water and once more brought her head on to the sea. Then he spoke.

“Are you afraid?” he asked of Beatrice.

“No,” she answered, “I am not afraid.”

“Do you know that we shall probably be drowned?”

“Yes, I know it. They say the death is easy. I brought you here.
Forgive me that. I should have tried to row you ashore as you said.”

“Never mind me; a man must meet his fate some day. Do not think of me.
But I can’t keep her head on much longer. You had better say your
prayers.”

Beatrice bent forward till her head was quite near his own. The wind
had blown some of her hair loose, and though he did not seem to notice
it at the time, he remembered afterwards that a lock of it struck him
on the face.

“I cannot pray,” she said; “I have nothing to pray to. I am not a
Christian.”

The words struck him like a blow. It seemed so awful to think of this
proud and brilliant woman, now balanced on the verge of what she
believed to be utter annihilation. Even the courage that induced her at
such a moment to confess her hopeless state seemed awful.

“Try,” he said with a gasp.

“No,” she answered, “I do not fear to die. Death cannot be worse than
life is for most of us. I have not prayed for years, not since—well,
never mind. I am not a coward. It would be cowardly to pray now because
I may be wrong. If there is a God who knows all, He will understand
that.”

Geoffrey said no more, but laboured at the broken paddle gallantly and
with an ever-failing strength. The lightning had passed away and the
darkness was very great, for the hurrying clouds hid the starlight.
Presently a sound arose above the turmoil of the storm, a crashing
thunderous sound towards which the send of the sea gradually bore them.
The sound came from the waves that beat upon the Bryngelly reef.

“Where are we drifting to?” he cried.

“Into the breakers, where we shall be lost,” she answered calmly. “Give
up paddling, it is of no use, and try to take off your coat. I have
loosened my skirt. Perhaps we can swim ashore.”

He thought to himself that in the dark and breakers such an event was
not probable, but he said nothing, and addressed himself to the task of
getting rid of his coat and waistcoat—no easy one in that confined
space. Meanwhile the canoe was whirling round and round like a walnut
shell upon a flooded gutter. For some distance before the waves broke
upon the reef and rocks they swept in towards them with a steady
foamless swell. On reaching the shallows, however, they pushed their
white shoulders high into the air, curved up and fell in thunder on the
reef.

The canoe rode towards the breakers, sucked upon its course by a
swelling sea.

“Good-bye,” called Geoffrey to Beatrice, as stretching out his wet hand
he found her own and took it, for companionship makes death a little
easier.

“Good-bye,” she cried, clinging to his hand. “Oh, why did I bring you
into this?”

For in their last extremity this woman thought rather of her companion
in peril than of herself.

One more turn, then suddenly the canoe beneath them was lifted like a
straw and tossed high into the air. A mighty mass of water boiled up
beneath it and around it. Then the foam rushed in, and vaguely Geoffrey
knew that they were wrapped in the curve of a billow.

A swift and mighty rush of water. Crash!—and his senses left him.




CHAPTER IV.
THE WATCHER AT THE DOOR


This was what had happened. Just about the centre of the reef is a
large flat-topped rock—it may be twenty feet in the square—known to the
Bryngelly fishermen as Table Rock. In ordinary weather, even at high
tide, the waters scarcely cover this rock, but when there is any sea
they wash over it with great violence. On to this rock Geoffrey and
Beatrice had been hurled by the breaker. Fortunately for them it was
thickly overgrown with seaweed, which to some slight extent broke the
violence of their fall. As it chanced, Geoffrey was knocked senseless
by the shock; but Beatrice, whose hand he still held, fell on to him
and, with the exception of a few bruises and a shake, escaped unhurt.

She struggled to her knees, gasping. The water had run off the rock,
and her companion lay quiet at her side. She put down her face and
called into his ear, but no answer came, and then she knew that he was
either dead or senseless.

At this second Beatrice caught a glimpse of something white gleaming in
the darkness. Instinctively she flung herself upon her face, gripping
the long tough seaweed with one hand. The other she passed round the
body of the helpless man beside her, straining him with all her
strength against her side.

Then came a wild long rush of foam. The water lifted her from the rock,
but the seaweed held, and when at length the sea had gone boiling by,
Beatrice found herself and the senseless form of Geoffrey once more
lying side by side. She was half choked. Desperately she struggled up
and round, looking shoreward through the darkness. Heavens! there, not
a hundred yards away, a light shone upon the waters. It was a boat’s
light, for it moved up and down. She filled her lungs with air and sent
one long cry for help ringing across the sea. A moment passed and she
thought that she heard an answer, but because of the wind and the roar
of the breakers she could not be sure. Then she turned and glanced
seaward. Again the foaming terror was rushing down upon them; again she
flung herself upon the rock and grasping the slippery seaweed twined
her left arm about the helpless Geoffrey.

It was on them.

Oh, horror! Even in the turmoil of the boiling waters Beatrice felt the
seaweed give. Now they were being swept along with the rushing wave,
and Death drew very near. But still she clung to Geoffrey. Once more
the air touched her face. She had risen to the surface and was floating
on the stormy water. The wave had passed. Loosing her hold of Geoffrey
she slipped her hand upwards, and as he began to sink clutched him by
the hair. Then treading water with her feet, for happily for them both
she was as good a swimmer as could be found upon that coast, she
managed to open her eyes. There, not sixty yards away, was the boat’s
light. Oh, if only she could reach it. She spat the salt water from her
mouth and once more cried aloud. The light seemed to move on.

Then another wave rolled forward and once more she was pushed down into
the cruel depths, for with that dead weight hanging to her she could
not keep above them. It flashed into her mind that if she let him go
she might even now save herself, but even in that last terror this
Beatrice would not do. If he went, she would go with him.

It would have been better if she had let him go.

Down she went—down, down! “I will hold him,” Beatrice said in her
heart; “I will hold him till I die.” Then came waves of light and a
sound as of wind whispering through the trees, and—all grew dark.


“I tell yer it ain’t no good, Eddard,” shouted a man in the boat to an
old sailor who was leaning forward in the bows peering into the
darkness. “We shall be right on to the Table Rocks in a minute and all
drown together. Put about, mate—put about.”

“Damn yer,” screamed the old man, turning so that the light from the
lantern fell on his furrowed, fiercely anxious face and long white hair
streaming in the wind. “Damn yer, ye cowards. I tells yer I heard her
voice—I heard it twice screaming for help. If you put the boat about,
by Goad when I get ashore I’ll kill yer, ye lubbers—old man as I am
I’ll kill yer, if I swing for it!”

This determined sentiment produced a marked effect upon the boat’s
crew; there were eight of them altogether. They did not put the boat
about, they only lay upon their oars and kept her head to the seas.

The old man in the bow peered out into the gloom. He was shaking, not
with cold but with agitation.

Presently he turned his head with a yell.

“Give way—give way! there’s something on the wave.”

The men obeyed with a will.

“Back,” he roared again—“back water!”

They backed, and the boat answered, but nothing was to be seen.

“She’s gone! Oh, Goad, she’s gone!” groaned the old man. “You may put
about now, lads, and the Lord’s will be done.”

The light from the lantern fell in a little ring upon the seething
water. Suddenly something white appeared in the centre of this
illuminated ring. Edward stared at it. It was floating upwards. It
vanished—it appeared again. It was a woman’s face. With a yell he
plunged his arms into the sea.

“I have her—lend an hand, lads.”

Another man scrambled forward and together they clutched the object in
the water.

“Look out, don’t pull so hard, you fool. Blow me if there ain’t another
and she’s got him by the hair. So, _steady, steady!_”

A long heave from strong arms and the senseless form of Beatrice was on
the gunwale. Then they pulled up Geoffrey beside her, for they could
not loose her desperate grip of his dark hair, and together rolled them
into the boat.

“They’re dead, I doubt,” said the second man.

“Help turn ‘em on their faces over the seat, so—let the water drain
from their innards. It’s the only chance. Now give me that sail to
cover them—so. You’ll live yet, Miss Beatrice, you ain’t dead, I swear.
Old Eddard has saved you, Old Eddard and the good Goad together!”

Meanwhile the boat had been got round, and the men were rowing for
Bryngelly as warm-hearted sailors will when life is at stake. They all
knew Beatrice and loved her, and they remembered it as they rowed. The
gloom was little hindrance to them for they could almost have navigated
the coast blindfold. Besides here they were sheltered by the reef and
shore.

In five minutes they were round a little headland, and the lights of
Bryngelly were close before them. On the beach people were moving about
with lanterns.

Presently they were there, hanging on their oars for a favourable wave
to beach with. At last it came, and they gave way together, running the
large boat half out of the surf. A dozen men plunged into the water and
dragged her on. They were safe ashore.

“Have you got Miss Beatrice?” shouted a voice.

“Ay, we’ve got her and another too, but I doubt they’re gone. Where’s
doctor?”

“Here, here!” answered a voice. “Bring the stretchers.”

A stout thick-set man, who had been listening, wrapped up in a dark
cloak, turned his face away and uttered a groan. Then he followed the
others as they went to work, not offering to help, but merely
following.

The stretchers were brought and the two bodies laid upon them, face
downwards and covered over.

“Where to?” said the bearers as they seized the poles.

“The Vicarage,” answered the doctor. “I told them to get things ready
there in case they should find her. Run forward one of you and say that
we are coming.”

The men started at a trot and the crowd ran after them.

“Who is the other?” somebody asked.

“Mr. Bingham—the tall lawyer who came down from London the other day.
Tell policeman—run to his wife. She’s at Mrs. Jones’s, and thinks he
has lost his way in the fog coming home from Bell Rock.”

The policeman departed on his melancholy errand and the procession
moved swiftly across the sandy beach and up the stone-paved way by
which boats were dragged down the cliff to the sea. The village of
Bryngelly lay to the right. It had grown away from the church, which
stood dangerously near the edge of the cliff. On the further side of
the church, and a little behind it, partly sheltered from the sea gales
by a group of stunted firs, was the Vicarage, a low single-storied
stone-roofed building, tenanted for twenty-five years past and more by
Beatrice’s father, the Rev. Joseph Granger. The best approach to it
from the Bryngelly side was by the churchyard, through which the men
with the stretchers were now winding, followed by the crowd of
sightseers.

“Might as well leave them here at once,” said one of the bearers to the
other in Welsh. “I doubt they are both dead enough.”

The person addressed assented, and the thick-set man wrapped in a dark
cloak, who was striding along by Beatrice’s stretcher, groaned again.
Clearly, he understood the Welsh tongue. A few seconds more and they
were passing through the stunted firs up to the Vicarage door. In the
doorway stood a group of people. The light from a lamp in the hall
struck upon them, throwing them into strong relief. Foremost, holding a
lantern in his hand, was a man of about sixty, with snow-white hair
which fell in confusion over his rugged forehead. He was of middle
height and carried himself with something of a stoop. The eyes were
small and shifting, and the mouth hard. He wore short whiskers which,
together with the eyebrows, were still tinged with yellow. The face was
ruddy and healthy looking, indeed, had it not been for the dirty white
tie and shabby black coat, one would have taken him to be what he was
in heart, a farmer of the harder sort, somewhat weather-beaten and
anxious about the times—a man who would take advantage of every drop in
the rate of wages. In fact he was Beatrice’s father, and a clergyman.

By his side, and leaning over him, was Elizabeth, her elder sister.
There was five years between them. She was a poor copy of Beatrice, or,
to be more accurate, Beatrice was a grand development of Elizabeth.
They both had brown hair, but Elizabeth’s was straighter and
faint-coloured, not rich and ruddying into gold. Elizabeth’s eyes were
also grey, but it was a cold washed-out grey like that of a February
sky. And so with feature after feature, and with the expression also.
Beatrice’s was noble and open, if at times defiant. Looking at her you
knew that she might be a mistaken woman, or a headstrong woman, or
both, but she could never be a mean woman. Whichever of the ten
commandments she might choose to break, it would not be that which
forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbour. Anybody might
read it in her eyes. But in her sister’s, he might discern her father’s
shifty hardness watered by woman’s weaker will into something like
cunning. For the rest Elizabeth had a very fair figure, but lacked her
sister’s rounded loveliness, though the two were so curiously alike
that at a distance you might well mistake the one for the other. One
might almost fancy that nature had experimented upon Elizabeth before
she made up her mind to produce Beatrice, just to get the lines and
distances. The elder sister was to the other what the pale unfinished
model of clay is to the polished statue in ivory and gold.

“Oh, my God! my God!” groaned the old man; “look, they have got them on
the stretchers. They are both dead. Oh, Beatrice! Beatrice! and only
this morning I spoke harshly to her.”

“Don’t be so foolish, father,” said Elizabeth sharply. “They may only
be insensible.”

“Ah, ah,” he answered; “it does not matter to you, _you_ don’t care
about your sister. You are jealous of her. But I love her, though we do
not understand each other. Here they come. Don’t stand staring there.
Go and see that the blankets and things are hot. Stop, doctor, tell me,
is she dead?”

“How can I tell till I have seen her?” the doctor answered, roughly
shaking him off, and passing through the door.

Bryngelly Vicarage was a very simply constructed house. On entering the
visitor found himself in a passage with doors to the right and left.
That to the right led to the sitting-room, that to the left to the
dining-room, both of them long, low and narrow chambers. Following the
passage down for some seven paces, it terminated in another which ran
at right angles to it for the entire length of the house. On the
further side of this passage were several bedroom doors and a room at
each end. That at the end to the right was occupied by Beatrice and her
sister, the next was empty, the third was Mr. Granger’s, and the fourth
the spare room. This, with the exception of the kitchens and servants’
sleeping place, which were beyond the dining-room, made up the house.

Fires had been lit in both of the principal rooms. Geoffrey was taken
into the dining-room and attended by the doctor’s assistant, and
Beatrice into the sitting-room, and attended by the doctor himself. In
a few seconds the place had been cleared of all except the helpers, and
the work began. The doctor looked at Beatrice’s cold shrunken form, and
at the foam upon her lips. He lifted the eyelid, and held a light
before the contracted pupil. Then he shook his head and set to work
with a will. We need not follow him through the course of his dreadful
labours, with which most people will have some acquaintance. Hopeless
as they seemed, he continued them for hour after hour.

Meanwhile the assistant and some helpers were doing the same service
for Geoffrey Bingham, the doctor himself, a thin clever-looking man,
occasionally stepping across the passage to direct them and see how
things were getting on. Now, although Geoffrey had been in the water
the longer, his was by far the better case, for when he was immersed he
was already insensible, and a person in this condition is very hard to
drown. It is your struggling, fighting, breathing creature who is
soonest made an end of in deep waters. Therefore it came to pass that
when the scrubbing with hot cloths and the artificial respiration had
gone on for somewhere about twenty minutes, Geoffrey suddenly crooked a
finger. The doctor’s assistant, a buoyant youth fresh from the
hospitals, gave a yell of exultation, and scrubbed and pushed away with
ever-increasing energy. Presently the subject coughed, and a minute
later, as the agony of returning life made itself felt, he swore most
heartily.

“He’s all right now!” called the assistant to his employer. “He’s
swearing beautifully.”

Dr. Chambers, pursuing his melancholy and unpromising task in the other
room, smiled sadly, and called to the assistant to continue the
treatment, which he did with much vigour.

Presently Geoffrey came partially to life, still suffering torments.
The first thing he grew aware of was that a tall elegant woman was
standing over him, looking at him with a half puzzled and half
horrified air. Vaguely he wondered who it might be. The tall form and
cold handsome face were so familiar to him, and yet he could not recall
the name. It was not till she spoke that his numbed brain realized that
he was looking on his own wife.

“Well, dear,” she said, “I am so glad that you are better. You
frightened me out of my wits. I thought you were drowned.”

“Thank you, Honoria,” he said faintly, and then groaned as a fresh
attack of tingling pain shook him through and through.

“I hope nobody said anything to Effie,” Geoffrey said presently.

“Yes, the child would not go to bed because you were not back, and when
the policeman came she heard him tell Mrs. Jones that you were drowned,
and she has been almost in a fit ever since. They had to hold her to
prevent her from running here.”

Geoffrey’s white face assumed an air of the deepest distress. “How
could you frighten the child so?” he murmured. “Please go and tell her
that I am all right.”

“It was not my fault,” said Lady Honoria with a shrug of her shapely
shoulders. “Besides, I can do nothing with Effie. She goes on like a
wild thing about you.”

“Please go and tell her, Honoria,” said her husband.

“Oh, yes, I’ll go,” she answered. “Really I shall not be sorry to get
out of this; I begin to feel as though I had been drowned myself;” and
she looked at the steaming cloths and shuddered. “Good-bye, Geoffrey.
It is an immense relief to find you all right. The policeman made me
feel quite queer. I can’t get down to give you a kiss or I would. Well,
good-bye for the present, my dear.”

“Good-bye, Honoria,” said her husband with a faint smile.

The medical assistant looked a little surprised. He had never, it is
true, happened to be present at a meeting between husband and wife,
when one of the pair had just been rescued by a hair’s-breadth from a
violent and sudden death, and therefore wanted experience to go on. But
it struck him that there was something missing. The lady did not seem
to him quite to fill the part of the Heaven-thanking spouse. It puzzled
him very much. Perhaps he showed this in his face. At any rate, Lady
Honoria, who was quick enough, read something there.

“He is safe now, is he not?” she asked. “It will not matter if I go
away.”

“No, my lady,” answered the assistant, “he is out of danger, I think;
it will not matter at all.”

Lady Honoria hesitated a little; she was standing in the passage. Then
she glanced through the door into the opposite room, and caught a
glimpse of Beatrice’s rigid form and of the doctor bending over it. Her
head was thrown back and the beautiful brown hair, which was now almost
dry again, streamed in masses to the ground, while on her face was
stamped the terrifying seal of Death.

Lady Honoria shuddered. She could not bear such sights. “Will it be
necessary for me to come back to-night?” she said.

“I do not think so,” he answered, “unless you care to hear whether Miss
Granger recovers?”

“I shall hear that in the morning,” she said. “Poor thing, I cannot
help her.”

“No, Lady Honoria, you cannot help her. She saved your husband’s life,
they say.”

“She must be a brave girl. Will she recover?”

The assistant shook his head. “She may, possibly. It is not likely
now.”

“Poor thing, and so young and beautiful! What a lovely face, and what
an arm! It is very awful for her,” and Lady Honoria shuddered again and
went.

Outside the door a small knot of sympathisers was still gathered,
notwithstanding the late hour and the badness of the weather.

“That’s his wife,” said one, and they opened to let her pass.

“Then why don’t she stop with him?” asked a woman audibly. “If it had
been my husband I’d have sat and hugged him for an hour.”

“Ay, you’d have killed him with your hugging, you would,” somebody
answered.

Lady Honoria passed on. Suddenly a thick-set man emerged from the
shadow of the pines. She could not see his face, but he was wrapped in
a large cloak.

“Forgive me,” he said in the hoarse voice of one struggling with
emotions which he was unable to conceal, “but you can tell me. Does she
still live?”

“Do you mean Miss Granger?” she asked.

“Yes, of course. Beatrice—Miss Granger?”

“They do not know, but they think——”

“Yes, yes—they think——”

“That she is dead.”

The man said never a word. He dropped his head upon his breast and,
turning, vanished again into the shadow of the pines.

“How very odd,” thought Lady Honoria as she walked rapidly along the
cliff towards her lodging. “I suppose that man must be in love with
her. Well, I do not wonder at it. I never saw such a face and arm. What
a picture that scene in the room would make! She saved Geoffrey and now
she’s dead. If he had saved her I should not have wondered. It is like
a scene in a novel.”

From all of which it will be seen that Lady Honoria was not wanting in
certain romantic and artistical perceptions.




CHAPTER V.
ELIZABETH IS THANKFUL


Geoffrey, lying before the fire, newly hatched from death, had caught
some of the conversation between his wife and the assistant who had
recovered him to life. So she was gone, that brave, beautiful atheist
girl—gone to test the truth. And she had saved his life!

For some minutes the assistant did not enter. He was helping in another
room. At last he came.

“What did you say to Lady Honoria?” Geoffrey asked feebly. “Did you say
that Miss Granger had saved me?”

“Yes, Mr. Bingham; at least they tell me so. At any rate, when they
pulled her out of the water they pulled you after her. She had hold of
your hair.”

“Great heavens!” he groaned, “and my weight must have dragged her down.
Is she dead, then?”

“We cannot quite say yet, not for certain. We think that she is.”

“Pray God she is not dead,” he said more to himself than to the other.
Then aloud—“Leave me; I am all right. Go and help with her. But stop,
come and tell me sometimes how it goes with her.”

“Very well. I will send a woman to watch you,” and he went.

Meanwhile in the other room the treatment of the drowned went slowly
on. Two hours had passed, and as yet Beatrice showed no signs of
recovery. The heart did not beat, no pulse stirred; but, as the doctor
knew, life might still linger in the tissues. Slowly, very slowly, the
body was turned to and fro, the head swaying, and the long hair falling
now this way and now that, but still no sign. Every resource known to
medical skill, such as hot air, rubbing, artificial respiration,
electricity, was applied and applied in vain, but still no sign!

Elizabeth, pale and pinched, stood by handing what might be required.
She did not greatly love her sister, they were antagonistic and their
interests clashed, or she thought they did, but this sudden death was
awful. In a corner, pitiful to see, offering groans and ejaculated
prayers to heaven, sat the old clergymen, their father, his white hair
about his eyes. He was a weak, coarse-grained man, but in his own way
his clever and beautiful girl was dear to him, and this sight wrung his
soul as it had not been wrung for years.

“She’s gone,” he said continually, “she’s gone; the Lord’s will be
done. There must be another mistress at the school now. Seventy pounds
a year she will cost—seventy pounds a year!”

“Do be quiet, father,” said Elizabeth sharply.

“Ay, ay, it is very well for you to tell me to be quiet. You are quiet
because you don’t care. You never loved your sister. But I have loved
her since she was a little fair-haired child, and so did your poor
mother. ‘Beatrice’ was the last word she spoke.”

“Be quiet, father!” said Elizabeth, still more sharply. The old man,
making no reply, sank back into a semi-torpor, rocking himself to and
fro upon his chair.

Meanwhile without intermission the work went on.

“It is no use,” said the assistant at last, as he straightened his
weary frame and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “She must be
dead; we have been at it nearly three hours now.”

“Patience,” said the doctor. “If necessary I shall go on for four—or
till I drop,” he added.

Ten minutes more passed. Everybody knew that the task was hopeless, but
still they hoped.

“Great Heavens!” said the assistant presently, starting back from the
body and pointing at its face. “Did you see that?”

Elizabeth and Mr. Granger sprang to their feet, crying, “What, what?”

“Sit still, sir,” said the doctor, waving them back. Then addressing
his helper, and speaking in a constrained voice: “I thought I saw the
right eyelid quiver, Williams. Pass the battery.”

“So did I,” answered Williams as he obeyed.

“Full power,” said the doctor again. “It is kill or cure now.”

The shock was applied for some seconds without result. Then suddenly a
long shudder ran up the limbs, and a hand stirred. Next moment the eyes
were opened, and with pain and agony Beatrice drew a first breath of
returning life. Ten minutes more and she had passed through the gates
of Death back to this warm and living world.

“Let me die,” she gasped faintly. “I cannot bear it. Oh, let me die!”

“Hush,” said the doctor; “you will be better presently.”

Ten minutes more passed, when the doctor saw by her eyes that Beatrice
wished to say something. He bent his head till it nearly touched her
lips.

“Dr. Chambers,” she whispered, “was he drowned?”

“No, he is safe; he has been brought round.”

She sighed—a long-drawn sigh, half of pain, half of relief. Then she
spoke again.

“Was he washed ashore?”

“No, no. You saved his life. You had hold of him when they pulled you
out. Now drink this and go to sleep.”

Beatrice smiled sweetly, but said nothing. Then she drank as much of
the draught as she could, and shortly afterwards obeyed the last
injunction also, and went to sleep.

Meanwhile a rumour of this wonderful recovery had escaped to without
the house—passing from one watcher to the other till at length it
reached the ears of the solitary man crouched in the shadow of the
pines. He heard, and starting as though he had been shot, strode to the
door of the Vicarage. Here his courage seemed to desert him, for he
hesitated.

“Knock, squire, knock, and ask if it is true,” said a woman, the same
who had declared that she would have hugged her husband back to life.

This remark seemed to encourage the man, at any rate he did knock.
Presently the door was opened by Elizabeth.

“Go away,” she said in her sharp voice; “the house must be kept quiet.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Granger,” said the visitor, in a tone of deep
humiliation. “I only wanted to know if it was true that Miss Beatrice
lives.”

“Why,” said Elizabeth with a start, “is it you, Mr. Davies? I am sure I
had no idea. Step into the passage and I will shut the door. There! How
long have you been outside?”

“Oh, since they brought them up. But is it true?”

“Yes, yes, it is true. She will recover now. And you have stood all
this time in the wet night. I am sure that Beatrice ought to be
flattered.”

“Not at all. It seemed so awful, and—I—I take such an interest——” and
he broke off.

“Such an interest in Beatrice,” said Elizabeth drily, supplying the
hiatus. “Yes, so it seems,” and suddenly, as though by chance, she
moved the candle which she held, in such fashion that the light fell
full upon Owen Davies’ face. It was a slow heavy countenance, but not
without comeliness. The skin was fresh as a child’s, the eyes were
large, blue, and mild, and the brown hair grew in waves that many a
woman might have envied. Indeed had it not been for a short but
strongly growing beard, it would have been easy to believe that the
countenance was that of a boy of nineteen rather than of a man over
thirty. Neither time nor care had drawn a single line upon it; it told
of perfect and robust health and yet bore the bloom of childhood. It
was the face of a man who might live to a hundred and still look young,
nor did the form belie it.

Mr. Davies blushed up to his eyes, blushed like a girl beneath
Elizabeth’s scrutiny. “Naturally I take an interest in a neighbour’s
fate,” he said, in his slow deliberate way. “She is quite safe, then?”

“I believe so,” answered Elizabeth.

“Thank God!” he said, or rather it seemed to break from him in a sigh
of relief. “How did the gentleman, Mr. Bingham, come to be found with
her?”

“How should I know?” she answered with a shrug. “Beatrice saved his
life somehow, clung fast to him even after she was insensible.”

“It is very wonderful. I never heard of such a thing. What is he like?”

“He is one of the finest-looking men I ever saw,” answered Elizabeth,
always watching him.

“Ah. But he is married, I think, Miss Granger?”

“Oh, yes, he is married to the daughter of a peer, very much
married—and very little, I should say.”

“I do not quite understand, Miss Granger.”

“Don’t you, Mr. Davies? then use your eyes when you see them together.”

“I should not see anything. I am not quick like you,” he added.

“How do you mean to get back to the Castle to-night, Mr. Davies? You
cannot row back in this wind, and the seas will be breaking over the
causeway.”

“Oh, I shall manage. I am wet already. An extra ducking won’t hurt me,
and I have had a chain put up to prevent anybody from being washed
away. And now I must be going. Good-night.”

“Good-night, Mr. Davies.”

He hesitated a moment and then added: “Would you—would you mind telling
your sister—of course I mean when she is stronger—that I came to
inquire after her?”

“I think that you can do that for yourself, Mr. Davies,” Elizabeth said
almost roughly. “I mean it will be more appreciated,” and she turned
upon her heel.

Owen Davies ventured no further remarks. He felt that Elizabeth’s
manner was a little crushing, and he was afraid of her as well. “I
suppose that she does not think I am good enough to pay attention to
her sister,” he thought to himself as he plunged into the night and
rain. “Well, she is quite right—I am not fit to black her boots. Oh,
God, I thank Thee that Thou hast saved her life. I thank Thee—I thank
Thee!” he went on, speaking aloud to the wild winds as he made his way
along the cliff. “If she had been dead, I think that I must have died
too. Oh, God, I thank Thee—I thank Thee!”

The idea that Owen Davies, Esq., J.P., D.L., of Bryngelly Castle,
absolute owner of that rising little watering-place, and of one of the
largest and most prosperous slate quarries in Wales, worth in all
somewhere between seven and ten thousand a year, was unfit to black her
beautiful sister’s boots, was not an idea that had struck Elizabeth
Granger. Had it struck her, indeed, it would have moved her to
laughter, for Elizabeth had a practical mind.

What did strike her, as she turned and watched the rich squire’s sturdy
form vanish through the doorway into the dark beyond, was a certain
sense of wonder. Supposing she had never seen that shiver of returning
life run up those white limbs, supposing that they had grown colder and
colder, till at length it was evident that death was so firmly
citadelled within the silent heart, that no human skill could beat his
empire back? What then? Owen Davies loved her sister; this she knew and
had known for years. But would he not have got over it in time? Would
he not in time have been overpowered by the sense of his own utter
loneliness and given his hand, if not his heart, to some other woman?
And could not she who held his hand learn to reach his heart? And to
whom would that hand have been given, the hand and all that went with
it? What woman would this shy Welsh hermit, without friends or
relations, have ever been thrown in with except herself—Elizabeth—who
loved him as much as she could love anybody, which, perhaps, was not
very much; who, at any rate, desired sorely to be his wife. Would not
all this have come about if she had never seen that eyelid tremble, and
that slight quiver run up her sister’s limbs? It would—she knew it
would.

Elizabeth thought of it as for a moment she stood in the passage, and a
cold hungry light came into her neutral tinted eyes and shone upon her
pale face. But she choked back the thought; she was scarcely wicked
enough to wish that her sister had not been brought back to life. She
only speculated on what might have happened if this had come about,
just as one works out a game of chess from a given hypothetical
situation of the pieces.

Perhaps, too, the same end might be gained in some other way. Perhaps
Mr. Davies might still be weaned from his infatuation. The wall was
difficult, but it would have to be very difficult if she could not find
a way to climb it. It never occurred to Elizabeth that there might be
an open gate. She could not conceive it possible that a woman might
positively reject Owen Davies and his seven or ten thousand a year, and
that woman a person in an unsatisfactory and uncongenial, almost in a
menial position. Reject Bryngelly Castle with all its luxury and
opportunities of wealth and leisure? No, the sun would set in the east
before such a thing happened. The plan was to prevent the occasion from
arising. The hungry light died on Elizabeth’s face, and she turned to
enter the sick room when suddenly she met her father coming out.

“Who was that at the front?” he asked, carefully closing the door.

“Mr. Davies of Bryngelly Castle, father.”

“And what did Mr. Davies want at this time of night? To know about
Beatrice?”

“Yes,” she answered slowly, “he came to ask after Beatrice, or to be
more correct he has been waiting outside for three hours in the rain to
learn if she recovered.”

“Waiting outside for three hours in the rain,” said the clergyman
astonished—“Squire Davies standing outside the house! What for?”

“Because he was so anxious about Beatrice and did not like to come in,
I suppose.”

“So anxious about Beatrice—ah, so anxious about Beatrice! Do you think,
Elizabeth—um—you know there is no doubt Beatrice is very well
favoured—very handsome they say——”

“I do not think anything about it, father,” she answered, “and as for
Beatrice’s looks they are a matter of opinion. I have mine. And now
don’t you think we had better go to bed? The doctors and Betty are
going to stop up all night with Mr. Bingham and Beatrice.”

“Yes, Elizabeth, I suppose that we had better go. I am sure we have
much to be thankful for to-night. What a merciful deliverance! And if
poor Beatrice had gone the parish must have found another
schoolmistress, and it would have meant that we lost the salary. We
have a great deal to be thankful for, Elizabeth.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, very deliberately, “we have.”




CHAPTER VI.
OWEN DAVIES AT HOME


Owen Davies tramped along the cliff with a light heart. The wild
lashing of the rain and the roaring of the wind did not disturb him in
the least. They were disagreeable, but he accepted them as he accepted
existence and all its vanities, without remark or mental comment. There
is a class of mind of which this is the prevailing attitude. Very early
in their span of life, those endowed with such a mind come to the
conclusion that the world is too much for them. They cannot understand
it, so they abandon the attempt, and, as a consequence, in their own
torpid way they are among the happiest and most contented of men.
Problems, on which persons of keener intelligence and more aspiring
soul fret and foam their lives away as rushing water round a rock, do
not even break the placid surface of their days. Such men slip past
them. They look out upon the stars and read of the mystery of the
universe speeding on for ever through the limitless wastes of space,
and are not astonished. In their childhood they were taught that God
made the sun and the stars to give light on the earth; that is enough
for them. And so it is with everything. Poverty and suffering; war,
pestilence, and the inequalities of fate; madness, life and death, and
the spiritual wonders that hedge in our being, are things not to be
inquired into but accepted. So they accept them as they do their dinner
or a tradesman’s circular.

In some cases this mental state has its root in deep and simple
religious convictions, and in some it springs from a preponderance of
healthful animal instincts over the higher but more troublesome
spiritual parts. The ox chewing the cud in the fresh meadow does not
muse upon the past and future, and the gull blown like a foam-flake out
against the sunset, does not know the splendour of the sky and sea.
Even the savage is not much troubled about the scheme of things. In the
beginning he was “torn out of the reeds,” and in the end he melts into
the Unknown, and for the rest, there are beef and wives, and foes to
conquer. But then oxen and gulls are not, so far as we know, troubled
with any spiritual parts at all, and in the noble savage such things
are not cultivated. They come with civilization.

But perhaps in the majority this condition, so necessary to the more
placid forms of happiness, is born of a conjunction of physical and
religious developments. So it was, at least, with the rich and
fortunate man whom we have seen trudging along the wind-swept cliff. By
nature and education he was of a strongly and simply religious mind, as
he was in body powerful, placid, and healthy to an exasperating degree.
It may be said that it is easy to be religious and placid on ten
thousand a year, but Owen Davies had not always enjoyed ten thousand a
year and one of the most romantic and beautiful seats in Wales. From
the time he was seventeen, when his mother’s death left him an orphan,
till he reached the age of thirty, some six years from the date of the
opening of this history, he led about as hard a life as fate could find
for any man. Some people may have heard of sugar drogers, or sailing
brigs, which trade between this country and the West Indies, carrying
coal outwards and sugar home.

On board one of these, Owen Davies worked in various capacities for
thirteen long years. He did his drudgery well; but he made no friends,
and always remained the same shy, silent, and pious man. Then suddenly
a relation died without a will, and he found himself heir-in-law to
Bryngelly Castle and all its revenues. Owen expressed no surprise, and
to all appearance felt none. He had never seen his relation, and never
dreamed of this romantic devolution of great estates upon himself. But
he accepted the good fortune as he had accepted the ill, and said
nothing. The only people who knew him were his shipmates, and they
could scarcely be held to know him. They were acquainted with his
appearance and the sound of his voice, and his method of doing his
duty. Also, they were aware, although he never spoke of religion, that
he read a chapter of the Bible every evening, and went to church
whenever they touched at a port. But of his internal self they were in
total ignorance. This did not, however, prevent them from prophesying
that Davies was a “deep one,” who, now that he had got the cash, would
“blue it” in a way which would astonish them.

But Davies did not “excel in azure feats.” The news of his good fortune
reached him just as the brig, on which he was going to sail as
first-mate, was taking in her cargo for the West Indies. He had signed
his contract for the voyage, and, to the utter astonishment of the
lawyer who managed the estates, he announced that he should carry it
out. In vain did the man of affairs point out to his client that with
the help of a cheque of £100 he could arrange the matter for him in ten
minutes. Mr. Davies merely replied that the property could wait, he
should go the voyage and retire afterwards. The lawyer held up his
hands, and then suddenly remembered that there are women in the West
Indies as in other parts of the world. Doubtless his queer client had
an object in this voyage. As a matter of fact, he was totally wrong.
Owen Davies had never interchanged a tender word with a woman in his
life; he was a creature of routine, and it was part of his routine to
carry out his agreements to the letter. That was all.

As a last resource, the lawyer suggested that Mr. Davies should make a
will.

“I do not think it necessary,” was the slow and measured answer. “The
property has come to me by chance. If I die, it may as well go to
somebody else in the same way.”

The lawyer stared. “Very well,” he said; “it is against my advice, but
you must please yourself. Do you want any money?”

Owen thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “I think I should like to
have ten pounds. They are building a theatre there, and I want to
subscribe to it.”

The lawyer gave him the ten pounds without a word; he was struck
speechless, and in this condition he remained for some minutes after
the door had closed behind his client. Then he sprung up with a single
ejaculation, “Mad, mad! like his great uncle!”

But Owen Davies was not in the least mad, at any rate not then; he was
only a creature of habit. In due course, his agreement fulfilled, he
sailed his brig home from the West Indies (for the captain was drowned
in a gale). Then he took a second-class ticket to Bryngelly, where he
had never been in his life before, and asked his way to the Castle. He
was told to go to the beach, and he would see it. He did so, leaving
his sea-chest behind him, and there, about two hundred paces from the
land, and built upon a solitary mountain of rock, measuring half a mile
or so round the base, he perceived a vast mediæval pile of fortified
buildings, with turrets towering three hundred feet into the air, and
edged with fire by the setting sun. He gazed on it with perplexity.
Could it be that this enormous island fortress belonged to him, and, if
so, how on earth did one get to it? For some little time he walked up
and down, wondering, too shy to go to the village for information.
Meanwhile, though he did not notice her, a well-grown girl of about
fifteen, remarkable for her great grey eyes and the promise of her
beauty, was watching his evident perplexity from a seat beneath a rock,
not without amusement. At last she rose, and, with the confidence of
bold fifteen, walked straight up to him.

“Do you want to get to the Castle, sir?” she asked in a low sweet
voice, the echoes of which Owen Davies never forgot.

“Yes—oh, I beg your pardon,” for now for the first time he saw that he
was talking to a young lady.

“Then I am afraid that you are too late—Mrs. Thomas will not show
people over after four o’clock. She is the housekeeper, you know.”

“Ah, well, the fact is I did not come to see over the place. I came to
live there. I am Owen Davies, and the place was left to me.”

Beatrice, for of course it was she, stared at him in amazement. So this
was the mysterious sailor about whom there had been so much talk in
Bryngelly.

“Oh!” she said, with embarrassing frankness. “What an odd way to come
home. Well, it is high tide, and you will have to take a boat. I will
show you where you can get one. Old Edward will row you across for
sixpence,” and she led the way round a corner of the beach to where old
Edward sat, from early morn to dewy eve, upon the thwarts of his
biggest boat, seeking those whom he might row.

“Edward,” said the young lady, “here is the new squire, Mr. Owen
Davies, who wants to be rowed across to the Castle.” Edward, a gnarled
and twisted specimen of the sailor tribe, with small eyes and a face
that reminded the observer of one of those quaint countenances on the
handle of a walking stick, stared at her in astonishment, and then cast
a look of suspicion on the visitor.

“Have he got papers of identification about him, miss?” he asked in a
stage whisper.

“I don’t know,” she answered laughing. “He says that he is Mr. Owen
Davies.”

“Well, praps he is and praps he ain’t; anyway, it isn’t my affair, and
sixpence is sixpence.”

All of this the unfortunate Mr. Davies overheard, and it did not add to
his equanimity.

“Now, sir, if you please,” said Edward sternly, as he pulled the little
boat up to the edge of the breakwater. A vision of Mrs. Thomas shot
into Owen’s mind. If the boatman did not believe in him, what chance
had he with the housekeeper? He wished he had brought the lawyer down
with him, and then he wished that he was back in the sugar brig.

“Now, sir,” said Edward still more sternly, putting down his hesitation
to an impostor’s consciousness of guilt.

“Um!” said Owen to the young lady, “I beg your pardon. I don’t even
know your name, and I am sure I have no right to ask it, but would you
mind rowing across with me? It would be so kind of you; you might
introduce me to the housekeeper.”

Again Beatrice laughed the merry laugh of girlhood; she was too young
to be conscious of any impropriety in the situation, and indeed there
was none. But her sense of humour told her that it was funny, and she
became possessed with a not unnatural curiosity to see the thing out.

“Oh, very well,” she said, “I will come.”

The boat was pushed off and very soon they reached the stone quay that
bordered the harbour of the Castle, about which a little village of
retainers had grown up. Seeing the boat arrive, some of these people
sauntered out of the cottages, and then, thinking that a visitor had
come, under the guidance of Miss Beatrice, to look at the antiquities
of the Castle, which was the show place of the neighbourhood, sauntered
back again. Then the pair began the zigzag ascent of the rock mountain,
till at last they stood beneath the mighty mass of building, which,
although it was hoary with antiquity, was by no means lacking in the
comforts of modern civilization, the water, for instance, being brought
in pipes laid beneath the sea from a mountain top two miles away on the
mainland.

“Isn’t there a view here?” said Beatrice, pointing to the vast stretch
of land and sea. “I think, Mr. Davies, that you have the most beautiful
house in the whole world. Your great-uncle, who died a year ago, spent
more than fifty thousand pounds on repairing and refurbishing it, they
say. He built the big drawing-room there, where the stone is a little
lighter; it is fifty-five feet long. Just think, fifty thousand
pounds!”

“It is a large sum,” said Owen, in an unimaginative sort of way, while
in his heart he wondered what on earth he should do with this white
elephant of a mediæval castle, and its drawing room fifty-five feet
long.

“He does not seem much impressed,” thought Beatrice to herself, as she
tugged away at the postern bell; “I think he must be stupid. He looks
stupid.”

Presently the door was opened by an active-looking little old woman
with a high voice.

“Mrs. Thomas,” thought Owen to himself; “she is even worse than I
expected.”

“Now you must please to go away,” began the formidable housekeeper in
her shrillest key; “it is too late to show visitors over. Why, bless
us, it’s you, Miss Beatrice, with a strange man! What do you want?”

Beatrice looked at her companion as a hint that he should explain
himself, but he said nothing.

“This is your new squire,” she said, not without a certain pride. “I
found him wandering about the beach. He did not know how to get here,
so I brought him over.”

“Lord, Miss Beatrice, and how do you know it’s him?” said Mrs. Thomas.
“How do you know it ain’t a housebreaker?”

“Oh, I’m sure he cannot be,” answered Beatrice aside, “because he isn’t
clever enough.”

Then followed a long discussion. Mrs. Thomas stoutly refused to admit
the stranger without evidence of identity, and Beatrice, embracing his
cause, as stoutly pressed his claims. As for the lawful owner, he made
occasional feeble attempts to prove that he was himself, but Mrs.
Thomas was not to be imposed upon in this way. At last they came to a
dead lock.

“Y’d better go back to the inn, sir,” said Mrs. Thomas with scathing
sarcasm, “and come up to-morrow with proofs and your luggage.”

“Haven’t you got any letters with you?” suggested Beatrice as a last
resource.

As it happened Owen had a letter, one from the lawyer to himself about
the property, and mentioning Mrs. Thomas’s name as being in charge of
the Castle. He had forgotten all about it, but at this interesting
juncture it was produced and read aloud by Beatrice. Mrs. Thomas took
it, and having examined it carefully through her horn-rimmed
spectacles, was constrained to admit its authenticity.

“I’m sure I apologise, sir,” she said with a half-doubtful courtesy and
much tact, “but one can’t be too careful with all these trampseses
about; I never should have thought from the look of you, sir, how as
you was the new squire.”

This might be candid, but it was not flattering, and it caused Beatrice
to snigger behind her handkerchief in true school-girl fashion.
However, they entered, and were led by Mrs. Thomas with solemn pomp
through the great and little halls, the stone parlour and the oak
parlour, the library and the huge drawing-room, in which the white
heads of marble statues protruded from the bags of brown holland
wherewith they were wrapped about in a manner ghastly to behold. At
length they reached a small octagon-shaped room that, facing south,
commanded a most glorious view of sea and land. It was called the
Lady’s Boudoir, and joined another of about the same size, which in its
former owner’s time had been used as a smoking-room.

“If you don’t mind, madam,” said the lord of all this magnificence, “I
should like to stop here, I am getting tired of walking.” And there he
stopped for many years. The rest of the Castle was shut up; he scarcely
ever visited it except occasionally to see that the rooms were properly
aired, for he was a methodical man.

As for Beatrice, she went home, still chuckling, to receive a severe
reproof from Elizabeth for her “forwardness.” But Owen Davies never
forgot the debt of gratitude he owed her. In his heart he felt
convinced that had it not been for her, he would have fled before Mrs.
Thomas and her horn-rimmed eyeglasses, to return no more. The truth of
the matter was, however, that young as was Beatrice, he fell in love
with her then and there, only to fall deeper and deeper into that drear
abyss as years went on. He never said anything about it, he scarcely
even gave a hint of his hopeless condition, though of course Beatrice
divined something of it as soon as she came to years of discretion. But
there grew up in Owen’s silent, lonely breast a great and overmastering
desire to make this grey-eyed girl his wife. He measured time by the
intervals that elapsed between his visions of her. No period in his
life was so wretched and utterly purposeless as those two years which
passed while she was at her Training College. He was a very passive
lover, as yet his gathering passion did not urge him to extremes, and
he could never make up his mind to declare it. The box was in his hand,
but he feared to throw the dice.

But he drew as near to her as he dared. Once he gave Beatrice a flower,
it was when she was seventeen, and awkwardly expressed a hope that she
would wear it for his sake. The words were not much and the flower was
not much, but there was a look about the man’s eyes, and a suppressed
passion and energy in his voice, which told their tale to the
keen-witted girl. After this he found that she avoided him, and
bitterly regretted his boldness. For Beatrice did not like him in that
way. To a girl of her curious stamp his wealth was nothing. She did not
covet wealth, she coveted independence, and had the sense to know that
marriage with such a man would not bring it. A cage is a cage, whether
the bars are of iron or gold. He bored her, she despised him for his
want of intelligence and enterprise. That a man with all this wealth
and endless opportunity should waste his life in such fashion was to
her a thing intolerable. She knew if she had half his chance, that she
would make her name ring from one end of Europe to the other. In short,
Beatrice held Owen as deeply in contempt as her sister Elizabeth,
studying him from another point of view, held him in reverence. And
putting aside any human predilections, Beatrice would never have
married a man whom she despised. She respected herself too much.

Owen Davies saw all this as through a glass darkly, and in his own slow
way cast about for a means of drawing near. He discovered that Beatrice
was passionately fond of learning, and also that she had no means to
obtain the necessary books. So he threw open his library to her; it was
one of the best in Wales. He did more; he gave orders to a London
bookseller to forward him every new book of importance that appeared in
certain classes of literature, and all of these he placed at her
disposal, having first carefully cut the leaves with his own hand. This
was a bait Beatrice could not resist. She might dread or even detest
Mr. Davies, but she loved his books, and if she quarrelled with him her
well of knowledge would simply run dry, for there were no circulating
libraries at Bryngelly, and if there had been she could not have
afforded to subscribe to them. So she remained on good terms with him,
and even smiled at his futile attempts to keep pace with her studies.
Poor man, reading did not come naturally to him; he was much better at
cutting leaves. He studied the _Times_ and certain religious works,
that was all. But he wrestled manfully with many a detested tome, in
order to be able to say something to Beatrice about it, and the worst
of it was that Beatrice always saw through it, and showed him that she
did. It was not kind, perhaps, but youth is cruel.

And so the years wore on, till at length Beatrice knew that a crisis
was at hand. Even the tardiest and most retiring lover must come to the
point at last, if he is in earnest, and Owen Davies was very much in
earnest. Of late, to her dismay, he had so far come out of his shell as
to allow himself to be nominated a member of the school council. Of
course she knew that this was only to give him more opportunities of
seeing her. As a member of the council, he could visit the school of
which she was mistress as often as he chose, and indeed he soon learned
to take a lively interest in village education. About twice a week he
would come in just as the school was breaking up and offer to walk home
with her, seeking for a favourable opportunity to propose. Hitherto she
had always warded off this last event, but she knew that it must
happen. Not that she was actually afraid of the man himself; he was too
much afraid of her for that. What she did fear was the outburst of
wrath from her father and sister when they learned that she had refused
Owen Davies. It never occurred to her that Elizabeth might be playing a
hand of her own in the matter.

From all of which it will be clear, if indeed it has not become so
already, that Beatrice Granger was a somewhat ill-regulated young
woman, born to bring trouble on herself and all connected with her. Had
she been otherwise, she would have taken her good fortune and married
Owen Davies, in which case her history need never have been written.




CHAPTER VII.
A MATRIMONIAL TALE


Before Geoffrey Bingham dropped off into a troubled sleep on that
eventful night of storm, he learned that the girl who had saved his
life at the risk and almost at the cost of her own was out of danger,
and in his own and more reticent way he thanked Providence as heartily
as did Owen Davies. Then he went to sleep.

When he woke, feeling very sick and so stiff and sore that he could
scarcely move, the broad daylight was streaming through the blinds. The
place was perfectly quiet, for the doctor’s assistant who had brought
him back to life, and who lay upon a couch at the further end of the
room, slept the sleep of youth and complete exhaustion. Only an
eight-day clock on the mantelpiece ticked in that solemn and aggressive
way which clocks affect in the stillness. Geoffrey strained his eyes to
make out the time, and finally discovered that it wanted a few minutes
to six o’clock. Then he fell to wondering how Miss Granger was, and to
repeating in his own mind every scene of their adventure, till the
last, when they were whirled out of the canoe in the embrace of that
white-crested billow.

He remembered nothing after that, nothing but a rushing sound and a
vision of foam. He shuddered a little as he thought of it, for his
nerves were shaken; it is not pleasant to have been so very near the
End and the Beginning; and then his heart went out with renewed
gratitude towards the girl who had restored him to life and light and
hope. Just at this moment he thought that he heard a sound of sobbing
outside the window. He listened; the sound went on. He tried to rise,
only to find that he was too stiff to manage it. So, as a last
resource, he called the doctor.

“What is the matter?” answered that young gentleman, jumping up with
the alacrity of one accustomed to be suddenly awakened. “Do you feel
queer?”

“Yes, I do rather,” answered Geoffrey, “but it isn’t that. There is
somebody crying outside here.”

The doctor put on his coat, and, going to the window, drew the blind.

“Why, so there is,” he said. “It’s a little girl with yellow hair and
without a hat.”

“A little girl,” answered Geoffrey. “Why, it must be Effie, my
daughter. Please let her in.”

“All right. Cover yourself up, and I can do that through the window; it
isn’t five feet from the ground.” Accordingly he opened the window, and
addressing the little girl, asked her what her name was.

“Effie,” she sobbed in answer, “Effie Bingham. I’ve come to look for
daddie.”

“All right, my dear, don’t cry so; your daddie is here. Come and let me
lift you in.”

Another moment and there appeared through the open window the very
sweetest little face and form that ever a girl of six was blessed with.
For the face was pink and white, and in it were set two beautiful dark
eyes, which, contrasting with the golden hair, made the child a sight
to see. But alas! just now the cheeks were stained with tears, and
round the large dark eyes were rings almost as dark. Nor was this all.
The little dress was hooked awry, on one tiny foot all drenched with
dew there was no boot, and on the yellow curls no hat.

“Oh! daddie, daddie,” cried the child, catching sight of him and
struggling to reach her father’s arms, “you isn’t dead, is you,
daddie?”

“No, my love, no,” answered her father, kissing her. “Why should you
think that I was dead? Didn’t your mother tell you that I was safe?”

“Oh! daddie,” she answered, “they came and said that you was drownded,
and I cried and wished that I was drownded too. Then mother came home
at last and said that you were better, and was cross with me because I
went on crying and wanted to come to you. But I did go on crying. I
cried nearly all night, and when it got light I did dress myself, all
but one shoe and my hat, which I could not find, and I got out of the
house to look for you.”

“And how did you find me, my poor little dear?”

“Oh, I heard mother say you was at the Vicarage, so I waited till I saw
a man, and asked him which way to go, and he did tell me to walk along
the cliff till I saw a long white house, and then when he saw that I
had no shoe he wanted to take me home, but I ran away till I got here.
But the blinds were down, so I did think that you were dead, daddie
dear, and I cried till that gentleman opened the window.”

After that Geoffrey began to scold her for running away, but she did
not seem to mind it much, for she sat upon the edge of the couch, her
little face resting against his own, a very pretty sight to see.

“You must go back to Mrs. Jones, Effie, and tell your mother where you
have been.”

“I can’t, daddie, I’ve only got one shoe,” she answered, pouting.

“But you came with only one shoe.”

“Yes, daddie, but I wanted to come and I don’t want to go back. Tell me
how you was drownded.”

He laughed at her logic and gave way to her, for this little daughter
was very near to his heart, nearer than anything else in the world. So
he told her how he was “drownded” and how a lady had saved his life.

Effie listened with wide set eyes, and then said that she wanted to see
the lady, which she presently did. At that moment there came a knock at
the door, and Mr. Granger entered, accompanied by Dr. Chambers.

“How do you do, sir?” said the former. “I must introduce myself, seeing
that you are not likely to remember me. When last I saw you, you looked
as dead as a beached dog-fish. My name’s Granger, the Reverend J.
Granger, Vicar of Bryngelly, one of the very worst livings on this
coast, and that’s saying a great deal.”

“I am sure, Mr. Granger, I’m under a deep debt of gratitude to you for
your hospitality, and under a still deeper one to your daughter, but I
hope to thank her personally for that.”

“Never speak of it,” said the clergyman. “Hot water and blankets don’t
cost much, and you will have to pay for the brandy and the doctor. How
is he, doctor?”

“He is getting on very well indeed, Mr. Granger. But I daresay you find
yourself rather stiff, Mr. Bingham. I see your head is pretty badly
bruised.”

“Yes,” he answered, laughing, “and so is my body. Shall I be able to go
home to-day?”

“I think so,” said the doctor, “but not before this evening. You had
better keep quiet till then. You will be glad to hear that Miss
Beatrice is getting on very well. Hers was a wonderful recovery, the
most wonderful I ever saw. I had quite given her up, though I should
have kept on the treatment for another hour. You ought to be grateful
to Miss Beatrice, Mr. Bingham. But for her you would not have been
here.”

“I am most grateful,” he answered earnestly. “Shall I be able to see
her to-day?”

“Yes, I think so, some time this afternoon, say at three o’clock. Is
that your little daughter? What a lovely child she is. Well, I will
look in again about twelve. All that you require to do now is to keep
quiet and rub in some arnica.”

About an hour afterwards the servant girl brought Geoffrey some
breakfast of tea and toast. He felt quite hungry, but when it came to
the pinch he could not eat much. Effie, who was starving, made up for
this deficiency, however; she ate all the toast and a couple of slices
of bread and butter after it. Scarcely had they finished, when her
father observed a shade of anxiety come upon his little daughter’s
face.

“What is it, Effie?” he asked.

“I think,” replied Effie in evident trepidation, “I think that I hear
mother outside and Anne too.”

“Well, dear, they have come to see me.”

“Yes, and to scold me because I ran away,” and the child drew nearer to
her father in a fashion which would have made it clear to any observer
that the relations between her and her mother were somewhat strained.

Effie was right. Presently there was a knock at the door and Lady
Honoria entered, calm and pale and elegant as ever. She was followed by
a dark-eyed somewhat impertinent-looking French _bonne_, who held up
her hands and ejaculated, “Mon Dieu!” as she appeared.

“I thought so,” said Lady Honoria, speaking in French to the _bonne_.
“There she is,” and she pointed at the runaway Effie with her parasol.

“Mon Dieu!” said the woman again. “Vous voilà enfin, et moi, qui suis
accablée de peur, et votre chère mère aussi; oh, mais que c’est
méchant; et regardez donc, avec un soulier seulement. Mais c’est
affreux!”

“Hold your tongue,” said Geoffrey sharply, “and leave Miss Effie alone.
She came to see me.”

Anne ejaculated, “Mon Dieu!” once more and collapsed.

“Really, Geoffrey,” said his wife, “the way you spoil that child is
something shocking. She is wilful as can be, and you make her worse. It
is very naughty of her to run away like that and give us such a hunt.
How are we to get her home, I wonder, with only one shoe.”

Her husband bit his lip, and his forehead contracted itself above the
dark eyes. It was not the first time that he and Lady Honoria had come
to words about the child, with whom his wife was not in sympathy.
Indeed she had never forgiven Effie for appearing in this world at all.
Lady Honoria did not belong to that class of women who think maternity
is a joy.

“Anne,” he said, “take Miss Effie and carry her till you can find a
donkey. She can ride back to the lodgings.” The nurse murmured
something in French about the child being as heavy as lead.

“Do as I bid you,” he said sharply, in the same language. “Effie, my
love, give me a kiss and go home. Thank you for coming to see me.”

The child obeyed and went. Lady Honoria stood and watched her go,
tapping her little foot upon the floor, and with a look upon her cold,
handsome face that was not altogether agreeable to see.

It had sometimes happened that, in the course of his married life,
Geoffrey returned home with a little of that added fondness which
absence is fabled to beget. On these occasions he was commonly so
unfortunate as to find that Lady Honoria belied the saying, that she
greeted him with arrears of grievances and was, if possible, more
frigid than ever.

Was this to be repeated now that he had come back from what was so near
to being the longest absence of all? It looked like it. He noted
symptoms of the rising storm, symptoms with which he was but too well
acquainted, and both for his own sake and for hers—for above all things
Geoffrey dreaded these bitter matrimonial bickerings—tried to think of
something kind to say. It must be owned that he did not show much tact
in the subject he selected, though it was one which might have stirred
the sympathies of some women. It is so difficult to remember that one
is dealing with a Lady Honoria.

“If ever we have another child——” he began gently.

“Excuse me interrupting you,” said the lady, with a suavity which did
not however convey any idea of the speaker’s inward peace, “but it is a
kindness to prevent you from going on in that line. _One_ darling is
ample for me.”

“Well,” said the miserable Geoffrey, with an effort, “even if you don’t
care much about the child yourself, it is a little unreasonable to
object because she cares for me and was sorry when she thought that I
was dead. Really, Honoria, sometimes I wonder if you have any heart at
all. Why should you be put out because Effie got up early to come and
see me?—an example which I must admit you did not set her. And as to
her shoe——” he added smiling.

“You may laugh about her shoe, Geoffrey,” she interrupted, “but you
forget that even little things like that are no laughing matter now to
us. The child’s shoes keep me awake at night sometimes. Defoy has not
been paid for I don’t know how long. I have a mind to get her
_sabots_—and as to heart——”

“Well,” broke in Geoffrey, reflecting that bad as was the emotional
side of the question, it was better than the commercial—“as to
‘heart?’”

“You are scarcely the person to talk of it, that is all. I wonder how
much of yours you gave _me_?”

“Really, Honoria,” he answered, not without eagerness, and his mind
filled with wonder. Was it possible that his wife had experienced some
kind of “call,” and was about to concern herself with his heart one way
or the other? If so it was strange, for she had never shown the
slightest interest in it before.

“Yes,” she went on rapidly and with gathering vehemence, “you speak
about your heart”—which he had not done—“and yet you know as well as I
do that if I had been a girl of no position you would never have
offered me the organ on which you pretend to set so high a value. Or
did your heart run wildly away with you, and drag us into love and a
cottage—a flat, I mean? If so, _I_ should prefer a little less heart
and a little more common sense.”

Geoffrey winced, twice indeed, feeling that her ladyship had hit him as
it were with both barrels. For, as a matter of fact, he had not begun
with any passionate devotion, and again Lady Honoria and he were now
just as poor as though they had really married for love.

“It is hardly fair to go back on bygones and talk like this,” he said,
“even if your position had something to do with it; only at first of
course, you must remember that when we married mine was not without
attractions. Two thousand a year to start on and a baronetcy and eight
thousand a year in the near future were not—but I hate talking about
that kind of thing. Why do you force me to it? Nobody could know that
my uncle, who was so anxious that I should marry you, would marry
himself at his age, and have a son and heir. It was not my fault,
Honoria. Perhaps you would not have married me if you could have
foreseen it.”

“Very probably not,” she answered calmly, “and it is not _my_ fault
that I have not yet learned to live with peace of mind and comfort on
seven hundred a year. It was hard enough to exist on two thousand till
your uncle died, and now——”

“Well, and now, Honoria, if you will only have patience and put up with
things for a while, you shall be rich enough; I will make money for
you, as much money as you want. I have many friends. I have not done so
badly at the Bar this year.”

“Two hundred pounds, nineteen shillings and sevenpence, minus
ninety-seven pounds rent of chambers and clerk,” said Lady Honoria,
with a disparaging accent on the sevenpence.

“I shall double it next year, and double that again the next, and so
on. I work from morning till night to get on, that you may have—what
you live for,” he said bitterly.

“Ah, I shall be sixty before that happy day comes, and want nothing but
scandal and a bath chair. I know the Bar and its moaning,” she added,
with acid wit. “You dream, you imagine what you would like to come
true, but you are deceiving me and yourself. It will be like the story
of Sir Robert Bingham’s property once again. We shall be beggars all
our days. I tell you, Geoffrey, that you had no right to marry me.”

Then at length he lost his temper. This was not the first of these
scenes—they had grown frequent of late, and this bitter water was
constantly dropping.

“Right?” he said, “and may I ask what right you had to marry me when
you don’t even pretend you ever cared one straw for me, but just
accepted me as you would have accepted any other man who was a
tolerably good match? I grant that I first thought of proposing to you
because my uncle wished it, but if I did not love you I meant to be a
good husband to you, and I should have loved you if you would let me.
But you are cold and selfish; you looked upon a husband merely as a
stepping-stone to luxury; you have never loved anybody except yourself.
If I had died last night I believe that you would have cared more about
having to go into mourning than for the fact of my disappearance from
your life. You showed no more feeling for me when you came in than you
would have if I had been a stranger—not so much as some women might
have for a stranger. I wonder sometimes if you have any feeling left in
you at all. I should think that you treat me as you do because you do
not care for me and do care for some other person did I not know you to
be utterly incapable of caring for anybody. Do you want to make me hate
you, Honoria?”

Geoffrey’s low concentrated voice and earnest manner told his wife, who
was watching him with something like a smile upon her clear-cut lips,
how deeply he was moved. He had lost his self-control, and exposed his
heart to her—a thing he rarely did, and that in itself was a triumph
which she did not wish to pursue at the moment. Geoffrey was not a man
to push too far.

“If you have quite finished, Geoffrey, there is something I should like
to say——”

“Oh, curse it all!” he broke in.

“Yes?” she said calmly and interrogatively, and made a pause, but as he
did not specially apply his remark to anybody or anything, she
continued: “If these flowers of rhetoric are over, what I have to say
is this: I do not intend to stay in this horrid place any longer. I am
going to-morrow to my brother Garsington. They asked us both, you may
remember, but for reasons best known to yourself, you would not go.”

“You know my reasons very well, Honoria.”

“I beg your pardon. I have not the slightest idea what they were,” said
Lady Honoria with conviction. “May I hear them?”

“Well, if you wish to know, I will not go to the house of a man who
has—well, left my club as Garsington left it, and who, had it not been
for my efforts, would have left it in an even more unpleasant and
conspicuous fashion. And his wife is worse than he is——”

“I think you are mistaken,” Lady Honoria said coldly, and with the air
of a person who shuts the door of a room into which she does not wish
to look. “And, any way, it all happened years ago and has blown over.
But I do not see the necessity of discussing the subject further. I
suppose that we shall meet at dinner to-night. I shall take the early
train to-morrow.”

“Do what suits you, Honoria. Perhaps you would prefer not returning at
all.”

“Thank you, no. I will not lay myself open to imputations. I shall join
you in London, and will make the best of a bad business. Thank Heaven,
I have learned how to bear my misfortunes,” and with this Parthian shot
she left the room.

For a minute or two her husband felt as though he almost hated her.
Then he thrust his face into the pillow and groaned.

“She is right,” he said to himself; “we must make the best of a bad
business. But, somehow, I seem to have made a mess of my life. And yet
I loved her once—for a month or two.”

This was not an agreeable scene, and it may be said that Lady Honoria
was a vulgar person. But not even the advantage of having been brought
up “on the knees of marchionesses” is a specific against vulgarity, if
a lady happens, unfortunately, to set her heart, what there is of it,
meanly on mean things.




CHAPTER VIII.
EXPLANATORY


About two o’clock Geoffrey rose, and with some slight assistance from
his reverend host, struggled into his clothes. Then he lunched, and
while he did so Mr. Granger poured his troubles into his sympathetic
ear.

“My father was a Herefordshire farmer, Mr. Bingham,” he said, “and I
was bred up to that line of life myself. He did well, my father did, as
in those days a careful man might. What is more, he made some money by
cattle-dealing, and I think that turned his head a little; anyway, he
was minded to make ‘a gentleman of me,’ as he called it. So when I was
eighteen I was packed off to be made a parson of, whether I liked it or
no. Well, I became a parson, and for four years I had a curacy at a
town called Kingston, in Herefordshire, not a bad sort of little
town—perhaps you happen to know it. While I was there, my father, who
was getting beyond himself, took to speculating. He built a row of
villas at Leominster, or at least he lent a lawyer the money to build
them, and when they were built nobody would hire them. It broke my
father; he was ruined over those villas. I have always hated the sight
of a villa ever since, Mr. Bingham. And shortly afterwards he died, as
near bankruptcy as a man’s nose is to his mouth.

“After that I was offered this living, £150 a year it was at the best,
and like a fool I took it. The old parson who was here before me left
an only daughter behind him. The living had ruined him, as it ruins me,
and, as I say, he left his daughter, my wife that was, behind him, and
a pretty good bill for dilapidations I had against the estate. But
there wasn’t any estate, so I made the best of a bad business and
married the daughter, and a sweet pretty woman she was, poor dear, very
like my Beatrice, only without the brains. I can’t make out where
Beatrice’s brains come from indeed, for I am sure I don’t set up for
having any. She was well born, too, my wife was, of an old Cornish
family, but she had nowhere to go to, and I think she married me
because she didn’t know what else to do, and was fond of the old place.
She took me on with it, as it were. Well, it turned out pretty well,
till some eleven years ago, when our boy was born, though I don’t think
we ever quite understood each other. She never got her health back
after that, and seven years ago she died. I remember it was on a night
wonderfully like last night—mist first, then storm. The boy died a few
years afterwards. I thought it would have broken Beatrice’s heart; she
has never been the same girl since, but always full of queer ideas I
don’t pretend to follow.

“And as for the life I’ve had of it here, Mr. Bingham, you wouldn’t
believe it if I was to tell you. The living is small enough, but the
place is as full of dissent as a mackerel-boat of fish, and as for
getting the tithes—well, I cannot, that’s all. If it wasn’t for a bit
of farming that I do, not but what the prices are down to nothing, and
for what the visitors give in the season, and for the help of
Beatrice’s salary as certificated mistress, I should have been in the
poor-house long ago, and shall be yet, I often think. I have had to
take in a boarder before now to make both ends meet, and shall again, I
expect.

“And now I must be off up to my bit of a farm; the old sow is due to
litter, and I want to see how she is getting on. Please God she’ll have
thirteen again and do well. I’ll order the fly to be here at five,
though I shall be back before then—that is, I told Elizabeth to do so.
She has gone out to do some visiting for me, and to see if she can’t
get in two pounds five of tithe that has been due for three months. If
anybody can get it it’s Elizabeth. Well, good-bye; if you are dull and
want to talk to Beatrice, she is up and in there. I daresay you will
suit one another. She’s a very queer girl, Beatrice, quite beyond me
with her ideas, and it was a funny thing her holding you so tight, but
I suppose Providence arranged that. Good-bye for the present, Mr.
Bingham,” and this curious specimen of a clergyman vanished, leaving
Geoffrey quite breathless.

It was half-past two o’clock, and the doctor had told him that he could
see Miss Granger at three. He wished that it was three, for he was
tired of his own thoughts and company, and naturally anxious to renew
his acquaintance with the strange girl who had begun by impressing him
so deeply and ended by saving his life. There was complete quiet in the
house; Betty, the maid-of-all-work, was employed in the kitchen, both
the doctors had gone, and Elizabeth and her father were out. To-day
there was no wind, it had blown itself away during the night, and the
sight of the sunbeams streaming through the windows made Geoffrey long
to be in the open air. He had no book at hand to read, and whenever he
tried to think his mind flew back to that hateful matrimonial quarrel.

It was hard on him, Geoffrey thought, that he should be called upon to
endure such scenes. He could no longer disguise the truth from
himself—he had buried his happiness on his wedding-day. Looking back
across the years, he well remembered how different a life he had
imagined for himself. In those days he was tired of knocking about and
of youthful escapades; even that kind of social success which must
attend a young man who was handsome, clever, a good fellow, and blessed
with large expectations, had, at the age of six-and-twenty, entirely
lost its attractiveness. Therefore he had turned no deaf ear to his
uncle, Sir Robert Bingham, who was then going on for seventy, when he
suggested that it might be well if Geoffrey be settled down, and
introduced him to Lady Honoria.

Lady Honoria was eighteen then, and a beauty of the rather thin but
statuesque type, which attracts men up to five or six and twenty and
then frequently bores, if it does not repel them. Moreover, she was
clever and well read, and pretended to be intellectually and poetically
inclined, as ladies not specially favoured by Apollo sometimes
do—before they marry. Cold she always was; nobody ever heard of Lady
Honoria stretching the bounds of propriety; but Geoffrey put this down
to a sweet and becoming modesty, which would vanish or be transmuted in
its season. Also she affected a charming innocence of all vulgar
business matters, which both deceived and enchanted him. Never but once
did she allude to ways and means before marriage, and then it was to
say that she was glad that they should be so poor till dear Sir Robert
died (he had promised to allow them fifteen hundred a year, and they
had seven more between them), as this would enable them to see so much
more of each other.

At last came the happy day, and this white virgin soul passed into
Geoffrey’s keeping. For a week or so things went fairly well, and then
disenchantment began. He learned by slow but sure degrees that his wife
was vain, selfish and extravagant, and, worst of all, that she cared
very little about him. The first shock was when he accidentally
discovered, four or five days after marriage, that Honoria was
intimately acquainted with every detail of Sir Robert Bingham’s
property, and, young as she was, had already formed a scheme to make it
more productive after the old man’s death.

They went to live in London, and there he found that Lady Honoria,
although by far too cold and prudent a woman to do anything that could
bring a breath of scandal upon her name, was as fond of admiration as
she was heartless. It seemed to Geoffrey that he could never be free
from the collection of young men who hung about her skirts. Some of
them were very good fellows whom he liked exceedingly; still, on the
whole he would have preferred to remain unmarried and associate with
them at the club. Also the continual round of society and going out
brought heavier expenses on him than he could well support. And thus,
little by little, poor Geoffrey’s dream of matrimonial bliss faded into
thin air. But, fortunately for himself, he possessed a certain share of
logic and sweet reasonableness. In time he learnt to see that the fault
was not altogether with his wife, who was by no means a bad sort of
woman in her degree. But her degree differed from his degree. She had
married for freedom and wealth and to gain a larger scope wherein to
exercise those tastes which inherited disposition and education had
given to her, as she believed that he had married her because she was
the daughter of a peer.

Lady Honoria, like many another woman of her stamp, was the overbred,
or sometimes the underbred, product of a too civilized age and class.
Those primitive passions and virtues on which her husband had relied to
make the happiness of their married life simply did not exist for her.
The passions had been bred and educated out of her; for many
generations they have been found inconvenient and disquieting
attributes in woman. As for the old virtues, such as love of children
and the ordinary round of domestic duty, they simply bored her. On the
whole, though sharp of tongue, she rarely lost her temper, for her
vices, like her virtues, were of a somewhat negative order; but the
fury which seized her when she learned for certain that she was to
become a mother was a thing that her unfortunate husband never forgot
and never wished to see again. At length the child was born, a fact for
which Geoffrey, at least, was very thankful.

“Take it away. I do not want to see it!” said Lady Honoria to the
scandalised nurse when the little creature was brought to her, wrapped
in its long robes.

“Give it to me, nurse—I do,” said her husband.

From that moment Geoffrey gave all the pent-up affection of his bruised
soul to this little daughter, and as the years went on they grew very
dear to each other. But an active-minded, strong-hearted, able-bodied
man cannot take a babe as the sole companion of his existence. Probably
Geoffrey would have found this out in time, and might have drifted into
some mode of life more or less undesirable, had not an accident
occurred to prevent it. In his dotage, Geoffrey’s old uncle Sir Robert
Bingham fell a victim to the wiles of an adventuress and married her.
Then he promptly died, and eight months afterwards a posthumous son was
born.

To Geoffrey this meant ruin. His allowance stopped and his expectations
vanished at one fell swoop. He pulled himself together, however, as a
brave-hearted man does under such a shock, and going to his wife he
explained to her that he must now work for his living, begging her to
break down the barrier that was between them and give him her sympathy
and help. She met him with tears and reproaches. The one thing that
touched her keenly, the one thing which she feared and hated was
poverty, and all that poverty means to women of her rank and nature.
But there was no help for it; the charming house in Bolton Steet had to
be given up, and purgatory must be faced, in a flat, near the Edgware
Road. Lady Honoria was miserable, indeed had it not been that
fortunately for herself she possessed plenty of relations more or less
grand, whom she might continually visit for weeks and even for months
at a stretch, she could scarcely have endured her altered life.

But strangely enough Geoffrey soon found that he was happier than he
had been since his marriage. To begin with, he set to work like a man,
and work is a great source of happiness to all vigorous-minded folk. It
is not, in truth, a particularly cheerful occupation to pass endless
days in hanging about law-courts amongst a crowd of unbriefed Juniors,
and many nights in reading up the law one has forgotten and threading
the many intricacies of the Judicature Act. But it happened that his
father, a younger brother of Sir Robert’s, had been a solicitor, and
though he was dead, and all direct interest with the firm was severed,
yet another uncle remained in it, and the partners did not forget
Geoffrey in his difficulties.

They sent him what work they could without offending their standing
counsel, and he did it well. Then by degrees he built up quite a large
general practice of the kind known as deviling. Now there are few
things more unsatisfactory than doing another man’s work for nothing,
but every case fought means knowledge gained, and what is more it is
advertisement. So it came to pass that within less than two years from
the date of his money misfortunes, Geoffrey Bingham’s dark handsome
face and square strong form became very well known in the Courts.

“What is that man’s name?” said one well-known Q.C. to another still
more well known, as they sat waiting for their chops in the Bar Grill
Room, and saw Geoffrey, his wig pushed back from his forehead, striding
through the doorway on the last day of the sitting which preceded the
commencement of this history.

“Bingham,” answered the other. “He’s only begun to practise lately, but
he’ll be at the top of the tree before he has done. He married very
well, you know, old Garsington’s daughter, a charming woman, and
handsome too.”

“He looks like it,” grunted the first, and as a matter of fact such was
the general opinion.

For, as Beatrice had said, Geoffrey Bingham was a man who had success
written on his forehead. It would have been almost impossible for him
to fail in whatever he undertook.




CHAPTER IX.
WHAT BEATRICE DREAMED


Geoffrey lay upon his back, watching the still patch of sunshine and
listening to the ticking of the clock, as he passed all these and many
other events in solemn review, till the series culminated in his vivid
recollection of the scene of that very morning.

“I am sick of it,” he said at last aloud, “sick and tired. She makes my
life wretched. If it wasn’t for Effie upon my word I’d . . . By Jove,
it is three o’clock; I will go and see Miss Granger. She’s a woman, not
a female ghost at any rate, though she is a freethinker—which,” he
added as he slowly struggled off the couch, “is a very foolish thing to
be.”

Very shakily, for he was sadly knocked about, Geoffrey hobbled down the
long narrow room and through the door, which was ajar. The opposite
door was also set half open. He knocked softly, and getting no answer
pushed it wide and looked in, thinking that he had, perhaps, made some
mistake as to the room. On a sofa placed about two-thirds down its
length, lay Beatrice asleep. She was wrapped in a kind of dressing-gown
of some simple blue stuff, and all about her breast and shoulders
streamed her lovely curling hair. Her sweet face was towards him, its
pallor relieved only by the long shadow of the dark lashes and the bent
bow of the lips. One white wrist and hand hung down almost to the
floor, and beneath the spread curtain of the sunlit hair her bosom
heaved softly in her sleep. She looked so wondrously beautiful in her
rest that he stopped almost awed, and gazed, and gazed again, feeling
as though a present sense and power were stilling his heart to silence.
It is dangerous to look upon such quiet loveliness, and very dangerous
to feel that pressure at the heart. A truly wise man feeling it would
have fled, knowing that seeds sown in such silences may live to bloom
upon a bitter day, and shed their fruit into the waters of desolation.
But Geoffrey was not wise—who would have been? He still stood and gazed
till the sight stamped itself so deeply on the tablets of his heart
that through all the years to come no heats of passion, no frosts of
doubt, and no sense of loss could ever dull its memory.

The silent sun shone on, the silent woman slept, and in silence the
watcher gazed. And as he looked a great fear, a prescience of evil that
should come, entered into Geoffrey and took possession of him. A cloud
without crossed the ray of sunlight and turned it. It wavered, for a
second it rested on his breast, flashed back to hers, then went out;
and as it flashed and died, he seemed to know that henceforth, for life
till death, ay! and beyond, his fate and that sleeping woman’s were one
fate. It was but a momentary knowledge; the fear shook him, and was
gone almost before he understood its foolishness. But it had been with
him, and in after days he remembered it.

Just then Beatrice woke, opening her grey eyes. Their dreamy glance
fell upon him, looking through him and beyond him, rather than at him.
Then she raised herself a little and stretching out both her arms
towards him, spoke aloud.

“So have you have come back to me at last,” she said. “I knew that you
would come and I have waited.”

He made no answer, he did not know what to say; indeed he began to
think that he also must be dreaming. For a little while Beatrice still
looked at him in the same absent manner, then suddenly started up, the
red blood streaming to her brow.

“Why, Mr. Bingham,” she said, “is it really you? What was it that I
said? Oh, pray forgive me, whatever it was. I have been asleep dreaming
such a curious dream, and talking in my sleep.”

“Do not alarm yourself, Miss Granger,” he answered, recovering himself
with a jerk; “you did not say anything dreadful, only that you were
glad to see me. What were you dreaming about?”

Beatrice looked at him doubtfully; perhaps his words did not ring quite
true.

“I think that I had better tell you as I have said so much,” she
answered. “Besides, it was a very curious dream, and if I believed in
dreams it would rather frighten me, only fortunately I do not. Sit down
and I will tell it to you before I forget it. It is not very long.”

He took the chair to which she pointed, and she began, speaking in the
voice of one yet laden with the memories of sleep.

“I dreamed that I stood in space. Far to my right was a great globe of
light, and to my left was another globe, and I knew that the globes
were named Life and Death. From the globe on the right to the globe on
the left, and back again, a golden shuttle, in which two flaming eyes
were set, was shot continually, and I knew also that this was the
shuttle of Destiny, weaving the web of Fate. Presently the shuttle
flew, leaving behind it a long silver thread, and the eyes in the
shuttle were such as your eyes. Again the shuttle sped through space,
and this time its eyes were like my eyes, and the thread it left behind
it was twisted from a woman’s hair. Half way between the globes of Life
and Death my thread was broken, but the shuttle flew on and vanished.
For a moment the thread hung in air, then a wind rose and blew it, so
that it floated away like a spider’s web, till it struck upon your
silver thread of life and began to twist round and round it. As it
twisted it grew larger and heavier, till at last it was thick as a
great tress of hair, and the silver line bent beneath the weight so
that I saw it soon must break. Then while I wondered what would happen,
a white hand holding a knife slid slowly down the silver line, and with
the knife severed the wrappings of woman’s hair, which fell and floated
slowly away, like a little cloud touched with sunlight, till they were
lost in darkness. But the thread of silver that was your line of life,
sprang up quivering and making a sound like sighs, till at last it
sighed itself to silence.

“Then I seemed to sleep, and when I woke I was floating upon such a
misty sea as we saw last night. I had lost all sight of land, and I
could not remember what the stars were like, nor how I had been taught
to steer, nor understand where I must go. I called to the sea, and
asked it of the stars, and the sea answered me thus:

“‘Hope has rent her raiment, and the stars are set.’

“I called again, and asked of the land where I should go, and the land
did not answer, but the sea answered me a second time:

“‘Child of the mist, wander in the mist, and in darkness seek for
light.’

“Then I wept because Hope had rent her starry garment and in darkness I
must seek for light. And while I still wept, _you_ rose out of the sea
and sat before me in the boat. I had never seen you before, and still I
felt that I had known you always. You did not speak, and I did not
speak, but you looked into my heart and saw its trouble. Then I looked
into your heart, and read what was written. And this was written:

“‘Woman whom I knew before the Past began, and whom I shall know when
the Future is ended, why do you weep?’

“And my heart answered, ‘I weep because I am lost upon the waters of
the earth, because Hope has rent her starry robes, and in everlasting
darkness I must seek for light that is not.’ Then your heart said, ‘_I_
will show you light,’ and bending forward you touched me on the breast.

“And suddenly an agony shook me like the agonies of birth and death,
and the sky was full of great-winged angels who rolled up the mist as a
cloth, and drew the veils from the eyes of Night, and there, her feet
upon the globe, and her star-set head piercing the firmament of heaven,
stood Hope breathing peace and beauty. She looked north and south and
east and west, then she looked upwards through the arching vaults of
heaven, and wherever she set her eyes, bright with holy tears, the
darkness shrivelled and sorrow ceased, and from corruption arose the
Incorruptible. I gazed and worshipped, and as I did so, again the sea
spoke unquestioned:

“‘In darkness thou hast found light, in Death seek for wisdom.’

“Then once more Hope rent her starry robes, and the angels drew down a
veil over the eyes of Night, and the sea swallowed me, and I sank till
I reached the deep foundations of mortal death. And there in the Halls
of Death I sat for ages upon ages, till at last I saw you come, and on
your lips was the word of wisdom that makes all things clear, but what
it was I cannot remember. Then I stretched out my hand to greet you,
and woke, and that is all my dream.”

She ceased, her grey eyes set wide, as though they still strove to
trace their spiritual vision upon the air of earth, her breast heaving,
and her lips apart.

“Great heaven!” he said, “what an imagination you must have to dream
such a dream as that.”

“Imagination,” she answered, returning to her natural manner. “I have
none, Mr. Bingham. I used to have, but I lost it when I lost—everything
else. Can you interpret my dream? Of course you cannot; it is nothing
but nonsense—such stuff as dreams are made of, that is all.”

“It may be nonsense, I daresay it is, but it is beautiful nonsense,” he
answered. “I wish ladies had more of such stuff to give the world.”

“Ah, well, dreams may be wiser than wakings, and nonsense than learned
talk, for all we know. But there’s an end of it. I do not know why I
repeated it to you. I am sorry that I did repeat it, but it seemed so
real it shook me out of myself. This is what comes of breaking in upon
the routine of life by being three parts drowned. One finds queer
things at the bottom of the sea, you know. By the way I hope that you
are recovering. I do not think that you will care to go canoeing again
with me, Mr. Bingham.”

There was an opening for a compliment here, but Geoffrey felt that it
would be too much in earnest if spoken, so he resisted the temptation.

“What, Miss Granger,” he said, “should a man say to a lady who but last
night saved his life, at the risk, indeed almost at the cost, of her
own?”

“It was nothing,” she answered, colouring; “I clung to you, that was
all, more by instinct than from any motive. I think I had a vague idea
that you might float and support me.”

“Miss Granger, the occasion is too serious for polite fibs. I know how
you saved my life. I do not know how to thank you for it.”

“Then don’t thank me at all, Mr. Bingham. Why should you thank me? I
only did what I was bound to do. I would far rather die than desert a
companion in distress, of any sort; we all must die, but it would be
dreadful to die ashamed. You know what they say, that if you save a
person from drowning you will do them an injury afterwards. That is how
they put it here; in some parts the saying is the other way about, but
I am not likely ever to do you an injury, so it does not make me
unhappy. It was an awful experience: you were senseless, so you cannot
know how strange it felt lying upon the slippery rock, and seeing those
great white waves rush upon us through the gloom, with nothing but the
night above, and the sea around, and death between the two. I have been
lonely for many years, but I do not think that I ever quite understood
what loneliness really meant before. You see,” she added by way of an
afterthought, “I thought that you were dead, and there is not much
company in a corpse.”

“Well,” he said, “one thing is, it would have been lonelier if we had
gone.”

“Do you think so?” she answered, looking at him inquiringly. “I don’t
quite see how you make that out. If you believe in what we have been
taught, as I think you do, wherever it was you found yourself there
would be plenty of company, and if, like me, you do not believe in
anything, why, then, you would have slept, and sleep asks for nothing.”

“Did you believe in nothing when you lay upon the rock waiting to be
drowned, Miss Granger?”

“Nothing!” she answered; “only weak people find revelation in the
extremities of fear. If revelation comes at all, surely it must be born
in the heart and not in the senses. I believed in nothing, and I
dreaded nothing, except the agony of death. Why should I be afraid?
Supposing that I am mistaken, and there is something beyond, is it my
fault that I cannot believe? What have I done that I should be afraid?
I have never harmed anybody that I know of, and if I could believe I
would. I wish I had died,” she went on, passionately; “it would be all
over now. I am tired of the world, tired of work and helplessness, and
all the little worries which wear one out. I am not wanted here, I have
nothing to live for, and I wish that I had died!”

“Some day you will think differently, Miss Granger. There are many
things that a woman like yourself can live for—at the least, there is
your work.”

She laughed drearily. “My work! If you only knew what it is like you
would not talk to me about it. Every day I roll my stone up the hill,
and every night it seems to roll down again. But you have never taught
in a village school. How can you know? I work all day, and in the
evening perhaps I have to mend the tablecloths, or—what do you
think?—write my father’s sermons. It sounds curious, does it not, that
I should write sermons? But I do. I wrote the one he is going to preach
next Sunday. It makes very little difference to him what it is so long
as he can read it, and, of course, I never say anything which can
offend anybody, and I do not think that they listen much. Very few
people go to church in Bryngelly.”

“Don’t you ever get any time to yourself, then?”

“Oh, yes, sometimes I do, and then I go out in my canoe, or read, and
am almost happy. After all, Mr. Bingham, it is very wrong and
ungrateful of me to speak like this. I have more advantages than
nine-tenths of the world, and I ought to make the best of them. I don’t
know why I have been speaking as I have, and to you, whom I never saw
till yesterday. I never did it before to any living soul, I assure you.
It is just like the story of the man who came here last year with the
divining rod. There is a cottage down on the cliff—it belongs to Mr.
Davies, who lives in the Castle. Well, they have no drinking water
near, and the new tenant made a great fuss about it. So Mr. Davies
hired men, and they dug and dug and spent no end of money, but could
not come to water. At last the tenant fetched an old man from some
parish a long way off, who said that he could find springs with a
divining rod. He was a curious old man with a crutch, and he came with
his rod, and hobbled about till at last the rod twitched just at the
tenant’s back door—at least the diviner said it did. At any rate, they
dug there, and in ten minutes struck a spring of water, which bubbled
up so strongly that it rushed into the house and flooded it. And what
do you think? After all, the water was brackish. You are the man with
the divining rod, Mr. Bingham, and you have made me talk a great deal
too much, and, after all, you see it is not nice talk. You must think
me a very disagreeable and wicked young woman, and I daresay I am. But
somehow it is a relief to open one’s mind. I do hope, Mr. Bingham, that
you will see—in short, that you will not misunderstand me.”

“Miss Granger,” he answered, “there is between us that which will
always entitle us to mutual respect and confidence—the link of life and
death. Had it not been for you, I should not sit here to listen to your
confidence to-day. You may tell me that a mere natural impulse prompted
you to do what you did. I know better. It was your will that triumphed
over your natural impulse towards self-preservation. Well, I will say
no more about it, except this: If ever a man was bound to a woman by
ties of gratitude and respect, I am bound to you. You need not fear
that I shall take advantage of or misinterpret your confidence.” Here
he rose and stood before her, his dark handsome face bowed in proud
humility. “Miss Granger, I look upon it as an honour done to me by one
whom henceforth I must reverence among all women. The life you gave
back to me, and the intelligence which directs it, are in duty bound to
you, and I shall not forget the debt.”

Beatrice listened to his words, spoken in that deep and earnest voice,
which in after years became so familiar to Her Majesty’s judges and to
Parliament—listened with a new sense of pleasure rising in her heart.
She was this man’s equal; what he could dare, she could dare; where he
could climb, she could follow—ay, and if need be, show the path, and
she felt that he acknowledged it. In his sight she was something more
than a handsome girl to be admired and deferred to for her beauty’s
sake. He had placed her on another level—one, perhaps, that few women
would have wished to occupy. But Beatrice was thankful to him. It was
the first taste of supremacy that she had ever known.

It is something to stir the proud heart of such a woman as Beatrice, in
that moment when for the first time she feels herself a conqueror,
victorious, not through the vulgar advantage of her sex, not by the
submission of man’s coarser sense, but rather by the overbalancing
weight of mind.

“Do you know,” she said, suddenly looking up, “you make me very proud,”
and she stretched out her hand to him.

He took it, and, bending, touched it with his lips. There was no
possibility of misinterpreting the action, and though she coloured a
little—for, till then, no man had even kissed the tip of her finger—she
did not misinterpret it. It was an act of homage, and that was all.

And so they sealed the compact of their perfect friendship for ever and
a day.

Then came a moment’s silence. It was Geoffrey who broke it.

“Miss Granger,” he said, “will you allow me to preach you a lecture, a
very short one?”

“Go on,” she said.

“Very well. Do not blame me if you don’t like it, and do not set me
down as a prig, though I am going to tell you your faults as I read
them in your own words. You are proud and ambitious, and the cramped
lines in which you are forced to live seem to strangle you. You have
suffered, and have not learned the lesson of suffering—humility. You
have set yourself up against Fate, and Fate sweeps you along like spray
upon the gale, yet you go unwilling. In your impatience you have flown
to learning for refuge, and it has completed your overthrow, for it has
induced you to reject as non-existent all that you cannot understand.
Because your finite mind cannot search infinity, because no answer has
come to all your prayers, because you see misery and cannot read its
purpose, because you suffer and have not found rest, you have said
there is naught but chance, and become an atheist, as many have done
before you. Is it not true?”

“Go on,” she answered, bowing her head to her breast so that the long
rippling hair almost hid her face.

“It seems a little odd,” Geoffrey said with a short laugh, “that I,
with all my imperfections heaped upon me, should presume to preach to
you—but you will know best how near or how far I am from the truth. So
I want to say something. I have lived for thirty-five years, and seen a
good deal and tried to learn from it, and I know this. In the long run,
unless we of our own act put away the opportunity, the world gives us
our due, which generally is not much. So much for things temporal. If
you are fit to rule, in time you will rule; if you do not, then be
content and acknowledge your own incapacity. And as for things
spiritual, I am sure of this—though of course one does not like to talk
much of these matters—if you only seek for them long enough in some
shape you will find them, though the shape may not be that which is
generally recognised by any particular religion. But to build a wall
deliberately between oneself and the unseen, and then complain that the
way is barred, is simply childish.”

“And what if one’s wall is built, Mr. Bingham?”

“Most of us have done something in that line at different times,” he
answered, “and found a way round it.”

“And if it stretches from horizon to horizon, and is higher than the
clouds, what then?”

“Then you must find wings and fly over it.”

“And where can any earthly woman find those spiritual wings?” she
asked, and then sank her head still deeper on her breast to cover her
confusion. For she remembered that she had heard of wanderers in the
dusky groves of human passion, yes, even Mænad wanderers, who had
suddenly come face to face with their own soul; and that the cruel
paths of earthly love may yet lead the feet which tread them to the
ivory gates of heaven.

And remembering these beautiful myths, though she had no experience of
love, and knew little of its ways, Beatrice grew suddenly silent. Nor
did Geoffrey give her an answer, though he need scarcely have feared to
do so.

For were they not discussing a purely abstract question?




CHAPTER X.
LADY HONORIA MAKES ARRANGEMENTS


In another moment somebody entered the room; it was Elizabeth. She had
returned from her tithe collecting expedition—with the tithe. The door
of the sitting-room was still ajar, and Geoffrey had his back towards
it. So it happened that nobody heard Elizabeth’s rather cat-like step,
and for some seconds she stood in the doorway without being perceived.
She stood quite still, taking in the whole scene at a glance. She
noticed that her sister held her head down, so that her hair shadowed
her, and guessed that she did so for some reason—probably because she
did not wish her face to be seen. Or was it to show off her lovely
hair? She noticed also the half shy, half amused, and altogether
interested expression upon Geoffrey’s countenance—she could see that in
the little gilt-edged looking-glass which hung over the fire-place, nor
did she overlook the general air of embarrassment that pervaded them
both.

When she came in, Elizabeth had been thinking of Owen Davies, and of
what might have happened had she never seen the tide of life flow back
into her sister’s veins. She had dreamed of it all night and had
thought of it all day; even in the excitement of extracting the back
tithe from the recalcitrant and rather coarse-minded Welsh farmer, with
strong views on the subject of tithe, it had not been entirely
forgotten. The farmer was a tenant of Owen Davies, and when he called
her a “parson in petticoats, and wus,” and went on, in delicate
reference to her powers of extracting cash, to liken her to a
“two-legged corkscrew only screwier,” she perhaps not unnaturally
reflected, that if ever—_pace_ Beatrice—certain things should come
about, she would remember that farmer. For Elizabeth was blessed with a
very long memory, as some people had learnt to their cost, and
generally, sooner or later, she paid her debts in full, not forgetting
the overdue interest.

And now, as she stood in the doorway unseen and noted these matters,
something occurred to her in connection with this dominating idea,
which, like ideas in general, had many side issues. At any rate a look
of quick intelligence shone for a moment in her light eyes, like a
sickly sunbeam on a faint December mist; then she moved forward, and
when she was close behind Geoffrey, spoke suddenly.

“What are you both thinking about?” she said in her clear thin voice;
“you seem to have exhausted your conversation.”

Geoffrey made an exclamation and fairly jumped from his chair, a feat
which in his bruised condition really hurt him very much. Beatrice too
started violently; she recovered herself almost instantly, however.

“How quietly you move, Elizabeth,” she said.

“Not more quietly than you sit, Beatrice. I have been wondering when
anybody was going to say anything, or if you were both asleep.”

For her part Beatrice speculated how long her sister had been in the
room. Their conversation had been innocent enough, but it was not one
that she would wish Elizabeth to have overheard. And somehow Elizabeth
had a knack of overhearing things.

“You see, Miss Granger,” said Geoffrey coming to the rescue, “both our
brains are still rather waterlogged, and that does not tend to a flow
of ideas.”

“Quite so,” said Elizabeth. “My dear Beatrice, why don’t you tie up
your hair? You look like a crazy Jane. Not but what you have very nice
hair,” she added critically. “Do you admire good hair, Mr. Bingham.”

“Of course I do,” he answered gallantly, “but it is not common.”

Only Beatrice bit her lip with vexation. “I had almost forgotten about
my hair,” she said; “I must apologise for appearing in such a state. I
would have done it up after dinner only I was too stiff, and while I
was waiting for Betty, I went to sleep.”

“I think there is a bit of ribbon in that drawer. I saw you put it
there yesterday,” answered the precise Elizabeth. “Yes, here it is. If
you like, and Mr. Bingham will excuse it, I can tie it back for you,”
and without waiting for an answer she passed behind Beatrice, and
gathering up the dense masses of her sister’s locks, tied them round in
such fashion that they could not fall forward, though they still rolled
down her back.

Just then Mr. Granger came back from his visit to the farm. He was in
high good humour. The pig had even surpassed her former efforts, and
increased in a surprising manner, to the number of fifteen indeed.
Elizabeth thereon produced the two pounds odd shillings which she had
“corkscrewed” out of the recalcitrant dissenting farmer, and the sight
added to Mr. Granger’s satisfaction.

“Would you believe it, Mr. Bingham,” he said, “in this miserably paid
parish I have nearly a hundred pounds owing to me, a hundred pounds in
tithe. There is old Jones who lives out towards the Bell Rock, he owes
three years’ tithe—thirty-four pounds eleven and fourpence. He can pay
and he won’t pay—says he’s a Baptist and is not going to pay parson’s
dues—though for the matter of that he is nothing but an old beer tub of
a heathen.”

“Why don’t you proceed against him, then, Mr. Granger?”

“Proceed, I have proceeded. I’ve got judgment, and I mean to issue
execution in a few days. I won’t stand it any longer,” he went on,
working himself up and shaking his head as he spoke till his thin white
hair fell about his eyes. “I will have the law of him and the others
too. You are a lawyer and you can help me. I tell you there’s a spirit
abroad which just comes to this—no man isn’t to pay his lawful debts,
except of course the parson and the squire. They must pay or go to the
court. But there is law left, and I’ll have it, before they play the
Irish game on us here.” And he brought down his fist with a bang upon
the table.

Geoffrey listened with some amusement. So this was the weak old man’s
sore point—money. He was clearly very strong about that—as strong as
Lady Honoria indeed, but with more excuse. Elizabeth also listened with
evident approval, but Beatrice looked pained.

“Don’t get angry, father,” she said; “perhaps he will pay after all. It
is bad to take the law if you can manage any other way—it breeds so
much ill blood.”

“Nonsense, Beatrice,” said her sister sharply. “Father is quite right.
There’s only one way to deal with them, and that is to seize their
goods. I believe you are socialist about property, as you are about
everything else. You want to pull everything down, from the Queen to
the laws of marriage, all for the good of humanity, and I tell you that
your ideas will be your ruin. Defy custom and it will crush you. You
are running your head against a brick wall, and one day you will find
which is the harder.”

Beatrice flushed, but answered her sister’s attack, which was all the
sharper because it had a certain spice of truth in it.

“I never expressed any such views, Elizabeth, so I do not see why you
should attribute them to me. I only said that legal proceedings breed
bad blood in a parish, and that is true.”

“I did not say you expressed them,” went on the vigorous Elizabeth;
“you look them—they ooze out of your words like water from a peat bog.
Everybody knows you are a radical and a freethinker and everything else
that is bad and mad, and contrary to that state of life in which it has
pleased God to call you. The end of it will be that you will lose the
mistresship of the school—and I think it is very hard on father and me
that you should bring disgrace on us with your strange ways and immoral
views, and now you can make what you like of it.”

“I wish that all radicals were like Miss Beatrice,” said Geoffrey, who
was feeling exceedingly uncomfortable, with a feeble attempt at polite
jocosity. But nobody seemed to hear him. Elizabeth, who was now fairly
in a rage, a faint flush upon her pale cheeks, her light eyes all
ashine, and her thin fingers clasped, stood fronting her beautiful
sister, and breathing spite at every pore. But it was easy for Geoffrey
who was watching her to see that it was not her sister’s views she was
attacking; it was her sister. It was that soft strong loveliness and
the glory of that face; it was the deep gentle mind, erring from its
very greatness, and the bright intellect which lit it like a lamp; it
was the learning and the power that, give them play, would set a world
aflame, as easily as they did the heart of the slow-witted hermit
squire, whom Elizabeth coveted—these were the things that Elizabeth
hated, and bitterly assailed.

Accustomed to observe, Geoffrey saw this instantly, and then glanced at
the father. The old man was frightened; clearly he was afraid of
Elizabeth, and dreaded a scene. He stood fidgeting his feet about, and
trying to find something to say, as he glanced apprehensively at his
elder daughter, through his thin hanging hair.

Lastly, Geoffrey looked at Beatrice, who was indeed well worth looking
at. Her face was quite pale and the clear grey eyes shone out beneath
their dark lashes. She had risen, drawing herself to her full height,
which her exquisite proportions seemed to increase, and was looking at
her sister. Presently she said one word and one only, but it was
enough.

“_Elizabeth._”

Her sister opened her lips to speak again, but hesitated, and changed
her mind. There was something in Beatrice’s manner that checked her.

“Well,” she said at length, “you should not irritate me so, Beatrice.”

Beatrice made no reply. She only turned towards Geoffrey, and with a
graceful little bow, said:

“Mr. Bingham, I am sure that you will forgive this scene. The fact is,
we all slept badly last night, and it has not improved our tempers.”

There was a pause, of which Mr. Granger took a hurried and rather
undignified advantage.

“Um, ah,” he said. “By the way, Beatrice, what was it I wanted to say?
Ah, I know—have you written, I mean written out, that sermon for next
Sunday? My daughter,” he added, addressing Geoffrey in explanation—“um,
copies my sermons for me. She writes a very good hand——”

Remembering Beatrice’s confidence as to her sermon manufacturing
functions, Geoffrey felt amused at her father’s _naïve_ way of
describing them, and Beatrice also smiled faintly as she answered that
the sermon was ready. Just then the roll of wheels was heard without,
and the only fly that Bryngelly could boast pulled up in front of the
door.

“Here is the fly come for you, Mr. Bingham,” said Mr. Granger—“and as I
live, her ladyship with it. Elizabeth, see if there isn’t some tea
ready,” and the old gentleman, who had all the traditional love of the
lower middle-class Englishman for a title, trotted off to welcome “her
ladyship.”

Presently Lady Honoria entered the room, a sweet, if rather a set smile
upon her handsome face, and with a graceful mien, that became her tall
figure exceedingly well. For to do Lady Honoria justice, she was one of
the most ladylike women in the country, and so far as her personal
appearance went, a very perfect type of the class to which she
belonged.

Geoffrey looked at her, saying to himself that she had clearly
recovered her temper, and that he was thankful for it. This was not
wonderful, for it is observable that the more aristocratic a lady’s
manners are, the more disagreeable she is apt to be when she is
crossed.

“Well, Geoffrey dear,” she said, “you see I have come to fetch you. I
was determined that you should not get yourself drowned a second time
on your way home. How are you now?—but I need not ask, you look quite
well again.”

“It is very kind of you, Honoria,” said her husband simply, but it was
doubtful if she heard him, for at the moment she was engaged in
searching out the soul of Beatrice, with one of the most penetrating
and comprehensive glances that young lady had ever enjoyed the honour
of receiving. There was nothing rude about the look, it was too quick,
but Beatrice felt that quick as it might be it embraced her altogether.
Nor was she wrong.

“There is no doubt about it,” Lady Honoria thought to herself, “she is
lovely—lovely everywhere. It was clever of her to leave her hair down;
it shows the shape of her head so well, and she is tall enough to stand
it. That blue wrapper suits her too. Very few women could show such a
figure as hers—like a Greek statue. I don’t like her; she is different
from most of us; just the sort of girl men go wild about and women
hate.”

All this passed through her mind in a flash. For a moment Lady
Honoria’s blue eyes met Beatrice’s grey ones, and she knew that
Beatrice liked her no better than she did Beatrice. Those eyes were a
trifle too honest, and, like the deep clear water they resembled, apt
to throw up shadows of the passing thoughts above.

“False and cold and heartless,” thought Beatrice. “I wonder how a man
like that could marry her; and how much he loves her.”

Thus the two women took each other’s measure at a glance, each finding
the other wanting by her standard. Nor did they ever change that
hastily formed judgment.

It was all done in a few seconds—in that hesitating moment before the
words we summon answer on our lips. The next, Lady Honoria was sweeping
towards her with outstretched hand, and her most gracious smile.

“Miss Granger,” she said, “I owe you a debt I never can repay—my dear
husband’s life. I have heard all about how you saved him; it is the
most wonderful thing—Grace Darling born again. I can’t think how you
could do it. I wish I were half as brave and strong.”

“Please don’t, Lady Honoria,” said Beatrice. “I am so tired of being
thanked for doing nothing, except what it was my duty to do. If I had
let Mr. Bingham go while I had the strength to hold on to him I should
have felt like a murderess to-day. I beg you to say no more about it.”

“One does not often find such modesty united to so much courage, and,
if you will allow me to say it, so much beauty,” answered Lady Honoria
graciously. “Well, I will do as you wish, but I warn you your fame will
find you out. I hear they have an account of the whole adventure in
to-day’s papers, headed, ‘A Welsh Heroine.’”

“How did you hear that, Honoria?” asked her husband.

“Oh, I had a telegram from Garsington, and he mentions it,” she
answered carelessly.

“Telegram from Garsington! Hence these smiles,” thought he. “I suppose
that she is going to-morrow.”

“I have some other news for you, Miss Granger,” went on Lady Honoria.
“Your canoe has been washed ashore, very little injured. The old
boatman—Edward, I think they call him—has found it; and your gun in it
too, Geoffrey. It had stuck under the seat or somewhere. But I fancy
that you must both have had enough canoeing for the present.”

“I don’t know, Lady Honoria,” answered Beatrice. “One does not often
get such weather as last night’s, and canoeing is very pleasant. Every
sweet has its salt, you know; or, in other words, one may always be
upset.”

At that moment, Betty, the awkward Welsh serving lass, with a fore-arm
about as shapely as the hind leg of an elephant, and a most unpleasing
habit of snorting audibly as she moved, shuffled in with the tea-tray.
In her wake came the slim Elizabeth, to whom Lady Honoria was
introduced.

After this, conversation flagged for a while, till Lady Honoria,
feeling that things were getting a little dull, set the ball rolling
again.

“What a pretty view you have of the sea from these windows,” she said
in her well-trained and monotonously modulated voice. “I am so glad to
have seen it, for, you know, I am going away to-morrow.”

Beatrice looked up quickly.

“My husband is not going,” she went on, as though in answer to an
unspoken question. “I am playing the part of the undutiful wife and
running away from him, for exactly three weeks. It is very wicked of
me, isn’t it? but I have an engagement that I must keep. It is most
tiresome.”

Geoffrey, sipping his tea, smiled grimly behind the shelter of his cup.
“She does it uncommonly well,” he thought to himself.

“Does your little girl go with you, Lady Honoria?” asked Elizabeth.

“Well, no, I think not. I can’t bear parting with her—you know how hard
it is when one has only one child. But I think she would be so bored
where I am going to stay, for there are no other children there; and
besides, she positively adores the sea. So I shall have to leave her to
her father’s tender mercies, poor dear.”

“I hope Effie will survive it, I am sure,” said Geoffrey laughing.

“I suppose that your husband is going to stay on at Mrs. Jones’s,” said
the clergyman.

“Really, I don’t know. What _are_ you going to do, Geoffrey? Mrs.
Jones’s rooms are rather expensive for people in our impoverished
condition. Besides, I am sure that she cannot look after Effie. Just
think, she has eight children of her own, poor old dear. And I must
take Anne with me; she is Effie’s French nurse, you know, a perfect
treasure. I am going to stay in a big house, and my experience of those
big houses is, that one never gets waited on at all unless one takes a
maid. You see, what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business. I’m
sure I don’t know how you will get on with the child, Geoffrey; she
takes such a lot of looking after.”

“Oh, don’t trouble about that, Honoria,” he answered. “I daresay that
Effie and I will manage somehow.”

Here one of those peculiar gleams of intelligence which marked the
advent of a new idea passed across Elizabeth’s face. She was sitting
next her father, and bending, whispered to him. Beatrice saw it and
made a motion as though to interpose, but before she could do so Mr.
Granger spoke.

“Look here, Mr. Bingham,” he said, “if you want to move, would you like
a room here? Terms strictly moderate, but can’t afford to put you up
for nothing you know, and living rough and ready. You’d have to take us
as you find us; but there is a dressing-room next to my room, where
your little girl could sleep, and my daughters would look after her
between them, and be glad of the job.”

Again Beatrice opened her lips as though to speak, but closed them
without speaking. Thus do our opportunities pass before we realise that
they are at hand.

Instinctively Geoffrey had glanced towards Beatrice. He did not know if
this idea was agreeable to her. He knew that her work was hard, and he
did not wish to put extra trouble upon her, for he guessed that the
burden of looking after Effie would ultimately fall upon her shoulders.
But her face told him nothing: it was quite passive and apparently
indifferent.

“You are very kind, Mr. Granger,” he said, hesitating. “I don’t want to
go away from Bryngelly just at present, and it would be a good plan in
some ways, that is if the trouble to your daughters would not be too
much.”

“I am sure that it is an excellent plan,” broke in Lady Honoria, who
feared lest difficulties should arise as to her appropriation of Anne’s
services; “how lucky that I happened to mention it. There will be no
trouble about our giving up the rooms at Mrs. Jones’s, because I know
she has another application for them.”

“Very well,” said Geoffrey, not liking to raise objections to a scheme
thus publicly advocated, although he would have preferred to take time
to consider. Something warned him that Bryngelly Vicarage would prove a
fateful abode for him. Then Elizabeth rose and asked Lady Honoria if
she would like to see the rooms her husband and Effie would occupy.

She said she should be delighted and went off, followed by Mr. Granger
fussing in the rear.

“Don’t you think that you will be a little dull here, Mr. Bingham?”
said Beatrice.

“On the contrary,” he answered. “Why should I be dull? I cannot be so
dull as I should be by myself.”

Beatrice hesitated, and then spoke again. “We are a curious family, Mr.
Bingham; you may have seen as much this afternoon. Had you not better
think it over?”

“If you mean that you do not want me to come, I won’t,” he said rather
bluntly, and next second felt that he had made a mistake.

“I!” Beatrice answered, opening her eyes. “I have no wishes in the
matter. The fact is that we are poor, and let lodgings—that is what it
comes to. If you think they will suit you, you are quite right to take
them.”

Geoffrey coloured. He was a man who could not bear to lay himself open
to the smallest rebuff from a woman, and he had brought this on
himself. Beatrice saw it and relented.

“Of course, Mr. Bingham, so far as I am concerned, I shall be the
gainer if you do come. I do not meet so many people with whom I care to
associate, and from whom I can learn, that I wish to throw a chance
away.”

“I think you misunderstand me a little,” he said; “I only meant that
perhaps you would not wish to be bothered with Effie, Miss Granger.”

She laughed. “Why, I love children. It will be a great pleasure to me
to look after her so far as I have time.”

Just then the others returned, and their conversation came to an end.

“It’s quite delightful, Geoffrey—such funny old-fashioned rooms. I
really envy you.” (If there was one thing in the world that Lady
Honoria hated, it was an old-fashioned room.) “Well, and now we must be
going. Oh! you poor creature, I forgot that you were so knocked about.
I am sure Mr. Granger will give you his arm.”

Mr. Granger ambled forward, and Geoffrey having made his adieus, and
borrowed a clerical hat (Mr. Granger’s concession to custom, for in
most other respects he dressed like an ordinary farmer), was safely
conveyed to the fly.

And so ended Geoffrey’s first day at Bryngelly Vicarage.




CHAPTER XI.
BEATRICE MAKES AN APPOINTMENT


Lady Honoria leaned back in the cab, and sighed a sigh of satisfaction.

“That is a capital idea,” she said. “I was wondering what arrangements
you could make for the next three weeks. It is ridiculous to pay three
guineas a week for rooms just for you and Effie. The old gentleman only
wants that for board and lodging together, for I asked him.”

“I daresay it will do,” said Geoffrey. “When are we to shift?”

“To-morrow, in time for dinner, or rather supper: these barbarians eat
supper, you know. I go by the morning train, you see, so as to reach
Garsington by tea-time. I daresay you will find it rather dull, but you
like being dull. The old clergyman is a low stamp of man, and a bore,
and as for the eldest daughter, Elizabeth, she’s too awful—she reminds
me of a rat. But Beatrice is handsome enough, though I think her horrid
too. You’ll have to console yourself with her, and I daresay you will
suit each other.”

“Why do you think her horrid, Honoria?”

“Oh, I don’t know; she is clever and odd, and I hate odd women. Why
can’t they be like other people? Think of her being strong enough to
save your life like that too. She must have the muscle of an
Amazon—it’s downright unwomanly. But there is no doubt about her
beauty. She is as nearly perfect as any girl I ever saw, though too
independent looking. If only one had a daughter like that, how one
might marry her. I would not look at anything under twenty thousand a
year. She is too good for that lumbering Welsh squire she’s engaged
to—the man who lives in the Castle—though they say that he is fairly
rich.”

“Engaged,” said Geoffrey, “how do you know that she is engaged?”

“Oh, I don’t know it at all, but I suppose she is. If she isn’t, she
soon will be, for a girl in that position is not likely to throw such a
chance away. At any rate, he’s head over ears in love with her. I saw
that last night. He was hanging about for hours in the rain, outside
the door, with a face like a ghost, till he knew whether she was dead
or alive, and he has been there twice to inquire this morning. Mr.
Granger told me. But she is too good for him from a business point of
view. She might marry anybody, if only she were put in the way of it.”

Somehow, Geoffrey’s lively interest in Beatrice sensibly declined on
the receipt of this intelligence. Of course it was nothing to him;
indeed he was glad to hear that she was in the way of such a
comfortable settlement, but it is unfortunately a fact that one cannot
be quite as much interested in a young and lovely lady who is the
potential property of a “lumbering Welsh squire,” as in one who belongs
to herself.

The old Adam still survives in most men, however right-thinking they
may be, and this is one of its methods of self-assertion.

“Well,” he said, “I am glad to hear she is in such a good way; she
deserves it. I think the Welsh squire is in luck; Miss Granger is a
remarkable woman.”

“Too remarkable by half,” said Lady Honoria drily. “Here we are, and
there is Effie, skipping about like a wild thing as usual. I think that
child is demented.”

On the following morning—it was Friday—Lady Honoria, accompanied by
Anne, departed in the very best of tempers. For the next three weeks,
at any rate, she would be free from the galling associations of
straightened means—free to enjoy the luxury and refined comfort to
which she had been accustomed, and for which her soul yearned with a
fierce longing that would be incomprehensible to folk of a simpler
mind. Everybody has his or her ideal Heaven, if only one could fathom
it. Some would choose a sublimated intellectual leisure, made happy by
the best literature of all the planets; some a model state (with
themselves as presidents), in which (through their beneficent efforts)
the latest radical notions could actually be persuaded to work to
everybody’s satisfaction; others a happy hunting ground, where the game
enjoyed the fun as much as they did; and so on, _ad infinitum_.

Lady Honoria was even more modest. Give her a well appointed town and
country house, a few powdered footmen, plenty of carriages, and other
needful things, including of course the _entrée_ to the upper celestial
ten, and she would ask no more from age to age. Let us hope that she
will get it one day. It would hurt nobody, and she is sure to find
plenty of people of her own way of thinking—that is, if this world
supplies the raw material.

She embraced Effie with enthusiasm, and her husband with a chastened
warmth, and went, a pious prayer on her lips that she might never again
set eyes upon Bryngelly.

It will not be necessary for us to follow Lady Honoria in her travels.
That afternoon Effie and her father had great fun. They packed up.
Geoffrey, who was rapidly recovering from his stiffness, pushed the
things into the portmanteaus and Effie jumped on them. Those which
would not go in they bundled loose into the fly, till that vehicle
looked like an old clothes ship. Then, as there was no room left for
them inside, they walked down to the Vicarage by the beach, a distance
of about three-quarters of a mile, stopping on their way to admire the
beautiful castle, in one corner of which Owen Davies lived and moved.

“Oh, daddy,” said the child, “I wish you would buy a house like that
for you and me to live in. Why don’t you, daddy?”

“Haven’t got the money, dear,” he answered.

“Will you ever have the money, daddy?”

“I don’t know, dear, perhaps one day—when I am too old to enjoy it,” he
added to himself.

“It would take a great many pennies to buy a house like that, wouldn’t
it, daddy?” said Effie sagely.

“Yes, dear, more than you could count,” he answered, and the
conversation dropped.

Presently they came to a boat-shed, placed opposite the village and
close to high-water mark. Here a man, it was old Edward, was engaged in
mending a canoe. Geoffrey glanced at it and saw that it was the
identical canoe out of which he had so nearly been drowned.

“Look, Effie,” said he, “that is the boat out of which I was upset.”
Effie opened her wide eyes, and stared at the frail craft.

“It is a horrid boat,” she said; “I don’t want to look at it.”

“You’re quite right, little miss,” said old Edward, touching his cap.
“It ain’t safe, and somebody will be drowned out of it one of these
days. I wish it had gone to the bottom, I do; but Miss Beatrice, she is
that foolhardy there ain’t no doing nothing with her.”

“I fancy that she has learnt a lesson,” said Geoffrey.

“May be, may be,” grumbled the old man, “but women folk are hard to
teach; they never learn nothing till it’s too late, they don’t, and
then when they’ve been and done it they’re sorry, but what’s the good
o’ that?”

Meanwhile another conversation was in progress not more than a quarter
of a mile away. On the brow of the cliff stood the village of
Bryngelly, and at the back of the village was a school, a plain
white-washed building, roofed with stone, which, though amply
sufficient and suitable to the wants of the place, was little short of
an abomination in the eyes of Her Majesty’s school inspectors, who from
time to time descended upon Bryngelly for purposes of examination and
fault-finding. They yearned to see a stately red-brick edifice, with
all the latest improvements, erected at the expense of the rate-payers,
but as yet they yearned in vain. The school was supported by voluntary
contributions, and thanks to Beatrice’s energy and good teaching, the
dreaded Board, with its fads and extravagance, had not yet clutched it.

Beatrice had returned to her duties that afternoon, for a night’s rest
brought back its vigour to her strong young frame. She had been greeted
with enthusiasm by the children, who loved her, as well they might, for
she was very gentle and sweet with them, though few dared to disobey
her. Besides, her beauty impressed them, though they did not know it.
Beauty of a certain sort has perhaps more effect on children than on
any other class, heedless and selfish as they often seem to be. They
feel its power; it is an outward expression of the thoughts and dreams
that bud in their unknowing hearts, and is somehow mixed up with their
ideas of God and Heaven. Thus there was in Bryngelly a little girl of
ten, a very clever and highly excitable child, Jane Llewellyn by name,
born of parents of strict Calvinistic views. As it chanced, some months
before the opening of this story, a tub thumper, of high renown and
considerable rude oratorical force, visited the place, and treated his
hearers to a lively discourse on the horrors of Hell.

In the very front row, her eyes wide with fear, sat this poor little
child between her parents, who listened to the Minister with much
satisfaction, and a little way back sat Beatrice, who had come out of
curiosity.

Presently the preacher, having dealt sufficiently in terrifying
generalities, went on to practical illustrations, for, after the manner
of his class, he was delivering an extemporary oration. “Look at that
child,” he said, pointing to the little girl; “she looks innocent, does
she not? but if she does not find salvation, my brethren, I tell you
that she is damned. If she dies to-night, not having found salvation,
she will go to _Hell_. Her delicate little body will be tormented for
ever and ever——”

Here the unfortunate child fell forward with a shriek.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir,” said Beatrice aloud.

She had been listening to all this ill-judged rant with growing
indignation, and now, in her excitement, entirely forgot that she was
in a place of worship. Then she ran forward to the child, who had
swooned. Poor little unfortunate, she never recovered the shock. When
she came to herself, it was found that her finely strung mind had given
way, and she lapsed into a condition of imbecility. But her imbecility
was not always passive. Occasionally fits of passionate terror would
seize upon her. She would cry out that the fiends were coming to drag
her down to torment, and dash herself against the wall, in fear hideous
to behold. Then it was found that there was but one way to calm her: it
was to send for Beatrice. Beatrice would come and take the poor thin
hands in hers and gaze with her calm deep eyes upon the wasted
horror-stricken face till the child grew quiet again and, shivering,
sobbed herself to sleep upon her breast.

And so it was with all the children; her power over them was almost
absolute. They loved her, and she loved them all.

And now the schooling was almost done for the day. It was Beatrice’s
custom to make the children sing some simple song before they broke up.
She stood in front of them and gave the time while they sung, and a
pretty sight it was to see her do it. On this particular afternoon,
just as the first verse was finished, the door of the room opened, and
Owen Davies entered, bearing some books under his arm. Beatrice glanced
round and saw him, then, with a quick stamp of her foot, went on giving
the time.

The children sung lustily, and in front of them stood Beatrice, dressed
in simple white, her graceful form swaying as she marked the music’s
time. Nearer and nearer drew Owen Davies, till at length he stood quite
close, his lips slightly apart, his eyes fixed upon her like the eyes
of one who dreams, and his slow heavy face faintly lit with the glow of
strong emotion.

The song ended, the children at a word from their mistress filed past
her, headed by the pupil teachers, and then with a shout, seizing their
caps, ran forth this way and that, welcoming the free air. When they
were all gone, and not till then, Beatrice turned suddenly round.

“How do you do, Mr. Davies?” she said.

He started visibly. “I did not know that you had seen me,” he answered.

“Oh, yes, I saw you, Mr. Davies, only I could not stop the song to say
how do you do. By the way, I have to thank you for coming to inquire
after me.”

“Not at all, Miss Beatrice, not at all; it was a most dreadful
accident. I cannot tell you how thankful I am—I can’t, indeed.”

“It is very good of you to take so much interest in me,” said Beatrice.

“Not at all, Miss Beatrice, not at all. Who—who could help taking
interest in you? I have brought you some books—the Life of Darwin—it is
in two volumes. I think that I have heard you say that Darwin interests
you?”

“Yes, thank you very much. Have you read it?”

“No, but I have cut it. Darwin doesn’t interest me, you know. I think
that he was a rather misguided person. May I carry the books home for
you?”

“Thank you, but I am not going straight home; I am going to old
Edward’s shed to see my canoe.”

As a matter of fact this was true, but the idea was only that moment
born in her mind. Beatrice had been going home, as she wanted to see
that all things were duly prepared for Geoffrey and his little
daughter. But to reach the Vicarage she must pass along the cliff,
where there were few people, and this she did not wish to do. To be
frank, she feared lest Mr. Davies should take the opportunity to make
that offer of his hand and heart which hung over her like a nightmare.
Now the way to Edward’s shed lay through the village and down the
cliff, and she knew that he would never propose in the village.

It was very foolish of her, no doubt, thus to seek to postpone the evil
day, but the strongest-minded women have their weak points, and this
was one of Beatrice’s. She hated the idea of this scene. She knew that
when it did come there would be a scene. Not that her resolution to
refuse the man had ever faltered. But it would be painful, and in the
end it must reach the ears of her father and Elizabeth that she had
actually rejected Mr. Owen Davies, and then what would her life be
worth? She had never suspected it, it had never entered into her mind
to suspect, that, though her father might be vexed enough, nothing on
this earth would more delight the heart of Elizabeth.

Presently, having fetched her hat, Beatrice, accompanied by her
admirer, bearing the Life of Darwin under his arm, started to walk down
to the beach. They went in silence, Beatrice just a little ahead. She
ventured some remark about the weather, but Owen Davies made no reply;
he was thinking, he wanted to say something, but he did not know how to
say it. They were at the head of the cliff now, and if he wished to
speak he must do so quickly.

“Miss Beatrice,” he said in a somewhat constrained voice.

“Yes, Mr. Davies—oh, look at that seagull; it nearly knocked my hat
off.”

But he was not to be put off with the seagull. “Miss Beatrice,” he said
again, “are you going out walking next Sunday afternoon?”

“How can I tell, Mr. Davies? It may rain.”

“But if it does not rain—please tell me. You generally do walk on the
beach on Sunday. Miss Beatrice, I want to speak to you. I hope you will
allow me, I do indeed.”

Then suddenly she came to a decision. This kind of thing was
unendurable; it would be better to get it over. Turning round so
suddenly that Owen started, she said:

“If you wish to speak to me, Mr. Davies, I shall be in the Amphitheatre
opposite the Red Rocks, at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, but I had
much rather that you did not come. I can say no more.”

“I shall come,” he answered doggedly, and they went down the steps to
the boat-shed.

“Oh, look, daddy,” said Effie, “here comes the lady who was drownded
with you and a gentleman,” and to Beatrice’s great relief the child ran
forward and met them.

“Ah!” thought Geoffrey to himself, “that is the man Honoria said she
was engaged to. Well, I don’t think very much of her taste.”

In another minute they had arrived. Geoffrey shook hands with Beatrice,
and was introduced to Owen Davies, who murmured something in reply, and
promptly took his departure.

They examined the canoe together, and then walked slowly up to the
Vicarage, Beatrice holding Effie by the hand. Opposite the reef they
halted for a minute.

“There is the Table Rock on which we were thrown, Mr. Bingham,” said
Beatrice, “and here is where they carried us ashore. The sea does not
look as though it would drown any one to-night, does it? See!”—and she
threw a stone into it—“the ripples run as evenly as they do on a pond.”

She spoke idly and Geoffrey answered her idly, for they were not
thinking of their words. Rather were they thinking of the strange
chance that had brought them together in an hour of deadly peril and
now left them together in an hour of peace. Perhaps, too, they were
wondering to what end this had come about. For, agnostics, atheists or
believers, are we not, most of us, fatalists at heart?




CHAPTER XII.
THE WRITING ON THE SAND


Geoffrey found himself very comfortable at the Vicarage, and as for
Effie, she positively revelled in it. Beatrice looked after her, taking
her to bed at night and helping her to dress in the morning, and
Beatrice was a great improvement upon Anne. When Geoffrey became aware
of this he remonstrated, saying that he had never expected her to act
as nurse to the child, but she replied that it was a pleasure to her to
do so, which was the truth. In other ways, too, the place was all that
he desired. He did not like Elizabeth, but then he did not see very
much of her, and the old farmer clergyman was amusing in his way, with
his endless talk of tithes and crops, and the iniquities of the
rebellious Jones, on whom he was going to distrain.

For the first day or two Geoffrey had no more conversations with
Beatrice. Most of the time she was away at the school, and on the
Saturday afternoon, when she was free, he went out to the Red Rocks
curlew shooting. At first he thought of asking her to come too, but
then it occurred to him that she might wish to go out with Mr. Davies,
to whom he still supposed she was engaged. It was no affair of his, yet
he was glad when he came back to find that she had been out with Effie,
and not with Mr. Davies.

On Sunday morning they all went to church, including Beatrice. It was a
bare little church, and the congregation was small. Mr. Granger went
through the service with about as much liveliness as a horse driving a
machine. He ground it out, prayers, psalms, litany, lessons, all in the
same depressing way, till Geoffrey felt inclined to go to sleep, and
then took to watching Beatrice’s sweet face instead. He wondered what
made her look so sad. Hers was always a sad face when in repose, that
he knew, but to-day it was particularly so, and what was more, she
looked worried as well as sad. Once or twice he saw her glance at Mr.
Davies, who was sitting opposite, the solitary occupant of an enormous
pew, and he thought that there was apprehension in her look. But Mr.
Davies did not return the glance. To judge from his appearance nothing
was troubling his mind.

Indeed, Geoffrey studying him in the same way that he instinctively
studied everybody whom he met, thought that he had never before seen a
man who looked quite so ox-like and absolutely comfortable. And yet he
never was more completely at fault. The man seemed stolid and cold
indeed, but it was the coldness of a volcano. His heart was a-fire. All
the human forces in him, all the energies of his sturdy life, had
concentrated themselves in a single passion for the woman who was so
near and yet so far from him. He had never drawn upon the store, had
never frittered his heart away. This woman, strange and unusual as it
may seem, was absolutely the first whose glance or voice had ever
stirred his blood. His passion for her had grown slowly; for years it
had been growing, ever since the grey-eyed girl on the brink of
womanhood had conducted him to his castle home. It was no fancy, no
light desire to pass with the year which brought it. Owen had little
imagination, that soil from which loves spring with the rank swiftness
of a tropic bloom to fade at the first chill breath of change. His
passion was an unalterable fact. It was rooted like an oak on our stiff
English soil, its fibres wrapped his heart and shot his being through,
and if so strong a gale should rise that it must fall, then he too
would be overthrown.

For years now he had thought of little else than Beatrice. To win her
he would have given all his wealth, ay, thrice over, if that were
possible. To win her, to know her his by right and his alone, ah, that
would be heaven! His blood quivered and his mind grew dim when he
thought of it. What would it be to see her standing by him as she stood
now, and know that she was his wife! There is no form of passion more
terrible than this. Its very earthiness makes it awful.

The service went on. At last Mr. Granger mounted the pulpit and began
to read his sermon, of which the text was, “But the greatest of these
is charity.” Geoffrey noticed that he bungled over some of the words,
then suddenly remembered Beatrice had told him that she had written the
sermon, and was all attention. He was not disappointed. Notwithstanding
Mr. Granger’s infamous reading, and his habit of dropping his voice at
the end of a sentence, instead of raising it, the beauty of the
thoughts and diction was very evident. It was indeed a discourse that
might equally well have been delivered in a Mahomedan or a Buddhist
place of worship; there was nothing distinctively Christian about it,
it merely appealed to the good in human nature. But of this neither the
preacher nor his audience seemed to be aware, indeed, few of the latter
were listening at all. The sermon was short and ended with a passage of
real power and beauty—or rather it did not end, for, closing the MS.
sheets, Mr. Granger followed on with a few impromptu remarks of his
own.

“And now, brethren,” he said, “I have been preaching to you about
charity, but I wish to add one remark, Charity begins at home. There is
about a hundred pounds of tithe owing to me, and some of it has been
owing for two years and more. If that tithe is not paid I shall have to
put distraint on some of you, and I thought that I had better take this
opportunity to tell you so.”

Then he gave the Benediction.

The contrast between this business-like speech, and the beautiful
periods which had gone before, was so ridiculous that Geoffrey very
nearly burst out laughing, and Beatrice smiled. So did the rest of the
congregation, excepting one or two who owed tithe, and Owen Davies, who
was thinking of other things.

As they went through the churchyard, Geoffrey noticed something.
Beatrice was a few paces ahead holding Effie’s hand. Presently Mr.
Davies passed him, apparently without seeing him, and greeted Beatrice,
who bowed slightly in acknowledgment. He walked a little way without
speaking, then Geoffrey, just as they reached the church gate, heard
him say, “At four this afternoon, then.” Again she bowed her head, and
he turned and went. As for Geoffrey, he wondered what it all meant: was
she engaged to him, or was she not?

Dinner was a somewhat silent meal. Mr. Granger was thinking about his
tithe, also about a sick cow. Elizabeth’s thoughts pursued some dark
and devious course of their own, not an altogether agreeable one to
judge from her face. Beatrice looked pale and worried; even Effie’s
sallies did not do more than make her smile. As for Geoffrey himself,
he was engaged in wondering in an idle sort of way what was going to
happen at four o’clock.

“You is all very dull,” said Effie at last, with a charming disregard
of grammar.

“People ought to be dull on Sunday, Effie,” answered Beatrice, with an
effort. “At least, I suppose so,” she added.

Elizabeth, who was aggressively religious, frowned at this remark. She
knew her sister did not mean it.

“What are you going to do this afternoon, Beatrice?” she asked
suddenly. She had seen Owen Davies go up and speak to her sister, and
though she had not been near enough to catch the words, scented an
assignation from afar.

Beatrice coloured slightly, a fact that escaped neither her sister nor
Geoffrey.

“I am going to see Jane Llewellyn,” she answered. Jane Llewellyn was
the crazy little girl whose tale has been told. Up to that moment
Beatrice had no idea of going to see her, but she knew that Elizabeth
would not follow her there, because the child could not endure
Elizabeth.

“Oh, I thought that perhaps you were going out walking.”

“I may walk afterwards,” answered Beatrice shortly.

“So there is an assignation,” thought Elizabeth, and a cold gleam of
intelligence passed across her face.

Shortly after dinner, Beatrice put on her bonnet and went out. Ten
minutes passed, and Elizabeth did the same. Then Mr. Granger announced
that he was going up to the farm (there was no service till six) to see
about the sick cow, and asked Geoffrey if he would like to accompany
him. He said that he might as well, if Effie could come, and, having
lit his pipe, they started.

Meanwhile Beatrice went to see the crazy child. She was not violent
to-day, and scarcely knew her. Before she had been in the house ten
minutes, the situation developed itself.

The cottage stood about two-thirds of the way down a straggling street,
which was quite empty, for Bryngelly slept after dinner on Sunday. At
the top of this street appeared Elizabeth, a Bible in her hand, as
though on district visiting intent. She looked down the street, and
seeing nobody, went for a little walk, then, returning, once more
looked down the street. This time she was rewarded. The door of the
Llewellyns’ cottage opened, and Beatrice appeared. Instantly Elizabeth
withdrew to such a position that she could see without being seen, and,
standing as though irresolute, awaited events. Beatrice turned and took
the road that led to the beach.

Then Elizabeth’s irresolution disappeared. She also turned and took the
road to the cliff, walking very fast. Passing behind the Vicarage, she
gained a point where the beach narrowed to a width of not more than
fifty yards, and sat down. Presently she saw a man coming along the
sand beneath her, walking quickly. It was Owen Davies. She waited and
watched. Seven or eight minutes passed, and a woman in a white dress
passed. It was Beatrice, walking slowly.

“Ah!” said Elizabeth, setting her teeth, “as I thought.” Rising, she
pursued her path along the cliff, keeping three or four hundred yards
ahead, which she could easily do by taking short cuts. It was a long
walk, and Elizabeth, who was not fond of walking, got very tired of it.
But she was a woman with a purpose, and as such, hard to beat. So she
kept on steadily for nearly an hour, till, at length, she came to the
spot known as the Amphitheatre. This Amphitheatre, situated almost
opposite the Red Rocks, was a half-ring of cliff, the sides of which
ran in a semicircle almost down to the water’s edge, that is, at high
tide. In the centre of the segment thus formed was a large flat stone,
so placed that anybody in certain positions on the cliff above could
command a view of it, though it was screened by the projecting walls of
rock from observation from the beach. Elizabeth clambered a little way
down the sloping side of the cliff and looked; on the stone, his back
towards her, sat Owen Davies. Slipping from stratum to stratum of the
broken cliff, Elizabeth drew slowly nearer, till at length she was
within fifty paces of the seated man. Here, ensconcing herself behind a
cleft rock, she also sat down; it was not safe to go closer; but in
case she should by any chance be observed from above, she opened the
Bible on her knee, as though she had sought this quiet spot to study
its pages.

Three or four minutes passed, and Beatrice appeared round the
projecting angle of the Amphitheatre, and walked slowly across the
level sand. Owen Davies rose and stretched out his hand to welcome her,
but she did not take it, she only bowed, and then seated herself upon
the large flat stone. Owen also seated himself on it, but some three or
four feet away. Elizabeth thrust her white face forward till it was
almost level with the lips of the cleft rock and strained her ears to
listen. Alas! she could not hear a single word.

“You asked me to come here, Mr. Davies,” said Beatrice, breaking the
painful silence. “I have come.”

“Yes,” he answered; “I asked you to come because I wanted to speak to
you.”

“Yes?” said Beatrice, looking up from her occupation of digging little
holes in the sand with the point of her parasol. Her face was calm
enough, but her heart beat fast beneath her breast.

“I want to ask you,” he said, speaking slowly and thickly, “if you will
be my wife?”

Beatrice opened her lips to speak, then, seeing that he had only paused
because his inward emotion checked his words, shut them again, and went
on digging little holes. She wished to rely on the whole case, as a
lawyer would say.

“I want to ask you,” he repeated, “to be my wife. I have wished to do
so for some years, but I have never been able to bring myself to it. It
is a great step to take, and my happiness depends on it. Do not answer
me yet,” he went on, his words gathering force as he spoke. “Listen to
what I have to tell you. I have been a lonely man all my life. At sea I
was lonely, and since I have come into this fortune I have been
lonelier still. I never loved anybody or anything till I began to love
you. And then I loved you more and more and more; till now I have only
one thought in all my life, and that thought is of you. While I am
awake I think of you, and when I am asleep I dream of you. Listen,
Beatrice, listen!—I have never loved any other woman, I have scarcely
spoken to one—only you, Beatrice. I can give you a great deal; and
everything I have shall be yours, only I should be jealous of you—yes,
very jealous!”

Here she glanced at his face. It was outwardly calm but white as death,
and in the blue eyes, generally so placid, shone a fire that by
contrast looked almost unholy.

“I think that you have said enough, Mr. Davies,” Beatrice answered. “I
am very much obliged to you. I am much honoured, for in some ways I am
not your equal, but I do not love you, and I cannot marry you, and I
think it best to tell you so plainly, once and for all,” and
unconsciously she went on digging the holes.

“Oh, do not say that,” he answered, almost in a moan. “For God’s sake
don’t say that! It will kill me to lose you. I think I should go mad.
Marry me and you will learn to love me.”

Beatrice glanced at him again, and a pang of pity pierced her heart.
She did not know it was so bad a case as this. It struck her too that
she was doing a foolish thing, from a worldly point of view. The man
loved her and was very eligible. He only asked of her what most women
are willing enough to give under circumstances so favourable to their
well-being—herself. But she never liked him, he had always repelled
her, and she was not a woman to marry a man whom she did not like.
Also, during 

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