Tiny Luttrell
by E. W. Hornung · English · Gutenberg #37320 · 407,335 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Tiny Luttrell
Author: E. W. Hornung
Release date: September 5, 2011 [eBook #37320]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37320
Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Steven desJardins, and the
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TINY LUTTRELL ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Steven desJardins, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
TINY LUTTRELL
BY ERNEST WILLIAM HORNUNG
AUTHOR OF "A BRIDE FROM THE BUSH," "UNDER TWO SKIES"
NEW YORK
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.
TO
C. A. M. D.
FROM
E. W. H.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE COMING OF TINY, 1
II. SWIFT OF WALLANDOON, 21
III. THE TAIL OF THE SEASON, 44
IV. RUTH AND CHRISTINA, 63
V. ESSINGHAM RECTORY, 84
VI. A MATTER OF ANCIENT HISTORY, 102
VII. THE SHADOW OF THE HALL, 116
VIII. COUNTESS DROMARD AT HOME, 133
IX. MOTHER AND SON, 148
X. A THREATENING DAWN, 162
XI. IN THE LADIES' TENT, 176
XII. ORDEAL BY BATTLE, 193
XIII. HER HOUR OF TRIUMPH, 213
XIV. A CYCLE OF MOODS, 233
XV. THE INVISIBLE IDEAL, 248
XVI. FOREIGN SOIL, 263
XVII. THE HIGH SEAS, 286
XVIII. THE THIRD TIME OF ASKING, 306
XIX. COUNSEL'S OPINION, 317
XX. IN HONOR BOUND, 327
XXI. A DEAF EAR, 339
XXII. SUMMUM BONUM, 348
TINY LUTTRELL.
CHAPTER I.
THE COMING OF TINY.
Swift of Wallandoon was visibly distraught. He had driven over to the
township in the heat of the afternoon to meet the coach. The coach was
just in sight, which meant that it could not arrive for at least half an
hour. Yet nothing would induce Swift to wait quietly in the hotel
veranda; he paid no sort of attention to the publican who pressed him to
do so. The iron roofs of the little township crackled in the sun with a
sound as of distant musketry; their sharp-edged shadows lay on the sand
like sheets of zinc that might be lifted up in one piece; and a hot wind
in full blast played steadily upon Swift's neck and ears. He had pulled
up in the shade, and was leaning forward, with his wide-awake tilted
over his nose, and his eyes on a cloud of dust between the bellying
sand-hills and the dark blue sky. The cloud advanced, revealing from
time to time a growing speck. That speck was the coach which Swift had
come to meet.
He was a young man with broad shoulders and good arms, and a general air
of smartness and alacrity about which there could be no mistake. He had
dark hair and a fair mustache; his eye was brown and alert; and much
wind and sun had reddened a face that commonly gave the impression of
complete capability with a sufficiency of force. This afternoon,
however, Swift lacked the confident look of the thoroughly capable young
man. And he was even younger than he looked; he was young enough to
fancy that the owner of Wallandoon, who was a passenger by the
approaching coach, had traveled five hundred miles expressly to deprive
John Swift of the fine position to which recent good luck had promoted
him.
He could think of nothing else to bring Mr. Luttrell all the way from
Melbourne at the time of year when a sheep station causes least anxiety.
The month was April, there had been a fair rainfall since Christmas, and
only in his last letter Mr. Luttrell had told Swift that all he need do
for the present was to take care of the fences and let the sheep take
care of themselves. The next news was a telegram to the effect that Mr.
Luttrell was coming up country to see for himself how things were going
at Wallandoon. Having stepped into the managership by an accident, and
even so merely as a trial man, young Swift at once made sure that his
trial was at an end. It did not strike him that in spite of his youth he
was the ideal person for the post. Yet this was obvious. He had five
years' experience of the station he was to manage. The like merit is not
often in the market. Swift seemed to forget that. Neither did he take
comfort from the fact that Mr. Luttrell was an old friend of his family
in Victoria, and hitherto his own highly satisfied employer. Hitherto,
or until the last three months, he had not tried to manage Mr.
Luttrell's station. If he had failed in that time to satisfy its owner,
then he would at once go elsewhere; but for many things he wished most
keenly to stay at Wallandoon; and he was thinking of these things now,
while the coach grew before his eyes.
Of his five years on Wallandoon the last two had been infinitely less
enjoyable than the three that had gone before. There was a simple
reason for the difference. Until two years ago Mr. Luttrell had himself
managed the station, and had lived there with his wife and family. That
had answered fairly well while the family were young, thanks to a
competent governess for the girls. But when the girls grew up it became
time to make a change. The squatter was a wealthy man, and he could
perfectly well afford the substantial house which he had already built
for himself in a Melbourne suburb. The social splashing of his wife and
daughters after their long seclusion in the wilderness was also easily
within his means, if not entirely to his liking; but he was a mild man
married to a weak woman; and he happened to be bent on a little splash
on his own account in politics. Choosing out of many applicants the best
possible manager for Wallandoon, the squatter presently entered the
Victorian legislature, and embraced the new interests so heartily that
he was nearly two years in discovering his best possible manager to be
both a failure and a fraud.
It was this discovery that had given Swift an opening whose very
splendor accounted for his present doubts and fears. Had his chance
been spoilt by Herbert Luttrell, who had lately been on Wallandoon as
Swift's overseer, for some ten days only, when the two young fellows had
failed to pull together? This was not likely, for Herbert at his worst
was an honest ruffian, who had taken the whole blame (indeed it was no
more than his share) of that fiasco. Swift, however, could think of
nothing else; nor was there time; for now the coach was so close that
the crack of the driver's whip was plainly heard, and above the cluster
of heads on the box a white handkerchief fluttered against the sky.
The publican whom Swift had snubbed addressed another remark to him from
the veranda:
"There's a petticoat on board."
"So I see."
The coach came nearer.
"She's your boss's daughter," affirmed the publican--"the best of 'em."
"So you're cracking!"
"Well, wait a minute. What now?"
Swift prolonged the minute. "You're right," he said, hastily tying his
reins to the brake.
"I am so."
"Heaven help me!" muttered Swift as he jumped to the ground. "There's
nothing ready for her. They might have told one!"
A moment later five heaving horses stood sweating in the sun, and Swift,
reaching up his hand, received from a gray-bearded gentleman on the box
seat a grip from which his doubts and fears should have died on the
spot. If they did, however, it was only to make way for a new and
unlooked-for anxiety, for little Miss Luttrell was smiling down at him
through a brown gauze veil, as she poked away the handkerchief she had
waved, leaving a corner showing against her dark brown jacket; and how
she was to be made comfortable at the homestead, all in a minute, Swift
did not know.
"She insisted on coming," said Mr. Luttrell, with a smile. "Is it any
good her getting down?"
"Can you take me in?" asked the girl.
"We'll do our best," said Swift, holding the ladder for her descent.
Her shoes made a daintier imprint in the sand than it had known for two
whole years. She smiled as she gave her hand to Swift; it was small,
too, and Swift had not touched a lady's hand for many months. There was
very little of her altogether, but the little was entirely pleasing.
Embarrassed though he was, Swift was more than pleased to see the young
girl again, and her smiles that struggled through the brown gauze like
sunshine through a mist. She had not worn gauze veils two years ago; and
two years ago she had been content with fare that would scarcely please
her to-day, while naturally the living at the station was rougher now
than in the days of the ladies. It was all very well for her to smile.
She ought never to have come without a word of warning. Swift felt
responsible and aggrieved.
He helped Mr. Luttrell to carry their baggage from the coach to the
buggy drawn up in the shade. Miss Luttrell went to the horses' heads and
stroked their noses; they were Bushman and Brownlock, the old safe pair
she had many a time driven herself. In a moment she was bidden to jump
up. There had been very little luggage to transfer. The most cumbrous
piece was a hamper, of which Swift formed expectations that were
speedily confirmed. For Miss Luttrell remarked, pointing to the hamper
as she took her seat:
"At least we have brought our own rations; but I am afraid they will
make you horribly uncomfortable behind there?"
Swift was on the back seat. "Not a bit," he answered; "I was much more
uncomfortable until I saw the hamper."
"Don't you worry about us, Jack," said Mr. Luttrell as they drove off.
"Whatever you do, don't worry about Tiny. Give her travelers' rations
and send her to the travelers' hut. That's all she deserves, when she
wasn't on the way-bill. She insisted on coming at the last moment; I
told her it wasn't fair."
"But it's very jolly," said Swift gallantly.
"It was just like her," Mr. Luttrell chuckled; "she's as unreliable as
ever."
The girl had been looking radiantly about her as they drove along the
single broad, straggling street of the township. She now turned her head
to Swift, and her eyes shot through her veil in a smile. That abominable
veil went right over her broad-brimmed hat, and was gathered in and made
fast at the neck. Swift could have torn it from her head; he had not
seen a lady smile for months. Also, he was beginning to make the
astonishing discovery that somehow she was altered, and he was curious
to see how much, which was impossible through the gauze.
"Is that true?" he asked her. He had known her for five years.
"I suppose so," she returned carelessly; and immediately her sparkling
eyes wandered. "There's old Mackenzie in the post office veranda. He was
a detestable old man, but I must wave to him; it's so good to be back!"
"But you own to being unreliable?" persisted Swift.
"I don't know," Miss Luttrell said, tossing the words to him over her
shoulder, because her attention was not for the manager. "Is it so very
dreadful if I am? What's the good of being reliable? It's much more
amusing to take people by surprise. Your face was worth the journey when
you saw me on the coach! But you see I haven't surprised Mackenzie; he
doesn't look the least impressed; I dare say he thinks it was last week
we all went away. I hate him!"
"Here are the police barracks," said Swift, seeing that all her interest
was in the old landmarks; "we have a new sergeant since you left."
"If _he's_ in _his_ veranda I shall shout out to him who I am, and how
long I have been away, and how good it is to get back."
"She's quite capable of doing it," Mr. Luttrell chimed in, chuckling
afresh; "there's never any knowing what she'll do next."
But the barracks veranda was empty, and it was the last of the township
buildings. There was now nothing ahead but the rim of scrub, beyond
which, among the sand-hills, sweltered the homestead of Wallandoon.
"I've come back with a nice character, have I not?" the girl now
remarked, turning to Swift with another smile.
"You must have earned it; I can quite believe that you have," laughed
Swift. He had known her in short dresses.
"Ha! ha! You see he remembers all about you, my dear."
"Do you, Jack?" the girl said.
"Do I not!" said Jack.
And he said no more. He was grateful to her for addressing him, though
only once, by his Christian name. He had been intimate with the whole
family, and it seemed both sensible and pleasant to resume a friendly
footing from the first. He would have called the girl by her Christian
name too, only this was so seldom heard among her own people. Tiny she
was by nature, and Tiny she had been by name also, from her cradle.
Certainly she had been Tiny to Swift two years ago, and already she had
called him Jack; but he saw in neither circumstance any reason why she
should be Tiny to him still. It was different from a proper name. Her
proper name was Christina, but unreliable though she confessedly was,
she might perhaps be relied upon to jeer if he came out with that. And
he would not call her "Miss Luttrell." He thought about it and grew
silent; but this was because his thoughts had glided from the girl's
name to the girl herself.
She had surprised him in more ways than one--in so many ways that
already he stood almost in awe of the little person whom formerly he had
known so well. Christina had changed, as it was only natural that she
should have changed; but because we are prone to picture our friends as
last we saw them, no matter how long ago, not less natural was Swift's
surprise. It was unreasoning, however, and not the kind of surprise to
last. In a few minutes his wonder was that Christina had changed so
little. To look at her she had scarcely changed at all. A certain
finality of line was perceptible in the figure, but if anything she was
thinner than of old. As for her face, what he could see of it through
the maddening gauze was the face of Swift's memory. Her voice was a
little different; in it was a ring of curiously deliberate irony,
charming at first as a mere affectation. A more noteworthy alteration
had taken place in her manner: she had acquired the manner of a finished
young woman of the world and of society. Already she had shown that she
could become considerably excited without forfeiting any of the grace
and graciousness and self-possession that were now conspicuously hers;
and before the homestead was reached she exhibited such a saintly
sweetness in repose as only enhanced the lambent deviltry playing about
most of her looks and tones. If Swift was touched with awe in her
presence, that can hardly be wondered at in one who went for months
together without setting eyes upon a lady.
The drive was a long one--so long that when they sighted the homestead
it came between them and the setting sun. The main building with its
long, regular roof lay against the red sky like some monstrous ingot.
The hot wind had fallen, and the station pines stood motionless, drawn
in ink. As they drove through the last gate they could hear the dogs
barking; and Christina distinguished the voice of her own old
short-haired collie, which she had bequeathed to Swift, who was repaid
for the sound with a final smile. He hardly knew why, but this look made
the girl's old self live to him as neither look nor word had done yet,
though her face was turned away from the light, and the stupid veil
still fell before it.
But the less fascinating side of her arrival was presently engaging his
attention. He hastily interviewed Mrs. Duncan, an elderly godsend new to
the place since the Luttrells had left it, and never so invaluable as
now. Into Mrs. Duncan's hands Christina willingly submitted herself, for
she was really tired out. Swift did not see her again until supper,
which afforded further proofs of Mrs. Duncan's merits in a time of need.
Meanwhile, Mr. Luttrell had finally disabused him of the foolish fears
he had entertained while waiting for the coach. Swift's youth, which has
shown itself in these fears, comes out also in the ease with which he
now forgot them. They had made him unhappy for three whole days; yet he
dared to feel indignant because his owner, who had confirmed his command
instead of dismissing him from it, chose to talk sheep at the supper
table. Swift seemed burning to hear of the eldest Miss Luttrell, who was
Miss Luttrell no longer, having married a globe-trotting Londoner during
her first season and gone home. He asked Christina several questions
about Ruth (whose other name he kept forgetting) and her husband. But
Mr. Luttrell lost no chance of rounding up the conversation and yarding
it in the sheep pens; and Swift had the ingratitude to resent this.
Still more did he resent the hour he was forced to spend in the store
after supper, examining the books and discussing recent results and
future plans with Mr. Luttrell, while his subordinate, the storekeeper,
enjoyed the society of Christina. The business in the store was not only
absurdly premature and irksome in itself, but it made it perfectly
impossible for Swift to hear any more that night of the late Ruth
Luttrell, whose present name was not to be remembered. He found it hard
to possess his soul in patience and to answer questions satisfactorily
under such circumstances. For an hour, indeed, he did both; but the
station store faced the main building, and when Tiny Luttrell appeared
in the veranda of the latter with a lighted candle in her hand, he could
do neither any longer. Saying candidly that he must bid her good-night,
he hurried out of the store and across the yard, and was in time to
catch Christina at one end of the broad veranda which entirely
surrounded the house.
At supper Mr. Luttrell had made him take the head of the table, by
virtue of his office, declaring that he himself was merely a visitor.
And on the strength of that Swift was perhaps justified now in adding a
host's apology to his good-night. "I'm afraid you'll have to rough it
most awfully," was what he said.
"Far from it. You have given me my old room, the one we papered with
_Australasians_, if you remember; they are only a little more fly-blown
than they used to be."
This was Christina's reply, which naturally led to more.
"But it won't be as comfortable as it used to be," said Swift
unhappily; "and it won't be what you are accustomed to nowadays."
"Never mind, it's the dearest little den in the colonies!"
"That sounds as if you were glad to get back to Riverina?"
"Glad? No one knows how glad I am."
One person knew now. The measure of her gladness was expressed in her
face not less than in her tones, and it was no ordinary measure. Over
the candle she held in her hand Swift was enabled for the first time to
peer unobstructedly into her face. He found it more winsome than ever,
but he noticed some ancient blemishes under the memorable eyes. She had,
in fact, some freckles, which he recognized with the keenest joy. She
might stoop to a veil--she had not sunk to doctoring her complexion; she
had come back to the bush an incomplete worldling after all. Yet there
was that in her face which made him feel a stranger to her still.
"Do you know," he said, smiling, "that I'm in a great funk of you? I
can't say quite what it is, but somehow you're so grand. I suppose it's
Melbourne."
Miss Luttrell thanked him, bowing so low that her candle shed grease
upon the boards. "You've altered too," she added in his own manner; "I
suppose it's being boss. But I haven't seen enough of you to be sure.
You evidently told off your new storekeeper to entertain me for the
evening. He is a trying young man; he _will_ talk. But of course he is a
new chum fresh from home."
"Still he's a very good little chap; but it wasn't my fault that he and
I didn't change places. Mr. Luttrell wanted to speak to me about several
things, besides glancing through the books; I thought we might have put
it off, and I wondered how you were getting on. By the way, it struck me
once or twice that your father was coming up to give me the sack; and
it's just the reverse, for now I'm permanent manager."
He told her this with a natural exultation, but she did not seem
impressed by it. "Do you know why he did come up?" she asked him.
"Yes; for his Easter holidays, chiefly."
"And why I would come with him?"
"No; I'm afraid we never mentioned you. I suppose you came for a holiday
too?"
"Shall I tell you why I did come?"
"I wish you would."
"Well, I came to say good-by to Wallandoon," said Christina solemnly.
"You're going to be married!" exclaimed Swift, with conviction, but with
perfect nonchalance.
"Not if I know it," cried Christina. "Are you?"
"Not I."
"But there's Miss Trevor of Meringul!"
"I see them once in six months."
"That may be in the bond."
"Well, never mind Miss Trevor of Meringul. You haven't told me how it is
you've come to say good-by to the station, Miss Luttrell of Wallandoon."
"Then I'll tell you, seriously: it's because I sail for England on the
4th of May."
"For England!"
"Yes, and I'm not at all keen about it, I can tell you. But I'm not
going to see England, I'm going to see Ruth; Australia's worth fifty
Englands any day."
Swift had recovered from his astonishment. "I don't know," he said
doubtfully; "most of us would like a trip home, you know, just to see
what the old country's like; though I dare say it isn't all it's cracked
up to be."
"Of course it isn't. I hate it!"
"But if you've never been there?"
"I judge from the people--from the samples they send out. Your new
storekeeper is one; you meet worse down in Melbourne. Herbert's going
with me; he's going to Cambridge, if they'll have him. Didn't you know
that? But he could go alone, and if it wasn't for Ruth I wouldn't cross
Hobson's Bay to see their old England!"
The serious bitterness of her tone struck him afterward as nothing less
than grotesque; but at the moment he was gazing into her face,
thoughtfully yet without thoughts.
"It's good for Herbert," he said presently. "I couldn't do anything with
him here; he offered to fight me when I tried to make him work. I
suppose he will be three or four years at Cambridge; but how long are
you going to stay with Mrs.--Mrs. Ruth?"
"How stupid you are at remembering a simple name! Do try to remember
that her name is Holland. I beg your pardon, Jack, but you have been
really very forgetful this evening. I think it must be Miss Trevor of
Meringul."
"It isn't. I'm very sorry. But you haven't told me how long you think
of staying at home."
"How long?" said the young girl lightly. "It may be for years and years,
and it may be forever and ever!"
He looked at her strangely, and she darted out her hand.
"Good-night again, Jack."
"Good-night again."
What with the pauses, each of them an excellent opportunity for
Christina to depart, it had taken them some ten minutes to say that
which ought not to have lasted one. But you must know that this was
nothing to their last good-night, on the self-same spot two years
before, when she had rested in his arms.
CHAPTER II.
SWIFT OF WALLANDOON.
Christina was awakened in the morning by the holland blind flapping
against her open window. It was a soft, insinuating sound, that awoke
one gradually, and to Christina both the cause and the awakening itself
seemed incredibly familiar. So had she lain and listened in the past, as
each day broke in her brain. When she opened her eyes the shadow of the
sash wriggled on the blind as it flapped, a blade of sunshine lay under
the door that opened upon the veranda, and neither sight was new to her.
The same sheets of the _Australasian_ with which her own hands had once
lined the room, for want of a conventional wallpaper, lined it still;
the same area of printed matter was in focus from the pillow, and she
actually remembered an advertisement that caught her eye. It used to
catch her eye two years before. Thus it became difficult to believe in
those two years; and it was very pleasant to disbelieve in them. More
than pleasant Christina found it to lie where she was, hearing the old
noises (the horses were run up before she rose), seeing the old things,
and dreaming that the last two years were themselves a dream. Her life
as it stood was a much less charming composition than several possible
arrangements of the same material, impossible now. This is not strange,
but it was a little strange that neither sweet impossibilities nor
bitter actualities fascinated her much; for so many good girls are
morbidly introspective. As for Christina, let it be clearly and early
understood that she was neither an introspective girl by nature nor a
particularly good one from any point of view. She was not in the habit
of looking back; but to look back on the old days here at the station
without thinking of later days was like reading an uneven book for the
second time, leaving out the poor part.
In making, but still more in closing that gap in her life (as you close
a table after taking out a leaf) she was immensely helped by the
associations of the present moment. They breathed of the remote past
only; their breath was sweet and invigorating. Her affection for
Wallandoon was no affectation; she loved it as she loved no other place.
And if, as she dressed, her thoughts dwelt more on the young manager of
the station than on the station itself, that only illustrates the
difference between an association and an associate. There is human
interest in the one, but it does not follow that Tiny Luttrell was
immoderately interested in Jack Swift. Even to herself she denied that
she had ever done more than like him very much. To some "nonsense" in
the past she was ready to own. But in the vocabulary of a Tiny Luttrell
a little "nonsense" may cover a calendar of mild crimes. It is only the
Jack Swifts who treat the nonsense seriously and deny that the crimes
are anything of the sort, because for their part they "mean it." Women
are not deceived. Besides, it is less shame for them to say they never
meant it.
"He must marry Flo Trevor of Meringul," Christina said aloud. "It's what
we all expect of him. It's his duty. But she isn't pretty, poor thing!"
The remarks happened to be made to Christina's own reflection in the
glass. She, as we know, was very pretty indeed. Her small head was
finely turned, and carried with her own natural grace. Her hair was of
so dark a brown as to be nearly black, but there was not enough of it to
hide the charming contour of her head. If she could have had the
altering of one feature, she would probably have shortened her lips; but
their red freshness justified their length; and the crux of a woman's
beauty, her nose, happened to be Christina's best point. Her eyes were a
sweeter one. Their depth of blue is seen only under dark blue skies, and
they seemed the darker for her hair. But with all her good features,
because she was not an English girl, but an Australian born and bred,
she had no complexion to speak of, being pale and slightly freckled. Yet
no one held that those blemishes prevented her from being pretty; while
some maintained that they did not even detract from her good looks, and
a few that they saved her from perfection and were a part of her charm.
The chances are that the authorities quoted were themselves her admirers
one and all. She had many such. To most of them her character had the
same charm as her face; it, too, was freckled with faults for which
they loved her the more.
One of the many she met presently, but one of them now, though in his
day the first of all. Swift was hastening along the veranda as she
issued forth, a consciously captivating figure in her clean white frock.
He had on his wide-awake, a newly filled water-bag dripped as he carried
it, the drops drying under their eyes in the sun, and Christina foresaw
at once his absence for the day. She was disappointed, perhaps because
he was one of the many; certainly it was for this reason she did not let
him see her disappointment. He told her that he was going with her
father to the out-station. That was fourteen miles away. It meant a
lonely day for Christina at the homestead. So she said that a lonely day
there was just what she wanted, to overhaul the dear old place all by
herself, and to revel in it like a child without feeling that she was
being watched. But she told a franker story some hours later, when Swift
found her still on the veranda where he had left her, but this was now
the shady side, seated in a wicker chair and frowning at a book. For she
promptly flung away that crutch of her solitude, and seemed really glad
to see him. Her look made him tingle. He sat down on the edge of the
veranda and leaned his back against a post. Then he inquired, rather
diffidently, how the day had gone with Miss Luttrell.
"I am ashamed to tell you," said Christina graciously, for though his
diffidence irritated her, she was quite as glad to see him as she
looked, "that I have been bored very nearly to death!"
"I knew you would be," Swift said quite bitterly; but his bitterness was
against an absent man, who had gone indoors to rest.
"I don't see how you could know anything," remarked Christina. "I
certainly didn't know it myself; and I'm very much ashamed of it, that's
another thing! I love every stick about the place. But I never knew a
hotter morning; the sand in the yard was like powdered cinders, and you
can't go poking about very long when everything you touch is red hot.
Then one felt tired. Mrs. Duncan took pity on me and came and talked to
me; she must be an acquisition to you, I am sure; but her cooking's
better than her conversation. I think she must have sent the new chum
to me to take her place; anyway I've had a dose of him, too, I can tell
you!"
"Oh, he's been cutting his work, has he?"
"He has been doing the civil; I think he considered that his work."
"And quite right too! Tell me, what do you think of him?"
Christina made a grotesque grimace. "He's such a little Englishman," she
simply said.
"Well, he can't help that, you know," said Swift, laughing; "and he's
not half a bad little chap, as I told you last night."
"Oh, not a bit bad; only typical. He has told me his history. It seems
he missed the army at home, front door and back, in spite of his
crammer--I mean his cwammer. He was no use, so they sent him out to us."
"And he is gradually becoming of some use to us, or rather to me; he
really is," protested Swift in the interests of fair play, which a man
loves. "You laugh, but I like the fellow. He's much more use--forgive my
saying so--than Herbert ever would have been--here. At all events he
doesn't want to fight! He's willing, I will say that for him. And I
think it was rather nice of him to tell you about himself."
"It's nicer of you to think so," said Christina to herself. And her
glance softened so that he noticed the difference, for he was becoming
sensitive to a slight but constant hardness of eye and tongue
distressing to find in one's divinity.
"He went so far as to hint at an affair of the heart," she said aloud,
and he saw her eyes turn hard again, so that his own glanced off them
and fell. But he forced a chuckle as he looked down.
"Well, you gave him your sympathy there, I hope?"
"Not I, indeed. I urged him to forget all about her; she has forgotten
all about him long before now, you may be sure. He only thinks about her
still because it's pleasant to have somebody to think about at a lonely
place like this; and if she's thinking about him it's because he's away
in the wilderness and there's a glamour about that. It wouldn't prevent
her marrying another man to-morrow, and it won't prevent him making up
to some other girl when he gets the chance."
"So that's your experience, is it?"
"Never mind whose experience it is. I advised the young man to give up
thinking about the young woman, that's all, and it's my advice to every
young man situated as he is."
Swift was not amused. Yet he refused to believe that her advice was
intended for himself: firstly, because it was so coolly given, which was
his ignorance, and secondly, because, literally speaking, he was not
himself situated as the young Englishman was, which was merely
unimaginative. In his determination, however, not to meet her in
generalizations, but to get back to the storekeeper, he was wise enough.
"I know something about his affairs, too," he said quietly; "he's the
frankest little fellow in the world; and I have given him very different
advice, I must say."
Tiny Luttrell bent down on him a gaze of fiendish innocence.
"And what sort of advice does he give you, pray?"
"You had better ask him," said Swift feebly, but with effect, for he was
honestly annoyed, and man enough to show it. As he spoke, indeed, he
rose.
"What, are you going?"
"Yes; you go in for being too hard altogether."
"I don't go in for it. I am hard. I'm as hard as nails," said Christina
rapidly.
"So I see," he said, and another weak return was strengthened by his
firmness; for he was going away as he spoke, and he never looked round.
"I wouldn't lose my temper," she called after him.
Her face was white. He disappeared. She colored angrily.
"Now I hate you," she whispered to herself; but she probably respected
him more, and that was as it only should have been long ago.
But Swift was in an awkward position, which indeed he deserved for the
unsuspected passages that had once taken place between Tiny Luttrell and
himself. It is true that those passages had occurred at the very end of
the Luttrells' residence at Wallandoon; they had not been going on for a
period preceding the end; but there is no denying that they were
reprehensible in themselves, and pardonable only on the plea of
exceeding earnestness. Swift would not have made that excuse for
himself, for he felt it to be a poor one, though of his own sincerity he
was and had been unwaveringly sure. Beyond all doubt he was properly in
love, and, being so, it was not until the girl stopped writing to him
that he honestly repented the lengths to which he had been encouraged to
go. It is easy to be blameless through the post, but they had kept up
their perfectly blameless correspondence for a very few weeks when
Christina ceased firing; she was to have gone on forever. He was just
persistent enough to make it evident that her silence was intentional;
then the silence became complete, and it was never again broken. For if
Swift's self-control was limited, his self-respect was considerable, and
this made him duly regret the limitations of his self-control. His boy's
soul bled with a boy's generous regrets. He had kissed her, of course,
and I wonder whose fault you think that was? I know which of them
regretted and which forgot it. The man would have given one of his
fingers to have undone those kisses, that made him think less of himself
and less of his darling. Nothing could make him love her less. He heard
no more of her, but that made no difference. And now they were together
again, and she was hard, and it made this difference: that he wanted
her worse than ever, and for her own gain now as much as for his.
But two years had altered him also. In a manner he too was hardened; but
he was simply a stronger, not a colder man. The muscles of his mind were
set; his soul was now as sinewy as his body. He knew what he wanted, and
what would not do for him instead. He wanted a great deal, but he meant
having it or nothing. This time she should give him her heart before he
took her hand; he swore it through his teeth; and you will realize how
he must have known her of old even to have thought it. The curious thing
is that, having shown him what she was, she should have made him love
her as he did. But that was Tiny Luttrell.
She was half witch, half coquette, and her superficial cynicism was but
a new form of her coquetry. He liked it less than the unsophisticated
methods of the old days. Indeed, he liked the girl less, while loving
her more. She had given him the jar direct in one conversation, but even
on indifferent subjects she spoke with a bitterness which he thoroughly
disliked; while some of her prejudices he could not help thinking
irredeemably absurd. As a shrill decrier of England, for instance, she
may have amused him, but he hardly admired her in that character. In a
word, he thought her, and rightly, a good deal spoilt by her town life;
but he hated towns, and it was a proof of her worth in his eyes that she
was not hopelessly spoilt. He saw hope for her still--if she would marry
him. He was a modest man in general, but he did feel this most strongly.
She was going to England without caring whether she went or not; she
would do much better by marrying him and coming back to her old home in
the bush. That home she loved, whether she loved him or not; in it she
had grown up simple and credulous and sweet, with a wicked side that
only picked out her sweetness; in it he believed that her life and his
might yet be beautiful. The feeling made him sometimes rejoice that she
had fallen a little out of love with her life, so that he might show her
with all the effect of contrast what life and love really were; it
thrilled his heart with generous throbs, it brought the moisture to his
honest eyes, and it came to him oftener and with growing force as the
days went on, by reason of certain signs they brought forth in
Christiana. Her voice lost its bitterness in his ears, not because he
had grown used to notes that had jarred him in the beginning, but
because the discordant strings came gradually into tune. Her freshness
came back to her with the charm and influence of the wilderness she
loved; her old self lived again to Jack Swift. On the other hand, she
came to realize her own delight in the old good life as she had never
realized it before; she felt that henceforward she should miss it as she
had not missed it yet. Now she could have defined her sensations and
given reasons for them. She spent many hours in the saddle, on a former
mount of hers that Swift had run up for her; often he rode with her, and
the scent of the pines, the swelling of the sand-hills against the sky,
the sense of Nothing between the horses' ears and the sunset, spoke to
her spirit as they had never done of old. And even so on their rides
would she speak to Swift, who listened grimly, hardly daring to answer
her for the fear of saying at the wrong moment what he had resolved to
say once and for all before she went.
And he chose the wrong moment after all. It was the eve of her going,
and they were riding together for the last time; he felt that it was
also his last opportunity. So in six miles he made as many remarks,
then turned in his saddle and spoke out with overpowering fervor. This
may be expected of the self-contained suitor, with whom it is only a
question of time, and the longer the time the stronger the outburst. But
Christina was not carried away, for she did not quite love him, and the
opportunity was a bad one, and Swift's honest method had not improved
it. She listened kindly, with her eyes on the distant timbers of the
eight-mile whim; but her kindness was fatally calm; and when he waited
she refused him firmly. She confessed to a fondness for him. She
ascribed this to the years they had known each other. Once and for all
she did not love him.
"Not now!" exclaimed the young fellow eagerly. "But you did once! You
will again!"
"I never loved you," said the girl gravely. "If you're thinking of two
years ago, that was mere nonsense. I don't believe its love with you
either, if you only knew it."
"But I do know what it is with me, Tiny! I loved you before you went
away, and all the time you were gone. Since you have been back, during
these few days, I have got to love you more than ever. And so I shall
go on, whatever happens. I can't help it, darling."
Neither could he help saying this; for the hour found him unable to
accept his fate quite as he had meant to accept it. Her kindness had
something to do with that. And now she spoke more kindly than before.
"Are you sure?" she said.
"Am I sure!" he echoed bitterly.
"It is so easy to deceive oneself."
"I am not deceived."
"It is so easy to imagine yourself----"
"I am not imagining!" cried Swift impatiently. "I am the man who has
loved you always, and never any girl but you. If you can't believe that,
you must have had a very poor experience of men, Tiny!"
For a moment she looked away from the whim which they were slowly
nearing, and her eyes met his.
"I have," she admitted frankly; "I have had a particularly poor
experience of them. Yet I am sorry to find you so different from the
rest; I can't tell you how sorry I am to find you true to me."
"Sorry?" he said tenderly; for her voice was full of pain, and he could
not bear that. "Why should you be sorry, dear?"
"Why--because I never dreamt of being true to you."
For some reason her face flamed as he watched it. There was a pause.
Then he said:
"You are not engaged; are you in love?"
"Very far from it."
"Then why mind? If there is no one else you care for you shall care for
me yet. I'll make you. I'll wait for you. You don't know me! I won't
give you up until you are some other fellow's wife."
His stern eyes, the way his mouth shut on the words, and the manly
determination of the words themselves gave the girl a thrill of pleasure
and of pride; but also a pang; for at that moment she felt the wish to
love him alongside the inability, and all at once she was as sorry for
herself as for him.
"What should you mind?" repeated Swift.
"I can't tell you, but you can guess what I have been."
"A flirt?" He laughed aloud. "Darling, I don't care two figs for your
flirtations! I wanted you to enjoy yourself. What does it matter how
you've enjoyed yourself, so long as you haven't absolutely been getting
engaged or falling in love?"
Her chin drooped into her loose white blouse. "I did fall in love," she
said slowly--"at any rate I thought so; and I very nearly got engaged."
Swift had never seen so much color in her face.
Presently he said, "What happened?" but immediately added, "I beg your
pardon; of course I have no business to ask." His tone was more stiff
than strained.
"You _have_ business," she answered eagerly, fearful of making him less
than friend. "I wouldn't mind telling you the whole thing, except the
man's name. And yet," she added rather wistfully, "I suppose you're the
only friend I have that doesn't know! It's hard lines to have to tell
you."
"Then I don't want to know anything at all about it," exclaimed Swift
impulsively. "I would rather you didn't tell me a word, if you don't
mind. I am only too thankful to think you got out of it, whatever it
was."
"I didn't get out of it."
"You don't--mean--that the man did?"
Swift was aghast.
"I do."
He did not speak, but she heard him breathing. Stealing a look at him,
her eyes fell first upon the clenched fist lying on his knee.
She made haste to defend the man.
"It wasn't all his fault; of that I feel sure. If you knew who he was
you wouldn't blame him anymore than I do. He was quite a boy, too; I
don't suppose he was a free agent. In any case it is all quite, quite
over."
"Is it? He was from England--that's why you hate the home people so!"
"Yes, he was from home. He went back very suddenly. It wasn't his fault.
He was sent for. But he might have said good-by!"
She spoke reflectively, gazing once more at the whim. They were near it
now. The framework cut the sky like some uncouth hieroglyph. To Swift
henceforward, on all his lonely journeys hither, it was the emblem of
humiliation. But it was not his own humiliation that moistened his
clenched hand now.
"I wish I had him here," he muttered.
"Ah! you know nothing about him, you see; I know enough to forgive him.
And I have got over it, quite; but the worst of it is that I can't
believe any more in any of you--I simply can't."
"Not in me?" asked Swift warmly, for her belief in him, at least, he
knew he deserved. "I have always been the same. I have never thought of
any other girl but you, and I never will. I love you, darling!"
"After this, Jack?"
He seemed to disappoint her.
"After the same thing if it happens all over again in England! There is
no merit in it; I simply can't help myself. While you are away I will
wait for you and work for you; only come back free, and I will win you,
too, in the end. You are happier here than anywhere else, but you don't
know what it is to be really happy as I should make you. Remember
that--and this: that I will never give you up until someone else has got
you! Now call me conceited or anything you like. I have done bothering
you."
"I can only call you foolish," said the girl, though gently. "You are
far too good for me. As for conceit, you haven't enough of it, or you
would never give me another thought. I still hope you will quite give
up thinking about me, and--and try to get over it. But nothing is going
to happen in England, I can promise you that much. And I only wish I
could get out of going."
He had already shown her how she might get out of it; he was not going
to show her afresh or more explicitly, in spite of the temptation to do
so. Even to a proud spirit it is difficult to take No when the voice
that says it is kind and sorrowful and all but loving. Swift found it
easier to bide by his own statement that he had done bothering her; such
was his pride.
But he had chosen the wrong moment, and though he had shown less pride
than he had meant to show, he was still too proud to improve the right
one when it came. He was too proud, indeed, to stand much chance of
immediate success in love. Otherwise he might have reminded her with
more force and particularity of their former relations; and playing like
that he might have won, but he would rather have lost. Perhaps he did
not recognize the right moment as such when it fell; but at least he
must have seen that it was better than the one he had chosen. It fell
in the evening, when Christina's mood became conspicuously sentimental;
but Swift happened to be one of the last young men in the world to take
advantage of any mere mood.
As on the first evening, Mr. Luttrell was busy in the store, but this
time with the storekeeper, who was making out a list of things to be
sent up in the drays from Melbourne. Tiny and the manager were thrown
together for the last time. She offered to sing a song, and he thanked
her gratefully enough. But he listened to her plaintive songs from a far
corner of the room, though the room was lighted only by the moonbeams;
and when she rose he declared that she was tired and begged her not to
sing any more. She could have beaten him for that.
But in leaving the room they lingered on the threshold, being struck by
the beauty of the night. The full moon ribbed the station yard with the
shadows of the pines, a soft light was burning in the store, and all was
so still that the champing of the night-horse in the yard came plainly
to their ears, with the chirping of the everlasting crickets. Christina
raised her face to Swift; her eyes were wet in the moonlight; there was
even a slight tremor of the red lips; and one hand hung down invitingly
at her side. She did not love him, but she was beginning to wish that
she could love him; and she did love the place. Had he taken that one
hand then the chances are he might have kept it. But even Swift never
dreamt that this was so. And after that moment it was not so any more.
She turned cold, and was cold to the end. Her last words from the top of
the coach fell as harshly on a loving ear as any that had preceded them
by a week.
"Why need you remind me I am going to England? Enjoy myself! I shall
detest the whole thing."
Her last look matched the words.
CHAPTER III.
THE TAIL OF THE SEASON.
"What do you say to sitting it out? The rooms are most awfully crowded,
and you dance too well for one; besides, one's anxious to hear your
impressions of a London ball."
"One must wait till the ball is over. So far I can't deny that I'm
enjoying myself in spite of the crush. But I should rather like to sit
out for once, though you needn't be sarcastic about my dancing."
"Well, then, where's a good place?"
"There's a famous corner in the conservatory; it should be empty now
that a dance is just beginning."
It was. So it became occupied next moment by Tiny Luttrell and her
partner, who allowed that the dimly illumined recess among the
tree-ferns deserved its fame. Tiny's partner, however, was only her
brother-in-law, Mr. Erskine Holland.
The Luttrells had been exactly a fortnight in England. It was in the
earliest hour of the month of July that Christina sat out with her
brother-in-law at her first London party; and if she had spent that
fortnight chiefly in visiting dressmakers and waiting for results, she
had at least found time to get to know Erskine Holland very much better
than she had ever done in Melbourne. There she had seen very little of
him, partly through being away from home when he first called with an
introduction to the family, but more by reason of the short hurdle race
he had made of his courtship, marriage, and return to England with his
bride. He had taken the matrimonial fences as only an old bachelor can
who has been given up as such by his friends. Mr. Holland, though still
nearer thirty than forty, had been regarded as a confirmed bachelor when
starting on a long sea voyage for the restoration of his health after an
autumnal typhoid. His friends were soon to know what weakened health and
Australian women can do between them. They beheld their bachelor return
within four months, a comfortably married man, with a pleasant little
wife who was very fond of him, and in no way jealous of his old friends.
That was Mrs. Erskine's great merit, and the secret of the signal
success with which she presided over his table in West Kensington, when
Erskine had settled down there and returned with steadiness to the good,
safe business to which he had been virtually born a partner. For his
part, without being enslaved to a degree embarrassing to their friends,
Holland made an obviously satisfactory husband. He was good-natured and
never exacting; he was well off and generous. One of a wealthy,
many-membered firm driving a versatile trade in the East, he was as free
personally from business anxieties as was the hall porter at the firm's
offices in Lombard Street. There Erskine was the most popular and least
useful fraction of the firm, being just a big, fair, genial fellow, fond
of laughter and chaff and lawn tennis, and fonder of books than of the
newspapers--an eccentric preference in a business man. But as a business
man the older partners shook their heads about him. Once as a youngster
he had spent a year or two in Lisbon, learning the language and the
ropes there, the firm having certain minor interests planted in
Portuguese soil on both sides of the Indian Ocean; and those interests
just suited Erskine Holland, who had the handling of them, though the
older partners nursed their own distrust of a man who boasted of taking
his work out of his head each evening when he hung up his office coat.
At home Erskine was a man who read more than one guessed, and had his
own ideas on a good many subjects. He found his sister-in-law lamentably
ignorant, but quite eager to improve her mind at his direction; and this
is ever delightful to the man who reads. Also he found her amusing, and
that experience was mutual.
A Londoner himself, with many reputable relatives in the town, who
rejoiced in the bachelor's marriage and were able to like his wife, he
was in a position to gratify to a considerable extent Mrs. Erskine's
social desires. That he did so somewhat against his own inclination
(much as in Melbourne his father-in-law had done before him) was due to
an acutely fair mind allied with a thoroughly kind and sympathetic
nature. His own attitude toward society was not free from that slight
intellectual superiority which some of the best fellows in the world
cannot help; but at least it was perfectly genuine. He treated society
as he treated champagne, which he seldom touched, but about which he
was curiously fastidious on those chance occasions. He cared as little
for the one as for the other, but found the drier brands inoffensive in
both cases. The ball to-night was at Lady Almeric's.
"Not a bad corner," Erskine said as he made himself comfortable; "but
I'm afraid it's rather thrown away upon me, you know."
"Far from it. I wish I had been dancing with you the whole evening,
Erskine," said Christina seriously.
"That's rather obsequious of you. May I ask why?"
"Because I don't think much of my partners so far, to talk to."
"Ha! I knew there was something you wouldn't think much of," cried
Erskine Holland. "Have they nothing to say for themselves, then?"
"Oh, plenty. They discover where I come from; then they show their
ignorance. They want to know if there is any chance for a fellow on the
gold fields now; they have heard of a place called Ballarat, but they
aren't certain whether it's a part of Melbourne or nearer Sydney. One
man knows some people at Hobart Town, in New Zealand, he fancies. I
never knew anything like their ignorance of the colonies!"
Mr. Holland tugged a smile out of his mustache. "Can you tell me how to
address a letter to Montreal--is it Quebec or Ontario?" he asked her, as
if interested and anxious to learn.
"Goodness knows," replied Christina innocently.
"Then that's rather like their ignorance of the colonies, isn't it?
There's not much difference between a group of colonies and a dominion,
you see. I'm afraid your partners are not the only people whose
geography has been sadly neglected."
Christina laughed.
"My education's been neglected altogether, if it comes to that. As
you're taking me in hand, perhaps you'll lend me a geography, as well as
Ruskin and Thackeray. Nevertheless, Australia's more important than
Canada, you may say what you like, Erskine; and your being smart won't
improve my partners."
"Oh! but I thought it was only their conversation?"
"You force me to tell you that their idea of dancing seems limited to
pushing you up one side of the room, and dragging you after them down
the other. Sometimes they turn you round. Then they're proud of
themselves. They never do it twice running."
"That's because there are so many here."
"There are far too many here--that's what's the matter! And I'm a nice
person to tell you so," added Tiny penitently, "when it's you and Ruth
who have brought me here. But you know I don't mean that I'm not
enjoying it, Erskine; I'm enjoying it immensely, and I'm very proud of
myself for being here at all. I can't quite explain myself--I don't much
like trying to--but there's a something about everything that makes it
seem better than anything of the kind that we can do in Melbourne. The
music is so splendid, and the floor, and the flowers. I never saw such a
few diamonds--or such beauties! Even the ices are the best I ever
tasted, and they aren't too sweet. There's something subdued and
superior about the whole concern; but it's too subdued; it needs go and
swing nearly as badly as it needs elbow-room--of more kinds than one!
I'm thinking less of the crowd of people than of their etiquette and
ceremony, which hamper you far more. But it's your old England in a
nutshell, this ball is: it fits too tight."
"Upon my word," said Erskine, laughing, "I don't think it's at all bad
for you to find the old country a tight fit! I'm obliged to you for the
expression, Tiny. I only hope it isn't suggested by personal suffering.
I have been thinking that you must have a good word to say for our
dressmakers, if not for our dancing men."
Christina slid her eyes over the snow and ice of the shimmering attire
that had been made for her in haste since her arrival.
"I'm glad you like me," she said, smiling honestly. "I must own I rather
like myself in this lot. I didn't want to disgrace you among your fine
friends, you see."
"They're more fine than friends, my dear girl. Lady Almeric's the only
friend. She has been very nice to Ruth. Most of the people here are
rather classy, I can assure you."
He named the flower of the company in a lowered voice. Christina knew
one of the names.
"Lady Mary Dromard, did you say?" said she, playing idly with her fan.
"Yes; do you know her?"
"No, but her brother was in Melbourne once as aid-de-camp to the
governor. I knew him."
"Ah, that was Lord Manister; he wasn't out there when I was."
"No, he must have come just after you had gone. He only remained a few
months, you know. He was a quiet young man with a mania for cricket; we
liked him because he set our young men their fashions and yet never gave
himself airs. I wonder if he's here as well?"
"I don't think so. I know him by sight, but I haven't seen him. I'm glad
to hear he didn't give himself airs; you couldn't say the same for the
sister who is here, though I only know her by sight, too."
"He was quite a nice young man," said Christina, shutting up her fan;
and as she spoke the music, whose strains had reached them all the time,
came to its natural end.
The conservatory suffered instant invasion, Christina and Mr. Holland
being afforded the entertainment of disappointing couple after couple
who came straight to their corner.
"We're in a coveted spot," whispered Erskine; and his sister-in-law
reminded him who had shown the way to it. It was less secluded than
remote, so the present occupiers found further entertainment as mere
spectators. The same little things amused them both; this was one reason
why they got on so well together. They were amused by such trifles as a
distant prospect of Ruth, who was innocently enjoying herself at the
other end of the conservatory, unaware of their eyes. Erskine might have
felt proud, and no doubt he did, for many people considered Ruth even
prettier than Christina, with whom, however, they were apt to confuse
her, though Holland himself could never see the likeness. He now sat
watching his wife in the distance while talking to her sister at his
side until a new partner pounced upon Ruth, and bore her away as the
music began afresh.
"There goes my chaperon," remarked Christina resignedly.
"Who's your partner now? I'm sorry to say I see mine within ten yards of
me," whispered Erskine in some anxiety.
Tiny consulted her card. "It's Herbert," she said.
"Herbert!" said Mr. Holland dubiously. "I'm afraid Herbert's going it;
he's deeply employed with a girl in red--I think an American. Shall I
take you to Lady Almeric?" His eyes shifted uneasily toward his
expectant partner.
"No, I'll wait here for Herbert. Mayn't I? Then I'm going to. You're
sure to see him, and you can send him at once. Don't blame Ruth. What
does it matter? It will matter if you don't go this instant to your
partner; I see it in her eye!"
He left her reluctantly, with the undertaking that Herbert should be at
her side in two minutes. But that was rash. Christina soon had the
conservatory entirely to herself, whereupon she came out of her corner,
so that her brother might find her the more readily. Still he kept her
waiting, and she might as well have been lonely in the corner. It was
too bad of Herbert to leave her standing there, where she had no
business to be by herself, and the music and the throbbing of the floor
within a few yards of her. These awkward minutes naturally began to
disturb her. They checked and cooled her in the full blast of healthy
excitement, and that was bad; they threw her back upon herself straight
from her lightest mood, and this was worse. She became abnormally aware
of her own presence as she stood looking down and impatiently tapping
with her little white slipper upon the marble flags. Even about these
there was the grand air which Christina relished; she might have seen
her face far below, as though she had been standing in still water; but
her thoughts had been given a rough jerk inward, her outward vision fell
no deeper than the polished surface, while her mind's eye saw all at
once the dusty veranda boards of Wallandoon. She stood very still, and
in her ears the music died away, and through three months of travel and
great changes she heard again the night-horse champing in the yard, and
the crickets chirping further afield. And as she stood, her head bowed
by this sudden memory, footsteps approached, and she looked up,
expecting to see Herbert. But it was not Herbert; it was a young man of
more visible distinction than Herbert Luttrell. It is difficult to look
better dressed than another in our evening mode; but this young man
overcame the difficulty. He stood erect; he was well built; his clothes
fitted beautifully; he was himself nice looking, and fair-haired, and
boyish; and, even more than his clothes, one admired his smile, which
was frank and delightful. But the smile he gave Christina was followed
by a blush, for she had held out her hand to him, and asked him how he
was.
"I'm all right, thanks. But--this is the most extraordinary thing! Been
over long?"
He had dropped her hand.
"About a fortnight," said Christina.
"But what a pity to come over so late in the season! It's about done,
you know."
"Yes. I thought there was a good deal going on still."
"There's Henley, to be sure."
"I think I'm going to Henley."
"Going to the Eton and Harrow?"
"I am not quite sure. That was your match, wasn't it?"
The young man blushed afresh.
"Fancy your remembering! Unfortunately it wasn't my match, though; my
day out was against Winchester."
"Oh, yes," said Tiny, less knowingly.
"And how are you, Miss Luttrell?"
This had been forgotten, Tiny reported well of herself. Her friend
hesitated; there was some nervousness in his manner, but his good eyes
never fell from her face, and presently he exclaimed, as though the idea
had just struck him:
"I say, mayn't I have this dance, Miss Luttrell--what's left of it?"
"Thanks, I'm afraid I'm engaged for it."
"Then mayn't I find your partner for you?"
Now this second request, or his anxious way of making it, was an
elaborate revelation to Christina, and wrote itself in her brain. "Do
you remember Herbert?" she, however, simply replied. "He is the
culprit."
"Your brother? Certainly I remember him. I saw him a few minutes ago,
and made sure I had seen him somewhere before; but he looks older. I
don't fancy he's dancing. He's somewhere or other with somebody in red."
"So I hear."
"Then mayn't I have a turn with you before it stops?"
She hesitated as long as he had hesitated before first asking her; there
was not time to hesitate longer. Then she took his arm, and they passed
through a narrow avenue of ferns and flowers, round a corner, up some
steps, and so into the ball room.
The waltz was indeed half over, but the second half of it Christina and
her fortuitous partner danced together, without a rest, and also without
a word. He led her a more enterprising measure than those previous
partners who had questioned her concerning Australia. The name of
Australia had not crossed this one's lips. As Tiny whirled and glided on
his arm she saw a good many eyes upon her: they made her dance her best;
and her best was the best in the room, though her partner was uncommonly
good, and they had danced together before. Among the eyes were Ruth's,
and they were beaming; the others were mostly inquisitive, and as
strange to Christina as she evidently was to them; but once a turn
brought her face to face with Herbert, on his way from the conservatory,
and alone. He was a lanky, brown-faced, hook-nosed boy, with wiry limbs
and an aggressive eye, and he followed his sister round the room with a
stare of which she was uncomfortably conscious. He had looked for her
too late, when forced to relinquish the girl in red to her proper
partner, who still seemed put out. Christina was put out also, by her
brother's look, but she did not show it.
"You are staying in town?" her partner said after the dance as they sat
together in the conservatory, but not in the old corner.
"Yes, with my sister, Mrs. Holland; you never met her, I think. We are
in town till August."
"Where do you go then?"
"To the country for a month. My sister and her husband have taken a
country rectory for the whole of August. They had it last year, and
liked the place so much that they have taken it again; it is a little
village called Essingham."
"Essingham!" cried Christina's partner.
"Yes; do you know it?"
"I know of it," answered the young man. "I suppose you will go on the
Continent after that?" he added quickly.
"Well, hardly; my brother-in-law has so little time; but he expects to
have to go to Lisbon on business at the end of October, and he has
promised to take us with him."
"To Lisbon at the end of October," repeated Tiny's friend reflectively.
"Get him to take you to Cintra. They say it's well worth seeing."
Yet another dance was beginning. Christina was interested in the
movements of a young man in spectacles, who was plainly in search of
somebody. "He's hunting for me," she whispered to her companion, who was
saying:
"Portugal's rather the knuckle end of Europe, don't you think? But I've
heard Cintra well spoken of. I should go there if I were you."
"We intend to. Do you mind pulling that young man's coat tails? He has
forgotten my face."
"Yes, I do mind," said Tiny's partner with unexpected earnestness. "I
may meet you again, but I should like to take this opportunity of
explaining----"
Tiny Luttrell was smiling in his face.
"I hate explanations!" she cried. "They are an insult to one's
imagination, and I much prefer to accept things without them." There was
a gleam in her smile, but as she spoke she flashed it upon the
spectacles of her blind pursuer, who was squaring his arm to her in an
instant.
And that was the last she saw of the only partner for whom she had a
good word afterward, and he had come to her by accident. But it was by
no means the last she heard of him. The next was from Herbert, as they
drove home together in one hansom, while Ruth and her husband followed
in another. The morning air blew fresh upon their faces; the rising sun
struck sparks from the harness; the leaves in the park were greener than
any in Australia, and the dew on the grass through the railings was as a
silver shower new-fallen. But the most delicious taste of London that
had yet been given her was poisoned for Christina by her brother
Herbert.
"To have my claim jumped by that joker!" said he through his nose.
"But you had left it empty," said Tiny mildly. "I was all alone."
"It isn't so much that," her brother said, shifting the ground he had
taken in preliminary charges; "it's your dancing with that brute
Manister!"
"My dear old Herbs," said Miss Luttrell with provoking coolness, "Lord
Manister asked me to dance with him, and I didn't see why I should
refuse. I certainly didn't see why I should consult you, Herbs."
"By ghost," cried Herbert, "if it comes to that, he once asked you to
marry him!"
"Now you are a treat," said the girl, before the blood came.
"And then bolted! I should be ashamed of myself for dancing with him if
I were you. He said I was a larrikin, too. I'd like to fill his eye for
him!"
"He'll never say a truer thing!" Christina cried out; but her voice
broke over the words, and the early sun cut diamonds on her lashes.
Now this was Herbert: he was rough, but not cowardly. His nose had
become hooked in his teens from a stand-up fight with a full-grown man.
There is not the least doubt that in such a combat with Lord Manister
that nobleman, though otherwise a finer athlete, would have suffered
extremely. But it was not in Herbert to hit any woman in cold blood with
his tongue. Having done this in his heat to Christina, his mate, he was
man enough to be sorry and ashamed, and to slip her hands into his.
"I'm an awful beast," he stammered out. "I didn't mean anything at
all--except that I'd like to fill up Manister's eye! I can't go back on
that when--when he called me a larrikin!"
CHAPTER IV.
RUTH AND CHRISTINA.
Here is the difference between Ruth and Christina, who were considered
so much alike.
Of the two, Ruth was the one to fall in love with at sight--of which
Erskine Holland supplies the proof. She was less diminutive than her
sister; she had a finer figure, a warmer color, and indeed, despite the
destructive Australian sun, a very beautiful complexion. In the early
days at Wallandoon she had given herself a better chance in this respect
than Christina had done, not from vanity at all, but rather owing to
certain differences in their ideas of pleasure, into which it is
needless to enter. The result was her complexion; and this was not her
only beauty, for she had good brown eyes that suited her coloring as
autumn leaves befit an autumn sunset. These eyes are never unkind, but
Ruth's were sweet-tempered to a fault. So the glance of one scanning
both girls for the first time rested naturally upon Ruth, but on all
subsequent occasions it flew straight to Christina, because there was
an end to Ruth; but there was no coming to an end of Tiny, about whom
there was ever some fresh thing to charm or disappoint one.
Thus, but for the businesslike dispatch of Erskine Holland, it might
have been Ruth's fate to break in Christina's admirers until Christina
fancied one of them enough to marry him. For Ruth's was perhaps the more
unselfish character of the two, as it was certainly the simpler one, in
spite of a peculiar secretive strain in her from which Tiny was free.
Tiny, on the other hand, was much more sensitive; but to perceive this
was to understand her better than she understood herself. For she did
not know her own weaknesses as the self-examining know theirs, and
hardly anybody suspected her of this one until her arrival in
England--when Erskine Holland came to treat her as a sister, and to
understand her more or less.
In Australia he had seen very little of her, though enough to regard her
at the time as an arrant little heartless flirt, for whom sighed silly
swains innumerable. That she was, indeed, a flirt there was still no
denying; but as his knowledge of her ripened, Holland was glad to
unharness the opprobrious epithets with which Ruth's sister had first
driven herself into his mind. He discovered good points in Christina,
and among them a humor which he had never detected out in Australia.
Probably his own sense of it had lost its edge out there, for
love-making blunts nothing sooner; while Ruth, for her part, was
naturally wanting in humor. Holland had never been blind to this defect
in his wife, but he seemed resigned to it; one can conceive it to be a
merit in the wife of an amusing man.
Some people called Erskine amusing--it is not hard to win this label
from some people--but at any rate he was never likely to find it
difficult to amuse Ruth. Now no companion in this world is more charming
for all time than the person who is content to do the laughing. As a
novelty, however, Christina had her own distinctive attraction for
Erskine Holland. And they got on so well together that presently he saw
more in Tiny than her humor, which others had seen before him; he saw
that her heart was softer than she thought; but he divined that
something had happened to harden it.
"She has been falling in love," he said to Ruth--"and something has
happened."
"What makes you think so? She has told me nothing about it," Ruth said.
"Ah, she is sensitive. I can see that, too. It's her bitterness,
however, that makes me think something has turned out badly."
"She is sadly cynical," remarked Ruth.
"Cynically sad, I rather think," her husband said. "I don't fancy she's
languishing now; I should say she has got over the thing, whatever it
has been--and is rather disappointed with herself for getting over it so
easily. She has hinted at nothing, but she has a trick of generalizing;
and she affects to think that one person doesn't fret for another longer
than a week in real life. I don't say her cynicism is so much
affectation; something or other has left a bad taste in her mouth; but I
should like to bet that it wasn't an affair of the most serious sort."
"Her affairs never were very serious, Erskine."
"So I gathered from what I saw of her before we were married. It's a
pity," said Erskine musingly. "I'd like to see her married, but I'd love
to see her wooed! That's where the sport would come in. There would be
no knowing where the fellow had her. He might hook her by luck, but he'd
have to play her like fun before he landed her! There'd be a strong
sporting interest in the whole thing, and that's what one likes."
"It's a pity I didn't know what you liked," Ruth said, with a smile;
"and a wonder that you liked me, and not Tiny!"
"My darling," laughed her husband, "that sort of sport's for the young
fellows. I'm past it. I merely meant that I should like to see the
sport. No, Tiny's charming in her way, but God forbid that it should be
your way too!"
Now Ruth was such a fond little wife that at this speech she became too
much gratified on her own account to care to discuss her sister any
further. But in dismissing the subject of Tiny she took occasion to
impress one fact upon Erskine:
"You may be right, dear, and something may have happened since I left
home; but I can only tell you that Tiny hasn't breathed a single word
about it to me."
And this is an early sample of the disingenuous streak that was in the
very grain of Ruth. Christina, indeed, had told her nothing, but Ruth
knew nearly all that there was to know of the affair whose traces were
plain to her husband's insight. Beyond the fact that the name of Tiny
Luttrell had been coupled in Melbourne with that of Lord Manister, and
the _on dit_ that Lord Manister had treated her rather badly, there was,
indeed, very little to be known. But Ruth knew at least as much as her
mother, who had written to her on the subject the more freely and
frequently because her younger daughter flatly refused the poor lady her
confidence. There was no harm in Ruth's not showing those letters to her
husband. There was no harm in her keeping her sister's private affairs
from her husband's knowledge. There was the reverse of harm in both
reservations, as Erskine would have been the first to allow. Ruth had
her reasons for making them; and if her reasons embodied a deep design,
there was no harm in that either, for surely it is permissible to plot
and scheme for the happiness of another. I can see no harm in her
conduct from any point of view. But it was certainly disingenuous, and
it entailed an insincere attitude toward two people, which in itself was
not admirable. And those two were her nearest. However amiable her
plans might be, they made it impossible for Ruth to be perfectly sincere
with her husband on one subject, which was bad enough. But with
Christina it was still more impossible to be at all candid; and this
happened to be worse, for reasons which will be recognized later. In the
first place, Tiny immediately discovered Ruth's insincerity, and even
her plans. Tiny was a difficult person to deceive. She detected the
insincerity in a single conversation with Ruth on the afternoon
following Lady Almeric's ball, and before she went to bed she was as
much in possession of the plans as if Ruth had told her them.
The conversation took place in Erskine's study, where the sisters had
foregathered for a lazy afternoon.
"Oh, by the way," said Ruth, apropos of the ball, "it was a coincidence
your dancing with Lord Manister."
"Why a coincidence?" asked Christina. She glanced rather sharply at Ruth
as she put the question.
"Well, it is just possible that we shall see something of him in the
country. That's all," said Ruth, as she bent over the novel of which
she was cutting the pages.
Christina also had a book in her lap, but she had not opened it; she was
trying to read Ruth's averted face.
"I thought perhaps you meant because we saw something of him in
Melbourne," she said presently. "I suppose you know that we did see
something of him? He even honored us once or twice."
"So you told me in your letters."
The paper knife was still at work.
"What makes it likely that we shall see him in the country?"
"Well, Mundham Hall is quite close to Essingham, you know."
"Mundham Hall! Whose place is that?"
"Lord Dromard's," replied Ruth, still intent upon her work.
"Surely not!" exclaimed Christina. "Lord Manister once told me the name
of their place, and I am convinced it wasn't that."
"They have several places. But until quite lately they have lived mostly
at the other side of the county, at Wreford Abbey."
"That was the name."
"But they have sold that place," said Ruth, "and last autumn Lord
Dromard bought Mundham; it was empty when we were at Essingham last
year."
For some moments there was silence, broken only by the leisurely swish
of Ruth's paper knife. Then Christina said, "That accounts for it,"
thinking aloud.
"For what?" asked Ruth rather nervously.
"Lord Manister told me he knew of Essingham. He never mentioned Mundham.
Is it so very close to your rectory?"
"The grounds are; they are very big; the hall itself is miles from the
gates--almost as far as our home station was from the boundary fence."
"Surely not," Tiny said quietly.
"Well, that's a little exaggeration, of course."
"Then I wish it wasn't!" Tiny cried out. "I don't relish the idea of
living under the lee of such very fine people," she said next moment, as
quietly as before.
"No more do I--no more does Erskine," Ruth made haste to declare. "But
we enjoyed ourselves so much there last August that we said at the time
that we would take the rectory again this August. We made the people
promise us the refusal. And it seemed absurd to refuse just because Lord
Dromard had bought Mundham; shouldn't you have said so yourself, dear?"
"Certainly I should," answered Tiny; and for half an hour no more was
said.
The afternoon was wet; there was no inducement to go out, even with the
necessary energy, and the two young women, on whose pillows the sun had
lain before their faces, felt anything but energetic. The afternoon was
also cold to Australian blood, and a fire had been lighted in Erskine's
den. His favorite armchair contained several cushions and Christina--who
might as well have worn his boots--while Ruth, having cut all the leaves
of her volume, curled herself up on the sofa with an obvious intention.
She was good at cutting the leaves of a new book, but still better at
going to sleep over them when cut. She had read even less than
Christina, and it troubled her less; but this afternoon she read more.
Ruth could not sleep. No more could Tiny. But Tiny had not opened her
book. It was one of the good books that Erskine had lent her. She was
extremely interested in it; but just at present her own affairs
interested her more. Lying back in the big chair, with the wet gray
light behind her, and that of the fire playing fitfully over her face,
Christina committed what was as yet an unusual weakness for her, by
giving way voluntarily to her thoughts. She was in the habit of thinking
as little as possible, because so many of her thoughts were depressing
company, and beyond all things she disliked being depressed. This
afternoon she was less depressed than indignant. The firelight showed
her forehead strung with furrows. From time to time she turned her eyes
to the sofa, as if to make sure that Ruth was still awake, and as often
as they rested there they gleamed. At last she spoke Ruth's name.
"Well?" said Ruth. "I thought you were asleep; you have never stirred."
"I'm not sleepy, thanks; and, if you don't mind, I should like to speak
to you before you drop off yourself."
Ruth closed her novel.
"What is it, dear? I'm listening."
"When you wrote and invited me over you mentioned Essingham as one of
the attractions. Now why couldn't you tell me the Dromards would be our
neighbors there?"
Ruth raised her eyes from the younger girl's face to the rain-spattered
window. Tiny's tone was cold, but not so cold as Tiny's searching
glance. This made Ruth uncomfortable. It did not incapacitate her,
however.
"The Dromards!" she exclaimed rather well. "Had they taken the place
then?"
"You say they bought it before Christmas; it was after Christmas that
you first wrote and expressly invited me."
"Was it? Well, my dear, I suppose I never thought of them; that's all.
They aren't the only nice people thereabouts."
"I'm afraid you are not quite frank with me," the young girl said; and
her own frankness was a little painful.
"Tiny, dear, what a thing to say! What does it mean?"
Ruth employed for these words the injured tone.
"It means that you know as well as I do, Ruth, that it isn't pleasant
for me to meet Lord Manister."
"Was there something between you in Melbourne?" asked Ruth. "I must say
that nobody would have thought so from seeing you together last night.
And--and how was I to think so, when you have never told me anything
about it?"
Christina laughed bitterly.
"When you have made a fool of yourself you don't go out of your way to
talk about it, even to your own people. It is kind of you to pretend to
know nothing about it--I am sure you mean it kindly; but I'm still surer
that you have been told all there was to tell concerning Lord Manister
and me. I don't mean by Herbert. He's close. But the mother must have
written and told you something; it was only natural that she should do
so."
"She did tell me a little. Herbert has told me nothing. I tried to pump
him,--I think you can't wonder at that,--but he refused to speak a word
on the subject. He says he hates it."
"He hates Lord Manister," said Christina, smiling. "It came round to him
once that Lord Manister had called him a larrikin, and he has never
forgiven him. But he has been less of a larrikin ever since. And, of
course, that wasn't why he was so angry with me for dancing with Lord
Manister last night; he was dreadfully angry with me as we drove home;
but he is a very good boy to me, and there was something in what he
said."
"What made you dance with him?" Ruth said curiously.
"I was alone. I hadn't a partner. He asked me rather prettily--he always
had pretty manners. You wouldn't have had me show him I cared, by
snubbing him, would you?"
"No," said Ruth thoughtfully; and suddenly she slipped from the sofa,
and was kneeling on the hearthrug, with her brown eyes softly searching
Christina's face and her lips whispering, "Do you care, Tiny? _Do_ you
care, Tiny, dear?"
Tiny snapped her fingers as she pushed back her chair.
"Not that much for anybody--much less for Lord Manister, and least of
all for myself! Now don't you be too good to me, Ruth; if you are you'll
only make me feel ungrateful, and I shall run away, because I'm not
going to tell you another word about what's over and done with. I can't!
I have got over the whole thing, but it has been a sickener. It makes me
sick to think about it. I don't want ever to speak of it again."
"I understand," said Ruth; but there was disappointment in her look and
tone, and she added, "I should like to have heard the truth, though; and
no one can tell it me but you."
"I thank Heaven for that!" cried Christina piously. "The version out
there was that he proposed to me and I accepted him, and then he bolted
without even saying good-by. It's true that he didn't say good-by; the
rest is not true. But you must just make it do."
Her face was scarlet with the shame of it all; but there was no sign of
weakness in the curling lips. She spoke bitterly, but not at all sadly,
and her next words were still more suggestive of a wound to the vanity
rather than to the heart.
"Does Erskine know?"
"Not a word."
"Honestly?"
"Quite honestly; at least I have never mentioned it to him, and I don't
think anybody else has, or he would have mentioned it to me."
"Oh, Herbert wouldn't say anything. Herbert's very close. But--don't you
two tell each other everything, Ruth?"
The young girl looked incredulous; the married woman smiled.
"Hardly everything, you know! Erskine has lots of relations himself, for
instance, and I'm sure he wouldn't care to tell me the ins and outs of
their private affairs, even if I cared to know them. It's just the same
about you and your affairs, don't you see."
"Except that he knows me so well," Christina reflected aloud, with her
eyes upon the fire. "If I had a husband," she added impulsively, "I
should like to tell him every mortal thing, whether I wanted to or not!
And I should like not to want to, but to be made. But that's because I
should like above all things to be bossed!"
"You would take some bossing," suggested Ruth.
"That's the worst of it," said Christina, with a little sigh, and then a
laugh, as she snatched her eyes from the fire. "But I can't tell you how
glad I am you haven't told Erskine. Never tell him, Ruth, for you don't
know how I covet his good opinion. I like him, you know, dear, and I
rather think he likes me--so far."
"Indeed he does," cried Ruth warmly; and a good point in her character
stood out through the genuine words. "Nothing ever made me happier than
to see you become such friends."
"He laughs at me a good deal," Tiny remarked doubtfully.
"That's because you amuse him a good deal. I can't get him to laugh at
me, my dear."
"He would laugh," said Christina, with her eyes on the fire again, "if
you told him I had aspired to Lord Manister!"
"But I'm not going to tell him anything at all about it." Ruth paused.
"And after all, the Dromards won't take any notice of us in the
country." She paused again. "And we won't speak of this any more, Tiny,
if you don't like."
The shame had come back to Christina's face as she bent it toward the
fire. Twice she had made no answer to what was kindly meant and even
kindlier said. But now she turned and kissed Ruth, saying, "Thank you,
dear. I am afraid I don't like. But you have been awfully good and sweet
about it--as I shan't forget." And the fire lit their faces as they met,
but the tear that had got upon Tiny's cheek was not her own.
Ruth, you see, could be tender and sympathetic and genuine enough. But
she could not be sensible and let well alone.
She did that night a very foolish thing: she brought up the subject
again. Tempted she certainly was. Never since her arrival in England had
Tiny seemed so near to her or she to Tiny as in the hours immediately
following the chat between them in Erskine's study. But Christina stood
further from Ruth than Ruth imagined; she had not advanced, but
retreated, before the glow of Ruth's sympathy. This was after the event,
when some hours separated Christina from those emotional moments to
which she had not contributed her share of the emotion, leaving the
scene upon her mind in just perspective. She still could value Ruth's
sweetness at the end of their talk, but her own suspicions, aroused at
the outset, to be immediately killed by a little kindness, had come to
life again, and were calling for an equal appreciation. The extent of
Tiny's suspicions was very full, and the suspicions themselves were
uncommonly shrewd and convincing. They made it a little hard to return
Ruth's smiles during the evening, and to kiss her when saying
good-night, though Tiny did these things duly. She went upstairs before
her time, however, and not at all in the mood to be bothered any further
about Lord Manister. Yet she behaved very patiently when Ruth came
presently to her room and thus bothered her, being suddenly tempted
beyond her strength. For Christina was discovered standing fully dressed
under the gas-bracket, and frowning at a certain photograph on an
orange-colored mount, which she turned face downward as Ruth entered.
Whereupon Ruth, discerning the sign manual of a Melbourne photographer,
could not help saying slyly, "Who is it, Tiny?"
"A friend of mine," Tiny said, also slyly, but keeping the photograph
itself turned provokingly to the floor.
"In Australia?"
"Er--it was taken out there."
"It's Lord Manister!"
"Perhaps it is--perhaps it isn't."
"Tiny," said Ruth with pathos, "you might show me!"
But Tiny drummed vexatiously on the wrong side of the mount; and here
Ruth surely should have let the matter drop, instead of which:
"You are very horrid," she said, "but I must just tell you something. I
have heard things from Lady Almeric, who is very intimate with Lady
Dromard, and I don't believe _he_ is so much to blame as you think him.
I have heard it spoken about in society. But don't look frightened. Your
name has never been mentioned. I don't think it has ever come out.
Indeed, I know it hasn't, for _I_, actually, have been asked the name of
the girl Lord Manister was fond of in Melbourne--by Lady Almeric!"
"And what did you say?"
"What do you suppose? I glory in that fib--I am honestly proud of it.
But, dear, the point is, not that Lord Manister has never mentioned your
name, but that he can bear neither name nor sight of the girl he is
expected to marry! Lady Almeric told me when--I couldn't help her."
"He is a nice young man, I must say!" remarked Christina grimly. "My
fellow-victim has a title, no doubt?"
"Well, it's Miss Garth, and her father's Lord Acklam, so she's the
honorable," said Ruth gravely. (Tiny smiled at her gravity.) "But I've
seen her, and--he can't like her! And oh! Tiny dear, they all say he
left his heart in Australia, but his mother sent for him because she
heard something--but not your name, dear--and he came. They say he is
devoted to his mother; but this has come between them, and she's sorry
she interfered, because after all he won't marry poor Miss Garth. I had
it direct from Lady Almeric when she tried to get that out of me. But I
lied like a trooper!" exclaimed poor Ruth.
"I'm grateful to you for that," Christina said, not ungraciously--"but I
must really be going to bed."
With a last wistful glance at the orange-colored cardboard, Ruth took
the hint. Christina turned away in time to avoid an embrace without
showing her repugnance, because she had still some regard for Ruth's
good heart. But she had never experienced a more grateful riddance, and
the look that followed Ruth to the threshold would have kept her company
for some time had she turned there and caught one glimpse of it.
"Now I understand!" said Christina to the closed door. "I suppose I
ought to love you for it, Ruth; but I don't--no, I don't!"
She turned the photograph face upward, and stared thoughtfully at it for
some minutes longer; then she put it away.
CHAPTER V.
ESSINGHAM RECTORY.
Essingham Rectory, which the Erskine Hollands had taken for the month of
August, was a little old building with some picturesque points to
console one for the tameness of the view from its windows. The
surrounding country was perfectly flat but for Gallow Hill, and not at
all green but for the glebe and the riverside meadows, while the only
trees of any account were the rectory elms and those in the Mundham
grounds. It is true that on Gallow Hill three wind-crippled beeches
brandished their deformities against the sky, as they may do still; but
the country around Essingham is no country for trees. It is the country
for warrens and rabbits and roads without hedges. So it struck Christina
as more like the back-blocks than anything she had hoped to see in
England, and pleased her more than anything she had seen. She showed her
pleasure before they arrived at Essingham. She forgot to disparage the
old country during the long drive from the county town; and that was
notable. She had actually no stone to cast at the elaborate and
impressive gates of Mundham Hall; apparently she was herself impressed.
But opposite the gates they turned to the left, into a narrow road with
hedges, from which you can see the rectory, and as Herbert put it
afterward:
"That's what knocked our Tiny!"
For the girl's first glimpse of the old house was over the hedge and far
away above a brilliant sash of meadow green. The cream-colored walls
were aglow in the low late sunshine, what was to be seen of them, for
they were half hidden by a creeper almost as old as themselves. The
red-tiled, weather-beaten roof was dark with age. Even at a distance one
smelt rats in the wainscot within the stuccoed walls. Around the house,
and towering above the tiles, the elms stood as still against the
evening sky as the square church tower but a little way to the right. To
the right of that, but farther away, rose Gallow Hill. Thereabouts the
sun was sinking, but the clock on the near side of the church tower had
gilt hands, which marked the hour when Christina stood up in the fly and
astonished her friends with her frank delight. It was a point against
this young lady, on subsequent occasions when she did not forget to
decry the old country, that at ten minutes past seven on the evening of
the 1st of August she had given way to enthusiasm over a scene that was
purely English and very ordinary in itself.
Not that her immediate appreciation of the place became modified on a
closer acquaintance with it. At the end of the first clear day at
Essingham she informed the others that thus far she had not enjoyed
herself so much since leaving Australia. Of course she had enjoyed
herself in London. That did not count. London only compared itself with
Melbourne, Christina did not care how favorably; but Essingham was for
comparison with the place that was dearer to her than any other in the
world. You will understand why all her appreciations were directly
comparative. This is natural in the very young, and fortunately Tiny
Luttrell was still very young in some respects. Blessed with observant
eyes, and having at this time an irritable memory to keep her prejudices
at attention, her mind soon became the scene of many curious and
specific contests between England and Australia. In the match between
Wallandoon and Essingham the latter made a better fight than you would
think against so strong an opponent. The rectory was homely and
convenient in its old age, and Christina was greatly charmed with her
own room, because it was small; and if the wall-paper was modern and
conventional, and not to be read from the pillow in the early morning,
it was almost as pleasant to lie and watch the elm tops trembling
against the sky. And if the sky was not really blue in England, the
leaves in Australia were not really green, as Christina now knew. So
there they were quits. But England and Essingham scored palpably in some
things; the kitchen garden was one. Christina had never seen such a
kitchen garden; she found it possible to spend half an hour there at any
time, to her further contentment; and there were other attractions on
the premises, which were just as good in their way, while their way was
often better for one.
For instance, there was a lawn tennis court which satisfied the soul of
Erskine, who played daily for its express refreshment. That was what
brought him to Essingham. The neighboring clergy were always ready for a
game. But they laughed at Erskine for being so keen; he would get up
before breakfast to roll the court, which passed their understanding.
Christina played also, by no means ill, and Herbert uncommonly well; but
this player neither won nor lost very prettily. He was more amiable over
the photography which he had taken up in partnership with Tiny; but his
photographs were uncommonly bad. Yet this was another amusement in the
country, where, however, Christina was most amused by the neighbors who
called. These were friendly people, and they had all called on the
Hollands the previous year. Half of them were clergymen, though the
stranger who met them found this difficult to believe in some cases; the
other half were the clergymen's wives. Very grand families apart, there
is no other society round about Essingham. And what could man wish
better? Even Christina found it impossible to disapprove of the
well-bred, easy-going, tennis-playing, unprofessional country clergy, as
acquaintances and friends. But she did find fault with the rector of
Essingham as a rector, though she had never seen him, and though Ruth
assured her that he was a dear old man.
"He may be a dear old man," Miss Luttrell would allow, "but he's a bad
old rector! His flock don't find him such a dear old man, either. They
only see him once a week, in the pulpit; and then they can't hear him!"
"Who has been telling you that, Tiny?" asked Ruth.
"You've been talking sedition in the village!" said Erskine Holland.
"Well, I've been making friends with two or three of the people, if
that's what you call talking sedition," Tiny replied; "and I think your
dear old rector neglects them shamefully. He does worse than that.
There's some fund or other for buying coals and blankets for the poor of
the parish; and there's old Mrs. Clapperton. Mrs. Clapperton's a Roman
Catholic; so, if you please, she never gets her coals or blankets, and
she's too proud to ask for them. That's a fact--and I tell you what, I'd
like to expose your dear old man, Ruth! As for the village, if it's a
specimen of your English villages, let me tell you, Erskine, that it's
leagues behind the average bush township. Why, they haven't even got a
state school, but only a one-horse affair run by the rector! And the
schoolmaster's the most ignorant man in the village. I wonder you don't
copy us, and go in for state schools!"
"'Copy us, and go in for state schools,'" echoed Ruth with gentle mirth,
as she sometimes would echo Tiny's remarks, and with a smile that
traveled from Tiny to Erskine. But Erskine did not return the smile. His
eyes rested shrewdly upon Christina, and Ruth feared from their
expression that he thought the girl an utter fool; but she was wrong.
Christina was not, if you like, an intellectual girl, but she was by no
means a fool. Neither was her brother-in-law, who perceived this. Her
comments on the books he lent her were sufficiently intelligent, and she
pleased him in other ways too. He was glad, for instance, to see her
interesting herself in the local peasants; she was particularly glad
that she did not give this interest its head, though as a matter of fact
it never pulled. Christina was not the girl for interests that gallop
and have not legs. Not the least of her attractions, in the eyes of a
male relative of middle age, was a certain solid sanity that showed
through every crevice of her wayward nature. It was sanity of the
cynical sort, which men appreciate most. And it was least apparent in
her own actions, which is the weak point of the cynically sane.
"At all events, Tiny, you can't find the country a tight fit, like
London," said Erskine once, during the first few days. "Come, now!"
"No," replied Tiny thoughtfully, "I must own it doesn't fit so tight.
But it tickles! You mayn't go here and you mayn't go there; in Australia
you may go anywhere you darn please. Excuse me, Erskine, but I feel this
a good deal. Only this morning Ruth and I were blocked by a notice board
just outside the wicket at the far end of the churchyard; we were
thinking of going up Gallow Hill, but we had to turn back, as
trespassers would be prosecuted. There's no trespassing where I come
from. And Ruth says the board wasn't there last year."
"Ah, the Dromards weren't there last year! They've stuck it up. You
should pitch into your friend Lord Manister. It's rather vexatious of
them, I grant you; they can't want to have tea on Gallow Hill; and it's
a pity, because there's a fine view of the Hall from the top."
"Indeed? Ruth never told me that," remarked Christina curiously. "Have
they arrived yet?" she added in apparent idleness.
"Last night, I hear--if you mean the Dromards. And a rumor has arrived
with them."
Now Christina was careful not to inquire what the rumor was; but Erskine
told her; and, oddly enough, what he had heard and now repeated was to
come true immediately.
The great family at Mundham were about to entertain the county. That was
the whisper, which was presently to be spoken aloud as a pure fact. It
ran over the land with "At last!" hissing at its heels, and a still more
sinister whisper chased the pair of them; for the Dromards might have
entertained the county months before; a house-warming had been expected
of them in the winter, but they had chosen to warm Mundham with their
own friends from a distance; and since then the general election had
become a moral certainty for the following spring, and--the point
was--Viscount Manister had declared his willingness to stand for the
division. The corollary was irresistible, but so, it appears, was
Countess Dromard's invitation, which few are believed to have
declined--for those that did so made it known. Some disgust, however,
was expressed at the kind of entertainment, which, after all, was to be
nothing more than a garden party. But nearly all who were bidden
accepted. The notice, too, was shorter than other people would have
presumed to give; but other people were not the Dromards. The countess'
invitation conveyed to a hundred country homes a joy that was none the
less keen for a certain shame or shyness in showing any sort of
satisfaction in so small a matter. Nevertheless, though not adorned by a
coronet, as it might have been, nor in any way a striking trophy, the
card obtained a telling position over many a rectory chimney-piece,
where in some instances it remained, accidentally, for months. In
justice to the residents, however, it must be owned that not one of them
read it with a more poignant delight, nor adjusted it in the mirror with
a nicer care and a finer show of carelessness, nor gazed at it oftener
while ostensibly looking at the clock, than did Mrs. Erskine Holland
during the next ten days.
But when it came she acted cleverly. There was occasion for all her
cleverness, because in her case the invitation was a complete surprise;
she had not dared to expect one; and you may imagine her peculiar
satisfaction at receiving an invitation that embraced her "party." Yet
she was able to toss the card across the breakfast table to Erskine,
merely remarking, "Should we go?" And when Tiny at once stated that for
her part she was not keen, Ruth gave her a sympathetic look, as much as
to say, "No more am I, my dear," which might have deceived a less
discerning person. But Tiny saw that her sister was holding her breath
until Erskine spoke his mind.
"Have we any other engagement?" said he directly. "If not, it would
hardly do to stick here playing tennis within sight of their lodge. I'm
no more keen than you are, Tiny, but that would look uncommon poor. It
was very kind of them to think of asking us; I'm afraid we must go; but
I am sure you will find it amusing."
"Thanks," replied Christina, to whom this assurance was addressed, "but
you needn't send me there to be amused; you see, I have plenty to amuse
me here," she added, with a smile that had been slow to come. "I'll go,
of course, and with pleasure; but there would be more pleasure in some
hard sets with you, Erskine, or in taking your photograph."
"Ah, you don't know what you'd miss, Tiny! I can promise you some sport,
if you keep your eyes and ears open. Then you knew Lord Manister in
Melbourne. In any case, you oughtn't to go back there without a glimpse
of some of our fine folks at home, when you can get it."
"Oh, I'll go; but not for the sport of seeing your clergy and gentry on
their knees to your fine folks, nor yet to be amused. As for Lord
Manister, he was well enough in Melbourne; he didn't give himself airs,
and there he was wise. But on his native heath! One would be sorry to
set foot on the same soil. It must be sacred."
"Come, I say, I don't think you'll find the parsons on their knees. We
think a lot of a lord, if you like; but we try to forget that when we're
talking to him. We do our best to treat him as though he were merely a
gentleman, you know," said Erskine, smiling, but giving, as he felt, an
informing hint.
"Ah, you try!" said Christina. "You do your best!"
"Our best may be very bad," laughed Erskine; "if so, you must show us
how to better it, Tiny."
"I should get Tiny to teach you how to treat a lord, dear," said Ruth,
who saw nothing to laugh at, and seemed likely to lend her husband a
severer support than the occasion needed.
"Say Lord Manister!" suggested Erskine. "Will you show me on him?"
"I may if you're good--you wait and see," said Tiny lightly. And lightly
the matter was allowed to drop. For Herbert, as usual, was late for
breakfast, which was for once a very good thing; and as for Ruth, it was
merely her misfortune to have a near sight for the line dividing chaff
from earnest, but now she saw it, and on which side of it the others
were, for she had joined them and was laughing herself.
But Herbert would not have laughed at all; indeed, he had not a smile
for the subject when he did come down and Ruth gave him his breakfast
alone. It seemed well that Christina was not in the room. Her brother
took the opportunity of saying what he thought of Manister, and what
Manister had once called him behind his back, and what he would have
done to Manister's eye had half as much been said to his face. His
personal decision about the garden party was merely contemptuous. He was
not going. Nor did he go when the time came. Meanwhile, however,
something happened to modify for the moment his opinion of the young
viscount whom it was Herbert's meager satisfaction to abuse roundly
whenever his noble name was spoken.
Having been provided with two rooms at the rectory, in one of which he
was expected to read diligently every morning, Herbert entered that room
only when his pipe needed filling. He kept his tobacco there, and also,
to be sure, his books; but these he never opened. He read nothing, save
chance items in an occasional sporting paper; he simply smoked and
pottered, leaving the smell of his pipe in the least desirable places.
When he took photographs with Tiny, that was pottering too, for neither
of them knew much about it, and Herbert was too indolent to take either
pains or care in a pursuit which essentially demands both. He had rather
a good eye for a subject; he could arrange a picture with some
judgment. That interested him, but the subsequent processes did not, and
these invariably spoilt the plate. All his actions, however, suggested
an underlying theory that what is worth doing is not necessarily worth
doing well. This applied even to his games, about which Herbert was
really keen; he played lawn tennis carelessly, though with a verve and
energy somewhat surprising in the loafing, smoking idler of the morning.
He had been fond of cricket, too, in Australia; it was a disappointment
to him that no cricket was to be had at Essingham. He looked forward to
Cambridge for the athletic advantages. He had no intention of reading
there; so what, he wanted to know, was the good of his reading here?
Certainly Herbert had entered at an accommodating college, which would
receive young men quite free from previous knowledge; but he might have
been reading for his little-go all this time; and he never read a word.
But one morning he loitered afield, and came back enthusiastic about a
place for a photograph; the next, Tiny and the implements were dragged
to the spot; and really it was not bad. It was a scene on the little
river just below Mundham bridge. The thick white rails of the bridge
standing out against a clump of trees in the park beyond, the single
arch with the dark water underneath and some sunlit ripples twinkling at
the further side, seemed to call aloud for a camera; and Herbert might
have used his to some purpose, for a change, had he not forgotten to
fill his slides with plates before leaving home. This discovery was not
made until the bridge was in focus, and it put young Luttrell in the
plight of a rifleman who has sighted the bull's-eye with an empty
barrel. It was a question of returning to the rectory to load the slides
or of giving up the photograph altogether. On another occasion, having
forgotten the lens, Herbert had packed up the camera and gone back in
disgust. But that happened nearer home. To-day he had carried the camera
a good mile. Two journeys with something to show for them were
preferable to one with a tired arm for the only result. Within a minute
after the slides were found empty Christina was alone in the meadow
below the bridge; Herbert had found it impossible to give up the
photograph altogether.
The girl had not lost patience, for she was herself partly to blame.
There were, however, still better reasons for her resignation. She
happened to have the second volume of "The Newcomes" in her jacket
pocket, and the little river seemed to ripple her an invitation from the
bridge to make herself comfortable with her book in its shade. There was
no great need for shade, but the idea seemed sensible. With her hand on
the book in her pocket, and her eyes hovering about the bridge for the
coolest corner, she felt perhaps a little ashamed as she thought of
Herbert making a cool day hot by running back alone for what they had
both forgotten. It was hardly this feeling, however, that kept her
standing where she was.
She had known no finer day in England. The light was strong and limpid,
the shadows abrupt and deep. The sky was not cloudless, but the clouds
were thin and clean. There was a refreshing amount of wind; the tree
tops beyond the bridge swayed a little against the sky; the focusing
cloth flapped between the tripod legs, and for some minutes the girl
stood absently imbibing all this, without a thought in her head.
Presently she found herself wondering whether there was enough movement
in the trees to mar a photograph; later she tucked her head under the
cloth to see. As she examined the inverted picture on the ground glass,
she held the cloth loosely over her head and round her neck. But
suddenly she twitched it tighter. For first the sound of wheels had come
to her ears. Then a dogcart had been pulled up on the bridge. And now on
the focusing screen a figure was advancing upside down, like a fly on
the ceiling, and doubling its size with each stride, until there
occurred a momentary eclipse of the inverted landscape by Lord Manister,
who had stalked in broad daylight to our Tiny's side.
CHAPTER VI.
A MATTER OF ANCIENT HISTORY.
The focusing cloth clung to her head like a cowl as she raised it and
bowed. There must have been nervousness on both sides, for the moment,
but it did not prevent Lord Manister from taking off his hat with a
sweep and swiftness that amounted almost to a flourish, nor Christina
from noticing this and his clothes. He was so admirably attired in
summer gray that she took pleasure in reflecting that she was herself
unusually shabby, her idea being that contact with the incorrect was
rather good for him. Correctness of any kind, it is to be feared, was
ridiculously wrong in her eyes. Otherwise she might have been different
herself.
"I knew it was you!" Lord Manister declared, having shaken her hand.
"How could you know?" said Christina, smiling. "You must be very
clever."
"I wish I was. No; I met your brother running like anything with some
wooden things under his arm. He wouldn't see me, but I saw him. I was
going to pull up, but he wouldn't see me."
Miss Luttrell explained that her brother had gone back for plates, which
they had both very stupidly forgotten; she added that she was sure he
could not have recognized Lord Manister.
"Plates!" said this nobleman. "Ah, they're important, I know."
"Well, they're your cartridges; you can't shoot anything without them."
Lord Manister gave a louder laugh than the remark merited; then he
studied his boots among the daisies. Christina smiled as she watched
him, until he looked up briskly, and nearly caught her.
"I say, Miss Luttrell, I should like immensely to be on in this scene,
if you would let me! I mean to say I should like to see the thing taken.
Perhaps you could do with the trap and my mare on the bridge; she's
something special, I assure you. And I have been thinking--if you think
so too--that my man might go back for your brother and give him a lift.
It must be monstrous hot walking. It's a monstrous hot day, you know."
This was not only an exaggeration, but a puff of smoke revealing hidden
fires within the young man's head. Christina fanned the fire until it
tinged his cheek by willfully hesitating before giving him a gracious
answer. For when she spoke it was to say, with a smile at his anxiety,
"Really, you are very considerate, Lord Manister, and I am sure Herbert
will be grateful." They walked to the bridge, and stood upon it the next
minute, watching the dogcart swing out of sight where the road bent.
"Your brother is very likely halfway back by this time," remarked Lord
Manister, who would have been very sorry to believe what he was saying.
"I dare say my man will pick him up directly; if so, they'll be back in
a minute."
"I hope they will," said Christina--"the light is so excellent just
now," she was in a hurry to add.
"Ah, the light in Australia was better for this sort of thing."
"As a rule, yes; but it would surely be difficult to beat this morning
anywhere; the great thing is, over here, that you are so free from
glare."
"Then you like England?"
"Well, I must say I like this corner of England; I haven't seen much
else, you know."
"Good! I am glad you like this corner; you know it's ours," said the
young fellow simply. Then he paused. "How strange to meet you here,
though!" he added, as if he could not help it, nor the slight stress
that laid itself upon the personal pronoun.
"It should rather strike me as strange to meet you," Miss Luttrell
replied pointedly; "for I am sure I told you that my sister and her
husband had taken Essingham Rectory for August. You may have forgotten
the occasion. It was in London."
"Dear me, no, I'm not likely to forget it. To be sure you told me--at
Lady Almeric's."
"Then perhaps you remember saying that you knew _of_ Essingham?"
It was not, perhaps, because this was very dryly said that Lord Manister
smiled. Nor was the smile one of his best, which were charming; it was
visibly the expression of his nervousness, not his mirth.
"Yes, I am sorry to say I do remember that," he confessed with an
awkwardness and humility which made Christina tingle in a sudden
appreciation of his position in the world. "It was very foolish of me,
Miss Luttrell."
"I wonder what made you?" remarked Christina reflectively, but in a
friendlier tone.
"Ah! don't wonder," he said impatiently. His eyes fell upon her for one
moment, then wandered down the road, as he added strangely: "You do and
say so many foolish things without a decent why or wherefore. They're
the things for which you never forgive yourself! They're the things for
which you never hope to be forgiven!"
The girl did not look at him, but her glance chased his down the road to
the bend where the dogcart had vanished and would reappear. She,
however, was the next to speak, for something had occurred to her that
she very much desired to explain.
"You see, I didn't know you lived here. I had never heard of Mundham
when we met in town; if I had I shouldn't have known it was yours. I
never dreamt that I should meet you here. You understand, Lord
Manister?"
"My dear Miss Luttrell," cried Manister earnestly, "anybody could see
that!"
So Christina lost nothing by her little exhibition of anxiety to impress
this point upon him; for his reply was a triumphant flourish of the
opinion she desired him to hold, to show her that he had it already; and
his anxiety in the matter was even more apparent than her own.
"Thank you, Lord Manister," said Christina, looking him full in the
face. Then her glance dropped to his hand; and his fingers were
entangled in his watch-chain; and in the knowledge that the greater
awkwardness was on his side she raised her eyes confidently, and met the
dogged stare of a young Briton about to make a clean breast of his
misdeeds.
"Do you want to know why I didn't mention our having taken this
place--that time in town?"
"That depends on whether you want to tell me."
"I must tell you. It was because I feared--I mean to say, it crossed my
mind--that perhaps you mightn't care to come here if you knew."
He paused and watched her. She was looking down, with her chin half
buried in the focusing cloth, which had slipped from her head and
fallen round her shoulders. The coolness of her face against the black
velvet exasperated him, and the more so because he felt himself flushing
as he added, "I see I was a fool to fear that."
"It was certainly unnecessary, Lord Manister," said the girl calmly, and
not without a note of amusement in her voice.
"So you don't mind meeting one!"
"Lord Manister, I am delighted. Why should I mind?"
"You know I behaved like a brute."
"You did, I'm afraid." He winced. "You went away without saying good-by
to your friends."
"I went away without saying good-by to you."
"Among others."
"No!" he cried sharply. "You and I were more than friends."
Christina drummed the ground with one foot. Her glance passed over Lord
Manister's shoulder. He knew that it waited for the dogcart at the bend
of the road.
"We were more than friends," he repeated desperately.
"I don't think we ever were."
"But you thought so once!"
The girl's lip curled, but her eyes still waited in the road.
"I wonder what you yourself thought once, Lord Manister?" she said
quietly. "Whatever it was, it didn't last long; but I forgive that
freely. Do you know why? Why, because it was exactly the same with me."
"Do you forgive me for getting you talked about?" exclaimed Lord
Manister.
"Yes--because it is the only thing I have to forgive," returned
Christina after a moment's hesitation. "The rest was nonsense; and I
wish you wouldn't rake it up in this dreadfully serious way."
We know what Christina might mean by nonsense. Lord Manister was not the
first of her friends whom she had offended by her abuse of the word. "It
was not nonsense!" he cried. "It was something either better or worse. I
give you my word that I honestly meant it to be something better. But my
people sent for me. What could I do?"
His voice and eyes were pitiable; but Christina showed him no pity.
"What, indeed!" she said ironically. "I myself never blamed you for
going. I was quite sure that you were the passive party, though others
said differently. All I have to forgive is what you made other people
say; but the whole affair is a matter of ancient history--and do you
think we need talk about it any more, Lord Manister?"
"It is not all I have to forgive myself," he answered bitterly,
disregarding her question. "If only you would hate me, I could hate
myself less; but I deserve your contempt. Yet, if you knew what has been
in my heart all this time, you would pity one. You have haunted me! I
have been good for nothing ever since I came back to England. My people
will tell you so, when you get to know them. My mother would tell you in
a minute. She has never heard your name ... but she knows there was
someone ... she knows there is someone still!"
Christina had colored at last; but, as she colored, the trot of a horse
came gratefully to her attentive ears.
"You must think no more about it," she whispered; and her flush
deepened.
"You wipe it all out?" he cried eagerly.
"Of course I do."
Her eyes met the dogcart at the bend. Herbert was in it.
"And we start afresh?"
He thought he was to get no answer. She was gazing anxiously at Herbert
as the trap approached; as it drew up on the bridge she murmured, "I
think we had better let well alone," without looking at Lord Manister.
"Herbert, you remember Lord Manister?" she cried aloud in the same
breath.
Herbert's look was not reassuring. He was, in fact, disgusted with all
present but the groom, and most of all with himself, for being where he
was. Nor was he the young man to trouble to hide his feelings, and he
showed them now in so black a look that Christina, who knew him, was
filled with apprehension. Thanks to Lord Manister's tact, that look did
not last. Manister, who had his own impression of young Luttrell's
character, and had not to be shrewd to guess the other's attitude toward
himself, brought his most graceful manner to bear on the situation. With
Tiny Luttrell, during the bad quarter of an hour which he had deserved
and now endured, his best manner had not been at his command; but it
returned to him with the return of the dogcart, and in time to do him a
service. He had hardly shaken hands with Herbert when he asked him as an
Australian, and therefore a judge, his opinion of the mare.
The touch would have been too heavy for an older man; but Herbert was
barely twenty, and it flattered him to the marrow. Christina was
relieved to hear his knowing but laudatory comments on the mare's
points. She knew that, despite her brother's aggressive independence, he
was susceptible enough to marked civility. This, indeed, he never
expected, and he was ever ready to return, with interest, some fancied
slight; but Christina had never known him rude to anyone going out of
his way to be polite to him, as Lord Manister was doing this morning.
She divined that politeness from a nobleman was not less gratifying to
Herbert because he happened to have maligned the nobleman with much
industry. Herbert's modest desire was to be treated as an equal by all
men, and he was now being treated as an equal by a lord. This was all he
required to make him reasonably civil, even to Lord Manister. When
Manister asked him, almost deferentially, whether the mare could be
taken in the photograph, he offered his lordship a place in it too, the
offer being declined, but not without many thanks.
"I'm going to help take it," Manister laughed. "Mind you don't move,
Luttrell. I'm going to help your sister. Hadn't you better come too, and
leave my man alone in his glory?"
Herbert replied that he would take off the cap or do anything they
liked. So the three went down into the meadow, and some infamous
negatives resulted later. At the time care seemed to be taken by the
photographers, while Lord Manister stood at a little distance, laughing
a good deal. He was pressed to stand in the foreground, but not by
Christina, and he steadily refused. The conciliation of his enemy seemed
assured without that, though he did think of something else to make it
doubly sure.
"By the way, Luttrell," he said as the camera was being packed away,
"you're a cricketer to a certainty--you're an Australian."
"I'm very fond of it," the Australian replied, "but I haven't played
over here; I've never had the slant."
"Well, we play a bit; come over and practice with us."
Herbert thanked him, declaring that he should like nothing better.
"Lord Manister is a great cricketer," Christina observed.
"Come over and practice," repeated his lordship cordially. "The ground
isn't at all bad, considering it was only made last winter, and there's
a professor to bowl to you. We have some matches coming on presently.
Perhaps we might find a place for you."
This was the one thing Lord Manister said which came within measurable
distance of offending the touchy Herbert. A minute later they had parted
company.
"They _might_ find a place for me," Herbert repeated as he and Tiny
turned toward the village, while Lord Manister drove off in the opposite
direction, with another slightly ornamental sweep of his hat. "Might
they, indeed! I wouldn't take it. My troubles about their matches! But I
could enjoy a practice."
"He said he would send over for you next time they do practice."
Those had been Lord Manister's last words.
"He did. He is improved. He's a sportsman, after all. It was decent of
him to send back the trap for me. But I didn't want to get in--I was
jolly scotty with myself for getting in. I say, Tiny!"
"Well?"
He had her by the arm.
"I don't ask any questions. I don't want to know a single thing. I hope
he went down on his knees for his sins; I hope you gave him fits! But
look here, Tiny: I won't say a word about this inside if you'd rather I
didn't."
"I'd rather you did," Tiny said at once. "There's nothing to hide.
But--you can be a dear, good boy when you like, Herbs!"
"Can I? Then you can be offended if you like--but he's on the job now if
he never was in his life before!"
"I won't say I hope he isn't," Tiny whispered.
So she was not offended.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SHADOW OF THE HALL.
Such was Christina's first meeting with Lord Manister in his own county.
It occurred while his mother's invitation was exhilarating so many
homes, and on the day when the Mundham mail bag would not hold the first
draught of prompt replies. Until the garden party itself, however, no
one at the rectory saw any more of Lord Manister, who had gone for a few
days to the Marquis of Wymondham's place in Scotland, where he shot
dreadfully on the Twelfth and was otherwise in queer form, considering
that Miss Garth was also one of the guests. But under all the
circumstances it is not difficult to imagine Manister worried and
unhappy during this interval; which, on the other hand, remained in the
minds of the people at the rectory, Christina included, as the
pleasantest part of their month there.
Not that they suspected this at the time. Mrs. Erskine especially found
these days a little slow. Having knowledge of Lord Manister's
whereabouts, she was impatient for his return, and the more so because
Christina seemed to have forgotten his existence. Christina was indeed
puzzling, and on one embarrassing occasion, which with some girls would
have led to a scene, she puzzled Ruth more than ever. Ruth tried to
follow her presumptive example, and to put aside the thought of Lord
Manister for the time being. Her consolation meanwhile was the lively
_camaraderie_ between Christina and Erskine, wherein Erskine's wife took
a delight for which we may forgive her much.
"How well you two get on!" she would say gladly to each of them.
"He's a man and a brother," Tiny would reply.
To which Ruth was sure to say tenderly: "It's sweet of you, dear, to
look upon him as a brother.
"Ah, but don't you forget that he's a man, and not my brother really,
but just the very best of pals!" Tiny said once. "That's the beauty of
him. He's the only man who ever talked sense to me right through from
the beginning, so he's something new. He's the only man I ever liked
without having the least desire to flirt with him, if you particularly
want to know! And I don't believe his being my brother-in-law has
anything to do with that," added the girl reflectively; "it would have
been the same in any case. What's better still, he's the only man who
ever understood me, my dear."
"He's very clever, you see," observed Ruth slyly, but also in all
seriousness.
"That's the worst of him; he makes you feel your ignorance."
"I assure you, Tiny, he thinks _you_ very clever."
"So you're crackin'!" laughed Tiny; and as the old bush slang filled her
mouth unbidden, the smell of a hot wind at Wallandoon came into her
nostrils; and there seemed no more to be said.
But that last assurance of Ruth's was still ringing in her ears when her
thoughts got back from the bush. She did not believe a word of it. Yet
it was more or less true. Nor was Erskine far wrong in any opinion he
had expressed to his wife concerning Christina, of whom, perhaps, he had
said even less than he thought.
She was not, indeed, to be called an intellectual girl, in these days
least of all. That was her misfortune, or otherwise, as you happen to
think. Intellectual possibilities, however, she possessed: raw brain
with which much might have been done. Not much can be done by a
governess on a station in the back-blocks. Merely in curing the girls of
the twang of Australia, more successfully than of its slang, and in
teaching Tiny to sing rather nicely, the governess at Wallandoon had
done wonders. But gifts that were of more use to Christina were natural,
such as the quick perception, the long memory, and the ready tongue with
which she defended the doors of her mind, so that few might guess the
poverty of the store within. Nor had the governess been able to add much
to that store. The liking for books had not come to Christina at
Wallandoon; but in Melbourne she had taken to reading, and had reveled
in a deal of trash; and now in England she read whatever Erskine put in
her hands, and honestly enjoyed most of it, with the additional relish
of being proud of her enjoyment. Erskine thought her discriminating,
too; but converts to good books are apt to flatter the saviors of their
taste, and perhaps her brother-in-law was a poor judge of the girl's
judgment. He liked her for finding _Colonel Newcome's_ life more
touching than his death, and for placing the _Colonel_ second to _Dr.
Primrose_ in the order of her gods after reading "The Vicar of
Wakefield." He was delighted with her confession that she should "love
to be loved by Clive Newcome," while her defense of _Miss Ethel_, which
was vigorous enough to betray a fellow-feeling, was interesting at the
time, and more so later, when there was occasion to remember it. Similar
interest attached to another confession, that she had long envied
_OEnone_ and _Elaine_ "because they were really in love." She seemed to
have mixed some good poetry with the bad novels that had contented her
in Melbourne. Two more books which she learned to love now were "Sesame
and Lilies" and "Virginibus Puerisque." It was Erskine Holland's
privilege to put each into her hands for the first time, and perhaps she
never pleased him quite so much as when she said: "It makes me think
less of myself; it has made me horribly unhappy; but if they were going
to hang me in the morning I would sit up all night to read it again!"
That was her grace after "Sesame and Lilies."
"Why don't you make Ruth read too?" she asked him once, quite idly, when
they had been talking about books.
"She has a good deal to think about," Erskine replied after a little
hesitation. "She's too busy to read."
"Or too happy," suggested Tiny.
Mr. Holland made a longer pause, looking gratefully at the girl, as
though she had given him a new idea, which he would gladly entertain if
he could. "I wonder whether that's possible?" he said at last.
"I'm sure it is. Ruth is so happy that books can do nothing for her; the
happy ones show her no happiness so great as her own, and she thinks the
sad ones stupid. The other day, when I insisted on reading her my
favorite thing in 'Virginibus----'"
"What is your favorite thing?" interrupted Erskine.
"'El Dorado'--it's the most beautiful thing you have put me on to yet,
of its size. I could hardly see my way through the last page--I can't
tell you why--only because it was so beautiful, I think, and so awfully
true! But Ruth saw nothing to cry over; I'm not sure that she saw much
to admire; and that's all because you have gone and made her so happy."
For some minutes Erskine looked grim. Then he smiled.
"But aren't you happy too, Tiny?"
"I'm as happy as I deserve to be. That's good enough, isn't it?"
"Quite. You must be as happy as you're pleased to think Ruth."
"Well, then, I'm not. I should like to be some good in the world, and
I'm no good at all!"
"I am sorry to see it take you like that," said Erskine gravely. "I
wouldn't have thought this of you, Tiny!"
"Ah, there are many things you wouldn't think of me," remarked Tiny. She
spoke a little sadly, and she said no more. And this time her sudden
silence came from no vision of the bush, but from what she loved much
less--a glimpse of herself in the mirror of her own heart.
There was one thing, certainly, that none of them would have thought of
her; for she never told them of her little quiet meddlings in the
village. But I could tell you. Pleasant it would be to write of what she
did for Mrs. Clapperton (who certainly seemed to have been unfairly
treated) and of the memories that lived after her in more cottages than
one. But you are to see her as they did who saw most of her, and to
remember that nothing is more delightful than being kind to the grateful
poor, especially when one is privately depressed. Little was ever known
of the liberties taken by Christina's generosity, and nothing shall be
recorded here. She must stand or fall without that, as in the eyes of
her friends. Suffice it that she did amuse herself in this way on the
sly, and found it good for restoring her vanity, which was suffering
secretly all this time. She would have been the last to take credit for
any good she may have done in Essingham. She knew that it wiped out
nothing, and also that it made her happier than she would have been
otherwise. For though a worse time came later, even now she was not
comfortable in her heart. And she had by no means forgotten the
existence of Lord Manister, as someone feared.
Ruth, however, put her own conversation under studious restraint during
these days, many of which passed without any mention of Lord Minister's
name at the rectory. The distracting proximity of his stately home was
apparently forgotten in this peaceful spot. But the wife of one clerical
neighbor, a Mrs. Willoughby, who accompanied her husband when he came to
play lawn tennis with Mr. Holland, and indeed wherever the poor man
went, cherished a grudge against the young nobleman's family, of which
she made no secret. It was only natural that this lady should air her
grievance on the lawn at Essingham, whence there was a distant prospect
of lodge and gates to goad her tongue. Yet, when she did so, it was as
though the sun had come out suddenly and thrown the shadow of the hall
across the rectory garden.
"As for this garden party," cried Mrs. Willoughby, as it seemed for the
benefit of the gentlemen, who had put on their coats, and were handing
teacups under the trees, "I consider it an insult to the county. It
comes too late in the day to be regarded as anything else. Why didn't
they do something when first they came here? They have had the place a
year. Why didn't they give a ball in the winter, or a set of dinner
parties if they preferred that? Shall I tell you why, Mr. Holland? It
was because the general election was further off then, and it hadn't
occurred to them to put up Lord Manister for the division."
"They haven't been here a year, my dear, by any means," observed Mrs.
Willoughby's husband; "and as for dinner parties, we, at any rate, have
dined with them."
"Well, I wouldn't boast about it," answered Mrs. Willoughby, who had a
sharp manner in conversation, and a specially staccato note for her
husband. "We dined with them, it is true; I suppose they thought they
must do the civil to a neighboring rector or two. But as their footman
had the insolence to tell our coachman, Mrs. Holland, they considered
things had reached a pretty pass when it came to dining the country
clergy!'"
"Their footman considered," murmured Mr. Willoughby.
"He was repeating what he had heard at table," the lady affirmed, as
though she had heard it herself. "They had made a joke of it--before
their servants. So they don't catch me at their garden party, which is
to satisfy our social cravings and secure our votes. I don't visit with
snobs, Mrs. Holland, for all their coronets and Norman blood--of which,
let me tell you, they haven't one drop between them. Who was the present
earl's great-grandfather, I should like to know? He never had one; they
are not only snobs but upstarts, the Dromards."
"At any rate," Mr. Holland said mildly, "they can't gain anything by
being civil to _us_. We don't represent a single vote. We are here for
one calendar month."
"Ah, it is wise to be disinterested here and there," rejoined Mrs.
Willoughby, whose sharpness was not merely vocal; "it supplies an
instance, and that's worth a hundred arguments. Now I shouldn't wonder,
Mr. Holland, if they didn't go out of their way to be quite nice to you.
I shouldn't wonder a bit. It would advertise their disinterestedness.
But wait till you meet them in Piccadilly."
"Mrs. Willoughby is a cynic," laughed Erskine, turning to the clergyman,
whose wife swallowed her tea complacently with this compliment to
sweeten it. To so many minds a charge of cynicism would seem to imply
that intellectual superiority which is cheap at the price of a moral
defect.
Now Erskine had a lawn tennis player staying with him for the inside of
this week; and the lawn tennis player was a fallen cricketer, who had
played against the Eton eleven when young Manister was in it; and he
ventured to suggest that the division might find a worse candidate. "He
was a nice enough boy then," said he, "and I recollect he made runs;
he's a good fellow still, from all accounts."
"From all _my_ accounts," retorted Mrs. Willoughby, refreshed by her
tea, "he's a very fast one!"
Erskine's friend had never heard that, though he understood that
Manister had fallen off in his cricket; he had not seen the young fellow
for years, nor did he think any more about him at the moment, being
drawn by Herbert into cricket talk, which stopped his ears to the
general conversation just as this became really interesting.
"That reminds me," Mrs. Willoughby exclaimed, turning to Ruth. "Was Lord
Manister out in Australia in your time?"
Ruth said "No," rather nervously, for Mrs. Willoughby's manner alarmed
her. "I was married just before he came out," she added; "as a matter of
fact, our steamers crossed in the canal."
"Well, you know what a short time he stayed there, for a governor's
aid-de-camp?"
"Only a few months, I have heard. Do let me give you another cup of tea,
Mrs. Willoughby!"
"Now I wonder if you know," pursued this lady, having cursorily declined
more tea, "how he came to leave so suddenly?"
Poor Mrs. Holland shook her head, which was inwardly besieged with
impossible tenders for a change of subject. No one helped her: Tiny had
perhaps already lost her presence of mind; Erskine did not understand;
the other two were not listening. Ruth could think of no better
expedient than a third cup for Christina; as she passed it her own hand
trembled, but venturing to glance at her sister's face, she was amazed
to find it not only free from all sign of self-consciousness or of
anxiety, but filled with unaffected interest. For this was the occasion
on which Christina's coolness quite baffled Ruth, who for her part was
preparing for a scene.
"Shall I tell you?" asked Mrs. Willoughby.
"Do," said Christina, to whom the well-informed lady at once turned.
"He formed an attachment out there, Miss Luttrell! He could only get
out of it by fleeing the country; so he fled. You look as though you
knew all about it," she added (making Ruth shudder), for the girl had
smiled knowingly.
"About which?" asked Tiny.
"What! Were there more affairs than one?"
"Some people said so."
Mrs. Willoughby glanced around her with a glittering eye, and was sorry
to notice that two of her hearers were not listening. "That is just what
I expected," she informed the other four. "If you tell me that Melbourne
became too hot to hold him I shall not be surprised."
"Melbourne made rather a fuss about him," replied Christina in an
excusing tone that pierced Ruth's embarrassment and pricked to life her
darling hopes. "He was not greatly to blame."
"But he broke the poor girl's heart. I should blame him for that, to say
the least of it."
"You surprise me," said Christina gravely; "I thought that people at
home never blamed each other for anything they did in the colonies?
Over here you are particular, I know; but I thought it was correct not
to be too particular when out there. Your writers come out: we treat
them like lords, and then they do nothing but abuse us; your lords come
out: we treat them like princes, and, you see, they break our hearts. Of
course they do! We expect it of them. It's all we look for in the
colonies."
"You are not serious, Miss Luttrell," said Mrs. Willoughby in some
displeasure. "To my mind it is a serious thing. It seems a sad thing,
too, to me. But I may be old-fashioned; the present generation would
crack jokes across an open grave, as I am well aware. Yet there isn't
much joke in a young girl having her heart broken by such as Lord
Manister, is there? And that's what literally happened, for my friend
Mrs. Foster-Simpson knows all about it. She knows all about the
Dromards--to her cost!"
"Ah, we know the Foster-Simpsons; they called on us last year," remarked
Erskine, who devoutly trusted that they would not call again. His
amusement at Christina hardly balanced his weariness of Mrs. Willoughby,
and he took off his coat as he spoke.
"Does your friend know the poor girl's name, Mrs. Willoughby?" Tiny
asked when the men had gone back to the court; and her tone was now as
sympathetic as could possibly be desired.
"I'm sorry to say she does not; it's the one thing she has been unable
to find out," said Mrs. Willoughby naïvely. "Perhaps you could tell me,
Miss Luttrell?"
"Perhaps I could," said Christina, smiling, as she rose to seek a ball
which had been hit into the churchyard. "Only, you see, I don't know
which of them it was. It wouldn't be fair to give you a list of names to
guess from, would it?"
Fortunately Mrs. Willoughby put no further questions to Ruth, who was
intensely thankful. "For," as she told Christina afterward, "_I_ was on
pins and needles the whole time. I never did know anyone like you for
keeping cool under fire!"
"It depends on the fire," Tiny said. "Mrs. Willoughby went off by
accident, and luckily she was not pointing at anybody."
"And I'm glad she did, now it's over!" exclaimed Ruth. "Don't you see
that I was quite right about your name? So now you need have no more
qualms about the garden party."
"Perhaps I've had no qualms for some time; perhaps I've known you were
right."
"Since when? Since--since you saw Lord Manister?"
Tiny nodded.
"Do you mean to say you talked about it?" Ruth whispered in delicious
awe.
"I mustn't tell you what _he_ talked about. He was as nice as he could
be--though I should have preferred to find him less beautifully dressed
in the country; but I always felt that about him. I am sure, however, of
one thing: he was no more to blame than--I was. I have always felt this
about him, too."
"Tiny, dear, if only I could understand you!"
"If only you could! Then you might help me to understand myself."
CHAPTER VIII.
"COUNTESS DROMARD AT HOME."
The hall gates were plain enough from the rectory lawn, but plainer
still from the steps whence, on the afternoon of the garden party, Mr.
Holland watched them from under the brim of the first hard hat he had
worn for a fortnight. He was ready, while the ladies were traditionally
late, but he did not lose patience; he was too much entertained in
watching the hall gates and the hedgerow that hid the road leading up to
them. Vehicles were filing along this road in a procession which for the
moment was continuous. Erskine could see them over the hedge, and it was
difficult to do so without sharing some opinions which Mrs. Willoughby
had expressed regarding the comprehensive character of the social
measure taken not before it was time by the noble family within those
gates. There were county clergymen driving themselves in ill-balanced
dogcarts, and county townspeople in carriages manifestly hired, and
county bigwigs--as big as the Dromards themselves--in splendid
equipages, with splendid coachmen and horseflesh the most magnificent.
Greater processional versatility might scarcely be seen in southwestern
suburbs on Derby Day; and the low phaeton which he himself was about to
contribute to the medley made Erskine laugh.
"We should follow the next really swagger turnout--we should run behind
it," he suggested to the girls when at length they appeared; and Ruth
took him seriously.
"No, get in front of them," said Herbert, who was lounging on the steps,
in dirty flannels which Erskine envied him. "Get in front of them and
slow down. That'd be the sporting thing to do! They couldn't pass you in
the drive. It would do 'em good."
However, the procession was not without gaps, and to Ruth's satisfaction
they found themselves in rather a wide one. As they drove through those
august gates a parson's dogcart was rounding a curve some distance
ahead, but nothing was in sight behind. Ruth sat beside her husband, who
drove. She looked rather demure, but very charming in her little
matronly bonnet; her costume was otherwise somewhat noticeably sober,
and certainly she had never felt more sensibly the married sister than
now, as she glanced at Christina with furtive anxiety, but open
admiration. Tiny was neatly dressed in white, and her hat was white
also. "Do you know why I wear a white hat?" she asked Erskine on the
way; but her question proved merely to be an impudent adaptation of a
very disreputable old riddle, and beyond this she was unusually silent
during the short drive. Yet she seemed not only self-possessed, but
inwardly at her ease. She sat on the little seat in front, often turning
round to gaze ahead, and her curiosity and interest were very frank and
natural. So were her admiration of the park, her anxiety to see the
house itself, and even her wonder at the great length of the drive,
which ran alongside the cricket field, and then bent steadily to the
left. When at last the low red-brick pile became visible, Gallow Hill
was seen immediately behind it, which surprised Christina; the lawn in
front was alive with people, which put her on her mettle; and the
inspiriting outburst of a military band at that moment forced from her
an admission of the pleasure and excitement which had been growing upon
her for some minutes.
"I like this!" she exclaimed. "This is first-rate England!"
Countess Dromard stood on the edge of the lawn at the front of the
house, and apparently the carriages were unloading at this side of the
drive. Ruth whispered hurriedly that she was sure they were, but she was
not so sure in reality, and she now saw the disadvantage of arriving in
a wide gap, which deprives the inexperienced of their lawful cue. She
was quite right, however, and when some minutes elapsed before the
arrival of another carriage to interrupt the charming little
conversation Ruth had with Lady Dromard, the good of the gap became
triumphantly apparent. The countess was very kind indeed. She was a
tall, fine woman, with whom the shadows of life had scarce begun to
lengthen to the eye; her face was not only handsome, but wonderfully
fresh, and she had a trick of lowering it as she chatted with Ruth,
bending over her in a way which was comfortable and almost motherly from
the first. She had heard of Mrs. Holland, whom she was glad to meet at
last, and of whom she now hoped to see something more. Ruth observed
that they had the rectory only till September; she was sorry her time
was so short. Lady Dromard very flatteringly echoed her sorrow, and also
professed an envious admiration for the rectory, which she described as
idyllic. That was practically all. What was said of the weather hardly
counted; and a repetition of her ladyship's hopes of seeing something
more of Mrs. Holland and her party was not worth remembering, according
to Erskine, who declared that this meant nothing at all.
Ruth, however, was not likely to forget it; though she treasured just as
much the memory of a certain glance which she had caught the countess
leveling at her sister. She thought that other eyes also were attracted
by the white-robed Tiny, and the smooth-shaven turf was air to Ruth's
tread as she marched off with her husband and that cynosure. Nor was her
satisfaction decreased when the first person they came across chanced to
be no other than Mrs. Willoughby. This meeting was literally the
unexpected treat that Ruth pronounced it to be, for the clergyman's wife
was smiling in a manner which showed that she had witnessed the
countess' singular civility to her friend.
"Yes, I'm here after all," said Mrs. Willoughby grimly. "Henry made me
very angry by insisting on coming, but of course I wasn't going to let
him come alone. I hope you think he looks happy now he's here!" (Mr.
Willoughby and a brother rector might have been hatching dark designs
against their bishop, who was himself present, judging by their looks.)
"_I_ call him the picture of misery. Well, Mrs. Holland, I hope you are
gratified at your reception! Oh, it was quite gushing, I assure you; we
have all been watching. But wait till you meet them in Piccadilly, my
dear Mrs. Holland."
Mrs. Holland left the reply to her husband, who, however, contented
himself with promising Mrs. Willoughby a telegraphic report of the
proceedings at that meeting, if it ever took place.
"Ah, there won't be much to report," said that redoubtable woman; "they
won't look at you. But I shouldn't be surprised to see them make a deal
of you in the country, if you let them."
It did not seem conducive to the enjoyment of the afternoon to prolong
the conversation with Mrs. Willoughby. The party of three wandered
toward the band, admiring the scarlet coats of the bandsmen against the
dark green of the shrubbery, and their bright brass instruments flaming
in the sun. The music also was of much spirit and gayety, and it was
agreed that a band was an immense improvement to a rite of this sort.
Then these three, who, after all, knew very few people present, followed
the example of others, and made a circuit of the house, in high good
humor. But Tiny found herself between two conversational fires, for Ruth
would compel her to express admiration for the premises, which might
have been taken for granted, while Erskine called her attention to the
people, who were much more entertaining to watch. As they passed a table
devoted to refreshments, at which a large lady was being waited upon
very politely by a small boy in a broad collar, they overheard one of
those scraps of conversation which amuse at the moment.
"So you're a Dromard boy, are you?" the lady was saying. "I've never
seen you before. What Dromard boy are _you_, pray?"
"My name's Douglas."
"Oh! So you're the Honorable Douglas Dromard, are you?"
The boy handed her an ice without answering as the three passed on.
"I said you'd see and hear some queer things," whispered Mr. Holland;
"but you won't hear anything much finer than that. The woman is Mrs.
Foster-Simpson; her husband's a solicitor, and may be the Conservative
agent, if his wife doesn't disqualify him. She professes to know all
about the Dromards, as you heard the other day. You can guess the kind
of knowledge. Even the boy snubs her. Yet mark him. The mixture of
politeness and contempt was worth noticing in a small boy like that.
There's a little nobleman for you!"
"No, a little Englishman," said Tiny. "Now that's a thing I do envy
you--your schoolboys, your little gentlemen! We don't grow them so
little in the colonies; we don't know how."
They were walking on a majestic terrace in the shadow of the red-brick
house, their figures mirrored in each mullioned window as they passed
it.
"I call Lord Manister the luckiest young man in England," Ruth exclaimed
during a pause between the other two. "To think that all this will be
his!"
"It rather reminds me of Hampton Court on this side," remarked Tiny
indifferently.
"And it's by no means their only place, you know; there are others they
never use, are there not, Erskine?--to say nothing of all those squares
and streets in town!"
But Erskine sounded the thick sibilant of silence as they passed a
shabby looking person with a slouching walk and a fair beard.
"I wonder how _he_ got here?" Tiny murmured next moment.
"He has a better right than most of us."
"What do you mean, Erskine?"
"Well, it's the earl."
"Earl Dromard? I should have guessed his gardener!"
"No, that's the earl. Old clothes are his special fancy in the country.
It's his particular form of side, so they say."
"Well," said Tiny, "I prefer it to his son's, which has always appeared
to me to be the other extreme."
"I am sure Lord Manister is not over-dressed," remonstrated Ruth, with
her usual alacrity in defense of his lordship.
"No, that's the worst of him," answered her sister. "There is nothing to
find fault with, ever; that's what makes one think he employs his
intellect on the study of his appearance."
They had seen Lord Manister in the distance. Presumably he had not seen
them, but he might have done so; and Ruth supposed it was the doubt that
made her sister speak of him more captiously than usual. But the
criticism was not utterly unfair, as Ruth might presently have seen for
herself; for as they came back to the front of the house, Lord Manister
detached himself from a group, and approached them with the suave smile
and the slight flourish of the hat which were two of his tricks.
Christina asked afterward if the flourish was not dreadfully
continental, but she was told that it was merely up to date, like the
hat itself. At the time, however, she introduced Lord Manister to her
sister Mrs. Erskine Holland, and to Mr. Holland, taking this liberty
with charming grace and tact, yet with a becoming amount of natural
shyness. Manister, for one, was pleased with the introduction on all
grounds. From the first, however, he addressed himself to the married
lady, speaking partly of the surrounding country, for which Ruth could
not say too much, and partly of Melbourne, which enabled him to return
her compliments. His manner was eminently friendly and polite.
Discovering that they had not yet been in the house for tea, he led the
way thither, and through a throng of people in the hall, and so into the
dining room. Here he saved the situation from embarrassment by making
himself equally attentive to another party. To Ruth, however, Lord
Manister's civility was still sufficiently marked, while he asked her
husband whether he was a cricketer; and this reminded him of Herbert,
for whom he gave Miss Luttrell a message. He said they had just arranged
some cricket for the last week of the month; he thought they would be
glad of Miss Luttrell's brother in one or two of the matches. But he
seemed to fear that most of the teams were made up; his young brother
was arranging everything. Christina gathered that in any case they would
be glad to see Herbert at the nets any afternoon of the following week,
more especially on the Monday. Lord Manister made a point of the
message, and also of the cricket week, "when," he said, "you must all
turn up if it's fine." And those were his last words to them.
"I see you know my son," said the countess in her kindliest manner as
Ruth thanked her for a charming afternoon.
"My sister met him the other day at Lady Almeric's," replied Ruth, "and
before that in Australia."
"I knew Lord Manister in Melbourne," added Tiny with freedom.
"Do you mean to tell me you are Australians?" said Lady Dromard in a
tone that complimented the girls at the expense of their country. "Then
you must certainly come and see me," she added cordially, though her
surprise was still upon her. "I am greatly interested in Australia since
my son was there. I feel I have a welcome for all Australians--you
welcomed him, you know!"
Christina afterward expressed the firm opinion that Lady Dromard had
said this rather strangely, which Ruth as firmly denied. Tiny was
accused of an imaginative self-consciousness, and the accusation
provoked a blush, which Ruth took care to remember. Certainly, if the
countess had spoken queerly, the queerness had escaped the one person
who was not on the lookout for something of the kind; Erskine Holland
had perceived nothing but her ladyship's condescension, which had been
indeed remarkable, though Erskine still told his wife to expect no
further notice from that quarter.
"And I'm selfish enough to hope you'll get none, my dears," he said to
the girls that evening as they sauntered through the kitchen garden
after dinner; "because for my part I'd much rather not be noticed by
them. We were not intended to take seriously anything that was said this
afternoon; honey was the order of the day for all comers--and can't you
imagine them wiping their foreheads when we were all gone? I only hope
they wiped us out of their heads! We're much happier as we are. I'm not
rabid, like Mrs. Willoughby; but she prophesied a very possible
experience, when all's said and done, confound her! I have visions of
Piccadilly myself. And seriously, Ruth, you wouldn't like it if you
became friendly with these people here and they cut you in town; no more
should I. I think you can't be too careful with people of that sort; and
if they ask us again I vote we don't go; but they won't ask us any
more, you may depend upon it."
"I don't depend upon it, all the same," replied Ruth, with some spirit.
"Lady Dromard was most kind; and as for Lord Manister, _I_ was enchanted
with him."
"Were you?" Tiny said, feeling vaguely that she was challenged.
"I was; I thought him unaffected and friendly, and even simple. I am
sure he is simple-minded! I am also sure that you won't find another
young man in his position who is better natured or better hearted----"
"Or better mannered--or better dressed! You are quite right; he is
nearly perfect. He is rather too perfect for me in his manners and
appearance; I should like to untidy him; I should like to put him in a
temper. Lord Manister was never in a temper in his life; he's nicer than
most people--but he's too nice altogether for me!"
"You knew him rather well in Melbourne?" said Erskine, eyeing his
sister-in-law curiously; her face was toward the moon, and her
expression was set and scornful.
"Very well indeed," she answered with her erratic candor.
"I might have guessed as much that time in town. I say, if we meet _him_
in Piccadilly we may score off Mrs. Willoughby yet! Wait till we get
back----"
"All right; only don't let us wait out here," Ruth interrupted--"or Tiny
and I may have to go back in our coffins!"
CHAPTER IX.
MOTHER AND SON.
A clever man is not necessarily an infallible prophet; and the clever
man who is married may well preserve an intellectual luster in the eyes
of his admirer by never prophesying at all. But should he take pleasure
in predicting the thing that is openly deprecated at the other side of
the hearth, let him see to it that his prediction comes true, for
otherwise he has whetted a blade for his own breast, from whose
justifiable use only an angel could abstain. There was no angel in the
family which had been brought up on Wallandoon Station, New South Wales.
When, within the next three days, Ruth received a note from Lady Dromard
inviting them all to dinner at a very early date, she did not fail to
prod Erskine as he deserved. But her thrust was not malignant; nor did
she give vexatious vent to her own triumph, which was considerable.
"You are a very clever man," she merely told him, and with the relish
of a wife who can say this from her heart; "but you see, you're wrong
for once. Lady Dromard _did_ mean what she said. She wants us all to
dine there on Friday evening, when, as it happens, we have no other
engagement; and really I don't see how we can refuse."
"You mean that you would like to get out of it if you could?" her
husband said.
"You don't need to be sarcastic," remarked Ruth with a slight flush.
"Who wants to get out of it?"
"I thought perhaps you did, my dear; to tell you the truth, I rather
hoped so."
"You don't want to go!"
"I can't say I jump."
Ruth colored afresh.
"I have no patience with you, Erskine! Nobody is dying to go; but I own
I can't see any reason against going, nor any excuse for stopping away;
and considering what you yourself said about going to the garden party,
dear, I must say I think you're rather inconsistent."
Holland gazed down into the flushed, frowning face, that frowned so
seldom, and flushed so prettily. Always an undemonstrative husband,
very properly he had been more so than ever since others had been
staying in the house. But neither of those others was present now, and
rather suddenly he stooped and kissed his wife.
"There is no reason, and there would be no excuse; so you are quite
right," he said kindly. "It's only that one has a constitutional dislike
to being taken up--and dropped. I have visions of all that. I'm afraid
Mrs. Willoughby has poisoned my mind; we will go, and let us hope it'll
prove an antidote."
They went, and that dinner party was not the formidable affair it might
have been; as Lady Dromard herself said, most graciously, it was not a
dinner party at all. Ten, however, sat down, of whom four came from the
rectory; for Herbert had been over to practice at the nets, and was
fairly satisfied with his treatment on that occasion, which accounted
for his presence on this. The only other guests were an inevitable
divine and his wife. The earl was absent. As if to conserve Christina's
impression of the old clothes in which, as the natives said, his
lordship "liked himself," Earl Dromard had left for London rather
suddenly that morning. Lord Manister filled his place impeccably, with
Ruth at her best on his right. Herbert was less happy with Lady Mary
Dromard, a very proud person, who could also be very rude in the most
elegant manner. But Christina fell to the jolliest scion of the house,
Mr. Stanley Dromard; and this pair mutually enjoyed themselves.
Young in every way was the Honorable Stanley Dromard. He had just left
Eton, where he had been in the eleven, like his brother before him; he
was to go into residence at Trinity in October. With a quantum of
gentlemanly interest he heard that Miss Luttrell's brother was also
going up to Cambridge next term; but not to Trinity. Said Mr. Dromard,
"Your brother's a bit of a cricketer, too; he came over for a knock the
other day; he means to play for us next week, if we're short, doesn't
he?" Christina fancied so. Mr. Dromard said "Good!" with some emphasis,
and Herbert's name dropped out of the conversation. This became
Anglo-Australian, as it was sure to, and led to some of those bold
comparisons for which Christina was generally to be trusted; but the
bolder they were, the more Mr. Dromard enjoyed them, for the girl
glittered in his eyes. He was a delightfully appreciative youth, if
easily amused, and his laughter sharpened Tiny's wits. She shone
consciously, but yet calmly, and made a really remarkable impression
upon her companion, without once meeting Lord Manister's glance, which
rested on her sometimes for a second.
So the flattering attentions of young Dromard were not terminated, but
merely interrupted, by the flight of the ladies. When the men followed
them to the drawing room the younger son shot to Miss Luttrell's side
with the fine regardlessness of nineteen, and furthered their friendship
by divulging the Mundham plans for the following week. The cricket was
to begin on the Tuesday. The men were coming the day before: half the
Eton eleven, Tiny understood, and some older young fellows of Manister's
standing. The first two were to be two-day matches against the county
and a Marylebone team. The Saturday's match would be between Mundham
Hall and another scratch eleven, "and that's when we may want your
brother, Miss Luttrell," added Mr. Dromard, "though we _might_ want him
before. Our team has been made up some time, but somebody is sure to
have some other fixture for Saturday."
"I think he may like to play," said Christina.
Mr. Dromard seemed a little surprised.
"It's a jolly ground," he remarked, "and there will be some first-rate
players."
"I am sure he would like a game on your ground," Christina went so far
as to say.
"Do you dance, Miss Luttrell?" asked the young man, after a pause.
"When I get the chance," said Christina.
He gazed at her a moment, and could imagine her dancing--with him.
"Suppose we were to do something of the kind here one evening between
the matches; would you come?"
"If I got the chance," said Christina.
Dromard considered what he was saying. "We ought to have a dance," he
added in a doubtful tone, as though the need were greater than the
chance; "we really ought. But I don't suppose we shall; nothing is
arranged, you see."
"You needn't hedge, Mr. Dromard," said the girl, smiling.
"Eh?"
"I shan't expect an invitation!"
She nodded knowingly as he blushed; but he had the great merit of being
easily amused, and with another word she made him merry and at ease
again. Not unreasonably, perhaps, a casual spectator might have
suspected these two of a mild but immediate flirtation. Stanley,
however, was at a safe and privileged age, and no eye was on him but his
brother's. Lord Manister gave the impression of being a rather dignified
person in his own home, but he was doing his gracious duty by the
guests, none of whom seemed especially to occupy his attention, while he
was reasonably polite to all. It was he, too, who at length suggested to
Lady Dromard that Miss Luttrell would probably sing something if she
were asked.
So Christina sang something--it hardly matters what. Her song was not a
classic, neither was it grossly popular. It was a pleasant song,
pleasantly sung, and the entire absence of pretentiousness and of
affectation in the song and the singing was more noticeable than the
positive excellence of either. The girl had no greater voice than one
would have expected of so small a person, but what she had was in
keeping. Lady Dromard, however, had a more sensitive appreciation of
good taste than of good music, and she asked for more. Christina sang
successively something of Lassen's, and then "Last Night," taking the
English words in each case. She played her own accompaniments, and felt
little nervousness until her last song was finished, when it certainly
startled her to find Lady Dromard standing at her side.
"Thank you!" said the countess with considerable enthusiasm. "You sing
delightfully, and you sing delightful songs. You must have been very
well taught."
"Mostly in the bush," said Christina truthfully.
"You come from the bush?"
"But you had some lessons in Melbourne," put in Ruth, who was visibly
delighted.
"Oh, yes, a few," Tiny said, smiling; "as many as I was worth."
"Ah, you shall tell me about Melbourne one day soon," said Lady Dromard
to the young girl. "Your sister has promised to come over and watch the
cricket. I do hope you will come with her."
Christina expressed her pleasure at the prospect, and, taking the
nearest seat, found Lord Manister leaning over the end of the piano and
looking down upon her with a rather sardonic smile.
"You haven't looked at me this evening," he said to her under cover of
the general conversation, which was now renewed. "May I ask what I have
done?"
"Certainly you may ask, Lord Manister," answered the girl with immense
simplicity; "but I can't tell you, because I am not aware that you have
done anything beyond making us all very happy and at home."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that," said Manister, whose quasi-humorous tone
lacked the lightness to deceive; "I was afraid I had offended you."
"Offended me!" cried Christina, with widening eyes and a puzzled look.
"When have you seen me to offend me! I haven't seen you since your
garden party, and you certainly didn't offend me then--you were awfully
nice to us all!"
"Ah, that wasn't seeing you," Lord Manister murmured. "I don't reckon
that I've seen you since--the photographs. I had to go to Scotland; I
meant to tell you."
"It wouldn't have interested me," said Christina, with a shrug. "It
might have interested me if you had said--you were _not_ going," she
added next moment. Her tone had dropped. She looked at him and smiled.
Her smile stayed with him after she was gone; but from his face you
would not have guessed that he was nursing a kind look. She had given
him one smile, which made up for many things. But you would have
thought, with his people, that he had been suffering the whole evening
from acute boredom: you might well have fancied, with Lady Mary, that a
remark disparaging Australian women would have met with a grateful
response from him. The response it did meet with was anything but
grateful to Lady Mary Dromard. It drove her from the room, in which
Manister and his mother were presently left alone.
"I think you were just," the countess said critically. "They are
pleasant people, and quite all right. The young man is their weak
point."
"They always are," her son remarked, rather savagely still. "They're
larrikins!"
"The young girl was especially nice, and sang like a lady."
"Ah, you approve of her," said Lord Manister dryly.
"Entirely, I think. Evidently you don't. I only saw you speak to her
once, toward the end. Yet she has met you in Australia; I should have
recognized that, I think. Now her people," Lady Dromard added
tentatively, "will be rather superior, I suppose, as colonials go?"
"Well, they're rich; I suppose that's how colonials go."
For one moment Lady Dromard fancied that the sneer was for the
colonials, and it surprised her; the next, she took it to herself, and
very meekly for so proud a heart.
"My dear boy!" she murmured indulgently. "Apart from their people, these
girls--for the married one is as young as she has any right to
be--strike one as fresh, and free, and pleasing. And they are ladies. Am
I to believe that the majority out there are like them?"
Manister shrugged his shoulders.
"That's as you please, my dear mother. These people didn't strike me as
the only decent ones in Melbourne. I did meet others."
The countess tapped her foot upon the fender, and took counsel with her
own reflection in the mirror, for she was standing before the fireplace
while her son wandered about the room--her son with the reputation for a
childlike devotion to his mother. There had been little of that sort of
devotion since his return from Australia. Nothing between them was as it
had been before. This bitter coldness had been his domestic manner--his
manner with her, of all people--longer than the mother could bear. She
knew the reason; she had tried to tell him so; she had tried to speak
freely to him of the whole matter--even penitently, if he would. But he
had never spoken freely to her; and once he had refused to speak at all,
thence or thenceforth. Lady Dromard had made a resolve then which she
remembered now.
"Really, Harry, I can't make you out," she said lightly at length. "You
knock down the colonials with one hand, and you set them up with the
other, as though they were so many ninepins. I am puzzled to know what
you really mean, and what you mean satirically. You never used to be
satirical, Harry! I should like to know whether you really approve of
these people, or whether you don't."
"I do approve of them," said Lord Manister, halting on the rug before
his mother. "I won't put it more strongly. But I am glad that you should
have seen there are such things as ladies in Australia!"
Their eyes met, and the mother forgot her resolve; for he had raised the
subject himself, and for the first time.
"You think of her still!" whispered Lady Dromard.
"Of course I do," returned Manister, roughly; and again he was striding
about the room.
Never in her life, perhaps, had the countess received a sharper hurt;
for he had refused to see the hand she had reached out to him
involuntarily. Yet assuredly Lady Dromard had never spoken in a more
ordinary tone than that of her next words, a minute later.
"It occurred to me, Harry, that if we really think of dancing one
evening during the cricket week, we might do worse than ask these people
from the rectory. You must have girls to dance with. Still, if you think
better not, you have only to say so."
"I think it's for you to decide; but, if you ask me, I don't see the
least objection to it," said Lord Manister, with a smooth ceremony that
had a sharper edge than his rough words. "I'm not sure, however, that
they will come every time you ask them."
"Pourquoi?"
"Because they're the most independent people in the world, the
Australians."
"It would scarcely touch their independence," said Lady Dromard with
careless contempt; "but we can really do without them, and I am glad of
your hint, because now I shall not think of asking them."
"Now, my dear mother," cried Lord Manister, no longer either hot or
cold, but his old self for once in his anxiety--"you misunderstand me
entirely! I'm not great on a dance at all, but if we're to have one we
must, as you say, have somebody to dance with; and I _want_ you to ask
these people."
CHAPTER X.
A THREATENING DAWN.
"I like a dance where you can dance," said Herbert, who was looking at
himself in a glass and wondering how long his white tie had been on one
side. "It was worth fifty of the swell show you took us to in town,
Ruth."
"I am glad you two have enjoyed it so," returned Ruth, with her eye,
however, upon her husband. "Of course there's a great difference between
a big dance in town and a little one in the country."
Tiny seemed busy. She was tearing her programme into small pieces, and
dropping them at her feet, so that when she had gone up to bed it was as
though a paper chase had passed through the rectory study, where they
had all gathered for a few moments on their return from the dance.
Christina, however, was not too preoccupied to chime in on her own
note:
"It's like the difference between Riverina and Victoria--there were
acres to the sheep instead of sheep to the acre."
Now there was no merit in this speech, but to those who understood it
the comparison was apt, and Erskine knew enough of Australia to
understand. Moreover, he had taught Tiny to listen for his laugh. So
when he made neither sound nor sign the girl felt injured, but
remembered that he had been extremely silent on the way home. And he was
the first to go upstairs.
"It has bored him," observed Christina.
"He don't like dancing," said Herbert. "He's no sportsman."
"I am afraid he cares for nothing but lawn tennis when he's here,"
sighed Ruth, who looked a little troubled. "I am afraid he dislikes
going out in the country."
They were silent for some minutes before Tiny exclaimed with conviction:
"No; it's the Dromards he dislikes."
And presently they made a move from the room. But on the stairs they met
Erskine coming down, having changed his dress suit for flannels; and
Ruth followed him back to the study, eying the change with dismay.
"Surely you're not going to sit up at this hour?"
Ruth had raised her glance from his flannels to his face, which troubled
her more.
"I'm afraid the fine weather's at an end," Erskine answered crookedly;
"it's most awfully close, at any rate. And I want a pipe."
He proceeded to fill one with his back to her.
"Erskine!"
"Well, dear?"
"I won't be 'dear' to you when you're cross with me. I want to know what
I have done to vex you."
He had struck a match, and he lit his pipe before answering. Then he
said gently enough:
"If you think I'm cross with you I should run away to bed; I certainly
don't mean to be."
But he had not turned round.
"You succeed, at any rate! As you seem to wish it, I shall take your
advice."
Erskine heard her on the stairs with a twinge in his heart. He went to
the door to call her down and be frank with her, but the shutting of
her own door checked him. Setting this one ajar, he threw up the window,
and stood frowning at the opaque pall that seemed to have been let down
behind it like an outer blind. So he remained for some minutes before
remembering the easy-chair. No one knew better than Erskine that he had
just been unkind to his wife. He was not pleased with her, but he had
refused to explain his displeasure when she invited him to do so. There
was this difficulty in explaining it--that he knew it to be
unreasonable, since the person who had vexed him most was not Ruth, but
Christina. And not more reasonable was his disappointment in Christina,
as he also knew. Yet the one thing in life not disappointing to him at
the moment was his pipe; even the fine weather was most surely at an
end.
He was tired of the rectory, which, wet or fair, had no longer either
light or shadow of its own, for both were now absorbed in the deepening
shadow of the hall. A week ago they had all dined there, now they had
been dancing there, and meanwhile the girls had watched one of the
matches, and were going to another. Erskine had been opposed to the
dance, but the wife had prevailed; he was against their going to another
match, but doubtless Ruth would have her way again, for she had shown a
tenacity of purpose that surprised him in her, while he was crippled by
a conscious lack of logic in his objections. He was not an arbitrary
person, and it seemed that Ruth would stop for nothing less than a
command where her heart was set; and her sister was with her. The whole
trouble was, where their hearts were set.
He tried hard not to think the worst of Tiny, or rather the worst as it
seemed to him. To make it easier, he called to mind various things she
had said to him at various times concerning Lord Manister, of whom she
had seldom failed to make fun. It amused and consoled Erskine to
remember the fun; there must be hope for her still. Then he recalled
common gossip about Lord Manister and his affairs; and there was hope on
that side too. In less than a week the danger would be past, and those
two would never see each other again. Consideration of the danger he had
in mind, _quá_ danger, provoked a smile. Tiny herself would have enjoyed
the humor of that, she was so quick to see and to enjoy. But she could
appreciate more than a joke, or did she only pretend to like those
books? And the soul that shone sometimes in her eyes, did it lie much
deeper? She interested Erskine the more because he could not be sure.
She was a fascinating study to him, whatever she did or was trying to
do. In any case, there was much good in her that he had fathomed, and
more was suggested; and the finer the nature, the stronger the
contrasts. Now as to contrasts--yet he had never seen that in Australia.
"A penny for your thoughts!"
Ten thousand pounds would not have bought them. It was his wife on the
threshold, in a pale pink wrapper.
"My dear! I pictured you asleep hours ago."
"Were you picturing me when I spoke?" Ruth said, with a smile. "I'm not
sleepy--and I want to talk to you. May I sit down? An hour more or less
makes no difference at this time of the morning."
Erskine rose from the easy-chair in which he had been smoking, and
settled his wife in it against her will, and drew the curtains across
the open window.
"I'm glad you've come down, Ruth, for I want to speak to you, too. I was
a brute to you when I sent you away just now."
"Well, I really think you were; but I know you must have had some
reason; so I've come down to have it out and be done with it."
"My dear Ruth!" said Mr. Holland uncomfortably; for was there any call
to be frank with her at all? It would hurt; and could it do any good?
"I suppose," pursued Ruth in a tone not perfectly free from defiance,
"it's all because we went to this horrid dance! And I'll say I'm sorry
we did go, if you like; though why you should have such a down on the
Dromards I can't for the life of me imagine."
"My dear girl," said Erskine, smiling now that he had determined not to
say everything, "I really have no down on them at all. They're the most
amiable family I know, considering who they are. They have a charming
place, and they treat you delightfully while you're there. Considering
who _we_ are, and that we have no root in this soil, I grant you they're
particularly kind to us; but don't you think their kindness is just a
little trying? I do, though I have nothing against them, personally or
otherwise. I am not even a political opponent; if I had a vote for the
division young Manister should have it. But I'm not keen on so much
notice from them; I've said so before; there's no sense in it!"
"Ah, well, if only you would show me the harm in it!"
"Harm? Heaven forbid there should be any. One finds it a bore, that's
all. It's a selfish reason, but it's the truth--I should have had a
better time this last week if the Dromards had been far enough!"
"And we should have had a worse--Tiny and I. No, Erskine, I know you
better than you think. You're not so selfish as all that; there's some
other reason."
Erskine turned away with a shrug, to avoid her glance.
"Something has annoyed you to-night. One of us has behaved badly. Was it
Tiny or was it----"
"You?" said Erskine, with a smile. "From what I saw of your behavior, my
dear, it was entirely creditable to you as a chaperon. Your face was
seventeen, but your air was a frank fifty!"
"Then it was Tiny. I suppose she danced too much with those boys they
have staying in the house. I should have thought there was
respectability in numbers; I really don't see how _they_ could matter."
"They seemed to matter to Manister," remarked Erskine dryly.
Ruth winced, but he had wondered whether she would, or he would never
have noticed it.
"Surely you don't think Lord Manister cares who dances with our Tiny?"
The amusement in her tone and manner was cleverly feigned, but instead
of deceiving Erskine it spurred him to speak out, after all.
"I hardly like to tell you what I think about Tiny and Lord Manister,"
he said gravely.
"What on earth do you mean, Erskine?" cried Ruth, reddening. "Now you
_must_ tell me!"
Erskine temporized, already regretting that he had said so much. "It
would hurt your feelings," he warned her grimly.
"Not so much as your silence."
"I wouldn't say it if I didn't look on her as my own sister by this
time, and if I didn't think her the best little girl in the world--but
one."
Now he spoke tenderly.
"Say it, in any case," said Ruth, who had been uncommonly calm.
"Then I am afraid she is making up to him, if you must know."
"Which is absurd," said Ruth lightly; but in her anxiety to remain cool
she forgot to seem surprised; and that was a mistake.
"I wonder if you really think so?" said her husband very quietly. "If
you do I can't agree with you; I wish I could."
"You must!" cried Ruth desperately. "Do you know how many dances she
gave him to-night?"
Erskine knew only of one; his eyes rested on the remains of her
programme lying on the floor in many fragments.
"Well, that one was the lot!" he was informed severely. "And pray did
you count how many times she spoke to him the other evening when we
dined at the hall?"
"Not often, I grant you; I noticed that."
"Yet you think she is making up to him!"
"It's a strong way of putting it, I know," said Erskine reluctantly;
"but really I can't think of any other. I wonder you don't realize that
there are more ways of making up to a man than the dead-set method.
Can't you see that a far more effective method is a little judicious
snubbing and avoiding, which is coquetry? You take my word for it,
that's the touch for a man like Manister, who is probably accustomed to
everything but being snubbed and avoided. Then you speak of the one
dance she gave him. Now I happen to know that they didn't dance it at
all; they spent the time under the stars, for it was my misfortune to
see them and their misfortune not to see me."
"Well?" whispered Ruth; and though she had never been so dark until now,
that whisper would have drawn his lantern to her real hopes and fears.
"I only saw them for an instant: I bolted; so I may easily be wrong; but
it struck me that our Tiny was making up for her snubbing and avoiding.
It has since occurred to me that they must have known each other rather
well in Melbourne--rather better, at any rate, than you have ever led me
to suppose."
As a woman's last resource, Ruth aimed a stone at his temper.
"So that's it!" she exclaimed viciously.
"That's what?"
"The secret of your bad temper."
"Well, to be kept in the dark doesn't sweeten a man, certainly," Erskine
answered, in a tone, however, that was far from bitter. "Then one can't
help feeling disappointed with Tiny; and in this matter--to be frank
with you at last--I am just a little disappointed in you too, my dear."
"I always knew you would be," said Ruth dolefully. For her stone had
missed, and there was no more fight in her.
"Now don't be a goose. It's only in this one matter, in which--I can't
help telling you--I don't think you've been perfectly straight with me."
"Oh, indeed!" cried Ruth, as her spirit made one spurt more. It was the
last. The next moment she was weeping.
It annoys most men to make a woman cry. Those who do not become annoyed
make impetuous atonement, partly, no doubt, to drown the hooting in
their own heart. But Erskine could not feel himself to blame, and though
he spoke very kindly, his kindness was too nearly paternal, and he spoke
with his elbow on the chimney-piece. He told Ruth not to do that. He
pointed out to her that there was no crime in her want of candor
concerning her sister's affairs, which were certainly no business of
his. Only, if there really had been something between Christina and Lord
Manister in Melbourne--if, for instance, Mrs. Willoughby had gossiped
unwittingly to Christina about none other than Christina
herself--Erskine put it to his wife that she might have done more wisely
to place him in a position silently to appreciate such capital jokes. He
would have said nothing; but as it was he might easily have said much to
imperil the situation; in fact, he had been in a false position all
along, more especially at the hall. But that was all. There was really
nothing to cry about. Perhaps to give her the fairest opportunity to
compose herself, Erskine crossed the room and drew back the curtains to
let in the gray morning; for the birds had long been twittering.
But Ruth had been waiting for the touch of his hand, and he had only
given her kind words. She looked up, and saw through her tears his form
against the gray window, as he shut down the sash. The lamp burnt
faintly, and in the two wan lights it was a chamber of misery, in which
one could not sit alone. Ruth rose and ran to Erskine, and laid her
hands upon his arm.
"It is raining," he said, without looking at her tears. "I knew we were
in for a break up of the fine weather."
"Never mind the rain!" Ruth cried piteously, with her face upon his
coat. "Will you forgive me now if I tell you everything that I
know--everything? It isn't much, because Tiny has been almost as close
with me as I have been with you."
"My dear," he said, patting her head at last, and with his arms around
her lightly, "you both had a perfect right to be close."
"But suppose I've been at the bottom of the whole thing? Suppose I turn
out a horrid little intriguer--what then?"
She waited eagerly, and the pause seemed long.
"Well, you won't have been intriguing for yourself," sighed Erskine--so
that her face rose on his breast, as on a wave.
And then, playing nervously with a button of his coat, Ruth confessed
all. As she spoke she gathered confidence, but not enough to watch his
face. That was turned to the gray morning, and looked as gray as it. The
fine weather had indeed broken up, and Essingham had lost its savor for
Erskine Holland.
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE LADIES' TENT.
And yet, even at the time she made it, Ruth little dreamt how deeply her
confession both galled and revolted her husband. He forgave her very
kindly in the end, and that satisfied her lean imagination. Perhaps
there was not much to forgive. There was enough, at all events, to
trouble Erskine (to whom the best excuse there was for her was the least
likely to suggest itself); but the matter soon ceased to trouble
Erskine's wife, because his smile was as good-tempered as before. He
seemed, indeed, to think no more about it. When Ruth would speak
confidentially of her hopes and wishes for Tiny (as though Erskine had
been in her confidence all the time), he would chat the matter over with
interest, which was the next best thing to sympathy. He had to do this
oftener than he liked during the next twenty-four hours; for Ruth really
thought that excessive candor now was a more or less adequate atonement
for an excessive reserve in the past. Moreover, she genuinely enjoyed
talking openly at last of the matter which had concerned her so long and
so severely in secret.
"Don't you think he means it?" she asked her husband several times.
"I am afraid he thinks he does," was one of Holland's answers.
"That's your way of admitting it," rejoined Ruth, who could bear his
repudiation of her desires for the sake of his assent to her opinion,
which Erskine was too honest to withhold. "Of course he means it. Have
you noticed how he watches her?"
"I have noticed it once or twice."
"And did you see him watching his mother, the night we dined there, to
see what impression Tiny made upon her?"
"So you spotted that!" Erskine said curiously, not having given his wife
the credit for such acute perception. "Well, I own that I did, too; and
that was worse than his watching Tiny. This is a youth with a well-known
weakness for his mamma. She has probably more influence over him than
any other body in the world. I am prepared to bet that it was she, and
she alone, who whistled him back from Australia. Now though she did it
partly by her singing--which, by the way, was rather cheap for our
Tiny--there's no doubt at all about the impression Tiny has made upon
Lady Dromard; and that's the worst of it."
"The worst of it! as if he was beneath her!" said Ruth mockingly. "Or is
it that you think her too terribly beneath him?"
"Tiny," said Erskine, shaking his head, "is beneath no man that I have
yet come across."
"Then what can you have against it? Is it that you think she will grow
so grand that we shall see no more of her! If so, it shows how much you
know of our Tiny. Or do you think him too high and mighty to be honest
and true? I don't profess to know much about it," continued Ruth
scornfully, being stung to eloquence by his perversity, "but I should
have said an honest man and his love might be found in a castle,
sometimes, as well as in a cottage!"
"'Hearts just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the
lowly air of Seven Dials,'" quoted Erskine, with a laugh. "I grant all
that; but if you want to know, my point is that Tiny would be thrown
away on Belgrave Square! She is far too funny and fresh, and unlike most
of us, to thrive in that fine soil; she would need to be clipped and
pruned and trimmed in the image of other people. And that would spoil
her. Whatever else she may be, she's more or less original as she
stands. She's not a copy now; but she will have to become one in
Belgrave Square."
"She _will_ have to become one!" cried Ruth, jumping at the change of
mood. "Then you think that Tiny means it, too?"
"I am afraid she means to marry him," said Erskine, with a sigh. "I have
visions of our Tiny ours no more, but my Lady Manister, and Countess
Dromard in due course."
So delighted was Ruth with his opinion on this point that his other
opinions had no power to annoy her; and in her joy she told him once
more, and with much impulsive feeling, how sorry she was for having kept
him in the dark so willfully and so long. She called him an angel of
good temper and forbearance, and undertook to reward his generosity by
never hiding another thing from him in her life. And she would never,
never vex him again, she said--so earnestly that he thought she meant
it, as indeed she thought herself, for half a minute.
"But you mean to go to the match to-morrow?" he asked her wistfully.
"Oh, we must--if it's fine. It's the last match of the week; besides,
Herbert's going to play."
This was an argument, and Erskine said no more. The chances are that he
would have said no more in any case. The following afternoon Ruth drove
with Tiny to the match, and with a particularly light heart, because she
had not heard another word against the plan. Her one remaining anxiety
was lest it might rain before they got to the cricket field.
For the day was one of those dull ones of early autumn when there is
little wind, a gray sky, and more than a chance of rain; but none had
fallen during the morning, which reduced the chance; while the clouds
were high, and occasionally parted by faint rays of sunshine. The ground
was so beautiful in itself that it was the greater pity there was no
more sun, since, without it, well-kept turf and tall trees are like a
sweet face saddened. The trees were the fine elms of that country, and
they flanked two sides of the ground; but one missed their shadows, and
the foliage had a dingy, lack-luster look in the tame light. On the
third side a ha-ha formed a natural "boundary," and the red, spreading
house stood aloof on the fourth, giving a touch of welcome warmth to a
picture whose highest lights were the white flannels of the players and
the canvas tents. The tents were many, and admirably arranged; but one
beneath the elms had a side on the ground to itself; and thither drove
Mrs. Holland, alighting rather nervously as a groom came promptly to the
pony's head, because this was the ladies' tent.
To-day, however, the tent was not formidably full, as it had been when
the girls had watched the cricket from it earlier in the week; this was
only the Saturday's match. Ruth looked in vain for Lady Dromard, but
received a cold greeting from her daughter, Lady Mary, upon whom the
guinea stamp was disagreeably fresh and sharp. The sight of Mrs.
Willoughby and her friend Mrs. Foster-Simpson on a front seat was a
relief at the moment (the sight of anything to nod to is a relief
sometimes); but Ruth was discreet enough to sit down behind these
ladies, not beside them. She congratulated herself on her presence of
mind when she heard the tone and character of some of their comments on
the game. It would have done Ruth no good to be seen at the side of loud
Mrs. Foster-Simpson or of loquacious Mrs. Willoughby, and it might have
done Tiny grave harm. Mrs. Willoughby's husband, who had good-naturedly
become eleventh man at the eleventh hour, was conspicuous in the field
from his black trousers, clerical wide-awake, and shirt-sleeves of gray
flannel. "I hope you admire him," said his wife over her shoulder to
Ruth; "I tell him he might as well take a funeral in flannels!"
"Or dine in his surplice," added her friend Mrs. Foster-Simpson in a
voice that carried to the back of the tent.
"I just do admire Mr. Willoughby," Ruth said softly; "he has a soul
above appearances."
"You're not his wife," replied the lady who was.
"You may thank your stars!" shouted her too familiar friend.
Little Mrs. Holland turned to her sister and speculated aloud as to the
state of the game, but her tone was an example to the ladies in front,
who nevertheless did not lower theirs to supply the gratuitous
information that the Mundham players had been fielding all day.
"They're getting the worst of it," declared Mrs. Willoughby, perhaps
prematurely.
"Do them good," her friend said viciously, but with the soft pedal down
for once. "There would have been no holding them. That young Dromard,
now--it will take it out of _him_. He wants it taking out of him!"
Mr. Stanley Dromard, who had been scoring heavily all the week, happened
to be in the deep field close to the tent. Ruth nudged her sister, and
they moved further along their row in order to avoid the bonnets in
front.
"Horrid people!" whispered Ruth.
"That's the earl by the canvas screen," answered Tiny. "I should like to
send him a new straw hat!"
"Hush!" whispered Ruth in terror. "You're as bad as they are. Tell me,
do you see Herbert?"
"Yes, there he is, all by himself. There's a man out."
"Is there? How tired they seem! That's Lord Manister sprawling on the
grass. What a boy he looks! You wouldn't think he was anybody in
particular, would you?"
"I should hope not, indeed, on the cricket field!"
"I only meant he looked rather nice."
"Certainly he looks nicer in flannels than in anything else; his tailor
has less to do with it."
The patience of Ruth was inexhaustible. She watched the game until
another wicket fell. Then it was her admiration for the scene that
escaped in more whispers.
"_Isn't_ it a lovely place, Tiny?"
"Oh, it's all that."
"I've never seen one to touch it, and I have seen two or three, you
know, since we were married. But the house is the best part of it all. I
would give anything to live in a house like that--wouldn't you?"
"I? My immortal soul!"
And Tiny sighed, but Ruth, looking round quickly, saw laughter in her
eyes, and said no more. Tiny was very trying. Was she half in earnest,
or wholly in jest? Ruth could never tell; and now, while she wondered, a
lady who knew her sat down on her right. Ruth was glad enough to shake
hands and talk, and not sorry in this case to be seen doing so, while
at the moment it was a very human pleasure to her to leave Tiny to take
care of herself. And that was a thing at which Tiny may be said to have
excelled, so far as one saw, and no further. The attacks of most tongues
she was capable of repelling with distinction; against those of her own
thoughts she made ever the feeblest resistance; and at this stage of
Christina's career her own thoughts were a swarm of flies upon a wound
in her heart. That was the truth--and no one suspected it.
During the next quarter of an hour the innings came to an end, and the
fielders trooped over to the group of tents at another side of the
ground. Tiny hoped that one of them would have the good taste to come to
the ladies' tent and talk to her; an Eton boy would do very well;
Herbert would be better than nobody: but she hoped in vain. On her right
Ruth had turned her back, and was quite taken up with the lady with whom
she was not sorry to be seen in conversation. The chairs on her left
were all empty; and those flies were fighting for her heart. It was the
rustle of silk disturbed them in the end; and Lady Dromard who sat down
in the empty chair on Tiny's left.
"I am so glad to see you both," said the countess as though she meant
it; and she leant over to shake hands with Ruth, whose back was now
turned upon her new found friend. Not so much was said to the pair in
front, though those ladies had something to say for themselves. Lady
Dromard gave them very small change in smiles, but made the conversation
general for a minute or two, with that graceful tact at which, perhaps,
she was, in a manner, a professional. With equal facility she dropped
them from her talk one after another, much as the last wickets had
fallen in the match, and until only Tiny was left in. For the countes
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