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Title: The girl from nowhere
Author: Mrs. Baillie Reynolds
Release date: February 16, 2024 [eBook #72969]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: George H. Doran Company, 1910
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM NOWHERE ***
THE GIRL FROM NOWHERE
_By_ MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS
Author of "The Notorious Miss Lisle," "Out of the
Night," "A Doubtful Character"
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK
_Copyright_, 1910
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
BY MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS
A Doubtful Character
The Notorious Miss Lisle
The Girl from Nowhere
Out of the Night
A Make-shift Marriage
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Despair
II. Flight
III. A Refuge of Straw
IV. Up River
V. Separation
VI. The Outcast's Brother
VII. The First Letter
VIII. A Touch of Sympathy
IX. The Squire Defies Conventions
X. The Hunt is Up
XI. Felix Takes Advice
XII. Rona's Knight
XIII. The Finished Product
XIV. "You Never Were Mine"
XV. A Difficult Situation
XVI. Happenings in a Strange Land
XVII. "I was the Man Selected"
XVIII. The Kirgiz Yourtar
XIX. The Despair of Vronsky
XX. What is this Love?
XXI. Denzil Does His Duty
XXII. Forebodings
XXIII. The Escape of Aunt Bee
XXIV. Veronica "On Her Own"
XXV. The Convalescence of Denzil
XXVI. Strangers Yet
XXVII. Two in the Campagna
XXVIII. The Primrose Path
XXIX. A Double Dilemma
XXX. Veronica is Surprised
CHAPTER I
DESPAIR
The sense that every struggle brings defeat,
Because Fate holds no prize to crown success:
That all the oracles are dumb, or cheat,
Because they have no secret to express:--
That none can pierce the vast black veil uncertain
Because there is no light behind the curtain,
That all is vanity and nothingness!
_The City of Dreadful Night._
The curtain rises on an empty stage.
Managers assure those of us who try to write plays nowadays that we
must lay our scenes in well-to-do circles if we wish to attract an
audience.
The scene before us now has few recommendations, either as a romantic
or a tragic background. It is not quite wretched enough to suggest
dark deeds; it is not nearly old enough to convey a hint of mystery:
it is merely the back parlor of a London lodging-house of the meaner
kind.
On a certain murky day in March it lay bare to the eye of anyone who
was desirous of exploring.
The street of which it formed a narrow section was small and dreary.
The front parlor window of this particular house was discreetly
veiled with curtains which had once been white. Between them stood
an artificial aspidistra in a ginger-colored pot, envied by some of
the other dwellers in the immediate neighborhood.
This front parlor, at the date in question, was unlet. It had
folding-doors, affording the sole entrance to a very small room
behind, generally let as a bedroom, with the front room as
sitting-room. For the past month this back parlor had been tenanted
by one who was far too poor to think of needing more than one room in
which to starve. Moreover, he was there on the understanding that he
would vacate should a better let offer itself.
Had the curtain risen on that back room, the eye would have taken but
one glance to feel assured of destitution on the part of the absent
occupier. There was a bed, a washstand, a table, a chair. There was
a cupboard, the door hanging open on one hinge, revealing the fact
that an empty mug formed its sole contents. There was no carpet on
the floor, no cloth on the rickety table--the only trace of occupancy
was in a penny bottle of ink and a few sheets of paper which lay upon
the table.
The smoke-dimmed window looked sheer down upon a mazy labyrinth of
railway lines. Day by day trains rumbled by, and sent up each its
contribution of soot and grime to choke the atmosphere and darken the
unlovely prospect.
This window--it was more correctly a glass door--was open; and
without was a mean iron railing, with a flight of corroded steps,
which, at the time the house was built, probably led to the garden.
The encroaching line had shorn away all the garden, leaving the iron
steps overhanging the abyss with a futility that moved to pity the
soul of the present occupier when he had a thought to spare from the
anguish of his own condition.
So much for the stage. The actor, when at last he made his abrupt
appearance, bursting in, as an actor should, dramatically, through
the center doors--seemed to have been cast by Nature for a leading
part.
He was still young, and somewhat tall; and, though his cheeks were
sunken, his eyes rimmed with red, his hair rough, his beard some days
old, and his clothes soiled and ragged, he yet kept that air of the
dominant race, that carriage of the head and movement of the
shoulders that tells of the public school if not the university.
But it was not merely this air of incongruity with environment which
made him noticeable. It was a certain atmosphere that clothed him--a
peculiar expression which cut him off from any other young man of his
age and class--a quality of isolation which hung about him like some
poisonous exhalation.
The eyes of the young look forward. Not always with hope or
eagerness; sometimes with apprehension, or terror, or anxiety. But,
in some wise, they do look forward. Life, whether it be good or bad,
is still to come.
This man's eyes had ceased to travel on. He had done with life. He
came into the room, as the last flicker of a flame may leap up in
burnt paper. Though he still existed, hope and fear were alike dead
in him. All was over: he had given up the contest with Fate.
In no sense was he any longer a part of his surroundings. He had
severed himself, by an act of will, from the struggle and the fret.
His pilgrimage--evil and brief--was ended.
He fastened the folding-doors behind him with deliberation, and,
advancing to the table, laid down one or two packages upon it.
The largest of these must have been instantly recognized by any
expert as rejected manuscript. Some irate publisher, at the end,
probably, of a morning's fruitless search for something worth
publishing, had scrawled in blue pencil upon the outside of the
parcel: "Why the deuce don't you get your stuff typewritten?" In
addition to this derisive question, the title of the bulky package
was clearly legible, printed in large ink letters: "THE TRUMPET CALL
TO REVOLUTION."
Seating himself by the table, the owner of the despised treasure drew
from his pocket a very small bottle, labeled "Laudanum." He rose,
searched the mattress of his bed, and extracted from various holes
three other small bottles of the same size. Then he produced a paper
from his pocket, smoothed it out, and spread it upon the table. A
letter, upon good, thick writing-paper, stamped with an
address--Normansgrave, Cleveshire.
The writing upon the bluish-tinted sheet was fine and clear:
"DEAR FELIX,--Bearing in mind the circumstances which led to your
disgrace, you cannot, I think, upon your first emergence from prison,
reasonably expect me to intrust you with money. I have placed a
certain sum in the hands of the police-court missionary, with
instructions to him to pay you so much a week from it, so as to give
you time to seek honest employment. I have made it clear to him
that, should you hold any kind of communication with the murderous
gang of anarchists who have brought you to this pass, you are to
forfeit all further right to your allowance.
"Once again let me entreat you to make a fresh start, and endeavor to
atone, by a future of steady work, for the aberrations of your early
manhood. Should you show any signs of a real effort to improve, I
shall not refuse to receive you here once more as my father's son.
But to do so now, before you have proved yourself, would be an
injustice both to myself and you.--I remain, your brother, DENZIL
VANSTON."
After carefully reading through this letter Felix Vanston took up a
sheet of paper from among two or three lying near, and wrote as
follows:
"DEAR PHARISEE,--You have sent the publican to his just doom. He
goes to it with the publican's old prayer upon his lips. 'God be
merciful'--for certainly man is not. You may continue to fast twice
in the week and give tithes of all you possess to other objects than
your disreputable brother--FELIX."
This letter he folded, addressed, and arranged with the other in the
center of the table, marked thus:
"TO BE READ BY THE CORONER AT
THE INQUEST ON MY BODY.
(N.B.--No room for suspicion of insanity)."
This done, he took his bundle of MS. in his arms and went to the
empty grate. Tearing off a few leaves, he pushed them through the
bars, produced a box still containing two or three matches, and set
them alight. He sat by on the grimy floor tearing off more and
feeding the flames with it until the whole book was consumed.
The world, he found, was an oyster that he could not open. He had
declined to try the usual kind of knife--that provided by custom for
him, in the shape of an office stool. He had imbibed socialistic
theories somehow in early boyhood, and his half-brother, Denzil
Vanston, had from that moment assured him that he was lost.
The late Squire Vanston, of Normansgrave, had made a foolish second
marriage. He had been caught by a designing young woman whom he met
at a Brighton hotel. While Felix was still a child, his father died,
leaving the widow a life interest in the property. Poor Denzil had
cause to feel displeasure. The second Mrs. Vanston filled the house
with a crew of very second-rate journalists, music-hall artistes, and
sporting men. Her son, Felix, was most imprudently indulged; her
stepson, Denzil, had no home as long as she lived. His own mother
had been the exact reverse of his father's second wife--a good,
rather dull woman, affectionate and sincere, but hard and prim.
Denzil, brought up on these lines, was unspeakably shocked by the
proceedings which at Normansgrave followed his father's death.
Mrs. Vanston was killed in a carriage accident, after a reckless ten
years of very frivolous widowhood. This is putting the case with an
extreme mildness, which the inhabitants of the neighborhood might
class as euphemism. She died intestate, and was found to have spent
the whole of the money which the Squire had left to her, with a view
to its coming to Felix after her death. His will bequeathed all the
property and all the money, with the exception of this sum, to his
elder son. Felix was unprovided for.
At this time he was eighteen years old, and studying at a Continental
university. Oxford and Cambridge were not Bohemian enough for him.
His brother was willing to make him an allowance, on condition of his
qualifying for some profession; and although the only profession for
which he would show interest was journalism, and though Denzil
profoundly, and perhaps excusably, mistrusted journalism after his
experience of his stepmother's set, he did help him, and did make him
an allowance, until debts and irregular habits and bad associates
convinced him that Felix would do no good until he had actually to
work for his living.
Actuated by the best intentions, the elder brother said he would stop
supplies until Felix really buckled down to work. The next thing was
that the police raided a Dynamite Club in Soho, and Felix was
arrested, brought to trial, and convicted. He had served the greater
part of his two years' sentence. And now the end had come. At the
age of twenty-three Felix Vanston decided that life was not worth
living.
It is possible that journalism was not his destined medium. It is
certain that nobody would pay him for what he wrote. With hunger
comes depression. Moreover, Felix, from the moment when he donned
his prison garb, had lost his self-respect. There was nothing to
hold him back from the thing he contemplated. He had nothing to lose.
His book was burnt. The incoherent ravings of a boy caught by
catchwords, not understanding what he thought or wished or hoped,
knowing little, comprehending less--it was all ashes now. The wild
heart of him had gone out into its formless sentiments. Nonsense as
it was, he had burned with the necessity of expressing it. Now it
was gone; and the world finally went out with it. The last flicker,
oddly enough, took him back to a boyish episode, when the gardeners
had a big bonfire at Normansgrave in the autumn long ago. He saw, as
he crouched by the rusty grate, a dream-picture of October woods,
rising in billows of color upon the swelling uplands that cradled the
old red-brick house. He saw the drift of blue smoke between his eyes
and the distance, smelt the aromatic fragrance of burning wood and
smoldering leaf. He could feel again the warmth of his big brother's
hand as he stood, in his fur and velvet and plumed cap, shouting to
Denzil to make it blaze. He saw his mother coming along the garden
walk, somewhat hurried. She had a smile for the men who fed the
fire, and for the two boys--the little and big--watching. Then she
ordered them away. She said Felix must not be out in the cold air.
Denzil, kindly enough, tried to draw away the small boy, who, spoilt
and uncontrolled, declined to go--stamped, shrieked, and fought. In
the midst of his fighting the fire blazed up higher--just near where
they were standing. He saw his mother, with a furtive, sweeping look
round at the men, whose backs were turned as they lifted more fuel on
the flames with a fork--he saw her make a swift movement and fling
into the glowing red part of the fire some letters which she had
clasped in her hand.
The fire was very fierce; they were ashes in a moment; and, stroking
her boy's smooth cheek, she said, laughingly: "Let him stay a while,
Denzil, if he cares so much."
Then the child was conscious of a silence--an interchange of glance
between his mother and her step-son. Denzil knew that Mrs. Vanston
had come down to the bonfire to burn something--that she had desired
to send him and Felix away that they might not see her do so; that
the sudden opening of a glowing hot hole in the fire quite near had
made her risk detection and toss in what she came to destroy. Felix
had not understood. He thought Denzil looked severely at "Ma"
because she spoilt him, Felix, and let him have his way when he
roared. But as his paper fire flared and died down and blackened,
the memory of the little scene floated to him through the mist of
years; he saw the sweet place, the faint sunlight, the privet hedges
and green archways of the vegetable garden; and for one moment there
swept over him a desire to live--a desire to see the Cleveshire hills
again.
It expired with the last red glow in the flapping ash of paper. Life
was over. Nobody there at Normansgrave wanted him. Nay, more, they
would be devoutly thankful to know that he was dead.
He rose from his crouched attitude and straightened himself as well
as he could for the gnawing pains of hunger. Then he took the mug
from the cupboard and carried it to the table. He paused, looking
round. The bed was unmade, its unwholesome grayish linen crumpled
and tossed. Since he was to lie there to sleep his last sleep, it
might as well be smooth. He made it hurriedly, for the wolf that
gnawed him was growing clamorous, and came back to the table, where
stood the bottles of oblivion. Pouring the brown syrup into the mug,
he raised it to his lips.
"A health to Denzil Vanston, of Normansgrave!" he cried aloud; and
then, just as the rim of the mug touched his mouth, a shadow fell
before his eyes, some dark thing passed swiftly across the window,
there was a heavy thud, and a muffled shriek.
The suicide started as if he had been shot. He trembled in every
limb. What, in Heaven's name, could it be? Something, someone, was
hanging doubled over the sooty iron railing outside his open window.
He put down the cup. He staggered forward. A human body was hanging
across the rail. It writhed; in one instant more it would have
fallen, and it must fall upon the railway lines below.
That human instinct which comes into action before thought sent him
flying to the rescue. He seized the limp, twisting body, and drew it
with difficulty, for he was very weak, back over the rail till the
feet rested upon the small iron balcony beside him.
It was a girl--a girl about sixteen, with a torrent of bright brown
hair. She was very thin; her face seemed to him of a bluish tinge.
The moment he touched her she began to cry out. When she was on her
feet she began to struggle.
"Let me go! Let me go! Don't touch me, I must kill myself! How
dare you hold me! Let me go, I say!"
Stupefaction held Felix mute for a minute or two. To be consistent,
he should have helped her over the verge. The bare thought of so
doing made his head swim. With no words, but still obeying imperious
instinct, he pulled her, struggling feebly against him, into his
desolate apartment. He dragged her to the bed, so recently prepared
for the accommodation of another guest, and having pushed her upon
it, ran to the window and fastened it, with an overmastering dread
lest she should make a dash for her freedom, and he not have the
strength to stop her.
Seated on the edge of the bed, she doubled herself together and
moaned. Her rescuer, sinking dizzily upon the one chair, stared in
dumb contemplation. The girl was evidently in terrible pain.
Probably she had broken all her ribs. Ought he to go and fetch a
hospital ambulance? Dare he leave her alone within reach of that
window? Whence had she fallen, and why did she want to kill herself?
In spite of hunger, he almost thought he must postpone his own exit
until he knew what prompted this child to attempt hers.
After two or three bewildered minutes he went up to her, sat down
beside her, and said weakly, "There, there! Tell me where you have
hurt yourself."
She uncovered her face and shot a look at him. They had a
simultaneous impulse of surprise. Looking at each other, they knew,
intuitively, each that the other was not the kind of person you would
expect to find in Hawkins Row, Deptford.
For the first time since the gates of the jail closed behind him,
Felix forgot to be lonely. He had a sudden, wholly ridiculous sense
of being wanted. The moment he saw the face of the girl beside him
he knew that she must be saved.
Cautiously he lowered her to the pillow, lifted her legs upon the
bed, laid her flat, and bent over her.
"Where do you feel the pain?" he urgently asked.
"Everywhere--all over me. Oh, what shall I do? Why couldn't you let
me die?"
"I don't know," said Felix, staring stupidly.
She sobbed aloud, drawing each breath with a groan. He sat by, his
mind hardly working, vaguely wondering what would happen next.
Presently he was conscious that her moaning had ceased, and he looked
up with a sudden leap of his heart in his exhausted frame lest she
should be dead. But her eyes were wide open, and roaming round the
room.
"Do you live here?" she asked, timidly.
He laughed miserably. "I have contrived to support existence here
for ten days," he said. "Now I can't stick it any longer. I was
just going to take poison, that very moment that you--came."
She turned her head right round on the dirty pillow to look at him
with horror. "You were going to kill yourself? How wicked!" she
said, with tremendous emphasis.
He peered at her from under his heavy lashes with a real curiosity.
"You say wicked? But you were going to do the same thing yourself?"
"Yes, but that was different. If I had been a man I wouldn't. It is
cowardly for a man to bolt. It is the only thing a girl can
do--sometimes."
He took a long look at her. There were so many things to say--such
crushing replies to make to her artless philosophy. But he was too
weak and shaken to make them.
"Come," he said, "shall I take you to a hospital, or will you wait
here while I go and see if I can find the parish doctor?"
She waved her small frail hand to the mug on the table. "I'll share
that stuff with you."
Felix sat reflecting. He could not give her poison. Why could he
not? Which was wrong--his former despair, or his new-found
sentiment? He could not determine, but he was bracing himself up to
resist her. "There's not enough to kill us both," he said, weakly,
"and I am not going to let you throw yourself on those lines down
there."
She made no reply to this, but lay with her eyes closed. He ventured
a question, "How far did you fall?"
"Only from the room just above this. He locked me in."
"Who did?"
"The man who calls himself my uncle." She pushed up her sleeve,
showing a livid bruise upon her arm. "Look," she said, "there are
worse on my back and shoulders."
Felix clenched his hands, quite instinctively.
"If he comes back," she sobbed, "he'll--he said he'd do worse than
kill me. And you're not strong enough to fight him, are you?"
"Let's run away," said Felix, without an instant's reflection.
She sat up, propping herself upon her arms, while she stared at him.
"Have you got any money?"
"Not a halfpenny." He sank back in despair. This hunger of his must
be appeased, or he must die.
"I've got a shilling and three-halfpence," said the girl. "It would
get us something to eat. But I won't go to those night refuges; I
had much rather jump down on the railway lines. And I won't go to a
reformatory, or any institution place; so it is no use to try and
persuade me...." She reflected a while. "It would be no good to try
and get more poison; they wouldn't sell any to me or to you."
Felix had in his pocket the doctor's prescription which had enabled
him to purchase what he already had. But he did not say so. She
should not know. His eyes had lit up at the bare mention of food.
"See," he said, "I am really, actually starving. I'm in such pain, I
hardly know what I am saying just now. Let us go out together and
get some food, and then think what we can do afterwards. Do you feel
as if you could walk?"
She slipped off the bed and stood up. "I feel very bad," she said,
hesitatingly; "but I can walk. Yes--let us get away from here and
have something to eat; And then we can jump off a bridge to-night, if
there seems nothing else to do."
CHAPTER II
FLIGHT
In her utter helplessness
Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry,
As of a wild thing, taken in a trap,
Which sees the trapper coming through the wood.
--TENNYSON.
Outside, the raw March day was drawing to its unbeautiful close.
They crept together along by the railings, as sorry a couple of
cripples as ever started forth into the world together. Young
Vanston could not walk without reeling--the only thing that held him
in control was his anxiety respecting the girl, whose face was still
ashen, and who gasped and panted as she moved. He had solicitously
felt her ribs--a proceeding rendered easy by her thinness and
emptiness, poor child. He had ascertained that no bones were broken,
though the pain was severe, and he vaguely diagnosed it to himself as
"something internal."
But she was driven by some overmastering impulse of flight which
blotted out even the physical distress. To get away was her idea.
She had been willing to do so at the cost of life itself. But now
that life persisted, and she had escaped from her prison, the desire
to live returned in some obscure, muffled fashion. As for him, his
apprehensions on her account had for the moment driven clean out of
his mind his own desperate intention.
Coming out of Hawkins Row, they crawled along a dark, dreary alley,
which brought them out into a main thoroughfare, where traffic of all
kinds roared and seethed. Just at the corner a cocoa-room poured its
blaze of newly-lit gas across the street.
"Pull yourself together and get across the floor steady," whispered
Felix; and the two crept in, and with a last effort sank down into
seats in a far corner, near the stove.
It was not a cold evening, except to the starving, and the table
which stood inconveniently near the stove was vacant. The girl wore
no hat, but, except for this deficiency, they were, in point of
costume, rather above than below the average of those present.
Felix had the sense to know that he must not "wolf" his food, or he
would increase, and not allay, the pain that rent him. He sat
forcing himself to sip the warm cocoa, which tasted like the nectar
of the gods. The girl was not so ravenous as he; she had been fed
the day before. She was very scared and timid, starting at each new
customer that entered, in fear lest it should be the man she dreaded.
She sat with her eyes upon the door, keeping a ceaseless guard. For
about a quarter of an hour they did not speak.
But when the first demands of bodily craving were satisfied they
began to talk.
"Tell me your name," said the girl, peremptorily.
He considered a moment. "My name is David--David Smith," he said at
last. He felt unable to give away the name he loved and had
dishonored.
"Mine is Veronica--Veronica Leigh, but I am always called Rona." She
gazed into his face with some kind of wistful intentness. "You are
the first young man--I mean, of the real human kind--that I have ever
spoken to," she said earnestly.
The color sprang up under his white face. "I'm not the human
kind--that is--I'm all wrong," he said hastily. "No respectable
person would speak to me. I have no right to talk to you, or to any
good girl. Are you a good girl?"
"I want to be," said Rona, looking at him with startled eyes. "What
have you done? You seem--I don't know how to say it, but to me you
seem--right--the kind of person I understand--not a beast--not a
demon. The men in London," she concluded seriously, "are all beasts
and demons."
"I don't know which class I am," said Felix, "but you had better know
the worst of me. I have served a term of two years' imprisonment.
That means that hardly any walk of life is open to me. I am a man
without a character."
She looked at him with a shrinking horror. "In prison! Oh! What
_did_ you do?"
"I was in prison for my political opinions, not for theft or anything
of that kind."
She seemed to ponder this. "I didn't know they could put people in
prison for their political opinions. I thought they passed an
Act--the Mother Superior taught us that in England everybody was
free."
The young man's eyes darkened. "We won't talk about it," he said
shortly. "I have confessed to you the sort I am. Are you sorry you
did not leave me to starve?"
She still sat considering him gravely. Her eyes were very dark blue,
and the intensity of their gaze was embarrassing. "Are you sorry now
for having done the thing they put you in prison for?" she asked at
last.
He gave a brief, scoffing laugh. "Well, if you must know, I am," he
said. "I was young, and a fool, and I got carried away. I am still
a red-hot socialist, but I don't believe in dynamite as I used to do.
I find the belief has not a pretty effect upon men's characters."
The admission was a visible relief to his companion. "I am glad,"
she said.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, suddenly leaning forward. "Is the
pain getting at all less?"
"Yes," she returned, "it is less. It hurts a great deal, but I am
beginning to feel as if I might be only badly bruised. I did not
fall far, and I broke my fall with my arms, somehow." She showed two
livid bruises, caked with dried blood, under her sleeves.
"Before we leave here," said Felix, "I wish you would try to tell me
a little more. I mean," he broke off in great embarrassment,
"perhaps you are not going to tell me anything, nor to trust me.
There is nobody in the world who either likes or trusts me, and if
you don't either, I shall not be surprised. But if you feel that you
could trust me, I would like to help you if I can."
"I don't see how you are to help me," she replied in a hopeless kind
of way. "My uncle brought me to London. At least, he says he is my
uncle. I have been brought up at a convent school in the north of
England. I never saw or heard from any relative until a month ago.
I was always there, terms and holidays too, except once or twice when
a girl asked me to her home for a few days. You see, I am as lonely
as you!"
"Yes," said Felix, "I have a step-brother, but he hates me."
"Well," continued Rona, "about a month ago the Mother Superior told
me my uncle had written to say he was coming to fetch me away. He
wanted to see me, to judge what I was best fitted for, as I should
have to earn my own living. I was rather pleased, for I had always
been so lonely. You don't know what it is like to live in a school
where letters come, and presents, and parcels, for everybody but you;
and visitors and holidays for everybody but you. I had not even
known that I had an uncle. But the Mother Superior said it was all
right; the letter came from the firm of solicitors who had always
paid my school bills. So he came, and I was sent for, and the very
first moment I saw him I knew he was all wrong. I knew I should hate
him. I could see the Reverend Mother was miserable too. She did not
like to let him take me away. But of course she had to. She could
not prevent it."
She broke off, as at some recollection which turned her sick. She
shuddered.
Felix had had a bowl of porridge and an egg. He was now able to give
her his undivided attention.
"Till he came," slowly said Rona, fixing her eyes, heavy with unshed
tears, upon the tablecloth, "I had never spoken to a man, except
Father Lawson. But I had an idea that men were young, and handsome,
and good, and that it was their mission to care for women and protect
them." Suddenly she laughed harshly, pushing her cup from her,
leaning her elbows on the table and hiding her face. "I know better
now," she said in an undertone. "I know better now! They are
creatures that sell girls, body and soul, for money. They only care
for money and what it will get. My uncle said he was going to train
me for the stage. He heard me sing, and said I should have my voice
trained, and be taught to dance.... He has taken me every day to a
place where they handle girls as if they were apes or pet dogs. I
have been made to put on horrible clothes--to dance with hardly any
clothes on at all, while men stood and made remarks about the way I
was made. Other girls," she said, looking up in a pitiful
wonder--"there were others who didn't seem to mind--others who
laughed at me for minding. But, you see, I have been taught to say
my prayers, and to shrink from all immodesty. Oh, if you could know
what I have undergone!"
Felix growled. He clenched his hands and cursed his own physical
weakness. "Well," he said--"well, what then?"
"A few days ago a man came to the dancing school who offered to buy
me from my uncle. He was a man with an oily face and black curls,
and had a grin like the demons that are carrying off the lost souls
in the altarpiece at the Convent. He hung about all day watching me,
and in the evening he said to uncle that he could train me, but he
should want to take me over entirely. My uncle was in a savage mood,
for he and I had battles every evening. I said I would earn my
living in any honest way he liked. I would sit in a workroom ten
hours a day, I would scrub or do anything he told me; but he said
there was no money in such work, and I had got to make money for him.
I think he was beginning to find out that he could not manage me, and
was afraid I should run away. So--though at first he refused the
man's offer, and said he knew a good thing when he saw it, and that
in twelve months I should be setting London ablaze--still, after a
bit, they came to terms. He was to pay my uncle a sum down,
undertake the whole care of me, and my training, and he bound himself
to pay some percentage on my earnings to my uncle when I came out.
If you will believe it, all the other girls seemed to think I was
fortunate. But I made up my mind that I would run away. However, my
uncle suspected that, so when we got home he gave me a thrashing, and
locked me in with bread and water, and said I should stay there until
I had come to my senses. He had not beaten me before that, and it
turned me into a tiger. I held out for five days--think of it--five
days in that room, staring down on those trains, all alone, nothing
to do, nothing to read, hardly anything to eat! And I was getting
weak--so weak that I began to be afraid I should give in. I felt
that if my uncle were to come in with a cane in his hand I should be
too sick with fear to resist. So I said my prayers, and decided the
only thing I could do was to kill myself. I knew that if I got into
the power of the man with the black curls I should be--lost--and it
was better to die. So I jumped--that's all. Oh, do let us go out!
I am so nervous, I fancy every moment they may walk in--my uncle and
he."
"From what you tell me," said Felix, "they are most unlikely to come
here. They would go to a bar, not a cocoa-house."
"I suppose so," she said, faintly, her face livid, either with pain
or fear.
Felix folded his arms, leant back, and thought profoundly. "I should
think," he said, "the best thing--the only thing--would be for me to
take you back to the Convent, would it not?"
She considered this, her wide gaze once more intent upon his face.
"But he might go there and ask for me, and what could the Mother say?"
"She could not keep you there, of course, because you could not pay
her. But she would find you some honest way to earn your living."
She nodded. "I believe she would--and not tell him that I had come
to her. Yes!"--laying her two hands upon the table before her she
looked him bravely in the eyes. "I will go with you," she said.
They paid their reckoning, rose with difficulty, for both were stiff,
and reluctantly left the warmth of the fire and crept out into the
street. Dusk had fallen, and the air was thick, but not what
Londoners would call a fog. As they came out of the door an omnibus
stopped close to the curb, and two men descended.
One was middle-aged, heavily built, fleshy, and well dressed; he
looked like the proprietor of a low-class music-hall. The other was
lean, shabby, wolf-like--a debased type: a man who had evidently sunk
in the social scale.
Felix felt upon his arm the grip of a desperate thing.
"Run--run--never mind if we are killed, run," she uttered, gaspingly.
"It's they--it's they!"
CHAPTER III
A REFUGE OF STRAW
A blur
Of gilded mist--'twas morn's first hour--
Made vague the world: and in the gleam
Shivered the half-awakened stream.
Through tinted vapors looming large,
Ambiguous shapes obscurely rode.
She gazed where many a laden barge
Like some dim-moving saurian showed.
--WILLIAM WATSON.
In after days, whenever he was sleeping badly, or felt ill or
feverish, Felix was able to recapture the exact feeling of that
moment when he stood, with the defenseless girl, in the glare of the
gas on the London pavement, and saw the two pursuers close to them,
almost within arm's length. He knew that if the girl was recognized
the sympathy of the crowd would be on the side of her uncle, and
against the disreputable youth with whom she had run away. And he
saw, too, that if she tried to run, recognition was almost inevitable.
Inspiration came with extremity. It flashed upon him that if they
stood quite still they might escape notice. The girl's dark blue
serge frock and coat were of the kind one sees everywhere. Her back
was not distinctive. Her companion was an utter stranger. The
street was the last place in which her uncle would expect to see her.
In a moment Felix knew what to do. Snatching off his cap, he pushed
it firmly down over her bare head, hissing in her ear as he did so,
"Stand still--turn your back--look in at the window--hold your
handkerchief to your face."
It is long in the telling, but it occupied an instant. By the time
the two heavy men had gained the pavement the huddled girl, with
stooping shoulders, was staring at the pies.
He of the oily face and black locks was looking at his watch in the
light of the lamps, not three feet from where Felix stood at bay.
Two or more gem rings flashed on his fat hand.
"Half-past six," he said, in the thick, smooth tones of the German
Jew. "How far have we to go?"
"Two minutes' walk," replied his companion.
"We arrange then--I go in first," said the Jew, "and I soothe the
child, and take her out to dine at the Tuscany. You do not appear.
You comprehend? You do not appear?"
"All right, all right," said the other man, testily. "That's all
arranged. You take her to dine in a private room----"
They moved off together. The last words audible from the Jew were,
"A bottle of champagne--after starving all these hours----"
It was true. They were gone. They had stood within a few feet of
their prey, and had not seen her. How should they expect to see her
in that place, and with that companion? The promptness of Felix,
joined to her instantaneous, convent-bred obedience, had saved them.
It seemed to him, and to her, hours that they stood so, hand gripped
in hand, he facing towards the street and she towards the shop
window, when he said, his voice tumbling over a sob, "They have
turned the corner."
She moved slightly towards him--tottered on her feet. He took her by
the shoulders, not roughly, but with sternness. "Look here," he
said, under his breath, "you can't faint--there isn't time. You have
got to pull yourself together and walk--do you hear?"
She nodded blindly, still clinging to his hand, and he dragged her
across the road, dived into a dark side street, and moved along, as
fast as he could induce her wavering feet to follow, for half a mile
or more. By that time she was sobbing aloud in her pain and
distress, and, fearful lest passers-by should think he was
ill-treating her, and interfere, he stopped and sat down upon a
doorstep, drawing her to rest her poor battered body against him.
"I can only give you just time to draw your breath," he said. "I
must get you into some hiding-place. We are not going to be taken
now."
"Oh, no! No!" She clutched him in terror.
"By this time they have found out that you are gone," he said, "and
they will be racking their brains to think how. They will find the
door locked. They will find the window leading into my room bolted
on the inside. They will think that you have fallen upon the lines,
and been found--the first thing they are dead certain to do is to go
to the railway station to make inquiries. That gives us a bit of a
start. If nobody saw us go away together, they will be very hard up
for a clew. I left my letters on the table, and I poured away the
laudanum out of the mug. They will be fairly puzzled to know what
has happened."
She had recovered her breath, and she asked tremulously, "What are
you going to do?"
"The only thing I can think of is to take you to a friend of mine,
who is at times in charge of the hay wharf at the canal basin at
Limehouse. If he is there he will let us sleep in the hay, and
to-morrow I must turn to and earn a few coppers. Have you any change
left out of your shilling?"
"Three-halfpence."
"That will do us. We will have two halfpenny 'bus rides down this
road, close by, and, after that, it is only five minutes' walk to the
wharf."
"And what if your friend is not there?"
"We must try and hide somewhere," he replied. "But let us hope for
the best."
"I will pray that he may be there," said Rona, with simplicity.
When they emerged from the omnibus, at the end of their ride, one
halfpenny represented the joint capital of the firm.
The wharf was dark and muddy, the black water of the basin reflecting
the light of rather few lamps. But there was a warm, pleasant odor
of dry hay permeating the listless atmosphere like a suggestion of
sunny meadows. Felix felt in his heart that what he ought to do was
to take his helpless companion to a hospital. Yet somehow the
conviction was in him that, were he bereft of her, the old temptation
to suicide would return with full force the moment he grew hungry
again.
He had had enough of it--enough of seeing the look of suspicion on
the faces of those to whom he applied for help. Here was one pair of
eyes which spoke trust, one innocent creature, who clung to him as
her sole refuge. He could not deny himself the new, strange solace.
Leaving Rona seated upon a trolley, he groped his way along the
stumpy jetty to where the light in the night watchman's cabin gleamed
across the dark, lapping wavelets.
A man in a blue jersey was seated, smoking a pipe, on a capstan, his
ugly face in shadow.
"What ho, Comrade Dawkes!" said Felix, in a low tone.
The man started. "You!" he said, in tones of astonishment. He
turned round so as to see Felix fully. Then, rising with the
difficult movement of one whose joints are crippled with rheumatics,
took the young man by the sleeve and drew him a little forward, to
bring his face into the light of his lamp.
"'Tis yourself," he said at last; "who would have thought it? Where
have you been since they let you loose?"
Felix gave a short laugh. "I'm still on ticket-of-leave, mate," he
said; "and if the police know I am in communication with any of the
old lot, I score a black mark. But who cares? I'm desperate."
The night-watchman again seated himself upon his capstan. He puffed
once or twice at his pipe before he replied. "Oh, you're desperate,
are you? That's how we like 'em. Always got a job on hand for
desp'rate men, we have."
"I'm not taking any to-night, old man," said Felix. "I'm saving a
girl."
This was so surprising that Dawkes turned round so as to face him
completely, and took his pipe out of his mouth.
"Saving a girl, are yer? What d'yer mean by that? Got religion?
Ministers been at yer?"
"No. But a girl dropped into my arms out of nowhere--a girl fleeing
from the black wolves they call men in this city--a girl who had been
trapped--a good girl, Dawkes. I've got this thing to do--just to put
her somewhere, where she'll be safe."
Dawkes gazed upon him with small blear eyes, deliberately.
"Good-lookin', I suppose?" he remarked at length.
"Well, no, that's the odd part of it to me," said Felix. "She says
that two men wanted her to train for the stage, singing and dancing.
But she's not a bit pretty--just a kiddie, all legs and arms, with
the most sorrowful eyes--like a lost dog."
Dawkes shrugged his shoulders, and turned away as if from a hopeless
idiot. "What d'you want to do with her?" he asked.
"She's been hurt--pretty badly," said Felix, timidly. "I want you to
let her spend the night here in the hay."
"Where is she?"
"Close by here."
"Bring her along, so's I can 'ave a squint at her."
Felix obeyed. A fire blazed in the night-watchman's cabin, and by
his instructions he seated Rona on a chair in front of it. She was
scared and nervous, hardly able to control herself, what with bodily
pain and mental apprehension.
"You tyke my tip," said Comrade Dawkes, after a prolonged scrutiny.
"Tyke and get shut of 'er to-night, and now. Send her to the
orsepital, they'll look after 'er there. Go an' saddle yourself with
a girl, there'll never be no end to it."
Rona did not speak, but her "lost dog" eyes besought Felix.
"If she's no better in the morning, I must," he said, reluctantly.
"But, you see, if she goes to the hospital, ten to one those ruffians
will find her; and he's her uncle--they would have to let him take
her away. There's nobody but me to speak for her, and nobody will
believe me on oath in a police-court. The end of it would be my
being jugged again, for abduction, and she handed over to ruin."
Dawkes nodded slowly. He saw the desperate nature of their plight.
Once caught, they would have no chance at all.
"If that's the way of it, and you go to be off, my advice to you both
is--be off, and look sharp about it," said he. "Don't hang around
here all night."
Felix made a gesture of despair. "But she can't travel, and we have
no money," he said, resentfully. "We'd better chuck ourselves in
there, and have done with it."
"She can travel," said Dawkes.
"How, then?"
"In a canal boat."
They regarded him earnestly.
"Anywhere you thought of making for?" he asked.
Felix told him of the Convent School in the North Riding.
"First place they'll look for her," said Dawkes, reflectively. "Get
there slow, is my advice. It'll do you no 'arm if you go a bit
roundabout, what I can see of it. My son-in-law is starting to-night
for Basingstoke. His boy's took and got pneumony. If you drove the
boss," he said to Felix, "I expect he'd pay yer syme as he paid 'im.
And you'd get to Basingstoke with a few shillin's in yer
pocket--which would be all to the good, seemin'ly."
For the first time a glimmer of hope lit up the heart of Felix. The
suggestion was eminently practical. Unless some quite unlooked-for
clew were given nobody would think of searching for them in a canal
barge.
"Think he'd take me on, Comrade? I'm a green hand," he said, "but I
can manage horses all right. I'm used to them."
"Looks as if we might fix you up, then," returned the man,
unemotionally. He stepped, with some difficulty, to the hob, removed
a tea-pot, and, turning to a shelf, poured out a cup of tea, mixed in
a spoonful of condensed milk from a tin near, and handed it to the
girl. "Stop a bit," he said, withdrawing the cup as at a sudden
thought. He went to a tiny corner cupboard, took out a square black
bottle, and poured something into the cup. "Drink that up, it'll put
heart into yer," he said. Then, to Felix, "When she's 'ad all she
wants, you take a ditto, and never mind emptying the pot; I can make
some more."
With this he disappeared, and they heard him stumping along the
jetty. The cognac was really good, and the hot drink pulled the
young man together. Rona and he sat by the fire side by side, gazing
at the red coals, with a drowsiness born of fatigue and excitement.
Felix had an illusion of being separated from the world which was to
him so detestable a spot, and placed in a new setting, in a universe
where there was clearly a post for him, and a work which he alone
could do. He looked, in a fervor of compassion, at the figure of the
waif beside him. Rona was gripping the arms of the hard wooden chair
upon which she sat to hold herself upright. Her breath came broken
and uneven; there was a glaze of perspiration upon her pale forehead,
where little locks of bronze hair lay damp. He could see that she
was wretchedly uncomfortable, and that she was too dazed with misery
to see how her discomfort could be lessened. Every minute or so the
lids half-sunk over her filming eyes, the pupils turned up, as if
sleep were overcoming her. Then her limbs relaxed a little, and the
torture startled her awake once more. When he had watched this for
some minutes, he saw that she would be easier lying down. But the
floor was impossible. He glanced down at the mud and expectoration
which defiled it, and then at the fragile girl, who was daintily
clean, except for the dust and mire of her breathless escape.
The young man rose, placed his arms under her, and lifted her upon
his knees. He laid her head against the shabby coat, which, with a
shirt, was all that protected him from the March wind, and rested her
feet upon the chair in which she had been sitting. She moaned a
little as he lifted her; but evidently the relief of the change of
position was immediate. She seemed to breathe more easily, and after
a moment she raised her eyes to his with a gratitude which he found
very moving. As he cradled her there, before the cinder fire, in
that strange refuge, he vowed himself to her service, as one of
Arthur's knights may have vowed life and loyalty to the lady for whom
he fought.
There was satisfaction in seeing the blue-veined lids once more
descend, as unconsciousness enfolded the suffering girl.
The long minutes ticked on, and now and then a shouting, or sudden
noise out of the night, set his nerves a-quiver. But nothing
happened. More than an hour went by, and still he sat so, almost
past caring what might next befall them. That Rona should continue
to sleep, with her head upon his shoulder, seemed the one important
thing.
The footfall of Comrade Dawkes returning, and the flood of cold air
which accompanied his entrance, brought back the necessity for action
with a pang.
"Come along, and look slippy," he said.
Rona was so stiff that Felix could hardly lift her, and he had almost
to carry her along to where there loomed out of the darkness the dim
bulk of a barge, lying low in the water, with her cargo of
tarpaulin-covered hay.
Dawkes had arranged with his son-in-law, an unamiable-looking person
with a wall eye, to take Felix on in place of the boy left behind
with "pneumony," and to pay him the princely sum of seven shillings
for the trip, which he expected would last four days, and during
which he undertook to feed both Felix and the girl. The
night-watchman had, moreover, bestowed upon the eloping pair a truss
of hay, such as formed his perquisite from the barges mooring at the
wharf, and which he usually disposed of to carters and van-owners of
his acquaintance. This truss he had opened, and disposed so as to
make a comfortable couch for Rona, with a tarpaulin canopy, stretched
upon a hurdle, cunningly inserted between the tightly piled trusses
of the cargo.
It was an ingeniously planned bed; and though the son-in-law, who was
very deaf, in addition to the imperfection of his vision, seemed to
dislike the notion of his female passenger, Felix felt that it was
all far better arranged than he could have hoped for. His sole
discomfort lay in the notion that, to secure this freedom, he had
been obliged to put himself under obligations to a "Comrade"--one of
the old lawless gang--and one never quite knew what form payment to
the Brotherhood might have to take. However, so far, all was clear
gain. He wrung the hand of the night-watchman and stepped aboard,
while with shouts and oaths the barge got itself attached to the tail
of another, which was tied to a third, which depended upon a dirty,
noisy, squat steam-tug, the owner of which poured forth his language
in a torrent which could hardly be equaled, one would think, even in
California.
They were to be towed, it appeared, as far as the beginning of the
Wey navigation, so Felix's stable duties would not yet begin. The
son-in-law, whose name was Doggett, took the tiller during the
critical night hours. Felix went to see how fared his charge. The
hay was clean, warm, and fragrant, and she, worn out with misery,
relieved at their escape, bemused by her first taste of stimulant,
sank off to sleep in a few minutes, and left the young man free to go
aft, and take lessons in steering a barge, which is an art not to be
acquired in five minutes, even by one who has stroked his College
eight.
The waters of the dirty river, slapped and churned by the passage of
the tug, bumped and billowed in light and darkness. The yellow,
sickly lights of the shore mingled with the riding lights of the
craft around, until the young man's brain reeled. The night was
cold, and he was dog tired. His head sank from time to time on his
chest. At last Doggett seized him by the arm and shook him.
"Go, sleep it out," he bawled, as if Felix, like himself, was hard of
hearing. "I'll call yer when I want yer."
Dizzily the would-be suicide stumbled into the little dingy cabin,
found the thing that purported to be a bed, and in half a minute was
sound asleep, deaf even to the torrent of language which the
appearance of the tug and her barges seemed to provoke all along the
great watery highway.
CHAPTER IV
UP RIVER
Bordered by cities, and hoarse
With a thousand cries, is its stream.
And we on its breast, our minds
Are confused as the cries which we hear,
Changing and shot as the sights that we see.
--MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The dawn was misty gray and the cold piercing when Doggett awoke his
second-in-command. The barge flotilla was just passing under
Hammersmith Bridge.
Felix, dazed with sleep, arose, and, as directed, lit a paraffin
stove, boiled a kettle, and made tea. Then he frizzled bacon in a
frying-pan, an accomplishment which was by no means new to him. He
took his own breakfast, a few hurried mouthfuls, and then, carrying
his mug and plate, went to relieve his master at the tiller.
As he passed, he stooped to where Rona slept, motionless in her nest
of hay. She was lying quite still, her lashes, with a bronze luster
on their blackness, penciled sharply upon her cheek, flushed with
warm slumber. The rosy tint made the face appear far more pleasing
than it had seemed last night. She panted now and then, as if it
hurt her to draw breath. But, as far as he could tell, she was not
feverish.
He went on to his post, wrapped himself up in old sacks, and set
himself with determination to his work. The steersman of the barge
immediately in front hailed him, and wanted to know, in a
particularly rich vernacular, whether he were going to pursue the Old
Man's policy of steering in the one exact way most calculated to
annoy the man ahead. Felix had been in queer places, and though
bargees were not among his experiences, convicts, it was to be
presumed, ran them pretty close in the way of language. His reply
was of the right kind, and given in the right tone. When Doggett,
munching his bacon, heard it, he gave a hoarse, inward chuckle, and
decided that his new "boy" was not such a green hand after all.
Having finished his breakfast, the Old Man turned in; and from that
time until ten o'clock, when he had been bidden to call him, Felix
sat guiding the heavy, sulky barge upstream. The mist cleared away
little by little, the sun came up, and the day broke out clear and
gay, though very cold. Just as he came off his watch, Rona awoke and
called him. He hurried to her side, knelt down, and took the warm
little hand thrust out to him.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
They looked at each other with curiosity. Felix was not an engaging
object, with the lower half of his gaunt face shrouded in stubbly
black beard. He had discarded his collar and tie, and Comrade Dawkes
had lent him a very dirty blue jersey. The girl had the soiled,
rumpled aspect of one who has slept in her clothes. Her hair was
rough and tumbling down, and full of bits of hay. There were purple
marks under her eyes, and her lids were red with the unavailing tears
of many days.
The friendliness of the young man's heart was curiously unmixed with
any feeling of sex attraction. Sex only entered into the question in
so far that he was more sorry for Rona than he would have been for a
boy in her case, on account of her greater helplessness.
"I feel very queer," said Rona, shyly, "and terribly stiff."
"I daren't let you get up and move about yet," he returned. "It is
so cold, the wind cuts like a knife. I'll go and make you some hot
tea. Could you eat some bacon?"
She said "No" to that, with an expression of loathing. He went to
the cabin, and with infinite labor managed to make a bit of toast,
which he took to her, fervently hoping that it did not taste of
paraffin. She earnestly asserted that it did not, but could not eat
it nevertheless. She drank the tea, however, and declared herself
refreshed. But Felix could see that she felt very ill. He could not
stay long with her, for he had to wash up, make the so-called bed,
put the cabin tidy, etc.; all the time parrying with difficulty the
intense interest and pointed questions of the steersman of the barge
ahead.
When he next went to her, she wished to know where they were going.
He told her Basingstoke, and that from thence they would have to
tramp to Sempleton, where the Convent was situated. She was glad she
had not to walk that day. She was sure she should be better
to-morrow, if she lay quite still. She was warm, and not very
uncomfortable.
They reached Teddington Lock at midday, and below it they waited
forty-five minutes by Mr. Doggett's watch; which delay provoked a
cataract of comment which left the listener stunned. At this place
Felix bought a paper, which, to his relief, said nothing of any
abduction or elopement, nor made any comment upon the disappearance
of two such obscure persons as themselves. He cheered Rona with this
news. Here he also persuaded the lock-keeper's wife to sell him a
fresh egg for the sum of one halfpenny, since "his sister" was ill,
and found herself quite unable to eat the pork chops which were, with
fried greens, to form the midday repast of himself and Mr. Doggett.
His cooking gave his new master great satisfaction. Mr. Doggett
consumed his succulent repast in full view of the envious crew of the
_George Barnes_, who had some cold meat of the least appetizing
description, and to whom the savory odor from the cabin of the _Sarah
Dawkes_ was a provocation hard to be endured.
The lock-keeper's wife, charmed by Felix's persuasive tongue, herself
toasted bread for Rona, who, stimulated by the fresh air and the rest
cure she was undergoing, managed to eat both egg and toast, to the
relief and triumph of the young man, whose only interest in life she
had suddenly become.
He developed powers of ready invention, coupled with artistic
restraint, in informing the crew of the _George Barnes_, in answer to
their vast and avid desire for personal information, how his sister
had worked in a pickle factory, and how the air was so bad that she
had been attacked with anæmia, and how the doctors recommended a trip
up the canal as the finest cure for this same dread complaint. The
man had never heard of anæmia, and treated it with the awe-struck
respect entertained by the scolding lady of Theodore Hook's story,
for a parallelogram.
The process of getting the barges out of the lock was one which
threatened to last forever. It was done at last, however, and they
proceeded up the river reaches, passing slowly below the long red
wall of Hampton Court. Mr. Doggett, his good dinner eaten, and his
pipe in his mouth, was quite content to sit at the tiller all day.
In fact, he never believed that anybody but himself could induce the
_Sarah Dawkes_ to take the right course--an opinion which was not
confined to his barge, but extended to the lady who was his wife, and
in whose honor the craft was named.
His devotion to duty left Felix free, after washing up the dinner
things, to try the effect of walking Rona up and down the deck. This
was, however, so painful to her, that he was obliged to desist. The
idea was growing in him that there was, as he at first feared,
internal mischief. What were they to do?
Mr. Doggett presently confided to him his intention to part from the
tug at Sunbury, and remain there that night, going on thence with a
horse. A few more questions extracted a piece of information which
was somewhat agitating to the young man. In his eagerness for flight
the previous day he had jumped at the idea of going to Basingstoke,
without having any clear notion of the waterway which would lead them
thither. Now he ascertained that, at Weybridge, they would follow
the Wey Navigation to the point where the Guildford and Basingstoke
Canal flowed in--and afterwards, the sinuous curve of the quiet water
would lead them within sight of the very uplands where Normansgrave
stood among its pinewoods.
His heart leaped up at the idea of passing so near to his old home.
His brow crimsoned with shame to think how any one of the villagers
who in old days had petted him, would now pass him on the towing-path
without recognition.
He plunged deeply into thought, into unavailing bitterness of heart
towards his sorely tried half-brother. But in his thought was a new
element. For the first time he began to see that Denzil might have
some right on his side--that it was conceivable that their father's
son might legitimately object to the use he had made of their
father's name.
He was glad he had not told Rona who he was. The old name at least
was not associated in her mind with the notion of a suicide and a
convict.
He longed for, yet dreaded, the moment when they should reach the
spot to which the poor heart that thought itself weaned from all ties
now discovered that it clung with passionate desire.
It was dark by the time they were moored at Sunbury. Mr. Doggett
went ashore to pass the evening with a few kindred spirits at the
Waterman's Rest. As he would probably return to seek his couch in
the cabin later on in the night hours, Felix made himself a
shake-down with hay not far from where Rona lay, with the benevolent
design of hearing her, should she call during the night.
But he slept like a log. The strain of body and mind through which
he had passed was relaxed to the extent of permitting him to yield to
an overmastering fatigue. There were clouds ahead. He still
apprehended the necessity of depositing Rona in some hospital or
infirmary. Every mile traversed by the barge was taking them farther
from the north of England, and would increase the length, and
consequently the expense, of their journey thither. Moreover, he was
on ticket-of-leave for another fortnight, and he did not quite know
what the police would make of his deserted room, his letter to his
brother, and the empty mug. But, in spite of these things--in spite
of the knowledge that his present route was slow and winding, and
that pursuit might catch up at any moment--still, the fresh air and
the food and the relaxation of tension had had their effect, and he
slept ten hours without a break, and would have slept longer but for
the ungentle touch of the Old Man's boot against his sparsely-clad
ribs.
All that day he was tramping along the tow-path. They nearly went
aground at the shallow just opposite Halliford, but, fortunately for
the Old Man's state of mind, not more than a good shove with the pole
would counteract.
Up to Weybridge, past Shepperton and the Island, and on to the narrow
black mouth of the Wey between the old gaping lock gates into the
deep jaws of the newer one. After that, they were in the region of
locks which they had to work themselves, and progress was very slow.
Felix had hardly a moment in which to think of Rona, though he felt
that she was growing worse instead of better. He had never been so
tired in his life as he was when they moored near a small village
called Dunhythe, where the night was to be spent.
Doggett had an errand for him. He was to go up to the village, which
lay half a mile from the little hythe or wharf, and get the
blacksmith to re-fix the iron point of the long pole, damaged at
Halliford. Before starting on his errand he went to look at the
girl, who had been unable to eat or drink anything but water at
dinner-time. She was now delirious. To his horror, she did not know
him. Her face was bright red, and her eyes preternaturally bright.
Felix determined that he must call in a doctor, if he could persuade
one to come without a fee. He said nothing of his intention to the
Old Man, but set out for the village as fast as he could go, with the
long pole over his shoulder.
Having deposited his burden with the blacksmith, and promised to call
for it, he asked the way to the doctor's house, and found himself
obliged to run nearly a mile. A smart motor was at the door when he
arrived, and the maid said the doctor was seeing a patient, but would
speak to him when disengaged. The minutes seemed hours to Felix as
he sat in the hall, filled with a vast and overwhelming depression.
It was of no use to struggle against his destiny. Rona, the sole
thing for which he was making this last stand, was going to die.
The door opened, the doctor came out, and advanced across the hall,
accompanied by an elderly lady with a plain, humorous face, and a
natural charm of manner.
"Well," she said, "that is reassuring, doctor. But mind, nothing is
to be spared. Let the poor fellow have port wine or tonic, or
anything he ought to have, and send in the bills to me."
"You are splendid!" was the reply, in a tone of deep feeling. "What
would happen without you, I wonder? Hullo, my good man, what can I
do for you?"
He spoke to Felix, who could not immediately reply. He was seized
with a fit of trembling, and grew white. He had seen the lady from
time to time in his boyish days. She was only sister to his father's
first wife--her name was Miss Rawson. She lived at Normansgrave, and
kept house for Denzil Vanston.
CHAPTER V
SEPARATION
I loved and love you--here is simple speech;
I loved and love you, who are out of reach.
--WILLIAM WATSON.
For a minute or two the possibility that Denzil's aunt might
recognize him rose up and flooded out everything else in the mind of
Felix. That would be the culminating point of shame. Yet, as he
thought it over, he felt nearly certain that she could not. She had
not seen him since he was a Rugby boy. He was changed out of all
knowledge, and he had never been considered like his father, so there
would be no family likeness to guide her. And then there was the
safeguard of his disreputable appearance.
Choking down his nervousness, and by a great effort avoiding looking
at Miss Rawson, he mumbled out, with as thick a Cockney accent as he
could assume, the fact that his sister was ill aboard a canal boat at
the wharf. She had had an accident cleaning "winders." She fell out
over the rail of a balcony. He faltered out his story, aware of very
formidable gaps in it, should he be called upon to substantiate it.
But if the doctor was to help the suffering child he must know what
had happened to her. The pickle-factory story and the anæmia were no
good here, though they had served the _George Barnes_. He added the
fact that they had no money.
Felix became aware that Miss Rawson was looking at him with her kind
face charged with pity. She laid her hand upon the arm of the doctor.
"Here is my motor," said she; "jump in. What do you say is the name
of the barge? The _Sarah Dawkes_? Yes, thank you, you will follow
on foot, will you not?"
He assented, relieved beyond measure to think of the approaching help
for Rona. The two got into the car, which whizzed out of sight in a
moment, and Felix stumbled back, limping in his worn-out boots, along
the mile to the village.
He had forgotten the windings of the river. He had not realized
that, though ten miles or more along the water to Normansgrave,
Dunhythe was only a very few miles by road.
He was all wrapped up in the thought of what he was to do. He could
not face Denzil--Denzil would know him in a moment. And if Miss
Rawson were to take an interest in the case, who knew but that Denzil
might at any moment appear?
He could not tell what feeling was uppermost, as at last he came in
sight of the wharf. A small crowd of natives was collected on the
landing-stage, the motor was still in waiting, and several people
seemed to be picking their way about the encumbered deck of the
_Sarah Dawkes_.
As he approached he made out the figure of the doctor, moving along
with a huge bundle in his arms, which at once he knew to be the
muffled form of Rona.
His girl! They were taking her away! A rebellion now tore at his
heart, as unlike as possible to that despair of lethargy which had
filled his soul before the coming of Rona into his life. In spite of
his sore feet he ran as hard as he could, crossed the bridge, and
came panting up, just as the doctor was carefully placing the sick
girl in the motor.
"What are you doing?" cried Felix, in a voice that did not belong to
a barge-boy.
It surprised the doctor, but, as it happened, Miss Rawson was out of
earshot. She had remained to offer Mr. Doggett half a sovereign for
his humane care of the invalid. "Lord love yer, I'd 'a done twice as
much if I'd 'a bin arst," said he, with a geniality few were
privileged to perceive in his usual manner. "Love the gal as if she
was me own I do, and 'er brother'll tell yer jest the syme if you was
to arst 'im."
The brother at the moment was standing there all a-quiver, his
extremely beautiful dark gray eyes appealing to the doctor in a
passion of protest.
"It's all right, my man, your sister will be nursed and taken care of
like a Princess," said Dr. Causton. "Miss Rawson runs a cottage
hospital at Aylfleet, and we are taking her there. I fear there is
internal inflammation. The bargee says you and he are going to
Basingstoke, and coming back by the same route. Well, she won't be
wanting to see you for some days to come, I'm afraid; and you can
stop on the way back and come up to find out how she is."
There was one master question at the back of Felix's mind, and he
asked it straight out, and with no hesitation, "Will she die?"
The doctor looked at him with a puzzled interest. But he had seen a
good deal in his London hospital days, and he knew that such a thing
as a deep fraternal devotion is not unknown, though certainly rare,
among the lowest classes. "No, I hope not," he said; "she has a fine
constitution, and I don't see why she should not pull through."
Felix turned to look at the girl, moaning and tossing in her
wrappings. She knew nobody, she had no need of him, she was going to
be taken care of--he must let her go. With a rush the conviction
came to him that he should never see her again. He had not wept for
years, but tears blinded him now. They overflowed his eyes, and, to
his fury, he had to lift his hand and dash them away.
Who was he, the acquaintance of a moment, to have any claim upon her?
Perhaps when she was rational again she would not remember that she
had ever seen him. He had read of such things in books. Miss Rawson
hurried up.
"There, poor fellow," said she, with deep pity, "how glad I am that I
just chanced to be down at the surgery when you called. It seems
providential for your poor little sister! We shall take such care of
her up at our sweet little hospital you won't know her when next you
see her. Let me see, Smith you say the name is?"
"Yes, miss. Rona Smith."
Her kind hand was outstretched. He suddenly became aware that there
was a coin in it. With a tremendous effort he resisted the impulse
to push it away, and accepted it thankfully. He would be able to buy
pen, ink, paper, stamp, and write a few lines for Rona to have when
she was no longer delirious--words telling her the story he had
fabricated, and coaching her in what she must say when she was
questioned.
"Thank you, miss," said he, meekly, adding, as he shut the carriage
door, "and Gawd bless yer," with as thick an accent as he could
assume. He had much more to say, but there was no time, the motor
was off in two twos, as a member of the interested throng around
remarked.
"Ah! she's a good 'un, is Miss Rawson," pronounced a woman who was
wiping her hands on a corner of her canvas apron. "A little bit of
all right she is, and no mistake. Not like that last 'un they had up
at Normansgrave, a painted Jezebel no better than a ----" She used a
foul word vigorously. "Seemed queer a man of old Vanston's sort
should 'a married such as her."
"And the son no better, seemin'ly," chimed in a man leaning on a
post. "I did 'ear 'e 'ad gone to the deuce as clean as a whistle;
but, Lord! I ain't one to believe all I 'ear."
"Not even your ears wouldn't be large enough down in these parts,"
said the woman, cheerfully, waddling into her cottage door.
Felix, who had overheard this conversation, mooned down to the
water's edge, his face set hard to prevent tears, and went aboard the
_Sarah Dawkes_.
"An' now she's gorn, glory be," observed Doggett gayly. "Now you an'
me can be comfortable, and if you come over to the Flower-pot with
me, I don't mind standin' yer a sorsidge an' mashed. 'A good deed,'
says the lydy, 'never goes without its reward, my man'; and I tell
yer stryte, I ain't sorry I took yer sister aboard, though at the
time it went all agin me."
Felix had no reply to make. He turned his back, and went along to
where the empty lair which had contained Rona lay upon the deck.
What should he do? Wait till the darkest hour of night and then drop
into the smooth black water?
No! She still lived; and, though it was not likely, it was still
possible that she might want him again.
CHAPTER VI
THE OUTCAST'S BROTHER
When the drunken comrade mutters and the great
guard-lantern gutters,
And the horror of our fall is written plain,
Every secret, self-revealing, on the aching, whitewashed ceiling,
Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?
--RUDYARD KIPLING.
The master of Normansgrave had come in from his golf, had been
upstairs, made the necessary change in his dress, and returned to the
hall, where he stood in the light of the fire, reading the
_Spectator_. He was a young man of medium height, medium complexion,
and medium looks. If it were added that his intellect also was of a
medium quality, it would describe him pretty accurately. He was
neither good nor bad, able nor foolish, handsome nor ugly. Just one
of those men whose bent is determined largely by circumstances.
Circumstances had made him master of a comfortable though not
extensive property. Circumstances had placed him always in strong
and virtuous opposition to a rowdy stepmother and an impossible
half-brother. Circumstances also made him one of the county
eligibles. And this, perhaps, was the unkindest trick that
Circumstance had played him.
The ruling motive of his conduct was a terrible fear of throwing
himself away. He did not put it like that. He would have said, to
anybody who might be interested, that, with the sad example of so
good a man as his father before him, and the risk of the old estates
descending to Felix, it behoved him to be peculiarly careful. But
the real truth was that he thought nobody good enough to be mistress
of himself and Normansgrave combined. He used to lament the
inadequacy of modern young ladies from time to time to Miss Rawson,
who gave her sympathy with a twinkle in her eye, and longed to see
the correct young man deeply in love with an unsuitable person.
In fact, she had lately begun to be of the opinion that it was high
time her nephew, who was now past thirty, ranged himself. That very
day, before going out in her motor, she had arranged a little
house-party, to include one or two nice girls, and determined to urge
Denzil to permit her to invite them forthwith.
But now the clock was moving perilously near the sacred dinner-hour;
and Miss Rawson was not in, said the correct butler, who was, like
his master, a study in mediocrity.
As he decorously swept a few ashes from the red tiles of the warm
hearth, the purring of the motor sounded without; and in a minute or
so Miss Rawson came in, a few flakes of snow powdering her furs.
"My dear boy, I am more than sorry. A case of sickness, and I used
the motor to take it to the Cottage Hospital----"
Denzil's eyes expressed horror--almost dismay.
"My dear Aunt Bee--was it infectious?"
"Infectious? Oh, no, it was an accident. Such a curious, mysterious
thing--such a wonderful, simply wonderful girl--I must tell you all
about it! I found her lying among some hay in a canal barge. Wait a
few minutes--I'll not keep you," and she went flying upstairs like a
young woman, calling her maid as she ran.
"You have quite stimulated my curiosity," said Denzil later, as he
helped her to soup. "A wonderful girl in a canal barge? Tell me all
about it."
"Smith is the name--not very romantic," said Miss Rawson between her
spoonfuls. "The brother rushed up for Dr. Causton, just as I was in
the surgery talking to him about old Lambert. He--the brother--was a
dirty young ruffian, but seemed in great distress, and said his
sister had fallen from a window while cleaning it, and that she had
injured herself, he feared, internally. They had, apparently, no
idea that the injury was so serious, and he thought if he took her
out into the country and the fresh air, and she rested, it would get
well. She had a horror, it seems, of going to a hospital; that would
have meant leaving her alone in London, as he had to go with the
barge. So I went on board with the doctor, and there she was lying
among the hay in a high fever--104 point two, Dr. Causton says--and
we saw she must be taken to the hospital, so off we rushed in the
motor. Then, when Sister Agnes undressed her, she told me the girl
was no common girl--her underclothes were beautiful, she was
carefully nurtured. She keeps on talking of a convent school, and
calling for the Reverend Mother. Sister Agnes and I believe that she
has run away, and probably got hurt in escaping from a window. Don't
you think that sounds probable?"
"Possible, certainly," said Denzil. "But what about the man?"
"Well, he looked a regular ruffian to me, but the doctor says some of
that was put on. He says once, when he was off his guard, he spoke
with a clear, educated accent."
"Why, you have got hold of a romance," said Denzil, with interest.
"Shall I go down to the wharf and have a look at him?"
"Oh, you won't find him! They go on to Basingstoke at once. But on
his return journey he will come to see if she is well enough to be
moved. You ought to go and look at her, Denzil, she is most
remarkable. She is not grown up yet, but she is going to be a lovely
woman--such hair--a dark, rich chestnut, not a bit red, but like
Romney's 'Lady Hamilton.' And dark blue eyes--what a novelist might
call violet, I should think--and very remarkable, expressive
features. When she is conscious and out of pain, she ought to be
worth looking at."
"Were they alone on the barge?" asked Denzil.
"Oh, no, the master was there too. He said the boy had worked for
him three years, and was a very good boy. Poor old man, he seemed
quite upset; he said he was as fond of the girl as if she had been
his own."
"Well, that doesn't seem to favor your escape theory."
"No, it doesn't," said she, thoughtfully; "but there is something odd
about them, I feel sure."
The subject was of such interest that they talked of it all
dinner-time. The Cottage Hospital was as much his hobby as it was
hers, and they were full of simple pleasure and self-congratulation
that its walls should have been waiting, in all their new and dainty
cleanliness, to shelter the pretty stranger girl in her extremity.
Miss Rawson promised her nephew that he should visit her as soon as
the doctor would permit--and then she resolutely changed the subject
to that of inviting a few people to stay.
Denzil was willing to consent. He usually went abroad for a month in
March and April, because he had an idea that persons of means and
culture were in the habit of visiting Italy and the South of Europe
at that time. But his chief friend, a parson of independent means,
upon whose art opinion he depended in great measure, would not be
able to accompany him that spring. So the invitations were to go
out, and Denzil dwelt with pleasure upon the prospect of once more
meeting Myrtle, daughter of Colonel Bentley, a nice-looking girl who
did district visiting and read Tennyson, a blend which seemed to
Denzil eminently suited to his notions of what might fitly become the
future mistress of Normansgrave.
It was the custom of the aunt and nephew to drink their coffee in the
hall, before going to the little drawing-room in which they passed
the evenings when alone. Aunt Bee sipped her coffee and looked at
the papers, while Denzil smoked one cigarette--at times two--and also
looked at the papers. In this way, if anybody happened to come to
the door during this quarter of an hour, they were in full view.
But, as a rule, nobody ever came to the front door between half-past
eight and nine. To-night was an exception. The bell rang. Chant,
the correct manservant, came with an expression of martyrdom from the
servants' hall, where he had just sat down to supper. He was heard
talking, somewhat eagerly they thought, to somebody in the porch; and
after a pause, in which the master of the house stood with his
coffee-cup raised and his attitude that of suspense, he came back
with a disturbed countenance and nervous manner.
"It's Mr. Gregory, sir, to see you."
"Gregory!" This was the village constable.
"Yes, sir, it's important, please, sir, I understood him to say."
Denzil turned swiftly to Miss Rawson. "Something about your
mysterious Lady of the Barge," he said, with a smile. "Tell Gregory
to step inside, please, Chant."
The constable entered, buttoned up tight in his uniform, which had
apparently been constructed when he was less stout. He made his bow,
and glanced diffidently at Miss Rawson.
"Well, Gregory, is your business with me very private?"
Gregory grew red. His message distressed him, for the Vanstons were
respected in the village. "It's about Mr. Felix, sir."
Denzil's heart turned over. He might have guessed. This was not the
first time the shadow of police-courts had overspread the home of his
ancestors. The bitterness of what he had been through--the memory of
his first hearing the news of his brother's arrest--his hurried
journey to London to retain counsel for the defense--the fiery and
insolent demeanor of the foolish young culprit--the horror of those
days in the close, stifling air of the Law Courts--and the final
humiliation of hearing Felix Vanston sentenced. All broke at once
upon the memory of the young man with a stroke like that of a whip
falling on bare flesh. He grasped the high mantel, felt a sickness
creep over him, sank into a chair, and looked stonily at his aunt.
"About Felix!" he said, hoarsely.
Aunt Bee laid aside her paper and turned to face poor Gregory, who
stood miserably toying with some folded papers.
"Dear, dear, Gregory," she said, nervously, "have you bad news for
us?"
"I'm afraid so, miss. Mr. Felix, since he came out on his
ticket-of-leave"--Denzil winced--"he's been trying to make a little
money by--by writing of books, sir, what I can make of it in the
account here." He adjusted his spectacles with what seemed like
maddening slowness to the two watching. "He's lodged, sir, in
Poplar, in Bow, in the Borough, and now at last in Deptford--No. 6,
Hawkins Row. He was there a matter of ten days, and on Monday last
he paid his rent. The woman thinks he pawned an overcoat and one or
two things to pay it. He also, sir--he also bought some laudanum."
"Denzil!" cried Miss Rawson, appealing. "I told you your last letter
was too hard!"
"Too hard!" Denzil turned eyes of dignified reproach upon his aunt.
"You say, _too hard_! After what he has called upon me to endure! I
have many things with which to reproach myself, but being hard upon
Felix is not one of them."
Gregory had been fumbling with his papers, and now at last succeeded
in extracting and bringing out the one he sought. "They have sent
down an officer from Scotland Yard, sir," he said, "but me knowing
the family, if I may venture to say so, I thought you would maybe be
better pleased if I came along myself with the noos, sir. There's no
such thing as breaking noos, sir, I know that. But a stroke comes
easier sometimes if brought by one that has the welfare of the family
at heart."
Denzil did not hear the tremulous speech. He had snatched the
letter--the terrible letter--which Felix had left upon the table in
his room. "Dear Pharisee."
The epithet thundered at him. He read the reckless, unjust words
over and over.
He read it once--twice--then he rose, held it out to Miss Rawson,
and, slowly turning, sank in his chair with his face hidden upon his
arms.
"Oh, heavens!" he cried aloud, "I have not--no, I have not deserved
this!"
It was a characteristic cry. What had he done, he the blameless, the
well-conducted; he who had endured at his stepmother's hand treatment
that might well have soured a sweeter nature than his own; he who
knew, concerning that same stepmother, things that might have wrecked
her chance of inheriting anything, had he told his father of them!
He had behaved, so it seemed to him, with a wonderful Christian
fortitude and forbearance. And this horrible suicide, this
outrageous indictment, was his reward.
The constable was speaking. "He seems to have burnt all his papers,
sir, in the grate first. The grate was full of burnt paper and the
hearth, too. The officer thinks he burnt the manuscript of a book,
sir. The empty bottles of laudanum, and the empty mug out of which
he drank it, sir, were on the table. There was not a morsel of food,
nor any clothes at all in the room, nor any luggage."
Vanston made an effort, and managed to say, "I told the police-court
missionary to look after him. I put money in his hands for him."
"He had not seen him, sir, for two months. He offered Mr. Felix
work, and he declined it."
There was a silence. Miss Rawson could not speak. She had read the
letter, and was inexpressibly shocked. Knowing what she did of
Felix, she had thought Denzil quite justified in declining to receive
him until he should have shown some signs of regretting the dishonor
he had brought upon the family.
Denzil sat staring straight before him into the fire. He remembered
what a pretty little chap Felix used to be, and that he had been glad
to have a small admiring brother to trot after him round the gardens
and imitate all he did, and take his word for law. A sharp pain
constricted his heart; he felt inclined to break down and weep like a
woman.
"What time--when--is the inquest?" he asked. "I must go to town at
once."
"This is the strange part of the story, sir," said Gregory. "The
inquest can't be held until they find the body."
Denzil had risen, and stood with his hand stretched out towards the
bell. He stared at the constable in a dazed fashion.
"Until they find the body?"
"Yes, sir. Mr. Felix was not there, in his room, when they searched
it."
Denzil still stared.
"What they think, sir, is that Mr. Felix, after drinking his dose,
went out and jumped into the river. Same as the young man did last
Tuesday was a month, at Norwich. Perhaps you read about it, sir.
Took the stuff, went out, and as soon as he got sleepy rolled into
the water. Laudanum don't always act, sir, not by itself. The water
makes sure."
Denzil raised his hand and looked at the letter. That left no doubt
at all as to the intentions of the writer. He meant to commit
suicide. His destruction of everything, the purchase of the little
bottles, which had taken a fortnight to collect, told of the extreme
deliberation of the plan. The fact that, so far, the body had not
been recovered did not seem to him to leave much hope. Gregory said
the London police had not much hope, either. He said nothing about
the disappearance of the girl from the room above, for the excellent
reason that the police knew nothing of it. To bring themselves into
prominence in the matter was no part of the programme of the two
worthies who were interested in Rona's future career. The landlady
of the house whence the disappearance took place was also only too
glad to hold her tongue. She and the two men both thought that the
girl's vanishing must be connected with that of young Vanston. But
as they dared ask no questions, they had no clew. As long as there
was no inquest the landlady could not be put into the witness-box,
and nothing could appear in the Press which would give to the
fugitives, should they be alive and together, the very least idea
that they were associated in the mind of anybody.
Levy, the scoundrel who had purchased Rona, argued that young Vanston
was a gentleman, and had relatives who would make an effort to find
him. Let them do this. If they found him, ten to one they found
her. Money and time would be saved to himself and Rankin Leigh.
They could remain in the background, and reap the benefit of anything
the police discovered.
As to what had actually happened they themselves were in a state of
uncertainty. The window of Felix's room had been found fastened on
the inside. Nobody had seen the two or either of them leave the
house. The door of the room wherein the girl had been confined was
locked. There were no traces of her having fallen out of the window,
though this must have been her way of escape. But had she thrown
herself out she must have been killed or seriously injured; and of
her having lowered herself by a rope or any other means there was no
trace. Their exhaustive inquiry into accident cases at adjacent
hospitals had led to nothing. A young man could not have carried off
a badly injured girl without attracting notice. Had she fallen upon
the railway lines her body would certainly have been found.
The morning papers all published the curious story of the
disappearance of a suicide. They printed in full the two
letters--that of Denzil to Felix; that of Felix to Denzil. The
evening papers even had leading articles arguing as to whether the
elder brother had or had not behaved with harshness to the younger.
No information was forthcoming as to where Felix had spent the last
few hours of his life. For the newspapers did not know, and the
police did not know, that all-important fact, which would have meant
so much to Denzil and his aunt, that there had been two suicides, and
not only one. And Comrade Dawkes was not one to court publicity.
If the crew of the _George Barnes_ had but known the story of the
girl who dropped out of the window! But they did not know it. So in
London the police searched, and Denzil advertised, and Levy and
Rankin Leigh waited for the upshot of it all. But nothing happened.
No body was discovered in the Thames; no young man under the
influence of laudanum was to be found in any police-station or
hospital.
The invitations for the house-party at Normansgrave were not
dispatched. The Squire retired in bitterness of spirit to his study,
where he sat up half the night, and departed to London next morning
by an early train.
And down in the cottage hospital at Aylfleet lay Veronica Leigh, for
two days delirious, for two or three days more weak and hardly
conscious; and then, again, for some days slowly gaining strength and
grip on life.
An interest in her recovery and in hearing reports of her progress
was the only thing which at that time could divert the mind of Denzil
Vanston from its continual preoccupation concerning his brother's
fate. Awful as suicide is, it yet almost seemed to him as if he
would rather be sure of the worst than continue in uncertainty. If
Felix were dead, he would have to alter his will. There were very
few Vanstons living, but there were two or three descendants of his
grandfather in a remote county. The dissatisfaction with which he
thought of them brought clearly home to him the fact that he must
marry. As soon as it should be decent, that house-party must be
collected. As soon as people had left off talking to him about his
brother's fate and the unkind publication of the two letters left
upon the table, he would turn his attention to his duties in
providing an heir to rule after him at Normansgrave. He would not
put on mourning, nor allow Miss Rawson to do so until he had some
proof that Felix was actually dead. But his restlessness and
depression grew from day to day; and at last, to distract him and
give his thoughts a new turn, Miss Rawson said to him:
"Drive me down to Aylfleet this afternoon, and we will look in upon
the little Smith girl. I want to know whether you agree with me as
to her being unusually fascinating. Dr. Causton does."
The motor was ordered, and they went off.
The spring was coming, and the trees beginning to tremble into leaf.
In the pretty red-gabled cottage hospital the windows were open, and
the sweet air flooded the place.
The walls of the room where Veronica lay were tinted like a
hedge-sparrow's egg. The coverlet of her narrow bed was scarlet, and
she wore a bed-jacket the collar of which was embroidered with briar
roses. Sister Agnes was so proud of her lovely hair that she had
brushed it all out and left it unfilleted, showering over the pillow.
In spite of an air of great fragility, there was a delicate bloom on
the oval face, and the eyes were preternaturally large and clear.
She was lying very still, as she mostly did, neither reading nor
speaking. Her eyes turned wistfully to the door every time it was
opened. The sight of Miss Rawson was a pleasure, evidently. Her
face lit up. But when she saw that a young man followed, there flew
into her thin cheeks a flag of pure rich color; she raised herself in
the bed, though with difficulty. Her lips parted in a smile of eager
welcome, she stretched out her hand.... Then it all died away. She
realized, with a stab of disappointment, that this was a stranger who
came. But how curious--she could have declared!
Now, why? This man was of a different height, complexion, and
manner. He did not even resemble the man whom she expected, whom she
wished to see. Why was it, how could it have happened, that when he
first appeared she actually mistook him for the other?
Her agitation and bewilderment made her prettier and shyer than Miss
Rawson had ever seen her.
Denzil, as he approached and looked down upon her, felt such an
access of emotion as never in all his staid existence had visited him
before. This was no barge girl, but a dainty lady, for whose high
birth he would have gladly vouched--no young servant injured in
cleaning windows, but a princess out of a fairy tale!
CHAPTER VII
THE FIRST LETTER
"I consecrated my life to you from the moment when I first saw you,
and I feel a certain pleasure in sacrificing it to you."--_Letters of
a Portuguese Nun._
In all his well-conducted life Denzil Vanston had never stood at the
bedside of a beautiful young girl. His staid imagination had not
foreshadowed anything like this maiden, with her double halo of
mystery and suffering. His brother Felix, younger, harder, and more
callous, had felt compassion for the child's feminine helplessness,
but no perception of her rare charm.
Denzil, who never thought about women as a rule, perceived it at
once. He perceived also the flickering, wistful look, the varying
color with which she marked his entrance. Misunderstanding it
altogether--for how could he tell that she had been conscious of that
elusive, subtle, indescribable thing which we call family
likeness?--he sat down by the bedside with everything that was honest
and natural about him thoroughly stirred. He took the invalid's hand
and held it in his own, as he said they felt glad to know that she
was making a good recovery. Even as he spoke he was conscious of
some awkwardness. His aunt, he felt, had made a mistake. This was
no charity case, to be visited by anybody who was humane enough to
take the trouble--this was a young gentlewoman, whose privacy should
be respected. He grew scarlet with the feeling that he ought not to
be there.
He asked if she were quite content at Aylfleet; if everything was
being done for her comfort that could be done. Did she want books,
work, games, a kitten?--there were some charming kittens in a basket
at Normansgrave.
On that the grave lips smiled, and revealed a row of small milky
teeth--teeth which Levy had believed to be unique in the profession
for which Rona had been destined. Yes, she would like a kitten. She
liked books, too. Yes, she liked to be read aloud to. They had
often had books read to them in the Convent School. She felt better;
they were very kind. There was only one thing--she wanted to see her
brother, David Smith.
Denzil explained. David had gone to Basingstoke with the barge.
They had told him she could not be moved for some days. Complete
rest was necessary for the complaint from which she suffered. No
doubt she would hear from him soon. Would she tell them how her
accident happened?
She said, quite simply and without embarrassment, that she did not
know how much David would wish her to say. Bursting with curiosity,
Denzil had to curb it and ask no more. His imagination had never
been so piqued. His heart was on fire when he took leave, having
promised to come the following day and bring an interesting book and
read aloud to her.
On the way home he could talk of nothing else but the mysterious
unknown.
His aunt agreed that it was ridiculous to suppose her a member of the
lower classes. There was a mystery somewhere. They would find out
when the young man appeared. In her inmost heart Miss Rawson was
highly amused. Who would have thought of the sober-minded Denzil
being thus suddenly moved out of his ordinary groove? She thought it
would do him no harm, and with twinkling eyes saw him depart next
morning with Shirley in his pocket and hurry down through the
grounds, the short way to Aylfleet.
Meanwhile, Rona had received a letter. It was written in a very
labored hand, more like printing than writing, and dated simply
Basingstoke. Thus it ran:
"Private.--Not to be shown to anybody.
"MY DEAR RONA,--I am tormenting myself with the idea that you might
think I had deserted you. Indeed, that is not so. The lady that
took you away did not ask my leave. And I knew it was the only hope
for you. The people about the wharf at Dunhythe say that Miss Rawson
is kind. So I hope they are being good to you.
"You were too ill for me to explain anything to you.
"I think about you simply all the time. I am ready to do anything
for you that a man can do, if they will just keep you at the hospital
till you are well enough to travel, and I have earned the money to
take you to S....
"I got work in a timber-yard here, directly. Old Doggett spoke for
me. Miss Rawson tipped him well, so he has been very civil ever
since. He said I was well known to him, and they took me on, and the
old bad story of my having been in jail didn't have to come up. I am
working like anything, and Old Doggett says in three weeks' time he
will bring me back to Dunhythe for nothing.
"Of course, these people who are looking after you will ask you
questions. I have been thinking out the best way for you to answer
them. There is all about me in the papers, but not about you. Your
brute of an uncle has thought best to keep it dark. So it looks as
if we had got clear off, but it does not do to be too sure. How much
do they know? Do they guess that we escaped together? Sometimes
they will lie low, to tempt one out into the open. Our not being
together just now is the best thing to draw them off the scent.
"I think our line is to tell as little as possible, because we can't
tell the truth.
"It is no use to pretend we belong to the lowest class, because
nobody could believe it of you. Say that we are orphans, brother and
sister, and that our guardian, who is our uncle, took you from school
and got you a place as nursery governess, but that I found you were
not kindly treated, and were expected to work like a servant, and
they made you clean windows and you turned dizzy and fell and hurt
yourself, and that we settled to bolt together, and we don't intend
to be caught, so we will say no more.
"Don't give the name of the uncle, nor the school, nor the place
where you were when you had your accident.
"I inclose paper and a stamped addressed envelope for you to write to
me. I am working for you only. When they took you away I felt like
throwing myself into the canal, but I did no such thing, because I
have you to take care of. Keep up hope, get well as fast as you can,
and I will find out a way to keep you safe. Mind you let me know if
these people will let you stay three weeks, because if not I must
arrange to come for you sooner. But another week would be best, as I
must get some decent clothes, and my wages aren't much.
"I do fervently trust you are better.
"Your affect. brother,
"DAVID SMITH.
"P.S.--_On no account_ ask to see the papers, nor say anything of my
being in them. You had better tear up this letter."
This document was, upon the whole, most reassuring to Rona.
The situation was of such an unprecedented sort that it was consoling
to find that the memory of her flight was not a dream--that the young
man who had saved her had an actual existence, that he had not
forgotten her--that he was still prepared to stand by her.
The sole thing which puzzled her was a wonder why her new friend
should not wish them to tell the truth.
On this difficulty she bent her mind. They had done nothing of which
they need be ashamed. The kind lady who visited her, and the
benevolent Squire, would never think of handing back a young girl
into the power of such a man as Rankin Leigh. Then why not confess
their whole adventure?
Ah, of course, because of the sad secret in David Smith's past!
Naturally he did not like to be known as having been in jail. And
if, as he said, the account of his disappearance was in the papers,
to describe the circumstances fully would be to reveal his disgrace.
This seemed to explain the difficulty, and with all her warm,
unsophisticated heart, the young girl vowed that no word of hers
should ever betray the man who had done so much for her.
She lay making plans for the future, telling herself how hard she
would work, what she would do and be, for gratitude to the hand which
had snatched her out of the abyss. The knowledge that he was in the
world, working for her, coming to fetch her, eager to take charge of
her, just made all the difference. Her sleep was sounder and more
sweet that night than since her coming to the hospital. She looked
quite radiant next day when Denzil arrived, bearing, according to
promise, a story-book and a kitten in a basket.
It pleased him to see how the exquisite face lit up, and the lips
parted and the glorious eyes dilated at sight of the bundle of
chinchilla-colored fur. Sister Agnes, summoned to admire, provided a
rose-colored ribbon for the kitten's neck, and Rona, though not yet
allowed to sit upright, yet managed to adjust the bow, with hands
which were a delight to watch, so graceful, so adept were they.
Joyously she said that her brother had written, that he had found
work, and that he was going to fetch her in three weeks' time, or if
she could not be kept so long, a fortnight. Denzil had no doubt
about her being kept three weeks. He told Sister Agnes that so it
was to be. She was to be quite well by then. She must write to her
brother to-day and say there would be no difficulty at all.
Then he sat down to read, Rona busy with some knitting for which she
had begged, as she had been brought up never to have idle fingers.
But the kitten had a mind to a share in the proceedings, and the
reading was punctuated with childish squeals of delight from Rona,
and struggles between her and her new pet for the possession of the
ball of wool.
Before leaving, Denzil made another attempt to find out more
respecting the mystery surrounding the girl. But she told him simply
that her brother wished her not to say in what part of London she had
been employed, as they had run away together and did not wish to be
tracked.
"I expect he will tell you more when he comes," she said. "We have
nothing to be ashamed of; but we are hiding, for all that."
Denzil could not but feel deep disapproval of the situation. He
urged Rona to write and relieve the anxiety of those she had left.
He told her he feared her brother was not a good adviser for her, and
hinted that this was a post for which he himself was eminently
qualified, and which he would be glad to accept.
Rona was grateful, but stood firm. Much as he desired to know more,
he felt the fine quality of faith and loyalty in so young a girl. He
did wish that he could feel quite certain that there was nothing
discreditable in the mystery that surrounded her. People are not
usually in hiding without a reason, he reflected. He was beginning
to realize that this girl was having a curious, powerful,
unprecedented effect upon him. It would be terrible should it turn
out that she was really the sister of a youth who led a canal horse
along the towpath. Like most persons of mediocre ability, he was
much influenced by the dread of ridicule. He feared to make himself
ridiculous concerning the unknown maiden. His judgment approved her;
but he lacked confidence in his own judgment.
He walked back to Normansgrave, his mind occupied not as to the
tragic circumstances of his brother's disappearance, but about the
flight of a young servant girl from a harsh mistress with her
brother, a bargee!
CHAPTER VIII
A TOUCH OF SYMPATHY
"This son of mine was a self-willed youth, always too ready to utter
his unchastised fancies.... He got the spur when he should have had
the rein.... He, therefore, helped to fill the markets with that
unripe fruit which abounds in the marts of his native
country."--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Felix had been sent by his employers up to Basingstoke Station to
bring down some parcels of rivets and special nails arriving by goods
train that evening. As he stood on the platform waiting, the boat
train from Southampton came rushing in, and stopped to put down a
solitary passenger. This was a tall, wiry, hatchet-faced man, of
about forty, with black hair, brown skin, and soft, melting dark
brown eyes--eyes you would not have expected to see in that face,
unless you were familiar with the Slav type.
This man gave his directions to the porters in very hesitating
English. He was so like the type to which Felix had been accustomed
in the dynamite brotherhood, that the sight of him was actively
unpleasant. And yet the young man could not help being fascinated,
too.
The stranger said, in painstaking English, "I wish this trunk put
upon the hotel omnibus."
The porter, understanding this, cheerfully shouldered the trunk and
disappeared, the traveler meanwhile lighting a cigarette and gazing
round the station at the town beyond with a look of interest.
"Now, sir," said the porter, returning, "what are we to do with all
this stuff?"
It looked like machinery--curiously shaped, spiky packages sewn up in
canvas.
"I wish that put--how do you say?--ah, yes--_en consigne, s'il vous
plait_--pardon, I would mean--_en consigne_--hein?"
The porter looked blank. "No parly frongsay," he remarked,
resentfully.
"Wants you to cloak it, fathead," said Felix, unable to hold his
tongue.
"To cloak it--eh? Why in blazes don't 'e say so, then. This way,
mounseer."
"Le mettre en consigne pendant quelques jours, monsieur," cried the
foreigner, eagerly pouncing on Felix. "Malheureusement je ne puis
pas dire--je ne sais pas pour quel temps--combien faut-il payer
maintenant?"
Felix turned good-naturedly to him. "You want to cloak it, and you
do not know for how long?" he said in French. "That's all right, you
take a ticket now, nothing to pay, and when you want it out, you
produce the ticket and pay so much for each day."
The man was delighted. "I am indebted to you, sir, I am truly. I
was told my English was enough to take me through; but it breaks down
at every turn. You speak French admirably--that is not so with all
your countrymen--hein?"
"No," said Felix, "we are not great linguists, taken as a nation.
But I have lived abroad."
"Ah! By chance now--you speak German also?"
"Assez bien, monsieur."
The stranger literally clutched him. Was he at liberty? Would he
come up to the hotel and make terms for him? Could he do some
translating--a letter, the sense of which he could not discover,
though he had looked out all the words in a dictionary?
Felix explained that he was anything but at leisure, but that he had
to await the arrival of a goods train, and while waiting was very
glad to translate the letter in question into comprehensible French.
After safely consigning the luggage, which, so the stranger said,
consisted of models of machinery, they repaired to the bar--since the
weird regulations of England forbade one to smoke in the
waiting-room--and Felix made all plain to the perplexed inventor, who
described himself as a Russian,--an engineer employed in a vast
mining enterprise in Siberia. He had perfected an invention for the
ventilation of deep-level mines, by which he hoped to make his
fortune. He had appointed to meet, at Basingstoke, the manager of
one of the largest Welsh mines, who happened to be returning from
abroad, and promised to break his journey there, in order to have an
interview.
He launched into a description of his invention, and Felix, who had
always had a fancy for machinery, grew deeply interested. Finally,
the eager inventor extracted a promise from his new friend to come to
supper with him at the hotel, though Felix owned with regret that he
had no decent clothes; and they parted for a time with a mutual
desire to meet again.
Mr. Doggett, in the expansion of his heart, had offered Felix his
"grub" free if he would sleep aboard the _Sarah Dawkes_ and mind her
while the owner spent these few nights in the bosom of his family--a
thing he could not have done otherwise. Thus obtaining free, though
rough, board and lodging, the young fellow had all his wages as clear
profit, and he had ventured upon the purchase of such trifles as a
comb and a tooth-brush, and even six pocket-handkerchiefs. He was,
however, very doubtful as to how he should obtain the suit of decent
clothes which he felt to be indispensable if he was to convey Rona by
train to the North of England. He was plunged into the consideration
of the problem of how to buy a suit out of three weeks' wages at
fifteen shillings a week, and leave enough for railway fares, when
chance sent him running up against the Russian engineer.
The fee paid by lawyers for the translation of a letter is ten
shillings; and after Felix had translated four or five for his new
friend he did not refuse this fee when warmly pressed upon him.
As the evening passed the two grew very friendly. Felix said he had
known many Russians. He had been a member of a society in London
many of whose adherents belonged to that nationality. One had been
quite a pal of his.
The engineer--whose name was Vronsky--eagerly begged to know the name
of Felix's friend. It was Loris Levien Ivanovitch.
Vronsky was much agitated. "Why, he was imprisoned, in London, for
belonging to a dynamite society--unhappy boy, not to be warned!" His
mother was Vronsky's own cousin. It had been heartbreak to her. But
she had left her home and country and gone to meet her son in Styria,
when he came out of prison. There they had made a home together, and
the young man had found work. He had a fine tenor voice.
Felix made a gesture, as of one smitten by an overpowering memory.
He began to sing, at first with hesitation, but with increasing
confidence, a Russian song, full of the essential melancholy of the
Slav peoples. A certain thrilling tenderness, mingled with the
plaintive despondency of the national outlook, found expression in
the strange cadences. The Russian sat with his head bowed, his
clenched hand lying on the table. His eyes were heavy with tears,
his whole heart was wrung by this song of his native land. When it
was done he raised his head and looked intently at the singer.
"You must often have heard Loris sing that song?"
"Often and often. Very often," said Felix, his mind traveling back
across old memories. He set his lips firmly, and looked his new
friend straight in the eyes. "I was there--in prison--with Loris
Ivanovitch," he said, steadily.
Vronsky gazed at him in pure sympathy. His eyes were still soft with
tears. "My poor lad," he said, softly. "Poor, misguided child. You
have suffered."
It was the first time that any soul had pitied Felix Vanston for his
downfall. The whole world had said to him: "You have sinned." Not
one human soul had said: "You have suffered."
"I have suffered," he said, slowly, "and through all my future I must
suffer. I am branded, I am a marked man. I have disgraced my
father's name. And yet I meant no harm. I entered upon the thing
not knowing what I did. I was full of compassion and of thoughts
about brotherhood. _Brotherhood!_"--he broke off with a sneer that
was half a cry. "Do you know that now the very word brotherhood
means to me something that is ruthless, terrible, secret--something
that strikes in the dark--something that will reach you and punish
you, however distant. That was what it seemed to Loris and to me.
We were caught and held in its meshes. We might struggle, we could
not get free. His sentence was six months shorter than mine. He
went away to Styria the moment his ticket-of-leave expired. The
Brotherhood let you alone as long as the ticket-of-leave lasts, for
they do not want the police to know anything of their movements; and
as long as you are under surveillance they lie low. I shall be free
of the police in a week from now. And then--then I have to reckon
with the Brotherhood."
"Go abroad," said Vronsky. "You are a good linguist, you should do
well abroad."
"Yes," said Felix, "but there is something I must do first; something
that counts before my own safety."
The Russian looked sympathetic. "A woman?"
"My sister," said Felix, laying the stump of his cigarette down in
his plate, and watching it sedulously. "She got into bad hands
during my imprisonment. I have to put her in a place of safety. She
is in hospital now--the result of an accident."
"Take her abroad with you--why not?"
"The old unanswerable argument--£ s. d.," said Felix, with a sad
smile. "It costs twice as much--more than twice as much--to take a
girl about with you."
The conversation had been in French from the beginning.
Now the young man stood up. "I must go," he said. "My job is not
over. I have to be on the premises at night and keep watch. Many
thanks for your good entertainment. This dinner has bucked me up."
"Yes," said Vronsky, in an interested way. "They told me that in
England they never cook at all, and that one eats food raw or goes
without. But I have dined here well to-night."
"So have I; and as it is the first time for very many nights, it
leaves me most grateful to you for all your kindness."
"Shall I see you again? I hope so. Stroll down after your work
to-morrow, and have coffee with me and a smoke."
"It ought to be my turn to-morrow," said Felix. "I don't like
sponging. But I literally have not a halfpenny to spend just now.
Good-night. I was glad to hear that about Loris Levien. About his
being safe with his mother. But chiefly I am grateful to you for not
looking on me as an outcast. Here, in my own country, I have done
for myself, once and for all. My own brother won't speak to me. It
is--but there! how can you tell what it feels like, to be taken by
the hand by a man who knows your record and does not despise you for
it?"
"My boy, in Russia one has more sympathy for these things. In
England, I own, it is hard to see why boys take up such notions. But
with us few families are altogether free of the taint. For myself I
was never touched with the desire to make men good and happy by
burning and killing. I do not think terror ever begot love. I know
that it always begets hate. I am an engineer and a rough fellow.
But I believe in God and in Him I put my trust for Russia and her
future. Want of faith, my boy, that is what ails Russia.
Good-night. God keep you. Come to me to-morrow."
Felix walked home to his couch in the cabin of the _Sarah Dawkes_
with his heart full of gratitude to the new friend so accidentally
thrown in his way.
The next morning, on his way to work, he went to the post-office,
and, to his joy, was handed a letter addressed to David Smith.
"DEAR DAVID,--Thank you for your letter. I was so very glad to get
it, and I am pleased to say that I am getting better very fast now.
I am still in bed, but they let me sit up and do knitting, and Mr.
Denzil Vanston comes to see me. He is the Squire, Sister Agnes says,
and she thinks I am a lucky girl. He has given me a kitten, and he
reads to me out loud. Do you know the first day he came in I thought
he was you! I can't think what made me so silly, for he is not a bit
like you really, but fair, with a little neat light brown mustache.
He is very kind.
"They say yes, I may certainly stay three weeks, and by that time I
ought to be quite well. I shall look forward to seeing you and
starting for Sempleton. Do you think it would be best to write to
the Reverend Mother or not? I think not, because it is just possible
she might think she ought to tell Uncle Rankin.
"Miss Rawson is making me a new frock; it is brown. I think this is
all my news, so I will only add my love, and my thanks too, for all
you did for me. When I think how you wanted to die, and went on
living to take care of me, I do feel ashamed of myself. I hope you
are quite well. Mind and tell me when to expect you, and write again
soon. I have not let anybody see your letter, though they are all
most inquisitive about our affairs!--With my love, I remain your
affectionate sister--RONA SMITH."
This letter lifted David right up to the clouds. Since Rona was
carried away from him in Miss Rawson's motor, he had not felt such a
lightening of his spirits. She was happy; she was getting well; she
wanted to see him again. His heart swelled up in a gush of
tenderness, hitherto unknown to him. In his solitary youth, full of
queer cults and crazes, and stunted by his lamentable prison
experience, he had never thought about girls. This one, so unlike
the girls in love stories, appealed to him on a side where he was
easily touched. All the protective manhood had awoke in him when
first he felt her desperate clutch upon his arm, and looked up to see
her enemies in pursuit.
He could not help being disquieted by the idea of his brother's
attentions to her. But he decided that there was nothing at all to
connect David Smith with Felix Vanston in the mind of the owner of
Normansgrave. He had followed the papers with eagerness ever since
his flight, and had noted with great interest that the police had had
no notification of the disappearance of Rona. On thinking it over,
he was not much surprised. He could understand that the two villains
would prefer to hold their tongues respecting her incarceration. But
doubtless they were putting detectives on the job on their own
account; and might they not be watching for the moment when the girl
emerged from hospital and was joined by him?
He was very doubtful as to what would be their best way of getting
off, and inclined to think that he should advise Rona to slip away at
night and meet him at some given spot close to the hospital. He did
not want to appear, both because of any possible watchers and because
of his brother Denzil.
Miss Rawson had not recognized him, as was natural enough. But no
disguise, no counterfeit Cockney talk, could prevent Denzil from
knowing him, if they met face to face. And if Denzil knew him the
first thing that he would decree would be that Felix was no fit
companion for his supposed "sister."
For the first time the delicate nature of the situation occurred to
him. It filled him with a queer tumult of indignation and
championship. He was to be trusted to take care of her, this white
flower, which a tempest had blown against his heart! He felt himself
filled with the spirit of knight-errantry. His courage rose and a
new sense of joy filled all his veins. Perhaps the hard work, the
country air, and Vronsky's hospitality had something to do with the
dawning of his new interest in life. But to him it seemed that it
was all Rona.
He did a fine day's work that day, and when it was over he bought his
usual halfpenny paper, saw that there was no mention in it of himself
or the girl, and went on to the hotel, where he found Vronsky happy
over a telegram from the mine manager whom he expected, to say that
he was crossing to Southampton the following day.
Meanwhile, he had received letters from two mine owners in England,
full of cruelly hard words. His dictionary lay before him, and a
transcript of the frantic attempt he had made to decipher their
contents. It was very evident that he needed not only a translator
but an amanuensis, if he was to reply to his correspondents.
Felix buckled down to the work. He translated with care, wrote out a
French version of the letters received, and drafted answers in
English from the engineer's French dictation.
Then he turned his attention to a German letter, which proved to be
the most interesting of all. The writer of this was extremely
anxious to be first in the field, and to make all the new machinery
if the market were fairly sure. He was too busy to come to England,
but implored Vronsky to come over to Hamburg at his expense, that
they might converse together over the matter.
This was a difficult journey for Vronsky, who, though he spoke French
fluently, and could also speak Turkish and Arabic, knew hardly a word
of either German or English. He said he would go if Felix would come
with him as his secretary. He was not a rich man, but he would give
him a pound a week, and advance money for clothes. It would take him
out of the country, away from the Brotherhood--it would give him a
new start.
Felix was terribly tempted. But he stood firm. He should not be
here, where he was, were it not for Rona. It was she who had kept
him back from the miserable, cowardly end he had planned for himself.
As he sat, in the cheerful coffee-room, a good cigar in his mouth, a
glass of fine ale at his side, and watched the prosperous life of the
quiet town flowing along in the irregular, unpretending street, he
felt that the world was a pleasant place, and wondered that he could
have thought of quitting it. Here he was, and, such as he was, he
was hers.
He looked sadly at the kind, intense face of Vronsky and shook his
head. He could not go without his sister.
"Tiens!" replied Vronsky, "let us not be rash. Who knows? My
business may detain me here longer than I expect. Then you may go
and fetch your sister and bring her too."
Felix's eyes lit up. But almost immediately clouded again. He felt
there might be inconveniences in traveling about with a sister who is
not your sister. He accepted the fee for his secretarial work, and
after much pressing consented to dine again with his friend, as it
seemed churlish to decline, thereby condemning him to an evening of
solitude and silence. They parted on more friendly terms than ever.
There was no moon that night, the dark face of heaven was powdered
with stars, Jupiter hanging like a diamond low in the sky as Felix
made his way down to the canal wharf. It was not until he got close
up to the barge that he noticed a man standing by her, smoking, his
hands in his pockets.
"Fine night," said the man, pleasantly.
"That's quite right," replied Felix, heartily, aloud. Inwardly he
told himself, "London man--look out."
"Know much of the barge owners down these parts--eh?" said the
stranger, wistfully.
"Can't say as I do," replied Felix in his natural tones, with no
assumed accent. "Want work?"
The man sighed. "P'raps I do."
"Better go to the Company's office," suggested Felix.
"So I did. They told me old man Doggett, of the _Sarah Dawkes_, was
wanting a boy. But there's nobody aboard her."
"No. His boy's ill. I'm sleeping in her to oblige the Old Man."
"Oh!" The stranger could not wholly keep his sudden access of
interest out of his voice. "Are you the chap that took on the boy's
job?"
Felix laughed his scorn. "No, thank yer, mate. I work up in the
town. I only oblige the old man while he's ashore."
"Humph! Suppose you don't know what become of the chap as he brought
down from Limehouse with him, do yer?"
Felix was quite sure now. He betrayed no surprise. "Want a
character of the old man out of him before you sign on to the job?"
he said, playfully.
"That's about the size of it--yes."
"Well, I did hear he was tramping it to Plymouth. Wanted to get out
of England," said Felix, slowly.
There was a pause. "Got a light?" said the stranger at last.
Felix produced a match. "So long, mate," said he, moving to the
gang-plank.
"Say--you couldn't let me sleep aboard, could you?" asked the
unemployed.
"Daren't risk it, mate. Hope you won't take it hard, but I can't.
Clean against orders, and the night-watchman is a terror. I don't
mean losing my job, even if it was to help you to get one."
"Not likely. Hold hard a minute. Tell me--did you see the chap that
came up on the _Sarah Dawkes_?"
"Never. Casual, picked up in the streets, I gather."
"And his sister with him?" said the man, urgently, in a low tone.
"See here, there's money in this--what can you tell me about 'em?"
Felix was aboard of the barge, and looked up from the deck with a
smile. "Money from a right-to-worker?" he mocked. "Plank it down,
and I'll invent sisters for you as fast as you like."
"Thanks," said the man, with a change of tone. "I got out of you
what I want without the money. She wasn't here when they got to
Basingstoke. That's just what I thought. But where in thunder is
she?"
"Oh, go to blazes--you're drunk," said Felix.
He turned on his heel and entered his dark sleeping-hole, trembling
in every limb.
CHAPTER IX
THE SQUIRE DEFIES CONVENTIONS
Spring is here, with the wind in her hair
And the violets under her feet.
All the forests have found her fair,
Lovers have found her sweet.
Spring's a girl in a lovely gown,
Little more than a child.
--ALICE HERBERT.
A fortnight after her arrival at the Cottage Hospital Veronica was
wholly convalescent. The air, the first-rate nursing, the sense of
peace and well-being which she experienced, all helped, and came to
the aid of a naturally fine constitution. The color she had lost
returned to her pale face, her eyes were clear and luminous.
The doctor was fairly certain that the injury she had received,
though it had been violent enough to cause inflammation, was not more
than nature would triumph over. He did not anticipate lasting
effects. She was now to be found on the sofa in the sitting-room,
and the nurse held out hopes of a walk round the garden on Sunday
next. She had been the sole comfort of Denzil's misery during this
time of strain, when day after day passed by, and no news was
forthcoming. Each day he grew more certain that Felix was not dead,
but alive--and a further certainty followed.
If his brother were really not dead, then the pretense of suicide
must have been deliberate. He must have determined to cast off his
own identity, and wipe himself out of the list of the living. With
what object? Doubtless that he might return to his anarchical
pursuits, under some alias.
For this the master of Normansgrave felt secretly grateful to him.
The name of Vanston would at least be protected. He did not believe
Felix capable of leading a life of decorous rectitude such as his
own. The bad blood inherited from his mother must, he thought, come
out, and show itself in a wild, ill-regulated life. The fact that
his half-brother had now, by his own carefully planned action, cut
himself off from all communication with his family, was, in the
secret depths of his heart, a satisfaction to him.
But he knew that a longer time must be allowed to elapse before he
could feel certain. He could not agree with the police view of the
young man having drugged himself, and then proceeded to drown
himself. This theory was, however, very strongly held at first by
the police, for the reason that such a case had actually occurred,
and had been recorded in the newspapers; experience taught them that
criminals have a curious habit of imitating one another's methods,
and that a certain form of suicide, in particular, frequently
provokes others of a similar character. The non-recovery of the body
was not, in their minds, an insuperable objection; for so determined
a suicide might well have weighted his pockets with bricks--and one
cannot drag the Thames.
Not a word had Denzil breathed to his romance-princess of the private
grief which tormented him. To her he seemed always cheerful, serene,
and bent on pleasing her. To-day he was approaching the door of the
hospital with a basket of primroses and violets from the woods, which
it would amuse the patient to arrange in a soup-plate full of moss.
Spring was beginning to bud and blossom in the beautiful land, and in
spite of anxiety his heart was warm in him, and his pulses tingled
with a feeling he had never previously experienced.
Dr. Causton's small brougham was at the door as he came up, and
almost at once the doctor came out, and stood in the sunny garden
talking to Sister Agnes. His face and hers were both full of worry.
"Ah, there is Vanston," said the doctor, "in the nick of time. I was
going to drive over to you, but now we can settle things at once, and
there is no time to lose. We want you to come to the rescue as
usual, Vanston. Three cases of scarlet fever in the National
Schools."
"Scarlet fever?" said Denzil, looking scared.
"Yes. And the Albert Hospital can't take them, it has too many
critical cases, and can't turn them out. To cut the whole thing
short, I want you to let us have the Cottage Hospital for the
epidemic. Of course, the County Council will pay all the expenses of
disinfecting and so on, and give you a handsome donation. But it
would save endless bother and fuss. If these three cases are
isolated at once, the whole thing may be restricted to those who have
been in immediate contact. It will be the saving of the village, so
I venture to hope we may count upon you."
"But what about your present case here?" said Denzil, not at all
pleased.
"Quite well enough to go out, if her people are careful of her," said
the doctor, who was not blind, and thought the patient had been there
long enough. "Write to them, or wire, and say she must be fetched
away."
"That is not so easy," said Denzil, in tones of ruffled dignity.
"Her brother is at Basingstoke, and has been promised that she shall
be kept three weeks."
"Well," said the doctor, "you can't foresee a fever epidemic."
Mr. Vanston looked much disturbed. "The risk of leaving her exposed
to infection is, of course, not to be thought of," he said. "And I
suppose you want to bring in your cases at once?"
"At once, if you and Miss Rawson would be so kind as to put the girl
in your motor and drive her to the station. Wire to the brother to
meet her, and you have done all that could possibly be expected."
Denzil stood considering. The idea of losing Rona--of losing her at
once, that very day--gave him a curious internal jolt for which he
was quite unprepared.
"Thank you," he said at last. "I will bring the motor at half-past
two. May I ask that Miss Smith be not informed that she is leaving
the Cottage Hospital, but simply told that my aunt is calling to take
her for a drive this afternoon? I would rather explain matters
myself. Sister Agnes, kindly give Miss Smith this basket, with my
kind regards."
They promised him his own way in the matter; and after a short
discussion of the outbreak of fever, and the adequate staffing of the
Cottage Hospital, he departed, and hurried up through the park to
Normansgrave, his brain evolving an idea as he went.
Miss Rawson was in the garden, pottering round to gloat over her
bulbs, which were doing admirably that year. She gazed with some
amusement upon her nephew's perturbed countenance. "She can't have
refused him--yet," was the thought that lurked behind her twinkling
eyes.
"Aunt Bee, I want you to do something for me--that is, I wish to
desire you to do something----"
"Are you giving me an order, Denzil dear? Because there is no need
to beat about the bush. What is it?"
"They have got scarlet fever down at Dunhythe. They want us to lend
the Cottage Hospital to the County Council--they want to turn out
Miss Smith to-day, within an hour or two--and I want to bring her
here for the final week of her promised convalescence."
"My dear Denzil! This is a little too fast. My poor old brain will
hardly take it all in. Lead me to a garden seat. That's
right--thanks. Yes, now let us hear it all over again."
Denzil sat down and explained in detail. He was very fond of his
aunt, and had never yet discovered that she was laughing at him.
"Well, but, Denzil dear," said she, when she thoroughly understood
the position, "have you considered that there may be some
awkwardness? I don't quite understand what this young girl's
position is to be. Is she to have her meals in the servants' hall?"
"Aunt!" said the nephew in horror. "She is a lady, you must see
that."
"Yes, I know, Denzil. She is a lady, and you, I am proud to find,
have the wit to perceive it. But, for all that, she was extricated
from a truss of hay on a canal barge, and all our servants know it.
If she comes here, and we treat her as an equal, I fear there may be
just a wee scrap of scandal in the village respecting our noble but
unconventional conduct. Please understand that I shall not mind.
But, as your chaperon, it is my duty to point out to you that people
will talk. You are usually just a little bit of a coward about talk,
you know."
Denzil sat quite still. His face took on a new, dogged look. It
very much resembled the look worn by his brother Felix in his mood of
championship.
"Aunt Bee," he said, in a low voice, "tell me your own honest opinion
of Rona Smith. Tell me what you think of her."
"I think she may grow up to be a fine woman some day, dear. She is,
I believe, thoroughly honest and loyal. She is also religious, and
grateful for kindness without any cringing. These are fine
qualities, and rare in our days."
"Should you think me a--a regular jackass if I told you that I had
the idea of paying for the completing of her education? She has, so
she tells me, nobody to take care of her but this one brother, and he
must be penniless, or he would not have been found at such rough
work. I--I cannot but think that these two have been injured by some
unscrupulous relative or guardian. Would not the brother be grateful
if we offered to keep his sister and complete her education?"
Miss Rawson looked fixedly at Denzil. Never before had she seen him
so confused, so little sure of himself. He stammered; he was, so to
speak, at her mercy. Her face was quite grave; her manner calmly
sympathetic. She knew that there are some men with whom there must
always be the protective instinct to excite love. The notion of
playing Providence to that lovely young girl was full of an exquisite
seductive charm to young Vanston. He really did not know that he was
in love with her. It might take him a couple of years to find out.
"Well, dear boy," said she, kindly, "it is a fine idea, but it sounds
a little risky. We do not know who the girl is, nor how she came to
the plight in which we found her. She may have relations who have a
claim upon her, and it would be uncomfortable for you to be asked
what right you had to take her under your wing."
"Yes," he said, thoughtfully, digging tiny holes in the gravel with
the tip of his stick, "I have thought of that. It seems to me that,
if we make the offer I suggest, we ought to do it on condition that
the brother speaks out and tells the truth, so that we may know where
we are. What do you think of that? My notion is, bring her here to
complete her cure. We promised her three weeks--let her have three
weeks. By that time we shall know better what we think of her, and
consider the desirability of making further offers of assistance."
"Very well, dear boy, I have nothing against that. It will take off
your thoughts from this long, wearing suspense. I conclude that you
want me to go and fetch your little protégée at once--eh?"
"I said the motor would be round at half-past two, and they were
merely to tell her that you were coming to take her driving. I did
not want her to be fussed."
"That was thoughtful of you, Denzil," said his aunt.
* * * * * * *
The motor duly appeared at the pretty white porch at two-thirty, and
Rona, warmly wrapped up, was placed beside Miss Rawson in the
comfortable closed tonneau, the Squire acting as chauffeur. The
doctor and Sister Agnes, who had been informed of the fact that she
was going to Normansgrave to complete her convalescence, looked at
each other with a half-frightened smile and arching of the brows.
"Well," said Dr. Causton, "if I had known, or dreamt, that I was not
getting her out of his way, but pitching her into his arms, I would
not have done it--I declare I would not! However, what will be, will
be; and we know his own father chose for his second wife a far more
unsuitable person. But Denzil has always seemed such a sanctimonious
kind."
"Just so," said Sister Agnes, deprecatingly. "That's the kind that
does it."
During the drive Miss Rawson gradually told the girl that she was
going to Normansgrave, as the hospital was about to receive
infectious cases, and she could not be kept there without risk to
herself. Rona was immensely interested, and, as Miss Rawson had
previously noted, her interest swallowed up her girlish shyness.
They went first for a drive among the lovely woods and moors that
surround Normansgrave, and it was tea-time when they at last stopped
before the door of the old mellow brick house with its air of comfort
and well-being.
Miss Rawson saw with relief, but without much surprise, that Rona had
no kind of doubt as to the position she would be asked to occupy.
Evidently no such idea as being relegated to the servants' hall
crossed her mind. She walked on Denzil's arm with pleasure, but
without any embarrassment, to what was known as the little
drawing-room, where tea was cosily set forth, and took her seat in an
armchair with cushions carefully arranged, and a footstool for her
feet, as to the manner born.
The kitten, which had traveled from Aylfleet packed in a basket, was
let out upon the floor, and, to the amusement of all, swore and spat
at his own sister, from whom he had been but ten days parted. The
putting down of a saucer of milk, and the humors of the two graceful
little creatures, sent Rona into fits of merriment, in which childish
fun Denzil joined, with a readiness which astonished and touched his
aunt.
"I hope I shall not behave so to my brother when he comes for me,"
said Rona. "And that reminds me, I must write to him this very day,
must I not, to let him know that I have changed my address?"
"By all means, my dear," said Miss Rawson.
To herself she mused: "If only people do not begin chaffing him, it
will take Denzil a long time to find out just what is the matter with
him. At present it is all quite harmless, and as long as she is here
to his hand, I verily believe that he may continue unconscious until
she is grown up. I don't see the end of this matter, unless the
brother comes next week and marches her off. Would that be a good
thing or a bad thing for Denzil, I wonder?"
CHAPTER X
THE HUNT IS UP
There then, awhile in chains we lay
In wintry dungeons, far from day;
But risen at last, with might and main,
Our iron fetters burst in twain.
Then all the horns were blown in town;
And to the ramparts clanging down,
All the giants leaped to horse,
And charged behind us, through the gorse.
--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Every faculty in Felix was sharpened to its highest pitch as he lay
down that night upon his comfortless bed aboard the _Sarah Dawkes_.
The man on the wharf was a detective, and he was looking for
Veronica. His source of information was doubtless some one of the
men aboard the _George Barnes_. He was in the employment of the two
wolves, and he had that invaluable clew which the police lacked. He
knew that he had to hunt two runaways. There were sure to be persons
who had seen them limping along towards the docks that night of
terror, of lurid excitement and breathless escape. So long as you
knew what you were looking for, they were not hard to trace.
"But what beats me," said Felix to himself, "is how it is he did not
find out that she was put ashore at Dunhythe. If he has followed up
our trail, how could he have missed that? The whole village saw her
go."
A spasm of fear shook him, lest the shelter of the Cottage Hospital
should be inadequate. If her uncle came to fetch her, they would
have to hand her over. He raged in his heart, rolling over and over
sleepless, wondering whether the detective was "pulling his leg,"
whether he knew, all the time, where Rona was--whether she was no
longer where he left her, but gone, taken away, out of his reach. He
yearned to know. But how? The idea crossed his mind that he might
steal out, borrow the bicycle of a fellow-workman at the timber-yard,
and ride over, before morning, to ascertain that she was safe. But
that would be to reveal his secret, were the detective still on the
watch.
The question was: What would the detective do? Would he go off on
that false clew and follow up David Smith to Plymouth? Or had he
known all along that Felix was he, in spite of lying? Would he stay
in Basingstoke or leave the town? Was he out there watching on the
wharf, or had he departed?
After a time the suspense grew intolerable. It was a mild night, and
David sweated as he lay. After bearing it as long as he could he
noiselessly rolled out of bed, and crawled snake-wise along the deck,
which was in deep black shadow, took up a post of vantage behind a
pile of the timber with which the barge was being gradually loaded,
and peeped forth. He saw no man, but he did see from among the bales
and trucks that encumbered the wharf a faint glimmer, which meant the
bowl of a pipe. He saw it move, as the smoker took it from his
mouth, rammed it down with his thumb, and replaced it.
It was just out of sight of the night-watchman, whose cabin was
clearly to be seen from the deck of the _Sarah Dawkes_. It was the
detective, and he was keeping an eye upon the barge. Felix wondered
whether he was alone or had a confederate. He did not think it would
be hard to give him the slip, if that were all.
But, on further reflection, he decided that his proper course was to
take no notice at all. He must behave as if the man and his
movements were absolutely nothing to him. The weak spot was Doggett.
If the detective got on to him, the Old Man was bound to give away
the fact that Felix was the chap who had traveled from London with
him. How could he warn him, without exciting suspicion? He bitterly
blamed himself for sleeping upon the barge. He might have had the
common intelligence to reflect that, if inquiries were made, it was
likely the barge would be traced, and that the place to which anybody
in need of information would come would be that precise spot.
What would happen in the morning? Doggett usually appeared when
Felix had done breakfast, and was starting for the wood-yard at
half-past six. To reach his barge, he must pass the man on the
wharf, and he would be questioned. On the other hand, if Felix
pushed matters forward and hurried off in time to intercept Doggett,
the man on the wharf might join him, and insist on walking beside
him. He thought over this, long and carefully, and a brilliant idea
suggested itself.
Rising in the gray dawn, he washed and dressed carefully. He put on
a collar and tie, a height of elegance which the wood-yard had
hitherto never dreamt of. No matter, it was easily removed when he
got there. The suit he had purchased with the money earned by his
secretarial labors was tidy and quiet, and gave him the appearance of
a very respectable young clerk. He was not at all like the gaunt,
starved scarecrow in his grimy jersey and greasy trousers. His hair
and beard were trim, though he had not shaved. He cooked his
bloater, made his tea, and set all ready for breakfast. But before
beginning it he slipped out upon the wharf, and approached the cabin
of the night-watchman, whose habit was to breakfast at six before
leaving his post for home and bed.
It was half-past five when Felix peeped into his cabin, and not yet
fully light. The detective's form could be dimly seen for a moment,
huddled a little sideways. He had yielded for an hour to an
ungovernable drowsiness.
"There's a poor chap out there," said Felix, softly, "who's what they
call a right-to-worker. He wants a job on this wharf. We ain't got
no jobs, but you might, when your coffee's ready, mate, give him a
bite if you felt like it. I would meself, only I'm afraid of getting
hindered and fined up at the yard."
The night-watchman sat staring. He was a stupid man, but kind.
"A'right," said he, huskily, at last. "In a quarter of a hour."
"Look here, mate, thankye kindly for that. I'm buying baccy to-day,
and I won't forget you. But your ear one moment. Don't let him get
pumping you about the work on this here wharf, or Old Man Doggett'll
be jumping on us. Just tell him there's no work going, and if there
is you don't know anything about it. Last night he wanted to know
the family history of every barge owner in the place."
The night-watchman nodded. "I know his sort," he remarked, with
sarcasm. "But I'll give 'im a bit to stay his stomach, for all that."
Felix nodded, and slipped away. His stockinged feet made no noise on
the wharf; and for a moment, as he saw the attitude of the sleeping
detective, he had a mind to leave his breakfast and walk past him
then and there. But two reasons withheld him--hunger for one thing,
and the fear that the man might be shamming. Ten minutes later,
peering through his tiny window, he saw that the spy was sitting up
and stretching himself, after which he rose slowly and began to stamp
about on the wharf, and to flap his arms vigorously, to restore the
circulation. Then he came to the edge, close to the barge, and
whistled.
Felix took no notice. He had taken the precaution to push the _Sarah
Dawkes_ off from the wharf, when embarking, so that the gang-plank
would be required by anyone trying to board her. He breathed a
devout thanksgiving that he had done so, for otherwise he would have
been invaded, without doubt.
The man loafed along, stooping his head, trying to see in through
dirty windows, and whistling from time to time. But Felix made no
sign. When the stranger had occupied about five minutes wandering up
and down, the night-watchman was seen to emerge from an open door
whence came a smell of fried fish, appetizing enough to one who had
passed the night in the open. The supposed tramp was
accosted--halted--and as Felix had hoped, succumbed, and was drawn
into the cabin, and the door shut.
"Want to speak to 'im?" he heard the night-watchman say, as they
moved away. "Well, you'll 'ave time for that, 'e don't turn out not
till just on the 'arf-hour."
He waited three minutes--just until the two were sitting down to
their feast--and then stepped ashore, and walked off quietly until he
was round the corner where the huge piles of timber hid him. Then he
took to his heels and ran until he came to the Doggett mansion,
situated in Marsh Lane.
Now, Doggett had known that they were fugitives, though he saw no
reason to disbelieve the story that Rona was his sister. Felix asked
him straight out not to give him away. He told him a detective was
hanging about on the wharf pretending to be out of work; and that if
he asked what became of the boy who came from London with him, he was
to say that he was tramping towards Plymouth, in order to leave the
country, and had taken his sister with him.
Felix impressed this with some urgency upon the Old Man, and added
that his best course would be to be so abusive and disagreeable that
the man would not stay to question. This was an accomplishment in
which the Old Man excelled; and it was pretty certain to flare forth
in him when accosted by loafers in search of a job. Felix went on to
say that he was now earning good money, and that he was thinking that
some slight return for the service Mr. Doggett had rendered him, and
was now further about to render him, would not be out of place. He
proposed to have a chat, later on, respecting the form this should
take. Mr. Doggett was pleased. He had done well that trip. He had
paid Felix not more than half what he had to pay to his boy
ordinarily. He had got his barge minded at nights for nothing--not
to mention Miss Rawson's munificent tip--and it was being suggested
that he should be still further rewarded, for services of a kind so
attenuated that even he hardly recognized them to be worth paying for.
"Clawss they are; I thought it from the fust," he said to his wife,
after Felix was gone. "And if you helps anyone as is real clawss,
somehow, you never lose by it. I'm a match for a 'tec, don't you
worry, mother. A match for any blooming 'tec in Scotland Yard or out
of it."
One wishes, for the sake of fidelity to nature, that the exact
conversation, which did actually take place between these two
worthies later, when the Old Man went loafing down to his Sarah,
could be recorded. But it must be in some other and less blameless
chronicle than this.
The detective was put into a bad temper to start with, by being
savagely warned to be off and not to put his adjective soles in Mr.
Doggett's beautiful clean barge. They never got within measurable
distance of any point at which the inquirer after truth could pump
the bargee, or ask any intimate question. He was completely routed,
and there was nothing for it but to stand by, glean what gossip he
could in the town, and attack Felix when he appeared that night. He
was furiously angry with himself that he had yielded to the breakfast
invitation of the night-watchman, so that the young man had got away
before he was aware. He was convinced that the Old Man had been
warned, and this to excellent effect. He made inquiries all about as
to whether a girl had been on board the barge, and was told as many
different stories as the persons he questioned. As, first, that this
was true; that she was taken to the smallpox hospital on the other
side of the county; secondly, that it was not true, but that the
individual then speaking could and would introduce the detective to
as good, or better, than ever old Doggett had aboard; thirdly, that
if Mrs. Doggett had a hint, she'd make it her duty to find out; and
fourthly, that there were two girls who paid their passage home that
way, but it was a year ago come next June.
It had certainly been a hard fate which took him, at Dunhythe, to
inquire of one of the few natives who had been out of the way when
the _Sarah Dawkes_ went by, but who cheerfully informed him that the
barge had gone straight through without stopping at the wharf.
The detective was misled by the extreme probability that this was
true. Persons escaping would not tarry all night at Dunhythe. He
had been surprised that they stopped, as they undoubtedly had done,
at Sunbury. The moon had been bright--why not go on as fast as they
could? He could get no definite assurance of a sick girl on board at
Sunbury, and for a week had been under the impression that it was at
this point that she had been removed from the barge. His pursuit of
this idea delayed him long, and brought him to Dunhythe when the
scent was stale, and the small incident beginning to fade from the
foreground of people's minds owing to the scarlet-fever scare.
His only trustworthy clew, so far, was the report of the _George
Barnes_ men; and in the absence of any confirmation of it he was
inclined to look upon the clew as worthless, except for the slipping
away of Felix that morning--which might, after all, have been
accidental.
Felix's head swam all day long with a sense of new and complicated
responsibilities. All the morning as he worked the idea was growing
stronger in his mind that he would confide in his Russian friend,
whose ignorance of English made him very safe. He might be able to
tell him how to baffle the sort of shadowing to which he was being
subjected. At least, he might come down with him to the wharf that
night and prevent his being worried by the watcher.
As soon as they knocked off work at the yard he hastened away. The
detective was in the High Street, idling near a tavern. He was not
quick enough. Felix saw him as he went by. It was a surprise to the
spy to see the young fellow, trim and neat after his day's work, go
calmly and openly into the best inn in the place.
Felix hurried in, and was at once pounced upon by the waiter.
"Mr. Vronsky wants you badly, sir; he said I was to catch you as you
went by. He has got a gentleman from Wales in there, and they can't
understand either one a word of what the other says."
CHAPTER XI
FELIX TAKES ADVICE
The Pilgrim said, "Peace be with you,
Lady"; and bent his knees.
She answered, "Peace."
Her eyes were like the wave within;
Like water-reeds the poise
Of her soft body, dainty thin;
And like the water's noise
Her plaintive voice.
--D. G. ROSSETTI.
The scene as Felix entered the parlor of the hotel was of a most
unusually animated description. The models had all been taken out of
"_consigne_" earlier in the day, and Vronsky had laid them out upon
the table.
Although he could not succeed in making the mine owner understand his
English, he left him in no doubt of his engineering ability. The
model was of so ingenious a nature that everybody present in the
place was attracted to the scene, and quite a crowd stood round the
table, where, by means of a cord, switched to the electric light
button, the blast from the wonderful fans was successfully driven
through miniature galleries and tunnels, and the strong draught blew
upon the offered cheeks of the amused and admiring spectators.
The deep, soft eyes of the Russian glowed with the creative pride of
the inventor, as his dexterous hands manipulated his mechanism.
He hastened to the young man as he entered, with a cry of relief, and
seizing him by the arm, dragged him forward to be introduced to the
Great Man, and poured out a volley of French explanation which was to
be passed on to the mystified Briton.
Felix had no difficulty in making an intelligent translation. The
mine owner asked a few questions--questions which showed how far he
had made up his mind; and upon hearing the answers, given by Vronsky
and translated by Felix, he said he had determined to try the
experiment, and that, if it were successful, he would like the
complete system installed as soon as it could be produced.
It became evident that Vronsky would have to proceed forthwith to
Hamburg, to arrange for the manufacture of his patent.
But that he should go without Felix was to him a thing impossible.
Not only was the young man indispensable, owing to his linguistic
proficiency, there was more. Vronsky had taken a fancy to him; and
he was a man who made friends with difficulty, being shy, and slow to
adapt himself to any strange person or custom.
When the mine owner, who had been traveling for forty-eight hours,
had tramped heavily upstairs to bed, the Russian turned to his
secretary with a passionate gesture.
"It is simply that it must, that thou accompaniest me."
Felix stood breathing hard in excitement. The sight of the detective
had jarred him more than he felt able to explain. To leave England
at once and without warning seemed likely to be the safest plan for
the protection of the girl who was the pivot of all his thought. He
was quite certain that, the hunt being up, she would not be safe in
the north, at the Convent School. That was, as Comrade Dawkes had
justly observed, the very place where they would be likely to look
for her. In fact, it was the only place she might conceivably make
for, since it was the only place in wide England which she knew.
"Will you walk down with me to the wharf?" asked he hesitatingly and
wistfully of Vronsky. "I am going to make a clean breast of things
to you."
Ever since he had realized how simple and affectionate a soul the
Russian was, he had been approaching nearer and nearer to the
conviction that it would be best to confide in him. The appearance
of the detective made him desperate. He literally must have somebody
with whom to discuss the engrossing and difficult subject.
To his relief, Vronsky, with the remark that a breath of air was what
he wanted, willingly took down his hat from the peg, and together
they sauntered through the quiet town, which already, though it was
not much past nine o'clock, showed signs of going to bed.
As they walked, Felix told him his whole story, from beginning to
end. He told him his real name, and how, by a curious coincidence,
the girl Rona was being befriended by his own people. He gave him
the chronicle of his gradual drawing in to the toils of the
Brotherhood--of his despair and attempted suicide; and of the fateful
precipitation of Rona into the horizon of his landscape.
Vronsky listened with a deep and absorbed interest. His mind was
itself of so simple and romantic a turn, that he believed
instinctively and without difficulty everything that Felix said, and
thus went right where a much cleverer man might have blundered. He
comprehended the temperament which would be likely to err as Felix
had erred--he sympathized with it and understood it, as not one
Englishman in a thousand could have done.
With all his simplicity, he was a citizen of the world; and the jail
stigma was nothing to him, the revolutionary tendencies less than
nothing. Thus, in his experience, were most young, ardent, generous
souls at such an age as that of Felix.
As the recital went on his heart went out more and more towards the
boy who had never been understood. He loved his eager voice, his
quick sensitive moods, the candor with which he avowed that his worst
fault was the cowardly attempt to turn his back upon his difficulties.
But, the story told, there came the further question, What were the
runaway boy and girl to do?
Having heard the circumstances, Vronsky was as convinced as Felix
that to cast Rona to the wolves was a thing not to be considered for
a moment.
But, the uncle was Rona's guardian. The only witness to his cruel
intentions was a youth whose ticket-of-leave had just expired, and
who was believed by the police to have made away with himself.
Thus it was vital that young Vanston should leave England--should get
clear away before the police left off assuming his death: and Rona
could be saved only by a secret flight.
Vronsky was wise enough to see that his own nationality was a
complication of the difficulty.
"In your country," he remarked simply, "they think all Russians are
Nihilists. If you are in close company with a Russian, this spy will
think that you are certainly the man whom he seeks, with exactly the
companion one would imagine that you would choose. There is one good
thing: you speak French so uncommonly well. All the men in the hotel
parlor this evening heard you. They will all find it hard to believe
that you are English. If I am questioned, I shall say you are my
nephew."
Felix eagerly promised to adhere to this statement, if necessary; and
an outline of their imaginary history and proceedings for the past
few months was then agreed upon.
As regards the more complex question of Miss Leigh, the Russian felt
that he must have more time to reflect upon this. She was,
apparently, too young to be married, yet old enough to make it
unseemly that she should go about under the protection of two men,
both of whom were strangers to her.
It was a matter upon which he would find it difficult to decide.
The serious way in which he started to grapple with it gave Felix a
feeling of deep satisfaction. Vronsky seemed to assume, with artless
directness, that his affairs and those of the friendless young
English couple were bound up together. There was no impatience of an
inconvenient complication, of an obstacle to their plans. He
sincerely contemplated and carefully weighed the whole situation: and
nothing could have more availed to endear him to Felix than his
attitude upon this delicate question.
There was no sign of the spy hanging about the wharf; and after
thoroughly talking out the subject, they said good-night; and when he
had seen Felix safely aboard, and the gang-plank taken up, Vronsky
walked back to the hotel, his mind still wrestling with the problem.
When he entered the parlor he found that three or four men were still
left, hanging absorbed above his model mine, and discussing the
details of its working with the interest for mechanics so strongly
developed in Englishmen.
Vronsky was a man brought up in an atmosphere of spying and police
surveillance. His glance traveled with mildness but keen observation
over the figures round the table. They were all strangers to him,
and none answered very exactly to the description given by Felix of
the detective. But this was nothing. To elicit information at a
superior inn, the make-up must be very different from that required
as a loafer in search of a job.
He sat down, and quietly but easily entered into chat. The first
remark made by a man with a fair mustache, upon the knowledge of
French displayed by the young man who had acted as interpreter, put
him on the alert.
"Ah, yes," he said, smiling with innocence. "He ver' good speak
tongues. He vat-you-call my neveu--you unnerstan' that vord?"
Yes, the man understood. Nephew was near enough.
"Smeet, de name. My seester make marriage wid Mons. Smeet. He my
neveu."
"Indeed? Was he brought up in England, then?"
"Brought up" was too idiomatic for Vronsky. When it had been
explained he said, "Part one, part de oder. Part England, part
France. His moder veuve depuis longtemps."
This likewise had to be explained.
"I would say she have no more a man," said Vronsky, making confusion
worse confounded by his explanation.
This difficulty, however, was also solved. And he went on to mention
casually that his nephew and he had come from France together about
six months before--a time when, as the detective, whose name, by the
bye, was Burnett, knew, Felix Vanston was in jail. There was an air
of genial simplicity about Vronsky, a kindliness in his beautiful
soft dark eyes, which was misleading. Burnett had found out from
inquiries that he was an engineer, an inventor, who had come to push
his patent. He did not see how he could be a member of the Anarchist
gang which had sucked poor Felix in. Moreover, probabilities
considered, he could hardly be at Basingstoke by appointment.
He owned candidly that he had risked all he had in order to bring his
patent to the notice of prominent English mine owners, so that his
"neveu" had been obliged to find work meanwhile to support himself.
Now he hoped that all was plain sailing. Then he wished them
good-night and went to bed, leaving Burnett pretty sure that he had
missed the clew somewhere, and determined to take the last train to
Plymouth, and try to pick it up there, before wasting more time in
Basingstoke.
He was nowhere to be seen when Felix stepped ashore next morning.
The young man hurried to his work, for he had sat up to write to Rona
and overslept in consequence. At the dinner-hour he went to the
post-office to see, before posting his letter, whether there was one
for him. The spy was still not in sight, and the glorious idea that
he had departed rejoiced the heart of Felix. There was a letter for
him. It was written on very thick paper, with a crest in purple upon
the envelope. He stared at the crest, which was his own. Rona's
clear, immature hand had addressed the letter; but it was obviously
written on Normansgrave stationery.
He had promised to look in on Vronsky at dinner-time, and have some
bread and cheese with him, so he hastened to the inn without opening
the letter, or posting his own. At the first possible moment he
broke the seal, and read the contents with surprise.
Rona was in his brother's house. She described it with rapture. She
was evidently treated as an equal, and as evidently found this quite
natural. They were very kind, she had never been so happy. She was
glad and thankful that David had pulled her back when she tried to
fling herself upon the railway.
Inclosed with her letter was a brief, kind note from Miss Rawson,
saying that they were much interested in Rona, and could see that the
two young people were guarding some kind of a secret. They were
ready to befriend the girl in a substantial way, but this must be
upon condition of perfect frankness on his part. They hoped that he
would come, on his return from Basingstoke, and explain to them in
confidence how he and his sister came to be in such a plight, as they
saw quite well that Rona was a well-brought-up girl, carefully
educated, and they realized that some strong reason for her
unaccountable destitution must exist.
Here was a dilemma for poor Felix. Rona urged him to allow her to
make a clean breast of things. He knew that she could not tell her
story without Denzil's becoming aware of his identity, since he must
have received the letter he had left for him upon the table of his
room at Hawkins Row.
He sat plunged in disquieting thought.
Vronsky was out, at the post-office, and Felix was alone in the
parlor, among the shrouded and bulky packages of model machinery.
With a new clear-sightedness, born of harsh experience, the young man
faced the thought of taking the girl away with him, out of England.
Every pulse in his newly-stirred manhood was urging him to this
course.
Till Rona fell into his arms he had had no object in life. Now she
was his object in life. A new kind of excitement, white and blazing,
flamed up in him. Let them be once married, no police, no
interfering uncles could part them. She was young, but not too young
for love. He could cherish her....
On a pound a week?
For a moment he saw the other side of the medal--saw the slender
figure bowed with household toil, the hands--which to him had seemed
like a child's hands--roughened with hard work.
Could he propose such a course? Would she agree? Suppose she
refused to marry him, what could be done in that case? Feeling as he
did, could he act the big-brotherly rôle? He told himself that he
could. He could do anything for her that she demanded of him.
... And she was there, at Normansgrave, under the roof which had
sheltered his infancy and boyhood! Why, she might even be sleeping
in his old room, for aught he knew to the contrary!
He could picture her, moving through the rooms, sitting in the hall,
crossing the trim lawns. It was the right home for her.
And it appeared that it was actually offered to her! Denzil and Miss
Rawson were willing, he gathered, to keep her there. If, as seemed
fairly certain, the detective Burnett did not know where she was,
were not their hands far more competent than his to guard her from
evil?
With such thoughts he was struggling when Vronsky came in. He
unreservedly told him all, and translated Miss Rawson's letter to
him. The Russian listened gravely, and was silent for a while. Then
he said, "But this seems the solution of the problem, does it not?"
"How?" asked Felix, hoping against hope, yet guessing that Vronsky's
answer would be:
"They offer to befriend her--ask them to do so--accept their offer,
until such time as you can keep the girl better than you can now."
He saw the light fade out of the young man's sensitive face, and he
sat down near him.
"My son, she is too young to marry you and to rough it. But she
cannot go about with you and me, unless you and she are married. You
see that?"
"I have been trying not to see it for the past hour," faltered Felix.
Then Vronsky grew eloquent. There was no doubt that these kind
English people had taken a fancy to the girl. Then he, Felix, with
his miserable record and doubtful prospects, had no right to
interfere. At Normansgrave she would be safe and happy. What he had
to do was just to disappear from view until he had retrieved himself.
He fought against argument, but he was contending against his own
better sense all the time.
By a most fortunate chance, the detective had missed the clew. And,
as he had done so, Veronica was most probably safer at Normansgrave
than anywhere else in England.
It may as well be mentioned here, that Mr. Burnett, on arriving at
Plymouth, heard of the embarkation of a couple answering with some
exactitude to those of whom he was in search, in a cargo boat, for
America. He asked his employers whether he should go to America in a
fast steamer and intercept them on landing; but this was too great an
expense for Rankin Leigh to undertake. The girl was gone. Well, he
was relieved of the necessity for keeping her. He called off the
pursuit, and there the matter rested.
Felix naturally did not know this. But he could see that, if he were
out of England, the risk of Veronica's being tracked was halved.
But on one point he was obstinate. He would, at all costs, see the
girl once more before he went away out of her life.
How could he know how she felt about it? Suppose she did not wish to
be left behind? If that were so, he vowed emphatically that he would
take her with him, prudence or no prudence.
Vronsky thought him mad, but sympathized with him in every fiber of
his emotional being. Together they evolved a plan. Felix knew every
nook and corner of the home which now sheltered his waif. He knew
the place where it would be safest to meet, he knew the hour when it
could be done with least risk.
Down at the far end of the shrubbery which skirted the paddock was an
old summer-house, long since passed out of use, which the gardener
each winter filled with the brushwood intended for pea-sticks next
year. It was in the most solitary part of the grounds, and the
approach to it, for one who knew as he knew every inch of the way,
was covered, all along from the entrance to the park. Every soul at
Normansgrave went to evening service at six o'clock on a Sunday
evening, except those who were left in charge of the house. He knew
Rona could not yet walk as far as the church, and that no power could
induce Denzil to have out the motor on Sunday evening.
He wrote to her, careful not to betray his own knowledge of the
grounds, skilfully suggesting that there might be some arbor wherein
a meeting could take place.
She sent a line in reply, describing what he knew so well, and saying
she would do her best to be there, should the evening be fine.
He received her answer on Saturday morning, and set about making his
final arrangements.
It became evident during the day that Burnett had left the town, and
this gave greater freedom to his movements.
He received his wages, told them at the timber-yard that he should
not be coming back on Monday, and went down to the abode of Old Man
Doggett, to make him a present and take leave of him. Doggett was
cordially pleased to hear of his good fortune in being given work by
the Russian engineer, and told him he would always do him a good turn
if it came his way.
That being so, Felix's request was at once preferred. Comrade Dawkes
was to know nothing of his movements. If he inquired, as he surely
would do, upon the next arrival of the _Sarah Dawkes_ at Limehouse
wharf what had become of the runaways, the story was to be the same
that he had given to the detective; namely, that Felix and the girl
had tramped to Plymouth and there embarked for America.
He earnestly assured Mr. Doggett that a consistent adherence to this
story might be worth quite a considerable amount of whisky and
tobacco.
The force of the argument seemed great, as thus stated; and Felix
wrote down the exact address of his late employer, in order to be
able to send a postal order when circumstances connected with his
exchequer should enable him to do so.
On Sunday morning Vronsky and he left Basingstoke with the model
machinery and all their other effects. At Weybridge the young man
left the train, Vronsky proceeding to London without him; and Felix
started upon his ten mile walk in some trepidation.
He was now respectably dressed, and might be recognized by any native
in the regions of his old home. But he was greatly altered. He had
not been to Normansgrave, except on the occasion of his mother's
funeral, since he was seventeen. He was now twenty-three, but looked
far older, with the strain of his disgrace printed in deep lines upon
his sensitive features. He had been clean-shaven, but the
difficulties connected with shaving on board the barge had induced
him to allow his beard and mustache to grow. The young, soft dark
beard gave him a foreign look.
The only thing upon which he ventured in the way of disguise was a
pair of blue-tinted spectacles. As a matter of fact, his eyesight
was perfect, and no one who had known him in boyhood would have
connected the idea of Felix and weak eyes.
He put on a necktie of a kind which in his own proper person he would
never have worn; and though he could not suppose that he could be
seen at close quarters by anybody who had known him well without
recognition, ultimate, if not instantaneous, he yet felt it possible
that even a friend should not know him at a glance.
From the police he thought the risk not great. He did not suppose
that Rankin Leigh had more than one agent, and his agent had left the
neighborhood. The police were not looking for Felix Vanston alive,
but for a corpse, which, if their theories were true, could not be in
the place where he now was. And even were they seeking for him
alive, they would not seek anywhere near his old home.
If he could pass unrecognized by any of the natives round about
Normansgrave, all would be well.
And well he knew the habits and haunts of the natives upon a fine
spring Sunday!
If he could not keep out of people's way, with his foot upon his
native heath, it was a pity!
And moreover, there was a point in his meditations, when risk ceased
to count, and a mounting excitement took his breath and made the
lovely landscape reel before his dazzled eyes. He was going to see
Rona--the girl who was a stranger--the girl who was everything--the
girl whom he had snatched from the wolves. Nothing else really
mattered. No considerations of prudence must be allowed to
intervene. Who knew what might, or might not, happen when they
actually met?
He had taken some food in his pockets, and on leaving the station he
made for the woods. They were full of Sunday strollers; but these,
like a flock of sheep, kept all to beaten tracks, and Felix knew
every wild hollow and deep thicket in the countryside. He plunged
away deep in the glorious spring woodland, amid a white smother of
wild cherry bloom, contrasting with the delicate bronze and purple of
the bursting hazel bushes. The pale green tips of the larches rose
as feathery and faint, as an exquisite dream. It was a wood of
fairyland.
There, hidden away, he lay in solitude, eating his bread and cheese,
drinking from a tiny spring which he knew like an intimate friend,
and trying to still the wild thoughts in his heart by reading a book
he had brought in his pocket. But his heart refused to be stilled.
He had had nothing to love for so long--nothing ever to love much,
for his feeling for his mother had been merely instinctive, and had
grown less with advancing intelligence. Now all of a sudden, he
loved--for no reason than because a helpless creature had sought his
protection. He was going to look once more into her "lost dog" eyes.
And to say good-by, after ... that was the bitter thing.
As afternoon faded into evening, he walked by hidden ways down to the
old home. The air was full of church bells. He knew every note, and
they cried out to him of his boyhood, of his days of innocence and
youth. He shook with emotion, he could have wept for the thought of
those two dread years cut from his wayward life.
As he approached the corner of the shrubbery he did not meet a soul.
All was whelmed in Sabbath peace and stillness. Then he noticed
something fresh. A young plantation of healthy-looking beech and
copper beech, fenced round from the cattle in the park. He stopped
to look at that; and as he halted he saw someone strolling along
through the pasture grass, apparently bound for an inspection of this
very plantation. It was his brother Denzil. He wore his Sunday
clothes, and a decorous hat, and held his Prayer Book under his arm.
He stood in contemplation of the promising growth of his new
venture--and his reprobate brother stood behind the trees of the
shrubbery in contemplation of him.
Then a voice called, "Denzil! Denzil! Are you coming?"
The sound of steps on the gravel sounded, not at all far from where
he stood. Miss Rawson was coming down the long drive, and by her
side, walking slowly, was a girl as tall as she herself, with
chestnut hair falling below her waist, and with a cloak wrapped about
her to shelter her from the keen air of the April evening.
CHAPTER XII
RONA'S KNIGHT
"Lady," he said, "your lands lie burnt
And waste: to meet your foe
All fear: this have I seen and learnt.
Say that it shall be so,
And I will go."
* * * *
And there the sunset skies unseal'd
Like lands he never knew,
Beyond to-morrow's battlefield
Lay open out of view
To ride into.
--D. G. ROSSETTI.
This was something new--something for which Felix, unused to women,
to society, to youth and charm, was oddly unprepared. Was that Rona?
That young immortal, with faintly blooming cheeks, elastic tread, and
all those burnished locks? As frequently happens to girls of her
age, she had grown considerably taller during the weeks of her
illness.
The young man gazing at her felt his heart shaken by a pain which was
worse than anything he had suffered yet. He was a skulking fugitive,
a disgraced man, one who had taken dark oaths against society and
authority, and was seeking to flee from the men who would have held
him to them. What link was there between him and Veronica Leigh?
He bitterly recalled the proverb, "Necessity makes strange
bed-fellows." Necessity had obliged the maiden, in the throes of her
desperate struggle for liberty, to trust herself to him for a few
short hours. Those hours had changed the face of the world for him.
For her they were no doubt already half-forgotten. She had, as it
were, set her foot upon his neck to climb out of the pit. Here she
was once more, seated at her ease among the elect, safe, cherished,
and no more in need of her slum companion. He thought of the kindly,
peremptory, half-patronizing letter he had written to her, and grew
hot all over to think that he had dared.
The figures of the three were disappearing down the drive together.
He crept into the summer-house, where there were not so many
pea-sticks as usual, sat down upon the dusty bench, and let his head
drop into his hands. There was a swelling at his throat as if he
must choke. The air was full of the tossing chimes, which, as he sat
there, changed to the monotonous stroke of the five minutes bell. It
was a knell, ringing for him, he thought--the knell of Felix Vanston,
now forever dead and lost.
Ask _her_ to run away and marry him, upon a pound a week!
Only in that bitter moment did he realize that he had meant to beg
and pray her to do so.
One sometimes has no measure by which to gauge height, except the
violence of one's fall.
* * * * * * *
A sound, slight but distinct--the rattle of gravel beneath a light
foot, the rustle--indescribable--of a woman's apparel--and he lifted
his dim eyes to see Rona standing in the doorway. With no word
spoken she slipped inside the hut, round behind the bunches of
sticks, to where he sat. "David--here I am," she said, timidly.
He made her no reply, but let his craving eyes rest upon her. She
flushed, and began to tremble. His evident misery pained her. Also,
the surprise was not only upon his side. This young man was not the
ragged, famished outcast who had grappled with her in his weakness
and extremity, dragging her back to safety as she overhung the abyss.
She, too, was smitten with the feeling that they were strangers.
Into his soul were thronging all kinds of desires and
consciousnesses, for the first time. He wished he were shaved. He
wished he had a better suit; he wished he were handsome; he longed to
be rich.
True, the disfiguring blue glasses were hidden in his pocket; but
even so, what kind of a champion was he, dusty pilgrim that he was,
for this princess?
He stood up awkwardly, and his face was dyed crimson, with a shame
the more awful because it was wholly inarticulate. His first words
left his lips before he had time to consider them.
"Forgive me. I ought not to have come."
She gazed at him pitifully, her trouble growing. "Ought not to have
come? Oh, David, why? I--I thought you were--my brother."
She was overswept with a sudden consciousness--much like that which
had just overtaken the young man. After all, what was the link that
bound them? A few hours of common danger, of frantic flight? She
felt curiously friendless, and as though she had lived these past
weeks under a comforting delusion. "Why ought you not to have come?"
He said, brokenly, "I have no right." Then, with passion, "I have no
right, have I? You are happy, and among kind people of your own
class. You have no need of a ruffian like me."
He turned away his face, lest she should see the working of his
features, which he could not control. But Rona, with woman's
swiftness of apprehension, had now the key to his unexpected mood.
"David," she said, reproachfully, "are you jealous? Did you think I
had forgotten you? How silly of you! You--you can't have a very
high opinion of me."
She took his hand, in a steadfast, trustful grasp. She sat down upon
the bench, and with a gentle pull drew him to sit by her. "Have I
deserved it? Am I ungrateful?" she asked, wistfully.
He held on to the hand as if he had been drowning. Its warm contact
sent comfort thrilling along his veins.
"Why should you have anything to do with me? Nobody else ever wanted
me, or cared what became of me," he stammered, incoherently.
She lifted to his her shadowy eyes, full of understanding. "Perhaps
you have not saved other people's lives at the risk of your own," she
sweetly said.
"Then you do feel--you do consider that there is a kind of link
between us," he faltered. "You don't wish me to resign you entirely?
Oh--let us have no doubt about it! I haven't much heart for life,
but if I thought you would not forget me it would make such a
difference--such a difference----"
She broke in, "Forget you? Are you going away, then?"
He held his breath, for there was dismay in her clear tones. All the
emotions that in his wild youth had never been called forth till now,
woke to life and filled him with an ecstasy which made his heart
pound, and his breath pant, and the currents of his being flow
together till his head swam. "You care?" he gasped. "It matters to
you whether I go or stay?"
"Matters? Oh, David! how can you?"
She turned to him impulsively. His arms went round her; and in a
moment--exalted, unlooked for, sweet with a sweetness
unbelievable--her head, with all its tumbled curls, was on his
shoulder, and he was holding her close, close, as though again she
was striving to hurl herself into eternity.
"Rona," he said at last. "Rona, I ought not to let you. I am not a
fit man for you to love!"
"You are the man that saved me," said Rona, clinging to him. "How
strange it seems. I never thought of you as a young man, somehow,
until I saw you sitting here with such a sad, grave face."
"And I," said Felix, with a depth of wonder that was almost
stupefaction--"I actually never knew that you were beautiful until
this evening. But now I know. I see everything with a new
clearness. I am a man, and you are going to be a woman in a year or
two. And I want you for my wife."
She was silent, hushed with a new awe. "For your wife? Oh, David!"
"Will you?" he urged, beseeching her with eyes and hands and voice.
"Will you promise that, if I can make a home for you, you will come
and live in it? Will you give me something to work for, something to
keep me from despair? Oh, Rona, I ought not to ask it! How can I be
mad enough to ask it?"
"But of course I shall promise, if you wish it," said the girl, in
her youth and immaturity eager to promise she knew not what, eager to
give joy to the being who, apparently, depended upon her for all his
hopes in life.
Even at the moment, even holding her against his heart, and feasting
his famished nature with the sweetness of her womanhood and the
brilliancy of his new hopes, her dutiful words, emphatic though they
were, sent a chill through him. In spite of his inexperience, there
is an insight which love gives; and he knew that Rona did not love
him, but was merely willing that he should love her. She was not
grown up, he told himself. When she came to be completely a woman
she would love, as he now loved, with that surrender which to him was
so new, so unexampled a sensation. It was long before he could calm
down the turbulence of his emotions to anything like a consideration
of the situation. But their time was short, and after ten minutes of
more or less incoherent bliss and shy caresses, he began to explain
to Rona some of his thoughts and plans. Now that they understood
each other, these were far more easily explained than he had thought
possible.
It appeared that the girl had not been informed of the extent of the
benevolent intentions of the Squire and Miss Rawson on her behalf.
But she was quite sensible enough to understand that, as she and
David were not really brother and sister, but desired another sort of
relationship, it would not be fitting for them to travel about
together, until the time came when they could be husband and wife.
Felix explained to her, fully and with care, the good prospect opened
out to him by the patronage of Vronsky. He was also able to make her
see clearly that it was dangerous for him to stay in England, seeing
that the police supposed him to be dead.
He ascertained, by guarded and careful questioning, that neither
Denzil nor his aunt had said a word to Rona concerning the black
sheep of the family, nor his disappearance. As far as Normansgrave
was concerned, it appeared that he was as though he had never been.
The main difficulty which Felix had foreseen in this interview, was
that of convincing Rona that they must not make a clean breast of
their circumstances, without giving her the true reason for his
silence.
But on this point he found her unexpectedly amenable.
He began, with much diffidence.
"You know, Rona, you asked me in your letter, whether you might not
tell Miss Rawson everything?"
"Yes," said the girl impulsively, "but I am sorry for that. As soon
as I had written, I was sorry. Because, of course, I see that we
can't do that."
He was puzzled. "You do see that we can't?"
"Certainly we can't. Because, if we did, they would have to know
that you had been in--prison--and that they shall never know through
me."
He gazed at her with ever-increasing admiration. "You see that?"
"Yes. I am growing up, you see. I think and hope I grow more
sensible every day. I am learning, learning, every minute. Oh,
David, you can't think how ignorant and foolish I am, or was. Inside
those convent walls there was no world, only the circle of our
everyday life, and the question of lessons and punishments, and being
good, and being naughty, and fasts and festivals and penances and so
on. But I believe that really I have plenty of brains, and I have a
strong will too----"
--"That you have, or you never would have escaped, the determined way
you did----"
--"And I know that, if these people, who are as kind as the people in
a fairy-tale, do give me a chance to learn more, I shall take full
advantage of it. Oh, David, by the time you come back, I shall be so
changed! Twice as sensible and better instructed, and able to help
you--to earn my own living, or help you earn yours."
"You are happy here?" he wistfully asked.
"Happy? I should think so. It is such a nice place, and they are so
good. I don't mean only kind to me, but good to everyone. They do
their duty all day long, and the priest and the doctor seem to come
to them for everything they want."
"And you like the Squire?"
"Oh, very much. Not as much as I like Miss Rawson, of course. Miss
Rawson is more--more--I don't think I can describe it. She has more
mischief in her, somehow. He is fussy over little unimportant
things, and he is rather prosy sometimes. But he is very kind, and
he takes such an interest in me."
He sat gazing upon her as she spoke out her innocent thought. The
idea of her being there, in his own home, until he came to summon her
forth into the world with him, was so surpassingly sweet that it was
with the utmost difficulty that he refrained from telling her how he
had first seen the light within the walls that now sheltered her.
"It--it would disappoint you very much if they should decide not to
keep you?"
She looked earnestly at him. "What would that mean? Would it mean
that you would take me away at once?"
"Yes. They demand that I should make a clean breast of things to
them. I can't do that. I will tell them all I can. But not
everything. If they say, 'Very well, we can't keep her'--then I
should have to fetch you, and we should have to fare into the wide
world together. And I swear that I would take the same care of you
that your own brother might."
He leaned forward, fervently, gazing deep into her eyes; and her lips
curved into an adorable smile. "I don't think I should be so very
much disappointed," she slowly said. "I believe you would let me
learn as much as we could afford--wouldn't you?"
"I'd worship you--you should be to me like a saint--like a thing
apart from the world," he whispered.
And she smiled happily.
After a few moments' thought, he asked her:
"You never heard of any other relative of yours, with the exception
of this one uncle?"
"No, never."
"What did the Reverend Mother tell you?"
"That both my parents were dead. That was all she knew."
"You have no sort of clew to their family? Have you nothing that
belonged to your mother?"
"I had one or two things--a pearl ring, a gold watch and chain, and a
few other things, such as a cashmere shawl and some lace. But my
uncle took them all away. There were no letters or papers of any
kind: nothing that one could find out anything from."
"Then it appears that nobody but this brute has any claim upon you?"
"As far as I know, nobody at all."
"They would not run much risk in keeping you," said Felix, his brows
knit in thought.
"I expect that was what Mr. Vanston was thinking of when he asked if
I had ever been abroad," remarked Rona. "Suppose they should let me
go abroad to be educated?"
"You would like that?"
She assented. "I want to see the world," she announced, very simply.
Felix smiled at the thought of Denzil's benevolence. He knew of old
his pleasure in a certain tepid, but always well-meant philanthropy.
The resentment and hatred of his half-brother, which for years back
had filled his heart, seemed to him a thing to be ashamed of, now
that, in love's light, he saw his own career with new eyes. He
pitied Denzil, in an impersonal kind of way, for having such an
unsatisfactory brother. No wonder they never spoke of him--the
scapegrace for whom the old honorable family must blush when his name
was mentioned.
And then came an idea which caused him to smile to himself. What
would Denzil say, did he know that he was befriending that same
scapegrace brother's future wife? He had no scruple in the feeling
that money was being expended for such a purpose. But it reminded
him of another matter.
"Listen, Rona," he said. "I shall send you money whenever I can. At
first it will not be much. But as soon as I am in regular work, I
should like to send you enough to buy your own clothes, and so on--so
that you should not be beholden to these good people for absolutely
everything. I have brought you half a sovereign to-day, just for
pocket-money, and I shall send more at the first opportunity. That
will make me feel as if you were real--as if, one day, you really
would belong to me."
As he spoke, the church clock chimed a quarter to eight. In ten
minutes, folks would be coming out of church. Their enchanted
interview was almost over.
He looked at her with a kind of despair. "Rona, I must go! I never
thought that it could be as terrible as this to say good-by!"
She looked at him helplessly, her eyes swimming in tears.
--"And I have nothing to give you--nothing to offer but my wretched
self----"
He dived into his pocket, brought out a sixpence, and with a pair of
pocket-pliers, divided it neatly in two pieces. Then, with a piercer
in his pocket-knife, he drilled a tiny hole in each half, and made
her promise that she would suspend the charm about her own neck, as
he would about his--as the only tangible sign of their plighted vows.
There was but a moment, after this ceremony, to be spent in
leave-taking. Felix, to his own utter astonishment, broke down
completely.
"You'll be true to me, Rona--you won't fail me?" he gasped,
half-blinded by the choking tears; and Rona, with those tears wet
upon her cheek, promised, knowing no more than a kitten what she was
promising, nor why.
For one instant their lips were together, the young man trembling,
ashamed of his weakness, his hot heart filled with a surge of emotion
so unexpected as to be to him alarming; and then he was running from
her, not daring to look back, stumbling away in the evening dusk with
a heart more joyful, but with pangs more dire than he had imagined
possible.
And now the future lay before him, like the battle-field upon which
to-morrow's conflict should take place. To the old Felix he had
bidden farewell. He had now no mind to regenerate society, only to
make one woman happy. Rona, who knew the worst of him--Rona, who had
come to him at the moment when he touched bottom--Rona loved him.
Then to conquer the world was a mere detail. It could be done, and
he, Felix, was the man to do it.
* * * * * * *
In the course of the ensuing day, Miss Rawson received the following
letter.
It was typewritten, and dated from a London hotel.
"Miss Rawson (Private).
"DEAR MADAM,--I must begin this letter with some attempt to express
my deep sense of the great kindness you have shown to my young
sister. I scarcely know how to write. Words mean so little. But as
I have nothing else, I must, all the same, make use of them to tell
you of my undying gratitude to you and Mr. Vanston for a help so
prompt and so effectual as that you have already bestowed. But,
madam, not only am I your debtor for all these favors--you actually
speak of interesting yourself further in my sister's case--upon
conditions.
"I cannot tell you how much it would mean to me to know that she was
safe, and in trustworthy hands, during the next year or two. I have
thrown up my old work, and, for reasons I shall explain, I cannot
return to it. I have now the offer of work which will, I trust, turn
out well for me, but of such a character--involving residence abroad
and much movement from place to place--as would make it very
difficult at first to have my sister with me.
"But now, madam, we come to the crucial point. You most naturally
stipulate that the kind offer you make is contingent upon my
frankness. Before we go further, let me avow, without disguise, that
I dare not be perfectly frank with you. The reason for this is that
we are fugitives. We have an uncle, who was in charge of my sister,
and from whose wicked hands she was escaping when she met with her
accident. Should he find out where she now is, he would no doubt try
to repossess himself of her.
"We are orphans; and in justice to your kindness, and relying on your
secrecy, I will own to you that our name is not Smith in reality, but
Leigh. My uncle made an unjustifiable attempt to compel my sister to
adopt as her profession the music-hall stage--to which she was
strongly averse. He paid a premium for her complete training to a
man who was neither more nor less than an unprincipled scoundrel. On
my sister's declining to submit to his treatment, he tried to starve
her into submission by locking her up and leaving her without food.
In rescuing her from this terrible position--only just in time--I was
so unfortunate as to allow her to fall from a considerable height,
with the result that, as you know, she was seriously hurt.
"We made our escape, penniless and without resources, in the canal
barge.
"You will see that I am being frank with you as regards the
circumstances. I refrain only from the mention of names and places.
I am fully aware that, by so doing, I put it out of your power to
verify any part of my story. But what can I do? My uncle is furious
at having paid down a large sum for my sister's training, only to
lose her. He will leave no stone unturned to recapture her. He has
set detectives upon our track, though he has not allowed the
newspapers to make our flight known. I cannot even give you the
address of the school at which my sister was educated, as this is the
first place in which my uncle would make inquiries; and the
lady-principal might think it her duty to answer them, should you let
her know where we are.
"My uncle is my sister's legal guardian until she comes of age. Any
court of law would, on his application, restore her to his care,
unless we could adduce satisfactory proof of his brutality, which
would be very difficult.
"I hope you will see that there are strong reasons for my reticence.
Nevertheless, on reading this over, I feel that it is very likely
that you may, even if you believe what I say, wish to disembarrass
yourself of a charge who might quite possibly prove a difficulty
should her guardian discover her place of refuge.
"But I am perfectly determined that, whatever happens, she shall not
go back to a life she justly loathes--a life in which she would be
ruined, body and soul. Should you decide not to keep her, I will
fetch her away, take her abroad with me, and manage as best I can for
her.
"I will add no more to a letter already long enough to need apology.
Accept, then, madam, my profound thanks, and my assurance that,
however you decide, I consider myself deeply your debtor. If you
feel that you do not care to accept further responsibility in the
matter, please let me know at once, as I must then make arrangements
to fetch my sister.--I am, madam, your grateful and obliged servant,
"DAVID SMITH.
"P.S.--With the exception of the uncle in question, we have no
relations."
CHAPTER XIII
THE FINISHED PRODUCT
But on a day whereof I think
One shall dip his hand to drink
In that still water of thy soul,
And its imaged tremors race
Over thy joy-troubled face...
From the hovering wing of Love
The warm stain shall flit roseal on thy cheek.
--FRANCIS THOMPSON.
Summer sunshine lay broad and calm upon the lawns at Normansgrave.
Over all brooded that peace and well-being, that calm which is like
the hum of well-oiled machinery, or the sleeping of a top which,
nevertheless, spins on in the apparent repose. It is pre-eminently a
characteristic of English country life, this regulated prosperity,
the result of long centuries of experiment, issuing in perfect
achievement.
In England we have thoroughly acquired the art of domestic comfort.
And we have the means to carry our knowledge into effect.
All other nations feel it. There is hardly a civilized person in the
world who would not own that in England we have solved the riddle of
making ourselves perfectly comfortable.
Aunt Bee's competent hands still ruled over Normansgrave. During the
two years which had elapsed since the disappearance of his brother
Felix, the Squire had not married, neither was he engaged to be
married.
During the first months following the bereavement, with its curious
and mysterious surrounding circumstances, it had been natural that
Denzil should withdraw himself somewhat from society. But as weeks
rolled by, and the police found no clew, there was nothing for it but
to acquiesce in the uncertainty, and to assume either that Felix was
dead, or that he wished to be thought so.
The newspapers had, of course, made the most of the mystery. They
had flung it forth in flaming headlines, they had printed the letters
written by the suicide, they had striven to whip up flagging interest
by suggesting clews which the police had not really found. One
enterprising journal actually had a competition, "Where is Felix
Vanston?"
All kinds of letters and answers were sent in, and the Editor
promised a prize, when the truth should at last be brought to light,
to the competitor who had guessed nearest to the truth.
In the December of that year, when the trees lost their leaves, and a
man's decomposed corpse was found in a thicket in one of the London
parks, the whole hateful discussion leapt from its ashes and revived
in full force. Was it, or was it not, Felix Vanston?
The police thought that it was. No identification was possible, the
thing had had too many months in which to decompose. But in what had
been a pocket was a newspaper; and this, being folded very small, the
date was legible on one of the innermost pages: and it was the date
of the disappearance from the Deptford lodging.
Denzil and Miss Rawson, in the absence of more cogent proof than
this, declined to accept the remains as being those of the missing
youth.
The Editor of the paper who had started the competition, however,
awarded the prize to the candidate who had foreshadowed such a
discovery.
And thereafter, silence fell upon the Press, and the Case of the
Disappearance of Felix Vanston was over.
The world slipped back by degrees into its groove, and after a while
Denzil grew less shy of going to London hotels, and began to lead his
usual life, without the dread of being interviewed. But time flowed
on, and he was still a bachelor, having apparently acquired a habit
in that direction--or--as his aunt in her heart believed--because he
was waiting.
If that were so, the period of his waiting was at an end. Two days
ago, Rona Smith, the girl for whom his benevolence had done so much,
had returned from her two years abroad.
She was coming slowly along the graveled terrace, a book in her hand,
a rose-colored sunshade over her head tinging her white gown with
reflected color. Miss Rawson, seated by the tea-table under the big
beech, watched her approach with eyes full of interest, wonder, and
amusement.
Denzil, who had been yachting with a friend, was expected home that
afternoon; and his aunt was more than curious to see the meeting.
The letter which the soi-disant David Smith had written with so much
anxiety and care and hesitation--the letter upon which Rona's future
had hung--had been the cause of much doubt and deliberation between
Miss Rawson and her nephew. Aunt Bee was inclined to advise that
they should hold out--should stipulate for frankness under seal of
secrecy. She believed that, had they done so, the young man would
have made a clean breast of the whole affair. And she was probably
right. Felix would, most likely, have acknowledged his true name,
and relinquished all hope of calling Rona his, sooner than do her the
injustice of dragging her about Europe in company of two men, neither
of whom was related to her, when but for his selfishness she might be
living the sheltered life of the English upper classes. He could
have been forced into avowal. But they did not force him. Denzil,
with that curious streak of romance which lurks in most Englishmen,
was, perhaps, rather pleased that there should be a mystery about
Rona. The notion that she was to be protected against secret enemies
appealed to a mild vein of plotting which existed in him. He
undertook the risks so vaguely hinted at by Felix, not merely
readily, but with eagerness.
The smuggling of Miss Smith out of England was the first thing which
helped to turn his mind off the distressing case of his brother.
Miss Rawson and he took the girl abroad. They traveled here and
there, from one place to another in Germany, visiting the educational
centers, seeking a place where they could with confidence leave their
charge.
They found, at last, in a pretty south German town, an English lady,
widow of a German officer, who took a few girls to board, and gave
them a sound education, having masters for music and drawing. Here
Rona, whose health was completely re-established, was left; and from
that day to this she and Denzil had not met.
The girl developed a great ambition to learn. She was happy and
content with Frau Wilders, and willingly remained there during the
Christmas holidays. The following summer Miss Rawson journeyed out
to see her, and found her thoroughly proficient in German, and most
anxious to be allowed to pass her second year in France. This was
satisfactorily arranged. Aunt Bee traveled with her to Rennes, where
Frau Wilders knew a lady in the same line as herself. Rona lived
with this lady and attended the public day-school in the university
town.
And now she was educated. Moreover, she was a woman grown. And Miss
Rawson had brought her home from France, wondering not a little as to
what the outcome of the situation was to be.
During all these two years there had been, so far as she was aware,
no attempt to gain possession of the girl, certainly no annoyance of
her, on the part of the uncle who was supposed to be so malign a
being.
Had it not been for the girl's own personality, Miss Rawson, who was
a sensible, unimaginative woman, would have been inclined to think
that the tale of persecution was the invention of the brother, as a
way of extricating his sister and himself from destitution. But, in
some manner wholly indescribable, Rona refuted this theory, simply by
being Rona.
Miss Rawson, who had been her companion for four or five weeks each
summer, had seen a good deal of her, and was not an easy person to
deceive. She knew well enough that the girl believed herself to have
cause to dread something, or someone. Under the keen scrutiny of
Miss Rawson's criticism, there had never appeared one trait, one
phrase, which was out of harmony with Rona's claim to gentle birth
and breeding. Her tastes were innately fastidious. In all the small
minutiæ of a refined girl's habits, she was above reproach. Her
convent breeding had given her an atmosphere of purity and
simplicity, upon which the modern culture of her later education sat
with a curious charm. But there was more than this underlying the
fascination which the elder woman felt but could not classify. She
was only conscious of thinking that Rona was the most attractive
maiden she had ever seen. There was not a girl of their acquaintance
who could hold a candle to her. She was more than pretty, she was
truly beautiful, with a somewhat grave beauty, as of one over whom
hung some menace or anxiety.
But at the nature of this anxiety Miss Rawson could make no guess.
Rona had left the gravel now, and her feet trod the shorn turf, her
white gown slipping over its verdure like lake-foam over water-weed.
She had dignity, she had poise, those things now most rare in the
modern girl, who is generally ill-assured, in spite of her
free-and-easy pose. But under the fine calm of her manner there was
a shadow.
Rona carried a secret in her heart. This secret, at first
half-delightful, had gradually grown to be a distress, a burden--at
last an out-and-out nightmare. Within a few days of her parting from
Felix in the summer-house she was feeling strongly the discomfort of
the situation in which he had placed her.
She was secretly betrothed to the young man who posed as her brother!
She saw plainly that David must naturally be unwilling that his own
prison record should be known. But why should he insist upon her
adhering to the brother-and-sister fiction? She thought the deceit
unnecessary and unwise, since when he returned to claim her promise,
their true relations must be avowed, and she would stand convicted of
a long course of deception and untruth.
For the first week or so after her promise, so readily, so ignorantly
given, she had suffered horribly. And the climax of her revolt came
when she received, from Hamburg, his first wild love-letter.
Poor Felix! He let himself go, in that letter, as only a young man
in his first love can fling himself prone upon the love he imagines
in the beloved one.
There was, in the girl, no passion to kindle at the breath of his:
the unveiled vehement thing almost paralyzed her with apprehension.
In her first panic fear she wrote and bade him never so to address
her again. Did he not realize that her letters might be overlooked?
Miss Rawson might reasonably, naturally expect to be shown her
letters from her brother. They must be such as she could produce if
necessary--the kind of letter a brother might write to a sister.
Felix never admitted, even to himself, how cruelly this reproof flung
him back upon himself. Her appeal touched his tenderest feeling, and
overwhelmed him with self-reproach. He answered meekly, abjectly,
imploring forgiveness for his rashness, vowing never so to offend
again; and inclosing more money than he could conveniently spare that
she might have all she needed.
Veronica graciously accepted both the apology and the remittance.
She was not at that time old enough to see how the mere acceptance of
his money bound her to him. But it was not long before this dawned
upon her--this, and many other things.
She was a girl of fine intelligence, and she took full advantage of
all the culture put within her reach. Her mind developed apace. She
read books, she saw plays. The world as it is began to emerge before
her vision, heretofore bounded by convent walls; and soon she saw
clearly that a girl under seventeen has no right to promise herself
in marriage. She knew that she had given a promise that meant
nothing. She formed, in her secret heart, an Ideal of marriage,
which was not in the least like the gaunt young man, with the hunted
eyes, who had implored her to be true to him. Looking back upon the
little scene in the arbor she could not but think that he had taken
an unfair advantage of her gratitude and friendlessness. By the end
of her first vacation the thought of her secret engagement was a
millstone round her neck.
She still kept to her habit of writing to him. He stood for
something in her life, after all. He was sympathy, kindness, a
creature to whom she could turn for fellow-feeling in joy or trouble.
He was as interested as she in her powers of mind, in her improvement
in languages, her music, and her reading. He wrote more and more
hopefully of his own prospects. Always he kept to her commands, and
his letters might have been shown to anybody. Yet sometimes there
breathed through them a current of feeling which sent a chill
foreboding through her. What was she to say when at last he came to
claim her promise--she who knew she had nothing to give?
Her obligation to him weighed upon her far more heavily than her debt
to Mr. Vanston. She became deeply, feverishly anxious to earn her
own living. She had a record of every remittance that David had ever
sent, that one day she might repay him.
Her own complete change of mind encouraged her to hope at times that
he might have changed his. It seemed impossible that he, a grown
man, in a world full of women, could remain faithful to the memory of
a girl whom he had only seen two or three times--a girl of whom he
knew so little.
What if his heart were as empty towards her as hers towards him?
What if he still wrote, still paid, only from a sense of duty, and
because he had given his word?
One day it was borne in upon her to try in a letter to ascertain his
real feeling; and she wrote to him, about six months before her final
return to England, after this fashion:
"We write to one another, you and I, of what we do, but not of what
we think. Yet, since we last met, we must have changed, both of us.
At least, I have changed, and it seems foolish to believe that you
alone, of all men, have stood still in a world full of movement, of
interest, of men, and of women too.
"I wonder--I often wonder--and at last my curiosity is so great that
I feel I must let it out--what you seriously think, now, of the
little comedy of our betrothal in the garden that Sunday evening?
"I wonder if you have realized how rash we were to promise any
lifelong bond--we who knew nothing of either life or bonds: we who
knew nothing of each other, of our respective characters and tastes?
"It seems to me impossible that you should not have traveled as far
since then, in mind, as you have done in body. And I want to tell
you this. If you have come to the conclusion--as it is borne in upon
me that you must have--that we were a couple of silly, unreflecting
things; please be sure that I, too, am growing up, that I, too, shall
soon be able to work for myself, and to repay your goodness to me
financially, if not in other ways; and finally, that I, too, see how
unreasonable it would be for one of us to hold the other to such a
compact in the future."
After the dispatch of this letter, she had awaited a reply in some
trepidation.
It did not arrive for some weeks, since Felix and Vronsky, out in
Siberia, were much occupied with certain happenings hereafter to be
recorded fully. When at last a letter was received, it was
inconclusive. Felix wrote that he hoped, before the end of the year,
to get leave to come and see her. Until then he thought it best not
to discuss the nature of their feelings for each other. For himself,
if he wrote of what he did, and not of what he thought, that, as she
must know, was out of deference to her commands. What he desired
was, as always, her happiness. Just now he was not in a position to
write more definitely, but as soon as his plans cleared, she should
hear from him again.
That letter had reached Rona towards the end of February. She had
not heard since, and it was now July. A remittance had arrived,
however, regularly each month as usual.
The ceasing of letters from David had not troubled her much. Its
effect had been to relegate the whole affair more and more to the
background of her young eager mind, full of plans for the future and
not eager to busy itself with the past.
Such was the Veronica now moving over the grass towards Aunt Bee.
"Come, child, tea will be cold," said Miss Rawson.
"Nothing could be cold to-day," laughed back Rona, raising her eyes
from her book, but quickening her steps obediently.
The stable clock chimed a quarter past four.
"Denzil ought to be here soon if he comes by that train," said Aunt
Bee.
"I am impatient to see him again," said Rona, in tones of candid
interest. "I owe him so much, I feel inclined to act like a young
person in a novel of a century ago, and fall on my knees, seizing and
kissing my benefactor's hand! Wouldn't he be astounded!"
"Indeed he would! Denzil never gave way to an impulse in his life."
"No. I remember well how dignified and proper he always was. But
think how good he has been to me!" She sat down in a low chair and
took her tea from Miss Rawson's hands.
As David had been so careful to keep her in funds, her dress had
always been her own affair. And she had a style of her own.
It was daring to wear a rose-lined hat with the warm chestnut of her
abundant locks; but she achieved it.
Aunt Bee caught herself thinking that, if Denzil really wanted her,
he had better make up his mind at once. Nameless and dowerless
though she was, the Girl from Nowhere was not likely to go long
a-begging.
Even as the thought crossed her mind, the puffing of the arriving
motor could be heard upon the still air.
"There he is!" cried Aunt Bee, rising from among her tea-things.
Rona did not rise. She leaned forward with an air of interest, but
quite controlled. Miss Rawson was halfway across the lawn when
Denzil stepped out through the drawing-room window, joined her on the
terrace, greeted her with affection, and strolled with her towards
the table in the shade.
Then Veronica rose, slowly, to her full height. The moment lent a
slight added glow to the carnation of her smooth cheek. But the shy
dignity of her attitude was almost condescending, as Aunt Bee noted
with relish.
Denzil was looking his best. Yachting suited him. He was tanned and
healthy-looking, his blue eyes very clear, as if with the reflection
of the seas whereon he had lately sailed. He was in the midst of a
sentence when he perceived the young regal creature rising from the
low chair to greet him. His voice died away, and for a moment he
stopped short just where he was, upon the grass.
"Is that--Rona--Miss Smith?"
He corrected himself with haste, with sudden, helpless confusion. He
dare not call her Rona; and that such a goddess could be called Smith!
His appearance pleased the girl. This was a man of wisdom and
character, she told herself--a man who knew the world--not a mad boy
who went tilting at windmills. The gratitude in her heart welled up
into her glorious eyes as she laid her hand in his without a word.
"So you are grown up!" said Denzil, wondering and gazing, and
drinking her in.
"Thanks to you," she responded, in a sweet, rather low-pitched voice,
"I am grown up and ready to face the world."
"To face the world!" echoed the Squire. "I wonder what you mean by
that! How well you look! I was not sure that you and Aunt Bee were
home, or I should have hurried back yesterday."
"Rona does look well, and so do you, Denzil. I don't think I ever
saw you look better," said Miss Rawson, handing him his tea. "We got
home the day before yesterday. The heat in London and Paris was too
great for us to wish to stay there."
"And what do you mean by facing the world?" persisted Denzil, sitting
down luxuriously, tossing his straw hat upon the grass, and lifting
his dazzled eyes once more upon the princess of Thule who stood
before him.
"I mean," said Rona, turning with composure and once more seating
herself, "that, owing to you, I have a first-rate education and the
means to earn my living. I am ready to begin, as soon as possible.
I want to repay you all that my schooling has cost you."
Her manner in speaking was one of perfect simplicity. There were no
protestations, no asseverations. Yet her gratitude and her
independent pride were both apparent, and both, coming from her,
seemed subtly wonderful.
Miss Rawson looked up in surprise. Strange as it may seem, this idea
had not occurred to her. She was not a modern woman, and had no idea
of woman's vocations. She had fancied that Rona would be abundantly
content to remain at Normansgrave until Denzil married her or David
fetched her away. So had Denzil. He gazed at her in perplexity, in
wonder, in vast admiration. He might have known she would show this
fine spirit.
"Surely," she said, earnestly, "you did not think that I was a sort
of bottomless gulf, swallowing all your money and kindness with no
hope of returning it? I can work, and I wish to work. I could not
live here as a pauper, dependent on your charity, could I?"
"What do you propose to do?" asked Denzil.
"To write stories for the magazines. There was a girl at Rennes
whose elder sister earned about a hundred and fifty pounds a year in
that way."
"But, my dear child," said Aunt Bee, "how do you know that you have
the capacity to write stories?"
"Because I have already written one," said Rona, calmly. "I wrote it
and sent it to this girl's sister to dispose of. She sold it at
once, and I got three guineas for it!"
They sat staring at her.
"I had to have it typed, so that I did not get the full price for
it," she went on. "I shall be obliged to learn to use a typewriter,
as it costs too much to pay to have things typed. That will all be
by degrees."
"I should think so!" gasped Aunt Bee.
"And," she went on, quite calmly, "it is in my mind to ask you if I
might stay here with you six months? I am afraid it will take me six
months to earn enough money to set up in London, even in one room."
Denzil laid down his plate of strawberries and cream, and cleared his
throat.
"One swallow does not make a summer!" he remarked, profoundly. "You
must not expect, because one of your stories got published, to be
able to sell others."
"The editor who bought the last said he would take more of the same
kind," she replied, unmoved. "I sent him another last week, and I
expect soon to hear from him."
"I don't see why you should not write stories, dear," said Aunt Bee,
in amusement. "But is it absolutely necessary that this should be
done in one room in London? Could you not write your stories just as
well here, without depriving us of our girl?"
"Exactly!" broke in Denzil, warmly; so warmly that his aunt had much
ado not to laugh. "She has done it," was her inner thought. "He
knows now that he cannot let her go."
The unaccustomed feeling was almost more than Denzil could cope with.
He became quite absent-minded, and seemed as if some curious
oppression lay upon him.
He rose, after a few minutes, and stood squarely before Rona, his
hands behind him. "What is your last news of your brother?" he asked.
Rona looked up, startled. "He--he has not written at all lately,"
she said. "You know Mr. Vronsky and he went back to Siberia, to the
mines there, after establishing his patent in Europe."
"What do you think he would say to me if I allowed you to go off and
live alone, without consulting him? I hope you won't think me a
tyrant, but I don't see how I can sanction your going off alone
without his written permission."
Aunt Bee murmured assent. "Strange how necessity spurs the wit!" she
thought.
"You know, I feel you would not be safe alone in London," said
Denzil, seriously. "No--not simply because you are a girl; I know
girls do these things now. But because you have enemies, and they
might find you out. Remember you are not yet of age. What if your
uncle should try to recapture you?"
He saw that this shot had told. Rona grew white. "Oh!" she said,
irresolutely, "but I should think that is safe now. He has left me
alone all this time."
"But he may be watching for just such a chance."
She lifted her liquid eyes to his face. "I do not want to go away,"
she said frankly, "but I do not want to be a burden--a sponge. You
have been so kind, I want you to know that I am very far from
expecting you to do more."
Her look fell away from the expression in his.
"Write stories, by all means," said Denzil, his eyes resting
fascinated on the brim of her lowered hat. "But save your money for
future emergencies. Meanwhile, it is holiday-time. Shall we
postpone the discussion for a few weeks? I feel, in this weather, as
if I did not want to talk business. Give me my holiday--you take
yours. Stay here meanwhile, and when the summer days are over we can
decide upon future plans. Come--show me the stables, the
kitchen-garden, the palm-stoves--I have been away an age, and I want
to look at everything!"
He held out his hand to her, and, with a hesitation which Miss Rawson
remarked, she gave him hers. He raised her to her feet, and they
stood together a moment, looking into each other's eyes.
Rona would not have been human had she failed to read the admiration
in his. His heart swelled with the true Cophetuan delight. He had
all, she had nothing but her beauty. He was master of his actions
and his fortune; there was nobody to dictate to him, should he marry
the beggar maid. And now the idea, which had so shyly nestled in his
heart for two years, suddenly shook its wings and soared. He would
marry this interesting girl, whose grace and dignity were worthy of
being raised to his throne.
And for the first time the same idea struck Rona--struck her with a
shock. Never till that moment had she thought of Denzil as a man who
might love and wish to marry her. He had seemed older, too staid--as
she said to David--too fiddle-faddly. But now that she was grown,
up, she knew that the disparity between them was by no means too
great--the difference between nineteen and thirty-three.
They wandered into the old walled fruit garden, down past a long
strip of border, garnished in one place with bits of quartz in
strange devices.
"I never come past here," said Denzil, falteringly, "without thinking
of my dead brother."
"Your brother?" said the girl, in speechless amazement. "I never
knew you had a brother!"
"No," he replied, in a deep voice, stopping before the bits of
quartz--"I never speak of him. It is too distressing a subject; and,
by my orders, nobody has ever mentioned him to you. But one day,
perhaps, I shall be able to tell you about him. This was his garden,
when he was a little chap. Old Penton, the gardener, keeps it up, as
he used to like it kept. Do you see the rockery? He made it all
himself. Poor fellow!" As he stood looking down upon the bits of
stone, and the little ferns that grew still, though the stormy,
wayward heart of the young man was dust, his eyes filled with tears.
Here was he, Denzil, in possession of wealth, land, love, everything
that makes life glorious; and his brother had crowned a career of
folly by a death of crime.
The old gardener was working not far off. He came up to greet his
master and say how well he looked.
"Aye," he said, "and there's poor Master Felux's bit o' garden. I
always keeps it, so I do. I was rare and fond o' him when he wor a
little lad. And I see his spirit walk, I did, one evening in spring,
two year and more back. Soon after the noos of his death came it
wor--and a Sunday evening. I see him as plain as I sees you two
now--walking along the avenue. But the light was bad, and he slipped
away, and I didn't see him no more." He brushed the back of his hand
over his eyes, and his voice broke. "I says to my missus that night,
'No fear but what he's gone,' I says. 'For I've a-just seen him';
and she says, 'Tummus, you be a gawp!'--just like that. But for all
her gawps I seen him--I seen him right enough--and his face as white
as if he'd been in his coffin."
They smiled tenderly upon the old man's delusion.
CHAPTER XIV
"YOU NEVER WERE MINE"
--You have taken from me
The Present, and I murmur not, nor moan;
The Future too, with all her glorious promise;
But do not leave me utterly alone!
Spare me the Past.
--ADELAIDE A. PROCTER.
For Denzil Vanston the days which ensued upon his homecoming were
days of charm and wonder. Life for him took on new colors, the
presence of Rona in the house gave an unwonted zest even to the most
trivial things.
Miss Rawson watched, well pleased, the intercourse between the two.
They played tennis and golf, they rowed and punted together. Rona's
physical health was perfect, and she was apparently never tired.
But when a fortnight of such dalliance had gone by, the vigilant aunt
began to think that, if anything were to come of it, she had better
take some steps to force the pace.
Denzil had never been a hot-blooded young man, and he was no longer
in his first youth. He seemed quite satisfied with what his aunt
impatiently characterized to herself as "philandering" with the
beautiful girl with whom his generosity had enabled him to be on
terms of intimacy. He did not make love to Veronica. He
complacently played a semi-paternal part, treating her indulgently,
as a beloved child; and he was, to all appearance, abundantly content
with the situation as it was.
But the looker-on knew that this apparently stable and well-balanced
position must of necessity be of a most temporary and elusive
character. Veronica had not been a week in the house, when the young
men of the neighborhood took to coming to call in a persistent and
unusual manner; and invitations to dinner arrived, pointedly
including "the young friend who is staying with you."
It should be remarked that Mr. Vanston possessed in a marked degree
one valuable quality--the virtue of discretion. He had held his
tongue about the waif girl whom his aunt had rescued from the canal
barge. One or two of the old servants at Normansgrave--Chant, the
butler, for example--knew of the circumstances of Rona's first
appearance. So also did Dr. Causton. The nurse who had then been
employed at the Cottage Hospital had since married and left the
neighborhood; and as Rona had not been seen for two years, and nobody
had spoken of her, she was not, upon her reappearance, associated in
people's minds with the circumstances of her first arrival. This had
taken place just at the time when poor Felix's suicide, or
disappearance, had been in the foreground of everybody's thoughts
concerning the Vanstons. Everybody who called upon Miss Rawson
during the sad period had been so eager to be informed upon the
subject, that the topic of the girl from the barge had not been
necessary in order to maintain conversation.
And now that Rona had come to stay at Normansgrave for an indefinite
term, Denzil decided that she should use her own name, of Leigh, and
not be called Smith any longer, as for safety's sake, and in case
anybody should be making inquiries for her, she had been called
during her two years abroad. Nobody was likely to associate the
tall, graceful, well-dressed Miss Leigh, now visiting her friends,
with the pale, half-grown creature who had been the first patient at
the now popular Cottage Hospital.
Denzil had taken an opportunity of telling Dr. Causton that he wished
no mention of the barge episode to be made. He said that there was a
reason for silence. Dr. Causton, who possessed both brains and eyes,
had naturally perceived that Rona was not among her accustomed
surroundings when he first found her upon the _Sarah Dawkes_. He
concluded that the secret had been confided to the Vanstons, who had
so generously befriended her, and kept his counsel accordingly.
To inquiring friends Miss Rawson simply said that Denzil was acting
as guardian to Miss Leigh for her brother, who was in Siberia; a
statement which, as far as she knew, was perfectly true.
If Miss Rawson had found Rona interesting in her youth and
helplessness, she was now amazed at the character and ability
developed by the foundling. She knew that this was a most unusual
girl: she believed that she was the very woman for Denzil, could she
but be induced to think so. And at this point in her career--before
she had discovered her power--and while the glow of her gratitude to
Denzil, and the fact of her having known no other young men,
conspired to make him acceptable in her eyes--it seemed this might be
compassed.
To Aunt Bee's acute intelligence, the fact of the girl's nameless,
homeless condition was by no means altogether a drawback. She had
been most carefully trained from early childhood; she seemed to have
no undesirable relatives, with the one exception of the Wicked Uncle;
and having no mother or sisters of her own to interfere, she would be
more dependent upon Miss Rawson. And this dear lady would hardly
have been human had she not felt that she would like a certain amount
of influence with Denzil's wife.
But, if it were to be done, it must be done at once. She felt this
keenly. Rona was already longing to stretch her wings. Her second
story had been bought by the editor who took her first. She had,
apparently, a play of fancy of that graceful, iridescent kind which
suits the pages of the modern magazine. And here was a source of
income, likely to become considerable. And no doubt Rona had
imbibed, with her modern education, modern ideas of womanly
independence, though at present these were tempered by the conventual
upbringing.
The uncle who had designed the girl for the stage had been a man of
penetration. She was not only beautiful, she was beautiful in a
dramatic style. Soon--very soon--somebody would tell her so. Soon
she would awake to the consciousness of Power. And then good-by to
Denzil's chances!
Miss Rawson had no wish to entrap the girl before she was old enough
to judge for herself. She sincerely thought that, if it could be
brought about, she would be happy with Denzil, that the career of
being mistress of a house, and a personage in the county, would
occupy her talents in a safe and satisfactory manner. She would
kindle her husband's ambitions, she would be the mother of splendid
children. In her the traditions of the family would blossom once
more.
Such was the earnest ambition of Aunt Bee. She knew the good in
Denzil. He was capable of being an excellent husband and father.
But he must secure Rona before passion awoke in her.
To this end she plotted. She invited a house-party to stay at
Normansgrave. Among them was that same Miss Myrtle Bentley whom
Denzil had once thought that he could like well enough to bestow upon
her the priceless treasure of his heart. There is little doubt that
she would have accepted it, most gratefully; for she was
twenty-eight, and the slight primness which endeared her to Denzil
was not an attraction in the eyes of other men.
She came; and Denzil marveled that he could ever have been drawn
towards her. Others came too. Several young men. Aunt Bee asked
none whom she thought likely to be dangerous to Rona; but several to
whom she thought Rona would inevitably be dangerous.
As a few days fleeted by, she congratulated herself upon the success
of her maneuver. The young men surrounded Rona as flies hover about
honey. Denzil was no longer able to monopolize her. He felt the
change acutely. His aunt had strong hopes that, before long, his
calm must give way, and he be driven over the verge of a declaration.
It was to her unaccountable that he should be so slow to move. But
she had to admit that Veronica gave him no help. Veronica was not
the least bit in love. She was reveling, with all her intense
physical capacity, in the pleasure which life gave her. Surrounded
by summer weather, pleasant people, and beautiful country, she gave
herself up to holiday happiness--picnics by river, picnics by motor,
garden-parties, golf, and dancing--each thing in turn was new, was
absorbing, was delightful.
She seemed fast slipping into that daughterly attitude towards Denzil
which Aunt Bee dreaded and strove to avert.
The girl was living in the golden present moment. There was a dark
background to her thought. Now and then, even in the midst of her
mirth, the shadow of her secret betrothal flapped its black wings in
the sunshine. But she turned her mind and her heart away from it.
She was gloriously amused, she was glowing with the pride of life and
youth. She was not going to think upon any disagreeable subject.
And then, one morning, there lay upon her plate a letter. A letter
with the usual Russian stamps and the usual typewritten address. For
Felix never dared risk his handwriting, for fear of recognition.
Veronica gazed upon that envelope as a man may look upon the Black
Hand which is the secret summons of some nefarious society, and calls
upon him to prepare for death. A gust of loathing memory swept over
her. Again she saw the dun half-daylight of a London winter; again
the endless lines of railway far below. She smelt the odor of hay
and tarpaulin, and saw the dizzy lights upon the black, slow river.
She resented being reminded of the terrible moment of her despair,
her escape, her accident, her privations. She looked down the
breakfast-table at the well-looking, prosperous people who were
feeding there. What had she and they in common with anarchy and
jail, and all the other awful things that lie out of sight, in the
darker corners of life?
Whatever happened, she could not open and read her letter then. She
slipped it into her pocket unnoticed. She intended to read it as
soon as she should be alone. But immediately after breakfast all was
bustle and movement, since they were going to scull up the Wey to the
ruins of Newark Abbey for a picnic. There was no leisure to break
the fatal seal.
One person had noted the arrival of the letter. This was Miss
Rawson. She welcomed it. This might bring matters to a climax,
where she had failed to do so. If Rona's brother was coming to fetch
her away, then surely Denzil would find out the nature of his own
complaint, and take steps to prevent her departure.
She watched Veronica with some keenness, as she went to and fro,
playing assistant hostess very prettily under Aunt Bee's directions,
and seeing that everybody was comfortably seated in the various
motors and traps, with rugs, cushions, and so on. Miss Rawson had
slightly sprained her knee, and was in consequence unable to go that
day's expedition. She stood in the hall superintending the departure.
Denzil was driving his own dogcart, and by a little gentle
maneuvering, Myrtle Bentley had secured the seat beside him. This
made him rather cross, though he knew quite well that Rona and he, in
consideration of their guests, could not well drive down together.
His face was moody as he sought for a missing whip among the contents
of a stand in the hall.
His aunt's eyes twinkled. "I suppose," she very softly remarked, in
a pensive way, "that it is, after all, a good thing that Rona will so
soon be leaving us."
Denzil looked up with great suddenness. "What do you mean?" he
demanded.
"Well, I conclude her brother will be coming for her very shortly. I
saw she heard from him this morning, and he seems to be doing very
well. I am glad she will have a home, for she could not well stay
here after you are married, could she?" with a mischievous
inclination of her head towards the open door, where, in the
sunshine, sat the decorous Myrtle, in a somewhat starchy white
washing frock.
"What do you mean?" repeated Denzil, vacantly, a second time,
standing as if rooted to the spot.
Aunt Bee shrugged her expressive shoulders. "I have to consider the
future, you know, dear boy. And if Rona decides upon a literary
career in London, I think I shall go and share her one room.
Good-by, and good luck!"
She laughed, in the teasing way that poor Denzil never understood.
He was as nearly rude to Miss Bentley on the drive down as he ever
permitted himself to be to a lady. She described him to herself,
with some ladylike resentment, as grumpy. He did not seem to think
the day fine, nor the drive pleasant, nor to admire the lovely view
of the river, which moved her to unusual warmth of expression.
Down at the canal side, just where once the _Sarah Dawkes_ had been
moored, with a delirious, broken girl aboard her, stood Rona, upright
as a dart, her punt-pole in her hand. She wore a pale silvery green
washing silk. The masses of her hair were glorious under the shade
of her sweeping hat.
"You are never going to punt to-day, Rona?" cried the Squire, quite
sharply. "Do you realize that we have to get up to Newark?"
She raised her glorious eyes, full of astonishment at his unwonted
petulance--an astonishment which made him hot all over.
"Of course not. I am only steadying the boats," she said, with a
chill in that voice that was, to him, the barometer of his happiness.
"I had arranged to scull this boat with you."
His heart leaped.
"Oh, Miss Leigh, I don't think that is fair," broke in Captain Legge,
a young man who admired Rona considerably. "You and Vanston are such
swells, you must not pull together. I will go in your boat, and he
had better come here."
"Yes," cried the lady in this boat, "and here is room for Miss
Bentley in the stern."
Legge swiftly stepped into Rona's boat, and it would have been hard
to dislodge him without more commotion being made than the Squire
approved. He had to go with the other party, and to start for the
day with the remembrance that he had spoken sharply to his adored,
and had no chance to apologize. Myrtle could not scull; well and
good. But she thought she could steer, and was deceived in her
opinion. This was very bad indeed. All the way up, the temper of
the young man was continually chafed, and he had to go on smiling at
her well-meant apologies, as she bumped the boat under every one of
the tiny bridges which span the stream thereabouts, and must be shot,
sculls shipped, by an experienced "cox."
It was nearly a quarter to two when they at last piloted their tiny
fleet up the deep dykes, once cut by the monks for the due supply of
their Abbey, placed with rare felicity among the windings of many
streams. Little as survives of the fabric, the situation of Newark
renders it a particularly pathetic ruin. On this day the sun poured
down upon the meadow-sweet, drawing up its fragrance in gusts of
perfume; the track of each rill was marked by a fringe of purple
loose-strife; and among the forget-me-nots darted dragon-flies, like
moving gems, over the surface of the quiet waters.
It took long to discuss the excellent fare provided by Miss Rawson;
and then, in the golden afternoon, people grew drowsy, smoked,
talked, told stories, or teased and joked among themselves. In the
midst of it all the thought of her letter darted into Rona's mind.
Her conscience smote her. She told herself that she was a selfish,
unfaithful friend, a girl whom, were she to read about her in a book,
she would unhesitatingly condemn. With the excuse of hunting for
flowers, she slipped away, and seeking shelter from the burning sun,
wandered into the inclosure where the ruins stand, and sat herself
down by a wall, among the grass. She thought of David as she had
last seen him. For the past two years she had hardly thought of him
at all. Now it seemed as if his very voice spoke--"You will be true
to me? You won't fail me--will you?"
The hot blood dyed her face. She was not conscious of
unfaithfulness, in the sense of having preferred anyone else to
David. But she was conscious of a complete change of mind with
regard to him. She wished he had not written. But the letter must
be opened. She drew it from her pocket with reluctant fingers, and
broke the seal.
"Savlinsky Copper Mines,
"Barralinsk,
"Siberia, via Moscow.
"MY DEAR RONA,--I have not written to you for many, many weeks, and
this for two reasons. The first of these is that, since you told me
of your change of feeling towards me, I have found it very difficult
to know what to say to you. The other concerns my own personal
safety.
"I do not know whether it will interest you. Since your letter I
have several times thought that my best course would be to disappear
and let you hear no more of me. But the desire in me for a kind word
from you is too strong for that.
"If you are not interested, simply do not read this.
"As I have told you, for a period of nearly two years I was let alone
by the Brotherhood so completely that I began to think that I had
shaken them off. Most of the men who had had to do with me were
killed during the Russian Revolution. But one man, a Pole called
Cravatz, bore me a special grudge. He has tracked me in all my
movements, and at last, when he found me in Siberia, settled in a
position of responsibility and trusted everywhere, he found means to
communicate with me. The Governor of this Province of Barralinsk is
obnoxious to the Brotherhood. He was in command of a regiment in St.
Petersburg during the rising, and it was believed that he had urged
the severe treatment of rebels. Knowing him as I do, I think this
most unlikely; but however, he is on the proscribed list. Cravatz
brought me the official command from the Brotherhood, that I was to
be the instrument of their vengeance upon this man. That means that
I am under orders to commit a murder. If it is not done by the last
day of August my own life will not be safe for an instant.
"This was a crushing blow to me for more reasons than one. To begin
with, the Governor is my personal friend. From him I have always
received the utmost kindness, as well as from his daughter.
"But in addition to this, I have got on so well, and my prospects are
so good, that I am in a position to gratify the only wish I have in
the world, were the woman I love only brave enough to face a life in
this lonely place. But I could not, of course, think of asking you
to encounter the risk of my being murdered, perhaps before your eyes.
"However, Vronsky, my well-loved Vronsky, who is a second father to
me, thinks he sees a way out. Cravatz is a thorough-paced scoundrel,
and he has put himself within reach of the law out here.
"If we can get him arrested all will be well; there is no other
member of the Brotherhood to follow the thing up.
"And now comes the question. If I can arrange this matter--will you
come to me? I would travel to England, for I can get three months'
leave--and marry you and bring you out here. It is a desolate
village, but lovely in summer-time. You would have a comfortable
house and good servants.
"But what is the use of writing this? Even as I do it, I laugh at
myself. Is it likely that such a thing as this should happen to me?
"You are not mine, and never will be. You never were mine. It was
your sweet child-sympathy that made you think for a few minutes--a
few minutes of pity and regret--that you could love me. You repented
almost at once--did you not?
"Don't think that I am going to reproach you. The thing was
inevitable. I had no right to suggest to you what I did.
"You must not reproach yourself. I am older, harder, stronger now.
I shall not take laudanum, even though I have to live without hope.
"I have delayed the sending of this letter for three awful months of
consuming impatience, in order to be pretty certain that we had a
reasonable chance of laying hold of Cravatz. That assurance Vronsky
now gives me. I therefore write. My feeling for you has never
changed. I am, as always, your lover, and would-be husband.
"But should you send to me the words I dare not think of as
possible--should your answer be 'Yes, I will come to you'--then there
are things about myself that I must tell you.
"Don't keep me waiting, will you? Decide quickly, write, put me out
of my pain. Life here is long, days pass slowly, and I am starving
for a word. Remember that, and be merciful.--I am your devoted DAVID
SMITH."
Rona sat, with this letter in her hands, staring across at the
pine-covered hill which fronts the Abbey; and it seemed as if her
world were turning upside down. It had come. The thing which had
loomed in the dim future, the thing that during the past months she
had almost forgotten, was now upon her. She had received from David
a definite offer of marriage, and it must be answered, one way or
another.
And, in the passionate revolt of her whole nature, she felt that she
could not do it. Her home was here--here at Normansgrave, where
first she had known happiness in all her lonely, unfriended life.
Meanwhile, she had given her promise. She had given it fully,
freely, without hesitation, to the young man who was as friendless,
as forlorn as she. But in the time which had passed since then she
had found home and friends, life was opening before her--while he was
lonely still. Lonely and wanting her. What was she to do?
With a passion of terror and repulsion she contemplated the idea of
going off with this stranger, whom she had known only for three wild
days--of leaving for his sake, England, and all that England means.
Oh--she could not do it; as he said in his letter, he ought not to
demand it!
In the agony of her feelings she bowed her head upon her hands; and
it seemed as if some inner barrier broke so that the tears came. She
was a girl who seldom wept, and having once given way, she grieved
with an abandonment which frightened her. To her horror she found
that she could not control herself. She was obliged to bend before
the storm which shook her. It was half shame. By all the rules, she
should be ready to die for this man who had saved her; and she, on
the contrary, recoiled with shuddering from the mere thought of him.
It was upon this desolation of grief that Denzil, wandering in search
of her, came, with a thrill of horror unspeakable. With a leap into
life of something within him, he flung himself down upon the grass
beside her. He lifted her up, he held her in his arms, he found
himself kissing away her tears before he knew what he was about--and
the only words that came into his head as he clasped her close were:
"My darling, my own darling, what has made you cry?"
CHAPTER XV
A DIFFICULT SITUATION
Does every man who names love in our lives
Become a power, for that? Is love's true thing
So much best to us, that what personates love
Is next best? ...
My soul is not a pauper; I can live
At least my soul's life, without alms from men.
--E. BARRETT BROWNING.
The distress which had overmastered Rona was so extreme that for a
few moments it seemed to her a natural thing that Denzil should be
consoling her. Her need of just that--just the comfort that mere
petting brings in overwhelming trouble--was so intense, that there
was fitness in the thought that he, the generous man who had done so
much for her, should be the one to offer comfort in her perplexity.
But to the Squire, after the impetuous outrush of sympathy which had
carried him, as it were, off his feet for a moment, there came an
acute attack of self-consciousness which could not fail to
communicate itself to the girl whom he still held in his arms.
How the fact that there was something not in the least paternal in
the pressure of those arms was conveyed to Rona is not to be
explained. But the fact remains that, in a very short time, she did
realize it; and, sitting upright, drew herself away, and covered her
quivering mouth with her drenched handkerchief.
"Oh, what an object I must be!" she gasped, shakily, with a sudden
foolish laugh, forced and unreal.
He could not at once reply. He was moved and shaken to a surprising
degree by his plunge into so new an experience. But he made a manful
effort to answer her rationally. He thought he knew the cause of her
tears, and was not merely astonished, but frightened at their
vehemence. "Oh, do forgive me!" he stammered. "I--it was most
unintentional. You are crying because I spoke to you so harshly at
the landing-stage, are you not?"
This remarkable idea had the immediate effect of turning her thoughts
and drying her tears. "Oh!" cried she, "how could you think me so
silly? No, indeed, it is not that. It is a trouble, a real one,
that has come upon me all in a minute. I ought to have expected
it--I have always known that it must come. But, somehow, one
forgets--one hopes. And now it has happened, and I must go
away--away from everything that I--love."
The last word was almost inaudible, by reason of the tears which
threatened to flow again. Denzil's spirits rose with a leap. That
was it--Jealousy! Clever Aunt Bee, who had given him a hint! She
was jealous of Myrtle Bentley, and this most natural feminine feeling
had shown her the true state of her own heart. He snatched her hands.
"Darling, I know, I know! But you are quite mistaken! How could you
have got such a preposterous notion into your head? And yet it was
natural, too; for before I fell in love with you I had some thoughts
of Miss--ah--Bentley. But it was nothing. And you must not go, my
Rona, but stay here always, in your true home, with me. You will,
won't you? Say that you will, Rona?" His pulses bounded as he saw
how completely he had surprised her. "Have you not guessed?" he
tenderly asked, stooping to look into her troubled, drooping face.
"Have you not known always that I was most awfully fond of you? I
think I fell in love at first sight. But, of course, I would not
speak until you were a woman grown, and able to decide for yourself."
The words affected Rona. She contrasted his behavior with that of
his brother, as was inevitable. The rich man, who had so much to
offer, had held back, in order that her choice might be free and
deliberate. Her other suitor, the almost beggar, caught her, worked
upon her gratitude, bound her by a promise at an age when she was not
able to give a valid one. The thought of the deception which she had
practiced upon this good, generous friend for two years weighed down
her spirit. How little he had known her--the chivalrous, unworldly
man, who had taken her on trust, knowing nothing of her antecedents!
The real King Cophetua can never have seen, in the eyes of his beggar
maid, a look of more fervent gratitude and admiration than Rona
lifted to her suitor's face.
Of love, as between man and woman, she knew nothing at all. His
gentle and affectionate interest was just the thing to appeal to her.
And marriage with him would mean life at Normansgrave--life in safety
and honor, and clean, open-eyed peace: life undisturbed by secrets,
and dark Brotherhoods, and sinister memories. It seemed to her that
Denzil stood in sunlight, beckoning her; while, from some dark
tunnel, David stretched out hands to drag her down.
There was bewilderment and vain regret in her voice as she told her
lover:
"Oh, you are good, you are good to me! There never was such a good
man as you!"
No words could have been more sweet in his ears. He thought her
quite right. He felt sure that he was a good, just man. And she had
the insight to perceive it. No doubt marriages are made in heaven.
Rona had been sent, bruised and maltreated, lying in a canal barge,
to his door, to be the consolation of Providence for his undeserved
misfortune in having a suicide brother. Ah, what a relief it would
be to tell her all about his early manhood, and the tragedy of
Felix's disgrace!
"Then--then--you do? You will?" he stammered. "Thank Heaven, my
darling! I feared perhaps you might think me too old and grave. But
with you I shall grow young again----"
She checked him as, taking her hands, he made a movement as if to
draw her nearer.
"Oh, stop! Wait!" she gasped, falteringly, her head spinning with
the excitement of the situation, which seemed to be carrying her
away. "There is something I must tell you first--something you must
hear. I don't know how to tell you.... Oh, Mr. Vanston, if only I
had been perfectly frank with you from the first! You will be so--so
disappointed in me. I feel as if--as if I dare not tell you!" She
stopped, for the effort to speak seemed likely to choke her.
Denzil's face grew pale with apprehension. His heart knocked loudly.
What was he about to hear?
"Wait," he said, kindly, but with a slight difference from his former
tenderness of manner; "don't speak until you can do so without
distressing yourself----"
Something in his tone--an indefinable drawing-back--caused her to cry
out with urgency. "Listen! Had I guessed--had I had the least idea
that you were going to say--what you said to me just now, I would
have stopped you. Let us pretend that you did not say it! We are as
we were this morning--you my kindest friend, I your most devoted
child. Now listen. I am engaged already. I have been secretly
engaged ever since I--almost ever since I first came into your house."
He was so surprised that for a few moments he sat quite still, while
a dull brick-red surged up under his fair skin. Rona lowered before
him the proud head she had always carried so high. At last he
brought out: "Engaged! To whom?"
"To the young man who called himself my brother--to David Smith."
There was silence. Denzil took in and digested this new view of the
girl at his side. He had thought her every idea and tendency known
to him. He had believed that he himself had formed her tastes and
decided her bent. And now he was faced by the awful thought that in
her tender girlhood another man had kissed her--held her in his
arms.... He remembered the conditions under which she had been
found--on board a canal barge--with this wild youth who was not her
brother! A horrible despondency assailed him, darkening the face of
the fair landscape. All that he said was: "I could not have believed
it of you, Rona."
She winced, but maintained her composure. For long had she dreaded
this moment. It was almost with relief that she found herself living
through it. In all her forecastings of the scene, she had pictured
herself as making her avowal to Miss Rawson also.
Denzil alone was unquestionably easier to deal with.
She continued her confession.
"I have had a letter from him--to-day!"
"Indeed!" Denzil's voice sounded as though dashed with ice.
Its coldness was ominous, and stung her.
"Listen!" she urged. "If you turn from me, what is to become of me?
You are the only person in all the world who cares--except him! You
are the only person who could advise me, who could help--who
could--could--save me from him."
There was a moment's tense silence; then he said, in a softer tone,
"So you do not--love this--er--this young man to whom you are
plighted?"
She shook her head. "I was a child, you know," she faltered. "And
I--I hardly knew him. But, you see, he had saved my life. He had
saved me from--worse than death, I think. I was very grateful to
him." She mused for a moment, and then timidly asked, "Will you read
his letter?"
Denzil was not a great-minded man, nor a clever man, but he had his
code of honor. "Are you pledged to secrecy?" he asked. "I gather
that this young man has claims upon your gratitude, if not your
affection. Ought you to show me his letter?"
His integrity made her admire him afresh.
"Yes," she said, "I can hardly do otherwise, now. For he asks me to
make a decision. He wants to come over and marry me, and take me out
there to--to Siberia to live."
"To Siberia!" echoed Denzil in horror.
In truth, the idea of this brother of Rona's had occupied but a very
small niche in his mind. He was abroad, he was poor, he hardly
counted, except in so far as he would be overcome with joy at the
marvelous condescension of Mr. Vanston in raising his sister to the
rank and dignity of his wife.
And now he faced the idea that this man was a living power, to be
reckoned with; that he could, if he chose, take Rona away, to the
ends of the earth, and leave him bereft of all that made life
pleasant to him. And, on that, another thought shot swiftly into his
mind. If David Smith were no relative, then David Smith had no legal
claim. To such claim as gratitude may give, Denzil had a far better
right than he.
"You see," said Rona, "if he comes home to marry me, everything must
be known. There cannot be any more secret-keeping. David can tell
you nothing of me; when you found me, I had only known him a day or
two; he knows no more than I do of my family or position. I have
never been told who my mother was, nor my father. I was brought up
in a convent school. I had been there ever since I was a baby. My
uncle, Rankin Leigh, who took me away, was a perfectly detestable
person--a person you would not speak to, nor have any dealings with.
Oh," she wound up, with a sort of grim desperation, "it is of no use!
You could never marry a girl like me. He had better come and fetch
me away. I did promise him, and he--he--poor boy, he has nobody but
me."
After a minute's helpless silence, "Will you show me his letter?"
asked Denzil, wearily.
She drew the letter from her pocket and held it to him, keeping her
face hidden. She heard him draw the paper from the envelope, and sat
on in miserable humiliated silence while he read. The sunshine was
no longer bright to her--the gray ruins were a warning of the decay
of all earthly things, however strong. Before her lay a pilgrimage
into the wilderness, a dark frowning future, and separation from all
home ties.
He took a long time to read the letter--so long that at last she
raised her head to look at him. He was seated, staring straight
before him, his brows knit, and on his face a most curious expression
of perplexity.
"Rona," he said, with a gravity such as she had never heard from
him--"I judge from this letter that this young man who wishes to
marry you is entangled with some gang of Nihilists."
She assented.
Denzil swallowed hard, once or twice, and then said, "Could you tell
me how you came to make acquaintance with him?" In his mind was a
cold chill, a sudden, awful thought. Cravatz, the Pole, had been
tried and acquitted at the time of Felix's condemnation.
"Yes," said Rona, simply, "I will tell you. You know something about
it--how my uncle shut me up in a room, because--because--well,
chiefly because I would not let the dreadful man, Levy, kiss me. I
knew, somehow, that that man meant to do me harm--I could see in his
eyes that he was wicked. But, of course, I was helpless--as helpless
as a rabbit; and they were starving me, so that I was weak, and I was
so afraid that I should not be able to refuse food if they brought it
to me--at any price. So I decided that the only thing I could do was
to commit suicide. There were railway lines outside the window,
where I was locked up. So I said my prayers, and then I opened the
window, stood upon the sill, shut my eyes, and jumped."
Denzil uttered a cry. "Rona!" He dropped his head into his hands,
and hid his face.
"Yes," she said, quietly, "what else was there for me to do? But
just below my room there was an iron balcony, and I fell upon that,
all doubled up over the railing. Inside that room," solemnly
continued the girl, "was David Smith. What do you think he was
doing? He was in the act of drinking laudanum, with the very same
idea. He, too, was in the hands of his enemies. He, too, like me,
was starving. He had nobody in the world but his half-brother, who
did not love him, and was ashamed of him. He saw only one way out,
and he was going to die. But when I fell, he rushed out and dragged
me in. I fought and struggled to get away, for, of course, I did not
know who he was. But when I was quieter, and looked at him, I could
see that he was a gentleman, though he was so terribly thin and
starved. So we ran away together. I managed, with his help, to get
down to the canal wharf, where he knew a man, who helped us to hide
aboard a barge. But I had been so badly hurt that the effort was too
much for me, and I don't remember much else, until I woke up in the
Cottage Hospital."
Silence, broken only by the humming of summer insects among the
grass. Then Denzil asked, without raising his hidden face:
"And have you never seen him since?"
"Yes, once," replied Rona.
"When?" asked the hollow voice.
"One Sunday evening, just before he went away with Mr. Vronsky. He
asked me to meet him, and I went to the old arbor while you were at
evening service. He was unhappy and lonely, craving for love. He
had been good to me, and I was sorry for him. And when he asked me
to promise to be his wife when I grew up, I promised, because it
seemed a little thing to do for him. I was happy with you, and he
was all alone----" Her voice broke.
At last Denzil spoke. "Then it was really he whom the old gardener
saw, as he told us. Rona, the man who saved you is not called David
Smith at all. He is my younger brother, Felix Vanston."
The shock of these words brought the girl to her feet with a spring.
"Your brother? Your brother?" she cried, incoherently. "Oh, no, for
his brother was hard and merciless, and you--you are always so good
and generous! That can't be true--it simply can't!"
The Squire, too, rose. "Let me tell you something of our early
life," he said, with urgency. "You have told me the truth--the truth
which I ought to have heard when first you came to us. If I had
known--but I do my brother justice. He did not wish me to know that
it was he until he had had a chance to show that he meant to try and
do better. He has done better. He has apparently put in two years
of good, steady work, and conquered a position for himself. But his
discreditable past still drags at his heels. What did he tell you of
his past, if I may ask the question?"
She answered, softly and low, "He told me that he had been in prison.
But he said he was very sorry. He was misled, enticed, by bad men,
who were too clever for him. He was young, and his head was full of
great ideas."
"Let us walk along, away from the others," said Denzil, "and I will
try and tell you something about Felix's mother."
CHAPTER XVI
HAPPENINGS IN A STRANGE LAND
--I ventured to remind her,
I suppose with a voice of less steadiness
Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me,
--Something to the effect that I was in readiness
Whenever God should please she needed me.
--ROBERT BROWNING.
To the English imagination, Siberia is mainly a land of cold and
darkness, through which gangs of despairing convicts are driven with
the lashings of governmental whips.
But its beauties and its resources are being by degrees revealed
through that wonderful agency for the uniting of the isolated and the
rejoining of the divided, which we call the railway.
The province of Barralinsk is one of the most beautiful, lying, as it
does, not far east of the Ural Mountains and being well wooded in its
southern part.
To reach the Savlinsky Copper Mines one must leave the Trans-Siberian
railway at Gretz and drive for five hundred miles in a northwesterly
direction. The last three hundred miles of the journey are, for the
most part, across a treeless, rolling steppe, like some heaving sea
transformed into dry land without losing its rise and fall. But
Savlinsky itself lies not more than ten miles from a beautifully
wooded district, known as Nicolashof, where the present Governor of
the province, Stepan Nikitsch, or as he was usually called, Stepan
Stepanovitch, had built himself, not far from a woodland village, a
summer residence, in which he was accustomed to pass the hot weather,
his solitude being shared by his only and motherless daughter, Nadia
Stepanovna.
The foothills of the Urals begin to rise, very gradually, out of the
plain at this point. In the distance faint blue summits and gleaming
snow peaks border the western horizon. The summer climate is
delicious, and but for the isolation Nadia would have enjoyed her
Siberian summers. With her was an English lady, Miss Forester,
formerly her governess, now her companion.
Stepan Stepanovitch was by no means the traditional Russian despotic
governor, grinding the faces of the poor. He was a just man, if a
somewhat hard one. He knew the people with whom he had to deal, and
was respected for his steady justice. He was a man with a hobby, and
the nature of his enthusiasm was one which is rare among his race.
He greatly desired to see the resources of this vast tract of
practically useless country opened up and developed. He saw in
Siberia the future of Russia. To anyone who did anything for the
furtherance of his great idea he showed the utmost encouragement and
kindness. And within driving distance from Nicolashof there was such
a man established.
Vronsky had bought the mining rights of the copper which had been
newly discovered at Savlinsky, and in the midst of the steppe had
called into being a center of industry.
For this reason Stepan Stepanovitch loved him. His burly figure was
constantly to be seen, side by side with Vronsky's tall, thin one,
among the wooden huts, not unlike Swiss cottages, which clustered
thickly where Vronsky had gashed the plain with his excavations. And
Vronsky was at all times a welcome guest at Nicolashof, where also
went constantly his secretary and adopted son, Felix Vanston; for the
young man had abandoned his alias upon passing into Asia.
Vronsky was on the way to become a rich man. He had a genius for the
development of industry--a genius which the delighted Governor could
not sufficiently admire.
His workmen were all Kirgiz, among whom there is practically no
Nihilism and no treachery. In fact, these things attract but small
attention in the remote province. The Kirgiz, besides being a more
reliable person, works for lower wages than the Russian. Work in
those parts--good, regular work with good, regular wages--was not
easy to come by. The venture had prospered exceedingly.
One glorious summer day, about two o'clock Vronsky was in bed, a most
unwilling victim of a bout of fever. He lay in his pleasant room,
under his mosquito net, smoking lazily and glancing at the papers.
Presently, with a tap on the door, a young man entered in an English
suit, brown shoes, and straw hat. A racquet was in his hand.
"Well, old man, I suppose you can't go to Nicolashof to-day? I must
make your excuses to the Governor?" he said, lightly.
Vronsky grunted. "They won't mind my absence, if you don't fail
them," he remarked, grimly, but with a twinkle in his eye. "Take my
apologies to the Governor. He knows what fever is; and there is
something else which you must take--something of more importance to
you than my regrets--of a confounded deal more importance! Give me
my dispatch-box."
The time which had elapsed since Felix Vanston and Vronsky first met
at Basingstoke railway station had made a vast difference in the
younger man. Felix had, even at that time, looked older than his
age. Now this trait was more marked. But the lines upon his face
were those traced by experience and discipline. This was a man who
had himself well in hand. His boyhood lay far behind him; he had
learnt in the school of adversity. The result was that Felix had
become, in the fullest sense of the word--a Man. You looked at him,
and instinctively you trusted him. There was strength in the
expression of his mouth and truth in the steady light of his deep-set
gray eyes. These eyes had humor in them of a quiet sort. They were
the eyes of one who knew the harder side of life, and did not fear
it: unlike those of the elder man. Vronsky's were the eyes of a
dreamer, and beamed with the idealistic love which is the virtue of
the Slav race. To him this young man was as a son. He had found
him, taken him up out of despair, restored to him his self-respect,
and given him, into the bargain, the love for lack of which the young
man's soul had starved until that hour. Felix had satisfied the
warmest hopes of his adopted father. He had proved clever,
persevering, trustworthy. Together they had accomplished much, and
meant to accomplish more.
Felix placed upon the bed the black tin dispatch-box. Vronsky felt
under his pillow, drew forth a key, opened with care, and took out a
far smaller box of the same kind. This he set down, and drew from
his own neck a string upon which was suspended another key with which
he opened the smaller box.
There was a sharp knock upon the door, and before Vronsky could cry
out "Who's there?" a clerk had entered abruptly.
The man paused just inside the door, while Vronsky cried, angrily,
"Get out, you fool! I am busy! Wait outside!"
Felix rose, went to the door, and closed it behind him. "What is it?
Is it important?" he asked.
"They rang up from the mine to know if the No. 40 was dispatched,"
said the clerk, sulkily.
"When Mr. Vronsky is in bed, and I am in his room, you are never to
enter without permission," said Felix, severely. "It is an order--do
you understand?"
"Yes, sir. I am sorry," mumbled the young clerk, who was new to his
work, and possibly over-zealous. He went off, and Felix returned to
where Vronsky sat, flushed and disturbed, grasping a folded paper.
"Is that it?" whispered Felix, having locked the door.
"Yes--and he saw it. He saw the key round my neck," replied Vronsky,
furiously, though under his breath. "It was intentional. I have
suspected him ever since he entered my service. Now, the question
is, What am I to do?"
Felix made a motion of his head towards the paper.
"That is the evidence of the guilt of Cravatz?"
"It came late last night."
"And I am to take it to the Governor to-day?"
"Yes; he told me that the moment it was in his hands he would have
Cravatz arrested. There is ground enough for hanging him here."
Felix stood immovable, while the blood came slowly into his face. He
might be nearer death than he knew, and the thought showed him that
life was sweeter than at times he was wont to think.
The entrance of Streloff, the new clerk, in that summary way, was the
first evidence he had had of Cravatz's spies among their own people.
It shook him a little.
"I wonder where he is--Cravatz, I mean?" he slowly said.
"Not too near, but near enough to keep in touch with your movements,
you may depend. At Gretz, I daresay."
Felix pondered. "What I have to do is to leave the house in safety
with these papers. The clerk must be detained until I have started."
"Yes," said Vronsky, after a moment's thought. "I will have him in
to take down a typed statement from my dictation. Summon him, and
let Hutin come with him--a man I thoroughly trust. I will keep them
until you are an hour upon your journey. By that time you will be
out of reach. But, Felix, will it not be more prudent for you to
remain at Nicolashof to-night? Not to return?"
"Oh, no," said Felix, impatiently. "What good would it do to waylay
me on the way back? I shall not then have the thing they want. And
besides, who is to do it? Even if this man Streloff is a
traitor--and we have no proof that he is--what could he do against
me? I am a match for any two of them, and so far as we know, he has
no accomplices. No fear! He is here to steal if he can, but not to
fight. Fighting is not in the line of the Brotherhood.
Assassination is safer, far." He spoke with the slow, concentrated
bitterness which came into his voice whenever he thought of the toils
in which he had been caught in his hot youth.
"Give me the papers, little father," he said, "and I will put them in
the inner pocket that is upon my shirt, and button my coat and vest
over them. They will be safe enough then. There! That is all
right. Shall I summon Streloff and Hutin?"
Vronsky sighed. "I suppose so. Heaven bless you, little son." He
paused a long minute, and then added, while the blood rose under his
olive cheek, "Make my compliments to Nadia Stepanovna."
Felix looked at him with sudden sympathy, made a movement to speak,
but thought better of it. "I will do so, most certainly," he said,
very gently. He bent over Vronsky and kissed him, gave him a drink
of iced lemonade, and with a wave of his hand, bright and full of
confidence, he left the room. Crossing a wide passage he pushed open
a door on the other side and entered an office where two or three
clerks sat busy.
"Streloff!" he cried. There was no reply. "Hutin, where is
Streloff?"
"The master sent him to carry a message to the mines, sir."
"The master did nothing of the kind," cried Felix, angrily. "He is
lying, for some reason of his own. How did he go? Horse, or on
foot?"
Hutin rose. He was a strong-looking young man. "He can hardly be
gone yet, sir. He went to the stables to saddle a horse."
"Run after him and bring him back," commanded Felix.
Hutin ran swiftly out. Felix fumed, but commanded himself. He would
not go back and distress Vronsky until he knew that the spy had got
clear off. For three long, endless minutes he stood there frowning
by his own table in the office, turning over sheets of figures in an
aimless way, until there was a sound in the doorway and Hutin came
in, followed by the truant Streloff, with a scowl upon his dark
features. Felix turned to him a face full of kindness and tinged
with amusement.
"You are too zealous, Streloff," said he. "It is quite true, the
message for the mines was somewhat urgent, but don't go off without
express orders, for, you see, as it happens, you are wanted at once
by the master. I will not tell him that you were absent, as he is
apt to be a good deal vexed by that sort of thing."
Streloff was young, and he could not quite conceal the look of
malevolence which he cast upon the man who had foiled him. Felix
watched him collect his things and go across the passage to Vronsky's
room. He said, low, in Hutin's ear, "Don't let him out of your sight
till I come back, if you can help it."
Hutin lifted big, dog-like eyes to the young man's face, and squared
a huge fist with an amiable smile.
Felix waited a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and went out to where
his tarantasse waited at the door, in the brilliant sunshine. Max,
his driver, nodded gayly as the young master appeared, seated himself
in the elegant little carriage, took the reins from his servant,
shook them lightly, and with the sound of bells they shot off along
the good road that led straight from the mines to Nicolashof.
For the first three miles still the bare, treeless plain, of coarse
grass, in undulations like the waves of a dirty gray-green sea
suddenly solidified, and overblown with dust. But on the western
horizon was a dark purple line which, as they approached it, showed
itself to be the edge of the huge black forest, stretching for miles
and miles. Straight into the trees led the white ribbon of road.
First there were birch trees, light and fanciful, a wood full of
sunshine and wild-flowers. But in another mile or so their place was
taken by the black firs, the straight, unbending shafts of the dim
mysterious pines. Still, the forest was not here so deep. Glades
intervened and broke the monotony. After a while they came out upon
a large clearing, whereon was built a prosperous-looking village,
with its church and school: just beyond it, the park gates of
Nicolashof. Max opened them, and the tarantasse shot lightly up the
well-kept road, and came to a standstill before the door of a long,
low house, built of wood, but massive and comfortable-looking.
Felix's face, as he threw the reins to Max and alighted from his
carriage, bore a look of preoccupation. For several months there had
hung over his head the malign shadow of the Brotherhood. The order
sent to him to remove the Governor was, of course, merely a pretext
for his own murder. Cravatz knew well that Felix would not, at the
command of any secret society, assassinate his friend. But after the
lapse of the appointed time, Cravatz would be justified in
accomplishing the murder of Felix himself.
That the sinister order should have been conveyed to him was a part
of the policy of the Brotherhood. They knew that the young man had
thrown off their influence. To them he was a renegade, though he had
not, by any overt action, proved himself so. As he went about at all
hours, quite fearlessly, he could have been shot many times over by
some lurking conspirator with practical certainty of immunity. But
the Brotherhood knew its own business. It had to keep together a
number of desperate men, of all nationalities, in faithful
subservience. The way to do this was by fear, the fear of a
vengeance that could not fail to fall upon the traitor; and it is
well known that there is one sort of fear which more than any other
will weaken the courage, even of a strong man, and wear down the
resolution even of the most determined. It is the policy of the
Sword of Damocles.
They worked by means of the threat of a fate that never failed to
overtake, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, but certainly: the threat of
a concealed power always on the watch. After a few weeks the
strongest nerves are frayed by these tactics.
A message is received; the victim disregards it. Days pass; nothing
happens. Then, one day, upon dressing-table, or pillow, or through
the post, there is some small reminder of the existence of the deadly
machinery which can compel obedience.
Such a jolt had the mind of Felix Vanston received that day. The
brusque irruption of Streloff into the sleeping-room of Vronsky at
the moment when the fatal papers were being dealt with was like the
flash of the bull's-eye of a dark lantern. Cravatz was on the watch.
It was not so much the presence of the spy in the place which
disturbed him. It was practically certain that Cravatz must be
keeping him under observation. But Streloff's action of that day
seemed to suggest the fact that Vronsky's own movements against
Cravatz were known to the enemy. And this was serious.
Ever since the deadly message first came to Felix, Vronsky had been
at work. Acting upon secret information which had come to him, he
had been busily, privately, with the aid of the first detectives in
Gretz, in Petropavlosk, in St. Petersburg, tracking down Cravatz to
his just end. And now the threads of the case were all in his hands.
In Felix's pocket lay the complete indictment. Acting upon the
Governor's order, Cravatz could be at once arrested.
The young man had a moment of triumph in thinking that for the time
he had outwitted the enemy. Streloff the spy was shut up in
Vronsky's room, in charge of the vast and formidable Hutin; and
Felix, the papers safely in his coat, was entering the cool, dim hall
at Nicolashof, where the abundant flowers, the Persian rugs, the
elegant furniture, showed traces of the English influence of Miss
Forester.
"The ladies are in the garden," said the old man-servant who opened
the door.
"Thank you, Petro Petrovitch," said Felix. "But first, please ask
the Governor to give me ten minutes in his library."
He was shown into the big comfortable room, which overlooked a
beautiful garden. Its walls were decorated with the antlers and
wolf-skins and wild-boar tusks which Stepan Stepanovitch had secured
as the spoils of his rifle. On the writing-table, where the father's
eye could always rest upon it, stood a panel portrait of a beautiful
young girl--Nadia Stepanovna, as she appeared when she made her first
bow to the Czar at Court.
Felix stood where he could see the photograph, and gazed upon it
while he waited.
It was a vivid face, truly Russian in its intensity. The great eyes
seemed to hold almost too much expression: a woman who would both
love and hate with passionate fervor, to whom the sober tenor of
existence which comes natural to English girls would be a thing
impossible.
This was the second summer in which she and Felix had seen one
another constantly. But there was an image upon the young man's
heart which Nadia's had by no means availed to shake. Though his
feeling rested upon so small a basis of actuality--though the hours
he had spent in the society of Rona were hardly more than the years
of his life in number--he yet was hers, body and soul. You cannot
pour wine, however fine the vintage, into a vessel already full.
His impassivity was a marvel to Vronsky, who worshiped at the shrine
of Nadia with the hopeless intensity of disparity of years and rank
intervening to prevent his love from ever descending from the clouds
into an atmosphere of practical reality.
He adored her as a saint is adored by her votary. He loved her, but
would have rejoiced to see her beloved and possessed by his dearly
cherished adopted son, Felix. It was, to him, an inexplicable thing
that young Vanston should remain constant to the memory of a girl who
was apparently far from reciprocating his devotion. Vronsky was
working, slaving, that Felix might be wealthy. He knew that his
birth was good. Why should he not become suitor for this lovely
young lady? What a couple they would make! He had, however, the
good sense not to confide his desires to Felix, who was himself, as a
rule, most reserved upon the subject in which all his heart was
involved.
The door opened, and the Governor came in, with cordial greeting.
"Where is my friend Vronsky?" he cried, wringing the young man's hand.
Felix explained. "I have brought a message from him," he continued,
bringing out the papers from his coat pocket. "These documents, sir,
are of the very gravest importance. They contain the evidence upon
which Vronsky wishes you to order the arrest of Gregor Cravatz."
The Governor, instantly full of attention, sat down by the table.
"The man whom he suspected of Nihilism?"
"The same. The justification is here. Not merely Nihilism, but
murder; and that not once nor twice. But now, sir, comes a point at
which I wish to be perfectly frank with you. There are two strong
reasons why Vronsky would urge you to have this man put out of the
way. The first will, I believe, seem enough to you. It is simply
that the society to which he belongs has determined to remove you
from your Governorship. In other words, while he lives your own life
is in danger----"
He broke off short, and both men turned towards the garden with a
simultaneous movement; for there was a cry of horror. And they saw,
too late, that Nadia stood in the open window, in her white dress and
straw hat, her lovely face blanched with apprehension.
CHAPTER XVII
"I WAS THE MAN SELECTED"
O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft,
And warm and pleasant; but the grave is cold!
Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave.
--MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Stepan Stepanovitch started forward, and caught his daughter in his
arms as she fell. He carried her to a couch and hung over her in
some alarm. She had fainted quite away. After a minute or two of
fruitless effort to rouse her, her father departed in search of Miss
Forester; and Felix was left alone in charge. For a while he gazed,
with a troubled face, upon the strongly marked brows, the olive
complexion, and night-black hair of the young beauty. How different
from the girl whose memory he carried with him from England--the
pale, appealing face, in its chestnut halo, the expressive mouth, and
eyes of deepest blue.
Nadia stirred and awoke. Felix bent over her, fanning her with a
screen of feathers. Her large, eloquent eyes rested intently upon
his face. He felt himself coloring under her scrutiny. Abruptly she
sat up.
"I fainted," she said, as if angry that she should so have given way.
"How weak of me! Because I heard you say that my father was in
danger. I--I--when I was a child, I heard terrific tales of the
inhuman conduct of Nihilists. I used to lie awake in my bed at
Moscow, fearing to hear the shrieks of murder, the call of
Revolution, in the streets at night. And when I grew up, my father
said he was going to a province where such things never happened.
All my old nightmares were swept away. We live secure from day to
day; the peasants here are kind and faithful, and not surly and
treacherous. I have grown to look upon all those terrors as past,
like a dark night when it is morning. And the shock of hearing you
say those words--of hearing you tell my father that his life was in
danger--was too great. It seemed to stop my heart."
"I would have given much to keep such knowledge from you," said
Felix, remorsefully. "Forgive me. I had no idea that you were
there."
"It is true?" she asked, fixing her eyes upon his face, as if to
compel him to deny his former words.
"It was true," said Felix; "but it is not serious, for the man who
has devised the scheme is a criminal, and he will be brought to
justice and put out of the way. I have with me the proof of his
guilt, and upon that your father will proceed at once to take steps
against him."
"Where is he?" gasped Nadia.
"I do not know. But I think not within a hundred miles of this
place."
Miss Forester and the Governor then entered, and there was much
petting and consoling of the girl, who was completely reassured by
what they told her.
"How came my good friend Vronsky to know of this traitor, Cravatz?"
asked the Governor, when they were all seated and talking the thing
over.
"That is part of what I have come to-day to tell you," replied Felix.
"If I have your permission, sir, I will tell it to both these ladies
as well as to yourself. I have no wish to sail under false colors.
I wished Vronsky to tell you when first I had the honor of being
presented to you. But at that time he thought it better not, little
dreaming that circumstances would later arise which would bring me
into such a strange position with regard to your Excellency."
The Governor looked curiously at the young man, who stood up before
them with pride and composure, though his confession would evidently
cost him an effort. "You have my permission to speak, if you think
what you have to say is necessary for me to hear," he replied, kindly.
"Then I will speak," said Felix, "and if, after you have heard, you
think it better for me to take my leave at once, and not again to
accept your hospitality, nor visit your house, as it has been my
delight and privilege to do, I shall feel that you are justified in
your decision." He hesitated a moment. There was a deep silence,
which showed how much his unexpected words had impressed his three
auditors.
"You are an Englishman, I have always understood?" asked Stepan
Stepanovitch, abruptly.
"I am," replied Felix, in some distress. "Both my parents were
English, and on my father's side I come of a good old family. As you
may know, the English county gentry hold themselves the equals of the
Continental nobility. The Vanstons trace back their pedigree to a
Flemish noble, one Van Steen, who came to the Court of England with
Queen Anne of Cleves, married an Englishwoman, and founded a family."
"Yet you seem to imply that you yourself have been in some sort
involved with this miscreant Cravatz. I ask your pardon if I have
misunderstood you."
Felix crimsoned, like a boy. Nadia, who had never till that moment
seen his face express emotion, gazed with a thrill of excitement at
the feeling which he evidently found it hard to control. He spoke
low and rapidly. "When I was quite a young man I unhappily became
imbued with revolutionary notions. There are in London plenty of
desperate characters who are ready and waiting to take advantage of
the enthusiasm of young lads such as I was. I fell into the hands of
an Anarchist Brotherhood. I was put on by them to do the more
dangerous part of their propaganda. The police interfered, I was
sent to prison for a term of two years, and have actually served my
sentence in an English jail."
He paused, his head sinking upon his chest. Nobody spoke. The face
of Nadia had turned from crimson to chalk-white.
"My only brother," went on Felix, "disowned me. It is not to be
wondered at. But what was to become of me? When I came back to the
world, my prison record stood between me and every effort I made to
earn a living. I was pretty well in despair when Vronsky found me,
and by God's goodness, conceived an affection for me. He brought me
out of England, and for a time it seemed as if the Brotherhood, who
dogged my steps, had been thrown off the scent. But this man,
Cravatz, was determined to track me down. He had a grudge against
me, for I had exposed a slight piece of dishonesty of which he had
been guilty. He found out where I was, and came to me secretly,
bearing the order from the Brotherhood for your removal. I was the
man selected for the business."
Nadia had sprung to her feet. She rushed to her father, flung her
arms about his neck, and sank to the ground beside him. Felix waited
a moment, but as nobody spoke he went on:
"When first I saw myself again in their toils, I felt I would
struggle no more. I made up my mind that only death awaited me. But
Vronsky's courage and faithfulness never wavered. He made a careful
examination of the paper, the order which Cravatz had handed me; and
he discovered, with infinite pains and the use of a microscope, that
the name of the person ordered to murder you had been changed. There
is a law in the Brotherhood that any brother who has been exposed to
conspicuous danger, and has in consequence suffered imprisonment or
other punishment for the cause, shall not again be called upon to do
dangerous work for a period of seven years, except in very
exceptional cases. This made Vronsky doubt whether the Council would
have sanctioned my being appointed to a mission which meant almost
certain death. He became convinced that it was Cravatz himself who
had been appointed by the Council to execute their command, and that
he was using me as his tool, intending to take the credit of your
assassination to himself afterwards. He determined that Cravatz
should be handed over to justice. The matter has taken him long, but
all is now complete. Within the last few months Cravatz has
committed murder of a peculiarly cold-blooded kind in this very
province. But one more thing remains to be said. In some way
unknown to us, Cravatz seems to have been informed that Vronsky was
making plans against him. He is on his guard. If you wish to lay
hands upon him, you must act speedily, and in the manner he is least
likely to expect. We believe him to be at Gretz, or somewhere on the
road between that and here, as we think it unlikely that he will
venture into this neighborhood until the time for the execution of
your sentence draws nearer."
The Governor looked up. "How long do they give me?" he asked, with a
smile.
"Until the 31st of August, your Excellency."
Nadia, who had been clinging to her father with her face hidden, now
raised it and shot a glance at Felix. "Why did you not, when you
came out of prison, fling off all connection with such fiends?" she
cried, in a passion of protest.
"Mademoiselle, you might as well ask the son of a drunkard why he
does not fling off all connection with such a father. The answer
simply is that it is not in my power to free myself. They bound me
by an oath, and they hold me to it. I repudiate it, but what matters
that if they do not?"
"If Cravatz wants to get rid of you it is a cleverly devised trap,"
said the Governor, thoughtfully.
"It is a cleverly devised trap, for I die either way. Cravatz argues
that I, seeing death is before me in any case, shall choose rather to
take the extreme risk and kill you, thereby earning for myself some
glory among the miscreants who call themselves friends of liberty,
than to be secretly made away with as a traitor by them. But even
were I to commit this incredible baseness, as he expects, he would
take to himself the credit of your murder, since hardly anybody but
himself knows that I am here at all. He would have the glory of
achieving your death, and would get this glory without risk to
himself. It was worth trying for." He paused a minute--a long
minute. Then he took up his hat.
"Shall I go, your Excellency?" he asked, quietly.
The Governor held out his hand. "Accept my sympathy," he said,
gravely. Felix knelt, took the offered hand, and kissed it with
gratitude.
Stepan Stepanovitch, without a word, turned to his table, opened the
package sent him by Vronsky, and began to examine the contents.
Among these were one or two photos--snapshots. "These are pictures
of Cravatz?" he asked.
Felix assented, and drawing near the table, told him the story of
Streloff's behavior that day.
The Governor listened with attention. "But this means," he said,
"that until Cravatz is arrested your life is not safe. If so much is
known one must move very warily. You could hardly arrest the man
Streloff on the evidence you have. But if there is one spy, there
may be others, and you go in danger. They will not give you till
August 31st."
Felix pondered. "That is true," he said. "I am hoping to take a
short holiday in England before long, but I should not be safe there.
Several things combine to make me sure that Cravatz has not made
known at headquarters the fact of my presence here; because he is
playing his own game. But were I to attempt to leave the country, he
could telegraph to a dozen places to have me waylaid and disposed of.
While he is at large, I can think of no place in which I should be
safe."
"I can imagine a way to insure your safety," said the Governor,
thoughtfully, "but I do not like to suggest it, because it might seem
to you as if I do not trust you."
Felix made a movement of gratitude. "Your Excellency," he said, with
a sincerity which carried conviction, "I am in your hands. Do what
you think best. You have every reason to distrust a man with such a
record as mine. How could I complain? I will not protest my
loyalty, my hatred of assassination. I will only say that I am
ready, not merely to give my life for yours if necessary--that would
be quite simple--but to fall in with any plan you may have to
suggest, in deepest gratitude to you for thinking of my safety."
The Governor smiled. Nadia, who stood near, impulsively held out
both hands to Felix, and the young man bent his head above them, the
hot color suffusing his face. He was only twenty-five, after all.
"You may rely upon him, your Excellency," quietly said Miss Forester,
the English governess. "My countrymen are not traitors--still less
are they assassins."
The Governor smiled. "Had Mr. Vanston harbored designs against my
life," he said, "he would not have told us the things we have just
heard. I am going to save him from the power of his tyrants. Let me
consider."
There was deep silence in the pleasant room.
"Well, this is my plan," said Stepan Stepanovitch, after a few
minutes' thought. "You have a man with you to-day?"
"Max, my coachman----"
"Only he?"
"Only he, your Excellency."
"Is he faithful?"
"Entirely. He is not a Russian, though he speaks Russian well. He
is a German Pole, and came to this country with me. He will do
anything I tell him."
"Then," said the Governor, "I will send out two or three of my own
private police--men I can trust--to waylay you on your homeward
journey. They shall be stationed in the darkest part of the wood,
And when you drive up, you must let there be as many signs of a
scrimmage as you can. The cook shall give them a little blood to
scatter, and you must drop a torn handkerchief, or something by which
you can be identified. Am I right in supposing that the horses, if
frightened, will gallop back to Savlinsky?"
"Yes, I am pretty sure they would."
"Then you must all of you return here by different ways, very
privately. You must on no account be seen. You had better be
waylaid on the farther side of the village, that all may see you pass
through. But you must, of course, not go through it on your way back
here. I will make arrangements to admit you and your man by the
little postern door in the grounds which opens upon the forest. And
you must remain here in hiding until Cravatz is secured. The only
thing against the plan is that I must give my good Vronsky a severe
fright. For it is most important that he should be as surprised as
anybody by your disappearance. What do you say? You and I know
enough of these secret societies to feel sure that their threats are
not empty. If we can put our hands upon Cravatz at once, you can be
released in a few days. But we are not sure of doing so. And as
long as he is at large, so long will he manage some kind of
communication with his man, Streloff. I could, of course, merely
detain you here, without going to the risk and trouble of a feigned
abduction. But this would show Streloff that you and I understand
each other. They would know that we are on the alert, and they would
take measures accordingly. By my plan, Streloff will be puzzled. He
will see that Vronsky is not in the secret of your disappearance; and
I can think of a way of getting you off afterwards to Gretz in such a
manner that nobody shall know where you come from, or where you have
been."
Felix nodded his head slowly two or three times. "It is a clever
plan," he said, "but I fail to see in what respect it seems as though
you did not trust me."
"Silly fellow, I shall have you under lock and key," said the
Governor, with a smile. "And if so minded, I can keep you there, can
I not? And nobody will know that you are there--will they? So that
if we want to feel extra secure, Nadia and I--to sleep the sounder in
our beds--we might send and have you murdered in yours--might we not?"
Felix smiled. He also bowed. "If the plan looks as if you did not
trust me, it will also show whether or no I trust your Excellency,"
he said gallantly.
"Ah, well said! Well said!" cried Nadia, clasping her hands together
in admiration. "Papa, you and Mr. Vanston are two! Two of a kind, I
mean! Two men, each honorable enough to understand the other!"
"You think so?" said the Governor, laying his hand fondly a moment
upon the dark hair. "Then take this young man away with you and play
tennis diligently with him, that all may see we are upon just our
usual terms. Until the time comes!"
CHAPTER XVIII
THE KIRGIZ YOURTAR
--I found it a terrible thing. These villains set on me, and I
beginning to resist, they gave but a call, and in came their master.
I would, as the saying is, have given my life for a penny: but that,
as God would have it, I was clothed with armor of proof.--JOHN BUNYAN.
In the northern parts of Siberia, in summer time, it seems as if the
night would never come. At midsummer, it is almost true to say that
there is no night--nothing but a veil of sapphire twilight, which
lasts three or four hours. It was a month past midsummer when Felix
drove to play tennis and dine at the Governor's house; but even then
the dark was long in coming, and Vronsky did not expect his darling
home until midnight. There was no moon that night; but the sky was
cloudless, and the North burnt as if with the glow of a furnace
hidden just below the horizon.
Out on the Steppe, between Savlinsky and the Forest of Nicolashof,
there stood, some quarter of a mile from the road, and hidden from
view by one of those undulations of the ground too low to be called
hills, a Kirgiz yourtar, or tent. From a distance these yourtars
look more like haystacks than anything else--round, fat haystacks,
bound together by strips of hide. The material of which they are
really made is thick, warm felt; and they afford a most efficient
protection from cold and wet.
By the door, all that afternoon, sat three men, in the dress of
Kirgiz peasants--long linen shirts, such as one may imagine Abraham
to have worn as he sat in his tent door. The woman also, in her long
white robe, with a white handkerchief bound round her head, going to
and fro with her waterpails to a pond at a short distance, was very
like a figure from the Old Testament.
From a hillock on the way to the pond she could just see a glimpse of
the white highroad, her own head not being a conspicuous object upon
the landscape, and all the rest of her being hidden from view by
intervening swells of ground. From an hour before mid-day until an
hour or so after, her avocations seemed to necessitate almost
constant passing to and fro for water. Soon after half-past one a
carriage shot past upon the quiet road. The woman at once reported
this unusual event to her male companions. She added the information
that the tarantasse contained Felix only, and that Vronsky was not
with him. The statement was evidently of interest to one of the men,
whose features did not seem to be of the true Kirgiz type, and who
was smoking a pipe that suggested Western civilization. He consulted
in low tones with the two other men. They seemed to come to some
arrangement, and then fell silent. The long afternoon hours passed
away, and they sat on like graven images. About five o'clock the
woman again grew restless, and remained long at her coign of vantage,
watching the road. But nothing stirred upon its empty expanse.
After a while the woman brought supper, and they ate in silence,
while the children, unwashed, untended, crept inside to sleep. It
was about nine o'clock when a solitary figure appeared over the top
of the low hillock which protected the yourtar from view of the road.
The men at the tent door made no movement nor sign that they had seen
this man. He came on, quite alone; and when he had come near enough
to speak, he greeted them in Russian. It was Streloff.
Evidently he bore disturbing news. He directed most of his talk to
Cravatz, who, in his disguise, sat immovable, his eyes alone
glittering in the dusk, showing his deep concern in the affairs
related. There followed much urging, discussion, argument. At last
a decision was arrived at. Cravatz was to depart southward at once,
and alone. He must walk during the greater part of the night, not
touching the highroad, straight to a yourtar which belonged to the
brother of the man who now sheltered him. This man was a political
refugee--no Kirgiz, but living as one, and married to a Kirgiz woman.
As soon as Cravatz was gone, the other two men took off the Kirgiz
shirts they wore, armed themselves, and with Streloff proceeded
quietly westward, towards Nicolashof, not walking by the road, but
keeping as far possible parallel with it, though out of sight of it,
and using great caution until they were lost in the beginnings of the
forest.
They disappeared--Cravatz to the south, they to the west--and the
woman and children remained in the yourtar alone.
Soon they were sound asleep, while the deep rich blue of the northern
summer night grew deeper and more intense, and the stars glowed like
drops of fire.
Streloff carried the dagger of the Brotherhood. He had received his
orders. Felix, in spite of Streloff's attempt to prevent it, had
carried to the Governor the arraignment of Cravatz. Felix was to die
that night. It was the first mission of the kind upon which the
young man had been engaged, and he relished it.
In the wood all was very quiet. No living soul was astir. The
village was long ago hushed into slumber, no light glimmered in all
its extent. But Streloff and the two men with him did not go as far
as the village. They passed the outer skirting of birch trees, where
too much light fell upon the road, and entered with precaution the
deeper depths of the pine trees, intending to halt at a certain spot
where there was a dense thicket into which a body might with ease be
dragged and hidden.
Suddenly one of the two men--a genuine Kirgiz--halted, his finger on
his lip. The other two halted also, and crouched where they stood.
They had heard a noise--very, very slight. It sounded like the
striking of a match. Streloff felt his heart in his mouth. A moment
later, and the unmistakable flicker of a light gleamed among the
trees some distance ahead. It died down. The very, very faint sound
of a voice, a whisper, broke the stillness. Someone was there. They
held their breath, listening intently. They looked from one to the
other blankly. What was to be done? Someone was there, and meant to
stay there, for no movement was perceptible. Streloff considered.
If there were but a solitary wayfarer it was awkward. They did not
want to murder anybody unnecessarily; but this was not a solitary
wayfarer, since they had heard someone speak. One does not talk to
oneself--as a rule.
The one thing supremely important to the young spy was that he should
not be seen. And he doubted whether it were now possible even to
retreat, without making some slight noise to put those mysterious
others upon the alert. They had almost walked into an ambush. His
brain ached with the wonder. Who could they possibly be? What
conceivable object, save to stop Felix Vanston's tarantasse, could
lead men to hide in the wood at that hour? And he could not think of
any others besides himself who would be likely to wish to do that.
He was horribly agitated. For these men, no doubt, were as desirous
as himself of being unobserved. They made no noise. In the intense
silence of the forest he could not hear a sound. And he dared not
make one.
Nothing was less desired by this young man than any kind of a fight.
He wanted a murder, that was all. One accomplice to hold the horse,
one to hold the coachman--and himself to knife Felix, who would
almost certainly be unarmed. This sudden, wholly unexpected check
upset his nerves. His subordinates looked to him for orders. He had
none to give. But a few minutes' reflection steadied his nerves.
They must somehow retreat, unobserved. They must cross the road
lower down, and re-enter the wood on the other side of the road.
Then they must rapidly work their way along, to a point between the
village and the spot where the ambush lay, and there await the coming
of their victim.
With inconceivable precaution they crept away. Among pine trees
there is little undergrowth, few dead twigs to crack beneath the
foot. Nevertheless, in that silence, for three men to retreat
unheard was something of a feat; and Streloff, when after a quarter
of an hour that seemed an eternity they stood out of sight and
earshot, at the edge of the road, felt that he was proving himself a
born spy.
They listened. Not a sound broke the calm of the summer night except
the sigh of the wandering breeze in the tops of the pines. Like
three flitting shadows, they crossed the road; and entered the wood
upon the farther side. Streloff was immensely anxious to go on for
at least half a mile--to meet the tarantasse at as great a distance
as possible from where the ambush waited. But he was bothered, for
the unknown others had chosen the very place he had decided to
occupy--in the deep part of the wood, yet far enough from the village
to prevent sounds from being heard. Who could they be? As they
pushed along, he told himself that he was a fool. Doubtless these
men were but three or four tramps, perhaps on their way from the
harvest of one village to that of another--sleeping in the woods on
their journey. But, whoever they were, they must not be witnesses of
what was to take place.
And then, before he and his followers had reached a spot parallel to
that where they had seen the lighted match, they heard the ringing of
the harness-bells upon Felix's carriage.
For a moment they paused, simultaneously, while the musical ting,
ting, ting, sounded each second clearer. This sudden destruction of
his plans caused Streloff to hesitate--to hesitate three or four
long, endless seconds, before he said: "Run back--back--as far down
the road as we can."
They ran. But behind them the bells of the tarantasse rang more and
more piercing sweet. And then there was a long, wild shout, and
Streloff faced suddenly round, to see that a man had sprung from the
other side of the road and caught the horse's head, and that Felix
Vanston was standing up in the tarantasse, and had just hurled a
second man down upon the ground; while two or three others were
winding ropes about the prostrate form of Max, whom they had dragged
from his seat.
Streloff gave no orders to his followers. He forgot all about them.
Without a second thought he sprang into the mêlée. He never doubted
that these men, though unknown to him, were his allies, for
manifestly they were hostile to Felix; and he ran forward, his knife
bare, shouting wildly, "Kill him--kill him! What is the use of
taking him prisoner?"
He had brought no revolver, for he had meant to do his work silently,
and shots carry on a still night. But his sudden appearance from
nowhere seemed to strike the other men for a breathing space still
with amazement. He saw then that they were masked.
"Help! Help!" cried Felix, writhing in the grip of three of them.
But the man who led had recovered from his bewilderment. "Stand, or
I fire!" he called out, covering Streloff with the muzzle of his
revolver.
"Streloff!" shouted Felix. "What are you doing here? Help me, you
young fool! Knock that fellow down!"
"He has a knife! Look out!" cried another of the masked men,
springing behind Streloff and pinioning his elbows.
The young man guessed himself in a trap, though unable to understand
its nature. They were gagging Felix--he saw that--they could not
understand that he, Streloff, was on their side--they might think him
a rescue party, since they probably knew him to be in Vronsky's
service. He struggled like a panther in the hold of his captor,
writhed himself free, and hurled himself, knife in hand, upon
Vanston. There could be no doubt of his murderous intent, and the
man who covered him with his revolver fired without hesitation. The
sound died away upon the quiet air, a light smoke drifted between the
horrified eyes of Felix and the black trunks of the surrounding
trees. Streloff dropped forwards, a strangled word upon his lips, a
grin of rage upon his features. His blade had actually grazed young
Vanston's ribs.
"Please God," said the policeman who had shot Streloff to Felix,
"you'll never be nearer death than that again--until your time comes."
"Are there any more of them?" asked one of his colleagues, moving
cautiously along the edge of the wood.
"I saw only him," replied a subordinate.
They raised the young fellow's body. He was quite dead.
"But he never could have started out alone to grapple with Mr.
Vanston and Max," thoughtfully said the policeman. He gave an order,
suddenly and sharp. "Search the wood thoroughly on both sides."
The men went off, searching up and down. But the two Kirgiz had got
a couple of minutes' start, and they made the most of it. Like
streaks of shadow they fled, down by-ways they knew well, and never
paused until they stood before the yourtar, and roused the sleeping
wife and children. By morning all was gone. There was no trace of
yesterday's camp, except the brown circle of downtrodden grass where
the tent had stood. The two men, the woman and the children, were
tramping harmlessly along the highroad southward, towards the yourtar
whither Cravatz had withdrawn.
It was past midnight when, with a rush and a crash of breaking wood,
the horses galloped madly into the stableyard at Savlinsky, having
broken one wheel off the tarantasse against the gate-post. Vronsky,
who was restless and feverish, heard the uproar, and sent his
servant, who slept in his room, to find out what had happened.
The man returned, chalk-white, and shaking as with ague. The
carriage had returned, but it contained neither Felix nor Max. Its
only occupant was--was the corpse of Streloff, the young clerk,
murdered by a bullet wound in the temple.
The single shot fired by the policeman--the shot that killed
Streloff--did not rouse the sleeping village. There was nobody to
see the party of kidnappers slip in among the trees with their bound
victims, nor to watch them unloose their bonds as soon as darkness
covered them.
There was not, nevertheless, a moment to be lost, for the dawn was
hard upon their heels, and all must re-enter the Governor's domain
unseen. They separated. Only one remained as a guide with Felix and
his servant, the others melted away into the forest in various
directions. The guide kept them going at a swift trot, along a
wood-cutter's path, and in several places over tracts where there was
no path. If they came to a place where footmarks were perceptible he
covered them up before proceeding. But in most places, on the hard,
dry summer ground, their feet left no trace. On they went, on and
on, the dawn shimmering down each instant with a more direct threat
of daylight. Soon the north-east was on fire with rose-red light, as
if it must burst into flame in a few minutes more. Trails of
gossamer drifted across the eyes of Felix as he ran, the gray
Siberian squirrels ran up the smooth trunks, the birds began to
chatter and call. At last, when it seemed they had run for hours,
they found themselves breasting a steep hill, where their feet
slipped perpetually in the pine needles, and their guide, with
infinite labor, had to obliterate their tracks by brushing them with
a branch of pine foliage.
At last they reached the high wall or palisade of untrimmed fir
trunks which protected the Governor's grounds from the forest.
Along it they moved, battling here with rank undergrowth which grew
in profusion wherever trees had been cut down. At last came a door;
their guide inserted a key. They slipped through, and found
themselves in a long dim green alley.
It seemed to Felix that it reached to the end of the world. His head
was swimming, his feet sticky with something that ran down his legs
into his boots. But he staggered on, holding on to Max, who did not
seem at all distressed; and at last dragged himself into a small
room, where stood a table with food and drink, and the Governor
himself advanced, with hand outstretched.
"All well?" he asked. "I was a little anxious. You are later than
you should have been by nearly an hour."
"There was more than one ambush," began Felix; but, to his own
surprise, his voice failed, and the room rocked round him. He made a
dizzy step forward and lurched. But the arms of Max behind upheld
him.
"Unfasten his coat," said the servant, himself still breathless with
the flight. "Unless I am much mistaken he has been losing blood all
the way."
"Blood!" echoed the Governor. "Was there an accident, then?"
"There were real murderers afoot, your Excellency, as well as sham
ones," said Max. "If your men had not been there, who can tell what
might have happened?"
He had opened Felix's shirt at the throat. The whole of his clothing
was soaked and saturated with blood. A handkerchief which the
policeman had hurriedly pushed in was scarlet and dripping.
"Good heavens! This was not my fault?" cried the Governor, in horror.
"No, indeed, my Lord. As I say, it is a good thing your men were in
the way. They have saved his life," said Max, gathering his master
into his arms. "Before they tell you more may we carry him to bed,
and stop this bleeding?"
CHAPTER XIX
THE DESPAIR OF VRONSKY
Old men love, while young men die.
--RUDYARD KIPLING.
The Governor, his daughter, and Miss Forester were all at breakfast,
in a charming room into which the sunshine was streaming, when,
unannounced, Vronsky staggered into the room, a piteous figure.
The pallor of fever was still upon him; his eyes were wild, his
demeanor agitated. He greeted nobody; his usually courtly manners
had deserted him completely. His head fell upon his chest as he sank
down on a chair, ejaculating hoarsely, "My boy! I have lost my boy!"
The three breakfasting rose simultaneously to their feet. The
Governor looked disconcerted, Miss Forester as though amused, and
ashamed that she should feel amused; and Nadia's eyes were swimming
with tears of pure pity.
They had but that moment been speaking of Felix, and Stepan
Stepanovitch had been impressing upon them both the absolute
necessity of complete reticence at present. He had not confided to
the ladies the plight in which the young man had returned to the
castle. They only knew that he had returned, and that he was
resting--under lock and key, as the Governor had threatened!
But, as it happened, Miss Forester had heard more. She knew that
Felix had been wounded, though the wound was quite superficial. She
knew other things as well--things she must not let the young girl
know.
They all simulated astonishment; sympathy they had no need to
simulate. For it would have been a hard-hearted woman who was not
moved by the extremity of Vronsky's trouble.
"He was everything to me--my whole future--and if they have taken
him," he vowed, "I will spend the rest of my life and my fortune in
hunting down and torturing every member of that vile Brotherhood as
if they were vermin."
"But give me all the details," said Stepan Stepanovitch. He had been
displeased at the dramatic action of his subordinates in placing the
corpse of Streloff in the tarantasse. But nothing, as a matter of
fact, could more completely have put not only Vronsky, but others,
off the scent.
Vronsky explained, in shaken tones. He told how Streloff had behaved
the previous day; how his suspicions had been awakened; how the
great, strong Hutin had been told off to watch the spy; how the spy
had managed to drug Hutin's coffee, and had got off unseen between
nine and ten in the evening. He told how he had been asleep, for the
first time in forty-eight hours, and how his own servant had declined
to allow him to be disturbed by Hutin upon a matter of business; and
how an hour later he had started up out of his slumbers, at sound of
the maddened horses dashing into the yard.
"All is mystery," said Vronsky. "Who shot Streloff? Not Felix, for
he had no revolver with him. In this peaceful province we no more
think of carrying firearms than we should in London. But if Felix
did not shoot him, who did? And where is my boy? Ah! where? I
shall never see him again."
"Have you searched the road carefully?" asked the Governor, after a
pause.
"Yes. The spot is obvious--a mile on the Savlinsky side of the
village, in the forest. There is blood on the ground, and the
trampling of many feet. I found, also, the small amber mouthpiece in
which my boy smokes his cigarettes." He laid it on the table, and
his voice broke in a sob.
The Governor rose. "I shall go myself at once," he said, "and
examine the ground. If Mr. Vanston was really kidnapped there, and
carried off helpless, there must be some sign of the way he was
taken. Find Cravatz, and we find him--that is my notion." He laid a
kindly hand upon Vronsky's shoulder. "Courage!" he said. "I leave
you here with the ladies. You must not go back yet awhile to
Savlinsky to eat your heart out. Wait here and rest until I bring
you tidings."
"Yes, do," said Nadia, with all the ardent impetuosity of her nature,
deeply moved by the sight of the man's grief. She came and stood by
Vronsky, holding out her hand, and he let his craving eyes feed upon
her beauty. He even dared to carry the sympathizing little hand to
his lips. It was astonishing how much it comforted him.
"There never was such a boy," he said, "and all his life he has had
such misfortune to contend against! His father was a good man; but I
fear his mother was not exemplary. His half-brother never understood
him. Then he got involved with these thrice-accursed tyrants who
call themselves friends of liberty. And then he performed an heroic
action--he saved from worse than death a young girl ... and with her
he fell deep, deep in love. She promised to wait for him, and his
heart is altogether hers. But I do not think she is faithful to him.
He could marry now, and he longs to do so. He was to have his
holiday and go to England and see what his chance was. But now,
where is he? Once again his evil fate has been too strong for him."
Nadia withdrew her hand somewhat precipitately as he spoke, and went
to the window. Miss Forester, watching her curiously, saw the red
color mount to her very brow, and pitied her. Miss Forester thought
Felix a most attractive young man, and marveled that Stepan
Stepanovitch should allow him to be so freely in his daughter's
company. It had seemed almost impossible that these two young
creatures, thrown so exclusively into each other's society, should
not fall in love with each other. Yet all along the Englishwoman had
been doubtful whether Felix returned the feeling which she was
positive he had aroused in Nadia. And this morning, when she had
received the whispered confidences of Kathinka, the woman who had
been summoned to wash and bind up Felix's wound, there had been a
small thing said:
"And though he is a heretic, he wears around his neck a charm or a
token. It is the half of a small silver coin."
Miss Forester's heart contracted with a sharp pang. She did not like
the notion that her darling Nadia should be made unhappy.
Vronsky saw the withdrawal of Nadia, and rose to his feet. He
followed her. "Alas!" he said, "men are selfish things! I am
bewailing my loss, and cutting you to your sympathetic heart. I am
lamenting, and I do not reflect that my Felix, who is to me wife and
son and all I have to love in a desolate world, is nothing to
others--nothing!" He covered his face. "Mademoiselle, I cannot
control my feeling. Let me go out into the garden until I have got
the better of this weakness." His tears were actually falling, and
he shook with emotion. To the astonishment of her governess Nadia
went up to him, and laid her hands upon his shoulders; it seemed as
if she almost embraced him, as though he had been a father.
"Oh!" she cried, and her sweet voice--the Slav voice, with tears in
it--quivered and vibrated with emotion. "Oh! is it possible that he
should love a girl who--who cannot keep faith with him?"
Vronsky grew suddenly very still. His sobs ceased. As though he
were touching some sacred thing, he put his arms about the girl's
shoulders. A curious succession of feelings played over his fine,
expressive face. It was as if he knew that she felt towards him as
towards an elderly relative--him, who was quivering with the true
passion of a man for her--and as if, in the moment of his hopeless
craving and bitter sadness, some other idea, new and sweet, had
dawned upon his unselfish soul.
"Dorogaya (dearest)," he faltered, hardly knowing that he used the
word--"these English girls are not like ourselves. They are selfish
and grasping. They think of their own feeling, the gratifying of
their own desire. They do not think of what a man may suffer in
their cruel hands." He had grown very white. The girl's face,
trustful, uncomprehending, was very near his own lips. He turned,
with a supreme effort of strength, and seated her in a chair near.
"The comfort of knowing that I have your sympathy," he muttered,
brokenly.
Miss Forester, watching, thought she had seldom seen anything more
delicate, more touching, than his handling of the situation. Nadia
was very young, and her whole heart went out to the man who thus
wonderfully responded to her inmost feeling. She let her hand lie in
his hold, while she leant languidly back in her chair and let him
talk to her of Felix--of the young man's excellencies, and his own
hopes and fears. Then suddenly she started up.
"My friend," she said, with a beautiful earnestness and confidence,
"I have a vision--I have a presentiment. Your son, whom you love so
much, is safe! He is safe! I know it! He will come back to you--my
father will restore him to you safe and sound! Will you share my
faith?"
Vronsky, who had been kneeling by her chair, rose slowly to his feet.
His wondering eyes were fixed upon her glowing, kindled face. "Yes,"
he said, slowly, "I will share your fine faith. I will not despair,
since you--you, Nadia Stepanovna, tell me to hope."
The girl turned impulsively to where a huge and beautifully carved
Eikon hung upon the wall. Side by side, Vronsky and she knelt before
it, and their united prayer for Felix arose in the deep silence which
followed.
CHAPTER XX
WHAT IS THIS LOVE?
Elle songeait--"C'en est fini de la vie heureuse!--Quelle est donc
cette loi cruelle qui régit le monde? Pourquoi l'homme ne peut il
vivre avec la femme ou même la voir simplement sans la convoiter?
Qu'est-ce que cette nourriture misérable dont ne peuvent se passer
les cœurs, ce pain de l'amour, toujours pétri de larmes et
quelquefois de sang?"--ANATOLE LE BRAZ.
Aunt Bee awaited with a good deal of humorous anticipation the return
of the picnic party from Newark. She had, as she well knew, shot an
arrow into the heart of the slowly-moved Denzil by suggesting to him
the imminent departure of Rona under certain circumstances. She felt
almost sure that upon this hint he must realize what was the matter
with him, and speak.
She eyed the various members of the party with some care during the
evening, and became pretty certain that something had happened, for
Denzil was unusually flushed; and the heaviness of Rona's eyelids
seemed to suggest that she had been weeping.
No word was said, however, and no announcement made. The evening
passed off a little heavily. Rona, hitherto the life and soul of the
party, was the victim of a depression she could not shake off.
Rallied upon her silence, she owned to being very tired; said she
thought the sun had made her head ache, and slipped away early to bed.
But, when she had gained her room--the pretty, dainty nest, with its
rose chintzes, and its air of subdued luxury--she did not attempt to
undress nor to lie down to rest.
Pushing wide the casement of her window, she sat down upon the window
seat, joined her hands beneath her chin, and gazed upon the stars.
The drifting by of the soft night wind, like an impatient sigh,
lifted her loosened hair from her brow. The beauty of the velvet
darkness, the perfume of the roses that clustered upon the wall
outside her room were all unnoticed. Her life was torn with the pain
of having to decide.
In spite of her convent rearing, in spite of a childhood so
sheltered, this young creature had come into contact with much that
maidens of her age never know.
Most girls begin life cradled in the soft lap of sentiment. As a
rule, the sentimental and diluted version of sex feeling which they
call love, comes to them first. They pass out from their world of
dreams into real life, through a fairy archway built up of the pretty
accessories which go to make a wedding.
But Veronica had no such initiation. Hardly had the door of her
convent closed upon, her than the wolves of life were upon her heels.
The shock which she had received, when first a glimmering of what was
meant by her uncle's arrangement with Levy dawned upon her, had as it
were flung her violently away from the mood of shy and artless
pleasure with which the average young girl awaits her destiny.
Rona had no idea what being in love meant.
Her nature was essentially an honest one. She wanted to do right.
But she felt as if, in her present distress, she had no rudder.
Denzil and Felix! Brothers! One had saved her life, the other had
preserved it. To which did she owe her allegiance?
As a matter of fact, she loved neither. But she knew she did not
love Felix, and she did not know that she did not love Denzil. The
elder brother was known to her, he was her daily companion, her kind
friend. She was very fond of him, and this was more than she could
say of any other man she had ever seen.
She was not fond of Felix--she feared him. She had preserved a
memory as of a great force--of something in him that might compel her
to do as he wished. This she resented, and hated.
All her own wishes inclined to the side of Denzil. But this very
fact made her anxious that Felix should have full justice.
Small things sometimes modify the feelings in a quite unexpected way.
Thus, the discovery that the cruel brother whose image she had
detested for two years--the brother whose brutal indifference had
goaded Felix to suicide--was none other than the moderate, sensible,
benevolent Denzil Vanston, had in some measure impaired her belief in
Felix's judgment, if not his accuracy. She felt so sure, so
convinced that Denzil would in all circumstances be reasonable, and
treat his younger brother with fairness; that she was shaken in her
sympathies, and doubtful of Felix's wisdom.
Denzil had to-day told her something of Felix's mother. She had
learned how, for the years ensuing on his father's death, the second
Mrs. Vanston had practically turned him out of doors. He told her of
the pain and anxiety which the light woman had caused her elderly
husband, and of the "goings-on" at Normansgrave after his death. She
discovered that family affairs have usually two sides, and that Felix
was by no means the injured innocent which, in her inexperience, she
had thought him.
But, all the more for this change of mind in herself, she was
determined that Felix must have fair play. Her notion of fair play
for him was that she should write to him and explain the whole
situation, as far as she herself understood it. If she were sure
that it was right, she would go out and marry Felix, and sacrifice
the rest of her life to him. But she did not believe that it was
right to marry a man without loving him, unless he clearly understood
that this was so. And Denzil manifestly had his claims, as well as
Felix. To her, his claims appeared the stronger.
Felix was now doing well. He had a good friend, in the person of Mr.
Vronsky, who was devoted to him. He was still quite young, and would
doubtless marry somebody else.
She thought out the thing in her own mind as clearly as she could,
and then went to her writing-table, sat down, and wrote to Felix
before she slept. After explaining to him the situation as well as
she could--
"--I do not love you," she wrote. "I own it. I do not wish to marry
you. I admit it. I do not think that this is my fault. One cannot
compel the feelings. To me you are almost a stranger. But your
brother is my friend. He is splendidly unselfish, and after he had
recovered from the shock of finding that I had been deceiving him all
the time that he has been benefiting me, he said that of course there
could be nothing between us unless you released me.
"But I admit that I promised I would marry you. And I will keep that
promise if you hold me to it, and do all I can to make up for the
fact that I have not love to give. And perhaps I ought to tell you
that I do not believe I shall ever be in love. Sometimes I think
that the agony I went through, before my attempt to kill myself, has
seared my feelings and made me hard and stupid. If you think of
marrying me it is right that you should know this.
"I am not including in this letter a word of thanks for all that you
have been to me. I feel that, were I in your place, thanks would
seem an insult if the love that ought to wing them were lacking.
"But do ask yourself honestly whether you really love me any more
than I love you. What could your feeling be but just a sentiment, a
figment of the imagination? You do not know me, or my tastes, or my
temper, or my habits. How can you desire my daily companionship? Am
I doing you a real wrong or only an imaginary one?
"I write far more coldly than I feel. My heart is aching with
sympathy for you. But if I were you sympathy would madden me, and I
do not offer it.
"I do ask forgiveness for my--what must I call it?--my involuntary
inconstancy."
At the back of her mind rankled the thought of all the money of his
which she had accepted and spent. But she did not dare allude to it
in the letter. She must await his answer to her confession. If she
were to accept Denzil, and marry him, this money must be repaid. She
wondered at herself now, to think how simply she had accepted it.
So she wrote her letter, and went to bed with a mind slightly more at
ease. And meanwhile, downstairs, Denzil and Aunt Bee sat together in
the billiard-room, discussing the extraordinary revelation made by
their protégée that day.
Aunt Bee had guessed that there had been some kind of avowal on her
nephew's part, and that it had been met by some corresponding
confession of an unexpected nature on that of the girl. But she was
far from being prepared for the surprising truth.
Denzil put into her hands his brother's letter, which Rona had given
him leave to show, and related to the astounded lady the true story
of the escape of the young man and the girl from the power of Rankin
Leigh and Levy.
Miss Rawson sat for some time silent, taking it all in. The young
canal bargeman, the handsome, unkempt tramp, whose tragic face had
dwelt with her ever since her short interview with him--he was
actually Felix Vanston, the black sheep--the boy whom she had last
seen in riding breeches, mounted on his pony before the door of
Normansgrave, and arrogantly declining to take off his hat to her at
his mother's peevish bidding.
"Why," she burst out, "he must have known me! Why did he not tell me
who he was? But, of course, that was the last thing he would have
been likely to do. He was not long out of prison--out of prison!
Oh, think of it! He was actually starving, in despair, a suicide in
all but actual accomplishment, and yet he was straining every nerve,
defying the law, eluding pursuit, to put this unknown child into safe
keeping! He is a hero, Denzil."
Denzil's face grew sullen. "If she had not been so sweet, so
lovable, would he have been so willing?" he asked, resentfully. "Who
that saw her could resist the desire to help her, to do all in their
power for her? What did I do?" His voice broke--only rage enabled
him to go on speaking. "I have done for her a thousand times as much
as he did. If gratitude constitutes a claim----"
"Oh, Denzil!"
The reproof in her voice brought him up short. "I beg your pardon.
I am a brute, I know. I am jealous of him, bitterly jealous! I
believe I always have been. My father loved him better than he loved
me. My father loved that woman--I daren't trust myself to talk of
her--better than ever he loved my poor good mother. I have always
been jealous of Felix. In the light of what I am suffering now, I
know that much, But--but"--his eyes gleamed, and he set his teeth--he
looked a different man--"but he has not got her love. She likes me
best--and I am going to have her, too. She asked me to save her from
him."
Miss Rawson viewed him steadily. She was desperately sorry for him.
"I am in favor of keeping one's word," went on Denzil in an
exculpatory tone. "I would never urge anybody, man or woman, to back
out of a promise given. But a promise of this kind stands on a
different footing. A girl of Rona's age at that time cannot give a
promise that shall be binding when she is grown up. Look how human
beings change! And nobody could urge her to keep the letter of a
promise which in spirit she not only has already broken, but which
she has never, in fact, kept."
"That is true," said Miss Rawson slowly. And after some
consideration she asked him, "What are you going to do?"
"I am going to write to him to come home at once, at my expense, and
we will have this thing decided," said Denzil, in a voice which told
that his mind was made up. "She must not, of course, give me any
promise until he has released her: though from this letter I judge
that he understands pretty well the state of her feeling for him.
But let him come--let it be fair and square between him and me. He
must have his chance."
Miss Rawson was still very thoughtful. After another pause she went
on: "There is another aspect of the case, you know, Denzil, which, in
your absorption over this curious complication, you have put on one
side. Did Rona tell you nothing of her birth or parentage?"
He started, as if the idea occurred to him for the first time.
"Nothing," he said; "as you say, the subject was not touched upon."
"Yet it will be impossible or most unwise for a marriage to take
place, dear Denzil, without further details," said Aunt Bee. She
spoke hesitatingly, loath to wound, but with a gravity which fixed
his attention. "If this man is still alive--this Rankin Leigh--I
suppose he would be fairly certain to hear of his niece's marriage.
You cannot marry her under any but her true name. Veronica Leigh is
not a common name; and the wedding of Denzil Vanston of Normansgrave
must be publicly announced. You would not like ugly facts to crop up
about your wife."
Denzil crimsoned. "Why, what facts?" he asked. "What could turn up?"
She replied cautiously: "If, as you tell me, this man was intending
to hand her over to the kind of life that is implied by such a
training, he must be a person on a very different social level from
ourselves. Remember, Felix rescued her from a lodging-house in
Deptford. I am not a snob, my boy, and I know that
lilies-of-the-valley are now and then found on dust-heaps. I
acknowledge with all my heart that Rona is a lily of a girl. But it
will not be pleasant for you to have undesirable people coming about
you, perhaps blackmailing you to have facts about your wife's origin
kept dark. However dearly we love Rona, the fact remains that we do
not know who she is. Remember, Denzil, it is a question of the
mother of your children--of future Vanstons, dear boy."
The young man hid his hot face in his hands. "You," he said, in
smothered tones, "you did not dissuade me--we have acted together in
this--you and I."
"Yes, Denzil. I willingly shoulder the blame. The girl herself was
her own passport; and her brother's letter convinced me of his own
gentle birth and education. But remember, I thought them brother and
sister. That made all the difference. Had I known that they were
almost strangers--that he took her from such a place--had I known, in
short, what I know now--I might have acted differently. I might have
given other advice. For it is well for a man to marry his equal; it
makes for happiness."
"One can see," said Denzil, in a hollow voice, "why he dare not let
it out. If we had known he was not really her brother, we should not
have allowed him to take her away. We should have considered him
utterly unfit to be the guide or helper of such a girl. What do you
advise, Aunt Bee? Shall I write to the Convent School and see
whether the Reverend Mother can tell me anything?"
"An excellent idea," said Miss Rawson, "though, judging from what you
say Rona told you, the Reverend Mother does not know much. Still,
she might give us a clew. I do think we ought to inform ourselves as
far as we can."
"There is one thing," remarked the Squire, "if the uncle knows the
girl is to make a really good marriage, and be off his hands, he
would not be likely to object, would he?"
"No," said his aunt; "one would think not. But such a man would make
something out of you if he saw his way to do it. If he knew you to
be much in love, he might impose conditions."
"Such as----?"
"Well, such as that you should ask him down here to stay, or
subsidize him to keep quiet, or something of the kind----"
Denzil shuddered involuntarily.
"--He must be a pretty nefarious villain not to have made public the
fact of the girl's disappearance," continued Aunt Bee. "He must have
had good and strong reasons himself for keeping dark. I wish we
could find out something which would give us a hold over him, so that
in case of his being troublesome we could keep him quiet."
"That is not a bad idea," said Denzil, thoughtfully. "It gives one
something to do--something to take off one's thoughts from the
disappointment--the anxiety." He fell silent, twisting his hands in
his nervous misery. "Aunt Bee," he brought out, at last, "whatever
happens--whatever should come out--I must marry her. I feel towards
her as I never thought to feel towards any woman in the world. I
always thought all the stuff in books about being in love was such
nonsense. But now----" He could not go on.
"God bless you, old man; it will do you all the good in the world,"
said his aunt, heartily. "A thing like this shows one how far one's
feeling is really genuine and deep. It is a good thing the path of
your happiness is not too smooth. I do think myself, though I am not
in love with her--I do think the girl is fine, and worth a fight. I
have always known she had some secret anxiety, but have put it down
to the fact that she could not be candid with me about her birth and
so on. That she was actually engaged all this time to your
remarkable brother has been a heavy burden to be borne by such young
shoulders. Her courage and prudence are both wonderful."
"Think," said Denzil, hardly able to speak for a feeling which
threatened to choke him. "Think of her actually throwing herself out
of a window down upon railway lines, sooner than suffer degradation!
You are right. She is wonderful. Good-night, my dear aunt."
They separated, feeling more in sympathy than ever in their lives
before.
CHAPTER XXI
DENZIL DOES HIS DUTY
But did she love him?--what and if she did? ...
Love has no spell can scorching winds forbid,
Or bring the help which tarries near to hand,
Or spread a cloud for curtaining fading eyes
That gaze up dying into alien skies.
--JEAN INGELOW.
A fortnight passed at Normansgrave, in doubt and discomfort. It was
fortunate that the house was full of visitors, for their
entertainment served to take off the thoughts of the master of the
house from his own interrupted and absorbing romance.
Upon the day following his proposal to Veronica in the Abbey ruins he
wrote to Felix, a letter which seemed to him of a dignified and most
fraternal character. He said, in effect--"All is known, but at the
same time all is forgiven. Come home and let us settle things up. I
wish to treat you quite fairly, though I do not think that you have
so treated me."
His next care was to go to London, and, with the utmost secrecy and
precaution, set on foot a private inquiry for the man Rankin Leigh.
He likewise spent some time in Somerset House, searching the register
for the entry of Rona's birth. She knew the exact year, month, and
day, but, for safety's sake, he also investigated the corresponding
month in the years following and preceding. There was no entry of
any Veronica Leigh during the three years studied by him.
He found himself continually lost in speculation as to who the girl
was. He wrote to the Mother Superior of the Convent, and her reply
disturbed him greatly. She asked him, if he could possibly arrange
it, to come and visit her personally. She had very little to tell
him, but should be most grateful to hear good news of the girl, over
whose fate she had grieved many times since she left the Convent.
Glad of any pretext to be upon the move, Denzil did as she asked him.
He pleaded sudden and very important business connected with his
ward, Miss Leigh, and left his visitors for a couple of days to the
care of Aunt Bee and Rona.
But he wished afterwards that he had not gone, since all that the
Reverend Mother could tell him went to confirm the suspicion which
had lain at the bottom of his mind ever since he first saw the
girl--namely, that Rona had no legal father.
A firm of solicitors, said the good lady, had written to her, asking
her to receive a girl child, of the age of six months. It was said
that she was doubly an orphan, and that it was believed that she had
been duly baptized, but, as her mother was suddenly dead, nobody knew
by what name. A sum for her maintenance was guaranteed. When the
baby arrived at the Convent, the good nuns thought it best to be upon
the safe side, and re-baptized her, under the name of Veronica; the
record of this provisional baptism was shown to him in the register
of their private chapel. They were told that the child's parents
both belonged to the Roman Catholic faith. The sum promised them was
duly paid, every quarter, through the same firm, until Rona was
sixteen. The lawyers then wrote to the Convent, saying that their
client, who had paid the money, was dead. He had left no
instructions in his will as to the continuance of the payments, and
they found no member of his family willing to sanction such a course.
Nobody knew who the child was, and, so far as was known, she had no
claim upon the man who had hitherto supported her. As she had
attained the age of sixteen, the legatees thought she should now
support herself. In these circumstances, the firm had communicated
with Mr. Rankin Leigh, who was, they were informed, uncle to the
child, upon her mother's side; and he had replied to the effect that
he would travel down to the school and see his niece, with a view to
making some provision for her future.
This Mr. Leigh had, after some weeks, presented himself. He was a
seedy-looking individual. He declared, in conversation with the
Reverend Mother, that he was wholly unable to support Veronica, who
must earn her own living, but that, if she were a well-grown,
nice-looking girl, he thought he might put her into a very good
situation. Having seen his niece, he was evidently much struck by
her beauty. "She is beautiful, do you not think?" asked the Mother,
eagerly, of Denzil. "We all thought she promised to be lovely;
though at that time, she was in the awkward stage. I have often
wondered whether she has grown up as beautiful as we thought she
would."
Denzil was able to produce a good photo of Veronica, taken within the
last few weeks, and was touched at seeing the joy of the kind woman
at her grace, and her happy look.
Denzil then, as well as he could, confided to her the terrible
experience through which Rona had passed. He told of her rescue, and
of their taking her into the Cottage Hospital. "Of course," he said,
"we could see at once that she was no common girl."
The Mother agreed. She expatiated on the subject of Veronica. She
had been an exquisitely pretty baby, and the joy of the nuns' hearts.
Her clothes had been good and carefully made. She had evidently been
the child of someone who cherished her tenderly.
But there was the significant fact that she seemed to be called by
her mother's surname. It all contributed to the idea that Rona was
nobody's child. And, deeply in love though Denzil was, he did not
like the notion at all.
Rankin Leigh, it appeared, was an elderly man, and he had owned to
the Mother that he was not the child's own uncle, but her
great-uncle--her mother had been his niece. He had pumped hard to
find out whether anything was known of the child's father, but, of
course, had ascertained nothing.
Denzil asked if there was any reason to suppose that Rankin Leigh was
the girl's legal guardian. Nothing was known on this head; but, as
he was apparently the only living relative, and as there was no more
money to support the child, they had felt bound to let her go.
"I really did not know what to do with her," said the good woman. "I
thought her much too handsome to be in business, and much too refined
for service, and, of course, she was too young to teach."
The Squire returned to Normansgrave with much food for thought. He
had obtained from the Mother one thing which he thought of great
importance, and that was the name and address of the firm of
solicitors who had arranged for the child's reception at the
Orphanage.
To them he wrote, at the earliest possible moment. His letter came
back to him through the dead-letter office, marked "Gone away." And
no search of Postal Guides revealed any address for a firm of that
name. He began to wonder whether the simple-seeming nun had played
him false after all. Yet, what motive could she have had for doing
so?
The visit brought him home, restless and dissatisfied. He determined
to say nothing to Rona of where he had been. On his way home in the
train he had serious doubts as to whether he should not disentangle
himself altogether from this intricate affair of his brother and the
Girl from Nowhere. It was completely out of his line to be thus
mixed up in questionable matters.
But the moment he saw her again--the moment, when, standing on the
terrace, he beheld her drifting across the lawns with an armful of
flowers, walking without a hat, the boisterous wind ruffling her hair
back from her flawless forehead--there awoke in him the long ignored
natural desires. His heart beat, his eyes filled, his being grew big
with the craving to take her, to make her his at any price he might
afterwards be called upon to pay.
Rona, when she saw him standing there, stopped short. She blushed as
she met his gaze. She could not now encounter him without confusion.
She felt certain that she did not love Felix. But she was anything
but certain that she did love his brother.
Since his declaration at Newark there had been something in the
quality of his affection which she disliked. His eyes were always
seeking hers, he tried to take her hand when occasion offered. If
they were alone he would seat himself beside her, closer than she
liked. She was growing very shy of him. The virginal instinct to
fly from pursuit was strong in her.
He began to wonder how much longer he should be able to bear the
present situation. It was anomalous. They could not expect a letter
from Felix for another ten days or more. And it might not be a
letter which came. It might be Felix himself.
As he hastened down from the terrace, and relieved her of the tall
delphiniums and golden rod and dahlias which she carried, it was in
his heart to catch her and hold her close, and cry to her that she
was his, and that Felix should not come between them. Instead, he
merely smiled upon her, and asked affectionately, but somewhat
tritely, if she had missed him. She replied, with lowered eye-lids
and a charming dignity, that she had.
He meant to say something to the effect that he chafed against the
restraints imposed upon him by their waiting, by their scrupulous
regard for the absent man. Instead of that, he burst forth without
reflection--
"Come and let us sit on the stone seat and talk! It is about a
hundred years since I left you."
Veronica did not look at all delighted, but she obediently turned
with him, and they went slowly across the lawn to a distant part of
the garden, where there was an Alpine rockery. They sat down
together upon a small bench, let into the rocks which bordered the
path. They had sat there often, during the few golden weeks since
her return. But this afternoon Rona felt a restless insecurity, a
desire to rise up and go and leave Denzil to himself. What could
they say to each other? There was nothing to be said. Her heart was
empty of any feeling for him, beyond the grateful affection which by
no means craves stolen interviews.
As for Denzil, for the first time in his life his impulses were
galloping off with his reason. The very aloofness and gentle
coolness of the maiden spurred him on.
"Rona," he said feverishly, "I feel as if all my life I had been
waiting to know that you are free."
She smiled ambiguously. "Don't let us talk of that."
"Of what, then? I don't feel at this moment as if I care a pin for
anything else in the world."
She regarded him with curiosity. "Do you really feel that?"
"Indeed I do. Don't you?"
She was gazing straight before her, and she shook her head. "Not a
bit. I must tell the truth, you know. I feel the world is big, and
very--frightfully--interesting. And there are many things I want to
know about, and talk about."
He sat very silent. "Then--then--you don't--er--return my feeling?
You are not in love with me, as I am with you, Rona?" he wistfully
demanded, at length.
After a pause, "I don't know," she replied.
He felt dashed and piqued, both at the same moment.
"I wonder if you have any idea of how cruel it is of you to say
that?" he asked, half pleading, half annoyed.
"Oh, I don't want to be cruel," she hastily answered. "I want to be
very kind to you, Mr. Vanston."
"Say Denzil--give me my name, Rona."
"Oh!" said Rona, quite as if the suggestion shocked her. He leaned
forward, staring at her, taking in the beauties of her with thirsty
eyes--the quality of her skin, the modeling of the corners of her
lips, the bend of her lashes, the heaving of her throat under her
embroidered muslin bodice.
"Why not?" he asked, in a low, hoarse voice. The voice warned Rona,
for it was unnatural. She stood up. "It is chilly in the wind," she
said, standing there, her face and, hair gilded by a long sun ray
which struck upon her through the trees.
He sprang to his feet, and his eyes glittered. "Oh!" he said, "Oh,
how beautiful you are!" He caught both her hands in his hot grasp.
"You must tell me," he panted, "do you hear? You must tell me what
you feel? Did you mean what you said, that you don't care for me?
Oh, you couldn't mean that--Rona!"
He was close to her--so close that he could feel the contact of her
slim form. Some instinct warned her that to move suddenly would
provoke further demonstration. She grew white, and took his hand in
her own. "Have I not asked you," she said, in a very still voice,
"not to talk of this--yet?"
It was the woman's device to gain time. But it did not seem to have
succeeded. "Not yet?" he cried, on a high note. "Is that what you
mean, really? That we ought not to speak freely yet? I can wait--or
I thought I could, half an hour ago! But give me a word, just a
word, Rona."
He followed her up, his arm ready to go round her waist. She but
just eluded him. "The word is--wait," she said: and in her fear she
began to lose the control which had subdued him. "You must wait, if
I say wait," she cried imperiously. And her next words sounded
curiously irrelevant. "After all, I am only nineteen," she urged,
indignantly.
He felt like a man pushing against a closed door--felt a deep desire
to batter it down with force. Yet he could not risk her displeasure.
"Oh, Rona," he said, "it is too bad of you to torture me."
She retorted quickly, "It is you who are torturing me"--and broke off
upon the word, for there was the sound of a voice raised, calling Mr.
Vanston.
Impatiently Denzil went to the flight of steps which led down into
the little garden where they sat. "Who is there? What do you want?"
he cried testily.
"Oh, there you are, sir," cried Chant, the butler. "I knew you had
come in, but couldn't find you. A cablegram, sir. Is there any
answer?"
Rona's heart seemed to stop. She stood where she was, still as a
statue, while Denzil opened the envelope. He seemed to grope, to
fumble, to take incredibly long over the simple process.
A cablegram! Doubtless to announce that Felix was on his way. That
flimsy bit of paper showed how terribly near, how accessible he was
and always had been, though he had seemed so far away as not to count
in one's scheme of life. And now he was coming! When? How much
respite yet before she must look upon his strong, reproachful face?
Denzil glanced up, white as ashes, from the paper he held. "There is
no answer," he said to Chant; and the man went away.
The Squire came up to Rona and held the paper to her. She took it
and gazed for a moment with blurred eyes. Then her vision cleared
and she saw:--
"Felix missing. Fear foul play. Vronsky."
She stared upon the message, her heart contracting till the pain was
physical. Was this to be the way out for her? Was the man who had
rescued her, and trusted her, and loved her to die at last a violent
death at the hand of inhuman wretches who called themselves brothers
to humanity? The oppression of her spirits threatened to choke her.
She cried out, in a tone she hardly knew to be her own.
"Denzil! Denzil? Tell me it isn't true!"
He ran to her, his arms held out, his sympathy ready to be poured
forth upon her.
"Oh, don't! oh, don't!" she pleaded, not choosing her words. "Don't
behave so, when we have this to consider! What are we doing here in
England safe and happy, when perhaps they are torturing him to death!"
Denzil drew out a handkerchief, passed it across his face, and
collected himself. "I beg your pardon. This--this is terrible. But
he has brought it upon himself--as a man soweth----"
"Oh!" cried Rona, unable to repress a strong shudder of disgust.
He stood silent a moment, surprised and confused. The news,
following upon his moments of unrestraint, had unstrung him somewhat.
"What," he asked vacantly, "what ought we to do?"
"Do?" cried the girl. "There is only one thing to be done! You must
go there, and move heaven and earth! You must appeal to the
Government, you must spare no money, no effort, to find him; if he is
dead, to avenge him, and if he is alive to deliver him from the hand
of these brutes."
Denzil stood sullenly brooding. For the second time Felix had
disappeared, and left him in doubt as to whether he was alive or
dead. In a flash it came to him! Rona was right!--This time there
should be no doubt. If he was, now free of his disreputable younger
brother, the fact should be known, ascertained beyond dispute!
And for many reasons he had better go. This afternoon's experience
had shown him to himself in a new light. He feared that he could not
trust himself much with Rona until the knotty situation was
unraveled. And if he left her she would become aware of the state of
her own affections. He was a firm believer in the adage that absence
makes the heart grow fonder.
Never in his life had Denzil Vanston made up his mind so quickly.
Never perhaps had he been called upon to decide so important a
matter. He saw the whole thing with a clearness born of his own
vital interest in the case. His going out would obviate the
necessity for Felix to come home at all. And it was obviously far
better that Felix and Rona should not meet.
Short as was his musing, it was too long for Rona's impatience.
"You must go, you must go," she reiterated, "or we shall have it on
our consciences till we die! You must send cables to the Russian
police, you must let them see that he has powerful friends, that he
cannot be spirited away with impunity! Oh," she burst out, in
anguish, "never in all his life has anybody helped him! And now I,
the one creature that he thought was his own, the one object for
which he lived--I have failed him! But if you will go, Mr. Vanston,
you may be in time! By God's help you may not be too late to let him
know that he is not all alone in the world."
Her lover raised his eyes and looked firmly upon her. He also folded
his arms. "Rona," he said solemnly, "I have made up my mind. To go
is my duty; and it shall be at once."
She gave a gasp of relief. "Do not try to hinder me," continued
Denzil, with unnecessary heroism.
"To hinder you? I should think not," cried Rona. "As you say, to go
is your duty, and at once. I will not try to prevent you. Every
minute is precious." She moved, as if to leave the spot.
Denzil gazed at her with wistful reproach. "You agree--you think,"
he faltered, "that I should set out literally at once?"
"Of course I do! There can be no doubt! Come, let us go to the
house and tell Aunt Bee, and arrange about the guests and so on.
Each moment that we stand talking here may increase your difficulties
when you get out there."
He tried once more. "Rona! Will you really send me away like this?"
She stopped short, looking blank. "I thought you had decided that it
is your duty."
His voice was broken by emotion. "But I thought--I thought--that you
would have been sorry to let me go."
"Forgive me," said Rona, "but I don't seem able to think about that.
I feel so guilty, my own heart has been such a traitor, I can't bear
to think of him out there, alone, unwanted ... when I think that I
have wished so earnestly to be free from him I could--Oh, I tell you
I could kill myself!"
She turned away, hiding her face in her hands. And Denzil, after a
moment's hesitation, chose the wiser part, and turning, went away and
left her to wrestle with her remorse.
CHAPTER XXII
FOREBODINGS
She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay,
She was 'ware of a presence that withered the day.
_The Lay of the Brown Rosary._
Miss Rawson had frequently before been left, while Denzil was away,
in sole charge at Normansgrave. She was a woman of courage, and it
had never occurred to her before to be nervous in the absence of the
master of the house. But now she was nervous, and for a reason which
she could not define.
She told herself that she was no longer young, and that she had been
unduly shaken by the surprising turn of events. The knowledge that
Felix still lived, the tidings of his danger, the sudden departure of
her nephew, the break-up of the house-party, and the waiting for news
in the forsaken house, broke her rest and gave her bad dreams.
The sight of Rona's white face and dilated eyes affected her
uncomfortably. Rona was in a very highly-strung condition, and would
start at the least sound. She had seemed feverishly anxious to let
Denzil go--had displayed a curious reserve on bidding him farewell;
but her manifest depression since he went could be attributed,
thought Miss Rawson, to but one cause.
Rona was so restless that it was painful to see her. She wandered
from garden to park, and back into the house, aimlessly. Her usual
occupations, reading, writing, gardening, cycling, golfing, were all
laid aside. Nothing interested her, far less contented her. And she
either would not or could not confide in the elder woman who had been
so good to her. Her wide, unseeing eyes, her tightly folded lips,
kept Miss Rawson at a distance. She could see that the girl was
desperately unhappy--she would have said more unhappy than even the
circumstances satisfactorily accounted for--but she could do nothing
for her but leave her free to indulge her melancholy.
On Sunday, after breakfast, she asked whether she thought of going to
church. Rona said "No" hastily, rose from the table abruptly, and
seemed as if she would go out of the open French window upon the
lawn. Miss Rawson felt that she ought to remonstrate.
"Rona," she said, "I think you should go. Denzil would wish it; I am
sure we stand in need of help at this moment."
The girl stood in the window, her eyes fixed, her attitude tense.
"I feel afraid to go," she said, after a minute's pause.
"Isn't that rather a foolish thing to say?" asked Miss Rawson, gently.
"Something dreadful is going to happen--don't you feel it?" said
Rona, in a whisper. "I feel as if it might happen in church."
Miss Rawson stared. She knew that she, too, was under the influence
of that strange idea that something was about to happen. She looked
upon it as a thing that should be fought against. "Surely," she
said, kindly, "church is the safest place."
Rona looked at her wistfully, and heaved a sigh. "Very well,
dearest," said she, affectionately, "if you think so." So saying,
she crossed the room and went upstairs to get ready.
It was a lovely morning, and the pretty little church was very full.
But it seemed that Rona could not fix her mind upon what she was
doing. She sat all the time like one in a dream, furtively glancing
behind her, over her shoulder, as though she expected to see
something alarming.
During the sermon it was painful to watch her difficulty in remaining
quiet. She was usually full of repose, but to-day she changed her
position, fidgeted, looked up, looked down, looked around; until the
irritation of Miss Rawson's nerves grew almost unbearable.
At last the service was over. They rose from their places, and moved
slowly down the central space, between the chairs. Three parts of
the way down, an elderly man, coarse and stout, but dressed like a
gentleman, stood hat in hand, his eyes fixed upon them both,
something that was not quite a smile, nor quite a sneer, lurking in
his eyes and unpleasant mouth.
As they passed him, he spoke quietly, but quite audibly.
"Well, Veronica," he said, smoothly, "have you nothing to say to your
Uncle Rankin?"
In that awful moment Miss Rawson was the more agitated of the two.
It seemed that, now the blow had fallen, the strange tension and
restlessness of the girl had passed away, and her spirit leaped up to
wrestle with this realization of her vague forebodings. She gravely
shook hands with her uncle, and said, in an undertone, "Let us wait
to talk until we are outside."
They moved with the thinning stream of people to the porch, and out
into the oppressive heat of a gray day that threatened thunder.
There Rona turned to Miss Rawson, and said, still very quietly, "This
is my mother's uncle, Rankin Leigh."
Aunt Bee had had a moment in which to collect herself. She bowed to
the disagreeable looking man who stood truculently there in the road,
his hat slightly pushed back upon his head, his eyes full of an
odious triumph, as thinking he had the whip hand of the situation.
"Pleased to meet any friend of my niece's, ma'am," said he,
familiarly. "And who may you be, if I may take the liberty to
inquire?"
"My name is Rawson," said Aunt Bee, with a valiant attempt not to
display the distaste she felt. "Are you--are you--staying near here?"
The man grinned unpleasantly. "Oh, yes, quite near," he said--"most
convenient indeed."
"It is convenient," said Miss Rawson, whose mind, working with
velocity under the stress of the moment, had determined that, as the
man was there, he must be more or less propitiated and made use of.
How thankful she felt that Denzil had so lately heard all of the
affair that Rona and the Mother Superior could tell them! "I have
been wishing to meet you, as your niece begins to feel that it is
time she knew her own history."
The man looked at Rona. He looked at her from head to foot. It was
a look that made Miss Rawson burn with disgust--such a look as the
owner of a beautiful slave might cast over her points when bringing
her to the slave market. The girl was charming. From head to heel
she was worth looking at. Her form, her head, her wrists and ankles,
her hands, and even such details as finger-nails and eye-lashes, were
all exceptionally good. He gazed with the eye of the expert,
appraising everything.
"She looks very well," he said, evidently trying to speak civilly.
"I think she is very well. She never ails anything," said Miss
Rawson.
"May I ask how long she has lived with you, ma'am?" asked Mr. Leigh.
"For more than two years," replied the lady. She had by now decided
what to say. "I came across her case in a hospital, and was much
interested in her. She had been very badly hurt."
The man, still peering at Rona, licked his lips. "And you have taken
upon yourself the burden of her ever since?" he said, with evident
surprise. "I assure you, madam, you should have been relieved of
your charge before this, had I known where to find my niece. She ran
away from me. Perhaps she did not tell you that?"
"Oh, yes, she did," replied Miss Rawson, steadily. "She is a very
good girl, and I have no wish to be relieved of the care of her."
"That is very kind of you, ma'am. But unfortunately, the young woman
has her living to earn," he said.
"I know," replied Miss Rawson, "and she has been so educated that I
hope she can do so without difficulty. Her plans are made. Come,
Mr. Leigh," she went on, briskly, "we must have some further talk on
this matter, and, I think, not in the middle of the road. When can
you come to see me?"
He was evidently surprised and pleased at her tone. "Any time,
practically, would do for me," he replied, more politely than he had
yet spoken.
Miss Rawson reflected. "Well," she said, "I should like you to dine
with me, if you will be so kind. But to-day and to-morrow we are,
unfortunately, particularly engaged. Will you come to dinner with us
on Tuesday, at seven-thirty?"
As she spoke, the victoria, which had been waiting at the side of the
road, drove up quickly at a slight signal from herself. The man was
evidently taken aback by her manner, and flattered--perhaps a little
fluttered--by her invitation.
"I am obliged to you," he said. "Dinner on Tuesday at seven-thirty."
He was not used to dealing with women of her class, and though he was
ready to bully or bluster, he found nothing in her self-possessed,
impersonal manner which he could take hold of. Besides, he
reflected, it was far better not to frighten her. If he did, she
might produce lawyers, or such other undesired persons, to take part
in the proceedings. He knew, far better than she, the flimsiness of
his own claims. He was not the girl's legal guardian, and never had
been. A moral claim was all that he could urge, joined to a cunning
by means of which he hoped to attain his end, for he was convinced
that it would be well worth his while to get hold of Rona. She had
grown into just such a woman as he had foreseen. He did not feel any
doubt of being able, with little difficulty, to reconcile her to the
way of life he had in view for her, when once she realized her own
power, and what a splendid time she could have if she were but
sensible. But he knew well that the tactics he had formerly adopted
were woefully mistaken. Of all things now, he must not scare her.
As his mind flew rapidly over his intended course, he felt that he
could not do better than accept this dinner invitation. He helped
the two ladies into the carriage, little dreaming how the heart of
the haughty-looking Miss Rawson was knocking against her side.
"If you would kindly give me the address," he said.
Miss Rawson was seated in the victoria. She opened her card-case.
"Home," said she to the coachman, in the act of handing the card to
Mr. Leigh, with a bow and a condescending smile. The man touched his
hat, and started. They glided away, leaving Mr. Leigh staring
fixedly at the card, with a face suddenly crimson.
"Normansgrave!" he repeated over and over to himself. "Why, that's
the Vanstons' place! His brother's place! Well, of all the fools,
that detective of mine, Burnett, was the worst! And yet, of all the
places that I should have thought he would not have taken her to, his
brother's place was certainly the one." He was so thoroughly
disconcerted that he actually grinned. "I thought they had slipped
through his fingers somewhere," he reflected. "He said he was
certain that he sent her across from Plymouth--such stuff! I told
him. I said, 'He left her somewhere between London and Basingstoke,
or my name's not Rankin Leigh.' But they always think they know
best, these blooming detectives! Well, it's a queer thing! Young
Vanston must have brought her here, yet I'll swear that he never went
near the place himself, and, what's more, I can swear that his
brother didn't know where he was, unless Denzil Vanston, Esq., is the
most finished liar on the face of the earth. Why, at that very time,
he was paying the police a pretty penny to find the
ticket-of-leaver--or his corpse! Humph! Well, I thought I had only
a woman to deal with, but if the two Vanstons are in it the
difficulties will be greater than I had foreseen. What did become of
the other one, after all? Well, there may be some information to be
got up at the hotel yonder, that's one thing."
He hurried back to the second-rate inn where he had put up, and, in
the course of an hour or two, had found out something of some
importance. The Squire had just gone abroad--very unexpectedly. It
was even known at the post-office that he had had a cable from
Siberia. This was good news. Leigh determined upon his plan of
action. He would ask humbly, but with firmness, so as to imply that
he could enforce obedience if he chose--he would ask that his niece
be allowed to come and stay with him in his flat in London, to show
that all was right between them. He would speculate; he would hire a
furnished flat in a good position for a month, no matter at what
cost. And he would take the girl about--give her clothes and a few
jewels; take her to the theater and to race-meetings--he believed
that the men to whom he could introduce her would do the rest.
For all the latter part of his life, the man had been a hanger-on at
stage doors, a theatrical agent, a go-between of the profession. He
believed all women to be like those with whom he was in daily
contact--greedy, grasping, pleasure-loving, non-moral. To him, the
life he found Rona living--going to church with a maiden lady--was a
life from which any handsome young girl would escape, if she could.
If she once found that her beauty would bring to her--and
incidentally to him--diamonds, motors, life on the champagne
standard, he literally could not conceive that she could hesitate.
What was the good of having a girl like that in your power if you
could not make her keep you? He was determined to have an old age of
comfort, as a result of the earnings of Rona. He knew all the ropes.
He knew all there was to know about the "Profession." He knew that,
given material of the quality of that girl, success, with the right
steps taken, the right course adopted, was quite certain.
He sat smoking, and thinking it over, with his whisky on the table
beside him. He considered what, or how much, he could or should tell
Rona of what he suspected of her parentage. He was himself the son
of a solicitor, and had received a good education. But there was a
bad strain in the blood. Both he and his brother had gone to the
bad, and his brother had died young, leaving an orphan girl, whose
early associations were those of a life of discreditable shifts, but
who had developed the backbone lacking in her father and uncle, had
insisted upon qualifying to teach, and when her education was
complete, had obtained a post as governess in the family of
Mauleverer, a well-known old house of the Roman faith in the North of
England. But it seemed as if this girl, too, were infected by the
obliquity of the family morals, for, after a time, she disappeared
from her uncle's view, his letters being returned to him marked "Gone
away. Address unknown." One day he received a letter with a London
postmark, written at her dictation. It said that she was married,
that she had just become a mother, that she was dying. The letter,
which bore no address, was only to be posted in case of her actual
death, and then not until after a month had elapsed. She did not
reveal the name of her husband, but said that her tiny daughter was
to be brought up in a certain convent--the address of which she gave
him--under the name of Leigh. She begged him to inquire from time to
time of the child's health.
Her uncle and she had never been in sympathy. Evidently she had
nobody else at all to whom she could appeal for her baby's sake to
take some interest in her. She had always been a good and very
quiet, steady girl, yet her uncle found it a little hard to believe
in the story of her marriage.
There was a young man at Vane Abbey--John Mauleverer, the eldest son.
But he was a shy, retiring, delicate youth, by no means the kind of
man whom one suspects of making love to the governess. Rankin Leigh
had made a few inquiries at the time, but had learnt nothing to
confirm such a suspicion.
Other young men had come and gone, visitors at the Abbey; and as all
these were Roman Catholics, the fact of the baby's being sent to a
convent was not of much significance. Young Mauleverer married, a
wife of his own rank, not long after the death of Veronica's mother.
If he were the man, this gave some color to the dead girl's solemn
assertion that she had been actually married. The fact that the
supplies for Veronica's maintenance stopped upon John Mauleverer's
death made Rankin Leigh morally certain that he was, after all, the
father. He left a family of several children. Had Veronica been a
boy, it would have been worth her uncle's while to incur the expense
and trouble of hunting up evidence, and establishing her claims on
the property. But since she was a girl, and her father had sons, he
did not care to follow up the clew. And when, summoned to the
convent by a letter from the solicitors explaining that the supplies
had ceased, he saw his niece, he felt that she would be a more
lucrative and less risky source of income than the levying of
blackmail.
But what he had not cared to set on foot, he had little doubt that
the Vanstons might be willing to undertake, if he told them the
truth. Should he? He was still meditating on the subject, when the
waiter looked in.
"Mr. Leigh! Gentleman of the name of Burnett to see you, sir."
"Burnett! Well, that's a coincidence! Burnett, by all that's
wonderful! The very man!"
Burnett, the detective, came in with a twinkle. He sat down, and
when he had refreshed himself at his host's invitation, he produced a
letter from his pocket. "You're wanted, Leigh, seemin'ly," he
remarked, with humor.
"I'm wanted, am I?" said Rankin, with a stare. "And who wants me?"
"No less a person than Squire Vanston, of Normansgrave, has written
to me to trace you out."
"Well, I'm----" remarked Leigh, in amazement.
"Here's the letter, if you don't believe me. Got it yesterday. So
I've come to ask--do you want to be traced or don't you?"
"No need, my dear friend," said Leigh, in an off-hand way. "I
introduced myself this morning to Mr. Vanston's aunt, and to my own
niece, who has lived with them ever since I had the pleasure of
putting you on her track. If ever there was a confounded fool, it is
you, Burnett, if you'll give me leave to pass the remark. I'm dining
there Tuesday," he added, with nonchalance.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ESCAPE OF AUNT BEE
I should have cleaved to her who did not dwell
In splendor, was not hostess unto kings,
But lived contented among simple things,
And had a heart, and loved me long and well.
--WILLIAM WATSON.
The victoria fled swiftly along the pretty country road for some
moments without either occupant saying a word. Rona sat as if the
falling of the long-expected blow had stunned her. Aunt Bee,
watching her set lips and tragic eyes, felt vaguely alarmed.
"Rona," she said, in low tones, almost a whisper, "had you any sort
of idea that he was in the neighborhood--before we set out for
church?"
The girl hesitated. At last--"I thought I saw him," she said,
reluctantly, "at the station the other day, when we went to see
Denzil off. A race train came in from Virginia Water, and I turned,
glancing idly along the carriage windows, and felt almost sure that I
saw his face. I had the idea that he had suddenly risen from his
seat, and was looking at me. But at that moment the train moved, and
I--I could not be sure. But he must have been sure, and he must have
spent all these days searching the neighborhood for me. It was a
clever idea to go to church, wasn't it?"
Aunt Bee remained silent for a swift moment or two. Then she turned
suddenly, stooping, her lips close to the girl's ear. "Rona--how
long shall you take to pack?"
The girl started, a light came into her eyes and color into her
cheeks. "For how long?" she rejoined, with bated breath.
"For a journey,--one hardly knows how long. One trunk, a hat-box, a
hand-bag."
"Two hours, if there is time. Twenty minutes if there isn't."
"Good girl. I expect we can have our two hours. But I must study a
time-table. I see nothing for it but flight, and before he can
suspect us of anything of the sort. I cannot deal with him in
Denzil's absence."
"No," said Rona, her eyes glowing. "You are simply splendid! Oh,
what a relief! I have been so sick with fear. I am not a coward,
really, but my nerves cannot bear the sight of him. If you could
know the things he recalls! I feel like a thrashed slave when you
show her the whip."
Miss Rawson caught her hand and held it tight. "Courage, darling!
You know Denzil does not think he can really do much. Of course, it
depends a great deal upon the exact terms of your father's will. But
even if he is legally your guardian, I don't think he can actually
force you to live with him. If he is not, Denzil says we can snap
our fingers. But, for all that, I dare not tackle him alone. We
must be off, and at once. And nobody must know, not even the
servants, that we are going beyond London. I have about fifteen
pounds in the house here, and I will write to my bankers, with a
check, instructing them to cable out more money to me to Paris, or
Brussels, or wherever it is we start from--I'll look out the route."
"Where are we going?"
"_To St. Petersburg_, I think--don't you?"
Rona gasped. She repeated the words mechanically. "To St.
Petersburg! Oh, Aunt Bee!"
"It seems to me the safest course. The man looked to me as if he
were prepared to be very disagreeable. If we simply go to Paris, he
might follow us. But I should judge that the state of his exchequer
would render Russia quite out of the question----"
"Oh, how wonderful you are! But we shall want a passport for Russia,
shall we not?"
"I could get that anywhere where there is an English Embassy. Let me
see, we had better take Gorham, I think."
Gorham was Miss Rawson's maid, a middle-aged, superior woman,
attached to her mistress, and fond of Rona. "We will not tell anyone
our destination until we are safely off," went on Miss Rawson;
"Gorham must be told that we shall be away for a month, at least, but
the servants here must be left under the impression that we return
without fail on Tuesday evening. I will even order the dinner for
that night before I go, and tell cook that I expect a gentleman to
dine with us. Then if he does hear that we are away, and makes
inquiries, his suspicions will be lulled."
Upon consulting the time-table, they found that all Was easy. By
driving to Weybridge they could catch a 5.56 train, reaching Waterloo
at 6.49, in plenty of time to dine comfortably and catch the 9 p.m.
boat train, by which means they would arrive in Paris at five o'clock
next morning.
Miss Rawson had a cousin--one Mrs. Townsend, known in the family as
Cousin Sophy--who lived in Kensington and was in feeble health. Aunt
Bee unblushingly told her household that she had news that this good
lady was suddenly taken worse, and that she must go at once. As she
did not like to leave Miss Rona at home alone, she should take her;
and as they must put up at an hotel, she should also take Gorham. As
they should probably stay only a night, or perhaps two, she wished
nothing said in the village of their absence; and, as the Squire was
known to dislike Sunday traveling, she wished Jones to drive the
luggage cart out by the back way and go along the lane, and not by
the high road, that the village might not be scandalized.
"I don't think," said the newly fledged conspirator, "that he will
suspect us of bolting, after my asking him to dinner like that. Was
it not a good thought of mine to say we were engaged to-day and
Monday? Conspiracy comes terribly easy when once one tries it!
Cheer up, darling, we shall get off with no trouble at all. And on
Tuesday afternoon I will dispatch a telegram to him, saying that I am
sorry to have been suddenly called away. Mercifully, I have a
balance of several hundred pounds in the bank just now, which I have
been saving up to buy furniture with when Denzil and you turn me out!
We shall do admirably."
Rona flung her arms about her neck. "I think it is too much," she
said, in a choked voice. "Let me go--let me disappear! Why should
you lavish money, time, health, on me? Who am I? Nobody knows. And
I have done nothing but harm. I have made them both unhappy. Give
me ten pounds and let me go away and hide, and earn my own
living--ah, let me!"
Her mouth was stopped with a kiss, and an injunction not to be a
little fool. "I enjoy it," said Aunt Bee, with an air of evident
sincerity. "I never got a chance to do a desperate thing like this
before. Who would think of staid old Miss Rawson, the mainstay of
the Girls' Friendly Society and the Clothing Club, telling
tarradiddles to her servants, and rushing off across Europe, in
defense of a helpless beauty with villains in pursuit! I feel as if
I were in a book by Stanley Weyman!"
In fact, her capacity and energy carried all before them, and
triumphed even over Gorham's consternation when, upon arriving in
London, she found that, so far from having reached their goal, they
were but at the starting-point of their journey.
The obtaining of their passport and waiting for their money delayed
them in Paris for four-and-twenty hours. But they felt fairly safe,
and made up their minds not to worry. They arrived at St. Petersburg
absolutely without adventure, and found themselves in a spacious,
well-appointed hotel, where English was spoken, and in a capital
which did not seem to differ much from other foreign capitals, except
in the totally unknown character of the language, and a curious
Oriental feeling which seemed to hover in the air rather than to
express itself in any form of which me could take note.
Miss Rawson was much inclined to plume herself upon her successful
disappearance. They had written to Denzil to inform him of the step
they had taken, and why. On reaching St. Petersburg, they
telegraphed to him their arrival and address. If all had gone well
with his journey, he should have been almost a week at Savlinsky by
now, and might have important news for them.
A telegram arrived the following morning. "No news Felix. Please
await letter--Denzil."
That was all. They could not tell, from its necessary brevity,
whether he was displeased at their daring dash or no. But there was
nothing for it but to stay on in their hotel for a week or two, until
the arrival of the letter alluded to.
And in truth there was plenty to see, plenty to interest them. It
disappointed Rona that the ice and snow which she had associated with
the idea of Russia were absent--that the weather was fine, and, if
anything, too hot to be comfortable. But this enabled them to go
about and to enjoy the sights of the place.
And then their first misfortune suddenly befell them. Miss Rawson,
in stepping out of a droshky, wrenched the knee which had been
troubling her that summer, displacing the bone in its socket, and
tearing and bruising the ligaments, so as to produce acute
inflammation.
It was the kind of accident which happens one hardly knows how or
why. One may get out of a cab every morning for five-and-twenty
years, and the following day injure oneself seriously in so doing.
The doctor called in--an English doctor was at once
forthcoming--thought very gravely of it. It was a far worse matter
than a simple fracture, he said. Absolute rest was the only thing
possible. He used every effort to reduce the inflammation. But the
pain was so great and so continuous that the patient could not obtain
any sleep; and the day after the accident she was so ill that Rona
was very anxious about her.
That same day came a letter from Denzil. He said he was very glad to
hear that they had come out, though he could hardly have advised so
extreme a course had he known it to be in contemplation. As they
were there, he hoped they were fairly comfortable, and would not mind
staying on until he had some idea as to what was best to be done. He
said that the place where he was was far from civilization, and
though the Russian, Vronsky, did all he could for his comfort, he
found himself very unwell, as a result, he supposed, of his long
journey, or the difference in climate, or way of living, or anxiety.
There was no news of Felix. He related the circumstances of his
disappearance, and of the pursuit of Cravatz. He said that Vronsky
was far from hopeless, for the Governor suggested that Felix was
perhaps keeping out of harm's way until he heard that the Nihilist
was laid by the heels. He himself could not but think that had Felix
intended to go into hiding, he would have informed Vronsky, and not
left him to fret and distress himself. Vronsky's devotion to his
brother was touching. He meant to leave him everything of which he
died possessed. He was in a large way of business. He had confided
to Denzil that he believed Nadia Stepanovna, the Governor's daughter,
was interested in Felix----
("Dear me, what a good way out of our difficulty that would be!"
sighed Aunt Bee.)
They had every hope of hearing of the arrest of Cravatz in a few
days. The police had been put on his track by a wandering Kirgiz.
("What on earth is a Kirgiz?" said Aunt Bee.) When his arrest was a
known fact, they might hope to ascertain where Felix was, unless he
had been the victim of foul play. But an exhaustive search all along
the route between Nicolashof and the mines had resulted in no
discovery; and his attached servant, Max, was missing also. He
concluded by remarking how fortunate it was that, owing to the
proximity of the Governor's summer residence, they had a line of
telegraph in so remote a spot. He recounted his own journey there,
and added that he would write more, but that he felt increasingly
unwell, and was afraid he should have to go and lie down.
It was a disquieting letter. They did not like to think of Denzil
being ill, so far from them, or from a doctor, or from any friends.
He could not speak a word of Russian; and though Vronsky had improved
in his English under the tuition of Felix, he had had of late little
use for that tongue, and it had grown rusty.
Aunt Bee almost forgot her pain in discussing the hard case in which
Denzil must find himself. They talked of little else all day.
Next morning, when poor Miss Rawson awoke from the only nap she had
been able to snatch during a night of agony, it was to hear that
another telegram had arrived.
"Vanston very ill, wishes you to come.--Vronsky."
Miss Rawson buried her face in the pillow and sobbed. What was to be
done? It was an impossibility for her to think of traveling. Yet
the idea of Denzil alone and ill in that awful place was torment to
her. Rona made up her mind.
If she could not offer to the man who loved her the devotion which he
craved, she could at least offer service. She remembered his extreme
kindness when she, the frightened, penniless little fugitive, had
lain ill at the Cottage Hospital.
The least she could do would be to hasten to him, ill as he was, and
lonely among aliens.
"I shall go, Aunt Bee," she said, quietly. "It is of no use your
trying to stop me. I can manage quite well. I have Denzil's letter
here, giving a full account of his journey. I have only got to get
into the right train at Moscow, get out of it at Gretz, and hire a
carriage to take me on. You have Gorham here to stay with you, and I
shall be all right, I have plenty of common sense."
"Rona, it is impossible--impossible, and you know it! A girl of your
age and appearance to go a drive of five hundred miles, alone, with
these savages--what would Denzil say?"
"Denzil will not know until it is over," was the quiet answer. "Now,
dear, it is of no use to fuss. What have the two Vanstons done for
me? What have I ever done in return? Here is a thing I can do.
Why, women do such things every day. I know a girl who went back to
her husband from England to Japan, right along this trans-Siberian
line, by herself. You must not hinder me, for I am going, dearest."
It was in vain to argue with her. Her mind was quite made up. She
went out to Cook's Office, took her ticket, made her passport
arrangements, and came back triumphant to pack her trunks. The
doctor, when called into consultation, thought the plan a little
daring, but by no means beyond the bounds of possibility. He had, as
it chanced, a patient, a lady who lived farther along the line, and
who was, by a fortunate coincidence, going that way, so that she
could travel with Rona as far as Gretz. "As for the drive," he said,
"it is a main road almost all the way; there are posting-stations and
good horses. I think the drivers are an honest set of men; and I do
not see why she should not be safe."
In short, the girl's determination carried the day. "Do not let us
think of Mrs. Grundy," said she; "let us only think that Denzil is
ill, and wants me. He has every right to have me, if I can get to
him by any means in my power."
CHAPTER XXIV
VERONICA "ON HER OWN"
And so I look upon your face again.
What have the years done for me since we met?
Which has prevailed, the joy of life or pain?
Do you recall our parting, or forget?
Show me your face. No! Turn it from my sight!
It is a mask. I would lay bare your heart.
You will not show me that? I have no right
To read it? ... Then I know my doom. We part.
_Words for a Song._
In after days, when Veronica looked back upon that journey, it seemed
to her as if it had lasted for months.
As its slow hours crept by, she grew to have a feeling that she had
been traveling ever since she could remember, and must go on
traveling till she died. The train moved on, and on, and on, like a
thing which, once started, can never stop again. After the first
twelve hours she had a bad attack of train sickness, an ailment from
which she had never before suffered; and she lay sleepless during the
night hours, with aching head and parched mouth, tossing about on her
berth, and with her mind unable to detach itself, even for a moment,
from a thought so dreadful that never, till faced by this dreary
solitude, had she dared to put it into words.
She knew, she had known, ever since their interview in the rock
garden, that she no more loved Denzil than she loved his absent
brother. She did not love him, and she vehemently desired not to
marry him. Yet, somehow or other, she had caused him to believe that
she returned his affection. She was, practically, engaged to him.
She had deceived both brothers, and it seemed to her that, search as
deeply as might be into her own heart, she had not done so wittingly.
The case simply was that her heart had never been aroused. Her hour
had not come. She did not know love. Each of these two young men
had wanted of her something which she had not to bestow. To each she
had offered in return something else. There was, however, one
notable distinction between the two affairs. Felix had excited her
best feelings. She had felt for him pity, sympathy, the instinctive
womanly desire to comfort and sympathize with the lonely, the
unfortunate. Denzil, on the other hand, had stood in her imagination
for home, peace, safety, well-being. It had been her selfishness
which had responded to his call. He could give her an assured
position, and life in the surroundings which she loved. Felix was
the asker, Denzil the bestower. To marry Felix demanded sacrifice;
to marry Denzil was to accept benefits at his hands.
But, if she considered which of the two had the more claim upon her
allegiance, she found herself bewildered, divided. Felix had saved
her life, but Denzil had preserved it. As she envisaged the
situation, she felt that the die was cast. Her letter to Felix had
bound her to Denzil. She wondered, over and over to herself, whether
Felix had received that letter, and what he had felt upon reading it.
Here, in her isolated loneliness, far from Aunt Bee, far from Denzil,
she began to have an inkling as to what letters would mean to the
exile, and to realize what Felix might have experienced, upon seeing
her writing, snatching open the envelope, and reading the complete
extinction of her own feeling for himself....
Was his present disappearance--could it be--the result of her
cruelty? Had it made him reckless?
Such thoughts poisoned the weary hours of the endless night. And
through them all beat upon her brain the knowledge that Denzil was
ill, so ill that he had wired for them to come to him. He would not
have taken so extreme a course, had his sickness not been
serious--had he not been in danger.
What should she do, if after the bitter strain of her long journey,
she found him dead when she arrived at Savlinsky?
She pictured herself alone, in the mining village, with no woman
near, with nobody but Vronsky, the Russian! Was it, after all, mad
of her to undertake such a journey?
She was thankful to rise from her sleepless couch, and shake off the
wild dreams which visited her with every moment of unconsciousness.
The varying country, the dim Ural Mountains, into the heart of which
they ascended, the increasingly strange garb of the people, left
hardly any impression upon her usually active mind. But during the
day she rallied from her misgivings of the previous night, and girded
at herself for a coward.
There was nothing to take off her mind from its treadmill of
apprehensions. The lady who was her fellow-traveler spoke English,
but was very dull, and most likely herself thought the girl
unresponsive. It had proved impossible to get English books for the
journey, and she was without refuge from the harassing thoughts which
yelped about her like snapping wolves.
As the train bore her along the endless road, as day faded into night
and morning dawned again along the illimitable plain, and sun shone
and wind blew and clouds drifted, and meal-times came and passed like
telegraph posts, the thought of her treachery--her double
treachery--was ever in her mind, aching, desolating.
Her fellow-traveler's encouraging assurance that they would be at
Gretz in an hour or two was an untold relief. At Gretz she hoped for
tidings of Denzil. She had telegraphed, before leaving St.
Petersburg, that she was starting, and asked to have news wired to
Gretz. Her telegram, in its brevity, said nothing of the fact that
she was coming alone.
Of itself, the idea of escape from the noise and motion of the train
was something to be eagerly anticipated. To walk upon firm ground,
to stand still, to sit upon a chair--these were boons indeed.
But when the train had departed, bearing with it the one creature
with whom she was on speaking terms, and she stood upon the platform
at the station and looked around at the dull, dirty town and the
wild-looking people, she had a moment of sheer panic. How isolated
she was! How the days had rolled by, without her being able to hear,
either from the beloved aunt she had left, or the lover to whom she
journeyed!
She shivered as she stood, for a heavy rainstorm had but just passed
over the town, and everything seemed dank and dripping.
She drew out her paper, upon which the doctor had written down for
her, "Drive me to the Moscow Hotel." "I want to stop at the
post-office." "I want a carriage and horses to go to Savlinsky," and
various such necessary formulæ.
It was only half-past ten o'clock in the morning, so she was
determined, if a carriage could be secured, to stay only for lunch at
the hotel, and start upon her journey at once. The friendly St.
Petersburg doctor had seen that she had a store of tinned food with
her, but it was with a sharp pang that she realized that however much
she wished to supplement her stores she could not do so, as she could
not say one word of Russian.
She found herself the center of a gesticulating crowd of men, all
proffering unintelligible service, saying to her things which she
could not understand. She could not pronounce the words the doctor
had written down for her, though she had tried to learn. She had to
show the written paper to the barbarian crowd that surrounded her.
Its purport was, apparently, understood, for, with many
gesticulations, and noises which she hoped and believed were of a
friendly nature, she found herself conducted to a curious-looking
vehicle in waiting outside; and, earnestly repeating "Hotel, Post
Office, Posting-house," she got in, and was driven through such a
slop of mud as she had never before encountered. Pausing presently,
she found they were at what looked like a stable doorway. Her driver
made signs for her to alight, and she concluded that he was
explaining that he had brought her first to the posting-house to give
her order, as it was on the way. She dismounted trembling, almost
slipping in the filth, and, peeping through the half-open gate, saw a
dirty courtyard within, where one or two ostlers were at work; and,
facing her, across an incredible swamp of stable refuse, the door of
a house, which was presumably the place where she must give her
order. Gathering her skirts about her, she entered the disgusting
place, and stood wavering, glancing round in desperation, and
despising herself for her want of resource.
She saw that she had been imprudent in trusting herself, with no
knowledge of the language, in such regions. But she was in for this
journey now, and meant to win through to Denzil if she died in the
attempt. She must not be deterred by the smells nor the mire of the
stable yard: and she advanced with determination.
Just as she did so, two men came out from the door-way which she was
approaching, and stood upon the stone step in the full light of day.
One was presumably the Russian stable-keeper, a wild kind of person,
but apparently amiable. He was in eager converse with a tall man,
very well dressed, who held a cigar between his fingers.
The clouds were breaking, and a watery sun at this moment lit up the
squalid scene. It shone upon this unexpected figure, and it shone
also upon the far more surprising appearance of the English girl, in
her dainty apparel, picking her way through the muck.
The stranger's keen, alert gray eyes grew fixed, and for a moment he
stood, rigid and still as a stone, while his bronzed, finely-cut face
turned pale.
Rona stopped short. There was no recognition at first upon her face.
But something in the change which passed over his struck a wild
conviction into her mind.
It was the missing man--Felix Vanston.
* * * * * * *
How changed! That was her first thought. The image in her memory of
a gaunt, pale, bearded youth, thin and stooping, faded and died away.
This was a Man, in the fullest sense of all that word can mean. It
was fortunate that his own recognition of her had been instantaneous.
Even now she was not sure, until he came towards her, through the
rotting straw.
His color had not changed, while hers was now fading visibly from the
cheeks to which it had rushed in tumult. He was wholly
self-possessed and dignified, though his surprise must have been
greater than hers. As he came nearer she had a conviction, deep and
certain. He had received and read her letter. She could have
declared that the lines of his mouth expressed a light, scornful
contempt.
Without a word said, she knew and felt herself condemned.
But, whatever the young man's feelings at the meeting, hers must be
predominantly those of relief. In spite of the violent shock which
his appearance gave her, she was conscious of almost frantic joy, at
sight, in that weird place, not merely of a compatriot, but of a
friend.
"David!" she uttered at length, using in her confusion the name by
which she had always known him. "Then you are alive--you are safe,
after all."
He was quite close to her now. She felt dizzy, and as though she
could hardly bear such nearness. She thought, suddenly and
irrelevantly, of the way in which they had clung together, she and
he, in the little arbor at Normansgrave--clung each to each, and felt
that to part was terrible.
... He was speaking. She must listen, must bear herself rationally.
He was holding her hand, lightly--for an instant--then he had dropped
it, and she heard his voice. That, too, was changed, with the subtle
transmutation which had passed over him.
"I am sorry," he said, "that my disappearance has apparently caused
far more anxiety and trouble than I could have anticipated." He
hesitated, rather as if he expected her to explain her miraculous
appearance in Siberia. But she could not have uttered a word. After
a pause he went on--"Surely it cannot be--on my account?--I mean, I
am at a loss to explain your being here."
She made a mighty effort then, and brought out a few gasping words.
"Denzil--he is at Savlinsky. He is very ill. I am on my way--to
him."
He looked oddly enlightened. The lines of contempt, or indifference,
deepened about his almost too expressive mouth. "May I ask if my
brother has any idea of the--er--remarkable course you are pursuing?"
She assented eagerly. "He is expecting me. I--I must go on
directly." For a moment she wrestled with her feelings, then
commanded herself. "You don't know what it is to see you--to see the
face of a friend," she faltered. "I feel so lost, so bewildered.
You will help me, will you not? I want a tarantasse."
"No," he replied, "what you must have is a povosska--a thing with a
hood. I was just ordering one for myself. I, too, am going to
Savlinsky--" he paused, eying her doubtfully. She forestalled him.
"Then, for pity's sake, let me travel with you! I--I will try not to
be troublesome. I hope you don't mind, but it would be such a
relief--I feel much less courageous than I expected. I can't
understand a single word, and it makes me feel helpless."
Felix bowed. "At what time would you wish to start?" he asked.
"As soon as I have had some lunch. I am very hungry. Eating upon
the train made me feel ill."
"Let me put you into your carriage, and, if you will wait a minute
for me, I will give the order and escort you to the inn."
He piloted her through the dirt, seated her in her carriage with a
few words to the driver, whose manner at once became more respectful,
and, having returned to the stable-keeper, soon rejoined her, and in
a few minutes they were seated, side by side, clattering through
black, gluey mud, among swarms and swarms of excited people, who
thronged the streets in dense crowds.
"What quantities of people," she said wonderingly, glad to have
something upon which she could remark naturally. "I never knew that
such a place could be so thickly populated."
"Oh," he answered, with a certain frigid reluctance, "it is not
always like this. To-day is exceptional. These are sightseers."
"Indeed!" she replied, anxious only to avert silence, "what was the
sight they have come to see?"
There was a perceptible pause before he replied: "An execution."
She grew crimson, and flashed a look at him. He was staring in the
opposite direction. "Was it--was it Cravatz?" she asked, under her
breath.
"It was." The words seemed to issue from a steel trap.
"Then you are free?" she breathed.
"And unattached," he responded, dryly.
She was silenced, and they drove on some little distance, until a
thought flashed into her mind.
"Oh," she said, "I was forgetting! Please ask him to drive to the
post-office. I must see if there is a message from Mr. Vronsky about
Denzil."
Felix called an order to the driver, and then turned to her. "Do you
really tell me that my brother demanded of you that you should take
this formidable journey to him alone?"
"Oh, no, no! Please don't imagine that! He thought Miss Rawson
would come too. We were both at St. Petersburg, but Aunt Bee had an
accident, and hurt herself so seriously that she could not move. So
I determined to come alone. Mr. Vronsky's telegram was alarming."
"I congratulate you upon your devotion," remarked Felix, as the
carriage stopped at a wooden house. "My brother is a lucky man."
"He is a very good man," said the girl, nettled by the sneer.
"Please ask for the name of Rawson," she added, pettishly.
He soon came out, with a message. "Condition much improved."
She gave a sigh of relief, and handed him her purse. "How thankful I
am! Will you please dispatch a message to say--'Safely arrived
Gretz, coming on.' Don't say I'm alone, or Denzil will be nervous."
Felix ignored the purse, but went once more within the building, sent
off the desired words, and soon emerged. "Any further orders?" he
asked.
"No," said Rona, faintly.
Her feelings were a most curious mixture of joy and pain. It was
wonderfully consoling, after her nightmare journey, her loneliness
and helplessness, to find herself in charge of a strong man. But it
was horrible to have the relation between herself and Felix so
acutely strained. She only ventured one more question.
"Did you know, before I told you, that Denzil had gone to Savlinsky
to seek you?"
"Yes; I heard that."
"From Mr. Vronsky?"
"No."
"Does Mr. Vronsky--does Denzil know that you are safe?"
"I think so, by now."
"You have not seen them?"
"No."
She dared not pursue the subject, and spoke no more until they
reached the place known as the Hotel Moscow. And then, indeed, when
she saw the edifice which called itself a hotel, marked the wild
crowds surging about the doors, and heard their strange tongue, she
felt so thankful for the presence of Felix that for a space she
forgot all other discomforts.
CHAPTER XXV
THE CONVALESCENCE OF DENZIL
You saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself poised with herself, in either eye:
But in that crystal scales let there be weighed
Your lady's love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well, that now shows best.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Vronsky had been wholly unprepared for the burst of indignation which
descended upon his devoted head when Stepan Stepanovitch heard that
he had telegraphed the disappearance of Felix to England.
The English relatives of young Vanston had not entered into the
calculations either of the Governor or Felix, when they planned their
little coup to bring Cravatz into the trap. Of all things which they
did not desire, it was that publicity should be given to their
movements.
Once the news of the disappearance of a young Englishman, with a
suspicion of Nihilist terrorism, had flashed over English wires,
there was the risk of some enterprising journalist taking up the
matter--the risk that the lost man's brother should appeal to the
Government of his country--the risk of questions in Parliament!----
The mind of Stepan Stepanovitch rapidly reviewed all the
possibilities which this new complication suggested.
It was a pity that they had not taken Vronsky into confidence from
the first. But it had seemed to them essential that he should be, at
least for a time, in the dark. Any such desperate step as this had
not occurred to them. He could, of course, be kept quiet by being
given a hint; but what of the forces he had let loose?
They did what they could. They telegraphed to Denzil the need of
secrecy, begging him to come first to Savlinsky, and hear all
details, before putting the matter before the representatives of
either the British or Russian Government.
Cravatz was still at large, and the Governor trembled lest he might
have such information as should lead to any interference with Denzil
upon his journey. He actually sent an English-speaking official to
Moscow, to intercept the traveler and bring him on, and this was so
successfully accomplished that Denzil arrived at Savlinsky having had
everything made easy for him during the journey, and not having
spoken a word to anybody except such persons as his escort considered
safe.
When he arrived both the Governor and Vronsky were much relieved to
find what manner of person he was. He had but a moderate
intelligence, they soon agreed, and his desire to find his brother
seemed also to be of a conspicuously limited nature. He spoke of
Felix with a subdued and resigned pity, as of a brand snatched from
the burning, a reformed ne'er-do-weel, a person of whom it was to be
expected that he might suddenly break out into discreditable conduct,
though his behavior latterly had shown distinct signs of improvement.
Vronsky disliked him from the first. He had an unfortunate manner,
possessed by many of our nation, a manner which seemed to suggest
that no foreigner could be considered as truly the equal of an
Englishman. Even with the Governor there was a distinct tinge of
condescension in his politeness. But Stepan Stepanovitch, less
sensitive than Vronsky, and less devoted to Felix, got on better with
him.
Nadia was very anxious to see him. In her eyes, the man who had
undertaken such a difficult journey, to try and rescue his brother
from danger, was a chivalrous figure. She was disappointed to hear
that he had fallen sick--that too, she thought, was a sign of his
anxiety of mind respecting Felix.
The next news from the mines was that the Englishman was not merely
ill, but very ill indeed.
By this time the main features of the case, as regards the
conspiracy, had changed altogether. Cravatz was arrested, and Felix,
disguised as one of the Governor's police, had left the Castle, and
was reported safely arrived at Gretz. With Cravatz was arrested the
man who had posed as a Kirgiz, and who had sheltered him. This
disposed of all the suspected persons in the province, since Streloff
was dead. There was no longer any need to keep Mr. Vanston in
ignorance of the fact of his brother's safety.
The Governor rode over to Savlinsky, and when he saw the patient, ill
and shaken, his heart smote him for all the unnecessary strain of
mind which he imagined him to have undergone. In an impulse of
hospitality he begged him to come up with him to Nicolashof as his
guest, and allow his daughter and Miss Forester to do what they could
to counteract the ill-effects of their climate, and obliterate the
memory of the unhappy circumstances of his first coming to the
province.
The idea of going to a place where there would be an English lady was
delightful to Denzil, who was exceedingly sorry for himself. A
domestic man, and one used to a woman in the house, he had been
miserable with Vronsky, with whom he was not in sympathy; and dimly
conscious that this inferior person presumed so far as to think
anything but highly of himself.
He was so weak that he had to be carried to the carriage, and laid
down among the rugs and pillows. Thus he was driven swiftly across
the plain, into the birch-wood, and on through the pines to
Nicolashof.
In the higher air of the woodland place he awoke next morning feeling
strangely invigorated. After breakfast he arose, with the help of
the manservant detailed to wait upon him, and was helped downstairs,
out upon the terrace overlooking the lovely garden, one bower of
flowers and beauty.
There was something very familiar, even home-like, in the English
arrangement of this house. When he was seated upon a luxurious
lounge chair, there was a table at his elbow, with English books and
magazines upon it. Miss Forester had welcomed him upon his arrival
the previous evening, but they had had no talk. Nadia he had not
seen. In this place he felt as though he should soon recover. The
deadly depression, which had been largely nostalgia, though of this
he was not aware, was dispelled as if by magic.
A new, dreamy, blissful content overspread him. He almost wished he
had not sent for Aunt Bee and Rona. It seemed unnecessary expense
and trouble for them. He thought of it, in a fashion more and more
broken, as sleep stole over his eyelids. Even the slight effort of
dressing and coming downstairs had made him weary. He slept.
When he opened his eyes he thought he was still dreaming. For over
him there stooped a face, lovely, vivid, delicately flushed. It
seemed to rise above a bank of flowers, of every gorgeous hue. To
gaze into its eyes was like looking into deep wells. He lay there
taking in the vision, saying nothing; and by degrees he saw that it
was a real girl, whose rounded throat rose above an embroidered white
gown, which was without the high collar which is usual in England,
and that she held a sheaf of blossoms in her arms.
When he had looked for a moment which seemed endless, her lips parted
in a smile which gave the effect of a glow of hot sunshine. "Oh,"
she said in fluent English, and a voice of a _timbre_ which he then
heard for the first time--"Oh, are you awake?"
"I think so," said Denzil vaguely. The tones of the voice moved him
strangely. Then, aware of the stupidity of his remark, he sat up,
and reddened a little.
"I am Nadia Stepanovna," said she. "You look very ill. I hope you
are feeling a little better this morning?"
"I feel a different man altogether," he responded with warm
cordiality. "My mind is at rest since I knew of my brother's safety.
And then this place--this fine air, this peace and repose--how good
of you to let me be here!"
"I have wanted to see you for some days," said she, frankly. "I was
so interested when I heard that you had come. Of course, I know your
brother quite well. He is often here."
"Of course," said Denzil, a little coldly.
"But then he has lived so long with Vronsky, he is more like a
continental," went on Nadia, seating herself upon a chair nearby, and
laying down her flowers upon a table. "But I have read quantities of
English books, and the men in them are so unlike our Russian men, and
I have always wanted to see a real, genuine Englishman--a man like
you."
She rested her two elbows upon her knees, and her delicate chin upon
her palms, gazing her fill upon the real Englishman.
"I'm a poor specimen of my race just now," said Denzil, in some
confusion. "When I have been here a day or two I shall be very
different, I hope."
"Father ought to have gone and fetched you before," she remarked. "I
told him so. I said that dear old Vronsky has no more idea of
nursing than a kangaroo. And we would have taken such care of you!"
"I could not have troubled you," he replied. "This is unheard-of
kindness. I feel sorry now that I sent for my aunt. You know she is
at St. Petersburg, with my--my----" he hesitated painfully, and at
last said, "My ward, Miss Leigh."
"And you sent for them--to come to Savlinsky?" cried Nadia, in
surprise.
"I did. I was so frightfully ill the night before last, I thought I
was dying. And you see, there is no doctor to be had."
"Oh!" said Nadia, "I wish we had known!"
His eyes roamed round the garden. "I had no idea there could be a
place like this in this country," he said. "Nor--nor anyone
so--anyone like you."
"Like me?" cried Nadia, with animation, glowing upon him. "How do
you mean--anyone so what?"
"Anyone so perfectly beautiful." It was out before he knew it. He,
Denzil, had said it--he, who never in his life previously had paid a
compliment to a woman. In England he would no more have said such a
thing than have taken his coat off and sat in his shirtsleeves in her
presence. But here all was different. And she was not angry, but on
the contrary, much pleased. She smiled slowly, mysteriously, with
lowered lashes, and Denzil, leaning forward, took up her childishly
small, delicately tended hand, and kissed it. "Forgive me," he said.
"My heart is full. Your great kindness!"
She raised her lids, very slowly, letting her night-deep eyes rest
full upon him. The look dazzled him like strong sunshine. "Oh, you
are just right," she said. "Just like the Englishmen in books. I
have always wanted to meet one. And now--I have."
There was a delicious silence between them. Nadia sat passive, the
hand which he had kissed resting lightly upon her lap, just as he had
laid it there. Her skin was warm and clear, with a glow of carmine
in either cheek. From each tiny ear hung a drop-shaped pearl. She
wore no color at all. The contrast of her beauty with her white
dress and the softly looped masses of her night-black hair was
exquisite.
Stock doves cooed in the trees, and the summer breeze wandered by.
The young man's eyes never left that astonishing little face, with
its rosy, pouted child lips, and eyes almost too large for proportion.
Then she asked a question. It slipped over the edge of her lip quite
harmlessly, but it made him tingle all over.
"Are you married?"
He sat bolt upright. "No," he said. And at the moment he was more
glad than words can say that this was so.
"I suppose"--again the heavy fringes came down to veil the eyes--"I
suppose there are many, many beautiful girls in England?"
"I daresay," replied Denzil.
"And yet you have not married any of them? Or--forgive me--perhaps
you have been married, and have lost? ..."
"Oh, no." He hastily reassured her. "The beauty of English girls
is--is different," he said. "They are--they are--I don't know how to
describe it. They run about, and get sunburnt, and hot, and untidy.
Or they are very sensible, and read a great deal, and improve their
minds. Very few of them are like a princess in a fairy tale."
"Am I?" said Nadia, with a half-smile, eying him sidelong under her
lids.
"Like the Princess that was a witch too," said Denzil, dreamily.
"A witch!" She reflected upon it, as not quite knowing herself
gratified or not. "I have always wanted to be like an English girl.
I am very fond of Miss Forester."
"You are just perfect. Don't try to change," said Denzil. "And you
are a witch. I will tell you how I know. It is because strength is
flooding back into me since I began to talk to you. I feel so much
better I believe I could get up and walk round the garden."
She leaned forward with the prettiest concern. "Oh, I don't think
you are strong enough yet! Do be careful, won't you?"
"I should do anything if you asked me like that! I am all the more
certain that you are a witch."
As he spoke, Miss Forester came out upon the veranda, and greeted him
very kindly. She, too, was delighted to welcome an Englishman, and
still more delighted to find that Mr. Vanston was undeniable--the
right kind of Englishman. Moreover, she was pleased to see Nadia
interested, for she had been moping considerably since the departure
of Felix.
"He says I am a witch," said the girl, half-pouting, half-laughing,
to her friend, when the greetings were over.
"What! Does he know that already, even before he has heard you
sing?" was the amused reply.
"Do you sing, Mademoiselle?" asked Denzil, wondering much how he
ought to address a young Russian lady of good birth.
"You shall sing to him this evening, when it is getting dark, and see
whether he does not want to light candles, and scare away the
creatures of the night," said Miss Forester.
Denzil sighed with pleasure. Here were two delightful women ready to
pet him. One of them more fascinating than he had believed a human
woman could be. He was in a whirl. He hardly knew where he was, or
what he said. He was sure that he said many things that in England
he would never even think. Some of them were brilliant, he believed;
but, as in a dream, he forgot one thing before the next bubbled up
from the soil of his fancy.
In the afternoon they took him driving, and Nadia sat by his side.
It was more like flying upon a rosy cloud.
And then, in the gloaming, as she had promised, Nadia sang.
Denzil, as we know, was not an emotional person. But in the friendly
dusk, his tears overflowed his eyes and slipped down his cheeks.
This, indeed, was music. This, indeed, was magic. It was as though,
until now, he had been insensate clay, and that some potent spell had
brought him, in a flash, to life. He was not physically strong--let
it be remembered in his defense. In this enchanted palace his life
of former days ceased to exist.
The white-robed girl, a miracle of slenderness, sang as she stood by
the piano, and the light of the two wax candles by which Miss
Forester played just gilded the edges of her outline and her
features, as he sat in the dark distance gazing, gloating, trembling
with the force of his feeling.
When that evening was over, and he retired to his room, he had ceased
to reflect. He had begun to live solely in the present, as those in
the clutch of a passion usually do. He gave no thought to his life
in England, nor to the fact that the girl to whom he was virtually
engaged was on her way to him by a difficult and dangerous route. He
thought merely that he would see Nadia Stepanovna the following
morning, and that he would pass the whole day in her company.
Nothing else mattered.
CHAPTER XXVI
STRANGERS YET
She looked upon him with an almost smile
And held to him a hand that faltered not....
She did not sigh, she never said "Alas!"
Although he was her friend.
--JEAN INGELOW.
The town of Gretz stands upon a hill, and there was something very
exhilarating in the wild way in which the "troika" (team of three
horses) dashed down into the plains with all its harness bells
merrily ringing.
The povosska was a curiously long carriage, quite long enough to lie
down in at full length with comfort, and having a hood to shelter one
from sun and rain. Felix, as an old traveler who knew the road, had
all his arrangements, even to mosquito netting, to let down back and
front at night. The luggage was secured behind, but the hand luggage
was all stowed easily inside with the two passengers; and had she
been in spirits for laughter, Rona would have laughed heartily at the
number of provisions which Felix had procured. There was no danger
of their starving!
The weather, which had been bad for the preceding two days, had now
cleared up, and the sun poured down upon the wide expanse of steppe,
heaving and undulating all around. By the time they had gone ten
miles there was no sign of human habitation, except the road they
followed. No house, no cultivation, no travelers, no cattle, nothing
but widespreading desolation.
And there they sat together, in this remarkable vehicle, as once
before they had sat together upon a canal barge. The past rolled
back acutely upon the girl's mind. She recalled the breathless rush
together through the mean streets, his upholding grasp about her.
She remembered the relief of nestling down into his arms by the fire
in the night-watchman's cabin, and the stupor of exhaustion in which
she had sunk down upon her hay bed, while the smooth, gliding motion
of the _Sarah Dawkes_ soothed her pain into unconsciousness.
Then she recalled the awakening in the dainty white bed of the
Cottage Hospital, Denzil's visit, and Denzil's extraordinary
kindness; and so her mind flitted on to the final scene in the old
summer-house. She had vowed to be this man's wife!
Oh, no, it was a very different man to whom her promise had been
given. Somebody who was humble and fervent, not cold and mocking.
Somebody who loved her very much, not somebody who despised her. She
turned and looked at Felix. Having made her as comfortable as he
could, he was seated in his corner reading a Russian newspaper. He
had asked her just such questions as seemed necessary, but no more.
He had not, in so many words, asked her whether she were engaged to
Denzil. Apparently he accepted as final the letter she had written
to him. She began thinking, striving to remember exactly what she
had said in that letter. And as she gazed at him, at the firm line
between his lips, the squareness of his jaw, the breadth of his
well-modeled forehead, she thought that had he come in person to
claim her, instead of writing, she would hardly have found courage to
say him nay.
In a sudden access of indignation she resolved not to let her mind
dwell upon a person who, evidently, was not concerning himself with
her at all. She turned her eyes upon the ribbon of road that
wriggled like a snake before them, away into the unknown. She marked
the glowing sun move downward toward the west. She watched the
gesticulations of the uncouth driver, and the lines of the far
horizon. How would she have been feeling had the evening been
stealing down upon her all alone in the wild plain, with that man as
her sole companion? She knew that she should not have dared to close
her eyes.
She felt thankful that she had met Felix before seeing Denzil--before
the brothers had met. Yet now that she saw her former lover, she
found him so unlike her memory of him, that it was almost like
beginning all over again with a stranger. Yet not quite. That
glittering vein of vivid memory which danced before her eyes in the
dull rock of the past--surely he shared it? How much--how little did
he remember?
As the slow hours rolled by she began to wonder whether he meant to
send her altogether to Coventry. He was now no longer reading his
paper, but sat gazing upon the distance with fixed eyes, and lips so
firmly folded that it seemed they could never unclose. She felt that
at all costs she must break this weird silence. It was charged with
too much feeling.
"David," she said, pitifully, "talk to me a little."
He turned slowly towards her. His eyes rested upon her face,
severely critical, she thought. "My conversation can be of very
little interest to you, Miss Leigh, I fear. We live quite out of the
world at Savlinsky."
"But," said Rona, battling with a most unusual sensation of being
snubbed, "the news we last heard of you was such as to cause us
profound anxiety"--she snipped her sentence off short, because of the
satirical curve of the young man's lips.
"That is surprising, though gratifying," he said, with irony. "But I
have no adventures to recount to you. I have spent the last month
and more in prison."
Rona was startled out of her attitude of reserve. "In prison!" she
cried in horror.
"_Again_--you were about to add," he suggested with a sneer.
She quivered at the unjust taunt. But she dared not reproach him.
She dare not trench upon any subject which would unlock the past.
Her letter lay like an iron bar between them. She guessed that he
felt it as strongly as she did.
"Do you wish not to tell me anything about it?" she asked with quiet
pride, when she had swallowed her feeling.
"I am really more than sorry to have given poor Denzil another false
scare," said Felix. "By the way, I hardly like to ask it--but do you
object to my smoking?"
"Of course not," she said, impatiently.
"I was forgetting. Perhaps you will join me?" he went on, with
elaborate politeness, offering a silver box of cigarettes.
She shook her head without a word, with nothing but a gesture of
refusal. He lit up, tossed away his match, and leaning forward,
remarked, with his eyes fixed upon the side of the road, "This is the
second time he has thought that he has got rid of me--that I was
safely and permanently out of his way. And once more I turn up! I
assure you I pity him. And, really, I am not so much to blame as one
might think, either this time or last time. In Deptford, you know
how it was that I failed to eliminate myself. This time, I could not
have ceased to exist without pretty well breaking up dear old
Vronsky. But it's rough on Denzil, all the same."
Rona was filled with indignation. "You do your brother great
injustice," she said, warmly.
"I always did, I fancy," was the cool response. "My opinion can,
however, matter very little to him, who has so much besides."
There was a pause, the girl too much hurt to speak. Perhaps he felt
that he had been cruel, for after a while, he went on--"But what is
it that you wish to know?"--and his voice was more gentle. "About my
disappearing? Well, to say the truth, that was a plot, arranged
between the Governor and myself. Let me see--I believe I have
mentioned to you a person called Cravatz?--Ah, of course, you already
know that he was executed this morning. Well, we found out that
Cravatz had a spy in Vronsky's service, and I disappeared in order to
throw them off the scent. Everything depended upon Vronsky not being
in the know. So I was waylaid upon the road, between the Governor's
house and Savlinsky, and ostensibly kidnapped. But I was all the
time at Nicolashof, within a few miles of the poor old chap. After a
while, the Governor contrived to give him a hint, though too late,
unfortunately, to prevent his stirring up Denzil about the matter.
As soon as Cravatz was taken, the Governor sent down a party to
Gretz, on Government business, and I went with them, disguised as one
of the police. It was well managed. Nobody but Vronsky knows where
I have been all the time. Quite a plot, was it not?"
"Most romantic," said Rona, copying the coldness of his tone. "I
understand that the Governor's daughter is charming, so that, no
doubt, relieved the dullness of your captivity. The anxiety of your
brother and--and your other friends was a small matter."
He regarded her with some surprise before he replied.
"When I fell in with the Governor's plan, there was, to the best of
my belief, no human creature but Vronsky who would feel the least
concern about me. I had not then realized that I was supposed to
stand between my brother and--his happiness." He paused a moment.
"Perhaps, to avoid returning to an awkward subject, I had better say
at once that I duly received your letter, though not until I emerged
from my captivity; and that, of course, I resign all claim to--to
something that is not mine, and never was."
She made no reply. She looked upon the broad, dusty back of the
driver, who inquisitively glanced round every second minute,
wondering what the foreigners were saying to one another. It was
impossible to break through the wall that Felix had erected. She
stared straight in front of her, and wondered how she could bear the
long days of companionship which stretched before them.
He turned from her, to search in a bag, which he carried. "I have
some English books here," he said, coolly. "Possibly you may not
have read them all. Nadia Stepanovna has an English lady living with
her, and they lent me some books to beguile the tedium of the
journey."
"You are very kind. I will try to keep quiet for the future, and not
annoy you with attempts to converse," said Rona, with slow, but
fierce emphasis. He held out some English novels towards her, and
she took them, without looking at them. Picking up one at random,
she began to read it, the type dancing before her eyes, her brain
absorbing no word of the sense. If this were his attitude, she could
play at it too. She had been so steeped in compassion and
compunction that she had yearned to tell him something of what she
felt, of her difficulties, her anxieties. But since he bore her so
bitter a grudge she would not try to explain, far less to apologize.
How unlike he was to Denzil! How differently Denzil would have
behaved, she told herself furiously. She did not look at him again
until the first stage was over, and they were stopping at a
post-house for a fresh team.
She saw, in the lovely, lingering northern twilight, the outline of a
dark wooden house, surrounded by a somewhat filthy yard, the floor of
which was formed of pine logs laid down side by side.
"We can get good tea here," said Felix, "but I think, as the house is
pretty dirty, it would be pleasanter to eat our supper on the grass.
If you think so, I will go and see about it, but if you prefer to go
in, there is a guest-room."
She preferred to stay without. Never in all her life had she seen
anything so beautiful as the starry sky which enveloped the Steppe
from marge to marge.
The color ranged from rose tint upon the west, to deepest sapphire on
the eastern side. The north was shot with pale amethyst, and the
south was turquoise. She sat upon a rug whose under surface was
mackintosh, her arms round her knees, reflecting bitterly how
glorious this night, this adventure, this picnic would have been had
she had a congenial companion.
Felix and the landlady of the little place brought out a delicious
meal, and she was surprised to find how sharp her appetite was in the
invigorating air.
"The man will go on as soon as we have done eating," said Felix.
"They always drive all night. I shall make you comfortable, and you
will sleep, I hope, with the protection of the mosquito net. Then,
to-morrow morning, when you are rested, I will take possession, and
have my sleep, though I daresay I shall get a nap sitting beside the
driver."
She made some polite objections, but he did not seem to hear them.
He went about, when he had finished his meal, arranging all for her
comfort, and when the horses were ready they mounted into the
povosska, and she lay down upon the soft rugs he had prepared. She
thought at first that the motion would prevent her sleeping; but it
was surprising how quickly she sank into profound slumber, though
first she relieved her feelings by a flood of tears. When she awoke,
it was only with the stopping of the carriage. It was early morning,
and there greeted her the sight of a large village, with cottages and
a tall church, and a delicious scent of coffee upon the air.
Here the woman was cleaner, and had plenty of hot water. Rona had
brought her own soap and towels, so she retired into the guest-room
by the advice of Felix, and made her toilet. They were off again,
however, with but small delay, and Felix took her place and slept
until about ten o'clock, when he woke, and produced an appetizing
second _déjeuner_ of tongue, rolls and butter, with excellent wine
from his stores.
The day was radiant. Through its hot hours Felix slept, and Rona
admired the view, read her book, and amused herself by asking the
driver the names of such things as horse, whip, road, knife, plate,
etc., and trying to repeat them after him.
When again the sun set, Felix and she had hardly interchanged a word
all day, except upon the subject of stoppages, meals, and so on.
The young man looked after her comfort in all possible ways, and
showed her every consideration. But his idea of sleeping alternately
left them but little of each other's society; and he was evidently
determined not to address to her one unnecessary word.
When they made their evening stoppage she realized, with
astonishment, that all day long her disturbed thoughts had been fixed
upon the younger brother. Her anxiety about Denzil had faded from
her mind: she had barely remembered him.
It occurred to her to picture her reflections as they would have been
had she made the journey alone. The image of Denzil, ill, suffering,
lonely, craving for her, would have been continually evoked, to give
her courage to complete her enterprise. She would have arrived at
Savlinsky with her whole heart full of the thought of him.
The presence of Felix, in his mood of disapproving criticism, changed
all. It was he upon whom her consideration was fixed: he and his
relation to herself.
He inspired her with a feeling of self-condemnation, which she
angrily repudiated, but from which she could not escape. She argued
the thing in and out to herself all day, with increasing
perturbation. Argue as she might, she came to no conclusion.
Exonerate herself as she might, she could not shake off her
unreasonable sense of guilt.
Felix, who had perhaps not fallen asleep at once, nor easily, awoke
only with the cessation of motion, and, hastily arising, stumbled
into the rest-house to make his toilet.
Rona, left to herself, descended from the povosska, and strolled
about to stretch her cramped limbs, gazing with interest upon the
little village which here surrounded the post-house. There was a
cluster of wooden chalets, and, upon a mound hardly to be called a
hill, a small church, also of wood, lifted its unpretentious finger
to Heaven, gilded by the evening sunbeams.
The girl walked up to it, and noticed that a flight of steps led up,
outside the tower, to a wooden balcony surrounding the base of the
spire, whence, probably, the bell was rung, as in many of the old
churches in Brittany.
It occurred to Rona that there must be a fine view of the surrounding
country from the balcony, and that it would be interesting to ascend,
and gaze upon the rolling steppe from its not very considerable
altitude. She did so, and stood there in the effulgent light,
looking down upon the tiny cluster of human occupation, which seemed
merely to punctuate, without breaking, the vast encompassing solitude.
Siberia!
There it lay outspread at her feet, the minute section of the huge
land which her finite human vision could embrace.
How hard, when sitting upon the lawn at Normansgrave, to realize that
Siberia existed all the time; that the sun was shining upon these
strange places, illuminating the paths of these weird members of the
great human family in their isolation!
The sounds that rose to her from below--the voices of children, the
trampling of horses, the faint stir village life--had the effect of
drops of water falling into an abyss of encircling silence, a
measureless void. It was almost terrible.
In that wide setting, she and Felix!
And they were unwilling, uncongenial companions.
The whole meaning and value of human companionship seemed to be
revealed by the touch of the infinite desolation. The
inter-dependence of two human beings must be, in such a place, their
sole refuge. How foolish, how petty, to let injuries rankle, in
circumstances so profound, in spaces so immense!
She saw the sun-steeped champaign through a mist of unshed tears.
Two or three village children, filled with curiosity, had trotted
after her to the church, and were at play below, with half their
attention fixed upon the almost unparalleled sight of the foreign
lady on the tower. Rona felt in her purse for some copper coins for
them, and she descended the steps, purse in hand, looking at her
money, and not where she placed her feet.
The children had been playing with a ball, which had fallen upon one
of the steps. In the absorbing interest of watching the lady
descend, they dare not advance to pick it up. Rona trod upon it,
slipped, and, her hands being occupied, was unable to recover
herself. She fell with some violence, and as the steps were not
straight, but turned a corner, she was precipitated against the rail,
and struck her side with such force as to take away her breath for a
moment, and to render her unable to pick herself up from the place
where she fell, or to do anything but gasp and struggle to keep back
tears.
The pain was acute; so much so as to render her for a time
unconscious of anything else. She sat doubled together in her agony,
a cold sweat broke out upon her, she could only draw her breath with
difficulty, and she was beset with a deadly fear. This was much the
fashion of her fall of two years ago. Suppose she had set alight any
lurking mischief that was there? Dread of having done so combined
with the pain to make her sick and faint.
For some agonizing minutes there was no diminution of her suffering.
The children, as children will do all the world over, stood solemnly
staring at the course of events, as at things they had not power to
alter.
Rona lay and sobbed and hugged herself, until by degrees the
intolerable nature of the pain began to lessen. She could draw her
breath more easily. The sick, trembling faintness slowly dissipated
itself.
The beautiful breeze of the evening wandered by and fanned her white
face. Presently she felt able to slip a hand into her pocket for her
handkerchief and wipe her forehead and lips with it. She leaned her
head against the rough wood of the upright of the balustrade and
closed her eyes.
Thank God, the pain was subsiding, and she began, almost at once, to
school herself, and resolve that nobody should know what had
happened. Nobody! In all her world just then there was but one
body, namely--Felix.
Holding by the rail, she very slowly raised herself to her feet.
There, below her on the ground, lay her purse, the scattered coins in
it strewn in every direction. The children had not touched it.
She crept down the few remaining steps, and, still obliged to support
herself, made signs that they should pick up the money and purse and
restore it to her. But the wild things took fright the moment they
saw her take notice of them. They fled, and she sat down
despairingly, not liking to go away and leave her wealth upon the
ground, yet feeling that if she stooped she would faint away.
At the moment she saw Felix approaching. He looked surprised to find
her seated upon the dusty step. "Supper is ready," he said. "Will
you come?" Then he saw that she was very white, and added hastily,
"Are you ill?"
She shook her head without speaking. He came nearer. "Something is
the matter," he said.
She spoke with difficulty. "I'm shaken. I fell down these stairs.
I trod upon something that--rolled. I am so sorry. If you will
excuse me, I will come--soon."
His expression changed, and grew concerned. "You have hurt yourself.
You can hardly speak," he asserted.
"It's getting better, fast--only it was a shock," she said, bravely
trying for a smile. "I wonder if you would be so very kind as to
pick up my--purse for me."
"Shall I get you some water or something?" he asked, anxiously.
She shook her head. "I am getting better. I shall be able to walk
directly."
"Where are you hurt?" he inquired, kneeling beside her. His face
expressed more than concern.
She felt a troubling of the senses, a commotion of the heart as she
replied, "Oh, nowhere in particular. I--fell--against the railing.
Just bruised a little--and it took away my breath."
He knelt there, gazing upon her with an intensity which she felt she
could hardly bear. In the stillness each of them, in fancy, was back
in the Deptford lodging. She guessed something of the thoughts in
his mind.
"I shall be all right--I'm quite, perfectly strong," she eagerly
assured him.
It seemed that he was unable to speak. To hide his emotion he turned
from her, and began to collect the coins and put them back in the
pretty silver-mounted purse.
"I suppose," he asked presently, speaking with his back to her, "that
you don't remember how much you had?"
"I remember there were four--no, five--pieces of gold, and about a
pound's worth of silver."
"Then I think I have got most of it." Still kneeling with his back
to her, he opened the central division of the purse to put the gold
inside it. Something lay there, safely shut in. It was a slender
silver chain with half a broken sixpence attached to it by a ring.
Feelings such as he could not name shook the young man from head to
foot. In his male selfishness, or not realizing what the girl was
suffering, he turned round upon her, swift and keen, an angry glitter
in his eyes because of the tears in his heart.
"I had better throw this away, had I not?" said he.
"Throw what away?" faltered Rona in surprise, and then in an instant
realized what he had found. And again she blushed--blushed
furiously--the stain of her former emotion having hardly faded from
her cheeks. She turned away her head to hide the mingled feeling in
her face. She was desperately hurt, she was ashamed, she was
indignant ... she was something else too. What was it?
She knew not. There was no name for the strange force which shook
her, as she managed to reply.
"Certainly not. Put it back where you found it."
There was a suggestion of his having pried unwarrantably into her
purse's secret compartment.
"Let me give it to one of the children in the village," he said, in a
low voice, urgently. "As long as you keep it you are acting a lie;
you are acknowledging my claim. If I throw it away you are free."
She managed to speak at last. "I do acknowledge your claim. It is
you who have renounced me. Denzil said there could be nothing
binding between us until you and he had met--face to face."
She spoke with difficulty, with anguish, with a curious intensity.
"It is you who will not listen," she said, "who have settled that we
are to be ... as we are. I am perfectly miserable."
She stopped abruptly. If she died for it, Felix should not see her
cry.
He knelt before her, the broken coin in his hand. "I am a brute," he
said. "Oh, what a brute I am! And you are in pain! Forgive me!"
He hastily replaced the little token, fastened her purse, and handed
it to her.
"Let me help you up," he said, stooping over her, with a voice most
different from the hard, flippant tones he had used hitherto.
She looked up bravely. "I am----" she began, but broke off. She was
not feeling well enough to have things out with him. "Yes, I fear I
must hold on to you," she admitted. She grasped his arm with both
hands, and so drew herself slowly to her feet.
"I can walk," she said firmly, "if I may hold on tight."
"As tight as you like," he replied. "Shall I--might I--carry you?"
"I don't think I could bear it," she replied, and then, seeing a
double meaning in her own words, "I mean"--hastily--"that I have hurt
myself, and could not bear to be touched."
"I would touch you gently."
"Yes," she answered, low. "I know you would. I remember that you
did. I remember--very well."
He answered absently, as they moved slowly along together. "How it
all comes back!" He stopped, gazing round. "What is it, just here,
that brings the wharf and the Thames, and everything, flashing back
like a snap-shot on my mind?"
They were standing just beside a rick of newly-cut steppe grass.
"The scent of the hay," she whispered.
With a touch of her hand she urged him on. He said no more. No
further word passed his lips until they reached the rest-house.
CHAPTER XXVII
TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA
All alone, thou and I, in the desert,
In the land all forgotten of God.
--HENRY KINGSLEY.
Aunt Bee had insisted upon supplying Veronica, when she started upon
her perilous enterprise in the wilderness, with all kinds of
medicaments; and she was able to assure Felix that she had _Pommade
Divine_ to apply to her bruises. He made her bed up for her with an
ingenious arrangement of cushions, and, when he had hung a lamp up
inside, under the tilt, and lowered a curtain between them, she had a
little private chamber to herself, where she could safely investigate
the extent of her hurt.
There was a bruise and some swelling, and no doubt the pain had been
sharper on account of the mischief done two years ago in her far more
perilous fall. But as far as she could tell, it was merely external;
and when she was snugly curled up among her pillows it gave her
little discomfort. Her ensuing wakefulness was not due to pain, but
to a disturbance of feeling which took long to subside to a point
which would allow of her sleeping.
The fine air, however, came to her help, and now that she was used to
it, the motion of the carriage also lulled her. She slept, and
soundly, until past seven o'clock next morning.
On this day the weather, which had been fine from the first, became
absolutely perfect. From sunrise to sunset no cloud appeared upon
the face of the blue heavens; yet it was not too sultry. A tiny
zephyr blew with seductive sweetness, and the late heavy rain
prevented there being too much dust.
It was a day charged with oppressive silence between the traveling
pair. Until last night Felix had been the one to hold off--Rona had
been wistfully anxious to be friends. But now her coldness redoubled
his own. She was as reluctant to speak as he, and what she said was
more frozen. In truth, her own thoughts, her own emotions, were a
greater puzzle to herself than they could be to anyone else.
She hardly dared look at Felix, except when she felt sure that his
back was turned. But once, while they were eating their breakfast,
she surprised his eyes upon her, and with an intentness which made
her positively faint. She shuddered, with a kind of agony which was
half bliss. Had she known it, her beauty that radiant day was enough
to make a strong man weak.
The warm color of her hair, the rose stain upon her cheeks, and the
new, strange light within her eyes, made her perilously attractive.
They were young together, in so fair a world! Ah, if the barrier
might but be swept away, so that they could talk heart to heart!
His questions as to her health, and whether her injury had prevented
her sleeping, were miserably constrained, and her replies but just
escaped the charge of rudeness.
They ate, almost in silence, and as soon as they started again, he
lay down to sleep, upon the couch where she had rested all night, and
which was still fragrant with a memory of her, in some hardly
perceptible perfume.
Again it was long, very long, before the young man's eyes closed; and
then he fell so soundly asleep, that he exceeded his usual six hours,
and it was past four o'clock when at last he awoke.
That evening they came to a forest. It is the only one upon the
route; and it makes a grateful change from the endless waste of
treeless steppe.
Felix had been awake for the past hour, seated with his chin propped
upon his hands, gazing before him with white face and glittering eyes.
It was now within two hours of sunset, and the rose-colored rays from
the west burnt in among the foliage of the graceful birches, till
they seemed like trees of silver and gold, seen in vision. One of
the horses of their troika had been going badly for some time; and
when they were in among the trees the driver turned to Felix and said
something to him.
Felix turned to Rona, who, since he awoke, had been deeply immersed
in her book, and said, in a manner which suggested an apology for
addressing her, "The man thinks that unless we rest the horse a bit,
it will not make the next stage. Do you mind stopping for an hour in
this wood? We could eat our supper while we wait."
"Of course not. It is lovely," she said.
He gave an order, they stopped, and he helped her down--with great
care to avoid shaking her. Then he turned to the driver, and gave
his help in unspanning and rubbing down the ailing horse. Rona stood
a while watching, then, turning, roamed away a little distance into
the fairy wood.
It was indeed like an enchanted land. The Siberian stag-horn moss
curled and furled itself about the roots of delicate fern, and the
slanting sun-rays gilded it with effulgence indescribable. She sat
down upon the warm, fragrant couch it made. The passion of sadness
which too much beauty brings mixed with the feelings in her
distracted heart. She had played both brothers false. She had said
she loved Denzil--and she did not. She had said she did not love
Felix--and she did!--Ah, she did!
She could not stop to ask why. She knew that it was so. She had not
loved him, but now she did--now she knew what love was.
She felt herself near to breaking down, and, remembering the way in
which she had given way and wept on the day of the picnic at Newark
Abbey ruins, she fought to keep herself from tears.
But the long strain of the journey, the shock of her accident the
evening before, and the strange influence of the desert place, all
combined to overcome her control. She was obliged to weep, the tears
flooded her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, and for a while there
was nothing for it but to give way.
Her surrender was short--a few minutes only; but her little
handkerchief was soaked through and through. The knowledge that she
must very soon go back and face Felix with a composed aspect, availed
to call her to order speedily.
Just as her sobs began to die down, she heard his distant voice
calling her through the wood.
It sounded very far away; she must have strayed farther from the path
than she had been aware of. She must reply, or Felix would continue
to advance, and find her with those tell-tale stains upon her face.
She rose to her feet and cried back an answer--"Coming!"
Then she looked round in distress. Close to where she had lain a
tiny brook rippled through the wood. She knelt down by it, held her
handkerchief in it, and bathed her hot eyes repeatedly in its
comforting coolness. Then she washed her hands also, passed her
pocket comb through her locks, and slowly took her way back to the
road she had left.
There was the povosska, and the driver munching at a plateful of
supper. There was the cloth spread beneath a huge oak tree--but no
Felix. However, as she appeared, he dashed out from a thicket,
disturbance plainly written on his face. "Oh, there you are! I was
afraid you had been too far," he said.
She shook her head, smiling, and they sat down to eat.
She tried valiantly to swallow the food he had so carefully laid out,
but her throat seemed half closed, with a great lump which prevented
appetite. He watched her. He saw the heavy lids, hardly able to
lift themselves above the tear-dimmed eyes. He knew that she must
have been weeping in solitude, unconsoled. He was pierced with the
thought of his own selfishness. Here she was, all alone. The man
she loved--the man to whom she journeyed through such
difficulties--was ill. Her heart was full of anxiety; he had filled
it, too, with self-reproach. He loathed himself. What had she done
that he could fairly resent? Was it the action of anyone but a mad
boy to ask a girl of sixteen, who had only seen him two or three
times, to remain faithful to his memory? And if there was one thing
more certain than another, it was that Denzil was blameless. He had
never known the girl to be pledged in any way. He had not known who
Felix was; he had believed him her brother. He, Felix, was
responsible for the false position in which these two had been
placed; he had invented the brother and sister fiction, and for his
own selfish reasons. Yet, in his pride and revengeful anger, he was
making her suffer desperately--he knew it. But he would beg her to
forgive him.
As soon as they had finished supper--but she hardly ate anything--he
said, "Let us stroll in among these trees. It is a relief to move
one's limbs after the confinement of that old povosska."
Rona wavered. It were better for her not to walk with this man, not
to be on terms with him. But something in her drove her on--made it
impossible to refuse. She assented mutely. They passed together in
among the silver trunks. The sun was dropping low. The clear call
of a flight of herons came to them--and they saw the birds wheeling
in the faint blue air above them. They reached a pool, starred with
water strawberry, and, with a common impulse, they stood still upon
its verge.
"Rona!" said the young man, hoarsely.
It was the first time he had uttered her name. The sound of his
voice was low and strained. It raised feelings inexplicable in the
girl's confused mind and newly-awakened heart.
She had an impulse that to listen would be dangerous; that she ought
to avoid anything like a confidence from him. Yet a power much
stronger than she held her there mute and waiting--waiting for the
words from his lips. She did not speak; her eyes were raised for a
moment to his, full of such unhappiness as he could hardly bear to
see. But he knew that the look conveyed permission to continue. "I
want," he said, under his breath, "to tell you I am ashamed of
myself. I have been behaving like an unforgiving brute. I know I
have made you unhappy; and you have enough to bear without that.
Forgive me, will you? I'm--I'm beastly sorry."
She made no reply; she was wholly unable to speak.
"Of course," he began again, "I can see that you have been crying.
And I can't stand it. So let us have it out, shall we? I know I was
wrong, that time, when I clutched at your love, like a starving man
at a loaf of bread. I had no right. It was unjustifiable. But like
all men, I only thought of myself. I did want you so."
There was silence, except for the chirp of a sedge-warbler.
"And now," said Rona, half choking--"and now--you don't?"
He turned towards her in sharp surprise. "What do you mean?" he
said. "You are engaged to Denzil." He stood there looking at her,
until she thought his eyes would burn her. "How can I have any
claim, when you have decided in his favor?"
She turned away, for her face was quivering. "I could not bear it,"
she faltered lamely, "unless I felt sure you would be--happy."
"Thank you," said Felix, ironically. "If I am not I can always go
back, you know, to the point from whence you and I started."
In the pang which darted through her at this allusion she turned from
him, and, in fear of a breakdown, leant against a birch tree trunk to
hide her face. "Oh! Felix!" she sobbed, "Felix--don't!"
He was very white. It tore his heart to see her grief. The faint
perfume of her handkerchief or her clothes came to him on the evening
air, as to-day it had bewildered his senses when he lay in the
povosska. She was saying something--something incredible--among her
sobs. "You should not have written; you should have come to me. How
could I tell until I had seen you? I did not know."
He caught his breath. "What are you saying?" he asked, huskily.
Something in his voice warned her. She checked her tears with a
great effort. "Help me!" she craved. "Help me to be true to one of
you! I have been false to you; but Denzil is different! He has
loved me so long--he has done so much for me. Oh, I know what you
did--everything! But, after all, we barely knew each other....
While I feel as if I belong to him and Aunt Bee! They have been
home, love, everything ... you see, I could not betray him after all
he has been through!"
He felt the blood rush to his forehead. "Are you asking me to stand
on one side, and owning in the same breath that you love me best?" he
said, through his teeth.
She held her breath. This was putting the thing plainly. Yet it was
the truth. It made her angry to hear it. It goaded her on to fight
yet.
"You only thought you loved me," she brought out, vehemently. "You
had not seen me, you did not know me ... and there is a Russian
girl--Nadia Stepanovna...."
He took her by the shoulders, gently, but with firmness, turning her
round so as to face him; still she held her handkerchief to her eyes.
"Rona, do you really believe that?"
She took away the handkerchief, and lifted her wet lashes; and she
felt as though her soul were drowning in the mysterious compulsion of
his look. For a space all strength left her. She was drained of
power. This young man was her master; his claim could not be
denied....
Still holding her with one hand, he slipped the other down inside his
collar, and drew out a chain, with his half sixpence strung upon it.
"Look here," he said. "Since I first saw you there has been no other
thought in me."
"Oh!" the words seemed forced from her. "Oh, if I had been great
enough to be loyal too!"
"No, no," he said, hastily, "that was my part. I to be loyal, the
queen to reward or not, as she would. But if she will"--he held both
her hands--"if she will, then nobody on earth--not Denzil, nor any
other man..."
He was drawing her nearer, and how sweet, as well as how easy, to
yield to that pressure, to feel the clasp of his arms about her, to
rest in the knowledge that love had come to her indeed! But that
must not be; and she collected all her strength to tell him so.
"David!" Somehow that name came to her lips when she would appeal to
him. "Have pity, wait--Oh, I must say something to you...."
He saw, by the prayer in her eyes, by the urgency of her voice, that
she was in earnest, and he held himself in check with an effort.
"Help me," she faltered, "to be faithful to my word. I did
promise--just before he started for Siberia, I did tell him I would
be--his wife. You saved me once ... save me again! This time from
myself. I am so tossed about, I can hardly see what I ought to do.
But I am not free--you see that, don't you? I am bound; I--we--we
ought not to do this. Have pity on me, be good to me, be my brother
till we reach our journey's end!"
He drew a long breath, and passed a shaking hand over his knocking
temples. But she had, in her desperate fear, touched the right note
with him. She was in his power. For two more days they must fare
together; and she appealed to him for forbearance. To that appeal he
could not turn deaf ears.
"It's a puzzle," he said, heavily; "and I don't see the rights of it.
But don't be afraid of me, Rona. I--I am to be trusted. I would
give my life for you. Make yourself easy; I promise not to distress
you."
And as she lifted to him her quivering face, her suffused eyes, and
her mouth just touched by a smile of complete trust, he knew that he
was taking the very course that would make her love him more than
ever.
"I must just say this," he muttered. "You ought not to marry him
until he--knows."
She winced; but she stood firm.
"I shall tell him--as soon as I can," she replied, tremulously.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE PRIMROSE PATH
Ye are not bound! The soul of things is sweet,
The Heart of being is celestial rest,
Stronger than woe is will: that which was good
Doth pass to better--best.
--EDWIN ARNOLD.
The shadows of that same exquisite evening fell very softly across
the walled-in pleasance at Nicolashof. Dinner was over, and the
Governor sat upon the terrace with his cigarette, and Vronsky as his
companion. From within the drawing-room, which was but faintly
lighted, came the sound of Nadia's singing. Miss Forester played,
and the two men--Denzil Vanston within, and Vronsky without--listened
spellbound to the magic of that mysteriously appealing voice.
The evening was untroubled even by a breath of wind. The tops of the
forest trees, visible beyond the garden bowers, were motionless in
the warm air. The hues of the sky were such as must have been seen
to be imagined.
Denzil sat with a kind of helplessness in his whole attitude, his
eyes devouring the girl who sang to him.
He had been in a pitiable condition when the kindness of Stepan
Stepanovitch had carried him off to the luxurious simplicity of
Nicolashof, and the unforeseen seductions of the life there. Fresh
from his lonely journey, his heart full of sensations to which he had
till then been a stranger, torn with anxiety respecting the fate of
his brother, and uncertain as to the extent of the danger with which
the reappearance of her uncle menaced Rona--he had been in dire need
of sympathy.
He found himself received with a cordiality for whose charm he had
been utterly unprepared. The change from foreign ways, discomfort,
loneliness, and sickness, to the delightful atmosphere of sympathy,
and the perfect comfort of a well-regulated household, modeled upon
the English standard, was astounding, and its effects much greater
than could have been foreseen.
In truth, his own frame of mind at this crisis of his history was a
sealed mystery to himself.
Rona had touched in him springs of feeling of a kind different from
anything in his previous experience. She had--all
unconsciously--called these sensations into being; _but she had not
satisfied them_. This last fact, so all-important, his intelligence
did not recognize, though his physical instinct knew it well enough.
To his passion there had been, in Veronica Leigh, no response. No
pulse in her had thrilled in concert with his own. This he felt,
without knowing it. He had quitted England with a fierce desire
unsatisfied.
And, all unknown to both of them, Nadia was bestowing what Rona had
withheld.
This girl was very woman to her finger-tips. No intellectual
education had trained her in the ways that Rona had gone. She lived
in a world of emotions, with no actual knowledge of life.
The dream of her youth had always been to be English. She loved Miss
Forester better than anyone else in the world. She absorbed the
literature, the customs, of her beloved land. She read English
novels, and longed to come in contact with an English gentleman.
It was not surprising that, when she met Denzil, she should idealize
him.
In his quiet manner, his pleasant appearance, his outwardly calm
bearing, she thought she perceived all the greatness, the depth, of
the English character. She saw him through a haze of rosy dreams,
just as he saw her in a circle of mystic light. Each was to the
other a perfectly new type, with all the fascination of the unknown.
She had fancied herself in love with Felix, and had been thrown back
upon herself in much the same manner as Denzil.
The feeling with which she inspired the bewildered young man was
entirely mutual. Each to the other was the central figure of a
romance in real life.
Everything in the circumstances of their association conspired to
make the dream perfect. They were isolated from all the world. Each
formed for the other the paramount interest of the moment.
Nadia differed essentially from the girls he knew in England. Her
physical beauty appealed to his own thin blood with a force that
shook him. The witchery of her voice, the splendor of her eyes, the
atmosphere of mystery which seemed to radiate from her, acted like a
narcotic upon his enfeebled system. For days past he had lived,
steeped in a dream whose awakening he simply refused to picture.
Just as Felix and Rona, in the forest, were longing that the journey
might never end, so the blameless Denzil, who had lived so many years
in the prosaic groove of a country gentleman of quiet habits and few
tastes, was positively yearning that he might remain forever, slowly
convalescing within the magic walls of that romantic inclosure where
the outside world could be so completely forgotten that it might
never have existed.
The notion that Miss Rawson and Rona, the two links with his own
steady-going everyday life, were traveling to him, and must arrive in
two or three days, was a notion which he put from him. He could
not--would not think. He was steeped to the lips in a fairy tale,
which he would read on to the end. He did not say this, even in his
own heart. He was conscious of nothing of the kind. He drifted,
like one floating out upon a warm current, carrying him away, whither
he neither knew nor cared.
Outside upon the terrace the Governor took his cigar from his mouth,
and said to Vronsky, "Your Felix assures me that in England those
whom he calls the county gentlefolk are equal in their own eyes with
us of the aristocracy in Russia."
"I believe that is true," said Vronsky, with a huge sigh.
After some minutes' musing:
"Life in Russia is uncertain for us of the upper classes," pursued
Stepan Stepanovitch, who seemed to be thinking aloud. "I have an
idea that my child would be happier in a country so secure as your
England. If she were to decide to love an Englishman--I am not sure
that I should say no to her. He has means, this Vanston--hein?"
"He is not what they in England call very rich," said Vronsky. "But
he has enough to be very comfortable, and will have more when his
aunt dies, I believe." He was glad that Nadia's father could not see
his face as he answered these torturing questions. "But I am not
sure that this young man's affections are free," he said, making his
voice sound calm with great difficulty. "I understand from Felix
that his brother has cut him out in the love of the young girl to
whom he, Felix, was betrothed."
"So?" said the Governor, in astonishment. "He does not seem to me
like a man who would do such things."
"There was some misunderstanding. What do I know?" said Vronsky,
wearily.
The Governor moved slightly upon his chair, so as to look into the
drawing-room. Nadia had left the piano, and was sitting upon a sofa,
very much in the shadow. Denzil had left his big chair, and was
seated beside her.
Her father lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "I have never seen
her so with anyone else," he confided. "He is unlike any man she has
met--a different type, as you say. She does not care for the men of
her own country. By St. Isaac! it would not be a bad thing. It
would not do to frighten her; but of course I realize that if I am
proscribed, I shall be taken off sooner or later. And I tell you the
truth, her brothers are extravagant. I shall not have much power to
leave her well dowered, when my pay from this province ceases. You
think her attractive, Vronsky, my friend--hein?"
The tears were running down Vronsky's face in the darkness as he
answered, "Yes, I do."
"Well," said the Governor, "then I do not interfere. As to the other
girl, this can, perhaps, be arranged. In England that is so, is it
not? They do break betrothals, and think no shame of those that do
so. Felix should be back in a few days now. He cannot be far behind
the ladies upon the road."
Vronsky drew a deep breath. His heart was full of rage. His Felix
had been jilted for this little straw puppet--this man who did not
know his own mind for a month together! He thought of the long
months during which Felix had been exposed to the charms of Nadia.
During all that time his allegiance to the girl in England had never
wavered. And now this little sneak came, having gained the one
woman, and succumbed without a struggle to the charm of the other.
The two upon the sofa rose and passed together out of the room, and
away into the starlit garden.
"I hope," said the Governor, "that you will not be hurt if I express
my strong desire that the two English ladies should be my guests
here. I do not mean to disparage your own well-known hospitality."
Vronsky growled. "He had no right to send for them--what are English
ladies to do here at the world's end?" he muttered. "He is as
selfish as false"--but the final words were in his beard, and the
Governor did not catch them.
"He was, however, very ill for a few days," he remarked.
"If he had died it would have simplified matters," said Vronsky,
brutally.
The Governor looked slightly hurt. "You do not then think highly of
him?"
"I? Oh, I know very little of him. It was plucky of him to come out
here after his brother. He was quite sure, when he arrived, that his
brother was dead. But he wanted to see the corpse, actually."
This speech, in the ears of the man who heard it, sounded like
absolute nonsense, but Vronsky had been nervy and uncertain in his
temper ever since Felix disappeared, and he was pardoned.
"Ah, well," said Stepan Stepanovitch. "A few days more will decide
all. But it would please me well that Nadia Stepanovna should be the
wife of an Englishman, if he is a man of position."
CHAPTER XXIX
A DOUBLE DILEMMA
--Blame or praise
What was the use then? Time would tell,
And the end declare what man for you,
What woman for me was the choice of God.
--ROBERT BROWNING.
In the bright sunshine the povosska sped on towards Savlinsky.
They sat together, the man and the girl, staring out upon a formless
future.
They no longer read. But neither did they talk. What could be said
between them?
Minute after minute, mile after mile. The road stretched before and
behind, mocking them with a false suggestion of being endless. If
but it were! If but it were! If this could go on forever--this
closeness of undisturbed companionship!
Rona felt a kind of resentment against that cruelty of fate which
seems to blind a young girl to her own feelings until it is too late.
She recalled her sober fondness for Denzil, her eager clutching at
any arrangement which would secure to her the continuance of her
happy life. And the shock of repulsion which had seized her when
some new feeling leaped to life in her at the touch of the man's lips
in leave-taking, and she knew that she not only did not share his
feeling, but that it excited in her the most complete distaste.
While, for this other, whom she had denied, whom she had forgotten,
whom she had feared ... the intoxication of joy which she experienced
in the mere fact of being there, side by side with him, would break
in upon all her rueful thoughts, and shake her with a great emotion
that had no resemblance to anything she had previously known.
Scorning herself, she remembered that she had actually flinched from
the idea of going out to Siberia, to banishment, to live with him.
She gazed around, at the boundless, free, rolling country, that
seemed but just wide enough to contain her love, her joy in his
company. Banishment! Life here with him would be the garden of Eden!
Yet she had bound herself hand and foot. She had appealed to Denzil
to save her from Felix. It was done, and to this she must stand, if
he wished it. There must be no drawing back. Her very soul sickened
at the thought of the pain she must inflict, did she confess to him
that she did not love him, and never could love him, but that she
could and did love another.
No, she could not, must not, do it. What, after all, was love? A
mere emotion. She would go back with Denzil to England, and never
see Felix again. The profound trouble which she now experienced
would grow to be only a memory. Surely there lay the path of her
duty. Perhaps, after all, it had been better had her leap for
freedom landed her lifeless upon the railway lines at Deptford.
The reflections of Felix were even more somber. He knew Denzil. He
knew him well, in and out. He felt sure that he would not release
Rona.
The reasons for his refusal would be of the highest character. He
would be quite sure that no good girl could ever be happy with a
convicted felon, with a man with such a record as his unfortunate
brother. He would deem her fancy for Felix a passing phase, and
would carry her off, working upon her gratitude, using the claims he
had upon her--and marry her to himself as soon as it could be done
with decency, in order the sooner to efface the image of Felix from
her heart.
And, after all, would not this be best? He looked longingly upon the
grave profile of the girl beside him. He noted the fastidious curve
of her mouth, the depth of expression in her eyes. Was it for him to
imprison such a creature in Siberia?
What a mistress she would make for Normansgrave!
No. There was no chance of Denzil's giving her back. Her life was
fixed. She was not his, she never had been, never would be. He had
only these few minutes in which to realize her, these few minutes of
agony and futile regret.
Was it not all absurd? Suddenly his heart rose up within him and
shouted, and his passion mocked his sense of right and justice. Why
bring her back to the man who would part them forever? She preferred
him--he knew it. Why not tell the driver to turn his horses' heads,
and dash away together into the unknown?
He felt the blood rush to his head, his heart began to beat with
great slow thumps.
How much money had he? Enough to keep them for some weeks. He could
communicate secretly with Vronsky, and tell him where they were, and
as soon as Denzil had departed bring her back to Savlinsky.
That was surely the true way to cut the knot. Let him have courage,
and take what was his own.
He breathed fast and with difficulty.
"Rona!" he said, in a whisper.
She started from her own sad, absorbed meditations. She turned her
eyes to him, with a dumb appeal in them for mercy. There was
something so sorrowful in the look that it acted like fire upon his
senses.
"I can't--I can't!" he said, under his breath. "It's too hard. I
can't let you go. I shall tell him to turn the horses, and we will
go away--together."
She looked at him, all the blood in her body rushing to her heart.
They were sitting side by side, but not close together. Now her body
seemed to lean towards him; her eyes were alight, her lips parted
slightly. But a look of mortal fear clouded the eagerness of her
sweet face. She raised her hands with a pitiful gesture of entreaty.
"Oh, hush, don't! No, Felix, no, I trust you. You can't----"
She broke off with a gulping sob, snatching her handkerchief to her
mouth lest the driver should hear, and turn his keen black eyes upon
her weakness and misery. But the driver was gazing along the road
ahead, his eyes shaded. Something had attracted his attention.
Felix was too absorbed to notice. He did not speak, but he leant
towards her, one clenched hand upon the seat between them, and
relentlessly held her eyes with his own. His teeth were set. He
knew she could not hold out for long if he set his will upon it.
"You said," she voiced, almost inaudibly--"you said--that I might
trust you."
"Yes," he answered, in the same tone. "Will you? Trust me
altogether? For always?"
The driver dropped his hand, and, making a violent motion along the
road, pointed, shouting something in an excited way.
The movement, the unexpected shout, snapped the hypnotizing
influence. Rona, startled, uttered a low cry. Felix gazed ahead as
the driver bade him, and saw a mounted man approaching.
Even at that distance he was able to recognize Vronsky's ungraceful
form. His moment was over. He let his head drop upon his breast,
defeated.
Vronsky came on, feeling very shy. Two English ladies were under
that hood, and he hardly knew how to meet them. He felt so severely
himself towards Denzil, towards his selfish cowardice in sending for
his womenkind to undertake so fatiguing a journey, that his attitude
was one of abject apology. Then, as he drew nearer, he saw a
handkerchief waved. The povosska drew up, and his own adored Felix
leaped lightly to earth and ran forward.
Vronsky leant down from his saddle, caught his boy about the neck,
and showered kisses upon the top of his head, quite unashamed of the
possible amusement of the spectators.
He had come, he explained, not to meet Felix, whose arrival he had
not certainly expected, but to greet the ladies, bear to them the
Governor's pressing invitation, and escort them to Nicolashof. It
was better luck than that coxcomb of a brother deserved. He had
telegraphed in a fit of panic. Had he been going to die he would
have been three times dead before they could reach him. He had
merely been ill. What would you? Men got well again. Was it a
journey for ladies? It was thanks to the saints that Felix had been
at hand to protect them. A mad scheme. He grumbled on.
"Miss Leigh has taken no harm," said Felix, dully, "so why make such
a song about it? All is well."
"Is all well?" said Vronsky, sulkily. "This girl who has come so
far, who has preferred him to you--she is to find out something if
she has eyes. Does she love him? Is her happiness bound up in him?
For, if so, she is to be made very miserable."
Felix turned crimson. "What do you mean?"
"I mean what I say. But why did you not have two carriages? I
suppose you sent back the other at the last posting-house?"
"No, little father, we have come in one. Miss Rawson has not come at
all. She lies ill at St. Petersburg. Miss Leigh has come alone. I
don't know what would have happened to her, had I not chanced upon
her at Gretz."
Vronsky stared. "Is it possible?"
Felix, with a thousand questions fighting to be uttered, choked and
was silent. "Come and see her," he said, after a minute or two.
He went up to the carriage, said a word, and Rona rose, gave him her
hand, and alighted to greet Vronsky. There was a hint of something
tragic in her beauty which made an instant appeal to the emotional
heart of the Russian. Ah, here indeed was the woman for his Felix!
Yet she had preferred the ignoble little neat-mannered man up at
Nicolashof--the man who was flirting deeply, dangerously, with Nadia,
while he awaited the coming of this courageous girl.
"Madam, I greet you. You are a brave lady," he said, gravely, in
English; and the girl's eyes filled with tears as she grasped his
hand.
"I hope--I trust--that Mr. Vanston is quite recovered?" she faltered.
"I mean, that he is much better? I have been in deep anxiety."
"He is as well as ever he was in his life," said Vronsky, "and as
well amused. That is the truth. The Governor and his daughter have
truly Russian notions of hospitality. They bade me bring you to
them, mademoiselle. Will you go?"
"No," said Rona. "Unless you say that I must, I will not go. I
would rather stay with you, please, if you are so kind as to make
room for me. Mr. Vanston can come and see me at your house. I have
no claim upon the kindness of these strangers."
"Our house will be more dear to us ever after if its roof has
sheltered your beautiful head, mademoiselle," said Vronsky, with deep
conviction.
Rona acknowledged this with a shy smile. "Let Felix ride your horse
awhile, and come and sit with me in the carriage and let us make
friends."
The suggestion completed the conquest of the big, affectionate
fellow. And in this order they made the rest of the journey.
* * * * * * *
Denzil had opened his eyes that morning to the awful conviction that
every dream must have an awakening, and that his awakening was come.
Until dawn he had not slept. He had lain awake staring at the
ceiling, asking himself helplessly whether it could be true that he,
the blameless, the well-conducted, the young man whose sober pulses
knew not what it was to quicken, could really be false, could really
be shamelessly in love, pushed out of his usual decorum and
moderation, carried along upon the swift current of his senses,
caring for nothing but this wondrous girl, hoping for nothing but
some catastrophe which should keep him forever away from England, and
happy at her side.
Wild thoughts of offering Normansgrave to Felix, if only he would
take Rona away and leave him happy with Nadia, coursed through his
mind. Absurd he knew such thoughts to be. But he had cast to the
winds all sense, all propriety. He was as much out of himself as a
man hopelessly drunk for the first time in his life.
Why had he hitherto led so jog-trot, so narrow a life? How could a
man, ignorant of the possibilities of existence, judge of what was
necessary for his own happiness? Had he only gone forth earlier to
see the world, instead of staying at home, reflecting upon his own
virtues, he would not have been tempted into that sickly and tepid
course of sentiment with a half-grown girl like Rona.
And who was Rona? The curtain of romance that had veiled her had
been in part drawn back by the Reverend Mother, and her mysterious
uncle was now an established fact. Miss Rawson reported him to be
woefully second-rate, apart from his moral defects. "Remember," that
wise aunt had said, "Felix took her from a lodging in Deptford."
And he might have had this creature of fire and magic, this Russian
aristocrat, with the blood of Royal Princes in her veins! He was
Vanston of Normansgrave, proud of his old, clean name. How could he
have indulged so unworthy a dream these last two foolish years?
He thought of Nadia, standing in the hall at home, walking in the
gardens, learning the ways and customs of an English lady of
position. How he would love to show her all the superiorities of his
own beloved country! To see her the admired of all the countryside!
Mr. Vanston's beautiful wife would have been the talk of the
neighborhood. Poor Denzil!
He kept away from Nadia all that day, wandering alone, in moody
meditation. His thoughts never dwelt for a moment upon the idea of
the girl who was coming to him, so long a journey, at so great a
fatigue. She was to him merely a disagreeable duty, which would have
to be faced. He did not realize this. Had he really known what he
felt, he would have hid his face in shuddering shame. As it was, he
was conscious only of the pain he was suffering. Towards evening,
Nadia, wandering alone, found him, seated in the shadow of a huge
tree, his face hidden in his hands.
She seated herself beside him, her impulsive heart moved to keen
pity. All day long she had been feeling hurt and angry. It had been
charming to wield undivided sway over this curious, self-contained
man for these last delightful days. She had no idea of the true
state of affairs--no idea that the English girl now on her way to
Savlinsky was, as an actual fact, the betrothed of Denzil Vanston.
But she felt that the new arrivals would put an end to a
companionship which had been strangely delightful.
She reflected with cold wonder that she had once thought herself in
love with Felix--Felix, whose color had never changed, whose breath
had never quickened at her coming--whose manner to her was as his
manner to Miss Forester, civil, pleasant, neutral. She could not
look at Denzil without becoming aware of his intense consciousness of
her look. He was her slave. He reddened and paled, smiled or
frowned, as she willed. Nadia was a young woman who loved her own
way. Her intelligence had always warned her that with Felix she
would not have had it. She had the same instinctive knowledge that
she would be able to twist Denzil round her finger.
Now, she knew not why he suffered, but she could well see that he was
suffering. A new feeling, of tender pity, a mother-feeling, took
possession of her heart. She was at bottom a very simple-minded,
domestic young woman, impulsive, and a little spoilt, but wholly
feminine.
"Something is wrong with you," she said. "And I am grieved if you
grieve."
He took her hand, and, hardly knowing what he was about, held it to
his lips. The girl smilingly allowed it. The misery of thwarted
passion rushing through his veins filled the touch of his lips with
fire. As he held and kissed her small, soft hand, the contented
smile faded from her face, her cheeks flushed, her eyes grew deep and
troubled. She trembled, and made an effort to draw back her hand.
He let it go at once, and in a kind of despair, resting his elbows on
his knees, dropped his head into his hands.
"Oh," said Nadia, breathlessly, "what is it? Tell me, tell me, you
make me so unhappy."
"To-day is the last," he brought out, thickly. "I am counting each
second of it. My friends will arrive in an hour or two. We shall
leave for England in a day or two, and you--you will forget me, the
poor wretch who all his life will never be able to forget you."
She gave a little delicious sigh. "Ah," she said, "then you will
feel it too. I thought you would be so glad to have your own
countrywomen with you--to turn your back upon this desert place."
He lifted his head, showing her his eyes suffused with tears.
"Desert!" he said. "This is the garden, and the King's daughter. I
am the unfortunate stranger whom your bounty has succored. Now he
must be driven forth again into the wilderness."
She laughed, with an assumption of lightness. "Wilderness! That is
very unlike Miss Forester's description of England! She says it is
the fairest place on earth. I have always"--her sweet, emotional
voice dropped to its lowest notes--"I have always wished that I could
go there. It is a land of peace, of safety, as well as beauty."
It was as if the voice, the words, touched a spring. He turned to
her. "Come," he articulated, almost inaudibly; and his craving
sounded in his broken voice. "Come to England--with me--Nadia."
He felt that he simply could not help it. It had to be said. It was
bald, bare, it needed softening, it needed much explaining. But
something in Nadia's heart apparently bridged all the gaps. In a
moment he had her in his arms. And as he held her, there leaped upon
him, out of the past, a memory of the moment in which he had so held
Rona, in the Abbey ruins at Newark.
The thought went nigh to poison his ecstatic hour. Rona had not
yielded herself to him. She had not exactly rejected, but she had by
no means responded to his mood. But Nadia responded with a rush of
feeling which astounded her lover. It almost frightened him. For
the moment it carried him away completely. He had a dim feeling that
all the careful maxims of centuries were borne away and swept down by
the current upon which he was carried. Through it all was a sense
that Nemesis must overtake him--that this could not last. Something
was coming upon him--what was it? Remorse for treachery? Stuff!
How could one be a traitor to a thing one had never felt? Yet,
surely the avenging moment was at hand! Surely there was a hand
outstretched to dash away this heady cup from his lips?
Yes--and close by.
As at last he lifted his burning face, and loosened the clasp of his
arms from about Nadia's form, he saw, standing there before him, in
bodily shape, his brother Felix. There stood the scapegrace, and
there before him sat the virtuous elder brother, caught in the
treacherous act. Felix had indeed changed since their last meeting.
Tall, handsome, and altogether at his ease, he fixed a glance of
ironic amusement upon the situation for a brief half-moment, and
then, turning silently and swiftly, walked off among the trees of the
garden, unseen by Nadia, whose face was hidden against her lover;
leaving Denzil writhing in the pangs of a shame far more acute than
the most scathing criticism in words of his conduct would have
produced in him.
CHAPTER XXX
VERONICA IS SURPRISED
I yielded, and unlocked her all my heart,
Who, with a grain of manhood well resolved,
Might easily have shook off all her snares.
--MILTON.
Vronsky had reluctantly decided, in spite of the young girl's own
wishes, that it would not be well for Veronica to stay at Savlinsky,
all unchaperoned as she was. The Governor's cordial invitation to
Nicolashof must be accepted.
The girl was sensible of a distinct unwillingness to become the guest
of Nadia Stepanovna. But she could not, of course, voice this
sentiment, and obediently submitted, when she had rested an hour at
Vronsky's house and had tea, to take her place, with him and Felix,
in their own tarantasse, with the devoted Max to drive them, and to
be conveyed to the Governor's house.
To Vronsky the drive was most painful. He felt that it would be
inhuman to allow this girl to arrive with no inkling of the blow that
awaited her when she should meet Denzil Vanston. It was in vain that
he told himself that the girl deserved such a fall to her pride--that
he tried to think of her as a heartless jilt, who had spoiled the
best years of his beloved Felix's life, and then deserted him. There
was that in Veronica's face which disarmed him.
He looked from her to Felix, and back again, continually, with his
restless, keen dark eyes. He thought for the fiftieth time what a
pair they would have made. He wondered that Felix did not seem more
broken, more miserable than he did. But he knew the young man's
strength and pride, and concluded that he intended to put a bold
front upon the matter. He who knew him so well could see that he was
laboring under some kind of suppressed excitement; and he could see,
also, that Rona's emotions were on the very brink of being too much
for her. She avoided the eye of Felix, who sat facing her; but her
varying color and expression, the quivering of her mouth, the absent
manner in which she replied to his mild small talk, convinced the
good man that her anxiety to behold her lover safe and well was
extreme. All the drive he was striving anxiously to give her a hint;
but in vain. She had almost the mien of one being driven to
execution, to whom the things of the world were all past; and Vronsky
ended by thinking it unkind and unmanly of Felix to be so openly
reproachful, almost resentful, in his manner towards her.
When they arrived at Nicolashof the old butler told them that the
Governor was out, and the ladies and Mr. Vanston in the garden. They
were shown into the drawing-room, and Felix went out into the garden,
telling the old man that he would find the ladies and bring them in.
This seemed to give Vronsky his opportunity. Before the defaulting
lover appeared, he must give the girl a hint--he must not let her
meet him entirely unprepared for his defection.
But for a while, although the minutes were few, he could not speak.
His throat felt hot and dry, and as though there were a lump in it.
Rona, all unintentionally, came to his rescue, by going to a table
and taking up a photograph of Nadia that stood upon it. "Is this
Miss--is it the Governor's daughter?" she asked.
"It is. She is attractive, you think--eh? What you call very
pretty?"
His quaint accent made the girl smile. "She is beautiful," she
replied, as if grudgingly.
"Her attraction is of the kind that some men find too much--not to be
resisted," he said, hurriedly. "I know but one who gave not a
thought to her. That was my poor, good Felix. His heart was filled
with another--with the image of you, mademoiselle. But his
brother----" he came and stood before Veronica, almost menacingly,
"His brother--yes, it is right that you should know it. His brother
has fallen--in--love with Nadia Stepanovna. You say that, hein?
_Fall-in-love?_"
Veronica smiled a little sadly. "No such luck," was the thought in
her heart. "Yes, that is what we say; but it cannot be what Mr.
Vanston has done," she said, gently. "He is engaged to me, and he
has loved me for two years and more. Besides, we English are
not--not like that. We have our feelings under control.
Particularly English gentlemen, such as Mr. Vanston."
She was really amused. The girl whose picture she held, beautiful as
she undoubtedly was, was hardly Denzil's style. She gazed upon the
sumptuous face, the pouting, childish mouth, the foreign suggestion
given by the drop earrings, the somewhat extravagant arrangement of
the hair. It was, however, quite likely that, Nadia being the only
girl of her class within a thousand miles, she should seem to Vronsky
to be quite irresistible. "I think you are mistaken, Mr. Vronsky,"
she said, very gently. The absolute incredulity expressed by her
face and her voice staggered him.
"Mademoiselle," he urged, appealingly, "I entreat you to believe what
I say. I wish you well. I bear you no grudge, though you have
ruined my boy's life. Young girls have not always the control of
their hearts. But I tell you that those two--Nadia and the
Englishman--are in love--deep in love, the one with the other. Do I
not know? Have I not sat here night after night and watched them?
Do you think a passion like that can be hid?"
There was in his manner an intensity, an urgency, which carried
weight.
"If I did not know that it was true, do you think I would stand here
to stab you with such cruel words?" he vehemently asked her. "It is
that I wish to prepare you--that you obtain a moment's warning--that
when they come in from the garden you have the key of the situation
in your hands."
Veronica turned towards him. It was growing dusk, and in the
half-light her face was very pale. "If it should be true!" she
murmured, with a catch of the breath; and then the notion of how
ridiculous it all was, came over her. She collected herself, and
laughed lightly. "You do not know Mr. Vanston," she said, with an
air of gentle reproof. "I do. He could never feel any deep
admiration for a young lady of this type. He is--he is--well, he is
himself, and I cannot explain what I mean--only I know that what you
think cannot be true." She thought a moment as to how she could best
convince him. "Our ways in England are so different," she kindly
told him. "Our intercourse is so much more free. Mr. Vanston is
accustomed to be as natural in his manner to ladies as he is to his
own sex. That is what makes you think----" she broke off. Felix was
approaching the window across the lawns.
He was walking rapidly, and his face, visible in the fading light,
which was stronger out of doors, showed signs of great agitation.
Veronica, urged by some nameless impulse, went to the window.
Vronsky was in the shadow, and Felix either did not see him or forgot
his existence. He entered precipitately:--
"Rona! Rona! We are free!" he cried, in a transported voice.
"What do you say?" she faltered, suddenly dizzy, and putting both
hands upon his arm to steady herself.
"Denzil has played you false," he broke out, as if the news could not
be withheld. "I found him and her in the garden. He held her in his
arms--he was kissing her! After that--after that--whose is your
allegiance, my beloved?" He caught her two hands, and drew them up
to encircle his own neck, folding her in his arms.
"Felix!" she uttered; and, after a moment's whirling pause, during
which she looked into his kindled eyes, she pleaded, "Let me sit
down. I am faint!"
He supported her with his arms to a chair, in which he placed her;
and was about to kneel upon the floor at her side, when she faintly
said, "Felix! You forget Mr. Vronsky."
"By Jove!" said Felix, wheeling round. "But it doesn't matter. Come
here, old man," he went on, "and hear the good news. Denzil has cut
the knot for us. He has found a way out."
Vronsky, bewildered, said something very volubly in Russian.
"Yes, yes, I know all that," replied Felix, "but we found out the
truth in our five-hundred-mile drive. I was right from the first. I
always knew I was right. But it was natural that Rona should be
bewildered. My brother had been conspicuously good to her, and it is
not uncommon for a very young girl to mistake gratitude for love.
But this is not gratitude--is it, Rona?"
On the last words his voice dropped to a lower key and shook with
intensity. Rona let him take her hand, and with devotion he raised
it to his lips.
"Felix," she urged, almost in a whisper, for she was profoundly
shaken, "we did keep faith, did we not?"
"Thanks to you, not to me, we did," he replied thankfully.
She laughed a little hysterically. "I have just been explaining to
Mr. Vronsky how impossible it all is," she cried. "Of all the women
that I could not imagine Denzil to be in love with.--I always thought
it was you, Felix!"
"It might have been," put in Vronsky. "Felix might have been her
favored suitor, had he so willed."
"That cannot be said, since such a thing was never contemplated by
me," replied Felix, promptly.
"Hush, someone is coming," whispered Rona, suddenly; and Felix rose
with alacrity, as the door was opened, and Miss Forester entered,
followed by two menservants with lamps.
* * * * * * *
She stopped short as soon as the persons present became apparent to
her. "Miss Rawson?" she began, as if bewildered.
Felix stepped forward, to be greeted by her with kind cordiality.
"Miss Rawson has not come. She had an accident--she was ill," he
explained. "This is Miss Leigh, my _fiancée_."
He led Rona across the room, and presented her. "By great good
fortune I found Miss Leigh quite unexpectedly at Gretz, and brought
her on," he said. "The journey was one which she should never have
attempted alone. But she thought my brother was dying."
Rona had recovered her wonted control by now. "Mr. Denzil Vanston
has been like an elder brother to me ever since Felix was obliged to
go away," she explained. "When he telegraphed for us to come to him,
it did not seem to me possible to disregard the message. But I fear
that I have inadvertently given a great deal of trouble, for there is
no inn at Savlinsky where I could stay. Please forgive me. A
telegram sounds so peremptory. When Denzil telegraphed 'Come,' I
concluded that he must have made arrangements for our reception."
"All arrangements are made for your reception, my dear child," said
Miss Forester, warmly. "I tremble to think of your undertaking such
a journey; but what a good thing that Felix met you! And now that
you are safely here, all is well."
She could afford to say, "All is well."
A short week ago it would have been otherwise. The story of the
broken sixpence about the neck of Felix had then been a thorn in her
memory, for she feared that the girl she loved might have to suffer.
But since the coming of Denzil all was changed. She was able to
welcome Rona without reservations, and to feel thankful that the two
girls were not rivals; for, even in her traveling garb, Veronica was
beautiful enough to strike the eye of any unprejudiced person.
"My friend, I congratulate you," said Miss Forester, turning with a
mischievous smile to Felix.
His eyes were upon the face of the woman so incredibly surrendered to
him, and he smiled gravely. He had not yet had time to realize his
happiness--to appreciate what it all meant. The one supreme fact
that Rona loved him was destroying the proportions of everything else.
Vronsky had not spoken since Miss Forester's entrance. He had a
divided heart. He loved Felix, and he was assured of his happiness;
but also he loved Nadia, and wanted to feel secure of hers. At the
moment the steps of the other pair of lovers sounded in the veranda,
and the Governor's daughter, in her white gown, her eyes full of
light, pushed open the window and stepped inside, followed by Denzil.
The Squire's brow was wet with the dews of apprehension. His heart
was in his mouth. What kind of situation was this? He had played
the traitor, and he stood confronted by the two girls--his old love
and his new.
Blindly he had followed Nadia to the house, unable to utter a word of
warning, unable even to own to her that he had seen Felix. He had a
confused idea that nothing that might now happen could be worse than
the expression of his brother's eyes when lately they had met his own.
And behold, that same brother stood just within the room with the
mien of a conqueror, his head high, his glance confident, his mouth
smiling.
"Ah," said Nadia, drawing a long breath, "I told you that they had
arrived--they must have arrived----" She came slowly forward.
"It is delightful to meet again," said Felix, taking her two hands.
"May I present to you my _fiancée_, Miss Leigh?"
Denzil started visibly. It was upon his tongue to cry "No!"
Even as the impulse arose it was smothered. In his dazed condition
he yet took in one point, namely, that apparently the dilemma from
which he shrank existed no longer. He was free to avow himself the
suitor of the Russian girl.
Was not this the summit of his desires?
Nadia smiled rapturously. Snatching her hands from Felix, she held
them impulsively to Rona.
"Oh," said she, "I have wanted so long to see an English girl! And
you are--you are--like the girls in story books, just as Mr. Vanston
is exactly like the men!"
"Why," cried Rona in astonishment, "how well you talk English!"
Over the heads of the two girls the glance of the brothers met.
There was no malice in Felix's steady gaze. He went to Denzil and
took his hand. "It is long since we met," he said, kindly. "Am I to
congratulate you, Denzil?"
The Squire made an effort to speak, but no words came. He licked his
dry lips. Was this some device of his younger brother to torture him?
"Where is Aunt Bee?" he asked, that being the sole non-contentious
remark that occurred to him at the moment.
"Lying up, lame, at St. Petersburg," said Felix. "But you need not
be anxious. I met Veronica at Gretz, and have taken care of her.
She has not felt the journey at all."
Denzil stammered, "That--that was good of you. I--er--feel that I
was inconsiderate to suggest it. Of course, I did not contemplate
her coming alone."
"Naturally," was the calm reply. "If it was an indiscretion on your
part, it was a blessed one for me. I was able to renew my
acquaintance with Miss Leigh, which had been of the briefest, in the
favorable circumstances of a five-hundred-mile _tête-à-tête_; and now
we understand each other perfectly."
As he spoke Nadia and Rona turned to them.
"Look at him," said Nadia, prettily. "He is quite convalescent,
don't you think? Miss Forester and I have done our poor little best
for him."
"He will be all right now," said Rona, extending her hand with a
smile that certainly was unmixed with any resentment, "now that he
knows that Felix is safe and well and--and happy--won't you, Denzil?"
He could not speak. He wrung her hand and turned away, crimson.
Miss Forester was a little surprised, but Nadia thought tenderly of
the Englishman's proverbial taciturnity under pressure of emotion.
These people were heroes and heroines of romance to her.
She flung her arm caressingly about Rona's shoulders and led her from
the room. Miss Forester followed, and the three men were left in a
gulf of silence.
* * * * * * *
It was as though Felix, like some champion of old entering an
enchanted castle, had cut with his sword clean through the many-hued
curtain which shut out the world. The moment his eye and that of his
brother met scales fell from Denzil's sight--the spell was broken: he
emerged, as it were, once more into a life in which men were
responsible for their actions, and wherein gentlemen did not break
faith, however strong the temptation.
What was this magic which had held him chained? Was it love, or
sorcery? He had never asked himself. He only knew that it was too
strong for him. It had blinded him to constancy, to honor, to his
plighted word. He stood aghast at the power of it.
It is one thing to feel; it is quite another to be carried away by
the strength of one's feelings. He still thrilled with the memory of
the scene in the twilight garden; and yet underlying his joy there
was a profound misgiving.
The passion which possessed him was real enough; but he was no boy,
and even as he felt it he knew it could not last. What was worse, he
knew that he did not even wish it to last. He was a steady-going
prosaic person, and he foresaw that he could not dwell continuously
upon the heights to which his infatuation had drawn him.
His present ecstasy was not real life. It was illusion. The moment
he saw Felix he realized this.
What was he to say? And then, in the midst of his confusion, light
leapt to his mind. He had broken plight; but then, so had Rona!
The notion went far to restore his self-respect to him.
"Well," he said, hurriedly, addressing Felix, who stood regarding him
critically, "so Rona changed her mind upon the journey here?"
"As you did upon your arrival," was the instant retort.
Denzil looked crestfallen.
"Rona discovered," went on Felix, "upon the way here, that she had
done what many a very young girl does--she had mistaken gratitude for
love. But, having made this mistake, she was determined to abide by
it, and at all costs to keep her faith to you. She is, however,
absolved from her allegiance I think, by the scene I witnessed just
now in the garden."
There was a pause. "Come, Denzil," said Felix, composedly, "do you
suppose that I want to quarrel with you for a slip which gives me my
happiness? Let us never speak of this again. And let me assure you
that never, in all the future, shall you hear a word from either of
us of what has happened. Nobody but Vronsky, Rona, and I know that
any engagement existed between you; and we shall never speak of it to
anybody. I wish you happiness with all my heart."
* * * * * * *
The Governor had, as we know, previously received a hint from
Vronsky. But, in his satisfaction at the engagement, he willingly
accepted the Russian's assurance that he had been completely mistaken.
To Aunt Bee, at St. Petersburg, the news came as a shock.
Upon the previous day she had received a letter, forwarded from
Normansgrave, and written by no less a person than Rankin Leigh
himself. He wrote to say that he felt sure, judging by Miss Rawson's
action in removing his great-niece from the vicinity directly she
found that he was there, that his hopes of an old age soothed by her
care and affection were destined to remain unrealized. As it might,
however, be important to the family, in view of the deep interest
they seemed to take in the girl, to know more of her antecedents, he
offered to go into the matter thoroughly, if his expenses were
guaranteed, and a certain sum over and above paid to him.
At the time of receiving this letter Aunt Bee was fully persuaded
that Denzil would marry Rona; and it seemed to her most desirable
that all that could be ascertained about her should come to light
before things were irrevocable. She considered that Rankin Leigh had
most probably means of coming at the truth, or sources of
information, which they had not; and she wrote empowering him to make
inquiries, and mentioning the sum she was prepared to pay for his
services.
Hardly had she done this, when she received the startling news of
Denzil's faithlessness and the double engagement.
It was an occasion upon which the good lady became vividly sensible
of the mixture of motives which exists in the best of us.
She was really attached to Rona; yet it was impossible to deny that
there was a certain sensation of pleasure or gratified family pride
that the new mistress of Normansgrave would bring a suitable dower,
and that she boasted a noble pedigree, instead of being, however
attractive, a Girl from Nowhere.
It was arranged that the two couples, with Miss Forester as chaperon,
should all come to St. Petersburg together. There Felix and Rona
would be married, and Nadia and Miss Forester accompany Denzil and
his aunt to England, that the Russian girl might have a sight of her
new home before returning to Russia in the winter for her own wedding.
Before they arrived Miss Rawson was in possession of all that could
ever be known of Veronica's origin.
Rankin Leigh succeeded in ascertaining that her mother had been
secretly married to John Mauleverer. The young man had taken this
step, as is frequently done by the weak, hoping against hope that
some chance of avowing his marriage without incurring the displeasure
of his parents might arise. He was a delicate, timid young man. The
strain of the position, the anguish of knowing that the unconscious
parents were arranging another match for their son, was too much for
the unacknowledged wife, who fretted herself ill in her solitude, and
died when her baby was six months old.
The young father, thus released, married almost immediately the lady
chosen by his parents. He placed his daughter in the Convent School,
keeping her existence a secret to the last. He probably intended to
provide for the child, but took no steps to do so. He was still a
young man when his death occurred, very unexpectedly. He left two
sons by his second wife.
The discovery of the marriage certificate putting it beyond doubt
that Rona was legally his daughter, Rankin Leigh thought that the
Mauleverers, if approached, must be willing, if not to acknowledge
her, at least to make her some allowance.
Over this information Miss Rawson pondered much in the solitude which
she had to endure before the young people joined her.
The Girl from Nowhere was then, as she had always felt, of good
blood. The race instinct had not deceived Aunt Bee, and she felt a
pardonable pride in realizing this.
She wondered how far Denzil had, unconsciously, been influenced by
the obscurity of origin of the girl he had befriended. His aunt,
reflecting as we have seen upon the mixed nature of human motive,
thought it possible that the fact might have turned the scale for him
without his being conscious of its weight.
She laid side by side the photo of Nadia and the photo of Rona, and
marveled as she reflected that Denzil had chosen the alien type.
She could not tell whether Rona was happy. She was haunted by the
idea that she must have stood aside upon finding that Denzil had
changed his mind, and that it had not been possible for her to evade
an engagement with the younger brother.
Altogether, in her lonely sojourn in the Russian capital the maiden
aunt went through a good deal.
It was with more agitation than she remembered to have experienced in
her sixty years that she awaited the arrival of the party from
Savlinsky.
A very brief survey, however, sufficed to convince her of the
happiness of Felix and Rona. There was no mistaking the light in the
girl's eyes, nor the significance of her added bloom and sweetness.
With regard to Denzil she was not so sure. When she actually saw the
lady upon whom he had fixed his mature affections, she was invaded
with a wonder as to what they would make of a life together in
England in the provinces.
Nadia was lovely, and in her presence he was evidently so moved out
of himself that he could not reason, he could only feel. But his
temperament was wholly unromantic, because unimaginative. As time
went on, would he be able to sustain the standard of feeling which
the highly-wrought, emotional girl demanded?
Aunt Bee fell back upon the comforting thought that such girls, when
touched by marriage and motherhood, often settle down into quite
humdrum persons. Meanwhile, the troubling of his whole being which
the Squire was undergoing was no doubt an excellent thing for him.
Had he married Rona, he would--nay, he must--have remained King
Cophetua to the end of the chapter, horribly pleased with himself.
If anything would ennoble his character, the experience of being
Nadia's husband would be likely to do it. It was better so.
Before their marriage Miss Rawson took an opportunity privately to
tell Felix and Rona all that she had learned from Rankin Leigh.
They listened with interest, and Rona was evidently gratified to
ascertain that she had no need to be ashamed of her mother.
Aunt Bee suggested that it might be well to announce her existence,
or in some way approach her father's family, since there was no doubt
at all of her being the eldest daughter of John Mauleverer.
Rona turned to Felix, as usual; he to her. Their eyes met, and they
smiled.
"As Rona likes, of course," said Felix, "but I hardly see any reason
for our troubling them. The present Mrs. Mauleverer apparently knows
nothing at all of her late husband's former marriage. Would not the
disclosure wound her, cruelly and unnecessarily? We have nothing to
ask from them. Affection they are not likely to bestow, money we do
not want. Were Rona's father living, it might be her duty to go to
him. As it is, there does not seem to be a question of duty.
Moreover, if they are such a high and mighty set of people, how would
they like to know that she was married to a man of my record?"
Rona turned to him, her face alive with championship.
"I want nothing," said she, "from my father's people. My name is
neither Leigh nor Mauleverer: it is Vanston. But, for all that, one
day I shall go and see them, and let them know who I am, simply in
order that they may have the privilege of knowing--_my husband_."
THE END
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