The Half-Hearted

by John Buchan

  CHAPTER XV

  THE NEMESIS OF A COWARD

  Two days later the Andrews drove up the glen to Etterick, taking withthem the unwilling Mr. Wishart. Alice had escaped the ordeal with somefeigned excuse, and the unfortunate Mr. Thompson, deeply grieving, hadbeen summoned by telegram from cricket to law. The lady had chatteredall the way up the winding moorland road, crying out banalities aboutthe pretty landscape, or questioning her very ignorant companions aboutthe dwellers in Etterick. She was full of praises for the house when itcame in view; it was "quaint," it was "charming," it was everythinginappropriate. But the amiable woman's prattle deserted her when shefound herself in the cold stone hall with the great portraits and thelack of all modern frippery. It was so plainly a man's house, soclearly a place of tradition, that her pert modern speech seemed for onemoment a fatuity.

  It was an off-day for the shooters, and so for a miracle there were menin the drawing-room at tea-time. The hostess for the time was an auntof Lewis's, a certain Mrs. Alderson, whose husband (the famous big-gamehunter) had but recently returned from the jaws of a Zambesi lion.George's sister, Lady Clanroyden, a tall, handsome girl in a whitefrock, was arranging flowers in a bowl, and on the sill of the openwindow two men were basking in the sun. From the inner drawing-roomthere came an echo of voices and laughter. The whole scene was sunnyand cheerful, youth and age, gay frocks and pleasant faces amid the oldtapestry and mahogany of a moorland house.

  Mr. Andrews sat down solemnly to talk of the weather with the two men,who found him a little dismal. One--he of the Zambesi lion episode--wasgrizzled, phlegmatic, and patient, and in no way critical of hiscompany. So soon he was embarked on extracts from his own experience towhich Mr. Andrews, who had shares in some company in the neighbourhood,listened with flattering attention. Mrs. Alderson set herself toentertain Mr. Wishart, and being a kindly, simple person, found thetask easy. They were soon engaged in an earnest discussion ofunsectarian charities.

  Lady Clanroyden, with an unwilling sense of duty, devoted herself toMrs. Andrews. That simpering matron fell into a vein of confidencesand in five brief minutes had laid bare her heart. Then came thenarrative of her recent visit to the Marshams, and the inevitablemention of the Hestons.

  "Oh, you know the Hestons?" said Lady Clanroyden, brightening.

  "Very well indeed." The lady smiled, looking round to make sure thatLewis was not in the room.

  "Julia is here, you know. Julia, come and speak to your friends."

  A dark girl in mourning came forward to meet the expansive smile of Mrs.Andrews. Earnestly the lady hoped that she remembered the single briefmeeting on which she had built a fictitious acquaintance, and wasreassured when the newcomer shook hands with her pleasantly. Truth totell, Lady Julia had no remembrance of her face, but was toogood-natured to be honest.

  "And how is your dear mother? I was so sorry to hear from a mutualfriend that she had been unwell." How thankful she was that she readeach week various papers which reported people's doings!

  A sense of bewilderment lurked in her heart. Who was this LewisHaystoun who owned such a house and such a kindred? The hypothesis ofmoney made in coal seemed insufficient, and with much curiosity she setherself to solve the problem.

  "Is Mr. Haystoun coming back to tea?" she asked by way of a preface.

  "No, he has had to go to Gledsmuir. We are all idle this afternoon, buthe has a landowner's responsibilities."

  "Have his family been here long? I seem never to have heard the name."

  Lady Clanroyden looked a little surprised. "Yes, they have been rathera while. I forget how many centuries, but a good many. It was aboutthis place, you know, that the old ballad of 'The Riding of Etterick'was made, and a Haystoun was the hero."

  Mrs. Andrews knew nothing about old ballads, but she feigned a happyreminiscence.

  "It is so sad his being beaten by Mr. Stocks," she declared. "Ofcourse an old county family should provide the members for a district.They have the hearts of the people with them."

  "Then the hearts of the people have a funny way of revealingthemselves," Lady Clanroyden laughed. "I'm not at all sorry that Lewiewas beaten. He is the best man in the world, but one wants to shake himup. His motto is 'Thole,' and he gets too few opportunities of'tholing.'"

  "You all call him 'Lewie,'" commented the lady. "How popular he mustbe!"

  Mabel Clanroyden laughed. "I have known him ever since I was a smallgirl in a short frock and straight-brushed hair. He was never anythingelse than Lewie to his friends. Oh, here is my wandering brother and myonly son returned," and she rose to catch up a small, self-possessed boyof some six years, who led the flushed and reluctant George in tow.

  The small boy was very dirty, ruddy and cheerful. He had torn hisblouse, and scratched his brow, and the crown of his straw hat hadparted company with the brim.

  "George," said his sister severely, "have you been corrupting themanners of my son? Where have you been?"

  The boy--he rejoiced in the sounding name of Archibald--slapped a smallleg with a miniature whip, and counterfeited with great skill the poseof the stable-yard. He slowly unclenched a smutty fist and revealedthree separate shillings.

  "I won um myself," he explained.

  "Is it highway robbery?" asked his mother with horrified eyes."Archibald, have you stopped a coach, or held up a bus or anything ofthe kind?"

  The child unclenched his hand again, beamed on his prize, smiledknowingly at the world, and shut it.

  "What has the dreadful boy been after? Oh, tell me, George, please. Iwill try to bear it."

  "We fell in with a Sunday-school picnic along in the glen, and Archiemade me take him there. And he had tea--I hope the little chap won't beill, by the by. And he made a speech or a recitation or something ofthe sort. Nobody understood it, but it went down like anything."

  "And do you mean to say that the people gave him money, and you allowedhim to take it?" asked an outraged mother.

  "He won it," said George. "Won it in fair fight. He was second in therace under twelve, and first in the race under ten. They gave him adecent handicap, and he simply romped home. That chap can run, Mabel.He tried the sack race, too, but the first time he slipped altogetherinside the thing and had to be taken out, yelling. But he stuck to itlike a Trojan, and at the second shot he got started all right, andwould have won it if he hadn't lost his head and rolled down a bank. Heisn't scratched much, considering he fell among whins. That alsoexplains the state of his hat."

  "George, you shall never, never, as long as I live, take my son out withyou again. It is a wonder the poor child escaped with his life. Youhave not a scrap of feeling. I must take the boy away or he will shameme before everybody. Come and talk to Mrs. Andrews, George. May Iintroduce my brother, Mr. Winterham?"

  George, who wanted to smoke, sat down unwillingly in the chair which hissister had left. The lady, whose airs and graces were all for men, puton her most bewitching manner.

  "Your sister and I have just been talking about this exquisite place,Mr. Winterham. It must be delightful to live in such a centre of oldromance. That lovely 'Riding of Etterick' has been running in my headall the way up."

  George privately wondered at the confession. The peculiarly tragic andghastly fragments which made up "The Riding of Etterick," seemedscarcely suited to haunt a lady's memory.

  "Had you a long drive?" he asked in despair for a topic.

  "Only from Glenavelin."

  He awoke to interest. "Are you staying at Glenavelin just now? TheWisharts are in it, are they not? We were a great deal about the placewhen the Manorwaters were there."

  "Oh yes. I have heard about Lady Manorwater from Alice Wishart. Shemust be a charming woman; Alice cannot speak enough about her."

  George's face brightened. "Miss Wishart is a great friend of mine, anda most awfully good sort."

  "And as you are a great friend of hers I think I may tell you a greatsecret," and the lady patted him playfully. "Our pretty Alice is goingto be married."


  George was thoroughly roused to attention. "Who is the man?" he askedsharply.

  "I think I may tell you," said Mrs. Andrews, enjoying her sense ofimportance. "It is Mr. Stocks, the new member."

  George restrained with difficulty a very natural oath. Then he lookedat his informant and saw in her face only silliness and truth. For thegood woman had indeed persuaded herself of the verity of her fancy. Mr.Stocks had told her that he had her father's consent and good wishes,and misinterpreting the girl's manner she had considered the affairsettled.

  It was unfortunate that Mr. Wishart at this moment showed such obvioussigns of restlessness that the lady rose to take her leave, otherwiseGeorge might have learned the truth. After the Glenavelin party hadgone he wandered out to the lawn, pulling his moustache in vastperplexity and cursing the twisted world. He had no guess at Lewis'smanner of wooing; to him it had seemed the simple, straightforward lovewhich he thought beyond resistance. And now, when he learned of thismelancholy issue, he was sore at heart for his friend.

  He was awakened from his reverie by Lewis himself, who, having riddenstraight to the stables, was now sauntering towards the house. A trimman looks at his best in riding clothes, and Lewis was no exception. Hewas flushed with sun and motion, his spirits were high, for all thejourney he had been dreaming of a coming meeting with Alice, and thehope which had suddenly increased a thousand-fold. George marked hismood, and with a regret at his new role caught him by the arm andchecked him.

  "I say, old man, don't go in just yet. I want to tell you something,and I think you had better hear it now."

  Lewis turned obediently, amazed by the gravity of his friend's face.

  "Some people came up from Glenavelin this afternoon and among them aMrs. Andrews, whom I had a talk to. She told me that Al--Miss Wishartis engaged to that fellow Stocks."

  Lewis's face whitened and he turned away his eyes. He could not creditit. Two days ago she had been free; he could swear it; he rememberedher eyes at parting. Then came the thought of his blindness, and in agreat horror of self-mistrust he seemed to see throughout it all hiscriminal folly. He, poor fool, had been pleasing himself with dreams ofa meeting, when all the while the other man had been the real lover.She had despised him, spared not a thought for him save as a pleasingidler; and he--that he should ever have ventured for one second to hope!Curiously enough, for the first time he thought of Stocks with respect;to have won the girl seemed in itself the proof of dignity and worth.

  "Thanks very much for telling me. I am glad I know. No, I don't thinkI'll go into the house yet."

  * * * * *

  The days passed and Alice waited with anxious heart for the coming ofthe very laggard Lewis. To-day he will come, she said each morning; andevening found her--poor heart!--still expectant. She told herself athousand times that it was sheer folly. He meant nothing, it was a merefashion of speech; and then her heart would revolt and bid common sensebe silent. He came indeed with some of the Etterick party on a formalcall, but this was clearly not the fulfilment of his promise. So thegirl waited and despaired, while the truant at Etterick was breaking hisheart for the unattainable.

  Mr. Stocks, having won the official consent, conducted his suit withcommendable discretion. Suit is the word for the performance, so fullwas it of elaborate punctilios. He never intruded upon her unhappiness.A studied courtesy, a distant thoughtfulness were his only compliments.But when he found her gayer, then would he strive with subtle delicaciesof manner to make clear the part he desired to play.

  The girl saw his kindness and was grateful. In the revulsion againstthe Andrews he seemed a link with the more pleasant sides of life, andsoon in her despair and anger his modest merits took heroic proportionsin her eyes. She forgot her past dislike; she thought only of this, thesimple good man, contrasted with the showy and fickle-hearted--truemetal against glittering tinsel. His very weaknesses seemed homely andvenial. He was of her own world, akin to the things which deep down inher soul she knew she must love to the last. It is to the credit of theman's insight that he saw the mood and took pains to foster it.

  Twice he asked her to marry him. The first time her heart was stillsore with disappointment and she refused--yet half-heartedly.

  He waited his time and when the natural cheerfulness of her temper wasbeginning to rise, he again tried his fortune.

  "I cannot," she cried. "I cannot. I like you very much, but oh, it istoo much to ask me to marry you."

  "But I love you with all my heart, Alice." And the honesty of his toneand the distant thought of a very different hope brought the tears toher eyes.

  He had forgotten all pompous dreams and the stilted prospects with whichhe had aforetime hoped to beguile his wife. The man was plain andsimple now, a being very much on fire with an honest passion. He mayhave left her love-cold, but he touched the sympathy which in a truewoman is love's nearest neighbour. Before she knew herself she hadpromised, and had been kissed respectfully and tenderly by her delightedlover. For a moment she felt something like joy, and then, with adreadful thought of the baselessness of her pleasure, walked slowlyhomewards by his side.

  * * * * *

  The next morning Alice rose with a dreary sense of the irrevocable. Adoor seemed to have closed behind her, and the future stretched beforeher in a straight dusty path with few nooks and shadows. This was notthe blithe morning of betrothal she had looked for. The rapturousoutlook on life which she had dreamed of was replaced by a cold andbusiness-like calculation of profits. The rose garden of the "godunconquered in battle" was exchanged for a very shoddy and hucksteringparadise.

  Mrs. Andrews claimed her company all the morning, and with thepertinacity of her kind soon guessed the very obvious secret. Hergushing congratulations drove the girl distracted. She praised the goodStocks, and Alice drank in the comfort of such words with greedy ears.From one young man she passed to another, and hung lovingly over theperfections of Mr. Haystoun. "He has the real distinction, dear," shecried, "which you can never mistake. It only belongs to old blood andit is quite inimitable. His friends are so charming, too, and you canalways tell a man by his people. It is so pleasant to fall in with oldacquaintances again. That dear Lady Clanroyden promised to come oversoon. I quite long to see her, for I feel as if I had known her forages."

  After lunch Alice fled the house and sought her old refuge--the hills.There she would find the deep solitude for thought. She was notbroken-hearted, though she grieved now and again with a blind longing ofregret. But she was confused and shaken; the landmarks of her visionseemed to have been removed, and she had to face the grim narrowing-downof hopes which is the sternest trial for poor mortality.

  Autumn's hand was lying heavy on the hillsides. Bracken was yellowing,heather passing from bloom, and the clumps of wild-wood taking the softrusset and purple of decline. Faint odours of wood smoke seemed to flitover the moor, and the sharp lines of the hill fastnesses were drawn aswith a graving-tool against the sky. She resolved to go to the Midburnand climb up the cleft, for the place was still a centre of memory. Soshe kept for a mile to the Etterick road, till she came in view of thelittle stone bridge where the highway spans the moorland waters.

  There had been intruders in Paradise before her. Broken bottles andscraps of paper were defacing the hill turf, and when she turned to getto the water's edge she found the rushy coverts trampled on every side.From somewhere among the trees came the sound of singing--a sillymusic-hall catch. It was a sharp surprise, and the girl, in horror atthe profanation, was turning in all haste to leave.

  But the Fates had prepared an adventure. Three half-tipsy men cameswinging down the slope, their arms linked together, and bowlers setrakishly on the backs of their heads. They kept up the chorus of thesong which was being sung elsewhere, and they suited their rolling gaitto the measure.

  "For it ain't Maria," came the tender melody; and the reassuring phrasewas repeated a dozen times. Then by ill-luck they caught sight of theasto
nished Alice, and dropping their musical efforts they hailed herfamiliarly. Clearly they were the stragglers of some picnic from thetown, the engaging type of gentleman who on such occasions is drunk bymidday. They were dressed in ill-fitting Sunday clothes, great flowersbeamed from their button-holes, and after the fashion of their kindtheir waistcoats were unbuttoned for comfort. The girl tried to go backby the way she had come, but to her horror she found that she wasintercepted. The three gentlemen commanded her retreat.

  They seemed comparatively sober, so she tried entreaty. "Please, let mepass," she said pleasantly. "I find I have taken the wrong road."

  "No, you haven't, dearie," said one of the men, who from a superiorneatness of apparel might have been a clerk. "You've come the rightroad, for you've met us. And now you're not going away." And he cameforward with a protecting arm.

  Alice, genuinely frightened, tried to cross the stream and escape by theother side. But the crossing was difficult, and she slipped at theoutset and wet her ankles. One of the three lurched into the waterafter her, and withdrew with sundry oaths.

  The poor girl was in sad perplexity. Before was an ugly rush of waterand a leap beyond her strength; behind, three drunken men, their mouthsfull of endearment and scurrility. She looked despairingly to the levelwhite road for the Perseus who should deliver her.

  And to her joy the deliverer was not wanting. In the thick of the idiotshouting of the trio there came the clink-clank of a horse's feet and ayoung man came over the bridge. He saw the picture at a glance and itsmeaning; and it took him short time to be on his feet and then over thebroken stone wall to the waterside. Suddenly to the girl's delightthere appeared at the back of the roughs the inquiring, sunburnt face ofLewis.

  The men turned and stared with hanging jaws. "Now, what the dickens isthis?" he cried, and catching two of their necks he pulled their headstogether and then flung them apart.

  The three seemed sobered by the apparition. "And what the h-ll is yourbusiness?" they cried conjointly; and one, a dark-browed fellow, doubledhis fists and advanced.

  Lewis stood regarding them with a smiling face and very bright, crosseyes. "Are you by way of insulting this lady? If you weren't drunk,I'd teach you manners. Get out of this in case I forget myself."

  For answer the foremost of the men hit out. A glance convinced Lewisthat there was enough sobriety to make a fight of it. "MissWishart ... Alice," he cried, "come back and go down to the roadand see to my horse, please. I'll be down in a second."

  The girl obeyed, and so it fell out that there was no witness to thatburn-side encounter. It was a complex fight and it lasted for more thana second. Two of the men had the grace to feel ashamed of themselveshalf-way through, and retired from the contest with shaky limbs andaching faces. The third had to be assisted to his feet in the end byhis antagonist. It was not a good fight, for the three werepasty-faced, overgrown young men, in no training and stupid with liquor.But they pressed hard on Lewis for a little, till he was compelled inself-defence to treat them as fair opponents.

  He came down the road in a quarter of an hour with a huge rent in hiscoat-sleeve and a small cut on his forehead. He was warm andbreathless, still righteously indignant at the event, and half-ashamedof so degrading an encounter. He found the girl standing statue-like,holding the bridle-rein, and looking into the distance with vacant eyes.

  "Are you going back to Glenavelin, Miss Wishart?" he asked. "I think Ihad better go with you if you will allow me."

  Alice mutely assented and walked beside him while he led his horse. Hecould think of nothing to say. The whole world lay between them now,and there was no single word which either could speak without showingsome trace of the tragic separation.

  It was the girl who first broke the silence.

  "I want to thank you with all my heart," she stammered. And then by anawkward intuition she looked in his face and saw written there all thehopelessness and longing which he was striving to conceal. For onemoment she saw clearly, and then the crooked perplexities of the worldseemed to stare cruelly in her eyes. A sob caught her voice, and beforeshe was conscious of her action she laid a hand on Lewis's arm and burstinto tears.

  The sight was so unexpected that it deprived him of all power of action.Then came the fatally easy solution that it was but reaction ofover-strained nerves. Always ill at ease in a woman's presence, awoman's tears reduced him to despair. He stroked her hair gently as hewould have quieted a favourite horse.

  "I am so sorry that these brutes have frightened you. But here we areat Glenavelin gates."

  And all the while his heart was crying out to him to clasp her in hisarms, and the words which trembled on his tongue were the passionateconsolations of a lover.