“Good news?” Did she faintly echo my words? or, as her face, from which all color had passed, peered into mine, and searched it in infinite hope and infinite fear, did our two minds speak without need of physical lips? “Good news?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “He is alive. The Indians did not — —”
“Alfred!” Her cry rang through the room, and with it I caught her in my arms as she fell. Beard and long hair, and scar and sunburn, and strange dress — these which had deceived others were no disguise to her — my wife. I bore her gently to the couch, and hung over her in a new paroxysm of fear. “A doctor! Quick! A doctor!” I cried to Mrs. Williams, who was already kneeling beside her. “Do not tell me,” I added piteously, “that I have killed her!”
“No! no! no!” the good woman answered, the tears running down her face. “Joy does not kill!”
An hour later this fear had been lifted from me, and I was walking up and down the library alone with my thankfulness; glad to be alone, yet more glad, more thankful still, when John came in with a beaming face. “You have come to tell me,” I cried eagerly, pleased that the tidings had come by his lips, “to go to her? That she will see me?”
“Her ladyship is sitting up,” he replied.
“And Lord Wetherby?” I asked, pausing at the door to put the question. “He left the house at once?”
“Yes, my lord, Mr. Wigram has been gone some time.”
A BLORE MANOR EPISODE.
Not very remarkable was this courtship: there was nothing very strange about it, or more romantic than is apt to be the case with such things. I doubt not that since the daughters of the children of men were wooed, there have been many millions of such May-time passages of greater interest, and that countless Pauls and Virginias have plucked the sweet spring flowers together amid more picturesque surroundings. Every matron — and some maids, if they will, though we deprecate the omen — can recall at least one wooing which she can vouch as a thousand million times more extraordinary than that of my commonplace hero and heroine. That is so: but for that very reason let her read of this one, and taking off the cover of her own potpourri savor some faint scent of the dewy roses of the past springtime.
It had its origin in the 12:10 down train from Euston to Holyhead, which carried, among other passengers, Charles Maitland of the Temple, barrister by theory and idler by, or for want of, practice. He traveled first-class. When you come to know him better you will understand how superfluous was this last piece of information. Ten minutes before the train was due out, he arrived at the station in a hansom. A silk hat, a well-fitting light overcoat — the weather, for March, was mild — gray trousers, and brown gaiters over his patent-leather boots were the most salient details of a costume of which the chief characteristic was an air of perfect correctness. At the bookstall he did not linger, culling with loving eyes the backs of many books, and reveling in his choice with florin in hand, as do second-class passengers, but without hesitation he purchased a Saturday Review and a Cornhill Magazine. After he had taken his seat a Smith’s boy invited him to select from a tray, upon which glowed half a dozen novels; but he gazed sublimely into vacancy over the boy’s head; who soon left him, and prompted by a vengeful spirit only inferior to his precocious knowledge of passenger nature, directed upon him the attacks of two kindred sprites with Banbury cakes and British sherry. The window was slight protection against their shrill voices, but soon the train started and freed him from them. He changed his hat for a brown deer-stalker, and having the compartment to himself, had recourse to his own thoughts. It was not unlikely, he told himself, that he had been precipitate in undertaking this journey. An Easter, coming somewhat early, seemed to have forestalled his wonted invitations for that season: and, to stay in London being out of the question, he had accepted Tom Quaritch’s offer. He began to have doubts of the wisdom of this course now, but it was too late. He was bound for Tom Quaritch’s. He had known something of Tom at college; and recently he had done him a slight service in town. No more genial soul than the latter existed, and he did not rest satisfied until he had won from Maitland a half promise to come and see his beagles at Easter. At the time our traveler had but the remotest idea of doing so. He did not know enough of Tom’s people, while to have the acquaintance of the right people and of no one else was part of his creed. But now he was between the horns of a dilemma. These people, of whom he knew nothing, might not be the right people; that was one horn. The other consisted in the fact that to spend a vacation in town was not the thing. When we have chosen our horn it is natural it should seem the sharper of the two. Mr. Charles Maitland frowned as he cut the pages of his Cornhill. And then he made up his mind to two things. Firstly, to bring his stay at Blore Manor within the smallest possible limits, and secondly, to comport himself while there with such a formal courtesy as should encourage only the barest familiarity.
At Stafford he had to change into another train, which he did, even as he cut his magazine, with characteristic precision and coolness. And so he reached Blore Station about half-past five, still neat and unsullied, with all the aroma of the street of scents about him.
He let down the window and put out his head. The country thereabouts was flat and uninteresting, the farming untidy, the fences low, yet straggling. A short distance away a few roofs peeping forth from a clump of trees, above which the smoke gently curled, marked the village. The station consisted of a mere shed and a long, bare platform. There were but five persons visible, and of these one was a porter, and one a man servant in a quiet, countrified livery. The latter walked quickly toward him, but was forestalled by three girls, the other occupants of the platform, who, at sight of the stranger, came tearing from the far end of it at a headlong pace.
“Here he is! Here he is!” cried the foremost, her shrill voice drawing a dozen heads to the windows of the train. She owed her success to an extempore tug in the form of an excited bull terrier, which, dragging violently at a strap attached to her wrist, jerked her after him much as if she had been a kettle tied to his tail. She might be anything between twenty and five-and-twenty — a tiny little creature of almost fairylike proportions. Her color was high and her hair brown; she had curiously opaque brown eyes, bright as well as opaque. Gloves she had none, and her hair was disordered by her struggles with the dog. But, after all, the main impression she made upon Maitland was that she was excessively small. He had no eyes for the others at present. But one, owing to the reckless method of her progression, gave him a dim notion of being all legs.
“You are Mr. Maitland, are you not?” the first comer began volubly, though loss of breath interfered a little with the symmetry of her sentences. “Tom had to attend a meeting of the fox committee at Annerley. I’m Maggie Quaritch, and this is Dubs — I beg your pardon, how silly of me — Joan, I mean, and this is Agnes. Why, child, what have you done with your hat? Pick it up at once! What wild things Mr. Maitland will think us!”
The youngest girl, whose hat was lying upon the platform some distance away, hung her head in a very pretty attitude of shy gaucherie. She was about fifteen — rising sixteen in her brother’s phrase — and taller than the elder girls, with a peculiarly pale complexion, greenish-gray eyes, and a mass of brownish-red hair. Her loosely made dress was more in consonance with her style than Maitland, staggering under the shock of such a reception, had time or mind to observe. He formally acknowledged the introductions, but words did not come easily to him. He was dumfounded. He was so unaccustomed to this, or to people like these.
“And we must not forget Bill,” resumed Miss Quaritch, if possible, faster than before. “Isn’t he a beauty now, Mr. Maitland? Look at his chest, look at his head, look at his eyes. Yes, he lost that one in a fight with Jack Madeley’s retriever, and I’m afraid the sight of the other is going, but he’s the most beautiful, loveliest, faithfullest dog in the whole world for all that, and his mother loves him, she does!” All in a shrill tone, rising a note perhaps with the final words.
The train was moving out. The last that the twelve faces, still glued to the carriage windows, beheld of the scene was Miss Quaritch rapturously kissing and hugging the bull terrier, while the Londoner looked on sheepishly. He was horribly conscious of the presence of those grinning faces and suffered as much until the train left as if the onlookers had been a dozen of his club comrades. Whereas the fact was that they found whatever amusement the scene afforded them not in the girl’s enthusiasm — she was young enough to gush prettily — but in the strange gentleman’s awkward consciousness.
“Now, Mr. Maitland, shall Abiah drive you up in the dog cart, or will you walk with us? Agnes!” this suddenly in a loud scream to the youngest girl, who had moved away, “you can let out the dogs! Down, Juno! Go down, Jack o’ Pack! Roy, you ill-conditioned little dog, you are always quarreling! I’m afraid they will make you in a dreadful pickle.”
Indeed it seemed to Maitland that they would. An avalanche of scurrying dogs descended upon him from some receptacle where they had been penned. He had a vision of a red Irish setter with soft brown eyes, not unlike to, but far finer than Miss Maggie’s, with its paws momentarily upon the breast of his overcoat; of a couple of wiry fox terriers skirmishing and snarling round his trousers, and of a shy, lop-eared beagle puppy casting miserable glances at them from an outside place. And then the party got under way in some sort of order. At first Maitland had much ado to answer yes and no.
He was still bewildered by these things, crushed, confounded.
He could have groaned as he sedately explained at what time he left Euston, and where he changed. He was conscious that when their attention was not demanded by the pack of dogs, the girls were covertly scrutinizing him; but in his present state of mind, it mattered not a straw to him whether they were calling him a prig, and a “stick,” and affected, and supercilious, or were admiring half in scorn the fit of his clothes and boots, and his lordly air. All these remarks were in fact made by some one or other of them before the day was over. But he was, and would have been, supremely indifferent to their criticisms.
The weight of the conversation did not fall heavily upon him: indeed, when Miss Quaritch had a share in it, no one else was overburdened. And from time to time they met upon the road old women or children to whom the girls had always something to say. It was, “Well, Mrs. Marjoram, and so the donkey is better,” or, “Now, Johnny, get along home to your mother,” or, “How are you, daddy?” in the high-pitched key so trying to the cockney’s ear.
In these parleys Joan, the second girl, was foremost. Maitland glanced at her. A young man may be very fastidious, but neck-ribbons awry and brown hair in rich disorder do not entirely close his eyes to a maiden’s comeliness. It would be strange if they did, were she such an one as Joan Quaritch. Not tall, yet tall enough, with a full, rounded figure, to which her dress hardly did, hardly could do, justice, she moved with the grace and freedom of perfect health. Her fair complexion could afford to have its clearness marred by a freckle or two, such as hers, mere clots in cream; and if her features were not perfect, yet a nose too straight and a chin too heavy were more than redeemed by great gray eyes that, sunny or tearful, could be nothing but true — eyes whose frankness and good fellowship aggravated the wounds they inflicted. Why she was called “Dubs” I cannot tell. Perhaps no one can. But, in her good nature and her truth, her simple pride and independence, it suited her.
He had just, to quote the language of this cynic’s thoughts, catalogued the last of the Graces, when the party reached the house, which stood some way back from the road. Tom Quaritch had just returned, and welcomed the guest warmly; his mother met Maitland at the drawing-room door. She was a singularly comely woman, stately and somewhat formal. Her greeting so differed from that of her daughters that the visitor found himself speculating upon the extraordinary flightiness of the late Mr. Quaritch. Wherein I doubt not he did him injustice.
At dinner our hero had in some degree recovered himself, and he told them the latest news of the theaters, the clubs, and the book world, and while their ignorance filled him with a wonder he did not hide, their attention propitiated him. He talked well, and if he was inclined to lord it a little, a shrewd word from Mrs. Quaritch, or a demure glance from Miss Joan’s eyes, would lower his didactic tone. The youngest girl promised to be an especial thorn in his side.
“Does everyone in London wear shiny boots in the daytime, Mr. Maitland?” she asked suddenly, à propos des bottes, and nothing else.
“A considerable number do, Miss Agnes.”
“What sort of people? No, I’m not being rude, mother.”
“Well, I hardly know how to answer that. The idle people, perhaps.” He smiled indulgently, which aggravated the young lady. She replied, crumbling her bread the while in an absent, meditative way, her eyes innocently fixed on his face:
“Then you are one of the idle people, Mr. Maitland? I don’t think I like idle people.”
“How singularly unselfish of you, my dear Agnes!” put in Joan vigorously — more vigorously than politely.
Maitland’s last reflection as he got into bed was that he was quite out of place here. These might be very nice people in their way, but not in his way. He must make his visit as short as possible, and forget all about it as quickly as he could. The girls would be insufferable when they came to know him familiarly. Good gracious! fancy young ladies who had never heard of “John Inglesant,” or of W. D. Howells’ books, and confused the Grosvenor Gallery with the Water Color Exhibition! and read Longfellow! and had but vague ideas of the æsthetic! Miss Joan was pretty too, yes, really pretty, and had fine eyes and a pleasant voice, and fine eyes — yes, fine eyes. And with this thought he fell comfortably asleep.
He came down next morning to find her alone in the breakfast room. A short-skirted beagling costume of scarlet and blue allowed him a glimpse of neat ankles in scarlet hose. She was kneeling before the fire playing with Roy. Her brown wavy hair fell in a heavy loose loop upon her neck, and there was something wonderfully bright and fresh in her whole appearance.
“How quickly you have fallen in with our barbarous ways!” she said with a smile, as she rose. “I did not expect you to be up for hours yet.”
“I generally breakfast at nine, and it is nearly that now,” he answered, annoyed by some hint of raillery in her tone, and yet unable to conceal a glance of admiration. “I think I must adopt the Blore breakfast hour; it seems, Miss Joan, to agree with you all so well.”
“Yes,” was the indifferent reply; “we get the first of the three rewards for early rising. The other two we leave for our betters.”
And she turned away with a little nod as the others came in. In five minutes a noisy, cheerful breakfast was in progress, and the chances of finding a hare formed the all-engrossing subject of conversation.
On this calm gray morning, warm rather than cold, the little pack, to the great delight of the household, found quickly, and found well. No October leveret was before them, but a good, stout old hare, who gave them a ringing run of two hours, the pleasure of which was not materially diminished when she baffled them at last in the mysterious way these old hares affect and huntsmen fail to fathom. The visitor performed creditably, though in indifferent training. At Oxford he had been something of a crack, and could still upon occasion forget to keep his boots clean and his clothes intact.
Returning home, Maitland found himself again with Joan. The heat and pleasure of the chase had for the time melted his reserve and thawed his resolution. He talked well and freely to her of a great London hospital over which one of the house surgeons had recently taken him; of the quiet and orderliness of the lone, still wards; of the feeling that came over him there that life was all suffering and death; and how quickly in the bustle of the London streets, where the little world of the hospital seemed distant and unreal, this impression faded away. She listened eagerly, and he, tasting a stealthy and stolen pleasure in seeing how deep and pitiful the gray eyes could grow, prolonged his tale.
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“I have enjoyed hearing about it so much,” she said gratefully, as they entered the village. And indeed she had passed several people upon the road without a word of greeting. “I hope to be a nurse soon. The dear mother does not think me old enough yet.”
“You are going to be a nurse!” he said in tones of such incredulous surprise that the amusement which first appeared in her face changed to annoyance.
“Why not? One does not need a knowledge of art and the newest books for that,” she sharply answered.
“Perhaps not,” he said feebly. “But after such a life as this, it — the change I mean — would be so complete.”
She looked at him, an angry gleam in her eyes, and the color high in her cheeks.
“Do you think, Mr. Maitland, that because we run wild — oh, no, you have not said so — and seem to do nothing but enjoy ourselves, we are incapable of anything beyond hunting and playing tennis, and feeding the dogs and the hens and the chickens? That we cannot have a thought beyond pleasure, or a wish to do good like other people — people in London? That we can never look beyond Blore — though Blore, I can tell you, would manage ill without some of us! — nor have an aspiration above the kennels and the — and the stables? If you do think so, I trust you are wrong.”
He would have answered humbly, but she was gone into the house in huge indignation, leaving our friend strangely uncomfortable. It was just twenty-four hours since his arrival: the opinion of one at least of the madcaps had ceased to be a matter of indifference to him. The change occurred to himself as he mounted the stairs, so that he laughed when alone in his room and resolved to keep away from that girl for the future. How handsome she had looked when she was flying out at him, and how generous seemed her anger even at the time! Somehow the prospect of the four days he had still to spend at Blore was not so depressing as at first. Certainly the vista was shortened by one day, and that may have been the reason.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 784
