When she woke next morning, a be-capped and be-aproned upper housemaid was bringing in her early cup of tea.
"Yes, milady, we 'ave hall come. Mr. 'Ooper 'e 'ave come too, milady. Indeed, if it 'adn't bin for Mr. 'Ooper, we should 'ave bin picking hup cattle in that horful Minch till hevenin'; but 'e took it on 'imself to tell the capting as master would willin' pay hextra for us to come as quick as might be. And thankful we was, milady, for some of us mightn't 'ave lived to see land."
Jane looked as if she certainly would have been one of those to succumb, and Lady Maud gave a sigh of relief.
"Tell Hooper to go to his master,--he wasn't very well last night,--and tell Josephine I shall breakfast in my room."
"Mr. 'Ooper 'ave gone to master," replied Jane in a voice which implied that the reminder was unnecessary; "and if you please, milady, Capting Weeks 'e 'ave come too. We picked 'im up with some cattle in a boat from some place as begins with an 'Hoich.'"
Lady Maud gave another sigh of relief. The sand-bags of civilization were a great protection after all; and if Captain Weeks had come, Eustace would go out shooting with him. That would give her a whole day to face the situation. Honestly, she thought far more of possible difficulties with him than with her husband. The shock had been terrible at the time, but perhaps, after all, it was an isolated offence. Heaps of men in society got drunk decently out of sight of their legal womenkind, and no one thought-- The recurrence of the phrase she had used the night before made her pause and hide her face in the pillow in sudden horror at herself and him. No! without going so far as that, one could still be rational. Edward was devoted to her, and if a wife by her influence made a better man of her husband, wherein lay the degradation? Last night--great heavens! what had come over her last night? She had been taken by surprise, placed in conditions which no one could possibly have foreseen, dragged by main force from every shelter. Her face burnt as she remembered, and yet how natural it had been! Natural and therefore absurd, ridiculous. To-day, however, was different, and so the little pencilled note from Eustace, which Josephine brought in with the breakfast, received no reply save a message to say she was perfectly well and hoped he would look after Captain Weeks, if Mr. Wilson was not able to go out. A bold parry, which made Eustace Gordon set his teeth.
Yes! to-day was different; a new heaven and a new earth. The very house transformed; for when she came down to lunch, the drawing-room was full of tables, screens, photographs, and ferns, while in the dining-room the butler stood ready to remove the silver covers, and so let loose the pent-up energies of two footmen who, with bent heads, seemed waiting for some one to say grace. Mr. Gordon, the report ran, had taken Captain Weeks to the Carbost beat, and would not be back till late. Her ladyship was to open any telegram which might come, as it would relate to the yacht. Mr. Wilson had gone to shoot rock-pigeon with the head keeper. The professor was exploring, and begged her ladyship not to wait lunch for him. So said the butler gravely as he filled her glass. Through the window she could see the Atlantic guiltless of a white feather, and her own courage rose with the outlook. As she strolled about the heathery knolls after lunch, a boy on a pony appeared with the expected telegram. "Started, should be with you to-morrow." So that was an end of one trouble. Then Cynthia Strong and some others were to come by the next boat. Will Lockhart was cruising about the coast and might look in on them at any time. There would be no more solitude; not even to-day, since there across the moor came Miss Macdonald, attired for calling, and beside her that good-looking young sailor. Lady Maud liked boys, especially handsome ones with palpable adoration in their blue eyes.
The professor, coming in very hot about tea-time, found the trio having it like children out in a bieldy bit by the burn, but with the butler solemnly presiding over the fire. A fire which gave James, the under footman, the hugest delight until his enjoyment was crushed out of him by his superior officer. For the butler knew his duty: afternoon tea was afternoon tea wherever her ladyship chose to take it; that is to say, a function at which a footman must preserve an impassive face. So poor James put on the sticks with funeral calm and burnt his fingers with great decorum.
"Here is a lady, professor," said Lady Maud,--"Miss Macdonald--Professor Endorwick,--who will tell you everything you can possibly want to know about the island. She is a mine of useful information; at least I have found her so."
That gracious voice, face, and manner had been a sort of rapture to young Rick Halmar for the last half hour, and when, after launching the others into conversation, she turned to him with the undefinable change in manner she could no more avoid in talking to men than the magnet can keep its influence, his heart gave quite a throb.
"I didn't introduce you," she said, smiling, "because I only know your Christian name; and I'm not sure of that."
"Rick! Rick Halmar," he replied with a blush which took him by surprise; for he was not as a rule self-conscious.
"Rick?" she echoed curiously.
"Eric. My father was a Norwegian. But it was a boshy name and the fellows on the Britannia called me 'Little by Little'--after the book, you know."
She laughed. "A very inappropriate name, Mr. Halmar. You must be six feet."
He shook his head. "Five feet eleven and three-quarters. It's too big for a sailor. You get in the way of the ropes and things."
"Not too big for a man--but listen! the professor is overcome already; how delightful!"
In good sooth he was actually reduced to the position of listener, an isolated assertion of interest being all the speech allowed him as Miss Willina waxed eloquent over the crass superstitions of the islanders and her own select beliefs.
Rick's face grew brimful of smiles.
"Aunt Will is as bad as the best, herself. Why, the other day I carved out a sort of devil,--a thing they worship in the Caribbees,--and she was in quite a taking because it was left out on a harp,--that's a Viking's tomb, Lady Maud. She has some rigmarole about 'tribute to the dead,' their sending back things to work evil to the living. But, do you know, Lady Maud, it's awfully rum, but I couldn't find the thing when I went to look for it yesterday morning."
"You couldn't find it? Mr. Halmar, don't speak loud; don't attract their attention by looking surprised! Was it--the devil, I mean--fearfully ugly?"
"The best I ever made."
"Had it white eyes with a shot stuck in them?"
"Lady Maud! did you find it?"
"Not I, but the professor did. It's a footstep of a discredited belief, and he is going to lecture on it to the British Association. Isn't it perfectly lovely? How we shall all laugh!"
"But you will tell him, of course?"
"Tell him! Why should I? These things are one of my chief joys in life."
Rick Halmar winced. "But don't you see, Lady Maud, it's my fault more or less? I oughtn't to go carving devils and leaving them about. It isn't fair."
She raised her eyebrows. "When you are older, Mr. Halmar, you won't be so eager to accept responsibility. By the way, does yours extend to another devil of the same sort which was found on Grâda Sands?"
He let his head drop into his hands in comic despair. "How one's sins do find one out! It must be the one Aunt Will flung into the Minch. Everything comes round sooner or later to the sands. Has the professor got it too?"
"No, Mr. Halmar. I have it."
"You! Oh, Lady Maud--I am sorry."
"You well may be. I have put it into my own room because the professor declared it was genuine--a real savage fate. No--that isn't true, so don't distress yourself. I took a fancy to it. I have a habit of taking fancies to things and to people; so there it shall remain."
Rick's face lit up. "Let me make you a better one," he began.
"I said, Mr. Halmar, that I took a fancy to it; and now, don't you think you should make your confession like a good boy?"
He made it very prettily, but with a frank enjoyment of the mistake, which was infectious. So much so, that the chief sufferer, stimulated into unusual playfulness by Miss Willina's wit, actually went into the house for his discredited belief and brought it out for her to burn.
So, with much laughter, they stood round the fire, causing poor James almost to burst under his efforts after dignity, till suddenly, with something between a chuckle and a cough, the butler himself gave way into the remark that "I 'adn't made a Guy Forks--kck-kh-kh--since 'e was a boy,--kh-kh-kh,--but if 'er ladyship pleased, Jeames could run round to the gun-room for some powder and 'e'd 'ave some squibs ready in no time."
So Numbo Jumbo was burnt with all the honours, and the butler, going back for his own tea to the housekeeper's room, hummed, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November," until the cook, with a snort, asked wherever to goodness he had picked up such a vulgar ditty.
"Now I have no doubt all you learned people think me very foolish," said Miss Willina, drawing on her gloves with the air of one who has completed a good work; "but I really am immensely relieved in my mind. I had a presentiment about that devil of Rick's; besides, these old superstitions invariably have their origin in some fundamental fact or law of Nature. Don't you think so, professor?"
"Undoubtedly, my dear madam; the Folklore Society--"
But Miss Willina had a profound contempt for all societies and proclaimed it cheerfully. "Therefore, the only remaining thing to be done," she continued, shaking her head at Rick, "is to make restitution for that naughty boy's mischief. So, if you will walk over to Eval some day, Mr. Endorwick, I will give you that bone ring with the Runic inscription about which I was telling you."
"My dear lady," cried the professor with greed in his eyes, "I really could not dream--"
"I don't want to give it to you, of course," she went on frankly; "but my brother says it should be in a museum; so you can put 'Given by Miss Macdonald through Professor Endorwick' on the ticket. And, by the bye, it was found on Grâda and Malcolm, Aig says."
Meanwhile Lady Maud had turned to Rick with a quizzical smile. "Do you accept the responsibility of my fate, Mr. Halmar? or shall I have a private auto-da-fe in my room?"
The boy's face positively shone with pleasure as he took her hand to say goodbye.
"I couldn't do anything that would bring you harm, I think--you are too--too beautiful." The absolute simplicity of the statement rendered it inoffensive, and Lady Maud laughed.
"Take your nephew away, Miss Macdonald; he is paying me compliments."
"I don't wonder at it," retorted the little lady, nodding her head, "and compliments are pleasant things; at least, I used to find them so."
"Why employ the past tense, dear lady?" said the professor with a bow, as he shook hands, whereat Miss Willina declared that the only safety lay in flight; and Lady Maud, as she went back to the house, told herself once more that to-day was very different from yesterday. This background of persiflage, with just a serious touch here and there to help out the chiaro-oscuro, suited figures in modern dress. Tailor-made figures guiltless of a wrinkle and oblivious of vitality's claim for an uncrushed organ or two.
"If her ladyship please," said Josephine, when the dressing bell brought her to her mistress' room, "Mr. 'Ooper, he desire a few word of milady."
"Hooper! didn't they say he had gone with Mr. Wilson?"
"Monsieur 'ave just return; Mr. Gordon also wid Capitaine Veek and--Mon Dieu! quel gibier! Sall I bid him come?"
Lady Maud, at the writing-table, rested her head on her hand, feeling a sudden need of courage. They had all come back, and some things must be faced before life could run smoothly once more. Eustace must be made to understand that there was to be no drifting, and her husband must consent to let her hand be on the tiller ropes.
"Well, Hooper?"
Rather a diffident-looking man; nervous too in his manner. "I am sorry to have to trouble your ladyship, but I think Dr. Haddon would wish it, under the circumstances. It is about master, your ladyship."
Her heart gave a great throb. "Your master, Hooper? Well?"
The diffident man, holding on to the doorknob as for support, cleared his throat. "It is a little difficult, my lady, and Mr. Gordon, when he spoke to me, was for saying nothing; but I have been considering the matter and I think Dr. Haddon--"
"Who is Dr. Haddon?"
"I was not quite sure if your ladyship knew--anything. But master was under Dr. Haddon for a time. It--it is for the liquor habit, my lady, and Dr. Haddon is most successful. He was most successful with master. Four years I have been with him since we came back from America, and never till last night--" he coughed slightly and paused. Lady Maud sate staring at him without a word.
"I am very sorry, my lady. The other servants will tell you how distressed I was to be absent from my duty. It arose from my not understanding the porter's accent, my lady; but it will not occur again. I mean, my lady, that--ahem--nothing of the sort will occur again. So there is no need for--for distress or anxiety."
"You mean that as long as--as you are with Mr. Wilson--" so far she managed in a cold hard voice; then came silence.
"Just so, my lady--it is a question of influence. I undertake the entire responsibility. There is really no cause for alarm."
"That--that will do, Hooper; you can go." Her one thought was to get rid of this man, this servant, who seemed to have reached out his common hand and touched her very soul. He paused, still with his hand on the door.
"I beg pardon, my lady, but there is one thing. Dr. Haddon's system is based on influence. It does not allow any appeal to--ahem--to the moral sense. Therefore, if your ladyship could kindly treat the mistake of yesterday with silence, it would be better--for the system. Dr. Haddon ignores failure on principle, it--it is part of the system; and any interference may be dangerous. Therefore, if your ladyship--"
"I quite understand. You can go."
When she was left alone, she sate staring on at the door he had closed behind him. Behind whom? why the man who--oh! it was an impossible, an incredible, position! She had married her husband without caring for him, but she had married him also because she intended that he should care for her. And now! What was he but a puppet, dependent on this man? She had not married Edward Wilson, but Wilson-cum-Haddon, -cum-Hooper. And Eustace knew it! Her husband, the possible father of her children! She had known all along that he was a weak man, but that the very possibility of his living decently lay in the will of another was hopeless, horrible degradation. She had often in society talked lightly of the part hypnotism was to play in the future regeneration of the world; but now that even a suspicion of it touched her inner life, it left her in wild revolt. When all was said and done, that man to whom they paid so many pounds a year was master of her fate. It should never be! Better, far better, that her husband should be drunk; and yet what right had she to interfere?
"It will be too late to make milady charmante," suggested Josephine, coming in, reproachfully.
She stood up hastily with clenched hands. Eustace should not see her degradation--she would show him--
"There is plenty of time," she said coldly. "Put on my diamonds, Josephine--that dress is dull. They can wait if I am not ready."
She was worth waiting for, and Mr. Wilson's weak face brightened as she went up to him with easy grace. "Did you have a good day, Edward? I saw Hooper for a moment, but I forgot to ask him about the sport."
She failed in her object for all her bravado. The eyes she sought to blind saw too clearly.
"So Louisa comes to-morrow," she said lightly, as, after keeping all the men, her husband included, at her feet during the evening, she rose to say good-night and let her hand linger purposely in her cousin's, so that he should see she did not care, that she was not afraid.
"No!" he replied coldly; "I've had another wire. She came as far as Portree, and, hearing that the gathering is next week, decided to stay and show off her new dresses. She got about a ton of them in Paris if you remember, and women, even the best of them, love to show off."
His tone roused her to reckless resentment by its assumption of knowledge and condemnation.
"He does not look very sorry for his wife's decision, does he, professor?" she asked with a laugh.
"My dear lady, how could he be sorry for anything, in his present position?"
"Or I in mine?" she retorted, giving a little mock curtsey over the hand she still held.
Eustace Gordon bit his lip, but said nothing.
IV
"You look worried," said Will Lockhart; "the place doesn't suit you. I told you it wouldn't when we hid behind Charity. Is there anything really the matter?" his voice took a softer tone, "anything I could help you to set straight?"
They were sitting by the fire in Lady Maud's little sitting-room, whither they had retired from the bustle inseparable from tea in the drawing-room when bad weather keeps even the sportsmen indoors. He said the truth; she looked worn and fagged, and her pose as she leant back in her easy-chair was one of listless fatigue.
"Nonsense! There is nothing the matter; nothing more than the usual worries of a hostess in tiresome weather. To begin with, it has prevented your coming here till you can only spare us a miserable day on your way to rejoin the yacht. Then Louisa, after wasting a fine week over the Portree gathering, was detained there ten days by storm. Finally, just as she started for the Highlands one at Inverness pour passer le temps, it cleared up. Since then it has been what is called unsettled; most of all for poor Eustace, who never knows for two days together what is going to happen. Then Lady Liddell caught cold at a picnic, and Cynthia Strong, whom I invited for the professor,--a Girtonite you know, does mathematics and all that,--seems uncertain whether she doesn't prefer Arthur Weeks, a man who hasn't a penny and can't do a sum beyond the compound addition of his bills."
"A catalogue of evils, certainly."
"That isn't all. The professor, who would make her an excellent husband, being in that set and with a charming house too at Oxford, does nothing but go over to Eval House to see Miss Macdonald--you knew her once, I think--well, he looks on her as an encyclopædia of discredited beliefs, a unique copy of an ancient work on folk-lore which the lucky finder is bound to purchase. Besides, she has a valuable collection--"
"When I knew her," broke in Will Lockhart hotly, "she did not need any adventitious attractions; she was simply the loveliest--"
Lady Maud's languid hands met in faint applause.
"I thought that would draw you. So she was the mauvais quart d'heure. I am not really laughing, so don't be angry; only from the way she spoke of you--"
"Did she speak of me?"
"How can you ask? And women never speak of the men who have loved them in the same tone of voice they use for the dense, indiscriminating multitude who didn't."
"Then Miss Macdonald's voice must change pretty often."
"Ah! was that it? you were jealous."
"Nothing so romantic. We quarrelled over some bread and butter--we were very young. Then circumstances favoured absence, so forgetfulness came, or at least indifference, absolute indifference." He paused for a moment. "And so the professor is there constantly, is he?"
Lady Maud smiled behind the fan with which she screened her face from the fire.
"He is there now, I expect. He went dune-hunting in the south this morning, and was to stop there for the night. Thought he might be late; besides, he must consult the encyclopædia."
Will Lockhart frowned. "This has made us drift from the point. Your husband, does he like the place?"
"Apparently. And the servants are satisfied too, which is a great gain. They get all their work done for them by the natives. It is an immense relief to shift one's responsibilities to other folks' shoulders, isn't it?"
He looked at her sharply. "There is something the matter. Is it only other people's love-affairs? And what, for instance, of that handsome boy downstairs who does Sir Walter Raleigh's cloak for your Majesty's feet all day long?"
Lady Maud leant forward eagerly, her whole face alight. "You mean Rick. Do you remember once, when you were very angry with me, saying I was enough to ruin any man in a week? It wasn't true, Big Bear. I couldn't spoil Rick Halmar."
"Have you tried and failed?" he asked cynically.
She shook her head and a soft half-smiling, half-tearful look came to her pretty eyes.
"You don't know him, and I can't explain. Yet I tell you that I couldn't spoil one of that dear lad's happy days unless--" she broke off suddenly, raising her eyes to the image on the mantelshelf. "He carved that devil up there," she went on with the smile gaining on the tears. "The professor said it was a savage conception of fate, but it isn't. It is Rick Halmar's conception of my fate, and that--well, that hasn't much of the devil in it. Come! it is time I was returning to my duties as hostess."
"Time for me to be going also," he replied, looking at his watch. "I have seven miles before me."
"Not if you make use of the Eval ferryboat." She looked at him mischievously.
"I do not intend to make use of it, even to oblige you, Lady Maud. I might meet the professor, and then there would be a petty-assault case."
"Of course! How tiresome you are! I counted on your being here a week at least, and people can unmake ever so many quarrels in seven days."
"Or make them. But the elements are too strong for you, Lady Maud. I told you so."
Rick Halmar came up as, still smiling over the joke, they entered the drawing-room.
"I'm so glad. I was afraid you might not come before I left, and I must go soon."
"Then you can pilot Mr. Lockhart a little way. He has to walk over to Carbost Bay."
"A good bit of the way, you mean," replied Rick, turning his bright face towards Will Lockhart's. "Our ferry is far the shortest; in fact, it's the only road, for the upper-end bridge gave way in the flood last night and the stream isn't fordable yet!"
Lady Maud's eyebrows went up archly.
"What a nuisance the elements are at times; aren't they, Mr. Lockhart?"
"I should think so," assented Rick cheerfully. "Why, we have been trying to get to Eilean-a-fa-ash these three weeks--haven't we, Lady Maud?--without catching a fine day and a suitable tide on the hop together. The sea ford might have done last spring, but it was too rough for the ladies to return by boat, or else too wet. But the first fine day. That is it, isn't it?"
"Yes, Mr. Halmar!" cried Cynthia Strong from the window seat where Captain Weeks was blissfully useful over a skein of wool. "And please order the fine day soon, for I have to go by the next Clansman."
"Then I shall go too," murmured the captain.
"I suppose the birds will be getting rather wild by that time," remarked the young lady tartly. Theoretically, she felt bound to despise her admirer and his occupations; practically, his murmurs made her heart beat.
"Wild! Why, they lie like stones on this coast. Something to do with the Gulf Stream, I'm told, though I know nothing myself about these scientific things. But you can kick 'em up and shoot 'em like chickens on the last day of the season."
"And when is that?"
Captain Weeks laughed,--the true man's laugh of surprised tolerance. "I thought you knew everything, Miss Strong; but I don't suppose they think it worth while to teach girls. It's the 10th of December for grouse, but partridges go on till the beginning of February, and there's no real close time for--" His voice fell to the confidential tone. Eustace Gordon had meanwhile joined the trio at the door.
"Yes! let it be soon, please; for I may be going also. I've just heard, Maud, from Louisa, and the last idea is that I am to take the yacht, which she is sending here, round to Cowes, and that we are to start at once for less uncertain climes. The Mediterranean, most likely."
"That is very--unexpected. But all my friends are flying south, like the swallows."
"And I have to go furthest of all," said Rick ruefully. "I'm booked for the Pacific Station, as sure as fate."
"Then you must send me home a real Numbo Jumbo if you come across one," she replied, smiling up into his eager boyish face with a confidence absolutely free from all alloy.
"Won't I! and some of those jolly shells too; all the pretty things I can pick up."
"Thank you, Rick; I like pretty things."
He flushed with pleasure at her tone and words.
"Well, good-bye," she said, turning to Will Lockhart. "I hope the elements won't be too strong for you."
"Or for you."
Confidence here also, but of a different sort,--the sort which can give a reason for the faith that is in it. It seemed, however, as if Lady Maud's wish was not to be fulfilled; for as Rick Halmar and his companion set off across the moor, the southwest wind, even at that distance from the shore, sent a shower of spindrift in their faces.
"No leaving Carbost Bay for you tonight," shouted Rick against the wind. "You had better stay at our place. You used to know Aunt Will long ago, didn't you?"
"Yes, but I must get on. It may calm any moment, and the yacht sails as soon as possible."
Nevertheless when, after scudding with the wind at their backs for two miles, they came upon the ferry, one glance showed even Will Lockhart's inexperienced eye that the cockleshell of a boat, bobbing up and down in the backwater, could never fight its way through that mad mêlée of wind against tide in the middle of the narrow stream. Comparative calm reigned to one side in the inland loch, and to the other in the open sea; but here the waves leapt at each other in pyramids, sending jets of spray upwards with the very force of their meeting. A good thrower could easily have flung a stone across the channel; for all that, it was impassable till the tired tide should turn and join the wind in its race eastward. So, at any rate, said Rick, adding that his aunt would be delighted at a contretemps which would procure her a visit from an old friend.
Why Will Lockhart should have hesitated, when it was raining cats and dogs, and it was two-and-twenty years since he had parted in anger from the hot-headed, quick-tongued chit of eighteen, who was now, by all accounts, a brisk, contented woman of forty, is not easy of explanation. Perhaps the thought of Lady Maud's triumph rankled; perhaps, when all was said and done, he was not quite indifferent to that possible future with the professor. But he did hesitate for a moment. That early love-affair had strangely enough been his first and last: not because it was in itself absorbing, but because other things more absorbing than Love had stepped in to take possession of his life. For a year or two, no doubt, resentment had lingered, not very keenly felt, but sufficiently so to prevent other love-affairs. Then he had painted his first successful picture, and that had been an end of all things, save Art, and a rather unreal remembrance that he had loved and lost.
However, common sense came to his aid, as it was bound to do in that drenching rain. And, after all, the professor was not in the well-remembered drawing-room whither Rick led him; neither was Miss Willina. Fortunately, perhaps, for her dignity, of which she was extremely tenacious, she had been in the potting-shed feeding a late brood of chickens presented to her that morning by an inexperienced young mother, who had preferred a bed of nettles behind the peat stack to the comforts of the hen-house nursery. So she had ample opportunity of seeing them pass up the ferry-path and of grasping the situation; to say nothing of smoothing her hair and washing her hands, before putting in an appearance; the which is a great support to most women in the crises of life. As a matter of fact, however, Miss Willina had never regarded this episode of her earliest years of conquest as one of supreme importance; perhaps some slight inkling that it really did mean more than she was prepared to admit was at the bottom of her deliberate want of romance on the subject. She had had many admirers, had them still for that matter; she was perfectly aware, for instance, of the professor's interest; but, for all that, she had never felt inclined to marry since those salad days when she had drowned her resentment in the knowledge that half the men who knew her were at her feet. Why should she marry? There was plenty of time and opportunity if she wished it; and then, when time passed, leaving her still Miss Macdonald, she told herself and every one else that it was of her own free will and pleasure. As it undoubtedly was. She scouted regrets, and only when the masterful current of her vitality slackened, as even hers had to do at times, did she wonder if that early love-affair had not been at the bottom of her cold-bloodedness.
Will Lockhart did not think her much changed. The daintiness and wilfulness he chiefly remembered were still there, and it was like old times to hear her order him up with Rick, to "change his feet," and see the swift touch with which she rescued an antimacassar from annihilation when he sate down. And this want of change depressed him, by emphasizing the long years which he could not forget.
There she was, much as he remembered her, and he--people told him also that he had changed but little. Yet in those old days it had seemed impossible to conceive of life apart, and here they were, both free, both unmarried, talking calmly, with a new generation for listener, about that past time. What had kept them separate except their own free will? Nothing! and yet had either of them deliberately anticipated this ending when they quarrelled over the bread and butter? And now she was thinking of the professor, or at any rate the professor was thinking of her. That was Lady Maud's account, and there was certainly a suspicion of consciousness when the learned man's name was mentioned; a palpable flush indeed, when a faint whistle overbore that of the wind, and she started from her chair.
"Rick! it can't surely be Mr. Endorwick!"
The blush made her look years younger, and Will Lockhart felt distinctly aggrieved at the fact.
"By George, it is, though," replied her nephew, after a glance through the field-glasses which hung ready for the purpose on the window-knob. "There he is on the other side of the stream. He has hoisted the flag, and is blowing away at the whistle like fits. His umbrella's inside out, and his mackintosh floating on the breeze. Do look, Aunt Will. It's awfully comic."
Miss Willina's face was a study of dignity and humour; the first prevailed. "Eric! I am surprised at your levity. The poor man will be drenched to the skin, and he so delicate; such a distinguished scholar too; we could ill afford to lose him."
"Give me the glass," said Will Lockhart grimly. The sight of his supposed successor signalling for the impossible gave him a thrill of satisfaction; for he, at least, was on the right side of the stream. And then to the keen little creature at his side came a mood well remembered.
"The born idiot! Any Christian would have stopped at the hotel even if he was wanting to come on. A fool for his pains! Ah! what's the use of blowing like a hooter with the wind and tide against you? Gracious goody! Rick, what's to be done? The gawk can't be left there like a windmill."
The comparison was not inapt; for the professor, seeing them, doubtless, against the firelight within, was waving his arms frantically.
"I'll go down and signal him to that bieldy bit behind the big rock. It's out of the wind anyhow, and the tide will be turning before he could walk back to shelter. And I'll stop in the boat-house; it will comfort him to see me smoking, especially if he has forgotten his matches. Besides, I must put new rowlocks to the four-oar. We'll want her, and the men too, if any one is to cross the stream tonight."
"That's a nice boy," said Will Lockhart, putting down the glasses as Rick's figure on its way to the boat-house blocked out the professor's increasing despair. "Just about the age I was when--" He paused and looked at his companion.
"Yes! You were twenty-one, and I was eighteen."
They were standing close together, the firelight throwing their shadows out faintly against the growing darkness, but on their faces the dull autumn twilight lingered, blotting out all traces of the passage of time.
He came a little nearer to her.
"I wonder why we quarrelled?" he said argumentatively. "I don't mean what we quarrelled about. That was never very difficult to find, was it? But why did we quarrel finally that last time? I don't recollect that you were more wilful than usual."
"No doubt you were more aggravating," she retorted quickly. "Do you wish to begin it all over again? I will if you've a mind to."
"Begin what?"
"The quarrel, of course."
"No, thank you. There's the professor hauling down his flag; he has seen Rick, and acknowledged his defeat. Good man! Don't you think, Miss Macdonald, that it would be more comfortable by the fire than here at the window?"
"More comfortable than the professor is, poor man. That is what you mean. How selfish all you men are, and then you expect me not to see through you!"
"I don't think I ever was quite so exigeant as that, was I? And, do you know, I rather wish you would just cast your eye over my innermost thoughts at the present moment. It would save me beating about the bush."
Perhaps, despite her outward calm, she was a little excited; for she had taken up her knitting, half mechanically, and now the needles clashed fast and furious. He was leaning towards her, his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely clasped together, and something of his youth, not so much in its romance as in its imperious desire to know and understand, was in his face.
"Miss Macdonald, I've no right to ask, but are you going to marry--that man on the other side?"
She gave a little conscious laugh, half-nervous, half-gratified. "That is what you call beating about the bush, I suppose? Why--why should I marry anybody?"
For the life of him he could not tell, save that in a vague way that dead past seemed so pitiful: because it was dead and past. "Why did we quarrel?" he repeated. "If the Clansman hadn't come in unexpectedly that evening after her time, and so given me an opportunity of going off in the sulks, we should have made it up as usual. It seems such a little thing to come between us."
She laid down her knitting and looked at him thoughtfully. A woman less truthful than Miss Willina might have allowed the inevitable satisfaction of being remembered to give an extra tinge of regret and romance to that past, which in sober fact had had little of either; but Miss Willina's sense of humour was of the rare kind which is not blunted by egotism.
"Ridiculously little. In the novels--I read dozens of them in the winter--it is always something pathetic. A letter left in a blotting book, or a wrong initial on the envelope, or a false announcement of marriage. Something not to be foreseen or helped. Or if it isn't the fault of fate, they get brain fever and forget their own names. But we! We just quarrelled, and didn't care to make it up. It isn't in the least romantic, I'm afraid."
"But we didn't forget," he said in the same argumentative tone. "At least I didn't."
"Of course not. Does any one ever forget,--absolutely?" Her voice trembled slightly. The pathos of memory was not to be ignored entirely.
"It seems such a pity--you and I leading such lonely lives."
"Lonely? You should see my Noah's Ark."
"Well! Don't scoff at me. I suppose it is absurd, but to-night somehow--"
She interrupted him with a soft hand laid on his. "Don't, please don't. It is like children trying to pretend that their shadows on the wall are alive. But they are shadows; nothing but shadows, and the light which throws them--" she pointed to the window with a laugh that was half a sob. "Poor man! he ought to be extinguished by this time."
"Perhaps you are right," he replied sadly, still holding her hand; "but it seems hard--the shadows were so pretty."
"Not so pretty as the reality."
"What is that?"
"That we have met and forgiven each other--without payment."
"Aunt Will," shouted Rick, bursting into the room, "there's the professor in the front hall dripping like a drowned rat. I got the men and ferried him over on the first chance; now they are waiting for Mr. Lockhart."
Miss Willina was on her feet in a moment. "Take him upstairs, Rick, and put him to bed--between the blankets. I'll come directly with gruel and mustard. And, Rick! give him a good scrub--all over--with the roughest--bath towel--you can find."
The last directions were called up the stairs as she went into the hall to see Will Lockhart put on his mackintosh properly.
"Good-bye, Miss Macdonald. I'm not in the least envious of the professor's immediate future," he said with smiling eyes, but with vague regrets still at his heart. "I'm glad, though, he was at the other side of the stream to-night. I liked the shadows."
"And the reality?" she asked quickly.
He stooped and kissed the pretty little hand browned by sun and wind. "It is like the breath of your sea. The memory of it will help to blow away the cobwebs until I come back--in the summer."
"The summer is over."
"Not St. Martin's, and one often has a spell of fine weather late in the year when the earlier portions have been stormy."
She shook her head.
V
"Well, Hooper, what is it?"
Lady Maud stood at bay once more, with that diffident-looking man at the door. Three weeks had passed since his first interview; only three weeks, and it seemed to her an eternity of fear and anxiety. But now the letters written in reply to hers had come from the American doctor, and she knew the worst. Mr. Wilson's case had at once been easy and difficult. Easy because of his singular lack of will power; difficult for the same reason, joined to a very bad ancestral record. So bad that his maternal uncle, from whom he had inherited his large fortune, being deeply resentful of the treatment his sister had endured from her drunken husband, had burdened his legacy with certain unusual conditions as to sobriety and control. Consequently, when, shortly after his release from the restraints of minority, the inherited tendency had shown itself in Mr. Wilson, he had voluntarily placed himself in Dr. Haddon's charge, urged to the step by his fear of pecuniary loss. That was, briefly, the whole story, save that he, Dr. Haddon, continued to have charge of the case and would be obliged if Lady Maud would co-operate with him in continuing a system which had hitherto been so successful, and which, he did not scruple to add, was Mr. Wilson's only chance of fulfilling the conditions under which he held his fortune. For himself, he believed there was no danger of a relapse; it might even be possible after some years to relax the supervision, and in any case he begged her to remember that the hereditary tendency must needs be weakened by a generation even of enforced sobriety. He had hoped that there might be no necessity for her to be made acquainted with these circumstances, as the whole affair had been dealt with in the strictest confidence, and the essence of his treatment lay in ignoring the difficulty; but now that the untoward event reported by Hooper had occurred, it was better she should clearly understand the position of affairs. Briefly, he was paid for keeping Mr. Wilson from losing a very large portion of his wealth. Apart from that, it was an interesting case. In regard to Hooper, he was thoroughly trustworthy and conscientious,--a most necessary thing when influence was easy to attain. At the same time, if Hooper failed to commend himself to Lady Maud, he could be replaced. In view of the heavy stake at issue, however, he would recommend extreme caution in making any change. As for his reasons for allowing Mr. Wilson to marry under the circumstances, they were manifold; and his belief in the system was so great that he felt confident Lady Maud would never find cause for blame in her husband's conduct. The letter, in its bald statement of fact, its assumption of a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs, carried with it a sort of cold comfort. And yet Lady Maud felt a wild revolt against it such as no verdict of disease or death would have aroused.
Like most women who marry men to whom they are indifferent, she had looked forward, odd as it may seem, to having children who would give a zest to an otherwise insipid life. And now the mere possibility was a terror: not in pity for those who might come handicapped into the race, but from sheer physical horror that they should be his and hers. And this terror came uppermost in the first few minutes of shock.
"I have heard from Dr. Haddon this morning, my lady. In future I am to take my orders from you; so I have come to ask for them."
The disapproval in his tone was audible. She felt a rash, resentful desire to bid him go and leave her free, but the doctor's warning checked the words. What if she should have burdened her life for nothing,--she who had refused money again and again because it seemed vulgar to her fastidiousness? She might appeal to her husband as a man, chance her influence against the Hooper-Haddon system; but what if she failed? During those last three weeks she had silenced the heart which, despite all her efforts, would have its way, by protestations that she was only awaiting the doctor's reply, that by and by she would no longer consent to be this man's wife on these terms. To live on as if she knew nothing; to give neither help nor condemnation; to acquiesce without a word in a future which filled her with shame and horror.
When she knew the facts, she would decide, and now she knew too much.
"I have no orders," she said in a low voice; "no new ones; you can go." Then suddenly a thought flashed through her and she arrested him with a gesture.
"Yes, my lady?"
Still she was silent, one hand gripping the edge of the table, her breath coming fast. "I do not think--this place--is good for Mr. Wilson."
"Indeed, your ladyship," broke in Hooper, relieved, "I have thought so myself,--the--the irregular habits in regard to spirits are trying."
"I think he would be better away."
"Exactly so, my lady; only I did not like--all the arrangements being, as it were, settled."
Her voice had gained in steadiness by this time. "There need be no alteration. I should remain here, of course." She paused, and Hooper shifted uneasily. "Mr. Wilson had an invitation to Perthshire yesterday. I should like him to accept it. Do you understand?"
"But indeed, my lady, I cannot. To begin with, I am not allowed by Dr. Haddon--"
She stopped him angrily. "If you cannot obey me, there are others--so Dr. Haddon says. I consider this place is bad for Mr. Wilson, and it is my wish he should leave it. Do you hear?"
For the life of her, try after calmness as she would, entreaty and despair made her command falter. He must go--if only to give her time to think; time to settle what course she would choose.
"If your ladyship takes the responsibility--in regard to Dr. Haddon, I mean."
"I take it all--the responsibility for everything."
"Then I will suggest it. I may not succeed; but I will do my best, and if I fail, your ladyship must remember that I was not engaged for such work."
The grotesqueness of it all struck her sense of humour despite the turmoil of emotion in which she found herself.
"Yes, yes!" she said impatiently; "I will remember it was not your place!"
When he had gone, she stood for some time without moving, her hand still grasping the table, body and mind alike in a state of tension. Then her nerves seemed to slacken, the spirit to leave her. She walked listlessly towards the fire, and, leaning her arms on the mantelpiece, rested her head upon them. So standing, the little curls about her temples outlined themselves against the ugliness of Rick Halmar's devil.
"It is not all my fault," she muttered with a sort of sob; "not all my fault, surely. I must have time. I must have time."
The rest of the day was torture to her. She did not regret the sudden impulse which had decreed her husband's exile, if it could be managed, yet she dreaded to have him say the words which would proclaim the success of her treachery against him. He came over once to where she sate in the twilight pretending to read, and laid his hand affectionately on her shoulder. It was only some trivial remark he had to make, but she started so visibly that Eustace, watching her, as he had watched her every mood during those weeks, came to her afterwards with a frown.
"What is the matter, Maud? Why should you keep me at arm's length? Surely I know too much for that already."
"What do you know?" she asked with the recklessness which of late had crept into her manner.
"I know you are unhappy. Do you remember what I told you that night? You shall not suffer."
Her lips trembled, and she turned from him hastily to join a group gathered round the professor. He had come back from Eval House greatly depressed in spirits, and with a running cold in his head, which Cynthia Strong was treating with pulsatilla, as yet rather unsuccessfully; but it required time, she explained, when the first stages had been badly managed on the old methods. The group was engaged in examining the famous Rhine ring, with which gift, apparently, Miss Willina had tried to content the learned man; but even its possession failed to comfort him.
"I have deciphered the inscription," he said gloomily. "It is, briefly, 'Order, Truth, Honesty.' The last word bears many side meanings, and perhaps Purity would be a better translation. All the terminations being feminine, it may be inferred that the ring was worn by a woman; possibly one of unusual worth. It may even have been a badge of virtue; a tribute paid by the community to merit, or by the lover to his beloved."
If he had said a funeral memento to the dead, his voice could not have been more lugubrious.
"How interesting!" murmured Cynthia Strong. "Even in those days the mental qualities were deemed superior to mere physical attractions."
"I beg your pardon," retorted the professor quite tartly. "Order, as used here, means complete, perfect; according to our modern speech, beautiful. Truth has also a secondary meaning. A free, but at the same time accurate, translation would be 'Beautiful, constant, chaste.'"
Rick Halmar was twisting the ring about in his strong deft hands. "I expect some beggar gave it to his wife," he said cheerfully. "It must have been just as jolly then as now to have somebody to stick by you through thick and thin. To have the dinner ready, and not swear if you hadn't done what you ought to have done. Not brought in enough fish for the kids, for instance; though how they ever caught any with those bone hooks, I can't think. I couldn't."
"You must remember the great incentive of hunger," remarked the professor in the same tone. "Besides, in those days dexterity in the chase was the master key to a woman's affections."
"I say, Weeks, old man! why weren't you born then?" cried Rick, happily unconscious of all complications.
"Never had any luck," muttered the other, "except with the birds."
"Luck! I like that! You call it luck when you never miss; I assure you, Miss Strong," he continued, going up to where the despondent captain was standing, and addressing the nearest lady, "I was out with him yesterday, and he made me feel such a duffer. The prettiest shooting, and then he calls it luck!"
Cynthia Strong looked from one to the other of those two vigorous young faces before her, and then at the professor's pale one. A cold in the head is not becoming, and she sighed.
Rick, with the ring still in his possession, returned to Lady Maud.
"Isn't it quaint?" he said. "Don't you wish I could find another?"
"Why?"
"Because it would be yours, of course. How small it looks! I wonder if it would fit you."
"Miss Macdonald found it too large for her," remarked the professor, still more gloomily; "but it would be interesting, Lady Maud, to try whether it points to any improvement or deterioration--physical, of course--in the race."
"Perhaps you ladies would not mind experimenting 'Cinderella and the little glass slipper,'" laughed Eustace Gordon. "What is to be the prize, Endorwick--the ring?"
"My dear sir," gasped the professor, horrified for once out of his gallantry, "it's unique--positively unique."
"I'll tell you what," put in Rick eagerly, "if the professor will lend it to me for a couple of days, I'll copy it in silver. A florin would make it, and the inscriptions only scratched on. So now, then, ladies, if you please. Weeks, you do herald. Lady Maud, may we use the banner screen as a tabard?"
"What a boy that is!" said fat Lady Liddell to her next-door neighbour. "I've been here a fortnight, and never saw him out of temper or out of spirits. So different from most young people nowadays, who won't take the trouble to enjoy themselves."
"I knew it wouldn't go on anybody's finger but yours," said Rick with joyous confidence to his goddess when the competition was over. "Perhaps it wasn't quite fair, because I'd seen Aunt Will try it on so often, and her hands are tiny."
Lady Maud shook her head gravely. "I'm afraid it wasn't quite fair; but you must make me the ring, for all that."
"Of course I'll make it!"
She put her hand on his suddenly. "Don't, Rick! don't! I mean"--she paused, looking at him curiously--"you may make it if you like, Rick; but I won't promise to wear it--always."