Volume One—Chapter Twelve.
The Gift of a White Card.
A hasty note had been despatched to the Fort by Glyddyr, announcing that a friend had come down from town, and that to entertain him he was going to take him for a short cruise in his yacht. Then there were the customary hopes that Gartram was better, and with kindest regards to Miss Gartram, Glyddyr remained his very sincerely.
“I don’t like going off like this,” grumbled Glyddyr; “it looks as if I were being scared away.”
“Well, that is curious,” said Gellow, with mock seriousness.
“And it’s like retreating from the field and leaving it to Lisle.”
“Who the deuce is Lisle?”
“Eh? A man I know. Had a bit of a quarrel with him,” said Glyddyr hastily.
“Quarrel? What about?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing.”
Gellow talked in a light, bantering strain, but behind the mask of lightness he assumed, a keen observer would have noticed that he was all on the strain to notice everything, and he noted that there was something under Glyddyrs careless way of turning the subject aside.
“Rival, of course,” thought Gellow.
They were walking down toward the pier, and as they neared the sea Glyddyrs pace grew slower, and his indecision more marked.
“I can’t afford to trifle with this affair,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll go.”
“Well, don’t go. Stop and order a nice piquant delicate little dinner in case Madame Denise comes, something of the Trois Frères Provençaux style, and I’ll stop and dine with you, play gooseberry, and keep you from quarrelling.”
“Come along,” said Glyddyr sharply; “we’ll go, but I believe she will not come. No, I won’t go. Suppose she does come down, and I’m not here, and she begins to make inquiries?”
“Bosh! If she comes and finds you are not here, the first inquiry she makes will be for when you went away, the second, for where you went.”
“Possibly.”
“Then let drop to some one that you are going to Redport, or Rainsbury, and she’ll make at once for there.”
“Confound you!” cried Glyddyr sharply. “Nature must have meant you for a fox.”
“You said a rat just now, dear boy. I never studied Darwin. Have it your own way. That our boat?”
“That’s my boat,” said Glyddyr sharply, as they reached the end of the pier.
“In with you, then,” cried Gellow; and then, in a voice loud enough to be heard on the nearest brig in the harbour, “Think the wind will hold good for Redport?”
Glyddyr growled, and followed his companion into the boat, which was pushed off directly.
“I don’t believe she’ll come down,” he whispered to Gellow, as the two sailors bent to their oars, and the boat began to surge through the clear water.
“Not likely,” said Gellow. “Look!”
Glyddyr gave a hasty glance back, and saw that which made him sit fast staring straight before him, and say, in a quick low voice,—
“Give way, my lads; I want to get on board.”
Then followed the excited appearance of the lady at the end of the pier, the cries to them to stop, and the plunge into the water.
“Well, she is a tartar,” whispered Gellow.
“Don’t look back, man.”
“Oh, all right. Water isn’t deep, I suppose?”
“Look, sir,” cried one of the sailors. “Shall we row back?”
“No; go on.”
“Water’s ten foot deep, sir, and the tide’s running like mad,” cried the man excitedly.
“Some one will help the lady out,” said Glyddyr hastily. “Plenty of hands there.”
“Hooray!” cried one of the men, as Chris leaped off the pier.
“Tell them to back water,” whispered Gellow excitedly. “It’s murder, man.”
Glyddyr made no reply, but seemed as if stricken with paralysis, as he looked back with a strangely confused set of thoughts struggling together in his brain, foremost among which, and mastering all the others, was one that seemed to suggest that fate was saving him from endless difficulties, for if the woman whom he could see being swept away by the swift current sank, to rise no more, before his boat reached her, his future would be assured.
He made a feeble effort, though, to save the drowning pair, giving orders in a half-hearted way, trembling violently the while, and unable to crush the hope that the attempt might be unsuccessful.
The men backed water rapidly, and Gellow raised the boat-hook, holding it well out over the stern in time to make the sharp snatch, which took effect in Chris’s back, and holding on till more help came and they reached the pier.
“It’s all over,” whispered Glyddyr bitterly, as willing hands dragged Chris and his insensible companion up the steps.
“Not it,” was whispered back. “Will you leave yourself in my hands?”
“I am in them already.”
“Don’t fool,” said Gellow quickly. “You have got to marry that girl for your own sake.”
“And for yours.”
“Call it so if you like; but will you trust me to get you out of this scrape?”
“Yes, curse you: do what you like.”
“Bless you, then, my dear boy; off you go.”
“What do you mean?”
“Be off to the yacht, set sail, and don’t come back to Danmouth till I tell you it’s safe.”
“Do you mean this?”
“Of course. But keep me posted as to your whereabouts.”
“Here?”
“No; in town.”
“But what are you going to do?”
“Fight for your interests, and mine. That woman’s my wife, come down after me, and I’m going to take her home. See?”
“Not quite.”
“Then stop blind. Be off, quick.”
This hurried colloquy took place in the boat by the rough granite stairs, the attention of those about being taken up by the two half-drowned people on the pier, the excited talk making the words inaudible save to those concerned.
“Now, then,” whispered Gellow, “you’ll leave it to me?”
“Yes,” said Glyddyr, hesitating.
“Carte blanche?”
“You’ll do nothing—”
He did not finish the sentence.
“Carte blanche?” said Gellow again.
“Well, yes.”
“Right; and every lie I tell goes down to your account, dear boy. Bye-bye. Off you go,” he said aloud, as he sprang on the stones. “I’m very sorry, Glyddyr; I apologise. If I had known she would follow me, I wouldn’t have come.”
“Give way,” said Glyddyr, thrusting the boat from the steps; and he sank down in the stern, heedless of the dripping seat, and thinking deeply as the pier seemed to slip away from him, and with it the woman who had for years been, as he styled it, his curse.
He only glanced back once, and saw that Chris Lisle was being helped up into a sitting position, but the little crowd closed round him, and he saw no more, but sat staring hard at his yacht, and seeing only the face of the woman just drawn from the sea.
Then he seemed to see Chris recovering, and taking advantage of his absence to ruin all his hopes with Claude.
“If these two, Claude and Denise, should meet and talk,” he thought.
“If Gartram should learn everything. If Denise should not recover. Hah!”
Glyddyr uttered a low expiration of the breath, as he recalled how closely Gellow’s interests were mixed up with his own.
“And I have given him carte blanche,” he thought; “and he will say or do anything to throw them off the scent—or do anything,” he repeated, after a pause. “No, he dare do no harm; he is too fond of his own neck.”
He had come to this point when he reached the side of his long, graceful-looking yacht, and as soon as he was aboard he gave his orders; the mooring ropes were cast off, and the sails hoisted. Then, fetching a glass from the cabin, Glyddyr carefully scanned the pier and shore, but could see nothing but little knots of people standing about discussing the adventure, while the largest knots hung about the door of the hotel.
Almost at the same moment, Gellow was using the telescope in the hotel hall.
“Right,” he said to himself, as he closed it, upon seeing that the sails of the yacht were being hoisted. “Good boy; but you’ll have to pay for it. Well, doctor, how is she?”
Doctor Asher had just come down from one of the bed-chambers.
“Recovering fast,” said that gentleman, following Gellow into a private room, “but very much excited. She will require rest and great care for some days.”
Gellow tapped him on the breast, and gave him a meaning look.
“No, she won’t, doctor,” he said, in a low voice. “I must get her home at once. Most painful for us both to stop. People chattering and staring, and that sort of thing. Most grateful to you for your attention,” he continued, taking out his pocket-book, opening it quickly, and drawing therefrom two crisp new five-pound notes. “Let me see, you doctors prefer guineas,” he said, thrusting his hand into his pocket.
“No, no, really,” protested Asher, as his eyes sparkled at the sight of the notes.
“Ah, well, I shall not press you, doctor; but I’m down and you are down after this painful affair, so what do you say to prescribing for us both pints of good cham and a seltzer, eh? Not bad, eh?”
“Excellent, I’m sure,” said Asher, smiling; “but really I cannot think of—er—one note is ample.”
“Bosh, sir!” cried Gellow, crumpling up both, and pressing them into the doctor’s hand. “Professional knowledge must be paid for. Here, waiter; wine-list. That’s right. Bottle of—of—of—of—Oh, here we are. Dry Monopole and two seltzers—no, one will do. Must practise economy; eh, doctor?”
The waiter hurried out, and Gellow continued confidentially,—
“Bless her! Charming woman, but bit of a tyrant, sir. Love her like mad don’t half express it; but there are times when a man does like a run alone. Just off with a friend for a bit of a cruise when the check-string was pulled tight. You understand?”
“Oh, yes; I begin to understand.”
“Ah, here’s the stimulus, and I’m sure we require it.”
Pop!
“Thanks, waiter. Needn’t wait. Now, doctor: bless her—the dear thing’s health. Hah, not bad—for the country. I may take her back to-day, eh?”
“Well, er—if great care were taken, and you broke the journey if the lady seemed worse—I—er—think perhaps you might risk it,” said Asher, setting down his empty glass. “Of course you would take every precaution.”
“Who would take more, doctor? Put out, of course; but the weaker sex, eh? Yes, the weaker sex.”
He refilled the doctor’s glass and his own.
“An accident. Pray, don’t think it was anything else; and, I say: you will contradict any one who says otherwise?”
“Of course, of course.”
“There are disagreeable people who might say that the poor dear sprang off the pier in a fit of temper at being left behind, but we know better, eh, doctor?”
“Oh, of course,” said Asher, playing with and enjoying his glass of champagne.
“It’s a wonderful thing, temper. Take a cigar?”
“Thanks, no. I never smoke in the daytime.”
“Sorry for you, doctor. Professional reasons, I suppose?”
Asher bowed.
“I was going to say,” continued Gellow, carefully selecting one out of the four cigars he carried, for no earthly reason, since he would smoke all the others in their turn. “I was going to say that it is a wonderful thing how Nature always gives the most beautiful women the worst tempers.”
“Compensation?” hazarded Asher.
“Eh? Yes; I suppose so. Going, doctor?”
“Yes; other patients to see.”
“Then my eternal gratitude, sir, for what you have done, and with all due respect to you and your skill, I hope I may never have to place a certain lady in your care again. Shake hands, my dear sir. Doctor Asher, I think you are called? That name will be engraven on the lady’s heart.”
“You will take the greatest care?” said Asher.
“Of course.”
“And break the journey, if needful?”
“And break the journey if I think it needful. You need be under no apprehension, my dear doctor. Good-morning, and goodbye.
“Yes; bless her! I’ll take the greatest care, Asher, by gad!” said Gellow to himself, as he saw the doctor pass the window, when he filled his own glass, took a hasty sip, and then drew out his pocket-book.
“Shall I make a lump charge on this journey,” he said, “or put down the separate items? Better be exact,” he muttered, and he carefully wrote down,—
“Doctor’s fees, twenty guineas; lunch for doctor, one guinea.”
“Always as well to be correct,” he muttered, as he replaced his pencil in the book, and drew round the elastic band with a snap. “How am I to know about how she is going on? By jingo!”
He started, so sudden was the apparition of the woman, who flung open the door, and closed it loudly, being evidently in a fierce fit of excitement and rage.
“Where is my hosband?” she cried, speaking in a low voice, and through her teeth.
Gellow beckoned her to the window, and pointed out to where The Fair Star was careening over, with a pleasant breeze sending her rapidly through the water.
“He is dere,” she said, watching the yacht through her half-closed eyes.
“Yes, he’s off. Gave me the slip while I was helping you. By jingo, ma’am, you had a narrow escape.”
“And you came down here to reveal him I was coming,” she said, turning upon him suddenly, with her eyes widely open and flashing.
“Come, I like that,” he replied, with cool effrontery. “How the dickens should I know that you were coming down here?”
She did not reply, but stood gazing at him searchingly.
“But I wish to goodness you hadn’t come.”
“And why, monsieur, do you wish that I shall not come?”
“Because you spoil sport. Do you know that Glyddyr owes me thousands?”
“Of francs? He is vairay extravagant.”
“Francs, be hanged! Pounds. I came down here to try and get some, and just as I’d got him safe, and he was taking me aboard his yacht to give me some money, you came and had that accident.”
“Yais, I come and had that ac-ceedon,” said the woman through her teeth. “Where to is he gone, monsieur?”
“Glyddyr? Ah! that’s what I should like to know. Going to sail back to London, I expect. Gravesend, perhaps. How are you now?”
“He will come back here?” said the woman, paying no heed to the question.
Gellow burst into a roar of laughter.
“What for you laugh?” said the woman angrily. “Am so I redeeculose in dese robe which do not fit me?”
“Eh? Oh, no. ’Pon honour I never noticed your dress. With a face like yours one does not see anything else.”
“Aha, I see,” said the woman, raising her eyebrows. “You flatter me, monsieur. I am extreme oblige. You tell me my face is handsome?”
“Yes; and no mistake.”
“You tell me somting else I do not know at all.”
“Eh? Oh, very well. I will when I think of it.”
“You tell me now. What for you laugh?”
“Eh, why did I laugh?” The woman screwed up her eyelids, and nodded her head a great deal.
“I remember now. It was at your thinking that Glyddyr would come back here.”
“He has sail away in his leettler sheep—in his yacht. Why will he not come back to-night, to-morrow, the next day?”
“Shall I tell you?”
“Yes; you shall tell me.”
“Because he will say to himself: ‘no, I will not go back to Danmouth, because Madame Denise is so fond of me she will be waiting.’ Do you understand?”
“Oh, yais. I understand quite well. You sneer me, but you are his friend. You are his friend.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Gellow; “you wouldn’t have said that if you had heard him when I talked about money.”
“Well?”
The abrupt question was so sudden, that Gellow looked at the speaker wonderingly.
“Well what?” he said.
“Why do you look at me? Why do you ask me question? You go your way, I go mine. I want my hosband. I will have my hosband. Why is he here?”
“He isn’t here,” said Gellow, in reply to the fierce question.
“No, I know dat; and you know what I mean. Why comes he here?”
“Well,” said Gellow, “I should think it was so as to get out of my way, and—now, don’t be offended if I tell you the truth.”
“Bah! I know you. You cannot offend me.”
“Well, I’m sorry I am so insignificant in madame’s beautiful eyes.”
“What?”
“I say I am sorry I am so insignificant, but I’ll tell you all the same. I should say that Mr Parry Glyddyr came down to this delectable, out-of-the-way spot so as to be where Mademoiselle Denise—”
“Madame Denise Glyddyr, sare.”
“Ah, that’s what Glyddyr says you are not.”
“What?”
“I beg your pardon; I only tell you what he says.”
“We shall see,” cried the woman, stamping her foot, “what you did not finish yourself?”
“And I don’t mean to,” said Gellow, sotto voce.
“Well?”
“I have no more to say, only that I believe he came here so as to avoid you, and he is off somewhere now to be away from you.”
“Yes, it is true,” said the woman bitterly.
“If you had not come down, I daresay he would have run back here.”
“What for?”
“How should I know? Play billiards, read the odds.”
“He has a wife here, then.”
“Do you mean Madame Denise?” said Gellow innocently.
She gave him a scornful look.
“Are you fool, or make fun of me?” she cried fiercely. “Bah, I am too much angry. Is there a lady here?”
“No, I should think not, but we could easily find out. If he has, it is too bad, owing me so much as he does. No, I don’t think so; stop—yes I do. By Jingo, it’s too bad. That’s why he did not want to take me out in his yacht.”
“What do you mean?” said the woman searchingly.
“If there is one, madame—if he is married, she is aboard his yacht, and yonder they go—no, they don’t; they’re out of sight.”
There was so much reality in Gellow’s delivery of this speech, that his vis-à-vis was completely hoodwinked. She tried to pass it off with a laugh, but the compression of her lips, the contraction about her eyes, all showed the jealous rage she was in; and it was only by giving one foot a fierce stamp on the carpet, and by walking quickly to the window, that she could keep herself from shrieking aloud.
“Well, madame,” said Gellow, “you are getting all right again.”
“Oh, yais; I am getting all right.”
“And you can do without my services?”
“Oh, yais.”
“Then I’ll say good-bye. Glad I was near to help you out. Glad to see you again if you like to give me a call in town.”
“Where are you going?”
“Going? Back to London as fast as I can.”
“And what for, sir?”
“To read up all the yachting news, and see where The Fair Star puts in, and then run down and give Master Glyddyr a bit of my mind.”
“Stop—an hour—two hours.”
“What for?”
“Till I get back my dress all a dry. I go back wiz you.”
“Oh, certainly, if you wish it; but I wouldn’t; you had better stop here and rest for a few days—a week. I’ll write and tell you all I find out.”
“I go back wiz you,” said the woman decidedly. And she kept her word, for in two hours they caught a train.
The next day came a telegram from Underley, giving that as Glyddyr’s temporary address.
Gellow wrote back advising that the yacht should in future sail under another name, with her owner incog, and he added that the coast at Danmouth was now clear.
Volume One—Chapter Thirteen.
Hearts are not Deformed.
“Now Claude, darling, what do you think of me?” said Mary, one morning; “am I beautiful as a flower in spring?”
“No,” said Claude gravely; “only what you are, my dear little cousin; why?”
Mary’s face was flushed, and her eyes were sparkling as much from mischief as pleasure as she caught her cousin’s hand, led her softly to the open window of her bedroom, and pointed down.
Claude looked at her wonderingly, but she was too well used to her companion’s whims to oppose her, and she looked down.
“Can you see the goose?” whispered Mary.
“I can see Mr Trevithick walking with papa; I thought they were in the study;” and, she hardly knew why, she gazed down with some little interest at the tall, stoutish man of thirty, with closely-cut dark hair and smoothly shaved face, which gave him rather the aspect of a giant boy as he walked beside Gartram, talking to him slowly and earnestly, evidently upon some business matter.
“Well, that’s who I mean,” said Mary, laughing almost hysterically, “for he must be mad.”
“Now, Mary dear, what fit is this?” cried Claude, pressing her hands and drawing her away, as, a very child for the moment, she was about to get upon a chair and peep down from behind the curtain. “I know how angry papa would be if he caught sight of you looking down.”
“Well, the man should not be such a goose—gander, I mean. I thought he was such a clever, staid, serious lawyer that uncle trusted him deeply.”
“Of course,” said Claude warmly; “and he’s quite worthy of it. I like Mr Trevithick very, very much.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mary, in a mock tragic tone, as she flung her cousin’s hands away, “you’ll make me hate you.”
“Mary, you ought to have been an actress.”
“You mean I ought to have been a man and an actor, Claudie. Oh, how I could have played Richard the Third.”
“Hush!”
“Oh, they can’t hear. They’re talking of bills and bonds and lading. I heard them. But Claude, oh! and you professing to love Chris Lisle.”
“I never professed anything of the kind,” cried Claude indignantly.
“Your eyes did; and all the time uncle is engaging you to Mr Glyddyr.”
“Mary! For shame!”
“And in spite of this double-dealing, you must want Mr Trevithick, too?”
“Do you wish to make me angry?”
“Do you wish to make me jealous?”
“Jealous? Absurd!”
“Of course,” cried Mary sharply. “What should a poor little miserable like I am know of love or jealousy or heartaches, and the rest of it?”
“My dear coz,” whispered Claude, placing an arm round her, “I shall never understand you.”
“There isn’t much of me, Claude. It oughtn’t to take you long.”
“But it does,” said Claude playfully. “I never know when you are serious and when you are teasing. I have not the most remote idea of what you mean now.”
“Then I’ll tell you. He’s in love.”
“Who is?”
“Mr Trevithick.”
“Mary!”
“There you go. No: not with you. Of course, it would be quite natural if the great big fellow, coming here every now and then, had fallen in love with his client’s beautiful daughter. But the foolish goose has fallen in love with some one else.”
“Mary, dear, how do you know? With whom?”
“Ah! Of course, you would never guess—with poor Mary Dillon.”
“Oh, Mary, darling! But has he really told you so?”
“I should like to see him dare.”
“Yes,” said Claude quietly; “I suppose that is what most girls would like.”
“Don’t, Claude dearest; pray don’t. My sedate and lovely cousin trying to make jokes. Oh! this is too delicious. But it won’t do, Claudie; it is not in your way at all. I am a natural, born female jester—a sort of Josephine Miller; but—you! oh, it is too ridiculous.”
“Now, tell me seriously, what does this mean?” said Claude, taking the girl’s hands.
“What I told you, darling. Big, clever, serious Mr Trevithick, the learned lawyer, is in love—with me.”
“Mary, you must be serious now. But how do you know?”
“How do I know?” cried Mary, with a curl of the lip. “How does a woman know when a man loves her?”
“By his telling her so, I suppose; and you say Mr Trevithick has not told you.”
“Didn’t you know Chris Lisle loved you before he dared to tell—I mean, to give you instructions in the art of catching salmon?”
Claude was silent.
“No, of course you did not, dear,” said Mary mockingly. “As if it was not only too easy to tell.”
“But, Mary dear, this is too serious to trifle about. You have not given him any encouragement?”
“Only been as sharp and disagreeable to him as I could.”
“But how has he shown it?”
“Lots of ways. Held my poor little tiny hand in his great big ugly paw, where it looked like a splash of cream in a trencher, and forgot to let it go when he was talking to me; looked down at me as if he were hungry, and I was something good to eat—like an ogre who wanted to pick my bones; sighed like the wind in Logan cave, and when I dragged my hand away, all crushed and crumpled up, and without a bit of feeling left in it, he begged my pardon, and looked ashamed of himself.”
“And what did you say?”
“I? I said, ‘Oh!’”
“That all?”
“No; I said, ‘you’ve quite spoiled that hand, Mr Trevithick,’ and then the monster looked frightened of me.”
“I am very sorry—no, very glad, Mary,” said Claude thoughtfully, and looking her surprise.
“Which, dear?”
There was a tap at the door, and Sarah Woodham entered.
“Master wished me to tell you that Mr Trevithick will not stay for dinner, Miss Claude, and said would you come down.”
“Directly, Sarah,” said Claude, rising. “You will not come, Mary?” she whispered.
“Indeed, but I shall.”
“Mary, dear,” protested her cousin.
“Why, if I stop away the monster will think all sort of things; that I care for him, that he has impressed me favourably, that I have gone to my room to dream. No, my dear coz, there are some things which must be nipped in the bud, and this is one of them. It is his whim—his maggot. Oh, Claude, he is six feet two. What a huge maggot to nip.”
They were already part of the way down, to find Gartram and his great legal man of business standing in the hall.
“Better alter your mind, Trevithick, and have a chop with us. Try and persuade him, Claude.”
“We shall be extremely glad, Mr Trevithick,” said Claude; but her words did not sound warm, and her father looked at her as if surprised.
“I am greatly obliged, but I must get back to town,” said their visitor; and he spoke in a heavy, bashful way, and looked at Mary as if expecting her to speak, but she did not even glance at him.
“Well,” said Gartram, “if you must, you must.”
The big lawyer looked at Claude again in a disappointed way, and his eyes seemed to say, “Coax me a little more.”
But Claude felt pained as she glanced from one to the other, for there was something too incongruous in the idea of those two becoming engaged, for her to wish to aid the matter in the slightest way, and she held out her hand for the parting.
“I suppose it will be three months before we see you again, Mr Trevithick,” she said.
“Yes, Miss Gartram, three months; unless,” he added hastily, “Mr Gartram should summon me before.”
“No fear, Trevithick; four days a year devoted to legal matters are quite enough for me.”
“We none of us know, Mr Gartram,” said the big man solemnly. “Good-day, Miss Gartram; good-day, Miss Dillon,” and he shook hands with both slowly, as if unwillingly, before he strode away.
“I don’t think Trevithick is well,” said Gartram.
Volume One—Chapter Fourteen.
A Telegram.
The same old repetition in Chris Lisle’s brain: “How am I to grow rich enough to satisfy the King?”
Always that question, to which no answer came.
Then would come, till he was half maddened by the thought, the idea that Glyddyr had returned after a few days’ absence and had the free run of the Fort, and would be always at Claude’s side.
“Constant dropping will wear a stone,” he would say to himself; “and she is not a stone. I am sure she loved me, and I might have been happy if I had not been so cursedly poor—no, I mean, if she had not been so cruelly rich. For I am not poor, and I never felt poor till now. But I can’t afford to keep a yacht, and go here and there to races, and win money. He must win a great deal at these races.
“Why cannot I?” he said half aloud, after a long, thoughtful pause. She would think no better of me, but the old man would.
“Surely I ought to be as clever as Mr Parry Glyddyr. I ought to be a match for him. Well, I am in brute strength. Pish! what nonsense one does dream of at a time like this. I can think of no means of making money, only of plenty of ways of losing it. Nature meant me for an idler and dreamer by the beautiful river, so I may as well go out and idle and dream, instead of moping here, grumbling at my fate.
“It’s a fine morning, as the writer said; let’s go out and kill something.”
He stepped out into the passage, lifted down his salmon rod from where it hung upon a couple of hooks, took his straw hat, in whose crown, carefully twisted up, were sundry salmon flies, thrust his gaff hook through the loop of a strap, and started off along the front of the houses, in full view of the row of fishermen, who were propping their backs up against the cliff rail.
Plenty of “Mornin’s” greeted him, with smiles and friendly nods, and then, as he walked on, the idlers discussed the probabilities of his getting a good salmon or two that morning.
Away in the sheltered bay lay Glyddyr’s yacht, looking the perfection of trimness; and as it caught his eye, Chris turned angrily away, wondering whether the owner was up at the Fort, or on board.
Just as he reached the river which cut the little town in two, he saw the boy who did duty as telegraph messenger go along up the path which led away to the Fort, and with the habit born of living in a little gossiping village, Chris found himself thinking about the telegraph message.
“Big order for stone,” he said to himself as he studied the water. “How money does pour in for those who don’t want it.”
But soon after he saw the boy returning, a red telegraph envelope in his hand, and that he was trotting on quickly, as if in search of an owner.
“Not at home,” he muttered; and then he became interested in the boy’s proceedings in in spite of himself, as he saw the young messenger go down to the end of the rough pier and stop, as if speaking to some one below, before coming quickly back, and finally passing him, going up the path by the river side, as if to reach the old stone bridge some hundred yards up the glen.
“Gartram must be over at his new quarry,” said Chris to himself, and as the boy disappeared, he thought no more of the incident till about fifty yards farther, as he had turned up by the bank of the river, he caught sight of him again.
He forgot him the next moment, for his interest was taken up by the rushing water, and he watched numberless little falls and eddies, as he went on, till, as he neared the bridge, he caught sight of a well-known figure seated upon the parapet smoking, and in the act of taking the telegram from the boy.
He tore it open and read the message, crumpled it up, and with an angry gesture threw it behind him into the stream; and as he pitched the boy a small coin, Chris saw the little crumpled-up ball of paper go sailing down towards the sea.
For a moment the young man felt disposed to avoid meeting Glyddyr, as, to reach the fishing ground he had marked down, he would have to go over the bridge, and then along the rugged path on the other side.
“And if he sees me going back, he’ll think I’m afraid of him,” muttered Chris.
At the thought, he swung his long lithe rod over his shoulder, and strode on, his heavy fishing boots sounding loudly on the rugged stones.
As Chris reached the bridge, Glyddyr was busy with his match-box lighting a fresh cigar, and did not look up till the other was only a few yards away, when he raised his head, saw who was coming, and changed colour. Then the two young men gazed fiercely into each other’s eyes, the look telling plainly enough that what had passed and was going on made them enemies for life.
Chris tramped on, keeping his head up, and naturally, as he did not turn towards his rear, he was soon out of eyeshot, when the sharp report of a yacht’s gun rang out from behind him, the effect being that he turned sharply round to look at the smoke rising half a mile away.
It was a perfectly natural action, but Chris forgot that he was carrying a long, elastic salmon rod, and the effect was curious, for the rod swung through the air with a loud whish, and gave Glyddyr a smart blow on the cheek.
“I beg your pardon,” cried Chris involuntarily, as Glyddyr sprang from the parapet into the roadway, with a menacing look in his eyes.
“You cad!” he roared. “You did that on purpose.”
“No, I did not,” said Chris, quite as hotly. “If I had meant to do it, I should have used the butt of the rod, and knocked you over into the river.”
Glyddyr’s lips seemed to contract till his white teeth were bare; and, dashing down cigar and match, he advanced towards Chris with his fists clenched, till he was within a couple of feet of his rival.
Chris’s face grew set and stony looking, but he did not move. One hand held the rod, and the other was in his pocket, so that he offered an easy mark for a blow such as he felt would pay him back for the one which had sent Glyddyr over in the study at the Fort.
But he knew that the blow would not come, and a curiously mocking smile slowly dawned upon his lip as he saw that Glyddyr was trembling with impotent rage, and dared not strike.
“Well?” said Chris. “Have you any more to say?”
“You shall pay bitterly for these insults,” whispered Glyddyr; for he could not speak aloud.
“When you like, Mr Glyddyr,” said Chris coolly; “but you dare not ask me for payment. I told you that blow was an accident—so it was.”
“You lie!”
Chris flushed.
“Do I?” he said hoarsely. “A minute ago I was sorry that I had struck you inadvertently, and I apologised as a gentleman should.”
“A gentleman!” said Glyddyr mockingly.
“Yes, sir, a gentleman; but you called me a cad and a liar, so now I tell you I’m glad I did strike you, and that it wouldn’t take much to make me undo the rod and use the second joint to give you a good thrashing. Good-morning.”
There was a peculiar sound in the still sunny glen heard above the dull rush and murmur of the river. It was the grating together of Glyddyr’s teeth, as Chris turned round once more, and unintentionally brushed the top of his rod against his rival again.
Glyddyr made a sharp movement, as if to snatch hold of and break the rod, but his hand did not go near it; and he stood there watching the fisherman as he turned down to the waterside, and went on up the glen, soon disappearing among the birches and luxuriant growth of heath and fern which crowned the stones.
“Curse him!” muttered Glyddyr, picking up the fallen cigar and lighting it, without smoking for a few minutes. “I’ll pay him out yet. Well,” he said, with a bitter laugh, “I’m going the right way. Poor devil; how mad he is. He shall see me come away from the church some day with little Claude on my arm, and I’d give a hundred pounds—if I’d got it—to let him see me take her in my arms, and cover her pretty face with kisses.”
There was a peculiarly malignant screw in his face as he stood looking up the glen, and then he laughed again.
“Poor devil,” he cried. “I can afford to grin at him.”
He turned to go, and at that moment a puff of wind came down the glen, rustling a piece of paper in the road, and drawing his attention to the fact that it was the envelope of the telegram.
Then he stooped and picked it up, and shaped it out till it was somewhat in the form of a boat, as he dropped it over the stone parapet, and stood watching as it swept round and round in an eddy, and then went sailing down the stream.
“That’s the way to serve you, Master Gellow,” he muttered; “and I wish you were with it sailing away out yonder. No, no, my fine fellow, once bit twice shy; once bit—a hundred times bit, but I’ve grown too cunning for you at last. Now, I suppose some other scoundrel is in that with you. Back it. Not this time, my fine fellow; not this time.”
He smoked away furiously as he watched the scrap of paper float down, now fast, now slowly. At one time it was gliding down some water slide, to plunge into a little foaming pool at the bottom, where it sailed round and round before it reached the edge and was whirled away again. Now it caught against a stone, and was nearly swamped; now it recovered itself, and was swept towards the side, but only to be snatched away, and go gliding down once more in company with iridescent bubbles and patches of foam.
“Hah!” ejaculated Glyddyr, “if I only had now all that I have fooled away by taking their confounded tips, and backing the favourites they have sent me. No, Master Gellow, I’m deep in enough now, and I’m not the gudgeon to take that bait. Money, money. There’ll be a fresh demand directly, and the old bills to renew. How easy it is to borrow, and how hard to pay it back. If I only had a few hundreds now, how pleasant times would be, and how easy it would be to get what I want.”
Oddly enough, just at the same time, Chris Lisle was busily whipping away at the stream in foaming patch and in dark gliding pool, thinking deeply.
“Such a despicable coward!” he muttered. “Why, if a man had served me so, I should have half killed him. What a fate for her if it were possible, and here is he accepted by that sordid old wretch of a fellow, just because he has money. Now, if I had a few thousands! Ha!”
He whipped away, fishing with most patient energy till he reached the pool where Claude had caught her first fish, and where, as he stood by the water side, he seemed to feel her little hands clasping the rod with him as mentor, instructing her in the art.
But, try hard as he would, no salmon rose. Every pool, every eddy which had proved the home of some silvery fish in the past, was essayed in vain; and at last, after a couple of hours’ honest work, he gave it up as a bad job, and determined to try at the mouth of the river, just where the salt tide met the fresh water, for one of the peel which frequented that part.
Winding up his line, and hesitating as to how he should fish, he walked swiftly back, wondering whether Glyddyr would still be on the bridge, waiting to insult him with word and look, and feeling heartily relieved to see that the place was clear.
Reaching the bridge, he went on down by the river on the same side as that on which he had been fishing.
There was no path there, and the way among the rugged stones and bushes was laborious, but he crept and leaped and climbed away till he was within a hundred yards of the sea, where the river began to change its rough, turbulent course to one that was calm and gliding.
It was extremely tortuous here, and in places there were eddies, in which patches of foam floated, just as they had come down from the little falls above, lingering, as it were, before taking the irrevocable plunge into the tide which would carry them far out to sea.
Close by one of these eddies, where the water looked black and dark, the fisher had to make his way down to the very edge of the river, to climb round a rugged point, and so reach the wilderness of boulders below, among which the river rushed hurriedly towards the bar.
It was the most slippery piece of climbing of all, and about half-way along Chris was standing with one foot upon an isolated stone, the other on a ledge of slatey rock, about to make his final spring, when something floating on the surface of the still water took his attention.
It was only a scrap of pinkish paper, printed at the top, carefully ruled and crossed, and bearing some writing in coarse blue pencil.
Chris stared hard at the object, for it was a telegram. Glyddyr had received a telegram, crumpled it up and thrown it into the water, where, in all probability, consequent upon the action of the water, it had slowly opened out till it lay flat, as if asking to be read.
“Bah!” ejaculated Chris, turning away from temptation—as it seemed to him.
The intention was good, but the mischief was done. Even as he glanced at the telegram lying there upon the water he took in its meaning. The writing was so large and clear, and the message so brief, that he grasped it all in what the Germans call an augenblick.
“Back the Prince’s filly.—Gellow.”
A curious feeling of annoyance came over Chris as he climbed on—a feeling which made him pick up a couple of heavy stones, and dash them down one after the other into the river.
The second was unnecessary, for the first was so well aimed that it splashed right into the middle of the paper, and bore it down into the depths of the river beneath the rocky bank; and Chris walked on towards the smiling sea, with those words fixed in his mind and standing out before him.
“Back the Prince’s Filly.”
The thing seemed quite absurd, and he felt more and more angry as he went a few yards farther and prepared his tackle, and began to fish just in the eddy where the stream and sea met. And there goodly fish, which had come up with the tide to feed on the tasty things brought down by the little river from the high grounds, gave him plenty of opportunities for making his creel heavy, but he saw nothing save the words upon the telegram, and could think of nothing else.
It was evidently a very important message to Glyddyr about some race, but for the time being he had no idea what race was coming off. He was fond of sport in one way, but Epsom, Ascot, Newmarket, Doncaster and Goodwood had no charm for him.
But he knew accidentally that Glyddyr was a man who betted heavily, and report said that he won large sums on the turf, while by the irony of fate here was he, possibly Glyddyr’s greatest enemy, suddenly put in possession of one of his great turf secrets—undoubtedly a hint from his agent by which he would win a heavy sum.
“Well, let him win a heavy sum,” cried Chris petulantly, as if some one were present tempting him to try his luck. “Let him win and gamble and lose, and go hang himself; what is it to me?”
He hurriedly wound in his line, to find that a fish had hooked itself; but, in his petulant state, he gave the rod a sharp jerk, snatched the hook free, and began to retrace his way to the bridge; but before he reached the spot where he had had to step amid the big stones, he caught sight of a scrap of pink paper sailing down to meet the tide, and he could not help seeing the words,—
“Prince’s fil—”
And directly after another ragged fragment floated by showing, at the torn edge where the stone had dashed through, the one mutilated word,—
“Bac—”
“Any one would think there were invisible imps waiting to tempt me,” thought Chris. “How absurd!”
He strode on, leaping and climbing along the rugged bank till he once more reached the bridge, crossed it, and was half-way back to his apartments when he saw Gartram coming along the road with Claude and Mary.
His first instinct was to avoid them. The second, to go straight on and meet them, and this he did, to find that, as he raised his hat, Gartram turned away to speak to Claude, and completely check any attempt at recognition on her part.
“How contemptible!” thought Chris. “Now, if I had been as well off as Glyddyr, I should have been seized by the hand, asked why I did not go up more to the Fort, and generally treated as if I were a son.”
“Back the Prince’s filly!”
The idea came with such a flash across his brain that he started and looked sharply over his shoulder to see if any one had spoken.
“How curious,” he thought. “It just shows how impressionable the human mind is. If I gave way to it, I should begin calculating odds, and fooling away my pittance in gambling on the turf. I suppose every man has the gaming instinct latent within him, ready to fly into activity directly the right string is pulled. Ah, well, it isn’t so with me.”
He walked on, trying to think of how beautiful the day was, and how lovely the silver-damascened sea, with the blue hills beyond; but away softly, describing arcs of circles with the tips of her masts, lay Glyddyr’s yacht, and there, just before him, was Glyddyr himself going into the little post office, where the one wire from the telegraph pole seemed to descend through the roof.
“Gone to send a message,” thought Chris, with a feeling of anger that he could not for the moment analyse, but whose explanation seemed to come the next moment. To back the Prince’s horse, perhaps make more thousands, and then—“Oh! this is maddening!” he said, half aloud; and he increased his pace till he reached the pretty cottage where he had long been the tenant of a pleasant, elderly, ship-captain’s widow; and after hanging his rod upon the hooks in the little passage, entered his room, threw the creel into the corner, and himself into a chair.
“Cut dead!” he exclaimed bitterly. “After all these years of happy life, to be served like that.”
“Back the Prince’s filly.”
The words seemed to stand out before him, and he gave quite a start as the door opened and the pleasant smiling face of his landlady appeared, the bustling woman bearing in a large clean blue dish.
“How many this time, Mr Lisle?” she said. “Of course you’ll like some for dinner?”
“What? No; none at all, Mrs Sarson,” said Chris hastily.
“No fish, sir? Why, James Gadby came along and said that the river was just full.”
“Yes; I daresay, but I came back. Headache. Not well.”
“Let me send for Dr Asher, sir. There’s nothing like taking things in time. A bit of cold, perhaps, with getting yourself so wet wading.”
“No, no, Mrs Sarson; there’s nothing the matter. Please don’t bother me now. I want to think.”
The woman went out softly, shaking her head.
“Poor boy!” she said to herself; “I know. Things are not going with him as they should, and it’s a curious thing that love, as well enough I once used to know.”
“Back the Prince’s filly.”
The words stood out so vividly before Chris Lisle that he sprang from his seat, caught up a book, and threw himself back once more in a chair by the window to read.
But, as he turned over the leaves, he heard a familiar voice speaking in its eager, quick tones, and, directly after, there was another voice which seemed to thrill him through and through, the sounds coming in at the open window as the light steps passed.
“No, Mary dear. Let’s go home.”
There was a ring of sadness in the tone in which those words were uttered, which seemed to give Chris hope. Claude could not be happy to speak like that.
He crept to the window, and, from behind the curtain, watched till he could see the white flannel dress with its blue braiding no more.
“If I were only rich,” thought Chris; and then he gave an angry stamp on the floor as he heard a quick pace, and saw Glyddyr pass, evidently hurrying on to overtake the two girls, who must have parted from Gartram lower down.
Half mad with jealousy, he made for the door, but only to stop with his fingers upon the handle, as he felt how foolish any such step would be, and, going back to his chair, he took up his book again, and opened it, and there before him the words seemed to start out from the page.
“Back the Prince’s Filly.”
He closed the book with an angry snap.
“Look here,” he said to himself, “am I going to be ill, and is all this the beginning of a fit of delirium?”
He laughed the next instant, and then, as if obeying the strange impulse within him, he crossed the room and rang the bell.
“Have you taken away the newspaper that was here, Mrs Sarson?” he said sharply.
The pleasant face before him coloured up.
“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t think you’d be back yet, and so I’d made so bold.”
“Bring it back,” said Chris sternly.
“Bless the poor man, what is coming to him?” muttered the landlady, as she hurried out to her own room. “He was once as amiable as a dove, and now nothing’s right for him.”
“Thank you; that will do,” said Chris, shortly; and as soon as he was alone he stood with the paper in his hand.