PART I
CHAPTER I
THE PRECIPICE
The angry yelling of a French mob rose outside the court—a low, ominous roar, pierced here and there with individual execrations, and the prisoner turned his head and listened. There was a suspicion of contempt on his face, drawn though it was. What did they care for justice? It was only the instinct to hunt the persecuted that urged them. Were he proved innocent ten times over, they would hardly be convinced or cease from their reviling.
But he knew that no proof of innocence would be forthcoming. He was hedged around too completely by adverse circumstances for that. Everything pointed to his guilt, and only he himself and one other knew him to be the victim of a deliberate plot devised to compass his destruction. He was too hopelessly enmeshed to extricate himself, and the other—the only man in the world who could establish his innocence—was the man who had set the snare.
Bertrand de Montville, gunner and genius, had faced this fact until he was in a measure used to it. There was to be no escape for him. He, who had dared to scale the heights of Olympus and had diced with the gods, was to be hurled into the mire to rise therefrom no more for ever. He had climbed so high; almost his feet had reached the summit. He had completed his invention, and it had surpassed even his most sanguine hopes of success. At four-and-twenty he had been acclaimed by his superiors as the greatest artillery engineer of his time. His genius had won him a footing that men more than twice his age, and far above him in military rank, might have envied. He had been honoured by the highest.
And then at the very zenith of his prosperity had come his downfall. His gun, the cherished invention that was to place the French artillery at the head of the list, the child of his brain, his own peculiar treasure, was discovered to have been purchased by another Government three months before he had offered it to his own.
None but himself—so it was believed, so it was ultimately to be proved to the satisfaction of impartial judges—had been in a position at that time to betray the secret, for none but himself had then possessed it. And a great storm of indignation went through the whole country over the revelation.
Passionately but uselessly he protested his innocence. There were a few, even among his judges, who secretly believed him; but the proof was incontestable. Inch by inch he had been forced down from the heights that he had so gallantly scaled, and now he was on the brink of the precipice, no longer fighting, only waiting with the unflinching courage of the French aristocrat to be hurled headlong into the abyss that yawned below.
The yelling of the crowd outside the court was only a detail of the bitter process that was gradually compassing his condemnation. He knew he was to be convicted. It was written in varying characters upon every face; pity, severity, disgust—he met them on every hand. And so on this the fifth and last day of his court-martial he confronted destiny—that destiny that he had once so gaily dared—with closed lips and eyes that revealed neither misery nor despair, only the indomitable pride of his race. Do what they would to him, they would never quench that while life remained. The worst indignity that man could inflict would provoke no outcry here. He had protested his innocence in vain, and he had no proof thereof to offer. It remained for him to face dishonour as an honourable man, steady and undismayed. Doubtless there were those who would deem his bearing brazen, but not his worst enemy should call him coward.
Across the court an Englishman, with keen grey eyes that took in every detail, sat and sketched him—sketched the proud, fearless pose of the man and the hard young face, with its faint, patrician smile. The sketch was little more than outline, a few bold strokes; but the people in England who saw it a couple of days later felt as if the artist had deliberately lifted a curtain and shown to them a man's wrung soul. And everyone who saw it said, "That man is innocent!"
Trevor Mordaunt said it himself many times that day before and after the making of the sketch. He knew, as well as did the prisoner himself, that there would be no acquittal. Almost from the commencement of the trial he had known it. But he knew also that two at least of the judges were disposed towards leniency, and upon this fact he based such slender hopes as he entertained on the prisoner's behalf. As a fellow-correspondent—a Frenchman—had remarked to him earlier in the trial, whatever the verdict, they would hardly martyrize the man lest at a later date further question as to his guilt should arise and all Europe be set bubbling anew upon that much-discussed topic—French justice.
Mordaunt was of the same opinion; but, as he watched the young officer throughout the whole of the day's proceedings, he came to the conclusion that the verdict was everything in this man's estimation and the sentence less than nothing. If he were condemned to be blown from his own gun, he would face the ordeal unshrinking, almost with indifference. Deprived of honour, what else was there in life?
So when the end came at last, and the inevitable verdict was pronounced, Mordaunt shut his note-book with a feeling that there was no more to be recorded.
As a matter of fact the sentence was not pronounced at the time, and only transpired two days later, when it was officially made public—expulsion from the army and incarceration in a French fortress for ten years.
"That, of course, will be commuted," said one who knew the probabilities of the case to Mordaunt when the sentence was made known. "They will release him au secret in a few years and banish him from the country on peril of arrest. They are bound to make an example of him, but they won't keep it up. The verdict was not unanimous. And, above all, they won't make a martyr of him now. The other affaire is too recent."
Mordaunt agreed as to the likelihood of this, but he did not find it particularly consolatory. He had seen the prisoner's face as he was guarded through the surging, hostile crowd; and he knew that for Bertrand de Montville the heavens had fallen.
An innocent man had been found guilty, and that was the end. He was beyond the reach of any lenient influence now that justice had failed him. They had pushed him over the edge of the precipice—this man who had dared to climb so high; and in the hissings and groanings of the crowd he heard the death-knell of his honour.
In silence he went down into the abyss. In silence he passed out of Trevor Mordaunt's life. Only as he went, for one strange second, as though drawn by some magnetic force, his eyes, dark and still, met those of the Englishman, with his level, unfaltering scrutiny. No word or outward sign passed between them. They were utter strangers; it was unlikely that they would ever meet again. Only for that one second something that was in the nature of a message went from one man's soul to the other's. For that instant they were in communion, subtle but curiously distinct.
And Bertrand de Montville went to his martyrdom with the knowledge that one man—an Englishman—believed in him, while Trevor Mordaunt was aware that he knew it, and was glad.
For he had studied human nature long enough to realize that even a stranger's faith may make a supreme difference in the hour of a man's most pressing need.
CHAPTER II
THE CONQUEST
It was a sunny morning in the end of June, and Chris was doing her hair in curls, for she was expecting a visitor. It took a very long time to do, for there was so much of it; and she looked very worried over the process. She would have liked to have borrowed Aunt Philippa's maid, but this was a prohibited luxury except on very exceptional occasions. And Hilda—dear, gentle Cousin Hilda—was away in Devon with her fiancé's people. So Chris had to wrestle with her difficulties in solitude.
It was the middle of her first season, and, with a few reservations, she was enjoying it immensely. The reservations were all directly or indirectly connected with Aunt Philippa, for whom Chris's feeling was that of an adventurous schoolboy for a somewhat severe headmaster. She was not exactly afraid of her, but she was instinctively wary in her presence. She knew quite well that Aunt Philippa had given her this season as her one and only chance in life, and had done it, moreover, more than half against her will, impelled thereto by the urgent representations of her son and daughter, who looked upon their merry little cousin as their joint protégée. She ought, doubtless, to have come out the previous year, but her aunt's ill-health had precluded this, and the whole summer had been spent in the country.
That excuse, however, would not serve Mrs. Forest this year. She had taken a house in town, and there was no other course open to her than to launch her brother's child into society, however sorely against her will. Her main anxiety had fortunately by that time ceased to exist. There was no likelihood of Chris, with her brilliant, vivacious ways, outshining her own daughter. For Hilda was engaged to Lord Percy Davenant, who plainly had eyes and thoughts for none other, and the marriage was to be one of the events of the season.
Chris was therefore accorded her chance upon the tacit understanding that she was to make the most of it, since Mrs. Forest still maintained her attitude of irresponsibility where her brother's children were concerned, although the said brother had drifted to Australia and died there, no one quite knew how, leaving next to nothing behind him.
His sons and Chris had been brought up upon their mother's fortune, a sum which had been set aside for their education by their father at her death, after which, beyond providing them with a home—the ramshackle inheritance that had come to him from his father—he had made little further provision for them. His eldest son, Rupert, was a subaltern in a line regiment. No one knew whether he lived on his pay or not, and no one inquired. The second son, who possessed undeniable brilliance, had earned a scholarship, and was studying medicine. And Noel, now aged sixteen, was still at school, distinguishing himself at sports and consistently neglecting all things that did not pertain thereto.
Undoubtedly they were a reckless and improvident family, as Mrs. Forest so often declared; but perhaps, all things considered, they had never had much opportunity of developing any other qualities, though it was certainly hard that she should be regarded as in any degree responsible for them. She and her brother had always been as far asunder as the poles in disposition, and neither had ever felt or so much as professed to feel the faintest affection for the other.
It vexed her that Jack and Hilda should take so lively an interest in Chris, who was bound to turn out badly. Had she not already shown herself to be incorrigibly flighty? But since it vexed her still more that anyone should regard her actions as blameworthy, she had yielded to their persuasions. And thus Chris had been given her chance.
She was thoroughly appreciating it. Everyone was being kind to her, and it was all extremely pleasant. She was looking forward keenly to the coming that morning of Trevor Mordaunt, who had been regarded as a privileged friend ever since he had smuggled Cinders back into England three years before, secreted in an immense pocket in the lining of a great motor-coat. Not that she had seen very much of him since that memorable occasion. In fact, until the present summer they had scarcely met again. He was a celebrated man in the literary world, and he travelled far and wide. He was also immensely wealthy. Men said of him that whatever he touched turned to gold. And fame, wealth, and a certain unobtrusive strength of personality had combined to make him popular wherever he went.
He was more often out of England than in it, and there were even some who suspected him of being an empire-builder, though their grounds for doing so were but slight.
It was, however, characteristic of Chris that she never forgot her friends, a characteristic which Trevor Mordaunt also possessed to a marked degree. Therefore it was not surprising that soon after her first appearance in London society he had claimed and had been readily accorded the privileges of old acquaintanceship.
Since that day they had met casually at several functions, and people were beginning to wonder a little at Mordaunt's unusual energy in a social sense, for it was several years since he had brought himself to tread the mill of a London season.
Chris always hailed his appearance with obvious pleasure, though she was very far from connecting it in any sense with herself. He was always kind to her, always ready to make things go smoothly for her, and she never knew an awkward moment in his society. There were plenty of people who spoke of him with awe, but Chris was not one of these. She never found him in the least formidable.
And so it was with ingenuous pleasure that she anticipated his advent that morning. They had met at a dance on the previous evening, and her card had been full before his arrival. It had not occurred to her to save a dance for him.
"I never thought you would come," she had told him in distress. "I wish I had known!"
And then he had looked at her quietly for a moment with those intent grey eyes of his that never seemed to miss anything, and had asked her if he might call on the following morning, since he was to see nothing of her that night.
She had responded with a pressing invitation to do so, and he had simply thanked her and departed.
And so when the morning came Chris was still struggling with her hair when he arrived, having breakfasted in bed and finally arisen at a scandalously late hour. But that she knew Aunt Philippa to be also in bed, she would scarcely have ventured upon such a proceeding. Aunt Philippa knew nothing of the expected visitor. As a matter of fact Chris, in her airy fashion, had quite forgotten to mention the matter. Mrs. Forest, being still uncertain as to Mordaunt's state of mind, had discreetly foreborne to put the girl on her guard. She had at the beginning of things carefully instilled into her that it was essential that she should miss no opportunity of making a wealthy marriage, and she hoped that Chris would have the sense to bear this in mind.
Had she known of Mordaunt's coming she would probably have drilled her carefully beforehand, but luckily Chris's negligence spared her this. And so on that sunny summer morning she was sublimely unconscious of what was before her, and entered Mordaunt's presence at length almost at a run. Chris at twenty was very little older than Chris at seventeen.
"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting," was her greeting. "Really I couldn't help it. I just couldn't get up this morning. You know how one feels after going to bed at four. It was very nice of you to come so early. Have you had any breakfast?"
All this was poured out while her hand lay in his, her gay young face uplifted, half-merry, half-confiding.
Yes, Mordaunt had breakfasted. He told her so with a faint smile. "And please don't apologize for being late," he added. "It is I who am early. I came early on purpose. I wanted to see you alone."
"Oh?" said Chris.
She looked at him interrogatively and then quite suddenly she knew what he had come to say, and turned white to the lips. For the first time she was afraid of him.
"Oh, please," she gasped rather incoherently, "please—"
"Shall we sit down?" he said gently. "I am not going to do or say anything that need frighten you. If you were a little older you would realize that I am at your mercy, not you at mine."
She looked at him wide-eyed, imploring. "Please, Mr. Mordaunt, can't we—can't we wait a little? I am afraid, I am so afraid of—of making a mistake."
The faint smile was still upon his face, though it did not reach his eyes. He laid a reassuring hand upon her shoulder.
"My dear little Chris," he said, "I won't let you do that."
That comforted her a little, though she still looked doubtful. She suffered him to lead her to a sofa and sit beside her, but she avoided his eyes. The crisis had come upon her so suddenly, she knew not how to deal with it.
"Has no one ever proposed to you before?" he said.
"No," she whispered.
"Well, it's all right," he said kindly. "Don't think I am going to trade on your inexperience. If you want to say 'No' to me, say it, and I'll go. I shall come back again, of course. I shall keep on coming back till you say 'Yes' either to me or to some other man. But I hope it won't be another man, Chris. I want you so badly myself."
"Do you?" she said. "How—how funny!"
"Why funny?" he asked.
She glanced at him speculatively; her panic was beginning to subside.
"You must be ever so much older than I am," she said.
"I am thirty-five," he said.
"And I'm not quite twenty-one." A sudden dimple appeared in the cheek nearest to him. "Fancy me getting married!" said Chris, with a chuckle. "I can't imagine it, can you?"
"You will soon get used to the idea," he said. "Anyhow, there is nothing in it to frighten you—that is, if you marry the right man."
She nodded thoughtfully, her brief mirth gone. "But, Mr. Mordaunt, how is one to know?"
He leaned towards her. "I believe I can teach you," he said, "if you will let me try."
She slipped a shy hand into his. "But you won't ask me to marry you for a long while yet, will you?" she said pleadingly.
"Not until you have quite made up your mind to be engaged to me," said
Mordaunt.
She looked at him quickly. "No, not then either. Not—not till I say you may."
He laughed a little; but there was something very protecting, infinitely reassuring, in his grasp. "And if I accept that condition," he said—"it's a very despotic one, by the way—but if I accept it, may I consider that you are engaged to me?"
Chris hesitated.
"Not if I tell you that I love you," he said, "that I want you more than anything else in life, that I would give the soul out of my body to make you happy?"
His voice was sunk very low. There was more of restraint than emotion in his utterance. He spoke as a man who knows himself to be upon holy ground.
And Chris was awed. The very quietness of the man made her tremble. She knew instinctively that here was something colossal, something that dominated her, albeit half against her will.
She closed her fingers very tightly upon his hand, but she said nothing.
He sat silent for several seconds, closely watching her, seeking to read her downcast eyes. But she would not raise them. Her heart was beating very quickly, and her breath came and went like the breath of a frightened bird.
At last very gently he moved, drew her to him, put his arm about her.
"Are you afraid of me, Chris?"
She nestled to him with a little gesture that was curiously pathetic.
With her face securely hidden against him, she whispered, "Yes."
"My darling, why?" he said very tenderly.
"I don't know why," murmured Chris.
"Surely not because I love you?" he said.
She nodded against his shoulder. "You ought not to love me like that.
It's too much. I'm not good enough."
"My little girl," he said, "I am not worthy to hold your hand in mine."
His hand was on her hair, stroking, fondling, caressing. She nestled closer, without lifting her face.
"You don't know me in the least. I'm not a bit nice really. I get up to all sorts of pranks. I'm wild and flighty. Ask Aunt Philippa if you want to know."
"I know you better than Aunt Philippa, dear," he said.
"Oh no, you don't. You've only seen my good side. I'm always on my best behaviour with you."
"Another excellent reason for marrying me," said Mordaunt.
"Oh, but I shan't be always. That's just it. You—you will be quite shocked some day."
"I will take the risk," he said.
"I don't think you ought to," murmured Chris. "It doesn't seem quite fair."
His hand pressed her head very gently. "Meaning that you don't love me?" he said.
She made a vehement gesture of denial. "Of course not. I—I'd be a little beast if I didn't, specially after the way you helped me with Cinders long ago. I never forgot that—never! Only I do think—before you marry me—you ought to know how horrid I can be. It—it's buying a pig in a poke if you don't."
He laughed again at that in a fashion that emboldened Chris to raise her head.
"I am quite in earnest," she told him, in a tone that tried to be indignant. "You'll find me out presently. And when you do—"
She stopped with a gasp. His arms were about her, holding her as she sat. He looked straight down into the shining blue eyes. "When I do, Chris—" he said.
She met his look quite bravely. She was even smiling rather tremulously herself. "You will get a stick and beat me," she said. "I know. People who have eyes like steel never make allowances for those who haven't!"
She got no further, for quite suddenly Trevor Mordaunt dropped his self-restraint like an impeding cloak and caught her to his heart. For the fraction of a second her fear came back, she almost made as if she would resist him; and then in a moment it was gone, lost in a wonder that left no room for anything else. For he kissed her, once and once only, so passionately, so burningly, so possessively, that it seemed to Chris as if, without her own volition, even half against her will, she thereby became his own. He had dominated her, he had won her, almost before she had had time to realize that there was a stranger within her gates.
CHAPTER III
THE WARNING
"Well, all I have to say is, 'Bravo, young un!'" Rupert Wyndham stretched out a careless arm and encircled his sister's waist therewith. She was perched on the arm of his chair, and she tweaked his ear airily in response to this encouragement.
"Oh, you're pleased, are you?" she said. "That's very nice of you."
"Pleased is a term that does not express my feelings in the least," he declared. "I am transported with delight. You are the last person I should have expected to retrieve the family fortunes, but you have done it right nobly. I'm told the fellow is as rich as Croesus. It's to be hoped that he is quite resigned to the fact that he is going to have plenty of relations when he marries. By the way, hasn't he any of his own?"
"None that count—only cousins and things. Such a mercy!" said Chris.
"And oh, Rupert, isn't it a blessing now that we never managed to sell
Old Park, or even to let it? We shall be able to live there ourselves and
turn it into a perfect paradise."
"He wants to buy it, eh?" Rupert glanced up keenly.
Chris nodded. "It's only in the clouds at present. He said something about giving it to me when we marry. But of course," rather hastily, "we're not going to be married for ever so long. It would have to belong to him till then. He is going to talk to you about it presently. You wouldn't object, would you? You are entitled to your share now, he says, and Max will come into his directly. But Noel's will have to go into trust till he is of age."
"An excellent idea!" declared Rupert. "I'm damnably hard up, as your worthy fiancé has probably divined. But why this notion of not getting married for ever so long? I don't quite follow the drift of that."
"Oh, don't be silly!" said Chris, colouring very deeply. "How could we possibly? Everyone would say I was marrying him for his money?"
"And that is not so?" questioned Rupert.
"Of course it isn't!" She spoke with a vehemence almost fiery. "I—I'm not such a pig as that!"
"No?" He leaned his head back upon the cushion and gazed up at her flushed face. "What are you marrying him for?" he asked.
Chris looked back at him with a hint of defiance in her blue eyes. "What do most people marry for?" she demanded.
He laughed carelessly. "Heaven knows! Generally because they're stupid asses. The men want housekeepers and the women want houses, and neither want to pay for such luxuries. Those are the two principal reasons, if you ask me."
Chris jumped off the arm of his chair with an abruptness that seemed to indicate some perturbation of spirit. She went to one of the long windows that looked across the quiet square.
"Those are not our reasons, anyhow," she said, after a moment, with her back to the cynic in the chair.
He turned his head at her words and smiled, a mischievous boyish smile that proclaimed their relationship on the instant.
"Ye gods!" he ejaculated. "Is it possible that you're in love with him?"
Chris was silent. She seemed to be watching something in the road below her with absorbing interest.
"You needn't trouble to keep your back turned," gibed the brotherly voice behind her. "I can see you are the colour of beetroot even at this distance. Curious, very! But I'm glad you are so becomingly modest. It's the first indication of the virtue that I have ever detected in you."
"You beast!" said Chris.
She whirled suddenly round, half-laughing, half-resentful, seized a book from a table near, and hurled it with accurate aim at her brother's head.
He flung up a dexterous hand and caught it just as the door opened to admit Mordaunt, who had been asked to dine to meet his future brother-in-law.
Rupert was on his feet in a moment. With the book pressed against his heart, he swept a low bow to the advancing stranger.
"You come in the nick of time," he observed, "to preserve me from my sister's fratricidal intentions. Perhaps you would like to arbitrate. The offence was that I accused her of being in love—with you, of course. She seems to think the assertion unwarrantable."
"Oh, Trevor, don't listen!" besought Chris. "He only goes on like that because he thinks it's clever. Do snub him as he deserves!"
"Pray do!" said Rupert. "Begin by asking him how old he is, and whether he knows his nine-times backwards yet. Also—"
"Also," broke in Mordaunt, with a smile, "if he can't find something more profitable to do than to tease his small sister." He extended a quiet hand. "I have been wanting to make your acquaintance for some time. In fact, I was contemplating running down to Sandacre for the purpose."
"Very good of you," said Rupert. He dropped his chaffing air and grasped the proffered hand with abrupt friendliness. There was something about this man that caught his fancy. "You would be very welcome at any time. It isn't much of a show down there, but if you don't mind that—"
"I shouldn't come for the sake of the show," said Mordaunt. "I'd sooner see a battalion at work than at play."
"Ah! Wouldn't I, too!" said Rupert, with sudden fire. "We hope to be ordered to India next year. That wouldn't be absolute stagnation, anyhow. I loathe home work."
Mordaunt looked at the straight young figure brimming with activity, and decided that the more work this boy had to do the better it would be for him morally and physically.
"Keeps you in training," he suggested.
"Oh, I don't know. One is apt to get unconscionably slack. It's a fool of a world. The work is all wrongly distributed; some fellows have to work like niggers and others that want to work never get a look in." Rupert broke off to laugh. "I'm a discontented beggar, I tell you frankly," he said. "But I don't expect any sympathy from you, because, being what you are, you wouldn't reasonably be expected to understand."
"My good fellow, I haven't always been prosperous," Mordaunt assured him. "I've had luck, I admit. It comes to most of us in some form if we are only sharp enough to recognize it. Perhaps it hasn't come your way yet."
"I'll be shot if it has!" said Rupert.
"But it will," Mordaunt maintained, "sooner or later."
"Oh, do you believe in luck?" broke in Chris eagerly. "Because there's the new moon coming up over the trees, and I've just seen it through glass. Don't look, Trevor, for goodness' sake! No, no, you shan't! Shut your eyes while I open the window. You shall see it from the balcony."
She sprang to the window, and Mordaunt followed with an indulgent smile.
Rupert scoffed openly. "Chris is mad on charms of every description. If she hears a dog howl in the night she thinks there is going to be an earthquake. You had better not encourage her, or there will be no end to it."
But Chris, with her fiancé's hand fast in hers, was already at the window.
"If you don't believe in it, don't come!" she threw back over her shoulder. "Now, Trevor, you've got to turn your money, bow three times, and wish. Do wish for something really good to make up for my bad luck!"
Mordaunt complied deliberately with her instructions, her hand still in his.
"I have wished," he announced at length.
"Have you? What was it? Yes, you may tell me as I'm not doing any. Quick, before Rupert comes!"
Her eager face was close to his. He looked into the clear eyes and paused. "I don't think I will tell you," he said finally.
"Oh, how mean! And you would have missed the opportunity but for me!"
He laughed quietly. "So I should. Then I shall owe it to you if it comes true. I will let you know if it does."
"You are sure to forget," she protested.
"No. I am sure to remember."
She regarded him speculatively. "I don't like secrets," she said.
"Haven't you any of your own?" he asked.
"No. At least—" she suddenly coloured vividly under his eyes—"none that matter."
He sat down upon the balustrade of the balcony, bringing his eyes on a level with hers. "None that you wouldn't tell me," he suggested, still faintly smiling.
She recovered from her confusion with a quick laugh. "I shouldn't dream of telling you—some things," she said.
Her hand moved a little in his as though it wanted to be free, but he held it still. He bent towards her, his grey eyes no longer searching, only very soft and tender.
"You will when we are married, dear," he said.
But Chris shook her head with much decision. "Oh, no! I couldn't possibly. You would disapprove far too much. As Aunt Philippa says, you would be 'pained beyond expression.'"
But Mordaunt only drew her nearer. "You—child!" he said.
She yielded, half-protesting. "Yes, but I'm not quite a baby. I think you ought to remember that. Shall we go back? I know Rupert is sniggering behind the curtain."
"I'll break his head if he is," said Mordaunt; but he let her go, as she evidently desired, and prepared to follow her in.
They met Rupert sauntering out "to pay his respects," as he termed it, though, if there were any luck going, he supposed that his future brother-in-law had secured it all.
"Thought you didn't believe in luck," observed Mordaunt.
"I believe in bad luck," returned Rupert pessimistically. "I only know the other sort by hearsay."
"Isn't he absurd?" laughed Chris. "He always talks like that. And there are crowds of people worse off than he is."
"Query," remarked her brother, with a shrug of the shoulders; but an instant later, aware of Mordaunt's look, he changed the subject.
They were a small party at dinner, for there remained but Hilda Forest to complete the number. She had only that afternoon returned to town. Mrs. Forest was dining out, to Chris's unfeigned relief. For Chris was in high spirits that night, and only in her aunt's absence could she give them full vent.
But, if gay, she was also provokingly elusive. Mordaunt had never seen her so effervescent, so sublimely inconsequent, or so naïvely bewitching as she was throughout the meal. Rupert, reckless and débonnaire, encouraged her wild mood. As his youngest brother expressed it, he and Chris 'generally ran amok' when they got together. And Hilda, the sedate, rather pensive daughter of the house, was far too gentle to restrain them.
It was impossible to hold aloof from such light-hearted merry-making, and Mordaunt went with the tide. Perhaps instinct warned him that it was the surest way to overcome that barrier of shyness, unacknowledged but none the less existent, that kept him still a stranger to his little fiancée's confidence. Her dainty daring notwithstanding, he was aware of the fact that she was yet half afraid of him, though when he came to seek the cause of this he was utterly at a loss.
When he and Rupert were left alone together after dinner, they were already far advanced upon the road to intimacy. It was the result of his deliberate intention; for though a girl might keep him outside her inner sanctuary, it seldom happened in the world of men that Trevor Mordaunt could not obtain a free pass whithersoever he cared to go.
Rupert tossed aside his gaiety with characteristic suddenness almost as soon as the door had closed upon his sister and cousin.
"I suppose you want to get to business," he said abruptly. "I'm ready when you are."
Mordaunt moved into an easy-chair. "Yes, I want to make a suggestion," he said deliberately. "But it is not a matter that you and I can carry through single-handed. I want to talk about it, that's all."
Rupert, his elbows on the table, nodded and stared rather gloomily into his coffee-cup. "I suppose it'll take about a year to fix it up. Anything with a lawyer in it does."
Mordaunt watched him through his cigarette smoke for a few seconds in silence, until in fact with a slight movement of impatience Rupert turned.
"I'm no good at fencing," he said, rather irritably. "You want Kellerton
Old Park, Chris tells me. Have you seen it?"
"No."
"Then"—he sat back with a laugh that sounded rather forced—"that ends it," he declared. "The place has gone to rack and ruin. You can't walk up the avenue for the thistles. They are shoulder high. And as for the house, it's not much more than a rubbish-heap. It would cost more than it's worth to make it habitable. We have been trying to get rid of the place ever since my father's death, but it's no manner of use. People get let in by the agent's description and go and see it, but they all come away shuddering. You'll do the same."
"I shall certainly go and see it," Mordaunt said. "Perhaps I shall persuade Chris to motor down with me some day. But in any case, if you are selling—I'm buying."
Rupert jumped up suddenly. "I won't take you seriously till you've seen it," he declared.
"Oh yes, you will," Mordaunt returned imperturbably. "Because, you see, I am serious. But we haven't come to business yet. I want to know what price you are asking for this ancestral dwelling of yours."
"We would take almost anything," Rupert said.
He had begun to fidget about the room with a restlessness that was feverish. Mordaunt remained in his easy-chair, calmly smoking, obviously awaiting the information for which he had asked.
"Almost anything," Rupert repeated, halting at the table to drink some coffee.
The hand that held the cup was not over-steady. Mordaunt's eyes rested upon it thoughtfully.
"I should like to know," he said, after a moment.
Rupert gulped his coffee and looked down at him. "Murchison said ten thousand when my father died," he said. "He would probably begin by saying ten now, but he would end by taking five."
"Murchison is your solicitor?"
"And trustee up to a year ago."
"I see." Mordaunt reached for his own coffee. "And you? You think ten thousand would be a fair price?"
Rupert broke again into his uneasy laugh. "I think it would be an infernal swindle," he said.
"I will talk it over with Mr. Murchison," Mordaunt said quietly. "I only wanted to be sure that you were quite willing to sell before doing so."
Rupert took a turn up the room. He looked thoroughly ill-at-ease. Coming back, he halted by the mantelpiece and began to drum a difficult tattoo upon the marble.
"I don't want you to be let in by Murchison," he said suddenly. "You will find him damnably plausible. If he thinks you really want the place he will squeeze you like a sponge."
"Thanks for the warning!" There was a note of amusement in Mordaunt's voice. He finished his coffee and rose. "You have done your best to handicap your man of business, but I think he will get his price in spite of it. You see, I really do want the place."
"Without seeing it!"
"Yes."
Rupert whizzed round on his heels, and faced him. "Sounds rather—eccentric," he suggested.
Mordaunt smiled in his quiet, detached way. "I can afford to be eccentric," he said. "And now look here, Wyndham. You said something just now about having to wait a year to fix things up. I don't see the necessity for that, situated as we are. Since you are willing that I should buy Kellerton Old Park, and since we are agreed upon the price, I see no reason to delay payment. I will write you a cheque for your share to-night."
"What?" said Rupert.
He stood up very straight, staring at the man before him as if he were an entirely novel specimen of the human race.
"Is it a joke?" he asked at length.
Mordaunt flicked the ash from his cigarette without looking at him.
Perhaps he felt that he had studied him long enough.
"No," he said. "I don't see any point in jokes of that sort. Of course, I know it's not business, but the arrangement is entirely between ourselves. I don't see why even Murchison should be let into it. We can settle it later without taking him into our confidence."
"It's a loan, then?" said Rupert quickly.
"If you like to call it so."
"May as well call it by its name," the boy returned bluntly. "You're deuced generous, Mr. Mordaunt."
"I know what it is to be hard up," Mordaunt answered. "And since we are to be brothers we may as well behave as such, eh—Rupert?"
Rupert's hand came out and gripped his impulsively. For a second he seemed to be at a loss for words, then burst into headlong speech.
"Look here! I think I ought to tell you, before you take us in hand to that extent, that we're a family of rotters. We're not one of us sound. Oh, I'm not talking about Chris. She's a girl. But the rest of us are below par, slackers. Our father was the same. There's bad blood somewhere. You are bound to find it out sooner or later, so you may as well know it now."
Mordaunt's grey eyes looked his full in the face. "Is that intended as a warning not to expect too much?" he asked.
Rupert's eyelids twitched a little under that direct look. "Yes," he said briefly.
"And if I don't listen to warnings of that description?"
"You will probably get let down."
Rupert spoke recklessly, yet almost as if he could not help it. Undoubtedly there was something magnetic about Trevor Mordaunt at times, something that compelled. He was conscious of relief when the steady eyes ceased to scrutinize him.
"Not by you, I think," Mordaunt said, with his quiet smile. "You may be a rotter, my boy, but you are not one of the crooked sort."
"I've never robbed anyone, if that's what you mean." Rupert's laugh had in it a note of bitterness that was unconsciously pathetic. "But I'm up to the eyes in debt and pretty desperate. If I could have persuaded Murchison to raise money on the estate, I'd have done it long ago. That's why this offer of yours seemed too good to be true."
Mordaunt nodded. "I thought so. It's foul work floundering in that sort of quagmire. I wonder now if you will allow me to have a look into your affairs, or if you prefer to go to the devil your own way."
Rupert coloured and threw back his shoulders, but he did not take offence. The leisurely proposal held none. "I'm not over keen on going to the devil," he said. "But neither am I going to let you pay my debts, thanks all the same."
Mordaunt glanced at him and smiled. "I think you will cancel that 'but,'" he said, "in view of our future relationship."
Rupert hesitated, obviously wavering. "It's jolly decent of you," he said boyishly. "You make it confoundedly difficult to refuse."
"You are not going to refuse," said Mordaunt. "No one knows better than I do that it's ten times pleasanter to give than to receive. But that—between friends—is not a point worth considering."
"I should think you have a good many friends," said Rupert.
"I believe I have."
"Well,"—the boy spoke with a tinge of feeling beneath his banter—"you've added to the list to-night, and I wish you joy of your acquisition! But don't say I didn't warn you."
"No," said Mordaunt quietly. "I won't say that." He added a moment later, as he dropped the end of his cigarette into his coffee-cup, "I believe in my friends, Rupert."
"Till they let you down," suggested Rupert.
"They never do."
"Then allow me to say that you are one of the luckiest fellows I have ever met."
"Perhaps."
"And the best," Rupert added impulsively.
There was a moment's silence, then, "Shall we join the ladies?" suggested
Trevor Mordaunt, in a tone that sounded rather bored.
CHAPTER IV
DOUBTS
"He's nice, isn't he?" said Chris.
She was seated on a hassock close to her cousin's knee, a favourite position of hers.
Hilda's fingers fondled the sunny hair. Her eyes looked thoughtful. "I am so glad for you, dear," she said.
"I knew you would be," chuckled Chris. "Aunt Philippa is delighted too. It's the first time I've ever known her pleased with me. It feels so funny. Ah! There is my sweet Cinders! I must just let him in."
She sprang up to admit her favourite, whose imperious scratch at the door testified to the fact that he was not accustomed to being kept waiting. There ensued a tender if somewhat pointless conversation between himself and his mistress before she returned to her seat and her confidences.
"Did you ever refuse to marry anybody, Hilda?" she wanted to know then.
"Yes, dear."
"Many?"
"Three," said Hilda.
"Goodness!" Chris looked up with shining eyes of admiration. "How ever did you do it?"
"I wasn't in love with them," said Hilda simply.
"Oh! And you are in love with Percy?"
"Yes, dear." Again with the utmost simplicity the elder girl made answer.
"How nice!" said Chris. "But I can't think how you knew," she said, after a moment.
Hilda leaned forward to look into the clear eyes. A faint gleam of anxiety showed for a moment in her own. "But surely you know, Chris!" she said.
"I!" said Chris, with a gay shake of the head. "Oh, no, I don't. You know, I don't believe it's in me to fall in love in the ordinary way. I was quite angry with Rupert only this evening for jeering at me, as if I were. Oh, no, Hilda, I'm not in love like that."
"But, my dear—" Hilda looked down in grave perplexity, not unmixed with apprehension.
Chris leaned back against her quite unconcernedly, her hands clasped round her knees, and laughed like an elf. "Darling, don't look at me like that! It's too funny. Don't you know that it's only you staid, good people who ever fall in love properly? The rest of us only pretend. That's where the romance comes in."
"But, dear, Trevor Mordaunt is in love with you," Hilda reminded her gently.
"Oh yes," said Chris, "I know. That's why I had to accept him. I don't believe even you could have said No to him."
Hilda's face cleared a little. She pinched the soft cheek nearest to her.
"After that, don't talk to me about not being in love!"
"Oh, but really I don't think I am," Chris assured her quite seriously. "I have only once in my life met anyone with whom I could possibly imagine myself falling in love. And he was not a bit like Trevor."
"What was he like?" asked Hilda. "A sort of fancy person? Or someone out of a book?"
"Oh no, he was quite real—the nicest man." A faraway look came into Chris's eyes; she suddenly spoke very softly as one in the presence of a vision. "I think—I am not sure—that he belonged to the old French noblesse. He was not tall, but beautifully made, just right in every way, and very handsome, with eyes that laughed—the sort of man one dreams of, but never meets."
"And yet he was real," Hilda said.
"Oh yes, he was real. But it was ages and ages ago. He may have changed by this time. He may even be dead—my preux chevalier." Chris came out of her dream with a shaky little laugh. "Ah, well, I've given up crying for him," she said. "Anyhow it was only a game. Let's talk of something else."
"It was the man at Valpré," said Hilda.
"Yes, it was the man at Valpré. I never told you about him, did I? I never told anyone. Somehow I couldn't. People made such a horrid fuss. But the very thought of him used to make me cry at one time. Wasn't it silly? But I missed him so. I couldn't help it. We won't talk about him any more. It makes me melancholy. Hilda, wouldn't it be a novel idea if your bridesmaids carried fans instead of Prayer Books? You could have the marriage service printed on them in gold with illuminated capitals. Would Aunt Philippa think it immoral, do you think?"
To anyone who did not know Chris this sudden change might have seemed bewildering; but Hilda was never taken unawares by her swift transitions. She did not even deem her flippant, as did her mother. For Chris was very dear to her. She knew and loved her in all her lightning moods. It was possible that even she did not wholly understand her, but she was nearer to doing so than any other in Chris's world just then.
When Chris danced across to the piano and began her favourite waltz to the accompaniment of muffled howls from Cinders, she knew that the hour for confidences was past. Nor had she any desire to prolong it, for it seemed better to her to leave the hero of Chris's girlhood in obscurity. She had not the smallest doubt that her young cousin invested him with all the glamour of a vivid imagination. He was fashioned of the substance of dreams, and she fancied that Chris herself was more than half aware of this.
But still her faint misgiving did not wholly die away. Though Trevor Mordaunt had secured for himself the girl of his choice, she could not suppress a grave doubt as to whether he had yet succeeded in winning her heart. He would ultimately win it; she felt convinced of that. He was a man who was bound sooner or later to rule supreme. And thus she strove to reassure herself; but still, in spite of her, the doubt remained. Chris was so young, so gay, so innocent. She could not bear to think of the troubles and perplexities of womanhood descending upon her. She was so essentially made for the joy of life.
She sat and watched her unperceived, the slim young figure in the shaded lamplight, the shining hair, the slender neck—all vivid, instinct with life; and she comprehended the witchery that had caught Mordaunt's heart. Of the man himself she knew but little. He was not expansive, and circumstances had not thrown them together. But what she knew of him she liked. She was aware that her brother valued his friendship very highly—a friendship begun on a South African battlefield; and though they had met but seldom since, the intimacy between them had remained unshaken.
Trevor Mordaunt was a man of many friends—friends in all ranks and of many nationalities. No one knew quite how he made them; no one ever saw his friendships in the making. But all over the world were men who hailed his coming with pleasure and saw him go with regret.
She supposed him capable of a vast sympathy, a wide understanding. It seemed the only explanation. But would he understand her little Chris? she wondered. Would he make full allowance for her dear caprices, her whimsical fancies, her butterfly temperament? Would he ever thread his way through these fairy defences to that hidden shrine where throbbed her woman's heart? And would he be the first to enter there? She hoped so; she prayed so.
"Hilda"—imperiously the gay voice broke through her reverie—"if Percy wants to know what sort of pendants to give the bridesmaids, be sure you say turquoise and pearl. It's most important."
She was still strumming her waltz, and did not hear Mordaunt enter behind her.
"I saw a most lovely thing to-day," she went on. "One of those heart-shaped things that are still hearts even if you turn them upside down."
"Is that an advantage?" asked Mordaunt.
She whizzed round on the music-stool. "Trevor! I wish you wouldn't make me jump. Of course it is an advantage if a thing never looks wrong way up. You will remember, won't you, Hilda? Turquoise and pearl."
"Are you going to be chief mourner?" asked Rupert.
"Don't be horrid! I'm going to be chief bridesmaid, if that's what you mean?"
"And turquoise and pearl is to be the order of the day?" queried
Mordaunt.
"A white muslin frock and a blue sash, I suppose," supplemented Rupert. "Hair worn long and tied with a blue bow rather bigger than an ordinary-sized sunshade. No shoes and no stockings, but some pale blue sandals over white lace socks. Result—ravishing!"
Chris glanced round for a missile, found none, so decided to ignore him.
"Yes," she said to her fiancé, "and we are going to carry bouquets of wheat and cornflowers."
"Sounds like the ingredients of a pudding," said Rupert.
Chris rose from the piano in disgust, and her brother instantly slipped into her place. "I say, Hilda," he called, "come and sing! There's no one to listen to you but me; but that's a detail. Trevor and Christina, pray consider yourselves excused."
"We don't want to be excused," said Chris mutinously "Do stop, Rupert!
Cinders doesn't like it."
Rupert, however, was already crashing through Mendelssohn's Wedding March, and turned a deaf ear. She picked the discontented one up to comfort him, and as she did so Trevor moved up to her. He stood beside her for a few seconds, stroking the dog's soft head.
Chris looked hot and uncomfortable, as if Rupert's music pounded on her nerves; but yet she would not make a move. She stood hushing Cinders as if he had been an infant.
"Shall we go outside?" Mordaunt said at last.
She shook her head.
"Come!" he said gently.
She turned without a word, laid the dog tenderly in a chair, whispered to him, kissed him, and went to the open window.
They stepped out together, and the curtains met behind them.
The moon had passed out of sight behind the houses, but the sky was alight with stars. A faint breeze trembled through the trees in the quiet square garden, and the faint, wonderful essence of summer came from them. From a distance sounded the roar of countless wheels—the deep chorus of London's traffic.
They stood side by side in silence while behind them Rupert played the Wedding March to a triumphant end. Then quiet descended, and there came a long pause.
Chris broke it at last, moved, and shyly spoke. "Trevor!"
"What is it, dear?"
She drew slightly towards him, and at once he put a quiet arm about her.
"I want to tell you something," she said.
"Something serious?" he questioned.
"I—I don't know." A faint note of distress sounded in her voice. She laid her cheek suddenly against his shoulder with a very confiding gesture. "I'm not quite happy," she said.
He held her closer. "Tell me, Chris!" he said very tenderly.
She uttered a little laugh that had a sob in it. "It's only that—that I can't help feeling that you're making rather a bad bargain. You know, the other day—when—when you proposed to me—I didn't have time to think. I've been thinking since."
"Yes?" he said.
"Yes. And now and then—only now and then—I feel rather bad. I—I like fair play, Trevor. It isn't right for me to take so much and give—so little." Her voice quivered perceptibly, and she ceased to speak. He pressed her closer to him, but he remained silent for several seconds.
At last, "Chris," he said, "will it comfort you to know that what you call a little is to me the greatest thing on earth?"
His voice was deep and very quiet, yet a tremor went through her at his words.
"That's just what frightens me," she said.
"It shouldn't frighten you," he said. "It need not."
"But it does," said Chris.
He was silent for another space, still holding her closely. In the room behind them they could hear the cousins talking; but they were alone together, shut off, as it were, from ordinary converse, alone under the stars.
"Suppose," said Mordaunt gently, "you leave off thinking for a bit, and take things as they come."
"Yes?" she said rather dubiously.
He bent down to her. "Chris, I will never ask more of you than you are able to give."
She moved at that in her quick, impulsive way, reached up and clasped his neck. "Oh, Trevor, I do love you!" she said, with a catch in her voice. "I do want you to have—the best!"
Her face was raised to his. For the first time she offered him her lips. They were nearer to understanding each other at that moment than they had ever been before.
But as he bent lower to kiss her the notes of the piano floated out to them again, this time in a soft melody, inexpressibly sweet, full of a subtle charm, the fairy gold of romance.
She kissed him indeed—and it was the first kiss she had ever given him; but he felt her stiffen in his hold even as she did it. And the next moment, almost with passion, she spoke—
"I wish Rupert wouldn't play that thing! He knows—he knows—that I can't bear it!"
"What is it?" Mordaunt asked in surprise.
She answered him with a laugh that did not ring quite true. "It is the 'Aubade à la Fiancée.' He is only playing it to torment us. Let us go in and stop him!"
She turned inwards with the words, disengaging herself from his arm as casually as she might have pushed aside a chair. Mordaunt followed her in silence. There were no further confidences between them that night.