the two ladies were to arrive about tea time next day, and, as the hour drew on, a lively restlessness got hold of harry. he could neither sit, nor stand, nor read, but after a paragraph of a page, the meaning of which slipped from his mind even as his eyes hurried over the lines, he would be off on an aimless excursion to the dining room, forget what he had gone about, and return with the same haste to his book. then he would remember that he wanted the table to-night in the centre of the room, not pushed, as they had been having it, into the window; and there must be a place left for the luck in the middle of the table. again he would be off to the dining room; there was the table in the centre of the room, and in the centre of the table a place for the luck, for he had given twenty repetitions of the order to templeton, which was exactly twenty repetitions more than were necessary. harry, in fact, was behaving exactly like the cock sparrow in mating time, strutting before its lady—an instinct in all young males. but there were not enough flowers; there must be more flowers and less silver. how could dutch silver[pg 155] be ornamental in the neighbourhood of that gorgeous centrepiece, and how, said his heart to him, could the luck be ornamental, considering who should sit at his table?
he went back again to the hall, after giving these directions, where tea was laid. mr. francis was out on the lawn; he could see his yellow panama hat like a large pale flower under the trees; the windows were all open, and the gentle hum of the warm afternoon came languidly in. suddenly a fuller note began to overscore these noises in gradual crescendo, the crisp gravel grated underneath swift wheels, and next moment he was at the door. and, at sight of the girl, all his marthalike cares, the dutch silver, the position of the table, slipped from him. here was the better part.
"welcome!" he said; "and welcome and welcome!" and he held the girl's hand far longer than a stranger would; and it was not withdrawn. a little added colour shone in her cheeks, and her eyes met his, then fell before them. "so you have not stayed to keep lord oxted company," he said. "i can spare him pity.—how are you, lady oxted?"
"did you think i should?" asked evie.
"no; i felt quite certain you would not," said harry, with the assurance which women love. "do come in; tea is ready."
"and i am ready," said evie.
"and this is the hall," continued harry, as they entered, "where every one does everything.[pg 156] oh! there is a drawing-room: if you wish we will be grand and go to the drawing-room. i had it made ready; but let us stop here.—will you pour out tea, lady oxted."
lady oxted took a rapid inventory of the tapestry and portraits.
"i rather like drinking tea in a cow shed," she remarked.
in a few moments mr. francis entered with his usual gay step, and in his hand he carried his large hat.
"how long since we met last, lady oxted!" he said. "and what a delight to see you here!"
"miss aylwin, uncle francis," said harry, unceremoniously.
the old man turned quickly.
"ah! my dear miss aylwin," he said—"my dear miss aylwin," and they shook hands.
harry gave a little sigh of relief. ever since his uncle's attack, a fortnight ago, he had felt in the back of his mind a little uneasiness about this meeting. it seemed he might have spared himself the pains. nothing could have been simpler or more natural than mr. francis's manner; yet the warmth of his hand-shake, the form of words, more intimate than a man would use to a stranger, were admirably chosen—if choice were not a word too full of purpose for so spontaneous a greeting—to at once recognise and obliterate the past. the meeting was, as it were, a scene of reconciliation between two who had never set eyes on each other before, and between whom the[pg 157] horror of their vicarious estrangement would never be mentioned or even be allowed to be present in the mind. and mr. francis's words seemed to harry to meet the situation with peculiar felicity.
the old man seated himself near lady oxted.
"this is an occasion," he said, "and both harry and i have been greatly occupied with his house-warming. but the weather—there was little warming there to be done; surely we have ordered delightful weather for you. harry told me that miss aylwin wished for a warm day. indeed, his choice does not seem to me, a poor northerner, a bad one; but miss aylwin has perhaps had too much italian weather to care for our poor imitation."
"lord vail refused to promise," said evie; "at least he did not promise anything about the weather. i was afraid he would forget."
"ah! but i told my uncle," said harry. "he saw about it: you must thank him."
evie was sitting opposite the fireplace, and her eye had been on the picture of old francis which hung above it. at these words of harry's she turned to mr. francis with a smile, and her mouth half opened for speech. but something arrested the words, and she was silent; and harry, who had been following every movement of hers, tracing it with the infallible minute intuition of a lover to its desiring thought, guessed that the curious resemblance between the two had struck with a force that for the moment took away[pg 158] speech. but, before the pause was prolonged, she answered.
"i do thank you very much," she said. "and have you arranged another day like this for to-morrow?"
she looked, as she spoke, out of the open windows and into the glorious sunshine, and harry rose.
"shall we not go out?" he said. "uncle francis will think we do not appreciate his weather if we stop in."
evie rose too.
"yes, let us go out at once," she said. "but let me first put on another hat. i am not in london, and my present hat simply is london. o lord vail, i long to look at that picture again, but i won't; i will be very self-denying, for i am sure—i am sure it is the luck in the corner of it."
she put up her hand so as to shield the picture from even an accidental glance.
"will you show me my way?" she asked. "i will be down again in a minute."
harry took her up the big staircase, lit by a skylight, and lying in many angles.
"yes, you have guessed," he said. "it is the luck: you will see the original to-night at dinner. did anything else strike you in the picture? oh, i saw it did."
"yes, a curious false resemblance. i feel sure it is false, for i think that portrait represents not a very pleasant old gentleman. but your[pg 159] uncle, lord vail—i never saw such a dear, kind face!"
harry flushed with pleasure.
"so now you understand," he said, "what your coming here must mean to him. ah! this is your maid, is she not? i will wait in the hall for you."
the two elder folk had already strolled out, when harry returned to the hall, a privation which he supported with perfect equanimity, and in a few minutes he and his companion followed. as they crossed the lawn, harry swept the points of the compass slowly with his stick.
"flower garden, kitchen garden, woods, lake, farm, stables," he said.
evie's eye brightened.
"stables, please," she said. "i am of low horsey tastes, you must know, and i was afraid you were not going to mention them. we had the two most heavenly cobs i ever saw to take us from the station."
"yes, jack and jill," said harry. "but not cobs—angels. did you drive them?"
"no, but i longed to. may i, when we go back on monday?"
"tuesday is their best day," said harry; "except wednesday."
they chattered their way to the stables, where the two angels were even then at their toilets.
"there is not much to show you," said harry. "there are the cobs that brought you.—good-evening, jim."
[pg 160]
the man who was grooming them looked up, touched his bare head, and without delay went on with the hissing toilet, as a groom should. evie looked at him keenly, then back to her companion, and at the man again.
"yes, they are beautiful," she said, and as they turned, "is vail entirely full of doubles?" she asked.
harry smiled, and followed her into the stables of the riding horses.
"jim is more like me than that picture of old francis is like my uncle," he said. "i really think i shall have to get rid of him. the likeness might be embarrassing."
"i wouldn't do that," said evie. "our italian peasants say it is good luck to have a double about."
"good luck for which?"
"for both. really, i never saw such an extraordinary likeness."
they spent some quarter of an hour looking over the horses, and returned leisurely toward the house, passing it and going on to the lake. the sun was still not yet set, and the glory of the summer evening a thing to wonder at. earth and sky seemed ready to burst with life and colour; it was as if a new world was imminent to be born, and from the great austere downs drew a breeze that was the breath of life, but dry, unbreathed. evie appropriated it in open draughts, with head thrown back.
"aunt violet was quite right, lord vail,[pg 161] when she said you should never come to london," she exclaimed. "how rude she was to you that night, and how little you minded! even now, when i have been here only an hour, i can no longer imagine how one manages to breathe in that stuffy, shut-in air. winter, too, winter must be delicious here, crisp and bracing."
"so it would seem this evening," said harry, "but you must see it first under a genuine november day. a mist sometimes spreads slowly from the lake, so thick that even i could almost lose my way between it and the house. it does not rise high, and i have often looked from the windows of the second story into perfectly clear air, while if you went out at the front door you would be half drowned in it. higher up the road again you will be completely above it, and i have seen it lying below as sharply defined as the lake itself, and if you walk down from that wood up there, it is like stepping deeper and deeper into water. a bad one will rise as high as the steps of those two buildings you see to the right of the house, like kiosks, standing on a knoll, under which the road winds in front of the trees."
"and the house is all surrounded like an island? what odd buildings! what are they?"
"one is a summerhouse; i couldn't now tell you which. we used to have tea in it sometimes, i remember, when i was quite little. the other is the ice house—a horrible place: it used to haunt me. i remember shrieking with terror once when my nurse took me in. it was almost completely[pg 162] dark, and i can hear now the echo one's step made; and there was a great black chasm in the middle of the floor with steps leading down, as i thought, to the uttermost pit. two chasms i think there were; one was a well. but the big one was that which terrified me, though i dare say it was only ten or twelve feet deep. things dwindle so amazingly as one grows up! i wish i could see this lake, for instance, as i saw it when i was a child. it used to appear to me as large as the sea seems now; and as for the sluice, it might have been the iron gates of the danube."
"i know: things do get smaller," said evie, "but, after all, this lake and the sluice are not quite insignificant yet. what a splendid rush of water! and i dare say the ice-house chasm is still sufficient to kill any one who falls in. that, after all, is enough for practical purposes. but then, even if they grow smaller, how much more beautiful they become! when you were little, you never saw half the colour or half the shape you see now. the trees were green, the sky was blue, but they gave one very surface impressions to what they give one now."
"oh, i rather believe in the trailing clouds of glory," said harry.
"then make an effort to disbelieve in them every day," said evie. "shades of the prison house begin to grow around the growing boy, do they? what prison house does the man mean, if you please? why, the world, this beautiful,[pg 163] delightful world. indeed, we are very fortunate convicts! and wordsworth called himself a lover of nature!" she added, with deep scorn.
"certainly the world has been growing more beautiful to me lately," said harry.
"of course it has. please remind me that i have to cut my throat without delay if ever you hear me say that the world is growing less beautiful. but just imagine a person who loved nature talking of the world as a prison house! who was it said that wordsworth only found in stones the sermons he had himself tucked under them, to prevent the wind blowing them away?"
"i don't know. it sounds like the remark of an unindolent reviewer."
evie laughed.
"fancy talking about reviewers on an evening like this!" she said. "oh, there's a canadian canoe. may we go in it?"
the far end of the lake was studded with little islands only a few yards in circumference for the most part, but, as evie explained, large enough for the purpose. and then, like two children together, they played at red indians and lay in wait for a swan, and attempted to stalk a moor hen with quite phenomenal ill success. no word of any tender kind was spoken between them; they but laughed over the nonsense of their own creating, but each felt as they landed that in the last hour their intimacy had shot up like the spike of the aloe flower. for when a man and a maid can win back to childhood again, and play like children[pg 164] together, it is certain that no long road lies yet to traverse before they really meet.
lady oxted was doomed that night to a very considerable dose—a dose for an adult, in fact—of what she had alluded to as nursery rhymes, for the luck seemed absolutely to fascinate the girl, and harry, seeing how exclusively it claimed her eyes, more than once reconsidered the promise he had made her to have it to dinner the next evening as well. she would hardly consent to touch it, and harry had positively to put it into her hands, so that she might read for herself its legend of the elements. they drank their coffee while still at table, and evie's eye followed the jewel till templeton had put it into its case. then, as the last gleam vanished:
"i am like the queen of sheba," she said, "and there is no more spirit left in me. if you lose the luck, lord vail, you may be quite sure that it is i who have stolen it; and when i am told that two men in plain clothes are waiting in the drawing-room, i shall know what they have come about. now for some improving conversation about facts and actualities, for aunt violet's sake."
sunday afternoon was very hot, and lady oxted, evie, and harry lounged it away under the shade of the trees on the lawn. mr. francis had not been seen since lunch time, but it was clear that he was busy with his favourite diversion, for brisk and mellow blowings on the flute came from the open window of his sitting room.[pg 165] harry had mentioned this taste of his to the others, and it had been received by lady oxted with a short and rather unkind laugh, which had been quite involuntary, and of which she was now slightly ashamed. but evie had thought the thing pleasant and touching, rather than absurd, and had expressed a hope that he would allow her to play some accompaniments for him after dinner. if aunt violet, she added incisively, found the sound disagreeable, no doubt she would go to her own room.
harry was in the normal sunday afternoon mood, feeble and easily pleased, and the extreme and designed offensiveness of the girl's tone made him begin to giggle hopelessly. evie thereupon caught the infection, for laughter is more contagious than typhus, and her aunt followed. the hysterical sounds apparently reached mr. francis's ears, in some interval between tunes, for in a moment his rosy face and white hair appeared framed in the window, and shortly afterward he came briskly across the grass to them.
"it is getting cooler," he said gaily, "and i am going to be very selfish and ask miss aylwin to come for a stroll with me. my lazy nephew, i find, has not taken her through the woods, and i insist on her seeing them.—will you be very indulgent to me, miss evie, and accept a devoted though an aged companion?"
evie rose with alacrity.
"with the greatest pleasure," she said.—"are you coming, too, aunt violet?"
[pg 166]
"not for the wide, wide world," said lady oxted, "will i walk one yard!—harry, stop where you are, and keep me company."
the two walkers went up under the knoll on which stood the ice house, talking and laughing in diminuendo. harry saw mr. francis offer the girl his arm for the steep ascent, and it pleased him in some secret fashion to see that, though her light step was clearly in no need of exterior aid, she accepted it. with this in his mind he turned to lady oxted.
"it is a great success," he said. "they are delighted with each other. think what it must mean to my uncle!"
lady oxted stifled a yawn.
"who are delighted?" she asked.
harry pointed at the two figures halfway up the slope.
"you knew whom i meant perfectly," he remarked.
"i did. i really don't know why i asked. by the way, harry, i apologize for laughing just now. your uncle is the most charming and courteous old gentleman. and he is devoted to you. in fact, i got just a little tired of your name yesterday evening before dinner."
harry did not reply; he was still watching the two. they had surmounted the knoll, and in another moment the iron gate leading into the ride through the wood closed behind them, and they passed out of sight among the trees.
mr. francis was, as has been indicated, very[pg 167] fond of young people, and those who had the pleasure of his acquaintance always found him a delightful companion. he had an intimate knowledge of natural history, and this afternoon, as he walked with the girl, he would now pick some insignificant herb from the grass, with a sentence or two on its notable medicinal qualities, now with a face full of happy radiance hold up his hand while a bird trilled in the bushes in rapt and happy attention.
"a goldfinch, miss evie," he whispered; "there is no mistaking that note. let us come very quietly, and perhaps we shall catch sight of the beauty. that lazy nephew of mine," he went on, when they had seen the gleam of the vanishing bird, "he was saying the other day that there were no goldfinches in wiltshire. i dare say he will join us here soon. he almost always comes up here on sunday afternoon. it used to be his father's invariable sunday walk."
they strolled quietly along for some half hour, up winding and zigzag paths which would lead them presently to the brae above the wood, and disclose to them, so mr. francis said, a most glorious prospect. below them, down the steep hillside up which they had circuitously made their way, lay the blue slate roof of the stables; in the yard they could see a retriever sleeping, and the sound of a man whistling came up very clear through the stillness of the afternoon. then they turned a corner—the last, so mr. francis said—and the path which had hitherto been all loops and[pg 168] turns straightened itself out as it gained the end of the ridge up which the wood climbed. but here they were no longer alone, for not fifty yards in front of them they saw a girl in a pink dress, and with her a young man in straw hat and dark blue serge, of strangely familiar figure; his arm was about her waist. on the instant the man turned, and evie, to her indescribable amazement, saw that it was lord vail. he said a word hurriedly to the girl, and turned off down a side path, while the girl walked quickly on. the glance had been momentary.
a short, stifled exclamation came from mr. francis.
"ah, the foolish fellow!" he cried; and then, without a pause: "yes, as i told you, there are only beeches up here, miss evie. those oaks which you were admiring so much seem to stop as suddenly as if you had drawn a line of demarcation halfway up the hill. now why is that, i wonder? the oak is the harder of the two, yet it is the beeches that prefer the colder situation. strange, is it not? there used to be oaks here, but they have all died."
they soon came out at the top of the hill, where the glorious prospect which mr. francis had promised evie spread largely round them. but he had grown silent and distrait, quite unlike himself, and instead of rhapsodizing over the magnificence of the rolling hills, he gazed for a moment but sadly, pointed out to his companion various distant landmarks, as if he did not expect[pg 169] her to be interested, and remarked that it was time for them to turn. nor was evie much more talkative; the sight of harry with that girl had strangely wounded her. little had she thought, when mr. francis said he often spent his sunday afternoons here, that she would see him thus! she told herself that he was perfectly at liberty to walk in his own woods with any one he pleased, but that he had availed himself of that liberty she felt like an insult offered to her. her quick eye had taken in the girl in a moment; her dress, the way she put her feet down when she walked, all spoke of a certain class. ten to one she was the daughter of the gamekeeper or butler. ah, how disgusting men were!
mr. francis walked by her in silence, with a frown on his usually serene brow, and, it would seem, some matter in debate. suddenly he turned to her.
"dear miss evie," he said, "will you allow a very old man to take a very great liberty? do not think too hardly of harry, poor fellow, i beg of you! he has been much alone, without companions, and young men will be young men, you know. and i would stake—yes, i would stake all i have—that what you and i have seen was a mere harmless little flirtation, a few words said on either side, not meant by either, a kiss or two perhaps changing owners. harry is young, but he is a good fellow, and an honest. you are disgusted, naturally, but i have never known—believe me, i have never known—these little foolishnesses[pg 170] of his mean anything. they are altogether superficial and innocent."
he spoke with a very kind and serious voice, and with much of entreaty in his tone. but evie's eyes were still hard and angry; she thought she had never heard so tame a defence.
"this sort of thing has gone on before, then?" she asked.
"ah! do not force me," pleaded mr. francis. "i will go bail, i tell you, on harry's honesty."
"certainly i will not force you," she said. "come, mr. francis, this is not a nice subject. let us have no more of it. that was really oxford we saw just now, was it? how wonderfully clear the air must be here!"
they passed down through the wood and to the house, where they both turned in. but in a minute or two evie found she had left a book on the lawn, and went out to fetch it. tea was laying there, and under the trees, where she had left them an hour ago, were lady oxted and harry, at full length in their garden chairs, both, it would seem, fast asleep. and at that sight a sudden question asked itself in the girl's mind: how could it possibly be harry they had seen in the wood? and before the question was asked the answer came, and she said softly to herself, "jim."
her book was lying close to the sleepers, but she had already forgotten about it, and she turned quietly away, casting one glance at harry, whose straw hat was lying on the grass, and noticing[pg 171] with a faint, unconvincing sense of justification that his clothes were also of dark-blue serge. but habitually honest, even with herself, she knew that her self-judged case would be summed up dead against her, and she set her teeth for a lonely and most humiliating ten minutes. without definite purpose in her mind, except that association should be an added penance, she went to the lake, and sat down in the canadian canoe in which they had played red indians the evening before.
how could she, she asked herself, have been so distrustful, so malicious, so ready to blacken? she had seen a young man walking with a girl, and she had been knave enough, and also fool enough (which was bitter), to accept the shallow evidence of her eyes when they told her that he was harry. had she not been warned against such wicked credulity, even as elsa had been warned by lohengrin, by the sight of that slim, handsome groom last night in the stable yard? had she not said to harry, "is vail full of doubles?" out of her own mouth should she be judged. a worse than elsa was sitting in the canadian canoe. for half an hour at least she had believed that harry was flirting with a servant girl, that he was capable of leaving her to suppose that he was going to keep lady oxted company under the trees, and as soon as her back was turned set off to meet his village beauty. loyalty! a feeling she professed to admire! how would any girl in her position, who had an ash of[pg 172] what had once been loyalty, have acted? she would have flatly refused to believe any evidence; sight, hearing, every sense would have been powerless to touch her. harry could not do such a thing. how did she know that? for the present that was beside the point; she knew it, and that was enough. perhaps—and the warm colour came to her face—perhaps she would come to that presently.
she sat up, and beat the water with the flat of the paddle. "fool, fool, base little fool!" she whispered, a syllable to a stroke.
suddenly she stopped, the paddle poised.
"i have never known these little foolishnesses of his mean anything," rang in her ears. so! this sort of thing had happened before.... what? was she again skulking and suspecting, even after the lesson she had received? she had believed, though only for half an hour, the evidence of her own eyes, and she had suffered for it. was she now to believe the evidence of somebody else's tongue? yet mr. francis had said it, that dear old fellow, who was evidently so devoted to harry, so pained at what they had seen. no, it did not matter if the four major prophets had said it. she knew better than all the stained glass in christendom, and again she belaboured the water to the rhythm of "fool, fool, base little fool!"
for a few moments her thoughts flew off to mr. francis. he must have known that harry's twin brother was a groom in the stables, yet he[pg 173] had been as certain as she that it was harry they had surprised in the wood. he had been at pains to persuade her that the fault was venial, to assure her that young men would be young men, that harry was honest. why had he felt so certain on so slight a glance that it was harry? what did it mean? then she whisked mr. francis from her mind. he was as despicable as she, neither more nor less. he was as great a fool as she.
was he? was he? did he know harry as well as she—he who had known him all his life, she who had known him a month, no more? certainly he did not, could not. she, who knew him so well, had rightly accused herself of disloyalty to him, compared herself to elsa, and him.... did she then owe him loyalty? ah! a big word.
she put the dripping paddle back in the boat, for she was in wider fields than self-reproach has ever hedged about, and leaned forward, hearing the ripples lap and cluck on the sides. supposing any one else—geoffrey langham, for instance—had chosen to walk in a wood with a dairymaid, would she have cared? would it have stung her? not a jot. then why——
at this she rose, slipped out of the boat, and for a moment looked at the wavering outline of her reflection in the lake. then she stood upright, her arms fallen by her side, and a little voice spoke within her, which she tried to tell herself was not she.
"i surrender," it said.
[pg 174]
she walked back to the lawn, proud and shy of the revelation she had made to herself, and with a mind once more unshadowed. lady oxted apparently had just awoke, and was looking distractedly round, as if she found herself in a strange bedroom. harry, with one arm thrown behind his head, still slumbered.
"unconscious innocent, tea!" said lady oxted, truculently poking him in the ribs with her parasol.
harry opened both his eyes very wide, like a mechanical doll awaking.
"why did you do that?" he said; "i have been lying here quietly, thinking. have they come back from their walk?"
"no," said lady oxted, "they are lost. a search party went out about three hours ago to look for them. rockets and other signals of distress have been seen intermittently from the downs."
harry sat up and saw evie, and instantly turned his back on lady oxted.
"did you have a nice walk?" he asked. "i wish i had come with you. i"—and he looked round to see whether the parasol was within range—"i have been terribly bored this afternoon. lady oxted has positively no conversation."
evie looked first at him, then at her aunt.
"well, you both look all the better for your—your silence," she said. "yes, lord vail, we had a charming walk. and we surprised your double love-making in the wood."
[pg 175]
"oh, yes, the dairymaid," said harry. "she's as pretty as a picture."
"i always wonder where the lower orders get their good looks from," said lady oxted, parenthetically.
harry picked up his straw hat.
"probably from the lower orders," he remarked. "let's have tea. sleeping is such hungry work, is it not, lady oxted? i am sure you must be famished."
"elephantine wit," sighed that lady. "when harry is so kind as to make a joke, which is unfortunately not so rare as one might wish, i always feel as if heavy feet were trampling about directly overhead."
"and when lady oxted makes a joke," said the lad, "which is not so often as her enemies would wish, she always reminds me of a sucking spring directly under foot. i give one water-logged cry, and am swallowed up. do pour out tea for us, lady oxted. you are such an excellent tea-maker!"
"the score is fifteen all," remarked evie.
"when did harry score?" demanded lady oxted, seating herself at the urn.
"just now, dear aunt.—and so jim is to marry the dairymaid, lord vail."
"and who is jim?" asked lady oxted.
"my double. i wish i knew as much about horses as he. yes, jim is walking out with the dairymaid."
"i have heard enough about jim," said lady[pg 176] oxted decisively. "here is mr. francis.—mr. francis, take my side: there is a league against me.
"a charming one," said mr. francis, directing his gay glance to evie.
but the girl did not meet it; she looked quite gravely and deliberately away.
