Barrie, J M - When A Man's Single

by When A Man's Single

  THE ONE WOMAN. 115

  rashly, for when he put it to himself he found that he could not even remember the text. As he told me afterward (here Mary smiled a little), he had a gen- eral idea of the sermon, but could not quite put it into words, and he was fearing that he would lose the wager (and l» e laughed at, which always vexes papa), when he heard of your report. So a messenger was sent to Thrums for it and papa won his bet."

  " But how did Mr. Rorrison hear of my report, then?"

  " Oh, I forgot ; papa told him afterward, and was so pleased with his victory that, when he heard Mr. Rorrison had influence with some press people, he suggested to him that something might be done for you."

  "This is strange," said Rob, "and perhaps the strangest thing about it is that if Colonel Abinger could identify me with the saw-miller he would be sorry that he had interfered."

  Mary saw the force of this so clearly that she could not contradict him.

  "Surely," she said, "I heard when I was at the Lodge of your having a niece, and that you and the little child lived alone in the saw-mill?"

  "Yes," Rob answered hoarsely, "but she is dead. She wandered from home, and was found dead on a mountain-side."

  "Was it long ago?" asked Mary, very softly.

  "Only a few months ago," Rob said, making his

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  answer as short as possible, for the death of Davy moved him still. " She was only four years old. "

  Mary's hand went half-way toward his involun- tarily. His mouth was twitching. He knew how good she was.

  "That card," he began, and hesitated.

  " Oh, would you care to have it?" said Mary.

  But just then Colonel Abinger walked in to them, somewhat amazed to see his daughter talking to one of the lower orders. Neither Rob nor Mary had any inclination to tell him that this was the Scotsman he had befriended.

  "This is Mr. Angus, papa," said Mary, "who who was with us last night."

  "Mr. Angus and I have met before, I think," re- plied her father, recalling the fishing episode. His brow darkened, and Rob was ready for anything, but Colonel Abinger was a gentleman.

  " I always wanted to see you again, Mr. Angus," he said, with an effort, " to ask you what flies you were using that day?"

  Rob muttered something in answer, which the colonel did not try to catch. Mary smiled and bowed, and the next moment she had disappeared with her father down the avenue.

  What followed cannot be explained. When Rob roused himself from his amazement at Mary Abin- ger's having been in Thrums without his feeling her presence, something made him go a few yards inside

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  the castle grounds, and, lying lightly on the snow, he saw the Christmas card. He lifted it up as if it were a rare piece of china, and held it in his two hands as though it were a bird which might escape. He did not know whether it had dropped there of its own accord, and doubt and transport fought for vic- tory on his face. At last he put the card exultingly into his pocket, his chest heaved, and he went toward Silchester whistling.

  CHAPTER VII.

  THE GEAND PASSION?

  ONE of the disappointments of life is that the per- sons we think we have reason to dislike are seldom altogether villains; they are not made sufficiently big for it. When we can go to sleep in an armchair this ceases to be a trouble, but it vexed Mary Abin- ger. Her villain of fiction, on being haughtily re- jected, had at least left the heroine's home looking a little cowed. Sir Clement in the same circumstances had stayed on.

  The colonel had looked forward resentfully for years to meeting this gentleman again, and giving him a piece of his stormy mind. When the oppor- tunity came, however, Mary's father instead asked his unexpected visitor to remain for a week. Colo- nel Abinger thought he was thus magnanimous be- cause his guest had been confidential with him, but it was perhaps rather because Sir Clement had ex- plained how much he thought of him. To dislike our admirers is to be severe on ourselves, and is therefore not common.

  The Dome had introduced the colonel to Sir Clem- ent as well as to Rob. One day Colonel Abinger had 118

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  received by letter from a little hostelry in the neigh- borhood the compliments of Sir Clement Dowton, and a request that he might be allowed to fish in the pre- served water. All that Mary's father knew of Dow^ ton at that time was that he had been lost to English society for half a dozen years. Once in many months the papers spoke of him as serving under Gordon in China, as being taken captive by an African king, as having settled down in a cattle ranche in the vicinity of Manitoba. His lawyers were probably aware of his whereabouts oftener than other persons. All that society knew was that he hated England because one of its daughters had married a curate. The colonel called at the inn, and found Sir Clement such an attentive listener that he thought the baro- net's talk quite brilliant. A few days afterward the stranger's traps were removed to the castle, and then he met Miss Abinger, who was recently home from school. He never spoke to her of his grudge against England.

  It is only the unselfish men who think much, other- wise Colonel Abinger might have pondered a little over his guest. Dowton had spoken of himself as an enthusiastic angler, yet he let his flies drift down the stream like fallen leaves. He never remembered to go a-fishing until it was suggested to him. He had given his host several reasons for his long absence from his property, and told him he did not want the world to know that he v/as back in England, as he

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  was not certain whether he would remain. The colo- nel at his request introduced him to the few visitors at the castle as Mr. Dowton, and was surprised to discover afterward that they all knew his real name.

  "I assure you," Mary's father said to him, "that they have not learned it from me. It is incompre- hensible how a thing like that leaks out."

  " I don't understand it," said Dowton, who, how- ever, should have understood it, as he had taken the visitors aside and told them his real name himself. He seemed to do this not of his free will, but because he could not help it.

  It never struck the colonel that his own society was not what tied Sir Clement to Dome Castle; for widowers with grown-up daughters are in a foreign land without interpreters. On that morning when the baronet vanished, nevertheless, the master of Dome Castle was the only person in it who did not think that it would soon lose its mistress, mere girl though she was.

  Sir Clement's strange disappearance was accounted for at the castle, where alone it was properly known, in various ways. Miss Abinger, in the opinion of the servants' hall, held her head so high that there he was believed to have run away because she had said him no. Miss Abinger excused and blamed him alternately to herself until she found a dull satisfac- tion in looking upon him as the villain he might have been had his high forehead spoken true. As

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  for the colonel, he ordered Mary (he had no need) never to mention the fellow's name to him, but men- tioned it frequently himself.

  Nothing had happened, so far as was known, to disturb the baronet's serenity; neither friends nor lawyers had been aware that he was in England, and he had received no letters. Mary remembered his occasional fits of despondency, but on the whole he seemed to revel in his visit, and had never looked happier than the night before he went. His traps were sent by the colonel in a fury to the little inn where he had at first taken up his abode, but it was not known at the castle whether he ever got them. Some months afterward a letter from him appeared in the Times, dated from Suez, and from then until he reappeared at Dome Castle, the colonel, except when he spoke to himself, never heard the baronet's name mentioned.

  Sir Clement must have been very impulsive, for on returning to the castle he had intended to treat Miss Abinger with courteous coldness, as if she had been responsible for his flight, and he had not seen her again for ten minutes before he asked her to marry him. He meant to explain his conduct in one way to the colonel, and he explained it in
quite another way.

  When Colonel Abinger took him into the smoking- room on Christmas Eve to hear what he had to say for himself, the baronet sank into a chair, with a look

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  of contentment on his beautiful face that said he was glad to be there again. Then the colonel happened to mention Mary's name in such a way that he seemed to know of Sir Clement's proposal to her three years earlier. At once the baronet began another story from the one he had meant to tell, and though he soon discovered that he had credited his host with a knowledge the colonel did not possess, it was too late to draw back. So Mary's father heard to his amaze- ment that tho baronet had run away because he was in love with Miss Abinger. Colonel Abinger had read "The Scorn of Scorns," but it had taught him nothing.

  " She was only a school-girl when you saw her last," he said,in bewilderment; "but I hardly see how that should have made you fly the house like yes, like a thief."

  Dowton looked sadly at him.

  " I don't know," he said, speaking as if with re- luctance, " that in any circumstances I should be jus- tified in telling you the whole miserable story. Can you not guess it? When I came here I was not a free man."

  "You were already married?"

  "No, but I was engaged to be married."

  "Did Mary know anything of this?"

  " Nothing of that engagement, and but little, I think, of the attachment that grew up in my heart for her. I kept that to myself."

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  "She was too young," said the wise col onel, "to think of such things then ; and even now I do not see why you should have left us as you did."

  Sir Clement rose to his feet and paced the room in great agitation.

  "It is hard," he said at last, "to speak of such a thing to another man. But let me tell you, Abinger, that when I was with you three years ago there were times when I thought I would lose my reason. Do you know what it is to have such a passion as that raging in your heart and yet have to stifle it? There were whole nights when I walked up and down my room till dawn. I trembled every time I saw Miss Abinger alone lest I should say that to her which I had no right to say. Her voice alone was sufficient to unman me. I felt that my only safety was in flight."

  " I have run away from a woman myself in my time," the colonel said, with a grim chuckle. " There are occasions when it is the one thing to do ; but this was surely not one of them, if Mary knew nothing."

  " Sometimes I feared she did know that I cared for her. That is a hard thing to conceal, and besides I suppose I felt so wretched that I was not in a con- dition to act rationally. When I left the castle that day I had not the least intention of not returning."

  "And since then you have been half round the world again? Are you married?"

  "No."

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  " Then I am to understand "

  "That she is dead," said Sir Clement, in a low voice.

  There was a silence between them, which was at last broken by the colonel.

  "What you have told me," he said, "is a great surprise, more especially with regard to my daugh- ter. Being but a child at the time, however, she could not, I am confident, have thought of you in any other light than as her father's friend. It is, of course, on that footing that you return now?"

  "As her father's friend, certainly, I hope," said the baronet firmly ; " but I wish to tell you now that my regard for her has never changed. I confess I would have been afraid to come back to you had not my longing to see her again given me courage."

  " She has not the least idea of this," murmured the colonel " not the least. The fact is that Mary has lived so quietly with me here that she is still a child. Miss Meredith, whom I dare say you have met here, has been almost her only friend, and I am quite cer- tain that the thought of marriage has never crossed their minds. If you, or even if I, were to speak of such a thing to Mary it would only frighten her."

  " I should not think of speaking to her on the sub- ject at present," the baronet interposed rather hur- riedly, " but I thought it best to explain my position to you. You know what I am that I have been almost a vagrant on the face of the earth since I

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  reached manhood ; but no one can see more clearly than I do myself how unworthy I am of her."

  " I do not need to tell you," said the colonel, taking the baronet's hand, " that I used to like you, Dowton, and indeed I know no one whom I would prefer for a son-in-law. But you must be cautious with Mary."

  "I shall be very cautious," said the baronet; "in- deed there is no hurry none whatever."

  Colonel Abinger would have brought the conversa- tion to a close here, but there was something more for Dowton to say.

  "I agree with you," he said, forgetting, perhaps, that the colonel had not spoken on this point, " that Miss Abinger should be kept ignorant for the present of the cause that drove me on that former occasion from the castle."

  "It is the wisest course to adopt," said the colonel, looking as if he had thought the matter out step by step.

  "The only thing I am doubtful about," continued Dowton, "is whether Miss Abinger will not think that she is entitled to some explanation. She can- not, I fear, have forgotten the circumstances of my departure."

  "Make your mind easy on that score," said the colonel ; " the best proof that Mary gave the matter little thought, even at the time, is that she did not speak of it to me. Sweet seventeen has always a short memory."

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  "But I have sometimes thought since that Miss Abinger did care for me a little, in which case she would have unfortunate cause to resent my flight."

  While he spoke the baronet was looking anxiously into the colonel's face.

  "I can give you my word for it," said the colonel cheerily, " that she did not give your disappearance two thoughts ; and now I much question whether she will recognize you."

  Dowton's face clouded, but the other misinter- preted the shadow.

  " So put your mind at rest," said the colonel kindly, " and trust an old stager like myself for being able to read into a woman's heart."

  Shortly afterward Colonel Abinger left his guest, and for nearly five minutes the baronet looked de- jected. It is sometimes advantageous to hear that a lady with whom you have watched the moon rise has forgotten your very name, but it is never com- plimentary. By-and-bye, however, Sir Clement's sense of humor drove the gloom from his chiselled face, and a glass bracket over the mantelpiece told him that he was laughing heartily.

  It was a small breakfast party at the castle next morning, Sir Clement and Greybrooke being the only guests, but the baronet was so gay and morose by turns that he might have been two persons. In the middle of a laugh at some remark of the captain's he would break off with a sigh, and immediately after

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  sadly declining another cup of coffee from Mary, he said something humorous to her father. The one mood was natural to him and the other forced, but it would have been difficult to decide which was which. It is, however, one of the hardest things in life to re- main miserable for any length of time on a stretch. When Dowton found himself alone with Mary his fingers were playing an exhilarating tune on the win- dow-sill, but as he looked at her his hands fell to his side, and there was pathos in his fine eyes. Drawn toward her, he took a step forward, but Miss Abin- ger said " No " so decisively that he stopped irresolute.

  "I shall be leaving the castle in an hour," Sir Clement said slowly.

  "Papa told me," said Mary, "that he had prevailed upon you to remain for a week."

  " He pressed me to do so, and I consented, but you have changed everything since then. Ah, Mary "

  "Miss Abinger," said Mary.

  " Miss Abinger, if you would only listen to what I have to say. I can explain everything. I "

  " There is nothing to explain," said Mary "noth- ing that I have either a right or a desire to hear. Plea'se not to return to this
subject again. I said everything there was to say last night."

  The baronet's face paled, and he bowed his head in deep dejection. His voice was trembling a little, and he observed it with gratification as he answered :

  "Then, I suppose, I must bid you good-by?"

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  "Good-by," said Mary. "Does papa know you are going?"

  " I promised to him to stay on," said Sir Clement, "and I can hardly expect him to forgive me if I change my mind."

  This was put almost in the form of a question, and Mary thought she understood it.

  "Then you mean to remain?" she asked.

  "You compel me to go," he replied dolefully.

  "Oh, no," said Mary, "I have nothing to do with your going or staying."

  " But it it would hardly do for me to remain after what took place last night," said the baronet, in the tone of one who was open to contradiction.

  For the first time in the conversation Mary smiled. It was not, however, the smile every man would care to see at his own expense.

  "If you were to go now," she said, "you would not be fulfilling your promise to papa, and I know that men do not like to break their word to to other men."

  "Then you think I ought to stay?" asked Sir Clement eagerly.

  " It is for you to think," said Mary.

  "Perhaps, then, I ought to remain for Colonel Abinger's sake," said the baronet.

  Mary did not answer.

  "Only for a few days," he continued, almost ap- pealingly.

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  "Very well, "said Mary.

  "And you won't think the worse of me for it?" asked Dowton anxiously. " Of course, if I were to consult my own wishes I would go now, but as I promised Colonel Abinger