by Unknown
‘She was only a schoolgirl 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 reluctance, ‘that in any circumstances I should be justified 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.’
‘She was too young,’ said the wise colonel, ‘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 condition 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.’
‘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 daughter. 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 certain 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 subject at present,’ the baronet interposed, rather hurriedly, ‘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 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; ‘indeed there is no hurry, none whatever.’
Colonel Abinger would have brought the conversation 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 cannot, 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.’
‘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 recognise you.’
Dowton’s face clouded, but the other misinterpreted 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 afterwards Colonel Abinger left his guest, and for nearly five minutes the baronet looked dejected. 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 complimentary. By and by, however, Sir Clement’s sense of humour 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 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 remain 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 window-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 Abinger 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, ‘nothing that I have either a right or a desire to hear. Please 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 goodbye?’
‘Goodbye,’ 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 appealingly.
‘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 — —’
‘You will remain out of consideration for papa. How could I think worse of you for that?’
Mary rose to leave the room, and as Sir Clement opened the door for her he said —
‘We shall say nothing of all this to Colonel Abinger?’
‘Oh no, certainly not,’ said Mary.
She glanced up in his face, her mouth twisted slightly to one side, as it had a habit of doing when she felt disdainful, and the glory of her beauty filled him of a sudden. The baronet pushed the door close and turned to her passionately, a film over his eyes and his hands outstretched.
‘Mary,’ he cried, ‘is there no hope for me?’
‘No,’ said Mary, opening the door for herself, and passing out.
Sir Clement stood there motionless for a minute. Then he crossed to the fireplace, and sank into a luxuriously cushioned chair. The sunlight came back to his noble face.
‘This is grand, glorious,’ he murmured, in an ecstasy of enjoyment.
In the days that followed, the baronet’s behaviour was a little peculiar. Occasionally at meals he seemed to remember that a rejected lover ought not to have a good appetite. If, when he was smoking in the grounds, he saw Mary approaching, he covertly dropped his cigar. When he knew that she was sitting at a window he would pace up and down the walk with his head bent as if life had lost its interest to him. By and by his mind wandered, on these occasions, to more cheerful matters, and he would start to find that he had been smiling to himself and swishing his cane playfully, like a man who walked on air. It might have been said of him that he tried to be miserable and found it hard work.
Will, who discovered that the baronet did not know what l.b.w. meant, could not, nevertheless, despise a man who had shot lions, but he never had quite the same respect for the king of beasts again. As for Greybrooke, he rather liked Sir Clement, because he knew that Nell (in her own words) ‘loathed, hated, and despised’ him.
Greybrooke had two severe disappointments that holiday, both of which were to be traced to the capricious Nell. It had dawned on him that she could not help liking him a little if she saw him take a famous jump over the Dome, known to legend as the ‘Robber’s Leap.’ The robber had lost his life in trying to leap the stream, but the captain practised in the castle grounds until he felt that he could clear it. Then he formally invited Miss Meredith to come and see him do it, and she told him instead that he was wicked. The captain and Will went back silently to the castle, wondering what on earth she would like.
Greybrooke’s other disappointment was still more grievous. One evening he and Will returned to the castle late for dinner, an offence the colonel found it hard to overlook, although they were going back to school on the following day. Will reached the dining-room first, and his father frowned on him.
‘You are a quarter of an hour late, William,’ said the colonel sternly. ‘Where have you been?’
Will hesitated.
‘Do you remember,’ he said at last, ‘a man called Angus, who was here reporting on Christmas Eve?’
Mary laid down her knife and fork.
‘A painfully powerful-looking man,’ said Dowton, ‘in hob-nailed boots. I remember him.’
‘Well, we have been calling on him,’ said Will.
‘Calling on him, calling on that impudent newspaper man!’ exclaimed the colonel; ‘what do you mean?’
‘Greybrooke had a row with him some time ago,’ said Will; ‘I don’t know what about, because it was private; but the captain has been looking for the fellow for a fortnight to lick him — I mean punish him. We came upon him two days ago, near the castle gates.’
Here Will paused, as if he would prefer to jump what followed.
‘And did your friend “lick” him then?’ asked the colonel, at which Will shook his head.
‘Why not?’ asked Sir Clement.
‘Well,’ said Will reluctantly, ‘the fellow wouldn’t let him. He — he lifted Greybrooke up in his arms, and — and dropped him over the hedge.’
Mary could not help laughing.
‘The beggar — I mean the fellow — must have muscles like ivy roots,’ Will blurted out admiringly.
‘I fancy,’ said Dowton, ‘that I have seen him near the gates several times during the last week.’
‘Very likely,’ said the colonel shortly. ‘I caught him poaching in the Dome some months ago. There is something bad about that man.’
‘Papa!’ said Mary.
At this moment Greybrooke entered.
‘So, Mr. Greybrooke,’ said the colonel, ‘I hear you have been in Silchester avenging an insult.’
The captain looked at Will, who nodded.
‘I went there,’ admitted Greybrooke, blushing, ‘to horsewhip a reporter fellow, but he had run away.’
‘Run away?’
‘Yes. Did not Will tell you? We called at the Mirror office, and were told that Angus had bolted to London two days ago.’
‘And the worst of it,’ interposed Will, ‘is that he ran off without paying his landlady’s bill.’
‘I knew that man was a rascal,’ exclaimed the colonel.
Mary flushed.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said.
‘You don’t believe it,’ repeated her father angrily; ‘and why not, pray?’
‘Because — because I don’t,’ said Mary.
CHAPTER VIII
IN FLEET STREET
Mary was wrong. It was quite true that Rob had run away to London without paying his landlady’s bill.
The immediate result of his meeting with Miss Abinger had been to make him undertake double work, and not do it. Looking in at shop-windows, where he saw hats that he thought would just suit Mary (he had a good deal to learn yet), it came upon him that he was wasting his time. Then he hurried home, contemptuous of all the rest of Silchester, to write an article for a London paper, and when he next came to himself, half an hour afterwards, he was sitting before a blank sheet of copy paper. He began to review a book, and found himself gazing at a Christmas card. He tried to think out the action of a government, and thought out a ring on Miss Abinger’s finger instead. Three nights running he dreamt that he was married, and woke up quaking.
Without much misgiving Rob heard it said in Silchester that there was some one staying at Dome Castle who was to be its mistress’s husband. On discovering that they referred to Dowton, and not being versed in the wonderful ways of woman, he told himself that this was impossible. A cynic would have pointed out that Mary had now had several days in which to change her mind. Cynics are persons who make themselves the measure of other people.
The philosopher who remarked that the obvious truths are those which are most often missed, was probably referring to the time it takes a man to discover that he is in love. Women are quicker because they are on the outlook. It took Rob two days, and when it came upon him checked his breathing. After that he bore it like a man. Another discovery he had to make was that, after all, he was nobody in particular. This took him longer.
Although the manner of his going
to London was unexpected, Rob had thought out solidly the inducements to go. Ten minutes or so after he knew that he wanted to marry Mary Abinger, he made up his mind to try to do it. The only obstacles he saw in his way were, that she was not in love with him, and lack of income. Feeling that he was an uncommon type of man (if people would only see it), he resolved to remove this second difficulty first. The sawmill and the castle side by side did not rise up and frighten him, and for the time he succeeded in not thinking about Colonel Abinger. Nothing is hopeless if we want it very much.
Rob calculated that if he remained on the Mirror for another dozen years or so, and Mr. Licquorish continued to think that it would not be cheaper to do without him, he might reach a salary of £200 per annum. As that was not sufficient, he made up his mind to leave Silchester.
There was only one place to go to. Rob thought of London until he felt that it was the guardian from whom he would have to ask Mary Abinger; he pictured her there during the season, until London, which he had never seen, began to assume a homely aspect. It was the place in which he was to win or lose his battle. To whom is London much more? It is the clergyman’s name for his church, the lawyer’s for his office, the politician’s for St. Stephen’s, the cabman’s for his stand.
There was not a man on the Press in Silchester who did not hunger for Fleet Street, but they were all afraid to beard it. They knew it as a rabbit-warren; as the closest street in a city where the bootblack has his sycophants, and you have to battle for exclusive right to sweep a crossing. The fight forward had been grimmer to Rob, however, than to his fellows, and he had never been quite beaten. He was alone in the world, and poverty was like an old friend. There was only one journalist in London whom he knew even by name, and he wrote to him for advice. This was Mr. John Rorrison, a son of the minister whose assistance had brought Rob to Silchester. Rorrison was understood to be practically editing a great London newspaper, which is what is understood of a great many journalists until you make inquiries, but he wrote back to Rob asking him why he wanted to die before his time. You collectors who want an editor’s autograph may rely upon having it by return of post if you write threatening to come to London with the hope that he will do something for you. Rorrison’s answer discomfited Rob for five minutes, and then, going out, he caught a glimpse of Mary Abinger in the Merediths’ carriage. He tore up the letter, and saw that London was worth risking.