The steamer put into Montevideo, and Santos, and Rio, and glided northward along the woods and white sands of Brazil. It passed one morning into the narrows of the Cape Verde Islands, and there was dressed from stem to stern with flags.
Cynthia asked the reason of the first officer, who was leaning beside her on the rail, and for answer he pointed northward to a small black ship which was coming down toward them, and handed to her his binocular.
“That’s the Perhaps, bound for the South,” he said; and he saw the girl’s face flush red.
She put the glasses to her eyes, and gazed for a long while at the boat. The Perhaps was a full-rigged ship, with auxiliary steam, broad in the beam, with strong, rounded bows. She had the trade-wind behind her, and came lumbering down the channel with every sail set upon her yards.
“But she’s so small,” cried Cynthia.
“She has to be small,” replied the first officer. “Length’s no use for her work. Look at us! We should crack like a filbert in the ice-pack. She won’t.”
“But she’s out for three years,” said Cynthia.
“There’ll be a relief ship with fresh stores, no doubt. And there are not many of them on board, twenty-nine all told.”
Cynthia looked again, and held the glasses to her eyes until the boats drew level. She could make out small figures upon the bridge and deck; she saw answering signals break out in answer to their own good wishes; and then the name in new gold letters came out upon the black stern beneath the counter.
“Thank you,” she said as she handed back the glasses. But her eyes were still fixed upon that full-rigged ship lumbering heavily to the unknown South.
“I am very glad to have seen the Perhaps,” she said slowly.
The first officer looked at her curiously. There was a quiver of emotion in her voice.
“Perhaps you have friends on board,” he said. “If you have, I envy them.”
“No,” she said slowly. “I know no one on board. But I am glad to have seen the ship, for I was interested in it in a part of my life which is now over.”
The first officer was about to smile. Here was a remarkably pretty girl of seventeen or so, talking about a part of her life which was over! But the big, dark-blue eyes swept round and rested gravely on his face, and he bowed to her with a fitting solemnity.
Cynthia exaggerated, no doubt, taking herself seriously as young girls will. But the shock of that last night in the estancia had wrought a revolution in her thoughts. Though James Challoner no longer seemed to grip her hand, she walked in the chill shadow of his presence. Nor did that shadow quite lift even when she had landed in England.
They travelled into Warwickshire, and so came to that white house behind the old wall of red brick on the London road which Robert Daventry had once coveted for himself and had afterward bought for Cynthia. The Daventrys made it their home now. Though Cynthia never read a word about it in the papers, that disputed title took a long while in the settling. Robert Daventry resumed the old ties. Joan, with Cynthia at her side, found the making of new ones not the laborious business she had feared, and Cynthia had her horses and as many friends as she had room for in her life. But the shadow was still about her. James Challoner might have found the means to follow them to England. At any corner of a lane she might discover his gross and sinister figure upon the path. A few miles away, the ancient city of Ludsey lifted high its old steeples and its modern chimneys. She was always secretly upon her guard in its climbing streets. There was always in her life a mirror facing a closed door, and at her heart a great fear lest she should see the door open.
CHAPTER IX
ROBERT DAVENTRY EXPLAINS
THUS THE GREATER part of three years passed, but toward the end of the third the influenza became virulent throughout that country. It was a winter of sharp frosts and sudden thaws. One week the lanes were deep in snow and the fields white squares ruled off by the hedges; the next the whole country-side ran water. The epidemic was at its worst in November, and during that month it attacked Joan Daventry. She was now a woman of seventy, and the activity of her life had worn out her heart. She died within a week of her seizure, and from that time Robert Daventry’s strength steadily declined. It may have been that the loss of Joan loosened his hold on life, or, again it may have been, as Dr. Hill declared, that he caught a chill at the graveside which he could not shake off. But, whatever the cause, he ailed through November, and in the beginning of the following month, while sitting on the bench at Ludsey, he was seized with a great faintness. He was driven back to the white house, and took to his bed; and on the next day the snow fell again.
Ten days after he had fallen sick, Dr. Hill came from the bedroom and found Cynthia waiting as ever for his news. He was an oldish man, and quite at home in that house. He slipped his arm through hers and said in a grave and gentle voice:
“Your father wants you, my dear. He has something to say to you.”
Cynthia looked at him anxiously.
“Won’t it tire him too much to talk?”
“He will not, I think, be tired for very long. You had better go to him at once, for his mind is quite clear now. I will come back to-morrow morning, unless you telephone to me before then that you want me. It is now, I am afraid, a matter of waiting.”
He drove away from the door. Cynthia walked back along the passages to the room where the old man lay in a great four-poster bed. The afternoon was closing in, and the room was not yet lit. But there was light enough for her to appreciate all that Dr. Hill had meant. Robert Daventry had grown so frail, his hands and face were so very nearly transparent.
“I have a good deal to tell you, Cynthia,” he said feebly, and his lips tried to smile. “So listen to me carefully.”
The nurse went out of the room. Cynthia sat down by the bed and took the old man’s hand in hers. She made no pretence that another opportunity would come.
“You will be very well off, my dear, I am thankful to say,” he continued. “There’s the estancia, about which I will say a word to you later, and a little more than four hundred thousand pounds in the stocks. It’s practically all coming to you. Of course, the profit on the estancia varies with the season, and may in bad years mean nothing; but on the average, I reckon you ought to have about twenty-five thousand a year. That leaves out this house and the little farm which goes with it. They are yours already. I have made Hill one of my executors — he’ll be rather a figurehead, I expect — and Isaac Benoliel, of Culver, the other. They are both friends and neighbors of yours, and understanding people. I have tied up half the money on you and your children. If you haven’t any children you will bequeath it as you like. But I am hoping very much that you will have them. I once asked a woman what she looked back upon as the happiest time of her life, and she said the evenings when she and her husband used to sit alone together before their first child was born. I think that was a wise saying, Cynthia. It struck me very much at the time, and has never since seemed to me less true than it did then. And, you know, everybody can’t expect quite the same luck as Joan and I had in finding you.” He pressed her hand with such strength as he had, and lay for a little while silent, husbanding his strength.
“I was advised by my lawyer,” he resumed, “to tie my whole fortune up. But I talked it over with Joan and we were afraid that it might perhaps occur to you afterward that we didn’t completely trust you.”
“Oh, father, I should never have thought that,” Cynthia protested gently.
The old man shook his head.
“One can never be quite certain that queer, stinging ideas won’t come,” he said. “And we both were anxious that you should be sure always that we had no fear of the way in which you would manage your life. So you will be completely mistress of half your fortune,” and he hesitated for a moment, “when you come of age. But I would like you, when you are in doubt, to consult Isaac Benoliel. I have a great faith in him.”
“I, too,” said Cynthia. “I will consult him.”
A look of relief came into Robert Daventry’s face.
“I am glad of that,” he said. “There are people, of course, who are prejudiced against him. He is a Jew, and he’s new, and he has that queer sort of indefinable position which attracts criticism. But I think you will find him a valuable friend.”
Daventry’s voice had weakened to a whisper, and he lay back upon his pillows with his eyes closed. Cynthia moved, but the pressure of his hand retained her. She sat and waited, speaking no word and holding back the tears which smarted in her eyes. Robert Daventry spoke again.
“There’s some medicine,” he said. “Hill gave it me to keep me going. It’s in a glass.”
Cynthia lifted a glass filled with some grayish liquid, and held it to the old man’s lips. He drank, and resumed:
“I have written down during the last day or two the heads of what I wanted to say on a paper.”
Cynthia found a slip of paper on the table by the bedside.
“Just read.”
There were some words written one below the other on the paper in a straggling hand. Cynthia read them out.
“Money.”
“I have said all I have to say, I think, about that.”
“Diana Royle,” Cynthia read next. But she read the name slowly, so slowly that Robert Daventry noticed her deliberation.
“I don’t think you can see, Cynthia,” he said. “It’s getting dark.”
“Oh, yes, father, I can see quite clearly,” she replied. “What of Mrs. Royle?”
“You know her,” said Robert. “You like her, too, I think, don’t you?” Cynthia did not reply, but Daventry had not asked the question in the tone of one needing a reply. “You will want some one to live with you until you get married, which, by the way, you don’t seem to be in a hurry to do, my dear. The young fellows round here don’t seem to have made much impression. Oh! I am not bustling you, my dear. Only — only — don’t leave it too long, Cynthia,” he said, and his hand sought hers again.
Cynthia stirred uneasily. It was the way of men, to want to marry every girl off as soon as possible, she knew. It was a form of vanity. But she wished to give no promise.
“You will probably go to London, I don’t want you to mope down here all the time. There’s no reason that you should. You can have your house in town. But you will want some one with you, and I thought my cousin, Diana Royle, would be the most suitable person.”
Cynthia raised her head as if she was about to speak. But she did not, and Daventry said:
“I wrote to her about it.”
“Oh,” said Cynthia slowly. “You have already written?”
“Yes, and she consented at once. You see her husband left her badly off when he died. So it will be an advantage to her. And though she is older than you are, she is not so much older that you won’t be in sympathy with one another.”
Cynthia nodded her head.
“I see,” she said. “Yes, of course, I know her very well.” But a note of reserve was audible, or rather would have been audible to any other in that room. But Robert Daventry was altogether occupied in the effort to master his overmastering weakness. There was more which he wished to say; there was something which he must say.
“Then that’s settled,” he whispered; and with his eyes he asked for his cordial. Cynthia once more supported him, and held the glass to his lips.
“Now, what comes next?” he asked, and Cynthia looked at the paper.
“The estancia,” she said.
“Yes,” said Daventry, and a smile suddenly illumined his face and made it young. “The estancia! You have the right to dispose of it, Cynthia. For one never knows what changes may come. But I don’t want you to let it go unless there is some great necessity. It brings in, generally, a good income, and now that Walton looks after it, it gives very little trouble. Walton is a good man. I should give him an interest in it, if I were you, and as time goes on increase his interest. Keep him and keep it. I want you very much to do that. I am proud of the Daventry estancia, for one thing. For another, the best part of Joan’s life and of mine was spent there. There, too, we first brought you when you came to us. There’s yet another reason,” and he stopped, and thought. “Yes, there’s yet another reason why I care for it so much — but—” and he shook his head and gave up the effort to interpret it: “it’s not very clear in my mind just now. I only know it’s there — a strong reason.”
He was speaking with a depth of tenderness in his voice for which Cynthia was hardly prepared. Always he had seemed to her to look upon the estancia as a business proposition rather than as the soil in which his heart was rooted. Always, too, he had seemed so contented to live in England, and he had taken his part with so much zest in the local administration of the county. She was as puzzled now by this note of yearning — for it was no less than yearning — as by the reason which he could not interpret. It was all made plain to her in after years, but by another than Robert Daventry.
“I want you very much to keep the estancia, Cynthia.”
“Of course I will keep it,” she said, and again she made no pretence that the day was distant when it would be hers to keep. Her heart was heavy with grief, it went out in love to this dear friend of hers; she was young and the cry was loud in her bosom, “What will I do without you?” but her lips did not utter it. He would be quite sure of her love without her protests. There was comprehension enough, and to spare, between them to make her certain of that. And, since he wanted her to listen, she put aside her distress and the thought of the loneliness which awaited her and obeyed him.
“I would even be glad” — and the old man hesitated with the timidity of one asking a heavy favor.— “Yes, I would be glad if you would go back there — oh, not often — but just once or twice to see that all was going on well.”
Cynthia’s hand trembled for a moment. She looked at him with a sudden terror in her eyes. But he was lying now upon his side with his face to the window, and seeing things not to be seen through its panes. It cost Cynthia a great deal to make the promise he sought from her. She shrank from a return to the estancia with every fibre of her body. But she made it. He besought her in so wistful a voice.
“Yes, I will go back, father.”
“Thank you,” he said gently.
Outside the window the snow lay white and deep upon the slate roofs of the outbuildings, and was piled upon the black branches of the trees. Overhead was a gray sky of winter. But for the glimmer of the snow it would almost have been dark. A smile shone again on the old man’s face.
“Perhaps Walton’s cutting the corn to-day! Think of it!” he said, with a great longing, and before Cynthia’s eyes there rose immediately the vision of a great glistening field of standing wheat and a reaping-machine like a black toy outlined against it. They remained thus in silence for a little while. Cynthia was thinking.
“After all, he may not be in the Argentine.... I may not meet him.... He will have no power over me.... There is no reason why I should be afraid.”
And then, as though in answer to these arguments, Robert Daventry said:
“You can go back now, Cynthia, without fear.”
The girl looked at him with startled eyes. Had she spoken aloud, she asked herself? Had she betrayed her secret just at this last moment? But her eyes fell upon the slip of paper in her hand, and there she saw written plainly under the word “estancia” the name “James Challoner.”
Robert Daventry looked toward a bureau which stood by the window.
“The little drawer on the left. No, the one above that. There’s a cutting from a newspaper.”
Cynthia found in the drawer half a column of a Spanish newspaper. The name was on the top of the column. It was a paper published in Buenos Ayres. She brought the cutting back to the bed and placed it between his fingers.
“Yes, that’s it,” he said, and he lay back upon his pillows, and gathered his strength. “I have got to tell you now something which we have always kept a secr
et from you.”
“There is no need to tell it,” said Cynthia.
Robert Daventry stared at her.
“If you do know it,” he said slowly, “we have made the cruellest mistake we could possibly have made. You can’t know it!”
“It’s about James Challoner — my father?” asked Cynthia, and Robert Daventry shut his eyes with a look of great distress upon his face.
“How long have you known?” he asked.
“From the night when he came to the estancia,” she answered. And she told how she had slipped into the smoking-room and how, huddled in the great chair, she had heard all that James Challoner proposed for her. The shadow deepened upon Daventry’s face as he listened, and when she had ended he asked with deep regret:
“Why didn’t you tell us this, Cynthia?”
“Because, just outside the smoking-room door in the hall, you both decided not to tell me — not to breathe a word of — of my father’s visit. You thought the knowledge would trouble and frighten me. You thought it would hurt. Well, I was as certain that you would be greatly distressed to know that already I had the knowledge. So I held my tongue.”
“And it did trouble you?”
“Yes.”
“A great deal?”
“Yes,” Cynthia admitted. “I was frightened. I did not know what power he might have. I knew you had fled from him for my sake.”
“And since you have been here — during these three years — you have still been troubled, still frightened lest he should come and claim you with the law at his side?”
Though the old man could hardly speak above a whisper, he was strangely insistent in his questioning. The words came unevenly, with breaks between, and now and then a weak gasp for breath. Cynthia replied quite simply:
“Yes, here, too, I have thought that he might come. I used to be frightened at night. I used to hear him in the house.”
And with every word she spoke the compunction and distress deepened in Daventry’s mind.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 484