CHAPTER XXV.
AN ENCOUNTER UNFORESEEN.
THE young people drove from Penton to the Hook very silent and overawed, the two girls close together, and Walter opposite to them, looking very heavy and dull, his eyes red with want of sleep and the air of one who has been up all night in every line of him. It is curious what an air of neglect this gives even to the clothes. He felt shabby, out of order, in every way uncomfortable in body and dazed in mind, not feeling that he knew anything about what had happened, nor that he cared to think of that. He almost went to sleep with the closeness and the motion of the carriage, and took no more notice of the presence of the stranger opposite to him than if she had been another sister. It had annoyed him for the first moment, to have her there, but by this time he was quite indifferent to the fact, indifferent to everything, dazed with sleep and agitation and the weakening influence of a struggle past. But there came a moment as they neared home when his senses returned to him with a bound. He was looking vaguely out of the carriage-window seeing nothing, when suddenly, vaguely, there appeared at a distance, going up a road which led away from the main road deep into the quiet of the fields, a solitary figure. It was little more than a speck upon the road, a little shadow almost like that of a child; but it woke Walter fully up in a moment and made his heart beat. He called to the coachman to stop, to the great astonishment of Ally, who thought that something more must have happened in a day so full of fate, and cried out,
“What is it, Wat, what is the matter?” with anxiety in her tone.
“Nothing,” he said, opening the door as the horses drew up; “but I should prefer to walk if you don’t mind; I think I shall go to sleep altogether if I stay here.”
“Shall I come too?” said Ally; but a glance at her companion, showed her that this was impracticable.
“Oh, Wat, don’t be long! Mother will want to ask you—she will want to know—”
“You can tell her as much as I can,” he said, taking off his hat in honor of Mab, who looked out with much surprise at this sudden interruption of the drive, which was so dreary and yet so full of novelty and interest. And then the carriage went on.
Ally looking out of the window saw with great perplexity and distress that he turned back along the road. Was he going back to Penton? where was he going? Mab by her side immediately interposed with a reason.
“Men don’t like close carriages,” she said; “they always prefer walking coming home from places. I don’t wonder; I should walk if I might.”
“We might if we were to go together,” said Ally; “we always walk with Walter, Anne and I. He likes it too. Let us—” But then she remembered that Wat had given no sort of invitation. And when she looked out again he had vanished from the road. Where had he gone? This was very startling, not to be explained by anything that occurred to Ally. She added quickly, “But it is very cold, and mother will be anxious.” And the carriage rolled on without any further interruption through the village and down the steep and stony way.
Walter could not have restrained himself even had the occasion of his leaving them been now apparent. He felt as if all his life were involved in getting speech of her, in receiving her sympathy and hearing her voice. He had never had such an opportunity before, never met her, scarcely in daylight seen her face, and to see her pursuing the loneliest road, where nobody ever appeared, which led nowhere in particular, where he could have her all to himself without the possibility of being sent away! He hurried along after her, striking across a field and dropping over a low wall, which brought him immediately in front of her as she strolled along. She gave a little cry at sight of him, or rather at the suddenness of the apparition, not distinguishing at first who it was. She was dressed in very dark stuff with some rough fur about her throat and a thick gauze veil shrouding the upper part of her face. The little outline was so slim and pretty that any imperfection in costume or appearance was lost in the daintiness of the trim form. Indeed, how should Walter have seen any imperfection? She was not like anybody he had ever known. What was different could not but be an added grace.
“You didn’t expect to see me,” he said, coming up to her with his hat in his hand.
“How should I? I thought no one knew this path but I. It is so quiet. And I saw no one on the road, nothing but a carriage. Ah, I know! You jumped out of the carriage. It was hot and stifling, and there were ladies in it who made you do propriety. I know.”
“There was my sister,” said Walter, “but I saw you. That was my reason, and the best one a man could have.”
“You are only a boy,” she said, shaking her head with a smile. Only her chin and lips were clear of that envious thick veil. The rest of her face was as if behind a mask, but how sweet the mouth was, and the smile that curved it! “And how could you tell it was I? Everybody wears the same sort of thing, tweed frock, and jacket, and—”
“There is nobody like you; it is cruel to ask me how I knew. If you would only understand—”
“I have heard that sort of thing before, Mr. Penton.”
“Yes, I don’t doubt every fellow would say it, of course; but nobody could mean it so much as I.”
“That’s what you all say; but I don’t believe it a bit; only I suppose it amuses you to say it, and it does, a little, amuse me. There are so few things,” she said, with a sigh, “to amuse one here.”
“That is what I feel,” cried the lad; “nothing—we have nothing to keep you here. It is all so humdrum and paltry—a little country place. There is nothing in it good enough for you.”
She laughed with an air of keen amusement, which in his present condition slightly jarred upon Walter.
“It is a great deal too good for me,” she said, “old Crockford’s niece. If anybody speaks to me I courtesy and say, ‘Yes, ma’am, it’s doing me good, it is indeed, this fine fresh air.’”
“I wish,” said the boy, “you would drop this, and tell me once for all who you really are. I’m not happy to-day. We are all in great trouble. I wish you would not laugh, but just be serious once.”
“Oh, no, sir, I’ll not laugh if you don’t like it—nor nothing else as you don’t like. I knows my place and how to behave to my betters. I’m Emmy, old Crockford’s niece.” And she paused in the middle of the road to make him a courtesy. “I’ve never said nothing else, now ’ave I, sir?”
He looked at her with irritation beyond expression. Could not she see that he was in no humor for jest to-day? And yet he could not but feel that the tone of her imitation was perfect, and that as she said these latter words it was certainly in the voice and with the manner which old Crockford’s niece would have employed.
“You don’t know,” he said, “how you fret me with all that. I thought when I saw you that I’d fly to you and get comforted a little. I don’t want to have jokes put upon me just now. All this is very amusing—it’s so well done—and it’s so droll to think that it’s you; but I have been through a great fight this morning,” said Walter, with that self-pity which is so warm at his age. He felt his eyes moisten, something was in his throat—he was so sorry for himself; and he almost thought it would be best, after all, to hurry home to his mother, who always understood a man, instead of lingering out here in the cold, even with the most delightful, the most enthralling of women, who would do nothing but laugh. He was in this mood, with his eyes cast down, his head bent, standing still, yet with a sort of movement in his figure as if he would have gone away again, when suddenly a shock, a thrill of sweeter consciousness went through him—and his whole being seemed rapt in delicious softness, comprehension, consolation. She had put her hand suddenly on his arm with a quick, impulsive movement.
“Poor boy!” she said. “You have been in a great fight? Tell me all about it.”
Her voice had changed to the tenderest, coaxing tone.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, in sudden ecstasy, holding close to his side the hand that had stolen within his arm—and for some time could say no more.
“Well?”
“Yes, yes!” cried Walter, “I’ll tell you presently. I don’t know that I want to tell you at all. I want you to take an interest in me.”
“Oh, if that is all!” she said; then, after a moment, drew her arm away. “If we should meet any one, Mr. Walter Penton, it would not look at all pretty to see you walking arm in arm with a—girl who lives in the village; a girl whom nobody knows, and, of course, whom everybody thinks ill of; but I can hear you quite well without that. Come, tell me what it is. Did you say a fright or a fight?”
“Both,” said Walter. He made various attempts to recover the hand again, but they were all fruitless. The mere touch, however, had somehow—how he could not tell—made things more natural, harmonized all the contrarieties in life, brought back a better state of affairs. The fumes of sleep and fatigue seemed to die away from his brain: the atmosphere grew lighter. It did not occur to him that to disclose the most private affairs of his family to this little stranger was anything extraordinary. He told her all about the bargain between his father and his cousin, and how he himself had been left out, and his consent never asked, though he was the heir; and what had happened this morning—how he had been sent to fetch the parties to this bargain, and the papers, and how he had been tempted to delay or not to go.
“If I had not answered from my room when I heard them, if I had pretended not to hear, if I had only held back, which would have been no sin! Should I have done it? Shouldn’t I have done it?” cried Walter, quite unaware of the absurdity of his appeal.
The girl listened to all this with her head raised to him in an attitude of attention, but in reality with the most divided interest and a mind full of perplexed impatience. What did she care about his doubts—doubts and difficulties which she could not understand—which did not concern her? Her attention even flagged, though her looks did not. She wanted none of this grave talk: it was only the lighter kind of intercourse which she fully understood.
“Then it was you,” she said, seizing the only tangible point in all this outburst, “that I heard thundering past the cottage just before daylight? I couldn’t think what it could be!”
“Did you hear me? I looked up at the windows, but they were all closed and shut up. I wish,” cried the young man, “I had known you were awake, I should not have felt so desolate.”
“Oh!” she cried, with a little toss of her head, “what good could that have done you?” Then, seeing the cloud come over his face again which had lifted for a moment, “And how has it all ended?” she asked.
“Ended?” He looked at her with surprise. He had not even asked himself that question, or realized that there was a question at all. “How could it end but in one way?”
“It is so good of you to tell me,” she resumed, “when I am only a stranger and know nothing; but I hope they won’t succeed in cheating you out of your money.”
“My money? oh, there is nothing about money. Money is not the question.”
“I know,” she said, with a pretty air of confusion—“your property I mean; but they couldn’t really take it from you, could they? Tell me what you will do when you come into your own. I should like to know.”
Walter’s heart stood still for the moment. He felt as if he had suddenly come up against a blank world. Was this all she understood or would take notice of, of the struggle he had gone through? Had she no feeling for his moral difficulties or sympathy; or was it perhaps that she thought that struggle too private to be discussed, and thus rebuked him by turning the conversation aside from that too delicate channel? In the shock of feeling himself misunderstood he paused, bewildered, and seized upon the idea that she understood him too clearly, and checked him with a more exquisite perception of her own. “You think I should not speak of it?” he said. “You think I should not blame—you think—Oh, I understand. A delicate mind would not say a word. But I would not, except to you. It is only to you.”
“Now I wonder,” said the girl, “why it should be to me? for I don’t understand anything about it. And all that you’ve been telling me about wanting one thing and doing another, I can’t tell what you mean—except that I hope it will end very well, and that you will get what you want and be able to live very happy at the end. That’s how all the stories end, don’t you know. And tell me, when you came into all that fine property, what will you do?”
She wanted nothing but to bring him back to the badinage which she understood and could play her part in. All this grave talk and discussion of what he ought or ought not to have done embarrassed her. She did not understand it, and yet she knew by instinct that to show how little she understood would be to lose something of her attraction; for though she was scarcely capable of comprehending the ideal woman whom the youth supposed he had found in her, yet she divined that it was not herself but an imaginary being who was so sweet in Walter’s eyes. Perhaps it was even with a dull pang and sense of her inferiority that she discovered this; but she could not make herself other than she was. At any risk she had to regain that lighter tone which was alone possible to her. She put up her veil a little and looked at him with a sort of laughing provocation in her eyes. It was a vulgar version of the “Come, woo me,” of the most delightful of heroines. She could understand him or any man on that ground. She knew how to reply, to elude, or to lead on; but in other regions she was not so well prepared; she preferred to lead the conversation back to herself and him.
“I do not suppose,” he said, in a subdued tone, “that there will be any property to come in to.”
“Oh, that is nonsense,” she said, putting this denial lightly away; “of course there will be property some time or other. And when you come into your fortune, tell me, what shall you do?”
Walter gave up with a sigh his hope of receiving support and consolation; but even now he was not able to follow her lead. “I suppose,” he said, very uncheerfully, “I shall have to go to Oxford. That’s the only thing I shall be allowed to do.”
“Oh, to Oxford!” she cried, with disdain.
“I don’t know that I wish it, only it’s the right thing to do, I suppose,” said Walter, with another sigh. “Don’t you think so?”
“I think so? No, indeed! If I were you—oh, if I were you! That’s what I should like to be, a young gentleman with plenty of money and able to do whatever I pleased.”
“Oh,” he said, with a shudder, “don’t say so; you who are so much finer a thing—so much—don’t you know—it is a sort of sacrilege to talk so.”
At this she laughed with frank contempt. “That’s nonsense,” she said; “but I should not go to Oxford. I’d go into the Guards. It is they that have the best of it: almost always in London, and going everywhere. I should not marry, not for years and years!”
“Marry!” cried Walter, and blushed, which it did not occur to his companion to do.
“No, I should not marry,” said the girl; “I should have my fun, that is, if I were a gentleman. I should make the money go; I should go in for horses and all sorts of things. I should just go to the other extremity and do everything the reverse of what I have to do now. That’s because I can do so little now. Come, tell me, Mr. Penton, what should you do?”
Walter was much discomposed by this inquiry. He was disturbed altogether by the turn the conversation had taken. It was not at all what he had intended. He felt baffled and put aside out of the way; but yet there was an attraction in it, and in the arch look which was in her eyes. He felt the challenge and it moved him, notwithstanding that in his heart he was deeply disappointed that she had thrown back his confidences and not allowed herself to be drawn into his thoughts. He half understood, too, whither she wanted to lead him—into those encounters of wit in which she had so easily the mastery, in which he was so serious, pleading for her grace, and she so capricious, so full of mystery, holding him at bay. But he could not all at once, after all the experiences of the morning, begin to laugh again.
“I am stupid to-day,” he said. “I can’t think of fortune or anything else. I dare say I should do just the reverse of what you say.”
“What! marry?” she said. “Oh, silly! You should not think of that for years.”
“I should do more than think of it,” cried Walter, “if I—if you—if there was any chance—” The boy blushed again, half with the shy emotion of his years, the sudden leaping of his blood toward future wonders unknown. And then he stopped short, breathing hard. “You tempt me to say things only to mock me,” he said. “You think it is all fun; but I am in earnest, deep in earnest, and I mean what I—”
He stopped suddenly, the words cut short on his lips. They had turned a corner of the road, and close to them, so close that Walter stumbled over the stones on which he was seated, slowly chipping away with his hammer, was old Crockford, with ruddy old face, and white hair, and his red comforter twisted about his neck.
“Is that you, baggage?” said the old man, who saw the girl first as they came round the corner. “What mischief are ye after now? I never see one like you for mischief. Why can’t ye let the lads alone? Why, Master Walter!” he cried, in consternation, letting the hammer fall out of his hand.
“Yes, Crockford. What’s the matter? Do you think I am a ghost?” said Walter, in some confusion. It was cowardly, it was miserable, it was the smallest thing in the world. Was he ashamed to be seen with her, she who was (he said to himself) the most perfect creature, the sweetest and fairest? No, it could not be that; it was only what every young man feels when a vulgar eye spies upon his most sacred feelings. But he grew very red, looking the old stone-breaker, the road-mender, humblest of all functionaries, in the face as he spoke.
“Ghost!” said old Crockford, “a deal worse than that. A ghost could do me no harm. I don’t believe in ’em. But the likes of hur, that’s another pair o’ shoes. I know’d as she’d get me into trouble the moment I set eyes on her. Be off with you home, and let the young gentleman alone. You’ve made him think you’re a lady, I shouldn’t wonder. And if Mr. Penton found out he’d put me out of my cottage. Don’t give me none of your sauce, but run home.”
“I have done no harm,” said the girl. “Mr. Penton couldn’t put you out of your cottage because I took a walk. And you can send me away when you please. You know I’m not afraid of that.”
“I know you’re always up to mischief,” said the old man, “and that if it isn’t one it’s another. I’ve had enough of you. There’s good and there’s bad of women just like other creatures, but for making mischief there’s naught like them, neither beasts nor man. Be off with you home.”
“Crockford, you forget yourself. That’s not a way to speak to a—to a young lady,” cried Walter, wavering between boyish shame and boyish passion. “And as for my father—”
“A young lady; that’s all you know! Do you know who she is, Mr. Walter?” cried the old man.
“I am old Crockford’s niece,” said the girl, “and I know my place. I’ve never given myself out for any more than I am; now have I, sir? Thank you for walking up the hill with me, and talking so kind. But it’s time I was going home. He’s quite right, is the old man; and my duty to you, sir, and good-day; and I hope you will come into your fortune all the same.”
How was it that she turned, standing before him there in the road in all her prettiness and cleverness, into Crockford’s niece, with the diction and the air proper to her “place,” was what Walter could not tell. She cast him a glance as she turned round which transfixed him in the midst of his wonder and trouble, then turned and took the short cut across the field, running, getting over the stile like a bird. Which was she, one or the other? Walter stood and gazed stupidly after her, not knowing what to think or say.