CHAPTER VII.
NEVA’S FIRST LOVER.
The dingy little packet-boat from Calais to Dover, carrying the mails, bore her usual complement of passengers upon the bright midsummer day upon which young Neva Wynde returned after years of absence to her own country.
A few tall, mustached Frenchmen, with cigars in their mouths; a German or two with the inevitable pipe; a few students returning from foreign universities; a few pedestrian tourists with hobnailed shoes, preposterous alpenstocks, and a proudly displayed Bradshaw or Murray; several stout and puffy Englishmen, with singularly pale faces, and the usual number of rotund ill-dressed English women, with flimsy muslin dresses and fur tippets in odd contrast—a conjunction much affected by the average British lady—made up the majority of the passengers. Some of these people walked about, affecting to enjoy the fresh breeze; others studied the now useless guide-book, recalling their adventures; and others scanned the blue shores of France alternately with the chalk cliffs of England through the tourist glasses slung from their shoulders, and wondered aloud if the passage would be accomplished in the usual ninety minutes.
An odd feature of a Channel packet is the total disregard of appearances manifested by the passengers upon it.
Very few, if any, persons go below into the stuffy little cabins, and doubting souls provide themselves with ominous white bowls at the outset of the voyage, and should illness come upon them they proceed to make themselves comfortable upon the deck, or moan, or swear, according to the sex of the sufferer, totally unmindful and oblivious of lookers on.
In a corner by herself, at one side of the boat, her thick green vail over her face shrouding a bowl that filled her lap, sat Artress, Lady Wynde’s gray companion, in a condition of abject misery. She had no thought of any one but herself in that crisis of her physical career, and gave no heed to her young charge, the one great desire of her soul being to find herself once more upon solid land.
At the opposite side of the boat, leaning lightly upon the rail, and looking back with wistful, longing eyes upon the fading blue of the French shores, stood a young girl who was strangely lovely. She was slender and graceful as a swaying reed, and her lithe, light figure carried itself with a slight hauteur that was inexpressibly charming. Her high-bred manner, her evident gentleness and sweetness, betrayed thorough culture of heart and mind. Her face was a rare poem. The features were slightly irregular, and even in repose, with a grave shadow upon her fair brows, her countenance had a bright, piquant witchery. Her complexion was very pure and fair, her lips a vivid scarlet, and under her broad forehead a pair of wondrous red-brown eyes sparkled and glowed with strange brilliancy. Her hair, very abundant, and of a reddish-brown tint as rare as beautiful, was gathered into braids at the back of her small, noble head.
She was dressed in a traveling suit of black cashmere, and wore a black hat surmounted with a scarlet wing.
She was Neva Wynde, the owner of Hawkhurst, one of the greatest heiresses in England, and now the object of the sinister machinations of her handsome step-mother and Craven Black.
Her school-days were over, and she was on her way to a home she had not visited for years, and to a guardian whom she did not know, and who was secretly her enemy. She had emerged from the pleasant security of the school-room into a region of perils. A premonition of the dangers before her seemed almost to come upon her now, and into her glowing eyes crept a look of sorrowful yearning, and of passionate protest against the friendlessness of her lot.
A few feet distant from her, also leaning upon the railing, stood a young man, whose gaze, ostensibly fixed upon the French coast, now and then rested upon the girl’s speaking face with an expression of keen admiration and interest. He thought in his own soul that he had never seen a being so fresh, so dainty, so pure, so rarely beautiful. She seemed utterly alone. No one inquired how she felt, nor offered her a seat, nor looked after her, and her young admirer wondered if she were all alone in the world, as she seemed.
He was speculating upon the subject when a sudden lurch of the boat upon the short, chopping Channel waves, caused Neva to involuntarily loosen her hold upon the railing, and pitched her abruptly along the deck toward him. He sprang forward and caught her in his arms. She recovered her equilibrium upon the instant, and again grasped the railing, blushing, confused, and murmuring her thanks for his civility.
“The Channel is rough to-day,” remarked the young gentleman. “Shall I not find you a seat?”
“Thank you, no,” returned Neva, in her sweet, low, cultured voice. “I prefer standing.”
The words were simple enough, and her manner was quiet and reserved, but her voice went to the young man’s heart, thrilling it with a strange sensation. He did not attempt a retreat, and Neva looked up at him with something of surprise in her glorious red-brown eyes.
As he encountered her full gaze, his face flushed, his eyes glowed, and a warm smile curved his mouth.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but are you not Miss Wynde of Hawkhurst?”
Neva bowed assent, with an increasing surprise.
“I was sure, when I met your full glance, that you were Neva Wynde,” cried the young gentleman. “You do not remember me, I see; and yet, when you went away to that odious Paris school you and I parted with tears, and you promised to be true to me, little Neva. And you have forgotten me—”
“No, no,” cried the young girl, an answering glow in her face, and her eyes shining like suns. “Is it really you, Arthur? How you have changed!”
She held out her hand to him, and he clasped it with a warm, lingering pressure. Her eyes scanned his face in an earnest scrutiny, and she blushed again when she saw how handsome he was, and how like he was to an ideal she had long cherished in the very depths of her young soul.
He was fair, with warm blue eyes, golden hair, and a mustache of tawny gold. He had a frank, noble face, and his sunny eyes betrayed a generous soul. One who ran might read in his countenance a brave, dauntless soul, a grand, unselfish nature, an enlightened spirit, quick sympathies, and an honest, truthful, resolute character. Neva thought, as she shyly regarded him, that he was very like a hero of romance.
“I can hardly believe that it is Arthur,” she said, smiling, her face softly flushing. “You are not at all like the Arthur Towyn I knew, and yet I can see the old boyish gayety and brightness of spirit. Your mustache has changed your looks greatly, Lord Towyn.”
“It makes me look older perhaps,” said Lord Towyn gravely, “and as I am but three and twenty, and have a ward who is eighteen years old, it becomes me to produce as venerable an appearance as possible. Of course you are aware Neva, that I am one of the three trustees or guardians of your entire property, appointed by your father in his will?”
“Yes, I knew it a year ago,” replied Neva, the brightness fading a little from her face. “Mr. Atkins wrote me about papa’s will. Mr. Atkins and Sir John Freise are the two other executors. You are very young for such an appointment, are you not, Lord Towyn?”
“That is a fault that time will mend,” said his lordship, smiling. “I am young for the post, but Sir Harold Wynde knew that he could trust me, especially with two older heads to direct me. I am only the least of three, you know, and my youth was meant to balance Sir John Freise’s age. Your school life is over, is it not, Miss Wynde?”
“Yes, it is over,” and Neva sighed. “I am on my way to a new sort of life, and to new acquaintances and friends. I feel a sort of terror of my future, Lord Towyn. I am foolish, I know, but a dread comes over me when I look forward to going home. Home! Ah, all that made the old house home has vanished. My poor brother George lies in an Indian grave. Papa—poor papa—”
Her voice broke down, and she averted her head.
Young Lord Towyn came nearer to her. He longed to press her hand and to offer her his sympathy. He comprehended her desolation, and the unhealed wound caused by Sir Harold’s fate. His heart bled for her.
He had known Neva Wynde from her earliest childhood. They had played together in the woods and gardens of Hawkhurst and before Neva had been sent to her foreign school the child pair had betrothed themselves and vowed an eternal fidelity to each other. The late Earl Towyn, the father of Arthur, and Sir Harold Wynde had been college-mates, and it had been their dearest wish to unite their families in the persons of their children, but they had been too wise to broach the idea to the young couple. They had, however, encouraged the affection of Arthur and Neva for each other, and had looked forward hopefully to the time when that childish affection should possibly ripen into the love of manhood and womanhood. Soon after Neva’s departure for school Lord Towyn had died, and his son, then at college, had become earl in his stead. A mysterious fate had also removed Sir Harold Wynde, and Neva’s step-mother, as is known to the reader, had schemes of her own in regard to Neva’s marriage.
The young earl’s mute sympathy seemed to penetrate to Neva’s heart, for presently she turned her face again to him, and although her mouth quivered her eyes were brave, as she said brokenly:
“You will think me unchristian, Lord Towyn, but I cannot become reconciled to the manner of papa’s death. If he had but died as George died, peacefully in his bed; but his fate was so horrible—so awful! I sometimes fancy in the night that I can hear his cries and moans. In my own imagination I have witnessed his awful death a thousand times. The horror of it is as fresh to me now as when the news first came. Shall I ever get used to my sorrow? Will the time ever come, do you think, when I can think of papa with the calmness and resignation with which I think of my poor brother?”
“It was horrible, even to me, beyond all words to describe,” said the young earl softly. “I loved Sir Harold only less than my own father, and I have mourned for him as if I had been his son. All ordinary words of consolation seem a mockery to one who mourns a friend who perished as he did. He was vigorous and young for his years, noble and true and good. Let us hope that his pangs and terrors were but brief, Neva. Perhaps his death was not so terrible to him as it seems to us. It were better so to die than to languish for years a prey to some excruciating disease. And let us remember ‘whatever is, is right.’ Instead of dwelling on the manner of his death, let us remember that his death was but the opening to him of the gates of life eternal.”
Neva did not answer, but her face was very grave and tender, and her sun-like eyes glowed with a softer radiance. There was a brief silence between them, and finally Neva said, with an abrupt change of the subject:
“Do you know Lady Wynde, Lord Towyn?”
“I have met her several times, but not since Sir Harold’s death,” was the reply. “Is she traveling with you?” and the young earl glanced around the deck.
“No, she sent her companion for me. That is Artress, on the other side of the boat. I have never seen Lady Wynde.”
Lord Towyn looked his astonishment.
“Have you not been home since your father’s marriage, nor since his death, Miss Wynde?” he asked.
“No. Papa came once to see me at my school after his marriage, but he did not bring his wife. I have a picture of her which papa sent me. He must have adored her. His letters were full of loving praises of her, and in the last letter he wrote he told me that he desired me to love and obey her as if she were my own mother. His wishes are sacred to me now, and I shall try to love her. Is she very handsome?”
“She is considered handsome,” replied Lord Towyn. “She is dark almost to swarthiness, and has a gypsy’s black eyes. Sir Harold almost worshiped her.”
“Then she must be good?”
Lord Towyn hesitated. He knew little of the handsome Lady Wynde, but he had an instinctive distrust of her.
“She must be good,” he answered thoughtfully. “Had she not been good, Sir Harold would not have loved her.”
“Ah, yes, I have thought that a hundred times,” said Neva. “I shall try to win her love. She is to stay at Hawkhurst as my personal guardian during my minority, and there can be no indifference between us. It must be peace or war. I intend it shall be peace. You see, Lord Towyn, that I shall be almost completely dependent upon her for society and friendship. I am coming back a stranger to my childhood’s home. Years of absence have estranged me from the friends I knew, and I have no one outside of Hawkhurst to look to, save Mr. Atkins and Sir John Freise.”
“And me,” said Lord Towyn earnestly. “I am associated with them, you know. But you will not be so utterly friendless as you think. The old county families will hasten to call upon you, and you can select your own friends among them. The Lady of Hawkhurst will be feted and welcomed, and made much of. Your trouble will soon be that you will have no time to yourself. I desire to add myself to your list of visitors. I am staying this summer at a place of mine on the Kentish coast. But here is the Dover pier straight ahead, Miss Wynde. We have made the voyage in good time, despite the roughness of the Channel.”
There was no time for further conversation. The suggestive bowls were being hidden under benches by the late sufferers, and bundles, boxes and bags were being sought after with reviving energies. Artress arose, found her traveling bag and umbrellas, and then sought for her charge. As her gaze encountered Neva’s piquant face upturned to the admiring glances of a handsome young gentleman, she looked shocked and horrified, and her sharp, ashen-hued features became vinegary in their expression. She approached the young lady with unseemly haste, and exclaimed:
“Miss Wynde, I am surprised—”
“Pardon me,” said Neva, quietly interposing, although her face flushed haughtily, “but I desire to introduce to you, Mrs. Artress, my old friend Lord Towyn.”
The young earl bowed, and Mrs. Artress did the same, divided between her desire to be polite to a nobleman and her anger that Neva should have renewed his acquaintance while under her charge. Artress was deep in the confidence of Lady Wynde and Craven Black, and her interests were identical with theirs. She had a keen scent for danger, and in the attitude of Lord Towyn toward Neva she recognized an admiration which might easily deepen into love.
“Come, my dear,” said Mrs. Artress anxiously. “The boat is at the pier, and we must hasten ashore. Give me your dressing bag—”
She paused, seeing that Lord Towyn had already possessed himself of it. The young earl offered his arm to Neva, and she placed her hand lightly upon it, and was conducted along the boat to the place of landing. Mrs. Artress followed, biting her lips with chagrin.
The landing and examination of baggage were duly accomplished, and Lord Towyn conducted his charges to a first-class coach of the waiting train, seated them, and took his place beside Neva.
“Are you going to Hawkhurst also, my lord?” inquired Mrs. Artress sourly, as he fed the guard handsomely, in order that no other travelers might be ushered into their compartment.
“No, madam, not to-day,” answered the young earl pleasantly. “I am on my way to Canterbury to consult with Sir John Freise and Mr. Atkins concerning some business relative to the Hawkhurst property, and I shall probably do myself the honor to call with them upon Miss Wynde in a day or two.”
“Lady Wynde will be happy to see you and to consult with you,” said Mrs. Artress, with ill-concealed annoyance. “Miss Wynde is too young, I should judge, to understand anything about business. Besides, her friends should spare her all trouble of that description.”
“I shall be always ready to consult with you about business, Lord Towyn,” said Neva in her clear, low voice. “I desire to fit myself for my position as owner and dispenser of a large income. I regard the money intrusted to me as a talent for which I shall be called to account, and I want to learn to manage my affairs properly, and with prudence and discretion. I think,” she added lightly, “that I shall take Miss Burdett Coutts as my exemplar in this matter. She is a business woman, I understand, and I should like to be like her.”
Mrs. Artress was silenced, but she thought within herself:
“Our young lady has opinions of her own, and has the courage to express them. I am afraid that she is not the bread and butter school-girl we expected. I am afraid that we shall have trouble with her.”
The journey to Canterbury was accomplished only too quickly for Lord Towyn and Neva. They talked of their childhood, but no allusion was made to their childish betrothal, although both doubtless thought of it. The young earl explained that he had been over to Brussels for a week, and had no thought of meeting her on his way home, and his face as well as his tones told how glad he was of that meeting.
The Hawkhurst carriage with its liveried servants was in waiting at the Canterbury station when they alighted. Lord Towyn assisted the ladies into the vehicle, bade them adieu, and as they drove away followed them with a lingering gaze.
“How beautiful Neva is!” he murmured to himself. “And so pure and sweet and tender, yet spirited! I wonder if she remembers our childish betrothal? I don’t like that Artress, and I do not quite like Lady Wynde. I hardly think Neva will be happy with her, their natures being so dissimilar. I must go out to Hawkhurst to-morrow, and judge whether they are likely to get on together. If Neva does not like her step-mother, she has but one avenue of escape from her dominion before she becomes of age, and that avenue is marriage. If she would only marry me. I love her already. Love her! I could adore her.”
A passionate flush arose to his fair cheek, and a tender glowing light to his warm blue eyes, and he descended the steps and strode out of the station, his heart thrilling with the strange and new sensation which he now knew was love. And as he walked along the street, he vowed within himself that he would woo and, if he could, would win young Neva Wynde to be his wife.
Ah, he little knew the gulfs that would arise between him and her—the dangers, the perils, the sorrows, they two must taste. And even as he strode along, acknowledging to his own soul that he was Neva’s lover, Neva was speeding across the pleasant country toward the home where her enemy awaited her with schemes perfected, and an evil heart hidden under a smiling face.