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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/26044-8.txt b/26044-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f5243d --- /dev/null +++ b/26044-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8924 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Peter and Jane, by S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Peter and Jane + or The Missing Heir + + +Author: S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan + + + +Release Date: July 12, 2008 [eBook #26044] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND JANE*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original musical notations. + See 26044-h.htm or 26044-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/0/4/26044/26044-h/26044-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/0/4/26044/26044-h.zip) + + + + + +PETER AND JANE + +Or The Missing Heir + +by + +S. MACNAUGHTAN + +Author of +'The Fortune of Christina M'nab' + +Sixth Edition + + + + + + + +Methuen & Co. Ltd. +36 Essex Street W.C. +London + +First Issued in this Cheap Form (Fourth + Edition) . . . . . . . . . . . . July 2nd 1914 +Fifth Edition . . . . . . . . . . . May 1916 +Sixth Edition . . . . . . . . . . . 1919 + +First Published (Crown 8vo) . . . . September 14th 1911 +Second Edition . . . . . . . . . . . September 1911 +Third Edition . . . . . . . . . . . November 1911 + + + + +TO + +CATHERINE + + + + +PETER AND JANE + + +CHAPTER I + +Mrs. Ogilvie, red-haired according to the exact shade then in fashion, +and dressed by Paquin, sat in her drawing-room reading the _Court +Journal_. She was a woman who thought on the lines of Aristotle, +despised most other women except Charlotte Corday, Judith, Joan of Arc, +and a few more, and she dyed her hair and read the _Court Journal_. +People who did not know her sometimes alluded to her as an overdressed +woman with a wig. Those who had met her even but once admitted the +power of her personality. Perhaps if any one had known her very well +he or she would have been bewildered by the many-sided complexities of +her character, and would have failed to discover any sort of unity +behind its surprising differences. But then, as a matter of fact, no +one did know her well. + +Those who cared to remember such an old story used to tell how, as a +girl of eighteen, she had been deeply in love with a cousin of hers, +Greville Monsen by name, and how almost on the eve of her marriage she +had thrown him over and had married Colonel Ogilvie the explorer, a man +twenty years older than herself, with an enormous fortune, and +accounted something of a hero at the time. + +Colonel Ogilvie married late in life, and his brother's wife had long +ago decided that it would be better if he should never marry at all. +Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie was an ambitious woman with a fine family of sons +and daughters to whom Colonel Ogilvie's large estates and immense +fortune would have been wholly appropriate. She had always been civil +to her brother-in-law, although the estates and the money were entailed +upon his brother, and she weighed in the balance the disinterested +affection which she showed him against her feeling of satisfaction in +the fact that he was a daring and indefatigable traveller; one, +moreover, who was seldom quite happy unless he was in danger, and who +never thoroughly enjoyed a journey if any other white man had trodden +the ground before he himself visited it. + +Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie was indignant at the news of Colonel Ogilvie's +marriage. Being a very wise woman she would probably in time have +controlled her temper, and by a little judicious management she might +have secured a considerable fortune for herself and her children. But, +alas! there was a necessity within her of exploding to some one when, +as in this instance, her heart was hot and her head not quite cool. +And so, with some sense of justice, venting her spleen upon the cause +of it, Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie said certain very unwise and unkind things +about her brother-in-law's fiancée and her cousin, Greville Monsen. Of +course the heated and uncontrolled words of the disappointed woman were +repeated, and there was a terrible and stormy interview between the two +brothers, who parted that same day and never spoke to each other again. + +Mrs. Francis Ogilvie bore the character of being a cold and +dispassionate woman. And this was the more remarkable because on the +distaff-side she was of Spanish descent, and might reasonably have been +supposed to have inherited the instincts of that passionate and +hot-tempered nation. She never quarrelled as the brothers had done, +but her eyes narrowed for an instant with a trick that was +characteristic of her when she heard Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie's tale. And +when, in the quieter moments that followed her husband's outburst of +anger, he asked her with a tone of question in his voice whether Lionel +and that odious wife of his could possibly expect to be forgiven, Mrs. +Ogilvie raised her eyebrows and said simply, 'I do not know what +forgiveness means.' She paid no attention to the vulgar gossip which +her sister-in-law tried to attach to her name, and Greville Monsen had +either got over his disappointment, or was sufficiently attached to his +former fiancée to forgive her her treatment of him. He came to the +house on terms of intimate friendship, and continued to do so even +after Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie's busy tongue had spoken. + +Mrs. Ogilvie was not affected by gossip, nor moved by public opinion. +To have altered her conduct, even by a hair's-breadth, because it was +not generally approved would have seemed to her an absurdity; but those +who offended her were not given the opportunity of doing so twice. To +have had small quarrels followed by reconciliations would have been +impossible to her. Very few things were worth quarrelling about at +all, still fewer worth forgiving! Mrs. Ogilvie was cynically +indifferent to transgressions against herself; but when she sat in +judgment she always gave a life-sentence. + +When Lionel died the feud between the brothers would probably have been +forgotten had it not been for the lamentable fact that his eldest son, +who had grown up into a faithful likeness of his worldly and +commonplace mother, took it into his head at the time of his father's +death to write to his uncle in a way which showed as much greed as +ill-breeding. The foolish young man's letter might have been put into +the fire and forgotten, for Colonel Ogilvie had loved his brother long +ago, and his death affected him deeply; but young Lionel made a mistake +when he referred to the fact that Colonel and Mrs. Ogilvie were +childless, and alluded to his own prospects. This put an end for ever +to all friendly intercourse between the uncle and nephew; Mrs. Ogilvie, +on her part, lifted her eyebrows again and said, 'The commercial mind +is very droll!' But just for one moment she locked her hands together +with an impulsive movement that had a whole life's tragedy and +disappointment in it. + +It meant all the world to her and her husband that they should have +children. But Fate, who had prospered them in every other respect, had +denied them what they most desired. A son and heir, who was born a +year after the marriage, had died the same day. Two years later a +little girl was born who lived a few weeks, and then she also died. +Since then there had been no children. Many women would have claimed +sympathy for their sorrow, most women would at least have accepted it. +Mrs. Ogilvie, with her health somewhat impaired, came back to the world +and assumed her place in it without any expressions of regret for her +disappointment. Probably not even her husband knew whether she felt +her loss deeply or not. No one else was ever permitted to speak of it. +Colonel Ogilvie's own disappointment was never expressed. He had too +much tenderness for his wife to say anything about it. + +'If ever I am to be a mother again,' Mrs. Ogilvie said once, 'my child +shall be born out of reach of kind inquiries or deep sympathy. If he +lives, let those rejoice with me who will. But pity is always +offensive, and is generally meant to be so.' + +As the years came and went Colonel Ogilvie lost interest in his +property, and handed over the care of the greater part of it to agents +and stewards, and came very near to hating the lands which some day +would go to his nephew. A queer restlessness was upon him, and his +wife watched him and said nothing; until one day, seeing him reading a +certain paragraph in a newspaper, she said to him, smiling slightly, as +they stood together on the broad stone terrace at Bowshott, 'Why don't +you go with them on this exploring expedition?' + +Colonel Ogilvie protested. He was a married man, he said, and his +travelling days were over. It is probable, however, that never was a +suggestion more welcome. The past years, in spite of his deep love for +his wife, had been full of fret and shadowed by disappointment, and he +longed, with a traveller's intensity of longing, for the wild +untroubled places of the world, the primitive life, and if possible +some dangers on the road. An exploring party sent out by the British +Government to discover a lost missionary and to punish a warlike tribe +was exactly the thing to suit his adventurous disposition. In spirit +he was already in the dangerous places of Central Africa, far from +human habitation, and with very often his own right hand the sole thing +between him and a barbarous death. Even while he protested with +conscientious emphasis against his wife's proposal, he already saw the +dim forests of Africa, the line of bearers on the difficult march, the +tents struck at nightfall, and all the paraphernalia of an interesting +campaign. + +He was away for eighteen months, beyond the reach of letters and +telegrams for the greater part of the time; and during his absence Mrs. +Ogilvie, whose health for some months had been feeble, went to her +native land of Spain for warmth and sunshine, travelling by sea to +Lisbon for the sake of the voyage. From her Spanish mother she had +inherited a property at Granada, and it was from there that she was +able to write and tell her husband that she was the mother of a son. +Colonel Ogilvie was in an inaccessible region when that event happened, +and it was not until he was on his return journey home that he heard +the good news. Two years later another child, Peter, was born; and, +ardently as her firstborn had been desired, Mrs. Ogilvie showered by +far the greater part of her affection upon the younger child. +Everything had to give way to Peter, and she resented that even such +baby privileges as a child of tender years can receive were bestowed +upon the elder son and heir. Her health gave cause for anxiety for +some time after Peter was born, and her mental state and the condition +of her nerves accounted for the partiality which she showed for her +younger child. + +The colonel, however, was always a little jealous for the fair-haired +boy who had come to his mother while he was far away; and by his will, +which he made at this time, he secured an almost extravagant provision +for Edward. He could well-nigh forgive his nephews now for their +obtrusive existence in the world, and he settled down to enjoy his +property with the happy knowledge that he had two fine sturdy boys to +whom to leave it. He was still in the prime of life, and not all the +dangers and privations which he had suffered seemed to have undermined +his splendid constitution. But a drive home in an open dogcart, after; +speaking in an overheated hall at a political meeting, brought on a +chill and pneumonia of which very suddenly he died. His loss was +sincerely and deeply regretted in a neighbourhood where he was both +admired and loved for his many good qualities, and a monument in +Culversham parish church tells of his excellence as a landlord and his +intrepid courage as an explorer. + +Mrs. Ogilvie's health being still precarious, she went abroad for the +winter after her husband's death to look into some matters concerning +her own property, and to try to court health in the sunny vine-growing +country. And there, in a little remote Spanish village by the sea +which she loved to visit, little Edward Ogilvie, the elder of the two +children, died; and not until six years later did Mrs. Ogilvie return +to England. To all outward seeming she was as emotionless and reserved +as she had ever been, and she spoke no word of her double sorrow and +her irreparable loss. Her love for her remaining child never showed +itself in caresses, and was not even discernible in her speech; but in +spite of her reserve there was an undefined feeling in most people's +minds that Mrs. Ogilvie idolized her son. Of the two who were dead no +one ever heard her speak. Whatever she thought of them seemed to be +buried in her heart as deeply as though that heart had been their +graves. And there remained only cheery, popular Peter Ogilvie, with +his mind as open as the day, and not a secret upon his soul, and with +as much reserve as a schoolboy, to inherit the fortune which a prince +might have envied, and a property which was unique in a county rich in +beautiful houses. + +The gardens of Bowshott were the admiration of the countryside, and +Mrs. Ogilvie rarely entered them. The picture gallery was visited by +foreigners from every part of the world. Mrs. Ogilvie frequently +showed the works of the great masters herself, strolling along the +polished floor of the gallery, and telling the story of this picture +and that with the inimitable grace of manner which was vaguely resented +by her country neighbours, delighting the distinguished foreigners who +came to see the pictures. She herself hardly ever glanced at the old +masters for her own pleasure; although full of technical knowledge on +the subject she had no love of art. It used to weary her when she had +to listen to enthusiasm, generally only half-sincere, about her +Botticellis or her Raphaels. Music never stirred her, and she regarded +the society of the country neighbourhood where she lived with a sense +of uncomprehension which she sometimes found difficult to conceal. + +'Why were such people born?' she used to say to herself at the sight of +some rural gathering. On the rare occasions when she went to a party +she was always the first to leave; boredom seemed to overtake her +before she had been anywhere very long. Entertainments, so-called, +were horribly wearisome to her, and she never for an instant believed +those people who professed to have enjoyed a pleasant party. Parties +were all stupid, she thought; just as most people were stupid, and most +food was badly cooked. Therefore, why meet in somebody else's most +probably hideous room, and eat impossible dishes and talk to impossible +people? Her own chef had been famous even in Paris, and every evening, +according to the custom of the house, an extravagant _menu_ was +prepared, at which, when she was alone, she hardly glanced. + +Mrs. Ogilvie discussed all things in heaven or earth with a baffling +lightness, turned philosophy into a witty jest and made a sort of slang +of classical terminology. Amongst a clever set in London she reigned +supreme when she chose; but a false note or a pose offended her +immediately, and the poseur or the insincere person would generally +receive one of her exquisite snubs which cut like acid into tender +skins. The pretentiousness of the so-called cultured set was a +vulgarism in the eyes of this woman who could be rude with the air of a +princess, and could give a snub as some people offer a compliment. +Inferior persons sometimes wondered how she had a friend left. To be +popular, they argued, one had to be civil, whereas Mrs. Ogilvie was +often daringly disagreeable. There was indeed something almost fine in +her splendid disdain of the civility of the so-called popular person. +She could wound; but she did it with the grace of a duellist of old +days, who wiped his rapier with a handkerchief of cambric and lace when +he had killed his opponent, and would probably expect a man to die as +he himself would die, with a jest on his lips and a light laugh at the +flowing blood. Mrs. Ogilvie slew exquisitely, and she never hated her +opponent. She smiled at enthusiasm and thought it bizarre and rather +delightful; but towards vulgarity, especially in its pompous form, she +presented her poniard-point sharply tipped and deadly. 'Why should +people take themselves seriously?' she would say, with a shrug of her +shoulders. 'Surely, we are a common enough species!' And then the +green-grey eyes would narrow themselves in their shortsighted way, and +Mrs. Ogilvie's voice, charmingly refined and well-bred, would with a +few words lightly prick the falsely sentimental and self-inflated +wind-bag of oratory that had presented its unprotected surface to her +shaft. + +Towards religion her attitude was the well-bred one. She took off her +hat to it, as a gentleman removes his hat in church whatever his creed +may be. Her own beliefs were as daring and as nearly as possible +uninfluenced by outward opinion or by the accepted systems as it is +possible for a creed to be. She never tried to force them upon any one +else; possibly she did not believe in them herself sufficiently to wish +to do so; but like her queer gowns and her dyed red hair her creed +suited Mrs. Ogilvie. There was a congruous incongruity about her which +set many people puzzling to find out her real character. Pompous +persons and snobs detested her. Stupid or vapid people saw nothing in +her, or saw merely that she dyed her hair and was dressed by Paquin. +Narrow-minded people disapproved of her, and clever people considered +her one of the most striking, if not one of the most agreeable +personalities of the day. Women hardly ever understood her; but they +respected any one who dressed as well as she did, and they had an +undeclared admiration for a woman who could hold so lightly possessions +which they believed to be all-important, and which Mrs. Ogilvie seemed +to find so trivial. + +The house and its gardens were open once a week to visitors, and the +country neighbours brought their guests and strangers to see it, their +pleasure in showing off Mrs. Ogilvie's possessions being somewhat +tempered by timidity; while those who came to pay a call on the chance +of finding her at home would sometimes say with an air of courage and +independence to a friend, 'Mrs. Ogilvie is considered rather alarming, +you know, but it really is only her manner.' She played her part as +country neighbour conscientiously. Once a year she gave a sumptuous +garden-party, all other garden-parties in the neighbourhood being dated +by it. And when Peter was a little boy there were children asked to +the house to play games with him, and later there were dances and balls. + +Peter accepted his mother, his property, and his position on what he +himself would probably have called their most cheery side. He valued +Bowshott because there was excellent hunting to be got there; just as +he loved his place in Scotland because of the stalking and the fishing +and the shooting, but that they were magnificent or enviable never +entered his head. Fate had dealt very kindly with him, and its +kindliness had provoked a charming geniality in the character of the +young man whom it had treated with such lavish good fortune. Taking it +all round, Peter considered this world an excellent one, and most of +the people in it very good sorts indeed. He accepted his mother as he +accepted everything else, with a simple-heartedness which never looked +below the surface nor concerned itself with motives; and if any one had +suggested to him that she was inexplicable he would have considered +such a judgment quite unintelligible. He enjoyed a visit to her more +than almost anything else in the world. She had always been devoted to +him ever since he was a boy, and for the life of him he could not see +that she was difficult to understand. + +It was the fashion to say that Mrs. Ogilvie had altered greatly since +the death of Colonel Ogilvie and the little boy. People who remembered +all the circumstances of that sad time thought always that in her own +way Mrs. Ogilvie was the victim of remorse for not having loved her +dead child better. But, after all, there was nothing that a child of +three or four years old could have felt seriously in his mother's +conduct, and his father's affection must have consoled him for any +coldness on her part. After the colonel's death there were those who +said it would have been better if Mrs. Ogilvie had married again, or +even if she had had a daughter--some one who would have been always at +home, and who, to use the common phrase, might have taken Mrs. Ogilvie +out of herself. Peter was too much away from home to be a real +companion to his mother, and there were never guests at Bowshott unless +he was there. It would surely have been in reason if the widow had +taken a fancy to some nice girl and had had her to live in the house. +But Mrs. Ogilvie did not take fancies to nice girls. She loved Jane +Erskine, but disguised the feeling under a sort of whimsical +indifference. And the friendship seemed incongruous enough if one came +to think of it. Jane, with her wholesome love of outdoor life, her +fresh beauty, her heedlessness of learning and ignorance of books--what +had Jane in common with Mrs. Ogilvie in her Parisian gowns and with her +dyed hair, sitting in the vast drawing-room at Bowshott reading the +_Court Journal_ and thinking on the lines of the speculative +philosophers? + +And even to Jane Erskine her manner was cold. Her chilling philosophy +would soon have quenched a less happy and impulsive nature. No one but +Jane would have bothered her head about Mrs. Ogilvie, the kindly +neighbours said, envying, nevertheless, the girl's intimacy at the +great house. But as a matter of fact Jane expended a wealth of honest +affection on Mrs. Ogilvie, and not only thought her the cleverest woman +she had ever met, but had even been heard to affirm that her hair was +not dyed. She called her 'such a really good sort'; and the words were +as inappropriate as the words of Peter Ogilvie and Jane Erskine usually +were. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Jane Erskine was at the present time at that interesting period when +her friends and relatives, having just discovered the unexpected fact +that she was grown up, subjected her to mildly severe criticism, while +believing that to have reached womanhood at all showed a considerable +amount of talent on her part. They were, they said, under no +misapprehension about Jane; in moments of extreme candour, touched with +responsibility, they had even been known to say that in one or two +respects she was not absolutely perfect. Miss Abingdon, for instance, +who always conscientiously encouraged these moods, and censured the +General for spoiling Jane, would frequently compare her niece with +herself, as she remembered that dim figure of girlhood, and never +failed to find cause for unfavourable comparison between the two. From +the portraits which she drew it was generally believed that Miss +Abingdon must have been born rather a strait-laced spinster of thirty, +and have increased in wisdom until her hair was touched with grey; when +she would seem to have become the mellow, severe, dignified, loving, +and critical lady who at this moment was looking out of her +drawing-room window, and trying to show her impartiality for her orphan +niece by subjecting her to lawful and unbiased criticism. + +'The day of the incomprehensible woman is past and gone,' said Miss +Abingdon, and she sighed a little. + +Jane Erskine was painting a rabbit-hutch on the lawn. Her attitude +showed the keen workman, but disguised the woman of grace. Miss +Erskine, in fact, was lying full-length on the greensward of her aunt's +lawn absorbed in the engrossing occupation of putting the right dabs of +green paint upon a portion of the inside of the rabbit-hutch which was +awkward to get at. + +'They are all alike,' sighed Miss Abingdon. She alluded to the +girlhood of the present day as it presented itself to her regretful and +disapproving eye. 'They wear shoes two sizes too large for them, they +don't require to be taken care of, they buy their own horses, and they +are never ill. They call young men by their Christian names! I don't +think they even have headaches.' Miss Abingdon sighed again over this +lost art of womanhood. 'There is my niece Jane Erskine; she might be a +graceful and elegant young woman, whereas she is sunburned, and--it is +a dreadful word of course--but I can only call her leggy. Perhaps it +is the fault of those narrow skirts. Women have never been so much +respected since crinolines went out of fashion. I believe the +independence of the modern girl is no longer assumed; it is not even a +regrettable passing fashion; the time has come when I am afraid they +really are independent. Jane would think me insane if I were to go out +and sit with her in the garden when Peter comes to call, and I don't +believe she has ever done a piece of fancy-work in her life!' said Miss +Abingdon. + +She looked round her pretty drawing-room in which, with a spinster's +instinct for preserving old family treasures, she had gathered and +garnered antique pieces of furniture, ill-drawn family portraits, and +chairs covered with the worsted-work and beadwork of fifty or sixty +years ago. She looked regretfully at the piano and the old, neatly +bound folios of music with 'M. A.' upon the covers, and she wondered +how it was that no one cared to hear her 'pieces' now. She went over +to the music-stand and fingered them in a contemplative way. How +industriously she used to practise 'Woodland Warblings,' 'My Pretty +Bird,' 'La Sympathie, Valse Sentimentale pour le Piano,' and 'Quant' è +piu bella,' fingered and arranged with variations. + +On Sunday afternoons when her guests 'were having a look at the mokes' +Miss Abingdon still played through her book of sacred pieces; and it +was on Sunday afternoons, too, that she always stirred the jars of +potpourri upon the cabinets, so that their pungent, faint odour might +exhale through the room. The old pieces of music and the scent of the +dried rose-leaves together always brought back to Miss Abingdon's mind +fragrant memories of long ago. + +'We used to take a roll of music with us when we were asked out to +dinner,' she reflected, 'and it was all-important to us who should turn +over our leaves for us, and we generally blushed and hesitated before +we sat down to the piano at all. Last night Jane almost fought with +Peter for the larger portion of the keyboard of the piano; and they +played music without any tune in it, to my way of thinking, and there +is no seriousness at all about any of them.' + +'I wonder if they'--Miss Abingdon again referred to that distressing +body of young women of the present day--'I wonder if they have ever +kissed a lover's letter, or have slept with his picture underneath +their pillows at night? Or have they ever lain sleepless for an hour +because of a loved one's absence, or because of a cold word from him? +Do they write verses, or exchange valentines, or even give each other +flowers?' + +Miss Abingdon recalled in her own mind the days when she and her sister +used to walk together in the park, with mamma leaning upon papa's arm +and pacing sedately behind; and how, when they used to sit down on one +of the lawns, it had always been in a group of four. Ah! those were +the days when one went home and wept because the dear one--the handsome +hero who filled half a girl's thoughts and was the object of more than +half her worship--had not seen, one across the crowd; or he had seen, +perhaps, but girlish modest eyes were forbidden to give the signal of +approach. It was more maidenly then to be oblivious of a young man's +presence. 'Now,' said, Miss Abingdon, 'when they see a young man whom +they know--a pal I believe they call him--girls will wave their +parasols or even shout. I have known them rise from their own chairs +and go and speak to a man. The whole thing is extraordinary to me.' + +It was a relief to Miss Abingdon's sombre reflections when her friend, +the vicar's wife, came in for a morning call. She thought that Mrs. +Wrottesley's brown merino dress and bonnet, and constraining mantle +which rendered all movements of the arms impossible, looked very +decorous and womanly compared with the soles of a pair of brown leather +shoes, and the foreshortened figure of five feet eight of slender young +womanhood stretched in strenuous devotion to her strange occupation on +the lawn. + +When Mrs. Wrottesley seated herself opposite the window Miss Abingdon +resisted an impulse to pull down the blind. + +'Yesterday,' said Miss Abingdon, glancing at her niece, 'she was trying +to copy a feat which she had seen at the hippodrome, and was riding one +pony and driving another tandem in front of her over some hurdles in +the field.' + +Mrs. Wrottesley smiled with the rather provoking indulgence with which +our friends regard the follies of our relations. + +'She is so young,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'and she is very beautiful.' + +'No,' said Miss Abingdon, with inward pride at her own unwavering +impartiality, 'I honestly believe that if we were to consider Jane +without prejudice we should find that she is simply healthy.' + +'It is a great charm,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. + +'No, no,' corrected Miss Abingdon quickly, 'the charm of womanhood +consists in its mysteriousness. Now, the girl of to-day is simply a +good fellow. She doesn't require to be understood, and she doesn't +drive men crazy; she shoves her own bicycle up hills and fights for the +larger half of the keyboard of the piano.' She sighed again. + +'She is a moral influence,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. Mrs. Wrottesley also +alluded to the girl of the period; and Miss Abingdon thought that to +refer to her as 'she' or a type, instead of 'they,' had a flavour of +culture about it, but she did not mean to give in. + +'Yes, yes,' she said impatiently, her love of contradicting Mrs. +Wrottesley and at the same time holding her own in the discussion +inclining her to undue severity, 'she is as straight as any other good +fellow, and she pays up if she has lost at bridge, and would as soon +think of picking a pocket as of cheating at croquet; but she is not +mysterious--she is absolutely comprehensible.' + +'Probably,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'Jane's shortcomings in this respect +are due to the fact that she is lamentably unaffected. Affectation, in +the case of girls who ride straight and don't know what it is to have a +headache, very often takes the form of boyishness. Let us console +ourselves with the fact that, being perfectly natural, Jane has escaped +masculinity.' + +'Jane is a lady,' said Miss Abingdon severely, and with the faint +suggestion of administering a snub. 'But,' she added, with that touch +of superiority in her manner which obtruded itself in most of her +conversation with the vicar's wife, 'there are certain accepted +traditions of womanhood such as conventionality approves, and it was +not called artificial to conform to them when I was a girl.' + +'I remember,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'that we honestly thought that we +were interesting when we ate very little, and I myself often used to +aspire to an attractive display of timidity when inwardly I had no +sensation of fear.' + +As the wife of the vicar of the parish Mrs. Wrottesley wore brown +merino and a mantle, but these hid a great soul securely held in check +and narrowed down by a strict adherence to the small conventions and +paralysing rules which society seems to have prescribed for vicars and +their wives in the rural parishes of England. She prayed every morning +of her life for more faith, and meant by that a narrower creed. Mrs. +Wrottesley was an inarticulate woman, and had gained for herself the +character of being reserved. + +Her own view of things differed in all essentials from the opinions +which were held by those about her, and were even inwardly opposed to +theories which her husband, with such gentlemanly eloquence, expounded +every Sunday morning. People thought themselves charitable when they +merely said that they did not understand Mrs. Wrottesley. + +'The modern girl has a good effect upon society,' she continued; 'and +she is not a cat.' + +'Ah, yes,' allowed Miss Abingdon, conceding a point, but prepared with +unanswerable argument; 'but will she ever be loved as the old eternal +feminine was loved?' + +'Many people believe,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'that you can't be a man's +divinity and surround yourself with a golden halo, and be his pal at +the same time.' + +'I remember,' said Miss Abingdon reminiscently, and feeling that she +was still scoring heavily against her friend--'I remember we used to +come down to breakfast in light gloves to match our gowns, and we drew +them on when the meal was over and only removed them in the +morning-room when we had taken out our embroidery to work at it.' + +'And when embroidery bored us,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'we thought we +were in love.' + +'A Miss Sherard stayed here last summer,' said Miss Abingdon, 'a friend +of Jane's, and she smoked cigarettes in her bedroom. I know that, for +I saw the ashes in her pin-tray.' + +Miss Abingdon rather enjoyed making little excursions through her +guest's bedrooms of an afternoon, when she had the house to herself; +and, without deigning to touch or disturb anything, she knew pretty +well, for instance, whose complexion was real and whose was false, who +wore powder and who did not. + +Mrs. Wrottesley glanced at her own figure in the drawing-room mirror; +her mantle disguised the fact that she had either a waist or a pair of +arms, and she gave a little dry smile as she reflected that she had +accepted a dolman cloak with all the other outward conventions of +orthodoxy as understood by society in rural England. + +'My cousin, Peter Ogilvie, comes here every day,' said Miss Abingdon; +'he is crossing the lawn now. In former days these two young people +would have been talked about. (Peter is my cousin, you know, on my +father's side of the house--he is not related to Jane.) But neither +will probably mind in the least what is said about them, and for my own +part I am positively unable to say whether they care for each other or +not. Had I been Jane I would have sat in the arbour this morning, with +a pretty, cool white dress on, reading poetry or some light romance, or +working at my embroidery till my lover came, instead of being found +covered with paint and with the footman's baize apron on.' + +The two ladies moved closer to the window and watched the young man +crossing the lawn. He was well-built and not many inches above Jane's +own height; and perhaps when one has said that he was fair with that +Saxon fairness which suggests an almost immaculate cleanliness, and +looked like a gentleman, there is not much more to be stated about his +external appearance. + +Jane rose from her recumbent position on the turf and shook off some +blades of short grass from her apron, and waved a brush filled with +green paint in the air. + +'Don't touch it, Peter!' she cried. 'Isn't it lovely?' + +'Good morning, Jane,' said Peter, lifting his cap. Whatever else might +be said of them, it would have to be admitted that there was a +fundamental sense of courtesy and good-breeding underlying the +regrettably frank manner of these young people. 'If you wave your +brush about in that triumphant way you 'll splash me with green paint.' + +'I have sacrificed two dresses already,' answered Jane; 'but real Art +is worth that!' + +'The hutch looks ripping,' said Peter; 'but I should feel safer if you +would put down that brush.' + +'I couldn't resist painting the inside,' said Jane, surveying her work +ecstatically. 'Do you think the rabbits will lick on the paint and be +sick, Peter?' + +'Probably,' said Peter. + +'Of course we don't know,' said Jane gravely, 'that it isn't their +favourite food. Rabbits may flourish on green paint just as we +flourish on roast mutton.' + +'It would be beastly to have a green inside!' said Peter. + +'I wonder what they are talking about,' said Miss Abingdon, glancing +with an apprehensive eye from the drawing-room window. 'Perhaps, after +all, they are making love to each other; and if they are, I certainly +ought to go out and sit with them.' + +Miss Abingdon had antiquated notions of a chaperon's duties. + +'I suppose there would be no objection to the match if they do care for +each other,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, in a manner that was often called +brusque and had served to make her unpopular. 'Jane is rich----' + +'Jane has money,' corrected Miss Abingdon, who saw a well-defined +difference between the two statements. 'She is a ward in Chancery, you +know, and she will not come of age until she is twenty-five. Peter, of +course, has a very large fortune. Still, one would not like to be +responsible for a marriage, even if it is suitable, and I should not +like the Erskines to think I had not looked after Jane properly.' + +That nothing should happen always seemed to Miss Abingdon the height of +safety and of peace. She mistrusted events of any kind, and had +probably remained single owing to her inability to make up her mind to +such a momentous decision as is necessarily involved by matrimony. She +had never been out of England, and now could seldom be got to leave +home; whenever she quitted her own house something was sure to happen, +and Miss Abingdon disapproved of happenings. She believed in the +essential respectability of monotony, and loved routine. But alas for +routine and respectability and a peaceful and serene existence! Even +elderly ladies, who dress in black satin and pay their bills weekly, +and whose most stimulating and exciting morning is the one spent in +scolding the gardener, may be touched with sorrows for which they are +not responsible, and shaken by tragedies such as they never dreamed +would come near them. + +The young couple on the lawn left the unfinished rabbit-hutch and +paint-pots and strolled towards a garden-seat. All the gates and seats +on Miss Abingdon's small property were painted white once a year, and +their trim spotlessness gave an air of homely opulence to the place. +The bench which her young relatives sought was placed beneath a +beneficent cedar tree that stretched out long, kindly branches, and +looked as though it were wrought of stitch-work in deep blue satin. +Jane wiped her fingers upon the baize apron, and Peter lighted a +cigarette. + +'Have you seen Toffy's new motor-car yet?' he asked. + +Had any one demanded of Peter or Jane what they meant by the art of +conversation, they would probably have replied that it had something to +do with Ollendorf's method. + +'How 's Toffy going to afford a motor?' said Jane, with interest. 'Is +it going to be "the cheapest thing in the end," like all Toffy's +extravagances?' + +Finance, one of the forbidden topics of 1850, was discussed to-day with +a frankness which Miss Abingdon thought positively indelicate. + +'He says he 'll save railway fares,' said Peter, 'and as they are the +only thing for which Toffy has paid ready money for years, I suppose +there is something to be said for the motor.' + +'Is he going to drive it himself?' + +'He says so, and the motor is to be run on the strictest lines of +economy. I am not sure that he is not going to water the petrol to +make it go farther.' + +'I don't quite see Toffy steering anything,' said Jane, laughing with +great enjoyment at the recollection of Toffy's mad riding; 'he can +never take his horse through a gate without scraping his leg against +it.' + +'So Toffy generally goes over the gates,' said Peter, laughing also; +'and probably he 'll try the same sort of thing with the motor-car.' + +'Toffy _is_ an ass!' said Jane affectionately. + +'I am sure it is time I should go and mount guard,' said Miss Abingdon +anxiously, from her post by the window. 'Why should they sit together +under the cedar tree like that unless they are making love?' She +stepped out on to the lawn with a garden-hat placed above her cap and a +sun-umbrella held over her head. + +'Aunt Mary,' said Jane, 'Toffy's got a new motor! Isn't it fearfully +exciting! We are going for a serpentine run with him, and our +next-of-kin are going to divide Peter's and my insurance between them +if we never come back again. Be sure you claim all you can get if I +depart in pieces!' + +Miss Abingdon laughed. She knew she was weak even where she +disapproved of her niece. Jane never kept anything from her, and she +would tell her aunt ridiculous items of sporting intelligence which +were as Greek to that excellent lady, and would talk to her as to any +other really good friend. Miss Abingdon was conscious of the charm of +this treatment, but the disciplining of youth was important, and Jane +required both training and guidance. + +'I can't think why,' she said severely, 'you should call a young man +Toffy. It is a name I should hardly liked to have called a dog when I +was a girl.' + +Peter raised his fair eyebrows and looked distressed. 'I don't see +what else you could call a man named Christopherson,' he said. 'You +couldn't call him Nigel--that's Toffy's front name--and I 'm afraid he +hasn't got any other. I believe fathers and mothers think you must be +going to die young when they give you a name like that, and that it +will look well on a tombstone.' + +'You shouldn't joke about death, Peter,' said Miss Abingdon. She felt +almost as though she saw an ally approaching when she perceived the +Reverend Canon Wrottesley come up the drive to call for his wife on the +way to the vicarage. Miss Abingdon had long ago accepted with +thankfulness St. Paul's recommendation to use the Church as a final +court of appeal. + +'How-do-you-do, Peter, how-do-you-do?' said the canon cordially, as +Peter went across the lawn to meet him. 'Got leave again, have you? I +don't believe you know what hard work is!' The vicar had pottered +about a small parish for thirty years and had given his five sons an +excellent education on the handsome fortune which his wife had brought +him. This helped to convince him that he had borne the burden and heat +of the day, and very naturally he regarded idleness as the root of all +evil. + +'Mrs. Wrottesley is looking over the guild work in the morning-room,' +said Miss Abingdon conscientiously. She loved a chat with the vicar, +and thought him more genial and charming when his wife was not present. +'Shall I tell her you are here?' + +'She likes taking a look at the things the girls have made,' said the +canon indulgently. + +The Vicar of Culversham and Honorary Canon of Sedgwick-in-the-Marsh was +a genial and delightful man. He always spoke kindly of his wife's +work, and he could even pardon fussing on the part of a woman. He was +a universal favourite and was no doubt aware of the fact, which gave +him a very legitimate and wholly pardonable sense of pleasure. It is +doubtful if any man was ever more happily placed than was Canon +Wrottesley in the considerable village of which he was the esteemed +vicar. In a larger place he might have been overlooked, in spite of +his many excellent qualities; and in a smaller one he would not have +had so many social advantages nor so many opportunities for usefulness. +His vicarage was large and well-furnished, his sons were well-grown and +well-educated, and he himself had many friends. The part of the +country where he found himself was known to house-agents as being a +good neighbourhood; and it was not so far away from London that the +canon felt himself cut off from the intellectual life of his day. +Canon Wrottesley belonged to the London Library and liked to converse +on books, even when he had read only a portion of the volumes which he +discussed. He often fingered them with true scholarly affection as +they lay on his library table, and he discussed erudite points of +learning with a light touch which his hearers, in a parish not renowned +for its culture, found truly impressive. Even his vanity was of the +refined and dignified order of things, and seemed to accord pleasantly +with his handsome, clean-shaven, aristocratic features. Perhaps his +one weakness was to be the centre of every group which he adorned. And +he held this position skilfully, not only by a well-bred display of +tact, such as he showed upon all occasions, but by a certain gift which +he possessed of appearing in different roles at different times, +according to his mood. Still, in spite of a tendency to a +self-convincing form of masquerading, one is fain to admit that the +village of Culversham would have lacked one of its most pleasing +figures had Canon Wrottesley been removed from it. He bore an +untarnished name, he had always a pleasant, if pompous greeting for +every one, and he preached and lived like a gentleman. He was +well-dressed and amiable, and his only display of temper or touchiness +took the rather curious form of adopting some impersonation not in +accordance with the circumstances in which for the moment he found +himself. + +Mrs. Wrottesley appeared from the house, still clad in her black mantle +which had evidently not been removed while she looked over the guild +work, for it bore traces thereof upon it in morsels of cotton and the +fluff of unbleached calico. + +'Come and sit beside me, love,' said her husband, indicating one of +Miss Abingdon's garden-seats in close proximity to his own cushioned +chair, 'and I will take care of you.' + +Miss Abingdon smiled and looked admiringly at him. Conscience +frequently protested against her giving way to the thought, but in her +heart Miss Abingdon was convinced that Mrs. Wrottesley was not quite +worthy of her husband. + +'I think I must go back to the house and finish the guild work,' said +Mrs. Wrottesley. 'I have been very slow over it this morning, but I +have got a little headache, and I have been counting up everything +wrong, which is very stupid of me.' + +'How often have I told you not to work when you are tired?' said the +canon, shaking his finger reprovingly at her. + +'I 'll finish the guild work,' exclaimed Jane, 'and I 'll make Peter +come and help me.' + +Miss Erskine, who had been sitting upon one of her feet and swinging +the other, rose impulsively from the garden-seat and covered the lawn +in a series of hops, until her shoe, which had become hopelessly +entangled in the laces of her petticoat, released itself with a rending +sound. Then she removed her hand from Peter's shoulder, upon which she +had been supporting herself, and together they went into the house. + +'And this,' thought Miss Abingdon ruefully, 'is courtship as it is +understood in the present day!' + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The following morning Miss Erskine was awakened at the unusual hour of +five a.m. by having her window broken by a large pebble. 'I tried +small ones first, but it was not a bit of good,' said Peter later, with +compunction. + +Jane stirred sleepily, and flung her heavy brown hair upon the pillow. +This was probably some nonsense on the part of a young Wrottesley, and +Jane was not going to be taken in by it. + +Next, the point of a fishing-rod was tapped against the pane; it was, +therefore, probably that particular Wrottesley boy whose passion for +fishing in the early hours of the morning was well known. Jane rubbed +the sleep from her drowsy eyes, and called out that she knew quite well +who it was, and that Cyprian was to go away at once. + +'Jane,' said Peter's voice, 'I wish you would wake up and come down. +Toffy's had a horrid smash. He says he 's all right, and he won't go +to the doctor, but his hand is badly cut and he has had a nasty knock +on his head.' + +'Oh, Toffy!' said Jane, 'you 've been in the wars again!' She had +descended from her bedroom, and had now unbarred the windows of her own +sitting-room and stepped out on to the dewy grass in the clothes which +she had hastily put on, her heavy brown hair, tied loosely with a +ribbon, falling down her back. The windows of her boudoir were +protected by green wooden jalousies and were considered a safeguard +against thieves. + +'This is awfully kind of you, Jane,' said Toffy. 'I don't think there +is really much the matter with me.' + +He came inside the sitting-room and Peter made him lie down on the +sofa. There was a bruise on one side of his head, and his hand was +bound up with a pocket-handkerchief drenched with blood. + +'Don't look at it,' said Jane. 'Just stretch out your hand like that, +and I 'll bathe it.' She had the simple remedies which Miss Abingdon +kept in the house--boracic lint and plaster. Nigel Christopherson lay +on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling, because, as Jane had somehow +divined, he hated the sight of blood; and he discoursed gravely on his +misfortunes while she dressed the ugly wound and bound and slung his +hand. + +'Talk of sick-nurses!' muttered Peter, and wondered how it was that +Jane was able to do everything better than other people could; +although, indeed, the bandaging showed more tenderness than skill, and +there was something almost pathetically youthful and inconsequent in +the manner of both patient and nurse. + +The room itself was indicative of the youthful and unlearned character +of its owner. A box of chocolates occupied an important position on +the writing-table, some envelopes stuffed with dress patterns lay upon +a chair. There was a large collection of novels which Jane did not +often read, and a much larger collection of illustrated books and +papers which she and Peter thoroughly enjoyed. A favourite parrot, who +never could be induced to talk, sulked in a cage and had a great deal +of affection expended upon him. The remains of the guild work which +Mrs. Wrottesley had not finished occupied the greater part of the sofa, +and Jane meant to ask her maid to run up all the little blouses and +petticoats, as she herself was too frightfully busy to undertake them. +An immense number of photographs ornamented the mantelpiece and were +mixed up, without attempt at classification, with curious odds and ends +which Peter had sent home from South Africa during the war time. Some +riding-whips hung on a rack on the wall, side by side with a few +strange sketches in oil-colours of Jane's favourite hunters, painted by +herself. Peter thought the sketches were among the best he had ever +seen, and even Jane was rather pleased with them. + +'I 'll take the guild work off the sofa,' she said, 'and that will give +you more room.' She settled his head comfortably upon the pillows and +turned to Peter for an explanation or an account of the accident. + +'I don't know much about it,' said Peter, giving his head a shake. +'The Wrottesley boy and I were going out fishing early, and we found +Toffy sitting in the middle of the road with a motor-car hung in a +tree.' + +'You see,' said Toffy, in his grave, low voice, 'I have made up my mind +for some time past to travel by night because it saves hotel bills.' + +'But it doesn't cost you much to sleep in your own bed, Toffy,' +protested Jane. + +'No,' said the young man, looking at her with admiration; 'I hadn't +thought of that. I have dismissed my chauffeur,' he went on, 'because +he was always wanting things. I said to him, "My good man, get +anything you want if you can get tick for it." He was a maniac about +ready money. I got on all right for the first forty miles or so after +leaving London, and I was going on splendidly when my motor, to gain +some private end, went mad. How do these things happen? Thank 'e, +Jane,' as Jane fastened a silk handkerchief to serve as a sling for the +wounded arm. + +'Providentially the thing broke down at the Carstairs's very gates,' he +went on. The loss of blood was making him sick, but if he went on +talking he would probably not faint. 'And it was then three o'clock in +the morning, so I coaxed it up the drive and shoved it into the +coach-house, and took their motor, which is rather a nice one.' + +'Then it wasn't your own machine that you smashed up?' said Peter. + +'No, praise be!' replied Toffy. + +'When will the fraud be discovered?' asked Jane. 'Gilbert Carstairs is +quite a good sort, but his wife has very little sense of humour.' + +'Oh, I left a note all right in the coach-house,' answered Toffy, 'and +I pointed out to Gilbert that he had no right to encourage burglaries +by having inefficient locks on his coach-house doors. I added that I +thought he ought to be very thankful that it was an honest man who had +stolen his motor-car.' + +'Also, I hope you said that he might have the loan of your disabled one +till he had had it thoroughly repaired?' said Peter. + +'I said something of that sort,' Toffy replied. 'And I should think +Gilbert would do the right thing by the motor. I am only afraid Mrs. +Carstairs may misunderstand the whole thing.' + +'One is liable to be misunderstood by even the best people,' said Peter. + +At breakfast-time it appeared that nothing had been done to prepare +Miss Abingdon for the news that one of her best spare bedrooms was at +this moment occupied by a man with a broken head, for she appeared at +the door of the breakfast-room in a serene frame of mind, and was +kissed by Peter, who announced that here he was, you know, and hoped +she was not much surprised to see him so early. + +'I am never surprised,' said Miss Abingdon, with intention. + +'I have been thinking,' said the young man presently, in the peculiarly +genial voice which was characteristic of him and helped to make him so +likeable, 'that, suppose a policeman should come sniffing about here +this morning, you had better tell him that there is no such thing as a +motor-car in the place, and that there has never been one.' + +'That is hardly true, Peter,' said Miss Abingdon, in the severe manner +which she cultivated, 'considering how often Sir Nigel is here with +his.' + +'As a matter of fact,' said Peter steadily, 'Toffy is here now. He +is--he is in bed, in fact.' + +'Something has happened!' exclaimed Miss Abingdon apprehensively. Why +was it that youth could never be contented without incidents? To be +young seemed to involve action, while acquaintanceship with Jane and +Peter seemed to bring one, however unwillingly, into a series of events. + +'There was a little accident early this morning,' explained Peter. +'Toffy was travelling at night--to save hotel bills, you know--and +there was a breakdown because he didn't quite understand the +Carstairs's machine, which he had borrowed; so poor Toffy came off +second best; but Jane patched him up most beautifully, and Martin said +he had better have the blue room.' + +'Do I understand that Sir Nigel Christopherson stole Captain +Carstairs's motor-car in the middle of the night and left his own +damaged one in its place?' said Miss Abingdon, 'and that he regards +this matter quite lightly?' + +'Toffy is a cheery soul,' said Peter. + +'You are all cheery souls!' said Miss Abingdon hopelessly. She +summoned the butler and sent for the village doctor, and made Peter +telegraph to Captain Carstairs. + +'You always seem to think of everything, Cousin Mary,' said Peter +admiringly. + +'Some one has to,' said Miss Abingdon, with a strong touch of +superiority in her manner; and then she walked round the +breakfast-table to where her niece was sitting and kissed her, because +a few minutes ago she had looked at her severely, and what would happen +if Jane were ever to prefer the Erskines' house to hers? What if Jane +were to prolong the six months which it had been stipulated she should +spend with her father's relations in London? Jane loved General +Erskine too well already. Miss Abingdon felt weak as she said, 'Don't +worry any more about it, Jane,' for Jane did not look worried. 'And +now,' she said, 'I must go and see how Sir Nigel is.' + +Miss Abingdon still used a key-basket and hoped, please God, she would +never be called upon to give up this womanly appendage, whatever the +world might come to. The jingling of the keys was a harmonious +accompaniment to her whenever she walked about. She bent her steps now +down the cool wide passages of her charming house to visit her disabled +guest, who, she heard, was awake. It was part of her creed that sick +persons should be visited, whether they themselves desired it or not. +In her young days nurses were unknown, and one proved one's +Christianity by the length of time one remained in overheated +sick-rooms. Still, Miss Abingdon was not accustomed to the presence of +a sick man in her house, and she paused on the door-mat before entering +the room, and said to herself, 'I feel very awkward.' Then she timidly +tapped at the door and went in. + +Sir Nigel Christopherson was lying in bed reading the Bible. When he +was not getting into debt, or riding races, or playing polo, or loving +Mrs. Avory, Toffy generally employed his spare moments in reading the +Bible. He was a preternaturally grave young man, with large eyes and +long eyelashes of which he was properly ashamed, being inclined to +class them in his own mind with such physical disadvantages as red lips +or curling hair. Miss Abingdon thought that he was generally +misunderstood. It impressed her very favourably to find him employed +in reading Holy Scripture, and she turned away her eyes from the book, +which Toffy laid frankly on the outside of the counterpane, feeling +that the subject was too sacred to comment upon. + +'How do you feel?' she said gently. 'You look very white.' + +'Oh, I 'm as fit as a fiddle, thanks, Miss Abingdon,' said Toffy. + +'You don't look it,' said Miss Abingdon, with a return to her severe +manner. + +'I 'm really a very strong chap,' said Toffy. He had been delicate +ever since he was a little boy. School games had often been an agony +to him. He had ridden races and had lain awake all night afterwards, +unable, through sheer exhaustion, to sleep; he had played polo under +burning suns, and had concealed the fact (as though it had been a +crime) that he had fainted in the pavilion afterwards. He very seldom +had a good night's sleep, and habitual bad luck or the effort to +conceal his constitutional delicacy had given him a curious gravity of +manner, combined with a certain gentleness, which contrasted oddly with +his whimsically absurd utterances. No one ever looked more wise than +this young man, no one ever acted with more conspicuous foolishness, +and no one ever received a larger measure of ill-luck than he. If +Toffy hunted, his horse fell or went lame. If he rode in a +steeplechase, some accident, the condition of the ground, or the +position of the jumps, made the course unusually difficult for the +particular horse he was riding. Did he play polo, his most brilliant +hits just failed to make the goal. His gravity and his gentleness +increased in proportion with his ill-luck. No one ever backed Toffy, +and no one believed in his best efforts. But they borrowed his horses +and his money, and lived for months as his guests at the huge ugly +house which was his home; and Toffy accepted it all, and philosophized +about it in his grave way, and read his Bible, and loved Mrs. Avory. +No one but Toffy would have loved her; she was quite plain and she was +separated from her husband--a truculent gentleman who employed his +leisure moments in making his wife miserable. And she had a daughter +of ten years old towards whose maintenance Mrs. Avory made blouses and +trimmed parasols for which her friends hardly ever paid her. + +The world, with its ever-ready explanation of conduct and its facility +in finding motives, ascribed Sir Nigel's chronic impecuniosity to the +fact that he contributed to the support of Mrs. Avory and her little +girl. Mrs. Avory, who knew quite well what was said of her, ate her +cold mutton for supper, and economized in coals in the winter, and paid +her little weekly bills, and wondered sometimes what was the use of +trying to be good when so few people believed in goodness. + +Toffy came to see her every Sunday when he was in London; or, if he did +not do so, Mrs. Avory wrote him long letters in very indistinct +handwriting, and told him that it was all right, and that she really +hoped he would marry and be as happy as he deserved to be. And the +letters were generally blotted and blistered with tears. + +Miss Abingdon put her key-basket upon the dressing-table and sat down +in an armchair on the farther side of the room. It upset her very much +to see Sir Nigel looking so ill, and she believed that to read the +Bible at odd hours was a sign of approaching death. + +'You must have some beef-tea at eleven,' Miss Abingdon said, and felt +glad that she was able to do something in a crisis. + +'I think I was brought up on beef-tea,' said Toffy. He had accepted, +with his usual philosophy, the fact that whether you broke your back or +your heart a woman's unfailing remedy was a cup of beef-tea. + +'And I am sure you would like your own servant,' said Miss Abingdon; 'I +suppose you have some one over at Hulworth for whom you could send?' + +'My man is an awful thief,' said Toffy, 'which is why I keep him. +Otherwise, I don't think there is a single thing he can do, except put +studs in my shirts. Hopwood will only steal Peter's things,' he added +reassuringly. 'He tells me my things are generally stolen and that I +never have anything to wear, and so he borrows all he can from Peter. +It is an extraordinary thing,' said Sir Nigel, beginning his sentence +with his usual formula--the formula of the profound philosopher who has +learned to accept most things as strange and all things as +inexplicable--'It is an extraordinary thing the way all your +possessions disappear. You try having duplicates, but, you know, Miss +Abingdon, that's not a bit of use. The first man who comes along helps +himself just because you 've two of a thing, so you 're not a bit +better off than you were before, are you?' + +The young man turned his blue eyes with their long lashes on Miss +Abingdon with a look of mute inquiry, and threw one arm in its striped +pyjama suit up on the pillow. + +Miss Abingdon told herself that she was an old woman, and suggested, +with outward boldness but with inward diffidence, that Sir Nigel +required a wife to look after him. + +The young man smiled gratefully at her. 'I think so too,' he said +simply; 'but then, you see, she won't have me.' + +They were all so amazingly frank! Jane's friend, Kitty Sherard, the +girl who smoked cigarettes in her bedroom, had actually told a funny +story one day about a flirtation of her father's, and had made +everybody except Miss Abingdon laugh at it. + +'Perhaps,' she said, 'the lady may change her mind.' + +'I don't think she will,' said Toffy slowly. 'You see, she's married +already.' + +Miss Abingdon did not discuss such subjects. She glanced at her +key-basket and moved uneasily in her chair. + +'I 'm going to revise the marriage service when I 'm in power,' said +the gentle, lagging voice from under the heavy canopy of old-fashioned +chintz with which Miss Abingdon, who disapproved of draughts, hung all +the beds in her house. 'You see, it's like this,' he went on; 'girls, +when they are about eighteen or twenty, would generally like to improve +on their parents a bit, and to have meals at different hours to those +which they have grown tired of in their own homes; also, they have an +idea that if they haven't a romance some time or other they will be +rather out of it, don't you know, so they say "yes" to some fellow who +proposes to them--you have done it yourself hundreds of times, I dare +say, Miss Abingdon--but if you haven't the luck to get out of it, you +are jolly well tied for the term of your natural life.' + +'There are some very sad cases, of course,' said Miss Abingdon, drawing +down her upper lip. + +'And it's so often the good ones,' said Toffy, from the depths of his +profound experience of life, 'who have the hardest lines. And that +makes it all the more unfair, doesn't it?' + +Afterwards, when Miss Abingdon used to hear a great deal about Sir +Nigel and Mrs. Avory, and when many regrettable things were said +concerning two people to whom, at the best of times, life was a little +bit difficult, she would seem to see the young man, with his delicate +face and his head bound up with white linen, lying on the frilled +pillow of the great canopied bed, and the recollection would come back +to her of the tones in which he had said, 'It's so often the good ones +that have the hardest lines,' and Miss Abingdon never failed in loyalty +to Toffy, and believed in him to the very end. + +She rose now and bade him good-bye, and then she glanced at the open +Bible on the counterpane and decided once more that young people were +inexplicable, and she clung to her key-basket with a feeling of +security, and, holding it carefully in her hand, went downstairs again. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Jane, meanwhile, had walked over to Bowshott to see Mrs. Ogilvie and to +tell her the news of Toffy's motor-car accident, and to explain why +Peter was delayed. She came into the drawing-room, with its long +mirrors in their gilded frames, its satin couches and heaped-up +flowering plants, and huge windows looking on to the scrupulous gardens +and park. She walked in the shortest dress that a merciful fashion +allows, a loose shirt hung boy-like on her slender figure, and a +motor-cap, with the brim well pulled down over her eyes, covered her +head. She shook hands and regretted inwardly that Mrs. Ogilvie did not +like being kissed, although disclaiming even to herself that her +distaste in this respect had anything to do with rouge and powder. She +sat down on a low chair by the window with the fearlessness of one +whose complexion is not a matter of anxiety, and she told Mrs. Ogilvie +the story of the disaster. + +'Toffy's so awfully unlucky,' said Jane, with genuine sympathy showing +in her eyes and voice; 'and the doctor says his hand will be bad for a +week at least.' + +'Is there such a thing as bad luck?' said Mrs. Ogilvie, shrugging her +shoulders. + +'You can't say Toffy gets his deserts!' pleaded Jane. 'He is always in +debt, and his horses always come to grief, and there ought to be a +syndicate formed to buy up all the shares that Toffy sells, because it +is certain to mean that the market is going up. I think he must have +been born under an unlucky star.' + +'I used to get a lot of amusement from reading the _Iliad_ of Homer,' +said Mrs. Ogilvie. 'I know you cannot read or write, Jane, so I will +tell you about it. It is a tale of men "warring against folk for their +women's sake," and hindered often by the unscrupulous gods. Let us win +when we can. Fate, without intelligence, orders the things which we do +not order for ourselves, and it is very little use, but only a trifle +absurd to feel sorry for the opponent who is beaten.' + +'I am always sorry for the man who is down,' said Jane. + +Mrs. Ogilvie smiled and rang for tea. + +'You are one of those who can say, "I am sorry." Now, I am never +sorry, and I consider that what is called repentance is the function of +an idiot. If I do a thing, I intend to do it. Regret is the most +weak-minded of all human emotions.' + +'I 'm always regretting things,' said Jane, looking handsome and +delightful, and treating even penitence from a fresh, open-air +standpoint. 'But then I believe that as often as not I do the wrong +thing, which is a great bore at times!' + +'Right and wrong,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, with a shrug, 'loving and not +loving, believing and not believing--only very young people ever make +use of such ridiculous terms. There is only one law, and it is the law +of expediency.' + +Jane began to laugh, and exclaimed, 'That's quite beyond me! I know I +'m hopelessly stupid; but whenever people begin to talk about whys and +wherefores, and if it is any good saying their prayers, and whether +love is the real thing or not, I get fogged directly, and I always want +to go for a ride or a walk, or to see the horses, or even to descend to +the kitchen and make jam, to get rid of the feeling.' + +'If you were in the fashion, Jane,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, 'you +would know not only with which portion of grey matter you say your +prayers, but you would also be able to show, scientifically, with which +ventricle of your heart you love and hate, or whether indeed love and +hate are things not of the heart at all but merely a microbial disease. +Will you have some tea?' + +'Yes, please,' said Jane, 'and several lumps of sugar.' + +'I like people,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, 'who still go to church and take +sugar in their tea. They are very refreshing.' + +'I must go back now,' said Jane presently, 'for I promised not to be +long. By the by, we want to keep Peter to dinner. May we? Or will +you mind being alone?' + +'I am alone say three hundred and thirty nights in the year,' said Mrs. +Ogilvie dryly. + +'I wish we hadn't asked Peter to stay and amuse Toffy!' said Jane, with +compunction. There was a tired white look on Mrs. Ogilvie's face, and +an appearance of fatigue in her movements which neither her supreme art +of dressing nor the careful manipulation of light in the room wholly +concealed. + +'Ah, now you are beginning to repent!' said Mrs. Ogilvie. Only her +good manners prevented her remark having a sneer in it. 'That will +spoil your evening, you foolish child, and it will not make mine more +amusing.' + +'But I am thinking of you,' said Jane. + +'Do not think of me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, laying her hand for a moment +lightly upon the girl's shoulder. + +Jane walked down the hillside and stopped at the edge of the wood to +see the young pheasants, and then went on again, swinging a crooked +walking-stick and singing in a voice clear and sweet, but somewhat out +of tune, snatches of songs which she had picked up from Peter, humming +the ridiculous words in a sort of unconscious happiness. She walked +with a raking grace which became her as wings become a bird or a long +swinging stride a racer. The twilit woods held no fears for her: +imagination never peopled Jane's world with bogies. The perfect poise +of her figure showed a latent energy and physical strength in spite of +her slender build, and her clear complexion and abundant brown hair and +white, even teeth lent an appearance of something essentially wholesome +to a face that at all times looked handsome and well-bred. + +She called good night to the lodge-keeper as she passed through the +gates and found her way back to the high road, until, by a short-cut +down the hill, she reached her aunt's charming gardens, and the wide, +low house with its air of repose and comfort, and the long French +windows opening on to the quiet, smooth-shaven lawns. + +Peter was waiting for her on the doorstep and was endeavouring not to +fuss; if only he had known by which path Jane would return he would +have liked to go and meet her, and the fact of having missed a walk +with her made him impatient. 'I thought you must be lost,' he said; +'what kept you, Jane? Why did you stay so long?' + +When Jane Erskine was away people were apt to ask on her return why she +had stayed so long. Miss Abingdon and General Erskine, who divided her +time between them, were jealous if even a day of their fair share of +Jane was deducted by one or the other. There had been times when Miss +Abingdon had unscrupulously pleaded illness as a means of keeping the +girl a little longer with her, and she would doubtless have continued +her deceptions had not General Erskine adopted the plan of faithfully +paying himself back all the days that were owed to him by his niece. + +'My mother says she is going to give a ball,' announced Peter at dinner. + +'When?' said Jane, breathless with interest. 'Peter, we 'll have both +houses as full as they can be, and I 'll ask Aunt Mary to stay here, +and you shall ask your mother to stay at Bowshott for it.' + +'Jane,' said Miss Abingdon, 'you are very absurd, and just at present +you are making the most extraordinary grimaces.' + +'I got caught in the rain to-day,' said Jane, 'and had to walk with it +in my face. I 'm quite sure rain must be a skin-tightener like those +things you see in advertisements.' + +'It's given you an awfully jolly colour,' said Peter. + +'Has it?' said Jane. + +Perhaps a compliment had been given and received, Miss Abingdon did not +know. Beauty itself was almost at a discount nowadays. Even feminine +vanity, so long accepted as the mainspring of feminine action, had lost +its force. Pale cheeks were not in vogue, and frankness had superseded +sentiment. + +'What souvenir would they give each other if they had to part?' thought +Miss Abingdon--'a terrier dog, or a gun, or a walking-stick, most +likely!' Faded flowers were quite out of the fashion, and old letters +no longer had the scent of dried rose leaves about them. Was perfect +healthiness ever very interesting, and must sentiment always be +connected with an embroidery frame, a narrow chest, and round shoulders? + +Jane obliterated the _menu_ from the porcelain tablet in front of her +by rubbing it with a damask table-napkin, and, having moistened a +pencil, she began to write a list of names of those people who were to +be asked to stay for the dance. 'Kitty Sherard certainly,' she said, +and put the name down on the tablet. + +'She 's some one's niece, isn't she?' said Peter. + +'She 's every one's niece, I think,' replied Jane. + +'Rather rough luck on Miss Sherard,' said Peter. + +'It's a fact, though,' Jane went on. 'Really and truly, Aunt Mary, +each of her relations married about ten times, and then the next +generation married each other. And they send problems to the puzzle +column of newspapers to find out how they are related to each other. +Kitty's father is his own great-grandmother, or something complicated +of that sort!' + +'It must give one an immense respect for oneself,' said Peter, 'to +discover such a relationship. One would always be taking care of +oneself, and not allowing one's feet to get wet, and thinking what one +owed to one's position, and whether one were being treated with +respect.' + +'There are fillets of beef coming, and ducks,' interpolated Miss +Abingdon. 'I let you know this, Peter, as Jane seems to have erased +our only _menu_. What will Sir Nigel have, do you think?' she went on. +'I don't think he is at all well; he was reading his Bible in bed, and +I 'm not sure that we ought not to send for some of his people.' + +'Poor Toffy never had any people,' said Peter. 'They were all just as +unlucky as he is, and most of them died violent deaths when they were +young; and one of them, I know, founded some sort of queer religion, so +perhaps Toffy takes after him in his Biblical researches.' + +At this moment Sir Nigel Christopherson walked into the room looking as +white as any ghost. + +'Toffy, you lunatic!' said Peter, 'why can't you lie still?' + +Sir Nigel apologized for being late and declined to have anything +brought back for him. + +'How are the Amalekites and Hittites and Girgashites?' said Peter, +making room for his friend at the table. + +'I don't like the Bible joked about,' said Miss Abingdon severely. + +'Toffy should have been a parson,' said Peter; 'even at Eton he was +always wondering why Cain was afraid that all men should kill him when +he had only a father and mother and perhaps two or three little +brothers and sisters in the world. And he used to fret himself into a +fever wondering if the sun really stood still in Ajalon and what Selah +meant in the Psalms.' + +'I think,' said Miss Abingdon, 'that such discussions are best left for +Sundays.' + +'We will go on with our dance-list,' said Jane; 'Mrs. Wrottesley can +let us have several rooms at the vicarage, or, if the worst comes to +the worst, we might have tents in the garden.' + +'The canon is always so good-natured!' said Miss Abingdon, who believed +that a man's house belonged to himself, and whose mind always reverted +with a sense of peaceful orthodoxy to thoughts of the vicar. She +decided mentally that he must not be asked to receive any of the guests +for the Bowshott ball, believing that visitors must always be more or +less disturbing to a host. She accepted as part of her gentle creed +that a man's writing-table must never be disturbed, that his dinner +must never be kept waiting, and that his special armchair must not be +appropriated by any one else. Canon Wrottesley always read the morning +paper before any other person in the house had seen it, and then +imparted pieces of intelligence to his relations with a certain air of +self-congratulation, as though conveying news which could only possibly +be known to himself; and it was in this way that Miss Abingdon loved to +have the items of interest retailed to her with instructive comments +upon politics. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Mrs. Wrottesley had a theory, which she never asked nor expected any +one to share with her, that most men's mental development ceased at the +age of twelve years. She had watched five sons grow up with, in their +young boyhood, the hardly concealed conviction that each one of them +was destined to be a genius, and that each one would make his mark in +the world. But her sons, as they attained to the fatal age of twelve +years, seemed predestined to disappoint their mother's hopes. Most of +the men whom she knew, and whom her sons brought to the house, were +delightful boys, whatever their ages might be. She liked them, but she +wished sometimes that it were possible to meet a man with a mature +mind. The male interest, she determined, after giving much study to +the subject, centred almost too exclusively round playing with a ball. +She had heard men extolled as grand cricketers and magnificent putters +with an enthusiasm which could hardly have been greater if they had +saved their country or had died for a cause. And she admitted to +herself that the mind of a woman was deficient when she failed to do +justice to these performances. + +Her reflections on these and kindred subjects this morning had been +induced by hearing of the determination of Canon Wrottesley to light +the rubbish-heap in the garden. The rubbish-heap had grown high and +Canon Wrottesley had determined to put a match to it. Mrs. Wrottesley +had been married too long not to know that whatever at the moment +engaged her husband's mind required an audience. Her sons also had +expected her to watch and applaud them did they in infancy so much as +jump a small ditch, and she knew that it was the maternal duty, and +admitted, also, that it was the maternal pleasure to watch and applaud +until such time as the several wives of her five sons should take her +place. + +The whole of the vicarage household was in requisition as soon as their +reverend master had conceived the happy notion of firing the canonical +rubbish-heap in the far corner of the kitchen garden. Canon Wrottesley +engaged the attention of every one with a frank belief in his own +powers as an organiser. He found himself almost regretting that he +could not make the matter an occasion for a little gathering of +friends. He loved society, especially ladies' society, and he +purposely kept various small objects about his own room, which--to use +his own expression--might make a little bit of fun. There was a mask +half concealed behind a screen, which, if it did not provoke a start +and a scream from some fair visitor, had attention drawn to it by the +playful question, 'Who is that behind you?' There was a funny pair of +spectacles on the mantelshelf, which Canon Wrottesley would playfully +place upon his handsome nose, and to small visitors he would accompany +the action by a frolicsome 'wowf-wowf.' He loved juvenile parties when +he could wear a coloured paper cap on his head or tie a paper apron +round his waist, and probably his canonry had come to him through what +he himself called his social gifts rather than by his reputation as a +minister of religion. Perhaps he was at his best at a christening +party; he had won much affection from his parishioners by his +felicitous remarks upon these occasions. When the gravity of the +christening of the infant was over Canon Wrottesley always deliberately +relaxed. He chaffed the proud father, told the mother that the baby +was the finest in the parish, and wanted to know whose health he was to +drink where every one appeared so blooming. + +'Now, mamma,' the canon said busily, 'let us have plenty of nice dry +wood to start the blaze, and then you must come down to the field and +watch us put a match to the pile. Cyprian, my boy, where are the old +newspapers kept? Fetch them, like a good son, and then you shall carry +a little camp-stool down for mamma to sit upon. Now my coat,'--this to +his butler--'and, Cyprian, tell Mary to find papa's old gloves.' + +Mrs. Wrottesley left her morning's work to go to the meadow, and Canon +Wrottesley looked down the road once or twice to see if by a happy +chance some friend or neighbour might be passing to whom he could +proclaim his boyish jaunt. The 'Well I never, sir,' even of a rural +parishioner did in some sort minister to his vanity. An audience was a +necessity to him. He regretted that his cloth forbade him to indulge +in private theatricals, but he encouraged Shakespearean readings and +often 'dressed up to please the children.' Sometimes of an evening he +would perform upon the piano, indulging in a series of broken chords +which he called improvisation, and upon these occasions he felt that he +was a kind and thoughtful master when he set the drawing-room door open +so that the servants might hear; and as his servants thought so too it +was all eminently satisfactory. + +This morning, the beauty of the weather having inspired him to the part +of a schoolboy, he avoided a gate and leaped a small fence into the +meadow, and he waged boyish fun upon grave-faced Cyprian, who longed to +be fishing. He greeted his two gardeners with an air of holiday, and, +having waved his stick to them, he called out some hearty remarks about +the weather. + +Alas! when the corner of the meadow was reached it was found that the +rubbish-heap had already been fired, and nothing of it was left but the +smouldering ashes. The canon wondered why people could not leave +things alone, and was inclined to blame mamma. She surely might have +known how much he enjoyed this sort of thing, and have asked the +gardeners to leave it to him. + +His boyishness, however, could hardly be repressed this morning; and, +speaking to his fourteen-year-old son as though his age might be five +or six summers, he clapped him on the back and bade him 'Never mind; we +will go for a merry jaunt to the ruins instead, and have a regular big +affair, and you shall boil a kettle, and we 'll have tea.--What do you +say, mamma?' Mrs. Wrottesley replied with the enthusiasm that was +expected of her, and the canon, with a 'here we are, and here we go' +sort of jollity, conducted her indoors to write notes of invitation to +friends to join the picnic. The canon dictated the notes himself, and +generally finished with a playful word or two suitable to each +recipient; when he failed at first to hit off the perfectly happy +phrase Mrs. Wrottesley had to write the note over again. + +Foiled of his morning's occupation the canon walked up to Bowshott +himself with Mrs. Ogilvie's card of invitation. Mrs. Ogilvie frankly +and without a moment's hesitation refused to be one of the party; a +picnic was in her eyes one of those barbarous, not to say indecorous +things which she classed with bathing in the open sea or trying on a +hat in a shop. Why should one sit on the ground and eat indifferent +food out of one's lap? Mrs. Ogilvie was too sorry, but it was +impossible; she had friends coming, or letters to write, or +something--at any rate she was quite sure she was engaged. Mrs. +Ogilvie's manner always became doubly polite and charming when she +ignored the customary formalities of society or purposely travestied +them. No one could infringe social conventions with more perfect good +manners. Peter would go, of course, she said. Peter enjoyed eating +luncheon in snatches while he hopped about and waited on people; but +Mrs. Ogilvie preferred her meals at home. + +The canon was disappointed; he loved getting the right people together, +and he knew that Mrs. Ogilvie's rare appearance in the neighbourhood +always made her a centre of interest at a party. He protested +playfully against her decision until a certain lifting of Mrs. +Ogilvie's eyebrows made his desire for her presence sound importunate, +and put an end to his hospitable pleadings. + +'A charming woman,' protested the canon to himself as he walked down +the long avenue of Spanish chestnuts. 'A charming woman,' he repeated, +for one part of Canon Wrottesley always felt snubbed when he had been +talking to Mrs. Ogilvie, while the part of him called the man of the +world recognized something in her which this country neighbourhood +could not produce. His boyishness was quenched for a moment, but it +revived at the sight of Peter riding up to the gates of the park. An +invitation to the proposed merry-making was given to Peter, who was +ever so much obliged, but thought Canon Wrottesley had forgotten that +the 24th was the day of the races. + +The Sedgwick Races, although perhaps not important from a sportsman's +point of view, were attended by many visitors, and had been so long +established and so generally approved by every one in the county that +they had come to have a certain local status. They were patronized by +clergy and laity alike, to whom the occasion was a sort of yearly +picnic. The racecourse itself was not large, but its surroundings were +in every way attractive. The short moorland grass made excellent going +for the horses, and a wood of beech trees, quite close to the modest +grand stand, had by right of prescription been tacitly assigned to +various county families who brought their lunches and teas there, and +whose long trestle tables, numbered and allotted by the stewards of the +course, were a favourite meeting-place for the whole neighbourhood. +Canon Wrottesley could hardly pardon himself for having forgotten the +date of such a notable occasion, and, alluding to himself as a 'winged +messenger,' he hastened to pay a number of morning calls such as he +enjoyed, and to cancel his invitation for a picnic in favour of lunch +or tea at the racecourse. Peter said that he was going to drive the +coach over, and hoped that Canon Wrottesley would perch there when he +felt so disposed, and that his mother, not being inclined to spend the +whole day at Sedgwick, would join them at tea-time. Miss Abingdon and +Jane were going to be kind enough to take her place and act as +hostesses at lunch. + +Canon Wrottesley felt that he could not do better than see Miss +Abingdon in person and explain the change of plans, and he arrived, in +his friendly way, just as she and some guests who were staying with her +were going in to luncheon. + +Miss Abingdon occasionally reminded herself that she had not met the +vicar until long after his marriage, and she still more frequently +assured herself that her feeling for him was one of pure admiration +untouched by sentiment such as would have been foolish at her age, and +at any age would have been wrong. But there were times like the +present--when the canon came in, unasked, in a friendly way, and hung +up his clerical hat in the hall--which, without going so far as to give +the matter a personal bearing, made it easy for Miss Abingdon to +understand why women married. She ordered another place to be laid, +and asked him to say grace almost with a feeling of proprietorship; and +she ordered up the particular brand of claret which the canon had more +than once assured her would be all the better for being drunk. + +Jane came in presently from her morning ride, handsome and charming in +a dark habit and a bowler hat; and Toffy appeared looking white and +thin, and protesting that he was perfectly well; and Kitty Sherard came +in late, as usual, and hoped that something had been kept hot for her. + +Kitty Sherard was a decorative young woman, with a face like one of +Greuze's pictures and a passion for wearing rose-colour. Her father +was that rather famous personage, Lord Sherard, one of the last of the +dandies, and probably one of the few men in England in the present day +who had fought a duel. He was still thought irresistible by women, and +perhaps the only sincere love of his life was that for his daughter +Kitty, to whom he told his most _risqué_ stories, and whom he found +better company than any one else in the world. + +Miss Sherard was in a wilful mood this morning--a mood which, let it be +said at once, was one to which she was often subject, but it had been +more than usually apparent in her for the last few days. She began by +hoping, in the politest way, after she had sat about five minutes at +the luncheon-table, that Miss Abingdon did not mind the window being +opened, although it was a well-known fact that Miss Abingdon held the +old-fashioned theory that only the furniture should enjoy fresh air, +and that windows should be opened when rooms were unoccupied. So many +people rose to do Miss Sherard's bidding that Miss Abingdon, of course, +found it quite hopeless to try to assert herself. Kitty, further, had +a ridiculous way of eating, which Miss Abingdon could not approve. She +ate mere morsels of everything and talked the whole time, very often +with the air of a gourmet; and she would lay down her knife and fork, +after a meal such as a healthy blackbird might have enjoyed, as though +she had finished some aldermanic feast. She accepted a glass of Miss +Abingdon's very special claret and never even touched it; and later, in +one of the pauses of her elaborate trifling at luncheon, she told a +funny story which made every one laugh, and caused even Canon +Wrottesley to attempt to conceal the fact that he saw the point of the +story. + +The worst of it was that Toffy encouraged her in everything she said +and did. These two had met in London this year, and had stayed at the +same house for Ascot, and it must be admitted by a faithful historian +that in her own particular wilful and provoking way Kitty had flirted +outrageously with Toffy. To-day she offered to cut up his food for him +because his right hand was still in a sling; and when Miss Abingdon +suggested, with deliberate emphasis in her voice, that a footman should +do it for him, Kitty pretended that the wounded man could not possibly +feed himself, and gave him pineapple to eat on the end of her fork. + +When she sat in the veranda drinking coffee after lunch, she showed +Canon Wrottesley how to blow wedding-rings with the smoke of her own +favourite cigarettes; and she talked to him as though his early youth +might have been spent in a racing stable, and with the air of one +expert to another. + +'I hear,' said Canon Wrottesley, when Miss Sherard had begun to play a +left-handed game of croquet with the crippled young man, 'that Sir +Nigel is going to ride at the Sedgwick Races. I was a fearless +horseman myself at one time, so I cannot quarrel with him for his +decision, but I only hope that his hand will be healed by the 24th.' + +'He has a good mount,' said Peter, 'and I don't think it is much good +trying to persuade Toffy not to ride.' + +'Kitty Sherard says she has laid the whole of her fortune on him,' said +Jane, 'so let 's hope that will bring him luck.' + +'I believe,' said the canon, in a manner distinctly beatific towards +the subject of his remarks, 'that I enjoy that little race-meeting at +Sedgwick as much as anything in the year. We must all have our little +outings once in a way.' + +There is no doubt that the canon took his little outings, as often as +he could get them, with a healthy, boyish pleasure. + +On the day of the races, for reasons no doubt known to himself but +hidden from the rest of the world, the vicar masqueraded in the +character of a patriarch. His characters were frequently inconsistent +with his circumstances; often his boyishness would obtrude itself quite +unexpectedly at board meetings or on the parish council, while at other +times the mantle of the seer or prophet descended upon him on the most +inauspicious occasions. Had Mrs. Wrottesley spoken her mind, which she +never did, she might have thrown light upon the subject, but she was +not a convincing woman at the best of times. All her life she had kept +inviolate the woman's secret whether or not her husband was a +disappointment to her. No one knew from his wife if the little god of +a somewhat small and feminine community had feet of clay or no. + +Arrived at the very delightful beech wood which formed a pleasant place +of encampment for tea-parties, Canon Wrottesley could only smile +absently at the picnic-baskets, and appear wrapped in thought when +addressed; he might have been mentally preparing his next Sunday's +sermon. Miss Abingdon thought that he was doing so and respected him +for it; she even tried to attune her mind to his, and endeavoured to +see vanity of vanities in this informal gathering of friends. + +'We do not think enough of serious things,' she said. + +The inhabitants of Sedgwick put on sporting airs and curiously cut +overcoats on two days in each year. The weather for the occasion is +nearly always cloudless, and the townsfolk have begun to think that +either they are very clever in arranging the date of their local +function, or that the clerk of the weather is deeply interested in +Sedgwick Races. + +On this particular day the sun flickered as usual through the clean +leaves and boughs of the beech wood, doing its best to lend an air of +picturesqueness to lobster salads and aspics, and shone brilliantly on +servants, with their coats off, unpacking hampers at rows of long +tables, and on people busily engaged in the inartistic business of +eating. + +In the paddock there was an unusual number of horses being led round +and round in a ring, and some well-known bookies--not often seen at the +little provincial meeting--were present with their raucous cries and +their money-bags. + +Kitty Sherard carried a pair of field-glasses on a long strap, and +consulted from time to time a little gold-bound pocket-book in which +she added up figures with a business-like air. She believed in +Ormiston, which Sir Nigel Christopherson was riding, and she had +something on Lamplighter as well. She knew every bookmaker on the +course by sight, and had as much knowledge of the field as any one in +the ring. And she looked exactly like some very beautiful child, and +carried a parasol of rose-coloured chiffon beneath which her complexion +and eyes appeared to great advantage. She smiled whether winning or +losing, and ate a tiny luncheon with an epicurean air. + +At four o'clock in the afternoon it is an accepted custom at Sedgwick +Races for every one to have tea before the last event, and then horses +are put to in coaches and carriages, and those who have attended the +meeting whether for business or pleasure drive back to their own homes, +or go slowly downhill in a long string to the little railway station +where, for two days at least in the year, the local station-master is a +person of importance. + +Mrs. Ogilvie arrived at the racecourse, as she had promised to do, +about tea-time. She hardly ever cared to watch the races; but she +stood amongst her friends for a while in the pleasant shade of the +wood, and looked on at the little gathering with that air of detached +and hardly concealed weariness which she always felt on such occasions. +She congratulated Peter, who had won a rather closely finished race +earlier in the day; but her voice betrayed little interest in the +event, and an onlooker might have been surprised at the almost distant +way in which she spoke to him. She was sumptuously dressed, as usual, +and wore her clothes with extravagant carelessness. She found herself +at tea-time sitting next Canon Wrottesley, whose patriarchal mood +seemed to her unnecessarily affected, and she requested him to ask Miss +Sherard to come and speak to her. 'Kitty amuses me,' she said, with +one of her characteristic shrugs, 'and most people are so dull, are +they not?' + +Canon Wrottesley felt that mixed sensation which association with Mrs. +Ogilvie always gave him--a feeling of resentment combined with a desire +to please. He rather hastily let the mantle of the seer drop from him, +and said, 'I wish our little party were not so much dispersed. Mr. +Lawrence from Frisby brought two charming friends with him, and they +much hoped to have been here to meet you. Falconer is their name--Sir +John and Lady Falconer. He has just been made Minister at Buenos +Ayres, as I dare say you know, and he told me they once had the +pleasure of meeting you in Spain, years and years ago.' + +'I never remember people whom I have met years and years ago,' said +Mrs. Ogilvie. Her near-sighted eyes, with their trick of contracting +slightly when she looked fixedly at anything, narrowed as she spoke, +and the heavy lids closed lazily upon them. + +Lady Falconer, meanwhile, had arrived at the tea-table and greeted Mrs. +Ogilvie with evident pleasure. 'I am afraid you will hardly remember +me, as it is a very long time since we met,' she said; 'but my husband +and I always remember how good you were to me when I was ill at Juarez.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie rose and shook hands with a cordiality that was charmingly +expressed. Her eyes were no longer half-closed, and her colour never +varied. 'You were ill, were you not?' she said, in a manner that was a +little vague but polite and sympathetic. + +'Yes,' said Sir John, 'and you let your maid come and nurse her. My +wife always said she would have died if it had not been for you.' + +'The climate was abominable,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'every one felt ill +there. Why does one go to these out-of-the-way places?' + +'It is very absurd,' said Lady Falconer, in a friendly way, 'to be +surprised at people growing up; yet I can hardly realize that Captain +Ogilvie, whom we met to-day, is the little boy who was with you at +Juarez. How time flies!' + +'It more often crawls, I think,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, with her +mouth a little twisted to one side. And then she rose to go because +she never stayed long at any party, and not even the fact that Nigel +Christopherson was going to ride in the last race altered her decision. +At parting she was too glad to have met Lady Falconer, trusted that if +ever she cared to see a collection of tiresome pictures she would come +to Bowshott, and hoped that if the gardens would be of any interest to +her she would drive over some afternoon when it was not too hot, and +have tea with her--any afternoon would do. Had Mrs. Ogilvie been +giving an invitation to tea in a barn it is probable that her manner +would have been as distant, as casual, and as superb as when she +suggested, with a queer sort of diffidence, that people might care to +see the famous galleries and gardens of her magnificent house. + +'How very interesting,' said Canon Wrottesley to Lady Falconer when the +carriage had driven away, 'your meeting like this!' The vicar's +acquaintance was not extensive, and that people should re-encounter +each other or have mutual friends always struck him in the light of a +strange coincidence. + +'She has not altered much,' said Sir John Falconer, 'and yet it must be +many years since we met: I suppose she never was good-looking. Somehow +one seems unaware of it when one is speaking to her.' + +'I could do nothing but look at her dress,' said Lady Falconer +good-naturedly. 'How is it that everything she wears seems to be in +such perfect taste?' + +'Mrs. Ogilvie is a rich woman,' said Canon Wrottesley, enjoying a +proprietary way of talking of his neighbour, 'and she is able to +gratify her love of beautiful raiment. I do not understand these +things myself,' he went on, with a masculine air, 'but the ladies tell +me that her dresses are all that they should be.' + +'I don't know what we should have done without her at Juarez,' said +Lady Falconer, in her peculiarly kind manner. 'Sir John and I were on +our honeymoon, and, like many other newly married people, we wanted to +be alone.' + +'Dudley, the artist, told us about Juarez, I remember,' interpolated +Sir John, 'otherwise I do not suppose we should ever have heard of the +place. Dudley had been sketching there.' + +'I had not a maid with me,' went on Lady Falconer, in her pleasant +voice, 'and Mrs. Ogilvie in the kindest way allowed a Spanish woman she +had with her to do everything for me.' + +'Mrs. Ogilvie is always devoted to everything Spanish,' said Mrs. +Wrottesley. 'Her mother was Spanish, and I dare say you know she made +her home in Spain for six years after the eldest boy's death.' + +'I did not even know that she had lost a son,' said Lady Falconer. +'How very sad!' + +The crowds of gaily-dressed people about them, the shouts of the +bookmakers, and the pleasant sense of being on an enjoyable picnic +contrasted oddly with any reference to such banished topics as death +and sorrow. + +'I consider that Mrs. Ogilvie is one of the most reserved women I ever +met,' said the canon, proceeding to give an epitome of a character +which he thought he--and perhaps only he--understood. 'She is +impulsive yet cautious, clever yet light-minded; for a woman her +intelligence is quite above the ordinary run, and yet she is often +hopelessly difficult to convince.' He leaned forward on the table +looking handsome and dignified, and his clean-shaven face had an +appearance more clever than was quite justified by his attainments. + +'I am sure that Mrs. Ogilvie is a woman of deep affections,' said Lady +Falconer, whose tongue seemed framed for nothing but kind speeches. + +'I remember,' said Sir John, 'how struck my wife and I were, that year +we met her in Spain, by her devotion to her son. It seemed to us to +have almost a touch of tragedy in it; but that, of course, is now +explained by hearing that she had just lost her only other child.' + +'Poor Mrs. Ogilvie!' said Mrs. Wrottesley. + +The words seemed incongruous. Mrs. Ogilvie, with her contempt for +pity, her sumptuous manner of living and of dressing, was hardly an +object for compassion; and Canon Wrottesley felt that his wife's +commiseration was out of place, although he was far too kind to say so +in public. + +There was a lull suddenly in the noise of the race-course; the +bookmakers' harsh shouts ceased, and even conversation stopped for a +moment, for the last race had begun. + +The last race was an interesting event. It was a steeplechase for +gentleman riders only, and friends of the riders were standing up, with +field-glasses to their eyes, watching with absorbed attention the +horses, which were still a great distance off on the other side of the +course. Jane was standing by Peter. Kitty Sherard was quite near; she +was not looking through field-glasses as the others were doing, but +stood leaning lightly on the balcony of the stand with her two hands +clasped on the wooden rail in front of her. + +'Can you see who is leading?' said Jane, and received no answer to her +question, and then she saw that Miss Sherard was not looking at the +racecourse at all. Her face was white, and her hands, which were +clasped on the wooden rail before her, had a strained look about them, +and showed patches of white where the slender fingers were tightly +pressed on the delicate skin. + +The last race involved some big fences, it is true; but then Kitty of +all people in the world was the last to be afraid of a stiff course. +It was not like her to keep her eyes turned away from the horses until +some one quite close to her said, 'Well, they 're over the water-jump +anyway,' when she suddenly raised her field-glasses, with hands that +were trembling a little, and kept her eyes fixed on the race. It was +going to be a close finish, most people thought, and as the horses came +round the farther corner you could, as the saying goes, have spread a +tablecloth over them. Toffy's horse closely hugged the rails and was +kept well in hand; while, of the two in front of him, one was showing +signs of the pace and the other had not much running left in him. +These two soon tailed off, when the favourite (dark green and yellow +hoops) came through the other horses and rode neck to neck with +Toffy's. It became a race between these two, and it was evident that +the finish was going to be a close one. + +'Toffy's not fit to ride,' said the voice of a young man who would have +liked Toffy to win the race, although he knew better than to back him. +'He is as mad as ten hatters to have ridden to-day.' + +'His weight is right enough,' said another manly voice, with a laugh; +'it's extraordinary how a man of his height can ride so light. +Christopherson 's a regular bag of bones.' + +'I wish to goodness they wouldn't talk!' said Kitty suddenly under her +breath. + +The two horses came on neck to neck to the last fence but one. + +'By gad, he knows how to ride!' went on the masculine voice, 'but +Spinach-and-Eggs is on the better horse of the two.' + +The ground was in splendid going condition and the two horses raced +over it. They could see Christopherson's face now, and Toffy was +smiling slightly, while the other man's teeth were firmly set. Their +two stirrups clanged together as their horses rose to the rails and +galloped on to the last fence. + +And there, of course, Toffy's horse fell. It was not his fault; there +was a bit of soft ground just where he landed, his horse blundered and +fell, and the favourite rode past the winning-post, an easy winner. + +The spectators in the grand stand could see Christopherson pick himself +up a moment later and lead his horse home; but there was one moment, +when the rider behind him took the last jump, in which for a fraction +of time it seemed more than possible that he might land on the top of +Sir Nigel. For a breathless space there was that dramatic silence +which may be felt when a concourse of people literally hold their +breath. Miss Abingdon covered her face for a moment, and Jane heard +Peter say 'Good God!' + +The next moment the danger was over, and Jane was surreptitiously +handing Miss Sherard a handkerchief drenched in eau-de-Cologne, for +Kitty had sat down suddenly and her face was white. She did not speak, +but she looked up into Jane's face for a moment, and the look said as +plainly as possible, 'I can't help it--don't tell any one.' + +'It was a horribly near thing,' Jane said, in order to explain Kitty's +pallor to herself, 'and I 'm afraid it has given you rather a turn.' + +Miss Sherard's feeling of faintness was only momentary, and already the +bright colour was in her cheeks again and she laughed and said, 'It was +not the jump, really, Jane; but I am a horrible gambler, and I put my +very last shilling on Toffy.' + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Mrs. Ogilvie's ball, according to an old-established custom, followed +closely on the race. The proximity of the two events had helped to +gain for the quiet countryside the reputation of a gay neighbourhood. +Country houses were filled with visitors, and the ballroom and the +famous picture-gallery at Bowshott received an even larger number of +guests than usual. There was something impressive in the great space +and width of the ballroom, with its polished floor. The palm-houses +had been emptied to form an avenue of green up the middle of the +picture-gallery, at whose extreme end an altarpiece, representing a +scene from the Book of Revelation, showed a company of the heavenly +host as a background to a buffet-table crowded with refreshments. The +constant movements and the brilliant lights provided a fitting air of +gaiety to the scene. It was Mrs. Ogilvie's whim to have her rooms +illuminated in a manner as nearly as possible to represent the effect +of tempered sunlight. 'No woman cares to see,' she used to say, 'she +wants to be seen.' And so the lights at Bowshott were always arranged +in such a way that the beauty of women should be enhanced by them. +Plain faces softened under the warm glow which had no hard shadows in +it, and beautiful faces were lighted up in a manner that was almost +extravagantly becoming. + +'It is only on such an occasion as this,' said Miss Abingdon, 'that one +really seems to think that Bowshott is put to its proper use.' + +She was talking to a young man who called old furniture delicious and +Spanish brocade sweetly pretty. 'The modern Englishman,' said Mr. +Lawrence, 'was made to live in barracks or in a stable. Probably he is +only in his right place when he is on a horse. Could any one but he +live at Bowshott and dress in shabby shooting clothes, and smoke +cigarettes in a room where Charles I. made love, and wear hobnailed +boots to go up and down a grand staircase?' + +Miss Abingdon sat on a convenient large couch, where a chaperon might +close her eyes for a moment towards the end of a long evening without +being accused of drowsiness. She was the recipient of many wise nods +and hints and questions. + +'How well they look together!' said a lady, as Peter Ogilvie and Jane +came down the line of palms, and she left a blank at the end of her +speech, to be filled in, if possible, by Miss Abingdon. + +'Jane makes Peter look rather short,' said another. + +'She should have chosen some one taller.' + +'I suppose it really will be settled some day,' said Mr. Lawrence. + +'They went for a ride this morning,' said Miss Abingdon dryly, 'and +they were positively disappointed because Sir Nigel Christopherson +could not go with them. I do not profess to understand love-affairs of +the present day.' + +Mr. Lawrence was a portly, red-faced young man, with a high-pitched +voice. He throve on scandal, and gossiped like a housekeeper. Miss +Abingdon liked and thoroughly approved him; his views were sound, his +opinions orthodox, and he always took her in to supper at any dance +where they met. + +Mr. Lawrence's manner towards elderly ladies was a mixture of deference +and familiarity which never failed to give satisfaction; he could even +discuss Miss Abingdon's relatives with her without offence, and he gave +advice on domestic matters. People in want of a cook or of a good +housemaid generally wrote to Mr. Lawrence to ask if he knew of any one +suitable for the post, and he recommended houses and health-resorts, +and knew to a fraction what every one's income was. He was a useful +member of society in a neighbourhood like that of Culversham, and was +considered an interesting caller. It was his ambition to be first with +every piece of intelligence, and he enjoyed telling news, even of a +harassing description. Mr. Lawrence believed that Miss Abingdon's +niece was already engaged to Peter Ogilvie, and he began by a series of +deft questions to try to abstract the definite information that he +required from her. + +'Young people nowadays,' said Miss Abingdon, ascribing a riper age to +Mr. Lawrence than he altogether approved--'young people nowadays think +that everything that concerns themselves is what they call their own +business. They talk as though they lived in some desert cave instead +of in the midst of the world. I am on thorns sometimes when the +servants are in the room; after all, a man may be only a footman, and +yet is not necessarily a deaf-mute.' + +Peter and Jane, meanwhile, had strolled into the picture-gallery, with +its softly shaded lights and long vistas of flowering plants and palms. +There was about them to-night something which seemed to set them apart. +Few persons cared to disturb them, even by a greeting, as they sat side +by side in the corridor or walked together down the long gallery. Jane +Erskine had put off that air, which suited her so admirably, of seeming +to be always under an open sky; she had left it behind with her short +skirt and the motor-cap which she loved to pull down over her eyes. +This evening in shimmering white satin, and with a string of pearls +round her throat, she looked what she was--a very beautiful and very +distinguished young woman. The tempered light of the room seemed to +deepen the colour in her cheeks and to bring out the bright tints of +her hair; her lips parted in a smile, and her eyes had radiance in them. + +She and Peter mingled with the throng of dancers again, and then, not +waiting until the music had finished, they left the ballroom by the +farther door where Mrs. Ogilvie was standing. + +Peter stopped when he saw her, and looked at her a little anxiously. +'You should not be standing, should you?' he said, in his kindly way; +'you look tired.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie gave one of her enigmatic smiles. 'Who would not be +tired?' she said. 'Was there ever such an extraordinary way of amusing +oneself as to stand in a draughty doorway in the middle of the night, +shaking hands with some hundreds of people whom one doesn't want to +see!' + +She sat down on a sofa and watched the two figures as they passed down +the long corridor. The mechanical smile of welcome with which she had +greeted half the county this evening had not died away from her face; +she sat upright on the satin-covered sofa. There was about her an air +of strength, of eminence almost, which seemed to place her genuine +ugliness above criticism. Her dress was of some heavy purple stuff +which few women would have had the courage to wear, and the diamonds in +her hair, with their sharp points of radiating light, accentuated +something that was magnificent and almost defiant about Mrs. Ogilvie +to-night. Her short-sighted eyes contracted in their usual fashion as +she watched the couple disappear down the vista of the corridor. 'If +only it could be soon! If only their marriage could be soon!' she +murmured to herself, her lips moving in an inward cry that in another +woman might have been a prayer. + +'How do you think she is looking?' said Peter, as, without conscious +intention, he and Jane drifted away from the dancers into a more +distant part of the house. 'Surely she gets tired too easily? I wish +she would see a doctor; but she hates being fussed over, and one can +never persuade her to take care of herself.' + +'What is one to do with so wilful a woman?' said Jane. + +They paused and looked at the dim crowd of dancers through one of the +entrances to the ballroom, and passed down the corridor where misty +figures sat on sofas and chairs enjoying the cool. Every one looked to +them misty and far away to-night, almost as though they had not +sufficiently materialized to be perfectly distinct. + +With definite intention Peter led his partner towards a little room, +hung with miniatures and plaques, at the farther end of the long +corridor. Here they found Nigel Christopherson in conversation with +Miss Sherard. Kitty was talking as lightly as usual, deliberately +misunderstanding everything that was said to her, and being as +provoking as she ever was; and Toffy was so much in earnest that he did +not see Peter and Jane, but continued to talk to the girl beside him. +So the two intruders never entered the room at all; but, as they +pursued their way still farther, Peter was thinking about Mrs. Avory, +and wishing to goodness that Toffy had never met her. + +The big house seemed too full of people for his taste to-night. Every +room and corridor was occupied, and Peter said, 'Let's go to my +mother's sitting-room. Do you mind, Jane? We can get cool on the +bridge.' + +Bowshott is a very old house, so old that, if it had not been for +archaeologists, who came there sometimes and read the grey stones as +though they had been printed paper, no one would ever have known when +the earliest part of it was built. Antiquaries agreed that it dated +from Norman days; but the only portion of the building of that period +which was standing now was a tower at the eastward end of the house. +It had been almost in ruins at one time, but Colonel Ogilvie's father +had restored it, and, with a considerable amount of skill, had +connected it with the more modern part of the house by a stone bridge +on a single arch. The whole thing was excellently contrived; the +archway lent a frame to one of the most beautiful parts of the garden; +and the tower, which was entered by a strong oak door from the bridge, +now contained three curious, romantic-looking rooms, with quaint, +uneven walls six feet thick, deep, narrow windows, and heavy oak +ceilings. The largest of the rooms to which admittance was gained by +the oak door was Mrs. Ogilvie's sitting-room. She had a curious love +of being alone for hours at a time, and she enjoyed the sense of +isolation which was afforded her by being cut off from the rest of the +building by the stone bridge on its high arch. Here she would spend +whole days by herself, reading or writing. Above this room, which was +full of her own particular possessions, was a smaller apartment +containing a valuable library of philosophical works. Here were +muniment-chests, and the large writing-table where she wrote all the +business letters relating to the estate; and here it was that she was +wont to see her steward and her agent from time to time. No one but +Mrs. Ogilvie and her son ever entered the room without some special +reason, and it was too far away from the rest of the house for casual +visitors to intrude themselves. The short passage, within the more +modern house, which led to the bridge was reached by a door hung with a +leather curtain securely arranged to prevent draughts, and no one ever +lifted this curtain except those who had a right to the rooms beyond. + +To-night, however, the house was open to all comers, and it afforded no +surprise to Captain Ogilvie and his companion, when they had quitted +the corridor and the reception-rooms, and had left the guests and +servants behind them, to find a man's figure before them in the short +passage leading to the leather-covered door. + +'Who 's that, do you know?' said Peter, when they had passed under the +curtain and were crossing the bridge. + +'I have no idea,' said Jane; 'some stranger, I suppose, whom some one +has brought.' + +'They don't seem to be looking after him very well,' said Peter, +'leaving him to prowl about alone and get lost in a great barrack like +this. I don't suppose I ought to have asked him if he wanted partners, +or anything of that sort? Some one is sure to look after him.' + +'Oh, sure to!' said Jane, and they passed over the bridge together and +went into Mrs. Ogilvie's morning-room. + +Having arrived there and secured two comfortable chairs, the power of +speech seemed suddenly to have deserted two persons whose conversation +was never brilliant, but who at least were seldom at a loss for +anything to say. It appeared as though Peter Ogilvie had brought Miss +Erskine to this distant room for no other purpose than to say to her, +in an absent-minded way, 'Is every one enjoying themselves, do you +think?' + +'I think every one is quite happy,' said Jane, and added, with +characteristic frankness, 'I know I am!' + +Peter gave her a quick glance, turning his eyes full upon her for a +moment as though to read something in the face beside him; then he +began with absorbed attention to twist the silk string of his ball +programme round and round his finger. The room where they sat was +singularly unlike those rose-shaded bowers which are considered +suitable to the needs of dancers who pause and rest in them. Its +austere furnishing had something almost solemn and mysterious about it; +and the stone walls hung with tapestry, on which quaint figures moved +restlessly with the draught from an open window, would have given an +eerie feeling to a man, for instance, sitting alone there at twelve +o'clock at night. But in the gloom and austerity of the still and +distant chamber sat Jane in white satin with pearls about her neck, and +the room was illumined by her. + +'So you are enjoying yourself,' said Peter at last--Peter who never +made fatuous conversational remarks of this sort. The words, for no +reason in themselves, fell oddly, and were followed by a silence which +was disturbing and made for sudden self-consciousness wholly to be +condemned, and to be banished, if possible, directly. Jane, who did +not fidget aimlessly with things, began diligently to pluck a long +white feather out of her fan, and said in a voice that was deliberately +commonplace, 'We ought to go back now, oughtn't we? Let me see who +your next partner is, Peter, that I may send you back to dance with +her.' She stretched out her hand for the young man's programme. + +But Peter sat absorbed, twisting its silk cord round his finger. +'Don't let's go yet,' he said, and the constrained silence fell between +them again. 'I want to ask you something, Jane.' + +'Yes,' said Jane. Her hands lay idle now in her lap, and she no longer +tried to extract the white ostrich feather from her fan. + +'I want to know if you think you can care for me a little?' + +Probably when a man feels most deeply his utterances are the most +commonplace, and an Englishman is proverbially incapable of expressing +his feelings. In the supreme moments of their lives, it is true, a few +men, and those not always the most sincere, may speak eloquently; but +for the most part a proposal of marriage from an Englishman is--as it +should be--a clumsy thing. Peter Ogilvie could only speak in such +limited language as he always used. Yet the world seemed to stand +still for him just then, for he knew that everything in his heaven or +upon earth depended on what Jane's answer would be. + +'Don't let me bother you,' he said at last, 'or rush you into giving an +answer now if you would rather wait.' + +Perhaps a declaration of love from an old comrade is the most dear as +well as the most embarrassing of all such avowals. A heart which has +already given itself in loyalty and affection to another finds that it +is not a deepening of this loyalty and affection that is asked, but a +complete re-ordering of things. The lover's petition, therefore, +either comes to the woman as a revelation, betraying to her in a flash +that she has loved always, and has merely been calling the thing by +another name, or else it finds her impatient at the disturbance of an +old comradeship, a cherished friendship, which nothing but this +foolish, exacting thing called love could ever shake. + +Peter was not versed in introspective questions or hair-splittings; he +loved with his whole heart, and he had tried to say so without very +much success. Just then he would have given anything he possessed to +be endowed with a little more eloquence, though deep down in his heart +he had a lingering hope that perhaps Jane would understand. 'It's neck +or nothing,' he was saying to himself, in the homely jargon in which he +usually formed his thoughts. 'God knows I may have been a fool to +speak.' + +'Peter,' began Jane shyly. And Peter ceased twisting the silk cord of +the programme round his finger, and they turned and looked at each +other. + +'Is it true?' he said at last, with a queer kind of wonder in his voice. + +'Let us go into the garden,' he said. His instincts remained +primitive, and just then this room was too narrow for all he felt, and +it seemed to him that the large things of the night and the distant +glory of the stars were the only environment that he could bear. + +Passers-by, had they been mean enough to pause and listen outside the +sheltering yew-hedge near which they sat, might have questioned the +poetry of their love-making, and have condemned an avowal of devotion +punctuated by barbarous slang; but the silence that fell between them +was full of tenderness and more easily understood than speech, and +perhaps the moon--an inquisitive person at the best of times--as she +peeped over the grey turrets of the house saw the dawn of a love as +single-hearted and as genuine as many sentiments which have been more +carefully analysed and described. + +These were two happy, light-hearted persons, without very much to +recommend them except a certain straightforwardness of vision which +abhorred, as by a natural instinct, circuitous or crooked things, a +transparent honesty, and a simple acceptance of those obligations which +race and good-breeding demand. + +At the present moment, out in the garden on the stone seat set in the +embrasure of the high yew-hedge, they were oblivious of everything in +the world except each other and the absorbing discovery of love. + +They were the last to hear the cry of 'Fire!' which rang out from the +house, and they were still sitting undisturbed while men ran with hose +and buckets, and a clamour arose in the stable-yard for more water, and +a clatter of horses' hoofs could be heard as a groom galloped off for +the nearest fire-engine. The yew-hedged garden where they sat was +distant a long way from the house, and it was not until a heavy cloud +of smoke rose up against the sky that Peter's attention was attracted, +and he realized that the Norman tower was on fire. + +He started up and ran to the place where grooms and helpers, gardeners +and strangers' coachmen, and waiters and guests were standing, with +hose and buckets, pouring a ridiculous little stream of water against +the burning pile. The fire had begun in the roof, and the smoke was +pouring from the narrow windows in the tower. No flames had shot up +yet, and the fire-engine from Sedgwick, prompt and well-served as it +always was, might be here any minute. The oak roof would burn slowly +and the walls were secure, but the tapestry in the lower room was dry +and old, and would fire like a bundle of shavings. An effort was made +by a body of men to force an entrance into the lower room and save what +they could; but they were beaten back by the smoke which came in +volumes down the turret staircase and by the flames which now began to +shoot up here and there against the darkness of the night. There was +nothing for it but to safeguard the main building. The wind was +setting towards it from the tower, and a party of men were up on the +roof treading out burning sparks and playing water where slates were +hottest or ashes might burst into flames. + +Mrs. Ogilvie stood on the terrace in her magnificent purple gown, her +red hair with flashing diamonds in it, and her long-handled glasses +held up to her near-sighted eyes. + +'So that goes!' she said, shrugging her shoulders. 'Well, it will give +me a good deal of trouble. Or is it fate, I wonder?' + +Peter was directing a body of men to play water on the bridge; garden +and stable hoses were turned full upon it by relays of helpers, and +some long ladders were placed against the windows to see if it were +possible in that way to effect an entrance and save some of the +valuables in the room. The guests--women in light ball dresses and +bare shoulders, and men in evening clothes--had surged out on to the +terrace, and were watching with that curious mixture of fascination and +regret which comes to the eyes of those who see destruction going on +and know that they are powerless to prevent it. Every ear was strained +to catch the first sound of the fire-engine on the road from Sedgwick, +and some twenty or thirty couples, more impatient than the rest, had +run to a distant knoll, from whence the road was visible, to peer +through the darkness and to see if anything was coming. The stars +shone serenely overhead, and the moon was turning the water in the +fountains to cascades of silver, while from turret and roof the volumes +of grey smoke belched forth, and the ineffectual fire appliances played +upon the house. + +It was just then that what seemed almost like an apparition appeared +upon the bridge. A man, not above medium height, with a cloak hastily +thrown about his head to protect him from the smoke, dashed across the +bridge, was drenched by the fall of water, and entered the turret room. +People asked each other fearfully whose this strange figure could be. +Many, strangely enough, had not seen it; the sudden dash through the +smoke had not occupied a moment of time, and most eyes were directed +towards the roof of the building, while others were turned towards the +Sedgwick road. Those who had seen cast amazed eyes upon each other, +women clutched the persons nearest them, and Jane Erskine, seeking half +wildly for some one in the crowd, found Peter and said to him, 'What is +it? Who went in there just now? Oh, Peter, for a moment I thought it +was you!' + +There was a shout of warning, but it was too late for the man, whoever +he was, to turn back. He was inside the tower now, and no shouting +could hold him. Some prayed as they stood there, murmuring half +mechanically, 'Save him! save him!' as instinctively men and women will +pray even when the life for which they plead may carry with it such +sorrow as they never dreamed of. + +Suddenly some young men who had climbed to the top of the knoll gave a +shout, and the fire-engine from Sedgwick turned the corner of the road +with a fine dash, for Tom Ellis, a good whip, was driving, and the +white horse on the near side knew as well as any Christian how to save +an inch of the road. The fire-engine, all gleaming with brass fittings +and flaming red paint, clattered to the door, and pulled up with +admirable precision on the spot from which a hose could be played. +Eight men in helmets leaped from their seats and got their gear in +order with the coolness of blue-jackets in a storm. But for its +quietness and its controlled, workmanlike effect, the whole scene had +distinctly a dramatic touch about it. Possibly the firemen would have +shouted louder had they been upon the boards, and fainting women, it is +generally assumed, give a realistic touch to well-staged melodrama. No +doubt the crowd on the terrace at Bowshott would have disappointed an +Adelphi audience. But the old white horse stood to attention like a +soldier on a field day; and Tom Ellis, wiping his brow as though he +himself had run in the shafts all the way from Sedgwick, lent a touch +of stage realism to the scene. Nothing could save the interior of the +tower--that was past praying for; but a shout went up that there was a +man inside, and the firemen threw their ladders against the walls and +prepared their scaling-irons and life-saving apparatus. The smoke +rolled out in dense volumes now, and through the gloom a voice shouted, +'It 's all right! He 's crossed the bridge again!' + +'Oh, are you sure? are you sure?' said Jane, her fear almost amounting +to a panic, and it haunted her for long afterwards that perhaps the man +had not actually escaped the fire. For nothing was heard of him again, +and it was only after Peter had ordered a fruitless search to be made +amongst the debris in the tower that she felt satisfied of the +stranger's safety. + +A newspaper reporter tried to prove that a gallant attempt had been +made to save some valuables in the tower, and went so far as to head +one of his paragraphs, 'A Gallant Act.' But there was nothing of value +in the tower rooms except the old furniture and books and the tapestry +on the walls, and these had all been destroyed. + +The ruined interior of the tower smouldered the whole of the next day; +though the walls still stood, gaunt and grim, windowless and gutted by +the fire. But the building was covered by insurance, and even the loss +of the tapestries seemed more than compensated by the fact that an +absorbing topic of general interest had been provided in a quiet and +uneventful neighbourhood. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +It was a matter of necessity with Mrs. Ogilvie to purchase a new dress +for the wedding. Wherefore, in the week following the night of the +ball, she went to London for the day, while builders and carpenters +were already at work repairing the ruined tower. + +'It will be inconvenient,' she said, 'to go up and see my dressmaker +later when the house is full. Is it absolutely incumbent upon me, as +the mother of the bridegroom, to dress in grey satin, or have I +sufficiently scandalized my neighbours all my life to be able to wear +what I like?' + +Usually her maid accompanied her when Mrs. Ogilvie went up to London; +but, in her wilful way, she had decided to-day that maids were useless, +and that her present maid had round eyes that stared at her from the +opposite side of the carriage when they travelled together. In short, +Mrs. Ogilvie intended to go to London alone. + +She departed with some sort of idea of enjoying the expedition; the +purchase of clothes was a real aesthetic pleasure to her, and even the +feel of the pavements in the world-forsaken London of September had +something friendly about it that spoke to her with an intimacy and a +kindliness such as she never experienced among country sights and +sounds. A morning at Paquin's revived her as sea breezes revive other +women. Lunch followed in a room pleasantly shaded from the sun and +decorated with a fair amount of taste. But the food was uneatable, of +course; Mrs. Ogilvie could never get a thing to eat that she liked. + +It was nearly four o'clock before the brougham which had met her at the +station in the morning drew up before a door in deserted Harley Street. +An elderly man-servant showed her into the doctor's waiting-room, and +Mrs. Ogilvie sat down and began turning over with interest the pages of +a fashion magazine. + +'I think I know the worst,' she said to the famous surgeon whom she had +come to consult, when he led her into his room. 'What I want to know +is, can you put off this tiresome business until after my son's +wedding?' + +He asked her quietly her reason for the delay. Few people argued with +Mrs. Ogilvie; there was an inflexibility about her which made protest +impossible. He knew that the case was a hopeless one, but life might +certainly be prolonged if she would submit to treatment without delay. + +'Why should you put it off?' he said; 'even five or six weeks may make +an enormous difference.' + +'I always put off disagreeable things,' said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. + +A London doctor probably knows many cases of delicate and sensitive +women who will fret over a crumpled rose-leaf and die with the calm +courage of a martyr; but the woman who would deliberately throw away +her chances of life was unfamiliar to the famous specialist. He looked +keenly at his patient for a moment out of his deep eyes. + +'I have never known a case of this sort in which there was not an +immediate effort at concealment,' he said to himself; 'and women +conceal most of their sicknesses as if they were crimes.' Aloud he +asked her what was the earliest date at which she could put herself +into his hands. + +'It is a great bore coming at all,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, with that sort +of superb impertinence which distinguished her and was hardly ever +offensive; 'but let us say in a month's time. The wedding was not to +have been till late in November; but my son and Miss Erskine are quite +absurdly in love with each other, and it will not be difficult to +persuade them to alter that date for an earlier one.' + +'If you have positively decided to postpone treatment,' said the +surgeon, 'I can say nothing more except to tell you that you are +minimizing your chances of recovery.' + +'I don't feel in the least like dying yet,' she said. + +'Were you to put yourself into my hands at once,' he urged, 'it is +possible that you might be sufficiently recovered to go to the wedding +in November.' + +'No one is to know anything about it,' said Mrs. Ogilvie quickly and +decisively. 'If my son is married in October I can come up to town, as +I always do in November, and go into one of your nursing-homes. +Probably the wall-papers will offend me, but at least I shall not have +the whole of a countryside discussing my helplessness and the various +stages of my illness. Ye gods! they would like to ask for details from +one's very footman at the hall door!' + +It was useless to say more. The surgeon recommended diet, and made out +a prescription. + +'Everything is talked about in these days, I admit,' he said, 'and I +think no one regrets the decline of reserve more than we doctors do; +but you are carrying a desire for concealment too far.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie was drawing on her gloves and buttoning them with an air +much more grave and intent than she had bestowed upon her doctor during +the discussion of her health. 'Even an animal,' she said lightly, 'is +allowed to creep away into the denseness of a thicket and nurse its +wounds unseen; but we superior human beings are like the beggars who +expose a mutilated arm to the pitiful, and would fain show their wounds +to every passer-by.' + +'Perhaps you will allow me to write to your son?' said the surgeon. + +Mrs. Ogilvie replied by a quick and unequivocal answer in the negative; +then, relaxing a little, she said more lightly, but with intent, 'I +have always triumphed over difficulties all my life--I have always +overcome.' + +'That is quite possible,' said the physician gravely. + +Mrs. Ogilvie stood up and began to arrange her veil before the mirror +which hung above the mantel-piece; and, as she did so, she glanced +critically at her face under her large, fashionable-looking hat, with +its bizarre trimmings. + +'I am very plain,' she said, with a sort of sensuous enjoyment in her +frankness, 'and yet I have passed successfully for a beautiful woman +most of my life. I am also what is ridiculously called a power in +society, and I owe everything to my own will. I detest unsuccess!' + +'You are talking of the success which lies in the hands of every clever +woman,' said the doctor, 'but your health is another matter.' + +'I believe in my good luck; it has never failed me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, +as she shook hands and said good-bye. + +When she reached home she dressed in one of her sumptuous gowns, for a +score of country neighbours were coming to meet Jane Erskine as the +fiancée of her son. Her maid bore the brunt of my lady's sarcasm +during the time of dressing, and was given a curt notice of dismissal +before the toilet was complete. The woman's big round eyes, which were +so obnoxious to her mistress, filled with tears as she accepted her +discharge. And Mrs. Ogilvie, descending the broad staircase of the +house with her air of magnificence, her jewels, and her red hair, +rapped her fan suddenly and sharply on the palm of her hand, so that +the delicate tortoise-shell sticks were broken. 'Why does she look at +me like that?' she said fiercely below her breath. 'I am glad I +dismissed her, and I am glad she cried! Why should not some one else +suffer as well as I?' + +'You are not really tiresome, Jane,' she said after dinner, as the two +sat together on a couch. 'I have never known another engaged young +lady whom I did not avoid; but you are distressing yourself quite +unnecessarily about me. When I look tired, for instance, you may take +it as a sure sign that I am bored; nothing ever really makes me feel +ill except dullness.' + +'Still,' urged Jane, 'Peter and I want it so much. We think if you +were to get advice from a doctor it would make us feel so much happier +about you.' + +'I never allow any one to discuss my health with me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie +coldly; 'it is only a polite way of pointing out to one that one is +looking plain.' + +Jane took one of her hands in hers with an impulsive gesture, and +printed a kiss upon it. + +'Do sit upon me when I begin to bore you or to say the wrong thing! I +believe, for a woman, I am quite unpardonably clumsy and tactless.' + +'Have you ever discovered,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, 'that tact is becoming a +little overdone, and that it generally succeeds in accentuating a +difficult situation, or in making it impossible? Women are horribly +tactful as a rule, and that is why men's society is preferable to +theirs. If you tread on a man's foot he will no doubt forgive you, +while admitting that the blow was painful; but a woman smiles and tries +to look as though she really enjoyed it.' + +'Promise never to endure me in silence,' said Jane, laughing, 'even +when I am most tactless!' + +'Silent endurance is hardly my character,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, screwing +up her eyes. 'I dismissed Forder before dinner because she annoyed me.' + +'Please take Forder to your heart again tomorrow morning,' said Jane; +'she keeps Martin in such a good temper.' + +'No,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'I shall get a new maid when I go up to London +in November. Forder has had round eyes for such a long time, and she +is hopelessly stupid about doing my hair.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie always spoke about her hair with a touch of defiance in +her voice. It was so undisguisedly auburn that probably only Jane +Erskine and Peter ever believed that it was not dyed. + +'What were we talking about?' she said presently. 'Oh yes, I was +saying that you were not tiresome although you are engaged to be +married. You are not even quite uninteresting, although you are +healthy and happy! All the same, I am going to try and persuade you +and Peter to have the wedding sooner than you intended.' + +'Why?' said Jane simply. + +'I am sick of Bowshott,' said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. 'By the by, I +believe I am going to make it over to you and Peter when you marry. +Why should I act as custodian to a lot of grimy pictures, which don't +amuse me the least bit in the world, or walk in these formal gardens, +where I don't even meet a gardener after ten o'clock? A prison life +would really be a pleasant change! I shall go to London when you are +married; it is the only place--except Paris--where one lives. I must +have the house in Berkeley Square painted. And, oh! there are heaps of +things I want to do; must I really go into them all? + +'When is the wedding to be?' asked old Lord Sherard, sinking on to the +sofa beside Miss Erskine, when he and the other gentlemen returned from +the dining-room. + +'Jane and I have just been deciding that the wedding is to take place +in the middle of October,' replied Mrs. Ogilvie in her cool, decisive +voice. + +Jane laughed and caught Peter's eye, and he drew her aside when he +could, and asked for further confirmation of a change of plans of which +he thoroughly approved. + +There was no reason for delay; the building and repairing of the tower +would hardly interfere with the other parts of the vast house. Jane, +like Peter, was quite satisfied that their wedding should be at an +earlier date than was at first suggested. They had known each other +all their lives; why postpone the happy time when they should be +married? + +So wedding invitations were written and despatched, and wedding gowns +were ordered, and wedding presents came in. Tenants presented silver +bowls and trays, and servants gave clocks and illuminated addresses, +and the Ogilvie family lawyer came down with his clerk to stay, and was +hidden away somewhere in the big house, where he wrote busily all day, +and made wills and transferred deeds, and wanted signatures for this +thing and for that through half the autumn mornings. + +'I see nothing for it,' said Jane, 'but to postpone getting my +trousseau until after I am married. If I succeed in getting a wedding +dress and something to go away in by the twenty-sixth, I shall consider +myself lucky!' + +Miss Abingdon, to whose Early Victorian mind a wedding was still an +occasion for tears, sighed over her niece's engagement because Jane +never came to her room at night to water her couch with tears, nor had +doubts or presentiments or misgivings. + +'She seems to have so little sense of responsibility,' she sighed to +Mrs. Wrottesley, whose visits at this trying time were a cause of +nothing but comfort to her. + +'I know,' said Mrs. Wrottesley--in the hesitating manner of the woman +who might have been 'advanced' had she not married a clergyman--'I know +it may seem to you irreverent to say so, but I sometimes think that +marriage is not undertaken lightly and unadvisedly enough. It seems to +me that nowadays the tendency is to consider the matter almost too +seriously, and that a certain light-hearted impulse is really what is +required before taking what is called the plunge.' + +Miss Abingdon--not by any means for the first time--felt regret that +Canon Wrottesley's influence upon his wife had not made her a more +orthodox thinker. A woman who criticized the Prayer Book was surely +not fitted to be the wife of a clergyman. Miss Abingdon liked to lean +on a spiritual guide, and she thought that this was the graceful and +becoming attitude for all women. + +'I am afraid we must not tamper with the Prayer Book,' she said +reprovingly; and Mrs. Wrottesley, who for twenty years had been silent +under reproof, relapsed into silence again. + +Jane, meanwhile, was saying good-bye to every tenant on Miss Abingdon's +small estate. To her hunters she confided the good news that they were +going with her when she married, and that they would hunt with her as +before. And the stable cat, whom she took up in her arms and kissed +affectionately, was told that he really must not mind saying good-bye, +for that she, Jane, would only be two miles off, so that the stable cat +needn't look quite so disconsolate. The proverbial old nurse in the +village had to be visited, and the school-children asked to tea, and +tenants and gardeners to dinner; and every one was in a highly nervous +state of preparation, and in a still more delightful state of +anticipation. + +Miss Abingdon enjoyed the dear fussiness of the wedding preparations, +and thought in her secret heart that Mrs. Ogilvie missed all the +pleasure of the thing by giving a few brief, emphatic orders to her +steward, instead of personally superintending every detail of the +servants' ball and the tenants' dinner. + +Mrs. Ogilvie's directions were probably made in less than an hour, and +transmitted to Mr. Miller's capacious pocket-book when he came to her +boudoir to receive instructions one autumn morning. When he had left, +Mrs. Ogilvie quitted her writing-table, by which she had been sitting, +and walked to the window of her room and stood idly by it, her graceful +figure outlined against the pane. Before her stretched the great +gardens in an aching formality of borders and devices. Viewed from a +height, and with her near-sighted eyes, they presented an appearance of +a piece of elaborate stitchwork on a green worsted ground. The +fountains, with their punctual fall of spray, might have been a device +in shells and beads in the centre of each design. Beyond the gardens +there was a mass of woods, all dim greens and bright golds; but even +the woods were touched with formality, and the foresters of the place +had lopped away every unsightly branch from the beeches and oaks. +Probably there may have been homely corners in the gardens and grounds +which Peter had discovered as a child; but Mrs. Ogilvie, when she +walked, kept to the prim paths of the terrace and the garden, where +every pebble seemed to have its proper place, in full view of the +windows of the house. + +'It has always been a prison to me--always,' she murmured to herself, +oblivious of the fact that no one more than she would have missed a +luxurious environment and a stately setting to her own personality. +Mrs. Ogilvie often imagined that she would have liked a small house; +but there is no doubt that she would have quitted it in disgust the +first time that the odour of dinner came up the back stairs. She +believed that a large staff of servants was merely a burden; but she +would have felt at a loss had she been obliged to wait on herself even +for an hour. As she looked now at the gardens in front of her, and +away to the woods beyond, and to the great stretches of greenhouses and +conservatories to southward, she thought how irksome they were, how +unnecessary, and how little pleasure they gave. + +'Magnificence is always dull,' she thought, 'and yet people are +impressed by it! They not only value themselves by what they have; +they actually value others according to their possessions, and respect +a man for his ownership of things of which they cannot even hope to rob +him.' + +She supposed that the tenants and servants would have to be fed on the +occasion of a marriage. She believed it was their one idea of enjoying +themselves; but she begged her steward not to bother her with details +when he had gone into the question of roasting an ox whole. Having +dismissed him with a few brief orders Mrs. Ogilvie went to her +writing-table. 'I may as well get over all the disagreeable and odious +things in one morning,' she said to herself. + +Her writing-table was placed against a wall on which hung a mirror, and +she sat down opposite it. According to a custom she had, she directed +the envelopes first, before beginning to write her letters. Her +writing-table was always littered with addressed envelopes of notes +which she meant to write some day when she felt in the mood for writing. + +She paused now when she had written the words: 'To be given to my son +at my death;' and, screwing up her face into her twisted smile, she +said to herself, 'How absurd and melodramatic it sounds!' Then she +took a sheet of notepaper and began to write. The first few lines +flowed easily enough, and then Mrs. Ogilvie's pen traced the letters +more slowly on the page. Once she paused altogether, and said aloud to +her image in the mirror opposite her escritoire, 'What a fool I am!' +and then stooped again over her task. The sprawling writing had hardly +covered half a sheet of notepaper when the red-gold head with its crown +of plaits was raised again, and the woman in the mirror looked at her +with a face that was suddenly livid. Her lips were white and were +drawn back somewhat from her teeth; and Mrs. Ogilvie, in the midst of +pain, recognized first of all how hideous she looked. + +The pen dropped from her fingers, and she pushed her chair back from +the writing-table and went over to the fireplace and lay down on the +sofa. The day was cold, and Mrs. Ogilvie shivered and drew a cover +over her feet. 'When this is over,' she thought, 'I will ring and have +the fire lighted.' + +She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and calculated deliberately +how long the paroxysm would probably last. She had always regarded +pain as an animate thing which had to be fought with, and she had never +failed in courage when she met it, nor moaned when, as now for the +first time, she was beaten by it. The clock seemed to tick more +leisurely to-day, and the time passed very slowly; there is a +loneliness about suffering which makes the hours drag heavily. Once +she buried her face for a moment in the sofa cushions, and her bands +clenched the cover and crumpled the delicate satin between her fingers. +Her head sank lower, like a wounded bird that ruffles up the dust; she +moved convulsively amongst the cushions. It was a grim fight with pain +that she was making; she did not give in easily, but the odds were +unequal. Mrs. Ogilvie was in the hands of an unsparing foe. She was +conquered, but afterwards, when she lay quite still, there was a look +of defiance in her attitude. + +Her maid, coming in and finding her sleeping, glanced at the blinds and +wondered if she dared lower them, for the sun was shining brilliantly +into the room now, and its beams were resting full and strong on the +figure on the sofa. + +It was something about the position of the auburn head--something +twisted and unnatural in the attitude of the recumbent form--that +caused the woman to cry out suddenly and sharply, with a vibrating cry +that seemed to set everything in the room jingling. No one heard her +at first, and she opened the window and called aloud for help; for +there was a sound of horses' hoofs upon the gravel, and Peter rode up +with Jane to the door. + +'Mrs. Ogilvie must have been dead an hour,' the village doctor said +when he came; and then he sent the weeping girl and poor, white-faced, +broken-hearted Peter out of the room. Neither of them could believe +the horrible news; they turned to each other, taking hands, as children +do in their grief, and Jane went back and with a sob stooped down and +imprinted a long kiss on the dead woman's brow. + +'She must have died just as she was writing her morning letters,' said +Peter, as he glanced at the writing-table with its litter of notes and +papers. + +'Perhaps it would be as well to lock up anything that is lying about,' +said the doctor; 'it is customary to do so. Or your lawyer--who, I +understand, is in the house--could come in, I suppose, and put away +jewels, etc.' He handed Peter the litter of notes and papers on the +writing-table. + +'Thank you,' said Peter. 'I don't suppose there is anything very +important, but I will look through them presently.' He glanced at the +topmost addresses of the notes, and decided that they were probably +belated wedding invitations to people who had been forgotten, and he +put an indiarubber band about them and thrust them into his pocket. + +The guests in the house departed hurriedly within two hours of Mrs. +Ogilvie's death, amidst all the confusion of hasty packing, and +carriages ordered for this person and for that, and footmen hastening +downstairs with luggage, and luncheon prepared hurriedly and eaten +almost surreptitiously by those who wished to catch an early train. +There was a horrible stir in the house under the hush and awe that +death brings. No one wished to intrude upon Peter; yet a dozen friends +wanted to see him, to hear, if possible, more details of his mother's +sudden end. Others, with a sort of animal instinct of forsaking at +once the place where death reigned, betrayed an almost contemptible +haste in quitting the house; but they, too, must know all that could be +told. They had never noticed that Mrs. Ogilvie did not seem well, or +they had remarked that of late she had spent much time in her room, or +'she had seemed so bright and cheerful'; and, again, 'they had noticed +how tired she had been at night sometimes.' + +To no one had Peter any special news to give. Some one had heard, he +believed, that she had been to see Sir Edward Croft, the great surgeon +in London, and to-day they had telegraphed to him. Peter himself had +not really been anxious about his mother, although he had imagined for +some time past that she did not look well. He gave what attention he +could to his guests, bade them a conventional good-bye, and displayed +that reserve which an Englishman is supposed to be able to maintain in +times of sorrow. But it is not too much to say that, warm-hearted, +deeply affectionate man that he was, his grief for his mother's death +had something bewildering in it. He had loved her faithfully and +admired her loyally during the whole of his life; there had never been +a quarrel between them, and, if he had not received many outward marks +of affection from her, there was no single occasion in his life that he +could remember in which she had failed him. He had come first always; +he realized this with the sinking of heart which even the most dutiful +son may feel when he sees with absolute clearness, perhaps for the +first time, that he must have accepted, almost unknowingly, many +sacrifices from his mother. He hoped, with a boyish remorse and a +boyish simple-heartedness, that she understood everything now, and that +somewhere, not very far off, she would be able to see into his heart +and know positively how much he had loved her. He had always accepted +in simple faithfulness the statement that those who were gone 'knew +now,' as the phrase runs; and it comforted him to think that all he +might have said to her when she was alive was clearly understood by his +mother at last. + +By two o'clock the big house was empty of guests and given over to +silence, or to the sound of hushed footsteps about the stairs, or to +the weeping of maids as they assembled in little groups in the +corridors and spoke with sobs of the mistress whom they had served +faithfully. Each room that had lately given up its tenant showed a +disordered interior, with paper strewn here and there. Or some maid +left behind to pack her mistress's heavier luggage could be seen +kneeling before open trunks and deftly arranging their contents. + +A grey-haired butler approached his master when the last of the +carriages had driven away, and begged him to eat some luncheon, and +informed him that Miss Erskine was still in the library. + +'Send something there,' said Peter briefly. + +For a moment Jane could only weep, and they clung to each other, +saying, with the helplessness of the suddenly bereaved, 'Isn't it +awful?' Then, as they began to grow calmer, Peter administered what +comfort he could, and tried in his kindly way to induce the girl to eat +something. + +'You must eat, you know,' he said, 'and it will do you good. It has +been a terrible time for you. And then I think you ought to go back +and lie down for a bit.' + + +If it is true that a woman suggests beef-tea as a universal panacea for +all ills, it is certain, on the other hand, that a man believes that a +woman always feels better for lying down. + +'I should like to wait,' Jane said, 'until Sir Edward arrives, and to +hear what he has to say.' + +A footman came in to clear away lunch, and then the two lovers went and +sat together on the library sofa, and looked out on the long stretches +of gardens with their cold precision and want of sympathy. A +luggage-cart, piled high with dress-baskets and portmanteaux, passed +down the drive towards the station gates, and a motor-car returned from +a neighbouring house for something that had been forgotten. After that +there was silence both within and without the house; even the maids had +gone downstairs to sit together and whisper. It was one of those grey +days in early autumn which have an almost weird sense of stillness +about them. Hardly a leaf stirred, and even the flight of the birds +was noiseless and touched with the universal feeling of hush. The +begonias and dahlias and flaming autumn flowers in the broad border +below the southern terrace wall had lost half their colour in the grey +afternoon, and a robin alighted softly on the window-sill and, putting +his head on one side, looked into the library at the pair sitting on +the sofa. + +Neither had spoken for a time. To-morrow there would probably be +lawyers to see and the funeral to arrange for, and a hundred things to +do; but to-day there was a lull in which time itself seemed to have +stood still. Years had passed since this morning, and yet the clocks +marked only a few hours on their dials. Mrs. Ogilvie had died at +twelve o'clock, and the very flowers which she had placed by her table +still bloomed freshly, and a book she had been reading lay open where +she had left it. + +Yet it seemed a lifetime since she had died. + +During the interminable afternoon, and in the stillness of the big +library, with its ordered rows of books and solemn-looking, carved +cupboards, Peter and Jane Erskine sat together feeling oppressively +this great lapse of time that had passed. Their understanding of one +another had always been a strong bond between them; and now they felt +not like the lovers of yesterday, but like those whose lives have been +linked for years, and for whom loyalty and faith have grown deeper and +stronger as troubles and storms came. They looked across to the ruined +tower, where not very long ago, as we count time, they had told their +love to each other; and, so looking, had drawn closer by their common +sorrow. It seemed to them, in the hush of the library, that this time +of grief and dependence had something arresting in it. Life had not +demanded very much of them so far. To-day there was a strange sense +that its demands, perhaps even for them, would not always be small. + +The doctor and the lawyer summoned Peter presently, and afterwards he +and Jane were told particulars of Mrs. Ogilvie's fatal illness. + +'But she must have suffered--she must have suffered so!' said Jane, +with all the resentfulness that youth feels towards pain. 'Why did she +tell none of us? Why did none of us know?' + +'I ought to have guessed something,' said Peter miserably. 'I must +have been a fool not to see that something was wrong.' And together +they wondered what would have happened if this had been done or that, +and were inclined to reproach themselves for much in which they were in +no measure to blame. They walked back through the dim, still woods; +and at the white gates of Jane's pleasant home Peter left her, and she +went on alone to meet Miss Abingdon. + +It was late that night before the two sorrowful women went to bed; and +hardly was breakfast over in the morning before, with the restlessness +born of recent grief, Miss Abingdon was seeking anxiously to know what +she could do or what ought to be done. + +'If,' she said, 'I felt that I could even be of use by going up to town +and choosing the servants' mourning, I should feel that I was doing +something.' + +There were piles of patterns of black stuffs, which Miss Abingdon had +telegraphed for on the previous evening, lying in neat bundles on the +breakfast-table, and stamped with their several prices and the width of +the materials. Such things have often kept a woman sane in the first +despair of grief. + +'How would it do?' she said, 'to have a little crape on the body and +not on the skirt?' + +Jane replied that she thought it would do very nicely. + +Poor Jane! her eyes were big with weeping, and she had lain awake the +greater part of the night mourning for her friend who was gone. Now, +as she tried to give her attention to her aunt and to the vexed +question of the propriety of crape on the body, she thought, with +girlish ingenuousness, that she wanted Peter more than she had ever +wanted him before, and that she could do nothing until she had seen +him. And across her grief came one great flash of joy as she realized +that in all her troubles and sorrows she would have him with her. + +'There he is now,' said Miss Abingdon, 'coming up the drive! Jane, my +dear, how awfully ill Peter looks. Oh, my dear, you should have told +me how ill he looks!' + +Jane went out to the hall door without speaking. 'What is wrong?' she +said briefly. 'Come into my sitting-room, Peter, and tell me what is +wrong.' + +'I 'd rather be outside, if you don't mind,' said Peter, the primitive +man strong in him again. + +There had been a storm in the night, after the unusual stillness of the +afternoon, accompanied by heavy rain. Now the sun shone fitfully, and +the disordered gardens and lawns were strewn with branches and +countless leaves which chased each other, bowling along on their edges +and dancing in mad eddies and circles. + +'Let's get out of sight of the house,' said Peter; and they went into +the high-walled garden and sat down on one of Miss Abingdon's +cheerful-looking white seats. + +There were long borders of dripping, storm-dashed flowers in front of +them, and mignonette run to seed, and dahlias filled with moisture to +their brims. Some gardeners were busy tying up saplings which had been +detached from their stakes, and the beech trees on the other side of +the high walls of the garden tossed their branches together and sighed +a little. + +Peter waited for a minute or two until the gardeners had moved out of +hearing, and then said abruptly and with difficulty: 'You know those +papers that the doctor gave me yesterday?' + +'Those notes and things which were on her writing-table?' Jane asked. + +Peter nodded his head, and then with an effort began again--this time +with an attempt at formality--'I 'm sorry to have to tell you that +there is something in one of them that I shall have to speak to you +about.' + +'Something in one of your mother's notes?' asked Jane, her level eyes +turned questioningly upon him. + +'I 'm telling it all wrong,' said Peter distractedly, 'and making it +worse for you.' + +'Are you quite sure that you need tell me anything at all?' asked Jane, +and she laid her hand in his. + +'I am quite sure,' he said; and then a very surprising thing happened, +for he put Jane's hand aside and stood up before her. + +'I 'm not even going to take your hand,' he said, 'until I have told +you all about it. You see, there was a letter addressed to me amongst +those on her writing-table yesterday. I 've shown it to the lawyer, +but neither he nor I can make anything of it. It is directed to me to +be given to me at her death; but she must have died while she was +writing it. It leaves off in the middle of a sentence.' + +'I think,' said Jane slowly, 'that nothing matters in the whole world +so long as we have each other.' + +'Ah, my dear!' said Peter, and he sat down on the bench and took her +hand again. 'I 'll show you the letter,' he said suddenly, and brought +the sheet of notepaper out of his pocket. + +'May I read it?' said Jane. + +'Yes, if you will,' he replied. + +Afterwards they could tell every word of the unfinished letter by +heart; but at the first reading the words seemed merely to puzzle Jane +Erskine, and conveyed very little sense to her. + +'When you get this letter I shall be dead,' wrote the woman who had +meant to live for many years, 'and before I die I think there is +something which I had better tell you. I am not haunted by remorse nor +indulging in a deathbed repentance, and I shall merely ask you not to +hate me more than you can help when you have finished reading this +letter. You must often have heard of your elder brother who died when +I was in Spain, the year after your father's death. He did not die----' + +'There must be something more,' said Jane. She turned the page this +way and that, as though to read some writing not decipherable by other +eyes. + +'I 've looked everywhere,' said Peter; 'there 's nothing more. +Besides, you see, she stops in the middle of a sheet of notepaper. Why +should she have written anything else on another piece?' + +They read the letter again together, scanning the words line by line. + +'What can it mean?' she said at last. + +'I have evidently got an elder brother,' said Peter briefly, 'to whom +everything belongs. Most people remember that my mother took a curious +antipathy to the other little chap when I was born. I can't make it +out in any possible way--no one can, of course. But it seems pretty +plain that no will can be proved, nor can I touch anything, until my +brother is known to be either dead or alive.' + +'What can we do?' said Jane. Their two hands were locked together, and +the trouble was the trouble of both. + +'I can go out to Spain, where he is supposed to have died,' said Peter, +'and make inquiries.' + +'I want to ask you something,' said Jane, after a pause. 'Let us be +married quietly, first of all, and then we can do everything together.' + +'I 'm probably a pauper,' he said simply, 'without the right to a +single stone of Bowshott. I went fully into my father's will with the +lawyer last night, and he leaves nearly everything to the eldest son.' + +'Dear Peter!' protested Jane, accepting Peter's statement, but brushing +aside its purport. + +They talked on far into the morning, at one time half distrusting the +evidence of their eyes which read the letter, at another looking far +into the future to try to pierce the veil of darkness that at present +shrouded it. Then, for there were many things to do, the young man +turned his face homeward again, and Jane sat on alone in the garden, +looking with eyes that hardly were conscious of seeing what they rested +on, while the wet branches of the beech trees rocked themselves +together, and the tearful autumn sunshine flickered on the disordered +beds of mignonette. She sat there until the stable clock struck one, +then rose and went indoors. One important decision had been made. +They would be married quietly on the day Mrs. Ogilvie had fixed for the +wedding; and then together they would seek the brother who, if he were +still alive, would be brother to them both. + +But the Court of Chancery took that reasonable view of the case which, +as it frequently happens, is directly opposed to the view-sentimental. +The Court of Chancery, in fact, refused to sanction the marriage of a +minor with a man without settled prospects, and one whose position in +the world was not confirmed by the possession either of money or of +lands. At the age of twenty-five Miss Erskine might do as she liked; +until then the Court of Chancery decided that she should divide her +time each year between her two guardians, with whom she had always +lived. No protests were of any avail, and wise relations and friends +were agreed in thinking that it was better to postpone the marriage, at +least for a time. + +The autumn passed miserably. Peter went to Juarez first of all, and +proved to be substantially true what at first he had supposed might +have been the disordered fancy of a sick woman's mind. There was no +record of the death of Edward Ogilvie, nor did any entry in registers +show the name of an English child in the year when he was supposed to +have died. No little grave in the cemetery marked his resting-place. +One fact, at least, seemed established, and that was that Peter's elder +brother had not died in infancy at Juarez. + +Not much more than this could be proved, and Peter returned home to +find that for the present nothing was legally his. Pending inquiries +Bowshott was closed. Those who were in ignorance of the real state of +affairs talked glibly of enormous death-duties which had crippled, for +a time, even the immense Ogilvie estates, and had rendered it necessary +for Peter to shut up the house and live economically. The countryside, +which called itself gay, met at many little parties and talked +charitably of the woman who was gone, saying, with an unconscious sense +of patronage, that they had always liked Mrs. Ogilvie in spite of her +faults. Death, the great leveller, had brought their unapproachable +neighbour nearer to them; they were not afraid of her now. It was +strange to think that she was really less than one of themselves in the +cold isolation and the pathetic impotence of the grave. They could +hardly picture her yet as a powerless thing--the keen, narrowing eyes +closed, the sharp-edged poniard of her speech for ever sheathed. + +Meanwhile, papers were examined, and every box and chest which +contained written matter was searched for a clue to the missing child. +Peter was engaged in long consultations with detectives, and lawyers +were running up goodly bills, and British Consuls were making +investigations abroad. A whole train of inquiries was set in motion, +and pens and tongues were busy. The powerful hand of the law stretched +itself out in secret to this country and to that, only to be met with a +baffling failure to hold or to discover anything. Money was spent +lavishly, and great brains tried to solve the mystery; and Mrs. Ogilvie +lay in her grave in a silence that could not be broken, her hand, which +had traced the few lines on one sheet of notepaper, cold and still for +ever. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +When Peter came back from Spain he came to an empty house. The big +reception rooms at Bowshott were swathed in brown holland and +dust-sheets, pictures were covered and carpets rolled up, giving an air +of desolation to the place. The flowers in the formal gardens had all +been dug up, and the carefully tended designs--so like a stitchwork +pattern--had lost their mosaic of colour, leaving merely a careful +drawing of brown upon green. The banks of flowering exotics, which his +mother had loved to have in her drawing-rooms, had been removed to the +greenhouses and conservatories. The sight of the gardeners mowing, for +the last time in the season, the hundred-year-old turf of the lawn +conveyed a suggestion of regret with it; the old pony harnessed to the +mowing machine stepped sedately and quietly in his boots on the close, +fine grass. Everything about Bowshott looked stately and beautiful in +the clean, sharp air of the morning, when Peter drove up to the +entrance after a long night journey and ascended the flight of steps +leading to the hall door. + +His return to the inheritance which had been indisputably his since he +was a little boy had a horrible feeling of unreality about it. Half a +dozen times in the course of the morning he had to check himself when +he found his thoughts wandering to alterations or improvements, and to +tell himself, with a bewildered feeling, that perhaps he had not a +right to a flower in the garden or a chair in the house. + +'I can't believe it's not mine,' he said aloud, as he drove up the long +avenue from the station in his dog-cart, with one of the famous +Bowshott hackneys in the shafts. 'I can't believe it's not mine!' +Many people might have found in the singular unhomeliness of the big +house a just cause for withholding their affection from it, but Peter +had always loved it. Every corner of the place was full of memories to +him. Here was the wall of the terrace off which, as a little boy, he +used to jump, making horrible heelmarks in the turf where he alighted; +and there was the stone summer-house, built after the fashion of a +small Greek temple, but only interesting to Peter Ogilvie from the fact +that he used to keep his wheelbarrow and garden tools there. He +remembered the first day when it had suddenly struck him that the +geometrically shaped flower-beds were designed after a pattern, and he +had counted, with his nurse, the loops and circles in the design. +There, again, were the fountains with their silver spray, in whose +basins, by the inexorable but utterly unintelligible law of the +nursery, he had never been allowed to play. Here was the clock on the +tower which used to boom out every hour as it passed, but of whose +strokes he was never conscious except when he heard it at night. +Passing inside the house was the hall, with its big round tables by the +fire, and beyond that was the library and his mother's drawing-room; +while in the older wings of the house were the ballroom where Charles +I. had banqueted, and the Sèvres sitting-room, so called from the china +plaques let into the mantelpiece, where he had made love. + +'I hope, if my brother is alive, that he is a good sort of chap,' said +Peter. + +He breakfasted in the tapestried room which he had ordered to be kept +open for him, and then went into the library to write his letters. He +had a hundred things to do. At lunch-time he interviewed his steward, +his agent, his stud-groom, and the other heads of departments of a +large estate. The horses were to be sold with the exception of a few +favourites. The gardens were to be kept up as usual. + +Some dogs of his mother's would be cared for, his bankers would pay the +usual subscriptions to local charities, and the almshouses in the +village were to be maintained as they had always been maintained. + +After lunch Mr. Semple, the lawyer, arrived. He was a pleasant man and +a keen botanist. The gardens at Bowshott were a delight to him, and +Peter had often found him good company over a cigar in the evenings. +Mr. Semple was one of those who had throughout urged secrecy and +caution in the matter of the late Mrs. Ogilvie's communication. 'In +the first place,' he said, 'it may still be proved to have been an +hallucination of her mind, attendant upon her state of health; and, in +the second place, anything like publicity might bring a host of +aspirants and adventurers whose claims would take months of +investigation to dispose of.' He advised that everything about the +house should remain in its present state for a year, until a proper +legal inquiry into the disappearance of the elder son could be +instituted. + +'He may have died as a child, although he wasn't buried at Juarez,' +said Peter. + +Jane had departed to spend her usual six months of the year with +General Erskine, but she had written to say, positively, that she knew +it would come all right; and whenever Peter was downhearted he always +thought of her letter, believing, in all simplicity, that Jane was +never wrong. If only she were at Miss Abingdon's now, instead of in +her uncle's house in Grosvenor Place! + +'She 'll miss the hunting, I 'm afraid,' he thought miserably, +contrasting their present separation with all the joy and happiness +that they had so fully intended should be theirs this winter. + +Mr. Semple had a shrewdness acquired from many years' experience in +legal matters, and he shook his head when Peter made the suggestion +that probably his brother had died in infancy. 'The conclusion I have +arrived at, after years of legal work,' he said, 'is that the +undesirable person lives, while the useful or much wanted one dies. +Those who encumber the ground remain longest upon it, and the person in +receipt of a large annuity or pension is proverbially long-lived. +However, we have so far not found a single trace of the existence of +Edward Ogilvie, though you must remember we have not yet ascertained in +which different parts of Spain your mother lived during those two years +which she spent there.' + +'I don't see who on earth is to tell us!' ejaculated Peter. 'She +generally had foreign maids about her, and I think I always had French +nurses. I never heard of any old servant who went with her on her +travels; and although, of course, money was paid to her by her bank, +and letters were forwarded to her by the bankers, the actual addresses +to which they were sent have not been kept after an interval of +twenty-five years. One of the old clerks at Coutts's remembers, in an +indefinite sort of way, that he forwarded packages for a long time to +Madrid, and afterwards, he thinks, to Toledo, and then farther south, +and at one time to Cintra; but my mother's headquarters seem always to +have been in Granada, and the clerk says that he can give me no dates +nor indeed any exact information.' + +'I did not know she had been at Cintra or Toledo,' said Mr. Semple +thoughtfully. + +'I won't swear that she had,' said Peter. 'The Peninsula wasn't so +generally known twenty-five years ago as it is now. Travelling was +difficult then, and people in England, who have not themselves +travelled much, are very liable to get confused about the names of +foreign places.' + +'Still,' said the lawyer, 'Cintra and Toledo are places that every one +knows.' + +'You mean,' said Peter, 'that in a well-known place, with English +people living in it, there would be more likelihood of getting the +information which we want?' + +'I mean,' said Mr. Semple, 'that, as there is no evidence of your +brother ever having been seen at Juarez, the next thing is to find out +in what place there is evidence of his appearance.' + +It was late afternoon, and as all clerical work for the day was now +finished, Peter suggested and Mr. Semple readily agreed to a walk in +the gardens. There was nothing left in the flower-beds, but the +conservatories and the orchid-house were a real feast of pleasure to +the lawyer. He went into the outer hall to fetch his stick and coat, +and then, turning back towards his host, he made a humorous signal to +convey the intelligence that some callers had driven up to the door. +Peter retreated precipitately; but Mr. Semple had already been seen and +was hailed by Mr. Lawrence, who had, a few minutes before, drawn up to +the entrance in his big red motor-car. Already Mr. Lawrence was in +earnest conversation with the butler, and his feminine-like +ejaculations could be heard now as he stood and conversed with the man +at the hall door. He stood on the doorstep while his guests in the +motor, who seemed to fear that they might be intrusive, looked as +though they would prefer to hasten their departure. + +'Ah, how-do-you-do, Mr. Semple,' said Mr. Lawrence in his high-pitched +voice, advancing a few steps into the hall. 'It is a great piece of +luck meeting you like this! I have just driven over with my friends, +Sir John and Lady Falconer.--Lady Falconer, may I introduce my friend, +Mr. Semple?--This is a very sad house to come to, Mr. Semple, is it +not?' he said, and paused, hoping for a little gossip from the lawyer. +'I was just driving through the village, and I have been to see the +church with my friends, and we thought we would run in and inquire how +everything was going on.' + +'Everything,' said the lawyer dryly, 'is going on as well as could be +expected.' + +'How is Peter?' said Mr. Lawrence, putting on an appropriate expression +of woe, which sat oddly on his big healthy red face. He was a kindly +man at heart, but an idle existence and his inveterate love of gossip +had made a poor creature of him. His healthy muscular frame did not +know the sensation of that honest fatigue which follows a good day's +work, and his mind travelled on lines of so little resistance that he +may be said to have exercised it almost as infrequently as he exercised +his body. + +Mr. Semple replied that Peter seemed well; and Mr. Lawrence, taking him +in an affectionate and familiar manner by the sleeve of his coat, said: +'I should so much like my friends to see the gardens; Peter would not +mind, would he?' + +Lady Falconer, the least intrusive of women, who had heard the +whispered colloquy, here interposed and said that, as she was very +cold, she would much prefer to go home; and Sir John added with simple +directness that he thought that, as the place was more or less shut up +at present, the gardens had better wait for a more fitting occasion. + +Mr. Lawrence protested that a walk would do Lady Falconer good, and +that, further, as they were leaving so soon, there would be no other +chance of seeing the famous gardens. In fact Mr. Lawrence had the door +of his motor-car open, and was helping Lady Falconer to alight almost +before he had obtained Mr. Semple's permission to make a tour of the +grounds. + +'It's all right,' he said, in his fussy, dictatorial way, divesting +himself of his heavy motor-coat, and preparing to act as cicerone. +'This place is thrown open once a week to the public; and although this +isn't a visitors' day all sorts of people come to visit Bowshott on the +other days of the week.' + +Lady Falconer felt slightly ruffled by the way in which her wishes had +been ignored in a small matter, and confined herself to talking to the +lawyer; but Mr. Lawrence overtook them on the pretext of pointing out +some special beauty of the design of the gardens, or of the fine view +that could be obtained from the high position of the terraces, and the +next moment he had plunged somewhat ruthlessly into the absorbing topic +of Mrs. Ogilvie's sudden death. + +'We were all shocked by it,' he said, emphasizing his words in his +gushing way; 'and of course to our little circle,' he said, turning to +Mr. Semple in an explanatory manner, 'it is more particularly painful +and distressing, because Sir John and Lady Falconer had only just +renewed a very old acquaintance with the deceased lady.' + +'We knew Mrs. Ogilvie very well in Spain,' said Lady Falconer in her +charming voice, still confining her remarks to Mr. Semple. + +'Ah!' said the lawyer, 'you knew her in Spain?' + +'Yes,' said Lady Falconer, 'and it was one of those friendships which I +believe it was intended on both sides should be renewed when we should +return to England; for, on my own and on my husband's part, it was a +matter of real liking. But we have been on foreign service ever since +we were married, and I never met Mrs. Ogilvie again till she drove over +to the races at Sedgwick.' + +Mr. Semple detached himself and his companion from the little group +which Mr. Lawrence was showing round with so much assiduity, and, as +they paced the broad walks of the terrace together, he said to her, +with an air of frank confidence, 'You were with her, perhaps, before +her elder child died?' + +'No,' said Lady Falconer, 'and rather strangely I never knew till the +other day that Mrs. Ogilvie had lost a child. There was only one boy +with her when we knew her at Juarez; and, although she was in deep +mourning at the time, we knew, of course, that she was in the first +year of her widowhood. But we had no idea, as I was telling Mrs. +Wrottesley the other day, that Mrs. Ogilvie had suffered a double loss.' + +Mr. Semple led the way through the orchid-house and stopped to examine +some of the blooms with absorbed attention. 'It is very chilly,' he +said, as he stepped out into the cold air after that of the hot +greenhouse; 'I hope you will not catch cold.' He locked his hands +lightly behind his back as he walked, and continued to talk to the +companion by his side. 'I wonder,' he said, 'if you could tell me +exactly the year and the month when you first met Mrs. Ogilvie? There +are various formalities to be gone through, in connection with Captain +Ogilvie's accession to the property, which necessitate hunting up +family records, and these have been very badly kept in the Ogilvie +family. Also, may I say this to you in confidence? There was an idea +in many people's minds that, about the time of Colonel Ogilvie's death +and the early infancy of the second son, Peter, Mrs. Ogilvie's mind was +slightly unhinged for a time. It may not have been so, but one cannot +help wondering if the concealment which she has used to keep from her +family the knowledge of the existence of this disease from which she +has died may not have been something like a return of an old mental +malady.' + +Lady Falconer looked genuinely distressed, and protested that certainly +when she knew Mrs. Ogilvie she was in all respects the most sane as +well as one of the most charming of women. 'And as for giving you +dates,' she said pleasantly, 'that is very easily done, for it was in +the year and the month of my marriage that I first met her.' + +'That would be?' said Mr. Semple, unlocking his clasped hands and +touching his fingers together in the characteristic manner of the +confidential lawyer. + +'That was in December 1885,' she said. + +'Ah!' said Mr. Semple contemplatively, 'then it must have been after +little Edward Ogilvie's death, of course.' + +'I cannot tell you,' said Lady Falconer, 'because, as I say, Mrs. +Ogilvie never spoke of her loss. Perhaps that does not seem to you +very remarkable, as we only met her in a most casual manner in an +out-of-the-way village in Spain; but we really were on terms of some +intimacy together, and one can only explain her silence by the fact, +which seems to be pretty generally known, that she was a woman of quite +unusual reserve.' + +'Yes,' said Mr. Semple; 'I believe no one ever knew Mrs. Ogilvie very +well.' + +Mr. Lawrence called to them from behind to suggest that the new row of +greenhouses was an immense improvement, and that they had cost over a +thousand pounds to build. + +Lady Falconer politely turned to look back, and then found herself +rather determinedly appropriated by the lawyer. + +'I always understood,' he said, 'that Mrs. Ogilvie travelled +considerably in Spain; and, of course, in those days when railways were +fewer, this was considered rather unusual, especially for a lady +travelling with no gentleman with her. How courageous she was!' + +'Much more courageous than I was even with my husband with me!' said +Lady Falconer. 'Mrs. Ogilvie had been in quite out-of-the-way parts of +the country; but she spoke the language perfectly, and I believe I used +to hear that she had Spanish blood in her veins.' + +'Yes; she had property at Granada, and beyond where the railway now +extends, in some of the more southern provinces,' hazarded Mr. Semple. + +'I think if I remember aright,' said Lady Falconer, 'that she had just +returned from Cintra when I met her.' + +'I have always heard that Cintra is a most lovely place,' said Mr. +Semple conversationally; 'and Mrs. Ogilvie had a peculiar love for +beautiful things.' + +'Cintra is beautiful, and Lisbon itself is a particularly fine town,' +assented Lady Falconer. + +'Mrs. Ogilvie was not there when you knew her?' + +Lawyers are inquisitive by profession, and Mr. Semple made his +inquiries with easy tact; his manner was kind and pleasant, and +betrayed so much real feeling for his clients that Lady Falconer was +tempted to continue the subject of conversation in which he seemed so +deeply interested. + +'I wish,' she said cordially, 'that I could remember more details that +might be of interest or of use to you. My husband and I have spent a +most varied life, in which many interesting experiences have, alas! +been almost forgotten; but we were both considerably impressed by Mrs. +Ogilvie's vivid personality and her very real charm. These made much +more impression on me than anything that she told us about her +journeys. She was fond of travelling by sea, I remember, and I +perfectly well recollect her telling my husband and me that she had +come by ship to Lisbon when she first came to travel in Spain for her +health.' + +'Yes, I remember hearing that,' said Mr. Semple. 'Indeed, I believe +that we took her passage for her, and in going over her papers the +other day we came across two letters which she had written home from +the ship.' + +'Talking of that,' said Lady Falconer, 'I wonder if the maid who was +with her during the time I was there could be of service to you? I +often think a maid must know her mistress with even a greater degree of +intimacy than many of her friends, and I remember it was a particularly +nice Spanish woman whose services she lent me when I was ill.' + +Mr. Semple would like to know if Lady Falconer remembered whether the +woman had come out from England with Mrs. Ogilvie. + +'I am afraid I cannot,' said Lady Falconer. 'But stop! Yes, I can. +The maid who came out from England with Mrs. Ogilvie left her because +she objected to the sea-voyage. It seems that the poor thing was so +ill that she never appeared the whole time, and as soon as the ship +touched port she went straight back to England by land. I remember it +quite well now, because that was a particularly stormy winter, with +dreadful gales; and when my illness was at its worst it was another +very stormy night, and this Spanish woman whom I mentioned just now +told me the story, and was evidently full of sympathy for the English +maid. She enlivened the whole of her watch during the night by +lamentations over the danger of sea-voyages, interspersed with prayers +to the Virgin. I shall never forget how it blew! The house shook with +the violence of the gale, and this Spanish woman sat by my bed and told +me stories of shipwreck and of bodies washed up on the beach. Mrs. +Ogilvie, I understand, had but lately parted with friends. Ah, I see +now! I do not speak Spanish well, and I remember I had an idea at the +time that this parting which the woman spoke of had something to do +with friends who had left her. But, of course, what the Spanish woman +must really have meant was that Mrs. Ogilvie had lately suffered a +bereavement.' + +'It is strange, then, is it not,' said the lawyer, 'that you should +connect this parting in your own mind with the storm that was raging on +the night of which you spoke?' + +'That doesn't seem to me very strange,' said Lady Falconer, 'because, +as I have said, I know so little Spanish. And yet I have an idea that +this very emotional serving-woman seemed to predict some horrible +catastrophe to the travellers.' + +'How little self-control some of these people have!' commented Mr. +Semple. 'I always wonder how it is that ladies choose foreign women to +be their personal attendants. I suppose you don't happen to know if +this maid remained long with Mrs. Ogilvie?' + +'I do not indeed,' said Lady Falconer; 'but I am under the impression +that Mrs. Ogilvie changed her maids frequently. This will coincide +with your view that she was in a nervous, uncontrolled condition at the +time, although in other respects I cannot honestly say that I ever +noticed the least sign of an unhinged mind. One thought that she was +too much alone; but, of course, her loss was a very recent one, and +everybody knows that in grief there often comes a desire for solitude.' + +'It was sad, therefore,' said Mr. Semple, 'that these friends of hers +should be leaving her just then. Mrs. Ogilvie would have been all the +better for having a few intimates about her. It would be useful if you +could remember their names.' + +'I do not even know that they were friends,' protested Lady Falconer; +'and, as I told you, the Spanish maid may well have been alluding to a +recent death. But indeed the incident made very little impression on +my mind; even if I were able to give you information about these +unknown friends I do not know how it could in any way help you to solve +the sad question of her mental state at the time.' + +'You think these friends of hers whom you speak of would not be able to +do so either?' + +'Ah!' cried Lady Falconer, 'you are accepting my vague recollections +almost as if they were legal evidence, whereas I really cannot tell you +whether the Spanish maid alluded to friends or to the death of Mrs. +Ogilvie's husband and her little boy. I can only say that the +impression that remains with me is that Mrs. Ogilvie had been seeing +some friends off on a voyage.' + +'It would be important to know who those friends were,' said Mr. Semple. + +'I wish I could help you!' said Lady Falconer. + +They made a longer _détour_ in the gardens than Lady Falconer would +have cared to make had she not been interested in the man by her side, +whose inquisitiveness was based upon friendship, and whose most +persistent interrogations had been touched with a quiet and sober tact +which contrasted pleasantly with Mr. Lawrence's dictatorial manner. +That genial and rubicund person was now seen approaching with Sir John, +and suggested that they 'ought to draw Peter for tea.' + +Lady Falconer declined the refreshment with considerable emphasis. +This visit to the closed house so recently shadowed by death seemed to +her in doubtful taste, and she would now have preferred to return home; +but Peter had seen them from the house, and being the least churlish of +men he came out on to the terrace and invited the party to come in. He +disliked Mr. Lawrence as much as it was in his uncritical nature to +dislike any one; but it is more than possible that he would have +resented a word said in his disfavour. 'Lawrence is a good fellow,' he +used to say charitably, 'only he is so beastly domestic.' + +Mr. Lawrence's conversation was indeed principally of the intimate +order of things, and was concerned with details of births, deaths, and +marriages, such as the feminine rather than the male mind is more +generally supposed to indulge in. He drank several cups of tea, and +was deeply interested in the fact that the tea-service was not the one +in common use at Bowshott, and that, therefore, probably the bulk of +the silver had been sent to the bank. He would have liked to make a +tour of the rooms to see if there were any other changes noticeable +anywhere, and he more than once remarked to his friends as they drove +home in the motor-car that he could not understand why the +drawing-rooms were swathed in brown holland unless Peter meant to go +away again. If so, when was the marriage to be? Why should it be +postponed for more than a brief period of mourning? And why did the +rooms which he had seen through the windows wear such a shut-up and +dismantled appearance? He found food for speculation during the whole +afternoon call, and in his inquisitive way gave his mind to finding out +as much as possible about his neighbour's doings. + +Lady Falconer sat by the fire of logs, while Mr. Lawrence's garrulous +conversation went on uninterruptedly. Peter found her quiet manner +attractive, and began to feel grateful to Mr. Lawrence for his +intrusiveness, without which he would not have enjoyed a conversation +with this pleasant, gentle-mannered woman seated thoughtfully by the +fire. + +'May I ask a favour?' said Mr. Lawrence gushingly, laying his hand upon +Peter's shoulder. 'I want awfully to see that new heating apparatus +you have had put in downstairs. I was recommending it the other day to +Carstairs; but I want to know something more about it, and then I shall +be able to explain it better. How much coal, for instance, do you find +it consumes?' + +When the two had sought the lower regions Mr. Semple took Peter's +vacant chair by the fire. Lady Falconer held her muff between her and +the blaze, and her face was in shadow. The lawyer said briefly, 'We +are in great perplexity, and I think you can help us, and I feel +sure'--he looked at her with admiration--'that whatever I say to you +will be received in confidence.' + +'It shall be in confidence,' said Lady Falconer. + +'At the same time,' said Mr. Semple, 'I must tell you that I mean to +ask you a great many questions, and tell you very little in return--at +least for the present. In the first place, it is all-important that we +should know when Mrs. Ogilvie's elder boy died.' + +'And I,' said Lady Falconer hopelessly, 'did not even know until the +other day that she had had another boy.' + +'And yet,' said the lawyer, 'however slight the chain of evidence is, +we must follow it closely. You are probably the person who saw Mrs. +Ogilvie first after the death of the child.' + +'That I can hardly believe,' protested Lady Falconer. 'It seems to me +that, however reserved a woman might be, she would still let another +woman know about so intimate a trouble.' + +'Mrs. Ogilvie was a very unusual woman,' said Mr. Semple. + +'But even so----' began Lady Falconer. + +'Even so,' repeated the lawyer, 'my friend Peter and his talkative +neighbour will soon be back again, and I must examine my witness before +they return.' + +'But a witness,' exclaimed Lady Falconer, 'whose evidence is based on +the only-half-intelligible gossip of a Spanish serving-woman made +twenty-five years ago, and a week spent in an out-of-the-way +mountain-village where she was ill nearly the whole time!' + +Mr. Semple waved aside protests. 'Do forgive me for bothering you,' he +said, 'and try to remember positively if there were any friends or +neighbours who came about the house of whom we could perhaps ask +tidings?' + +'I am sure there were none,' said Lady Falconer. 'The charm of the +place to Mrs. Ogilvie was, I know, its solitude, just as was its charm +for us also.' + +'No English people?' + +'None, I am quite sure.' + +'You have no idea who those friends were to whom Mrs. Ogilvie had +lately said good-bye, and who were starting on a voyage?' + +'I think,' said Lady Falconer slowly, 'it was because the storm blew so +loudly that we spoke of them; and, yes, I am sure the woman crossed +herself and prayed for those at sea.' + +She hesitated, and Mr. Semple giving her a quick glance said, 'I am +only asking for a woman's impression.' + +'And at this length of time I cannot even tell you how I came to have +this impression,' she replied, 'and yet the picture remains in my mind +that these people, whoever they were, were sailing from Lisbon. The +maid who waited upon me had evidently been engaged in Lisbon.' + +Peter and Mr. Lawrence were heard in the hall outside, and the +motor-car was at the door. + +'Thank you very much,' said the lawyer, as the door opened. + +Mr. Semple left the following morning, and did not return until the end +of the week. He was a contented man, and made an excellent companion, +and Peter enjoyed seeing him again and having his companionship at +dinner on the night of his return. He was always interested in +something, and quite disposed to take a book and remain quiet when his +client was busy or disinclined for conversation. He and Peter smoked +in silence for a considerable time after the servants had left the +room, and even when an adjournment had been made to the library the +lawyer, who was possibly tired after his journey, sat quietly in a +leather armchair by the fire without saying anything. + +Peter began to talk about the small items of news of the neighbourhood. +'The Falconers have left,' he said. 'I wonder what they found to amuse +them at Lawrence's place?' + +'Lawrence himself, perhaps,' said Mr. Semple dryly. + +'But Lady Falconer does not even laugh at people,' replied Peter. 'I +thought her a very charming woman.' + +'She is a very charming woman,' replied Mr. Semple, 'and she used to +know your mother long ago in Spain.' + +Peter took his cigar out of his mouth, and turned interrogatively +towards the lawyer. 'I don't suppose she was able to tell you +anything?' he said, with a sharp note of interest in his voice. + +'She was able to tell me nothing,' said Mr. Semple, 'except a woman's +impression of a conversation she had with a Spanish serving-woman.' + +'I should like to hear all she had to say,' said Peter briefly. + +'Ships sailing for Argentine stop at Lisbon and take up passengers +there,' said Mr. Semple. 'I have been to Lisbon since I last saw you. +Mrs. Ogilvie paid the passage-money for a married couple and a child +who sailed from that place in December of the year in which your +brother is said to have died.' + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +'I think I 'll go over and see Toffy,' said Peter to himself one day in +the following week. Mr. Semple had been down to Bowshott again, +bringing a mass of correspondence with him, and had left that morning. +Nigel Christopherson was ill at Hulworth with one of his usual +appalling colds, which brought him as nearly as possible to the grave +every time they attacked him. Peter once again read through the +letters and papers which he and the family lawyer had pored over until +the small hours of this morning, and then he ordered his horse and rode +over to see his friend. + +No one ever arrived at Hulworth without remarking on the almost +grotesque ugliness of the house. It was a flat-faced, barrack-like +residence, with a stuccoed front and rows of ill-designed windows. A +grim-looking flight of stone stairs with iron railings led to the front +door, and beyond that were large and hideous rooms filled with +treasures of art incongruously hung on lamentable wall-papers or +pendent over pieces of furniture which would have made a connoisseur's +eyes ache. The house and its furnishings were a strange mixture; the +owner of the grim pile, be it said, had a mind which presented a blank +to the dictates of art, and it puzzled him sorely to determine which of +his possessions was beautiful and which was not. He had heard people +become enthusiastic over his pictures, which he thought hideous, while +they had frankly abused his furniture, which he was inclined to think +was everything that was desirable. + +'There 's only one way,' he used to say hopelessly, 'in which a fellow +can know whether a thing is ugly or the reverse, and that is by fixing +a price to it. If only some one would be kind enough to stick on a lot +of labels telling me what the things are worth I should know what to +admire and what to shudder at; but, as it is, the things which I +personally like are always the things which other people abuse.' + +And, alas for Sir Nigel and his lightly held treasures of art! his +pictures and the vases ranged in great glass cases in the hall were +heirlooms, and Toffy in his most impecunious days would often look at +them sadly and shake his head, murmuring to himself, 'I 'd take five +hundred pounds for the lot, and be glad to get rid of them.' There +were days when in a gentle, philosophical way he felt a positive sense +of injury in thinking of the vases behind the big glass doors, and he +would then go into intricate and complicated sums in arithmetic whereby +he could tell what it cost him per annum to look at the contents of the +cases and the old portraits in their dim frames. + +This afternoon he was lying on a florid and uncomfortable-looking sofa +in a very large drawing-room, in front of a fireplace of white marble +in scroll patterns and with a fender of polished steel. It was +probably the ugliest as well as the least comfortable room in the +house, but it happened to be the only one in which there was a good +fire that afternoon; and Toffy, descending from his bedroom, weak and +ill with influenza, had come in there at two o'clock, and was now lying +down with a railway-rug placed across his feet, and his head +uncomfortably supported by a hard roller-cushion and an ornamentation +in mahogany which gracefully finished off the pattern of the +sofa-frame. Many men when they are ill take the precaution of making +their wills; Sir Nigel's preparation for a possible early demise always +took the form of elaborately and sadly adding up his accounts. He had +a large ledger beside him on the sofa, and slips of paper covered with +intricate figures which neither he nor any one else could decipher. + +His faithful valet Hopwood had been dispatched to London in order to +learn chauffeur's work; for Toffy had decided, after working the matter +out to a fraction, that a considerable saving could be effected in this +way. His debts to the garage were being duly entered amongst Toffy's +liabilities at this moment as he lay on the sofa in the vast cold +drawing-room. + +The drawing-room was not often used now. But it was the custom of his +housekeeper to air the rooms once a week; and, this being Wednesday, +she had lighted a fire there, while Lydia, a young housemaid and +general factotum, had allowed all other fires to go out. There was a +palpable sense of chilliness about the room, and in one corner of it +the green-and-gold wall-paper showed stains of damp. Long gilded +mirrors between tall windows occupied one side of the room, and had +marble shelves beneath them upon which were placed ornate Bohemian +glass vases and ormolu clocks and candlesticks. Some uncovered and +highly polished mahogany tables imparted a hard and somewhat undraped +look to the apartment. The windows, with their aching lines of +plate-glass, were draped with rep curtains of vivid green, while the +floor was covered with an Aubusson carpet exquisite in its colour and +design. And between the green woollen bell-ropes on each side of the +fireplace and above the cold hideousness of the marble mantelpiece hung +a portrait by Romney of a lady as beautiful as a flower. + +Sir Nigel had endeavoured to eat for lunch part of a chicken which +his housekeeper had warmed up with a little grey sauce; and he was +now wondering as he lay on the sofa whether any one would come if +he were to tug at the green bell-rope over his head, or whether he +could make his own way upstairs to his bedroom and get some fresh +pocket-handkerchiefs. He had had a temperature for the greater part +of the week, and he was now feeling as if his legs did not altogether +belong to him; while, to make up for their feebleness and lightness, +his head was most insistently there, and felt horribly hot and heavy. + +He had just decided that he had better mount the long stairs to his +room, for not only was there the consideration of handkerchiefs; there +was medicine too which the doctor had told him to take, but which he +always forgot at the right moment. He thought the journey had better +be made now, and he could do the two things at one and the same time. +He walked with uneven steps to the window and looked out upon some +stretches of field which were euphemistically termed the Park, and +watched a flock of sheep huddled together to protect themselves from +the first sharp touch of frost, when he heard the sound of hoofs and +saw Peter ride up to the door. + +'It's an extraordinary thing,' he said to himself as he saw his friend +dismount, 'Peter always seems to come when you want him. I believe he +has got some sort of instinct which tells him when his friends are down +on their luck!' + +Peter would, of course, fetch the medicine from upstairs, and the +pocket-handkerchiefs. Toffy wondered if he had ever felt ill in his +life, and thought to himself, gazing without envy at the neat, athletic +figure on the horse, what a good fellow he was. He crept back to the +sofa again, and extending his thin hand to Peter as he entered, said, +'You see here the wreck of my former self! Sit down, Peter, and ring +for tea; there isn't the smallest chance of your getting any!' + +'Why didn't you come to Bowshott, you ass, if you are ill?' said Peter +sternly. 'You will kill yourself some day coming down to this +half-warmed barn in the winter-time.' + +'It isn't half warmed,' said Toffy. 'I wish it were! This room is all +right, isn't it? I aired another sofa by sleeping on it last night.' + +'What on earth for?' demanded Peter, still in a tone of remonstrance. +Toffy had been his fag at Eton, and Peter had got into the habit of +taking care of him. He knew his friend's constitution better than most +people did, and he expended much affection upon him, and endeavoured +without any success to make him take care of himself. 'Why didn't you +sleep in your bed like a Christian?' he demanded sternly. 'You will +kill yourself if you go on playing the fool with your health!' + +'The sheets seemed a bit damp in my bed, I thought,' said Toffy simply. + +'Then why didn't your idiot of a housekeeper air them?' + +'The duty of airing sheets is invested in the person of one Lydia, the +niece of the above-mentioned housekeeper,' said Toffy. 'I asked her in +the morning if my sheets had been aired, and she said that they had +not. She further explained that she had taken the precaution of +feeling them, and that they had not seemed very wet!' + +'Oh, hang Mrs. Avory!' said Peter inwardly. 'Why has not Toffy got a +good wife to look after him? Look here,' he said decisively, 'I am +going to sleep over here to-night, and see that you go to bed, and I'm +going to get your sheets now and warm 'em.' + +'You 'll get a beastly dinner if you stay,' said Toffy through his nose. + +Peter brought the sheets down in a bundle, and placing a row of hideous +walnut-wood chairs with their legs in the fender, he proceeded to tinge +the fine linen sheets a deep brown. + +'They are warmed through,' he said grimly, when the smell of scorched +linen became intrusive. + +Peter made tea in the drawing-room and spilt a good deal of boiling +water on the steel fender, and then he drew the green rep curtains +across the cold windows, and made up a roaring fire, and pulled a +screen round the sofa. He fetched his friend's forgotten medicine from +his bedroom and administered it, and told him with a lame attempt at +jocosity that he should have a penny if he took it like a lamb! Peter +was full of small jokes this afternoon, and full, too, of a certain +restlessness which had not expended itself when he had warmed sheets +and made up fires and brewed tea to the destruction of the Hulworth +steel fenders. He talked cheerfully on a dozen topics of conversation +current in the neighbourhood, and on Toffy's invitation he sent a +servant over to Bowshott to give notice that he would stay the night, +and to bring back his things. + +'I have been doing up my accounts,' said Toffy, 'and I believe the +saddest book I ever read is my bank-book! A man has been down from the +British Museum to look at those vases in the hall, and he says that one +of them alone is worth four thousands pounds!--four thousand pounds, +Peter! for a vase that's eating its head off in a glass case, and might +be broken any day by a housemaid, while I perish with hunger!' + +'If it's money,' began Peter easily, 'you 're an idiot if you don't let +me know what you want.' + +And then the whole realization of his uncertain position smote him +sharply and cruelly for a moment as he remembered that he did not know +how he stood with the world as regards money, and that probably he was +not in the position to lend a five-pound note to any one. He had +accumulated through sheer laziness a certain number of large debts, the +payment of which had never troubled himself or his creditors, who were +only too glad to keep his name on their books; but now it seemed that +if he were to have merely a younger son's portion he might even find +himself in debt to his brother's estate. He had gone thoroughly with +the lawyer into the will of his father, and found that everything which +it was possible to tie up on the elder son had been willed to him. His +own share of the patrimony if his brother were still alive would be but +a small one. + +He got up from his chair and walked to the window, and pulling aside +the curtain looked out on the frosty garden. + +'It's going to be a bitter cold night,' he said. 'I think I will just +look in at your room again, and see if they have made up the fire +properly.' + +He returned to the drawing-room and took up two or three newspapers in +turn and laid them down again, while Toffy watched him gravely. + +'I 've had a bit of a jar lately,' he said at last, taking up his stand +with his back to the fire near the sofa. + +'Have some dinner first,' said Toffy, 'and then we 'll go into the +matter, as I always do with my creditors. You see, if one has a cook +like Mrs. Cosby, there is an element of chance in the matter of getting +dinner at all; and another thing is it may be so bad you won't survive +it; so it's not much use being miserable before dinner, is it, when +perhaps you may be buried comfortably and respectably afterwards?' + +The presence of Lydia, who listened open-mouthed to all that was said, +made conversation impossible, until at last, in an ecstasy of +importance at having broken a dessert dish, she placed the wine upon +the table and withdrew. Toffy carried the decanters into the +drawing-room, where he believed he and Peter would be more comfortable, +and having placed them on the table by the fire he congratulated his +friend that they had both survived the ordeal of dinner, and then he +suggested that Peter should tell him what was up. + +'Rather a beastly thing has happened,' said Peter. He rose from the +chair where he was sitting and went and stood by the marble +mantelpiece. The black tie which he wore seemed to accentuate his +fairness, and it was a boyish, unheroic figure which leaned against the +whiteness of the marble mantelpiece as he began his puzzling tale. It +did not take very long in the telling, and until he had finished Toffy +did not speak. Indeed, there was silence for some time in the room +after Peter had done, and then, there being no necessity for much +speech or protestation between the two, Toffy said merely, 'What are +you going to do?' + +'I am going to the Argentine next week,' said Peter. 'It seems proved +beyond any manner of doubt that my mother paid the passage of a woman +and a little boy to go there in the very month and in the year that my +brother was supposed to have died, and Cintra or Lisbon are the last +places where there is even the vaguest evidence of her having been seen +with two boys.' + +Toffy lay on the sofa thinking, his arm thrown above his head in the +attitude that was characteristic of him during the many weeks of +illness that he usually had in the year. + +'I can't think why,' he said, 'you should go yourself. There must be +plenty of lawyers in Buenos Ayres who would undertake to see the thing +through for you.' + +'Well, come,' said Peter, 'if my brother has been done out of the place +for twenty-five years, and if he is a good chap, and all that, I +suppose the least one could do would be to try and look as if one +didn't grudge giving him back his own.' + +Probably there is an element of fairness about English men and women +which obtrudes itself from time to time to their disadvantage; and +Peter already found himself occupying, in his own mind at least, the +position of the younger son. + +'We will brave the terrors of the vasty deep together,' said Toffy; +'it's no use your going alone.' + +'You ain't up to it,' said Peter gruffly, 'thanks all the same, old +chap.' + +'I must fly somewhere,' said Toffy, 'it doesn't much matter where.' + +'Has the usual acute financial crisis come?' Peter said, looking +affectionately at the long, thin figure on the sofa. 'You can't the +least deceive me into thinking you had better go into Argentine to hunt +for a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. It isn't good +enough!' + +'I shall have to get a lot of boots,' said Toffy thoughtfully; 'it +seems the right sort of thing to do when one is starting on an +expedition, and I would rather like to get some of those knives that +fellows seem to buy when they go out to South America.' + +'You see,' objected Peter, allowing the question of boots and +hunting-knives to lapse, 'the place is right enough, I have no doubt, +but it's pretty big, and I don't a bit know what is in front of me. I +'ll tell you what I will do, though, I 'll send for you as soon as I +get there if I find it's a white man's country at all, and then we will +jog round together.' + +'I suppose we couldn't go in a yacht?' said Toffy, inspired with a +sudden suggestion, and sitting up on the sofa full of grave interest. +'There 'd be much less chance of being copped on the pier than if one +travelled on a liner. Another thing, I 'm not at all sure that a yacht +wouldn't be a good investment; it really is the only way to live +economically and keep out of the reach of duns at the same time. A +nice little eighty-tonner now, for instance, with Just two or three +hands and a boy on board. What could be cheaper than that? And you +could live the simple life to any extent that you liked! But of course +something larger would be wanted for Argentine, and she couldn't be +fitted out in time. No, Peter, I think I 'll risk having the heavy +hand of the law laid upon me at starting, and we 'll just have to lump +it and go in a mail steamer.' + +Peter laughed. 'My bold buccaneer!' he said. + +They sat silent for a time in the drawing-room with its crude colours +and priceless china, while the big fire in the burnished steel grate +roared with a jolly sound up the big chimney, and the air was frosty +and cold outside. The room despite its hideousness was full of +pleasant recollections to them both, for when Hulworth was not let +Toffy had often assembled bachelor parties there, and it had always +been a second home to Peter, where he had been wont to keep a couple of +guns and some of his 'things.' + +The actual journey to Argentine was not a matter demanding any courage +on the part of either of the young men, but the result of the journey +might have a grave effect on the fortune of Peter Ogilvie. Tomorrow +was to have been his wedding-day; and this fact being persistently +present to both men, they left the subject to the last. It was with an +effort that Peter said, before they parted for the night, 'Whatever +happens, we mean to try to be married when I come back. Jane is +awfully plucky about it, but this confounded Court of Chancery does not +seem to regard me with much favour at present.' + +'It's only for a year,' said Toffy hopefully. 'Let's make a solemn +covenant that we shall meet in this very room on the 25th of October +1911, with the wedding-day fixed for to-morrow again.' + +'Where is your Bible?' said Peter. 'If you haven't one in your pocket +or under your pillow, will it do if I kiss your account-book?' + +'The whole thing can be just as we intended it to be,' said Toffy +cheerfully. 'And this time next year Jane will be staying with Miss +Abingdon, and old Wrot will be ironing out his surplice--at least Mrs. +Wrot will, and he 'll look on and think he 's doing it. And I 'll be +here, probably with a cold in my head as usual, and thereto I plight +thee my troth!' + +He fingered in his pocket the wedding-ring which Peter had given him +for safe custody, and the care of which had seriously disturbed his +slumbers at night. 'I 'll keep the ring until then, Peter, and place +it on the third finger of Jane's left hand. No, no, you do that, by +the way; and I shall have to wait until I get a wife of my own.' + +'Here 's to her good health!' said Peter. And they endeavoured to be +lively, as befits the subject of weddings; but Peter was thinking that +perhaps his own wedding-day might be five years hence, and however they +might plan that it should be the same as they had first intended, it +was a long time to wait. And Toffy was wondering how long Horace Avory +meant to live, and if Carrie would mind very much his going to +Argentine, and whether she would write him one of those long +tear-blistered letters in her indistinct handwriting, which he found so +hard to read, and, suppose Horace Avory never died (as seemed quite +likely), what would be the end of it all? Also, he wondered whether +Carrie and Miss Sherard would get on well together if they were to +meet, and he hoped with manly stupidity that they might be friends. +But what he wondered more than anything else at present was whether +Kitty Sherard would allow him to go and say good-bye to her. Toffy was +feeling ill, and his vitality was low; in his weakness he thought with +an insistence that was almost homesick in its intensity how beautiful +it would be to see her in this ugly old house of his, in one of her +rose-coloured gowns, and with her brown curls and her hopelessly +baffling and bewildering manner of speech. + +And each of the two young men, being absorbed in quite other subjects, +talked cheerfully of the voyage, and speculated on what sort of sport +they might incidentally get; and they discussed much more seriously the +fishing flies and guns they should take with them than the possible +finding of Peter's brother or Peter's own change of fortune. + +Lydia, listening at the door before she went to bed, for no particular +reason except that her aunt had forbidden it, decided that her master +and Captain Ogilvie were planning a sporting expedition +together--'which means dullness and aunt for me for a few months to +come,' said Lydia, with a sniff. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +So Peter went to London to collect his kit and to say good-bye to Jane +Erskine, and Nigel Christopherson ordered a great many new boots of +various designs, and some warlike weapons, and then there came the time +when he had to write to Mrs. Avory to say that he was going away, and +when in the solitude of his life at Hulworth he had time to sit down +and wonder what she would think about it. He was not long left in +doubt. A telegram came first, and then a letter. 'Dearest, dearest,' +this ran, 'I cannot let you go away.' It was a horribly compromising +letter, but it came from a poor little woman who had fought long odds, +and who was often very tired, and who sat for the greater part of the +day making blouses for which she was seldom paid. Mrs. Avory was not a +strong woman, nor in any way a great-minded woman, but she was one who, +in spite of weakness and a good deal of silliness, clung almost +fiercely to the fact that she must be good, and who kept faithfully the +promises she had made to a wholly unworthy person in the village church +at home twelve years ago. Every word of the letter was an appeal to +her dear, dear Nigel to stay in England and not leave her alone. She +had so few friends and so little to look forward to except his Sunday +visits. And then this poor tear-blotched letter which was neither very +grammatical nor legibly written changed its tone suddenly, and Mrs. +Avory said that perhaps it was better that he should go. Everything +was very difficult, and it seemed that although his society was the one +thing that she loved in the world, perhaps the fact of seeing him made +things almost more difficult. Her husband, she heard, had been +watching her movements lately; they said he wanted to marry some one +else, so really and truly Nigel had better go, and if possible forget +all about her for ever. + +Toffy finished reading the letter and groaned. 'Was she never to have +a good time!' he wondered, thinking of the dull room and the +half-finished blouses upon the table, the economical gas jets in the +fireplace in lieu of the glow of a bright fire, and the dingy paper on +the walls. The whole thing was too hard on her, he thought, and +everything in the world seemed to be against her. + +Long ago, when he was little more than a boy, he had met Horace Avory +and his wife in an out-of-the-way fishing village in Wales. Avory's +treatment of the small timid woman had roused pity and resentment in +Toffy's mind. A student of character would have seen directly that a +woman with more power and strength of mind--a woman with a bit of the +bully in herself--who could have taken the upper hand with the big +red-faced tyrant, might have made a very fairly good imitation of a +gentleman, and perhaps even of a good husband, of Avory. But his +wife--timid, and all too gentle--could only wince under the things he +said, or let her big eyes suddenly brim over with tears. Toffy began +to writhe under the cruel speeches which Avory made to her; he never +saw for an instant that there was a fault anywhere save with the +husband. She was one of those women who invariably inspire sweeping +and contradictory criticisms on the whole of her sex, one man finding +in her a proof that all women are angels, and the next discovering as +certainly that all women are fools. + +Presently Avory left the fishing village on the plea of business and +went back to London, leaving his wife and child in the little hotel by +the sea. There had followed a whole beautiful sunlit month of peace +and quiet for Mrs. Avory, while her little girl played on the sands and +she worked and read, or walked and fished with Nigel, and the colour +came back to her cheeks, and the vague look of terror left her eyes. +And Toffy determined that Mrs. Avory should have a good time for once. + +The years between boyhood and manhood had been bridged over by a sense +that some one needed his care, and that he was a protection to a little +woman who was weak and unhappy. And, whether it was love or not, the +thing was honourable and straightforward as an English boy can make it. +And then one night by the late post had come a letter from Horace Avory +of a kind particularly calculated to wound. Mrs. Avory brought it to +Toffy to read out on the sands; and she broke down suddenly and sobbed +as though her heart would break; and Toffy to comfort her had told her +that he loved her, and meant every word he said, and asked what on +earth he could do for her, and said that she must really try not to cry +or it would make her ill. He put his arm round the trembling +form,--and Mrs. Avory took his hand in hers and clung to it; and then, +comforted, she had dried her eyes at last, and gone back to the little +hotel again. Toffy saw the whole scene quite plainly before him now. +The little whitewashed inn with the hill behind it, the moonlit water +of the bay, and the tide coming rolling in across the wet sands. When +they met on the following day he told her with boyish chivalry that he +would wait for her for years if need were, and that some day they +should be happy together. + +That had all happened long ago now, and during the years between they +had hoped quite openly and candidly that it would all come right some +day, although hardly saying even to themselves that the coming right +was dependent upon Horace Avory's death. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Avory worked hard at her unremunerative tasks, and +trimmed parasols and cut out blouses, and worked hopefully, because she +knew that it would all come right some day, and because Nigel had said +that he loved her. And Nigel wrote regularly to her, and always went +to see her on Sunday when he was in London. And every night of his +life of late he had dreamed of a girl dressed in rose colour, who had +given him her photograph to put on his writing-table. + +He read Mrs. Avory's letter again (she wrote probably the worst hand in +Christendom), and when he had spelt the ill-formed words once more, he +discovered that the blotched and scrawled writing contained a +postscript which he had not at first noticed. 'After all, you had +better not come here,' it said, 'but I will run down and see you +to-morrow. It is far the best and wisest plan, and I must say +good-bye. Please expect me by the three o'clock train.' The letter, +as usual, had not been posted in time to reach him in the morning, and +Toffy realized almost with a sense of disaster that to-morrow was now +to-day, and that it was too late to write and expostulate or to suggest +to Mrs. Avory how unwise her visit would be. There was nothing for it +but to order the motor-car and go to the station to meet her, and +afterwards to give her tea in the library, and say to her all the +comforting and consoling things he could think of. + +Mrs. Avory appeared more than usually worn and thin this afternoon; and +her eyes, so ready to brim with tears, looked pathetically large in her +sallow little face. She had been sitting up late for many nights to +finish her work, and there had been 'bothers' in her little household +which she took to heart and worried over. Her dress looked worn and +shabby, and her gloves were darned. The nervousness in her manner was +increased by ill-health, and she reiterated that she knew she had done +the best thing in running down here quietly for an hour, and that she +had quite meant to bring her child and the governess; but Dorothy had +not been well, and she did not like either to bring her or to leave her +alone. + +'I didn't know until the last minute that they couldn't come,' she +reiterated nervously. Perhaps--who knows?--even she, poor soul, was +dimly conscious that she had done a not very wise deed. But Toffy was +all that was comforting and tender towards her, told her without +flinching that of course she had done the right thing, and that it was +awfully plucky of her to have come. He took off the damp tweed cape +which she wore and led her to the fire. They had tea together in the +big cold drawing-room, and then came the time to say good-bye, and Mrs. +Avory pleaded to walk to the station for the sake of one last talk +together, and her watch--which never kept scrupulous time--deceiving +her as to the hour, she missed the last train at the little branch +station at Hulworth, and then wondered tearfully, and with an access of +nervousness which rendered her almost hysterical, what she should do. + +Toffy had a Bradshaw twelve months old which he promised to consult if +Mrs. Avory would walk back with him across the fields again to the +house. He consoled her as best he could, and assured her that it would +be all right. And Mrs. Cosby, who was really a great woman at a +crisis, suggested suddenly and with brilliance that there was a train +from the main station ten miles off at eight o'clock, and that the +motor, if it did not break down, might take them there in half an hour. +She provided warm wraps for the lady, and Nigel found rugs for her; and +when all had been arranged, and she who got so little pleasure started +for a moonlight drive in the cold crisp air, with Nigel taking care of +her and wrapping her up warmly in rugs and furs, Mrs. Avory felt with a +sudden rush of that joy of which she had so little experience that all +had turned out happily and for the best. + +It was not Toffy's fault upon this occasion that the motor-car came to +grief. Mr. Lawrence's big Panhard ran into them when they were seven +miles from home, and Mrs. Avory was taken back to Hulworth insensible +and with a broken arm. Mr. Lawrence was himself bruised and shaken, +but he helped to take Mrs. Avory home, where the housekeeper's greeting +convinced him, if he had required convincing, that Mrs. Avory was +staying at Hulworth. He said good-night when he had done everything +that was useful and neighbourly, and had sent his chauffeur in his own +car for the doctor, and had been helpful in getting remedies and +suggesting cures. And the following day he had the pleasure of being +first with the news of Mrs. Avory's escapade. Half his friends and +neighbours heard all about it before lunch-time; his own +bruises--rather obtrusively displayed--were proof of the truth of his +story, if proof were needed. And Mr. Lawrence finished up his +well-spent morning by lunching with Miss Abingdon, and by recounting to +her in his high-pitched, gossiping voice his very latest piece of +intelligence. + +'I don't believe it,' said Miss Abingdon sharply. + +Sometimes these ladies of a sterner period than ourselves say +surprisingly rude things in the most natural and simple way. + +'But it's a fact, really!' said Mr. Lawrence, with enjoyment. 'Why, +the first thing the housekeeper said to her was, "So you 're back +again!" No one had seen Toffy for ages. He said he had influenza.' +Mr. Lawrence was going to add some jocular words to the effect that +Toffy was a sly dog, but something in Miss Abingdon's face checked him, +and he murmured only that it was an awful pity. + +And then Kitty Sherard came in; she was staying with Miss Abingdon for +a few days to console her for Jane's absence. Miss Abingdon did not +quite approve of her, but, alas for the frailty of humanity, a little +lightness and amusement are sometimes lacking in our otherwise +admirable English homes, and the man or woman who can provide them is +readily forgiven and easily excused. Miss Sherard was amusing; no one +could deny it. She told her _risqué_ stories with the innocent look of +a child, while her big eyes were raised almost with an air of +questioning to her bearer's face. Also she was boundlessly +affectionate, although she said such dreadful things, and in fine, +where she was there were young men gathered together. + +She came up the drive now. Canon Wrottesley's two elder sons with her +and a sailor friend of theirs, and she was smiling at them all quite +indiscriminately and doing considerable damage to their hearts without +in the least intending it. + +Miss Sherard had been shooting duck in the marshes below Bowshott, +where Peter had given her leave to shoot when she liked; and she came +towards the house now, a miniature gun over her shoulder, and clad in a +brown shooting dress, with a knot of her favourite colour under her +chin. + +There was a certain jauntiness about Kitty which became her, where in +almost any one else it might have seemed outrageous. Even Miss +Abingdon always remembered that Kitty had lost her mother when she was +four years old, and since then had been the playmate and boon companion +of a man who had been accounted fast even in the go-ahead set in which +he lived, and who had taken his daughter to every race meeting in +England since the time when she could first sit beside him on the front +seat of his coach. He had never allowed her to go to school, and he +had dismissed half a dozen governesses in turn because they were trying +to make a prim little miss of her, and because they always insisted on +pouring out tea for him as if they expected him to marry them. When +Kitty was sixteen he dismissed 'the whole bothering lot of old women' +and finished her education himself. Lord Sherard spoke French like a +native, and was one of the best riders and sportsmen of his day. He +faithfully conveyed all that he knew to his daughter, with the result +that Kitty had more knowledge of French literature than of English, and +she and her father conversed but little with each other in their native +tongue. But the result as far as Kitty was concerned was that she had +turned out a beautiful and engaging young woman with eyes that looked +frankly and charitably on the world. She loved you so much that she +nearly always had her arm linked in yours when she told her absurd +little stories; and she smiled so delightedly when you saw the joke of +them, that even when you said, 'Well, really, Kitty!' you knew quite +well that hers was a sort of innocence of daring, and you warned her +severely that she must be very careful indeed to whom she said things +like that, but that of course it didn't matter a bit as far as you +yourself were concerned, because you understood her and loved her. And +because everybody else said exactly the same sort of thing to her, and +because no one would have ventured to crush that blithe and childlike +nature by one word of real disapproval, there was not much hope that +Kitty would ever reform and become sober-minded and well-behaved and +satisfactory. The plague of it was that you couldn't help loving her +whatever she did, and she loved you too, which was perfectly +intoxicating when you came to think of it, except that you knew that +she loved at least a hundred different people in exactly the same sort +of way. She kept her real affection for her father and Jane Erskine, +and lately she had fallen in love--which is a different thing--with Sir +Nigel Christopherson. + +Kitty stamped her feet in the hall, and then drew off her gloves and +came forward to the drawing-room fire, with the big white sheepskin in +front of it; and kneeling down before the blaze she told Mr. Lawrence +and Miss Abingdon collectively that they had had very good sport in the +marshes, and that she had brought back some duck for Miss Abingdon; and +didn't everybody think it was too awfully cold, and what would their +poor hunters do if a frost came? + +Finally, having enunciated all these small remarks, Miss Kitty turned a +radiant face on their visitor, who was stretched luxuriously in a big +armchair by the fire, and bade him tell her the very latest news, for +she expected all sorts of gossip and, if possible, some scandals from +him. + +Mr. Lawrence laughed delightedly; he was really proud of his reputation +as a scandal-monger. 'Well,' he said, 'I believe I can supply you with +the very latest thing of that description,' and then he told her the +story. + +Kitty had led a rough-and-tumble sort of life, and every one knew +perfectly well that hers had been a liberal education at the hands of +her father. Yet even Mr. Lawrence would not have blurted out his tale +to Jane Erskine, for instance, as he had just done to Kitty. But bless +you! every one knew that old Lord Sherard told his daughter his best +scenes, and that she stayed with him in Continental hotels which some +very particular mothers would not have allowed their daughters to +enter. Mr. Lawrence wound up by saying, in a very charitable way, that +he didn't blame the poor little woman, for she had a perfect beast of a +husband. + +Kitty was still kneeling on the white sheepskin rug and holding out her +cold hands to the blaze when Mr. Lawrence had finished; and Miss +Abingdon, who had tried once or twice without success to catch Mr. +Lawrence's eye and to check his loquacity, shook her head as she +realized that Kitty did not seem the least bit shocked. + +When Mr. Lawrence had left, Kitty changed her shooting dress for a +habit and announced to Miss Abingdon, who suggested that she should +rest for the remainder of the afternoon, that she was going to exercise +one of Jane's horses. She mounted the hunter and went off alone, +blowing kisses to Miss Abingdon from the tips of her riding gloves, and +so out of the white gates down the road to the left, and then into the +open country. She set her horse at a fence and flew over it. Her +small white teeth were pressed together, and her eyes, under level +black eye-brows, had a fierce look in them. She pulled her hat more +firmly down upon her brows and steered her hunter across country, as +though following the quickest burst of hounds of the season. Kitty was +a tireless rider, and Jane's hunter did not want exercise for some +little time after this. The country round Bowshott is known as 'stiff' +for hunting people, but Kitty had marked out a straight line for +herself, and took everything that came in her way with a sort of +foolhardiness which made a trifle of big hedges or yawning ditches, and +all the time she was saying to herself, 'I will never forgive him, +never!' She had given her whole heart to Nigel Christopherson, and +believed that he had given his to her. And now he was at Hulworth with +Mrs. Avory, and Mr. Lawrence was touring the country in his big red +motor-car telling everybody about it. + +Mrs. Wrottesley heard the story from her maid, who had it from Miss +Abingdon's butler, and she told it to her mistress when they were +counting charity blankets together in Mrs. Wrottesley's bedroom. The +canon was away from home, and Mrs. Wrottesley was having a few +uninterrupted days in which to do her work, without calls upon her to +come and admire Canon Wrottesley. The story was received very quietly +by her. She sat a full minute without saying anything at all, and then +she finished counting the blankets. When that useful task was over +Mrs. Wrottesley began to speak. This was a much more unusual event +with her than with most people, and what made it more forcible was that +she began to speak deliberately and with intention. + +'I am going to stay at Hulworth,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. 'Pack my box, +please, and order the carriage to be round in half an hour.' + +She drove over to Hulworth, her plain and rather austere face showing +very little expression upon it, and she reached the big ugly house to +find Toffy sitting over a smouldering fire in the drawing-room, his +hair rumpled up from his forehead and his head buried in his hands, and +Mrs. Avory upstairs still suffering from slight concussion of the brain. + +There are times when the strong arm of a man is the one needful and the +one serviceable thing in the world; but there are times again when it +is only a strong woman who is wanted, or who is capable of a certain +sort of work. + +'I don't know how you ever thought of coming,' said Toffy, looking at +her with eyes which were about as full of perplexity and helplessness +as a young man's could well be. 'I thought of writing to Peter, but +after all this is his last time with Jane, and I have no relations +myself, and I couldn't ask Lawrence not to say anything, because that +would have given away the whole show.' + +'I think I can settle everything satisfactorily with Mr. Lawrence,' +said Mrs. Wrottesley. 'Mr. Lawrence is proverbially ill-natured in his +own kind way, and it would not have been unlike him to omit the fact +that I was staying with you during the time Mrs. Avory was here.' + +'She came down yesterday afternoon to say good-bye to me,' said Toffy +eagerly. + +'And I arrived by the same train,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'which was +very convenient.' + +Toffy got up from his chair and crossed to the other side of the hearth +and kissed Mrs. Wrottesley. + +It was not an unusual thing for her to drive over to Hulworth to put +housekeeping matters straight when they were at their most acute stages +of discomfort, or when Toffy was more than common ill. She was quite +at home in the house, and she now drew up a writing-table to the fire +and penned a number of notes in her neat, precise hand, headed with the +Hulworth address, telling her friends how sad she considered the +accident of last night, how attentive Mr. Lawrence had been, and how, +of course, she must give up her engagements at home for the next few +days, as she would not dream of leaving until Mrs. Avory was able to +leave also. The notes fell like a series of cold douches upon the warm +interest and keen excitement prevalent at Culversham. Perhaps only +Miss Abingdon was sincerely glad that conventionalities had been in +force throughout. + +'No one could be more delighted than I am that Mrs. Wrottesley was at +Hulworth,' she said, 'though I doubt if it is a very wise thing for a +married woman to pay visits without her husband. Still, no doubt Canon +Wrottesley in his usual broad-minded way arranged that she should be +there. He is always so thoughtful and self-sacrificing, and it's more +than good of him to spare his wife to nurse Mrs. Avory. He is an +example to us all.' + +Canon Wrottesley had always been devoted to his wife. Her quiet dress +and her mantle had ever seemed to him the essence of good womanhood, +and he respected her for her considerable fortune as well as for her +unimpeachable orthodoxy. His highest term of praise of her was to +speak of her as the helpmeet for him. + +The canon was now sitting in the very charming library of the house of +his Bishop, where he was spending a few days, and was busy inditing a +few lines to his wife to ask her if the latest news from Culversham was +true. He was warned by a curious presentiment that the information +which he had received was in accordance with facts, and, being always +ready with a word of counsel, Canon Wrottesley was writing to his wife +to warn her that until the whole thing blew over it would be wiser for +her not to see anything of Mrs. Avory. Considering his own and her +position in the parish, he thought they could not be too careful. + +When the second post arrived at the palace, bringing him the unexpected +news that his wife was at that moment nursing Mrs. Avory at their +neighbour's house, Canon Wrottesley felt one of those shocks which in +all their painfulness can only be realized, perhaps, by those who hold +a conspicuous position in a very small society. When the world is +narrowed down to quite a little place its weight is felt more heavily +than when its interests and its knowledge are dispersed over a wider +area. + +He believed that poor Henrietta had meant well when she had gone to +Hulworth to look after Mrs. Avory; but her action proved to the canon +what he had always known--that a woman requires guidance, and he meant +to tell his wife kindly how much wiser it would have been if, before +taking any action in this matter, she had wired to him for advice. + +The thing was a real trouble to him, and helped to spoil his enjoyable +stay at the palace. He knew himself to be popular there and that his +visit had given real pleasure. He had been asked to improvise upon the +piano every evening, and had even sung once, saying gracefully to the +Bishop's daughter, when she had concluded her very indifferent +accompaniment to the song, 'An accompanist is born, not made!' He had +preached one of his favourite sermons on Sunday, which had not only +swelled the offertory bag to an unusual size, but had obtained for the +canon quite a sheaf of compliments which he looked forward to retailing +to Henrietta at home. He left the pleasant ways of the Bishop's palace +determined to face with a magnanimous mind the difficulties that +awaited him. He did not like Henrietta's being 'mixed up in this +affair' at all, and, as he sat in the first-class carriage of the train +on his homeward journey, a rug about his knees and a footwarmer at his +feet, he decided that the wisest and best thing he could do would be to +shorten his journey by getting out at Hulworth station and going +straight up to Sir Nigel's house. When he had time, and was able to +see how Culversham viewed this affair of Mrs. Avory's, he could then +decide whether his wife should call upon her or not. But for the +present he saw quite plainly that inaction and patience were the best +course. + +He gave up his ticket at the railway station with a fine air of +reserve, and bade his coachman drive to Hulworth in the same manner in +which a statesman might impart a Cabinet secret to his secretary. The +brougham drove on through the grim stone gates of Hulworth and +deposited the canon before the flight of steps leading to the front +door. He decided, if possible, not to partake of any food in the +house, nor even to sit down if this could be avoided. He was not going +to blame Sir Nigel yet, but, to say the least of it, he thought that he +had been unwise. The canon stood with his back to the fire in the +drawing-room, looking judicial and massive. Presently Mrs. Wrottesley +came in and saluted her husband with that calm affection which +twenty-five years of married life may engender. + +He stooped and kissed her gravely. 'My love,' he said, 'this is not +the place for you.' + +It seemed to Mrs. Wrottesley to come very suddenly to her that almost +for the first time in their married life there was going to be a real +matter of difference between her husband and herself, in which neither +meant to give in. She regretted in her quiet way that it should be so. + +'Remember,' said Canon Wrottesley kindly, 'that I don't in any way +blame Sir Nigel; I think he is foolish, and I think, considering Mrs. +Avory's position, she has been more than foolish. A woman who is +separated from her husband cannot be too careful.' + +'I am afraid,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, with regret in her voice, and +coming straight to the point at once in her graceful way, 'that I must +stay here for the present.' + +The canon, although he had not intended doing so, sat down abruptly on +one of the drawing-room chairs. + +It was a horrible time for both these affectionate elderly people who +had always lived a peaceful, orderly, well-conducted life together, and +whose home had been, in the mind of the canon at least, the model +household of the neighbourhood. Also, it was a real shock to him to +realize that Henrietta did not mean to yield in this matter. She spoke +with regret, but she spoke firmly. It must always be a surprise--even +to a prophet--when a dumb creature speaks, and in a certain sense Mrs. +Wrottesley had always been dumb. And now, after years of silence and +affectionate wifely submission, Mrs. Wrottesley was asserting herself. + +'You must be reasonable, dear,' her husband said at last. + +Mrs. Wrottesley replied, 'I want to be reasonable;' and she told him +the whole story of how her presence might save from very serious +consequences two people who were admittedly not very wise, but who were +certainly nothing more than foolish, and might prevent a scandal which +would damage them in the eyes of the world and result in all sorts of +trouble for Mrs. Avory. + +'The scandal cannot now be prevented,' said Canon Wrottesley. 'I heard +myself from Mr. Lawrence this morning telling me the whole story. My +love, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled; Mrs. Avory must send +for her own relations, if she has any, to help her out of this +regrettable business. I cannot allow you to appear in the matter at +all.' + +'I have had my letters addressed here for the last two days,' said Mrs. +Wrottesley. + +The canon rose from his chair and began to pace up and down the room. +'I don't know what people will say,' he said, his forehead knitted into +a frown and his fingers impatiently letting off small pistol-shots +against his palm. There had never been a better wife or mother, he +admitted to himself, than Henrietta Wrottesley, but she was a child +still in many ways. 'To-morrow is Sunday,' he went on, 'and we must +appear in church together. In this way only can we shut people's +mouths and prevent their talking, and although I don't like anything in +the form of secrecy or underhand actions, no one need know that you +have been staying here.' + +'I am afraid,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, still in that unyielding tone of +gentle regret, 'that it is too late to keep my movements secret. There +is an account of the accident in the local paper in which it is stated +that I was staying here at the time.' + +Canon Wrottesley loved to see his name in print, and looked with +interest at the cutting while Mrs. Wrottesley added, 'I sent the +communication to the paper.' + +The canon found himself wondering in a puzzled way what was the +ultimatum that a man should impose upon a woman. What, in point of +fact, was the force that could be brought to bear upon the case? In +primitive days the matter would have been easily enough settled, but in +modern times moral force is the only lever, and although most women, he +admitted, were very easily influenced by moral force, it struck him +painfully that upon this occasion his wife was not going to be moved by +it. + +A beneficent Providence who, I think we may allow, comes often to the +assistance of persons whose storm rages in quite a small and narrow +teacup so long as they are genuinely attached to each other, may have +designed that at this moment Lydia of the heavy foot should enter with +the second post's letters, and amongst those which had been sent on to +Mrs. Wrottesley was one directed to her husband in dear Miss Abingdon's +handwriting. + +The canon opened it unheedingly. Miss Abingdon often sent him little +notes, but never, perhaps, had she written one which spoke more +genuinely out of a full heart than did this. She had written in the +middle of the night, although she felt how disorderly and almost +indecorous such a proceeding was. By so doing she had missed the +evening post, but she sent the missive to the village early in the +morning by the hand of a groom, and felt glad, as she did so, that +there were no secrets in her life. A letter posted at an unaccustomed +hour suggested intrigues, and Miss Abingdon wondered how people could +live who had such things upon their consciences. + +Her unusual behaviour accounts for the fact that her letter arrived by +the second post at Hulworth; Canon Wrottesley was so much upset at the +time that he read half-way through it before he quite realized what it +was about. + + +'MY DEAR CANON,'--it ran--'you must allow me to say what I think of +your splendid conduct in regard to poor little Mrs. Avory. I had heard +the story, of course, of her very indiscreet behaviour, but it was not +till this morning that I knew how splendidly you had thrown yourself +into the breach by allowing Mrs. Wrottesley to go over to Hulworth to +stay and nurse the poor thing. I must tell you that I hear on all +sides nothing but the kindest things said about your action in the +matter. I do not often write so unreservedly as at present, but I do +feel strongly on the subject, and on occasions such as this I may be +allowed to say that it takes a good man and a broad-minded one to act +promptly and generously--would that there were more of them in the +English Church!' + + +Miss Abingdon used to fear afterwards that perhaps she had said too +much; but to her also, as to Mrs. Wrottesley, the relief of speaking +her mind once in a way was irresistible. + +Of course it weakened the canon's position to show the letter to his +wife. He ought to have relented gracefully and with dignity, and to +have consented as a personal favour, even against his proper judgment, +to his wife's remaining where she was. But Miss Abingdon's letter was +too full of kind remarks to be kept to himself. He handed it to +Henrietta, and when she had read it he folded it up carefully and put +it in his pocket. + +'That,' he said, 'is one of the best women that ever lived, and +perhaps, who knows, there may be others who see this matter in the +right light also.' All that he had previously said passed completely +out of his mind as he talked of the insight and the complete +understanding that some good women evinced. He began to speak with +manly kindliness of the poor little invalid upstairs, and when at last +he bade good-bye to his wife he kissed her affectionately and bade +her--in his usual formula--not do too much. + +Miss Abingdon's letter had shown the canon to himself in his true +light; before he reached home he had come to believe that it was he who +had urged his wife to go to Hulworth. As was usual with him when he +felt strongly, he adopted a character rôle, and his handsome face wore +a more than usually beneficent and great-minded expression upon it as +he walked with his fine erect carriage through the village that night; +while it would hardly have required a playbill of _dramatis personae_ +to indicate the fact that the canon was living the part of the Vicar of +Wakefield in the supreme moment when he visits Olivia in prison. He +had promised his wife before leaving to drive over often to see her +during her stay at Hulworth; and the following Sunday he preached one +of his most memorable sermons on the text--'And when they shall take up +some deadly thing it shall not hurt them.' + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Mrs. Wrottesley remained at Hulworth until her patient was better, and +then the good-hearted canon joined her there for a few days and was +altogether charming to poor little Mrs. Avory, who liked him far better +than she liked his wife. Toffy went up to London to join Peter Ogilvie +and to take ship for Argentine, and Peter went to say good-bye to Jane +Erskine. + +These two last-named, cheerful people were in a state of acute +unhappiness which each was doing his and her best to conceal. It +required some pluck to be perfectly even-spirited and to show good mettle +in those days. The world contained for them nothing but a sense of +parting and uncertainty, and a horrible feeling of disappointment. Their +lives were to be severed, perhaps for years, and over all the uncertainty +and the thought of separation hung the mystery of Mrs. Ogilvie's +half-finished message. The memory of her was clouded by the thought of +how much she had suffered, and the conviction intruded itself painfully +that, if they had but known more, something might have been done for her. +The burden of a secret lies in the sense of loneliness which it brings. +A unique experience, dissimilarity of thought or knowledge that is not +shared by others, makes a solitude with which no bodily isolation can be +compared. Only one person knew--only one person had ever known: that +seemed the intolerable thing to the two persons left behind to wonder +what the message could mean. + +'I sometimes wish she had been a Catholic,' Peter once said. 'It might +have been some sort of comfort to her.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie was a woman who could remain silent always, and perhaps it +was the supreme effort involved by breaking through a lifetime of reserve +that, in its added strain upon her heart, had caused her death. + +The last few days that the lovers had together were spent in a very loyal +and affectionate endeavour to make each other as happy as possible. They +made no professions of love or confidence, nor ever dreamed of promising +to be true, because they never for a moment could admit the possibility +of being anything else; and they did not even promise to write to each +other, or to say their prayers at the same time every evening--the +difficulty of calculating the difference between Greenwich and local time +on a westward voyage put a stop to anything of that sort. Nor did they +talk of remembering each other as they looked at the stars; but they +spoke of the future and of all the good things it was going to bring, and +they even laughed sometimes over imaginary portraits of the brother whom +Peter was to seek, and they told each other ridiculous little tales of +what he would be like and what he would say and do. + +One afternoon Jane gave Peter a gold cigarette case as a parting gift, +with his name scrawled in her big handwriting across it; while Peter +presented his fiancée with a very handsome diamond ring, and forgot +altogether that perhaps he could not pay for it, and went back and told +the jeweller so. The jeweller, having known Captain Ogilvie all his +life, and being aware that he had lately succeeded to an immense +property, thought the young man was joking, and said it did not matter in +the least. + +Then came the day of parting--drizzly, wet, and depressing--just such a +day as people always seem to choose on which to leave England; there was +the usual routine of departure; the 'special' from Waterloo, the crowd at +the station, the plethora of bags, chairs, and hold-alls; the good-byes, +the children held up to the carriage-windows to wave hands, the 'last +looks,' and the tears stopped in their flow by anxiety about luggage and +missing bags. Then came Southampton, the embarkation, and a sort of +enforced cheerfulness and admiration of the ship. Those who had +journeyed down to see friends off adopted a congratulatory tone, as +though the fact of their having already travelled so far in safety was a +sort of assurance that there could be little to fear for the rest of the +voyage. + +At last the ship began to move slowly away, and finally swung round and +got out of dock. It was just then that many of the voyagers wished that +they might have had a few minutes longer of that dismal scene in the +drizzling rain, of those dear hand-waving, smiling, or weeping figures on +shore. But the engines had started their solemn beats, the pilot was on +the bridge. The voyage had begun for good or ill, and the Lord watch +over all! + +Nigel Christopherson, being a man of feeling, said to a Scot who leaned +over the rails with him, watching a group of female figures dressed in +black on the quay, 'These good-byes are rather beastly, ain't they?' + +To which the Scot replied, 'They make no difference to me whatever;' and +the remark, Toffy thought, was an extraordinary check to any emotional +feeling. + +Jane got her first letter from Peter dated at Vigo, which peaceful port, +with its rows of white houses built along the shore, and its green hill +with the ruined castle behind, is a haven where many sea-sick passengers +would be. They had had a bit of a tossing, Peter said, in the Bay, and +Toffy had been very seedy but was better. The captain was a very good +sort of fellow, and full of yarns; his cabin was profusely decorated with +foxes' masks and brushes, and a few of his admirers believed that when he +was at home he hunted. The unfeeling Scot, who had declined to +sympathize with Toffy's sensibility to partings, had turned out to be a +very interesting sort of man, and not unamusing. He helped to make the +evenings on deck pass rather pleasantly with his stories. If Mr. Dunbar, +as he was called, had not had such an amazing Scottish accent Peter would +have said that probably the stories were not true. It was a letter such +as a schoolboy might have written, but Jane treasured the ill-expressed +sentiments as maidens of a bygone age may have treasured their lovers' +shields; and although she left the letter lying about on her +dressing-table, after the manner of modern young women, it was none the +less the dearest possession of her life until the next one arrived. + +Toffy sat up in his bunk with a horribly bad headache, and wrote a long +letter to Mrs. Avory, which he posted at Vigo; and he wrote another +letter, not nearly so long, but one which cost him much more time to +compose, and addressed it to Miss Kitty Sherard. And this he carefully +tore into little pieces one night when the decks were dark and there was +no moon overhead; and he watched the small white bits of paper, as they +floated away into the black depths of the water, and then he walked up +and down the deck until the small hours of the morning, when Peter--one +of whose worst qualities was that he always fussed over people he cared +about--appeared in pyjamas and overcoat, and asked him sternly if he was +trying to get another chill. + +At Lisbon the intelligent Scot suggested to the two travellers that they +should join him in a trip ashore. The three had made friends in the +smoking-room, and Peter hailed Mr. Dunbar as a fellow-countryman, and +enjoyed his rugged accent and his amazing penetration. He abounded in +useful information about the country to which they were going, gave +statistics on all points, and teemed with information. He was an ardent +and indefatigable sightseer, and never visited a building without seeming +to investigate it. The most complicated currency of a foreign country +never disturbed him for an instant, and he would make little sums with +extraordinary rapidity on the edge of any bill that was given to him. +The difference of price, as stated in Spanish coinage, between a bottle +of claret and a whisky-and-soda, might have puzzled some people; but +Dunbar worked it out to a fraction in a second of time, and without a +moment's hesitation laid his own share of the expense on the +luncheon-table of the Braganza hotel. He spoke Spanish better than he +spoke English, though he thought he had got rid of his Scottish accent; +but he still said 'I mind' for 'I remember,' and differentiated in the +matter of pronouncing 'court' and 'caught.' + +At St. Vincent Peter wrote home again, and felt a certain sense of +insecurity at leaving letters on the rocky island. It was four o'clock +in the morning when the ship got into port, and the sun was rising over +the hills eastward, while to the west the bare, rugged, mountainous land +was a solemn, chilly grey colour. The water was smooth and dark beneath +the hills, but nearer the ship it was touched by the clear pale light of +the rising sun. The hills rose jagged and sharp against the sky without +a scrap of verdure on them; but the kindly atmosphere turned those in the +distance to a soft and tender blue. It smoothed away the rugged lines +and effaced the cruel-looking scars that seamed their sides, and covered +them with a misty peace. It seemed to the young man as he looked at them +that things became easier when viewed from a distance. He had suffered +very deeply during the last few weeks, and with him had suffered the girl +whom he had loved and cared for always, and whom he would love and care +for until the end of his life. Looking back at the distant misty hills +on Cape Verde Island this voyage seemed to him, in spite of all its +horrible sense of separation, to be something of a lull in the midst of +quick-happening events. When first he left home he had been plagued with +thoughts which he had fought with almost savage fierceness, and he had +wrestled to expel them from his mind; but that there could be any mystery +in his mother's life had necessarily awakened endless questionings in his +mind. + +Why, if this little brother of his had not died, had he disappeared? And +what was the reason for his disappearance? 'He did not die,' said the +half-finished letter which his mother's hand had traced; 'he did not +die.' Once, in the middle of the night, as he said the wearisome +sentence over to himself, a word had come suddenly before him in letters +of flame, and Peter had turned away from it with a cry. A child who had +been deprived of his life might be said in a sense not to have died, and +there was the word of six letters in front of him in the dark. He turned +on the electric light in his cabin, and for a moment he had half a mind +to go in next door and wake Toffy. The burden of the suggestion was too +horrible to bear alone. 'He did not die!' His mother's mental state +might not have been perfectly sound at the time of her husband's death; +and her preference for him, Peter, was a fact that had been remarked by +all who knew her. Had she begun to write a confession to her son, and +stopped short in the middle? 'Don't hate me too much,' the letter said. +Why should he hate her? He did not know. + +In the morning he was able to put aside utterly the thought which had +tormented him, but he lived in dread of being beset by it at night-time +again. He began to fear going to bed, and would sit up talking to Toffy +till the small hours of the morning, or playing picquet with Dunbar. Men +began to say that he 'jawed' too much and would not let them go to bed, +little knowing how he used to try to prolong a conversation so that he +might not be left alone with a horrible fear always ready to pounce upon +him when night fell, and when only the thud of the engines playing some +maddening tune broke the silence. + +He tried, with a baffling sense of impatience, to make his own memory +act, and to recall the days when he was not quite three years old. But +the thing was an impossibility, of course, and his brain refused to give +up a single picture of that time. + +It was only when the ship had left St. Vincent that a certain amount of +peace came to establish itself in his heart, and the large and beautiful +consolation of the sea began to make itself felt. The weather was calm +and clear, and the monotonous slap and swish of the water against the +ship's side was in itself soothing. The company on board were all +strangers to him, and this helped to give him a feeling that he was +starting anew in life. Also he was on his way to do the best he could to +find his brother, if he were living, or to clear up the mystery of his +death, if he were dead. There was no horrid feeling of having failed to +do the best that was possible. He must find Edward Ogilvie, or discover +the grave where he lay; and after that it would be time enough to think +what would be the next thing to do. + +When the ship steamed away from St. Vincent in the evening, and the +lighthouse on Bird Rock made a luminous point in the gathering darkness, +the sight of land and of the hills had done Peter good, and had restored +him to the normal and natural man again. He turned to look back at the +rugged island, with the one point of light high up in its lighthouse, and +he thought that it was like some lamp which a woman sets in the window to +guide her husband home. With that feeling came a deep sense of the love +and the confidence which he and Jane had in each other; he knew that she +would not fail him whether he were rich or poor, happy or unhappy, and +that seemed the only thing in the world worth knowing for certain. + +After leaving St. Vincent the weather became intensely hot, the wind was +with the ship, and there was not a breath of air to be had. Dunbar never +felt the heat at all; he had not an ounce of spare flesh on his body, and +he always ate two chops and some curry for breakfast, because, he said, +if you were paying for a thing you might as well have it. He played in +bull tournaments, and had a habit, that was almost provoking, of doing +everything better than any one else. His sharp-featured face, long keen +nose, and eyes with an intelligent-looking pince-nez fixed in front of +them, seemed to speak of a sleepless vigilance. + +Peter, having a very small amount of information on any subject at his +command, was impressed by Mr. Dunbar, and thought that he might make a +fortune if he used his talents on the music-hall stage or at a bureau for +the supply of general information. The man seemed able to answer any +question that might be put to him. + +'That is an extraordinary chap,' he said to Toffy. 'I wonder if he would +be of any use to us in the way of finding out about my brother?' But +eventually he decided that nothing ought to be done until they should see +Sir John Falconer. + +'We had rather a disappointment here,' he wrote from Rio, in one of his +unliterary letters, 'because the yellow fever is so bad that we are not +allowed to land. I don't suppose you have any idea how tiresome a day in +port is if one does not go ashore. The heat is really terrific, and +under the awnings it feels exactly like sitting in an oven.' In +conclusion Peter wished he was at home again, and thought Toffy seemed +rather down in his luck; and he remained Jane's ever-loving Peter. + +'I will tell you a strange thing about Rio,' began Dunbar, as he walked +up and down the ship that evening. 'If you make your fortune there, you +always go back to England and say that by right you are a Castilian +noble.' + +'It would be a very large fortune that would tempt me to live in this +beastly climate,' said Peter, who was in a grumbling mood. + +'I believe,' said Toffy, 'that with luck one could make a lot of money in +Argentine. I have got a scheme in my head now, which, if it comes off, +should place me beyond the reach of want.' + +Dunbar referred to the boom time, and gave an exhaustive statement of the +fortunes which had been made in that glorious epoch and had been lost +afterwards. 'I have known men without capital make a hundred thousand +pounds in a few years,' he said; 'and when they lost it you simply could +not find them.' + +'People do seem to disappear in Argentine in a queer way,' said Peter +with intention, and with a glance at Toffy. 'I know we had a +gardener--one of the under-men--and he had a brother who disappeared +altogether out there, so our man went to find him, and he, also, was +never heard of again.' + +'The reason for that is not very far to seek,' said Dunbar. 'The first +thing you do when you come to Argentine is to leave off writing +letters--at least if you are a camp man. You simply can't abide the +sight of pen and ink.' + +'But there must be some means of tracing a man who gets lost,' said +Toffy. 'He can't disappear into space.' + +'You'd wonder!' said the Scot laconically. + +'Still, you know,' persisted Peter, 'if a man's alive at all, some one +must know his whereabouts.' + +'Obsairve,' said Dunbar, 'it doesn't require much imagination for a man +to change his name as often as he likes; and I should like to know what +police supervision there is over the Italian settlers, for instance, in +some of the remoter estancias? Murderers are hardly ever caught out +here, and murders used to be as common as a fight in a pulperia. Every +man carries a knife, and if you go up-country you will find that half the +peons are nearly covered with scars; and if once in a way the knife goes +too deep it's just one of those things which cannot be helped, and the +less said about it the better. Again,' he went on, 'suppose a man is +murdered on his own estancia--a thing that used to be common enough--the +peons are all in league, and they generally have had a hand in it. Their +master has been giving them _carne flacca_ (lean meat) to eat, and that +is enough to upset the whole rickmatick of them.' + +'I suppose they are not likely to turn on a revolution for our benefit,' +said Toffy, in a tone of disappointment. + +'I haven't got the fighting instinct in me,' said Dunbar literally. +'Whenever there has been fighting where I have been, I have always sat +indoors until it was over.' + +Peter, with a desire to lead the subject back to the case of men who +disappeared, turned in the deck-chair where he was sitting enjoying a +light breeze which had sprung up after dark, and said tentatively: 'I +can't quite understand, you know, a man disappearing altogether and +leaving no traces behind him.' + +'I shall never,' said Dunbar, 'believe in the final disappearance or even +in the death of any one until I have seen the doctor's certificate or the +man's corpse. Men have got a queer way of turning up, and even the sea +may give up secrets when you least expect it. Take the case of the +_Rosana_,' he went on, 'and allow me to put the facts of the case before +you. The _Rosana_ was a ship that used to do good a bit of trading on +the coast, and there was a man on board of her whom I used to know, and +who had been once a little too well known in Argentine. Well, this ship +foundered with all hands on board, and was never heard of again, although +two of her life-belts were picked up, and one or two pieces of her +deck-gear.' + +'Any ship might founder at sea,' said Peter, 'and not be heard of again. +Go on with your story, Dunbar.' + +The electric lights on deck went out suddenly overhead, leaving only one +burning; the breeze blew soft and cool, and six bells sounded sharply and +emphatically in the quiet of the night. + +'I wouldn't,' said Dunbar, 'give you the benefit of my speculations on +the subject of the _Rosana_ were it not that E. W. Smith was on board. +E. W. Smith couldn't die; he wasn't fit for it. But it's a long story. +I 'll not bother you with it.' + +Dunbar looked doubtfully at his tobacco pouch, pinched it, and then +contemplated his pipe. Peter handed him a cigar-case, and Dunbar +accepted a cigar, and slipping it into an old envelope, he deposited it +in his pocket. 'I don't believe I should have time to smoke it through +now,' he said, and he continued filling his pipe. + +'I suppose you come across a good many queer tales, travelling about as +much as you do,' said Toffy. + +Dunbar nodded without speaking. 'You'd wonder,' he said at last. He +finished his pipe, knocked out its ashes, and put it into a little case +lined with red velvet, and stowed it in his pocket; he looked at his +watch and announced that there was still another half-hour before he +intended turning in. + +'We might have the end of your story,' said Peter. + +'A story is as good a way as any other of wiling away the evening, and +you are welcome to hear the rest of this one,' admitted Dunbar. He was a +grand talker, according to his compatriots, and he chiefly loved the +engineers' mess-room, where he could sit by a table covered in oil-cloth, +and sip a little weak whisky and water, and revert to his broadest Doric +in company with some engineers from the Clyde. 'The _Rosana_,' continued +Dunbar, clearing his throat, 'only carried one boat on her last journey. +I happen to know that for a fact, but the Lord only knows the reason for +it! Now, this boat was found, half-burnt, lying on a lonely bit of coast +a few weeks after the _Rosana_ foundered. This is a thing which I may +remark is not generally known; but I happen to have had ocular +demonstration of it. The boat was a smart built one, with her name in +gold leaf on the bows. Tranter was the captain of the _Rosana_, and he +liked to have things nice. Now, why should this boat have been found +half-burnt on the coast, but with a piece of her name in gold leaf still +partially visible?' + +'The boat probably drifted ashore,' said Peter, as if he were answering a +question in a history class. + +Dunbar hardly seemed to hear him, and went on with hardly a moment's +interruption. 'I am a student,' he said, 'of the deductive method of +reasoning, and I begin with the _a priori_ assumption that E. W. Smith +could not die. I should hold the same belief even if I believed in +Purgatory.' (Dunbar pronounced the word with an incalculable number of +r's in it, and it came from his throat like the rattle of musketry.) +'Presuming,' he went on, 'that the _Rosana_ foundered, was E. W. Smith +the man to go down in her, or was he not?' + +'I suppose some of them took to the boat,' said Toffy. 'In an affair of +that sort it is a case of _sauve qui peut_.' + +'The whole crew would have swamped the boat,' said Dunbar, who liked +giving small pieces of information at a time. + +'Consequently----' said Peter. + +'Consequently,' said Dunbar, 'I 'm just biding my time, and I 'll tell +you more when there 's more to tell.' + +'It's a queer story!' said Peter. + +'It's queerer than you think!' said Dunbar. + +'You can't believe,' said the other, 'that this man Smith went off in the +boat by himself?' + +'I don't,' said Dunbar, 'for E. W. Smith couldn't row, and with all his +sea-going he was a landsman to his finger-tips.' + +'So then,' said Peter, 'he must have had accomplices, and accomplices +always tell tales.' + +'There 's one very certain way of silencing men,' said the Scot. + +Peter rose abruptly from his chair and threw his cigar end out over the +water. 'It's a beastly suggestion,' he said briefly. His face was +white, and he found himself hoping to God that this tale of Dunbar's +would not bring back to him those horrible nights he had had at the +beginning of the voyage. + +'Tranter was the captain of the boat,' said Dunbar, 'and Tranter was +about the worst sort of coward you are likely to meet on this side of +Jordan. E. W. Smith, on the other hand, never lost his head.' + +The story seemed finished, and Toffy got up and stretched himself lazily, +and said he was going to turn in; but Peter still sat where he was in his +deck-chair. + +'There might be a hundred different endings to your tale, Dunbar,' he +said, 'each one as likely as the other. The boat, for instance, might +have capsized, with too many men crowded into her, and have drifted +ashore and been burned accidentally or otherwise by the people who found +her. Or the crew and captain of the _Rosana_ may never have taken to the +boat at all, and she may have foundered with all hands (as you say the +newspaper reports had it at the time); or the _Rosana_ may be sailing in +another part of the world with her villainous captain and E. W. Smith and +no end of swag on board. Or both men, again, may be sleeping very +peacefully at the bottom of the sea at this moment; that, after all, +seems to me the most likely ending to them. Of course,' he finished, 'I +don't know what grounds you may have for making another suggestion about +their probable fate.' + +Dunbar looked at him keenly for a moment. 'I would not have made the +suggestion,' he said quietly, 'only, you see, since the wreck of the +_Rosana_ I have seen E. W. Smith or his ghost, and that is why I do not +believe in the final disappearance of a man till I have set eyes upon his +corpse.' + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Peter sat on a cow's skull, bleached and white, at the Estancia Las +Lomas, reading a letter from Jane Erskine. He had begun to think that +the Royal Mail Steam Packet Service was run for the sole purpose of +carrying correspondence between himself and her, and he felt pleased +with its punctuality in delivering his letters. + +'It feels a bit queer being here,' he said to himself, gazing round him +as he spoke. It was the evening of a hot day, and there was a flame of +crimson over to westward, where a few minutes ago the sun had sunk +through great bars of flame. All round him was a vast, solitary land, +but nearer the estancia were pleasant homely sights and sounds. A cart +yoked with five horses abreast stood by the galpon; a flock of geese +walked with disdainful, important gait across the potrero; and the +viscashos popped in and out of their holes with busy importance, like +children keeping house. The farm horses, turned out for the night, +cropped the short grass near where he stood. Peons, their day's work +over, loitered in the patio, and the major-domo's children rode by, all +three of them on one horse, their arms round each other's waists. The +little estancia house stood, red-roofed and homelike, with green +paraiso trees about it. In the veranda Toffy was stretched in a +hammock, a pile of letters and newspapers from home beside him; Hopwood +appeared round the corner carrying cans of water for baths; while Ross, +their host, in a dress as nearly as possible resembling that of a +gaucho, was that moment disappearing indoors to make the evening +cocktail. He came to the door presently and shouted to the two men to +come in, and pointed out to them--as he had pointed out every evening +since they had arrived--his own skill in swizzling. + +It was a curious coincidence that had led Peter and Christopherson to +Las Lomas. When they reached Buenos Ayres a very pleasant and +unexpected meeting occurred, for Peter met Chance, a man who had been +with him at Eton, on his way down to the river to go home. Chance had +lost his young wife a little while before, and was returning to England +to see what the voyage and a change would do to cure him of an almost +overwhelming grief, and his partner Ross was left behind to look after +the estancia. Ross was at the hotel also, and proved an excellent +fellow. And Chance suggested that Ogilvie and Christopherson should +return to Las Lomas with him and see something of the life in +Argentine, staying as long as they could, to keep Ross company until he +himself should return. + +The invitation was accepted without hesitation, and it seemed that the +two travellers were in luck's way. The estancia was a snug little +place, amply watered by a river lying some miles above the last port +where the small river-steamer called. This port was nearer the +estancia than the railway station at Taco, and the last stage of the +journey, therefore, was made by steamer. The river was a wide, shallow +stream, very difficult of navigation. Nearly ten miles broad in some +parts, at its deepest it never gave soundings of more than five fathoms +of water. In dry weather it was possible in some places to drive a +cart across it, while in others the current was quick and dangerous. +It was full of shallows and sand-banks, and for some miles the course +of the little steamer was marked out by boughs of trees stuck into its +muddy bottom. + +The steamer was a well-found craft compared with any others that had +navigated the river before, and was a new venture on the part of one +Purvis by name, who had lately acquired considerable property on the +river-bank. He was a gentle-mannered, nervous-looking individual, with +weak, pale eyes that watered incessantly, and he had a curious habit +unknown except to town dwellers in Argentine of dressing like a City +clerk. All the men in camp wore breeches and wide felt hats and polo +boots, but Purvis was habitually dressed in dark tweed clothes and a +bowler hat. Even on the steamer, and in the heat of the midday sun, he +wore the same kit, and walked up and down the deck with an umbrella +held over his head. He spoke half a dozen languages, but seemed to +think in Spanish, for whenever he spoke quickly or impulsively that was +the tongue which he used. + +The crew of the steamer was composed of a queer mixture of elements; +and, whatever their moral qualities may have been, their appearance +would not have been altogether reassuring to a man, for instance, +travelling with a good many valuables about him. There was Grant the +engineer, who never spoke at all, and who loved his engines with a +personal love; Pedro, a man with big, melancholy eyes, half Basque and +half Italian; an old Belgian stoker and a nigger from South Carolina; +and, lastly, John Lewis (or Black John, as he was always called), who +came from a Danish West Indian island, and who said he was an Irishman +and had been a cabinetmaker. + +The little steamer was not uncomfortable. She was a flat-bottomed +river-boat, and carried cargoes of hides and other Saladero produce. +There were some live pigs with immense tusks, and some tasajo in the +hold, and a raft of pipes of tallow which a hawser towed behind. The +boat was supposed to draw only two feet of water, but in her present +overloaded state she dragged heavily against the mud in the shallower +parts of the river. + +Sir John Falconer, who had come down to the river to see the two +travellers off, drew Peter Ogilvie aside and had a considerable talk +with him before saying good-bye. + +'Don't attempt amateur detective work yourself,' he urged, 'but stay +with Ross until proper official inquiries can be made into the case. +There is nothing for it but to remain inactive for the present, but +gather information quietly where you can. The law out here is a clumsy +mover, and you may have to wait months before you hear anything. Keep +your eyes and your ears open; travel about the country a little, and +get into conversation with as many people as possible. News in +Argentine is not carried by the newspapers but by the men who ride from +place to place, and more particularly by scamps who have no fixed +address for very long. My advice to you would be to say as little as +possible about the business which you have in hand, but get into +conversation with men who have lived long in the country.' + +'I tried that sort of thing on the steamer coming out,' said Peter; +'but we didn't get very much information. The whole thing, you see, is +a very old story.' + +'This man Purvis, whom you are travelling with,' said Sir John, 'is the +sort of person who might help you. He knows the country intimately, as +far as I can gather, and depend upon it he hears more gossip on board +his boat than is ever heard anywhere else in the whole country. Chance +dislikes the man, but he may be useful.' + +'He looks rather a worm,' said Peter. + +'It is generally worms who turn king's evidence,' said Sir John, with a +laugh at his own joke, and then added quickly, 'I don't speak +personally, of course. Your captain is not exactly one's idea of an +old sea-dog, but he is a gentle, intelligent little man.' + +'Ross said something about there being trouble on his estancia,' said +Peter. 'I don't know what it was all about.' + +'He must have some difficult men to manage up there,' replied Sir John. +'There is always more or less trouble amongst these mixed nationalities +out here. But that need not affect you, of course.' + +'No,' said Peter. 'My cue seems to be to gossip like an old woman with +every one I come across.' + +'And to say as little as you can yourself,' concluded Sir John. 'The +man who speaks very little and hears a great deal is always in a strong +position.' + +'Although an uninteresting beast to meet,' Peter remarked in +parenthesis. + +And then, as the voyage was about to begin, the two friends bade each +other good-bye. + +The steamer trip up the shallow river was thoroughly enjoyable, in +spite of the amazing bad food which the travellers had to eat, and the +ever-present smell of pigs and hides. The vegetation of the river-bank +was beautiful in the extreme, and the smells on board the boat were +often counteracted by the exquisite scents which were wafted from the +shore. Mimosa-trees, air-plants, and every sort of creeper gave an +almost tropical appearance to the low woods through which the river ran. + +Purvis proved himself an agreeable companion in a timid, mild way. He +pointed out his own estancia house by the river-bank, and invited Peter +and Sir Nigel to come and stay with him some day. + +The three passengers did not trouble to turn in when night fell, but +lay on deck and leaned against bales of wool until the boat arrived at +the little port of La Dorada at two o'clock in the morning. Moonlight +and dawnlight lent an air of mystery and beauty to the solitary +country; there was a sort of vast stillness over the land, as the boat +glided to her moorings in the early morning. Nothing could be heard +but the chirping of a bicho, or the desolate neigh of one of the horses +that awaited them by the little quay. The stars shone and twinkled +overhead, and the air was clear and cool and marvellously still. Black +John woke the travellers up and told them it was time to disembark; and +Purvis, to whom sleep seemed quite unnecessary, was awake and ready to +give them a send-off. + +'Anything I can do for you while you are out here,' he said to the two +friends as he bade them good-bye, 'I will do most willingly. I am +_passeando_ now, but I hope to be at my own place shortly, and will +ride over and see you. Ross has not been out here long, and perhaps +does not know so much about the country as I do.' + +The Englishmen thanked him and mounted their horses, while their +luggage was put into a rough cart, and they then rode off in the +mysterious dawn across the great silent country to the little estancia +house amongst the paraiso trees. + +Ross was a capital host, and as the only possible entertainment he +could offer his guests was work upon the estancia he gave them plenty +of it; and the out-of-door life, in spite of the heat and the want of +newspapers, the mosquitoes, and other minor ills, was full of interest +and touched with a sense of freedom and hardness. + +Toffy was a man who could accommodate himself to every change of +circumstance. His present life suited him, and he had seldom been in +better health than in Argentine. He adopted Spanish phrases and spoke +them glibly, threw the lasso with the air of a strong man, and tried to +pick out a particular head of stock from the moving mass in the corral. +He chatted with the peons, hunted wild mares in the monte, and drank +cocktails as to the manner born. Ross had decided for an Argentine +style of dress. He wore a beard, and his hands were hard from the +strain of the lasso; but his old brown polo boots had been worn at +Hurlingham and Ranelagh, and were shapelier than were generally seen in +the corral. Ross was still at that enviable stage in life when to +sleep out on the ground with one's head on a saddle is found preferable +to a spring mattress and sheets. He enjoyed swimming rivers with his +clothes on his head, and would have liked the sensation of fatigue +described to him. Peter would probably always look like a cavalry +officer, and would not have been easily mistaken for anything else, +even if he had worn a garment of skins laced together with wire. He +was burned a deep brown, some shades deeper than the colour of his +moustache, and his eyes had come to have a certain fixed gravity in +them which did not alter even when he laughed. His clothes, as Ross +said, were still hopelessly clean and well cut, but he rode better than +any man on the estancia, and did as good a day's work as any of the +rest. + +When the day's work was over Hopwood could be relied on to provide +baths. Ross, as has been said, considered himself an expert at +swizzling cocktails, and all three men had a fancy for playing the +banjo, which they could never get in tune. + +In spite of many drawbacks our two friends enjoyed the return to the +primitive conditions of life. To be uncivilized has indeed +considerable charm when the blood is young and the muscles are strong +and wiry. Peter was for getting some of his own sheep out here, and a +few good horses. And Toffy had schemes for an immense shipping +industry, which would carry cattle at so low a rate to England that +beef might be sold there at fourpence a pound, which, as he remarked, +would benefit all classes. Ross gave his two years' experience with a +weight of wisdom. He had a share in the estancia, and having tried to +live in London in a Government office on two hundred a year, found +Argentine by contrast the only country in the world for a white man. + +Peter himself, as he sat on the cow's skull near the door, and saw the +pleasant, simple life of the place, the major-domo's children ambling +along on their horse, the flock of geese, and the peons loitering by +the patio, was inclined for the time being to put a very low price on +civilization, and to wonder how Jane would like a trip out here. + +'Who knows,' he said to himself, 'my brother and I may do a deal. I +may find him a patriarchal sort of cove, living the simple life and +tending his own flocks and herds. He will migrate with his wives and +little ones to Bowshott, and Jane and I will annex the flocks and herds +in Argentine. The place might have its attractions for Jane; and, +anyway, there would not be this beastly separation.' + +Toffy appeared at the wire door of the corridor and shouted to them +that breakfast was ready, and Peter strolled towards the house. It was +an absurdly small dwelling, one story high, but with a number of low +buildings round it, covering a considerable amount of ground. And +withal it was a trim place which a man had furnished and fitted and +made ready for his bride, and the poor little garden, now devoid of +flowers, was another evidence of his care. The dining-room was a small +whitewashed hall hung with guns and rifles, and furnished with a table +and a deal cupboard which held some bottles of the rough red wine of +the country. The room next to it, called by courtesy the drawing-room, +had been built for Mrs. Chance when the rest of the house had been made +ready for her, and it still bore upon it the impress of a lady's taste. +There was a shelf running round the room furnished with photographs, +and a sofa covered with a guanaco rug. In one corner of the room stood +a piano, and upon it was a copy of _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, with +music, for Mrs. Chance had been a parson's daughter at home, and she +used to play to Chance and sing very sweetly on Sunday evenings. + +The roughly built fireplace in the room was filled with logs, and a +guitar always stood on a cretonne-covered box close by. It was on this +little cretonne-covered box that Mrs. Chance had been wont to sit and +play the guitar which Chance had purchased for her, and one of the +peons had taught her to thrum Spanish airs upon it. It had been a +pleasure to her during the brief year that she had spent in the +estancia house, with its red roof and simple rooms, and the corridor +that had been enclosed with wire-netting for her. It was she who had +carved the blotter and paper-knife on the writing-table, and had made +covers for the chairs. Mrs. Chance and her baby lie buried in the +cemetery at Buenos Ayres, and the estancia house always has an +unfinished look about it, for Chance likes to have it just as she left +it. + +Three or four sparsely furnished rooms opened out of the living-room, +and the corridor made a cool resting-place for the wayfaring men who +often rode up to the house at sundown, and for whose tired limbs a +catre and a rug were sufficient for a night of dreamless slumber. + +'All the same,' said Peter to himself, 'we don't seem to get much +forrader in our search for the missing heir.' + +Many weeks had gone by, and not a word had disturbed the impenetrable +silence which surrounded the fate of Peter's brother. That the time +had passed not unpleasantly did not alter the fact that no single thing +had been done, nor a single clue discovered. Peter had ridden about, +talked to all sorts and conditions of men, had taken one or two +journeys, and was still as far as ever from any trace of his brother. +Purvis had ridden over several times from his own estancia, bringing +his little boy with him. His treatment of the boy was affectionate to +the point of sentimentality. He looked after him with a woman's +carefulness, was over-anxious about his health, and treated him as +though he were much younger than his actual age. + +Peter greeted Mr. Purvis's visits to Las Lomas with cordiality, induced +by the feeling that even a chance word dropped by a man who knew the +country and its people as intimately as Purvis did might throw some +light on his quest. Added to this, the fair, mild-mannered man was an +intelligent talker on the rare occasions when he spoke at any length; +though for the most part he contented himself with regretting in his +dismal way the existing state of commerce in South America, and asking +naïve questions which exposed his ignorance on many subjects. The +conversation of the three public-school men who knew the world of +London, and still spoke its language and discussed its news, who knew +moreover their friends' stories and jokes, and had stayed in a dozen +country houses together, was widely different from Mr. Purvis's +constant melancholy comments upon the state of Argentine finance. +Still, there was no doubt about it, the man might be useful; and, after +consulting with Ross and Toffy, Peter Ogilvie had decided to give him a +hint of the reason which had brought him to Argentine. Without +definitely stating that he had anything to discover, he had allowed +Purvis to know that if he could pick up information about a child who +had been lost sight of twenty-five years ago it would be of +considerable interest to himself and others to hear it. + +Purvis thought inquiries might be set on foot, but that it would cost +money to do so; and, without actually adopting the case professionally, +he promised to keep his eyes open, and had already made a journey to +investigate what at first sight seemed like a clue to traces of the +missing man. + +He and his son rode over very early to Las Lomas to-day; and, the boy +having been sent into the house to rest and get cool, Purvis crossed +the bare little garden, passed the stout rough paling of the corral, +and went towards the group of paraiso trees where Peter was sitting. +He wore his bowler hat and had the appearance of being a very delicate, +overworked City clerk. + +'Ross is not at home, I suppose?' he said, sitting down beside Peter in +the shade and removing his hat. The hat always left a painful-looking +red line on Mr. Purvis's forehead, and it was removed whenever he sat +down. The surprising thing was that he should ever have worn such an +uncomfortable headgear. + +'Oh, good morning, Purvis!' said Peter. 'No, Ross is not about, I +think. Did you want him?' + +No, Mr. Purvis would not trouble Ross; it really did not matter--it was +nothing. Probably Mr. Purvis did not want to see Ross, and had no +business with him, and actually wanted to see some one else. It was +one of the wretched things about the little man that his conversation +was nearly always ambiguous, and that he never asked straight-forwardly +for anything he wanted. And yet, look what a head he had for business! +He had made one immense fortune out of nothing at all in the boom-time, +and had lost it when the slump came. Now he seemed on the way to make +a fortune again. His estancia lay on the river-bank, and was +independent of the old heart-breaking system of railway service in +Argentine for the conveyance of his alfalfa and wheat. He had been +successful where other men had failed. There must be an immense amount +of grit somewhere in that delicate frame! Perhaps his chronic bad +health and pathetically white appearance and the perpetual tear in his +pale eyes had a good deal to do with giving the impression that he must +necessarily be inefficient. His dreamy gaze and soft voice heightened +the suggestion, and it was needful at the outset to discount Mr. +Purvis's appearance altogether before accepting the fact that his +mental powers were above the average. + +Purvis sat down, wiped his pale forehead with the bar of red across it, +and returned his handkerchief to the pocket of his dark tweed coat. He +produced a small bottle of tabloids, and shaking a couple of them into +the palm of his hand he proceeded to swallow them with a backward throw +of his head. Tabloids were Mr. Purvis's only personal indulgence. He +had been recommended them for his nerves, and he had swallowed so many +that had they not been perfectly innocuous he must have died long ago. + +Peter put down an English newspaper that he was reading, stretched his +legs on a deck-chair, lighted a cigarette, and, as Mr. Purvis did not +seem inclined to move off, made up his mind to submit to a talk with +him under conditions as comfortable as possible. As an agent Purvis +was possible; but as a companion his melancholy, his indistinct, soft +voice, and the platitudes which he uttered were boring to more +vigorous-minded men. + +Purvis took a small and uncomfortable chair near the one in which Peter +was stretched luxuriously, turned his wide-open pale eyes upon the +young man and said, 'I have been thinking a good deal about the story +which you told me some time ago about the child who disappeared out +here in Argentine some twenty-five years since, and has not been heard +of again. It sounds like a romance.' + +'Yes,' assented Peter, 'it's an odd tale.' + +'I have lived in many parts of Argentine,' said Purvis, 'and one hears +a good deal of gossip amongst all classes of persons, more particularly +I should say amongst a class with whom you and our friend Mr. Ross are +not intimately acquainted.' + +Mr. Ogilvie put on an air of detachment, and said he supposed Mr. +Purvis met all sorts and sizes. + +'At first,' said Mr. Purvis, 'I did not pay much attention to the story +except to make a few inquiries, such as I thought might be useful to +you. But the other day, by rather an odd coincidence involving matters +which I am not at liberty to divulge, I came across a curious case of a +child who was brought out to Rosario many years ago.' + +'What did you hear?' said Peter; he spoke quickly, and with an +impetuous movement sat upright in the deck-chair, and flung away the +end of his cigarette. + +'I cannot tell you,' said Purvis, 'how I am hedged about with +difficulties in this matter. For, in the first place, neither you nor +your friend, although you seem interested in the case, have entered +into the matter very fully with me. With that, of course, I shall not +quarrel,' said Mr. Purvis, spreading out his hands in a deprecatory +fashion. 'I only mean to say that before taking any definite steps to +trace this story to its source I must, if you will forgive me, ask +certain questions about the child; and, further, these inquiries which +I propose to make must be conducted with discretion, and are apt to +entail a good deal of expense.' + +He paused, and Peter said shortly, 'Of course all expenses will be +paid.' + +'It will require immense patience to prove anything about an unknown +infant who came out here twenty-five years ago,' said Purvis. + +'I always thought it was rather hopeless,' said Peter; 'but it seemed +to me the right thing to do.' + +'It seemed the right thing to do,' said Purvis like an echo. The +dreamy look was in his lack-lustre, weak eyes again, and his soft voice +was more than usually indistinct. 'I should like very much if you +could tell me anything about the man's childhood,' he continued. 'It +is important to know every detail you can possibly furnish for the +clue.' + +'I never even saw a picture or a photograph of him,' said Peter. + +'It is perplexing,' said Purvis. + +'Yes,' said Peter, 'it is rather annoying.' + +'Old servants are proverbial for their long memories,' the clerkly +visitor went on. 'Are there any such remaining in his old home who +would know anything about the man? Even a birth-mark--although it is a +thing most often connected with cheap romances nowadays--might help to +establish a case.' + +'Or disestablish it,' said Peter. + +'Or disestablish it,' repeated the echo. + +'As a matter of fact,' Peter said, relenting a little, 'the child was +born abroad, and no evidence of that sort is forthcoming. The lawyers +have followed every possible clue that could lead to information about +him without any result whatever.' + +'Singular!' said Purvis. + +'Yes,' assented Peter, 'I suppose there are few cases in which a man +has disappeared so completely, and left no trace behind him.' + +'The property which is at stake is a large one, I understood you to +say,' said Purvis. + +'I don't think I said so,' Peter answered; 'but there is no harm in +telling you that some money is involved.' + +'I should certainly know if any considerable property had been willed +away about here,' said Purvis quietly; 'and you see our richest men in +camp have really not much else except landed property to leave. In +Buenos Ayres, and Rosario too, a man of importance in the town dying +and leaving money could easily be traced.' + +'Well, I haven't exactly expectations from him,' said Peter, feeling +that he was getting into a muddle. 'The fact is,' he said cordially, +'I shall be interested to hear news of the man if you can obtain any +for me.' + +So far he had always regarded his brother's existence as some remote +and hardly possible contingency. Now he began to see plainly that the +man might very possibly be alive, and not only so, but that it might +also be possible to trace his whereabouts. The sudden realization of +this staggered him for a moment; but he went on steadily, 'I want the +man found, and I shall spare no trouble or expense in finding him. +Even if he is dead I do not mind telling you that any definite +information would be welcome to me; and if he is alive my object is to +find him as soon as possible.' + +Mr. Purvis took out his pocket-book. 'You will at least know whether +the man was dark or fair?' he said. + +'Fair, I suppose,' said Peter; 'all the portraits in the house are of +fair men.' + +'The man I spoke of is dark,' said Purvis, continuing his jottings in +his notebook in a neat hand. + +'Fair children often get dark as they grow older,' said Peter. + +Purvis acquiesced. 'The singular thing about it all is,' he said, +'that no one now seems to be living who saw the boy when he was a baby.' + +'No one can be traced,' said Peter. + +'This affair of the child in Rosario is probably a mare's nest,' said +Mr. Purvis in his hopeless way, as he closed his pocket-book and put a +strap round it. + +'Well, at least find out all you can about him,' said Peter, as Hopwood +appeared with coffee, and Ross and Toffy joined them and sat down under +the paraiso trees. There had been some heavy work on the estancia that +morning, followed by a lazy afternoon. + +'Can you tell me, Purvis,' said Toffy, breaking off an earnest +conversation with Ross, 'why there should be such an enormous +difficulty about getting a boiled shirt to wear? I suppose it really +does cleanse one's linen to bang it with a stone in the river, but the +appearance of greyness makes one doubtful.' + +'You and Peter are both so beastly civilized!' said Ross, in a flannel +shirt with baggy breeches and long boots. 'You don't even like killing +cattle, and the way Hopwood polishes your boots makes them look much +more fitted for St. James's Street than for the camp.' + +'You ought to make friends with Juan Lara's wife,' said Purvis. 'She +often washes Dick's little things for him, and does it very nicely.' + +'I believe that Lara, on purely economical grounds, wears our shirts a +week or two before he hands them over to his wife to wash,' said Ross, +laughing. + +'Ross,' said Peter, 'employs the gaucho's plan, and wears three shirts, +and when the top one gets dirty he discloses the next one to view.' + +'Remember, little man,' said Ross, stretching out a huge foot towards +Peter's recumbent figure on the deck-chair, 'I 'm a head and shoulders +taller than you are.' + +'I 'm sure Mr. Ogilvie's remark was only in fun,' interposed Purvis. +He rose and went to summon his boy to come and have coffee, and the +three men left behind under the trees watched him disappearing into the +house. + +'If it were a matter of real necessity,' said Ross, 'I believe I could +endure the loss of Purvis; he becomes a bore, and tears and tabloids +combined are really very depressing.' + +'Poor beast!' said Toffy charitably. + +'I can't make out,' said Ross, 'what the trouble is at present on his +estancia. I have only heard some native gossip, and I don't know what +it is all about; but there seems to be an idea that Purvis is lying on +the top of a mine which may "go off sudden."' + +'I believe,' began Peter, 'that Purvis is going to be of use, as Sir +John thought he might be. There is a very odd tale he was telling me +just now.' He broke off suddenly as Purvis reappeared in his usual +quiet, shadowy way. He brought a small saddle-bag with him when he +travelled, which seemed to be filled for the most part with papers. +His dark clothes were always neatly brushed and folded by himself, and +he generally spent his days riding to and fro between the house and the +nearest telegraph-office. + +'You should take a holiday while you are here,' said Toffy, seeing +Purvis sitting down immediately to write one of his interminable +telegrams. 'It would do you good.' + +'It's my nerves,' said Purvis hopelessly. + +Ross laughed and said, 'If I lived on weak tea and tabloids as you do, +Purvis, I should be in my grave in ten days.' + +'I think,' said Purvis, 'that these new phospherine things are doing me +some good. But I sleep so little now. I don't suppose there's an hour +of the night when I 'm so sound asleep a whisper would not wake me.' + +'It takes a good loud gong,' said Ross, 'to make me even realize that I +am in bed.' + +'At home,' said Peter, 'I once had an alarm-clock fixed above my bed to +wake me, and at last I told the man who sold it to me that it never +struck; and really I thought it did not until he showed me that it +worked all right.' + +'There is a beastly bell for the out-of-door servants at Hulworth,' +said Toffy, 'which is beside my window, and----' + +'I know that bell,' said Peter. 'I tie it up regularly every time I am +at Hulworth.' + +'Have you also got a country seat?' asked Mr. Purvis. + +'Oh, Hulworth is a mouldy old barrack,' replied Toffy. '"Country seat" +is too fine a name for it.' + +'Is it quite near Bowshott?' asked Purvis. + +'No, it's nine miles off,' said Peter, 'unless you ride across country.' + +'I wish,' he said to Ross that evening as they sat together in the +corridor, 'that I had any one else to help me in this affair except +Purvis.' + +Ross knew the whole story, and was as trustworthy and straightforward a +man as ever breathed. 'I wish you had,' he said cordially; 'but in his +own creepy fashion I believe Purvis is working for you as well as he +can, and he has an extraordinary knowledge of this country and its +language. You see, it is not as if you were looking for your brother +amongst the most respectable English colonists in the land. You may +have to hunt for him in some remarkably queer places, and it is there, +it strikes me, that Purvis will help you.' + +'I wish the thing were settled one way or another,' said Peter, 'so +that I might know where I stand. You see, if my brother is alive---- +Well?' + +'Nothing, only I thought I heard something moving outside the +wire-netting, and I hate the way Purvis creeps about.' + +'Purvis is putting his little boy to bed and hearing him say his +prayers,' said Toffy. 'He is a queer mixture.' + +Rosa rose, and walking to the edge of the corridor peered out into the +pitch-black night. + +'It 's so dark,' he said, 'I cannot see a thing.' + +'Never mind,' said Peter, 'there are no wild beasts to spring at you +unawares. Do you remember poor Cranley, who was in Pitt's house at +Eton? Did you ever hear how he was killed in his veranda in India by a +tiger?' + +'Yes,' said Ross absently, 'awfully sad thing. Do you know, Peter, I +believe I must walk round to the other side of the house and see if +that chap is really putting his child to bed.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +So much has been said and so much has been written on the subject of +the man who works and the woman who weeps, the man who fares forth and +the woman who waits at home, that it hardly seems necessary to begin a +chapter with another dissertation upon this theme. Lovers are +proverbially discontented in the adverse conditions of separation. +Peter Ogilvie would have given much to be at home in the winter +following his mother's death, and there is no doubt that Jane Erskine +felt that things would have been many times easier away from home. But +if these two persons had exchanged places their sentiments would +doubtless have been exchanged also, thus proving what a difficult class +of beings lovers are, and how impossible it is to satisfy or to console +them. + +Coming as it did in the middle of a long dull winter the change to +Culversham was received by Jane with whole-hearted joy. Miss +Abingdon's large staff of servants, all elderly and all over-paid, +combined with their mistress to welcome Miss Erskine back. The +familiar rooms had never looked more pleasant than on this bleak +December afternoon. A big tea-table was set by the fire, and the +massive silver upon it winked delightedly at the newly arrived guest. +The fire (Miss Abingdon was famous for her good fires) roared joyfully +up the chimney; the dogs knew Jane's voice long before she was out of +the carriage, and proceeded to give an almost hysterical demonstration +of their affection. And Miss Abingdon, whom emotion always made more +than usually severe, snubbed her maid and scolded the butler, and, +sitting down by the fire while Jane poured out tea, entered into so +long and minute an account of the gardener's shortcomings that it would +seem as though her niece had come from London for no other reason than +to hear the recital of her wrongs. + +'You must go to bed early,' said Miss Abingdon when she and Jane went +to dress for dinner; and she kept her up talking until long after +twelve o'clock. Mrs. Avory was established in a charming little +cottage almost at the gate of the Vicarage, and was a sort of senior +curate to Canon Wrottesley. Mrs. Avory, Miss Abingdon said, was really +able to appreciate the canon, and in going so far the lady probably +meant that Mrs. Avory wholly admired and perhaps came very near to +accepting as her Pope the good-looking vicar. Mr. Lawrence was being +most attentive and useful, as he always was, and had chosen a new +tea-service for Miss Abingdon the last time he was in town--his taste +was perfect in such matters. He had even arranged to have her baths +painted with a special sort of white enamel, and Miss Abingdon could +only hope the world would not censure her for confiding these intimate +domestic details to a gentleman. Mrs. Wrottesley was still very far +from well; her illness seemed to have brought out--so Miss Abingdon +said--all the nobility of Canon Wrottesley's character. But--in +justice, Miss Abingdon ought to say--Mrs. Wrottesley had been equally +self-forgetful, and had insisted on her husband's going into society a +little. He was coming to them--according to old-established custom--to +dinner on Christmas Day, and Miss Sherard was coming down for the week, +and whom else would Jane like to ask for Christmas? + +Miss Abingdon was a staunch upholder of familiar customs. There was a +certain ritual to be observed during Christmas week, and Miss Abingdon +observed it. She gave handsome presents to her household on Christmas +morning, and she always wept in church on Christmas Day, out of respect +to the memory of an elder sister who had died many years ago, and whom +as a matter of fact Miss Abingdon had never known very intimately, for +she had married and left home when Mary Abingdon was but a child. She +gave tips to bell-ringers and carol-singers, and entertained +Sunday-school children and 'mothers' in the laundry. These +anniversaries, she was wont to remark conscientiously, mitigating the +enjoyment of placing handsome presents beside her guests' breakfast +plates--these anniversaries were full of sadness. And having suffered +fewer bereavements than commonly fall to the lot of most women of her +age, she dutifully thought of her elder sister, whom she vaguely +remembered as an occasional guest at her father's house, and she could +not have enjoyed a Christmas Day sermon in which there was not an +allusion to empty chairs. + +After morning service Miss Abingdon walked to the Vicarage and bestowed +her yearly gifts upon the Wrottesley family. It was a matter of +conscience with her to give a present of exactly the same value to Mrs. +Wrottesley as to the canon, and this year she offered her little gifts +with a good deal of compunction, remembering how difficult she had +often found it to be quite fair in the distribution. For Mrs. +Wrottesley was failing in health, and in her own plain, unostentatious +way she had made up her mind that her time for quitting this world was +not very far off. She wrote her will with scrupulous exactness and +justness, and having done so she made no allusion whatever to what must +have been occupying her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else, +but continued to live the life in which care for herself had always +been conspicuously absent. + +She received Miss Abingdon and Jane on Christmas Day in her pleasant +drawing-room which the wintry sunshine was flooding with warmth and +joyousness, and she tendered her thanks for the presents which had been +brought for her, assured her inquirers that she was very much better in +health, and said that she had ordered no dinner at home, so that her +husband and boys might be forced to accept Miss Abingdon's customary +hospitality. Canon Wrottesley received his wife's statement as to the +improvement of her health with ingenuous pleasure. He believed that +she was really looking better, twitted her kindly on her pale cheeks, +and with the optimism which declines to harbour fears and apprehensions +he refused to believe that she was seriously ill. The canon himself +had had a bad cold lately, and his evident wish to believe that his own +malady was as serious as Mrs. Wrottesley's had something pathetic in +it. If he could get rid of a heavy cold and feel quite himself by +Christmas Day, his wife surely would pick up in health as soon as the +warm weather should come. He believed he was doing right in making +light of her ailments, and Mrs. Wrottesley saw all this quite plainly, +and loved him none the less for it. + +'How is your cold?' said Miss Abingdon, with sympathy in her voice, and +the vicar threw back his handsome head and tapped his throat, which he +said was a bit husky still, although it was no use giving way to +illness. 'Master your health,' he said in a tone of muscular +Christianity, 'and it won't master you--eh, mamma?' he added, with an +encouraging glance at his wife's pale face on the sofa. + +The Vicar of Wakefield, and even Mr. Pickwick himself, had never been +more jovial at a Christmas party than were Miss Abingdon's guests. A +silver bowl in the middle of the table suggested punch; Canon +Wrottesley must brew a wassail bowl. A footman was sent for this thing +and that, for lemons and boiling water--the water must boil, remember? +And too much sugar would spoil the whole thing. The vicar stirred the +ingredients with an air, and poured from time to time a spoonful of the +punch into a wine-glass, and sampled its quality by rolling it in his +mouth and screwing up his eyes. + +The wassail bowl being now mixed to his satisfaction, he filled the +glasses of the company, allotting to each lady the thimbleful which he +believed to be a woman's share of any alcoholic beverage, and +extracting compliments from every one. The wassail bowl was a triumph, +and the candle of Mr. Pickwick was put out. Even Dickens' hero could +not have given such an air of jollity to a festive occasion like this. +He toasted every one in the good old-fashioned custom, requesting 'A +glass of wine with you' on this side and on that. After dinner the +presence of Dorothy Avory furnished the pretext for inaugurating a +country dance in the hall. Canon Wrottesley pushed chairs aside and +rolled rugs up, and before many minutes were over Sir Roger de Coverley +was in full swing, and he was footing it with the indomitable energy of +the man whose feet may be heavy but whose heart is aye young. + +Miss Abingdon in grey satin was the vicar's partner, and attempted to +go through the steps in the minuet style; the young Wrottesleys, on the +other hand, were at an age when to be asked to dance Sir Roger de +Coverley can only be construed as deadly insult. Fortunately for them, +the vicar by some strategical movement always found himself in the +enviable position of the dancer who ambles forward to make his bow. + +The lady who was playing the piano at last stopped the music with a few +solemn chords, faintly suggestive of an Amen, and Canon Wrottesley, who +was proceeding with his fifth or sixth sally into the middle of the +figure, stopped breathless. Dorothy Avory looked over-heated when the +dance was finished, and as she had furnished the excuse for a rather +poor attempt at romping, her obvious fatigue was quite sufficient to +give the canon an opportunity of a little quiet reading until all were +rested. He put on his spectacles--which he always wore with an air of +apology--and gave out the title of the story, _The Old Vicomte--A +Christmas Episode_. + +Doubtless the scene of the story was laid in France, but that fact +hardly justified Canon Wrottesley in reading the whole of it in broken +English. His knowledge of French had always been a matter of pride +with him, and he enjoyed rolling out the foreign names with a perfect +accent. + +The number of listeners in the room had diminished considerably before +the reading was finished. Good-nights were said on all sides, the +Vicarage party drove away, and, the conscientious romping and jollity +being over, it may have been felt by some of Miss Abingdon's guests +that the duties of Christmas Day had not been altogether light, and +that now perhaps enforced cheerfulness might be abandoned in favour of +a more easy and natural frame of mind. + +Kitty Sherard came into Jane's room in her dressing-gown, with her +hair-brush in her hand, and deliberately relaxed after the fatigues of +the evening. Most girls with such a profusion of curls as Kitty's +would have been content to allow them to wander unrestrained over her +shoulders; but Miss Sherard with her passion for decoration would have +dressed beautifully on a desert island, if her trunks had been washed +ashore with her; she had fastened a knot of rose-coloured ribbon in her +hair, and wore it on one side just over her eye with an unstudied and +perfectly successful effect. + +'I suppose you know,' said Jane, 'that you are extraordinarily pretty, +Kitty?' + +'I spend a fortune on dresses which look cheap,' said Kitty, 'and so +people think I am nice-looking.' + +Jane thought such humility on the part of any one so pretty as Miss +Sherard was a sign in her that she must be out of spirits; so she said, +'Oh, nonsense, Kitty!' in a very affectionate way, and begged that Miss +Sherard would smoke a cigarette if she felt inclined. + +'No,' said Kitty, 'I don't think I want to smoke.' + +Jane drew her chair nearer the big chair on the hearth-rug, and, +blowing out the candles, the two girls sat by the firelight. + +Tenderness, as every one knows, is an ineradicable instinct of +womanhood. Kitty Sherard might smoke cigarettes and drive in a very +high dogcart, but just then her heart felt very nearly breaking, and +she was so grateful to Jane for blowing out the lights and sitting near +her that in defiance of her mood she began to laugh. + +'What a moist party we were in church this morning!' she said, smiling +broadly, and ignoring the fact that her eyes had tears in them. 'Miss +Abingdon looked conscientiously tearful, and Mrs. Avory applied herself +to her pocket-handkerchief as soon as the canon began his usual joyful +Christmas message about empty chairs and absent friends.' + +'Poor Mrs. Avory!' said Jane, 'weeping has become a sort of habit with +her, and tears come very easily. If we had trimmed parasols and eaten +tinned food for supper for a year or two, Kitty, I imagine we should +become very tearful too.' + +Miss Sherard unloosed the rose-coloured ribbon which bound her hair, +and beginning to brush out her curls she said 'Yes,' slowly, and turned +to other topics. + +'Do you ever feel quite old, Jane?' she said at last. 'I do, +especially during a long frost. I feel as if I had tried every single +bit of pleasure that there is in the world and had come through it and +out on the other side, and found that none of it was the least little +bit of good.' + +'Heaven send us a thaw soon!' exclaimed Jane. + +'I quite adore my father,' said Kitty with emphasis, 'and I think he +helps to keep me young; but it is rather pathetic, isn't it, that any +one should think one so perfect as he thinks me?' + +Jane rose ostentatiously from her place and opened the window and +consulted a thermometer that hung outside. + +'Still freezing hard,' she said, and returned to her seat again. + +'You are rather a brick, Jane,' said Kitty. + +'To-morrow,' said Jane, 'I shall certainly write to your father urging +his immediate return before you begin to grow grey-haired.' + +'You 've had a fairly odious Christmas Day,' said Kitty, not noticing +the interruption. 'You 've had to dry Miss Abingdon's tears, and +listen to Canon Wrottesley reading aloud, and you have had to be hearty +to carol-singers and to waft holly-berries in the faces of mothers. +Why don't you throw something at me when I come to your room in the +middle of the night as cross as a bear with a sore head, and begin to +grumble at you?' + +This remark Jane considered serious. 'The end of it will be, that you +'ll get engaged to be married, Kitty,' she said, 'and then I shall jeer +at you and recall to you every one of your past flirtations, and all +your good resolutions about remaining single, and being happy ever +after.' + +'Is it really still Christmas Day?' said Kitty. 'I thought it began +quite a week ago, and that we had had nights and nights of wassail +bowls and old memories and Christmas-card cheerfulness.' She gathered +up her hair-pins and brushes and gave a yawn. 'If it is nearly twelve +o'clock I suppose I ought to go,' she said. + +'I am not a bit sleepy,' quoth Jane. + +'Apart from the fact of my winter being dull,' said Kitty, 'with my +beloved parent in Rome, my temper is never proof against giving way +when any one reads aloud to me. The story of the French vicomte is +really answerable for my present horrible state of mind.' + +'One always connects reading aloud with sick-beds and work-parties,' +said Jane. 'When you are ill, Kitty, I intend to come and read good +books to you.' + +'Mrs. Avory encouraged the canon,' said Kitty. 'I found out afterwards +that she had read the story before, and yet she gave a sort of +surprised giggle at everything.' + +'The Wrottesleys are being awfully good to her,' said Jane excusingly. + +Kitty was still gazing into the fire; her tone when she spoke was that +of a sensible person considering some subject only remotely interesting +to her. 'I suppose,' she said steadily, but with a touch of curiosity, +'that Mrs. Avory will always continue to think that to be true for ever +and ever to Toffy is the most noble and virtuous action in the world.' + +'They have been very faithful to each other,' said Jane. + +A most unexpected thing then happened, for Kitty kneeled down suddenly +on the hearth-rug, while the firelight shone in her eyes and gave a +fierce red look to them. 'Oh, what is the use of it all?' she cried, +'and what is to be the end of it? Mr. Avory is not going to die--he 's +the strongest man I know, and he can't be much more than forty years +old! How does she think it is all going to end? Don't you see how +absurd the whole thing is? She's seven years older than Toffy, so that +even if she could marry him it would not be the best thing for him. +Oh, I know she has behaved well, and worked hard! I know she has eaten +horrid food and trimmed parasols, and been faithful and good, but will +she ever let him care for any one else?' + +'Kitty!' said Jane; she took another step forward, and taking Kitty's +face between her hands she turned it towards her. 'Kitty!' + +'Isn't it ridiculous!' said Kitty. She swallowed down a sob in her +throat and made a pretence of laughing while her hands played with her +hair-brush, and her eyes, which endeavoured to blaze defiance, only +succeeded in looking large and full of tears. + +'I never knew--I never guessed----' began Jane helplessly. + +'You were never meant to know,' said Kitty, and she turned away her +face suddenly from Jane's encircling hands and buried it in the cushion +of the chair. Her voice dropped ominously; she was still kneeling on +the hearth-rug with the paraphernalia of her toilet about her--ribbons +and gold-backed brushes, and a little enamel box for hair-pins. 'No +one was ever meant to know!' she cried, 'and now I shall never be able +to look you in the face again as long as we both do live! It's been +going on so long, Jane, and you 've all been so sorry for Mrs. Avory, +and so sorry for Toffy.' + +'Does he know?' asked Jane, in a low voice. + +Kitty raised her head and pretended to laugh again. 'I 've not +proposed to him yet,' she said. + +'But he cares,' said Jane, with conviction. 'He does care, Kitty!' + +'Oh,' said Kitty, bursting into tears, 'isn't it all a frightful +muddle!' + + * * * * * + +The conclusion, therefore, which may be arrived at on the vexed +question as to which is preferable--the lot of the man who works or the +lot of the woman who weeps, may be summed up in the convenient phrase, +'There is a great deal to be said on both sides.' + +It is true that Kitty Sherard and Jane, left behind in comfortable and +prosaic England, were spared the torment of flies and mosquitoes and +other minor ills; they escaped most of the hard things of life, and +enjoyed many of its pleasures and luxuries; and these mitigations +seemed to them things of very little worth, and the life of action, +when viewed from the safe security of their environment, appeared to be +the only possible condition which might assuage pain or lessen the +bitterness of separation. + +Peter Ogilvie, meanwhile, and his friend, Nigel Christopherson, were in +the midst of weather as hot as can be very well endured even by English +people, who seem capable of resisting almost every sort of bad climate. +The sun rose on the edge of the level plains every morning with +horrible punctuality, and stared and blazed relentlessly until it had +burned itself out in a beautiful rage and glory in the blood-red +western sky. + +'Dawn,' Ross said, 'is one of the things you are disposed to admire +when you first come to Argentine, but when the hot weather begins you +feel inclined to throw your boots at the sun when it rises.' + +Now it was afternoon, and a heavy day's work in the corral was over. +Peter was writing letters, while Ross and Toffy dozed in long cane +chairs in the corridor. Purvis sat on the little cretonne-covered box +beside the empty fireplace, and looked with lack-lustre eyes into +space. He had been helping with some work on the estancia; but he had +brought none of his own men with him, as some neighbours had done, and +the ominous whisper grew that there was trouble down at his place. +Ross treated the matter lightly, and explained it by saying that Purvis +was making a fortune with his steamers, and was feeding his men on +_carne flacca_. 'Purvis does his best, poor beast, and I believe he is +worth a dozen detectives in this affair of yours, Peter.' + +Peter himself, however, was inclined to draw back a little. 'He has +put me on the wrong scent once or twice,' he said. + +'After all, you haven't told him much,' said Ross. + +And Peter agreed that this was so. + +There was an undefined feeling in his mind that if he had to learn that +his brother was alive he would like to hear of it through such +legalized channels as Sir John Falconer was arranging. The detective +spirit was not strong in Peter Ogilvie. He would have preferred to +take the whole world into his confidence, and to ask them to speak out +if they had anything to say. But Mr. Semple and Sir John had cautioned +him against this procedure, and the inquiries he had been able to make +had been conducted at one time with such surprising caution that no +possible clue was given towards finding the child, while at others he +had allowed more to be known than Mr. Semple, for instance, would have +thought wise. He had lately become more reserved in his dealings with +their neighbour at La Dorada, and began almost to try to discount the +fact that he had ever consulted Purvis at all about his affairs. He +lightly waved aside any information that was given him, and was always +busy at the moment when Purvis wanted a few words with him. He advised +Toffy to say, if he were asked, that Sir John Falconer was making +inquiries, and that for the present they themselves were not going to +move in the matter. Toffy and Ross both thought that they had gone too +far to make such an attitude possible. 'What harm can it do to find +out what he knows?' Ross said more than once. + +But Peter still held back. 'I hate his confounded mysteries,' he said, +'and I don't attach much importance to things that are only known in a +back-stairs sort of way.' + +This afternoon in his letter to Jane he had given it as his opinion +that the little man who they had thought might help them was proving to +be rather a fraud. 'He is always starting ideas,' wrote Peter, 'and +nothing comes of them. Why, bless me, you would think that Argentine +was peopled with unclaimed babies and stiff with missing heirs.' + +He felt better when he had unbosomed himself to Jane and had got rid of +some of his impatience and ill-temper. + +'I think I 'll ride to the post presently,' he said, getting up and +stretching himself; 'it must get cooler soon.' + +Purvis got up also from his little wooden seat by the fireplace. 'I +'ll come with you,' he said. 'I am expecting letters which may want my +immediate attention, and I can call at the telegraph office on my way. +May I give you my company so far?' he asked. There was a touch of the +lackey about Purvis, and his voice was humble sometimes to the verge of +irritation. + +'_Como no?_' said Peter lazily, in the formula of the country. His +tone was not enthusiastic. Purvis was so prone to circumlocution that +the fact that he had asked deliberately to accompany him on the ride +towards the mail in the cool of the evening convinced him that the man +could have nothing of importance to say. + +They rode together over the short, tough turf of the camp a little way +without speaking, and then Purvis began, in his smooth thin voice, +riding a little nearer to his companion so as to make himself heard +without undue exertion, 'I wanted to speak to you alone.' + +'Say on,' said Peter. + +When he was riding Purvis was perhaps at his worst. He had an ugly +seat in the saddle, and his dark grey suit, made with trousers, was +worn without riding-boots. He looked straight in front of him with his +tired watery eyes with the perpetual tear in them, and said, 'I believe +we are within measurable distance of finding the man you seek.' + +Peter looked full at him, but the other did not turn his head; his +horse cantered along lazily in the evening light as he sat loosely in +the saddle, his pale, expressionless face turned towards the path by +which they were travelling. + +'The name of the man,' he said, 'is Edward Ogilvie.' + +'Yes,' said Peter; 'my brother.' The thing was out now, and he could +thank Heaven that he did not wear his heart on his sleeve. + +'It is a very strange story!' said Purvis. + +'May we have it?' asked Peter briefly. He might employ Purvis, but it +galled him to think that his future lay in his hands. + +'No,' said Purvis, in his hesitating, thin voice. 'You can't have it +for the present. To begin with,' he continued, turning towards Peter +for the first time, and raising pathetically large eyes towards him, 'I +am not going to speak about it until I am sure, nor am I going to speak +about it until I have asked you for some necessary details which will +make a mischance or a case of mistaken identity impossible. I don't +want to make a fool of myself, as you have trusted me so far.' + +'Ask me anything you like,' said Peter laconically. His mind was +pretty full just then, and there was a note of confidence in Purvis's +voice which gave him the idea that their search was nearly over. He +began to wonder how much money he had, and whether there was any chance +of the Scottish place being his. Bowshott, of course, would pass away +from him, and the beautiful house with its galleries and its gardens +would be the property of some unknown man. Possibly the man had a +wife, and where Jane was to have reigned as mistress there would be +some woman, unused to great houses, and with manners perhaps not suited +to her position. He wondered what his mother would have thought about +it all, and whether she could in the least realize what the result of +her unfinished letter to him might be. Whatever her faults she had +been a great lady to her finger-tips. He remembered her, as he had +been wont to see her, showing her pictures and gardens to the foreign +royalties who came to see her, or receiving Her Majesty when she drove +over from Windsor and called upon her. Only Jane could ever fill her +place adequately; Jane with her short skirts and graceful, swinging +walk, and her queer plain hats that so perfectly became her, and made +country neighbours look overdressed. He loved to remember her in a +hundred different ways--in white satin, with a string of pearls about +her neck; at meets, on one of her sixteen-hand hunters; playing golf; +painting the rabbit-hutch in the garden; binding up Toffy's hand that +morning, ages ago, when he had had a spill out of his motor-car; +playing with the school-children on the lawn; or, best of all, perhaps, +dancing in the great ballroom at Bowshott, and sitting with him +afterwards in the dimness of his mother's tapestried chamber, her great +white feather fan laid upon her knees. + +'Is the man married?' asked Peter, with a drawl. + +'He is married,' Purvis said, as the two horses swung together in their +easy stride. + +'Wife alive?' Peter slowed down and lighted a cigarette with +deliberation. + +'That is a part of the story which I cannot at present divulge,' said +Purvis. + +'It sounds mysterious!' said Peter, sending his horse into a canter +again. + +'If it were written in a romance it would hardly be believed,' said the +other. + +'You were going to ask me some questions,' said Peter, as though to put +an end to any dissertation on the romantic side of the story. 'It is a +business matter,' he said, 'and we had better be businesslike about it. +We can unfold the romance of it later.' + +'That is my wish,' said Purvis gravely. + +Peter began to tell himself that he was treating the man badly. He had +nothing to gain beyond a little money for his services, and so far he +had behaved well and with tact. He was obviously disinterested, +although perhaps the bill for pursuing his investigations might be +fairly high. + +'I have reason to believe that the identity of the man can be proved,' +said Purvis; 'but I am not going to risk finding a mare's nest, as I +have told you.' + +'I am not much help to you,' said Peter. 'I have never set eyes oh my +brother since I was two years old.' + +'This is his photograph,' said Purvis, producing a coloured photograph +from his pocket. + +Peter took it into his hands and looked long at it. It represented a +little boy with fair curls seated in a photographer's arm-chair. + +'Can you tell me if it resembles any of your family?' said Purvis. + +'Well, 'pon my word I don't know,' said Peter. 'The photograph is a +small one, you see, and evidently not a very good one, and to my mind +all children of that age look exactly alike. He looks a good little +chap,' he finished, with a touch of kindness in his voice. If his +brother turned out to be a good fellow reparation would be made easier; +and, heavens! how badly the man had been treated. + +'The chief danger,' said Purvis, 'lies in the fact that even a strong +chain of evidence is not likely to be accepted by those who would +benefit by Edward Ogilvie's death.' + +'I suppose one would play a fair game,' said Peter shortly. 'I should +like to know where you have heard of the man?' + +'I may tell you that much,' said Purvis. 'I heard of him at Rosario.' + +'Any reason why he should not have communicated with his friends all +these years?' + +'Within the next few weeks,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to bring +you face to face with your brother, and then you can put what inquiries +you like to him. You must surely see that it is necessary to act with +caution until the thing is decided. Even now I can't be quite sure if +this man's claim is valid; but once the story is out a dozen claimants +may arise, and it would cost you a fortune to sift all the evidence +which they might bring.' + +'Yes, I see that,' said Peter. + +'I am disappointed that the photograph conveys nothing to you,' said +Purvis. 'I looked upon it as an important link in the chain of +evidence, thinking there might be another like it amongst the old +servants, perhaps, at your home.' + +Peter looked at it again. 'The trouble is,' he said, 'that there are +no old servants who knew us as children. He was handing the photograph +back to Purvis when an idea struck him. 'I tell you what, though,' he +exclaimed, 'I believe the sash round the child's waist is made of +Ogilvie tartan.' + + * * * * * + +A bare-legged boy on a lean pony was seen approaching them in a cloud +of dust. The pony's short canter made his pace as easy as a +rocking-chair; and Lara's son, who rode him, was half asleep in the +heat. The post-bag dangled from his saddle, and the reins lay on the +pony's neck. + +'Any letters?' said Peter in Spanish, and the boy handed the bag to +him. The mail-boat from England, which was run on purpose to carry +Jane's weekly letter to him, had brought the big square envelope with +its usual commendable punctuality. Peter chose it out from the rest of +the letters, and, handing Purvis a packet which belonged to him, he +gave the bag back to the boy, who cantered along with his bare legs +swinging until he disappeared into the level glare of the setting sun. + +Peter let his horse amble on slowly, and read his letter while he rode. + +'I must push on, I think,' said the quiet voice of Purvis beside him. +'There are one or two things which, I gather from my letters, I must +put straight at the estancia. I hope to have definite news to +communicate to you before long.' + +'Thanks!' said Peter, giving him a nod. 'You will let me hear from you +as soon as you know anything?' He turned his horse homewards, and +Purvis rode on alone. + +'If he has found my brother,' quoth Peter, 'Purvis has done his job, +and I can't complain; but he has got to settle the thing up without all +this confounded mystery, or else he can leave it alone. There is one +thing perfectly clear. Edward himself knows nothing about his parents +or his prospects, or he would have claimed the property long ago. Now, +how has Purvis found out about the man what he doesn't know himself? +Where has he got his clue? One thing is pretty certain--that he +doesn't want me to meet my brother yet, which looks very much as if our +friend Purvis was going to make some sort of bargain with the heir, +whoever he is, before he allows him to know the truth about himself. +Well, the affair will be judged by English lawyers when we get home, +and if it is a case of blackmail, for instance, English people are not +very fond of that sort of thing, so Purvis may not be able to make such +a good bargain as he thinks. + +'Of course the chain of evidence may be perfectly simple. Purvis has +probably got hold of the name of whoever it was that brought Edward +here, and has traced him somewhere, and has got the whole story from +him. My mother had always an unlimited supply of money; she could have +settled a large sum on the people who looked after him, and of course +it is evident that some money must have been paid, though the lawyers +could find no trace of it amongst her papers. The only other +hypothesis is that it is a case of some extraordinary aberration of +memory, and that, the child she disliked having been removed, she +forgot about him altogether. All my life I never remember hearing him +mentioned; and as my mother did not return to Bowshott until I was +nearly eight years old, very little may have been said to her that +would recall the fact of the boy's death. + +'It is the beastly uncertainty of it,' he continued, as he rode slowly +home on the dusty track which was the apology for a road across the +camp. 'If the estate pays me sufficient to live upon I needn't +grumble; but Purvis must give me an account of what he has been doing, +and put me in possession of the facts of the case. One always +distrusts the middleman, and wonders if he is making a good bargain on +both sides. A small man like Purvis always tries to be important, and +to make every one believe that he alone holds the key to mysteries, and +that no one can get on without him. I don't at present see how he can +defraud either me or my brother, even if he wants to; but I am not +going to be content with hints or suggestions, as if I were living in a +penny novelette.' + +He rode slowly home through the heat that rose like a palpable gas from +the scorched ground, until the little estancia house hove in sight +again. He found that Toffy and Ross were still enjoying their +afternoon siesta. There was not a bit of shade anywhere, and the heat +seemed to burn through the roof until the very floor was hot to walk +upon. His thoughts went back to Purvis in his tweed clothes and the +bowler bat with the pugaree on it, and he wondered how he fared in the +scorching heat. Probably the anaemic little man hardly knew what it +was to be too hot. He used to ride over the camp when even the peons +did not show their heads out of doors, and his hands were always cold +and damp to the touch. Peter drank some tea and sat down at little +Mrs. Chance's writing-table in the drawing-room, and wrote to Jane. +There was a feeling of storm in the air, and he envied the two men +sleeping luxuriously in the corridor. + +'When you have been out here a year or two,' said the sleepy voice of +Ross from the depths of a long cane chair, 'you will find that letters +are not only impossible but unnecessary. No one expects to hear from +one after the first month or two, and if one did write there would be +nothing to say.' + +'When my creditors get too troublesome,' said Toffy, also waking up, 'I +shall emigrate here and lose my own address. With strict economy one +might live very cheaply in Argentine.' + +Lara's boy, who had come with the letters, had waited to ride back with +the bag to the far distant post office; and the Englishmen at the +estancia stood and watched him--a tiny figure on his tireless little +Argentine pony--riding away eastward until once more a cloud of dust +swallowed him up. The humble postman seemed to form a link with home, +and in three weeks' time the letters which they had confided to him +would be safely in the hands of those to whom they were written in +England. The pony's unshod hoofs had made hardly any sound on the turf +as he cantered off, and Lara's boy, in his loose shirt and shabby +clothes, and his bare feet hanging stirrupless on each side of the +pony, disappeared like a wraith. There was a week to wait before he +would come with any more letters. + +'I wish the storm would burst or blow over,' said Ross; 'the heat is +worse than ever to-day, and it doesn't seem as though we were going to +have a cool night.' + +'Even the peons look curled up,' said Toffy, glancing at a group of +men, picturesquely untidy, with loose shirts and scarlet boinas on +their heads, who lounged against the _palo á pique_ of the corral. + +'What idle brutes they are, really!' said Ross; 'and they 're always +ten times worse when Chance is away. Look at those bits of paper +littering the place,' he went on fussily. 'Now I know that those men +have been told thousands of times not to let things fly about like +that. But it saves them trouble when they clean a room to sweep +everything out of doors and then leave it lying about.' + +Probably most men who own property have an inherent dislike to seeing +scraps of paper lying about; the sight suggests trippers and visitors' +days, and Peter stepped down from the raised corridor, and with his +stick began poking the bits of paper into the powdery mud which was all +that at present formed the estancia garden. + +'I believe we might paper the whole house with Purvis's telegrams,' he +said, laughing, as he shoved a bit of coloured paper under the ground. + +'Salter,' he said to himself--'Salter. It sounds like the agony column +at home. Well, Ross and I had better stop acting as scavengers for the +household, or we may learn too much of Purvis's domestic affairs.' + +He stopped poking with his stick; and, although he laughed, he was as +much annoyed at having seen the name on the telegram as he would have +been had he inadvertently overlooked another man's hand at cards. + +The storm blew away in the night, and after the dawn the sky was a +heavenly blue, so brilliant that it could not be overlooked. In the +early morning the mimosa trees threw cool shadows to westward, and +little parakeets, making their flights from bough to bough, screamed +overhead. On the estancia work began early; some one had to lasso a +novillo for the pot, and the rodeo looked like a seething, bubbling +cauldron, with its moving mass of cattle. The easy paces of the horses +on which all the work of the place was done made riding a matter not of +exercise at all; and the only thing necessary was to duck heads to +avoid the mimosa boughs, and to guide the horses round the holes and +stumps in the ground at a gentle canter. The novillo was lassoed, and +the sun began to be sultry when the three men rode back to breakfast, +congratulating themselves that, as the day seemed likely to be as hot +as usual, there was not a great deal of work to be done, at least until +the cool of the evening. + +'Is that Purvis?' asked Toffy, as they approached the house and +tethered their horses by the simple expedient of throwing their reins +over their heads and letting them trail upon the ground. 'When, in the +name of the Prophet, does that fellow sleep?' It was barely ten +o'clock when they rode back to breakfast, and Purvis must have started +on his ride almost at dawn. + +'Hallo!' said Ross, greeting him with a certain kindliness which a very +big man will show to one who is small and weak, even if he has growled +at his appearance a moment before. 'Hallo, Purvis, where have you come +from, and when do you get any sleep?' + +'I don't think that sleep is very necessary to me,' said Purvis; 'and I +generally find that I work just as well when I have only two or three +hours' rest.' + +'That's very odd,' said Toffy amicably. + +'I came back about my little boy,' said Purvis; 'I have to go down to +Buenos Ayres, and I want to know if I may leave him here with you.' + +Ross assented, and Toffy remarked that he believed with training he +himself might make a very fair nursery-maid. + +'Things are a little bit disturbed at my place,' said Purvis. 'I have +so many mixed nationalities down there, and they don't get on well +together, and are difficult to manage. I would rather not leave Dick, +if you could have him--Dick will be a good boy--no?' he said, speaking +in the questioning negative so common in Argentine, and addressing the +pale-faced little boy in a manner far too babyish for his years. + +Dick made no promise; but feeling, boy-like, that he never quite knew +what being good involved, he wriggled uneasily in his chair. His +father laid one of his hands on the boy's dark hair and the other +beneath the delicately pointed chin, and, turning up the little face +towards him, he kissed it with womanish affection. + +'When will you get the train?' said Ross presently, as they sat at +breakfast in the hall. 'You can't catch the one to-night, and there's +not another for two days. Your best plan would have been to send us a +wire about the boy, and to have taken your own steamer down to Taco; it +would have saved a long bit of riding.' + +'I wanted to say good-bye to my little one,' said Purvis. + +'Well,' said Ross hospitably, 'you are welcome here till your train +starts.' + +'I must be off to-night,' said Purvis. 'If I start at eight this +evening I shall catch the train at one a.m. at Taco.' + +'You will be dead, Purvis!' said Peter. + +Chance had once asserted that Purvis was the only man he knew who had +no sense of fatigue and no sense of fear. 'It's quite true,' he said, +when there was a murmur of astonishment from his listeners; 'and, much +as I dislike the man, I have never known him to be afraid of anything. +It may, of course, be due to a lack of imagination on his part; but I +myself believe that it is the result of having been so frequently in +tight places. I don't believe he can even handle a gun; and yet if he +were surrounded and mobbed he would probably only blink with his watery +eyes or help himself to another tabloid.' + +Purvis left his horse in the cool of the paraiso trees during the day, +and a peon brought it to the door after he had eaten a frugal dinner, +during which meal he attended far more to the wants of his child than +to his own. + +After dinner Peter cut some sandwiches for him, and gave him a flask of +whisky, a piece of hospitality which in all probability he would have +offered a man who was about to hang him. He had been nurse and +guardian in one to Toffy at Eton, and his long care of the delicate boy +had given him an odd sort of thoughtfulness which showed itself in +small and homely acts like this. + +'When I return from Buenos Ayres,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to +put before you the facts which will identify Edward Ogilvie.' + +'You are quite sure you have got them?' said Peter briefly. + +'I am almost certain,' said Purvis. + +'Of course,' went on Peter, 'you understand that all the evidence that +you bring before me will have to be thoroughly investigated by +lawyers?' He was half sorry that he had spoken sharply when Purvis +replied with his usual quietness, 'That goes without saying.' + +'I dislike anything sensational,' Peter said; 'and this is a case in +which I much prefer that all information which you get shall be brought +direct to me. To be suddenly confronted with my brother might be very +interesting from the point of view of an Adelphi audience; but then, +you see, we are not in a theatre at present.' + +'The facts in this case,' replied Purvis, 'are quite exceptional; you +will allow this, I think, when you know them, and you will then +appreciate the fact that it was necessary to get the whole of the +evidence quite clearly established before making the final results +known to you.' + +'We have hardly time to argue the subject,' said Peter, 'seeing that +your pony is at the door. The solicitor in Buenos Ayres, whom Sir John +Falconer recommended to me, will meet you here any day you like to +name, and we can go into the matter thoroughly with you together.' + +'That would be the most satisfactory plan,' said Purvis, raising his +weak eyes to Peter. 'Meanwhile,' he said, 'my expenses in this matter +have been considerable; perhaps you would kindly look at my account +before starting?' + +'No,' said Peter shortly, 'I could not. I am not in the habit of +looking over my accounts by moonlight in the garden.' + +'A hundred pounds on account,' said Purvis, 'would enable me to bring +this important matter to a conclusion. Without that, I fear, I am +powerless.' + +It ended in Toffy and Peter putting their available cash together and +giving Purvis seventy pounds, and the clerkly man of ink produced a +stamp and a stylographic pen from his pocket, and made out the receipt +on the little dining-room table and handed it to Peter. + +'Thank you,' said Peter, relenting a little. He was annoyed with +himself for the irritation which Purvis produced in him. After all, he +had asked him for his assistance, and he was giving it to the best of +his ability. He went as far as the door with him, and said, 'If the +claim is established, remember I should like to see Edward Ogilvie as +soon as possible. Wire to me all particulars, and be so good as to +convey to him that we are anxious to do the right thing by him. I +should not like him to feel, for instance, that the fact of his +existence was any cause of resentment with any of us.' + +'It is he, perhaps, who will feel resentment,' said Purvis. + +'Perhaps,' said Peter, resisting an inclination to speed Purvis's +departure. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Toffy was hovering about the dining-room waiting for him as he turned +and went into the house again, and said, 'All this is a bit rough on +you, Peter.' And Peter assented with a nod. + +The two men went into the little drawing-room to collect pillows for +the long chairs in the corridor where they were going to sleep, and +Peter went to a side table to turn low a lamp which was adding to the +heat of the room. 'I say,' he said, 'didn't you mean these letters to +go?' + +'Haven't my letters gone?' said Toffy. 'How on earth were they +forgotten?' + +'Toffy,' said Peter, 'when I meet you acting as a sandwich-man in +Piccadilly, without a rag to your back or a shilling to your name, I +shall say nothing more encouraging to you than, "It was just what I +expected!"' + +'But Ross always told me to leave my letters here when I wanted them +posted!' said Toffy, scratching his head. + +'It's an extraordinary thing,' said Peter, 'that you ever have a pillow +to lay your head on; and you don't get that unless I heave it at you +and prevent other fellows grabbing it! Who 's got your motorcar at +home now? Some one, I suppose, you 've lent it to, and from whom you +won't a bit like to ask it back. Are you getting any rent at all for +Hulworth?' he went on, his wrath increasing as he spoke, 'or are you +letting it slide for a bit because your tenants are hard up? Would you +have a picture, or a bit of cracked china, or a bottle of wine left, if +they had not been all tied up by some cunning ancestor and looked after +by his executors? What has become of your horses, and why are you +always put to sleep in the billiard-room of an hotel, or in the pantry, +when other fellows get a decent bed provided for them? Why do they +give you a room over the stables when country houses are full, where +the coachman's wife asks you if you would like a little hot water in +the morning, and regrets that the chimney doesn't draw very well? You +were born that way, I suppose,' finished Peter hopelessly. 'I don't +believe you were ever allowed a cradle if your nurse wanted it for any +one else!' + +'I rub along all right!' said Toffy apologetically. + +'Look here,' said Peter, 'I 'll ride with these letters after Purvis, +and ask him to post them; he 'll get down to Taco in time to catch the +mail, and I can easily overtake him on the _bayo_.' + +The Englishmen had learned to call their horses after their different +shades of colour, in the usual Argentine way; the one Peter spoke of +was a dun-coloured brute, three-parts English-bred. + +Toffy protested, but Peter was obstinate. He had been worried and +unsettled all day, and he believed that it would be a good thing to let +off steam by a ride over the camp; besides which, Toffy's letters had +taken a good two hours to write, and Peter guessed they were important. +He could easily overtake Purvis with them before he should reach La +Dorada. + +'I 'll sit up and trim the lamp like a faithful wife, until you +return,' said Toffy. + +'You 'll go to bed, you ass!' shouted Peter. He was outside the house +fastening the girths of the _bayo_ as he spoke, and now he swung +himself into the saddle and sent his horse forward with the +characteristic quick movement of a hunting man. + +The long ride in the moonlight did him good. The intensity of the +clear light had something strange and wonderful in it, touched with +unearthliness. Night with its thousand secrets whispered about him, +and he felt very small and insignificant riding alone under the great +silvery dome of heaven, hushed with a sense of the far-away and with +the mystery of its innumerable stars. Now and then he came across a +herd of cattle standing feeding in the short grass of the camp, their +shadows showing black beside them, or a frightened tropillo of horses +would start at the sound of the _bayo's_ hoofs. He took a short-cut +through the mimosa woods, where the ground was uneven. His horse +picked its way unfalteringly as it cantered forward, though Peter had +to stoop very often to save his head from touching the low branches of +the trees. Overhead some parakeets, disturbed in their slumbers, flew +from bough to bough, their green wings and tiny red heads turning to +strange colours in the moonlight. He got away through one of the rough +gates of the estancia out into the open camp again, where the earth was +full of a vast stillness about him, and the stars pulsated overhead to +the unspeakable music of the night. + +And now he began to expect every minute to overtake Purvis, and he +strained his eyes eagerly for the solitary figure of the horseman. He +knew he was riding a much better horse than the one Purvis was on, and +still he failed to come up with him. The track on which he rode was +clear enough, and his horse knew the way to La Dorada as well as any +peon on the place. Peter took out his watch and looked at it in the +moonlight. It was not a quarter to twelve, and he was already at the +little settlement, close by the river, where some Italians and +Spaniards lived. He recognized one of the ill-built small huts as the +place where Juan Lara dwelt, and he drew up to ask whether Purvis was +ahead of him or not, and whether his boy had started with his mail-bag +for the train yet. A Spaniard with a dark face answered his knock, and +told him that no one had passed that way to-night, also that his boy +had left much earlier in the afternoon with the mail. He suggested +that the traveller should come inside and wait until his friend should +overtake him; and as there was plenty of time Peter resolved to rest +his horse, and then to push on to La Dorada if Purvis should not turn +up. Lara's wife came to beg him to enter. She was an old woman before +her time, and had reared a large family in the tiny confines of this +little hut. Peter took off his soft felt hat and, stooping below the +little doorway, came inside. The use of the Spanish language was +inherited from his mother, and he congratulated Lara's wife on her +skill in washing shirts, and made some conversation with her. + +The place which he had entered was poor enough; it was built on a mud +floor, and was entirely devoid of furniture save for a ramshackle +bedstead with spotless linen upon it, and a couple of chairs. There +was a tiny shrine with an image of the Virgin in the corner of the +room; before it burned a halfpenny night-light, and round it were +ranged in a row a number of paper match-boxes with little coloured +pictures upon them. They were French match-boxes, which opened with a +spring formed of elastic, and underneath the pictures were jokes of a +doubtful description. Neither Lara nor his wife knew anything of the +French language; the empty paper match-boxes, with the horrible jokes +upon them, were offered faithfully before Our Lady. They were the best +they had to give, and they were the only decorations in the room. + +The-woman dusted a chair for Peter, and set the other for her husband, +and she herself sat down upon the edge of the bed. They were both glad +of visitors at whatever hour they arrived, and in the solitary life of +the camp a belated horseman may often ride up after dusk. + +Peter explained that it was Señor Purvis, who owned the big estancia +down at La Dorada, whom he was riding to overtake. + +'He had better not ride about too much alone,' said the Spaniard. +'There are some long knives about, and the señor is a short man.' + +'What is the trouble on the estate?' said Peter. But he could get no +information from Lara. 'He had better take care,' the man said. +'Señor Purvis would be safer if he were to sail away in his steamer, +and be gone for a month or two.' + +'He has a mixed lot of men on his estancia, has he not?' Peter asked. + +'Yes,' said the man; 'but they are mostly Spanish, and the señor, for +all his Spanish tongue, has not got a heart that understands the +people.' + +'You don't think anything can have happened to him?' Peter asked. + +He reflected that the road was an open one all the way, and that he +must have seen if there had been anything like a disturbance; but in +the end a certain apprehension for the safety of the man made him think +that he had better push on and hear if there were any news of him at La +Dorada. There might be some path or track to the river-side of which +he knew nothing; and if that bypath existed Purvis would certainly take +it, however circuitous it might be. There seemed to be some curious +obliquity about him which made for crooked ways, and in any case Peter +did not want to miss the mail with Toffy's letters. He said good +night, and, hearing no news of the traveller at the quay, he rode on +until he reached the small unfenced railway station at Taco, set down +apparently promiscuously on the grey arid plain. There Lara's boy was +waiting with his mail-bag, and after a time the sleepy station-master +began to bestir himself, and a cart came in with five horses harnessed +abreast carrying some freight. Still there was no sign of Purvis, and +Peter had to give his letters to the guard when at last, with a shrill +whistle, the train came into the station. + +It was very odd, he reflected; and he began to wonder whether Purvis +was in danger, and to be vaguely disturbed by what the people in the +hut had said to him. Ross had told him many tales of how Englishmen +had been murdered out here. There was the case of poor Wentworth, +whose Spanish wife had held him down when he had tried to escape, and +whose own major-domo had shot him at the door. Nobody knew anything of +the matter, of course. The Spaniards keep their secrets well. Nobody +was ever brought to justice; and the affair, which would have made a +sensation at home, only horrified a few English neighbours near the +estancia. But the feeling against Purvis seemed to be something much +deeper than personal jealousy or mere greed for gold dollars. There +was a storm brewing about him, and no one knew when it would burst. + +'Purvis will have to look out,' reflected Peter; and he wondered where +on earth the man had got to to-night. He wished he could give him some +sort of warning; but he reflected that Purvis knew far more about the +state of affairs than he, Peter, did. No one could tell Purvis much +about Argentine that he did not know already. His vague feeling of +suspicion against the man deepened, and he began to wonder what game +Purvis was playing. Had the other man in Rosario paid him well to do +his work for him, or was Purvis withholding information until a certain +price was stipulated? Bowshott was worth a ransom, and Purvis might be +playing a double game. Between the two men he might feather his nest +very well. + +The dawn was breaking as Peter rode slowly homewards, and a pale pink +light was in the sky. His horse ambled gently along, never mistaking +his way or making a false step on the rough, uneven ground, but +swinging at an easy canter, and getting over an immense distance +without much distress to himself. The moon, in a sort of hushed +silence, was climbing down the arc of heaven as the sun rose to +eastward. The pale light touched the surface of a _tajamar_ as he rode +past it, and the trees beside it threw still, sad, faint shadows into +its quiet depth. Above the western monte a lordly eagle with hushed +wings rose majestically overhead, and some viscashos popped in a +noiseless way in and out of their holes. The air was cool and fresh +now, and a tree or two began to rise up unexpectedly out of the ground +in the grey light. + +He began to get sleepy with the easy motion of the horse; the endless +line of plain around him was wearying to the eye as the sun rose upon +it. Well, he would get into camp before it became very hot; that idiot +Toffy would probably be sitting up for him. + +He laughed softly to himself as he saw a flicker of light in the window +that looked towards the track, when at last he drew near the little +estancia house. It was like Toffy to remember to put a lamp where he +could see it! It was worth while taking a midnight ride for such a +good fellow, although he had had a very fair notion of what was in one +of the letters, and entirely disapproved its contents. The last mail +had brought news that Horace Avory was ill, and Peter knew quite well +that Toffy had written to Mrs. Avory. Of course she was not the wife +for him; she was very delicate and no longer very young, and she had a +plain little daughter who was ten years old. Still, Peter supposed +that the marriage might turn out pretty well in spite of obvious +drawbacks; and Heaven knew that Mrs. Avory, in her own sad, tearful +way, had fought very bravely against poverty and loneliness and +unhappiness, and that she loved Toffy with her whole heart. But why, +now that things seemed to be arranging themselves in a satisfactory +manner, should Toffy be in the blues, and lie awake during the greater +part of the hot nights? + +He drew up at the door of the house when the sun was becoming hot, and +Toffy appeared in his pyjamas and prepared a cup of coffee on a stove +of patent construction for which he claimed admiration every time it +was used. + +'Thanks, Peter!' he said briefly. 'I was writing to Mrs. Avory by this +mail, and she would have been disappointed if she had not heard from +me. Did you overtake Purvis?' + +'No, I didn't,' said Peter; 'and what's more, he didn't go by the mail +train to Buenos Ayres!' + +'What a queer chap he is!' said Toffy. 'You never know where to have +him! That can't be he coming back now?' he said, looking from the +small window at two riders who came cantering up to the door. + +'Is it? Yes! No, it isn't,' said Peter, going over to the window. +'But I 'll tell you who it is, though! It's Dunbar, and he 's got a +commissario of police with him! Now, what in the name of wonder do +they want here?' + +The two riders dismounted at the gate and came up the little path +through the garden to the door. They walked stiffly, as though they +had ridden for a long time, and their horses, tethered by the gate, +looked used up and tired. + +Dunbar hardly paused to shake hands. 'Look here,' he said, 'E. W. +Smith is here, and he 's wanted!' + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +'First of all,' said Peter, 'who is E. W. Smith, and why the dickens +should you imagine he is here?' + +Dunbar gave him a quick look. 'Is any one here?' he asked. + +'No one but Ross and Christopherson and myself,' said Peter. 'Purvis +was here, but he started for Buenos Ayres last night, and I have no +idea where he is now. I saw the train start from the station at Taco, +but he was not in it.' + +'Purvis is in a tight place,' said Dunbar dryly. + +Ross, hearing voices in the drawing-room, wakened up, and now appeared +with ruffled hair and still clad in his sleeping-suit. He suggested +refreshments, and sat down to hear what Dunbar had to say. + +Peter's face had a queer set look upon it. Where another man might +perhaps have asked questions he showed something of his mother's +reserve, and was never more silent than when a moment of strain +arrived. He began in a mechanical way to make two fresh cups of +coffee, and poured the steaming mixture from the thin saucepan into the +cups. 'The day of reckoning seems to have arrived for Purvis,' he +said; and then lazily, 'poor brute, he had his points.' Purvis was a +common adventurer after all! And he had got close upon two hundred +pounds from him on the plea of having some knowledge of his brother, +which was simply non-existent. He could see the whole thing now. This +cock-and-bull story of the discovery of the missing man was really a +very simple ruse for extorting money, and the last seventy pounds which +he, Peter, had been fool enough to pay him had been wanted to help +Purvis to get away. + +'I must search the place thoroughly,' said Dunbar. He finished his +coffee; but the ascertaining whether or not any one was concealed in +the little house or in the outbuildings was a matter of only a few +minutes. + +'If he 's got away again,' said Dunbar, 'I 'll eat my hat!' + +'Purvis is a slippery customer,' said Ross; 'but he has lived peaceably +and openly for a considerable time. If he is wanted you have only to +ride up to his door and arrest him.' + +Dunbar cleared his throat. 'You mind,' he said, 'the story of the +_Rosana_, which I told you on board the Royal Mail Packet, when we were +in the River Plate coming up to Monte Video?' + +'I remember,' said Peter briefly. And Ross nodded his head also; every +one in Argentine knew the story of the wreck of the _Rosana_. + +'I knew,' said Dunbar, 'that E. W. Smith could not die!' + +'Smith being Purvis, I take it,' said Toffy. + +'Yes,' said Dunbar, 'or any other alias you please. He is a fair man +now with a beard, isn't he? Well, on board the _Rosana_ he was a +clean-shaven man with dark hair, but you cannot mistake E. W. Smith's +eyes, though I hear his voice is altered.' + +'Are you in the police out here?' Peter asked, with a glance at the +commissario to whom he had just handed a cup of coffee. + +'No, I 'm not,' answered Dunbar, with his usual economy of speech. 'I +'m from Scotland Yard, and I want E. W. Smith on another count. But I +'ll come to that some other time. I 'll need to be off now.' + +'Your horse is done,' protested Ross, 'and you are pretty well done +yourself.' + +'I 'm not that far through,' said Dunbar. + +'Why not send a wire to Buenos Ayres and wait here until you can get a +reply? Purvis may have got on board the train somewhere else, and be +at Buenos Ayres now.' + +'Yes, that will do,' said Dunbar. He dispatched his telegram by one of +the peons, who rode off with it across the camp. In spite of fatigue, +Dunbar, with his nervous energy unimpaired, looked as though he would +like to have ridden with the telegram himself. Reflecting, however, +that there was considerable work still before him, he submitted to +stretching himself on a _catré_ and after a short doze and a bath and +some breakfast he took up again the thread of his story. + +'I 'll not bother you with an account of E. W. Smith's life,' he +remarked, 'although there is a good deal in it that would surprise you. +I 'll keep to the story of the _Rosana_ as time is short.' + +Mr. Dunbar took his faithful friend--his short pipe--from its red-lined +case, filled it with tobacco, and began to draw luxuriously. + +'The _Rosana_ sprang a leak after her first day out, on her run down +the coast, and was lost in twenty fathoms of water. She only carried +one boat, and that boat was seen by myself half-burned, but with a bit +of her name in gold-leaf still visible on her bows. Tranter was the +captain of the boat, and E. W. Smith was clerk and general manager. +Every one knew he cheated the company who ran the boat, and cheated the +captain too, when he could; and it generally suited him to make Tranter +drunk when they were in port. Well, he reaped his profit, and I +suppose a good bit of it lies at the bottom of the sea. He was a man +who always kept large sums in hand in case of finding himself in a +tight place. Did I mention,' said Dunbar, 'that he could not row, +though, of course, Tranter could? But Tranter was wanted for steering.' + +'I don't understand the story,' said Ross, leaning forward. 'You say +that Tranter and this man Purvis, or Smith, escaped from the wreck, and +that Purvis could not row?' + +'I am coming to that,' said Dunbar, unmoved. 'Observe, the _Rosana_ +carried one boat. She had lost her other by an accident, it seems, and +the one that remained was not a much bigger one than a dinghy such as +men use to go to and from the shore when they are in harbour. Tranter +was the first to discover that the _Rosana_ was leaking badly; and the +hold was half-flooded before any one knew anything about it, and the +_Rosana_ was settling by her head. Smith, it seems, and the captain +were armed, or armed themselves as soon as the state of affairs was +known; and before the rest of the crew were awake four men were ordered +to man the boat and bring her alongside. The hatches were closed down +with the rest of the crew still below, and if there was a scuffle two +armed men were perfectly capable of keeping order. Smith and Tranter +got into the boat, and were rowed ashore in safety. If the whole of +the crew had tried to board her there is no doubt about it no one would +have been saved, for there were a good many hands on the steamer, and +the rush to the one boat would have swamped her. The men who manned +the boat and pulled ashore were doubtless glad to save their lives at +any price; but they might make it exceedingly unpleasant for the two +survivors of the wreck did they make their story known. They were +cross-bred natives, whose lives were of no great value to any one but +themselves, and there was an easy way for two armed men to silence them +on a lonely shore without a soul near.' + +'It's a sickening story,' said Ross, getting up and walking towards the +window; and unconsciously he clenched his big hand. + +'Then how,' said Peter keenly, 'has the story leaked out?' + +'Because,' said Dunbar, 'sometimes at a critical moment men do their +work badly, or perhaps a native knows how to feign death before his +life is actually extinct. Dead men tell no lies, but wounded men don't +have their tongues tied in the same way.' + +'So one of the men lived to tell tales!' said Peter, leaning forward in +his chair; 'and Purvis, who has been here for some time past, is the +hero of the story? It is a blackguardly tale, Dunbar, and, thank God, +I believe it would have been impossible in England!' + +'I don't pass judgment on my fellow-men,' said Dunbar. 'Life is sweet, +perhaps, to some of us, and no doubt the whole crew would have swamped +the boat, but----' + +'But, all the same,' said Toffy, 'you don't mean to let Purvis-Smith +get a very light time of it when you do get him.' + +'No, I don't,' said Dunbar. + +Ross passed out through the door of the little drawing-room to the +corridor, and went to see about some work on the farm. The commissario +drank his coffee, and Dunbar waited restlessly for his telegram. + +After breakfast he and Peter slept for a time, for both were dog-tired, +and the day was oppressively hot. In the afternoon a telegram came to +say that no news had been heard of Purvis, and that he was believed to +be still in the neighbourhood of La Dorada. + +'If he is,' said Dunbar, folding up the telegram and putting it into +his pocket, 'I think our future duties will not be heavy. The man who +has come to light and told the story of the wreck of the _Rosana_ is a +native of that favoured spot where already our friend Purvis is not too +popular. God help the man if they get hold of him!' + +'His little boy is here now,' said Toffy, starting up. 'Purvis came +here to leave him in safety.' + +Dunbar was writing another telegram to ask the whereabouts of the +steamer. + +'Then,' he said, 'the story is probably known, and Purvis is aware of +it, and has gone north. He daren't show himself near his estancia +after this.' + +They began to put the story together, piecing it here and there, while +Dunbar continued to send telegrams. + +Ross strolled in presently to discuss the matter again. 'I don't +believe,' he said, 'that Purvis is far off.' + +'He is a brave man if he is anywhere near La Dorada,' said Dunbar. + +'Purvis is a brave man,' said Ross quietly. + +Peter was silent. Only last night he had had good reason to believe +that the mystery of his brother's existence was going to be cleared up. +But with Purvis gone the whole wearisome business would have to begin +again. Why had he not detained the man last night, even if he had had +to do it by force, until he had given him all the evidence he +possessed? He could not exactly blame himself for not having done so. +Purvis had declared that he was only going to Buenos Ayres for a couple +of days, and it would have been absurd to delay him that he might give +information which perhaps he did not fully possess. Still, the thing +had been too cleverly worked out to be altogether a fraud, surely. His +thought went back again to the belief that Purvis had got hold of his +brother, and had extracted a great deal of information from him, and +was only delaying to make him known to Peter until he had arranged the +best bargain he could for himself. Looking back on all the talks they +had had together there was something which convinced him that Purvis's +close application to the search had not been made with a view only of +extracting some hundreds of pounds from him, but that the man's game +was deeper than that. Purvis was far too clever to waste his talents +in dabbling in paltry matters, or in securing a small sum of money for +himself. He was a man who worked in big figures, and it was evident +that he meant to pull off a good thing. + +That his dishonesty was proved was beyond all manner of doubt, and the +only thing was to watch events and to see what would now happen. If +Purvis gave them the slip what was to be done in the future? + +'I believe he will try to save his steamer,' said Ross, after a long +silence. + +Every one was thinking of the same subject, and his abrupt exclamation +needed no explanation. + +'If he could trust his hands he might,' said the commissario in +halting, broken English; 'but I doubt if they or the peons have been +paid lately.' + +'Besides, on the steamer,' said Toffy, 'he could be easily caught.' + +'Yes,' said Dunbar, 'if he knows that we want to catch him, which he +doesn't. He is afraid of the people at La Dorada now; but he is +probably unaware of the warm welcome that awaits him in Buenos Ayres.' + +Dunbar went to the door again to see if there was any sign of his +messenger returning from the telegraph office. The sun was flaming to +westward, and Hopwood had moved the dinner-table out into the patio, +and was setting dinner there. + +'He will do the unexpected thing,' said Ross at last. 'If Purvis ever +says he is going to sit up late I know that is the one night of the +week he will go to bed early.' + +They went out into the patio, and Ross swizzled a cocktail, and they +fell to eating dinner; but Dunbar was looking at his watch from time to +time, and then turning his glance eastward to the track where his +messenger might appear. It was an odd thing, and one of which they +were all unaware, that even a slight noise made each man raise his head +alertly for a moment as though he might expect an attack. + +The sun went down, and still no messenger appeared. They sat down to +play bridge in the little drawing-room, and pretended to be interested +in the fall of the cards. + +'That must be my telegram now,' said Dunbar, starting to his feet as a +horse's hoofs were plainly heard in the stillness of the solitary camp. +'Well, I 'm damned,' he said. He held the flimsy paper close to his +near-sighted eyes, and read the message to the other men sitting at the +table: + +'Smith, or Purvis, at present on board his own steamer in midstream +opposite La Dorada. Fully armed and alone. Crew have left, and peons +in revolt. A detachment of police proceeds by train to Taco to-night. +Join them there and await instructions.' + +'I thought he would stick to the steamer,' said Ross at last. + +'And probably,' said Dunbar, 'he is as safe there as anywhere he can +be. He can't work his boat without a crew, but if he is armed he will +be able to defend himself even if he is attacked. I don't know how +many boats there were at La Dorada, but I would lay my life that Purvis +took the precaution of sending them adrift or wrecking them before he +got away.' + +'What is to be the next move?' said Peter. + +'I suppose we shall have to ride down to Taco to-night,' said Dunbar. +'Yon man,' he finished, in his nonchalant voice, 'has given me a good +bit of trouble in his time.' + +'It seems to me,' said Ross, 'that you can't touch any business +connected with Purvis without handling a pretty unsavoury thing.' + +'Now, I 'll tell you an odd thing,' said Dunbar. 'I have had to make +some pretty close inquiries about Purvis since I have been on his +track, and you will probably not believe it if I tell you that by birth +he is a gentleman.' + +'He behaves like one,' said Ross shortly. + +'If I had time,' said Dunbar, 'I could tell you the story, but I see +the fresh horses coming round, and I and the commissario must get away +to Taco.' He was in the saddle as he spoke, and rode off with the +commissario. + +'A boy,' said Hopwood, entering presently, 'rode over with this, this +moment, sir.' He handed a note to Peter on a little tray, and waited +in the detached manner of the well-trained servant while Peter opened +the letter. + +The writing was almost unintelligible, being written in pencil on a +scrap of paper, and it had got crushed in the pocket of the man who +brought it. + +'It is for Dunbar, I expect,' said Peter, looking doubtfully at the +name on the cover. He walked without haste to a table where a lamp +stood, and looked more closely at the address. 'No, it's all right, +it's for me,' he said. + +At first it was the vulgar melodrama of the message which struck him +most forcibly with a sense of distaste and disgust, and then he flicked +the piece of paper impatiently and said, 'I don't believe a word of +it!' His face was white, however, as he turned to the servant and +said, 'Who brought this?' + +'I will go and see, sir,' said Hopwood, and left the room. + +Peter, with the scrap of paper in his hand, walked over to the +bridge-table where the others were sitting, and laid the crumpled note +in front of them. 'Another trick of our friend Purvis,' he said +shortly. + +The three men at the card-table bent their heads over the crumpled +piece of note-paper spread out before them. Ross smoothed out its +edges with his big hand, and the words became distinct enough; the very +brevity of the message was touched with sensationalism. It ran: 'I am +your brother. Save me!' and there was not another vestige of writing +on the paper. + +'Purvis has excelled himself,' said Ross quietly. 'It's your deal, +Christopherson.' + +Toffy mechanically shuffled the cards and looked up into his friend's +face. 'Is there anything else?' he said, and Peter took up the dirty +envelope and examined it more closely. + +There was a scrap of folded paper in one corner, and on it was written +in his mother's handwriting a note to her husband, enclosing the +photograph of her eldest son in a white frock and tartan ribbons. + +Peter flushed hotly as he read the letter. 'He has no business to +bring my mother's name into it,' he said savagely; and then the full +force of the thing smote him as he realised that perhaps his mother was +the mother of this man Purvis too. + +'Have a drink?' said Ross, with a pretence of gruffness. It was +oppressively hot, and Peter had been riding all the previous night. +Ross mentioned these facts in a kindly voice to account for his loss of +colour. 'It's a ridiculous try on,' he said, with conviction; and +then, seeking about for an excuse to leave the two friends together to +discuss the matter, he gathered up the cards from the table, added the +score in an elaborate manner, and announced his intention of going to +bed. + +Dunbar and the commissario had put a long distance between themselves +and the estancia house now. The silence of the hot night settled down +with its palpable mysterious weight upon the earth. The stars looked +farther away than usual in the fathomless vault of heaven, and the +world slumbered with a feeling of restlessness under the burden of the +aching solitude of the night. Some insects chirped outside the +illuminated window-pane, as though they would fain have left the large +and solitary splendour without and sought company in the humble room. +Time passed noiselessly, undisturbed even by the ticking of a clock. +To have stirred in a chair would have seemed to break some tangible +spell. A dog would have been better company than a man at the moment, +because less influenced by the mysterious night and the silence, and +the intensity of thought which fixed itself relentlessly in some +particular cells of the brain until they became fevered and ached +horribly. A little puff of cooler air began to blow over the baked and +withered camp; but the room where the lamp was burning had become +intolerably hot, and the mosquitoes which had been contemplating the +wall thoughtfully throughout the day began to buzz about and to sing in +the ears of the two persons who sat there. + +'Damn these mosquitoes!' said Peter, and his voice broke the silence of +the lonely house oddly. He and Toffy had not spoken since Ross had +left the room, and had not stirred from their chairs; but now the +feeling of tension seemed to be broken. Toffy began to fidget with +some things on a little table, and opened without thinking a carved +cedar-wood work-box which had remained undisturbed until then. He +found inside it a little knitted silk sock only half-finished, and with +the knitting needles still in it, and he closed the lid of the box +again softly. + +Peter walked into the corridor and looked out at the silver night. +There was a mist rising down by the river, and the feeling of coolness +in the air increased. He leaned against the wooden framework of the +wire-netting and laid his head on his hands for a moment; then he came +back to the drawing-room. 'Do you believe it?' he said suddenly and +sharply. + +'I suppose it's true,' said Toffy. 'God help us, Peter, this is a +queer world!' + +'If it were any one else but Purvis!' said Peter with a groan. He had +begun to walk restlessly up and down, making his tramp as long as +possible by extending it into the corridor. 'And then there is this to +be said, Toffy,' he added, beginning to speak at the point to which his +thoughts had taken him--'there is this to be said: suppose one could +get Purvis out of this hole, Dunbar is waiting for him at Taco. He +will be tried for the affair of the _Rosana_ and other things besides, +and if he is not hanged he will spend the next few years of his life in +prison. It is an intolerable business,' he said, 'and I am not going +to move in the matter. One can stand most things, but not being mixed +up in a murder case.' + +He walked out into the corridor and sat down heavily in one of the +deck-chairs there. There was a tumult of thought surging through his +mind, and sometimes one thing was uppermost, sometimes another. + +If it were possible to get down the river in a boat to the steamer, he +thought, there would of course be a chance of bringing Purvis back +before it was light; but if he did that he would have to start within +the hour. The nights were short. + +And then, again, he would be compounding a felony, though in the case +of brothers such a law was generally put aside, whatever the results +might be. + +There was very little chance of an escape. Every one's hand was +against Purvis now, and there was the vaguest possibility that he could +get away to England. The heir to Bowshott would be doing his time in +prison, and that, after all, was the right place for him--or he might +be hanged. + +And then he, Peter, was the next heir. That was the _crux_ of the +whole thing--he, Peter Ogilvie, was the next heir. If anything were to +happen to his brother he would inherit everything. + +But that, again, was an absurdity. A man in prison, for instance, +would not be the inheritor of anything. No, his brother must take his +chance down there on the steamer. He had been in tight places before +now, and no one knew better how to get out of them. He had some money +at his command. Let things take their chance. Yet if Purvis did not +inherit, he, Peter, was the next heir. + +That was the thought that knocked at him to the exclusion of nearly +everything else: he would benefit by his brother's death. Bowshott +would be his, and the place in the Highlands, and Jane and he could be +married. + +He paused for a moment in his feverish survey of events. To think of +Jane was to have before one's mind a picture of something absolutely +fair and straightforward. A high standard of honour was not difficult +to her; it came as naturally as speaking in a well-bred manner, or +walking with that air of grace and distinction which was characteristic +of her. Such women do not need to preach, and seldom do so. Their +lives suggest a torch held high above the common mirk of life. Peter +had never imagined for a moment that he was in the least degree good +enough for her; but, all the same, he meant to fight for all that he +was worth for every single good thing that he could get for her. + +... His brother even had a son. His nephew was in the house now. +Peter laughed out loud. The boy had a Spanish mother; but if there +ever had been a marriage between Purvis and her it could easily be set +aside. Purvis had been married several times, or not at all. Dunbar +thought that his real wife was an English woman at Rosario. + +He reflected with a sense of disgust that, he and Purvis being both of +them fair men, it might even be said that they resembled each other in +appearance; and he wondered if he would ever hold up his head again now +that he knew that the same blood ran in the veins of both, and that +this murderer, with his bloodstained hands, was his brother. + +And what in Heaven's name was the use of rescuing a man from one +difficulty when he would fall into something much worse at the next +opportunity? + +Finally, there was nothing for it but to remain inactive and let Purvis +escape if he could, but to do nothing to help him. Time was getting on +now; another half-hour and it would be too late to start. + +Perhaps the whole real difficulty resolved itself round Jane. Jane, as +a matter of fact, had taken up her position quite close to Peter +Ogilvie this evening in the dark of the tropical night. There were +probably devils on either side of him, but Jane was certainly there. +She looked perfectly beautiful, and there was not a line in her face +which did not suggest something fair and honest and of good worth. + +... But suppose the man turned out to be an impostor after all? Then +Dunbar had better treat with him. The chain of evidence was pretty +strong, but there might be a break in it. + +... He could not go alone down the river; Ross and Toffy and Hopwood +would have to come too, to man the four-oared boat, and some one would +have to steer, because the river was dangerous of navigation and full +of sandbanks and holes. Why should he involve his friends in such an +expedition to save a man who had sneaked off from a boat and left a +whole crew to perish, and who had shot in cold blood the men who rowed +him to safety? + +_Before God he was not going to touch the man, nor have anything to do +with him!_ + +Half an hour had passed. In twenty minutes it would be too late to +start. + +Jane drew a little nearer, and just then Toffy laid down the book which +he had been reading and strolled about the room. Perhaps he wanted to +show Peter that he was still there and awake, and in some way to +comfort him by his presence, for he sat down by Mrs. Chance's piano and +picked out a tune with one of his fingers. + +The devil beside Peter became more imperative and drew up closer, and +told him that it was his own sense of honour that made him loathe his +reputed brother and turn from him in disgust. He said that the note +that had reached him was all part of Purvis's horrible sensationalism +and his lies, and that no earthly notice should be taken of it; also, +that it would be sheer madness to risk his own life and his friends' +for this contemptible fellow. Jane, on the other side--possibly an +angel, but to the ordinary mind merely a very handsome English +girl--stood there saying nothing, but looking beautiful. + +Toffy continued to pick out the tune with his forefinger from Mrs. +Chance's book: + +[Illustration: music fragment: + A-bide with me! fast falls the e-ven-tide; + The dark-ness deep-ens: Lord with a a-bide!] + + +It all came before him in a flash: the village church, and the swinging +oil-lamps above the pews; he and Jane together in Miss Abingdon's pew, +and Mrs. Wrottesley playing the old hymn-tunes on the little organ. He +could not remember ever attending very particularly to the evening +service. He used to follow it in a very small Prayer Book, and it was +quite sufficient for him that Jane was with him. He had never been a +religious man in the ordinary sense of the word. He had wished with +all his heart when his mother died that he had known more about sacred +things, but they had never seemed a necessary part of his life. He +knew the code of an English gentleman, and that code was a high one. +The youngsters in the regiment knew quite well that he was 'as straight +as they make 'em'; but he had never inflicted advice nor had a moment's +serious conversation with one of them. + +Another ten minutes had passed, and left only five minutes to spare; +but Jane was smiling a little, and Toffy was fingering out quavering +notes on the old piano: + +[Illustration: music fragment: + When o-ther help-ers fail, and com-forts flee, + Help of the help-less, oh, a-bide with me!] + + +Life seemed to get bigger as he listened. There were no such things as +difficulties. You had just to know what you ought to do, and then to +try to do it. You had not to pit yourself against a mean mind, and act +meanly by it. Each man had his own work to do, and what other men did +or left undone was their own business. His brother was in a mess, and +he had to help him out of it, whether he deserved it or no--not +weighing his merit, but pardoning his offences and just helping him in +his need. The glories of life might fade away, as the old hymn said, +or they might last; but all that each man had to care about so long as +he remained here was to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with +his God. + +The angel and the devil--if they existed at all--fled away and left one +solitary man standing alone fighting for the sake of honour and clean +hands. + +The clock struck ten, and the time was up. + +Peter went inside and laid his hand on Toffy's shoulder. 'Let's +start,' he said, 'if you are ready.' + +'All right,' said Toffy, shutting the piano. 'I 'll go and get Ross.' + + * * * * * + +They were in the boat now, slipping down the stream in the dark. The +current in the river was strong here, and the boat slid rapidly between +the banks. There was hardly any necessity for rowing. Christopherson +sat in the stern with the tiller-ropes in his hands, and Peter reserved +his strength for the moment when they should get to the broader part of +the river where the stream did not race as it raced here. On their way +back they would, of course, avoid the upper reaches of the river, and +would land lower down when they had the man well away from his own +place. Peter rowed stroke, and Hopwood and Ross rowed numbers one and +two. The steering probably was the most difficult part of the +business, especially in the present state of the river, and any moment +they might go aground or get into some eddy which might turn the bow of +the boat and land them in the bank. Rowing was still easy, and Peter +was husbanding every ounce of his strength for the pull home. None of +the men spoke as the boat slipped down between the banks of dry mud on +either side of the river. Some reeds whispered by the shore, and a +startled bird woke now and then and flew screaming away. The moon +shone fitfully sometimes, but for the most part the night was dark, and +the darkness increased towards midnight. Once or twice the breeze +carried the intoxicating smell of flowers from the river-bank. It was +difficult for Toffy, although he had been down the river many times, to +know exactly his bearings. They passed a little settlement on their +starboard hand, and saw a few lights burning in the houses. + +'That must be Lara's house,' said Peter. 'We will land here on our way +back, and get some horses, and ride over to the estancia in the +morning.' + +The settlement was the last place on the river where Purvis's steamer +plied, and there was a small jetty piled with wheat waiting to be taken +away. Here the river was broader and much shallower, with stakes of +wood set in its bed to show the passage which the little steamer should +take. + +'We should not be far from La Dorada now,' said Toffy, steering between +the lines of stakes; 'but I can't see any signs of the steamer in this +blackness.' + +In the daytime the river was a pale mud-colour and very thick and +dirty-looking. The moon came out for a moment and showed it like a +silver ribbon between the grey banks. + +'Easy all!' said Toffy, sniffing the air. 'We must be near the +canning-factory at La Dorada.' + +The horrible smell of the slaughter-house was borne to them on the +river, and there were some big corrals close by the water, and a small +wharf. + +'It reminds me,' thought Toffy, 'of the beastly beef-tea which I have +had to drink all my life.' + +'Good heavens!' cried Ross, 'they are firing the wharf! Purvis's +chances are small if this is their game.' + +There was not very much to burn; the wood of the wharf kindled easily, +and the wheat burned sullenly and sent up grey volumes of smoke. + +'Steer under the bank,' said Peter. 'We don't want to be seen.' + +Toffy steered the boat as near the shore as the mud would allow, and as +the wood of the wharf burned more brightly he could see some men +running to and fro confusedly every few minutes, and then making off +farther down the river. + +'They 'll fire the steamer next!' said Peter, and then bent his back to +the oar, and the boat swung away into the middle of the stream again. + +The darkness seemed to increase in depth, as it does just before the +dawn: it was baffling in its intensity, and seemed to press close. + +'Way enough!' sang out Toffy, for quite unexpectedly the little +steamer, tied to a stake in midstream, loomed up suddenly before them. +The men shipped their oars with precision, and Toffy caught hold one of +the fender-ropes. + +'Are you there?' he called up to the deck from the impenetrable +darkness. + +As he spoke Purvis appeared at the top of the little gangway, dressed +in his clerkly suit and stiff hat. + +'You are just in time,' he said in his thin, high voice, without a +trace of excitement in it. 'When the light dawns they will find their +boats, and even now we may have to run for it.' + +'Get on board,' said Ross roughly, 'and don't waste time.' + +'I can't sink my steamer,' said Purvis quietly, 'in this shallow part +of the river, and I haven't the means of blowing her up; but I shall +now go below and overturn the lamp in my cabin, and the boat and all +that is in it will not be very long in being consumed.' + +'Stop that lunatic!' yelled Ross, as Purvis turned to descend into the +cabin. 'There 's a boat coming up--I can hear the oars distinctly +behind us. We 'll be overtaken if there 's a minute's delay!' + +Peter, who was next the gangway, sprang on board the boat and stumbled +down the companion in the dark. + +'Purvis!' he shouted, 'you 'll be shot in cold blood yet if you don't +look out.' + +Purvis had collected a few things and laid them on a pile of shavings +in the middle of the cabin, and the oil-lamp with which he was to +ignite the pile was in his hand. + +On the top of the pile Peter saw a large tin dispatch-case inscribed +with his mother's name. + +'Hallo!' he said quietly; 'I think I 'll take this!' + +For a moment he imagined that Purvis's hand moved with suspicious +suddenness towards his revolver-pocket. In the next Purvis had swung +up the companion staircase and into the boat, and Peter jumped into his +place as the sound of rowing and the splash of oars was heard behind +him. Toffy rowed the bow-oar now, and Purvis, who knew every turn of +the river, took the tiller-ropes. + +'I can't row,' he said, in his plaintive voice, 'but I can steer better +than any of you.' + +The man's composed and unruffled serenity was still undisturbed +although the rhythmic beat of oars behind them was growing nearer and +nearer, and the creaking of the leather in the row-locks could be heard +distinctly. + +'I have a revolver,' said Purvis quietly; 'and dawn is not quite upon +us yet.' + +Their boat had still the start of the other, and the darkness helped +them. Purvis knew every yard of the river, and could have steered in +the darkness of a London fog. His pale eyes seemed to have something +in them of the quality of a cat's as he peered through the dense gloom +and guided the boat unerringly. + +There came a faint light on the surface of the water; they could dimly +see the stakes in the river, and could hear the beat of the oars in the +other boat. It was a race for the Italian settlement, where they would +be safe, and where the pursuing boat, seeing the lights from the +houses, would probably fall behind. + +Peter had rowed stroke in the Eton boat, but Toffy had always been too +delicate to be a strong rower; the other men had splendid staying +power, but no particular skill. Still, Ross knew Peter's stroke, and +the steering was perfect. Not a yard of way was lost on the long +chase, and as the four rowers warmed to their work the excitement of it +prevailed over every other thought. Purvis himself and all his +meannesses were forgotten. It was a race, and that was all, and four +men's hearts leapt to it. + +The other boat seemed to be drawing nearer. The morning was dawning +mistily, and the pursuers appeared to be getting out of their course +for a time. + +Peter swung to his oar in perfect style, and Purvis with the +tiller-ropes in his hands gave way to every leap of the boat, bending +his short, spare body in time to the stroke of the oars as he sat in +the stern. + +'If we are overtaken we will make a fight for it,' he said. + +'Naturally,' said Peter briefly, between the long strokes of his rowing. + +'They 'll probably catch us up in the next hundred yards,' said Purvis. +'I should think that they are armed, and the day is breaking.' + +He turned round in his seat as he spoke, for there was a broad straight +piece of river before them; and as the boat came on he pointed his +revolver uncertainly in the mist and fired. 'Confound you!' roared +Peter, 'don't draw their fire yet! Probably our best chance is that +they don't know for certain where we are.' + +But Purvis had fired again. There were some uncertain shots in return, +and one struck the gunwale of the boat by Peter's side. + +'That was a near thing,' he said to himself under his breath. And then +the old feeling of protection for the 'young un'--the delicate boy who +had been his fag at Eton--stopped his grim smiling, and as another shot +whizzed past them he yelled out suddenly, 'Lie down, Toffy! Get down +into the bottom of the boat!' + +And quite suddenly Toffy did as he was told. + +Peter rowed then like two men, but the river ran more quickly now, and +the shallows were more dangerous, and the steering was more difficult. + +By Jove, how well Purvis knew the navigation of it! He had the +tiller-ropes in his hands again. He made a feint to go under the bank +as though to land, and then shot suddenly into midstream. The other +boat followed in their wake. Purvis's knowledge of the currents was +probably well known, and it was safe to follow his lead: the boat and +the men in it were clear enough to see now. + +But what in the name of Heaven was Purvis doing! It positively seemed +as though he was trying to lose the little bit of way that they had +gained in advance of the others, and for one moment a horrible sense of +the man's unscrupulousness came over Peter Ogilvie, and he wondered +even now, in the midst of the chase, whether it might not be that +Purvis was playing them false. + +'I 'll shoot him before he can sing out if he is!' thought Peter to +himself as the boat was steered on to the very edge of a shallow again, +and then made off into the middle of the stream. 'Look out what you +are about!' he cried, seeing in the wake of the boat the uneven, +circuitous route by which they had come. 'For God's sake steer +straight if you can!' + +And then he saw a smile on Purvis's face--the usual watery, mirthless +smile, and the pale, wide-open blue eyes; and, looking back, Peter saw +that the boat behind them was overturned in the stream, and that the +men who had been in it were struggling to the bank, while the boat +itself was being carried rapidly down with the current. + +He eased his rowing then, and getting his breath he laughed out aloud. +The spirit and excitement of the chase had been good, and it was +successfully over. + +'Look here, you can get up now, Toffy,' he said. + +He turned round in his seat and shipped his oars with a jerk. '_You +devil!_' he said slowly; '_you must have seen him hit!_' + +He bent over the poor boy stretched out in the bottom of the boat and +felt his heart and found that it still beat. He loosened his neckcloth +and sprinkled water on his face, while the two other men fell to their +oars again, and rowed the boat as the day dawned to the little Italian +settlement. They carried Toffy into the house of the Argentine woman +who burned candles to the Virgin and stuck French paper match-boxes +round her shrine. They lifted him into the hut and laid him on the +humble bed, and Peter dressed the wound as well as he knew how, while +Hopwood in an agony hovered round them, and Ross was sending here and +there to try to find a doctor. + +No one knew what had become of Purvis, no one cared. Each was trying +with all his might to save a life very dear to them which was slowly +ebbing away. + +The sun was up now, and the long hot day was beginning; but still Toffy +had never spoken, and still Peter kneeled by his side on the mud floor +of the hut, easing him as well as he could, giving him water to drink, +or bathing his forehead. There was not much that he could do for him; +but he felt that Toffy was conscious, and that he liked to have his old +friend near him. He never altered his position as he kneeled, for his +arm was under the dying man's head, and it seemed a more comfortable +place for it than the poor Argentine woman's hard pillow. + +Toffy lay with wide-open eyes, and there were great beads of +perspiration on his forehead which Hopwood wiped away from time to +time. He breathed with difficulty in short gasps, and still he never +spoke. It came upon Peter with a horrible sinking of the heart that he +might die before a doctor came, and without saying one word to him. +All the compunction of a heart that was perhaps unusually womanly and +tender was raging within him for not having taken better care of the +boy. He wanted to say so much to Toffy, and to beg his forgiveness, +and to ask if there was anything in the world he could do for him, and +he hoped wildly and pitifully that he was not in pain. But the dying +man's eyes were fixed on the bare walls of the hut and on the little +shrine of the Virgin in the corner of the room, and it seemed now as if +the mistiness of death were settling upon them, so that they saw +nothing. + +Ross went restlessly to and fro, now entering the room for a few +minutes, and then going out again to scan the distant country to see if +by any chance the camp doctor was coming. + +When Toffy at last spoke he went and stood outside the hut, and an +instinct caused him to bare his head for a moment. + +Just at the end Toffy said something, and his voice sounded a great way +off, and almost as though it came from another land. 'Is Kitty there?' +he said. + +'No; it is me, old man,' said Peter thickly. + +He was holding the boy's head now, for his breathing was becoming more +difficult, and he stooped and kissed him on the forehead. He felt the +chill of it, and, startled, he called out, almost as one calls out a +message to a friend departing on a journey, raising his voice a little, +for Toffy already seemed a long way off, 'I never knew--I never knew, +Toffy--that you had been hit, or I would have stopped.' + +'I didn't want to spoil the race,' said Toffy. 'I don't often win a +race,' he said, and with that he died. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +They carried him home in the evening when the sun had set, and on the +day following, according to the custom of the country, they buried him. +Some peons dug the grave in a corner of the little estate, and sawed +planks and made a railing round it, and Ross read the Burial Service +over him from Toffy's own Prayer Book, and Peter kept the well-worn +Bible for Kitty Sherard. + +Peter sought solitude where he could. His grief was of the kind which +can be borne only in solitude. The love of David and Jonathan had not +been deeper than the affection he and his friend had had for one +another. The small estancia house became intolerable, with its sense +of void and the feeling that at any moment Toffy might appear, always +with some new project in hand, always gravely hopeful about everything +he undertook, always doing his best to risk his life in absurd ventures +such as no one else would have attempted. It was only the other day +that Peter had seen him trying to break a horse which even a gaucho +felt shy of riding; and he loved to be in the thick of the mêlée +attempting the difficult task of swinging a lasso above his head, with +that air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or Peter pictured +him in the long chair, where during a feverish attack he had lain so +often, ruffling up his hair and puzzling his head over problems of +Hebrew theology. Every corner seemed to be full of him, and yet no one +had ever appeared to have a less assertive personality than he, nor a +lighter hold on his possessions. He thought of how he himself had +always gone to Toffy's dressing-table to borrow anything he might +require--the boy who was so much accustomed to have his things +appropriated by other people! And then again he saw him in the big, +ugly drawing-room at Hulworth, nursing one of his appalling colds, or +looking with grave resentment at his priceless collection of vases in +the glass cases in the hall. He remembered him riding in the +steeplechase at Sedgwick, and quite suddenly he recollected how sick +and faint Kitty Sherard had become when he fell at the last jump. He +thought of a silver box Toffy had bought for her at Bahia, and he +wondered how it was that he had been so blind as not to see how much +these two had cared for each other. His feeling of loss amounted +almost to an agony, and once when he had ridden alone far on to the +camp he shouted his dead friend's name aloud many times, and felt +baffled and disappointed when there was no response. + +Good God! was it only two nights ago that he was picking out hymn-tunes +with his finger on the piano! At dinner-time they had been teasing him +about the Prophet Elijah, Toffy having calculated the exact distance +that the old prophet must have run in front of Ahab's chariot. 'It was +a fearful long sprint for an old man,' Toffy had said in a certain +quaint way he had. And now Toffy lay in his long, narrow grave under +the mimosa tree, and the world seemed to lack something which had +formerly made it charitable and simple-hearted and even touched with +beauty. + +No one asked after Purvis, no one had seen him. He had disappeared in +the mysterious way in which he usually came and went, but his little +boy was still at the estancia, and his bitter crying for the friend who +was dead had added to the unhappiness of the day. He was a child not +easily given to tears, and his efforts at controlling his sobs were as +pathetic as his weeping. Peter found him the morning after Toffy's +death curled up behind some firewood in an outhouse, where he had gone +so that his tears should not be seen. He comforted him as well as he +knew how, and wished that Jane were there, and thought how well she +could console the little fellow; and he said to himself with an upward +stretch of his arms which relieved the ache of his heart for a moment, +'Oh, if women only knew how much a man wants them when he is down in +his luck!' He thought that he could have told Jane everything and have +talked to her about Toffy as to no one else, and he wished with all his +heart that he could climb up there behind the stack of wood and give +way to tears as this poor little chap had done. He wondered what they +were to do with him suppose Purvis never came back again. + +But Purvis came back. Men often said of him that he had a genius for +doing the unlooked-for thing; but no one could have expected even of +him that he would venture to a place so near to his own estate and to +the men who had attempted his life. He travelled by night, of course. +His cat-like eyes always seemed capable of seeing in the dark, and even +his horse's footfalls had something soft and feline about them. + +The other men were sleeping as men do after two long wakeful nights and +a day of stress and exertion. Even grief could not keep away the +feeling of exhaustion, and Purvis could hear their deep breathing in +the corridor, when, having tethered his horse to a distant paraiso +tree, he stole softly up to the door. + +His boy's room was at the back of the house, and Purvis crept round to +it, and called him softly by name. Dick's short life had been full of +adventure and surprises, and he never uttered a sound when his father's +light touch awakened him from sleep, and his voice told him softly to +get up. Purvis dressed him with something of a woman's skill, and then +he bade him remain where he was while he crept softly into the +drawing-room of the house. + +He came back presently as noiselessly as he had left the room, and +whispered, 'I am looking for a tin box; is it anywhere about?' + +'They opened it to-day, and took some papers out,' said Dick. + +Purvis drew one short, quick breath. + +'Then let us be off at once,' he said. + +He crossed the room once more in his stealthy fashion, and took from +the mantelpiece a small bottle of nerve-tabloids which he had +forgotten, and slipped them into his pocket, and then went out into the +dark again. Once he paused at the entrance of the corridor and +listened attentively, and then crept down the garden path and found the +horses tethered to the paraiso trees. They led them softly through the +monte, and there Dick paused. + +'I am going to say good-bye to him,' he said. 'I don't care what you +say!' + +He went to the grave under the mimosa trees, and with a queer elfin +gesture he stooped down and kissed the lately disturbed sods, and made +the sign of the cross upon his narrow little chest as he had seen his +Spanish mother do. The dignity of the action, with its unconscious +touch of foreign grace, and the boy's pathetic attempt to keep back his +tears as he lingered by the grave in the darkness at an hour when any +other boy of his age would have been safely tucked up in bed, might +well touch the heart of any one who stood beside the child. + +'I didn't know he was hit!' said Purvis suddenly; and probably he spoke +the truth for once in his life. Toffy was one of the few men who in +many years had trusted him, and he had been a good friend to Dick. +'Well, the game's up!' said Purvis. And he and his son mounted their +horses and rode off into the blackness of the night together. + +Ross had rescued the black japanned box from the boat, and had kept it +under his care until such time as he should have an opportunity of +giving it to Peter. It was from a sense that it might provide some +sort of distraction to a man almost dazed with grief that he brought it +into the drawing-room on the evening of the day Toffy was buried, and +suggested that perhaps Peter had better open it and see what was in it. +The key was gone, of course, but they prised it open with some tools, +and on the top of the box there was a letter which made Peter lay his +hand over his pocket for a moment. It was as though by some magic the +packet which lay there had been transferred to the interior of a black +japanned box discovered upon a river steamer in the Argentine Republic. +The writing on the cover was a duplicate of the one he himself held, +and was addressed in his mother's writing: 'To my son, to be given to +him at my death.' + +Peter could not see quite straight for a moment. The finding of the +packet seemed to establish conclusively his brother's identity; and he +took out the folded sheets which lay inside the cover with hands that +were not steady. + +The very words in the opening sentences were the same as in his own +letter, and written in the clear, strong handwriting which he knew so +well. + +'When you get this letter I shall be dead,' he read in the words which +were already painfully familiar to him; 'and before I die there is +something which I think I had better tell you. I am not haunted by +remorse nor indulging in death-bed repentance, and I shall merely ask +you not to hate me more than you can help when you have finished +reading this letter. + +'You must often have heard of your elder brother who died when I was in +Spain, the year of your father's death. He did not die----' So far +Peter knew the letter off by heart, but there seemed to be many pages +of writing to follow. 'And as far as I am aware he may be living now.' + +'If it is anything bad,' said Ross kindly, 'why not put it off until +to-morrow? You are about used up to-day, Peter, and whatever there is +in that box can wait.' + +'I am all right, thanks,' said Peter, without looking up. And Ross +went out to the patio and left him alone. + +'I must go a long way back to make myself intelligible,' the letter +went on. 'I suppose people of Spanish descent are generally credited +with an unforgiving spirit. I have never forgiven my sister-in-law. I +did not at first attempt revenge, possibly because there was only one +way in which I could deprive her and her children of their inheritance. +That way was denied me. My eldest boy died at his birth, and the girl +only lived a few weeks. After that I had no other children. I think +the grief this caused entered into both our lives with a bitterness +which is unusual, and which I shall not attempt to recall. I shall +only say that we both mourned it, and that Lionel Ogilvie and his wife +by their conduct made what might have been merely a sorrow a matter +also of almost unbearable disappointment. I mention this regrettable +emotional feeling in order to make my subsequent conduct intelligible +to you. In the course of years, during which your father hardly +attended to any matters concerning the property, because it would seem +to be benefiting his legal successors, I urged him to go abroad on an +exploring expedition such as he loved, hoping in some way to mitigate +his disappointment or keep him from dwelling upon it. I have probably +not conveyed to you how deep the quarrel was between him and his +brother; but if I have not done so it is not of any great importance. + +'When your father had sailed for Central Africa I went out to Spain to +visit my property there, and I took a sea-voyage to Lisbon for the +benefit of my health. There was a young couple in the steerage of the +boat going out to settle in Argentine. They were people of the working +class and very poor, and before we reached Lisbon, on the night of a +storm, the woman gave birth to a child and died, and the father was +left to start life in an unknown country with a helpless infant +dependent upon him. Some kind-hearted people on board the steamer made +up a subscription for him, with the English people's quaint notion that +all grief can be assuaged with food or money; and one night when I was +on deck alone the stewardess brought me the baby to see. + +'When we got into Lisbon the following day I offered the man to adopt +the child; and when my maid returned to England I got a Spanish woman +for him, and took him with me to my own estate. He was greeted +everywhere as my son, and allowing myself the luxury of the small +deception, I pretended to myself that he really was mine; but weeks +passed before I ever dreamed of deceiving anybody else on the subject. +It was a letter which my sister-in-law wrote to me which decided me to +stay out in Granada during my husband's two years' absence, and to +announce, in course of time, that I was the mother of a son. The plan +was quite stupidly easy, and everything lent itself to the deception. +The child was fair, and not unlike the Ogilvies, and his father had +given him up entirely to me, on the understanding that he was never to +claim him again. It may seem strange to you, but it is a fact that +after I returned to England there was not the vaguest suspicion in any +one's mind that he was not my own child. When my husband returned from +abroad I was convinced, if I had ever doubted it, that I had acted +wisely. Under the circumstances I should act in the same way again. + +'Of course events proved that I had made a mistake; but I had in the +meantime made my husband perfectly happy and my sister-in-law perfectly +miserable, and that was what I desired. + +'You were born a year after your father's return home, and when the +other child was three years old. To say that I then found myself in an +intolerable position would not be to overstate the case. If your +father had lived, my difficulties would have been greater than they +actually were, and it was during his lifetime and after your birth that +I suffered most. I suppose only a woman, and one, moreover, who has +longed for children, would be able to realize what my feelings were, +and I shall not urge your compassion by dwelling upon that time. I +have never accepted pity, and I should prefer not to have it bestowed +upon me when I am dead. + +'It was only after your father's death that I saw a way of escape out +of the intolerable position in which I had placed myself. I was in +very bad health for a time, and my husband's affection for the alien +child was more than I was able to bear. There is always a touch of the +savage in motherhood, and I am naturally jealous. + +'After my husband's death I went out to my own property in Spain, and +by judiciously moving about there from one place to another, and +changing my personal servants frequently, it was a comparatively easy +matter to say that the child had died, without exactly specifying where +his death had taken place. + +'It was absolutely necessary that he should be got rid of. A pauper +emigrant's boy was taking the place of my son in everything. The very +tenants about the place treated him differently from the way in which +they treated you. My husband had decided that the bilk of his property +was to go to him; and all the time I knew that his father was from the +class from which perhaps, navvies are drawn, and that his mother was +some girl from Whitechapel or Mile End. + +'He had to go, but I treated him fairly. I took him down to Lisbon +myself and sent him back to his father with a trustworthy couple who +were going out there. From my own private fortune I bestowed upon him +a sum sufficient to educate him and to place him in the world. + +'I think I never breathed freely or had one undisturbed moment from the +time you were born until he had gone to Argentine. + +'The people to whom I entrusted him both died of fever in Rosario, and +from that day to this I have never heard of the boy who was called +Edward Ogilvie. The money which I had bestowed upon him had proved too +tempting to some one. The child disappeared, and so far as I am +concerned he was never heard of again. + +'For four years he had lived as my own son, and it was I who took him +away from his father and his natural surroundings. I want you to find +him if you can. If he has been brought up vilely or treated brutally +by strangers, the fault, of course, lies with me; this will probably +distress you, but I think it will be an incentive also to you to try to +find the man.' + +The letter was signed in Mrs. Ogilvie's name and it finished as +abruptly as it had begun. + + * * * * * + +The first thing that roused Peter from the sense of bewilderment and +almost of stupor which beset him was Dunbar's arrival at the estancia. + +'Purvis has given us the slip again!' said the detective. 'The man has +as many lives is he has names! He has disappeared more than once +before, and he has even died, to my certain knowledge, two or three +times, in order to get out of a tight place.' + +'Oh, Purvis, yes!' said Peter absently; and then he pulled himself +together and briefly told Dunbar the whole story. + +'It doesn't alter the fact,' said Dunbar, 'that I have got to find him +if I can.' + +'No,' said Peter stupidly. 'No, I suppose it does not,' and he added, +in a heavy voice, 'I believe Toffy would like me to look after the boy.' + +'The mystery to me is,' said Dunbar, 'how Purvis, as you call him (to +me, of course, he is E. W. Smith), could have got hold of this box of +papers. It may be a fraud yet,' he said truculently, 'and it will +require investigation.' + +'I know my mother's writing,' said Peter, 'and Purvis was in the act of +trying to burn the box before we took him off the steamer. It is the +last thing in the world that it would suit him to have about him if he +meant to establish his claim to be the heir.' + +'That's so,' said Dunbar thoughtfully. + +'The box could not have come out with him when he sailed to Argentine +as a child,' said Peter, 'because the letter is dated long after that.' + +'And you say you never saw the man until you met him out here?' Dunbar +went on. + +He brought out a notebook from his pocket and began to jot down Peter's +replies. + +'No,' said Peter, 'or, if I did, I can't recall where it was. At first +when I saw him he reminded me of some one whom I had met; but +afterwards, when it seemed pretty well established that he was my +brother, both Christopherson and I thought that this vague recollection +of the man, which I mentioned to him, might be based on the fact that +there was some sort of likeness between him and some members of my +family.' + +Dunbar jotted this down also. 'And you positively have no recollection +of having seen him?' he said, as he fastened a band of elastic round +the book. 'If that is so he must have had accomplices in England who +stole the box for him. I shall have to find out where these boxes were +kept at your home, and, as nearly as possible, I must discover with +whom Purvis was in communication in England. Or he may have gone there +himself. I know that he went home in one of Lamport & Holt's boats +only a few months ago--that was after the wreck of the _Rosana_, you +understand--and it was while he was in England that I saw him, and knew +for certain that he had not gone down in the wreck. My warrant against +him is for a common hotel robbery. It was when he came back to +Argentine that he began this river-trading, which was in the hands of a +better man till he took it.' + +'The plan will be for you and my lawyer to work together,' said Peter; +'but at present I can't furnish you with the smallest clue as to how +these papers came into his possession. I know the look of the box +quite well. There were several of them in my mother's writing-room, +which was in the oldest part of the house. They were all destroyed one +night last autumn when we had rather a serious fire there.' + +Dunbar took out his notebook and began to write. + +'_By Jove!_' exclaimed Peter, suddenly starting from his seat. He saw +it all in a flash: the burning tower, with volumes of smoke rising from +it; the line of men, with hose and buckets, pouring water on the +connecting bridge of the tower; the groups of frightened guests on the +terrace, and his mother standing unmoved amongst them in her sumptuous +purple dress and the diamonds in her hair; the arrival of the +fire-engine from Sedgwick; and then, just at the end, the figure of a +man appearing on the bridge, with a cloak wound round his head, dashing +into the doorway through which the smoke was issuing in great waves; +his sudden flight across the bridge again; and then Jane, at his elbow, +clasping his arm and saying, in a terrified tone, 'Oh, Peter! for a +moment I thought it was you!' + +Dunbar was scribbling rapidly in his notebook. 'It is as clear as +mud!' he said at last. 'Purvis, after the _Rosana_ incident, was +missing for a considerable time, and it is believed that his English +wife at Rosario hid him somewhere. There he probably heard the story +of his adoption, and determined to prove himself the eldest son.' + +'I don't understand how he could have heard the story,' said Peter. + +'He heard most things. But there are links in the chain that we shall +never get a sight of; we see only the beginning and the end of it,' +replied Dunbar. + +The Scot was very seldom excited; but he got up from his chair and +began to walk rapidly up and down the room, his under-lip stuck out, +and his tough hair thrown back from his forehead. 'The whole thing +depended upon his getting what direct information he could about the +property, and he must have worked this thing well. The fire, I take +it, was accidental?' + +'Oh, the fire was accidental enough,' said Peter, 'and was found to be +due to some electric lighting which was put into the tower.' + +'Purvis's visit to England must have been to ascertain if Mrs. Ogilvie +were still alive, and, in the first instance, he probably meant to levy +blackmail upon her; he must have discovered where she kept her papers, +and have tried to effect an entrance on the night of the ball when many +strangers were about.' + +'I believe,' exclaimed Peter, 'we saw him in one of the corridors of +the house during the dance, and decided that he must be one of the +guests unknown to us, who had come with some country neighbour, and +that he had lost his way amongst the almost interminable passages of +the place.' He saw himself and Jane making for the leather-covered +door which led to the bridge, and the shrinking stranger, with his +hopelessly timid manner, who had drawn back at their approach; and he +thought he heard himself saying, 'Shall I get him some partners, or +leave the people who brought him to the dance to look after him?' It +was only a fleeting look that he had caught of the man's face, and he +recalled it with difficulty now, but it was not a far-fetched +conclusion to decide that the two were one and the same man. + +Dunbar was in a sort of transport. 'It's the best case I ever had,' he +said, 'and we only want the man himself to make the thing complete! +Purvis has played some pretty clever and some pretty deep games in his +time; but this is about the coolest thing he ever tried to pull off, +and he has as nearly as possible won through with it.' + +Mr. Dunbar always relapsed into a strong Scottish accent in moments of +excitement, and he became almost unintelligible at last, as he rolled +forth his r's and gave it as his opinion that the man was a worthless +scoundrel. + +'I can't think,' said Peter, 'why Purvis did not claim the inheritance +sooner. He had the whole thing in his hands.' + +'Yes; but Purvis did not know that!' exclaimed Dunbar. 'I 'll take my +oath he 's been pumping you about how much old servants knew, and the +like; and there are men working the case in England, judging by the +number of telegrams he has had. He would have been over in London +before many months were gone, or I am very much mistaken, and as soon +as the train was laid; but it would have been a fatal thing for him to +have attempted a case before he knew how much was known. Your arrival +in Argentine probably precipitated the very thing he was working for.' + +'He remarkably nearly succeeded,' said Peter. + +'There ought to be a training home for criminals,' Dunbar exclaimed, +'to teach them once and for all to destroy all evidence, rather than +retain that which incriminates alongside of that which may be useful. +A man will sometimes keep a bundle of letters which will bring him to +the gallows together with information which might make his fortune.' + +Peter described how he had found the tin case on the top of a bundle of +shavings in the cabin of the river steamer. 'He was in a tight place +there, and must have known it,' said Peter. 'Why not have burned the +letters before our boat got up?' + +Dunbar laughed. 'You can't very well make a holocaust on a small +steamer on a dark night without showing where you are, for one thing,' +he replied, 'nor can you overturn a paraffin lamp on the top of a +bundle of shavings without a possibility of burning yourself up at the +same time. There was a love of sensationalism, too, about the man. He +would like his steamer to flame away at the right moment, and +disappoint the men who meant to board her; or, what is still more +likely, there was a considerable amount of gunpowder on board the boat, +and a boarding-party arriving at the right moment would have been blown +sky-high.' + +'He never showed mercy,' said Peter. + +'The Lord will need to have mercy upon him if he gets into my hands,' +quoth Dunbar, 'for I have none to spare for him.' + +'But I,' said Peter, 'have got to remember that my mother charges me to +befriend the man.' + +'But then,' said Dunbar tersely, 'your mother never knew what sort of +man you would have to deal with.' + +'God knows!' said Peter. + +'Well, it's a hanging matter if we get him,' said Dunbar cheerfully. +He and the commissario had their orders, and they would be obliged to +execute them. The results must be left for a court of justice to +decide. + +They rode away the following morning, and there seemed nothing for it +but to wait at the estancia until more news was forthcoming. For Peter +the days were the saddest of his life, and left an impression upon him +which nothing ever quite removed afterwards. He became older suddenly, +and a certain boyishness, which was characteristic of him, was gone and +never returned again. Life, which had once seemed so simple to him and +so easily lived, so full of pleasures and of good times and of good +comrades, had suddenly become complex and filled with difficulties, and +made up of grave decisions and shadowed by a sorrow which would +probably be felt as long as he lived. Ross would not let him stay +indoors, and mercifully gave him a double share of work to do. The +weather was cooler now, and the days could be filled with outdoor +occupation from morning till night. There were no siestas in the +afternoon or lazy dawdling over afternoon coffee in the heat of the day +to remind him of long gossips with Toffy, and the evenings were shorter +and not so difficult to fill. + +'I 'm an awful bore, Ross!' said Peter, having sat silent from +dinner-time until he went to bed one night; 'but I can't help it.' + +'I know you can't,' said Ross kindly. + +The big man, who was a poor player of cards at the best of times, +became seized with a desire to learn picquet, and, strange as his +method of consolation may have been, Peter knew what the good fellow +meant by it, and taught him the game and got through the time somehow. + +There was still no news of Purvis; the man seemed to have vanished in +his own mysterious way, and nothing could be heard of him. It was +ascertained that he was well supplied with money, and it was thought +that, as his child would be incapable of any very long journeys or +unusual hardships, the discovery of his whereabouts near home might +lead to the discovery of the father. But the thing remained a mystery. +Dunbar's long lean frame grew leaner than ever as he searched and +journeyed and telegraphed without obtaining any results. + +It was the boy who appeared first, and then without his father. +Perhaps Purvis discovered that escape would be easier without the +burden of the child, or it may have been that his queer affection for +him had determined him to seek safety for the boy somewhere. But it +was part of the man's extraordinary coolness that he should send him +for Peter Ogilvie to look after. + +The boy arrived at the estancia one night, a poor, tired little object, +with a letter from his father in his pocket. The two had made their +way as far as the province of Salta, and from there the boy had been +sent to Taco, where, unaided, he had found a horse and had ridden over +to the estancia. He was thin and weak-looking, and had evidently +suffered a good deal from his many journeyings. Ross took him and +looked after him, and gave him some light work on the farm to do, and +there he remained while Dunbar journeyed to Salta, to find that Purvis +had left the place long before he arrived. Only a woman at Rosario +knew where he was, and this woman had learned not to tell. She had +married Purvis years ago, soon after she arrived in Argentine to be +governess to some English children. Her employers had not been kind to +her, and in a country where comforts were few she had had less than her +share of them. She was a girl of twenty then, and very pretty, and +hers was a faithful heart; and, cynical as the expression may sound, +she had had fidelity thrust upon her by the fact that she was utterly +friendless in the world. When Purvis married her she went to him +gladly. When he deserted her she even pretended to believe in him, for +the pitiful reason that there was no one else in the whole of that +strange land to whom she could turn. She was a woman to whom the easy +excuse of business could always be used in the widest sense of the +term, for she had been brought up to believe that that very +comprehensive word signified something almost as mysterious as affairs +of the spirit. It was not safe to assert of those who were engaged in +business whence they came or whither they would go. Sometimes she did +not see her husband for months, or even for a year at a time; he did +not always share his abundant days with her, but he had nearly always +come back to her when he was in trouble. + +He arrived one night in Rosario without disguise of any sort, and +knocked at her humble door in one of the meanest parts of the town. He +was never beaten for long, and he announced to her that he wanted her +help in a new scheme that he had planned. His fortune was to be made +once more, but the scheme itself must remain hidden for a time. His +wife, upon this occasion, was to help him by acting as cat's-paw. + +'It's a big thing,' Purvis said, 'and will require all my strength;' +and he announced his intention of remaining hidden in Rosario for a few +weeks while he rested completely. But his chronic inability to sleep +made rest impossible. He was calculating and adding up figures during +the watches of the night, and his strange, light-coloured eyes, with +the constant tear in them, became paler in colour and more suggestive +of bad nerves. He began to find his calculations difficult to balance, +and he even made some mistakes in his long rows of figures. The thing +worried him and he began to wonder if his head were going. He had +always overcome difficulties and had fought dangers with an absolute +belief in his own success. He was unscrupulous and cunning, but he had +never been beaten yet. It was horrible that sleep was the thing that +he could not command; but, alas! the exercise of will-power is not the +force by which sleep can be induced, and a placid or submissive mind +was unknown to Purvis. His wife watched him anxiously. She would go +for long walks with him in the early dawn or after it was dark, hoping +that the fresh air and the cooler weather might bring some sort of +repose to the wide-open pale eyes; but no sleep came, and Purvis took +to swallowing more tabloids, and setting out his rows of figures in a +nervous way, while his hand trembled and his plaintive voice became +irritable, and his eyes watered more than they were wont to do. + +He had money in hand, and it was some sort of comfort to his wife to be +able to purchase for him the nourishing food which he required. She +had often been in sore straits for money herself, but she believed, +with pathetic conviction, that a woman can do with fewer comforts than +a man can, and she had never felt deprivations for herself so much as +she would have felt them for her husband. She cooked tempting dishes +for him, and enjoyed his companionship, and asked no questions. She +even allowed herself the purchase of a few new clothes now that money +was plentiful again, and these days, even with the anxiety of her +husband's ill-health hanging over her, were not by any means the +unhappiest of her life. + +'I shan't be able to pull this business through,' said Purvis one +night, 'unless I sleep, and I can't live unless I succeed with it.' + +He made his wife write innumerable letters for him in her own +handwriting, and signed with an entirely new name. But it was +difficult to transact these business affairs through the medium of +another person, and even his meek wife might some day ask questions! + +If only he could pull himself together and get a firmer grasp of things +than he had at present! The commercial instinct was strong within him, +and he had a genius for figures, but insomnia and the state of his +nerves seemed to have deprived him of half his powers. He envied his +wife her gentle breathing and her deep sleep; and he would often wake +her in the night when he was most restless, and demand something at her +hands--a very weak cup of tea, or a little milk and hot water--in order +to hear the restoring sound of a human voice. + +Lately, however, he had purchased a new sort of tabloid which he used +sparingly, according to the chemist's directions, but at which he often +looked longingly, believing that a little sleep lay within the tiny +glass bottle. + +He had lain awake for hours this night, noting the ticking of his +watch, counting the hours as they struck on the neighbouring clock, +falling sometimes into an uneasy slumber which lasted only a few +minutes, and then waking at the sound of his own voice calling aloud in +his sleep. He tried every plan and contrivance, however childish, by +which men have sometimes courted slumber. + +He lay in bed very still to-night, his wide-staring eyes looking into +the darkness. He heard every hour as it struck, and his active brain +refused to be quiet for a moment. Difficult things looked gigantic in +the darkness, and everything upon which his thoughts dwelt became +hopelessly exaggerated in his mind. Brandy and other stimulants had +never been a temptation to him; his life had too often depended upon +his wits for him to risk a muddled brain. But he still believed in +tabloids; and as the day dawned, and light crept through the window, he +looked longingly at the little glass vial lying on the dressing-table. +It was three o'clock, and if only he could get a couple of hours' deep +rest before the noise of the city began, he might yet be able to pull +himself together and arrange his affairs. + +He rose from the bed and went with unfaltering steps to the +dressing-table and shook the tiny discs into the palm of his hand; and +then he counted them deliberately. + +'It's kill or cure!' he said, with that queer courage which never +deserted him, even if it were based entirely upon self-seeking and +self-interest. He threw his head back with the characteristic action +with which he always swallowed his medicine, and went back to bed again. + +Purvis slept; and it may have been that he was glad to sleep on for +ever, for he was tired through and through, and the only way to escape +failure was by death. + +His wife mourned for him deeply and sincerely, as many better men have +not been mourned. There was only one thing she dreaded in the whole +world, and that was loneliness. She had endured so much of it in her +lifetime, and now that her husband was gone, whom as a matter of +necessity she had believed in, she was quite alone. She knew nothing +of business, and it never struck her as strange that there should be +money amounting to a considerable little fortune in a box in the house. +With the fear of want removed the poor creature blossomed into +youthfulness again, and she married an engineer on a new railway line, +who was very good to her. To him she ever held up the late lamented +Purvis as one of the best of husbands, and one, too, who had left her +well provided for. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Peter and Jane were married the following autumn with the ring which +Toffy had kept wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper in his waistcoat +pocket. + +For a description of the general rejoicings the almost hysterical +paragraphs in the Culversham local paper must be consulted. Columns of +print were devoted to accounts of feastings and fireworks, tenants' +dinners, and school-children's teas. + +In order to understand and really appreciate the full interest of the +occasion one would have had to be at Tetley Place on the morning of the +26th of October last year. Miss Abingdon was in her most bustling, her +most uncompromising mood, and from an early hour of the morning she was +so severe in her speech, and so absolutely radiant in her expression, +that it was very difficult indeed to know how to treat her. + +Canon Wrottesley, who still believed that his wife was only feeling the +effects of the winter weather, the spring weather, the summer weather, +or the autumn weather, was as gay and debonair as usual, and even at +the wedding it was felt that he was in some sort the centre of things. +He had his usual group of admirers about him, and was so gracious and +charming, so patriarchal one moment and so boyish the next, that his +popularity was not to be wondered at. The very school-children, as +they threw their flowers, glanced upwards at the canon for his approval. + +Mrs. Avory, dressed in black, went very quietly to the wedding with her +little girl beside her. She wept sadly during the service, but she +looked stronger now, and less suffering than she had been wont to do. +A niche seemed to have been found for her in the village of Culversham, +where she loved the poor people, and went about amongst the cottages, +and read to sick folk, and was happier, perhaps, than she quite knew, +in her own pathetic little way. + +Kitty Sherard was bridesmaid and never cried at all. She wore +rose-colour, and carried Jane's bouquet, and during the whole of the +long day she smiled and was admired, and behaved as a bridesmaid in +rose-colour should. It is a comforting supposition, which many people +hold as a belief, that there are guardian angels, or spirits, which +watch round the beds of those who weep. Such a spirit, keeping watch +at Kitty Sherard's bed that night, and hearing her sobbing, may have +known something of her sorrow. Soldiers--men tell us who have seen +many battlefields--cover their faces when they are wounded, so that +their comrades may not see their drawn features and their pain. And +women wait until the lights are out before they begin to cry. + +Perhaps a certain joy of living will come back to Kitty when hounds are +running and a good horse carries her well. To-night in the dark she +felt nothing but an intolerable sense of loss. Probably in a sorrow of +this sort the ache of it consists in a curious longing to get up and go +at once somewhere--anywhere--to the one who is loved, and the blankness +and the pity of it all centres round the fact that this is impossible. +The impotence of the feeling increases as means of communication in +this life are made easier. It seems absurd that, whereas we may +actually speak and hear the voice in reply of those who answer us while +we are hundreds of miles apart, there yet should be an insuperable +barrier between ourselves and those who, for aught we know, may be +quite near us. It seems almost as though we must be under a spell +which prevents the communication which we long for, and as though +almost any day we may wake up to find how unreal the separation is, +Kitty buried her face in the pillow and called Toffy's name, and--who +knows?--perhaps he heard her. + +Sometimes I think Mrs. Avory may marry again, for her husband is +rapidly getting through his life in a laudable endeavour to live every +day of it, and there are times when I wonder if, in years to come, I +may see her established as the gentle and admiring wife of our handsome +country vicar, doing good all her days in her timid faithful way. + +But I cannot think of Kitty Sherard as caring for any one except the +boy who, whatever his faults may have been, had never an unkind or +ungentle thought of any man or woman, and who played the game as +honourably as he knew it, and then laid down his life in the simple +manner of a gentleman. + +Peter will never forget him. When he has boys of his own he will call +them after his dead friend's name, and will tell them absurd stories +about him, for even when his name has become only a memory it will be +surrounded with something lovably humorous. His old jokes and stories +are much more a reality than his death. He often risked his life for a +good sporting race; and he did not grudge giving it up during that last +lap in the Argentine River when day was breaking. He was trying to +help a friend to do the right sort of thing at considerable cost to +them both, and, when all is said and done, none of us can do much +better than that. + +Well, good luck and long life to bride and bride-groom! They love each +other in a manner refreshingly whole-hearted and delightful, and we +will, if you please, ring down the curtain upon them in orthodox +fashion to the sound of wedding-bells. Good luck to Kitty, who will +never tell her mad little stories again, or enjoy herself as she used +to do when she goes to race-meetings or drives her horses tandem +through the lanes. Good luck to Mrs. Avory, with her pathetic brown +eyes, doing her daily work amongst the poor; and to the genial vicar +and his wife. Good luck to all our friends in this book, and to you, +dear reader, who have followed them so far. + +And so, good-bye. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND JANE*** + + +******* This file should be named 26044-8.txt or 26044-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/0/4/26044 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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(Sarah) Macnaughtan</title> +<style type="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +PRE { font-size: 10pt; + font-family: "Courier New", serif; } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.salutation {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.closing {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.index {font-size: small ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-top: 0% ; + margin-bottom: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: medium ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.dedication {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 15%; + text-align: justify } + +P.published {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 15% } + +P.quote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.report {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.report2 {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +H3.h3left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H3.h3right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H3.h3center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H4.h4center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5left { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: left ; + clear: left ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5right { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-align: center } + +H5.h5center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgleft { float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 1%; + padding: 0; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgright {float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1%; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgcenter { margin-left: auto; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: auto; } + +.pagenum { position: absolute; + left: 1%; + font-size: 95%; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; } + +.sidenote { left: 0%; + font-size: 65%; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0%; + width: 17%; + float: left; + clear: left; + padding-left: 0%; + padding-right: 2%; + padding-top: 2%; + padding-bottom: 2%; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; } + + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + a:visited {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + a:hover {color:#ff0000; + text-decoration: underline; } +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Peter and Jane, by S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan</h1> +<pre class="pg"> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Peter and Jane</p> +<p> or The Missing Heir</p> +<p>Author: S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan</p> +<p>Release Date: July 12, 2008 [eBook #26044]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND JANE***</p> +<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Al Haines</h3></center><br><br> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +PETER AND JANE +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +OR THE MISSING HEIR +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +S. MACNAUGHTAN +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +[Transcriber's note: Macnaughtan's given name is "Sarah".] +</H4> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +AUTHOR OF +<BR> +'THE FORTUNE OF CHRISTINA M'NAB' +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +SIXTH EDITION +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +METHUEN & CO. LTD. +<BR> +36 ESSEX STREET W.C. +<BR> +LONDON +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<PRE> + First Issued in this Cheap Form (Fourth + Edition) . . . . . . . . . . . . July 2nd 1914 + Fifth Edition . . . . . . . . . . . May 1916 + Sixth Edition . . . . . . . . . . . 1919 + + First Published (Crown 8vo) . . . . September 14th 1911 + Second Edition . . . . . . . . . . . September 1911 + Third Edition . . . . . . . . . . . November 1911 +</PRE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TO +<BR> +CATHERINE +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER X</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">CHAPTER XII</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">CHAPTER XV</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII</A> +</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +PETER AND JANE +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie, red-haired according to the exact shade then in fashion, +and dressed by Paquin, sat in her drawing-room reading the <I>Court +Journal</I>. She was a woman who thought on the lines of Aristotle, +despised most other women except Charlotte Corday, Judith, Joan of Arc, +and a few more, and she dyed her hair and read the <I>Court Journal</I>. +People who did not know her sometimes alluded to her as an overdressed +woman with a wig. Those who had met her even but once admitted the +power of her personality. Perhaps if any one had known her very well +he or she would have been bewildered by the many-sided complexities of +her character, and would have failed to discover any sort of unity +behind its surprising differences. But then, as a matter of fact, no +one did know her well. +</P> + +<P> +Those who cared to remember such an old story used to tell how, as a +girl of eighteen, she had been deeply in love with a cousin of hers, +Greville Monsen by name, and how almost on the eve of her marriage she +had thrown him over and had married Colonel Ogilvie the explorer, a man +twenty years older than herself, with an enormous fortune, and +accounted something of a hero at the time. +</P> + +<P> +Colonel Ogilvie married late in life, and his brother's wife had long +ago decided that it would be better if he should never marry at all. +Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie was an ambitious woman with a fine family of sons +and daughters to whom Colonel Ogilvie's large estates and immense +fortune would have been wholly appropriate. She had always been civil +to her brother-in-law, although the estates and the money were entailed +upon his brother, and she weighed in the balance the disinterested +affection which she showed him against her feeling of satisfaction in +the fact that he was a daring and indefatigable traveller; one, +moreover, who was seldom quite happy unless he was in danger, and who +never thoroughly enjoyed a journey if any other white man had trodden +the ground before he himself visited it. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie was indignant at the news of Colonel Ogilvie's +marriage. Being a very wise woman she would probably in time have +controlled her temper, and by a little judicious management she might +have secured a considerable fortune for herself and her children. But, +alas! there was a necessity within her of exploding to some one when, +as in this instance, her heart was hot and her head not quite cool. +And so, with some sense of justice, venting her spleen upon the cause +of it, Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie said certain very unwise and unkind things +about her brother-in-law's fiancée and her cousin, Greville Monsen. Of +course the heated and uncontrolled words of the disappointed woman were +repeated, and there was a terrible and stormy interview between the two +brothers, who parted that same day and never spoke to each other again. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Francis Ogilvie bore the character of being a cold and +dispassionate woman. And this was the more remarkable because on the +distaff-side she was of Spanish descent, and might reasonably have been +supposed to have inherited the instincts of that passionate and +hot-tempered nation. She never quarrelled as the brothers had done, +but her eyes narrowed for an instant with a trick that was +characteristic of her when she heard Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie's tale. And +when, in the quieter moments that followed her husband's outburst of +anger, he asked her with a tone of question in his voice whether Lionel +and that odious wife of his could possibly expect to be forgiven, Mrs. +Ogilvie raised her eyebrows and said simply, 'I do not know what +forgiveness means.' She paid no attention to the vulgar gossip which +her sister-in-law tried to attach to her name, and Greville Monsen had +either got over his disappointment, or was sufficiently attached to his +former fiancée to forgive her her treatment of him. He came to the +house on terms of intimate friendship, and continued to do so even +after Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie's busy tongue had spoken. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie was not affected by gossip, nor moved by public opinion. +To have altered her conduct, even by a hair's-breadth, because it was +not generally approved would have seemed to her an absurdity; but those +who offended her were not given the opportunity of doing so twice. To +have had small quarrels followed by reconciliations would have been +impossible to her. Very few things were worth quarrelling about at +all, still fewer worth forgiving! Mrs. Ogilvie was cynically +indifferent to transgressions against herself; but when she sat in +judgment she always gave a life-sentence. +</P> + +<P> +When Lionel died the feud between the brothers would probably have been +forgotten had it not been for the lamentable fact that his eldest son, +who had grown up into a faithful likeness of his worldly and +commonplace mother, took it into his head at the time of his father's +death to write to his uncle in a way which showed as much greed as +ill-breeding. The foolish young man's letter might have been put into +the fire and forgotten, for Colonel Ogilvie had loved his brother long +ago, and his death affected him deeply; but young Lionel made a mistake +when he referred to the fact that Colonel and Mrs. Ogilvie were +childless, and alluded to his own prospects. This put an end for ever +to all friendly intercourse between the uncle and nephew; Mrs. Ogilvie, +on her part, lifted her eyebrows again and said, 'The commercial mind +is very droll!' But just for one moment she locked her hands together +with an impulsive movement that had a whole life's tragedy and +disappointment in it. +</P> + +<P> +It meant all the world to her and her husband that they should have +children. But Fate, who had prospered them in every other respect, had +denied them what they most desired. A son and heir, who was born a +year after the marriage, had died the same day. Two years later a +little girl was born who lived a few weeks, and then she also died. +Since then there had been no children. Many women would have claimed +sympathy for their sorrow, most women would at least have accepted it. +Mrs. Ogilvie, with her health somewhat impaired, came back to the world +and assumed her place in it without any expressions of regret for her +disappointment. Probably not even her husband knew whether she felt +her loss deeply or not. No one else was ever permitted to speak of it. +Colonel Ogilvie's own disappointment was never expressed. He had too +much tenderness for his wife to say anything about it. +</P> + +<P> +'If ever I am to be a mother again,' Mrs. Ogilvie said once, 'my child +shall be born out of reach of kind inquiries or deep sympathy. If he +lives, let those rejoice with me who will. But pity is always +offensive, and is generally meant to be so.' +</P> + +<P> +As the years came and went Colonel Ogilvie lost interest in his +property, and handed over the care of the greater part of it to agents +and stewards, and came very near to hating the lands which some day +would go to his nephew. A queer restlessness was upon him, and his +wife watched him and said nothing; until one day, seeing him reading a +certain paragraph in a newspaper, she said to him, smiling slightly, as +they stood together on the broad stone terrace at Bowshott, 'Why don't +you go with them on this exploring expedition?' +</P> + +<P> +Colonel Ogilvie protested. He was a married man, he said, and his +travelling days were over. It is probable, however, that never was a +suggestion more welcome. The past years, in spite of his deep love for +his wife, had been full of fret and shadowed by disappointment, and he +longed, with a traveller's intensity of longing, for the wild +untroubled places of the world, the primitive life, and if possible +some dangers on the road. An exploring party sent out by the British +Government to discover a lost missionary and to punish a warlike tribe +was exactly the thing to suit his adventurous disposition. In spirit +he was already in the dangerous places of Central Africa, far from +human habitation, and with very often his own right hand the sole thing +between him and a barbarous death. Even while he protested with +conscientious emphasis against his wife's proposal, he already saw the +dim forests of Africa, the line of bearers on the difficult march, the +tents struck at nightfall, and all the paraphernalia of an interesting +campaign. +</P> + +<P> +He was away for eighteen months, beyond the reach of letters and +telegrams for the greater part of the time; and during his absence Mrs. +Ogilvie, whose health for some months had been feeble, went to her +native land of Spain for warmth and sunshine, travelling by sea to +Lisbon for the sake of the voyage. From her Spanish mother she had +inherited a property at Granada, and it was from there that she was +able to write and tell her husband that she was the mother of a son. +Colonel Ogilvie was in an inaccessible region when that event happened, +and it was not until he was on his return journey home that he heard +the good news. Two years later another child, Peter, was born; and, +ardently as her firstborn had been desired, Mrs. Ogilvie showered by +far the greater part of her affection upon the younger child. +Everything had to give way to Peter, and she resented that even such +baby privileges as a child of tender years can receive were bestowed +upon the elder son and heir. Her health gave cause for anxiety for +some time after Peter was born, and her mental state and the condition +of her nerves accounted for the partiality which she showed for her +younger child. +</P> + +<P> +The colonel, however, was always a little jealous for the fair-haired +boy who had come to his mother while he was far away; and by his will, +which he made at this time, he secured an almost extravagant provision +for Edward. He could well-nigh forgive his nephews now for their +obtrusive existence in the world, and he settled down to enjoy his +property with the happy knowledge that he had two fine sturdy boys to +whom to leave it. He was still in the prime of life, and not all the +dangers and privations which he had suffered seemed to have undermined +his splendid constitution. But a drive home in an open dogcart, after; +speaking in an overheated hall at a political meeting, brought on a +chill and pneumonia of which very suddenly he died. His loss was +sincerely and deeply regretted in a neighbourhood where he was both +admired and loved for his many good qualities, and a monument in +Culversham parish church tells of his excellence as a landlord and his +intrepid courage as an explorer. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie's health being still precarious, she went abroad for the +winter after her husband's death to look into some matters concerning +her own property, and to try to court health in the sunny vine-growing +country. And there, in a little remote Spanish village by the sea +which she loved to visit, little Edward Ogilvie, the elder of the two +children, died; and not until six years later did Mrs. Ogilvie return +to England. To all outward seeming she was as emotionless and reserved +as she had ever been, and she spoke no word of her double sorrow and +her irreparable loss. Her love for her remaining child never showed +itself in caresses, and was not even discernible in her speech; but in +spite of her reserve there was an undefined feeling in most people's +minds that Mrs. Ogilvie idolized her son. Of the two who were dead no +one ever heard her speak. Whatever she thought of them seemed to be +buried in her heart as deeply as though that heart had been their +graves. And there remained only cheery, popular Peter Ogilvie, with +his mind as open as the day, and not a secret upon his soul, and with +as much reserve as a schoolboy, to inherit the fortune which a prince +might have envied, and a property which was unique in a county rich in +beautiful houses. +</P> + +<P> +The gardens of Bowshott were the admiration of the countryside, and +Mrs. Ogilvie rarely entered them. The picture gallery was visited by +foreigners from every part of the world. Mrs. Ogilvie frequently +showed the works of the great masters herself, strolling along the +polished floor of the gallery, and telling the story of this picture +and that with the inimitable grace of manner which was vaguely resented +by her country neighbours, delighting the distinguished foreigners who +came to see the pictures. She herself hardly ever glanced at the old +masters for her own pleasure; although full of technical knowledge on +the subject she had no love of art. It used to weary her when she had +to listen to enthusiasm, generally only half-sincere, about her +Botticellis or her Raphaels. Music never stirred her, and she regarded +the society of the country neighbourhood where she lived with a sense +of uncomprehension which she sometimes found difficult to conceal. +</P> + +<P> +'Why were such people born?' she used to say to herself at the sight of +some rural gathering. On the rare occasions when she went to a party +she was always the first to leave; boredom seemed to overtake her +before she had been anywhere very long. Entertainments, so-called, +were horribly wearisome to her, and she never for an instant believed +those people who professed to have enjoyed a pleasant party. Parties +were all stupid, she thought; just as most people were stupid, and most +food was badly cooked. Therefore, why meet in somebody else's most +probably hideous room, and eat impossible dishes and talk to impossible +people? Her own chef had been famous even in Paris, and every evening, +according to the custom of the house, an extravagant <I>menu</I> was +prepared, at which, when she was alone, she hardly glanced. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie discussed all things in heaven or earth with a baffling +lightness, turned philosophy into a witty jest and made a sort of slang +of classical terminology. Amongst a clever set in London she reigned +supreme when she chose; but a false note or a pose offended her +immediately, and the poseur or the insincere person would generally +receive one of her exquisite snubs which cut like acid into tender +skins. The pretentiousness of the so-called cultured set was a +vulgarism in the eyes of this woman who could be rude with the air of a +princess, and could give a snub as some people offer a compliment. +Inferior persons sometimes wondered how she had a friend left. To be +popular, they argued, one had to be civil, whereas Mrs. Ogilvie was +often daringly disagreeable. There was indeed something almost fine in +her splendid disdain of the civility of the so-called popular person. +She could wound; but she did it with the grace of a duellist of old +days, who wiped his rapier with a handkerchief of cambric and lace when +he had killed his opponent, and would probably expect a man to die as +he himself would die, with a jest on his lips and a light laugh at the +flowing blood. Mrs. Ogilvie slew exquisitely, and she never hated her +opponent. She smiled at enthusiasm and thought it bizarre and rather +delightful; but towards vulgarity, especially in its pompous form, she +presented her poniard-point sharply tipped and deadly. 'Why should +people take themselves seriously?' she would say, with a shrug of her +shoulders. 'Surely, we are a common enough species!' And then the +green-grey eyes would narrow themselves in their shortsighted way, and +Mrs. Ogilvie's voice, charmingly refined and well-bred, would with a +few words lightly prick the falsely sentimental and self-inflated +wind-bag of oratory that had presented its unprotected surface to her +shaft. +</P> + +<P> +Towards religion her attitude was the well-bred one. She took off her +hat to it, as a gentleman removes his hat in church whatever his creed +may be. Her own beliefs were as daring and as nearly as possible +uninfluenced by outward opinion or by the accepted systems as it is +possible for a creed to be. She never tried to force them upon any one +else; possibly she did not believe in them herself sufficiently to wish +to do so; but like her queer gowns and her dyed red hair her creed +suited Mrs. Ogilvie. There was a congruous incongruity about her which +set many people puzzling to find out her real character. Pompous +persons and snobs detested her. Stupid or vapid people saw nothing in +her, or saw merely that she dyed her hair and was dressed by Paquin. +Narrow-minded people disapproved of her, and clever people considered +her one of the most striking, if not one of the most agreeable +personalities of the day. Women hardly ever understood her; but they +respected any one who dressed as well as she did, and they had an +undeclared admiration for a woman who could hold so lightly possessions +which they believed to be all-important, and which Mrs. Ogilvie seemed +to find so trivial. +</P> + +<P> +The house and its gardens were open once a week to visitors, and the +country neighbours brought their guests and strangers to see it, their +pleasure in showing off Mrs. Ogilvie's possessions being somewhat +tempered by timidity; while those who came to pay a call on the chance +of finding her at home would sometimes say with an air of courage and +independence to a friend, 'Mrs. Ogilvie is considered rather alarming, +you know, but it really is only her manner.' She played her part as +country neighbour conscientiously. Once a year she gave a sumptuous +garden-party, all other garden-parties in the neighbourhood being dated +by it. And when Peter was a little boy there were children asked to +the house to play games with him, and later there were dances and balls. +</P> + +<P> +Peter accepted his mother, his property, and his position on what he +himself would probably have called their most cheery side. He valued +Bowshott because there was excellent hunting to be got there; just as +he loved his place in Scotland because of the stalking and the fishing +and the shooting, but that they were magnificent or enviable never +entered his head. Fate had dealt very kindly with him, and its +kindliness had provoked a charming geniality in the character of the +young man whom it had treated with such lavish good fortune. Taking it +all round, Peter considered this world an excellent one, and most of +the people in it very good sorts indeed. He accepted his mother as he +accepted everything else, with a simple-heartedness which never looked +below the surface nor concerned itself with motives; and if any one had +suggested to him that she was inexplicable he would have considered +such a judgment quite unintelligible. He enjoyed a visit to her more +than almost anything else in the world. She had always been devoted to +him ever since he was a boy, and for the life of him he could not see +that she was difficult to understand. +</P> + +<P> +It was the fashion to say that Mrs. Ogilvie had altered greatly since +the death of Colonel Ogilvie and the little boy. People who remembered +all the circumstances of that sad time thought always that in her own +way Mrs. Ogilvie was the victim of remorse for not having loved her +dead child better. But, after all, there was nothing that a child of +three or four years old could have felt seriously in his mother's +conduct, and his father's affection must have consoled him for any +coldness on her part. After the colonel's death there were those who +said it would have been better if Mrs. Ogilvie had married again, or +even if she had had a daughter—some one who would have been always at +home, and who, to use the common phrase, might have taken Mrs. Ogilvie +out of herself. Peter was too much away from home to be a real +companion to his mother, and there were never guests at Bowshott unless +he was there. It would surely have been in reason if the widow had +taken a fancy to some nice girl and had had her to live in the house. +But Mrs. Ogilvie did not take fancies to nice girls. She loved Jane +Erskine, but disguised the feeling under a sort of whimsical +indifference. And the friendship seemed incongruous enough if one came +to think of it. Jane, with her wholesome love of outdoor life, her +fresh beauty, her heedlessness of learning and ignorance of books—what +had Jane in common with Mrs. Ogilvie in her Parisian gowns and with her +dyed hair, sitting in the vast drawing-room at Bowshott reading the +<I>Court Journal</I> and thinking on the lines of the speculative +philosophers? +</P> + +<P> +And even to Jane Erskine her manner was cold. Her chilling philosophy +would soon have quenched a less happy and impulsive nature. No one but +Jane would have bothered her head about Mrs. Ogilvie, the kindly +neighbours said, envying, nevertheless, the girl's intimacy at the +great house. But as a matter of fact Jane expended a wealth of honest +affection on Mrs. Ogilvie, and not only thought her the cleverest woman +she had ever met, but had even been heard to affirm that her hair was +not dyed. She called her 'such a really good sort'; and the words were +as inappropriate as the words of Peter Ogilvie and Jane Erskine usually +were. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<P> +Jane Erskine was at the present time at that interesting period when +her friends and relatives, having just discovered the unexpected fact +that she was grown up, subjected her to mildly severe criticism, while +believing that to have reached womanhood at all showed a considerable +amount of talent on her part. They were, they said, under no +misapprehension about Jane; in moments of extreme candour, touched with +responsibility, they had even been known to say that in one or two +respects she was not absolutely perfect. Miss Abingdon, for instance, +who always conscientiously encouraged these moods, and censured the +General for spoiling Jane, would frequently compare her niece with +herself, as she remembered that dim figure of girlhood, and never +failed to find cause for unfavourable comparison between the two. From +the portraits which she drew it was generally believed that Miss +Abingdon must have been born rather a strait-laced spinster of thirty, +and have increased in wisdom until her hair was touched with grey; when +she would seem to have become the mellow, severe, dignified, loving, +and critical lady who at this moment was looking out of her +drawing-room window, and trying to show her impartiality for her orphan +niece by subjecting her to lawful and unbiased criticism. +</P> + +<P> +'The day of the incomprehensible woman is past and gone,' said Miss +Abingdon, and she sighed a little. +</P> + +<P> +Jane Erskine was painting a rabbit-hutch on the lawn. Her attitude +showed the keen workman, but disguised the woman of grace. Miss +Erskine, in fact, was lying full-length on the greensward of her aunt's +lawn absorbed in the engrossing occupation of putting the right dabs of +green paint upon a portion of the inside of the rabbit-hutch which was +awkward to get at. +</P> + +<P> +'They are all alike,' sighed Miss Abingdon. She alluded to the +girlhood of the present day as it presented itself to her regretful and +disapproving eye. 'They wear shoes two sizes too large for them, they +don't require to be taken care of, they buy their own horses, and they +are never ill. They call young men by their Christian names! I don't +think they even have headaches.' Miss Abingdon sighed again over this +lost art of womanhood. 'There is my niece Jane Erskine; she might be a +graceful and elegant young woman, whereas she is sunburned, and—it is +a dreadful word of course—but I can only call her leggy. Perhaps it +is the fault of those narrow skirts. Women have never been so much +respected since crinolines went out of fashion. I believe the +independence of the modern girl is no longer assumed; it is not even a +regrettable passing fashion; the time has come when I am afraid they +really are independent. Jane would think me insane if I were to go out +and sit with her in the garden when Peter comes to call, and I don't +believe she has ever done a piece of fancy-work in her life!' said Miss +Abingdon. +</P> + +<P> +She looked round her pretty drawing-room in which, with a spinster's +instinct for preserving old family treasures, she had gathered and +garnered antique pieces of furniture, ill-drawn family portraits, and +chairs covered with the worsted-work and beadwork of fifty or sixty +years ago. She looked regretfully at the piano and the old, neatly +bound folios of music with 'M. A.' upon the covers, and she wondered +how it was that no one cared to hear her 'pieces' now. She went over +to the music-stand and fingered them in a contemplative way. How +industriously she used to practise 'Woodland Warblings,' 'My Pretty +Bird,' 'La Sympathie, Valse Sentimentale pour le Piano,' and 'Quant' è +piu bella,' fingered and arranged with variations. +</P> + +<P> +On Sunday afternoons when her guests 'were having a look at the mokes' +Miss Abingdon still played through her book of sacred pieces; and it +was on Sunday afternoons, too, that she always stirred the jars of +potpourri upon the cabinets, so that their pungent, faint odour might +exhale through the room. The old pieces of music and the scent of the +dried rose-leaves together always brought back to Miss Abingdon's mind +fragrant memories of long ago. +</P> + +<P> +'We used to take a roll of music with us when we were asked out to +dinner,' she reflected, 'and it was all-important to us who should turn +over our leaves for us, and we generally blushed and hesitated before +we sat down to the piano at all. Last night Jane almost fought with +Peter for the larger portion of the keyboard of the piano; and they +played music without any tune in it, to my way of thinking, and there +is no seriousness at all about any of them.' +</P> + +<P> +'I wonder if they'—Miss Abingdon again referred to that distressing +body of young women of the present day—'I wonder if they have ever +kissed a lover's letter, or have slept with his picture underneath +their pillows at night? Or have they ever lain sleepless for an hour +because of a loved one's absence, or because of a cold word from him? +Do they write verses, or exchange valentines, or even give each other +flowers?' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon recalled in her own mind the days when she and her sister +used to walk together in the park, with mamma leaning upon papa's arm +and pacing sedately behind; and how, when they used to sit down on one +of the lawns, it had always been in a group of four. Ah! those were +the days when one went home and wept because the dear one—the handsome +hero who filled half a girl's thoughts and was the object of more than +half her worship—had not seen, one across the crowd; or he had seen, +perhaps, but girlish modest eyes were forbidden to give the signal of +approach. It was more maidenly then to be oblivious of a young man's +presence. 'Now,' said, Miss Abingdon, 'when they see a young man whom +they know—a pal I believe they call him—girls will wave their +parasols or even shout. I have known them rise from their own chairs +and go and speak to a man. The whole thing is extraordinary to me.' +</P> + +<P> +It was a relief to Miss Abingdon's sombre reflections when her friend, +the vicar's wife, came in for a morning call. She thought that Mrs. +Wrottesley's brown merino dress and bonnet, and constraining mantle +which rendered all movements of the arms impossible, looked very +decorous and womanly compared with the soles of a pair of brown leather +shoes, and the foreshortened figure of five feet eight of slender young +womanhood stretched in strenuous devotion to her strange occupation on +the lawn. +</P> + +<P> +When Mrs. Wrottesley seated herself opposite the window Miss Abingdon +resisted an impulse to pull down the blind. +</P> + +<P> +'Yesterday,' said Miss Abingdon, glancing at her niece, 'she was trying +to copy a feat which she had seen at the hippodrome, and was riding one +pony and driving another tandem in front of her over some hurdles in +the field.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Wrottesley smiled with the rather provoking indulgence with which +our friends regard the follies of our relations. +</P> + +<P> +'She is so young,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'and she is very beautiful.' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Miss Abingdon, with inward pride at her own unwavering +impartiality, 'I honestly believe that if we were to consider Jane +without prejudice we should find that she is simply healthy.' +</P> + +<P> +'It is a great charm,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. +</P> + +<P> +'No, no,' corrected Miss Abingdon quickly, 'the charm of womanhood +consists in its mysteriousness. Now, the girl of to-day is simply a +good fellow. She doesn't require to be understood, and she doesn't +drive men crazy; she shoves her own bicycle up hills and fights for the +larger half of the keyboard of the piano.' She sighed again. +</P> + +<P> +'She is a moral influence,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. Mrs. Wrottesley also +alluded to the girl of the period; and Miss Abingdon thought that to +refer to her as 'she' or a type, instead of 'they,' had a flavour of +culture about it, but she did not mean to give in. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, yes,' she said impatiently, her love of contradicting Mrs. +Wrottesley and at the same time holding her own in the discussion +inclining her to undue severity, 'she is as straight as any other good +fellow, and she pays up if she has lost at bridge, and would as soon +think of picking a pocket as of cheating at croquet; but she is not +mysterious—she is absolutely comprehensible.' +</P> + +<P> +'Probably,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'Jane's shortcomings in this respect +are due to the fact that she is lamentably unaffected. Affectation, in +the case of girls who ride straight and don't know what it is to have a +headache, very often takes the form of boyishness. Let us console +ourselves with the fact that, being perfectly natural, Jane has escaped +masculinity.' +</P> + +<P> +'Jane is a lady,' said Miss Abingdon severely, and with the faint +suggestion of administering a snub. 'But,' she added, with that touch +of superiority in her manner which obtruded itself in most of her +conversation with the vicar's wife, 'there are certain accepted +traditions of womanhood such as conventionality approves, and it was +not called artificial to conform to them when I was a girl.' +</P> + +<P> +'I remember,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'that we honestly thought that we +were interesting when we ate very little, and I myself often used to +aspire to an attractive display of timidity when inwardly I had no +sensation of fear.' +</P> + +<P> +As the wife of the vicar of the parish Mrs. Wrottesley wore brown +merino and a mantle, but these hid a great soul securely held in check +and narrowed down by a strict adherence to the small conventions and +paralysing rules which society seems to have prescribed for vicars and +their wives in the rural parishes of England. She prayed every morning +of her life for more faith, and meant by that a narrower creed. Mrs. +Wrottesley was an inarticulate woman, and had gained for herself the +character of being reserved. +</P> + +<P> +Her own view of things differed in all essentials from the opinions +which were held by those about her, and were even inwardly opposed to +theories which her husband, with such gentlemanly eloquence, expounded +every Sunday morning. People thought themselves charitable when they +merely said that they did not understand Mrs. Wrottesley. +</P> + +<P> +'The modern girl has a good effect upon society,' she continued; 'and +she is not a cat.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah, yes,' allowed Miss Abingdon, conceding a point, but prepared with +unanswerable argument; 'but will she ever be loved as the old eternal +feminine was loved?' +</P> + +<P> +'Many people believe,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'that you can't be a man's +divinity and surround yourself with a golden halo, and be his pal at +the same time.' +</P> + +<P> +'I remember,' said Miss Abingdon reminiscently, and feeling that she +was still scoring heavily against her friend—'I remember we used to +come down to breakfast in light gloves to match our gowns, and we drew +them on when the meal was over and only removed them in the +morning-room when we had taken out our embroidery to work at it.' +</P> + +<P> +'And when embroidery bored us,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'we thought we +were in love.' +</P> + +<P> +'A Miss Sherard stayed here last summer,' said Miss Abingdon, 'a friend +of Jane's, and she smoked cigarettes in her bedroom. I know that, for +I saw the ashes in her pin-tray.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon rather enjoyed making little excursions through her +guest's bedrooms of an afternoon, when she had the house to herself; +and, without deigning to touch or disturb anything, she knew pretty +well, for instance, whose complexion was real and whose was false, who +wore powder and who did not. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Wrottesley glanced at her own figure in the drawing-room mirror; +her mantle disguised the fact that she had either a waist or a pair of +arms, and she gave a little dry smile as she reflected that she had +accepted a dolman cloak with all the other outward conventions of +orthodoxy as understood by society in rural England. +</P> + +<P> +'My cousin, Peter Ogilvie, comes here every day,' said Miss Abingdon; +'he is crossing the lawn now. In former days these two young people +would have been talked about. (Peter is my cousin, you know, on my +father's side of the house—he is not related to Jane.) But neither +will probably mind in the least what is said about them, and for my own +part I am positively unable to say whether they care for each other or +not. Had I been Jane I would have sat in the arbour this morning, with +a pretty, cool white dress on, reading poetry or some light romance, or +working at my embroidery till my lover came, instead of being found +covered with paint and with the footman's baize apron on.' +</P> + +<P> +The two ladies moved closer to the window and watched the young man +crossing the lawn. He was well-built and not many inches above Jane's +own height; and perhaps when one has said that he was fair with that +Saxon fairness which suggests an almost immaculate cleanliness, and +looked like a gentleman, there is not much more to be stated about his +external appearance. +</P> + +<P> +Jane rose from her recumbent position on the turf and shook off some +blades of short grass from her apron, and waved a brush filled with +green paint in the air. +</P> + +<P> +'Don't touch it, Peter!' she cried. 'Isn't it lovely?' +</P> + +<P> +'Good morning, Jane,' said Peter, lifting his cap. Whatever else might +be said of them, it would have to be admitted that there was a +fundamental sense of courtesy and good-breeding underlying the +regrettably frank manner of these young people. 'If you wave your +brush about in that triumphant way you 'll splash me with green paint.' +</P> + +<P> +'I have sacrificed two dresses already,' answered Jane; 'but real Art +is worth that!' +</P> + +<P> +'The hutch looks ripping,' said Peter; 'but I should feel safer if you +would put down that brush.' +</P> + +<P> +'I couldn't resist painting the inside,' said Jane, surveying her work +ecstatically. 'Do you think the rabbits will lick on the paint and be +sick, Peter?' +</P> + +<P> +'Probably,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'Of course we don't know,' said Jane gravely, 'that it isn't their +favourite food. Rabbits may flourish on green paint just as we +flourish on roast mutton.' +</P> + +<P> +'It would be beastly to have a green inside!' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'I wonder what they are talking about,' said Miss Abingdon, glancing +with an apprehensive eye from the drawing-room window. 'Perhaps, after +all, they are making love to each other; and if they are, I certainly +ought to go out and sit with them.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon had antiquated notions of a chaperon's duties. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose there would be no objection to the match if they do care for +each other,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, in a manner that was often called +brusque and had served to make her unpopular. 'Jane is rich——' +</P> + +<P> +'Jane has money,' corrected Miss Abingdon, who saw a well-defined +difference between the two statements. 'She is a ward in Chancery, you +know, and she will not come of age until she is twenty-five. Peter, of +course, has a very large fortune. Still, one would not like to be +responsible for a marriage, even if it is suitable, and I should not +like the Erskines to think I had not looked after Jane properly.' +</P> + +<P> +That nothing should happen always seemed to Miss Abingdon the height of +safety and of peace. She mistrusted events of any kind, and had +probably remained single owing to her inability to make up her mind to +such a momentous decision as is necessarily involved by matrimony. She +had never been out of England, and now could seldom be got to leave +home; whenever she quitted her own house something was sure to happen, +and Miss Abingdon disapproved of happenings. She believed in the +essential respectability of monotony, and loved routine. But alas for +routine and respectability and a peaceful and serene existence! Even +elderly ladies, who dress in black satin and pay their bills weekly, +and whose most stimulating and exciting morning is the one spent in +scolding the gardener, may be touched with sorrows for which they are +not responsible, and shaken by tragedies such as they never dreamed +would come near them. +</P> + +<P> +The young couple on the lawn left the unfinished rabbit-hutch and +paint-pots and strolled towards a garden-seat. All the gates and seats +on Miss Abingdon's small property were painted white once a year, and +their trim spotlessness gave an air of homely opulence to the place. +The bench which her young relatives sought was placed beneath a +beneficent cedar tree that stretched out long, kindly branches, and +looked as though it were wrought of stitch-work in deep blue satin. +Jane wiped her fingers upon the baize apron, and Peter lighted a +cigarette. +</P> + +<P> +'Have you seen Toffy's new motor-car yet?' he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Had any one demanded of Peter or Jane what they meant by the art of +conversation, they would probably have replied that it had something to +do with Ollendorf's method. +</P> + +<P> +'How 's Toffy going to afford a motor?' said Jane, with interest. 'Is +it going to be "the cheapest thing in the end," like all Toffy's +extravagances?' +</P> + +<P> +Finance, one of the forbidden topics of 1850, was discussed to-day with +a frankness which Miss Abingdon thought positively indelicate. +</P> + +<P> +'He says he 'll save railway fares,' said Peter, 'and as they are the +only thing for which Toffy has paid ready money for years, I suppose +there is something to be said for the motor.' +</P> + +<P> +'Is he going to drive it himself?' +</P> + +<P> +'He says so, and the motor is to be run on the strictest lines of +economy. I am not sure that he is not going to water the petrol to +make it go farther.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't quite see Toffy steering anything,' said Jane, laughing with +great enjoyment at the recollection of Toffy's mad riding; 'he can +never take his horse through a gate without scraping his leg against +it.' +</P> + +<P> +'So Toffy generally goes over the gates,' said Peter, laughing also; +'and probably he 'll try the same sort of thing with the motor-car.' +</P> + +<P> +'Toffy <I>is</I> an ass!' said Jane affectionately. +</P> + +<P> +'I am sure it is time I should go and mount guard,' said Miss Abingdon +anxiously, from her post by the window. 'Why should they sit together +under the cedar tree like that unless they are making love?' She +stepped out on to the lawn with a garden-hat placed above her cap and a +sun-umbrella held over her head. +</P> + +<P> +'Aunt Mary,' said Jane, 'Toffy's got a new motor! Isn't it fearfully +exciting! We are going for a serpentine run with him, and our +next-of-kin are going to divide Peter's and my insurance between them +if we never come back again. Be sure you claim all you can get if I +depart in pieces!' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon laughed. She knew she was weak even where she +disapproved of her niece. Jane never kept anything from her, and she +would tell her aunt ridiculous items of sporting intelligence which +were as Greek to that excellent lady, and would talk to her as to any +other really good friend. Miss Abingdon was conscious of the charm of +this treatment, but the disciplining of youth was important, and Jane +required both training and guidance. +</P> + +<P> +'I can't think why,' she said severely, 'you should call a young man +Toffy. It is a name I should hardly liked to have called a dog when I +was a girl.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter raised his fair eyebrows and looked distressed. 'I don't see +what else you could call a man named Christopherson,' he said. 'You +couldn't call him Nigel—that's Toffy's front name—and I 'm afraid he +hasn't got any other. I believe fathers and mothers think you must be +going to die young when they give you a name like that, and that it +will look well on a tombstone.' +</P> + +<P> +'You shouldn't joke about death, Peter,' said Miss Abingdon. She felt +almost as though she saw an ally approaching when she perceived the +Reverend Canon Wrottesley come up the drive to call for his wife on the +way to the vicarage. Miss Abingdon had long ago accepted with +thankfulness St. Paul's recommendation to use the Church as a final +court of appeal. +</P> + +<P> +'How-do-you-do, Peter, how-do-you-do?' said the canon cordially, as +Peter went across the lawn to meet him. 'Got leave again, have you? I +don't believe you know what hard work is!' The vicar had pottered +about a small parish for thirty years and had given his five sons an +excellent education on the handsome fortune which his wife had brought +him. This helped to convince him that he had borne the burden and heat +of the day, and very naturally he regarded idleness as the root of all +evil. +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs. Wrottesley is looking over the guild work in the morning-room,' +said Miss Abingdon conscientiously. She loved a chat with the vicar, +and thought him more genial and charming when his wife was not present. +'Shall I tell her you are here?' +</P> + +<P> +'She likes taking a look at the things the girls have made,' said the +canon indulgently. +</P> + +<P> +The Vicar of Culversham and Honorary Canon of Sedgwick-in-the-Marsh was +a genial and delightful man. He always spoke kindly of his wife's +work, and he could even pardon fussing on the part of a woman. He was +a universal favourite and was no doubt aware of the fact, which gave +him a very legitimate and wholly pardonable sense of pleasure. It is +doubtful if any man was ever more happily placed than was Canon +Wrottesley in the considerable village of which he was the esteemed +vicar. In a larger place he might have been overlooked, in spite of +his many excellent qualities; and in a smaller one he would not have +had so many social advantages nor so many opportunities for usefulness. +His vicarage was large and well-furnished, his sons were well-grown and +well-educated, and he himself had many friends. The part of the +country where he found himself was known to house-agents as being a +good neighbourhood; and it was not so far away from London that the +canon felt himself cut off from the intellectual life of his day. +Canon Wrottesley belonged to the London Library and liked to converse +on books, even when he had read only a portion of the volumes which he +discussed. He often fingered them with true scholarly affection as +they lay on his library table, and he discussed erudite points of +learning with a light touch which his hearers, in a parish not renowned +for its culture, found truly impressive. Even his vanity was of the +refined and dignified order of things, and seemed to accord pleasantly +with his handsome, clean-shaven, aristocratic features. Perhaps his +one weakness was to be the centre of every group which he adorned. And +he held this position skilfully, not only by a well-bred display of +tact, such as he showed upon all occasions, but by a certain gift which +he possessed of appearing in different roles at different times, +according to his mood. Still, in spite of a tendency to a +self-convincing form of masquerading, one is fain to admit that the +village of Culversham would have lacked one of its most pleasing +figures had Canon Wrottesley been removed from it. He bore an +untarnished name, he had always a pleasant, if pompous greeting for +every one, and he preached and lived like a gentleman. He was +well-dressed and amiable, and his only display of temper or touchiness +took the rather curious form of adopting some impersonation not in +accordance with the circumstances in which for the moment he found +himself. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Wrottesley appeared from the house, still clad in her black mantle +which had evidently not been removed while she looked over the guild +work, for it bore traces thereof upon it in morsels of cotton and the +fluff of unbleached calico. +</P> + +<P> +'Come and sit beside me, love,' said her husband, indicating one of +Miss Abingdon's garden-seats in close proximity to his own cushioned +chair, 'and I will take care of you.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon smiled and looked admiringly at him. Conscience +frequently protested against her giving way to the thought, but in her +heart Miss Abingdon was convinced that Mrs. Wrottesley was not quite +worthy of her husband. +</P> + +<P> +'I think I must go back to the house and finish the guild work,' said +Mrs. Wrottesley. 'I have been very slow over it this morning, but I +have got a little headache, and I have been counting up everything +wrong, which is very stupid of me.' +</P> + +<P> +'How often have I told you not to work when you are tired?' said the +canon, shaking his finger reprovingly at her. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'll finish the guild work,' exclaimed Jane, 'and I 'll make Peter +come and help me.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Erskine, who had been sitting upon one of her feet and swinging +the other, rose impulsively from the garden-seat and covered the lawn +in a series of hops, until her shoe, which had become hopelessly +entangled in the laces of her petticoat, released itself with a rending +sound. Then she removed her hand from Peter's shoulder, upon which she +had been supporting herself, and together they went into the house. +</P> + +<P> +'And this,' thought Miss Abingdon ruefully, 'is courtship as it is +understood in the present day!' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<P> +The following morning Miss Erskine was awakened at the unusual hour of +five a.m. by having her window broken by a large pebble. 'I tried +small ones first, but it was not a bit of good,' said Peter later, with +compunction. +</P> + +<P> +Jane stirred sleepily, and flung her heavy brown hair upon the pillow. +This was probably some nonsense on the part of a young Wrottesley, and +Jane was not going to be taken in by it. +</P> + +<P> +Next, the point of a fishing-rod was tapped against the pane; it was, +therefore, probably that particular Wrottesley boy whose passion for +fishing in the early hours of the morning was well known. Jane rubbed +the sleep from her drowsy eyes, and called out that she knew quite well +who it was, and that Cyprian was to go away at once. +</P> + +<P> +'Jane,' said Peter's voice, 'I wish you would wake up and come down. +Toffy's had a horrid smash. He says he 's all right, and he won't go +to the doctor, but his hand is badly cut and he has had a nasty knock +on his head.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Toffy!' said Jane, 'you 've been in the wars again!' She had +descended from her bedroom, and had now unbarred the windows of her own +sitting-room and stepped out on to the dewy grass in the clothes which +she had hastily put on, her heavy brown hair, tied loosely with a +ribbon, falling down her back. The windows of her boudoir were +protected by green wooden jalousies and were considered a safeguard +against thieves. +</P> + +<P> +'This is awfully kind of you, Jane,' said Toffy. 'I don't think there +is really much the matter with me.' +</P> + +<P> +He came inside the sitting-room and Peter made him lie down on the +sofa. There was a bruise on one side of his head, and his hand was +bound up with a pocket-handkerchief drenched with blood. +</P> + +<P> +'Don't look at it,' said Jane. 'Just stretch out your hand like that, +and I 'll bathe it.' She had the simple remedies which Miss Abingdon +kept in the house—boracic lint and plaster. Nigel Christopherson lay +on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling, because, as Jane had somehow +divined, he hated the sight of blood; and he discoursed gravely on his +misfortunes while she dressed the ugly wound and bound and slung his +hand. +</P> + +<P> +'Talk of sick-nurses!' muttered Peter, and wondered how it was that +Jane was able to do everything better than other people could; +although, indeed, the bandaging showed more tenderness than skill, and +there was something almost pathetically youthful and inconsequent in +the manner of both patient and nurse. +</P> + +<P> +The room itself was indicative of the youthful and unlearned character +of its owner. A box of chocolates occupied an important position on +the writing-table, some envelopes stuffed with dress patterns lay upon +a chair. There was a large collection of novels which Jane did not +often read, and a much larger collection of illustrated books and +papers which she and Peter thoroughly enjoyed. A favourite parrot, who +never could be induced to talk, sulked in a cage and had a great deal +of affection expended upon him. The remains of the guild work which +Mrs. Wrottesley had not finished occupied the greater part of the sofa, +and Jane meant to ask her maid to run up all the little blouses and +petticoats, as she herself was too frightfully busy to undertake them. +An immense number of photographs ornamented the mantelpiece and were +mixed up, without attempt at classification, with curious odds and ends +which Peter had sent home from South Africa during the war time. Some +riding-whips hung on a rack on the wall, side by side with a few +strange sketches in oil-colours of Jane's favourite hunters, painted by +herself. Peter thought the sketches were among the best he had ever +seen, and even Jane was rather pleased with them. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'll take the guild work off the sofa,' she said, 'and that will give +you more room.' She settled his head comfortably upon the pillows and +turned to Peter for an explanation or an account of the accident. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know much about it,' said Peter, giving his head a shake. +'The Wrottesley boy and I were going out fishing early, and we found +Toffy sitting in the middle of the road with a motor-car hung in a +tree.' +</P> + +<P> +'You see,' said Toffy, in his grave, low voice, 'I have made up my mind +for some time past to travel by night because it saves hotel bills.' +</P> + +<P> +'But it doesn't cost you much to sleep in your own bed, Toffy,' +protested Jane. +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said the young man, looking at her with admiration; 'I hadn't +thought of that. I have dismissed my chauffeur,' he went on, 'because +he was always wanting things. I said to him, "My good man, get +anything you want if you can get tick for it." He was a maniac about +ready money. I got on all right for the first forty miles or so after +leaving London, and I was going on splendidly when my motor, to gain +some private end, went mad. How do these things happen? Thank 'e, +Jane,' as Jane fastened a silk handkerchief to serve as a sling for the +wounded arm. +</P> + +<P> +'Providentially the thing broke down at the Carstairs's very gates,' he +went on. The loss of blood was making him sick, but if he went on +talking he would probably not faint. 'And it was then three o'clock in +the morning, so I coaxed it up the drive and shoved it into the +coach-house, and took their motor, which is rather a nice one.' +</P> + +<P> +'Then it wasn't your own machine that you smashed up?' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'No, praise be!' replied Toffy. +</P> + +<P> +'When will the fraud be discovered?' asked Jane. 'Gilbert Carstairs is +quite a good sort, but his wife has very little sense of humour.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I left a note all right in the coach-house,' answered Toffy, 'and +I pointed out to Gilbert that he had no right to encourage burglaries +by having inefficient locks on his coach-house doors. I added that I +thought he ought to be very thankful that it was an honest man who had +stolen his motor-car.' +</P> + +<P> +'Also, I hope you said that he might have the loan of your disabled one +till he had had it thoroughly repaired?' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'I said something of that sort,' Toffy replied. 'And I should think +Gilbert would do the right thing by the motor. I am only afraid Mrs. +Carstairs may misunderstand the whole thing.' +</P> + +<P> +'One is liable to be misunderstood by even the best people,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +At breakfast-time it appeared that nothing had been done to prepare +Miss Abingdon for the news that one of her best spare bedrooms was at +this moment occupied by a man with a broken head, for she appeared at +the door of the breakfast-room in a serene frame of mind, and was +kissed by Peter, who announced that here he was, you know, and hoped +she was not much surprised to see him so early. +</P> + +<P> +'I am never surprised,' said Miss Abingdon, with intention. +</P> + +<P> +'I have been thinking,' said the young man presently, in the peculiarly +genial voice which was characteristic of him and helped to make him so +likeable, 'that, suppose a policeman should come sniffing about here +this morning, you had better tell him that there is no such thing as a +motor-car in the place, and that there has never been one.' +</P> + +<P> +'That is hardly true, Peter,' said Miss Abingdon, in the severe manner +which she cultivated, 'considering how often Sir Nigel is here with +his.' +</P> + +<P> +'As a matter of fact,' said Peter steadily, 'Toffy is here now. He +is—he is in bed, in fact.' +</P> + +<P> +'Something has happened!' exclaimed Miss Abingdon apprehensively. Why +was it that youth could never be contented without incidents? To be +young seemed to involve action, while acquaintanceship with Jane and +Peter seemed to bring one, however unwillingly, into a series of events. +</P> + +<P> +'There was a little accident early this morning,' explained Peter. +'Toffy was travelling at night—to save hotel bills, you know—and +there was a breakdown because he didn't quite understand the +Carstairs's machine, which he had borrowed; so poor Toffy came off +second best; but Jane patched him up most beautifully, and Martin said +he had better have the blue room.' +</P> + +<P> +'Do I understand that Sir Nigel Christopherson stole Captain +Carstairs's motor-car in the middle of the night and left his own +damaged one in its place?' said Miss Abingdon, 'and that he regards +this matter quite lightly?' +</P> + +<P> +'Toffy is a cheery soul,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'You are all cheery souls!' said Miss Abingdon hopelessly. She +summoned the butler and sent for the village doctor, and made Peter +telegraph to Captain Carstairs. +</P> + +<P> +'You always seem to think of everything, Cousin Mary,' said Peter +admiringly. +</P> + +<P> +'Some one has to,' said Miss Abingdon, with a strong touch of +superiority in her manner; and then she walked round the +breakfast-table to where her niece was sitting and kissed her, because +a few minutes ago she had looked at her severely, and what would happen +if Jane were ever to prefer the Erskines' house to hers? What if Jane +were to prolong the six months which it had been stipulated she should +spend with her father's relations in London? Jane loved General +Erskine too well already. Miss Abingdon felt weak as she said, 'Don't +worry any more about it, Jane,' for Jane did not look worried. 'And +now,' she said, 'I must go and see how Sir Nigel is.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon still used a key-basket and hoped, please God, she would +never be called upon to give up this womanly appendage, whatever the +world might come to. The jingling of the keys was a harmonious +accompaniment to her whenever she walked about. She bent her steps now +down the cool wide passages of her charming house to visit her disabled +guest, who, she heard, was awake. It was part of her creed that sick +persons should be visited, whether they themselves desired it or not. +In her young days nurses were unknown, and one proved one's +Christianity by the length of time one remained in overheated +sick-rooms. Still, Miss Abingdon was not accustomed to the presence of +a sick man in her house, and she paused on the door-mat before entering +the room, and said to herself, 'I feel very awkward.' Then she timidly +tapped at the door and went in. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Nigel Christopherson was lying in bed reading the Bible. When he +was not getting into debt, or riding races, or playing polo, or loving +Mrs. Avory, Toffy generally employed his spare moments in reading the +Bible. He was a preternaturally grave young man, with large eyes and +long eyelashes of which he was properly ashamed, being inclined to +class them in his own mind with such physical disadvantages as red lips +or curling hair. Miss Abingdon thought that he was generally +misunderstood. It impressed her very favourably to find him employed +in reading Holy Scripture, and she turned away her eyes from the book, +which Toffy laid frankly on the outside of the counterpane, feeling +that the subject was too sacred to comment upon. +</P> + +<P> +'How do you feel?' she said gently. 'You look very white.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, I 'm as fit as a fiddle, thanks, Miss Abingdon,' said Toffy. +</P> + +<P> +'You don't look it,' said Miss Abingdon, with a return to her severe +manner. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm really a very strong chap,' said Toffy. He had been delicate +ever since he was a little boy. School games had often been an agony +to him. He had ridden races and had lain awake all night afterwards, +unable, through sheer exhaustion, to sleep; he had played polo under +burning suns, and had concealed the fact (as though it had been a +crime) that he had fainted in the pavilion afterwards. He very seldom +had a good night's sleep, and habitual bad luck or the effort to +conceal his constitutional delicacy had given him a curious gravity of +manner, combined with a certain gentleness, which contrasted oddly with +his whimsically absurd utterances. No one ever looked more wise than +this young man, no one ever acted with more conspicuous foolishness, +and no one ever received a larger measure of ill-luck than he. If +Toffy hunted, his horse fell or went lame. If he rode in a +steeplechase, some accident, the condition of the ground, or the +position of the jumps, made the course unusually difficult for the +particular horse he was riding. Did he play polo, his most brilliant +hits just failed to make the goal. His gravity and his gentleness +increased in proportion with his ill-luck. No one ever backed Toffy, +and no one believed in his best efforts. But they borrowed his horses +and his money, and lived for months as his guests at the huge ugly +house which was his home; and Toffy accepted it all, and philosophized +about it in his grave way, and read his Bible, and loved Mrs. Avory. +No one but Toffy would have loved her; she was quite plain and she was +separated from her husband—a truculent gentleman who employed his +leisure moments in making his wife miserable. And she had a daughter +of ten years old towards whose maintenance Mrs. Avory made blouses and +trimmed parasols for which her friends hardly ever paid her. +</P> + +<P> +The world, with its ever-ready explanation of conduct and its facility +in finding motives, ascribed Sir Nigel's chronic impecuniosity to the +fact that he contributed to the support of Mrs. Avory and her little +girl. Mrs. Avory, who knew quite well what was said of her, ate her +cold mutton for supper, and economized in coals in the winter, and paid +her little weekly bills, and wondered sometimes what was the use of +trying to be good when so few people believed in goodness. +</P> + +<P> +Toffy came to see her every Sunday when he was in London; or, if he did +not do so, Mrs. Avory wrote him long letters in very indistinct +handwriting, and told him that it was all right, and that she really +hoped he would marry and be as happy as he deserved to be. And the +letters were generally blotted and blistered with tears. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon put her key-basket upon the dressing-table and sat down +in an armchair on the farther side of the room. It upset her very much +to see Sir Nigel looking so ill, and she believed that to read the +Bible at odd hours was a sign of approaching death. +</P> + +<P> +'You must have some beef-tea at eleven,' Miss Abingdon said, and felt +glad that she was able to do something in a crisis. +</P> + +<P> +'I think I was brought up on beef-tea,' said Toffy. He had accepted, +with his usual philosophy, the fact that whether you broke your back or +your heart a woman's unfailing remedy was a cup of beef-tea. +</P> + +<P> +'And I am sure you would like your own servant,' said Miss Abingdon; 'I +suppose you have some one over at Hulworth for whom you could send?' +</P> + +<P> +'My man is an awful thief,' said Toffy, 'which is why I keep him. +Otherwise, I don't think there is a single thing he can do, except put +studs in my shirts. Hopwood will only steal Peter's things,' he added +reassuringly. 'He tells me my things are generally stolen and that I +never have anything to wear, and so he borrows all he can from Peter. +It is an extraordinary thing,' said Sir Nigel, beginning his sentence +with his usual formula—the formula of the profound philosopher who has +learned to accept most things as strange and all things as +inexplicable—'It is an extraordinary thing the way all your +possessions disappear. You try having duplicates, but, you know, Miss +Abingdon, that's not a bit of use. The first man who comes along helps +himself just because you 've two of a thing, so you 're not a bit +better off than you were before, are you?' +</P> + +<P> +The young man turned his blue eyes with their long lashes on Miss +Abingdon with a look of mute inquiry, and threw one arm in its striped +pyjama suit up on the pillow. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon told herself that she was an old woman, and suggested, +with outward boldness but with inward diffidence, that Sir Nigel +required a wife to look after him. +</P> + +<P> +The young man smiled gratefully at her. 'I think so too,' he said +simply; 'but then, you see, she won't have me.' +</P> + +<P> +They were all so amazingly frank! Jane's friend, Kitty Sherard, the +girl who smoked cigarettes in her bedroom, had actually told a funny +story one day about a flirtation of her father's, and had made +everybody except Miss Abingdon laugh at it. +</P> + +<P> +'Perhaps,' she said, 'the lady may change her mind.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't think she will,' said Toffy slowly. 'You see, she's married +already.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon did not discuss such subjects. She glanced at her +key-basket and moved uneasily in her chair. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm going to revise the marriage service when I 'm in power,' said +the gentle, lagging voice from under the heavy canopy of old-fashioned +chintz with which Miss Abingdon, who disapproved of draughts, hung all +the beds in her house. 'You see, it's like this,' he went on; 'girls, +when they are about eighteen or twenty, would generally like to improve +on their parents a bit, and to have meals at different hours to those +which they have grown tired of in their own homes; also, they have an +idea that if they haven't a romance some time or other they will be +rather out of it, don't you know, so they say "yes" to some fellow who +proposes to them—you have done it yourself hundreds of times, I dare +say, Miss Abingdon—but if you haven't the luck to get out of it, you +are jolly well tied for the term of your natural life.' +</P> + +<P> +'There are some very sad cases, of course,' said Miss Abingdon, drawing +down her upper lip. +</P> + +<P> +'And it's so often the good ones,' said Toffy, from the depths of his +profound experience of life, 'who have the hardest lines. And that +makes it all the more unfair, doesn't it?' +</P> + +<P> +Afterwards, when Miss Abingdon used to hear a great deal about Sir +Nigel and Mrs. Avory, and when many regrettable things were said +concerning two people to whom, at the best of times, life was a little +bit difficult, she would seem to see the young man, with his delicate +face and his head bound up with white linen, lying on the frilled +pillow of the great canopied bed, and the recollection would come back +to her of the tones in which he had said, 'It's so often the good ones +that have the hardest lines,' and Miss Abingdon never failed in loyalty +to Toffy, and believed in him to the very end. +</P> + +<P> +She rose now and bade him good-bye, and then she glanced at the open +Bible on the counterpane and decided once more that young people were +inexplicable, and she clung to her key-basket with a feeling of +security, and, holding it carefully in her hand, went downstairs again. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<P> +Jane, meanwhile, had walked over to Bowshott to see Mrs. Ogilvie and to +tell her the news of Toffy's motor-car accident, and to explain why +Peter was delayed. She came into the drawing-room, with its long +mirrors in their gilded frames, its satin couches and heaped-up +flowering plants, and huge windows looking on to the scrupulous gardens +and park. She walked in the shortest dress that a merciful fashion +allows, a loose shirt hung boy-like on her slender figure, and a +motor-cap, with the brim well pulled down over her eyes, covered her +head. She shook hands and regretted inwardly that Mrs. Ogilvie did not +like being kissed, although disclaiming even to herself that her +distaste in this respect had anything to do with rouge and powder. She +sat down on a low chair by the window with the fearlessness of one +whose complexion is not a matter of anxiety, and she told Mrs. Ogilvie +the story of the disaster. +</P> + +<P> +'Toffy's so awfully unlucky,' said Jane, with genuine sympathy showing +in her eyes and voice; 'and the doctor says his hand will be bad for a +week at least.' +</P> + +<P> +'Is there such a thing as bad luck?' said Mrs. Ogilvie, shrugging her +shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +'You can't say Toffy gets his deserts!' pleaded Jane. 'He is always in +debt, and his horses always come to grief, and there ought to be a +syndicate formed to buy up all the shares that Toffy sells, because it +is certain to mean that the market is going up. I think he must have +been born under an unlucky star.' +</P> + +<P> +'I used to get a lot of amusement from reading the <I>Iliad</I> of Homer,' +said Mrs. Ogilvie. 'I know you cannot read or write, Jane, so I will +tell you about it. It is a tale of men "warring against folk for their +women's sake," and hindered often by the unscrupulous gods. Let us win +when we can. Fate, without intelligence, orders the things which we do +not order for ourselves, and it is very little use, but only a trifle +absurd to feel sorry for the opponent who is beaten.' +</P> + +<P> +'I am always sorry for the man who is down,' said Jane. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie smiled and rang for tea. +</P> + +<P> +'You are one of those who can say, "I am sorry." Now, I am never +sorry, and I consider that what is called repentance is the function of +an idiot. If I do a thing, I intend to do it. Regret is the most +weak-minded of all human emotions.' +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm always regretting things,' said Jane, looking handsome and +delightful, and treating even penitence from a fresh, open-air +standpoint. 'But then I believe that as often as not I do the wrong +thing, which is a great bore at times!' +</P> + +<P> +'Right and wrong,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, with a shrug, 'loving and not +loving, believing and not believing—only very young people ever make +use of such ridiculous terms. There is only one law, and it is the law +of expediency.' +</P> + +<P> +Jane began to laugh, and exclaimed, 'That's quite beyond me! I know I +'m hopelessly stupid; but whenever people begin to talk about whys and +wherefores, and if it is any good saying their prayers, and whether +love is the real thing or not, I get fogged directly, and I always want +to go for a ride or a walk, or to see the horses, or even to descend to +the kitchen and make jam, to get rid of the feeling.' +</P> + +<P> +'If you were in the fashion, Jane,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, 'you +would know not only with which portion of grey matter you say your +prayers, but you would also be able to show, scientifically, with which +ventricle of your heart you love and hate, or whether indeed love and +hate are things not of the heart at all but merely a microbial disease. +Will you have some tea?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, please,' said Jane, 'and several lumps of sugar.' +</P> + +<P> +'I like people,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, 'who still go to church and take +sugar in their tea. They are very refreshing.' +</P> + +<P> +'I must go back now,' said Jane presently, 'for I promised not to be +long. By the by, we want to keep Peter to dinner. May we? Or will +you mind being alone?' +</P> + +<P> +'I am alone say three hundred and thirty nights in the year,' said Mrs. +Ogilvie dryly. +</P> + +<P> +'I wish we hadn't asked Peter to stay and amuse Toffy!' said Jane, with +compunction. There was a tired white look on Mrs. Ogilvie's face, and +an appearance of fatigue in her movements which neither her supreme art +of dressing nor the careful manipulation of light in the room wholly +concealed. +</P> + +<P> +'Ah, now you are beginning to repent!' said Mrs. Ogilvie. Only her +good manners prevented her remark having a sneer in it. 'That will +spoil your evening, you foolish child, and it will not make mine more +amusing.' +</P> + +<P> +'But I am thinking of you,' said Jane. +</P> + +<P> +'Do not think of me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, laying her hand for a moment +lightly upon the girl's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +Jane walked down the hillside and stopped at the edge of the wood to +see the young pheasants, and then went on again, swinging a crooked +walking-stick and singing in a voice clear and sweet, but somewhat out +of tune, snatches of songs which she had picked up from Peter, humming +the ridiculous words in a sort of unconscious happiness. She walked +with a raking grace which became her as wings become a bird or a long +swinging stride a racer. The twilit woods held no fears for her: +imagination never peopled Jane's world with bogies. The perfect poise +of her figure showed a latent energy and physical strength in spite of +her slender build, and her clear complexion and abundant brown hair and +white, even teeth lent an appearance of something essentially wholesome +to a face that at all times looked handsome and well-bred. +</P> + +<P> +She called good night to the lodge-keeper as she passed through the +gates and found her way back to the high road, until, by a short-cut +down the hill, she reached her aunt's charming gardens, and the wide, +low house with its air of repose and comfort, and the long French +windows opening on to the quiet, smooth-shaven lawns. +</P> + +<P> +Peter was waiting for her on the doorstep and was endeavouring not to +fuss; if only he had known by which path Jane would return he would +have liked to go and meet her, and the fact of having missed a walk +with her made him impatient. 'I thought you must be lost,' he said; +'what kept you, Jane? Why did you stay so long?' +</P> + +<P> +When Jane Erskine was away people were apt to ask on her return why she +had stayed so long. Miss Abingdon and General Erskine, who divided her +time between them, were jealous if even a day of their fair share of +Jane was deducted by one or the other. There had been times when Miss +Abingdon had unscrupulously pleaded illness as a means of keeping the +girl a little longer with her, and she would doubtless have continued +her deceptions had not General Erskine adopted the plan of faithfully +paying himself back all the days that were owed to him by his niece. +</P> + +<P> +'My mother says she is going to give a ball,' announced Peter at dinner. +</P> + +<P> +'When?' said Jane, breathless with interest. 'Peter, we 'll have both +houses as full as they can be, and I 'll ask Aunt Mary to stay here, +and you shall ask your mother to stay at Bowshott for it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Jane,' said Miss Abingdon, 'you are very absurd, and just at present +you are making the most extraordinary grimaces.' +</P> + +<P> +'I got caught in the rain to-day,' said Jane, 'and had to walk with it +in my face. I 'm quite sure rain must be a skin-tightener like those +things you see in advertisements.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's given you an awfully jolly colour,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'Has it?' said Jane. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps a compliment had been given and received, Miss Abingdon did not +know. Beauty itself was almost at a discount nowadays. Even feminine +vanity, so long accepted as the mainspring of feminine action, had lost +its force. Pale cheeks were not in vogue, and frankness had superseded +sentiment. +</P> + +<P> +'What souvenir would they give each other if they had to part?' thought +Miss Abingdon—'a terrier dog, or a gun, or a walking-stick, most +likely!' Faded flowers were quite out of the fashion, and old letters +no longer had the scent of dried rose leaves about them. Was perfect +healthiness ever very interesting, and must sentiment always be +connected with an embroidery frame, a narrow chest, and round shoulders? +</P> + +<P> +Jane obliterated the <I>menu</I> from the porcelain tablet in front of her +by rubbing it with a damask table-napkin, and, having moistened a +pencil, she began to write a list of names of those people who were to +be asked to stay for the dance. 'Kitty Sherard certainly,' she said, +and put the name down on the tablet. +</P> + +<P> +'She 's some one's niece, isn't she?' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'She 's every one's niece, I think,' replied Jane. +</P> + +<P> +'Rather rough luck on Miss Sherard,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'It's a fact, though,' Jane went on. 'Really and truly, Aunt Mary, +each of her relations married about ten times, and then the next +generation married each other. And they send problems to the puzzle +column of newspapers to find out how they are related to each other. +Kitty's father is his own great-grandmother, or something complicated +of that sort!' +</P> + +<P> +'It must give one an immense respect for oneself,' said Peter, 'to +discover such a relationship. One would always be taking care of +oneself, and not allowing one's feet to get wet, and thinking what one +owed to one's position, and whether one were being treated with +respect.' +</P> + +<P> +'There are fillets of beef coming, and ducks,' interpolated Miss +Abingdon. 'I let you know this, Peter, as Jane seems to have erased +our only <I>menu</I>. What will Sir Nigel have, do you think?' she went on. +'I don't think he is at all well; he was reading his Bible in bed, and +I 'm not sure that we ought not to send for some of his people.' +</P> + +<P> +'Poor Toffy never had any people,' said Peter. 'They were all just as +unlucky as he is, and most of them died violent deaths when they were +young; and one of them, I know, founded some sort of queer religion, so +perhaps Toffy takes after him in his Biblical researches.' +</P> + +<P> +At this moment Sir Nigel Christopherson walked into the room looking as +white as any ghost. +</P> + +<P> +'Toffy, you lunatic!' said Peter, 'why can't you lie still?' +</P> + +<P> +Sir Nigel apologized for being late and declined to have anything +brought back for him. +</P> + +<P> +'How are the Amalekites and Hittites and Girgashites?' said Peter, +making room for his friend at the table. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't like the Bible joked about,' said Miss Abingdon severely. +</P> + +<P> +'Toffy should have been a parson,' said Peter; 'even at Eton he was +always wondering why Cain was afraid that all men should kill him when +he had only a father and mother and perhaps two or three little +brothers and sisters in the world. And he used to fret himself into a +fever wondering if the sun really stood still in Ajalon and what Selah +meant in the Psalms.' +</P> + +<P> +'I think,' said Miss Abingdon, 'that such discussions are best left for +Sundays.' +</P> + +<P> +'We will go on with our dance-list,' said Jane; 'Mrs. Wrottesley can +let us have several rooms at the vicarage, or, if the worst comes to +the worst, we might have tents in the garden.' +</P> + +<P> +'The canon is always so good-natured!' said Miss Abingdon, who believed +that a man's house belonged to himself, and whose mind always reverted +with a sense of peaceful orthodoxy to thoughts of the vicar. She +decided mentally that he must not be asked to receive any of the guests +for the Bowshott ball, believing that visitors must always be more or +less disturbing to a host. She accepted as part of her gentle creed +that a man's writing-table must never be disturbed, that his dinner +must never be kept waiting, and that his special armchair must not be +appropriated by any one else. Canon Wrottesley always read the morning +paper before any other person in the house had seen it, and then +imparted pieces of intelligence to his relations with a certain air of +self-congratulation, as though conveying news which could only possibly +be known to himself; and it was in this way that Miss Abingdon loved to +have the items of interest retailed to her with instructive comments +upon politics. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs. Wrottesley had a theory, which she never asked nor expected any +one to share with her, that most men's mental development ceased at the +age of twelve years. She had watched five sons grow up with, in their +young boyhood, the hardly concealed conviction that each one of them +was destined to be a genius, and that each one would make his mark in +the world. But her sons, as they attained to the fatal age of twelve +years, seemed predestined to disappoint their mother's hopes. Most of +the men whom she knew, and whom her sons brought to the house, were +delightful boys, whatever their ages might be. She liked them, but she +wished sometimes that it were possible to meet a man with a mature +mind. The male interest, she determined, after giving much study to +the subject, centred almost too exclusively round playing with a ball. +She had heard men extolled as grand cricketers and magnificent putters +with an enthusiasm which could hardly have been greater if they had +saved their country or had died for a cause. And she admitted to +herself that the mind of a woman was deficient when she failed to do +justice to these performances. +</P> + +<P> +Her reflections on these and kindred subjects this morning had been +induced by hearing of the determination of Canon Wrottesley to light +the rubbish-heap in the garden. The rubbish-heap had grown high and +Canon Wrottesley had determined to put a match to it. Mrs. Wrottesley +had been married too long not to know that whatever at the moment +engaged her husband's mind required an audience. Her sons also had +expected her to watch and applaud them did they in infancy so much as +jump a small ditch, and she knew that it was the maternal duty, and +admitted, also, that it was the maternal pleasure to watch and applaud +until such time as the several wives of her five sons should take her +place. +</P> + +<P> +The whole of the vicarage household was in requisition as soon as their +reverend master had conceived the happy notion of firing the canonical +rubbish-heap in the far corner of the kitchen garden. Canon Wrottesley +engaged the attention of every one with a frank belief in his own +powers as an organiser. He found himself almost regretting that he +could not make the matter an occasion for a little gathering of +friends. He loved society, especially ladies' society, and he +purposely kept various small objects about his own room, which—to use +his own expression—might make a little bit of fun. There was a mask +half concealed behind a screen, which, if it did not provoke a start +and a scream from some fair visitor, had attention drawn to it by the +playful question, 'Who is that behind you?' There was a funny pair of +spectacles on the mantelshelf, which Canon Wrottesley would playfully +place upon his handsome nose, and to small visitors he would accompany +the action by a frolicsome 'wowf-wowf.' He loved juvenile parties when +he could wear a coloured paper cap on his head or tie a paper apron +round his waist, and probably his canonry had come to him through what +he himself called his social gifts rather than by his reputation as a +minister of religion. Perhaps he was at his best at a christening +party; he had won much affection from his parishioners by his +felicitous remarks upon these occasions. When the gravity of the +christening of the infant was over Canon Wrottesley always deliberately +relaxed. He chaffed the proud father, told the mother that the baby +was the finest in the parish, and wanted to know whose health he was to +drink where every one appeared so blooming. +</P> + +<P> +'Now, mamma,' the canon said busily, 'let us have plenty of nice dry +wood to start the blaze, and then you must come down to the field and +watch us put a match to the pile. Cyprian, my boy, where are the old +newspapers kept? Fetch them, like a good son, and then you shall carry +a little camp-stool down for mamma to sit upon. Now my coat,'—this to +his butler—'and, Cyprian, tell Mary to find papa's old gloves.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Wrottesley left her morning's work to go to the meadow, and Canon +Wrottesley looked down the road once or twice to see if by a happy +chance some friend or neighbour might be passing to whom he could +proclaim his boyish jaunt. The 'Well I never, sir,' even of a rural +parishioner did in some sort minister to his vanity. An audience was a +necessity to him. He regretted that his cloth forbade him to indulge +in private theatricals, but he encouraged Shakespearean readings and +often 'dressed up to please the children.' Sometimes of an evening he +would perform upon the piano, indulging in a series of broken chords +which he called improvisation, and upon these occasions he felt that he +was a kind and thoughtful master when he set the drawing-room door open +so that the servants might hear; and as his servants thought so too it +was all eminently satisfactory. +</P> + +<P> +This morning, the beauty of the weather having inspired him to the part +of a schoolboy, he avoided a gate and leaped a small fence into the +meadow, and he waged boyish fun upon grave-faced Cyprian, who longed to +be fishing. He greeted his two gardeners with an air of holiday, and, +having waved his stick to them, he called out some hearty remarks about +the weather. +</P> + +<P> +Alas! when the corner of the meadow was reached it was found that the +rubbish-heap had already been fired, and nothing of it was left but the +smouldering ashes. The canon wondered why people could not leave +things alone, and was inclined to blame mamma. She surely might have +known how much he enjoyed this sort of thing, and have asked the +gardeners to leave it to him. +</P> + +<P> +His boyishness, however, could hardly be repressed this morning; and, +speaking to his fourteen-year-old son as though his age might be five +or six summers, he clapped him on the back and bade him 'Never mind; we +will go for a merry jaunt to the ruins instead, and have a regular big +affair, and you shall boil a kettle, and we 'll have tea.—What do you +say, mamma?' Mrs. Wrottesley replied with the enthusiasm that was +expected of her, and the canon, with a 'here we are, and here we go' +sort of jollity, conducted her indoors to write notes of invitation to +friends to join the picnic. The canon dictated the notes himself, and +generally finished with a playful word or two suitable to each +recipient; when he failed at first to hit off the perfectly happy +phrase Mrs. Wrottesley had to write the note over again. +</P> + +<P> +Foiled of his morning's occupation the canon walked up to Bowshott +himself with Mrs. Ogilvie's card of invitation. Mrs. Ogilvie frankly +and without a moment's hesitation refused to be one of the party; a +picnic was in her eyes one of those barbarous, not to say indecorous +things which she classed with bathing in the open sea or trying on a +hat in a shop. Why should one sit on the ground and eat indifferent +food out of one's lap? Mrs. Ogilvie was too sorry, but it was +impossible; she had friends coming, or letters to write, or +something—at any rate she was quite sure she was engaged. Mrs. +Ogilvie's manner always became doubly polite and charming when she +ignored the customary formalities of society or purposely travestied +them. No one could infringe social conventions with more perfect good +manners. Peter would go, of course, she said. Peter enjoyed eating +luncheon in snatches while he hopped about and waited on people; but +Mrs. Ogilvie preferred her meals at home. +</P> + +<P> +The canon was disappointed; he loved getting the right people together, +and he knew that Mrs. Ogilvie's rare appearance in the neighbourhood +always made her a centre of interest at a party. He protested +playfully against her decision until a certain lifting of Mrs. +Ogilvie's eyebrows made his desire for her presence sound importunate, +and put an end to his hospitable pleadings. +</P> + +<P> +'A charming woman,' protested the canon to himself as he walked down +the long avenue of Spanish chestnuts. 'A charming woman,' he repeated, +for one part of Canon Wrottesley always felt snubbed when he had been +talking to Mrs. Ogilvie, while the part of him called the man of the +world recognized something in her which this country neighbourhood +could not produce. His boyishness was quenched for a moment, but it +revived at the sight of Peter riding up to the gates of the park. An +invitation to the proposed merry-making was given to Peter, who was +ever so much obliged, but thought Canon Wrottesley had forgotten that +the 24th was the day of the races. +</P> + +<P> +The Sedgwick Races, although perhaps not important from a sportsman's +point of view, were attended by many visitors, and had been so long +established and so generally approved by every one in the county that +they had come to have a certain local status. They were patronized by +clergy and laity alike, to whom the occasion was a sort of yearly +picnic. The racecourse itself was not large, but its surroundings were +in every way attractive. The short moorland grass made excellent going +for the horses, and a wood of beech trees, quite close to the modest +grand stand, had by right of prescription been tacitly assigned to +various county families who brought their lunches and teas there, and +whose long trestle tables, numbered and allotted by the stewards of the +course, were a favourite meeting-place for the whole neighbourhood. +Canon Wrottesley could hardly pardon himself for having forgotten the +date of such a notable occasion, and, alluding to himself as a 'winged +messenger,' he hastened to pay a number of morning calls such as he +enjoyed, and to cancel his invitation for a picnic in favour of lunch +or tea at the racecourse. Peter said that he was going to drive the +coach over, and hoped that Canon Wrottesley would perch there when he +felt so disposed, and that his mother, not being inclined to spend the +whole day at Sedgwick, would join them at tea-time. Miss Abingdon and +Jane were going to be kind enough to take her place and act as +hostesses at lunch. +</P> + +<P> +Canon Wrottesley felt that he could not do better than see Miss +Abingdon in person and explain the change of plans, and he arrived, in +his friendly way, just as she and some guests who were staying with her +were going in to luncheon. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon occasionally reminded herself that she had not met the +vicar until long after his marriage, and she still more frequently +assured herself that her feeling for him was one of pure admiration +untouched by sentiment such as would have been foolish at her age, and +at any age would have been wrong. But there were times like the +present—when the canon came in, unasked, in a friendly way, and hung +up his clerical hat in the hall—which, without going so far as to give +the matter a personal bearing, made it easy for Miss Abingdon to +understand why women married. She ordered another place to be laid, +and asked him to say grace almost with a feeling of proprietorship; and +she ordered up the particular brand of claret which the canon had more +than once assured her would be all the better for being drunk. +</P> + +<P> +Jane came in presently from her morning ride, handsome and charming in +a dark habit and a bowler hat; and Toffy appeared looking white and +thin, and protesting that he was perfectly well; and Kitty Sherard came +in late, as usual, and hoped that something had been kept hot for her. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty Sherard was a decorative young woman, with a face like one of +Greuze's pictures and a passion for wearing rose-colour. Her father +was that rather famous personage, Lord Sherard, one of the last of the +dandies, and probably one of the few men in England in the present day +who had fought a duel. He was still thought irresistible by women, and +perhaps the only sincere love of his life was that for his daughter +Kitty, to whom he told his most <I>risqué</I> stories, and whom he found +better company than any one else in the world. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Sherard was in a wilful mood this morning—a mood which, let it be +said at once, was one to which she was often subject, but it had been +more than usually apparent in her for the last few days. She began by +hoping, in the politest way, after she had sat about five minutes at +the luncheon-table, that Miss Abingdon did not mind the window being +opened, although it was a well-known fact that Miss Abingdon held the +old-fashioned theory that only the furniture should enjoy fresh air, +and that windows should be opened when rooms were unoccupied. So many +people rose to do Miss Sherard's bidding that Miss Abingdon, of course, +found it quite hopeless to try to assert herself. Kitty, further, had +a ridiculous way of eating, which Miss Abingdon could not approve. She +ate mere morsels of everything and talked the whole time, very often +with the air of a gourmet; and she would lay down her knife and fork, +after a meal such as a healthy blackbird might have enjoyed, as though +she had finished some aldermanic feast. She accepted a glass of Miss +Abingdon's very special claret and never even touched it; and later, in +one of the pauses of her elaborate trifling at luncheon, she told a +funny story which made every one laugh, and caused even Canon +Wrottesley to attempt to conceal the fact that he saw the point of the +story. +</P> + +<P> +The worst of it was that Toffy encouraged her in everything she said +and did. These two had met in London this year, and had stayed at the +same house for Ascot, and it must be admitted by a faithful historian +that in her own particular wilful and provoking way Kitty had flirted +outrageously with Toffy. To-day she offered to cut up his food for him +because his right hand was still in a sling; and when Miss Abingdon +suggested, with deliberate emphasis in her voice, that a footman should +do it for him, Kitty pretended that the wounded man could not possibly +feed himself, and gave him pineapple to eat on the end of her fork. +</P> + +<P> +When she sat in the veranda drinking coffee after lunch, she showed +Canon Wrottesley how to blow wedding-rings with the smoke of her own +favourite cigarettes; and she talked to him as though his early youth +might have been spent in a racing stable, and with the air of one +expert to another. +</P> + +<P> +'I hear,' said Canon Wrottesley, when Miss Sherard had begun to play a +left-handed game of croquet with the crippled young man, 'that Sir +Nigel is going to ride at the Sedgwick Races. I was a fearless +horseman myself at one time, so I cannot quarrel with him for his +decision, but I only hope that his hand will be healed by the 24th.' +</P> + +<P> +'He has a good mount,' said Peter, 'and I don't think it is much good +trying to persuade Toffy not to ride.' +</P> + +<P> +'Kitty Sherard says she has laid the whole of her fortune on him,' said +Jane, 'so let 's hope that will bring him luck.' +</P> + +<P> +'I believe,' said the canon, in a manner distinctly beatific towards +the subject of his remarks, 'that I enjoy that little race-meeting at +Sedgwick as much as anything in the year. We must all have our little +outings once in a way.' +</P> + +<P> +There is no doubt that the canon took his little outings, as often as +he could get them, with a healthy, boyish pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +On the day of the races, for reasons no doubt known to himself but +hidden from the rest of the world, the vicar masqueraded in the +character of a patriarch. His characters were frequently inconsistent +with his circumstances; often his boyishness would obtrude itself quite +unexpectedly at board meetings or on the parish council, while at other +times the mantle of the seer or prophet descended upon him on the most +inauspicious occasions. Had Mrs. Wrottesley spoken her mind, which she +never did, she might have thrown light upon the subject, but she was +not a convincing woman at the best of times. All her life she had kept +inviolate the woman's secret whether or not her husband was a +disappointment to her. No one knew from his wife if the little god of +a somewhat small and feminine community had feet of clay or no. +</P> + +<P> +Arrived at the very delightful beech wood which formed a pleasant place +of encampment for tea-parties, Canon Wrottesley could only smile +absently at the picnic-baskets, and appear wrapped in thought when +addressed; he might have been mentally preparing his next Sunday's +sermon. Miss Abingdon thought that he was doing so and respected him +for it; she even tried to attune her mind to his, and endeavoured to +see vanity of vanities in this informal gathering of friends. +</P> + +<P> +'We do not think enough of serious things,' she said. +</P> + +<P> +The inhabitants of Sedgwick put on sporting airs and curiously cut +overcoats on two days in each year. The weather for the occasion is +nearly always cloudless, and the townsfolk have begun to think that +either they are very clever in arranging the date of their local +function, or that the clerk of the weather is deeply interested in +Sedgwick Races. +</P> + +<P> +On this particular day the sun flickered as usual through the clean +leaves and boughs of the beech wood, doing its best to lend an air of +picturesqueness to lobster salads and aspics, and shone brilliantly on +servants, with their coats off, unpacking hampers at rows of long +tables, and on people busily engaged in the inartistic business of +eating. +</P> + +<P> +In the paddock there was an unusual number of horses being led round +and round in a ring, and some well-known bookies—not often seen at the +little provincial meeting—were present with their raucous cries and +their money-bags. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty Sherard carried a pair of field-glasses on a long strap, and +consulted from time to time a little gold-bound pocket-book in which +she added up figures with a business-like air. She believed in +Ormiston, which Sir Nigel Christopherson was riding, and she had +something on Lamplighter as well. She knew every bookmaker on the +course by sight, and had as much knowledge of the field as any one in +the ring. And she looked exactly like some very beautiful child, and +carried a parasol of rose-coloured chiffon beneath which her complexion +and eyes appeared to great advantage. She smiled whether winning or +losing, and ate a tiny luncheon with an epicurean air. +</P> + +<P> +At four o'clock in the afternoon it is an accepted custom at Sedgwick +Races for every one to have tea before the last event, and then horses +are put to in coaches and carriages, and those who have attended the +meeting whether for business or pleasure drive back to their own homes, +or go slowly downhill in a long string to the little railway station +where, for two days at least in the year, the local station-master is a +person of importance. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie arrived at the racecourse, as she had promised to do, +about tea-time. She hardly ever cared to watch the races; but she +stood amongst her friends for a while in the pleasant shade of the +wood, and looked on at the little gathering with that air of detached +and hardly concealed weariness which she always felt on such occasions. +She congratulated Peter, who had won a rather closely finished race +earlier in the day; but her voice betrayed little interest in the +event, and an onlooker might have been surprised at the almost distant +way in which she spoke to him. She was sumptuously dressed, as usual, +and wore her clothes with extravagant carelessness. She found herself +at tea-time sitting next Canon Wrottesley, whose patriarchal mood +seemed to her unnecessarily affected, and she requested him to ask Miss +Sherard to come and speak to her. 'Kitty amuses me,' she said, with +one of her characteristic shrugs, 'and most people are so dull, are +they not?' +</P> + +<P> +Canon Wrottesley felt that mixed sensation which association with Mrs. +Ogilvie always gave him—a feeling of resentment combined with a desire +to please. He rather hastily let the mantle of the seer drop from him, +and said, 'I wish our little party were not so much dispersed. Mr. +Lawrence from Frisby brought two charming friends with him, and they +much hoped to have been here to meet you. Falconer is their name—Sir +John and Lady Falconer. He has just been made Minister at Buenos +Ayres, as I dare say you know, and he told me they once had the +pleasure of meeting you in Spain, years and years ago.' +</P> + +<P> +'I never remember people whom I have met years and years ago,' said +Mrs. Ogilvie. Her near-sighted eyes, with their trick of contracting +slightly when she looked fixedly at anything, narrowed as she spoke, +and the heavy lids closed lazily upon them. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Falconer, meanwhile, had arrived at the tea-table and greeted Mrs. +Ogilvie with evident pleasure. 'I am afraid you will hardly remember +me, as it is a very long time since we met,' she said; 'but my husband +and I always remember how good you were to me when I was ill at Juarez.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie rose and shook hands with a cordiality that was charmingly +expressed. Her eyes were no longer half-closed, and her colour never +varied. 'You were ill, were you not?' she said, in a manner that was a +little vague but polite and sympathetic. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Sir John, 'and you let your maid come and nurse her. My +wife always said she would have died if it had not been for you.' +</P> + +<P> +'The climate was abominable,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'every one felt ill +there. Why does one go to these out-of-the-way places?' +</P> + +<P> +'It is very absurd,' said Lady Falconer, in a friendly way, 'to be +surprised at people growing up; yet I can hardly realize that Captain +Ogilvie, whom we met to-day, is the little boy who was with you at +Juarez. How time flies!' +</P> + +<P> +'It more often crawls, I think,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, with her +mouth a little twisted to one side. And then she rose to go because +she never stayed long at any party, and not even the fact that Nigel +Christopherson was going to ride in the last race altered her decision. +At parting she was too glad to have met Lady Falconer, trusted that if +ever she cared to see a collection of tiresome pictures she would come +to Bowshott, and hoped that if the gardens would be of any interest to +her she would drive over some afternoon when it was not too hot, and +have tea with her—any afternoon would do. Had Mrs. Ogilvie been +giving an invitation to tea in a barn it is probable that her manner +would have been as distant, as casual, and as superb as when she +suggested, with a queer sort of diffidence, that people might care to +see the famous galleries and gardens of her magnificent house. +</P> + +<P> +'How very interesting,' said Canon Wrottesley to Lady Falconer when the +carriage had driven away, 'your meeting like this!' The vicar's +acquaintance was not extensive, and that people should re-encounter +each other or have mutual friends always struck him in the light of a +strange coincidence. +</P> + +<P> +'She has not altered much,' said Sir John Falconer, 'and yet it must be +many years since we met: I suppose she never was good-looking. Somehow +one seems unaware of it when one is speaking to her.' +</P> + +<P> +'I could do nothing but look at her dress,' said Lady Falconer +good-naturedly. 'How is it that everything she wears seems to be in +such perfect taste?' +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs. Ogilvie is a rich woman,' said Canon Wrottesley, enjoying a +proprietary way of talking of his neighbour, 'and she is able to +gratify her love of beautiful raiment. I do not understand these +things myself,' he went on, with a masculine air, 'but the ladies tell +me that her dresses are all that they should be.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know what we should have done without her at Juarez,' said +Lady Falconer, in her peculiarly kind manner. 'Sir John and I were on +our honeymoon, and, like many other newly married people, we wanted to +be alone.' +</P> + +<P> +'Dudley, the artist, told us about Juarez, I remember,' interpolated +Sir John, 'otherwise I do not suppose we should ever have heard of the +place. Dudley had been sketching there.' +</P> + +<P> +'I had not a maid with me,' went on Lady Falconer, in her pleasant +voice, 'and Mrs. Ogilvie in the kindest way allowed a Spanish woman she +had with her to do everything for me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs. Ogilvie is always devoted to everything Spanish,' said Mrs. +Wrottesley. 'Her mother was Spanish, and I dare say you know she made +her home in Spain for six years after the eldest boy's death.' +</P> + +<P> +'I did not even know that she had lost a son,' said Lady Falconer. +'How very sad!' +</P> + +<P> +The crowds of gaily-dressed people about them, the shouts of the +bookmakers, and the pleasant sense of being on an enjoyable picnic +contrasted oddly with any reference to such banished topics as death +and sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +'I consider that Mrs. Ogilvie is one of the most reserved women I ever +met,' said the canon, proceeding to give an epitome of a character +which he thought he—and perhaps only he—understood. 'She is +impulsive yet cautious, clever yet light-minded; for a woman her +intelligence is quite above the ordinary run, and yet she is often +hopelessly difficult to convince.' He leaned forward on the table +looking handsome and dignified, and his clean-shaven face had an +appearance more clever than was quite justified by his attainments. +</P> + +<P> +'I am sure that Mrs. Ogilvie is a woman of deep affections,' said Lady +Falconer, whose tongue seemed framed for nothing but kind speeches. +</P> + +<P> +'I remember,' said Sir John, 'how struck my wife and I were, that year +we met her in Spain, by her devotion to her son. It seemed to us to +have almost a touch of tragedy in it; but that, of course, is now +explained by hearing that she had just lost her only other child.' +</P> + +<P> +'Poor Mrs. Ogilvie!' said Mrs. Wrottesley. +</P> + +<P> +The words seemed incongruous. Mrs. Ogilvie, with her contempt for +pity, her sumptuous manner of living and of dressing, was hardly an +object for compassion; and Canon Wrottesley felt that his wife's +commiseration was out of place, although he was far too kind to say so +in public. +</P> + +<P> +There was a lull suddenly in the noise of the race-course; the +bookmakers' harsh shouts ceased, and even conversation stopped for a +moment, for the last race had begun. +</P> + +<P> +The last race was an interesting event. It was a steeplechase for +gentleman riders only, and friends of the riders were standing up, with +field-glasses to their eyes, watching with absorbed attention the +horses, which were still a great distance off on the other side of the +course. Jane was standing by Peter. Kitty Sherard was quite near; she +was not looking through field-glasses as the others were doing, but +stood leaning lightly on the balcony of the stand with her two hands +clasped on the wooden rail in front of her. +</P> + +<P> +'Can you see who is leading?' said Jane, and received no answer to her +question, and then she saw that Miss Sherard was not looking at the +racecourse at all. Her face was white, and her hands, which were +clasped on the wooden rail before her, had a strained look about them, +and showed patches of white where the slender fingers were tightly +pressed on the delicate skin. +</P> + +<P> +The last race involved some big fences, it is true; but then Kitty of +all people in the world was the last to be afraid of a stiff course. +It was not like her to keep her eyes turned away from the horses until +some one quite close to her said, 'Well, they 're over the water-jump +anyway,' when she suddenly raised her field-glasses, with hands that +were trembling a little, and kept her eyes fixed on the race. It was +going to be a close finish, most people thought, and as the horses came +round the farther corner you could, as the saying goes, have spread a +tablecloth over them. Toffy's horse closely hugged the rails and was +kept well in hand; while, of the two in front of him, one was showing +signs of the pace and the other had not much running left in him. +These two soon tailed off, when the favourite (dark green and yellow +hoops) came through the other horses and rode neck to neck with +Toffy's. It became a race between these two, and it was evident that +the finish was going to be a close one. +</P> + +<P> +'Toffy's not fit to ride,' said the voice of a young man who would have +liked Toffy to win the race, although he knew better than to back him. +'He is as mad as ten hatters to have ridden to-day.' +</P> + +<P> +'His weight is right enough,' said another manly voice, with a laugh; +'it's extraordinary how a man of his height can ride so light. +Christopherson 's a regular bag of bones.' +</P> + +<P> +'I wish to goodness they wouldn't talk!' said Kitty suddenly under her +breath. +</P> + +<P> +The two horses came on neck to neck to the last fence but one. +</P> + +<P> +'By gad, he knows how to ride!' went on the masculine voice, 'but +Spinach-and-Eggs is on the better horse of the two.' +</P> + +<P> +The ground was in splendid going condition and the two horses raced +over it. They could see Christopherson's face now, and Toffy was +smiling slightly, while the other man's teeth were firmly set. Their +two stirrups clanged together as their horses rose to the rails and +galloped on to the last fence. +</P> + +<P> +And there, of course, Toffy's horse fell. It was not his fault; there +was a bit of soft ground just where he landed, his horse blundered and +fell, and the favourite rode past the winning-post, an easy winner. +</P> + +<P> +The spectators in the grand stand could see Christopherson pick himself +up a moment later and lead his horse home; but there was one moment, +when the rider behind him took the last jump, in which for a fraction +of time it seemed more than possible that he might land on the top of +Sir Nigel. For a breathless space there was that dramatic silence +which may be felt when a concourse of people literally hold their +breath. Miss Abingdon covered her face for a moment, and Jane heard +Peter say 'Good God!' +</P> + +<P> +The next moment the danger was over, and Jane was surreptitiously +handing Miss Sherard a handkerchief drenched in eau-de-Cologne, for +Kitty had sat down suddenly and her face was white. She did not speak, +but she looked up into Jane's face for a moment, and the look said as +plainly as possible, 'I can't help it—don't tell any one.' +</P> + +<P> +'It was a horribly near thing,' Jane said, in order to explain Kitty's +pallor to herself, 'and I 'm afraid it has given you rather a turn.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Sherard's feeling of faintness was only momentary, and already the +bright colour was in her cheeks again and she laughed and said, 'It was +not the jump, really, Jane; but I am a horrible gambler, and I put my +very last shilling on Toffy.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie's ball, according to an old-established custom, followed +closely on the race. The proximity of the two events had helped to +gain for the quiet countryside the reputation of a gay neighbourhood. +Country houses were filled with visitors, and the ballroom and the +famous picture-gallery at Bowshott received an even larger number of +guests than usual. There was something impressive in the great space +and width of the ballroom, with its polished floor. The palm-houses +had been emptied to form an avenue of green up the middle of the +picture-gallery, at whose extreme end an altarpiece, representing a +scene from the Book of Revelation, showed a company of the heavenly +host as a background to a buffet-table crowded with refreshments. The +constant movements and the brilliant lights provided a fitting air of +gaiety to the scene. It was Mrs. Ogilvie's whim to have her rooms +illuminated in a manner as nearly as possible to represent the effect +of tempered sunlight. 'No woman cares to see,' she used to say, 'she +wants to be seen.' And so the lights at Bowshott were always arranged +in such a way that the beauty of women should be enhanced by them. +Plain faces softened under the warm glow which had no hard shadows in +it, and beautiful faces were lighted up in a manner that was almost +extravagantly becoming. +</P> + +<P> +'It is only on such an occasion as this,' said Miss Abingdon, 'that one +really seems to think that Bowshott is put to its proper use.' +</P> + +<P> +She was talking to a young man who called old furniture delicious and +Spanish brocade sweetly pretty. 'The modern Englishman,' said Mr. +Lawrence, 'was made to live in barracks or in a stable. Probably he is +only in his right place when he is on a horse. Could any one but he +live at Bowshott and dress in shabby shooting clothes, and smoke +cigarettes in a room where Charles I. made love, and wear hobnailed +boots to go up and down a grand staircase?' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon sat on a convenient large couch, where a chaperon might +close her eyes for a moment towards the end of a long evening without +being accused of drowsiness. She was the recipient of many wise nods +and hints and questions. +</P> + +<P> +'How well they look together!' said a lady, as Peter Ogilvie and Jane +came down the line of palms, and she left a blank at the end of her +speech, to be filled in, if possible, by Miss Abingdon. +</P> + +<P> +'Jane makes Peter look rather short,' said another. +</P> + +<P> +'She should have chosen some one taller.' +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose it really will be settled some day,' said Mr. Lawrence. +</P> + +<P> +'They went for a ride this morning,' said Miss Abingdon dryly, 'and +they were positively disappointed because Sir Nigel Christopherson +could not go with them. I do not profess to understand love-affairs of +the present day.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lawrence was a portly, red-faced young man, with a high-pitched +voice. He throve on scandal, and gossiped like a housekeeper. Miss +Abingdon liked and thoroughly approved him; his views were sound, his +opinions orthodox, and he always took her in to supper at any dance +where they met. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lawrence's manner towards elderly ladies was a mixture of deference +and familiarity which never failed to give satisfaction; he could even +discuss Miss Abingdon's relatives with her without offence, and he gave +advice on domestic matters. People in want of a cook or of a good +housemaid generally wrote to Mr. Lawrence to ask if he knew of any one +suitable for the post, and he recommended houses and health-resorts, +and knew to a fraction what every one's income was. He was a useful +member of society in a neighbourhood like that of Culversham, and was +considered an interesting caller. It was his ambition to be first with +every piece of intelligence, and he enjoyed telling news, even of a +harassing description. Mr. Lawrence believed that Miss Abingdon's +niece was already engaged to Peter Ogilvie, and he began by a series of +deft questions to try to abstract the definite information that he +required from her. +</P> + +<P> +'Young people nowadays,' said Miss Abingdon, ascribing a riper age to +Mr. Lawrence than he altogether approved—'young people nowadays think +that everything that concerns themselves is what they call their own +business. They talk as though they lived in some desert cave instead +of in the midst of the world. I am on thorns sometimes when the +servants are in the room; after all, a man may be only a footman, and +yet is not necessarily a deaf-mute.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter and Jane, meanwhile, had strolled into the picture-gallery, with +its softly shaded lights and long vistas of flowering plants and palms. +There was about them to-night something which seemed to set them apart. +Few persons cared to disturb them, even by a greeting, as they sat side +by side in the corridor or walked together down the long gallery. Jane +Erskine had put off that air, which suited her so admirably, of seeming +to be always under an open sky; she had left it behind with her short +skirt and the motor-cap which she loved to pull down over her eyes. +This evening in shimmering white satin, and with a string of pearls +round her throat, she looked what she was—a very beautiful and very +distinguished young woman. The tempered light of the room seemed to +deepen the colour in her cheeks and to bring out the bright tints of +her hair; her lips parted in a smile, and her eyes had radiance in them. +</P> + +<P> +She and Peter mingled with the throng of dancers again, and then, not +waiting until the music had finished, they left the ballroom by the +farther door where Mrs. Ogilvie was standing. +</P> + +<P> +Peter stopped when he saw her, and looked at her a little anxiously. +'You should not be standing, should you?' he said, in his kindly way; +'you look tired.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie gave one of her enigmatic smiles. 'Who would not be +tired?' she said. 'Was there ever such an extraordinary way of amusing +oneself as to stand in a draughty doorway in the middle of the night, +shaking hands with some hundreds of people whom one doesn't want to +see!' +</P> + +<P> +She sat down on a sofa and watched the two figures as they passed down +the long corridor. The mechanical smile of welcome with which she had +greeted half the county this evening had not died away from her face; +she sat upright on the satin-covered sofa. There was about her an air +of strength, of eminence almost, which seemed to place her genuine +ugliness above criticism. Her dress was of some heavy purple stuff +which few women would have had the courage to wear, and the diamonds in +her hair, with their sharp points of radiating light, accentuated +something that was magnificent and almost defiant about Mrs. Ogilvie +to-night. Her short-sighted eyes contracted in their usual fashion as +she watched the couple disappear down the vista of the corridor. 'If +only it could be soon! If only their marriage could be soon!' she +murmured to herself, her lips moving in an inward cry that in another +woman might have been a prayer. +</P> + +<P> +'How do you think she is looking?' said Peter, as, without conscious +intention, he and Jane drifted away from the dancers into a more +distant part of the house. 'Surely she gets tired too easily? I wish +she would see a doctor; but she hates being fussed over, and one can +never persuade her to take care of herself.' +</P> + +<P> +'What is one to do with so wilful a woman?' said Jane. +</P> + +<P> +They paused and looked at the dim crowd of dancers through one of the +entrances to the ballroom, and passed down the corridor where misty +figures sat on sofas and chairs enjoying the cool. Every one looked to +them misty and far away to-night, almost as though they had not +sufficiently materialized to be perfectly distinct. +</P> + +<P> +With definite intention Peter led his partner towards a little room, +hung with miniatures and plaques, at the farther end of the long +corridor. Here they found Nigel Christopherson in conversation with +Miss Sherard. Kitty was talking as lightly as usual, deliberately +misunderstanding everything that was said to her, and being as +provoking as she ever was; and Toffy was so much in earnest that he did +not see Peter and Jane, but continued to talk to the girl beside him. +So the two intruders never entered the room at all; but, as they +pursued their way still farther, Peter was thinking about Mrs. Avory, +and wishing to goodness that Toffy had never met her. +</P> + +<P> +The big house seemed too full of people for his taste to-night. Every +room and corridor was occupied, and Peter said, 'Let's go to my +mother's sitting-room. Do you mind, Jane? We can get cool on the +bridge.' +</P> + +<P> +Bowshott is a very old house, so old that, if it had not been for +archaeologists, who came there sometimes and read the grey stones as +though they had been printed paper, no one would ever have known when +the earliest part of it was built. Antiquaries agreed that it dated +from Norman days; but the only portion of the building of that period +which was standing now was a tower at the eastward end of the house. +It had been almost in ruins at one time, but Colonel Ogilvie's father +had restored it, and, with a considerable amount of skill, had +connected it with the more modern part of the house by a stone bridge +on a single arch. The whole thing was excellently contrived; the +archway lent a frame to one of the most beautiful parts of the garden; +and the tower, which was entered by a strong oak door from the bridge, +now contained three curious, romantic-looking rooms, with quaint, +uneven walls six feet thick, deep, narrow windows, and heavy oak +ceilings. The largest of the rooms to which admittance was gained by +the oak door was Mrs. Ogilvie's sitting-room. She had a curious love +of being alone for hours at a time, and she enjoyed the sense of +isolation which was afforded her by being cut off from the rest of the +building by the stone bridge on its high arch. Here she would spend +whole days by herself, reading or writing. Above this room, which was +full of her own particular possessions, was a smaller apartment +containing a valuable library of philosophical works. Here were +muniment-chests, and the large writing-table where she wrote all the +business letters relating to the estate; and here it was that she was +wont to see her steward and her agent from time to time. No one but +Mrs. Ogilvie and her son ever entered the room without some special +reason, and it was too far away from the rest of the house for casual +visitors to intrude themselves. The short passage, within the more +modern house, which led to the bridge was reached by a door hung with a +leather curtain securely arranged to prevent draughts, and no one ever +lifted this curtain except those who had a right to the rooms beyond. +</P> + +<P> +To-night, however, the house was open to all comers, and it afforded no +surprise to Captain Ogilvie and his companion, when they had quitted +the corridor and the reception-rooms, and had left the guests and +servants behind them, to find a man's figure before them in the short +passage leading to the leather-covered door. +</P> + +<P> +'Who 's that, do you know?' said Peter, when they had passed under the +curtain and were crossing the bridge. +</P> + +<P> +'I have no idea,' said Jane; 'some stranger, I suppose, whom some one +has brought.' +</P> + +<P> +'They don't seem to be looking after him very well,' said Peter, +'leaving him to prowl about alone and get lost in a great barrack like +this. I don't suppose I ought to have asked him if he wanted partners, +or anything of that sort? Some one is sure to look after him.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, sure to!' said Jane, and they passed over the bridge together and +went into Mrs. Ogilvie's morning-room. +</P> + +<P> +Having arrived there and secured two comfortable chairs, the power of +speech seemed suddenly to have deserted two persons whose conversation +was never brilliant, but who at least were seldom at a loss for +anything to say. It appeared as though Peter Ogilvie had brought Miss +Erskine to this distant room for no other purpose than to say to her, +in an absent-minded way, 'Is every one enjoying themselves, do you +think?' +</P> + +<P> +'I think every one is quite happy,' said Jane, and added, with +characteristic frankness, 'I know I am!' +</P> + +<P> +Peter gave her a quick glance, turning his eyes full upon her for a +moment as though to read something in the face beside him; then he +began with absorbed attention to twist the silk string of his ball +programme round and round his finger. The room where they sat was +singularly unlike those rose-shaded bowers which are considered +suitable to the needs of dancers who pause and rest in them. Its +austere furnishing had something almost solemn and mysterious about it; +and the stone walls hung with tapestry, on which quaint figures moved +restlessly with the draught from an open window, would have given an +eerie feeling to a man, for instance, sitting alone there at twelve +o'clock at night. But in the gloom and austerity of the still and +distant chamber sat Jane in white satin with pearls about her neck, and +the room was illumined by her. +</P> + +<P> +'So you are enjoying yourself,' said Peter at last—Peter who never +made fatuous conversational remarks of this sort. The words, for no +reason in themselves, fell oddly, and were followed by a silence which +was disturbing and made for sudden self-consciousness wholly to be +condemned, and to be banished, if possible, directly. Jane, who did +not fidget aimlessly with things, began diligently to pluck a long +white feather out of her fan, and said in a voice that was deliberately +commonplace, 'We ought to go back now, oughtn't we? Let me see who +your next partner is, Peter, that I may send you back to dance with +her.' She stretched out her hand for the young man's programme. +</P> + +<P> +But Peter sat absorbed, twisting its silk cord round his finger. +'Don't let's go yet,' he said, and the constrained silence fell between +them again. 'I want to ask you something, Jane.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Jane. Her hands lay idle now in her lap, and she no longer +tried to extract the white ostrich feather from her fan. +</P> + +<P> +'I want to know if you think you can care for me a little?' +</P> + +<P> +Probably when a man feels most deeply his utterances are the most +commonplace, and an Englishman is proverbially incapable of expressing +his feelings. In the supreme moments of their lives, it is true, a few +men, and those not always the most sincere, may speak eloquently; but +for the most part a proposal of marriage from an Englishman is—as it +should be—a clumsy thing. Peter Ogilvie could only speak in such +limited language as he always used. Yet the world seemed to stand +still for him just then, for he knew that everything in his heaven or +upon earth depended on what Jane's answer would be. +</P> + +<P> +'Don't let me bother you,' he said at last, 'or rush you into giving an +answer now if you would rather wait.' +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps a declaration of love from an old comrade is the most dear as +well as the most embarrassing of all such avowals. A heart which has +already given itself in loyalty and affection to another finds that it +is not a deepening of this loyalty and affection that is asked, but a +complete re-ordering of things. The lover's petition, therefore, +either comes to the woman as a revelation, betraying to her in a flash +that she has loved always, and has merely been calling the thing by +another name, or else it finds her impatient at the disturbance of an +old comradeship, a cherished friendship, which nothing but this +foolish, exacting thing called love could ever shake. +</P> + +<P> +Peter was not versed in introspective questions or hair-splittings; he +loved with his whole heart, and he had tried to say so without very +much success. Just then he would have given anything he possessed to +be endowed with a little more eloquence, though deep down in his heart +he had a lingering hope that perhaps Jane would understand. 'It's neck +or nothing,' he was saying to himself, in the homely jargon in which he +usually formed his thoughts. 'God knows I may have been a fool to +speak.' +</P> + +<P> +'Peter,' began Jane shyly. And Peter ceased twisting the silk cord of +the programme round his finger, and they turned and looked at each +other. +</P> + +<P> +'Is it true?' he said at last, with a queer kind of wonder in his voice. +</P> + +<P> +'Let us go into the garden,' he said. His instincts remained +primitive, and just then this room was too narrow for all he felt, and +it seemed to him that the large things of the night and the distant +glory of the stars were the only environment that he could bear. +</P> + +<P> +Passers-by, had they been mean enough to pause and listen outside the +sheltering yew-hedge near which they sat, might have questioned the +poetry of their love-making, and have condemned an avowal of devotion +punctuated by barbarous slang; but the silence that fell between them +was full of tenderness and more easily understood than speech, and +perhaps the moon—an inquisitive person at the best of times—as she +peeped over the grey turrets of the house saw the dawn of a love as +single-hearted and as genuine as many sentiments which have been more +carefully analysed and described. +</P> + +<P> +These were two happy, light-hearted persons, without very much to +recommend them except a certain straightforwardness of vision which +abhorred, as by a natural instinct, circuitous or crooked things, a +transparent honesty, and a simple acceptance of those obligations which +race and good-breeding demand. +</P> + +<P> +At the present moment, out in the garden on the stone seat set in the +embrasure of the high yew-hedge, they were oblivious of everything in +the world except each other and the absorbing discovery of love. +</P> + +<P> +They were the last to hear the cry of 'Fire!' which rang out from the +house, and they were still sitting undisturbed while men ran with hose +and buckets, and a clamour arose in the stable-yard for more water, and +a clatter of horses' hoofs could be heard as a groom galloped off for +the nearest fire-engine. The yew-hedged garden where they sat was +distant a long way from the house, and it was not until a heavy cloud +of smoke rose up against the sky that Peter's attention was attracted, +and he realized that the Norman tower was on fire. +</P> + +<P> +He started up and ran to the place where grooms and helpers, gardeners +and strangers' coachmen, and waiters and guests were standing, with +hose and buckets, pouring a ridiculous little stream of water against +the burning pile. The fire had begun in the roof, and the smoke was +pouring from the narrow windows in the tower. No flames had shot up +yet, and the fire-engine from Sedgwick, prompt and well-served as it +always was, might be here any minute. The oak roof would burn slowly +and the walls were secure, but the tapestry in the lower room was dry +and old, and would fire like a bundle of shavings. An effort was made +by a body of men to force an entrance into the lower room and save what +they could; but they were beaten back by the smoke which came in +volumes down the turret staircase and by the flames which now began to +shoot up here and there against the darkness of the night. There was +nothing for it but to safeguard the main building. The wind was +setting towards it from the tower, and a party of men were up on the +roof treading out burning sparks and playing water where slates were +hottest or ashes might burst into flames. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie stood on the terrace in her magnificent purple gown, her +red hair with flashing diamonds in it, and her long-handled glasses +held up to her near-sighted eyes. +</P> + +<P> +'So that goes!' she said, shrugging her shoulders. 'Well, it will give +me a good deal of trouble. Or is it fate, I wonder?' +</P> + +<P> +Peter was directing a body of men to play water on the bridge; garden +and stable hoses were turned full upon it by relays of helpers, and +some long ladders were placed against the windows to see if it were +possible in that way to effect an entrance and save some of the +valuables in the room. The guests—women in light ball dresses and +bare shoulders, and men in evening clothes—had surged out on to the +terrace, and were watching with that curious mixture of fascination and +regret which comes to the eyes of those who see destruction going on +and know that they are powerless to prevent it. Every ear was strained +to catch the first sound of the fire-engine on the road from Sedgwick, +and some twenty or thirty couples, more impatient than the rest, had +run to a distant knoll, from whence the road was visible, to peer +through the darkness and to see if anything was coming. The stars +shone serenely overhead, and the moon was turning the water in the +fountains to cascades of silver, while from turret and roof the volumes +of grey smoke belched forth, and the ineffectual fire appliances played +upon the house. +</P> + +<P> +It was just then that what seemed almost like an apparition appeared +upon the bridge. A man, not above medium height, with a cloak hastily +thrown about his head to protect him from the smoke, dashed across the +bridge, was drenched by the fall of water, and entered the turret room. +People asked each other fearfully whose this strange figure could be. +Many, strangely enough, had not seen it; the sudden dash through the +smoke had not occupied a moment of time, and most eyes were directed +towards the roof of the building, while others were turned towards the +Sedgwick road. Those who had seen cast amazed eyes upon each other, +women clutched the persons nearest them, and Jane Erskine, seeking half +wildly for some one in the crowd, found Peter and said to him, 'What is +it? Who went in there just now? Oh, Peter, for a moment I thought it +was you!' +</P> + +<P> +There was a shout of warning, but it was too late for the man, whoever +he was, to turn back. He was inside the tower now, and no shouting +could hold him. Some prayed as they stood there, murmuring half +mechanically, 'Save him! save him!' as instinctively men and women will +pray even when the life for which they plead may carry with it such +sorrow as they never dreamed of. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly some young men who had climbed to the top of the knoll gave a +shout, and the fire-engine from Sedgwick turned the corner of the road +with a fine dash, for Tom Ellis, a good whip, was driving, and the +white horse on the near side knew as well as any Christian how to save +an inch of the road. The fire-engine, all gleaming with brass fittings +and flaming red paint, clattered to the door, and pulled up with +admirable precision on the spot from which a hose could be played. +Eight men in helmets leaped from their seats and got their gear in +order with the coolness of blue-jackets in a storm. But for its +quietness and its controlled, workmanlike effect, the whole scene had +distinctly a dramatic touch about it. Possibly the firemen would have +shouted louder had they been upon the boards, and fainting women, it is +generally assumed, give a realistic touch to well-staged melodrama. No +doubt the crowd on the terrace at Bowshott would have disappointed an +Adelphi audience. But the old white horse stood to attention like a +soldier on a field day; and Tom Ellis, wiping his brow as though he +himself had run in the shafts all the way from Sedgwick, lent a touch +of stage realism to the scene. Nothing could save the interior of the +tower—that was past praying for; but a shout went up that there was a +man inside, and the firemen threw their ladders against the walls and +prepared their scaling-irons and life-saving apparatus. The smoke +rolled out in dense volumes now, and through the gloom a voice shouted, +'It 's all right! He 's crossed the bridge again!' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, are you sure? are you sure?' said Jane, her fear almost amounting +to a panic, and it haunted her for long afterwards that perhaps the man +had not actually escaped the fire. For nothing was heard of him again, +and it was only after Peter had ordered a fruitless search to be made +amongst the debris in the tower that she felt satisfied of the +stranger's safety. +</P> + +<P> +A newspaper reporter tried to prove that a gallant attempt had been +made to save some valuables in the tower, and went so far as to head +one of his paragraphs, 'A Gallant Act.' But there was nothing of value +in the tower rooms except the old furniture and books and the tapestry +on the walls, and these had all been destroyed. +</P> + +<P> +The ruined interior of the tower smouldered the whole of the next day; +though the walls still stood, gaunt and grim, windowless and gutted by +the fire. But the building was covered by insurance, and even the loss +of the tapestries seemed more than compensated by the fact that an +absorbing topic of general interest had been provided in a quiet and +uneventful neighbourhood. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<P> +It was a matter of necessity with Mrs. Ogilvie to purchase a new dress +for the wedding. Wherefore, in the week following the night of the +ball, she went to London for the day, while builders and carpenters +were already at work repairing the ruined tower. +</P> + +<P> +'It will be inconvenient,' she said, 'to go up and see my dressmaker +later when the house is full. Is it absolutely incumbent upon me, as +the mother of the bridegroom, to dress in grey satin, or have I +sufficiently scandalized my neighbours all my life to be able to wear +what I like?' +</P> + +<P> +Usually her maid accompanied her when Mrs. Ogilvie went up to London; +but, in her wilful way, she had decided to-day that maids were useless, +and that her present maid had round eyes that stared at her from the +opposite side of the carriage when they travelled together. In short, +Mrs. Ogilvie intended to go to London alone. +</P> + +<P> +She departed with some sort of idea of enjoying the expedition; the +purchase of clothes was a real aesthetic pleasure to her, and even the +feel of the pavements in the world-forsaken London of September had +something friendly about it that spoke to her with an intimacy and a +kindliness such as she never experienced among country sights and +sounds. A morning at Paquin's revived her as sea breezes revive other +women. Lunch followed in a room pleasantly shaded from the sun and +decorated with a fair amount of taste. But the food was uneatable, of +course; Mrs. Ogilvie could never get a thing to eat that she liked. +</P> + +<P> +It was nearly four o'clock before the brougham which had met her at the +station in the morning drew up before a door in deserted Harley Street. +An elderly man-servant showed her into the doctor's waiting-room, and +Mrs. Ogilvie sat down and began turning over with interest the pages of +a fashion magazine. +</P> + +<P> +'I think I know the worst,' she said to the famous surgeon whom she had +come to consult, when he led her into his room. 'What I want to know +is, can you put off this tiresome business until after my son's +wedding?' +</P> + +<P> +He asked her quietly her reason for the delay. Few people argued with +Mrs. Ogilvie; there was an inflexibility about her which made protest +impossible. He knew that the case was a hopeless one, but life might +certainly be prolonged if she would submit to treatment without delay. +</P> + +<P> +'Why should you put it off?' he said; 'even five or six weeks may make +an enormous difference.' +</P> + +<P> +'I always put off disagreeable things,' said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. +</P> + +<P> +A London doctor probably knows many cases of delicate and sensitive +women who will fret over a crumpled rose-leaf and die with the calm +courage of a martyr; but the woman who would deliberately throw away +her chances of life was unfamiliar to the famous specialist. He looked +keenly at his patient for a moment out of his deep eyes. +</P> + +<P> +'I have never known a case of this sort in which there was not an +immediate effort at concealment,' he said to himself; 'and women +conceal most of their sicknesses as if they were crimes.' Aloud he +asked her what was the earliest date at which she could put herself +into his hands. +</P> + +<P> +'It is a great bore coming at all,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, with that sort +of superb impertinence which distinguished her and was hardly ever +offensive; 'but let us say in a month's time. The wedding was not to +have been till late in November; but my son and Miss Erskine are quite +absurdly in love with each other, and it will not be difficult to +persuade them to alter that date for an earlier one.' +</P> + +<P> +'If you have positively decided to postpone treatment,' said the +surgeon, 'I can say nothing more except to tell you that you are +minimizing your chances of recovery.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't feel in the least like dying yet,' she said. +</P> + +<P> +'Were you to put yourself into my hands at once,' he urged, 'it is +possible that you might be sufficiently recovered to go to the wedding +in November.' +</P> + +<P> +'No one is to know anything about it,' said Mrs. Ogilvie quickly and +decisively. 'If my son is married in October I can come up to town, as +I always do in November, and go into one of your nursing-homes. +Probably the wall-papers will offend me, but at least I shall not have +the whole of a countryside discussing my helplessness and the various +stages of my illness. Ye gods! they would like to ask for details from +one's very footman at the hall door!' +</P> + +<P> +It was useless to say more. The surgeon recommended diet, and made out +a prescription. +</P> + +<P> +'Everything is talked about in these days, I admit,' he said, 'and I +think no one regrets the decline of reserve more than we doctors do; +but you are carrying a desire for concealment too far.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie was drawing on her gloves and buttoning them with an air +much more grave and intent than she had bestowed upon her doctor during +the discussion of her health. 'Even an animal,' she said lightly, 'is +allowed to creep away into the denseness of a thicket and nurse its +wounds unseen; but we superior human beings are like the beggars who +expose a mutilated arm to the pitiful, and would fain show their wounds +to every passer-by.' +</P> + +<P> +'Perhaps you will allow me to write to your son?' said the surgeon. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie replied by a quick and unequivocal answer in the negative; +then, relaxing a little, she said more lightly, but with intent, 'I +have always triumphed over difficulties all my life—I have always +overcome.' +</P> + +<P> +'That is quite possible,' said the physician gravely. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie stood up and began to arrange her veil before the mirror +which hung above the mantel-piece; and, as she did so, she glanced +critically at her face under her large, fashionable-looking hat, with +its bizarre trimmings. +</P> + +<P> +'I am very plain,' she said, with a sort of sensuous enjoyment in her +frankness, 'and yet I have passed successfully for a beautiful woman +most of my life. I am also what is ridiculously called a power in +society, and I owe everything to my own will. I detest unsuccess!' +</P> + +<P> +'You are talking of the success which lies in the hands of every clever +woman,' said the doctor, 'but your health is another matter.' +</P> + +<P> +'I believe in my good luck; it has never failed me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, +as she shook hands and said good-bye. +</P> + +<P> +When she reached home she dressed in one of her sumptuous gowns, for a +score of country neighbours were coming to meet Jane Erskine as the +fiancée of her son. Her maid bore the brunt of my lady's sarcasm +during the time of dressing, and was given a curt notice of dismissal +before the toilet was complete. The woman's big round eyes, which were +so obnoxious to her mistress, filled with tears as she accepted her +discharge. And Mrs. Ogilvie, descending the broad staircase of the +house with her air of magnificence, her jewels, and her red hair, +rapped her fan suddenly and sharply on the palm of her hand, so that +the delicate tortoise-shell sticks were broken. 'Why does she look at +me like that?' she said fiercely below her breath. 'I am glad I +dismissed her, and I am glad she cried! Why should not some one else +suffer as well as I?' +</P> + +<P> +'You are not really tiresome, Jane,' she said after dinner, as the two +sat together on a couch. 'I have never known another engaged young +lady whom I did not avoid; but you are distressing yourself quite +unnecessarily about me. When I look tired, for instance, you may take +it as a sure sign that I am bored; nothing ever really makes me feel +ill except dullness.' +</P> + +<P> +'Still,' urged Jane, 'Peter and I want it so much. We think if you +were to get advice from a doctor it would make us feel so much happier +about you.' +</P> + +<P> +'I never allow any one to discuss my health with me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie +coldly; 'it is only a polite way of pointing out to one that one is +looking plain.' +</P> + +<P> +Jane took one of her hands in hers with an impulsive gesture, and +printed a kiss upon it. +</P> + +<P> +'Do sit upon me when I begin to bore you or to say the wrong thing! I +believe, for a woman, I am quite unpardonably clumsy and tactless.' +</P> + +<P> +'Have you ever discovered,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, 'that tact is becoming a +little overdone, and that it generally succeeds in accentuating a +difficult situation, or in making it impossible? Women are horribly +tactful as a rule, and that is why men's society is preferable to +theirs. If you tread on a man's foot he will no doubt forgive you, +while admitting that the blow was painful; but a woman smiles and tries +to look as though she really enjoyed it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Promise never to endure me in silence,' said Jane, laughing, 'even +when I am most tactless!' +</P> + +<P> +'Silent endurance is hardly my character,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, screwing +up her eyes. 'I dismissed Forder before dinner because she annoyed me.' +</P> + +<P> +'Please take Forder to your heart again tomorrow morning,' said Jane; +'she keeps Martin in such a good temper.' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'I shall get a new maid when I go up to London +in November. Forder has had round eyes for such a long time, and she +is hopelessly stupid about doing my hair.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie always spoke about her hair with a touch of defiance in +her voice. It was so undisguisedly auburn that probably only Jane +Erskine and Peter ever believed that it was not dyed. +</P> + +<P> +'What were we talking about?' she said presently. 'Oh yes, I was +saying that you were not tiresome although you are engaged to be +married. You are not even quite uninteresting, although you are +healthy and happy! All the same, I am going to try and persuade you +and Peter to have the wedding sooner than you intended.' +</P> + +<P> +'Why?' said Jane simply. +</P> + +<P> +'I am sick of Bowshott,' said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. 'By the by, I +believe I am going to make it over to you and Peter when you marry. +Why should I act as custodian to a lot of grimy pictures, which don't +amuse me the least bit in the world, or walk in these formal gardens, +where I don't even meet a gardener after ten o'clock? A prison life +would really be a pleasant change! I shall go to London when you are +married; it is the only place—except Paris—where one lives. I must +have the house in Berkeley Square painted. And, oh! there are heaps of +things I want to do; must I really go into them all? +</P> + +<P> +'When is the wedding to be?' asked old Lord Sherard, sinking on to the +sofa beside Miss Erskine, when he and the other gentlemen returned from +the dining-room. +</P> + +<P> +'Jane and I have just been deciding that the wedding is to take place +in the middle of October,' replied Mrs. Ogilvie in her cool, decisive +voice. +</P> + +<P> +Jane laughed and caught Peter's eye, and he drew her aside when he +could, and asked for further confirmation of a change of plans of which +he thoroughly approved. +</P> + +<P> +There was no reason for delay; the building and repairing of the tower +would hardly interfere with the other parts of the vast house. Jane, +like Peter, was quite satisfied that their wedding should be at an +earlier date than was at first suggested. They had known each other +all their lives; why postpone the happy time when they should be +married? +</P> + +<P> +So wedding invitations were written and despatched, and wedding gowns +were ordered, and wedding presents came in. Tenants presented silver +bowls and trays, and servants gave clocks and illuminated addresses, +and the Ogilvie family lawyer came down with his clerk to stay, and was +hidden away somewhere in the big house, where he wrote busily all day, +and made wills and transferred deeds, and wanted signatures for this +thing and for that through half the autumn mornings. +</P> + +<P> +'I see nothing for it,' said Jane, 'but to postpone getting my +trousseau until after I am married. If I succeed in getting a wedding +dress and something to go away in by the twenty-sixth, I shall consider +myself lucky!' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon, to whose Early Victorian mind a wedding was still an +occasion for tears, sighed over her niece's engagement because Jane +never came to her room at night to water her couch with tears, nor had +doubts or presentiments or misgivings. +</P> + +<P> +'She seems to have so little sense of responsibility,' she sighed to +Mrs. Wrottesley, whose visits at this trying time were a cause of +nothing but comfort to her. +</P> + +<P> +'I know,' said Mrs. Wrottesley—in the hesitating manner of the woman +who might have been 'advanced' had she not married a clergyman—'I know +it may seem to you irreverent to say so, but I sometimes think that +marriage is not undertaken lightly and unadvisedly enough. It seems to +me that nowadays the tendency is to consider the matter almost too +seriously, and that a certain light-hearted impulse is really what is +required before taking what is called the plunge.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon—not by any means for the first time—felt regret that +Canon Wrottesley's influence upon his wife had not made her a more +orthodox thinker. A woman who criticized the Prayer Book was surely +not fitted to be the wife of a clergyman. Miss Abingdon liked to lean +on a spiritual guide, and she thought that this was the graceful and +becoming attitude for all women. +</P> + +<P> +'I am afraid we must not tamper with the Prayer Book,' she said +reprovingly; and Mrs. Wrottesley, who for twenty years had been silent +under reproof, relapsed into silence again. +</P> + +<P> +Jane, meanwhile, was saying good-bye to every tenant on Miss Abingdon's +small estate. To her hunters she confided the good news that they were +going with her when she married, and that they would hunt with her as +before. And the stable cat, whom she took up in her arms and kissed +affectionately, was told that he really must not mind saying good-bye, +for that she, Jane, would only be two miles off, so that the stable cat +needn't look quite so disconsolate. The proverbial old nurse in the +village had to be visited, and the school-children asked to tea, and +tenants and gardeners to dinner; and every one was in a highly nervous +state of preparation, and in a still more delightful state of +anticipation. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon enjoyed the dear fussiness of the wedding preparations, +and thought in her secret heart that Mrs. Ogilvie missed all the +pleasure of the thing by giving a few brief, emphatic orders to her +steward, instead of personally superintending every detail of the +servants' ball and the tenants' dinner. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie's directions were probably made in less than an hour, and +transmitted to Mr. Miller's capacious pocket-book when he came to her +boudoir to receive instructions one autumn morning. When he had left, +Mrs. Ogilvie quitted her writing-table, by which she had been sitting, +and walked to the window of her room and stood idly by it, her graceful +figure outlined against the pane. Before her stretched the great +gardens in an aching formality of borders and devices. Viewed from a +height, and with her near-sighted eyes, they presented an appearance of +a piece of elaborate stitchwork on a green worsted ground. The +fountains, with their punctual fall of spray, might have been a device +in shells and beads in the centre of each design. Beyond the gardens +there was a mass of woods, all dim greens and bright golds; but even +the woods were touched with formality, and the foresters of the place +had lopped away every unsightly branch from the beeches and oaks. +Probably there may have been homely corners in the gardens and grounds +which Peter had discovered as a child; but Mrs. Ogilvie, when she +walked, kept to the prim paths of the terrace and the garden, where +every pebble seemed to have its proper place, in full view of the +windows of the house. +</P> + +<P> +'It has always been a prison to me—always,' she murmured to herself, +oblivious of the fact that no one more than she would have missed a +luxurious environment and a stately setting to her own personality. +Mrs. Ogilvie often imagined that she would have liked a small house; +but there is no doubt that she would have quitted it in disgust the +first time that the odour of dinner came up the back stairs. She +believed that a large staff of servants was merely a burden; but she +would have felt at a loss had she been obliged to wait on herself even +for an hour. As she looked now at the gardens in front of her, and +away to the woods beyond, and to the great stretches of greenhouses and +conservatories to southward, she thought how irksome they were, how +unnecessary, and how little pleasure they gave. +</P> + +<P> +'Magnificence is always dull,' she thought, 'and yet people are +impressed by it! They not only value themselves by what they have; +they actually value others according to their possessions, and respect +a man for his ownership of things of which they cannot even hope to rob +him.' +</P> + +<P> +She supposed that the tenants and servants would have to be fed on the +occasion of a marriage. She believed it was their one idea of enjoying +themselves; but she begged her steward not to bother her with details +when he had gone into the question of roasting an ox whole. Having +dismissed him with a few brief orders Mrs. Ogilvie went to her +writing-table. 'I may as well get over all the disagreeable and odious +things in one morning,' she said to herself. +</P> + +<P> +Her writing-table was placed against a wall on which hung a mirror, and +she sat down opposite it. According to a custom she had, she directed +the envelopes first, before beginning to write her letters. Her +writing-table was always littered with addressed envelopes of notes +which she meant to write some day when she felt in the mood for writing. +</P> + +<P> +She paused now when she had written the words: 'To be given to my son +at my death;' and, screwing up her face into her twisted smile, she +said to herself, 'How absurd and melodramatic it sounds!' Then she +took a sheet of notepaper and began to write. The first few lines +flowed easily enough, and then Mrs. Ogilvie's pen traced the letters +more slowly on the page. Once she paused altogether, and said aloud to +her image in the mirror opposite her escritoire, 'What a fool I am!' +and then stooped again over her task. The sprawling writing had hardly +covered half a sheet of notepaper when the red-gold head with its crown +of plaits was raised again, and the woman in the mirror looked at her +with a face that was suddenly livid. Her lips were white and were +drawn back somewhat from her teeth; and Mrs. Ogilvie, in the midst of +pain, recognized first of all how hideous she looked. +</P> + +<P> +The pen dropped from her fingers, and she pushed her chair back from +the writing-table and went over to the fireplace and lay down on the +sofa. The day was cold, and Mrs. Ogilvie shivered and drew a cover +over her feet. 'When this is over,' she thought, 'I will ring and have +the fire lighted.' +</P> + +<P> +She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and calculated deliberately +how long the paroxysm would probably last. She had always regarded +pain as an animate thing which had to be fought with, and she had never +failed in courage when she met it, nor moaned when, as now for the +first time, she was beaten by it. The clock seemed to tick more +leisurely to-day, and the time passed very slowly; there is a +loneliness about suffering which makes the hours drag heavily. Once +she buried her face for a moment in the sofa cushions, and her bands +clenched the cover and crumpled the delicate satin between her fingers. +Her head sank lower, like a wounded bird that ruffles up the dust; she +moved convulsively amongst the cushions. It was a grim fight with pain +that she was making; she did not give in easily, but the odds were +unequal. Mrs. Ogilvie was in the hands of an unsparing foe. She was +conquered, but afterwards, when she lay quite still, there was a look +of defiance in her attitude. +</P> + +<P> +Her maid, coming in and finding her sleeping, glanced at the blinds and +wondered if she dared lower them, for the sun was shining brilliantly +into the room now, and its beams were resting full and strong on the +figure on the sofa. +</P> + +<P> +It was something about the position of the auburn head—something +twisted and unnatural in the attitude of the recumbent form—that +caused the woman to cry out suddenly and sharply, with a vibrating cry +that seemed to set everything in the room jingling. No one heard her +at first, and she opened the window and called aloud for help; for +there was a sound of horses' hoofs upon the gravel, and Peter rode up +with Jane to the door. +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs. Ogilvie must have been dead an hour,' the village doctor said +when he came; and then he sent the weeping girl and poor, white-faced, +broken-hearted Peter out of the room. Neither of them could believe +the horrible news; they turned to each other, taking hands, as children +do in their grief, and Jane went back and with a sob stooped down and +imprinted a long kiss on the dead woman's brow. +</P> + +<P> +'She must have died just as she was writing her morning letters,' said +Peter, as he glanced at the writing-table with its litter of notes and +papers. +</P> + +<P> +'Perhaps it would be as well to lock up anything that is lying about,' +said the doctor; 'it is customary to do so. Or your lawyer—who, I +understand, is in the house—could come in, I suppose, and put away +jewels, etc.' He handed Peter the litter of notes and papers on the +writing-table. +</P> + +<P> +'Thank you,' said Peter. 'I don't suppose there is anything very +important, but I will look through them presently.' He glanced at the +topmost addresses of the notes, and decided that they were probably +belated wedding invitations to people who had been forgotten, and he +put an indiarubber band about them and thrust them into his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +The guests in the house departed hurriedly within two hours of Mrs. +Ogilvie's death, amidst all the confusion of hasty packing, and +carriages ordered for this person and for that, and footmen hastening +downstairs with luggage, and luncheon prepared hurriedly and eaten +almost surreptitiously by those who wished to catch an early train. +There was a horrible stir in the house under the hush and awe that +death brings. No one wished to intrude upon Peter; yet a dozen friends +wanted to see him, to hear, if possible, more details of his mother's +sudden end. Others, with a sort of animal instinct of forsaking at +once the place where death reigned, betrayed an almost contemptible +haste in quitting the house; but they, too, must know all that could be +told. They had never noticed that Mrs. Ogilvie did not seem well, or +they had remarked that of late she had spent much time in her room, or +'she had seemed so bright and cheerful'; and, again, 'they had noticed +how tired she had been at night sometimes.' +</P> + +<P> +To no one had Peter any special news to give. Some one had heard, he +believed, that she had been to see Sir Edward Croft, the great surgeon +in London, and to-day they had telegraphed to him. Peter himself had +not really been anxious about his mother, although he had imagined for +some time past that she did not look well. He gave what attention he +could to his guests, bade them a conventional good-bye, and displayed +that reserve which an Englishman is supposed to be able to maintain in +times of sorrow. But it is not too much to say that, warm-hearted, +deeply affectionate man that he was, his grief for his mother's death +had something bewildering in it. He had loved her faithfully and +admired her loyally during the whole of his life; there had never been +a quarrel between them, and, if he had not received many outward marks +of affection from her, there was no single occasion in his life that he +could remember in which she had failed him. He had come first always; +he realized this with the sinking of heart which even the most dutiful +son may feel when he sees with absolute clearness, perhaps for the +first time, that he must have accepted, almost unknowingly, many +sacrifices from his mother. He hoped, with a boyish remorse and a +boyish simple-heartedness, that she understood everything now, and that +somewhere, not very far off, she would be able to see into his heart +and know positively how much he had loved her. He had always accepted +in simple faithfulness the statement that those who were gone 'knew +now,' as the phrase runs; and it comforted him to think that all he +might have said to her when she was alive was clearly understood by his +mother at last. +</P> + +<P> +By two o'clock the big house was empty of guests and given over to +silence, or to the sound of hushed footsteps about the stairs, or to +the weeping of maids as they assembled in little groups in the +corridors and spoke with sobs of the mistress whom they had served +faithfully. Each room that had lately given up its tenant showed a +disordered interior, with paper strewn here and there. Or some maid +left behind to pack her mistress's heavier luggage could be seen +kneeling before open trunks and deftly arranging their contents. +</P> + +<P> +A grey-haired butler approached his master when the last of the +carriages had driven away, and begged him to eat some luncheon, and +informed him that Miss Erskine was still in the library. +</P> + +<P> +'Send something there,' said Peter briefly. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Jane could only weep, and they clung to each other, +saying, with the helplessness of the suddenly bereaved, 'Isn't it +awful?' Then, as they began to grow calmer, Peter administered what +comfort he could, and tried in his kindly way to induce the girl to eat +something. +</P> + +<P> +'You must eat, you know,' he said, 'and it will do you good. It has +been a terrible time for you. And then I think you ought to go back +and lie down for a bit.' +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +If it is true that a woman suggests beef-tea as a universal panacea for +all ills, it is certain, on the other hand, that a man believes that a +woman always feels better for lying down. +</P> + +<P> +'I should like to wait,' Jane said, 'until Sir Edward arrives, and to +hear what he has to say.' +</P> + +<P> +A footman came in to clear away lunch, and then the two lovers went and +sat together on the library sofa, and looked out on the long stretches +of gardens with their cold precision and want of sympathy. A +luggage-cart, piled high with dress-baskets and portmanteaux, passed +down the drive towards the station gates, and a motor-car returned from +a neighbouring house for something that had been forgotten. After that +there was silence both within and without the house; even the maids had +gone downstairs to sit together and whisper. It was one of those grey +days in early autumn which have an almost weird sense of stillness +about them. Hardly a leaf stirred, and even the flight of the birds +was noiseless and touched with the universal feeling of hush. The +begonias and dahlias and flaming autumn flowers in the broad border +below the southern terrace wall had lost half their colour in the grey +afternoon, and a robin alighted softly on the window-sill and, putting +his head on one side, looked into the library at the pair sitting on +the sofa. +</P> + +<P> +Neither had spoken for a time. To-morrow there would probably be +lawyers to see and the funeral to arrange for, and a hundred things to +do; but to-day there was a lull in which time itself seemed to have +stood still. Years had passed since this morning, and yet the clocks +marked only a few hours on their dials. Mrs. Ogilvie had died at +twelve o'clock, and the very flowers which she had placed by her table +still bloomed freshly, and a book she had been reading lay open where +she had left it. +</P> + +<P> +Yet it seemed a lifetime since she had died. +</P> + +<P> +During the interminable afternoon, and in the stillness of the big +library, with its ordered rows of books and solemn-looking, carved +cupboards, Peter and Jane Erskine sat together feeling oppressively +this great lapse of time that had passed. Their understanding of one +another had always been a strong bond between them; and now they felt +not like the lovers of yesterday, but like those whose lives have been +linked for years, and for whom loyalty and faith have grown deeper and +stronger as troubles and storms came. They looked across to the ruined +tower, where not very long ago, as we count time, they had told their +love to each other; and, so looking, had drawn closer by their common +sorrow. It seemed to them, in the hush of the library, that this time +of grief and dependence had something arresting in it. Life had not +demanded very much of them so far. To-day there was a strange sense +that its demands, perhaps even for them, would not always be small. +</P> + +<P> +The doctor and the lawyer summoned Peter presently, and afterwards he +and Jane were told particulars of Mrs. Ogilvie's fatal illness. +</P> + +<P> +'But she must have suffered—she must have suffered so!' said Jane, +with all the resentfulness that youth feels towards pain. 'Why did she +tell none of us? Why did none of us know?' +</P> + +<P> +'I ought to have guessed something,' said Peter miserably. 'I must +have been a fool not to see that something was wrong.' And together +they wondered what would have happened if this had been done or that, +and were inclined to reproach themselves for much in which they were in +no measure to blame. They walked back through the dim, still woods; +and at the white gates of Jane's pleasant home Peter left her, and she +went on alone to meet Miss Abingdon. +</P> + +<P> +It was late that night before the two sorrowful women went to bed; and +hardly was breakfast over in the morning before, with the restlessness +born of recent grief, Miss Abingdon was seeking anxiously to know what +she could do or what ought to be done. +</P> + +<P> +'If,' she said, 'I felt that I could even be of use by going up to town +and choosing the servants' mourning, I should feel that I was doing +something.' +</P> + +<P> +There were piles of patterns of black stuffs, which Miss Abingdon had +telegraphed for on the previous evening, lying in neat bundles on the +breakfast-table, and stamped with their several prices and the width of +the materials. Such things have often kept a woman sane in the first +despair of grief. +</P> + +<P> +'How would it do?' she said, 'to have a little crape on the body and +not on the skirt?' +</P> + +<P> +Jane replied that she thought it would do very nicely. +</P> + +<P> +Poor Jane! her eyes were big with weeping, and she had lain awake the +greater part of the night mourning for her friend who was gone. Now, +as she tried to give her attention to her aunt and to the vexed +question of the propriety of crape on the body, she thought, with +girlish ingenuousness, that she wanted Peter more than she had ever +wanted him before, and that she could do nothing until she had seen +him. And across her grief came one great flash of joy as she realized +that in all her troubles and sorrows she would have him with her. +</P> + +<P> +'There he is now,' said Miss Abingdon, 'coming up the drive! Jane, my +dear, how awfully ill Peter looks. Oh, my dear, you should have told +me how ill he looks!' +</P> + +<P> +Jane went out to the hall door without speaking. 'What is wrong?' she +said briefly. 'Come into my sitting-room, Peter, and tell me what is +wrong.' +</P> + +<P> +'I 'd rather be outside, if you don't mind,' said Peter, the primitive +man strong in him again. +</P> + +<P> +There had been a storm in the night, after the unusual stillness of the +afternoon, accompanied by heavy rain. Now the sun shone fitfully, and +the disordered gardens and lawns were strewn with branches and +countless leaves which chased each other, bowling along on their edges +and dancing in mad eddies and circles. +</P> + +<P> +'Let's get out of sight of the house,' said Peter; and they went into +the high-walled garden and sat down on one of Miss Abingdon's +cheerful-looking white seats. +</P> + +<P> +There were long borders of dripping, storm-dashed flowers in front of +them, and mignonette run to seed, and dahlias filled with moisture to +their brims. Some gardeners were busy tying up saplings which had been +detached from their stakes, and the beech trees on the other side of +the high walls of the garden tossed their branches together and sighed +a little. +</P> + +<P> +Peter waited for a minute or two until the gardeners had moved out of +hearing, and then said abruptly and with difficulty: 'You know those +papers that the doctor gave me yesterday?' +</P> + +<P> +'Those notes and things which were on her writing-table?' Jane asked. +</P> + +<P> +Peter nodded his head, and then with an effort began again—this time +with an attempt at formality—'I 'm sorry to have to tell you that +there is something in one of them that I shall have to speak to you +about.' +</P> + +<P> +'Something in one of your mother's notes?' asked Jane, her level eyes +turned questioningly upon him. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm telling it all wrong,' said Peter distractedly, 'and making it +worse for you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Are you quite sure that you need tell me anything at all?' asked Jane, +and she laid her hand in his. +</P> + +<P> +'I am quite sure,' he said; and then a very surprising thing happened, +for he put Jane's hand aside and stood up before her. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm not even going to take your hand,' he said, 'until I have told +you all about it. You see, there was a letter addressed to me amongst +those on her writing-table yesterday. I 've shown it to the lawyer, +but neither he nor I can make anything of it. It is directed to me to +be given to me at her death; but she must have died while she was +writing it. It leaves off in the middle of a sentence.' +</P> + +<P> +'I think,' said Jane slowly, 'that nothing matters in the whole world +so long as we have each other.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah, my dear!' said Peter, and he sat down on the bench and took her +hand again. 'I 'll show you the letter,' he said suddenly, and brought +the sheet of notepaper out of his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +'May I read it?' said Jane. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, if you will,' he replied. +</P> + +<P> +Afterwards they could tell every word of the unfinished letter by +heart; but at the first reading the words seemed merely to puzzle Jane +Erskine, and conveyed very little sense to her. +</P> + +<P> +'When you get this letter I shall be dead,' wrote the woman who had +meant to live for many years, 'and before I die I think there is +something which I had better tell you. I am not haunted by remorse nor +indulging in a deathbed repentance, and I shall merely ask you not to +hate me more than you can help when you have finished reading this +letter. You must often have heard of your elder brother who died when +I was in Spain, the year after your father's death. He did not die——' +</P> + +<P> +'There must be something more,' said Jane. She turned the page this +way and that, as though to read some writing not decipherable by other +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +'I 've looked everywhere,' said Peter; 'there 's nothing more. +Besides, you see, she stops in the middle of a sheet of notepaper. Why +should she have written anything else on another piece?' +</P> + +<P> +They read the letter again together, scanning the words line by line. +</P> + +<P> +'What can it mean?' she said at last. +</P> + +<P> +'I have evidently got an elder brother,' said Peter briefly, 'to whom +everything belongs. Most people remember that my mother took a curious +antipathy to the other little chap when I was born. I can't make it +out in any possible way—no one can, of course. But it seems pretty +plain that no will can be proved, nor can I touch anything, until my +brother is known to be either dead or alive.' +</P> + +<P> +'What can we do?' said Jane. Their two hands were locked together, and +the trouble was the trouble of both. +</P> + +<P> +'I can go out to Spain, where he is supposed to have died,' said Peter, +'and make inquiries.' +</P> + +<P> +'I want to ask you something,' said Jane, after a pause. 'Let us be +married quietly, first of all, and then we can do everything together.' +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm probably a pauper,' he said simply, 'without the right to a +single stone of Bowshott. I went fully into my father's will with the +lawyer last night, and he leaves nearly everything to the eldest son.' +</P> + +<P> +'Dear Peter!' protested Jane, accepting Peter's statement, but brushing +aside its purport. +</P> + +<P> +They talked on far into the morning, at one time half distrusting the +evidence of their eyes which read the letter, at another looking far +into the future to try to pierce the veil of darkness that at present +shrouded it. Then, for there were many things to do, the young man +turned his face homeward again, and Jane sat on alone in the garden, +looking with eyes that hardly were conscious of seeing what they rested +on, while the wet branches of the beech trees rocked themselves +together, and the tearful autumn sunshine flickered on the disordered +beds of mignonette. She sat there until the stable clock struck one, +then rose and went indoors. One important decision had been made. +They would be married quietly on the day Mrs. Ogilvie had fixed for the +wedding; and then together they would seek the brother who, if he were +still alive, would be brother to them both. +</P> + +<P> +But the Court of Chancery took that reasonable view of the case which, +as it frequently happens, is directly opposed to the view-sentimental. +The Court of Chancery, in fact, refused to sanction the marriage of a +minor with a man without settled prospects, and one whose position in +the world was not confirmed by the possession either of money or of +lands. At the age of twenty-five Miss Erskine might do as she liked; +until then the Court of Chancery decided that she should divide her +time each year between her two guardians, with whom she had always +lived. No protests were of any avail, and wise relations and friends +were agreed in thinking that it was better to postpone the marriage, at +least for a time. +</P> + +<P> +The autumn passed miserably. Peter went to Juarez first of all, and +proved to be substantially true what at first he had supposed might +have been the disordered fancy of a sick woman's mind. There was no +record of the death of Edward Ogilvie, nor did any entry in registers +show the name of an English child in the year when he was supposed to +have died. No little grave in the cemetery marked his resting-place. +One fact, at least, seemed established, and that was that Peter's elder +brother had not died in infancy at Juarez. +</P> + +<P> +Not much more than this could be proved, and Peter returned home to +find that for the present nothing was legally his. Pending inquiries +Bowshott was closed. Those who were in ignorance of the real state of +affairs talked glibly of enormous death-duties which had crippled, for +a time, even the immense Ogilvie estates, and had rendered it necessary +for Peter to shut up the house and live economically. The countryside, +which called itself gay, met at many little parties and talked +charitably of the woman who was gone, saying, with an unconscious sense +of patronage, that they had always liked Mrs. Ogilvie in spite of her +faults. Death, the great leveller, had brought their unapproachable +neighbour nearer to them; they were not afraid of her now. It was +strange to think that she was really less than one of themselves in the +cold isolation and the pathetic impotence of the grave. They could +hardly picture her yet as a powerless thing—the keen, narrowing eyes +closed, the sharp-edged poniard of her speech for ever sheathed. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, papers were examined, and every box and chest which +contained written matter was searched for a clue to the missing child. +Peter was engaged in long consultations with detectives, and lawyers +were running up goodly bills, and British Consuls were making +investigations abroad. A whole train of inquiries was set in motion, +and pens and tongues were busy. The powerful hand of the law stretched +itself out in secret to this country and to that, only to be met with a +baffling failure to hold or to discover anything. Money was spent +lavishly, and great brains tried to solve the mystery; and Mrs. Ogilvie +lay in her grave in a silence that could not be broken, her hand, which +had traced the few lines on one sheet of notepaper, cold and still for +ever. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<P> +When Peter came back from Spain he came to an empty house. The big +reception rooms at Bowshott were swathed in brown holland and +dust-sheets, pictures were covered and carpets rolled up, giving an air +of desolation to the place. The flowers in the formal gardens had all +been dug up, and the carefully tended designs—so like a stitchwork +pattern—had lost their mosaic of colour, leaving merely a careful +drawing of brown upon green. The banks of flowering exotics, which his +mother had loved to have in her drawing-rooms, had been removed to the +greenhouses and conservatories. The sight of the gardeners mowing, for +the last time in the season, the hundred-year-old turf of the lawn +conveyed a suggestion of regret with it; the old pony harnessed to the +mowing machine stepped sedately and quietly in his boots on the close, +fine grass. Everything about Bowshott looked stately and beautiful in +the clean, sharp air of the morning, when Peter drove up to the +entrance after a long night journey and ascended the flight of steps +leading to the hall door. +</P> + +<P> +His return to the inheritance which had been indisputably his since he +was a little boy had a horrible feeling of unreality about it. Half a +dozen times in the course of the morning he had to check himself when +he found his thoughts wandering to alterations or improvements, and to +tell himself, with a bewildered feeling, that perhaps he had not a +right to a flower in the garden or a chair in the house. +</P> + +<P> +'I can't believe it's not mine,' he said aloud, as he drove up the long +avenue from the station in his dog-cart, with one of the famous +Bowshott hackneys in the shafts. 'I can't believe it's not mine!' +Many people might have found in the singular unhomeliness of the big +house a just cause for withholding their affection from it, but Peter +had always loved it. Every corner of the place was full of memories to +him. Here was the wall of the terrace off which, as a little boy, he +used to jump, making horrible heelmarks in the turf where he alighted; +and there was the stone summer-house, built after the fashion of a +small Greek temple, but only interesting to Peter Ogilvie from the fact +that he used to keep his wheelbarrow and garden tools there. He +remembered the first day when it had suddenly struck him that the +geometrically shaped flower-beds were designed after a pattern, and he +had counted, with his nurse, the loops and circles in the design. +There, again, were the fountains with their silver spray, in whose +basins, by the inexorable but utterly unintelligible law of the +nursery, he had never been allowed to play. Here was the clock on the +tower which used to boom out every hour as it passed, but of whose +strokes he was never conscious except when he heard it at night. +Passing inside the house was the hall, with its big round tables by the +fire, and beyond that was the library and his mother's drawing-room; +while in the older wings of the house were the ballroom where Charles +I. had banqueted, and the Sèvres sitting-room, so called from the china +plaques let into the mantelpiece, where he had made love. +</P> + +<P> +'I hope, if my brother is alive, that he is a good sort of chap,' said +Peter. +</P> + +<P> +He breakfasted in the tapestried room which he had ordered to be kept +open for him, and then went into the library to write his letters. He +had a hundred things to do. At lunch-time he interviewed his steward, +his agent, his stud-groom, and the other heads of departments of a +large estate. The horses were to be sold with the exception of a few +favourites. The gardens were to be kept up as usual. +</P> + +<P> +Some dogs of his mother's would be cared for, his bankers would pay the +usual subscriptions to local charities, and the almshouses in the +village were to be maintained as they had always been maintained. +</P> + +<P> +After lunch Mr. Semple, the lawyer, arrived. He was a pleasant man and +a keen botanist. The gardens at Bowshott were a delight to him, and +Peter had often found him good company over a cigar in the evenings. +Mr. Semple was one of those who had throughout urged secrecy and +caution in the matter of the late Mrs. Ogilvie's communication. 'In +the first place,' he said, 'it may still be proved to have been an +hallucination of her mind, attendant upon her state of health; and, in +the second place, anything like publicity might bring a host of +aspirants and adventurers whose claims would take months of +investigation to dispose of.' He advised that everything about the +house should remain in its present state for a year, until a proper +legal inquiry into the disappearance of the elder son could be +instituted. +</P> + +<P> +'He may have died as a child, although he wasn't buried at Juarez,' +said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +Jane had departed to spend her usual six months of the year with +General Erskine, but she had written to say, positively, that she knew +it would come all right; and whenever Peter was downhearted he always +thought of her letter, believing, in all simplicity, that Jane was +never wrong. If only she were at Miss Abingdon's now, instead of in +her uncle's house in Grosvenor Place! +</P> + +<P> +'She 'll miss the hunting, I 'm afraid,' he thought miserably, +contrasting their present separation with all the joy and happiness +that they had so fully intended should be theirs this winter. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Semple had a shrewdness acquired from many years' experience in +legal matters, and he shook his head when Peter made the suggestion +that probably his brother had died in infancy. 'The conclusion I have +arrived at, after years of legal work,' he said, 'is that the +undesirable person lives, while the useful or much wanted one dies. +Those who encumber the ground remain longest upon it, and the person in +receipt of a large annuity or pension is proverbially long-lived. +However, we have so far not found a single trace of the existence of +Edward Ogilvie, though you must remember we have not yet ascertained in +which different parts of Spain your mother lived during those two years +which she spent there.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't see who on earth is to tell us!' ejaculated Peter. 'She +generally had foreign maids about her, and I think I always had French +nurses. I never heard of any old servant who went with her on her +travels; and although, of course, money was paid to her by her bank, +and letters were forwarded to her by the bankers, the actual addresses +to which they were sent have not been kept after an interval of +twenty-five years. One of the old clerks at Coutts's remembers, in an +indefinite sort of way, that he forwarded packages for a long time to +Madrid, and afterwards, he thinks, to Toledo, and then farther south, +and at one time to Cintra; but my mother's headquarters seem always to +have been in Granada, and the clerk says that he can give me no dates +nor indeed any exact information.' +</P> + +<P> +'I did not know she had been at Cintra or Toledo,' said Mr. Semple +thoughtfully. +</P> + +<P> +'I won't swear that she had,' said Peter. 'The Peninsula wasn't so +generally known twenty-five years ago as it is now. Travelling was +difficult then, and people in England, who have not themselves +travelled much, are very liable to get confused about the names of +foreign places.' +</P> + +<P> +'Still,' said the lawyer, 'Cintra and Toledo are places that every one +knows.' +</P> + +<P> +'You mean,' said Peter, 'that in a well-known place, with English +people living in it, there would be more likelihood of getting the +information which we want?' +</P> + +<P> +'I mean,' said Mr. Semple, 'that, as there is no evidence of your +brother ever having been seen at Juarez, the next thing is to find out +in what place there is evidence of his appearance.' +</P> + +<P> +It was late afternoon, and as all clerical work for the day was now +finished, Peter suggested and Mr. Semple readily agreed to a walk in +the gardens. There was nothing left in the flower-beds, but the +conservatories and the orchid-house were a real feast of pleasure to +the lawyer. He went into the outer hall to fetch his stick and coat, +and then, turning back towards his host, he made a humorous signal to +convey the intelligence that some callers had driven up to the door. +Peter retreated precipitately; but Mr. Semple had already been seen and +was hailed by Mr. Lawrence, who had, a few minutes before, drawn up to +the entrance in his big red motor-car. Already Mr. Lawrence was in +earnest conversation with the butler, and his feminine-like +ejaculations could be heard now as he stood and conversed with the man +at the hall door. He stood on the doorstep while his guests in the +motor, who seemed to fear that they might be intrusive, looked as +though they would prefer to hasten their departure. +</P> + +<P> +'Ah, how-do-you-do, Mr. Semple,' said Mr. Lawrence in his high-pitched +voice, advancing a few steps into the hall. 'It is a great piece of +luck meeting you like this! I have just driven over with my friends, +Sir John and Lady Falconer.—Lady Falconer, may I introduce my friend, +Mr. Semple?—This is a very sad house to come to, Mr. Semple, is it +not?' he said, and paused, hoping for a little gossip from the lawyer. +'I was just driving through the village, and I have been to see the +church with my friends, and we thought we would run in and inquire how +everything was going on.' +</P> + +<P> +'Everything,' said the lawyer dryly, 'is going on as well as could be +expected.' +</P> + +<P> +'How is Peter?' said Mr. Lawrence, putting on an appropriate expression +of woe, which sat oddly on his big healthy red face. He was a kindly +man at heart, but an idle existence and his inveterate love of gossip +had made a poor creature of him. His healthy muscular frame did not +know the sensation of that honest fatigue which follows a good day's +work, and his mind travelled on lines of so little resistance that he +may be said to have exercised it almost as infrequently as he exercised +his body. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Semple replied that Peter seemed well; and Mr. Lawrence, taking him +in an affectionate and familiar manner by the sleeve of his coat, said: +'I should so much like my friends to see the gardens; Peter would not +mind, would he?' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Falconer, the least intrusive of women, who had heard the +whispered colloquy, here interposed and said that, as she was very +cold, she would much prefer to go home; and Sir John added with simple +directness that he thought that, as the place was more or less shut up +at present, the gardens had better wait for a more fitting occasion. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lawrence protested that a walk would do Lady Falconer good, and +that, further, as they were leaving so soon, there would be no other +chance of seeing the famous gardens. In fact Mr. Lawrence had the door +of his motor-car open, and was helping Lady Falconer to alight almost +before he had obtained Mr. Semple's permission to make a tour of the +grounds. +</P> + +<P> +'It's all right,' he said, in his fussy, dictatorial way, divesting +himself of his heavy motor-coat, and preparing to act as cicerone. +'This place is thrown open once a week to the public; and although this +isn't a visitors' day all sorts of people come to visit Bowshott on the +other days of the week.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Falconer felt slightly ruffled by the way in which her wishes had +been ignored in a small matter, and confined herself to talking to the +lawyer; but Mr. Lawrence overtook them on the pretext of pointing out +some special beauty of the design of the gardens, or of the fine view +that could be obtained from the high position of the terraces, and the +next moment he had plunged somewhat ruthlessly into the absorbing topic +of Mrs. Ogilvie's sudden death. +</P> + +<P> +'We were all shocked by it,' he said, emphasizing his words in his +gushing way; 'and of course to our little circle,' he said, turning to +Mr. Semple in an explanatory manner, 'it is more particularly painful +and distressing, because Sir John and Lady Falconer had only just +renewed a very old acquaintance with the deceased lady.' +</P> + +<P> +'We knew Mrs. Ogilvie very well in Spain,' said Lady Falconer in her +charming voice, still confining her remarks to Mr. Semple. +</P> + +<P> +'Ah!' said the lawyer, 'you knew her in Spain?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Lady Falconer, 'and it was one of those friendships which I +believe it was intended on both sides should be renewed when we should +return to England; for, on my own and on my husband's part, it was a +matter of real liking. But we have been on foreign service ever since +we were married, and I never met Mrs. Ogilvie again till she drove over +to the races at Sedgwick.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Semple detached himself and his companion from the little group +which Mr. Lawrence was showing round with so much assiduity, and, as +they paced the broad walks of the terrace together, he said to her, +with an air of frank confidence, 'You were with her, perhaps, before +her elder child died?' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Lady Falconer, 'and rather strangely I never knew till the +other day that Mrs. Ogilvie had lost a child. There was only one boy +with her when we knew her at Juarez; and, although she was in deep +mourning at the time, we knew, of course, that she was in the first +year of her widowhood. But we had no idea, as I was telling Mrs. +Wrottesley the other day, that Mrs. Ogilvie had suffered a double loss.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Semple led the way through the orchid-house and stopped to examine +some of the blooms with absorbed attention. 'It is very chilly,' he +said, as he stepped out into the cold air after that of the hot +greenhouse; 'I hope you will not catch cold.' He locked his hands +lightly behind his back as he walked, and continued to talk to the +companion by his side. 'I wonder,' he said, 'if you could tell me +exactly the year and the month when you first met Mrs. Ogilvie? There +are various formalities to be gone through, in connection with Captain +Ogilvie's accession to the property, which necessitate hunting up +family records, and these have been very badly kept in the Ogilvie +family. Also, may I say this to you in confidence? There was an idea +in many people's minds that, about the time of Colonel Ogilvie's death +and the early infancy of the second son, Peter, Mrs. Ogilvie's mind was +slightly unhinged for a time. It may not have been so, but one cannot +help wondering if the concealment which she has used to keep from her +family the knowledge of the existence of this disease from which she +has died may not have been something like a return of an old mental +malady.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Falconer looked genuinely distressed, and protested that certainly +when she knew Mrs. Ogilvie she was in all respects the most sane as +well as one of the most charming of women. 'And as for giving you +dates,' she said pleasantly, 'that is very easily done, for it was in +the year and the month of my marriage that I first met her.' +</P> + +<P> +'That would be?' said Mr. Semple, unlocking his clasped hands and +touching his fingers together in the characteristic manner of the +confidential lawyer. +</P> + +<P> +'That was in December 1885,' she said. +</P> + +<P> +'Ah!' said Mr. Semple contemplatively, 'then it must have been after +little Edward Ogilvie's death, of course.' +</P> + +<P> +'I cannot tell you,' said Lady Falconer, 'because, as I say, Mrs. +Ogilvie never spoke of her loss. Perhaps that does not seem to you +very remarkable, as we only met her in a most casual manner in an +out-of-the-way village in Spain; but we really were on terms of some +intimacy together, and one can only explain her silence by the fact, +which seems to be pretty generally known, that she was a woman of quite +unusual reserve.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Mr. Semple; 'I believe no one ever knew Mrs. Ogilvie very +well.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lawrence called to them from behind to suggest that the new row of +greenhouses was an immense improvement, and that they had cost over a +thousand pounds to build. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Falconer politely turned to look back, and then found herself +rather determinedly appropriated by the lawyer. +</P> + +<P> +'I always understood,' he said, 'that Mrs. Ogilvie travelled +considerably in Spain; and, of course, in those days when railways were +fewer, this was considered rather unusual, especially for a lady +travelling with no gentleman with her. How courageous she was!' +</P> + +<P> +'Much more courageous than I was even with my husband with me!' said +Lady Falconer. 'Mrs. Ogilvie had been in quite out-of-the-way parts of +the country; but she spoke the language perfectly, and I believe I used +to hear that she had Spanish blood in her veins.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes; she had property at Granada, and beyond where the railway now +extends, in some of the more southern provinces,' hazarded Mr. Semple. +</P> + +<P> +'I think if I remember aright,' said Lady Falconer, 'that she had just +returned from Cintra when I met her.' +</P> + +<P> +'I have always heard that Cintra is a most lovely place,' said Mr. +Semple conversationally; 'and Mrs. Ogilvie had a peculiar love for +beautiful things.' +</P> + +<P> +'Cintra is beautiful, and Lisbon itself is a particularly fine town,' +assented Lady Falconer. +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs. Ogilvie was not there when you knew her?' +</P> + +<P> +Lawyers are inquisitive by profession, and Mr. Semple made his +inquiries with easy tact; his manner was kind and pleasant, and +betrayed so much real feeling for his clients that Lady Falconer was +tempted to continue the subject of conversation in which he seemed so +deeply interested. +</P> + +<P> +'I wish,' she said cordially, 'that I could remember more details that +might be of interest or of use to you. My husband and I have spent a +most varied life, in which many interesting experiences have, alas! +been almost forgotten; but we were both considerably impressed by Mrs. +Ogilvie's vivid personality and her very real charm. These made much +more impression on me than anything that she told us about her +journeys. She was fond of travelling by sea, I remember, and I +perfectly well recollect her telling my husband and me that she had +come by ship to Lisbon when she first came to travel in Spain for her +health.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I remember hearing that,' said Mr. Semple. 'Indeed, I believe +that we took her passage for her, and in going over her papers the +other day we came across two letters which she had written home from +the ship.' +</P> + +<P> +'Talking of that,' said Lady Falconer, 'I wonder if the maid who was +with her during the time I was there could be of service to you? I +often think a maid must know her mistress with even a greater degree of +intimacy than many of her friends, and I remember it was a particularly +nice Spanish woman whose services she lent me when I was ill.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Semple would like to know if Lady Falconer remembered whether the +woman had come out from England with Mrs. Ogilvie. +</P> + +<P> +'I am afraid I cannot,' said Lady Falconer. 'But stop! Yes, I can. +The maid who came out from England with Mrs. Ogilvie left her because +she objected to the sea-voyage. It seems that the poor thing was so +ill that she never appeared the whole time, and as soon as the ship +touched port she went straight back to England by land. I remember it +quite well now, because that was a particularly stormy winter, with +dreadful gales; and when my illness was at its worst it was another +very stormy night, and this Spanish woman whom I mentioned just now +told me the story, and was evidently full of sympathy for the English +maid. She enlivened the whole of her watch during the night by +lamentations over the danger of sea-voyages, interspersed with prayers +to the Virgin. I shall never forget how it blew! The house shook with +the violence of the gale, and this Spanish woman sat by my bed and told +me stories of shipwreck and of bodies washed up on the beach. Mrs. +Ogilvie, I understand, had but lately parted with friends. Ah, I see +now! I do not speak Spanish well, and I remember I had an idea at the +time that this parting which the woman spoke of had something to do +with friends who had left her. But, of course, what the Spanish woman +must really have meant was that Mrs. Ogilvie had lately suffered a +bereavement.' +</P> + +<P> +'It is strange, then, is it not,' said the lawyer, 'that you should +connect this parting in your own mind with the storm that was raging on +the night of which you spoke?' +</P> + +<P> +'That doesn't seem to me very strange,' said Lady Falconer, 'because, +as I have said, I know so little Spanish. And yet I have an idea that +this very emotional serving-woman seemed to predict some horrible +catastrophe to the travellers.' +</P> + +<P> +'How little self-control some of these people have!' commented Mr. +Semple. 'I always wonder how it is that ladies choose foreign women to +be their personal attendants. I suppose you don't happen to know if +this maid remained long with Mrs. Ogilvie?' +</P> + +<P> +'I do not indeed,' said Lady Falconer; 'but I am under the impression +that Mrs. Ogilvie changed her maids frequently. This will coincide +with your view that she was in a nervous, uncontrolled condition at the +time, although in other respects I cannot honestly say that I ever +noticed the least sign of an unhinged mind. One thought that she was +too much alone; but, of course, her loss was a very recent one, and +everybody knows that in grief there often comes a desire for solitude.' +</P> + +<P> +'It was sad, therefore,' said Mr. Semple, 'that these friends of hers +should be leaving her just then. Mrs. Ogilvie would have been all the +better for having a few intimates about her. It would be useful if you +could remember their names.' +</P> + +<P> +'I do not even know that they were friends,' protested Lady Falconer; +'and, as I told you, the Spanish maid may well have been alluding to a +recent death. But indeed the incident made very little impression on +my mind; even if I were able to give you information about these +unknown friends I do not know how it could in any way help you to solve +the sad question of her mental state at the time.' +</P> + +<P> +'You think these friends of hers whom you speak of would not be able to +do so either?' +</P> + +<P> +'Ah!' cried Lady Falconer, 'you are accepting my vague recollections +almost as if they were legal evidence, whereas I really cannot tell you +whether the Spanish maid alluded to friends or to the death of Mrs. +Ogilvie's husband and her little boy. I can only say that the +impression that remains with me is that Mrs. Ogilvie had been seeing +some friends off on a voyage.' +</P> + +<P> +'It would be important to know who those friends were,' said Mr. Semple. +</P> + +<P> +'I wish I could help you!' said Lady Falconer. +</P> + +<P> +They made a longer <I>détour</I> in the gardens than Lady Falconer would +have cared to make had she not been interested in the man by her side, +whose inquisitiveness was based upon friendship, and whose most +persistent interrogations had been touched with a quiet and sober tact +which contrasted pleasantly with Mr. Lawrence's dictatorial manner. +That genial and rubicund person was now seen approaching with Sir John, +and suggested that they 'ought to draw Peter for tea.' +</P> + +<P> +Lady Falconer declined the refreshment with considerable emphasis. +This visit to the closed house so recently shadowed by death seemed to +her in doubtful taste, and she would now have preferred to return home; +but Peter had seen them from the house, and being the least churlish of +men he came out on to the terrace and invited the party to come in. He +disliked Mr. Lawrence as much as it was in his uncritical nature to +dislike any one; but it is more than possible that he would have +resented a word said in his disfavour. 'Lawrence is a good fellow,' he +used to say charitably, 'only he is so beastly domestic.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lawrence's conversation was indeed principally of the intimate +order of things, and was concerned with details of births, deaths, and +marriages, such as the feminine rather than the male mind is more +generally supposed to indulge in. He drank several cups of tea, and +was deeply interested in the fact that the tea-service was not the one +in common use at Bowshott, and that, therefore, probably the bulk of +the silver had been sent to the bank. He would have liked to make a +tour of the rooms to see if there were any other changes noticeable +anywhere, and he more than once remarked to his friends as they drove +home in the motor-car that he could not understand why the +drawing-rooms were swathed in brown holland unless Peter meant to go +away again. If so, when was the marriage to be? Why should it be +postponed for more than a brief period of mourning? And why did the +rooms which he had seen through the windows wear such a shut-up and +dismantled appearance? He found food for speculation during the whole +afternoon call, and in his inquisitive way gave his mind to finding out +as much as possible about his neighbour's doings. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Falconer sat by the fire of logs, while Mr. Lawrence's garrulous +conversation went on uninterruptedly. Peter found her quiet manner +attractive, and began to feel grateful to Mr. Lawrence for his +intrusiveness, without which he would not have enjoyed a conversation +with this pleasant, gentle-mannered woman seated thoughtfully by the +fire. +</P> + +<P> +'May I ask a favour?' said Mr. Lawrence gushingly, laying his hand upon +Peter's shoulder. 'I want awfully to see that new heating apparatus +you have had put in downstairs. I was recommending it the other day to +Carstairs; but I want to know something more about it, and then I shall +be able to explain it better. How much coal, for instance, do you find +it consumes?' +</P> + +<P> +When the two had sought the lower regions Mr. Semple took Peter's +vacant chair by the fire. Lady Falconer held her muff between her and +the blaze, and her face was in shadow. The lawyer said briefly, 'We +are in great perplexity, and I think you can help us, and I feel +sure'—he looked at her with admiration—'that whatever I say to you +will be received in confidence.' +</P> + +<P> +'It shall be in confidence,' said Lady Falconer. +</P> + +<P> +'At the same time,' said Mr. Semple, 'I must tell you that I mean to +ask you a great many questions, and tell you very little in return—at +least for the present. In the first place, it is all-important that we +should know when Mrs. Ogilvie's elder boy died.' +</P> + +<P> +'And I,' said Lady Falconer hopelessly, 'did not even know until the +other day that she had had another boy.' +</P> + +<P> +'And yet,' said the lawyer, 'however slight the chain of evidence is, +we must follow it closely. You are probably the person who saw Mrs. +Ogilvie first after the death of the child.' +</P> + +<P> +'That I can hardly believe,' protested Lady Falconer. 'It seems to me +that, however reserved a woman might be, she would still let another +woman know about so intimate a trouble.' +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs. Ogilvie was a very unusual woman,' said Mr. Semple. +</P> + +<P> +'But even so——' began Lady Falconer. +</P> + +<P> +'Even so,' repeated the lawyer, 'my friend Peter and his talkative +neighbour will soon be back again, and I must examine my witness before +they return.' +</P> + +<P> +'But a witness,' exclaimed Lady Falconer, 'whose evidence is based on +the only-half-intelligible gossip of a Spanish serving-woman made +twenty-five years ago, and a week spent in an out-of-the-way +mountain-village where she was ill nearly the whole time!' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Semple waved aside protests. 'Do forgive me for bothering you,' he +said, 'and try to remember positively if there were any friends or +neighbours who came about the house of whom we could perhaps ask +tidings?' +</P> + +<P> +'I am sure there were none,' said Lady Falconer. 'The charm of the +place to Mrs. Ogilvie was, I know, its solitude, just as was its charm +for us also.' +</P> + +<P> +'No English people?' +</P> + +<P> +'None, I am quite sure.' +</P> + +<P> +'You have no idea who those friends were to whom Mrs. Ogilvie had +lately said good-bye, and who were starting on a voyage?' +</P> + +<P> +'I think,' said Lady Falconer slowly, 'it was because the storm blew so +loudly that we spoke of them; and, yes, I am sure the woman crossed +herself and prayed for those at sea.' +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated, and Mr. Semple giving her a quick glance said, 'I am +only asking for a woman's impression.' +</P> + +<P> +'And at this length of time I cannot even tell you how I came to have +this impression,' she replied, 'and yet the picture remains in my mind +that these people, whoever they were, were sailing from Lisbon. The +maid who waited upon me had evidently been engaged in Lisbon.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter and Mr. Lawrence were heard in the hall outside, and the +motor-car was at the door. +</P> + +<P> +'Thank you very much,' said the lawyer, as the door opened. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Semple left the following morning, and did not return until the end +of the week. He was a contented man, and made an excellent companion, +and Peter enjoyed seeing him again and having his companionship at +dinner on the night of his return. He was always interested in +something, and quite disposed to take a book and remain quiet when his +client was busy or disinclined for conversation. He and Peter smoked +in silence for a considerable time after the servants had left the +room, and even when an adjournment had been made to the library the +lawyer, who was possibly tired after his journey, sat quietly in a +leather armchair by the fire without saying anything. +</P> + +<P> +Peter began to talk about the small items of news of the neighbourhood. +'The Falconers have left,' he said. 'I wonder what they found to amuse +them at Lawrence's place?' +</P> + +<P> +'Lawrence himself, perhaps,' said Mr. Semple dryly. +</P> + +<P> +'But Lady Falconer does not even laugh at people,' replied Peter. 'I +thought her a very charming woman.' +</P> + +<P> +'She is a very charming woman,' replied Mr. Semple, 'and she used to +know your mother long ago in Spain.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter took his cigar out of his mouth, and turned interrogatively +towards the lawyer. 'I don't suppose she was able to tell you +anything?' he said, with a sharp note of interest in his voice. +</P> + +<P> +'She was able to tell me nothing,' said Mr. Semple, 'except a woman's +impression of a conversation she had with a Spanish serving-woman.' +</P> + +<P> +'I should like to hear all she had to say,' said Peter briefly. +</P> + +<P> +'Ships sailing for Argentine stop at Lisbon and take up passengers +there,' said Mr. Semple. 'I have been to Lisbon since I last saw you. +Mrs. Ogilvie paid the passage-money for a married couple and a child +who sailed from that place in December of the year in which your +brother is said to have died.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<P> +'I think I 'll go over and see Toffy,' said Peter to himself one day in +the following week. Mr. Semple had been down to Bowshott again, +bringing a mass of correspondence with him, and had left that morning. +Nigel Christopherson was ill at Hulworth with one of his usual +appalling colds, which brought him as nearly as possible to the grave +every time they attacked him. Peter once again read through the +letters and papers which he and the family lawyer had pored over until +the small hours of this morning, and then he ordered his horse and rode +over to see his friend. +</P> + +<P> +No one ever arrived at Hulworth without remarking on the almost +grotesque ugliness of the house. It was a flat-faced, barrack-like +residence, with a stuccoed front and rows of ill-designed windows. A +grim-looking flight of stone stairs with iron railings led to the front +door, and beyond that were large and hideous rooms filled with +treasures of art incongruously hung on lamentable wall-papers or +pendent over pieces of furniture which would have made a connoisseur's +eyes ache. The house and its furnishings were a strange mixture; the +owner of the grim pile, be it said, had a mind which presented a blank +to the dictates of art, and it puzzled him sorely to determine which of +his possessions was beautiful and which was not. He had heard people +become enthusiastic over his pictures, which he thought hideous, while +they had frankly abused his furniture, which he was inclined to think +was everything that was desirable. +</P> + +<P> +'There 's only one way,' he used to say hopelessly, 'in which a fellow +can know whether a thing is ugly or the reverse, and that is by fixing +a price to it. If only some one would be kind enough to stick on a lot +of labels telling me what the things are worth I should know what to +admire and what to shudder at; but, as it is, the things which I +personally like are always the things which other people abuse.' +</P> + +<P> +And, alas for Sir Nigel and his lightly held treasures of art! his +pictures and the vases ranged in great glass cases in the hall were +heirlooms, and Toffy in his most impecunious days would often look at +them sadly and shake his head, murmuring to himself, 'I 'd take five +hundred pounds for the lot, and be glad to get rid of them.' There +were days when in a gentle, philosophical way he felt a positive sense +of injury in thinking of the vases behind the big glass doors, and he +would then go into intricate and complicated sums in arithmetic whereby +he could tell what it cost him per annum to look at the contents of the +cases and the old portraits in their dim frames. +</P> + +<P> +This afternoon he was lying on a florid and uncomfortable-looking sofa +in a very large drawing-room, in front of a fireplace of white marble +in scroll patterns and with a fender of polished steel. It was +probably the ugliest as well as the least comfortable room in the +house, but it happened to be the only one in which there was a good +fire that afternoon; and Toffy, descending from his bedroom, weak and +ill with influenza, had come in there at two o'clock, and was now lying +down with a railway-rug placed across his feet, and his head +uncomfortably supported by a hard roller-cushion and an ornamentation +in mahogany which gracefully finished off the pattern of the +sofa-frame. Many men when they are ill take the precaution of making +their wills; Sir Nigel's preparation for a possible early demise always +took the form of elaborately and sadly adding up his accounts. He had +a large ledger beside him on the sofa, and slips of paper covered with +intricate figures which neither he nor any one else could decipher. +</P> + +<P> +His faithful valet Hopwood had been dispatched to London in order to +learn chauffeur's work; for Toffy had decided, after working the matter +out to a fraction, that a considerable saving could be effected in this +way. His debts to the garage were being duly entered amongst Toffy's +liabilities at this moment as he lay on the sofa in the vast cold +drawing-room. +</P> + +<P> +The drawing-room was not often used now. But it was the custom of his +housekeeper to air the rooms once a week; and, this being Wednesday, +she had lighted a fire there, while Lydia, a young housemaid and +general factotum, had allowed all other fires to go out. There was a +palpable sense of chilliness about the room, and in one corner of it +the green-and-gold wall-paper showed stains of damp. Long gilded +mirrors between tall windows occupied one side of the room, and had +marble shelves beneath them upon which were placed ornate Bohemian +glass vases and ormolu clocks and candlesticks. Some uncovered and +highly polished mahogany tables imparted a hard and somewhat undraped +look to the apartment. The windows, with their aching lines of +plate-glass, were draped with rep curtains of vivid green, while the +floor was covered with an Aubusson carpet exquisite in its colour and +design. And between the green woollen bell-ropes on each side of the +fireplace and above the cold hideousness of the marble mantelpiece hung +a portrait by Romney of a lady as beautiful as a flower. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Nigel had endeavoured to eat for lunch part of a chicken which his +housekeeper had warmed up with a little grey sauce; and he was now +wondering as he lay on the sofa whether any one would come if he were +to tug at the green bell-rope over his head, or whether he could make +his own way upstairs to his bedroom and get some fresh +pocket-handkerchiefs. He had had a temperature for the greater part of +the week, and he was now feeling as if his legs did not altogether +belong to him; while, to make up for their feebleness and lightness, +his head was most insistently there, and felt horribly hot and heavy. +</P> + +<P> +He had just decided that he had better mount the long stairs to his +room, for not only was there the consideration of handkerchiefs; there +was medicine too which the doctor had told him to take, but which he +always forgot at the right moment. He thought the journey had better +be made now, and he could do the two things at one and the same time. +He walked with uneven steps to the window and looked out upon some +stretches of field which were euphemistically termed the Park, and +watched a flock of sheep huddled together to protect themselves from +the first sharp touch of frost, when he heard the sound of hoofs and +saw Peter ride up to the door. +</P> + +<P> +'It's an extraordinary thing,' he said to himself as he saw his friend +dismount, 'Peter always seems to come when you want him. I believe he +has got some sort of instinct which tells him when his friends are down +on their luck!' +</P> + +<P> +Peter would, of course, fetch the medicine from upstairs, and the +pocket-handkerchiefs. Toffy wondered if he had ever felt ill in his +life, and thought to himself, gazing without envy at the neat, athletic +figure on the horse, what a good fellow he was. He crept back to the +sofa again, and extending his thin hand to Peter as he entered, said, +'You see here the wreck of my former self! Sit down, Peter, and ring +for tea; there isn't the smallest chance of your getting any!' +</P> + +<P> +'Why didn't you come to Bowshott, you ass, if you are ill?' said Peter +sternly. 'You will kill yourself some day coming down to this +half-warmed barn in the winter-time.' +</P> + +<P> +'It isn't half warmed,' said Toffy. 'I wish it were! This room is all +right, isn't it? I aired another sofa by sleeping on it last night.' +</P> + +<P> +'What on earth for?' demanded Peter, still in a tone of remonstrance. +Toffy had been his fag at Eton, and Peter had got into the habit of +taking care of him. He knew his friend's constitution better than most +people did, and he expended much affection upon him, and endeavoured +without any success to make him take care of himself. 'Why didn't you +sleep in your bed like a Christian?' he demanded sternly. 'You will +kill yourself if you go on playing the fool with your health!' +</P> + +<P> +'The sheets seemed a bit damp in my bed, I thought,' said Toffy simply. +</P> + +<P> +'Then why didn't your idiot of a housekeeper air them?' +</P> + +<P> +'The duty of airing sheets is invested in the person of one Lydia, the +niece of the above-mentioned housekeeper,' said Toffy. 'I asked her in +the morning if my sheets had been aired, and she said that they had +not. She further explained that she had taken the precaution of +feeling them, and that they had not seemed very wet!' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, hang Mrs. Avory!' said Peter inwardly. 'Why has not Toffy got a +good wife to look after him? Look here,' he said decisively, 'I am +going to sleep over here to-night, and see that you go to bed, and I'm +going to get your sheets now and warm 'em.' +</P> + +<P> +'You 'll get a beastly dinner if you stay,' said Toffy through his nose. +</P> + +<P> +Peter brought the sheets down in a bundle, and placing a row of hideous +walnut-wood chairs with their legs in the fender, he proceeded to tinge +the fine linen sheets a deep brown. +</P> + +<P> +'They are warmed through,' he said grimly, when the smell of scorched +linen became intrusive. +</P> + +<P> +Peter made tea in the drawing-room and spilt a good deal of boiling +water on the steel fender, and then he drew the green rep curtains +across the cold windows, and made up a roaring fire, and pulled a +screen round the sofa. He fetched his friend's forgotten medicine from +his bedroom and administered it, and told him with a lame attempt at +jocosity that he should have a penny if he took it like a lamb! Peter +was full of small jokes this afternoon, and full, too, of a certain +restlessness which had not expended itself when he had warmed sheets +and made up fires and brewed tea to the destruction of the Hulworth +steel fenders. He talked cheerfully on a dozen topics of conversation +current in the neighbourhood, and on Toffy's invitation he sent a +servant over to Bowshott to give notice that he would stay the night, +and to bring back his things. +</P> + +<P> +'I have been doing up my accounts,' said Toffy, 'and I believe the +saddest book I ever read is my bank-book! A man has been down from the +British Museum to look at those vases in the hall, and he says that one +of them alone is worth four thousands pounds!—four thousand pounds, +Peter! for a vase that's eating its head off in a glass case, and might +be broken any day by a housemaid, while I perish with hunger!' +</P> + +<P> +'If it's money,' began Peter easily, 'you 're an idiot if you don't let +me know what you want.' +</P> + +<P> +And then the whole realization of his uncertain position smote him +sharply and cruelly for a moment as he remembered that he did not know +how he stood with the world as regards money, and that probably he was +not in the position to lend a five-pound note to any one. He had +accumulated through sheer laziness a certain number of large debts, the +payment of which had never troubled himself or his creditors, who were +only too glad to keep his name on their books; but now it seemed that +if he were to have merely a younger son's portion he might even find +himself in debt to his brother's estate. He had gone thoroughly with +the lawyer into the will of his father, and found that everything which +it was possible to tie up on the elder son had been willed to him. His +own share of the patrimony if his brother were still alive would be but +a small one. +</P> + +<P> +He got up from his chair and walked to the window, and pulling aside +the curtain looked out on the frosty garden. +</P> + +<P> +'It's going to be a bitter cold night,' he said. 'I think I will just +look in at your room again, and see if they have made up the fire +properly.' +</P> + +<P> +He returned to the drawing-room and took up two or three newspapers in +turn and laid them down again, while Toffy watched him gravely. +</P> + +<P> +'I 've had a bit of a jar lately,' he said at last, taking up his stand +with his back to the fire near the sofa. +</P> + +<P> +'Have some dinner first,' said Toffy, 'and then we 'll go into the +matter, as I always do with my creditors. You see, if one has a cook +like Mrs. Cosby, there is an element of chance in the matter of getting +dinner at all; and another thing is it may be so bad you won't survive +it; so it's not much use being miserable before dinner, is it, when +perhaps you may be buried comfortably and respectably afterwards?' +</P> + +<P> +The presence of Lydia, who listened open-mouthed to all that was said, +made conversation impossible, until at last, in an ecstasy of +importance at having broken a dessert dish, she placed the wine upon +the table and withdrew. Toffy carried the decanters into the +drawing-room, where he believed he and Peter would be more comfortable, +and having placed them on the table by the fire he congratulated his +friend that they had both survived the ordeal of dinner, and then he +suggested that Peter should tell him what was up. +</P> + +<P> +'Rather a beastly thing has happened,' said Peter. He rose from the +chair where he was sitting and went and stood by the marble +mantelpiece. The black tie which he wore seemed to accentuate his +fairness, and it was a boyish, unheroic figure which leaned against the +whiteness of the marble mantelpiece as he began his puzzling tale. It +did not take very long in the telling, and until he had finished Toffy +did not speak. Indeed, there was silence for some time in the room +after Peter had done, and then, there being no necessity for much +speech or protestation between the two, Toffy said merely, 'What are +you going to do?' +</P> + +<P> +'I am going to the Argentine next week,' said Peter. 'It seems proved +beyond any manner of doubt that my mother paid the passage of a woman +and a little boy to go there in the very month and in the year that my +brother was supposed to have died, and Cintra or Lisbon are the last +places where there is even the vaguest evidence of her having been seen +with two boys.' +</P> + +<P> +Toffy lay on the sofa thinking, his arm thrown above his head in the +attitude that was characteristic of him during the many weeks of +illness that he usually had in the year. +</P> + +<P> +'I can't think why,' he said, 'you should go yourself. There must be +plenty of lawyers in Buenos Ayres who would undertake to see the thing +through for you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, come,' said Peter, 'if my brother has been done out of the place +for twenty-five years, and if he is a good chap, and all that, I +suppose the least one could do would be to try and look as if one +didn't grudge giving him back his own.' +</P> + +<P> +Probably there is an element of fairness about English men and women +which obtrudes itself from time to time to their disadvantage; and +Peter already found himself occupying, in his own mind at least, the +position of the younger son. +</P> + +<P> +'We will brave the terrors of the vasty deep together,' said Toffy; +'it's no use your going alone.' +</P> + +<P> +'You ain't up to it,' said Peter gruffly, 'thanks all the same, old +chap.' +</P> + +<P> +'I must fly somewhere,' said Toffy, 'it doesn't much matter where.' +</P> + +<P> +'Has the usual acute financial crisis come?' Peter said, looking +affectionately at the long, thin figure on the sofa. 'You can't the +least deceive me into thinking you had better go into Argentine to hunt +for a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. It isn't good +enough!' +</P> + +<P> +'I shall have to get a lot of boots,' said Toffy thoughtfully; 'it +seems the right sort of thing to do when one is starting on an +expedition, and I would rather like to get some of those knives that +fellows seem to buy when they go out to South America.' +</P> + +<P> +'You see,' objected Peter, allowing the question of boots and +hunting-knives to lapse, 'the place is right enough, I have no doubt, +but it's pretty big, and I don't a bit know what is in front of me. I +'ll tell you what I will do, though, I 'll send for you as soon as I +get there if I find it's a white man's country at all, and then we will +jog round together.' +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose we couldn't go in a yacht?' said Toffy, inspired with a +sudden suggestion, and sitting up on the sofa full of grave interest. +'There 'd be much less chance of being copped on the pier than if one +travelled on a liner. Another thing, I 'm not at all sure that a yacht +wouldn't be a good investment; it really is the only way to live +economically and keep out of the reach of duns at the same time. A +nice little eighty-tonner now, for instance, with Just two or three +hands and a boy on board. What could be cheaper than that? And you +could live the simple life to any extent that you liked! But of course +something larger would be wanted for Argentine, and she couldn't be +fitted out in time. No, Peter, I think I 'll risk having the heavy +hand of the law laid upon me at starting, and we 'll just have to lump +it and go in a mail steamer.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter laughed. 'My bold buccaneer!' he said. +</P> + +<P> +They sat silent for a time in the drawing-room with its crude colours +and priceless china, while the big fire in the burnished steel grate +roared with a jolly sound up the big chimney, and the air was frosty +and cold outside. The room despite its hideousness was full of +pleasant recollections to them both, for when Hulworth was not let +Toffy had often assembled bachelor parties there, and it had always +been a second home to Peter, where he had been wont to keep a couple of +guns and some of his 'things.' +</P> + +<P> +The actual journey to Argentine was not a matter demanding any courage +on the part of either of the young men, but the result of the journey +might have a grave effect on the fortune of Peter Ogilvie. Tomorrow +was to have been his wedding-day; and this fact being persistently +present to both men, they left the subject to the last. It was with an +effort that Peter said, before they parted for the night, 'Whatever +happens, we mean to try to be married when I come back. Jane is +awfully plucky about it, but this confounded Court of Chancery does not +seem to regard me with much favour at present.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's only for a year,' said Toffy hopefully. 'Let's make a solemn +covenant that we shall meet in this very room on the 25th of October +1911, with the wedding-day fixed for to-morrow again.' +</P> + +<P> +'Where is your Bible?' said Peter. 'If you haven't one in your pocket +or under your pillow, will it do if I kiss your account-book?' +</P> + +<P> +'The whole thing can be just as we intended it to be,' said Toffy +cheerfully. 'And this time next year Jane will be staying with Miss +Abingdon, and old Wrot will be ironing out his surplice—at least Mrs. +Wrot will, and he 'll look on and think he 's doing it. And I 'll be +here, probably with a cold in my head as usual, and thereto I plight +thee my troth!' +</P> + +<P> +He fingered in his pocket the wedding-ring which Peter had given him +for safe custody, and the care of which had seriously disturbed his +slumbers at night. 'I 'll keep the ring until then, Peter, and place +it on the third finger of Jane's left hand. No, no, you do that, by +the way; and I shall have to wait until I get a wife of my own.' +</P> + +<P> +'Here 's to her good health!' said Peter. And they endeavoured to be +lively, as befits the subject of weddings; but Peter was thinking that +perhaps his own wedding-day might be five years hence, and however they +might plan that it should be the same as they had first intended, it +was a long time to wait. And Toffy was wondering how long Horace Avory +meant to live, and if Carrie would mind very much his going to +Argentine, and whether she would write him one of those long +tear-blistered letters in her indistinct handwriting, which he found so +hard to read, and, suppose Horace Avory never died (as seemed quite +likely), what would be the end of it all? Also, he wondered whether +Carrie and Miss Sherard would get on well together if they were to +meet, and he hoped with manly stupidity that they might be friends. +But what he wondered more than anything else at present was whether +Kitty Sherard would allow him to go and say good-bye to her. Toffy was +feeling ill, and his vitality was low; in his weakness he thought with +an insistence that was almost homesick in its intensity how beautiful +it would be to see her in this ugly old house of his, in one of her +rose-coloured gowns, and with her brown curls and her hopelessly +baffling and bewildering manner of speech. +</P> + +<P> +And each of the two young men, being absorbed in quite other subjects, +talked cheerfully of the voyage, and speculated on what sort of sport +they might incidentally get; and they discussed much more seriously the +fishing flies and guns they should take with them than the possible +finding of Peter's brother or Peter's own change of fortune. +</P> + +<P> +Lydia, listening at the door before she went to bed, for no particular +reason except that her aunt had forbidden it, decided that her master +and Captain Ogilvie were planning a sporting expedition +together—'which means dullness and aunt for me for a few months to +come,' said Lydia, with a sniff. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<P> +So Peter went to London to collect his kit and to say good-bye to Jane +Erskine, and Nigel Christopherson ordered a great many new boots of +various designs, and some warlike weapons, and then there came the time +when he had to write to Mrs. Avory to say that he was going away, and +when in the solitude of his life at Hulworth he had time to sit down +and wonder what she would think about it. He was not long left in +doubt. A telegram came first, and then a letter. 'Dearest, dearest,' +this ran, 'I cannot let you go away.' It was a horribly compromising +letter, but it came from a poor little woman who had fought long odds, +and who was often very tired, and who sat for the greater part of the +day making blouses for which she was seldom paid. Mrs. Avory was not a +strong woman, nor in any way a great-minded woman, but she was one who, +in spite of weakness and a good deal of silliness, clung almost +fiercely to the fact that she must be good, and who kept faithfully the +promises she had made to a wholly unworthy person in the village church +at home twelve years ago. Every word of the letter was an appeal to +her dear, dear Nigel to stay in England and not leave her alone. She +had so few friends and so little to look forward to except his Sunday +visits. And then this poor tear-blotched letter which was neither very +grammatical nor legibly written changed its tone suddenly, and Mrs. +Avory said that perhaps it was better that he should go. Everything +was very difficult, and it seemed that although his society was the one +thing that she loved in the world, perhaps the fact of seeing him made +things almost more difficult. Her husband, she heard, had been +watching her movements lately; they said he wanted to marry some one +else, so really and truly Nigel had better go, and if possible forget +all about her for ever. +</P> + +<P> +Toffy finished reading the letter and groaned. 'Was she never to have +a good time!' he wondered, thinking of the dull room and the +half-finished blouses upon the table, the economical gas jets in the +fireplace in lieu of the glow of a bright fire, and the dingy paper on +the walls. The whole thing was too hard on her, he thought, and +everything in the world seemed to be against her. +</P> + +<P> +Long ago, when he was little more than a boy, he had met Horace Avory +and his wife in an out-of-the-way fishing village in Wales. Avory's +treatment of the small timid woman had roused pity and resentment in +Toffy's mind. A student of character would have seen directly that a +woman with more power and strength of mind—a woman with a bit of the +bully in herself—who could have taken the upper hand with the big +red-faced tyrant, might have made a very fairly good imitation of a +gentleman, and perhaps even of a good husband, of Avory. But his +wife—timid, and all too gentle—could only wince under the things he +said, or let her big eyes suddenly brim over with tears. Toffy began +to writhe under the cruel speeches which Avory made to her; he never +saw for an instant that there was a fault anywhere save with the +husband. She was one of those women who invariably inspire sweeping +and contradictory criticisms on the whole of her sex, one man finding +in her a proof that all women are angels, and the next discovering as +certainly that all women are fools. +</P> + +<P> +Presently Avory left the fishing village on the plea of business and +went back to London, leaving his wife and child in the little hotel by +the sea. There had followed a whole beautiful sunlit month of peace +and quiet for Mrs. Avory, while her little girl played on the sands and +she worked and read, or walked and fished with Nigel, and the colour +came back to her cheeks, and the vague look of terror left her eyes. +And Toffy determined that Mrs. Avory should have a good time for once. +</P> + +<P> +The years between boyhood and manhood had been bridged over by a sense +that some one needed his care, and that he was a protection to a little +woman who was weak and unhappy. And, whether it was love or not, the +thing was honourable and straightforward as an English boy can make it. +And then one night by the late post had come a letter from Horace Avory +of a kind particularly calculated to wound. Mrs. Avory brought it to +Toffy to read out on the sands; and she broke down suddenly and sobbed +as though her heart would break; and Toffy to comfort her had told her +that he loved her, and meant every word he said, and asked what on +earth he could do for her, and said that she must really try not to cry +or it would make her ill. He put his arm round the trembling +form,—and Mrs. Avory took his hand in hers and clung to it; and then, +comforted, she had dried her eyes at last, and gone back to the little +hotel again. Toffy saw the whole scene quite plainly before him now. +The little whitewashed inn with the hill behind it, the moonlit water +of the bay, and the tide coming rolling in across the wet sands. When +they met on the following day he told her with boyish chivalry that he +would wait for her for years if need were, and that some day they +should be happy together. +</P> + +<P> +That had all happened long ago now, and during the years between they +had hoped quite openly and candidly that it would all come right some +day, although hardly saying even to themselves that the coming right +was dependent upon Horace Avory's death. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile Mrs. Avory worked hard at her unremunerative tasks, and +trimmed parasols and cut out blouses, and worked hopefully, because she +knew that it would all come right some day, and because Nigel had said +that he loved her. And Nigel wrote regularly to her, and always went +to see her on Sunday when he was in London. And every night of his +life of late he had dreamed of a girl dressed in rose colour, who had +given him her photograph to put on his writing-table. +</P> + +<P> +He read Mrs. Avory's letter again (she wrote probably the worst hand in +Christendom), and when he had spelt the ill-formed words once more, he +discovered that the blotched and scrawled writing contained a +postscript which he had not at first noticed. 'After all, you had +better not come here,' it said, 'but I will run down and see you +to-morrow. It is far the best and wisest plan, and I must say +good-bye. Please expect me by the three o'clock train.' The letter, +as usual, had not been posted in time to reach him in the morning, and +Toffy realized almost with a sense of disaster that to-morrow was now +to-day, and that it was too late to write and expostulate or to suggest +to Mrs. Avory how unwise her visit would be. There was nothing for it +but to order the motor-car and go to the station to meet her, and +afterwards to give her tea in the library, and say to her all the +comforting and consoling things he could think of. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Avory appeared more than usually worn and thin this afternoon; and +her eyes, so ready to brim with tears, looked pathetically large in her +sallow little face. She had been sitting up late for many nights to +finish her work, and there had been 'bothers' in her little household +which she took to heart and worried over. Her dress looked worn and +shabby, and her gloves were darned. The nervousness in her manner was +increased by ill-health, and she reiterated that she knew she had done +the best thing in running down here quietly for an hour, and that she +had quite meant to bring her child and the governess; but Dorothy had +not been well, and she did not like either to bring her or to leave her +alone. +</P> + +<P> +'I didn't know until the last minute that they couldn't come,' she +reiterated nervously. Perhaps—who knows?—even she, poor soul, was +dimly conscious that she had done a not very wise deed. But Toffy was +all that was comforting and tender towards her, told her without +flinching that of course she had done the right thing, and that it was +awfully plucky of her to have come. He took off the damp tweed cape +which she wore and led her to the fire. They had tea together in the +big cold drawing-room, and then came the time to say good-bye, and Mrs. +Avory pleaded to walk to the station for the sake of one last talk +together, and her watch—which never kept scrupulous time—deceiving +her as to the hour, she missed the last train at the little branch +station at Hulworth, and then wondered tearfully, and with an access of +nervousness which rendered her almost hysterical, what she should do. +</P> + +<P> +Toffy had a Bradshaw twelve months old which he promised to consult if +Mrs. Avory would walk back with him across the fields again to the +house. He consoled her as best he could, and assured her that it would +be all right. And Mrs. Cosby, who was really a great woman at a +crisis, suggested suddenly and with brilliance that there was a train +from the main station ten miles off at eight o'clock, and that the +motor, if it did not break down, might take them there in half an hour. +She provided warm wraps for the lady, and Nigel found rugs for her; and +when all had been arranged, and she who got so little pleasure started +for a moonlight drive in the cold crisp air, with Nigel taking care of +her and wrapping her up warmly in rugs and furs, Mrs. Avory felt with a +sudden rush of that joy of which she had so little experience that all +had turned out happily and for the best. +</P> + +<P> +It was not Toffy's fault upon this occasion that the motor-car came to +grief. Mr. Lawrence's big Panhard ran into them when they were seven +miles from home, and Mrs. Avory was taken back to Hulworth insensible +and with a broken arm. Mr. Lawrence was himself bruised and shaken, +but he helped to take Mrs. Avory home, where the housekeeper's greeting +convinced him, if he had required convincing, that Mrs. Avory was +staying at Hulworth. He said good-night when he had done everything +that was useful and neighbourly, and had sent his chauffeur in his own +car for the doctor, and had been helpful in getting remedies and +suggesting cures. And the following day he had the pleasure of being +first with the news of Mrs. Avory's escapade. Half his friends and +neighbours heard all about it before lunch-time; his own +bruises—rather obtrusively displayed—were proof of the truth of his +story, if proof were needed. And Mr. Lawrence finished up his +well-spent morning by lunching with Miss Abingdon, and by recounting to +her in his high-pitched, gossiping voice his very latest piece of +intelligence. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't believe it,' said Miss Abingdon sharply. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes these ladies of a sterner period than ourselves say +surprisingly rude things in the most natural and simple way. +</P> + +<P> +'But it's a fact, really!' said Mr. Lawrence, with enjoyment. 'Why, +the first thing the housekeeper said to her was, "So you 're back +again!" No one had seen Toffy for ages. He said he had influenza.' +Mr. Lawrence was going to add some jocular words to the effect that +Toffy was a sly dog, but something in Miss Abingdon's face checked him, +and he murmured only that it was an awful pity. +</P> + +<P> +And then Kitty Sherard came in; she was staying with Miss Abingdon for +a few days to console her for Jane's absence. Miss Abingdon did not +quite approve of her, but, alas for the frailty of humanity, a little +lightness and amusement are sometimes lacking in our otherwise +admirable English homes, and the man or woman who can provide them is +readily forgiven and easily excused. Miss Sherard was amusing; no one +could deny it. She told her <I>risqué</I> stories with the innocent look of +a child, while her big eyes were raised almost with an air of +questioning to her bearer's face. Also she was boundlessly +affectionate, although she said such dreadful things, and in fine, +where she was there were young men gathered together. +</P> + +<P> +She came up the drive now. Canon Wrottesley's two elder sons with her +and a sailor friend of theirs, and she was smiling at them all quite +indiscriminately and doing considerable damage to their hearts without +in the least intending it. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Sherard had been shooting duck in the marshes below Bowshott, +where Peter had given her leave to shoot when she liked; and she came +towards the house now, a miniature gun over her shoulder, and clad in a +brown shooting dress, with a knot of her favourite colour under her +chin. +</P> + +<P> +There was a certain jauntiness about Kitty which became her, where in +almost any one else it might have seemed outrageous. Even Miss +Abingdon always remembered that Kitty had lost her mother when she was +four years old, and since then had been the playmate and boon companion +of a man who had been accounted fast even in the go-ahead set in which +he lived, and who had taken his daughter to every race meeting in +England since the time when she could first sit beside him on the front +seat of his coach. He had never allowed her to go to school, and he +had dismissed half a dozen governesses in turn because they were trying +to make a prim little miss of her, and because they always insisted on +pouring out tea for him as if they expected him to marry them. When +Kitty was sixteen he dismissed 'the whole bothering lot of old women' +and finished her education himself. Lord Sherard spoke French like a +native, and was one of the best riders and sportsmen of his day. He +faithfully conveyed all that he knew to his daughter, with the result +that Kitty had more knowledge of French literature than of English, and +she and her father conversed but little with each other in their native +tongue. But the result as far as Kitty was concerned was that she had +turned out a beautiful and engaging young woman with eyes that looked +frankly and charitably on the world. She loved you so much that she +nearly always had her arm linked in yours when she told her absurd +little stories; and she smiled so delightedly when you saw the joke of +them, that even when you said, 'Well, really, Kitty!' you knew quite +well that hers was a sort of innocence of daring, and you warned her +severely that she must be very careful indeed to whom she said things +like that, but that of course it didn't matter a bit as far as you +yourself were concerned, because you understood her and loved her. And +because everybody else said exactly the same sort of thing to her, and +because no one would have ventured to crush that blithe and childlike +nature by one word of real disapproval, there was not much hope that +Kitty would ever reform and become sober-minded and well-behaved and +satisfactory. The plague of it was that you couldn't help loving her +whatever she did, and she loved you too, which was perfectly +intoxicating when you came to think of it, except that you knew that +she loved at least a hundred different people in exactly the same sort +of way. She kept her real affection for her father and Jane Erskine, +and lately she had fallen in love—which is a different thing—with Sir +Nigel Christopherson. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty stamped her feet in the hall, and then drew off her gloves and +came forward to the drawing-room fire, with the big white sheepskin in +front of it; and kneeling down before the blaze she told Mr. Lawrence +and Miss Abingdon collectively that they had had very good sport in the +marshes, and that she had brought back some duck for Miss Abingdon; and +didn't everybody think it was too awfully cold, and what would their +poor hunters do if a frost came? +</P> + +<P> +Finally, having enunciated all these small remarks, Miss Kitty turned a +radiant face on their visitor, who was stretched luxuriously in a big +armchair by the fire, and bade him tell her the very latest news, for +she expected all sorts of gossip and, if possible, some scandals from +him. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Lawrence laughed delightedly; he was really proud of his reputation +as a scandal-monger. 'Well,' he said, 'I believe I can supply you with +the very latest thing of that description,' and then he told her the +story. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty had led a rough-and-tumble sort of life, and every one knew +perfectly well that hers had been a liberal education at the hands of +her father. Yet even Mr. Lawrence would not have blurted out his tale +to Jane Erskine, for instance, as he had just done to Kitty. But bless +you! every one knew that old Lord Sherard told his daughter his best +scenes, and that she stayed with him in Continental hotels which some +very particular mothers would not have allowed their daughters to +enter. Mr. Lawrence wound up by saying, in a very charitable way, that +he didn't blame the poor little woman, for she had a perfect beast of a +husband. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty was still kneeling on the white sheepskin rug and holding out her +cold hands to the blaze when Mr. Lawrence had finished; and Miss +Abingdon, who had tried once or twice without success to catch Mr. +Lawrence's eye and to check his loquacity, shook her head as she +realized that Kitty did not seem the least bit shocked. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr. Lawrence had left, Kitty changed her shooting dress for a +habit and announced to Miss Abingdon, who suggested that she should +rest for the remainder of the afternoon, that she was going to exercise +one of Jane's horses. She mounted the hunter and went off alone, +blowing kisses to Miss Abingdon from the tips of her riding gloves, and +so out of the white gates down the road to the left, and then into the +open country. She set her horse at a fence and flew over it. Her +small white teeth were pressed together, and her eyes, under level +black eye-brows, had a fierce look in them. She pulled her hat more +firmly down upon her brows and steered her hunter across country, as +though following the quickest burst of hounds of the season. Kitty was +a tireless rider, and Jane's hunter did not want exercise for some +little time after this. The country round Bowshott is known as 'stiff' +for hunting people, but Kitty had marked out a straight line for +herself, and took everything that came in her way with a sort of +foolhardiness which made a trifle of big hedges or yawning ditches, and +all the time she was saying to herself, 'I will never forgive him, +never!' She had given her whole heart to Nigel Christopherson, and +believed that he had given his to her. And now he was at Hulworth with +Mrs. Avory, and Mr. Lawrence was touring the country in his big red +motor-car telling everybody about it. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Wrottesley heard the story from her maid, who had it from Miss +Abingdon's butler, and she told it to her mistress when they were +counting charity blankets together in Mrs. Wrottesley's bedroom. The +canon was away from home, and Mrs. Wrottesley was having a few +uninterrupted days in which to do her work, without calls upon her to +come and admire Canon Wrottesley. The story was received very quietly +by her. She sat a full minute without saying anything at all, and then +she finished counting the blankets. When that useful task was over +Mrs. Wrottesley began to speak. This was a much more unusual event +with her than with most people, and what made it more forcible was that +she began to speak deliberately and with intention. +</P> + +<P> +'I am going to stay at Hulworth,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. 'Pack my box, +please, and order the carriage to be round in half an hour.' +</P> + +<P> +She drove over to Hulworth, her plain and rather austere face showing +very little expression upon it, and she reached the big ugly house to +find Toffy sitting over a smouldering fire in the drawing-room, his +hair rumpled up from his forehead and his head buried in his hands, and +Mrs. Avory upstairs still suffering from slight concussion of the brain. +</P> + +<P> +There are times when the strong arm of a man is the one needful and the +one serviceable thing in the world; but there are times again when it +is only a strong woman who is wanted, or who is capable of a certain +sort of work. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't know how you ever thought of coming,' said Toffy, looking at +her with eyes which were about as full of perplexity and helplessness +as a young man's could well be. 'I thought of writing to Peter, but +after all this is his last time with Jane, and I have no relations +myself, and I couldn't ask Lawrence not to say anything, because that +would have given away the whole show.' +</P> + +<P> +'I think I can settle everything satisfactorily with Mr. Lawrence,' +said Mrs. Wrottesley. 'Mr. Lawrence is proverbially ill-natured in his +own kind way, and it would not have been unlike him to omit the fact +that I was staying with you during the time Mrs. Avory was here.' +</P> + +<P> +'She came down yesterday afternoon to say good-bye to me,' said Toffy +eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +'And I arrived by the same train,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'which was +very convenient.' +</P> + +<P> +Toffy got up from his chair and crossed to the other side of the hearth +and kissed Mrs. Wrottesley. +</P> + +<P> +It was not an unusual thing for her to drive over to Hulworth to put +housekeeping matters straight when they were at their most acute stages +of discomfort, or when Toffy was more than common ill. She was quite +at home in the house, and she now drew up a writing-table to the fire +and penned a number of notes in her neat, precise hand, headed with the +Hulworth address, telling her friends how sad she considered the +accident of last night, how attentive Mr. Lawrence had been, and how, +of course, she must give up her engagements at home for the next few +days, as she would not dream of leaving until Mrs. Avory was able to +leave also. The notes fell like a series of cold douches upon the warm +interest and keen excitement prevalent at Culversham. Perhaps only +Miss Abingdon was sincerely glad that conventionalities had been in +force throughout. +</P> + +<P> +'No one could be more delighted than I am that Mrs. Wrottesley was at +Hulworth,' she said, 'though I doubt if it is a very wise thing for a +married woman to pay visits without her husband. Still, no doubt Canon +Wrottesley in his usual broad-minded way arranged that she should be +there. He is always so thoughtful and self-sacrificing, and it's more +than good of him to spare his wife to nurse Mrs. Avory. He is an +example to us all.' +</P> + +<P> +Canon Wrottesley had always been devoted to his wife. Her quiet dress +and her mantle had ever seemed to him the essence of good womanhood, +and he respected her for her considerable fortune as well as for her +unimpeachable orthodoxy. His highest term of praise of her was to +speak of her as the helpmeet for him. +</P> + +<P> +The canon was now sitting in the very charming library of the house of +his Bishop, where he was spending a few days, and was busy inditing a +few lines to his wife to ask her if the latest news from Culversham was +true. He was warned by a curious presentiment that the information +which he had received was in accordance with facts, and, being always +ready with a word of counsel, Canon Wrottesley was writing to his wife +to warn her that until the whole thing blew over it would be wiser for +her not to see anything of Mrs. Avory. Considering his own and her +position in the parish, he thought they could not be too careful. +</P> + +<P> +When the second post arrived at the palace, bringing him the unexpected +news that his wife was at that moment nursing Mrs. Avory at their +neighbour's house, Canon Wrottesley felt one of those shocks which in +all their painfulness can only be realized, perhaps, by those who hold +a conspicuous position in a very small society. When the world is +narrowed down to quite a little place its weight is felt more heavily +than when its interests and its knowledge are dispersed over a wider +area. +</P> + +<P> +He believed that poor Henrietta had meant well when she had gone to +Hulworth to look after Mrs. Avory; but her action proved to the canon +what he had always known—that a woman requires guidance, and he meant +to tell his wife kindly how much wiser it would have been if, before +taking any action in this matter, she had wired to him for advice. +</P> + +<P> +The thing was a real trouble to him, and helped to spoil his enjoyable +stay at the palace. He knew himself to be popular there and that his +visit had given real pleasure. He had been asked to improvise upon the +piano every evening, and had even sung once, saying gracefully to the +Bishop's daughter, when she had concluded her very indifferent +accompaniment to the song, 'An accompanist is born, not made!' He had +preached one of his favourite sermons on Sunday, which had not only +swelled the offertory bag to an unusual size, but had obtained for the +canon quite a sheaf of compliments which he looked forward to retailing +to Henrietta at home. He left the pleasant ways of the Bishop's palace +determined to face with a magnanimous mind the difficulties that +awaited him. He did not like Henrietta's being 'mixed up in this +affair' at all, and, as he sat in the first-class carriage of the train +on his homeward journey, a rug about his knees and a footwarmer at his +feet, he decided that the wisest and best thing he could do would be to +shorten his journey by getting out at Hulworth station and going +straight up to Sir Nigel's house. When he had time, and was able to +see how Culversham viewed this affair of Mrs. Avory's, he could then +decide whether his wife should call upon her or not. But for the +present he saw quite plainly that inaction and patience were the best +course. +</P> + +<P> +He gave up his ticket at the railway station with a fine air of +reserve, and bade his coachman drive to Hulworth in the same manner in +which a statesman might impart a Cabinet secret to his secretary. The +brougham drove on through the grim stone gates of Hulworth and +deposited the canon before the flight of steps leading to the front +door. He decided, if possible, not to partake of any food in the +house, nor even to sit down if this could be avoided. He was not going +to blame Sir Nigel yet, but, to say the least of it, he thought that he +had been unwise. The canon stood with his back to the fire in the +drawing-room, looking judicial and massive. Presently Mrs. Wrottesley +came in and saluted her husband with that calm affection which +twenty-five years of married life may engender. +</P> + +<P> +He stooped and kissed her gravely. 'My love,' he said, 'this is not +the place for you.' +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to Mrs. Wrottesley to come very suddenly to her that almost +for the first time in their married life there was going to be a real +matter of difference between her husband and herself, in which neither +meant to give in. She regretted in her quiet way that it should be so. +</P> + +<P> +'Remember,' said Canon Wrottesley kindly, 'that I don't in any way +blame Sir Nigel; I think he is foolish, and I think, considering Mrs. +Avory's position, she has been more than foolish. A woman who is +separated from her husband cannot be too careful.' +</P> + +<P> +'I am afraid,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, with regret in her voice, and +coming straight to the point at once in her graceful way, 'that I must +stay here for the present.' +</P> + +<P> +The canon, although he had not intended doing so, sat down abruptly on +one of the drawing-room chairs. +</P> + +<P> +It was a horrible time for both these affectionate elderly people who +had always lived a peaceful, orderly, well-conducted life together, and +whose home had been, in the mind of the canon at least, the model +household of the neighbourhood. Also, it was a real shock to him to +realize that Henrietta did not mean to yield in this matter. She spoke +with regret, but she spoke firmly. It must always be a surprise—even +to a prophet—when a dumb creature speaks, and in a certain sense Mrs. +Wrottesley had always been dumb. And now, after years of silence and +affectionate wifely submission, Mrs. Wrottesley was asserting herself. +</P> + +<P> +'You must be reasonable, dear,' her husband said at last. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Wrottesley replied, 'I want to be reasonable;' and she told him +the whole story of how her presence might save from very serious +consequences two people who were admittedly not very wise, but who were +certainly nothing more than foolish, and might prevent a scandal which +would damage them in the eyes of the world and result in all sorts of +trouble for Mrs. Avory. +</P> + +<P> +'The scandal cannot now be prevented,' said Canon Wrottesley. 'I heard +myself from Mr. Lawrence this morning telling me the whole story. My +love, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled; Mrs. Avory must send +for her own relations, if she has any, to help her out of this +regrettable business. I cannot allow you to appear in the matter at +all.' +</P> + +<P> +'I have had my letters addressed here for the last two days,' said Mrs. +Wrottesley. +</P> + +<P> +The canon rose from his chair and began to pace up and down the room. +'I don't know what people will say,' he said, his forehead knitted into +a frown and his fingers impatiently letting off small pistol-shots +against his palm. There had never been a better wife or mother, he +admitted to himself, than Henrietta Wrottesley, but she was a child +still in many ways. 'To-morrow is Sunday,' he went on, 'and we must +appear in church together. In this way only can we shut people's +mouths and prevent their talking, and although I don't like anything in +the form of secrecy or underhand actions, no one need know that you +have been staying here.' +</P> + +<P> +'I am afraid,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, still in that unyielding tone of +gentle regret, 'that it is too late to keep my movements secret. There +is an account of the accident in the local paper in which it is stated +that I was staying here at the time.' +</P> + +<P> +Canon Wrottesley loved to see his name in print, and looked with +interest at the cutting while Mrs. Wrottesley added, 'I sent the +communication to the paper.' +</P> + +<P> +The canon found himself wondering in a puzzled way what was the +ultimatum that a man should impose upon a woman. What, in point of +fact, was the force that could be brought to bear upon the case? In +primitive days the matter would have been easily enough settled, but in +modern times moral force is the only lever, and although most women, he +admitted, were very easily influenced by moral force, it struck him +painfully that upon this occasion his wife was not going to be moved by +it. +</P> + +<P> +A beneficent Providence who, I think we may allow, comes often to the +assistance of persons whose storm rages in quite a small and narrow +teacup so long as they are genuinely attached to each other, may have +designed that at this moment Lydia of the heavy foot should enter with +the second post's letters, and amongst those which had been sent on to +Mrs. Wrottesley was one directed to her husband in dear Miss Abingdon's +handwriting. +</P> + +<P> +The canon opened it unheedingly. Miss Abingdon often sent him little +notes, but never, perhaps, had she written one which spoke more +genuinely out of a full heart than did this. She had written in the +middle of the night, although she felt how disorderly and almost +indecorous such a proceeding was. By so doing she had missed the +evening post, but she sent the missive to the village early in the +morning by the hand of a groom, and felt glad, as she did so, that +there were no secrets in her life. A letter posted at an unaccustomed +hour suggested intrigues, and Miss Abingdon wondered how people could +live who had such things upon their consciences. +</P> + +<P> +Her unusual behaviour accounts for the fact that her letter arrived by +the second post at Hulworth; Canon Wrottesley was so much upset at the +time that he read half-way through it before he quite realized what it +was about. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +'MY DEAR CANON,'—it ran—'you must allow me to say what I think of +your splendid conduct in regard to poor little Mrs. Avory. I had heard +the story, of course, of her very indiscreet behaviour, but it was not +till this morning that I knew how splendidly you had thrown yourself +into the breach by allowing Mrs. Wrottesley to go over to Hulworth to +stay and nurse the poor thing. I must tell you that I hear on all +sides nothing but the kindest things said about your action in the +matter. I do not often write so unreservedly as at present, but I do +feel strongly on the subject, and on occasions such as this I may be +allowed to say that it takes a good man and a broad-minded one to act +promptly and generously—would that there were more of them in the +English Church!' +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon used to fear afterwards that perhaps she had said too +much; but to her also, as to Mrs. Wrottesley, the relief of speaking +her mind once in a way was irresistible. +</P> + +<P> +Of course it weakened the canon's position to show the letter to his +wife. He ought to have relented gracefully and with dignity, and to +have consented as a personal favour, even against his proper judgment, +to his wife's remaining where she was. But Miss Abingdon's letter was +too full of kind remarks to be kept to himself. He handed it to +Henrietta, and when she had read it he folded it up carefully and put +it in his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +'That,' he said, 'is one of the best women that ever lived, and +perhaps, who knows, there may be others who see this matter in the +right light also.' All that he had previously said passed completely +out of his mind as he talked of the insight and the complete +understanding that some good women evinced. He began to speak with +manly kindliness of the poor little invalid upstairs, and when at last +he bade good-bye to his wife he kissed her affectionately and bade +her—in his usual formula—not do too much. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon's letter had shown the canon to himself in his true +light; before he reached home he had come to believe that it was he who +had urged his wife to go to Hulworth. As was usual with him when he +felt strongly, he adopted a character rôle, and his handsome face wore +a more than usually beneficent and great-minded expression upon it as +he walked with his fine erect carriage through the village that night; +while it would hardly have required a playbill of <I>dramatis personae</I> +to indicate the fact that the canon was living the part of the Vicar of +Wakefield in the supreme moment when he visits Olivia in prison. He +had promised his wife before leaving to drive over often to see her +during her stay at Hulworth; and the following Sunday he preached one +of his most memorable sermons on the text—'And when they shall take up +some deadly thing it shall not hurt them.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<P> +Mrs. Wrottesley remained at Hulworth until her patient was better, and +then the good-hearted canon joined her there for a few days and was +altogether charming to poor little Mrs. Avory, who liked him far better +than she liked his wife. Toffy went up to London to join Peter Ogilvie +and to take ship for Argentine, and Peter went to say good-bye to Jane +Erskine. +</P> + +<P> +These two last-named, cheerful people were in a state of acute +unhappiness which each was doing his and her best to conceal. It +required some pluck to be perfectly even-spirited and to show good mettle +in those days. The world contained for them nothing but a sense of +parting and uncertainty, and a horrible feeling of disappointment. Their +lives were to be severed, perhaps for years, and over all the uncertainty +and the thought of separation hung the mystery of Mrs. Ogilvie's +half-finished message. The memory of her was clouded by the thought of +how much she had suffered, and the conviction intruded itself painfully +that, if they had but known more, something might have been done for her. +The burden of a secret lies in the sense of loneliness which it brings. +A unique experience, dissimilarity of thought or knowledge that is not +shared by others, makes a solitude with which no bodily isolation can be +compared. Only one person knew—only one person had ever known: that +seemed the intolerable thing to the two persons left behind to wonder +what the message could mean. +</P> + +<P> +'I sometimes wish she had been a Catholic,' Peter once said. 'It might +have been some sort of comfort to her.' +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ogilvie was a woman who could remain silent always, and perhaps it +was the supreme effort involved by breaking through a lifetime of reserve +that, in its added strain upon her heart, had caused her death. +</P> + +<P> +The last few days that the lovers had together were spent in a very loyal +and affectionate endeavour to make each other as happy as possible. They +made no professions of love or confidence, nor ever dreamed of promising +to be true, because they never for a moment could admit the possibility +of being anything else; and they did not even promise to write to each +other, or to say their prayers at the same time every evening—the +difficulty of calculating the difference between Greenwich and local time +on a westward voyage put a stop to anything of that sort. Nor did they +talk of remembering each other as they looked at the stars; but they +spoke of the future and of all the good things it was going to bring, and +they even laughed sometimes over imaginary portraits of the brother whom +Peter was to seek, and they told each other ridiculous little tales of +what he would be like and what he would say and do. +</P> + +<P> +One afternoon Jane gave Peter a gold cigarette case as a parting gift, +with his name scrawled in her big handwriting across it; while Peter +presented his fiancée with a very handsome diamond ring, and forgot +altogether that perhaps he could not pay for it, and went back and told +the jeweller so. The jeweller, having known Captain Ogilvie all his +life, and being aware that he had lately succeeded to an immense +property, thought the young man was joking, and said it did not matter in +the least. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the day of parting—drizzly, wet, and depressing—just such a +day as people always seem to choose on which to leave England; there was +the usual routine of departure; the 'special' from Waterloo, the crowd at +the station, the plethora of bags, chairs, and hold-alls; the good-byes, +the children held up to the carriage-windows to wave hands, the 'last +looks,' and the tears stopped in their flow by anxiety about luggage and +missing bags. Then came Southampton, the embarkation, and a sort of +enforced cheerfulness and admiration of the ship. Those who had +journeyed down to see friends off adopted a congratulatory tone, as +though the fact of their having already travelled so far in safety was a +sort of assurance that there could be little to fear for the rest of the +voyage. +</P> + +<P> +At last the ship began to move slowly away, and finally swung round and +got out of dock. It was just then that many of the voyagers wished that +they might have had a few minutes longer of that dismal scene in the +drizzling rain, of those dear hand-waving, smiling, or weeping figures on +shore. But the engines had started their solemn beats, the pilot was on +the bridge. The voyage had begun for good or ill, and the Lord watch +over all! +</P> + +<P> +Nigel Christopherson, being a man of feeling, said to a Scot who leaned +over the rails with him, watching a group of female figures dressed in +black on the quay, 'These good-byes are rather beastly, ain't they?' +</P> + +<P> +To which the Scot replied, 'They make no difference to me whatever;' and +the remark, Toffy thought, was an extraordinary check to any emotional +feeling. +</P> + +<P> +Jane got her first letter from Peter dated at Vigo, which peaceful port, +with its rows of white houses built along the shore, and its green hill +with the ruined castle behind, is a haven where many sea-sick passengers +would be. They had had a bit of a tossing, Peter said, in the Bay, and +Toffy had been very seedy but was better. The captain was a very good +sort of fellow, and full of yarns; his cabin was profusely decorated with +foxes' masks and brushes, and a few of his admirers believed that when he +was at home he hunted. The unfeeling Scot, who had declined to +sympathize with Toffy's sensibility to partings, had turned out to be a +very interesting sort of man, and not unamusing. He helped to make the +evenings on deck pass rather pleasantly with his stories. If Mr. Dunbar, +as he was called, had not had such an amazing Scottish accent Peter would +have said that probably the stories were not true. It was a letter such +as a schoolboy might have written, but Jane treasured the ill-expressed +sentiments as maidens of a bygone age may have treasured their lovers' +shields; and although she left the letter lying about on her +dressing-table, after the manner of modern young women, it was none the +less the dearest possession of her life until the next one arrived. +</P> + +<P> +Toffy sat up in his bunk with a horribly bad headache, and wrote a long +letter to Mrs. Avory, which he posted at Vigo; and he wrote another +letter, not nearly so long, but one which cost him much more time to +compose, and addressed it to Miss Kitty Sherard. And this he carefully +tore into little pieces one night when the decks were dark and there was +no moon overhead; and he watched the small white bits of paper, as they +floated away into the black depths of the water, and then he walked up +and down the deck until the small hours of the morning, when Peter—one +of whose worst qualities was that he always fussed over people he cared +about—appeared in pyjamas and overcoat, and asked him sternly if he was +trying to get another chill. +</P> + +<P> +At Lisbon the intelligent Scot suggested to the two travellers that they +should join him in a trip ashore. The three had made friends in the +smoking-room, and Peter hailed Mr. Dunbar as a fellow-countryman, and +enjoyed his rugged accent and his amazing penetration. He abounded in +useful information about the country to which they were going, gave +statistics on all points, and teemed with information. He was an ardent +and indefatigable sightseer, and never visited a building without seeming +to investigate it. The most complicated currency of a foreign country +never disturbed him for an instant, and he would make little sums with +extraordinary rapidity on the edge of any bill that was given to him. +The difference of price, as stated in Spanish coinage, between a bottle +of claret and a whisky-and-soda, might have puzzled some people; but +Dunbar worked it out to a fraction in a second of time, and without a +moment's hesitation laid his own share of the expense on the +luncheon-table of the Braganza hotel. He spoke Spanish better than he +spoke English, though he thought he had got rid of his Scottish accent; +but he still said 'I mind' for 'I remember,' and differentiated in the +matter of pronouncing 'court' and 'caught.' +</P> + +<P> +At St. Vincent Peter wrote home again, and felt a certain sense of +insecurity at leaving letters on the rocky island. It was four o'clock +in the morning when the ship got into port, and the sun was rising over +the hills eastward, while to the west the bare, rugged, mountainous land +was a solemn, chilly grey colour. The water was smooth and dark beneath +the hills, but nearer the ship it was touched by the clear pale light of +the rising sun. The hills rose jagged and sharp against the sky without +a scrap of verdure on them; but the kindly atmosphere turned those in the +distance to a soft and tender blue. It smoothed away the rugged lines +and effaced the cruel-looking scars that seamed their sides, and covered +them with a misty peace. It seemed to the young man as he looked at them +that things became easier when viewed from a distance. He had suffered +very deeply during the last few weeks, and with him had suffered the girl +whom he had loved and cared for always, and whom he would love and care +for until the end of his life. Looking back at the distant misty hills +on Cape Verde Island this voyage seemed to him, in spite of all its +horrible sense of separation, to be something of a lull in the midst of +quick-happening events. When first he left home he had been plagued with +thoughts which he had fought with almost savage fierceness, and he had +wrestled to expel them from his mind; but that there could be any mystery +in his mother's life had necessarily awakened endless questionings in his +mind. +</P> + +<P> +Why, if this little brother of his had not died, had he disappeared? And +what was the reason for his disappearance? 'He did not die,' said the +half-finished letter which his mother's hand had traced; 'he did not +die.' Once, in the middle of the night, as he said the wearisome +sentence over to himself, a word had come suddenly before him in letters +of flame, and Peter had turned away from it with a cry. A child who had +been deprived of his life might be said in a sense not to have died, and +there was the word of six letters in front of him in the dark. He turned +on the electric light in his cabin, and for a moment he had half a mind +to go in next door and wake Toffy. The burden of the suggestion was too +horrible to bear alone. 'He did not die!' His mother's mental state +might not have been perfectly sound at the time of her husband's death; +and her preference for him, Peter, was a fact that had been remarked by +all who knew her. Had she begun to write a confession to her son, and +stopped short in the middle? 'Don't hate me too much,' the letter said. +Why should he hate her? He did not know. +</P> + +<P> +In the morning he was able to put aside utterly the thought which had +tormented him, but he lived in dread of being beset by it at night-time +again. He began to fear going to bed, and would sit up talking to Toffy +till the small hours of the morning, or playing picquet with Dunbar. Men +began to say that he 'jawed' too much and would not let them go to bed, +little knowing how he used to try to prolong a conversation so that he +might not be left alone with a horrible fear always ready to pounce upon +him when night fell, and when only the thud of the engines playing some +maddening tune broke the silence. +</P> + +<P> +He tried, with a baffling sense of impatience, to make his own memory +act, and to recall the days when he was not quite three years old. But +the thing was an impossibility, of course, and his brain refused to give +up a single picture of that time. +</P> + +<P> +It was only when the ship had left St. Vincent that a certain amount of +peace came to establish itself in his heart, and the large and beautiful +consolation of the sea began to make itself felt. The weather was calm +and clear, and the monotonous slap and swish of the water against the +ship's side was in itself soothing. The company on board were all +strangers to him, and this helped to give him a feeling that he was +starting anew in life. Also he was on his way to do the best he could to +find his brother, if he were living, or to clear up the mystery of his +death, if he were dead. There was no horrid feeling of having failed to +do the best that was possible. He must find Edward Ogilvie, or discover +the grave where he lay; and after that it would be time enough to think +what would be the next thing to do. +</P> + +<P> +When the ship steamed away from St. Vincent in the evening, and the +lighthouse on Bird Rock made a luminous point in the gathering darkness, +the sight of land and of the hills had done Peter good, and had restored +him to the normal and natural man again. He turned to look back at the +rugged island, with the one point of light high up in its lighthouse, and +he thought that it was like some lamp which a woman sets in the window to +guide her husband home. With that feeling came a deep sense of the love +and the confidence which he and Jane had in each other; he knew that she +would not fail him whether he were rich or poor, happy or unhappy, and +that seemed the only thing in the world worth knowing for certain. +</P> + +<P> +After leaving St. Vincent the weather became intensely hot, the wind was +with the ship, and there was not a breath of air to be had. Dunbar never +felt the heat at all; he had not an ounce of spare flesh on his body, and +he always ate two chops and some curry for breakfast, because, he said, +if you were paying for a thing you might as well have it. He played in +bull tournaments, and had a habit, that was almost provoking, of doing +everything better than any one else. His sharp-featured face, long keen +nose, and eyes with an intelligent-looking pince-nez fixed in front of +them, seemed to speak of a sleepless vigilance. +</P> + +<P> +Peter, having a very small amount of information on any subject at his +command, was impressed by Mr. Dunbar, and thought that he might make a +fortune if he used his talents on the music-hall stage or at a bureau for +the supply of general information. The man seemed able to answer any +question that might be put to him. +</P> + +<P> +'That is an extraordinary chap,' he said to Toffy. 'I wonder if he would +be of any use to us in the way of finding out about my brother?' But +eventually he decided that nothing ought to be done until they should see +Sir John Falconer. +</P> + +<P> +'We had rather a disappointment here,' he wrote from Rio, in one of his +unliterary letters, 'because the yellow fever is so bad that we are not +allowed to land. I don't suppose you have any idea how tiresome a day in +port is if one does not go ashore. The heat is really terrific, and +under the awnings it feels exactly like sitting in an oven.' In +conclusion Peter wished he was at home again, and thought Toffy seemed +rather down in his luck; and he remained Jane's ever-loving Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'I will tell you a strange thing about Rio,' began Dunbar, as he walked +up and down the ship that evening. 'If you make your fortune there, you +always go back to England and say that by right you are a Castilian +noble.' +</P> + +<P> +'It would be a very large fortune that would tempt me to live in this +beastly climate,' said Peter, who was in a grumbling mood. +</P> + +<P> +'I believe,' said Toffy, 'that with luck one could make a lot of money in +Argentine. I have got a scheme in my head now, which, if it comes off, +should place me beyond the reach of want.' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar referred to the boom time, and gave an exhaustive statement of the +fortunes which had been made in that glorious epoch and had been lost +afterwards. 'I have known men without capital make a hundred thousand +pounds in a few years,' he said; 'and when they lost it you simply could +not find them.' +</P> + +<P> +'People do seem to disappear in Argentine in a queer way,' said Peter +with intention, and with a glance at Toffy. 'I know we had a +gardener—one of the under-men—and he had a brother who disappeared +altogether out there, so our man went to find him, and he, also, was +never heard of again.' +</P> + +<P> +'The reason for that is not very far to seek,' said Dunbar. 'The first +thing you do when you come to Argentine is to leave off writing +letters—at least if you are a camp man. You simply can't abide the +sight of pen and ink.' +</P> + +<P> +'But there must be some means of tracing a man who gets lost,' said +Toffy. 'He can't disappear into space.' +</P> + +<P> +'You'd wonder!' said the Scot laconically. +</P> + +<P> +'Still, you know,' persisted Peter, 'if a man's alive at all, some one +must know his whereabouts.' +</P> + +<P> +'Obsairve,' said Dunbar, 'it doesn't require much imagination for a man +to change his name as often as he likes; and I should like to know what +police supervision there is over the Italian settlers, for instance, in +some of the remoter estancias? Murderers are hardly ever caught out +here, and murders used to be as common as a fight in a pulperia. Every +man carries a knife, and if you go up-country you will find that half the +peons are nearly covered with scars; and if once in a way the knife goes +too deep it's just one of those things which cannot be helped, and the +less said about it the better. Again,' he went on, 'suppose a man is +murdered on his own estancia—a thing that used to be common enough—the +peons are all in league, and they generally have had a hand in it. Their +master has been giving them <I>carne flacca</I> (lean meat) to eat, and that +is enough to upset the whole rickmatick of them.' +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose they are not likely to turn on a revolution for our benefit,' +said Toffy, in a tone of disappointment. +</P> + +<P> +'I haven't got the fighting instinct in me,' said Dunbar literally. +'Whenever there has been fighting where I have been, I have always sat +indoors until it was over.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter, with a desire to lead the subject back to the case of men who +disappeared, turned in the deck-chair where he was sitting enjoying a +light breeze which had sprung up after dark, and said tentatively: 'I +can't quite understand, you know, a man disappearing altogether and +leaving no traces behind him.' +</P> + +<P> +'I shall never,' said Dunbar, 'believe in the final disappearance or even +in the death of any one until I have seen the doctor's certificate or the +man's corpse. Men have got a queer way of turning up, and even the sea +may give up secrets when you least expect it. Take the case of the +<I>Rosana</I>,' he went on, 'and allow me to put the facts of the case before +you. The <I>Rosana</I> was a ship that used to do good a bit of trading on +the coast, and there was a man on board of her whom I used to know, and +who had been once a little too well known in Argentine. Well, this ship +foundered with all hands on board, and was never heard of again, although +two of her life-belts were picked up, and one or two pieces of her +deck-gear.' +</P> + +<P> +'Any ship might founder at sea,' said Peter, 'and not be heard of again. +Go on with your story, Dunbar.' +</P> + +<P> +The electric lights on deck went out suddenly overhead, leaving only one +burning; the breeze blew soft and cool, and six bells sounded sharply and +emphatically in the quiet of the night. +</P> + +<P> +'I wouldn't,' said Dunbar, 'give you the benefit of my speculations on +the subject of the <I>Rosana</I> were it not that E. W. Smith was on board. +E. W. Smith couldn't die; he wasn't fit for it. But it's a long story. +I 'll not bother you with it.' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar looked doubtfully at his tobacco pouch, pinched it, and then +contemplated his pipe. Peter handed him a cigar-case, and Dunbar +accepted a cigar, and slipping it into an old envelope, he deposited it +in his pocket. 'I don't believe I should have time to smoke it through +now,' he said, and he continued filling his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose you come across a good many queer tales, travelling about as +much as you do,' said Toffy. +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar nodded without speaking. 'You'd wonder,' he said at last. He +finished his pipe, knocked out its ashes, and put it into a little case +lined with red velvet, and stowed it in his pocket; he looked at his +watch and announced that there was still another half-hour before he +intended turning in. +</P> + +<P> +'We might have the end of your story,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'A story is as good a way as any other of wiling away the evening, and +you are welcome to hear the rest of this one,' admitted Dunbar. He was a +grand talker, according to his compatriots, and he chiefly loved the +engineers' mess-room, where he could sit by a table covered in oil-cloth, +and sip a little weak whisky and water, and revert to his broadest Doric +in company with some engineers from the Clyde. 'The <I>Rosana</I>,' continued +Dunbar, clearing his throat, 'only carried one boat on her last journey. +I happen to know that for a fact, but the Lord only knows the reason for +it! Now, this boat was found, half-burnt, lying on a lonely bit of coast +a few weeks after the <I>Rosana</I> foundered. This is a thing which I may +remark is not generally known; but I happen to have had ocular +demonstration of it. The boat was a smart built one, with her name in +gold leaf on the bows. Tranter was the captain of the <I>Rosana</I>, and he +liked to have things nice. Now, why should this boat have been found +half-burnt on the coast, but with a piece of her name in gold leaf still +partially visible?' +</P> + +<P> +'The boat probably drifted ashore,' said Peter, as if he were answering a +question in a history class. +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar hardly seemed to hear him, and went on with hardly a moment's +interruption. 'I am a student,' he said, 'of the deductive method of +reasoning, and I begin with the <I>a priori</I> assumption that E. W. Smith +could not die. I should hold the same belief even if I believed in +Purgatory.' (Dunbar pronounced the word with an incalculable number of +r's in it, and it came from his throat like the rattle of musketry.) +'Presuming,' he went on, 'that the <I>Rosana</I> foundered, was E. W. Smith +the man to go down in her, or was he not?' +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose some of them took to the boat,' said Toffy. 'In an affair of +that sort it is a case of <I>sauve qui peut</I>.' +</P> + +<P> +'The whole crew would have swamped the boat,' said Dunbar, who liked +giving small pieces of information at a time. +</P> + +<P> +'Consequently——' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'Consequently,' said Dunbar, 'I 'm just biding my time, and I 'll tell +you more when there 's more to tell.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's a queer story!' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'It's queerer than you think!' said Dunbar. +</P> + +<P> +'You can't believe,' said the other, 'that this man Smith went off in the +boat by himself?' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't,' said Dunbar, 'for E. W. Smith couldn't row, and with all his +sea-going he was a landsman to his finger-tips.' +</P> + +<P> +'So then,' said Peter, 'he must have had accomplices, and accomplices +always tell tales.' +</P> + +<P> +'There 's one very certain way of silencing men,' said the Scot. +</P> + +<P> +Peter rose abruptly from his chair and threw his cigar end out over the +water. 'It's a beastly suggestion,' he said briefly. His face was +white, and he found himself hoping to God that this tale of Dunbar's +would not bring back to him those horrible nights he had had at the +beginning of the voyage. +</P> + +<P> +'Tranter was the captain of the boat,' said Dunbar, 'and Tranter was +about the worst sort of coward you are likely to meet on this side of +Jordan. E. W. Smith, on the other hand, never lost his head.' +</P> + +<P> +The story seemed finished, and Toffy got up and stretched himself lazily, +and said he was going to turn in; but Peter still sat where he was in his +deck-chair. +</P> + +<P> +'There might be a hundred different endings to your tale, Dunbar,' he +said, 'each one as likely as the other. The boat, for instance, might +have capsized, with too many men crowded into her, and have drifted +ashore and been burned accidentally or otherwise by the people who found +her. Or the crew and captain of the <I>Rosana</I> may never have taken to the +boat at all, and she may have foundered with all hands (as you say the +newspaper reports had it at the time); or the <I>Rosana</I> may be sailing in +another part of the world with her villainous captain and E. W. Smith and +no end of swag on board. Or both men, again, may be sleeping very +peacefully at the bottom of the sea at this moment; that, after all, +seems to me the most likely ending to them. Of course,' he finished, 'I +don't know what grounds you may have for making another suggestion about +their probable fate.' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar looked at him keenly for a moment. 'I would not have made the +suggestion,' he said quietly, 'only, you see, since the wreck of the +<I>Rosana</I> I have seen E. W. Smith or his ghost, and that is why I do not +believe in the final disappearance of a man till I have set eyes upon his +corpse.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<P> +Peter sat on a cow's skull, bleached and white, at the Estancia Las +Lomas, reading a letter from Jane Erskine. He had begun to think that +the Royal Mail Steam Packet Service was run for the sole purpose of +carrying correspondence between himself and her, and he felt pleased +with its punctuality in delivering his letters. +</P> + +<P> +'It feels a bit queer being here,' he said to himself, gazing round him +as he spoke. It was the evening of a hot day, and there was a flame of +crimson over to westward, where a few minutes ago the sun had sunk +through great bars of flame. All round him was a vast, solitary land, +but nearer the estancia were pleasant homely sights and sounds. A cart +yoked with five horses abreast stood by the galpon; a flock of geese +walked with disdainful, important gait across the potrero; and the +viscashos popped in and out of their holes with busy importance, like +children keeping house. The farm horses, turned out for the night, +cropped the short grass near where he stood. Peons, their day's work +over, loitered in the patio, and the major-domo's children rode by, all +three of them on one horse, their arms round each other's waists. The +little estancia house stood, red-roofed and homelike, with green +paraiso trees about it. In the veranda Toffy was stretched in a +hammock, a pile of letters and newspapers from home beside him; Hopwood +appeared round the corner carrying cans of water for baths; while Ross, +their host, in a dress as nearly as possible resembling that of a +gaucho, was that moment disappearing indoors to make the evening +cocktail. He came to the door presently and shouted to the two men to +come in, and pointed out to them—as he had pointed out every evening +since they had arrived—his own skill in swizzling. +</P> + +<P> +It was a curious coincidence that had led Peter and Christopherson to +Las Lomas. When they reached Buenos Ayres a very pleasant and +unexpected meeting occurred, for Peter met Chance, a man who had been +with him at Eton, on his way down to the river to go home. Chance had +lost his young wife a little while before, and was returning to England +to see what the voyage and a change would do to cure him of an almost +overwhelming grief, and his partner Ross was left behind to look after +the estancia. Ross was at the hotel also, and proved an excellent +fellow. And Chance suggested that Ogilvie and Christopherson should +return to Las Lomas with him and see something of the life in +Argentine, staying as long as they could, to keep Ross company until he +himself should return. +</P> + +<P> +The invitation was accepted without hesitation, and it seemed that the +two travellers were in luck's way. The estancia was a snug little +place, amply watered by a river lying some miles above the last port +where the small river-steamer called. This port was nearer the +estancia than the railway station at Taco, and the last stage of the +journey, therefore, was made by steamer. The river was a wide, shallow +stream, very difficult of navigation. Nearly ten miles broad in some +parts, at its deepest it never gave soundings of more than five fathoms +of water. In dry weather it was possible in some places to drive a +cart across it, while in others the current was quick and dangerous. +It was full of shallows and sand-banks, and for some miles the course +of the little steamer was marked out by boughs of trees stuck into its +muddy bottom. +</P> + +<P> +The steamer was a well-found craft compared with any others that had +navigated the river before, and was a new venture on the part of one +Purvis by name, who had lately acquired considerable property on the +river-bank. He was a gentle-mannered, nervous-looking individual, with +weak, pale eyes that watered incessantly, and he had a curious habit +unknown except to town dwellers in Argentine of dressing like a City +clerk. All the men in camp wore breeches and wide felt hats and polo +boots, but Purvis was habitually dressed in dark tweed clothes and a +bowler hat. Even on the steamer, and in the heat of the midday sun, he +wore the same kit, and walked up and down the deck with an umbrella +held over his head. He spoke half a dozen languages, but seemed to +think in Spanish, for whenever he spoke quickly or impulsively that was +the tongue which he used. +</P> + +<P> +The crew of the steamer was composed of a queer mixture of elements; +and, whatever their moral qualities may have been, their appearance +would not have been altogether reassuring to a man, for instance, +travelling with a good many valuables about him. There was Grant the +engineer, who never spoke at all, and who loved his engines with a +personal love; Pedro, a man with big, melancholy eyes, half Basque and +half Italian; an old Belgian stoker and a nigger from South Carolina; +and, lastly, John Lewis (or Black John, as he was always called), who +came from a Danish West Indian island, and who said he was an Irishman +and had been a cabinetmaker. +</P> + +<P> +The little steamer was not uncomfortable. She was a flat-bottomed +river-boat, and carried cargoes of hides and other Saladero produce. +There were some live pigs with immense tusks, and some tasajo in the +hold, and a raft of pipes of tallow which a hawser towed behind. The +boat was supposed to draw only two feet of water, but in her present +overloaded state she dragged heavily against the mud in the shallower +parts of the river. +</P> + +<P> +Sir John Falconer, who had come down to the river to see the two +travellers off, drew Peter Ogilvie aside and had a considerable talk +with him before saying good-bye. +</P> + +<P> +'Don't attempt amateur detective work yourself,' he urged, 'but stay +with Ross until proper official inquiries can be made into the case. +There is nothing for it but to remain inactive for the present, but +gather information quietly where you can. The law out here is a clumsy +mover, and you may have to wait months before you hear anything. Keep +your eyes and your ears open; travel about the country a little, and +get into conversation with as many people as possible. News in +Argentine is not carried by the newspapers but by the men who ride from +place to place, and more particularly by scamps who have no fixed +address for very long. My advice to you would be to say as little as +possible about the business which you have in hand, but get into +conversation with men who have lived long in the country.' +</P> + +<P> +'I tried that sort of thing on the steamer coming out,' said Peter; +'but we didn't get very much information. The whole thing, you see, is +a very old story.' +</P> + +<P> +'This man Purvis, whom you are travelling with,' said Sir John, 'is the +sort of person who might help you. He knows the country intimately, as +far as I can gather, and depend upon it he hears more gossip on board +his boat than is ever heard anywhere else in the whole country. Chance +dislikes the man, but he may be useful.' +</P> + +<P> +'He looks rather a worm,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'It is generally worms who turn king's evidence,' said Sir John, with a +laugh at his own joke, and then added quickly, 'I don't speak +personally, of course. Your captain is not exactly one's idea of an +old sea-dog, but he is a gentle, intelligent little man.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ross said something about there being trouble on his estancia,' said +Peter. 'I don't know what it was all about.' +</P> + +<P> +'He must have some difficult men to manage up there,' replied Sir John. +'There is always more or less trouble amongst these mixed nationalities +out here. But that need not affect you, of course.' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Peter. 'My cue seems to be to gossip like an old woman with +every one I come across.' +</P> + +<P> +'And to say as little as you can yourself,' concluded Sir John. 'The +man who speaks very little and hears a great deal is always in a strong +position.' +</P> + +<P> +'Although an uninteresting beast to meet,' Peter remarked in +parenthesis. +</P> + +<P> +And then, as the voyage was about to begin, the two friends bade each +other good-bye. +</P> + +<P> +The steamer trip up the shallow river was thoroughly enjoyable, in +spite of the amazing bad food which the travellers had to eat, and the +ever-present smell of pigs and hides. The vegetation of the river-bank +was beautiful in the extreme, and the smells on board the boat were +often counteracted by the exquisite scents which were wafted from the +shore. Mimosa-trees, air-plants, and every sort of creeper gave an +almost tropical appearance to the low woods through which the river ran. +</P> + +<P> +Purvis proved himself an agreeable companion in a timid, mild way. He +pointed out his own estancia house by the river-bank, and invited Peter +and Sir Nigel to come and stay with him some day. +</P> + +<P> +The three passengers did not trouble to turn in when night fell, but +lay on deck and leaned against bales of wool until the boat arrived at +the little port of La Dorada at two o'clock in the morning. Moonlight +and dawnlight lent an air of mystery and beauty to the solitary +country; there was a sort of vast stillness over the land, as the boat +glided to her moorings in the early morning. Nothing could be heard +but the chirping of a bicho, or the desolate neigh of one of the horses +that awaited them by the little quay. The stars shone and twinkled +overhead, and the air was clear and cool and marvellously still. Black +John woke the travellers up and told them it was time to disembark; and +Purvis, to whom sleep seemed quite unnecessary, was awake and ready to +give them a send-off. +</P> + +<P> +'Anything I can do for you while you are out here,' he said to the two +friends as he bade them good-bye, 'I will do most willingly. I am +<I>passeando</I> now, but I hope to be at my own place shortly, and will +ride over and see you. Ross has not been out here long, and perhaps +does not know so much about the country as I do.' +</P> + +<P> +The Englishmen thanked him and mounted their horses, while their +luggage was put into a rough cart, and they then rode off in the +mysterious dawn across the great silent country to the little estancia +house amongst the paraiso trees. +</P> + +<P> +Ross was a capital host, and as the only possible entertainment he +could offer his guests was work upon the estancia he gave them plenty +of it; and the out-of-door life, in spite of the heat and the want of +newspapers, the mosquitoes, and other minor ills, was full of interest +and touched with a sense of freedom and hardness. +</P> + +<P> +Toffy was a man who could accommodate himself to every change of +circumstance. His present life suited him, and he had seldom been in +better health than in Argentine. He adopted Spanish phrases and spoke +them glibly, threw the lasso with the air of a strong man, and tried to +pick out a particular head of stock from the moving mass in the corral. +He chatted with the peons, hunted wild mares in the monte, and drank +cocktails as to the manner born. Ross had decided for an Argentine +style of dress. He wore a beard, and his hands were hard from the +strain of the lasso; but his old brown polo boots had been worn at +Hurlingham and Ranelagh, and were shapelier than were generally seen in +the corral. Ross was still at that enviable stage in life when to +sleep out on the ground with one's head on a saddle is found preferable +to a spring mattress and sheets. He enjoyed swimming rivers with his +clothes on his head, and would have liked the sensation of fatigue +described to him. Peter would probably always look like a cavalry +officer, and would not have been easily mistaken for anything else, +even if he had worn a garment of skins laced together with wire. He +was burned a deep brown, some shades deeper than the colour of his +moustache, and his eyes had come to have a certain fixed gravity in +them which did not alter even when he laughed. His clothes, as Ross +said, were still hopelessly clean and well cut, but he rode better than +any man on the estancia, and did as good a day's work as any of the +rest. +</P> + +<P> +When the day's work was over Hopwood could be relied on to provide +baths. Ross, as has been said, considered himself an expert at +swizzling cocktails, and all three men had a fancy for playing the +banjo, which they could never get in tune. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of many drawbacks our two friends enjoyed the return to the +primitive conditions of life. To be uncivilized has indeed +considerable charm when the blood is young and the muscles are strong +and wiry. Peter was for getting some of his own sheep out here, and a +few good horses. And Toffy had schemes for an immense shipping +industry, which would carry cattle at so low a rate to England that +beef might be sold there at fourpence a pound, which, as he remarked, +would benefit all classes. Ross gave his two years' experience with a +weight of wisdom. He had a share in the estancia, and having tried to +live in London in a Government office on two hundred a year, found +Argentine by contrast the only country in the world for a white man. +</P> + +<P> +Peter himself, as he sat on the cow's skull near the door, and saw the +pleasant, simple life of the place, the major-domo's children ambling +along on their horse, the flock of geese, and the peons loitering by +the patio, was inclined for the time being to put a very low price on +civilization, and to wonder how Jane would like a trip out here. +</P> + +<P> +'Who knows,' he said to himself, 'my brother and I may do a deal. I +may find him a patriarchal sort of cove, living the simple life and +tending his own flocks and herds. He will migrate with his wives and +little ones to Bowshott, and Jane and I will annex the flocks and herds +in Argentine. The place might have its attractions for Jane; and, +anyway, there would not be this beastly separation.' +</P> + +<P> +Toffy appeared at the wire door of the corridor and shouted to them +that breakfast was ready, and Peter strolled towards the house. It was +an absurdly small dwelling, one story high, but with a number of low +buildings round it, covering a considerable amount of ground. And +withal it was a trim place which a man had furnished and fitted and +made ready for his bride, and the poor little garden, now devoid of +flowers, was another evidence of his care. The dining-room was a small +whitewashed hall hung with guns and rifles, and furnished with a table +and a deal cupboard which held some bottles of the rough red wine of +the country. The room next to it, called by courtesy the drawing-room, +had been built for Mrs. Chance when the rest of the house had been made +ready for her, and it still bore upon it the impress of a lady's taste. +There was a shelf running round the room furnished with photographs, +and a sofa covered with a guanaco rug. In one corner of the room stood +a piano, and upon it was a copy of <I>Hymns Ancient and Modern</I>, with +music, for Mrs. Chance had been a parson's daughter at home, and she +used to play to Chance and sing very sweetly on Sunday evenings. +</P> + +<P> +The roughly built fireplace in the room was filled with logs, and a +guitar always stood on a cretonne-covered box close by. It was on this +little cretonne-covered box that Mrs. Chance had been wont to sit and +play the guitar which Chance had purchased for her, and one of the +peons had taught her to thrum Spanish airs upon it. It had been a +pleasure to her during the brief year that she had spent in the +estancia house, with its red roof and simple rooms, and the corridor +that had been enclosed with wire-netting for her. It was she who had +carved the blotter and paper-knife on the writing-table, and had made +covers for the chairs. Mrs. Chance and her baby lie buried in the +cemetery at Buenos Ayres, and the estancia house always has an +unfinished look about it, for Chance likes to have it just as she left +it. +</P> + +<P> +Three or four sparsely furnished rooms opened out of the living-room, +and the corridor made a cool resting-place for the wayfaring men who +often rode up to the house at sundown, and for whose tired limbs a +catre and a rug were sufficient for a night of dreamless slumber. +</P> + +<P> +'All the same,' said Peter to himself, 'we don't seem to get much +forrader in our search for the missing heir.' +</P> + +<P> +Many weeks had gone by, and not a word had disturbed the impenetrable +silence which surrounded the fate of Peter's brother. That the time +had passed not unpleasantly did not alter the fact that no single thing +had been done, nor a single clue discovered. Peter had ridden about, +talked to all sorts and conditions of men, had taken one or two +journeys, and was still as far as ever from any trace of his brother. +Purvis had ridden over several times from his own estancia, bringing +his little boy with him. His treatment of the boy was affectionate to +the point of sentimentality. He looked after him with a woman's +carefulness, was over-anxious about his health, and treated him as +though he were much younger than his actual age. +</P> + +<P> +Peter greeted Mr. Purvis's visits to Las Lomas with cordiality, induced +by the feeling that even a chance word dropped by a man who knew the +country and its people as intimately as Purvis did might throw some +light on his quest. Added to this, the fair, mild-mannered man was an +intelligent talker on the rare occasions when he spoke at any length; +though for the most part he contented himself with regretting in his +dismal way the existing state of commerce in South America, and asking +naïve questions which exposed his ignorance on many subjects. The +conversation of the three public-school men who knew the world of +London, and still spoke its language and discussed its news, who knew +moreover their friends' stories and jokes, and had stayed in a dozen +country houses together, was widely different from Mr. Purvis's +constant melancholy comments upon the state of Argentine finance. +Still, there was no doubt about it, the man might be useful; and, after +consulting with Ross and Toffy, Peter Ogilvie had decided to give him a +hint of the reason which had brought him to Argentine. Without +definitely stating that he had anything to discover, he had allowed +Purvis to know that if he could pick up information about a child who +had been lost sight of twenty-five years ago it would be of +considerable interest to himself and others to hear it. +</P> + +<P> +Purvis thought inquiries might be set on foot, but that it would cost +money to do so; and, without actually adopting the case professionally, +he promised to keep his eyes open, and had already made a journey to +investigate what at first sight seemed like a clue to traces of the +missing man. +</P> + +<P> +He and his son rode over very early to Las Lomas to-day; and, the boy +having been sent into the house to rest and get cool, Purvis crossed +the bare little garden, passed the stout rough paling of the corral, +and went towards the group of paraiso trees where Peter was sitting. +He wore his bowler hat and had the appearance of being a very delicate, +overworked City clerk. +</P> + +<P> +'Ross is not at home, I suppose?' he said, sitting down beside Peter in +the shade and removing his hat. The hat always left a painful-looking +red line on Mr. Purvis's forehead, and it was removed whenever he sat +down. The surprising thing was that he should ever have worn such an +uncomfortable headgear. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, good morning, Purvis!' said Peter. 'No, Ross is not about, I +think. Did you want him?' +</P> + +<P> +No, Mr. Purvis would not trouble Ross; it really did not matter—it was +nothing. Probably Mr. Purvis did not want to see Ross, and had no +business with him, and actually wanted to see some one else. It was +one of the wretched things about the little man that his conversation +was nearly always ambiguous, and that he never asked straight-forwardly +for anything he wanted. And yet, look what a head he had for business! +He had made one immense fortune out of nothing at all in the boom-time, +and had lost it when the slump came. Now he seemed on the way to make +a fortune again. His estancia lay on the river-bank, and was +independent of the old heart-breaking system of railway service in +Argentine for the conveyance of his alfalfa and wheat. He had been +successful where other men had failed. There must be an immense amount +of grit somewhere in that delicate frame! Perhaps his chronic bad +health and pathetically white appearance and the perpetual tear in his +pale eyes had a good deal to do with giving the impression that he must +necessarily be inefficient. His dreamy gaze and soft voice heightened +the suggestion, and it was needful at the outset to discount Mr. +Purvis's appearance altogether before accepting the fact that his +mental powers were above the average. +</P> + +<P> +Purvis sat down, wiped his pale forehead with the bar of red across it, +and returned his handkerchief to the pocket of his dark tweed coat. He +produced a small bottle of tabloids, and shaking a couple of them into +the palm of his hand he proceeded to swallow them with a backward throw +of his head. Tabloids were Mr. Purvis's only personal indulgence. He +had been recommended them for his nerves, and he had swallowed so many +that had they not been perfectly innocuous he must have died long ago. +</P> + +<P> +Peter put down an English newspaper that he was reading, stretched his +legs on a deck-chair, lighted a cigarette, and, as Mr. Purvis did not +seem inclined to move off, made up his mind to submit to a talk with +him under conditions as comfortable as possible. As an agent Purvis +was possible; but as a companion his melancholy, his indistinct, soft +voice, and the platitudes which he uttered were boring to more +vigorous-minded men. +</P> + +<P> +Purvis took a small and uncomfortable chair near the one in which Peter +was stretched luxuriously, turned his wide-open pale eyes upon the +young man and said, 'I have been thinking a good deal about the story +which you told me some time ago about the child who disappeared out +here in Argentine some twenty-five years since, and has not been heard +of again. It sounds like a romance.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' assented Peter, 'it's an odd tale.' +</P> + +<P> +'I have lived in many parts of Argentine,' said Purvis, 'and one hears +a good deal of gossip amongst all classes of persons, more particularly +I should say amongst a class with whom you and our friend Mr. Ross are +not intimately acquainted.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Ogilvie put on an air of detachment, and said he supposed Mr. +Purvis met all sorts and sizes. +</P> + +<P> +'At first,' said Mr. Purvis, 'I did not pay much attention to the story +except to make a few inquiries, such as I thought might be useful to +you. But the other day, by rather an odd coincidence involving matters +which I am not at liberty to divulge, I came across a curious case of a +child who was brought out to Rosario many years ago.' +</P> + +<P> +'What did you hear?' said Peter; he spoke quickly, and with an +impetuous movement sat upright in the deck-chair, and flung away the +end of his cigarette. +</P> + +<P> +'I cannot tell you,' said Purvis, 'how I am hedged about with +difficulties in this matter. For, in the first place, neither you nor +your friend, although you seem interested in the case, have entered +into the matter very fully with me. With that, of course, I shall not +quarrel,' said Mr. Purvis, spreading out his hands in a deprecatory +fashion. 'I only mean to say that before taking any definite steps to +trace this story to its source I must, if you will forgive me, ask +certain questions about the child; and, further, these inquiries which +I propose to make must be conducted with discretion, and are apt to +entail a good deal of expense.' +</P> + +<P> +He paused, and Peter said shortly, 'Of course all expenses will be +paid.' +</P> + +<P> +'It will require immense patience to prove anything about an unknown +infant who came out here twenty-five years ago,' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'I always thought it was rather hopeless,' said Peter; 'but it seemed +to me the right thing to do.' +</P> + +<P> +'It seemed the right thing to do,' said Purvis like an echo. The +dreamy look was in his lack-lustre, weak eyes again, and his soft voice +was more than usually indistinct. 'I should like very much if you +could tell me anything about the man's childhood,' he continued. 'It +is important to know every detail you can possibly furnish for the +clue.' +</P> + +<P> +'I never even saw a picture or a photograph of him,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'It is perplexing,' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Peter, 'it is rather annoying.' +</P> + +<P> +'Old servants are proverbial for their long memories,' the clerkly +visitor went on. 'Are there any such remaining in his old home who +would know anything about the man? Even a birth-mark—although it is a +thing most often connected with cheap romances nowadays—might help to +establish a case.' +</P> + +<P> +'Or disestablish it,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'Or disestablish it,' repeated the echo. +</P> + +<P> +'As a matter of fact,' Peter said, relenting a little, 'the child was +born abroad, and no evidence of that sort is forthcoming. The lawyers +have followed every possible clue that could lead to information about +him without any result whatever.' +</P> + +<P> +'Singular!' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' assented Peter, 'I suppose there are few cases in which a man +has disappeared so completely, and left no trace behind him.' +</P> + +<P> +'The property which is at stake is a large one, I understood you to +say,' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'I don't think I said so,' Peter answered; 'but there is no harm in +telling you that some money is involved.' +</P> + +<P> +'I should certainly know if any considerable property had been willed +away about here,' said Purvis quietly; 'and you see our richest men in +camp have really not much else except landed property to leave. In +Buenos Ayres, and Rosario too, a man of importance in the town dying +and leaving money could easily be traced.' +</P> + +<P> +'Well, I haven't exactly expectations from him,' said Peter, feeling +that he was getting into a muddle. 'The fact is,' he said cordially, +'I shall be interested to hear news of the man if you can obtain any +for me.' +</P> + +<P> +So far he had always regarded his brother's existence as some remote +and hardly possible contingency. Now he began to see plainly that the +man might very possibly be alive, and not only so, but that it might +also be possible to trace his whereabouts. The sudden realization of +this staggered him for a moment; but he went on steadily, 'I want the +man found, and I shall spare no trouble or expense in finding him. +Even if he is dead I do not mind telling you that any definite +information would be welcome to me; and if he is alive my object is to +find him as soon as possible.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Purvis took out his pocket-book. 'You will at least know whether +the man was dark or fair?' he said. +</P> + +<P> +'Fair, I suppose,' said Peter; 'all the portraits in the house are of +fair men.' +</P> + +<P> +'The man I spoke of is dark,' said Purvis, continuing his jottings in +his notebook in a neat hand. +</P> + +<P> +'Fair children often get dark as they grow older,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +Purvis acquiesced. 'The singular thing about it all is,' he said, +'that no one now seems to be living who saw the boy when he was a baby.' +</P> + +<P> +'No one can be traced,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'This affair of the child in Rosario is probably a mare's nest,' said +Mr. Purvis in his hopeless way, as he closed his pocket-book and put a +strap round it. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, at least find out all you can about him,' said Peter, as Hopwood +appeared with coffee, and Ross and Toffy joined them and sat down under +the paraiso trees. There had been some heavy work on the estancia that +morning, followed by a lazy afternoon. +</P> + +<P> +'Can you tell me, Purvis,' said Toffy, breaking off an earnest +conversation with Ross, 'why there should be such an enormous +difficulty about getting a boiled shirt to wear? I suppose it really +does cleanse one's linen to bang it with a stone in the river, but the +appearance of greyness makes one doubtful.' +</P> + +<P> +'You and Peter are both so beastly civilized!' said Ross, in a flannel +shirt with baggy breeches and long boots. 'You don't even like killing +cattle, and the way Hopwood polishes your boots makes them look much +more fitted for St. James's Street than for the camp.' +</P> + +<P> +'You ought to make friends with Juan Lara's wife,' said Purvis. 'She +often washes Dick's little things for him, and does it very nicely.' +</P> + +<P> +'I believe that Lara, on purely economical grounds, wears our shirts a +week or two before he hands them over to his wife to wash,' said Ross, +laughing. +</P> + +<P> +'Ross,' said Peter, 'employs the gaucho's plan, and wears three shirts, +and when the top one gets dirty he discloses the next one to view.' +</P> + +<P> +'Remember, little man,' said Ross, stretching out a huge foot towards +Peter's recumbent figure on the deck-chair, 'I 'm a head and shoulders +taller than you are.' +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm sure Mr. Ogilvie's remark was only in fun,' interposed Purvis. +He rose and went to summon his boy to come and have coffee, and the +three men left behind under the trees watched him disappearing into the +house. +</P> + +<P> +'If it were a matter of real necessity,' said Ross, 'I believe I could +endure the loss of Purvis; he becomes a bore, and tears and tabloids +combined are really very depressing.' +</P> + +<P> +'Poor beast!' said Toffy charitably. +</P> + +<P> +'I can't make out,' said Ross, 'what the trouble is at present on his +estancia. I have only heard some native gossip, and I don't know what +it is all about; but there seems to be an idea that Purvis is lying on +the top of a mine which may "go off sudden."' +</P> + +<P> +'I believe,' began Peter, 'that Purvis is going to be of use, as Sir +John thought he might be. There is a very odd tale he was telling me +just now.' He broke off suddenly as Purvis reappeared in his usual +quiet, shadowy way. He brought a small saddle-bag with him when he +travelled, which seemed to be filled for the most part with papers. +His dark clothes were always neatly brushed and folded by himself, and +he generally spent his days riding to and fro between the house and the +nearest telegraph-office. +</P> + +<P> +'You should take a holiday while you are here,' said Toffy, seeing +Purvis sitting down immediately to write one of his interminable +telegrams. 'It would do you good.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's my nerves,' said Purvis hopelessly. +</P> + +<P> +Ross laughed and said, 'If I lived on weak tea and tabloids as you do, +Purvis, I should be in my grave in ten days.' +</P> + +<P> +'I think,' said Purvis, 'that these new phospherine things are doing me +some good. But I sleep so little now. I don't suppose there's an hour +of the night when I 'm so sound asleep a whisper would not wake me.' +</P> + +<P> +'It takes a good loud gong,' said Ross, 'to make me even realize that I +am in bed.' +</P> + +<P> +'At home,' said Peter, 'I once had an alarm-clock fixed above my bed to +wake me, and at last I told the man who sold it to me that it never +struck; and really I thought it did not until he showed me that it +worked all right.' +</P> + +<P> +'There is a beastly bell for the out-of-door servants at Hulworth,' +said Toffy, 'which is beside my window, and——' +</P> + +<P> +'I know that bell,' said Peter. 'I tie it up regularly every time I am +at Hulworth.' +</P> + +<P> +'Have you also got a country seat?' asked Mr. Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Hulworth is a mouldy old barrack,' replied Toffy. '"Country seat" +is too fine a name for it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Is it quite near Bowshott?' asked Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'No, it's nine miles off,' said Peter, 'unless you ride across country.' +</P> + +<P> +'I wish,' he said to Ross that evening as they sat together in the +corridor, 'that I had any one else to help me in this affair except +Purvis.' +</P> + +<P> +Ross knew the whole story, and was as trustworthy and straightforward a +man as ever breathed. 'I wish you had,' he said cordially; 'but in his +own creepy fashion I believe Purvis is working for you as well as he +can, and he has an extraordinary knowledge of this country and its +language. You see, it is not as if you were looking for your brother +amongst the most respectable English colonists in the land. You may +have to hunt for him in some remarkably queer places, and it is there, +it strikes me, that Purvis will help you.' +</P> + +<P> +'I wish the thing were settled one way or another,' said Peter, 'so +that I might know where I stand. You see, if my brother is alive—— +Well?' +</P> + +<P> +'Nothing, only I thought I heard something moving outside the +wire-netting, and I hate the way Purvis creeps about.' +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis is putting his little boy to bed and hearing him say his +prayers,' said Toffy. 'He is a queer mixture.' +</P> + +<P> +Rosa rose, and walking to the edge of the corridor peered out into the +pitch-black night. +</P> + +<P> +'It 's so dark,' he said, 'I cannot see a thing.' +</P> + +<P> +'Never mind,' said Peter, 'there are no wild beasts to spring at you +unawares. Do you remember poor Cranley, who was in Pitt's house at +Eton? Did you ever hear how he was killed in his veranda in India by a +tiger?' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Ross absently, 'awfully sad thing. Do you know, Peter, I +believe I must walk round to the other side of the house and see if +that chap is really putting his child to bed.' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<P> +So much has been said and so much has been written on the subject of +the man who works and the woman who weeps, the man who fares forth and +the woman who waits at home, that it hardly seems necessary to begin a +chapter with another dissertation upon this theme. Lovers are +proverbially discontented in the adverse conditions of separation. +Peter Ogilvie would have given much to be at home in the winter +following his mother's death, and there is no doubt that Jane Erskine +felt that things would have been many times easier away from home. But +if these two persons had exchanged places their sentiments would +doubtless have been exchanged also, thus proving what a difficult class +of beings lovers are, and how impossible it is to satisfy or to console +them. +</P> + +<P> +Coming as it did in the middle of a long dull winter the change to +Culversham was received by Jane with whole-hearted joy. Miss +Abingdon's large staff of servants, all elderly and all over-paid, +combined with their mistress to welcome Miss Erskine back. The +familiar rooms had never looked more pleasant than on this bleak +December afternoon. A big tea-table was set by the fire, and the +massive silver upon it winked delightedly at the newly arrived guest. +The fire (Miss Abingdon was famous for her good fires) roared joyfully +up the chimney; the dogs knew Jane's voice long before she was out of +the carriage, and proceeded to give an almost hysterical demonstration +of their affection. And Miss Abingdon, whom emotion always made more +than usually severe, snubbed her maid and scolded the butler, and, +sitting down by the fire while Jane poured out tea, entered into so +long and minute an account of the gardener's shortcomings that it would +seem as though her niece had come from London for no other reason than +to hear the recital of her wrongs. +</P> + +<P> +'You must go to bed early,' said Miss Abingdon when she and Jane went +to dress for dinner; and she kept her up talking until long after +twelve o'clock. Mrs. Avory was established in a charming little +cottage almost at the gate of the Vicarage, and was a sort of senior +curate to Canon Wrottesley. Mrs. Avory, Miss Abingdon said, was really +able to appreciate the canon, and in going so far the lady probably +meant that Mrs. Avory wholly admired and perhaps came very near to +accepting as her Pope the good-looking vicar. Mr. Lawrence was being +most attentive and useful, as he always was, and had chosen a new +tea-service for Miss Abingdon the last time he was in town—his taste +was perfect in such matters. He had even arranged to have her baths +painted with a special sort of white enamel, and Miss Abingdon could +only hope the world would not censure her for confiding these intimate +domestic details to a gentleman. Mrs. Wrottesley was still very far +from well; her illness seemed to have brought out—so Miss Abingdon +said—all the nobility of Canon Wrottesley's character. But—in +justice, Miss Abingdon ought to say—Mrs. Wrottesley had been equally +self-forgetful, and had insisted on her husband's going into society a +little. He was coming to them—according to old-established custom—to +dinner on Christmas Day, and Miss Sherard was coming down for the week, +and whom else would Jane like to ask for Christmas? +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon was a staunch upholder of familiar customs. There was a +certain ritual to be observed during Christmas week, and Miss Abingdon +observed it. She gave handsome presents to her household on Christmas +morning, and she always wept in church on Christmas Day, out of respect +to the memory of an elder sister who had died many years ago, and whom +as a matter of fact Miss Abingdon had never known very intimately, for +she had married and left home when Mary Abingdon was but a child. She +gave tips to bell-ringers and carol-singers, and entertained +Sunday-school children and 'mothers' in the laundry. These +anniversaries, she was wont to remark conscientiously, mitigating the +enjoyment of placing handsome presents beside her guests' breakfast +plates—these anniversaries were full of sadness. And having suffered +fewer bereavements than commonly fall to the lot of most women of her +age, she dutifully thought of her elder sister, whom she vaguely +remembered as an occasional guest at her father's house, and she could +not have enjoyed a Christmas Day sermon in which there was not an +allusion to empty chairs. +</P> + +<P> +After morning service Miss Abingdon walked to the Vicarage and bestowed +her yearly gifts upon the Wrottesley family. It was a matter of +conscience with her to give a present of exactly the same value to Mrs. +Wrottesley as to the canon, and this year she offered her little gifts +with a good deal of compunction, remembering how difficult she had +often found it to be quite fair in the distribution. For Mrs. +Wrottesley was failing in health, and in her own plain, unostentatious +way she had made up her mind that her time for quitting this world was +not very far off. She wrote her will with scrupulous exactness and +justness, and having done so she made no allusion whatever to what must +have been occupying her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else, +but continued to live the life in which care for herself had always +been conspicuously absent. +</P> + +<P> +She received Miss Abingdon and Jane on Christmas Day in her pleasant +drawing-room which the wintry sunshine was flooding with warmth and +joyousness, and she tendered her thanks for the presents which had been +brought for her, assured her inquirers that she was very much better in +health, and said that she had ordered no dinner at home, so that her +husband and boys might be forced to accept Miss Abingdon's customary +hospitality. Canon Wrottesley received his wife's statement as to the +improvement of her health with ingenuous pleasure. He believed that +she was really looking better, twitted her kindly on her pale cheeks, +and with the optimism which declines to harbour fears and apprehensions +he refused to believe that she was seriously ill. The canon himself +had had a bad cold lately, and his evident wish to believe that his own +malady was as serious as Mrs. Wrottesley's had something pathetic in +it. If he could get rid of a heavy cold and feel quite himself by +Christmas Day, his wife surely would pick up in health as soon as the +warm weather should come. He believed he was doing right in making +light of her ailments, and Mrs. Wrottesley saw all this quite plainly, +and loved him none the less for it. +</P> + +<P> +'How is your cold?' said Miss Abingdon, with sympathy in her voice, and +the vicar threw back his handsome head and tapped his throat, which he +said was a bit husky still, although it was no use giving way to +illness. 'Master your health,' he said in a tone of muscular +Christianity, 'and it won't master you—eh, mamma?' he added, with an +encouraging glance at his wife's pale face on the sofa. +</P> + +<P> +The Vicar of Wakefield, and even Mr. Pickwick himself, had never been +more jovial at a Christmas party than were Miss Abingdon's guests. A +silver bowl in the middle of the table suggested punch; Canon +Wrottesley must brew a wassail bowl. A footman was sent for this thing +and that, for lemons and boiling water—the water must boil, remember? +And too much sugar would spoil the whole thing. The vicar stirred the +ingredients with an air, and poured from time to time a spoonful of the +punch into a wine-glass, and sampled its quality by rolling it in his +mouth and screwing up his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +The wassail bowl being now mixed to his satisfaction, he filled the +glasses of the company, allotting to each lady the thimbleful which he +believed to be a woman's share of any alcoholic beverage, and +extracting compliments from every one. The wassail bowl was a triumph, +and the candle of Mr. Pickwick was put out. Even Dickens' hero could +not have given such an air of jollity to a festive occasion like this. +He toasted every one in the good old-fashioned custom, requesting 'A +glass of wine with you' on this side and on that. After dinner the +presence of Dorothy Avory furnished the pretext for inaugurating a +country dance in the hall. Canon Wrottesley pushed chairs aside and +rolled rugs up, and before many minutes were over Sir Roger de Coverley +was in full swing, and he was footing it with the indomitable energy of +the man whose feet may be heavy but whose heart is aye young. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Abingdon in grey satin was the vicar's partner, and attempted to +go through the steps in the minuet style; the young Wrottesleys, on the +other hand, were at an age when to be asked to dance Sir Roger de +Coverley can only be construed as deadly insult. Fortunately for them, +the vicar by some strategical movement always found himself in the +enviable position of the dancer who ambles forward to make his bow. +</P> + +<P> +The lady who was playing the piano at last stopped the music with a few +solemn chords, faintly suggestive of an Amen, and Canon Wrottesley, who +was proceeding with his fifth or sixth sally into the middle of the +figure, stopped breathless. Dorothy Avory looked over-heated when the +dance was finished, and as she had furnished the excuse for a rather +poor attempt at romping, her obvious fatigue was quite sufficient to +give the canon an opportunity of a little quiet reading until all were +rested. He put on his spectacles—which he always wore with an air of +apology—and gave out the title of the story, <I>The Old Vicomte—A +Christmas Episode</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Doubtless the scene of the story was laid in France, but that fact +hardly justified Canon Wrottesley in reading the whole of it in broken +English. His knowledge of French had always been a matter of pride +with him, and he enjoyed rolling out the foreign names with a perfect +accent. +</P> + +<P> +The number of listeners in the room had diminished considerably before +the reading was finished. Good-nights were said on all sides, the +Vicarage party drove away, and, the conscientious romping and jollity +being over, it may have been felt by some of Miss Abingdon's guests +that the duties of Christmas Day had not been altogether light, and +that now perhaps enforced cheerfulness might be abandoned in favour of +a more easy and natural frame of mind. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty Sherard came into Jane's room in her dressing-gown, with her +hair-brush in her hand, and deliberately relaxed after the fatigues of +the evening. Most girls with such a profusion of curls as Kitty's +would have been content to allow them to wander unrestrained over her +shoulders; but Miss Sherard with her passion for decoration would have +dressed beautifully on a desert island, if her trunks had been washed +ashore with her; she had fastened a knot of rose-coloured ribbon in her +hair, and wore it on one side just over her eye with an unstudied and +perfectly successful effect. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose you know,' said Jane, 'that you are extraordinarily pretty, +Kitty?' +</P> + +<P> +'I spend a fortune on dresses which look cheap,' said Kitty, 'and so +people think I am nice-looking.' +</P> + +<P> +Jane thought such humility on the part of any one so pretty as Miss +Sherard was a sign in her that she must be out of spirits; so she said, +'Oh, nonsense, Kitty!' in a very affectionate way, and begged that Miss +Sherard would smoke a cigarette if she felt inclined. +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Kitty, 'I don't think I want to smoke.' +</P> + +<P> +Jane drew her chair nearer the big chair on the hearth-rug, and, +blowing out the candles, the two girls sat by the firelight. +</P> + +<P> +Tenderness, as every one knows, is an ineradicable instinct of +womanhood. Kitty Sherard might smoke cigarettes and drive in a very +high dogcart, but just then her heart felt very nearly breaking, and +she was so grateful to Jane for blowing out the lights and sitting near +her that in defiance of her mood she began to laugh. +</P> + +<P> +'What a moist party we were in church this morning!' she said, smiling +broadly, and ignoring the fact that her eyes had tears in them. 'Miss +Abingdon looked conscientiously tearful, and Mrs. Avory applied herself +to her pocket-handkerchief as soon as the canon began his usual joyful +Christmas message about empty chairs and absent friends.' +</P> + +<P> +'Poor Mrs. Avory!' said Jane, 'weeping has become a sort of habit with +her, and tears come very easily. If we had trimmed parasols and eaten +tinned food for supper for a year or two, Kitty, I imagine we should +become very tearful too.' +</P> + +<P> +Miss Sherard unloosed the rose-coloured ribbon which bound her hair, +and beginning to brush out her curls she said 'Yes,' slowly, and turned +to other topics. +</P> + +<P> +'Do you ever feel quite old, Jane?' she said at last. 'I do, +especially during a long frost. I feel as if I had tried every single +bit of pleasure that there is in the world and had come through it and +out on the other side, and found that none of it was the least little +bit of good.' +</P> + +<P> +'Heaven send us a thaw soon!' exclaimed Jane. +</P> + +<P> +'I quite adore my father,' said Kitty with emphasis, 'and I think he +helps to keep me young; but it is rather pathetic, isn't it, that any +one should think one so perfect as he thinks me?' +</P> + +<P> +Jane rose ostentatiously from her place and opened the window and +consulted a thermometer that hung outside. +</P> + +<P> +'Still freezing hard,' she said, and returned to her seat again. +</P> + +<P> +'You are rather a brick, Jane,' said Kitty. +</P> + +<P> +'To-morrow,' said Jane, 'I shall certainly write to your father urging +his immediate return before you begin to grow grey-haired.' +</P> + +<P> +'You 've had a fairly odious Christmas Day,' said Kitty, not noticing +the interruption. 'You 've had to dry Miss Abingdon's tears, and +listen to Canon Wrottesley reading aloud, and you have had to be hearty +to carol-singers and to waft holly-berries in the faces of mothers. +Why don't you throw something at me when I come to your room in the +middle of the night as cross as a bear with a sore head, and begin to +grumble at you?' +</P> + +<P> +This remark Jane considered serious. 'The end of it will be, that you +'ll get engaged to be married, Kitty,' she said, 'and then I shall jeer +at you and recall to you every one of your past flirtations, and all +your good resolutions about remaining single, and being happy ever +after.' +</P> + +<P> +'Is it really still Christmas Day?' said Kitty. 'I thought it began +quite a week ago, and that we had had nights and nights of wassail +bowls and old memories and Christmas-card cheerfulness.' She gathered +up her hair-pins and brushes and gave a yawn. 'If it is nearly twelve +o'clock I suppose I ought to go,' she said. +</P> + +<P> +'I am not a bit sleepy,' quoth Jane. +</P> + +<P> +'Apart from the fact of my winter being dull,' said Kitty, 'with my +beloved parent in Rome, my temper is never proof against giving way +when any one reads aloud to me. The story of the French vicomte is +really answerable for my present horrible state of mind.' +</P> + +<P> +'One always connects reading aloud with sick-beds and work-parties,' +said Jane. 'When you are ill, Kitty, I intend to come and read good +books to you.' +</P> + +<P> +'Mrs. Avory encouraged the canon,' said Kitty. 'I found out afterwards +that she had read the story before, and yet she gave a sort of +surprised giggle at everything.' +</P> + +<P> +'The Wrottesleys are being awfully good to her,' said Jane excusingly. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty was still gazing into the fire; her tone when she spoke was that +of a sensible person considering some subject only remotely interesting +to her. 'I suppose,' she said steadily, but with a touch of curiosity, +'that Mrs. Avory will always continue to think that to be true for ever +and ever to Toffy is the most noble and virtuous action in the world.' +</P> + +<P> +'They have been very faithful to each other,' said Jane. +</P> + +<P> +A most unexpected thing then happened, for Kitty kneeled down suddenly +on the hearth-rug, while the firelight shone in her eyes and gave a +fierce red look to them. 'Oh, what is the use of it all?' she cried, +'and what is to be the end of it? Mr. Avory is not going to die—he 's +the strongest man I know, and he can't be much more than forty years +old! How does she think it is all going to end? Don't you see how +absurd the whole thing is? She's seven years older than Toffy, so that +even if she could marry him it would not be the best thing for him. +Oh, I know she has behaved well, and worked hard! I know she has eaten +horrid food and trimmed parasols, and been faithful and good, but will +she ever let him care for any one else?' +</P> + +<P> +'Kitty!' said Jane; she took another step forward, and taking Kitty's +face between her hands she turned it towards her. 'Kitty!' +</P> + +<P> +'Isn't it ridiculous!' said Kitty. She swallowed down a sob in her +throat and made a pretence of laughing while her hands played with her +hair-brush, and her eyes, which endeavoured to blaze defiance, only +succeeded in looking large and full of tears. +</P> + +<P> +'I never knew—I never guessed——' began Jane helplessly. +</P> + +<P> +'You were never meant to know,' said Kitty, and she turned away her +face suddenly from Jane's encircling hands and buried it in the cushion +of the chair. Her voice dropped ominously; she was still kneeling on +the hearth-rug with the paraphernalia of her toilet about her—ribbons +and gold-backed brushes, and a little enamel box for hair-pins. 'No +one was ever meant to know!' she cried, 'and now I shall never be able +to look you in the face again as long as we both do live! It's been +going on so long, Jane, and you 've all been so sorry for Mrs. Avory, +and so sorry for Toffy.' +</P> + +<P> +'Does he know?' asked Jane, in a low voice. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty raised her head and pretended to laugh again. 'I 've not +proposed to him yet,' she said. +</P> + +<P> +'But he cares,' said Jane, with conviction. 'He does care, Kitty!' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh,' said Kitty, bursting into tears, 'isn't it all a frightful +muddle!' +</P> + +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> + +<P> +The conclusion, therefore, which may be arrived at on the vexed +question as to which is preferable—the lot of the man who works or the +lot of the woman who weeps, may be summed up in the convenient phrase, +'There is a great deal to be said on both sides.' +</P> + +<P> +It is true that Kitty Sherard and Jane, left behind in comfortable and +prosaic England, were spared the torment of flies and mosquitoes and +other minor ills; they escaped most of the hard things of life, and +enjoyed many of its pleasures and luxuries; and these mitigations +seemed to them things of very little worth, and the life of action, +when viewed from the safe security of their environment, appeared to be +the only possible condition which might assuage pain or lessen the +bitterness of separation. +</P> + +<P> +Peter Ogilvie, meanwhile, and his friend, Nigel Christopherson, were in +the midst of weather as hot as can be very well endured even by English +people, who seem capable of resisting almost every sort of bad climate. +The sun rose on the edge of the level plains every morning with +horrible punctuality, and stared and blazed relentlessly until it had +burned itself out in a beautiful rage and glory in the blood-red +western sky. +</P> + +<P> +'Dawn,' Ross said, 'is one of the things you are disposed to admire +when you first come to Argentine, but when the hot weather begins you +feel inclined to throw your boots at the sun when it rises.' +</P> + +<P> +Now it was afternoon, and a heavy day's work in the corral was over. +Peter was writing letters, while Ross and Toffy dozed in long cane +chairs in the corridor. Purvis sat on the little cretonne-covered box +beside the empty fireplace, and looked with lack-lustre eyes into +space. He had been helping with some work on the estancia; but he had +brought none of his own men with him, as some neighbours had done, and +the ominous whisper grew that there was trouble down at his place. +Ross treated the matter lightly, and explained it by saying that Purvis +was making a fortune with his steamers, and was feeding his men on +<I>carne flacca</I>. 'Purvis does his best, poor beast, and I believe he is +worth a dozen detectives in this affair of yours, Peter.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter himself, however, was inclined to draw back a little. 'He has +put me on the wrong scent once or twice,' he said. +</P> + +<P> +'After all, you haven't told him much,' said Ross. +</P> + +<P> +And Peter agreed that this was so. +</P> + +<P> +There was an undefined feeling in his mind that if he had to learn that +his brother was alive he would like to hear of it through such +legalized channels as Sir John Falconer was arranging. The detective +spirit was not strong in Peter Ogilvie. He would have preferred to +take the whole world into his confidence, and to ask them to speak out +if they had anything to say. But Mr. Semple and Sir John had cautioned +him against this procedure, and the inquiries he had been able to make +had been conducted at one time with such surprising caution that no +possible clue was given towards finding the child, while at others he +had allowed more to be known than Mr. Semple, for instance, would have +thought wise. He had lately become more reserved in his dealings with +their neighbour at La Dorada, and began almost to try to discount the +fact that he had ever consulted Purvis at all about his affairs. He +lightly waved aside any information that was given him, and was always +busy at the moment when Purvis wanted a few words with him. He advised +Toffy to say, if he were asked, that Sir John Falconer was making +inquiries, and that for the present they themselves were not going to +move in the matter. Toffy and Ross both thought that they had gone too +far to make such an attitude possible. 'What harm can it do to find +out what he knows?' Ross said more than once. +</P> + +<P> +But Peter still held back. 'I hate his confounded mysteries,' he said, +'and I don't attach much importance to things that are only known in a +back-stairs sort of way.' +</P> + +<P> +This afternoon in his letter to Jane he had given it as his opinion +that the little man who they had thought might help them was proving to +be rather a fraud. 'He is always starting ideas,' wrote Peter, 'and +nothing comes of them. Why, bless me, you would think that Argentine +was peopled with unclaimed babies and stiff with missing heirs.' +</P> + +<P> +He felt better when he had unbosomed himself to Jane and had got rid of +some of his impatience and ill-temper. +</P> + +<P> +'I think I 'll ride to the post presently,' he said, getting up and +stretching himself; 'it must get cooler soon.' +</P> + +<P> +Purvis got up also from his little wooden seat by the fireplace. 'I +'ll come with you,' he said. 'I am expecting letters which may want my +immediate attention, and I can call at the telegraph office on my way. +May I give you my company so far?' he asked. There was a touch of the +lackey about Purvis, and his voice was humble sometimes to the verge of +irritation. +</P> + +<P> +'<I>Como no?</I>' said Peter lazily, in the formula of the country. His +tone was not enthusiastic. Purvis was so prone to circumlocution that +the fact that he had asked deliberately to accompany him on the ride +towards the mail in the cool of the evening convinced him that the man +could have nothing of importance to say. +</P> + +<P> +They rode together over the short, tough turf of the camp a little way +without speaking, and then Purvis began, in his smooth thin voice, +riding a little nearer to his companion so as to make himself heard +without undue exertion, 'I wanted to speak to you alone.' +</P> + +<P> +'Say on,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +When he was riding Purvis was perhaps at his worst. He had an ugly +seat in the saddle, and his dark grey suit, made with trousers, was +worn without riding-boots. He looked straight in front of him with his +tired watery eyes with the perpetual tear in them, and said, 'I believe +we are within measurable distance of finding the man you seek.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter looked full at him, but the other did not turn his head; his +horse cantered along lazily in the evening light as he sat loosely in +the saddle, his pale, expressionless face turned towards the path by +which they were travelling. +</P> + +<P> +'The name of the man,' he said, 'is Edward Ogilvie.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Peter; 'my brother.' The thing was out now, and he could +thank Heaven that he did not wear his heart on his sleeve. +</P> + +<P> +'It is a very strange story!' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'May we have it?' asked Peter briefly. He might employ Purvis, but it +galled him to think that his future lay in his hands. +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Purvis, in his hesitating, thin voice. 'You can't have it +for the present. To begin with,' he continued, turning towards Peter +for the first time, and raising pathetically large eyes towards him, 'I +am not going to speak about it until I am sure, nor am I going to speak +about it until I have asked you for some necessary details which will +make a mischance or a case of mistaken identity impossible. I don't +want to make a fool of myself, as you have trusted me so far.' +</P> + +<P> +'Ask me anything you like,' said Peter laconically. His mind was +pretty full just then, and there was a note of confidence in Purvis's +voice which gave him the idea that their search was nearly over. He +began to wonder how much money he had, and whether there was any chance +of the Scottish place being his. Bowshott, of course, would pass away +from him, and the beautiful house with its galleries and its gardens +would be the property of some unknown man. Possibly the man had a +wife, and where Jane was to have reigned as mistress there would be +some woman, unused to great houses, and with manners perhaps not suited +to her position. He wondered what his mother would have thought about +it all, and whether she could in the least realize what the result of +her unfinished letter to him might be. Whatever her faults she had +been a great lady to her finger-tips. He remembered her, as he had +been wont to see her, showing her pictures and gardens to the foreign +royalties who came to see her, or receiving Her Majesty when she drove +over from Windsor and called upon her. Only Jane could ever fill her +place adequately; Jane with her short skirts and graceful, swinging +walk, and her queer plain hats that so perfectly became her, and made +country neighbours look overdressed. He loved to remember her in a +hundred different ways—in white satin, with a string of pearls about +her neck; at meets, on one of her sixteen-hand hunters; playing golf; +painting the rabbit-hutch in the garden; binding up Toffy's hand that +morning, ages ago, when he had had a spill out of his motor-car; +playing with the school-children on the lawn; or, best of all, perhaps, +dancing in the great ballroom at Bowshott, and sitting with him +afterwards in the dimness of his mother's tapestried chamber, her great +white feather fan laid upon her knees. +</P> + +<P> +'Is the man married?' asked Peter, with a drawl. +</P> + +<P> +'He is married,' Purvis said, as the two horses swung together in their +easy stride. +</P> + +<P> +'Wife alive?' Peter slowed down and lighted a cigarette with +deliberation. +</P> + +<P> +'That is a part of the story which I cannot at present divulge,' said +Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'It sounds mysterious!' said Peter, sending his horse into a canter +again. +</P> + +<P> +'If it were written in a romance it would hardly be believed,' said the +other. +</P> + +<P> +'You were going to ask me some questions,' said Peter, as though to put +an end to any dissertation on the romantic side of the story. 'It is a +business matter,' he said, 'and we had better be businesslike about it. +We can unfold the romance of it later.' +</P> + +<P> +'That is my wish,' said Purvis gravely. +</P> + +<P> +Peter began to tell himself that he was treating the man badly. He had +nothing to gain beyond a little money for his services, and so far he +had behaved well and with tact. He was obviously disinterested, +although perhaps the bill for pursuing his investigations might be +fairly high. +</P> + +<P> +'I have reason to believe that the identity of the man can be proved,' +said Purvis; 'but I am not going to risk finding a mare's nest, as I +have told you.' +</P> + +<P> +'I am not much help to you,' said Peter. 'I have never set eyes oh my +brother since I was two years old.' +</P> + +<P> +'This is his photograph,' said Purvis, producing a coloured photograph +from his pocket. +</P> + +<P> +Peter took it into his hands and looked long at it. It represented a +little boy with fair curls seated in a photographer's arm-chair. +</P> + +<P> +'Can you tell me if it resembles any of your family?' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, 'pon my word I don't know,' said Peter. 'The photograph is a +small one, you see, and evidently not a very good one, and to my mind +all children of that age look exactly alike. He looks a good little +chap,' he finished, with a touch of kindness in his voice. If his +brother turned out to be a good fellow reparation would be made easier; +and, heavens! how badly the man had been treated. +</P> + +<P> +'The chief danger,' said Purvis, 'lies in the fact that even a strong +chain of evidence is not likely to be accepted by those who would +benefit by Edward Ogilvie's death.' +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose one would play a fair game,' said Peter shortly. 'I should +like to know where you have heard of the man?' +</P> + +<P> +'I may tell you that much,' said Purvis. 'I heard of him at Rosario.' +</P> + +<P> +'Any reason why he should not have communicated with his friends all +these years?' +</P> + +<P> +'Within the next few weeks,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to bring +you face to face with your brother, and then you can put what inquiries +you like to him. You must surely see that it is necessary to act with +caution until the thing is decided. Even now I can't be quite sure if +this man's claim is valid; but once the story is out a dozen claimants +may arise, and it would cost you a fortune to sift all the evidence +which they might bring.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, I see that,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'I am disappointed that the photograph conveys nothing to you,' said +Purvis. 'I looked upon it as an important link in the chain of +evidence, thinking there might be another like it amongst the old +servants, perhaps, at your home.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter looked at it again. 'The trouble is,' he said, 'that there are +no old servants who knew us as children. He was handing the photograph +back to Purvis when an idea struck him. 'I tell you what, though,' he +exclaimed, 'I believe the sash round the child's waist is made of +Ogilvie tartan.' +</P> + +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> + +<P> +A bare-legged boy on a lean pony was seen approaching them in a cloud +of dust. The pony's short canter made his pace as easy as a +rocking-chair; and Lara's son, who rode him, was half asleep in the +heat. The post-bag dangled from his saddle, and the reins lay on the +pony's neck. +</P> + +<P> +'Any letters?' said Peter in Spanish, and the boy handed the bag to +him. The mail-boat from England, which was run on purpose to carry +Jane's weekly letter to him, had brought the big square envelope with +its usual commendable punctuality. Peter chose it out from the rest of +the letters, and, handing Purvis a packet which belonged to him, he +gave the bag back to the boy, who cantered along with his bare legs +swinging until he disappeared into the level glare of the setting sun. +</P> + +<P> +Peter let his horse amble on slowly, and read his letter while he rode. +</P> + +<P> +'I must push on, I think,' said the quiet voice of Purvis beside him. +'There are one or two things which, I gather from my letters, I must +put straight at the estancia. I hope to have definite news to +communicate to you before long.' +</P> + +<P> +'Thanks!' said Peter, giving him a nod. 'You will let me hear from you +as soon as you know anything?' He turned his horse homewards, and +Purvis rode on alone. +</P> + +<P> +'If he has found my brother,' quoth Peter, 'Purvis has done his job, +and I can't complain; but he has got to settle the thing up without all +this confounded mystery, or else he can leave it alone. There is one +thing perfectly clear. Edward himself knows nothing about his parents +or his prospects, or he would have claimed the property long ago. Now, +how has Purvis found out about the man what he doesn't know himself? +Where has he got his clue? One thing is pretty certain—that he +doesn't want me to meet my brother yet, which looks very much as if our +friend Purvis was going to make some sort of bargain with the heir, +whoever he is, before he allows him to know the truth about himself. +Well, the affair will be judged by English lawyers when we get home, +and if it is a case of blackmail, for instance, English people are not +very fond of that sort of thing, so Purvis may not be able to make such +a good bargain as he thinks. +</P> + +<P> +'Of course the chain of evidence may be perfectly simple. Purvis has +probably got hold of the name of whoever it was that brought Edward +here, and has traced him somewhere, and has got the whole story from +him. My mother had always an unlimited supply of money; she could have +settled a large sum on the people who looked after him, and of course +it is evident that some money must have been paid, though the lawyers +could find no trace of it amongst her papers. The only other +hypothesis is that it is a case of some extraordinary aberration of +memory, and that, the child she disliked having been removed, she +forgot about him altogether. All my life I never remember hearing him +mentioned; and as my mother did not return to Bowshott until I was +nearly eight years old, very little may have been said to her that +would recall the fact of the boy's death. +</P> + +<P> +'It is the beastly uncertainty of it,' he continued, as he rode slowly +home on the dusty track which was the apology for a road across the +camp. 'If the estate pays me sufficient to live upon I needn't +grumble; but Purvis must give me an account of what he has been doing, +and put me in possession of the facts of the case. One always +distrusts the middleman, and wonders if he is making a good bargain on +both sides. A small man like Purvis always tries to be important, and +to make every one believe that he alone holds the key to mysteries, and +that no one can get on without him. I don't at present see how he can +defraud either me or my brother, even if he wants to; but I am not +going to be content with hints or suggestions, as if I were living in a +penny novelette.' +</P> + +<P> +He rode slowly home through the heat that rose like a palpable gas from +the scorched ground, until the little estancia house hove in sight +again. He found that Toffy and Ross were still enjoying their +afternoon siesta. There was not a bit of shade anywhere, and the heat +seemed to burn through the roof until the very floor was hot to walk +upon. His thoughts went back to Purvis in his tweed clothes and the +bowler bat with the pugaree on it, and he wondered how he fared in the +scorching heat. Probably the anaemic little man hardly knew what it +was to be too hot. He used to ride over the camp when even the peons +did not show their heads out of doors, and his hands were always cold +and damp to the touch. Peter drank some tea and sat down at little +Mrs. Chance's writing-table in the drawing-room, and wrote to Jane. +There was a feeling of storm in the air, and he envied the two men +sleeping luxuriously in the corridor. +</P> + +<P> +'When you have been out here a year or two,' said the sleepy voice of +Ross from the depths of a long cane chair, 'you will find that letters +are not only impossible but unnecessary. No one expects to hear from +one after the first month or two, and if one did write there would be +nothing to say.' +</P> + +<P> +'When my creditors get too troublesome,' said Toffy, also waking up, 'I +shall emigrate here and lose my own address. With strict economy one +might live very cheaply in Argentine.' +</P> + +<P> +Lara's boy, who had come with the letters, had waited to ride back with +the bag to the far distant post office; and the Englishmen at the +estancia stood and watched him—a tiny figure on his tireless little +Argentine pony—riding away eastward until once more a cloud of dust +swallowed him up. The humble postman seemed to form a link with home, +and in three weeks' time the letters which they had confided to him +would be safely in the hands of those to whom they were written in +England. The pony's unshod hoofs had made hardly any sound on the turf +as he cantered off, and Lara's boy, in his loose shirt and shabby +clothes, and his bare feet hanging stirrupless on each side of the +pony, disappeared like a wraith. There was a week to wait before he +would come with any more letters. +</P> + +<P> +'I wish the storm would burst or blow over,' said Ross; 'the heat is +worse than ever to-day, and it doesn't seem as though we were going to +have a cool night.' +</P> + +<P> +'Even the peons look curled up,' said Toffy, glancing at a group of +men, picturesquely untidy, with loose shirts and scarlet boinas on +their heads, who lounged against the <I>palo á pique</I> of the corral. +</P> + +<P> +'What idle brutes they are, really!' said Ross; 'and they 're always +ten times worse when Chance is away. Look at those bits of paper +littering the place,' he went on fussily. 'Now I know that those men +have been told thousands of times not to let things fly about like +that. But it saves them trouble when they clean a room to sweep +everything out of doors and then leave it lying about.' +</P> + +<P> +Probably most men who own property have an inherent dislike to seeing +scraps of paper lying about; the sight suggests trippers and visitors' +days, and Peter stepped down from the raised corridor, and with his +stick began poking the bits of paper into the powdery mud which was all +that at present formed the estancia garden. +</P> + +<P> +'I believe we might paper the whole house with Purvis's telegrams,' he +said, laughing, as he shoved a bit of coloured paper under the ground. +</P> + +<P> +'Salter,' he said to himself—'Salter. It sounds like the agony column +at home. Well, Ross and I had better stop acting as scavengers for the +household, or we may learn too much of Purvis's domestic affairs.' +</P> + +<P> +He stopped poking with his stick; and, although he laughed, he was as +much annoyed at having seen the name on the telegram as he would have +been had he inadvertently overlooked another man's hand at cards. +</P> + +<P> +The storm blew away in the night, and after the dawn the sky was a +heavenly blue, so brilliant that it could not be overlooked. In the +early morning the mimosa trees threw cool shadows to westward, and +little parakeets, making their flights from bough to bough, screamed +overhead. On the estancia work began early; some one had to lasso a +novillo for the pot, and the rodeo looked like a seething, bubbling +cauldron, with its moving mass of cattle. The easy paces of the horses +on which all the work of the place was done made riding a matter not of +exercise at all; and the only thing necessary was to duck heads to +avoid the mimosa boughs, and to guide the horses round the holes and +stumps in the ground at a gentle canter. The novillo was lassoed, and +the sun began to be sultry when the three men rode back to breakfast, +congratulating themselves that, as the day seemed likely to be as hot +as usual, there was not a great deal of work to be done, at least until +the cool of the evening. +</P> + +<P> +'Is that Purvis?' asked Toffy, as they approached the house and +tethered their horses by the simple expedient of throwing their reins +over their heads and letting them trail upon the ground. 'When, in the +name of the Prophet, does that fellow sleep?' It was barely ten +o'clock when they rode back to breakfast, and Purvis must have started +on his ride almost at dawn. +</P> + +<P> +'Hallo!' said Ross, greeting him with a certain kindliness which a very +big man will show to one who is small and weak, even if he has growled +at his appearance a moment before. 'Hallo, Purvis, where have you come +from, and when do you get any sleep?' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't think that sleep is very necessary to me,' said Purvis; 'and I +generally find that I work just as well when I have only two or three +hours' rest.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's very odd,' said Toffy amicably. +</P> + +<P> +'I came back about my little boy,' said Purvis; 'I have to go down to +Buenos Ayres, and I want to know if I may leave him here with you.' +</P> + +<P> +Ross assented, and Toffy remarked that he believed with training he +himself might make a very fair nursery-maid. +</P> + +<P> +'Things are a little bit disturbed at my place,' said Purvis. 'I have +so many mixed nationalities down there, and they don't get on well +together, and are difficult to manage. I would rather not leave Dick, +if you could have him—Dick will be a good boy—no?' he said, speaking +in the questioning negative so common in Argentine, and addressing the +pale-faced little boy in a manner far too babyish for his years. +</P> + +<P> +Dick made no promise; but feeling, boy-like, that he never quite knew +what being good involved, he wriggled uneasily in his chair. His +father laid one of his hands on the boy's dark hair and the other +beneath the delicately pointed chin, and, turning up the little face +towards him, he kissed it with womanish affection. +</P> + +<P> +'When will you get the train?' said Ross presently, as they sat at +breakfast in the hall. 'You can't catch the one to-night, and there's +not another for two days. Your best plan would have been to send us a +wire about the boy, and to have taken your own steamer down to Taco; it +would have saved a long bit of riding.' +</P> + +<P> +'I wanted to say good-bye to my little one,' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'Well,' said Ross hospitably, 'you are welcome here till your train +starts.' +</P> + +<P> +'I must be off to-night,' said Purvis. 'If I start at eight this +evening I shall catch the train at one a.m. at Taco.' +</P> + +<P> +'You will be dead, Purvis!' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +Chance had once asserted that Purvis was the only man he knew who had +no sense of fatigue and no sense of fear. 'It's quite true,' he said, +when there was a murmur of astonishment from his listeners; 'and, much +as I dislike the man, I have never known him to be afraid of anything. +It may, of course, be due to a lack of imagination on his part; but I +myself believe that it is the result of having been so frequently in +tight places. I don't believe he can even handle a gun; and yet if he +were surrounded and mobbed he would probably only blink with his watery +eyes or help himself to another tabloid.' +</P> + +<P> +Purvis left his horse in the cool of the paraiso trees during the day, +and a peon brought it to the door after he had eaten a frugal dinner, +during which meal he attended far more to the wants of his child than +to his own. +</P> + +<P> +After dinner Peter cut some sandwiches for him, and gave him a flask of +whisky, a piece of hospitality which in all probability he would have +offered a man who was about to hang him. He had been nurse and +guardian in one to Toffy at Eton, and his long care of the delicate boy +had given him an odd sort of thoughtfulness which showed itself in +small and homely acts like this. +</P> + +<P> +'When I return from Buenos Ayres,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to +put before you the facts which will identify Edward Ogilvie.' +</P> + +<P> +'You are quite sure you have got them?' said Peter briefly. +</P> + +<P> +'I am almost certain,' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'Of course,' went on Peter, 'you understand that all the evidence that +you bring before me will have to be thoroughly investigated by +lawyers?' He was half sorry that he had spoken sharply when Purvis +replied with his usual quietness, 'That goes without saying.' +</P> + +<P> +'I dislike anything sensational,' Peter said; 'and this is a case in +which I much prefer that all information which you get shall be brought +direct to me. To be suddenly confronted with my brother might be very +interesting from the point of view of an Adelphi audience; but then, +you see, we are not in a theatre at present.' +</P> + +<P> +'The facts in this case,' replied Purvis, 'are quite exceptional; you +will allow this, I think, when you know them, and you will then +appreciate the fact that it was necessary to get the whole of the +evidence quite clearly established before making the final results +known to you.' +</P> + +<P> +'We have hardly time to argue the subject,' said Peter, 'seeing that +your pony is at the door. The solicitor in Buenos Ayres, whom Sir John +Falconer recommended to me, will meet you here any day you like to +name, and we can go into the matter thoroughly with you together.' +</P> + +<P> +'That would be the most satisfactory plan,' said Purvis, raising his +weak eyes to Peter. 'Meanwhile,' he said, 'my expenses in this matter +have been considerable; perhaps you would kindly look at my account +before starting?' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Peter shortly, 'I could not. I am not in the habit of +looking over my accounts by moonlight in the garden.' +</P> + +<P> +'A hundred pounds on account,' said Purvis, 'would enable me to bring +this important matter to a conclusion. Without that, I fear, I am +powerless.' +</P> + +<P> +It ended in Toffy and Peter putting their available cash together and +giving Purvis seventy pounds, and the clerkly man of ink produced a +stamp and a stylographic pen from his pocket, and made out the receipt +on the little dining-room table and handed it to Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'Thank you,' said Peter, relenting a little. He was annoyed with +himself for the irritation which Purvis produced in him. After all, he +had asked him for his assistance, and he was giving it to the best of +his ability. He went as far as the door with him, and said, 'If the +claim is established, remember I should like to see Edward Ogilvie as +soon as possible. Wire to me all particulars, and be so good as to +convey to him that we are anxious to do the right thing by him. I +should not like him to feel, for instance, that the fact of his +existence was any cause of resentment with any of us.' +</P> + +<P> +'It is he, perhaps, who will feel resentment,' said Purvis. +</P> + +<P> +'Perhaps,' said Peter, resisting an inclination to speed Purvis's +departure. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<P> +Toffy was hovering about the dining-room waiting for him as he turned +and went into the house again, and said, 'All this is a bit rough on +you, Peter.' And Peter assented with a nod. +</P> + +<P> +The two men went into the little drawing-room to collect pillows for +the long chairs in the corridor where they were going to sleep, and +Peter went to a side table to turn low a lamp which was adding to the +heat of the room. 'I say,' he said, 'didn't you mean these letters to +go?' +</P> + +<P> +'Haven't my letters gone?' said Toffy. 'How on earth were they +forgotten?' +</P> + +<P> +'Toffy,' said Peter, 'when I meet you acting as a sandwich-man in +Piccadilly, without a rag to your back or a shilling to your name, I +shall say nothing more encouraging to you than, "It was just what I +expected!"' +</P> + +<P> +'But Ross always told me to leave my letters here when I wanted them +posted!' said Toffy, scratching his head. +</P> + +<P> +'It's an extraordinary thing,' said Peter, 'that you ever have a pillow +to lay your head on; and you don't get that unless I heave it at you +and prevent other fellows grabbing it! Who 's got your motorcar at +home now? Some one, I suppose, you 've lent it to, and from whom you +won't a bit like to ask it back. Are you getting any rent at all for +Hulworth?' he went on, his wrath increasing as he spoke, 'or are you +letting it slide for a bit because your tenants are hard up? Would you +have a picture, or a bit of cracked china, or a bottle of wine left, if +they had not been all tied up by some cunning ancestor and looked after +by his executors? What has become of your horses, and why are you +always put to sleep in the billiard-room of an hotel, or in the pantry, +when other fellows get a decent bed provided for them? Why do they +give you a room over the stables when country houses are full, where +the coachman's wife asks you if you would like a little hot water in +the morning, and regrets that the chimney doesn't draw very well? You +were born that way, I suppose,' finished Peter hopelessly. 'I don't +believe you were ever allowed a cradle if your nurse wanted it for any +one else!' +</P> + +<P> +'I rub along all right!' said Toffy apologetically. +</P> + +<P> +'Look here,' said Peter, 'I 'll ride with these letters after Purvis, +and ask him to post them; he 'll get down to Taco in time to catch the +mail, and I can easily overtake him on the <I>bayo</I>.' +</P> + +<P> +The Englishmen had learned to call their horses after their different +shades of colour, in the usual Argentine way; the one Peter spoke of +was a dun-coloured brute, three-parts English-bred. +</P> + +<P> +Toffy protested, but Peter was obstinate. He had been worried and +unsettled all day, and he believed that it would be a good thing to let +off steam by a ride over the camp; besides which, Toffy's letters had +taken a good two hours to write, and Peter guessed they were important. +He could easily overtake Purvis with them before he should reach La +Dorada. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'll sit up and trim the lamp like a faithful wife, until you +return,' said Toffy. +</P> + +<P> +'You 'll go to bed, you ass!' shouted Peter. He was outside the house +fastening the girths of the <I>bayo</I> as he spoke, and now he swung +himself into the saddle and sent his horse forward with the +characteristic quick movement of a hunting man. +</P> + +<P> +The long ride in the moonlight did him good. The intensity of the +clear light had something strange and wonderful in it, touched with +unearthliness. Night with its thousand secrets whispered about him, +and he felt very small and insignificant riding alone under the great +silvery dome of heaven, hushed with a sense of the far-away and with +the mystery of its innumerable stars. Now and then he came across a +herd of cattle standing feeding in the short grass of the camp, their +shadows showing black beside them, or a frightened tropillo of horses +would start at the sound of the <I>bayo's</I> hoofs. He took a short-cut +through the mimosa woods, where the ground was uneven. His horse +picked its way unfalteringly as it cantered forward, though Peter had +to stoop very often to save his head from touching the low branches of +the trees. Overhead some parakeets, disturbed in their slumbers, flew +from bough to bough, their green wings and tiny red heads turning to +strange colours in the moonlight. He got away through one of the rough +gates of the estancia out into the open camp again, where the earth was +full of a vast stillness about him, and the stars pulsated overhead to +the unspeakable music of the night. +</P> + +<P> +And now he began to expect every minute to overtake Purvis, and he +strained his eyes eagerly for the solitary figure of the horseman. He +knew he was riding a much better horse than the one Purvis was on, and +still he failed to come up with him. The track on which he rode was +clear enough, and his horse knew the way to La Dorada as well as any +peon on the place. Peter took out his watch and looked at it in the +moonlight. It was not a quarter to twelve, and he was already at the +little settlement, close by the river, where some Italians and +Spaniards lived. He recognized one of the ill-built small huts as the +place where Juan Lara dwelt, and he drew up to ask whether Purvis was +ahead of him or not, and whether his boy had started with his mail-bag +for the train yet. A Spaniard with a dark face answered his knock, and +told him that no one had passed that way to-night, also that his boy +had left much earlier in the afternoon with the mail. He suggested +that the traveller should come inside and wait until his friend should +overtake him; and as there was plenty of time Peter resolved to rest +his horse, and then to push on to La Dorada if Purvis should not turn +up. Lara's wife came to beg him to enter. She was an old woman before +her time, and had reared a large family in the tiny confines of this +little hut. Peter took off his soft felt hat and, stooping below the +little doorway, came inside. The use of the Spanish language was +inherited from his mother, and he congratulated Lara's wife on her +skill in washing shirts, and made some conversation with her. +</P> + +<P> +The place which he had entered was poor enough; it was built on a mud +floor, and was entirely devoid of furniture save for a ramshackle +bedstead with spotless linen upon it, and a couple of chairs. There +was a tiny shrine with an image of the Virgin in the corner of the +room; before it burned a halfpenny night-light, and round it were +ranged in a row a number of paper match-boxes with little coloured +pictures upon them. They were French match-boxes, which opened with a +spring formed of elastic, and underneath the pictures were jokes of a +doubtful description. Neither Lara nor his wife knew anything of the +French language; the empty paper match-boxes, with the horrible jokes +upon them, were offered faithfully before Our Lady. They were the best +they had to give, and they were the only decorations in the room. +</P> + +<P> +The-woman dusted a chair for Peter, and set the other for her husband, +and she herself sat down upon the edge of the bed. They were both glad +of visitors at whatever hour they arrived, and in the solitary life of +the camp a belated horseman may often ride up after dusk. +</P> + +<P> +Peter explained that it was Señor Purvis, who owned the big estancia +down at La Dorada, whom he was riding to overtake. +</P> + +<P> +'He had better not ride about too much alone,' said the Spaniard. +'There are some long knives about, and the señor is a short man.' +</P> + +<P> +'What is the trouble on the estate?' said Peter. But he could get no +information from Lara. 'He had better take care,' the man said. +'Señor Purvis would be safer if he were to sail away in his steamer, +and be gone for a month or two.' +</P> + +<P> +'He has a mixed lot of men on his estancia, has he not?' Peter asked. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said the man; 'but they are mostly Spanish, and the señor, for +all his Spanish tongue, has not got a heart that understands the +people.' +</P> + +<P> +'You don't think anything can have happened to him?' Peter asked. +</P> + +<P> +He reflected that the road was an open one all the way, and that he +must have seen if there had been anything like a disturbance; but in +the end a certain apprehension for the safety of the man made him think +that he had better push on and hear if there were any news of him at La +Dorada. There might be some path or track to the river-side of which +he knew nothing; and if that bypath existed Purvis would certainly take +it, however circuitous it might be. There seemed to be some curious +obliquity about him which made for crooked ways, and in any case Peter +did not want to miss the mail with Toffy's letters. He said good +night, and, hearing no news of the traveller at the quay, he rode on +until he reached the small unfenced railway station at Taco, set down +apparently promiscuously on the grey arid plain. There Lara's boy was +waiting with his mail-bag, and after a time the sleepy station-master +began to bestir himself, and a cart came in with five horses harnessed +abreast carrying some freight. Still there was no sign of Purvis, and +Peter had to give his letters to the guard when at last, with a shrill +whistle, the train came into the station. +</P> + +<P> +It was very odd, he reflected; and he began to wonder whether Purvis +was in danger, and to be vaguely disturbed by what the people in the +hut had said to him. Ross had told him many tales of how Englishmen +had been murdered out here. There was the case of poor Wentworth, +whose Spanish wife had held him down when he had tried to escape, and +whose own major-domo had shot him at the door. Nobody knew anything of +the matter, of course. The Spaniards keep their secrets well. Nobody +was ever brought to justice; and the affair, which would have made a +sensation at home, only horrified a few English neighbours near the +estancia. But the feeling against Purvis seemed to be something much +deeper than personal jealousy or mere greed for gold dollars. There +was a storm brewing about him, and no one knew when it would burst. +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis will have to look out,' reflected Peter; and he wondered where +on earth the man had got to to-night. He wished he could give him some +sort of warning; but he reflected that Purvis knew far more about the +state of affairs than he, Peter, did. No one could tell Purvis much +about Argentine that he did not know already. His vague feeling of +suspicion against the man deepened, and he began to wonder what game +Purvis was playing. Had the other man in Rosario paid him well to do +his work for him, or was Purvis withholding information until a certain +price was stipulated? Bowshott was worth a ransom, and Purvis might be +playing a double game. Between the two men he might feather his nest +very well. +</P> + +<P> +The dawn was breaking as Peter rode slowly homewards, and a pale pink +light was in the sky. His horse ambled gently along, never mistaking +his way or making a false step on the rough, uneven ground, but +swinging at an easy canter, and getting over an immense distance +without much distress to himself. The moon, in a sort of hushed +silence, was climbing down the arc of heaven as the sun rose to +eastward. The pale light touched the surface of a <I>tajamar</I> as he rode +past it, and the trees beside it threw still, sad, faint shadows into +its quiet depth. Above the western monte a lordly eagle with hushed +wings rose majestically overhead, and some viscashos popped in a +noiseless way in and out of their holes. The air was cool and fresh +now, and a tree or two began to rise up unexpectedly out of the ground +in the grey light. +</P> + +<P> +He began to get sleepy with the easy motion of the horse; the endless +line of plain around him was wearying to the eye as the sun rose upon +it. Well, he would get into camp before it became very hot; that idiot +Toffy would probably be sitting up for him. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed softly to himself as he saw a flicker of light in the window +that looked towards the track, when at last he drew near the little +estancia house. It was like Toffy to remember to put a lamp where he +could see it! It was worth while taking a midnight ride for such a +good fellow, although he had had a very fair notion of what was in one +of the letters, and entirely disapproved its contents. The last mail +had brought news that Horace Avory was ill, and Peter knew quite well +that Toffy had written to Mrs. Avory. Of course she was not the wife +for him; she was very delicate and no longer very young, and she had a +plain little daughter who was ten years old. Still, Peter supposed +that the marriage might turn out pretty well in spite of obvious +drawbacks; and Heaven knew that Mrs. Avory, in her own sad, tearful +way, had fought very bravely against poverty and loneliness and +unhappiness, and that she loved Toffy with her whole heart. But why, +now that things seemed to be arranging themselves in a satisfactory +manner, should Toffy be in the blues, and lie awake during the greater +part of the hot nights? +</P> + +<P> +He drew up at the door of the house when the sun was becoming hot, and +Toffy appeared in his pyjamas and prepared a cup of coffee on a stove +of patent construction for which he claimed admiration every time it +was used. +</P> + +<P> +'Thanks, Peter!' he said briefly. 'I was writing to Mrs. Avory by this +mail, and she would have been disappointed if she had not heard from +me. Did you overtake Purvis?' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I didn't,' said Peter; 'and what's more, he didn't go by the mail +train to Buenos Ayres!' +</P> + +<P> +'What a queer chap he is!' said Toffy. 'You never know where to have +him! That can't be he coming back now?' he said, looking from the +small window at two riders who came cantering up to the door. +</P> + +<P> +'Is it? Yes! No, it isn't,' said Peter, going over to the window. +'But I 'll tell you who it is, though! It's Dunbar, and he 's got a +commissario of police with him! Now, what in the name of wonder do +they want here?' +</P> + +<P> +The two riders dismounted at the gate and came up the little path +through the garden to the door. They walked stiffly, as though they +had ridden for a long time, and their horses, tethered by the gate, +looked used up and tired. +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar hardly paused to shake hands. 'Look here,' he said, 'E. W. +Smith is here, and he 's wanted!' +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV +</H3> + +<P> +'First of all,' said Peter, 'who is E. W. Smith, and why the dickens +should you imagine he is here?' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar gave him a quick look. 'Is any one here?' he asked. +</P> + +<P> +'No one but Ross and Christopherson and myself,' said Peter. 'Purvis +was here, but he started for Buenos Ayres last night, and I have no +idea where he is now. I saw the train start from the station at Taco, +but he was not in it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis is in a tight place,' said Dunbar dryly. +</P> + +<P> +Ross, hearing voices in the drawing-room, wakened up, and now appeared +with ruffled hair and still clad in his sleeping-suit. He suggested +refreshments, and sat down to hear what Dunbar had to say. +</P> + +<P> +Peter's face had a queer set look upon it. Where another man might +perhaps have asked questions he showed something of his mother's +reserve, and was never more silent than when a moment of strain +arrived. He began in a mechanical way to make two fresh cups of +coffee, and poured the steaming mixture from the thin saucepan into the +cups. 'The day of reckoning seems to have arrived for Purvis,' he +said; and then lazily, 'poor brute, he had his points.' Purvis was a +common adventurer after all! And he had got close upon two hundred +pounds from him on the plea of having some knowledge of his brother, +which was simply non-existent. He could see the whole thing now. This +cock-and-bull story of the discovery of the missing man was really a +very simple ruse for extorting money, and the last seventy pounds which +he, Peter, had been fool enough to pay him had been wanted to help +Purvis to get away. +</P> + +<P> +'I must search the place thoroughly,' said Dunbar. He finished his +coffee; but the ascertaining whether or not any one was concealed in +the little house or in the outbuildings was a matter of only a few +minutes. +</P> + +<P> +'If he 's got away again,' said Dunbar, 'I 'll eat my hat!' +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis is a slippery customer,' said Ross; 'but he has lived peaceably +and openly for a considerable time. If he is wanted you have only to +ride up to his door and arrest him.' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar cleared his throat. 'You mind,' he said, 'the story of the +<I>Rosana</I>, which I told you on board the Royal Mail Packet, when we were +in the River Plate coming up to Monte Video?' +</P> + +<P> +'I remember,' said Peter briefly. And Ross nodded his head also; every +one in Argentine knew the story of the wreck of the <I>Rosana</I>. +</P> + +<P> +'I knew,' said Dunbar, 'that E. W. Smith could not die!' +</P> + +<P> +'Smith being Purvis, I take it,' said Toffy. +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Dunbar, 'or any other alias you please. He is a fair man +now with a beard, isn't he? Well, on board the <I>Rosana</I> he was a +clean-shaven man with dark hair, but you cannot mistake E. W. Smith's +eyes, though I hear his voice is altered.' +</P> + +<P> +'Are you in the police out here?' Peter asked, with a glance at the +commissario to whom he had just handed a cup of coffee. +</P> + +<P> +'No, I 'm not,' answered Dunbar, with his usual economy of speech. 'I +'m from Scotland Yard, and I want E. W. Smith on another count. But I +'ll come to that some other time. I 'll need to be off now.' +</P> + +<P> +'Your horse is done,' protested Ross, 'and you are pretty well done +yourself.' +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm not that far through,' said Dunbar. +</P> + +<P> +'Why not send a wire to Buenos Ayres and wait here until you can get a +reply? Purvis may have got on board the train somewhere else, and be +at Buenos Ayres now.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes, that will do,' said Dunbar. He dispatched his telegram by one of +the peons, who rode off with it across the camp. In spite of fatigue, +Dunbar, with his nervous energy unimpaired, looked as though he would +like to have ridden with the telegram himself. Reflecting, however, +that there was considerable work still before him, he submitted to +stretching himself on a <I>catré</I> and after a short doze and a bath and +some breakfast he took up again the thread of his story. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'll not bother you with an account of E. W. Smith's life,' he +remarked, 'although there is a good deal in it that would surprise you. +I 'll keep to the story of the <I>Rosana</I> as time is short.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Dunbar took his faithful friend—his short pipe—from its red-lined +case, filled it with tobacco, and began to draw luxuriously. +</P> + +<P> +'The <I>Rosana</I> sprang a leak after her first day out, on her run down +the coast, and was lost in twenty fathoms of water. She only carried +one boat, and that boat was seen by myself half-burned, but with a bit +of her name in gold-leaf still visible on her bows. Tranter was the +captain of the boat, and E. W. Smith was clerk and general manager. +Every one knew he cheated the company who ran the boat, and cheated the +captain too, when he could; and it generally suited him to make Tranter +drunk when they were in port. Well, he reaped his profit, and I +suppose a good bit of it lies at the bottom of the sea. He was a man +who always kept large sums in hand in case of finding himself in a +tight place. Did I mention,' said Dunbar, 'that he could not row, +though, of course, Tranter could? But Tranter was wanted for steering.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't understand the story,' said Ross, leaning forward. 'You say +that Tranter and this man Purvis, or Smith, escaped from the wreck, and +that Purvis could not row?' +</P> + +<P> +'I am coming to that,' said Dunbar, unmoved. 'Observe, the <I>Rosana</I> +carried one boat. She had lost her other by an accident, it seems, and +the one that remained was not a much bigger one than a dinghy such as +men use to go to and from the shore when they are in harbour. Tranter +was the first to discover that the <I>Rosana</I> was leaking badly; and the +hold was half-flooded before any one knew anything about it, and the +<I>Rosana</I> was settling by her head. Smith, it seems, and the captain +were armed, or armed themselves as soon as the state of affairs was +known; and before the rest of the crew were awake four men were ordered +to man the boat and bring her alongside. The hatches were closed down +with the rest of the crew still below, and if there was a scuffle two +armed men were perfectly capable of keeping order. Smith and Tranter +got into the boat, and were rowed ashore in safety. If the whole of +the crew had tried to board her there is no doubt about it no one would +have been saved, for there were a good many hands on the steamer, and +the rush to the one boat would have swamped her. The men who manned +the boat and pulled ashore were doubtless glad to save their lives at +any price; but they might make it exceedingly unpleasant for the two +survivors of the wreck did they make their story known. They were +cross-bred natives, whose lives were of no great value to any one but +themselves, and there was an easy way for two armed men to silence them +on a lonely shore without a soul near.' +</P> + +<P> +'It's a sickening story,' said Ross, getting up and walking towards the +window; and unconsciously he clenched his big hand. +</P> + +<P> +'Then how,' said Peter keenly, 'has the story leaked out?' +</P> + +<P> +'Because,' said Dunbar, 'sometimes at a critical moment men do their +work badly, or perhaps a native knows how to feign death before his +life is actually extinct. Dead men tell no lies, but wounded men don't +have their tongues tied in the same way.' +</P> + +<P> +'So one of the men lived to tell tales!' said Peter, leaning forward in +his chair; 'and Purvis, who has been here for some time past, is the +hero of the story? It is a blackguardly tale, Dunbar, and, thank God, +I believe it would have been impossible in England!' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't pass judgment on my fellow-men,' said Dunbar. 'Life is sweet, +perhaps, to some of us, and no doubt the whole crew would have swamped +the boat, but——' +</P> + +<P> +'But, all the same,' said Toffy, 'you don't mean to let Purvis-Smith +get a very light time of it when you do get him.' +</P> + +<P> +'No, I don't,' said Dunbar. +</P> + +<P> +Ross passed out through the door of the little drawing-room to the +corridor, and went to see about some work on the farm. The commissario +drank his coffee, and Dunbar waited restlessly for his telegram. +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast he and Peter slept for a time, for both were dog-tired, +and the day was oppressively hot. In the afternoon a telegram came to +say that no news had been heard of Purvis, and that he was believed to +be still in the neighbourhood of La Dorada. +</P> + +<P> +'If he is,' said Dunbar, folding up the telegram and putting it into +his pocket, 'I think our future duties will not be heavy. The man who +has come to light and told the story of the wreck of the <I>Rosana</I> is a +native of that favoured spot where already our friend Purvis is not too +popular. God help the man if they get hold of him!' +</P> + +<P> +'His little boy is here now,' said Toffy, starting up. 'Purvis came +here to leave him in safety.' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar was writing another telegram to ask the whereabouts of the +steamer. +</P> + +<P> +'Then,' he said, 'the story is probably known, and Purvis is aware of +it, and has gone north. He daren't show himself near his estancia +after this.' +</P> + +<P> +They began to put the story together, piecing it here and there, while +Dunbar continued to send telegrams. +</P> + +<P> +Ross strolled in presently to discuss the matter again. 'I don't +believe,' he said, 'that Purvis is far off.' +</P> + +<P> +'He is a brave man if he is anywhere near La Dorada,' said Dunbar. +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis is a brave man,' said Ross quietly. +</P> + +<P> +Peter was silent. Only last night he had had good reason to believe +that the mystery of his brother's existence was going to be cleared up. +But with Purvis gone the whole wearisome business would have to begin +again. Why had he not detained the man last night, even if he had had +to do it by force, until he had given him all the evidence he +possessed? He could not exactly blame himself for not having done so. +Purvis had declared that he was only going to Buenos Ayres for a couple +of days, and it would have been absurd to delay him that he might give +information which perhaps he did not fully possess. Still, the thing +had been too cleverly worked out to be altogether a fraud, surely. His +thought went back again to the belief that Purvis had got hold of his +brother, and had extracted a great deal of information from him, and +was only delaying to make him known to Peter until he had arranged the +best bargain he could for himself. Looking back on all the talks they +had had together there was something which convinced him that Purvis's +close application to the search had not been made with a view only of +extracting some hundreds of pounds from him, but that the man's game +was deeper than that. Purvis was far too clever to waste his talents +in dabbling in paltry matters, or in securing a small sum of money for +himself. He was a man who worked in big figures, and it was evident +that he meant to pull off a good thing. +</P> + +<P> +That his dishonesty was proved was beyond all manner of doubt, and the +only thing was to watch events and to see what would now happen. If +Purvis gave them the slip what was to be done in the future? +</P> + +<P> +'I believe he will try to save his steamer,' said Ross, after a long +silence. +</P> + +<P> +Every one was thinking of the same subject, and his abrupt exclamation +needed no explanation. +</P> + +<P> +'If he could trust his hands he might,' said the commissario in +halting, broken English; 'but I doubt if they or the peons have been +paid lately.' +</P> + +<P> +'Besides, on the steamer,' said Toffy, 'he could be easily caught.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes,' said Dunbar, 'if he knows that we want to catch him, which he +doesn't. He is afraid of the people at La Dorada now; but he is +probably unaware of the warm welcome that awaits him in Buenos Ayres.' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar went to the door again to see if there was any sign of his +messenger returning from the telegraph office. The sun was flaming to +westward, and Hopwood had moved the dinner-table out into the patio, +and was setting dinner there. +</P> + +<P> +'He will do the unexpected thing,' said Ross at last. 'If Purvis ever +says he is going to sit up late I know that is the one night of the +week he will go to bed early.' +</P> + +<P> +They went out into the patio, and Ross swizzled a cocktail, and they +fell to eating dinner; but Dunbar was looking at his watch from time to +time, and then turning his glance eastward to the track where his +messenger might appear. It was an odd thing, and one of which they +were all unaware, that even a slight noise made each man raise his head +alertly for a moment as though he might expect an attack. +</P> + +<P> +The sun went down, and still no messenger appeared. They sat down to +play bridge in the little drawing-room, and pretended to be interested +in the fall of the cards. +</P> + +<P> +'That must be my telegram now,' said Dunbar, starting to his feet as a +horse's hoofs were plainly heard in the stillness of the solitary camp. +'Well, I 'm damned,' he said. He held the flimsy paper close to his +near-sighted eyes, and read the message to the other men sitting at the +table: +</P> + +<P> +'Smith, or Purvis, at present on board his own steamer in midstream +opposite La Dorada. Fully armed and alone. Crew have left, and peons +in revolt. A detachment of police proceeds by train to Taco to-night. +Join them there and await instructions.' +</P> + +<P> +'I thought he would stick to the steamer,' said Ross at last. +</P> + +<P> +'And probably,' said Dunbar, 'he is as safe there as anywhere he can +be. He can't work his boat without a crew, but if he is armed he will +be able to defend himself even if he is attacked. I don't know how +many boats there were at La Dorada, but I would lay my life that Purvis +took the precaution of sending them adrift or wrecking them before he +got away.' +</P> + +<P> +'What is to be the next move?' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose we shall have to ride down to Taco to-night,' said Dunbar. +'Yon man,' he finished, in his nonchalant voice, 'has given me a good +bit of trouble in his time.' +</P> + +<P> +'It seems to me,' said Ross, 'that you can't touch any business +connected with Purvis without handling a pretty unsavoury thing.' +</P> + +<P> +'Now, I 'll tell you an odd thing,' said Dunbar. 'I have had to make +some pretty close inquiries about Purvis since I have been on his +track, and you will probably not believe it if I tell you that by birth +he is a gentleman.' +</P> + +<P> +'He behaves like one,' said Ross shortly. +</P> + +<P> +'If I had time,' said Dunbar, 'I could tell you the story, but I see +the fresh horses coming round, and I and the commissario must get away +to Taco.' He was in the saddle as he spoke, and rode off with the +commissario. +</P> + +<P> +'A boy,' said Hopwood, entering presently, 'rode over with this, this +moment, sir.' He handed a note to Peter on a little tray, and waited +in the detached manner of the well-trained servant while Peter opened +the letter. +</P> + +<P> +The writing was almost unintelligible, being written in pencil on a +scrap of paper, and it had got crushed in the pocket of the man who +brought it. +</P> + +<P> +'It is for Dunbar, I expect,' said Peter, looking doubtfully at the +name on the cover. He walked without haste to a table where a lamp +stood, and looked more closely at the address. 'No, it's all right, +it's for me,' he said. +</P> + +<P> +At first it was the vulgar melodrama of the message which struck him +most forcibly with a sense of distaste and disgust, and then he flicked +the piece of paper impatiently and said, 'I don't believe a word of +it!' His face was white, however, as he turned to the servant and +said, 'Who brought this?' +</P> + +<P> +'I will go and see, sir,' said Hopwood, and left the room. +</P> + +<P> +Peter, with the scrap of paper in his hand, walked over to the +bridge-table where the others were sitting, and laid the crumpled note +in front of them. 'Another trick of our friend Purvis,' he said +shortly. +</P> + +<P> +The three men at the card-table bent their heads over the crumpled +piece of note-paper spread out before them. Ross smoothed out its +edges with his big hand, and the words became distinct enough; the very +brevity of the message was touched with sensationalism. It ran: 'I am +your brother. Save me!' and there was not another vestige of writing +on the paper. +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis has excelled himself,' said Ross quietly. 'It's your deal, +Christopherson.' +</P> + +<P> +Toffy mechanically shuffled the cards and looked up into his friend's +face. 'Is there anything else?' he said, and Peter took up the dirty +envelope and examined it more closely. +</P> + +<P> +There was a scrap of folded paper in one corner, and on it was written +in his mother's handwriting a note to her husband, enclosing the +photograph of her eldest son in a white frock and tartan ribbons. +</P> + +<P> +Peter flushed hotly as he read the letter. 'He has no business to +bring my mother's name into it,' he said savagely; and then the full +force of the thing smote him as he realised that perhaps his mother was +the mother of this man Purvis too. +</P> + +<P> +'Have a drink?' said Ross, with a pretence of gruffness. It was +oppressively hot, and Peter had been riding all the previous night. +Ross mentioned these facts in a kindly voice to account for his loss of +colour. 'It's a ridiculous try on,' he said, with conviction; and +then, seeking about for an excuse to leave the two friends together to +discuss the matter, he gathered up the cards from the table, added the +score in an elaborate manner, and announced his intention of going to +bed. +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar and the commissario had put a long distance between themselves +and the estancia house now. The silence of the hot night settled down +with its palpable mysterious weight upon the earth. The stars looked +farther away than usual in the fathomless vault of heaven, and the +world slumbered with a feeling of restlessness under the burden of the +aching solitude of the night. Some insects chirped outside the +illuminated window-pane, as though they would fain have left the large +and solitary splendour without and sought company in the humble room. +Time passed noiselessly, undisturbed even by the ticking of a clock. +To have stirred in a chair would have seemed to break some tangible +spell. A dog would have been better company than a man at the moment, +because less influenced by the mysterious night and the silence, and +the intensity of thought which fixed itself relentlessly in some +particular cells of the brain until they became fevered and ached +horribly. A little puff of cooler air began to blow over the baked and +withered camp; but the room where the lamp was burning had become +intolerably hot, and the mosquitoes which had been contemplating the +wall thoughtfully throughout the day began to buzz about and to sing in +the ears of the two persons who sat there. +</P> + +<P> +'Damn these mosquitoes!' said Peter, and his voice broke the silence of +the lonely house oddly. He and Toffy had not spoken since Ross had +left the room, and had not stirred from their chairs; but now the +feeling of tension seemed to be broken. Toffy began to fidget with +some things on a little table, and opened without thinking a carved +cedar-wood work-box which had remained undisturbed until then. He +found inside it a little knitted silk sock only half-finished, and with +the knitting needles still in it, and he closed the lid of the box +again softly. +</P> + +<P> +Peter walked into the corridor and looked out at the silver night. +There was a mist rising down by the river, and the feeling of coolness +in the air increased. He leaned against the wooden framework of the +wire-netting and laid his head on his hands for a moment; then he came +back to the drawing-room. 'Do you believe it?' he said suddenly and +sharply. +</P> + +<P> +'I suppose it's true,' said Toffy. 'God help us, Peter, this is a +queer world!' +</P> + +<P> +'If it were any one else but Purvis!' said Peter with a groan. He had +begun to walk restlessly up and down, making his tramp as long as +possible by extending it into the corridor. 'And then there is this to +be said, Toffy,' he added, beginning to speak at the point to which his +thoughts had taken him—'there is this to be said: suppose one could +get Purvis out of this hole, Dunbar is waiting for him at Taco. He +will be tried for the affair of the <I>Rosana</I> and other things besides, +and if he is not hanged he will spend the next few years of his life in +prison. It is an intolerable business,' he said, 'and I am not going +to move in the matter. One can stand most things, but not being mixed +up in a murder case.' +</P> + +<P> +He walked out into the corridor and sat down heavily in one of the +deck-chairs there. There was a tumult of thought surging through his +mind, and sometimes one thing was uppermost, sometimes another. +</P> + +<P> +If it were possible to get down the river in a boat to the steamer, he +thought, there would of course be a chance of bringing Purvis back +before it was light; but if he did that he would have to start within +the hour. The nights were short. +</P> + +<P> +And then, again, he would be compounding a felony, though in the case +of brothers such a law was generally put aside, whatever the results +might be. +</P> + +<P> +There was very little chance of an escape. Every one's hand was +against Purvis now, and there was the vaguest possibility that he could +get away to England. The heir to Bowshott would be doing his time in +prison, and that, after all, was the right place for him—or he might +be hanged. +</P> + +<P> +And then he, Peter, was the next heir. That was the <I>crux</I> of the +whole thing—he, Peter Ogilvie, was the next heir. If anything were to +happen to his brother he would inherit everything. +</P> + +<P> +But that, again, was an absurdity. A man in prison, for instance, +would not be the inheritor of anything. No, his brother must take his +chance down there on the steamer. He had been in tight places before +now, and no one knew better how to get out of them. He had some money +at his command. Let things take their chance. Yet if Purvis did not +inherit, he, Peter, was the next heir. +</P> + +<P> +That was the thought that knocked at him to the exclusion of nearly +everything else: he would benefit by his brother's death. Bowshott +would be his, and the place in the Highlands, and Jane and he could be +married. +</P> + +<P> +He paused for a moment in his feverish survey of events. To think of +Jane was to have before one's mind a picture of something absolutely +fair and straightforward. A high standard of honour was not difficult +to her; it came as naturally as speaking in a well-bred manner, or +walking with that air of grace and distinction which was characteristic +of her. Such women do not need to preach, and seldom do so. Their +lives suggest a torch held high above the common mirk of life. Peter +had never imagined for a moment that he was in the least degree good +enough for her; but, all the same, he meant to fight for all that he +was worth for every single good thing that he could get for her. +</P> + +<P> +... His brother even had a son. His nephew was in the house now. +Peter laughed out loud. The boy had a Spanish mother; but if there +ever had been a marriage between Purvis and her it could easily be set +aside. Purvis had been married several times, or not at all. Dunbar +thought that his real wife was an English woman at Rosario. +</P> + +<P> +He reflected with a sense of disgust that, he and Purvis being both of +them fair men, it might even be said that they resembled each other in +appearance; and he wondered if he would ever hold up his head again now +that he knew that the same blood ran in the veins of both, and that +this murderer, with his bloodstained hands, was his brother. +</P> + +<P> +And what in Heaven's name was the use of rescuing a man from one +difficulty when he would fall into something much worse at the next +opportunity? +</P> + +<P> +Finally, there was nothing for it but to remain inactive and let Purvis +escape if he could, but to do nothing to help him. Time was getting on +now; another half-hour and it would be too late to start. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps the whole real difficulty resolved itself round Jane. Jane, as +a matter of fact, had taken up her position quite close to Peter +Ogilvie this evening in the dark of the tropical night. There were +probably devils on either side of him, but Jane was certainly there. +She looked perfectly beautiful, and there was not a line in her face +which did not suggest something fair and honest and of good worth. +</P> + +<P> +... But suppose the man turned out to be an impostor after all? Then +Dunbar had better treat with him. The chain of evidence was pretty +strong, but there might be a break in it. +</P> + +<P> +... He could not go alone down the river; Ross and Toffy and Hopwood +would have to come too, to man the four-oared boat, and some one would +have to steer, because the river was dangerous of navigation and full +of sandbanks and holes. Why should he involve his friends in such an +expedition to save a man who had sneaked off from a boat and left a +whole crew to perish, and who had shot in cold blood the men who rowed +him to safety? +</P> + +<P> +<I>Before God he was not going to touch the man, nor have anything to do +with him!</I> +</P> + +<P> +Half an hour had passed. In twenty minutes it would be too late to +start. +</P> + +<P> +Jane drew a little nearer, and just then Toffy laid down the book which +he had been reading and strolled about the room. Perhaps he wanted to +show Peter that he was still there and awake, and in some way to +comfort him by his presence, for he sat down by Mrs. Chance's piano and +picked out a tune with one of his fingers. +</P> + +<P> +The devil beside Peter became more imperative and drew up closer, and +told him that it was his own sense of honour that made him loathe his +reputed brother and turn from him in disgust. He said that the note +that had reached him was all part of Purvis's horrible sensationalism +and his lies, and that no earthly notice should be taken of it; also, +that it would be sheer madness to risk his own life and his friends' +for this contemptible fellow. Jane, on the other side—possibly an +angel, but to the ordinary mind merely a very handsome English +girl—stood there saying nothing, but looking beautiful. +</P> + +<P> +Toffy continued to pick out the tune with his forefinger from Mrs. +Chance's book: +</P> + +<A NAME="img-216"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-216.jpg" ALT="" BORDER="" WIDTH="355" HEIGHT="131"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<P> +It all came before him in a flash: the village church, and the swinging +oil-lamps above the pews; he and Jane together in Miss Abingdon's pew, +and Mrs. Wrottesley playing the old hymn-tunes on the little organ. He +could not remember ever attending very particularly to the evening +service. He used to follow it in a very small Prayer Book, and it was +quite sufficient for him that Jane was with him. He had never been a +religious man in the ordinary sense of the word. He had wished with +all his heart when his mother died that he had known more about sacred +things, but they had never seemed a necessary part of his life. He +knew the code of an English gentleman, and that code was a high one. +The youngsters in the regiment knew quite well that he was 'as straight +as they make 'em'; but he had never inflicted advice nor had a moment's +serious conversation with one of them. +</P> + +<P> +Another ten minutes had passed, and left only five minutes to spare; +but Jane was smiling a little, and Toffy was fingering out quavering +notes on the old piano: +</P> + +<A NAME="img-217"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-217.jpg" ALT="" BORDER="" WIDTH="347" HEIGHT="134"> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Life seemed to get bigger as he listened. There were no such things as +difficulties. You had just to know what you ought to do, and then to +try to do it. You had not to pit yourself against a mean mind, and act +meanly by it. Each man had his own work to do, and what other men did +or left undone was their own business. His brother was in a mess, and +he had to help him out of it, whether he deserved it or no—not +weighing his merit, but pardoning his offences and just helping him in +his need. The glories of life might fade away, as the old hymn said, +or they might last; but all that each man had to care about so long as +he remained here was to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with +his God. +</P> + +<P> +The angel and the devil—if they existed at all—fled away and left one +solitary man standing alone fighting for the sake of honour and clean +hands. +</P> + +<P> +The clock struck ten, and the time was up. +</P> + +<P> +Peter went inside and laid his hand on Toffy's shoulder. 'Let's +start,' he said, 'if you are ready.' +</P> + +<P> +'All right,' said Toffy, shutting the piano. 'I 'll go and get Ross.' +</P> + +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> + +<P> +They were in the boat now, slipping down the stream in the dark. The +current in the river was strong here, and the boat slid rapidly between +the banks. There was hardly any necessity for rowing. Christopherson +sat in the stern with the tiller-ropes in his hands, and Peter reserved +his strength for the moment when they should get to the broader part of +the river where the stream did not race as it raced here. On their way +back they would, of course, avoid the upper reaches of the river, and +would land lower down when they had the man well away from his own +place. Peter rowed stroke, and Hopwood and Ross rowed numbers one and +two. The steering probably was the most difficult part of the +business, especially in the present state of the river, and any moment +they might go aground or get into some eddy which might turn the bow of +the boat and land them in the bank. Rowing was still easy, and Peter +was husbanding every ounce of his strength for the pull home. None of +the men spoke as the boat slipped down between the banks of dry mud on +either side of the river. Some reeds whispered by the shore, and a +startled bird woke now and then and flew screaming away. The moon +shone fitfully sometimes, but for the most part the night was dark, and +the darkness increased towards midnight. Once or twice the breeze +carried the intoxicating smell of flowers from the river-bank. It was +difficult for Toffy, although he had been down the river many times, to +know exactly his bearings. They passed a little settlement on their +starboard hand, and saw a few lights burning in the houses. +</P> + +<P> +'That must be Lara's house,' said Peter. 'We will land here on our way +back, and get some horses, and ride over to the estancia in the +morning.' +</P> + +<P> +The settlement was the last place on the river where Purvis's steamer +plied, and there was a small jetty piled with wheat waiting to be taken +away. Here the river was broader and much shallower, with stakes of +wood set in its bed to show the passage which the little steamer should +take. +</P> + +<P> +'We should not be far from La Dorada now,' said Toffy, steering between +the lines of stakes; 'but I can't see any signs of the steamer in this +blackness.' +</P> + +<P> +In the daytime the river was a pale mud-colour and very thick and +dirty-looking. The moon came out for a moment and showed it like a +silver ribbon between the grey banks. +</P> + +<P> +'Easy all!' said Toffy, sniffing the air. 'We must be near the +canning-factory at La Dorada.' +</P> + +<P> +The horrible smell of the slaughter-house was borne to them on the +river, and there were some big corrals close by the water, and a small +wharf. +</P> + +<P> +'It reminds me,' thought Toffy, 'of the beastly beef-tea which I have +had to drink all my life.' +</P> + +<P> +'Good heavens!' cried Ross, 'they are firing the wharf! Purvis's +chances are small if this is their game.' +</P> + +<P> +There was not very much to burn; the wood of the wharf kindled easily, +and the wheat burned sullenly and sent up grey volumes of smoke. +</P> + +<P> +'Steer under the bank,' said Peter. 'We don't want to be seen.' +</P> + +<P> +Toffy steered the boat as near the shore as the mud would allow, and as +the wood of the wharf burned more brightly he could see some men +running to and fro confusedly every few minutes, and then making off +farther down the river. +</P> + +<P> +'They 'll fire the steamer next!' said Peter, and then bent his back to +the oar, and the boat swung away into the middle of the stream again. +</P> + +<P> +The darkness seemed to increase in depth, as it does just before the +dawn: it was baffling in its intensity, and seemed to press close. +</P> + +<P> +'Way enough!' sang out Toffy, for quite unexpectedly the little +steamer, tied to a stake in midstream, loomed up suddenly before them. +The men shipped their oars with precision, and Toffy caught hold one of +the fender-ropes. +</P> + +<P> +'Are you there?' he called up to the deck from the impenetrable +darkness. +</P> + +<P> +As he spoke Purvis appeared at the top of the little gangway, dressed +in his clerkly suit and stiff hat. +</P> + +<P> +'You are just in time,' he said in his thin, high voice, without a +trace of excitement in it. 'When the light dawns they will find their +boats, and even now we may have to run for it.' +</P> + +<P> +'Get on board,' said Ross roughly, 'and don't waste time.' +</P> + +<P> +'I can't sink my steamer,' said Purvis quietly, 'in this shallow part +of the river, and I haven't the means of blowing her up; but I shall +now go below and overturn the lamp in my cabin, and the boat and all +that is in it will not be very long in being consumed.' +</P> + +<P> +'Stop that lunatic!' yelled Ross, as Purvis turned to descend into the +cabin. 'There 's a boat coming up—I can hear the oars distinctly +behind us. We 'll be overtaken if there 's a minute's delay!' +</P> + +<P> +Peter, who was next the gangway, sprang on board the boat and stumbled +down the companion in the dark. +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis!' he shouted, 'you 'll be shot in cold blood yet if you don't +look out.' +</P> + +<P> +Purvis had collected a few things and laid them on a pile of shavings +in the middle of the cabin, and the oil-lamp with which he was to +ignite the pile was in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +On the top of the pile Peter saw a large tin dispatch-case inscribed +with his mother's name. +</P> + +<P> +'Hallo!' he said quietly; 'I think I 'll take this!' +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he imagined that Purvis's hand moved with suspicious +suddenness towards his revolver-pocket. In the next Purvis had swung +up the companion staircase and into the boat, and Peter jumped into his +place as the sound of rowing and the splash of oars was heard behind +him. Toffy rowed the bow-oar now, and Purvis, who knew every turn of +the river, took the tiller-ropes. +</P> + +<P> +'I can't row,' he said, in his plaintive voice, 'but I can steer better +than any of you.' +</P> + +<P> +The man's composed and unruffled serenity was still undisturbed +although the rhythmic beat of oars behind them was growing nearer and +nearer, and the creaking of the leather in the row-locks could be heard +distinctly. +</P> + +<P> +'I have a revolver,' said Purvis quietly; 'and dawn is not quite upon +us yet.' +</P> + +<P> +Their boat had still the start of the other, and the darkness helped +them. Purvis knew every yard of the river, and could have steered in +the darkness of a London fog. His pale eyes seemed to have something +in them of the quality of a cat's as he peered through the dense gloom +and guided the boat unerringly. +</P> + +<P> +There came a faint light on the surface of the water; they could dimly +see the stakes in the river, and could hear the beat of the oars in the +other boat. It was a race for the Italian settlement, where they would +be safe, and where the pursuing boat, seeing the lights from the +houses, would probably fall behind. +</P> + +<P> +Peter had rowed stroke in the Eton boat, but Toffy had always been too +delicate to be a strong rower; the other men had splendid staying +power, but no particular skill. Still, Ross knew Peter's stroke, and +the steering was perfect. Not a yard of way was lost on the long +chase, and as the four rowers warmed to their work the excitement of it +prevailed over every other thought. Purvis himself and all his +meannesses were forgotten. It was a race, and that was all, and four +men's hearts leapt to it. +</P> + +<P> +The other boat seemed to be drawing nearer. The morning was dawning +mistily, and the pursuers appeared to be getting out of their course +for a time. +</P> + +<P> +Peter swung to his oar in perfect style, and Purvis with the +tiller-ropes in his hands gave way to every leap of the boat, bending +his short, spare body in time to the stroke of the oars as he sat in +the stern. +</P> + +<P> +'If we are overtaken we will make a fight for it,' he said. +</P> + +<P> +'Naturally,' said Peter briefly, between the long strokes of his rowing. +</P> + +<P> +'They 'll probably catch us up in the next hundred yards,' said Purvis. +'I should think that they are armed, and the day is breaking.' +</P> + +<P> +He turned round in his seat as he spoke, for there was a broad straight +piece of river before them; and as the boat came on he pointed his +revolver uncertainly in the mist and fired. 'Confound you!' roared +Peter, 'don't draw their fire yet! Probably our best chance is that +they don't know for certain where we are.' +</P> + +<P> +But Purvis had fired again. There were some uncertain shots in return, +and one struck the gunwale of the boat by Peter's side. +</P> + +<P> +'That was a near thing,' he said to himself under his breath. And then +the old feeling of protection for the 'young un'—the delicate boy who +had been his fag at Eton—stopped his grim smiling, and as another shot +whizzed past them he yelled out suddenly, 'Lie down, Toffy! Get down +into the bottom of the boat!' +</P> + +<P> +And quite suddenly Toffy did as he was told. +</P> + +<P> +Peter rowed then like two men, but the river ran more quickly now, and +the shallows were more dangerous, and the steering was more difficult. +</P> + +<P> +By Jove, how well Purvis knew the navigation of it! He had the +tiller-ropes in his hands again. He made a feint to go under the bank +as though to land, and then shot suddenly into midstream. The other +boat followed in their wake. Purvis's knowledge of the currents was +probably well known, and it was safe to follow his lead: the boat and +the men in it were clear enough to see now. +</P> + +<P> +But what in the name of Heaven was Purvis doing! It positively seemed +as though he was trying to lose the little bit of way that they had +gained in advance of the others, and for one moment a horrible sense of +the man's unscrupulousness came over Peter Ogilvie, and he wondered +even now, in the midst of the chase, whether it might not be that +Purvis was playing them false. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'll shoot him before he can sing out if he is!' thought Peter to +himself as the boat was steered on to the very edge of a shallow again, +and then made off into the middle of the stream. 'Look out what you +are about!' he cried, seeing in the wake of the boat the uneven, +circuitous route by which they had come. 'For God's sake steer +straight if you can!' +</P> + +<P> +And then he saw a smile on Purvis's face—the usual watery, mirthless +smile, and the pale, wide-open blue eyes; and, looking back, Peter saw +that the boat behind them was overturned in the stream, and that the +men who had been in it were struggling to the bank, while the boat +itself was being carried rapidly down with the current. +</P> + +<P> +He eased his rowing then, and getting his breath he laughed out aloud. +The spirit and excitement of the chase had been good, and it was +successfully over. +</P> + +<P> +'Look here, you can get up now, Toffy,' he said. +</P> + +<P> +He turned round in his seat and shipped his oars with a jerk. '<I>You +devil!</I>' he said slowly; '<I>you must have seen him hit!</I>' +</P> + +<P> +He bent over the poor boy stretched out in the bottom of the boat and +felt his heart and found that it still beat. He loosened his neckcloth +and sprinkled water on his face, while the two other men fell to their +oars again, and rowed the boat as the day dawned to the little Italian +settlement. They carried Toffy into the house of the Argentine woman +who burned candles to the Virgin and stuck French paper match-boxes +round her shrine. They lifted him into the hut and laid him on the +humble bed, and Peter dressed the wound as well as he knew how, while +Hopwood in an agony hovered round them, and Ross was sending here and +there to try to find a doctor. +</P> + +<P> +No one knew what had become of Purvis, no one cared. Each was trying +with all his might to save a life very dear to them which was slowly +ebbing away. +</P> + +<P> +The sun was up now, and the long hot day was beginning; but still Toffy +had never spoken, and still Peter kneeled by his side on the mud floor +of the hut, easing him as well as he could, giving him water to drink, +or bathing his forehead. There was not much that he could do for him; +but he felt that Toffy was conscious, and that he liked to have his old +friend near him. He never altered his position as he kneeled, for his +arm was under the dying man's head, and it seemed a more comfortable +place for it than the poor Argentine woman's hard pillow. +</P> + +<P> +Toffy lay with wide-open eyes, and there were great beads of +perspiration on his forehead which Hopwood wiped away from time to +time. He breathed with difficulty in short gasps, and still he never +spoke. It came upon Peter with a horrible sinking of the heart that he +might die before a doctor came, and without saying one word to him. +All the compunction of a heart that was perhaps unusually womanly and +tender was raging within him for not having taken better care of the +boy. He wanted to say so much to Toffy, and to beg his forgiveness, +and to ask if there was anything in the world he could do for him, and +he hoped wildly and pitifully that he was not in pain. But the dying +man's eyes were fixed on the bare walls of the hut and on the little +shrine of the Virgin in the corner of the room, and it seemed now as if +the mistiness of death were settling upon them, so that they saw +nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Ross went restlessly to and fro, now entering the room for a few +minutes, and then going out again to scan the distant country to see if +by any chance the camp doctor was coming. +</P> + +<P> +When Toffy at last spoke he went and stood outside the hut, and an +instinct caused him to bare his head for a moment. +</P> + +<P> +Just at the end Toffy said something, and his voice sounded a great way +off, and almost as though it came from another land. 'Is Kitty there?' +he said. +</P> + +<P> +'No; it is me, old man,' said Peter thickly. +</P> + +<P> +He was holding the boy's head now, for his breathing was becoming more +difficult, and he stooped and kissed him on the forehead. He felt the +chill of it, and, startled, he called out, almost as one calls out a +message to a friend departing on a journey, raising his voice a little, +for Toffy already seemed a long way off, 'I never knew—I never knew, +Toffy—that you had been hit, or I would have stopped.' +</P> + +<P> +'I didn't want to spoil the race,' said Toffy. 'I don't often win a +race,' he said, and with that he died. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI +</H3> + +<P> +They carried him home in the evening when the sun had set, and on the +day following, according to the custom of the country, they buried him. +Some peons dug the grave in a corner of the little estate, and sawed +planks and made a railing round it, and Ross read the Burial Service +over him from Toffy's own Prayer Book, and Peter kept the well-worn +Bible for Kitty Sherard. +</P> + +<P> +Peter sought solitude where he could. His grief was of the kind which +can be borne only in solitude. The love of David and Jonathan had not +been deeper than the affection he and his friend had had for one +another. The small estancia house became intolerable, with its sense +of void and the feeling that at any moment Toffy might appear, always +with some new project in hand, always gravely hopeful about everything +he undertook, always doing his best to risk his life in absurd ventures +such as no one else would have attempted. It was only the other day +that Peter had seen him trying to break a horse which even a gaucho +felt shy of riding; and he loved to be in the thick of the mêlée +attempting the difficult task of swinging a lasso above his head, with +that air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or Peter pictured +him in the long chair, where during a feverish attack he had lain so +often, ruffling up his hair and puzzling his head over problems of +Hebrew theology. Every corner seemed to be full of him, and yet no one +had ever appeared to have a less assertive personality than he, nor a +lighter hold on his possessions. He thought of how he himself had +always gone to Toffy's dressing-table to borrow anything he might +require—the boy who was so much accustomed to have his things +appropriated by other people! And then again he saw him in the big, +ugly drawing-room at Hulworth, nursing one of his appalling colds, or +looking with grave resentment at his priceless collection of vases in +the glass cases in the hall. He remembered him riding in the +steeplechase at Sedgwick, and quite suddenly he recollected how sick +and faint Kitty Sherard had become when he fell at the last jump. He +thought of a silver box Toffy had bought for her at Bahia, and he +wondered how it was that he had been so blind as not to see how much +these two had cared for each other. His feeling of loss amounted +almost to an agony, and once when he had ridden alone far on to the +camp he shouted his dead friend's name aloud many times, and felt +baffled and disappointed when there was no response. +</P> + +<P> +Good God! was it only two nights ago that he was picking out hymn-tunes +with his finger on the piano! At dinner-time they had been teasing him +about the Prophet Elijah, Toffy having calculated the exact distance +that the old prophet must have run in front of Ahab's chariot. 'It was +a fearful long sprint for an old man,' Toffy had said in a certain +quaint way he had. And now Toffy lay in his long, narrow grave under +the mimosa tree, and the world seemed to lack something which had +formerly made it charitable and simple-hearted and even touched with +beauty. +</P> + +<P> +No one asked after Purvis, no one had seen him. He had disappeared in +the mysterious way in which he usually came and went, but his little +boy was still at the estancia, and his bitter crying for the friend who +was dead had added to the unhappiness of the day. He was a child not +easily given to tears, and his efforts at controlling his sobs were as +pathetic as his weeping. Peter found him the morning after Toffy's +death curled up behind some firewood in an outhouse, where he had gone +so that his tears should not be seen. He comforted him as well as he +knew how, and wished that Jane were there, and thought how well she +could console the little fellow; and he said to himself with an upward +stretch of his arms which relieved the ache of his heart for a moment, +'Oh, if women only knew how much a man wants them when he is down in +his luck!' He thought that he could have told Jane everything and have +talked to her about Toffy as to no one else, and he wished with all his +heart that he could climb up there behind the stack of wood and give +way to tears as this poor little chap had done. He wondered what they +were to do with him suppose Purvis never came back again. +</P> + +<P> +But Purvis came back. Men often said of him that he had a genius for +doing the unlooked-for thing; but no one could have expected even of +him that he would venture to a place so near to his own estate and to +the men who had attempted his life. He travelled by night, of course. +His cat-like eyes always seemed capable of seeing in the dark, and even +his horse's footfalls had something soft and feline about them. +</P> + +<P> +The other men were sleeping as men do after two long wakeful nights and +a day of stress and exertion. Even grief could not keep away the +feeling of exhaustion, and Purvis could hear their deep breathing in +the corridor, when, having tethered his horse to a distant paraiso +tree, he stole softly up to the door. +</P> + +<P> +His boy's room was at the back of the house, and Purvis crept round to +it, and called him softly by name. Dick's short life had been full of +adventure and surprises, and he never uttered a sound when his father's +light touch awakened him from sleep, and his voice told him softly to +get up. Purvis dressed him with something of a woman's skill, and then +he bade him remain where he was while he crept softly into the +drawing-room of the house. +</P> + +<P> +He came back presently as noiselessly as he had left the room, and +whispered, 'I am looking for a tin box; is it anywhere about?' +</P> + +<P> +'They opened it to-day, and took some papers out,' said Dick. +</P> + +<P> +Purvis drew one short, quick breath. +</P> + +<P> +'Then let us be off at once,' he said. +</P> + +<P> +He crossed the room once more in his stealthy fashion, and took from +the mantelpiece a small bottle of nerve-tabloids which he had +forgotten, and slipped them into his pocket, and then went out into the +dark again. Once he paused at the entrance of the corridor and +listened attentively, and then crept down the garden path and found the +horses tethered to the paraiso trees. They led them softly through the +monte, and there Dick paused. +</P> + +<P> +'I am going to say good-bye to him,' he said. 'I don't care what you +say!' +</P> + +<P> +He went to the grave under the mimosa trees, and with a queer elfin +gesture he stooped down and kissed the lately disturbed sods, and made +the sign of the cross upon his narrow little chest as he had seen his +Spanish mother do. The dignity of the action, with its unconscious +touch of foreign grace, and the boy's pathetic attempt to keep back his +tears as he lingered by the grave in the darkness at an hour when any +other boy of his age would have been safely tucked up in bed, might +well touch the heart of any one who stood beside the child. +</P> + +<P> +'I didn't know he was hit!' said Purvis suddenly; and probably he spoke +the truth for once in his life. Toffy was one of the few men who in +many years had trusted him, and he had been a good friend to Dick. +'Well, the game's up!' said Purvis. And he and his son mounted their +horses and rode off into the blackness of the night together. +</P> + +<P> +Ross had rescued the black japanned box from the boat, and had kept it +under his care until such time as he should have an opportunity of +giving it to Peter. It was from a sense that it might provide some +sort of distraction to a man almost dazed with grief that he brought it +into the drawing-room on the evening of the day Toffy was buried, and +suggested that perhaps Peter had better open it and see what was in it. +The key was gone, of course, but they prised it open with some tools, +and on the top of the box there was a letter which made Peter lay his +hand over his pocket for a moment. It was as though by some magic the +packet which lay there had been transferred to the interior of a black +japanned box discovered upon a river steamer in the Argentine Republic. +The writing on the cover was a duplicate of the one he himself held, +and was addressed in his mother's writing: 'To my son, to be given to +him at my death.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter could not see quite straight for a moment. The finding of the +packet seemed to establish conclusively his brother's identity; and he +took out the folded sheets which lay inside the cover with hands that +were not steady. +</P> + +<P> +The very words in the opening sentences were the same as in his own +letter, and written in the clear, strong handwriting which he knew so +well. +</P> + +<P> +'When you get this letter I shall be dead,' he read in the words which +were already painfully familiar to him; 'and before I die there is +something which I think I had better tell you. I am not haunted by +remorse nor indulging in death-bed repentance, and I shall merely ask +you not to hate me more than you can help when you have finished +reading this letter. +</P> + +<P> +'You must often have heard of your elder brother who died when I was in +Spain, the year of your father's death. He did not die——' So far +Peter knew the letter off by heart, but there seemed to be many pages +of writing to follow. 'And as far as I am aware he may be living now.' +</P> + +<P> +'If it is anything bad,' said Ross kindly, 'why not put it off until +to-morrow? You are about used up to-day, Peter, and whatever there is +in that box can wait.' +</P> + +<P> +'I am all right, thanks,' said Peter, without looking up. And Ross +went out to the patio and left him alone. +</P> + +<P> +'I must go a long way back to make myself intelligible,' the letter +went on. 'I suppose people of Spanish descent are generally credited +with an unforgiving spirit. I have never forgiven my sister-in-law. I +did not at first attempt revenge, possibly because there was only one +way in which I could deprive her and her children of their inheritance. +That way was denied me. My eldest boy died at his birth, and the girl +only lived a few weeks. After that I had no other children. I think +the grief this caused entered into both our lives with a bitterness +which is unusual, and which I shall not attempt to recall. I shall +only say that we both mourned it, and that Lionel Ogilvie and his wife +by their conduct made what might have been merely a sorrow a matter +also of almost unbearable disappointment. I mention this regrettable +emotional feeling in order to make my subsequent conduct intelligible +to you. In the course of years, during which your father hardly +attended to any matters concerning the property, because it would seem +to be benefiting his legal successors, I urged him to go abroad on an +exploring expedition such as he loved, hoping in some way to mitigate +his disappointment or keep him from dwelling upon it. I have probably +not conveyed to you how deep the quarrel was between him and his +brother; but if I have not done so it is not of any great importance. +</P> + +<P> +'When your father had sailed for Central Africa I went out to Spain to +visit my property there, and I took a sea-voyage to Lisbon for the +benefit of my health. There was a young couple in the steerage of the +boat going out to settle in Argentine. They were people of the working +class and very poor, and before we reached Lisbon, on the night of a +storm, the woman gave birth to a child and died, and the father was +left to start life in an unknown country with a helpless infant +dependent upon him. Some kind-hearted people on board the steamer made +up a subscription for him, with the English people's quaint notion that +all grief can be assuaged with food or money; and one night when I was +on deck alone the stewardess brought me the baby to see. +</P> + +<P> +'When we got into Lisbon the following day I offered the man to adopt +the child; and when my maid returned to England I got a Spanish woman +for him, and took him with me to my own estate. He was greeted +everywhere as my son, and allowing myself the luxury of the small +deception, I pretended to myself that he really was mine; but weeks +passed before I ever dreamed of deceiving anybody else on the subject. +It was a letter which my sister-in-law wrote to me which decided me to +stay out in Granada during my husband's two years' absence, and to +announce, in course of time, that I was the mother of a son. The plan +was quite stupidly easy, and everything lent itself to the deception. +The child was fair, and not unlike the Ogilvies, and his father had +given him up entirely to me, on the understanding that he was never to +claim him again. It may seem strange to you, but it is a fact that +after I returned to England there was not the vaguest suspicion in any +one's mind that he was not my own child. When my husband returned from +abroad I was convinced, if I had ever doubted it, that I had acted +wisely. Under the circumstances I should act in the same way again. +</P> + +<P> +'Of course events proved that I had made a mistake; but I had in the +meantime made my husband perfectly happy and my sister-in-law perfectly +miserable, and that was what I desired. +</P> + +<P> +'You were born a year after your father's return home, and when the +other child was three years old. To say that I then found myself in an +intolerable position would not be to overstate the case. If your +father had lived, my difficulties would have been greater than they +actually were, and it was during his lifetime and after your birth that +I suffered most. I suppose only a woman, and one, moreover, who has +longed for children, would be able to realize what my feelings were, +and I shall not urge your compassion by dwelling upon that time. I +have never accepted pity, and I should prefer not to have it bestowed +upon me when I am dead. +</P> + +<P> +'It was only after your father's death that I saw a way of escape out +of the intolerable position in which I had placed myself. I was in +very bad health for a time, and my husband's affection for the alien +child was more than I was able to bear. There is always a touch of the +savage in motherhood, and I am naturally jealous. +</P> + +<P> +'After my husband's death I went out to my own property in Spain, and +by judiciously moving about there from one place to another, and +changing my personal servants frequently, it was a comparatively easy +matter to say that the child had died, without exactly specifying where +his death had taken place. +</P> + +<P> +'It was absolutely necessary that he should be got rid of. A pauper +emigrant's boy was taking the place of my son in everything. The very +tenants about the place treated him differently from the way in which +they treated you. My husband had decided that the bilk of his property +was to go to him; and all the time I knew that his father was from the +class from which perhaps, navvies are drawn, and that his mother was +some girl from Whitechapel or Mile End. +</P> + +<P> +'He had to go, but I treated him fairly. I took him down to Lisbon +myself and sent him back to his father with a trustworthy couple who +were going out there. From my own private fortune I bestowed upon him +a sum sufficient to educate him and to place him in the world. +</P> + +<P> +'I think I never breathed freely or had one undisturbed moment from the +time you were born until he had gone to Argentine. +</P> + +<P> +'The people to whom I entrusted him both died of fever in Rosario, and +from that day to this I have never heard of the boy who was called +Edward Ogilvie. The money which I had bestowed upon him had proved too +tempting to some one. The child disappeared, and so far as I am +concerned he was never heard of again. +</P> + +<P> +'For four years he had lived as my own son, and it was I who took him +away from his father and his natural surroundings. I want you to find +him if you can. If he has been brought up vilely or treated brutally +by strangers, the fault, of course, lies with me; this will probably +distress you, but I think it will be an incentive also to you to try to +find the man.' +</P> + +<P> +The letter was signed in Mrs. Ogilvie's name and it finished as +abruptly as it had begun. +</P> + +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> + +<P> +The first thing that roused Peter from the sense of bewilderment and +almost of stupor which beset him was Dunbar's arrival at the estancia. +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis has given us the slip again!' said the detective. 'The man has +as many lives is he has names! He has disappeared more than once +before, and he has even died, to my certain knowledge, two or three +times, in order to get out of a tight place.' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, Purvis, yes!' said Peter absently; and then he pulled himself +together and briefly told Dunbar the whole story. +</P> + +<P> +'It doesn't alter the fact,' said Dunbar, 'that I have got to find him +if I can.' +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Peter stupidly. 'No, I suppose it does not,' and he added, +in a heavy voice, 'I believe Toffy would like me to look after the boy.' +</P> + +<P> +'The mystery to me is,' said Dunbar, 'how Purvis, as you call him (to +me, of course, he is E. W. Smith), could have got hold of this box of +papers. It may be a fraud yet,' he said truculently, 'and it will +require investigation.' +</P> + +<P> +'I know my mother's writing,' said Peter, 'and Purvis was in the act of +trying to burn the box before we took him off the steamer. It is the +last thing in the world that it would suit him to have about him if he +meant to establish his claim to be the heir.' +</P> + +<P> +'That's so,' said Dunbar thoughtfully. +</P> + +<P> +'The box could not have come out with him when he sailed to Argentine +as a child,' said Peter, 'because the letter is dated long after that.' +</P> + +<P> +'And you say you never saw the man until you met him out here?' Dunbar +went on. +</P> + +<P> +He brought out a notebook from his pocket and began to jot down Peter's +replies. +</P> + +<P> +'No,' said Peter, 'or, if I did, I can't recall where it was. At first +when I saw him he reminded me of some one whom I had met; but +afterwards, when it seemed pretty well established that he was my +brother, both Christopherson and I thought that this vague recollection +of the man, which I mentioned to him, might be based on the fact that +there was some sort of likeness between him and some members of my +family.' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar jotted this down also. 'And you positively have no recollection +of having seen him?' he said, as he fastened a band of elastic round +the book. 'If that is so he must have had accomplices in England who +stole the box for him. I shall have to find out where these boxes were +kept at your home, and, as nearly as possible, I must discover with +whom Purvis was in communication in England. Or he may have gone there +himself. I know that he went home in one of Lamport & Holt's boats +only a few months ago—that was after the wreck of the <I>Rosana</I>, you +understand—and it was while he was in England that I saw him, and knew +for certain that he had not gone down in the wreck. My warrant against +him is for a common hotel robbery. It was when he came back to +Argentine that he began this river-trading, which was in the hands of a +better man till he took it.' +</P> + +<P> +'The plan will be for you and my lawyer to work together,' said Peter; +'but at present I can't furnish you with the smallest clue as to how +these papers came into his possession. I know the look of the box +quite well. There were several of them in my mother's writing-room, +which was in the oldest part of the house. They were all destroyed one +night last autumn when we had rather a serious fire there.' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar took out his notebook and began to write. +</P> + +<P> +'<I>By Jove!</I>' exclaimed Peter, suddenly starting from his seat. He saw +it all in a flash: the burning tower, with volumes of smoke rising from +it; the line of men, with hose and buckets, pouring water on the +connecting bridge of the tower; the groups of frightened guests on the +terrace, and his mother standing unmoved amongst them in her sumptuous +purple dress and the diamonds in her hair; the arrival of the +fire-engine from Sedgwick; and then, just at the end, the figure of a +man appearing on the bridge, with a cloak wound round his head, dashing +into the doorway through which the smoke was issuing in great waves; +his sudden flight across the bridge again; and then Jane, at his elbow, +clasping his arm and saying, in a terrified tone, 'Oh, Peter! for a +moment I thought it was you!' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar was scribbling rapidly in his notebook. 'It is as clear as +mud!' he said at last. 'Purvis, after the <I>Rosana</I> incident, was +missing for a considerable time, and it is believed that his English +wife at Rosario hid him somewhere. There he probably heard the story +of his adoption, and determined to prove himself the eldest son.' +</P> + +<P> +'I don't understand how he could have heard the story,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'He heard most things. But there are links in the chain that we shall +never get a sight of; we see only the beginning and the end of it,' +replied Dunbar. +</P> + +<P> +The Scot was very seldom excited; but he got up from his chair and +began to walk rapidly up and down the room, his under-lip stuck out, +and his tough hair thrown back from his forehead. 'The whole thing +depended upon his getting what direct information he could about the +property, and he must have worked this thing well. The fire, I take +it, was accidental?' +</P> + +<P> +'Oh, the fire was accidental enough,' said Peter, 'and was found to be +due to some electric lighting which was put into the tower.' +</P> + +<P> +'Purvis's visit to England must have been to ascertain if Mrs. Ogilvie +were still alive, and, in the first instance, he probably meant to levy +blackmail upon her; he must have discovered where she kept her papers, +and have tried to effect an entrance on the night of the ball when many +strangers were about.' +</P> + +<P> +'I believe,' exclaimed Peter, 'we saw him in one of the corridors of +the house during the dance, and decided that he must be one of the +guests unknown to us, who had come with some country neighbour, and +that he had lost his way amongst the almost interminable passages of +the place.' He saw himself and Jane making for the leather-covered +door which led to the bridge, and the shrinking stranger, with his +hopelessly timid manner, who had drawn back at their approach; and he +thought he heard himself saying, 'Shall I get him some partners, or +leave the people who brought him to the dance to look after him?' It +was only a fleeting look that he had caught of the man's face, and he +recalled it with difficulty now, but it was not a far-fetched +conclusion to decide that the two were one and the same man. +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar was in a sort of transport. 'It's the best case I ever had,' he +said, 'and we only want the man himself to make the thing complete! +Purvis has played some pretty clever and some pretty deep games in his +time; but this is about the coolest thing he ever tried to pull off, +and he has as nearly as possible won through with it.' +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Dunbar always relapsed into a strong Scottish accent in moments of +excitement, and he became almost unintelligible at last, as he rolled +forth his r's and gave it as his opinion that the man was a worthless +scoundrel. +</P> + +<P> +'I can't think,' said Peter, 'why Purvis did not claim the inheritance +sooner. He had the whole thing in his hands.' +</P> + +<P> +'Yes; but Purvis did not know that!' exclaimed Dunbar. 'I 'll take my +oath he 's been pumping you about how much old servants knew, and the +like; and there are men working the case in England, judging by the +number of telegrams he has had. He would have been over in London +before many months were gone, or I am very much mistaken, and as soon +as the train was laid; but it would have been a fatal thing for him to +have attempted a case before he knew how much was known. Your arrival +in Argentine probably precipitated the very thing he was working for.' +</P> + +<P> +'He remarkably nearly succeeded,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'There ought to be a training home for criminals,' Dunbar exclaimed, +'to teach them once and for all to destroy all evidence, rather than +retain that which incriminates alongside of that which may be useful. +A man will sometimes keep a bundle of letters which will bring him to +the gallows together with information which might make his fortune.' +</P> + +<P> +Peter described how he had found the tin case on the top of a bundle of +shavings in the cabin of the river steamer. 'He was in a tight place +there, and must have known it,' said Peter. 'Why not have burned the +letters before our boat got up?' +</P> + +<P> +Dunbar laughed. 'You can't very well make a holocaust on a small +steamer on a dark night without showing where you are, for one thing,' +he replied, 'nor can you overturn a paraffin lamp on the top of a +bundle of shavings without a possibility of burning yourself up at the +same time. There was a love of sensationalism, too, about the man. He +would like his steamer to flame away at the right moment, and +disappoint the men who meant to board her; or, what is still more +likely, there was a considerable amount of gunpowder on board the boat, +and a boarding-party arriving at the right moment would have been blown +sky-high.' +</P> + +<P> +'He never showed mercy,' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'The Lord will need to have mercy upon him if he gets into my hands,' +quoth Dunbar, 'for I have none to spare for him.' +</P> + +<P> +'But I,' said Peter, 'have got to remember that my mother charges me to +befriend the man.' +</P> + +<P> +'But then,' said Dunbar tersely, 'your mother never knew what sort of +man you would have to deal with.' +</P> + +<P> +'God knows!' said Peter. +</P> + +<P> +'Well, it's a hanging matter if we get him,' said Dunbar cheerfully. +He and the commissario had their orders, and they would be obliged to +execute them. The results must be left for a court of justice to +decide. +</P> + +<P> +They rode away the following morning, and there seemed nothing for it +but to wait at the estancia until more news was forthcoming. For Peter +the days were the saddest of his life, and left an impression upon him +which nothing ever quite removed afterwards. He became older suddenly, +and a certain boyishness, which was characteristic of him, was gone and +never returned again. Life, which had once seemed so simple to him and +so easily lived, so full of pleasures and of good times and of good +comrades, had suddenly become complex and filled with difficulties, and +made up of grave decisions and shadowed by a sorrow which would +probably be felt as long as he lived. Ross would not let him stay +indoors, and mercifully gave him a double share of work to do. The +weather was cooler now, and the days could be filled with outdoor +occupation from morning till night. There were no siestas in the +afternoon or lazy dawdling over afternoon coffee in the heat of the day +to remind him of long gossips with Toffy, and the evenings were shorter +and not so difficult to fill. +</P> + +<P> +'I 'm an awful bore, Ross!' said Peter, having sat silent from +dinner-time until he went to bed one night; 'but I can't help it.' +</P> + +<P> +'I know you can't,' said Ross kindly. +</P> + +<P> +The big man, who was a poor player of cards at the best of times, +became seized with a desire to learn picquet, and, strange as his +method of consolation may have been, Peter knew what the good fellow +meant by it, and taught him the game and got through the time somehow. +</P> + +<P> +There was still no news of Purvis; the man seemed to have vanished in +his own mysterious way, and nothing could be heard of him. It was +ascertained that he was well supplied with money, and it was thought +that, as his child would be incapable of any very long journeys or +unusual hardships, the discovery of his whereabouts near home might +lead to the discovery of the father. But the thing remained a mystery. +Dunbar's long lean frame grew leaner than ever as he searched and +journeyed and telegraphed without obtaining any results. +</P> + +<P> +It was the boy who appeared first, and then without his father. +Perhaps Purvis discovered that escape would be easier without the +burden of the child, or it may have been that his queer affection for +him had determined him to seek safety for the boy somewhere. But it +was part of the man's extraordinary coolness that he should send him +for Peter Ogilvie to look after. +</P> + +<P> +The boy arrived at the estancia one night, a poor, tired little object, +with a letter from his father in his pocket. The two had made their +way as far as the province of Salta, and from there the boy had been +sent to Taco, where, unaided, he had found a horse and had ridden over +to the estancia. He was thin and weak-looking, and had evidently +suffered a good deal from his many journeyings. Ross took him and +looked after him, and gave him some light work on the farm to do, and +there he remained while Dunbar journeyed to Salta, to find that Purvis +had left the place long before he arrived. Only a woman at Rosario +knew where he was, and this woman had learned not to tell. She had +married Purvis years ago, soon after she arrived in Argentine to be +governess to some English children. Her employers had not been kind to +her, and in a country where comforts were few she had had less than her +share of them. She was a girl of twenty then, and very pretty, and +hers was a faithful heart; and, cynical as the expression may sound, +she had had fidelity thrust upon her by the fact that she was utterly +friendless in the world. When Purvis married her she went to him +gladly. When he deserted her she even pretended to believe in him, for +the pitiful reason that there was no one else in the whole of that +strange land to whom she could turn. She was a woman to whom the easy +excuse of business could always be used in the widest sense of the +term, for she had been brought up to believe that that very +comprehensive word signified something almost as mysterious as affairs +of the spirit. It was not safe to assert of those who were engaged in +business whence they came or whither they would go. Sometimes she did +not see her husband for months, or even for a year at a time; he did +not always share his abundant days with her, but he had nearly always +come back to her when he was in trouble. +</P> + +<P> +He arrived one night in Rosario without disguise of any sort, and +knocked at her humble door in one of the meanest parts of the town. He +was never beaten for long, and he announced to her that he wanted her +help in a new scheme that he had planned. His fortune was to be made +once more, but the scheme itself must remain hidden for a time. His +wife, upon this occasion, was to help him by acting as cat's-paw. +</P> + +<P> +'It's a big thing,' Purvis said, 'and will require all my strength;' +and he announced his intention of remaining hidden in Rosario for a few +weeks while he rested completely. But his chronic inability to sleep +made rest impossible. He was calculating and adding up figures during +the watches of the night, and his strange, light-coloured eyes, with +the constant tear in them, became paler in colour and more suggestive +of bad nerves. He began to find his calculations difficult to balance, +and he even made some mistakes in his long rows of figures. The thing +worried him and he began to wonder if his head were going. He had +always overcome difficulties and had fought dangers with an absolute +belief in his own success. He was unscrupulous and cunning, but he had +never been beaten yet. It was horrible that sleep was the thing that +he could not command; but, alas! the exercise of will-power is not the +force by which sleep can be induced, and a placid or submissive mind +was unknown to Purvis. His wife watched him anxiously. She would go +for long walks with him in the early dawn or after it was dark, hoping +that the fresh air and the cooler weather might bring some sort of +repose to the wide-open pale eyes; but no sleep came, and Purvis took +to swallowing more tabloids, and setting out his rows of figures in a +nervous way, while his hand trembled and his plaintive voice became +irritable, and his eyes watered more than they were wont to do. +</P> + +<P> +He had money in hand, and it was some sort of comfort to his wife to be +able to purchase for him the nourishing food which he required. She +had often been in sore straits for money herself, but she believed, +with pathetic conviction, that a woman can do with fewer comforts than +a man can, and she had never felt deprivations for herself so much as +she would have felt them for her husband. She cooked tempting dishes +for him, and enjoyed his companionship, and asked no questions. She +even allowed herself the purchase of a few new clothes now that money +was plentiful again, and these days, even with the anxiety of her +husband's ill-health hanging over her, were not by any means the +unhappiest of her life. +</P> + +<P> +'I shan't be able to pull this business through,' said Purvis one +night, 'unless I sleep, and I can't live unless I succeed with it.' +</P> + +<P> +He made his wife write innumerable letters for him in her own +handwriting, and signed with an entirely new name. But it was +difficult to transact these business affairs through the medium of +another person, and even his meek wife might some day ask questions! +</P> + +<P> +If only he could pull himself together and get a firmer grasp of things +than he had at present! The commercial instinct was strong within him, +and he had a genius for figures, but insomnia and the state of his +nerves seemed to have deprived him of half his powers. He envied his +wife her gentle breathing and her deep sleep; and he would often wake +her in the night when he was most restless, and demand something at her +hands—a very weak cup of tea, or a little milk and hot water—in order +to hear the restoring sound of a human voice. +</P> + +<P> +Lately, however, he had purchased a new sort of tabloid which he used +sparingly, according to the chemist's directions, but at which he often +looked longingly, believing that a little sleep lay within the tiny +glass bottle. +</P> + +<P> +He had lain awake for hours this night, noting the ticking of his +watch, counting the hours as they struck on the neighbouring clock, +falling sometimes into an uneasy slumber which lasted only a few +minutes, and then waking at the sound of his own voice calling aloud in +his sleep. He tried every plan and contrivance, however childish, by +which men have sometimes courted slumber. +</P> + +<P> +He lay in bed very still to-night, his wide-staring eyes looking into +the darkness. He heard every hour as it struck, and his active brain +refused to be quiet for a moment. Difficult things looked gigantic in +the darkness, and everything upon which his thoughts dwelt became +hopelessly exaggerated in his mind. Brandy and other stimulants had +never been a temptation to him; his life had too often depended upon +his wits for him to risk a muddled brain. But he still believed in +tabloids; and as the day dawned, and light crept through the window, he +looked longingly at the little glass vial lying on the dressing-table. +It was three o'clock, and if only he could get a couple of hours' deep +rest before the noise of the city began, he might yet be able to pull +himself together and arrange his affairs. +</P> + +<P> +He rose from the bed and went with unfaltering steps to the +dressing-table and shook the tiny discs into the palm of his hand; and +then he counted them deliberately. +</P> + +<P> +'It's kill or cure!' he said, with that queer courage which never +deserted him, even if it were based entirely upon self-seeking and +self-interest. He threw his head back with the characteristic action +with which he always swallowed his medicine, and went back to bed again. +</P> + +<P> +Purvis slept; and it may have been that he was glad to sleep on for +ever, for he was tired through and through, and the only way to escape +failure was by death. +</P> + +<P> +His wife mourned for him deeply and sincerely, as many better men have +not been mourned. There was only one thing she dreaded in the whole +world, and that was loneliness. She had endured so much of it in her +lifetime, and now that her husband was gone, whom as a matter of +necessity she had believed in, she was quite alone. She knew nothing +of business, and it never struck her as strange that there should be +money amounting to a considerable little fortune in a box in the house. +With the fear of want removed the poor creature blossomed into +youthfulness again, and she married an engineer on a new railway line, +who was very good to her. To him she ever held up the late lamented +Purvis as one of the best of husbands, and one, too, who had left her +well provided for. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII +</H3> + +<P> +Peter and Jane were married the following autumn with the ring which +Toffy had kept wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper in his waistcoat +pocket. +</P> + +<P> +For a description of the general rejoicings the almost hysterical +paragraphs in the Culversham local paper must be consulted. Columns of +print were devoted to accounts of feastings and fireworks, tenants' +dinners, and school-children's teas. +</P> + +<P> +In order to understand and really appreciate the full interest of the +occasion one would have had to be at Tetley Place on the morning of the +26th of October last year. Miss Abingdon was in her most bustling, her +most uncompromising mood, and from an early hour of the morning she was +so severe in her speech, and so absolutely radiant in her expression, +that it was very difficult indeed to know how to treat her. +</P> + +<P> +Canon Wrottesley, who still believed that his wife was only feeling the +effects of the winter weather, the spring weather, the summer weather, +or the autumn weather, was as gay and debonair as usual, and even at +the wedding it was felt that he was in some sort the centre of things. +He had his usual group of admirers about him, and was so gracious and +charming, so patriarchal one moment and so boyish the next, that his +popularity was not to be wondered at. The very school-children, as +they threw their flowers, glanced upwards at the canon for his approval. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Avory, dressed in black, went very quietly to the wedding with her +little girl beside her. She wept sadly during the service, but she +looked stronger now, and less suffering than she had been wont to do. +A niche seemed to have been found for her in the village of Culversham, +where she loved the poor people, and went about amongst the cottages, +and read to sick folk, and was happier, perhaps, than she quite knew, +in her own pathetic little way. +</P> + +<P> +Kitty Sherard was bridesmaid and never cried at all. She wore +rose-colour, and carried Jane's bouquet, and during the whole of the +long day she smiled and was admired, and behaved as a bridesmaid in +rose-colour should. It is a comforting supposition, which many people +hold as a belief, that there are guardian angels, or spirits, which +watch round the beds of those who weep. Such a spirit, keeping watch +at Kitty Sherard's bed that night, and hearing her sobbing, may have +known something of her sorrow. Soldiers—men tell us who have seen +many battlefields—cover their faces when they are wounded, so that +their comrades may not see their drawn features and their pain. And +women wait until the lights are out before they begin to cry. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps a certain joy of living will come back to Kitty when hounds are +running and a good horse carries her well. To-night in the dark she +felt nothing but an intolerable sense of loss. Probably in a sorrow of +this sort the ache of it consists in a curious longing to get up and go +at once somewhere—anywhere—to the one who is loved, and the blankness +and the pity of it all centres round the fact that this is impossible. +The impotence of the feeling increases as means of communication in +this life are made easier. It seems absurd that, whereas we may +actually speak and hear the voice in reply of those who answer us while +we are hundreds of miles apart, there yet should be an insuperable +barrier between ourselves and those who, for aught we know, may be +quite near us. It seems almost as though we must be under a spell +which prevents the communication which we long for, and as though +almost any day we may wake up to find how unreal the separation is, +Kitty buried her face in the pillow and called Toffy's name, and—who +knows?—perhaps he heard her. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes I think Mrs. Avory may marry again, for her husband is +rapidly getting through his life in a laudable endeavour to live every +day of it, and there are times when I wonder if, in years to come, I +may see her established as the gentle and admiring wife of our handsome +country vicar, doing good all her days in her timid faithful way. +</P> + +<P> +But I cannot think of Kitty Sherard as caring for any one except the +boy who, whatever his faults may have been, had never an unkind or +ungentle thought of any man or woman, and who played the game as +honourably as he knew it, and then laid down his life in the simple +manner of a gentleman. +</P> + +<P> +Peter will never forget him. When he has boys of his own he will call +them after his dead friend's name, and will tell them absurd stories +about him, for even when his name has become only a memory it will be +surrounded with something lovably humorous. His old jokes and stories +are much more a reality than his death. He often risked his life for a +good sporting race; and he did not grudge giving it up during that last +lap in the Argentine River when day was breaking. He was trying to +help a friend to do the right sort of thing at considerable cost to +them both, and, when all is said and done, none of us can do much +better than that. +</P> + +<P> +Well, good luck and long life to bride and bride-groom! They love each +other in a manner refreshingly whole-hearted and delightful, and we +will, if you please, ring down the curtain upon them in orthodox +fashion to the sound of wedding-bells. Good luck to Kitty, who will +never tell her mad little stories again, or enjoy herself as she used +to do when she goes to race-meetings or drives her horses tandem +through the lanes. Good luck to Mrs. Avory, with her pathetic brown +eyes, doing her daily work amongst the poor; and to the genial vicar +and his wife. Good luck to all our friends in this book, and to you, +dear reader, who have followed them so far. +</P> + +<P> +And so, good-bye. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> +<hr class="full" noshade> + +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND JANE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 26044-h.txt or 26044-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/0/4/26044">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/0/4/26044</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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(Sarah) Macnaughtan + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Peter and Jane + or The Missing Heir + + +Author: S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan + + + +Release Date: July 12, 2008 [eBook #26044] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND JANE*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original musical notations. + See 26044-h.htm or 26044-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/0/4/26044/26044-h/26044-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/0/4/26044/26044-h.zip) + + + + + +PETER AND JANE + +Or The Missing Heir + +by + +S. MACNAUGHTAN + +Author of +'The Fortune of Christina M'nab' + +Sixth Edition + + + + + + + +Methuen & Co. Ltd. +36 Essex Street W.C. +London + +First Issued in this Cheap Form (Fourth + Edition) . . . . . . . . . . . . July 2nd 1914 +Fifth Edition . . . . . . . . . . . May 1916 +Sixth Edition . . . . . . . . . . . 1919 + +First Published (Crown 8vo) . . . . September 14th 1911 +Second Edition . . . . . . . . . . . September 1911 +Third Edition . . . . . . . . . . . November 1911 + + + + +TO + +CATHERINE + + + + +PETER AND JANE + + +CHAPTER I + +Mrs. Ogilvie, red-haired according to the exact shade then in fashion, +and dressed by Paquin, sat in her drawing-room reading the _Court +Journal_. She was a woman who thought on the lines of Aristotle, +despised most other women except Charlotte Corday, Judith, Joan of Arc, +and a few more, and she dyed her hair and read the _Court Journal_. +People who did not know her sometimes alluded to her as an overdressed +woman with a wig. Those who had met her even but once admitted the +power of her personality. Perhaps if any one had known her very well +he or she would have been bewildered by the many-sided complexities of +her character, and would have failed to discover any sort of unity +behind its surprising differences. But then, as a matter of fact, no +one did know her well. + +Those who cared to remember such an old story used to tell how, as a +girl of eighteen, she had been deeply in love with a cousin of hers, +Greville Monsen by name, and how almost on the eve of her marriage she +had thrown him over and had married Colonel Ogilvie the explorer, a man +twenty years older than herself, with an enormous fortune, and +accounted something of a hero at the time. + +Colonel Ogilvie married late in life, and his brother's wife had long +ago decided that it would be better if he should never marry at all. +Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie was an ambitious woman with a fine family of sons +and daughters to whom Colonel Ogilvie's large estates and immense +fortune would have been wholly appropriate. She had always been civil +to her brother-in-law, although the estates and the money were entailed +upon his brother, and she weighed in the balance the disinterested +affection which she showed him against her feeling of satisfaction in +the fact that he was a daring and indefatigable traveller; one, +moreover, who was seldom quite happy unless he was in danger, and who +never thoroughly enjoyed a journey if any other white man had trodden +the ground before he himself visited it. + +Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie was indignant at the news of Colonel Ogilvie's +marriage. Being a very wise woman she would probably in time have +controlled her temper, and by a little judicious management she might +have secured a considerable fortune for herself and her children. But, +alas! there was a necessity within her of exploding to some one when, +as in this instance, her heart was hot and her head not quite cool. +And so, with some sense of justice, venting her spleen upon the cause +of it, Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie said certain very unwise and unkind things +about her brother-in-law's fiancee and her cousin, Greville Monsen. Of +course the heated and uncontrolled words of the disappointed woman were +repeated, and there was a terrible and stormy interview between the two +brothers, who parted that same day and never spoke to each other again. + +Mrs. Francis Ogilvie bore the character of being a cold and +dispassionate woman. And this was the more remarkable because on the +distaff-side she was of Spanish descent, and might reasonably have been +supposed to have inherited the instincts of that passionate and +hot-tempered nation. She never quarrelled as the brothers had done, +but her eyes narrowed for an instant with a trick that was +characteristic of her when she heard Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie's tale. And +when, in the quieter moments that followed her husband's outburst of +anger, he asked her with a tone of question in his voice whether Lionel +and that odious wife of his could possibly expect to be forgiven, Mrs. +Ogilvie raised her eyebrows and said simply, 'I do not know what +forgiveness means.' She paid no attention to the vulgar gossip which +her sister-in-law tried to attach to her name, and Greville Monsen had +either got over his disappointment, or was sufficiently attached to his +former fiancee to forgive her her treatment of him. He came to the +house on terms of intimate friendship, and continued to do so even +after Mrs. Lionel Ogilvie's busy tongue had spoken. + +Mrs. Ogilvie was not affected by gossip, nor moved by public opinion. +To have altered her conduct, even by a hair's-breadth, because it was +not generally approved would have seemed to her an absurdity; but those +who offended her were not given the opportunity of doing so twice. To +have had small quarrels followed by reconciliations would have been +impossible to her. Very few things were worth quarrelling about at +all, still fewer worth forgiving! Mrs. Ogilvie was cynically +indifferent to transgressions against herself; but when she sat in +judgment she always gave a life-sentence. + +When Lionel died the feud between the brothers would probably have been +forgotten had it not been for the lamentable fact that his eldest son, +who had grown up into a faithful likeness of his worldly and +commonplace mother, took it into his head at the time of his father's +death to write to his uncle in a way which showed as much greed as +ill-breeding. The foolish young man's letter might have been put into +the fire and forgotten, for Colonel Ogilvie had loved his brother long +ago, and his death affected him deeply; but young Lionel made a mistake +when he referred to the fact that Colonel and Mrs. Ogilvie were +childless, and alluded to his own prospects. This put an end for ever +to all friendly intercourse between the uncle and nephew; Mrs. Ogilvie, +on her part, lifted her eyebrows again and said, 'The commercial mind +is very droll!' But just for one moment she locked her hands together +with an impulsive movement that had a whole life's tragedy and +disappointment in it. + +It meant all the world to her and her husband that they should have +children. But Fate, who had prospered them in every other respect, had +denied them what they most desired. A son and heir, who was born a +year after the marriage, had died the same day. Two years later a +little girl was born who lived a few weeks, and then she also died. +Since then there had been no children. Many women would have claimed +sympathy for their sorrow, most women would at least have accepted it. +Mrs. Ogilvie, with her health somewhat impaired, came back to the world +and assumed her place in it without any expressions of regret for her +disappointment. Probably not even her husband knew whether she felt +her loss deeply or not. No one else was ever permitted to speak of it. +Colonel Ogilvie's own disappointment was never expressed. He had too +much tenderness for his wife to say anything about it. + +'If ever I am to be a mother again,' Mrs. Ogilvie said once, 'my child +shall be born out of reach of kind inquiries or deep sympathy. If he +lives, let those rejoice with me who will. But pity is always +offensive, and is generally meant to be so.' + +As the years came and went Colonel Ogilvie lost interest in his +property, and handed over the care of the greater part of it to agents +and stewards, and came very near to hating the lands which some day +would go to his nephew. A queer restlessness was upon him, and his +wife watched him and said nothing; until one day, seeing him reading a +certain paragraph in a newspaper, she said to him, smiling slightly, as +they stood together on the broad stone terrace at Bowshott, 'Why don't +you go with them on this exploring expedition?' + +Colonel Ogilvie protested. He was a married man, he said, and his +travelling days were over. It is probable, however, that never was a +suggestion more welcome. The past years, in spite of his deep love for +his wife, had been full of fret and shadowed by disappointment, and he +longed, with a traveller's intensity of longing, for the wild +untroubled places of the world, the primitive life, and if possible +some dangers on the road. An exploring party sent out by the British +Government to discover a lost missionary and to punish a warlike tribe +was exactly the thing to suit his adventurous disposition. In spirit +he was already in the dangerous places of Central Africa, far from +human habitation, and with very often his own right hand the sole thing +between him and a barbarous death. Even while he protested with +conscientious emphasis against his wife's proposal, he already saw the +dim forests of Africa, the line of bearers on the difficult march, the +tents struck at nightfall, and all the paraphernalia of an interesting +campaign. + +He was away for eighteen months, beyond the reach of letters and +telegrams for the greater part of the time; and during his absence Mrs. +Ogilvie, whose health for some months had been feeble, went to her +native land of Spain for warmth and sunshine, travelling by sea to +Lisbon for the sake of the voyage. From her Spanish mother she had +inherited a property at Granada, and it was from there that she was +able to write and tell her husband that she was the mother of a son. +Colonel Ogilvie was in an inaccessible region when that event happened, +and it was not until he was on his return journey home that he heard +the good news. Two years later another child, Peter, was born; and, +ardently as her firstborn had been desired, Mrs. Ogilvie showered by +far the greater part of her affection upon the younger child. +Everything had to give way to Peter, and she resented that even such +baby privileges as a child of tender years can receive were bestowed +upon the elder son and heir. Her health gave cause for anxiety for +some time after Peter was born, and her mental state and the condition +of her nerves accounted for the partiality which she showed for her +younger child. + +The colonel, however, was always a little jealous for the fair-haired +boy who had come to his mother while he was far away; and by his will, +which he made at this time, he secured an almost extravagant provision +for Edward. He could well-nigh forgive his nephews now for their +obtrusive existence in the world, and he settled down to enjoy his +property with the happy knowledge that he had two fine sturdy boys to +whom to leave it. He was still in the prime of life, and not all the +dangers and privations which he had suffered seemed to have undermined +his splendid constitution. But a drive home in an open dogcart, after; +speaking in an overheated hall at a political meeting, brought on a +chill and pneumonia of which very suddenly he died. His loss was +sincerely and deeply regretted in a neighbourhood where he was both +admired and loved for his many good qualities, and a monument in +Culversham parish church tells of his excellence as a landlord and his +intrepid courage as an explorer. + +Mrs. Ogilvie's health being still precarious, she went abroad for the +winter after her husband's death to look into some matters concerning +her own property, and to try to court health in the sunny vine-growing +country. And there, in a little remote Spanish village by the sea +which she loved to visit, little Edward Ogilvie, the elder of the two +children, died; and not until six years later did Mrs. Ogilvie return +to England. To all outward seeming she was as emotionless and reserved +as she had ever been, and she spoke no word of her double sorrow and +her irreparable loss. Her love for her remaining child never showed +itself in caresses, and was not even discernible in her speech; but in +spite of her reserve there was an undefined feeling in most people's +minds that Mrs. Ogilvie idolized her son. Of the two who were dead no +one ever heard her speak. Whatever she thought of them seemed to be +buried in her heart as deeply as though that heart had been their +graves. And there remained only cheery, popular Peter Ogilvie, with +his mind as open as the day, and not a secret upon his soul, and with +as much reserve as a schoolboy, to inherit the fortune which a prince +might have envied, and a property which was unique in a county rich in +beautiful houses. + +The gardens of Bowshott were the admiration of the countryside, and +Mrs. Ogilvie rarely entered them. The picture gallery was visited by +foreigners from every part of the world. Mrs. Ogilvie frequently +showed the works of the great masters herself, strolling along the +polished floor of the gallery, and telling the story of this picture +and that with the inimitable grace of manner which was vaguely resented +by her country neighbours, delighting the distinguished foreigners who +came to see the pictures. She herself hardly ever glanced at the old +masters for her own pleasure; although full of technical knowledge on +the subject she had no love of art. It used to weary her when she had +to listen to enthusiasm, generally only half-sincere, about her +Botticellis or her Raphaels. Music never stirred her, and she regarded +the society of the country neighbourhood where she lived with a sense +of uncomprehension which she sometimes found difficult to conceal. + +'Why were such people born?' she used to say to herself at the sight of +some rural gathering. On the rare occasions when she went to a party +she was always the first to leave; boredom seemed to overtake her +before she had been anywhere very long. Entertainments, so-called, +were horribly wearisome to her, and she never for an instant believed +those people who professed to have enjoyed a pleasant party. Parties +were all stupid, she thought; just as most people were stupid, and most +food was badly cooked. Therefore, why meet in somebody else's most +probably hideous room, and eat impossible dishes and talk to impossible +people? Her own chef had been famous even in Paris, and every evening, +according to the custom of the house, an extravagant _menu_ was +prepared, at which, when she was alone, she hardly glanced. + +Mrs. Ogilvie discussed all things in heaven or earth with a baffling +lightness, turned philosophy into a witty jest and made a sort of slang +of classical terminology. Amongst a clever set in London she reigned +supreme when she chose; but a false note or a pose offended her +immediately, and the poseur or the insincere person would generally +receive one of her exquisite snubs which cut like acid into tender +skins. The pretentiousness of the so-called cultured set was a +vulgarism in the eyes of this woman who could be rude with the air of a +princess, and could give a snub as some people offer a compliment. +Inferior persons sometimes wondered how she had a friend left. To be +popular, they argued, one had to be civil, whereas Mrs. Ogilvie was +often daringly disagreeable. There was indeed something almost fine in +her splendid disdain of the civility of the so-called popular person. +She could wound; but she did it with the grace of a duellist of old +days, who wiped his rapier with a handkerchief of cambric and lace when +he had killed his opponent, and would probably expect a man to die as +he himself would die, with a jest on his lips and a light laugh at the +flowing blood. Mrs. Ogilvie slew exquisitely, and she never hated her +opponent. She smiled at enthusiasm and thought it bizarre and rather +delightful; but towards vulgarity, especially in its pompous form, she +presented her poniard-point sharply tipped and deadly. 'Why should +people take themselves seriously?' she would say, with a shrug of her +shoulders. 'Surely, we are a common enough species!' And then the +green-grey eyes would narrow themselves in their shortsighted way, and +Mrs. Ogilvie's voice, charmingly refined and well-bred, would with a +few words lightly prick the falsely sentimental and self-inflated +wind-bag of oratory that had presented its unprotected surface to her +shaft. + +Towards religion her attitude was the well-bred one. She took off her +hat to it, as a gentleman removes his hat in church whatever his creed +may be. Her own beliefs were as daring and as nearly as possible +uninfluenced by outward opinion or by the accepted systems as it is +possible for a creed to be. She never tried to force them upon any one +else; possibly she did not believe in them herself sufficiently to wish +to do so; but like her queer gowns and her dyed red hair her creed +suited Mrs. Ogilvie. There was a congruous incongruity about her which +set many people puzzling to find out her real character. Pompous +persons and snobs detested her. Stupid or vapid people saw nothing in +her, or saw merely that she dyed her hair and was dressed by Paquin. +Narrow-minded people disapproved of her, and clever people considered +her one of the most striking, if not one of the most agreeable +personalities of the day. Women hardly ever understood her; but they +respected any one who dressed as well as she did, and they had an +undeclared admiration for a woman who could hold so lightly possessions +which they believed to be all-important, and which Mrs. Ogilvie seemed +to find so trivial. + +The house and its gardens were open once a week to visitors, and the +country neighbours brought their guests and strangers to see it, their +pleasure in showing off Mrs. Ogilvie's possessions being somewhat +tempered by timidity; while those who came to pay a call on the chance +of finding her at home would sometimes say with an air of courage and +independence to a friend, 'Mrs. Ogilvie is considered rather alarming, +you know, but it really is only her manner.' She played her part as +country neighbour conscientiously. Once a year she gave a sumptuous +garden-party, all other garden-parties in the neighbourhood being dated +by it. And when Peter was a little boy there were children asked to +the house to play games with him, and later there were dances and balls. + +Peter accepted his mother, his property, and his position on what he +himself would probably have called their most cheery side. He valued +Bowshott because there was excellent hunting to be got there; just as +he loved his place in Scotland because of the stalking and the fishing +and the shooting, but that they were magnificent or enviable never +entered his head. Fate had dealt very kindly with him, and its +kindliness had provoked a charming geniality in the character of the +young man whom it had treated with such lavish good fortune. Taking it +all round, Peter considered this world an excellent one, and most of +the people in it very good sorts indeed. He accepted his mother as he +accepted everything else, with a simple-heartedness which never looked +below the surface nor concerned itself with motives; and if any one had +suggested to him that she was inexplicable he would have considered +such a judgment quite unintelligible. He enjoyed a visit to her more +than almost anything else in the world. She had always been devoted to +him ever since he was a boy, and for the life of him he could not see +that she was difficult to understand. + +It was the fashion to say that Mrs. Ogilvie had altered greatly since +the death of Colonel Ogilvie and the little boy. People who remembered +all the circumstances of that sad time thought always that in her own +way Mrs. Ogilvie was the victim of remorse for not having loved her +dead child better. But, after all, there was nothing that a child of +three or four years old could have felt seriously in his mother's +conduct, and his father's affection must have consoled him for any +coldness on her part. After the colonel's death there were those who +said it would have been better if Mrs. Ogilvie had married again, or +even if she had had a daughter--some one who would have been always at +home, and who, to use the common phrase, might have taken Mrs. Ogilvie +out of herself. Peter was too much away from home to be a real +companion to his mother, and there were never guests at Bowshott unless +he was there. It would surely have been in reason if the widow had +taken a fancy to some nice girl and had had her to live in the house. +But Mrs. Ogilvie did not take fancies to nice girls. She loved Jane +Erskine, but disguised the feeling under a sort of whimsical +indifference. And the friendship seemed incongruous enough if one came +to think of it. Jane, with her wholesome love of outdoor life, her +fresh beauty, her heedlessness of learning and ignorance of books--what +had Jane in common with Mrs. Ogilvie in her Parisian gowns and with her +dyed hair, sitting in the vast drawing-room at Bowshott reading the +_Court Journal_ and thinking on the lines of the speculative +philosophers? + +And even to Jane Erskine her manner was cold. Her chilling philosophy +would soon have quenched a less happy and impulsive nature. No one but +Jane would have bothered her head about Mrs. Ogilvie, the kindly +neighbours said, envying, nevertheless, the girl's intimacy at the +great house. But as a matter of fact Jane expended a wealth of honest +affection on Mrs. Ogilvie, and not only thought her the cleverest woman +she had ever met, but had even been heard to affirm that her hair was +not dyed. She called her 'such a really good sort'; and the words were +as inappropriate as the words of Peter Ogilvie and Jane Erskine usually +were. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Jane Erskine was at the present time at that interesting period when +her friends and relatives, having just discovered the unexpected fact +that she was grown up, subjected her to mildly severe criticism, while +believing that to have reached womanhood at all showed a considerable +amount of talent on her part. They were, they said, under no +misapprehension about Jane; in moments of extreme candour, touched with +responsibility, they had even been known to say that in one or two +respects she was not absolutely perfect. Miss Abingdon, for instance, +who always conscientiously encouraged these moods, and censured the +General for spoiling Jane, would frequently compare her niece with +herself, as she remembered that dim figure of girlhood, and never +failed to find cause for unfavourable comparison between the two. From +the portraits which she drew it was generally believed that Miss +Abingdon must have been born rather a strait-laced spinster of thirty, +and have increased in wisdom until her hair was touched with grey; when +she would seem to have become the mellow, severe, dignified, loving, +and critical lady who at this moment was looking out of her +drawing-room window, and trying to show her impartiality for her orphan +niece by subjecting her to lawful and unbiased criticism. + +'The day of the incomprehensible woman is past and gone,' said Miss +Abingdon, and she sighed a little. + +Jane Erskine was painting a rabbit-hutch on the lawn. Her attitude +showed the keen workman, but disguised the woman of grace. Miss +Erskine, in fact, was lying full-length on the greensward of her aunt's +lawn absorbed in the engrossing occupation of putting the right dabs of +green paint upon a portion of the inside of the rabbit-hutch which was +awkward to get at. + +'They are all alike,' sighed Miss Abingdon. She alluded to the +girlhood of the present day as it presented itself to her regretful and +disapproving eye. 'They wear shoes two sizes too large for them, they +don't require to be taken care of, they buy their own horses, and they +are never ill. They call young men by their Christian names! I don't +think they even have headaches.' Miss Abingdon sighed again over this +lost art of womanhood. 'There is my niece Jane Erskine; she might be a +graceful and elegant young woman, whereas she is sunburned, and--it is +a dreadful word of course--but I can only call her leggy. Perhaps it +is the fault of those narrow skirts. Women have never been so much +respected since crinolines went out of fashion. I believe the +independence of the modern girl is no longer assumed; it is not even a +regrettable passing fashion; the time has come when I am afraid they +really are independent. Jane would think me insane if I were to go out +and sit with her in the garden when Peter comes to call, and I don't +believe she has ever done a piece of fancy-work in her life!' said Miss +Abingdon. + +She looked round her pretty drawing-room in which, with a spinster's +instinct for preserving old family treasures, she had gathered and +garnered antique pieces of furniture, ill-drawn family portraits, and +chairs covered with the worsted-work and beadwork of fifty or sixty +years ago. She looked regretfully at the piano and the old, neatly +bound folios of music with 'M. A.' upon the covers, and she wondered +how it was that no one cared to hear her 'pieces' now. She went over +to the music-stand and fingered them in a contemplative way. How +industriously she used to practise 'Woodland Warblings,' 'My Pretty +Bird,' 'La Sympathie, Valse Sentimentale pour le Piano,' and 'Quant' e +piu bella,' fingered and arranged with variations. + +On Sunday afternoons when her guests 'were having a look at the mokes' +Miss Abingdon still played through her book of sacred pieces; and it +was on Sunday afternoons, too, that she always stirred the jars of +potpourri upon the cabinets, so that their pungent, faint odour might +exhale through the room. The old pieces of music and the scent of the +dried rose-leaves together always brought back to Miss Abingdon's mind +fragrant memories of long ago. + +'We used to take a roll of music with us when we were asked out to +dinner,' she reflected, 'and it was all-important to us who should turn +over our leaves for us, and we generally blushed and hesitated before +we sat down to the piano at all. Last night Jane almost fought with +Peter for the larger portion of the keyboard of the piano; and they +played music without any tune in it, to my way of thinking, and there +is no seriousness at all about any of them.' + +'I wonder if they'--Miss Abingdon again referred to that distressing +body of young women of the present day--'I wonder if they have ever +kissed a lover's letter, or have slept with his picture underneath +their pillows at night? Or have they ever lain sleepless for an hour +because of a loved one's absence, or because of a cold word from him? +Do they write verses, or exchange valentines, or even give each other +flowers?' + +Miss Abingdon recalled in her own mind the days when she and her sister +used to walk together in the park, with mamma leaning upon papa's arm +and pacing sedately behind; and how, when they used to sit down on one +of the lawns, it had always been in a group of four. Ah! those were +the days when one went home and wept because the dear one--the handsome +hero who filled half a girl's thoughts and was the object of more than +half her worship--had not seen, one across the crowd; or he had seen, +perhaps, but girlish modest eyes were forbidden to give the signal of +approach. It was more maidenly then to be oblivious of a young man's +presence. 'Now,' said, Miss Abingdon, 'when they see a young man whom +they know--a pal I believe they call him--girls will wave their +parasols or even shout. I have known them rise from their own chairs +and go and speak to a man. The whole thing is extraordinary to me.' + +It was a relief to Miss Abingdon's sombre reflections when her friend, +the vicar's wife, came in for a morning call. She thought that Mrs. +Wrottesley's brown merino dress and bonnet, and constraining mantle +which rendered all movements of the arms impossible, looked very +decorous and womanly compared with the soles of a pair of brown leather +shoes, and the foreshortened figure of five feet eight of slender young +womanhood stretched in strenuous devotion to her strange occupation on +the lawn. + +When Mrs. Wrottesley seated herself opposite the window Miss Abingdon +resisted an impulse to pull down the blind. + +'Yesterday,' said Miss Abingdon, glancing at her niece, 'she was trying +to copy a feat which she had seen at the hippodrome, and was riding one +pony and driving another tandem in front of her over some hurdles in +the field.' + +Mrs. Wrottesley smiled with the rather provoking indulgence with which +our friends regard the follies of our relations. + +'She is so young,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'and she is very beautiful.' + +'No,' said Miss Abingdon, with inward pride at her own unwavering +impartiality, 'I honestly believe that if we were to consider Jane +without prejudice we should find that she is simply healthy.' + +'It is a great charm,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. + +'No, no,' corrected Miss Abingdon quickly, 'the charm of womanhood +consists in its mysteriousness. Now, the girl of to-day is simply a +good fellow. She doesn't require to be understood, and she doesn't +drive men crazy; she shoves her own bicycle up hills and fights for the +larger half of the keyboard of the piano.' She sighed again. + +'She is a moral influence,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. Mrs. Wrottesley also +alluded to the girl of the period; and Miss Abingdon thought that to +refer to her as 'she' or a type, instead of 'they,' had a flavour of +culture about it, but she did not mean to give in. + +'Yes, yes,' she said impatiently, her love of contradicting Mrs. +Wrottesley and at the same time holding her own in the discussion +inclining her to undue severity, 'she is as straight as any other good +fellow, and she pays up if she has lost at bridge, and would as soon +think of picking a pocket as of cheating at croquet; but she is not +mysterious--she is absolutely comprehensible.' + +'Probably,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'Jane's shortcomings in this respect +are due to the fact that she is lamentably unaffected. Affectation, in +the case of girls who ride straight and don't know what it is to have a +headache, very often takes the form of boyishness. Let us console +ourselves with the fact that, being perfectly natural, Jane has escaped +masculinity.' + +'Jane is a lady,' said Miss Abingdon severely, and with the faint +suggestion of administering a snub. 'But,' she added, with that touch +of superiority in her manner which obtruded itself in most of her +conversation with the vicar's wife, 'there are certain accepted +traditions of womanhood such as conventionality approves, and it was +not called artificial to conform to them when I was a girl.' + +'I remember,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'that we honestly thought that we +were interesting when we ate very little, and I myself often used to +aspire to an attractive display of timidity when inwardly I had no +sensation of fear.' + +As the wife of the vicar of the parish Mrs. Wrottesley wore brown +merino and a mantle, but these hid a great soul securely held in check +and narrowed down by a strict adherence to the small conventions and +paralysing rules which society seems to have prescribed for vicars and +their wives in the rural parishes of England. She prayed every morning +of her life for more faith, and meant by that a narrower creed. Mrs. +Wrottesley was an inarticulate woman, and had gained for herself the +character of being reserved. + +Her own view of things differed in all essentials from the opinions +which were held by those about her, and were even inwardly opposed to +theories which her husband, with such gentlemanly eloquence, expounded +every Sunday morning. People thought themselves charitable when they +merely said that they did not understand Mrs. Wrottesley. + +'The modern girl has a good effect upon society,' she continued; 'and +she is not a cat.' + +'Ah, yes,' allowed Miss Abingdon, conceding a point, but prepared with +unanswerable argument; 'but will she ever be loved as the old eternal +feminine was loved?' + +'Many people believe,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'that you can't be a man's +divinity and surround yourself with a golden halo, and be his pal at +the same time.' + +'I remember,' said Miss Abingdon reminiscently, and feeling that she +was still scoring heavily against her friend--'I remember we used to +come down to breakfast in light gloves to match our gowns, and we drew +them on when the meal was over and only removed them in the +morning-room when we had taken out our embroidery to work at it.' + +'And when embroidery bored us,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'we thought we +were in love.' + +'A Miss Sherard stayed here last summer,' said Miss Abingdon, 'a friend +of Jane's, and she smoked cigarettes in her bedroom. I know that, for +I saw the ashes in her pin-tray.' + +Miss Abingdon rather enjoyed making little excursions through her +guest's bedrooms of an afternoon, when she had the house to herself; +and, without deigning to touch or disturb anything, she knew pretty +well, for instance, whose complexion was real and whose was false, who +wore powder and who did not. + +Mrs. Wrottesley glanced at her own figure in the drawing-room mirror; +her mantle disguised the fact that she had either a waist or a pair of +arms, and she gave a little dry smile as she reflected that she had +accepted a dolman cloak with all the other outward conventions of +orthodoxy as understood by society in rural England. + +'My cousin, Peter Ogilvie, comes here every day,' said Miss Abingdon; +'he is crossing the lawn now. In former days these two young people +would have been talked about. (Peter is my cousin, you know, on my +father's side of the house--he is not related to Jane.) But neither +will probably mind in the least what is said about them, and for my own +part I am positively unable to say whether they care for each other or +not. Had I been Jane I would have sat in the arbour this morning, with +a pretty, cool white dress on, reading poetry or some light romance, or +working at my embroidery till my lover came, instead of being found +covered with paint and with the footman's baize apron on.' + +The two ladies moved closer to the window and watched the young man +crossing the lawn. He was well-built and not many inches above Jane's +own height; and perhaps when one has said that he was fair with that +Saxon fairness which suggests an almost immaculate cleanliness, and +looked like a gentleman, there is not much more to be stated about his +external appearance. + +Jane rose from her recumbent position on the turf and shook off some +blades of short grass from her apron, and waved a brush filled with +green paint in the air. + +'Don't touch it, Peter!' she cried. 'Isn't it lovely?' + +'Good morning, Jane,' said Peter, lifting his cap. Whatever else might +be said of them, it would have to be admitted that there was a +fundamental sense of courtesy and good-breeding underlying the +regrettably frank manner of these young people. 'If you wave your +brush about in that triumphant way you 'll splash me with green paint.' + +'I have sacrificed two dresses already,' answered Jane; 'but real Art +is worth that!' + +'The hutch looks ripping,' said Peter; 'but I should feel safer if you +would put down that brush.' + +'I couldn't resist painting the inside,' said Jane, surveying her work +ecstatically. 'Do you think the rabbits will lick on the paint and be +sick, Peter?' + +'Probably,' said Peter. + +'Of course we don't know,' said Jane gravely, 'that it isn't their +favourite food. Rabbits may flourish on green paint just as we +flourish on roast mutton.' + +'It would be beastly to have a green inside!' said Peter. + +'I wonder what they are talking about,' said Miss Abingdon, glancing +with an apprehensive eye from the drawing-room window. 'Perhaps, after +all, they are making love to each other; and if they are, I certainly +ought to go out and sit with them.' + +Miss Abingdon had antiquated notions of a chaperon's duties. + +'I suppose there would be no objection to the match if they do care for +each other,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, in a manner that was often called +brusque and had served to make her unpopular. 'Jane is rich----' + +'Jane has money,' corrected Miss Abingdon, who saw a well-defined +difference between the two statements. 'She is a ward in Chancery, you +know, and she will not come of age until she is twenty-five. Peter, of +course, has a very large fortune. Still, one would not like to be +responsible for a marriage, even if it is suitable, and I should not +like the Erskines to think I had not looked after Jane properly.' + +That nothing should happen always seemed to Miss Abingdon the height of +safety and of peace. She mistrusted events of any kind, and had +probably remained single owing to her inability to make up her mind to +such a momentous decision as is necessarily involved by matrimony. She +had never been out of England, and now could seldom be got to leave +home; whenever she quitted her own house something was sure to happen, +and Miss Abingdon disapproved of happenings. She believed in the +essential respectability of monotony, and loved routine. But alas for +routine and respectability and a peaceful and serene existence! Even +elderly ladies, who dress in black satin and pay their bills weekly, +and whose most stimulating and exciting morning is the one spent in +scolding the gardener, may be touched with sorrows for which they are +not responsible, and shaken by tragedies such as they never dreamed +would come near them. + +The young couple on the lawn left the unfinished rabbit-hutch and +paint-pots and strolled towards a garden-seat. All the gates and seats +on Miss Abingdon's small property were painted white once a year, and +their trim spotlessness gave an air of homely opulence to the place. +The bench which her young relatives sought was placed beneath a +beneficent cedar tree that stretched out long, kindly branches, and +looked as though it were wrought of stitch-work in deep blue satin. +Jane wiped her fingers upon the baize apron, and Peter lighted a +cigarette. + +'Have you seen Toffy's new motor-car yet?' he asked. + +Had any one demanded of Peter or Jane what they meant by the art of +conversation, they would probably have replied that it had something to +do with Ollendorf's method. + +'How 's Toffy going to afford a motor?' said Jane, with interest. 'Is +it going to be "the cheapest thing in the end," like all Toffy's +extravagances?' + +Finance, one of the forbidden topics of 1850, was discussed to-day with +a frankness which Miss Abingdon thought positively indelicate. + +'He says he 'll save railway fares,' said Peter, 'and as they are the +only thing for which Toffy has paid ready money for years, I suppose +there is something to be said for the motor.' + +'Is he going to drive it himself?' + +'He says so, and the motor is to be run on the strictest lines of +economy. I am not sure that he is not going to water the petrol to +make it go farther.' + +'I don't quite see Toffy steering anything,' said Jane, laughing with +great enjoyment at the recollection of Toffy's mad riding; 'he can +never take his horse through a gate without scraping his leg against +it.' + +'So Toffy generally goes over the gates,' said Peter, laughing also; +'and probably he 'll try the same sort of thing with the motor-car.' + +'Toffy _is_ an ass!' said Jane affectionately. + +'I am sure it is time I should go and mount guard,' said Miss Abingdon +anxiously, from her post by the window. 'Why should they sit together +under the cedar tree like that unless they are making love?' She +stepped out on to the lawn with a garden-hat placed above her cap and a +sun-umbrella held over her head. + +'Aunt Mary,' said Jane, 'Toffy's got a new motor! Isn't it fearfully +exciting! We are going for a serpentine run with him, and our +next-of-kin are going to divide Peter's and my insurance between them +if we never come back again. Be sure you claim all you can get if I +depart in pieces!' + +Miss Abingdon laughed. She knew she was weak even where she +disapproved of her niece. Jane never kept anything from her, and she +would tell her aunt ridiculous items of sporting intelligence which +were as Greek to that excellent lady, and would talk to her as to any +other really good friend. Miss Abingdon was conscious of the charm of +this treatment, but the disciplining of youth was important, and Jane +required both training and guidance. + +'I can't think why,' she said severely, 'you should call a young man +Toffy. It is a name I should hardly liked to have called a dog when I +was a girl.' + +Peter raised his fair eyebrows and looked distressed. 'I don't see +what else you could call a man named Christopherson,' he said. 'You +couldn't call him Nigel--that's Toffy's front name--and I 'm afraid he +hasn't got any other. I believe fathers and mothers think you must be +going to die young when they give you a name like that, and that it +will look well on a tombstone.' + +'You shouldn't joke about death, Peter,' said Miss Abingdon. She felt +almost as though she saw an ally approaching when she perceived the +Reverend Canon Wrottesley come up the drive to call for his wife on the +way to the vicarage. Miss Abingdon had long ago accepted with +thankfulness St. Paul's recommendation to use the Church as a final +court of appeal. + +'How-do-you-do, Peter, how-do-you-do?' said the canon cordially, as +Peter went across the lawn to meet him. 'Got leave again, have you? I +don't believe you know what hard work is!' The vicar had pottered +about a small parish for thirty years and had given his five sons an +excellent education on the handsome fortune which his wife had brought +him. This helped to convince him that he had borne the burden and heat +of the day, and very naturally he regarded idleness as the root of all +evil. + +'Mrs. Wrottesley is looking over the guild work in the morning-room,' +said Miss Abingdon conscientiously. She loved a chat with the vicar, +and thought him more genial and charming when his wife was not present. +'Shall I tell her you are here?' + +'She likes taking a look at the things the girls have made,' said the +canon indulgently. + +The Vicar of Culversham and Honorary Canon of Sedgwick-in-the-Marsh was +a genial and delightful man. He always spoke kindly of his wife's +work, and he could even pardon fussing on the part of a woman. He was +a universal favourite and was no doubt aware of the fact, which gave +him a very legitimate and wholly pardonable sense of pleasure. It is +doubtful if any man was ever more happily placed than was Canon +Wrottesley in the considerable village of which he was the esteemed +vicar. In a larger place he might have been overlooked, in spite of +his many excellent qualities; and in a smaller one he would not have +had so many social advantages nor so many opportunities for usefulness. +His vicarage was large and well-furnished, his sons were well-grown and +well-educated, and he himself had many friends. The part of the +country where he found himself was known to house-agents as being a +good neighbourhood; and it was not so far away from London that the +canon felt himself cut off from the intellectual life of his day. +Canon Wrottesley belonged to the London Library and liked to converse +on books, even when he had read only a portion of the volumes which he +discussed. He often fingered them with true scholarly affection as +they lay on his library table, and he discussed erudite points of +learning with a light touch which his hearers, in a parish not renowned +for its culture, found truly impressive. Even his vanity was of the +refined and dignified order of things, and seemed to accord pleasantly +with his handsome, clean-shaven, aristocratic features. Perhaps his +one weakness was to be the centre of every group which he adorned. And +he held this position skilfully, not only by a well-bred display of +tact, such as he showed upon all occasions, but by a certain gift which +he possessed of appearing in different roles at different times, +according to his mood. Still, in spite of a tendency to a +self-convincing form of masquerading, one is fain to admit that the +village of Culversham would have lacked one of its most pleasing +figures had Canon Wrottesley been removed from it. He bore an +untarnished name, he had always a pleasant, if pompous greeting for +every one, and he preached and lived like a gentleman. He was +well-dressed and amiable, and his only display of temper or touchiness +took the rather curious form of adopting some impersonation not in +accordance with the circumstances in which for the moment he found +himself. + +Mrs. Wrottesley appeared from the house, still clad in her black mantle +which had evidently not been removed while she looked over the guild +work, for it bore traces thereof upon it in morsels of cotton and the +fluff of unbleached calico. + +'Come and sit beside me, love,' said her husband, indicating one of +Miss Abingdon's garden-seats in close proximity to his own cushioned +chair, 'and I will take care of you.' + +Miss Abingdon smiled and looked admiringly at him. Conscience +frequently protested against her giving way to the thought, but in her +heart Miss Abingdon was convinced that Mrs. Wrottesley was not quite +worthy of her husband. + +'I think I must go back to the house and finish the guild work,' said +Mrs. Wrottesley. 'I have been very slow over it this morning, but I +have got a little headache, and I have been counting up everything +wrong, which is very stupid of me.' + +'How often have I told you not to work when you are tired?' said the +canon, shaking his finger reprovingly at her. + +'I 'll finish the guild work,' exclaimed Jane, 'and I 'll make Peter +come and help me.' + +Miss Erskine, who had been sitting upon one of her feet and swinging +the other, rose impulsively from the garden-seat and covered the lawn +in a series of hops, until her shoe, which had become hopelessly +entangled in the laces of her petticoat, released itself with a rending +sound. Then she removed her hand from Peter's shoulder, upon which she +had been supporting herself, and together they went into the house. + +'And this,' thought Miss Abingdon ruefully, 'is courtship as it is +understood in the present day!' + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The following morning Miss Erskine was awakened at the unusual hour of +five a.m. by having her window broken by a large pebble. 'I tried +small ones first, but it was not a bit of good,' said Peter later, with +compunction. + +Jane stirred sleepily, and flung her heavy brown hair upon the pillow. +This was probably some nonsense on the part of a young Wrottesley, and +Jane was not going to be taken in by it. + +Next, the point of a fishing-rod was tapped against the pane; it was, +therefore, probably that particular Wrottesley boy whose passion for +fishing in the early hours of the morning was well known. Jane rubbed +the sleep from her drowsy eyes, and called out that she knew quite well +who it was, and that Cyprian was to go away at once. + +'Jane,' said Peter's voice, 'I wish you would wake up and come down. +Toffy's had a horrid smash. He says he 's all right, and he won't go +to the doctor, but his hand is badly cut and he has had a nasty knock +on his head.' + +'Oh, Toffy!' said Jane, 'you 've been in the wars again!' She had +descended from her bedroom, and had now unbarred the windows of her own +sitting-room and stepped out on to the dewy grass in the clothes which +she had hastily put on, her heavy brown hair, tied loosely with a +ribbon, falling down her back. The windows of her boudoir were +protected by green wooden jalousies and were considered a safeguard +against thieves. + +'This is awfully kind of you, Jane,' said Toffy. 'I don't think there +is really much the matter with me.' + +He came inside the sitting-room and Peter made him lie down on the +sofa. There was a bruise on one side of his head, and his hand was +bound up with a pocket-handkerchief drenched with blood. + +'Don't look at it,' said Jane. 'Just stretch out your hand like that, +and I 'll bathe it.' She had the simple remedies which Miss Abingdon +kept in the house--boracic lint and plaster. Nigel Christopherson lay +on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling, because, as Jane had somehow +divined, he hated the sight of blood; and he discoursed gravely on his +misfortunes while she dressed the ugly wound and bound and slung his +hand. + +'Talk of sick-nurses!' muttered Peter, and wondered how it was that +Jane was able to do everything better than other people could; +although, indeed, the bandaging showed more tenderness than skill, and +there was something almost pathetically youthful and inconsequent in +the manner of both patient and nurse. + +The room itself was indicative of the youthful and unlearned character +of its owner. A box of chocolates occupied an important position on +the writing-table, some envelopes stuffed with dress patterns lay upon +a chair. There was a large collection of novels which Jane did not +often read, and a much larger collection of illustrated books and +papers which she and Peter thoroughly enjoyed. A favourite parrot, who +never could be induced to talk, sulked in a cage and had a great deal +of affection expended upon him. The remains of the guild work which +Mrs. Wrottesley had not finished occupied the greater part of the sofa, +and Jane meant to ask her maid to run up all the little blouses and +petticoats, as she herself was too frightfully busy to undertake them. +An immense number of photographs ornamented the mantelpiece and were +mixed up, without attempt at classification, with curious odds and ends +which Peter had sent home from South Africa during the war time. Some +riding-whips hung on a rack on the wall, side by side with a few +strange sketches in oil-colours of Jane's favourite hunters, painted by +herself. Peter thought the sketches were among the best he had ever +seen, and even Jane was rather pleased with them. + +'I 'll take the guild work off the sofa,' she said, 'and that will give +you more room.' She settled his head comfortably upon the pillows and +turned to Peter for an explanation or an account of the accident. + +'I don't know much about it,' said Peter, giving his head a shake. +'The Wrottesley boy and I were going out fishing early, and we found +Toffy sitting in the middle of the road with a motor-car hung in a +tree.' + +'You see,' said Toffy, in his grave, low voice, 'I have made up my mind +for some time past to travel by night because it saves hotel bills.' + +'But it doesn't cost you much to sleep in your own bed, Toffy,' +protested Jane. + +'No,' said the young man, looking at her with admiration; 'I hadn't +thought of that. I have dismissed my chauffeur,' he went on, 'because +he was always wanting things. I said to him, "My good man, get +anything you want if you can get tick for it." He was a maniac about +ready money. I got on all right for the first forty miles or so after +leaving London, and I was going on splendidly when my motor, to gain +some private end, went mad. How do these things happen? Thank 'e, +Jane,' as Jane fastened a silk handkerchief to serve as a sling for the +wounded arm. + +'Providentially the thing broke down at the Carstairs's very gates,' he +went on. The loss of blood was making him sick, but if he went on +talking he would probably not faint. 'And it was then three o'clock in +the morning, so I coaxed it up the drive and shoved it into the +coach-house, and took their motor, which is rather a nice one.' + +'Then it wasn't your own machine that you smashed up?' said Peter. + +'No, praise be!' replied Toffy. + +'When will the fraud be discovered?' asked Jane. 'Gilbert Carstairs is +quite a good sort, but his wife has very little sense of humour.' + +'Oh, I left a note all right in the coach-house,' answered Toffy, 'and +I pointed out to Gilbert that he had no right to encourage burglaries +by having inefficient locks on his coach-house doors. I added that I +thought he ought to be very thankful that it was an honest man who had +stolen his motor-car.' + +'Also, I hope you said that he might have the loan of your disabled one +till he had had it thoroughly repaired?' said Peter. + +'I said something of that sort,' Toffy replied. 'And I should think +Gilbert would do the right thing by the motor. I am only afraid Mrs. +Carstairs may misunderstand the whole thing.' + +'One is liable to be misunderstood by even the best people,' said Peter. + +At breakfast-time it appeared that nothing had been done to prepare +Miss Abingdon for the news that one of her best spare bedrooms was at +this moment occupied by a man with a broken head, for she appeared at +the door of the breakfast-room in a serene frame of mind, and was +kissed by Peter, who announced that here he was, you know, and hoped +she was not much surprised to see him so early. + +'I am never surprised,' said Miss Abingdon, with intention. + +'I have been thinking,' said the young man presently, in the peculiarly +genial voice which was characteristic of him and helped to make him so +likeable, 'that, suppose a policeman should come sniffing about here +this morning, you had better tell him that there is no such thing as a +motor-car in the place, and that there has never been one.' + +'That is hardly true, Peter,' said Miss Abingdon, in the severe manner +which she cultivated, 'considering how often Sir Nigel is here with +his.' + +'As a matter of fact,' said Peter steadily, 'Toffy is here now. He +is--he is in bed, in fact.' + +'Something has happened!' exclaimed Miss Abingdon apprehensively. Why +was it that youth could never be contented without incidents? To be +young seemed to involve action, while acquaintanceship with Jane and +Peter seemed to bring one, however unwillingly, into a series of events. + +'There was a little accident early this morning,' explained Peter. +'Toffy was travelling at night--to save hotel bills, you know--and +there was a breakdown because he didn't quite understand the +Carstairs's machine, which he had borrowed; so poor Toffy came off +second best; but Jane patched him up most beautifully, and Martin said +he had better have the blue room.' + +'Do I understand that Sir Nigel Christopherson stole Captain +Carstairs's motor-car in the middle of the night and left his own +damaged one in its place?' said Miss Abingdon, 'and that he regards +this matter quite lightly?' + +'Toffy is a cheery soul,' said Peter. + +'You are all cheery souls!' said Miss Abingdon hopelessly. She +summoned the butler and sent for the village doctor, and made Peter +telegraph to Captain Carstairs. + +'You always seem to think of everything, Cousin Mary,' said Peter +admiringly. + +'Some one has to,' said Miss Abingdon, with a strong touch of +superiority in her manner; and then she walked round the +breakfast-table to where her niece was sitting and kissed her, because +a few minutes ago she had looked at her severely, and what would happen +if Jane were ever to prefer the Erskines' house to hers? What if Jane +were to prolong the six months which it had been stipulated she should +spend with her father's relations in London? Jane loved General +Erskine too well already. Miss Abingdon felt weak as she said, 'Don't +worry any more about it, Jane,' for Jane did not look worried. 'And +now,' she said, 'I must go and see how Sir Nigel is.' + +Miss Abingdon still used a key-basket and hoped, please God, she would +never be called upon to give up this womanly appendage, whatever the +world might come to. The jingling of the keys was a harmonious +accompaniment to her whenever she walked about. She bent her steps now +down the cool wide passages of her charming house to visit her disabled +guest, who, she heard, was awake. It was part of her creed that sick +persons should be visited, whether they themselves desired it or not. +In her young days nurses were unknown, and one proved one's +Christianity by the length of time one remained in overheated +sick-rooms. Still, Miss Abingdon was not accustomed to the presence of +a sick man in her house, and she paused on the door-mat before entering +the room, and said to herself, 'I feel very awkward.' Then she timidly +tapped at the door and went in. + +Sir Nigel Christopherson was lying in bed reading the Bible. When he +was not getting into debt, or riding races, or playing polo, or loving +Mrs. Avory, Toffy generally employed his spare moments in reading the +Bible. He was a preternaturally grave young man, with large eyes and +long eyelashes of which he was properly ashamed, being inclined to +class them in his own mind with such physical disadvantages as red lips +or curling hair. Miss Abingdon thought that he was generally +misunderstood. It impressed her very favourably to find him employed +in reading Holy Scripture, and she turned away her eyes from the book, +which Toffy laid frankly on the outside of the counterpane, feeling +that the subject was too sacred to comment upon. + +'How do you feel?' she said gently. 'You look very white.' + +'Oh, I 'm as fit as a fiddle, thanks, Miss Abingdon,' said Toffy. + +'You don't look it,' said Miss Abingdon, with a return to her severe +manner. + +'I 'm really a very strong chap,' said Toffy. He had been delicate +ever since he was a little boy. School games had often been an agony +to him. He had ridden races and had lain awake all night afterwards, +unable, through sheer exhaustion, to sleep; he had played polo under +burning suns, and had concealed the fact (as though it had been a +crime) that he had fainted in the pavilion afterwards. He very seldom +had a good night's sleep, and habitual bad luck or the effort to +conceal his constitutional delicacy had given him a curious gravity of +manner, combined with a certain gentleness, which contrasted oddly with +his whimsically absurd utterances. No one ever looked more wise than +this young man, no one ever acted with more conspicuous foolishness, +and no one ever received a larger measure of ill-luck than he. If +Toffy hunted, his horse fell or went lame. If he rode in a +steeplechase, some accident, the condition of the ground, or the +position of the jumps, made the course unusually difficult for the +particular horse he was riding. Did he play polo, his most brilliant +hits just failed to make the goal. His gravity and his gentleness +increased in proportion with his ill-luck. No one ever backed Toffy, +and no one believed in his best efforts. But they borrowed his horses +and his money, and lived for months as his guests at the huge ugly +house which was his home; and Toffy accepted it all, and philosophized +about it in his grave way, and read his Bible, and loved Mrs. Avory. +No one but Toffy would have loved her; she was quite plain and she was +separated from her husband--a truculent gentleman who employed his +leisure moments in making his wife miserable. And she had a daughter +of ten years old towards whose maintenance Mrs. Avory made blouses and +trimmed parasols for which her friends hardly ever paid her. + +The world, with its ever-ready explanation of conduct and its facility +in finding motives, ascribed Sir Nigel's chronic impecuniosity to the +fact that he contributed to the support of Mrs. Avory and her little +girl. Mrs. Avory, who knew quite well what was said of her, ate her +cold mutton for supper, and economized in coals in the winter, and paid +her little weekly bills, and wondered sometimes what was the use of +trying to be good when so few people believed in goodness. + +Toffy came to see her every Sunday when he was in London; or, if he did +not do so, Mrs. Avory wrote him long letters in very indistinct +handwriting, and told him that it was all right, and that she really +hoped he would marry and be as happy as he deserved to be. And the +letters were generally blotted and blistered with tears. + +Miss Abingdon put her key-basket upon the dressing-table and sat down +in an armchair on the farther side of the room. It upset her very much +to see Sir Nigel looking so ill, and she believed that to read the +Bible at odd hours was a sign of approaching death. + +'You must have some beef-tea at eleven,' Miss Abingdon said, and felt +glad that she was able to do something in a crisis. + +'I think I was brought up on beef-tea,' said Toffy. He had accepted, +with his usual philosophy, the fact that whether you broke your back or +your heart a woman's unfailing remedy was a cup of beef-tea. + +'And I am sure you would like your own servant,' said Miss Abingdon; 'I +suppose you have some one over at Hulworth for whom you could send?' + +'My man is an awful thief,' said Toffy, 'which is why I keep him. +Otherwise, I don't think there is a single thing he can do, except put +studs in my shirts. Hopwood will only steal Peter's things,' he added +reassuringly. 'He tells me my things are generally stolen and that I +never have anything to wear, and so he borrows all he can from Peter. +It is an extraordinary thing,' said Sir Nigel, beginning his sentence +with his usual formula--the formula of the profound philosopher who has +learned to accept most things as strange and all things as +inexplicable--'It is an extraordinary thing the way all your +possessions disappear. You try having duplicates, but, you know, Miss +Abingdon, that's not a bit of use. The first man who comes along helps +himself just because you 've two of a thing, so you 're not a bit +better off than you were before, are you?' + +The young man turned his blue eyes with their long lashes on Miss +Abingdon with a look of mute inquiry, and threw one arm in its striped +pyjama suit up on the pillow. + +Miss Abingdon told herself that she was an old woman, and suggested, +with outward boldness but with inward diffidence, that Sir Nigel +required a wife to look after him. + +The young man smiled gratefully at her. 'I think so too,' he said +simply; 'but then, you see, she won't have me.' + +They were all so amazingly frank! Jane's friend, Kitty Sherard, the +girl who smoked cigarettes in her bedroom, had actually told a funny +story one day about a flirtation of her father's, and had made +everybody except Miss Abingdon laugh at it. + +'Perhaps,' she said, 'the lady may change her mind.' + +'I don't think she will,' said Toffy slowly. 'You see, she's married +already.' + +Miss Abingdon did not discuss such subjects. She glanced at her +key-basket and moved uneasily in her chair. + +'I 'm going to revise the marriage service when I 'm in power,' said +the gentle, lagging voice from under the heavy canopy of old-fashioned +chintz with which Miss Abingdon, who disapproved of draughts, hung all +the beds in her house. 'You see, it's like this,' he went on; 'girls, +when they are about eighteen or twenty, would generally like to improve +on their parents a bit, and to have meals at different hours to those +which they have grown tired of in their own homes; also, they have an +idea that if they haven't a romance some time or other they will be +rather out of it, don't you know, so they say "yes" to some fellow who +proposes to them--you have done it yourself hundreds of times, I dare +say, Miss Abingdon--but if you haven't the luck to get out of it, you +are jolly well tied for the term of your natural life.' + +'There are some very sad cases, of course,' said Miss Abingdon, drawing +down her upper lip. + +'And it's so often the good ones,' said Toffy, from the depths of his +profound experience of life, 'who have the hardest lines. And that +makes it all the more unfair, doesn't it?' + +Afterwards, when Miss Abingdon used to hear a great deal about Sir +Nigel and Mrs. Avory, and when many regrettable things were said +concerning two people to whom, at the best of times, life was a little +bit difficult, she would seem to see the young man, with his delicate +face and his head bound up with white linen, lying on the frilled +pillow of the great canopied bed, and the recollection would come back +to her of the tones in which he had said, 'It's so often the good ones +that have the hardest lines,' and Miss Abingdon never failed in loyalty +to Toffy, and believed in him to the very end. + +She rose now and bade him good-bye, and then she glanced at the open +Bible on the counterpane and decided once more that young people were +inexplicable, and she clung to her key-basket with a feeling of +security, and, holding it carefully in her hand, went downstairs again. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Jane, meanwhile, had walked over to Bowshott to see Mrs. Ogilvie and to +tell her the news of Toffy's motor-car accident, and to explain why +Peter was delayed. She came into the drawing-room, with its long +mirrors in their gilded frames, its satin couches and heaped-up +flowering plants, and huge windows looking on to the scrupulous gardens +and park. She walked in the shortest dress that a merciful fashion +allows, a loose shirt hung boy-like on her slender figure, and a +motor-cap, with the brim well pulled down over her eyes, covered her +head. She shook hands and regretted inwardly that Mrs. Ogilvie did not +like being kissed, although disclaiming even to herself that her +distaste in this respect had anything to do with rouge and powder. She +sat down on a low chair by the window with the fearlessness of one +whose complexion is not a matter of anxiety, and she told Mrs. Ogilvie +the story of the disaster. + +'Toffy's so awfully unlucky,' said Jane, with genuine sympathy showing +in her eyes and voice; 'and the doctor says his hand will be bad for a +week at least.' + +'Is there such a thing as bad luck?' said Mrs. Ogilvie, shrugging her +shoulders. + +'You can't say Toffy gets his deserts!' pleaded Jane. 'He is always in +debt, and his horses always come to grief, and there ought to be a +syndicate formed to buy up all the shares that Toffy sells, because it +is certain to mean that the market is going up. I think he must have +been born under an unlucky star.' + +'I used to get a lot of amusement from reading the _Iliad_ of Homer,' +said Mrs. Ogilvie. 'I know you cannot read or write, Jane, so I will +tell you about it. It is a tale of men "warring against folk for their +women's sake," and hindered often by the unscrupulous gods. Let us win +when we can. Fate, without intelligence, orders the things which we do +not order for ourselves, and it is very little use, but only a trifle +absurd to feel sorry for the opponent who is beaten.' + +'I am always sorry for the man who is down,' said Jane. + +Mrs. Ogilvie smiled and rang for tea. + +'You are one of those who can say, "I am sorry." Now, I am never +sorry, and I consider that what is called repentance is the function of +an idiot. If I do a thing, I intend to do it. Regret is the most +weak-minded of all human emotions.' + +'I 'm always regretting things,' said Jane, looking handsome and +delightful, and treating even penitence from a fresh, open-air +standpoint. 'But then I believe that as often as not I do the wrong +thing, which is a great bore at times!' + +'Right and wrong,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, with a shrug, 'loving and not +loving, believing and not believing--only very young people ever make +use of such ridiculous terms. There is only one law, and it is the law +of expediency.' + +Jane began to laugh, and exclaimed, 'That's quite beyond me! I know I +'m hopelessly stupid; but whenever people begin to talk about whys and +wherefores, and if it is any good saying their prayers, and whether +love is the real thing or not, I get fogged directly, and I always want +to go for a ride or a walk, or to see the horses, or even to descend to +the kitchen and make jam, to get rid of the feeling.' + +'If you were in the fashion, Jane,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, 'you +would know not only with which portion of grey matter you say your +prayers, but you would also be able to show, scientifically, with which +ventricle of your heart you love and hate, or whether indeed love and +hate are things not of the heart at all but merely a microbial disease. +Will you have some tea?' + +'Yes, please,' said Jane, 'and several lumps of sugar.' + +'I like people,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, 'who still go to church and take +sugar in their tea. They are very refreshing.' + +'I must go back now,' said Jane presently, 'for I promised not to be +long. By the by, we want to keep Peter to dinner. May we? Or will +you mind being alone?' + +'I am alone say three hundred and thirty nights in the year,' said Mrs. +Ogilvie dryly. + +'I wish we hadn't asked Peter to stay and amuse Toffy!' said Jane, with +compunction. There was a tired white look on Mrs. Ogilvie's face, and +an appearance of fatigue in her movements which neither her supreme art +of dressing nor the careful manipulation of light in the room wholly +concealed. + +'Ah, now you are beginning to repent!' said Mrs. Ogilvie. Only her +good manners prevented her remark having a sneer in it. 'That will +spoil your evening, you foolish child, and it will not make mine more +amusing.' + +'But I am thinking of you,' said Jane. + +'Do not think of me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, laying her hand for a moment +lightly upon the girl's shoulder. + +Jane walked down the hillside and stopped at the edge of the wood to +see the young pheasants, and then went on again, swinging a crooked +walking-stick and singing in a voice clear and sweet, but somewhat out +of tune, snatches of songs which she had picked up from Peter, humming +the ridiculous words in a sort of unconscious happiness. She walked +with a raking grace which became her as wings become a bird or a long +swinging stride a racer. The twilit woods held no fears for her: +imagination never peopled Jane's world with bogies. The perfect poise +of her figure showed a latent energy and physical strength in spite of +her slender build, and her clear complexion and abundant brown hair and +white, even teeth lent an appearance of something essentially wholesome +to a face that at all times looked handsome and well-bred. + +She called good night to the lodge-keeper as she passed through the +gates and found her way back to the high road, until, by a short-cut +down the hill, she reached her aunt's charming gardens, and the wide, +low house with its air of repose and comfort, and the long French +windows opening on to the quiet, smooth-shaven lawns. + +Peter was waiting for her on the doorstep and was endeavouring not to +fuss; if only he had known by which path Jane would return he would +have liked to go and meet her, and the fact of having missed a walk +with her made him impatient. 'I thought you must be lost,' he said; +'what kept you, Jane? Why did you stay so long?' + +When Jane Erskine was away people were apt to ask on her return why she +had stayed so long. Miss Abingdon and General Erskine, who divided her +time between them, were jealous if even a day of their fair share of +Jane was deducted by one or the other. There had been times when Miss +Abingdon had unscrupulously pleaded illness as a means of keeping the +girl a little longer with her, and she would doubtless have continued +her deceptions had not General Erskine adopted the plan of faithfully +paying himself back all the days that were owed to him by his niece. + +'My mother says she is going to give a ball,' announced Peter at dinner. + +'When?' said Jane, breathless with interest. 'Peter, we 'll have both +houses as full as they can be, and I 'll ask Aunt Mary to stay here, +and you shall ask your mother to stay at Bowshott for it.' + +'Jane,' said Miss Abingdon, 'you are very absurd, and just at present +you are making the most extraordinary grimaces.' + +'I got caught in the rain to-day,' said Jane, 'and had to walk with it +in my face. I 'm quite sure rain must be a skin-tightener like those +things you see in advertisements.' + +'It's given you an awfully jolly colour,' said Peter. + +'Has it?' said Jane. + +Perhaps a compliment had been given and received, Miss Abingdon did not +know. Beauty itself was almost at a discount nowadays. Even feminine +vanity, so long accepted as the mainspring of feminine action, had lost +its force. Pale cheeks were not in vogue, and frankness had superseded +sentiment. + +'What souvenir would they give each other if they had to part?' thought +Miss Abingdon--'a terrier dog, or a gun, or a walking-stick, most +likely!' Faded flowers were quite out of the fashion, and old letters +no longer had the scent of dried rose leaves about them. Was perfect +healthiness ever very interesting, and must sentiment always be +connected with an embroidery frame, a narrow chest, and round shoulders? + +Jane obliterated the _menu_ from the porcelain tablet in front of her +by rubbing it with a damask table-napkin, and, having moistened a +pencil, she began to write a list of names of those people who were to +be asked to stay for the dance. 'Kitty Sherard certainly,' she said, +and put the name down on the tablet. + +'She 's some one's niece, isn't she?' said Peter. + +'She 's every one's niece, I think,' replied Jane. + +'Rather rough luck on Miss Sherard,' said Peter. + +'It's a fact, though,' Jane went on. 'Really and truly, Aunt Mary, +each of her relations married about ten times, and then the next +generation married each other. And they send problems to the puzzle +column of newspapers to find out how they are related to each other. +Kitty's father is his own great-grandmother, or something complicated +of that sort!' + +'It must give one an immense respect for oneself,' said Peter, 'to +discover such a relationship. One would always be taking care of +oneself, and not allowing one's feet to get wet, and thinking what one +owed to one's position, and whether one were being treated with +respect.' + +'There are fillets of beef coming, and ducks,' interpolated Miss +Abingdon. 'I let you know this, Peter, as Jane seems to have erased +our only _menu_. What will Sir Nigel have, do you think?' she went on. +'I don't think he is at all well; he was reading his Bible in bed, and +I 'm not sure that we ought not to send for some of his people.' + +'Poor Toffy never had any people,' said Peter. 'They were all just as +unlucky as he is, and most of them died violent deaths when they were +young; and one of them, I know, founded some sort of queer religion, so +perhaps Toffy takes after him in his Biblical researches.' + +At this moment Sir Nigel Christopherson walked into the room looking as +white as any ghost. + +'Toffy, you lunatic!' said Peter, 'why can't you lie still?' + +Sir Nigel apologized for being late and declined to have anything +brought back for him. + +'How are the Amalekites and Hittites and Girgashites?' said Peter, +making room for his friend at the table. + +'I don't like the Bible joked about,' said Miss Abingdon severely. + +'Toffy should have been a parson,' said Peter; 'even at Eton he was +always wondering why Cain was afraid that all men should kill him when +he had only a father and mother and perhaps two or three little +brothers and sisters in the world. And he used to fret himself into a +fever wondering if the sun really stood still in Ajalon and what Selah +meant in the Psalms.' + +'I think,' said Miss Abingdon, 'that such discussions are best left for +Sundays.' + +'We will go on with our dance-list,' said Jane; 'Mrs. Wrottesley can +let us have several rooms at the vicarage, or, if the worst comes to +the worst, we might have tents in the garden.' + +'The canon is always so good-natured!' said Miss Abingdon, who believed +that a man's house belonged to himself, and whose mind always reverted +with a sense of peaceful orthodoxy to thoughts of the vicar. She +decided mentally that he must not be asked to receive any of the guests +for the Bowshott ball, believing that visitors must always be more or +less disturbing to a host. She accepted as part of her gentle creed +that a man's writing-table must never be disturbed, that his dinner +must never be kept waiting, and that his special armchair must not be +appropriated by any one else. Canon Wrottesley always read the morning +paper before any other person in the house had seen it, and then +imparted pieces of intelligence to his relations with a certain air of +self-congratulation, as though conveying news which could only possibly +be known to himself; and it was in this way that Miss Abingdon loved to +have the items of interest retailed to her with instructive comments +upon politics. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Mrs. Wrottesley had a theory, which she never asked nor expected any +one to share with her, that most men's mental development ceased at the +age of twelve years. She had watched five sons grow up with, in their +young boyhood, the hardly concealed conviction that each one of them +was destined to be a genius, and that each one would make his mark in +the world. But her sons, as they attained to the fatal age of twelve +years, seemed predestined to disappoint their mother's hopes. Most of +the men whom she knew, and whom her sons brought to the house, were +delightful boys, whatever their ages might be. She liked them, but she +wished sometimes that it were possible to meet a man with a mature +mind. The male interest, she determined, after giving much study to +the subject, centred almost too exclusively round playing with a ball. +She had heard men extolled as grand cricketers and magnificent putters +with an enthusiasm which could hardly have been greater if they had +saved their country or had died for a cause. And she admitted to +herself that the mind of a woman was deficient when she failed to do +justice to these performances. + +Her reflections on these and kindred subjects this morning had been +induced by hearing of the determination of Canon Wrottesley to light +the rubbish-heap in the garden. The rubbish-heap had grown high and +Canon Wrottesley had determined to put a match to it. Mrs. Wrottesley +had been married too long not to know that whatever at the moment +engaged her husband's mind required an audience. Her sons also had +expected her to watch and applaud them did they in infancy so much as +jump a small ditch, and she knew that it was the maternal duty, and +admitted, also, that it was the maternal pleasure to watch and applaud +until such time as the several wives of her five sons should take her +place. + +The whole of the vicarage household was in requisition as soon as their +reverend master had conceived the happy notion of firing the canonical +rubbish-heap in the far corner of the kitchen garden. Canon Wrottesley +engaged the attention of every one with a frank belief in his own +powers as an organiser. He found himself almost regretting that he +could not make the matter an occasion for a little gathering of +friends. He loved society, especially ladies' society, and he +purposely kept various small objects about his own room, which--to use +his own expression--might make a little bit of fun. There was a mask +half concealed behind a screen, which, if it did not provoke a start +and a scream from some fair visitor, had attention drawn to it by the +playful question, 'Who is that behind you?' There was a funny pair of +spectacles on the mantelshelf, which Canon Wrottesley would playfully +place upon his handsome nose, and to small visitors he would accompany +the action by a frolicsome 'wowf-wowf.' He loved juvenile parties when +he could wear a coloured paper cap on his head or tie a paper apron +round his waist, and probably his canonry had come to him through what +he himself called his social gifts rather than by his reputation as a +minister of religion. Perhaps he was at his best at a christening +party; he had won much affection from his parishioners by his +felicitous remarks upon these occasions. When the gravity of the +christening of the infant was over Canon Wrottesley always deliberately +relaxed. He chaffed the proud father, told the mother that the baby +was the finest in the parish, and wanted to know whose health he was to +drink where every one appeared so blooming. + +'Now, mamma,' the canon said busily, 'let us have plenty of nice dry +wood to start the blaze, and then you must come down to the field and +watch us put a match to the pile. Cyprian, my boy, where are the old +newspapers kept? Fetch them, like a good son, and then you shall carry +a little camp-stool down for mamma to sit upon. Now my coat,'--this to +his butler--'and, Cyprian, tell Mary to find papa's old gloves.' + +Mrs. Wrottesley left her morning's work to go to the meadow, and Canon +Wrottesley looked down the road once or twice to see if by a happy +chance some friend or neighbour might be passing to whom he could +proclaim his boyish jaunt. The 'Well I never, sir,' even of a rural +parishioner did in some sort minister to his vanity. An audience was a +necessity to him. He regretted that his cloth forbade him to indulge +in private theatricals, but he encouraged Shakespearean readings and +often 'dressed up to please the children.' Sometimes of an evening he +would perform upon the piano, indulging in a series of broken chords +which he called improvisation, and upon these occasions he felt that he +was a kind and thoughtful master when he set the drawing-room door open +so that the servants might hear; and as his servants thought so too it +was all eminently satisfactory. + +This morning, the beauty of the weather having inspired him to the part +of a schoolboy, he avoided a gate and leaped a small fence into the +meadow, and he waged boyish fun upon grave-faced Cyprian, who longed to +be fishing. He greeted his two gardeners with an air of holiday, and, +having waved his stick to them, he called out some hearty remarks about +the weather. + +Alas! when the corner of the meadow was reached it was found that the +rubbish-heap had already been fired, and nothing of it was left but the +smouldering ashes. The canon wondered why people could not leave +things alone, and was inclined to blame mamma. She surely might have +known how much he enjoyed this sort of thing, and have asked the +gardeners to leave it to him. + +His boyishness, however, could hardly be repressed this morning; and, +speaking to his fourteen-year-old son as though his age might be five +or six summers, he clapped him on the back and bade him 'Never mind; we +will go for a merry jaunt to the ruins instead, and have a regular big +affair, and you shall boil a kettle, and we 'll have tea.--What do you +say, mamma?' Mrs. Wrottesley replied with the enthusiasm that was +expected of her, and the canon, with a 'here we are, and here we go' +sort of jollity, conducted her indoors to write notes of invitation to +friends to join the picnic. The canon dictated the notes himself, and +generally finished with a playful word or two suitable to each +recipient; when he failed at first to hit off the perfectly happy +phrase Mrs. Wrottesley had to write the note over again. + +Foiled of his morning's occupation the canon walked up to Bowshott +himself with Mrs. Ogilvie's card of invitation. Mrs. Ogilvie frankly +and without a moment's hesitation refused to be one of the party; a +picnic was in her eyes one of those barbarous, not to say indecorous +things which she classed with bathing in the open sea or trying on a +hat in a shop. Why should one sit on the ground and eat indifferent +food out of one's lap? Mrs. Ogilvie was too sorry, but it was +impossible; she had friends coming, or letters to write, or +something--at any rate she was quite sure she was engaged. Mrs. +Ogilvie's manner always became doubly polite and charming when she +ignored the customary formalities of society or purposely travestied +them. No one could infringe social conventions with more perfect good +manners. Peter would go, of course, she said. Peter enjoyed eating +luncheon in snatches while he hopped about and waited on people; but +Mrs. Ogilvie preferred her meals at home. + +The canon was disappointed; he loved getting the right people together, +and he knew that Mrs. Ogilvie's rare appearance in the neighbourhood +always made her a centre of interest at a party. He protested +playfully against her decision until a certain lifting of Mrs. +Ogilvie's eyebrows made his desire for her presence sound importunate, +and put an end to his hospitable pleadings. + +'A charming woman,' protested the canon to himself as he walked down +the long avenue of Spanish chestnuts. 'A charming woman,' he repeated, +for one part of Canon Wrottesley always felt snubbed when he had been +talking to Mrs. Ogilvie, while the part of him called the man of the +world recognized something in her which this country neighbourhood +could not produce. His boyishness was quenched for a moment, but it +revived at the sight of Peter riding up to the gates of the park. An +invitation to the proposed merry-making was given to Peter, who was +ever so much obliged, but thought Canon Wrottesley had forgotten that +the 24th was the day of the races. + +The Sedgwick Races, although perhaps not important from a sportsman's +point of view, were attended by many visitors, and had been so long +established and so generally approved by every one in the county that +they had come to have a certain local status. They were patronized by +clergy and laity alike, to whom the occasion was a sort of yearly +picnic. The racecourse itself was not large, but its surroundings were +in every way attractive. The short moorland grass made excellent going +for the horses, and a wood of beech trees, quite close to the modest +grand stand, had by right of prescription been tacitly assigned to +various county families who brought their lunches and teas there, and +whose long trestle tables, numbered and allotted by the stewards of the +course, were a favourite meeting-place for the whole neighbourhood. +Canon Wrottesley could hardly pardon himself for having forgotten the +date of such a notable occasion, and, alluding to himself as a 'winged +messenger,' he hastened to pay a number of morning calls such as he +enjoyed, and to cancel his invitation for a picnic in favour of lunch +or tea at the racecourse. Peter said that he was going to drive the +coach over, and hoped that Canon Wrottesley would perch there when he +felt so disposed, and that his mother, not being inclined to spend the +whole day at Sedgwick, would join them at tea-time. Miss Abingdon and +Jane were going to be kind enough to take her place and act as +hostesses at lunch. + +Canon Wrottesley felt that he could not do better than see Miss +Abingdon in person and explain the change of plans, and he arrived, in +his friendly way, just as she and some guests who were staying with her +were going in to luncheon. + +Miss Abingdon occasionally reminded herself that she had not met the +vicar until long after his marriage, and she still more frequently +assured herself that her feeling for him was one of pure admiration +untouched by sentiment such as would have been foolish at her age, and +at any age would have been wrong. But there were times like the +present--when the canon came in, unasked, in a friendly way, and hung +up his clerical hat in the hall--which, without going so far as to give +the matter a personal bearing, made it easy for Miss Abingdon to +understand why women married. She ordered another place to be laid, +and asked him to say grace almost with a feeling of proprietorship; and +she ordered up the particular brand of claret which the canon had more +than once assured her would be all the better for being drunk. + +Jane came in presently from her morning ride, handsome and charming in +a dark habit and a bowler hat; and Toffy appeared looking white and +thin, and protesting that he was perfectly well; and Kitty Sherard came +in late, as usual, and hoped that something had been kept hot for her. + +Kitty Sherard was a decorative young woman, with a face like one of +Greuze's pictures and a passion for wearing rose-colour. Her father +was that rather famous personage, Lord Sherard, one of the last of the +dandies, and probably one of the few men in England in the present day +who had fought a duel. He was still thought irresistible by women, and +perhaps the only sincere love of his life was that for his daughter +Kitty, to whom he told his most _risque_ stories, and whom he found +better company than any one else in the world. + +Miss Sherard was in a wilful mood this morning--a mood which, let it be +said at once, was one to which she was often subject, but it had been +more than usually apparent in her for the last few days. She began by +hoping, in the politest way, after she had sat about five minutes at +the luncheon-table, that Miss Abingdon did not mind the window being +opened, although it was a well-known fact that Miss Abingdon held the +old-fashioned theory that only the furniture should enjoy fresh air, +and that windows should be opened when rooms were unoccupied. So many +people rose to do Miss Sherard's bidding that Miss Abingdon, of course, +found it quite hopeless to try to assert herself. Kitty, further, had +a ridiculous way of eating, which Miss Abingdon could not approve. She +ate mere morsels of everything and talked the whole time, very often +with the air of a gourmet; and she would lay down her knife and fork, +after a meal such as a healthy blackbird might have enjoyed, as though +she had finished some aldermanic feast. She accepted a glass of Miss +Abingdon's very special claret and never even touched it; and later, in +one of the pauses of her elaborate trifling at luncheon, she told a +funny story which made every one laugh, and caused even Canon +Wrottesley to attempt to conceal the fact that he saw the point of the +story. + +The worst of it was that Toffy encouraged her in everything she said +and did. These two had met in London this year, and had stayed at the +same house for Ascot, and it must be admitted by a faithful historian +that in her own particular wilful and provoking way Kitty had flirted +outrageously with Toffy. To-day she offered to cut up his food for him +because his right hand was still in a sling; and when Miss Abingdon +suggested, with deliberate emphasis in her voice, that a footman should +do it for him, Kitty pretended that the wounded man could not possibly +feed himself, and gave him pineapple to eat on the end of her fork. + +When she sat in the veranda drinking coffee after lunch, she showed +Canon Wrottesley how to blow wedding-rings with the smoke of her own +favourite cigarettes; and she talked to him as though his early youth +might have been spent in a racing stable, and with the air of one +expert to another. + +'I hear,' said Canon Wrottesley, when Miss Sherard had begun to play a +left-handed game of croquet with the crippled young man, 'that Sir +Nigel is going to ride at the Sedgwick Races. I was a fearless +horseman myself at one time, so I cannot quarrel with him for his +decision, but I only hope that his hand will be healed by the 24th.' + +'He has a good mount,' said Peter, 'and I don't think it is much good +trying to persuade Toffy not to ride.' + +'Kitty Sherard says she has laid the whole of her fortune on him,' said +Jane, 'so let 's hope that will bring him luck.' + +'I believe,' said the canon, in a manner distinctly beatific towards +the subject of his remarks, 'that I enjoy that little race-meeting at +Sedgwick as much as anything in the year. We must all have our little +outings once in a way.' + +There is no doubt that the canon took his little outings, as often as +he could get them, with a healthy, boyish pleasure. + +On the day of the races, for reasons no doubt known to himself but +hidden from the rest of the world, the vicar masqueraded in the +character of a patriarch. His characters were frequently inconsistent +with his circumstances; often his boyishness would obtrude itself quite +unexpectedly at board meetings or on the parish council, while at other +times the mantle of the seer or prophet descended upon him on the most +inauspicious occasions. Had Mrs. Wrottesley spoken her mind, which she +never did, she might have thrown light upon the subject, but she was +not a convincing woman at the best of times. All her life she had kept +inviolate the woman's secret whether or not her husband was a +disappointment to her. No one knew from his wife if the little god of +a somewhat small and feminine community had feet of clay or no. + +Arrived at the very delightful beech wood which formed a pleasant place +of encampment for tea-parties, Canon Wrottesley could only smile +absently at the picnic-baskets, and appear wrapped in thought when +addressed; he might have been mentally preparing his next Sunday's +sermon. Miss Abingdon thought that he was doing so and respected him +for it; she even tried to attune her mind to his, and endeavoured to +see vanity of vanities in this informal gathering of friends. + +'We do not think enough of serious things,' she said. + +The inhabitants of Sedgwick put on sporting airs and curiously cut +overcoats on two days in each year. The weather for the occasion is +nearly always cloudless, and the townsfolk have begun to think that +either they are very clever in arranging the date of their local +function, or that the clerk of the weather is deeply interested in +Sedgwick Races. + +On this particular day the sun flickered as usual through the clean +leaves and boughs of the beech wood, doing its best to lend an air of +picturesqueness to lobster salads and aspics, and shone brilliantly on +servants, with their coats off, unpacking hampers at rows of long +tables, and on people busily engaged in the inartistic business of +eating. + +In the paddock there was an unusual number of horses being led round +and round in a ring, and some well-known bookies--not often seen at the +little provincial meeting--were present with their raucous cries and +their money-bags. + +Kitty Sherard carried a pair of field-glasses on a long strap, and +consulted from time to time a little gold-bound pocket-book in which +she added up figures with a business-like air. She believed in +Ormiston, which Sir Nigel Christopherson was riding, and she had +something on Lamplighter as well. She knew every bookmaker on the +course by sight, and had as much knowledge of the field as any one in +the ring. And she looked exactly like some very beautiful child, and +carried a parasol of rose-coloured chiffon beneath which her complexion +and eyes appeared to great advantage. She smiled whether winning or +losing, and ate a tiny luncheon with an epicurean air. + +At four o'clock in the afternoon it is an accepted custom at Sedgwick +Races for every one to have tea before the last event, and then horses +are put to in coaches and carriages, and those who have attended the +meeting whether for business or pleasure drive back to their own homes, +or go slowly downhill in a long string to the little railway station +where, for two days at least in the year, the local station-master is a +person of importance. + +Mrs. Ogilvie arrived at the racecourse, as she had promised to do, +about tea-time. She hardly ever cared to watch the races; but she +stood amongst her friends for a while in the pleasant shade of the +wood, and looked on at the little gathering with that air of detached +and hardly concealed weariness which she always felt on such occasions. +She congratulated Peter, who had won a rather closely finished race +earlier in the day; but her voice betrayed little interest in the +event, and an onlooker might have been surprised at the almost distant +way in which she spoke to him. She was sumptuously dressed, as usual, +and wore her clothes with extravagant carelessness. She found herself +at tea-time sitting next Canon Wrottesley, whose patriarchal mood +seemed to her unnecessarily affected, and she requested him to ask Miss +Sherard to come and speak to her. 'Kitty amuses me,' she said, with +one of her characteristic shrugs, 'and most people are so dull, are +they not?' + +Canon Wrottesley felt that mixed sensation which association with Mrs. +Ogilvie always gave him--a feeling of resentment combined with a desire +to please. He rather hastily let the mantle of the seer drop from him, +and said, 'I wish our little party were not so much dispersed. Mr. +Lawrence from Frisby brought two charming friends with him, and they +much hoped to have been here to meet you. Falconer is their name--Sir +John and Lady Falconer. He has just been made Minister at Buenos +Ayres, as I dare say you know, and he told me they once had the +pleasure of meeting you in Spain, years and years ago.' + +'I never remember people whom I have met years and years ago,' said +Mrs. Ogilvie. Her near-sighted eyes, with their trick of contracting +slightly when she looked fixedly at anything, narrowed as she spoke, +and the heavy lids closed lazily upon them. + +Lady Falconer, meanwhile, had arrived at the tea-table and greeted Mrs. +Ogilvie with evident pleasure. 'I am afraid you will hardly remember +me, as it is a very long time since we met,' she said; 'but my husband +and I always remember how good you were to me when I was ill at Juarez.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie rose and shook hands with a cordiality that was charmingly +expressed. Her eyes were no longer half-closed, and her colour never +varied. 'You were ill, were you not?' she said, in a manner that was a +little vague but polite and sympathetic. + +'Yes,' said Sir John, 'and you let your maid come and nurse her. My +wife always said she would have died if it had not been for you.' + +'The climate was abominable,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'every one felt ill +there. Why does one go to these out-of-the-way places?' + +'It is very absurd,' said Lady Falconer, in a friendly way, 'to be +surprised at people growing up; yet I can hardly realize that Captain +Ogilvie, whom we met to-day, is the little boy who was with you at +Juarez. How time flies!' + +'It more often crawls, I think,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, with her +mouth a little twisted to one side. And then she rose to go because +she never stayed long at any party, and not even the fact that Nigel +Christopherson was going to ride in the last race altered her decision. +At parting she was too glad to have met Lady Falconer, trusted that if +ever she cared to see a collection of tiresome pictures she would come +to Bowshott, and hoped that if the gardens would be of any interest to +her she would drive over some afternoon when it was not too hot, and +have tea with her--any afternoon would do. Had Mrs. Ogilvie been +giving an invitation to tea in a barn it is probable that her manner +would have been as distant, as casual, and as superb as when she +suggested, with a queer sort of diffidence, that people might care to +see the famous galleries and gardens of her magnificent house. + +'How very interesting,' said Canon Wrottesley to Lady Falconer when the +carriage had driven away, 'your meeting like this!' The vicar's +acquaintance was not extensive, and that people should re-encounter +each other or have mutual friends always struck him in the light of a +strange coincidence. + +'She has not altered much,' said Sir John Falconer, 'and yet it must be +many years since we met: I suppose she never was good-looking. Somehow +one seems unaware of it when one is speaking to her.' + +'I could do nothing but look at her dress,' said Lady Falconer +good-naturedly. 'How is it that everything she wears seems to be in +such perfect taste?' + +'Mrs. Ogilvie is a rich woman,' said Canon Wrottesley, enjoying a +proprietary way of talking of his neighbour, 'and she is able to +gratify her love of beautiful raiment. I do not understand these +things myself,' he went on, with a masculine air, 'but the ladies tell +me that her dresses are all that they should be.' + +'I don't know what we should have done without her at Juarez,' said +Lady Falconer, in her peculiarly kind manner. 'Sir John and I were on +our honeymoon, and, like many other newly married people, we wanted to +be alone.' + +'Dudley, the artist, told us about Juarez, I remember,' interpolated +Sir John, 'otherwise I do not suppose we should ever have heard of the +place. Dudley had been sketching there.' + +'I had not a maid with me,' went on Lady Falconer, in her pleasant +voice, 'and Mrs. Ogilvie in the kindest way allowed a Spanish woman she +had with her to do everything for me.' + +'Mrs. Ogilvie is always devoted to everything Spanish,' said Mrs. +Wrottesley. 'Her mother was Spanish, and I dare say you know she made +her home in Spain for six years after the eldest boy's death.' + +'I did not even know that she had lost a son,' said Lady Falconer. +'How very sad!' + +The crowds of gaily-dressed people about them, the shouts of the +bookmakers, and the pleasant sense of being on an enjoyable picnic +contrasted oddly with any reference to such banished topics as death +and sorrow. + +'I consider that Mrs. Ogilvie is one of the most reserved women I ever +met,' said the canon, proceeding to give an epitome of a character +which he thought he--and perhaps only he--understood. 'She is +impulsive yet cautious, clever yet light-minded; for a woman her +intelligence is quite above the ordinary run, and yet she is often +hopelessly difficult to convince.' He leaned forward on the table +looking handsome and dignified, and his clean-shaven face had an +appearance more clever than was quite justified by his attainments. + +'I am sure that Mrs. Ogilvie is a woman of deep affections,' said Lady +Falconer, whose tongue seemed framed for nothing but kind speeches. + +'I remember,' said Sir John, 'how struck my wife and I were, that year +we met her in Spain, by her devotion to her son. It seemed to us to +have almost a touch of tragedy in it; but that, of course, is now +explained by hearing that she had just lost her only other child.' + +'Poor Mrs. Ogilvie!' said Mrs. Wrottesley. + +The words seemed incongruous. Mrs. Ogilvie, with her contempt for +pity, her sumptuous manner of living and of dressing, was hardly an +object for compassion; and Canon Wrottesley felt that his wife's +commiseration was out of place, although he was far too kind to say so +in public. + +There was a lull suddenly in the noise of the race-course; the +bookmakers' harsh shouts ceased, and even conversation stopped for a +moment, for the last race had begun. + +The last race was an interesting event. It was a steeplechase for +gentleman riders only, and friends of the riders were standing up, with +field-glasses to their eyes, watching with absorbed attention the +horses, which were still a great distance off on the other side of the +course. Jane was standing by Peter. Kitty Sherard was quite near; she +was not looking through field-glasses as the others were doing, but +stood leaning lightly on the balcony of the stand with her two hands +clasped on the wooden rail in front of her. + +'Can you see who is leading?' said Jane, and received no answer to her +question, and then she saw that Miss Sherard was not looking at the +racecourse at all. Her face was white, and her hands, which were +clasped on the wooden rail before her, had a strained look about them, +and showed patches of white where the slender fingers were tightly +pressed on the delicate skin. + +The last race involved some big fences, it is true; but then Kitty of +all people in the world was the last to be afraid of a stiff course. +It was not like her to keep her eyes turned away from the horses until +some one quite close to her said, 'Well, they 're over the water-jump +anyway,' when she suddenly raised her field-glasses, with hands that +were trembling a little, and kept her eyes fixed on the race. It was +going to be a close finish, most people thought, and as the horses came +round the farther corner you could, as the saying goes, have spread a +tablecloth over them. Toffy's horse closely hugged the rails and was +kept well in hand; while, of the two in front of him, one was showing +signs of the pace and the other had not much running left in him. +These two soon tailed off, when the favourite (dark green and yellow +hoops) came through the other horses and rode neck to neck with +Toffy's. It became a race between these two, and it was evident that +the finish was going to be a close one. + +'Toffy's not fit to ride,' said the voice of a young man who would have +liked Toffy to win the race, although he knew better than to back him. +'He is as mad as ten hatters to have ridden to-day.' + +'His weight is right enough,' said another manly voice, with a laugh; +'it's extraordinary how a man of his height can ride so light. +Christopherson 's a regular bag of bones.' + +'I wish to goodness they wouldn't talk!' said Kitty suddenly under her +breath. + +The two horses came on neck to neck to the last fence but one. + +'By gad, he knows how to ride!' went on the masculine voice, 'but +Spinach-and-Eggs is on the better horse of the two.' + +The ground was in splendid going condition and the two horses raced +over it. They could see Christopherson's face now, and Toffy was +smiling slightly, while the other man's teeth were firmly set. Their +two stirrups clanged together as their horses rose to the rails and +galloped on to the last fence. + +And there, of course, Toffy's horse fell. It was not his fault; there +was a bit of soft ground just where he landed, his horse blundered and +fell, and the favourite rode past the winning-post, an easy winner. + +The spectators in the grand stand could see Christopherson pick himself +up a moment later and lead his horse home; but there was one moment, +when the rider behind him took the last jump, in which for a fraction +of time it seemed more than possible that he might land on the top of +Sir Nigel. For a breathless space there was that dramatic silence +which may be felt when a concourse of people literally hold their +breath. Miss Abingdon covered her face for a moment, and Jane heard +Peter say 'Good God!' + +The next moment the danger was over, and Jane was surreptitiously +handing Miss Sherard a handkerchief drenched in eau-de-Cologne, for +Kitty had sat down suddenly and her face was white. She did not speak, +but she looked up into Jane's face for a moment, and the look said as +plainly as possible, 'I can't help it--don't tell any one.' + +'It was a horribly near thing,' Jane said, in order to explain Kitty's +pallor to herself, 'and I 'm afraid it has given you rather a turn.' + +Miss Sherard's feeling of faintness was only momentary, and already the +bright colour was in her cheeks again and she laughed and said, 'It was +not the jump, really, Jane; but I am a horrible gambler, and I put my +very last shilling on Toffy.' + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Mrs. Ogilvie's ball, according to an old-established custom, followed +closely on the race. The proximity of the two events had helped to +gain for the quiet countryside the reputation of a gay neighbourhood. +Country houses were filled with visitors, and the ballroom and the +famous picture-gallery at Bowshott received an even larger number of +guests than usual. There was something impressive in the great space +and width of the ballroom, with its polished floor. The palm-houses +had been emptied to form an avenue of green up the middle of the +picture-gallery, at whose extreme end an altarpiece, representing a +scene from the Book of Revelation, showed a company of the heavenly +host as a background to a buffet-table crowded with refreshments. The +constant movements and the brilliant lights provided a fitting air of +gaiety to the scene. It was Mrs. Ogilvie's whim to have her rooms +illuminated in a manner as nearly as possible to represent the effect +of tempered sunlight. 'No woman cares to see,' she used to say, 'she +wants to be seen.' And so the lights at Bowshott were always arranged +in such a way that the beauty of women should be enhanced by them. +Plain faces softened under the warm glow which had no hard shadows in +it, and beautiful faces were lighted up in a manner that was almost +extravagantly becoming. + +'It is only on such an occasion as this,' said Miss Abingdon, 'that one +really seems to think that Bowshott is put to its proper use.' + +She was talking to a young man who called old furniture delicious and +Spanish brocade sweetly pretty. 'The modern Englishman,' said Mr. +Lawrence, 'was made to live in barracks or in a stable. Probably he is +only in his right place when he is on a horse. Could any one but he +live at Bowshott and dress in shabby shooting clothes, and smoke +cigarettes in a room where Charles I. made love, and wear hobnailed +boots to go up and down a grand staircase?' + +Miss Abingdon sat on a convenient large couch, where a chaperon might +close her eyes for a moment towards the end of a long evening without +being accused of drowsiness. She was the recipient of many wise nods +and hints and questions. + +'How well they look together!' said a lady, as Peter Ogilvie and Jane +came down the line of palms, and she left a blank at the end of her +speech, to be filled in, if possible, by Miss Abingdon. + +'Jane makes Peter look rather short,' said another. + +'She should have chosen some one taller.' + +'I suppose it really will be settled some day,' said Mr. Lawrence. + +'They went for a ride this morning,' said Miss Abingdon dryly, 'and +they were positively disappointed because Sir Nigel Christopherson +could not go with them. I do not profess to understand love-affairs of +the present day.' + +Mr. Lawrence was a portly, red-faced young man, with a high-pitched +voice. He throve on scandal, and gossiped like a housekeeper. Miss +Abingdon liked and thoroughly approved him; his views were sound, his +opinions orthodox, and he always took her in to supper at any dance +where they met. + +Mr. Lawrence's manner towards elderly ladies was a mixture of deference +and familiarity which never failed to give satisfaction; he could even +discuss Miss Abingdon's relatives with her without offence, and he gave +advice on domestic matters. People in want of a cook or of a good +housemaid generally wrote to Mr. Lawrence to ask if he knew of any one +suitable for the post, and he recommended houses and health-resorts, +and knew to a fraction what every one's income was. He was a useful +member of society in a neighbourhood like that of Culversham, and was +considered an interesting caller. It was his ambition to be first with +every piece of intelligence, and he enjoyed telling news, even of a +harassing description. Mr. Lawrence believed that Miss Abingdon's +niece was already engaged to Peter Ogilvie, and he began by a series of +deft questions to try to abstract the definite information that he +required from her. + +'Young people nowadays,' said Miss Abingdon, ascribing a riper age to +Mr. Lawrence than he altogether approved--'young people nowadays think +that everything that concerns themselves is what they call their own +business. They talk as though they lived in some desert cave instead +of in the midst of the world. I am on thorns sometimes when the +servants are in the room; after all, a man may be only a footman, and +yet is not necessarily a deaf-mute.' + +Peter and Jane, meanwhile, had strolled into the picture-gallery, with +its softly shaded lights and long vistas of flowering plants and palms. +There was about them to-night something which seemed to set them apart. +Few persons cared to disturb them, even by a greeting, as they sat side +by side in the corridor or walked together down the long gallery. Jane +Erskine had put off that air, which suited her so admirably, of seeming +to be always under an open sky; she had left it behind with her short +skirt and the motor-cap which she loved to pull down over her eyes. +This evening in shimmering white satin, and with a string of pearls +round her throat, she looked what she was--a very beautiful and very +distinguished young woman. The tempered light of the room seemed to +deepen the colour in her cheeks and to bring out the bright tints of +her hair; her lips parted in a smile, and her eyes had radiance in them. + +She and Peter mingled with the throng of dancers again, and then, not +waiting until the music had finished, they left the ballroom by the +farther door where Mrs. Ogilvie was standing. + +Peter stopped when he saw her, and looked at her a little anxiously. +'You should not be standing, should you?' he said, in his kindly way; +'you look tired.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie gave one of her enigmatic smiles. 'Who would not be +tired?' she said. 'Was there ever such an extraordinary way of amusing +oneself as to stand in a draughty doorway in the middle of the night, +shaking hands with some hundreds of people whom one doesn't want to +see!' + +She sat down on a sofa and watched the two figures as they passed down +the long corridor. The mechanical smile of welcome with which she had +greeted half the county this evening had not died away from her face; +she sat upright on the satin-covered sofa. There was about her an air +of strength, of eminence almost, which seemed to place her genuine +ugliness above criticism. Her dress was of some heavy purple stuff +which few women would have had the courage to wear, and the diamonds in +her hair, with their sharp points of radiating light, accentuated +something that was magnificent and almost defiant about Mrs. Ogilvie +to-night. Her short-sighted eyes contracted in their usual fashion as +she watched the couple disappear down the vista of the corridor. 'If +only it could be soon! If only their marriage could be soon!' she +murmured to herself, her lips moving in an inward cry that in another +woman might have been a prayer. + +'How do you think she is looking?' said Peter, as, without conscious +intention, he and Jane drifted away from the dancers into a more +distant part of the house. 'Surely she gets tired too easily? I wish +she would see a doctor; but she hates being fussed over, and one can +never persuade her to take care of herself.' + +'What is one to do with so wilful a woman?' said Jane. + +They paused and looked at the dim crowd of dancers through one of the +entrances to the ballroom, and passed down the corridor where misty +figures sat on sofas and chairs enjoying the cool. Every one looked to +them misty and far away to-night, almost as though they had not +sufficiently materialized to be perfectly distinct. + +With definite intention Peter led his partner towards a little room, +hung with miniatures and plaques, at the farther end of the long +corridor. Here they found Nigel Christopherson in conversation with +Miss Sherard. Kitty was talking as lightly as usual, deliberately +misunderstanding everything that was said to her, and being as +provoking as she ever was; and Toffy was so much in earnest that he did +not see Peter and Jane, but continued to talk to the girl beside him. +So the two intruders never entered the room at all; but, as they +pursued their way still farther, Peter was thinking about Mrs. Avory, +and wishing to goodness that Toffy had never met her. + +The big house seemed too full of people for his taste to-night. Every +room and corridor was occupied, and Peter said, 'Let's go to my +mother's sitting-room. Do you mind, Jane? We can get cool on the +bridge.' + +Bowshott is a very old house, so old that, if it had not been for +archaeologists, who came there sometimes and read the grey stones as +though they had been printed paper, no one would ever have known when +the earliest part of it was built. Antiquaries agreed that it dated +from Norman days; but the only portion of the building of that period +which was standing now was a tower at the eastward end of the house. +It had been almost in ruins at one time, but Colonel Ogilvie's father +had restored it, and, with a considerable amount of skill, had +connected it with the more modern part of the house by a stone bridge +on a single arch. The whole thing was excellently contrived; the +archway lent a frame to one of the most beautiful parts of the garden; +and the tower, which was entered by a strong oak door from the bridge, +now contained three curious, romantic-looking rooms, with quaint, +uneven walls six feet thick, deep, narrow windows, and heavy oak +ceilings. The largest of the rooms to which admittance was gained by +the oak door was Mrs. Ogilvie's sitting-room. She had a curious love +of being alone for hours at a time, and she enjoyed the sense of +isolation which was afforded her by being cut off from the rest of the +building by the stone bridge on its high arch. Here she would spend +whole days by herself, reading or writing. Above this room, which was +full of her own particular possessions, was a smaller apartment +containing a valuable library of philosophical works. Here were +muniment-chests, and the large writing-table where she wrote all the +business letters relating to the estate; and here it was that she was +wont to see her steward and her agent from time to time. No one but +Mrs. Ogilvie and her son ever entered the room without some special +reason, and it was too far away from the rest of the house for casual +visitors to intrude themselves. The short passage, within the more +modern house, which led to the bridge was reached by a door hung with a +leather curtain securely arranged to prevent draughts, and no one ever +lifted this curtain except those who had a right to the rooms beyond. + +To-night, however, the house was open to all comers, and it afforded no +surprise to Captain Ogilvie and his companion, when they had quitted +the corridor and the reception-rooms, and had left the guests and +servants behind them, to find a man's figure before them in the short +passage leading to the leather-covered door. + +'Who 's that, do you know?' said Peter, when they had passed under the +curtain and were crossing the bridge. + +'I have no idea,' said Jane; 'some stranger, I suppose, whom some one +has brought.' + +'They don't seem to be looking after him very well,' said Peter, +'leaving him to prowl about alone and get lost in a great barrack like +this. I don't suppose I ought to have asked him if he wanted partners, +or anything of that sort? Some one is sure to look after him.' + +'Oh, sure to!' said Jane, and they passed over the bridge together and +went into Mrs. Ogilvie's morning-room. + +Having arrived there and secured two comfortable chairs, the power of +speech seemed suddenly to have deserted two persons whose conversation +was never brilliant, but who at least were seldom at a loss for +anything to say. It appeared as though Peter Ogilvie had brought Miss +Erskine to this distant room for no other purpose than to say to her, +in an absent-minded way, 'Is every one enjoying themselves, do you +think?' + +'I think every one is quite happy,' said Jane, and added, with +characteristic frankness, 'I know I am!' + +Peter gave her a quick glance, turning his eyes full upon her for a +moment as though to read something in the face beside him; then he +began with absorbed attention to twist the silk string of his ball +programme round and round his finger. The room where they sat was +singularly unlike those rose-shaded bowers which are considered +suitable to the needs of dancers who pause and rest in them. Its +austere furnishing had something almost solemn and mysterious about it; +and the stone walls hung with tapestry, on which quaint figures moved +restlessly with the draught from an open window, would have given an +eerie feeling to a man, for instance, sitting alone there at twelve +o'clock at night. But in the gloom and austerity of the still and +distant chamber sat Jane in white satin with pearls about her neck, and +the room was illumined by her. + +'So you are enjoying yourself,' said Peter at last--Peter who never +made fatuous conversational remarks of this sort. The words, for no +reason in themselves, fell oddly, and were followed by a silence which +was disturbing and made for sudden self-consciousness wholly to be +condemned, and to be banished, if possible, directly. Jane, who did +not fidget aimlessly with things, began diligently to pluck a long +white feather out of her fan, and said in a voice that was deliberately +commonplace, 'We ought to go back now, oughtn't we? Let me see who +your next partner is, Peter, that I may send you back to dance with +her.' She stretched out her hand for the young man's programme. + +But Peter sat absorbed, twisting its silk cord round his finger. +'Don't let's go yet,' he said, and the constrained silence fell between +them again. 'I want to ask you something, Jane.' + +'Yes,' said Jane. Her hands lay idle now in her lap, and she no longer +tried to extract the white ostrich feather from her fan. + +'I want to know if you think you can care for me a little?' + +Probably when a man feels most deeply his utterances are the most +commonplace, and an Englishman is proverbially incapable of expressing +his feelings. In the supreme moments of their lives, it is true, a few +men, and those not always the most sincere, may speak eloquently; but +for the most part a proposal of marriage from an Englishman is--as it +should be--a clumsy thing. Peter Ogilvie could only speak in such +limited language as he always used. Yet the world seemed to stand +still for him just then, for he knew that everything in his heaven or +upon earth depended on what Jane's answer would be. + +'Don't let me bother you,' he said at last, 'or rush you into giving an +answer now if you would rather wait.' + +Perhaps a declaration of love from an old comrade is the most dear as +well as the most embarrassing of all such avowals. A heart which has +already given itself in loyalty and affection to another finds that it +is not a deepening of this loyalty and affection that is asked, but a +complete re-ordering of things. The lover's petition, therefore, +either comes to the woman as a revelation, betraying to her in a flash +that she has loved always, and has merely been calling the thing by +another name, or else it finds her impatient at the disturbance of an +old comradeship, a cherished friendship, which nothing but this +foolish, exacting thing called love could ever shake. + +Peter was not versed in introspective questions or hair-splittings; he +loved with his whole heart, and he had tried to say so without very +much success. Just then he would have given anything he possessed to +be endowed with a little more eloquence, though deep down in his heart +he had a lingering hope that perhaps Jane would understand. 'It's neck +or nothing,' he was saying to himself, in the homely jargon in which he +usually formed his thoughts. 'God knows I may have been a fool to +speak.' + +'Peter,' began Jane shyly. And Peter ceased twisting the silk cord of +the programme round his finger, and they turned and looked at each +other. + +'Is it true?' he said at last, with a queer kind of wonder in his voice. + +'Let us go into the garden,' he said. His instincts remained +primitive, and just then this room was too narrow for all he felt, and +it seemed to him that the large things of the night and the distant +glory of the stars were the only environment that he could bear. + +Passers-by, had they been mean enough to pause and listen outside the +sheltering yew-hedge near which they sat, might have questioned the +poetry of their love-making, and have condemned an avowal of devotion +punctuated by barbarous slang; but the silence that fell between them +was full of tenderness and more easily understood than speech, and +perhaps the moon--an inquisitive person at the best of times--as she +peeped over the grey turrets of the house saw the dawn of a love as +single-hearted and as genuine as many sentiments which have been more +carefully analysed and described. + +These were two happy, light-hearted persons, without very much to +recommend them except a certain straightforwardness of vision which +abhorred, as by a natural instinct, circuitous or crooked things, a +transparent honesty, and a simple acceptance of those obligations which +race and good-breeding demand. + +At the present moment, out in the garden on the stone seat set in the +embrasure of the high yew-hedge, they were oblivious of everything in +the world except each other and the absorbing discovery of love. + +They were the last to hear the cry of 'Fire!' which rang out from the +house, and they were still sitting undisturbed while men ran with hose +and buckets, and a clamour arose in the stable-yard for more water, and +a clatter of horses' hoofs could be heard as a groom galloped off for +the nearest fire-engine. The yew-hedged garden where they sat was +distant a long way from the house, and it was not until a heavy cloud +of smoke rose up against the sky that Peter's attention was attracted, +and he realized that the Norman tower was on fire. + +He started up and ran to the place where grooms and helpers, gardeners +and strangers' coachmen, and waiters and guests were standing, with +hose and buckets, pouring a ridiculous little stream of water against +the burning pile. The fire had begun in the roof, and the smoke was +pouring from the narrow windows in the tower. No flames had shot up +yet, and the fire-engine from Sedgwick, prompt and well-served as it +always was, might be here any minute. The oak roof would burn slowly +and the walls were secure, but the tapestry in the lower room was dry +and old, and would fire like a bundle of shavings. An effort was made +by a body of men to force an entrance into the lower room and save what +they could; but they were beaten back by the smoke which came in +volumes down the turret staircase and by the flames which now began to +shoot up here and there against the darkness of the night. There was +nothing for it but to safeguard the main building. The wind was +setting towards it from the tower, and a party of men were up on the +roof treading out burning sparks and playing water where slates were +hottest or ashes might burst into flames. + +Mrs. Ogilvie stood on the terrace in her magnificent purple gown, her +red hair with flashing diamonds in it, and her long-handled glasses +held up to her near-sighted eyes. + +'So that goes!' she said, shrugging her shoulders. 'Well, it will give +me a good deal of trouble. Or is it fate, I wonder?' + +Peter was directing a body of men to play water on the bridge; garden +and stable hoses were turned full upon it by relays of helpers, and +some long ladders were placed against the windows to see if it were +possible in that way to effect an entrance and save some of the +valuables in the room. The guests--women in light ball dresses and +bare shoulders, and men in evening clothes--had surged out on to the +terrace, and were watching with that curious mixture of fascination and +regret which comes to the eyes of those who see destruction going on +and know that they are powerless to prevent it. Every ear was strained +to catch the first sound of the fire-engine on the road from Sedgwick, +and some twenty or thirty couples, more impatient than the rest, had +run to a distant knoll, from whence the road was visible, to peer +through the darkness and to see if anything was coming. The stars +shone serenely overhead, and the moon was turning the water in the +fountains to cascades of silver, while from turret and roof the volumes +of grey smoke belched forth, and the ineffectual fire appliances played +upon the house. + +It was just then that what seemed almost like an apparition appeared +upon the bridge. A man, not above medium height, with a cloak hastily +thrown about his head to protect him from the smoke, dashed across the +bridge, was drenched by the fall of water, and entered the turret room. +People asked each other fearfully whose this strange figure could be. +Many, strangely enough, had not seen it; the sudden dash through the +smoke had not occupied a moment of time, and most eyes were directed +towards the roof of the building, while others were turned towards the +Sedgwick road. Those who had seen cast amazed eyes upon each other, +women clutched the persons nearest them, and Jane Erskine, seeking half +wildly for some one in the crowd, found Peter and said to him, 'What is +it? Who went in there just now? Oh, Peter, for a moment I thought it +was you!' + +There was a shout of warning, but it was too late for the man, whoever +he was, to turn back. He was inside the tower now, and no shouting +could hold him. Some prayed as they stood there, murmuring half +mechanically, 'Save him! save him!' as instinctively men and women will +pray even when the life for which they plead may carry with it such +sorrow as they never dreamed of. + +Suddenly some young men who had climbed to the top of the knoll gave a +shout, and the fire-engine from Sedgwick turned the corner of the road +with a fine dash, for Tom Ellis, a good whip, was driving, and the +white horse on the near side knew as well as any Christian how to save +an inch of the road. The fire-engine, all gleaming with brass fittings +and flaming red paint, clattered to the door, and pulled up with +admirable precision on the spot from which a hose could be played. +Eight men in helmets leaped from their seats and got their gear in +order with the coolness of blue-jackets in a storm. But for its +quietness and its controlled, workmanlike effect, the whole scene had +distinctly a dramatic touch about it. Possibly the firemen would have +shouted louder had they been upon the boards, and fainting women, it is +generally assumed, give a realistic touch to well-staged melodrama. No +doubt the crowd on the terrace at Bowshott would have disappointed an +Adelphi audience. But the old white horse stood to attention like a +soldier on a field day; and Tom Ellis, wiping his brow as though he +himself had run in the shafts all the way from Sedgwick, lent a touch +of stage realism to the scene. Nothing could save the interior of the +tower--that was past praying for; but a shout went up that there was a +man inside, and the firemen threw their ladders against the walls and +prepared their scaling-irons and life-saving apparatus. The smoke +rolled out in dense volumes now, and through the gloom a voice shouted, +'It 's all right! He 's crossed the bridge again!' + +'Oh, are you sure? are you sure?' said Jane, her fear almost amounting +to a panic, and it haunted her for long afterwards that perhaps the man +had not actually escaped the fire. For nothing was heard of him again, +and it was only after Peter had ordered a fruitless search to be made +amongst the debris in the tower that she felt satisfied of the +stranger's safety. + +A newspaper reporter tried to prove that a gallant attempt had been +made to save some valuables in the tower, and went so far as to head +one of his paragraphs, 'A Gallant Act.' But there was nothing of value +in the tower rooms except the old furniture and books and the tapestry +on the walls, and these had all been destroyed. + +The ruined interior of the tower smouldered the whole of the next day; +though the walls still stood, gaunt and grim, windowless and gutted by +the fire. But the building was covered by insurance, and even the loss +of the tapestries seemed more than compensated by the fact that an +absorbing topic of general interest had been provided in a quiet and +uneventful neighbourhood. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +It was a matter of necessity with Mrs. Ogilvie to purchase a new dress +for the wedding. Wherefore, in the week following the night of the +ball, she went to London for the day, while builders and carpenters +were already at work repairing the ruined tower. + +'It will be inconvenient,' she said, 'to go up and see my dressmaker +later when the house is full. Is it absolutely incumbent upon me, as +the mother of the bridegroom, to dress in grey satin, or have I +sufficiently scandalized my neighbours all my life to be able to wear +what I like?' + +Usually her maid accompanied her when Mrs. Ogilvie went up to London; +but, in her wilful way, she had decided to-day that maids were useless, +and that her present maid had round eyes that stared at her from the +opposite side of the carriage when they travelled together. In short, +Mrs. Ogilvie intended to go to London alone. + +She departed with some sort of idea of enjoying the expedition; the +purchase of clothes was a real aesthetic pleasure to her, and even the +feel of the pavements in the world-forsaken London of September had +something friendly about it that spoke to her with an intimacy and a +kindliness such as she never experienced among country sights and +sounds. A morning at Paquin's revived her as sea breezes revive other +women. Lunch followed in a room pleasantly shaded from the sun and +decorated with a fair amount of taste. But the food was uneatable, of +course; Mrs. Ogilvie could never get a thing to eat that she liked. + +It was nearly four o'clock before the brougham which had met her at the +station in the morning drew up before a door in deserted Harley Street. +An elderly man-servant showed her into the doctor's waiting-room, and +Mrs. Ogilvie sat down and began turning over with interest the pages of +a fashion magazine. + +'I think I know the worst,' she said to the famous surgeon whom she had +come to consult, when he led her into his room. 'What I want to know +is, can you put off this tiresome business until after my son's +wedding?' + +He asked her quietly her reason for the delay. Few people argued with +Mrs. Ogilvie; there was an inflexibility about her which made protest +impossible. He knew that the case was a hopeless one, but life might +certainly be prolonged if she would submit to treatment without delay. + +'Why should you put it off?' he said; 'even five or six weeks may make +an enormous difference.' + +'I always put off disagreeable things,' said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. + +A London doctor probably knows many cases of delicate and sensitive +women who will fret over a crumpled rose-leaf and die with the calm +courage of a martyr; but the woman who would deliberately throw away +her chances of life was unfamiliar to the famous specialist. He looked +keenly at his patient for a moment out of his deep eyes. + +'I have never known a case of this sort in which there was not an +immediate effort at concealment,' he said to himself; 'and women +conceal most of their sicknesses as if they were crimes.' Aloud he +asked her what was the earliest date at which she could put herself +into his hands. + +'It is a great bore coming at all,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, with that sort +of superb impertinence which distinguished her and was hardly ever +offensive; 'but let us say in a month's time. The wedding was not to +have been till late in November; but my son and Miss Erskine are quite +absurdly in love with each other, and it will not be difficult to +persuade them to alter that date for an earlier one.' + +'If you have positively decided to postpone treatment,' said the +surgeon, 'I can say nothing more except to tell you that you are +minimizing your chances of recovery.' + +'I don't feel in the least like dying yet,' she said. + +'Were you to put yourself into my hands at once,' he urged, 'it is +possible that you might be sufficiently recovered to go to the wedding +in November.' + +'No one is to know anything about it,' said Mrs. Ogilvie quickly and +decisively. 'If my son is married in October I can come up to town, as +I always do in November, and go into one of your nursing-homes. +Probably the wall-papers will offend me, but at least I shall not have +the whole of a countryside discussing my helplessness and the various +stages of my illness. Ye gods! they would like to ask for details from +one's very footman at the hall door!' + +It was useless to say more. The surgeon recommended diet, and made out +a prescription. + +'Everything is talked about in these days, I admit,' he said, 'and I +think no one regrets the decline of reserve more than we doctors do; +but you are carrying a desire for concealment too far.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie was drawing on her gloves and buttoning them with an air +much more grave and intent than she had bestowed upon her doctor during +the discussion of her health. 'Even an animal,' she said lightly, 'is +allowed to creep away into the denseness of a thicket and nurse its +wounds unseen; but we superior human beings are like the beggars who +expose a mutilated arm to the pitiful, and would fain show their wounds +to every passer-by.' + +'Perhaps you will allow me to write to your son?' said the surgeon. + +Mrs. Ogilvie replied by a quick and unequivocal answer in the negative; +then, relaxing a little, she said more lightly, but with intent, 'I +have always triumphed over difficulties all my life--I have always +overcome.' + +'That is quite possible,' said the physician gravely. + +Mrs. Ogilvie stood up and began to arrange her veil before the mirror +which hung above the mantel-piece; and, as she did so, she glanced +critically at her face under her large, fashionable-looking hat, with +its bizarre trimmings. + +'I am very plain,' she said, with a sort of sensuous enjoyment in her +frankness, 'and yet I have passed successfully for a beautiful woman +most of my life. I am also what is ridiculously called a power in +society, and I owe everything to my own will. I detest unsuccess!' + +'You are talking of the success which lies in the hands of every clever +woman,' said the doctor, 'but your health is another matter.' + +'I believe in my good luck; it has never failed me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, +as she shook hands and said good-bye. + +When she reached home she dressed in one of her sumptuous gowns, for a +score of country neighbours were coming to meet Jane Erskine as the +fiancee of her son. Her maid bore the brunt of my lady's sarcasm +during the time of dressing, and was given a curt notice of dismissal +before the toilet was complete. The woman's big round eyes, which were +so obnoxious to her mistress, filled with tears as she accepted her +discharge. And Mrs. Ogilvie, descending the broad staircase of the +house with her air of magnificence, her jewels, and her red hair, +rapped her fan suddenly and sharply on the palm of her hand, so that +the delicate tortoise-shell sticks were broken. 'Why does she look at +me like that?' she said fiercely below her breath. 'I am glad I +dismissed her, and I am glad she cried! Why should not some one else +suffer as well as I?' + +'You are not really tiresome, Jane,' she said after dinner, as the two +sat together on a couch. 'I have never known another engaged young +lady whom I did not avoid; but you are distressing yourself quite +unnecessarily about me. When I look tired, for instance, you may take +it as a sure sign that I am bored; nothing ever really makes me feel +ill except dullness.' + +'Still,' urged Jane, 'Peter and I want it so much. We think if you +were to get advice from a doctor it would make us feel so much happier +about you.' + +'I never allow any one to discuss my health with me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie +coldly; 'it is only a polite way of pointing out to one that one is +looking plain.' + +Jane took one of her hands in hers with an impulsive gesture, and +printed a kiss upon it. + +'Do sit upon me when I begin to bore you or to say the wrong thing! I +believe, for a woman, I am quite unpardonably clumsy and tactless.' + +'Have you ever discovered,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, 'that tact is becoming a +little overdone, and that it generally succeeds in accentuating a +difficult situation, or in making it impossible? Women are horribly +tactful as a rule, and that is why men's society is preferable to +theirs. If you tread on a man's foot he will no doubt forgive you, +while admitting that the blow was painful; but a woman smiles and tries +to look as though she really enjoyed it.' + +'Promise never to endure me in silence,' said Jane, laughing, 'even +when I am most tactless!' + +'Silent endurance is hardly my character,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, screwing +up her eyes. 'I dismissed Forder before dinner because she annoyed me.' + +'Please take Forder to your heart again tomorrow morning,' said Jane; +'she keeps Martin in such a good temper.' + +'No,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'I shall get a new maid when I go up to London +in November. Forder has had round eyes for such a long time, and she +is hopelessly stupid about doing my hair.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie always spoke about her hair with a touch of defiance in +her voice. It was so undisguisedly auburn that probably only Jane +Erskine and Peter ever believed that it was not dyed. + +'What were we talking about?' she said presently. 'Oh yes, I was +saying that you were not tiresome although you are engaged to be +married. You are not even quite uninteresting, although you are +healthy and happy! All the same, I am going to try and persuade you +and Peter to have the wedding sooner than you intended.' + +'Why?' said Jane simply. + +'I am sick of Bowshott,' said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly. 'By the by, I +believe I am going to make it over to you and Peter when you marry. +Why should I act as custodian to a lot of grimy pictures, which don't +amuse me the least bit in the world, or walk in these formal gardens, +where I don't even meet a gardener after ten o'clock? A prison life +would really be a pleasant change! I shall go to London when you are +married; it is the only place--except Paris--where one lives. I must +have the house in Berkeley Square painted. And, oh! there are heaps of +things I want to do; must I really go into them all? + +'When is the wedding to be?' asked old Lord Sherard, sinking on to the +sofa beside Miss Erskine, when he and the other gentlemen returned from +the dining-room. + +'Jane and I have just been deciding that the wedding is to take place +in the middle of October,' replied Mrs. Ogilvie in her cool, decisive +voice. + +Jane laughed and caught Peter's eye, and he drew her aside when he +could, and asked for further confirmation of a change of plans of which +he thoroughly approved. + +There was no reason for delay; the building and repairing of the tower +would hardly interfere with the other parts of the vast house. Jane, +like Peter, was quite satisfied that their wedding should be at an +earlier date than was at first suggested. They had known each other +all their lives; why postpone the happy time when they should be +married? + +So wedding invitations were written and despatched, and wedding gowns +were ordered, and wedding presents came in. Tenants presented silver +bowls and trays, and servants gave clocks and illuminated addresses, +and the Ogilvie family lawyer came down with his clerk to stay, and was +hidden away somewhere in the big house, where he wrote busily all day, +and made wills and transferred deeds, and wanted signatures for this +thing and for that through half the autumn mornings. + +'I see nothing for it,' said Jane, 'but to postpone getting my +trousseau until after I am married. If I succeed in getting a wedding +dress and something to go away in by the twenty-sixth, I shall consider +myself lucky!' + +Miss Abingdon, to whose Early Victorian mind a wedding was still an +occasion for tears, sighed over her niece's engagement because Jane +never came to her room at night to water her couch with tears, nor had +doubts or presentiments or misgivings. + +'She seems to have so little sense of responsibility,' she sighed to +Mrs. Wrottesley, whose visits at this trying time were a cause of +nothing but comfort to her. + +'I know,' said Mrs. Wrottesley--in the hesitating manner of the woman +who might have been 'advanced' had she not married a clergyman--'I know +it may seem to you irreverent to say so, but I sometimes think that +marriage is not undertaken lightly and unadvisedly enough. It seems to +me that nowadays the tendency is to consider the matter almost too +seriously, and that a certain light-hearted impulse is really what is +required before taking what is called the plunge.' + +Miss Abingdon--not by any means for the first time--felt regret that +Canon Wrottesley's influence upon his wife had not made her a more +orthodox thinker. A woman who criticized the Prayer Book was surely +not fitted to be the wife of a clergyman. Miss Abingdon liked to lean +on a spiritual guide, and she thought that this was the graceful and +becoming attitude for all women. + +'I am afraid we must not tamper with the Prayer Book,' she said +reprovingly; and Mrs. Wrottesley, who for twenty years had been silent +under reproof, relapsed into silence again. + +Jane, meanwhile, was saying good-bye to every tenant on Miss Abingdon's +small estate. To her hunters she confided the good news that they were +going with her when she married, and that they would hunt with her as +before. And the stable cat, whom she took up in her arms and kissed +affectionately, was told that he really must not mind saying good-bye, +for that she, Jane, would only be two miles off, so that the stable cat +needn't look quite so disconsolate. The proverbial old nurse in the +village had to be visited, and the school-children asked to tea, and +tenants and gardeners to dinner; and every one was in a highly nervous +state of preparation, and in a still more delightful state of +anticipation. + +Miss Abingdon enjoyed the dear fussiness of the wedding preparations, +and thought in her secret heart that Mrs. Ogilvie missed all the +pleasure of the thing by giving a few brief, emphatic orders to her +steward, instead of personally superintending every detail of the +servants' ball and the tenants' dinner. + +Mrs. Ogilvie's directions were probably made in less than an hour, and +transmitted to Mr. Miller's capacious pocket-book when he came to her +boudoir to receive instructions one autumn morning. When he had left, +Mrs. Ogilvie quitted her writing-table, by which she had been sitting, +and walked to the window of her room and stood idly by it, her graceful +figure outlined against the pane. Before her stretched the great +gardens in an aching formality of borders and devices. Viewed from a +height, and with her near-sighted eyes, they presented an appearance of +a piece of elaborate stitchwork on a green worsted ground. The +fountains, with their punctual fall of spray, might have been a device +in shells and beads in the centre of each design. Beyond the gardens +there was a mass of woods, all dim greens and bright golds; but even +the woods were touched with formality, and the foresters of the place +had lopped away every unsightly branch from the beeches and oaks. +Probably there may have been homely corners in the gardens and grounds +which Peter had discovered as a child; but Mrs. Ogilvie, when she +walked, kept to the prim paths of the terrace and the garden, where +every pebble seemed to have its proper place, in full view of the +windows of the house. + +'It has always been a prison to me--always,' she murmured to herself, +oblivious of the fact that no one more than she would have missed a +luxurious environment and a stately setting to her own personality. +Mrs. Ogilvie often imagined that she would have liked a small house; +but there is no doubt that she would have quitted it in disgust the +first time that the odour of dinner came up the back stairs. She +believed that a large staff of servants was merely a burden; but she +would have felt at a loss had she been obliged to wait on herself even +for an hour. As she looked now at the gardens in front of her, and +away to the woods beyond, and to the great stretches of greenhouses and +conservatories to southward, she thought how irksome they were, how +unnecessary, and how little pleasure they gave. + +'Magnificence is always dull,' she thought, 'and yet people are +impressed by it! They not only value themselves by what they have; +they actually value others according to their possessions, and respect +a man for his ownership of things of which they cannot even hope to rob +him.' + +She supposed that the tenants and servants would have to be fed on the +occasion of a marriage. She believed it was their one idea of enjoying +themselves; but she begged her steward not to bother her with details +when he had gone into the question of roasting an ox whole. Having +dismissed him with a few brief orders Mrs. Ogilvie went to her +writing-table. 'I may as well get over all the disagreeable and odious +things in one morning,' she said to herself. + +Her writing-table was placed against a wall on which hung a mirror, and +she sat down opposite it. According to a custom she had, she directed +the envelopes first, before beginning to write her letters. Her +writing-table was always littered with addressed envelopes of notes +which she meant to write some day when she felt in the mood for writing. + +She paused now when she had written the words: 'To be given to my son +at my death;' and, screwing up her face into her twisted smile, she +said to herself, 'How absurd and melodramatic it sounds!' Then she +took a sheet of notepaper and began to write. The first few lines +flowed easily enough, and then Mrs. Ogilvie's pen traced the letters +more slowly on the page. Once she paused altogether, and said aloud to +her image in the mirror opposite her escritoire, 'What a fool I am!' +and then stooped again over her task. The sprawling writing had hardly +covered half a sheet of notepaper when the red-gold head with its crown +of plaits was raised again, and the woman in the mirror looked at her +with a face that was suddenly livid. Her lips were white and were +drawn back somewhat from her teeth; and Mrs. Ogilvie, in the midst of +pain, recognized first of all how hideous she looked. + +The pen dropped from her fingers, and she pushed her chair back from +the writing-table and went over to the fireplace and lay down on the +sofa. The day was cold, and Mrs. Ogilvie shivered and drew a cover +over her feet. 'When this is over,' she thought, 'I will ring and have +the fire lighted.' + +She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and calculated deliberately +how long the paroxysm would probably last. She had always regarded +pain as an animate thing which had to be fought with, and she had never +failed in courage when she met it, nor moaned when, as now for the +first time, she was beaten by it. The clock seemed to tick more +leisurely to-day, and the time passed very slowly; there is a +loneliness about suffering which makes the hours drag heavily. Once +she buried her face for a moment in the sofa cushions, and her bands +clenched the cover and crumpled the delicate satin between her fingers. +Her head sank lower, like a wounded bird that ruffles up the dust; she +moved convulsively amongst the cushions. It was a grim fight with pain +that she was making; she did not give in easily, but the odds were +unequal. Mrs. Ogilvie was in the hands of an unsparing foe. She was +conquered, but afterwards, when she lay quite still, there was a look +of defiance in her attitude. + +Her maid, coming in and finding her sleeping, glanced at the blinds and +wondered if she dared lower them, for the sun was shining brilliantly +into the room now, and its beams were resting full and strong on the +figure on the sofa. + +It was something about the position of the auburn head--something +twisted and unnatural in the attitude of the recumbent form--that +caused the woman to cry out suddenly and sharply, with a vibrating cry +that seemed to set everything in the room jingling. No one heard her +at first, and she opened the window and called aloud for help; for +there was a sound of horses' hoofs upon the gravel, and Peter rode up +with Jane to the door. + +'Mrs. Ogilvie must have been dead an hour,' the village doctor said +when he came; and then he sent the weeping girl and poor, white-faced, +broken-hearted Peter out of the room. Neither of them could believe +the horrible news; they turned to each other, taking hands, as children +do in their grief, and Jane went back and with a sob stooped down and +imprinted a long kiss on the dead woman's brow. + +'She must have died just as she was writing her morning letters,' said +Peter, as he glanced at the writing-table with its litter of notes and +papers. + +'Perhaps it would be as well to lock up anything that is lying about,' +said the doctor; 'it is customary to do so. Or your lawyer--who, I +understand, is in the house--could come in, I suppose, and put away +jewels, etc.' He handed Peter the litter of notes and papers on the +writing-table. + +'Thank you,' said Peter. 'I don't suppose there is anything very +important, but I will look through them presently.' He glanced at the +topmost addresses of the notes, and decided that they were probably +belated wedding invitations to people who had been forgotten, and he +put an indiarubber band about them and thrust them into his pocket. + +The guests in the house departed hurriedly within two hours of Mrs. +Ogilvie's death, amidst all the confusion of hasty packing, and +carriages ordered for this person and for that, and footmen hastening +downstairs with luggage, and luncheon prepared hurriedly and eaten +almost surreptitiously by those who wished to catch an early train. +There was a horrible stir in the house under the hush and awe that +death brings. No one wished to intrude upon Peter; yet a dozen friends +wanted to see him, to hear, if possible, more details of his mother's +sudden end. Others, with a sort of animal instinct of forsaking at +once the place where death reigned, betrayed an almost contemptible +haste in quitting the house; but they, too, must know all that could be +told. They had never noticed that Mrs. Ogilvie did not seem well, or +they had remarked that of late she had spent much time in her room, or +'she had seemed so bright and cheerful'; and, again, 'they had noticed +how tired she had been at night sometimes.' + +To no one had Peter any special news to give. Some one had heard, he +believed, that she had been to see Sir Edward Croft, the great surgeon +in London, and to-day they had telegraphed to him. Peter himself had +not really been anxious about his mother, although he had imagined for +some time past that she did not look well. He gave what attention he +could to his guests, bade them a conventional good-bye, and displayed +that reserve which an Englishman is supposed to be able to maintain in +times of sorrow. But it is not too much to say that, warm-hearted, +deeply affectionate man that he was, his grief for his mother's death +had something bewildering in it. He had loved her faithfully and +admired her loyally during the whole of his life; there had never been +a quarrel between them, and, if he had not received many outward marks +of affection from her, there was no single occasion in his life that he +could remember in which she had failed him. He had come first always; +he realized this with the sinking of heart which even the most dutiful +son may feel when he sees with absolute clearness, perhaps for the +first time, that he must have accepted, almost unknowingly, many +sacrifices from his mother. He hoped, with a boyish remorse and a +boyish simple-heartedness, that she understood everything now, and that +somewhere, not very far off, she would be able to see into his heart +and know positively how much he had loved her. He had always accepted +in simple faithfulness the statement that those who were gone 'knew +now,' as the phrase runs; and it comforted him to think that all he +might have said to her when she was alive was clearly understood by his +mother at last. + +By two o'clock the big house was empty of guests and given over to +silence, or to the sound of hushed footsteps about the stairs, or to +the weeping of maids as they assembled in little groups in the +corridors and spoke with sobs of the mistress whom they had served +faithfully. Each room that had lately given up its tenant showed a +disordered interior, with paper strewn here and there. Or some maid +left behind to pack her mistress's heavier luggage could be seen +kneeling before open trunks and deftly arranging their contents. + +A grey-haired butler approached his master when the last of the +carriages had driven away, and begged him to eat some luncheon, and +informed him that Miss Erskine was still in the library. + +'Send something there,' said Peter briefly. + +For a moment Jane could only weep, and they clung to each other, +saying, with the helplessness of the suddenly bereaved, 'Isn't it +awful?' Then, as they began to grow calmer, Peter administered what +comfort he could, and tried in his kindly way to induce the girl to eat +something. + +'You must eat, you know,' he said, 'and it will do you good. It has +been a terrible time for you. And then I think you ought to go back +and lie down for a bit.' + + +If it is true that a woman suggests beef-tea as a universal panacea for +all ills, it is certain, on the other hand, that a man believes that a +woman always feels better for lying down. + +'I should like to wait,' Jane said, 'until Sir Edward arrives, and to +hear what he has to say.' + +A footman came in to clear away lunch, and then the two lovers went and +sat together on the library sofa, and looked out on the long stretches +of gardens with their cold precision and want of sympathy. A +luggage-cart, piled high with dress-baskets and portmanteaux, passed +down the drive towards the station gates, and a motor-car returned from +a neighbouring house for something that had been forgotten. After that +there was silence both within and without the house; even the maids had +gone downstairs to sit together and whisper. It was one of those grey +days in early autumn which have an almost weird sense of stillness +about them. Hardly a leaf stirred, and even the flight of the birds +was noiseless and touched with the universal feeling of hush. The +begonias and dahlias and flaming autumn flowers in the broad border +below the southern terrace wall had lost half their colour in the grey +afternoon, and a robin alighted softly on the window-sill and, putting +his head on one side, looked into the library at the pair sitting on +the sofa. + +Neither had spoken for a time. To-morrow there would probably be +lawyers to see and the funeral to arrange for, and a hundred things to +do; but to-day there was a lull in which time itself seemed to have +stood still. Years had passed since this morning, and yet the clocks +marked only a few hours on their dials. Mrs. Ogilvie had died at +twelve o'clock, and the very flowers which she had placed by her table +still bloomed freshly, and a book she had been reading lay open where +she had left it. + +Yet it seemed a lifetime since she had died. + +During the interminable afternoon, and in the stillness of the big +library, with its ordered rows of books and solemn-looking, carved +cupboards, Peter and Jane Erskine sat together feeling oppressively +this great lapse of time that had passed. Their understanding of one +another had always been a strong bond between them; and now they felt +not like the lovers of yesterday, but like those whose lives have been +linked for years, and for whom loyalty and faith have grown deeper and +stronger as troubles and storms came. They looked across to the ruined +tower, where not very long ago, as we count time, they had told their +love to each other; and, so looking, had drawn closer by their common +sorrow. It seemed to them, in the hush of the library, that this time +of grief and dependence had something arresting in it. Life had not +demanded very much of them so far. To-day there was a strange sense +that its demands, perhaps even for them, would not always be small. + +The doctor and the lawyer summoned Peter presently, and afterwards he +and Jane were told particulars of Mrs. Ogilvie's fatal illness. + +'But she must have suffered--she must have suffered so!' said Jane, +with all the resentfulness that youth feels towards pain. 'Why did she +tell none of us? Why did none of us know?' + +'I ought to have guessed something,' said Peter miserably. 'I must +have been a fool not to see that something was wrong.' And together +they wondered what would have happened if this had been done or that, +and were inclined to reproach themselves for much in which they were in +no measure to blame. They walked back through the dim, still woods; +and at the white gates of Jane's pleasant home Peter left her, and she +went on alone to meet Miss Abingdon. + +It was late that night before the two sorrowful women went to bed; and +hardly was breakfast over in the morning before, with the restlessness +born of recent grief, Miss Abingdon was seeking anxiously to know what +she could do or what ought to be done. + +'If,' she said, 'I felt that I could even be of use by going up to town +and choosing the servants' mourning, I should feel that I was doing +something.' + +There were piles of patterns of black stuffs, which Miss Abingdon had +telegraphed for on the previous evening, lying in neat bundles on the +breakfast-table, and stamped with their several prices and the width of +the materials. Such things have often kept a woman sane in the first +despair of grief. + +'How would it do?' she said, 'to have a little crape on the body and +not on the skirt?' + +Jane replied that she thought it would do very nicely. + +Poor Jane! her eyes were big with weeping, and she had lain awake the +greater part of the night mourning for her friend who was gone. Now, +as she tried to give her attention to her aunt and to the vexed +question of the propriety of crape on the body, she thought, with +girlish ingenuousness, that she wanted Peter more than she had ever +wanted him before, and that she could do nothing until she had seen +him. And across her grief came one great flash of joy as she realized +that in all her troubles and sorrows she would have him with her. + +'There he is now,' said Miss Abingdon, 'coming up the drive! Jane, my +dear, how awfully ill Peter looks. Oh, my dear, you should have told +me how ill he looks!' + +Jane went out to the hall door without speaking. 'What is wrong?' she +said briefly. 'Come into my sitting-room, Peter, and tell me what is +wrong.' + +'I 'd rather be outside, if you don't mind,' said Peter, the primitive +man strong in him again. + +There had been a storm in the night, after the unusual stillness of the +afternoon, accompanied by heavy rain. Now the sun shone fitfully, and +the disordered gardens and lawns were strewn with branches and +countless leaves which chased each other, bowling along on their edges +and dancing in mad eddies and circles. + +'Let's get out of sight of the house,' said Peter; and they went into +the high-walled garden and sat down on one of Miss Abingdon's +cheerful-looking white seats. + +There were long borders of dripping, storm-dashed flowers in front of +them, and mignonette run to seed, and dahlias filled with moisture to +their brims. Some gardeners were busy tying up saplings which had been +detached from their stakes, and the beech trees on the other side of +the high walls of the garden tossed their branches together and sighed +a little. + +Peter waited for a minute or two until the gardeners had moved out of +hearing, and then said abruptly and with difficulty: 'You know those +papers that the doctor gave me yesterday?' + +'Those notes and things which were on her writing-table?' Jane asked. + +Peter nodded his head, and then with an effort began again--this time +with an attempt at formality--'I 'm sorry to have to tell you that +there is something in one of them that I shall have to speak to you +about.' + +'Something in one of your mother's notes?' asked Jane, her level eyes +turned questioningly upon him. + +'I 'm telling it all wrong,' said Peter distractedly, 'and making it +worse for you.' + +'Are you quite sure that you need tell me anything at all?' asked Jane, +and she laid her hand in his. + +'I am quite sure,' he said; and then a very surprising thing happened, +for he put Jane's hand aside and stood up before her. + +'I 'm not even going to take your hand,' he said, 'until I have told +you all about it. You see, there was a letter addressed to me amongst +those on her writing-table yesterday. I 've shown it to the lawyer, +but neither he nor I can make anything of it. It is directed to me to +be given to me at her death; but she must have died while she was +writing it. It leaves off in the middle of a sentence.' + +'I think,' said Jane slowly, 'that nothing matters in the whole world +so long as we have each other.' + +'Ah, my dear!' said Peter, and he sat down on the bench and took her +hand again. 'I 'll show you the letter,' he said suddenly, and brought +the sheet of notepaper out of his pocket. + +'May I read it?' said Jane. + +'Yes, if you will,' he replied. + +Afterwards they could tell every word of the unfinished letter by +heart; but at the first reading the words seemed merely to puzzle Jane +Erskine, and conveyed very little sense to her. + +'When you get this letter I shall be dead,' wrote the woman who had +meant to live for many years, 'and before I die I think there is +something which I had better tell you. I am not haunted by remorse nor +indulging in a deathbed repentance, and I shall merely ask you not to +hate me more than you can help when you have finished reading this +letter. You must often have heard of your elder brother who died when +I was in Spain, the year after your father's death. He did not die----' + +'There must be something more,' said Jane. She turned the page this +way and that, as though to read some writing not decipherable by other +eyes. + +'I 've looked everywhere,' said Peter; 'there 's nothing more. +Besides, you see, she stops in the middle of a sheet of notepaper. Why +should she have written anything else on another piece?' + +They read the letter again together, scanning the words line by line. + +'What can it mean?' she said at last. + +'I have evidently got an elder brother,' said Peter briefly, 'to whom +everything belongs. Most people remember that my mother took a curious +antipathy to the other little chap when I was born. I can't make it +out in any possible way--no one can, of course. But it seems pretty +plain that no will can be proved, nor can I touch anything, until my +brother is known to be either dead or alive.' + +'What can we do?' said Jane. Their two hands were locked together, and +the trouble was the trouble of both. + +'I can go out to Spain, where he is supposed to have died,' said Peter, +'and make inquiries.' + +'I want to ask you something,' said Jane, after a pause. 'Let us be +married quietly, first of all, and then we can do everything together.' + +'I 'm probably a pauper,' he said simply, 'without the right to a +single stone of Bowshott. I went fully into my father's will with the +lawyer last night, and he leaves nearly everything to the eldest son.' + +'Dear Peter!' protested Jane, accepting Peter's statement, but brushing +aside its purport. + +They talked on far into the morning, at one time half distrusting the +evidence of their eyes which read the letter, at another looking far +into the future to try to pierce the veil of darkness that at present +shrouded it. Then, for there were many things to do, the young man +turned his face homeward again, and Jane sat on alone in the garden, +looking with eyes that hardly were conscious of seeing what they rested +on, while the wet branches of the beech trees rocked themselves +together, and the tearful autumn sunshine flickered on the disordered +beds of mignonette. She sat there until the stable clock struck one, +then rose and went indoors. One important decision had been made. +They would be married quietly on the day Mrs. Ogilvie had fixed for the +wedding; and then together they would seek the brother who, if he were +still alive, would be brother to them both. + +But the Court of Chancery took that reasonable view of the case which, +as it frequently happens, is directly opposed to the view-sentimental. +The Court of Chancery, in fact, refused to sanction the marriage of a +minor with a man without settled prospects, and one whose position in +the world was not confirmed by the possession either of money or of +lands. At the age of twenty-five Miss Erskine might do as she liked; +until then the Court of Chancery decided that she should divide her +time each year between her two guardians, with whom she had always +lived. No protests were of any avail, and wise relations and friends +were agreed in thinking that it was better to postpone the marriage, at +least for a time. + +The autumn passed miserably. Peter went to Juarez first of all, and +proved to be substantially true what at first he had supposed might +have been the disordered fancy of a sick woman's mind. There was no +record of the death of Edward Ogilvie, nor did any entry in registers +show the name of an English child in the year when he was supposed to +have died. No little grave in the cemetery marked his resting-place. +One fact, at least, seemed established, and that was that Peter's elder +brother had not died in infancy at Juarez. + +Not much more than this could be proved, and Peter returned home to +find that for the present nothing was legally his. Pending inquiries +Bowshott was closed. Those who were in ignorance of the real state of +affairs talked glibly of enormous death-duties which had crippled, for +a time, even the immense Ogilvie estates, and had rendered it necessary +for Peter to shut up the house and live economically. The countryside, +which called itself gay, met at many little parties and talked +charitably of the woman who was gone, saying, with an unconscious sense +of patronage, that they had always liked Mrs. Ogilvie in spite of her +faults. Death, the great leveller, had brought their unapproachable +neighbour nearer to them; they were not afraid of her now. It was +strange to think that she was really less than one of themselves in the +cold isolation and the pathetic impotence of the grave. They could +hardly picture her yet as a powerless thing--the keen, narrowing eyes +closed, the sharp-edged poniard of her speech for ever sheathed. + +Meanwhile, papers were examined, and every box and chest which +contained written matter was searched for a clue to the missing child. +Peter was engaged in long consultations with detectives, and lawyers +were running up goodly bills, and British Consuls were making +investigations abroad. A whole train of inquiries was set in motion, +and pens and tongues were busy. The powerful hand of the law stretched +itself out in secret to this country and to that, only to be met with a +baffling failure to hold or to discover anything. Money was spent +lavishly, and great brains tried to solve the mystery; and Mrs. Ogilvie +lay in her grave in a silence that could not be broken, her hand, which +had traced the few lines on one sheet of notepaper, cold and still for +ever. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +When Peter came back from Spain he came to an empty house. The big +reception rooms at Bowshott were swathed in brown holland and +dust-sheets, pictures were covered and carpets rolled up, giving an air +of desolation to the place. The flowers in the formal gardens had all +been dug up, and the carefully tended designs--so like a stitchwork +pattern--had lost their mosaic of colour, leaving merely a careful +drawing of brown upon green. The banks of flowering exotics, which his +mother had loved to have in her drawing-rooms, had been removed to the +greenhouses and conservatories. The sight of the gardeners mowing, for +the last time in the season, the hundred-year-old turf of the lawn +conveyed a suggestion of regret with it; the old pony harnessed to the +mowing machine stepped sedately and quietly in his boots on the close, +fine grass. Everything about Bowshott looked stately and beautiful in +the clean, sharp air of the morning, when Peter drove up to the +entrance after a long night journey and ascended the flight of steps +leading to the hall door. + +His return to the inheritance which had been indisputably his since he +was a little boy had a horrible feeling of unreality about it. Half a +dozen times in the course of the morning he had to check himself when +he found his thoughts wandering to alterations or improvements, and to +tell himself, with a bewildered feeling, that perhaps he had not a +right to a flower in the garden or a chair in the house. + +'I can't believe it's not mine,' he said aloud, as he drove up the long +avenue from the station in his dog-cart, with one of the famous +Bowshott hackneys in the shafts. 'I can't believe it's not mine!' +Many people might have found in the singular unhomeliness of the big +house a just cause for withholding their affection from it, but Peter +had always loved it. Every corner of the place was full of memories to +him. Here was the wall of the terrace off which, as a little boy, he +used to jump, making horrible heelmarks in the turf where he alighted; +and there was the stone summer-house, built after the fashion of a +small Greek temple, but only interesting to Peter Ogilvie from the fact +that he used to keep his wheelbarrow and garden tools there. He +remembered the first day when it had suddenly struck him that the +geometrically shaped flower-beds were designed after a pattern, and he +had counted, with his nurse, the loops and circles in the design. +There, again, were the fountains with their silver spray, in whose +basins, by the inexorable but utterly unintelligible law of the +nursery, he had never been allowed to play. Here was the clock on the +tower which used to boom out every hour as it passed, but of whose +strokes he was never conscious except when he heard it at night. +Passing inside the house was the hall, with its big round tables by the +fire, and beyond that was the library and his mother's drawing-room; +while in the older wings of the house were the ballroom where Charles +I. had banqueted, and the Sevres sitting-room, so called from the china +plaques let into the mantelpiece, where he had made love. + +'I hope, if my brother is alive, that he is a good sort of chap,' said +Peter. + +He breakfasted in the tapestried room which he had ordered to be kept +open for him, and then went into the library to write his letters. He +had a hundred things to do. At lunch-time he interviewed his steward, +his agent, his stud-groom, and the other heads of departments of a +large estate. The horses were to be sold with the exception of a few +favourites. The gardens were to be kept up as usual. + +Some dogs of his mother's would be cared for, his bankers would pay the +usual subscriptions to local charities, and the almshouses in the +village were to be maintained as they had always been maintained. + +After lunch Mr. Semple, the lawyer, arrived. He was a pleasant man and +a keen botanist. The gardens at Bowshott were a delight to him, and +Peter had often found him good company over a cigar in the evenings. +Mr. Semple was one of those who had throughout urged secrecy and +caution in the matter of the late Mrs. Ogilvie's communication. 'In +the first place,' he said, 'it may still be proved to have been an +hallucination of her mind, attendant upon her state of health; and, in +the second place, anything like publicity might bring a host of +aspirants and adventurers whose claims would take months of +investigation to dispose of.' He advised that everything about the +house should remain in its present state for a year, until a proper +legal inquiry into the disappearance of the elder son could be +instituted. + +'He may have died as a child, although he wasn't buried at Juarez,' +said Peter. + +Jane had departed to spend her usual six months of the year with +General Erskine, but she had written to say, positively, that she knew +it would come all right; and whenever Peter was downhearted he always +thought of her letter, believing, in all simplicity, that Jane was +never wrong. If only she were at Miss Abingdon's now, instead of in +her uncle's house in Grosvenor Place! + +'She 'll miss the hunting, I 'm afraid,' he thought miserably, +contrasting their present separation with all the joy and happiness +that they had so fully intended should be theirs this winter. + +Mr. Semple had a shrewdness acquired from many years' experience in +legal matters, and he shook his head when Peter made the suggestion +that probably his brother had died in infancy. 'The conclusion I have +arrived at, after years of legal work,' he said, 'is that the +undesirable person lives, while the useful or much wanted one dies. +Those who encumber the ground remain longest upon it, and the person in +receipt of a large annuity or pension is proverbially long-lived. +However, we have so far not found a single trace of the existence of +Edward Ogilvie, though you must remember we have not yet ascertained in +which different parts of Spain your mother lived during those two years +which she spent there.' + +'I don't see who on earth is to tell us!' ejaculated Peter. 'She +generally had foreign maids about her, and I think I always had French +nurses. I never heard of any old servant who went with her on her +travels; and although, of course, money was paid to her by her bank, +and letters were forwarded to her by the bankers, the actual addresses +to which they were sent have not been kept after an interval of +twenty-five years. One of the old clerks at Coutts's remembers, in an +indefinite sort of way, that he forwarded packages for a long time to +Madrid, and afterwards, he thinks, to Toledo, and then farther south, +and at one time to Cintra; but my mother's headquarters seem always to +have been in Granada, and the clerk says that he can give me no dates +nor indeed any exact information.' + +'I did not know she had been at Cintra or Toledo,' said Mr. Semple +thoughtfully. + +'I won't swear that she had,' said Peter. 'The Peninsula wasn't so +generally known twenty-five years ago as it is now. Travelling was +difficult then, and people in England, who have not themselves +travelled much, are very liable to get confused about the names of +foreign places.' + +'Still,' said the lawyer, 'Cintra and Toledo are places that every one +knows.' + +'You mean,' said Peter, 'that in a well-known place, with English +people living in it, there would be more likelihood of getting the +information which we want?' + +'I mean,' said Mr. Semple, 'that, as there is no evidence of your +brother ever having been seen at Juarez, the next thing is to find out +in what place there is evidence of his appearance.' + +It was late afternoon, and as all clerical work for the day was now +finished, Peter suggested and Mr. Semple readily agreed to a walk in +the gardens. There was nothing left in the flower-beds, but the +conservatories and the orchid-house were a real feast of pleasure to +the lawyer. He went into the outer hall to fetch his stick and coat, +and then, turning back towards his host, he made a humorous signal to +convey the intelligence that some callers had driven up to the door. +Peter retreated precipitately; but Mr. Semple had already been seen and +was hailed by Mr. Lawrence, who had, a few minutes before, drawn up to +the entrance in his big red motor-car. Already Mr. Lawrence was in +earnest conversation with the butler, and his feminine-like +ejaculations could be heard now as he stood and conversed with the man +at the hall door. He stood on the doorstep while his guests in the +motor, who seemed to fear that they might be intrusive, looked as +though they would prefer to hasten their departure. + +'Ah, how-do-you-do, Mr. Semple,' said Mr. Lawrence in his high-pitched +voice, advancing a few steps into the hall. 'It is a great piece of +luck meeting you like this! I have just driven over with my friends, +Sir John and Lady Falconer.--Lady Falconer, may I introduce my friend, +Mr. Semple?--This is a very sad house to come to, Mr. Semple, is it +not?' he said, and paused, hoping for a little gossip from the lawyer. +'I was just driving through the village, and I have been to see the +church with my friends, and we thought we would run in and inquire how +everything was going on.' + +'Everything,' said the lawyer dryly, 'is going on as well as could be +expected.' + +'How is Peter?' said Mr. Lawrence, putting on an appropriate expression +of woe, which sat oddly on his big healthy red face. He was a kindly +man at heart, but an idle existence and his inveterate love of gossip +had made a poor creature of him. His healthy muscular frame did not +know the sensation of that honest fatigue which follows a good day's +work, and his mind travelled on lines of so little resistance that he +may be said to have exercised it almost as infrequently as he exercised +his body. + +Mr. Semple replied that Peter seemed well; and Mr. Lawrence, taking him +in an affectionate and familiar manner by the sleeve of his coat, said: +'I should so much like my friends to see the gardens; Peter would not +mind, would he?' + +Lady Falconer, the least intrusive of women, who had heard the +whispered colloquy, here interposed and said that, as she was very +cold, she would much prefer to go home; and Sir John added with simple +directness that he thought that, as the place was more or less shut up +at present, the gardens had better wait for a more fitting occasion. + +Mr. Lawrence protested that a walk would do Lady Falconer good, and +that, further, as they were leaving so soon, there would be no other +chance of seeing the famous gardens. In fact Mr. Lawrence had the door +of his motor-car open, and was helping Lady Falconer to alight almost +before he had obtained Mr. Semple's permission to make a tour of the +grounds. + +'It's all right,' he said, in his fussy, dictatorial way, divesting +himself of his heavy motor-coat, and preparing to act as cicerone. +'This place is thrown open once a week to the public; and although this +isn't a visitors' day all sorts of people come to visit Bowshott on the +other days of the week.' + +Lady Falconer felt slightly ruffled by the way in which her wishes had +been ignored in a small matter, and confined herself to talking to the +lawyer; but Mr. Lawrence overtook them on the pretext of pointing out +some special beauty of the design of the gardens, or of the fine view +that could be obtained from the high position of the terraces, and the +next moment he had plunged somewhat ruthlessly into the absorbing topic +of Mrs. Ogilvie's sudden death. + +'We were all shocked by it,' he said, emphasizing his words in his +gushing way; 'and of course to our little circle,' he said, turning to +Mr. Semple in an explanatory manner, 'it is more particularly painful +and distressing, because Sir John and Lady Falconer had only just +renewed a very old acquaintance with the deceased lady.' + +'We knew Mrs. Ogilvie very well in Spain,' said Lady Falconer in her +charming voice, still confining her remarks to Mr. Semple. + +'Ah!' said the lawyer, 'you knew her in Spain?' + +'Yes,' said Lady Falconer, 'and it was one of those friendships which I +believe it was intended on both sides should be renewed when we should +return to England; for, on my own and on my husband's part, it was a +matter of real liking. But we have been on foreign service ever since +we were married, and I never met Mrs. Ogilvie again till she drove over +to the races at Sedgwick.' + +Mr. Semple detached himself and his companion from the little group +which Mr. Lawrence was showing round with so much assiduity, and, as +they paced the broad walks of the terrace together, he said to her, +with an air of frank confidence, 'You were with her, perhaps, before +her elder child died?' + +'No,' said Lady Falconer, 'and rather strangely I never knew till the +other day that Mrs. Ogilvie had lost a child. There was only one boy +with her when we knew her at Juarez; and, although she was in deep +mourning at the time, we knew, of course, that she was in the first +year of her widowhood. But we had no idea, as I was telling Mrs. +Wrottesley the other day, that Mrs. Ogilvie had suffered a double loss.' + +Mr. Semple led the way through the orchid-house and stopped to examine +some of the blooms with absorbed attention. 'It is very chilly,' he +said, as he stepped out into the cold air after that of the hot +greenhouse; 'I hope you will not catch cold.' He locked his hands +lightly behind his back as he walked, and continued to talk to the +companion by his side. 'I wonder,' he said, 'if you could tell me +exactly the year and the month when you first met Mrs. Ogilvie? There +are various formalities to be gone through, in connection with Captain +Ogilvie's accession to the property, which necessitate hunting up +family records, and these have been very badly kept in the Ogilvie +family. Also, may I say this to you in confidence? There was an idea +in many people's minds that, about the time of Colonel Ogilvie's death +and the early infancy of the second son, Peter, Mrs. Ogilvie's mind was +slightly unhinged for a time. It may not have been so, but one cannot +help wondering if the concealment which she has used to keep from her +family the knowledge of the existence of this disease from which she +has died may not have been something like a return of an old mental +malady.' + +Lady Falconer looked genuinely distressed, and protested that certainly +when she knew Mrs. Ogilvie she was in all respects the most sane as +well as one of the most charming of women. 'And as for giving you +dates,' she said pleasantly, 'that is very easily done, for it was in +the year and the month of my marriage that I first met her.' + +'That would be?' said Mr. Semple, unlocking his clasped hands and +touching his fingers together in the characteristic manner of the +confidential lawyer. + +'That was in December 1885,' she said. + +'Ah!' said Mr. Semple contemplatively, 'then it must have been after +little Edward Ogilvie's death, of course.' + +'I cannot tell you,' said Lady Falconer, 'because, as I say, Mrs. +Ogilvie never spoke of her loss. Perhaps that does not seem to you +very remarkable, as we only met her in a most casual manner in an +out-of-the-way village in Spain; but we really were on terms of some +intimacy together, and one can only explain her silence by the fact, +which seems to be pretty generally known, that she was a woman of quite +unusual reserve.' + +'Yes,' said Mr. Semple; 'I believe no one ever knew Mrs. Ogilvie very +well.' + +Mr. Lawrence called to them from behind to suggest that the new row of +greenhouses was an immense improvement, and that they had cost over a +thousand pounds to build. + +Lady Falconer politely turned to look back, and then found herself +rather determinedly appropriated by the lawyer. + +'I always understood,' he said, 'that Mrs. Ogilvie travelled +considerably in Spain; and, of course, in those days when railways were +fewer, this was considered rather unusual, especially for a lady +travelling with no gentleman with her. How courageous she was!' + +'Much more courageous than I was even with my husband with me!' said +Lady Falconer. 'Mrs. Ogilvie had been in quite out-of-the-way parts of +the country; but she spoke the language perfectly, and I believe I used +to hear that she had Spanish blood in her veins.' + +'Yes; she had property at Granada, and beyond where the railway now +extends, in some of the more southern provinces,' hazarded Mr. Semple. + +'I think if I remember aright,' said Lady Falconer, 'that she had just +returned from Cintra when I met her.' + +'I have always heard that Cintra is a most lovely place,' said Mr. +Semple conversationally; 'and Mrs. Ogilvie had a peculiar love for +beautiful things.' + +'Cintra is beautiful, and Lisbon itself is a particularly fine town,' +assented Lady Falconer. + +'Mrs. Ogilvie was not there when you knew her?' + +Lawyers are inquisitive by profession, and Mr. Semple made his +inquiries with easy tact; his manner was kind and pleasant, and +betrayed so much real feeling for his clients that Lady Falconer was +tempted to continue the subject of conversation in which he seemed so +deeply interested. + +'I wish,' she said cordially, 'that I could remember more details that +might be of interest or of use to you. My husband and I have spent a +most varied life, in which many interesting experiences have, alas! +been almost forgotten; but we were both considerably impressed by Mrs. +Ogilvie's vivid personality and her very real charm. These made much +more impression on me than anything that she told us about her +journeys. She was fond of travelling by sea, I remember, and I +perfectly well recollect her telling my husband and me that she had +come by ship to Lisbon when she first came to travel in Spain for her +health.' + +'Yes, I remember hearing that,' said Mr. Semple. 'Indeed, I believe +that we took her passage for her, and in going over her papers the +other day we came across two letters which she had written home from +the ship.' + +'Talking of that,' said Lady Falconer, 'I wonder if the maid who was +with her during the time I was there could be of service to you? I +often think a maid must know her mistress with even a greater degree of +intimacy than many of her friends, and I remember it was a particularly +nice Spanish woman whose services she lent me when I was ill.' + +Mr. Semple would like to know if Lady Falconer remembered whether the +woman had come out from England with Mrs. Ogilvie. + +'I am afraid I cannot,' said Lady Falconer. 'But stop! Yes, I can. +The maid who came out from England with Mrs. Ogilvie left her because +she objected to the sea-voyage. It seems that the poor thing was so +ill that she never appeared the whole time, and as soon as the ship +touched port she went straight back to England by land. I remember it +quite well now, because that was a particularly stormy winter, with +dreadful gales; and when my illness was at its worst it was another +very stormy night, and this Spanish woman whom I mentioned just now +told me the story, and was evidently full of sympathy for the English +maid. She enlivened the whole of her watch during the night by +lamentations over the danger of sea-voyages, interspersed with prayers +to the Virgin. I shall never forget how it blew! The house shook with +the violence of the gale, and this Spanish woman sat by my bed and told +me stories of shipwreck and of bodies washed up on the beach. Mrs. +Ogilvie, I understand, had but lately parted with friends. Ah, I see +now! I do not speak Spanish well, and I remember I had an idea at the +time that this parting which the woman spoke of had something to do +with friends who had left her. But, of course, what the Spanish woman +must really have meant was that Mrs. Ogilvie had lately suffered a +bereavement.' + +'It is strange, then, is it not,' said the lawyer, 'that you should +connect this parting in your own mind with the storm that was raging on +the night of which you spoke?' + +'That doesn't seem to me very strange,' said Lady Falconer, 'because, +as I have said, I know so little Spanish. And yet I have an idea that +this very emotional serving-woman seemed to predict some horrible +catastrophe to the travellers.' + +'How little self-control some of these people have!' commented Mr. +Semple. 'I always wonder how it is that ladies choose foreign women to +be their personal attendants. I suppose you don't happen to know if +this maid remained long with Mrs. Ogilvie?' + +'I do not indeed,' said Lady Falconer; 'but I am under the impression +that Mrs. Ogilvie changed her maids frequently. This will coincide +with your view that she was in a nervous, uncontrolled condition at the +time, although in other respects I cannot honestly say that I ever +noticed the least sign of an unhinged mind. One thought that she was +too much alone; but, of course, her loss was a very recent one, and +everybody knows that in grief there often comes a desire for solitude.' + +'It was sad, therefore,' said Mr. Semple, 'that these friends of hers +should be leaving her just then. Mrs. Ogilvie would have been all the +better for having a few intimates about her. It would be useful if you +could remember their names.' + +'I do not even know that they were friends,' protested Lady Falconer; +'and, as I told you, the Spanish maid may well have been alluding to a +recent death. But indeed the incident made very little impression on +my mind; even if I were able to give you information about these +unknown friends I do not know how it could in any way help you to solve +the sad question of her mental state at the time.' + +'You think these friends of hers whom you speak of would not be able to +do so either?' + +'Ah!' cried Lady Falconer, 'you are accepting my vague recollections +almost as if they were legal evidence, whereas I really cannot tell you +whether the Spanish maid alluded to friends or to the death of Mrs. +Ogilvie's husband and her little boy. I can only say that the +impression that remains with me is that Mrs. Ogilvie had been seeing +some friends off on a voyage.' + +'It would be important to know who those friends were,' said Mr. Semple. + +'I wish I could help you!' said Lady Falconer. + +They made a longer _detour_ in the gardens than Lady Falconer would +have cared to make had she not been interested in the man by her side, +whose inquisitiveness was based upon friendship, and whose most +persistent interrogations had been touched with a quiet and sober tact +which contrasted pleasantly with Mr. Lawrence's dictatorial manner. +That genial and rubicund person was now seen approaching with Sir John, +and suggested that they 'ought to draw Peter for tea.' + +Lady Falconer declined the refreshment with considerable emphasis. +This visit to the closed house so recently shadowed by death seemed to +her in doubtful taste, and she would now have preferred to return home; +but Peter had seen them from the house, and being the least churlish of +men he came out on to the terrace and invited the party to come in. He +disliked Mr. Lawrence as much as it was in his uncritical nature to +dislike any one; but it is more than possible that he would have +resented a word said in his disfavour. 'Lawrence is a good fellow,' he +used to say charitably, 'only he is so beastly domestic.' + +Mr. Lawrence's conversation was indeed principally of the intimate +order of things, and was concerned with details of births, deaths, and +marriages, such as the feminine rather than the male mind is more +generally supposed to indulge in. He drank several cups of tea, and +was deeply interested in the fact that the tea-service was not the one +in common use at Bowshott, and that, therefore, probably the bulk of +the silver had been sent to the bank. He would have liked to make a +tour of the rooms to see if there were any other changes noticeable +anywhere, and he more than once remarked to his friends as they drove +home in the motor-car that he could not understand why the +drawing-rooms were swathed in brown holland unless Peter meant to go +away again. If so, when was the marriage to be? Why should it be +postponed for more than a brief period of mourning? And why did the +rooms which he had seen through the windows wear such a shut-up and +dismantled appearance? He found food for speculation during the whole +afternoon call, and in his inquisitive way gave his mind to finding out +as much as possible about his neighbour's doings. + +Lady Falconer sat by the fire of logs, while Mr. Lawrence's garrulous +conversation went on uninterruptedly. Peter found her quiet manner +attractive, and began to feel grateful to Mr. Lawrence for his +intrusiveness, without which he would not have enjoyed a conversation +with this pleasant, gentle-mannered woman seated thoughtfully by the +fire. + +'May I ask a favour?' said Mr. Lawrence gushingly, laying his hand upon +Peter's shoulder. 'I want awfully to see that new heating apparatus +you have had put in downstairs. I was recommending it the other day to +Carstairs; but I want to know something more about it, and then I shall +be able to explain it better. How much coal, for instance, do you find +it consumes?' + +When the two had sought the lower regions Mr. Semple took Peter's +vacant chair by the fire. Lady Falconer held her muff between her and +the blaze, and her face was in shadow. The lawyer said briefly, 'We +are in great perplexity, and I think you can help us, and I feel +sure'--he looked at her with admiration--'that whatever I say to you +will be received in confidence.' + +'It shall be in confidence,' said Lady Falconer. + +'At the same time,' said Mr. Semple, 'I must tell you that I mean to +ask you a great many questions, and tell you very little in return--at +least for the present. In the first place, it is all-important that we +should know when Mrs. Ogilvie's elder boy died.' + +'And I,' said Lady Falconer hopelessly, 'did not even know until the +other day that she had had another boy.' + +'And yet,' said the lawyer, 'however slight the chain of evidence is, +we must follow it closely. You are probably the person who saw Mrs. +Ogilvie first after the death of the child.' + +'That I can hardly believe,' protested Lady Falconer. 'It seems to me +that, however reserved a woman might be, she would still let another +woman know about so intimate a trouble.' + +'Mrs. Ogilvie was a very unusual woman,' said Mr. Semple. + +'But even so----' began Lady Falconer. + +'Even so,' repeated the lawyer, 'my friend Peter and his talkative +neighbour will soon be back again, and I must examine my witness before +they return.' + +'But a witness,' exclaimed Lady Falconer, 'whose evidence is based on +the only-half-intelligible gossip of a Spanish serving-woman made +twenty-five years ago, and a week spent in an out-of-the-way +mountain-village where she was ill nearly the whole time!' + +Mr. Semple waved aside protests. 'Do forgive me for bothering you,' he +said, 'and try to remember positively if there were any friends or +neighbours who came about the house of whom we could perhaps ask +tidings?' + +'I am sure there were none,' said Lady Falconer. 'The charm of the +place to Mrs. Ogilvie was, I know, its solitude, just as was its charm +for us also.' + +'No English people?' + +'None, I am quite sure.' + +'You have no idea who those friends were to whom Mrs. Ogilvie had +lately said good-bye, and who were starting on a voyage?' + +'I think,' said Lady Falconer slowly, 'it was because the storm blew so +loudly that we spoke of them; and, yes, I am sure the woman crossed +herself and prayed for those at sea.' + +She hesitated, and Mr. Semple giving her a quick glance said, 'I am +only asking for a woman's impression.' + +'And at this length of time I cannot even tell you how I came to have +this impression,' she replied, 'and yet the picture remains in my mind +that these people, whoever they were, were sailing from Lisbon. The +maid who waited upon me had evidently been engaged in Lisbon.' + +Peter and Mr. Lawrence were heard in the hall outside, and the +motor-car was at the door. + +'Thank you very much,' said the lawyer, as the door opened. + +Mr. Semple left the following morning, and did not return until the end +of the week. He was a contented man, and made an excellent companion, +and Peter enjoyed seeing him again and having his companionship at +dinner on the night of his return. He was always interested in +something, and quite disposed to take a book and remain quiet when his +client was busy or disinclined for conversation. He and Peter smoked +in silence for a considerable time after the servants had left the +room, and even when an adjournment had been made to the library the +lawyer, who was possibly tired after his journey, sat quietly in a +leather armchair by the fire without saying anything. + +Peter began to talk about the small items of news of the neighbourhood. +'The Falconers have left,' he said. 'I wonder what they found to amuse +them at Lawrence's place?' + +'Lawrence himself, perhaps,' said Mr. Semple dryly. + +'But Lady Falconer does not even laugh at people,' replied Peter. 'I +thought her a very charming woman.' + +'She is a very charming woman,' replied Mr. Semple, 'and she used to +know your mother long ago in Spain.' + +Peter took his cigar out of his mouth, and turned interrogatively +towards the lawyer. 'I don't suppose she was able to tell you +anything?' he said, with a sharp note of interest in his voice. + +'She was able to tell me nothing,' said Mr. Semple, 'except a woman's +impression of a conversation she had with a Spanish serving-woman.' + +'I should like to hear all she had to say,' said Peter briefly. + +'Ships sailing for Argentine stop at Lisbon and take up passengers +there,' said Mr. Semple. 'I have been to Lisbon since I last saw you. +Mrs. Ogilvie paid the passage-money for a married couple and a child +who sailed from that place in December of the year in which your +brother is said to have died.' + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +'I think I 'll go over and see Toffy,' said Peter to himself one day in +the following week. Mr. Semple had been down to Bowshott again, +bringing a mass of correspondence with him, and had left that morning. +Nigel Christopherson was ill at Hulworth with one of his usual +appalling colds, which brought him as nearly as possible to the grave +every time they attacked him. Peter once again read through the +letters and papers which he and the family lawyer had pored over until +the small hours of this morning, and then he ordered his horse and rode +over to see his friend. + +No one ever arrived at Hulworth without remarking on the almost +grotesque ugliness of the house. It was a flat-faced, barrack-like +residence, with a stuccoed front and rows of ill-designed windows. A +grim-looking flight of stone stairs with iron railings led to the front +door, and beyond that were large and hideous rooms filled with +treasures of art incongruously hung on lamentable wall-papers or +pendent over pieces of furniture which would have made a connoisseur's +eyes ache. The house and its furnishings were a strange mixture; the +owner of the grim pile, be it said, had a mind which presented a blank +to the dictates of art, and it puzzled him sorely to determine which of +his possessions was beautiful and which was not. He had heard people +become enthusiastic over his pictures, which he thought hideous, while +they had frankly abused his furniture, which he was inclined to think +was everything that was desirable. + +'There 's only one way,' he used to say hopelessly, 'in which a fellow +can know whether a thing is ugly or the reverse, and that is by fixing +a price to it. If only some one would be kind enough to stick on a lot +of labels telling me what the things are worth I should know what to +admire and what to shudder at; but, as it is, the things which I +personally like are always the things which other people abuse.' + +And, alas for Sir Nigel and his lightly held treasures of art! his +pictures and the vases ranged in great glass cases in the hall were +heirlooms, and Toffy in his most impecunious days would often look at +them sadly and shake his head, murmuring to himself, 'I 'd take five +hundred pounds for the lot, and be glad to get rid of them.' There +were days when in a gentle, philosophical way he felt a positive sense +of injury in thinking of the vases behind the big glass doors, and he +would then go into intricate and complicated sums in arithmetic whereby +he could tell what it cost him per annum to look at the contents of the +cases and the old portraits in their dim frames. + +This afternoon he was lying on a florid and uncomfortable-looking sofa +in a very large drawing-room, in front of a fireplace of white marble +in scroll patterns and with a fender of polished steel. It was +probably the ugliest as well as the least comfortable room in the +house, but it happened to be the only one in which there was a good +fire that afternoon; and Toffy, descending from his bedroom, weak and +ill with influenza, had come in there at two o'clock, and was now lying +down with a railway-rug placed across his feet, and his head +uncomfortably supported by a hard roller-cushion and an ornamentation +in mahogany which gracefully finished off the pattern of the +sofa-frame. Many men when they are ill take the precaution of making +their wills; Sir Nigel's preparation for a possible early demise always +took the form of elaborately and sadly adding up his accounts. He had +a large ledger beside him on the sofa, and slips of paper covered with +intricate figures which neither he nor any one else could decipher. + +His faithful valet Hopwood had been dispatched to London in order to +learn chauffeur's work; for Toffy had decided, after working the matter +out to a fraction, that a considerable saving could be effected in this +way. His debts to the garage were being duly entered amongst Toffy's +liabilities at this moment as he lay on the sofa in the vast cold +drawing-room. + +The drawing-room was not often used now. But it was the custom of his +housekeeper to air the rooms once a week; and, this being Wednesday, +she had lighted a fire there, while Lydia, a young housemaid and +general factotum, had allowed all other fires to go out. There was a +palpable sense of chilliness about the room, and in one corner of it +the green-and-gold wall-paper showed stains of damp. Long gilded +mirrors between tall windows occupied one side of the room, and had +marble shelves beneath them upon which were placed ornate Bohemian +glass vases and ormolu clocks and candlesticks. Some uncovered and +highly polished mahogany tables imparted a hard and somewhat undraped +look to the apartment. The windows, with their aching lines of +plate-glass, were draped with rep curtains of vivid green, while the +floor was covered with an Aubusson carpet exquisite in its colour and +design. And between the green woollen bell-ropes on each side of the +fireplace and above the cold hideousness of the marble mantelpiece hung +a portrait by Romney of a lady as beautiful as a flower. + +Sir Nigel had endeavoured to eat for lunch part of a chicken which +his housekeeper had warmed up with a little grey sauce; and he was +now wondering as he lay on the sofa whether any one would come if +he were to tug at the green bell-rope over his head, or whether he +could make his own way upstairs to his bedroom and get some fresh +pocket-handkerchiefs. He had had a temperature for the greater part +of the week, and he was now feeling as if his legs did not altogether +belong to him; while, to make up for their feebleness and lightness, +his head was most insistently there, and felt horribly hot and heavy. + +He had just decided that he had better mount the long stairs to his +room, for not only was there the consideration of handkerchiefs; there +was medicine too which the doctor had told him to take, but which he +always forgot at the right moment. He thought the journey had better +be made now, and he could do the two things at one and the same time. +He walked with uneven steps to the window and looked out upon some +stretches of field which were euphemistically termed the Park, and +watched a flock of sheep huddled together to protect themselves from +the first sharp touch of frost, when he heard the sound of hoofs and +saw Peter ride up to the door. + +'It's an extraordinary thing,' he said to himself as he saw his friend +dismount, 'Peter always seems to come when you want him. I believe he +has got some sort of instinct which tells him when his friends are down +on their luck!' + +Peter would, of course, fetch the medicine from upstairs, and the +pocket-handkerchiefs. Toffy wondered if he had ever felt ill in his +life, and thought to himself, gazing without envy at the neat, athletic +figure on the horse, what a good fellow he was. He crept back to the +sofa again, and extending his thin hand to Peter as he entered, said, +'You see here the wreck of my former self! Sit down, Peter, and ring +for tea; there isn't the smallest chance of your getting any!' + +'Why didn't you come to Bowshott, you ass, if you are ill?' said Peter +sternly. 'You will kill yourself some day coming down to this +half-warmed barn in the winter-time.' + +'It isn't half warmed,' said Toffy. 'I wish it were! This room is all +right, isn't it? I aired another sofa by sleeping on it last night.' + +'What on earth for?' demanded Peter, still in a tone of remonstrance. +Toffy had been his fag at Eton, and Peter had got into the habit of +taking care of him. He knew his friend's constitution better than most +people did, and he expended much affection upon him, and endeavoured +without any success to make him take care of himself. 'Why didn't you +sleep in your bed like a Christian?' he demanded sternly. 'You will +kill yourself if you go on playing the fool with your health!' + +'The sheets seemed a bit damp in my bed, I thought,' said Toffy simply. + +'Then why didn't your idiot of a housekeeper air them?' + +'The duty of airing sheets is invested in the person of one Lydia, the +niece of the above-mentioned housekeeper,' said Toffy. 'I asked her in +the morning if my sheets had been aired, and she said that they had +not. She further explained that she had taken the precaution of +feeling them, and that they had not seemed very wet!' + +'Oh, hang Mrs. Avory!' said Peter inwardly. 'Why has not Toffy got a +good wife to look after him? Look here,' he said decisively, 'I am +going to sleep over here to-night, and see that you go to bed, and I'm +going to get your sheets now and warm 'em.' + +'You 'll get a beastly dinner if you stay,' said Toffy through his nose. + +Peter brought the sheets down in a bundle, and placing a row of hideous +walnut-wood chairs with their legs in the fender, he proceeded to tinge +the fine linen sheets a deep brown. + +'They are warmed through,' he said grimly, when the smell of scorched +linen became intrusive. + +Peter made tea in the drawing-room and spilt a good deal of boiling +water on the steel fender, and then he drew the green rep curtains +across the cold windows, and made up a roaring fire, and pulled a +screen round the sofa. He fetched his friend's forgotten medicine from +his bedroom and administered it, and told him with a lame attempt at +jocosity that he should have a penny if he took it like a lamb! Peter +was full of small jokes this afternoon, and full, too, of a certain +restlessness which had not expended itself when he had warmed sheets +and made up fires and brewed tea to the destruction of the Hulworth +steel fenders. He talked cheerfully on a dozen topics of conversation +current in the neighbourhood, and on Toffy's invitation he sent a +servant over to Bowshott to give notice that he would stay the night, +and to bring back his things. + +'I have been doing up my accounts,' said Toffy, 'and I believe the +saddest book I ever read is my bank-book! A man has been down from the +British Museum to look at those vases in the hall, and he says that one +of them alone is worth four thousands pounds!--four thousand pounds, +Peter! for a vase that's eating its head off in a glass case, and might +be broken any day by a housemaid, while I perish with hunger!' + +'If it's money,' began Peter easily, 'you 're an idiot if you don't let +me know what you want.' + +And then the whole realization of his uncertain position smote him +sharply and cruelly for a moment as he remembered that he did not know +how he stood with the world as regards money, and that probably he was +not in the position to lend a five-pound note to any one. He had +accumulated through sheer laziness a certain number of large debts, the +payment of which had never troubled himself or his creditors, who were +only too glad to keep his name on their books; but now it seemed that +if he were to have merely a younger son's portion he might even find +himself in debt to his brother's estate. He had gone thoroughly with +the lawyer into the will of his father, and found that everything which +it was possible to tie up on the elder son had been willed to him. His +own share of the patrimony if his brother were still alive would be but +a small one. + +He got up from his chair and walked to the window, and pulling aside +the curtain looked out on the frosty garden. + +'It's going to be a bitter cold night,' he said. 'I think I will just +look in at your room again, and see if they have made up the fire +properly.' + +He returned to the drawing-room and took up two or three newspapers in +turn and laid them down again, while Toffy watched him gravely. + +'I 've had a bit of a jar lately,' he said at last, taking up his stand +with his back to the fire near the sofa. + +'Have some dinner first,' said Toffy, 'and then we 'll go into the +matter, as I always do with my creditors. You see, if one has a cook +like Mrs. Cosby, there is an element of chance in the matter of getting +dinner at all; and another thing is it may be so bad you won't survive +it; so it's not much use being miserable before dinner, is it, when +perhaps you may be buried comfortably and respectably afterwards?' + +The presence of Lydia, who listened open-mouthed to all that was said, +made conversation impossible, until at last, in an ecstasy of +importance at having broken a dessert dish, she placed the wine upon +the table and withdrew. Toffy carried the decanters into the +drawing-room, where he believed he and Peter would be more comfortable, +and having placed them on the table by the fire he congratulated his +friend that they had both survived the ordeal of dinner, and then he +suggested that Peter should tell him what was up. + +'Rather a beastly thing has happened,' said Peter. He rose from the +chair where he was sitting and went and stood by the marble +mantelpiece. The black tie which he wore seemed to accentuate his +fairness, and it was a boyish, unheroic figure which leaned against the +whiteness of the marble mantelpiece as he began his puzzling tale. It +did not take very long in the telling, and until he had finished Toffy +did not speak. Indeed, there was silence for some time in the room +after Peter had done, and then, there being no necessity for much +speech or protestation between the two, Toffy said merely, 'What are +you going to do?' + +'I am going to the Argentine next week,' said Peter. 'It seems proved +beyond any manner of doubt that my mother paid the passage of a woman +and a little boy to go there in the very month and in the year that my +brother was supposed to have died, and Cintra or Lisbon are the last +places where there is even the vaguest evidence of her having been seen +with two boys.' + +Toffy lay on the sofa thinking, his arm thrown above his head in the +attitude that was characteristic of him during the many weeks of +illness that he usually had in the year. + +'I can't think why,' he said, 'you should go yourself. There must be +plenty of lawyers in Buenos Ayres who would undertake to see the thing +through for you.' + +'Well, come,' said Peter, 'if my brother has been done out of the place +for twenty-five years, and if he is a good chap, and all that, I +suppose the least one could do would be to try and look as if one +didn't grudge giving him back his own.' + +Probably there is an element of fairness about English men and women +which obtrudes itself from time to time to their disadvantage; and +Peter already found himself occupying, in his own mind at least, the +position of the younger son. + +'We will brave the terrors of the vasty deep together,' said Toffy; +'it's no use your going alone.' + +'You ain't up to it,' said Peter gruffly, 'thanks all the same, old +chap.' + +'I must fly somewhere,' said Toffy, 'it doesn't much matter where.' + +'Has the usual acute financial crisis come?' Peter said, looking +affectionately at the long, thin figure on the sofa. 'You can't the +least deceive me into thinking you had better go into Argentine to hunt +for a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. It isn't good +enough!' + +'I shall have to get a lot of boots,' said Toffy thoughtfully; 'it +seems the right sort of thing to do when one is starting on an +expedition, and I would rather like to get some of those knives that +fellows seem to buy when they go out to South America.' + +'You see,' objected Peter, allowing the question of boots and +hunting-knives to lapse, 'the place is right enough, I have no doubt, +but it's pretty big, and I don't a bit know what is in front of me. I +'ll tell you what I will do, though, I 'll send for you as soon as I +get there if I find it's a white man's country at all, and then we will +jog round together.' + +'I suppose we couldn't go in a yacht?' said Toffy, inspired with a +sudden suggestion, and sitting up on the sofa full of grave interest. +'There 'd be much less chance of being copped on the pier than if one +travelled on a liner. Another thing, I 'm not at all sure that a yacht +wouldn't be a good investment; it really is the only way to live +economically and keep out of the reach of duns at the same time. A +nice little eighty-tonner now, for instance, with Just two or three +hands and a boy on board. What could be cheaper than that? And you +could live the simple life to any extent that you liked! But of course +something larger would be wanted for Argentine, and she couldn't be +fitted out in time. No, Peter, I think I 'll risk having the heavy +hand of the law laid upon me at starting, and we 'll just have to lump +it and go in a mail steamer.' + +Peter laughed. 'My bold buccaneer!' he said. + +They sat silent for a time in the drawing-room with its crude colours +and priceless china, while the big fire in the burnished steel grate +roared with a jolly sound up the big chimney, and the air was frosty +and cold outside. The room despite its hideousness was full of +pleasant recollections to them both, for when Hulworth was not let +Toffy had often assembled bachelor parties there, and it had always +been a second home to Peter, where he had been wont to keep a couple of +guns and some of his 'things.' + +The actual journey to Argentine was not a matter demanding any courage +on the part of either of the young men, but the result of the journey +might have a grave effect on the fortune of Peter Ogilvie. Tomorrow +was to have been his wedding-day; and this fact being persistently +present to both men, they left the subject to the last. It was with an +effort that Peter said, before they parted for the night, 'Whatever +happens, we mean to try to be married when I come back. Jane is +awfully plucky about it, but this confounded Court of Chancery does not +seem to regard me with much favour at present.' + +'It's only for a year,' said Toffy hopefully. 'Let's make a solemn +covenant that we shall meet in this very room on the 25th of October +1911, with the wedding-day fixed for to-morrow again.' + +'Where is your Bible?' said Peter. 'If you haven't one in your pocket +or under your pillow, will it do if I kiss your account-book?' + +'The whole thing can be just as we intended it to be,' said Toffy +cheerfully. 'And this time next year Jane will be staying with Miss +Abingdon, and old Wrot will be ironing out his surplice--at least Mrs. +Wrot will, and he 'll look on and think he 's doing it. And I 'll be +here, probably with a cold in my head as usual, and thereto I plight +thee my troth!' + +He fingered in his pocket the wedding-ring which Peter had given him +for safe custody, and the care of which had seriously disturbed his +slumbers at night. 'I 'll keep the ring until then, Peter, and place +it on the third finger of Jane's left hand. No, no, you do that, by +the way; and I shall have to wait until I get a wife of my own.' + +'Here 's to her good health!' said Peter. And they endeavoured to be +lively, as befits the subject of weddings; but Peter was thinking that +perhaps his own wedding-day might be five years hence, and however they +might plan that it should be the same as they had first intended, it +was a long time to wait. And Toffy was wondering how long Horace Avory +meant to live, and if Carrie would mind very much his going to +Argentine, and whether she would write him one of those long +tear-blistered letters in her indistinct handwriting, which he found so +hard to read, and, suppose Horace Avory never died (as seemed quite +likely), what would be the end of it all? Also, he wondered whether +Carrie and Miss Sherard would get on well together if they were to +meet, and he hoped with manly stupidity that they might be friends. +But what he wondered more than anything else at present was whether +Kitty Sherard would allow him to go and say good-bye to her. Toffy was +feeling ill, and his vitality was low; in his weakness he thought with +an insistence that was almost homesick in its intensity how beautiful +it would be to see her in this ugly old house of his, in one of her +rose-coloured gowns, and with her brown curls and her hopelessly +baffling and bewildering manner of speech. + +And each of the two young men, being absorbed in quite other subjects, +talked cheerfully of the voyage, and speculated on what sort of sport +they might incidentally get; and they discussed much more seriously the +fishing flies and guns they should take with them than the possible +finding of Peter's brother or Peter's own change of fortune. + +Lydia, listening at the door before she went to bed, for no particular +reason except that her aunt had forbidden it, decided that her master +and Captain Ogilvie were planning a sporting expedition +together--'which means dullness and aunt for me for a few months to +come,' said Lydia, with a sniff. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +So Peter went to London to collect his kit and to say good-bye to Jane +Erskine, and Nigel Christopherson ordered a great many new boots of +various designs, and some warlike weapons, and then there came the time +when he had to write to Mrs. Avory to say that he was going away, and +when in the solitude of his life at Hulworth he had time to sit down +and wonder what she would think about it. He was not long left in +doubt. A telegram came first, and then a letter. 'Dearest, dearest,' +this ran, 'I cannot let you go away.' It was a horribly compromising +letter, but it came from a poor little woman who had fought long odds, +and who was often very tired, and who sat for the greater part of the +day making blouses for which she was seldom paid. Mrs. Avory was not a +strong woman, nor in any way a great-minded woman, but she was one who, +in spite of weakness and a good deal of silliness, clung almost +fiercely to the fact that she must be good, and who kept faithfully the +promises she had made to a wholly unworthy person in the village church +at home twelve years ago. Every word of the letter was an appeal to +her dear, dear Nigel to stay in England and not leave her alone. She +had so few friends and so little to look forward to except his Sunday +visits. And then this poor tear-blotched letter which was neither very +grammatical nor legibly written changed its tone suddenly, and Mrs. +Avory said that perhaps it was better that he should go. Everything +was very difficult, and it seemed that although his society was the one +thing that she loved in the world, perhaps the fact of seeing him made +things almost more difficult. Her husband, she heard, had been +watching her movements lately; they said he wanted to marry some one +else, so really and truly Nigel had better go, and if possible forget +all about her for ever. + +Toffy finished reading the letter and groaned. 'Was she never to have +a good time!' he wondered, thinking of the dull room and the +half-finished blouses upon the table, the economical gas jets in the +fireplace in lieu of the glow of a bright fire, and the dingy paper on +the walls. The whole thing was too hard on her, he thought, and +everything in the world seemed to be against her. + +Long ago, when he was little more than a boy, he had met Horace Avory +and his wife in an out-of-the-way fishing village in Wales. Avory's +treatment of the small timid woman had roused pity and resentment in +Toffy's mind. A student of character would have seen directly that a +woman with more power and strength of mind--a woman with a bit of the +bully in herself--who could have taken the upper hand with the big +red-faced tyrant, might have made a very fairly good imitation of a +gentleman, and perhaps even of a good husband, of Avory. But his +wife--timid, and all too gentle--could only wince under the things he +said, or let her big eyes suddenly brim over with tears. Toffy began +to writhe under the cruel speeches which Avory made to her; he never +saw for an instant that there was a fault anywhere save with the +husband. She was one of those women who invariably inspire sweeping +and contradictory criticisms on the whole of her sex, one man finding +in her a proof that all women are angels, and the next discovering as +certainly that all women are fools. + +Presently Avory left the fishing village on the plea of business and +went back to London, leaving his wife and child in the little hotel by +the sea. There had followed a whole beautiful sunlit month of peace +and quiet for Mrs. Avory, while her little girl played on the sands and +she worked and read, or walked and fished with Nigel, and the colour +came back to her cheeks, and the vague look of terror left her eyes. +And Toffy determined that Mrs. Avory should have a good time for once. + +The years between boyhood and manhood had been bridged over by a sense +that some one needed his care, and that he was a protection to a little +woman who was weak and unhappy. And, whether it was love or not, the +thing was honourable and straightforward as an English boy can make it. +And then one night by the late post had come a letter from Horace Avory +of a kind particularly calculated to wound. Mrs. Avory brought it to +Toffy to read out on the sands; and she broke down suddenly and sobbed +as though her heart would break; and Toffy to comfort her had told her +that he loved her, and meant every word he said, and asked what on +earth he could do for her, and said that she must really try not to cry +or it would make her ill. He put his arm round the trembling +form,--and Mrs. Avory took his hand in hers and clung to it; and then, +comforted, she had dried her eyes at last, and gone back to the little +hotel again. Toffy saw the whole scene quite plainly before him now. +The little whitewashed inn with the hill behind it, the moonlit water +of the bay, and the tide coming rolling in across the wet sands. When +they met on the following day he told her with boyish chivalry that he +would wait for her for years if need were, and that some day they +should be happy together. + +That had all happened long ago now, and during the years between they +had hoped quite openly and candidly that it would all come right some +day, although hardly saying even to themselves that the coming right +was dependent upon Horace Avory's death. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Avory worked hard at her unremunerative tasks, and +trimmed parasols and cut out blouses, and worked hopefully, because she +knew that it would all come right some day, and because Nigel had said +that he loved her. And Nigel wrote regularly to her, and always went +to see her on Sunday when he was in London. And every night of his +life of late he had dreamed of a girl dressed in rose colour, who had +given him her photograph to put on his writing-table. + +He read Mrs. Avory's letter again (she wrote probably the worst hand in +Christendom), and when he had spelt the ill-formed words once more, he +discovered that the blotched and scrawled writing contained a +postscript which he had not at first noticed. 'After all, you had +better not come here,' it said, 'but I will run down and see you +to-morrow. It is far the best and wisest plan, and I must say +good-bye. Please expect me by the three o'clock train.' The letter, +as usual, had not been posted in time to reach him in the morning, and +Toffy realized almost with a sense of disaster that to-morrow was now +to-day, and that it was too late to write and expostulate or to suggest +to Mrs. Avory how unwise her visit would be. There was nothing for it +but to order the motor-car and go to the station to meet her, and +afterwards to give her tea in the library, and say to her all the +comforting and consoling things he could think of. + +Mrs. Avory appeared more than usually worn and thin this afternoon; and +her eyes, so ready to brim with tears, looked pathetically large in her +sallow little face. She had been sitting up late for many nights to +finish her work, and there had been 'bothers' in her little household +which she took to heart and worried over. Her dress looked worn and +shabby, and her gloves were darned. The nervousness in her manner was +increased by ill-health, and she reiterated that she knew she had done +the best thing in running down here quietly for an hour, and that she +had quite meant to bring her child and the governess; but Dorothy had +not been well, and she did not like either to bring her or to leave her +alone. + +'I didn't know until the last minute that they couldn't come,' she +reiterated nervously. Perhaps--who knows?--even she, poor soul, was +dimly conscious that she had done a not very wise deed. But Toffy was +all that was comforting and tender towards her, told her without +flinching that of course she had done the right thing, and that it was +awfully plucky of her to have come. He took off the damp tweed cape +which she wore and led her to the fire. They had tea together in the +big cold drawing-room, and then came the time to say good-bye, and Mrs. +Avory pleaded to walk to the station for the sake of one last talk +together, and her watch--which never kept scrupulous time--deceiving +her as to the hour, she missed the last train at the little branch +station at Hulworth, and then wondered tearfully, and with an access of +nervousness which rendered her almost hysterical, what she should do. + +Toffy had a Bradshaw twelve months old which he promised to consult if +Mrs. Avory would walk back with him across the fields again to the +house. He consoled her as best he could, and assured her that it would +be all right. And Mrs. Cosby, who was really a great woman at a +crisis, suggested suddenly and with brilliance that there was a train +from the main station ten miles off at eight o'clock, and that the +motor, if it did not break down, might take them there in half an hour. +She provided warm wraps for the lady, and Nigel found rugs for her; and +when all had been arranged, and she who got so little pleasure started +for a moonlight drive in the cold crisp air, with Nigel taking care of +her and wrapping her up warmly in rugs and furs, Mrs. Avory felt with a +sudden rush of that joy of which she had so little experience that all +had turned out happily and for the best. + +It was not Toffy's fault upon this occasion that the motor-car came to +grief. Mr. Lawrence's big Panhard ran into them when they were seven +miles from home, and Mrs. Avory was taken back to Hulworth insensible +and with a broken arm. Mr. Lawrence was himself bruised and shaken, +but he helped to take Mrs. Avory home, where the housekeeper's greeting +convinced him, if he had required convincing, that Mrs. Avory was +staying at Hulworth. He said good-night when he had done everything +that was useful and neighbourly, and had sent his chauffeur in his own +car for the doctor, and had been helpful in getting remedies and +suggesting cures. And the following day he had the pleasure of being +first with the news of Mrs. Avory's escapade. Half his friends and +neighbours heard all about it before lunch-time; his own +bruises--rather obtrusively displayed--were proof of the truth of his +story, if proof were needed. And Mr. Lawrence finished up his +well-spent morning by lunching with Miss Abingdon, and by recounting to +her in his high-pitched, gossiping voice his very latest piece of +intelligence. + +'I don't believe it,' said Miss Abingdon sharply. + +Sometimes these ladies of a sterner period than ourselves say +surprisingly rude things in the most natural and simple way. + +'But it's a fact, really!' said Mr. Lawrence, with enjoyment. 'Why, +the first thing the housekeeper said to her was, "So you 're back +again!" No one had seen Toffy for ages. He said he had influenza.' +Mr. Lawrence was going to add some jocular words to the effect that +Toffy was a sly dog, but something in Miss Abingdon's face checked him, +and he murmured only that it was an awful pity. + +And then Kitty Sherard came in; she was staying with Miss Abingdon for +a few days to console her for Jane's absence. Miss Abingdon did not +quite approve of her, but, alas for the frailty of humanity, a little +lightness and amusement are sometimes lacking in our otherwise +admirable English homes, and the man or woman who can provide them is +readily forgiven and easily excused. Miss Sherard was amusing; no one +could deny it. She told her _risque_ stories with the innocent look of +a child, while her big eyes were raised almost with an air of +questioning to her bearer's face. Also she was boundlessly +affectionate, although she said such dreadful things, and in fine, +where she was there were young men gathered together. + +She came up the drive now. Canon Wrottesley's two elder sons with her +and a sailor friend of theirs, and she was smiling at them all quite +indiscriminately and doing considerable damage to their hearts without +in the least intending it. + +Miss Sherard had been shooting duck in the marshes below Bowshott, +where Peter had given her leave to shoot when she liked; and she came +towards the house now, a miniature gun over her shoulder, and clad in a +brown shooting dress, with a knot of her favourite colour under her +chin. + +There was a certain jauntiness about Kitty which became her, where in +almost any one else it might have seemed outrageous. Even Miss +Abingdon always remembered that Kitty had lost her mother when she was +four years old, and since then had been the playmate and boon companion +of a man who had been accounted fast even in the go-ahead set in which +he lived, and who had taken his daughter to every race meeting in +England since the time when she could first sit beside him on the front +seat of his coach. He had never allowed her to go to school, and he +had dismissed half a dozen governesses in turn because they were trying +to make a prim little miss of her, and because they always insisted on +pouring out tea for him as if they expected him to marry them. When +Kitty was sixteen he dismissed 'the whole bothering lot of old women' +and finished her education himself. Lord Sherard spoke French like a +native, and was one of the best riders and sportsmen of his day. He +faithfully conveyed all that he knew to his daughter, with the result +that Kitty had more knowledge of French literature than of English, and +she and her father conversed but little with each other in their native +tongue. But the result as far as Kitty was concerned was that she had +turned out a beautiful and engaging young woman with eyes that looked +frankly and charitably on the world. She loved you so much that she +nearly always had her arm linked in yours when she told her absurd +little stories; and she smiled so delightedly when you saw the joke of +them, that even when you said, 'Well, really, Kitty!' you knew quite +well that hers was a sort of innocence of daring, and you warned her +severely that she must be very careful indeed to whom she said things +like that, but that of course it didn't matter a bit as far as you +yourself were concerned, because you understood her and loved her. And +because everybody else said exactly the same sort of thing to her, and +because no one would have ventured to crush that blithe and childlike +nature by one word of real disapproval, there was not much hope that +Kitty would ever reform and become sober-minded and well-behaved and +satisfactory. The plague of it was that you couldn't help loving her +whatever she did, and she loved you too, which was perfectly +intoxicating when you came to think of it, except that you knew that +she loved at least a hundred different people in exactly the same sort +of way. She kept her real affection for her father and Jane Erskine, +and lately she had fallen in love--which is a different thing--with Sir +Nigel Christopherson. + +Kitty stamped her feet in the hall, and then drew off her gloves and +came forward to the drawing-room fire, with the big white sheepskin in +front of it; and kneeling down before the blaze she told Mr. Lawrence +and Miss Abingdon collectively that they had had very good sport in the +marshes, and that she had brought back some duck for Miss Abingdon; and +didn't everybody think it was too awfully cold, and what would their +poor hunters do if a frost came? + +Finally, having enunciated all these small remarks, Miss Kitty turned a +radiant face on their visitor, who was stretched luxuriously in a big +armchair by the fire, and bade him tell her the very latest news, for +she expected all sorts of gossip and, if possible, some scandals from +him. + +Mr. Lawrence laughed delightedly; he was really proud of his reputation +as a scandal-monger. 'Well,' he said, 'I believe I can supply you with +the very latest thing of that description,' and then he told her the +story. + +Kitty had led a rough-and-tumble sort of life, and every one knew +perfectly well that hers had been a liberal education at the hands of +her father. Yet even Mr. Lawrence would not have blurted out his tale +to Jane Erskine, for instance, as he had just done to Kitty. But bless +you! every one knew that old Lord Sherard told his daughter his best +scenes, and that she stayed with him in Continental hotels which some +very particular mothers would not have allowed their daughters to +enter. Mr. Lawrence wound up by saying, in a very charitable way, that +he didn't blame the poor little woman, for she had a perfect beast of a +husband. + +Kitty was still kneeling on the white sheepskin rug and holding out her +cold hands to the blaze when Mr. Lawrence had finished; and Miss +Abingdon, who had tried once or twice without success to catch Mr. +Lawrence's eye and to check his loquacity, shook her head as she +realized that Kitty did not seem the least bit shocked. + +When Mr. Lawrence had left, Kitty changed her shooting dress for a +habit and announced to Miss Abingdon, who suggested that she should +rest for the remainder of the afternoon, that she was going to exercise +one of Jane's horses. She mounted the hunter and went off alone, +blowing kisses to Miss Abingdon from the tips of her riding gloves, and +so out of the white gates down the road to the left, and then into the +open country. She set her horse at a fence and flew over it. Her +small white teeth were pressed together, and her eyes, under level +black eye-brows, had a fierce look in them. She pulled her hat more +firmly down upon her brows and steered her hunter across country, as +though following the quickest burst of hounds of the season. Kitty was +a tireless rider, and Jane's hunter did not want exercise for some +little time after this. The country round Bowshott is known as 'stiff' +for hunting people, but Kitty had marked out a straight line for +herself, and took everything that came in her way with a sort of +foolhardiness which made a trifle of big hedges or yawning ditches, and +all the time she was saying to herself, 'I will never forgive him, +never!' She had given her whole heart to Nigel Christopherson, and +believed that he had given his to her. And now he was at Hulworth with +Mrs. Avory, and Mr. Lawrence was touring the country in his big red +motor-car telling everybody about it. + +Mrs. Wrottesley heard the story from her maid, who had it from Miss +Abingdon's butler, and she told it to her mistress when they were +counting charity blankets together in Mrs. Wrottesley's bedroom. The +canon was away from home, and Mrs. Wrottesley was having a few +uninterrupted days in which to do her work, without calls upon her to +come and admire Canon Wrottesley. The story was received very quietly +by her. She sat a full minute without saying anything at all, and then +she finished counting the blankets. When that useful task was over +Mrs. Wrottesley began to speak. This was a much more unusual event +with her than with most people, and what made it more forcible was that +she began to speak deliberately and with intention. + +'I am going to stay at Hulworth,' said Mrs. Wrottesley. 'Pack my box, +please, and order the carriage to be round in half an hour.' + +She drove over to Hulworth, her plain and rather austere face showing +very little expression upon it, and she reached the big ugly house to +find Toffy sitting over a smouldering fire in the drawing-room, his +hair rumpled up from his forehead and his head buried in his hands, and +Mrs. Avory upstairs still suffering from slight concussion of the brain. + +There are times when the strong arm of a man is the one needful and the +one serviceable thing in the world; but there are times again when it +is only a strong woman who is wanted, or who is capable of a certain +sort of work. + +'I don't know how you ever thought of coming,' said Toffy, looking at +her with eyes which were about as full of perplexity and helplessness +as a young man's could well be. 'I thought of writing to Peter, but +after all this is his last time with Jane, and I have no relations +myself, and I couldn't ask Lawrence not to say anything, because that +would have given away the whole show.' + +'I think I can settle everything satisfactorily with Mr. Lawrence,' +said Mrs. Wrottesley. 'Mr. Lawrence is proverbially ill-natured in his +own kind way, and it would not have been unlike him to omit the fact +that I was staying with you during the time Mrs. Avory was here.' + +'She came down yesterday afternoon to say good-bye to me,' said Toffy +eagerly. + +'And I arrived by the same train,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, 'which was +very convenient.' + +Toffy got up from his chair and crossed to the other side of the hearth +and kissed Mrs. Wrottesley. + +It was not an unusual thing for her to drive over to Hulworth to put +housekeeping matters straight when they were at their most acute stages +of discomfort, or when Toffy was more than common ill. She was quite +at home in the house, and she now drew up a writing-table to the fire +and penned a number of notes in her neat, precise hand, headed with the +Hulworth address, telling her friends how sad she considered the +accident of last night, how attentive Mr. Lawrence had been, and how, +of course, she must give up her engagements at home for the next few +days, as she would not dream of leaving until Mrs. Avory was able to +leave also. The notes fell like a series of cold douches upon the warm +interest and keen excitement prevalent at Culversham. Perhaps only +Miss Abingdon was sincerely glad that conventionalities had been in +force throughout. + +'No one could be more delighted than I am that Mrs. Wrottesley was at +Hulworth,' she said, 'though I doubt if it is a very wise thing for a +married woman to pay visits without her husband. Still, no doubt Canon +Wrottesley in his usual broad-minded way arranged that she should be +there. He is always so thoughtful and self-sacrificing, and it's more +than good of him to spare his wife to nurse Mrs. Avory. He is an +example to us all.' + +Canon Wrottesley had always been devoted to his wife. Her quiet dress +and her mantle had ever seemed to him the essence of good womanhood, +and he respected her for her considerable fortune as well as for her +unimpeachable orthodoxy. His highest term of praise of her was to +speak of her as the helpmeet for him. + +The canon was now sitting in the very charming library of the house of +his Bishop, where he was spending a few days, and was busy inditing a +few lines to his wife to ask her if the latest news from Culversham was +true. He was warned by a curious presentiment that the information +which he had received was in accordance with facts, and, being always +ready with a word of counsel, Canon Wrottesley was writing to his wife +to warn her that until the whole thing blew over it would be wiser for +her not to see anything of Mrs. Avory. Considering his own and her +position in the parish, he thought they could not be too careful. + +When the second post arrived at the palace, bringing him the unexpected +news that his wife was at that moment nursing Mrs. Avory at their +neighbour's house, Canon Wrottesley felt one of those shocks which in +all their painfulness can only be realized, perhaps, by those who hold +a conspicuous position in a very small society. When the world is +narrowed down to quite a little place its weight is felt more heavily +than when its interests and its knowledge are dispersed over a wider +area. + +He believed that poor Henrietta had meant well when she had gone to +Hulworth to look after Mrs. Avory; but her action proved to the canon +what he had always known--that a woman requires guidance, and he meant +to tell his wife kindly how much wiser it would have been if, before +taking any action in this matter, she had wired to him for advice. + +The thing was a real trouble to him, and helped to spoil his enjoyable +stay at the palace. He knew himself to be popular there and that his +visit had given real pleasure. He had been asked to improvise upon the +piano every evening, and had even sung once, saying gracefully to the +Bishop's daughter, when she had concluded her very indifferent +accompaniment to the song, 'An accompanist is born, not made!' He had +preached one of his favourite sermons on Sunday, which had not only +swelled the offertory bag to an unusual size, but had obtained for the +canon quite a sheaf of compliments which he looked forward to retailing +to Henrietta at home. He left the pleasant ways of the Bishop's palace +determined to face with a magnanimous mind the difficulties that +awaited him. He did not like Henrietta's being 'mixed up in this +affair' at all, and, as he sat in the first-class carriage of the train +on his homeward journey, a rug about his knees and a footwarmer at his +feet, he decided that the wisest and best thing he could do would be to +shorten his journey by getting out at Hulworth station and going +straight up to Sir Nigel's house. When he had time, and was able to +see how Culversham viewed this affair of Mrs. Avory's, he could then +decide whether his wife should call upon her or not. But for the +present he saw quite plainly that inaction and patience were the best +course. + +He gave up his ticket at the railway station with a fine air of +reserve, and bade his coachman drive to Hulworth in the same manner in +which a statesman might impart a Cabinet secret to his secretary. The +brougham drove on through the grim stone gates of Hulworth and +deposited the canon before the flight of steps leading to the front +door. He decided, if possible, not to partake of any food in the +house, nor even to sit down if this could be avoided. He was not going +to blame Sir Nigel yet, but, to say the least of it, he thought that he +had been unwise. The canon stood with his back to the fire in the +drawing-room, looking judicial and massive. Presently Mrs. Wrottesley +came in and saluted her husband with that calm affection which +twenty-five years of married life may engender. + +He stooped and kissed her gravely. 'My love,' he said, 'this is not +the place for you.' + +It seemed to Mrs. Wrottesley to come very suddenly to her that almost +for the first time in their married life there was going to be a real +matter of difference between her husband and herself, in which neither +meant to give in. She regretted in her quiet way that it should be so. + +'Remember,' said Canon Wrottesley kindly, 'that I don't in any way +blame Sir Nigel; I think he is foolish, and I think, considering Mrs. +Avory's position, she has been more than foolish. A woman who is +separated from her husband cannot be too careful.' + +'I am afraid,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, with regret in her voice, and +coming straight to the point at once in her graceful way, 'that I must +stay here for the present.' + +The canon, although he had not intended doing so, sat down abruptly on +one of the drawing-room chairs. + +It was a horrible time for both these affectionate elderly people who +had always lived a peaceful, orderly, well-conducted life together, and +whose home had been, in the mind of the canon at least, the model +household of the neighbourhood. Also, it was a real shock to him to +realize that Henrietta did not mean to yield in this matter. She spoke +with regret, but she spoke firmly. It must always be a surprise--even +to a prophet--when a dumb creature speaks, and in a certain sense Mrs. +Wrottesley had always been dumb. And now, after years of silence and +affectionate wifely submission, Mrs. Wrottesley was asserting herself. + +'You must be reasonable, dear,' her husband said at last. + +Mrs. Wrottesley replied, 'I want to be reasonable;' and she told him +the whole story of how her presence might save from very serious +consequences two people who were admittedly not very wise, but who were +certainly nothing more than foolish, and might prevent a scandal which +would damage them in the eyes of the world and result in all sorts of +trouble for Mrs. Avory. + +'The scandal cannot now be prevented,' said Canon Wrottesley. 'I heard +myself from Mr. Lawrence this morning telling me the whole story. My +love, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled; Mrs. Avory must send +for her own relations, if she has any, to help her out of this +regrettable business. I cannot allow you to appear in the matter at +all.' + +'I have had my letters addressed here for the last two days,' said Mrs. +Wrottesley. + +The canon rose from his chair and began to pace up and down the room. +'I don't know what people will say,' he said, his forehead knitted into +a frown and his fingers impatiently letting off small pistol-shots +against his palm. There had never been a better wife or mother, he +admitted to himself, than Henrietta Wrottesley, but she was a child +still in many ways. 'To-morrow is Sunday,' he went on, 'and we must +appear in church together. In this way only can we shut people's +mouths and prevent their talking, and although I don't like anything in +the form of secrecy or underhand actions, no one need know that you +have been staying here.' + +'I am afraid,' said Mrs. Wrottesley, still in that unyielding tone of +gentle regret, 'that it is too late to keep my movements secret. There +is an account of the accident in the local paper in which it is stated +that I was staying here at the time.' + +Canon Wrottesley loved to see his name in print, and looked with +interest at the cutting while Mrs. Wrottesley added, 'I sent the +communication to the paper.' + +The canon found himself wondering in a puzzled way what was the +ultimatum that a man should impose upon a woman. What, in point of +fact, was the force that could be brought to bear upon the case? In +primitive days the matter would have been easily enough settled, but in +modern times moral force is the only lever, and although most women, he +admitted, were very easily influenced by moral force, it struck him +painfully that upon this occasion his wife was not going to be moved by +it. + +A beneficent Providence who, I think we may allow, comes often to the +assistance of persons whose storm rages in quite a small and narrow +teacup so long as they are genuinely attached to each other, may have +designed that at this moment Lydia of the heavy foot should enter with +the second post's letters, and amongst those which had been sent on to +Mrs. Wrottesley was one directed to her husband in dear Miss Abingdon's +handwriting. + +The canon opened it unheedingly. Miss Abingdon often sent him little +notes, but never, perhaps, had she written one which spoke more +genuinely out of a full heart than did this. She had written in the +middle of the night, although she felt how disorderly and almost +indecorous such a proceeding was. By so doing she had missed the +evening post, but she sent the missive to the village early in the +morning by the hand of a groom, and felt glad, as she did so, that +there were no secrets in her life. A letter posted at an unaccustomed +hour suggested intrigues, and Miss Abingdon wondered how people could +live who had such things upon their consciences. + +Her unusual behaviour accounts for the fact that her letter arrived by +the second post at Hulworth; Canon Wrottesley was so much upset at the +time that he read half-way through it before he quite realized what it +was about. + + +'MY DEAR CANON,'--it ran--'you must allow me to say what I think of +your splendid conduct in regard to poor little Mrs. Avory. I had heard +the story, of course, of her very indiscreet behaviour, but it was not +till this morning that I knew how splendidly you had thrown yourself +into the breach by allowing Mrs. Wrottesley to go over to Hulworth to +stay and nurse the poor thing. I must tell you that I hear on all +sides nothing but the kindest things said about your action in the +matter. I do not often write so unreservedly as at present, but I do +feel strongly on the subject, and on occasions such as this I may be +allowed to say that it takes a good man and a broad-minded one to act +promptly and generously--would that there were more of them in the +English Church!' + + +Miss Abingdon used to fear afterwards that perhaps she had said too +much; but to her also, as to Mrs. Wrottesley, the relief of speaking +her mind once in a way was irresistible. + +Of course it weakened the canon's position to show the letter to his +wife. He ought to have relented gracefully and with dignity, and to +have consented as a personal favour, even against his proper judgment, +to his wife's remaining where she was. But Miss Abingdon's letter was +too full of kind remarks to be kept to himself. He handed it to +Henrietta, and when she had read it he folded it up carefully and put +it in his pocket. + +'That,' he said, 'is one of the best women that ever lived, and +perhaps, who knows, there may be others who see this matter in the +right light also.' All that he had previously said passed completely +out of his mind as he talked of the insight and the complete +understanding that some good women evinced. He began to speak with +manly kindliness of the poor little invalid upstairs, and when at last +he bade good-bye to his wife he kissed her affectionately and bade +her--in his usual formula--not do too much. + +Miss Abingdon's letter had shown the canon to himself in his true +light; before he reached home he had come to believe that it was he who +had urged his wife to go to Hulworth. As was usual with him when he +felt strongly, he adopted a character role, and his handsome face wore +a more than usually beneficent and great-minded expression upon it as +he walked with his fine erect carriage through the village that night; +while it would hardly have required a playbill of _dramatis personae_ +to indicate the fact that the canon was living the part of the Vicar of +Wakefield in the supreme moment when he visits Olivia in prison. He +had promised his wife before leaving to drive over often to see her +during her stay at Hulworth; and the following Sunday he preached one +of his most memorable sermons on the text--'And when they shall take up +some deadly thing it shall not hurt them.' + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Mrs. Wrottesley remained at Hulworth until her patient was better, and +then the good-hearted canon joined her there for a few days and was +altogether charming to poor little Mrs. Avory, who liked him far better +than she liked his wife. Toffy went up to London to join Peter Ogilvie +and to take ship for Argentine, and Peter went to say good-bye to Jane +Erskine. + +These two last-named, cheerful people were in a state of acute +unhappiness which each was doing his and her best to conceal. It +required some pluck to be perfectly even-spirited and to show good mettle +in those days. The world contained for them nothing but a sense of +parting and uncertainty, and a horrible feeling of disappointment. Their +lives were to be severed, perhaps for years, and over all the uncertainty +and the thought of separation hung the mystery of Mrs. Ogilvie's +half-finished message. The memory of her was clouded by the thought of +how much she had suffered, and the conviction intruded itself painfully +that, if they had but known more, something might have been done for her. +The burden of a secret lies in the sense of loneliness which it brings. +A unique experience, dissimilarity of thought or knowledge that is not +shared by others, makes a solitude with which no bodily isolation can be +compared. Only one person knew--only one person had ever known: that +seemed the intolerable thing to the two persons left behind to wonder +what the message could mean. + +'I sometimes wish she had been a Catholic,' Peter once said. 'It might +have been some sort of comfort to her.' + +Mrs. Ogilvie was a woman who could remain silent always, and perhaps it +was the supreme effort involved by breaking through a lifetime of reserve +that, in its added strain upon her heart, had caused her death. + +The last few days that the lovers had together were spent in a very loyal +and affectionate endeavour to make each other as happy as possible. They +made no professions of love or confidence, nor ever dreamed of promising +to be true, because they never for a moment could admit the possibility +of being anything else; and they did not even promise to write to each +other, or to say their prayers at the same time every evening--the +difficulty of calculating the difference between Greenwich and local time +on a westward voyage put a stop to anything of that sort. Nor did they +talk of remembering each other as they looked at the stars; but they +spoke of the future and of all the good things it was going to bring, and +they even laughed sometimes over imaginary portraits of the brother whom +Peter was to seek, and they told each other ridiculous little tales of +what he would be like and what he would say and do. + +One afternoon Jane gave Peter a gold cigarette case as a parting gift, +with his name scrawled in her big handwriting across it; while Peter +presented his fiancee with a very handsome diamond ring, and forgot +altogether that perhaps he could not pay for it, and went back and told +the jeweller so. The jeweller, having known Captain Ogilvie all his +life, and being aware that he had lately succeeded to an immense +property, thought the young man was joking, and said it did not matter in +the least. + +Then came the day of parting--drizzly, wet, and depressing--just such a +day as people always seem to choose on which to leave England; there was +the usual routine of departure; the 'special' from Waterloo, the crowd at +the station, the plethora of bags, chairs, and hold-alls; the good-byes, +the children held up to the carriage-windows to wave hands, the 'last +looks,' and the tears stopped in their flow by anxiety about luggage and +missing bags. Then came Southampton, the embarkation, and a sort of +enforced cheerfulness and admiration of the ship. Those who had +journeyed down to see friends off adopted a congratulatory tone, as +though the fact of their having already travelled so far in safety was a +sort of assurance that there could be little to fear for the rest of the +voyage. + +At last the ship began to move slowly away, and finally swung round and +got out of dock. It was just then that many of the voyagers wished that +they might have had a few minutes longer of that dismal scene in the +drizzling rain, of those dear hand-waving, smiling, or weeping figures on +shore. But the engines had started their solemn beats, the pilot was on +the bridge. The voyage had begun for good or ill, and the Lord watch +over all! + +Nigel Christopherson, being a man of feeling, said to a Scot who leaned +over the rails with him, watching a group of female figures dressed in +black on the quay, 'These good-byes are rather beastly, ain't they?' + +To which the Scot replied, 'They make no difference to me whatever;' and +the remark, Toffy thought, was an extraordinary check to any emotional +feeling. + +Jane got her first letter from Peter dated at Vigo, which peaceful port, +with its rows of white houses built along the shore, and its green hill +with the ruined castle behind, is a haven where many sea-sick passengers +would be. They had had a bit of a tossing, Peter said, in the Bay, and +Toffy had been very seedy but was better. The captain was a very good +sort of fellow, and full of yarns; his cabin was profusely decorated with +foxes' masks and brushes, and a few of his admirers believed that when he +was at home he hunted. The unfeeling Scot, who had declined to +sympathize with Toffy's sensibility to partings, had turned out to be a +very interesting sort of man, and not unamusing. He helped to make the +evenings on deck pass rather pleasantly with his stories. If Mr. Dunbar, +as he was called, had not had such an amazing Scottish accent Peter would +have said that probably the stories were not true. It was a letter such +as a schoolboy might have written, but Jane treasured the ill-expressed +sentiments as maidens of a bygone age may have treasured their lovers' +shields; and although she left the letter lying about on her +dressing-table, after the manner of modern young women, it was none the +less the dearest possession of her life until the next one arrived. + +Toffy sat up in his bunk with a horribly bad headache, and wrote a long +letter to Mrs. Avory, which he posted at Vigo; and he wrote another +letter, not nearly so long, but one which cost him much more time to +compose, and addressed it to Miss Kitty Sherard. And this he carefully +tore into little pieces one night when the decks were dark and there was +no moon overhead; and he watched the small white bits of paper, as they +floated away into the black depths of the water, and then he walked up +and down the deck until the small hours of the morning, when Peter--one +of whose worst qualities was that he always fussed over people he cared +about--appeared in pyjamas and overcoat, and asked him sternly if he was +trying to get another chill. + +At Lisbon the intelligent Scot suggested to the two travellers that they +should join him in a trip ashore. The three had made friends in the +smoking-room, and Peter hailed Mr. Dunbar as a fellow-countryman, and +enjoyed his rugged accent and his amazing penetration. He abounded in +useful information about the country to which they were going, gave +statistics on all points, and teemed with information. He was an ardent +and indefatigable sightseer, and never visited a building without seeming +to investigate it. The most complicated currency of a foreign country +never disturbed him for an instant, and he would make little sums with +extraordinary rapidity on the edge of any bill that was given to him. +The difference of price, as stated in Spanish coinage, between a bottle +of claret and a whisky-and-soda, might have puzzled some people; but +Dunbar worked it out to a fraction in a second of time, and without a +moment's hesitation laid his own share of the expense on the +luncheon-table of the Braganza hotel. He spoke Spanish better than he +spoke English, though he thought he had got rid of his Scottish accent; +but he still said 'I mind' for 'I remember,' and differentiated in the +matter of pronouncing 'court' and 'caught.' + +At St. Vincent Peter wrote home again, and felt a certain sense of +insecurity at leaving letters on the rocky island. It was four o'clock +in the morning when the ship got into port, and the sun was rising over +the hills eastward, while to the west the bare, rugged, mountainous land +was a solemn, chilly grey colour. The water was smooth and dark beneath +the hills, but nearer the ship it was touched by the clear pale light of +the rising sun. The hills rose jagged and sharp against the sky without +a scrap of verdure on them; but the kindly atmosphere turned those in the +distance to a soft and tender blue. It smoothed away the rugged lines +and effaced the cruel-looking scars that seamed their sides, and covered +them with a misty peace. It seemed to the young man as he looked at them +that things became easier when viewed from a distance. He had suffered +very deeply during the last few weeks, and with him had suffered the girl +whom he had loved and cared for always, and whom he would love and care +for until the end of his life. Looking back at the distant misty hills +on Cape Verde Island this voyage seemed to him, in spite of all its +horrible sense of separation, to be something of a lull in the midst of +quick-happening events. When first he left home he had been plagued with +thoughts which he had fought with almost savage fierceness, and he had +wrestled to expel them from his mind; but that there could be any mystery +in his mother's life had necessarily awakened endless questionings in his +mind. + +Why, if this little brother of his had not died, had he disappeared? And +what was the reason for his disappearance? 'He did not die,' said the +half-finished letter which his mother's hand had traced; 'he did not +die.' Once, in the middle of the night, as he said the wearisome +sentence over to himself, a word had come suddenly before him in letters +of flame, and Peter had turned away from it with a cry. A child who had +been deprived of his life might be said in a sense not to have died, and +there was the word of six letters in front of him in the dark. He turned +on the electric light in his cabin, and for a moment he had half a mind +to go in next door and wake Toffy. The burden of the suggestion was too +horrible to bear alone. 'He did not die!' His mother's mental state +might not have been perfectly sound at the time of her husband's death; +and her preference for him, Peter, was a fact that had been remarked by +all who knew her. Had she begun to write a confession to her son, and +stopped short in the middle? 'Don't hate me too much,' the letter said. +Why should he hate her? He did not know. + +In the morning he was able to put aside utterly the thought which had +tormented him, but he lived in dread of being beset by it at night-time +again. He began to fear going to bed, and would sit up talking to Toffy +till the small hours of the morning, or playing picquet with Dunbar. Men +began to say that he 'jawed' too much and would not let them go to bed, +little knowing how he used to try to prolong a conversation so that he +might not be left alone with a horrible fear always ready to pounce upon +him when night fell, and when only the thud of the engines playing some +maddening tune broke the silence. + +He tried, with a baffling sense of impatience, to make his own memory +act, and to recall the days when he was not quite three years old. But +the thing was an impossibility, of course, and his brain refused to give +up a single picture of that time. + +It was only when the ship had left St. Vincent that a certain amount of +peace came to establish itself in his heart, and the large and beautiful +consolation of the sea began to make itself felt. The weather was calm +and clear, and the monotonous slap and swish of the water against the +ship's side was in itself soothing. The company on board were all +strangers to him, and this helped to give him a feeling that he was +starting anew in life. Also he was on his way to do the best he could to +find his brother, if he were living, or to clear up the mystery of his +death, if he were dead. There was no horrid feeling of having failed to +do the best that was possible. He must find Edward Ogilvie, or discover +the grave where he lay; and after that it would be time enough to think +what would be the next thing to do. + +When the ship steamed away from St. Vincent in the evening, and the +lighthouse on Bird Rock made a luminous point in the gathering darkness, +the sight of land and of the hills had done Peter good, and had restored +him to the normal and natural man again. He turned to look back at the +rugged island, with the one point of light high up in its lighthouse, and +he thought that it was like some lamp which a woman sets in the window to +guide her husband home. With that feeling came a deep sense of the love +and the confidence which he and Jane had in each other; he knew that she +would not fail him whether he were rich or poor, happy or unhappy, and +that seemed the only thing in the world worth knowing for certain. + +After leaving St. Vincent the weather became intensely hot, the wind was +with the ship, and there was not a breath of air to be had. Dunbar never +felt the heat at all; he had not an ounce of spare flesh on his body, and +he always ate two chops and some curry for breakfast, because, he said, +if you were paying for a thing you might as well have it. He played in +bull tournaments, and had a habit, that was almost provoking, of doing +everything better than any one else. His sharp-featured face, long keen +nose, and eyes with an intelligent-looking pince-nez fixed in front of +them, seemed to speak of a sleepless vigilance. + +Peter, having a very small amount of information on any subject at his +command, was impressed by Mr. Dunbar, and thought that he might make a +fortune if he used his talents on the music-hall stage or at a bureau for +the supply of general information. The man seemed able to answer any +question that might be put to him. + +'That is an extraordinary chap,' he said to Toffy. 'I wonder if he would +be of any use to us in the way of finding out about my brother?' But +eventually he decided that nothing ought to be done until they should see +Sir John Falconer. + +'We had rather a disappointment here,' he wrote from Rio, in one of his +unliterary letters, 'because the yellow fever is so bad that we are not +allowed to land. I don't suppose you have any idea how tiresome a day in +port is if one does not go ashore. The heat is really terrific, and +under the awnings it feels exactly like sitting in an oven.' In +conclusion Peter wished he was at home again, and thought Toffy seemed +rather down in his luck; and he remained Jane's ever-loving Peter. + +'I will tell you a strange thing about Rio,' began Dunbar, as he walked +up and down the ship that evening. 'If you make your fortune there, you +always go back to England and say that by right you are a Castilian +noble.' + +'It would be a very large fortune that would tempt me to live in this +beastly climate,' said Peter, who was in a grumbling mood. + +'I believe,' said Toffy, 'that with luck one could make a lot of money in +Argentine. I have got a scheme in my head now, which, if it comes off, +should place me beyond the reach of want.' + +Dunbar referred to the boom time, and gave an exhaustive statement of the +fortunes which had been made in that glorious epoch and had been lost +afterwards. 'I have known men without capital make a hundred thousand +pounds in a few years,' he said; 'and when they lost it you simply could +not find them.' + +'People do seem to disappear in Argentine in a queer way,' said Peter +with intention, and with a glance at Toffy. 'I know we had a +gardener--one of the under-men--and he had a brother who disappeared +altogether out there, so our man went to find him, and he, also, was +never heard of again.' + +'The reason for that is not very far to seek,' said Dunbar. 'The first +thing you do when you come to Argentine is to leave off writing +letters--at least if you are a camp man. You simply can't abide the +sight of pen and ink.' + +'But there must be some means of tracing a man who gets lost,' said +Toffy. 'He can't disappear into space.' + +'You'd wonder!' said the Scot laconically. + +'Still, you know,' persisted Peter, 'if a man's alive at all, some one +must know his whereabouts.' + +'Obsairve,' said Dunbar, 'it doesn't require much imagination for a man +to change his name as often as he likes; and I should like to know what +police supervision there is over the Italian settlers, for instance, in +some of the remoter estancias? Murderers are hardly ever caught out +here, and murders used to be as common as a fight in a pulperia. Every +man carries a knife, and if you go up-country you will find that half the +peons are nearly covered with scars; and if once in a way the knife goes +too deep it's just one of those things which cannot be helped, and the +less said about it the better. Again,' he went on, 'suppose a man is +murdered on his own estancia--a thing that used to be common enough--the +peons are all in league, and they generally have had a hand in it. Their +master has been giving them _carne flacca_ (lean meat) to eat, and that +is enough to upset the whole rickmatick of them.' + +'I suppose they are not likely to turn on a revolution for our benefit,' +said Toffy, in a tone of disappointment. + +'I haven't got the fighting instinct in me,' said Dunbar literally. +'Whenever there has been fighting where I have been, I have always sat +indoors until it was over.' + +Peter, with a desire to lead the subject back to the case of men who +disappeared, turned in the deck-chair where he was sitting enjoying a +light breeze which had sprung up after dark, and said tentatively: 'I +can't quite understand, you know, a man disappearing altogether and +leaving no traces behind him.' + +'I shall never,' said Dunbar, 'believe in the final disappearance or even +in the death of any one until I have seen the doctor's certificate or the +man's corpse. Men have got a queer way of turning up, and even the sea +may give up secrets when you least expect it. Take the case of the +_Rosana_,' he went on, 'and allow me to put the facts of the case before +you. The _Rosana_ was a ship that used to do good a bit of trading on +the coast, and there was a man on board of her whom I used to know, and +who had been once a little too well known in Argentine. Well, this ship +foundered with all hands on board, and was never heard of again, although +two of her life-belts were picked up, and one or two pieces of her +deck-gear.' + +'Any ship might founder at sea,' said Peter, 'and not be heard of again. +Go on with your story, Dunbar.' + +The electric lights on deck went out suddenly overhead, leaving only one +burning; the breeze blew soft and cool, and six bells sounded sharply and +emphatically in the quiet of the night. + +'I wouldn't,' said Dunbar, 'give you the benefit of my speculations on +the subject of the _Rosana_ were it not that E. W. Smith was on board. +E. W. Smith couldn't die; he wasn't fit for it. But it's a long story. +I 'll not bother you with it.' + +Dunbar looked doubtfully at his tobacco pouch, pinched it, and then +contemplated his pipe. Peter handed him a cigar-case, and Dunbar +accepted a cigar, and slipping it into an old envelope, he deposited it +in his pocket. 'I don't believe I should have time to smoke it through +now,' he said, and he continued filling his pipe. + +'I suppose you come across a good many queer tales, travelling about as +much as you do,' said Toffy. + +Dunbar nodded without speaking. 'You'd wonder,' he said at last. He +finished his pipe, knocked out its ashes, and put it into a little case +lined with red velvet, and stowed it in his pocket; he looked at his +watch and announced that there was still another half-hour before he +intended turning in. + +'We might have the end of your story,' said Peter. + +'A story is as good a way as any other of wiling away the evening, and +you are welcome to hear the rest of this one,' admitted Dunbar. He was a +grand talker, according to his compatriots, and he chiefly loved the +engineers' mess-room, where he could sit by a table covered in oil-cloth, +and sip a little weak whisky and water, and revert to his broadest Doric +in company with some engineers from the Clyde. 'The _Rosana_,' continued +Dunbar, clearing his throat, 'only carried one boat on her last journey. +I happen to know that for a fact, but the Lord only knows the reason for +it! Now, this boat was found, half-burnt, lying on a lonely bit of coast +a few weeks after the _Rosana_ foundered. This is a thing which I may +remark is not generally known; but I happen to have had ocular +demonstration of it. The boat was a smart built one, with her name in +gold leaf on the bows. Tranter was the captain of the _Rosana_, and he +liked to have things nice. Now, why should this boat have been found +half-burnt on the coast, but with a piece of her name in gold leaf still +partially visible?' + +'The boat probably drifted ashore,' said Peter, as if he were answering a +question in a history class. + +Dunbar hardly seemed to hear him, and went on with hardly a moment's +interruption. 'I am a student,' he said, 'of the deductive method of +reasoning, and I begin with the _a priori_ assumption that E. W. Smith +could not die. I should hold the same belief even if I believed in +Purgatory.' (Dunbar pronounced the word with an incalculable number of +r's in it, and it came from his throat like the rattle of musketry.) +'Presuming,' he went on, 'that the _Rosana_ foundered, was E. W. Smith +the man to go down in her, or was he not?' + +'I suppose some of them took to the boat,' said Toffy. 'In an affair of +that sort it is a case of _sauve qui peut_.' + +'The whole crew would have swamped the boat,' said Dunbar, who liked +giving small pieces of information at a time. + +'Consequently----' said Peter. + +'Consequently,' said Dunbar, 'I 'm just biding my time, and I 'll tell +you more when there 's more to tell.' + +'It's a queer story!' said Peter. + +'It's queerer than you think!' said Dunbar. + +'You can't believe,' said the other, 'that this man Smith went off in the +boat by himself?' + +'I don't,' said Dunbar, 'for E. W. Smith couldn't row, and with all his +sea-going he was a landsman to his finger-tips.' + +'So then,' said Peter, 'he must have had accomplices, and accomplices +always tell tales.' + +'There 's one very certain way of silencing men,' said the Scot. + +Peter rose abruptly from his chair and threw his cigar end out over the +water. 'It's a beastly suggestion,' he said briefly. His face was +white, and he found himself hoping to God that this tale of Dunbar's +would not bring back to him those horrible nights he had had at the +beginning of the voyage. + +'Tranter was the captain of the boat,' said Dunbar, 'and Tranter was +about the worst sort of coward you are likely to meet on this side of +Jordan. E. W. Smith, on the other hand, never lost his head.' + +The story seemed finished, and Toffy got up and stretched himself lazily, +and said he was going to turn in; but Peter still sat where he was in his +deck-chair. + +'There might be a hundred different endings to your tale, Dunbar,' he +said, 'each one as likely as the other. The boat, for instance, might +have capsized, with too many men crowded into her, and have drifted +ashore and been burned accidentally or otherwise by the people who found +her. Or the crew and captain of the _Rosana_ may never have taken to the +boat at all, and she may have foundered with all hands (as you say the +newspaper reports had it at the time); or the _Rosana_ may be sailing in +another part of the world with her villainous captain and E. W. Smith and +no end of swag on board. Or both men, again, may be sleeping very +peacefully at the bottom of the sea at this moment; that, after all, +seems to me the most likely ending to them. Of course,' he finished, 'I +don't know what grounds you may have for making another suggestion about +their probable fate.' + +Dunbar looked at him keenly for a moment. 'I would not have made the +suggestion,' he said quietly, 'only, you see, since the wreck of the +_Rosana_ I have seen E. W. Smith or his ghost, and that is why I do not +believe in the final disappearance of a man till I have set eyes upon his +corpse.' + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Peter sat on a cow's skull, bleached and white, at the Estancia Las +Lomas, reading a letter from Jane Erskine. He had begun to think that +the Royal Mail Steam Packet Service was run for the sole purpose of +carrying correspondence between himself and her, and he felt pleased +with its punctuality in delivering his letters. + +'It feels a bit queer being here,' he said to himself, gazing round him +as he spoke. It was the evening of a hot day, and there was a flame of +crimson over to westward, where a few minutes ago the sun had sunk +through great bars of flame. All round him was a vast, solitary land, +but nearer the estancia were pleasant homely sights and sounds. A cart +yoked with five horses abreast stood by the galpon; a flock of geese +walked with disdainful, important gait across the potrero; and the +viscashos popped in and out of their holes with busy importance, like +children keeping house. The farm horses, turned out for the night, +cropped the short grass near where he stood. Peons, their day's work +over, loitered in the patio, and the major-domo's children rode by, all +three of them on one horse, their arms round each other's waists. The +little estancia house stood, red-roofed and homelike, with green +paraiso trees about it. In the veranda Toffy was stretched in a +hammock, a pile of letters and newspapers from home beside him; Hopwood +appeared round the corner carrying cans of water for baths; while Ross, +their host, in a dress as nearly as possible resembling that of a +gaucho, was that moment disappearing indoors to make the evening +cocktail. He came to the door presently and shouted to the two men to +come in, and pointed out to them--as he had pointed out every evening +since they had arrived--his own skill in swizzling. + +It was a curious coincidence that had led Peter and Christopherson to +Las Lomas. When they reached Buenos Ayres a very pleasant and +unexpected meeting occurred, for Peter met Chance, a man who had been +with him at Eton, on his way down to the river to go home. Chance had +lost his young wife a little while before, and was returning to England +to see what the voyage and a change would do to cure him of an almost +overwhelming grief, and his partner Ross was left behind to look after +the estancia. Ross was at the hotel also, and proved an excellent +fellow. And Chance suggested that Ogilvie and Christopherson should +return to Las Lomas with him and see something of the life in +Argentine, staying as long as they could, to keep Ross company until he +himself should return. + +The invitation was accepted without hesitation, and it seemed that the +two travellers were in luck's way. The estancia was a snug little +place, amply watered by a river lying some miles above the last port +where the small river-steamer called. This port was nearer the +estancia than the railway station at Taco, and the last stage of the +journey, therefore, was made by steamer. The river was a wide, shallow +stream, very difficult of navigation. Nearly ten miles broad in some +parts, at its deepest it never gave soundings of more than five fathoms +of water. In dry weather it was possible in some places to drive a +cart across it, while in others the current was quick and dangerous. +It was full of shallows and sand-banks, and for some miles the course +of the little steamer was marked out by boughs of trees stuck into its +muddy bottom. + +The steamer was a well-found craft compared with any others that had +navigated the river before, and was a new venture on the part of one +Purvis by name, who had lately acquired considerable property on the +river-bank. He was a gentle-mannered, nervous-looking individual, with +weak, pale eyes that watered incessantly, and he had a curious habit +unknown except to town dwellers in Argentine of dressing like a City +clerk. All the men in camp wore breeches and wide felt hats and polo +boots, but Purvis was habitually dressed in dark tweed clothes and a +bowler hat. Even on the steamer, and in the heat of the midday sun, he +wore the same kit, and walked up and down the deck with an umbrella +held over his head. He spoke half a dozen languages, but seemed to +think in Spanish, for whenever he spoke quickly or impulsively that was +the tongue which he used. + +The crew of the steamer was composed of a queer mixture of elements; +and, whatever their moral qualities may have been, their appearance +would not have been altogether reassuring to a man, for instance, +travelling with a good many valuables about him. There was Grant the +engineer, who never spoke at all, and who loved his engines with a +personal love; Pedro, a man with big, melancholy eyes, half Basque and +half Italian; an old Belgian stoker and a nigger from South Carolina; +and, lastly, John Lewis (or Black John, as he was always called), who +came from a Danish West Indian island, and who said he was an Irishman +and had been a cabinetmaker. + +The little steamer was not uncomfortable. She was a flat-bottomed +river-boat, and carried cargoes of hides and other Saladero produce. +There were some live pigs with immense tusks, and some tasajo in the +hold, and a raft of pipes of tallow which a hawser towed behind. The +boat was supposed to draw only two feet of water, but in her present +overloaded state she dragged heavily against the mud in the shallower +parts of the river. + +Sir John Falconer, who had come down to the river to see the two +travellers off, drew Peter Ogilvie aside and had a considerable talk +with him before saying good-bye. + +'Don't attempt amateur detective work yourself,' he urged, 'but stay +with Ross until proper official inquiries can be made into the case. +There is nothing for it but to remain inactive for the present, but +gather information quietly where you can. The law out here is a clumsy +mover, and you may have to wait months before you hear anything. Keep +your eyes and your ears open; travel about the country a little, and +get into conversation with as many people as possible. News in +Argentine is not carried by the newspapers but by the men who ride from +place to place, and more particularly by scamps who have no fixed +address for very long. My advice to you would be to say as little as +possible about the business which you have in hand, but get into +conversation with men who have lived long in the country.' + +'I tried that sort of thing on the steamer coming out,' said Peter; +'but we didn't get very much information. The whole thing, you see, is +a very old story.' + +'This man Purvis, whom you are travelling with,' said Sir John, 'is the +sort of person who might help you. He knows the country intimately, as +far as I can gather, and depend upon it he hears more gossip on board +his boat than is ever heard anywhere else in the whole country. Chance +dislikes the man, but he may be useful.' + +'He looks rather a worm,' said Peter. + +'It is generally worms who turn king's evidence,' said Sir John, with a +laugh at his own joke, and then added quickly, 'I don't speak +personally, of course. Your captain is not exactly one's idea of an +old sea-dog, but he is a gentle, intelligent little man.' + +'Ross said something about there being trouble on his estancia,' said +Peter. 'I don't know what it was all about.' + +'He must have some difficult men to manage up there,' replied Sir John. +'There is always more or less trouble amongst these mixed nationalities +out here. But that need not affect you, of course.' + +'No,' said Peter. 'My cue seems to be to gossip like an old woman with +every one I come across.' + +'And to say as little as you can yourself,' concluded Sir John. 'The +man who speaks very little and hears a great deal is always in a strong +position.' + +'Although an uninteresting beast to meet,' Peter remarked in +parenthesis. + +And then, as the voyage was about to begin, the two friends bade each +other good-bye. + +The steamer trip up the shallow river was thoroughly enjoyable, in +spite of the amazing bad food which the travellers had to eat, and the +ever-present smell of pigs and hides. The vegetation of the river-bank +was beautiful in the extreme, and the smells on board the boat were +often counteracted by the exquisite scents which were wafted from the +shore. Mimosa-trees, air-plants, and every sort of creeper gave an +almost tropical appearance to the low woods through which the river ran. + +Purvis proved himself an agreeable companion in a timid, mild way. He +pointed out his own estancia house by the river-bank, and invited Peter +and Sir Nigel to come and stay with him some day. + +The three passengers did not trouble to turn in when night fell, but +lay on deck and leaned against bales of wool until the boat arrived at +the little port of La Dorada at two o'clock in the morning. Moonlight +and dawnlight lent an air of mystery and beauty to the solitary +country; there was a sort of vast stillness over the land, as the boat +glided to her moorings in the early morning. Nothing could be heard +but the chirping of a bicho, or the desolate neigh of one of the horses +that awaited them by the little quay. The stars shone and twinkled +overhead, and the air was clear and cool and marvellously still. Black +John woke the travellers up and told them it was time to disembark; and +Purvis, to whom sleep seemed quite unnecessary, was awake and ready to +give them a send-off. + +'Anything I can do for you while you are out here,' he said to the two +friends as he bade them good-bye, 'I will do most willingly. I am +_passeando_ now, but I hope to be at my own place shortly, and will +ride over and see you. Ross has not been out here long, and perhaps +does not know so much about the country as I do.' + +The Englishmen thanked him and mounted their horses, while their +luggage was put into a rough cart, and they then rode off in the +mysterious dawn across the great silent country to the little estancia +house amongst the paraiso trees. + +Ross was a capital host, and as the only possible entertainment he +could offer his guests was work upon the estancia he gave them plenty +of it; and the out-of-door life, in spite of the heat and the want of +newspapers, the mosquitoes, and other minor ills, was full of interest +and touched with a sense of freedom and hardness. + +Toffy was a man who could accommodate himself to every change of +circumstance. His present life suited him, and he had seldom been in +better health than in Argentine. He adopted Spanish phrases and spoke +them glibly, threw the lasso with the air of a strong man, and tried to +pick out a particular head of stock from the moving mass in the corral. +He chatted with the peons, hunted wild mares in the monte, and drank +cocktails as to the manner born. Ross had decided for an Argentine +style of dress. He wore a beard, and his hands were hard from the +strain of the lasso; but his old brown polo boots had been worn at +Hurlingham and Ranelagh, and were shapelier than were generally seen in +the corral. Ross was still at that enviable stage in life when to +sleep out on the ground with one's head on a saddle is found preferable +to a spring mattress and sheets. He enjoyed swimming rivers with his +clothes on his head, and would have liked the sensation of fatigue +described to him. Peter would probably always look like a cavalry +officer, and would not have been easily mistaken for anything else, +even if he had worn a garment of skins laced together with wire. He +was burned a deep brown, some shades deeper than the colour of his +moustache, and his eyes had come to have a certain fixed gravity in +them which did not alter even when he laughed. His clothes, as Ross +said, were still hopelessly clean and well cut, but he rode better than +any man on the estancia, and did as good a day's work as any of the +rest. + +When the day's work was over Hopwood could be relied on to provide +baths. Ross, as has been said, considered himself an expert at +swizzling cocktails, and all three men had a fancy for playing the +banjo, which they could never get in tune. + +In spite of many drawbacks our two friends enjoyed the return to the +primitive conditions of life. To be uncivilized has indeed +considerable charm when the blood is young and the muscles are strong +and wiry. Peter was for getting some of his own sheep out here, and a +few good horses. And Toffy had schemes for an immense shipping +industry, which would carry cattle at so low a rate to England that +beef might be sold there at fourpence a pound, which, as he remarked, +would benefit all classes. Ross gave his two years' experience with a +weight of wisdom. He had a share in the estancia, and having tried to +live in London in a Government office on two hundred a year, found +Argentine by contrast the only country in the world for a white man. + +Peter himself, as he sat on the cow's skull near the door, and saw the +pleasant, simple life of the place, the major-domo's children ambling +along on their horse, the flock of geese, and the peons loitering by +the patio, was inclined for the time being to put a very low price on +civilization, and to wonder how Jane would like a trip out here. + +'Who knows,' he said to himself, 'my brother and I may do a deal. I +may find him a patriarchal sort of cove, living the simple life and +tending his own flocks and herds. He will migrate with his wives and +little ones to Bowshott, and Jane and I will annex the flocks and herds +in Argentine. The place might have its attractions for Jane; and, +anyway, there would not be this beastly separation.' + +Toffy appeared at the wire door of the corridor and shouted to them +that breakfast was ready, and Peter strolled towards the house. It was +an absurdly small dwelling, one story high, but with a number of low +buildings round it, covering a considerable amount of ground. And +withal it was a trim place which a man had furnished and fitted and +made ready for his bride, and the poor little garden, now devoid of +flowers, was another evidence of his care. The dining-room was a small +whitewashed hall hung with guns and rifles, and furnished with a table +and a deal cupboard which held some bottles of the rough red wine of +the country. The room next to it, called by courtesy the drawing-room, +had been built for Mrs. Chance when the rest of the house had been made +ready for her, and it still bore upon it the impress of a lady's taste. +There was a shelf running round the room furnished with photographs, +and a sofa covered with a guanaco rug. In one corner of the room stood +a piano, and upon it was a copy of _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, with +music, for Mrs. Chance had been a parson's daughter at home, and she +used to play to Chance and sing very sweetly on Sunday evenings. + +The roughly built fireplace in the room was filled with logs, and a +guitar always stood on a cretonne-covered box close by. It was on this +little cretonne-covered box that Mrs. Chance had been wont to sit and +play the guitar which Chance had purchased for her, and one of the +peons had taught her to thrum Spanish airs upon it. It had been a +pleasure to her during the brief year that she had spent in the +estancia house, with its red roof and simple rooms, and the corridor +that had been enclosed with wire-netting for her. It was she who had +carved the blotter and paper-knife on the writing-table, and had made +covers for the chairs. Mrs. Chance and her baby lie buried in the +cemetery at Buenos Ayres, and the estancia house always has an +unfinished look about it, for Chance likes to have it just as she left +it. + +Three or four sparsely furnished rooms opened out of the living-room, +and the corridor made a cool resting-place for the wayfaring men who +often rode up to the house at sundown, and for whose tired limbs a +catre and a rug were sufficient for a night of dreamless slumber. + +'All the same,' said Peter to himself, 'we don't seem to get much +forrader in our search for the missing heir.' + +Many weeks had gone by, and not a word had disturbed the impenetrable +silence which surrounded the fate of Peter's brother. That the time +had passed not unpleasantly did not alter the fact that no single thing +had been done, nor a single clue discovered. Peter had ridden about, +talked to all sorts and conditions of men, had taken one or two +journeys, and was still as far as ever from any trace of his brother. +Purvis had ridden over several times from his own estancia, bringing +his little boy with him. His treatment of the boy was affectionate to +the point of sentimentality. He looked after him with a woman's +carefulness, was over-anxious about his health, and treated him as +though he were much younger than his actual age. + +Peter greeted Mr. Purvis's visits to Las Lomas with cordiality, induced +by the feeling that even a chance word dropped by a man who knew the +country and its people as intimately as Purvis did might throw some +light on his quest. Added to this, the fair, mild-mannered man was an +intelligent talker on the rare occasions when he spoke at any length; +though for the most part he contented himself with regretting in his +dismal way the existing state of commerce in South America, and asking +naive questions which exposed his ignorance on many subjects. The +conversation of the three public-school men who knew the world of +London, and still spoke its language and discussed its news, who knew +moreover their friends' stories and jokes, and had stayed in a dozen +country houses together, was widely different from Mr. Purvis's +constant melancholy comments upon the state of Argentine finance. +Still, there was no doubt about it, the man might be useful; and, after +consulting with Ross and Toffy, Peter Ogilvie had decided to give him a +hint of the reason which had brought him to Argentine. Without +definitely stating that he had anything to discover, he had allowed +Purvis to know that if he could pick up information about a child who +had been lost sight of twenty-five years ago it would be of +considerable interest to himself and others to hear it. + +Purvis thought inquiries might be set on foot, but that it would cost +money to do so; and, without actually adopting the case professionally, +he promised to keep his eyes open, and had already made a journey to +investigate what at first sight seemed like a clue to traces of the +missing man. + +He and his son rode over very early to Las Lomas to-day; and, the boy +having been sent into the house to rest and get cool, Purvis crossed +the bare little garden, passed the stout rough paling of the corral, +and went towards the group of paraiso trees where Peter was sitting. +He wore his bowler hat and had the appearance of being a very delicate, +overworked City clerk. + +'Ross is not at home, I suppose?' he said, sitting down beside Peter in +the shade and removing his hat. The hat always left a painful-looking +red line on Mr. Purvis's forehead, and it was removed whenever he sat +down. The surprising thing was that he should ever have worn such an +uncomfortable headgear. + +'Oh, good morning, Purvis!' said Peter. 'No, Ross is not about, I +think. Did you want him?' + +No, Mr. Purvis would not trouble Ross; it really did not matter--it was +nothing. Probably Mr. Purvis did not want to see Ross, and had no +business with him, and actually wanted to see some one else. It was +one of the wretched things about the little man that his conversation +was nearly always ambiguous, and that he never asked straight-forwardly +for anything he wanted. And yet, look what a head he had for business! +He had made one immense fortune out of nothing at all in the boom-time, +and had lost it when the slump came. Now he seemed on the way to make +a fortune again. His estancia lay on the river-bank, and was +independent of the old heart-breaking system of railway service in +Argentine for the conveyance of his alfalfa and wheat. He had been +successful where other men had failed. There must be an immense amount +of grit somewhere in that delicate frame! Perhaps his chronic bad +health and pathetically white appearance and the perpetual tear in his +pale eyes had a good deal to do with giving the impression that he must +necessarily be inefficient. His dreamy gaze and soft voice heightened +the suggestion, and it was needful at the outset to discount Mr. +Purvis's appearance altogether before accepting the fact that his +mental powers were above the average. + +Purvis sat down, wiped his pale forehead with the bar of red across it, +and returned his handkerchief to the pocket of his dark tweed coat. He +produced a small bottle of tabloids, and shaking a couple of them into +the palm of his hand he proceeded to swallow them with a backward throw +of his head. Tabloids were Mr. Purvis's only personal indulgence. He +had been recommended them for his nerves, and he had swallowed so many +that had they not been perfectly innocuous he must have died long ago. + +Peter put down an English newspaper that he was reading, stretched his +legs on a deck-chair, lighted a cigarette, and, as Mr. Purvis did not +seem inclined to move off, made up his mind to submit to a talk with +him under conditions as comfortable as possible. As an agent Purvis +was possible; but as a companion his melancholy, his indistinct, soft +voice, and the platitudes which he uttered were boring to more +vigorous-minded men. + +Purvis took a small and uncomfortable chair near the one in which Peter +was stretched luxuriously, turned his wide-open pale eyes upon the +young man and said, 'I have been thinking a good deal about the story +which you told me some time ago about the child who disappeared out +here in Argentine some twenty-five years since, and has not been heard +of again. It sounds like a romance.' + +'Yes,' assented Peter, 'it's an odd tale.' + +'I have lived in many parts of Argentine,' said Purvis, 'and one hears +a good deal of gossip amongst all classes of persons, more particularly +I should say amongst a class with whom you and our friend Mr. Ross are +not intimately acquainted.' + +Mr. Ogilvie put on an air of detachment, and said he supposed Mr. +Purvis met all sorts and sizes. + +'At first,' said Mr. Purvis, 'I did not pay much attention to the story +except to make a few inquiries, such as I thought might be useful to +you. But the other day, by rather an odd coincidence involving matters +which I am not at liberty to divulge, I came across a curious case of a +child who was brought out to Rosario many years ago.' + +'What did you hear?' said Peter; he spoke quickly, and with an +impetuous movement sat upright in the deck-chair, and flung away the +end of his cigarette. + +'I cannot tell you,' said Purvis, 'how I am hedged about with +difficulties in this matter. For, in the first place, neither you nor +your friend, although you seem interested in the case, have entered +into the matter very fully with me. With that, of course, I shall not +quarrel,' said Mr. Purvis, spreading out his hands in a deprecatory +fashion. 'I only mean to say that before taking any definite steps to +trace this story to its source I must, if you will forgive me, ask +certain questions about the child; and, further, these inquiries which +I propose to make must be conducted with discretion, and are apt to +entail a good deal of expense.' + +He paused, and Peter said shortly, 'Of course all expenses will be +paid.' + +'It will require immense patience to prove anything about an unknown +infant who came out here twenty-five years ago,' said Purvis. + +'I always thought it was rather hopeless,' said Peter; 'but it seemed +to me the right thing to do.' + +'It seemed the right thing to do,' said Purvis like an echo. The +dreamy look was in his lack-lustre, weak eyes again, and his soft voice +was more than usually indistinct. 'I should like very much if you +could tell me anything about the man's childhood,' he continued. 'It +is important to know every detail you can possibly furnish for the +clue.' + +'I never even saw a picture or a photograph of him,' said Peter. + +'It is perplexing,' said Purvis. + +'Yes,' said Peter, 'it is rather annoying.' + +'Old servants are proverbial for their long memories,' the clerkly +visitor went on. 'Are there any such remaining in his old home who +would know anything about the man? Even a birth-mark--although it is a +thing most often connected with cheap romances nowadays--might help to +establish a case.' + +'Or disestablish it,' said Peter. + +'Or disestablish it,' repeated the echo. + +'As a matter of fact,' Peter said, relenting a little, 'the child was +born abroad, and no evidence of that sort is forthcoming. The lawyers +have followed every possible clue that could lead to information about +him without any result whatever.' + +'Singular!' said Purvis. + +'Yes,' assented Peter, 'I suppose there are few cases in which a man +has disappeared so completely, and left no trace behind him.' + +'The property which is at stake is a large one, I understood you to +say,' said Purvis. + +'I don't think I said so,' Peter answered; 'but there is no harm in +telling you that some money is involved.' + +'I should certainly know if any considerable property had been willed +away about here,' said Purvis quietly; 'and you see our richest men in +camp have really not much else except landed property to leave. In +Buenos Ayres, and Rosario too, a man of importance in the town dying +and leaving money could easily be traced.' + +'Well, I haven't exactly expectations from him,' said Peter, feeling +that he was getting into a muddle. 'The fact is,' he said cordially, +'I shall be interested to hear news of the man if you can obtain any +for me.' + +So far he had always regarded his brother's existence as some remote +and hardly possible contingency. Now he began to see plainly that the +man might very possibly be alive, and not only so, but that it might +also be possible to trace his whereabouts. The sudden realization of +this staggered him for a moment; but he went on steadily, 'I want the +man found, and I shall spare no trouble or expense in finding him. +Even if he is dead I do not mind telling you that any definite +information would be welcome to me; and if he is alive my object is to +find him as soon as possible.' + +Mr. Purvis took out his pocket-book. 'You will at least know whether +the man was dark or fair?' he said. + +'Fair, I suppose,' said Peter; 'all the portraits in the house are of +fair men.' + +'The man I spoke of is dark,' said Purvis, continuing his jottings in +his notebook in a neat hand. + +'Fair children often get dark as they grow older,' said Peter. + +Purvis acquiesced. 'The singular thing about it all is,' he said, +'that no one now seems to be living who saw the boy when he was a baby.' + +'No one can be traced,' said Peter. + +'This affair of the child in Rosario is probably a mare's nest,' said +Mr. Purvis in his hopeless way, as he closed his pocket-book and put a +strap round it. + +'Well, at least find out all you can about him,' said Peter, as Hopwood +appeared with coffee, and Ross and Toffy joined them and sat down under +the paraiso trees. There had been some heavy work on the estancia that +morning, followed by a lazy afternoon. + +'Can you tell me, Purvis,' said Toffy, breaking off an earnest +conversation with Ross, 'why there should be such an enormous +difficulty about getting a boiled shirt to wear? I suppose it really +does cleanse one's linen to bang it with a stone in the river, but the +appearance of greyness makes one doubtful.' + +'You and Peter are both so beastly civilized!' said Ross, in a flannel +shirt with baggy breeches and long boots. 'You don't even like killing +cattle, and the way Hopwood polishes your boots makes them look much +more fitted for St. James's Street than for the camp.' + +'You ought to make friends with Juan Lara's wife,' said Purvis. 'She +often washes Dick's little things for him, and does it very nicely.' + +'I believe that Lara, on purely economical grounds, wears our shirts a +week or two before he hands them over to his wife to wash,' said Ross, +laughing. + +'Ross,' said Peter, 'employs the gaucho's plan, and wears three shirts, +and when the top one gets dirty he discloses the next one to view.' + +'Remember, little man,' said Ross, stretching out a huge foot towards +Peter's recumbent figure on the deck-chair, 'I 'm a head and shoulders +taller than you are.' + +'I 'm sure Mr. Ogilvie's remark was only in fun,' interposed Purvis. +He rose and went to summon his boy to come and have coffee, and the +three men left behind under the trees watched him disappearing into the +house. + +'If it were a matter of real necessity,' said Ross, 'I believe I could +endure the loss of Purvis; he becomes a bore, and tears and tabloids +combined are really very depressing.' + +'Poor beast!' said Toffy charitably. + +'I can't make out,' said Ross, 'what the trouble is at present on his +estancia. I have only heard some native gossip, and I don't know what +it is all about; but there seems to be an idea that Purvis is lying on +the top of a mine which may "go off sudden."' + +'I believe,' began Peter, 'that Purvis is going to be of use, as Sir +John thought he might be. There is a very odd tale he was telling me +just now.' He broke off suddenly as Purvis reappeared in his usual +quiet, shadowy way. He brought a small saddle-bag with him when he +travelled, which seemed to be filled for the most part with papers. +His dark clothes were always neatly brushed and folded by himself, and +he generally spent his days riding to and fro between the house and the +nearest telegraph-office. + +'You should take a holiday while you are here,' said Toffy, seeing +Purvis sitting down immediately to write one of his interminable +telegrams. 'It would do you good.' + +'It's my nerves,' said Purvis hopelessly. + +Ross laughed and said, 'If I lived on weak tea and tabloids as you do, +Purvis, I should be in my grave in ten days.' + +'I think,' said Purvis, 'that these new phospherine things are doing me +some good. But I sleep so little now. I don't suppose there's an hour +of the night when I 'm so sound asleep a whisper would not wake me.' + +'It takes a good loud gong,' said Ross, 'to make me even realize that I +am in bed.' + +'At home,' said Peter, 'I once had an alarm-clock fixed above my bed to +wake me, and at last I told the man who sold it to me that it never +struck; and really I thought it did not until he showed me that it +worked all right.' + +'There is a beastly bell for the out-of-door servants at Hulworth,' +said Toffy, 'which is beside my window, and----' + +'I know that bell,' said Peter. 'I tie it up regularly every time I am +at Hulworth.' + +'Have you also got a country seat?' asked Mr. Purvis. + +'Oh, Hulworth is a mouldy old barrack,' replied Toffy. '"Country seat" +is too fine a name for it.' + +'Is it quite near Bowshott?' asked Purvis. + +'No, it's nine miles off,' said Peter, 'unless you ride across country.' + +'I wish,' he said to Ross that evening as they sat together in the +corridor, 'that I had any one else to help me in this affair except +Purvis.' + +Ross knew the whole story, and was as trustworthy and straightforward a +man as ever breathed. 'I wish you had,' he said cordially; 'but in his +own creepy fashion I believe Purvis is working for you as well as he +can, and he has an extraordinary knowledge of this country and its +language. You see, it is not as if you were looking for your brother +amongst the most respectable English colonists in the land. You may +have to hunt for him in some remarkably queer places, and it is there, +it strikes me, that Purvis will help you.' + +'I wish the thing were settled one way or another,' said Peter, 'so +that I might know where I stand. You see, if my brother is alive---- +Well?' + +'Nothing, only I thought I heard something moving outside the +wire-netting, and I hate the way Purvis creeps about.' + +'Purvis is putting his little boy to bed and hearing him say his +prayers,' said Toffy. 'He is a queer mixture.' + +Rosa rose, and walking to the edge of the corridor peered out into the +pitch-black night. + +'It 's so dark,' he said, 'I cannot see a thing.' + +'Never mind,' said Peter, 'there are no wild beasts to spring at you +unawares. Do you remember poor Cranley, who was in Pitt's house at +Eton? Did you ever hear how he was killed in his veranda in India by a +tiger?' + +'Yes,' said Ross absently, 'awfully sad thing. Do you know, Peter, I +believe I must walk round to the other side of the house and see if +that chap is really putting his child to bed.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +So much has been said and so much has been written on the subject of +the man who works and the woman who weeps, the man who fares forth and +the woman who waits at home, that it hardly seems necessary to begin a +chapter with another dissertation upon this theme. Lovers are +proverbially discontented in the adverse conditions of separation. +Peter Ogilvie would have given much to be at home in the winter +following his mother's death, and there is no doubt that Jane Erskine +felt that things would have been many times easier away from home. But +if these two persons had exchanged places their sentiments would +doubtless have been exchanged also, thus proving what a difficult class +of beings lovers are, and how impossible it is to satisfy or to console +them. + +Coming as it did in the middle of a long dull winter the change to +Culversham was received by Jane with whole-hearted joy. Miss +Abingdon's large staff of servants, all elderly and all over-paid, +combined with their mistress to welcome Miss Erskine back. The +familiar rooms had never looked more pleasant than on this bleak +December afternoon. A big tea-table was set by the fire, and the +massive silver upon it winked delightedly at the newly arrived guest. +The fire (Miss Abingdon was famous for her good fires) roared joyfully +up the chimney; the dogs knew Jane's voice long before she was out of +the carriage, and proceeded to give an almost hysterical demonstration +of their affection. And Miss Abingdon, whom emotion always made more +than usually severe, snubbed her maid and scolded the butler, and, +sitting down by the fire while Jane poured out tea, entered into so +long and minute an account of the gardener's shortcomings that it would +seem as though her niece had come from London for no other reason than +to hear the recital of her wrongs. + +'You must go to bed early,' said Miss Abingdon when she and Jane went +to dress for dinner; and she kept her up talking until long after +twelve o'clock. Mrs. Avory was established in a charming little +cottage almost at the gate of the Vicarage, and was a sort of senior +curate to Canon Wrottesley. Mrs. Avory, Miss Abingdon said, was really +able to appreciate the canon, and in going so far the lady probably +meant that Mrs. Avory wholly admired and perhaps came very near to +accepting as her Pope the good-looking vicar. Mr. Lawrence was being +most attentive and useful, as he always was, and had chosen a new +tea-service for Miss Abingdon the last time he was in town--his taste +was perfect in such matters. He had even arranged to have her baths +painted with a special sort of white enamel, and Miss Abingdon could +only hope the world would not censure her for confiding these intimate +domestic details to a gentleman. Mrs. Wrottesley was still very far +from well; her illness seemed to have brought out--so Miss Abingdon +said--all the nobility of Canon Wrottesley's character. But--in +justice, Miss Abingdon ought to say--Mrs. Wrottesley had been equally +self-forgetful, and had insisted on her husband's going into society a +little. He was coming to them--according to old-established custom--to +dinner on Christmas Day, and Miss Sherard was coming down for the week, +and whom else would Jane like to ask for Christmas? + +Miss Abingdon was a staunch upholder of familiar customs. There was a +certain ritual to be observed during Christmas week, and Miss Abingdon +observed it. She gave handsome presents to her household on Christmas +morning, and she always wept in church on Christmas Day, out of respect +to the memory of an elder sister who had died many years ago, and whom +as a matter of fact Miss Abingdon had never known very intimately, for +she had married and left home when Mary Abingdon was but a child. She +gave tips to bell-ringers and carol-singers, and entertained +Sunday-school children and 'mothers' in the laundry. These +anniversaries, she was wont to remark conscientiously, mitigating the +enjoyment of placing handsome presents beside her guests' breakfast +plates--these anniversaries were full of sadness. And having suffered +fewer bereavements than commonly fall to the lot of most women of her +age, she dutifully thought of her elder sister, whom she vaguely +remembered as an occasional guest at her father's house, and she could +not have enjoyed a Christmas Day sermon in which there was not an +allusion to empty chairs. + +After morning service Miss Abingdon walked to the Vicarage and bestowed +her yearly gifts upon the Wrottesley family. It was a matter of +conscience with her to give a present of exactly the same value to Mrs. +Wrottesley as to the canon, and this year she offered her little gifts +with a good deal of compunction, remembering how difficult she had +often found it to be quite fair in the distribution. For Mrs. +Wrottesley was failing in health, and in her own plain, unostentatious +way she had made up her mind that her time for quitting this world was +not very far off. She wrote her will with scrupulous exactness and +justness, and having done so she made no allusion whatever to what must +have been occupying her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else, +but continued to live the life in which care for herself had always +been conspicuously absent. + +She received Miss Abingdon and Jane on Christmas Day in her pleasant +drawing-room which the wintry sunshine was flooding with warmth and +joyousness, and she tendered her thanks for the presents which had been +brought for her, assured her inquirers that she was very much better in +health, and said that she had ordered no dinner at home, so that her +husband and boys might be forced to accept Miss Abingdon's customary +hospitality. Canon Wrottesley received his wife's statement as to the +improvement of her health with ingenuous pleasure. He believed that +she was really looking better, twitted her kindly on her pale cheeks, +and with the optimism which declines to harbour fears and apprehensions +he refused to believe that she was seriously ill. The canon himself +had had a bad cold lately, and his evident wish to believe that his own +malady was as serious as Mrs. Wrottesley's had something pathetic in +it. If he could get rid of a heavy cold and feel quite himself by +Christmas Day, his wife surely would pick up in health as soon as the +warm weather should come. He believed he was doing right in making +light of her ailments, and Mrs. Wrottesley saw all this quite plainly, +and loved him none the less for it. + +'How is your cold?' said Miss Abingdon, with sympathy in her voice, and +the vicar threw back his handsome head and tapped his throat, which he +said was a bit husky still, although it was no use giving way to +illness. 'Master your health,' he said in a tone of muscular +Christianity, 'and it won't master you--eh, mamma?' he added, with an +encouraging glance at his wife's pale face on the sofa. + +The Vicar of Wakefield, and even Mr. Pickwick himself, had never been +more jovial at a Christmas party than were Miss Abingdon's guests. A +silver bowl in the middle of the table suggested punch; Canon +Wrottesley must brew a wassail bowl. A footman was sent for this thing +and that, for lemons and boiling water--the water must boil, remember? +And too much sugar would spoil the whole thing. The vicar stirred the +ingredients with an air, and poured from time to time a spoonful of the +punch into a wine-glass, and sampled its quality by rolling it in his +mouth and screwing up his eyes. + +The wassail bowl being now mixed to his satisfaction, he filled the +glasses of the company, allotting to each lady the thimbleful which he +believed to be a woman's share of any alcoholic beverage, and +extracting compliments from every one. The wassail bowl was a triumph, +and the candle of Mr. Pickwick was put out. Even Dickens' hero could +not have given such an air of jollity to a festive occasion like this. +He toasted every one in the good old-fashioned custom, requesting 'A +glass of wine with you' on this side and on that. After dinner the +presence of Dorothy Avory furnished the pretext for inaugurating a +country dance in the hall. Canon Wrottesley pushed chairs aside and +rolled rugs up, and before many minutes were over Sir Roger de Coverley +was in full swing, and he was footing it with the indomitable energy of +the man whose feet may be heavy but whose heart is aye young. + +Miss Abingdon in grey satin was the vicar's partner, and attempted to +go through the steps in the minuet style; the young Wrottesleys, on the +other hand, were at an age when to be asked to dance Sir Roger de +Coverley can only be construed as deadly insult. Fortunately for them, +the vicar by some strategical movement always found himself in the +enviable position of the dancer who ambles forward to make his bow. + +The lady who was playing the piano at last stopped the music with a few +solemn chords, faintly suggestive of an Amen, and Canon Wrottesley, who +was proceeding with his fifth or sixth sally into the middle of the +figure, stopped breathless. Dorothy Avory looked over-heated when the +dance was finished, and as she had furnished the excuse for a rather +poor attempt at romping, her obvious fatigue was quite sufficient to +give the canon an opportunity of a little quiet reading until all were +rested. He put on his spectacles--which he always wore with an air of +apology--and gave out the title of the story, _The Old Vicomte--A +Christmas Episode_. + +Doubtless the scene of the story was laid in France, but that fact +hardly justified Canon Wrottesley in reading the whole of it in broken +English. His knowledge of French had always been a matter of pride +with him, and he enjoyed rolling out the foreign names with a perfect +accent. + +The number of listeners in the room had diminished considerably before +the reading was finished. Good-nights were said on all sides, the +Vicarage party drove away, and, the conscientious romping and jollity +being over, it may have been felt by some of Miss Abingdon's guests +that the duties of Christmas Day had not been altogether light, and +that now perhaps enforced cheerfulness might be abandoned in favour of +a more easy and natural frame of mind. + +Kitty Sherard came into Jane's room in her dressing-gown, with her +hair-brush in her hand, and deliberately relaxed after the fatigues of +the evening. Most girls with such a profusion of curls as Kitty's +would have been content to allow them to wander unrestrained over her +shoulders; but Miss Sherard with her passion for decoration would have +dressed beautifully on a desert island, if her trunks had been washed +ashore with her; she had fastened a knot of rose-coloured ribbon in her +hair, and wore it on one side just over her eye with an unstudied and +perfectly successful effect. + +'I suppose you know,' said Jane, 'that you are extraordinarily pretty, +Kitty?' + +'I spend a fortune on dresses which look cheap,' said Kitty, 'and so +people think I am nice-looking.' + +Jane thought such humility on the part of any one so pretty as Miss +Sherard was a sign in her that she must be out of spirits; so she said, +'Oh, nonsense, Kitty!' in a very affectionate way, and begged that Miss +Sherard would smoke a cigarette if she felt inclined. + +'No,' said Kitty, 'I don't think I want to smoke.' + +Jane drew her chair nearer the big chair on the hearth-rug, and, +blowing out the candles, the two girls sat by the firelight. + +Tenderness, as every one knows, is an ineradicable instinct of +womanhood. Kitty Sherard might smoke cigarettes and drive in a very +high dogcart, but just then her heart felt very nearly breaking, and +she was so grateful to Jane for blowing out the lights and sitting near +her that in defiance of her mood she began to laugh. + +'What a moist party we were in church this morning!' she said, smiling +broadly, and ignoring the fact that her eyes had tears in them. 'Miss +Abingdon looked conscientiously tearful, and Mrs. Avory applied herself +to her pocket-handkerchief as soon as the canon began his usual joyful +Christmas message about empty chairs and absent friends.' + +'Poor Mrs. Avory!' said Jane, 'weeping has become a sort of habit with +her, and tears come very easily. If we had trimmed parasols and eaten +tinned food for supper for a year or two, Kitty, I imagine we should +become very tearful too.' + +Miss Sherard unloosed the rose-coloured ribbon which bound her hair, +and beginning to brush out her curls she said 'Yes,' slowly, and turned +to other topics. + +'Do you ever feel quite old, Jane?' she said at last. 'I do, +especially during a long frost. I feel as if I had tried every single +bit of pleasure that there is in the world and had come through it and +out on the other side, and found that none of it was the least little +bit of good.' + +'Heaven send us a thaw soon!' exclaimed Jane. + +'I quite adore my father,' said Kitty with emphasis, 'and I think he +helps to keep me young; but it is rather pathetic, isn't it, that any +one should think one so perfect as he thinks me?' + +Jane rose ostentatiously from her place and opened the window and +consulted a thermometer that hung outside. + +'Still freezing hard,' she said, and returned to her seat again. + +'You are rather a brick, Jane,' said Kitty. + +'To-morrow,' said Jane, 'I shall certainly write to your father urging +his immediate return before you begin to grow grey-haired.' + +'You 've had a fairly odious Christmas Day,' said Kitty, not noticing +the interruption. 'You 've had to dry Miss Abingdon's tears, and +listen to Canon Wrottesley reading aloud, and you have had to be hearty +to carol-singers and to waft holly-berries in the faces of mothers. +Why don't you throw something at me when I come to your room in the +middle of the night as cross as a bear with a sore head, and begin to +grumble at you?' + +This remark Jane considered serious. 'The end of it will be, that you +'ll get engaged to be married, Kitty,' she said, 'and then I shall jeer +at you and recall to you every one of your past flirtations, and all +your good resolutions about remaining single, and being happy ever +after.' + +'Is it really still Christmas Day?' said Kitty. 'I thought it began +quite a week ago, and that we had had nights and nights of wassail +bowls and old memories and Christmas-card cheerfulness.' She gathered +up her hair-pins and brushes and gave a yawn. 'If it is nearly twelve +o'clock I suppose I ought to go,' she said. + +'I am not a bit sleepy,' quoth Jane. + +'Apart from the fact of my winter being dull,' said Kitty, 'with my +beloved parent in Rome, my temper is never proof against giving way +when any one reads aloud to me. The story of the French vicomte is +really answerable for my present horrible state of mind.' + +'One always connects reading aloud with sick-beds and work-parties,' +said Jane. 'When you are ill, Kitty, I intend to come and read good +books to you.' + +'Mrs. Avory encouraged the canon,' said Kitty. 'I found out afterwards +that she had read the story before, and yet she gave a sort of +surprised giggle at everything.' + +'The Wrottesleys are being awfully good to her,' said Jane excusingly. + +Kitty was still gazing into the fire; her tone when she spoke was that +of a sensible person considering some subject only remotely interesting +to her. 'I suppose,' she said steadily, but with a touch of curiosity, +'that Mrs. Avory will always continue to think that to be true for ever +and ever to Toffy is the most noble and virtuous action in the world.' + +'They have been very faithful to each other,' said Jane. + +A most unexpected thing then happened, for Kitty kneeled down suddenly +on the hearth-rug, while the firelight shone in her eyes and gave a +fierce red look to them. 'Oh, what is the use of it all?' she cried, +'and what is to be the end of it? Mr. Avory is not going to die--he 's +the strongest man I know, and he can't be much more than forty years +old! How does she think it is all going to end? Don't you see how +absurd the whole thing is? She's seven years older than Toffy, so that +even if she could marry him it would not be the best thing for him. +Oh, I know she has behaved well, and worked hard! I know she has eaten +horrid food and trimmed parasols, and been faithful and good, but will +she ever let him care for any one else?' + +'Kitty!' said Jane; she took another step forward, and taking Kitty's +face between her hands she turned it towards her. 'Kitty!' + +'Isn't it ridiculous!' said Kitty. She swallowed down a sob in her +throat and made a pretence of laughing while her hands played with her +hair-brush, and her eyes, which endeavoured to blaze defiance, only +succeeded in looking large and full of tears. + +'I never knew--I never guessed----' began Jane helplessly. + +'You were never meant to know,' said Kitty, and she turned away her +face suddenly from Jane's encircling hands and buried it in the cushion +of the chair. Her voice dropped ominously; she was still kneeling on +the hearth-rug with the paraphernalia of her toilet about her--ribbons +and gold-backed brushes, and a little enamel box for hair-pins. 'No +one was ever meant to know!' she cried, 'and now I shall never be able +to look you in the face again as long as we both do live! It's been +going on so long, Jane, and you 've all been so sorry for Mrs. Avory, +and so sorry for Toffy.' + +'Does he know?' asked Jane, in a low voice. + +Kitty raised her head and pretended to laugh again. 'I 've not +proposed to him yet,' she said. + +'But he cares,' said Jane, with conviction. 'He does care, Kitty!' + +'Oh,' said Kitty, bursting into tears, 'isn't it all a frightful +muddle!' + + * * * * * + +The conclusion, therefore, which may be arrived at on the vexed +question as to which is preferable--the lot of the man who works or the +lot of the woman who weeps, may be summed up in the convenient phrase, +'There is a great deal to be said on both sides.' + +It is true that Kitty Sherard and Jane, left behind in comfortable and +prosaic England, were spared the torment of flies and mosquitoes and +other minor ills; they escaped most of the hard things of life, and +enjoyed many of its pleasures and luxuries; and these mitigations +seemed to them things of very little worth, and the life of action, +when viewed from the safe security of their environment, appeared to be +the only possible condition which might assuage pain or lessen the +bitterness of separation. + +Peter Ogilvie, meanwhile, and his friend, Nigel Christopherson, were in +the midst of weather as hot as can be very well endured even by English +people, who seem capable of resisting almost every sort of bad climate. +The sun rose on the edge of the level plains every morning with +horrible punctuality, and stared and blazed relentlessly until it had +burned itself out in a beautiful rage and glory in the blood-red +western sky. + +'Dawn,' Ross said, 'is one of the things you are disposed to admire +when you first come to Argentine, but when the hot weather begins you +feel inclined to throw your boots at the sun when it rises.' + +Now it was afternoon, and a heavy day's work in the corral was over. +Peter was writing letters, while Ross and Toffy dozed in long cane +chairs in the corridor. Purvis sat on the little cretonne-covered box +beside the empty fireplace, and looked with lack-lustre eyes into +space. He had been helping with some work on the estancia; but he had +brought none of his own men with him, as some neighbours had done, and +the ominous whisper grew that there was trouble down at his place. +Ross treated the matter lightly, and explained it by saying that Purvis +was making a fortune with his steamers, and was feeding his men on +_carne flacca_. 'Purvis does his best, poor beast, and I believe he is +worth a dozen detectives in this affair of yours, Peter.' + +Peter himself, however, was inclined to draw back a little. 'He has +put me on the wrong scent once or twice,' he said. + +'After all, you haven't told him much,' said Ross. + +And Peter agreed that this was so. + +There was an undefined feeling in his mind that if he had to learn that +his brother was alive he would like to hear of it through such +legalized channels as Sir John Falconer was arranging. The detective +spirit was not strong in Peter Ogilvie. He would have preferred to +take the whole world into his confidence, and to ask them to speak out +if they had anything to say. But Mr. Semple and Sir John had cautioned +him against this procedure, and the inquiries he had been able to make +had been conducted at one time with such surprising caution that no +possible clue was given towards finding the child, while at others he +had allowed more to be known than Mr. Semple, for instance, would have +thought wise. He had lately become more reserved in his dealings with +their neighbour at La Dorada, and began almost to try to discount the +fact that he had ever consulted Purvis at all about his affairs. He +lightly waved aside any information that was given him, and was always +busy at the moment when Purvis wanted a few words with him. He advised +Toffy to say, if he were asked, that Sir John Falconer was making +inquiries, and that for the present they themselves were not going to +move in the matter. Toffy and Ross both thought that they had gone too +far to make such an attitude possible. 'What harm can it do to find +out what he knows?' Ross said more than once. + +But Peter still held back. 'I hate his confounded mysteries,' he said, +'and I don't attach much importance to things that are only known in a +back-stairs sort of way.' + +This afternoon in his letter to Jane he had given it as his opinion +that the little man who they had thought might help them was proving to +be rather a fraud. 'He is always starting ideas,' wrote Peter, 'and +nothing comes of them. Why, bless me, you would think that Argentine +was peopled with unclaimed babies and stiff with missing heirs.' + +He felt better when he had unbosomed himself to Jane and had got rid of +some of his impatience and ill-temper. + +'I think I 'll ride to the post presently,' he said, getting up and +stretching himself; 'it must get cooler soon.' + +Purvis got up also from his little wooden seat by the fireplace. 'I +'ll come with you,' he said. 'I am expecting letters which may want my +immediate attention, and I can call at the telegraph office on my way. +May I give you my company so far?' he asked. There was a touch of the +lackey about Purvis, and his voice was humble sometimes to the verge of +irritation. + +'_Como no?_' said Peter lazily, in the formula of the country. His +tone was not enthusiastic. Purvis was so prone to circumlocution that +the fact that he had asked deliberately to accompany him on the ride +towards the mail in the cool of the evening convinced him that the man +could have nothing of importance to say. + +They rode together over the short, tough turf of the camp a little way +without speaking, and then Purvis began, in his smooth thin voice, +riding a little nearer to his companion so as to make himself heard +without undue exertion, 'I wanted to speak to you alone.' + +'Say on,' said Peter. + +When he was riding Purvis was perhaps at his worst. He had an ugly +seat in the saddle, and his dark grey suit, made with trousers, was +worn without riding-boots. He looked straight in front of him with his +tired watery eyes with the perpetual tear in them, and said, 'I believe +we are within measurable distance of finding the man you seek.' + +Peter looked full at him, but the other did not turn his head; his +horse cantered along lazily in the evening light as he sat loosely in +the saddle, his pale, expressionless face turned towards the path by +which they were travelling. + +'The name of the man,' he said, 'is Edward Ogilvie.' + +'Yes,' said Peter; 'my brother.' The thing was out now, and he could +thank Heaven that he did not wear his heart on his sleeve. + +'It is a very strange story!' said Purvis. + +'May we have it?' asked Peter briefly. He might employ Purvis, but it +galled him to think that his future lay in his hands. + +'No,' said Purvis, in his hesitating, thin voice. 'You can't have it +for the present. To begin with,' he continued, turning towards Peter +for the first time, and raising pathetically large eyes towards him, 'I +am not going to speak about it until I am sure, nor am I going to speak +about it until I have asked you for some necessary details which will +make a mischance or a case of mistaken identity impossible. I don't +want to make a fool of myself, as you have trusted me so far.' + +'Ask me anything you like,' said Peter laconically. His mind was +pretty full just then, and there was a note of confidence in Purvis's +voice which gave him the idea that their search was nearly over. He +began to wonder how much money he had, and whether there was any chance +of the Scottish place being his. Bowshott, of course, would pass away +from him, and the beautiful house with its galleries and its gardens +would be the property of some unknown man. Possibly the man had a +wife, and where Jane was to have reigned as mistress there would be +some woman, unused to great houses, and with manners perhaps not suited +to her position. He wondered what his mother would have thought about +it all, and whether she could in the least realize what the result of +her unfinished letter to him might be. Whatever her faults she had +been a great lady to her finger-tips. He remembered her, as he had +been wont to see her, showing her pictures and gardens to the foreign +royalties who came to see her, or receiving Her Majesty when she drove +over from Windsor and called upon her. Only Jane could ever fill her +place adequately; Jane with her short skirts and graceful, swinging +walk, and her queer plain hats that so perfectly became her, and made +country neighbours look overdressed. He loved to remember her in a +hundred different ways--in white satin, with a string of pearls about +her neck; at meets, on one of her sixteen-hand hunters; playing golf; +painting the rabbit-hutch in the garden; binding up Toffy's hand that +morning, ages ago, when he had had a spill out of his motor-car; +playing with the school-children on the lawn; or, best of all, perhaps, +dancing in the great ballroom at Bowshott, and sitting with him +afterwards in the dimness of his mother's tapestried chamber, her great +white feather fan laid upon her knees. + +'Is the man married?' asked Peter, with a drawl. + +'He is married,' Purvis said, as the two horses swung together in their +easy stride. + +'Wife alive?' Peter slowed down and lighted a cigarette with +deliberation. + +'That is a part of the story which I cannot at present divulge,' said +Purvis. + +'It sounds mysterious!' said Peter, sending his horse into a canter +again. + +'If it were written in a romance it would hardly be believed,' said the +other. + +'You were going to ask me some questions,' said Peter, as though to put +an end to any dissertation on the romantic side of the story. 'It is a +business matter,' he said, 'and we had better be businesslike about it. +We can unfold the romance of it later.' + +'That is my wish,' said Purvis gravely. + +Peter began to tell himself that he was treating the man badly. He had +nothing to gain beyond a little money for his services, and so far he +had behaved well and with tact. He was obviously disinterested, +although perhaps the bill for pursuing his investigations might be +fairly high. + +'I have reason to believe that the identity of the man can be proved,' +said Purvis; 'but I am not going to risk finding a mare's nest, as I +have told you.' + +'I am not much help to you,' said Peter. 'I have never set eyes oh my +brother since I was two years old.' + +'This is his photograph,' said Purvis, producing a coloured photograph +from his pocket. + +Peter took it into his hands and looked long at it. It represented a +little boy with fair curls seated in a photographer's arm-chair. + +'Can you tell me if it resembles any of your family?' said Purvis. + +'Well, 'pon my word I don't know,' said Peter. 'The photograph is a +small one, you see, and evidently not a very good one, and to my mind +all children of that age look exactly alike. He looks a good little +chap,' he finished, with a touch of kindness in his voice. If his +brother turned out to be a good fellow reparation would be made easier; +and, heavens! how badly the man had been treated. + +'The chief danger,' said Purvis, 'lies in the fact that even a strong +chain of evidence is not likely to be accepted by those who would +benefit by Edward Ogilvie's death.' + +'I suppose one would play a fair game,' said Peter shortly. 'I should +like to know where you have heard of the man?' + +'I may tell you that much,' said Purvis. 'I heard of him at Rosario.' + +'Any reason why he should not have communicated with his friends all +these years?' + +'Within the next few weeks,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to bring +you face to face with your brother, and then you can put what inquiries +you like to him. You must surely see that it is necessary to act with +caution until the thing is decided. Even now I can't be quite sure if +this man's claim is valid; but once the story is out a dozen claimants +may arise, and it would cost you a fortune to sift all the evidence +which they might bring.' + +'Yes, I see that,' said Peter. + +'I am disappointed that the photograph conveys nothing to you,' said +Purvis. 'I looked upon it as an important link in the chain of +evidence, thinking there might be another like it amongst the old +servants, perhaps, at your home.' + +Peter looked at it again. 'The trouble is,' he said, 'that there are +no old servants who knew us as children. He was handing the photograph +back to Purvis when an idea struck him. 'I tell you what, though,' he +exclaimed, 'I believe the sash round the child's waist is made of +Ogilvie tartan.' + + * * * * * + +A bare-legged boy on a lean pony was seen approaching them in a cloud +of dust. The pony's short canter made his pace as easy as a +rocking-chair; and Lara's son, who rode him, was half asleep in the +heat. The post-bag dangled from his saddle, and the reins lay on the +pony's neck. + +'Any letters?' said Peter in Spanish, and the boy handed the bag to +him. The mail-boat from England, which was run on purpose to carry +Jane's weekly letter to him, had brought the big square envelope with +its usual commendable punctuality. Peter chose it out from the rest of +the letters, and, handing Purvis a packet which belonged to him, he +gave the bag back to the boy, who cantered along with his bare legs +swinging until he disappeared into the level glare of the setting sun. + +Peter let his horse amble on slowly, and read his letter while he rode. + +'I must push on, I think,' said the quiet voice of Purvis beside him. +'There are one or two things which, I gather from my letters, I must +put straight at the estancia. I hope to have definite news to +communicate to you before long.' + +'Thanks!' said Peter, giving him a nod. 'You will let me hear from you +as soon as you know anything?' He turned his horse homewards, and +Purvis rode on alone. + +'If he has found my brother,' quoth Peter, 'Purvis has done his job, +and I can't complain; but he has got to settle the thing up without all +this confounded mystery, or else he can leave it alone. There is one +thing perfectly clear. Edward himself knows nothing about his parents +or his prospects, or he would have claimed the property long ago. Now, +how has Purvis found out about the man what he doesn't know himself? +Where has he got his clue? One thing is pretty certain--that he +doesn't want me to meet my brother yet, which looks very much as if our +friend Purvis was going to make some sort of bargain with the heir, +whoever he is, before he allows him to know the truth about himself. +Well, the affair will be judged by English lawyers when we get home, +and if it is a case of blackmail, for instance, English people are not +very fond of that sort of thing, so Purvis may not be able to make such +a good bargain as he thinks. + +'Of course the chain of evidence may be perfectly simple. Purvis has +probably got hold of the name of whoever it was that brought Edward +here, and has traced him somewhere, and has got the whole story from +him. My mother had always an unlimited supply of money; she could have +settled a large sum on the people who looked after him, and of course +it is evident that some money must have been paid, though the lawyers +could find no trace of it amongst her papers. The only other +hypothesis is that it is a case of some extraordinary aberration of +memory, and that, the child she disliked having been removed, she +forgot about him altogether. All my life I never remember hearing him +mentioned; and as my mother did not return to Bowshott until I was +nearly eight years old, very little may have been said to her that +would recall the fact of the boy's death. + +'It is the beastly uncertainty of it,' he continued, as he rode slowly +home on the dusty track which was the apology for a road across the +camp. 'If the estate pays me sufficient to live upon I needn't +grumble; but Purvis must give me an account of what he has been doing, +and put me in possession of the facts of the case. One always +distrusts the middleman, and wonders if he is making a good bargain on +both sides. A small man like Purvis always tries to be important, and +to make every one believe that he alone holds the key to mysteries, and +that no one can get on without him. I don't at present see how he can +defraud either me or my brother, even if he wants to; but I am not +going to be content with hints or suggestions, as if I were living in a +penny novelette.' + +He rode slowly home through the heat that rose like a palpable gas from +the scorched ground, until the little estancia house hove in sight +again. He found that Toffy and Ross were still enjoying their +afternoon siesta. There was not a bit of shade anywhere, and the heat +seemed to burn through the roof until the very floor was hot to walk +upon. His thoughts went back to Purvis in his tweed clothes and the +bowler bat with the pugaree on it, and he wondered how he fared in the +scorching heat. Probably the anaemic little man hardly knew what it +was to be too hot. He used to ride over the camp when even the peons +did not show their heads out of doors, and his hands were always cold +and damp to the touch. Peter drank some tea and sat down at little +Mrs. Chance's writing-table in the drawing-room, and wrote to Jane. +There was a feeling of storm in the air, and he envied the two men +sleeping luxuriously in the corridor. + +'When you have been out here a year or two,' said the sleepy voice of +Ross from the depths of a long cane chair, 'you will find that letters +are not only impossible but unnecessary. No one expects to hear from +one after the first month or two, and if one did write there would be +nothing to say.' + +'When my creditors get too troublesome,' said Toffy, also waking up, 'I +shall emigrate here and lose my own address. With strict economy one +might live very cheaply in Argentine.' + +Lara's boy, who had come with the letters, had waited to ride back with +the bag to the far distant post office; and the Englishmen at the +estancia stood and watched him--a tiny figure on his tireless little +Argentine pony--riding away eastward until once more a cloud of dust +swallowed him up. The humble postman seemed to form a link with home, +and in three weeks' time the letters which they had confided to him +would be safely in the hands of those to whom they were written in +England. The pony's unshod hoofs had made hardly any sound on the turf +as he cantered off, and Lara's boy, in his loose shirt and shabby +clothes, and his bare feet hanging stirrupless on each side of the +pony, disappeared like a wraith. There was a week to wait before he +would come with any more letters. + +'I wish the storm would burst or blow over,' said Ross; 'the heat is +worse than ever to-day, and it doesn't seem as though we were going to +have a cool night.' + +'Even the peons look curled up,' said Toffy, glancing at a group of +men, picturesquely untidy, with loose shirts and scarlet boinas on +their heads, who lounged against the _palo a pique_ of the corral. + +'What idle brutes they are, really!' said Ross; 'and they 're always +ten times worse when Chance is away. Look at those bits of paper +littering the place,' he went on fussily. 'Now I know that those men +have been told thousands of times not to let things fly about like +that. But it saves them trouble when they clean a room to sweep +everything out of doors and then leave it lying about.' + +Probably most men who own property have an inherent dislike to seeing +scraps of paper lying about; the sight suggests trippers and visitors' +days, and Peter stepped down from the raised corridor, and with his +stick began poking the bits of paper into the powdery mud which was all +that at present formed the estancia garden. + +'I believe we might paper the whole house with Purvis's telegrams,' he +said, laughing, as he shoved a bit of coloured paper under the ground. + +'Salter,' he said to himself--'Salter. It sounds like the agony column +at home. Well, Ross and I had better stop acting as scavengers for the +household, or we may learn too much of Purvis's domestic affairs.' + +He stopped poking with his stick; and, although he laughed, he was as +much annoyed at having seen the name on the telegram as he would have +been had he inadvertently overlooked another man's hand at cards. + +The storm blew away in the night, and after the dawn the sky was a +heavenly blue, so brilliant that it could not be overlooked. In the +early morning the mimosa trees threw cool shadows to westward, and +little parakeets, making their flights from bough to bough, screamed +overhead. On the estancia work began early; some one had to lasso a +novillo for the pot, and the rodeo looked like a seething, bubbling +cauldron, with its moving mass of cattle. The easy paces of the horses +on which all the work of the place was done made riding a matter not of +exercise at all; and the only thing necessary was to duck heads to +avoid the mimosa boughs, and to guide the horses round the holes and +stumps in the ground at a gentle canter. The novillo was lassoed, and +the sun began to be sultry when the three men rode back to breakfast, +congratulating themselves that, as the day seemed likely to be as hot +as usual, there was not a great deal of work to be done, at least until +the cool of the evening. + +'Is that Purvis?' asked Toffy, as they approached the house and +tethered their horses by the simple expedient of throwing their reins +over their heads and letting them trail upon the ground. 'When, in the +name of the Prophet, does that fellow sleep?' It was barely ten +o'clock when they rode back to breakfast, and Purvis must have started +on his ride almost at dawn. + +'Hallo!' said Ross, greeting him with a certain kindliness which a very +big man will show to one who is small and weak, even if he has growled +at his appearance a moment before. 'Hallo, Purvis, where have you come +from, and when do you get any sleep?' + +'I don't think that sleep is very necessary to me,' said Purvis; 'and I +generally find that I work just as well when I have only two or three +hours' rest.' + +'That's very odd,' said Toffy amicably. + +'I came back about my little boy,' said Purvis; 'I have to go down to +Buenos Ayres, and I want to know if I may leave him here with you.' + +Ross assented, and Toffy remarked that he believed with training he +himself might make a very fair nursery-maid. + +'Things are a little bit disturbed at my place,' said Purvis. 'I have +so many mixed nationalities down there, and they don't get on well +together, and are difficult to manage. I would rather not leave Dick, +if you could have him--Dick will be a good boy--no?' he said, speaking +in the questioning negative so common in Argentine, and addressing the +pale-faced little boy in a manner far too babyish for his years. + +Dick made no promise; but feeling, boy-like, that he never quite knew +what being good involved, he wriggled uneasily in his chair. His +father laid one of his hands on the boy's dark hair and the other +beneath the delicately pointed chin, and, turning up the little face +towards him, he kissed it with womanish affection. + +'When will you get the train?' said Ross presently, as they sat at +breakfast in the hall. 'You can't catch the one to-night, and there's +not another for two days. Your best plan would have been to send us a +wire about the boy, and to have taken your own steamer down to Taco; it +would have saved a long bit of riding.' + +'I wanted to say good-bye to my little one,' said Purvis. + +'Well,' said Ross hospitably, 'you are welcome here till your train +starts.' + +'I must be off to-night,' said Purvis. 'If I start at eight this +evening I shall catch the train at one a.m. at Taco.' + +'You will be dead, Purvis!' said Peter. + +Chance had once asserted that Purvis was the only man he knew who had +no sense of fatigue and no sense of fear. 'It's quite true,' he said, +when there was a murmur of astonishment from his listeners; 'and, much +as I dislike the man, I have never known him to be afraid of anything. +It may, of course, be due to a lack of imagination on his part; but I +myself believe that it is the result of having been so frequently in +tight places. I don't believe he can even handle a gun; and yet if he +were surrounded and mobbed he would probably only blink with his watery +eyes or help himself to another tabloid.' + +Purvis left his horse in the cool of the paraiso trees during the day, +and a peon brought it to the door after he had eaten a frugal dinner, +during which meal he attended far more to the wants of his child than +to his own. + +After dinner Peter cut some sandwiches for him, and gave him a flask of +whisky, a piece of hospitality which in all probability he would have +offered a man who was about to hang him. He had been nurse and +guardian in one to Toffy at Eton, and his long care of the delicate boy +had given him an odd sort of thoughtfulness which showed itself in +small and homely acts like this. + +'When I return from Buenos Ayres,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to +put before you the facts which will identify Edward Ogilvie.' + +'You are quite sure you have got them?' said Peter briefly. + +'I am almost certain,' said Purvis. + +'Of course,' went on Peter, 'you understand that all the evidence that +you bring before me will have to be thoroughly investigated by +lawyers?' He was half sorry that he had spoken sharply when Purvis +replied with his usual quietness, 'That goes without saying.' + +'I dislike anything sensational,' Peter said; 'and this is a case in +which I much prefer that all information which you get shall be brought +direct to me. To be suddenly confronted with my brother might be very +interesting from the point of view of an Adelphi audience; but then, +you see, we are not in a theatre at present.' + +'The facts in this case,' replied Purvis, 'are quite exceptional; you +will allow this, I think, when you know them, and you will then +appreciate the fact that it was necessary to get the whole of the +evidence quite clearly established before making the final results +known to you.' + +'We have hardly time to argue the subject,' said Peter, 'seeing that +your pony is at the door. The solicitor in Buenos Ayres, whom Sir John +Falconer recommended to me, will meet you here any day you like to +name, and we can go into the matter thoroughly with you together.' + +'That would be the most satisfactory plan,' said Purvis, raising his +weak eyes to Peter. 'Meanwhile,' he said, 'my expenses in this matter +have been considerable; perhaps you would kindly look at my account +before starting?' + +'No,' said Peter shortly, 'I could not. I am not in the habit of +looking over my accounts by moonlight in the garden.' + +'A hundred pounds on account,' said Purvis, 'would enable me to bring +this important matter to a conclusion. Without that, I fear, I am +powerless.' + +It ended in Toffy and Peter putting their available cash together and +giving Purvis seventy pounds, and the clerkly man of ink produced a +stamp and a stylographic pen from his pocket, and made out the receipt +on the little dining-room table and handed it to Peter. + +'Thank you,' said Peter, relenting a little. He was annoyed with +himself for the irritation which Purvis produced in him. After all, he +had asked him for his assistance, and he was giving it to the best of +his ability. He went as far as the door with him, and said, 'If the +claim is established, remember I should like to see Edward Ogilvie as +soon as possible. Wire to me all particulars, and be so good as to +convey to him that we are anxious to do the right thing by him. I +should not like him to feel, for instance, that the fact of his +existence was any cause of resentment with any of us.' + +'It is he, perhaps, who will feel resentment,' said Purvis. + +'Perhaps,' said Peter, resisting an inclination to speed Purvis's +departure. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Toffy was hovering about the dining-room waiting for him as he turned +and went into the house again, and said, 'All this is a bit rough on +you, Peter.' And Peter assented with a nod. + +The two men went into the little drawing-room to collect pillows for +the long chairs in the corridor where they were going to sleep, and +Peter went to a side table to turn low a lamp which was adding to the +heat of the room. 'I say,' he said, 'didn't you mean these letters to +go?' + +'Haven't my letters gone?' said Toffy. 'How on earth were they +forgotten?' + +'Toffy,' said Peter, 'when I meet you acting as a sandwich-man in +Piccadilly, without a rag to your back or a shilling to your name, I +shall say nothing more encouraging to you than, "It was just what I +expected!"' + +'But Ross always told me to leave my letters here when I wanted them +posted!' said Toffy, scratching his head. + +'It's an extraordinary thing,' said Peter, 'that you ever have a pillow +to lay your head on; and you don't get that unless I heave it at you +and prevent other fellows grabbing it! Who 's got your motorcar at +home now? Some one, I suppose, you 've lent it to, and from whom you +won't a bit like to ask it back. Are you getting any rent at all for +Hulworth?' he went on, his wrath increasing as he spoke, 'or are you +letting it slide for a bit because your tenants are hard up? Would you +have a picture, or a bit of cracked china, or a bottle of wine left, if +they had not been all tied up by some cunning ancestor and looked after +by his executors? What has become of your horses, and why are you +always put to sleep in the billiard-room of an hotel, or in the pantry, +when other fellows get a decent bed provided for them? Why do they +give you a room over the stables when country houses are full, where +the coachman's wife asks you if you would like a little hot water in +the morning, and regrets that the chimney doesn't draw very well? You +were born that way, I suppose,' finished Peter hopelessly. 'I don't +believe you were ever allowed a cradle if your nurse wanted it for any +one else!' + +'I rub along all right!' said Toffy apologetically. + +'Look here,' said Peter, 'I 'll ride with these letters after Purvis, +and ask him to post them; he 'll get down to Taco in time to catch the +mail, and I can easily overtake him on the _bayo_.' + +The Englishmen had learned to call their horses after their different +shades of colour, in the usual Argentine way; the one Peter spoke of +was a dun-coloured brute, three-parts English-bred. + +Toffy protested, but Peter was obstinate. He had been worried and +unsettled all day, and he believed that it would be a good thing to let +off steam by a ride over the camp; besides which, Toffy's letters had +taken a good two hours to write, and Peter guessed they were important. +He could easily overtake Purvis with them before he should reach La +Dorada. + +'I 'll sit up and trim the lamp like a faithful wife, until you +return,' said Toffy. + +'You 'll go to bed, you ass!' shouted Peter. He was outside the house +fastening the girths of the _bayo_ as he spoke, and now he swung +himself into the saddle and sent his horse forward with the +characteristic quick movement of a hunting man. + +The long ride in the moonlight did him good. The intensity of the +clear light had something strange and wonderful in it, touched with +unearthliness. Night with its thousand secrets whispered about him, +and he felt very small and insignificant riding alone under the great +silvery dome of heaven, hushed with a sense of the far-away and with +the mystery of its innumerable stars. Now and then he came across a +herd of cattle standing feeding in the short grass of the camp, their +shadows showing black beside them, or a frightened tropillo of horses +would start at the sound of the _bayo's_ hoofs. He took a short-cut +through the mimosa woods, where the ground was uneven. His horse +picked its way unfalteringly as it cantered forward, though Peter had +to stoop very often to save his head from touching the low branches of +the trees. Overhead some parakeets, disturbed in their slumbers, flew +from bough to bough, their green wings and tiny red heads turning to +strange colours in the moonlight. He got away through one of the rough +gates of the estancia out into the open camp again, where the earth was +full of a vast stillness about him, and the stars pulsated overhead to +the unspeakable music of the night. + +And now he began to expect every minute to overtake Purvis, and he +strained his eyes eagerly for the solitary figure of the horseman. He +knew he was riding a much better horse than the one Purvis was on, and +still he failed to come up with him. The track on which he rode was +clear enough, and his horse knew the way to La Dorada as well as any +peon on the place. Peter took out his watch and looked at it in the +moonlight. It was not a quarter to twelve, and he was already at the +little settlement, close by the river, where some Italians and +Spaniards lived. He recognized one of the ill-built small huts as the +place where Juan Lara dwelt, and he drew up to ask whether Purvis was +ahead of him or not, and whether his boy had started with his mail-bag +for the train yet. A Spaniard with a dark face answered his knock, and +told him that no one had passed that way to-night, also that his boy +had left much earlier in the afternoon with the mail. He suggested +that the traveller should come inside and wait until his friend should +overtake him; and as there was plenty of time Peter resolved to rest +his horse, and then to push on to La Dorada if Purvis should not turn +up. Lara's wife came to beg him to enter. She was an old woman before +her time, and had reared a large family in the tiny confines of this +little hut. Peter took off his soft felt hat and, stooping below the +little doorway, came inside. The use of the Spanish language was +inherited from his mother, and he congratulated Lara's wife on her +skill in washing shirts, and made some conversation with her. + +The place which he had entered was poor enough; it was built on a mud +floor, and was entirely devoid of furniture save for a ramshackle +bedstead with spotless linen upon it, and a couple of chairs. There +was a tiny shrine with an image of the Virgin in the corner of the +room; before it burned a halfpenny night-light, and round it were +ranged in a row a number of paper match-boxes with little coloured +pictures upon them. They were French match-boxes, which opened with a +spring formed of elastic, and underneath the pictures were jokes of a +doubtful description. Neither Lara nor his wife knew anything of the +French language; the empty paper match-boxes, with the horrible jokes +upon them, were offered faithfully before Our Lady. They were the best +they had to give, and they were the only decorations in the room. + +The-woman dusted a chair for Peter, and set the other for her husband, +and she herself sat down upon the edge of the bed. They were both glad +of visitors at whatever hour they arrived, and in the solitary life of +the camp a belated horseman may often ride up after dusk. + +Peter explained that it was Senor Purvis, who owned the big estancia +down at La Dorada, whom he was riding to overtake. + +'He had better not ride about too much alone,' said the Spaniard. +'There are some long knives about, and the senor is a short man.' + +'What is the trouble on the estate?' said Peter. But he could get no +information from Lara. 'He had better take care,' the man said. +'Senor Purvis would be safer if he were to sail away in his steamer, +and be gone for a month or two.' + +'He has a mixed lot of men on his estancia, has he not?' Peter asked. + +'Yes,' said the man; 'but they are mostly Spanish, and the senor, for +all his Spanish tongue, has not got a heart that understands the +people.' + +'You don't think anything can have happened to him?' Peter asked. + +He reflected that the road was an open one all the way, and that he +must have seen if there had been anything like a disturbance; but in +the end a certain apprehension for the safety of the man made him think +that he had better push on and hear if there were any news of him at La +Dorada. There might be some path or track to the river-side of which +he knew nothing; and if that bypath existed Purvis would certainly take +it, however circuitous it might be. There seemed to be some curious +obliquity about him which made for crooked ways, and in any case Peter +did not want to miss the mail with Toffy's letters. He said good +night, and, hearing no news of the traveller at the quay, he rode on +until he reached the small unfenced railway station at Taco, set down +apparently promiscuously on the grey arid plain. There Lara's boy was +waiting with his mail-bag, and after a time the sleepy station-master +began to bestir himself, and a cart came in with five horses harnessed +abreast carrying some freight. Still there was no sign of Purvis, and +Peter had to give his letters to the guard when at last, with a shrill +whistle, the train came into the station. + +It was very odd, he reflected; and he began to wonder whether Purvis +was in danger, and to be vaguely disturbed by what the people in the +hut had said to him. Ross had told him many tales of how Englishmen +had been murdered out here. There was the case of poor Wentworth, +whose Spanish wife had held him down when he had tried to escape, and +whose own major-domo had shot him at the door. Nobody knew anything of +the matter, of course. The Spaniards keep their secrets well. Nobody +was ever brought to justice; and the affair, which would have made a +sensation at home, only horrified a few English neighbours near the +estancia. But the feeling against Purvis seemed to be something much +deeper than personal jealousy or mere greed for gold dollars. There +was a storm brewing about him, and no one knew when it would burst. + +'Purvis will have to look out,' reflected Peter; and he wondered where +on earth the man had got to to-night. He wished he could give him some +sort of warning; but he reflected that Purvis knew far more about the +state of affairs than he, Peter, did. No one could tell Purvis much +about Argentine that he did not know already. His vague feeling of +suspicion against the man deepened, and he began to wonder what game +Purvis was playing. Had the other man in Rosario paid him well to do +his work for him, or was Purvis withholding information until a certain +price was stipulated? Bowshott was worth a ransom, and Purvis might be +playing a double game. Between the two men he might feather his nest +very well. + +The dawn was breaking as Peter rode slowly homewards, and a pale pink +light was in the sky. His horse ambled gently along, never mistaking +his way or making a false step on the rough, uneven ground, but +swinging at an easy canter, and getting over an immense distance +without much distress to himself. The moon, in a sort of hushed +silence, was climbing down the arc of heaven as the sun rose to +eastward. The pale light touched the surface of a _tajamar_ as he rode +past it, and the trees beside it threw still, sad, faint shadows into +its quiet depth. Above the western monte a lordly eagle with hushed +wings rose majestically overhead, and some viscashos popped in a +noiseless way in and out of their holes. The air was cool and fresh +now, and a tree or two began to rise up unexpectedly out of the ground +in the grey light. + +He began to get sleepy with the easy motion of the horse; the endless +line of plain around him was wearying to the eye as the sun rose upon +it. Well, he would get into camp before it became very hot; that idiot +Toffy would probably be sitting up for him. + +He laughed softly to himself as he saw a flicker of light in the window +that looked towards the track, when at last he drew near the little +estancia house. It was like Toffy to remember to put a lamp where he +could see it! It was worth while taking a midnight ride for such a +good fellow, although he had had a very fair notion of what was in one +of the letters, and entirely disapproved its contents. The last mail +had brought news that Horace Avory was ill, and Peter knew quite well +that Toffy had written to Mrs. Avory. Of course she was not the wife +for him; she was very delicate and no longer very young, and she had a +plain little daughter who was ten years old. Still, Peter supposed +that the marriage might turn out pretty well in spite of obvious +drawbacks; and Heaven knew that Mrs. Avory, in her own sad, tearful +way, had fought very bravely against poverty and loneliness and +unhappiness, and that she loved Toffy with her whole heart. But why, +now that things seemed to be arranging themselves in a satisfactory +manner, should Toffy be in the blues, and lie awake during the greater +part of the hot nights? + +He drew up at the door of the house when the sun was becoming hot, and +Toffy appeared in his pyjamas and prepared a cup of coffee on a stove +of patent construction for which he claimed admiration every time it +was used. + +'Thanks, Peter!' he said briefly. 'I was writing to Mrs. Avory by this +mail, and she would have been disappointed if she had not heard from +me. Did you overtake Purvis?' + +'No, I didn't,' said Peter; 'and what's more, he didn't go by the mail +train to Buenos Ayres!' + +'What a queer chap he is!' said Toffy. 'You never know where to have +him! That can't be he coming back now?' he said, looking from the +small window at two riders who came cantering up to the door. + +'Is it? Yes! No, it isn't,' said Peter, going over to the window. +'But I 'll tell you who it is, though! It's Dunbar, and he 's got a +commissario of police with him! Now, what in the name of wonder do +they want here?' + +The two riders dismounted at the gate and came up the little path +through the garden to the door. They walked stiffly, as though they +had ridden for a long time, and their horses, tethered by the gate, +looked used up and tired. + +Dunbar hardly paused to shake hands. 'Look here,' he said, 'E. W. +Smith is here, and he 's wanted!' + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +'First of all,' said Peter, 'who is E. W. Smith, and why the dickens +should you imagine he is here?' + +Dunbar gave him a quick look. 'Is any one here?' he asked. + +'No one but Ross and Christopherson and myself,' said Peter. 'Purvis +was here, but he started for Buenos Ayres last night, and I have no +idea where he is now. I saw the train start from the station at Taco, +but he was not in it.' + +'Purvis is in a tight place,' said Dunbar dryly. + +Ross, hearing voices in the drawing-room, wakened up, and now appeared +with ruffled hair and still clad in his sleeping-suit. He suggested +refreshments, and sat down to hear what Dunbar had to say. + +Peter's face had a queer set look upon it. Where another man might +perhaps have asked questions he showed something of his mother's +reserve, and was never more silent than when a moment of strain +arrived. He began in a mechanical way to make two fresh cups of +coffee, and poured the steaming mixture from the thin saucepan into the +cups. 'The day of reckoning seems to have arrived for Purvis,' he +said; and then lazily, 'poor brute, he had his points.' Purvis was a +common adventurer after all! And he had got close upon two hundred +pounds from him on the plea of having some knowledge of his brother, +which was simply non-existent. He could see the whole thing now. This +cock-and-bull story of the discovery of the missing man was really a +very simple ruse for extorting money, and the last seventy pounds which +he, Peter, had been fool enough to pay him had been wanted to help +Purvis to get away. + +'I must search the place thoroughly,' said Dunbar. He finished his +coffee; but the ascertaining whether or not any one was concealed in +the little house or in the outbuildings was a matter of only a few +minutes. + +'If he 's got away again,' said Dunbar, 'I 'll eat my hat!' + +'Purvis is a slippery customer,' said Ross; 'but he has lived peaceably +and openly for a considerable time. If he is wanted you have only to +ride up to his door and arrest him.' + +Dunbar cleared his throat. 'You mind,' he said, 'the story of the +_Rosana_, which I told you on board the Royal Mail Packet, when we were +in the River Plate coming up to Monte Video?' + +'I remember,' said Peter briefly. And Ross nodded his head also; every +one in Argentine knew the story of the wreck of the _Rosana_. + +'I knew,' said Dunbar, 'that E. W. Smith could not die!' + +'Smith being Purvis, I take it,' said Toffy. + +'Yes,' said Dunbar, 'or any other alias you please. He is a fair man +now with a beard, isn't he? Well, on board the _Rosana_ he was a +clean-shaven man with dark hair, but you cannot mistake E. W. Smith's +eyes, though I hear his voice is altered.' + +'Are you in the police out here?' Peter asked, with a glance at the +commissario to whom he had just handed a cup of coffee. + +'No, I 'm not,' answered Dunbar, with his usual economy of speech. 'I +'m from Scotland Yard, and I want E. W. Smith on another count. But I +'ll come to that some other time. I 'll need to be off now.' + +'Your horse is done,' protested Ross, 'and you are pretty well done +yourself.' + +'I 'm not that far through,' said Dunbar. + +'Why not send a wire to Buenos Ayres and wait here until you can get a +reply? Purvis may have got on board the train somewhere else, and be +at Buenos Ayres now.' + +'Yes, that will do,' said Dunbar. He dispatched his telegram by one of +the peons, who rode off with it across the camp. In spite of fatigue, +Dunbar, with his nervous energy unimpaired, looked as though he would +like to have ridden with the telegram himself. Reflecting, however, +that there was considerable work still before him, he submitted to +stretching himself on a _catre_ and after a short doze and a bath and +some breakfast he took up again the thread of his story. + +'I 'll not bother you with an account of E. W. Smith's life,' he +remarked, 'although there is a good deal in it that would surprise you. +I 'll keep to the story of the _Rosana_ as time is short.' + +Mr. Dunbar took his faithful friend--his short pipe--from its red-lined +case, filled it with tobacco, and began to draw luxuriously. + +'The _Rosana_ sprang a leak after her first day out, on her run down +the coast, and was lost in twenty fathoms of water. She only carried +one boat, and that boat was seen by myself half-burned, but with a bit +of her name in gold-leaf still visible on her bows. Tranter was the +captain of the boat, and E. W. Smith was clerk and general manager. +Every one knew he cheated the company who ran the boat, and cheated the +captain too, when he could; and it generally suited him to make Tranter +drunk when they were in port. Well, he reaped his profit, and I +suppose a good bit of it lies at the bottom of the sea. He was a man +who always kept large sums in hand in case of finding himself in a +tight place. Did I mention,' said Dunbar, 'that he could not row, +though, of course, Tranter could? But Tranter was wanted for steering.' + +'I don't understand the story,' said Ross, leaning forward. 'You say +that Tranter and this man Purvis, or Smith, escaped from the wreck, and +that Purvis could not row?' + +'I am coming to that,' said Dunbar, unmoved. 'Observe, the _Rosana_ +carried one boat. She had lost her other by an accident, it seems, and +the one that remained was not a much bigger one than a dinghy such as +men use to go to and from the shore when they are in harbour. Tranter +was the first to discover that the _Rosana_ was leaking badly; and the +hold was half-flooded before any one knew anything about it, and the +_Rosana_ was settling by her head. Smith, it seems, and the captain +were armed, or armed themselves as soon as the state of affairs was +known; and before the rest of the crew were awake four men were ordered +to man the boat and bring her alongside. The hatches were closed down +with the rest of the crew still below, and if there was a scuffle two +armed men were perfectly capable of keeping order. Smith and Tranter +got into the boat, and were rowed ashore in safety. If the whole of +the crew had tried to board her there is no doubt about it no one would +have been saved, for there were a good many hands on the steamer, and +the rush to the one boat would have swamped her. The men who manned +the boat and pulled ashore were doubtless glad to save their lives at +any price; but they might make it exceedingly unpleasant for the two +survivors of the wreck did they make their story known. They were +cross-bred natives, whose lives were of no great value to any one but +themselves, and there was an easy way for two armed men to silence them +on a lonely shore without a soul near.' + +'It's a sickening story,' said Ross, getting up and walking towards the +window; and unconsciously he clenched his big hand. + +'Then how,' said Peter keenly, 'has the story leaked out?' + +'Because,' said Dunbar, 'sometimes at a critical moment men do their +work badly, or perhaps a native knows how to feign death before his +life is actually extinct. Dead men tell no lies, but wounded men don't +have their tongues tied in the same way.' + +'So one of the men lived to tell tales!' said Peter, leaning forward in +his chair; 'and Purvis, who has been here for some time past, is the +hero of the story? It is a blackguardly tale, Dunbar, and, thank God, +I believe it would have been impossible in England!' + +'I don't pass judgment on my fellow-men,' said Dunbar. 'Life is sweet, +perhaps, to some of us, and no doubt the whole crew would have swamped +the boat, but----' + +'But, all the same,' said Toffy, 'you don't mean to let Purvis-Smith +get a very light time of it when you do get him.' + +'No, I don't,' said Dunbar. + +Ross passed out through the door of the little drawing-room to the +corridor, and went to see about some work on the farm. The commissario +drank his coffee, and Dunbar waited restlessly for his telegram. + +After breakfast he and Peter slept for a time, for both were dog-tired, +and the day was oppressively hot. In the afternoon a telegram came to +say that no news had been heard of Purvis, and that he was believed to +be still in the neighbourhood of La Dorada. + +'If he is,' said Dunbar, folding up the telegram and putting it into +his pocket, 'I think our future duties will not be heavy. The man who +has come to light and told the story of the wreck of the _Rosana_ is a +native of that favoured spot where already our friend Purvis is not too +popular. God help the man if they get hold of him!' + +'His little boy is here now,' said Toffy, starting up. 'Purvis came +here to leave him in safety.' + +Dunbar was writing another telegram to ask the whereabouts of the +steamer. + +'Then,' he said, 'the story is probably known, and Purvis is aware of +it, and has gone north. He daren't show himself near his estancia +after this.' + +They began to put the story together, piecing it here and there, while +Dunbar continued to send telegrams. + +Ross strolled in presently to discuss the matter again. 'I don't +believe,' he said, 'that Purvis is far off.' + +'He is a brave man if he is anywhere near La Dorada,' said Dunbar. + +'Purvis is a brave man,' said Ross quietly. + +Peter was silent. Only last night he had had good reason to believe +that the mystery of his brother's existence was going to be cleared up. +But with Purvis gone the whole wearisome business would have to begin +again. Why had he not detained the man last night, even if he had had +to do it by force, until he had given him all the evidence he +possessed? He could not exactly blame himself for not having done so. +Purvis had declared that he was only going to Buenos Ayres for a couple +of days, and it would have been absurd to delay him that he might give +information which perhaps he did not fully possess. Still, the thing +had been too cleverly worked out to be altogether a fraud, surely. His +thought went back again to the belief that Purvis had got hold of his +brother, and had extracted a great deal of information from him, and +was only delaying to make him known to Peter until he had arranged the +best bargain he could for himself. Looking back on all the talks they +had had together there was something which convinced him that Purvis's +close application to the search had not been made with a view only of +extracting some hundreds of pounds from him, but that the man's game +was deeper than that. Purvis was far too clever to waste his talents +in dabbling in paltry matters, or in securing a small sum of money for +himself. He was a man who worked in big figures, and it was evident +that he meant to pull off a good thing. + +That his dishonesty was proved was beyond all manner of doubt, and the +only thing was to watch events and to see what would now happen. If +Purvis gave them the slip what was to be done in the future? + +'I believe he will try to save his steamer,' said Ross, after a long +silence. + +Every one was thinking of the same subject, and his abrupt exclamation +needed no explanation. + +'If he could trust his hands he might,' said the commissario in +halting, broken English; 'but I doubt if they or the peons have been +paid lately.' + +'Besides, on the steamer,' said Toffy, 'he could be easily caught.' + +'Yes,' said Dunbar, 'if he knows that we want to catch him, which he +doesn't. He is afraid of the people at La Dorada now; but he is +probably unaware of the warm welcome that awaits him in Buenos Ayres.' + +Dunbar went to the door again to see if there was any sign of his +messenger returning from the telegraph office. The sun was flaming to +westward, and Hopwood had moved the dinner-table out into the patio, +and was setting dinner there. + +'He will do the unexpected thing,' said Ross at last. 'If Purvis ever +says he is going to sit up late I know that is the one night of the +week he will go to bed early.' + +They went out into the patio, and Ross swizzled a cocktail, and they +fell to eating dinner; but Dunbar was looking at his watch from time to +time, and then turning his glance eastward to the track where his +messenger might appear. It was an odd thing, and one of which they +were all unaware, that even a slight noise made each man raise his head +alertly for a moment as though he might expect an attack. + +The sun went down, and still no messenger appeared. They sat down to +play bridge in the little drawing-room, and pretended to be interested +in the fall of the cards. + +'That must be my telegram now,' said Dunbar, starting to his feet as a +horse's hoofs were plainly heard in the stillness of the solitary camp. +'Well, I 'm damned,' he said. He held the flimsy paper close to his +near-sighted eyes, and read the message to the other men sitting at the +table: + +'Smith, or Purvis, at present on board his own steamer in midstream +opposite La Dorada. Fully armed and alone. Crew have left, and peons +in revolt. A detachment of police proceeds by train to Taco to-night. +Join them there and await instructions.' + +'I thought he would stick to the steamer,' said Ross at last. + +'And probably,' said Dunbar, 'he is as safe there as anywhere he can +be. He can't work his boat without a crew, but if he is armed he will +be able to defend himself even if he is attacked. I don't know how +many boats there were at La Dorada, but I would lay my life that Purvis +took the precaution of sending them adrift or wrecking them before he +got away.' + +'What is to be the next move?' said Peter. + +'I suppose we shall have to ride down to Taco to-night,' said Dunbar. +'Yon man,' he finished, in his nonchalant voice, 'has given me a good +bit of trouble in his time.' + +'It seems to me,' said Ross, 'that you can't touch any business +connected with Purvis without handling a pretty unsavoury thing.' + +'Now, I 'll tell you an odd thing,' said Dunbar. 'I have had to make +some pretty close inquiries about Purvis since I have been on his +track, and you will probably not believe it if I tell you that by birth +he is a gentleman.' + +'He behaves like one,' said Ross shortly. + +'If I had time,' said Dunbar, 'I could tell you the story, but I see +the fresh horses coming round, and I and the commissario must get away +to Taco.' He was in the saddle as he spoke, and rode off with the +commissario. + +'A boy,' said Hopwood, entering presently, 'rode over with this, this +moment, sir.' He handed a note to Peter on a little tray, and waited +in the detached manner of the well-trained servant while Peter opened +the letter. + +The writing was almost unintelligible, being written in pencil on a +scrap of paper, and it had got crushed in the pocket of the man who +brought it. + +'It is for Dunbar, I expect,' said Peter, looking doubtfully at the +name on the cover. He walked without haste to a table where a lamp +stood, and looked more closely at the address. 'No, it's all right, +it's for me,' he said. + +At first it was the vulgar melodrama of the message which struck him +most forcibly with a sense of distaste and disgust, and then he flicked +the piece of paper impatiently and said, 'I don't believe a word of +it!' His face was white, however, as he turned to the servant and +said, 'Who brought this?' + +'I will go and see, sir,' said Hopwood, and left the room. + +Peter, with the scrap of paper in his hand, walked over to the +bridge-table where the others were sitting, and laid the crumpled note +in front of them. 'Another trick of our friend Purvis,' he said +shortly. + +The three men at the card-table bent their heads over the crumpled +piece of note-paper spread out before them. Ross smoothed out its +edges with his big hand, and the words became distinct enough; the very +brevity of the message was touched with sensationalism. It ran: 'I am +your brother. Save me!' and there was not another vestige of writing +on the paper. + +'Purvis has excelled himself,' said Ross quietly. 'It's your deal, +Christopherson.' + +Toffy mechanically shuffled the cards and looked up into his friend's +face. 'Is there anything else?' he said, and Peter took up the dirty +envelope and examined it more closely. + +There was a scrap of folded paper in one corner, and on it was written +in his mother's handwriting a note to her husband, enclosing the +photograph of her eldest son in a white frock and tartan ribbons. + +Peter flushed hotly as he read the letter. 'He has no business to +bring my mother's name into it,' he said savagely; and then the full +force of the thing smote him as he realised that perhaps his mother was +the mother of this man Purvis too. + +'Have a drink?' said Ross, with a pretence of gruffness. It was +oppressively hot, and Peter had been riding all the previous night. +Ross mentioned these facts in a kindly voice to account for his loss of +colour. 'It's a ridiculous try on,' he said, with conviction; and +then, seeking about for an excuse to leave the two friends together to +discuss the matter, he gathered up the cards from the table, added the +score in an elaborate manner, and announced his intention of going to +bed. + +Dunbar and the commissario had put a long distance between themselves +and the estancia house now. The silence of the hot night settled down +with its palpable mysterious weight upon the earth. The stars looked +farther away than usual in the fathomless vault of heaven, and the +world slumbered with a feeling of restlessness under the burden of the +aching solitude of the night. Some insects chirped outside the +illuminated window-pane, as though they would fain have left the large +and solitary splendour without and sought company in the humble room. +Time passed noiselessly, undisturbed even by the ticking of a clock. +To have stirred in a chair would have seemed to break some tangible +spell. A dog would have been better company than a man at the moment, +because less influenced by the mysterious night and the silence, and +the intensity of thought which fixed itself relentlessly in some +particular cells of the brain until they became fevered and ached +horribly. A little puff of cooler air began to blow over the baked and +withered camp; but the room where the lamp was burning had become +intolerably hot, and the mosquitoes which had been contemplating the +wall thoughtfully throughout the day began to buzz about and to sing in +the ears of the two persons who sat there. + +'Damn these mosquitoes!' said Peter, and his voice broke the silence of +the lonely house oddly. He and Toffy had not spoken since Ross had +left the room, and had not stirred from their chairs; but now the +feeling of tension seemed to be broken. Toffy began to fidget with +some things on a little table, and opened without thinking a carved +cedar-wood work-box which had remained undisturbed until then. He +found inside it a little knitted silk sock only half-finished, and with +the knitting needles still in it, and he closed the lid of the box +again softly. + +Peter walked into the corridor and looked out at the silver night. +There was a mist rising down by the river, and the feeling of coolness +in the air increased. He leaned against the wooden framework of the +wire-netting and laid his head on his hands for a moment; then he came +back to the drawing-room. 'Do you believe it?' he said suddenly and +sharply. + +'I suppose it's true,' said Toffy. 'God help us, Peter, this is a +queer world!' + +'If it were any one else but Purvis!' said Peter with a groan. He had +begun to walk restlessly up and down, making his tramp as long as +possible by extending it into the corridor. 'And then there is this to +be said, Toffy,' he added, beginning to speak at the point to which his +thoughts had taken him--'there is this to be said: suppose one could +get Purvis out of this hole, Dunbar is waiting for him at Taco. He +will be tried for the affair of the _Rosana_ and other things besides, +and if he is not hanged he will spend the next few years of his life in +prison. It is an intolerable business,' he said, 'and I am not going +to move in the matter. One can stand most things, but not being mixed +up in a murder case.' + +He walked out into the corridor and sat down heavily in one of the +deck-chairs there. There was a tumult of thought surging through his +mind, and sometimes one thing was uppermost, sometimes another. + +If it were possible to get down the river in a boat to the steamer, he +thought, there would of course be a chance of bringing Purvis back +before it was light; but if he did that he would have to start within +the hour. The nights were short. + +And then, again, he would be compounding a felony, though in the case +of brothers such a law was generally put aside, whatever the results +might be. + +There was very little chance of an escape. Every one's hand was +against Purvis now, and there was the vaguest possibility that he could +get away to England. The heir to Bowshott would be doing his time in +prison, and that, after all, was the right place for him--or he might +be hanged. + +And then he, Peter, was the next heir. That was the _crux_ of the +whole thing--he, Peter Ogilvie, was the next heir. If anything were to +happen to his brother he would inherit everything. + +But that, again, was an absurdity. A man in prison, for instance, +would not be the inheritor of anything. No, his brother must take his +chance down there on the steamer. He had been in tight places before +now, and no one knew better how to get out of them. He had some money +at his command. Let things take their chance. Yet if Purvis did not +inherit, he, Peter, was the next heir. + +That was the thought that knocked at him to the exclusion of nearly +everything else: he would benefit by his brother's death. Bowshott +would be his, and the place in the Highlands, and Jane and he could be +married. + +He paused for a moment in his feverish survey of events. To think of +Jane was to have before one's mind a picture of something absolutely +fair and straightforward. A high standard of honour was not difficult +to her; it came as naturally as speaking in a well-bred manner, or +walking with that air of grace and distinction which was characteristic +of her. Such women do not need to preach, and seldom do so. Their +lives suggest a torch held high above the common mirk of life. Peter +had never imagined for a moment that he was in the least degree good +enough for her; but, all the same, he meant to fight for all that he +was worth for every single good thing that he could get for her. + +... His brother even had a son. His nephew was in the house now. +Peter laughed out loud. The boy had a Spanish mother; but if there +ever had been a marriage between Purvis and her it could easily be set +aside. Purvis had been married several times, or not at all. Dunbar +thought that his real wife was an English woman at Rosario. + +He reflected with a sense of disgust that, he and Purvis being both of +them fair men, it might even be said that they resembled each other in +appearance; and he wondered if he would ever hold up his head again now +that he knew that the same blood ran in the veins of both, and that +this murderer, with his bloodstained hands, was his brother. + +And what in Heaven's name was the use of rescuing a man from one +difficulty when he would fall into something much worse at the next +opportunity? + +Finally, there was nothing for it but to remain inactive and let Purvis +escape if he could, but to do nothing to help him. Time was getting on +now; another half-hour and it would be too late to start. + +Perhaps the whole real difficulty resolved itself round Jane. Jane, as +a matter of fact, had taken up her position quite close to Peter +Ogilvie this evening in the dark of the tropical night. There were +probably devils on either side of him, but Jane was certainly there. +She looked perfectly beautiful, and there was not a line in her face +which did not suggest something fair and honest and of good worth. + +... But suppose the man turned out to be an impostor after all? Then +Dunbar had better treat with him. The chain of evidence was pretty +strong, but there might be a break in it. + +... He could not go alone down the river; Ross and Toffy and Hopwood +would have to come too, to man the four-oared boat, and some one would +have to steer, because the river was dangerous of navigation and full +of sandbanks and holes. Why should he involve his friends in such an +expedition to save a man who had sneaked off from a boat and left a +whole crew to perish, and who had shot in cold blood the men who rowed +him to safety? + +_Before God he was not going to touch the man, nor have anything to do +with him!_ + +Half an hour had passed. In twenty minutes it would be too late to +start. + +Jane drew a little nearer, and just then Toffy laid down the book which +he had been reading and strolled about the room. Perhaps he wanted to +show Peter that he was still there and awake, and in some way to +comfort him by his presence, for he sat down by Mrs. Chance's piano and +picked out a tune with one of his fingers. + +The devil beside Peter became more imperative and drew up closer, and +told him that it was his own sense of honour that made him loathe his +reputed brother and turn from him in disgust. He said that the note +that had reached him was all part of Purvis's horrible sensationalism +and his lies, and that no earthly notice should be taken of it; also, +that it would be sheer madness to risk his own life and his friends' +for this contemptible fellow. Jane, on the other side--possibly an +angel, but to the ordinary mind merely a very handsome English +girl--stood there saying nothing, but looking beautiful. + +Toffy continued to pick out the tune with his forefinger from Mrs. +Chance's book: + +[Illustration: music fragment: + A-bide with me! fast falls the e-ven-tide; + The dark-ness deep-ens: Lord with a a-bide!] + + +It all came before him in a flash: the village church, and the swinging +oil-lamps above the pews; he and Jane together in Miss Abingdon's pew, +and Mrs. Wrottesley playing the old hymn-tunes on the little organ. He +could not remember ever attending very particularly to the evening +service. He used to follow it in a very small Prayer Book, and it was +quite sufficient for him that Jane was with him. He had never been a +religious man in the ordinary sense of the word. He had wished with +all his heart when his mother died that he had known more about sacred +things, but they had never seemed a necessary part of his life. He +knew the code of an English gentleman, and that code was a high one. +The youngsters in the regiment knew quite well that he was 'as straight +as they make 'em'; but he had never inflicted advice nor had a moment's +serious conversation with one of them. + +Another ten minutes had passed, and left only five minutes to spare; +but Jane was smiling a little, and Toffy was fingering out quavering +notes on the old piano: + +[Illustration: music fragment: + When o-ther help-ers fail, and com-forts flee, + Help of the help-less, oh, a-bide with me!] + + +Life seemed to get bigger as he listened. There were no such things as +difficulties. You had just to know what you ought to do, and then to +try to do it. You had not to pit yourself against a mean mind, and act +meanly by it. Each man had his own work to do, and what other men did +or left undone was their own business. His brother was in a mess, and +he had to help him out of it, whether he deserved it or no--not +weighing his merit, but pardoning his offences and just helping him in +his need. The glories of life might fade away, as the old hymn said, +or they might last; but all that each man had to care about so long as +he remained here was to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with +his God. + +The angel and the devil--if they existed at all--fled away and left one +solitary man standing alone fighting for the sake of honour and clean +hands. + +The clock struck ten, and the time was up. + +Peter went inside and laid his hand on Toffy's shoulder. 'Let's +start,' he said, 'if you are ready.' + +'All right,' said Toffy, shutting the piano. 'I 'll go and get Ross.' + + * * * * * + +They were in the boat now, slipping down the stream in the dark. The +current in the river was strong here, and the boat slid rapidly between +the banks. There was hardly any necessity for rowing. Christopherson +sat in the stern with the tiller-ropes in his hands, and Peter reserved +his strength for the moment when they should get to the broader part of +the river where the stream did not race as it raced here. On their way +back they would, of course, avoid the upper reaches of the river, and +would land lower down when they had the man well away from his own +place. Peter rowed stroke, and Hopwood and Ross rowed numbers one and +two. The steering probably was the most difficult part of the +business, especially in the present state of the river, and any moment +they might go aground or get into some eddy which might turn the bow of +the boat and land them in the bank. Rowing was still easy, and Peter +was husbanding every ounce of his strength for the pull home. None of +the men spoke as the boat slipped down between the banks of dry mud on +either side of the river. Some reeds whispered by the shore, and a +startled bird woke now and then and flew screaming away. The moon +shone fitfully sometimes, but for the most part the night was dark, and +the darkness increased towards midnight. Once or twice the breeze +carried the intoxicating smell of flowers from the river-bank. It was +difficult for Toffy, although he had been down the river many times, to +know exactly his bearings. They passed a little settlement on their +starboard hand, and saw a few lights burning in the houses. + +'That must be Lara's house,' said Peter. 'We will land here on our way +back, and get some horses, and ride over to the estancia in the +morning.' + +The settlement was the last place on the river where Purvis's steamer +plied, and there was a small jetty piled with wheat waiting to be taken +away. Here the river was broader and much shallower, with stakes of +wood set in its bed to show the passage which the little steamer should +take. + +'We should not be far from La Dorada now,' said Toffy, steering between +the lines of stakes; 'but I can't see any signs of the steamer in this +blackness.' + +In the daytime the river was a pale mud-colour and very thick and +dirty-looking. The moon came out for a moment and showed it like a +silver ribbon between the grey banks. + +'Easy all!' said Toffy, sniffing the air. 'We must be near the +canning-factory at La Dorada.' + +The horrible smell of the slaughter-house was borne to them on the +river, and there were some big corrals close by the water, and a small +wharf. + +'It reminds me,' thought Toffy, 'of the beastly beef-tea which I have +had to drink all my life.' + +'Good heavens!' cried Ross, 'they are firing the wharf! Purvis's +chances are small if this is their game.' + +There was not very much to burn; the wood of the wharf kindled easily, +and the wheat burned sullenly and sent up grey volumes of smoke. + +'Steer under the bank,' said Peter. 'We don't want to be seen.' + +Toffy steered the boat as near the shore as the mud would allow, and as +the wood of the wharf burned more brightly he could see some men +running to and fro confusedly every few minutes, and then making off +farther down the river. + +'They 'll fire the steamer next!' said Peter, and then bent his back to +the oar, and the boat swung away into the middle of the stream again. + +The darkness seemed to increase in depth, as it does just before the +dawn: it was baffling in its intensity, and seemed to press close. + +'Way enough!' sang out Toffy, for quite unexpectedly the little +steamer, tied to a stake in midstream, loomed up suddenly before them. +The men shipped their oars with precision, and Toffy caught hold one of +the fender-ropes. + +'Are you there?' he called up to the deck from the impenetrable +darkness. + +As he spoke Purvis appeared at the top of the little gangway, dressed +in his clerkly suit and stiff hat. + +'You are just in time,' he said in his thin, high voice, without a +trace of excitement in it. 'When the light dawns they will find their +boats, and even now we may have to run for it.' + +'Get on board,' said Ross roughly, 'and don't waste time.' + +'I can't sink my steamer,' said Purvis quietly, 'in this shallow part +of the river, and I haven't the means of blowing her up; but I shall +now go below and overturn the lamp in my cabin, and the boat and all +that is in it will not be very long in being consumed.' + +'Stop that lunatic!' yelled Ross, as Purvis turned to descend into the +cabin. 'There 's a boat coming up--I can hear the oars distinctly +behind us. We 'll be overtaken if there 's a minute's delay!' + +Peter, who was next the gangway, sprang on board the boat and stumbled +down the companion in the dark. + +'Purvis!' he shouted, 'you 'll be shot in cold blood yet if you don't +look out.' + +Purvis had collected a few things and laid them on a pile of shavings +in the middle of the cabin, and the oil-lamp with which he was to +ignite the pile was in his hand. + +On the top of the pile Peter saw a large tin dispatch-case inscribed +with his mother's name. + +'Hallo!' he said quietly; 'I think I 'll take this!' + +For a moment he imagined that Purvis's hand moved with suspicious +suddenness towards his revolver-pocket. In the next Purvis had swung +up the companion staircase and into the boat, and Peter jumped into his +place as the sound of rowing and the splash of oars was heard behind +him. Toffy rowed the bow-oar now, and Purvis, who knew every turn of +the river, took the tiller-ropes. + +'I can't row,' he said, in his plaintive voice, 'but I can steer better +than any of you.' + +The man's composed and unruffled serenity was still undisturbed +although the rhythmic beat of oars behind them was growing nearer and +nearer, and the creaking of the leather in the row-locks could be heard +distinctly. + +'I have a revolver,' said Purvis quietly; 'and dawn is not quite upon +us yet.' + +Their boat had still the start of the other, and the darkness helped +them. Purvis knew every yard of the river, and could have steered in +the darkness of a London fog. His pale eyes seemed to have something +in them of the quality of a cat's as he peered through the dense gloom +and guided the boat unerringly. + +There came a faint light on the surface of the water; they could dimly +see the stakes in the river, and could hear the beat of the oars in the +other boat. It was a race for the Italian settlement, where they would +be safe, and where the pursuing boat, seeing the lights from the +houses, would probably fall behind. + +Peter had rowed stroke in the Eton boat, but Toffy had always been too +delicate to be a strong rower; the other men had splendid staying +power, but no particular skill. Still, Ross knew Peter's stroke, and +the steering was perfect. Not a yard of way was lost on the long +chase, and as the four rowers warmed to their work the excitement of it +prevailed over every other thought. Purvis himself and all his +meannesses were forgotten. It was a race, and that was all, and four +men's hearts leapt to it. + +The other boat seemed to be drawing nearer. The morning was dawning +mistily, and the pursuers appeared to be getting out of their course +for a time. + +Peter swung to his oar in perfect style, and Purvis with the +tiller-ropes in his hands gave way to every leap of the boat, bending +his short, spare body in time to the stroke of the oars as he sat in +the stern. + +'If we are overtaken we will make a fight for it,' he said. + +'Naturally,' said Peter briefly, between the long strokes of his rowing. + +'They 'll probably catch us up in the next hundred yards,' said Purvis. +'I should think that they are armed, and the day is breaking.' + +He turned round in his seat as he spoke, for there was a broad straight +piece of river before them; and as the boat came on he pointed his +revolver uncertainly in the mist and fired. 'Confound you!' roared +Peter, 'don't draw their fire yet! Probably our best chance is that +they don't know for certain where we are.' + +But Purvis had fired again. There were some uncertain shots in return, +and one struck the gunwale of the boat by Peter's side. + +'That was a near thing,' he said to himself under his breath. And then +the old feeling of protection for the 'young un'--the delicate boy who +had been his fag at Eton--stopped his grim smiling, and as another shot +whizzed past them he yelled out suddenly, 'Lie down, Toffy! Get down +into the bottom of the boat!' + +And quite suddenly Toffy did as he was told. + +Peter rowed then like two men, but the river ran more quickly now, and +the shallows were more dangerous, and the steering was more difficult. + +By Jove, how well Purvis knew the navigation of it! He had the +tiller-ropes in his hands again. He made a feint to go under the bank +as though to land, and then shot suddenly into midstream. The other +boat followed in their wake. Purvis's knowledge of the currents was +probably well known, and it was safe to follow his lead: the boat and +the men in it were clear enough to see now. + +But what in the name of Heaven was Purvis doing! It positively seemed +as though he was trying to lose the little bit of way that they had +gained in advance of the others, and for one moment a horrible sense of +the man's unscrupulousness came over Peter Ogilvie, and he wondered +even now, in the midst of the chase, whether it might not be that +Purvis was playing them false. + +'I 'll shoot him before he can sing out if he is!' thought Peter to +himself as the boat was steered on to the very edge of a shallow again, +and then made off into the middle of the stream. 'Look out what you +are about!' he cried, seeing in the wake of the boat the uneven, +circuitous route by which they had come. 'For God's sake steer +straight if you can!' + +And then he saw a smile on Purvis's face--the usual watery, mirthless +smile, and the pale, wide-open blue eyes; and, looking back, Peter saw +that the boat behind them was overturned in the stream, and that the +men who had been in it were struggling to the bank, while the boat +itself was being carried rapidly down with the current. + +He eased his rowing then, and getting his breath he laughed out aloud. +The spirit and excitement of the chase had been good, and it was +successfully over. + +'Look here, you can get up now, Toffy,' he said. + +He turned round in his seat and shipped his oars with a jerk. '_You +devil!_' he said slowly; '_you must have seen him hit!_' + +He bent over the poor boy stretched out in the bottom of the boat and +felt his heart and found that it still beat. He loosened his neckcloth +and sprinkled water on his face, while the two other men fell to their +oars again, and rowed the boat as the day dawned to the little Italian +settlement. They carried Toffy into the house of the Argentine woman +who burned candles to the Virgin and stuck French paper match-boxes +round her shrine. They lifted him into the hut and laid him on the +humble bed, and Peter dressed the wound as well as he knew how, while +Hopwood in an agony hovered round them, and Ross was sending here and +there to try to find a doctor. + +No one knew what had become of Purvis, no one cared. Each was trying +with all his might to save a life very dear to them which was slowly +ebbing away. + +The sun was up now, and the long hot day was beginning; but still Toffy +had never spoken, and still Peter kneeled by his side on the mud floor +of the hut, easing him as well as he could, giving him water to drink, +or bathing his forehead. There was not much that he could do for him; +but he felt that Toffy was conscious, and that he liked to have his old +friend near him. He never altered his position as he kneeled, for his +arm was under the dying man's head, and it seemed a more comfortable +place for it than the poor Argentine woman's hard pillow. + +Toffy lay with wide-open eyes, and there were great beads of +perspiration on his forehead which Hopwood wiped away from time to +time. He breathed with difficulty in short gasps, and still he never +spoke. It came upon Peter with a horrible sinking of the heart that he +might die before a doctor came, and without saying one word to him. +All the compunction of a heart that was perhaps unusually womanly and +tender was raging within him for not having taken better care of the +boy. He wanted to say so much to Toffy, and to beg his forgiveness, +and to ask if there was anything in the world he could do for him, and +he hoped wildly and pitifully that he was not in pain. But the dying +man's eyes were fixed on the bare walls of the hut and on the little +shrine of the Virgin in the corner of the room, and it seemed now as if +the mistiness of death were settling upon them, so that they saw +nothing. + +Ross went restlessly to and fro, now entering the room for a few +minutes, and then going out again to scan the distant country to see if +by any chance the camp doctor was coming. + +When Toffy at last spoke he went and stood outside the hut, and an +instinct caused him to bare his head for a moment. + +Just at the end Toffy said something, and his voice sounded a great way +off, and almost as though it came from another land. 'Is Kitty there?' +he said. + +'No; it is me, old man,' said Peter thickly. + +He was holding the boy's head now, for his breathing was becoming more +difficult, and he stooped and kissed him on the forehead. He felt the +chill of it, and, startled, he called out, almost as one calls out a +message to a friend departing on a journey, raising his voice a little, +for Toffy already seemed a long way off, 'I never knew--I never knew, +Toffy--that you had been hit, or I would have stopped.' + +'I didn't want to spoil the race,' said Toffy. 'I don't often win a +race,' he said, and with that he died. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +They carried him home in the evening when the sun had set, and on the +day following, according to the custom of the country, they buried him. +Some peons dug the grave in a corner of the little estate, and sawed +planks and made a railing round it, and Ross read the Burial Service +over him from Toffy's own Prayer Book, and Peter kept the well-worn +Bible for Kitty Sherard. + +Peter sought solitude where he could. His grief was of the kind which +can be borne only in solitude. The love of David and Jonathan had not +been deeper than the affection he and his friend had had for one +another. The small estancia house became intolerable, with its sense +of void and the feeling that at any moment Toffy might appear, always +with some new project in hand, always gravely hopeful about everything +he undertook, always doing his best to risk his life in absurd ventures +such as no one else would have attempted. It was only the other day +that Peter had seen him trying to break a horse which even a gaucho +felt shy of riding; and he loved to be in the thick of the melee +attempting the difficult task of swinging a lasso above his head, with +that air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or Peter pictured +him in the long chair, where during a feverish attack he had lain so +often, ruffling up his hair and puzzling his head over problems of +Hebrew theology. Every corner seemed to be full of him, and yet no one +had ever appeared to have a less assertive personality than he, nor a +lighter hold on his possessions. He thought of how he himself had +always gone to Toffy's dressing-table to borrow anything he might +require--the boy who was so much accustomed to have his things +appropriated by other people! And then again he saw him in the big, +ugly drawing-room at Hulworth, nursing one of his appalling colds, or +looking with grave resentment at his priceless collection of vases in +the glass cases in the hall. He remembered him riding in the +steeplechase at Sedgwick, and quite suddenly he recollected how sick +and faint Kitty Sherard had become when he fell at the last jump. He +thought of a silver box Toffy had bought for her at Bahia, and he +wondered how it was that he had been so blind as not to see how much +these two had cared for each other. His feeling of loss amounted +almost to an agony, and once when he had ridden alone far on to the +camp he shouted his dead friend's name aloud many times, and felt +baffled and disappointed when there was no response. + +Good God! was it only two nights ago that he was picking out hymn-tunes +with his finger on the piano! At dinner-time they had been teasing him +about the Prophet Elijah, Toffy having calculated the exact distance +that the old prophet must have run in front of Ahab's chariot. 'It was +a fearful long sprint for an old man,' Toffy had said in a certain +quaint way he had. And now Toffy lay in his long, narrow grave under +the mimosa tree, and the world seemed to lack something which had +formerly made it charitable and simple-hearted and even touched with +beauty. + +No one asked after Purvis, no one had seen him. He had disappeared in +the mysterious way in which he usually came and went, but his little +boy was still at the estancia, and his bitter crying for the friend who +was dead had added to the unhappiness of the day. He was a child not +easily given to tears, and his efforts at controlling his sobs were as +pathetic as his weeping. Peter found him the morning after Toffy's +death curled up behind some firewood in an outhouse, where he had gone +so that his tears should not be seen. He comforted him as well as he +knew how, and wished that Jane were there, and thought how well she +could console the little fellow; and he said to himself with an upward +stretch of his arms which relieved the ache of his heart for a moment, +'Oh, if women only knew how much a man wants them when he is down in +his luck!' He thought that he could have told Jane everything and have +talked to her about Toffy as to no one else, and he wished with all his +heart that he could climb up there behind the stack of wood and give +way to tears as this poor little chap had done. He wondered what they +were to do with him suppose Purvis never came back again. + +But Purvis came back. Men often said of him that he had a genius for +doing the unlooked-for thing; but no one could have expected even of +him that he would venture to a place so near to his own estate and to +the men who had attempted his life. He travelled by night, of course. +His cat-like eyes always seemed capable of seeing in the dark, and even +his horse's footfalls had something soft and feline about them. + +The other men were sleeping as men do after two long wakeful nights and +a day of stress and exertion. Even grief could not keep away the +feeling of exhaustion, and Purvis could hear their deep breathing in +the corridor, when, having tethered his horse to a distant paraiso +tree, he stole softly up to the door. + +His boy's room was at the back of the house, and Purvis crept round to +it, and called him softly by name. Dick's short life had been full of +adventure and surprises, and he never uttered a sound when his father's +light touch awakened him from sleep, and his voice told him softly to +get up. Purvis dressed him with something of a woman's skill, and then +he bade him remain where he was while he crept softly into the +drawing-room of the house. + +He came back presently as noiselessly as he had left the room, and +whispered, 'I am looking for a tin box; is it anywhere about?' + +'They opened it to-day, and took some papers out,' said Dick. + +Purvis drew one short, quick breath. + +'Then let us be off at once,' he said. + +He crossed the room once more in his stealthy fashion, and took from +the mantelpiece a small bottle of nerve-tabloids which he had +forgotten, and slipped them into his pocket, and then went out into the +dark again. Once he paused at the entrance of the corridor and +listened attentively, and then crept down the garden path and found the +horses tethered to the paraiso trees. They led them softly through the +monte, and there Dick paused. + +'I am going to say good-bye to him,' he said. 'I don't care what you +say!' + +He went to the grave under the mimosa trees, and with a queer elfin +gesture he stooped down and kissed the lately disturbed sods, and made +the sign of the cross upon his narrow little chest as he had seen his +Spanish mother do. The dignity of the action, with its unconscious +touch of foreign grace, and the boy's pathetic attempt to keep back his +tears as he lingered by the grave in the darkness at an hour when any +other boy of his age would have been safely tucked up in bed, might +well touch the heart of any one who stood beside the child. + +'I didn't know he was hit!' said Purvis suddenly; and probably he spoke +the truth for once in his life. Toffy was one of the few men who in +many years had trusted him, and he had been a good friend to Dick. +'Well, the game's up!' said Purvis. And he and his son mounted their +horses and rode off into the blackness of the night together. + +Ross had rescued the black japanned box from the boat, and had kept it +under his care until such time as he should have an opportunity of +giving it to Peter. It was from a sense that it might provide some +sort of distraction to a man almost dazed with grief that he brought it +into the drawing-room on the evening of the day Toffy was buried, and +suggested that perhaps Peter had better open it and see what was in it. +The key was gone, of course, but they prised it open with some tools, +and on the top of the box there was a letter which made Peter lay his +hand over his pocket for a moment. It was as though by some magic the +packet which lay there had been transferred to the interior of a black +japanned box discovered upon a river steamer in the Argentine Republic. +The writing on the cover was a duplicate of the one he himself held, +and was addressed in his mother's writing: 'To my son, to be given to +him at my death.' + +Peter could not see quite straight for a moment. The finding of the +packet seemed to establish conclusively his brother's identity; and he +took out the folded sheets which lay inside the cover with hands that +were not steady. + +The very words in the opening sentences were the same as in his own +letter, and written in the clear, strong handwriting which he knew so +well. + +'When you get this letter I shall be dead,' he read in the words which +were already painfully familiar to him; 'and before I die there is +something which I think I had better tell you. I am not haunted by +remorse nor indulging in death-bed repentance, and I shall merely ask +you not to hate me more than you can help when you have finished +reading this letter. + +'You must often have heard of your elder brother who died when I was in +Spain, the year of your father's death. He did not die----' So far +Peter knew the letter off by heart, but there seemed to be many pages +of writing to follow. 'And as far as I am aware he may be living now.' + +'If it is anything bad,' said Ross kindly, 'why not put it off until +to-morrow? You are about used up to-day, Peter, and whatever there is +in that box can wait.' + +'I am all right, thanks,' said Peter, without looking up. And Ross +went out to the patio and left him alone. + +'I must go a long way back to make myself intelligible,' the letter +went on. 'I suppose people of Spanish descent are generally credited +with an unforgiving spirit. I have never forgiven my sister-in-law. I +did not at first attempt revenge, possibly because there was only one +way in which I could deprive her and her children of their inheritance. +That way was denied me. My eldest boy died at his birth, and the girl +only lived a few weeks. After that I had no other children. I think +the grief this caused entered into both our lives with a bitterness +which is unusual, and which I shall not attempt to recall. I shall +only say that we both mourned it, and that Lionel Ogilvie and his wife +by their conduct made what might have been merely a sorrow a matter +also of almost unbearable disappointment. I mention this regrettable +emotional feeling in order to make my subsequent conduct intelligible +to you. In the course of years, during which your father hardly +attended to any matters concerning the property, because it would seem +to be benefiting his legal successors, I urged him to go abroad on an +exploring expedition such as he loved, hoping in some way to mitigate +his disappointment or keep him from dwelling upon it. I have probably +not conveyed to you how deep the quarrel was between him and his +brother; but if I have not done so it is not of any great importance. + +'When your father had sailed for Central Africa I went out to Spain to +visit my property there, and I took a sea-voyage to Lisbon for the +benefit of my health. There was a young couple in the steerage of the +boat going out to settle in Argentine. They were people of the working +class and very poor, and before we reached Lisbon, on the night of a +storm, the woman gave birth to a child and died, and the father was +left to start life in an unknown country with a helpless infant +dependent upon him. Some kind-hearted people on board the steamer made +up a subscription for him, with the English people's quaint notion that +all grief can be assuaged with food or money; and one night when I was +on deck alone the stewardess brought me the baby to see. + +'When we got into Lisbon the following day I offered the man to adopt +the child; and when my maid returned to England I got a Spanish woman +for him, and took him with me to my own estate. He was greeted +everywhere as my son, and allowing myself the luxury of the small +deception, I pretended to myself that he really was mine; but weeks +passed before I ever dreamed of deceiving anybody else on the subject. +It was a letter which my sister-in-law wrote to me which decided me to +stay out in Granada during my husband's two years' absence, and to +announce, in course of time, that I was the mother of a son. The plan +was quite stupidly easy, and everything lent itself to the deception. +The child was fair, and not unlike the Ogilvies, and his father had +given him up entirely to me, on the understanding that he was never to +claim him again. It may seem strange to you, but it is a fact that +after I returned to England there was not the vaguest suspicion in any +one's mind that he was not my own child. When my husband returned from +abroad I was convinced, if I had ever doubted it, that I had acted +wisely. Under the circumstances I should act in the same way again. + +'Of course events proved that I had made a mistake; but I had in the +meantime made my husband perfectly happy and my sister-in-law perfectly +miserable, and that was what I desired. + +'You were born a year after your father's return home, and when the +other child was three years old. To say that I then found myself in an +intolerable position would not be to overstate the case. If your +father had lived, my difficulties would have been greater than they +actually were, and it was during his lifetime and after your birth that +I suffered most. I suppose only a woman, and one, moreover, who has +longed for children, would be able to realize what my feelings were, +and I shall not urge your compassion by dwelling upon that time. I +have never accepted pity, and I should prefer not to have it bestowed +upon me when I am dead. + +'It was only after your father's death that I saw a way of escape out +of the intolerable position in which I had placed myself. I was in +very bad health for a time, and my husband's affection for the alien +child was more than I was able to bear. There is always a touch of the +savage in motherhood, and I am naturally jealous. + +'After my husband's death I went out to my own property in Spain, and +by judiciously moving about there from one place to another, and +changing my personal servants frequently, it was a comparatively easy +matter to say that the child had died, without exactly specifying where +his death had taken place. + +'It was absolutely necessary that he should be got rid of. A pauper +emigrant's boy was taking the place of my son in everything. The very +tenants about the place treated him differently from the way in which +they treated you. My husband had decided that the bilk of his property +was to go to him; and all the time I knew that his father was from the +class from which perhaps, navvies are drawn, and that his mother was +some girl from Whitechapel or Mile End. + +'He had to go, but I treated him fairly. I took him down to Lisbon +myself and sent him back to his father with a trustworthy couple who +were going out there. From my own private fortune I bestowed upon him +a sum sufficient to educate him and to place him in the world. + +'I think I never breathed freely or had one undisturbed moment from the +time you were born until he had gone to Argentine. + +'The people to whom I entrusted him both died of fever in Rosario, and +from that day to this I have never heard of the boy who was called +Edward Ogilvie. The money which I had bestowed upon him had proved too +tempting to some one. The child disappeared, and so far as I am +concerned he was never heard of again. + +'For four years he had lived as my own son, and it was I who took him +away from his father and his natural surroundings. I want you to find +him if you can. If he has been brought up vilely or treated brutally +by strangers, the fault, of course, lies with me; this will probably +distress you, but I think it will be an incentive also to you to try to +find the man.' + +The letter was signed in Mrs. Ogilvie's name and it finished as +abruptly as it had begun. + + * * * * * + +The first thing that roused Peter from the sense of bewilderment and +almost of stupor which beset him was Dunbar's arrival at the estancia. + +'Purvis has given us the slip again!' said the detective. 'The man has +as many lives is he has names! He has disappeared more than once +before, and he has even died, to my certain knowledge, two or three +times, in order to get out of a tight place.' + +'Oh, Purvis, yes!' said Peter absently; and then he pulled himself +together and briefly told Dunbar the whole story. + +'It doesn't alter the fact,' said Dunbar, 'that I have got to find him +if I can.' + +'No,' said Peter stupidly. 'No, I suppose it does not,' and he added, +in a heavy voice, 'I believe Toffy would like me to look after the boy.' + +'The mystery to me is,' said Dunbar, 'how Purvis, as you call him (to +me, of course, he is E. W. Smith), could have got hold of this box of +papers. It may be a fraud yet,' he said truculently, 'and it will +require investigation.' + +'I know my mother's writing,' said Peter, 'and Purvis was in the act of +trying to burn the box before we took him off the steamer. It is the +last thing in the world that it would suit him to have about him if he +meant to establish his claim to be the heir.' + +'That's so,' said Dunbar thoughtfully. + +'The box could not have come out with him when he sailed to Argentine +as a child,' said Peter, 'because the letter is dated long after that.' + +'And you say you never saw the man until you met him out here?' Dunbar +went on. + +He brought out a notebook from his pocket and began to jot down Peter's +replies. + +'No,' said Peter, 'or, if I did, I can't recall where it was. At first +when I saw him he reminded me of some one whom I had met; but +afterwards, when it seemed pretty well established that he was my +brother, both Christopherson and I thought that this vague recollection +of the man, which I mentioned to him, might be based on the fact that +there was some sort of likeness between him and some members of my +family.' + +Dunbar jotted this down also. 'And you positively have no recollection +of having seen him?' he said, as he fastened a band of elastic round +the book. 'If that is so he must have had accomplices in England who +stole the box for him. I shall have to find out where these boxes were +kept at your home, and, as nearly as possible, I must discover with +whom Purvis was in communication in England. Or he may have gone there +himself. I know that he went home in one of Lamport & Holt's boats +only a few months ago--that was after the wreck of the _Rosana_, you +understand--and it was while he was in England that I saw him, and knew +for certain that he had not gone down in the wreck. My warrant against +him is for a common hotel robbery. It was when he came back to +Argentine that he began this river-trading, which was in the hands of a +better man till he took it.' + +'The plan will be for you and my lawyer to work together,' said Peter; +'but at present I can't furnish you with the smallest clue as to how +these papers came into his possession. I know the look of the box +quite well. There were several of them in my mother's writing-room, +which was in the oldest part of the house. They were all destroyed one +night last autumn when we had rather a serious fire there.' + +Dunbar took out his notebook and began to write. + +'_By Jove!_' exclaimed Peter, suddenly starting from his seat. He saw +it all in a flash: the burning tower, with volumes of smoke rising from +it; the line of men, with hose and buckets, pouring water on the +connecting bridge of the tower; the groups of frightened guests on the +terrace, and his mother standing unmoved amongst them in her sumptuous +purple dress and the diamonds in her hair; the arrival of the +fire-engine from Sedgwick; and then, just at the end, the figure of a +man appearing on the bridge, with a cloak wound round his head, dashing +into the doorway through which the smoke was issuing in great waves; +his sudden flight across the bridge again; and then Jane, at his elbow, +clasping his arm and saying, in a terrified tone, 'Oh, Peter! for a +moment I thought it was you!' + +Dunbar was scribbling rapidly in his notebook. 'It is as clear as +mud!' he said at last. 'Purvis, after the _Rosana_ incident, was +missing for a considerable time, and it is believed that his English +wife at Rosario hid him somewhere. There he probably heard the story +of his adoption, and determined to prove himself the eldest son.' + +'I don't understand how he could have heard the story,' said Peter. + +'He heard most things. But there are links in the chain that we shall +never get a sight of; we see only the beginning and the end of it,' +replied Dunbar. + +The Scot was very seldom excited; but he got up from his chair and +began to walk rapidly up and down the room, his under-lip stuck out, +and his tough hair thrown back from his forehead. 'The whole thing +depended upon his getting what direct information he could about the +property, and he must have worked this thing well. The fire, I take +it, was accidental?' + +'Oh, the fire was accidental enough,' said Peter, 'and was found to be +due to some electric lighting which was put into the tower.' + +'Purvis's visit to England must have been to ascertain if Mrs. Ogilvie +were still alive, and, in the first instance, he probably meant to levy +blackmail upon her; he must have discovered where she kept her papers, +and have tried to effect an entrance on the night of the ball when many +strangers were about.' + +'I believe,' exclaimed Peter, 'we saw him in one of the corridors of +the house during the dance, and decided that he must be one of the +guests unknown to us, who had come with some country neighbour, and +that he had lost his way amongst the almost interminable passages of +the place.' He saw himself and Jane making for the leather-covered +door which led to the bridge, and the shrinking stranger, with his +hopelessly timid manner, who had drawn back at their approach; and he +thought he heard himself saying, 'Shall I get him some partners, or +leave the people who brought him to the dance to look after him?' It +was only a fleeting look that he had caught of the man's face, and he +recalled it with difficulty now, but it was not a far-fetched +conclusion to decide that the two were one and the same man. + +Dunbar was in a sort of transport. 'It's the best case I ever had,' he +said, 'and we only want the man himself to make the thing complete! +Purvis has played some pretty clever and some pretty deep games in his +time; but this is about the coolest thing he ever tried to pull off, +and he has as nearly as possible won through with it.' + +Mr. Dunbar always relapsed into a strong Scottish accent in moments of +excitement, and he became almost unintelligible at last, as he rolled +forth his r's and gave it as his opinion that the man was a worthless +scoundrel. + +'I can't think,' said Peter, 'why Purvis did not claim the inheritance +sooner. He had the whole thing in his hands.' + +'Yes; but Purvis did not know that!' exclaimed Dunbar. 'I 'll take my +oath he 's been pumping you about how much old servants knew, and the +like; and there are men working the case in England, judging by the +number of telegrams he has had. He would have been over in London +before many months were gone, or I am very much mistaken, and as soon +as the train was laid; but it would have been a fatal thing for him to +have attempted a case before he knew how much was known. Your arrival +in Argentine probably precipitated the very thing he was working for.' + +'He remarkably nearly succeeded,' said Peter. + +'There ought to be a training home for criminals,' Dunbar exclaimed, +'to teach them once and for all to destroy all evidence, rather than +retain that which incriminates alongside of that which may be useful. +A man will sometimes keep a bundle of letters which will bring him to +the gallows together with information which might make his fortune.' + +Peter described how he had found the tin case on the top of a bundle of +shavings in the cabin of the river steamer. 'He was in a tight place +there, and must have known it,' said Peter. 'Why not have burned the +letters before our boat got up?' + +Dunbar laughed. 'You can't very well make a holocaust on a small +steamer on a dark night without showing where you are, for one thing,' +he replied, 'nor can you overturn a paraffin lamp on the top of a +bundle of shavings without a possibility of burning yourself up at the +same time. There was a love of sensationalism, too, about the man. He +would like his steamer to flame away at the right moment, and +disappoint the men who meant to board her; or, what is still more +likely, there was a considerable amount of gunpowder on board the boat, +and a boarding-party arriving at the right moment would have been blown +sky-high.' + +'He never showed mercy,' said Peter. + +'The Lord will need to have mercy upon him if he gets into my hands,' +quoth Dunbar, 'for I have none to spare for him.' + +'But I,' said Peter, 'have got to remember that my mother charges me to +befriend the man.' + +'But then,' said Dunbar tersely, 'your mother never knew what sort of +man you would have to deal with.' + +'God knows!' said Peter. + +'Well, it's a hanging matter if we get him,' said Dunbar cheerfully. +He and the commissario had their orders, and they would be obliged to +execute them. The results must be left for a court of justice to +decide. + +They rode away the following morning, and there seemed nothing for it +but to wait at the estancia until more news was forthcoming. For Peter +the days were the saddest of his life, and left an impression upon him +which nothing ever quite removed afterwards. He became older suddenly, +and a certain boyishness, which was characteristic of him, was gone and +never returned again. Life, which had once seemed so simple to him and +so easily lived, so full of pleasures and of good times and of good +comrades, had suddenly become complex and filled with difficulties, and +made up of grave decisions and shadowed by a sorrow which would +probably be felt as long as he lived. Ross would not let him stay +indoors, and mercifully gave him a double share of work to do. The +weather was cooler now, and the days could be filled with outdoor +occupation from morning till night. There were no siestas in the +afternoon or lazy dawdling over afternoon coffee in the heat of the day +to remind him of long gossips with Toffy, and the evenings were shorter +and not so difficult to fill. + +'I 'm an awful bore, Ross!' said Peter, having sat silent from +dinner-time until he went to bed one night; 'but I can't help it.' + +'I know you can't,' said Ross kindly. + +The big man, who was a poor player of cards at the best of times, +became seized with a desire to learn picquet, and, strange as his +method of consolation may have been, Peter knew what the good fellow +meant by it, and taught him the game and got through the time somehow. + +There was still no news of Purvis; the man seemed to have vanished in +his own mysterious way, and nothing could be heard of him. It was +ascertained that he was well supplied with money, and it was thought +that, as his child would be incapable of any very long journeys or +unusual hardships, the discovery of his whereabouts near home might +lead to the discovery of the father. But the thing remained a mystery. +Dunbar's long lean frame grew leaner than ever as he searched and +journeyed and telegraphed without obtaining any results. + +It was the boy who appeared first, and then without his father. +Perhaps Purvis discovered that escape would be easier without the +burden of the child, or it may have been that his queer affection for +him had determined him to seek safety for the boy somewhere. But it +was part of the man's extraordinary coolness that he should send him +for Peter Ogilvie to look after. + +The boy arrived at the estancia one night, a poor, tired little object, +with a letter from his father in his pocket. The two had made their +way as far as the province of Salta, and from there the boy had been +sent to Taco, where, unaided, he had found a horse and had ridden over +to the estancia. He was thin and weak-looking, and had evidently +suffered a good deal from his many journeyings. Ross took him and +looked after him, and gave him some light work on the farm to do, and +there he remained while Dunbar journeyed to Salta, to find that Purvis +had left the place long before he arrived. Only a woman at Rosario +knew where he was, and this woman had learned not to tell. She had +married Purvis years ago, soon after she arrived in Argentine to be +governess to some English children. Her employers had not been kind to +her, and in a country where comforts were few she had had less than her +share of them. She was a girl of twenty then, and very pretty, and +hers was a faithful heart; and, cynical as the expression may sound, +she had had fidelity thrust upon her by the fact that she was utterly +friendless in the world. When Purvis married her she went to him +gladly. When he deserted her she even pretended to believe in him, for +the pitiful reason that there was no one else in the whole of that +strange land to whom she could turn. She was a woman to whom the easy +excuse of business could always be used in the widest sense of the +term, for she had been brought up to believe that that very +comprehensive word signified something almost as mysterious as affairs +of the spirit. It was not safe to assert of those who were engaged in +business whence they came or whither they would go. Sometimes she did +not see her husband for months, or even for a year at a time; he did +not always share his abundant days with her, but he had nearly always +come back to her when he was in trouble. + +He arrived one night in Rosario without disguise of any sort, and +knocked at her humble door in one of the meanest parts of the town. He +was never beaten for long, and he announced to her that he wanted her +help in a new scheme that he had planned. His fortune was to be made +once more, but the scheme itself must remain hidden for a time. His +wife, upon this occasion, was to help him by acting as cat's-paw. + +'It's a big thing,' Purvis said, 'and will require all my strength;' +and he announced his intention of remaining hidden in Rosario for a few +weeks while he rested completely. But his chronic inability to sleep +made rest impossible. He was calculating and adding up figures during +the watches of the night, and his strange, light-coloured eyes, with +the constant tear in them, became paler in colour and more suggestive +of bad nerves. He began to find his calculations difficult to balance, +and he even made some mistakes in his long rows of figures. The thing +worried him and he began to wonder if his head were going. He had +always overcome difficulties and had fought dangers with an absolute +belief in his own success. He was unscrupulous and cunning, but he had +never been beaten yet. It was horrible that sleep was the thing that +he could not command; but, alas! the exercise of will-power is not the +force by which sleep can be induced, and a placid or submissive mind +was unknown to Purvis. His wife watched him anxiously. She would go +for long walks with him in the early dawn or after it was dark, hoping +that the fresh air and the cooler weather might bring some sort of +repose to the wide-open pale eyes; but no sleep came, and Purvis took +to swallowing more tabloids, and setting out his rows of figures in a +nervous way, while his hand trembled and his plaintive voice became +irritable, and his eyes watered more than they were wont to do. + +He had money in hand, and it was some sort of comfort to his wife to be +able to purchase for him the nourishing food which he required. She +had often been in sore straits for money herself, but she believed, +with pathetic conviction, that a woman can do with fewer comforts than +a man can, and she had never felt deprivations for herself so much as +she would have felt them for her husband. She cooked tempting dishes +for him, and enjoyed his companionship, and asked no questions. She +even allowed herself the purchase of a few new clothes now that money +was plentiful again, and these days, even with the anxiety of her +husband's ill-health hanging over her, were not by any means the +unhappiest of her life. + +'I shan't be able to pull this business through,' said Purvis one +night, 'unless I sleep, and I can't live unless I succeed with it.' + +He made his wife write innumerable letters for him in her own +handwriting, and signed with an entirely new name. But it was +difficult to transact these business affairs through the medium of +another person, and even his meek wife might some day ask questions! + +If only he could pull himself together and get a firmer grasp of things +than he had at present! The commercial instinct was strong within him, +and he had a genius for figures, but insomnia and the state of his +nerves seemed to have deprived him of half his powers. He envied his +wife her gentle breathing and her deep sleep; and he would often wake +her in the night when he was most restless, and demand something at her +hands--a very weak cup of tea, or a little milk and hot water--in order +to hear the restoring sound of a human voice. + +Lately, however, he had purchased a new sort of tabloid which he used +sparingly, according to the chemist's directions, but at which he often +looked longingly, believing that a little sleep lay within the tiny +glass bottle. + +He had lain awake for hours this night, noting the ticking of his +watch, counting the hours as they struck on the neighbouring clock, +falling sometimes into an uneasy slumber which lasted only a few +minutes, and then waking at the sound of his own voice calling aloud in +his sleep. He tried every plan and contrivance, however childish, by +which men have sometimes courted slumber. + +He lay in bed very still to-night, his wide-staring eyes looking into +the darkness. He heard every hour as it struck, and his active brain +refused to be quiet for a moment. Difficult things looked gigantic in +the darkness, and everything upon which his thoughts dwelt became +hopelessly exaggerated in his mind. Brandy and other stimulants had +never been a temptation to him; his life had too often depended upon +his wits for him to risk a muddled brain. But he still believed in +tabloids; and as the day dawned, and light crept through the window, he +looked longingly at the little glass vial lying on the dressing-table. +It was three o'clock, and if only he could get a couple of hours' deep +rest before the noise of the city began, he might yet be able to pull +himself together and arrange his affairs. + +He rose from the bed and went with unfaltering steps to the +dressing-table and shook the tiny discs into the palm of his hand; and +then he counted them deliberately. + +'It's kill or cure!' he said, with that queer courage which never +deserted him, even if it were based entirely upon self-seeking and +self-interest. He threw his head back with the characteristic action +with which he always swallowed his medicine, and went back to bed again. + +Purvis slept; and it may have been that he was glad to sleep on for +ever, for he was tired through and through, and the only way to escape +failure was by death. + +His wife mourned for him deeply and sincerely, as many better men have +not been mourned. There was only one thing she dreaded in the whole +world, and that was loneliness. She had endured so much of it in her +lifetime, and now that her husband was gone, whom as a matter of +necessity she had believed in, she was quite alone. She knew nothing +of business, and it never struck her as strange that there should be +money amounting to a considerable little fortune in a box in the house. +With the fear of want removed the poor creature blossomed into +youthfulness again, and she married an engineer on a new railway line, +who was very good to her. To him she ever held up the late lamented +Purvis as one of the best of husbands, and one, too, who had left her +well provided for. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Peter and Jane were married the following autumn with the ring which +Toffy had kept wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper in his waistcoat +pocket. + +For a description of the general rejoicings the almost hysterical +paragraphs in the Culversham local paper must be consulted. Columns of +print were devoted to accounts of feastings and fireworks, tenants' +dinners, and school-children's teas. + +In order to understand and really appreciate the full interest of the +occasion one would have had to be at Tetley Place on the morning of the +26th of October last year. Miss Abingdon was in her most bustling, her +most uncompromising mood, and from an early hour of the morning she was +so severe in her speech, and so absolutely radiant in her expression, +that it was very difficult indeed to know how to treat her. + +Canon Wrottesley, who still believed that his wife was only feeling the +effects of the winter weather, the spring weather, the summer weather, +or the autumn weather, was as gay and debonair as usual, and even at +the wedding it was felt that he was in some sort the centre of things. +He had his usual group of admirers about him, and was so gracious and +charming, so patriarchal one moment and so boyish the next, that his +popularity was not to be wondered at. The very school-children, as +they threw their flowers, glanced upwards at the canon for his approval. + +Mrs. Avory, dressed in black, went very quietly to the wedding with her +little girl beside her. She wept sadly during the service, but she +looked stronger now, and less suffering than she had been wont to do. +A niche seemed to have been found for her in the village of Culversham, +where she loved the poor people, and went about amongst the cottages, +and read to sick folk, and was happier, perhaps, than she quite knew, +in her own pathetic little way. + +Kitty Sherard was bridesmaid and never cried at all. She wore +rose-colour, and carried Jane's bouquet, and during the whole of the +long day she smiled and was admired, and behaved as a bridesmaid in +rose-colour should. It is a comforting supposition, which many people +hold as a belief, that there are guardian angels, or spirits, which +watch round the beds of those who weep. Such a spirit, keeping watch +at Kitty Sherard's bed that night, and hearing her sobbing, may have +known something of her sorrow. Soldiers--men tell us who have seen +many battlefields--cover their faces when they are wounded, so that +their comrades may not see their drawn features and their pain. And +women wait until the lights are out before they begin to cry. + +Perhaps a certain joy of living will come back to Kitty when hounds are +running and a good horse carries her well. To-night in the dark she +felt nothing but an intolerable sense of loss. Probably in a sorrow of +this sort the ache of it consists in a curious longing to get up and go +at once somewhere--anywhere--to the one who is loved, and the blankness +and the pity of it all centres round the fact that this is impossible. +The impotence of the feeling increases as means of communication in +this life are made easier. It seems absurd that, whereas we may +actually speak and hear the voice in reply of those who answer us while +we are hundreds of miles apart, there yet should be an insuperable +barrier between ourselves and those who, for aught we know, may be +quite near us. It seems almost as though we must be under a spell +which prevents the communication which we long for, and as though +almost any day we may wake up to find how unreal the separation is, +Kitty buried her face in the pillow and called Toffy's name, and--who +knows?--perhaps he heard her. + +Sometimes I think Mrs. Avory may marry again, for her husband is +rapidly getting through his life in a laudable endeavour to live every +day of it, and there are times when I wonder if, in years to come, I +may see her established as the gentle and admiring wife of our handsome +country vicar, doing good all her days in her timid faithful way. + +But I cannot think of Kitty Sherard as caring for any one except the +boy who, whatever his faults may have been, had never an unkind or +ungentle thought of any man or woman, and who played the game as +honourably as he knew it, and then laid down his life in the simple +manner of a gentleman. + +Peter will never forget him. When he has boys of his own he will call +them after his dead friend's name, and will tell them absurd stories +about him, for even when his name has become only a memory it will be +surrounded with something lovably humorous. His old jokes and stories +are much more a reality than his death. He often risked his life for a +good sporting race; and he did not grudge giving it up during that last +lap in the Argentine River when day was breaking. He was trying to +help a friend to do the right sort of thing at considerable cost to +them both, and, when all is said and done, none of us can do much +better than that. + +Well, good luck and long life to bride and bride-groom! They love each +other in a manner refreshingly whole-hearted and delightful, and we +will, if you please, ring down the curtain upon them in orthodox +fashion to the sound of wedding-bells. Good luck to Kitty, who will +never tell her mad little stories again, or enjoy herself as she used +to do when she goes to race-meetings or drives her horses tandem +through the lanes. Good luck to Mrs. Avory, with her pathetic brown +eyes, doing her daily work amongst the poor; and to the genial vicar +and his wife. Good luck to all our friends in this book, and to you, +dear reader, who have followed them so far. + +And so, good-bye. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND JANE*** + + +******* This file should be named 26044.txt or 26044.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/0/4/26044 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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