Читать книгу The Veiled Man - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 13

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Everybody who was anybody in Stayton played golf. The links were situated near the cliffs, and just sufficiently distant from the town to reduce the din and clatter of the docks into a vaguely bell like hum of sound. Stayton was proud of its links, because the country was supposed to be the most difficult for driving purposes in England. It was broken up with ravines and clumps of wind-blown trees, and tussocks manifold. One could lose oneself quite easily in the gorsey valleys, or even on the hills, especially in couples. Many matches had been made there, both golf and matrimonial. The place was seldom quite deserted, but on afternoons and holidays it wore a gay inhabited appearance that mocked the barren seeming of the soil.

Lord Cawthorne could not play golf, but when Mrs. Toombes represented to him how necessary it was that he should learn (from the social point of view), he thankfully permitted her to teach him. But he proved a somewhat too enthusiastic and vigorous a pupil for her liking. She had thought it would be nice to play without caddies, so that they might seek for lost balls together; she was not blindly devoted to the game. But the Earl's eyes were as sharp as any hawk's, and he always found the tiny sphere too quickly. He was, moreover, so strong and tireless himself that he could not easily be brought to understand why a mile's brisk tramping should leave her breathless. Her compensation, however, was in the comments of her friends, who refused to believe that a handsome young man and a lovely young woman could spend two hours a day in each other's company without flirting. And they did flirt sometimes, on the homeward stroll, though never while the game progressed. But always very harmlessly; a matter of challenging glances and bluff outspoken compliments; and only until they began to like each other more than superficially and recognise the fact. In a week they were sworn friends, and knew each other's lives in fairly intimate particulars. Francine told the Earl a thing no other soul had guessed, that she had buried her heart in her husband's grave. On this part he confessed to her that he had begun to find his mysterious cousin, John Deen, a tyrant, under whose rule he could not help but chafe.

"Two men can spend their lives together and never know each other," he said one afternoon. "Jack and I have scarcely been a day apart since we were children. For the last ten years especially—since the infernal accident that wrecked his life and saddened mine—we have shared each other's every thought, or at least I have shared mine with him, and yet now he puzzles me. He seems to be changing—changing."

"I would like to meet this curious cousin of yours," said Francine. "Might I?"

"It could not be managed. His fear of strangers is his one fixed star."

"How is he changing?"

"I scarcely know." The Earl shook his head. "I do everything I can to please him. As you are aware, at his request I have already started working at the docks under Sir Felix Greig, four tedious hours a day—confound it! And his every other wish I gratify, and yet——" he paused frowning.

"Well."

"He is never pleased, Mrs. Toombes. He says nothing, but he makes me feel it all the same. Of course I know in my heart that his dearest, in fact his only desire in life is for my good, or what he considers my good, and I daresay I'm an ungrateful hound not to do his bidding cheerfully, seeing what I owe him—I owe him more than I dare tell you, Mrs. Toombes—yet all the same I can't help fancying sometimes that his feelings have altered."

Francine smiled. "Oh, I am sure you are wrong," she said. "I don't know your cousin, of course, but I am certain that he could not help but like you. You are so quixotically devoted to him, too."

"I don't know." The Earl's voice was very gloomy. "I don't know," he repeated. "When I was a lad I didn't think the matter over very much. Of course I realised from the first that I owed him his spoiled life as well as mine saved, yet once realised he helped me himself to forget it. I could not make you understand in a year how utterly sweet and uncomplaining he was, how grateful for little services, how patient in his pain. You see, we'd made it up (we were very poor, you know) that I would work for us both, and that we'd always live together. For ten years we never exchanged an angry word—indeed, we were like brothers—till this title and the fortune came."

"And then?" Francine was deeply interested and full of sympathy.

"He loathed the idea of coming to England, Mrs. Toombes. It was a terrible sacrifice for him to make; the voyage, strangers, and so on."

"But he came."

"Yes, he came."

"And now?"

The Earl looked into her eyes. "I think he might be beginning to comprehend what he failed to realise in Norfolk Island—the enormous difference between his life and mine. Don't you think that should make him hate me, Mrs. Toombes?"

Francine's eyes opened wide. "It—it would depend," she murmured.

"On me?"

"No—himself—the sort of——" she broke off, then added with a little gasp: "I must be honest. In his place I would hate you, I'm afraid, however much you tried to please me. But you know best if his nature is as mean as mine."

Cawthorne shook his head. "It is different with women, and in any case would meanness count? He ought to hate me, Mrs. Toombes."

"Yes," she said, "he ought. But does he? Ask your heart!"

"He likes his valet, I think, a wretched little ferret-faced nonentity named Simon Vicars."

"Oh, lad!" cried the lady, "you are jealous, I believe. Was there ever such a pair as you and your cousin!"

The Earl looked at her long and full. "You don't know what you are talking about," he said presently, in tones of concentrated bitterness. "But I must tell you something more since I have told you so much."

"Well," her smile was mocking.

"I've carried it locked here for ten years." He pointed to his breast.

His manner sobered the widow. Her smile faded, and his eyes grew serious. "Well," she said again, but almost tenderly.

He folded his arms and bent his head. "I have never liked Jack Deen," he said. "Before he saved my life we were cold companions; allies, but only by force of circumstances. We had no one else to speak to, you see. Afterwards——" he paused, frowning gloomily.

"Afterwards," gasped the widow.

"Afterwards, because I did not like him, I became his bondslave." There was something resembling despair in the Earl's voice.

There followed a long and thoughtful silence. Then Francine started impulsively forward and caught his hand. "I understand," she said. "I understand completely. Oh, how I envy you, Lord Cawthorne."

"Why?"

"Because you are a man, a strong, good man." Her eyes glowed like stars.

The Earl quietly released his hand. "It was the only thing to do," he said indifferently enough.

"Does he suspect?" asked Francine.

"God knows. But ought he not to hate me?"

"He ought to worship you," the widow said.

A week later the Earl informed Francine of the promise he had given to his cousin that he would choose a wife within three months. Pat Ellison had mentioned it to her before, but she made it a rule never to take Pat seriously, from a long experience of his Celtic imagination. They had just finished a protracted game, and were sitting for a breathing space on the top of a little hill that overlooked Stayton and the estuary. Two hundred yards away Pat Ellison and Lady Dorothy were discussing rules with Maude Franklyn and Sybil Carne. Still farther off Sir Felix Greig was hotly pressing Mr. Southdown.

Lord Cawthorne's eyes were fixed on Dorothy while he made his confession, with a measuring look the widow thought. Francine remembered that afterwards, but for the moment with every other consideration it was driven from her mind before a storm of indignation. "He had no right," she burst out. "And you were wrong, ay, cowardly to shrink from vexing him. Three months! my heart! the thing's unnatural. Does he want to spoil your whole life? I begin to detest this cold-blooded cousin."

They had called each other for two days by their baptismal names.

"I am trying not to," said the Earl. "I think I shall succeed for I believe myself incapable of love."

"Oh, what nonsense. Incapable! You incapable!" She trembled with anger at his baffling quietude.

He smiled in her eyes. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever known and yet I am fancy free." His gesture was more complimentary even than his words.

The widow sighed and blushed. "That is no criterion. Look yonder. Three lovely creatures are they not?"

"Well."

"There are others, Adam. This is but a tiny corner of the world. Your heart is only yours in trust for one of us. Your promise binds you to a fault in honor. What will you say to her one day when she demands accounts of you?"

"If ever such a day and she arrive, I shall tell her of my cousin Jack."

"She'll not forgive you."

"Well, well," he shrugged his shoulders. "But to be honest, Francine, I agree with you. The thing is rather monstrous. I do not want a wife."

"Of course not. She hasn't come upon the scene yet! And to be obliged——Oh! I have not patience with you. Be a man, rebel; recall. If needful, break your promise!"

"No."

"You owe some devoir to yourself."

"Assuredly; a word passed, to redeem, for instance."

"Are you only a conscience and a perambulating sense of obligation."

The Earl laughed. "Pat says I have a bit of a loose devil chained in me somewhere."

"Let slip its collar then!"

"I have mislaid the key, Francine."

She looked at him.

"I want you to help me out of this." He was smiling inscrutably.

"To help you choose," she asked, her dark eyes kindling.

He shook his head. "I wish you'd marry me," he answered calmly. "You don't want a lover, nor do I; we'd get on famously together."

"I feel sure you don't mean to insult me," she answered slowly. Her eyes were glittering and her cheeks held twin crimson spots.

"I am too fond of you," he responded gravely. "But I am serious."

"Then listen, Adam. I am a woman of the world, and can talk to you quite plainly at a pinch."

"Please," said he.

"Human beings are savages," she muttered, "and savages are beasts. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Love can change all that, but nothing, else. It redeems and sanctifies our low estate. It is the one great good which God has given us, the single means by which He has permitted us to escape in part from our initial doom while yet on earth, and realise, however dimly, that angels can and do inhabit the carcases of animals." She stood up, her countenance transfigured, and slowly moved away.

"Francine! Francine!" he cried. He was moved to his depths.

She turned and looked at him with tear-wet eyes. "You poor boy," she said, "I am very fond of you, but don't ever speak to me like that again."

"I never shall, and thank you, Francine. I love and honor you more than I can say."

"A woman can be a man's friend," she said a little later as they descended the slope together. "When you have chosen, come and tell me, will you, Adam?"

"Before I speak?"

"That, if at all, and only if you are sure you do not care—in the proper way—for her."

"And why not then?"

"It would not be fair to her."

"I think you must be an angel, Francine," said the Earl.