Читать книгу Moreton Bay - F. W. Mole - Страница 8

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The death of Stephen Worthington, happening with such dramatic suddenness, gave point to the great question: Is everything in life foreordained, and for what inscrutable purpose? Can any caprice of human action or of human nature alter one iota, the eternal plan? It has been written: "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." To the Worthingtons His way in the ordering of their lives, appeared to them, now and for ever, unfathomable. They became the sports of destiny, but the why and the wherefore of it all was to remain with them an insoluble problem, an inscrutable mystery.

The tragedy at Pentecost Farm was a much talked of event, and among those who called to offer his sympathy was Nigel Lording. He had met Mary Worthington several times since the fight on Tavistock green, and a bond greater than friendship had now linked them together. To Mary Worthington, he was her one great solace. Now that her father was dead, she was prepared to forsake all and to follow him.

Though her brother John, under his mother's guidance and direction, assumed, as the eldest and only son, control of Pentecost, everything connected with the place seemed unreal and unsettled. Mrs. Worthington and her children acted as if waiting expectantly for something else to happen. They felt that the death of husband and father was but the beginning of events which would alter the even tenor of their lives.

Mary Worthington had come to regard Earl Belriven as her evil genius. Sinister and foreboding, his baleful personality hung over her like some black cloud surcharged with terror. When she called to mind the armorial bearings of his house—a gerfalcon, she shuddered at his nick-name: "The Falcon" was well bestowed. She began to believe, not without good reason, that she was the heron of his chase, that in his own appointed time, he would seek her out and rend her with beak and claw unless she submitted to his taming. But then she had her champion. To him her mental vision turned with infinite relief. With him beside her she feared no evil.

Thinking of him this spring day, she walked up the combe and sat on a stile made of a slab of slate, whence she contemplated the steep path up which she had come. Ahead, the path continued beneath the branches that overhung the headlands of a field. The sunlight made a tracery of gold on the close cropped grass beneath the trees where the sheep had grazed. On her right was an orchard where the apple trees in full bloom decorated the landscape with a glory unsurpassable. Overhead were pink and white clouds drifting lazily across the face of the sky.

Expectant, she sat, and then to her came Nigel Lording. She saw his coming and her heart leapt. She had seen him before he had reached the stile, but when a turn in the pathway brought the stile into full view, he looked up and saw her. "Mary—you!" he exclaimed delightedly. "I was on my way to Pentecost to see you."

"And I was waiting here, expectant for my champion. I had an intuition that you would come down the Combe this afternoon, and out of my dreams of you, you have come, and I'm glad."

Nigel Lording stepped on to the stile and sat beside her on the smooth slate slab. Holding her hand and looking into her eyes with all the adoration of his soul, he said: "And why are you glad, my Mary?"

"Because I've been haunted by thoughts of 'The Falcon,' and I'm afraid. Then I thought of you, my champion, and my fears disappeared."

The overhanging branches of the trees formed a canopy above them, and they were there alone in the verduous solitude of the countryside.

"Then you are afraid no longer, my Mary?" he questioned, as he drew her into his arms and held her, his face pressed against the glory of her hair, which she wore loose about her graceful head and neck. There was only Mary in all the world for him.

"No, my Nigel," Mary replied, snuggling against him. "I look upon you as my Rock of Ages."

"Mary!"

In a feeling of ecstacy he whispered her name, rather than spoke it, and the soft breath of spring merging into summer caught the whispered adoration and carried it away among the apple blossoms in the near-by orchard, where the soft white petals were falling like silent snow. Raising her head from under his arm and looking at him with her soft brown eyes, with her arm about his neck, she said enquiringly:

"You are soon back from Plymouth?"

"Yes, my Mary, since the death of your father, I have a feeling that I must always be near you."

"I, too, dear, am beset with apprehensions when you are away for any length of time. The shadow of the falcon's wings hover over me like a bird of ill-omen. This morning when exercising Lucifer on the moor, I had speech with Mr. John Gatcombe, who remarked that it was very unwise of me to be riding on the moor alone. When I pressed him for the reason of his remark he merely replied, 'His lordship, the Earl, is in a nasty mood—and dangerous.' Now, what did he mean by that, Nigel?"

"It means, Mary, that his lordship desires not only Lucifer but you as well. He is obsessed with the beauty and winsomeness of you. Before long, he will seek you out. John Gatcombe is your friend, and his advice must be followed. Never ride alone across Dartmoor, and never go unarmed. Take this Spanish stiletto and carry it with you always. I brought it with me from Plymouth. It is a dainty little weapon and I had my name engraved on the handle. Let it be your defender when I'm not with you."

Taking the dainty but deadly little weapon in its embossed leather sheath, Mary Worthington was very serious when she hid it in her bodice and replied:

"I'm afraid, Nigel, I do not think I could ever use it on an enemy. It looks a cruel little toy. But la! if I'm ever molested, I shall cry out 'Nigel! Nigel! To the rescue!' But as it is a bad omen to accept a gift of this nature without giving something in return, take this kiss, my champion," and impulsively she put both arms around her lover's neck and kissed him ardently on the mouth. As they walked arm and arm towards Pentecost, Nigel Lording said:

"Beloved, I had almost forgotten in the joy of seeing you, to tell you some good news. When at Plymouth, I saw the gallant Captain Lannigan embark with a detachment of his regiment, on board a vessel bound for foreign parts. On making inquiry, I was informed that he was going to Australia to take over the commandant-ship of a new penal settlement at Moreton Bay, wherever that place may be."

"Then I thank God with all my heart, Nigel, that England is well rid of a detestable bully."

"And I say Amen! to that, my Mary, with all my heart."