Читать книгу Elster's Folly - Henry Wood - Страница 8

Tuesday morning rose, bright and propitious: a contrast to the two previous days arranged for the boat-race. All was pleasure, bustle, excitement at Hartledon: but the coolness that had arisen between the brothers was noticed by some of the guests. Neither of them was disposed to take the first step towards reconciliation: and, indeed, a little incident that occurred that morning led to another ill word between them. An account that had been standing for more than two years was sent in to Lord Hartledon's steward; it was for some harness, a saddle, a silver-mounted whip, and a few trifles of that sort, supplied by a small tradesman in the village. Lord Hartledon protested there was nothing of the sort owing; but upon inquiry the debtor proved to be Mr. Percival Elster. Lord Hartledon, vexed that any one in the neighbourhood should have waited so long for his money, said a sharp word on the score to Percival; and the latter retorted as sharply that it was no business of his. Again Val was angry with himself, and thus gave vent to his temper. The fact was, he had completely forgotten the trifling debt, and was as vexed as Hartledon that it should have been allowed to remain unpaid: but the man had not sent him any reminder whilst he was away.

"Pay it to-day, Marris," cried Lord Hartledon to his steward. "I won't have this sort of thing at Calne."

His tone was one of irritation—or it sounded so to the ears of his conscious brother, and Val bit his lips. After that, throughout the morning, they maintained a studied silence towards each other; and this was observed, but was not commented on. Val was unusually quiet altogether: he was saying to himself that he was sullen.

The starting-hour for the race was three o'clock; but long before that time the scene was sufficiently animated, not to say exciting. It was a most lovely afternoon. Not a trace remained of the previous day's rain; and the river—wide just there, as it took the sweeping curve of the point—was dotted with these little wager boats. Their owners for the time being, in their white boating-costume, each displaying his colours, were in highest spirits; and the fair gazers gathered on the banks were anxious as to the result. The favourite was Lord Hartledon—by long odds, as Mr. Shute grumbled. Had his lordship been known not to possess the smallest chance, nine of those fair girls out of ten would, nevertheless, have betted upon him. Some of them were hoping to play for a deeper stake than a pair of gloves. A staff, from which fluttered a gay little flag, had been driven into the ground, exactly opposite the house; it was the starting and the winning point. At a certain distance up the river, near to the mill, a boat was moored in mid-stream: this they would row round, and come back again.

At three o'clock they were to take the boats; and, allowing for time being wasted in the start, might be in again and the race won in three-quarters-of-an-hour. But, as is often the case, the time was not adhered to; one hindrance after another occurred; there was a great deal of laughing and joking, forgetting of things, and of getting into order; and at a quarter to four they were not off. But all were ready at last, and most of the rowers were each in his little cockle-shell. Lord Hartledon lingered yet in the midst of the group of ladies, all clustered together at one spot, who were keeping him with their many comments and questions. Each wore the colours of her favourite: the crimson and purple predominating, for they were those of their host. Lady Kirton displayed her loyalty in a conspicuous manner. She had an old crimson gauze skirt on, once a ball-dress, with ends of purple ribbon floating from it and fluttering in the wind; and a purple head-dress with a crimson feather. Maude, in a spirit of perversity, displayed a blue shoulder-knot, timidly offered to her by a young Oxford man who was staying there, Mr. Shute; and Anne Ashton wore the colours given her by Lord Hartledon.

"I can't stay; you'd keep me here all day: don't you see they are waiting for me?" he laughingly cried, extricating himself from the throng. "Why, Anne, my dear, is it you? How is it I did not see you before? Are you here alone?"

She had not long joined the crowd, having come up late from the Rectory, and had been standing outside, for she never put herself forward anywhere. Lord Hartledon drew her arm within his own for a moment and took her apart.

"Arthur came up with me: I don't know where he is now. Mamma was afraid to venture, fearing the grass might be damp."

"And the Rector of course would not countenance us by coming," said Lord Hartledon, with a laugh. "I remember his prejudices against boating of old."

"He is coming to dinner."

"As you all are; Arthur also to-day. I made the doctor promise that. A jolly banquet we'll have, too, and toast the winner. Anne, I just wanted to say this to you; Val is in an awful rage with me for letting that matter get to the ears of your father, and I am not pleased with him; so altogether we are just now treating each other to a dose of sullenness, and when we do speak it's to growl like two amiable bears; but it shall make no difference to what I said last week. All shall be made smooth, even to the satisfaction of your father. You may trust me."

He ran off from her, stepped into the skiff, and was taking the sculls, when he uttered a sudden exclamation, leaped out again, and began to run with all speed towards the house.

"What is it? Where are you going?" asked the O'Moore, who was the appointed steward.

"I have forgotten—" What, they did not catch; the word was lost on the air.

"It is bad luck to turn back," called out Maude. "You won't win."

He was already half-way to the house. A couple of minutes after entering it he reappeared again, and came flying down the slopes at full speed. Suddenly his foot slipped, and he fell to the ground. The only one who saw the accident was Mr. O'Moore; the general attention at that moment being concentrated upon the river. He hastened back. Hartledon was then gathering himself up, but slowly.

"No damage," said he; "only a bit of a wrench to the foot. Give me your arm for a minute, O'Moore. This ground must be slippery from yesterday's rain."

Mr. O'Moore held out his arm, and Hartledon took it. "The ground is not slippery, Hart; it's as dry as a bone."

"Then what caused me to slip?"

"The rate you were coming at. Had you not better give up the contest, and rest?"

"Nonsense! My foot will be all right in the skiff. Let us get on; they'll all be out of patience."

When it was seen that something was amiss with him, that he leaned rather heavily on the O'Moore, eager steps pressed round him. Lord Hartledon laughed, making light of it; he had been so clumsy as to stumble, and had twisted his ankle a little. It was nothing.

"Stay on shore and give it a rest," cried one, as he stepped once more into the little boat. "I am sure you are hurt."

"Not I. It will have rest in the boat. Anne," he said, looking up at her with his pleasant smile, "do you wear my colours still?"

She touched the knot on her bosom, and smiled back to him, her tone full of earnestness. "I would wear them always."

And the countess-dowager, in her bedecked flounces and crimson feather, looked as if she would like to throw the knot and its wearer into the river, in the wake of the wager boats. After one or two false starts, they got off at last.

"Do you think it seemly, this flirtation of yours with Lord Hartledon?"

Anne turned in amazement. The face of the old dowager was close to her; the snub nose and rouged cheeks and false flaxen front looked ready to eat her up.

"I have no flirtation with Lord Hartledon, Lady Kirton; or he with me. When I was a child, and he a great boy, years older, he loved me and petted me as a little sister: I think he does the same still."

"My daughter tells me you are counting upon one of the two. If I say to you, do not be too sanguine of either, I speak as a friend; as your mother might speak. Lord Hartledon is already appropriated; and Val Elster is not worth appropriating."

Was she mad? Anne Ashton looked at her, really doubting it. No, she was only vulgar-minded, and selfish, and utterly impervious to all sense of shame in her scheming. Instinctively Anne moved a pace further off.

"I do not think Lord Hartledon is appropriated yet," spoke Anne, in a little spirit of mischievous retaliation. "That some amongst his present guests would be glad to appropriate him may be likely enough; but what if he is not willing to be appropriated? He said to Mr. Elster, last week, that they were wasting their time."

"Who's Mr. Elster?" cried the angry dowager. "What right has he to be at Hartledon, poking his nose into everything that does not concern him?—what right has he, I ask?"

"The right of being Lord Hartledon's brother," carelessly replied Anne.

"It is a right he had best not presume upon," rejoined Lady Kirton. "Brothers are brothers as children; but the tie widens as they grow up and launch out into their different spheres. There's not a man of all Hartledon's guests but has more right to be here than Val Elster."

"Yet they are brothers still."

"Brothers! I'll take care that Val Elster presumes no more upon the tie when Maude reigns at—"

For once the countess-dowager caught up her words. She had said more than she had meant to say. Anne Ashton's calm sweet eyes were bent upon her, waiting for more.

"It is true," she said, giving a shake to the purple tails, and taking a sudden resolution, "Maude is to be his wife; but I ought not to have let it slip out. It was unintentional; and I throw myself on your honour, Miss Ashton."

"But it is not true?" asked Anne, somewhat perplexed.

"It is true. Hartledon has his own reasons for keeping it quiet at present; but—you'll see when the time comes. Should I take upon myself so much rule here, but that it is to be Maude's future home?"

"I don't believe it," cried Anne, as the old story-teller sailed off. "That she loves him, and that her mother is anxious to secure him, is evident; but he is truthful and open, and would never conceal it. No, no, Lady Maude! you are cherishing a false hope. You are very beautiful, but you are not worthy of him; and I should not like you for my sister-in-law at all. That dreadful old countess-dowager! How she dislikes Val, and how rude she is! I'll try not to come in her way again after to-day, as long as they are at Hartledon."

"What are you thinking of, Anne?"

"Oh, not much," she answered, with a soft blush, for the questioner was Mr. Elster. "Do you think your brother has hurt himself much, Val?"

"I didn't know he had hurt himself at all," returned Val rather coolly, who had been on the river at the time in somebody's skiff, and saw nothing of the occurrence. "What has he done?"

"He slipped down on the slopes and twisted his ankle. I suppose they will be coming back soon."

"I suppose they will," was the answer. Val seemed in an ungracious mood. He and Mr. O'Moore and young Carteret were the only three who had remained behind. Anne asked Val why he did not go and look on; and he answered, because he didn't want to.

It was getting on for five o'clock when the boats were discerned returning. How they clustered on the banks, watching the excited rowers, some pale with their exertions, others in a white heat! Captain Dawkes was first, and was doing all he could to keep so; but when only a boat's length from the winning-post another shot past him, and won by half a length. It was the young Oxonian, Mr. Shute—though indeed it does not much matter who it was, save that it was not Lord Hartledon.

"Strike your colours, ladies, you that sport the crimson and purple!" called out a laughing voice from one of the skiffs. "Oxford blue wins."

Lord Hartledon arrived last. He did not get up for some minutes after the rest were in. In short, he was distanced.

"Hart has hurt his arm as well as his foot," observed one of the others, as he came alongside. "That's why he got distanced."

"No, it was not," dissented Lord Hartledon, looking up from his skiff at the crowd of fair faces bent down upon him. "My arm is all right; it only gave me a few twinges when I first started. My oar fouled, and I could not get right again; so, finding I had lost too much ground, I gave up the contest. Anne, had I known I should disgrace my colours, I would not have given them to you."

"Miss Ashton loses, and Maude wins!" cried the countess-dowager, executing a little dance of triumph. "Maude is the only one who wears the Oxford blue."

It was true. The young Oxonian was a retiring and timid man, and none had voluntarily assumed his colours. But no one heeded the countess-dowager.

"You are like a child, Hartledon, denying that your arm's damaged!" exclaimed Captain Dawkes. "I know it is: I could see it by the way you struck your oar all along."

What feeling is it in man that prompts him to disclaim physical pain?—make light of personal injury? Lord Hartledon's ankle was swelling, at the bottom of the boat; and without the slightest doubt his arm was paining him, although perhaps at the moment not very considerably. But he maintained his own assertions, and protested his arm was as sound as the best arm present. "I could go over the work again with pleasure," cried he.

"Nonsense, Hart! You could not."

"And I will go over it," he added, warming with the opposition. "Who'll try his strength with me? There's plenty of time before dinner."

"I will," eagerly spoke young Carteret, who had been, as was remarked, one of those on land, and was wild to be handling the oars. "If Dawkes will let me have his skiff, I'll bet you ten to five you are distanced again, Hartledon."

Perhaps Lord Hartledon had not thought his challenge would be taken seriously. But when he saw the eager, joyous look of the boy Carteret—he was not yet nineteen—the flushed pleasure of the beardless face, he would not have retracted it for the world. He was just as good-natured as Percival Elster.

"Dawkes will let you have his skiff, Carteret."

Captain Dawkes was exceedingly glad to be rid of it. Good boatman though he was, he rarely cared to spend his strength superfluously, when nothing was to be gained by it, and had no fancy to row his skiff back to its moorings, as most of the others were already doing with theirs. He leaped out.

"Any one but you, Hartledon, would be glad to come out of that tilting thing, and enjoy a rest, and get your face cool," cried the countess-dowager.

"I dare say they might, ma'am. I'm afraid I am given to obstinacy; always was. Be quick, Carteret."

Mr. Carteret was hastily stripping himself of his coat, and any odds and ends of attire he deemed superfluous. "One moment, Hartledon; only one moment," came the joyous response.

"And you'll come home with your arm and your ankle like your colours, Hartledon—crimson and purple," screamed the dowager. "And you'll be laid up, and go on perhaps to locked jaw; and then you'll expect me to nurse you!"

"I shall expect nothing of the sort, ma'am, I pledge you my word; I'll nurse myself. All ready, Carteret?"

"All ready. Same point as before, Hart?"

"Same point: round the boat and home again."

"And it's ten sovs. to five, Hart?"

"All right. You'll lose, Carteret."

Carteret laughed. He saw the five sovereigns as surely in his possession as he saw the sculls in his hands. There was no trouble with the start this time, and they were off at once.

Lord Hartledon took the lead. He was spurring his strength to the uttermost: perhaps out of bravado; that he might show them nothing was the matter with his arm. But Mr. Carteret gained on him; and as they turned the point and went out of sight, the young man's boat was the foremost.

The race had been kept—as the sporting men amongst them styled it—dark. Not an inkling of it had been suffered to get abroad, or, as Lord Hartledon had observed, they should have the banks swarming. The consequence was, that not more than half-a-dozen curious idlers had assembled: those were on the opposite side, and had now gone down with the boats to Calne. No spectators, either on the river or the shore, attended this lesser contest: Lord Hartledon and Mr. Carteret had it all to themselves.

And meanwhile, during the time Lord Hartledon had remained at rest in his skiff under the winning flag, Percival Elster never addressed one word to him. There he stood, on the edge of the bank; but not a syllable spoke he, good, bad, or indifferent.

Miss Ashton was looking for her brother, and might just as well have looked for a needle in a bottle of hay. Arthur was off somewhere.

"You need not go home yet, Anne," said Val.

"I must. I have to dress for dinner. It is all to be very smart to-night, you know," she said, with a merry laugh.

"With Shute in the post of honour. Who'd have thought that awkward, quiet fellow would win? I will see you home, Anne, if you must go."

Miss Ashton coloured vividly with embarrassment. In the present state of affairs, she did not know whether that might be permitted: poor Val was out of favour at the Rectory. He detected the feeling, and it tended to vex him more and more.

"Nonsense, Anne! The veto has not yet been interposed, and they can't kill you for allowing my escort. Stay here if you like: if you go, I shall see you home."

It was quite imperative that she should go, for dinner at Hartledon was that evening fixed for seven o'clock, and there would be little enough time to dress and return again. They set out, walking side by side. Anne told him of what Lord Hartledon had said to her that day; and Val coloured with shame at the sullenness he had displayed, and his heart went into a glow of repentance. Had he met his brother then, he had clasped his hand, and poured forth his contrition.

He met some one else instead, almost immediately. It was Dr. Ashton, coming for Anne. Percival was not wanted now: was not invited to continue his escort. A cold, civil word or two passed, and Val struck across the grove into the high-road, and returned to Hartledon.

He was about to turn in at the lodge-gates with his usual greeting to Mrs. Capper when his attention was caught by a figure coming down the avenue. A man in a long coat, his face ornamented with red whiskers. It required no second glance for recognition. Whiskers and coat proclaimed their owner at once; and if ever Val Elster's heart leaped into his mouth, it certainly leaped then.

He went on, instead of turning in; quietly, as if he were only a stranger enjoying an evening stroll up the road; but the moment he was past the gates he set off at breakneck speed, not heeding where. That the man was there to arrest him, he felt as sure as he had ever felt of anything in this world; and in his perplexity he began accusing every one of treachery, Lord Hartledon and Pike in particular.

The river at the back in this part took a sweeping curve, the road kept straight; so that to arrive at a given point, the one would be more quickly traversed than the other. On and on went Val Elster; and as soon as an opening allowed, he struck into the brushwood on the right, intending to make his way back by the river to Hartledon.

But not yet. Not until the shades of night should fall on the earth: he would have a better chance of getting away from that shark in the darkness than by daylight. He propped his back against a tree and waited, hating himself all the time for his cowardice. With all his scrapes and dilemmas, he had never been reduced to this sort of hiding.

And his pursuer had struck into the wood after him, passed straight through it, though with some little doubt and difficulty, and was already by the river-side, getting there just as Lord Hartledon was passing in his skiff. Long as this may have seemed in telling, it took only a short time to accomplish; still Lord Hartledon had not made quick way, or he would have been further on his course in the race.

Would the sun ever set?—daylight ever pass? Val thought not, in his impatience; and he ventured out of his shelter very soon, and saw for his reward—the long coat and red whiskers by the river-side, their owner conversing with a man. Val went further away, keeping the direction of the stream: the brushwood might no longer be safe. He did not think they had seen him: the man he dreaded had his back to him, the other his face. And that other was Pike.