Adam Johnstone's Son Part 18

"Really! If one is to be turned out of the most beautiful place in the world because a young Englishman chooses to stop in the same hotel!

Besides, why in the world should he fall in love with me? He's used to a very different kind of people, I fancy."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh--the gay set--'a' gay set, I suppose, for there are probably more than one of them. They are quite different from us, you know."

"That is no reason. On the contrary--men like variety and change--change, yes," repeated Mrs. Bowring, with an odd emphasis. "At all events, child, don't take a fancy to him!" she added. "Not that I'm much afraid of that. You are anything but 'susceptible,' my dear!" she laughed faintly.

"You need not be in the least afraid," answered Clare. "But, after all, mother--just supposing the case--I can't see why it should be such an awful calamity if we took a fancy to each other. We belong to the same cla.s.s of people, if not to the same set. He has enough money, and I'm not absolutely penniless, though we are as poor as church mice--"

"For Heaven's sake, don't suggest such a thing!" cried Mrs. Bowring.

Her face was white, and her lips trembled. There was a frightened look in her pale eyes, and she turned her face quickly to her daughter, and quickly away again.

"Mother!" exclaimed the young girl, in surprise. "What in the world is the matter? I was only laughing--besides--" she stopped, puzzled. "Tell me the truth, mother," she continued suddenly. "You know about his people--his father is some connection of--of your first husband--there's some disgraceful story about them--tell me the truth. Why shouldn't I know?"

"I hope you never will!" answered Mrs. Bowring, in a low voice that had a sort of horror in it.

"Then there is something?" Clare herself turned a little paler as she asked the question.

"Don't ask me--don't ask me!"

"Something disgraceful?" The young girl leaned forward as she spoke, and her eyes were wide and anxious, forcing her mother to speak.

"Yes--no," faltered Mrs. Bowring. "Nothing to do with this one--something his father did long ago."

"Dishonourable?" asked Clare, her voice sinking lower and lower.

"No--not as men look at it--oh, don't ask me! Please don't ask me--please don't, darling!"

"Then his yacht is named after you," said the young girl in a flash of intelligence.

"His yacht?" asked the elder woman excitedly. "What? I don't understand."

"Mr. Johnstone told me that his father had a big steam yacht called the 'Lucy'--mother, that man loved you, he loves you still."

"Me? Oh no--no, he never loved me!" She laughed wildly, with quivering lips. "Don't, child--don't! For G.o.d's sake don't ask questions--you'll drive me mad! It's the secret of my life--the only secret I have from you--oh, Clare, if you love me at all--don't ask me!"

"Mother, sweet! Of course I love you!"

The young girl, very pale and wondering, kneeled beside the elder woman and threw her arms round her and drew down her face, kissing the white cheeks and the starting tears and the faded flaxen hair. The storm subsided, almost without breaking, for Mrs. Bowring was a brave woman and, in some ways, a strong woman, and whatever her secret might be, she had kept it long and well from her daughter.

Clare knew her, and inwardly decided that the secret must have been worth keeping. She loved her mother far too well to hurt her with questions, but she was amazed at what she herself felt of resentful curiosity to know the truth about anything which could cast a shadow upon the man she disliked, as she thought so sincerely. Her mind worked like lightning, while her voice spoke softly and her hands sought those thin, familiar, gentle fingers which were an integral part of her world and life.

Two possibilities presented themselves. Johnstone's father was a brother or near connection of her mother's first husband. Either she had loved him, been deceived in him, and had married the brother instead; or, having married, this man had hated her and fought against her, and harmed her, because she was his elder brother's wife, and he coveted the inheritance. In either case it was no fault of Brook's. The most that could be said would be that he might have his father's character. She inclined to the first of her theories. Old Johnstone had made love to her mother and had half broken her heart, before she had married his brother. Brook was no better--and she thought of Lady Fan. But she was strangely glad that her mother had said "not dishonourable, as men look at it." It had been as though a cruel hand had been taken from her throat, when she had heard that.

"But, mother," she said presently, "these people are coming to-morrow or the next day--and they mean to stay, he says. Let us go away, before they come. We can come back afterwards--you don't want to meet them."

Mrs. Bowring was calm again, or appeared to be so, whatever was pa.s.sing in her mind.

"I shall certainly not run away," she answered in a low, steady voice.

"I will not run away and leave Adam Johnstone's son to tell his father that I was afraid to meet him, or his wife," she added, almost in a whisper. "I've been weak, sometimes, my dear--" her voice rose to its natural key again, "and I've made a mistake in life. But I won't be a coward--I don't believe I am, by nature, and if I were I wouldn't let myself be afraid now."

"It would not be fear, mother. Why should you suffer, if you are going to suffer in meeting him? We had much better go away at once. When they have all left, we can come back."

"And you would not mind going away to-morrow, and never seeing Brook Johnstone again?" asked Mrs. Bowring, quietly.

"I? No! Why should I?"

Clare meant to speak the truth, and she thought that it was the truth.

But it was not. She grew a little paler a moment after the words had pa.s.sed her lips, but her mother did not see the change of colour.

"I'm glad of that, at all events," said the elder woman. "But I won't go away. No--I won't," she repeated, as though spurring her own courage.

"Very well," answered the young girl. "But we can keep very much to ourselves all the time they are here, can't we? We needn't make their acquaintance--at least--" she stopped short, realising that it would be impossible to avoid knowing Brook's people if they were stopping in the same hotel.

"Their acquaintance!" Mrs. Bowring laughed bitterly at the idea.

"Oh--I forgot," said Clare. "At all events, we need not meet unnecessarily. That's what I mean, you know."

There was a short pause, during which her mother seemed to be thinking.

"I shall see him alone, for I have something to say to him," she said at last, as though she had come to a decision. "Go out, my dear," she added. "Leave me alone a little while. I shall be all right when it is time for luncheon."

Her daughter left her, but she did not go out at once. She went to her own room and sat down to think over what she had seen and heard. If she went out she should probably find Johnstone waiting for her, and she did not wish to meet him just then. It was better to be alone. She would find out why the idea of not seeing him any more had hurt her after she had spoken.

But that was not an easy matter at all. So soon as she tried to think of herself and her own feelings, she began to think of her mother. And when she endeavoured to solve the mystery and guess the secret, her thoughts flew off suddenly to Brook, and she wished that she were outside in the suns.h.i.+ne talking to him. And again, as the probable conversation suggested itself to her, she was glad that she was not with him, and she tried to think again. Then she forced herself to recall the scene with Lady Fan on the terrace, and she did her best to put him in the worst possible light, which in her opinion was a very bad light indeed. And his father before him--Adam--her mother had told her the name for the first time, and it struck her as an odd one--old Adam Johnstone had been a heart-breaker, and a faith-breaker, and a betrayer of women before Brook was in the world at all. Her theory held good, when she looked at it fairly, and her resentment grew apace. It was natural enough, for in her imagination she had always hated that first husband of her mother's who had come and gone before her father; and now she extended her hatred to this probable brother, and it had much more force, because the man was alive and a reality, and was soon to come and be a visible talking person. There was one good point about him and his coming. It helped her to revive her hatred of Brook and to colour it with the inheritance of some harm done to her own mother. That certainly was an advantage.

But she should be very sorry not to see Brook any more, never to hear him talk to her again, never to look into his eyes--which, all the same, she so unreasonably dreaded. It was beyond her powers of a.n.a.lysis to reconcile her like and dislike. All the little logic she had said that it was impossible to like and dislike the same person at the same time. She seemed to have two hearts, and the one cried "Hate," while the other cried "Love." That was absurd, and altogether ridiculous, and quite contemptible.

There they were, however, the two hearts, fighting it out, or at least altercating and threatening to fight and hurt her. Of course "love"

meant "like"--it was a general term, well contrasting with "hate." As for really caring, beyond a liking for Brook Johnstone, she was sure that it was impossible. But the liking was strong. She exploded her difficulty at last with the bomb of a splendidly youthful quibble. She said to herself that she undoubtedly hated him and despised him, and that he was certainly the very lowest of living men for treating Lady Fan so badly--besides being a black sinner, a point which had less weight. And then she told herself that the cry of something in her to "like" instead of hating was simply the expression of what she might have felt, and should have felt, and should have had a right to have felt, had it not been for poor Lady Fan; but also of something which she a.s.suredly did not feel, never could feel, and never meant to feel. In other words, she should have liked Brook if she had not had good cause to dislike him. She was satisfied with this explanation of her feelings, and she suddenly felt that she could go out and see him and talk to him without being inconsistent. She had forgotten to explain to herself why she wished him not to go away. She went out accordingly, and sat down on the terrace in the soft air.

She glanced up and down, but Johnstone was not to be seen anywhere, and she wished that she had not come out after all. He had probably waited some time and had then gone for a walk by himself. She thought that he might have waited just a little longer before giving it up, and she half unconsciously made up her mind to requite him by staying indoors after luncheon. She had not even brought a book or a piece of work, for she had felt quite sure that he would be walking up and down as usual, with his pipe, looking as though he owned the scenery. She half rose to go in, and then changed her mind. She would give him one more chance and count fifty, before she went away, at a good quick rate.

She began to count. At thirty-five her pace slackened. She stopped a long time at forty-five, and then went slowly to the end. But Johnstone did not come. Once again, she reluctantly decided--and she began slowly; and again she slackened speed and dragged over the last ten numbers. But he did not come.

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" she exclaimed aloud to herself, as she rose impatiently from her seat.

She felt injured, for her mother had sent her away, and there was no one to talk to her, and she did not care to think any more, lest the questions she had decided should again seem open and doubtful. She went into the hotel and walked down the corridor. He might be in the reading-room. She walked quickly, because she was a little ashamed of looking for him when she felt that he should be looking for her.

Suddenly she stopped, for she heard him whistling somewhere. Whistling was his solitary accomplishment, and he did it very well. There was no mistaking the shakes and runs, and pretty bird-like cadences. She listened, but she bit her lip. He was light-hearted, at all events, she thought.

The sound came nearer, and Brook suddenly appeared in the corridor, his hat on the back of his head, his hands in his pockets. As he caught sight of Clare the shrill tune ceased, and one hand removed the hat.

"I've been looking for you everywhere, for the last two hours," he cried as he came along. "Good morning," he said as he reached her. "I was just going back to the terrace in despair."

"It sounded more as though you were whistling for me," answered Clare, with a laugh, for she was instantly happy, and pacified, and peaceful.