Elster's Folly Part 17

"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 a.s.sembled: those were on the opposite side, and had now gone down with the boats to Calne. No spectators, either on the river or the sh.o.r.e, 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 embarra.s.sment. 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 pa.s.sed, 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 sc.r.a.pes and dilemmas, he had never been reduced to this sort of hiding.

And his pursuer had struck into the wood after him, pa.s.sed straight through it, though with some little doubt and difficulty, and was already by the river-side, getting there just as Lord Hartledon was pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.s? 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.

CHAPTER IX.

WAITING FOR DINNER.

Dinner at Hartledon had been ordered for seven o'clock. It was beyond that hour when Dr. Ashton arrived, for he had been detained--a clergyman's time is not always under his own control. Anne and Arthur were with him, but not Mrs. Ashton. He came in, ready with an apology for his tardiness, but found he need not offer it; neither Lord Hartledon nor his brother having yet appeared.

"Hartledon and that boy Carteret have not returned home yet," said the countess-dowager, in her fiercest tones, for she liked her dinner more than any other earthly thing, and could not brook being kept waiting for it. "And when they do come, they'll keep us another half-hour dressing."

"I beg your ladys.h.i.+p's pardon--they have come," interposed Captain Dawkes. "Carteret was going into his room as I came out of mine."

"Time they were," grumbled the dowager. "They were not in five minutes ago, for I sent to ask."

"Which of the two won the race?" inquired Lady Maude of Captain Dawkes.

"I don't think Carteret did," he replied, laughing. "He seemed as sulky as a bear, and growled out that there had been no race, for Hartledon had played him a trick."

"What did he mean?"

"Goodness knows."

"I hope Hartledon upset him," charitably interrupted the dowager. "A ducking would do that boy good; he is too forward by half."

There was more waiting. The countess-dowager flounced about in her pink satin gown; but it did not bring the loiterers any the sooner. Lady Maude--perverse still, but beautiful--talked in whispers to the hero of the day, Mr. Shute; wearing a blue-silk robe and a blue wreath in her hair. Anne, adhering to the colours of Lord Hartledon, though he had been defeated, was in a rich, glistening white silk, with natural flowers, red and purple, on its body, and the same in her hair. Her sweet face was sunny again, her eyes were sparkling: a word dropped by Dr. Ashton had given her a hope that, perhaps, Percival Elster might be forgiven sometime.

He was the first of the culprits to make his appearance. The dowager attacked him of course. What did he mean by keeping dinner waiting?

Val replied that he was late in coming home; he had been out. As to keeping dinner waiting, it seemed that Lord Hartledon was doing that: he didn't suppose they'd have waited for him.

He spoke tartly, as if not on good terms with himself or the world. Anne Ashton, near to whom he had drawn, looked up at him with a charming smile.

"Things may brighten, Percival," she softly breathed.

"It's to be hoped they will," gloomily returned Val. "They look dark enough just now."

"What have you done to your face?" she whispered.

"To my face? Nothing that I know of."

"The forehead is red, as if it had been bruised, or slightly grazed."

Val put his hand up to his forehead. "I did feel something when I washed just now," he remarked slowly, as though doubting whether anything was wrong or not. "It must have been done--when I--struck against that tree,"

he added, apparently taxing his recollection.

"How was that?"

"I was running in the dusk, and did not notice the branch of a tree in my way. It's nothing, Anne, and will soon go off."

Mr. Carteret came in, looking just as Val Elster had done--out of sorts.

Questions were showered upon him as to the fate of the race; but the dowager's voice was heard above all.

"This is a pretty time to make your appearance, sir! Where's Lord Hartledon?"

"In his room, I suppose. Hartledon never came," he added in sulky tones, as he turned from her to the rest. "I rowed on, and on, thinking how nicely I was distancing him, and got down, the mischief knows where.

Miles, nearly, I must have gone."

"But why did you pa.s.s the turning-point?" asked one.