Elster's Folly Part 61

"I half-expected to find that Mr. Marris had turned you from it,"

continued Lord Hartledon, alluding to his steward.

"He wouldn't do it, I expect, without your lords.h.i.+p's orders; and I don't fancy you'll give 'em," was the free answer.

"I think my brother would have given them, had he lived."

"But he didn't live," rejoined Pike. "He wasn't let live."

"What do you mean?" asked Lord Hartledon, mystified by the words.

Pike ignored the question. "'Twas nearly a smash," he said, looking at the two carts now proceeding on their different ways. "That cart of Floyd's is always in hot water; the man drinks; Floyd turned him off once."

The miller's cart was jogging up the road towards home, under convoy of the offending driver; the boy, David Ripper, sitting inside on some empty sacks, and looking over the board behind: looking very hard indeed, as it seemed, in their direction. Mr. Pike appropriated the gaze.

"Yes, you may stare, young Rip!" he apostrophized, as if the boy could hear him; "but you won't stare yourself out of my hands. You're the biggest liar in Calne, but you don't mislead me."

"Pike, when you made acquaintance with that man Gorton--you remember him?" broke off Lord Hartledon.

"Yes, I do," said Pike emphatically.

"Did he make you acquainted with any of his private affairs?--his past history?"

"Not a word," answered Pike, looking still after the cart and the boy.

"Were those fine whiskers of his false? that red hair?"

Pike turned his head quickly. The question had aroused him.

"False hair and whiskers! I never knew it was the fas.h.i.+on to wear them."

"It may be convenient sometimes, even if not the fas.h.i.+on," observed Lord Hartledon, his tone full of cynical meaning; and Mr. Pike surrept.i.tiously peered at him with his small light eyes.

"If Gorton's hair was false, I never noticed it, that's all; I never saw him without a hat, that I remember, except in that inquest-room."

"Had he been to Australia?"

Pike paused to take another surrept.i.tious gaze.

"Can't say, my lord. Never heard."

"Was his name Gorton, or Gordon? Come, Pike," continued Lord Hartledon, good-humouredly, "there's a sort of mutual alliance between you and me; you did me a service once unasked, and I allow you to live free and undisturbed on my ground. I think you _do_ know something of this man; it is a fancy I have taken up."

"I never knew his name was anything but Gorton," said Pike carelessly; "never heard it nor thought it."

"Did you happen to hear him ever speak of that mutiny on board the Australian s.h.i.+p _Morning Star_? You have heard of it, I daresay: a George Gordon was the ringleader."

If ever the cool impudence was suddenly taken out of a man, this question seemed to take it out of Pike. He did not reply for some time; and when he did, it was in low and humble tones.

"My lord, I hope you'll pardon my rough thoughts and ways, which haven't been used to such as you--and the sight of that boy put me up, for reasons of my own. As to Gorton--I never did hear him speak of the thing you mention. His name's Gorton, and nothing else, as far as I know; and his hair's his own, for all I ever saw."

"He did not give you his confidence, then?"

"No, never. Not about himself nor anything else, past or present."

"And did not let a word slip? As to--for instance, as to his having been a pa.s.senger on board the _Morning Star_ at the time of the mutiny?"

Pike had moved away a step, and stood with his arms on the hurdles, his head bent on them, his face turned from Lord Hartledon.

"Gorton said nothing to me. As to that mutiny--I think I read something about it in the newspapers, but I forget what. I was just getting up from some weeks of rheumatic fever at the time; I'd caught it working in the fields; and news don't leave much impression in illness. Gorton never spoke of it to me. I never heard him say who or what he was; and I couldn't speak more truly if your lords.h.i.+p offered to give me the shed as a bribe."

"Do you know where Gorton might be found at present?"

"I swear before Heaven that I know nothing of the man, and have never heard of him since he went away," cried Pike, with a burst of either fear or pa.s.sion. "He was a stranger to me when he came, and he was a stranger when he left. I found out the little game he had come about, and saved your lords.h.i.+p from his clutches, which he doesn't know to this day. I know nothing else about him at all."

"Well, good evening, Pike. You need not put yourself out for nothing."

He walked away, taking leave of the man as civilly as though he had been a respectable member of society. It was not in Val's nature to show discourtesy to any living being. Why Pike should have shrunk from the questions he could not tell; but that he did shrink was evident; perhaps from a surly dislike to being questioned at all; but on the whole Lord Hartledon thought he had spoken the truth as to knowing nothing about Gorton.

Crossing the road, he turned into the field-path near the Rectory; it was a little nearer than the road-way, and he was in a hurry, for he had not thought to ask at what hour his wife dined, and might be keeping her waiting.

Who was this Pike, he wondered as he went along; as he had wondered before now. When the man was off his guard, the roughness of his speech and demeanour was not so conspicuous; and the tone a.s.sumed a certain refinement that seemed to say he had some time been in civilized society.

Again, how did he live? A tale was told in Calne of Pike's having been disturbed at supper one night by a parcel of rude boys, who had seen him seated at a luxurious table; hot steak and pudding before him. They were not believed, certainly; but still Pike must live; and how did he find the means to do so? Why did he live there at all? what had caused him to come to Calne? Who--

These reflections might have lasted all the way home but for an interruption that drove every thought out of Lord Hartledon's mind, and sent the heart's blood coursing swiftly through his veins. Turning a corner of the dark winding path, he came suddenly upon a lady seated on a bench, so close to the narrow path that he almost touched her in pa.s.sing.

She seemed to have sat down for a moment to do something to her hat, which was lying in her lap, her hands busied with it.

A faint cry escaped her, and she rose up. It was caused partly by emotion, partly by surprise at seeing him, for she did not know he was within a hundred miles of the place. And very probably she would have liked to box her own ears for showing any. The hat fell from her knees as she rose, and both stooped for it.

"Forgive me," he said. "I fear I have startled you."

"I am waiting for papa," she answered, in hasty apology for being found there. And Lord Hartledon, casting his eyes some considerable distance ahead, discerned the indistinct forms of two persons talking together. He understood the situation at once. Dr. Ashton and his daughter had been to the cottages; and the doctor had halted on their return to speak to a day-labourer going home from his work, Anne walking slowly on.

And there they stood face to face, Anne Ashton and her deceitful lover!

How their hearts beat to pain, how utterly oblivious they were of everything in life save each other's presence, how tumultuously confused were mind and manner, both might remember afterwards, but certainly were not conscious of then. It was a little glimpse of Eden. A corner of the dark curtain thrown between them had been raised, and so unexpectedly that for the moment nothing else was discernible in the dazzling light.

Forget! Not in that instant of sweet confusion, during which nothing seemed more real than a dream. He was the husband of another; she was parted from him for ever; and neither was capable of deliberate thought or act that could intrench on the position, or tend to return, even momentarily, to the past. And yet there they stood with beating hearts, and eyes that betrayed their own tale--that the marriage and the parting were in one sense but a hollow mockery, and their love was indelible as of old.

Each had been "forgetting" to the utmost of the poor power within, in accordance with the high principles enshrined in either heart. Yet what a mockery that forgetting seemed, now that it was laid before them naked and bare! The heart turning sick to faintness at the mere sight of each other, the hands trembling at the mutual touch, the wistful eyes s.h.i.+ning with a glance that too surely spoke of undying love!

But not a word of this was spoken. However true their hearts might be, there was no fear of the tongue following up the error. Lord Hartledon would no more have allowed himself to speak than she to listen. Neither had the hands met in ordinary salutation; it was only when he resigned the hat to her that the fingers touched: a touch light, transient, almost imperceptible; nevertheless it sent a thrill through the whole frame. Not exactly knowing what to do in her confusion, Miss Ashton sat down on the bench again and put her hat on.

"I must say a word to you before I go on my way," said Lord Hartledon.

"I have been wis.h.i.+ng for such a meeting as this ever since I saw you at Versailles; and indeed I think I wished for nothing else before it. When you think of me as one utterly heartless--"

"Stay, Lord Hartledon," she interrupted, with white lips. "I cannot listen to you. You must be aware that I cannot, and ought not. What are you thinking about?"

"I know that I have forfeited all right to ask you; that it is an unpardonable intrusion my presuming even to address you. Well, perhaps, you are right," he added, after a moment's pause; "it may be better that I should not say what I was hoping to say. It cannot mend existing things; it cannot undo the past. I dare not ask your forgiveness: it would seem too much like an insult; nevertheless, I would rather have it than any earthly gift. Fare you well, Anne! I shall sometimes hear of your happiness."