Elster's Folly Part 62

"Have you been ill?" she asked in a kindly impulse, noticing his altered looks in that first calm moment.

"No--not as the world counts illness. If remorse and shame and repentance can be called illness, I have my share. Ill deeds of more kinds than one are coming home to me. Anne," he added in a hoa.r.s.e whisper; his face telling of emotion, "if there is one illumined corner in my heart, where all else is very dark, it is caused by thankfulness to Heaven that you were spared."

"Spared!" she echoed, in wonder, so completely awed by his strange manner as to forget her reserve.

"Spared the linking of your name with mine. I thank G.o.d for it, for your sake, night and day. Had trouble fallen on you through me, I don't think I could have survived it. May you be s.h.i.+elded from all such for ever!"

He turned abruptly away, and she looked after him, her heart beating a great deal faster than it ought to have done.

That she was his best and dearest love, in spite of his marriage, it was impossible not to see; and she strove to think him very wicked for it, and her cheek was red with a feeling that seemed akin to shame.

But--trouble?--thankful for her sake, night and day, that her name was not linked with his? He must allude to debt, she supposed: some of those old embarra.s.sments had augmented themselves into burdens too heavy to be safely borne.

The Rector was coming on now at a swift pace. He looked keenly at Lord Hartledon; looked twice, as if in surprise. A flush rose to Val's sensitive face as he pa.s.sed, and lifted his hat. The Rector, dark and proud, condescended to return the courtesy: and the meeting was over.

Toiling across Lord Hartledon's path was the labourer to whom the Rector had been speaking. He had an empty bottle slung over his shoulder, and carried a sickle. The man's day's work was over, and had left fatigue behind it.

"Good-night to your lords.h.i.+p!"

"Is it you, Ripper?"

He was the father of the young gentleman in the cart, whom Mr. Pike had not long before treated to his opinion: young David Ripper, the miller's boy. Old Ripper, a talkative, discontented man, stopped and ventured to enter on his grievances. His wife had been pledging things to pay for a fine gown she had bought; his two girls were down with measles; his son, young Rip, plagued his life out.

"How does he plague your life out?" asked Lord Hartledon, when he had listened patiently.

"Saying he'll go off and enlist for a soldier, my lord; he's saying it always: and means it too, only he's over-young for't."

"Over-young for it; I should think so. Why, he's not much more than a child. Our sergeants don't enlist little boys."

"Sometimes he says he'll drown himself by way of a change," returned old Ripper.

"Oh, does he? Folk who say it never do it. I should whip it out of him."

"He's never been the same since the lord's death that time. He's always frightened: gets fancying things, and saying sometimes he sees his shadder."

"Whose shadow?"

"His'n: the late lord's."

"Why does he fancy that?" came the question, after a perceptible pause.

Old Ripper shook his head. It was beyond his ken, he said. "There be only two things he's afeared of in life," continued the man, who, though generally called old Ripper, was not above five-and-thirty. "The one's that wild man Pike; t'other's the shadder. He'd run ten mile sooner than see either."

"Does Pike annoy the boy?"

"Never spoke to him, as I knows on, my lord. Afore that drowning of his lords.h.i.+p last year, Davy was the boldest rip going," added the man, who had long since fallen into the epithet popularly applied to his son.

"Since then he don't dare say his soul's his own. We had him laid up before the winter, and I know 'twas nothing but fear."

Lord Hartledon could not make much of the story, and had no time to linger. Administering a word of general encouragement, he continued his way, his thoughts going back to the interview with Anne Ashton, a line or two of Longfellow's "Fire of Driftwood" rising up in his mind--

"Of what had been and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead."

CHAPTER XXVII.

A TeTE-a-TeTE BREAKFAST.

The Dowager-Countess of Kirton stood in the sunny breakfast-room at Hartledon, surveying the well-spread table with complacency; for it appeared to be rather more elaborately set out than usual, and no one loved good cheer better than she. When she saw two cups and saucers on the cloth instead of one, it occurred to her that Maude must, by caprice, be coming down, which she had not done of late. The dowager had arrived at midnight from Garchester, in consequence of having missed the earlier train, and found nearly all the house in retirement. She was in a furious humour, and no one had told her of the arrival of her son-in-law; no one ever did tell her any more than they were obliged to do; for she was not held in estimation at Hartledon.

"Potted tongue," she exclaimed, dodging round the table, and lifting various covers. "Raised pie; I wonder what's in it? And what's that stuff in jelly? It looks delicious. This is the result of the blowing-up I gave Hedges the other day; nothing like finding fault. Hot dishes too. I suppose Maude gave out that she should be down this morning. All rubbish, fancying herself ill: she's as well as I am, but gives way like a sim--A-a-a-ah!"

The exclamation was caused by the unexpected vision of Lord Hartledon.

"How are you, Lady Kirton?"

"Where on earth did you spring from?"

"From my room."

"What's the good of your appearing before people like a ghost, Hartledon?

When did you arrive?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"And time you did, I think, with your poor wife fretting herself to death about you. How is she this morning?"

"Very well."

"Ugh!" You must imagine this sound as something between a grunt and a groan, that the estimable lady gave vent to whenever put out. It is not capable of being written. "You might have sent word you were coming. I should think you frightened your wife to death."

"Not quite."

He walked across the room and rang the bell. Hedges appeared. It had been the dowager's pleasure that no one else should serve her at that meal--perhaps on account of her peculiarities of costume.

"Will you be good enough to pour out the coffee in Maude's place to-day, Lady Kirton? She has promised to be down another morning."

It was making her so entirely and intentionally a guest, as she thought, that Lady Kirton did not like it. Not only did she fully intend Hartledon House to be her home, but she meant to be its one ruling power. Keep Maude just now to her invalid fancies, and later to her gay life, and there would be little fear of her a.s.serting very much authority.

"Are you in the habit of serving this sort of breakfast, Hedges?" asked Lord Hartledon; for the board looked almost like an elaborate dinner.

"We have made some difference, my lord, this morning."

"For me, I suppose. You need not do so in future. I have got out of the habit of taking breakfast; and in any case I don't want this unnecessary display. Captain Kirton gets up later, I presume."

"He's hardly ever up before eleven," said Hedges. "But he makes a good breakfast, my lord."

"That's right. Tempt him with any delicacy you can devise. He wants strength."