Bosom Friends Part 18

"Yes, unless we carry the cups out on to the sh.o.r.e and have a picnic.

Perhaps that would be nicer."

"Mother wants to take me to call on the Wilsons to-morrow."

"Then Friday or Sat.u.r.day? It doesn't matter which to us."

"Really," said Belle, looking rather embarra.s.sed, "I expect I shall be going to the Oppenheims both days. Blanche likes me to make up the set at tennis, and it's so cool and nice in the garden under the trees.

There she is now, coming along the beach and beckoning to me. I wonder what she wants. I think I shall have to go and see." And Belle ran quickly off, as if glad to find an excuse for getting away; and meeting the Oppenheims, she turned back with them towards the Parade.

Left alone, Isobel felt as though some great shock had pa.s.sed over her.

She saw only too plainly that Belle did not want to come--did not care for her society or value her friends.h.i.+p; and the bitterness of the knowledge seemed almost greater than she could bear. She walked slowly to the cliff, and climbing part of the way up, sat down in a sheltered nook, hidden from sight of the beach; then putting her head on her hands, she let loose the flood-gates of her grief. G.o.d help us when we first find out that those we care for no longer respond to our love. The wound may heal, but it leaves a scar, and remains one of those silent milestones of the soul to which we look back in after years as having marked an epoch in our inner lives. At the time it appears as if all our affection had been wasted; but it is not so, for the very fact of loving even an unworthy object increases our power to love, and enlarges the heart, lifting us above self, and, as bread cast upon the waters, will return to us after many days in a greater capacity for sympathy with others, and a widening of our spiritual growth.

To Isobel it seemed as if the whole world had somehow changed. She had had few companions of her own age, and this was her first essay at friends.h.i.+p. Those who enjoy very keenly suffer, alas! in like proportion, and hers was not a disposition to take things lightly. She stayed for a long, long time upon the cliffs, fighting a hard battle before she could get her tears under sufficient control to walk home along the sh.o.r.e, as she did not care to face any of the Sea Urchins with streaming eyes. Perhaps a touch of pride came to her aid. She would, at any rate, not let Belle know how greatly she cared, and when they met again she would behave as if she too were not anxious about the acquaintance. So much she felt she owed to her own self-respect, and she meant to carry it out, whatever it cost her.

"I wouldn't break my heart, darling," said Mrs. Stewart, who, seeing Isobel's red eyes, soon discovered the trouble, and offered what comfort she could. "Belle isn't worth grieving for. I was afraid of this from the first, but you were so taken with her that it seemed of no use to warn you. I don't think she was ever half what you believed her to be, and she has proved herself a very fickle friend. Never mind. We shall be going home soon, and you will have other interests to turn your thoughts. We shall see little more of her at Silversands, and the best thing we can do is to forget her as speedily as we can."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CHASE.

"Tones that I once used to know Thrill in those accents of thine, Eyes that I loved long ago Gaze 'neath your lashes at mine."

Except by Isobel, Belle was scarcely missed at the desert island, where the Sea Urchins had so many interesting schemes on hand that they did not trouble to spare a thought to one who had not taken the pains to make herself a general favourite. For the last few days all the children had been absorbed in the construction of another hut upon the opposite end of the island. It was built with loose stones, after the fas.h.i.+on of an Irish cabin, and they intended to roof it, when it was finished, with planks covered with pieces of turf. This new building was to surpa.s.s even the old one in beauty and ingenuity. It was to consist of several rooms, and both boys and girls toiled away at it with an ardour which would have caused the ordinary British workman to open his eyes in amazement.

Isobel worked as hard as any one, carrying stones, and mixing a crumbly kind of mortar made out of sand and crushed limpets, which Charlie fondly imagined would resemble the famous cement with which mediaeval castles were built, and would defy the combined effects of time and weather. Since Belle's desertion she had been much with the Chesters.

Hilda, though several years younger than herself, was a dear little companion, and Charlie was a staunch friend, standing up for her when necessary against the Rokeby boys, whose teasing was sometimes apt to get beyond all bounds of endurance. On the following Friday the whole party were busy upon the sh.o.r.e, collecting a fresh supply of sh.e.l.l-fish for their architecture, when Isobel, who had left the others that she might carry her load of periwinkles to the already large heap under the rocks, spied her friend the colonel in the distance, and flinging down her basket, hurried along the beach to greet him.

"Well met, Miss Robinson Crusoe!" cried the colonel. "I was just on the point of going up the cliff to take another look at the old stone. I'm like a child with a new toy. I find I can't tear myself away from it, and I want to keep going back to read the runes again, and to see that it is safe and uninjured. Will you come with me to keep me company?"

Isobel was nothing loath--she much enjoyed a chat with the owner of the island; and they sat for a long time on a large boulder near the cross, while he wrote the runic alphabet for her on a leaf torn from his pocket-book.

"Now I should at least be able to make out the words of another inscription if I found it," she said triumphantly, "even if I didn't know what it meant. I shall copy these, and then write my name in runes inside all my books. I think they're ever so much prettier than modern letters."

"With the slight disadvantage that very few people can decipher them,"

laughed the colonel. "You might as well sign your autograph in Sanscrit.

How fast the tide is rising! I think we should warn your playfellows that they ought to be running home. I'm always afraid lest they should be caught on these sands."

He rose as he spoke, and walked to the verge of the cliff, where he could command a view of the sh.o.r.e below, just in time to see the last of the children hustled by Charlotte Wright (whose sensible practical head never forgot the state of the tide) up the beach at the Silversands side of the channel, which was already beginning to fill so quickly as to render any further crossing impossible.

"Oh, look! What shall we do?" cried Isobel, in some alarm. "We're quite cut off. We can't possibly get through that deep water even if we try to wade. We shall have to stay on the island all night."

"And sleep in the hut like true pioneers?" said the colonel. "It would certainly be a new experience. No, little Miss Crusoe, I don't think we are driven to such a desperate extremity as that yet. I left my boat at the other side of the headland, and my man is only waiting my signal to row round. I will take you across with me to the Chase, and land you in safety."

Mounting to the top of the hill, he waved his handkerchief, and a small row-boat which had been anch.o.r.ed in the bay put off immediately in their direction.

"It's not nearly so romantic as if we had been obliged to spend a lonely night s.h.i.+vering in the hut," said the colonel. "We've missed rather an interesting adventure, but it's much more comfortable, after all.

By-the-bye, will your mother feel anxious if she sees the other children return without you?"

"She's gone to Ferndale this afternoon to buy some more paints and drawing paper," replied Isobel. "You can't get sketching materials in Silversands. She won't be home until seven o'clock, because there isn't a train earlier. I shall have to take tea alone."

"Better have it with me," suggested her friend. "I feel I owe some return for the hospitality you exercised in the hut. I haven't forgotten the nice cup of tea you made. You must see my flowers, and I can send you home afterwards in the dog-cart."

"That _would_ be nice!" cried Isobel, her joy at the prospect showing itself in her beaming face. "We saw your garden from the top of the Scar that day we went into your grounds, and I thought it looked _lovely_."

"Well, I believe I have as good a show as most people in the neighbourhood," admitted the colonel; "but you shall judge for yourself.

Here we are at the landing-place. Take care! Give me your hand, and I will help you out."

The Chase appeared to have a private wooden jetty of its own, which led on to a strip of s.h.i.+ngly beach, at the other side of which an iron gate admitted them into a small plantation of fir trees, and through a shrubbery into the garden. Isobel could not restrain a cry of pleasure at the sight of the flowers, which were now in the prime of their early autumn glory, and she did not know whether to admire more the little beds, gay with bright blossoms, which dotted the smoothly mown lawns, or the splendid herbaceous borders behind, full of dahlias, sunflowers, gladioli, hollyhocks, torch lilies, tall bell-flowers, and other beautiful plants.

"I must show you all my treasures," said the colonel, pleased with her appreciation, as he took her to the pond where the pink water-lilies grew, and the bamboo and eucalyptus were flouris.h.i.+ng in the open air.

"You don't often find subtropical plants so far north," he explained, with a touch of pride as he pointed them out; "but this is a very sheltered situation, and we protect them with matting during the winter.

You should see the irises in the spring and early summer; they are a ma.s.s of delicate colour, and thrive so well down by the water's edge."

The rock garden, with its pretty Alpine blossoms; the rosery, where the queen of flowers seemed represented by every variety, from the delicate yellow of the tea to the rich red of the damask; the fountain, where the water flowed from the pouting lips of a chubby cherub, astride on a dolphin, into a basin filled with gold and silver fish; the terraced walk, covered by a fine magnolia; and the summer-house on the wall, containing a fixed telescope through which you could look out over the sea--all were an equal delight to Isobel's wondering eyes, for she had never before been in such beautiful grounds. Nor was the kitchen-garden less of a surprise, with its peaches and apricots hanging on the red brick walls, carefully netted to preserve them from the birds; its beds of tall, feathery asparagus, and its ripe greengages and early apples.

The trim neatness of the vegetable borders was enlivened by edgings of hardy annuals, and here and there a ma.s.s of sweet peas filled the air with a delicious fragrance, while in a corner stood a row of bee-hives, the buzzing occupants of which seemed busily at work among the scarlet runners. Isobel thought no enchanted palace could rival the greenhouses, gay with geraniums and fuchsias and rare plants, the names of which she did not know, or the vinery with its countless bunches of black grapes hanging from the roof. It was so particularly nice to be taken round by the owner, who could pluck the flowers and fruit as he wished, and so different from the park at home, which was her usual playground, where you might not walk on the gra.s.s, and hardly dared to admire the flowers, for fear the policeman should suspect you of wanting to touch them.

"You will be quite tired now, and hungry too, I expect," said her host, as he led the way on to a long gla.s.s-roofed veranda in front of the house, where two chairs and a round table spread for tea were awaiting them. "I must show you my horses and dogs afterwards. I have five little collie pups, which I am sure you will like to see, and a brown foal, only a fortnight old. My coachman has some fan-tail pigeons, too, and a hutch of rabbits."

It seemed very strange to Isobel to find herself sitting in the comfortable basket-chair, talking to the colonel while he poured the tea from the silver teapot into the pretty painted cups. She could scarcely believe that only three weeks ago she had trespa.s.sed in his grounds, and had almost expected him to send her to prison for the offence, while now she was chatting to him as freely as if she had known him all her life.

That her holland frock was not improved by an afternoon's play on the island, that her sand shoes were the worse for wear and her sailor hat was her oldest, and that the wind had blown her long hair into elf locks, did not distress her in the least, though I fear Mrs. Stewart would hardly have considered her in visiting order. Certainly the colonel did not seem to mind, and whatever he may have thought of the appearance of his young guest, her good manners and refined accent had shown him from the first that she was the child of cultured people.

"Mother means to sketch the runic cross on Monday," volunteered Isobel, as the talk turned on the subject of the island. "She went to Ferndale to-day on purpose to buy a new block; her old one was too small, and not the right shape."

"I shall hope to see her picture," replied the colonel. "I must show you the photos of the stone, which arrived this morning. They are in my study; so, if you really won't have any more tea, we will come indoors and look at them now."

He led the way through an open French window into a large and pleasant drawing-room, which appeared so filled with beautiful cabinets of curiosities, old china, rare pictures and books, that Isobel would have liked to linger and look at them if she had dared to ask; but the colonel strode on into the panelled hall, and pa.s.sing the wide staircase with its carved bal.u.s.trade and its statue of Hebe, holding a lamp, at the foot, took her into a long low library at the farther side of the house. It was a cosy room. Its four windows overlooked the rose garden, and had a peep of the cliffs and the sea; a large writing-table strewn with papers stood in a recess; and various padded morocco easy-chairs seemed to invite one to sit down and read the books which almost covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Over the fine stone chimney-piece hung two portraits, the only pictures to be seen--one an enlarged photograph of a handsome young officer in a Guards uniform; the other a small oil painting of a little girl with gray eyes and straight fair hair, parted smoothly in the middle of her forehead, and tied by a ribbon under her ears.

"I only received the prints this morning," said the colonel, taking an envelope from his desk. "There are four views altogether, as you will see; but I think you will like this the best, for it shows the runes so plainly."

He held out the photo of the ancient cross, but Isobel did not notice it. She was standing with parted lips, her eyes fixed in amazement upon the two portraits over the fireplace.

"Why," she cried, in an eager voice, "that's father--my father!"

"Your father, my dear?" said the colonel, astonished in his turn.

"Impossible! This is a portrait of my son."

"But it _is_ father!" returned Isobel. "It's the same photo which we have at home, only larger. That's the V.C. he won in India, and his Guards uniform. And the other picture is little Aunt Isobel!"

"What do you mean?" asked the colonel hastily. "How could it be your Aunt Isobel?"

"I don't know, but it _is_!" replied Isobel. "I have a tiny painting exactly like it, done on ivory, inside a morocco case. It belonged to father, and he left it to me. She was his only sister, and she died when she was eleven years old--just the same age as I am."

For answer the colonel took Isobel by the shoulders, and holding her beneath the portrait, looked narrowly at her face. The evening suns.h.i.+ne, flooding through the window, fell on the fair hair, and lighted it up with the same golden gleam as that of the child in the picture above; the gray eyes of both seemed to meet him with the same half-wistful, half-trustful gaze.