Starvecrow Farm Part 19

She gave him no direct answer; only,

"I cannot understand, I really cannot understand," she said, "of what he was thinking. You had better give me the letter now, sir. I may find something in that which may explain."

But he only cast down his eyes.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I must not disobey the directions which Captain Clyne laid upon me."

"Very good," she retorted; "that is as you please. Only--our paths separate here. The road we are on will take you to the inn--you cannot miss it. My path lies this way."

And with a stiff little bow she laid her hand on the gate which gave entrance to the field-path; the same path that led down through the coppice to the back of the Low Wood inn. She pa.s.sed through.

He hesitated an instant, then he also turned in at the gate. And as she halted, eyeing him in displeasure--

"I really cannot let you stray from the high-road alone," he said.

"You will pardon me, I am sure, if I seem intrusive. But it is not safe. I have seen enough," with a smirk, "to know that--that beauty unattended goes in danger amid these lovely"--he waved his hand in kindly patronage of the lake--"these lovely, but wild surroundings."

"You mean," she answered, with a dangerous light in her eyes, "that you will force your company on me, sir? Whether I will or no?"

"Not force, no! No! No! But I must, I can only do as I am ordered. I should not presume of myself," he continued, with a touch of real humility--"even to offer my company. I should not look so high. I should think such an honour above me. But I was led to believe----"

"By Captain Clyne?"

"Yes, that--that, in fact, you were willing to make what amends you could for the injury done to him. And that, if only for that reason, I might expect a more favourable reception at your hands."

"But why, sir?--why?" she cried, cut to the quick. To suffer this man, this stranger, to talk to her of making amends!" What good will it do to Captain Clyne if I receive you ever so favourably?"

He looked at her humbly, with appeal in his eyes.

"If you would deign to wait," he said, and he wiped his forehead, "I think I could make that more clear to you afterwards."

But very naturally his persistence offended her. That word amends, too, stuck in her throat. Her pride, made restive by her encounter with h.o.r.n.yold, was up in arms.

"I shall not wait a moment," she said. "Not a moment! Understand, sir, that if you accompany me against my will, my first act on reaching the inn will be to complain to the landlady, and seek her protection."

"Surely not against Captain Clyne's pleni--plenipotentiary?" he murmured abjectly. "Surely not!"

"I do not know what a pleni-plenipotentiary is," she retorted. "But if you follow me, you follow at your peril!"

And she turned her back on him, and plunged downwards through the wood. She did not deign to look behind; but her ears told her that he was not following. For the rest, all the beauty of the wood, shot through with golden lights, all the cool loveliness of the dell, with its emerald mosses and flash of jewelled wings, were lost upon her now, so sore was she and so profoundly humiliated. Twice in one morning she had been insulted. Twice in one hour had a man shown her that he held her fair game. Were they right, then, who preached that outside the sanctum of home no girl was safe? Or was it her story, her conduct, her disgrace, known to all for miles round, that robbed her of the right to respect?

Either way she was unhappy, frightened, nay, shocked; and she longed to be within doors, where she need not restrain herself. Too proud to confide in Mrs. Gilson, she longed none the less for some one to whom she could unburden herself. Was she to go through the world exposed to such scenes? Must she be daily and hourly on her guard against rude insult, or more odious gallantries? And if these things befell her in this quiet spot, what must she expect in the world, deserted as she was by all those who would once have protected her?

She looked to gain her room without further unpleasantness; for the path she followed led her to the back door, and she could enter that way. But she was not to be so fortunate. In the yard, awaiting her with his hat in his hand and the flush of haste on his pallid face, was Mr. Sutton.

Poor Henrietta! she ground her small teeth together in her rage, and her face was scarlet. But her mind was made up. If Mr. Sutton counted on her being worse than her word she would show him his mistake.

"I shall send for the landlady," she said; and beckoning to a stable-help who was crossing the yard with a bucket, "Fetch Mrs.

Gilson," she said. "Tell her----"

"One moment!" Mr. Sutton interposed with meek firmness. "I am going to give you the letter. It will explain all, and I hope justify my conduct, which I cannot believe to have been offensive."

"That is a matter of opinion," Henrietta said loftily. She held out her hand. "The letter, sir, if you please."

"One favour, I beg," he said, with a gesture that deprecated her impatience. He waved the groom out of hearing. "This is not a fit place for you or"--with a return of dignity--"for the business on which I am here. Do me the favour of seeing me within or of walking a few yards with me. There is a seat by the lake, if you will not admit me to your apartments."

She frowned at him. But she saw the wisdom of concluding the matter, and she led the way into the road and turned to the right.

Immediately, however, she remembered that the Ambleside road would lead her to the spot where Captain Clyne had taken leave of her, and she turned and walked the other way until she came to the place where the Troutbeck lane diverged. There she stood.

"The letter, if you please," she said. She spoke with the contemptuous hardness which youth, seldom considerate of others' feelings, is p.r.o.ne to display.

He held it an instant in his hand as if he could not bear to part with it. But at last, with a dismal look and an abject sentence or two, he gave it up.

"I beg you, I implore you," he muttered as she took it, "to announce no hasty decision. To believe that I am something more and better than you think me now. And that ill as I have set myself before you, I would fain labour to show myself more--more worthy!"

The words were so strange, his manner was so puzzling, that they pierced the armour of her dislike. She paused, staring at him.

"Worthy!" she exclaimed. "Worthy of what?"

"The letter----"

"Yes, the letter will tell me."

And with a haughty air she broke the seal. As she read she turned herself from him, so that he saw little more of her face than her firmly moulded chin. But when she had carried her eyes some way down the sheet he noticed that her hands began to shake.

"Henrietta," so Captain Clyne began,--"for to add any term of endearment were either too little or too much--I have thought long and painfully, as becomes one who expected to be by this time your husband, on the situation in which you have placed yourself by an escapade, the consequences of which, whatever action be taken, must be permanently detrimental. Of these, as they touch myself, I say nothing, the object of these lines being to indicate a way by which I trust your honour and character may be redeemed. The bearer, whom I know for a man of merit and respectability, saw you by chance on the occasion of your visit to my house, and, as I learned by a word indiscreetly dropped, admired you. He has been admitted to the secret of your adventure, and is willing, without more and upon my representation of the facts of the case, to make you his wife and to give you the shelter of his name. After long thought I can devise no better course, whereby, innocent of aught but folly, as I believe you to be, the honour of the family can be preserved. Still, I would not suggest or advise the step were I not sure that Mr. Sutton, though beneath us by extraction, is a person of parts and worth in whose hands your future will be safe, while his material prosperity shall be my care. I have advised him to take such opportunities as offer of commending himself to you before delivering this note. Gladly would I counsel you to take the advice of your brother and his wife were I not aware how bitter is their resentment and how complete their estrangement. I, on the other hand, whose right to advise you may question---- But it were idle to say more than that I forgive you, as I hope to be forgiven. Nor will your interests ever be indifferent to

"Your kinsman,

"ANTHONY CLYNE."

Mr. Sutton noted the growing tremour of the hands which held the paper--he could hear it rustle. And his face, usually so pallid, flushed. Into the greyness of a life that had been happier if the chaplain had possessed less of those parts for which Captain Clyne commended him, had burst this vision of a bride, young, beautiful, and brilliant; a daughter of that world which thought him honoured by the temporary possession of a single finger, or the gift of a careless nod. Who could blame him if he succ.u.mbed? Aladdin, on the point of marriage with the daughter of the Sultan, bent to no greater temptation; nor any barber or calendar of them all, when on the verge of a like match. He had seen Henrietta once only, he had viewed her then as a thing of grace and refinement meet only for his master. At the prospect of possessing her, such scruples as rose in his mind faded quickly. He told himself that he would be foolish indeed if he did not carry the matter through with a bold face; or if for fear of a few hard words, or a pouting beauty, he yielded up the opportunity of a life.

On the hill he had proved himself equal to the call. Not so now. He had pictured the girl taking the news in many ways, in scorn, in anger, with shallow coquetry, or in dull resignation. But he had never antic.i.p.ated the way in which she did take it. When she had read the letter to the end she turned her back on him and bent her head.

"Oh!" she cried; and broke into weeping--not pa.s.sionate nor bitter, he was prepared for that--but the soft and helpless weeping of a broken thing.

That they, that Anthony Clyne, above all, should do this to her! That he should think of her as a chattel to be handed from one to another, a girl so light that all men were the same to her, if they were men!

That they, that he should hold her so cheap, deem her so smirched by what had pa.s.sed, misread her so vilely as to think that she had fallen to this! That with indifference she would give herself to any man, no matter to whom, if she could that way keep her name and hold up her head!

It hurt her horribly. Nay, for the time it broke her down. The mid-day coach swept by to the inn door, and the parson, standing beside her, ashamed of himself and conscious of the pa.s.sengers' curious glances, wished himself anywhere else. But she was wounded too sorely to care who saw or who heard; and she wept openly though quietly until the first sharpness of the pain was blunted. Then he thought, as her sobbing grew less vehement, that his time was come, that he might yet be heard. And he murmured that he was grieved, he was sorely grieved.

"So am I!" she said, dabbing her eyes with her wet handkerchief. She sobbed out the words so humbly, so weakly, that he was encouraged.

"Then may I--may I return presently?" he murmured, with a nervous cough. "You must stand in need of advice? And--and by some one near you? When you are more composed perhaps? Yes. Not that there is any hurry," he added quickly, frightened by a movement of her shoulders.

"Not at all. I'll not say another word now! By-and-by, by-and-by, dear young lady, you will be more composed. To-morrow, if you prefer it, or even the next day. I shall wait, and I shall be here."

She gave her eyes a last dab and turned.