The Fire Trumpet Part 27

Claverton sees not the baleful stare of his deadly foe, for he is too intent upon gazing at the lovely preoccupied eyes before him, and wondering what is their exact colour, changing as it ever does in the varying light. His companion sees it not, for she is living again in the past. And no zephyr quivers through the silvered leaves or ruffles the pool at their feet, no cloud comes over the calm, fair beauty of the night, no shadow warns of a secret and terrible death hovering over those two, who sit there beneath the witching influences of restful calm, of moonlight, and to one of them--of love.

"Confound it!" angrily exclaims Claverton, half rising as the sound of approaching voices and laughter is borne upon the stillness. The threatening form of the watcher disappears--but they have not seen it-- and the voices draw nearer. "Our retreat is a retreat no longer. The whole lot of them are bearing down upon us. Always the way."

"Always the way." So it is. As in small things so in great; we see not the finger of Providence in fortune's hardest knocks. Yet it must be admitted that these seldom wear the guise of blessings, and we mortals are weak--lamentably weak--and our foresight is simply nil. You two, who resent the intrusion of your fellows into this slumbrous retreat, you little reck that that intrusion is the saving of the life of at least one of you.

"But anyhow we must be going back now. As it is they will be wondering what has become of as," said Lilian, rising.

"I suppose we must," a.s.sented her companion, ruefully. He thought he could have sat for ever in that enchanted glade, gazing into the beautiful face and listening to the modulation of that low, tuneful voice. "Ah, well. Now for the madding crowd again."

He wrapped her shawl around her, and they wandered back along the narrow path and beneath the orange trees again. Then as they gained the last gate and the sound of music and laughter betokened that they were close to the house, Lilian lingered a moment to look back towards the moonlit pool.

"It is a sweet place, and we have had a lovely walk," she said. "I did enjoy it so. Thanks so much for bringing me."

What did she mean? Was she blind? He paused with his hand on the half-open gate, and glanced at her with a curious expression.

A small runnel of water coursed along at their feet, s.h.i.+ning and glowing in the moonlight, and she was standing on the single plank that spanned it. Was she blind, that she failed to read even one-tenth of what that look expressed? But he made some ordinary remark, and they pa.s.sed on.

"Why, where in the world have you two been?" said Mrs Brathwaite as they entered.

"Playing truant. Miss Strange had a slight headache, and I recommended fresh air as a counteracting influence. Then we discovered that we had been near neighbours for some years without knowing it, and got talking English 'shop'," answered Claverton. The latter half of his statement was not strictly historical, but the speaker salved his conscience with the trite reflection that "all's fair in love and war."

"How curious!" said the old lady, in her interest in the coincidence losing sight of the delinquency and forgetting mildly to scold him therefor. "But it's astonis.h.i.+ng how small the world is, when one comes to think of it."

"Mr Claverton," said Lilian, reproachfully, an hour later. "I'm surprised at you. How could you say we were neighbours for 'some years'

when you knew we were not?"

He laughed. "Were we not? Then we ought to have been. It was the merest accident of time and place that precluded it." He could not make to her the excuse he had made to his own conscience--at least--not yet.

Pa.s.s we again to the silence of the garden. Who is this leaning against yonder fence alone and gazing with stony, set face straight in front of her? Can it be Ethel? Yes, it is. The laughing, saucy lips, so ready with badinage and repartee, are closed tightly together, and the blue eyes, erewhile flas.h.i.+ng and sparkling with light-hearted mirth, now start forth with a hard stare. Must we, in the interests of our story, partially withdraw the curtain from her reflections? Even so, let us do it as gently as possible.

"He never looked at _me_ like that," she murmured, referring to the two on the little plank bridge. "Ought I to have betrayed my presence? I don't know. I couldn't, somehow; and they weren't saying anything. But that look--how plainly I saw it! O, G.o.d! if only it had been given to me--to _me_," she went on, pa.s.sionately, "I would cheerfully have died at this moment."

She paused, and slowly the tears welled to the swimming eyes, and glistened in the moonlight. "All the walks and rides we've had together; all the time we have been thrown together! Good G.o.d! if I could but live it over again! Since the very moment I saw him come in, and he looked me up and down in that calm, searching way of his--it seems only like yesterday. He never thought of me but as something to amuse him--a pretty plaything--to be thrown aside for a better. No, I am wronging him; never by word or look did he deceive me. It is I who am a fool--an idiot--and must pay the penalty of my folly; but--how could I help it?"

And the sounds of revelry came ever and anon from the lighted windows; and, without, all nature slept in a tranquil hush, and the pale stars gleamed in the sky--gleamed coldly down upon the lonely watcher.

"How I flouted you, and said hard, sharp things to you, darling; every one of them goes through me like a knife as I remember it. Yet that was at first, and--how could I tell?" and a great sob shook the delicate frame. "But help me, my pride! Oh, love, you will never know. The same roof will cover us, and I must talk and even laugh with you as before--and see you and her together; but--you will never know. Ah!

what a deal it takes to break one poor little heart! And--how I hate _her_!"

A voice intrudes upon her reflections, quick, gruff, and horribly familiar. "Oh, there you are, Miss Brathwaite," it says, "I've been looking for you everywhere."

The voice acts upon her even as the trumpet blast upon the proverbial charger. Not a trace of any recent emotion is visible as she turns and faces her persistent but unwelcome admirer, Will Jeffreys.

"And you've found me. What can I do for you?"

The young fellow is staggered. The fact is that, warmed by the exhilarating exercise and the yet more exhilarating stimulant which he has imbibed pretty freely in the course of the evening, he has screwed up his courage to the sticking point, and intends to throw the dice of his fate with Ethel before the said exalted quality has time to cool, which process of refrigeration, it may be remarked, has already begun.

"Well, there _is_ something you can do for me," he says.

"What is it? Do you want a partner for the next dance?--because, I'll be in directly," she asks, quickly.

The very tones of her voice ought to have brought home to Jeffreys the inexpediency of pursuing his subject for the present; but some persons are singularly deficient in a sense of the fitness of things or of times, and he was one.

"No; it isn't that. I want to say something--something about me--and about you," he blunders, lamely; but she will give him no help, "and--I must--say it--to-night--Ethel!" he jerks out.

"For goodness' sake don't say it to-night, or at any other time,"

replies she, decisively, putting out her hand, with a gesture as if to stop him. It has the desired effect. Even Jeffreys' dull wits are alive to the conviction that his is not merely a losing game, but a lost one; and the reflection exasperates him.

"Oh, I might have known," was the sneering reply. "Of course--no one has been fit to speak to since that fellow Claverton came."

She turned upon him, her face white with wrath in the moonlight.

"Wilfred Jeffreys, you are a brave fellow. You have found me here alone, and have taken the opportunity of insulting me. Now what do you think I am going to do?"

"What?"

"I am going in to ask uncle to put away the brandy decanter," said she, in tones of bitter scorn; and without another word she walked away, leaving him standing there looking and feeling, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, a thorough fool.

Within doors the fun is kept up with a zest characteristic of such entertainments. There are no shy ones left now, all are merged in the ranks of the confident.

Cras.h.!.+

Down comes Hicks like a felled tree, right in the middle of the room.

Matters are at a momentary standstill, and the unlucky one slowly and shamefacedly picks himself up, red and wrathful and covered with confusion. He is muttering maledictions on the head of the guileless Allen, which a.s.s, he declares, not content with cannoning against him, tripped him up.

"Never mind, jump up. Lucky it's _before_ supper," laughs jovial Jim Brathwaite.

"Hicks, old man, I _told_ you to draw the line at that fourth gla.s.s,"

says the irrepressible Armitage in a mighty stage whisper as he whirls by, grinning with malicious delight. The truth being that Hicks is the most abstemious wight in the world. But the remark does not pa.s.s unheeded, and a laugh, varying in tone from open guffaw to suppressed t.i.tter, further exasperates and discomfits the luckless stumbler, who vows vengeance on his tormentor.

Then comes supper, which must be attended to in relays, s.p.a.ce being limited. A Dutchman is desperately anxious to make a speech, and is with difficulty quelled; while Jack Armitage, who has a bet on with some one that old Garrett being too far gone to detect the fraud, he will make him drink three tumblers of water under the impression that it is grog, is using the n.o.ble spur, emulation, to induce that worthy to swallow the third, and winks and grins triumphantly at the loser as he succeeds. Meanwhile piano and violin never flag, till at length the waning summer night begins to hint pretty broadly that it is time to knock off.

Then a great deal of inspanning and saddling up; of hunting for stray saddle-cloths and bridles which have gone adrift; not a little wrangling among the coloured stable hands belonging to the place or to the guests, and finally most of the latter are gone. The residue will tarry for a shakedown and a rest.

"Good-night--at sunrise!"

A pressure from a soft, taper hand; a sweet glance from a pair of rather tired eyes, and the door closes on a tall vision in soft creamy draperies.

The recipient of that pressure of the hand, that playful glance, turns away like a man in a dream. Half instinctively he makes his way to Hicks' quarters. Here he is enthusiastically hailed.

"Hallo, Arthur. Come and blow a cloud before you turn in. All these chaps are asleep already."

"All right," was the reply, and the speaker, picking his way among several slumbering wights who rolled in blankets had compa.s.sed impromptu shakedowns on the floor of Hicks' room, seated himself at the foot of the latter's stretcher. "Give us a fill."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.