The Tree of Knowledge Part 12

Their reverence for the aristocracy had something well-nigh touching in its simple faith. Determined as they were against anything unconventional, they yet almost dared to think that Lady Mabel Wynch-Frere had a right to hold opinions--a right conferred on her by that mystic handle to her name, which sanctioned an eccentricity that would have been unpardonable in any woman less strongly backed up--any woman supported by a social position less unquestionable.

Moreover, they could not but be sensible that the sojourn of this star of fas.h.i.+on at Edge Willoughby would set all the neighborhood talking, and that to them would be a.s.signed, for a time at least, all the local importance they could possibly desire. Her ladys.h.i.+p's heresies were more than condoned, in consideration of her ladys.h.i.+p's consequence.

CHAPTER X.

... For me, Perhaps I am not worthy, as you say, Of work like this; perhaps a woman's soul Aspires, and not creates; yet we aspire...

... I, Who love my art, would never wish it lower To suit my stature. I may love my art, You'll grant that even a woman may love art, Seeing that to waste true love on anything Is womanly, past question.

E. B. BROWNING.

The heat of the blazing day was just beginning to be tempered with light puffs of sea-scented air as the sun declined, when the Honorable Claud Cranmer stepped upon the platform at Stanton, and asked the station-master if the London train were due.

"Yes, it was--just signalled from Coryton;" and Claud, after the manner of his race, put his hands behind him, wrinkled up his eyelids on account of the sun, and gazed away along the flat marshy valley of the Ashe river, to catch the first glimpse of the approaching train.

On the other side of the sandy river mouth lay the little old village of Ashemouth, picturesquely nestling at the foot of the tall cliff. It was a pretty view, but not to be compared at all with the beauty of Edge Combe.

"I do hope the young lady will arrive," soliloquised the young man. "The poor fellow ought to have some one with him who knows him. I only wish I could hit upon some clue to the mystery; it's the most baffling thing!"

He sighed, and then he yawned vigorously, for he had been up the greater part of the night, and he was a person whom it did not suit to have his rest disturbed. The village nurse had been quite inadequate to the task of holding poor Allonby in his bed, and so had aroused "the gentleman"

at about two, since when he had only had an hour's nap. The day had been most distressing. Lady Mabel had sent Joseph, the coachman, into Stanton for ice, which he had obtained with difficulty, but it seemed as if nothing would abate the fierce heat in that sick-chamber, they longed for cool wind and cloudy skies to obscure the brilliant weather in which the haymakers were so rejoicing. As the fever grew higher, Dr. Forbes'

face grew graver, and it was with a sickening dislike to being the bearer of such tidings that Claud set out for the station to meet the patient's sister, and drive her up to the farm.

The train appeared at last, curving its dark bulk along the gleaming metals with the intense deliberation which marks the pace of all trains on branch lines of the South-Western.

"No need to hurry oneself this hot weather," the engine appeared to be saying, comfortably, while Claud was feverishly thinking how much hung on every moment. He had formed no pre-conceived idea as to what Miss Allonby's exterior would be like. His eyes dwelt anxiously on the somewhat numerous female figures which emerged from the carriage doors.

Most of them were mammas and nurses, with two or three small children in striped cotton petticoats, whose cheeks looked sadly in want of the fresh salt air of Stanton.

At last he became aware of a girl, who he guessed might be the one he sought for, merely because he could not see anyone else who could possibly answer to that description.

This girl must have alighted from the train with great celerity, for her portmanteau had already been produced from the van and laid beside her.

She was rather tall and particularly slight--somewhat thin, in fact. She wore a dust-colored tweed suit very plainly made, and a helmet-shaped cap of the same cloth. Her face was pale, with an emphasis in the outline of the chin which faintly recalled her handsomer brother. Her eyes were keen, and her expression what Americans call intense.

She was walking towards Mr. Cranmer, but her gaze was fixed on a porter who stood just behind him.

"Is there a cart or anything in waiting to take me to Poole Farm?" she asked, with the thin clearness of voice and purity of accent belonging to London girls. Claud stepped forward, raising his cap.

"I'm afraid I can't lay claim to being a _cart_," he said, modestly, "but perhaps you would kindly include me in your definition of a _thing_. I am in waiting to take you to Poole Farm."

An amused look broke over the girl's face, a look not of surprise but of arrested interest; in a moment it changed, a shadow fell on the eyes as if a cloud swept by, she made a step forward and spoke breathlessly.

"You come from Poole Farm? What news do you bring me of my brother?"

Claud felt a sudden movement of most unnecessary emotion; there was such a feverish, pathetic force in the question, and in the expression of the mouth which asked it, that he was conscious of an audible falter in his voice, as he replied, as hopefully as he could:

"Mr. Allonby has had a very bad accident, it is folly not to tell you that at once. He is very ill, but the doctor says he has a fine const.i.tution, and hopes that everything--that all--in short, that he'll pull through all right. You will want to reach him as quickly as possible. Will you come this way, please?"

He hurriedly took her travelling-bag from her, not looking at her face, lest he should see tears; and hastened out of the station to where Joseph stood with the trap.

By the servant's side stood an uncla.s.sified looking man of quiet appearance, and plain, unostentatious dress. As Mr. Cranmer approached he stepped forward and touched his hat.

"Mr. d.i.c.kens, sir, from Scotland Yard," he said, in a low voice.

"Oh, ah! Yes, of course. You came down by this train. Just get on the box, will you, and we will take you straight to the scene of the tragedy, as I suppose all the newspapers will have it to-morrow," and Claud motioned Joseph to his seat with a hurried injunction "to look sharp." When he turned again to Miss Allonby, she was quite quiet and composed. n.o.body could have guessed that she had received any news that might shock her. "Wasting my pity, after all, it seems," thought Claud, as he helped her into the carriage. "I hope you will excuse my driving up with you," he said, as he took his place beside her. "It's a good long walk, and I'm anxious to be back as fast as possible."

"I can only thank you most sincerely for taking so much trouble on our account," she answered, at once, "and I should be so grateful if you would tell me something of what has happened. I am quite in the dark, and--the suspense is oppressive."

"I shall be only too glad to help you in any way," he said, with one of his deft little bows, which always conveyed an impression of finished courtesy. "You are Miss Allonby, I presume?"

"Yes--and you?"

"My name's Cranmer, and I am a total stranger to your brother, whom I have never seen but in a state of perfect unconsciousness."

He proceeded to relate to her all the incidents of the eventful yesterday.

She listened with an interest which was visible but controlled, and with perfect self-possession. Her eyes rested on his face all the while he was speaking--not with any disagreeable persistency, but with a simple frank desire to comprehend everything--not the mere words alone, but any such shade of meaning as looks and expression can give.

With his habit of close observation, Claud studied her as he spoke, and by the end of his narration had catalogued her features and attributes with the accuracy which was an essential part of him. There are men to whom girls are in some sense a mystery, who take in dreamy and comprehensive ideas of them, surrounded by a little idealization or fancy of their own, these could never tell you what a woman wore, how her dress was cut, not even the arrangement of her front hair--that all important detail!--nor the color of her eyes or size of her hands. It is to be conjectured that a certain loss of illusion might result to these men when, on being married, they find themselves unavoidably in close proximity to one of these heretofore mistily contemplated divinities, and by slow degrees make the inevitable discovery that their "phantom of delight" eats, drinks, sleeps, brushes her hair, and dresses and undresses in as mundane a fas.h.i.+on as their own.

Claud Cranmer, though doubtless he lost much delight by never surrounding womanhood with a halo of unreality, yet would certainly be spared any such lowering of a preconceived ideal, since he took stock in a detailed and matter-of-fact way of every woman he met, and by the time Miss Allonby and he reached Poole Farm could have handed in a report as cool and unpoetically worded as Olivia's description of herself--"_Item_ two lips, indifferent red--_item_ two grey eyes with lids to them."

But his companion's eyes were not grey, they were hazel and were the only feature of her face meriting to be called handsome. As before stated, she was pale, and had the air of being overworked--though this might be partially the result of a long and hurried journey. Her skin was fair and pure, with an appearance of delicacy, by which term is here meant refinement, not ill health. Her impa.s.sive critic observed that her ears were small and well-set, that the shape of her head was good, her teeth white and even, and her eyelashes long, she had no claims at all to be considered beautiful, or even what is called a pretty girl--which being stated, the reader will doubtless rush at once to the conclusion that she was plain, which was far from the case. It was just such a face as scarcely two people would be agreed upon. One might find it interesting, another complain that it was hatchetty, the former would admire the clean-cut way of the features, the latter gloomily prophecy nut-crackers for old age, and lament over angular shoulders and sharp elbows.

It was not a face which attracted Claud. He was an admirer of beauty, and preferred it with a certain admixture of consciousness, he liked a woman's eyes to meet his with a full knowledge of the fact that they were of opposite s.e.xes. He had a weakness for pretty figures, cased in dresses which were a miracle of cut; though of course the wearer must be more than an ornamental clothes-peg: he was too intelligent to admire a nonent.i.ty.

Miss Allonby's dress was not badly cut, neither was it put on without some idea of the way clothes should be worn; but it was shabby, and had evidently never been costly. Her gloves, too, fitted her, and were the right sort of glove, but they were old and much soiled. Her shoes gave evidence that her foot was not too large for her height, and her hands, as Claud mentally noted, _were size six and a quarter_. Her face wore an expression which can only be described as preoccupied. Of course it was natural that on this particular day she should be thinking only of her brother; but her new acquaintance had penetration enough to know that there was more than a temporary anxiety in her eyes. Had he met her on any other day, under any other circ.u.mstances, it would have been the same; he was merely a pa.s.sing event--something which was in no sense part of the life she was leading. She seemed to convey in some indescribable fas.h.i.+on the fact that he was not of the slightest importance to her, and the idea inspired a wholly unreasonable sensation of irritation.

An unmarried doctor once somewhat coa.r.s.ely engaged to point out all the portraits of unmarried women in a photographic alb.u.m, on the theory that the countenance of all those who are single wears an expression of unsatisfied longing. Wyn Allonby's face would hardly have come under this heading. Hers was not a happy nor a perfectly contented look, but neither could it be said in any sense to express longing. It was the look of one who has much serious work to do, the doing of which involves anxiety, but also brings interest and pleasure--a brave, thoughtful, preoccupied look, more suggestive of a middle-aged man of science than a young girl.

Claud found something indirectly unflattering in such an expression; he liked to have the female mind entirely at his disposal, _pro tem_. Her age, too, puzzled him; it was necessarily provoking to such an adept to find himself unable to decide this point within five years. She might be twenty-one, and looking older, or she might be twenty-five, and looking younger, or she might claim any one of the three intermediate dates.

When he had told her all that there was to tell, he relapsed into silent speculation on these important points, now inclining to think that a life of hards.h.i.+p had made her prematurely self-possessed, now that her peculiarly unconscious temperament gave an air of fict.i.tious youth. He would have liked to ask her some questions, or, rather, deftly to extract from her a few details as to who she was and what were her circ.u.mstances. But Miss Allonby gave him no opening. She was silent without being shy, which is certainly undue presumption in a woman.

Her first words seemed to be extorted from her almost by force.

They had left Stanton far behind. The distance from thence to Edge Combe was said to be about five miles; but these miles were not horizontal, but perpendicular, which somehow tended to increase their length considerably. They had climbed gradually but continuously for some time between tall hedges, up a lane remarkable only for its monotony; thence they had emerged, not without grat.i.tude, into the Philmouth Road. This was a wide highway, somewhat indefinite as to its edges, which were fringed irregularly with hart's-tongue and other ferns, or clumped with low brambles bearing abundant promise of a future blackberry harvest. On either side a row of ragged and onesided pine-trees, stooping as if perpetually cringing before the stinging blows of the wild sou'-westers, which had so tortured them from their youth up that they habitually leaned one way, like children whose minds are warped from their natural bent by undue influence in one direction.

Behind these trees the sky was beginning to flame with sunset, making their uncouth forms stand out weirdly dark in the still air.

For a short way they drove quietly along this road, then turned down a precipitous lane to the left, and wound along till a white gate was reached. Mr. d.i.c.kens from Scotland Yard jumped down and opened the gate; and as the carriage went slowly through, and turned a corner, the effect was like a transformation scene, and a cry of wondering admiration broke from the silent girl.

They stood on the very edge and summit of a descent so steep as to be almost a precipice. Below them lay the fairy valley, half-hidden in a pearly mist, with a vivid stretch of deep-blue sea as its horizon. Well in evidence lay Poole Farm, directly beneath them, a sluggish wreath of smoke curling lazily up from its great chimney. The road curved to and fro down the abrupt hillside like a white folded ribbon, here visible, there lost behind a belt of ash trees.

"How beautiful," said Wynifred,--"how beautiful it is!"