The Tree of Knowledge Part 36

He came to the conclusion which Osmond felt certain that he would, namely: that Elsa could not yet know her own mind. She must be left for a year, at least, to gain some knowledge of society; he would not hear of her binding herself by any promise.

As to young Allonby, he had personally no objection in the world to him.

He both liked and respected him, though unable to help feeling sorry that he had so prematurely disclosed his love to the girl. He would gladly see him engaged to her as soon as ever he could show that it was in his power to maintain her in the position to which she was born.

But, on descending to practical details, it seemed to poor Osmond that it might be years before he could claim to be the possessor even of a clear five hundred a-year, unenc.u.mbered by sisters. Wynifred sympathized with him so deeply as to make her preoccupied during all her last days at Edge. Claud Cranmer's vagaries could not be so important as her darling brother's happiness. Though the engagement was not allowed, yet the att.i.tude of the Misses Willoughby was anything but hostile. Osmond was a favorite with all, and Miss Ellen was privately determined that if, when Elsa was twenty-one, want of money should be the only barrier to their happiness, she should consent to the marriage, and make them a yearly allowance, with the understanding that all came to them at the death of the sisters. But first it was only just that Osmond should be for a time on probation, that they might see of what stuff he was made; and communication could be kept up by means of a correspondence between Elsa and Jacqueline, who had struck up something of a friends.h.i.+p, as girls will.

It was now finally settled that Elsa should go to London in November, spend a month or two with Lady Mabel, and then a short time with the Ortons. In London she would naturally meet the Allonbys, and this delightful consideration went far to dry the pa.s.sionate tears she shed on the departure of her lover.

During the fortnight which had elapsed since the picnic, there had been an ominous calm on the part of G.o.dfrey. His two or three hours'

detention on the cliffs had given him a wholesome awe of Osmond, and each day afterwards he had been so meek that everyone was beginning to hope that he was not so black as he was painted.

Osmond, to show he bore no malice, had taken pains to have the boy included in all their expeditions; so that he remarked one day to Elsa:

"Allonby's not half a bad fellow, and I'm hanged if I ever lift a finger to help him to marry a wretched little sneak like you. If you'd been anything like decently behaved to me, I'd have settled some of my fortune on you, but now I'd sooner give him ten thousand down to let you alone. I should like him to know what sort you are; but the jolliest fellows are fools when they're in love."

"What money have you got that I haven't, I should like to know?" Elsa had retorted, unwisely. "I am the eldest--I ought to have the most."

"Jupiter! D'you mean to say the old girls have never told you that our papa left me all the cash? Quite the right thing, too. What's a girl to do with money? Only brings a set of crawling fortune-hunters round her.

But, if you'd been anything like, I'd have settled something handsome on you when I come of age; as it is, you won't get one penny out of me."

"I don't believe a word you say!"

"All right; but you'd better be careful how you cheek me. I'm going to pay you out for all the lies you told Allonby about me. I haven't forgotten. You just keep your weather-eye open, my lady. You'll get something you won't fancy, I can tell you."

From this menace, Elsa went straight to her Aunt Ellen, to ask if it was true that all her father's fortune was left to G.o.dfrey. In great concern at her having been told, Miss Ellen was obliged to own that it was so, though she still concealed the fact that flagrant injustice had been done, the money so bequeathed having all come to Colonel Brabourne through his first wife. This part of the story, however, was gleefully supplied by G.o.dfrey, who had been lying in ambush outside the door to jeer at her as she came out.

"Well, ain't it true? Eh? I don't tell so many crackers as you, you see.

And the joke of it is that all the money came from your mother, and now my mother's son has got it. My! weren't the old aunts in a state, too?

You should hear my Uncle Fred on the subject! But if your mother was like these old cats I'm sure my papa must have been jolly glad to be quit of her!"

Elsa darted at him with a cry of rage, but he saved himself by flight.

If anything had been wanting to fill the cup of her hatred to the brim, here it was. Had it not been for this child, she would have been rich--very rich. She would have been able to marry Osmond, to have a large fine house in London, to have her gowns cut like Lady Mabel's, and to possess necklaces, lace, jewels, and all things beautiful in profusion.

He had stolen her fortune, insulted her mother, humiliated herself. The violence of her wrath and rancour were beyond all limits, and she had never been taught self control. She loathed G.o.dfrey; the very sight of him choked her; she could scarcely swallow food when he was at the table; yet she had no thought of appealing to her aunts. She had never received sympathy in all her life--why should she expect it now?

Such was the state of things at Edge Willoughby. The stagnant days of yore, when existence merely flowed quietly on from hour to hour, were no more. The spell was broken, the prince had kissed and wakened the sleeping beauty--human pa.s.sion had rushed in upon the pa.s.sionless calm, the tide of life from the outer world was flowing, flowing in the fresh breeze.

Partly on all these changes was Mr. Cranmer meditating as they drove back to Lower House in the dulness of an autumn afternoon.

The weather was threatening, the sea of that strange, thick, lurid tinge, which suggests a disturbance somewhere under the surface. The gulls skimmed low, with strange cries, over the sluggish heaving water.

He thought of the hot bright day of the picnic, when the young gulls were not yet flown, and when their wild laughter echoed along the nest-riddled cliff walls.

A melancholy feeling was upon him, that the year was broken and gone, that there would be no more fair weather, no more violet and amber and crimson in the west.

To-morrow he was to leave the valley and go north to shoot over a friend's moor in Scotland. It was the best thing he could do, he told himself. There would be plenty of society, such different society from that he had known of late. There would be women of his set, women who spoke the social s.h.i.+bboleths he knew. There would be bleak moorland and dark grey rock, which would not seem so horribly at variance with cold weather as did this Valley of Avilion; for the whole party, taking their cue from Osmond, had been wont to speak of Edge always as Avilion.

At Ardnacruan he felt certain that he would regain his normal serenity, his cheerful from-day-to-day enjoyment of life; but this afternoon all influences seemed combined to make him experience that nameless feeling of misery and loss which the Germans call _katzenjammer_. The first verse of "James Lee's Wife" was saying itself over and over in his head, and he could not forget it. The mare's feet, in their even trot, kept time to it, the rolling of the wheels formed a sad, monotonous accompaniment.

"Ah, love, but a day, And the world has changed!

The sun's away And the bird estranged.

The wind has dropped And the sky's deranged, Summer has stopped."

He wished he had had the sense to leave the place a day before instead of a day after the Allonbys. He knew that he had been due at Ardnacruan on Tuesday, and to-day was Thursday. Why on earth had he been so idiotic, so weak, so altogether contemptible?

Well, it was over now, and he meant for the future to possess his soul, untroubled by any distressing emotions; and, meanwhile, the thoughts of Wynifred, as she sat in the train, steaming towards London, were almost exactly a reproduction of his own.

Every turn of the lanes through which they drove brought back to Claud a memory of something which had taken place during the past summer. Here was a view they had admired together--here the quaint old gateway, half-way down the hill which Wynifred had sketched, the lane sloping so abruptly that the back legs of her camp-stool had to be artificially supported. In that field Hilda and Jac had laid out tea, and the whole party had enjoyed a warm discussion on the subject of family s.h.i.+bboleths. It began by Hilda's remarking that poor old Osmond could hardly be looked upon as a war-horse any longer; and, on being pressed to unravel this dark saying, she had explained with some confusion, that _war-horse_ had been Jac's translation of _hors de combat_ at a very early age, and that they had always used it since, which led on to various other specimens from nursery dictionaries, and much amusing nonsense. It was all past now.

In Claud's mind was a bitter thought which has countless times occurred to most of us, that the past is absolutely irreclaimable. We can never have our good minute again; it is gone. He knew the mood would pa.s.s, but that did not lessen the suffering while it lasted. Would he ever regret the days that were gone, with a regret that should be lifelong--was it possible that an hour might dawn in the far future when he should be prepared to give all to have that time again, that he might yield to the impulses of his heart, and speak as he felt?

"It will come, I suspect, at the end of life, When you sit alone and review the past."

What nonsense!

As the dog-cart shot in through the gates of Lower House, he shook himself, and roused from his morbid reverie.

"How conversational we have both been!" he said, with a laugh.

"Yes," said Henry, gazing round with a sad expression in his kind eyes.

"We miss those merry girls."

"They seem to enjoy life," observed Claud.

"Yes, indeed; and what makes it so fascinating is the a.s.surance one always has of there being a solid foundation under all that fun. Many girls with twice their social advantages have not one half their fresh enjoyment."

"I believe you are right," was the answer, with a sigh which did not escape the other.

"We must not moralise," said the master of Lower House, briskly. "The day is dull, but don't let us follow its example. Would you care to walk to Edge Willoughby, take tea, and make your adieux?"

"Thanks--yes--I think I should. They have been most hospitable."

"Take a mackintosh," said Mr. Fowler, who had been surveying the threatening horizon; "we are going to have a bad night, I believe."

As he spoke, a ray of sunset light, darting through a rift in the watery sky, fell on a gleaming white sail some distance out at sea. It recalled to Claud his walk home to Poole with Wynifred.

"A yacht, a cutter," said his companion, with anxious interest. "She will never be able to make Lyme harbor to-night."

They watched the flas.h.i.+ng thing for a minute or two in silence; then the rainy gleam faded from the sea, and the sail became again invisible.

They set off for Edge Willoughby, a short ten minutes walk.

Each now made an effort to converse, but with poor success. As they pa.s.sed at the foot of a hill, crowned and flanked with arches, there was a rustling noise, and out into the path before them lightly sprang Elsa.

Claud had never seen her look more beautiful or more strange. Something in her expression arrested his eye.

Since her friends.h.i.+p with the Allonby girls, her whole wardrobe had become regenerated, and the beautiful proportions of her fine figure were no longer obscured by ill-fitting monstrosities. Her dress was dark blue, so was her hat, and she had knotted a soft crimson shawl over her chest. The buffetting wind had lent a magnificent glow to her skin, her eyes were s.h.i.+ning--she had altogether an excited look, as though her feelings had been strongly worked upon.

"Why, where have you been, Elsa?" asked her G.o.dfather, as they greeted her.