The Tree of Knowledge Part 4

"People are not murdered out in the road in broad daylight here in England."

"Oh, won't you come?--won't you come? I tell you he is bleeding--I saw the blood on Jane's hand!" cried Elaine, with a shudder of irrepressible repugnance.

"Let us drive on at once and see to this," said Claud, with sudden energy, rising and letting himself out into the road. "I will go on the box with Goodman, if this young lady will take my seat--she looks fearfully exhausted."

"I have run so fast," said Elaine, with a smile of apology, as, nothing loth, she sank into the vacant seat. "Tell him to drive quickly, won't you? He must take the first turning to the right."

Mr. Cranmer mounted to the box, and the horses started briskly, Goodman being by no means less excited than his master and mistress at this novel experience.

The girl leaned back in the carriage and hid her face. The whole of her frame was shaking with feeling she could not repress.

Her companion looked at her with eager sympathy, and presently it seemed as if the magnetism of her wonderful eyes drew Elaine to look up at her, which she did in a timid, appealing way, as if imploring some solution of the mysteries of life which were bursting upon her so suddenly.

It was a very remarkable face which bent down to hers--a face not so much beautiful as expressive. The features were so strong that they would have been masculine but for the eyes--such eyes! Of the darkest iron-grey, darkened still more by the blackness of brows and lashes--eyes which could flash, and melt, s.h.i.+ne with laughter, brim with tears--eyes which were never the same two moments together. Their effect was heightened by the fact that, though Lady Mabel Wynch-Frere was certainly not yet forty, her hair was ashen grey, as could be seen under her travelling-hat.

She was very small, slender, thin, and active--a person impossible to describe--genial, impetuous, yet one with whom no one dared take a liberty; a creature of moods and fancies, delighting in the unusual and the Quixotic.

To-day's adventure suited her exactly; her eyes were full of such unutterable sympathy as she bent them on the frightened girl beside her, that whatever secret Elaine might have possessed must infallibly have been told to her; but Elaine's life, as we know, possessed no secrets.

"Don't you trouble," said that wonderful vibrating voice, "we shall find it not so bad as you think. You have been sadly frightened, but it will all come right. Do you live near here?"

"About three miles."

"Will you tell me your name?"

"Elaine Brabourne."

"Mine is Mabel Wynch-Frere, and that is my brother, Claud Cranmer."

"Taking my name in vain, Mab?" asked the Honorable Claud, half turning round.

"Claud, this young lady's name is Brabourne," said Lady Mabel, in her gracious way.

Claud lifted his hat and bowed, as if it were a formal introduction.

"Any relation of poor Val's, I wonder?" he said.

"Who was Val?"

"Colonel of the 102nd before Edward got it."

"Oh, I remember. Are you by chance related to the late Colonel Brabourne?"

"He was my father," said Elaine, timidly.

"Oh, ho!--then this is one of the wards in chancery," said Claud, with amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. "I beg your pardon, Miss Brabourne, but is it not your unenviable lot to be a ward in Chancery?"

But Elaine heeded him not. The carriage had turned swiftly down the lane, and she had caught sight of Jane's sunbonnet crouching over that motionless figure in the gra.s.s. The sound of wheels made Jane look up; and it would be beyond the power of any pen to describe the dismay depicted in her countenance as the carriage stopped, and she caught sight of her young mistress--flushed, dishevelled, her hat gone, and the light of a tremendous excitement burning in her eyes.

Mr. Cranmer had opened the door in a moment, and Lady Mabel, in her neat little travelling-dress, sprang to the ground as lightly as a girl of eighteen, Elaine scrambling awkwardly after her.

"My word!" said Lady Mabel, impetuously, "what can be the meaning of this?"

"I don't know who you are, mum," said Jane, bluntly, "but I can tell you I'm right glad to see a fellow-creature's face. It's give me such a turn as I never had in all my born days, sitting here alone, not knowing any minute whether the hand that struck this poor young man mightn't strike me next. There's been foul play here, sir, as sure as my name's Jane Gollop; and not an hour back he was sitting here a-painting quite quiet and happy, for Miss Elaine and me seen him as we went by to the farm."

CHAPTER V.

The past was a sleep, and her life began.

BROWNING.

"Oh, indeed I think you must be mistaken," said Mr. Cranmer. "It can't be murder--it must be a sunstroke, or a fit."

"Queer sunstroke, to wait till five o'clock in the evening to strike, and queer fit to break a man's arm," said Jane, with some warmth. "I've seen apoplexy, sir, and I've seen epilepsy, and I've seen many and many a sunstroke; I know 'em when I see 'em. This here isn't nothing of that sort."

Claud approached, hastily cramming an eyegla.s.s in one eye, and, stooping over the wounded man, without further ado pulled open his flannel s.h.i.+rt and laid a hand over his heart. His face grew grave.

"We must have help for him quickly," he said, in an alert, decided tone, which did not seem to match his dilletante exterior. "Where is the nearest place to run to?"

"Poole is quite close--the farmhouse yonder--I thought Miss Elaine had gone there," said Jane.

He just touched the arm which lay powerless, the coat-sleeve soaked in blood, and shook his head.

"You're right enough--it's no fit; it's a brutal a.s.sault," he said. "A robbery, I suppose. I'll run to the farm--who'll show me the way?"

"I--I can run fast!" cried Elaine, who seemed to have pinned her faith on Mr. Cranmer.

They scrambled down through the gap in the hedge, and ran breathlessly across the Waste. It was hard to believe that the animated, emotional creature whose feet seemed to fly over the uneven ground was the same as the dull, spiritless girl who had trailed the tip of her parasol along unwillingly in the dust such a short time back.

"Do you know the people--at--the--farm?" panted Claud, who was not in training.

"Oh, yes. Mind the bog--don't get over the stile, it's broken--come through the gap. There's Clara come back from the milking. Clara! Clara!

call your father, call the men, quick! Something most dreadful has happened!"

These ominous words, p.r.o.nounced at the top of the shrill young voice, filled the farmyard as if by magic. The men and girls, the boys, the farmer and his wife, all rushed out of doors, and great indeed was their astonishment to see Miss Brabourne arrive on the scene with a perfectly strange gentleman as her escort. It was well that some one was at hand who could tell the story more coherently than poor Elaine, who by this time was quite at the end of her powers.

No sooner did Mr. Battis.h.i.+ll comprehend what was wanted than his fastest horse was saddled and his son was galloping for a doctor, while the farm-laborers pulled down a hurdle, and, spreading a blanket over it, proceeded briskly to the scene of the disaster, accompanied by the farmer himself.

Mrs. Battis.h.i.+ll urged Elaine to stay with her, but, though white and almost speechless, the girl vehemently refused--she must go back and see what had happened.

Claud Cranmer took her hand as if she had been a little girl, and she clasped his vehemently with both hers.

"Oh, do you think he will die?" she whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"I hope not; he looks a big strong fellow. It will depend, I should think, on whether or not his skull is broken. He is not a friend of yours, is he?"