The Passion for Life Part 17

"Oh, yes; Bella told me she had met you, and was afraid she had shocked you."

"No, I was not shocked at all; I was very interested."

"Bella is a curious girl," said Hugh Lethbridge, after a short silence.

"We have always been very good friends, but I have never understood her.

Even when she was quite a girl she was different from those of her own age."

"In what way?"

"She was always so hard, so matter of fact. I have told her more than once that she has no soul." He said the words lightly, but to me they were ominous with meaning. He had put into words what I had felt.

"I suppose I ought not to say this," went on Hugh; "but I don't feel towards you as I do towards other men. I don't know why it is. No sooner did I see you than I wanted to have you as a friend; I felt I could trust you. You don't mind my saying this, do you?"

"Rather it is awfully good of you."

"I am a lonely kind of fellow," he went on, "and my home life has shut me off from the society of those I might care for. Other fellows invite their college chums to stay with them, and all that kind of thing, but the pater never allowed me to do it. Why, I don't know. I know it is wrong to discuss one's people before a stranger, but, as I said just now, I don't feel you are a stranger. What do you think of my father, Erskine?"

"I think he is a strong, capable man," I replied.

"Yes, there is no doubt about that. Why, years ago he was only a poor lad, living in a district where there seemed to be very few chances of a lad making his way, and yet you see what he has done. He was a clerk in the office of a man who had to do with s.h.i.+pping in Penzance. Only in a small way, you know, but he gave my father the chance to learn the business. He did learn it. What the pater doesn't know about s.h.i.+pping isn't worth knowing. To-day he owns scores of vessels. He got into touch with the mining world, too, and he seemed to possess a sort of genius for fastening on to mines that would pay. He has not only a controlling interest in the few prosperous Cornish mines, but he is connected with the mining world in almost every country where mines are to be found. He is as keen as a razor, is the pater, and has a way of making his will felt everywhere.

"And yet he is a most conscientious man. That is, conscientious in his own way. He used to be very religious. He used to pray at the Chapel, and all that sort of thing, but he's given it up now. But he holds to the form of religion still. As you heard him say the other night, he is a very strong believer in democracy. On the other hand, a greater autocrat never lived. In reality he believes in the feudal system, even while he professes to scorn what we call aristocracy. Yes, I see you smile. Never was a man more anxious to a.s.sociate with county families than he. But he never yields an inch to them. If he had, he would have been admitted into what is called county society. Even as it is, Squire Treherne seems to be afraid of him."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Oh, he pays deference to his opinions; always supports him in public matters, and all that sort of thing. I am inclined to think that the pater has old Treherne in his power. You will not say anything about this, will you, Erskine? I do not believe my father cares a fig about me," he added.

"Nonsense!" I replied.

"I don't really. In a way he is interested in me. I suppose it is because blood is thicker than water, but do you know I can never remember the time when he kissed me, or anything of that sort. He always tried to rule me with a rod of iron."

"And has he treated your sister in the same way?" I asked.

"Yes, and no. Do you know, Erskine, my sister is a strange girl."

I was silent. I felt I had no right to ask the question which rose in my mind.

"What do you think of Bella?" he asked suddenly.

He did not seem to realize that he was overstepping the bounds of good taste in asking me, a stranger, such a question, and I realized more than ever that he was only an impulsive boy, although he had reached man's estate. Indeed, in one sense, Hugh did not know what it was to be reserved, and yet in others he was strangely reticent.

I thought he seemed to be about to take me further into his confidence at this point, but, perhaps noting the non-committal nature of my reply, he desisted.

"Of course, she's a bundle of contradictions," he said; "but she's really splendid. Why, on the day after she'd--but, there, I mustn't tell you about that. Anyhow, there was an accident at Pendeen Mine. Two men were believed to be in danger of drowning by the flooding of the old workings. The miners had made every attempt--at least, so they said--to rescue them, and to do anything more would be to throw away their own lives."

"Yes," I said. "What then?"

"Bella went to them and talked to them as they had never been talked to before. She laughed all their protests to scorn, and when they proved to her that, humanly speaking, they had done all that men could do, she insisted upon going down the mine herself. It was the maddest thing a woman could do, and G.o.d only knows how she did it; but she rescued the miners. Why, it was in all the newspapers. Yes, Bella is magnificent, but--but----"

Hugh Lethbridge was silent for some time after this, neither did I speak. I was thinking of the impression she had made on me when I first saw her.

"She was never like other girls, even when she was a child," he went on.

"She did not care for games--that is, ordinary children's games--so, although she is only two years older than I, we were never what you call playfellows. She is a very brainy girl, too, and by the time she was fourteen had read all sorts of out-of-the-way books."

"I wonder she did not go to Somerville or Girton when she left school."

"That's what she wanted," replied Lethbridge, "but the pater said he did not believe in women going to a university. He has always maintained that this modern craze about advanced education for women is so much nonsense. Still, Bella is an educated girl. She speaks French and German and Italian fluently, and there is scarcely a cla.s.sical writer in these languages whom she has not read first hand. Yes, Bella is a strange girl, but very hard."

Again there was a silence between us for some seconds.

"She is not at all like mother," went on Lethbridge. "I wish she were.

Although, as you saw the other night, we teased mother about being general manager of the world, there is scarcely a family in the parish which mother has not helped in one way or another, and in a way she is very popular; but no one would think of going to Bella in trouble."

I must confess that I wanted to ask more questions about her, but refrained from so doing. After all, it would not have been good taste on my part.

"Well, I must be going now," said Lethbridge presently, rising from his chair. "I am glad I have seen you. Our chat, somehow, has done me good, although I have done most of the talking. I was awfully restless after dinner to-night, and the walk here, and seeing you, have made me feel better. By the way"--and I saw that this was what he had really come for--"I spoke to you about Mary Treleaven the other night."

"Yes, I remember."

"I have had a row with the pater about her to-day."

"I am sorry for that."

"It was bound to come. You see, he will not hear of my marrying her. He says it would be pure madness on my part, and if I will not fall in with his wishes he will not give me a penny. I should like to introduce you to Mary; I told you so, didn't I? Will you let me?"

"If you like, certainly," I replied; "but really, Lethbridge, I cannot help you in that matter. I would not, even if I could. It would not be right."

"If you knew her you would," he said, with boyish eagerness. "She's the finest, sweetest girl in the country, and she is the only one I could be happy with. As for the pater's ideas, I won't fall in with them--I won't." He went to the door as he spoke, and looked out over the sea.

"It's a glorious night," he said; "there is not a cloud in the sky, and the light of the moon transforms everything into a fairyland."

I went to his side as he spoke, and as I did so a kind of s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed through me. The night was, indeed, wonderful. The moon shone so brightly that no stars appeared, and I could see the long line of cliffs stretching northward. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred, and I could hear the waves lapping musically on the hard yellow beach beneath.

"I will walk a few steps with you, Lethbridge," I said. "I will not go far. But really this is not an evening to spend indoors. How I wish I were strong and healthy!"

Putting on a summer overcoat, I walked with him along the footpath through the copse, and when at length we reached the open country, where heather-covered moorland stretched away on either side, both of us stopped and listened.

"What a noise the silence is making!" said Lethbridge. "Did you ever hear anything like it?"

"No," I said, "the hush is simply wonderful."

Scarcely had we spoken, when rising suddenly before us was the form of a man, and again those strange eyes, which had haunted me for hours, flashed before me. The man moved so quickly that I could not discern his features. He uttered a cry as he went--a cry similar to that I heard in the copse hours before.

"Do you know who it is?" I asked.

"No," replied Lethbridge. "Strange, isn't it?"

"Anyhow, it explains what I saw this afternoon. It might seem as though some one were watching me."