A Practical Novelist Part 3

She had grown pale, and she blushed again. She looked at him with flickering eyelids. The foolish fellow's pride in Muriel at that moment made him heartsick; the lump was in his throat, and, had he been un.o.bserved, the moisture which stood in his eyes would have overflowed. Even in the first wild anger at betrayal she would not betray again. He placed his arm about her and she sobbed; one sob, and then one tear out of each eye; and with that she mastered herself.

'Frank,' she said, as if the discovery had not been made, 'you know my father will be here to-day. He may have come while I've been talking to you. Will you speak to him to-night? I don't want to have a secret from him. Will you? You needn't be frightened. I haven't seen him since I was nine; but I know that he's like you, gentle and manly--just a gentleman. Make up your mind now--quick, quick, quick! And let me away, or I'll be late for dinner.'

And so it was arranged that they should see each other at the low-walk again at eight that evening, lest there should be any reason why Frank might not speak at once to Mr. Chartres.

CHAPTER III

ON THE ROAD

Lee secured a compartment for himself in the Greenock train. He had a large bundle of letters, taken from one of Chartres'

portmanteaus, with him. These he studied with an intensity which he had never bestowed on anything before. He selected some dozen for perusal, and was still devouring them when the train arrived at Princes Pier.

As he stepped on the platform he reeled and was only saved from falling by the porter who opened the door of the compartment in which he had travelled. This weakness was the result of the strain of the last two hours. He fortified himself with a gla.s.s of brandy and a sandwich, deposited the portmanteaus in the left-luggage office; and started to walk to Gourock.

He was a tall man, with more than proportionate length of limb.

Walking had always been his favourite exercise, and he looked along the Greenock esplanade from the summit of the approach to the station with a shining eye. All the world has admired it from the deck of the _Columba_; but to walk along it at a good spanking pace, feeling its costly breadth, its substantiality, its triumph over nature; to be conscious of the solid nineteenth-century comfort and luxury that line one side of it, ascending the hill to larger villas and more s.p.a.cious grounds; and to be, as Lee became, before he was two minutes on the road, part and parcel of the sky-blue lake-like firth, whose water murmured, for the tide was full, with soft reproach against the curbing bastion; of the shining magical houses on the other side; of the green and golden sh.o.r.eward slopes; of the depths and heights of the purple mountains that met the sky--to be drunk with the sunlight and the sea, with the merging, glowing, fading wealth of colour, and the far-reaching romance of the hills, is to enjoy to the full this west-country esplanade.

When he arrived at the end of it, Lee, unable to endure the ordinary road, jumped on a car and took a seat on the top.

He was now in a mood to dare anything, and continued his revel in the splendid July afternoon, for the brain-sick man was a poet.

Through Gourock and Ashton the car rattled, but, wrapped in his own dream, he saw nothing of them.

From the terminus he walked confidently along the sh.o.r.e road. He felt that he would know Snell House the moment he beheld it. Then there would be no difficulty. Chartres could not be expected to remember any of the domestics; besides, in ten years it was more than likely that they had all been changed twice over. His sister and daughter--he could not possibly mistake them. He would be shy a little, undemonstrative, uncommunicative, and plead his long journey--for Chartres had travelled from London on the preceding night--as an excuse for retiring early. Then----

A sudden slap on the shoulder interrupted his reverie, and, wheeling round, he confronted Briscoe, on whose face a bitter sneer was varnished over with a grin at the surprise and annoyance his appearance caused his brother-in-law.

'This way,' said Briscoe; and Lee followed him in silence.

They found a seat, one of a number placed along the sh.o.r.e between the Cloch and Ashton. There was a considerable slope from the road to the water's edge; and they were securely concealed from the eyes of pedestrians by the trees and bushes that line stretches of the sea-board.

It never entered Lee's head to ask Briscoe how he came to be there. Had he done so, Briscoe would have told him--that is, if he had thought the truth expedient--how Caroline and he, after Lee's sudden and daring departure from Peyton Street, judged it the best course to intercept him at the St. Enoch station; but how he, Briscoe, having already in his breast-pocket some of the advantages arising from Lee's deception, determined, if possible, to add to them, and so journeyed to Greenock in the same train with his brother-in-law; and, pushing on before him, waited for him at a quiet part of the road, where they might discuss the situation without much fear of interruption or observation. He had not the remotest intention of aiding Lee, whom he despised, to pursue his deception to a successful issue. On the contrary, he intended to line his own pockets as thickly as he could, and get off to London that night or the following morning. There was one risk: Chartres might recover sufficiently to come down to Snell House before he had gone. This risk he determined to run.

'I wish,' said Lee, recovering speedily from his surprise, 'you had not come down yet. I have been thinking of you and Caroline, and don't exactly see what to do with you.'

His infatuation was such that he had no doubt Briscoe intended to collaborate with him.

'I might marry you,' he continued, 'to my daughter Muriel; or, as she is perhaps too young, to my mature sister, Jane. But what to do with Caroline? You see, I didn't marry again in India. The only course I can conceive at present, will be to make her acquaintance as it were for the first time, and marry her over again. But there's no hurry; and, I think, on the whole, you had better return to Glasgow until I prepare matters for you down here.'

'Mr. Chartres,' said Briscoe, 'am I to collaborate with you, or am I not?'

Lee flushed with pleasure, and answered, 'Most certainly, my dear Peter!'

'Then I must have some share in devising the plot.'

'a.s.suredly! I beg your pardon. I was forgetting your rights.

Really, I have been selfish in the solitary enjoyment of the creation of this novel, which you began with such originality and power.'

Briscoe rather winced at this. However, he was glad to find Lee so tractable.

'Mr. Chartres,' he said, 'I am your friend, Mr. Peter Briscoe. I came from India with you. I'm a rough diamond; don't care how I dress--accounts for my rather worn toggery; see? Saved you from drowning when you fell overboard in the Bay of Biscay. You, eternally grateful; I, no friends in this country--across for a visit merely--came right north with you, agreeing to do so at the last moment, so that you had no time to advise them at Snell House.'

Lee gazed at his brother-in-law with admiration.

'Briscoe, my dear fellow,' he cried, 'you're a trump! You--you saved my life.'

'Then we'll take the road again,' said Briscoe. 'The house is round the corner; I inquired shortly before you came up.'

'Briscoe,' said Lee, 'for the first work of a newlyborn art, we are----'

'Beating the record.'

'Exactly, my rough and ready friend.'

CHAPTER IV

A HEAVY FATHER

'Now, Jane, let me understand this about Muriel. You say she is at present engaged in a grand love affair with some young hopeful or other.'

'Yes, Henry. Frank Hay is a very good-looking, clever, well-behaved young man. He has taken one of the big bursaries in Glasgow University, and looks forward to a professorship somewhere. These prospects are rather mediocre, especially in connection with a Chartres; but neither William nor I would have said a word against him were he not a foundling.'

'A foundling! How very interesting! An actual foundling.'

'O, there's nothing unusual about his case. I forget the exact details, but they differ in no essential from what we are accustomed to in stories.'

'That's rather unfortunate. I should have liked everything connected with these events to have the same characteristic as the main circ.u.mstance, distinct novelty.'

'What do you mean, Henry? Muriel is right in thinking you curiously changed.'

'Does she think so? Well; I should have stuck by my original determination, and gone to bed; but I felt so invigorated after dinner, that I thought we might as well have a talk over matters this evening.'

'Yes,' said Miss Jane, dryly, prodding Lee all over with her piercing eyes.

'Do you think,' she queried, 'we did right in forbidding Muriel to have any communication with Mr. Hay?'

'Well, my dear sister, you must see that the question of right hardly enters here. It is purely a matter of adapting means to an end. Should the course you have followed, as in the case of a pair of high-spirited lovers, be calculated to lead to strained relations, and produce, say, an elopement, I should be inclined to support you; as, although shorn of much of its romance in these days of railways and telegraphs, there is always a measure of excitement to be got out of a runaway match.'

Miss Jane meditated for several seconds; and hopefully came to the conclusion that her brother had developed a satirical tendency, which he gratified in this recondite fashion. She made no reply.

Lee resumed.