Contraband Part 10

"Seen him!" repeated Mrs. Mole. "He comes here once a-week regular and pays, I'll say that for him--pays like the bank. 'Handsome is as handsome does,' says I, an' he's a real gentleman, I make no doubt."

"Is he young or old?" pursued Miss Ross. "Tall or short? Dark or fair?

How is he dressed? In one word--what is he like?"

Mrs. Mole, whose memory and perceptive powers in general were failing a little, thereby affording wider scope to her imagination, plunged at once into a comprehensive description, much ornamented and idealised, of the person who had lately become so important an object in her quiet every-day life--a description from which Miss Ross felt she could not have identified any individual simply human; but which was happily cut short by a step on the high road, and a click at the little green gate giving access to the front door of the cottage.

"It's not his day, miss," said Mrs. Mole, pulling her guest to the window. "But here he is, for sure, and you can judge for yourself!"

One glance was enough. Miss Ross, dropping Johnnie (in the safest possible att.i.tude) on the floor, fled to the back kitchen panting for breath.

It was Achille! There could be no doubt about it! The same jaunty air, the same gaudy dress, the same manner, gestures, ways, even to the cigar between his teeth--a little stouter, perhaps, and more prosperous looking than when she saw him last; but still unmistakably the husband who deceived, outraged, deserted her, to whom, if she were really married, she felt she had better have tied a mill-stone round her neck, and plunged herself into the sea!

Escape was her first impulse--escape at any price! He must never find her! He must on no account see her here! With a hasty farewell to Mrs.

Mole, who thought all the better of her visitor for the modesty that forbade her to confront a strange gentleman, she vanished through the back-door of the cottage, as Picard, for it was no other, entered at the front, and running down a stony path direct to the river-side found herself wishing only that she could swim, so as to make her plunge, and strike out at once for the opposite sh.o.r.e. Glancing wistfully around, there was yet something in the whole situation that struck her as ludicrous in the extreme. Hemmed in by cottage gardens, escape was out of the question on either side, while to retrace her steps along the stony pathway was to return into the jaws of the enemy. At her feet, the river looked cool, shallow, and inviting. Jin wondered if it would be possible to wade. In her perplexity she clasped her hands and began to laugh. Then she thought of her boy and began to cry. This young person was by no means a subject for hysterics; but her feelings had been cruelly wrought on during the last half-hour, and there is no saying what might have happened if a.s.sistance had not arrived at the opportune moment from an unlooked-for quarter.

It has been already stated that Helen Hallaton showed less inclination to go to the races than is usual with a young lady, who has a new bonnet in a box up-stairs, and an excuse for taking it out. Frank Vanguard too, contrary to all precedent, declined driving his team to the Course, and remained tranquilly in barracks with the orderly-officer and the mess-waiters, whilst everybody else was off for the day. I do not suppose these young people _understood_ each other; but I fancy they _thought_ they did, and perhaps this was the reason one only started with her companions under pressure, while the other preferred a skiff and a pair of sculls (not an outrigger observe, in which there is only room for the oarsman) to the box of his drag, and a sustained contest for many miles with the iron mouth of his near wheeler.

This young officer then, stripped to the very verge of decency, came flashing up the stream with steady strokes and strong that brought him alongside of Mrs. Mole's cottage, within a few seconds of Jin's flight from that sanctuary. It is not to be supposed that any amount of pre-occupation would prevent our floating dragoon from resting on his oars to admire the rare and radiant vision: a handsome girl clad in bright transparencies, exhaled as it would seem by an ardent sunshine from the teeming margin of Father Thames.

He thought of Rhodes and Helios, and the picture in last year's exhibition. So thinking, he backed water, of course, with the utmost energy.

"Captain Vanguard," pleaded a voice, he had thought yesterday not without its charm, "will you be a good Samaritan and give me a pa.s.sage to The Lilies?"

"He would be delighted." Of course he would! To take such a sitter ought to be pleasure enough; but better still to have so good an excuse for calling at The Lilies and finding Miss Hallaton at home.

"I've been visiting a poor woman in that cottage," said Miss Ross, giving him her hand as she stepped lightly into the fragile bark he brought so skilfully to her feet. "But it really is _too_ hot for walking back along the road. I'm in luck. If I hadn't seen you, I do believe I should have jumped in to swim!"

"I'm the lucky one, Miss Ross," answered Frank, looking very manly and handsome, as with lengthened strokes he shot into the stream. "I'm very glad now I didn't go to the races. It's as well too that I brought this skiff instead of the outrigger!"

And Uncle Joseph, quarrelling fiercely with Punch, beheld it all, boiling, chafing, growling, wondering at the perfidy of woman, cursing the imbecility of man.

CHAPTER X.

AFLOAT.

It was a pleasant trip for waterman and freight. Over-handed sculls, light sitter, and buoyant boat, Frank laid himself out to his work as if he liked it; and Miss Ross, dipping her white fingers in the pleasant ripple, looked kindly into the oarsman's eyes, while her lissome figure bent and swayed in graceful unison with his stroke.

Steadily, smoothly, swimmingly, they shot on, through deep, cool, silent shade, where overhanging boughs bent longingly towards the laughing waters as they ran past; across broad burnished sheets of gold, where dazzling sunshine flashed and glittered on the stream; over placid pools, translucent and serene, where the drooping water-lily scarce ruffled a languid petal to kiss the lingering current stealing by; under high fragrant banks, rich in tints of pearl and pink, emerald and ruby, of all the brightest, fairest hues that Nature lavishes on the flower, like the gem; past lawn and villa, past water-mill and meadow land, past nibbling sheep and wading cattle, a barking dog, a boat-house, an unsuccessful angler in a punt; and so to a fair expanse of smooth untroubled water, a mile below the lock.

There are voyages on which we all embark unconsciously to ourselves, careless of life-belt or sea-stores, making no provision for the climes to which they lead; voyages that begin with a fair wind, a summer sea, and a smiling sky; that end, too often, in loss of crew and cargo, in shipwreck, disaster, and despair. Miss Ross, though she scarcely suspected it, had even now set foot on a plank which was to sink with her hereafter, and leave her choking in the dark pitiless waves.

"_Isn't_ it nice?" said she, taking off a jaunty little hat, to smooth her hair back with dripping hands. "I delight in the motion--something between swimming and riding. I should like to row, myself. Don't you find it hard work? You _must_ be tired. Let us stop here a little in the shade."

A longer pull would have failed to tire Frank, who was no mean waterman, and in excellent condition,

"But then the situation had its charm,"

and to rest in the shade with Miss Ross was no unpleasant break in a day's work.

She fanned him with her hat, rocking the boat to and fro as it lay under the bank, sheltered by a thick screen of fragrant, flickering lime branches.

"I can't thank you enough," continued Jin, in her most winning tones.

"I'm so fond of the water, I think I was meant for a sailor. I should like to go on it every day."

"I'll take you!" said Frank, as what else could he say? "Every day, and all day long. Shall we fix to-morrow, at the same place and the same time?" He was laughing, but thought, nevertheless, it would be no bad way of spending the summer, while so unfortunate as to be quartered at Windsor. Ah! if it had only been Helen! But it wasn't. So there was no use in thinking about that!

"We can't always do what we like," answered Jin, looking pensively into the depths of the Thames. "At least women can't--certainly I can't!

Think how I should be pitched into when I got home! You wouldn't like me to be scolded for your sake, Captain Vanguard?"

"I think I _should_," replied the inexcusable young officer. "I think I should like to scold you myself, if I had the right."

"Ah! you'd like making up again, I dare say!" laughed Jin, and, with that, the black eyes delivered one telling shot straight into Frank's, and were instantly averted.

"We'll quarrel as much as you please, on those terms," said he gaily, and, for aught I can guess, might have proceeded to premature reconciliation forthwith, but that she knew the game so well, and checked him at the right moment.

"I quarrel with my _friends_, Captain Vanguard," she objected; "and you are only an acquaintance as yet. It takes me a long time to become really intimate with people. I wonder if I should like you more when I knew you better?"

"I'm sure you would," answered Frank, rattling the boat's chain, as he prepared for work again. "You would improve me so, do you see; and I am so willing to be improved. You wouldn't be able to do without me in a week."

"I don't think that would be a good plan," she said, in rather a mournful tone, gazing dreamily at him with her great black eyes, as if she saw miles into the future. "I can take good care of myself--n.o.body better. But if I like people at all I like them very much. It's my nature--I wish it wasn't."

"Then you don't like _me_ at all?" he replied, in a low voice, bending down to alter the stretcher at his feet. "Just my luck!" Why couldn't he leave edged tools alone? Like a very child, he must needs play with them, only because they lay to his hand. How we all cut our fingers without the slightest occasion long after we believe ourselves old enough and wise enough to run alone!

"If I did, I shouldn't tell you so," answered Jin, lowering her voice in harmony with his. "Do you think a woman never keeps a secret? Captain Vanguard, I can't quite make you out; you puzzle me more than anybody I know."

Frank, sculling leisurely on, began to think this was very pleasant. It gratified him to suppose there should be depths unfathomed in his character; it flattered him to learn that this clever, accomplished woman had thought it worth while to try and search them to the bottom.

Perhaps the exercise flushed it a little, but there was a very becoming colour in his face while he replied:

"The plainest fellow in the world, Miss Ross, and the honestest, as you'll find, when you know me better. I may chaff a little sometimes, like other people, but everybody can tell what's chaff and what's earnest. _You_ can, I'm sure."

She nodded and smiled. "Are you in earnest _now_?" she said, looking with real pleasure into the comely, honest young face.

"I am, I'll swear!" he exclaimed, forgetting that nothing had yet been spoken to be earnest about. "What I think I say, and what I say I mean!"

"I wish--no--I wonder, whether I can believe you," she answered very softly, and again the black eyes seemed to pierce right through his jersey to his heart.

Meanwhile their boat shot merrily over the dead water, urged by her oarsman's skilled and vigorous strokes. Jin watched with critical approval the play of his muscular shoulders, the ease and freedom of his movements, the strength, symmetry, and youthful vitality of the man.

"Do you like poetry?" she asked, after a minute's silence.

"Poetry?" repeated Frank doubtfully. "I don't mind it," but qualified the admission by adding, "glees, and songs, and that."

She was rather thinking aloud than speaking to her companion, while she continued:

"I always admire that description of the Scandinavian warrior's accomplishments: there is something so simple about it, and so manly: