Helbeck of Bannisdale Volume I Part 24

"Yes, on Thursday, at eight. I shall go early. I have engaged a fly to take me to the farm--thank you!--and my cousins will see me home. I am obliged to you for the key. It will save my giving any trouble."

"If you did we should not grudge it," he said quietly.

She was silent for a few more steps, then she said:

"I quite understand, Mr. Helbeck, that you do not approve of my going.

But I must judge for myself. The Masons are my own people. I am sorry they should have---- Well--I don't understand--but it seems you have reason to think badly of them."

"Not of _them_," he said with emphasis.

"Of my cousin Hubert, then?"

He made no answer. She coloured angrily, then broke out, her words tumbling childishly over one another:

"There are a great many things said of Hubert that I don't believe he deserves! He has a great many good tastes--his music is wonderful. At any rate, he is my cousin; they are papa's only relations in the world. He would have been kind to Hubert; and he would have despised me if I turned my back on them because I was staying in a grand house with grand people!"

"Grand people!" said Helbeck, raising his eyebrows. "But I am sorry I led you to say these things, Miss Fountain. Excuse me--may I open this gate for you?"

She reached her own room as quickly as possible, and dropped upon the chair beside her dressing-table in a whirl of angry feeling. A small and heated face looked out upon her from the gla.s.s. But after the first instinctive moment she took no notice of it. With the mind's eye she still saw the figure she had just parted from, the n.o.ble poise of the head, thrown back on the broad shoulders, the black and greys of the hair, the clear penetrating glance--all the slight signs of age and austerity that had begun to filch away the Squire's youth. It was at least ten minutes before she could free herself enough from the unwelcome memories of her walk to find a vindictive pleasure in running hastily to look at her one white dress--all she had to wear at the Browhead dance.

On Thursday afternoon Helbeck was fishing in the park. The sea-trout were coming up, the day was soft, and he had done well. But just as the evening rise was beginning he put up his rod and went home. Father Leadham had taken his departure. Augustina, Miss Fountain, and he were again alone in the house.

He went into his study, and left the door open, while he busied himself with some writing.

Presently Augustina put her head in. She looked dishevelled, and rather pinker than usual, as always happened when there was the smallest disturbance of her routine.

"Laura has just gone up to dress, Alan. Is it fine?"

"There is no rain," he said, without turning his head. "Don't shut the door, please. This fire is oppressive."

She went away, and he wrote on a little while--then listened. He heard hurrying feet and movements overhead, and presently a door opened hastily, and a voice exclaimed, "Just two or three, you know, Ellen--from that corner under the kitchen-window! Run, there's a good girl!"

And there was a clattering noise as Ellen ran down the front stairs, and then flew along the corridor to the garden-door.

In a minute she was back again, and as she pa.s.sed his room Helbeck saw that she was carrying a bunch of white narcissus.

Then more sounds of laughter and chatter overhead. At last Augustina hurried down and looked in upon him again, flurried and smiling.

"Alan, you really must see her. She looks so pretty."

"I am afraid I'm busy," he said, still writing. And she retired disappointed, careful, however, to follow his wishes about the door.

"Augustina, hold Bruno!" cried a light voice suddenly. "If he jumps on me I'm done for!"

A swish of soft skirts and she was there--in the hall. Helbeck could see her quite plainly as she stood by the oak table in her white dress. There was just room at the throat of it for a pearl necklace, and at the wrists for some thin gold bracelets. The narcissus were in her hair, which she had coiled and looped in a wonderful way, so that Helbeck's eyes were dazzled by its colour and abundance, and by the whiteness of the slender neck below it. She meanwhile was quite unconscious of his neighbourhood, and he saw that she was all in a happy flutter, hastily putting on her gloves, and chattering alternately to Augustina and to the transformed Ellen, who stood in speechless admiration behind her, holding a cloak.

"There, Ellen, that'll do. You're a darling--and the flowers are perfect.

Run now, and tell Mrs. Denton that I didn't keep you more than twenty minutes. Oh, yes, Augustina, I'm quite warm. I can't choke, dear, even to please you. There now--here goes! If you do lock me out, there's a corner under the bridge, quite snug. My dress will mind--I shan't. Good-night.

My compliments to Mr. Helbeck."

Then a hasty kiss to Augustina and she was gone.

Helbeck went out into the hall. Augustina was standing on the steps, watching the departing fly. At the sight of her brother she turned back to him, her poor little face aglow.

"She did look so nice, Alan! I wish she had gone to a proper dance, and not to these odd farmers and people. Why, they'll all go in their high dresses, and think her stuck-up."

"I a.s.sure you I never saw anything so smart as Miss Mason at the hunt ball," said Helbeck. "Did you give her the key, Augustina? But I shall probably sit up. There are some Easter accounts that must be done."

The old clock in the hall struck one. Helbeck was sitting in his familiar chair before the log fire, which he had just replenished. In one hand was a life of St. Philip Neri, the other played absently with Bruno's ears.

In truth he was not reading but listening.

Suddenly there was a sound. He turned his head, and saw that the door leading from the hall to the tower staircase, and thence to the kitchen regions, had been opened.

"Who's there?" he said in astonishment.

Mrs. Denton appeared.

"You, Denton! What are you up for at this time?"

"I came to see if the yoong lady had coom back," she said in a low voice, and with her most forbidding manner. "It's late, and I heard nowt."

"Late? Not at all! Go to bed, Denton, at once; Miss Fountain will be here directly."

"I'm not sleepy; I can wait for her," said the housekeeper, advancing a step or two into the hall. "You mun be tired, sir, and should take your rest."

"I'm not the least tired, thank you. Good-night. Let me recommend you to go to bed as quickly as possible."

Mrs. Denton lingered for a moment, as though in hesitation, then went with a sulky unwillingness that was very evident to her master.

Helbeck laid down his book on his knee with a little laugh.

"She would have liked to get in a scolding, but we won't give her the chance."

The reverie that followed was not a very pleasant one. He seemed to see Miss Fountain in the large rustic room, with a bevy of young men about her--young fellows in Sunday coats, with shiny hair and limbs bursting out of their ill-fitting clothes. There would be loud talking and laughter, rough jokes that would make her wince, compliments that would disgust her--they not knowing how to take her, nor she them. She would be wholly out of her place--a b.u.t.t for impertinence--perhaps worse. And there would be a certain sense of dragging a lady from her sphere--of making free with the old house and the old family.

He thought of it with disgust. He was an aristocrat to his fingers' ends.

But how could it have been helped? And when he remembered her as she stood there in the hall, so young and pretty, so eager for her pleasure, he said to himself with sudden heartiness:

"Nonsense! I hope the child has enjoyed herself." It was the first time that, even in his least formal thoughts, he had applied such a word to her.

Silence again. The wind breathed gently round the house. He could hear the river rushing.

Once he thought there was a sound of wheels and he went to the outer door, but there was nothing. Overhead the stars shone, and along the track of the river lay a white mist.