Helbeck of Bannisdale Volume I Part 9

He laughed out. The priest laughed, too, more softly.

"It was the first time, I presume, that Miss Fountain had ever been within a Catholic church?" he said to Augustina.

Augustina flushed.

"Of course it is the first time. Oh! Alan, you can't think how strange it is to her."

She looked rather piteously at her brother.

"So I perceive," he said. "You told me something, but I had not realised----"

"You see, Alan--" cried Augustina, watching her brother's face,--"it was with the greatest difficulty that her mother got Stephen to consent even to her being baptized. He opposed it for a long time."

Father Bowles murmured something under his breath.

Helbeck paused for a moment, then said:

"What was her mother like?"

"Everyone at Cambridge used to say she was 'a sweet woman'--but--but Stephen,--well, you know, Alan, Stephen always had his way! I always wonder she managed to persuade him about the baptism."

She coloured still more deeply as she spoke, and her nervous infirmity became more p.r.o.nounced. Alas! it was not only with the first wife that Stephen had had his way! Her own marriage had begun to seem to her a mere sinful connection. Poor soul--poor Augustina!

Her brother must have divined something of what was pa.s.sing in her mind, for he looked down upon her with a peculiar gentleness.

"People are perhaps more ready to talk of that responsibility than to take it," he said kindly. "But, Augustina,--" his voice changed,--"how pretty she is!--You hardly prepared me----"

Father Bowles modestly cast down his eyes. These were not questions that concerned him. But Helbeck went on, speaking with decision, and looking at his sister:

"I confess--her great attractiveness makes me a little anxious--about the connection with the Masons. Have you ever seen any of them, Augustina?"

No--Augustina had seen none of them. She believed Stephen had particularly disliked the mother, the widow of his cousin, who now owned the farm jointly with her son.

"Well, no," said Helbeck dryly, "I don't suppose he and she would have had much in common."

"Isn't she a dreadful Protestant--Alan?"

"Oh, she's just a specimen of the ordinary English Bible-worship run mad," he said, carelessly. "She is a strange woman, very well known about here. And there's a foolish parson living near them, up in the hills, who makes her worse. But it's the son I'm thinking of."

"Why, Alan--isn't he respectable?"

"Not particularly. He's a splendid athletic fellow--doing his best to make himself a blackguard, I'm afraid. I've come across him once or twice, as it happens. He's not a desirable cousin for Miss Fountain--that I can vouch for! And unluckily," he smiled, "Miss Fountain won't hear any good of this house at Browhead Farm."

Even Augustina drew herself up proudly.

"My dear Alan, what does it matter what that sort of people think?"

He shook his head.

"It's a queer business. They were mixed up with young Williams."

Augustina started.

"Mrs. Mason was a great friend of his mother, who died. They hate me like poison. However----"

The priest interposed.

"Mrs. Mason is a very violent, a most unseemly woman," he said, in his mincing voice. "And the father--the old man--who is now dead, was concerned in the rioting near the bridge----"

"When Alan was struck? Mrs. Denton told me! How _abominable_!"

Augustina raised her hands in mingled reprobation and distress.

Helbeck looked annoyed.

"That doesn't matter one bra.s.s farthing," he said, in some haste. "Father Bowles was much worse treated than I on that occasion. But you see the whole thing is unlucky--it makes it difficult to give Miss Fountain the hints one would like to give her."

He threw himself down beside his sister, talking to her in low tones.

Father Bowles took up the local paper.

Presently Augustina broke out--with another wringing of the hands.

"Don't put it on me, my dear Alan! I tell you--Laura has always done exactly what she liked since she was a baby."

Mr. Helbeck rose. His face and air already expressed a certain haughtiness; and at his sister's words there was a very definite tightening of the shoulders.

"I do not intend to have Hubert Mason hanging about the house," he said quietly, as he thrust his hands into his pockets.

"Of course not!--but she wouldn't expect it," cried Augustina in dismay.

"It's the keeping her away from them, that's the difficulty. She thinks so much of her cousins, Alan. They're her father's only relations. I know she'll want to be with them half her time!"

"For love of them--or dislike of us? Oh! I dare say it will be all right," he added abruptly. "Father Bowles, shall I drive you half-way?

The pony will be round directly."

CHAPTER IV

It was a Sunday morning--bright and windy. Miss Fountain was driving a shabby pony through the park of Bannisdale--driving with a haste and glee that sent the little cart spinning down the road.

Six hours--she calculated--till she need see Bannisdale again. Her cousins would ask her to dinner and to tea. Augustina and Mr. Helbeck might have all their Sunday antics to themselves. There were several priests coming to luncheon--and a function in the chapel that afternoon.

Laura flicked the pony sharply as she thought of it. Seven miles between her and it? Joy!

Nevertheless, she did not get rid of the old house and its suggestions quite as easily as she wished. The park and the river had many windings.

Again and again the grey gabled ma.s.s thrust itself upon her attention, recalling each time, against her will, the face of its owner.

A high brow--hollows in the temples, deep hollows in the cheeks--pale blue eyes--a short and pointed beard, greyish-black like the hair--the close whiskers black, too, against the skin--a general impression of pallor, dark lines, strong shadows, melancholy force--