Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 28

She heaved a sigh of intense relief. For twenty-four hours at least she was free from love's importunity--she could be alone to think, and to plan. She turned to Priscilla with a gentle look and smile.

"I'll go into the garden," she said--"and when it's tea-time you'll come and fetch me, won't you? I shall be near the old stone knight, Sieur Amadis--"

"Oh, bother 'im," muttered Priscilla, irrelevantly--"You do think too much o' that there blessed old figure!--why, what's 'e got to do with you, my pretty?"

"Nothing!" and the colour came to her pale cheeks for a moment, and then fled back again--"He never had anything to do with me, really! But I seem to know him."

Priscilla gave a kind of melancholy snort--and the girl moved slowly away through the open door and beyond it, out among the radiant flowers. Her little figure in deep black was soon lost to sight, and after watching her for a minute, Priscilla turned to her home-work with tears blinding her eyes so thickly that she could scarcely see.

"If she winnot take Mister Robin, the Lord knows what'll become of 'er!" sighed the worthy woman--"For she's as lone i' the world as a thrush fallen out o' the nest before it's grown strong enough to fly!

Eh, we thort we did a good deed, Mister Jocelyn an' I, when we kep' 'er as a baby, 'opin' agin 'ope as 'er parents 'ud turn up an' be sorry for the loss of 'er--but never a sign of a soul!--an' now she's grow'd up she's thorts in 'er 'ed which ain't easy to unnerstand--for since Mister Jocelyn told 'er the tale of 'erself she's not been the same like--she's got suddin old!"

The afternoon was very peaceful and beautiful--the sun shone warmly over the smooth meadows of Briar Farm, and reddened the apples in the orchard yet a little more tenderly, flashing in flecks of gold on the "Glory" roses, and touching the wings of fluttering doves with arrowy silver gleams. No one looking at the fine old house, with its picturesque gables and latticed windows, would have thought that its last master of lawful lineage was dead and buried, and that the funeral had taken place that morning. Briar Farm, though more than three centuries old, seemed full of youthful life and promise--a vital fact, destined to outlast many more human lives than those which in the pa.s.sing of three hundred years had already left their mark upon it, and it was strange and incredible to realise that the long chain of lineally descended male ancestors had broken at last, and that no remaining link survived to carry on the old tradition. Sadly and slowly Innocent walked across the stretches of warm clover-scented gra.s.s to the ancient tomb of the "Sieur Amadis"--and sat down beside it, not far from the place where so lately she had sat with Robin--what a change had come over her life since then! She watched the sun sinking towards the horizon in a mellow mist of orange-coloured radiance,--the day was drawing to an end--the fateful, wretched day which had seen the best friend she had ever known, and whom for years she had adored and revered as her own "father," laid in the dust to perish among perishable things.

"I wish I had died instead of him," she said, half aloud--"or else that I had never been born! Oh, dear 'Sieur Amadis'!--you know how hard it is to live in the world unless some one wants you--unless some one loves you!--and no one wants me--no one loves me--except Robin!"

Solitary, and full of the heaviest sadness, she tried to think and to form plans--but her mind was tired, and she could come to no decisive resolution beyond the one all-convincing necessity--that of leaving Briar Farm. Of course she must go,--there was no other alternative. And now, thanks to Hugo Jocelyn's forethought in giving her money for her bridal "pretties," no financial difficulty stood in the way of her departure. She must go--but where? To begin with, she had no name. She would have to invent one for herself--"Yes!" she murmured--"I must invent a name--and make it famous!" Involuntarily she clenched her small hand as though she held some prize within its soft grasp. "Why not? Other people have done the same--I can but try! If I fail--!"

Her delicate fingers relaxed,--in her imagination she saw some coveted splendour slip from her hold, and her little face grew set and serious as though she had already suffered a whole life's disillusion.

"I can but try," she repeated--"something urges me on--something tells me I may succeed. And then--!"

Her eyes brightened slowly--a faint rose flushed her cheeks,--and with the sudden change of expression, she became almost beautiful. Herein lay her particular charm,--the rarest of all in women,--the pa.s.sing of the lights and shadows of thought over features which responded swiftly and emotionally to the prompting and play of the mind.

"I should have to go," she went on--"even if Dad were still alive. I could not--I cannot marry Robin!--I do not want to marry anybody. It is the common lot of women--why they should envy or desire it, I cannot think! To give one's self up entirely to a man's humours--to be glad of his caresses, and miserable when he is angry or tired--to bear his children and see them grow up and leave you for their own 'betterment'

as they would call it--oh!--what an old, old drudging life!--a life of monotony, sickness, pain, and fatigue!--and nothing higher done than what animals can do! There are plenty of women in the world who like to stay on this level, I suppose--but I should not like it,--I could not live in this beautiful, wonderful world with no higher ambition than a sheep or a cow!"

At that moment she suddenly saw Priscilla running from the house across the meadow, and beckoning to her in evident haste and excitement. She got up at once and ran to meet her, flying across the gra.s.s with light airy feet as swiftly as Atalanta.

"What is it?" she cried, seeing Priscilla's face, crimson with hurry and nervousness--"Is there some new trouble?"

Priscilla was breathless, and could scarcely speak.

"There's a lady"--she presently gasped--"a lady to see you--from London--in the best parlour--she asked for Farmer Jocelyn's adopted daughter named Innocent. And she gave me her card--here it is"--and Priscilla wiped her face and gasped again as Innocent took the card and read "Lady Maude Blythe,"--then gazed at Priscilla, wonderingly.

"Who can she be?--some one who knew Dad--?"

"Bless you, child, he never knew lord nor lady!" replied Priscilla, recovering her breath somewhat--"No--it's more likely one o' they grand folks what likes to buy old furniture, an' mebbe somebody's told 'er about Briar Farm things, an' 'ow they might p'raps be sold now the master's gone--"

"But that would be very silly and wicked talk," said Innocent. "Nothing will be sold--Robin would never allow it--"

"Well, come an' see the lady," and Priscilla hurried her along--"She said she wished to see you partikler. I told 'er the master was dead, an' onny buried this mornin', an' she smiled kind o' pleasant like, an'

said she was sorry to have called on such an unfortunate day, but her business was important, an' if you could see 'er--"

"Is she young?"

"No, she's not young--but she isn't old," replied Priscilla--"She's wonderful good-looking an' dressed beautiful! I never see such clothes cut out o' blue serge! An' she's got a scent about her like our stillroom when we're makin' pot-purry bags for the linen."

By this time they had reached the house, and Innocent went straight into the best parlour. Her unexpected and unknown visitor stood there near the window, looking out on the beds of flowers, but turned round as she entered. For a moment they confronted each other in silence,--Innocent gazing in mute astonishment and enquiry at the tall, graceful, self-possessed woman, who, evidently of the world, worldly, gazed at her in turn with a curious, almost quizzical interest.

Presently she spoke in a low, sweet, yet cold voice.

"So you are Innocent!" she said.

The girl's heart beat quickly,--something frightened her, though she knew not what.

"Yes," she answered, simply--"I am Innocent. You wished to see me--?"

"Yes--I wished to see you,"--and the lady quietly shut the window--"and I also wish to talk to you. In case anyone may be about listening, will you shut the door?"

With increasing nervousness and bewilderment, Innocent obeyed.

"You had my card, I think?" continued the lady, smiling ever so slightly--"I gave it to the servant--"

Innocent held it half crumpled in her hand.

"Yes," she said, trying to rally her self-possession--"Lady Maude Blythe--"

"Exactly!--you have quite a nice p.r.o.nunciation! May I sit down?" and, without waiting for the required permission, Lady Blythe sank indolently into the old oaken arm-chair where Farmer Jocelyn had so long been accustomed to sit, and, taking out a cobweb of a handkerchief powerfully scented, pa.s.sed it languorously across her lips and brow.

"You have had a very sad day of it, I fear!" she continued--"Deaths and funerals are such unpleasant affairs! But the farmer--Mr. Jocelyn--was not your father, was he?" The question was put with a repet.i.tion of the former slight, cold smile.

"No,"--and the girl looked at her wonderingly--"but he was better than my own father who deserted me!"

"Dear me! Your own father deserted you! How shocking of him!" and Lady Blythe turned a pair of brilliant dark eyes full on the pale little face confronting her--"And your mother?"

"She deserted me, too."

"What a reprehensible couple!" Here Lady Blythe extended a delicately gloved hand towards her. "Come here and let me look at you!"

But Innocent hesitated.

"Excuse me," she said, with a quaint and simple dignity--"I do not know you. I cannot understand why you have come to see me--if you would explain--"

While she thus spoke Lady Blythe had surveyed her scrutinisingly through a gold-mounted lorgnon.

"Quite a proud little person it is!" she remarked, and smiled--"Quite proud! I suppose I really must explain! Only I do hope you will not make a scene. Nothing is so unpleasant! And SUCH bad form! Please sit down!"

Innocent placed a chair close to the table so that she could lean her arm on that friendly board and steady her trembling little frame. When she was seated, Lady Blythe again looked at her critically through the lorgnon. Then she continued--

"Well, I must first tell you that I have always known your history--such a romance, isn't it! You were brought here as a baby by a man on horseback'--and he left you with the good old farmer who has taken care of you ever since. I am right? Yes!--I'm quite sure about it--because I knew the man--the curious sort of parental Lochinvar!--who got rid of you in such a curious way!"

Innocent drew a sharp breath.

"You knew him?"

Lady Blythe gave a delicate little cough.

"Yes--I knew him--rather well! I was quite a girl--and he was an artist--a rather famous one in his way--half French--and very good-looking. Yes, he certainly was remarkably good-looking! We ran away together--most absurd of us--but we did. Please don't look at me like that!--you remind me of Sara Bernhardt in 'La Tosca'!"