Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 64

She went to the window, and, screened by the curtain, looked out. A full moon was shining and flooding the avenue With light.

She waited, looking out absently. The sound came nearer, and suddenly the horseman came in sight. Holding the muslin curtain for a screen, she still waited and watched for him. Then, with a faint cry--a cry almost of terror--she shrank back.

For the man who was riding up the avenue to Anglemere was strangely like Drake!

He had pa.s.sed in an instant; his head was bowed, his face only for a moment in the moonlight, and yet--and yet! Was she dreaming--was fancy only trifling with her--or was it indeed and in truth Drake himself?

CHAPTER XXVII.

Nell lay awake for hours, dwelling on the appearance of the horseman who had ridden by in the moonlight.

It seemed to her that it was impossible that she, of all persons in the world, could be mistaken; and yet how could Drake be here, and why should he be riding up the avenue of Anglemere at this time of night?

The sight of him, if it was he, aroused all the love in her heart, which needed little, indeed, to arouse it. She had tried to forget him during the vicissitudes of the last two years, but she knew that he was still enshrined in her heart, that while life lasted she must love him and long for him. She endeavored, by thinking of him as betrothed--perhaps married--to Lady Luce, as belonging to her, to oust her love for him as a sin, as shameful as it was futile; but there was scarcely an hour of the day in which her thoughts did not turn to him, and at night she awoke from some dream, in which he was the central figure, with an aching heart.

Life is but a hollow mockery to the woman, or the man, whose unrequited love fills the hours with an unsatisfied longing.

When she awoke in the morning, the likeness to Drake of the man she had seen had grown vaguer to her mind, and she persuaded herself that it was a likeness only; but her restless night had made her pale and preoccupied; but d.i.c.k, when he came in to breakfast, was too engrossed and excited to notice it.

"I've just been up to the house," he said, as he flung his cap on the sofa and lifted the cover from the savory dish of ham and eggs. "By George! we shall have to slip into it and look alive! The contractors have had a letter from Lady Angleford. It seems the earl's in England, and wants the place as soon as possible. The foreman has sent to London for more hands.

I've wired the Bardsleys, telling them we've got to hurry up. It's always the way with these swells; when they want anything, they want it all in a minute. Something like ham and eggs! Rather different to the measly rasher and the antediluvian eggs from the grocer's opposite. But you don't seem to be very keen?" he added, as Nell pushed her plate away and absently took a slice of toast. "Miss the good old London air, Nell, or the appetizing smells of Beaumont Buildings?"

"I've got a little headache; only a tiny one," said Nell, apologetically. "I shall go for a long walk after breakfast, and you will see that I shall be all right by lunch."

"Don't talk of lunch to me!" he said. "I shan't have time for it. I shall take a hunk of bread and b.u.t.ter in my pocket, and nibble at it for a few minutes during the workman's dinner hour; you bet the n.o.ble British workman won't cut short his precious meal, bless him!"

He was off again as soon as he had swallowed his breakfast, with his pipe in his mouth, and a roll of plans and drawings in his hand; and Nell, after gazing from the window at the avenue up which the horseman had ridden, put on her things and went down to the village, marketing.

It was a picturesque one, and showed every sign of the sleepy prosperity which distinguishes a self-respecting English village lucky enough to lie outside the gates of such a place as Anglemere.

It was like old Shorne Mills times to Nell, and her spirits rose as she walked along with her basket on her arm.

The butcher touched his forehead and smiled with respectful admiration as she entered the tiny and scrupulously clean shop.

"You be the young lady from the lodge, miss?" he said, with a pleasant kind of welcome. "I heard as you'd come with the electric gentleman. Ah!

there's going to be grand changes at the Hall, I'm told. Well, miss, it's time. Not that I've got aught to say against the old earl, for he was a good landlord and a kind-hearted gentleman. But, you see, he wasn't here very much--just a month or two in the shooting season, and perhaps at Christmas; but we're hoping, here at Anglemere, that the new earl will come oftener. It will be a great thing for us, of course, miss. But there! you can't expect him to stay for long, he's got so many places; and I'm told that some of 'em are finer and grander even than the Hall, though it's hard to believe. A piece of steak, miss?

Certainly; and it's the best I've got you shall have. And about Sunday, miss? What 'u'd you say to a leg of mutton--a small leg, seem' that there's only two of you?"

"That will do," said Nell.

"Yes, miss. Perhaps you'd like to see it? It's in the meadow there--the sheep near the hedge."

The butcher grew radiant at the sweet, low-toned laugh with which Nell received this practical suggestion.

"I am afraid I shouldn't be able to judge it through that thick fleece,"

she said. "But I am more than willing to trust you, thank you."

"Thank you, miss," he said, as he cut the steak with critical care. "I'm told that Lord Angleford's in England, and is coming to the Hall sooner than was expected. And that's good news for all of us. Fine gentleman, the earl, miss! A regular credit to the country that bred him. I've knowed him since he was a boy, for, of course, he used to stay here in his holidays, and durin' the shootin' and Christmas. A great favorite of his uncle's, the old earl, miss, and no wonder, for there wasn't a more promising young gentleman among the aristocracy. Always so pleasant and frank spoken, and not a bit of side about him. It 'u'd be, 'Hallo, Wicks'--which was me, miss--'how are you? And how's the brindle pup?'

And he'd take his hat off to the missus just as if she was one of his grand lady friends."

Nell moved toward the open door, but Mr. Wicks followed her as if loath to let her go.

"Rare cut up we was, miss, when we heard that him and the old earl had quarreled and the old gentleman had gone and got married, which was just like the Anglefords--always so hotheaded and flyaway. Yes, it was a cruel blow to Lord Selbie, or so it seemed; but it all turned out right, seeing that there wasn't a heir born to cut him out. Not that any of us had a word to say about the lady the old earl married. As nice and as pretty--begging her pardon--a little lady, though a foreigner, as ever you met. Yes, it's all right, and our young gentleman as we was all so fond of is coming into his own, as the saying is. Yes, miss, it shall be sent up at once, certainly. And good day to you, miss!"

Wherever she went, Nell found the people rejoicing at the coming advent of the new lord, who was anything but new to most of them, who, like Wicks, knew and were attached to him. Before she had finished her shopping, Nell found herself quite interested in the new master of Anglemere, and wondered whether she should see him and what he would be like. By the time she had got back to the lodge, her headache had gone, and she was singing to herself as she arranged some flowers she had picked on her way through the woods.

In the afternoon, she went for a long walk; but, long as it was, it did not by any means take her out of the domains of the Earl of Angleford, which stretched away for miles round the great house. She saw farms dotted here and there on the hillsides, and looking prosperous with their cattle and sheep feeding in the fields, and the corn waving like a green sea on the slopes of the hills. There were large plantations, in which she disturbed the game; and parklike s.p.a.ces, in which colts frisked beside the brood mares, for which Anglemere was famous all the world over.

Everything spoke in an eloquent and emphatic way of wealth, and Nell sighed and grew rather pensive, now and again, as she thought of the denizens of Beaumont Buildings, and the grinding poverty in which their lives were spent. But that was like Nell--tender-hearted Nell of Shorne Mills.

d.i.c.k came home to dinner, tired, and approved of the steak, which, he declared, beat even the ham and eggs.

"We're getting on first-rate," he said, in answer to Nell's inquiry; "and I'm afraid we shan't make a very long stay here. I'd hoped that this job would spin out for--oh, ever so long; but it will have to be pushed through in a few weeks. They're waking up at the house like mad.

Money makes the mare go! And there's no end to the money this young lord has got. But, from all I hear, he's a decent sort----"

Nell laughed.

"Please don't you begin to sing his praises, d.i.c.k," she said. "I've heard a general chorus of laudations all the morning, and I think I am just a wee bit tired of my Lord of Angleford! Though I'm very grateful to him for this change! I wish we could turn lodgekeepers, d.i.c.k! Fancy living here always!"

They were seated in the porch--d.i.c.k smoking away furiously--and she gazed wistfully at the greensward, and the trunks of the great elms glowing like copper in the rays of the setting sun.

"And, oh, d.i.c.k!" she cried, "if only Mr. Falconer could be here! How he would enjoy it! He's always talking of the country, and how much good it would do him!"

"Poor beggar--yes!" said d.i.c.k, with a nod of sympathy. "I say, Nell, why shouldn't we ask him to pay us a visit?"

Nell grew radiant at the suggestion; then looked doubtful.

"But may we?" she asked. "This isn't our lodge, d.i.c.k; though I have begun to feel as if it were."

"Nonsense!" said d.i.c.k emphatically. "The agent placed it absolutely at our disposal. A nice state of things if we couldn't ask a friend! Have Britons--especially engineers--become slaves? I pause for a reply. No?

Good! Then I'll write him a line that will fetch him down--with his fiddle! What a pity we haven't got a piano!"

Nell laughed.

"Yes, we could put it in the sitting room, and look at it through the window; for there certainly wouldn't be room inside for it and us together!"

d.i.c.k wrote the next day, and Falconer walked up and down his bare and narrow room, with the letter in his hand, his thin face flushing and then paling with longing and doubt. To be in the country, in the same house with her! And yet--would it not be wiser to refuse? His love grew large enough when it was only fed on memory; it would grow beyond restraint in such close companionship. Better to refuse and remain where he was than to go near her, and so increase the store of agony which the final parting would bring him. And so, after the manner of weak man, he sat down and wrote a line, accepting.

d.i.c.k stole half an hour to go with Nell to meet him at the station, and d.i.c.k's hearty greeting and Nell's smile brought the blood to his face and made the thin hand he gave them tremble.

"The fact is, we couldn't get on without the violin--brought it? That's all right. Because if you hadn't, you'd be sent back for it, young man.

Pretty country, isn't it? All belongs to our young swell. I say 'our,'

because we feel as if we'd got a kind of share in him, as if he belonged to us. You'll hear nothing but 'Lord Angleford,' 'the earl,' all day long here; and you'll speedily come to our conviction, that the earth, or this particular corner of it, with all that it contains, man, woman, and child, birds, beasts, and fishes, was made for his lordship's special behoof. Nice little place--kind of fishing box, isn't it?" he said, nodding to the vast pile as it came in sight. "That's where I spend my laborious days, putting on water for his lordship to drink and wash with, and setting up electric light for his lordship to shave himself by, though I suppose his lordship's valet does that. And what price the lodge? For this is our residence pro tem."

Falconer was almost speechless with delight and happiness; his dark eyes glowed with a steady light, which grew brighter and deeper whenever they rested on Nell's beautiful face.