The Daughters of Danaus Part 13

At that instant, the solitude was broken by the apparition of a dusty wayfarer in knickerbockers and soft felt hat, coming towards them up the road. He was a man of middle height and rather slim. He appeared about five-and-thirty years of age. He had fair hair, and a strange, whimsical face, irregular of feature, with a small moustache covering the upper lip.

Miss Du Prel looked startled, as she caught sight of the travel-stained figure. She flushed deeply, and her expression changed to one of bewilderment and uncertainty, then to one of incredulous joy. She hastened forward, at length, and arrested the wayfarer.

"Professor Fortescue, don't you remember me?" she cried excitedly.

He gazed at her for a second, and then a look of amazement came into his kind eyes, as he held out his hand.

"Miss Du Prel! This is incredible!"

They stood, with hand locked in hand, staring at one another. "By what happy misunderstanding am I thus favoured by the G.o.ds?" exclaimed the Professor.

Miss Du Prel explained her presence.

"Prodigious!" cried Professor Fortescue. "Fate must have some strange plots in the making, unless indeed we fall to the discouraging supposition that she deigns to jest."

He said that he was on a walking tour, studying the geology of the district, and that he had written to announce his coming to his old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fullerton, and to ask them to put him up. He supposed that they were expecting him.

Miss Du Prel was greatly excited. It was so long since they had met, and it was so delightful to meet again. She had a hundred enquiries to make about common friends, and about the Professor's own doings.

She forgot Temperley's name, and her introduction was vague. The Professor held out his hand cordially. Temperley was not allowed to feel an intrusive third. This was in consequence of the new-comer's kindliness of manner, and not at all because of Miss Du Prel, who had forgotten Temperley's elegant existence. She had a look of surprise when he joined in the conversation.

"I can scarcely believe that it is ten years since I was here," cried the Professor, pausing to look over a gate at the stretch of country.

"I used to visit my friends at Dunaghee every autumn, and now if some one were to a.s.sure me that I had been to sleep and dreamt a ten years'

dream, I should be disposed to credit it. Every detail the same; the very cattle, the very birds--surely just those identical sparrows used to fly before me along the hedgerows, in the good old times, ten years ago! Ah! yes, it is only the human element that changes."

"One is often so thankful for a change in that," Temperley remarked, with an urbane sort of cynicism.

"True," said Miss Du Prel; "but what is so discouraging is that so often the charm goes, like the bloom of a peach, and only the qualities that one regrets remain and prosper."

"I think people improve with time, as often as they fall off," said the Professor.

The others shook their heads.

"To him that hath shall be given, but to him that hath not----" The Professor smiled a little sadly, in quoting the significant words.

"Well, well," he said, turning to Miss Du Prel, "I can't say how happy I am to see you again. I have not yet got over my surprise. And so you have made the acquaintance of the family at Dunaghee. I have the warmest respect and affection for those dear folks. Mrs. Fullerton has the qualities of a heroine, kind hostess as she is! And of what fine Scottish stuff the old man is made--and a mind like crystal! What arguments we used to have in that old study of his! I can see him now.

And how genial! A man could never forget it, who had once received his welcome."

Such was Miss Du Prel's impression, when ten minutes later the meeting took place between the Professor and his old friend.

It would indeed have been hard to be anything but genial to the Professor. Hadria remembered him and his kindness to her and the rest of the children, in the old days; the stories he used to tell when he took them for walks, stories full of natural lore more marvellous than any fairy tale, though he could tell fairy tales too, by the dozen. He had seemed to them like some wonderful and benevolent magician, and they adored him, one and all. And what friends he used to be with Ruffian, the brown retriever, and with every living creature on the place!

The tennis-party began to break up, shortly after the Professor's arrival. Temperley lingered to the last.

"Is that a son of the celebrated Judge Temperley?" asked one of the bystanders.

"His eldest son," answered Mr. Gordon; "a man who ought to make his mark, for he has splendid chances and good ability."

"I have scarcely had a word with you, the whole afternoon," Temperley said to Hadria, who had sunk upon a seat, tired with making herself agreeable, as she observed.

"That is very sad; but when one has social gatherings, one never does have a word with anybody. I think that must be the object of them--to accustom people to do without human sympathy."

Temperley tried to start a conversation, taking a place beside her, on the seat, and setting himself to draw her out. It was obvious that he found her interesting, either as a study or in a less impersonal sense.

Hadria, feeling that her character was being a.n.a.lysed, did what many people do without realizing it: she instinctively arranged its lights and shades with a view to artistic effect. It was not till late that night, when the events of the day pa.s.sed before her in procession, that she recognized what she had done, and laughed at herself. She had not attempted to appear in a better light than she deserved; quite as often as not, she submitted to appear in a worse light; her effort had been to satisfy some innate sense of proportion or form. The instinct puzzled her.

Also she became aware that she was interested in Hubert Temperley. Or was it that she was interested in his interest in her? She could not be certain. She thought it was direct interest. She felt eager to know more of him; above all, to hear him play.

On returning to the house, after Temperley had, at last, felt compelled to depart, Hadria found her father and mother and their guest, gathered together before the cheery fire in the study. Hearing his daughter's step, her father opened the door and called her in. Till now, the Professor had not seen her, having been hurried into the house, to change his clothes and have something to eat.

As she entered, rather shyly, he rose and gave a gasp of astonishment.

"You mean to tell me that this is the little girl who used to take me for walks, and who had such an inordinate appet.i.te for stories! Good heavens, it is incredible!"

He held out a thin, finely-formed hand, with a kind smile.

"They change so much at that age, in a short time," said Mrs. Fullerton, with a glance of pride; for her daughter was looking brilliantly handsome, as she stood before them, with flushed cheeks and a soft expression, which the mere tones of the Professor's voice had power to summon in most human faces. He looked at her thoughtfully, and then rousing himself, he brought up a chair for her, and the group settled again before the fire.

"Do you know," said the Professor, "I was turning into a French sweet-shop the other day, to buy my usual tribute for the children, when I suddenly remembered that they would no longer be children, and had to march out again, crestfallen, musing on the march of time and the mutability of things human--especially children."

"It's ridiculous," cried Mr. Fullerton. "I am always lecturing them about it, but they go on growing just the same."

"And how they make you feel an old fogey before you know where you are!

And I thought I was quite a gay young fellow, upon my word!"

"You, my dear Chantrey! why you'd be a gay young fellow at ninety!" said Mr. Fullerton.

The Professor laughed and shook his head.

"And so this is really my little playfellow!" he exclaimed, nodding meditatively. "I remember her so well; a queer, fantastic little being in those days, with hair like a black cloud, and eyes that seemed to peer out of the cloud, with a perfect pa.s.sion of enquiry. She used to bewilder me, I remember, with her strange, wise little sayings! I always prophesied great things from her! Ernest, too, I remember: a fine little chap with curly, dark hair--rather like a young Italian, but with features less broadly cast; drawn together and calmed by his northern blood. Yes, yes; it seems but yesterday," he said, with a smile and a sigh; "and now my little Italian is at college, with a bored manner and a high collar."

"Oh, no; Ernest's a dear boy still," cried Hadria. "Oxford hasn't spoilt him a bit. I do wish he was at home for you to see him."

"Ah! you mustn't hint at anything against Ernest in Hadria's presence!"

cried Mr. Fullerton, with an approving laugh.

"Not for the world!" rejoined the Professor. "I was only recalling one or two of my young Oxford acquaintances. I might have known that a Fullerton had too much stuff in him to make an idiot of himself in that way."

"The boy has distinguished himself too," said Mr. Fullerton.

"Everyone says he will do splendidly," added the mother; "and you can't think how modest he is about himself, and how anxious to do well, and to please us by his success."

"Ah! that's good."

The Professor was full of sympathy. Hadria was astonished to see how animated her mother had become under his influence.

They fell again to recalling old times; little trivial incidents which had seemed so unimportant at the moment, but now carried a whole epoch with them, bringing back, with a rush, the genial memories. Hadria remembered that soon after his last visit, the Professor had married a beautiful wife, and that about a year or so later, the wife had died. It was said that she had killed herself. This set Hadria speculating.

The visitor reminded his companions of various absurd incidents of the past, sending Mr. Fullerton into paroxysms of laughter that made the whole party laugh in sympathy. Mrs. Fullerton too was already wiping her streaming eyes as the Professor talked on in his old vein, with just that particular little humourous manner of his that won its way so surely to the hearts of his listeners. For a moment, in the midst of the bright talk and the mirth that he had created, the Professor lost the thread, and his face, as he stared into the glowing centre of the fire, had a desolate look; but it was so quick to pa.s.s away that one might have thought oneself the victim of a fancy. His was the next chuckle, and "Do you remember that day when----?" and so forth, Mr. Fullerton's healthy roar following, avalanche-like, upon the reminiscence.