The Highwayman Part 13

"Of the peerless Miss Lambourne, to be sure. Oh, sir, why be so innocent?

How could she resist your charms? And indeed--"

"Miss Lambourne! What d.a.m.ned nonsense you talk, Harry."

"I followed your lead, sir," said Harry meekly. "But if we are to talk sense--when shall we start for France?"

"You shall know when I know."

And on that they came to the top of the hill and the gates of the Hall.

The wet weather had yielded to St. Martin's summer. It was a day of gentle silver-gold sunlight and benign air. With her companion, Mrs.

Weston, Miss Lambourne was walking in the garden. She met the gentlemen at a turn of the drive by rampant sweetbriers. "Here's our knight of the rueful countenance, and faith, on Rosinante, poor jade," she patted Harry's aged carriage horse. "Oh, and he has brought with him Solomon in all his glory," she made a wonderful curtsy to the splendours of Colonel Boyce. "Now, who would have dreamt Don Quixote's father was Solomon?"

"I suppose I take after my mother, ma'am," Harry said meekly. "It's a hope which often consoles me."

"Why, they say Solomon had something of a variety in wives, and among them--"

Colonel Boyce dismounted with so much noise that the jest was hardly heard and the end of it altogether lost.

"You did not tell me"--Mrs. Weston was speaking and seemed to find it difficult--"Alison, you did not tell me the gentlemen were coming." It occurred to Harry that she looked very pale and ill.

"Why, Weston; dear, I could not tell if they would keep troth." She began to hum:

"Men were deceivers ever, One foot on sea, and one on sh.o.r.e, To one thing constant never."

"Nay, ma'am, sigh no more for here are we," Colonel Boyce said brusquely.

"Oh Lud, he overwhelms us with the honour." She laughed. "How can we entertain him worthily? Sir, will you walk? My poor house and I await your pleasure."

"I am vastly honoured, ma'am. I have never had a lady-in-waiting."

"Oh, celibate virtue!" quoth Miss Lambourne. And so to the house Colonel Boyce led her and his horse, and a little way behind Harry followed with his and Mrs. Weston.

She had nothing to say for herself. She looked so wan, she walked so slowly, and with such an air of pain that Harry had to say something about fearing she was not well. Then he felt a fool for his pains; as she turned in answer and shook her head he saw such a sad, wistful dignity in her eyes that the small coin of courtesy seemed an absurd offering. A fancy, to be sure, in itself absurd. Yet he could not make the woman out.

There was something odd and baffling in the way she looked at him.

She led off with an odd question, "Pray, have you lived much with Colonel Boyce?"

"Not I, ma'am." Harry laughed. "If I were not a very wise child I should hardly know my own father. Lived with him? Not much more than with my mother, whom I never saw."

"Oh, did you not?" Her eyes dwelt upon him. After a little while, "Who brought you up then?"

"Schools. Half a dozen schools between Taunton and London, and Westminster at last."

"Were you happy?"

"When I had sixpence."

"But Colonel Boyce is rich!" she cried.

"I have no evidence of it, ma'am."

"I cannot understand. You hardly know him. But he comes to you at Lady Waverton's; he stays with you; he brings you here. I believe you are closer with him than you say."

"Why, ma'am, it's mighty kind in you to concern yourself so with my affairs. And if you can't understand them, faith, no more can I."

She showed no shame at this rebuke of impertinence. In a minute Harry was sorry he had amused himself by giving it. There was something strangely affecting in the woman. Middle-aged, stout, faded, bound in manner and speech by a shy clumsiness, she refused to be insignificant, she made an appeal to him which he puzzled over in vain. Her simplicity was with power, as of a nature which had cared only for the greater things. He felt himself meeting one who had more than he of human quality, richer in suffering, richer in all emotion, and (what was vastly surprising) under her dullness, her feebleness, of fuller and deeper life.

From vague, intriguing, bewildering fancies, her voice brought him back with a start. "He brought you here?" she was asking.

To be sure, she was wonderfully maladroit. This buzzing, futile curiosity irritated him again into a sneer. "He is no doubt captivated by the beautiful eyes of Miss Lambourne."

"He! Mr. Boyce?"--she corrected herself with a stammer and a blush--"Colonel Boyce? Oh no. Indeed, he is old enough to be her father."

"I think we ought to tell him so." Harry chuckled. "It would do him good."

"I think this is not very delicate, sir." Mrs. Weston was still blushing.

"Egad, ma'am, if you ask questions, you must expect answers," Harry snapped at her.

"Why do you sneer at her? Why should you speak coa.r.s.ely of her? I suppose you come to the house of your own choice? Or does he make you come?"

Harry saw no occasion for such excitement. "Why, you take away my breath with your p.r.o.nouns. He and she--she and he--pray, let's leave him and her out of the question. Here's a very pretty garden."

"Indeed, we need not quarrel, I think." She laughed nervously, and gave him an odd, shy look. "Pray, do you stay with the Wavertons?"

"Alas, ma'am, I make your acquaintance and bid you farewell all in one day."

"Make my acquaintance!" Again came a nervous laugh, and it was a moment before she went on. "We have met before to-day."

"Oh Lud, ma'am, I would desire you forget it."

"I am to forget it!" she echoed. "Oh ... Oh, you are very proud."

"Not I, indeed. The truth is, ma'am, that silly affair with our highwayman, it embarra.s.ses me mightily. I want to live it down. Pray, help me, and think no more about it."

"I suppose that is what you say to Alison?" For the first time there was a touch of fun in her eyes.

"Word for word, ma'am."

"Why do you come here then?"

"As I have the honour to tell you--to say good-bye."

She checked and stared at him. She was very pale. But now they were at the steps of the house, and Colonel Boyce, who had resigned his horse to a groom, turned with Alison to meet them.

"I am hot with the Colonel's compliments, Weston, dear," she announced.

"I must take a turn with Mr. Boyce to cool me. 'Tis his role. A convenient family, faith. One makes you uncomfortably hot and t'other freezes you. You go get warm, my Weston. Though I vow 'tis dangerous to trust you to the Colonel. He has made very shameless love to me, and you have a tender heart."

It occurred to Harry that Mrs. Weston and his father, thus forced to look at each other, wore each an air of defiance. They amused him.