The Squire's Daughter Part 71

It was not without a pang he saw the happiness of William and his sister. Not that he envied them; on the contrary, he rejoiced in their newly found joy; and yet their happiness did accentuate his own heartache and sense of loss.

A year had pa.s.sed since that memorable day in St. James's Park when he told Dorothy Hamblyn that he loved her. He often smiled at his temerity, and wondered what spirit of daring or of madness possessed him.

He had tried hard since, as he had tried before, to forget her, but without success. For good or ill she held his heart in bondage. What had become of her he did not know. Hamblyn Manor was in possession of the gardener and his wife, and one other servant. There were rumours that some "up-the-country" people had taken it furnished for a year, but as far as he knew no one as yet had appeared on the scene. Sir John, it was said, was living quietly at Boulogne, but what had become of Dorothy and her brother no one seemed to know.

One afternoon he left Dingley Bottom earlier than usual, and wandered up the long slant in the direction of Treliskey Plantation. His intention was to cross the common to St. Goram, but on reaching the stile he stood still, arrested by the force of memory and a.s.sociation.

As he looked back into the valley he could not help contrasting the present with the past. How far away that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon seemed when he first came face to face with Dorothy Hamblyn! How much had happened since! Then he was a poor, struggling, discontented, ambitious youth, without prospects, without influence, and almost without hope.

Now he was rich--for riches are always relative--and a man. He had prospects also, and influence. Perhaps he had more influence than any other man in the parish. And yet he was not sure that he was not just as discontented as ever. He was gaining the world rapidly, but he was still unsatisfied. His heart was hungering for something he had not got.

He might get more money, more power, more authority, more influence.

What then? The care of the world increased rather than diminished. It was eternally true, "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth."

His reflections were disturbed at length by the clicking of the gate leading into the plantation. He turned his head suddenly, and found himself face to face with Dorothy Hamblyn.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

PERPLEXING QUESTIONS

There was no chance of withdrawal for either. If Ralph had caught a glimpse of Dorothy earlier, he would have hidden himself and let her pa.s.s; but there was no possibility of that now. He could only stand still and wait. Would she recognise him, or would she cut him dead? It was an interesting moment--from his point of view, almost tragic.

Wildly as his heart was beating, he could not help noticing that she looked thin and pale, as though she had recovered from a recent illness.

She came straight on, not hesitating for a moment, and his heart seemed to beat all the more tumultuously with every step she took.

If in the long months that had elapsed since he saw her last he had grown for a moment indifferent, his pa.s.sion flamed up again to a white heat at the first glimpse of her face. For him there was no other woman on earth. Her beauty had increased with the pa.s.sing of the years; her character, strengthened and enn.o.bled by suffering, showed itself in every line of her finely expressive face.

It was a trying moment for both, and perhaps more trying for Dorothy than for Ralph. For good or ill she knew that this young man had affected her whole life. He had crossed her path in the most critical moments of her existence. He had spoken words almost at haphazard which had changed the whole current of her thoughts. He had dared even to tell her that he loved her, when influence was being brought to bear on her to bestow her affection in another direction.

There were moments when she felt half angry that she was unable to forget him. He was out of her circle, and it seemed madness to let his image remain in her heart for a single moment, and yet the fascination of his personality haunted her. He was like no other man she had ever met. His very masterfulness touched her fancy as nothing had ever done before. If only he had been of her own set she would have made a hero of him.

When she left him in the Park after that pa.s.sionate outburst of his, she made up her mind that she must forget him--utterly and absolutely. The situation had become dangerous; her heart was throbbing so wildly that she could scarcely bear it; the tense glow and pa.s.sion of his words rang through her brain like the clashing of bells; her nerves were tingling to her finger-tips.

"Oh, what madness all this is," she said to herself--"what utter madness!" And yet all the while her heart seemed to be leaping exultantly. This clever, daring, handsome democrat loved her--loved her.

She lingered over the words unconsciously.

Lord Probus had said he loved her, and had tempted her with a thousand brilliant toys; Archie Temple--with whom she had walked in the Park more than once--had professed unbounded and undying devotion; but her heart had never leaped for a moment in response to their words. The only man who moved her against her will, and sent the blood rushing through her veins like nectar, was this son of the people, this man who hated her cla.s.s and tried his best to hate her.

Nevertheless, her resolve was fixed and definite. She must forget him.

Unless she put him out of her thoughts he would spoil her whole life.

Socially, they belonged to different hemispheres. The fact that her father was hard pressed for money, and was living abroad in order to economise, did not alter their relative positions. A Hamblyn was still a Hamblyn, though he lived in an almshouse.

It was easier, however, to make good resolves than to carry them into effect. Events would not allow her to forget. As the companion and private secretary of the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Flint, she had to read the papers every day, and not only the political articles, but the commercial and financial. The success of the Great St. Goram Mine was talked of far and wide, and the new discoveries of Ralph Penlogan, the brilliant young chemist and mineralogist, were the theme of numberless newspaper articles. Dorothy found herself searching all the papers that came her way for some mention of his name, and her heart seemed to leap into her mouth every time she saw it in print.

The dowager often dabbled in stocks and shares for want of something better to do. She liked to have what she called a "flutter" now and then, and she managed to pick up a few Great St. Goram shares at eighty per cent. premium.

It came out one day in conversation that Dorothy knew the exact locality of Great St. Goram Mine, knew the young man who had made the discovery, knew all about the place and all about the people, in fact. The dowager's interest grew. She began to make inquiries, and finally decided to rent Hamblyn Manor for a year. Dorothy was in a transport of excitement. To go back again to the dear old home would be like heaven, even though her father and Geoffrey were not there.

But that was not all. She would see Ralph Penlogan again--that would be inevitable. It seemed as though the Fates had determined to throw them together. The battle was not ended yet, it was only beginning.

The second day after their arrival at Hamblyn Manor she went for a long walk through the plantation. It was a lovely afternoon. The summer glory lay upon land and sea. She stood still for several moments when she came to the spot where she had found Ralph Penlogan lying senseless. How vividly every circ.u.mstance came up before her, how well she remembered his half-conscious talk. She did not see Ralph leaning against the stile when she pushed open the gate, and yet she half expected he would be there. It was the place where they first met, and Fate, or Destiny, or Providence, had a curious way of bringing them together, and she would have to face the inevitable, whatever it might be.

She was not in the least surprised when she caught sight of him, nor did she feel any inclination to turn back. Life was being shaped for her.

She was in the grasp of a power stronger than her own will.

She looked at him steadily, and her face paled a little. He had altered considerably. He looked older by several years. He was no longer a youth, he was a man with the burden of life pressing upon him. Time had sobered him, softened him, mellowed him, greatened him.

Ought she to recognise him? For recognition would mean condoning his daring, and if she condoned him once, he might dare again, and he looked strong enough and resolute enough to dare anything.

She never quite decided in her mind what she ought to do. She remembered distinctly enough what she did. She smiled at him in her most gracious and winning manner and pa.s.sed on. She half expected to hear footsteps behind her, but he did not follow. He watched her till she had turned the brow of the hill toward St. Goram, then he retraced his steps in the direction of his home.

He too had a feeling that it was of no use fighting against Fate. Events would have to take their course. She was not lost to him yet, and her smile gave him fresh hope.

He found the house empty when he got home, save for the housemaid. Ruth was out with William somewhere.

Ralph threw himself into an easy-chair and closed his eyes. His heart was beating strangely fast, his hands shook in spite of himself. The sight of Dorothy was like a match to stubble. He wondered if her beauty appealed to other people as it did to him.

Then a new question suggested itself to him, or an old question came up in a new form. To tell Dorothy Hamblyn that he loved her was one thing, to make love to her was another. Should he dare the second? He had dared the first, not with any hope of winning her, but rather to demonstrate to himself the folly of any such suggestion. But circ.u.mstances alter cases, and circ.u.mstances had changed with him. He was no longer poor. He could give her all the comforts she had ever known. As for the rest, her name, her family pride, her patrician blood, her aristocratic connections, they did not count with him. To ask a woman reared in comfort and luxury to share poverty and hardship and want was what he would never do. But the question of ways and means being disposed of, nothing else mattered. He was a man and an Englishman. He had lived honestly, and had kept his conscience clean.

He believed in an aristocracy, as most people do, but the aristocracy he believed in was the aristocracy of character and brains. He did not despise money, but he despised the people who made it their G.o.d, and who were prepared to sell their souls for its possession. To have a n.o.ble ancestry was a great thing; there was something in blood, but a man was not necessarily great because his father was a lord. The lower orders did not all live in hovels, some of them lived in mansions. All fools did not wear fustian, some of them wore fur-lined coats and drove motor-cars; the things that mattered were heart and intellect. A man might drop his "h's" and be a gentleman. The test of worth and manhood was not the size of a man's bank balance, but the manner of his life.

Sir John Hamblyn boasted of his pedigree and was proud of his t.i.tle, and yet, to put it in its mildest form, he had played the fool for twenty years.

Ralph got up from his seat at length and walked out into the garden. He had not felt so restless and excited for a year. The affairs of Great St. Goram Mine pa.s.sed completely out of his mind. He could think only of one thing at a time, and just then Dorothy Hamblyn seemed of more importance than anything else on earth.

Up and down the garden paths he walked with bare head and his hands in his pockets. Now and then his brows contracted, and now and then his lips broke into a smile. The situation had its humorous as well as its serious side.

"If she had been the daughter of anybody else!" he said to himself again and again.

But outweighing everything else was the fact that he loved her. He could not help it that she was the daughter of the man who had been his greatest enemy. He could not help it that she belonged to a social circle that had little or no dealings with his own. Love laughs at bolts and bars. He was a man with the rights of a man and the hopes of a man.

Before Ruth returned he had made up his mind what to do.

Meanwhile, Dorothy was sauntering slowly homeward in a brown study. She felt anything but sure of herself. She hoped she had done the right thing in recognising Ralph Penlogan, but her heart and her head were not in exact agreement. The conventions of society were very strict. The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans.

"If only Ralph Penlogan had been in her circle," and her heart leaped suddenly at the thought. How handsome he was, how resolute, how clever!

Unconsciously she compared him with her brother Geoffrey, with Archie Temple, and with a number of other young men she had met in the drawing-rooms of London society.

The d.u.c.h.ess had urged her to be friendly with Archie Temple. He was such a nice young man. He was well connected, was, in fact, the nephew of an earl, and was in receipt of a handsome salary which a generous Government paid him for doing nothing. He was a type of a great many others, impecunious descendants, many of them, of younger sons--drawling, effeminate, shallow-pated n.o.bodies. Socially, of course, they belonged to what is called society printed with a capital S, but that was the highest testimonial that could be given them.

Dorothy found herself unconsciously revolting against the conventional view of life and the ethics of the social Ten Commandments. Were the mere accidents of birth the only things to be considered? Was a man less n.o.ble because he was born in a stable and cradled in a manger? Did greatness consist in possessing an estate and a t.i.tle? Was worth to be measured by the depth of a man's pocket?

Measured by any true standard, she felt instinctively that Ralph Penlogan overtopped every other man she had met. How bravely he had fought, how patiently he had endured, how gloriously he had triumphed.

If achievement counted for anything, if to live purely and do something worthy were the hall-marks of a gentleman, then he belonged to the world's true aristocracy, he was worth all the Archie Temples of London rolled into one.