The Tree of Knowledge Part 23

"Knowledge comes fast enough," said Claud, impetuously. "You will know--soon enough. Don't fret about that. In these days you cannot think what a rest it is to find anyone so fresh, so unspoiled--so--so ingenuous as yourself, Miss Brabourne! You must forgive my venturing to say so much. But, if you only knew what a power is yours by the very force of the seclusion you have lived in, you would be overwhelmed with grat.i.tude to these wonderful ladies who have made you what you are!"

"Then," said Elaine, shyly, stealing a wary glance at him, "you _do_ see that I am very unlike any girl you ever met?"

Claud laughed a little, and hesitated.

"Yes, you are--in your bringing up, I tell you frankly," he said. "As regards your disposition, I don't know enough to venture on an opinion."

They walked on a few minutes in silence, and then she said:

"Tell me about London, please."

He complied at once, but soon found out that it was not theatrical London, nor artistic London, nor the London of b.a.l.l.s and receptions which claimed her attention, but the world of music, which to her was like the closed gates of Paradise to the Peri.

When he described the Albert Hall, and the Popular Concerts, she drank in every word. It was enchanting to have so good a listener, and he talked on upon the same theme until the village was reached, when his sister faced round, and said that Miss Allonby wished to stop at the "Fountain Head," but she and Elsa must hasten on, so as not to be late for the Misses Willoughby's tea-time.

It was accordingly settled that Claud should walk up with them as far as the gate of Edge and return to fetch Wynifred in half-an-hour. On his way back he called at the postman's cottage to see if there were any letters for Poole Farm. They put two or three into his hands, and also a packet which surprised him. It was addressed to Miss Allonby, and obviously contained printer's proofs.

He stared at it. A big fat bundle, with "Randall and Sons, Printers, Reading, Llandaff, and London," stamped on a dark blue ground at the top left-hand corner.

"So she writes, among other things, does she?" said he, speculatively, as he turned the packet over and over. "What does the modern young lady not do, I wonder? what sort of literature? Fiction, I'll bet a sovereign, unless it is an essay on extending the sphere of feminine usefulness, or on the doctrine of the enc.l.i.tic De, or on First Aid to the Sick and Wounded. Strange! How the male mind does thirst after novelty! I declare nowadays it is exquisitely refreshing to find a girl like Miss Brabourne, who has never been to an ambulance lecture, nor written a novel, nor even exhibited a china plaque at Howell and James'!"

For Claud had that instinctive admiration for "intelligent ignorance" in a woman which seems to be one of the most rooted inclinations of the male mind. Theoretically, he hated ignorant woman; practically, there were times when he loved to talk to them.

Wynifred was seated in the porch of the inn, talking to Mrs. Clapp, when he came up. The subject of conversation was, needless to relate, the missing pudding-basin.

"When we find that, miss, the murder'll be aout," was the good lady's opinion.

Claud thought so too.

"First catch your hare," he murmured, as he paused at the door. "Have I kept you waiting, Miss Allonby?"

"Scarcely a minute," she answered, rising, and nodding a "good evening"

to Mrs. Clapp.

"I called in at the postman's," he said, as they turned homewards, "and have brought you this, as the result of my enterprise."

He produced the packet of proofs, with his eyes fixed on her. Her face did not change in the least.

"Thanks," she said, "but what a heavy packet for you to carry--let me relieve you of it."

"Certainly not; it goes easily in my pocket;" and he replaced it with a curious sense of being baffled. Should he leave the subject, or should he take the bull by the horns and tax her with it? It might be merely a sense of shyness which made her unwilling to talk of her writings.

"I did not know you were an auth.o.r.ess, Miss Allonby," he said.

"No? I have not written very much," she answered, frankly.

"May I venture to ask what you write? Is it novels?" he asked, tentatively.

"It is singular, not plural, at present," she answered, laughing. "I have published a novel, and hope soon to bring out another."

"You seem to be a universal genius," he observed.

"That is the kind of speech I never know how to reply to," said Wynifred. "I can't demonstrate that you are wrong--I can only protest: and I do hate protesting."

"I am very sorry--I didn't know what to say," apologised he, lamely.

"Then why did you introduce the subject?" she answered, lightly. "You can't accuse me of doing so. Let us now talk of something on which you are more fluent."

He laughed.

"Do you know you are most awfully severe?"

"Am I? I thought you were severe on me. But, if you really wish to know, I will tell you that I don't care to talk of my writings, because I always prefer a subject I can treat impartially. I can't be impartial about my own work--I am either unjust to myself or wearisome to my audience. I don't want to be either, so I avoid the topic as much as possible. This letter is from my sisters at Ryde--will you excuse me if I just peep to see if they are quite well?"

"Most certainly," replied Claud, strolling meditatively on, with a glance now and then towards his companion, who was absorbed in her letter. He thought he had never beheld such an ungirlish girl in his life. That total absence of consciousness annoyed him more than ever.

Elsa Brabourne was one ma.s.s of consciousness, all agitated with the desire to please, all eager to know his opinion of her. It really did not seem to matter in the least to Wynifred whether he had an opinion concerning her at all. Evidently he did not enter into her calculations in any other relation than as her brother's benefactor. Her burst of grat.i.tude had been very pleasant to the young man's vanity; he had hoped at least to arrest her attention for a few days, to make her sensible of his presence, intolerant of his absence; but no. He had to confess that she was new to him--new and incomprehensible. He could not know that her state of impartiality and unconsciousness was an acquired thing, not a natural characteristic, the result of a careful restraint of impulse, a laborious tutoring of the will. It sprang from a conviction that, to do good work as a novelist, one must be careful to preserve the moral equilibrium, that no personal agitations should interfere with quiet sleep at night, and the free working of ideas. She met everybody with the pre-conceived resolution that they were not to make too deep an impression. They were to be carefully considered and studied, if their characters seemed to merit such attention; but this study was to be of their relation to others, not herself. She, Wynifred, was to be a spectator, to remain in the audience; on no account was she to take an active part in the scenes of pa.s.sion and feeling enacting on the stage.

No doubt this was not a normal standpoint for any young woman to occupy; but she was scarcely to be judged by the same standards as the average girl. If blame there were, it should attach to the circ.u.mstances which compelled her, like an athlete, to keep herself continually in training for the race which must be run.

"Hilda and Jacqueline are quite well," she said, folding her paper with a smile. "They are having great fun. There is a mysterious yacht at Ryde which is causing great excitement; have you heard about it, by chance?"

"I wonder if it is the same that I heard about from a man I know at Cowes? Is it called the _Swan_?"

"Yes, that is the name. It belongs to a Mr. Percivale, of whom n.o.body seems to know anything, except that he is very rich and very retiring--n.o.body can get up anything like an intimacy with him. He speaks English perfectly; but they do not seem to think that he is English in spite of his name. It is interesting, isn't it?"

"Yes, I think it is; but I expect, after all, it is nonsense. Why should a man make a mystery about his ident.i.ty, if you come to think of it, unless he's ashamed of it? But, as a novelist, I suppose you have an appet.i.te for mystery?"

"Yes, I do think I must own to a weakness that way; you see mystery is rare in these days," said Wynifred, meditatively.

"Well, I don't know; we have a good rousing mystery up here in the Combe just now--a mystery that I don't think we shall solve in a hurry," said Claud, with a baffled sigh, as they drew near the fatal spot in the lane.

The girl's face grew grave.

"Yes, indeed," she said, abstractedly.

As if by mutual consent they came to a stand-still, and stood gazing, not at the gra.s.sy road-side where the crime had been perpetrated, but down the fair valley, where the long crescent of the waxing moon hung in the dark-blue air over the darkening sea.

"The worst of an untraceable crime like this seems to me," she said, "to consist in the ghastly feeling that what has been once so successfully attempted, with perfect impunity, might be repeated at any moment--on any victim; one has no safeguard."

"Oh, don't say that," he said, hurriedly, "it sounds like a prophecy."

She started, and looked for a moment into his dilated eyes, her own full of expression. For the first time in their mutual acquaintance he thought her pretty. In the isolation of the twilight lane, rendered deeper by the shadow of the tall ash-trees, with the memory of a horrible crime fresh in her mind, a momentary panic had seized her. She came nearer to him; instinctively he offered his arm, and she took it.

He could feel her fingers close nervously on it.

"It is so dreadful," she said, in a whisper, "to think of wickedness like--like _that_, in such a beautiful world as this."

"It is," he answered, in sober, rea.s.suring tones, "therefore I forbid you to think about it. I ought not to have brought you home this way; I am an idiot."