The Tree of Knowledge Part 40

On hearing that the name of the owner of the yacht was Percivale, Mr.

Cranmer roused himself from the reverie into which he had fallen. This, then, was the Swan, the mysterious yacht of which everyone had been talking all the summer, and whose owner was so obstinately uncommunicative and unsociable. The idea of meeting the hero of the hour brought a certain excitement with it; but these thoughts were put to flight by the sudden arrival on the scene of the two new actors. In a flash he recognised Frederick Orton, whom he had occasionally seen in company with Colonel Wynch-Frere at Sandown; and this, of course, was his wife. Whence had they sprung? They were believed to be in Homburg; and Claud felt a strange sinking of the heart as he realised in what an unfortunate moment they appeared.

Ottilie sprang vehemently from the carriage, looking round her with flashing eyes. Evidently she was greatly excited. Moving hastily towards the group, she suddenly stopped short, asking, in her fine contralto voice:

"Is Miss Charlotte Willoughby here?"

With an a.s.senting murmur, the throng divided right and left, and she moved on again, till she stood within a few inches of the lady in question. Her husband, after a word to the driver, followed her.

"Miss Willoughby, I am Mrs. Frederick Orton," she said, every word of her deep utterance distinctly audible to everyone present. "We are just arrived from the Continent, and, in consequence of complaints of unkind treatment received in letters from our nephew, we travelled straight down here. We have been up to the house, seen your eldest sister, and been by her informed that the boy is missing since yesterday. Where is he?" She raised her magnificent voice slightly, and it seemed to pierce through Henry Fowler's brain. "Where is he? What have you done with him?

Bring him back to me, instantly."

Silence.

The brisk wave broke splashing and foaming along the beach. The white fleecy cloud drew off from the sun which it had momentarily obscured.

Miss Charlotte helplessly confronted her antagonist for a moment, and then burst into tears. All Edge Valley held its breath. That Miss Charlotte Willoughby could weep was a hypothesis too wild ever to have been hazarded among them.

Frederick Orton, in his faultless summer travelling attire, a look of anxiety on his weak, handsome face, stood scanning the group, bowing slightly to Claud, whom he vaguely recognised, and then letting his eye wander to Elsa.

There his gaze rivetted itself with a strange fascination. The girl was too like her father, Valentine Brabourne, for him to be ignorant of her ident.i.ty; he partly hated her for it. Her beauty, too, took him utterly by surprise. He had heard that she was pretty, but for this unique and superb fairness he was quite unprepared.

His wife, after waiting a minute, or two repeated her question.

"What have you done with G.o.dfrey?" she cried.

Mr. Fowler stepped forward, raising his hat, and meeting her scornful eye steadily.

"Who are you?" the eye seemed to demand. He answered, with his accustomed gentleness:

"My name is Fowler, madam, and I am at present engaged in the same pursuit as yourself--a search-for G.o.dfrey. The Misses Willoughby will have told you how he and his sister went out for a walk together yesterday, and missed each other----"

She pounced upon his words.

"His sister! Yes, his sister! Where is she?"

Sweeping half round, she confronted Elsa on the instant. The two pairs of eyes met--the scorching dark ones, the radiant grey. In each pair, as it rested, on the other, was a menace. It was war to the knife between Ottilie Orton and her niece from that moment.

"So that is his sister," faltered G.o.dfrey's aunt at length. "Do you know," cried she, suddenly finding voice again--"do you know that you are--yes, you are directly responsible for whatever may have happened to G.o.dfrey. I know, Elaine Brabourne, more than you imagine."

A moment of horror, cold sickly horror, crept for one dark instant into Claud's brain as he saw the ashy pallor which overspread Elsa's lace.

She seemed to reel where she stood.

"No," she panted, incoherently, "no, it is not true! I never did----"

Her G.o.dfather grasped her shoulder with a firm hold.

"Do not attempt to answer Mrs. Orton," he said, in a voice which sounded unlike his own. "She is over-tired--excited. Presently she will regret her words."

"Insolence!" said Ottilie, flinging a look at him. "Frederick, will you hear me spoken to like this?"

"I think it would be--a--wiser to say no more at present," returned her husband, hesitatingly. "Had we not better have a little more light thrown on the subject first?"

"More light? What more light do you want than that girl's ashy, guilty face, and the authority of this letter of G.o.dfrey's?" she rejoined, vehemently. "Did he not say----"

"Madam, if you have any accusation to lodge, I must desire you to choose a more fitting occasion," said Mr. Fowler, peremptorily. "Here, in the presence of these people, in your present state of agitation, you are hardly able to speak dispa.s.sionately. As no one yet knows of what they are accused, your charges are, so far, fired into the air. Mr. Orton, what do you wish me to do?"

"Why, find the boy, I suppose. There'll be the devil to pay if he doesn't turn up," observed Mr. Orton; adding, as if to waive any unpleasant impression his speech might leave: "Why, Jove, there's a yacht coming right in sh.o.r.e. Won't she be aground?"

"Nay, she's right enough. The bay's deep enough to float one of more than her tonnage," returned Mr. Fowler; and for the moment everyone's attention was given to the movements of the _Swan_.

The sun streamed down on her dazzling white decks. Nothing more inviting, more exquisite, could be imagined. The curve of her bows was the perfection of grace; the polished bra.s.s of her binnacle and fittings gave back every beam that fell upon them.

Half reclining over the rail aft was a young man with folded arms and face intent upon the manoeuvres of his crew. His head was slightly raised, and, as the yacht luffed up gently to the breeze, his profile was turned to the gazers on sh.o.r.e.

It was precisely such a profile as might be one's ideal of a Sir Percivale--half Viking, half saint; not a Greek profile, for it was cut sharply inwards below the brow, the nose springing out with a slightly aquiline curve. The chin was oval, not square, as far as could be seen, but it was partially obscured by a short pointed golden moustache and beard, just inclining to red. The shape of the head, indicated strongly against the light beyond, showed both grace and power. His pose was full of ease and unconsciousness. He seemed hardly aware of the group on the beach, but kept his eyes fixed on his men, giving every now and then an order in German. At last the chain cable rattled out, and the dainty little vessel swung round, head to wind. Her owner roused himself, and stood upright, showing a stature of over six feet.

He wore a white flannel shirt and trousers, a short crimson sash being knotted round his waist. Very leisurely he put on his white peaked cap, then took a dark blue serge yachting coat and slipped his arms into it, moving slowly forward meanwhile to the gangway. A wooden contrivance, forming a kind of bridge, with a handrail, was pushed out by the crew; and one of the longsh.o.r.emen pressed eagerly forward to make it firm.

Mr. Percivale stepped upon it, and walked, still with that impa.s.sive, pre-occupied air, forward towards the waiting crowd.

Now it could be seen that his eyes were bright and vivid, of the very deepest blue--that blue called the violet, which shows darkly from a distance. His hair, with a distinct shade of red in its l.u.s.tre, was a ma.s.s of small soft curls, close to the head. His complexion was fair and clear, just touched with tan, but naturally pale; his features excessively finely cut.

"A man of mark, to know next time you saw," quoted Claud inwardly, as the stranger paused.

The dark blue eyes roved over the crowd but for one swift instant. Then, suddenly, they met the glance of a pair of pa.s.sionate grey ones--eyes which spoke, which seemed to cry aloud for sympathy--eyes set in such a face as the owner of the _Swan_ had never yet looked on. As the two glances met, they became rivetted, each on the other. There was a pause, which to Elsa seemed to last for hours, but which in reality occupied only a few seconds; then Mr. Fowler went forward and asked,

"You are the owner of the _Swan_?"

"Yes; and you, if I rightly understood Bergman, are a Justice of the Peace?"

"I am. Fowler is my name."

"I really do not know," said the stranger, his eyes again wandering towards Elsa in the background, "whether you are the proper person with whom to lodge my information, but perhaps you will kindly arrange all that for me. I merely felt that I could not leave the neighborhood without telling you what my men found this morning on the cliffs."

The silence, the breathless hush which had fallen on all present was almost horrible; the very sea, the noisy breeze seemed subdued for the moment. Mr. Fowler's face stiffened.

"We were lying midway between Brent and this place early this morning,"

went on the stranger who, to judge by his speech, was certainly English, "and my crew were examining the cliff with the gla.s.ses, when their attention was caught by something lying on the gra.s.s. It was a dark object, and after watching it for some time, one of the men declared that it moved. At last they asked my permission to go and examine the spot, which I willingly gave. They scaled the cliff----"

"Then what they saw was not at the _foot_ of the cliff?" burst in Claud, breathlessly.

"No. It was on the summit. It was the dead body of a boy."

Elsa gave a wild cry and threw up her arms.

Mr. Fowler caught her to him, holding her golden head against his breast, stroking down her hair, murmuring to her with parched lips. Mrs.

Orton never moved; she stood like a pale Nemesis, her eyes fixed on the trembling girl; and down from the breezy heights came the wind, singing and whistling, making all the poppies dance among the stubble, and the bright clouds dash over the vivid sky in racy succession.