It was clear what the Captain wished. It would have pleased her father had he been alive, it would be satisfactory to Sir Charles, it would fit in with her own conception of life. So she would dance along the primrose way without a want, without a care, without a responsibility. There would be gaiety, and mirth, and music, balls and crushes, and social functions of all sorts and kinds. She would get into social circles she had never known before, and be "Lady" Tregony before she died.
It was all as straight as a rule, and as clear as a sunbeam.
Why had it never seemed empty and sordid and selfish until to-night? Why did her inward eyes look for a sterner and more heroic way? Why did pleasure look so uninviting and duty wear such a noble mien? Why was all her future outlook changed as in a flash?
These were questions she was debating with herself when a new day stole into the room.
CHAPTER IX
THE CAPTAIN'S LETTER
A few days later, Madeline received a letter from Captain Tregony, which contained a carefully-worded, though very definite, proposal of marriage. Gervase had been only too pleased to carry out his father's suggestion. The prospect of fingering at an early date a few of her surplus dollars was a very tempting one. He was not particularly in love with her. He had got through the sentimental age, so he believed. Moreover, he had seen so much of life and the world, and had had such a wide and varied experience of feminine kind that he was not likely to be carried off his feet by a pretty face or engaging manners.
Nevertheless, if he was to marry at all – and since he was an only son and heir to a title and estates, marriage seemed a very obvious duty – then there was no one, all things considered, he would sooner take to his heart and endow with all his worldly goods than Madeline Grover. She was very young, very pretty, very sweet-tempered, and, best of all, very rich; and he knew no one else who possessed such a combination of excellencies.
It had been a great relief to him when he went out to America to make the acquaintance of John Grover's daughter, to discover that she was such an unspoiled child of nature. He had been haunted by the fear that she might be ugly or ignorant or uneducated. Hence, when he found a charming school-girl, ingenuous, unsophisticated, impressionable, he heaved a big sigh of relief, and set to work at once to make a favourable and an abiding impression.
He would have proposed then and there had he considered it politic to do so. His father, however, who was his chief adviser, would not hear of it. "You will spoil the whole game if you do," Sir Charles insisted. "Make a good impression now, and let time and absence deepen it. She will put a halo round your head after a few weeks' absence, and eagerly look forward to the next meeting."
In this Sir Charles showed his knowledge of human nature, especially of feminine human nature.
Gervase had hinted that, if he was not getting old, he was getting distinctly older, that the crows'-feet were very marked about his eyes, and that his hair was getting decidedly thin.
"My dear boy," Sir Charles said, affectionately, "that is all in your favour. If she were eight or nine and twenty, she might cast longing eyes on the youths, but a girl of seventeen always dotes on an elderly man. Always! I don't know why it should be so, but I simply state a fact. Girls have not a particle of reverence or even respect for youths of twenty-one or two. They sigh for a man who bears the scars of years and battle."
So Gervase went away to India, leaving his father to work the oracle for him at home. On the whole, Sir Charles's forecast had proved correct. Things had turned out much as he anticipated they would.
Madeline read the Captain's letter with a distinct heightening of colour. She was still weak and a little inclined to be hysterical. Her adventure on the cliffs had shaken her nerves to an extent she was only just beginning to realise.
She closed her eyes after she had put the letter back in the envelope, and tried to think. The Captain's proposal had not surprised her in the least, while the manner of it was just what she had expected. He had used just the right words and said neither too much nor too little.
She admired him for his reticence, and for his strength in holding himself so well in check, and yet there was a passionate earnestness in his well-chosen words that revealed the depth of his affection, as well as his determination to win.
Very adroitly and diplomatically also he had hinted of the good time they might have together. They would not settle down in a sleepy place like St. Gaved. They would have a town house, and perhaps a shooting-box in Scotland, and when tired of the United Kingdom they would travel on the Continent – Paris, Vienna, Monte Carlo, Florence, were delightful places to visit, and to tarry in for a few weeks or months. The common work-a-day world might roar and fret and toil and perspire, but they would live in a serener atmosphere, undisturbed by the jar and strife that went on around them.
It was a very fair and enticing picture that his words conjured up, and one that she had often pictured for herself. This was the future that her friends, in conjunction with a kindly Providence, had shaped for her. There seemed nothing for her to do but say "Yes." It was all in the piece. Her life had been beautifully planned, and planned without effort or contrivance by anybody. The current had borne her along easily and gently to the inevitable union with Gervase Tregony.
His face and form came up before her again as she last saw him. How handsome he looked in his uniform! How fierce his eyes were when he looked at other people, how gentle when he looked at her! Some people might think his voice harsh and raucous, but there was an undertone of music in it for her. It was the voice of a hero, of a man born to command. Its echoes seemed to be in the air even now.
And yet for some reason her heart did not respond as it once did. Was it that her nerves had been shaken – that she had not quite got over the shock of the adventure? Something had happened during the last few days, but what it was she could not quite understand. The life of pleasure, to which she had looked forward, undisturbed by a single note of human pain, did not appeal to her, for some reason, as once it did. A new ingredient had been dropped into the cup, a new thought had come into her brain, a new impulse had shaken her heart.
Had she looked at death so closely that life could never be the same to her again, or was it that she looked at life more truly and steadily? Had a change come over other people, or was the change wholly in herself? That something had happened she was certain, but what it was, was a question she could not definitely answer.
Of one thing, however, she was sure. If the letter had come three or four days sooner, it would have found her in a wholly different frame of mind. Hence, whatever the change was, it was compassed by these few days.
Her meditations were disturbed by a knock at the door, and a moment later Dr. Pendarvis entered. "Ah! you are better this morning," he said, in his bright, cheery fashion. "Now, let me feel your pulse." And he drew up a chair and sat down by her side.
"A little inclined to be jumpy still, eh? Ah, well, you had rather a nasty experience. But you'll be all right again in a few days."
"I think I am all right now," she said, with a smile. "Don't you think I might go out of doors?"
"Well, now, what do you think yourself?" he questioned, stroking his chin and smiling.
"I'm just a little shaky on my feet," she answered, "but I guess that would go off when I got into the fresh air."
"And how about the bruises?"
"Oh, they are disappearing one by one."
"And how far do you think you could walk?"
"I don't know, but I do know it's awfully dull being in the house."
"And do you want to go anywhere in particular?" he asked innocently, and he glanced at her furtively out of the corner of his eye.
"Oh, no!" she answered, blushing slightly; "or, at any rate, not just yet. Of course, when I get stronger I shall be glad to walk into St. Gaved again."
"You ran into it last time," he said, laughing. "What a day of adventures you had to be sure!"
"I was compelled to run," she said, averting her eyes and looking out of the window; "he would have drowned if I hadn't."
"Exactly. And it was touch and go by all accounts. He couldn't have held out many minutes longer."
"And is he going on all right, doctor?" She turned her eyes suddenly upon him, and waited with parted lips for his answer.
"Well, about as well as can be expected," he answered, slowly, "taking all the circumstances into account."
"And is he suffering much pain?"
"A good deal I should say. In fact, that is inevitable."
"He must wish me far enough."
"It depends how far that is, I should say," and the old doctor chuckled.
"You've not heard him heaping maledictions on my defenceless head?"
"No, I have not," he answered, with a satirical smile; "but then you see he's not given to expressing his thoughts in public."
"Exactly. I guess his thoughts about me would not bear repeating in any polite society."
"That is possible," the old doctor said, pursing his lips, and looking thoughtful.
"I suppose no one sees him yet?"
"Well, Chester or I myself see him every day – sometimes twice."
"I intend seeing him myself soon."
"You do?"
"Yes I do. There's nothing wrong in it, is there?"
"Why do you ask that question?"
"Because you've got such stupid notions about propriety in this country. In fact, few things seem to be regarded as proper except what is highly improper. I'm constantly stubbing my toes against the notice tablets, 'keep off the grass,' the dangerous places are left without warning."
The doctor laughed.
"Isn't it true what I'm saying?" she went on. "Half the people seem to be straining at gnats and swallowing camels. Directly you propose to do some perfectly innocent thing, if it should happen to be unconventional, you are met with shocked looks and outstretched hands and cries of protest. I'm getting rather tired of that word 'proper.'"
"But Society must have some code to regulate itself by," he said, with an air of pretended seriousness.
"Aren't the Ten Commandments good enough?" she questioned.
"Well, hardly," he said, in a tone of banter. "You see they are a bit antiquated and out of date. Society, as at present constituted, must have everything of the most modern type. And modernity is not able to tolerate such an antiquated code as the Decalogue."
"What do you mean by Society?" she questioned.
"Ah! now you have cornered me," he said, with a laugh. "But just at the moment I was thinking of the idle rich. Men and women who have more money than they know how to spend, and more time than they know how to kill. The people who have never a thought beyond themselves, who live to eat and dress, and pander to the lowest passions of their nature. Who will spend thousands on a dinner fit only for gourmands, while the people around them are dying of hunger. Who waste in folly and luxury and vice what ought to go for the uplifting of the downtrodden and neglected. It is a big class in England, and a growing class, recruited in many instances from across the water – "
"You mean from my country?" she questioned.
"Yes, from your country," he said, with a touch of indignation in his voice, "they come bringing their bad manners and their diamonds, and they hang round the fringe of what is called the 'Smart Set,' and they bribe impecunious dowagers and such like to give them introductions, and they worm their way into the big houses, and God alone knows what becomes of them afterwards. I have a brother who has a big practice in the West-end. You should hear him talk – "
"If people are rich," Madeline retorted warmly, "they have surely the right to enjoy themselves in their own way so long as they do no wrong."
"Enjoy themselves," he snorted. "Is enjoyment the end of life? – and such enjoyment! Has duty no place in the scheme of existence? Because people have grown rich through somebody else's toil – "
"Or through their own toil," she interrupted.
"Or through their own toil – if any man ever did it – are they justified in wasting their life in idle gluttony, and in wasteful and wanton extravagance?"
"Extravagance is surely a question of degree," she replied. "A hundred dollars to one man may be more than ten thousand to another."
"I admit it. But your idle profligate, whether man or woman, is an offence."
"What do you mean by profligate?"
"I mean the creature who lives to eat and drink and dress. Who shirks every duty and responsibility, who panders to every gluttonous and selfish desire. Who hears the cry of suffering and never helps, who wastes his or her substance in finding fresh sources of so-called enjoyment, or discovering new thrills of sensation."
"But we surely have a right to enjoy ourselves?"
"Of course we have. But not after the fashion of swine. We are not animals. We are men and women with intellectual vision and moral responsibility. The true life lies along the road of duty and help and goodwill."
"Yes, I agree with you in that. But I do not like to hear anyone speak slightingly of my country people."
"For your country and your people as a whole, I have the greatest respect. But every country has its snobs and its parasites; and it is humbling that our own great army of idle profligates should receive recruits from the great Republic of the West."
When Dr. Pendarvis had gone Madeline sat for a long time staring out of the window, but seeing nothing of the fair landscape on which her eyes rested. She tried to recall what it was that led their conversation into such a serious channel. To say the least of it, it was not a little strange that he should have taken the hazy and nebulous efforts of her own brain, and shaped them into clear and definite speech. The life of ease and pleasure and self-indulgence to which she had looked forward with so much interest and with such childish delight, he had denounced with a vigour she had half resented, and which all the while she felt answered to the deepest emotions of her nature.
She took the Captain's letter from the envelope and read it again. It was a most proper letter in every respect. There was not a word or syllable that anyone could take the slightest exception to. The love-making was intense and yet restrained, the pleading eloquent and even tender, the prospect pictured such as any ordinary individual would hail with delight. What was it that it lacked?
It seemed less satisfying since her talk with the doctor than before.
The Captain pleaded for an answer by return of post. He wanted to have the assurance before he left India for home. He was tired of roughing it and wanted to look forward to long years of domestic peace. If the engagement were settled now they would be able to set up a house of their own soon after his return.
She put away the letter after reading it through twice, and heaved a long sigh.
"If it had come a week ago," she said to herself, "I should have answered 'Yes' without any misgiving. But now, everything seems changed. Perhaps I shall feel differently when I get out of doors again."
On the following day she took a ramble in the rose garden, and sat for an hour on the lawn in the sunshine. On the second day she strayed into the plantation beyond the park, and on the third day she ventured on to the Downs, and came at length to the high point on the cliffs where she first met Rufus Sterne. Here she sat down and looked seaward, and thought of home and all that had happened since she left it.
The plan of her life which had looked so clear was becoming more and more hazy and confused. Was Providence interposing to upset its own arrangements? Was she to tread a different path from what she had pictured.
The fresh air brought the colour back to her cheeks again, and vigour to her limbs, but it did not clear away the mists that hung about her brain and heart. The Captain's letter remained day after day unanswered.
"If I were engaged to the Captain," she said to herself, reflectively, "It might not be considered proper for me to call on Rufus Sterne. But while I am free, I am free. He saved my life, and it would be mean of me not to call. So I shall follow my heart"; and she rose to her feet and turned her steps towards home.
CHAPTER X
A VISITOR
Mrs. Tuke came into the room on tip-toe, and closed the door softly behind her. There was a mysterious expression in her eyes, and she began at once to straighten the chairs and re-arrange the antimacassars. Her best parlour had been turned, for the time being, into a bedroom. To carry Rufus Sterne up the steep and narrow staircase was a task the fishermen refused to undertake, especially as Rufus had pleaded to be allowed to remain on the sofa. So a bed had been set up in the parlour – not without serious misgivings on the part of Mrs. Tuke, though she admitted the convenience of the arrangement later on. After Mrs. Tuke had arranged the furniture and antimacassars to her satisfaction, she advanced to the side of the bed.
"A lady has called to see you," she said, in an awed whisper.
"A lady?" Rufus questioned, with a slight lifting of the eyebrows.
Mrs. Tuke nodded.
"To see me or simply to inquire?"
"To see you."
"Do I know the lady?" and a faint tinge of colour came into his cheek.
"I suppose so. You ought to do at any rate. It's that scare-away American as is staying at the Hall." And Mrs. Tuke turned and looked apprehensively toward the door.
Rufus felt his heart give a sudden bound, but he answered quietly enough: "Is she waiting in the passage?"
"No, I turned her into your room. Are you going to see her?"
"Most certainly. I think it is awfully kind of her to call."
"I suppose being a furrener explains things?"
"Explains what, Mrs. Tuke?"
"Well, in my day young ladies had different notions of what was the proper thing to do."
"No doubt, Mrs. Tuke; but the world keeps advancing, you see."
"Keeps advancing, do you call it. I am thankful that none of my girls was brought up that way." And Mrs. Tuke walked with her most stately gait out of the room.
Rufus waited with rapidly beating heart. For days past – ever since the pain had become bearable, in fact – he had been longing for a glimpse of the sweet face that had captivated his fancy from the first. That she would call to see him he did not anticipate for a moment. That she had made inquiries concerning his condition he knew from his conversations with Dr. Pendarvis. More than that he could not expect, whatever he might desire. Hence, to be told that she was in the house, that she was waiting to see him, seemed to set vibrating every nerve he possessed.
He heard a faint murmur of voices coming across the narrow lobby, and wondered what Mrs. Tuke was saying to her visitor. He hoped she would not feel it incumbent upon her to unburden her puritanical soul. When Mrs. Tuke was "drawn out," as she expressed it, she sometimes used great plainness of speech. At such times neither rank nor station counted. To clear her conscience was the supreme thing.
On the present occasion, however, Madeline got the first innings. She guessed from the set of Mrs. Tuke's lips that she did not altogether approve. Moreover, she was afraid that on the occasion of her first visit – when Mrs. Tuke revived her with burnt feathers – she had not made a very good impression.
Madeline came, therefore, fully armed and prepared to use all her wiles. She waited with a good deal of trepidation until Mrs. Tuke returned from her lodger's room.
"What a noble, generous soul you must be, Mrs. Tuke," she said, and she looked straight into the cold, blue eyes and smiled her sweetest.
Mrs. Tuke drew herself up and frowned.
"And how lovely you keep your house," Madeline went on, "and what taste you have shown in arranging your furniture."
Mrs. Tuke's face relaxed somewhat, and she gave the corner of the table cloth a little tug to straighten it.
"I think people stamp their character on everything they do, don't you, Mrs. Tuke? If a woman is a lady the house shows it. Look at these flowers how beautifully arranged they are," and Madeline bent down her head and sniffed at them.
"Some people never notice such things," Mrs. Tuke said, in an aggrieved tone.
"Oh, Mrs. Tuke! how can they help it; I am sure you would recognise taste and beauty anywhere."
"So many of the women hereabouts have no taste," Mrs. Tuke replied. "They keep their houses any fashion. I always say you can tell what a house is like by the window curtains. You need not put your head inside the door."
"I quite agree with you, Mrs. Tuke. May I ask where you send your curtains to be got up so beautifully?"
"I get 'em up myself."
"No?"
"I do, indeed," and Mrs. Tuke smiled upon her visitor most benignantly.
"How clever you must be. Do you know I think we should become quite fast friends? We seem to understand each other so well. Some people never understand each other. Now, if you were like some narrow, uncharitable people you would not approve of my calling to see Mr. Sterne."
Mrs. Tuke started, and took a sidelong glance out of the window.
"And I have no doubt," Madeline went on, "if some of the people in St. Gaved got to know that I was in the habit of calling here they would say all sorts of uncharitable things."
"I've not the least doubt of it," Mrs. Tuke said, severely.
"It is so nice to think you are not one of that sort," Madeline said, with a winning smile. "If I came here fifty times I know you would not talk about it. You see you understand people, Mrs. Tuke. And in America, as you know, girls have so much more freedom than they have in this country."
"So I've heard."
"It's natural, perhaps; they go to the same State schools together, and they grow up to respect each other. The girls learn self-reliance, and the boys chivalry."
"That sounds very nice," Mrs. Tuke remarked, with an interested look.
"It ought to be so everywhere. I don't think much of a girl who is not able to take care of herself."
"But men are not to be trusted, my dear," Mrs. Tuke said, with a pained expression in her eyes.
"Then they should be avoided and ostracised."
"Yes, I quite agree with you," Mrs. Tuke said, doubtfully; "but had you not better go and see Mr. Sterne now? Between ourselves, I believe he will be terribly impatient."
"And we'll renew our interesting conversation some other time."
"It's kind of you to want to talk to an old woman like me."
"You must not call yourself old, Mrs. Tuke," and Madeline tripped across the hall, and knocked timidly at the parlour door.
"Come in," called a clear, even voice, and Madeline turned the handle and entered. Her heart was beating considerably faster than usual, and directly she caught sight of Rufus a choking sensation came into her throat.
It was painfully pathetic to see this strong, handsome man lying pale and helpless on his narrow bed, and all because of her. If she had not been foolish and headstrong it would not have happened. And yet a great wave of gratitude surged over her heart at the same moment. His life had been spared. If he had been drowned she would never have forgiven herself to the day of her death.
He greeted her with a smile that was all brightness and sunshine. For the moment all the pain and disappointment and foreboding of the last week were forgotten. The presence of this beautiful girl was compensation for all he had endured.
"It is good of you to come," he said, in a tone that vibrated with unmistakable gratitude.
"No, please don't say that," she answered, a mist coming up before her eyes. "I was afraid you might hate the very sight of me."
He smiled at her for answer, and pointed to a chair.
"I've been wanting to see you for days," she went on; "wanting to ease my heart by telling you how grateful I am, and how terribly I regret causing you so much loss and suffering."
He smiled again. What answer could he make to such words of self-revealing? He would simply have to let her talk on until she gave him something to reply to.
"I told Dr. Pendarvis that I expected in secret you were heaping maledictions on my defenceless head."
"Have you so poor an opinion of me as all that?" he questioned, looking steadily into her sweet, brown eyes.
"Well, you see, I calculate I was judging you by myself somewhat."
"And if you had saved me, and slightly damaged yourself in the process, would you have been very angry with me?"
"Oh! I am only a girl, and if I were disabled for a year, nobody would be the loser. But with you it is different. I wish it had been the other way about."
"I don't."
"No?"
"No, I am glad things are as they are."
"But your invention is at a standstill."
"Who told you about my invention?"
"Dr. Pendarvis, I think. Oh no, it was Dr. Chester; he said you would be a great man some day."
"Dr. Chester will have to cultivate the habit of thinking before he speaks," he said, with a laugh, "If I can be a useful man, I shall be content."
"Is it better to be useful than to be great?" she questioned, naïvely.
"Oh, well, that all depends, I expect, on the meaning you attach to words," he answered, with a broad smile. "If a man is truly great, he is, of course, useful, while a man may be very useful without being great."
"Oh, then, I shall back Dr. Chester," she said, with a pretty shrug of her shoulders.
"You had better not," he said, soberly. "Not that it will matter, of course. For whether I win or lose, you cannot be affected by the one or the other."
"Why not?"
"Oh, for fifty reasons."
"Please give me one."
"I would rather not."
"But I insist upon it."
"And if I still refuse?"
"I shall stay here till you do answer."
"Oh, that will be delightful," he answered, laughing. "How quickly the days will pass."
"Oh, Mr. Sterne, I did not know you could be so provoking," she said, with a little pout.
"Do you really want a reason?" he said, looking gravely into her eyes.
"Really and truly."
"Well, then, my invention will affect only the toilers – the poor people if you like. Its success or failure will not matter one whit to Sir Charles Tregony, for instance, and you belong to the same circle, do you not?"
"But its success or failure will matter to you, won't it?"
"It will matter everything to me."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just what I say. Everything means everything. I've staked my all."
"Oh, no, you have not," she said, brightly. "You may have staked your fortune, and your reputation as an inventor, and your immediate prospects. But life is left."
He caught his breath sharply. "But what is life worth when all you have lived for is swept away?"
"And have you nothing else to live for?" she questioned, seriously.
"Nothing! I'm a lonely soul in a lonely world."
"But there is still life," she persisted. "And no great soul gives up at one failure or at ten."
He felt the hot blood rush to his face and he averted his eyes instinctively. He did his best to recover himself before she should notice, but her keen eyes were quick to see the look of pain and distress that swept over his face.
"Now I have said something foolish – something that has hurt you – " she began.
"My leg hurts me occasionally," he answered, with a poor attempt at a smile.
"I have been very thoughtless," she said, rising suddenly to her feet. "I did not think how I must be tiring you."
"But you have not tired me at all," he persisted. "You have done me good. You cannot think how intolerably irksome it is lying here helpless day after – " then he checked himself suddenly. It was his turn now to see a look of distress come into her eyes.
"And it is all my fault," she interrupted. "Oh, if I could only atone in some measure."
"You have atoned, if atonement were needed, by coming to see me. Will you not come again?"
"May I? Really and truly it would do me good if I could serve you in some way. I might read to you if you would let me, or write your letters."
He felt himself shaken as if with a tempest. He knew, as if by instinct, that he had reached the most fateful – perhaps the most perilous – crisis in his life. He had only to say the word and this beautiful girl would come and sit by his side day after day, come out of pure goodness and gratitude, never dreaming what her presence might mean to him.
He was only too painfully conscious that he was half in love with her already. She had touched his heart and imagination as no one had ever done before. From the time he caught that first glimpse of her face as she was driving from the station until now, she had been almost constantly in his thoughts. It was as though the fates – malicious as usual – had conspired to throw them together, for if he learned to love her, only misery and heart-ache could be the result. She would think of him only as someone she ought to be kind to. She was out of his circle. Whoever, or whatever she might have been in America, here she was the ward of Sir Charles Tregony, one of the proudest and most exclusive men in the county. Besides, for all he knew, she might be engaged already.
Beyond all, there was the fact that his life was at stake. If his project failed he was bound in honour to see that Felix Muller suffered no loss. The rights of the Life Assurance Company had not occurred to him even yet. There must be no human ties to make the struggle harder. If the worst came to the worst – a possibility that would persist in haunting him – he must go unmourned and unmourning into the darkness.
The brain works quickly in times of excitement and emotion, and all these considerations passed through his mind as in a flash. Should he tell this sweet-eyed girl that she must not come to see him again, and let her go away believing that he disapproved of her coming at all?
Better so. Better a few hours or days of sharp pain now than a life-long agony after.
"I must be brave," he said to himself. "The first lesson in life is self-conquest."