"It"s only I," breathed Sam Jenkins. "I"m on the watch as well as d.i.c.ky.
It looks like a case of two loviers, does it not?"
The "loviers" were parting. Captain Collinson held her hand between both his to give her his final whisper. Then Mina tripped lightly over the gra.s.s and stole in at the gla.s.s-doors of the garden-room, while the captain stalked round to the front-entrance and boldly rang, making believe he had only then arrived.
"Oh my, _my_!" repeated the enraptured d.i.c.ky, "won"t I have the pull of her now! She"d better tell tales of me again!"
"Is it a case, think you?" asked Sam of me, as we slowly followed in the wake of Mina.
"It looks like it," I answered.
Janet was singing one of her charming songs, as we stole in at the gla.s.s-doors: "Blow, blow, thou wintry wind:" just as she used to sing it in that house in the years gone by. Her voice had not lost its sweetness. Mina stood near the piano now, a thoughtful look upon her flushed face.
"Where did you and d.i.c.ky go just now, Sam?"
Sam turned short round at the query. Charlotte Knox, as she put it, carried suspicion in her low tone.
"Where did I and d.i.c.ky go?" repeated Sam, rather taken aback. "I--I only stepped out for a stroll in the moonlight. I don"t know anything about d.i.c.ky."
"I saw d.i.c.ky run out to the garden first, and you went next," persisted Charlotte, who was just as keen as steel. "d.i.c.k, what was there to see?
I will give you two helpings of trifle at supper if you tell me."
For two helpings of trifle d.i.c.k would have sold his birthright. "Such fun!" he cried, beginning to jump. "She was out there with the captain, Lotty: he came to the window here and beckoned to her: I saw him. I dodged them round and round the laurels, and I am pretty nearly sure he kissed her."
"Who was?--who did?" But the indignant glow on Lotty"s face proved that she scarcely needed to put the question.
"That nasty Mina. She took and told that it was me who eat up the big bowl of raspberry cream in the larder to-day; and mother went and believed her!"
Charlotte Knox, her brow knit, her head held erect, walked away after giving us all a searching look apiece. "I, like d.i.c.ky, saw Collinson call her out, and I thought I might as well see what he wanted to be after," Sam whispered to me. "I did not see d.i.c.ky at all, though, until he came into the laurels with you."
"He is talking to her now," I said, directing Sam"s attention to the captain.
"I wonder whether I ought to tell Dr. Knox?" resumed Sam. "What do you think, Johnny Ludlow? She is so young, and somehow I don"t trust him.
Dan doesn"t, either."
"Dan told me he did not."
"Dan fancies he is after her money. It would be a temptation to some people,--seven thousand pounds. Yet he seems to have plenty of his own."
"If he did marry her he could not touch the money for three or four years to come."
"Oh, couldn"t he, though," answered Sam, taking me up. "He could touch it next day."
"I thought she did not come into it till she was of age, and that Dr.
Knox was trustee."
"That"s only in case she does not marry. If she marries it goes to her at once. Here comes Aunt Jenkins!"
The old lady, as spruce as you please, in a satin gown, was shaking hands with Mrs. Knox. But she looked half silly: and, may I never be believed again, if she did not begin to nod directly she sat down.
"Do you hail from India? as the Americans phrase it," I suddenly ask of Captain Collinson, when chance pinned us together in a corner of the supper-room, and he could not extricate himself.
"Hail from India!" he repeated. "Was I born there, I conclude you mean?"
"Yes."
"Not exactly. I went there, a child, with my father and mother. And, except for a few years during my teens, when I was home for education, I have been in India ever since. Why do you ask?"
"For no particular reason. I was telling Madame St. Vincent this evening that it seemed to me I had seen you before; but I suppose it could not be. Shall you be going back soon?"
"I am not sure. Possibly in the autumn, when my leave will expire: not till next year if I can get my leave extended. I shall soon be quitting Lefford."
"Shall you?"
"Must do it. I have to make my bow at a levee; and I must be in town for other things as well. I should like to enjoy a little of the season there: it may be years before the opportunity falls to my lot again.
Then I have some money to invest: I think of buying an estate. Oh, I have all sorts of business to attend to, once I am in London."
"Where"s the use of buying an estate if you are to live in India?"
"I don"t intend to live in India always," he answered, with a laugh. "I shall quit the service as soon as ever I can, and settle down comfortably in the old country. A home of my own will be of use to me then."
Now it was that very laugh of Captain Collinson"s that seemed more familiar to me than all the rest of him. That I had heard it before, ay, and heard it often, I felt sure. At least, I should have felt sure but for its seeming impossibility.
"You are from Gloucestershire, I think I have heard," he observed to me.
"No; from Worcestershire."
"Worcestershire? That"s a nice county, I believe. Are not the Malvern Hills situated in it?"
"Yes. They are eight miles from Worcester."
"I should like to see them. I must see them before I go back. And Worcester is famous for--what is it?--china?--yes, china. And for its cathedral, I believe. I shall get a day or two there if I can. I can do Malvern at the same time."
"Captain Collinson, would you mind giving Lady Jenkins your arm?" cried Mrs. Knox at this juncture. "She is going home."
"There is no necessity for Captain Collinson to disturb himself: I can take good care of Lady Jenkins," hastily spoke Madame St. Vincent, in a tart tone, which the room could not mistake. Evidently she did not favour Captain Collinson.
But the captain had already pushed himself through the throng of people and taken the old lady in tow. The next minute I found myself close to Charlotte Knox, who was standing at the supper-table, with a plate of cold salmon before her.
"Are you a wild bear, Johnny Ludlow?" she asked me privately, under cover of the surrounding clatter.
"Not that I know of. Why?"
"Madame St. Vincent takes you for one."
I laughed. "Has she told you so?"
"She has not told me: I guess it is some secret," returned Charlotte, beginning upon the sandwiches. "I learnt it in a curious way."
A vein of seriousness ran through her half-mocking tone; seriousness lay in her keen and candid eyes, lifted to mine.