"I don"t think you ought to speak to me like that," said she, "although you are to be my friend,"--for this had been agreed upon--"you must not call me a "little girl," and, Val, only the minute before, you reminded me that I was a married woman."
"You are such a queer mixture, Leo."
"I know. I can"t help it." She was off her pedestal as fast as she had hopped on. "I do try to remember, and at Deeside it was quite easy; n.o.body thought of me as "funny" or a "girl" there--but here I seem to be back again just as I was when I left! All the places are the same, the places where we had our accidents and our happenings, and I _can"t_ feel different. Only, Val----" she hesitated.
"Well?" said he.
"There"s G.o.dfrey. I would not for worlds, not for _worlds_--it would be horrible to seem to forget G.o.dfrey. I don"t forget him, you know; I don"t really. It is just that my spirits get up on a morning like this, what with meeting you, and talking, and all,"--she stumbled on incoherently,--"and you are so kind, and seem just to know what it is like. Only you mustn"t take advantage, Val,"--and she shook her head at him with an air of gentle exhortation, "you mustn"t encroach. And I don"t think I can meet you out-of-doors--no I can"t"--(as he emitted an expostulatory "Oh, I say!") "I have made up my mind. You always called me your tyrant, don"t you remember? Well, it"s no use fighting against your tyrant now."
"All right." A happy idea occurred, and Val made shift to acquiesce indifferently. "Very glad to have had the pleasure of meeting you to-day, and so forth; and now I must go back to grandmother, and I daresay we shan"t see each other again for months."
"Not--for--months?"
"Perhaps not this winter. I may be going away from home. I daresay I shall. It"s beastly dull at our place, and there"s nothing going on anywhere hereabouts."
"But, Val?"--the shot had told; she was plainly disconcerted. "Going away?"--she faltered.
"Very likely I shall. I haven"t made up my mind where, but----"
"But you never do go. What should you go for now?"
"A fellow must have change. Many fellows go abroad regularly. I know a fellow who is going to hunt in Spain."
"What on earth should you do hunting in Spain, Val?"
She could not help it, she laughed outright at the idea. Val in Spain?
Val, who knew no country, no sport, no language but his own? A glimmering of the truth dawned on Leo.
"I should think Spain was a very nice place to go to," observed she, regaining her composure, "a very nice place indeed."
But their eyes met, and the farce could be kept up no longer.
"You want to make me feel that I should miss you, and I _should_ miss you," cried Leo, finding her tongue first. "I should be very, very sorry, now that we"ve met and met as old friends, and understand each other so well, to think that all through the long winter months you were to be far away,--so don"t think of it, Val; you can"t, you simply mustn"t. And though I can"t and won"t do anything secret, I shall tell them at home straight out that I met you to-day--accidentally, for it was accidentally--and that we had a talk--they can"t be angry with me for that,--and then, whether any one looks at me or not, I"ll say boldly: "So in future there will be no need for me to get out of Val Purcell"s way". There, that"s settled. Here"s your short cut, and I"ll run home across these fields. Good-bye, and--and thank you, Val."
She was off, and though for a moment he thought of running after her, a glance at his watch stopped him.
It was already past one o"clock and though for himself he had nothing to fear if late for luncheon, since his grandmother was accustomed to unpunctuality, and would be only too ready to pardon it on the present occasion, with Leo it was different.
Luckily she was nearer home than he was. Flying along as she was doing, she might get in by a side door before the general stalked into the dining-room, and he sincerely hoped she would. He watched till she was out of sight. There was no one on earth whom Val disliked and feared as much as Leo"s father.
The latter could not indeed snub him and snap at him, as when he was a boy--but it was almost worse to be looked at as though he were an offensive object, and to be heard in sneering silence if he ventured upon a remark. For all his witlessness Val, poor fellow, knew when he was happy and comfortable and when he was not, and he did not need his grandmother to tell him that he was no favourite with General Boldero.
"I only hope the old beast doesn"t bully Leo," he muttered, as at last he turned into the short cut, and all the way home he was sunk in thought.
But he burst into Mrs. Purcell"s presence hilariously. "I"ve had a jolly good time, ma"am. Sorry to be late, but I was walking with Leonore."
"With Leonore? You really did?--how odd that you should happen to meet!"
The old lady, who had begun excitedly, checked herself, and a.s.sumed a cheerful, every-day air. "You fell in with the sisters on the road, I suppose?"
"Not the sisters. Only Leo. I ran into her in the middle of the village, and she was awfully nice and friendly; so then we went off for a walk together."
"How nice! Just the morning for a pleasant walk."
"Beastly wet and dirty underfoot though. Look at my boots"--and he looked himself. "We got into a regular bog once."
"You left the high road? You should not have done that." (Delighted that he had.)
"Went along the lane to p.r.i.c.kett"s Green, and got into the woods there,"
said he, helping himself to cold pheasant, and looking about for adjuncts. "I knew you wanted me to do the civil, so I told her I had nothing else on hand, and we might as well have a good tramp. But we didn"t really get very far, though we pottered on and on, and she had to skurry at the last to be home in time."
"Did you--did she--does Leo seem changed? Or did you find your old playmate what she always was?"
"Should never have known she had been away. She doesn"t look a day older."
"But altered otherwise, perhaps? Marriage does sometimes--" and she paused suggestively.
"Oh, hang it, yes; Leo"s quite the married woman," supplied he, decidedly. He knew it was a lie, but told himself he meant to say it. "I suppose they"re always a bit pompous, aren"t they?"
"Pompous? Do you mean that that dear little innocent-faced thing has grown pompous? Impossible, Val."
"It"s the correct thing, I suppose, ma"am. Once when she thought I was rather presuming--I"m sure I meant no harm--she regularly jumped upon me!"
"Be careful, my dear, if Leo is like that. Being left rich and independent while yet so young, may have turned her head a little. Did she--ahem! talk about her affairs at all?"
"Affairs?" ("Now, what the deuce does she mean by "affairs"?" thought he.)
"Did she speak of what she meant to do? Is she thinking of remaining in these parts? Or has she any other plans?"
"If she has, she didn"t tell them me." Val considered and shook his head. "No, I don"t believe she said a word of the kind. Besides what plans could she have, poor little----"
"Not "poor"". Mrs. Purcell smiled significantly. "You don"t seem to understand, my dear. Leonore Stubbs is a very rich widow, and will be immensely sought after. It would be a great pity if she could not settle in the neighbourhood, and--and join the hunt, as you said yourself."
"Aye, to be sure. I forgot about that; but you told me not to spring it upon her too soon."
"True. But you might have discovered if she was--however, apparently she has no immediate intention of flying away."
Rea.s.sured on the point, Mrs. Purcell let well alone. She had no conception that anything could be hid from her, and thought she divined that while all had gone well, even beyond her hopes so far, the two whom she would fain have seen made one, had restricted their _tete-a-tete_ to the discussion of conventional and superficial topics. Val had even called Leonore "pompous". That meant the young lady was aware of her own value, and if so----?
There remained however this comfort; in her present situation the youthful widow could not go into society, and Val, being first in the field, might, to borrow his own phraseology, catch the hare before the other hounds were on the scent.
Val on his part chuckled likewise. Secretive as the grave could Val be when he chose; and one thing was clear to him: Leonore was trying to play the part required of her by her family and the world, and he alone knew that it was a part.
He would not betray her. Not all his grandmother"s wiles should draw from him a picture of that confiding little face--sorrowful enough at times certainly, and yet not sorrowful in the approved fashion, not hopeless, not utterly cast down. "Just looking as if she needed some one to be kind to her," ruminated he; "and when she laughed--" he paused and wagged his head, "Lord, it was a good thing n.o.body but me heard Leo laugh!"
CHAPTER VI.