"He, monsieur," tried the black-eyed dame of the auberge, leaning over the rail of the verandah, as he pa.s.sed: "ou donc est madame? Est-ce qu"elle ne revient pas?"
"Madame est partie," said Alan continuing his walk without turning round. The aubergiste looked after him in amaze. Where could madame have gone? There was no other road to the station, and she had been watching for the English milord and his lady for the last hour and a half! What had he done with madame?
It was a matter of speculation which lasted her for many a day, and was often recounted to new comers. It became the general opinion at Culoz that the Englishman had in some unaccountable manner killed his wife and disposed mysteriously of her body. But although search was made for it high and low, the murdered body was never found. Nevertheless, the stranger"s guilt remained a tradition of the neighborhood, and the story of that marvelous disappearance is related by the villagers unto this day.
Alan went on his way rejoicing, although in somewhat grim and shame-faced wise. For three years he had been a miserable slave. Now he was free! And he determined that he would never submit to bonds again.
CHAPTER II.
AT THE RECTORY.
About the very time when Alan Walcott, at the age of three-and-twenty, was making a hasty match with the daughter of a French refugee--a match bitterly deplored before the first few weeks of married life were over--events, which afterwards very greatly affected his career, were quickly shaping themselves in a sleepy little English village not far from the place where he was born.
Angleford, a mere handful of red-brick cottages, five miles from a railway station, was little known to the outer world. Its nearest market-town was Dorminster, and the village of Thorley lay between Angleford and the county town. Birchmead, a hamlet which had some repute of its own as a particularly healthy place, stood further down the river on which Angleford was built, and its merits generally threw those of neighboring villages into the shade.
But Angleford was in itself a pretty little nook, and its inhabitants somewhat prided themselves on its seclusion from the world. These inhabitants, it must be confessed, were few. It had once been a larger and more important place, but had gradually dwindled away until the village contained less than three hundred persons, chiefly laborers and small shop-keepers. Beside these, there were the doctor, and his wife, the rector and his family, and the squire--a childless widower, who was of rather less account than anybody else in the parish.
The Rectory was a rambling, long, low, red-brick house standing in prettily-wooded grounds, bordered by the river, on the other side of which lay the park belonging to the squire. The park ran for some distance on both sides of the stream, and the Rectory grounds were, so to speak, taken out of the very midst of the squire"s, demesne. The continuation of wooded ground on either side the narrow winding river made the place particularly picturesque; and it was a favorite amus.e.m.e.nt for the rector"s son and daughter to push a rather crazy boat out of the little boat-house at the foot of the garden, and row up and down those reaches of the stream "between the bridges," which were navigable. One of the bridges warned them of the weir, which it was not very safe to approach; and beyond the other, three miles further down and close to Birchmead, the stream was shallow and clogged with reeds. But within these limits there was a peaceful tranquil beauty which made the boat a favorite resting place for the Rectory people during the long summer evenings and afternoons.
It was two o"clock on a late autumn afternoon, when a girl of sixteen came out of the Rectory door, which always stood hospitably open in fine weather, and walked to the boat-house, as if intending to launch out upon the water. The day was sunny on the whole, but not cloudless: the sun shone out brightly every now and then, and was again obscured by a filmy haze, such as rises so easily from the low-lying land in Ess.e.x.
But the golden haze softened the distant outlines of wood and meadow, and the sun"s beams rested tenderly upon the rapidly stripping branches, where a few rustling leaves still told of their departed glories. The long undefined shadows of the trees stretched far across the wide lawn, scarcely moving in the profound stillness of the air; and a whole a.s.sembly of birds kept up a low-toned conversation in the bushes, as if the day were hardly bright enough to warrant a full chorus of concerted song. It was a tender, wistful kind of day, such as comes sometimes in the fall of the year, before the advent of frost. And a certain affinity with the day was visible in the face of the girl who had walked down to the riverside. There was no melancholy in her expression: indeed, a very sweet and happy smile played about the corners of her sensitive mouth; but a slightly wistful look in the long-lashed grey eyes lent an unconscious pathos to the delicate face. But, although delicate, the face was anything but weak. The features were clearly cut; the mouth and chin expressed decision as well as sensibility; and beneath the thick, fine waves of shining brown hair, the forehead was broad and well-developed. Without pretension to actual beauty or any kind of perfection, the face was one likely to attract and then to charm; gentleness, thoughtfulness, intellectual power, might be read in those fair features, as well as an almost infantine candor and innocence, and the subtle and all too-transient bloom of extreme youth. Her hair, which const.i.tuted one of her best "points," was simply parted in the middle, fastened with a clasp at the nape of her neck, and then allowed to fall in a smooth, shining shower down to her waist. Mrs. Campion, who had been something of a beauty in her young days, was given to lamenting that Lettice"s hair was not golden, as hers had been; but the clear soft brown of the girl"s abundant tresses had a beauty of it"s own; and, as it waved over her light woollen frock of grey-green hue, it gave her an air of peculiar appropriateness to the scene--as of a wood-nymph, who bore the colors of the forest-trees from which she sprang.
Such, at any rate, was the fancy of a man whose canoe came shooting down the river at this moment, like an arrow from a bow. He slackened pace as he came near the Rectory garden, and peered through the tangled branches which surrounded the old black boat-house, to catch another glimpse of Lettice. He wondered that she did not notice him: his red and white blazer and jaunty cap made him a somewhat conspicuous object in this quiet country place; and she must have heard the long strokes of his oars. But she remained silent, apparently examining the fastenings of the boat; absorbed and tranquil, with a happy smile upon her lips.
"Good afternoon, Miss Campion: can I help you there in any way?" he shouted at last, letting his boat slide past the boat-house entrance, and then bringing it round to the little flight of gra.s.sy steps cut in the bank from the lawn to the river.
"Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Dalton. Thank you, no; I don"t want any help,"
said Lettice; but the young man had already set foot upon the lawn and was advancing towards her. He was the nephew and heir of the childless Squire at Angleford Manor, and he occasionally spent a few weeks with his uncle in the country. Old Mr. Dalton was not fond of Angleford, however, and the Campions did not see much of him and his nephew.
Brooke Dalton was six-and-twenty, a manly, well-looking young fellow, with fair hair and bright blue eyes. He was not very tall, and had already begun to develop a tendency towards stoutness, which gave him considerable trouble in after years. At present he kept it down by heavy doses of physical exercise, so that it amounted only to a little unusual fullness of body and the suspicion of a double chin. His enemies called him fat. His friends declared that his sunshiny look of prosperity and good-humor was worth any amount of beauty, and that it would be a positive loss to the world if he were even a trifle thinner. And Brooke Dalton was a man of many friends.
Lettice greeted him with a smile. "So you are here again," she said.
"Yes, I"ve been here a day or two. Have you heard from Sydney yet?"
"No, and we are dreadfully anxious. But papa says we shall hear very soon now."
"I don"t suppose you need have the slightest anxiety. Sydney is sure to do well: he was always a clever fellow."
"Yes, but he has had no teaching except from papa: and papa torments himself with the idea that there may be better teachers than himself at Cambridge--which I am sure there couldn"t be. And I am sure he will be disappointed if Sydney does not get at least an exhibition, although he tries to pretend that he will not mind."
"If he does not get it this year, he will be the surer of it next time."
"Yes," said Lettice rather doubtfully. "But I wish papa were not quite so anxious."
"Did he go to Cambridge with Sydney?"
"Yes, and stayed for a day or two; but he said he was rather glad to get home again--there had been so many changes since he was there."
"Here he comes," said Brooke, turning round.
The rector was a dignified-looking man, with a tall figure, handsome features, and hair and beard which had of late been growing very grey.
He greeted Dalton cordially, and at once began to speak of his hopes and expectations for his son. To all of these Dalton responded good-humoredly. "Sydney has plenty of brains: he is is sure to do well,"
he said.
"Oh, I don"t know--I don"t know. I"ve been his only tutor, and I may not have laid the foundations with sufficient care. I shall not be at all surprised if he fails. Indeed"--with a transparent affectation of indifference--"I shall not be sorry to have him back for another year.
He is not quite eighteen, you know. And Lettice will be glad to have him again."
"But I want him to succeed!" said Lettice eagerly.
"Of course you do. And he _will_ succeed," said Brooke; an a.s.surance which caused her to flash a glad look of grat.i.tude to him in reply.
"Lettice has been Sydney"s companion in his studies," said Mr. Campion, patting her hand gently with his long white fingers. "She has been very industrious and has got on very well, but I daresay she will be pleased to have a holiday when he is gone."
"Yes, I daresay," said Brooke; and then, looking at Lettice, he saw the manifestation of some strong feeling which he did not understand. The girl flushed hotly and withdrew her hand from her father"s arm. The tears suddenly came into her eyes.
"I never wanted a holiday," she said, in a hurt tone.
"No, no, you were always a good girl," returned her father absently--his eyes had wandered away from her to the high-road beyond the glebe. "But of course there is a limit to a girl"s powers; she can"t compete with a boy beyond a certain point. Is not that a cab, Lettice? Surely it must be Sydney, and he has came at last. Well, now we shall know the result!"
"I"ll go to the fence and look," said Lettice, running away. The tears of mortification and distress were still smarting in her eyes. Why should her father depreciate her to their neighbor because she was a girl? She did not mind Mr. Dalton"s opinion of her, but it was hard that her father should give her no credit for the work that she had done in the study at his side. Step by step she had kept pace with her brother: sometimes he had excelled her, sometimes she thought that she was outstripping him. Now in the hour of his possible success (of which she would be proud and glad), why should her father seem to undervalue her powers and her industry? They would never bring her the guerdon that might fall to Sydney"s lot; but she felt that she, too, had a right to her father"s praise.
She had been vaguely hurt during Sydney"s absence to find that Mr.
Campion did not seem disposed to allow her to go on working alone with him. "Wait, my dear, wait," he had said to her, when she came to him as usual, "let us see how Sydney"s examination turns out. If he comes back to us for another year you can go on with him. If not--well, you are a girl, it does not matter so much for _you_; and your mother complains that you do not sit with her sufficiently. Take a holiday just now, we will go on when Sydney comes back."
But in this, Lettice"s first separation from her beloved brother, she had no heart for a holiday. She would have been glad of hard work to take her out of herself. She was anxious, sad, _des[oe]uvree_, and if she had not been taught all her life to look on failure in an examination as something disgraceful, she would have earnestly hoped that Sydney might lose the scholarship for which he was competing.
Brooke Dalton saw that his presence was scarcely desired just then, and took his leave, meditating as he pulled up the river on Lettice"s reddened cheeks and pretty tear-filled eyes. "I suppose she thinks she"ll miss her brother when he goes away," he decided at length, "and no doubt she will, for a time; but it is just as well--what does a girl want with all that Latin and Greek? It will only serve to make her forget to brush her hair and wear a frock becomingly. Of course she"s clever, but I should not care for that sort of cleverness in a sister--or a wife." He thought again of the girl"s soft grey eyes. But he had a hundred other preoccupations, and her image very soon faded from his brain.
Lettice ran to the fence to look at the cab, but Mr. Campion turned at once to the gateway and walked out into the road. He had not been mistaken, it was Sydney, indeed; and as soon as the young fellow saw his father he stopped the vehicle, told the driver to go on to the Rectory with his portmanteau, and turned to his father with a triumphant smile.
Lettice did not meet the pair for a minute or two, so the son"s communication was made first to Mr. Campion alone.
"Here I am, sir!" was the young man"s greeting, "turned up again like a bad half-penny."
"Welcome anyhow, my boy," said the rector, "and sterling coin, I"ll warrant, however much you may malign yourself." He was too nervous to ask a direct question about his son"s success. "We have been very dull without you. Lettice is counting on your help to break in her pony to the saddle."
"You mustn"t be dull after a week"s absence. What would you do if I had to be more than half the year at Cambridge?"
"Ah, that would be a different thing. Have they given you an exhibition then?"
"Well, not exactly that." The rector"s face fell, but it brightened as Sydney proceeded with a touch of youthful pomposity. "Your old pupil is a Scholar of Trinity."
The rector was carrying his cane as he walked along, and when Sydney had told his good news he stopped short, his face aglow, and for lack of any more eloquent mode of expressing his satisfaction, raised it in the air and brought it down with sounding emphasis on his companion"s back.
Sydney laughed.