"I--I don"t think it"s quite fair to tell all that," he expostulated weakly.
"Fair!" said Uncle Solomon. "I made no secrecy over it. I did nothing to be ashamed of and hush up, and it"s no disgrace to you that I can see to be helped by an uncle that can afford it. Well, as I was saying, Mark came to me----"
Here a small Juggernaut car in the shape of a high-piled truck came rolling down on them with a shout of, "By your leave there, by your leave!" from the unseen porter behind. Mark drew Vincent sharply aside, and then saw Caffyn coming quickly towards them through the crowd, and forgot the torpedo his uncle was doing his best to launch: he felt that with Caffyn came safety. Caffyn, who had evidently been hurrying, gave a sharp glance at the clock: "Sorry to be late," he said, as he shook hands. "Binny fetched me a hansom with a wobbling old animal in it that ran down like a top when we"d got half-way; and of course the main road was up for the last mile--however, I"ve just done it. Come along, Holroyd, I"ve got a carriage." And the three men went off together, leaving Mr. Lightowler behind in a decidedly huffy frame of mind.
"Good-bye, Mark," said Vincent affectionately before he got in. "We"ve not had time to see much of one another, have we? I can"t say how glad I am, though, even to have had that. I shall try not to leave England without seeing you once more; but, if we don"t meet again, then good-bye and G.o.d bless you, old boy! Write to me from abroad, and tell me where you are. We mustn"t lose touch of one another again--eh?"
"Good-bye," said Caffyn, in a hurried voice before he followed. "I"ve got your Swiss address, haven"t I? and if--if anything happens, you shall hear from me."
The next minute Mark stood back, and as the long line of chocolate-and-white carriages rolled gently past he caught his last sight of Vincent"s face, with the look on it that he could not hope to see again. He saw Caffyn too, who gave him a cool side-jerk of the head at parting, with a smile which, when Mark recollected it later, seemed to account for some of the uneasiness he felt. But, after all, this desperate plan had prospered, thanks to Caffyn"s unconscious a.s.sistance. If Vincent had been gagged and bound and kept in a dungeon cell till the wedding was over, he could hardly be more harmless than he would be at Wast.w.a.ter. Two more days--only two more--and the calamity he dreaded even more than exposure would be averted for ever--none but he would call Mabel Langton his wife! Thinking this as he left the platform, he ran up against his uncle, whom he had completely forgotten: he was harmless now as a safety match bereft of its box, and Mark need fear him no longer. "Why, there you are, uncle--eh?" he said, with much innocent satisfaction. "I couldn"t think where you"d got to."
"Oh, I dessay," growled Mr. Lightowler, "and your friend nearly lost the train lookin" for me, didn"t he? I"m not to be got over by soft speakin", Mark, and I"m sharp enough to see where I"m not wanted. I must say, though, that that feller, if he"s one of your friends, might a" shown me a little more common respect, knowing "oo I was, instead o" bolting away while I was talkin" to him, for all the world as if he wanted to get rid of me."
Mark saw that his uncle was seriously annoyed, and hastened to soothe his ruffled dignity--a task which was by no means easy.
"It isn"t as if I needed to talk to him either," he persisted. "I"ve a friend of my own to see off, that"s why I"m here at this time (Liverpool _he"s_ goin" to)," he added, with some obscure sense of superiority implied in this fact; "and let me tell you, he"s a man that"s looked up to by every one there, is Budkin, and"ll be mayor before he dies! And another thing let me say to you, Mark. In the course of my life I"ve picked up, "ere and there, some slight knowledge of human character, and I read faces as easy as print. Now I don"t like the look of that friend of yours."
"Do you mean Caffyn?" asked Mark.
"I don"t know _him_; no, I mean that down-lookin" chap you introduced to me--"Olroyd, isn"t it? Well, don"t you have too much to do with him--there"s something in his eye I don"t fancy; he ain"t to be trusted, and you mind what I say."
"Well," said Mark, "I can promise you that I shall see no more of him than I can help in future, if that"s any relief to your mind."
"You stick to that then, and--"ullo, there is Budkin come at last! You come along with me and I"ll introduce you (he"s not what you call a refined sort of feller, yer know," he explained forbearingly, "but still we"ve always been friends in a way); you can"t stop? Must go back to Miss Mabel, hey? Well, well, I won"t keep yer; good-bye till the day after to-morrow then, and don"t you forgit what you"d "a been if you"d been thrown on the world without an uncle--there"d be no pretty Miss Mabel for you then, whatever you may think about it, young chap!"
When Mark made his appearance at Kensington Park Gardens again, Dolly watched his face anxiously, longing to ask if Vincent had really gone at last, but somehow she was afraid. And so, as the time went by, and no Vincent Holroyd came to the door to denounce her, she took comfort and never knew how her fears were shared by her new brother-in-law.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
AGAG.
At a certain point between Basle and Schaffhausen, the Rhine, after winding in wide curves through low green meadows fringed with poplars, suddenly finds itself contracted to a narrow and precipitous channel, down which it foams with a continuous musical roar. On the rocks forming this channel, connected by a quaint old bridge, stand the twin towns, Gross and Klein Laufingen. Of the two there can be no question which has the superior dignity, for, while Klein Laufingen (which belongs to Baden) is all comprised in a single narrow street ending in a ma.s.sive gatehouse, Gross Laufingen, which stands in Swiss territory, boasts at least two streets and a half, besides the advantages of a public platz that can scarcely be smaller than an average London back garden, a church with a handsome cupola and blue and gold-faced clock, and the ruins of what was once an Austrian stronghold crowning the hill around which the roofs are cl.u.s.tered, with a withered tree on the ragged top of its solitary tall grey tower. Gross Laufingen has seen more stirring times than at present: it was a thriving post town once, a halting-place for all the diligences. Napoleon pa.s.sed through it, too, on his way to Moscow, and on the roof of an old tower outside the gate is still to be seen a grotesque metal profile, riddled with the bullets of French conscripts, who made a target of it in sport or insult, when a halt was called. Now the place is sleepy and quiet enough: there are no diligences to rattle and lumber over the stones, and the most warlike spectacle there is provided by the Swiss militiamen as they march in periodically from the neighbouring villages to have their arms inspected, singing choruses all the way.
There is a railway, it is true, on the Klein Laufingen bank, but a railway where the little station and mouth of the tunnel have been so ornamentally treated that at a slight distance a train coming in irresistibly suggests one of those working models set in motion by either a dropped penny or the fraudulent action of the human breath, as conscience permits. So innocent an affair is powerless to corrupt Laufingen, and has brought as yet but few foreigners to its gates.
English, Russian, and American tourists may perhaps exclaim admiringly as the trains stop, affording a momentary view of the little town grouped compactly on the rocks with the blue-green cataract rushing by--but they are bound for Schaffhausen or the Black Forest or Constance, and cannot break the journey--so the hosts of personally conducted ones pa.s.s Laufingen by, and Laufingen seems upon the whole resigned to its obscurity. But Mark Ashburn, at least, had felt its gentle attractions, having come upon it almost by accident, as he returned alone from the Black Forest after the tour with Caffyn. His thoughts were constantly of Mabel Langton at that time, and he found a dreamy pleasure in the idea of coming to Laufingen some day when she should be his companion, which made him look upon everything he saw merely as a background for her fair face. It had seemed a very hopeless dream then, and yet a few months more and the dream had come to pa.s.s. He was at Laufingen once again, and Mabel was by his side.
The long nightmare of those days before the wedding was over at last.
He had not dared to feel secure, even in the church, so strong was his presentiment of evil. But nothing had happened, the words were spoken which made Mabel his own, and neither man nor angel intervened. And now a week had gone by, during which nothing from without had threatened his happiness; and for a time, as he resolutely shut his eyes to all but the present, he had been supremely happy. Then by degrees the fox revived and began to gnaw once more. His soul sickened as he remembered in what a Fool"s Paradise he was living. Unless Holroyd decided to leave England at once with this young Gilroy of whom Caffyn had spoken--a stranger--he would certainly learn how he had been tricked with regard to Mabel"s marriage, and this would lead him on to the full discovery of his wrongs. In his mad determination to win her at all costs, Mark had disregarded everything but the immediate future. If shame and misery were to come upon him, he had told himself, he would at least have the memory of a period of perfect bliss to console him--he might lose all else, but Mabel could not be taken from him. But now, as she took no pains to hide the content which filled her heart, he would scarcely bear to meet her sweet grey eyes for the thought that soon the love he read in them would change to aversion and cold contempt, and each dainty caress was charged for him with a ferocious irony. He knew at last his miserable selfishness in having linked her lot with his, and there were times when in his torture he longed for courage to tell her all, and put an end with his own hand to a happiness which was to him the bitterest of delusions.
But he dared not; he had had such marvellous escapes already that he clung to the hope that some miracle might save him yet.
And this was Mark"s condition on the morning when this chapter finds him. There is a certain retreat which the town would seem to have provided for the express benefit of lovers--a rustic arbour on a little mount near the railway station overlooking the Rhine Fall. The surly, red-bearded signalman who watched over the striped barrier at the level crossing by the tunnel had understood the case from the first, and (not altogether from disinterested motives, perhaps) would hasten to the station as soon as he saw the young couple crossing the bridge and fetch the key of the little wooden gate which kept off all unlicensed intruders.
It was on this mount that Mark stood now with Mabel by his side, looking down on the scene below. Spring had only just set in, and the stunted acacia trees along the road to the bridge were still bare, and had the appearance of distorted candelabra; the poplars showed only the mistiest green as yet, the elms were leafless, and the horse-chestnuts had not unfolded a single one of their crumpled claws.
But the day was warm and bright, the sky a faint blue, with a few pinkish-white clouds shaded with dove colour near the horizon, pigeons were fluttering round the lichened piers of the old bridge, which cast a broad band of purple on the bright green water, and the cuckoo was calling incessantly from the distant woods. Opposite were the tall houses, tinted in faint pink and grey and cream colour, with their crazy wooden balconies overhanging the rocks, and above the high-pitched brown roofs rose the church and the square tree-crowned ruin, behind which was a background of pine-covered hills, where the snow still lay amongst the trunks in a silver graining on the dark red soil. Such life as the little place could boast was in full stir; every now and then an ox-cart or a little hooded gig would pa.s.s along the bridge, and townsmen in brown straw hats would meet half-way with elaborate salutations and linger long to gossip, and bare-headed girls with long plaited pigtails present their baskets and bundles to be peered into or prodded suspiciously by the customs officer stationed at the Baden frontier-post, striped in brilliant crimson and yellow, like a giant sugarstick. Over on the little Laufenplatz children were playing about amongst the big iron salmon cages, and old people were sitting in the sunshine on the seats by the fountain, where from time to time a woman would fill her shining tin pails, or a man come to rinse out a tall wooden funnel before strapping it on his back. Down on the rocks below, in a little green cradle swinging over the torrent, sat a man busy with his pipe and newspaper, which he occasionally left to haul up and examine the big salmon nets by the aid of the complicated rigging of masts and yards at his side.
"How charming it all is!" said Mabel, turning her bright face to Mark.
"I am so glad we didn"t let ourselves be talked into going anywhere else. Mamma thought we were mad to come here so early in the year. I think she fancied it was somewhere in the heart of the Alps, though, and I never expected anything like this myself?"
"How would you like to stay out here more than a month, Mabel--all the summer, perhaps?" he asked.
"It would be delightful, for some things," she said, "but I think I shall be willing to go back when the end of the month comes, Mark; we _must_, you know; our house will be ready for us, and then there is your work waiting for you, you know you would never write a line here, you are so disgracefully idle!"
"I--I was only joking," he said (although his expression was far from jocular); "we will enjoy all this while we can, and when--when the end comes we can remember how happy we were!"
"When the end of this comes we shall only be beginning to be very happy in another way at home in our own pretty house, Mark. I"m not in the least afraid of the future. Are you?"
He drew her slight form towards him and pressed her to his heart with a fervour in which there was despair as well as love.
"Do you think I could be afraid of any future, so long as you were part of it, my darling?" he said. "It is only the fear of losing you that comes over me sometimes!"
"You silly boy!" said Mabel, looking up at his overcast face with a little tender laugh. "I never knew you could be so sentimental. I am quite well, and I don"t mean to die as long as you want me to take care of you!"
He dreaded to lose her by a parting far bitterer than death; but he had said too much already, and only smiled sadly to himself at the thought of the ghastly mockery which the memory of her words now might have for him in a day or two. She was daintily rearranging the violets in his b.u.t.tonhole, and he caught the slender white hands in his, and, lifting them to his lips, kissed them with a pa.s.sionate humility. A little while, perhaps, and those dear hands would never again thrill warm in his grasp as he felt them now!
"I"m afraid," said Mabel a little later, "you"re letting yourself be worried still by something. Is it the new book? Are you getting impatient to hear about it?"
"I did expect some letters before this," replied Mark (he was indeed fast growing desperate at Caffyn"s silence); "but I dare say everything is going on well."
"The train from Basle came in just as we got here," said Mabel. "See, there is the postman crossing the bridge now; I"m getting anxious too, Mark, I can"t think why I have had no letters from home lately. I hope it is nothing to do with Dolly. She was looking quite ill when we went away, almost as she did--oh, Mark, if I thought Harold had dared to frighten her again!"
Mark remembered that afternoon in South Audley Street. He had never sought to know why Dolly had gone away so obediently, but now he felt a new uneasiness; he had never meant her to be frightened; he would see into it if he ever came home again.
"I don"t think he would do such a thing now," he said, and tried to believe so himself. "I always thought, you know, Mabel, you were rather hard on him about that affair."
"I can never change my mind about it," said Mabel.
"When you are angry, do you never forgive?" asked Mark.
"I could never forgive treachery," she said. "Dolly believed every word he said, and he knew it and played on her trust in him for some horrible pleasure I suppose he found in it. No, I can never forgive him for that, Mark, never!"
He turned away with a spasm of conscience. If Caffyn had been a traitor, what was he?
He was roused from a gloomy reverie by Mabel"s light touch on his arm.
"Look, Mark," she cried, "there is something you wanted to see--there"s a timber raft coming down the river."
For within the last few days the Rhine had risen sufficiently to make it possible to send the timber down the stream, instead of by the long and costly transport overland, and as she spoke the compact ma.s.s of pine trunks lashed together came slowly round the bend of the river, gradually increasing in pace until it shot the arch of the bridge and plunged through the boiling white rapids, while the raft broke up with a dull thunder followed by sharp reports as the more slender trunks snapped with the strain.
Mark looked on with a sombre fascination, as if the raft typified his life"s happiness, till it was all over, and some of the trunks, carried by a cross current into a little creek, had been pulled in to the sh.o.r.e with long hooks, and the rest had floated on again in placid procession, their sc.r.a.ped wet edges gleaming in the sunlight.
As he turned towards the town again, he saw the porter of their hotel crossing the bridge, with the director"s little son, a st.u.r.dy flaxen-haired boy of about four, running by his side. They pa.s.sed through the covered part of the bridge and were hidden for an instant, and then turned up the road towards the station.
"They are coming this way," said Mabel. "I do believe little Max is bringing me a letter, the darling! I"ll run down to the gate and give him a kiss for it."
For the child"s stolid shyness had soon given way to Mabel"s advances, and now he would run along the hotel corridors after her like a little dog, and his greatest delight was to be allowed to take her letters to her. They were close to the mount now, the porter in his green baize ap.r.o.n and official flat cap, and little Max in his speckled blue blouse, trotting along to keep up, and waving the envelope he held in his brown fist. Mark could see from where he stood that it was not a letter that the child was carrying.
"It"s a telegram, Mabel," he said, disturbed, though there was no particular cause as yet for being so.