"Hullo, Molly mine! Got back, then?" he said, smiling. "Have you made your peace with Miss Tennant, you scatterbrained young woman?"
"It"s a hereditary taint, Dad--don"t blame _me_!" retorted Molly with lazy impudence, pulling his head down and kissing him on the top of his ruffled hair.
Selwyn grinned.
"I pa.s.s," he submitted. "And who is it that"s been crossed in love?"
"The Hermit of Far End."
"Oh"--turning to Sara--"so you have been discussing our local enigma?"
"Yes. I fancy I must have travelled down with him from Oldhampton. He seemed rather a boorish individual."
"He would be. He doesn"t like women."
"Monk"s Cliff would appear to be an appropriate habitation for him, then," commented Sara tartly.
They all laughed, and presently Selwyn suggested that his daughter should run up and see her mother.
"She"ll be hurt if you don"t go up, kiddy," he said. "And try and be very nice to her--she"s a little tired and upset to-day."
When she had left the room he turned to Sara, a curious blending of proud reluctance and regret in his eyes.
"I"m so sorry, Miss Tennant," he said simply, "that you should have seen our worst side so soon after your arrival. You--you must try and pardon it--"
"Oh, please, please don"t apologize," broke in Sara hastily. "I"m so sorry I happened to be there just then. It was horrible for you."
He smiled at her wistfully.
"It"s very kind of you to take it like that," he said. "After all"--frankly--"you could not have remained with us very long without finding out our particular skeleton in the cupboard. My wife"s state of health--or, rather, what she believes to be her state of health--is a great grief to me. I"ve tried in every way to convince her that she is not really so delicate as she imagines, but I"ve failed utterly."
Now that the ice was broken, he seemed to find relief in pouring out the pitiful little tragedy of his home life.
"She is comparatively young, you know, Miss Tennant--only thirty-seven, and she willfully leads the life of a confirmed invalid. It has grown upon her gradually, this absorption in her health, and now, practically speaking, Molly has no mother and I no wife."
"Oh, Doctor d.i.c.k"--the little nickname, that had its origin in his slum patients" simple affection for the man who tended them, came instinctively from her lips. It seemed, somehow, to fit itself to the big, kindly man with the sternly rugged face and eyes of a saint. "Oh, Doctor d.i.c.k, I"m so sorry--so very sorry!"
Perhaps something in the dainty, well-groomed air of the woman beside him helped to accentuate the neglected appearance of the room, for he looked round in an irritated kind of way, as though all at once conscious of its deficiencies.
"And this--this, too," he muttered. "There"s no one at the helm. . . .
The truth is, I ought never to have let you come here."
Sara shook her head.
"I"ve very glad I came," she said simply. "I think I"m going to be very happy here."
"You"ve got grit," he replied quietly. "You"d make a success of your life anywhere. I wish"--thoughtfully--"Molly had a little of that same quality. Sometimes"--a worried frown gathered on his face--"I get afraid for Molly. She"s such a child . . . and no mother to hold the reins."
"Doctor d.i.c.k, would you consider it impertinent if--if I laid my hands on the reins--just now and then?"
He whirled round, his eyes shining with grat.i.tude.
"Impertinent! I should be illimitably thankful! You can see how things are--I am compelled to be out all my time, my wife hardly ever leaves her own rooms, and Molly and the house affairs just get along as best they can."
"Then," said Sara, smiling, "I shall put my finger in the pie. I"ve--I"ve no one to look after now, since Uncle Patrick died," she added. "I think, Doctor d.i.c.k, I"ve found my job."
"It"s absurd!" he exclaimed, regarding her with unfeigned delight. "Here you come along, prepared, no doubt, to be treated as a "guest," and the first thing I do is to shovel half my troubles on to your shoulders.
It"s absurd--disgraceful! . . . But it"s amazingly good!" He held out his hand, and as Sara"s slim fingers slid into his big palm, he muttered a trifle huskily: "G.o.d bless you for it, my dear!"
CHAPTER VII
TRESPa.s.s
Sara stood on the great headland known as Monk"s Cliff, watching with delight the white-topped billows hurling themselves against its mighty base, only to break in a baulked fury of thunder and upflung spray.
She had climbed the steep ascent thither on more than one day of storm and bl.u.s.ter, reveling in the buffeting of the gale and in the pungent tang of brine from the spray-drenched air. The cry of the wind, shrieking along the face of the sea-bitten cliff, reminded her of the scream of the hurricane as it tore through the pinewoods at Barrow--shaking their giant tops. .h.i.ther and thither as easily as a child"s finger might shake a Canterbury bell.
Something wild and untamed within her responded to the savage movement of the scene, and she stood for a long time watching the expanse of restless, wind-tossed waters, before turning reluctantly in the direction of home. If for nothing else than for this gift of glorious sea and cliff, she felt she could be content to pitch her tent in Monkshaven indefinitely.
Her way led past Far End, the solitary house perched on the sloping side of the headland, and, as she approached, she became aware of a curious change of character in the sound of the wind. She was sheltered now from its fiercest onslaught, and it seemed to her that it rose and fell, moaning in strange, broken cadences, almost like the singing of a violin.
She paused a moment, thinking at first that this was due to the wind"s whining through some narrow pa.s.sage betwixt the outbuildings of the house, then, as the chromatic wailing broke suddenly into vibrating harmonies, she realized that some one actually _was_ playing the violin, and playing it remarkably well, too.
Instinctively she yielded to the fascination of it, and, drawing nearer to the house, leaned against a sheltered wall, all her senses subordinate to that of hearing.
Whoever the musician might be, he was a thorough master of his instrument, and Sara listened with delight, recognizing some of the haunting melodies of the wild Russian music which he was playing--music that even in its moments of delirious joy seemed to hold always an underlying _bourdon_ of tragedy and despair.
"Hi, there!"
She started violently. Entirely absorbed in the music, she had failed to observe a man, dressed in the style of an indoor servant, who had appeared in the doorway of one of the outbuildings and who now addressed her in peremptory tones.
"Hi, there! Don"t you know you"re trespa.s.sing?"
Jerked suddenly out of her dreamy enjoyment, Sara looked round vaguely.
"I didn"t know that Monk"s Cliff was private property," she said after a pause.
"Nor is it, that I know of. But you"re on the Far End estate now--this is a private road," replied the man disagreeably. "You"ll please to take yourself off."
A faint flush of indignation crept up under the warm pallor of Sara"s skin. Then, a sudden thought striking her, she asked--
"Who is that playing the violin?"
Mentally she envisioned a pair of sensitive, virile hands, lean and brown, with the short, well-kept nails that any violinist needs must have--the contradictory hands which had aroused her interest on the journey to Monkshaven.
"I don"t hear no one playing," replied the man stolidly. She felt certain he was lying, but he gave her no opportunity for further interrogation, for he continued briskly--