The young man hesitated. He had clearly no right to linger any longer, but, as the girl before him seemed to him one of the most delicious creatures he had ever seen, he did linger.
"I wonder if I might ask you another question? Can you tell me whether that fine old house over there is Duddon Castle?"
"Duddon Castle!" Lydia lifted her eyebrows. "Duddon Castle is seven miles away. That place is called Threlfall Tower. Were you going to Duddon?"
"No. But"--he hesitated--"I know young Tatham a little. I should like to have seen his house. But, that"s a fine old place, isn"t it?" He looked with curiosity at the pile of building rising beyond a silver streak of river, amid the fresh of the May woods.
"Well--yes--in some ways," said Lydia, dubiously. "Don"t you know who lives there?"
"Not the least. I am a complete stranger here. I say, do let me do that up for you?" And, letting his bicycle fall, the young man seized the easel which had still to be taken to pieces and put into its case.
Lydia shot a wavering look at him. He ought certainly to have departed by now, and she ought to be snubbing him. But the expression on his sunburnt face as he knelt on the gra.s.s, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her easel, seemed so little to call for snubbing that instead she gave him further information; interspersed with directions to him as to what to do and what not to do with her gear.
"It belongs to a Mr. Melrose. Did you never hear of him?"
"Never. Why should I?"
"Not from the Tathams?"
"No. You see I only knew Tatham at college--in my last year. He was a good deal junior to me. And I have never stayed with them at Duddon--though they kindly asked me--years ago."
The girl beside him took not the smallest notice of his information. She was busy packing up brushes and paints, and her next remark showed him subtly that she did not mean to treat him as an acquaintance of the Tathams, whom she probably knew, but was determined to keep him to his role of stranger and tourist.
"You had better look at Threlfall as you pa.s.s. It has a splendid situation."
"I will. But why ought I to have heard of the gentleman? I forget his name."
"Mr. Melrose? Oh, well--he"s a legend about here. We all talk about him."
"What"s wrong with him? Is he a nuisance?--or a lunatic?"
"It depends what you have to do with him. About here he goes by the name of the "Ogre.""
"How, does he eat people up?" asked the stranger, smiling.
The girl hesitated.
"Ask one of his tenants!" she said at last.
"Oh, he"s a landlord, and a bad one?"
She nodded, a sudden sharpness in her gray eyes.
"But that"s not the common reason for the name. It"s because he shuts himself up--in a house full of treasures. He"s a great collector."
"Of works of art? You--don"t need to be mad to do that! It seems to be one of the things that pays best nowadays--with all these Americans about. It"s a way of investing your money. Doesn"t he show them to anybody?"
"n.o.body is allowed to go near him, or his house. He has built a high wall round his park, and dogs are let loose at night that tear you to pieces."
"Nice man! If it weren"t for the dogs, I should brave him. In a small way, I"m a collector myself."
He smiled, and Lydia understood that the personal reference was thrown out as a feeler, in case she might be willing to push the conversation further. But she did not respond, although as he spoke she happened to notice that he wore a remarkable ring on his left hand, which seemed to ill.u.s.trate his remark. An engraved gem?--Greek? Her eyes were quick for such things.
However, she was seized with shyness, and as she had now finished the packing of her brushes and paints, and the young man had elaborately fastened all the straps of the portable easel and its case, there was nothing for him to do but to stoop unwillingly for his soft hat which was lying on the gra.s.s. Then an idea struck him.
"I say, what are you going to do with all these things?"
"Carry them home." She smiled. "I am not a cripple."
"Mightn"t I--mightn"t I carry them for you?"
"Thank you. My way lies in quite another direction. Good-night."
She held out a shapely hand. He took it, lifted his hat, and departed.
As soon as he was safely past a jutting corner of the road Lydia, instead of going home, lazily sat down again on a rock to think about what had happened. She was perfectly aware that--considering the whole interview had only taken ten minutes--she had made an impression upon the young man. And as young men of such distinguished appearance were not common in the Whitebeck neighbourhood, the recollection of all those little signs in look and manner which had borne witness to the stranger"s discreet admiration of her was not at all disagreeable.
He was not a native--that she was sure of. She guessed him a Londoner.
"Awfully good clothes!--London clothes. About thirty, I should think? I wonder what he does. He can"t be rich, or he wouldn"t be bicycling. He did up those straps as though he were used to them; but he can"t be an artist, or he"d have said something. It was a face with lots of power in it. Not very good-tempered, I should say? But there"s something about him--yes, distinctly, _something_! I liked his thin cheeks, and his dark curls. His head, too, was uncommonly well set on. I"m sure that there"s a good deal to him, as the Americans say; he"s not stuffed with sawdust. I can imagine--just imagine--being in love with him."
She laughed to herself.
Then a sudden thought occurred to her, which reddened her cheeks. Suppose when the young man came to think over it, he believed that she had let the papers fall into the river--deliberately--on purpose--just to attract his attention? At the very precise moment that he comes upon the scene, she slips into the water. Of course!--an arranged affair!
She sat on, meditating in some discomfort.
"It is no use deceiving ourselves," she thought. "We"re not in the good old Tennysonian days. There"s precious little chivalry now! Men don"t idealize women as they used. They"re grown far more suspicious--and _harder_. Perhaps because women have grown so critical of them! Anyway something"s gone--what is it? Poetry? Illusion? And yet!--why is it that men still put us off our balance?--even now--that they matter so much less, now that we live our own lives, and can do without them? I shouldn"t be sitting here, bothering my head, if it had been another girl who had come to help."
Slowly she gathered up her things and took her way home, while the evening of blue and pearl fell around her, while the glow died on the fells, and Venus came out in a sky that was still too full of light to let any lesser stars appear.
She crossed the stepping stones, and in a river field on the farther side she came across an old shepherd, carrying a wounded ewe across his shoulders, and with his dog beside him. At sight of him she paused in astonishment. He was an old friend of hers, but he belonged to a village--the village of Mainstairs--some three miles away in the lowland toward Pengarth. She had first come across him when sketching among some distant fells where he had been a shepherd for more than forty years.
The old man"s russet face, sharp-lined and strong, lit up as he saw her approaching.
"Why I thowt I med coom across yer!" he said smiling. And he explained that he had been paying a visit to a married daughter under Naddle Fell, and had volunteered to carry an injured sheep down to a valley farm, whence it had strayed on his way home.
They stopped to talk while he rested a few minutes, under his burden, propped against a rock. Lydia asked him after a sick grand-daughter. Her question showed knowledge--no perfunctory kindness.
He shook his head sadly, and her grave, soft look, as she fell silent a little, beside him, said more than words.
"Anything been done to your cottage?" she asked him presently.
"Noa--nowt."
"Nor to the other houses?"
"Naethin"."