When she saw him she made an involuntary-looking pause, and then recovering herself, came forward.
"I seem to have come in search of you," she said. "You ought to be showing someone the view really--and so ought I."
"Shall we show it to each other?" was his reply.
"Yes." And she sat down on the stone seat which had been placed for the comfort of view lovers. "I am a little tired--just enough to feel that to slink away for a moment alone would be agreeable. It IS slinking to leave Rosalie to battle with half the county. But I shall only stay a few minutes."
She sat still and gazed at the beautiful lands spread before her, but there was no stillness in her mind, neither was there stillness in his.
He did not look at the view, but at her, and he was asking himself what he should be saying to her if he were such a man as Westholt. Though he had boldness enough, he knew that no man--even though he is free to speak the best and most pa.s.sionate thoughts of his soul--could be sure that he would gain what he desired. The good fortune of Westholt, or of any other, could but give him one man"s fair chance.
But having that chance, he knew he should not relinquish it soon. There swept back into his mind the story of the marriage of his ancestor, Red G.o.dwyn, and he laughed low in spite of himself.
Miss Vanderpoel looked up at him quickly.
"Please tell me about it, if it is very amusing," she said.
"I wonder if it will amuse you," was his answer. "Do you like savage romance?"
"Very much."
It might seem a propos de rien, but he did not care in the least. He wanted to hear what she would say.
"An ancestor of mine--a certain Red G.o.dwyn--was a barbarian immensely to my taste. He became enamoured of rumours of the beauty of the daughter and heiress of his bitterest enemy. In his day, when one wanted a thing, one rode forth with axe and spear to fight for it."
"A simple and alluring method," commented Betty. "What was her name?"
She leaned in light ease against the stone back of her seat, the rose light cast by her parasol faintly flushed her. The silence of their retreat seemed accentuated by its background of music from the gardens.
They smiled a second bravely into each other"s eyes, then their glances became entangled, as they had done for a moment when they had stood together in Mount Dunstan park. For one moment each had been held prisoner then--now it was for longer.
"Alys of the Sea-Blue Eyes."
Betty tried to release herself, but could not.
"Sometimes the sea is grey," she said.
His own eyes were still in hers.
"Hers were the colour of the sea on a day when the sun shines on it, and there are large fleece-white clouds floating in the blue above. They sparkled and were often like bluebells under water."
"Bluebells under water sounds entrancing," said Betty.
He caught his breath slightly.
"They were--entrancing," he said. "That was evidently the devil of it--saving your presence."
"I have never objected to the devil," said Betty. "He is an energetic, hard-working creature and paints himself an honest black. Please tell me the rest."
"Red G.o.dwyn went forth, and after a b.l.o.o.d.y fight took his enemy"s castle. If we still lived in like simple, honest times, I should take Dunholm Castle in the same way. He also took Alys of the Eyes and bore her away captive."
"From such incidents developed the germs of the desire for female suffrage," Miss Vanderpoel observed gently.
"The interest of the story lies in the fact that apparently the savage was either epicure or sentimentalist, or both. He did not treat the lady ill. He shut her in a tower chamber overlooking his courtyard, and after allowing her three days to weep, he began his barbarian wooing. Arraying himself in splendour he ordered her to appear before him. He sat upon the dais in his banquet hall, his retainers gathered about him--a great feast spread. In archaic English we are told that the board groaned beneath the weight of golden trenchers and flagons. Minstrels played and sang, while he displayed all his splendour."
"They do it yet," said Miss Vanderpoel, "in London and New York and other places."
"The next day, attended by his followers, he took her with him to ride over his lands. When she returned to her tower chamber she had learned how powerful and great a chieftain he was. She "laye softely" and was attended by many maidens, but she had no entertainment but to look out upon the great green court. There he arranged games and trials of strength and skill, and she saw him bigger, stronger, and more splendid than any other man. He did not even lift his eyes to her window. He also sent her daily a rich gift."
"How long did this go on?"
"Three months. At the end of that time he commanded her presence again in his banquet hall. He told her the gates were opened, the drawbridge down and an escort waiting to take her back to her father"s lands, if she would."
"What did she do?"
"She looked at him long--and long. She turned proudly away--in the sea-blue eyes were heavy and stormy tears, which seeing----"
"Ah, he saw them?" from Miss Vanderpoel.
"Yes. And seizing her in his arms caught her to his breast, calling for a priest to make them one within the hour. I am quoting the chronicle. I was fifteen when I read it first."
"It is spirited," said Betty, "and Red G.o.dwyn was almost modern in his methods."
While professing composure and lightness of mood, the spell which works between two creatures of opposite s.e.x when in such case wrought in them and made them feel awkward and stiff. When each is held apart from the other by fate, or will, or circ.u.mstance, the spell is a stupefying thing, deadening even the clearness of sight and wit.
"I must slink back now," Betty said, rising. "Will you slink back with me to give me countenance? I have greatly liked Red G.o.dwyn."
So it occurred that when Nigel Anstruthers saw them again it was as they crossed the lawn together, and people looked up from ices and cups of tea to follow their slow progress with questioning or approving eyes.
CHAPTER x.x.xV
THE TIDAL WAVE
There was only one man to speak to, and it being the nature of the beast--so he harshly put it to himself--to be absolutely impelled to speech at such times, Mount Dunstan laid bare his breast to him, tearing aside all the coverings pride would have folded about him. The man was, of course, Penzance, and the laying bare was done the evening after the story of Red G.o.dwyn had been told in the laurel walk.
They had driven home together in a profound silence, the elder man as deep in thought as the younger one. Penzance was thinking that there was a calmness in having reached sixty and in knowing that the pain and hunger of earlier years would not tear one again. And yet, he himself was not untorn by that which shook the man for whom his affection had grown year by year. It was evidently very bad--very bad, indeed. He wondered if he would speak of it, and wished he would, not because he himself had much to say in answer, but because he knew that speech would be better than hard silence.
"Stay with me to-night," Mount Dunstan said, as they drove through the avenue to the house. "I want you to dine with me and sit and talk late.
I am not sleeping well."
They often dined together, and the vicar not infrequently slept at the Mount for mere companionship"s sake. Sometimes they read, sometimes went over accounts, planned economies, and balanced expenditures. A chamber still called the Chaplain"s room was always kept in readiness. It had been used in long past days, when a household chaplain had sat below the salt and left his patron"s table before the sweets were served.
They dined together this night almost as silently as they had driven homeward, and after the meal they went and sat alone in the library.
The huge room was never more than dimly lighted, and the far-off corners seemed more darkling than usual in the insufficient illumination of the far from brilliant lamps. Mount Dunstan, after standing upon the hearth for a few minutes smoking a pipe, which would have compared ill with old Doby"s Sunday splendour, left his coffee cup upon the mantel and began to tramp up and down--out of the dim light into the shadows, back out of the shadows into the poor light.
"You know," he said, "what I think about most things--you know what I feel."
"I think I do."