So these two dissemblers, neither of whom would own her secret motive, turned into the road, and walked along until a sudden bend in it brought them in sight of the artist"s easel, and then Elaine"s heart seemed to spring up to her throat and choke her, and she cried out, regardless of whom might hear,
"Oh, Jane! He"s gone!"
CHAPTER IV.
Give her time--on gra.s.s and sky Let her gaze, if she be fain: As they looked, ere _he_ drew nigh They will never look again!
JEAN INGELOW.
"Gone!" was Jane"s quick response; "but he"d never go and leave his picture sticking out there by itself for the first shower to spoil--he can"t be far off."
For a moment Elaine recoiled, every nerve thrilled with the thought that the stranger, concealed in some bush in the immediate vicinity, had heard her reckless and incautious exclamation. There was no movement and no sound, and, after a pause fraught with more suspense than she could remember to have ever felt before, she stepped about two paces forward, and took another timid look. Something was lying on the ground near the easel--a confused heap of gray, which outlined itself clearly in the long rank wayside gra.s.s; and for a moment Elaine turned white and looked as if she were going to faint; then, no longer hesitating, but urged on by a wild impetuosity, she ran to the spot, and stood gazing down at Allonby"s pallid and stiffened features.
All her life long she would remember that moment--every detail, every sensation, stamped on her brain with indelible distinctness. The soft whisper of a newly-awakened diminutive breeze in the ash-trees, the gra.s.s all yellow as corn in the golden evening light, the hot sweet perfume that arose from the fragrant hedgerow, and the still hard face, bloodless under its newly-acquired bronze. It was death--she was certain of it. Death, that mystery in whose existence she had never really believed, though she knew, as matter of history, that both her parents were dead.
Into the heart of this strange, awful secret she seemed suddenly hurled with a force which bewildered her. For a few moments she stood quite speechless, swaying to and fro, and seeing through a mist, while Jane, with her back towards her, was staring down the lane in hopes of seeing the artist reappear.
Allonby had evidently come to the ground with force. His fall had crushed the camp stool under him. He had fallen forward, but slightly sideways; one arm was flung out under his head, and, owing to this, his face was turned upward, leaving clearly visible a livid purple mark on the left side of the forehead. The other hand was clenched, and the lower limbs slightly contracted, as if from a sudden shock; the eyes were closed and the brows drawn together with an expression of pain.
To this girl, who had scarcely in her life come into contact with a young man socially her equal, this strange experience was overwhelming.
A moment she remained, as has been said, trembling and erect; then she dropped on her knees in the long gra.s.s, and cried out, pierceingly,
"Jane! Jane! come here! What are you doing? He is dead! He is dead!"
Jane turned as if she had been shot.
"Lawk-a-mercy, Miss Elaine," she cried, hurrying to the spot; and then, as is the manner of her cla.s.s, she began to scream, and her shrill cries rent the air three or four times in rapid succession. "Oh, good Lord!
Oh, mercy on me! What can have happened? He"s been murdered, sure enough! Oh, Miss Elaine, come away! Come away from the corpse, my dear!
You know your aunts would never hold with your touching a corpse. Oh, dearie, dearie, all the years I"ve lived I never come across such a thing! Never!"
"_Murdered!_"
The word dropped from Elaine"s trembling lips with a wailing sound. Such a thing had never suggested itself to her mind. Probably had she had the usual training in the way of sensational novels, had she been accustomed to read of crimes and follow up the details of their detection with the zest of the true lover of late nineteenth-century romance, the idea of murder would have at once occurred to her, and she might have proceeded forthwith to search the long gra.s.s around for footprints, fragments of clothing, or a blood-spattered weapon. But she never once thought of the criminal, only of the victim. Neither did it dawn upon her that the mysterious danger which had lurked for the artist in that smiling landscape might lurk there also for her. She thought of nothing but him: that idea swallowed up and eclipsed all others.
Poor Allonby! Barely four hours ago he had rejoiced over the straightforward sincerity of the English summer. He had quoted with smiling satisfaction the words in which a French writer describes the Maremma:
"Cette Maremme fertile et meurtriere qui en deux annees vous enrichit et vous tue."
Nothing less murderous could well be imagined than this peaceful Devonshire lane. Here were no ghastly exhalations, no venomous reptiles to glide through the long flowery gra.s.s: an Eden without the snake it seemed at first gaze, and yet some unseen malign power had exerted itself, and felled the l.u.s.ty manhood of this young Englishman with a blow.
To Elaine, the sight was horror and agony untold; it acted physically on her nerves, and produced a dizzy faintness from which it took her several moments to recover. Feverishly she laid her hand on that of the young man, then on his brow, which was cold and rigid; she recoiled, filled with panic, from the touch, and leaped impulsively to her feet.
"Oh, help! Help! Will n.o.body help? Will n.o.body hear us if we call?"
"Oh, dear heart, he"s bleeding under his coat here somewhere," cried Jane, holding out her hand, on which was something wet and glistening.
This sight robbed the girl of whatever nerve she might have possessed, and she recoiled with a gasp of terror.
"Stay with him," she cried, frantically, "I will run for help;" and, without waiting for reply, she started off to run at her topmost speed, feeling only that the one need of her soul at the moment was violent action, that something must be done at once.
The emergency, the first emergency of her life, had utterly scared away her wits.
She ran blindly, not in the least knowing where she was running--almost with an instinct of flight--escape from that terrible cold, still, bleeding form among the gra.s.s.
She could see his face in fancy as she ran, could remember how a tall daisy bent over and touched his brown moustache, and a huge curled dock-leaf flung its shadow over his forehead. All so still, so stiff--ah! how dreadful it was, dreadful beyond the bounds of belief.
In her dire perplexity, she never once thought of what was the only obvious thing to do,--namely, to run to Poole, and tell the Battishills to send down some men with a hurdle. She simply tore along the lane like a mad thing, never stopping to ask herself what she intended, uttering from time to time short sobs of terror and pity.
A little way beyond Poole, the lane joined the high coach-road which runs from Stanton to Philmouth; into this road she dashed, and along it her flying feet bounded, whither she neither knew nor cared. For the first time in her life she was alone--alone and free. She was beyond reach of her aunts and Jane, out by herself, alone in the wide road; and without her being conscious of the fact, this unwonted loneliness added to the terribleness of the situation. She soon lost her ugly hat, with its prim bows of drab ribbon edged with black lace; but she never even noticed its loss. On, on she flew, till at last the sound of wheels met her ear, and her tearful eyes caught sight of a carriage approaching.
It was an open carriage, just large enough for two, very compactly built. The man on the box looked like a private servant; within were a lady and a gentleman.
It did not matter to Elaine who they were--they might have been the Queen and the Prince of Wales for all she cared. Her one idea was that she must stop them. She ran pantingly on till the carriage was within a few yards of her, and then flung up both her arms, crying,
"Oh, stop, stop! I want to speak to you! Stop!"
The sudden apparition in the lonely road of a tall girl without a hat, running as if hunted, was so astonishing, that the coachman reined in his horses before he was quite clear of what he was doing, and the lady in the carriage leaned forward with an eager expression, hearing the cry, but not having clearly descried the speaker.
"What now, Goodman?" she said.
"A young lady, my lady," said Goodman. "Wants to speak to you, my lady, I fancy."
"Here, Claud," said the lady, with a laugh, "is your adventure at last!
Make the most of it."
"This is the third time you have promised me an adventure. If this proves to be as futile as the other two, I shall turn it up, and go home. I have had too many disappointments--they begin to tell on my nerves. Only a girl begging, is it?"
"Hush!" cried Lady Mabel, laughingly holding up a finger to her brother; and by this time Elaine, crimson, trembling, on the verge of tears, was at the carriage door.
The Honorable Claud Cranmer"s eyes fell on the girlish figure, and took in everything in an instant. He thought her the most beautiful girl he had ever beheld; and beautiful she was in her pa.s.sion and her excitement.
Her hair-pins had all been scattered freely along the road as she ran--the huge plait of her deep gold hair hung down her back half uncoiled. It had been all loosened by her vehement motion, so that it framed her lovely face in picturesque disorder. The most exquisite carnation glowed in her transparent skin, crystal tears swam in her large eyes, her whole face was alight and quivering with feeling, her ivory throat heaved as if it would burst.
Never in his life had he seen anything so totally unconventional, never heard anything to equal the music of the broken voice as she gasped out the only words that occurred to her--
"Oh, I beg your pardon--do come--I must have help at once!"
"What is it?--something wrong?--an accident?" said Lady Mabel, rapidly, in her deep, sympathetic, penetrating voice. In a flash she saw that the girl was a lady, and that her tribulation was no acting, but terribly sincere. "Try to tell me," she said, laying her hand over the trembling one with which Elaine grasped the edge of the carriage.
"A gentleman has been murdered," cried the girl--"he has been murdered, there!" waving dramatically with one arm. "He is lying in the gra.s.s, dying, or dead. Perhaps it is only a faint--Jane is with him--won"t you come?"
Lady Mabel cast a sweeping glance at her travelling companion, as if to ask if here was not his adventure with a vengeance.
"But oh, my dear child, I think and hope you are mistaken," said she.