She looked at me with wide-opened eyes and a concerned face. Alice was always so painfully literal.
"Why, I thought that you liked it!" she exclaimed. I was in an evil mood, and I determined to shock her. It was never a difficult task.
"So I do sometimes," I answered; "but to-day my callers have been all women, winding up with an hour and a half of Lady Naselton. One gets so tired of one"s own s.e.x! Not a single man all the afternoon. Somebody else"s husband to pa.s.s the bread and b.u.t.ter would have been a G.o.dsend!"
Alice pursed up her lips, and turned her head away with a look of displeasure.
"I am surprised to hear you talk like that, Kate," she said, quietly. "Do you think that it is quite good taste?"
"Be off, you little goose!" I called after her as she pa.s.sed on towards the house with quickened step and rigid head. The little sober figure turned the bend and disappeared without looking around. She was the perfect type of a clergyman"s daughter--studiously conventional, unremittingly proper, inevitably a little priggish. She was the right person in the right place. She had the supreme good fortune to be in accord with her environment. As for me, I was a veritable black sheep. I looked after her and sighed.
I had no desire to go in; on the other hand, there was nothing to stay out for. I hesitated for a moment, and then strolled on to the end of the avenue. A change in the weather seemed imminent. A grey, murky twilight had followed the afternoon of brilliant sunshine, and a low south wind was moaning amongst the Norwegian firs. I leaned over the gate with my face turned towards the great indistinct front of Deville Court. There was nothing to look at. The trees had taken to themselves fantastic shapes, little wreaths of white mist were rising from the hollows of the park. The landscape was grey, colorless, monotonous. My whole life was like that, I thought, with a sudden despondent chill. The lives of most girls must be unless they are domestic. In our little family Alice absorbed the domesticity. There was not one shred of it in my disposition.
I realized with a start that I was becoming morbid, and turned from the gate towards the house. Suddenly I heard an unexpected sound--the sound of voices close at hand. I stopped short and half turned round. A deep voice rang out upon the still, damp air--
"Get over, Madam! Get over, Marvel!"
There was the sound of the cracking of a whip and the soft patter of dogs" feet as they came along the lane below--a narrow thoroughfare which was bounded on one side by our wall and on the other by the open stretch of park at the head of which stood Deville Court. There must have been quite twenty of them, all of the same breed--beagles--and amongst them two people were walking, a man and a woman. The man was nearest to me, and I could see him more distinctly. He was tall and very broad, with a ragged beard and long hair. He wore no collar, and there was a great rent in his shabby shooting coat. Of his features I could see nothing. He wore knickerbockers, and stockings, and thick shoes. He was by no means an ordinary looking person, but he was certainly not prepossessing. The most favorable thing about him was his carriage, which was upright and easy, but even that was in a measure spoiled by a distinct suggestion of surliness. The woman by his side I could only see very indistinctly. She was slim, and wore some sort of a plain tailor gown, but she did not appear to be young. As they came nearer to me, I slipped from the drive on to the verge of the shrubbery, standing for a moment in the shadow of a tall laurel bush. I was not seen, but I could hear their voices. The woman was speaking.
"A new vicar, or curate-in-charge, here, isn"t there, Bruce? I fancy I heard that one was expected."
A sullen, impatient growl came from her side.
"Ay, some fellow with a daughter, Morris was telling me. The parson was bound to come, I suppose, but what the mischief does he want with a daughter?"
A little laugh from the woman--a pleasant, musical laugh.
"Daughters, I believe--I heard some one say that there were two. What a misogynist you are getting! Why shouldn"t the man have daughters if he likes? I really believe that there are two of them."
There was a contemptuous snort, and a moment"s silence. They were exactly opposite to me now, but the hedge and the shadow of the laurels beneath which I was standing completely shielded me from observation. The man"s huge form stood out with almost startling distinctness against the grey sky. He was lashing the thistles by the side of the road with his long whip.
"Maybe!" he growled. "I"ve seen but one--a pale-faced, black-haired chit."
I smothered a laugh. I was the pale-faced, black-haired chit, but it was scarcely a polite way of alluding to me, Mr. Bruce Deville. When they had gone by I leaned over the gate again, and watched them vanish amongst the shadows. The sound of their voices came to me indistinctly; but I could hear the deep ba.s.s of the man as he slung some scornful exclamation out upon the moist air. His great figure, looming unnaturally large through the misty twilight, was the last to vanish. It was my first glimpse of Mr. Bruce Deville of Deville Court.
I turned round with a terrified start. Almost at my side some heavy body had fallen to the ground with a faint groan. A single step, and I was bending over the prostrate form of a man. I caught his hand and gazed into his face with horrified eyes. It was my father. He must have been within a yard of me when he fell.
His eyes were half closed, and his hands were cold. Gathering up my skirts in my hand, I ran swiftly across the lawn into the house.
I met Alice in the hall. "Get some brandy!" I cried, breathlessly. "Father is ill--out in the garden! Quick!"
She brought it in a moment. Together we hurried back to where I had left him. He had not moved. His cheeks were ghastly pale, and his eyes were still closed. I felt his pulse and his heart, and unfastened his collar.
"There is nothing serious the matter--at least I think not," I whispered to Alice. "It is only a fainting fit."
I rubbed his hands, and we forced some brandy between his lips. Presently he opened his eyes, and raised his head a little, looking half fearfully around.
"It was her voice," he whispered, hoa.r.s.ely. "It came to me through the shadows! Where is she? What have you done with her? There was a rustling of the leaves--and then I heard her speak!"
"There is no one here but Alice and myself," I said, bending over him. "You must have been fancying things. Are you better?"
"Better!" He looked up at both of us, and the light came back into his face.
"Ah! I see! I must have fainted!" he exclaimed. "I remember the study was close, and I came to get cool. Yet, I thought--I thought----"
I held out my arm, and he staggered up. He was still white and shaken, but evidently his memory was returning.
"I remember it was close in the study," he said--"very close; I was tired too. I must have walked too far. I don"t like it though. I must see a doctor; I must certainly see a doctor!"
Alice bent over him full of sympathy, and he took her arm. I walked behind him in silence. A curious thought had taken possession of me. I could not get rid of the impression of my father"s first words, and his white, terrified face. Was it indeed a wild fancy of his, or had he really heard this voice which had stirred him so deeply? I tried to laugh at the idea. I could not. His cry was so natural, his terror so apparent! He had heard a voice. He had been stricken with a sudden terror. Whose was the voice--whence his fear of it? I watched him leaning slightly upon Alice"s arm, and walking on slowly in front of me towards the house. Already he was better. His features had rea.s.sumed their customary air of delicate and reserved strength. I looked at him with new and curious eyes. For the first time I wondered whether there might be another world, or the ashes of an old one beneath that grey, impenetrable mask.
CHAPTER III
MR. BRUCE DEVILLE
My father"s first sermon was a great success. As usual, it was polished, eloquent, and simple, and withal original. He preached without ma.n.u.script, almost without notes, and he took particular pains to keep within the comprehension of his tiny congregation. Lady Naselton, who waited for me in the aisle, whispered her warm approval.
"Whatever induced your father to come to such an out-of-the-way hole as this?" she exclaimed, as we pa.s.sed through the porch into the fresh, sunlit air. "Why, he is an orator! He should preach at cathedrals! I never heard any one whose style I like better. But all the same it is a pity to think of such a sermon being preached to such a congregation. Don"t you think so yourself?"
I agreed with her heartily.
"I wonder that you girls let him come here and bury himself, with his talents," she continued.
"I had not much to do with it," I reminded her. "You forget that I have lived abroad all my life; I really have only been home for about eight or nine months."
"Well, I should have thought that your sister would have been more ambitious for him," she declared. "However, it"s not my business, of course. Since you are here, I shall insist, positively insist, upon coming every Sunday. My husband says that it is such a drag for the horses. Men have such ridiculous ideas where horses are concerned. I am sure that they take more care of them than they do of their wives. Come and have tea with me to-morrow, will you?"
"If I can," I promised. "It all depends upon what Providence has in store for me in the shape of callers."
"There is no one left to call," Lady Naselton declared, with her foot upon the carriage step. "I looked through your card plate the other day whilst I was waiting for you. You will be left in peace for a little while now."
"You forget our neighbor," I answered, laughing. "He has not called yet, and I mean him to."
Lady Naselton leaned back amongst the soft cushions of her barouche, and smiled a pitying smile at me.
"You need not wait for him, at any rate," she said. "If you do you will suffer for the want of fresh air."
The carriage drove off, and I skirted the church yard, and made my way round to the Vicarage gate. Away across the park I could see a huge knickerbockered figure leaning over a gate, with his back to me, smoking a pipe. It was not a graceful att.i.tude, nor was it a particularly reputable way of spending a Sunday morning.
I was reminded of him again as I walked up the path towards the house. A few yards from our dining room window a dog was lying upon a flower bed edge. As I approached, it limped up, whining, and looked at me with piteous brown eyes. I recognized the breed at once. It was a beagle--one of Mr. Deville"s without a doubt. It lay at my feet with its front paw stretched out, and when I stooped down to pat it, it wagged its tail feebly, but made no effort to rise. Evidently its leg was broken.
I fetched some lint from the house, and commenced to bind up the limb as carefully as possible. The dog lay quite still, whining and licking my hand every now and then. Just as I was finishing off the bandage I became conscious that some one was approaching the garden--a firm, heavy tread was crossing the lane. In a moment or two a gruff voice sounded almost at my elbow.
"I beg pardon, but I think one of my dogs is here."