Only a Girl's Love, Charles Garvice [a book to read .txt] 📗

he said, and he threw himself down beside her.

She gathered them up into bundles, and tied them with a long stem of fern, and he tried to do the same, but his hands, white and slender as they were, were not so deft as hers, and he held the huge bundle to her.

"You must tie it," he said.

She laughed and put the fern round, but it broke, and the primroses fell in a golden shower over their hands. They both made a grasp at them, and their hands met.

For a moment Stella laughed, then the laugh died away, for he still held her hand, and the warmth of his grasp seemed stealing[50] upward to her heart. With something like an effort she drew her hand away, and sprang to her feet.

"I—I must go," she said. "Uncle will wonder where I have gone," and she looked down at the water with almost frightened eagerness.

"He will know you are here, quite safe," he said. "Wait, do not go this moment. Up there, above our heads, we can see the river stretching away for miles. It is not a step; will you come?"

She hesitated a moment, then she turned and walked beside him between the trees.

A step or two, as he said, and they reached a sort of plateau, crowned by a moss-grown rock, in which some rough steps were hewn. He sprang up the steps and reached the top, then bent down and held out his hand.

Stella hesitated a moment.

"It will repay your trouble; come," he said, and she put her hand in his and her foot on the first step, and he drew her up beside him.

"Look!" he said.

An exclamation of delight broke from Stella's lips.

"You are not sorry you came?"

"I did not think it would be so lovely," she said.

He stood beside her, not looking at the view, but at her dark eyes dilating with dreamy rapture—at her half-parted lips, and the sweet, clear-cut profile presented to him.

She turned suddenly, and to hide the look of admiration he raised his hand and pointed out the objects in the view.

"And what is that little house there?" asked Stella.

"That is one of the lodges," he said.

"One of the lodges—one of your own lodges, you mean?" she asked.

He nodded lightly, "Yes."

"And all this between here and that lodge belongs to you?"

"No, not an inch," he said, laughing. "To my father."

"It is a great deal," she said.

"Too much for one man, you think?" he said, with a smile. "A great many other people think so too. I don't know what you would think if you knew how much we Wyndwards have managed at one time or the other to lay our acquiring grasp on. This is one of our smallest estates," he said, simply.

Stella looked at the view dreamily.

"One of the smallest? Yes, I have heard that you are very rich. It must be very nice."

"I don't know," he said. "You see one cannot tell until one has been poor. I don't think there is anything in it. I don't think one is any the happier. There is always something left to long for."

She turned her dark eyes on him with a smile of incredulity.

"What can you possibly have to long for?" she said.

He looked at her with a strange smile; then suddenly his face grew grave and wistful—almost sad, as it seemed to her.

"You cannot guess, and I cannot tell you; but believe me that,[51] as I stand here, there is an aching void in my heart, and I do long for something very earnestly."

The voice was like music, deep and thrilling; she listened and wondered.

"And you should be so happy," she said, almost unconsciously.

"Happy!" he echoed, and his dark eyes rested on hers with a strange expression that was half-mocking, half-sad. "Do you know what the poets say?"

"'Count no man happy till he dies,' do you mean?" said Stella.

"Yes," he said. "I do not think I know what happiness means. I have been pursuing it all my life; sometimes have been within reach of it but it has always evaded me—always slipped from my grasp. Sometimes I have resolved to let it go—to pursue it no longer; but fate has decreed that man shall always be seeking for the unattainable—that he who once looks upon happiness with the eyes of desire, who stretches out his hands toward her, shall pursue her to the end."

"And—but surely some get their desire."

"Some," he said, "to find that the prize is not worth the race they have run for it; to find that they have wearied of it when it is gained; to find that it is no prize at all, but a delusive blank; all dead sea fruit that turns to dust upon the lips."

"Not all; surely not all!" she murmured, strangely moved by his words.

"No; not all," he said, with a hidden light in his eyes that she did not see. "To some there comes a moment when they know that happiness—real true happiness—lies just beyond their grasp. And the case of rich men is more to be pitied than all others. What would you say if I told you that it was mine?"

She looked up at him with a gentle smile, not on her lips but in her eyes.

"I should say that I was very sorry," she murmured. "I should say that you deserved——" she stopped short, smitten by sudden remembrance of all she had heard of him.

He filled up the pause with a laugh: a laugh such as she had not heard upon his lips till now.

"You were right to stop," he said. "If I get all the happiness I deserve—well, no man will envy me."

"Let us go down now," said Stella, gently; "my uncle——"

He leapt down, and held up his hand.

CHAPTER VIII.

Stella put hers into it, but reluctantly, and tried to spring, but her dress caught and she slipped forward.

She would have fallen but that he was on the alert to save her. Quite simply and naturally he put his arms round her and lifted her down.

Only for a moment he held her in his embrace, her panting form close to his, her face almost resting on his shoulders, but that moment roused the blood in his fiery heart, and her face went pale.

[52]

"Are you hurt?" he murmured.

"No, no!" she said, and she slipped out of his arms and stood a little away from him, the color coming and going in her face; it was the first time that any man's arms, save her father's, had ever encircled her.

"Are you quite sure?" he repeated.

"Quite," she said, then she laughed. "What would have happened if I had slipped?"

"You would have sprained your ankle," he said.

"Sprained my ankle, really?" she repeated, with open eyes.

"Yes, and I should have had to carry you down to the boat," he said, slowly.

She looked away from him.

"I am glad I did not slip."

"And I," he said, "am—glad also."

She stooped and picked up the primroses and ran down the slope, her cheeks aflame, a feeling that was something like shame, and yet too full of a strange, indefinable joy to be sullen shame, took possession of her.

With light feet, her hat swinging in her hand, she threaded her way between the trees and sprang on to the grassy road beside the river bank.

He did not follow so quickly, but stood for a moment looking at her, his face pale, his eyes full of a strange, wistful restlessness.

Then Stella heard his step, firm and masterful, behind her. A sudden impulse tempted her sorely to jump into the boat and push off—she could pull a pair of sculls—and her hand was on the edge of the boat, when she heard the sound of bells, and paused with astonishment. Looking up she saw a tiny ph�ton drawn by a pair of cream-white ponies coming along the road; it was the bells on their harness that she had heard.

They came along at a fair pace, and Stella saw that the ph�ton was being driven by a coachman in dark-brown livery, but the next moment all her attention was absorbed by the young girl who sat beside him.

She was so fair, so lovely, so ethereal looking, that Stella was spellbound.

A book was in her hand—ungloved and small and white as a child's—but she was not reading. She held it so loosely that as the ph�ton came along the top of the bank which hid Stella, the book dropped from the lax grasp of the white fingers.

The girl uttered an exclamation, and Stella, obeying one of her sudden impulses, sprang lightly up the bank, and picking up the book, held it toward her.

Her appearance was so sudden that Lady Lilian was startled and for a moment the pale face was dyed with a faint color; even after the moment had passed she sat speechless, and the surprise in her eyes gave place to a frank, generous admiration.

"Oh, thank you—thank you!" she said. "How kind of you. It was so stupid of me to drop it. But where did you come from—the clouds?" And there was a delicious hint of flattery in the look that accompanied the words.

[53]

"Quite the reverse," said Stella, with her open smile. "I was standing below there, by the boat."

And she pointed.

"Oh?" said Lady Lilian. "I did not see you."

"You were looking the other way," said Stella, drawing back to allow the carriage to proceed; but Lady Lilian seemed reluctant to go, and made no sign to the coachman, who sat holding the reins like an image of stone, apparently deaf and dumb.

For a few strokes of Time's scythe the two girls looked at each other—the one with the pale face and the blue eyes regarding the fresh, healthful beauty of the other with sad, wistful gaze. Then Lady Lilian spoke.

"What beautiful primroses! You have been gathering them on the slopes?" with a suggestion of a sigh.

"Yes," said Stella. "Will you take them?"

"Oh, no, no; I could not think of robbing you."

Stella smiled with her characteristic archness.

"It is I who have been the thief. I have been taking what did not belong to me. You will take these?"

Lady Lilian was too well bred to refuse; besides, she thirsted for them.

"If you will give them to me, and will not mind picking some more," she said.

Stella laid the bunch on the costly sables which wrapped the frail figure.

Lady Lilian put them to her face with a caressing gesture. "You are, like me, fond of flowers?" she said.

Stella nodded. "Yes."

Then there was a pause. Above them, unseen by Lilian, forgotten by Stella, stood Lord Leycester.

He was watching and waiting with a strange smile. He could read the meaning in his sister's eyes; she was longing to know more of the beautiful girl who had sprang like a fairy to her side.

With a faint flush, Lady Lilian said:

"You—you are a stranger, are you not? I mean you do not live here?"

"Yes," said Stella; "I live"—and she smiled and pointed to the cottage across the meadow—"there."

Lady Lilian started, and Lord Leycester seized the moment, and coming down, quietly stood by Stella's side.

"Leycester!" exclaimed Lilian, with a start of surprise.

He smiled into her eyes, his strange, masterful, irresistible smile. It was as if he had said, "Did I not tell you? Can you withstand her?"

But aloud he said:

"Let me make the introduction in due form. This is Miss Etheridge, Lilian. Miss Etheridge, this is my sister. As the French philosopher said, 'Know each other.'"

Lady Lilian held out her hand.

"I am very glad," she said.

Stella took the thin, white hand, and held it for a moment; then Lady Lilian looked from one to the other.

Lord Leycester interpreted the glance at once.

[54]

"Miss Etheridge has intrusted herself on the watery deep with me," he said. "We came across to gather flowers, leaving Mr. Etheridge to paint there."

And he waved his hand across the river.

Lady Lilian looked.

"I see," she said—"I see. And he is painting. Is he not clever? How proud you must be of him!"

Stella's eyes grew dark. It was the one word wanting to draw them together. She said not a word.

"Your uncle and I are old friends," Lady Lilian continued. "Sometime when—when I am stronger, I am coming to see him—when the weather gets warmer—" Stella glanced at the frail form clad in sables, with a moistened eye—"I am going to spend a long afternoon among the pictures. He is always so kind and patient, and explains them all to me. But, as I am not able to come to you, you will come and see me, will you not?"

There was a moment's silence. Lord Leycester stood looking over the river as if waiting