The Swindler, Ethel May Dell [distant reading TXT] 📗

/> Priscilla was not as a rule reckless. A long training in her stepmother's school had made her cautious and far-seeing in all things social. She knew exactly the risk that lay in unconventionality. But, then, had she not fled from town to lead a free life? Why should she submit to the old, galling chain here in this golden world where its restraint was not known? Her whole being rose up in revolt at the bare idea, and suddenly, passionately, she decided to break free. Even the flowers had their day of riotous, splendid life. She would have hers, wherever its enjoyment might lead her, whatever it might cost!
And so she answered him with a lack of reserve at which her London friends would have marvelled.
"You don't intrude at all. If you have come to see the Abbey, I should advise you to wait till after six o'clock."
"When it will be closed to the public?" he questioned, still looking quizzical.
She looked up at him, for the first time deliberately meeting his eyes. Yes it was plain that he did not know her; but on the whole she was glad, it made things easier. She had been so foolish and hysterical upon that far-off day when he had saved her life.
"I will take you over it myself, if you care to accept my guidance," she said, "after the crowd have gone."
He glanced at his watch.
"And you are prepared to tolerate my society till six?" he said. "That is very generous of you."
She smiled, with a touch of wistfulness.
"Perhaps I don't find my own very inspiring."
He raised his eyebrows, but made no comment.
"Perhaps I had better tell you my name," he said, after a pause. "I am in a fashion connected with this place--a sort of friend of the family, if it isn't presumption to put it that way. My name is Julian Carfax, and Ralph Cochrane, the next-of-kin, is a pal of mine, a very great pal. He was coming over to England. Perhaps you heard. But he's a very shy fellow, and almost at the last moment he decided not to face it at present. I was coming over, so I undertook to explain. I spoke to Lady Raffold in town over the telephone, and told her. She seemed to be rather affronted, for some reason. Possibly it was my fault. I'm not much of a diplomatist, anyway."
He seated himself on a mossy stone below her with this reflection, and began to cast pebbles into the brown water.
Priscilla watched him gravely. What he had told her interested her considerably, but she had no intention of giving herself away by betraying it.
There was a decided pause before she made up her mind how to pursue the subject.
"I had no idea that an American could be shy," she said then.
Carfax turned with his pleasant smile.
"No? We're a pushing race, I suppose. But I think Cochrane had some excuse for his timidity this time."
"Yes?" said Priscilla.
He began to laugh quietly.
"You see, it turned out that he was expected to marry the old maid of the family--Lady Priscilla. Naturally he kicked at that."
Priscilla bent sharply over Romeo, and began to examine one of his huge paws. Her face was a vivid scarlet.
"It wasn't surprising, was it?" said Carfax, tossing another pebble into the stream. "It was more than enough, in my opinion, to make any fellow feel shy."
Priscilla did not answer. The colour was slow to fade from her face.
"I wonder if you have ever seen the lady?" Carfax pursued. "She was out of town when I was there."
"Yes; I have seen her."
Priscilla spoke with her head bent.
"You have? What is she like?"
He glanced round with an expression of amused interest. Priscilla looked up deliberately.
"She is quite old and ugly. But I don't think Mr. Ralph Cochrane need be afraid. She doesn't like men. I am rather sorry for her myself."
"Sorry for her? Why?"
Carfax became serious.
"I think she is rather lonely," the girl said, in a low voice.
"You know her well?"
"Can any one say that they really know any one? No. But I think that she feels very deeply, and that her life has always been more or less of a failure. At least, that is the sort of feeling I have about her."
Again, but more gradually, the colour rose in her face. She took up her basket, and began to unpack it.
Carfax turned fully round.
"You go in for character-study," he said.
"A little," she owned. "I can't help it. Now let me give you some tea. I have enough for two."
"I shall be delighted," he said courteously. "Let me help you to unpack."
Priscilla could never recall afterwards how they spent the golden hours till six o'clock. She was as one in a dream, to which she clung closely, passionately, fearing to awake. For in her dream she was standing on the threshold of her paradise, waiting for the opening of the gates.


IV
ON THE THRESHOLD

Raffold Abbey was huge and rambling, girt with many memories. They spent nearly two hours wandering through the house and the old, crumbling chapel.
"There is a crypt below," Priscilla said, "but we can't go down without a lantern. Another day, if you cared----"
"Of course I should, above all things," declared Carfax. "I was just going to ask when I might come again."
Their intimacy had progressed wonderfully during those hours of companionship. The total absence of conventionality had destroyed all strangeness between them. They were as children on a holiday, enjoying the present to the full, and wholly careless of the future.
Not till Carfax had at length taken his leave did Priscilla ask herself what had brought him there. Merely to view his friend's inheritance seemed a paltry reason. Perhaps he was a journalist, or a writer of guide-books. But she soon dismissed the matter, to ask herself a more personal question. Was it possible that he knew her? Had he found out her name after the New York episode, and come at last to seek her? She could not honestly believe this, though her heart leapt at the thought. That affair had taken place four long years before. Of course, he had forgotten it. It could have made no more than a passing impression upon him. Had it been otherwise, would he not have claimed her at once as an old acquaintance?
Yes, it was plain that her first conviction must be correct. He did not know her. The whole incident had passed completely from his memory, crowded out, no doubt, and that speedily, by more absorbing interests. She had flashed across his life, attaining to no more importance than a bird upon the wing. He had saved her life at a frightful risk, and then forgotten her very existence. She had always realised it must be so, but, strangely, she had never resented it. In spite of it, with a woman's queer, inexplicable faithfulness, she yet loved her hero, yet cherished closely, fondly, the memory that she doubted not had faded utterly from his mind.
She went to the village church with Froggy on the following day, though fully alive to the risk she ran of being pointed out to the ignorant as Lady Priscilla from the Abbey. She knew by some deep-hidden instinct that he would be there, and she was not disappointed. He came in late, and stood quite still just inside the little building, searching it up and down with keen, quiet eyes that never faltered in their progress till they lighted upon her. She fancied there was a faintly humorous expression about his mouth. His look did not dwell upon her. He stepped aside to a vacant chair close to the door, and Priscilla, in her great, square pew near the pulpit, saw him no more. When she left the church at the end of the service he had already disappeared.
Froggy went out to tea that afternoon with much solicitous regret, which Priscilla treated in a spirit of levity. She packed her tea-basket again as soon as she was alone, selecting her provisions with care. And soon after three, accompanied by Romeo, she started for the glen, not sauntering idly, but stepping briskly through the golden sunshine, as one with a purpose. She felt as if she were going to a trysting-place, though no word of a tryst had passed between them.
He was there before her, bareheaded and alert, quite obviously awaiting her. He did not express his pleasure in words as he took her hand in his. Only there was an indescribable look in his brown eyes that made her very glad that she had come. He had brought an enormous basket of strawberries, which he presented with that drawling ease of manner which she had come to regard as peculiarly his own, and they settled down to the afternoon's enjoyment in a harmony as complete as the summer peace about them.
No spoken confidences passed between them. Their intimacy was such as to make words seem superfluous. Both seemed to feel that the present was all-sufficing.
Only once did Priscilla challenge Carfax's memory. The impulse was irresistible at the moment, though she regretted it later. He was holding out to her the biggest strawberry he could find. It lay on a leaf on the palm of his hand, and as she took it she suddenly saw a long, terrible scar extending upwards from his wrist till his sleeve hid it from view.
"Why," she exclaimed, with a start; then, seeing his questioning look, "surely that's a burn?"
"It is," said Carfax.
He turned his hand over to hide it. His manner seemed to indicate that he did not wish to pursue the subject. But Priscilla, suddenly reckless, ignored the hint.
"But how did you do it?" she asked.
Carfax hesitated for a second, then:
"It was years ago," he said, rather unwillingly. "A lady's dress caught fire. It fell to me to put it out."
"How brave!" murmured Priscilla. Her eyes were shining. Had he looked up then he must have read her secret.
But he did not look up. For the first time he seemed to be labouring under some spell of embarrassment.
"It wasn't brave at all," he said, after a moment. "I could have done no less."
There was almost a vexed note in his voice. Yet she persisted.
"What was she like? Wasn't she very grateful?"
"I don't know at all. I don't suppose she enjoyed the situation any more than I did."
He plucked a tuft of moss and tossed it from him, as if therewith dismissing the subject. And Priscilla felt a little hurt, though not for worlds would she have suffered him to see it.
It fell to him to break the silence a few seconds later, and he did so without a hint of difficulty.
"When am I going to see the crypt?"
Priscilla laughed a little.
"Are you writing a book about the place?"
He laughed back at her quite openly.
"Not at present. When I do, it will be a romance, with you for heroine."
"Oh, no; not me!" she protested. "I am a mere nobody. Lady Priscilla ought to be your heroine."
He raised his eyebrows. She had begun to associate that look of his with protest rather than surprise.
"I have yet to be introduced to Lady Priscilla," he said. "And as she doesn't like men, I almost think I shall forego the pleasure and keep out of her way."
"Perhaps I have given you a wrong impression about her," Priscilla said, speaking with a slight effort. "It is only the idle, foppish men about town she has no use for."
"She is fastidious, apparently," he returned, lying down abruptly