Nightfall, Anthony Pryde [easy novels to read .TXT] 📗

round and round for a bit."

"And have we still time?"

"No."

"We shan't lose the train?"

"Unless it's delayed in starting, which isn't likely."

"Will the others go on and leave us?"

"Hardly!"

"You don't mean that Laura won't get home till tomorrow? Oh!"

"No. But don't look so frightened, no one will blame you—the responsibility is mine entirely."

Isabel's lip curled. It was for Laura that she felt afraid and not for herself, and surely he might have guessed as much as that! "Did you do it on purpose?"

"No."

"I beg your pardon. That was stupid of me."

"Very," said Lawrence with his keen sarcastic smile.

At Waterloo he sprang out, tossed a sovereign to the driver, and made Isabel catch up her skirts and run like a deer. But before they reached the platform it was after twelve and the rails beyond were empty. Selincourt and Laura were waiting by the barrier, Selincourt red with impatience, Laura very pale.

"Are you aware you've lost the last train down?" said the elder man with ill-concealed anger, as Lawrence, shortening his step, strolled up in apparent tranquillity with Isabel on his arm. "What on earth has become of you? We've been waiting here for half an hour!"

"We were held up in the traffic," said Lawrence deliberately. Isabel turned scarlet. The truth would have been insupportable, but so was the lie. "Although it was no fault of mine, Laura, I'm more sorry than I can say. Will you let me telephone for my own car and motor you down? I could get you to Chilmark in the small hours—long before the first morning train."

Laura hesitated: but Selincourt's brow was dark. The streets that night had not been unusually crowded, ample time had been allowed to cover any ordinary delay, and Isabel was cruelly confused. In his simple code Hyde had committed at least one if not two unpardonable sins—he had neglected one of the ladies in his care if he had not affronted the other.

"That wouldn't do at all," he said with decision. "You've been either careless or unlucky once, Lawrence. It might happen again."

It was a direct challenge, and cost him an effort, but it was not resented. "It would not. From my soul I regret this contretemps, Lucian. Do you settle what's to be done: you're Laura's brother, I put myself unreservedly in your hands."

"My dear fellow!" the gentle Lucian was instantly disarmed. "After all we needn't make a mountain out of a molehill—they'll know we're all right, four of us together!"

"At all events it can't be helped," said Mrs. Clowes, smiling at Lawrence with her kind trustful eyes, "so don't distress yourself. My sweet Isabel too, so tired!" she took Isabel's cold hand. "Never mind, Val won't let your father worry, and we shall be home by ten or eleven in the morning. It is only to go to an hotel for a few hours. Come, dear Lawrence, don't look so subdued! It wasn't your fault, so you mustn't trouble even if—"

"Even if what?"

"Even if Bernard locks the door in my face," she finished laughing. "He'll be fearfully cross! but I dare say Val will go down and smooth his ruffled plumage."

CHAPTER XV

"I do not like all this running about to places of amusement," said Mr. Stafford, rumpling up his curls till they stood on end in a plume. "If you or Rowsley were to visit a theatre I should say nothing. You're men and must judge for yourselves. But Isabel is different. I have a good mind to put my foot down once and for all. An atmosphere of luxury is not good for a young girl."

He stretched himself out in his shabby chair; a shabby, slight man, whose delicate foot, the toes poking out of a shabby slipper, looked as if it were too small to make much impression however firmly put down. Val, smoking his temperate pipe on the other side of the diningroom hearth, temperately suggested that the amount of luxury in Isabel's life wouldn't hurt a fly.

"One grain of strychnine will destroy a life: and one hour of temptation may destroy a soul for ever." Val bowed his head in assent. "Why are we all so fond of Isabel? Because she hasn't a particle of self-consciousness in her. A single evening's flattery may infect her with that detestable vice."

"She must grow up some time."

"More's the pity," retorted the vicar. "Another point: I'm not by any means sure I approve of that fellow Hyde. I doubt if he's a religious man." Val brushed away a smile. "He comes to church with Laura pretty regularly, but would he come if her influence were removed? I greatly doubt it." So did Val, therefore he prudently held his tongue. "I hate to be uncharitable," continued Mr. Stafford "but I doubt if he is even what one narrowly calls a moral man. Take Jack Bendish, now one can see at a glance that he's a good fellow, right-living and clean-minded. But Hyde doesn't inspire me with any such confidence. I know nothing of his private life—"

"Nor do I," said Val rather wearily. "But what does any man know of another man's private life? If you come to that, Jim, what do you know of Rowsley's—or mine?"

"Pouf, nonsense!" said Mr. Stafford.

At his feet lay a small black cat, curled up in the attitude of a comma. Before going on he inserted one toe under her waist, rapidly turned her upside down, and chucked her under her ruffled and indignant chin.

"Val, my boy, has any one repeated to you a nasty bit of gossip that's going about the village?"

"This violence to a lady!" Val held out his hand and made small coaxing noises with his lips. But Amelia after a cold stare walked away and sat down in the middle of the floor, turning her back and sticking out a refined but implacable tail. "There now! you've hurt her feelings."

"Of course there's nothing in it—on one side at least. But I can't help wondering whether Hyde . . . . our dear Laura would naturally be the last to hear of it. But Hyde's a man of the world and knows how quickly tongues begin to wag. In Laura's unprotected position he ought to be doubly careful."

"He ought."

"But he is not. Now is that designed or accidental? We'll allow him the benefit of the doubt and call it an error of judgment. Then some one ought to give him a hint."

"Some one would be knocked down for his pains."

"D'you think he'd knock me down?" asked Mr. Stafford, casting a comical glance over his slender elderly frame.

"Hardly," said Val laughing. "But—no, Jim, it wouldn't do. Too formal, too official." His real objection was that Mr. Stafford would base his appeal on ethical and spiritual grounds, which were not likely to influence Lawrence, as Val read him. "But if you like I'll give him a hint myself. I can do it informally; and I very nearly did it as long ago as last June. Hyde is amenable to treatment if he's taken quietly."

Mr. Stafford, by temperament and training a member of the Church Militant, clearly felt a trifle disappointed, but he had little petty vanity and accepted Val's amendment without a murmur. "Very well, if you think you can do it better! I don't care who does it so long as it's done." The clock struck. "Half past eleven is that? Isabel can't be home before four. Dear me, how I hate these ridiculous hours, turning night into day!" As some correspondents put the point of a letter into a postscript, so the vicar in returning to his Church Times revealed the peculiar sting that was working in his mind. "And I don't— I do not like Isabel to make one of that trio—in view of what's being said."

"She is with Mrs. Clowes," said Val shortly, and colouring all over his face. Fling enough mud and some of it is sure to stick! If his unworldly father could think Laura, though innocent, so far compromised that Isabel was not safe in her care, what were other people saying? Val got up. "I shall walk down and smoke a pipe with Clowes. He won't go to bed till they come in."

The beechen way was dark and steep; roosting birds blundered out from overhead with a sleepy clamour of alarm-notes and a great rustle of leaf-brushed wings; one could have tracked Val's course by the commotion they made. On the footbridge dark in alder-shadow he lingered to enjoy the cool woodland air and lulling ripple underfoot. Not a star pierced to that black water, it might have been unfathomably deep; and though the village street was only a quarter of a mile away the night was intensely quiet, for all Chilmark went to bed after closing time. It was not often that Val, overworked and popular, tasted such a profound solitude. Not a leaf stirred: no one was near: under golden stars it was chilling towards one of the first faint frosts of the year: and insensibly Val relaxed his guard: a heavy sigh broke from him, and he moved restlessly, indulging himself in recollection as a man who habitually endures pain without wincing will now and then allow himself the relief of defeat.

For it is a relief not to pretend any more nor fight: to let pain take its way, like a slow tide invading every nerve and flooding every recess of thought, till one is pierced and penetrated by it, married to it, indifferent so long as one can drop the mask of that cruel courage which exacts so many sacrifices. Val was still only twenty-nine. Forty years more of a life like this! . . . Lawrence had once compared him to a man on the rack. But, though Lawrence knew all, Val had never relaxed the strain before him: was incapable of relaxing it before any spectator. He needed to be not only alone, but in the dark, hidden even from himself: and even so no open expression was possible to him, not a movement after the first deep sigh: it was relief enough for him to be sincere with himself and own that he was unhappy. But why specially unhappy now?

Midnight: the church clock had begun to strike in a deep whirring chime, muffled among the million leaves of the wood.

That trio were in the train now, Isabel probably fast falling asleep, Hyde and Laura virtually alone for the run from Waterloo to Chilmark.

A handsome man, Hyde, and attractive to women, or so rumour and Yvonne Bendish affirmed. If even Yvonne, who was Laura's own sister, was afraid of Hyde! … Well, Hyde was to be given the hint to take himself off, and surely no more than such a hint would be necessary? Val smiled, the prospect was not without a wry humour. If he had been Hyde's brother, what he had to say would not have said itself easily. "Let us hope he won't knock me down," Val reflected, "or the situation will really become strained; but he won't—that's not his way." What was his way? The worst of it was that Val was not at all sure what way Hyde would take, nor whether he would consent to go alone. A handsome man, confound him, and a picked specimen of his type: one of those high-geared and smoothly running physical machines that are all grace in a lady's drawingroom and all steel under their skins. What a contrast between him and poor Bernard! the one so impotent and devil-ridden, the other so virile, unscrupulous, and serene.

Val stirred restlessly and gripped the rail of the bridge between his clenched hands. His mind was a chaos of loose ends and he dared not follow any one of them to its logical conclusion. What was he letting himself think of Laura? Such fears were an insult to her clear chastity and strength of will. Or, in any event, what was it to him? He was Bernard's friend, and Laura's but he was not the keeper of Bernard's honour. . . . But Hyde and Laura . . . alone . . . the train with its plume