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

but at the moment the fish, jack or trout, seized the bait, and with an exultant cry, Frank jerked his rod.

"I've got him!" he shouted. "It's a monster! Have you got a net Lord—I mean Leycester?"

"No, bother the net and the fish too," said Leycester. "Leave the fish and come off; your cousin is alarmed."

"Oh, very well," said Frank, and he jerked the rod to get clear of the fish, and at the same moment turned warily toward the shore.

But the fish—jack or trout—had got a firm hold, and was not disposed to go, and making a turn to the open river, put a strain on the rod which Frank had not expected.

It was a question whether he should drop the rod or cling on.

He decided on the latter, and the next moment he missed his[153] footing and fell into the foaming water. Stella did not utter a cry—it was not her way of expressing her emotion—but she grasped Leycester's arm.

"All right, my darling," he murmured; "it is all right," and as he spoke, he put her hand from his arm gently and tenderly.

The next moment he had torn off his coat, and springing on the weir stood for just a second to calculate the distance, and dived off.

Stella, even then, did not shriek, but she sank speechless on the bank, and with clasped hands and agonized terror, watched the struggle.

Lord Leycester rose to the surface almost instantly. He was a skilled diver and a powerful swimmer, and he had not lost his presence of mind for a moment.

It was a terrible place to jump from—a still more terrible place from which to rescue a drowning person; but Lord Leycester had done the thing before, and he was not afraid.

He saw the boy's golden head come up a few yards beyond where he, Lord Leycester, rose, and he struck out for it. A few stokes, and he reached and grasped him.

"Don't cling to me, my boy" he gasped.

"No fear, Lord Leycester!" gasped Frank, in return.

Then Lord Leycester seized him by the hair, and striking out for the shore, fought hard.

It was a hard fight. The recoil of the stream, as it fell from the weir, was tremendous; it was like forcing one's way through liquid iron. But Lord Leycester did force his way, and still clinging to the boy's hair, dragged him ashore.

Dripping wet, they stood and looked at each other. Then Lord Leycester laughed; but Frank, the boy, did not.

"Lord Leycester," he said, speaking pantingly, "you have saved my life."

"Nonsense!" said Leycester, shaking himself; "I have had a pleasant bath, that's all!"

"You have saved my life," said Frank, solemnly. "I should never have been able to force my way through that current alone. I know what a weir stream is."

"Nonsense," said Leycester, again. Then he turned to where Stella stood, white and trembling. "Don't be frightened, Stella; don't be frightened, darling!"

The word was said before he could recall it, and he glanced at Frank.

Frank nodded.

"I know," he said with a smile. "I knew it half an hour ago; since you first spoke to her."

"Frank!" murmured Stella.

"I knew he loved you," said Frank, calmly. "He could not help it; how could anybody help it who knew you?"

Leycester laid his hand on the boy's arm.

"You must go home at once," he said, gently.

"You have saved my life," said Frank again. "Lord Leycester, I shall never forget it. Perhaps some day I shall be able to[154] repay you. It seems unlikely; but remember the story of the lion and the mouse."

"Never mind the lion and the mouse," said Leycester, smiling, as he wrung the Thames water from his clothes. "You must get home at once."

"But I do remember the lion and the mouse," said Frank, his teeth chattering. "You have saved my life."

Meanwhile Stella stood wordless and motionless, her eyes wandering from her lover to Frank.

Wordless, because she could find no words to express her admiration for her lover's heroism.

At last she spoke.

"Oh, Leycester!" she said, and that was all.

Leycester took her in his arms and kissed her.

"Frank," he said, "you must keep our secret."

"I would lay down my life for either of you," said the boy, looking up at him.

They went down to the boat in silence, and Leycester rowed them across in silence; then, as they landed, Frank spoke again, and there was a strange light in his eyes.

"I know," he said. "I know your secret. I would lay down my life for you!"

CHAPTER XXI.

Stella hurried Frank across the meadows, a rather difficult task, as he would insist upon talking, his teeth chattering, and his clothes dripping.

"What a splendid fellow, Stella! What a happy girl you ought to be—you are!"

"Perhaps I am," assented Stella, with a little smile; "but do you make haste, Frank! Can't you run any faster? I'll race you to the lane!"

"No, you won't," he retorted cheerfully. "You run like a greyhound at the best of times, and now I seem to have got a couple of tons clinging to me, you'd beat me hollow. But, Stella! think of him plunging off the beam! Many a man would have been satisfied to jump off the bank; if he had, he wouldn't have saved me! He knew that; and he made nothing of it, nothing! And that is the man they call a dandy and a fop!"

"Never mind what they call him, but run!" implored Stella.

"I don't know any other man who could have done it," he went on, his teeth chattering; "and how friendly and jolly he was, calling me Frank and telling me to call him Leycester! Stella, what a lucky girl you are; but he is not a bit too good for you after all! No one is too good for you! And he does love you, Stella; I could see it by the way he looked at you, and you thought to hide it, and that I shouldn't see it. Did you think I was a muff?"

"I think you will be laid up with a bad cold, sir, if you don't run!" said Stella. "What will uncle say?"

Frank stopped short and his face paled; he seemed to shrink.

[155]

"My father must know nothing about it," he said. "Don't tell him, Stella; I will get in the back way and change. Don't tell him!"

"But——" said Stella.

"No, no," he reiterated; "I don't want him to know. It will only trouble him, and"—his voice faltered—"I have given him so much trouble."

"Very well," said Stella. "But come along or you will be ill, and then he must know."

This appeared to have the desired effect, and he took her hand and set off at a run. They reached the lane, and were just turning into it, when the tall, thin figure of Jasper emerged.

Both Stella and Frank stopped, and she felt his hand close in hers tightly.

"Stella, here's that man Adelstone," he said, in a whisper of aversion. "Must we stop?"

Jasper settled that question by raising his hat, and coming forward with outstretched hand.

"Good-evening!" he said, his small, keen eyes glancing from Stella to the boy, and taking in the fact of the wet clothes in a moment.

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing much," said Stella with a smile, and hurriedly. "My cousin has fallen into the water. We are hurrying home."

"Fallen in the water!" said Jasper, turning and walking beside them. "How did he manage that?"

Frank was silent, and Stella, with a little flush, said, gravely:

"We were on the water——"

"I was fishing from the weir," broke in Frank, pressing her hand, warningly, "and I fell in; that is all."

There was something almost like defiance in the tone and the glance he gave at the sinister face.

"Into the weir stream!" exclaimed Jasper, "and you got ashore! You must be a good swimmer, my dear Frank!"

"I am—pretty well," said Frank, almost sullenly.

"Perhaps you had the waterman to help you," said Jasper, looking from one to the other.

Then Stella, who felt that it would be better to speak out, said, gravely:

"Lord Leycester was near, and leapt in and saved him."

Jasper's face paled, and an angry light shot from his eyes.

"How fortunate that he should happen to be near!" he said. "It was brave of him!"

There was a suspicion of a sneer in the thin voice that roused the spirit of the boy.

"It was brave," he said. "Perhaps you don't know what it is to swim through a weir current, Mr. Adelstone?"

Jasper smiled down at the flushed, upturned face.

"No, but I think I should have tried if I had been lucky enough to be in Lord Leycester's place."

"I'm very glad you weren't," said Frank, in a low voice.

[156]

"I am sure you would," said Stella, quickly. "Anyone would. Come, Frank. Good-evening, Mr. Adelstone."

Jasper paused and looked at her. She looked very beautiful with her flushed face and eager eyes, and his heart was beating rapidly.

"I came out hoping to see you, Miss Etheridge," he said. "May I come in?"

"Yes, of course; uncle will be very pleased," she said. "But go in the front way, please; we are going in at the back, because we don't wish uncle to know. It would only upset him. You will not tell him, please?"

"You may always rely on my discretion," said Jasper.

Stella, still holding Frank's hand, dragged him into the kitchen, and stopped Mrs. Penfold's exclamation of dismay.

"Frank has had an accident, Mrs. Penfold. Yes, he fell in the river. I'll tell you all about it afterward; but he must change his things at once—at once. Run up, Frank, and get into the blanket——"

"All right," he said; then, as he went out of the room, he took her by the arm.

"Don't let that man stay, Stella. I—hate him."

"My dear Frank!"

"I hate him! What did he mean by sneering at Lord Leycester?"

"He doesn't like Lord Leycester," said Stella.

"Who cares?" exclaimed Frank, indignantly. "Curs are not particularly fond of lions, but——"

Stella would hear no more, but pushed him up the stairs with anxious impatience; then she went into the studio. As she neared the door she could hear Jasper Adelstone's voice. He was talking to her uncle, and something in the tone struck her as peculiar, and struck her unpleasantly.

There was a tone of familiarity, almost of covert power in it that annoyed her.

With her hand on the door she paused, and it seemed to her as if she heard him speak her name; she was not sure, and she would not wait, but with a little heightened color she opened the door and entered.

As she did so Jasper laid his hand upon the old man's arm as if to call his attention to her entrance, and the painter turned round with a start, and looking at her intently, said, with evident perplexity:

"A mere girl—a mere girl, Jasper!" and shaking his head, resumed his work.

Jasper stood a moment, a smile on his face, watching Stella from the corner of his eyes; then he said, suddenly:

"I have been admiring your roses, Miss Stella, and breaking the last commandment. I have been coveting them."

"Oh!" said Stella. "Pray take any you like, there are such numbers of them that we can spare them; can we not, uncle?"

As usual, the painter took no notice, and Jasper, in a matter-of-fact voice, said:

"Do you mind coming out and telling me which I may cut?[157] I only want one or two to take to London with me, to brighten my dull rooms."

"Certainly," said Stella, moving toward the window. "Are you going to London?"

He muttered something and followed her out, his eyes taking in the lithe grace of her figure with a hungry wistfulness.

"Now then," said Stella, standing in the middle of the path and waving her hand:

"Which shall it be, white rose or red?" and she smiled up at him.

He looked at her for a moment in silence. She had never appeared to him more beautiful than this morning; there was a subtle light of hidden joy shining in her eyes, a glow of youthful hope about her face that set his heart beating with mingled pleasure and pain—delight in the beauty which he had sworn should be his, pain and torture in the thought that another—the hated Lord Leycester—had already looked upon it that morning.

Even as he stood silently regarding her, a bitter suspicion smote through his heart that the joyousness which shone from the dark eyes had been set there by Lord Leycester. He bit his lip and his face went pale, then with a start he came close to her.

"Give me which you please," he said. "Here is a knife."

Stella took the knife heedlessly and carelessly. There was no significance in the deed; she did not know that he would attach any importance to the fact that she should cut the