Missing, Mrs. Humphry Ward [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

superfluous flesh on him anywhere. But he stood at least six foot four in his boots; his shoulders were broad in proportion; and his head, with its strong curly hair of a light golden brown, which was repeated in his short beard, carried itself with the unconscious ease of one who has never known anything but the upper seats of life. His features were handsome, except for a broad irregular mouth, and his blue eyes were kind and lazily humorous.

'There's nothing better than that lake,' he said, motioning towards it, with his hand, as though he followed the outlines of the hills. 'But I never try to draw it. I leave that to the fellows who think they can! I'm afraid your permit's only for a week, Mrs. Sarratt. The boat, I find, will be wanted after that.'

'Oh, but my husband will be gone in a week--less than a week. I couldn't row myself!' said Nelly, smiling.

But Sir William thought the smile trembled a little, and he felt very sorry for the small, pretty creature.

'You will be staying on here after your husband goes?'

'Oh yes. My sister will be with me. We know the Lakes very well.'

'Staying through the summer, I suppose?' 'I shan't want to move--if the war goes on. We haven't any home of our own--yet.'

She had seated herself, and spoke with the self-possession which belongs to those who know themselves fair to look upon. But there seemed to be no coquetry about her--no consciousness of a male to be attracted. All her ways were very gentle and childish, and in her white dress she made the same impression on Farrell as she had on Bridget, of extreme--absurd--youthfulness. He guessed her age about nineteen, perhaps younger.

'I'm afraid the war will go on,' he said, kindly. 'We are only now just finding out our deficiencies.'

Nelly sighed.

'I know--it's _awful_ how we want guns and shells! My husband says it makes him savage to see how we lose men for want of them. _Why_ are we so short? Whose fault is it?'

A spot of angry colour had risen in her cheek. It was the dove defending her mate. The change was lovely, and Farrell, with his artist's eye, watched it eagerly. But he shook his head.

'It's nobody's fault. It's all on such a scale--unheard of! Nobody could have guessed before-hand--unless like Germany, we had been preparing for years to rob and murder our neighbours. Well, Mrs. Sarratt, I must be going on. But I wanted to say, that if we could do anything for you--please command us. We live about twenty miles from here. My sister hopes she may come and see you. And we have a big library at Carton. If there are any books you want--'

'Oh, how _very_ kind of you!' said Nelly gratefully. She had risen and was standing beside him, looking at him with her dark, frank eyes. 'But indeed I shall get on very well. There's a war workroom in Manchester, which will send me work. And I shall try and help with the sphagnum moss. There's a notice up near here, asking people to help. 'And perhaps'--she laughed and colored--'I shall try to sketch a little. I can't do it a bit--but it amuses me.'

'Oh, you _draw_?' said Farrell, with a smile. Then, looking round him, he noticed a portfolio on the table, with a paint box beside it. 'May I look?'

With rather red cheeks, Nelly showed her performances. She knew very well, being accustomed to follow such things in the newspapers, that Sir William Farrell had exhibited both in London and Manchester, and was much admired by some of the critics.

Farrell twisted his mouth over them a good deal, considering them carefully.

'Yes, I see--I see exactly where you are. Not bad at all, some of them. I could lend you some things which would help you I think. Ah, here is your husband.'

George Sarratt entered, looking in some surprise at their very prompt visitor, and a little inclined to stand on his guard against a patronage that might be troublesome. But Farrell explained himself so apologetically that the young man could only add his very hearty thanks to his wife's.

'Well, I really _must_ be off,' said Farrell again, looking for his hat. 'And I see you are going out for the day.' He glanced at the lunch preparations. 'Do you know Loughrigg Tarn?' He turned to Nelly.

'Oh, yes!' Her face glowed. 'Isn't it beautiful? But I don't think George knows it.' She looked up at him. He smiled and shook his head.

'I have a cottage there,' said Farrell, addressing Sarratt. 'Wordsworth said it was like Nemi. It isn't:--but it's beautiful all the same. I wish you would bring your wife there to tea with me one day before you go? There is an old woman who looks after me. This view is fine'--he pointed to the window--'but I think mine is finer.'

'Thank you,' said Sarratt, rather formally--'but I am afraid our days are getting pretty full.'

'Of course, of course!' said Sir William, smiling. 'I only meant, if you happened to be walking in that direction and want a rest. I have a number of drawings there--my own and other people's, which Mrs. Sarratt might care to see--sometime. You go on Saturday?'

'Yes. I'm due to rejoin by Monday.'

Farrell's expression darkened.

'You see what keeps me?' he said, sharply, striking his left knee with the flat of his hand. 'I had a bad fall, shooting in Scotland, years ago--when I was quite a lad. Something went wrong in the knee-cap. The doctors muffed it, and I have had a stiff knee ever since. I daresay they'd give me work at the War Office--or the Admiralty. Lots of fellows I know who can't serve are doing war-work of that kind. But I can't stand office work--never could. It makes me ill, and in a week of it I am fit to hang myself. I live out of doors. I've done some recruiting--speaking for the Lord Lieutenant. But I can't speak worth a cent--and I do no good. No fellow ever joined up because of my eloquence!--couldn't if he tried. No--I've given up my house--it was the best thing I could do. It's a jolly house, and I've got lots of jolly things in it. But the War Office and I between us have turned it into a capital hospital. We take men from the Border regiments mostly. I wonder if I shall ever be able to live in it again! My sister and I are now in the agent's house. I work at the hospital three or four days a week--and then I come here and sketch. I don't see why I shouldn't.'

He straightened his shoulder as though defying somebody. Yet there was something appealing, and, as it were, boyish, in the defiance. The man's patriotic conscience could be felt struggling with his dilettantism. Sarratt suddenly liked him.

'No, indeed,' he said heartily. 'Why shouldn't you?' 'It's when one thinks of _your_ job, one feels a brute to be doing anything one likes.'

'Well, you'd be doing the same job if you could. That's all right!' said Sarratt smiling.

It was curious how in a few minutes the young officer had come to seem the older and more responsible of the two men. Yet Farrell was clearly his senior by some ten or fifteen years. Instinctively Nelly moved nearer to George. She liked to feel how easily he could hold his own with great people, who made _her_ feel nervous. For she understood from Mrs. Weston that the Farrells were very great people indeed, as to money and county position, and that kind of thing.

Sarratt took his visitor downstairs, and returned, laughing to himself.

'Well, darling, I've promised we'll go to his cottage one day this week. You've to let him know. He's an odd fellow! Reminds me of that story of the young Don at Cambridge who spent all the time he could spare from neglecting his duties in adorning his person. And yet that doesn't hit it quite either. For I don't suppose he does spend much time in adorning his person. He doesn't want it. He's such a splendid looking chap to begin with. But I'm sure his duties have a poor time! Why, he told me--me, an utter stranger!--as we went downstairs--that being a landowner was the most boring trade in the world. He hated his tenants, and turned all the bother of them over to his agents. "But they don't hate me"--he said--"because I don't put the screw on. I'm rich enough without." By Jove, he's a queer specimen!'

And Sarratt laughed out, remembering some further items of the conversation on the stairs.

'Whom are you discussing?' said a cold voice in the background.

It was Bridget Cookson's voice, and the husband and wife turned to greet her. The day was balmy--June at its best. But Bridget as she came in had the look of someone rasped with east wind. Nelly noticed too that since her marriage, Bridget had developed an odd habit of not looking her--or George--straight in the face. She looked sideways, as though determined to avoid the mere sight of their youth and happiness. 'Is she going to make a quarrel of it all our lives?' thought Nelly impatiently. 'And when George is so nice to her! How can she be so silly!'

'We were talking about our visitor who has just left,' said Sarratt, clearing a chair for his sister-in-law. 'Ah, you came from the other direction, you just missed him.'

'The man'--said Nelly--'who was so awfully polite to me on Saturday--Sir William Farrell.'

Bridget's countenance lost its stiffness at once--became eager and alert.

'What did he come for?'

'To bring us permission to use the boat for a week,' said Nelly. 'Wasn't it decent of him?--and to do it so quick!'

'Oh, that's the Farrell way--always was,' said Bridget complacently, as though she had the family in her pocket. 'When they think of a thing it's done. It's hit or miss. They never stop to think.'

Sarratt looked at his sister-in-law with a covert amusement. It was a left-handed remark. But she went on--while Nelly finished the packing of the luncheon-basket--pouring out a flood of gossip about the Farrells's place near Cockermouth, their great relations, their wealth, their pictures, and their china, while Sarratt walked up and down, fidgeting with his mouth, and inwardly thanking his stars that his Nelly was not the least like her sister, that she was as refined and well-bred, as Bridget was beginning to seem to him vulgar and tiresome. But he realised that there was a personality in the tall harsh woman; that she might be formidable; and once or twice he found himself watching the curious side-long action of her head and neck, and the play of her eyes and mouth, with a mingling of close attention and strong dislike. He kept his own counsel however; and presently he heard Bridget, who had so far refused all their invitations to join their walks or excursions, rather eagerly accepting Nelly's invitation to go with them to Sir William's Loughrigg cottage. She knew all about it apparently, and said it was 'a gem of a place!' Sir William kept an old butler and his wife there--pensioned off--who looked after him when he came. 'Everything's tiny,' said Bridget with emphasis--'but _perfect_! Sir William has the most exquisite taste. But he never asks anybody to go there. None of the neighbours know him. So of course they say its "side," and he gives himself airs.