A Mere Chance: A Novel. Vol. 2

CHAPTER I.

ANOTHER RASH PROMISE

MR. KINGSTON, as soon as he received Mrs. Thornley's invitation, sent a telegram to her nearest post-town, to tell her he would start for Adelonga on the following day, and await at the inn where he left the railway the buggy she was kind enough to say should be sent to meet him.

There was much amusement at Adelonga over this unwonted promptitude on the part of an idle and self-indulgent man, who had never been known to hurry himself, or to go into the country willingly; and Rachel was teased in fun and congratulated in earnest on the strong hold she had gained upon his erewhile erratic affections.

The buggy was ordered at once – Mr. Thornley's own pet Abbott buggy, that floated over the rough roads – and a pet pair of horses were harnessed into it, and another pair sent forward to change with them on the way, and Mr. Thornley himself set forth to meet his guest.

Next day Lucilla ordered one of her best rooms – usually reserved for married ladies – to be prepared for him, and had great consultations with her cook on his behalf; and at about five in the afternoon he arrived, wrapped in a fur-collared overcoat, like a traveller in bleak and barren regions, and had a royal welcome.

Lucilla, followed by her mother, went out to the verandah to meet her old friend – though, indeed, she never willingly omitted that graceful act of hospitality, whoever might be her guest – and was delighted to receive again the same old compliment on her charming appearance that had pleasantly befooled her in her maiden days. Mrs. Hardy was likewise greeted with effusion, and responded cordially; and then they all looked round.

"Where is Rachel?" inquired Mr. Kingston, with anxious solicitude; "isn't she well?"

Rachel was found in the drawing-room, nervously rearranging the cups and saucers that had just been brought in for tea. Lucilla ushered him in with a smile, and discreetly retired with her mother, upon some utterly unnecessary errand.

The lovers met in the middle of the room, and Rachel went through the ordeal that she had been vaguely dreading all day. It was worse than she had expected, for she felt, by some subtle, newly-developed sense, that she had been greatly missed and ardently longed for, and that they were truly lover's arms that folded her, trembling and shrinking, in that apparently interminable embrace.

She had not yet come to realise the magnitude and the ignominy of the wrong that she was doing him, but a pang of remorseful pity did hurt her somewhere, through all her stony irresponsiveness, for the fate that had driven him, the desired of so many women, to set his heart at last upon one who did not want it.

For a brief intolerable moment she felt that she had it in her to implore him to release her from her engagement, but – well, she was a little coward, if the truth must be told.

And, moreover, she had not quite come to the point of giving up her pink boudoir, and her diamond necklace, and all her other splendid possessions in prospect, because she could not love the contingent husband as was her duty to him to do.

She did not know as yet that she loved another man.

"And you never came to meet me?" said Mr. Kingston, with tender reproach, as he led her by one reluctant hand to a sofa that was wheeled up comfortably to the fireside. "And I was straining my eyes all across the paddock, to see you on the verandah looking out."

"I was looking out," said Rachel; "I saw the buggy before it reached the woolshed. But – "

"But you thought it would be nicer to have our meeting here, with no one to look on? So it is, darling; you were quite right. I could not have helped kissing you, if all the servants on the place had been standing round; and one doesn't like to make a public exhibition of one's self. Oh, my pet, I am so glad to get you again! And how are you? Let me have a good look at you. Oh, if you are going to blush, how am I to tell whether you are looking well or not?"

"I am not going to blush," said Rachel; "and I am quite well. I never was better. The country air is doing me ever so much good."

"I am not so sure of that," rejoined Mr. Kingston, rather gravely, stroking her soft cheek. "You look fagged, as if you had been knocking about too much. I didn't like your going to those rubbishy little races – I told Thornley so. Have you been sitting up late at night?"

"No – I have been doing nothing," pleaded Rachel; "I am really as well as possible. How is the house getting on?"

"The house is not doing much at present. They are still pottering at the foundations, which seem to take a frightful lot of doing to. Not that they have had time to make much progress since you were there – it is not much over a fortnight yet, you know. Oh, but it has been a long fortnight! Rachel, now I have got you, I don't mean to lose sight of you again."

"How did you leave Beatrice?" inquired Rachel, hastily.

"Beatrice is quite well – as sprightly as ever. I told her I meant to bring you back to town, by force of arms if necessary, and she said I was quite right. We can't do without you in Melbourne – I can't, anyhow; and what's more, I don't mean to try."

"How is Uncle Hardy?"

"Uncle Hardy? I'm sure I don't know – I was very nearly saying I don't care. Of course he is quite well; he always is, I believe. Is there anybody else you are particularly anxious about, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes," said Rachel, smiling and blushing; "I am anxious about Black Agnes. How is my dear Black Agnes? Does William attend to her properly?"

"I don't leave her to William," said Mr. Kingston. "I have taken her away to my own stables. And there she is eating her head off – wanting you, like the rest of us. If you have no more questions to ask, I'll begin; may I? I have some really important inquiries to make."

Rachel gasped. But to her immense relief Lucilla was heard approaching, talking at an unnecessarily high pitch of voice to her mother, who responded with equal vigour; and the two ladies entered, followed by Mr. Thornley, all wearing a more or less deprecatory aspect.

The men and the matrons grouped themselves round the fire, and plunged into an animated discussion of the latest Melbourne news. Rachel poured out the tea, and insisted on carrying it round to everybody, regardless of polite protests; which charmed her lover very much.

He was rather cold, and a little stiff and tired after his unwonted exertion; his seat was soft and restful; and he liked to see the slender creature gliding about, with her sweet face and her deft hands, and picture to himself with what meek dutifulness she would serve her lord and master when the time came.

Rachel hoped they were in for a pleasant gossip till dinner time, but she was much mistaken.

"I must go and see after my baby, Mr. Kingston, if you will excuse me," said Lucilla at the end of half-an-hour, setting down her empty but still smoking teacup, and rising with an air that implied a pressing duty postponed to the very last moment. Mr. Kingston expressed an ardent desire to make the baby's acquaintance, which flattered the young mother greatly, but otherwise led to nothing. Lucilla went out, promising to introduce her son under favourable auspices in the morning; and as she disappeared, Mrs. Hardy jumped up and followed her with apparently anxious haste.

"Oh, Lucilla, I quite forgot that aconite for Dolly's cold!" she exclaimed; "shall I come and look for it now?"

Mr. Thornley, left behind, stood on the hearthrug, shifting uneasily from one leg to the other. He cleared his throat, remarked that the days were lengthening wonderfully, moved some ornaments on the chimney-piece, and looked at his watch.

"Dear me," he muttered briskly, as if struck with a sudden thought, "a quarter to six, I do declare! Excuse me a few minutes, Kingston."

"Certainly," replied Mr. Kingston. And then he went out.

"How stupid they are!" cried poor Rachel to herself, almost stamping her foot with vexation. But there was no help for it. The affianced couple were once more left to themselves – as affianced couples should be, and should like to be – in the pleasant firelight and no less pleasant twilight shadows that were filling the quiet room.

Mr. Kingston rose, took his reluctant sweetheart's hand, and led her back to the sofa by the hearth.

"What time do they have dinner here?" he asked.

"Seven o'clock," said Rachel, with a sinking heart.

"Then we shall have nearly an hour to ourselves, shan't we? Come then, and let us have a good long talk. But first, I've got something for you."

He began to fumble in his pockets, and presently drew forth a little square packet, neatly sealed up in paper, which he laid on Rachel's knee. Wise man! he had not had his long and varied experiences for nothing.

The girl in smiling perplexity turned the mysterious parcel over and over, broke first one seal and then another with much delicate elaboration; cautiously stripped off the paper wrappings, and revealed, as she expected, a morocco jewel-case.

"Oh, how kind!" she murmured, stroking it caressingly with her white fingers.

"Open it before you say that," said he; "you don't know that there is anything in it yet."

"Ah, but I know your ways," she rejoined; "I know it is sure to be something lovely." And then she lifted the lid, and exclaimed "O-o-oh!" with a long breath. There lay, on a bed of blue velvet, a beautiful little watch, thickly set on one side of the case with tiny diamond sparks, which on examination proved to illuminate the flourishes of a big R; and a chain of proportionate value was coiled around it.

Rachel was in ecstacies. She had longed for a watch all her life, and had never yet had one, except an old silver warming-pan of her father's, which would not go into a lady's pocket.

It was only lately that Mr. Kingston had discovered this fact; and he had immediately had one prepared for her, such as he considered would be worthy of her future position in society, and of his own reputation for good taste. He felt himself well repaid for his outlay at this moment. Of her own accord she put up her soft lips and kissed him, pouring out her childish gratitude for his thoughtfulness, and his kindness, and his goodness, in broken exclamations which were charmingly naïve and sweet.

"You are always giving me things," she murmured, shyly stroking his coat sleeve.

"Dear little woman!" he responded, with ardent embraces, from which she did not shrink – at least, not much; "it is my greatest pleasure in life to give you things."

And from this substantial base of operations the astute lover opened the campaign which was to deliver her, a helpless captive, into his hands.

"And now," he said, when the watch having been consigned to its pocket in her pretty homespun gown, and the chain artistically festooned from a button-hole at her waist, a suggestive silence fell upon them – "now I want to know what you mean by saying you won't be married till next year? Naughty child, you made me very miserable with that letter. Though to be sure it was better than the other one, which was so horribly, so really brutally, cold that I had to go to the fire to get warm after reading it. Oh, Rachel, you are not half in love yet, I fear!"

"Don't say that," she murmured, with tender compunction.

"And I believe that is why you wish to put off our marriage."

"Oh, don't say that!" she repeated, weakly anxious to re-assure and conciliate him, and to postpone unpleasantness – woman-like, afraid of the very opportunity that she wanted when she saw herself unexpectedly confronted with it. "I don't wish to put it off – only for a little while."

"Do you call till next year a little while? Because I don't."

"Of course it is. Why, here is August!"

"And there are five long months – double the time we have been engaged already. And it wouldn't be comfortable to be travelling in the hot season."

"You said spring would be a nice time," suggested Rachel. She was touching his sleeve with timid, deprecatory caresses, and she was desperately frightened and anxious.

"Yes; this spring – not twelve months hence. Oh, my pet, do let it be this spring. There are three lovely months before us, and I should like to get that Sydney house. I have the offer of it still for a few days; I got them to keep it open till I could consult you. You must remember that I am not as young as you are, Rachel; a year one way or the other may be of no account to you, but it is of very great importance to me."

There was a touch of impatience and irritation in his voice, which helped her to pluck up courage to cling to her resolve.

At the same time she heard the soft ticking of that precious watch at her side; her heart was touched and warmed by what she called his "kindness;" and she was anxious to do anything that she could do to please him.

"Won't it do when the house is built?" she asked, in a wheedling, cowardly, coaxing tone, as she laid her cheek for a moment on his shoulder. "I will come back to Melbourne as soon as you like – I can stay with Beatrice, if aunt likes to remain here. We can be together almost as if we were married. We can ride together every day, and watch how the house goes on; and you know aunt doesn't mind how much you are with us at Toorak. Only if you would consent to put off the wedding till then – "

"Will you promise to marry me then?" he asked quickly.

"Yes, I will, really," she replied, without any hesitation, thankful for the reprieve, which she had been by no means sure of getting.

"As soon as the house is built?"

"As soon as the house is finished."

"No – not finished; that mayn't be next year, nor the year after. As soon as the roof is on?"

Rachel paused.

"How long does that take?"

"Oh, a long time – ever so long."

She paused again, with a longer pause. And then,

"Very well," she sighed, resignedly.

"It is a bargain? You promise faithfully? On your solemn word of honour?"

"Oh, don't make such a terrible thing of it!" she protested, with a rather hysterical laugh, that showed signs of degenerating into a whimper. "I can only say I will."

"And that is enough, my sweet. I won't require you to reduce it to writing. Your word shall be your bond. It is a long while to wait, but I must try to be patient. At any rate, it is a comfort to be done with uncertainty, and to have a fixed time to arrange for. And now, perhaps, we ought to go and dress. Tell me how much it wants to seven, Rachel; you have the correct Melbourne time."

CHAPTER II.

THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES

IT was in the afternoon that Lucilla again expected her guests, on the day of the ball given at Adelonga in honour of the coming of age of her absent stepson; and the hospitable arrangements characteristic of bush households on such occasions, were made for their reception on the usual Adelonga scale. All the visitors were to be "put up" of course; and from the exhaustless piles of material stowed away in the ample store-rooms, bed-rooms were improvised in every hole and corner, and beds made up wherever beds could decently go – in the store-rooms themselves, in the school-room, in the laundry, in the gardener's cottage, as well as in the numerous guest-chambers with which this, in common with other Australian "country seats," was regularly supplied.

Bright log fires burned on every hearth; bright spring flowers adorned all the ladies' dressing-tables; stupendous viands piled the pantry shelves and filled the spacious kitchens with delectable odours.

Servants bustled about with a festive air.

Mr. Thornley, in shirt sleeves, brought forth treasures from the remote recesses of his cellar that no one but he was competent to meddle with.

Mrs. Thornley moved complacently about her extensive domain, regulating all these exceptional arrangements with that housewifely good sense and judgment which distinguished all Mrs. Hardy's daughters.

Rachel found her sphere of action in the ball-room, where with Miss O'Hara and the children, a young gardener to supply material, the station carpenter to do the rough work, and Mr. Kingston to look on and criticise from an arm-chair by the fire, she worked all day at the decorations, which had been designed in committee and partly prepared the day before. The great Japanese screens had been carried away (to be made very useful in the construction of bed and bath-rooms) and the carpets taken up; and now she feathered the great empty room all about with fern-tree fronds – hanging them from extemporised chandeliers, and from wire netting stretched over the ceiling, and from doorless doorways, rooted in masses of shrubs and blossoms that made a bower of the whole place. It was just such a task as she delighted in, and she was considered to have completed it successfully at four o'clock, when she put her finishing touches to a trophy over the chimney-piece, which, though rather complicated as to symbolism, being arranged on a foundation of breech-loaders and riding-whips, had a bold and pleasing effect.

At four o'clock the guests began to arrive. She was directing her attendants to sweep up the last of her litters from the newly-polished floor, when the Digbys' waggonette drove in at the wide-standing garden gates, and rattled up to the house.

After them came other buggies in quick succession. Grooms and house servants poured out to receive them; doors banged; confused voices and laughter rose and fell in waves of pleasant sound through the maze of passages intersecting the rabbit-warren of a house.

Rachel ran to a window and looked out in time to see Lucifer led off to the stables blowing and panting, and jangling his bridle, but stepping out still with unconquered spirit, as became a brave old horse of noble lineage, whom such a master owned.

Mr. Kingston, the only other person just then in the room, came behind her and laid his hands with the air of a proprietor on her shoulders.

"Whose hack is that?" he inquired, with languid curiosity. "Looks a good sort of breed, something like your mare in colour, only much bigger."

"Mr. Dalrymple's," murmured Rachel.

"Dalrymple? – that brother of Mrs. Digby's you spoke of? I've heard of that fellow. I was curious to know who he was, and I made inquiries at the club. He is a rather considerable scamp, if all tales are true."

"All tales are not true," replied the girl, with majestic calmness.

"And pray how do you know?" he retorted quickly, a little amused and a great deal irritated by her highly indiscreet behaviour. "I don't suppose that you have heard all that I have – at any rate, I hope not."

"I know enough," she stammered hurriedly; "I know the worst anyone can say against him."

"I hope not," repeated Mr. Kingston, with ominous gravity.

"And I know he has done wrong – done very wrong, indeed; but he has had such terrible provocations – he has been, oh, so dreadfully unfortunate!" she went on, wishing heartily that she had not undertaken her new friend's defence, yet finding it easier to go through with it now than to turn back and desert him. "And, whatever he may have been once, he is doing nothing to harm anybody now; and it is cruel of people to be always raking up the past, when it is done with and repented of, and throwing it in his teeth. Any of us would think it hard and unfair – you would yourself."

"Never mind me, my dear; my past is not being called in question that I am aware of."

Mr. Kingston's not very placid temper was rising.

"He is doing nothing wrong now," she repeated, frightened but reckless; "if he were, Mr. Thornley would not invite him here – he said so himself. And Lucilla, though she does not like him – nobody likes him, indeed – says he would never do a mean action, and that he has perfect manners, and that he is a thorough gentleman every way. I think they all agree about that."

"And yet don't like him. That is rather inconsistent. And what about yourself, Rachel? If it is not a rude question – are you an exception in this respect, or not?"

He had taken his hands from her shoulders, and was standing sideways in the embrasure of the window, so that he could see her face; and he was smiling in a most unpleasant manner.

Rachel had never seen him like this before, and the first seed of active dislike was sown where as yet there had been nothing worse than indifference. The familiar colour rose and flooded her white brow and her whiter throat. She clenched her hands to still the flutter of her heart. She shut her teeth and struggled in silence against an ignominious impulse to cry.

But Mr. Kingston continued to watch her with that sardonic curiosity; and presently, like the traditional worm, she turned on him.

"Yes," she said, "I am an exception. I like Mr. Dalrymple very much – what little I know of him. I have seen no reason to do otherwise. I do not pay any attention to vulgar gossip."

A timid woman, trying to be defiant, generally fails by overdoing it; and so did she, poor child. Mr. Kingston heard the emphasis of strong emotion, that she would have given worlds to keep back, vibrating through her tremulous accents, and it drove him beyond those considerations of policy and politeness which he made a boast of as his rule of life and action – especially in his dealings with women. Rachel, however, in the category of women, was exceptionally placed with respect to him; and I suppose one must do him the justice to concede that this was an exceptional emergency.

"I'll tell you what," he said, smiling no longer, and speaking with a rough edge to his voice that betokened the original rude nature, usually so carefully clothed, and that she instinctively resented as an indignity, "Thornley can do as he likes about the people he brings here to associate with his wife, but I won't have you making acquaintance with a vagabond like that."

"I have already made his acquaintance," she said quietly.

"Then I beg you will break it off."

"How can I break it off while he is in the same house with me?"

She was surprised to find how strong she was to withstand this incipient tyranny; and yet her heart contracted with a pain very like despair.

"There will be so many people that one – and he a man – may be easily avoided, if you wish to avoid. And you will wish to do what would please me, wouldn't you, dear?" he demanded, perceiving that he was bullying her, and trying to correct himself.

"Yes," she replied; "certainly. But I hope you will not ask me to be rude to one of my cousin's guests. I don't mind what else I do to please you. And when I am married, I will of course know nobody but the people you like."

"You are as good as married to me already," he said, putting his arm round her shoulder as she stood before him, with all sorts of changes and revolutions going on within her. "And of course I don't want you to be rude – I don't want you to be anything. Simply don't take any notice of Dalrymple – he will quite understand it; don't dance with him, or have anything to do with him."

"Not dance with him!" she broke out sharply.

Her evident dismay and disappointment, together with her unconscious efforts to evade his embrace, exasperated his already ruffled temper afresh.

"Certainly not," he said, with angry vehemence. "I shall be exceedingly annoyed and vexed if I see you dancing with that man."

Rachel did not know until now how much she had secretly set her heart upon doing this forbidden thing; as her exigent lover did not know until now that he had it in him to be so horribly jealous.

"He will be sure to come and ask me," she said, with a despairing sigh.

"Very well. If he does, I beg you will refuse him."

"Then I must refuse everybody."

"Not at all. He will quite understand that there are reasons why he should be exceptionally treated."

"And do you think I will make him understand that?" she burst out, with pathetic indignation that filled her soft eyes with tears. "Do you think I would be so – so infamously rude and cruel? Oh, Mr. Kingston" – she never called him "Graham" except in her letters, though he tried his best to make her – "you don't want to spoil all my pleasure to-night, which was going to be such a happy night?"