That Girl in Black; and, Bronzie

Chapter Four

As Despard heard the steps coming nearer he looked round uneasily, with a vague idea of hurrying off so as to escape observation. But when he tried to stand up and walk, he found that anything like quick movement was beyond him still. So he sat down again, endeavouring to look as if nothing were the matter, and that he was merely resting.

Another moment or two, and a young man appeared, coming hastily along the path by which Despard had himself made his way into the shrubbery. He was quite young, two or three and twenty at most, fair, slight, and boyish-looking. He passed by Mr Norreys with but the slightest glance in his direction, but just as Despard was congratulating himself on this, the new-comer stopped short, hesitated, and then, turning round and lifting his hat, came up to him.

“Excuse me,” he said, “do you know Lady Margaret – by sight? Has she passed this way?”

He spoke quickly, and Mr Norreys did not catch the surname.

“No,” he replied, “I have not the honour of the lady’s acquaintance.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the other. “I’ve been sent to look for her, and I can’t find her anywhere.” Then he turned, but again hesitated.

“There’s nothing the matter, is there? You’ve not hurt yourself – or anything? You look rather – as if a cricket ball had hit you, you know.”

Mr Norreys smiled.

“Thank you,” he said. “I have got a frightful pain in my head. I was out too long in the sun this morning.”

The boyish-looking man shook his head.

“Touch of sunstroke – eh? Stupid thing to do, standing in the sun this weather. Should take a parasol; I always do. Then I can’t be of any service?”

“Yes,” said Despard, as a sudden idea struck him. “If you happen to know my sister, Mrs Selby, by sight, I’d be eternally grateful to you if you would tell her I’m going home. I’ll wait for her at the old church, would you say?”

“Don’t know her, but I’ll find her out. Mrs Selby, of Markerslea, I suppose? Well, take my advice, and keep on the shady side of the road.”

“I shall go through the woods, thank you. My sister will understand.”

With a friendly nod the young fellow went off.

Despard had been roused by the talk with him. He got up now and went slowly round to the back of the house – it was a place he had known in old days – thus avoiding all risk of coming across any of the guests. By a path behind the stables he made his way slowly into the woods, and in about half an hour’s time he found himself where these ended at the high road, along which his sister must pass. There was a stile near, over which, through a field, lay a footpath to the church, known thereabouts as the old church, and here on the stile Mr Norreys seated himself to await Mrs Selby.

“I’ve managed that pretty neatly,” he said, trying to imagine he was feeling as usual. “I wonder who that fellow was. He seemed to have heard Maddie’s name though he did not know her.”

He was perfectly clear in his head now, but the pain in it was racking. He tried not to think, but in vain. Clearer, and yet more clearly, stood out before his mind’s eye the strange drama of that afternoon. And the more he thought of it, the more he looked at it, approaching it from every side, the more incapable he became of explaining Miss Ford’s extraordinary conduct. The indignation which had at first blotted out almost all other feeling gradually gave way to his extreme perplexity.

“She had no sort of grounds for speaking to me as she did,” he reflected. “Accusing me vaguely of unworthy motives – what could she mean?” Then a new idea struck him. “Some one has been making mischief,” he thought: “that must be it, though what and how, I cannot conceive. Gertrude Englewood would not do it intentionally – but still – I saw that she was changed to me. I shall have it out with her. After all, I hope Madeline’s letter has gone.”

And a vague, very faint hope began to make itself felt that perhaps, after all, all was not lost. If she had been utterly misled about him – if —

He drew a deep breath, and looked round. It was the very sweetest moment of a summer’s day existence, that at which late afternoon begins softly and silently to fade into early evening. There was an almost Sabbath stillness in the air, a tender suggestion of night’s reluctant approach, and from where Despard sat the white headstones of some graves in the ancient churchyard were to be seen among the grass. The man felt strangely moved and humbled.

“If I could hope ever to win her,” he thought, “I feel as if I had it in me to be a better man – I am not all selfish and worldly, Maisie – surely not? But what has made her judge me so cruelly? It is awful to remember what she said, and to imagine what sort of an opinion she must have of me to have been able to say it. For – no, that was not my contemptible conceit – ” and his face flushed. “She was beginning to care for me. She is too generous to have remembered vindictively my insolence, for insolence it was, at the first. Besides, she said herself that she had been getting to like and trust me as a friend. Till to-day – has the change in her all come from what I said to-day? No girl can despise a man for the fact of his caring for her – what can it be? Good heavens, I feel as if I should go mad!”

And he wished that the pain in his head, which had somewhat subsided, would get worse again, if only it would stop his thinking.

But just then came the sound of wheels. In another moment Mrs Selby’s pony-carriage was in sight. Despard got off his stile, and walked slowly down the road to meet her.

“So you faithless – ” she began – for, to tell the truth, she had not attached much credence to the story which had reached her of the frightful headache – but she changed her tone the moment she caught sight of his face. “My poor boy, you do look ill!” she exclaimed. “I am so sorry. I would have come away at once if I had known.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Despard replied, as he got into the carriage; “but did you not get my message?”

“Oh, yes; but I thought it was just that you were tired and bored. What in the matter, dear Despard? You don’t look the least like yourself.”

“I fancy it was the sun this morning,” he said.

“But it’s passing off, I think.”

Madeline felt by no means sure that it was so.

“I am so sorry,” she repeated, “and so vexed with myself. Do you know who the young man was that gave me your message?”

Despard shook his head.

“It was Mr Conrad Fforde, Lord Southwold’s nephew and heir – heir at least to the title, but to little else.”

“So I should suppose,” said Norreys indifferently.

“The Southwolds are very poor.”

“How queer that he knew your name if you have never met him before,” said Mrs Selby. “But I dare say it’s through the Flores-Carters; they’re such great friends of mine, you know, and they are staying at Laxter’s Hill as well as the Southwold party.”

“Yes,” Despard agreed, “he had evidently heard of you.”

“And of you too in that case. People do so chatter in the country. The Carters are dying to get you there. They have got the Southwolds to promise to go to them next week. They – the Carter girls – are perfectly wild about Lady Margaret. I think it would be better taste not to make up to her so much; it does look as if it was because she was what she is, though I know it isn’t really that. They get up these fits of enthusiasm. And she is very nice – not very pretty, you know, but wonderfully nice and unspoilt, considering.”

“Unspoilt,” repeated Despard. He was glad to keep his sister talking about indifferent matters. “I don’t see that poor Lord Southwold’s daughter has any reason to be spoilt.”

“Oh, dear yes – didn’t you know? I thought you knew everything of that kind. It appears that she is a tremendous heiress; I forget the figures. The fortune comes from her aunt’s husband. Her mother’s elder sister married an enormously wealthy man, and as they had no children or near relations on his side, he left all to this girl. Of course she and her father have always known it, but it has been kept very quiet. They have lived in the country six months of the year, and travelled the other six. She has been most carefully brought up and splendidly educated. But she has never been ‘out’ in society at all till this year.”

“I never remember hearing of them in town,” said Despard.

“Oh, Lord Southwold himself never goes out. He is dreadfully delicate – heart-disease, I think. But she – Lady Margaret – will be heard of now. It has all come out about her fortune now that he has come into the title. His cousin, the last earl, only died two months ago.”

“And,” said Despard, with a strange sensation, as if he were listening to some one else speaking rather than speaking himself, “till he came into the title, what was he called? He was the last man’s cousin, you say?”

“Yes, of course; he was Mr Fforde – Fforde with two ‘f’s’ and an ‘e,’ you know. It’s the family name of the Southwolds. That young man – the one you spoke to – is Mr Conrad Fforde, as I told you. They say that – ”

But a glance at her brother made her hesitate.

“Despard, is your head worse?” she asked anxiously.

“It comes on by fits and starts,” he replied. “But don’t mind; go on speaking. What were you going to say?”

“Oh, only about young Mr Fforde. They say he is to marry Lady Margaret; they are only second cousins. But I don’t think he looks good enough for her. She seems such a womanly, nice-feeling girl. We had just been introduced when Mr Fforde came up with your message, and she wanted him to go back to you at once. But he said you would be gone already, and I – well, I didn’t quite believe about your head being so bad, and perhaps I seemed very cool about it, for Lady Margaret really looked quite vexed. Wasn’t it nice of her? The Carters had been telling her about us evidently. I think she was rather disappointed not to see the famous Despard Norreys, do you know? I rather wonder you never met her this summer in town, though perhaps you would scarcely have remarked her just as Miss Fforde, for she isn’t – ”

But an exclamation from Despard startled her.

“Maddie,” he said, “don’t you understand? It must be she – she, this Lady Margaret – the great heiress! Good heavens!”

Mrs Selby almost screamed.

“Despard!” was all she could say. But she quickly recovered herself. “Well, after all,” she went on, “I don’t see that there’s any harm done. She will know that you were absolutely disinterested, and surely that will go a long way. But – just to think of it! Oh, Despard, fancy your saying that you half thought she was going to be a governess! Oh, dear, how extraordinary! And I that was so regretting that you had not met her! What a good thing you did not – I mean what a good thing that my letter showing your ignorance was written and sent before you knew who she was! Don’t you see how lucky it was?”

She turned round, her eyes sparkling with excitement and eagerness. But there was no response in Mr Norreys’ face; on the contrary, its expression was such that Mrs Selby’s own face grew pale with dread.

“Despard,” she said, “why do you look like that? You are not going to say that now, because she is an heiress – just because of money,” with a tone of supreme contempt, “that you will give it up? You surely – ”

But Mr Norreys interrupted her.

“Has the letter gone, Maddie?”

She nodded her head.

“Then I must write again at once – myself – to Gertrude Englewood to make her promise on her honour never to tell what you wrote. Even if I thought she would believe it – and I am not sure that she would – I could never allow myself to be cleared in her eyes now.”

Madeline stared at him. Had the sunstroke affected his brain?

“Despard,” she said, “what do you mean?”

He turned his haggard face towards her.

“I don’t know how to tell you,” he said. “I wish I need not, but as you know so much I must. I did see her, Madeline. I met her when I was strolling about the shrubbery over there. She was quite alone and no one near. It seemed to have happened on purpose, and – I told her all.”

“You proposed to her?”

He nodded.

“As – as Miss Fforde, or as – ” began Mrs

Selby.

“As Miss Ford, of course, without the two ‘f’s’ and the ‘e’ at the end,” he said bitterly. “I didn’t know till this moment either that her father was an earl, or, which is much worse, that she was a great heiress.”

“And what is wrong, then?”

“Just that she refused me – refused me with the most biting contempt – the – the bitterest scorn – no, I cannot speak of it. She thought I knew, had found out about her – and now I see that my misplaced honesty, the way I spoke, must have given colour to it. She taunted me with my insolence at the first – good God! what an instrument of torture a woman’s tongue can be! There is only one thing to do – to stop Gertrude’s ever telling of that letter.”

“Oh, Despard!” exclaimed Mrs Selby, and her eyes filled with tears. “What a horrid girl she must be! And I thought she looked so sweet and nice. She seemed so sorry when her cousin told me about you. Tell me, was that after? Oh, yes, of course, it must have been. Despard, I believe she was already repenting her cruelty.”

“Hush, Madeline,” said Mr Norreys sternly. “You mean it well, but – you must promise me never to allude to all this again. You will show me Mrs Englewood’s letter when it comes – that you must do, and I will write to her. But there is no more to be said. Let to-day be between us as if it had never been. Promise me, dear.”

He laid his hand on her arm. Madeline turned her tearful eyes towards him.

“Very well,” she said. “I must, I suppose. But, oh, what a dreadful pity it all seems. You to have fallen in love with her for herself – you that have never really cared for any one before – when you thought her only a governess; and now for it to have all gone wrong! It would have been so nice and delightful.”

“A sort of Lord Burleigh business, with the characters reversed – yes, quite idyllic,” said Despard sneeringly.

“Despard, don’t. It does so pain me,” Mrs Selby said with real feeling. “There is one person I am furious with,” she went on in a very different tone, “and that is Mrs Englewood. She had no business to play that sort of trick.”

“Perhaps she could not help herself. You say the father – Mr Fforde as he then was – did not wish her to be known as an heiress,” said Mr Norreys.

“She might have made an exception for you,” said Madeline.

Despard’s brows contracted. Mrs Selby thought it was from the pain in his head, but it was more than that. A vision rose before him of a sweet flushed girlish face, with gentle pleasure and appeal in the eyes – and of Gertrude’s voice, “If you don’t dance, will you talk to her? Anything to please her a little, you know.”

“I think Gertrude did all she could. I believe she is a perfectly loyal and faithful friend,” he said; “but for heaven’s sake, Maddie, let us drop it for ever. I will write this evening to Gertrude myself, and that will be the last act in the drama.”

No letter, however, was written to Mrs Englewood that evening – nor the next day, nor for that matter during the rest of the time that saw Despard Norreys a guest at Markerslea Rectory.

And several days passed after the morning that brought her reply to Mrs Selby’s letter of inquiry, before the person it chiefly concerned was able to see it. For the pain in his head, the result of slight sunstroke in the first place, aggravated by unusual excitement, had culminated in a sharp attack which at one time was not many degrees removed from brain fever. The risk was tided over, however, and at no time was the young man in very serious danger. But Mrs Selby suffered quite as much as if he had been dying. She made up her mind that he would not recover, and as her special friends received direct information to that effect, it is not to be wondered at that the bad news flew fast.

It reached Laxter’s Hill one morning in the week following Lady Denster’s garden-party. It was the day which was to see the breaking-up of the party assembled there to meet Lord Southwold and his daughter, and it came in a letter to Edith Flores-Carter from Mrs Selby herself.

“Oh, dear,” the girl ejaculated, her usually bright, not to say jolly-looking countenance clouding over as she spoke, “oh, dear, I’m so sorry for the Selbys – for Mrs Selby particularly. Just fancy, doesn’t it seem awful – her brother’s dying.”

She glanced round the breakfast-table for sympathy: various expressions of it reached her.

“That fellow I found in the grounds at that place, is it?” inquired Mr Fforde. “I’m not surprised, he did look pretty bad, and he would walk home, and he hadn’t even a parasol.”

“Conrad, how can you be so unfeeling? I perfectly detest that horrid trick of joking about everything,” said in sharp, indignant tones a young lady seated opposite him. It was Lady Margaret. Several people looked up in surprise.

“Beginning in good time,” murmured a man near the end of the table.

“Why, do you believe in that? I don’t,” replied his companion in the same low tone.

Conrad looked across the table at his cousin in surprise.

“Come now, Maisie,” he said, “you make me feel quite shy, scolding me so in company. And I’m sure I didn’t mean to say anything witty at the poor chap’s expense. If I did, it was quite by mistake I assure you.”

“Anything ‘witty’ from you would be that, I can quite believe,” Lady Margaret replied, smiling a little. But the smile was a feeble and forced one. Conrad saw, if no one else did, that his cousin was thoroughly put out, and he felt repentant, though he scarcely knew why.

Half an hour later Lord Southwold and his daughter were talking together in the sitting-room, where the former had been breakfasting in invalid fashion alone.

“I would promise to be home to-morrow, or the day after at latest, papa,” Lady Margaret was saying; “Mrs Englewood will be very pleased to have me, I know, even at the shortest notice, for last week when I wrote saying I feared it would be impossible, she was very disappointed.”

“Very well, my dear, only don’t stay with her longer than that, for you know we have engagements,” and Lord Southwold sighed a little.

Margaret sighed too.

“My darling,” said her father, “don’t look so depressed. I didn’t mean to grumble.”

“Oh no, papa. It isn’t you at all. I shall be glad to be at home again; won’t you? Thank you very much for letting me go round by town.”

Mrs Englewood’s drawing-room – but looking very different from the last time we saw it. Mrs Englewood herself, with a more anxious expression than usual on her pleasant face, was sitting by the open window, through which, however, but little air found its way, for it was hot, almost stifling weather.

“It is really a trial to have to come back to town before it is cooler,” she was saying to herself, as the door opened and Lady Margaret, in summer travelling gear, came in.

“So you are really going, dear Maisie,” said her hostess. “I do wish you could have waited another day.”

“But,” said Maisie, “you will let me know at once what you hear from Mrs Selby. I cannot help being unhappy, Gertrude, and, of course, what you have told me has made me still more self-reproachful, and – and ashamed.”

She was very pale, but a sudden burning blush overspread her face as she said the last words.

“I do so hope he will recover,” she added, trying to speak lightly, “though if he does I earnestly hope I shall never meet him again.”

“Even if I succeed in making him understand your side, and showing him how generously you regret having misjudged him?” said Mrs Englewood. “I don’t see that there need be any enmity between you.”

“Not enmity, oh no; but still less, friendship,” said Maisie. “I just trust we shall never meet again. Good-bye, dear Gertrude: I am so glad to have told you all. You will let me know what you hear?” and she kissed Mrs Englewood affectionately.

“Good-bye, dear child. I am glad you have not a long journey before you. Stretham will take good care of you. You quite understand that I can do nothing indirectly – it will only be when I see him himself that I can tell him how sorry you have been.”

“Sorry and ashamed, be sure to say ‘ashamed,’” said Lady Margaret: “yes, of course, it can only be if – if he gets better or you see him yourself.”