Chapter 45

"Late,--very late,"--interposed Mr. Netlips, solemnly--"The tardiness of her entrance was marked by the strongest decorum. The strongest, the most open decorum! Deplorable decorum!"

"What's decorum?" enquired Mr. Buggins, anxiously.

Mr. Netlips waved one fat hand expressively.

"Decorum,"--he said--"is--well!--decorum."

Buggins scratched his head dubiously. Dan Ridley looked perplexed. There was a silence,--the men listening to the wailing of a rising wind that was beginning to sweep round the house and whistle down the big open chimney, accompanied by pattering drops of rain.

"Summer's sheer over,"--said a labourer, lifting his head from his tankard of ale--"Howsomever, we're all safe this winter in the worst o' weather. Rents are all down at 'arf what they was under Oliver Leach, thanks to the new lady, so whether she's a decorum or not don't matter to me. She's a right good sort--so here's to her!"

And he drained off his ale at one gulp with a relish, several men present following his example.

"Passon Walden,"--began Dan Ridley--"Passon Walden---"

But here there was a sudden loud metallic crash. Buggins had overturned two empty pewter-mugs on his counter.

"No gossiping o' Passon Walden allowed 'ere,"--he said,--"Not while I'm master o' this public!"

"Leeze majestas,"--proclaimed Mr. Netlips, impressively--"You're right, Buggins--you're quite right! Leeze majestas would be entirely indigenous--entirely so!"

An awkward pause ensued. 'Leeze majestas' in all its dark incomprehensibility had fallen like a weight upon the tavern company, and effectually checked any further conversation. It was one of those successful efforts of Mr. Netlips, which, by its ponderous vagueness and inscrutability, produced an overwhelming effect. There was nothing to be said after it.

The gold and crimson glory of autumn slowly waned and died,--and the village began to look very lonely and dreary. Heavy rains fell and angry gales blew,--so that when dark November came glooming in, with lowering skies, there was scarcely so much as a leaf of russet or scarlet Virginian creeper clinging to roof or wall. The woods around Abbot's Manor were leafless except where the pines and winter laurel grew in thick clusters, and where several grand old hollies showed their scarlet berries ripening among the glossy green. The Manor itself however looked wide-awake and cheerful,--smoke poured up from the chimneys and glints of firelight sparkled through the windows,-- all the shutters, which had been put up after the departure of the 'Sisters Gemini,' were taken down--blinds were raised and curtains drawn back,--and as soon as these signs and tokens were manifested, people were not slow in asking Mrs. Spruce whether Miss Vancourt was coming back for Christmas? But to all enquiries that estimable dame gave the same answer. She 'didn't know nothink.' The groom Bennett was equally reticent. He had received 'no orders.' Mr. Stanways, the agent, and his wife, both of whom had become very friendly with all the villagers, were cheerfully talkative on every subject but one,-- that of Miss Vancourt and her movements. All they could or would say was that her return was 'quite uncertain.' Fires were lighted in the Manor--oh yes!--to keep the house well aired--and windows were opened for the same purpose,--but beyond that--'really," said Mr. Stanways, smiling pleasantly--'I can give no information!'

The days grew shorter, gloomier and colder,--and soon, when the chill nip of winter began to make itself felt in grim damp earnest, the whole county woke up from the pleasant indolence into which the long bright summer had steeped it, and responded animatedly to the one pulse of vitality which kept it going. The hunting season began. Old, otherwise dull men, started up into the semblance of youth again, and sprang to their saddles with almost as much rigour and alertness as boys,--and Reynard with his cubs ruled potently the hour. The first 'meet' of the year was held at Ittlethwaite Park,-- and for days before it took place nothing else was talked of. Hunting was really the one occupation of the gentry of the district,--everything else distinctly 'bored' them. Many places in England are entirely under the complete dominion of this particular form of sport,--places, where, if you do not at least talk about hunting and nothing BUT hunting, you are set down as a fool. Politics, art, literature,--these matters brought into conversation merely excite a vacuous stare and yawn,--and you may consider yourself fortunate if, in alluding to such things at all, you are not considered as partially insane. To obtain an ordinary reputation for common-sense in an English hunting county, you must talk horse all day and play Bridge all night,--then and then only will you have earned admission into these 'exclusive' circles where the worth of a quadruped exceeds the brain of a man.

The morning of the meet dawned dully--yet now and then the sun shone fitfully through the clouds, lighting up with a cold sparkle the thick ivy, wet with the last night's rain, which clung to the walls of Walden's rectory. There was a chill wind, and the garden looked bleak and deserted, though it was kept severely tidy, Bainton never failing to see that all fallen leaves were swept up every afternoon and all weeds 'kep' under.' But there was no temptation to saunter down the paths or across the damp lawn in such weather, and Walden, seated by a blazing fire in his study, with Nebbie snoozing at his feet, was sufficiently comfortable to be glad that no 'parochial' duties called him forth just immediately from his warm snuggery. He had felt a little ailing of late--'the oncoming of age and infirmity,' he told himself, and he looked slightly more careworn. The strong restraint he had imposed upon himself since he knew the nature of the scandal started by Lord Roxmouth, and the loyal and strict silence he had maintained on the subject that was nearest and dearest to his own heart, had been very trying to him. There was no one to whom he could in any way unburden his mind. Even to his closest friend, Bishop Brent, he had merely written the briefest of letters, informing him that Miss Vancourt had left Abbot's Manor for a considerable time,--but no more than this. He longed passionately for news of Maryllia, but none came. The only person to whom he sometimes spoke of her, but always guardedly, was Julian Adderley. Julian had received one or two letters from Cicely Bourne,--but they were all about her musical studies, and never a word of Maryllia in them. And Julian was almost as anxious to know what had become of her as Walden himself, the more so as he heard constantly from Marius Longford, who never ceased urging him to try and discover her whereabouts. Which request proved that, for once. Lord Roxmouth had been foiled, and that even he with all his various social detectives at work, had lost all trace of her.

On this particular morning of the opening of the hunting season, Walden sat by the fire reading,--or trying to read. He was conscious of a great depression,--a 'fit of the blues,' which he attributed partly to the damp, lowering weather. Idly he turned over the leaves of a first edition of Tennyson's poems,--pausing here and there to glance at a favourite lyric or con over a well-remembered verse, when the echo of a silvery horn blown clear on the wintry silence startled him out of his semi-abstraction. Rising, he went instinctively to the window, though from that he could see nothing but his own garden, looking blank enough in its flowerless condition, the only bright speck in it being a robin sitting on a twig hard by, that ruffled its red breast prettily and blinked its trustful eye at him with a friendly air of sympathy and recognition. He listened attentively for a moment and heard the approaching trot and gallop of horses,--then suddenly recalling the fact that the hounds were to meet that day at Ittlethwaite Park, he took his hat and went out to see if any of the hunters were passing by.

A wavering mass of colour gleamed at the farther end of the village as he looked down the winding road;--scarlet coats, white vests and buckskin breeches showed bravely against the satiny brown and greys of a fine group of gaily prancing steeds that came following after the huntsmen, the hounds and the whippers-in, and a cheery murmur of pleasant voices, broken with an occasional musical ring of laughter, dispersed for a time the heaviness of the rainy air. Something unusually pleasant seemed to animate the faces of all who composed the hunting train as they came into view,--Miss Arabella Ittlethwaite, for example, portly of bulk though she was, sat in her saddle with an almost mirthful lightness, her good-natured fat face all smiles,--while her brother Bruce, laughing heartily over something which had evidently tickled his fancy, looked more like thirty than sixty, so admirably did his 'pink' become him, and so excellently well did he ride. Walden saluted them as they passed, and they gave him a pleasant 'good-day.' But,--what was that sudden flash of deep purple, which the fitful sun, peering sulkily through grey clouds, struck upon quickly with a slanting half-smile of radiance? What--and who was the woman riding lightly, with uplifted head like a queen, in the midst of the company, surrounded by all the younger men of the neighbourhood who, keeping their horses close on either side of her, appeared to be trying to outrival each other in eager attentions, in questions and answers, in greetings and hat- liftings, and general exchange of courtesies? Walden rubbed his eyes, and gazed and gazed,-anon his heart gave a wild leap, and he felt himself growing deadly pale. Had the portrait of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt' in Abbot's Manor come visibly to life?--or was it, could it be indeed,--Maryllia?

He would gladly have turned away, but some stronger force than his own held him fast where he stood, stricken with surprise, and a gladness that was almost fear. The swaying gleam of purple came nearer and nearer, and resolved itself at last into definite shape,- -Maryllia's face, Maryllia's eyes! Almost mechanically he half opened his gate as all the hunters went trotting by, and she alone reined in her mare 'Cleopatra' and spoke to him.

"How do you do, Mr. Walden!"

He looked up--and looking, smiled. What a child she was after all!-- full of quaint vanities surely, and naive coquetry! For her riding- dress was the exact copy of that worn by her pictured ancestress "Mary Elia,'--even to the three-cornered hat and the tiny rose fastened in the bodice which was turned back with embroidered gold revers,--so that the 'lady in the vi'let velvet' appeared before him as it were, re-incarnated,--and the pouting lips, sweet eyes and radiant hair were all part of the witch-glamour and mystery! Mastering his thoughts with an effort, he raised his hat in his usual quietly courteous way.

"This is a great surprise, Miss Vancourt!" he said, lightly, though his voice trembled a little--"And a happy one! The villagers will be delighted to see you back again! When did you return?"

"Last night,"--she answered, fixing her frank gaze fully upon him and noting with a sharp little pang of compunction that he looked far from well--"I felt I MUST be here for the first meet of the season! I've been staying in an old convent on the Breton coast,-- such a dear quaint place! And I think,"--here she nodded her pretty head wisely--"I THINK I've brought you enough stained glass to quite finish your rose-window! I've been busy collecting it ever since I left here. Gently, Cleo!--gently, my beauty!"--this, as her mare pawed the ground restlessly and sprang forward--"Come and see me to- morrow, Mr. Walden! I shall expect you!"

Waving her gloved hand she cantered off and rejoined the rest of the hunters going on ahead. Once she turned in her saddle and looked back,--and again waved her hand. The sun came out fully then, and sweeping aside the grey mists, ehed all its brightness on the graceful figure in the saddle, striking a reflex of rose from the soft violet riding-dress, and sparkling against the rippling twists of gold-brown, hair,--then,--as she disappeared between two rows of leafless trees,--withdrew itself again frowningly and shone no more that day.

Walden re-entered his house, hardly able to sustain the sudden joy that filled him. He felt himself trembling nervously, and was angry at his own weakness.

"I am more foolish than any love-sick boy!" he said to himself with inward remonstrance--"And God knows I am old enough to know better! But I cannot help being glad she has come home!--I cannot help it! For with her presence it seems to me that 'the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come'! She is so full of life and brightness!-we shall know nothing of dull days or gloomy skies in St. Rest if she stays with us,--though perhaps for me it might be wiser and safer to choose the dull days and gloomy skies rather than tempt my soul with the magical light of an embodied spring in winter-time! But I shall be careful,--careful of myself and of her,- -I shall guard her name in every way, on my side--and if--if I love her, she shall never know it!"

He resumed his former seat by the study fire, and again took up his volume of Tennyson. And opening the book at hazard, his glance fell on that exquisite 'Fragment' which perhaps excels in its own way all the 'Idylls of the King'--

"As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, The happy winds upon her play'd, Blowing the ringlet from the braid: She look'd so lovely as she sway'd The rein with dainty finger-tips. A man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips."

"Quite true!" he said, as he read the lines half aloud, a tender smile lighting up the gravity of his deep thoughtful eyes--"True to the life, so far as the Guinevere of to-day is concerned! But let the simile stop there, John, my boy! Don't carry it any further! Don't deceive yourself as to your own demerits! You are nothing but an old-fashioned country parson--a regular humdrum, middle-aged fogey!--that's what you are!--so, even though you HAVE fallen in love (which at your time of life is a folly you ought to be ashamed of), don't for Heaven's sake imagine yourself a Lancelot, John!--it won't do!"

XXIX

Over the moist ground, and under the bare branches that dripped slow tears of past rain, the brilliant hunting train swept onward, Maryllia riding in the midst, till they came out on a bare stretch of moorland covered with sparse patches of gorse and fir. Here they all paused, listening to the cry of the huntsman in the bottoms, and watching the hounds as they drew up wind.

The eyes of every man present wandered now and again to Maryllia in admiration,--none of them had ever seen her look so lovely, so bright, so entirely bewitching. She was always at her best in the saddle. When she had paid her first visit to America with her uncle and aunt as a girl of sixteen, she had been sent for the benefit of her health to stay with some people who owned a huge Californian 'ranch,' and there she learned to ride on horses that were scarcely broken in, and to gallop across miles and miles of prairie, bareheaded to the burning sun, and had, in such pastime, felt the glorious sense of that savage and splendid freedom which is the true heritage of every child of nature,--a heritage too often lost in the tangled ways of over-civilisation, and seldom or never regained. The dauntless spirit of joyous liberty was in her blood,--she loved the fresh air and vigorous exercise, and was a graceful, daring rider, never knowing what it was to feel a single pulse of fear. Just now she was radiantly happy. She was glad to be at home again,--and still more glad that her plans for eluding the pursuit of Lord Roxmouth had completely succeeded. He had been left absolutely in the dark as to her whereabouts. His letters to her had been returned unanswered, through her solicitors, who declined to make any statement with regard to her movements, and, growing weary at last of fruitless enquiry, he bad left England to winter in Egypt with a party of wealthy friends, her aunt, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, being among the number. She owed this pleasing news to Louis Gigue, who had assisted her in her flight from the persecution of her detested wooer. Gigue had, through his influence, managed to introduce her under an assumed name, as a friend of his own to certain poor nuns In a Brittany convent, who were only too willing to receive her as a paying guest for a couple of months, and to ask no questions concerning her. There she had stayed with exemplary patience and resignation,--lonely indeed, yet satisfied to have made good her escape for the time being, and, as she imagined, to have saved John Walden from any possibility of annoyance chancing to him through her, or by her means. She would not consent to have even Cicely with her, lest any accidental clue to her hiding-place might be found and followed.

As soon, however, as she heard that Roxmouth had actually left England, she made haste to return at once to the home she had now learned to love with a deep and clinging affection, and she had timed her reappearance purposely for the first meet of the hunting season. She would show herself, so she resolved, as a free and independent woman to all the county,--and if people had gossiped about her, or were prone to gossip, they would soon find out the error of their ways. Hence the 'creation' of the becoming violet velvet riding-dress, copied from the picture of her ancestress in Abbot's Manor gallery. She had determined to make an 'effective' entrance on the field,--to look as pretty and picturesque as she possibly could, and to show that she was herself and nobody else, bound to no authority save her own.

In this purely feminine ambition she certainly accomplished her end. She was the centre of attraction,--all the members of the Riversford Hunt dispersed round and about her in Hear or distant groups, discussed her in low tones, even while watching the working of the pack, and scanning every yard of open ground for the first sign of a fox. Gradually the crowd of horses and riders increased,--men from the county-town itself, farmers from the more outlying parts of the neighbourhood, and some of the Badsworth Hall tenantry, having arrived too late at Ittlethwaite Park for the actual meet, now came hurriedly galloping up, and among these last was Oliver Leach. It was the first time Maryllia had seen her dismissed agent since her rescue of the Five Sister beeches, and she had thought of him so little that she would not have recognised him now had not his horse, a vicious-looking restive creature, started plunging close to her own hunter 'Cleopatra,' and caused that spirited animal to rear almost upright on her haunches. In the act of reining the mare out of his way she looked at him, while he, in his turn stared full at her in evident astonishment. As he appeared gradually to recognise her identity, his face, always livid, grew more deeply sallow of hue, and an ugly grin made a gargoyle of his mouth and eyes. She, as soon as she recollected him, remembered at the same time the curse he had flung at her--'a May curse,' she thought to herself with a superstitious little shudder--'and a May curse always begins to work in November, so the gossips say!'

Moved by an instinctive distrust and dislike of the man, she turned her back upon, him, and patting Cleopatra's neck, cantered quickly ahead to join the rest of the field which was now moving towards another cover, while the hounds ran through some low thickets of brushwood and tangled bracken.

She was in a curious frame of mind, and found her own emotions difficult to analyse. The momentary glimpse she had just had of John Walden had filled her with a strangely tender compassion. Why did he look so worn and worried? Had he missed her? Had her two months and more of absence seemed as long to him as they had to her? She wondered! Anon, she asked herself why she wondered! What did it matter to her what he thought, or how he passed his days? Then a sudden rush of colour warmed her cheeks, and a light came into her eyes. It DID matter!--there was no getting away from it,--it did matter very much what he thought, and it had become of paramount importance to her to know how he passed his days!

Deep in her heart a secret sweet consciousness lay nestled,--a consciousness, subtly feminine, which told her that she was held in precious estimation by at least one man,--and that she had advanced towards her most cherished desire of love so far as to have become 'dear to someone else.' And that 'someone else'--who was he? Oh, well!--nobody in particular!--only a country clergyman,--a poor creature, so the world might say, to build romances upon! Yet she was building them fast. One after the other they shaped themselves like cloud-castles in the airy firmament of her dreams, and she permitted herself to dwell on the possible joys they suggested. Very simple joys too!--such as the completion of the rose-window in the church of St. Rest,--he would be pleased if that were done--yes!-- she was sure he would be pleased!--and she had managed, during her sojourn in Brittany, to secure some of the loveliest old stained glass, dating from the twelfth century, which she meant to give him to-morrow when he came to see her. To-morrow! What a long time it seemed till then! And suppose he did not come? Well, then she would go and see him herself, and would tell him just why she had gone away from home, and why she had not written, to him or to anybody else in the neighbourhood,--and then--and then---

Here she started at the sound of a sudden 'tally-ho!'--the hounds had rallied--a fox was 'drawn,'--the whole field was astir, and with a musical blast of the horn, the hunt swept on in a flash of scarlet and white, black, brown and grey, across the moor. Maryllia gave herself up to the excitement of the hour, and galloped along, her magnificent mare 'Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt' scenting sport in the wind and enjoying the wild freedom allowed her by a loose rein and the light weight she bore. On, on!--with the wet chill perfume of fallen leaves rising from the earth on which the eager hoofs of the horses trampled,--on, always on, in the track of stealthy Reynard, over dips and hollows in the ground and shallow pools fringed with gaunt sedges and twisted brambles,--on, still on, crossing and re- crossing lines of scent where the hounds appeared for the moment at a loss, till they dashed off again towards the farther woods. Putting her mare to a fence and clearing it easily, Maryllia crossed a meadow, which she knew to be the shortest way to the spot where she could just see the pack racing silently ahead,--and, coming out on one of the high-roads between St. Rest and Riversford, she drew rein for a moment. Several of the hunters had chosen the same short- cut, and came out of the meadow with her, calling a cheery word or two as they passed her and pressed on in the ardour of the chase.