Part 7

Up to the moment, perhaps, when Clandonald had interposed himself between Posey and her annoyer, it had not occurred to him that he could feel for her anything more than man's honest delight in youth and extraordinary beauty, as well as the titillation that came to his mental part from her amusing indifference to his rank, her straightforward appeal to his comradeship. Even the fleeting revelation in her gaze that had occasioned his resolve to fly, had excited until then in him little more than regret at the misadventure.

When he had brusquely stood himself in Vereker's way, Helen Carstairs had not observed what caused a current of pleasure to run through his veins, and a quick rush of protective tenderness toward Posey to fill and overflow his heart. Involuntarily the girl had pressed nearer to him, slipping her arm through his, and, for the few seconds that this attitude endured, he had wanted never to part with her again!

Then she had started away from him, almost guiltily, and Miss Carstairs had carried her off in tears! From thenceforward a blank, as far as a return to their old relations went! Clandonald, puzzling himself wofully to know what he had done to alienate her, had spent hours in meditation upon the theme. Now that he had lost her, the possession of her guileless friendship, still more of her possible love, had become of supreme value and importance; to win it he was ready to forfeit anything, even to throwing over his excellent and devoted Mariol, whose keen glances worried him, and whose wit and wisdom had temporarily lost their flavor.

And so the last hour of the last evening had come around, and his last chance to speak with her had gone! He knew how it would be on the morrow. Nothing less conducive to an exposition of the tender passion in any of its phases can be found than the landing on a foggy day at Liverpool, with its crowds and coal smoke, its lowering skies, and dingy surroundings, its hustling porters and watermen, the rush and rumble of a great industrial city beginning at the water's edge, after the inspiring solitudes of three thousand miles of salt water.

He would see her only amid a confusion of sights and sounds that would effectually prevent any but the most banal phrases of adieu. She would pass away from him and become as had all the other women he had met, like the dissolving foam wreaths in their track across the Atlantic. He was annoyed with himself for feeling it so much. The thing was out of all reason. Perhaps, after he had speech with her once more, he might better realize what an ass he had been to imagine she cared for him. Things, in short, would adjust themselves on a common-sense footing.

But he could not get speech with her. An overture to that effect, somewhat clumsily conveyed before dinner-time, had been rejected by Miss Winstanley in such terms that Clandonald felt vexed and mortified, wondering what or who could have set her so against him.

And here, at last, when he stepped out on deck, into the glare of the electric lights, intending to return to his own room and prosaically go to bed, the Fates would have it that he ran upon Mr. Winstanley shivering like a true Southron in the raw atmosphere around the ship's anchorage, his daughter clinging to his arm, looking most lovely in her furs, her cheeks of a vivid carmine, the little locks on her forehead drifting and curving in the moist air.

"Pretty dismal lookout, isn't it?" said the old gentleman cheerily. "Kind o' evenin' that makes one think o' a tumbler full of hot Scotch, and a big snappin' wood-fire, with a couple o' little darkies tumblin' over each other to bring in the fat pine knots."

"If I could fly with the crow over in that direction," said Clandonald, pointing toward the invisible shore, "I know of a hearthside not far off, where at least part of those conditions would be fulfilled to me! It is in the house of an uncle of mine, where as a boy I considered it Paradise to go, and still do, sometimes for the shooting. One of those homes of merry England (a misnomer now, I grant you) that you have expressed so kind a desire to see, Miss Winstanley. I sincerely hope, by the way, that you haven't forgotten your promise to persuade Mr. Winstanley to give me a day at Beaumanoir, and that you'll settle upon a date with Miss Carstairs--who has also agreed to honor me--before we leave the ship."

"You are very kind, but our plans are undecided," said the girl, in a low, tremulous tone.

"Seems as if the sea hadn't agreed with daughter this little bit," observed Mr. Winstanley. "She sort o' thinks she'll stop by a few days, along the road, before we get to London. So this is a British fog? A No. 1, I reckon. I hope you won't think me impolite if I call it a regular searcher, sir. At this moment I feel it in the marrow o' my bones. But anything to please the ladies, and when Posey said she'd a headache that wouldn't leave her till she got a turn outside, out we came to admire your English coast scenery, I tell her--Great Scott, Posey, I've gone and done it, now!"

He had been fumbling in his breast pocket for a handkerchief, and drew forth the missing article with a vexed look upon his mild old face.

"Done what, daddy?"

"Left my letter of credit in a coat in the steamer-trunk that was packed for storage in Liverpool. And they've likely carried it out a'ready! I must find that steward right away, dearie, and tip him to hunt it up."

"Let me go with you, please."

"You'd only be in the way. If you want to finish our walk, stay here, and I'll come right back for you. Perhaps Lord Clandonald wouldn't mind----"

"Oh! no, father! I'll stay alone."

The voice was decided, even positive. Clandonald, bowing, moved away in another direction than that taken by Mr. Winstanley.

It was over. He had done with Posey Winstanley and all her kind. If she were so capricious as her actions indicated, this decision was a thoroughly good thing.

But all the same, like Lot's wife, he looked back. Posey had taken out her pocket handkerchief, and was wiping her eyes with the little wisp half the ship had picked up after her. Clandonald, in two strides, returned to her side.

"I am not going to push myself into your company. Just two minutes, and I'll be off. But I think you owe it to me to say why you are treating me like a scoundrel or an impostor."

"Oh! not that, not that!" she cried piteously.

"Have I done anything to forfeit a place among your decent acquaintances since that time you clung to my arm and--I mean since you let me feel that I might stand between you and insult----"

"Nothing. I believe in you just the same, and always shall."

"Thank you for so much, at any rate. But--you believe in me, in _spite_ of what?"

"Oh! Lord Clandonald, how can I say it to you?" she exclaimed, driven to the wall.

"I have stood a good deal of evil speaking in my time," he said, in a grim undertone. "And if it helps to clear the atmosphere between us, I can stand more."

"It is not you only, I, too, have been the victim of cruel and slanderous sayings. I have not told my dear father, who is so unsuspicious. I wouldn't have him suffer as I have for the world. For the last twenty-four hours I have been receiving, in all sorts of odd ways that I cannot trace, anonymous notes about you and me that have cut me to the quick."

"Let me see one of them," he said, growing slightly pale.

"Do you think I'd keep the horrid, poisonous things? Not a half hour since I tore the whole batch into little bits, and threw them overboard. Perhaps ... I ought to tell you, they were written by a woman, who says----"

"Go on, Miss Winstanley."

"--That you wronged her cruelly and ruined her whole life."

"I thought so," he said, between his teeth. His face had grown so dark and bitter that Posey hardly knew the man. "There is only one who could--but how, in God's name, did she get aboard this ship?"

"I suppose the writer thought I would not have courage to tell you--but I always believe in speaking out, you know."

"It may be some low practical joke at our expense," he suggested, his eyes lightening.

"No, even I, who never saw an anonymous letter before, could tell that this is horridly real. Whoever it is, Lord Clandonald, you--and now I--have a desperate enemy. I am threatened with a scene, an exposure, she calls it, that will disgrace me utterly, if I am seen again with you."

"Let me risk it for you! Let me stand between you and all liars, evil speakers and slanderers, for always--" the man exclaimed passionately, then stopped short.

There was that in the girl's look that startled him from his unconsidered speech. The staring white light of the electric globe immediately above them showed the bloom forsaking her young face, the lips trembling violently.

"It proves how little we know of each other that I should let you say such words to one who has no right to hear them," she said, recovering herself to speak in her natural tone. "But if we mayn't be friends, after this, please remember that I have believed you, not your slanderer. Now, as my father doesn't seem to be coming back, and this is not my native air, if it is yours, I will say good-by. We'll be too busy and too cross to want to speak to each other to-morrow morning, even if it were wise. If you meet me again, it will be a different Pamela Winstanley, one who knows more, perhaps, and makes fewer mistakes, but who'll never forget your kindness on this voyage."

Clandonald was bewildered at her rapid change back into the speech of conventionality, her self-control, her determination to put him definitely away from her. His brain was also dizzy with thoughts of the dread presence on shipboard of the one woman he had hoped never to see on earth again. What he might, could or would have answered Miss Winstanley was not said.

They stood together uncertainly for one confusing moment in what seemed a moist gray world, haunted by skulking shadows in tarpaulin, the chill wind of the Channel whipping them, overhead the repeated raucous roar of the fog-horn--and then she was gone, melted away into encompassing gloom! His ship-idyl, his mad brief temptations of a few moments since, were past. He was back again in England with his bitter memories and cheerless future.

To Mariol he gave, before bed-time, an account of the outrage to which Miss Winstanley had been subjected, begging him to try to trace out the offender, and silence her at any cost.

The Frenchman, promising to do this, and relieved at the collapse of his friend's nascent affair with Miss Winstanley, was hardly surprised, on awaking next day, and finding their ship safely alongside her dock in Liverpool, to be told that his lordship, impatient of delay, had gone ashore during the night in the tender that had nosed its way to the fog-bound liner to carry off the mails, leaving his servant to follow with his luggage.

Mariol, after attending unsuccessfully to the business entrusted to him by Clandonald, encountered Miss Carstairs, her chaperon and maid, on deck awaiting the summons to go ashore. He stood by them, commenting with amusement upon the sudden disintegration of the ardent intimacies of the voyage. To judge from appearances, the chief aim of the passengers was now to rid themselves of one another as promptly as possible. People who had sworn fidelity over night were offish, mysterious, absorbed in petty anxieties about customs, telegrams, trains and tips. As usual to inexperienced tourists, the latter question arose to be a cloud that was ultimately to overshadow the glories of European travel. What attendants had been remunerated according to service done, what countenances had darkened, who had seemed satisfied, was discussed in whispers between anxious family groups. Farewell sentiments bestowed upon friends one thought one had seen the last of were found to be superfluous, since the recipients were sure to be found again provokingly popping up everywhere; on the gangway, on the docks, and facing the customs officers. Lucky if one were not to be thrust together with them into the same railway carriage, all to arrive in London hating each other heartily!

M. de Mariol, without appearing to do so, had scanned narrowly the outgoing crowd from the steamer. No trace had appeared, here or elsewhere, of the familiar figure of Clandonald's former wife. A suggestion occurring to him that the excursive Ruby had been last heard of in America, and was probably returning under an alias, made the search in the passenger lists a futile one. Whatever were the facts in the history of this obnoxious and insufferable woman, he must give her up for the present as a bad job. He felt almost inclined to believe that some one else had thrown suspicion upon her, in order to cover a low attack upon Miss Winstanley and Clandonald.

As he and Miss Carstairs started a little later to walk together up the inclined plane leading to the Euston Special, they beheld, in the street, Mr. and Miss Winstanley getting into a four-wheeler laden with archaic trunks, from the window of which Posey waved to them a sober last good-by.

At the same moment they were asked to step aside to give place to an invalid chair containing Mr. Vereker, greenish-gray of complexion, scowling at all the world, and escorted by his nurse and doctor. No vestige remained of the effusive host, the ladies' gallant, the purveyor of choicest scandal from the clubs! His wife and valet, with Mr. Charley Brownlow and a train of servants and porters, brought up the rear of the cortege, pressing importantly forward to reach their private car.

Miss Bleecker, whose soul always melted tenderly to the sorrows of the rich, could not lose this opportunity. Stepping up briskly, she proffered her condolence to the suffering magnate, to be repelled by a savage gesture and a snarl of annoyance at being spoken to, that caused the irate lady to retire in crimson confusion.

She was the more perturbed by the incident, because not only did her dear friend Mrs. Vereker decline to make amends for her husband's ill-manners, but she murmured audibly to Mr. Brownlow that "Sally Bleecker never did know how to stay in the back row." Additionally, the chaperon's discomfiture was increased by the appearance of Lord and Lady Channel Fleet, who with their depressed maid hugging a jewel-case containing the well-known turquoises, were hastening away to the joys of home and their native land. Lady Channel Fleet enjoyed the little scene. She had just whispered to her husband that she'd be thankful to get to their own house, where at last they wouldn't see Americans or hear them talk.

The next acquaintance to pass by Mariol and Miss Carstairs was Prince Zourikoff, who, from between two porters carrying some Aztec images he had secured in Mexico, gave them an abstracted nod to supplement his polite farewell achieved on board. Dear old Graf von Bau was already in the embraces of his loving spouse and two gigantic daughters, who were kissing him violently upon both cheeks, and, attended by a secretary, governess and maid, had come over from Berlin to meet and reclaim their wanderer.

"Thus vanish Miss Winstanley and her little court!" said Mariol in Miss Carstairs' ear. "It is true, Bobby Vane clung to her till forcibly taken possession of by his elder brother, whom the Kenningtons sent down to fetch him safely home. The lad was sufficiently hard hit, and if the young lady had been ambitious of making an English alliance of rank, she might have secured him--to the disgust of the Kenningtons, of course, since Bobby has nothing, and the Winstanleys are evidently in modest circumstances."

"I believe I can surprise you there," said Helen. "As we are all scattering, it can make no difference to any one--certainly on this side the globe," she added, with a faint sigh.

"I like an _apres coup_. Please tell me," answered he, smiling.

"First, tell me something. If you like, that is, if not, let it go. From what you have observed, does it strike you that a friend of Miss Winstanley's would be justified in thinking that Lord Clandonald has fallen in love with her?"

"Lord Clandonald left the ship without making any arrangement for a future meeting with the young lady," said Mariol, diplomatically. "And to my best knowledge, there is no likelihood of his seeing her, unless by chance."

Helen drew a long breath, but not one of relief.

"Because," she went on, "her good old father came yesterday to thank me for some imagined kindness to his daughter, and, in the course of conversation, told me that he had recently become the owner of a large--very large--fortune, but in his desire to protect her from 'interested' suitors, had determined to keep the knowledge of it from her. He asked my advice as to the wisdom of the step, poor soul! I told him that I had had some experience of paternal mismanagement in this regard, in the case of a friend of mine--and that I thought Posey ought certainly to know."

"I agree with you," commented Mariol, astonished, and, for Clandonald's sake, just a tiny bit depressed. "What a difference it would have made on board, had it been suspected that our social sovereign was possessed of a golden foundation for her throne. And since you have mentioned my friend Clandonald's fancy for the young lady----"

"It was rather unfair for me not to have told you at once," interrupted Miss Carstairs, "that I am aware of reasons why such a fancy on his part for Mr. Winstanley's heiress, or of her for him, would have produced disastrous results in America."

"She is, then--" began Mariol, trying to keep the vexation from his voice.

"Mr. Winstanley said that he thought it best for any one interested in his daughter that there should be no concealment of her engagement to marry a man whom she has long known--of whom he thoroughly approves, and that his daughter was willing to have it known. A man whom such a marriage will help in the best way, since when they became engaged, he knew nothing whatever, nor does he now, of her improved fortunes."

"Lucky fellow!" said Mariol, swallowing a grimace. "But I must own to you that the circumstance robs the fair Posey of a good deal of her interest in my eyes. You, Miss Carstairs, are so far removed from their estate of happy barbarism, you are so broad, so far-seeing, you won't object to my suggesting that the image of Miss Winstanley's mate chosen from among her friends of early years does not allure me. He is, in fact, a total extinguisher of my desire to meet her after she shall have become his wife. Now, own that you yourself have a shudder of mild distaste when you think of what he must be!"

"On the contrary," said Miss Carstairs, distinctly, "I have the pleasure of knowing Miss Winstanley's fiance; and I consider him not only one of the most manly men, but the truest gentleman in the circle of my acquaintance."

"Helen, here is a compartment that will just hold you and me and Eulalie, comfortably, and we will tip the guard to let us have it to ourselves," came in Miss Bleecker's penetrating tones. "Good-by, M. de Mariol, we shall always remember our pleasant voyage, and I shall treasure that clever thing you wrote in my birthday book. Sorry not to have seen Lord Clandonald to say good-by, but we shall all meet again, of course, people always do. Don't forget if you are in town, any time, we are in Curzon Street for a fortnight, and then Paris, Hotel Westminster. Eulalie, you have Miss Carstairs' black jacket? Porter, look out for those umbrellas in the netting, put my dressing bag beside me, the tea-basket overhead--where is the other rug? Oh! I see. Ten pieces, all right, porter, here you are, for you and your mate. _What_, not enough? Ample, and more than you deserve. Helen, how could you give him another shilling, when you know that is what shows any one with half an eye you are just from the other side?"

*CHAPTER VI*

The luncheon at Beaumanoir, although lacking the young lady for whose delectation it had been proposed, came off to the satisfaction of at least four of the five people present, viz., Miss Bleecker, whom it had been impossible to omit; M. de Mariol, who, cynicism to the contrary, was delighted with a chance of showing Helen Carstairs the noble old place in a lambent day of mid-October; Helen, herself, frankly pleased with the entertainment; and good old Lady Campstown, whose mind having long set itself upon the thought of her nephew's remarriage with a wealthy American girl, as a happy issue out of all his difficulties, chose to construe the occasion into a presentation to her of the future chatelaine whose dollars were to stop the chinks in Clandonald's ancestral roofs, and her virtues to gild anew the escutcheon dimmed by her unworthy predecessor.

"If she's an American, she'll probably go straight," thought Lady Campstown, after having first informed herself through a New York lady so long resident in London as to suffer acute pangs upon being reminded of the place of her nativity, that Helen's father was "_the_ Mr. Carstairs whom everybody had heard about." When Clandonald had proposed to his aunt to preside over his little party, her ladyship had not dared ask him the direct question that was burning upon her lips. She had contented herself with his answer to her rallying query whether upon his travels he had met any of those wonderful girls from the States the modern novelists write about, that he fancied the supply would always be equal to the demand for that commodity. And when Miss Carstairs, so quiet, lovely and distinguished in mien and manner, appeared amid the faded chintz of the great drawing-room at Beaumanoir, admiring its choice contents with knowledge and without gush, treating Lady Campstown exactly as she ought to be treated, the reality of the old gentlewoman's hopes seemed as near as it was grateful.

Even Miss Bleecker shone in a reflected light, and Lady Campstown pronounced her, afterwards, a most agreeable, chatty person. As she conducted both visitors through the principal rooms of her childhood's home, her little ladyship's frail face and figure seemed to have stepped down for the occasion from a frame of which the gilding had worn away. Helen was in turn charmed by her simplicity and frankness, and the two gravitated together naturally. The men found them in the picture gallery, where Lady Campstown was destined to receive her first disillusion, in the fact that her nephew in asking Miss Carstairs if she were ready to see the white peacocks on their famous strutting ground, invited M. de Mariol to come, too!