CHAPTER XXIII.

ON THE MOOR.

It was a gray and gusty day in November, with heavy masses of low-lying clouds rolling tumultuously overhead, and a general look of damp and decay about the fields and banks--one of those melancholy days of the late autumn which make one long for the more varied circumstances of confessed winter, when the deep blue shadows in the crisp snow suggest the glory of southern skies, and the sparkle of the sun on the delicate tracery of the frosted branches has a mimicry of life, such as we imagine strange elves and fairies might create.

There was no point of color in the landscape save the brown foliage of the shivering beech trees, a few coarse splashes of yellow weeds, and here and there a trail of dying crimson leaves threading the barren hedgerows. Everything was "sombre, lifeless, mournful", and even Edgar Harrowby, though by no means sentimentally impressionable to outward conditions, felt, as he rode through the deserted lanes and looked abroad over the stagnant country, that life on the off-hunt days was but a slow-kind of thing at North Aston, and that any incident which should break the dead monotony of the scene would be welcome.

He had been thinking a great deal of Adelaide for the last four or five days, since she had dined at the Hill, and making up his mind to take the final plunge before long. He was not in love with her, but she suited, as has been said; and that was as good as love to Edgar, who had now to take up his squiredom and country gentleman's respectability, after having had his share of a young man's "fling" in rather larger proportion than falls to the lot of most. All the same, he wished that her face had more expression and that her eyes were perfectly straight; and he wanted to see Leam Dundas.

He had made a long round to-day, and was turning now homeward, when, as he had almost crossed the moor, athwart which his road led, he saw standing on a little hillock, away from the main track, the slight figure of a woman sharply defined against the sky. She was alone, doing nothing, not seeming to be looking at anything--just standing there on the hillock, facing the north-west, as if for pleasure in the rough freshness of the breeze.

The wind blew back her dress, and showed her girlish form, supple, flexible, graceful, fashioned like some nymph of olden time. From her small feet, arched and narrow, gripping the ground like feet of steel, to the slender throat on which her head was set with so much grace of line, yet with no sense of over-weighting in its tender curves, an expression of nervous energy underlying her fragile litheness of form, a look of strength--not muscular nor the strength of bulk or weight, but the strength of fibre, will, tenacity--seemed to mark her out as something different from the herd.

Edgar scarcely gave this vague impression words in his own mind, but he was conscious of a new revelation of womanhood, and he scented an adventure in this solitary figure facing the north-west wind on the lonely moor.

Her very dress, too, had a character of its own in harmony with the rest--black all through, save for the scarlet feather in her hat, which burnt like a flame against the gray background of the sky; and her whole attitude had something of defiance in its profound stillness, while standing so boldly against the strong blasts that swept across the heights, which caught his imagination, at that moment ready to be inflamed. All things depend on times and moods, and Edgar's mood at this moment of first seeing Leam Dundas was favorable for the reception of new impressions.

For, of course, it was Leam--Leam, who, since her return from school, alone and without companionship, was feverish often, and often impelled to escape into the open country from something that oppressed her down in the valley too painfully to be borne. She had never been a confidential nor an expansive schoolfellow; not even an affectionate one as girls count affection, seeing that she neither kissed nor cried, nor quarreled nor made up--neither stood as a model of fidelity nor changed her girl-lovers in anticipation of future inconstancies--writing a love-letter to Ada to-day and a copy of verses to Ethel to-morrow--but had kept with all the same quiet gravity and gentle reticence which seemed to watch rather than share, and to be more careful not to offend than solicitous to win.

All the same, she missed her former comrades now that she had lost them; but most of all she missed the wholesome occupation and mental employment of her studies. Left as she was to herself, thoughts and memories were gathering up from the background where they had lain dormant if extant all these years, and through her solitude were getting a vitality which made her stand still in a kind of breathless agony, wondering where they would lead her and in what they would end. At times such a burning sense of sin would flash over her that she felt as if she must confess that hideous fact of her girlish past. It seemed so shameful that she should be living there among the rest, a criminal with the innocent, and not tell them what she was. Then the instinct of self-preservation would carry it over her conscience, and she would press back her thoughts and go out, as to-day, to cool her feverish blood, and grow calm to bear and strong to hold the heavy burden which she had fashioned by her own mad deed and laid for life on her own hands.

If only the ladies had not insisted so strongly on mamma's personality in heaven! if only they had not lighted up her imagination, her loyalty, by this tremendous torch of faith and love! How bitterly she regretted the childish fanaticism which had made her imagine herself the providence of that beloved memory, the avenger of those shadowy wrongs! Oh, if she could undo the past and call madame back to life! She would kiss her now, and even call her mamma if it would please her and papa. So she stood on the hillock facing the north-west, thinking these things and regretting in vain.

As Edgar came riding by his large black hound dashed off to Leam and barked furiously, all four paws planted on the ground as if preparing for a spring. The beast had probably no malice, and might have meant it merely as his method of saying, "Who are you?" but he looked formidable, and Leam started back and cried, "Down, dog! go away!" in a voice half angry and half afraid.

Then Edgar saw the face, and knew who she was. He rode across the turf, calling off his dog, and came up to her. It was an opportunity, and Edgar Harrowby was a man who knew how to take advantage of opportunities. It was in his creed to thank Providence for favorable chances by making the most of them, and this was a chance of which it would be manifestly ungrateful not to make the most. It was far more picturesque to meet her for the first time, as now, on the wild moor on a gusty gray November day, than in the gloomy old drawing-room at the Hill. It gave a flavor of romance and the forbidden which was not without its value in the beginning of an acquaintance with such a face as Leam's. Nevertheless, in spite of the romance that hung about the circumstance, his first words were common-place enough. "I hope my dog has not alarmed you?" he said, lifting his hat.

Leam looked at him with those wonderful eyes of hers, that seemed somehow to look through him. She, standing on her hillock, was slightly higher than Edgar sitting on his horse; and her head was bent as she looked down on him, giving her attitude and gesture something of a dignified assumption of superiority, more like the Leam of the past than of the present. "No, I was not alarmed," she said. "But I do not like to be barked at," she added, an echo of the old childish sense of injury from circumstance that was so quaint and pretty in her half-complaining voice.

"I suppose not: how should you?" answered Edgar with sympathetic energy. "Rover is a good-old fellow, but he has the troublesome trick of giving tongue unnecessarily. He would not have hurt you, but I should be very sorry to think he had frightened you. To heel, sir!" angrily.

"No, he did not frighten me." repeated Leam.

Never loquacious, there was something about this man's face and manner, his masterful spirit underneath his courteous bearing, his look of masculine power and domination, his admiring eyes that fixed themselves on her so unflinchingly--not with insolence, but as if he had the prescriptive right of manhood to look at her, only a woman, as he chose, he commanding and she obeying--that quelled and silenced her even beyond her wont. He was the first gentleman of noteworthy appearance who had ever spoken to her--not counting Alick, nor the masters who had taught her at school, nor Mr. Birkett, nor Mr. Fairbairn, as gentlemen of noteworthy appearance--and the first of all things has a special influence over young minds.

"You are brave to walk so far alone: you ought to have a dog like Rover to protect you," Edgar said, still looking at her with those unflinching eyes, which oppressed her even when she did not see them.

"I am not brave, and I do not care for dogs. Besides, I do not often walk so far as this; but I felt the valley stifling to-day," answered Leam, in her matter-of-fact, categorical way.

"All the same, you ought to have protection," Edgar said authoritatively, and Leam did not reply.

She only looked at him earnestly, wondering against what she should be protected, having abandoned by this time her belief in banditti and wild beasts.

If his eyes oppressed her, hers half embarrassed him. There was such a strange mixture of intensity and innocence in them, he scarcely knew how to meet them.

"It is absurd to pretend that we do not know each other," then said Edgar after a short pause, smiling; and his smile was very sweet and pleasant. "You are Miss Dundas--I am Edgar Harrowby."

"Yes, I know," Leam answered.

"How is that?" he asked, "_I_ knew _you_ from your photograph--once seen not to be forgotten again," gallantly--"but how should you know me?"

Leam raised her eyes from the ground where she had cast them. Those slow full looks, intense, tragic, fixed, had a startling effect of which she was wholly unconscious. Edgar felt his own grow dark and tender as he met hers. If the soul and mind within only answered to the mask without, what queen or goddess could surpass this half-breed Spanish girl, this country-born, unnoted, but glorious Leam Dundas? he thought.

"And I knew you from yours," she answered.

"An honor beyond my deserts," said Edgar.

Not that he thought the notice of a girl, even with such a face as this, beyond his deserts. Indeed, if a queen or a goddess had condescended to him, it would not have been a grace beyond his merits; but it sounded pretty to say so, and served to make talk as well as anything else. And to make talk was the main business on hand at this present moment.

"Why an honor?" asked Leam, ignorant of the elements of flirting.

Edgar smiled again, and this time his smile without words troubled her. It seemed the assertion of superior intelligence, contemptuous, if half pitiful of her ignorance. Once so serenely convinced of her superiority, Leam was now as suspicious of her shortcomings, and was soon abashed.

Edgar did not see that he had troubled her. Masterful and masculine to an eminent degree, the timid doubts and fears of a young girl were things he could not recognize. He had no point in his own nature with which they came in contact, so that he should sympathize with them. He knew the whole fence and foil of coquetry, the signs of silent flattery, the sweet language of womanly self-conscious love, whether wooing or being won; but the fluttering misgivings of youth and absolute inexperience were dark to him. All of which he felt conscious was that here was something deliciously fresh and original, and that Leam was more beautiful to look at than Adelaide, and a great deal more interesting to talk to.

"If you will allow me, now that I have had the pleasure of meeting you, I will see you safe for at least part of your way home," he said, passing by her naïve query "Why an honor?" as a thing to be answered only by that smile of superior wisdom.

Flinging himself from his horse, he took the bridle in his hand and turned toward home, looking to the girl to accompany him. Leam felt that she could not refuse his escort offered as so much a matter of course. Why should she? It was very pleasant to have some one to walk with--some one not her father, with whom she still felt shy, if not now absolutely estranged; nor yet Alick, in whose pale face she was always reading the past, and who, though he was so good and kind and tender, was her master and held her in his hand. This handsome, courteous gentleman was different from either, and she liked his society and superior ways. And as he began now to talk to her of things not trenching on nor admitting of flirtation--chiefly of the places he had visited, India, Egypt, Italy, Spain--she was not so much abashed by his unflinching looks and masterful manner.

When he entered on Spain and his recollections of what he had seen there, the girl's heart throbbed, and her pale face grew whiter still with the passionate thrill that stirred her. The old blood was in her veins yet, and, though modified, and in some sense transformed, she was still Pepita's daughter and the child of Andalusia. And here was truth; not like that poor wretched madame's talk, which even she had found out to be false and only making believe to know what she did not know. Spain was the name of power with Learn, as it had been with her mother, and she lifted her face, white with its passionate desires, listening as if entranced to all that Edgar said.

It was a good opening, and the handsome soldier-squire congratulated himself on his lucky hit and serviceable memory. Presently he touched on Andalusia, and Leam, who hitherto had been listening without comment, now broke in eagerly. "That is my own country!" she cried. "Mamma came from Andalusia, beautiful Andalusia! Ah! how I should like to go there!"

"Perhaps you will some day," Edgar answered a little significantly.

Had she been more instructed in the kind of thing he meant, she would have seen that he wished to convey the idea of a love-journey made with him.

She shook her head and her eyes grew moist and dewy. "Not now," she said mournfully. "Poor mamma has gone, and there is no one now to take me."

"I will make up a party some day, and you shall be one of us," said Edgar.

She brightened all over. "Ah! that would be delightful!" she cried, taking him seriously. "When do you think we shall go?"

"I will talk about it," Edgar answered, though smiling again--Leam wished he would not smile so often--a little aghast at her literalness, and saying to himself in warning that he must be careful of what he said to Leam Dundas. It was evident that she did not understand either badinage or a joke. But her very earnestness pleased him for all its oddity. It was so unlike the superficiality and levity of the modern girl--that hateful Girl of the Period, in whose existence he believed, and of whose influence he stood in almost superstitious awe. He liked that grave, intense way of hers, which was neither puritanical nor stolid, but, on the contrary, full of unspoken passion, rich in latent concentrated power.

"They are very beautiful, are they not?" Leam asked suddenly.

"What? who?" was Edgar's answer.

"The Andalusian women, and the men," returned Leam.

"The men are fine-looking fellows enough," answered Edgar carelessly--"a little too brutal for my taste, but well-grown men for all that. But I have seen prettier women out of Spain than in it."

"Mamma used to say they were so beautiful--the most beautiful of all the women in the world; and the best." Leam said this with a disappointed air and her old injured accent.

Edgar laughed softly. "The prettiest Andalusian woman I have ever seen has an English father," he answered, with a sudden flush on his handsome face as he bent it a little nearer to hers.

"How odd!" said Leam. "An English father? That is like me."

Edgar looked at her, to read how much of this was real ingenuousness, how much affected simplicity. He saw only a candid inquiring face with a faint shade of surprise in its quiet earnestness, unquestionably not affected.

"Just so," he answered. "Exactly like you."

His voice and manner made Leam blush uncomfortably. She was conscious of something disturbing, without knowing what it was. She first looked up into his face with the same expression of inquiry as before, then down to the earth perplexedly, when suddenly the truth came upon her; he meant herself--she was the prettiest Andalusian he had ever seen.

She was intensely humiliated at her discovery. Not one of those girls who study every feature, every gesture, every point, till there is not a square inch of their personality of which they are not painfully conscious, Leam had never taken herself into artistic consideration at all. She had been proud of her Spanish blood, of her mantilla, her high comb and her fan; but of herself as a woman among women she knew nothing, nor whether she was plain or pretty. Indeed, had she had to say offhand which, she would have answered plain. The revelation which comes sooner or later to all women of the charms they possess had not yet come to her; and Edgar's words, making the first puncture in her ignorance, pained her more by the shock which they gave her self-consciousness than they pleased her by their flattery.

She said no more, but walked by his side with her head held very high and slightly turned away. She was sorry that he had offended her. They had been getting on together so well until he had said this foolish thing, and now they were like friends who had quarreled. She was quite sorry that he had been so foolish as to offend her, but she must not forgive him--at least not just yet. It was very wrong of him to tell her that she was prettier than the true children of the soil; and she resented the slight to Spain and to her mother, as well as the wrong done to herself, by his saying that which was not true. So she walked with her little head held high, and Edgar could get nothing more out of her. When Leam was offended coaxings to make her forget were of no avail. She had to wear through an impression by herself, and it was useless to try for a premature pardon.

Edgar saw that he had overshot the mark, and that his best policy now was absence; wherefore, after a few moments' silence, he remounted his horse, looking penitent, handsome, full of admiration and downcast.

"I hope we shall soon see you at the Hill, Miss Dundas," he said, holding her hand in his for his farewell a little longer than was quite necessary for good breeding or even cordiality.

"I very seldom go to the Hill," answered Leam, looking past his head.

"But you will come, and soon?" fervently.

"Perhaps: I do not know," answered Leam, still looking past his head, and embarrassed to a most uncomfortable extent.

"Thank you," he said, as if he had been thanking her for the grace of his life; and with a long look, lifting his hat again, he rode off, just escaping by a few hundred yards the danger of being met walking with Leam by his sisters and Adelaide Birkett. They were all driving together in the phaeton, and the sisters were making much of their young friend.

At that moment Edgar preferred to be met alone and not walking with Leam. He did not stop the carriage--simply nodded to them all with familiar kindness, as a group of relatives not demanding extra courtesy, flinging a few words behind him as he rode on smiling. Nor did the ladies in their turn stop for Leam, whom they met soon after walking slowly along the road; but Josephine said, as they passed, how pretty Learn looked to-day, and how much softer her face was than it used to be; and Maria, even Maria, agreed with kindly Joseph, and was quite eulogistic on the object of her old disdain. Adelaide sat silent, and did not join in their encomiums.

It would have been a nice point to ascertain if the Misses Harrowby would have praised the girl's beauty as they did had they known that she had grown soft and dewy-eyed by talking of Spain with their brother Edgar, though she had hardened a little afterward when he told her that she was the prettiest Andalusian he had ever seen.

During the dinner at the Hill, where Adelaide was one of the family party, Edgar mentioned casually how that he had met Miss Dundas on the moor, and had had to speak to her because of Rover's misbehavior.

"Yes? and what do you think of her?" asked Mrs. Harrowby with a sharp glance.

"I scarcely know: I have hardly seen her as yet," he answered.

"Did she say or do anything very extraordinary to-day?" asked Adelaide with such an air of contemptuous curiosity as seemed to him insufferably insolent.

"No, nothing. Is she in the habit of saying or doing extraordinary things?" he answered back, arching his eyebrows and speaking in a well-affected tone of sincere inquiry.

"At times she is more like a maniac than a sane person," said Adelaide, breaking her bread with deliberation. "What can you expect from such a parentage and education as hers?"

Edgar looked down and smiled satirically. "Poor Pepita's sins lie heavy on your mind," he answered.

"Yes, I believe in race," was her reply.

"Mother," then said Edgar after a short silence, "why do you not have Miss Dundas to dine here with Adelaide? It would be more amusing to her, for it must be dull"--turning to their guest and speaking amiably, considerately--"I am afraid very dull--to be so often quite alone with us."

He did not add what he thought, that it was almost indelicate in her to be here so often. He was out of humor with her to-day.

"She is such an uncertain girl we never know how she may be. I had her to stay here once, and I do not want to repeat the experiment," was Mrs. Harrowby's answer.

"But, mamma, that was before she went to school, when she was quite a child. She is so much improved now," pleaded Josephine.

"Good little soul!" said Edgar under his breath.--"Wine, Joseph?" aloud, as his recognition of her good offices.

"And I like coming alone best, thanks," said Adelaide with unruffled calmness. "Leam has never been my friend; indeed, I do not like her, and you all," to the sisters, with a gracious smile and prettily, "have always been my favorite companions."

"Still, she is very lonely, and it would be kind. Besides, she is good to look at," said Edgar.

"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Harrowby with crisp lips and ill-concealed displeasure.

"Do I think so, mother? I should have no eyes else. She is superb. I have never seen such a face. She is the most beautiful creature I have ever known of any nation."

Adelaide's delicate pink cheeks turned pale, and then they flushed a brilliant rose as she laid down her spoon and left her jelly untasted.

There were no trials of skill at chess, no duets, no solos, this evening. After dinner Edgar went to his own room and sat there smoking. He felt revolted at the idea of spending two or three hours with what he irreverently called "a lot of dull women," and preferred his own thoughts to their talk. He sauntered into the drawing-room about ten minutes before Adelaide had to leave, apologizing for his absence on the man's easy plea of "business," saying he was sorry to have missed her charming society, and he hoped they should see her there soon again, and so on--all in the proper voice and manner, but with a certain ring of insincerity in the tones which Adelaide detected, if the others did not. But she accepted his excuses with the most admirable tact, smiling to the sisters as she said, "Oh, we have been very happy, Josephine, have we not? though," with a nice admission of Edgar's claims, not too broadly stated nor too warmly allowed, "of course it would have been very pleasant if you could have come in too."

"It has been my loss," said Edgar.

She smiled "Yes" by eyes, lips and turn of her graceful head. In speech she answered, "Of that, of course, you are the best judge for yourself; but none of us here feel as some girls do, lost without gentlemen to amuse them. We can get on very well by ourselves. Cannot we, Joseph?"

And Josephine said gallantly, "Yes," but her heart was more rueful than her voice, and she thought that some gentlemen were very nice, and that Sebastian Dundas especially made the dull time pass pleasantly.