CHAPTER VIII

LUCY VANE.

Bright sunshine streamed down out of a cloudless sky when Vane stood talking with his sister upon the terrace in front of the Dene one afternoon shortly after his ascent of the Pike in Evelyn's company. He leaned against the low wall, frowning, for Lucy had hitherto avoided a discussion of the subject which occupied their attention, and now, as he would have said, he could not make her listen to reason.

She stood in front of him, with the point of her parasol pressed firmly into the gravel, and her lips set, though there was a smile which suggested forbearance in her eyes. Lucy was tall and spare of figure; a year younger than her brother, and of somewhat determined character. She earned her living in a northern manufacturing town by lecturing on domestic economy for the public authorities. Vane understood that she also took part in Suffrage propaganda. She had a thin, forceful face, which was seldom characterised by repose.

"After all," Vane broke out, "what I've been urging is a very natural thing. I don't like to think of your being forced to work as you are doing, and I've tried to show that it wouldn't cost me any self-denial to make you an allowance. There's no reason why you should be at the beck and call of those committees any longer."

Lucy's smile grew plainer. "I don't think that describes my position very accurately."

"It's possible," Vane agreed with a trace of dryness. "No doubt you insist on the chairman or lady president giving way to you; but that doesn't affect the question. You have to work, anyway."

"But I like it, and it keeps me in some degree of comfort."

The man turned half impatiently and glanced about him. The front of the old grey house was flooded with light, and the lawn below the terrace glowed luminously green. The shadows of the hollies and cypresses were thin and unsubstantial, but where a beach overarched the grass, Evelyn and Mrs. Chisholm, attired in light draperies, reclined in basket chairs. Carroll, who wore thin grey tweed, stood close by, talking to Mabel, and Chisholm sat a little apart upon a bench with a newspaper in his hand. He looked half asleep, and a languorous, stillness pervaded the whole scene.

"Wouldn't you like this kind of thing as well?" he asked. "Of course, I mean what it implies--the power to take life easily and get as much enjoyment as possible out of it. It wouldn't be difficult, if you would only take what I'd be glad to give you." He indicated the languid figures in the foreground. "You could, for instance, spend your time among folks like these; and, after all, it's what you were meant to do."

"Well," said Lucy, "I believe I'm more at home with the other kind of folks--those in poverty, squalor, and ignorance. I've an idea they've a stronger claim on me, but that's not a point I can urge. The fact is, I've chosen my career, and there are practical reasons why I shouldn't abandon it. I had a good deal of trouble in getting a footing, and if I fell out now, it would be harder still to take my place in the ranks again."

"But you wouldn't require to do so."

"I can't be sure. I don't want to hurt you; but, after all, your success was sudden, and one understands that it isn't wise to depend upon an income derived from mining properties."

"None of you ever did believe in me."

"I suppose there's some truth in that; you really did give us some trouble. Somehow you were different--you wouldn't fit in--though I believe the same thing applied to me, for that matter."

"And now you don't expect my prosperity to last?"

The girl hesitated, but she was candid by nature. "Perhaps I had better answer. You have it in you to work determinedly and, when it's necessary, to do things that men with less courage would shrink from; but I doubt if yours is the temperament that leads to success. You haven't the huckster's instincts; you're not cold-blooded enough. You wouldn't cajole your friends or truckle to your enemies."

"If I adopted the latter course, it would be very much against the grain," Vane confessed.

Lucy laughed. "Well," she said, "I mean to go on earning my living; but you can take me up to London for a few days and buy me some hats and things. Then I don't mind you giving something to the Emancipation Society."

"I don't know if I believe in emancipation or not, but you can have ten guineas."

"Thank you," said Lucy, glancing round towards Carroll, who was approaching them with Mabel. "I'll give you a piece of advice--stick to that man. He's cooler and less headstrong than you are; he'll prove a useful friend."

Carroll came up just then. "What are you two talking about?" he asked. "You look animated."

"Wallace has just promised me ten guineas to assist the movement for the emancipation of women," Lucy answered pointedly. "I may mention that our society's efforts are sadly restricted by the lack of funds."

"He's now and then a little inconsequential in his generosity," Carroll rejoined. "I didn't know he was interested in that kind of thing, but as I don't like to be outdone by my partner, I'll subscribe the same."

"Thanks," said Lucy, who made an entry in a pocket-book in a businesslike manner.

They strolled along the terrace together, and as they went down the steps to the lawn, Carroll inquired with a smile, "Have you tackled Chisholm yet?"

"I would have done so had it appeared likely to have been of any use, but I never waste powder and shot," Lucy replied. "A man of his restricted views would sooner subscribe handsomely to put us down."

Carroll turned to his comrade. "Are you regretting the ten guineas? You don't look pleased."

"No," said Vane; "the fact is, I wanted to do something which wasn't allowed. I've met with the same disillusionment here as I did in British Columbia."

Lucy looked up at her brother. "Did you attempt to give somebody money there?"

"I did," said Vane shortly. "It's not worth discussing, and anyway she wouldn't listen to me."

They strolled on, Vane frowning, while Carroll, who had seen signs of suppressed interest in Lucy's face, smiled unobserved. Neither he nor the others had noticed Mabel, who was following them.

They joined the rest, and some time afterwards, Mrs. Chisholm addressed Carroll, who was lying back in a deep chair with his eyes, which were half closed, turned in Lucy's direction.

"Are you asleep, or thinking hard?" she asked.

"Not more than half asleep," Carroll protested. "I was trying to remember 'A Dream of Fair Women.' It struck me as a suitable occupation for a drowsy summer afternoon in a place like this, but I must confess that it was Miss Vane who put it into my head. She reminded me of one or two of the heroines not long ago, when she was championing the cause of the suffragist."

"You mustn't imagine that English women in general sympathise with her, or that such ideas are popular at the Dene," Mrs. Chisholm rejoined.

Carroll smiled reassuringly. "I wouldn't have imagined the latter for a moment. But, as I said, on an afternoon of this kind one can be excused for indulging in romantic fancies; and don't you see what brought those old-time heroines into my mind--I mean the elusive resemblance to their latter-day prototype?"

Mrs. Chisholm looked puzzled. "No," she declared. "One of them was Greek, another early English, and the finest of all was the Hebrew maid. As they couldn't even have been like one another, how could they have collectively borne a resemblance to anybody else?"

"That's logical, on the surface. To digress, why do you most admire Jephthah's daughter, the gentle Gileadite?"

His hostess affected surprise. "Isn't it evident, when one remembers her patient sacrifice, her fine sense of family honour?"

Carroll felt that this was much the kind of sentiment one could have expected from her; and he did her justice in believing that it was genuine and that she was capable of acting up to her convictions. His glance rested on Vane for a moment, and the latter was startled as he guessed his comrade's thought.

Evelyn sat near him, reclining languidly in a wicker chair. She had been silent and, now her face was in repose, the signs of reserve and repression were plainer than ever. There was, however, pride in it, and he felt that she was endowed with a keener and finer sense of family honour than her mother. Her brother's career was threatened by the results of his own imprudence, and though her father could hardly be compared with the Gileadite warrior, there was, Vane imagined, a disturbing similarity between the two cases. It was unpleasant to contemplate the possibility of this girl's being called upon to bear the cost of her relations' misfortunes or follies. Carroll, however, looked across at Lucy with a smile.

"You don't agree with Mrs. Chisholm?" he suggested.

"No," said Lucy firmly. "Leaving the instance in question out, there are too many people who transgress and then expect somebody else--a woman as a rule--to serve as a sacrifice."

"I don't agree, either," Mabel broke in. "I'd sooner have been Cleopatra or Joan or Arc--only she was burned, poor thing."

"That was only what she might have expected. An unpleasant fate generally overtakes people who go about disturbing things," Mrs. Chisholm said severely.

The speech was characteristic, and the others smiled. It would have astonished them had Mrs. Chisholm sympathised with the rebel idealist whose beckoning visions led to the clash of arms. Then Vane turned to his comrade.

"Aren't you getting off the track?" he asked. "I don't see the drift of your previous remarks."

"Well," said Carroll, with an air of reflection, "there must be, I think, a certain distinctive stamp upon those who belong to the leader type; I mean the folks who are capable of doing striking and heroic things. Apart from this, I've been studying you English--and it has struck me that there's occasionally something imperious, or rather imperial, in the faces of your women in the most northern counties. I can't define the thing, but it's there--in the line of nose, the mouth, and I think most marked in the brows. It's not Saxon, or Norse, or Danish. I'd sooner call it Roman."

Vane was slightly astonished. He had seen that look in Evelyn's face, and now, for the first time, he recognised it in his sister's.

"I wonder if you have hit it," he said with a laugh. "You can reach the Wall from here in a day's ride."

"The Wall?"

"The Roman Wall; Hadrian's Wall. I believe one authority states they had a garrison of 100,000 men to keep it."

Chisholm joined the group. He was a tall, rather florid-faced man with a formal manner, dressed immaculately in creaseless clothes.

"The point Carroll raises is interesting," he remarked. "While I don't know how long it takes for a strain to die out, there must have been a large civil population living near the wall, and we know that the characteristics of the Teutonic peoples, who followed the Romans, still remain."

Nobody else had any comment to make, and when by and by the group broke up, Evelyn was left alone for a few minutes with Mabel.

"Gerald should have been sent to Canada instead of Oxford," she said. "Then he might have got as rich as Wallace Vane and Mr. Carroll."

"What makes you think they're rich?" Evelyn asked with reproof in her tone.

"Oh!" said Mabel, "we all knew they were rich before they came, and they were giving Lucy guineas for the suffragists an hour ago. They must have a good deal of money to waste it like that. Besides, I think Wallace wanted her to take some more, and he seemed quite vexed when he said he'd tried to give money to somebody else in Canada, who wouldn't have it. As he said--she--it must have been a woman--but I don't think he meant to mention that. It slipped out."

"You had no right to listen," Evelyn retorted severely; but the information sank into her mind, and she afterwards remembered it.