The Tree of Knowledge Part 14

"No; and none of the inhabitants walked out towards the farm in the afternoon except Miss Brabourne and her maid. I have ascertained that past a doubt. I don't see any daylight nowhere," said poor Mr. d.i.c.kens, becoming ungrammatical in his despair.

Claud could not but echo the remark. He walked over to Edge Willoughby in the afternoon with the same dreary bulletin. His sister was still there; she was anxious not to leave till the crisis was over, and her hostesses were proud to keep her. Elaine he scarcely saw; she was practising. He declined to stay to tea, as the good ladies urgently invited him. With a mind less absorbed he might have found them and their niece most excellent entertainment for a few idle hours; but, as it was, he was only anxious to get back to the farm, while every hour might bring the final change and crisis in the young artist's condition.

Was everything to remain so shrouded in mystery? he wondered. Was there to be no further light shed on the details of so mysterious a case?

Would Allonby die and go down in silence to the grave, unable to name his murderer, or to give any hint as to the motive of so vile an a.s.sault? Over all these things did he ponder as he leaned against the stile, and saw with unseeing eyes the loveliness of the dying day change and deepen over the misty hollow of the valley.

He looked at his watch. It was past eight o'clock, and the quiet of dusk was settling over everything. He wondered what was pa.s.sing in the sick-room--he longed to be there, but did not like to go, lest he might disturb the privacy of a brother and sister's last moments. But he did wish he could persuade the pale Wynifred to take some rest--she had never closed her eyes during the twenty-four hours she had been at Poole.

As these thoughts travelled through his mind, he heard a slight sound, and, raising his eyes, saw the subject of his meditations emerge from the open farmhouse door. She did not see him, and moved slowly forward, with her eyes fixed on the western sky. Down the little path she pa.s.sed, and then stepped upon the gra.s.s of the little lawn, and, with a long sigh almost like a sob, sat down upon the turf, and buried her face in her hands.

"Was it all over?" Claud wondered, as he stood hesitatingly by the stile. "Should he go to her, or should he leave her to the privacy of her grief?"

Unable to decide, he waited a few moments, and presently saw her raise her head again, and look around her like one who took in for the first time the fact of her surroundings.

Stretching her hand, she gathered some white pinks from the garden border and inhaled their spicy fragrance; and Claud, slowly approaching, diffidently crossed the gra.s.s to where she sat.

"Good evening," he said, raising his hat politely.

"Good evening," she said, "and good news at last. I know you will be glad to hear. He is sleeping beautifully. Nurse and Dr. Forbes sent me away to get some rest, and I came out here into this air--this reviving air."

"You don't know how glad I am," said Claud, from the bottom of his heart. "I was so anxious; it seemed as if that terrible fever must wear him out. But he'll do well now. Let me wish you joy."

"Thank you," she said, with a smile, and her eyes fixed far away on the distance. "I feel like thanking everyone to-night--my whole heart is made up of thanksgiving. You don't know what Osmond is to us girls. We are orphans."

"Ah! indeed!" said Claud, giving a sympathetic intonation to the commonplace words.

"Yes; the loss of him would have been----"

She stopped short, and, after a pause, began to talk fast, as though the relaxed strain of her feelings made it imperative that she should pour out her heart to somebody.

"I had been sitting all the afternoon with my heart full of such ingrat.i.tude," she said. "I felt as if all the beauty was gone out of the world, and all the heart out of life. You know

'The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.'

I could not help thinking of that, and of how true it was, as I watched the little red bits of cloud swimming in the blue, and it kept ringing in my head till I thought I must say it out loud--

'Another race has been, and other palms are won.'

I do not want him, my brother, to win his palm yet; I wanted to look at sunsets with him again, and hear him enjoy this beauty as he can enjoy it--so thoroughly. Oh, we are very selfish in wanting to keep people we love on earth, when they might win their palms! But it is only human nature after all, you know; and I do think Osmond's life is a happy one, though it is so full of care."

"I am sure it must be," said Claud, quietly, as he sat down on the gra.s.s beside her. "Life is a pleasant thing to every man who is young and has good health, more especially if he has love to brighten his lot. I think your brother a fort right, because you would have thought my denial an empty protestation, designed to make you say it again, with more decision; so I thought it better to let it drop."

"Do you think we are the best judges of our own courage, or, in short, of our own capabilities any way?" asked Mr. Cranmer, following her example by gathering a few pinks and putting them in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

"I don't know; I think we ought to be--what do you think about it?"

asked she, evidently with a genuine interest in the subject itself, and none to spare for Claud Cranmer.

It was strange how this manner of hers non-plussed him. He was accustomed enough to hear girls discuss abstract topics, inward feelings, and the reciprocity of emotion--who in these days is not? But in his experience the process was always intended to serve as a delicate vehicle for flirtation, and however much the two people so occupied might generalise verbally, they always mentally referred to the secret feelings of their own two selves, and n.o.body else.

He felt that Miss Allonby expected him to give a well thought out and adequate answer to her question, while he had been merely trifling with the subject, and had absolutely no intention of entering upon a serious discussion.

He hesitated, therefore, in his reply, and at last calmly remarked that he believed he knew his faults, intimately--he saw so much of them; but that his acquaintance with his virtues was so slight that he scarcely knew them by sight much less by heart.

She laughed, a clear fresh laugh of appreciation; but objected that this was not a fair answer.

"But, perhaps," said she, "you are one of those who don't think it right to a.n.a.lyse their own emotions?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know about thinking it right," he said. "Of course I have to do it, or pretend to do it, if I don't wish to be voted a fool by everyone I meet. And that reminds me, I have discovered, here in these wilds, a young lady who never even heard of the current topics of the day--who, far from dissecting the sentiments of her inmost being, does not even know herself the possessor of such a morbid luxury as an inmost being.

You ought to see her; she is the most curious sample of modern young lady-hood it was ever my lot to meet. She has the mind and manners of an intelligent girl of ten; my sister tells me she is nineteen, but I really can scarcely believe it. She lives with some maiden aunts who have brought her to this pa.s.s between them. My sister is enthusiastic about her, and most anxious to have the pleasing task of teaching this backward young idea how to shoot. If she is as free from the follies as she is from the graces of girlhood, she is certainly unique."

"You make me very anxious to see her. She must be like one of Walter Besant's heroines--Phyllis, in the "Golden b.u.t.terfly," or one of those.

I have often wondered if such a girl existed. Is she charming?"

"N--no. I don't think I could truthfully say I thought so; and yet she has all the makings of a beauty in her; but you can't attempt conversation--she wouldn't understand a word you said. She has seen nothing, heard nothing, read nothing. That last remark is absolutely, not relatively true; she really has read nothing. It gives, one an oppressive sense of responsibility; one has to pick one's words, for fear of being the first to suggest evil to such a primeval mind."

Wyn laughed softly, and took a deliberate look at him as he lay on the turf. He had put up his arms over his head, and looked very contented and a good deal amused. He enjoyed chattering to a girl who had some sense, and was for the moment almost prepared to pardon the paleness and thinness, and even the unconsciousness of his companion, which latter characteristic affected him far the most seriously of the three.

"Most undeveloped heroines turn out very charming when some one takes them in hand, and sophisticates them," said the girl. "I wonder if your discovery would do the same?"

"I can't say. She has a very fine complexion," said Claud, inconsequently. "Her skin is rather the color of that pinky reach of sky yonder. What a night it is! It feels like Gray's elegy to me. I wonder if you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I know. What an amount of quotations come swarming to one's mind on such a night! It is a consolation, I think, in the midst of one's own utter inadequacy to express one's feelings, to feel that some one else has done it for you so beautifully as Gray."

A step behind them on the gravel, and, turning quickly, Wyn beheld Dr.

Forbes.

"Get up, young woman, get up this minute. I sent you to rest, not to come and amuse this young sprig of n.o.bility with your conversation. Very nice for him, I've no manner of doubt; but, nice or not, you've got to bid him good-night and go to bed."

Wyn rose at once, but attempted to plead.

"I have been resting, doctor, indeed--drinking in this lovely air. I had to go out of doors--one must always go out of doors when one is feeling strongly, I think--roofs are so in the way. I wanted to look right up as far as that one star, and to send my heart up as far as my eyes could reach!"

The doctor looked down at the face raised to him--pale with watching, but alive with happiness.

"I'm of the opinion, Miss Allonby," said he, with a mouth sterner than his eyes, "that if the Honorable Claud Cranmer finds you so interesting when you're worn out with waking and fasting, you'll be simply irresistible after a good night's rest."

The girl had vanished almost before this dreadful remark was concluded.

The doctor chuckled as he watched her flight.

"There's girls and girls," he remarked, sententiously; "some take to their heels when you joke them about the men. Some don't. I thought she'd go."

"I had rather," said Claud, nettled, "that you indulged your humor at anyone's expense but mine."

"Oh, that'll never hurt you," said the doctor, placidly, rubbing his eye-gla.s.ses with his red silk handkerchief, "nor her either. Young people get so fine-drawn and finikin now-a-days."

Claud smiled.