A Mere Chance Volume II Part 5

And slipping out of his arms, which did the utmost that courtesy permitted to hold her, she fled through a doorway near and disappeared; and thus threw away an opportunity the loss of which was to cost them both long days and nights of suspense and suffering--as she foresaw with agonies of regret, even while she did it.

Mr. Dalrymple danced and talked, and sauntered about, proud and cool as usual to the superficial observer, but raging with impatience in his heart, and watched for her return; but he saw her no more until supper time, when she was led into the dining-room, looking very pale and quiet, on Mr. Kingston's arm.

The whole night pa.s.sed, and he never had a chance to get near her again; though as may be supposed, it was from no lack of effort on his part; and he went to the laundry at last, hours after she had gone to bed, to change his clothes preparatory to taking a morning walk up the hills, without even having had the satisfaction of one look from her eyes, which, however timid and terrified, he felt sure would have told him the truth.

She did not come into the drawing-room before breakfast; and at that irregularly conducted meal she sat again by Mr. Kingston's side, the whole table's length from him. But glancing round her as she took her seat, she met his fixed gaze, and bowed with a subtle, wistful impressiveness that rea.s.sured him completely as to the state of her mind towards him, let her outward actions be what they might.

It was very tantalising; all his habitual calmness was upset; his very hand trembled as he took his coffee from Lucilla, and once when his gentle hostess spoke to him, he did not hear her.

The fret of this state of things, it is needless to say, chafed his incipient pa.s.sion into flame; and the flame was kept up thereafter, at a more or less fierce heat and brightness, by the winds of adversity that ought to--and in nine cases out of ten would--have put it out.

After breakfast the company began to disperse in a desultory manner by installments. Some of the guests lingered until the afternoon; some until the next day.

The Digbys were the first to leave--partly because they had so far to go, partly because Mrs. Digby was anxious about her children--and of course Mr. Dalrymple had to go with them.

He hunted in vain for Rachel when the breakfast party broke up. She _knew_ he was hunting for her, and she longed to go to him, and therefore as a matter of course, she hid herself.

Only at the last moment, as he was about to ride gloomily away, she appeared on the threshold of one of the inferior front doors, pale and shrinking, but desperate with vague despair--thinking to solace herself with one more glimpse of him when he would not know she was looking. But he saw her in a moment, flung himself from Lucifer's back, and caught her before she could steal away again.

It was not the sort of farewell he had hoped for--several of the ladies came straggling about them before they could exchange half a dozen words--but it was infinitely better than none.

"Are you going to Queensland?" Rachel asked, in a tone which said plainly--"Are you going away from me?"

"I must go," he replied; "but I shall not stay--I shall come back as quickly as possible. And you--what will you do?"

She flushed scarlet and dropped her eyes, and her lips began to quiver.

The rustle of Mrs. Hardy's majestic skirts was heard approaching. It was too late for confidences.

"I hope, when I come back, I shall find you free," he whispered hurriedly, emphasising the significance of the words with the crus.h.i.+ng clasp of his hand over hers and the eager desire in his eyes; and then he took off his cap, included all the ladies in one last silent adieu, remounted his horse, and departed.

As he rode through the bush this lovely spring morning, near enough to the waggonette to open the gates for it, but far enough away to indulge in his meditations undisturbed, he pondered many things; and particularly he wondered, with a devouring anxiety, what Rachel had been doing and thinking of since she left him so abruptly at midnight, after practically giving herself to him.

If he could have known it is doubtful if he would have felt so certain of her as he was, though nothing would have deterred him now from making the best fight in his power for the possession of her.

When, in terror of the consequences of what she had done, she broke away from him and escaped out of the ball-room, she rushed to her own room, forgetting until she dashed into the middle of an untidy litter of open boxes and portmanteaus which Miss Hale had left on the floor, that it was not hers to-night; and then she turned and sped down one of the innumerable pa.s.sages into the quiet starlight outside, and sought refuge in that lonely arbour at the bottom of the garden, which already, not many hours before, had given sanctuary to these new emotions.

That she courted bronchitis and consumption, exposing her bare warm arms and bosom to the chill of a frosty night, was a trivial circ.u.mstance quite unworthy of consideration.

In this arbour she abandoned herself to the full luxury of that pa.s.sion which was neither joy nor grief, and yet had the pain and ecstasy of both in the sharpest degree.

She knelt on the damp floor, and leaned her arms on the dusty bench, regardless of panic-stricken ants and enterprising black beetles, and she shook from head to foot with sobs.

"Oh my love!" she murmured to herself. "Oh, my love!"

And then presently lifting herself up and appealing to the star-worlds far away, and the immutable universe in general:

"Oh, what shall I do? Oh, what can I do?"

By and bye she sat down on the bench, clasped her hands on her knees, and tried her best to compose herself.

The keen air made her s.h.i.+ver, and perhaps it did something to cool her agitation and brace her nerves as well.

Slowly she gathered her wits together, made tremulous efforts to school herself to be womanly and courageous, and at last crept back to the lighted and crowded house, hugging a brave but terrible resolution.

She went to the nearest fire to warm herself. It was in a little room adjoining the dining-room, where the last preparations for supper were going on.

As she knelt on the hearthrug, extending her white arms to the blaze, Mr. Kingston came behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders, so silently and unexpectedly that she gave a little startled cry.

"Did I frighten you, my pet?" said he, gaily; "I beg your pardon. I couldn't think where you were gone to. I am afraid you are tired. You have been waltzing too much. That fellow Dalrymple does go round at a killing pace with his long legs. Poor Miss Hale couldn't stand him at all--she nearly fainted. Ah, naughty child! Didn't I tell you not to dance with him? And you never paid the least heed! If this is how you defy me now, what am I to expect after we are married, eh?"

She looked up in his face with guilty, bewildered eyes. He was not by any means so cool as he a.s.sumed to be, but it was evident that he intended to ignore her offence, and was not going to scold her.

_He_ was not young and rash, if she was; and the few minutes he had taken for reflection, during her absence in the garden, had shown him where the path of wisdom lay. Her first sensation was one of extreme relief; and then she became slowly conscious of a vague sinking at her heart.

Once more she sighed to herself--feeling discouraged and overpowered, and unequal to the formidable vastness of her resolution--"Oh, what shall I do?"

It would have been much better--much easier--if he had scolded her.

Before the revels of the night were quite over, Mrs. Hardy sent her to bed, noticing that she was looking unusually quiet and pale. She was very glad to go, and made haste to hide herself in the little impromptu nest that had been prepared for her on a couch in her aunt's room, before that lady should require the use of her apartment.

She was wide awake, however, when Mrs. Hardy joined her, and too restless to disguise it; and the elder woman, who knew nothing of the girl's entanglements with her two lovers--who had, indeed, congratulated herself on the prudent abstinence which had been unexpectedly practised with reference to "that objectionable young man" who was such a dangerously delightful dancer--gossiped and grumbled over the little events of the evening, chiefly of the accident to her lace and the absurdities of Miss Hale and Mr. Lessel, who were publicly known to have had a serious misunderstanding, unaware of her listener's pre-occupation, until the candles were finally extinguished.

About an hour later, as she was anxiously cogitating what steps she should take towards the repairing of her own mishap, Mrs. Hardy thought she heard a suspicious sound in the silence of the room.

"Rachel," she called, softly; "is that you, child?"

No answer. Only a rustle of drapery, indicating that Rachel had turned over in her bed. She listened a few minutes, and the suspicious sound was repeated. Raising herself on her elbow, she called more loudly.

"You are not _crying_, Rachel, are you?"

The girl flung herself out of bed, ran across the room, a little white ghost in the faint dawn, and threw her arms round her aunt's neck. She had no mother, poor little thing, to tell her troubles to; and she wanted a mother now.

"Oh, dear Aunt Elizabeth," she sobbed pa.s.sionately, "do help me--I am so miserable! I don't want to marry Mr. Kingston! I don't love him--I have made a mistake! I didn't think enough about it, and now I know we should never suit each other. Won't you tell him I was too young, and that I made a mistake? Won't you--oh, please do!--help me to break it off?"

On what a mere chance does destiny depend.

If Mrs. Hardy's evening had been triumphant and prosperous--if she had not torn her best lace, and torn it in consequence of Rachel's carelessness--she would probably have received the girl's touching confidence as a tender mother should. As it was, she felt that after all her fatigues and worries, this was really too much.

"What nonsense are you talking, child?" she exclaimed angrily. "Is it any fault of Mr. Kingston's if Miss Hale behaves like an idiot? She is nothing but a vulgar flirt, and he knows it as well as you do--only it is his way to be attentive to all women."

"Miss Hale!" repeated Rachel vaguely; "I'm not thinking of Miss Hale. I am not blaming anybody--only myself. I was very wrong to accept Mr.

Kingston at the first--oh, aunt, you _know_ we are not suited to each other! He ought to marry somebody older and grander, and I--I thought I should like to be rich, and to live in that house--and I thought I should come to love him in time; but now I know it was all a mistake.

Do--do let me break it off before it goes any further! Let me stay with you--I shall be _quite_ happy to stay with you and Uncle Hardy, if you'll only let me!"

"You are dreaming," replied her aunt, giving her a slight shake in the extremity of her dismay and mortification; "you talk like a baby. Do you think a man is to be taken up one day and thrown away the next? And it is worse than that to jilt a man--and Mr. Kingston of all people--after being engaged to him for months, as you have been, and after leading him into all sorts of preparations and expense. The bare idea is monstrous!

And all for nothing at all, but some ridiculous sudden fancy! You may have seen things of that sort done amongst the people you have been brought up with, but no _lady_ would think of disgracing herself and her family by such conduct."

"Oh, aunt!" moaned Rachel piteously, as if she had had an unexpected blow.