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Mrs. Lancaster’s Rival

Chapter XI. In the Combe

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Chapter XI. In the Combe.

Dick went about whistling the next day as if a load had been taken off his shoulders. He did not try his aunt’s generosity by talking of Flora, but was at his very best and pleasantest all the morning. Though she could not be sorry for the change, it made her a little sadder; that her dear boy should be so thrown away was indeed a trial hard to bear.

It was Sunday, and the whole Cardew party were at church in the morning. Dick made no attempt to join them in walking up the hill. Miss Northcote could not help noticing that Mrs. Lancaster looked pale and depressed, and wondered what the reason of this might be, but did not say anything to Dick about it. She guessed that he would go to Rose Cottage in the afternoon, and that his fate would be settled before night.

About four o’clock Dick came into the drawing-room, where his aunt was reading, and, after fidgeting about for a few minutes, suddenly spoke.

‘Look here, aunt Kate, I want to thank you. You’re behaving nobly.’

He paused, with a nervous laugh.

‘Never mind; don’t talk about it,’ said Kate, as cheerfully as she could.

‘I know you think it a fearful sacrifice,’ Dick went on. ‘But you’ll change your mind before long. You’ll find that Flora is as good as—’

‘As she is lovely. Very well. I hope so. And I hope, dear Dick, that she won’t find she has made an equally fearful sacrifice. Everybody might not enjoy page 101 life in the colonies, even with you. Now get along, and don’t provoke me any more.’

‘O, it’s no use talking to you,’ said Dick, half inclined to be angry at being laughed at.

It certainly was hard to have the expression of his finest feelings nipped in the bud. He really was grateful to his aunt, and wanted to tell her so. But Kate was only human after all, and could not yet bear to enter into Flora’s praises. The idea of Dick’s sacrifice, too, coming from himself, was almost too funny. Martyrs of that kind did not generally go smiling and whistling to the stake, Kate thought.

Dick walked away to Rose Cottage, at first not quite so cheerful. But he had recovered his spirits by the time he got there. The maid dashed cold water upon him by answering ‘No’ to his inquiry whether Mrs. Lancaster was at home.

‘Not at home! Are you sure?’ said Dick incredulously.

Mrs. Cardew just then looked out of the parlour, and, seeing him, came forward to the door. She was blushing and smiling, and very nervous. Her agitation had the contrary effect on Dick, fortunately, and he shook hands with her in quite a cool every-day fashion.

‘Mrs. Lancaster is out?’ he said, in a louder voice than usual, the idea having just dawned on him that Captain Cardew meant to forbid him the house, and that Flora might be locked up somewhere.

‘The old donkey! Does he think I shall stand that?’ thought Dick, and he looked rather fiercely at poor unoffending Mrs. Cardew.

‘Well, yes, she is out,’ said she anxiously. ‘But won’t you come in, Mr. Northcote?’

‘No, I won’t, thank you,’ said Dick. ‘Perhaps she is gone to church somewhere!’

‘No. We have no afternoon service, you see.’

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Dick’s brow had clouded over a good deal; he hated small obstacles and contradictions. Flora’s mother grew rather frightened as she looked at him.

‘I don’t suppose, Mr. Northcote,’ she began timidly, ‘that Flora would mind my telling you where she is. She took a book—she was restless in the house, poor dear—and I believe she went down to the combe. She might not like to be interrupted by everybody, but surely she couldn’t mind you.’

‘I hope not. Thank you, Mrs. Cardew,’ said Dick. His face cleared up at once, and he was turning away, when she stepped out into the garden after him.

‘You must excuse my mentioning it,’ she said, ‘and Flora would be angry; but I have known you so long, Mr. Dick, haven’t I? Now I do hope you’re not vexed at what the Captain-did yesterday; he is so headstrong, you know, and he meant it for the best. We have had so many anxieties about Flora, and when it is one’s only child, one can’t help fretting.’

‘The Captain was quite right,’ said Dick. He coloured scarlet, but smiled very pleasantly at Mrs. Cardew. ‘I hope he will have no more cause to complain of me. Good-bye.’

One would think it was always summer at St. Denys. It has its full share of rough weather, though, and I have heard people say that it rains there more than in most places. But that summer, when Dick Northcote was amusing himself at home, and Mabel Ashley was shut up within Pensand gates, was singularly brilliant and lovely.

This Sunday afternoon was hot and sleepy and still; the air was heavy, the sun shone through a faint yellow mist, under which the trees seemed to take strange colours, and sounds from a distance fell deadened on one’s ear.

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Dick hurried down the lane to the combe. It was a hollow path like a tube, perhaps four feet wide, completely arched over with ivy-bound boughs of low gray old trees, and here and there a bush of honeysuckle hanging so low that his head brushed it as he walked. Half-way down the hill the hedges disappeared, and the path branched out into a steep, slippery, rugged descent of bare granite rock. Below this was some more lane with a low stone wall, bounding a small green field on the left, with a donkey grazing in it, which sloped down to the water. Dick passed this and walked on round the head of the creek, past the foot of another lane, almost as narrow and rough, which was supposed to be a cart-road, the only approach to a little untidy white-washed farm that nestled among trees half-way up the head of the combe. A little further on he got down upon the rocks. The tide was full, and the water was lazily gliding in and lapping against the stones. It was the only thing that moved or spoke in the combe; the trees and long grass and flowering bushes on its steep sides hung motionless; the long dark ridges of rock showed their teeth in silence.

The stillness was so intense in the yellow misty glow that Dick stood still, doubting if Flora was there; he could almost have heard her breathe. As he stood hesitating, she suddenly rose up from behind a rock not three yards away. With her green and white summer dress, her golden hair, her fair transparent skin, she might have been the nymph of the rivers, disturbed by a rash mortal from her peaceful dreaming on the shore.

‘I heard you coming down,’ she said, without any particular pleasure in look or tone. ‘Who told you I was here?’

‘Your mother. Don’t be angry with her,’ said Dick.

‘She little knew what she was doing,’ said Flora, half to herself.

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‘Didn’t she, do you think?’ said Dick, as he made his way round over the rock ledges to the place where she was standing.

She had risen from one of these steps or ledges, just above high-water mark, in a corner sheltered from sight by a projection of the rocky bank. She now sat down again, and Dick, as he took his place beside her, noticed a packet of letters tied up with ribbon in a little cleft close by. She was watching him, saw his eyes light on them, and smiled slightly and rather sadly.

‘All letters from one friend,’ she said. ‘Do you possess such a good correspondent?’

‘I don’t, indeed,’ said Dick. ‘One leaves that sort of thing to ladies nowadays. And they don’t write to me.’

‘Ah!’ said Flora.

Dick began to feel quite uncanny: her manner was so odd; absent and dreamy, yet present and awake. United to the heavy stillness and oppression of the day, it seemed to draw away from him all his good spirits, his courage even. She might have been a sea enchantress, who had wiled him to this lonely shore, and perhaps would presently glide gently down into the soft oily water that came lapping to her feet. And her mortal lover could not stay behind, but must follow wherever she chose to lead the way. Some wild old legend of the kind began to hover in Dick’s brain as Flora sat and gazed at the water. But presently she turned her blue eyes on him, and he felt happier. Feeling as if only by a strong effort he could break the charm that seemed to be binding him, he suddenly laid his hand on hers and clasped it tight.

‘Flora,’ he said, ‘I have something to say to you, and I want to say it at once.’

‘Don’t, Dick, please,’ said Mrs. Lancaster, shaking off his hand.

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‘Listen to me,’ said Dick imploringly. ‘I want to tell you—’

‘Let me speak first,’ said Flora. ‘There is something I want to tell you too, and you shall listen to me. After that you may hold your tongue, if you please, for I don’t think you will have anything to say.’

‘You have no idea, then, what it is. Nothing could change—’ began Dick eagerly.

‘Patience. I am not blind or stupid, or very young. I wish you were not so silly. As you are, you have brought something on yourself. I am going to tell you a story.’

‘As long as I may stay here,’ said Dick, ‘I don’t care what you tell me.’

‘Do you remember asking me one day if I was happy?’

‘Ah, that day!’

‘I have good cause to remember it too,’ said Flora. ‘I might have guessed; but I never thought it would come to this. Do you remember me when I was a girl, Dick?’

‘What a question! You are just the same now, only far more charming.’

‘I believe I am rather nicer than I was then,’ said Flora thoughtfully. ‘Yes, certainly I was horrid then. You had a happy escape in those days, but I thought it unkind of you to go away without wishing me good-bye.’

‘I was desperately sorry,’ said Dick; ‘but they bullied me so at home. You liked me a little then, Flora? It was not all my fancy?’

‘Liked you? yes, after a fashion. But I did not really care a bit. I wanted to get away from home. I had been reading a lot of novels, and had a notion of grand names and pedigrees. You were the nearest thing to all that.’

Dick laughed, which did him good.

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‘You might have found somebody more distinguished than me,’ he said.

‘Nobody that came in my way. O dear, what an idiot I was! Well, after you were gone and that chance was lost, I grew more and more discontented at home. They did not spoil me then, I think, quite as much as they do now; still, they were the kindest parents. But, you know, I had picked up all these ideas; and things were always grating on me that a more obtuse girl would not have noticed—little vulgarities and provincialisms. Then, to crown all, I had an offer from a merchant’s clerk at Morebay, a good man, and very well off. But I could not endure the thought of him. Perhaps I was foolish to be so fanciful.’

‘That I am sure you were not,’ said Dick. He was half lying on the rocks, leaning his head on his hand, and looking up into her face, which softened and became prettier than ever as she talked of her young days.

‘You may say so when you have heard all,’ said Flora, sighing. ‘I could not bear this man, as I tell you. And then there was poor George Lancaster: he was very much in love with me, and quite a gentleman; and I married him, as you know. Ah, dear me! I told you one day that I left all the sunshine behind at St. Denys. I won’t go back to those years. Ill-health for him and unhappiness for me. Poor fellow! We were not suited to each other, and his relations did all they could to make me more miserable than I was O, it was hard! A lonely girl, and so far away from home.’

She paused a minute. Dick held his peace, for he had nothing to say, and only wished that Flora would let her poor dead husband alone.

‘Well, that was over,’ she went on, in a tone of relief. ‘I came back home, and here I have been ever since, as you know; but not without adventures.’

‘You were not likely to be without them,’ said Dick; page 107 out it must be confessed that a cold shudder crept over him. What could Flora mean by that deepening colour, that happy triumphant smile, which seemed to say that all the past was blotted out and swept away in the light of what she had now to tell him?

‘I was ill and dismal enough at first,’ she said. ‘It is only two years, in fact, since I quite recovered. Now, Dick’—her face had become very grave as she turned to him—‘I am going to allude to yesterday. It was very, very kind of you to bring me that bracelet. I was sorry for what my father did at the time, though, after all, I believe it was the best thing. It makes it necessary for me to tell you the truth; and your behaviour and Miss Northcote’s, which I feel intensely, makes me owe it to you all the more.’

‘The truth? What do you mean?’ said Dick vaguely.

‘Dick, I am going to trust something to your honour—a secret which nobody knows, except the two people it concerns. You will understand why I tell you; it is the only thing that will really satisfy you. I am very grateful; I look upon you as my best friend, and I am sure you won’t betray me. Am I right?’

‘Of course,’ said Dick hoarsely.

‘Between two and three years ago I began to see a good deal more of a person I had always known slightly, and we found out that we had always had a fancy for each other. I certainly never met any one else that—Well, I must only tell you the facts,’ she said, leaning forward, and shading her face with her hand. ‘We were engaged: there were reasons for keeping it secret; but I hope they won’t last much longer, for of course I find myself in a painful position sometimes—now, for instance.’

‘Do you mean that you are engaged now?’ said Dick slowly, frowning and staring, as if he could not trust his senses.

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‘Yes.’

There was a long pause. Dick stared vacantly at the rocks, dimly remembering Mrs. Penny’s gossip and other things which had frightened him. Flora had lifted her head, and gazed out across the water, her face full of past and present happiness. Presently, however, compassion for Dick found its way in; she turned towards him, and saw something so stony, so like despair, that she was startled out of her calmness.

‘O Dick, don’t look like that!’ she said. ‘I am very sorry; I shall always like you so much.’

The voice of the siren had a strange effect on Dick. He sprang upright, shook himself, stood looking at her for a moment, and then sat down again beside her on the rocks.

‘I was only thinking,’ he said. ‘Will you tell me why this should be such a secret?’

‘It is his wish,’ answered Flora, in a low voice. ‘His father is a man of good position, and he is not independent of him. He probably would be very angry; he hopes to see his way more clearly soon. Everybody’s relations are not so generous as yours.’

‘And this has gone on for two or three years,’ said Dick. ‘Do you think you are properly treated?’

‘I am quite satisfied. All I ask you is to keep the secret.’

‘That I have promised,’ said Dick. ‘I want to ask you one question. Answer it or not, as you choose. Is it Randal Hawke?’

‘What can have put him into your head?’ said Flora, blushing crimson. ‘Well, I suppose I must trust you altogether. You are a gentleman, thank goodness! Yes, it is Randal Hawke. I must know what made you think so.’

‘I knew he admired you,’ said Dick quietly.

Certainly, with all his weaknesses, he was at heart a page 109 gentleman; for it never occurred to him as possible to blacken Randal in Flora’s eyes. He was heartily sorry for her; his own disappointment was half forgotten in regret that she should throw her affection away on a lying scoundrel, as he very cordially called Randal to himself. His remembrance of the tone in which Randal had talked of Mrs. Lancaster made him more angry still.

‘Heaven grant she may find out her mistake before it is too late!’ thought Dick.

In the mean while Flora had taken a letter from the packet beside her, and unfolded it.

‘You may look at this signature if you like,’ said she. ‘You seem a little doubtful. This will show you that I have spoken the truth.’

‘No, thank you,’ said Dick. ‘I don’t doubt you in the least; why should I? The mist seems to be changing into fog. Don’t you think we had better get out of this?’

Flora was quite ready, and they walked up almost in silence. She was conscious of a respect for Dick such as she had never felt before, combined with a little irritation; he seemed to have taken the downfall of his hopes so very calmly.

Captain and Mrs. Cardew were obliged to keep their surprise and disappointment to themselves. Flora simply told them that she had refused Dick Northcote, and did not know why they should have expected anything else; he was not at all the sort of person for her.

Miss Northcote wondered what could have happened; her nephew was so grave and silent all the evening. It was not till very late that he said to her, ‘She won’t have me, aunt Kate.’

‘Indeed!’ said Miss Northcote, trying not to show her intense joy.

‘I have been thinking,’ said Dick, ‘that I should like to get away from here for a few weeks. Didn’t you tell page 110 me the other day that Harry Northcote wanted me to go and see him in Yorkshire?’

‘Yes. He will be delighted. You could not do better.’

‘I shall write to him to-morrow,’ said Dick, and relapsed into silence.