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Chapter XIII. The Drive.

The next day the sun shone over Pensand. It was an uncertain day; the air was much warmer, every distant point stood out clearly; and as the morning wore on great masses of white clouds rose in the south and southwest, and began to climb slowly up the sky. But these threatenings did not trouble Mabel. She was quite ready to enjoy the present; it was delightful to walk in the garden again without an umbrella; to be in an atmosphere of blue and gold instead of misty gray; to gather rosebuds, even to mourn over the beauties fallen, and lying in soft curling pink or creamy heaps upon the damp grass. The books Randal had brought for her were unpacked, and their bright bindings gave quite a modern and cheerful air to the drawing-room. They looked interesting, but Randal would not let her sit down to read.

‘Keep them for wet days, when I am not here,’ he said; ‘I did not bring them to entertain you when you ought to be entertaining me. I am not so unselfish.’

‘It is very nice to be unselfish,’ said Mabel.

‘No! You don’t really think so, do you? Why, unselfish people are the greatest bores to themselves and everybody else.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Well, if you come into a room where an unselfish man is sitting in front of the fire, up he jumps to make way for you. He only makes you feel uncomfortable. You don’t want his place. You would much rather that he stayed where he was. I’m not speaking of a lady, of page 120 course; she ought to feel no scruple in taking the best place in the room; but of myself. Horrid bore! If he would have let you alone, you could have edged yourself in and warmed your feet. As he makes all this row, you are obliged to sit down yards away and say you are not cold.’

‘Is that what you do?’ said Mabel.

‘Well, to confess the truth, I generally take his place, simply to punish him, in the hope that he may know better next time, and keep what he has got.’

‘You ought to take care what you say to me,’ said Mabel gravely, after a pause.

‘Why?’

‘Because I believe every word of it.’

Randal looked at her, suddenly interested.

‘Do you? I can’t wish for anything better. Always believe what I say to you, and I shall be satisfied.’

But that quiet remark of hers had an effect upon him that would have surprised her if she could have understood it. This girl was not quite blind, not quite a poor fool, who would do nothing but admire him, and be honoured by any preference that he might choose to show her. Well, he was glad of it. It made the game a little more interesting, and he could hardly fail to win it in the end.

After luncheon, the day being still fine, he and she and his father strolled round to the stables. Randal had his own horse brought out for her to see, a beautiful silky-coated black. He was getting old, he said, so he did no London work, but lived in comfort down here, and never had anything behind him but a light dog-cart. Then Randal walked out into the middle of the yard and looked up at the sky.

‘Is it going to be fine, Jenkins?’

‘There may be a storm, sir, but not before evening, I expect,’ said the groom.

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‘Miss Ashley, we might make a little round this afternoon if you are inclined. I’ll have the Turk put in at once.’

Mabel’s eyes brightened, but she turned towards the General.

‘Unless you are afraid to trust yourself to Randal’s driving?’ said he.

‘I am not the least afraid,’ said Mabel. ‘I should like it very much.’

So away she drove with Eandal in the dog-cart, Jenkins sitting behind. The wild stormy clouds, the strange gleams of colour in the sky, only made the country more beautiful. Dark shadows fell across the distant purple moors; then the sun broke out over them in a long trail of yellow light. There was a moaning wind, and the air was heavy and sultry. The Turk pricked his ears nervously as he trotted along. It was past the middle of July, and the wild roses and honeysuckle were gone; but there were plenty of flowers in the hedges still, foxgloves and great moon daisies, and scarlet poppies looking out of the cornfields. They drove round under hills crested with fir-trees, where heather and gorse were in bloom, and ferns clothed all the lower ground; then through romantic lanes that kept Mabel exclaiming with admiration. At last they came down into a village at the head of a valley, with a gray square-towered church and a large old house within walls close by.

‘This is Carweston,’ said Randal.

‘O, please drive slowly, and let me look at it,’ said Mabel.

He obeyed, with a slight lazy smile, and Mabel turned her head in all directions, thinking she might catch sight of her friend Anthony; but he was not to be seen.

‘What a pretty old house!’

‘The rooms are very low, and stuffed with rubbish,’ said Randal. ‘Anthony Strange is squire and parson, you page 122 know; that is his house. The whole place belongs to him. Imagine being buried alive here in the midst of the lanes.’

‘O, but it is a charming place,’ said Mabel.

‘So you thought Pensand, the first time I saw you there.’

‘And so I think it still. I am not so changeable.’

‘No. But Nature is not enough for you. You must have human beings. You would really be happiest in London.’

‘I can’t bear London. I was wretched there.’

‘At school, of course. But in a house of your own. Well, do you wish to stop and speak to that old lady, or shall we pass her like a shot?’

‘Is it Mrs. Strange? Stop, please,’ said Mabel decidedly.

Mrs. Strange was just coming out of a cottage garden, and looked in some surprise when they pulled up close to her. Jenkins went to the horse’s head, and Randal jumped down and spoke to her very politely. Her manner to him was rather cold, but she glanced up and met Mabel’s earnest wistful eyes, as she leaned forward, forgetting that she was a stranger, to claim a greeting from Anthony’s mother.

Perhaps at first sight there was not so much ready sympathy in Mrs. Strange as in Anthony; she had lived in the world, and knew its ways, and generally made sure that her friendship was deserved before she gave it. Mabel Ashley driving alone with Randal Hawke was a disagreeable sight, and would have made Anthony very angry. If the girl could amuse herself in this way, be happy thus, there was no need to pity her any more. But meeting Mabel’s eyes full and straight, before she spoke, Mrs. Strange was softened in spite of herself. Randal introduced them, and she kindly pressed the small hand that was stretched out to her.

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‘Where are you and Miss Ashley going?’ she said to Randal. ‘Won’t you come in?’

‘You are very kind,’ Eandal answered. ‘But we are going back by St. Denys, and I am afraid of the weather. We must not stay to-day, I think.’

He knew that Mabel was disappointed, but would not look at her.

‘Remember, I expect you to come and see me some day,’ said Mrs. Strange to her. ‘My son has told you so, I think.’

‘O yes, I wish I could,’ said Mabel. ‘Is Mr. Strange quite well? He has not been at Pensand for so long.’

‘He is away,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘I expect him back to-night.’

Randal did not seem inclined to stay any longer. He answered Mrs. Strange’s inquiry for the General, and then they drove on, Mabel turning her head to look back at Carweston and the little lady in the road.

‘How long is it since Anthony Strange paid you a visit, Miss Ashley?’ said Randal.

‘About a week;’

‘He will be flattered. I should like to be so much missed. But I suppose he amuses you with his odd absurd ways.’

‘I don’t know whether he amuses me. I like him very much,’ said Mabel quietly.

‘Well, there often is a good deal to be liked about those enthusiastic sort of fellows,’ said Randal. ‘Only they are disappointing, you see. One can’t depend on them for more than two days together. They don’t know what steadiness means.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Why, Anthony would tell you that you must not expect too much from genius. You must be thankful if it admires and sympathises with you for a month. Then you must be prepared to make way for somebody else, page 124 for of course it can’t endure monotony. Don’t look horrified. It is an old story. Anthony is always wild about somebody. It is better for you to know that, so that you may not take the trouble to miss him when he vanishes.’

‘But I can’t believe all that of Mr. Strange. He has been so kind to me,’ said Mabel.

‘I know he has. And of course he quite meant it all at the time. Now don’t be angry with me. Don’t think me a cold-blooded wretch for telling you this.’

‘But you never liked him, did you?’ suggested Mabel.

‘O dear, yes; and long after I understood him. But one does lose patience with that sort of thing at last,’ said Randal.

Different turnings had brought them to that same road where Dick had found Flora one afternoon, standing by the wall.

To-day all the distant hills were shrouded in dark heavy thunder-clouds, the high ground on the opposite river-bank stood out purple and sharp and very near, the water lay gleaming with a red lurid light from the sky. Then a vivid flash divided the clouds, and for an instant all the river and its banks were in a blaze. The roll of thunder followed almost immediately, rattling among the hills. Then a flood of heavy rain rushed down, suddenly veiling river and hills and everything in the lower ground. On the road they only felt a few drops of it, but the storm was passing up the valley, and in another minute would be upon them. Randal touched his horse with the whip, and they flew along down the road.

‘I am not hurrying into the storm,’ he explained to Mabel; ‘but there is a place just below here where we can take shelter. That rain would wet you through in no time.’

He pulled up at a cottage on the right-hand side of the road, jumped down, helped Mabel down, and told Jenkins to put the dog-cart into a shed close by.

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‘We want shelter from the storm, Mrs. Sale,’ he said to a woman, who came forward to the door.

‘You’re welcome, sir, and you’re only just in time,’ said the woman, bringing forward a chair for Mabel.

Mabel thought she had seldom seen a more painful face, gray and stony and expressionless, with cold eyes that looked as if there was nothing worth living for. But she was half frightened by the dazzle of lightning that just then filled the room. And then the noise of thunder, and the pelting rain, which now began dancing on the doorstep and pouring in a stream down the road, took her thoughts quite away from Mrs. Sale’s face. She was sitting in an old-fashioned wooden armchair. She leaned forward, and shaded her eyes with her hand.

‘Can’t we go into the parlour?’ she heard Randal’s voice saying through the din.

‘As you please, sir; but there’s some one there already,’ answered Mrs. Sale, with a peculiar tone in her voice.

Randal paused a moment. Then he walked across the room and pushed open a door. A few words were exchanged with the person inside, so low that Mabel could not hear them. At last Randal said, ‘Come and talk to her;’ and then she felt that somebody came and stood by her chair, and heard a low sweet voice, with a great deal of feeling in it, saying gently, ‘Does the storm frighten you?’

Mabel raised her eyes, and saw the original of that photograph in Randal’s book standing fair and smiling by her side—the woman whom Dick Northcote ought to have married, who had had so many troubles, and looked all the sweeter for them.

Flora Lancaster was not a woman who generally took to girls, or inspired them with confidence in her, but for some reason her manner to Mabel that day was curiously soft and charming, Mabel thought her new acquaintance page 126 lovely, and that thunder-storm the luckiest thing that could have happened.

‘Do come into the parlour,’ Flora said. ‘There are comfortable chairs in it, and you look so tired. Have you been for a very long drive?’

‘O no,’ said Mabel, smiling. ‘I am not tired at all; only I don’t like this weather.’

‘Rain always depresses you, doesn’t it?’ said Randal, meeting her eyes with a smile which brought colour into her pale cheeks.

Flora took her hand, and they went together into the inner room, a little snuggery which did Mrs. Sale credit. As to that worthy woman, she did not concern herself about them, but went back to her work in the kitchen.

Mabel enjoyed the next half hour much more than people of good taste and breeding, such as Mrs. Strange and Miss Northcote, would have thought allowable or possible. But there were a great many excuses for her. Anthony, perhaps, with a man’s larger view, would have confessed that. Her companions had plenty of cleverness, as well as good looks, and seemed bent on amusing her, and making the time pass quickly. They were on very intimate terms with each other; but as they avoided Christian names, it did not occur to Mabel to wonder at that

Once, when Randal was gone out to look at the weather, Flora said to her, ‘I have not been introduced to you, Miss Ashley. May I ask if you know who I am?’

‘O yes,’ said Mabel; ‘you are Mrs. Lancaster. They have your photograph at the Castle. I knew you directly.’

‘Really! Is it in a book?’

‘Yes; in Mr. Hawke’s book.’

‘Pensand is a beautiful old place, isn’t it?’ said Flora.

‘O, lovely, especially in fine weather. One is rather dull sometimes when it rains. Nobody ever comes there page 127 except Mr. Strange, and Mr. Hawke, of course, now and then.’

As Mabel mentioned Anthony’s name, she remembered with a little pain what Randal had said about him; she could not think it was true. But it was no use tormenting herself about that now.

‘I don’t know whether I may ask you,’ said Mabel, with her dark wistful eyes fixed on Flora; ‘but if you would come and see me sometimes, I should be so very glad.’

‘Thank you,’ said Flora, rather gravely. Then, as Randal came in, she turned to him, and spoke with a shade of abruptness that Mabel did not understand. ‘Miss Ashley says she would like me to come and see her. What do you think?’

Randal for once in his life looked a little confused.

‘I think that I should like it just as much as Miss Ashley would,’ he said. ‘But we are not the only people to be consulted. My father, you know, has the oddest fancies about visitors.’

But Mabel had her fancies too, and this was a new and strong one. Her lonely little soul, disappointed several times of expected sympathy, seemed to find it at last in Flora Lancaster’s soft manners and blue eyes.

‘O, but if you ask the General he won’t refuse you,’ she said eagerly. ‘And you said?’—’

‘What did I say?’ said Randal, as she stopped.

‘You said you wanted me to be happy,’ said Mabel, colouring a little.

Flora looked from one to the other and smiled.

‘So I do,’ said Randal. ‘And from my long acquaintance with Mrs. Lancaster, I can tell you that you are quite right. We will see what we can do with the General. Now, I’m very sorry; but do you know that the sun is coming out?’