Elster's Folly

"I always did trust you," she murmured.

He took a long, fervent kiss from her lips, and then led her to the open lawn and across to the house.

"Ought you to come in, Percival?"

"Certainly. One word, Anne; because I may be speaking to the Rector--I don't mean to-night. You will make no objection to coming soon to Hartledon?"

"I can't come, you know, as long as Lady Kirton is its mistress," she said, half seriously, half jestingly.

He laughed at the notion. Lady Kirton must be going soon of her own accord; if not, he should have to pluck up courage and give her a hint, was his answer. At any rate, she'd surely take herself off before Christmas. The old dowager at Hartledon after he had Anne there! Not if he knew it, he added, as he went on with her into the presence of Dr. and Mrs. Ashton. The Rector started from his seat, at once telling him that he ought not to have come in. Which Val did not see at all, and decidedly refused to go out again.

Meanwhile the countess-dowager and Maude were wondering what had become of him. They supposed he was still sitting in the dining-room. The old dowager fidgeted about, her fingers ominously near the bell. She was burning to send to him, but hardly knew how he might take the message: it might be that he would object to leading strings, and her attempt to put them on would ruin all. But the time went on; grew late; and she was dying for her tea, which she had chosen should wait also. Maude sat before the fire in a large chair; her eyes, her hands, her whole air supremely listless.

"Don't you want tea, Maude?" suddenly cried her mother, who had cast innumerable glances at her from time to time.

"I have wanted it for hours--as it seems to me."

"It's a horrid custom for young men, this sitting long after dinner. If he gets into it--But you must see to that, and stop it, if ever you reign at Hartledon. I dare say he's smoking."

"If ever I reign at Hartledon--which I am not likely to do--I'll take care not to wait tea for any one, as you have made me wait for it this evening," was Maude's rejoinder, spoken with apathy.

"I'll send a message to him," decided Lady Kirton, ringing rather fiercely.

A servant appeared.

"Tell Lord Hartledon we are waiting tea for him."

"His lords.h.i.+p's not in, my lady."

"Not in!"

"He went out directly after dinner, as soon as he had taken coffee."

"Oh," said the countess-dowager. And she began to make the tea with vehemence--for it did not please her to have it brought in made--and knocked down and broke one of the delicate china cups.

CHAPTER XIV.

ANOTHER PATIENT.

It was eleven o'clock when Lord Hartledon entered. Lady Kirton was fanning herself vehemently. Maude had gone upstairs for the night.

"Where have you been?" she asked, laying down her fan. "We waited tea for you until poor Maude got quite exhausted."

"Did you? I am sorry for that. Never wait for me, pray, Lady Kirton. I took tea at the Rectory."

"Took--tea--where?"

"At the Rectory."

With a shriek the countess-dowager darted to the far end of the room, turning up her gown as she went, and m.u.f.fling it over her head and face, so that only the little eyes, round now with horror, were seen. Lord Hartledon gazed in amazement.

"You have been at the Rectory, when I warned you not to go! You have been inside that house of infection, and come

"Why, what have I done? What harm will it do?" exclaimed the astonished man. He would have approached her, but she warned him from her piteously with her hands. She was at the upper end of the room, and he near the door, so that she could not leave it without pa.s.sing him. Hedges came in, and stood staring in the same wondering astonishment as his master.

"For mercy's sake, take off every shred of your clothes!" she cried. "You may have brought home death in them. They shall be thrown into the burning tar. Do you want to kill us? What has Maude done to you that you behave in this way?"

"I do think you must be going mad!" cried Lord Hartledon, in bewilderment; "and I hope you'll forgive me for saying so. I--"

"Go and change your clothes!" was all she could reiterate. "Every minute you stand in them is fraught with danger. If you choose to die yourself, it's downright wicked to bring death to us. Oh, go, that I may get out of here."

Lord Hartledon, to pacify her, left the room, and the countess-dowager rushed forth and bolted herself into her own apartments.

Was she mad, or making a display of affectation, or genuinely afraid?

wondered Lord Hartledon aloud, as he went up to his chamber. Hedges gave it as his opinion that she was really afraid, because she had been as bad as this when she first heard of the illness, before his lords.h.i.+p arrived.

Val retired to rest laughing: it was a good joke to him.

But it was no joke to the countess-dowager, as he found to his cost when the morning came. She got him out of his chamber betimes, and commenced a "fumigating" process. The clothes he had worn she insisted should be burnt; pleading so piteously that he yielded in his good nature.

But there was to be a battle on another score. She forbade him, in the most positive terms, to go again to the Rectory--to approach within half-a-mile of it. Lord Hartledon civilly told her he could not comply; he hinted that if her alarms were so great, she had better leave the place until all danger was over, and thereby nearly entailed on himself another war-dance.

News that came up that morning from the Rectory did not tend to a.s.suage her fears. The poor dairymaid had died in the night, and another servant, one of the men, was sickening. Even Lord Hartledon looked grave: and the countess-dowager wormed a half promise from him, in the softened feelings of the moment, that he would not visit the infected house.

Before an hour was over he came to her to retract it. "I cannot be so unfeeling, so unneighbourly, as not to call," he said. "Even were my relations not what they are with Miss Ashton, I could not do it. It's of no use talking, ma'am; I am too restless to stay away."

A little skirmish of words ensued. Lady Kirton accused him of wis.h.i.+ng to sacrifice them to his own selfish gratification. Lord Hartledon felt uncomfortable at the accusation. One of the best-hearted men living, he did nothing in his vacillation. He would go in the evening, he said to himself, when they could not watch him from the house.

But she was clever at carrying out her own will, that countess-dowager; more than a match for the single-minded young man. She wrote an urgent letter to Dr. Ashton, setting forth her own and her daughter's danger if her nephew, as she styled him, was received at the Rectory; and she despatched it privately.

It brought forth a letter from Dr. Ashton to Lord Hartledon; a kind but peremptory mandate, forbidding him to show himself at the Rectory until the illness was over. Dr. Ashton reminded his future son-in-law that it was not particularly on his own account he interposed this veto, but for the sake of the neighbourhood generally. If they were to prevent the fever from spreading, it was absolutely necessary that no chance visitors should be running into the Rectory and out of it again, to carry possible infection to the parish.

Lord Hartledon could only acquiesce. The note was written in terms so positive as rather to surprise him; but he never suspected the undercurrent that had been at work. In his straightforwardness he showed the letter to the dowager, who nodded her head approvingly, but told no tales.

And so his days went on in the society of the two women at Hartledon; and if he found himself oppressed with _ennui_ at first, he subsided into a flirtation with Maude, and forgot care. Elster's folly! He was not hearing from Anne, for it was thought better that even notes should not pa.s.s out of the Rectory.

Curiously to relate, the first person beyond the Rectory to take the illness was the man Pike. How he could have caught it was a marvel to Calne. And yet, if Lady Kirton's theory were correct, that infection was conveyed by clothes, it might be accounted for, and Clerk Gum be deemed the culprit. One evening after the clerk had been for some little time at the Rectory with Dr. Ashton, he met Pike in going out; had brushed close to him in pa.s.sing, as he well remembered. However it might have been, in a few days after that Pike was found to be suffering from the fever.

Whether he would have died, lying alone in that shed, Calne did not decide; and some thought he would, making no sign; some thought not, but would have called in a.s.sistance. Mr. Hillary, an observant man, as perhaps it was requisite he should be in time of public danger, halted one morning to speak to Clerk Gum, who was standing at his own gate.

"Have you seen anything lately of that neighbour of yours, Gum?"

"Which neighbour?" asked the clerk, in tones that seemed to resent the question.

Mr. Hillary pointed his umbrella in the direction of the shed. "Pike."