Chapter 54
"Oh, yes, sir: of course. I've got the key in my pocket. But don't let me interrupt you, sir, till you've quite done."
"Done! What do you mean?" cried Chris in an angry whisper, as he fancied he detected a sarcastic ring in the man's voice.
"Oh, nothing, sir. I thought perhaps you might be going to see somebody, and I'm in no hurry to go back home."
"No, no; nonsense. I am not going to see anybody," said Chris hurriedly. "Go on first; and look here, Brime, once more I must beg of you not to speak to any one of this meeting. It might cause trouble."
"You may trust me, sir," said the man st.u.r.dily.
"Thank you. Of course," said Chris hastily, as the man led the way to a door in the thick wall of the garden, which door he opened, and Chris pa.s.sed out.
"Who'd ever think as such games as that was being carried on?" muttered the gardener; "and Miss Claude all the while so prim, and looking as if b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in her mouth. If it had been Miss Mary I shouldn't have wondered, for she can be a bit larky. But he wouldn't come to see her, poor little crooked wench. Now, I wonder what Mr Glider would say if he knowed," continued the gardener, as he thoughtfully turned the key, and went slowly back towards the house. "There'd be a row, and I'll bet a tanner that he'd come down handsome if I told him; and it would serve t'other right--a mean sn.o.b. Sixpence! Yah!"
He turned the coin over in his hand, and looked at it in the bright moonlight before putting it in his pocket.
"Sixpence!" he said, half aloud. "Why, I'd have given a bob myself if it had been me, and--well! That it is! Half-a-suffrin! He's a trump, and I wouldn't let out about it for any money.
"Why, of course!" he continued, "I might have known. So he came to see Miss Claude on the sly when the governor was asleep, and couldn't see her because there's company. Well, why not? He's a good sort, that's what he is, and if I can help him without getting into trouble with the gaffer, I will, and no mistake. Half-a-suffrin! why, that may be just like a bean as I sticks in the ground. It may come up and have lots more half-suffrins. I'm glad I come up to-night. Better than gardening ever so much, that it is. Now, if I knowed exactly when he was coming next, I might happen to be here again--by accident, of course."
He stopped for a few minutes, thinking, and then walked slowly up towards the back entrance, musing slowly and deeply, as gardeners will muse.
"I don't seem to move her yet much, but I'm not going to give up. Hang me if I didn't for a moment think he might have been after her. But no; he couldn't be. Poor la.s.s! so quiet and serious, and full o' trouble, just the sort o' woman a man could trust to bring all his savings to.
Now, I wonder what it is in a widow as leads a chap on so. I don't know, but she's leading me on, and the day as she's been a widow twelve month, sir, I'll speak to her like a man."
Reuben Brime, the biggest fool in Danmouth,
Meanwhile, Chris Lisle had walked quickly down the narrow paved stone alley leading to the main path, crossed the lower drawbridge, and, with his teeth set, felt ready to curse himself for his folly.
"The contemptible, degrading position," he muttered. "To be under the thumb of a servant who will look at me furtively, and whom I shall have to bribe into silence for fear of his confounded tongue. Oh, my darling, forgive me. It was for your sake I came, but I must have been half-mad."
He was walking quickly down the roadway leading to the public cliff path, so intent upon the events of the night that he was right upon some one coming in the other direction before he realised the fact, and they met just in a part where the moon shone clearly.
"Ah, Mr Lisle," said the doctor's cheery voice, "nice evening, isn't it?"
He pa.s.sed on, and Chris almost staggered and reeled.
"Good heaven!" he groaned to himself. "I can't ask him, and now he will go and tell them all that he met me coming from the house. What will Claude think. What will Gartram say?"
He went on, trying to find some excuse for his presence in that private roadway, but there was none. Any one coming along there must have been up to the Fort, and he had done a bad night's work in yielding to his pa.s.sionate desire to see Claude, and hear from her lips words of encouragement such as would make the situation more bearable--a worse night's work than he realised for some time to come.
Chris Lisle went straight back to his lodgings, for the glorious night and the glittering sea had no attraction for him now. His landlady looked at him pityingly, and longed to ask him whether he was better, but did not dare.
"Poor young man," she said to herself, as she heard him go up to bed early; "a good night's rest is better than balm."
She was quite right; but Chris Lisle had neither rest nor balm, but lay in his bed all night wakeful, seeing a pale, despicable looking man discovered like a thief in the Fort garden after he had waded the moat and climbed the wall.
"I shall have to meet Gartram and face him, and listen to his sneers and insolent bullying reproaches. Oh, how could I be such a fool?"
Chris Lisle lay awake all night working up his defence, the more strongly that he felt that he now stood more upon an equality with Claude's father; but the slip he had made troubled him sorely.
"There's only one way out of the difficulty," he said at last, as the sun shone brightly in through his window. "Go up to him, confess what one has done, and boldly and frankly ask him once more to give me a chance."
There was something so refres.h.i.+ng in that thought, backed as it was by forty thousand pounds, that Chris Lisle turned over and went to sleep.
But it might have been because he was utterly tired out.
Volume Two, Chapter X.
PARRY GLYDDYR IS UNWELL.
Doctor Asher did not go straight up to the Fort and tell every one that he had seen Chris Lisle coming down from the house. In fact, he hardly gave the meeting a second thought, for his mind was full of other matters.
"Well, young ladies," he said cheerily, "all alone? I hope I am not too late for a cup of the boon. No? That's right. Bless the man who first brought tea from China--the deliciously refres.h.i.+ng beverage we drink out of china, eh, Miss Dillon?"
"But you always have it in china, Doctor Asher," said Mary quaintly.
"No, no, no, no, no," said the doctor, smiling, as he tapped his cup with his spoon. "I am not going to be inveigled into a chop-logic or punning encounter with you, my dear, because I should be beaten. Come, now, if you want an argument, step on to my ground and give a poor man a chance. Now, what is your opinion of the effect of a vegetable alkaloid on the digestive function?"
"A very poor one," said Mary quietly. "Can't argue."
"Ah, well, but you can sing. Will you?"
"If you wish me to."
"If I wish you, eh," said the doctor. "You know I do. But where is Mr Glyddyr? Gone."
"He went to smoke in the study," said Claude quietly.
The doctor turned round sharply.
"To burn vegetable alkaloid for his digestive function," said Mary.
At that moment there was a step in the hall, and Glyddyr came in, looking rather sallow.
"Just in time, Mr Glyddyr," said the doctor; "we are going to have a song."
"Indeed?" said Glyddyr. "I am very glad."
"When I marry--that is, if I marry," said the doctor--"What delicious tea. A little too strong. Miss Gartram, would you kindly--a drop of milk--I mean cream. Thanks. What was I saying? Oh! I remember. When I marry--if I marry--I shall ask a lady who is a clever musician to share my lot. By the way, is Mr Gartram coming?"
"Sound asleep still," said Glyddyr quickly. "I spoke to him when I finished my cigar, but he didn't reply."
"Not well, Mr Glyddyr?" said the doctor, between two sips of his tea.
"Well, really, to be frank," said Glyddyr hastily, "I don't think I am quite the thing. That last cigar was of a peculiar brand, I suppose, one I was not accustomed to; and if you will excuse me, Miss Gartram, I will say good-night."
"Let me prescribe. A cup of strong coffee, or a liqueur of brandy.
Miss Gartram, may I ring?"