XXI
AN ALTERED MAN
Colonel Bristo was rambling about the place, according to habit, for agood hour the next morning before the early breakfast, but he sawnothing of Dick until the bell rang for that meal.
"I thought you meant turning out early?" said the old fellow to theyoung one, with a smile. "I've been looking for you in vain; but I'mglad you followed my advice and took it easy. Did you sleep well,though? That's the main thing; and 'pon my soul, you look as though youhad been awake all night!"
"Oh, I was all right, thanks, sir; I slept pretty well," said Dick, withawkward haste.
The Colonel felt pretty sure that Dick had been all wrong, and slept notat all. There was a haggard look about him that put the fact beyond thecontradiction of words.
"You didn't see Miles, I suppose?" said the Colonel after a moment'sthought. "His room is close to yours, you know."
"I did see him. We--we exchanged a few words."
Dick's tone and manner were strange.
"Confound them both!" thought the Colonel. "They have clashed already.Yes, that is it. I wonder how it came about? I didn't think they weresuch implacable foes. Mrs. Parish hinted to me long ago that they were,and that it would be best not to have them here together. Is it all onAlice's account, I wonder? Anyway, it is by no scheme of mine that theyare here together. Why, I wrote Miles a list of our little party withouta word about Dick. I never thought Dick was coming. Yet I am glad now heis come."
"It was really kind of you," said Colonel Bristo aloud, "to give in andcome after all."
"No," said Dick, with sudden fire. "I'm thankful I came! I am gratefulto you for refusing to take my first refusal. Now that I am here, Iwould not be elsewhere at this moment for the whole world!"
The Colonel was pleased, if a little puzzled, by this vehement outburst.
"Are you really going out again--back to the bush?" he said presently.
"Yes," said Dick, the fire within him quickly quenched. "I have quitesettled that point--though I have told no one but you, Colonel Bristo."
"Well, well--I think you are making a sad mistake; but of course everyman decides for himself."
That was all Colonel Bristo said just then, for he knew that the youngpeople had barely seen one another as yet. But up on the moor, an houror two later, when the guns divided, he felt inclined to say somethingsharp, for the manner in which Dick avoided shooting with Miles wasrather too pointed, and a good deal too ridiculous and childish for theColonel's fancy.
That evening the conversation at the Colonel's dinner, and that aroundthe beer-stained board--dedicated of an evening to the engrossingdomino--in the inn at Gateby, were principally upon the selfsametopic--to wit, the excellence of Miles's shooting.
"I can't conceive," said the Colonel, "seeing that you have never shotgrouse in your life before, how you do it."
"If I couldn't shoot straight," said the hero of the evening (for thebag that day was the biggest yet, thanks to Miles), "I ought to be shotmyself. I was reared on gunpowder. In the bush--instead of the silverspoon in your mouth--you are born with a fire-arm in your hand!"
Dick smiled grimly to himself. And yet this was the longest speech theAustralian had made all the evening. Miles was strangely subdued,compared with what he had been at Graysbrooke. The Colonel and hisdaughter had each noticed this already; and as for Mrs. Parish, she wasresolved to "speak up" on the subject to Alice, whom she blamed for itentirely.
"Yon yoong man--him 't coomed las' night--t' long wan, I mean," declaredAndy Garbutt in the pot-house, banging down his fourth glass (empty)upon the table, which upset several dominoes and led to "language"--"yonyoong man's t'bes' shot I iver seed. The way he picked off t'ould cocks,an' let be t'yoongsters an' all, was sumthink clever. I niver seed owtlike it. They do say 'tis his first taast o' t'mowers--but we isn't thelads to swaller yon! Bob Rutter, y' ould divle--fill oop t' glasses."
And though perhaps, hyperbole ran riot upon the heels of intoxication,still in Robert Rutter's genial hostelry "t' long chap's" reputation wasthere and then established.
But the marked change in Miles's manner was, to those who had known himbest before, inexplicable. Never had a shooting-party a more modest,mild, and unassuming member, even among the worst of shots; and Mileswas, if anything, better than Captain Awdry. His quiet boastfulness wasmissing. He might have passed the weeks since the beginning of July insome school of manners, where the Colonial angles had been effectuallyrounded off, and the old free-and-easy habits toned down. Not that hewas shy or awkward--Miles was not the man to become either the one orthe other; but his manner had now--towards the Colonel, for instance,and Alice--a certain deference-with-dignity, the lack of which had beenits worst fault before. Dick, who scarcely spoke three words to him inas many days, suddenly awoke to a sense of relief and security.
"Poor fellow!" he thought, "he is keeping his word this time, I mustown. Well, I am glad I didn't make a scene; and the week is half over.When it is quite over, I shall be still more glad that I let him off.For, after all, I owe him my life. I am sorry I threatened him duringour interview, and perhaps I need not have avoided him so studiouslysince. Yet I am watching him, and he knows it. I watch him sometimeswhen he cannot possibly know it, and for the life of me I can seenothing crooked. My belief is that he's only too thankful to get off onthe terms, and that he wouldn't break them for as much as his life isworth; besides which, his remorse the other night was genuine."
Mrs. Parish, for her part, was quite sure that it was love unrequitedwith Mr. Miles, and nothing else. She fumed secretly for two days, andthen "spoke up" according to her intention. What she said was not wellreceived, and a little assault-at-words was the result.
Dr. Robson told Mr. Pinckney that he found Miles a less interesting manto talk to than he had been led to expect from his conversation thefirst evening. Mr. Pinckney replied that if all the Australians were asunsociable, he was glad he didn't live out there. Though Miles, he said,might be a fine sportsman and a devilish handsome dog, there wasevidently "nothing in him;" by which it was meant that he was notintellectual and literary--like L. P.
Colonel Bristo was fairly puzzled, but, on the whole, he liked the newMiles rather less than the old.
As for Alice, though she did her best to exclude her personal feelingsfrom the pages of her diary, she could not help just touching on thismatter.
"I never," she wrote, "saw anybody so much changed as Mr. Miles, and inso short a time. Though he is certainly less amusing than we used tothink him, I can't help admitting that the change is an improvement. Hisaudacity, I remember, carried him a little too far once or twice beforehe left us. But he was a hero all the time, in spite of his faults, andnow he is one all the more. Oh, I can never forget what we owe to him!To me he is most polite, and not in the least (as he sometimes used tobe) familiar, I am thankful to say. The more I think of it the less Ican account for his strange behaviour that night of our dance--becauseit was so unlike what he had been up till then, and what he is now."
Of Dick this diary contained no mention save the bald fact of hisarrival. There was, indeed, a sentence later on that began with hisname, but the few words that followed his name were scored out socarefully as to be illegible. The fact was that the estrangement betweenthe pair was well-nigh hopeless. They conversed together, when they didconverse, with mutual effort. Dick found himself longing to speak--toask her forgiveness before he went--but without opportunity orencouragement. Alice, on the other hand, even if ready to meet anoverture half-way, was the last person in the world to invite one. Underthe conditions of the first few days, meeting only at breakfast anddinner, and for an hour or so in the drawing-room afterwards, these twomight have been under one roof for weeks without understanding oneanother a whit the better.
But meanwhile, Alice seemed to benefit very little by her change fromthe relaxing Thames valley to the bracing Yorkshire moors; and as forDick--except when the Colon
el was present, for whose sake he did make aneffort to be hearty--he was poor company, and desperately moody. He wasalso short-tempered, as Philip Robson found out one morning when theywere tramping over the moor together. For Cousin Philip was sufficientlyill-advised to inform his companion that he, Dr. Robson, thought himlooking far from well--at a moment when no good sportsman would haveopened his mouth, unless in businesslike reference to the work in hand.
"I'm all right, thanks," Dick answered shortly, and with some contempt.
"Ah!" said Philip, compassionately, "perhaps you are not a very goodjudge of your own health; nor can you know how you look. Now, as amedical man--"
"Spare me, my dear fellow. Go and look at all the tongues of thevillage, if you must keep your eye in. They'll be charmed. As for me, Itell you I don't want--I mean, I'm all right."
"As a medical man," pursued Philip, "I beg to dif--"
"Hang it!" cried Dick, now fairly irritated. "We didn't come out for aconsultation, did we? When I want your advice, Robson, you'll hear fromme."
With such men as Robson, if they don't feel the first gentle snub (andthe chances are all against it), anything short of an insult is waste ofbreath. Yet, having driven you into being downright offensive, they atonce turn sensitive, and out with their indignation as though they hadsaid nothing to provoke you. Witness the doctor:
"I thought," he cried, beginning to tremble violently, "I came out witha gentleman! I meant what I said for your good--it was pure kindness onmy part, nothing else. I thought--I thought--"
At that point he was cut short; for Edmonstone had lost his temper,turned on his heel with a short, sharp oath, and made Philip Robson hisenemy from that minute.