CHAPTER VIII
A RUN WITH THE TRUANT; A WALK WITH THE MASTER
The sight of Miss Middleton running inflamed young Crossjay with thepassion of the game of hare and hounds. He shouted a view-halloo, andflung up his legs. She was fleet; she ran as though a hundred littlefeet were bearing her onward smooth as water over the lawn and thesweeps of grass of the park, so swiftly did the hidden pair multiplyone another to speed her. So sweet was she in her flowing pace, thatthe boy, as became his age, translated admiration into a dogged frenzyof pursuit, and continued pounding along, when far outstripped,determined to run her down or die. Suddenly her flight wound to an endin a dozen twittering steps, and she sank. Young Crossjay attained her,with just breath enough to say: "You are a runner!"
"I forgot you had been having your tea, my poor boy," said she.
"And you don't pant a bit!" was his encomium.
"Dear me, no; not more than a bird. You might as well try to catch abird."
Young Crossjay gave a knowing nod. "Wait till I get my second wind."
"Now you must confess that girls run faster than boys."
"They may at the start."
"They do everything better."
"They're flash-in-the-pans."
"They learn their lessons."
"You can't make soldiers or sailors of them, though."
"And that is untrue. Have you never read of Mary Ambree? and MistressHannah Snell of Pondicherry? And there was the bride of the celebratedWilliam Taylor. And what do you say to Joan of Arc? What do you say toBoadicea? I suppose you have never heard of the Amazons."
"They weren't English."
"Then it is your own countrywomen you decry, sir!"
Young Crossjay betrayed anxiety about his false position, and beggedfor the stories of Mary Ambree and the others who were English.
"See, you will not read for yourself, you hide and play truant with Mr.Whitford, and the consequence is you are ignorant of your country'shistory."
Miss Middleton rebuked him, enjoying his wriggle between a perceptionof her fun and an acknowledgment of his peccancy. She commanded him totell her which was the glorious Valentine's day of our naval annals;the name of the hero of the day, and the name of his ship. To thesequestions his answers were as ready as the guns of the good shipCaptain, for the Spanish four-decker.
"And that you owe to Mr. Whitford," said Miss Middleton.
"He bought me the books," young Crossjay growled, and plucked at grassblades and bit them, foreseeing dimly but certainly the termination ofall this.
Miss Middleton lay back on the grass and said: "Are you going to befond of me, Crossjay?"
The boy sat blinking. His desire was to prove to her that lie wasimmoderately fond of her already; and he might have flown at her neckhad she been sitting up, but her recumbency and eyelids half closedexcited wonder in him and awe. His young heart beat fast.
"Because, my dear boy," she said, leaning on her elbow, "you are a verynice boy, but an ungrateful boy, and there is no telling whether youwill not punish any one who cares for you. Come along with me; pluck mesome of these cowslips, and the speedwells near them; I think we bothlove wild-flowers." She rose and took his arm. "You shall row me on thelake while I talk to you seriously."
It was she, however, who took the sculls at the boat-house, for she hadbeen a playfellow with boys, and knew that one of them engaged in amanly exercise is not likely to listen to a woman.
"Now, Crossjay," she said. Dense gloom overcame him like a cowl. Shebent across her hands to laugh. "As if I were going to lecture you, yousilly boy!" He began to brighten dubiously. "I used to be as fond ofbirdsnesting as you are. I like brave boys, and I like you for wantingto enter the Royal Navy. Only, how can you if you do not learn? Youmust get the captains to pass you, you know. Somebody spoils you: MissDale or Mr. Whitford."
"Do they?" sung out young Crossjay.
"Sir Willoughby does?"
"I don't know about spoil. I can come round him."
"I am sure he is very kind to you. I dare say you think Mr. Whitfordrather severe. You should remember he has to teach you, so that you maypass for the navy. You must not dislike him because he makes you work.Supposing you had blown yourself up to-day! You would have thought itbetter to have been working with Mr. Whitford."
"Sir Willoughby says, when he's married, you won't let me hide."
"Ah! It is wrong to pet a big boy like you. Does not he what you calltip you, Crossjay?"
"Generally half-crown pieces. I've had a crown-piece. I've hadsovereigns."
"And for that you do as he bids you? And he indulges you because you. . . Well, but though Mr. Whitford does not give you money, he gives youhis time, he tries to get you into the navy."
"He pays for me."
"What do you say?"
"My keep. And, as for liking him, if he were at the bottom of the waterhere, I'd go down after him. I mean to learn. We're both of us here atsix o'clock in the morning, when it's light, and have a swim. He taughtme. Only, I never cared for schoolbooks."
"Are you quite certain that Mr. Whitford pays for you."
"My father told me he did, and I must obey him. He heard my father waspoor, with a family. He went down to see my father. My father came hereonce, and Sir Willoughby wouldn't see him. I know Mr. Whitford does.And Miss Dale told me he did. My mother says she thinks he does it tomake up to us for my father's long walk in the rain and the cold hecaught coming here to Patterne."
"So you see you should not vex him, Crossjay. He is a good friend toyour father and to you. You ought to love him."
"I like him, and I like his face."
"Why his face?"
"It's not like those faces! Miss Dale and I talk about him. She thinksthat Sir Willoughby is the best-looking man ever born."
"Were you not speaking of Mr. Whitford?"
"Yes; old Vernon. That's what Sir Willoughby calls him," young Crossjayexcused himself to her look of surprise. "Do you know what he makes methink of?--his eyes, I mean. He makes me think of Robinson Crusoe's oldgoat in the cavern. I like him because he's always the same, and you'renot positive about some people. Miss Middleton, if you look on atcricket, in comes a safe man for ten runs. He may get more, and henever gets less; and you should hear the old farmers talk of him in thebooth. That's just my feeling."
Miss Middleton understood that some illustration from thecricketing-field was intended to throw light on the boy's feeling forMr. Whitford. Young Crossjay was evidently warming to speak from hisheart. But the sun was low, she had to dress for the dinner-table, andshe landed him with regret, as at a holiday over. Before they parted,he offered to swim across the lake in his clothes, or dive to the bedfor anything she pleased to throw, declaring solemnly that it shouldnot be lost.
She walked back at a slow pace, and sung to herself above herdarker-flowing thoughts, like the reed-warbler on the branch beside thenight-stream; a simple song of a lighthearted sound, independent of theshifting black and grey of the flood underneath.
A step was at her heels.
"I see you have been petting my scapegrace."
"Mr. Whitford! Yes; not petting, I hope. I tried to give him a lecture.He's a dear lad, but, I fancy, trying."
She was in fine sunset colour, unable to arrest the mounting tide. Shehad been rowing, she said; and, as he directed his eyes, according tohis wont, penetratingly, she defended herself by fixing her mind onRobinson Crusoe's old goat in the recess of the cavern.
"I must have him away from here very soon," said Vernon. "Here he'squite spoiled. Speak of him to Willoughby. I can't guess at his ideasof the boy's future, but the chance of passing for the navy won't beartrifling with, and if ever there was a lad made for the navy, it'sCrossjay."
The incident of the explosion in the laboratory was new to Vernon.
"And Willoughby laughed?" he said. "There are sea-port crammers whostuff young fellows for examination, and we shall have to pack off theboy at once to the best one of the lot we can f
ind. I would rather havehad him under me up to the last three months, and have made sure ofsome roots to what is knocked into his head. But he's ruined here. AndI am going. So I shall not trouble him for many weeks longer. Dr.Middleton is well?"
"My father is well, yes. He pounced like a falcon on your notes in thelibrary."
Vernon came out with a chuckle.
"They were left to attract him. I am in for a controversy."
"Papa will not spare you, to judge from his look."
"I know the look."
"Have you walked far to-day?"
"Nine and a half hours. My Flibbertigibbet is too much for me attimes, and I had to walk off my temper."
She cast her eyes on him, thinking of the pleasure of dealing with atemper honestly coltish, and manfully open to a specific.
"All those hours were required?"
"Not quite so long."
"You are training for your Alpine tour."
"It's doubtful whether I shall get to the Alps this year. I leave theHall, and shall probably be in London with a pen to sell."
"Willoughby knows that you leave him?"
"As much as Mont Blanc knows that he is going to be climbed by a partybelow. He sees a speck or two in the valley."
"He has not spoken of it."
"He would attribute it to changes . . ."
Vernon did not conclude the sentence.
She became breathless, without emotion, but checked by the barrierconfronting an impulse to ask, what changes? She stooped to pluck acowslip.
"I saw daffodils lower down the park," she said. "One or two; they'renearly over."
"We are well off for wild flowers here," he answered.
"Do not leave him, Mr. Whitford."
"He will not want me."
"You are devoted to him."
"I can't pretend that."
"Then it is the changes you imagine you foresee . . . If any occur, whyshould they drive you away?"
"Well, I'm two and thirty, and have never been in the fray: a kind ofnondescript, half scholar, and by nature half billman or bowman ormusketeer; if I'm worth anything, London's the field for me. But that'swhat I have to try."
"Papa will not like your serving with your pen in London: he will sayyou are worth too much for that."
"Good men are at it; I should not care to be ranked above them."
"They are wasted, he says."
"Error! If they have their private ambition, they may suppose they arewasted. But the value to the world of a private ambition, I do notclearly understand."
"You have not an evil opinion of the world?" said Miss Middleton, sickat heart as she spoke, with the sensation of having invited herself totake a drop of poison.
He replied: "One might as well have an evil opinion of a river: hereit's muddy, there it's clear; one day troubled, another at rest. Wehave to treat it with common sense."
"Love it?"
"In the sense of serving it."
"Not think it beautiful?"
"Part of it is, part of it the reverse."
"Papa would quote the 'mulier formosa'".
"Except that 'fish' is too good for the black extremity. 'Woman' isexcellent for the upper."
"How do you say that?--not cynically, I believe. Your view commendsitself to my reason."
She was grateful to him for not stating it in ideal contrast with SirWilloughby's view. If he had, so intensely did her youthful blooddesire to be enamoured of the world, that she felt he would have liftedher off her feet. For a moment a gulf beneath had been threatening.When she said, "Love it?" a little enthusiasm would have wafted herinto space fierily as wine; but the sober, "In the sense of servingit", entered her brain, and was matter for reflection upon it and him.
She could think of him in pleasant liberty, uncorrected by her woman'sinstinct of peril. He had neither arts nor graces; nothing of hiscousin's easy social front-face. She had once witnessed the militaryprecision of his dancing, and had to learn to like him before sheceased to pray that she might never be the victim of it as his partner.He walked heroically, his pedestrian vigour being famous, but thatmeans one who walks away from the sex, not excelling in the recreationswhere men and women join hands. He was not much of a horseman either.Sir Willoughby enjoyed seeing him on horseback. And he could scarcelybe said to shine in a drawingroom, unless when seated beside a personready for real talk. Even more than his merits, his demerits pointedhim out as a man to be a friend to a young woman who wanted one. Hisway of life pictured to her troubled spirit an enviable smoothness; andhis having achieved that smooth way she considered a sign of strength;and she wished to lean in idea upon some friendly strength. Hisreputation for indifference to the frivolous charms of girls clothedhim with a noble coldness, and gave him the distinction of a far-seensolitary iceberg in Southern waters. The popular notion of hereditarytitled aristocracy resembles her sentiment for a man that would notflatter and could not be flattered by her sex: he appeared superioralmost to awfulness. She was young, but she had received much flatteryin her ears, and by it she had been snared; and he, disdaining topractise the fowler's arts or to cast a thought on small fowls,appeared to her to have a pride founded on natural loftiness.
They had not spoken for awhile, when Vernon said abruptly, "The boy'sfuture rather depends on you, Miss Middleton. I mean to leave as soonas possible, and I do not like his being here without me, though youwill look after him, I have no doubt. But you may not at first seewhere the spoiling hurts him. He should be packed off at once to thecrammer, before you are Lady Patterne. Use your influence. Willoughbywill support the lad at your request. The cost cannot be great. Thereare strong grounds against my having him in London, even if I couldmanage it. May I count on you?"
"I will mention it: I will do my best," said Miss Middleton, strangelydejected.
They were now on the lawn, where Sir Willoughby was walking with theladies Eleanor and Isabel, his maiden aunts.
"You seem to have coursed the hare and captured the hart." he said tohis bride.
"Started the truant and run down the paedagogue," said Vernon.
"Ay, you won't listen to me about the management of that boy," SirWilloughby retorted.
The ladies embraced Miss Middleton. One offered up an ejaculation ineulogy of her looks, the other of her healthfulness: then both remarkedthat with indulgence young Crossjay could be induced to do anything.Clara wondered whether inclination or Sir Willoughby had disciplinedtheir individuality out of them and made them his shadows, his echoes.She gazed from them to him, and feared him. But as yet she had notexperienced the power in him which could threaten and wrestle tosubject the members of his household to the state of satellites. Thoughshe had in fact been giving battle to it for several months, she hadheld her own too well to perceive definitely the character of thespirit opposing her.
She said to the ladies, "Ah, no! Mr. Whitford has chosen the onlymethod for teaching a boy like Crossjay."
"I propose to make a man of him," said Sir Willoughby.
"What is to become of him if he learns nothing?"
"If he pleases me, he will be provided for. I have never abandoned adependent."
Clara let her eyes rest on his and, without turning or dropping, shutthem.
The effect was discomforting to him. He was very sensitive to theintentions of eyes and tones; which was one secret of his rigid graspof the dwellers in his household. They were taught that they had torender agreement under sharp scrutiny. Studious eyes, devoid of warmth,devoid of the shyness of sex, that suddenly closed on their look,signified a want of comprehension of some kind, it might be hostilityof understanding. Was it possible he did not possess her utterly? Hefrowned up.
Clara saw the lift of his brows, and thought, "My mind is my own,married or not."
It was the point in dispute.