plain clothes man, with his unmistakable imprint of Scotland Yard,and his transparent affectation of local speech and dialect, should havehappened upon the spot at the very moment of that coincidence! Therewas nothing in coincidence. Coincidence spelt accident:--sheeraccident. Still, this one set John Seward Mervyn thinking--thinkingmore than a bit.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
THE SHADOW IN THE PLACE.
A fortnight had gone since Melian's arrival at Heath Hover, and she hadpicked up to such an extent that both she and her uncle found itdifficult to realise that she had been seriously ill at all. He tookher for drives, always carefully wrapped up, and she had revelled in thebeauties of the surrounding country, winter as it was--the wide vistasof field and wood, and the line of downs, sometimes near, sometimes far,stretching east and west as far as the eye could travel. But heabsolutely refused, with a bracing sturdiness, to allow any practicalincursions into the domain of archaeology.
"That will keep," he declared. "Old stones spell damp. You've got tosteer clear of that for some time to come."
Then, as she got stronger, they had walked too, and the breezy, openuplands, contrasting with fragrant wood, did their share of the tonic.But this was not to last. A damp, muggy thaw set in, and the trees andhedges wept, the day through, under the unbroken murk of a whollydepressing sky; and you wanted very thick boots for underfoot purposes.Mervyn began to look anxiously at his charge.
"I'm afraid you'll be getting awfully fed up with this, dear," he saidone morning, when the thin drizzle and the drip-drip from bare, leaflessbough and twig seemed rather more depressing than ordinarily. "What canbe done for you? Frankly I'm too poor to take you away to a moresunshiny climate--or I would, like a shot. For my part I'm used to thissort of thing, and it doesn't `get upon' me any. There was a time whenit would have, but that time's gone. But for you--why it's devilishrough."
Then Melian had reassured him--had abundantly reassured him. She didn'tfind it heavy, she declared--not she. Why, on top of her experience ofbearleading a brace of utterly uninteresting and unengaging children--and being at the beck and call of their detestable underbred mother,this was ideal. And she somehow or other managed to convey that hersense of the improvement was not merely a material one. Did they notget on splendidly together? Had they not any number of ideas incommon--those they had not, only serving to create variety by givingrise to more or less spirited but always jocose arguments? Rough onher? Dull for her? It was nothing of the sort, she declared withunambiguous emphasis. And the fascination of the open country, evenwith the weeping woodlands and soggy, miry underfoot, was coming moreand more over her, she further declared. And her uncle was hugelygratified, more so than he cared to realise. This bright young presencelightening his lonely existence from morn till night--how on earth wouldhe be able to do without it again? Those long rambles, not by himselfnow, beset as they had been with uncheering thoughts of the past and aless cheering vista of the future; the now cosy snug evenings by his ownfireside, with the after-dinner pipe, listening to the girl's brighttalk and entering into her ideas while the lamplight gleamed upon hergolden head and animated eyes--and she herself made up such a picturesitting framed in the big armchair opposite--the little black fluffykitten curled up on her lap. Of a truth life held something yet for himafter all, if only this were going to last. But now he said:
"How about getting that nice girl you were chumming with--and she mustbe a nice girl from the way she wrote about you--down here to stop withyou a bit, dear? Make a kind of relief from me, you know. Alwaysstewed up from morning till night with an old fogey--the same old fogeyat that--can't be altogether lively."
"Violet? She couldn't come, if she wanted to ever so," was the answer."She's entirely dependent on her job--and, as it was, her people cut uprusty if she chucked it for a day or two when I was ill. What beastspeople are--aren't they. Uncle Seward?"
"We shan't quarrel on that question," answered Mervyn, sending out along puff of smoke, and meditatively watching it resolve itself intovery perfect rings in mid air. "A very large proportion are, and thatjust the proportion which could best afford not to be. Doesn't she everget any time off then? Holidays?"
"She'll get about four days off at Easter time. It would be jolly toget her down here then, poor old Violet. She does work, and she's agood sort. It's precious lucky I had her to go to when I did."
"Precious lucky for me too."
"Look here, Uncle Seward," said the girl, gravely. "Don't talk any moreabout old fogeys and it being heavy and slow for me, and all that. Idon't want to be disrespectful, but it's--er--it's bosh."
Mervyn burst into a wholehearted laugh. The answer, and, above all, thelook which accompanied it, the tone in which it was made, relieved himbeyond measure.
"Is it? Very well, little one. We won't talk any more--bosh. How'sthat?"
"`That' is. So we won't. Yes, we'll get her down here at Easter,"--andthen the girl broke off suddenly and looked graver still.
"Listen to me, Uncle Seward, and how I am running on," she said. "Anyone would think I had come here to live, instead of for a rest until Ican find another job. And Easter is a long way off, and--"
"And? What then?" he interrupted. "Of course you have come here tolive. Do you think I'm going to let you go wasting your young lifebearleading a lot of abominable brats while I've got a shack that'llhold the two of us? Well, I'm not, then. How's _that_?"
Melian looked embarrassed, and felt it.
"Uncle Seward," she urged at last. "You said you were--poor--more thanonce. Well, is it likely I'm going to sponge on you for all time? It'sdelightful to be here with you, while I'm picking up again, but--"
"`But',"--and again he interrupted. "My dear child, I see through itall. You are going on the tack of the up-to-date girl, wanting to beindependent. There's a sort of grandiloquent, comforting smack aboutthat good old word `independent,' isn't there? Well, you can be just asindependent as you like here. You can take entire charge. You canorder me about as you want to--I don't say I shall obey, mind--but Ishan't complain. Well, if you go bearleading some woman's cubs theywon't do the first, and they'll do the last _ad lib_. Now then. Whichis the lesser evil?"
Melian laughed outright. That was so exactly his brusque and to thepoint way of putting things. He went on, now very gently.
"I am getting an old man now, child, and I have led a very lonely life.In my old age it promises to be lonelier still. You are alone too. Isit mere chance that brings us together? But if you think you have amission, may it not conceivably be one to look after the old instead ofthe young. So now--there you are."
The voice was even, matter-of-fact sounding. But underlying it was anote of feeling--of real pathos.
"When I emphasised the fact of being poor," the speaker went on, "Imeant that I was in no position to indulge in luxuries, or outsidejollification, like going abroad, for instance, to escape Englishwinters, and so on. But you can see for yourself how this show is run,and that there's plenty of everything and no stint, and what's warm andsnug and comfy for one is for two. That's where the `poverty' beginsand ends."
The girl got up and came over to him.
"Uncle Seward, I will stay with you as long as ever you want me," shesaid gravely, placing her hands upon his shoulders.
"Hurrah! This old shack's going to look up now," he cried. "I'll seeif I can't beat up some one young about the country side, to make thingslivelier for you, dear. And then, when it gets warmer and springlike,we'll have such romps all over the country. Why these rotten oldgargoyles with their noses rubbed off--you'll soon know them all byheart, be able to write a book about them, and all that sort of thing.Can you ride a bicycle, child?"
"Rather, but--"
"Oh well, I'll get one for you. I've got mine stowed away. I never useit in winter, but at other times it's handy forgetting about. Now we'llhave rare romps around together."
She looked at him in something of astonishm
ent. He was talking quiteexcitedly, quite loudly in fact, for him.
"Why, you're scaring the poogie," she cried, with a laugh. "Look. Ithas gone under the table."
The little black kitten had dived under the table, and thence now beganto emit a series of growls. Melian was puzzled.
"What's the matter with it?" she said. "Oh, I suppose it hears anotherpoogie out in front, and resents it. But it's generally so placid, eventhen."
But to Mervyn's mind came an