_ PART II CHAPTER XV. ON THE EDGE OF THE PIT
It was a very cheery Dot Waring who ran across the wet fields that afternoon to the Manor to acquaint Lady Carfax with the gratifying intelligence that the proceeds of the great entertainment at which she had so kindly assisted actually amounted to close upon thirty pounds. Baronford had done its humble best towards providing itself with a Town Hall, had in fact transcended all expectations, and Dot was in high spirits in consequence.
It was something of a disappointment to be met by old Dimsdale with the intelligence that her ladyship was very tired and resting. He added, seeing Dot's face fall, that Mrs. Errol was spending a few days at the Manor and would no doubt be very pleased to see her.
So Dot entered, and was presently embraced by Mrs. Errol and invited to take tea with her in the conservatory.
"Yes, dear Anne's in bed," she said. "She and Nap went for a motor ride yesterday, and broke down and were benighted. Nap always was sort of reckless. We had a message late last night telling us what had happened, and I went off at once in the big car and brought Anne back. Nap had to wait for his own car, but I guess he's back by this time. And poor Anne was so worn out when we got back that I persuaded her to go to bed right away. And I stopped to take care of her."
In view of the fact that Mrs. Errol was never happier than when she had someone to take care of, this seemed but natural, and Dot's straightforward mind found nothing unusual in the story.
She remained for nearly an hour, chattering gaily upon a thousand topics. She was always at her ease with Mrs. Errol.
At parting, the latter held her for a moment very closely. "Happy, dearie?" she asked.
"Oh, ever so happy," said Dot, with warm arms round her friend's neck.
Mrs. Errol sighed a little, smiled and kissed her. "God keep you so, child!" she said.
And Dot went forth again into the hazy summer sunshine with a vague wonder if dear Mrs. Errol were quite happy too. Somehow she had not liked to ask.
Her way lay over the shoulder of a hill, that same hill on which Sir Giles Carfax had once wreaked his mad vengeance upon his enemy.
A mist lay along the valley, and Dot kept on the ridge as long as she could. She was essentially a creature of sunshine.
She was obliged, however, at last to strike downwards, and with regret she left the sunshine behind.
The moment it was out of her eyes she caught sight of something she had not expected to see in the valley below her. It was not a hundred yards away, but the mist rising from the marshy ground partially obscured it. A dark object, curiously shapeless, that yet had the look of an animal, was lying in a hollow, and over it bent the figure of a man.
Dot's heart quickened a little. Had there been an accident, she asked herself? She hastened her steps and drew near.
As she did so, the man straightened himself suddenly, and turned round, and instantly a thrill of recognition and of horror went through the girl. It was Nap Errol, and the thing on the ground was his black mare.
She knew in a flash what had happened. Bertie had predicted disaster too often for her not to know. A great wave of repulsion surged through her. She was for the moment too horrified for speech.
Nap stood, erect, motionless, waiting for her. There was a terrible set smile on his face like the smile on a death-mask. He did not utter a word as she came up.
The mare was quite dead. The starting, bloodshot eyes were already glazing. She lay in a huddled heap, mud-stained, froth-splashed, with blood upon her flanks. White-faced and speechless, Dot stood and looked. It was the first time that tragedy had ever touched her gay young life.
She stooped at last, and with trembling, pitiful fingers touched the velvet muzzle. Then suddenly indignation, fierce, overwhelming, headlong, swept over her, crowding out even her horror. She stood up and faced Nap in such a tornado of fury as had never before shaken her.
"You brute!" she said. "You fiend! You--you--"
"Devil," said Nap. "Why not say it? I shan't contradict you."
He spoke quite quietly, so quietly that, even in the wild tempest of her anger she was awed. There was something unfathomable about him, something that nevertheless arrested her at the very height of her fury. His manner was so still, so deadly still, and so utterly free from cynicism.
She stood and stared at him, a queer sensation of dread making her very heart feel cold.
"I should go if I were you," he said.
But Dot stood still, as if struck powerless.
"You can't do any good," he went on, his tone quite gentle, even remotely kind. "I had to kill something, but it was a pity you chanced to see it. You had better go home and forget it."
Dot's white lips began to move, but it was several seconds before any sound came from them. "What are you going to do?"
"That's my affair," said Nap.
He was still faintly smiling, but his smile appalled her. It was so cold, so impersonal, so void of all vitality.
"Really, you had better go," he said.
But Dot's dread had begun to take tangible form. Perhaps the very shock she had undergone had served to awaken in her some of the dormant instincts of her womanhood.
She stood her ground, obedient to an inner prompting that she dared not ignore. "Will you--walk a little way with me?" she said at last.
For the first time Nap's eyes looked at her intently, searched her closely, unsparingly. She faced the scrutiny bravely, but she trembled under it.
At the end of a lengthy pause he spoke. "Are you going to faint?"
"No," she answered quickly. "I never faint. Only--only--I do feel--rather sick."
He put his hand under her arm with a suddenness that allowed of no protest and began to march her up the hill.
Long before they reached the top Dot's face was scarlet with exertion and she was gasping painfully for breath; but he would not let her rest till they were over the summit and out of sight of the valley and what lay there.
Then, to her relief, he stopped. "Better now?"
"Yes," she panted.
His hand fell away from her. He turned to go. But swiftly she turned also and caught his arm "Nap, please--" she begged, "please--"
He stood still, and again his eyes scanned her. "Yes?"
The brief word sounded stern, but Dot was too anxious to take any note of that.
"Come a little farther," she urged. "It--it's lonely through the wood."
"What are you afraid of?" said Nap.
She could not tell him the truth, and she hesitated to lie. But his eyes read her through and through without effort. When he turned and walked beside her she was quite sure that he had fathomed the unspeakable dread which had been steadily growing within her since the moment of their meeting.
He did not say another word, merely paced along with his silent tread till they reached the small wood through which her path lay. Dot's anger had wholly left her, but her fear remained. A terrible sense of responsibility was upon her, and she was utterly at a loss as to how to cope with it. Her influence over this man she believed to be absolutely nil. She had not the faintest notion how to deal with him. Lady Carfax would have known, she reflected, and she wished with all her heart that Lady Carfax had been there.
He vaulted the stile into the wood, and held up his hand to her. As she placed hers within it she summoned her resolution and spoke.
"Nap, I'm sorry I said what I did just now."
He raised his brows for the fraction of a second. "I forget what you said."
She flushed a little. "Because you don't choose to remember. But I am sorry I spoke all the same. I lost my temper, and I--I suppose I had no right to."
"Pray don't apologise," he said. "It made no difference, I assure you."
But this was not what Dot wanted. She descended to the ground and tried again. It was something at least to have broken the silence.
"Nap," she said, standing still with her hands nervously clasped behind her, "please don't think me--impertinent, or anything of that sort. But I can't help knowing that you are feeling pretty bad about it. And--and" she began to falter--"I know you are not a brute really. You didn't mean to do it."
A curious little smile came into Nap's face. "It's good of you to make excuses for me," he observed. "You happen to know me rather well, don't you?"
"I know you are in trouble," she answered rather piteously. "And--I'm sorry."
"Thanks!" he said. "Do we part here?"
She thrust out her hand impulsively. "I thought we decided to be--friends," she said, a sharp quiver in her voice.
"Well?" said Nap. He did not touch her hand. His fingers were wound in the thong of his riding-crop and strained at it incessantly as if seeking to snap it asunder.
Dot was on the verge of tears. She choked them back desperately. "You might behave as if we were," she said.
He continued to tug grimly at the whip-lash. "I'm not friends with anyone at the present moment," he said. "But it isn't worth crying over anyway. Why don't you run home and play draughts with Bertie?"
"Because I'm not what you take me for!" Dot suddenly laid trembling hands on the creaking leather and faced him with all her courage. "I can't help what you think of me," she said rather breathlessly. "But I'm not going to leave you here by yourself. You may be as furious as you like. I simply won't!"
He pulled the whip sharply from her grasp. She thought for the moment that he actually was furious and braced herself to meet the tempest of his wrath. And then to her amazement he spoke in a tone that held neither sarcasm nor resentment, only a detached sort of curiosity.
"Are you quite sure I'm worth all this trouble?"
"Quite sure," she answered emphatically.
"And I wonder how you arrived at that conclusion," he said with a twist of the mouth that was scarcely humorous.
She did not answer, for she felt utterly unequal to the discussion.
They began to walk on down the mossy pathway. Suddenly an idea came to Dot. "I only wish Lady Carfax were here," she exclaimed impetuously. "She would know how to convince you of that."
"Would she?" said Nap. He shot a swift look at the girl beside him, then: "You see, Lady Carfax has thrown me over," he told her very deliberately.
Dot gave a great start. "Oh, surely not! She would never throw over anyone. And you have always been such friends."
"Till I offended her," said Nap.
"Oh, but couldn't you go and apologise?" urged Dot eagerly. "She is so sweet. I know she would forgive anybody."
He jerked up his head. "I don't happen to want her forgiveness. And even if I did, I shouldn't ask for it. I'm not particularly great at humbling myself."
"Isn't that rather a mistake?" said Dot.
"No," he rejoined briefly. "Not when I'm despised already for a savage and the descendant of savages."
"I am afraid I don't understand," she said.
He uttered a sudden harsh laugh. "I see you don't. Or you would be despising me too."
"I shall never do that," she said quickly.
He looked at her again, still with a mocking smile upon his lips. He bore himself with a certain royal pride that made her feel decidedly small.
"You will never say that again," he remarked.
"Why not?" she demanded.
"Because," he answered, with a drawling sneer, "you are like the rest of creation. You put breed before everything. Unless a man has what you are pleased to term pure blood in his veins he is beyond the pale."
"Whatever are you talking about?" said Dot, frankly mystified.
He stopped dead and faced her. "I am talking of myself, if you want to know," he told her very bitterly. "I am beyond the pale, an illegitimate son, with a strain of Red Indian in my veins to complete my damnation."
"Good gracious!" said Dot.
She stared at him for a few seconds mutely, as if the sudden announcement had taken her breath away.
At last: "Then--then--Mrs. Errol--" she stammered.
"Is not my mother," he informed her grimly. "Did you ever seriously think she was?" He flung back his shoulders arrogantly. "You're almighty blind, you English."
Dot continued to contemplate him with her frank eyes, as if viewing for the first time a specimen of some rarity.
"Well, I don't see that it makes any difference," she said at length. "You are you just the same. I--I really don't see quite why you told me."
"No?" said Nap, staring back at her with eyes that told her nothing. "P'r'aps I just wanted to show you that you are wasting your solicitude on an object of no value."
"How--funny of you!" said Dot.
She paused a moment, still looking at him; then with a quick, childish movement she slipped her hand through his arm. Quite suddenly she knew how to deal with him.
"You seem to forget," she said with a little smile, "that I'm going to be your sister one day."
He stiffened at her action, and for a single moment she wondered if she could have made a mistake. And then as suddenly he relaxed. He took the hand that rested on his arm and squeezed it hard.
And Dot knew that in some fashion, by a means which she scarcely understood, she had gained a victory.
They went on together along the mossy, winding path. A fleeting shower was falling, and the patter of it sounded on the leaves.
Nap walked with his face turned up to the raindrops, sure-footed, with the gait of a panther. He did not speak a word to the girl beside him, but his silence, did not disconcert her. There was even something in it that reassured her.
They were approaching the farther end of the wood when he abruptly spoke.
"So you think it makes no difference?"
Was there a touch of pathos in the question? She could not have said. But she answered it swiftly, with all the confidence--and ignorance--of youth.
"Of course I do! How could it make a difference? Do you suppose--if it had been Bertie--I should have cared?"
"Bertie!" he said. "Bertie is a law-abiding citizen. And you--pardon me for saying so--are young."
"Oh, yes, I know," she admitted. "But I've got some sense all the same. And--and--Nap, may I say something rather straight?"
The flicker of a smile shone and died in his eyes. "Don't mind me!" he said. "The role of an evangelist becomes you better than some."
"Don't!" said Dot, turning very red.
"I didn't," said Nap. "I'm only being brotherly. Hit as straight as you like."
"I was going to say," she said, taking him at his word, "that if a man is a good sort and does his duty, I don't believe one person in a million cares a rap about what his parents were. I don't indeed."
She spoke with great earnestness; it was quite obvious that she meant every word. It was Dot's straightforward way to speak from her heart.
"And I'm sure Lady Carfax doesn't either," she added.
But at that Nap set his teeth. "My child, you don't chance to know Lady Carfax as I do. Moreover, suppose the man doesn't chance to be a good sort and loathes the very word 'duty'? It brings down the house of cards rather fast, eh?"
An older woman might have been discouraged; experience would probably have sadly acquiesced. But Dot possessed neither age nor experience, and so she only lost her patience.
"Oh, but you are absurd!" she exclaimed, shaking his arm with characteristic vigour. "How can you be so disgustingly flabby? You're worse than old Squinny, who sends for Dad or me every other day to see him die. He's fearfully keen on going to heaven, but that's all he ever does to get there."
Nap broke into a brief laugh. They had reached the stile and he faced round with extended hand. "After that--good-bye!" he said. "With your permission we'll keep this encounter to ourselves. But you certainly are a rousing evangelist. When you mount the padre's pulpit I'll come and sit under it."
Dot's fingers held fast for a moment. "It'll be all right, will it?" she asked bluntly. "I mean--you'll be sensible?"
He smiled at her in a way she did not wholly understand, yet which went straight to her quick heart.
"So long, little sister!" he said. "Yes, it will be quite all right. I'll continue to cumber the ground a little longer, if you call that being sensible. And if you think my chances of heaven are likely to be improved by your kind intervention, p'r'aps you'll put up a prayer now and then on my behalf to the Power that casts out devils--for we are many."
"I will, Nap, I will!" she said very earnestly.
When he was gone she mounted the stile and paused with her face to the sky. "Take care of him, please, God!" she said. _