CHAPTER V
ROB MARCHES TO HIS FATE
On the morning before Christmas a murder was committed in Silchester,and in murders there is 'lineage.' As a consequence, the head reporterattends to them himself. In the _Mirror_ office the diary for the daywas quickly altered. Kirker set off cheerfully for the scene of thecrime, leaving the banquet in the Henry Institute to Tomlinson, whopassed on his dinner at Dome Castle to Rob, whose church decorationswere taken up by John Milton.
Christmas Eve was coming on in snow when Rob and Walsh, of the _Argus_,set out for Dome Castle. Rob disliked doing dinners at any time, partlybecause he had not a dress suit. The dinner was an annual one given byWill's father to his tenants, and reporters were asked because thecolonel made a speech. His neighbours, when they did likewise, sentreports of their own speeches (which they seemed to like) to the papers;and some of them, having called themselves eloquent and justly popular,scored the compliments out, yet in such a way that the editor wouldstill be able to read them, and print them if he thought fit. Rob didnot look forward to Colonel Abinger's reception of him, for they had metsome months before, and called each other names.
It was one day soon after Rob reached Silchester. He had gone a-fishingin the Dome and climbed unconsciously into preserved waters. As hiscreel grew heavier his back straightened; not until he returned home didthe scenery impress him. He had just struck a fine fish, when asoldierly-looking man at the top of the steep bank caught sight of him.
'Hi, you sir!' shouted the onlooker. Whir went the line--there is nomusic like it. Rob was knee-deep in water. 'You fellow!' cried theother, brandishing his cane, 'are you aware that this water ispreserved?' Rob had no time for talk. The colonel sought to attract hisattention by flinging a pebble. 'Don't do that,' cried Rob fiercely.
Away went the fish. Away went Rob after it. Colonel Abinger's face wasred as he clambered down the bank. 'I shall prosecute you,' he shouted.'He's gone to the bottom; fling in a stone!' cried Rob. Just then thefish showed its yellow belly and darted off again. Rob let out moreline. 'No, no,' shouted the colonel, who fished himself, 'you lose himif he gets to the other side; strike, man, strike!' The line tightened,the rod bent--a glorious sight. 'Force him up stream,' cried thecolonel, rolling over boulders to assist. 'Now, you have him. Bring himin. Where is your landing-net?' 'I haven't one,' cried Rob; 'take him inyour hands.' The colonel stooped to grasp the fish and missed it.'Bungler!' screamed Rob. This was too much. 'Give me your name andaddress,' said Colonel Abinger, rising to his feet; 'you are a poacher.'Rob paid no attention. There was a struggle. Rob did not realise that hehad pushed his assailant over a rock until the fish was landed. Then heapologised, offered all his fish in lieu of his name and address,retired coolly so long as the furious soldier was in sight, and as soonas he turned a corner disappeared rapidly. He could not feel that thiswas the best introduction to the man with whom he was now on his way todine.
The reporter whose long strides made Walsh trot as they hurried to DomeCastle, was not quite the Rob of three months before. Now he knew how athird-rate newspaper is conducted, and the capacity for wonder had gonefrom him. He was in danger of thinking that the journalist's art is towrite readably, authoritatively, and always in three paragraphs on asubject he knows nothing about. Rob had written many leaders, andfollowed readers through the streets wondering if they liked them. Oncehe had gone with three others to report a bishop's sermon. A curateappeared instead, and when the reporters saw him they shut theirnotebooks and marched blandly out of the cathedral. A public speaker hadtried to bribe Rob with two half-crowns, and it is still told inSilchester how the wrathful Scotsman tore his benefactor out of thecarriage he had just stepped into, and, lifting him on high, lookedround to consider against which stone wall he should hurl him. He haddiscovered that on the first of the month Mr. Licquorish could not helprespecting his staff, because on that day he paid them. Socially Rob hadacquired little. Protheroe had introduced him to a pleasant family, buthe had sat silent in a corner, and they told the sub-editor not to bringhim back. Most of the literary staff were youths trying to be Bohemians,who liked to feel themselves sinking, and they never scaled the reservewhich walled Rob round. He had taken a sitting, however, in the Scotchchurch, to the bewilderment of the minister, who said, 'But I thoughtyou were a reporter?' as if there must be a mistake somewhere.
Walsh could tell Rob little of Colonel Abinger. He was a brave soldier,and for many years had been a widower. His elder son was a barrister inLondon, whom Silchester had almost forgotten, and Walsh fancied therewas some story about the daughter's being engaged to a baronet. Therewas also a boy, who had the other day brought the captain of his schoolto a Silchester football ground to show the club how to take adrop-kick.
'Does the colonel fish?' asked Rob, who would, however, have preferredto know if the colonel had a good memory for faces.
'He is a famous angler,' said Walsh; 'indeed, I have been told that hisbursts of passion are over in five minutes, except when he catches apoacher.'
Rob winced, for Walsh did not know of the fishing episode.
'His temper,' continued Walsh, 'is such that his male servants are saidnever to know whether he will give them a shilling or a whirl of hiscane--until they get it. The gardener takes a look at him from behind atree before venturing to address him. I suppose his poverty is at thebottom of it, for the estate is mortgaged heavily, and he has had to cutdown trees, and even to sell his horses. The tenants seem to like him,though, and if they dared they would tell him not to think himself boundto give them this annual dinner. There are numberless stories of hisfierce temper, and as many of his extravagant kindness. According to hisservants, he once emptied his pocket to a beggar at a railway station,and then discovered that he had no money for his own ticket. As for thene'er-do-weels, their importuning makes him rage, but they know he willfling them something in the end if they expose their rags sufficiently.'
'So,' said Rob, who did not want to like the colonel, 'he would nottrouble about them if they kept their misery to themselves. That kind ofman is more likely to be a philanthropist in your country than in mine.'
'Keep that for a Burns dinner,' suggested Walsh.
Rob heard now how Tomlinson came to be nicknamed Umbrage.
'He was sub-editing one night,' Walsh explained, 'during the time of anAfrican war, and things were going so smoothly that he and Penny werechatting amicably together about the advantages of having a few Latinphrases in a leader, such as _dolce far niente_, or _cela va sansdire_----'
'I can believe that,' said Rob, 'of Penny certainly.'
'Well, in the middle of the discussion an important war telegramarrived, to the not unnatural disgust of both. As is often the case, themessage was misspelt, and barely decipherable, and one part of itpuzzled Tomlinson a good deal. It read: "Zulus have taken Umbrage;English forces had to retreat." Tomlinson searched the map in vain forUmbrage, which the Zulus had taken; and Penny, being in a hurry, wassure it was a fortress. So they risked it, and next morning the chieflines in the _Mirror_ contents bill were: "LATEST NEWS OF THE WAR;CAPTURE OF UMBRAGE BY THE ZULUS."'
By this time the reporters had passed into the grounds of the castle,and, being late, were hurrying up the grand avenue. It was the hour andthe season when night comes on so sharply, that its shadow may be seentrailing the earth as a breeze runs along a field of corn. Heard from aheight, the roar of the Dome among rocks might have been the rustle ofthe surrounding trees in June; so men and women who grow old togethersometimes lend each other a voice. Walsh, seeing his opportunity inRob's silence, began to speak of himself. He told how his firstpress-work had been a series of letters he had written when at school,and contributed to a local paper under the signatures of 'Paterfamilias'and 'An Indignant Ratepayer.' Rob scarcely heard. The bare romanticscenery impressed him, and the snow in his face was like a whiff ofThrums. He was dreaming, but not of the reception he might get at thecastle, when the clatter of horses awoke him.
'There is a
machine behind us,' he said, though he would have writtentrap.
A brougham lumbered into sight. As its lamps flashed on the pedestrians,the coachman jerked his horses to the side, and Rob had a glimpse of thecarriage's occupant. The brougham stopped.
'I beg your pardon,' said the traveller, opening his window, andaddressing Rob, 'but in the darkness I mistook you for Colonel Abinger.'
'We are on our way to the castle,' said Walsh, stepping forward.
'Ah, then,' said the stranger, 'perhaps you will give me your companyfor the short distance we have still to go?'
There was a fine courtesy in his manner that made the reporters feeltheir own deficiencies, yet Rob thought the stranger repented his offeras soon as it was made. Walsh had his hand on the door, but Rob said--
'We are going to Dome Castle as reporters.'
'Oh!' said the stranger. Then he bowed graciously, and pulled up thewindow. The carriage rumbled on, leaving the reporters looking at eachother. Rob laughed. For the first time in his life the advantage ahandsome man has over a plain one had struck him. He had only once seensuch a face before, and that was in marble in the Silchester Art Museum.This man looked thirty years of age, but there was not a line on hisbroad white brow. The face was magnificently classic, from the strongRoman nose to the firm chin. The eyes, too beautiful almost for his sex,were brown and wistful, of the kind that droop in disappointment oftenerthan they blaze with anger. All the hair on his face was a heavydrooping moustache that almost hid his mouth.
Walsh shook his fist at this insult to the Press.
'It is the baronet I spoke of to you,' he said. 'I forget who he is;indeed, I rather think he travelled _incognito_ when he was here last. Idon't understand what he is doing here.'
'Why, I should say this is just the place where he would be if he is tomarry Miss Abinger.'
'That was an old story,' said Walsh. 'If there ever was an engagement itwas broken off. Besides, if he had been expected we should have known ofit at the _Argus_.'
Walsh was right. Sir Clement Dowton was not expected at Dome Castle,and, like Rob, he was not even certain that he would be welcome. As hedrew near his destination his hands fidgeted with the window strap, yetthere was an unaccountable twinkle in his eye. Had there been anyonlookers they would have been surprised to see that all at once thebaronet's sense of humour seemed to overcome his fears, and instead ofquaking, he laughed heartily. Sir Clement was evidently one of the menwho carry their joke about with them.
This unexpected guest did Rob one good turn. When the colonel saw SirClement he hesitated for a moment as if not certain how to greet him.Then the baronet, who was effusive, murmured that he had something tosay to him, and Colonel Abinger's face cleared. He did Sir Clement theunusual honour of accompanying him upstairs himself, and so Rob got theseat assigned to him at the dinner-table without having to meet his hostin the face. The butler marched him down a long table with a twist init, and placed him under arrest, as it were, in a chair from which hesaw only a few of the company. The dinner had already begun, but thefirst thing he realised as he took his seat was that there was a lady oneach side of him, and a table-napkin in front. He was not sure if he wasexpected to address the ladies, and he was still less certain about thetable-napkin. Of such things he had read, and he had even tried to beprepared for them. Rob looked nervously at the napkin, and then took acovert glance along the table. There was not a napkin in sight exceptone which a farmer had tied round his neck. Rob's fingers wanted toleave the napkin alone, but by an effort he forced them toward it. Allthis time his face was a blank, but the internal struggle was sharp. Hetook hold of the napkin, however, and spread it on his knees. It fell tothe floor immediately afterwards, but he disregarded that. It was nolonger staring at him from the table, and with a heavy sigh of relief hebegan to feel more at ease. There is nothing like burying our bogies.
His position prevented Rob's seeing either the colonel at the head ofthe table or Miss Abinger at the foot of it, and even Walsh was hiddenfrom view. But his right-hand neighbour was a local doctor's wife, whomthe colonel had wanted to honour without honouring too much, and shegave him some information. Rob was relieved to hear her address him, andshe was interested in a tame Scotsman.
'I was once in the far north myself,' she said, 'as far as Orkney. Wewere nearly drowned in crossing that dreadful sea between it and themainland. The Solway Firth, is it?'
Rob thought for a moment of explaining what sea it is, and then hethought, why should he?
'Yes, the Solway Firth,' he said.
'It was rather an undertaking,' she pursued, 'but though we were amongthe mountains for days, we never encountered any of those robberchieftains one reads about--caterans I think you call them?'
'You were very lucky,' said Rob.
'Were we not? But, you know, we took such precautions. There was quite aparty of us, including my father, who has travelled a great deal, andall the gentlemen wore kilts. My father said it was always prudent to doin Rome as the Romans do.'
'I have no doubt,' said Rob, 'that in that way you escaped the caterans.They are very open to flattery.'
'So my father said. We also found that we could make ourselvesunderstood by saying "whatever," and remembering to call the men "she"and the women "he." What a funny custom that is!'
'We can't get out of it,' said Rob.
'There is one thing,' the lady continued, 'that you can tell me. I havebeen told that in winter the wild boars take refuge in the streets ofInverness, and that there are sometimes very exciting hunts after them?'
'That is only when they run away with children,' Rob explained. 'Thenthe natives go out in large bodies and shoot them with claymores. It isa most exciting scene.'
When the doctor's wife learned that this was Rob's first visit to thecastle, she told him at once that she was there frequently. It escapedhis notice that she paused here and awaited the effect. She was notgiven to pausing.
'My husband,' she said, 'attended on Lady Louisa during her lastillness--quite ten years ago. I was married very young,' she addedhurriedly.
Rob was very nearly saying he saw that. The words were in his mouth,when he hesitated, reflecting that it was not worth while. This is onlynoticeable as showing that he missed his first compliment.
'Lady Louisa?' he repeated instead.
'Oh yes, the colonel married one of Lord Tarlington's daughters. Therewere seven of them, you know, and no sons, and when the youngest wasborn it was said that a friend of his lordship sent him a copy ofWordsworth, with the page turned down at the poem "We are Seven "--alady friend, I believe.'
'Is Miss Abinger like the colonel?' asked Rob, who had heard it saidthat she was beautiful, and could not help taking an interest in her inconsequence.
'You have not seen Miss Abinger?' asked the doctor's wife. 'Ah, you camelate, and that vulgar-looking farmer hides her altogether. She is alovely girl, but----'
Rob's companion pursed her lips.
'She is so cold and proud,' she added.
'As proud as her father?' Rob asked, aghast.
'Oh, the colonel is humility itself beside her. He freezes at times, butshe never thaws.'
Rob sighed involuntarily. He was not aware that his acquaintances spokein a similar way of him. His eyes wandered up the table till they restedof their own accord on a pretty girl in blue. At that moment she wastelling Greybrooke that he could call her Nell, because 'Miss' Meredithsounded like a reproach.
The reporter looked at Nell with satisfaction, and the doctor's wifefollowed his thoughts so accurately that, before she could checkherself, she said, 'Do you think so?'
Then Rob started, which confused both of them, and for the remainder ofthe dinner the loquacious lady seemed to take less interest in him, hecould not understand why. Flung upon his own resources, he rememberedthat he had not spoken to the lady on his other side. Had Rob only knownit, she felt much more uncomfortable in that great dining-room than hedid. No one was speaking to her, and she passed the time
between thecourses breaking her bread to pieces and eating it slowly, crumb bycrumb. Rob thought of something to say to her, but when he tried thewords over in his own mind they seemed so little worth saying that hehad to think again. He found himself counting the crumbs, and then itstruck him that he might ask her if she would like any salt. He did so,but she thought he asked for salt, and passed the salt-cellar to him,whereupon Rob, as the simplest way to get out of it, helped himself tomore salt, though he did not need it. The intercourse thus auspiciouslybegun, went no further, and they never met again. It might have been aromance.
The colonel had not quite finished his speech, which was to the effectthat so long as his tenants looked up to him as some one superior tothemselves they would find him an indulgent landlord, when the tread offeet was heard outside, and then the music of the waits. The colonelfrowned and raised his voice, but his guests caught themselvestittering, and read their host's rage in his darkening face. Forgettingthat the waits were there by his own invitation, he signed to James, thebutler, to rush out and mow them down. James did not interpret themessage so, but for the moment it was what his master meant.
While the colonel was hesitating whether to go on, Rob saw Nell nodencouragingly to Greybrooke. He left his seat, and before any one knewwhat he was about, had flung open one of the windows. The room filled atonce with music, and, as if by common consent, the table was deserted.Will opened the remaining windows, and the waits, who had been singingto shadows on the white blinds, all at once found a crowded audience.Rob hardly realised what it meant, for he had never heard the waitsbefore.
It was a scene that would have silenced a schoolgirl. The night was soclear, that beyond the lawn where the singers were grouped the brittletrees showed in every twig. No snow was falling, and so monotonous wasthe break of the river, that the ear would only have noticed it had itstopped. The moon stood overhead like a frozen round of snow.
Looking over the heads of those who had gathered at one of the windows,Rob saw first Will Abinger and then the form of a girl cross to thesingers. Some one followed her with a cloak. From the French windowssteps dropped to the lawn. A lady beside Rob shivered and retired to thefireside, but Nell whispered to Greybrooke that she must run after Mary.Several others followed her down the steps.
Rob, looking round for Walsh, saw him in conversation with the colonel.Probably he was taking down the remainder of the speech. Then a lady'svoice said, 'Who is that magnificent young man?'
The sentence ended 'with the hob-nailed boots,' and the reference was toRob, but he only caught the first words. He thought the baronet wasspoken of, and suddenly remembered that he had not appeared at thedinner-table. As Sir Clement entered the room at that moment in eveningdress, making most of those who surrounded him look mean by comparison,Rob never learned who the magnificent young man was.
Sir Clement's entrance was something of a sensation, and Rob saw severalladies raise their eyebrows. All seemed to know him by name, and somepersonally. The baronet's nervousness had evidently passed away, for hebowed and smiled to every one, claiming some burly farmers as oldacquaintances though he had never seen them before. His host and heseemed already on the most cordial terms, but the colonel was one of thefew persons in the room who was not looking for Miss Abinger. At lastSir Clement asked for her.
'I believe,' said some one in answer to the colonel's inquiring glanceround the room, 'that Miss Abinger is speaking with the waits.'
'Perhaps I shall see her,' said Dowton, stepping out at one of thewindows.
Colonel Abinger followed him to the window, but no farther, and at thatmoment a tall figure on the snowy lawn crossed his line of vision. Itwas Rob, who, not knowing what to do with himself, had wandered into theopen. His back was toward the colonel, and something in his walkrecalled to that choleric officer the angler whom he had encountered onthe Dome.
'That is the man--I was sure I knew the face,' said Colonel Abinger. Hespoke in a whisper to himself, but his hands closed with a snap.
Unconscious of all this, Rob strolled on till he found a path that tookhim round the castle. Suddenly he caught sight of a blue dress, and atthe same moment a girl's voice exclaimed, 'Oh, I am afraid it is lost!'
The speaker bent, as if to look for something in the snow, and Robblundered up to her. 'If you have lost anything,' he said, 'perhaps Ican find it.'
Rob had matches in his pocket, and he struck one of them. Then, to hissurprise, he noticed that Nell was not alone. Greybrooke was with her,and he was looking foolish.
'Thank you very much,' said Nell sweetly; 'it is a--a bracelet.'
Rob went down on his knees to look for the bracelet, but it surprisedhim a little that Greybrooke did not follow his example. If he hadlooked up, he would have seen that the captain was gazing at Nell inamazement.
'I am afraid it is lost,' Nell repeated, 'or perhaps I dropped it in thedining-room.'
Greybrooke's wonder was now lost in a grin, for Nell had lost nothing,unless perhaps for the moment her sense of what was fit and proper. Thecaptain had followed her on to the lawn, and persuaded her to come andlook down upon the river from the top of the cliff. She had done so, shetold herself, because he was a boy; but he had wanted her to do itbecause she was a woman. On the very spot where Richard Abinger,barrister-at-law, had said something to her that Nell would neverforget, the captain had presumptuously kissed her hand, and Nell hadallowed him, because after all it was soon over. It was at that verymoment that Rob came in sight, and Nell thought she was justified indeceiving him. Rob would have remained a long time on the snow if shehad not had a heart.
'Yes, I believe I did drop it in the dining-room,' said Nell, in such atone of conviction that Rob rose to his feet. His knees were white inher service, and Nell felt that she liked this young man.
'I am so sorry to have troubled you, Mr.----Mr.----' began the younglady.
'My name is Angus,' said Rob; 'I am a reporter on the _SilchesterMirror_.'
Greybrooke started, and Nell drew back in horror, but the next secondshe was smiling. Rob thought it was kindliness that made her do it, butit was really a smile of triumph. She felt that she was on the point ofmaking a discovery at last. Greybrooke would have blurted out aquestion, but Nell stopped him.
'Get me a wrap of some kind, Mr. Greybrooke,' she said, with such sweetimperiousness that the captain went without a word. Half-way he stoppedto call himself a fool, for he had remembered all at once about Raleighand his cloak, and seen how he might have adapted that incident to hisadvantage by offering to put his own coat round Nell's shoulders.
It was well that Greybrooke did not look back, for he would have seenMiss Meredith take Rob's arm--which made Rob start--and lead him in thedirection in which Miss Abinger was supposed to have gone.
'The literary life must be delightful,' said artful Nell, looking upinto her companion's face.
Rob appreciated the flattery, but his pride made him say that theliterary life was not the reporter's.
'I always read the _Mirror_,' continued Nell, on whom the moon washaving a bad effect to-night, 'and often I wonder who writes thearticles. There was a book-review in it a few days ago that I--I likedvery much.'
'Do you remember what the book was?' asked Rob, jumping into the pit.
'Let me see,' said Nell, putting her head to the side, 'it was--yes, itwas a novel called--called _The Scorn of Scorns_.'
Rob's good angel was very near him at that moment, but not near enoughto put her palm over his mouth.
'That review was mine,' said Rob, with uncalled-for satisfaction.
'Was it?' cried his companion, pulling away her arm viciously.
The path had taken them to the top of the pile of rocks, from which itis a sheer descent of a hundred feet to the Dome. At this point theriver is joined by a smaller but not less noisy stream, which rushes atit at right angles. Two of the castle walls rise up here as if part ofthe cliff, and though the walk goes round them, they seem to the anglerlooking up from the opposite side of
the Dome to be part of the rock.From the windows that look to the west and north one can see down intothe black waters, and hear the Ferret, as the smaller stream is called,fling itself over jagged boulders into the Dome.
The ravine coming upon him suddenly, took away Rob's breath, and hehardly felt Nell snatch away her arm. She stood back, undecided what todo for a moment, and they were separated by a few yards. Then Rob hearda man's voice, soft and low, but passionate. He knew it to be SirClement Dowton's, though he lost the words. A girl's voice answered,however, a voice so exquisitely modulated, so clear and pure, that Robtrembled with delight in it. This is what it said--
'No, Sir Clement Dowton, I bear you no ill-will, but I do not love you.Years ago I made an idol and worshipped it, because I knew no better,but I am a foolish girl no longer, and I know now that it was a thingof clay.'
To Rob's amazement he found himself murmuring these words even beforethey were spoken. He seemed to know them so well, that had the speakermissed anything, he could have put her right. It was not sympathy thatworked this marvel. He had read all this before, or something very likeit, in _The Scorn of Scorns_.
Nell, too, heard the voice, but did not catch the words. She ranforward, and as she reached Rob, a tall girl in white, with a dark hoodover her head, pushed aside a bush and came into view.
'Mary,' cried Miss Meredith, 'this gentleman here is the person whowrote _that_ in the _Mirror_. Let me introduce you to him, Mr. Angus,Miss----' and then Nell shrank back in amazement, as she saw who waswith her friend.
'Sir Clement Dowton!' she exclaimed.
Rob, however, did not hear her, nor see the baronet, for looking up witha guilty feeling at his heart, his eyes met Mary Abinger.