"Good morning," she replied.
"Willoughby will not be home till the evening."
"You could not have had a finer morning for your bath."
"No."
"I will walk as fast as you like."
"I'm perfectly warm."
"But you prefer fast walking."
"Out."
"Ah! yes, that I understand. The walk back! Why is Willoughby away to-day?"
"He has business."
After several steps she said: "He makes very sure of papa."
"Not without reason, you will find," said Vernon.
"Can it be? I am bewildered. I had papa's promise."
"To leave the Hall for a day or two."
"It would have been…"
"Possibly. But other heads are at work as well as yours. If you had been in earnest about it you would have taken your father into your confidence at once. That was the course I ventured to propose, on the supposition."
"In earnest! I cannot imagine that you doubt it. I wished to spare him."
"This is a case in which he can't be spared."
"If I had been bound to any other! I did not know then who held me a prisoner. I thought I had only to speak to him sincerely."
"Not many men would give up their prize for a word, Willoughby the last of any."
"Prize" rang through her thrillingly from Vernon's mouth, and soothed her degradation.
She would have liked to protest that she was very little of a prize; a poor prize; not one at all in general estimation; only one to a man reckoning his property; no prize in the true sense.
The importunity of pain saved her.
"Does he think I can change again? Am I treated as something won in a lottery? To stay here is indeed more than I can bear. And if he is calculating — Mr. Whitford, if he calculates on another change, his plotting to keep me here is inconsiderate, not very wise. Changes may occur in absence."
"Wise or not, he has the right to scheme his best to keep you."
She looked on Vernon with a shade of wondering reproach.
"Why? What right?"
"The right you admit when you ask him to release you. He has the right to think you deluded; and to think you may come to a better mood if you remain — a mood more agreeable to him, I mean. He has that right absolutely. You are bound to remember also that you stand in the wrong. You confess it when you appeal to his generosity. And every man has the right to retain a treasure in his hand if he can. Look straight at these facts."
"You expect me to be all reason!"
"Try to be. It's the way to learn whether you are really in earnest."
"I will try. It will drive me to worse!"
"Try honestly. What is wisest now is, in my opinion, for you to resolve to stay. I speak in the character of the person you sketched for yourself as requiring. Well, then, a friend repeats the same advice. You might have gone with your father: now you will only disturb him and annoy him. The chances are he will refuse to go."
"Are women ever so changeable as men, then? Papa consented; he agreed; he had some of my feeling; I saw it. That was yesterday. And at night! He spoke to each of us at night in a different tone from usual. With me he was hardly affectionate. But when you advise me to stay, Mr. Whitford, you do not perhaps reflect that it would be at the sacrifice of all candour."
"Regard it as a probational term."
"It has gone too far with me."
"Take the matter into the head: try the case there."
"Are you not counselling me as if I were a woman of intellect?"
The crystal ring in her voice told him that tears were near to flowing.
He shuddered slightly. "You have intellect," he said, nodded, and crossed the lawn, leaving her. He had to dress.
She was not permitted to feel lonely, for she was immediately joined by Colonel De Craye.
Chapter XXII
The Ride
Crossjay darted up to her a nose ahead of the colonel.
"I say, Miss Middleton, we're to have the whole day to ourselves, after morning lessons. Will you come and fish with me and see me bird's-nest?"
"Not for the satisfaction of beholding another cracked crown, my son," the colonel interposed: and bowing to Clara: "Miss Middleton is handed over to my exclusive charge for the day, with her consent?"
"I scarcely know," said she, consulting a sensation of languor that seemed to contain some reminiscence. "If I am here. My father's plans are uncertain. I will speak to him. If I am here, perhaps Crossjay would like a ride in the afternoon."
"Oh, yes," cried the boy; "out over Bournden, through Mewsey up to Closharn Beacon, and down on Aspenwell, where there's a common for racing. And ford the stream!"
"An inducement for you," De Craye said to her.
She smiled and squeezed the boy's hand.
"We won't go without you, Crossjay."
"You don't carry a comb, my man, when you bathe?"
At this remark of the colonel's young Crossjay conceived the appearance of his matted locks in the eyes of his adorable lady. He gave her one dear look through his redness, and fled.
"I like that boy," said De Craye.
"I love him," said Clara.
Crossjay's troubled eyelids in his honest young face became a picture for her.
"After all, Miss Middleton, Willoughby's notions about him are not so bad, if we consider that you will be in the place of a mother to him."
"I think them bad."
"You are disinclined to calculate the good fortune of the boy in having more of you on land than he would have in crown and anchor buttons!"
"You have talked of him with Willoughby."
"We had a talk last night."
Of how much? thought she.
"Willoughby returns?" she said.
"He dines here, I know; for he holds the key of the inner cellar, and Doctor Middleton does him the honour to applaud his wine. Willoughby was good enough to tell me that he thought I might contribute to amuse you."
She was brooding in stupefaction on her father and the wine as she requested Colonel De Craye to persuade Willoughby to take the general view of Crossjay's future and act on it.
"He seems fond of the boy, too," said De Craye, musingly.
"You speak in doubt?"
"Not at all. But is he not — men are queer fish! — make allowance for us — a trifle tyrannical, pleasantly, with those he is fond of?"
"If they look right and left?"
It was meant for an interrogation; it was not with the sound of one that the words dropped. "My dear Crossjay!" she sighed. "I would willingly pay for him out of my own purse, and I will do so rather than have him miss his chance. I have not mustered resolution to propose it."
"I may be mistaken, Miss Middleton. He talked of the boy's fondness of him."
"He would."
"I suppose he is hardly peculiar in liking to play Pole-star."
"He may not be."
"For the rest, your influence should be all-powerful."
"It is not."
De Craye looked with a wandering eye at the heavens.
"We are having a spell of weather perfectly superb. And the odd thing is, that whenever we have splendid weather at home we're all for rushing abroad. I'm booked for a Mediterranean cruise — postponed to give place to your ceremony."
"That?" she could not control her accent.
"What worthier?"
She was guilty of a pause.
De Craye saved it from an awkward length. "I have written half an essay on Honeymoons, Miss Middleton."
"Is that the same as a half-written essay, Colonel De Craye?"
"Just the same, with the difference that it's a whole essay written all on one side."
"On which side?"
"The bachelor's."
"Why does he trouble himself with such topics?"
"To warm himself for being left out in the cold."
"Does he feel envy?"
"He has to confess it."