Chapter III

LADY MERIVAL had one waking nightmare, and no more; and that was her husband should be " displeased." This sounds singularly beautiful in a wife, yet it was not very beautiful in reality, for it arose from a rather miserable kind of fear of him that was not beautiful at all; and it is good for neither husband nor wife that fear between them should be the dominant emotion.

She was a thin, dark lady now turning grey — the daughter of a clergyman — married some twenty-five years, the whole period of which had been shaping for this end, certain indeed from the beginning to those who knew them both well. Hers was a very delicate soul, fearing pain like sin and frantic to escape from it, counting no other form of sacrifice so great; and, faced as she was by the quietly positive character of her husband, then a young partner in a large banking concern, who had learned very quickly that grave displeasure was his strongest weapon, and who had lost no pains in perfecting it, was reduced within a very short time to an entire and quite unhealthy subjection. Yet his displeasure was scarcely perceptible to any who did not know him well; it was through tiny symbols that he manifested it to the initiated, who made haste to conform. There were three stages, the third of which was seldom needed now. The first was merely the assumption of an air, and a slight disposition to silence: the second consisted in a few sentences, utterly polite and quiet, mentioning the cause of annoyance: the third, used in old days even to the extent of going away from the house without a word, now in its extremest instance only amounted to a retirement to his study, upon his emergence from which the offence was expected to have disappeared. And, the worst of it was, that if it were removable by human means, he was practically never disappointed.

It may be conceived, then, that Lord Merival himself possessed what is known as a strong personality. This was entirely true. He had risen with great speed and steadiness, ever since he had set himself to work. By thirty he was the senior partner of Merival and Greet; by forty he was one of that secret group of financiers whose opinion had to be taken by every Government who contemplated large pecuniary undertakings: by forty-eight he was a member of the House of Lords; and by fifty-five — his present age — he was consolidated in a position from which, except by the Act of God, he could never again be removed. He had three large houses: Brae House in Ross-shire; Farley House in Sussex; and Cheriton House in Park Lane.

Yesterday he had reached the second stage of his displeasure, though he had not yet exhausted it, in the matter of Max and Marion going deer-stalking together; and, as Norah had observed to her brother, had been " speaking to " their mother.

He had made no objections at all to Marion's coming up to Brae House. To do him justice he was very far from being an unkind father. No human being - could call him sympathetic; but he was at any rate indulgent in action, and allowed his children plenty of freedom, so long as a certain line was not passed. But it appeared to-day that that line was at any rate being approached.

Just as Max was talking to the keeper after breakfast on the question as to whether the salmon river was in condition after the recent drought, a message came out to him that her ladyship would like a word with him before he started.

" All right. Say I'll come in five minutes," said Max.

He knew perfectly well what it was all about; and before going to his mother he sought out Norah. He was quite clever about these things, and did not wish to risk any trouble. Yet he had his plans, too.

"I say, Norah: you're going out, aren't you? I heard Gerald say something about the Home Loch. I wish you'd come down to the river instead. Davidson says it's first-rate."

" My dear! What's the good of the river to me? "

" Bring your trout-rod. Miss Tenterden wants to come, too. In fact, she's started already."

" Oh! I see," said Norah quite gravely. " You mean, bring lunch and all that? "

"Yes: why not?"

She nodded twice: glanced at him; and then nodded again.

" Yes; that'll do, I suppose. Then order lunch for all of us. Mother's opening a bazaar in Mulligan, you know, and father's going with her. They won't be back till late: and there are people coming, you;

know. I must be back to tea, in case the others aren't back."

He came into his mother's room with an air of grave and innocent unconsciousness that would have deceived any one else in the world. It was a delightful little room, taking into it a circular section of one of the towers, and its windows looked west and north.

" Ah! there you are," she said, from her Davenport desk. " What are you going to do, my boy? Your father and I are going to Mulligan; and I'm going to ask Miss Tenterden to come too."

" I'm afraid she's gone out," he said. " She's gone down to the river with Andrew."

She looked perturbed.

" But, my dear boy, has she gone alone? "

" Yes: she's tremendously keen: but Norah and Gerald and I are going to follow. I just stayed to order lunch. I'm so sorry: I'd no idea you wanted her."

His mother was silent.

" I'm afraid your father won't like it," she said.

"But why not? She simply loathes bazaars, you know. At least, Norah says so."

"She's really gone?"

" She went off with one of Norah's rods ten minutes ago.... What's the matter, mother? "

She said nothing; but looked out rather drearily and vacantly towards Loch Droom. He was really very sorry for her, but he couldn't help it. Besides, Marion was going to-morrow; and he certainly did not intend to be deprived of her company on this last day; and had laid his plans very carefully indeed long before he appeared at breakfast. He had feared this Mulligan move, but had trusted to luck and that Marion could be got away before it was actually proposed.

" What's the matter, mother? " he said again.

" I'm afraid your father won't like it. He particularly wanted Miss Tenterden to see Mulligan. She's going to-morrow, though."

" Yes."

" Ah! well. It can't be helped. Have a nice day, my boy."

It was not until Max was alone and well on his way down the steep path through the pines, that he quite realised how particularly anxious he had been that this last day shouldn't be spoilt; nor how significant it was that he should be so anxious. He had awakened this morning intent on his plan, remembering Mulligan, with a start, as he shaved, and foreseeing, as it happened, precisely the moves that the enemy would make. Then he had seen Marion on the west terrace, well out of sight of the study and dining-room windows, and had hurried down to catch her. He had been quite explicit.

" Look here," he said, " I'm perfectly certain my mother will ask you to go to Mulligan to-day: and I'm sure you don't want to go. Now do you? "

She looked at him with a tremble of laughter on her lips.

"What is Mulligan?"

" Mulligan's a perfectly beastly town at the other end of Loch Droom; and there's a bazaar for the parish church; and there'll be at least forty Presbyterian ministers, each making speeches about an hour long."

" Oh! it'll be rather late, won't it, by the time they're back, then?"

" There! I knew you didn't want to go. You'd much rather come fishing, wouldn't you? Well, look here."

Then he had given her instructions. She was to put on her boots before breakfast; and immediately afterwards was to go round to the gillies' room, where she would find a freckled boy called Andrew

" I know Andrew," -she interrupted. " He brought the pony yesterday."

Yes: well, Andrew would be waiting with a trout-rod of extra large size that could, at a pinch, be used for salmon, though it was to be hoped that the salmon it was intended to lure would not be very large. She was to say nothing to him but " Come along," and that she wanted to go the shortest possible way to the river: the two were then to go round at the back of the house, and flee away like Noah from the cities of the plain, without looking behind them, or heeding any cries to return. Andrew would conduct her, then, to the Black Pool, where the trout-stream fell into the river; and he, Max, would follow as quickly as possible with lunch. Until he came she might amuse herself with trying for trout.

" And is Norah coming? " she had asked.

" I don't know. I'll see afterwards. The point is that you're to get away at once. They won't be starting for Mulligan till nearly twelve; so it's quite likely mother'll forget to ask you at breakfast. You really do want to fish, don't you? "

" I should love it."

So far then all was well: and, until he had had the message from his mother he had not had the faintest intention of asking Norah to come too. But, like a financier, he had seen, on the reception of that message, that he must take no risks, and just cut his losses like a man. After all, if Norah was there, officially, so to speak — (for he had no intention that she should be there in any other capacity, more than could be helped) — Marion could not actually be hauled back by a messenger, in order to go to Mulligan. And now, at last, as he swung down the steep path, with his rod over his shoulder, and Davidson already far behind with the lunch and the whisky and the gaff and the extra fly-book and so on, he was beginning to see himself from the outside point of view, and to wonder where exactly his course of action would lead him....

But it was startling, in spite of his meditations, to feel what pleasure the first sight of her again gave him, as he clattered along the path among the stones by the side of the river, and saw her, fifty yards away, by the side of the trout-stream that ran in here at a right angle. She was in that charming tailor-made homespun jacket and skirt in which she came with him yesterday, with a grey Scotch cap; and was standing, when he first saw her, on a big rock, outlined against the heathery slope on the other side — a light boyish figure, beautifully balanced, as upright as an arrow. She brought the rod back for a cast as he watched her; and she swayed to it deliciously, catching her under lip in her teeth with the effort to do it exactly right. She was in hrck, too, it seemed: for as her line fell, not perhaps as rigidly straight as it should be, across the dark tangled water, a yellow side showed itself half way across the stream, with a plunge audible even above the liquid clatter of the burn, and, in an instant, her rod was up and bent.

" That's right," cried Max; " you've got him. Now then: steady." (He was by her side by now on the perilously small boulder.) " No: don't be hard on him; let him go a bit... let him go. He's a beauty. Ah i "

-\ii • • • •

He was only just in time to catch her round the waist. In her fervent anxiety to face the trout that was now making off down-stream she had turned too sharply, had slipped on the edge of the boulder, and, if he had not seized her, would have fallen off. As it was, for a few seconds he had to fight hard to keep his own footing, bearing the whole weight of her body on his left arm, and, clasping her with the other, his face against her shoulder and his forehead in her hair. Even in that moment of anxiety, however, he was conscious of an extraordinary delight in so holding her. Then she was steadied; and turned to him; for in the struggle the rod had tossed up and down, and the big trout was by now, no doubt, nosing about somewhere in the depths fifty yards away, and wondering what this annoying little bit of gut was doing in his horny cheek.

"Thanks so much," she said, flushed scarlet with excitement and exertion, if with nothing else. " But what a pity! "

" Yes: he was a good fish," said Max, aware that his own heart was beating too, and determined to be natural. " These boulders are fearfully slippery in dry weather. Let's go back to the shore and try further up."

He stepped down and held out his hand. She seemed not to see it; but jumped down by herself.

" This is simply delicious," she said. " But I want to watch you. There's Davidson coming."

Ill

His strategies succeeded perfectly all day. s

Norah and Gerald — the latter in low brown shoes, with fringes hanging over the instep, and entirely useless for dealing with the stones — turned up in a leisurely manner about twelve, and after watching Max for a little, who had fished the Black Pool from end to end without a rise, announced that they would go up the trout-stream to a particular camping-place with proper stones to sit down on, and be ready for lunch at one. Andrew was despatched with them to attend on Norah, who announced that Gerald was to have his first lesson in catching trout.

" But I don't want them, anyhow," remonstrated Gerald.

" Wait till you catch them, old chap," said Max. " And, by the way, if you happen to come across a two-pounder with a... a Black Gnat in his mouth, that'll be Miss Tenterden's friend."

" We'll remember," said Norah over her shoulder. " Come along, Jerry."

If it had been pleasant to see Marion against the water and the heather, it was still more pleasant to the male mind of this young man to know that he was being seen by her. He suggested her sitting down on the heather, forty yards behind, so as to be out of the reach of his fly; but he was simply delighted when she said she couldn't see the water from there.

" Very well, then; you'll have to keep quite close: that's the only other safe place."

How adequate and competent she was, too, in that position! She never spoke except when he spoke first, and then answered very shortly: but her eyes shone with attentive interest, and there was continually on her lips, when he caught a glimpse of her, that tremulousness of laughter or excitement. Above all, there was absolutely no posing about her; no attempt to appear interested in order to be interesting; she was simply absorbed in the thing itself, and honestly wanted to get every thrill that was to be obtained. At the tail of the second pool, there had suddenly emerged over his fly a great silvery body, plunging back without the faintest touch on the line.

" Ah! he's only playing with it," said Max.

He looked at her as he spoke, and was amazed by the excitement in her face. She had made no sound; but her eyes were alight, and her face gone pale.

" Try him again," she said.

It was all wrong: but he could not resist her appeal. Once, twice and three times he steered his gaudy fly among the wrinkled, swirling surfaces, and there was no response.

" I should have waited," he murmured.

" Oh! was it my fault for asking? "

He smiled at her.

" Well: how could I say No? " he asked. " But five minutes is the proper time."

She was already apologetic as they made their way up to the lunching place.

" I'm perfectly ashamed of myself," she said. " And after all my resolutions not to interrupt! "

" But it very often does answer, to cast again at once," he said.

" But you said five minutes: and I saw it in a book in my room last night, too."

" Well: he was only playing with it, anyhow. I know his little game. It's a regular trick — when they're feeling cheerful but not hungry."

The lunching party apparently consisted of one female figure, when the two came in sight of the boulders. Norah was there, sure enough, disposing plates in a circle; but there was no sign of Gerald or Andrew.

" Where's Jerry? " cried Max.

" He's here," said a grave voice; and a head rose from between two large stones, as if decapitated. Then the remainder of him, followed.

" You've been resting again," said Max severely.

" It's what I've come to Scotland for," remonstrated the other. " We public men have a duty to our country, you know. Lunch ready? "

" I've sent Andrew for some sticks to make a fire," said Norah. " They've put the coffee in a cracked Thermos; and it's frozen stiff, so to speak. Come on, Jerry: be a little gentleman for once, and hand round the chicken."

Max's strategies were as successful after lunch, as before.

They all sat awhile on the warm stones first, while the coffee was brought back to some semblance of heat on the fire kindled by Andrew, and then while they drank it. Then Gerald, suddenly galvanised into energy, proposed that Andrew should be caused to build a small cairn of stones on a boulder that jutted into the stream, with an empty claret bottle on the top, and that the company should all throw pebbles at it.

" And the one who hits the bottle shall have the extra cup of coffee, if there is one," he explained. " We do that at Somerset House, sometimes, with corks, after lunch."

" No wonder you want rest," said Max. " But you'll do nothing of the sort here. That pool's where you've got to catch a fish afterwards; and where do you suppose all the fish would be if you threw stones? "

" I'd much sooner break a bottle," murmured Gerald.

" Miss Tenterden shall' show you how to do it. You must watch her very carefully, Jerry, and then imitate her afterwards."

The programme was carried out. Marion was unfeignedly anxious to do some fishing on her own account; and on hearing that it would really do the salmon-river good to give it a rest for an hour or so, fervently consented to fish while the others looked on. Max, who did not in the least want to talk to Jerry and Norah, and still less to Andrew or Davidson, retired to the bank above the boulders, and settled down to watch her. The day was gently clouded over, but it was none the less lovely; for the clouds were broken, and there shone out wonderful gleams of colour on the deep peat-stained water, the brilliant green here and there at the edge of the stream, the mystical purples and browns of the heather beyond, and the great grey rocks rising like ruins above the deeper pools. It really seemed incredible that any section of human society, for any purpose whatever, however high and sacred, should deliberately elect to dress itself up and hold a bazaar, and make speeches. Mulligan itself was invisible from the low level of the river; but it was possible, if one stood up to see the hills beneath which it lay, and even make out the skein of smoke that hung over it. And to think that Marion might have been there, instead of standing here at liberty, with the noise of the tumbling water in her ears, and the breeze in her hair, and, what was still more important to Max, presenting to his eyes that same charming slender outline that he had seen as he came up the path this morning.

Twice during the next hour he had interrupted the spectacle by going down to help her to land a fish, taking the net from Andrew for that purpose. At the third she turned to him, with a great content in her face.

" There! " she said. " I've caught three: and that's what I set myself to do. And I'm not going to fish any more; but I'm coming to watch you if I may. Lord Gerald can take my place."

Max's heart gave a distinct beat of pleasure. He had been beginning to wonder when he would be alone with her again; and yet he scarcely knew why he wished it so much.

" Jerry," he cried. " Come along. It's your turn. Make him come, Norah."

Norah turned from the patch of coarse grass where she had been sitting rather silent, chewing stems.

" Come on," she said. Then she turned to the others, and stood up. " What are you two going to do? "

"We're going down to fish the Black Pool again," said Max, " before we go to the others."

" Oh! Shall we come too? "

" Exactly as you please," observed Max, with bitterness in his heart.

" But how cordial! Well, we won't. Perhaps we'll call for you later. Come on, Jerry."

A head raised itself from the warm pebbles.

" Let Miss Tenterden go on doing it," it said. " She does it far better than I can."

" Well; you've got to learn," bawled Max above" the roar of the water, infinitely happy again. " Norah means it this time."

" Oh! Well," said Jerry, getting up.

A great melancholy fell on Max at dinner that night, and he tried to pretend to himself that it resulted from the boredom that he found in the company of the new guests.

These were four in number — Mrs. Pakenham-Flax and her two daughters, the Misses Pakenham-Flax — persons who, Max bitterly declared, resembled rabbits, not only in appearance, but in mind also; and Captain Moreton, about whom there is really nothing to be said at all, since he appeared not to have an idea or an aspect in the world to differentiate him from the Least Common Multiple of all captains. Max himself was not clever, but he was a sage beside Captain Moreton who could be relied upon to say and do all the things expected of him under any conceivable circumstances. He was asked here, apparently, on the supposition that he was a friend of Gerald's; but Gerald, in private conversation with Max in the smoking-room before dinner, entirely repudiated the supposition, and declared that, if he must really tell the truth, the man always seemed to him more than a bit of a bounder; and Max, with sinking heart, realised that it was himself who would have to entertain him.

The conversation at dinner, then, was adapted to the new company. Music was not even mentioned from beginning to end; while the bazaar, the deer-forest, the time-table of the Caledonian Railway, the salmon that Max had caught to-day, and the five trout which the two girls had contributed between them, were discussed in all their bearings. Norah quite saw Max's point about the rabbit-aspect of the Pakenham-Flax family, and even began a rather pointed sentence about salad, when a silence fell.

When the men got up in the usual desultory way, to go into the hall, once more Max slipped out. Certainly he wanted to talk to Marion again, whom he had regarded during the dinner between two clumps of spiraea; in fact he wanted it with a vehemence that surprised himself; but he was quite clear that he did not want to see her talk to Captain Moreton, on one side of whom she had sat at dinner. Sooner than that, he would prefer to think about her in the garden. Anyhow he had to face the knowledge that she would be on her way to the station before the world got up to breakfast next morning; and he was only now beginning to learn that this was a considerable matter. They would, presumably, not meet again till the winter. The fact that she was going so soon really had not impressed itself very deeply on his mind so far; the day had been too joyous and natural for him to make much of it; but it had come to him, as he dressed, with a peculiar poignancy, that this was the last time she would be at dinner at all; and that if she did not sing again to-night, he would not hear her sing at all — at least, until the winter.

He was in the same seat as last night, when he suddenly heard her talking on the terrace over his head, some ten minutes later; and stood up. Then he heard Captain Moreton's voice in answer; and advanced a step or two. He was not going to stand that, he told himself. But he saw that his indignation was unjust: for it was obvious that every one had come out together, into the dusky evening. Mrs. Pakenham-Flax's head went past as he looked, and his father's beyond it; and he could hear Gerald murmuring away somewhere in the background. Then he heard his father call to Captain Moreton: and saw that Marion was alone.

'* Come down here," he said.

It was only ten minutes that he had; and he did not say one word in that ten minutes that his father might not have heard; but it was in the undertones of his voice, and the scent of the mignonette, and the peculiar mingled lights of night and day that the significance lay. She sat beside him, as simply as a child: and they spoke of the salmon he had caught, and how she had had the gaff till Davidson wanted it; and the train she had to catch next morning; and where she would lunch. And then, abruptly, he spoke of the Opera and her first appearance.

" It'll be early in the New Year," she said. " Harrison is going to try a month of Wagner: and I'm engaged for Elsa."

" You'll le,t me know, won't you? " he said. " I'm rather out of those things. I don't believe I've ever seen Lohengrin in my life."

There was but one sentence, perhaps, which, on consideration afterwards, he thought that perhaps his father would be better without hearing.

" I wish you weren't going," he said.