Capricious Caroline Part 38

Betty ran forward, of course, to greet Sir Samuel; and her mother, loosing her hand from Caroline's arm, followed the child.

"No need to ask you where you come from," she said, half gaily. She held out her hand to Broxbourne, but he shook his head, and showed his own mud-stained one by way of explanation.

He was not agreeable to look at. There was a grim, ugly expression on his face--the look of a man who knew how impotent anger was, and yet who could not help being angry.

Camilla was full of sympathy.

"I hope you have not hurt yourself," she said; "but," remembering quickly, "how came you to be hunting? I thought you were an invalid?"

Then with a fugitive smile, "Indeed, I supposed you were still abroad."

"Came back three days ago," the man answered rather shortly. "I suppose Brenton will not mind putting this animal up for me? He can't go much further."

"Where are you staying?" asked Camilla.

They all moved on together slowly. He mentioned a house that had been taken for the hunting season by some friends of hers.

At this juncture Caroline and the children walked briskly on ahead.

"It is tea-time, you know," the girl explained. As a matter of fact, she was anxious to get away.

Sir Samuel had a trick of staring at any woman he thought worth looking at in a very embarra.s.sing fas.h.i.+on, and Caroline was certainly pleasing to the eye.

The note of her appearance was simplicity itself beside the costly elegance of Mrs. Lancing, but she was slim, and straight, and fresh, and young, and with such a pair of eyes any woman must have been attractive.

"So you are rusticating," Broxbourne said, as he and Camilla were left to themselves; "not much in your line, is it? But I suppose now that you are going to settle down you have turned over a new leaf entirely.

Is the lucky man down here?"

"No, he has gone to build a hospital, or buy up a whole county, as a thanksgiving for our approaching wedding," Camilla laughed. "Don't you think a hospital is a very good idea? I expect he imagines he may want it before I have finished with him."

She spoke as lightly as ever, and laughed with the same ease, but within the warm embrace of her furs she seemed to wither, to shrink a little. Not half an hour before she had been longing, praying almost, for some barrier to stand in the pathway of her marriage. Now she knew with the unerring sense of intuition that what she had dreaded so much just before Christmas, and which of late she had managed to forget almost entirely, was coming upon her--that her future was definitely threatened.

She had been so protected of late, so wrapped about with the tenderest, the most chivalrous care, that she felt this sudden translation into the old atmosphere more keenly than she had ever felt any of her former troubles and anxieties. It was as though she had been stripped of every warm garment, and thrust s.h.i.+vering and helpless into the aching cold of a black frost.

Yet she tried to play her part.

"You wrote me a very nice letter, Sammy," she said.

He laughed.

"Yes, didn't I? Too good by half."

Fate had played Camilla a nasty trick by bringing her face to face with this man just at this particular moment.

When he had been thrown, his first act on picking himself up had been to thrash his horse unmercifully. That had relieved him a little, but the poison of his anger had not worked off completely. He had always promised himself the pleasure of dealing very straightly with Mrs.

Lancing. He was not likely to deny himself the satisfaction of doing this when he felt so much in need of a vent for his feelings; when, too, he knew that he had the situation in the hollow of his hand.

"I must say," he said, with that same sneering tone in his voice, "that I was taken all aback when I heard what had happened. Always thought you were a model of fidelity, that your heart was buried in Ned's grave, and that sort of thing, don't you know? But money makes a great difference, and there has never been quite enough money for you, has there, Camilla?"

She s.h.i.+vered. There was a leer on his face as he turned and looked at her. She answered him half lightly, half wearily.

"Oh, I don't know! I think one can have too much of anything, even of money."

At this Sir Samuel laughed loudly.

"Well, I must say you are a clever woman. Yes, by Jove! you are. I used to think in the old days, when Ned was on the scene, that you were a fool and a saint combined. I know a little bit better now."

Camilla's lips quivered. She turned to him. There was an unconscious entreaty in her voice.

"Dear Sammy," she said, "why are you so cross with me?"

But he only answered with another laugh.

"Yes, in the old days," he went on, "you played the part of the prude to perfection. Kept a fellow at arm's length, and pretended all sorts of things."

"Why go back to those old times?" asked Mrs. Lancing, in a very low voice.

"Because I choose to do so; because there is something that has to be settled between us, and you know that! I suppose you think I was taken in by the sweet way you treated me when we met down here in November.

But it was the other way about. I took you in, didn't I?"

It was very cold in this damp country road; all the world seemed grey; the trees with their bare, seemingly withered branches stood like spectres against the dull sky.

Camilla's colour had faded. She looked haggard.

"Please speak a little more plainly," she said.

And Broxbourne answered her.

"Not I. There is nothing to be gained by telling the truth to a woman, especially to a woman like you."

She caught her breath sharply, almost as if she had been struck. Her mind, trained to work with almost incredible swiftness, fathomed the significance of these words.

She put out her hand and gripped his arm.

"What has to be said must be said to me, and to me only." Then suddenly she broke down. "Oh, Sammy!" she said, "I know. Don't you believe I know I did you a great wrong? There is nothing to excuse it, except that you don't know what a corner I was in!... What an awful temptation it was! It has all been so easy for you. You have never had to face hard times and black, killing difficulties. You can't be expected to understand what these things mean."

"Why didn't you ask me?" the man said surlily; and she answered in that same broken way--

"I ... I could not. First of all, you had gone away, and then I was afraid...."

She broke off abruptly; he looked at her sharply, and again he laughed.

"You thought I would want payment," he said. "Well, you're right there.

I have a good business instinct. I always like to get full value for what I spend, or what is taken from me."

At this juncture they had reached the gates of Yelverton Park, and Sir Samuel caught sight of a gardener. He hailed the man, gave the horse into his charge, and burdened him with all sorts of commands to the head-groom.

"I'll be round at the stables very shortly," he said.

Camilla had walked on, but he overtook her. Her white, drawn face seemed to give him a great deal of satisfaction.