Major Vigoureux Part 29

As little could he understand Tregarthen or Tregarthen's language. Some gadfly must have stung the man. A few acres of the barrenest land in the whole archipelago--and the fellow talked as though he were being dispossessed of an Eden! Yes, and as though that were not enough, he had used the flattest disrespect. The Lord Proprietor was not accustomed to disrespect. From the first his Islanders had treated him with the deference due to a king. Save and except the Commandant, no man had ever crossed his will or disputed his authority.

His rage swung back again upon the Commandant. It was all very well to plead that the Commandant had been in church at the time; but, after all, an officer must be held responsible for his men's doings. Let Major Vigoureux beware! More than once the Lord Proprietor had been minded to memorialise the War Office and inquire why the taxpayers'

money should be wasted to maintain three superannuated soldiers at full pay in a deserted barracks.

"Upon my word," said the Lord Proprietor to himself, "I've a mind to run over to Garrison Hill and ask Vigoureux what the devil he means by it. Either he knows of this, or he doesn't: I'll soon learn which. In either case I'll have an apology; and, what's more, I'll teach him who's master here, once for all."

He had reached the terrace, and paused there for a moment to draw breath after his climb, at the same time throwing a glance across the blue waters of the roadstead towards Garrison Hill and the white buildings upon it slumbrous in the autumn haze. The glance threatened mischief to that unconscious fortress and a sharp nod of the head confirmed the threat.

"Yes, yes, this very afternoon! The sooner the better!"

He swung about and stepped across the terrace to a French window that stood open to the air and suns.h.i.+ne. It was the window of the morning room, where he usually took his luncheon, and he pa.s.sed in briskly, meaning to ring the bell and give orders to have the meal served at once. But, as he stepped across the low sill somebody rose in the room's cool shadow and confronted him, and he fell back catching at the jamb for support and staring.

It was the stranger herself: the woman for whom they had all been vainly searching!

"Good morning!" said Vashti, with a self-possessed little bow. "Oh, but I fear I have startled you?"

"Ah--er--" the Lord Proprietor pulled himself together with an effort--"Well, to tell the truth? you did take me by surprise; the more so that----"

"It was dreadfully uncivil of me--not to say impudent--to walk in here unannounced. But the fact is I could find no door along the terrace; nothing but windows. Forgive me."

"Certainly, madam, certainly.... The front door is, so to speak, at the rear of the building.... But I was going to say that you took me the more by surprise because, as a matter of fact, I had just given up hunting for you."

Vashti laughed. She looked adorably cool and provoking; and still, as he stared at her, the Lord Proprietor wondered more and more whence in the world she came. He knew little of female beauty (the late Lady Hutchins had been plain-featured) and less of clothes; but three or four times in his life, at public functions, he had mixed with the great ones of the land, and here patently was one of them. Her speech, dress, bearing, all proclaimed it; her easy self-possession, too, and air of authority. Out of what Olympus had she descended upon these remote Atlantic isles?

"I saw that you had company," she answered, "and I ran away. To tell you the truth I was a little afraid of them--that is to say, of some of them. But what was Archelaus doing here?"

The Lord Proprietor frowned.

"Did he come to apologise? Oh, but that is just one of the reasons that brought me here! You must not be angry with Archelaus; no, really, it was not his fault, at all, but mine."

"I think, ma'am," said the Lord Proprietor, "we are talking at cross-purposes."

"No, no, we are not," she corrected him briskly with a little laugh.

"We are talking about that unhappy scarecrow." She paused, as though checked by irrepressible mirth, and he flushed hotly. "And no, again!"

she went on, perceiving this; "I was laughing at Archelaus--poor fellow!--overtaken here by his accusers. Did they make it very painful for him?"

"Even supposing him capable of shame--which I doubt--I certainly do not think he suffered more than he deserved."

"You are very much annoyed?" asked Vashti, suddenly serious. "Well, then, I am sorry. It was all my suggestion--though it never entered my head that anyone would be walking that way and catch sight of--of the thing. I meant it to be a little surprise for the Commandant when he came home from church; though when he returned and heard what had happened, he scolded me terribly."

"You will excuse me"--the Lord Proprietor drew himself up stiffly--"if I fail to see either where the humour comes in, or why you--a stranger, unknown to me even by name----"

"Ah, to be sure! My name is Cara."

"Then, as I was saying, Miss Cara, I fail to see----"

"And you are quite right of course," Vashti made haste to agree. "I ought not to have done it. But weren't you, too, a little bit to blame?

It wasn't very nice of you, you know."

"I beg your pardon? What wasn't very nice of me?"

"Why, to hurt their feelings; and especially the Commandant's. He is a poor man; poor, and sensitive, and easily hurt."

"You are talking to me in riddles, Miss Cara. I have done nothing at all to hurt the Commandant's feelings."

"Not intentionally, of course. I told him--and I told the sergeant too--that I was sure you never meant to wound them. It would have been too cruel."

"But," protested the Lord Proprietor, "I have done nothing, I tell you; nothing beyond presenting Sergeant Archelaus with--with an article of attire of which he stood badly in need. Miss Gabriel, some weeks ago, drew my attention to the state of the poor fellow's--er--wardrobe, and suggested that something might be done."

"I thought so," Vashti nodded. "I dare say now," she went on, after seeming to muse for a moment, "you are one of those strong-minded men who find it hard to understand how sensible people can worry over what they put on their backs!"

"That happens to be a constant source of wonder with me," he confessed; "though for the life of me I can't tell how you came to guess it."

"Never mind how I guessed it," said Vashti, smiling. "The point is, that you take this lofty and very scornful view of clothes, and yet you must have noticed that many men of your acquaintance--men otherwise sensible--take quite another; that in the city, for instance, a hard felt hat is not usually worn with a frock coat."

"Granted," said the Lord Proprietor; "though I could never understand why."

"And you have noticed that soldiers are even more particular; and the reason with them is perhaps a little more easily grasped. Their uniform is a symbol, so to speak. It stands for the service to which a good soldier should be devoted."

"If you had seen that man's small-clothes!"

"Yes, I grant that Archelaus neglects his regimentals. But to neglect them, and to be willing to mix them up with civilian clothes, are two very different things. Perhaps you did not think of this?"

"Really, now," answered Sir Caesar, "I should not have supposed that it mattered what these men wore, in such an out-of-the-world spot."

Vashti's eyes rested on him for a second or two, in a kind of wondering despair at his obtuseness. But she controlled herself to reply quite patiently:

"At any rate, it was wrong of me to encourage the men's resentment, and I came here this morning to beg your pardon."

He acknowledged this with a bow, but stood silent for a moment, eyeing her.

"You are a relative of Major Vigoureux?" he asked, after a pause.

"No."

"You are staying with him, I understand?"

"No." Vashti shook her head, with a smile. "But I very much want you to forgive me," she went on; "for I have another favour to ask you."

Again he bowed slightly. "You give my curiosity no rest, Miss Cara, and I perceive you mean to satisfy it only in your own way. As for the--er--incident we have been discussing, pray consider that--so far as you are concerned--I dismiss it." He did so with a slight wave of the hand. "You wish to ask me a favour?"

"I do. I came to plead with you; to say a word on behalf of Eli Tregarthen, your tenant on Saaron Island."

The Lord Proprietor started. "Are you at the bottom of that also?" he asked, angrily.

Vashti's eyes opened wide in astonishment.

"I beg your pardon?" she murmured. "I do not understand."