Harold Bindloss - The Protector

“I’m glad you didn’t,” and the lady smiled sympathetically. “The house is shut up and going to pieces. It would have been depressing to-night.”

Vane presented Carroll. Mrs. Chisholm’s manner was gracious; but for no particular reason Carroll wondered if she would have extended the same welcome to either, had his comrade not come back the discoverer of a mine.

“Tom was sorry he couldn’t wait to meet you, but he had to leave for Manchester on some urgent business,” she informed Vane, and looked round as a girl with disordered hair came up to them.

“This is Mabel,” she said. “I hardly think you will remember her.”

“I’ve carried her across the meadow,” smilingly remarked Vane.

The girl greeted the strangers demurely, and favoured Vane with a critical gaze. “So you’re Wallace Vane – who found the Clermont mine. Though I don’t remember you, I’ve heard a good deal about you lately. Very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Vane’s eyes twinkled as he shook hands with her. Her manner was quaintly formal, but he fancied there was a spice of mischief hidden behind it, and in the meanwhile Carroll, watching his hostess, surmised that her daughter’s remarks had not altogether pleased her. She, however, chatted with them until the man who had driven them appeared with their baggage, when they were shown their respective rooms.

Vane was the first to go down, and reaching the hall found nobody there, though a clatter of dishes and clink of silver suggested that a meal was being laid out in an adjoining room. Sitting down near the hearth, he looked about him.

His eyes rested on many objects that he recognised, but as his glance travelled to and fro it occurred to him that much of what he saw conveyed a hint that economy was needful.

By and by he heard a patter of feet, and looking up saw a girl descending the stairs in the fading stream of light. She was clad in trailing white, which gleamed against the dark oak and rustled softly as it flowed about a tall, finely-outlined and finely-poised figure. She had hair of dark brown with paler lights in its curling tendrils, gathered back from a neck that showed a faintly warmer whiteness, than the snowy fabric beneath it. It was, however, her face which seized Vane’s attention; the level brows, the quiet, deep brown eyes, the straight, cleanly-cut nose, and the subtle suggestion of steadfastness and pride which they all conveyed. He rose with a cry that had pleasure and eagerness in it: “Evelyn!”

She came down, moving lightly but, as he noticed, with a rhythmic grace, and laid a firm, cool hand in his.

“I’m glad to see you back, Wallace,” she said. “But you have changed.”

“I’m not sure that’s kind. In some ways you haven’t changed at all; I would have known you anywhere.”

“Nine years is a long time to remember any one.”

Vane had seen few women during that period; but he was not a fool, and he recognised that this was no occasion for an attempt at gallantry. There was nothing coquettish in Evelyn’s words, nor were they ironical. She had answered in the tranquil, matter-of-fact manner which, as he remembered, usually characterised her.

“It’s a little while since you landed, isn’t it?” she added.

“A week,” said Vane. “I’d some business in London, and then I went on to look up Lucy. She had just gone up to town, and I missed her. I shall go up again to see her as soon as she answers my note.”

“It won’t be necessary. She’s coming here for a fortnight very soon.”

“That’s kind,” said Vane. “Whom have I to thank for suggesting it?”

“Does it matter? It was a natural thing to ask your only sister – who is a friend of mine. We have plenty of room, and the place is quiet.”

“It used not to be. If I remember, your mother generally had it full part of the year.”

“Things have changed,” said Evelyn quietly.

Vane was baffled by something in her manner. Evelyn had never been effusive – that was not her way – but now, while she was cordial, she did not seem disposed to resume their acquaintance where it had been broken off. After all, he could hardly have expected this.

“Mabel is like you, as you used to be,” he said. “It struck me as soon as I saw her; but when she began to talk there was a difference.”

“Yes,” she said. “I think you’re right in both respects. Mopsy has the courage of her convictions. She’s an open rebel.”

There was no bitterness in her tone. Evelyn’s manner was never pointed, but Vane fancied that she had said a meaning thing, one that might explain what he found puzzling in her attitude, when he held the key to it. Then she went on: “Mopsy was dubious about you before you arrived, but I’m pleased to say she now seems reassured.”

Then Carroll came down, and a few moments later Mrs. Chisholm appeared and they went in to dinner in a low-ceilinged room. Nobody said anything of importance, but by and by Mabel turned to Vane.

“I suppose you have brought your pistols with you,” she said.

“I never owned one,” Vane informed her.

The girl looked at him with an excellent assumption of incredulity. “Then you have never shot anybody in British Columbia?”

Carroll laughed, as if this greatly pleased him, but Vane’s face was rather grave as he answered her.

“No,” he said. “I’m thankful I haven’t.”

“Then the West must be getting what the Archdeacon – he’s Flora’s husband, you know – calls decadent,” the girl retorted.

“She’s incorrigible,” Mrs. Chisholm interposed with a smile.

Carroll, who was sitting next to Mabel, leaned towards her confidentially. “In case you feel badly disappointed, I’ll let you into a secret,” he said. “When we feel real savage, we take the axe instead.”

Evelyn fancied that Vane winced at this, but Mabel looked openly regretful.

“Can either of you pick up a handkerchief going at full gallop on horseback?” she inquired.

“I’m sorry I can’t, and I’ve never seen Wallace do so,” Carroll answered, laughing, and Mrs. Chisholm shook her head at her daughter.

“Miss Clifford complained of your inattention to the study of English last quarter,” she said severely.

Mabel made no answer, though Vane thought it would have relieved her to grimace, and by and by the meal came to an end. Some time afterwards, Mrs. Chisholm rose from her seat in the drawing-room.

“We keep early hours at the Dene, but you will retire when you like,” she said. “As Tom is away, I had better tell you that you will find syphons and whisky in the smoking-room. I have had the lamp lighted.”

“Thank you,” Vane replied with a smile. “I’m afraid you have taken more trouble on our account than you need have done. Except on special occasions we have generally confined ourselves to strong green tea.”

Mabel looked at him in amazement. “Oh!” she said, “the West is certainly decadent. You should be here when the otter hounds are out. Why, it was only – ”

She broke off abruptly beneath her mother’s withering glance, and when they were left alone, Vane and Carroll strolled out upon the terrace, pipe in hand.

“I suppose you could put in a few weeks here,” Vane remarked.

“I could,” Carroll replied. “There’s an – atmosphere – about these old houses that appeals to me, perhaps because we have nothing like it in Canada. Besides, I think your friends mean to make things pleasant.”

“I’m glad you like them.”

Carroll understood that his comrade would not resent a candid expression of opinion. “I do; the girls in particular. They interest me. The younger one’s of a type that’s common in our country, though it’s generally given room for free development into something useful there. Mabel’s chaffing at the curb. It remains to be seen if she’ll kick, and hurt herself in doing so, presently.”