A Woman's Word

Chapter I

" What is so sweet as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days." W^/W>ND what is more delightful, before the Qfe^W summer heat has had time to scorch, wwK'fe* or the highway dust to defile, the bright bronzed green of the young oak foliage, when the plumed meadow grasses, all uncon scious of the scythe that will shear their graceful heads so soon, stir lightly with the light soft wind, than to rest beneath the shade all through the quiet afternoon, lulled by the low voice of the woods and the lapsing murmur of the river ? But to sit in the shade and do nothing was not Miss Ilford's way, especially when engaged in what might be called a voyage of discovery. Why should she, and her young friend, Mary Deverell, have established themselves at an out of-the-way Yorkshire inn, very little frequented except in the shooting-season, if not to " do " the adjacent country as thoroughly as possible ?

And were they to waste a whole afternoon, idly indulging in dolce far niente, with S Castle still unvisited, to say nothing of minor points of interest ? She thought not. So, shortly after three o'clock, the little open carriage which she had sent for from home, was speeding along the road from the hamlet of Dursley in Avon dale, to the neighbouring market town of S . Miss Ilford drove : it was an accomplishment for which she had a certain reputation. Sitting bolt upright in a close-fitting brown tweed dress and a cap of the same pattern pulled down over her forehead, and handling the reins with an air of conscious mastery, she looked her forty odd years to the full. The uncompromising severity of her style of dress, exaggerated the hard outline of her high worn features, and obscured the fact, which under other circumstances would have been apparent enough — that she must once have been very handsome.

Her companion was still at the happy age at which one does not need the favouring aid of circumstance to palliate the effects of time. She was a slight girl of twenty or thereabouts, dark haired, with large grey eyes, calm, humorous, observant, and a peculiarly sweet mouth. Not beautiful, but distinguished down to the tips of her fingers. The thing that struck one most in her at first, after the candid eyes, was a certain air of finished simplicity. She sat back easily in her place, listening, with a faint touch of protest in her quiet manner, to the emphatic remarks of her companion. " You have had a letter from Guy Cheveley ? " Miss Ilford said, as they left behind them an awkward turn in the road, and emerged on a smooth level, which left her mind free for con versation. " Yes," Mary said, "he writes from Middleton, and talks of coming on here."

" I shan't be civil to him if he does, Mary, and so I warn you. To think that you, of all people, should encourage him in playing tricks with his prospects ! " " You think Colonel Cheveley is serious, then ? " " Think ? I know he is. My dear, the Cheve leys were never men to say one thing and do another ; and if Guy requires sharp discipline to bring him to his senses, you may depend that the Colonel will let him have it." " I don't think Guy will be frightened into giving up his opinions," said Mary. " Oh, no ! he is going to be a martyr for the truth, and you will encourage him to be faith ful. That is the way in which you regard it. But now, look here, Mary, and don't be impracticable. You don't want for common sense sometimes." The girl received the dubious compliment with a smiling bend of her graceful head.

Miss Ilford went on — " Just consider my old friend, Colonel Cheve ley. You know how generous he is. He may be a little arbitrary ; he belongs to the old school, when experience was supposed to be of some slight advantage in forming the judgment. He has thought of Guy all his life, studied his interests, indulged him in everything. Isn't it a little hard, just when he looked for the boy to be a comfort to him, to find him turning his back on everything his father taught him, insulting all his cherished opinions and beliefs, and taking up with a set of people whom he detests ? Even if he does not see eye to eye with his father, he need not throw off all deference to his wishes." " Oh, but he doesn't ! " said Mary earnestly, though even her earnestness was quiet. " I recognise Mrs Cheveley's hand in this.

She always makes the worst of Guy to his rather and to everyone else." "I did get my information from Mrs Cheveley," Miss Ilford replied in a rather offended tone, " but I don't know why you should suspect her of being biassed about Guy. You ought to be above silly prejudices about step-mothers and that sort of thing. But you never will hear a word against him, and so you have no idea of what he is." " Dear Miss Ilford," said Mary, smiling rather sadly, " isn't it a pity that some of this insight didn't come my way a little earlier ? " " I suppose that means I shouldn't have con sented to your engagement. Yes. I understand that look. I did more than consent — I urged it. I thought I was acting in your interests. It seemed an excellent thing for you, and as for Guy, we all thought that with his character and temperament you might make what you pleased of him.

No one could possibly have foreseen that he would take up this Socialist craze ; and it is not fair of you, Mary, to upbraid me with the part I took " " Take care," cried Mary, as the off-wheel of the dog-cart grazed the edge of the ditch. And Miss Ilford, who had forgotten her driv ing for the moment in the interest of the conversation, wondered, in an angry under tone, who was responsible for the roads in the neighbourhood. " Why, there are the new lodgers surely," Mary exclaimed, as she saw Miss Ilford about to enter again on the subject of Guy Cheveley's misdeeds. " They have come for the fishing, I suppose." The two young men referred to, drew up on one side of the narrow lane to let the carriage pass, and then turned down through a field-path to the river. Apparently only one of them, however, was a devotee of the gentle craft ; the other, a tall, dark sombre-looking youth of three-and-twenty, but looking younger, large-boned, large-featured, and rather handsome, with steel-blue eyes deep-set under heavy black brows, carried a book in his pocket, which he extracted as soon as he reached the bank ; then, throwing himself on the grass in the shade, he was soon deep in his author.

The book was an old vellum-covered edition of the " Vita Nuova," which had evidently seen some service. The angler was a slim, wiry young fellow, with a keen close-shaven face, in which though an expression of youthful good humour predomi nated at present, certain lines indicative of a hard and positive temper were already to be traced. He had been devoting himself to his craft for some time with a patience quite unattended by result. At last, while changing his fly, he said lightly : " Odd, isn't it, there being people at the Spotted Trout at this time of year ? Raynal often comes at this time, and he says he has invariably had the place to himself." " It is rather odd," murmured the other, without raising his eyes from his book. " Not that one minds, under the circumstances," said Paul Warrender, rather complacently.

" I wonder where they come from. The little one has too much style for an Englishwoman. It's not the type I admire myself." — " Do shut up, Paul," Harry Drummond interrupted savagely, "or don't talk that rot, at least." Paul Warrender shrugged his shoulders. " Oh come," he said, with perfect good-humour, " your feelings are getting too fine for anything. Is it your patriotism or what, that takes fire at my harmless remarks ? " Harry could not himself have told why Paul's words had filled him with such unmeasured irritation. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but you put me out." And he went back to his book, saying over to himself, to compel his wandering attention, the words of which this is a rendering : " And though her image, which stayed con stantly with me, inspired confidence in love to hold lordship over me, yet it was of such noble virtue that it never suffered that love should rule without the faithful counsel of reason, in those matters in which such counsel could be used."

Harry Drummond at this time of his life did not bear with everyone the reputation of an amiable fellow, and indeed he could hardly be said to deserve it. He was crotchety, whimsical, even morose sometimes : he had not the gift of O superficial sympathy which enabled Paul Warren der, for instance, to fall easily in with the prevailing tone of any company into which chance might cast him. He took life hard. He was severe with himself and with all the world. That passionate idealism which was the dominant note in his mental constitution, might well, in com bination with the plastic faculty and sense of rhythm, have made a poet of him. As it was, the poems he chiefly cared for, were those that embodied themselves in life. But life as he knew it, and his own life especially, showed itself to him as the barest, most unmitigated prose.

A training of the acrid scientific sort, of which the root-idea was that for all effectual purposes life's powers must be concentrated on the visible and the practical, had not destroyed his imaginative bent : it had only made him reserved about it. In the circle that knew him as a medical student, he passed for a brusque, shy, silent, young man, clever no doubt, and of irreproachable conduct, but painfully reserved and self-absorbed. Ladies especially were hard on the lad, unduly so, per haps. He was not naturally either a bear or a hermit. But his character and temper were yet not fully developed, and had a yeasty sourness and froth about them still. They compared him with his friend, Mr Warrender, greatly to the advant age of the latter, and generally wound up by concluding that the only thing that accounted for the continued intimacy of two such different men, was the eAXceeding sweetness of Mr Warrender s disposition.

It was true that Paul had been blessed by nature with a singularly even temper, which, with the prudence that distinguished him, he had sedulously cultivated. " I can't afford," he some times said, laughing, " to give myself away." But their friendship was chiefly a matter of he. it, cemented by common associations and common pursuits. Paul Warrender had been a ward of Harry's father, and was now preparing for a scientific career largely at his expense. Mr Drummond the elder was an astronomer of some distinction, who was making himself remarkable by the lavish way in which he devoted his hand some fortune to the purpose of scientific research. His only child, rather to his disappointment, seemed determined to take up medicine on its practical side, but Professor Drummond did not yet despair of his eventually developing into a Virchow or a Pasteur, with proper stimulation and encouragement.

Therefore, although the young man was already a qualified practitioner, he had urged upon him the advisability of spending another two years in study at Paris and Berlin before beginning actually to work at his profession. Paul Warrender had just about this time obtained a travelling scholarship, and the two friends had agreed to leave England to gether. A walking tour in the Dales, with the chance of a little fishing, suggested itself to them as a way of spending part of the holiday time that preceded their departure. And hence it happened that the "Spotted Trout" at Dursley hadthe opportunity, seldom granted at that time of year, of accommodating two sets of lodgers at once. Complete silence had prevailed for a few minutes after the scrap of conversation just recorded, and nothing was to be heard except the faint perpetual murmur of the river and the trees except the rustle when Harry turned a page of his book, or the muttered anathema of the angler on the fishes that would not rise, " charm he never so wisely."

Suddenly, "as a bolt from the blue," a woman's cry shivered the silence around them. The young men started to their feet, and looked blankly at one another. One moment, and another cry rang out across the fields — no inarticulate shriek this time : but a call for help, firm, imperative, articulate. " It's over there," Paul exclaimed, pointing with the rod B he still grasped. " There's an accident on the road : some one upset." Harry Drummond said nothing, but turned and ran in the direction of the voice. Paul put up his rod and followed in more leisurely fashion.

Chapter II

" Nescio quid, certe est quod me tibi temperet astrum." N a few seconds Harry had reached the stone dyke that bounded the highway. He leapt over it with the ease of a practised athlete, and found himself facing the younger of his fellow guests, who was kneeling in the dust of the highway, supporting the head of her friend, who lay with closed eyes, unconscious. Close by was the dogcart lying on its side in the ditch : the pony stood beside it with one of the traces broken, and the blood pouring from its knees. " Can I do anything ? " he asked, taking off his cap, with a movement of instinctive deference, to the pale young lady with the large grey eyes that met his so simply in their quiet appeal. " If you could get me some water," she said. " She has fainted. I don't think she is much hurt.

I hope not." Harry looked over the wall, and seeing his companion in the distance, shouted to him to get some water from the river, and be quick about it. " Perhaps I can help you," he said, coming back. "I am a doctor. We must get her to the house, and then see what can be done." He had the satisfaction of seeing Miss Deverell's face grow radiant at the thought of having a qualified adviser so opportunely at hand. The inn was fortunately not far off, and the injured lady was quickly transported to her own room. She soon recovered consciousness, and Harry found, as he had expected, that the definite injury was slight, and that the harm that had been done consisted chiefly in a shock to the nervous system, of which it was hardly possible just then to estimate the effect. As usual, when she had anything the matter with her, she was very much alarmed about her self, and all Mr Drummond's surgical diplomas were powerless to reassure her about her adviser.

She rated Mary severely when they were alone, for supposing it safe to entrust a case like hers to a mere lad, a slip of a medical student. When Miss Deverell remarked in extenuation that he was a qualified practitioner, her reply was that she did not believe it. And if he were, it did not matter. He could not possibly have had any experience worth mentioning, and if Mary cared at all about seeing her recover, she would at once send for the doctor from S . Mrs Sutton, the landlady, remarked that the young man seemed to know what he was about. But this remark did not tend to soothe her. "Oh ! the less they know the more self-confidence they have," she answered. "Well, I'm in your hands. You can prevent my having proper advice if you like. I only hope you won't regret it when it's too late."

Mary could only assure her that the doctor from S should be summoned at once, but when she came to think about it, she found it diffi cult to see how her pledge was to be fulfilled unless she herself were prepared to undertake the six miles' walk to the town and back after dark. It was market day, and the whole male staff of the little inn was absent in the town, and would not return till quite late. The trap was broken, and the horse injured, so driving was out of the question. And, moreover, it was disagreeable A WCMAN'S WORD. 22 to her, after the friendliness which the young surgeon had show them, to reject his assistance. It seemed ungracious, and Mary hated all un graciousness. Besides, though she had had, so far, fortunately for herself, very little to do with doctors, in their professional capacity at least, she had some vague idea that there was an etiquette to be observed.

She stood, debating the matter with herself in the great kitchen, from which their private apart ments opened. It was a kitchen such as one often sees in old north-country farm-houses, low raftered with great oaken beams, black with the smoke of many generations. One side of the room was almost taken up with an enormous fire place, up which the flame went roaring as if it were not a warm evening in midsummer, while on the right, as one came in, the lattice window fortunately stood wide open, letting in the mingled odours of the garden, now glorious in all its pride of June. For there were tall white lilies, holly hocks, and standard roses, with beds of heartsease and of mignonette, " Sweet-william with its homely cottage smell, And stocks in fragrant blow." Mary sat down on the cushioned window seat, her chin upon her hand, in a reverie, not untinged with self-reproach.

If only Miss Ilford had not chosen the opportunity of their drive to raise the question of her relations with Guy Cheveley, or if she could have reconciled it with her sense of honour to take the part of her fiance a little less decidedly, Miss Ilford would not have become so much absorbed in talk as to forget that she held the reins, that awkward turn in the road would have been passed safely, and there would have been no accident. And this was perhaps only the beginning of the trouble that might be wrought by her guardian's feeling about the engagement which she had done all in her power to promote at one time, and of which she now seemed emphatically to disapprove. And then there was the question of Guy's action, how far it was right and reasonable, and deserv ing of her sympathy. Whether it was not, as her friend seemed to think, a mischievous ebullition of undisciplined self-will ?

She was getting further and further into the maze of gloomy possibilities when Harry Drummond's entrance recalled her to the question of the moment. He came in fresh from a colloquy with Mrs Sutton, who had not failed to tell him, with that frankness which is such a refreshing trait in the Yorkshire character, of the spirit in which his patient was accepting his services. He, too, seemed meditative, and he had gone a step or two into the room without perceiving the figure at the window, when Mary addressed him. " Mr Drummond," she said. He lifted his eyes and looked at her. How it was he did not know ; he had seen before that she was lovely, and guessed the soul's fairness from the face that expressed it (it is so hard to believe that the symbolism of beauty can ever betray), but now his recognition of her loveliness was more than an assent of the understanding — it was a cry of the heart.

The abstract womanhood which he had worshipped in spirit through a visionary youth, took shape before him, incarnated itself in this stranger, whom he had met by chance, and whom he might never meet again. But he had not the physique that readily betrays emotion, and there was scarcely a tremor in his deep voice as he replied, " Your patient goes on all right, I hope ? " " Thank you, yes. She is rather feverish. Her maid is with her just now. I wanted to consult you, Mr Drummond ." "About getting the doctor over from S Oh, yes, Mrs Sutton has been telling me." " We thought," said Mary, with hesitation, " that you wouldn't object to a consultation." " I think it would be better to leave the whole case in his hands. Miss Ilford would feel more comfortable about it." "Oh, now he is hurt," Mary thought.

"Just what I was afraid of." " I am sure," she said aloud, "that the case would be perfectly safe in your hands." " Oh, very likely," said Harry, in his brusque way. " It's not a difficult case. Still it is quite true that I have not had much experience in ordinary practice, and when people are nervous, as Miss Ilford evidently is, confidence in their adviser is half the battle. There is not, in fact, very much the matter, but she will never believe me if I say so. You had much better have the other man. I am going on to S now for some things that are wanted, and I will call and ask him to come round as soon as he can." " Oh no," Mary exclaimed. " It's much too kind of you, but why should you take that trouble ? " " No trouble at all," said Harry. " I shall have to go in any case, the walk is nothing to me, and I daresay the doctor will drive me back with him, if I happen to find him in."

" I am in such a difficulty that I don't know how to refuse you," said Mary; "but I have no business to let you do it." " It is a privilege," he said. The words in themselves were no more than the complimentary form with which a gentleman claims his right of being serviceable to a lady, but there was something in the tone of the young man as he uttered them, something in his manner at once ardent and reverent, that lifted them out of the region of polite commonplace. He gave her no time to answer, but started at once on his errand, leaving her with an impression of which she had not time then to take account to herself, — a touch of fear and perplexity, a faint longing, a moment's vision of infinite vague possibilities. She stood one moment lost in reverie, and then with a movement of impatience at herself, went back to the invalid.

Harry Drummond was an excellent walker. He reached S about seven o'clock, and found the doctor, to whom he had been directed, just finishing dinner. The much-enduring man, on hearing what had happened, immediately ordered his dog-cart round, and in little more than half-an-hour they were at Dursley. " It might have been much worse," he said, after examining the patient, to Harry, whom he probably took for a nephew or other relative in attendance. " Some contusions — shock to the system. Nervous subject evidently. Let them keep her quiet. She'll be all right in a week or two." And he departed in his little gig, promising to look in on the following day. Next morning Paul Warrender reminded his companion that they had originally intended to spend only one night at Dursley, and that they had the rest of the valley still to explore.

More over, he did not see why Miss Ilford's accident should detain them, as Harry was now freed from all professional connection with the case. To all this Harry agreed, but remarked that as the ladies were travelling without male escort or protection, and one of them was an invalid, he did not like to deprive them of any small service that he might be able to render. Even if they did not actually want him now, they might at any moment ; and at all events, they would know he was there. It was finally settled that Paul should go on by himself, and if in a week's time Drummond had not followed, he was to return and join him at Dursley. But though Harry lingered about the great kitchen for hours in hopes of being made useful, or at least of sometimes being blessed with the vision of the lady of his affections, as she went to and fro from the sick-room, very little occurred to reward his perseverance.

From Mrs Sutton he heard that Miss Ilford was much better, and was sitting up ; but he had scarcely a glimpse of Mary. On the fourth morning after Paul's departure, he was walking down the road to the river, not in the best of humours, when he met the postman coming up, and took his share of the correspondence, which comprised, among other things, a note from his father. Mr Drummond wrote that he was coming to Leeds for a day or two to lecture, and he wished his son to meet him there that evening. Although a minute before he had been cursing his own folly in hanging about a place where he could do no good to him self or anyone else, yet this imperative summons annoyed him. After all, however, it only meant an absence of a day or two. He would have to return to meet Warrender. So, with a spirit somewhat more composed, he took a time-table from his pocket, and proceeded to look out his train.

Just where the road crosses Dursley Bridge, a gate on the right leads into the woods. Harry entered, and took the shady path by the river. On the opposite bank the ground rose in a gentle slope, covered with sward as smooth as velvet, and dotted here and there with magnificent trees, to the high moorlands that stretched away east and west, till their outline mingled with the changing shapes of the clouds, and was lost in the purple distance. A little further on he came out of the wood into a meadow, along which the path ran by the brink of the water. It was the same in which he had been with Warrender on the afternoon of Miss Ilford's accident. A figure in a light dress of some soft woollen fabric rose from a rustic seat as he approached, and came towards him. Harry could hardly believe at first that his stars meant so well by him.

A mist came over his eyes, for a moment : he almost trembled. It is part of the miracle of love that it gives one to see the whole possibilities of the race in the individual. It is not so much any particular girl whom the devout lover worships, as " Das ewig weibliche," the ideal type of womanhood, which she represents to him. But it certainly never occurred to Harry to think so. He did not note or analyse his feelings in the least. She was there before him, looking gently at him, speaking to him graciously, and for the moment he had nothing, more to ask of Fate. " I have just picked up this book," she said, " and I think from the name in it that it must belong to you." It was the " Vita Nuova," the book he was reading on the afternoon when he met her first. He had evidently let it fall at her summons, and it had been lying in the grass undisturbed ever since.

The name written in faded brown ink on the title page was Marion Drummond, with a a date of thirty years back. " Thank you," he said, taking it. "It was my mother's." " She was an Italian scholar ?" asked the girl with interest. His tone as he spoke of the mother who was doubtless dead, had touched her. " Yes, I have heard so. I scarcely knew her. She died when I was very young." " Ah, like mine ! " Mary murmured. " But you have your father still." And then before he had time to wonder at his strange good fortune, he found himself talking to her in the frankest way of his father, his early life, his favourite books and studies, while she listened and encouraged him to proceed with the most gracious and unaffected interest. People who are habitually reserved are often very frank and copious in their self-revelations when they do by chance find themselves in a sympathetic atmosphere.

So Mary was enabled by what she heard and divined to picture pretty accurately to herself the sort of environment that had formed the young surgeon. The lonely strenuous student-life, the father proud, not fond, looking eagerly for signs of the sort of development he wished to see, repressing every apparent impulse that did not tend to the goal he had in view, the struggles of the will and judgment emancipating themselves from the control of that stern purpose and limited vision — all this their conversation helped her to imagine : and she found it interesting to have this window as it were into another life. She was struck at the same time with the great respect and admiration which the young man seemed to have for this cold exacting father of his, this devotee of the " terrible muse " — Astronomy.