A woman's face : a romance

Front matter

BY FfcOR E N C E WARD EN

AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH

SOUTHAMPTON ST.TSTR/

Chapter I

It was half-past six o'clock on a bleak evening in January. A black starless sky above, frost-bound snow-covered earth underneath, and a film of sleet falling made the hills and valleys of beautiful Westmoreland dreary and desolate as the shadowy limboes of the Inferno, where Dante describes unbaptized and heathen souls as wandering for ever in still and joyless gloom. Between two ridges of bare and rocky hill a market-cart was jogging slowly along the whitening road, and the thud of the old horse's hoofs and the rattle of the wheels were the only sounds that broke a stillness which was vault-like in the narrow valley.

From under the rough canvas hood of the little cart peered out two men's faces, not clearly visible even to each other ; as the cart entered the valley its occupants had dropped into silence, which was not broken until a light began to twinkle in the dimness on the road ahead of them. At sight of the little thread of brightness across the path one of the men started and the other faughed good-humouredly.

" Eh, but there's no need to be feared, sir ; there's no moonlighters hereabouts," said he cheerfully, as he encouraged the old horse to mend his pace by a gentle shake of the reins. " I've lived at Mereside sixty-five year, and I've been to Conismere and back every Thursday nigh on fifty year, barrin' when the snow had drifted too deep, and I've never come to no harm on this road, lonesome as it be. But I can understand how a gentleman like yourself, from Lon'on mebb.e, should find it a bit solitary-like."

" Solitary ! Well, yes, it is solitary, there's no denying that," answered his companion in a deep, mellow voice that conveyed a volume of information, true or false, concerning the owner's pedigree, disposition, and education ; and all in his favour. " But I mustn't let London suffer for my nervousness. I'm as nervous as a cat to-night, I confess, and for my life I couldn't tell why ! I'm a Yorkshireman."

" Eh, not from Lon'on ! " exclaimed the old villager, glancing back involuntarily towards the place where the stranger's Gladstone bag lay in the bottom of the cart.

The young Yorkshireman smiled.

" I come from London just now, certainly, as my luggage-labels attest," he said. " But that doesn't make me a Londoner any more than the fact of my being on my way to Scotland makes me a Scotchman."

" Scotchman ! Eh, no, you don't need to be that," struck in the old man with decision. " I've no greet love for Scotchmen myself, though we've got one of them for landlord now, and he's not a bad sort isn't Lord Kildonan. But surely, sir, if you're journeying to Scotland, it's a good bit out of your way to go to Branksome. It's getting southwards again like."

The gentleman did not answer, and the villager, after a short pause, went on in reluctant apology :

" Of course it's no business of mine, sir, and I ask your pardon if I've been too free like, but "

The stranger cut him short, speaking slowly and with a sort of drowsiness in his manner.

" It is an accident altogether, this going to Branksome. I made a stupid mistake at Haverholme Junction, where I got out of the train, taking my bag with me by an unaccountable bit of luck. I walked up and down the platform a few times to warm my feet, and by a feat of stupidity which I cannot in the least explain, got into the wrong train, and found myself presently at Conismere, where, as you know, the branch line ends ; so, as there was no train back to Haverholme before to-morrow morning, I made up my mind to inflict myself for the night upon an old acquaintance of mine, Dr. Peele5 of Branksome."

" Dr. Peele ! Oh, ay, I know 'un."

"And you were kind enough to offer me a lift as far as Mereside. Branksome is about four miles further on, they say."

" Ay, a matter of four mile or so, and a straight road eno' — t' coach road. But if you don't know these parts, I should advise you to bide at Mereside till morning, for t' wind will make drifts by-and-by on t' roads by t' lake. There is a hotel and two good inns at Mereside where t' coach starts from, and t' owd doctor's ill, so there won't be much of a welcome for ye at Branksome Lodge."

" The doctor's ill, is he ? "

"Ay, and t' missis won't be in t' best o' tempers. She's not one o' t' meek 'uns, isn't Mrs. Peele, though she's a good lady, and it's my belief she's saved many a one of her husband's patients by chuckin' his pills and his draughts into t' fire, and sending t' boy off wi' a pie and a bottle of port wine in place of 'em."

The Yorkshireman laughed. " I don't say there may not be occasions where a little more food and a little less physic is not a bad prescription ; but you mustn't disparage medical science to me, for I'm a doctor myself."

" Lord, and are ye now ? Well, I thowt I was travellin' in better company. No offence, sir, but it's a sore point with us hereabouts just now, is that of doctors. There's been a bit of a bother about a young partner Dr. Peele took, who got into little difficulties with some o' t' doctor's patients, and had to go away a bit sudden-like in consequence."

" Difficulties ! What sort of difficulties ? "

"Well, two of t' patients under his care — poor men both, a labourer one was, and t'other a man as kept a small statiener's shop, were took ill wi' t' same sort of symptoms ; and one died."

" Well ? "

" At t' beginnin' one had rheumatic fever and t'other a broken rib. They ain't t' same thing, sir, are they ? "

" No ; very different indeed."

" Well, it seemed odd, so folks thowt, when by-andby they was both took same way. It was so odd that it got about, and people talked."

" And what did they say ? "

" Why, that t' young fellow 'd got a bit careless-like, and was a little too fond of the same drug in his prescriptions."

"And what drug was that ? "

" Laudanum, I think 'twas."

" People said something more than that, I suppose ? "

" A deuced sight more. They said But here I be

a-tittle-tattling like ne'er an old woman— — "

" Well, well, it's talk for a winter's night, nothing more. For I know no one in this part of the world but Dr. Peele, I've never been here before, and I'm not likely to come here again : so the gossip can't do any harm, especially as I don't even know the names of the people you speak of."

" Ay, that's true, and so I won't tell 'ee their names. The gossips say this young spark had had 's head turned by a leddy, and a fine leddy too, but who had a husband a'ready, and that his head was runnin' on something that 'ud do away with himself. I don't suppose there was much truth in it, but it's always fine soil for a story where a handsome woman's planted, as I dare say you know, sir."

" What, is this handsome woman a local beauty, then?"

" She lives hereabouts, sir, if that's what you mean. But she's a Lon'on beauty too, so I'm told ; and well she mebbe, for there isn't an eye, young or old, gentle-folk or village-folk, that can look at her bonny face once and not care to look twice. She's worth walking a good mile to see, is Lady Kildonan."

" Lady Kildonan ; oh, she is the wife of the principal landowner about here, then ?"

The old man evidently regretted that he had let slip the name of the subject of his talk. He answered rather reluctantly, and in a more cautious manner :

" They are popular in the district then. Lord and Lady Kildonan ? "

" She makes him popular, bless her. He's always porin' over 's books, is his lordship, but she's all over t' place like a sunbeam, on her horse, or in her carriage, or her little sleigh, leavin' a pound o' tea here, a can o' jelly there, with a word for every woman, and a smile for every man, and a kiss for t' children. She's a sight for sore een, she is."

" Is she young ? "

" Let me see ; she was born t' year my girl Janet was married, that's twenty- four year ago."

" And Lord Kildonan, what sort of an age is he ? "

" Well, there's a matter of thirty years or more between him and 's wife."

" And his heart is bound up in his library ? "

" So they say. Indeed, I think he'll turn into a book himself some day, for he's as dry as parchment, and has ne'er a word to give of his own accord, though they do say he's chock full o' learning. But he's a kind gentleman, and the poor have no more to greet about now than they had in the time of her ladyship's father, Mr. Dighton."

" Oh, then the property came through her ? "

" Ay. His lordship hadn't much but his title and his books, they say."

" Surely she might have found a better mate than an old Scotch bookworm ? "

" Well, she was a bit of a madcap, as a lass, and they say old Mr. Dighton was glad to get her off his hands, and married to a honest man. And she don't fret for him and his books : she has too much life in her for that," the old man added with evident admiration.

The young doctor was rather surprised at the wide latitude which this old peasant, who by all precedent should have been a rigid censor of the manners and morals of his juniors and superiors, allowed to a lady whose conduct seemed, by his own showing, to be open to severe criticism. He was about to put a question to the old man with the view of getting an explanation of this singular indulgence, when certain faint sounds, which seemed to come from some distance behind them, broke upon his ears and caused him to again start as he had done at sight of the light on the road in front of them.

"You've no such strong nerves for a doctor, sir," said his companion jocularly. " You started at sight o' t' light in John Barlow's cottage yonder, and now at t' sound o' — why of her ladyship's sleigh-bells," he ended, after listening a moment to the rapidly approaching sounds.

" I dare say you don't believe me, but I don't remember such a thing ever to have happened to me before ; and I can swear I never before made such a fool of myself as I have done to-night in getting out of the right train to get into the wrong one, and then coming through the snow on a wild-goose chase to see a person who is not even a very old friend of mine, instead of putting up at Conismere for the night, so that I might get into the right track again the first thing to-morrow morning."

He spoke with considerable irritation and self-scorn, and his companion was emboldened by his tone to be franker in comment than ever.

" Eh, but I was thinkin' it was a queer thing to do, if you were at all hurried-like on your journey."

" Yes, it's more than queer, it's mad, and I shall do the best I can to bring myself back to saner thoughts and saner conduct by staying at Mereside to-night and returning the first thing in the morning to Conismere to continue my journey."

He was speaking with impatience which seemed unnatural to him, and his companion observed that his feet tapped the floor of the cart in a restless and excited manner. The noise of the sleigh-bells grew louder and louder behind them, and the dull sound of horses' quick steps upon the snow ; while the bright notes of a woman's laughter rang out clearly, and filled the young Yorkshireman with a strong curiosity to see this lake-side siren, the very sound of whose voice bore exhilaration to its hearers. In a moment more the sleigh had dashed by, with its twinkling lights, its jingling bells ; and all that the doctor could see through the darkness was, that it contained two people, sitting side by side. But as it passed with a whir-r-r and a rush of cold air, something, light and soft and scented, fluttered up like a curled white leaf, and fell on the young man's knees like an unconscious challenge of fascinating, warm-blooded coquetry : a lady's handkerchief, filmy and lace-edged, sweet with a perfume that whispered through the senses to the imagination, and brought up fancies of delicate white fingers that had held the dainty toy. The old villager, however, was not troubled by superfluous poetry ; on catching sight of the handkerchief, he began to call out lustily :

" Hey ! Woa ! Stop ! You've dropped summet. Your ladyship, hey ! "

The sleigh was rapidly approaching a dip in the road where a group of rough stone cottages, one of which was an inn of the humblest kind, broke the straight line of the roadside, and threw little streams of light across the snow through their latticed windows. At the sound of the old man's cries both occupants of the sleigh turned their heads, and at last, as he still shouted, the jingling of the bells subsided to a faint tinkle, the sleigh drew up just out of the gleams of light from the cottage windows, and a man's voice called out impatiently : " What is it ? "

The young doctor, holding the handkerchief, had already leapt down from the cart, and was running over the snow as fast as limbs stiffened by cold and a cramped position could carry him. Even as he ran and the rapid movement dispersed the fanciful reveries which novel circumstances and his new and strange perversity had induced, a superstitious and dreamy idea took possession of him that this trifling accident had some meaning for him, some bearing upon his future life ; and at the same time an entirely mundane and explicable curiosity arose in his mind concerning the companion of the lady. His voice was young, therefore he was not her husband ; it was that of a gentleman, therefore he could not be the coachman. The Yorkshireman was filled with interest by the time he reached the sleigh, which was drawn up on the left-hand side of the road. It was the lady who held the reins, sitting high on cushions at the right.

But if, on the strength of the old villager's tattling stories, the doctor had scented a scandal, he was disappointed; for the man beside her, sitting respectfully upright with folded arms, was in livery, and could be no other than the groom.

"Well, what do you want?" asked the lady imperiously, before the stranger had appeared beside her. " Hard times, I suppose, and you've been out of work for weeks, and have a hungry family, and want a night's lodging. Well, here you are, but you ought not to stop people on the public road, you know; it looks like an attempt at highway robbery without the romance of it."

She ended with a ripple of most pleasant, low-voiced laughter, as if it was quite impossible for her happy nature to keep up even the faint semblance of annoyance with which her words had begun. She was feeling in her purse, with her head bent over it, by the time the young Yorkshireman had reached her side and had recovered breath enough to speak. Just as he was raising his hat, and holding out the handkerchief, the ponies started off; and the few paces it travelled before being pulled up by a quick hand on the reins, brought the sleigh within the light from the cottage windows, which flashed upon the faces both of the lady and of the stranger who stood beside her.

The Yorkshireman held his breath. By some odd result of this sudden revelation of her beauty to his dazed and dreamy mood, it seemed to him that not a fiesh-and-blood handsome woman of the nineteenth century, but the incarnate ideal of the Italian painters of the Renaissance, looked straight into his eyes with the frank and fearless gaze of a pictured goddess, and flashed upon his dazzled sight the rose and ivory tints of her skin, the gleam of her blue eyes and of her pearl teeth, the shining coils of her pale golden hair. Lady Kildonan's beauty was that of incontestable, triumphant, sensuous sort which attacks and subdues at first sight, needing no wiles of subtle allurement, no attractions of intelligence or amiability, to establish its claim to allegiance. What sort of mind dwelt in that beautiful body might become, when longer acquaintance had dulled the first impression produced by her face, a question of interest ; but in a creature of so much loveliness it was of necessity a secondary matter, and although every woman of her acquaintance bewailed what one called a lack, and another a sameness, of expression, and united in regretting that this variously described defect "quite spoiled a face that would otherwise have been good-looking," the less discerning sex overlooked this blemish with generous unanimity, and yielded her that unquestioning homage which has been man's tribute to royal beauty, and the thorn in good plain women's sides since the world began. The young stranger was conquered at once, and the words he had had ready failed him. On her side, however, the lady seemed to be as much struck with the appearance of the supposed tramp as he was with hers ; the pink colour in her cheeks grew a little deeper, and she held out her hand for the handkerchief with head bent as if in humble apology, while her full blue eyes looked up in his face with a deprecatory expression which would have washed away the memory of a hundred insults.

" I beg your pardon. I'm so awfwlly sorry. I made a dreadful mistake," she said, in a low winning voice that had a strangely moving quality.

" Not at all, madam," answered the stranger, recovering his voice, but not all his self-control. " You were quite right. The times are very hard, and I am in search of a night's lodging, though it is true I had no intention of waylaying you for the means to pay for it. You dropped your handkerchief, and I picked it up ; that is all."

" Oh, but it's not all. I'm so much ashamed of myself," broke out the lady, who seemed to enjoy the adventure with all the zest of a young girl. " You are a stranger here, I see — for I know every face in the neighbourhood. Let me offer you the hospitality of my home — The Crags — for the night. My husband, Lord Kildonan, will be delighted to welcome you. Poor man, he's used to making the amende honorable for his wife's escapades ! " she ended with another peal of the bell-toned laughter which seemed to be a more natural expression io A WOMAN'S FACE.

of her happy, sanguine temperament than the colder medium of words.

The doctor noticed, even as he excused himself from accepting this headstrong offer of hospitality, that the groom appeared strangely sensible of the want of dignity betrayed by his mistress's rash inritation to a stranger, for the man gathered up the reins which the lady had let fall, as if respectfully to remind her that the time was slipping by.

" You must at least call upon us to-morrow — ah, but I insist upon that," she said, after hearing his answer. " I can't insult people and forget all about it in a moment like that. I must be allowed to make amends in my own way. If you are a visitor to Conismere you have no idea how much an old resident can help you to make the very most of your stay."

The groom gave an admonitory pull to the reins, but Lady Kildonan laid an imperious hand upon them while she listened to the stranger's answer.

" You are very kind indeed, and you have nothing in the world to apologize for, madam. I am a visitor, but a visitor who has to count even the minutes of his stay. I have a business appointment of the highest importance to me to keep in Glasgow to-morrow, upon which my hopes of getting a practice rest."

" A practice ! Are you a lawyer, or a doctor then ? " the beauty asked with ingenuous interest.

" I'm a doctor, or at least I shall be when I get any patients."

" Well, I hope "

But before she could get any further with her speech the ponies, whether of their own accord or not it was impossible to say, had started off at a smart pace, and the young Yorkshireman was left standing in the middle of the road, feeling like the hero of a fairy tale when the spell has broken and the enchanted palace melted away. The cart in which the old villager had brought him thus far on his journey now jogged up and stopped for him to mount into it again.

" Well, what dost think o' t' leddy ? " asked the old man with interest.

A WOMAN'S FACE. u

" Why, she — she is very handsome," the doctor answered stupidly ; and he turned to get up into the cart again.

As he did so he caught sight of something on the snow-covered ground at a little distance from his feet. With a quickened pulse, and yet with a conscience-prick, he made two steps forward, and discovered that it was indeed, as a sense even keener than his bodily vision had told him, the same little handkerchief that he had restored to its owner a few moments before. An odd coincidence surely, that she had dropped it again so soon ! Or was it a little wile to secure that call at The Crags on which her fancy seemed so obstinately bent ? Whichever it might be, it was not in flesh and blood of seven and twenty to resist any longer the chance of another glimpse of this lake-side goddess. He got into the cart silently, wondering more than ever at the strange influence which seemed to have been at work upon him that day, and so effectually to have made havoc with his usually sober and practical nature, that he thought less of the appointment at Glasgow, with the practice for which he was sighing, than of the scrap of lace and cambric he had hastily hidden in one of his coat pockets from the curious eyes of his peasant companion.

Chapter II

The cart, with its oddly-assorted occupants, jogged on without further incident until, emerging from the monotonous road, with its enclosing walls of bare and steep hills, the old man announced that they were now "nigh t' village." There had been little conversation between them since the adventure with the sleigh, the villager having been satisfied with the stranger's full acquiescence in the local admiration of Lady Kildonan's beauty. A trifling incident, however, again brought forward the topic.

They had come to a point where a steep and narrow lane joined the main road. Just within the lane stood a tumbledown stone cottage, from the door of which, at the moment the cart jogged by, a man was issuing. The occupants of the cart saw his figure against the faint light of the interior of the cottage, and the old man said :

" Eh, but there's my lady's groom a leavin' something good for poor old mad Peg, I'll warrant ! There's an owd Irishwoman lives in that cottage, sir, as won't let t' parson come nigh her, bein' one o' them as worships t' saints, as they call 'em. And she ain't far wrong, for she's found as good as a saint to look after her. There's hardly a winter's day goes by but what my lady brings a pretty substantial blessing of half a pound o' tea or what-not to t' owd woman. Good evenin' to you, Mr. Martin."

The man, thus addressed, answered very shortly " Good evening," and hurried on towards the spot a few yards further on, where his mistress was waiting in the sleigh. The young doctor peered out at him in the darkness curiously, possessed with the odd idea that the man was disguising his voice. As they passed the sleigh the doctor heard the groom say something about Peggy's humble duty, and she had been laid up since yesterday with the rheumatiz' ; and then a new idea concerning the man's voice occurred to him. A moment later the sleigh scudded rapidly by and its lanterns were lost to sight by a turn in the road, though the jingling of its bells was heard in fact for some minutes, and in the doctor's fancy for some hours longer.

" I should think this admiration of yours, this Lady Kildonan, must find it rather dull in winter time to be shut up in a country house with a book- worm for a husband."

" Dull ! " echoed the old man, and he stopped to give an admiring laugh. "Dull! You don't know Lady Kildonan. Did ye not see her face ? She'd enjoy herself in the county gaol would her ladyship, bless her ! "

" I suppose they keep the house full of visitors ? "

" No, not so much that; his lordship's too quietdike a man for that. But she goes ridin' an' drivin' about as you've seen her, and she's sunshine in herself, she is.

She's settled down a bit since her marriage, as a lady should, but Lord, the pranks she and young Master Ned, the dentist's son, used to play. They kept the country-side alive, did those two. They say he went nigh distracted when her father married her to Lord Kildonan."

" Was she married against her will, then ? "

"Well, some said one thing, some another. But I don't think myself she was t' sort o' lass to be drove to marriage more'n t' aught else she'd no mind to. An' she was proud, and 'ud never have married t' son of a dentist, though young Master Ned, as we called him then, had a college schooling like t' best of 'em."

" And what became of him ? "

" Oh, he went to Lon'on, and when he came back he brought a wife wi' him. And her ladyship didn't forget her old playmate, for she got him t' post of agent to his lordship."

" Oh ! " said the doctor quite simply.

The gossiping old villager had spoken in perfect good faith, and his listener felt rather ashamed of the less ingenuous interpretation which his own impressions of the lake-side beauty had suggested to his mind. Therefore he discreetly allowed the subject to drop, and a few minutes later, having by this time reached the outskirts of the village, the horse stopped of his own accord before the third of a row of fair-sized cottages, with gardens in front of them.

" T' owd horse knows his home," said the old man as he got down from the cart and gave the animal a rough caress down the nose. " He won't go no further to-night, won't Smiler, but you're only a few steps from t' hotel now, sir, where t' coaches start for Branksome and Conismere, and if you'll take t' advice of a man as knows t' country hereabouts, you'll stay there and not be goin' on to Branksome till t' day breaks. T' wind's gettin' up, and t' snow'll be driftin', and on a night as black as this you might hap to miss t' road, and a turn to t' right in t' darkness might take you bang in t' lake."

" Thank you heartily. I shall certainly take your advice, and when the night's rest has cleared my brains i4 A WOMAN'S FACE.

a bit, I shall get back to Conismere, and on with my journey as fast as I can. But by the bye, I should like to renew our acquaintance if I ever chance to come this way again. My name is Armathwaite, Frank Armathwaite "

" And mine's Haynes, Luke Haynes. As for renewing of acquaintance, doctor, if it's as man and man, and not as doctor and patient, I wish we may. And good luck to you on your journey."

With a hearty hand-shake of warm mutual approval, the gentleman and peasant parted, the latter leading his horse to the stable on the opposite side of the road, while the former made his way to the hotel indicated by the old man. This was a large, solid-looking cornerbuilding, in~the centre of the village, erected at an angle formed by the meeting of two roads. The snow was falling so thickly by the time Frank Armathwaite reached this place of refuge that he made up his mind that nothing should induce him to leave its sheltering walls that night, if the interior should come near to fulfilling the promise of comfort held out by^the exterior. On entering the low, wide hall, the traveller found that this promise was more than fulfilled ; it was exceeded. He was received by the host, a man of about thirty-five, quiet, courteous, intelligent, resourceful ; shown to a room where a mahogany four-post bedstead, high old-fashioned chimney-piece, and candles in tall metal candlesticks, gave further promise of the solid, stately comfort which had refreshed at least a couple of generations of travellers ; and lastly led by a stream of light and a welcome fragrance of dinner to the coffee-room, where a grave elderly man, who was head waiter in the season and sole waiter out of it, inducted him with honour to a seat at a table near the fire, where the cheerful sight of the flames leaping amidst a pile of coals crowned by a glowing log, chased away the last lingering vestige of the gloomy and fanciful melancholy which had fastened upon him since the morning.