CHAPTER I

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SWEETHEARTS.

“Thomas, my son!”

The voice came darkly from the scullery window, and Sir Thomas Annesley gave a guilty start where he knelt in the kitchen garden.

“Oh! It’s you!” he cried, with relief. “I thought it might be her ladyship, and I didn’t want her.”

He hastily covered in a small grave he was making in the parsley-bed, and his sister poked her bronze head from the open window with some curiosity.

“What are you doing?” she inquired.

“Oh, nothing! Just putting away something. There is nothing like a hole in the ground. What on earth are you doing in the scullery?” eying the unwonted smartness of as much of Miss Ravenel Annesley’s toilet as was visible. “What have you got on your Sunday frock for? Have you been blacking the family boots in it?”

“If it’s anything to eat you’ve buried, the cats will dig it up again!” loftily ignoring his question, except for a guilty glance at her lilac muslin gown.

“No cat”--calmly--“will dig this up, for I’m going to do it myself first! Come out, why don’t you?”

“I’m coming.” Miss Annesley vaulted nimbly from the window with much display of her only pair of black silk stockings. “You don’t see her ladyship anywhere, do you, Tommy? Because I’ve an--an errand in the quarry, and I don’t want her to sniff it out.”

“She can’t sniff a quarter of a mile”--comfortably. “She’s gone down to sit by the lake without any hat; said she had neuralgia. But I know she’s gone to bleach her golden hair.”

“She does bleach her hair,” Ravenel remarked thoughtfully. “It was the most awful color yesterday--a sort of green! I heard her giving it to the Umbrella for making a mistake.”

Sir Thomas Annesley lit a contraband cigarette.

“And yet,” he said blandly, “it was not the Umbrella who changed the bottle! Her ladyship kicked Mr. Jacobs, and any one who kicks my dog has misfortunes. I’ll walk over to the quarry with you!” affably.

“No, Tommy dear!” with guilty haste. “I--I don’t require you.”

Sir Thomas coughed.

“Don’t blame me then if her ladyship sends the old Umbrella all over the country for you when you’re missed. I’ll have to kill that maid some day! Do you know, she listens at the door when we’re alone?”

“Much good she’ll get!” contemptuously, marching on under the blossoming apple-trees with the sun flecking the lovely bronze of her hair with red gold. “Look here, Tommy, you come as far as the hedge, and just give a cooee if you see the Umbrella or her ladyship.”

“Can’t. I’m going over to the barracks to see Gordon.”

“I wouldn’t! It would be”--she was not looking at him--“a waste of time.”

“Oh!” Sir Thomas winked vulgarly, as he observed a lovely carnation grow and deepen in his sister’s cheeks. “I see. Well, go on, my dear! I don’t blame you; only,” in hasty addition as they reached the hedge, “keep your eye peeled. The Umbrella is active, and also far-sighted. I don’t recommend the quarry myself; it is too like being a mouse in a bowl. Give me a wood for such undertakings! And mind you’re back by dinner, for if her ladyship sees you sneaking in with your Sunday blouse on she’ll put two and two together. Meantime, I’ve gone over to the barracks to see Gordon. You mind that when you come home!”

“You’re a duck, Thomas, some day I’ll reward you,” returned the vision in mauve muslin, disappearing with some pains through the whitethorn hedge.

But Sir Thomas only grunted. He approved of his sister’s adorer because Lady Annesley did not, but he privately considered that meeting a handsome, penniless hussar was wasting time.

“However, Mr. Jacobs,” he observed, as that disreputable bull-terrier joined him, “anything for business, and we’re growing old. And it is my belief that my lady wants to marry Ravenel to that old Lord Levallion, and I’ll see her blowed first.”

He sat down on the bank at the foot of the hedge and pulled his hat over his eyes. They were worldly wise eyes for a boy of sixteen; but to have Lady Annesley for a stepmother was a liberal education. Old Sir Thomas had married her in haste, and, fortunately for himself, had died too soon to have time to repent at leisure. He was poor; his new wife had been supposed to be rich; but her fortune turned out to be about as real as her complexion--there was just enough of it to swear by. Annesley Chase was mortgaged too deeply for the widow’s small income even to pay the interest; when young Sir Thomas came of age it would be foreclosed and sold over his head, unless money came from the skies. And yet Lady Annesley, even while she sat and saw the interest piling up against her, had no idea of letting Annesley Chase go. A snug old age in the dower-house appearing to her more inviting than spending her declining years in a semidetached villa, she was even now taking steps to secure it by the simple scheme of a rich marriage for Ravenel, and later and harder, for Sir Thomas. In the meantime, she provided the stepchildren, who were her only stock in trade, with bread and butter. Thin bread and thinner butter, perhaps; but still she fed them. And they hated her cordially--Ravenel from having seen her father’s last days made wretched; Tommy from a far-sighted distrust that grew on him every day.

But Ravenel just now had no thoughts for her stepmother, nor of how she was improving the long hours of the May afternoon. Over the short grass of the field above the quarry pits she was walking with the air of one having an infinity of time and no particular destination. Her heart might be galloping before her, but it was not good for captains of hussar regiments to know it. She sailed on demurely under the shade of an ivory-white parasol--it was one of Lady Annesley’s, and her stepdaughter hoped devoutly there would not be a hue and cry for it while it was out--as if she had not a care in the world. Yet a sharp color came to her clear cheeks as she neared the quarry pit.

Suppose he had not come!

The thought made her feel chilly in the warm May sunshine. For one breathless moment she was afraid to lift her eyes from the short grass lest she might look in vain for Adrian Gordon. And so nearly walked over him where he lay stretched on the warm, green sod at the edge of the quarry.

Miss Annesley dropped her pirated parasol.

“Oh!” she cried, as he sprang to his feet. “I nearly walked over you.”

“Tread lightly then, for my heart is under your feet,” quoted the man, with a little laugh of pure pleasure. He took both her hands and looked down into her gray-blue eyes.

“I began to think, Miss Annesley,” he remarked gravely, “that you were not coming. Another ten minutes and I should have walked up to your hall door and paid a polite visit,” his strong, fine hands holding hers with utter content.

The girl looked up at him where he stood bareheaded, the sun on his close-cropped, fair hair. How tanned and strong and good to look at he was! And how sweet his gray eyes and his mouth under his fair mustache.

He caught her hands a little closer.

“You see,” he said; “you were just saved having to receive me under her ladyship’s nose. I would have braved even her tea rather than have gone back without seeing you.” He stooped to pick up her parasol, and she drew her hands from his left one that held them both.

“It wouldn’t have been any good your coming in state,” she returned calmly. “You would only have had ‘not at home’ said to you. Her ladyship is engaged to-day in renovating her charms.”

“I should have met you at the door if I’d started when I first thought of it! Would you have sent me away?” seating himself beside her in the shade of a flower-filled thorn-tree on the sharp slope down to the quarry. “I believe you would!” rather dashed.

“I should not, for an excellent reason. I didn’t come by the front door, but out of the scullery window,” gaily. “Her ladyship supposes I’m darning table-cloths. I’ve left Tommy down by the hedge to warn me if my flight is discovered.”

The laughter left Captain Gordon’s handsome eyes. He laid his brown hand on Ravenel’s white one.

“Tell me, my Nel,” he said softly; “do you love me, ever so little?”

“No!” very low. “Ever so little!” Did she not love him with all her soul and body, as she loved no one else in God’s world?

“How much do you love me? That much?” measuring off a tiny space with her two hands, for he had them both now, and Lady Annesley’s lace parasol had rolled where it would down the quarry.

“Not at all?”

“Not at all,” but she barely whispered it.

“Do you mean that, Nel?” he was whispering, too. “Because I love you--oh, you know how I love you!” he let her hands go. “Tell me, quick, do you mean it?”

Miss Annesley made no answer, only raised her eyes to his for the briefest instant. But it was long enough for Adrian Gordon.

“Sweetheart,” he said, and kissed her. “Nel, look at me; won’t you kiss me?”

“I--I don’t know.” But she did look at him, and, somehow, without either of their wills, their lips met. And at that long, gentle touch of the man’s lips on hers Ravenel Annesley gave her heart and her soul to his keeping, forever.

“My sweet,” he said, letting her go, “do you know, I’ve no right to ask you to marry me? I’ve no money.”

“Neither have I,” gaily. “Would you like to be off your bargain?”

“Don’t say it!” quickly. “It hurts too much. But money I must and will have to marry you. I mean the girl of my heart to have all she wants in this world--gowns and horses and happiness. It would kill me to see you as I’ve seen the wives of lots of poor men. Can you wait for me, sweet, for two years, while I go out to India?”

“India! What for?” the color left her face.

“Well! I’ve a second cousin, who has some influence. He’s not a man I like much, but he surprised me the other day by telling me that a friend of his out in India would offer me an appointment on his staff--he’s a general--if it were certain I’d accept. I--I said I would. It’s more than three times the pay I’m getting now and a chance in a thousand to get on in the service. I’d have to leave my regiment, but I’d do that--for you.”

“Adrian--not now!” she whispered. “We’re so happy.” Her heart fairly turned over at the thought of Annesley Chase without Adrian Gordon quartered ten miles off, of the long, empty summer days.

“We’ll be as happy again,” he answered wistfully, “and the sooner I go the sooner I’ll be back. But I wouldn’t go at all if I saw any other way. I’m afraid to leave you with your stepmother.”

“She can’t marry me out offhand to a slug or a snail, and those are the only visitors we ever have. My charms”--dryly--“have doubtless not yet been noised abroad.”

“I believe you wish they had been!” quite as dryly. “You’re a bundle of vanity, Miss Annesley, and I believe you’ve got a temper--and you’re proud----” he paused eloquently.

“Go on,” returned his charmer calmly. “Don’t mind me! And when you’re done I’ll tell you what I am--quite good enough for you!”

Her eyes met his with sweet insolence, fearless for all their softness, and the man’s face changed.

“You’re too good, that’s one thing,” he said slowly. “And for another, you’re too proud. I know you! If anything went wrong between us, and it was my fault, you’d never give me a chance to explain.”

Ravenel looked at him, as he sat beside her, with the May sun full on his face, that was meant to be fair, but was turned a clear pale-bronze by wind and weather; full on his tawny, gold mustache, and the clear-cut lines of his cheek and chin. Strong and cold and proud that face was, till you looked at the man’s eyes or saw him smile. But now he was not smiling, and a quick pang caught at the girl’s heart. Adrian Gordon to talk of pride!

She flung out both her hands to him, as she had never done before.

“Listen!” she cried passionately. “It’s you who are proud; not I! Offend me, and I will give you all the chances on earth to explain; but you--oh, I don’t believe you would ever forgive anything.”

Her eyes, that had been so gay, so full of sweet mockery, were brimming with tears, and Gordon caught her to him jealously.

“There will never anything come between us,” he said as he kissed her, “not between the girl I love and me!”

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