CHAPTER XXXV

‘CARELESSE CONTENTE’

The withdrawal of Crackpot from the running, on the very day before the race, made a great sensation in the world of the turf. The affair was looked upon with suspicion, especially in connection with Otho Askam’s known character for slipperiness—a character which stuck to him, although no one could exactly say how he had first got it. But the sensation was very much confined to the circles immediately connected with the event. Otho had managed with sufficient skill to avoid having anything tangible brought up against him. The rumours that were current did not penetrate to his sister’s ears. The things that were written about the circumstance were published in sporting or ‘society’ papers, which she never saw, and in their own peculiar jargon. Michael, in his rounds, heard it all freely discussed, but was careful never to let her know what he heard. He wished her to forget it, and presently it seemed as if she did. At her age, and with her temperament, the heart, though it is peculiarly sensible to sorrow, and feels it with a keenness resembling resentment, is also very open to joy; and there were joyful influences at work in her life that summer. Michael did not even tell her of the rumours he had heard, that Otho had lost a great deal of money by withdrawing Crackpot from the race; for after all, they were rumours, and not substantiated facts, though Michael believed them to be true enough. Otho had what Michael considered the good taste not to come near Thorsgarth after his escapade, and for a season the land had rest from him and his presence.

It has been said that there were joyful influences at work in the life of Eleanor this summer; and that was true. Her nature loved sunshine, and just now it had it in plenty, both moral and material. From May—after the bad news about Otho—till August, sunlight prevailed. There was a long, hot, glorious summer, such as is not often vouchsafed to us nowadays. Hitherto she had known Bradstane literally only under its winter aspect. These months offered a variety of view and climate; and she, keenly and intensely sensitive to such influences, rejoiced with the rejoicing summer. Her life at the Dower House just then was a far from unpleasant one. She had gathered round her a little circle of friends, both young and old, and they gave freshness and variety to her life, as she helped to bring charm and poetry into theirs. She began for the first time really to understand what pleasure money can give—the possession of it, that is, and the power which that possession confers of affording pleasure and relief to others. She helped to make the summer golden to others beside herself. Amongst the pleasures of that season, there were none she enjoyed more than the out-of-door life which the unusual fineness and dryness of the summer rendered possible. There were day-long excursions, begun early in the morning, and only ended when the dew and the night were falling together—excursions into the deep woods, over the glorious moors, or beside the lovely streams which water and adorn that wild and beautiful tract of Borderland, called Teesdale. Sometimes she and her friends, the little Johnsons, would set off alone, swarming (the children) in and out of a pony chaise which never seemed too small, however many got into it; and which was yet never too large, even when there were not more than two or three to occupy it. As often as not the old doctor would be their guide and chaperon; and under his direction they explored the country for miles around. It was new to Eleanor; it was mostly new to her young companions, who had never before had a fairy with a pony chaise to take them about. This was very pleasant, with the lunches eaten ‘by shallow rivers,’ or under leafy trees; when the children splashed and waded to their heart’s content, and the days, long though they were, never seemed long enough.

But there were also other and larger affairs, more important in every sense of the word,—proper picnics, at which several parties joined,—the Johnsons, Dr. Rowntree and his sister, Mrs. Parker, Eleanor; and on one or two occasions, even Michael had managed to snatch a day and join them, leaving his work to his assistant. On one of these days when he was present, they explored Deepdale; on another they managed to climb ‘Catcastle Crag.’ On both of these occasions it was noticed that Michael’s behaviour was marked by an unaccountable levity, and Miss Askam’s by a kind of laughing apprehension. She, too, seemed to see jokes where no one else could detect them. Michael, indeed, went so far as to tell the children that this was not the first time that Miss Askam had been to Catcastle, and having by means of sundry mysterious hints roused their curiosity to fever pitch, and set them to attack her with every kind of question they could think of, he fell into the rear, and conversed with Mrs. Parker, leaving Eleanor to baffle them as best she could.

They happened to be alone for a few moments on the occasion of the Deepdale expedition, and he seized the opportunity to say—

‘I notice that you still retain that ingenuous youth, William, for your special body-servant; I suppose it is his complete incapacity which recommends him to you? You do not like to dismiss him, because you are quite sure no one else would take him on; and you think it is better that he should have the semblance of an occupation than that you should have to support him by charity.’

‘You wrong poor William, Mr. Langstroth. He is a very good servant, and a most faithful creature.’

‘So I should fancy. He knows the country almost as well as his mistress does, and has such wonderful presence of mind, as to make him invaluable in any emergency.’

‘Well, I think he has the presence of mind, at any rate, to know when help was nigh.’

‘Say, rather, the power of lung to invoke that help when it was afar off. You don’t know what a long way I rode back, summoned by that unearthly yell of his.’

Eleanor laughed. ‘Poor William!’ she said.

‘Ah, I do admire William. Do you see, he knows we are talking about him, and the children are beginning to be suspicious too. I believe William fears we are going to ask him to act as guide to some place. Would you mind my catechising him a little on the geography of the district? It would keep him up to the mark, you know, and would be such a useful thing for the children as well.’

‘Please don’t, Mr. Langstroth. You will make me look ridiculous before them all.’

‘If I have seen you looking ridiculous, and if William has seen you looking ridiculous,’ said Michael, ‘as we certainly did, you know, on a never-to-be-forgotten occasion, what can it matter if a set of children and their mother see the same thing?’

‘Oh, nothing, perhaps,’ was the sweet reply. ‘But are you sure you did not look a little ridiculous too? And if Effie once had her confidence in your infallibility shaken——’

‘That is true. Like the villains in novels, you have a power over me, through the innocent ones whom I love. I will keep silence this time, but take care how you provoke me too far.’

‘Do not be so childish.’

This was very frivolous nonsense, and they enjoyed it, as they enjoyed the hot summer sun, the cool streams, the shady woods, and even the fun they had in combating the swarms of wasps which usually followed them in these expeditions, and entirely frustrated their efforts to sit down, and, as Effie plaintively said, ‘eat a meal in peace.’

Once, deeper feelings were touched, and this was on a day when they had penetrated farther than ever before; and on this occasion, too, Michael was with them. Setting off very early, they drove in the morning coolness to Middleton-in-Teesdale, and thence onwards to High Force, where they rested and lunched; after which they drove onwards to some little huts at the edge of the moor, where path ended, and wilderness began; when they got out, and walked for a mile and a half to the wild spot where Tees comes first winding, sluggish and sinuous, over the moor top, in what is called the Weel, and then suddenly precipitates himself madly over ‘Caldron Snout,’ tearing down an incline of two hundred feet to the lower level, where he pursues a brawling way towards High Force, his next descent.

This is a very wild and desolate spot, and requires intrepid walking to get to it; plunging through the thymy moor, rough, pathless, and uneven, without guide, save for rough wooden posts like crosses, planted at intervals of several hundred yards, to show the directest way to the cataract. But so few persons visit Caldron Snout, so few tourists or picnickers care to be at the trouble of penetrating to it, that no road has got beaten out. Nature seems to sit enthroned in undesecrated queenliness in the fastnesses around the cataract.

It was a day that Michael and Eleanor never forgot. The children, literally frantic with the novelty and the wildness of the thing, and with the exhilarating moorland air, tore about in all directions—over heather and thyme, bluebells and boulders. Now came a scream of joy, and a mad rush to Michael or the doctor to ask the name of some hitherto unknown plant or flower—as the delicate autumn gentian, or, on some grassy banks, the poetical looking fragile ‘grass of Parnassus.’ Anon, wonder, quite awed and hushed, and treading on tiptoe to peep into a nest concealed beneath the grass, and containing five dirty-white eggs, with wine-coloured splashes on them. Then on again, to fresh fields and pastures new, till one wild whoop announced the discovery, in its steep hidden gorge, of the waterfall itself.

The elders walked more sedately, rejoicing with joy more cultivated, if not more intense, in the larger grandness of great, sweeping lonely fells, of miles of purple heather; and in the abstract impressiveness of such a solitary torrent as Caldron Snout.

It was as they were wending back towards their vehicles, in the evening, that Michael and Eleanor found themselves alone. The children were scattered, making the most of what time remained to them, for the collection of interesting natural objects. Mrs. Johnson, with an eye to her rockery at home, had stopped in front of a patch of fine bog-plants, and had made the doctor go on his knees, armed with an old table knife. She was standing over him, directing him to the finest plunder, perfectly deaf to his assurances that the fine purple pinguicula which she coveted could find lovely flies here for its sustenance, but that its poor carnivorous leaves would most likely shrivel up and die in the dark corner of her garden, devoted to the cultivation of ferns and house-leeks.

At some distance from these two Michael and Eleanor stood side by side, facing Mickle Fell, and gazing at the noble sight unfolded for their delight. Many a time Eleanor had seen this grand old mountain in the distance, overtopping his comrades, always; but now he rose straight before them, apparently not a mile away. They were both struck by what they saw. The great Fell, who seemed to spring aloft from the smaller ones which clustered about him, formed a centre and a focus to the picture, rising in a blunt, massive kind of point. His huge and grim sides were clothed in a violet veil of summer haze and heat, like a garment such as no earthly hands ever fashioned. This was beautiful; but it was not all. The sun stood, at the moment when it seemed to rest exactly on the midmost point of his summit, a blazing golden ball, and rays streamed away from it on every side, so that Mickle Fell seemed veritably to wear a crown of glory, surpassing all the crowns and all the jewels of all the kings in the whole world. Just at the moment, the stillness was utterly unbroken. Not even the murmur of the torrent reached them, nor the voices of the children ‘playing in the light of the setting sun.’ Earth seemed to hold her breath while one of her great hills received the crown and the benediction of the closing day. No hum of booming bee, no voice even of any bird, broke the dead silence; nor did these two venture to disturb it, but gazed and worshipped, and felt that even if they lived to be very old, they would not often see the heavens declare the glory of God so sublimely as at this moment.

And it was but for a moment; such scenes seldom last longer. Suddenly things seemed to change; the glory became dimmed; sounds became audible; the spell was loosed; and with one deep sigh both their hearts confessed it, as their eyes met.

Perhaps they both understood at that moment, though all that Michael said, was, ‘I am very glad that we have seen that—together.’

‘So am I,’ she rejoined, softly.

Then suddenly, almost at their feet, broke forth a gossipy, importunate, ‘Brek-kek-kek!’ and behind them children’s voices shouted. They smiled. The awe and the solemnity had gone, but the joy remained and was abiding. It did not die away, even after the sun had set and the golden rays were quenched in night. It made itself felt all through the long drive home through the darkling lanes, and it breathed out of the delicious scent of the firwoods, beneath which part of their road lay. It looked out of the eyes of both, as they clasped hands and parted after it was all over.

That was the last of some cloudlessly happy days. It was, in reality, the first day of Michael’s summer holiday, and he knew it would be the best. On the following morning he set off to Leeds, where that year the British Medical Association had its annual meeting; after which, he and Roger were going to take a short country tour together.

One evening, in August, soon after Michael had gone, Eleanor was startled to see Otho walk into her drawing-room, looking ill and haggard. He threw himself into a chair, gave a long kind of sigh, and asked her how she did.