CHAPTER XIII

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

But on a day whereof I think One shall dip his hand to drink In that still water of thy soul, And its imaged tremors race Over thy joy-troubled face... From the hovering wing of Love The warm stain shall flit roseal on thy cheek. --FRANCIS THOMPSON.

Summer sunshine lay broad and calm upon the lawns at Normansgrave.

Over all brooded that peace and well-being, that calm which is like the hum of well-oiled machinery, or the sleeping of a top which, nevertheless, spins on in the apparent repose. It is pre-eminently a characteristic of English country life, this regulated prosperity, the result of long centuries of experiment, issuing in perfect achievement.

In England we have thoroughly acquired the art of domestic comfort. And we have the means to carry our knowledge into effect.

All other nations feel it. There is hardly a civilized person in the world who would not own that in England we have solved the riddle of making ourselves perfectly comfortable.

Aunt Bee's competent hands still ruled over Normansgrave. During the two years which had elapsed since the disappearance of his brother Felix, the Squire had not married, neither was he engaged to be married.

During the first months following the bereavement, with its curious and mysterious surrounding circumstances, it had been natural that Denzil should withdraw himself somewhat from society. But as weeks rolled by, and the police found no clew, there was nothing for it but to acquiesce in the uncertainty, and to assume either that Felix was dead, or that he wished to be thought so.

The newspapers had, of course, made the most of the mystery. They had flung it forth in flaming headlines, they had printed the letters written by the suicide, they had striven to whip up flagging interest by suggesting clews which the police had not really found. One enterprising journal actually had a competition, "Where is Felix Vanston?"

All kinds of letters and answers were sent in, and the Editor promised a prize, when the truth should at last be brought to light, to the competitor who had guessed nearest to the truth.

In the December of that year, when the trees lost their leaves, and a man's decomposed corpse was found in a thicket in one of the London parks, the whole hateful discussion leapt from its ashes and revived in full force. Was it, or was it not, Felix Vanston?

The police thought that it was. No identification was possible, the thing had had too many months in which to decompose. But in what had been a pocket was a newspaper; and this, being folded very small, the date was legible on one of the innermost pages: and it was the date of the disappearance from the Deptford lodging.

Denzil and Miss Rawson, in the absence of more cogent proof than this, declined to accept the remains as being those of the missing youth.

The Editor of the paper who had started the competition, however, awarded the prize to the candidate who had foreshadowed such a discovery.

And thereafter, silence fell upon the Press, and the Case of the Disappearance of Felix Vanston was over.

The world slipped back by degrees into its groove, and after a while Denzil grew less shy of going to London hotels, and began to lead his usual life, without the dread of being interviewed. But time flowed on, and he was still a bachelor, having apparently acquired a habit in that direction--or--as his aunt in her heart believed--because he was waiting.

If that were so, the period of his waiting was at an end. Two days ago, Rona Smith, the girl for whom his benevolence had done so much, had returned from her two years abroad.

She was coming slowly along the graveled terrace, a book in her hand, a rose-colored sunshade over her head tinging her white gown with reflected color. Miss Rawson, seated by the tea-table under the big beech, watched her approach with eyes full of interest, wonder, and amusement.

Denzil, who had been yachting with a friend, was expected home that afternoon; and his aunt was more than curious to see the meeting.

The letter which the soi-disant David Smith had written with so much anxiety and care and hesitation--the letter upon which Rona's future had hung--had been the cause of much doubt and deliberation between Miss Rawson and her nephew. Aunt Bee was inclined to advise that they should hold out--should stipulate for frankness under seal of secrecy. She believed that, had they done so, the young man would have made a clean breast of the whole affair. And she was probably right. Felix would, most likely, have acknowledged his true name, and relinquished all hope of calling Rona his, sooner than do her the injustice of dragging her about Europe in company of two men, neither of whom was related to her, when but for his selfishness she might be living the sheltered life of the English upper classes. He could have been forced into avowal. But they did not force him. Denzil, with that curious streak of romance which lurks in most Englishmen, was, perhaps, rather pleased that there should be a mystery about Rona. The notion that she was to be protected against secret enemies appealed to a mild vein of plotting which existed in him. He undertook the risks so vaguely hinted at by Felix, not merely readily, but with eagerness.

The smuggling of Miss Smith out of England was the first thing which helped to turn his mind off the distressing case of his brother.

Miss Rawson and he took the girl abroad. They traveled here and there, from one place to another in Germany, visiting the educational centers, seeking a place where they could with confidence leave their charge.

They found, at last, in a pretty south German town, an English lady, widow of a German officer, who took a few girls to board, and gave them a sound education, having masters for music and drawing. Here Rona, whose health was completely re-established, was left; and from that day to this she and Denzil had not met.

The girl developed a great ambition to learn. She was happy and content with Frau Wilders, and willingly remained there during the Christmas holidays. The following summer Miss Rawson journeyed out to see her, and found her thoroughly proficient in German, and most anxious to be allowed to pass her second year in France. This was satisfactorily arranged. Aunt Bee traveled with her to Rennes, where Frau Wilders knew a lady in the same line as herself. Rona lived with this lady and attended the public day-school in the university town.

And now she was educated. Moreover, she was a woman grown. And Miss Rawson had brought her home from France, wondering not a little as to what the outcome of the situation was to be.

During all these two years there had been, so far as she was aware, no attempt to gain possession of the girl, certainly no annoyance of her, on the part of the uncle who was supposed to be so malign a being.

Had it not been for the girl's own personality, Miss Rawson, who was a sensible, unimaginative woman, would have been inclined to think that the tale of persecution was the invention of the brother, as a way of extricating his sister and himself from destitution. But, in some manner wholly indescribable, Rona refuted this theory, simply by being Rona.

Miss Rawson, who had been her companion for four or five weeks each summer, had seen a good deal of her, and was not an easy person to deceive. She knew well enough that the girl believed herself to have cause to dread something, or someone. Under the keen scrutiny of Miss Rawson's criticism, there had never appeared one trait, one phrase, which was out of harmony with Rona's claim to gentle birth and breeding. Her tastes were innately fastidious. In all the small minutiæ of a refined girl's habits, she was above reproach. Her convent breeding had given her an atmosphere of purity and simplicity, upon which the modern culture of her later education sat with a curious charm. But there was more than this underlying the fascination which the elder woman felt but could not classify. She was only conscious of thinking that Rona was the most attractive maiden she had ever seen. There was not a girl of their acquaintance who could hold a candle to her. She was more than pretty, she was truly beautiful, with a somewhat grave beauty, as of one over whom hung some menace or anxiety.

But at the nature of this anxiety Miss Rawson could make no guess.

Rona had left the gravel now, and her feet trod the shorn turf, her white gown slipping over its verdure like lake-foam over water-weed. She had dignity, she had poise, those things now most rare in the modern girl, who is generally ill-assured, in spite of her free-and-easy pose. But under the fine calm of her manner there was a shadow.

Rona carried a secret in her heart. This secret, at first half-delightful, had gradually grown to be a distress, a burden--at last an out-and-out nightmare. Within a few days of her parting from Felix in the summer-house she was feeling strongly the discomfort of the situation in which he had placed her.

She was secretly betrothed to the young man who posed as her brother!

She saw plainly that David must naturally be unwilling that his own prison record should be known. But why should he insist upon her adhering to the brother-and-sister fiction? She thought the deceit unnecessary and unwise, since when he returned to claim her promise, their true relations must be avowed, and she would stand convicted of a long course of deception and untruth.

For the first week or so after her promise, so readily, so ignorantly given, she had suffered horribly. And the climax of her revolt came when she received, from Hamburg, his first wild love-letter.

Poor Felix! He let himself go, in that letter, as only a young man in his first love can fling himself prone upon the love he imagines in the beloved one.

There was, in the girl, no passion to kindle at the breath of his: the unveiled vehement thing almost paralyzed her with apprehension.

In her first panic fear she wrote and bade him never so to address her again. Did he not realize that her letters might be overlooked? Miss Rawson might reasonably, naturally expect to be shown her letters from her brother. They must be such as she could produce if necessary--the kind of letter a brother might write to a sister.

Felix never admitted, even to himself, how cruelly this reproof flung him back upon himself. Her appeal touched his tenderest feeling, and overwhelmed him with self-reproach. He answered meekly, abjectly, imploring forgiveness for his rashness, vowing never so to offend again; and inclosing more money than he could conveniently spare that she might have all she needed.

Veronica graciously accepted both the apology and the remittance.

She was not at that time old enough to see how the mere acceptance of his money bound her to him. But it was not long before this dawned upon her--this, and many other things.

She was a girl of fine intelligence, and she took full advantage of all the culture put within her reach. Her mind developed apace. She read books, she saw plays. The world as it is began to emerge before her vision, heretofore bounded by convent walls; and soon she saw clearly that a girl under seventeen has no right to promise herself in marriage. She knew that she had given a promise that meant nothing. She formed, in her secret heart, an Ideal of marriage, which was not in the least like the gaunt young man, with the hunted eyes, who had implored her to be true to him. Looking back upon the little scene in the arbor she could not but think that he had taken an unfair advantage of her gratitude and friendlessness. By the end of her first vacation the thought of her secret engagement was a millstone round her neck.

She still kept to her habit of writing to him. He stood for something in her life, after all. He was sympathy, kindness, a creature to whom she could turn for fellow-feeling in joy or trouble. He was as interested as she in her powers of mind, in her improvement in languages, her music, and her reading. He wrote more and more hopefully of his own prospects. Always he kept to her commands, and his letters might have been shown to anybody. Yet sometimes there breathed through them a current of feeling which sent a chill foreboding through her. What was she to say when at last he came to claim her promise--she who knew she had nothing to give?

Her obligation to him weighed upon her far more heavily than her debt to Mr. Vanston. She became deeply, feverishly anxious to earn her own living. She had a record of every remittance that David had ever sent, that one day she might repay him.

Her own complete change of mind encouraged her to hope at times that he might have changed his. It seemed impossible that he, a grown man, in a world full of women, could remain faithful to the memory of a girl whom he had only seen two or three times--a girl of whom he knew so little.

What if his heart were as empty towards her as hers towards him? What if he still wrote, still paid, only from a sense of duty, and because he had given his word?

One day it was borne in upon her to try in a letter to ascertain his real feeling; and she wrote to him, about six months before her final return to England, after this fashion:

"We write to one another, you and I, of what we do, but not of what we think. Yet, since we last met, we must have changed, both of us. At least, I have changed, and it seems foolish to believe that you alone, of all men, have stood still in a world full of movement, of interest, of men, and of women too.

"I wonder--I often wonder--and at last my curiosity is so great that I feel I must let it out--what you seriously think, now, of the little comedy of our betrothal in the garden that Sunday evening?

"I wonder if you have realized how rash we were to promise any lifelong bond--we who knew nothing of either life or bonds: we who knew nothing of each other, of our respective characters and tastes?

"It seems to me impossible that you should not have traveled as far since then, in mind, as you have done in body. And I want to tell you this. If you have come to the conclusion--as it is borne in upon me that you must have--that we were a couple of silly, unreflecting things; please be sure that I, too, am growing up, that I, too, shall soon be able to work for myself, and to repay your goodness to me financially, if not in other ways; and finally, that I, too, see how unreasonable it would be for one of us to hold the other to such a compact in the future."

After the dispatch of this letter, she had awaited a reply in some trepidation.

It did not arrive for some weeks, since Felix and Vronsky, out in Siberia, were much occupied with certain happenings hereafter to be recorded fully. When at last a letter was received, it was inconclusive. Felix wrote that he hoped, before the end of the year, to get leave to come and see her. Until then he thought it best not to discuss the nature of their feelings for each other. For himself, if he wrote of what he did, and not of what he thought, that, as she must know, was out of deference to her commands. What he desired was, as always, her happiness. Just now he was not in a position to write more definitely, but as soon as his plans cleared, she should hear from him again.

That letter had reached Rona towards the end of February. She had not heard since, and it was now July. A remittance had arrived, however, regularly each month as usual.

The ceasing of letters from David had not troubled her much. Its effect had been to relegate the whole affair more and more to the background of her young eager mind, full of plans for the future and not eager to busy itself with the past.

Such was the Veronica now moving over the grass towards Aunt Bee.

"Come, child, tea will be cold," said Miss Rawson.

"Nothing could be cold to-day," laughed back Rona, raising her eyes from her book, but quickening her steps obediently.

The stable clock chimed a quarter past four.

"Denzil ought to be here soon if he comes by that train," said Aunt Bee.

"I am impatient to see him again," said Rona, in tones of candid interest. "I owe him so much, I feel inclined to act like a young person in a novel of a century ago, and fall on my knees, seizing and kissing my benefactor's hand! Wouldn't he be astounded!"

"Indeed he would! Denzil never gave way to an impulse in his life."

"No. I remember well how dignified and proper he always was. But think how good he has been to me!" She sat down in a low chair and took her tea from Miss Rawson's hands.

As David had been so careful to keep her in funds, her dress had always been her own affair. And she had a style of her own.

It was daring to wear a rose-lined hat with the warm chestnut of her abundant locks; but she achieved it.

Aunt Bee caught herself thinking that, if Denzil really wanted her, he had better make up his mind at once. Nameless and dowerless though she was, the Girl from Nowhere was not likely to go long a-begging.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, the puffing of the arriving motor could be heard upon the still air.

"There he is!" cried Aunt Bee, rising from among her tea-things. Rona did not rise. She leaned forward with an air of interest, but quite controlled. Miss Rawson was halfway across the lawn when Denzil stepped out through the drawing-room window, joined her on the terrace, greeted her with affection, and strolled with her towards the table in the shade.

Then Veronica rose, slowly, to her full height. The moment lent a slight added glow to the carnation of her smooth cheek. But the shy dignity of her attitude was almost condescending, as Aunt Bee noted with relish.

Denzil was looking his best. Yachting suited him. He was tanned and healthy-looking, his blue eyes very clear, as if with the reflection of the seas whereon he had lately sailed. He was in the midst of a sentence when he perceived the young regal creature rising from the low chair to greet him. His voice died away, and for a moment he stopped short just where he was, upon the grass.

"Is that--Rona--Miss Smith?"

He corrected himself with haste, with sudden, helpless confusion. He dare not call her Rona; and that such a goddess could be called Smith!

His appearance pleased the girl. This was a man of wisdom and character, she told herself--a man who knew the world--not a mad boy who went tilting at windmills. The gratitude in her heart welled up into her glorious eyes as she laid her hand in his without a word.

"So you are grown up!" said Denzil, wondering and gazing, and drinking her in.

"Thanks to you," she responded, in a sweet, rather low-pitched voice, "I am grown up and ready to face the world."

"To face the world!" echoed the Squire. "I wonder what you mean by that! How well you look! I was not sure that you and Aunt Bee were home, or I should have hurried back yesterday."

"Rona does look well, and so do you, Denzil. I don't think I ever saw you look better," said Miss Rawson, handing him his tea. "We got home the day before yesterday. The heat in London and Paris was too great for us to wish to stay there."

"And what do you mean by facing the world?" persisted Denzil, sitting down luxuriously, tossing his straw hat upon the grass, and lifting his dazzled eyes once more upon the princess of Thule who stood before him.

"I mean," said Rona, turning with composure and once more seating herself, "that, owing to you, I have a first-rate education and the means to earn my living. I am ready to begin, as soon as possible. I want to repay you all that my schooling has cost you."

Her manner in speaking was one of perfect simplicity. There were no protestations, no asseverations. Yet her gratitude and her independent pride were both apparent, and both, coming from her, seemed subtly wonderful.

Miss Rawson looked up in surprise. Strange as it may seem, this idea had not occurred to her. She was not a modern woman, and had no idea of woman's vocations. She had fancied that Rona would be abundantly content to remain at Normansgrave until Denzil married her or David fetched her away. So had Denzil. He gazed at her in perplexity, in wonder, in vast admiration. He might have known she would show this fine spirit.

"Surely," she said, earnestly, "you did not think that I was a sort of bottomless gulf, swallowing all your money and kindness with no hope of returning it? I can work, and I wish to work. I could not live here as a pauper, dependent on your charity, could I?"

"What do you propose to do?" asked Denzil.

"To write stories for the magazines. There was a girl at Rennes whose elder sister earned about a hundred and fifty pounds a year in that way."

"But, my dear child," said Aunt Bee, "how do you know that you have the capacity to write stories?"

"Because I have already written one," said Rona, calmly. "I wrote it and sent it to this girl's sister to dispose of. She sold it at once, and I got three guineas for it!"

They sat staring at her.

"I had to have it typed, so that I did not get the full price for it," she went on. "I shall be obliged to learn to use a typewriter, as it costs too much to pay to have things typed. That will all be by degrees."

"I should think so!" gasped Aunt Bee.

"And," she went on, quite calmly, "it is in my mind to ask you if I might stay here with you six months? I am afraid it will take me six months to earn enough money to set up in London, even in one room."

Denzil laid down his plate of strawberries and cream, and cleared his throat.

"One swallow does not make a summer!" he remarked, profoundly. "You must not expect, because one of your stories got published, to be able to sell others."

"The editor who bought the last said he would take more of the same kind," she replied, unmoved. "I sent him another last week, and I expect soon to hear from him."

"I don't see why you should not write stories, dear," said Aunt Bee, in amusement. "But is it absolutely necessary that this should be done in one room in London? Could you not write your stories just as well here, without depriving us of our girl?"

"Exactly!" broke in Denzil, warmly; so warmly that his aunt had much ado not to laugh. "She has done it," was her inner thought. "He knows now that he cannot let her go."

The unaccustomed feeling was almost more than Denzil could cope with. He became quite absent-minded, and seemed as if some curious oppression lay upon him.

He rose, after a few minutes, and stood squarely before Rona, his hands behind him. "What is your last news of your brother?" he asked.

Rona looked up, startled. "He--he has not written at all lately," she said. "You know Mr. Vronsky and he went back to Siberia, to the mines there, after establishing his patent in Europe."

"What do you think he would say to me if I allowed you to go off and live alone, without consulting him? I hope you won't think me a tyrant, but I don't see how I can sanction your going off alone without his written permission."

Aunt Bee murmured assent. "Strange how necessity spurs the wit!" she thought.

"You know, I feel you would not be safe alone in London," said Denzil, seriously. "No--not simply because you are a girl; I know girls do these things now. But because you have enemies, and they might find you out. Remember you are not yet of age. What if your uncle should try to recapture you?"

He saw that this shot had told. Rona grew white. "Oh!" she said, irresolutely, "but I should think that is safe now. He has left me alone all this time."

"But he may be watching for just such a chance."

She lifted her liquid eyes to his face. "I do not want to go away," she said frankly, "but I do not want to be a burden--a sponge. You have been so kind, I want you to know that I am very far from expecting you to do more."

Her look fell away from the expression in his.

"Write stories, by all means," said Denzil, his eyes resting fascinated on the brim of her lowered hat. "But save your money for future emergencies. Meanwhile, it is holiday-time. Shall we postpone the discussion for a few weeks? I feel, in this weather, as if I did not want to talk business. Give me my holiday--you take yours. Stay here meanwhile, and when the summer days are over we can decide upon future plans. Come--show me the stables, the kitchen-garden, the palm-stoves--I have been away an age, and I want to look at everything!"

He held out his hand to her, and, with a hesitation which Miss Rawson remarked, she gave him hers. He raised her to her feet, and they stood together a moment, looking into each other's eyes.

Rona would not have been human had she failed to read the admiration in his. His heart swelled with the true Cophetuan delight. He had all, she had nothing but her beauty. He was master of his actions and his fortune; there was nobody to dictate to him, should he marry the beggar maid. And now the idea, which had so shyly nestled in his heart for two years, suddenly shook its wings and soared. He would marry this interesting girl, whose grace and dignity were worthy of being raised to his throne.

And for the first time the same idea struck Rona--struck her with a shock. Never till that moment had she thought of Denzil as a man who might love and wish to marry her. He had seemed older, too staid--as she said to David--too fiddle-faddly. But now that she was grown, up, she knew that the disparity between them was by no means too great--the difference between nineteen and thirty-three.

They wandered into the old walled fruit garden, down past a long strip of border, garnished in one place with bits of quartz in strange devices.

"I never come past here," said Denzil, falteringly, "without thinking of my dead brother."

"Your brother?" said the girl, in speechless amazement. "I never knew you had a brother!"

"No," he replied, in a deep voice, stopping before the bits of quartz--"I never speak of him. It is too distressing a subject; and, by my orders, nobody has ever mentioned him to you. But one day, perhaps, I shall be able to tell you about him. This was his garden, when he was a little chap. Old Penton, the gardener, keeps it up, as he used to like it kept. Do you see the rockery? He made it all himself. Poor fellow!" As he stood looking down upon the bits of stone, and the little ferns that grew still, though the stormy, wayward heart of the young man was dust, his eyes filled with tears. Here was he, Denzil, in possession of wealth, land, love, everything that makes life glorious; and his brother had crowned a career of folly by a death of crime.

The old gardener was working not far off. He came up to greet his master and say how well he looked.

"Aye," he said, "and there's poor Master Felux's bit o' garden. I always keeps it, so I do. I was rare and fond o' him when he wor a little lad. And I see his spirit walk, I did, one evening in spring, two year and more back. Soon after the noos of his death came it wor--and a Sunday evening. I see him as plain as I sees you two now--walking along the avenue. But the light was bad, and he slipped away, and I didn't see him no more." He brushed the back of his hand over his eyes, and his voice broke. "I says to my missus that night, 'No fear but what he's gone,' I says. 'For I've a-just seen him'; and she says, 'Tummus, you be a gawp!'--just like that. But for all her gawps I seen him--I seen him right enough--and his face as white as if he'd been in his coffin."

They smiled tenderly upon the old man's delusion.