CHAPTER XI.

RIVALS

“Tell me all you know about this,” said Bayre, abruptly, when he had silently pondered for some moments on Miss Eden’s statement. “You may trust me. You wouldn’t have told me so much if you hadn’t felt sure of that.”

“That’s true. Well, what I know amounts to very little. But one day, as I was walking in the garden close to that end of the house that’s shut up--”

“Where the windows open down to the ground?” asked Bayre.

“The room next to that one it was, the very last room of all, where there are two windows barred on the outside and shuttered on the inside. You may not have noticed them, for there’s a creeper which has been neglected, a Virginia creeper, on that corner of the house; and the long dead branches hang like great bunches of string down over the windows.”

Bayre remembered the ragged Virginia creeper, though he had failed to notice the iron bars behind them, or the fact that these two windows were shuttered like those of the longer room beyond.

“Well?” said he.

“It was late one afternoon,” she went on, “that I saw the shutters of one of these windows put back and a hand thrust out to open the window. I was startled, and I must have made some sound, for I saw that the hand was a woman’s, and that the fingers were loaded with rings. It was drawn back instantly, and I heard a sort of tussle going on inside the room, and voices speaking low and hurriedly. And presently someone came to the window and looked out: but it was not the woman; it was your uncle. He looked down at me angrily, shut the window and closed the shutters.”

“You asked him about it, of course?”

“I shouldn’t have dared. But he told me, of his own accord, that he had caught one of the maids decking herself out in some jewellery which he kept in a locked-up room.”

“And may not that have been the truth?”

“I don’t think so. There are only three women about the house at any time: Marie Vazon, who is the only one who might dare such a thing, lives at her father’s, and is not very much at the big house at all. The other two are an old woman and her niece, neither of whom dares to stay a minute longer out of the servants’ quarters than she can help. And all three women have hands which are large and red, and the fingers of which could not wear rings of ordinary size. Well, such rings as I saw--valuable as they must have been if they were real--are not made in extraordinary sizes!”

“Do you think, then, that it’s his young wife he is keeping shut up there?”

By the look of consternation which passed over Miss Eden’s face, Bayre saw that this idea had not occurred to her.

“I never thought of that,” she said quickly. Then, as this suggestion seemed to fill her with horror, she cried quickly, “Let’s ask Nini about her. Oh, no, oh, no, I’m sure it can’t have been his wife.”

And Miss Eden rose from her seat, and hurrying across the room, opened a door at the back and brought in the peasant girl with a teacup in one hand and a cloth in the other.

“Nini lived at your uncle’s house all the time from before his marriage till a few weeks ago, when her grandmother had to send for her to come back here to her own home,” explained Miss Eden. “Ask her and she will tell you what she thought of young Mrs Bayre, and whether she was the kind of person who could be shut up against her will. You can ask her in English or French; she speaks both.”

Nini, who looked intelligent for her class, nodded assent to this speech, looking down modestly upon the floor. But Bayre had a sort of idea that, simple as she looked, he should get no one word more out of her than she chose to give. Obediently, however, he began to ask her questions.

“You were at Creux when young Madame Bayre ran away?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you see her run away?”

“No, sir. She took Marie Vazon with her. She had better have taken me. I shouldn’t have left her in the lurch and let her go off without her child as Marie did.”

“Ah! The child! Was that the child you brought on board in a basket and dumped down among the luggage of my friends and me?” asked Bayre, with what he considered to be startling suddenness.

But Nini was on her guard, of course.

“_Plait-il?_” she asked blandly, raising her eyes stolidly to his face.

“You won’t own to that, I see,” he said irritably. And turning shortly to Miss Eden, he observed, with some constraint,--

“This girl is the heroine of the incident I wrote to you about from London, Miss Eden. It was she who planted a young child among our luggage. I’m sure of it.”

There was a moment’s silence. Nini did not attempt any further contradiction. She looked stolidly down on the flagged floor again and waited for further questions. Miss Eden’s conduct was equally unsatisfying.

“There must be some mistake, I think,” she said. “But, in any case, that’s not the matter under discussion, is it?”

“If she won’t tell the truth in one matter it’s not likely she will in another,” said Bayre, drily.

“Let me try,” said Miss Eden, sweetly, and she addressed the girl at once. “What sort of life did they lead at the _château_ when old Mr Bayre brought back his young wife, Nini?”

“It was not very comfortable, mademoiselle. Young Madame did not like Mees Ford, and Mees Ford did not like young Madame. Mees Ford was all for save, save: Madame liked ease, comfort, expense. Madame did not like to see her husband always consulting his cousin instead of her. Madame want her husband always to go away, especially when the baby came. It was not gay for Madame, who was young, to sit always in the great _salon_, the room where the shutters are now always closed, with that effigy, Mees Ford, opposite to her, knit, knit, knitting always as if for her life. One, two, three, four, always, count, count, counting. And poor young Madame sitting opposite, yawning over a book. Even her child was not allowed to be with her much. Old M. Bayre was proud of him, but he did not like the noise of a child’s crying. So it had to be kept in rooms that were a long way off, in the charge of its nurse and of Marie Vazon. And when the child was eight months old the nurse went away and he was left to Marie Vazon only. Madame did not like Marie, and that was another trouble. Mees Ford stood by the Vazons, father and daughter, while Madame hated them. _Ma foi_, I, for one, was not surprised when Madame ran away. The only wonder was she stood the life so long.”

“Did you ever hear any hint that she didn’t run away after all?” asked Miss Eden.

The girl looked up in real surprise.

“No, mademoiselle,” she answered with the accent of sincerity.

“Do you think it possible that she never went away at all, but that she was kept shut up at the _château_?”

The girl smiled incredulously.

“Oh, no; even if she was not very clever she would not have let herself be treated so. And besides, it must have been known.”

Miss Eden looked at Bayre.

“Was it jealousy of Miss Ford’s interference, then, that drove her away?” he asked.

“It was the miserable life they all led together,” replied the girl, promptly. “For Monsieur Bayre and his cousin quarrelled--they had always done so even before his marriage, and it was worse afterwards. He liked her, he respected her, but she was avaricious and mean, and so there was always a conflict between him and her as to the things he did. It was a wretched life for young Madame. She was too timid, too gentle to quarrel herself, but she had to listen to it all and to suffer for it.”

“And after she left, did you ever hear anything of her again?”

“Not a word. Monsieur Bayre and his cousin behaved as if she had never existed. At least, as far as we servants knew. They quarrelled more than ever, perhaps, and we saw less of him than we had done before. And when his cousin died in an apopletic fit--during a quarrel one night, I believe--he shut himself up altogether for a time. He was broken, aged; we were sorry for him.”

Miss Eden turned to Bayre again.

“That will do, Nini,” she said.

And the girl dropped them a rustic curtsey and returned to her work in the wash-house.

“She hasn’t told much that I didn’t know before,” said Bayre, drily.

He was offended by the bland impudence with which she denied her own action in regard to the child in the basket, and was inclined to resent the mystification in which he felt sure that Miss Eden had her share.

“Well, no doubt she’s told you all she could.”

“I don’t think so. However, we need not discuss that.” And he prepared to go. “At any rate, I’m thankful to have found you alive and well, Miss Eden.”

“Thank you. You are going?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I see you again?”

There was just enough of something that was not indifference in her voice, as she put the question, for Bayre to feel himself softening against his will.

“Oh, I--I don’t know,” he began. And then he said abruptly, “Do you wish to see me again--before I go?”

She lowered her eyelids demurely.

“Not if you think it too much trouble to come so far out of your way, Mr Bayre.”

“Oh, that’s just what I do feel, of course, that it’s too much trouble,” said he.

Miss Eden affected to misunderstand his tone.

“I thought so. Then good-bye, Mr Bayre.”

And she put out her hand with an off-hand coolness which, although he felt convinced that it was only assumed to annoy and pique him, made him furious.

“Oh, good-bye,” said he, with as little cordiality as was consistent with common decency, as he touched and dropped her offered hand and went to the door.

Miss Eden shut it after him, and he went back into St Luke’s, with just one glance behind which showed him only the closed door and no face at the window, in a state of rage and irritation of the keenest possible kind.

To think that he should have made such a fool of himself as to take this journey, at the risk of giving grievous offence by asking for a second holiday, just to see a disingenuous coquette who led him on only to deceive him. For that she knew all about the trick played upon him and his friends by Nini he felt convinced. Even her light way of passing over the subject was confirmation of that fact.

He wished he had not come. He was no nearer to the truth about the child than he had been before. While his interview with Miss Eden had only served to strengthen the impression she had previously made upon him, at the same time it for the first time raised in him doubts of her frankness.

Why did she make a mystery of the incident of the child? Did she think him incapable of keeping a secret? or did she think that he would resent being called upon to have any share in the safekeeping of the child who was his uncle’s heir?

In spite of the fact that he had seen another child at the Vazons’ cottage, Bayre still thought that the hero of the basket was his infant cousin. But in the face of Miss Eden’s rather haughty silence upon this point he dared not even ask the question. He was so angry and hurt, without quite knowing why, that he told himself he should take no more trouble over the matter, but should go back to London and wait for further developments, leaving Miss Eden to get out of her own difficulties as she might, and his uncle to be dealt with by Monsieur Blaise, who would no doubt in the end make some inquiries and discover the mystery, whatever it might be, that was connected with the _château_ of Creux.

He felt some self-reproach down in the bottom of his heart at the idea of leaving it to a stranger to unearth a family secret. But, after all, he told himself, it was no affair of his, and the man whom old Mr Bayre had chosen for a sort of son-in-law had more reason for interference in the family affairs than a blood-relation who had been kept at arm’s-length.

In this mood he reached St Luke’s and passed an uneasy evening. But with a bright morning came softer thoughts and feelings, so that when he took his early walk, after his roll and coffee, he instinctively went up to the New Town and struck inland in the direction of Madame Portelet’s cottage.

By the luckiest accident in the world--in spite of his stoical resolve to have no more to do with her this was how he described it to himself--he met Miss Eden before he came in sight of the humble dwelling where she had found a temporary refuge.

She blushed very prettily at sight of him, and this fact gave him some secret satisfaction, to counterbalance the remembrance of her cool dismissal of the previous afternoon. But she took care to minimise the effect of this by raising her eyebrows and saying,--

“Then you haven’t gone back yet, Mr Bayre?”

“N-n-no,” said he. He turned and walked in silence for a few seconds beside her. “Are you sorry, Miss Eden, that I’ve not gone back?”

“I’m sorry you don’t seem to have enjoyed this visit as much as you did your last,” she replied discreetly.

“Well, you’re not as nice to me as you were last time, you know.”

“I?”

“Yes. You.”

He was regaining confidence a little. She was so much more coquettish than she had been on his first visit, that it suddenly dawned upon him that there might be a more flattering explanation of her conduct than the one of indifference.

“I’ve had a good deal to worry me since you were here before,” she explained more soberly, almost humbly. “Surely you know enough to understand that. Does a girl run away from her guardian’s house, as I did, without great provocation?”

“Of course not, of course not. Forgive me if, if I seem--seem--”

“I forgive you, certainly. And I can understand the trouble you are in yourself about all this. After all, Mr Bayre is your own uncle, and whatever concerns him, concerns the family, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m glad you feel that. And you won’t think me intrusive if, feeling that, I feel also very much troubled about his treatment of you?”

“Oh, that’s nothing. I shall be all right.”

“Yes, but how? What are you going to do?”

“Well, I’ve written to someone, someone in England, to suggest that I should go there.”

“Let me see you safely to the other side, then--”

“Oh, no, thank you. I must have time to decide if that is best. I have written, and I am waiting for her answer.”

“This is some lady you know well that you think of going to?”

“No, I’ve never seen her,” began Miss Eden, rather reluctantly.

“And you mean to trust yourself to someone you don’t know?”

The tears sprang to the girl’s eyes.

“I have to,” said she, petulantly. “I have no near relations; you might have guessed that, since your uncle, who was only an old friend of my father’s, is my only guardian.”

Bayre’s heart began to beat very fast.

“No friends!” said he in a low voice, which was not very steady.

Miss Eden grew nervous and confused.

“Oh, no, of course I don’t mean that exactly,” she said with a little laugh. “Of course I’ve plenty of friends in one sense. But it is only very particular friends that one cares to live with--”

“But you said you didn’t even know her?” persisted Bayre, grown warm and earnest. “Why don’t you go to some of the friends you do know?”

“Well,” said she, desperately, “I want to be independent. If I were to stay with people older than myself I should have to fall in with their ways, to live their lives, and perhaps I shouldn’t like it.”

“But it would be safer for you, better for you,” urged Bayre, excitedly; “a girl who knows nothing of life, or men and women!”

“Oh, but don’t you think one’s instincts are guide enough? I do. It’s an exploded idea that girls can’t take care of themselves just as well as young men.”

“Oh, no, it’s not,” retorted Bayre, dictatorially. “Come, be advised by me. You can trust me to this extent, can’t you? Let me know where this lady lives and I’ll go to see her, take her a message from you, don’t you see? And I’ll find out all about her.”

“And supposing I were to say she lives in Lancashire, for instance?”

“I’d go just the same,” said Bayre, passionately. “Go straight there the moment I got to England.”

“Would you? Would you really do that? But I don’t see why you should. Why should you?”

There was just enough agitation in the girl’s voice, showing that she was touched, grateful, for the young man to be thrown at once off his balance.

“Because I love you,” was his straightforward answer, uttered in a low voice that thrilled her in spite of herself.

She did not shrink away, she did not answer; but she walked on beside him silently, biting her lip, and looking down. His head was still bent as he tried to look into her face, feeling that he had hazarded his all on one cast and that her next words must make or mar him for ever.

While they were both at white heat, as it were, he in the thraldom of his passion and she held by a pang of new and strange emotion, there fell upon them, like water upon a conflagration, the sound of a thick, husky man’s voice--the voice of a man to whom exercise was a burden and a fatigue.

“_Hein!_” said the voice.

And at the sound the two young people shivered guiltily and stopped, turning, as they did so, to face the direction whence the sound came.

And on the other side of a low stone wall, where a clump of evergreens had hidden him from sight as they passed, they saw the portly form, the round, red face, and the Panama hat of Monsieur Blaise.

But he was not wearing his blue goggles. He had taken these off and held them in one hand, in order that he might have a clearer and better view of the guilty couple.