Chapter VII: A Strange Fancy

“What was that?” asked Mabin with a shiver.

She and Rudolph had both turned instinctively toward the spot from which the rustling noise had come.

“A cat, most likely,” answered Rudolph.

But Mabin shook her head.

“I saw something,” whispered she. “It was not a cat, it was not an animal at all; it was a man.”

Perhaps Rudolph had his suspicions, for he expressed no surprise. Before he could answer her they heard the crackling and rustling again, but at a little distance. The intruder was making his way through the shrubbery.

“Won’t you find out who it is?” whispered the girl again.

Rudolph hesitated.

“Perhaps I know,” said he shortly. “But if you wish, of course I can make sure.”

Then, with evident reluctance, and taking no pains to go noiselessly, he followed the intruder through the bushes, and was in time to catch a glimpse of him as he disappeared over a part of the fence that was in a broken-down condition. Rudolph did not attempt to continue his pursuit, but contented himself with waiting until he heard the side gate in the garden wall of “Stone House” swing back into its place with a loud creaking noise. Then he went back to Mabin. She was standing where he had left her, on the broad gravel path under the faded laburnum. The shadows were very deep under the trees by this time, and in the half-light her young face, with its small, delicate features, its dreamy, thoughtful eyes, full of the wonder at the world of the very young, looked so pretty that for the moment Rudolph forgot the errand on which he had been sent, and approached her with no thought of anything but the beauty and the sweetness of her face.

She, all unconscious of this, woke him into recollection with one abrupt word: “Well?”

“Oh!” almost stammered he, “it was as I thought, the same person that I saw watching before.”

“And he went into our garden. I heard the gate,” said Mabin with excitement. “It must be this Mr. Banks. Oh, who do you think he is? What do you think he has come for?”

Rudolph was silent. Even to the least curious mind the circumstances surrounding both him and Mrs. Dale could not seem other than mysterious. If he were a detective, and he certainly did not look like one, surely he would not go to work in this extravagant manner, by renting a large and expensive house merely for the purpose of watching his next-door neighbor. Neither, it might be supposed, would he set to work in such a clumsy fashion as to be caught making his investigations at the very outset. Rudolph felt that the whole affair was a mystery to which he could not pretend to have the shadow of a clew. He confessed this to Mabin.

“I wish,” he went on, in a gentle tone, “that I had known something of this before your father went away.”

“Why?” asked Mabin in surprise, and with something like revolt in her tone.

“Because I should have told him something, just enough at any rate to have made him take you away with him.”

Mabin was for a moment dumb with surprise.

“What,” she stammered at last, “after all your talk about my being right to stand by my friend?”

“Even after all that,” assented Rudolph with decision. “The matter is getting too serious,” he went on gravely. “I am afraid myself of what may be going to happen.”

“Then,” retorted the girl, “for all your talk about meanness being excusable in a girl, I can be a better friend than you.”

Rudolph smiled.

“Ah,” said he, “you forget that with you it is only a question of your friendship for Mrs. Dale. Now I have to think of both of you.”

“You need not trouble yourself about me, I assure you.”

“But that is just what I must do, madam, even at the risk of your eternal displeasure,” said Rudolph, with a mock-heroic air which concealed real anxiety. “You are not only daring enough, you are too daring where your heart is concerned, and it is the business of your friends to see that you do not suffer for your generosity.” He spoke with so much quiet decision that Mabin was impressed and rather frightened, and it was with a sudden drop from haughtiness to meekness that she then asked:

“What are you going to do, then?”

Rudolph hesitated.

“What I should like to do,” said he, “is to take you to my mother’s----”

Mabin almost screamed.

“You won’t do that,” she said quietly, with her lips very tightly closed.

“She would be very kind to you,” suggested Rudolph gently, pleadingly.

He knew the prospect was not an enticing one, but he was not so quick as the girl to see all its disadvantages.

“And don’t you see that it would set them all saying the most dreadful things about poor Mrs. Dale, if I were to leave her suddenly like that? I shouldn’t think of such a thing. It would be cruel as well as cowardly. She would never be able to stay in Stone after that.”

“I don’t think she will be able to stay in any case,” said Rudolph gloomily. “If she is persecuted by this spy on the one hand, and by the old woman on the other, it isn’t likely that she will be able to stay here long.”

A new idea flashed suddenly into Mabin’s mind and then quickly found expression:

“Do you suppose,” she asked, “that this man, this Mr. Banks, is paid by the old lady to spy upon Mrs. Dale? The old lady must be very rich, I think, and she is eccentric evidently.”

But Rudolph was inclined to think this idea far-fetched. From what he had seen of the mysterious spy he had come to quite another conclusion, one that at present he did not care to communicate to Mabin, for fear of alarming her unnecessarily.

“Of course it is possible that the man may be a paid detective,” admitted he doubtfully, “but there was nothing of the cut of the ex-detective about your Mr. Banks. And now,” went on Rudolph, who found Mabin herself a more interesting mystery than the unknown man, “let us forget all about him for a little while, and go up to the old seat where the trees leave off, before it gets too dark for us to see the sea. You remember the old seat, and how we used to trespass to get at it, don’t you?”

Mabin blushed a little. She remembered the old seat very well; an old broken-down bench supported on the stumps of a couple of felled trees, just on the edge of the plantation belonging to “The Towers.” Being conveniently near both to “Stone House” and the Vicarage, the children of both houses had established, in those far-off years which Rudolph was recalling, a right to tread down the old fence at that particular point, and to hold wonderful picnics of butterscotch and sour apples.

“We won’t go up there now,” she said, with a sudden demureness which contrasted strongly with the eagerness she had shown while discussing the persecution of Mrs. Dale. “It’s getting dark, and rather cold, I think, and besides, I hope by this time that Mrs. Dale may be ready to see us again.”

Rudolph felt snubbed. The girl’s manner was so precise, so stiff, that it was impossible for him to understand that her sudden primness was only a relapse into her ferocious girlish modesty. He followed her without a word toward the house, and there just inside the portico they saw the slight figure in black looking like a pathetic vision in the gloaming, with its white, tear-stained face and slender little jewelled hands.

“Well?” said Mrs. Dale. And her voice was hoarse and broken. “I have been waiting here for you, wondering where you had gone. I had almost begun to think,” she went on, with assumed playfulness, which did not hide the fact that her fear had been real, “that you had run away from me altogether.”

Mabin lost her awkwardness, her stiffness, her shy, girlish reserve in an instant; moved by strong pity and affection, she took the two steps which brought her under the portico, and stooping, flung her arms round the little figure.

“You didn’t--really?” she whispered hoarsely. “Oh, I hope not, I hope not!”

Mrs. Dale could not answer. But Mabin felt her frame quiver from head to foot, and heard the sound of a stifled sob. Rudolph stepped noiselessly out into the garden again.

“My dear, my dear child,” murmured Mrs. Dale, when she had recovered some of her self-possession by a strong effort, “you would have been quite justified if you had gone. But I am glad, oh, so glad, that you have waited for me to drive you away.”

“You won’t do that!” cried Mabin, starting back, and seeing with surprise in the fair, blue-eyed face an expression of strong resolution. “After pretending you were so glad to have me!”

“It was no pretence, believe me!” said Mrs. Dale with a sad little smile. “But I have got to send you away all the same. It would not be right to keep you here, now that I see the persecution I am to be subjected to still.” And her blue eyes flashed angrily as she spoke. But the next moment her face changed again, and she added quickly, “I have deserved it all. More than all. I am not complaining of that; I have no right to complain. Only--she might have spared you. I should have done you no harm; you would have learnt no evil from me, wicked as I am.”

The girl interrupted her, with a frightened face, and speaking in an eager whisper:

“Oh, hush, hush! You are not wicked. It is dreadful to hear you say such things! I will not let you say them. You have the kindest heart in the world; if you have ever done wrong, you are sorry, bitterly sorry. Wicked people are never sorry. Let me stay with you and comfort you if I can, by showing you how happy it makes me to be with you!”

Mrs. Dale shook her head. She did not, however, repeat in words her resolve that Mabin must go, though the girl guessed by the expression of her face that her mind was made up on the subject.

They stood silently looking out at the soft beauties of the twilight, the greens as they melted into grays blending in such a tender harmony of color that the sight seemed to supply a balm, through tear-dimmed eyes, to their heavy hearts; the scent of the roses came to them across the broad space of gravel, too, mingled with the pleasantly acrid perfume of the limes.

Rudolph’s step, as he took advantage of the silence to thrust himself again upon the notice of the ladies, startled them both.

“Now you’ve spoilt it all!” cried Mrs. Dale, in a tone which was meant to be one of light-hearted pleasantry, but which betrayed too plainly the difficulty she had in assuming it. “The garden looked like a fairy picture till you rushed in and ruined the perspective. Aren’t you going to apologize?”

“No. The picture wanted human interest, so I painted myself into the canvas, just to satisfy your artistic susceptibilities. I am sorry to find you so ungrateful. I hope you, Mabin, have more appreciation?”

But the girl’s eyes were full of tears, and not being used to this light strain of talk, she could not answer, except by a few mumbled words which had neither sense nor coherence. Mrs. Dale put up her hand--she had to stretch it up a long way--and smoothed the girl’s pretty brown hair.

“Don’t tease her,” she said softly. “Mr. Bonnington, I mustn’t ask you to dine with us, but I would if I might.”

“And why mustn’t you?” asked Rudolph.

“Well, because, in the miserably equivocal position I am in, it would be a pleasure--if I may take it for granted that it would be a pleasure to you, as it would certainly be to me--dearly bought. The Vicar would strongly disapprove; your mother would be shocked beyond measure.”

“But I shouldn’t mind that, I assure you. I’ve shocked my mother and excited the disapproval of my father so often that they don’t expect anything else from me. Besides, I am afraid you flatter yourself too much in believing that you have such an enviable peculiarity; if you were to issue invitations to the whole parish to a garden party, or a dinner, or anything you liked, I’m afraid you would be disappointed to find that everybody would come.”

“Perhaps they would think there was safety in numbers, and that, fortified by the presence of everybody else, they could gaze at the monster in security!” suggested Mrs. Dale with a smile.

“In the mean time how much nearer have I got to get to inviting myself to dinner this evening?” said Rudolph, with a subdued voice and a meek manner.

“Ah, well, for Mabin’s sake then, I spare you the humiliation and invite you myself. You shall stay to amuse her, since I am afraid she would find me a very dreary companion.”

“Indeed I shouldn’t,” cried Mabin, blushing deeply, and speaking with as much energy as if the presence of Rudolph were an injury. “I should like nothing better than an evening alone with you.”

Rudolph drew a deep sigh, and even Mrs. Dale could not suppress a smile at the girl’s unconscious _gaucherie_. When Mabin realized what a stupid thing she had said, she was of course too much ashamed of herself to laugh at her clumsy words, and fell, instead, into a stiff silence which the others found it impossible to make her break except by demure monosyllabic answers.

When they went into the dining-room, therefore, the evening did not promise to be a lively one. Mrs. Dale seemed to find it impossible to shake off the effects of the visit of her persecutor. Rudolph was oppressed by fears for both the ladies, and by doubts whether his presence there was not an indiscretion which would make matters worse for both of them. While Mabin, perplexed and troubled by a score of unaccustomed sensations, was the most silent, the most distressed of all.

Daylight was still streaming in from the West as they took their seats at the table in the dingily furnished room. Mrs. Dale gave a little shudder as she glanced from the “furnished house” knives to the commonplace dinner service.

“Ah!” she said, “it is not like this that I used to entertain my friends. My little dinners had quite a reputation--once!”

Then, as if she felt that these regrets were worse than vain, she turned the subject abruptly, while a spasm of pain for the moment convulsed her face.

Rudolph on his side was sorry she had mentioned the “little dinners.” They suggested a past life in which there had been something more than frivolity; something with which he would have dissociated Mrs. Dale if he could. But innocent Mabin, wishing to say something, brought the conversation back to the point it had left.

“But why can’t you have pretty dinners now, if you like to?”

Mrs. Dale’s fair face grew whiter as she answered gently:

“I will tell you--presently--some day--why I don’t have anything pretty or nice about me now.”

And Mabin, feeling that she had touched a painful chord, became more silent than ever.

Perhaps it was her sudden subsidence into absolute gloom which caused the other two to make a great effort to restore something like animation to the talk. And being both young, and of naturally high spirits, they succeeded so well that before the meal which had begun so solemnly was over, Mrs. Dale and Rudolph were talking and laughing as if there had never been a shadow upon either of their lives. At first they made brave attempts to drag Mabin into the conversation. But as these efforts were in vain, it naturally ended in her being left out of the gayety, and in her sitting entrenched in a gloomy silence of her own.

And when dinner was over, and they all went into the little adjoining room which Mrs. Dale called her “den,” it was quite natural that Mrs. Dale should sit down at the piano, in the good-natured wish to leave the young people to entertain each other; and equally natural that Rudolph, on finding that Mabin had nothing to say to him, and that she was particularly frigid in her manner, should go over to the piano, and by coaxing Mrs. Dale to sing him his favorite songs and then hers, should continue the brisk flirtation begun at the dinner-table.

Mabin had brought it all upon herself, and she tried to persuade herself that it was quite right and natural, and that she did not mind. And when Rudolph was gone, and she was alone with her hostess, she succeeded in persuading her that she had not felt neglected, but had enjoyed the merriment she had refused to share.

But when she got upstairs into her pretty bedroom, after bidding Mrs. Dale good-night, she had the greatest difficulty in keeping back the tears which were dangerously near her proud eyes.

She did not care for Rudolph, of course not; she wanted him to fall in love with Mrs. Dale, if indeed he had not already done so, and marry her and console her for all her troubles, and stop the persecution of “the cat.” But somehow this hope, this wish, did not give her all the unselfish satisfaction it ought to have done.

And Mabin, wondering what had happened to take the prettiness out of the room and the pleasure out of her acquaintance with Mrs. Dale, fell asleep with her heart heavy and full of nameless grief.

She woke with a start to find a white figure standing motionless in the middle of the room. Mabin sprang up in bed and rubbed her eyes. Was she awake? Or was she only dreaming that the body of a dead woman, stiff, rigid, but in an upright position, was standing like a marble statue between the bed and the nearest window?

She leaped out of bed, and, not without uncanny fears, touched the statuesque figure.

“Mrs. Dale!” she almost shrieked, as the great eyes suddenly turned and fixed a blank, wild gaze upon her face. “Oh, what has happened? What is the matter?”

The figure, which, in white night garments, had looked so unlike the black-robed widow that she had not recognized it, trembled from head to foot. The lips parted, but at first no word escaped them. At last with a strong effort she uttered these words:

“Let me stay here. Let me sit in this arm-chair till morning. Oh, I will not hurt you, or frighten you. But if I go back I shall go mad! This house is haunted, haunted! I have seen----”

A hoarse rattle in her throat seized her, threatened to choke her. With one wild glance round, peering into the corners of the room, she flung herself on the floor, and buried her face in the chair.