Chapter XVIII: An Elopement

THERE were several other persons in the carriage with Agneta, and they observed me curiously as I slowly recovered from the effects of the rush I had made.

"Nan," said Agneta, leaning forward and speaking in an angry whisper, "what is the meaning of this? Why are you here?"

"It is I who should put such questions," was my reply. "Why are you, Agneta, running away thus? How could you dare to send such a false excuse to Aunt Patty?"

"It is true enough!" she said defiantly. "My head does ache; and I could not go to the Hall because I had promised to go to London."

"To meet Ralph Marshman, I suppose?" I said, carefully subduing my voice.

She nodded.

"Of course; but it is all right, Nan. He has procured a special licence, and we shall be married almost as soon as I reach London."

"Oh, will you?" I said to myself. "Not if I can prevent it!"

"It is perfectly mad of you to come away thus," she went on, "and you will do no good. How could you be so foolish as to leave the garden party? What will Mrs. Canfield say?"

"I do not care," I said doggedly; but it was hardly true. I did care. The thought of Aunt Patty's anxiety and Mrs. Canfield's astonishment made me uneasy. It was not pleasant to think of the remarks people were probably making about me at that moment; but I believed I was doing right. Better that I should be misunderstood and misjudged than that Agneta, on the threshold of womanhood, should bring upon herself a lifelong misery. I might not succeed in thwarting her purpose; but it should not be my fault if she threw herself away upon a bad man.

"How you managed to get here so quickly I cannot think," Agneta continued. "You could not have done it if the train had not been late, I know, for I made a calculation. To think it should be late to-day of all days! Not that it will make any difference. You need not think that you are going to stop me! My mind is quite made up! I mean to marry him!"

"You shall not marry him in this wrong and secret manner if I can help it!" was my reply. "I tell you that frankly!"

Then aware that our fellow travellers were watching us, and doubtless wondering what caused the altercation we were carrying on in undertones, I became silent, and Agneta, after a few indignant and cutting comments on my behaviour, to which I made no reply, also ceased to speak.

I felt far from comfortable as the train bore us rapidly towards London. I dreaded the thought of another encounter with Ralph Marshman. I had but the vaguest ideas of what action I ought to take in the strange situation into which I was thus thrust. I could only resolve that I would not quit my cousin. I would witness her marriage if I could not hinder it; but I believed that no clergyman would perform the ceremony if I told him that Agneta was under age, and about to marry in defiance of her parents' will.

At the last station before we reached Liverpool Street most of the people in our compartment got out. Agneta seized the opportunity to make another attempt to shake my resolution.

"It is of no use, Nan," she said. "You had better take the next train back to Chelmsford. You will only make yourself ridiculous. You cannot prevent us from doing as we please."

"I am not so sure of that," I said. "Anyhow, I mean to try."

"I never knew such folly!" she said so passionately that I felt sure she was not so confident of carrying out her plans as she wished to appear.

"The folly is yours, Agneta!" I replied. "You are worse than foolish! You are a wicked, ungrateful girl, and if you get your own way in this you will be a miserable woman!"

That she responded with angry and offensive words was no sign that she did not feel my words to be true. Her face grew very white as the train began to slow into the terminus. I expect I was pale too. I know I felt faint, and trembled all over as I rose and grasped Agneta's arm, determined that she should not slip away. As we glided past an array of porters, I caught sight of Ralph Marshman peering eagerly into each compartment. The next moment he saw Agneta, and, darting forward, opened the door and helped her out almost before the train stopped. He looked amazed as I sprang after her and clung to her side.

"You here!" he faltered, and his brow grew dark. "What is the meaning of this?"

"It means that I have come to look after my cousin!" I said boldly.

"It is very kind of you," he said sarcastically; "but she needs your care no longer. I will take care of her now."

"Where she goes I go too," was all I said as I tightened my grasp of her arm, in spite of her efforts to shake me off.

"But this is absurd!" he said, and went on to make angry and rude remarks, which had no more effect on me than if I had been deaf, so firmly strong was my resolve. He even laid his hand on my arm and tried by force to separate me from my cousin, but I was able to resist the attempt, and he could not do more without making a scene amid the crowd of passengers now upon the platform.

We moved toward the exit, I clinging to Agneta's left arm, and Marshman walking on the other side of her. Suddenly she uttered a low cry of dismay and drew away from him.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

Why I looked towards him I do not know, but as I did so I saw that Alan Faulkner stood just behind him, and was gazing at me with astonished eyes. It was only for a moment that I saw him. A mist passed before my eyes and my head grew dizzy. When I looked again he had vanished in the crowd, and so had Ralph Marshman.

But it was not the sight of Alan Faulkner that had startled Agneta. Some one else was claiming her attention. An elderly gentleman, spare and trim in appearance and of dignified demeanour, had laid his hand on her shoulder and was gazing at her with wrath and indignation in his eyes.

"Agneta, what are you doing here? Was it you that rascal came to meet?"

Agneta was dumbfounded. When she tried to speak utterance failed her. Her lips quivered helplessly and she burst into tears. The speaker looked at her with more exasperation than compassion in his glance. His eyes fell on me, and he said with an air of extreme irritation:

"Perhaps you will kindly explain what brings my daughter to town at this hour. You seem to be her companion."

I had not seen my uncle since I was a child, and till he spoke thus I failed to recognise him. He was the last person I expected to meet just then. Deliverance had come from the most unexpected quarter; but thankful I was that it had come.

"I am her cousin, Annie Darracott," I said simply.

"Oh, really! And you think it right to assist her to meet that scoundrel," he said huskily. "So this is how Mrs. Lucas discharges her responsibility! I see I made a mistake in committing my daughter to her care."

"You make a very great mistake now," I replied; "my aunt knows nothing of our being here."

"The more shame to you," he responded severely; "but now, please take my daughter into the waiting-room while I look after that scoundrel."

I was only too glad to obey, for Agneta had lost all control of herself and was sobbing hysterically, and I felt like crying myself, though I was determined I would not give way.

Ralph Marshman had not waited to be interviewed by an indignant parent. Mr. Redmayne came back after a futile search for him. By that time I had procured a glass of water for Agneta and she was a little calmer.

"I shall take charge of you now," he said grimly; "you will both come with me to my hotel."

A moment's reflection convinced me that nothing would be gained by my taking the next train for Chelmsford. The garden party would be over before I could get to Greentree.

"I must send a telegram at once to Aunt Patty," I said. "She does not know what has become of us and will be very uneasy."

"Oh, I am glad you have some consideration for her," he said bitterly. "Really the lawlessness of young people nowadays is appalling! Running off by yourselves to London in this way! I never heard of such disgraceful conduct on the part of well-brought-up girls."

"You should not speak so to Nan, father," Agneta said. "It is not her fault that we are here. She only came because I did."

"I beg her pardon if I am unjust," he said, "but the whole affair is incomprehensible to me. I will go and telegraph to Mrs. Lucas, and then I will take you away."

"Oh, if only you would take me home to mother!" I said involuntarily.

"What! To Clapham? You would like to go there?"

"Why, of course!" I said almost impatiently.

He looked at me in some surprise.

"I could take you, certainly," he said. "Perhaps—I wonder if—However, we can talk of that presently." And he went off to despatch the telegram.

"Oh, Nan, don't leave me!" Agneta said when he had gone. "Father is awful when he is angry! He won't be quite so bad if you are with me."

"And yet you were ready to dare his utmost anger," I said.

"Oh, I should not have minded so much if Ralph were with me!" she said. "And he always said that father would be sure to forgive us when he found it impossible to part us, but I was afraid."

"It seems that Mr. Marshman is afraid too, now," I could not help saying. "At any rate, he has found it convenient to slip away and leave you to bear the brunt of your father's displeasure."

When Uncle Redmayne came back to us, his bearing was somewhat less severe. He said he had been thinking things over, and had come to the conclusion that it would be well to take me home at once and explain to my parents what had happened. Perhaps my mother would be willing to take Agneta in for the night. He had business that would occupy him for some hours on the following day, but he could take her back to Manchester with him in the evening. He would write and explain to Mrs. Lucas his reasons for not allowing her to return.

Agneta looked miserable enough when she heard this, but she said not a word. Her father's manner towards her had lost none of its harshness. I could not but feel sorry for her as I heard the cutting words he addressed to her every now and then.

Before we started for Clapham, he took us to the refreshment room to have some tea. He pressed me to try various sweet cakes, but neither I nor Agneta could eat anything. The tea refreshed us, however, and still more sustaining to me was the thought that I was going home. I had no fear of meeting my parents. I knew that they would not condemn me unheard.

It hardly seemed real to me when presently I found myself driving in a cab along the side of Clapham Common. How little I had thought when I rose that morning that the evening would find me here!

Mother's astonishment when she saw us drive up to the door was beyond words to express. She looked absolutely frightened, till I assured her that we were both well, and that no fresh outbreak of illness had occurred. She told me afterwards that I could have no idea how we had alarmed her, for both Agneta and I looked as if something terrible had happened.

By this time, indeed, my cousin's strength was about gone, while her headache had become almost unbearable. When we went upstairs she broke down utterly, and, feeling sure that she could endure nothing more in the way of rebuke or reproach, I persuaded her to go to bed.

Olive and Peggy bustled about and rearranged the rooms, aching with curiosity to know what was the meaning of our sudden, unexpected arrival. I, too, was longing to tell them, but nothing could be said till poor Agneta's aching head lay on a cool pillow, and we could leave her to the quiet she so sorely craved, though inward tranquillity it was beyond our power to give her.

A little later I was telling Mr. Redmayne in the presence of my father and mother what I knew of Ralph Marshman's meetings with Agneta, and all that had happened that day. When I had done, he expressed his regret that he had blamed me ere he knew the truth of the matter.

"I see now that you were my headstrong girl's true friend," he said. "You tried to save her from herself." Then, turning to father and mother, he added, "You are more fortunate in your children than I am. I don't know how it is. I have done everything for my children that I could do. They have had every advantage, and all kinds of indulgences, yet when I look for a little comfort from them, they reward me by the basest ingratitude."

There was a moment's silence, and then mother said gently:

"Agneta will surely be wiser after this. She has learned a lesson, I trust."

"If she has not, I will see that she does," he replied angrily. "She will find that I will stand no more nonsense of this kind. That man thought that, if he succeeded in marrying her, I should be fool enough to forgive her, and let her have the portion I can give to my daughters, or, at any rate, leave it to her when I die. I should have done nothing of the kind. If Agneta had married in defiance of my wishes I would never have forgiven her. She might have starved before I would have given her a shilling!"

"Oh, don't say that!" mother cried with a shiver, but there was no relenting in his countenance. He looked quite capable of so acting at that moment, and I am sure that he meant what he said.

Then he went on to explain how he had learned that Marshman had been dismissed from his post in the bank at Newcastle, certain doubtful practices of his having come to the knowledge of the firm. Thinking it probable that the young man had gone to London and might make an attempt to see Agneta, Mr. Redmayne decided to take an early opportunity of going to town himself. While there, he would go down to "Gay Bowers," see Agneta, and put Aunt Patty on her guard in case the detrimental should present himself.

He had not long arrived in town, and was on his way to Liverpool Street with the idea of going down that very evening to Chelmsford, if there was a train that would serve his purpose, when he perceived Ralph Marshman entering the station in advance of him. Instantly, he resolved to watch the young man's proceedings. He followed him to the platform where the train from Chelmsford would come in, and, carefully avoiding his observation, waited a wearisome time till at last the overdue train arrived. The result that rewarded his pains I have already narrated. I was interested in hearing uncle's description of what had occurred, till suddenly mother's eyes fell on me, and she exclaimed:

"Nan, you look worn-out. Go to bed at once."

And to bed I thankfully went, but did not sleep till I had told Olive the whole story, and a good deal more.