Chapter IV: Old Friends

FIFTEEN years after.

A London drawing-room on a bright spring afternoon. It was Lady Chatterton's at home day, and the room was fairly filled with well-dressed men and women; the hostess moving in and out amongst them with that nameless charm of tone and manner that made her so popular in society.

Standing by the entrance door were two men, one a fresh arrival, who looked around him with amused curiosity.

"I am not a society man," he was saying to his friend; "and it always strikes me at these kind of gatherings what an awful waste of time it is. I am not at home amongst perfumed silks and satins."

"Nonsense, man! Now you are known as old Sir Peter's heir, you will be made welcome anywhere. Dozens of these young ladies will be charmed to make your acquaintance."

"Who is that girl in grey by the window?" asked the former speaker, rather abruptly.

"She is Lady Chatterton's niece. Fresh at it, as you see. This is the beginning of her first season. I took her into dinner last night, and I assure you her conversation was original in the extreme. She has very serious views of life, and credits all these men and women of fashion with the same noble sentiments as herself. Would you like to be introduced? Come along."

A moment after, and Rufus Tracy was by the side of a tall graceful girl, who turned at once and spoke to him in sweet, measured tones. She was strikingly beautiful, with delicately-cut features, and soft dark eyes that seemed to view her surroundings somewhat wistfully, as if seeking for something that she had not found. She was perfectly self-possessed and at ease amidst the throng; yet her thoughts seemed far-away, and she answered Rufus's two or three casual remarks so absently that he could not help smiling.

"Are you in town for long?" he asked.

Then she looked at him gravely.

"I am leaving it to-morrow."

"So soon? Then you are only a bird of passage. I don't expect you care about town, do you? I hate it."

"I think I like it. There is so much to see and hear—so much to interest one; but I am going to stay with an old aunt who lives in the country. She wants me at once."

"I wonder Lady Chatterton can spare you."

The girl smiled. "I am afraid she is not pleased about it, as it alters all her plans for me. But my aunt, Mrs. Warren, is old and lonely, and now very unwell, so, of course, her claims come first."

"Rather hard lines for you."

"Oh, no. I would rather be with those who really need me. There is no self-denial in it. Derbyshire is a lovely county, and I shall enjoy the change. I shall not be far from Haddon Hall."

Rufus looked interested at once.

"Why, that is very near to my place," he said. "Perhaps we shall meet again; for I am on my way there now."

She shook her head.

"My Aunt Catherine lives very quietly, and does not go into society—she is too much of an invalid."

Conversation turned into other channels, but all the time she was speaking Rufus was strangely conscious that he had met her before. Where had he seen those wistful dreamy eyes, and those resolute yet delicately sensitive curves about lips and chin? He left Lady Chatterton's that afternoon, perplexed and puzzled, yet deeply interested in her niece.

A fortnight later, he was striding over a Derbyshire moor with his dogs, when he suddenly was conscious of a girlish figure in front of him. She was vainly trying to detach some golden bloom from the prickly gorse, and he watched her ineffectual efforts with some interest. As he came up, she turned her head, and he recognized her at once as the one who had lately been so much in his thoughts.

"Are you by yourself?" he asked, after their first greetings had been exchanged.

"Yes," she said, brightly; "my aunt rests in the afternoon, and then is my opportunity for a good brisk walk. Isn't this a glorious moor?"

He smiled. "It is too dreary for me. Rather a change from the London streets, isn't it?"

"It is a very pleasant change. I am not going to pose as a martyr, though Lady Chatterton did regard me in that light, I think."

"Do you always put the claims of others before your own?" asked Rufus, lightly. "I wonder if you are one of the people born to help others?"

She looked at him with an odd expression, and knitted her brows into a reflective frown, as she said quietly—

"I think we are all born to do that."

"I was told once," Rufus said, "that there were only two sorts of people in the world: those born to be helped, and those born to help them. I have often thought of it since, and wondered in which class I am ranked."

The girl looked at him with half-parted lips, then gazed away over the moor with her most dreamy air.

"That saying was one I was accustomed to hear when quite a tiny child," she said, slowly; "I was brought up to believe that I was to go through life as a protector and helper of others. I have never lost some of my childish aspirations. I have a strange feeling when I meet any fresh acquaintance—'Now, what can I do to help you?' And though I found quite early in life that there were people waiting to protect and help me, I can never forget the revelation it was to me."

Rufus looked steadfastly into the sweet face by him, and then asked rather emphatically—

"And to whom do you owe such an original training?"

"To a very old and valued nurse."

"Named 'Becca'?"

She started; then a flash of recognition lit up her soft eyes.

"Can you be—? I think you must be the Mr. Tracy that brought such sunshine into my childish days. Now I know why I have felt so strangely at home with you from the first moment you spoke to me."

Her face was radiant, and Rufus said with slight embarrassment, "I can hardly believe I am speaking to the identical little Greta, and yet you are strangely the same in voice and manner. I often wondered if I should ever meet my child-friend again; how long ago it seems!"

There was much to ask and explain. Greta's story was simply told.

"At my mother's death her relations came forward at once. She had offended them by marrying my father, who was a struggling country doctor; and after his death she was too proud to go to them for help. Rebecca wrote to my aunt, Lady Chatterton, the day after my mother was taken from us; and she responded as soon as she was able, for she was abroad at the time. Rebecca and I went to her town house, and from there I was sent to a boarding-school. I used to spend my holidays alternately with Lady Chatterton and Mrs. Warren, with whom I am staying now. But my home is now supposed to be with Lady Chatterton."

"Your vocation in life is not that to which you used to look forward," said Rufus, with a smile.

"I sometimes wish it were," was the quiet response. "I have a longing to be up and doing. And yet I suppose we are never placed in any sphere where we cannot be a help to some one."

"The maxims of the redoubtable Becca are still with you!"

Greta's face was full of grave sweetness as she answered, "Rebecca took most of her maxims from the oldest book in the world, and taught me to do the same."

"And little Greta passed the teaching on to a thoughtless young man," Rufus said, an earnest, far-away look coming into his eyes. "I have to thank that little child for putting before me higher aims and motives than those of merely accumulating wealth and making a position in the world for myself."

There was silence for a moment, then Rufus said in a lighter tone, "And now let me tell you my story. You remember my circumstances? I shall never forget the interest you took as a tiny child in the fate of the boy who left home because he could not carry out his mother's wishes."

"I remember," said Greta, a soft color coming into her cheeks, "I used at that time to think of him as some unknown hero, and it was only long afterward that I associated him with yourself. Your circumstances, like mine, have surely changed?"

"Yes; I only stayed a couple of years at that bank, and then I went abroad as manager of a foreign branch. I got acquainted at Cairo with an eccentric old bachelor, Sir Peter Vivian, and to my amazement last year, when he died, I found he had made me his heir, and left me his property down here."

"And your mother?" questioned Greta, with some hesitation.

Rufus's face grew dark and stern as he said, shortly—

"I have not seen her for sixteen years. She has been travelling abroad."

"Does she know of your good fortune?"

"Yes; she wrote to congratulate me, and gave me an invitation forthwith to go and see her."

"And you did not do so?"

"Why should I? Prosperity brings many friends, and then it is one least cares about them."

Greta looked pained at the bitterness of tone.

"She is your mother," she said, softly; and seeing it was a painful subject she turned to talk of other things.

A short time after, Rufus was walking homeward with knitted brows and determined, closed lips. Yet a softened smile came over his face as he entered his own gate, and he muttered under his breath, "My little Greta! I will win her and no other!"