The Trespasser, Volume 2.

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THE TRESPASSER

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 2.

VI. WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS
VII. WHEREIN THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET
VIII. HE ANSWERS AN AWKWARD QUESTION
IX. HE FINDS NEW SPONSORS
X. HE COMES TO "THE WAKING OF THE FIRE"
XI. HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST

CHAPTER VI

WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS

A few hours afterwards Gaston sat on his horse, in a quiet corner of the
grounds, while his uncle sketched him. After a time he said that Saracen
would remain quiet no longer. His uncle held up the sketch. Gaston
could scarcely believe that so strong and life-like a thing were possible
in the time. It had force and imagination. He left his uncle with a
nod, rode quietly through the park, into the village, and on to the moor.
At the top he turned and looked down. The perfectness of the landscape
struck him; it was as if the picture had all grown there--not a suburban
villa, not a modern cottage, not one tall chimney of a manufactory, but
just the sweet common life. The noises of the village were soothing, the
soft smell of the woodland came over. He watched a cart go by idly,
heavily clacking.

As he looked, it came to him: was his uncle right after all? Was he out
of place here? He was not a part of this, though he had adapted himself
and had learned many fine social ways. He knew that he lived not exactly
as though born here and grown up with it all. But it was also true that
he had a native sense of courtesy which people called distinguished.
There was ever a kind of mannered deliberation in his bearing--a part of
his dramatic temper, and because his father had taught him dignity where
there were no social functions for its use. His manner had, therefore,
a carefulness which in him was elegant artifice.

It could not be complained that he did not act after the fashion of
gentle people when with them. But it was equally true that he did many
things which the friends of his family could not and would not have done.
For instance, none would have pitched a tent in the grounds, slept in it,
read in it, and lived in it--when it did not rain. Probably no one of
them would have, at individual expense, sent the wife of the village
policeman to a hospital in London, to be cured--or to die--of cancer.
None would have troubled to insist that a certain stagnant pool in the
village be filled up. Nor would one have suddenly risen in court and
have acted as counsel for a gipsy! At the same time, all were too well-
bred to think that Gaston did this because the gipsy had a daughter with
him, a girl of strong, wild beauty, with a look of superiority over her
position.

He thought of all the circumstances now.

It was very many months ago. The man had been accused of stealing and
assault, but the evidence was unconvincing to Gaston. The feeling in
court was against the gipsy. Fearing a verdict against him, Gaston rose
and cross-examined the witnesses, and so adroitly bewildered both them
and the justices who sat with his grandfather on the case, that, at last,
he secured the man's freedom. The girl was French, and knew English
imperfectly. Gaston had her sworn, and made the most of her evidence.
Then, learning that an assault had been made on the gipsy's van by some
lads who worked at mills in a neighbouring town, he pushed for their
arrest, and himself made up the loss to the gipsy.

It is possible that there was in the mind of the girl what some common
people thought: that the thing was done for her favour; for she viewed it
half-gratefully, half-frowningly, till, on the village green, Gaston
asked her father what he wished to do--push on or remain to act against
the lads.

The gipsy, angry as he was, wished to move on. Gaston lifted his hat to
the girl and bade her good-bye. Then she saw that his motives had been
wholly unselfish--even quixotic, as it appeared to her--silly, she would
have called it, if silliness had not seemed unlikely in him. She had
never met a man like him before. She ran her fingers through her golden-
brown hair nervously, caught at a flying bit of old ribbon at her waist,
and said in French:

"He is honest altogether, sir. He did not steal, and he was not there
when it happened."

"I know that, my girl. That is why I did it."

She looked at him keenly. Her eyes ran up and down his figure, then met
his curiously. Their looks swam for a moment. Something thrilled in
them both. The girl took a step nearer.

"You are as much a Romany here as I am," she said, touching her bosom
with a quick gesture. "You do not belong; you are too good for it. How
do I know? I do not know; I feel. I will tell your fortune," she
suddenly added, reaching for his hand. "I have only known three that I
could do it with honestly and truly, and you are one. It is no lie.
There is something in it. My mother had it; but it's all sham mostly."
Then, under a tree on the green, he indifferent to village gossip, she
took his hand and told him--not of his fortune alone. In half-coherent
fashion she told him of the past--of his life in the North. She then
spoke of his future. She told him of a woman, of another, and another
still; of an accident at sea, and of a quarrel; then, with a low, wild
laugh, she stopped, let go his hand, and would say no more. But her face
was all flushed, and her eyes like burning beads. Her father stood near,
listening. Now he took her by the arm.

"Here, Andree, that's enough," he said, with rough kindness; "it's no
good for you or him."

He turned to Gaston, and said in English:

"She's sing'lar, like her mother afore her. But she's straight."

Gaston lit a cigar.

"Of course." He looked kindly at the girl. "You are a weird sort,
Andree, and perhaps you are right that I'm a Romany too; but I don't know
where it begins and where it ends. You are not English gipsies?" he
added, to the father.

"I lived in England when I was young. Her mother was a Breton--not a
Romany. We're on the way to France now. She wants to see where her
mother was born. She's got the Breton lingo, and she knows some English;
but she speaks French mostly."

"Well, well," rejoined Gaston, "take care of yourself, and good luck to
you. Good-bye--good-bye, Andree." He put his hand in his pocket to give
her some money, but changed his mind. Her eye stopped him. He shook
hands with the man, then turned to her again. Her eyes were on him--hot,
shining. He felt his blood throb, but he returned the look with good-
natured nonchalance, shook her hand, raised his hat, and walked away,
thinking what a fine, handsome creature she was. Presently he said:
"Poor girl, she'll look at some fellow like that one day, with tragedy
the end thereof!"

He then fell to wondering about her almost uncanny divination. He knew
that all his life he himself had had strange memories, as well as certain
peculiar powers which had put the honest phenomena and the trickery of
the Medicine Men in the shade. He had influenced people by the sheer
force of presence. As he walked on, he came to a group of trees in the
middle of the common. He paused for a moment, and looked back. The
gipsy's van was moving away, and in the doorway stood the girl, her hand
over her eyes, looking towards him. He could see the raw colour of her
scarf. "She'll make wild trouble," he said to himself.

As Gaston thought of this event, he moved his horse slowly towards a
combe, and looked out over a noble expanse--valley, field, stream, and
church-spire. As he gazed, he saw seated at some distance a girl
reading. Not far from her were two boys climbing up and down the combe.
He watched them. Presently he saw one boy creep along a shelf of rock
where the combe broke into a quarry, let himself drop upon another shelf
below, and then perch upon an overhanging ledge. He presently saw that
the lad was now afraid to return. He heard the other lad cry out, saw
the girl start up, and run forward, look over the edge of the combe, and
then make as if to go down. He set his horse to the gallop, and called
out. The girl saw him, and paused. In two minutes he was off his horse
and beside her.

It was Alice Wingfield. She had brought out three boys, who had come
with her from London, where she had spent most of the year nursing their
sick mother, her relative.

"I'll have him up in a minute," he said, as he led Saracen to a sapling
near. "Don't go near the horse."

He swung himself down from ledge to ledge, and soon was beside the boy.
In another moment he had the youngster on his back, came slowly up, and
the adventurer was safe.

"Silly Walter," the girl said, "to frighten yourself and give Mr. Belward
trouble."

"I didn't think I'd be afraid," protested the lad; "but when I looked
over the ledge my head went round, and I felt sick--like with the
channel."

Gaston had seen Alice Wingfield several times at church and in the
village, and once when, with Lady Belward, he had returned the
archdeacon's call; but she had been away most of the time since his
arrival. She had impressed him as a gentle, wise, elderly little
creature, who appeared to live for others, and chiefly for her
grandfather. She was not unusually pretty, nor yet young,--quite
as old as himself,--and yet he wondered what it was that made her so
interesting. He decided that it was the honesty of her nature, her
beautiful thoroughness; and then he thought little more about her. But
now he dropped into quiet, natural talk with her, as if they had known
each other for years. But most women found that they dropped quickly
into easy talk with him. That was because he had not learned the small
gossip which varies little with a thousand people in the same
circumstances. But he had a naive fresh sense, everything interested
him, and he said what he thought with taste and tact, sometimes with wit,
and always in that cheerful contemplative mood which influences women.
Some of his sayings were so startling and heretical that they had gone
the rounds, and certain crisp words out of the argot of the North were
used by women who wished to be chic and amusing.

Not quite certain why he stayed, but talking on reflectively, Gaston at
last said:

"You will be coming to us to-night, of course? We are having a barbecue
of some kind."

"Yes, I hope so; though my grandfather does not much care to have me go."

"I suppose it is dull for him."

"I am not sure it is that."

"No? What then?"

She shook her head.

"The affair is in your honour, Mr. Belward, isn't it?

"Does that answer my question?" he asked genially.

She blushed.

"No, no, no! That is not what I meant."

"I was unfair. Yes, I believe the matter does take that colour;
though why, I don't know."

She looked at him with simple earnestness.

"You ought to be proud of it; and you ought to be glad of such a high
position where you can do so much good, if you will."

He smiled, and ran his hand down his horse's leg musingly before he
replied:

"I've not thought much of doing good, I tell you frankly. I wasn't
brought up to think about it; I don't know that I ever did any good in my
life. I supposed it was only missionaries and women who did that sort of
thing."

"But you wrong yourself. You have done good in this village. Why, we
all have talked of it; and though it wasn't done in the usual way--rather
irregularly--still it was doing good."

He looked down at her astonished.

"Well, here's a pretty libel! Doing good 'irregularly'? Why, where have
I done good at all?"

She ran over the names of several sick people in the village whose bills
he had paid, the personal help and interest he had given to many, and,
last of all, she mentioned the case of the village postmaster.

Since Gaston had come, postmasters had been changed. The little pale-
faced man who had first held the position disappeared one night, and in
another twenty-four hours a new one was in his place. Many stories had
gone about. It was rumoured that the little man was short in his
accounts, and had been got out of the way by Gaston Belward.
Archdeacon Varcoe knew the truth, and had said that Gaston's sin was not
unpardonable, in spite of a few squires and their dames who declared it
was shocking that a man should have such loose ideas, that no good could
come to the county from it, and that he would put nonsense into the heads
of the common people. Alice Wingfield was now to hear Gaston's view of
the matter.

"So that's it, eh? Live and let live is doing good? In that case it
is easy to be a saint. What else could a man do? You say that I am
generous--How? What have I spent out of my income on these little
things? My income--how did I get it? I didn't earn it; neither did my
father. Not a stroke have I done for it. I sit high and dry there in
the Court, they sit low there in the village; and you know how they live.
Well, I give away a little money which these people and their fathers
earned for my father and me; and for that you say I am doing good, and
some other people say I am doing harm--'dangerous charity,' and all that!
I say that the little I have done is what is always done where man is
most primitive, by people who never heard 'doing good' preached."

"We must have names for things, you know," she said.

"I suppose so, where morality and humanity have to be taught as Christian
duty, and not as common manhood."

"Tell me," she presently said, "about Sproule, the postmaster."

"Oh, that? Well, I will. The first time I entered the post-office I saw
there was something on the man's mind. A youth of twenty-three oughtn't
to look as he did--married only a year or two also, with a pretty wife
and child. I used to talk to them a good deal, and one day I said to
him: 'You look seedy; what's the matter?' He flushed, and got nervous.
I made up my mind it was money. If I had been here longer, I should have
taken him aside and talked to him like a father. As it was, things slid
along. I was up in town, and here and there. One evening as I came back
from town I saw a nasty-looking Jew arrive. The little postmaster met
him, and they went away together. He was in the scoundrel's hands;
had been betting, and had borrowed first from the Jew, then from the
Government. The next evening I was just starting down to have a talk
with him, when an official came to my grandfather to swear out a warrant.
I lost no time; got my horse and trap, went down to the office, gave
the boy three minutes to tell me the truth, and then I sent him away.
I fixed it up with the authorities, and the wife and child follow the
youth to America next week. That's all."

"He deserved to get free, then?"

"He deserved to be punished, but not as he would have been. There wasn't
really a vicious spot in the man. And the wife and child--what was a
little justice to the possible happiness of those three? Discretion is a
part of justice, and I used it, as it is used every day in business and
judicial life, only we don't see it. When it gets public, why, some one
gets blamed. In this case I was the target; but I don't mind in the
least--not in the least. . . . Do you think me very startling or
lawless?"

"Never lawless; but one could not be quite sure what you would do in any
particular case." She looked up at him admiringly.

They had not noticed the approach of Archdeacon Varcoe till he was very
near them. His face was troubled. He had seen how earnest was their
conversation, and for some reason it made him uneasy. The girl saw him
first, and ran to meet him. He saw her bright delighted look, and he
sighed involuntarily. "Something has worried you," she said caressingly.
Then she told him of the accident, and they all turned and went back
towards the Court, Gaston walking his horse. Near the church they met
Sir William and Lady Belward. There were salutations, and presently
Gaston slowly followed his grandfather and grandmother into the
courtyard.

Sir William, looking back, said to his wife: "Do you think that Gaston
should be told?"

"No, no, there is no danger. Gaston, my dear, shall marry Delia
Gasgoyne."

"Shall marry? wherefore 'shall'? Really, I do not see."

"She likes him, she is quite what we would have her, and he is interested
in her. My dear, I have seen--I have watched for a year."

He put his hand on hers.

"My wife, you are a goodly prophet."

When Archdeacon Varcoe entered his study on returning, he sat down in a
chair, and brooded long. "She must be told," he said at last, aloud.
"Yes, yes, at once. God help us both!"

CHAPTER VII

WHEREIN THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET

"Sophie, when you talk with the man, remember that you are near fifty,
and faded. Don't be sentimental." So said Mrs. Gasgoyne to Lady Dargan,
as they saw Gaston coming down the ballroom with Captain Maudsley.

"Reine, you try one's patience. People would say you were not quite
disinterested."

"You mean Delia! Now, listen. I haven't any wish but that Gaston
Belward shall see Delia very seldom indeed. He will inherit the property
no doubt, and Sir William told me that he had settled a decent fortune on
him; but for Delia--no--no--no. Strange, isn't it, when Lady Harriet
over there aches for him, Indian blood and all? And why? Because this
is a good property, and the fellow is distinguished and romantic-looking:
but he is impossible--perfectly impossible. Every line of his face says
shipwreck."

"You are not usually so prophetic."

"Of course. But I am prophetic now, for Delia is more than interested,
silly chuck! Did you ever read the story of the other Gaston--Sir
Gaston--whom this one resembles? No? Well, you will find it thinly
disguised in The Knight of Five Joys. He was killed at Naseby, my dear;
killed, not by the enemy, but by a page in Rupert's cavalry. The page
was a woman! It's in this one too. Indian and French blood is a sad
tincture. He is not wicked at heart, not at all; but he will do mad
things yet, my dear. For he'll tire of all this, and then--half-mourning
for some one!"

Gaston enjoyed talking with Mrs. Gasgoyne as to no one else. Other women
often flattered him, she never did. Frankly, crisply, she told him
strange truths, and, without mercy, crumbled his wrong opinions. He had
a sense of humour, and he enjoyed her keen chastening raillery. Besides,
her talk was always an education in the fine lights and shadows of this
social life. He came to her now with a smile, greeted her heartily, and
then turned to Lady Dargan. Captain Maudsley carried off Mrs. Gasgoyne,
and the two were left together--the second time since the evening of
Gaston's arrival, so many months before. Lady Dargan had been abroad,
and was just returned.

They talked a little on unimportant things, and presently Lady Dargan
said:

"Pardon my asking, but will you tell me why you wore a red ribbon in your
button-hole the first night you came?"

He smiled, and then looked at her a little curiously. "My luggage had
not come, and I wore an old suit of my father's."

Lady Dargan sighed deeply.

"The last night he was in England he wore that coat at dinner," she
murmured.

"Pardon me, Lady Dargan--you put that ribbon there?"

"Yes."

Her eyes were on him with a candid interest and regard.

"I suppose," he went on, "that his going was abrupt to you?"

"Very--very!" she answered.

She longed to ask if his father ever mentioned her name, but she dared
not. Besides, as she said to herself, to what good now? But she asked
him to tell her something about his father. He did so quietly, picking
out main incidents, and setting them forth, as he had the ability, with
quiet dramatic strength. He had just finished when Delia Gasgoyne came
up with Lord Dargan.

Presently Lord Dargan asked Gaston if he would bring Lady Dargan to the
other end of the room, where Miss Gasgoyne was to join her mother. As
they went, Lady Dargan said a little breathlessly:

"Will you do something for me?"

"I would do much for you," was his reply, for he understood!

"If ever you need a friend, if ever you are in trouble, will you let me
know? I wish to take an interest in you. Promise me."

"I cannot promise, Lady Dargan," he answered, "for such trouble as I have
had before I have had to bear alone, and the habit is fixed, I fear.
Still, I am grateful to you just the same, and I shall never forget it.
But will you tell me why people regard me from so tragical a stand-
point?"

"Do they?"

"Well, there's yourself, and there's Mrs. Gasgoyne, and there's my uncle
Ian."

"Perhaps we think you may have trouble because of your uncle Ian."

Gaston shook his head enigmatically, and then said ironically:

"As they would put it in the North, Lady Dargan, he'll cut no figure in
that matter. I remember for two."

"That is right--that is right. Always think that Ian Belward is bad--bad
at heart. He is as fascinating as--"

"As the Snake?"

"--as the Snake, and as cruel! It is the cruelty of wicked selfishness.
Somehow, I forget that I am talking to his nephew. But we all know Ian
Belward--at least, all women do."

"And at least one man does," he answered gravely. The next minute Gaston
walked down the room with Delia Gasgoyne on his arm. The girl delicately
showed her preference, and he was aware of it. It pleased him--pleased
his unconscious egoism. The early part of his life had been spent among
Indian women, half-breeds, and a few dull French or English folk, whose
chief charm was their interest in that wild, free life, now so distant.
He had met Delia many times since his coming; and there was that in her
manner--a fine high-bred quality, a sweet speaking reserve--which
interested him. He saw her as the best product of this convention.

She was no mere sentimental girl, for she had known at least six seasons,
and had refused at least six lovers. She had a proud mind, not wide,
suited to her position. Most men had flattered her, had yielded to her;
this man, either with art or instinctively, mastered her, secured her
interest by his personality. Every woman worth the having, down in her
heart, loves to be mastered: it gives her a sense of security, and she
likes to lean; for, strong as she may be at times, she is often
singularly weak. She knew that her mother deprecated "that Belward
enigma," but this only sent her on the dangerous way.

To-night she questioned him about his life, and how he should spend the
summer. Idling in France, he said. And she? She was not sure; but she
thought that she also would be idling about France in her father's yacht.
So they might happen to meet. Meanwhile? Well, meanwhile, there were
people coming to stay at Peppingham, their home. August would see that
over. Then freedom.

Was it freedom, to get away from all this--from England and rule and
measure? No, she did not mean quite that. She loved the life with all
its rules; she could not live without it. She had been brought up to
expect and to do certain things. She liked her comforts, her luxuries,
many pretty things about her, and days without friction. To travel?
Yes, with all modern comforts, no long stages, a really good maid, and
some fresh interesting books.

What kind of books? Well, Walter Pater's essays; "The Light of Asia";
a novel of that wicked man Thomas Hardy; and something light--"The
Innocents Abroad"--with, possibly, a struggle through De Musset,
to keep up her French.

It did not seem exciting to Gaston, but it did sound honest, and it was
in the picture. He much preferred Meredith, and Swinburne, and Dumas,
and Hugo; but with her he did also like the whimsical Mark Twain.

He thought of suggestions that Lady Belward had often thrown out; of
those many talks with Sir William, excellent friends as they were, in
which the baronet hinted at the security he would feel if there was a
second family of Belwards. What if he--? He smiled strangely, and
shrank.

Marriage? There was the touchstone.

After the dance, when he was taking her to her mother, he saw a pale
intense face looking out to him from a row of others. He smiled, and the
smile that came in return was unlike any he had ever seen Alice Wingfield
wear. He was puzzled. It flashed to him strange pathos, affection, and
entreaty. He took Delia Gasgoyne to her mother, talked to Lady Belward
a little, and then went quietly back to where he had seen Alice. She was
gone. Just then some people from town came to speak to him, and he was
detained. When he was free he searched, but she was nowhere to be found.
He went to Lady Belward. Yes, Miss Wingfield had gone. Lady Belward
looked at Gaston anxiously, and asked him why he was curious. "Because
she's a lonely-looking little maid," he said, "and I wanted to be kind to
her. She didn't seem happy a while ago."

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