Chapter XI: A Meeting on the Moor

"I am very miserable," said Coquette, struggling bravely to restrain her tears.

"You miserable?" cried Lord Earlshope, whom she met before she had gone five hundred yards from the Manse. "It is impossible! I do not think you have the capacity to be miserable. But what is the matter? Tell me all about it."

It was a dangerous moment for the exhibition of kindness. She felt herself an exile from the Manse, and receiving comfort and sympathy from a stranger.

She told him her story, rapidly, and in French. To have the burden of a foreign tongue removed was in itself a consolation to her; and she found inexpressible relief in being able to talk fully and freely about all her surroundings at the Manse--about her relations with a number of people so unlike her in temperament and bringing-up--about these present circumstances which seemed to be conspiring to goad her into some desperate act.

Earlshope listened patiently and attentively, deeply interested, and yet inclined to smile sometimes.

"I should laugh at all that," said he, when she had finished, "because I am a man; and men are indifferent to these delicate considerations chiefly because they can avoid them. If a man dislikes the people he is among, he has merely to go away. But a woman is very dependent on the temper and disposition of those around her; and you especially seem almost without resource. You have no other relatives?"

"No," said Coquette.

"No lady-friend with whom you could stay?"

"Many--many with whom I should like to stay," said the girl, "but they are all in France; and I have been sent here. Yet you must not misunderstand what I do say. I do not dislike my relatives. My uncle is a very good man, and very kind to me. My cousin, I do think, is more than kind to me, and ready to incur danger in defending my faults. The other people cannot be angry with me; for I have done them no harm. Yet everything is wrong--I do not know how. At this moment I know myself very guilty in coming to see you; and I should not have come but that Cousin Tom would not speak to me."

"I think Cousin Tom has been quarrelling with you about me," said Earlshope.

He spoke very quietly, and with rather an amused air; but Coquette was startled and a little alarmed. She did not wish her companion to know that he had anything to do with what had occurred.

"Now," said Lord Earlshope, "it would be a great pity if I were the cause of any of your troubles. You see I have no companions here--you have not many. It seemed to me that we might often have a very pleasant chat or walk together; but I must not be selfish. You must not suffer anything on my account; so, if your friends at the Manse are inclined to mistake our brief acquaintanceship, let it cease. I do not like to see you as you are. You are evidently out of sorts, for you have never laughed this morning yet--nor run off the road--nor paid the least attention to the sunlight or the colours of the sea out yonder. I should far prefer looking at you from a distance as an entire stranger--if I could see you, as you usually are, fluttering about like a butterfly, enjoying the warmth, and the colours, and light around you, without a care, and quite unconscious how perfectly happy you are."

As Coquette heard these words, uttered in a cruelly calm and kindly voice, she became afraid. "What was this strange aching sense of disappointment that filled her heart? Why was it that she contemplated with dismay a proposal which he had clearly shown would secure her happiness and peace? She was miserable before; she was ten times more wretched now.

He did not seem to notice any alteration in her expression or manner. They had got to the crest of a hill from which the line of the coast was visible; with a plain of sunlit sea beyond; and Arran lying like a great blue cloud on the horizon. A faint haze of heat filled the south; and the distant Ailsa Craig was of a pearly grey.

Coquette's companion uttered an exclamation.

"Do you see that yacht?" said he, pointing to a vessel which the distance rendered very small--a schooner yacht with her two masts lying rakishly back, and her white sails shining in the sun, as she cut through the green water with a curve of white round her prow.

"It is a stunning little boat," said Coquette simply, returning to the English which she had picked up from her father.

Lord Earlshope did not laugh at her blunder as the Whaup would have laughed. He merely said--

"She has been lying at Greenock to be overhauled and set to rights; and I telegraphed to have the name altered as well. The first time you go down to Ardrossan you will find lying there a yacht bearing the name--COQUETTE."

"Do you know," said Coquette, breaking at last into a smile, "everybody did use to call me that?"

"So I heard from one of your cousins the other day," said her companion.

"And you called the boat for me?" she said, with a look of wonder.

"Yes; I took the liberty of naming it after your pet name--I hope you are not angry with me?"

"No," she said, "I am very well pleased--very much--it is a very kind compliment to do that, is it not? But you have not told me you had a yacht."

"It is one of my abandoned amusements. I wanted to surprise you, though; and I had some wild hope of inveigling Mr. Cassilis, yourself, and your cousin into going for a day or two's cruise up some of the lochs--Loch Fyne, Loch Linnhe, or some of these. It would have been pleasant for you, I think, as you don't know anything of the West Highland lochs and mountains. The scenery is the most varied of any I have ever seen, and more picturesque in the way of colour. You can have no idea of the wildness of the northern sunsets; and of late I have been picturing you sitting on deck with .us in the* twilight--the stillness of the place--the calling of the wild-fowl--the dense and mysterious darkness of the mountains in the glow of cold, clear light. Do you think Mr. Cassilis would have gone?"

"I do not know," said Coquette.

She was becoming hard and obdurate again. He had spoken of his project as a thing of the past. It was no longer possible; but the mere mention of it had filled Coquette with a wistful longing. It would have been pleasant indeed to have gone away on this dream-like exclusion, and wandered round the lonely islands, and up the great stretches of sea-lochs of which her father had many a time spoken to her when she was a child. Nevertheless, since her companion had chosen to give up the proposal, she would not ask him to reconsider his resolve. They were about to become strangers: well and good.

"I must go back now," she said.

He looked at her with some surprise.

"Have I offended you by telling you what I had been dreaming about? After all, it was but a fancy--and I beg your pardon for not saying first of all that I was far from sure that you yourself would go, even had I persuaded Mr. Cassilis."

"No, you have not offended me," said Coquette. "Your thought was very kind. But I am sorry it is all over."

"I see I have not brought you peace of mind yet," he said, gently. "You are not Miss Cassilis--may I say that you are not Coquette?--this morning. What can I do for you? I wish you would talk to me as if I were your elder brother, and tell me if there is anything in which I can help you. Shall I go up to the Manse and hint to Mr. Cassilis that--that--well, to tell you the truth, I should be at a loss to know what to hint."

He smiled; but she was quite grave.

"There is nothing," she said. "They are very good to me--what more? Do not let us talk of it any more. Let us talk of something else. Why do you never go in your yacht?"

"Because I lost interest in it, as I lost interest in a dozen other things. Steeple-chasing was my longest-lived hobby, I think, for I used to be rather successful. Eiding nine stone six, with a five-pound saddle, I had a pretty fair share of luck."

"And now you only read books, and smoke, and fell trees in the cold weather to make you warm. What books? Romances?"

"Yes; and the more improbable the better."

"You get interested?"

"Yes: but not in the story. I read the story and try to look at the brain of the writer all the time. Then you begin to wonder at the various notions of the world these various heads have conceived. If I were a physiologist, I should like to read a novel, and draw a picture of the author gathered from the colouring and sentiments of his book."

"That is all so very morbid," she said. "And in your poetry, too, I suppose you like the--ah, I cannot say what I mean."

"But I understand all the same," he said, laughing; "and I am going to disappoint you, if you have formed a theory. I like old-fashioned poetry, and especially the lyrics of the old dramatists. Then poetry was as wide as life itself, and included everything that could interest a man. A writer was not afraid to talk of everyday experiences, and was gay, or patriotic, or sarcastic, just as the moment suited. But don't you think the poetry of the present time is only the expression of one mood--that it is permeated all through with sadness and religious melancholia? What do you say, Mr. Cassilis?"

The abrupt question was addressed to the Minister. Coquette had been walking carelessly onward, with her eyes bent on the ground; and had not perceived the approach of her uncle. When she heard the sudden termination of Earlshope's disquisition on poetry, she looked up with a start, and turned pale. The Minister's eyes she found fixed upon her, and she dared not return that earnest look.

"I beg your pardon, Lord Earlshope?" said Mr. Cassilis, looking calmly at both of them.

"I was victimising your niece, whom I had the good fortune to meet, with a sermon on modern poetry," said Lord Earlshope, lightly; "and, as she seemed to pay no attention to me, I appealed to you. However, the subject is not an enticing one--as Miss Cassilis apparently discovered. Which way are you walking? Shall we join you?"

The deep-set eyes of the Minister, under the shaggy eyebrows, were closely regarding the speaker during the utterance of these words. Mr. Cassilis was satisfied--so far as Lord Earlshope was concerned. No actor could have been so obviously and wholly at ease--the fact being that the young man did not even suspect that he had become an object of suspicion. He had not inveigled the Minister's niece into a secret interview; on the contrary, he had, mainly by chance, met a pleasant and pretty neighbour out for her morning walk, and why should he not speak to her?

But when the Minister turned to Coquette he found a different story written on her face--a story that caused him some concern. She appeared at once embarrassed and distressed. She said nothing, and looked at neither of them; but there was in her eyes (bent on a bit of heather she was pulling to pieces) an expression of constraint and disquiet, which was plainly visible to him, if not to Lord Earlshope.

"If you will relieve me from the duties of escort," said the latter to Mr. Cassilis, "I think I shall bid you both good morning, as I have to walk over to Altyre Farm and back before luncheon."

So he parted from them, Coquette not daring to look up as he shook hands with her. She and the Minister were left alone.

For a minute or two they walked on in silence; and it seemed to Coquette that the hour of her deepest tribulation had come. So bright and happy had been the life of this young creature that with her to be downcast was to be miserable: to be suspected was equivalent to being guilty. Suspicion she could not bear; secrecy seemed to suffocate her; and she had now but one despairing notion in her head--to escape and fly from this lonely northern region into which she had been sent--to get away from a combination of circumstances that appeared likely to overwhelm her.

"Uncle," she said, "may I go back to France?"

"My child!" said Mr. Cassilis, in amazement, "what is the matter? Surely you do not mean that your short stay with us has been disagreeable to you? I have noticed, it is true, that you have of late been rather out o' sorts, but judged it was but some temporary indisposition. Has anything annoyed you--have you any cause of complaint?"

"Complaint?" she said; "when you have been so kind to me! No, no complaint. But I do think I am not good enough for this place--I am sorry I cannot satisfy, although I put away all my pictures, and books, and the crucifix, so that no one can see. But I am suspected--I do hear them talk of me as dangerous. It is natural--it is right, perhaps--but not pleasant to me. Just now," she added, desperately, "you think I did promise to meet Lord Earlshope, and you did come to take me home."

"Had you not promised?" said the Minister, looking steadily and yet affectionately at her.

For a second the girl's lip trembled; but the next moment she was saying rapidly, with something of wildness in her tone and manner--

"I did not promise; no. But I did expect to see him--I did hope to see him when I came out; and is it wrong? Is it wrong for me to speak to a stranger, when I do see him kind to me, in a place where there are not many amiable people? If it is wrong, it is because Lord Earlshope is not suspicious, and hard, and ill-judging, like the others. That is why they do say ill of him; that is why they persuade me to think ill of him. I do not; I will not. Since I left France I did meet no one so courteous--so friendly--as he has been. Why can I talk to him so easily? He does not think me wicked because I have a crucifix that my mother gave me--that is why we are friends; and he does not suspect me. But it is all over. We are not to be friends again; we may see each other to-morrow; we shall not speak. Shall I tell Leesiebess?--perhaps it will please her!"

She spoke with an angry and bitter vehemence, that was strangely out of consonance with her ordinary serenity of demeanour. The Minister took her hand gently in his, saying nothing at all, and led her back to the Manse.