The Pride o' the Morning

BY

AGNES GIBERNE

AUTHOR OF "SUN, MOON AND STARS," "THE MIGHTY DEEP," "STORIES OF THE ABBEY PRECINCTS," "ROY: A TALE IN THE DAYS OF SIR JOHN MOORE," ETC.

"And so the shadows fall apart, And so the west winds play: And all the windows of my heart I open to the day." WHITTIER.

London

S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO., LTD.

OLD BAILEY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. COLIN'S RETURN

II. MIDNIGHT MOVEMENTS

III. MRS. WYVERNE'S GRAND-DAUGHTERS

IV. THINGS PAST AND PRESENT

V. THE MIDFELL ATMOSPHERE

VI. A BURNISHED STREAM

VII. A STERN CHASE

VIII. MR. DUGDALE'S OUTSPOKENNESS

IX. A MOORLAND DEATH-TRAP

X. DIREFUL REALISATIONS

XI. CASTLE HILL PERPLEXITIES

XII. COLIN AND HIS WORK

XIII. THE OLD VILLAGE CHURCH

XIV. SCULPTOR AND SITTER

XV. AN INADVERTENT DISCOVERY

XVI. LEVEL PLAINS

XVII. DUTY VERSUS DESIRE

XVIII. A PAST EPISODE

XIX. A VANISHED PORTRAIT

XX. REVERSION TO A RUT

XXI. THE THINGS THAT ARE

XXII. THINGS THAT SHOULD BE

XXIII. COLIN'S CONQUESTS

XXIV. A FAMILIAR HANDWRITING

XXV. GILES OR SOMEBODY

XXVI. AN UNQUIET MIND

XXVII. RENEWED FIGHTING

XXVIII. NEW DEVELOPMENTS

XXIX. THE LOST HEIRLOOM

XXX. MRS. KEITH AND HER CORRESPONDENT

XXXI. GILES AND HIS HOPES

XXXII. A POSSIBLE COMPLICATION

XXXIII. COMING TO THE POINT

XXXIV. A FLARE-UP AND ITS SEQUELÆ

XXXV. THE OTHER MAN

XXXVI. THE COIL IN ITS BEGINNING

XXXVII. READJUSTMENTS

THE PRIDE O' THE MORNING

CHAPTER I

COLIN'S RETURN

A BEAM of sunshine from the far west came in at the oriel window of Castle Hill library. As its name might imply, Castle Hill stood somewhat high, at least for English Midlands. The house, an old one, often added to in the course of centuries, was two hundred feet above the village of Castlemere.

It had, therefore, benefits of breeze and light; and this lengthy irregular room, with its four windows, its carved black oak, its hangings of dull green and old gold, enjoyed the latest kisses of the monarch of day. The hour for those kisses was not yet come. Wavelets of ether, shimmering billions to each beat of the venerable clock, speeding across ninety-three millions of miles, still landed on wall and carpet.

Mrs. Keith's mind was occupied with other matters than scientific causes for everyday phenomena, as she paced the room with impatient steps, glancing in turn through each front window, in quest of the expected dog-cart.

She was a handsome woman, tall, with dark eyes of unusual size. The rich brown hair, which held many silver threads, was well-dressed, and she carried herself with a touch of conscious stateliness, which failed to hide her present restless mood. A fixed red spot on either cheek made the rest of her pale face paler; her lips worked; and she continuously clenched and unclenched her right hand.

Giles Randolph had risen when she rose, and he now stood in the oriel window, reading; a man of large build, six feet in height and robust in make. The face had strong outlines, with a straight solid nose, a good mouth under the heavy brown moustache, sombre blue eyes dragged downward at their outer corners, and a complexion of deep red-brown. In the features was something not easy to decipher. There was fibre of character, and a will to crush difficulty; yet that dim inscription seemed to speak of something in the past that had mastered him, and had given a bias to his life.

"Half-past six! He ought to be here. I can't think why he is not," Mrs. Keith was saying. "The train was due half-an-hour ago."

She took another turn.

"He must have missed it. How vexatious! When does the next come in? I do wish you would look it out for me."

Giles put down his book and walked to a side-table, where some fumbling ended in the remark—"I don't see Bradshaw."

"It's there, I know—on the top shelf of that bookcase."

He took down the volume, remarking in his deep voice, which contrasted with her somewhat querulous tones—"This train is often late."

"O don't be sensible, pray! I'm not in the mood for it."

Possibly her companion was at a loss how to be the reverse. He turned over the pages, and remarked, "In case Colin should have missed—"

"Yes, yes; I understand all that. The time of the train is what I want." Then came an apology. "I really don't mean to be cross, Giles. Somehow, I can't help it."

He looked at her kindly. "Of course—I understand. One knows what this must be to you—your own boy coming home!"

"Yes. That is—he may be different."

"No fear. Colin will be Colin still. Ah! Here is the page."

She had moved again and now stood behind him. A breeze of feeling swept over her face; something of protestation, for which nothing present seemed to account. Tears filled her eyes and were with difficulty blinked away; but she spoke in a tone of forced gaiety.

"You have no business to talk like that. To speak as if Colin were more to me than yourself. You know that you both are my boys—always have been and always will be."

He spoke soothingly. "At all events, if there has been any difference it has lain the other way—more indulgence for me, more strictness for him."

"O surely not!" That which he meant to comfort her proved exciting. "Don't say it, Giles! So hard as I have tried to make no difference—even in my love!"

"You have made none, beyond what was inevitable. Colin has the right to your greater love, and he is infinitely more lovable. Venetian glass can't be handled like granite. Come, you are not going to worry yourself! Things are all right."

"I hope so. I shouldn't like to think—" She left the sentence unfinished, and began anew—"I often wonder—'can' one hold oneself even? I know what you mean by 'greater strictness' and 'Venetian glass.' Just because he is my own, I have tried to be more severe with him, and his sweetness has made it impossible. He is so lovable, as you say."

"Of course your own boy is and must be more to you than all the world beside."

"Yes—true," she murmured.

"I should be the last ever to wish Colin to come second." Giles spoke pointedly; for Mrs. Keith's endeavours to give her ward his full rights had often resulted in giving her son less than his rights. "But here is the dog-cart."

Mrs. Keith's attempts at self-analysing were brushed aside. Colin was through the front door before they could leave the library, moving with an absence of hurry, yet forestalling them. He kissed his mother, shook hands with Giles, patted the old hound who followed him with sniffs and whines, exchanged some chaff with the stout butler which set that excellent retainer grinning with delight, and finally took possession of an armchair, asking and answering questions in a soft deliberate undertone, which was the precise antithesis of his mother's variable voice.

He and Giles were made after different models. A stranger might easily have set down the latter as a man of four-and-thirty, while few guessed Colin to have passed his twenty-third year. Yet less than six weeks had divided the birth of the one from the birth of the other; and each now had passed his twenty-eighth birthday.

Colin was the shorter, though he gained in apparent height from his slightness. His fair pale complexion and chiselled delicacy of feature contrasted with the powerful outlines of Giles, while the finely-developed forehead spoke of intellect. The blue eyes were singular, not unlike those of Giles in colour, observant, yet dreamy.

He had suffered severely in health from an accident in boyhood. A heavy blow on the head had resulted in disabling headaches, which for years prevented study. His high spirit had made him less of an invalid than might have been the case; still, education had been a negligible quantity, so far as any regular "curriculum" was concerned. He had read much by fits and starts, picking up any amount of general information, but steady work had been impossible. Foreign travel at last had been recommended, and much was expected from the three years of absence, now ended.

Glad to be back! Yes, certainly. Though he had enjoyed himself no end—thanks to Giles!—with a glance at the latter.

Then, presently—"Giles, I've been thinking—it is cool of me to talk of this as 'home.' As if I had a shadow of right!"

"You have every right."

"Not a particle. Now I am stronger, I don't mean to be dependent."

"Nonsense!" came emphatically.

And Mrs. Keith stood up.

"Going to dress for dinner," she murmured; and Colin showed surprise, since the hour was early. He did not protest, but when she had disappeared, his glance went to Giles.

"Nervous!" came in reply.

"What about?"

"I haven't a notion."

Colin dropped the subject, and reverted to what he had been saying. "That's all very well, you know; but I happen to have a trifle of self-respect. Call it pride, if you like."

"Between you and me pride is impossible."

"The future Mrs. Randolph—"

"Will feel as I feel, or she won't exist. What is mine is yours. And not a man in the Empire is less likely to marry."

"Bosh! Anyhow, I mean to work."

"You shall do what you can, without suffering for it. But for pleasure, not necessity."

"It's a moral necessity that I should be independent."

"And deprive me of the one thing—" A word of protest cut into the utterance. "Yes, I know! I promised not to say it again. No need; for you understand. I wish you also to understand that never while I live will Castle Hill cease to be your home."

"So be it! Meanwhile, I intend to work."

"At what?"

"Modelling, of course. Will the mater be exercised?" His words dropped slowly.

"I don't see why she should."

"She hates to see me fingering clay. I never can conceive why. It is the one thing I can do."

"Better for you, at any rate, than head-work."

"My dear fellow! Do you suppose sculpture is not head-work?"

"Better than books, I should have said. We must fit up a studio."

Colin murmured a "Thanks." He added, "I've done a lot of modelling lately—in Paris first, of course."

"Ah, that was what kept you so long."

"I went through a regular course. This winter I've had a fine time in Italy, studying the great masters. Plaster casts want a lot of practice. I've not made much way with them yet."

"Don't try for the present. Modelling in clay will give scope for your powers, and a practised moulder will do the casting better. For a wonder, I know just the man in Market Oakley—a young fellow with talent. I shall like to encourage him."

"I dare say! But the cost—"

"Will be my concern, till you can stand alone. When you are receiving hundreds for a bust, you shall pay for your own casting."

"Ah—when!! But I mean to stand alone."

"What are a few pounds between you and me?"

"Well, perhaps for a time!" reluctantly. "I had no end of encouragement abroad. Some of my attempts won great praise."

"Delighted to hear it," Giles said cordially. "What do you think of the old schoolroom for your studio? It is out of the way, and has no room over. You will want skylight windows, I fancy, and a tap of water, and a modelling-stool, and instruments. There's a small inner room, which will be useful. We will have it put in order at once. You must be properly equipped at the outset."

"Giles, you 'are' a good fellow!" murmured Colin.

CHAPTER II

MIDNIGHT MOVEMENTS

"HOW do you do?" a precise voice said.

It was not needful to announce Mr. Thomas Dugdale. He was as much at home in the house as its proper inmates. If a door were open, he walked in; if not, the butler opened it, but did not venture to treat him like a caller.

The greeting was meant for Colin. He never said, "How do you do?" to the others, since they met too often.

He was elderly, composed, critical, daintily neat every inch of him, from the smooth well-cut hair and the shaven face to the immaculate shoes, which never, on the muddiest day, became soiled. Extreme exactitude, inside and out, was his main characteristic. He lived alone in a small house on the estate, built by a former owner for his mother-in-law. Mr. Dugdale might have found a home with his widowed daughter, on a neighbouring property, but he preferred "freedom."

Dinner over, Colin usurped most of the talk, till Mr. Dugdale appeared.

Mrs. Keith looked often from one to the other of "her boys," as she called them, trying to impress upon both that neither was more to her than the other. They, man-like, would have taken the fact for granted. She could not let it alone. If she said "Dear Colin," she dragged in a "Dear Giles" within two minutes. If she laid an affectionate hand on Giles' shoulder, she gave a like caress to Colin. The balancing of affection became irksome, and Mr. Dugdale's entrance made a not unwelcome diversion.

"Tired of travelling?" he suggested. "Three years—enough for the most voracious appetite. What is to be the next step?"

"Settle down at home," Giles replied for him.

"Well—for a while. Give folks time to turn round." He took off the far-sighted glasses with which he had surveyed Colin, put them away, and with dainty finger-tips adjusted his near-sighted pince-nez, pulling forth a letter.

"Something to interest you here. A response to my letter. Signs of yielding, too. It takes the old lady six weeks to evolve an answer."

Mrs. Keith saw the writing. "Mrs. Wyverne!" she exclaimed.

Colin showed interest. "How about Phyllys?" he asked. "Something was said lately about getting her to visit us."

"Mrs. Wyverne ought to consent. Giles will be in that neighbourhood, and he means to try persuasion—not asking leave beforehand."

"Going to storm the fortress?" suggested Colin, with one of his noiseless laughs. "Mind you don't capture by mistake the ogress!"

"Not likely! Barbara must be a person to whom distance lends enchantment," remarked Giles.

"We have nothing to do with Miss Pringle. It is Phyllys whom we want. Certainly not Barbara!" Mrs. Keith knitted her brows.

Mr. Dugdale began to fold up his letter in disgust. "Barbara Pringle is an excellent person of her kind," he said stiffly. "Well-meaning and conscientious. Most people are well-meaning. But the bane of womanhood is to be always in the right. Barbara Pringle is always in the right. She never makes a mistake. Therefore she is monotonous and uninteresting."

"Let us devoutly hope that Phyllys sometimes blunders," laughed Colin. He saw the vanishing letter, and added, "But you were going to read us something."

"Nothing! Nothing!" Mr. Dugdale waved the subject aside with his hand. "Merely a passing idea. Barbara Pringle has usurped its place. Inadvertently I interrupted somebody—or somebody interrupted me. In either case, I apologise."

Glances were exchanged. Mr. Dugdale crossed his legs, and contemplated an empty fireplace.

"The Infinitely Little!" he mused. "It may be masculine; but it is more commonly feminine. Woman, when she is small, is very small indeed. When last I had the pleasure of seeing Barbara Pringle, I should have described her as an excellent example of the Infinitely Little. Good, no doubt; but narrow—painfully narrow. A woman whose whole Universe might be packed into an egg-shell."

"Think what her life has been," suggested Colin. "Forty years in a Yorkshire burrow."

"Narrowness is a matter of mental make, not of circumstances."

"No doubt; but circumstances tell upon one's mental make. A plant, whatever its make, can't develop without light and air. Miss Pringle has had neither."

"If she had, she could not have made use of them."

"And the family aim is to rescue Phyllys from a like fate. Giles should be equal to the old lady, even backed by the redoubtable Barbara."

"Barbara Pringle is a woman not easily managed."

"Ten years since you saw her," said Mrs. Keith.

Mr. Dugdale put his finger-tips together, and entered on a discussion of dates. He proved, to his own satisfaction, that not ten years, but precisely nine and a half, had elapsed since the date of his visit to the Yorkshire village, where lived old Mrs. Wyverne and her pair of grand-daughters. Then he stood up, his eyes bent upon Colin.

"Sorry—no. Can't stay longer. Busy; and so are you." He was still chafing under his supposed slight. "Ta-ta, everybody. Whom on earth has Colin grown like?"

"It's generally decided that I am like nobody," remarked the object of his scrutiny. "Not the mater, in any case."

"'I' should have said Colin was like everybody in turn," Mrs. Keith observed.

Mr. Dugdale, with wrinkled brows, pursued his quest.

"Can't imagine," he repeated. "It is a definite resemblance." He frowned anew, standing deep in thought. "I have it! That old portrait in oils, which used to hang here—I never could understand why it was banished to the gallery! It's one of the best things in the house!"

Mrs. Keith went into peals of laughter. She held her handkerchief to her lips, overpowered with merriment. Colin laughed sympathetically in his silent fashion, while the set gravity of Giles' features deepened.

"My 'dear' Mr. Dugdale! You really are 'too' comical! The idea of likening Colin to that ancient fogey! Young, was he?—Yes, I dare say he was—two hundred years ago! But it's too rich!—too funny!" Her laughter filled the room. She was not often noisy, but for once she let herself go.

"Oh, very well. Good-night. In future I shall keep my opinions to myself!" And Mr. Dugdale walked off, affronted. He could stand anything better than ridicule.

Giles went with him to the door, and on his return Mrs. Keith's merriment had subsided.

Colin was saying—

"I have reverted lately to my old love—sculpture."

There was a movement of annoyance. "I hope you are not going to take that up again!"

"If I have the gift, why not use it?" asked Colin, in level tones.

"You have not. It is a mere fancy."

"A fancy that has survived twenty years."

"You will never succeed." Her manner showed displeasure.

"But at least he can try," put in Giles.

"It will be utter waste of time."

"That was not the opinion of an expert. He said there was no doubt about my having the gift—if I could work hard enough."

"You won't. You will never keep up anything long."

The words brought a shadow to both faces, more especially to that of Giles.

"If you wish to find work, pray take up something worth doing." She was greatly in earnest, and the red spot in either cheek began to burn.

"This is worth doing, if Colin wishes it," said Giles gravely. He counted her opposition unkind.

The subject was dropped, but Mrs. Keith's face fell into a haggard set. She went to bed early, Colin retiring also, and Giles retreated to his private den beyond the billiard-room. Since he managed his own estate, without an agent, he was sufficiently busy. Papers had to be examined, letters had to be written; and this was his time of quiet.

More than two hours had gone by, when a consciousness came over him of something or somebody moving.

The servants would be gone to bed, since it was past midnight. He went out and listened, standing in a narrow passage, which at some distance to the left joined the central hall; and the whole house seemed to be in darkness, in absolute repose. But as he waited, he heard again that suggestion of a sound—hardly a creak—and then he saw a needle of light falling athwart one corner of the hall.

He took an unlighted candle and a box of matches, and groped his way thither; but the slender ray had vanished.

Again he listened, and could detect nothing. Mrs. Keith or one of the maids might be about: but what puzzled him was that the needle of light had seemed to travel from the long corridor on the first floor, known as the "gallery," its position and slant being in no other way explainable.

Not wishing to disturb sleepers by stumbling about in the dark, he lighted his candle and went upstairs. Mrs. Keith's room was fast shut; so was Colin's. He turned to the gallery, where a double row of old pictures, portraits and landscapes, adorned one wall, the other being broken by windows.

Another glimmer ahead. The gallery ran round two sides of the house, and this ray came from beyond the corner. He went faster, but on rounding the corner he saw nothing. If anybody had been there, the person must have gone through a door to the back staircase.