Elster's Folly. Henry Wood
came up with me: I don't know where he is now. Mamma was afraid to venture, fearing the grass might be damp."
"And the Rector of course would not countenance us by coming," said Lord Hartledon, with a laugh. "I remember his prejudices against boating of old."
"He is coming to dinner."
"As you all are; Arthur also to-day. I made the doctor promise that. A jolly banquet we'll have, too, and toast the winner. Anne, I just wanted to say this to you; Val is in an awful rage with me for letting that matter get to the ears of your father, and I am not pleased with him; so altogether we are just now treating each other to a dose of sullenness, and when we do speak it's to growl like two amiable bears; but it shall make no difference to what I said last week. All shall be made smooth, even to the satisfaction of your father. You may trust me."
He ran off from her, stepped into the skiff, and was taking the sculls, when he uttered a sudden exclamation, leaped out again, and began to run with all speed towards the house.
"What is it? Where are you going?" asked the O'Moore, who was the appointed steward.
"I have forgotten—" What, they did not catch; the word was lost on the air.
"It is bad luck to turn back," called out Maude. "You won't win."
He was already half-way to the house. A couple of minutes after entering it he reappeared again, and came flying down the slopes at full speed. Suddenly his foot slipped, and he fell to the ground. The only one who saw the accident was Mr. O'Moore; the general attention at that moment being concentrated upon the river. He hastened back. Hartledon was then gathering himself up, but slowly.
"No damage," said he; "only a bit of a wrench to the foot. Give me your arm for a minute, O'Moore. This ground must be slippery from yesterday's rain."
Mr. O'Moore held out his arm, and Hartledon took it. "The ground is not slippery, Hart; it's as dry as a bone."
"Then what caused me to slip?"
"The rate you were coming at. Had you not better give up the contest, and rest?"
"Nonsense! My foot will be all right in the skiff. Let us get on; they'll all be out of patience."
When it was seen that something was amiss with him, that he leaned rather heavily on the O'Moore, eager steps pressed round him. Lord Hartledon laughed, making light of it; he had been so clumsy as to stumble, and had twisted his ankle a little. It was nothing.
"Stay on shore and give it a rest," cried one, as he stepped once more into the little boat. "I am sure you are hurt."
"Not I. It will have rest in the boat. Anne," he said, looking up at her with his pleasant smile, "do you wear my colours still?"
She touched the knot on her bosom, and smiled back to him, her tone full of earnestness. "I would wear them always."
And the countess-dowager, in her bedecked flounces and crimson feather, looked as if she would like to throw the knot and its wearer into the river, in the wake of the wager boats. After one or two false starts, they got off at last.
"Do you think it seemly, this flirtation of yours with Lord Hartledon?"
Anne turned in amazement. The face of the old dowager was close to her; the snub nose and rouged cheeks and false flaxen front looked ready to eat her up.
"I have no flirtation with Lord Hartledon, Lady Kirton; or he with me. When I was a child, and he a great boy, years older, he loved me and petted me as a little sister: I think he does the same still."
"My daughter tells me you are counting upon one of the two. If I say to you, do not be too sanguine of either, I speak as a friend; as your mother might speak. Lord Hartledon is already appropriated; and Val Elster is not worth appropriating."
Was she mad? Anne Ashton looked at her, really doubting it. No, she was only vulgar-minded, and selfish, and utterly impervious to all sense of shame in her scheming. Instinctively Anne moved a pace further off.
"I do not think Lord Hartledon is appropriated yet," spoke Anne, in a little spirit of mischievous retaliation. "That some amongst his present guests would be glad to appropriate him may be likely enough; but what if he is not willing to be appropriated? He said to Mr. Elster, last week, that they were wasting their time."
"Who's Mr. Elster?" cried the angry dowager. "What right has he to be at Hartledon, poking his nose into everything that does not concern him?—what right has he, I ask?"
"The right of being Lord Hartledon's brother," carelessly replied Anne.
"It is a right he had best not presume upon," rejoined Lady Kirton. "Brothers are brothers as children; but the tie widens as they grow up and launch out into their different spheres. There's not a man of all Hartledon's guests but has more right to be here than Val Elster."
"Yet they are brothers still."
"Brothers! I'll take care that Val Elster presumes no more upon the tie when Maude reigns at—"
For once the countess-dowager caught up her words. She had said more than she had meant to say. Anne Ashton's calm sweet eyes were bent upon her, waiting for more.
"It is true," she said, giving a shake to the purple tails, and taking a sudden resolution, "Maude is to be his wife; but I ought not to have let it slip out. It was unintentional; and I throw myself on your honour, Miss Ashton."
"But it is not true?" asked Anne, somewhat perplexed.
"It is true. Hartledon has his own reasons for keeping it quiet at present; but—you'll see when the time comes. Should I take upon myself so much rule here, but that it is to be Maude's future home?"
"I don't believe it," cried Anne, as the old story-teller sailed off. "That she loves him, and that her mother is anxious to secure him, is evident; but he is truthful and open, and would never conceal it. No, no, Lady Maude! you are cherishing a false hope. You are very beautiful, but you are not worthy of him; and I should not like you for my sister-in-law at all. That dreadful old countess-dowager! How she dislikes Val, and how rude she is! I'll try not to come in her way again after to-day, as long as they are at Hartledon."
"What are you thinking of, Anne?"
"Oh, not much," she answered, with a soft blush, for the questioner was Mr. Elster. "Do you think your brother has hurt himself much, Val?"
"I didn't know he had hurt himself at all," returned Val rather coolly, who had been on the river at the time in somebody's skiff, and saw nothing of the occurrence. "What has he done?"
"He slipped down on the slopes and twisted his ankle. I suppose they will be coming back soon."
"I suppose they will," was the answer. Val seemed in an ungracious mood. He and Mr. O'Moore and young Carteret were the only three who had remained behind. Anne asked Val why he did not go and look on; and he answered, because he didn't want to.
It was getting on for five o'clock when the boats were discerned returning. How they clustered on the banks, watching the excited rowers, some pale with their exertions, others in a white heat! Captain Dawkes was first, and was doing all he could to keep so; but when only a boat's length from the winning-post another shot past him, and won by half a length. It was the young Oxonian, Mr. Shute—though indeed it does not much matter who it was, save that it was not Lord Hartledon.
"Strike your colours, ladies, you that sport the crimson and purple!" called out a laughing voice from one of the skiffs. "Oxford blue wins."
Lord Hartledon arrived last. He did not get up for some minutes after the rest were in. In short, he was distanced.
"Hart has hurt his arm as well as his foot," observed one of the others, as he came alongside. "That's why he got distanced."
"No, it was not," dissented Lord Hartledon, looking up from his skiff at the crowd of fair faces bent down upon him. "My arm is all right; it only gave me a few twinges when I first started. My oar fouled, and I could not get right again; so, finding I had lost too much ground, I gave up the contest. Anne, had I known I should disgrace my colours, I would not have given them to you."
"Miss Ashton loses, and Maude wins!"