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Read Ebook: A Romance of Wastdale by Mason A E W Alfred Edward Woodley
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Ebook has 610 lines and 27469 words, and 13 pages
e determined to make the overture, and continuing his way onwards to the Inn, inquired for Mr. Hawke. He was out, they told him. He had waited until the postman came at twelve, and had then set out for the fells. Gordon rummaged in his pockets and unearthed a card. He scribbled on it a request that Hawke would visit him during the evening, and turned back to the farm-house in a glow of satisfaction. A wild fancy shot through him that Hawke and himself had been designedly brought together into the seclusion of the valley. He laughed it aside for the moment.
But it returned to him afterwards with overwhelming conviction.
Austen Hawke strolled down from Yewbarrow an hour later. He was a man of a tall figure, spare of limb and lithe of movement, with a keen, narrow face, which fitted itself into one's memory. Inside his sitting-room it was already dark, and he rang for lights and stretched himself complacently in an arm-chair before the fire. The mistress of the Inn answered the bell and informed him, with intervals between the words as she scratched off the heads of refractory matches, that a gentleman had called to see him during the afternoon. Hawke swung round towards her, a look of annoyance showing in his face. He hastily ran over in his mind the names of his friends.
"Did he leave no message?" he asked in perplexity.
"Mr. Gordon, of course, wrote his message in here?" he asked, and a note of anxiety struggled through the indifference of his tone.
He was assured, however, that his visitor had come no further than the doorway of the hall.
"You should have asked him in," he said carelessly, and slipped the envelope into his pocket.
After dinner he smoked his pipe in his chair until the clock struck nine. Then he took out his watch, adjusted the hands exactly to the hour, and walked up the lane to the farm. The door stood on the latch and he flung it open noisily.
The sound roused Gordon from a doze, and he started suddenly to his feet. On the instant Hawke stepped backwards to the threshold and stood in the doorway, eyeing him searchingly. For a moment the two men measured one another in silence, and Gordon fancied, with some wonderment, that there was an expression of more than mere antagonism, an expression of actual fear, in his visitor's attitude.
"Well?" said Hawke at last, and there was a ring of defiance in his voice.
"Austen!" the other replied simply, and he held out his hand.
There was no doubting the wistful sincerity of his appeal; and yet Hawke came forward but slowly, and took the outstretched hand with a watchful suspicion.
"You are a stranger here," he said.
Gordon answered the implied question.
"Well, I was only in the way at Keswick." He stopped abruptly, mindful that he trod delicate ground.
Hawke shot a rapid glance at him. "Why?" he asked.
"Bridesmaids, you know. I was a flounder in a shoal of mermaids," and Gordon laughed apologetically.
But Hawke joined in the laugh, and said--"Yes; the bridegroom is of no value until the wedding-day;" and he added softly, "and sometimes he is of no value after it."
Gordon smiled confidently and observed--"At all events, you have not changed."
"The adjective hardly explains my case; for I don't seem to have existed at all before."
"Don't," Hawke broke in. "Please don't. I will take your sentiment for granted."
Gordon appreciated that he had brought the rejoinder upon himself by a misplaced egotism, and relapsed into his chair. Hawke came and stood immediately above him, leaning against the edge of the table.
"And so," said he, "you came to Wastdale just to see me." He laid his hand on Gordon's arm with a show of cordiality, but he spoke slowly and with a faint flavour of irony about the words.
"What made you think that?" Gordon asked in surprise.
"Your message, of course."
"You misunderstood it. I had no idea you were here until I arrived myself. I meant to spend the week at Ravenglass, but my uncle was summoned to town yesterday. So I thought that I would come over to the old place again."
"Oh! Is that all?"
Hawke's voice told of relief. Gordon noticed the change, and turned inquiring eyes on him sharply. Just for the second their glances crossed; Hawke was off his guard; and it appeared to his companion that the very spirit of malice was blazing triumphantly in his eyes. Hawke rose hastily from the table, and Gordon cried out--
"Take care! You will have the whisky on the floor."
"I didn't notice it. Shall I help you?"
"Thanks!"
Hawke measured out the whisky into the glasses and filled them from the kettle which sang on the fire.
"It's quite like old times," he said genially.
"Not quite!"
"You mean Arkwright? Yes, poor devil! I had forgotten him. Tell me how it happened." And he lay down on the sofa.
"Why, didn't you hear!"
"Only vaguely."
He hesitated, shot a furtive look at Gordon, and added, tentatively--
"I was in India at the time."
"Were you in India, too?" Gordon exclaimed.
Hawke turned his head to the wall to conceal the smile on his face, and answered--
"Yes, I was there. But why 'too'?"
"Yes?"
"Well, Miss Nugent happened to be at Poonah."
"Really? But tell me about Arkwright."
For the second time that day Gordon related the story of the accident.
"Oh, no!" Gordon laughed. "Only you have made it so confoundedly strong."
"It will help you to sleep."
"I shan't need help."
"Ah! You look tired, and I am keeping you up."
Hawke drew his watch from his pocket.
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