Notwithstanding their inequality of fortune, and the very distant relationship – for they are not even near as cousins – the rich girl behaves towards the poor one as though they were sisters. No one seeing them stroll arm-in-arm through the shrubbery, and hearing them hold converse in familiar, affectionate tones, would suspect the little dark damsel to be the paid "companion" of the lady by her side. Yet in such capacity is she residing at Llangorren Court.
It is just after the hour of breakfast, and they have come forth in morning robes of light muslin – dresses suitable to the day and the season. Two handsome ponies are upon the lawn, its herbage dividing their attention with the horns of a pet stag, which now and then threaten to assail them.
All three, soon as perceiving the ladies, trot towards them; the ponies stretching out their necks to be patted, the cloven-hoofed creature equally courting caresses. They look especially to Miss Wynn, who is more their mistress.
On this particular morning she does not seem in the humour for dallying with them; nor has she brought out their usual allowance of lump sugar; but, after a touch with her delicate fingers, and a kindly exclamation, passes on, leaving them behind, to all appearance disappointed.
"Where are you going, Gwen?" asks the companion, seeing her step out straight, and apparently with thoughts preoccupied. Their arms are now disunited, the little incident with the animals having separated them.
"To the summer-house," is the response. "I wish to have a look at the river. It should show fine this bright morning."
And so it does; as both perceive after entering the pavilion, which commands a view of the valley, with a reach of the river above – the latter, under the sun, glistening like freshly polished silver.
Gwen views it through a glass – a binocular she has brought out with her; this of itself proclaiming some purpose aforethought, but not confided to the companion. It is only after she has been long holding it steadily to her eye, that the latter fancies there must be some object within its field of view more interesting than the Wye's water, or the greenery on its banks.
"What is it?" she naïvely asks. "You see something?"
"Only a boat," answers Gwen, bringing down the glass with a guilty look, as if conscious of being caught. "Some tourist, I suppose, making down to Tintern Abbey – like as not a London cockney."
The young lady is telling a "white lie." She knows the occupant of that boat is nothing of the kind. From London he may be – she cannot tell – but certainly no sprig of cockneydom – unlike it as Hyperion to the Satyr; at least so she thinks. But she does not give her thought to the companion; instead, concealing it, she adds, —
"How fond those town people are of touring it upon our Wye!"
"Can you wonder at that?" asks Ellen. "Its scenery is so grand – I should say, incomparable; nothing equal to it in England."
"I don't wonder," says Miss Wynn, replying to the question. "I'm only a little bit vexed seeing them there. It's like the desecration of some sacred stream, leaving scraps of newspapers in which they wrap their sandwiches, with other picnicing débris on its banks! To say nought of one's having to encounter the rude fellows that in these degenerate days go a-rowing – shopboys from the towns, farm labourers, colliers, hauliers, all sorts. I've half a mind to set fire to the Gwendoline, burn her up, and never again lay hand on an oar."
Ellen Lees laughs incredulously as she makes rejoinder.
"It would be a pity," she says, in serio-comic tone. "Besides, the poor people are entitled to a little recreation. They don't have too much of it."
"Ah, true," rejoins Gwen, who, despite her grandeeism, is neither Tory nor aristocrat. "Well, I've not yet decided on that little bit of incendiarism, and shan't burn the Gwendoline– at all events not till we've had another row out of her."
Not for a hundred pounds would she set fire to that boat, and never in her life was she less thinking of such a thing. For just then she has other views regarding the pretty pleasure craft, and intends taking seat on its thwarts within less than twenty minutes' time.
"By the way," she says, as if the thought had suddenly occurred to her, "we may as well have that row now – whether it's to be the last or not."
Cunning creature! She has had it in her mind all the morning; first from her bed-chamber window, then from that of the breakfast-room, looking up the river's reach, with the binocular at her eye too, to note if a certain boat, with a salmon-rod bending over it, passes down. For one of its occupants is an angler.
"The day's superb," she goes on; "sun's not too hot – gentle breeze – just the weather for a row. And the river looks so inviting – seems calling us to come! What say you, Nell?"
"Oh! I've no objections."
"Let us in, then, and make ready. Be quick about it! Remember it's April, and there may be showers. We mustn't miss a moment of that sweet sunshine."
At this the two forsake the summer-house; and, lightly recrossing the lawn, disappear within the dwelling.
While the angler's boat is still opposite the grounds, going on, eyes are observing it from an upper window of the house; again those of Miss Wynn herself, inside her dressing-room, getting ready for the river.
She had only short glimpses of it, over the tops of the trees on the eyot, and now and then through breaks in their thinner spray. Enough, however, to assure her that it contains two men, neither of them cockneys. One at the oars she takes to be a professional waterman. But he seated in the stern is altogether unknown to her, save by sight – that obtained when twice meeting him out on the river. She knows not whence he comes, or where he is residing; but supposes him a stranger to the neighbourhood, stopping at some hotel. If at the house of any of the neighbouring gentry, she would certainly have heard of it. She is not even acquainted with his name, though longing to learn it. But she is shy to inquire, lest that might betray her interest in him. For such she feels, has felt, ever since setting eyes on his strangely handsome face.
As the boat again disappears behind the thick foliage she sets, in haste, to affect the proposed change of dress, saying, in soliloquy – for she is now alone, —
"I wonder who, and what he can be? A gentleman, of course. But, then, there are gentlemen and gentlemen; single ones and – "
She has the word "married" on her tongue, but refrains speaking it. Instead, she gives utterance to a sigh, followed by the reflection —
"Ah, me! That would be a pity – a dis – "
Again she checks herself, the thought being enough unpleasant without the words.
Standing before the mirror, and sticking long pins into her hair, to keep its rebellious plaits in their place, she continues soliloquising —
"If one only had a word with that young waterman who rows him! And were it not that my own boatman is such a chatterer, I'd put him up to getting that word. But no! It would never do. He'd tell aunt about it; and then Madame la Chatelaine would be talking all sorts of serious things to me – the which I mightn't relish. Well, in six months more the old lady's trusteeship of this young lady is to terminate – at least legally. Then I'll be my own mistress; and then 'twill be time enough to consider whether I ought to have – a master. Ha, ha, ha!"
So laughing, as she surveys her superb figure in a cheval glass, she completes the adjustment of her dress by setting a hat upon her head, and tightening the elastic, to secure against its being blown off while in the boat. In fine, with a parting glance at the mirror, which shows a satisfied expression upon her features, she trips lightly out of the room, and on down the stairway.
CHAPTER II
THE HERO
Than Vivian Ryecroft handsomer man never carried sling-jacket over his shoulder, or sabretasche on his hip. For he is in the Hussars – a captain.
He