CHAPTER I
"WITH SUCH REMORSELESS SPEED STILL COME NEW WOES."
The next morning was damp, and grey, and mild, no autumn wind stirring the long sweeping branches of the cedars on the lawn, the dead leaves falling silently, the world all sad and solemn, clad in universal greyness. Christabel was up early, with her boy, in the nursery – watching him as he splashed about his bath, and emerged rosy and joyous, like an infant river-god sporting among the rushes; early at family prayers in the dining room, a ceremony at which Mr. Tregonell rarely assisted, and to which Dopsy and Mopsy came flushed and breathless with hurry, anxious to pay all due respect to a hostess whom they hoped to visit again, but inwardly revolting against the unreasonableness of eight-o'clock prayers.
Angus, who was generally about the gardens before eight, did not appear at all this morning. The other men were habitually late – breakfasting together in a free-and-easy manner when the ladies had left the dining-room – so Christabel, Miss Bridgeman, and the Miss Vandeleurs sat down to breakfast alone, Dopsy giving little furtive glances at the door every now and then, expectant of Mr. Hamleigh's entrance.
That expectancy became too painful for the damsel's patience, by-and-by, as the meal advanced.
"I wonder what has become of Mr. Hamleigh," she said. "This is the first time he has been late at breakfast."
"Perhaps he is seeing to the packing of his portmanteau," said Miss Bridgeman. "Some valets are bad packers, and want superintendence."
"Packing!" cried Dopsy, aghast. "Packing! What for?"
"He is going to London this afternoon. Didn't you know?"
Dopsy grew pale as ashes. The shock was evidently terrible, and even Jessie pitied her.
"Poor silly Dop," she thought. "Could she actually suppose that she stood the faintest chance of bringing down her bird?"
"Going away? For good?" murmured Miss Vandeleur faintly – all the flavour gone out of the dried salmon, the Cornish butter, the sweet home-baked bread.
"I hope so. He is going to the South of France for the winter. Of course, you know that he is consumptive, and has not many years to live," answered Miss Bridgeman.
"Poor fellow!" sighed Dopsy, with tears glittering upon her lowered eyelids.
She had begun the chase moved chiefly by sordid instincts; her tenderest emotions had been hacked and vulgarized by long experience in flirtation – but at this moment she believed that never in her life had she loved before, and that never in her life could she love again.
"And if he dies unmarried what will become of his property?" inquired Mopsy, whose feelings were not engaged.
"I haven't the faintest idea," answered Miss Bridgeman. "He has no near relations. I hope he will leave his money to some charitable institution."
"What time does he go?" faltered Dopsy, swallowing her tears.
"Mr. Hamleigh left an hour ago, Madam," said the butler, who had been carving at the side-board during this conversation. "He has gone shooting. The dog-cart is to pick him up at the gate leading to St. Nectan's Kieve at eleven o'clock."
"Gone shooting on his last morning at Mount Royal!" exclaimed Jessie. "That's a new development of Mr. Hamleigh's character. I never knew he had a passion for sport."
"I believe there is a note for you, ma'am," said the butler to his mistress.
He went out into the hall, and returned in a minute or two carrying a letter upon his official salver, and handing it with official solemnity to Mrs. Tregonell.
The letter-was brief and commonplace enough —
"Dear Mrs. Tregonell, —
"After all I am deprived of the opportunity of wishing you good-by this morning, by the temptation of two or three hours' woodcock shooting about St. Nectan's Kieve. I shall drive straight from there to Launceston in Mr. Tregonell's dog-cart, for the use of which I beg to thank him in advance. I have already thanked you and Miss Bridgeman for your goodness to me during my late visit to Mount Royal, and can only say that my gratitude lies much deeper, and means a great deal more, than such expressions of thankfulness are generally intended to convey.
"Ever sincerely yours,
"Angus Hamleigh."
"Then this was what Leonard and he were settling last night," thought Christabel. "Your master went out with Mr. Hamleigh, I suppose," she said to the servant.
"No, ma'am, my master is in his study. I took him his breakfast an hour ago. He is writing letters, I believe."
"And the other two gentlemen?"
"Started for Bodmin in the wagonette at six o'clock this morning."
"They are going to see that unhappy man hanged," said Miss Bridgeman. "Congenial occupation. Mr. Montagu told me all about it at dinner yesterday, and asked me if I wasn't sorry that my sex prevented my joining the party. 'It would be a new sensation,' he said, 'and to a woman of your intelligence that must be an immense attraction.' I told him I had no hankering after new sensations of that kind."
"And he is really gone – without saying good-by to any of us," said Dopsy, still harping on the departed guest.
"Yes, he is really gone," echoed Jessie, with a sigh.
