The Blue Diamond (14 page)

He threw the reins to the groom as he sprang out. For a moment he fancied she hesitated and a shade of unwillingness passed over her face; then he told himself that he must have been mistaken as she turned to him with a bright smile.

“I shall be delighted, though I don't know much about orchids!”

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes looked very bright and restless as Arthur helped her out and led the way across the terrace to the orchid-houses.

“They are not much to boast of,” he said, with becoming humility. “But we have been fortunate enough to secure one or two good specimens, and I have a first-rate man to look after them. Ah, here he is! Well, Gregory, how are you getting on to-day? I have brought this lady to see what you are doing.”

“Well, Sir Arthur, I am glad to say we have something to show you to-day,” the man said respectfully as he stood aside to let them pass. “That last one that Mr. Brookes brought is in bloom.”

“What!” Arthur's tone was enthusiastic, and he hurried forward. “And a beauty it is, Gregory, pure white, with just that touch of gold in the centre. See, Miss Hilda, this is a root that has never blossomed in this country before! My friend Brookes brought it from the interior of South America, and up till now we have been doubtful whether we had got the atmosphere right. But it seems to have answered; your coming has brought me luck, and you must promise me to wear this first flower to-night. You must let me cut it for you.”

Gregory's face darkened; quite evidently he grudged this sacrifice.

“Mr. Gribdale has been looking to see it, sir, and maybe he will be over to-morrow.”

“He must wait for the next,” Sir Arthur said recklessly as he opened his knife.

Hilda laid her hand on his arm.

“Please do not, Sir Arthur. It looks so lovely where it is, and I can come and see it every day. It will only last one night if it is cut.”

Sir Arthur looked obstinate. He glanced again at the delicately poised blossom, looking just like some tropical butterfly springing from the gnarled brown root.

“It will be just the thing to wear with your white gown, Miss Hilda,” and he cut it off deliberately and presented it to her.

Gregory's dark face frowned; evidently he would have openly resented this spoliation if he had dared. Hilda flushed painfully.

“It does seem a shame, Sir Arthur,” she said.

“It is honoured by your wearing it,” he remarked with a glance that made her eyes droop. “Now I must get something for Mavis and Dorothy.”

He moved forward. Hilda turned to Gregory.

“It is a lovely flower, and I am sure it must have given you a great deal of trouble to grow,” she said with a pretty, courteous smile. “I wish you could tell me—”

Sir Arthur, busy among his cattleyas, did not catch the rest of the sentence. His thoughts were occupied with Hilda. How lovely she had looked in her confusion just now, her long light cloak throwing up her brilliant colouring as she bent over the white flower! When he turned round Gregory was standing close to the girl, drawing forward a scarlet orchid of Japan.

“You must!”

Sir Arthur looked up quickly. Gregory's back was to him, but he could see that Hilda's eyes were fixed on the man's face, her red lips were parted. Surely it could not have been to her that Gregory was speaking in that low, brusque tone.

As the young man hesitated her face broke into smiles.

“I am afraid it would be impossible,” she said, “I do not think I should ever have patience. Gregory is giving me some instructions in orchid-growing, Sir Arthur. I am afraid he does not find me an apt pupil.”

“I shall be very pleased to tell you anything that you want to know,” Sir Arthur remarked. “What were you explaining, Gregory?”

“I was just telling the young lady that the Rhenanthera—”

With a little cry Hilda interrupted him:

“Oh, Sir Arthur, please do not make him go over it again—my poor brain gets quite bewildered with all those long names! For the future I shall be quite content to admire the flowers and leave the practical part to you clever people.”

“That will do,” Sir Arthur said curtly to Gregory. “Mind the temperature does not get lowered at night. It has been cold in the evenings all last week.”

Outside he turned to Hilda.

“I could not hear very plainly, but was not that fellow speaking to you in an unwarrantably insolent tone?”

Hilda opened her eyes to their fullest extent.

“Oh, dear, no! Poor man, I think he was just a little disappointed about this,” laying her lips lightly to the blossom she was carrying. “I could not be surprised at that. After having watched it gradually coming into flower he must have felt sad when he saw it carried away. But what a nice, well-informed man he seems to be, Sir Arthur. I quite took a fancy to him.”

“He is very well in his place,” said Arthur, only half convinced. “But if I caught him—if I caught the best man about the place speaking disrespectfully to you, he should go at once.”

“I
T IS
perfect, it seems to me.” Mavis glanced critically from her brother's painting to Hilda's flushed face. “You have caught just the pale cream tint of the complexion and that lovely hair. Oh, Hilda! I do envy you! Are you not proud of it? But you look pale this morning. What is the matter, dear?”

“I—it is only—” Hilda began, then her full underlip quivered, her eyes filled, and to the consternation of both brother and sister she burst into an agony of tears.

Mavis put her arms round her.

“What is the matter, Hilda? Has anybody vexed you? Tell me what is wrong with you.”

Sir Arthur left his painting and came over to his sister, “I have over-tired her, that is what it must be; in my selfishness I have been thinking only of my picture. Haven't you got smelling-salts or something to give her, Mavis? Shall I get her some wine?”

Mavis, still bending over the weeping girl, shook her head decidedly. “I don't think it is that. I think something is vexing her. Can't you tell me what it is, dear?” stroking the girl's ruffled golden hair.

“Perhaps it would be better if you left us a while, Arthur; I dare say she will tell me all about it when we are alone.”

Hilda sat and put out her hands.

“No, no, it is only that I am stupid; I know I ought not to bother you with my troubles. Please go on with your painting, Sir Arthur. I will try to be more sensible in the future.”

Mavis bent over her and kissed the hot cheeks.

“Can't you tell us about it, dear? I often think when one has talked over a trouble, it seems less.”

“This is only—but I know you will say I ought to put it out of my mind, and I can't do that. Besides, I am sure I am trouble enough to you all.”

“How can you—” Sir Arthur began impetuously.

Mavis hushed him with a look.

“I thought you knew that I love you, Hilda,” she said reproachfully. “You should not talk of trouble, dear. We look upon you as one of ourselves. Mother said yesterday that this must be your home until your own was found.”

“Ah, when will that be?” Hilda said. Her eyes, still wet, looked straight before her, her hands lay motionless in her lap, her lips were still quivering. “What sort of a home will it be when it is found?” she added bitterly. “Sir Arthur, Mavis, have you heard that a friend of Nurse Marston's was in the village last week and she said she had had a letter from her, written the night she—she disappeared?”

Mavis looked amazed.

“How in the world did you hear that? Mother told all the servants they were not to mention it to you. One of them must have disobeyed her. Who was it, Hilda? If Minnie—”

Hilda caught the girl's hand and laid it against her cheek.

“I can't tell you how I heard it, Mavis—I promised not to, dear. It really does not matter—a thing like that was sure to come to my ears sooner or later. But I am answered—it is true, then?”

“It is true she had a letter—” Mavis began, looking at her brother perplexedly.

“To be correct, it is true that she said she had had a letter from Nurse Marston, written that night,'' Arthur interposed, “but the letter itself she said she did not keep, so that we only have her word for it.”

“Still,” Mavis said, “Superintendent Stokes told Garth that he had made inquiries and Nurse Marston did have a letter posted, Arthur, and this Nurse Gidden bears a very high character too, he said. I don't think there is any reason to doubt her.”

“Oh, dear, no! I didn't mean to throw any aspersion on her character or general credibility,” Sir Arthur observed as he went back to the easel. “From all I hear she seems to be a most exemplary woman; but what I mean to say is that when a person cannot produce a letter, has lost or destroyed it, one cannot exactly take that person's account of what was written in the said letter as if it were gospel truth, especially in a case like this, when her first impression would doubtless be coloured by what she had heard later on.”

A faint smile curved Hilda's lips, though her eyes looked wistful and troubled.

“I think, Sir Arthur, that tells me what I wanted to know. This Nurse Gidden says that Nurse Marston recognized me, does she not, and implies that it was something discreditable that she knew about me?”

“Oh, no, no!” Mavis said quickly. “All Nurse Giddens said was that Nurse Marston said that no one knew who you were, and that she had seen you in circumstances which she thought ought to be told to my mother at once. That really tells us nothing, because we have no idea what the circumstances may have been. A nurse sees all sorts of people, and naturally she would know what trouble your loss might be causing to your people, so that it was her duty to go to mother at once.”

“I see,” Hilda said, leaning her head on her hand and drawing herself a little away from Mavis. “And I see too that everybody will say that it was in discreditable circumstances that she saw me—that there is something against me. The worst of it is that it may be true, Mavis. I don't know what I may have been. Have you ever realized it? I may have done anything. You would all be much wiser not to have anything to do with me.”

Mavis laughed.

“Should we? I think I can guarantee that you will not turn out to be anything very dreadful. What do you say, Arthur?”

“I could stake my life on it,” replied the young man with unusual fervour.

“Well, at any rate you have obtained one backer, Hilda,” said Mavis.

The girl hardly seemed to heed her words; she was wrinkling up her brows, her mouth was twitching nervously.

“If I could only remember one little thing, anything, however slight, that happened to me before that night. But, do what I can, try my very hardest, as I may, it is no use. I cannot even remember my own name, my own surname, and though I suppose I must have been called Hilda it does not seem a bit familiar to me.”

“Now don't get morbid,” Mavis reproved brightly. “Surely you can't see to paint by this light, Arthur,” as her brother took up his palette again.

He fidgeted about restlessly.

“Oh, the light is good for half an hour yet! Here is Davenant coming up the drive, Mavis.”

“Oh!” His sister's cheeks flushed rosily, a new light shone in her brown eyes. “I didn't think he would be back so soon; he went up to town yesterday. He—he promised to do some commissions for me.”

Arthur laughed.

“No excuse is needed, Mavis. We quite understand that you wish to have a few words quietly with your young man before introducing him to the family circle,” he said with brotherly candour. “Run along, we will make all due allowances for you.”

“How absurd you are, Arthur! It is only that I asked him—”

“Don't trouble to particularize,” Arthur said, with a flourish of his paint-brush, “or you may miss your opportunity—

Garth's voice became audible in the hall.

“I will be back in a minute,” his sister said with a vengeful glance in his direction as she gave Hilda a hasty kiss. “You are better, now, aren't you, Hilda? I will tell Dorothy to come to you. She is playing to mother in the drawing-room.”

There was a silence when she had left the room—one of those silences which seem to be pregnant with electric meaning. Sir Arthur was mixing a colour; mechanically he squeezed the tube until almost the whole contents lay on the palette; then with a guilty feeling he glanced at Hilda.

She was half leaning, half lying on the wide couch on which she had posed for Elaine, but evidently her thoughts were far away from the picture.

She looked up at the same moment. As her eyes met his gaze, she started violently, her colour deepened, and she put up her hand to her hair with a gesture at once confused and conscious. Sir Arthur threw down his palette and crossed to her.

“Hilda, I—you must know what I want to say,” he cried in a low voice of intense feeling, “that I love you —that I have loved you ever since I first saw you. Dear, tell me, is there any hope for me?”

“No, no!” Hilda cried pushing him from her as he would have knelt beside her. “No, no! I cannot! Don't you see that I cannot—” covering her face with her hands.

Sir Arthur's forehead flushed a dull crimson; his eyes dwelt eagerly on the loveliness of the girl's half-averted face.

“I see my own unworthiness plainly enough, Hilda,” he answered simply. “Is that what you mean, dear?”

Hilda turned her face farther towards the cushions.

“No, no, you know it is not that,” she said in a muffled voice.

Something in her accent seemed to raise Sir Arthur's hopes. He dropped on one knee and ventured to take the hand that was hanging limply by her side.

“What then, Hilda? Will you not let me try to teach you to care for me?”

The girl sat up and threw the cushions behind her.