The first letter was indeed a matter for congratulation, for it was the most completely satisfactory, though not the first, of several similar communications which Dick had received since his return from Australia. It was a short note from the editor of the "Illustrated British Monthly," accepting (for immediate use: a great point) a set of sketches entitled "Home from Australia," which set forth the humours and trials of a long sea voyage, and were, in fact, simply a finished reproduction of those sketches that had delighted the passengers on board the Hesper. But it was more than a mere formal acceptance: besides enclosing a cheque (in itself a charming feature) to meet the present case, the note contained a complimentary allusion to the quality of the "work," and a distinct hint for the future. This in a postscript—observing that as Australian subjects were somewhat in demand since the opening of the Colonial Exhibition—he (the editor) would be glad to see anything thoroughly Australian that Mr. Edmonstone might chance to have ready.
Of course the precious note was read aloud, and greeted with cries of delight. Fancy an opening with the "Illustrated British" at this stage! What could be better? And it did look like a real opening. The hero of the moment alone sat silent; the unread letter in his pocket checked his speech; it was from Yorkshire.
"Why did you ever leave us, when you can do so splendidly here at home?" Mrs. Edmonstone asked him, half in regret for the past, half in joy for the future.
Flint saw his friend's preoccupation, and answered for him.
"He didn't know it was in him till he got out there, I fancy. I remember him sending his first things to the Melbourne and Sydney papers; and before a year was out, his famous buck-jumping picture was stuck up in every shanty in New South Wales and Victoria."
"Eh?" said Dick, looking up abruptly. "Oh, they coloured it vilely! What do you say, mother? No, I say, don't jump to conclusions. How do you know I can do any real good? I've been lucky so far, but I'm only at the very, very beginning. I may fail miserably after all. And then where should I be without my little pile?"
After breakfast Dick read the letter from Yorkshire in his own room.
"At the risk of being unduly persistent," wrote Colonel Bristo, "I must ask you to reconsider your decision." (Dick had refused a short but pressing invitation the week before.) "I know something of your reasons for refusing, and I believe them to be mistaken reasons. If you have really settled to return to Australia, that is all the more reason why you should come. If you like, I will undertake not to press you to stay beyond one day; only do come to bid us good-bye. Do not, however, fear to offend me by a second refusal. I shall be grievously disappointed, but nothing more. We really want you, for we shall be short of guns; two of the men only stay till Monday, so come on that day. But apart from all this, I am very sure that your coming will make the days a little less dull and dreary for one of us. Everything else has failed."
The letter ended abruptly. Dick read it through twice, and put it back in his pocket with a full heart.
But what was he to do? Here was the good Colonel honestly trying, in his own way, to set matters right between him and Alice; but it was a childlike, if not a childish way—a way that ignored causes and refused to realise effects.
Dick trusted he was no such fool as to be affected by the hope that breathed in the Colonel's letter. The Colonel was confessedly unversed in women's ways—then why did he meddle? Surely it would have been more natural, more dignified, to send him, Dick, to the deuce, or to the Colonies—they were much the same thing in the Old Country—than to waste another thought on the man whom his own daughter (who could surely judge for herself) had chosen to jilt? Dick savagely wished that the former had been his treatment; and, rowing down from Sunbury that afternoon, he was so far decided that the phrases of his refusal were in his head. Call it rude, churlish, obstinate; he was obstinate, and was willing to own it; he had refused the Colonel once, and that refusal should be final.
Nevertheless, he was absent and distrait all day, whereas the others were in rather higher spirits than usual, and the contrast was uncomfortable. Dick therefore invented an excuse for running up to town, promising himself a quiet corner of his club, in which to write to the Colonel and pull himself together. He needed pulling together: he was yearning to see Alice again—perhaps only to ask her forgiveness and bid her good-bye—yet vowing between his teeth to see her no more; he would not be entirely himself until his refusal was penned and posted.
He walked absently to the station, forgot his change at the ticket-office, and jumped into the nearest compartment of the first train that came in. A man and a woman got into the same compartment. Dick did not see them, for he was attempting to interest himself in an evening paper; but he could not help hearing their voices as they sat opposite him in close conversation. And, hearing, Dick was startled. His pulse beat violently; his fingers tightened upon the edges of the newspaper.
"His fine friends," the man was saying, "are gone into the country somewhere. We must find out where."
The tones were Jem Pound's.
"Why?" asked the same woman's voice that Dick had heard in Bushey Park.
"Because if Ned Ryan hasn't fled the country, that's where he is!"
"But he has gone back to Australia."
"Not he! He daren't go out there again. He'd be a fool to do it if he dared. No, no. He cleared out o' this because of you and me. He cracked he was going out there again, because he knew we'd come asking after him and they'd tell us that yarn. But he's no more gone than I have. Mark me, missis, we'll find him at this here Colonel's country place! But we must find the place first."
Dick did not lower his paper until the train reached Waterloo. Long before that his mind was filled with one absorbing idea. A swift but complete reaction had taken place within him; he was charged with nervous energy and primed with impatience. Some of the impatience he worked off in a rapid walk to his club, where he answered Colonel Bristo's note in a dozen words; but one idea continued in fierce possession of his mind, to the exclusion of all others.
XVIII
ALICE SPEAKS FOR HERSELF
MONDAY, August 9th.—Here we are at last, at the shooting box on the Yorkshire moors; or rather in the Yorkshire dales. I mean, papa and I are here: our faithful Mrs. Parish follows to-morrow, and the "guns" are expected on Wednesday. We two have been staying at a little seaside place on the coast—quite a charming place, with not only broad sands, but very presentable cliffs, and other things worth looking at besides the sea; delightful gardens, for instance, where the inevitable band played, instead of on the everlasting pier. Of course, it was all rather tedious; but the North Sea breezes and the delicious air did one no harm, I felt, while they seemed to do papa visible good. Indeed, he declares he feels fit for anything now—meaning, of course, in the way of sport, which I only hope he won't overdo. So perhaps, after all, we did well to leave home a week earlier than we at first intended (much as I hated leaving home at all), for we have come to the moorland air with lungs full of sea-air, and papa says there couldn't be a finer mixture than that for me.
But it is difficult to think of the sea here in the dales, where we are so far from it. We are far from everything, as it seems to me. Yet I am told, and I suppose I must believe, that the great smoky town which we passed through the other day is within twenty miles of us, and we are assured that there is a very "canny" village—if not a small town—four or five miles from us. It is also true that it only took an hour and twenty minutes to drive from the railway station, but then there wasn't much of a village there. Now we expected to find one here, and papa even professed to point it out to me as we drove through; but as it was nearly dark, and I could only make out a short, huddled-up row of houses on one side of the road, I couldn't see where the village came in, and told him so. Still, it is down on the Ordnance map, Gateby by name; and, though it is too dark to see now, it can only be a few hundred yards from us.