Part 5 (1/2)

Elizabeth took no notice of her brother's teasing tone. Nor did her voice, as she proceeded to read him the letter she held in her hand, throw any light upon her own feelings with regard to it.

The weary day pa.s.sed. The emigrants were consoled by free meals; and the delicate baby throve on the Swede's ravished milk. For the rest, the people in the various trains made rapid acquaintance with each other; bridge went merrily in more than one car, and the general inconvenience was borne with much philosophy, even by Gaddesden. At last, when darkness had long fallen, the train to which the private car was attached moved slowly forward amid cheers of the bystanders.

Elizabeth and her brother were on the observation platform, with the Canadian, whom with some difficulty they had persuaded to share their dinner.

”I told you”--said Anderson--”that you would be pa.s.sed over first.” He pointed to two other trains in front that had been shunted to make room for them.

Elizabeth turned to him a little proudly.

”But I should like to say--it's not for our own sakes--not in the least!--it is for my father, that they are so polite to us.”

”I know--of course I know!” was the quick response. ”I have been talking to some of our staff,” he went on, smiling. ”They would do anything for you. Perhaps you don't understand. You are the guests of the railway.

And I too belong to the railway. I am a very humble person, but--”

”You also would do anything for us?” asked Elizabeth, with her soft laugh. ”How kind you all are!”

She looked charming as she said it--her face and head lit up by the line of flaring lights through which they were slowly pa.s.sing. The line was crowded with dark-faced navvies, watching the pa.s.sage of the train as it crept forward.

One of the officials in command leapt up on the platform of the car, and introduced himself. He was worn out with the day's labour, but triumphant. ”It's all right now--but, my word! the stuff we've thrown in!--”

He and Anderson began some rapid technical talk. Slowly, they pa.s.sed over the quicksand which in the morning had engulfed half a train; amid the flare of torches, and the murmur of strange speech, from the Galician and Italian labourers, who rested on their picks and stared and laughed, as they went safely by.

”How I love adventures!” cried Elizabeth, clasping her hands.

”Even little ones?” said the Canadian, smiling. But this time she was not conscious of any note of irony in his manner, rather of a kind protectingness--more p.r.o.nounced, perhaps, than it would have been in an Englishman, at the same stage of acquaintance. But Elizabeth liked it; she liked, too, the fine bare head that the torchlight revealed; and the general impression of varied life that the man's personality produced upon her. Her sympathies, her imagination were all trembling towards the Canadians, no less than towards their country.

CHAPTER III

”Mr. Delaine, sir?”

The gentleman so addressed turned to see the substantial form of Simpson at his elbow. They were both standing in the s.p.a.cious hall of the C.P.R.

Hotel adjoining the station at Winnipeg.

”Her ladys.h.i.+p, sir, asked me to tell you she would be down directly. And would you please wait for her, and take her to see the place where the emigrants come. She doesn't think Mr. Gaddesden will be down till luncheon-time.”

Arthur Delaine thanked the speaker for her information, and then sat down in a comfortable corner, _Times_ in hand, to wait for Lady Merton.

She and her brother had arrived, he understood, in the early hours at Winnipeg, after the agitations and perils of the sink-hole. Philip had gone at once to bed and to slumber. Lady Merton would soon, it seemed, be ready for anything that Winnipeg might have to show her.

The new-comer had time, however, to realise and enjoy a pleasant expectancy before she appeared. He was apparently occupied with the _Times_, but in reality he was very conscious all the time of his own affairs and of a certain crisis to which, in his own belief, he had now brought them. In the first place, he could not get over his astonishment at finding himself where he was. The very aspect of the Winnipeg hotel, as he looked curiously round it, seemed to prove to him both the seriousness of certain plans and intentions of his own, and the unusual decision with which he had been pursuing them.

For undoubtedly, of his own accord, and for mere travellers' reasons, he would not at this moment be travelling in Canada. The old world was enough for him; and neither in the States nor in Canada had he so far seen anything which would of itself have drawn him away from his c.u.mberland house, his cla.s.sical library, his pets, his friends and correspondents, his old servants and all the other items in a comely and dignified way of life.

He was just forty and unmarried, a man of old family, easy disposition, and cla.s.sical tastes. He had been for a time Member of Parliament for one of the old Universities, and he was now engaged on a verse translation of certain books of the Odyssey. That this particular labour had been undertaken before did not trouble him. It was in fact his delight to feel himself a link in the chain of tradition--at once the successor and progenitor of scholars. Not that his scholars.h.i.+p was anything ill.u.s.trious or profound. Neither as poet nor h.e.l.lenist would he ever leave any great mark behind him; but where other men talk of ”the household of faith,” he might have talked rather of ”the household of letters,” and would have seen himself as a warm and familiar sitter by its hearth. A new edition of some favourite cla.s.sic; his weekly _Athenaeum_; occasional correspondence with a French or Italian scholar--(he did not read German, and disliked the race)--these were his pleasures. For the rest he was the landlord of a considerable estate, as much of a sportsman as his position required, and his Conservative politics did not include any sympathy for the more revolutionary doctrines--economic or social--which seemed to him to be corrupting his party. In his youth, before the death of an elder brother, he had been trained as a doctor, and had spent some time in a London hospital. In no case would he ever have practised. Before his training was over he had revolted against the profession, and against the ”ugliness,” as it seemed to him, of the matters and topics with which a doctor must perforce be connected. His elder brother's death, which, however, he sincerely regretted, had in truth solved many difficulties.

In person he was moderately tall, with dark grizzled hair, agreeable features and a moustache. Among his aristocratic relations whom he met in London, the men thought him a little dishevelled and old-fas.h.i.+oned; the women p.r.o.nounced him interesting and ”a dear.” His manners were generally admired, except by captious persons who held that such a fact was of itself enough to condemn them; and he was welcome in many English and some foreign circles. For he travelled every spring, and was well acquainted with the famous places of Europe. It need only be added that he had a somewhat severe taste in music, and could render both Bach and Handel on the piano with success.

His property was only some six miles distant from Martindale Park, the Gaddesdens' home. During the preceding winter he had become a frequent visitor at Martindale, while Elizabeth Merton was staying with her mother and brother, and a little ripple of talk had begun to flow through the district. Delaine, very fastidious where personal dignity was concerned, could not make up his mind either to be watched or laughed at. He would have liked to woo--always supposing that wooing there was to be--with a maximum of dignity and privacy, surrounded by a friendly but not a forcing atmosphere. But Elizabeth Merton was a great favourite in her own neighbourhood, and people became impatient. Was it to be a marriage or was it not?