The White Virgin

“No,” said Clive, with his brow contracting. “The scoundrel, the scoundrel!”

“And that brother of yours is the worst. Why, good heavens, is he mad with conceit as well as brazen wickedness? What does he take my darling for – some silly country wench to whom he has only to throw the handkerchief for her to fall on her knees at his feet?”

“Don’t talk about it, please, sir!” cried Clive huskily. “I find that my bad passions are stronger than I thought, for I dare not go over to the mine for fear of the scene which would be sure to follow.”

“No: you mustn’t go, Clive, or you’d half kill him – though he’s your own brother. If I had known all when I came back that day, thanks to that young fellow, Robson, I’d have thrashed him till he couldn’t stand. Thirty years older, my boy, but I’m a better man than he is: a miserable, flushed-faced sot! He drinks. I know he does, and he must have been half drunk when he came here that day.”

“He will not dare to come again.”

“No. Let him take the consequences if he does – him or that black-haired scoundrel, I’ll give either of them a charge of shot, I swear.”

Still there was the sweet as well as the bitter, during his stays at the cottage; and Clive often asked himself why he, with the large property left to him by his father, should trouble about the mine, when there was a dreamy life of simple, idyllic happiness and joy. No allusion was made to Jessop or Sturgess by either Dinah or her lover, for it was enough that they could be together in that little paradise the Major had in the course of years contrived, wandering hand in hand beside the clear sparkling river which ran on laughing in the sunshine, so stern and calm in the deep shades beneath the rocks. They said little save in the language of the eye, and though Dinah had again and again determined to speak and tell Clive everything – some day when he was seated at her feet holding her hand in his, and say to him, “I dared not tell you lest you should despise me,” those words never passed her lips. “I cannot tell him now,” she sighed to herself. “I am so happy – he looks at me so full of joy and trust. Some day I will, some day when he is holding me tightly in his arms, and I feel so safe. I will tell him then. How can I make him unhappy now?”

So she went on dreaming; happy in the present. The little river valley had never looked so beautiful before, nor her father so restful and content. It was life’s summer, a golden time with nothing to wish for more. The storms were hushed to sleep, and like the beautiful streamlet, they two were gliding onward in that mystic peace that softens down the passion of a strong first genuine love.

“Bah! I wish there was no London, my boy. No work, no worry, no struggle,” cried the Major, one evening, when he was alone with Clive, who had been looking curiously at Martha, and recalling that night when he had first slept at the cottage. He was wondering how it all was. Whether the sturdy elderly woman had some love affair. Then he had, in spite of himself, thought of Sturgess, whom he had that day seen crossing one of the hills at a distance. He recalled the Major’s words and asked himself whether he, as a man, ought not in his resentment to have taken some step to punish the scoundrel. But with the idea within his mental grasp, he had let it slide again. For why, he asked himself, should he strike and jar the gentle, harmonious life of her who was so happy.

Though the mine was so near, he had only seen his brother and the new deputy manager from time to time, at a distance, and his knowledge of the progress there came either from London or from Robson, who wrote occasionally, always to say that things were miserable, for Jessop and Sturgess were at daggers drawn, but the profits of the mine still rose.

And now a letter had come down from the old lawyer – Mr Belton – endorsing the clerk’s announcements, and saying that an extraordinary meeting was to be held through a movement on the part of Wrigley, and in connection with the advance of the mine under the new management.

“I don’t know what plans the man is going to propose, but you had better come up, my dear boy, and be present. I daresay you will do more good here than by staying down there watching and keeping those people up to their work.”

So wrote the old family solicitor, and Clive’s conscience smote him, as he recalled how little he had done, and how very small was the credit he deserved. For his days had been spent in that dreamy pleasure at the cottage, and for the most part the mine was forgotten.

But this letter had roused him to a sense of his duties, and, commending Dinah to her father’s care, Clive departed once more for town, in happy unconsciousness of the fact that his every step was watched; while as his figure grew less and less as she watched him along the moorland track, Dinah’s heart sank, and the old dread crept back at first like a faint mist, then growing more and more dense, until it was a black shadow between her and the sunshine of her life.

“But it will not be long – he will not be long, he said,” she whispered to herself. “He will come back to-day.”

That was on the following morning. But there was no Clive, and on the second morning she rose hopeful, saying the same words – “He will come to-day;” and she waited eagerly till toward evening, when the Major said suddenly —

“No message from Clive, pet. I thought we should have a telegram.”

Dinah looked at him wistfully, and then her face brightened up.

“That means,” said the Major, “that he is coming back to-night. Look here, my dear, I’ll take the rod and get a brace or two of trout for his supper. There are four or five fine fellows in the lower pool, where I haven’t been for months. You had better stop in case Clive comes.”

Dinah’s face clouded over again.

“Nothing to mind, my dear. I saw Robson this morning, and he told me that Jessop and that black scoundrel went up to town to the meeting the same day as Clive. I suppose they didn’t meet in the train. If they did, I hope my dear boy turned them both out in the first tunnel they went through. There, I’m off.”

The autumn evenings were upon them, and the sun dipped behind the crags of the millstone grit earlier now; and that evening, to prove the truth of the Major’s prophecy, Clive Reed trudged over the hill track leading from Blinkdale past the ‘White Virgin’ mine, where the roadway had been widened and fresh tram-lines laid, to meet the necessities of the vastly increased traffic. He frowned when he saw all this, for it jarred upon him that so much advance should have been made under other management; but the cloud passed away, for he met a group of men returning from their work, to the cottages down in the valley – men for whom there was not room in the new buildings, or who preferred their old homes. These were for the most part known to him, and they greeted him with a friendly smile or touch of the cap as they passed.

Clive longed to stop them and ask questions, but he felt that he could not stoop to a meanness, and he went on in the soft evening glow watching the golden-edged purple clouds in the west, across which the boldly marked rays of the sun struck up, growing fainter till they died away high up towards the zenith. There was a pleasant scent of dry thyme from the banks, and the familiar odour of the bracken as he crushed it beneath his feet, or brushed through it and the heather and gorse. Only a couple of miles farther and he would be passing the spoil bank, and going along the rock shelf in the tunnel-like cutting, along by the perpendicular buttress which stood out from the lead hills like a bold fortification. Then half a mile down and down to the river, where the lights from the cottage would strike out suddenly from the ravine garden, and he could steal up, and announce his coming.

He knew he would see the light, for it would be dark before he passed the spoil bank, almost before he reached the entrance to the gap – the natural gateway to the ‘White Virgin’ mine.

And how prosperous the place had proved! How correct the dear old dad had been! But how bitterly he would have resented Jessop’s interference!

Clive laughed almost mockingly, as he thought of the vote of thanks to Mr Jessop Reed, carried at the meeting with acclaim, for the vast improvements he had made, and the increasing prosperity, all of which were, of course, the natural growth of his own beginnings.

“Never mind,” he said directly after; “let the poor wretch enjoy the satisfaction of having tricked me. Better be Esau than Jacob, after all. But I knew that lode must prove of enormous value, and I get my share of the prosperity.”

He walked on more rapidly, but with a free, easy swing, enjoying the fresh mountain air, so bracing after the stuffy heat of the sun-baked London streets. The heavens had grown grey in the west, and it was as if a soft dark veil were being drawn over the sky, where from time to time a pale star twinkled, disappeared, and came into sight again.

Then the gap was reached, and a strong desire came over him to go down and look about to see how the place appeared, for the chances were that he would not be heeded. But no: he resisted the desire. His brother and Sturgess might be back, and staying late at the office, when a meeting would probably lead to a fierce quarrel.

“Just when I want to be calm and happy, ready to take my darling in my arms,” he said softly. “Poor Janet! I thought I loved you very dearly, but I did not know then that my fancy for the poor, weak, unhappy girl was not love.”

He walked faster, for it was as if there was a magnet at the cottage, and its attractive power was growing stronger as he went along the shelf path, round by the spoil bank, and on in the darkness to the path notched in the perpendicular side of the rugged hill.

“Just the time for a cigarette,” he said; and he took one, replaced his case, and then taking advantage of the sheltered tunnel close by the cavernous part where Sturgess had watched and waited for his return, he prepared to light up in the still calm air away from the brisk breeze outside.

The box was in his hand; he had taken out a little wax match to strike, when he stopped short as if turned to stone, for there, close by him, he heard in a low murmur —

“Yes, I knew that you would come.”

Dinah’s voice; and as he struck the match and it flashed out into a vivid glare, there, within two yards, she stood clasped tightly in his brother Jessop’s arms.

Chapter Thirty Three.

Divided

Jessop started aside in abject fear, and made a rush to escape by passing his brother in the narrow path, but, with a cry of rage, Clive struck at him.

The blow was ineffective to a certain extent, but was sufficient to make Jessop stumble and fall forward heavily. Before, however, his brother could seize him, he had scrambled up and ran along that shelf-like path as if for his life, while, as Clive started in pursuit, mad almost with despair and rage, a low, piteous, sobbing cry arrested him, and he turned back into the dark tunnel with his temples throbbing, his eyes feeling as if on fire, and a strange mad desire to kill thrilling every nerve.

“Clive, Clive! what have I done!” came out of the darkness; and quick as lightning his arms went out, and he caught the speaker savagely by the shoulders, his hands closing violently upon the soft yielding muscles, and then falling helplessly to his sides, as if that touch had discharged every particle of force with which he was throbbing.

“Clive,” she cried; “I thought – your message – oh, speak to me.”

“Silence!” he cried, in a low harsh voice, which made her tremble. But the next moment, wild with excitement – and as they stood there in the darkness, face to face, but invisible one to the other – she stepped towards him, and caught his arm in turn.

“Clive, dear,” she cried wildly. “Oh, for God’s sake, speak to me! You don’t think – ”

“Think!” he cried, with a furious, mocking laugh. “Yes, I think all women are alike – a curse to the man who is idiot enough to believe.”

She drew a long, sobbing breath as she shrank from him now, the words of explanation which had leaped to her lips checked on the instant by the shame and indignation with which she was filled; and the next moment she was like stone in her despair.

“I am sorry that I returned so soon,” he said, in a bitter, sneering tone; “but I have some respect for the poor old Major – even now. Come back.”

She did not speak, but he could hear her breath come in a short, quick, catching way.

“You hear me?” he said harshly. “Come back to your father now; but don’t speak to me, or the mad feeling may rise again. I cannot answer for myself.”

“Take me home,” she said, in tones that he did not recognise as hers, and once more the furious rage within him flashed up like fire, as in his wild, jealous indignation he cried —

“And him of all men. Quick! Back to the cottage first.”