A CRONY AND A CLIMB

"WELL, what do you think of Sidney?" asked Monica as they were walking home together.

"A very self-controlled young woman," replied Randolph promptly.

Monica eyed him sharply.

"You are more observant than most men," she said. "Sidney is very good company at all times; but she is not phlegmatic by nature, and is thinner skinned than most people, so is apt to be misunderstood. She is of the make of French aristocrats in the Revolution, who went to the guillotine with a jest upon their lips."

"You speak as if a tragedy is hers."

"Oh, no; we have no tragedies in this village."

"Nor suitors to carry off your heroines?"

Again Monica glanced at him, but she said nothing.

It was the next day that he was enlightened, and it was Aunt Dannie who did it.

She came out into the garden with him and paced up and down by his side as he was smoking his pipe.

"Tell me about your dinner party. Such a little amuses us in this quiet neighbourhood. I suppose you fell in love with Sidney Urquhart on the spot. Most people do, I believe. She might have married over and over again had she been so minded. But I always said that her cousin, Archie Hughes, was the favoured man."

"You're a veritable gossip," said Randolph, looking at the old lady with twinkling eyes.

Aunt Dannie nodded her head, well pleased with the accusation.

"Of course I am. Country people must be gossips, unless they're recluses. You see, Archie lived all his life close here. His father was one of the Admiral's cronies. He died two years ago. Archie and Sidney grew up together, and there was a kind of boy and girl engagement between them. We all expected a marriage, but I fancy Sidney could not make up her mind to leave her father. She was content to drift along. Then General Hughes died, and Archie grew restless, and the next thing we heard was that he was going out to India as secretary to a distant relative of his out there, who was Governor in some outlandish province. And then the other day, to our great surprise, we heard of his marriage. So I suppose, after all, there was nothing but cousinly feeling between him and Sidney. He was a second cousin of hers. She and Monica are great friends, but it is a pity she does not marry. She is not like Monica; she has not half such a self-reliant nature."

Randolph did not speak. He was wondering at the coincidence of his coming down to this place to hear of the man who had stolen his fiancée from him. And he alone—unless Monica knew her friend's secret—had by mere accident discovered that Sidney had suffered as well as himself in that transaction.

Aunt Dannie continued:

"I am interested in Sidney; she is a little different from most girls; it comes of being chiefly associated with men. Her mother died when she was five. She had a brother two years younger than herself. He was in the Navy, and a rollicking sailor he was, but he died of fever a few years ago. It was a great grief to the Admiral. She is straight and blunt at times, and has no airs or graces, but she is not quite so masculine as Monica."

Then the old lady rambled on about some of Monica's misdemeanours, and Randolph hardly heeded her.

The sudden appearance of Chuckles, demanding his presence at the sheep-shearing, made him change his company, and for a time his thoughts.

Sidney, if he had only known it, was at the same time discussing him with her father. Admiral Urquhart spent most of his afternoons on the lower lawn by the river. Sidney established him there, with his pipe and newspaper, with clockwork regularity directly luncheon was over. He had his own chair, and Major Urquhart had his, but the Major was not a slave to his afternoon nap as was the Admiral. He was a restless man by nature, and generally had more on hand than he could possibly get through. He seldom sat down till tea-time. It was half-past three now, and in her white linen dress and cool shady hat, Sidney approached her father with her work-basket under her arm.

"Now, dad, I'm ready if you are. The leading article first of all, please, and then details after."

Admiral Urquhart turned over the sheet of the "Times" with alacrity. There was nothing he enjoyed more than reading the paper to his daughter and discussing the degeneracy of old England. But he paused for a moment, paper in hand.

"A nice fellow, Neville is; very like his father, who was the most ultra-conscientious beggar that I ever came across. But it was his own undoing. He never did much in politics."

"I don't know anything about the Nevilles. Tell me about them."

Sidney settled herself with her work under the shady beech that grew down so close, to the river. Her father responded:

"Charles Neville was a school chum of mine. He came into a nice little property in Hampshire, and was member in the House for a good number of years. He had talent and interest, and we expected him to do great things; but he was one of those independent thinkers, and though he made good speeches, he never secured a good office for himself under his Government. This son of his is going the same way, I fear. He was in the Army, and, I expect, might have got on; but on his father's death, the constituents insisted that he should take his father's seat, and Randolph chucked the Service. He was telling me about it last night, and, upon my soul, I don't blame him. He was returned all right, and was in Parliament for five years, but at the last election, he retired. He was dead sick of the party discussions, and tricks, and subterfuges. Told me a clean pair of hands was impossible if you climbed the ladder. I don't agree with him, but, of course, things are different from what they were. The class of member is different, to begin with, and now this payment system has been started, the old patriotic spirit will die out."

"What is he doing now? He looks too keen to be an idler."

"He is waiting for a job; has been promised a post of some importance in India or the Colonies. I hope he'll get it. He's a strong man; too conscientious for the present time."

"Oh, dad, don't! I hate to hear you talk so."

Sidney's grey eyes flashed fire.

"Do you think we're to follow the multitude, and to abjure all the traditions of our race?"

"Why cast pearls to swine?" said the Admiral, "or take up pebbles with a silver spoon? There are only two professions, my dear, where dirty tricks don't prosper, and those are soldiering and sailoring."

"I'm sure every profession wants good clean-handed men in it," retorted Sidney.

Then she laughed.

"It is too warm to argue, or I would suggest that the War Office and the Admiralty have diplomatic ways sometimes. Mr. Neville looks more of a soldier than anything else. But he's not so keen as he has been. He speaks so indifferently of people and things in general."

"He classes himself amongst the failures in life," said the Admiral. "That's what he said to me; but he's not the fellow to sit down under it."

"I should hope not."

Sidney's lips curled a little, then mischief stole into her eyes.

"Let us hope Monnie will take him in hand, dad. I long that some inferior man should come along and capture her proud heart. It would be glorious to see her knuckle under and have to defer to her lord and master. And he looks as if he would manage the woman he cared for."

"I think he has more grit than his father," said Admiral Urquhart, puffing out a thin column of smoke and watching it ascend in the still air.

"I'm waiting for your news," said Sidney. "We won't dissect Mr. Neville too thoroughly."

So her father turned to his "Times;" but he was very comfortable, and the atmosphere was a sleepy one. His voice began to waver, the paper slipped from his fingers, and a gentle snore told Sidney that further reading was over for the present. She dropped her work in her lap and gazed dreamily over the water; shadows gathered and deepened in her eyes. Then she sprang up and slipped quietly down some broad steps close by. There was a light boat moored to the stone wall. With deft fingers she loosened the rope, stepped in, and taking up the light pair of oars, rowed gently away from the garden and down the river towards the sea.

Then, alone at last, she raised her head with a passionate gesture.

"Oh, I can't bear it! I can't bear it! What is life to me now? It's finished—absolutely done! There is nothing to hope for, nothing to wait for! Nothing will ever come to me now!"

She went back in thought to the years that stretched behind her. One figure, one personality, was prominent in them all. Archie Hughes had been a playmate first, then a friend, then a lover. She and he latterly had been separated by distance, but it had only made the future brighter to her, for would it not bring them together? In all she planned, Archie took a prominent part. She did not now seem able to adjust her life without him. Never had she looked forward to the years stretching away in front of her without a happy thrill, the certain hope that she would have Archie to advise her, comfort her, and be her stand-by.

Sidney was no modern young woman with an assurance and independence of thought which made a single life appear so attractive. She had grown-up amongst men who still held chivalrous ideas of women. She was accustomed to little attentions from them, and perhaps queened it over them rather more than was good for her.

"Oh," she moaned, as she pulled in her oars and let herself drift for a little with the tide, bowing her head in her hands in abject misery, "if it had been anyone but Archie! He must have tired of me. Perhaps I showed him too much how I cared. And yet when he wished me good-bye, he whispered, 'Good-bye, little wifie!' What can have happened to make him change so?" She recalled his letters; but a pang went through her as she remembered how few and far between they had been of late.

It was bitter to her to feel that he had flung her aside without a word, without giving her any reason for doing so. "Perhaps," she soliloquised, "he was tired of waiting for me. Men are not like women. I tried his patience. But how secure I felt! How implicitly I trusted him!"

Then she sat up and pushed her hair off her forehead, and the proud little poise of her head told that there was still some spirit left in her.

"I must have pluck and courage. Others have gone through as bad a time as I am having now. Some women seem to be happy without husbands or lovers. Monica is. She never seems to have a thought about them, except to like a friendly chat with them occasionally. I must rise above my trouble. I will not brood over it. I shall never be tempted to leave dad now. I must learn to look at life differently. God will help me. My life belongs to Him, and He has arranged it so. I will try not to pity myself any more. If only I could forget!"

She caught up her oars again and swung the boat round. Rowing back against the tide was hard work, but the exercise to muscle did her good, and the desire to battle with difficulty was realised.

When she brought the boat back to its mooring-place she saw that visitors were with her father. A young fellow, seeing her, sprang towards her.

He was a curly-haired merry-faced boy of twenty-two, a special crony of hers.

"It isn't often the mother and I drive out paying calls," he said, as he assisted in mooring the boat to her anchor, "but I was as dull as ditch-water. When I'm like that my mind always veers to you! Buck me up. I'm as flabby as a codfish. This heat, and life as it is seen from our house, is pretty deadly, I can tell you."

"You're too idle," Sidney said, looking at him with laughing eyes. "Hot weather and idleness naturally sap all your energy and spirit out of you. But if you had come down early this morning and told me you would take me for a day's sail in your new boat, we should both be returning now, enormously hungry, and ready for anything."

"Oh, why didn't I! But this scandalous little agent keeps me pottering over fusty musty documents on purpose to annoy. And the governor had a bad night, and so, of course, he insisted upon an extra lot of business being done; and first I had to be shut up with Dobbs, and then I had to be shut up with him, telling him every item of our conversation. The doctor is an old fool; he won't let Dobbs come near the governor; as if my bungling recital isn't fifty times worse than the genuine article! I assure you I wasn't done till one o'clock, and then I don't know who was exhausted most, the governor or myself."

Sidney went up the garden and greeted a tall, handsome woman who was talking to her father.

It was said in the neighbourhood that the de Cressiers were the proudest people in the county. They had lived at Thanning Towers since the Norman Conquest, and had refused several peerages, for their menkind had been of great service to their country and king. The present Henry de Cressiers had been stricken down a year ago in the hunting field, and he lay a helpless paralysed invalid; but his voice was left him, and his brain, though the latter was enfeebled. The eldest son and heir had been drowned out in America in that same year, and Austin, the second one, had been summoned home from the university to manage his father's estate and try to keep an eye upon a very unsatisfactory agent, whom Mr. de Cressiers would not discharge. Nearly all the de Cressiers were good-looking, dark men, with strong wills and stern self-repressed natures.

Austin often declared he must be a changeling, for his pride was nil, and he was one of the sunniest and most warm-hearted of mortals. As a small boy he had been devoted to Sidney, who was a distant cousin, her mother having been a de Cressiers, and his devotion was still as great.

Mrs. de Cressiers kissed Sidney affectionately. There were few people round who did not like the girl. Perhaps her attraction was chiefly in her intense interest in everyone and their affairs. Her nature was essentially a sympathetic one.

"My dear Sidney, I want to borrow you for a couple of nights. We have two big dinners on, and I want your help at them."

Sidney made a little grimace.

"Eating is such a farce this hot weather. Why don't you turn them into moonlight suppers up the river?"

Austin chuckled. His mother looked scandalised.

And then Sidney laid her hand caressingly on her arm.

"Of course I will come, if dad thinks he can spare me. Is he to be asked?"

"I have asked him already. He won't come. We must have your uncle."

"You won't get him, I am afraid. He is going up the river for a week's fishing to-morrow."

"I want another man badly."

"Monnie has a cousin staying with her. Ask him."

"But then I should have to include her, and I don't want another woman."

"I'll stay at home. Why did you ask me?"

"Sidney, don't be silly. I really need you."

A little pucker of Mrs. de Cressiers' eyebrows made Sidney drop her bantering tone.

"Monnie won't dine with you. She hates a lot of people, and she'll be very glad to get rid of her visitor. Just explain it to her; she will understand."

"But what is her cousin like?"

"Is he county or cockney?" interrupted Austin. "Has he a long enough pedigree to eat salt with us, and has he an immaculate dress-suit?"

"He is one of the Nevilles," said Sidney, shaking her head reprovingly at him, for one of his mother's failings was a lack of humour. "Dad will tell you his pedigree. He's an ex-M.P. and a failure."

"That he's not!" contradicted the Admiral with warmth. "He is too good for his party, that's what he is. Take him and be thankful, Clarice. But I doubt if he'll go to you; he told me he wanted to rusticate."

"I'll drop in on Monica on my way home," said Mrs. de Cressiers.

"And I'm going to plant myself firmly here till bedtime," said Austin.

His mother looked at him reproachfully, and he added heartily: "I really ought to be canonised, mother, so don't overdo it. Think of my busy day, and let me have a little recreation now. I really will come home before the small hours of the morning."

Mrs. de Cressiers rose to go. Her son accompanied her to the gate, where the carriage was waiting; then he came back joyously to Sidney.

"Now, Sid, what shall we do?"

"Go and tell them to bring down tea to us here," said Sidney, sitting down by her father's side and taking up her work again.

He made a grimace, but obeyed. Admiral Urquhart looked after his retreating figure with twinkling eyes.

"If he were a few years older I should take myself off, my dear. As it is, I don't intend to move. He'll never make a good landlord, and his mother knows it. When he comes into the property he'll spend all his father has saved."

"Now, dad, you shall not abuse him. He is a dear boy, and will be more popular than any former de Cressiers. They are so alarming as a rule."

Austin returned and flung himself into a hammock under the trees.

"The mother is as keen as mustard on these dinners. They are to introduce Sir Walter Rame as possible member."

"I thought he refused to be canvassed," Sidney said.

"He is in doubtful mind. Our first dinner is for the cream of Thanning Dale, our second for the ordinary. Now, which is this new arrival? The mother will sort him with her eye in a twinkling."

"I don't think he is ordinary," said Sidney slowly.

"I wish you would enlighten me as to this Monica Pembroke. She has only appeared since I left home. Everyone seems to know her, but I don't."

"I suppose not; but she used to live at Crawford Manor, only after her parents' death she lost all her money and left the neighbourhood. She had one brother abroad in New Zealand. He wrote to her, telling her his wife was dead, and he wanted to come home. He said he would take a farm in England if she would join him. And she worked hard at an agricultural college and was full of it, and then on his way home, her brother died, and a small imp of a boy arrived alone. Monnie has, of course, adopted him, has put her brother's money into a farm, as he wished, and means to bring up the imp to work it. Meanwhile, she's master, and is making a huge success of it. She's a dear. She succeeds in everything she puts her hand to. I wish I had half her energy and capability."

"What would you do with it?"

Sidney's eyes grew wistful.

"I should like to be of use to my generation," she said.

"Be content with being useful to your old father and uncle," said the Admiral. "I hate these rampaging public women, and pray you may never be one of them."

"I don't care a button for my generation," said Austin—"wish I did. I loathed all the mangy chaps at Oxford. There were a few who were rather decent chaps, but I would always rather people were useful to me than the other way about. I say, Sid, will you come up Rock Beacon with me after tea? It will be cool enough for a climb. You see how your society is beginning to invigorate me!"

"Yes; I am longing for bracing air. We'll go."

They started when tea was over. It was not the first time they had climbed the Beacon together. It lay about a mile from them, and as they went, Austin plunged into confidences about his home and the work that was so distasteful to him.

"You understand," he said; "I've no one else to grouse to. If I was given a free hand I would work from morning to night and be as happy as a sand-boy, but I have to see all kinds of inane things being done. I know Dobbs is a rogue, and is an adept at cunning and lining his own nest, but the mother implores me to keep worries from the governor, and he, poor chap, thinks that Dobbs is an angel of goodness, and tells me that I'm not to do a thing unless he agrees. I'd chuck it all to-morrow except for the mother. I'm wasting my days, and doing no good."

"What good would you be doing if you weren't at home!"

Austin looked at Sidney's grave face and laughed.

"I'd be storing honey like the busy bees: imbibing knowledge and having a good time generally. No, I wouldn't! It was a mistake going to Oxford. I'm not a scholar. I want to travel. The de Cressiers are as narrow as—as—give me an apt simile!—A thread of silk! I want my mind broadened."

"You ought to have had a profession."

"It's the eldest son's role to be in the Service—a very stupid arrangement, for he never stays there long."

"I don't think it is wise to grumble at what you're doing now, for it is work. You must be a check on Dobbs, and you can't deny that you're a pleasure and comfort to your parents."

"Oh, Sid, don't be a stuffy prig!"

"Well, don't ask for my opinion then."

"Did I?"

"You invited it! Of course, you're very young, and you think that life ought to be your servant. You will discover that it may be your master."

"A de Cressiers is never mastered by fate!" His merry eyes flashed fire; then he gave a little chuckle. "Didn't I say that like my mother! I believe, after all, I've got the same pride of race at the bottom of my heart."

There was a little silence between them; then he said:

"Sid, you are changed. What has happened? Has life mastered you?"

Sidney laughed, but her laugh had lost its merry ring.

"I am climbing," she said, "and we won't philosophise any more. You know what I think about idle men. And I want you to have high ideals, Austin, not low selfish ones."

Heather and bracken were now under their feet; the wind came over from the ocean and fanned their faces. Soon they left the heather below them, and short turf with grey blocks of stone lay before them. Sidney presently spied a man's figure in front of them. He was just gaining the summit.

"Who is that? Some tourist? He is not a shepherd or anyone of our parts."

"What dogged shoulders! And what a pace! Come, Sid, buck up! We're awfully slack."

"We aren't climbing for a wager. Let us look back. I don't know why I feel inclined to moralise to-day, but I do."

"Oh, let me do it for you! I know the style. As we look back on the path of our feet, dear friend, we see here a picture of our life's journey. When we come to the top of the hill of life we shall see how small the things now look that once seemed so great—our all in all. As we—"

"Be quiet, Austin. I want to enjoy the view."

Sidney was gazing out towards the ocean which lay before them in the distance. The land below them, with its shining valleys and winding river, its wooded hills, and the cluster of cottages dotted here and there round a turreted church tower, or spire, presented a fair picture of English country.

Austin threw himself upon the ground to rest. His eyes were fixed on Sidney's slim upright young figure.

"I wonder some fellow has not stepped in and laid siege to your heart," he remarked meditatively. "I always thought that Hughes would be the lucky chap. You don't mind my mentioning it. He has got tied up now, hasn't he?"

"I believe he has," Sidney answered quietly. "Now let us finish our climb."

They started again, and in another ten minutes were at the top of the Beacon. There, leaning against a pile of rocks, the foundation for many a bonfire, was Randolph Neville.