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  Startled, she looked quickly up at him, a question in her big eyes. 'Don't?'

  'Don't think yourself obliged to make conversation! That's not treating me as though I were your brother!'

  'Oh – !' She blushed, and turned her head away.

  'Is something troubling you?' he asked gently.

  'No – oh, no! Of course not! Look, there are two of the swans! If only we had brought some bread to throw to them! I do think swans are the most beautiful birds in the world, don't you? Or do you prefer peacocks?'

  'No,' he replied baldly, leading her to a conveniently placed bench. Sitting down beside her, he said: 'What is it, Fanny? Don't say you're not blue-devilled! That would be a bouncer – almost a plumper!'

  She gave a nervous little laugh. 'It's nothing. Well, nothing very much! Just that I'm at outs with Abby – at least, not pre cisely at outs with her, but –' She paused, and her eyes darkened. 'I thought – But people – grown-up people –' she said, betraying her youth, 'don't understand ! They don't care for anything but consequence, and propriety, and respectability, and – and eligibility, and whenever you wish to do anything they don't wish you to do, they say you are far too young, and will soon forget about it!'

  'Yes, and also that one day you will thank them for it!' he agreed sympathetically. 'And the worst of it is that, in general, they are right!'

  'Not always!'

  'No, but odiously often!'

  'When you are as old as I am – ! ' said Fanny, in bitter mimicry.

  'Don't tell me that Miss Abigail has ever uttered those abominable words!'

  'No. No, she hasn't done that, but she doesn't enter into my feelings, and I thought she would! I never dreamed she would be just like my uncle! Worldly, and – and prejudiced, and not thinking it signifies if you are unhappy, as long as you don't do anything your horrid uncle doesn't approve of !' She added, with strong indignation: 'And she doesn't even like him!'

  He said nothing for a few moments, but sat frowning ahead at the embattled wall beyond the moat. Fanny, pulling a handker chief out of her reticule, defiantly blew her nose. Oliver drew a resolute breath, and said, picking his words with care: 'If some one who is very dear to you – as you are to Miss Abigail – seems to be set on taking what you believe to be a false step, you must try to prevent it, don't you agree?'

  'Yes, but I am not taking a false step!' said Fanny. 'And I am not too young to know my own mind! I have always known it! And I won't let them ruin my life, even if I have to do something desperate!'

  'Don't!' he said. 'How could you be happy if you did what must pretty well break Miss Abigail's heart? Forgive me, Fanny, but I fancy I know what the trouble is, and I wish there was something I could do to help you.' He paused. 'Have you ever met my uncle? Not, I'm thankful to say, at all like your uncle! He's very kind, and very wise, and he once told me never to make important decisions hastily – not to do what couldn't be undone until I was perfectly sure that I should never wish to

  undo it.'

  'Of course not!' said Fanny simply. She got up. 'Are you rested? Would you care to stroll about the town for a little while? I don't think it is warm enough here, do you? We'll go through the Dean's Eye into Sadler Street: I expect you will like to see that.'

  Her confidences were at an end; and since she had so unmistakably drawn to the blinds against prying eyes there was nothing for him to do but to acquiesce. He won a laugh from her by saying that while he placed himself unreservedly in her hands he could not help feeling that they ran a grave risk of being clapped into prison for such irreverence; and expressed great relief when she explained that the Dean's Eye was merely an old gateway. This mild joke did much to restore her to ease; he set himself thereafter to divert her, and succeeded well enough to make her say, when they joined their elders at the Swan, to partake of an early dinner there before driving back to Bath, that she had spent a charming afternoon. A little ner vously, she added: 'And you won't regard anything I said, will you? It was all nonsense! I daresay you know how it is when one falls into a fit of the dismals: one says things one doesn't mean.'

  He reassured her, but could not refrain from saying: 'Even though I'm only a pretence-brother, will you tell me if ever you are in any kind of a hobble, or – or are not quite sure what you should do?'

  'Oh, thank you! You are very good!' she stammered. 'But there's no need – I mean, it was only being blue-devilled, as you said! Nothing is really amiss!'

  He said no more, but this speech, far from allaying his anxiety, considerably increased it. He wished grimly that he could know what had occurred to agitate her, but it was perhaps as well that his suspicion received no confirmation, since he had neither the right nor, as yet, the physical strength to deal appropriately with Mr Stacy Calverleigh, and would have found it impossible to control his instinct. For Mr Calverleigh, living in imminent danger of foreclosure, and seeing the shadow of the King's Bench Prison creeping inexorably towards him, had abandoned the hope of winning his heiress by fair means, and had decided (with a strong sense of ill-usage) that there was nothing for it but to elope with her.

  But Fanny, who had so enthusiastically pictured herself in such a romantic adventure, had suddenly been brought to realise that it was one thing to declare one's readiness to cast off the shackles of one's upbringing, and to divorce oneself from home and family, and quite another actually to do it.

  Stacy had urged his desperate proposal on her in Bath Abbey, a circumstance which made her feel nervous and uncom fortable at the outset. When he had appointed this rendezvous, she had been almost shocked. It was surely not at all the thing! But he had laughed at her scruples, calling her his adorable little prude, and she had agreed to the assignation – if only to prove to him that she was no prude. It had been made hurriedly, in Meyler's Library, and it had entailed some difficult, and what she could not but feel horridly deceitful, planning. However, she had done it, and had been rewarded for her hardihood by having her hands passionately kissed, and her bravery extolled. But she was feeling far from brave, and looked round nervously in dread of seeing someone she knew. It was not, of course, very likely that any resident of Bath would be found in the Abbey at an hour when no service was being held, but there was no telling but what someone might be entertaining a guest who wished to visit it. She whispered: 'Oh, pray take care!' and pulled her hands away. 'If I were to be recognised – ! I am in such a quake! I don't think anyone saw me on the way, but how can one be sure? Grimston went with me to Miss Timble's, and she will call for me later at Mrs Grayshott's, but, oh, Stacy, I was obliged to pretend to Miss Timble that I had mistaken the day for my singing lesson, and it made me feel a wretch !'

  'No wonder!' he agreed warmly. 'It is intolerable that we should be obliged to stoop to subterfuge: I feel it as acutely as you do, beloved! But since your aunt returned to Bath I've been granted no opportunity to snatch as much as five minutes alone with you. How can I talk to you at a concert, or in a ballroom? And talk to you I must!'

  'Yes – oh, yes! I have longed so much to be with you! If only I had a veil! Who are those people over there?'

  'Only a parcel of trippers,' he replied soothingly. 'Don't be afraid, my sweet one! There is no one here who knows you. We will sit down over there, where it is dark, and there's nothing of interest to attract the trippers. That I should be forced into stealing a meeting with you! It is of all things the most repugnant to me, but what other course is open to me? Only one! – to renounce you wholly, and that I cannot bear to do!'

  'Stacy, no!' she gasped, clutching his arm.

  He laid his other hand over hers, clasping it firmly. 'I shall never win your aunt's support: she has made that abundantly plain to me! She will take care that we never see one another, except in company, or as we have done today. Dearest, how can we go on in such a way?' He took her hand and mumbled kisses into its palm. 'If you knew how much I long to take you in my arms, to call you my own!'

  'I want that too,' she said shyly.

/>   'Then come away with me, as we planned! Dare you snap your fingers in the face of the world? Tell me!'

  'Yes, indeed I dare!' she said, with a sparkling look.

  'How shall I ever be able to prove to you how much I adore you? Let us put a period to this hateful situation into which we have been driven, and let us do it as soon as may

  be contrived! Tomorrow!'

  'Tomorrow?' Fanny echoed blankly. 'Oh, no, Stacy! I – I couldn't! I mean, it is too soon!'

  'The next day, then!'

  It was at this moment that Fanny began to perceive the difference between dreams and reality. She shook her head, saying pleadingly: 'I wish I could, but – you don't perfectly understand, Stacy! It would be too difficult. I have so many things to attend to!'

  'It must be soon!' he urged. 'At any moment you may be swept from me! I suspect that your aunt is contemplating doing so already. If that were to happen, our tale would be told!'

  'No, it wouldn't!' she objected. 'Besides, she isn't con templating it! How could she, when we are holding a routparty next week? And that's another reason why I couldn't possibly run away immediately. I daresay you may have forgotten about it, but – '

  'What do I care for rout-parties?' he exclaimed. 'Our happiness is at stake!'

  Fanny had no objection to Mr Calverleigh's dramatic utterances, for they bore a close resemblance to the impassioned speeches of her favourite heroes of romance, but a strong vein of commonsense underlay her imaginings, and she replied, in an alarmingly practical spirit: 'No, no! How should that be? It means only a little put-off !'

  'Only – ! When every hour that I am apart from you seems a week, and every week a year!'

  No arithmetician, she found no fault with this mathematical progression. The sentiment thus expressed made her blush rosily, and slide her hand into his again. 'I know. It's so with me too, but you haven't considered, my dearest one! How could I run away before Aunt Selina's party? It would be the most infamous thing to do, because she is looking forward to it so much, poor darling, and it would destroy all her pleasure in it if – Good God! she wouldn't be able to hold it at all! Only think what an uproar there will be!'

  Exasperation seized him, and for an instant she caught a glimpse of it in his face. It was gone so quickly that she could not be sure that it had ever been there at all. He saw doubt in her widening eyes, and said ruefully: 'That I should be willing to consign Aunt Selina to perdition! Isn't it shocking? So kind as she is, and – as I believe – so much my friend! For how long must I wait before I can call you my own – to cherish and protect?'

  Had she been privileged to hear these noble words, Miss Abigail Wendover would have informed Mr Calverleigh, in explicit terms, that Fanny needed to be protected only from himself. Their effect on Fanny was to make her blush still more vividly, and to whisper: 'Not long! I promise!'

  He had seldom felt less amorous, for he considered that she was being irritatingly capricious, but he responded at once with one of his lover-like speeches. His fear was that she might, if she were given time for reflection, draw back from the proposed elopement. It had not escaped his notice that she had recoiled from his suggestion of an immediate flight. He set himself to the task of winning her back to her former mood of eager acceptance, employing all the arts at his command. He did not doubt his power over her, but he reckoned without the streak of obstinacy her aunts knew well: she responded deliciously to his love-making; she listened in soft-eyed rapture to the idyllic picture he drew of the life they would lead together; but she would not consent to elope with him before her aunts' party. He dared not persist, for there was a mulish look in her face, and his fear was that if he pressed her too hard she might cry off altogether. He assured her that he had no other wish than to please her, and hoped to God that she did not often fall into distempered freaks.

  Eleven

  The clandestine meeting in the Abbey was undetected; but although Fanny was relieved to find her aunts quite unsuspicious she was also made to feel guilty, and ashamed. Nor did she any longer feel quite so happy in her love. It was not that she did not most ardently desire to pass the rest of her life in Stacy's protective arms, but she could not help thinking how very much more pleasant it would be if she could be married to him with the blessing of her family. There was a flavour of high adventure about an elopement; she had been quite sincere when she had said that she neither shrank from taking so bold a step, nor cared a button for the inevitable censure of the world. It had not occurred to her, until she had recollected her aunts' rout-party, that her elopement would pitchfork them into a very disagreeable situation. Floating in a dream of love and heroism, she had scarcely considered any but the broader aspects of the case, and even those only as they concerned herself. The opinion of the world was of no consequence; she and Stacy would be blissfully indifferent if the world cast them off, for they needed only each other for perfect happiness. As for her aunts, they would be very much shocked at first, even angry, but when they saw how right she had been to marry Stacy they would come round, and end by doting as fondly upon him as upon her. Not until Stacy urged her to fly with him immediately did she begin to perceive some of the minor objections attached to an elopement. Such things as rout-parties were quite unimportant, of course: Stacy said so, and it was so. But they were not unimportant to two maiden ladies who had been numbered for years amongst Bath's most respected residents. Not one of the invitations sent out on Aunt Selina's gilt-edged cards had been declined, for an invitation to attend one of the Misses Wendover's select parties was considered to confer distinction on the recipient. It had flashed through Fanny's mind as soon as Stacy had made his proposal that to subject her aunts to the humiliation of being obliged to cancel their party would be conduct too base ever to be pardoned. It would be even worse if they decided to hold it, as though they had not been plunged into a scandal (and it was stupid to suppose that the news of the elopement would not spread through Bath like wildfire), for if they did that they would find their big double drawing-room woefully thin of company. Several other minor objections occurred to her, but she resolutely banished them. One could not be expected to sacrifice the happiness of oneself and one's beloved merely to save one's aunts from embarrassment.

  There was yet another objection which she found oddly daunting. Never having formed any very clear picture of the actual ceremony, who was to perform it, and where it was to take place, it came as a shock to her when Stacy described in romantic detail a flight to the Border. Innocent as she was, she yet knew that nothing could be more improper. Even her closest friends would find it hard to excuse conduct so indelicate: she had as well tie her garter in public! 'You cannot mean Gretna Green?' she had exclaimed incredulously. 'No, no! I know people do so in novels, but not – real people, like us! It is not at all the thing, Stacy! Why, I daresay it would take us two or three days to reach the Border! You can't have considered! We must be married in London, or – Bristol, or somewhere much nearer to Bath!'

  So Stacy had had to explain to her that there were certain difficulties attached to the clandestine marriages of minors. He had done it very well, so that by the time they had parted at the door of the Abbey she was convinced that there was no other way open to them, and that it was as repugnant to him as it was to her. He would be no more than her courier until the knot was tied. 'But I will not press you,' he had said. 'If your courage fails you – if you cannot trust me enough – tell me! I'll go away – try to forget you!' He had added with a melancholy smile: 'You will forget me more easily!'

  She had cried out against this. She was not so fickle, or so hen-hearted, and as for her trust in him, it was infinite!

  She had promised to fly with him as soon after the routparty as could be contrived; and, in the heat of an impassioned moment, had done so with enthusiasm. It was only later that an unacknowledged doubt began to trouble her.

  Then had come the expedition to Wells, and her conversation with Oliver. He had said that he wished he could help her
, but the things he had said to her had not helped her at all: in fact, they had increased her discomfort.

  Abby, recognising the signs of inward turmoil, tried in vain to win her confidence. She could not discover that there had been any falling-out between the lovers, and the fear that Stacy was trying to persuade Fanny to elope with him began to haunt her. She told Mr Miles Calverleigh, when he drove her to Stanton-Drew, to inspect the Druidical monument there, that she lived in dread of waking one morning to find Fanny gone.

  'Oh, I shouldn't think that at all likely!' he replied. 'Speaking as one who is not without experience, it's not as easy to elope at dead of night as you might think.'

  She could not suppress her responsive dimple, but she said austerely: 'You are perfectly shameless! Why isn't it easy? I should have supposed it to be much easier than to do it during

  the day.'

  'That's because you haven't applied your mind to it.'

  'Very true! It so happens that the need to do so has never come in my way.'

  'Oh, I can see that! It wouldn't surprise me to learn that you imagine a rope-ladder to be employed in the business.'