The dull thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball was no longer to be heard. The game had stopped.
In a moment more she heard her own name called. An interval of another instant passed, and a familiar voice said, "I know where she is. I'll fetch her."
She turned to Geoffrey, and pointed to the back of the summer-house.
"It's my turn to play," she said. "And Blanche is coming here to look for me. Wait there, and I'll stop her on the steps."
She went out at once. It was a critical moment. Discovery, which meant moral-ruin to the woman, meant money-ruin to the man. Geoffrey had not exaggerated his position with his father. Lord Holchester had twice paid his debts, and had declined to see him since. One more outrage on his father's rigid sense of propriety, and he would be left out of the will as well as kept out of the house. He looked for a means of retreat, in case there was no escaping unperceived by the front entrance. A door--intended for the use of servants, when picnics and gipsy tea-parties were given in the summer-house--had been made in the back wall. It opened outward, and it was locked. With his strength it was easy to remove that obstacle. He put his shoulder to the door. At the moment when he burst it open he felt a hand on his arm. Anne was behind him, alone.
"You may want it before long," she said, observing the open door, without expressing any surprise, "You don't want it now. Another person will play for me--I have told Blanche I am not well. Sit down. I have secured a respite of five minutes, and I must make the most of it. In that time, or less, Lady Lundie's suspicions will bring her here--to see how I am. For the present, shut the door."
She seated herself, and pointed to a second chair. He took it--with his eye on the closed door.
"Come to the point!" he said, impatiently. "What is it?"
"You can marry me privately to-day," she answered. "Lis ten--and I will tell you how!"
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
THE PLAN.
SHE took his hand, and began with all the art of persuasion that she possessed.
"One question, Geoffrey, before I say what I want to say. Lady Lundie has invited you to stay at Windygates. Do you accept her invitation? or do you go back to your brother's in the evening?"
"I can't go back in the evening--they've put a visitor into my room. I'm obliged to stay here. My brother has done it on purpose. Julius helps me when I'm hard up--and bullies me afterward. He has sent me here, on duty for the family. Somebody must be civil to Lady Lundie--and I'm the sacrifice."
She took him up at his last word. "Don't make the sacrifice," she said. "Apologize to Lady Lundie, and say you are obliged to go back."
"Why?"
"Because we must both leave this place to-day."
There was a double objection to that. If he left Lady Lundie's, he would fail to establish a future pecuniary claim on his brother's indulgence. And if he left with Anne, the eyes of the world would see them, and the whispers of the world might come to his father's ears.
"If we go away together," he said, "good-by to my prospects, and yours too."
"I don't mean that we shall leave together," she explained. "We will leave separately--and I will go first."
"There will be a hue and cry after you, when you are missed."
"There will be a dance when the croquet is over. I don't dance--and I shall not be missed. There will be time, and opportunity to get to my own room. I shall leave a letter there for Lady Lundie, and a letter"--her voice trembled for a moment--"and a letter for Blanche. Don't interrupt me! I have thought of this, as I have thought of every thing else. The confession I shall make will be the truth in a few hours, if it's not the truth now. My letters will say I am privately married, and called away unexpectedly to join my husband. There will be a scandal in the house, I know. But there will be no excuse for sending after me, when I am under my husband's protection. So far as you are personally concerned there are no discoveries to fear--and nothing which it is not perfectly safe and perfectly easy to do. Wait here an hour after I have gone to save appearances; and then follow me."
"Follow you?" interposed Geoffrey. "Where?" She drew her chair nearer to him, and whispered the next words in his ear.
"To a lonely little mountain inn--four miles from this."
"An inn!"
"Why not?"
"An inn is a public place."
A movement of natural impatience escaped her--but she controlled herself, and went on as quietly as before:
"The place I mean is the loneliest place in the neighborhood. You have no prying eyes to dread there. I have picked it out expressly for that reason. It's away from the railway; it's away from the high-road: it's kept by a decent, respectable Scotchwoman--"
"Decent, respectable Scotchwomen who keep inns," interposed Geoffrey, "don't cotton to young ladies who are traveling alone. The landlady won't receive you."
It was a well-aimed objection--but it missed the mark. A woman bent on her marriage is a woman who can meet the objections of the whole world, single-handed, and refute them all.
"I have provided for every thing," she said, "and I have provided for that. I shall tell the landlady I am on my wedding-trip. I shall say my husband is sight-seeing, on foot, among the mountains in the neighborhood--"
"She is sure to believe that!" said Geoffrey.
"She is sure to disbelieve it, if you like. Let her! You have only to appear, and to ask for your wife--and there is my story proved to be true! She may be the most suspicious woman living, as long as I am alone with her. The moment you join me, you set her suspicions at rest. Leave me to do my part. My part is the hard one. Will you do yours?"
It was impossible to say No: she had fairly cut the ground from under his feet. He shifted his ground. Any thing rather than say Yes!
"I suppose you know how we are to be married?" he asked. "All I can say is--I don't."
"You do!" she retorted. "You know that we are in Scotland. You know that there are neither forms, ceremonies, nor delays in marriage, here. The plan I have proposed to you secures my being received at the inn, and makes it easy and natural for you to join me there afterward. The rest is in our own hands. A man and a woman who wish to be married (in Scotland) have only to secure the necessary witnesses and the thing is done. If the landlady chooses to resent the deception practiced on her, after that, the landlady may do as she pleases. We shall have gained our object in spite of her--and, what is more, we shall have gained it without risk to you."
"Don't lay it all on my shoulders," Geoffrey rejoined. "You women go headlong at every thing. Say we are married. We must separate afterward--or how are we to keep it a secret?"
"Certainly. You will go back, of course, to your brother's house, as if nothing had happened."
"And what is to become of you?"
"I shall go to London."
"What are you to do in London?"
"Haven't I already told you that I have thought of every thing? When I get to London I shall apply to some of my mother's old friends--friends of hers in the time when she was a musician. Every body tells me I have a voice--if I had only cultivated it. I will cultivate it! I can live, and live respectably, as a concert singer. I have saved money enough to support me, while I am learning--and my mother's friends will help me, for her sake."
So, in the new life that she was marking out, was she now unconsciously reflecting in herself the life of her mother before her. Here was the mother's career as a public singer, chosen (in spite of all efforts to prevent it) by the child! Here (though with other motives, and under other circumstances) was the mother's irregular marriage in Ireland, on the point of being followed by the daughter's irregular marriage in Scotland! And here, stranger still, was the man who was answerable for it--the son of the man who had found the flaw in the Irish marriage, and had shown the way by which her mother was thrown on the world! "My Anne is my second self.