Chapter 3

YOUNG LOVE, TRUE LOVE.

It was Christmas-time, many years after the events narrated in the previous chapter, and the snow not only lay thick on the ground but was falling heavily from a leaden sky. A strong wind which rose with the coming of the night drove through the leafless trees of the park and clashed iron music from among their frozen boughs.

Beyond the red brick wall which encircled Hollyoaks Park the frozen road ran straight to the village of Westham, and the one street of that hamlet was crowded with people returning homeward laden with purchases for the next day.

But if it was wintry out of doors, within the mansion of Mr. Cass all was colour and warmth and tropical leafage. The merchant's mother had been an Andalusian, and perhaps some far-off strain of Moorish blood had constrained her son to build his house on Moorish lines. When Mr. Cass, some twenty years ago, had bought Hollyoaks from the decayed county family who then owned it, the manor-house had been but lately destroyed by fire. The purchaser found a pleasant country, a beautiful park, but no place where he and his family could lay their heads. So he proceeded to erect what the countryside called "Cass's Folly"--a true Moorish dwelling-place such as one finds in Seville and Cordova. A series of low buildings clustered round a central court, or, as it would be called in Spain, a patio. This, in deference to the English climate, had been roofed in with glass and turned into a winter garden. The roof was protected against the elements by a close iron frame-work, which was yet sufficiently open to admit the light. But it is rarely that the sun shines with full strength in the Midlands; so it happened that this garden was usually pervaded by a fascinating twilight.

This large space was filled with tropical foliage; palms rose tall and stately from an undergrowth of oddly-shaped plants with serpentine and hairy foliage interspersed with brilliant flowers. What with the diapered pavement, the white marble pillars of the corridor, and all this tropical fecundity, the spectacle was brilliant and strange to English eyes.

This striking interior, however, made a special appeal to the emotions of a tall, slim young man who was seated in a lounging-chair beside the pool. He had arrived from London only two hours before, after an uncomfortable journey in the cold. He remembered his last Christmas spent at Hollyoaks, when he had arrived much about the same time and had been greeted with the same splendour. Then he had been a stranger; now he was well known to the Cass family, best of all to the youngest daughter of the house. But where was she now? Why was she not here to greet him?

His colour came and went now as he thought of the girl he was about to meet, the girl who was all the world to him. He tugged nervously at his small golden moustache, and his blue eyes blinked at the dazzling colours of the flowers. But there was something about the boy--for he was no more than twenty-three--which brought conviction that his spirit was more manly than his looks would have one believe. His air was resolute; his figure, though slim, was athletic; yet withal he was nervous and emotional in the extreme. And, after all, this was how it should be, for Neil Webster's fame as a violinist of rare promise was well known. Already he had made a name for himself both in England and America.

With such a temperament it was not wonderful that he should love Ruth Cass, who also was of a highly sensitive nature. Neil thought of her now with an intensity inspired by the memory of the joy she had been to his appreciative eye when, last Christmas, he had seen her for the first time.

As the young man sat there wrinkling his brows in the effort to recall completely the memory of Ruth's first appearance, a side door opened and she herself appeared. With light steps she stole forward, and laying her gloved hands upon his eyes she laughed out of sheer joy.

"Who is it?" she asked, gaily. "I give you three guesses."

Neil turned, took her hands and kissed them. "As if I needed more than one," he said, with light reproach. "I should not be a true lover did I not guess your presence even without seeing you."

"Yet you didn't, you didn't," sang the girl. "I came upon you unawares."

"But I knew yow were coming, for I felt it in my heart. Come, let me look at my rose of Sharon. It is six long weary weeks since I saw you."

She made a little curtsey, and then stood demurely before him. To a stranger she would have been almost a great a surprise as the house itself. And she was in keeping with it--the beautiful Andalusian Marquise of de Musset's ballad come to life in foggy England. The Quaker name of Ruth suited ill with that rich southern beauty. Had she been called Cleopatra, that Royal name would well have matched her appearance. Although but twenty years of age she was already in the full bloom of womanly loveliness. Of no great height, she possessed one of those perfect figures seen only in Spain. She walked with the swaying, graceful gait of the Andalusian woman. An olive skin, large, liquid eyes of midnight blackness, lips scarlet as a pomegranate blossom, full and a trifle voluptuous.

As became a daughter of the South, Ruth was arrayed in a ravishing dinner-dress of black and gold which suited her swarthy beauty. In the coils of her blue-black hair she wore sparkling diamonds; the same stones blazed on neck and wrists, and in this splendour she seemed to the excited eyes of her lover like some gorgeous tropical flower blossoming beneath ardent skies.

"Come now," she said, sinking into a chair. "We have just a few minutes before the others come in, and they are not to be passed in silence."

"Who are the others?" Neil asked, taking a chair beside her.

She waved a fan of black and yellow feathers from which, true daughter of Spain as she was, she would not part even in winter.

"Oh, all the people you have met here before," she said, smoothing her dainty gloves. "My father, Jennie Brawn, my uncle and aunt, and Geoffrey Heron."

As she pronounced the last name Ruth stole a laughing glance at her lover. And, as she had expected, a shadow came over his face, and his colour went and came like that of a startled girl.

"Oh, is he here?" was his comment. "He is a very good sort of fellow."

"Too good for your taste, Monsieur Othello," laughed Miss Cass, tapping his flushed cheek with her fan. "I see how it is. You think he is a rival."

"I don't think it, I know it. Ruth."

"Well," with a coquettish toss of her head, "perhaps he is. But you think, moreover, that I admire him. I do, as one might admire a picture. He is good-looking and very nice----"

"I can't contradict you," interrupted the young man.

"But," she resumed smoothly, "he is not clever, he is not musical, and he is not the most jealous man in the world."

"Meaning me, I suppose?"

"Of course. Who else should I mean? Come. I won't have your forehead wrinkled." She brushed the lines away with her fan. "Smile, Neil, smile, or I won't speak to you all night."

He could not withstand her charming humour, and he did smile. But, in spite of all, he shook his head ruefully.

"It's all very well making a joke of it," he said. "I know you love me as I love you, but your father--he knows nothing of our attachment."

"My father? Pooh! I can twist him round my finger."

"I am not so sure of that. Remember, I have known him many years. He can be hard when he likes, and in this case he will be hard. He is rich, has a position, while I----"

"While you are Neil Webster, the great violinist."

"Oh that is all right," he said, dismissing his artistic fame with a nod. "But I mean I do not know who my parents are. I never heard of them."

"Perhaps, like Topsy, you growed," Ruth said, for she attached no importance to his speech. "Dear! What does it matter?"

"A great deal to a proud man like your father. Yet he may know my parents since he brought me up. I'll ask him."

"Papa brought you up, Neil? I never knew that. I thought he met you at some house in London, and asked you here because he is so fond of music."

The young man frowned and tugged at his moustache. His colour changed. "I should not have told you," he said, in a low voice, "but my tongue runs away with me. We have often talked of my early life."

"Let me see," said Miss Cass, gravely mischievous. "I think you did say something about having been brought up in the South of England."

"At Bognor," he explained. "An old woman, Mrs. Jent, looked after me there. When it became apparent that I had musical talent your father had me taught on the Continent. I appeared first in America, where I was trained under Durand, the great violinist. I made a success and returned to London; then----"

"Then he brought you down here a year ago, and in six months we fell in love with one another, and----"

"I loved you from the first," he cried.

"How rash!" remarked the girl, pursing her mouth demurely. "But we will say nothing about that. We love now, that is sufficient. But tell me how it was my father first came on the scene of your life? I know much that you have told me: but my father--that is something new."

"I can remember him ever since I was a young child--from the age of ten."

"Oh then he did not come to you before that?"

Webster paused, then turning towards her made an extraordinary speech. "I don't know. I can't recollect my life before that."

"Oh, dear me!" cried Miss Cass, not quite taking in the meaning of his words. "What a stupid child you must have been! Why, I recollect all sorts of things which happened when I was five."

"I don't mean that exactly," said Webster, "but my first recollection is my recovery from a long illness, and all my memories date from that time. What came before--where I was born, where brought up--is a blank."

"What did Mrs. Jent tell you?" cried the girl, now anxious to solve the mystery. "She told me I was born in America, somewhere near New York, that my father had played in an orchestra, and that my mother had been a singer. I fell ill somewhere about my tenth year, and since then I have seen your father frequently, but I have never questioned him closely. However, I will speak to him to-morrow, and at the same time I will tell him that I love you.

"Then he will consent to our engagement," Miss Cass said, promptly.

"I wonder!" Again Neil drew his hand across his face. "It does not seem a satisfactory past. I always feel there is some mystery about it."

"Mystery! What nonsense!" cried Ruth, with pretty disbelief. "I am certain that what Mrs. Jent has told you is true, and the illness made you forget your childish days. My father has been good to you for reasons which he will no doubt tell me. And, since he has always helped you, and has, so to speak, been a father to you, he will not forbid our marriage. Why did you not tell me all this before?"

Webster looked puzzled. "I hardly know," he murmured. "Something always kept me silent, and I talked, as you remember, more about my career as an artist than anything else."

"But you never said that my father paid for your studies," persisted Ruth.

"No, that is quite true. But I kept silent on that point because he asked me to. He is a man who likes to do good by stealth, but he did not ask me to be silent on any other point, so I might have told you all that I have said to-night long ago. I tell you now about your father in spite of his prohibition, as I want you to know everything concerning me. Should we be fortunate enough to gain his consent, I don't want you to remain in ignorance of his kindness. But shall we ever marry?" he sighed.

"Of course we shall," said Ruth, imperiously. "I have made up my mind."

"Ah! but your father has not made up his, Ruth," he seized her hands, "do you really love me? If you do not----"

"Don't get excited, Neil. If I did not love you I should tell you so. But I do love you, how, dearly you will never know."

"But it may be--my music you love," he urged.

"Conceited boy," laughed Miss Cass. "Of course I love your music, but I love you for yourself as well. Speak to my father. We will not keep our engagement secret any longer."

"I feel that we should not have kept it secret at all," murmured the young man. "After your father's kindness to me I feel somewhat of a traitor."

"You can lay the blame on me," announced the girl, calmly. "I wished it to be kept quiet on account of Aunt Inez. You know what she is--a jealous woman always putting her finger into everyone's pie. I'm sure she has quite enough to do in looking after her own husband. He is a wicked, gay old man, is uncle Marshall."

"I don't think Mrs. Marshall likes me."

"That is why I kept our secret. She does not like you; why, I do not know. And had she discovered our engagement she would have told my father and put an end to it long ago."

"Well, perhaps Mr. Cass will put an end to it even now."

Ruth looked round to see that no one was &bout, and then dropped a butterfly kiss on his forehead.

"Darling, nothing shall part us. I love you, and you only, you foolish fellow."

"And are you sure, quite sure, you care nothing about Heron?"

"No, no, of course I don't. But I will if you insist on putting your arm round my waist. Gracious! Here is Aunt Inez!"

And at this moment an elderly double of Ruth sailed into the winter garden.