“Lettice!” began Aunt Rosamond (oh! that wilful girl, thus to frustrate all the plans of her elders and betters), “the library is larger, cooler, you’ll be more refreshed—”
“Now don’t begin, there’s a dear,” said Lettice. “You stay here and see who’ll get the gold arrow. I know: that girl with so much orange about her will carry all before her. Don’t come and tell me, auntie, though, for I shan’t let you in, and”—(this in a laughing whisper)—“and don’t you be flirting with anyone while I’m away.”
And Lettice, slipping in and out among the assembled guests, gained a narrow shaded path which led, with many turns and windings, through the orchard and vegetable gardens to the house.
“Miss Tremarten! Miss Tremarten!” said a soft, low voice at her side.
Lettice started and turned pale. Oh yes, she knew the voice well enough. Was it not the one she had been longing and listening for all the time she had seemed so busily occupied with her bows and arrows, and chatting and laughing so pleasantly with her friends?
But where could it come from? The narrow winding path she was following was skirted on one side by a thick hedge of holly and other evergreens, through which she could still catch glimpses of the bright and varied dresses of the ladies in the distance. On the other side a light low fence, overhung by a few alders and ash-trees, marked the division of the castle flower-garden from a series of low-lying meadows where Lord Lochiel’s shorthorns were calmly grazing.
Lettice looked round her on every side. “Miss Tremarten!” again called the voice, and now through the interlaced boughs of some overgrown wild bush Lettice could plainly distinguish Captain McCormack’s face and figure.
“Oh, Miss Tremarten,” the captain went on, “I’ve been waiting here so long for you—that is, in fact, I’ve been waiting everywhere to get a few minutes alone with you.”
“Alone with me, Captain McCormack!” repeated Lettice, amazed. She was scarcely prepared to have the request placed before her thus abruptly.
“I can’t stop to explain, Miss Tremarten. I’ve bad news—confounded bad news—don’t know how to break it to you—bad hand at that sort of thing. Lilla has had a spill in a mad sort of a gallop she was having just now, and is dangerously hurt. She is lying at a farmhouse close by. I’ve come like the wind to tell you. Poor girl! she says she knows she will die, and must see you before she goes.”
Lettice drew a long breath. She had nearly said “Thank God!” when the captain mentioned Lilla’s name, for her fears had flown to her father at the first thought of bad news. Then she turned sick and bewildered. “How can I go, Captain McCormack?” she said; “who will take me? If I ask Aunt Rosamond she’ll put me in prison at once.”
“Come in my cart—I have it round the corner,” said the captain, “only come at once, for Heaven’s sake—for poor Lilla’s sake I mean—if you want to see her alive.”
Lettice hesitated another moment. It was all so strange and unexpected—wonderful, too, it was to see Captain McCormack thus strangely agitated, he who was so calm and nonchalant as a rule. It was almost like some spectre or phantom rising up in the midst of a revel. She paused bewildered and uncertain.
“Am I to go back and tell her you won’t come?” asked Ivie impatiently. “I didn’t think you were so cold-hearted a friend.”
“No, no, I’m not cold-hearted,” replied Lettice hurriedly, “but I must tell Aunt Rosamond.”
“And do you think Aunt Rosamond will let you come? I implore you, Miss Tremarten, not to think of the small etiquettes of society at such a time as this. There is a gate just at the end of this walk which leads into the meadow, and another in the meadow which leads into the high road. If you will only make haste—if you would just for once forget that you are a young lady, and remember only that you are a true, tenderhearted woman—”
Lettice did not wait for another appeal. To be reproached with having sunk her womanhood in young-ladyism was more than she could bear. Without another word she ran lightly along the narrow path, swung back the tiny iron gate, and hastily followed Captain Ivie across the meadow to the high road.
There stood a small light phaeton, to which were harnessed a pair of thoroughbred fast-going ponies. A man held their heads. “Here, Ellis,” said Captain McCormack to him, “you must explain everything to Miss Tremarten and Lord Lochiel. Please make haste” (this to Lettice); “it is a matter of life and death.”
Lettice sprang lightly into the phaeton, Ivie was by her side in an instant, the man let go the horses, and with a rear and a plunge they started off at a tremendous pace along the dusty high road.
Then it was Lettice began to ask a few questions. “How was it Lilla was riding and you were driving, Captain McCormack?” she said.
“She altered her mind at the last moment. Overnight she told me I was to drive her over here for the archery, and I ordered Dido and Daniel to be harnessed. Then this morning she came down in her riding-habit and said she had had a letter from Mary Loder (Miss Willis that was), wishing her to meet her at Auchterarder and go on to Perth with her. Lilla is due at Perth next week, but she thought it would be pleasanter to go with Mary than to travel alone, and as Donegal wanted a good gallop she said she would take it out of him and throw over the archery altogether. You know, Miss Tremarten, she is never particularly fond of young ladies’ society. However, they had got this thing ready, so I jumped in and went with her, meaning, of course, to be
