THE memory of luncheon died away and the picnic-basket, again appealed
to, yielded tea. They had explored the towers, and talked of Kenilworth,
the underground passages, and talked of the round tower of Wales. And
half their talk was, "Do you remember?" and, "Have you forgotten?" The
early days of the incredible honeymoon had been days of exploration,
each seeking to discover the secrets of that unknown land, each other's
mind and soul; this day of reunion was one gladly given over to the
contemplation of the memories they had together amassed. It was a day
dedicated to the counting of those treasures of memory which they now
held in common, treasures among which this golden day itself would, all
too soon, have to be laid aside to be, for each of them, forever, the
chief jewel of that priceless treasury.
It was when they were repacking the picnic-basket that they first
noticed how the color had gone out of the grass, that was their carpet,
and how the blue had faded from the sky, that was their roof. The day
had changed its mind, after all. Having been lovely in its youth and
glorious in its prime, it had, in its declining hours, fallen a prey to
the grayest melancholy and was now very sorry for itself indeed.
"Oh dear!" said she, "I do believe it's going to rain."
Even as she spoke the first big tears of the dejected day fell on the
lid of the teapot.
"We must hurry," he said, briskly. "I can't have my princess getting wet
through and catching cold in her royal head. Run for it, Princess! Run
to the big gateway!"
She ran; he followed with the basket, went out to cover the seats of his
car with mackintosh rugs and put up the hood, and came back, dampish, to
discuss the situation. They told each other that it was only a shower,
that it couldn't possibly, as they put it, have "set in." But it had;
the landscape framed in the arch of the gateway lost color moment by
moment, even the yellow of the gorse was blotted and obscured; the rain,
which at first had fallen in a fitful, amateurish sort of way, settled
down to business and fell in gray, diagonal lines, straight and sharp as
ramrods.
"And it's getting late," he said, "and your Highness will be hungry."
"We've only just had tea," she reminded him.
"Ah, but we've got some way to go," he told her.
"Where _are_ we going?"
"I had thought," he said, "of going to a place beyond Eastbourne; . . .
my old nurse lives there. She's rather fond of me; . . . she'll have
gotten supper for us. I thought you'd like it. It's a farm-house, rather
a jolly one, and then I thought, if you liked, we could drive back to
the Eastbourne hotel by moonlight."
"That would have been nice."
"But there won't be any moonlight. Perhaps we'd better go straight to
the hotel."
"But your nurse will expect you."
"I can telegraph."
"But she'll be so disappointed."
"Why didn't I get a car that would shut up and be weather-tight? The
rain will drift under that hood like the deluge."