“But you see,” Pelleas persisted gently, “after all they are so
appallingly young, Etarre. And if Dudley Manners were to be angry and
if he were to disinherit Lisa, and so on--”
“As for things going wrong,” said I, “can anything be so wrong as for
two who love each other to be separated?”
“No,” Pelleas admitted justly, “nothing can be. All the same--”
“Pelleas!” I cried in despair, “we could have that young rector over
here, and they could be married in the little round drawing-room--or in
the rose arbour--or in the garden at large. Think of it--cream sherbet
and little cakes afterward and us for parents and wedding party and
all. Then you and I could go straight to Dudley Manners at Chynmere
and tell him how it was, and I _know_ he would forgive them. Pelleas!
Can you really think of that dear child spending two years with an
authority on plant life in Alaska?”
“Instead of going to him afterward,” said Pelleas boldly then, “suppose
you and I leave here after luncheon and drive to Chynmere and _make_
Dudley Manners consent? And bring him and Miss Constance Wortley back
to the wedding!” he finished with triumphant daring.
“And not be married secretly?” I said lingeringly, as if the secret
wedding were our own.
“Ah, well,” said Pelleas, “at all events we won’t tell him on any
account where they are.”
So it was settled, and when presently we four went out to our tiny
dining-room courage and gayety were in the air. Our dining-room was
white and dull blue with a wreath of roses outside every window and a
bowl of roses on the table. And if Nichola considered it reprehensible
to assist at a “runaway match” she manifestly had no such scruple about
the luncheon to precede it for she set before us the daintiest dishes.
I could see the while how her little, quick-lidded eyes were fixed
disapprovingly on the young lovers; but then Nichola’s eyes disapprove
of the very moon in the sky. I wondered, as I looked at Lisa in the
noon of her fresh young beauty, and at Eric, so adoringly in love, how
Nichola could even pretend to disapproval at sight of them; and if she
had been any one but Nichola I would have suspected her conversion, for
of her own will she served our coffee in the rose arbour. Whereupon
Pelleas and I became absorbingly interested in the progress of some
slips which had been in the ground about six hours and we wandered
away to look at them, cups in hand, and left those two to take their
coffee in the arbour--in memory of a certain day when we had been
left to drink our coffee alone. And when we came back we scrupulously
refrained from looking whether they had so much as sipped a thimbleful.
Then, feeling deliciously guilty, we announced to our guests that we
had an errand which would keep us away for an hour. And that if it
should seem best there would be ample time for the wedding on our
return. And that at all events they must decide whether they would be
married in the round drawing-room, or in the rose arbour, or in the
garden at large. Also, not knowing what warning or summons we might
wish hurriedly to send, I added to Lisa:--
“And if the telephone rings, dear, you would better answer it yourself.
For it may be Cupid and ministers of grace. No one can tell.”
“O, Aunt Etarre,” said Lisa prettily, “this is perfect of you. Isn’t
it, Eric?”
The way that Eric shook the hand of Pelleas three times on the way to
the gate might have indicated to some that he thought it was.
Yet there we were, hastening out in the world to find a possible
obstacle to all that innocent joy. Never before had we been guilty of
such disaffection or even of prudence in such a cause.
“Pelleas, O Pelleas,” I said as we hurried down the lane for a
carriage, “but suppose it doesn’t turn out as we think? Suppose Dudley
Manners is furious, suppose he guesses where they are and suppose--?”
“Pooh,” said Pelleas in splendid disdain. “Dudley Manners. Thirty
years ago I took a polo championship away from him when he was looking
directly at me.”
And it needed no more than this and the sun in the lane to reassure me.
From a warlike-looking farmer, a friend of ours living at the lane’s
end, we got a low phaeton and a tall horse which we had made occasion
to use before. The drive to Chynmere occupied hardly half an hour, and
when we saw the tower of the Hall above the chestnuts and before us the
high English wall of the park cutting the roadside sward we looked at
each other in sudden breathless abashment. After all, Lisa was Dudley
Manners’ ward, not ours. After all, two years in Europe are commonly
accepted as desirable for a girl of twenty. In that black hour as we
drew rein at the lordly entrance of Chynmere Hall itself I felt myself
obliged to call up the essential horror of the situation.
“Pelleas,” I said, “remember: they love each other as much as ever we
did. And remember: two years with an authority on plant life in Alaska.”
“Monstrous,” said Pelleas firmly.
On which we went bravely up the steps.
Our enterprise was doomed to receive a blow, crushing and apparently
mortal. Neither Mr. Dudley Manners nor Miss Constance Wortley was at
home. They had gone away in different directions, the man thought,
immediately after luncheon.
We went back tremblingly to the low phaeton and the tall horse.
“O, Pelleas,” I said in despair. “And whatever shall we do now? Those
poor little people.”
Pelleas looked at his watch.
“We can take an hour,” he said. “We’ll give Dudley Manners or the
botanical lady an hour to get back, and we’ll call again.”
“O, Pelleas,” I said, “and if they aren’t there then let us go home and
be married anyway--” quite as if the wedding were our own.
But Pelleas shook his head.
“Dear,” he said, “we mustn’t, you know. We really mustn’t. It wouldn’t
do in the very least.”
“Pelleas,” said I irrelevantly, “we were just their age when we were
married.”
“So we were,” said Pelleas, and drew the tall horse to a walk in the
sun of the long green road, and we fell to remembering.
Any one who has ever by any chance remembered knows how sweet the
pastime may be. Sometimes I think that heaven must be a place where
some of the things that have been will be again. No wonder that as
we drove on our delayed mission for those two who sat expectant and
adoring in our rose garden, a throng of phantoms of delight came
about us and held us very near. No wonder that the tall horse, obeying
his own will, took this road and that road, leading us farther and
farther in those fragrant ways until at last where the highway ran
through a little hollow at the foot of a forbidding hill he stopped
altogether, minded to take the tops of some tender green, cool in the
shade. I recall the ditches of yellow sweet clover and the drone of the
honeybees.
The hollow was on the edge of Chynmere village. Across the green we
saw the parish church, white in its elms and alders. I noted absently
that a smart trap and a satin horse waited outside the iron fence and
that several figures were emerging from the chapel door where the
white-haired rector lingered.
“We can ask those people,” suggested Pelleas, “for the shortest cut
back to the Hall. I’m afraid the time is getting on.”
He gathered up the lines and drove leisurely across the springing turf.
A song sparrow was pouring out its little heart from the marsh land
beyond the church and the sounds of the afternoon were growing every
moment more beloved. Everything was luring to delight, and here were
Pelleas and I alone of all the world--save Dudley Manners and this Miss
Wortley--seeking to postpone a great happiness.
“Dudley Manners,” said I out of the fullness of my heart, “must be a
kind of ogre. And as for this Miss Wortley, I dare say she is a regular
Nichola.”
At this Pelleas said something so softly that I did not hear and drew
rein beside the smart trap in which a man and a woman coming from the
church had just taken their places. And when I looked up I saw the man
turning toward us a face so smiling and so deliciously abashed that it
bewildered my recognition, until--
“Dudley Manners!” cried Pelleas. “The very man I am searching the
county for.”