to-day, but imperative legal business, connected with our uncle's will,
took him to town. I know for certain that he intends writing to you
this evening; and, if you then give him leave to do so, he will call
upon you to-morrow. Oh, _darling_ girl, you will not disappoint us?
We have so trusted you; so _believed_ in you! A less scrupulously
honourable man than Kenrick, might have tried to bind you by a promise,
before he was in a position to offer you immediate marriage. Think of
all the hopes--the hopes and p-_plans_, which depend upon your
faithfulness!" Miss Ann dissolved into tears--but not to a degree
which should hinder her flow of eloquence. "Ah, sweetest child! You
knelt beside this _very_ sofa, five years ago, and you said: 'Ann, I
think _any_ woman might be proud to become the wife of the Professor!'
Have you forgotten that you said that, kneeling beside this _very_
sofa?"
"I have not forgotten," said Miss Charteris; "and I think so still."
"Then you _will_ marry Kenrick?" said Miss Ann, through her tears.
Christobel Charteris rose. She stood, for a moment, tall and
immovable, in the small, low room, crowded with knick-knacks--china,
bric-a-brac, ferns in painted pots, embroidery, photograph
frames--overseated with easy chairs, which, in their turn, were
overfilled with a varied assortment of cushions. Miss Ann's
drawing-room gave the effect of a rather prettily arranged bazaar. You
mentally pictured yourself walking round, admiring everything, but
seeing nothing you liked quite well enough to wish to buy it, and take
it home.
Christobel Charteris, tall and stately, in her simple white gown,
looked so utterly apart from the trumpery elegance of these
surroundings. As the Boy had said, the mellow beauty of his ancestral
homes would indeed be a fit setting for her stately grace. But she had
sent away the Boy, with his beautiful castles in the air, and places in
the shires. The atmosphere and surroundings of Shiloh were those to
which she must be willing to bend her fastidious taste. Miss Ann would
expect to make her home with the Professor.
"Then you _will_ marry Kenrick?" whispered Miss Ann, through her lace
pocket-handkerchief.
Christobel bent over her, tenderly; fastening the clasp of the
mysterious hair-brooch.
"Dear Ann," she said. "It will not be leap year again, until 1912.
And, meanwhile, the Professor has not proposed marriage to me."
Miss Ann instantly brightened. Laughing gaily, she wiped away a few
remaining tears.
"Ah, naughty!" she said. "Naughty, to make me tell! But as you _will_
ask--_he is going to write to-night_. But you must never let him know
I told you! And now I want you just to find the _Spectator_--it is
laid over that exquisitely embroidered blotter on the writing-table in
the window, sent me last Christmas by that kind creature, Lady
Goldsmith; so thoughtful, tasteful, and _quite_ touching; Emma, careful
soul, spread it over the blotter, while darling Sweetie-weetie took his
bath. Dear pet, it is a sight to see him splash and splutter. Lady
Goldsmith thinks so much of dear Kenrick. The first time she saw him,
she was _immensely_ struck by his extraordinarily clever _appearance_.
He sat exactly opposite her at a Guildhall banquet; and she told me
afterwards that the mere sight of him was sufficient to take away all
inclination for food; excepting for that intellectual nourishment which
he is so well able to supply. I thought that was rather well
expressed, and, coming from a _florid_ woman, such as Lady Goldsmith,
was quite a tribute to my brother. You _would_ call Lady Goldsmith
'florid,' would you not, dear Christobel? ... Oh, you do not know her
by sight? I am surprised. As the _wife_ of the _Professor_, you will
soon know all these distinguished people by sight. Yes, she is
undoubtedly florid; and inclined to be what my dear father used to call
'a woman of a stout habit.' This being the case, it was certainly a
_tribute_--a tribute of which you and I, dearest child, have a right to
feel justly proud.... Oh, is it still damp? Naughty Sweetie-weet!
Don't you think it might be wise, _just_ to take it to the kitchen.
Emma, good soul, will let you dry it before the fire. I _have_ heard
of fatalities caused by damp newspapers. Precious _child_, we can have
you run no risks! What would _Kenrick_ say? But when it is
_absolutely_ dry, I want you just to explain to me the _gist_ of that
article on the effect of oriental literature on modern thought.
Kenrick tells me you have read it. He wishes to discuss it with me. I
really cannot undertake to read it through. I have not the _time_
required. Yet I must be prepared to talk it over intelligently with my
brother, when next he pays me a visit. He may look in this evening,
weary with his day in town, and requiring the relaxation of a little
intellectual conversation. I must be ready."
* * * * *
An hour later, somewhat tired in body, and completely exhausted in
mind, Miss Charteris walked home. She made a detour, in order to pass
along the lane, and enter through the postern gate at the bottom of the
garden.
She opened it, and passed in.
A shaft of sunlight lay along the lawn. The jolly little "what
d'-you-call-'ems" lifted gay purple faces to the sky.
She paused in the doorway, trying to realize how this quiet green
seclusion, the old-fashioned flower-borders, the spreading
mulberry-tree, the quaint white house, in the distance, with its green
shutters, must have looked to the Boy each day, as he came in. She
knew he had more eye for colour, and more knowledge of artistic effect,
than his casual acquaintances might suppose. It would not surprise her
some day to find, as one of the gems of the New Gallery, a reproduction
of her own garden, with a halo of jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems"
in the borders, and an indication of seats, deep in the shadow of the
mulberry-tree. She would not need to refer to the catalogue for the
artist's name. The Boy had had a painting in the Academy the year
before. She had chanced to see it. Noticing the name of her Little
Boy Blue of the Dovercourt sands in the catalogue, she had made her way
through the crowded rooms, and found his picture. It hung on the line.
She had been struck by its thoughtful beauty, and wealth of imaginative
skill. She had not forgotten that picture; and during all these days
she had been quietly waiting to hear the Boy say he had had a painting
in the Academy. Then she was going to tell him she had seen it, had
greatly admired it, and had noted with pleasure all the kind things
critics had said of it.
But, the subject of pictures not having come up, it had not occurred to
the Boy to mention it. The Boy never talked of what he had done,
_because_ he had done it. But were a subject mentioned upon which he
was keen, he would bound up, with shining eyes, and tell you all he
knew about it; all he had seen, heard, and done; all he was doing, and
all he hoped to do in the future, in connexion with that particular
thing. He would never have thought of informing you that he owned
three aeroplanes. But if the subject of aviation came up, and you said
to the Boy: "Do you know anything about it?" he would lean forward,
beaming at you, and say: "I should jolly well think I do!" and talk
aeroplanes to you for as long as you were willing to listen. This
trait of the Boy's, caused shallow-minded people to consider him
conceited. But the woman he loved knew how to distinguish between
keenness and conceit; between exuberant enthusiasm and egotistical
self-assertion; and the woman who loved him, smiled tenderly as she
remembered that even on the day when she scolded him, and he had to
admit his "barely respectable B.A.," he had not told her of the
painting hung on the line and mentioned in the _Times_. Yet if the
question of art had come up, the Boy would very probably have sat
forward in his chair, and talked about his painting, straight on end,
for half an hour.
She still stood beneath the archway, in the red-brick wall, as these
thoughts chased quickly through her mind. She would have made a fair
picture for any one who had chanced to be waiting beneath the
mulberry-tree, with eyes upon the gate.
"Straight on end for half an hour, he would have talked about his
picture; and how bright his eyes would have been. And then I should
have said: 'I saw it, Boy dear; and it was quite as beautiful as you
say.' And he would have answered: 'It jolly well gave you the feeling
of the scene, didn't it, Christo_bel_?' And I should have known that
his delight in it, as an artistic success, had nothing to do with the
fact that it was painted by himself. Just because egotism is
impossible to him, he is free to be so full of vivid enthusiasm."
She smiled again. A warm glow seemed to enfold her. "How well I know
my Boy!" she said aloud; then remembered with a sudden pang that she
must not call him _her_ Boy. She had let him go. She was--very
probably--going to marry the Professor. She had not--with the whole of
her being--wanted him to stay, until he had had the manliness to rise
up and go. Then--it had been too late. Ah, was it too late? If the
Boy came back to plead once more? If once again she could hear him
say: "Age is nothing! Time is nothing! Love is all!" would she not
answer: "Yes, Guy. Love _is_ all"?
The blood rushed into her sweet proud face. The name of the man she
loved had come into her mind unconsciously. It had never yet--as a
name for him--passed her lips. That she should unconsciously call him
so in her heart, gave her another swift moment of self-revelation.
She closed the gate gently, careful not to let it bang. As she passed
up the lawn, her heart stood still. It seemed to her that he must be
waiting, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
She hardly dared to look. She felt so sure he was there.... Yes, she
knew he was there.... She felt certain the Boy had come back. He
could not stay away from her on his sixth day. Had he not said he
would "march round" every day? Ah, dear waiting army of Israel! Here
was Jericho hastening to meet it. Why had she allowed Ann Harvey to
keep her so late? Why had she gone at all, during the Boy's own time?
She might have known he would come.... Should she walk past the
mulberry, as if making for the house, just for the joy of hearing him
call "Christo_bel_"? No, that would not be quite honest, knowing he
was there; and they were always absolutely honest with one another.
She passed, breathlessly, under the drooping branches. Her cheeks
glowed; her lips were parted. Her eyes shone with love and expectation.
She lifted a hanging bough, and passed beneath.
His chair was there, and hers; but they were empty. The Boy--being the
Boy--had not come back.
* * * * *
Presently she went slowly up to the house.
A telegram lay on the hall table. She knew at once from whom it came.
There was but one person who carried on a correspondence by telegraph.
_Reply paid_ was written on the envelope.
She stood quite still for a moment. Then she opened it slowly.
Telegrams from the Boy gave her a delicious memory of the way he used
to jump about. He would be out of his chair, and sitting at her feet,
before she knew he was going to move.
She opened it slowly, turned to a window, and read it.
"_How are you, dear? Please tell me. I am going to do my big fly
to-morrow. I jolly well mean to break the record. Wish me luck._"
She took up the reply-paid form and wrote:
"_Quite well. Good luck; but please be careful, Little Boy Blue._"
She hesitated a moment, before writing the playful name by which she so
often called him. But his telegram was so absolutely the Boy, all
over. It was best he should know nothing of "the man she loved," who
had gone out at the gate. It was best he should not know what she
would have called him, had he been under the mulberry just now. She
was--undoubtedly--going to marry the Professor. In which case she
would never call the Boy anything but "Little Boy Blue." So she put it
into her telegram, as a repartee to his audacious "dear." Then she
went out, and sent it off herself. It was comforting to have
something, however small, to do for him.
She came in again; dressed for the evening, and dined. She was
thoroughly tired; and one sentence beat itself incessantly against the
mirror of her reflection, like a frightened bird with a broken wing:
"_He is going to do a big fly to-morrow.... He is going to do a big
fly to-morrow! Little Boy Blue is going to fly and break the record._"
She sat in the stillness of her drawing-room, and tried to read. But
between her eyes and the printed page, burned in letters of fire: "_He
is going to fly to-morrow._"
She went down the garden to the chairs beneath the mulberry-tree. It
was cooler there; but the loneliness was too fierce an agony.
She walked up and down the lawn, now bathed in silvery moonlight. "_He
is going to do a big fly to-morrow. He jolly well means to break the
record._"
She passed in, and went to her bedroom. She lay in the darkness and
tried to sleep. She tried in vain. What if he got into
cross-currents? What if the propeller broke? What if the
steering-gear twisted? She began remembering every detail he had told
herself and Mollie; when she sat listening, thinking of him as Mollie's
lover, though all the while he had been her--Little Boy Blue.... "_Oh
of course then it is all U P.--But there must be pioneers!_"
At last she could bear it no longer. She lighted her candle, and rose.
She went to her medicine cupboard, and did a thing she had never done
before, in the whole of her healthy life. She took a sleeping draught.
The draught was one of Miss Ann's; left behind at the close of a recent
visit. She knew it contained chiefly bromide; harmless but effective.
She put out the light, and lay once more in darkness.
The bromide began to act.
The bird with the broken wing became less insistent.
The absent Boy drew near, and bent over, kneeling beside her.
She talked to him softly. Her voice sounded far away, and unlike her
own. "Be careful, Little Boy Blue," she said. "You may jolly
well--what an expression!--break the record if you like; but don't
break yourself; because, if you do, you will break my heart."
The bromide was acting strongly now. The bird with the broken wing had
gone. There was a strange rhythmical throbbing in her ears. It was
the Boy's aeroplane; but it had started without him. She knew sleep
was coming; merciful oblivion. Yet now she was too happy to wish to
sleep.
The Boy drew nearer.
"Oh, Boy dear, I love you so," she whispered into the throbbing
darkness; "I love you so."
"I know you do, dear," said the Boy. "It is almost unbelievable,
Christobel; but I know you do."
Then she put up her arms, and drew him to her breast.
Thus the Boy--though far away--marched round.
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the sixth day._"
* * * * *
AN INTERLUDE
"AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH"
When Miss Charteris opened her eyes, the sun was streaming into her
room. The sense of having slept heavily and unnaturally lay upon her.
She had not heard Martha's entry; but her blinds were up, and the tea
on the tray beside her bed was still fresh and hot.
She took a cup, and the after-effects of the bromide seemed to leave
her.
She dressed, and went downstairs.
On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, lay the Professor's letter.
When she had poured out her coffee and buttered her toast, she opened
and read it.
The letter was exactly such as she had always dreamed the Professor
would write, if he ever came to the point of making her a proposal. He
touched on their long friendship; on how much it had meant to them
both. He said he had often hoped for the possibility of a closer tie,
but had not felt justified in suggesting it, until he was in a position
to offer her a suitable home and income. This was now fortunately the
case; therefore he hastened to write and plead his cause, though keenly
conscious of how little there was in himself calculated to call forth
in a woman the affection which it was his earnest hope and desire to
win. She had trusted him as a friend, an intellectual guide and
comrade, during many years. If she could now bring herself to trust
him in a yet more intimate relation, he would endeavour never to
disappoint or fail her.
The letter was signed:
"_Yours in sincere devotion,_
"_KENRICK HARVEY._"
A postscript requested to be allowed to call, at the usual hour, that
afternoon, for a reply.
Miss Charteris wrote a brief note of thanks and appreciation, and gave
the Professor leave to call at three.
The Professor called at three.
He knocked and rang, and fumbled long over the umbrella-stand in the
hall. He seemed to be taking all the umbrellas out, and putting them
back again.
At last he appeared at the door of the drawing-room, where Miss
Charteris awaited him. He was very nervous. He repeated the substance
of his letter, only rather less well expressed. He alluded to Miss
Ann, and to the extreme happiness and pleasure to her of having
Christobel as a sister. But he completely ignored, both in the letter
and in conversation, Miss Ann's betrayal of Christobel's confidence.
For this she was grateful to him.
As soon as the Professor, having floundered through the unusual waters
of expressed sentiment, stepped out on to the high and dry path of an
actual question, Miss Charteris answered that question in the
affirmative, and accepted the Professor's offer.
He rose, and held her hand for a few moments, looking at her with great
affection through his glasses, which did not at all impede the warmth
of his regard; in fact, being powerful convex lenses, they magnified
it. Then he kissed her rather awkwardly on the brow, and hurried back
to his seat.
A somewhat strained silence would have followed, had not the Professor
had an inspiration.
Drawing a book from his pocket, he looked at her as you look at a child
for whom you have a delightful surprise in store.
"That--er--matter being satisfactorily settled, my dear Christobel," he
said, "should we not find it decidedly--er--refreshing to spend an hour
over our Persian translation?"
Miss Charteris agreed at once; but while the Professor read,
translated, and expounded, expatiating on the interest and beauty of
various passages, her mind wandered.
She found herself picturing the Boy under similar circumstances; how
the Boy would have behaved during the first hour of engagement; what
the Boy would have said; what the Boy would have done. She was not
quite sure what the Boy would have done; she had never experienced the
Boy with the curb completely off. But she suddenly remembered:
"Millions, or would it be billions?" and the recollection gave her a
shock of such vivid reaction, that she laughed aloud.
The Professor paused, and looked up in surprise. Then he smiled,
indulgently.
"My dear--er--Christobel, this passage is not intended to be humorous,"
he said.
"I know it is not," replied Miss Charteris. "I beg your pardon. I
laughed involuntarily."
The Professor resumed his reading.
No; she was not quite sure as to _all_ the Boy would have done; but she
knew quite well what he would have said.
And here the Boy, quite unexpectedly, took a First in classics; for
what the Boy would have said would certainly have been Greek to the
Professor.
* * * * *
After this, events followed one another so rapidly that the whole thing
became dream-like to Miss Charteris. She found herself helpless in the
grip of Miss Ann's iron will--up to now, carefully shrouded in Shetland
and lace. At last she understood why Emma's old mother had had to die
alone in a little cottage away in Northumberland; Emma, good soul,
being too devoted to her mistress to ask for the necessary week, in
order to go home and nurse her mother. Emma had seemed a broken woman,
ever since; and Christobel understood now the impossibility of any one
ever asking Miss Ann for a thing which Miss Ann had made up her mind
not to grant.
She and the Professor now became puppets in Miss Ann's delicate hands.
Miss Ann lay upon her couch, and pulled the wires. The Professor
danced, because he had not the discernment to know he was dancing; Miss
Charteris, because she had not the heart to resist. The Boy having
gone out of her life, nothing seemed to matter. It was her duty to
marry the Professor, and there is nothing to be gained by the
postponement of duty.
But it was Miss Ann who insisted on the wedding taking place within a
week. It was Miss Ann who reminded them that, the Long Vacation having
just commenced, the Professor could easily be away, and there were
researches connected with his Encyclopedia which it was of the utmost
importance he should immediately make in the museums and libraries of
Brussels. It was Miss Ann who insisted upon a special licence being
obtained, and who overruled Christobel's desire to be married by her
brother, the bishop. Miss Ann had become quite hysterical at the idea
of the bishop being brought back from a tour he was making in Ireland,
and Christobel yielded the more readily, because her brother's arrival
would undoubtedly have meant Mollie's; and Mollie's presence, even if
she refrained from protest and expostulation, would have brought such
poignant memories of the Boy.
So it came to pass, with a queer sense of the whole thing being
dream-like and unreal, that Miss Charteris--who should have had the
most crowded and most popular wedding in Cambridge--found herself
standing, as a bride, beside the Professor, in an ill-ventilated
church, at ten o'clock in the morning, being married by an old
clergyman she had never seen before, who seemed partially deaf, and
partially blind, and wholly inadequate to the solemn occasion; with
Miss Ann and her faithful Emma, sniffing in a pew on one side; while
Jenkins breathed rather heavily in a pew, on the other. Martha had
flatly refused to attend; and when Miss Charteris sent for her to bid
her good-bye, Martha had appeared, apparently in her worst and most
morose temper; then had suddenly broken down, and, exclaiming wildly:
"'Ow about _'im_?" had thrown her apron over her head, and left the
room, sobbing.
"_How about him? How about him?_"
Each turn of the wheels reiterated the question as she drove to Shiloh
to pick up Miss Ann; then on to the church where the Professor waited.
_How about him_? But _he_ had left her to do that which she felt to be
right, and she was doing it.
Nevertheless, Martha's wild outburst had brought the Boy very near; and
he seemed with her as she walked up the church.
Her mind wandered during the reading of the exhortation. In this
nightmare of a wedding she seemed to have no really important part to
play. The Boy would burst in, in a minute; and a shaft of light would
come with him. He would walk straight up the church to her, saying:
"We have jolly well had enough of this, Christobel!" Then they would
all wake up, and he would whirl her away in a motor and she would say:
"Boy dear; don't exceed the speed-limit."
But the Boy did not burst in; and the Professor's hands, looking
unusually large in a pair of white kid gloves, were twitching
nervously, for an emphatic question was being put to him by the old
clergyman, who had emerged from his hiding-place behind the
Prayer-book, as soon as the exhortation was over.
The Professor said: "I will," with considerable emotion; while Miss Ann
sobbed audibly into her lace pocket-handkerchief.
Christobel looked at the Professor. His outward appearance seemed
greatly improved. His beard had been trimmed; his hair--what there was
of it--cut. He had not once looked at her since she entered the church
and took her place at his side; but she knew, if he did look, his eyes
would be kind--kind, with a magnified kindness, behind the convex
lenses. The Boy had asked whether she loved the Professor's mouth,
eyes, and hair. What questions the amazing Boy used to ask! And she
had answered----
But here a silence in the church recalled her wandering thoughts. The
all-important question had been put to her. She had not heard one word
of it; yet the church awaited her "I will."
The silence became alarming. This was the exact psychological moment
in which the Boy should have dashed in to the rescue. But the Boy did
not dash in.
Then Christobel Charteris did a thing perhaps unique in the annals of
brides, but essentially characteristic of her extreme honesty.
"I am sorry," she said, in a low voice; "I did not hear the question.
Will you be good enough to repeat it?"
Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped audibly. The old clergyman peered
at her, in astonishment, over his glasses. His eyes were red-rimmed
and bloodshot.
Then he repeated the question slowly and deliberately, introducing a
tone of reproof, which made of it a menace. Miss Charteris listened
carefully to each clause and at the end she said: "I will."