When Halcyone was nearly nineteen and had grown into a rare and radiant
maiden, the like of whom it would be difficult to find, an event
happened which was of the greatest excitement and importance to the
neighborhood. Wendover, which had been shut up for twenty years, was
reported to have been taken for a term by a very rich widow--or
_divorcée_--from America it was believed, and it was going to be
sumptuously done up and would be filled with guests. Mr. Miller took
pains to find out every detail from the Long Man at Applewood, and so
was full of information at his monthly repast with the old ladies. Mrs.
Vincent Cricklander was the new tenant's name. The Long Man had himself
taken her over the place when she first came down to look at it, and his
report was that she was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, and
with an eye to business that could not be beaten. He held her in vast
respect.
Then Mr. Miller coughed; he had now come to the point of his discourse
which made him nervous.
For he had learned beyond the possibility of any doubt that Mrs.
Cricklander was, alas! not a lonely widow but had been divorced--only a
year or two ago. She had divorced her husband--not he her--he hastened
to add, and then coughed again and got very red.
"When we were young," Miss La Sarthe remarked severely, "our Mamma would
never have allowed us to know any divorced person--and, indeed, our good
Queen Victoria would never have received one at her Court. We cannot
possibly call, Roberta."
Poor Miss Roberta's face fell. She had been secretly much elated by the
thoughts of a neighbor, and to have all her hopes thus nipped in the bud
was painful. She had heard (from Hester again, it is to be feared!) that
Mrs. Cricklander's maid, who was a cousin of the baker in Applewood, and
who had originally instigated her discovery of Wendover, had said that
her lady knew all the greatest people in England--lords and duchesses by
the dozen, and even an archbishop! Surely that was respectable enough.
But Miss La Sarthe, while again deploring the source of her sister's
information, was firm. Ideas might have changed, but _they_ had not.
Since the last time they had curtsied to the beloved late Queen, in
about 1879, she believed new rules had been made, but the La Sarthe had
nothing to do with such things!
Halcyone caught Miss Roberta's piteous, subdued eye, and smiled a
tender, kind smile. With years her understanding of her ancient aunts
had grown. They were no longer rather contemptible, narrow-minded elders
in her eyes, but filled her with a pitiful and gentle respect. Their
courage under adversity, their firm self-control, and the force which
made them live up to their idea of the fitness of things, appealed to
her strongly. She had John Derringham's quality of detached
consideration, and appreciated her old relatives as exquisite relics of
the past, as well as her own kith and kin.
"In America, divorce is not considered the heinous crime it was once in
England," Mr. Carlyon said. "Perhaps this lady may have been greatly
sinned against and deserves all our pity and regard."
But Miss La Sarthe remained obdurate. The point was not as to who was in
the right, she explained, but that certain conventions, laid down by one
whose memory was revered, had been outraged, and she could never permit
her sister or Halcyone to have any intercourse with the tenant of
Wendover Park!
The preparations for the new arrival went on apace all the autumn and
winter. Armies of workpeople were reported to be in possession, and
whole train-loads of splendid French furniture were known to have
arrived at Applewood, to augment the antique and time-worn pieces which
were Wendover's own.
Miss Le Sarthe sent for the Long Man. Things had been rather better of
late, and no more precious belongings had been forced to be parted with.
An investment which had been valueless for years now began to produce
some interest which was a great comfort, for Miss La Sarthe was now
seventy-nine and Miss Roberta seventy-six.
The orders that the agent received were precise. The gate between
Wendover and La Sarthe Chase which had been closed for over a hundred
years was to be boarded up, and their side of the haw-haw which for
nearly a mile divided the two parks was to be deepened and cleared out,
and the spikes mended in any places where the ground might have seemed
to have fallen in sufficiently, or the irons to have become broken
enough to make the passage easy.
This would be unnecessary, Mr. Martin (the Long Man) told her. The
haw-haw was still as perfect as ever and a wonder of concealed traps for
the unwary, but the gate should be seen to at once.
Thus La Sarthe Chase was armed fully against Wendover, when, about
Easter, Mrs. Cricklander decided she would come down and bring a few
friends. It was with a sudden violent beating of the heart that Halcyone
learned casually from Mr. Carlyon that John Derringham would be of their
number.
The aunts took in the _Morning Post_, but until she was eighteen they
had rigorously forbidden Halcyone's perusal of it. Newspapers, except
one or two periodicals, were not fit for young ladies' reading until
they were grown up, they felt. However, their niece, having now come to
years of discretion, sometimes had the pleasure of reading John
Derringham's speeches and thrilled with joy over his felicitous daring
and caustic wit. The Government could not last much longer, but he at
least, as far as he could, would keep it full of vigor until the end.
She knew, therefore, that the last sitting before the Easter recess had
been a storm of words sharp as sword-thrusts--it was before the days of
the language of Billingsgate and the behavior of roughs. There were
quite a number of gentlemen still in the House of Commons, who often
behaved as such.
Those wonderful forces which Halcyone culled from all nature, and
especially the night, gave her a serenity over the most moving events,
and when the sudden beating of her heart was over, she waited calmly for
the moment when she should see John Derringham again.
Mr. Carlyon took in the _Graphic_ as well as his _Quarterly Review_ and
the _Nineteenth Century_, and it was her only medium for guessing even
what the outside world looked like, but from it she was quite aware that
a beard was a most unusual thing for a young modern man of the world,
and that John Derringham for that reason must always be distinguished
from his fellows. Carpenters and hedgers and ditchers wore them, and
nondescript young fellows she remembered seeing when she went into
Upminster with her aunts; but these excursions had been discontinued now
for the past five years, so the villagers of Sarthe-under-Crum and the
denizens of the rather larger Applewood were the only human beings she
ever saw.
The party at Wendover were to arrive on the Thursday before Good
Friday--Priscilla had told her that--and it was just possible that some
of them might be in church.
The aunts now drove a low basket shay which had been their pride in the
sixties, but which for countless years, until the investment began to
pay, they had been unable to keep a pair of ponies for. Now, however,
the shay was unearthed from the moldy coach-house and for the past year
two very old and quiet specimens of Shetland had been found for them by
Mr. Martin and they were able to drive to church every Sunday in state,
William sitting up behind, holding the reins between his mistresses,
while Miss La Sarthe flourished a small whip whose delicate handle was
studded with minute turquoises. From it dangled a ring which she could
slip on her finger over her one-buttoned slate-colored glove, and so
feel certain of not dropping this treasure. Halcyone always walked.
On Good Friday there was not a sight of the Wendover party in church,
and Halcyone went back by the orchard house to look in at Cheiron, who
had had a cold in the last few days.
Stretched in the armchair she found John Derringham.
The brisk walk in the fresh spring air had brought some faint color to
her pale cheeks, her soft hair was wound about her head with becoming
simplicity, and she wore an ordinary suit which could not disguise her
beautiful slender limbs, so long and thin, a veritable Artemis in her
chaste perfection of balance and proportion.
Halcyone could pass in any crowd and perhaps no one would ever notice
her and her mouse-like coloring, but once your eye was arrested, then,
like looking at some rare bit of delicate enamel, you began to perceive
undreamed-of graces which soothed the sight until you were filled with
the consciousness of an exquisite beauty as intangible as her other
charm--distinction. An infinite serenity was in her atmosphere, a
promise of all pure and tender things in her great soft eyes. The
mystery and freshness of the night seemed always to hang about her. Her
ways were noiseless--the most creaking door appeared to forget its
irritating habit when under her touch. Thus it was that John Derringham,
smoking a cigar, never even glanced up until a voice of extreme
cultivation and softness said gently:
"Good morning. And how are you?"
Then he bounded from his chair, startled a little, and held out his
hand.
"My old friend, Miss Halcyone, the Priestess of Truth!" he exclaimed,
"as I am alive!"
She smiled serenely while they shook hands, and sat down demurely by the
Professor's side.
"I thought you would have been translated to Olympus long ago," the
visitor said. "Have you honored this ordinary earth and our friend
Cheiron's cave, ever since?"
"Ever since!"
"There can be nothing left for you to learn. Master, it is you and I
whom she could teach," he laughed.
"How do you know all this?" asked Halcyone quietly, while her eyes
smiled at his raillery. "Do I look such an old-fashioned blue-stocking,
then?"
"You look perfectly sweet," and John Derringham's expressive eyes
confirmed what he said.
"Enough, enough, John. Halcyone is quite unaccustomed to gallants from
the world like you," the Professor growled. "If you pay her compliments
she won't believe you can really make a speech."
So Mr. Derringham laughed and continued his interrupted conversation. He
seemed in good humor with all the world. He was going to stay at
Wendover for the whole of Easter week. Mrs. Cricklander had an amusing
party of luminaries of both sides--she was the most perfect hostess and
had a remarkable talent for collecting the right people.
"She is quite the best-read woman I have ever met, Master," John
Derringham said. "You must let me bring her over here one day to see
you--you would delight in her wit and beauty. She does not leave you a
dull moment."
"Yes, bring her," the Professor returned between the puffs at his long
pipe. "I have never met any of these new hothouse roses grafted upon
briar roots. I should like to study how the system has worked."
"Quite admirably, as you will see. I do not know any Englishwomen who
are to compare to such Americans in brilliancy and fascination."
Over Halcyone, in spite of her serenity, there crept a feeling of cold.
She did not then analyze why, and, as was her habit when anything began
to distress her, she looked out of the window, whether it were night or
day. She always did this, and when her eyes saw Nature in any of her
moods, calm returned to her.
"She will simply revel in La Sarthe Chase when she sees it," Mr.
Derringham went on, now addressing Halcyone. "She is a past-mistress in
knowledge of the dates of things. You are going to have the most
delicious neighbor, Miss Halcyone, and in learning, a foeman worthy of
your steel."
Cheiron was heard to chuckle wickedly, and when his former Oxford pupil
asked him with mild humor the reason of his inappropriate mirth, he
answered dryly:
"She is never likely to see the inside of the park even. Queen Victoria
did not receive divorced persons, and the Misses La Sarthe, in
consequence, cannot either. You will have to bring her here by the road,
John!"
Halcyone winced a little. She disliked this conversation; it was not as
_fine_ as she liked to think were the methods of both the men who were
carrying it on.
John Derringham reddened up to his temples, where there were a few
streaks of gray in his dark hair which added to the distinction of his
finely cut, rather ascetic face. The short, well-trimmed beard was very
becoming, Halcyone thought, and gave him a look of great masculinity and
strength. His hawk's eyes were shadowed, as though he sat up very late
at night; which indeed he did. For John Derringham, at this period of
his life, burnt the candle at both ends and in the middle, too, if it
could add to the pleasure or benefit of his calculated career, mapped
out for himself by himself.
A sensation almost of wrath rose in his breast at his old master's
words. These ignorant country people, to dare to criticise his
glittering golden pheasant, whom he was very nearly making up his mind
to take for a wife! This aspect of the case, that even these unimportant
old ladies could question the position of his choice, galled him. He had
spent up to the last penny of his diminished income in his years of
man's estate, and Derringham was mortgaged to its furthest acre--and a
gentleman must live--and with his brilliant political future expanding
before him, lack of means must not be allowed to stand in his way. He
would give this woman in gratified ambition as much or more than she
would give him in wealth, so it would be an equal bargain and benefit
them both. And, above all, he was more than half in love with her, and
could get quite a large share of pleasure out of the affair as well. He
had been too busy to trouble much over women as a sex since he had left
the University--except in the way he had once described to his old
master, regarding them as flowers in a garden--mere pleasures for sight
and touch, and experiencing ephemeral passions which left no mark. But
women either feared or adored him; and this woman, the desired of a host
of his friends, had singled him out for her especial favors. It had
amused him the whole of the last season; he had defied her efforts to
chain him to her chariot wheels, and in the winter she had gone to
Egypt, and had only just returned. But the charm was growing, and he
felt he would allow himself to be caught in her net.
"Mrs. Cricklander would be very much amused could she hear this verdict
of the county," he said with a certain tone in his voice which did not
escape Halcyone. "In London we do not occupy ourselves with such
unimportant things--but I dare say she will get over it. And now I
really must be going back. May I walk with you through the park, Miss
Halcyone, if you are going, too? I am sure there must be an opening
somewhere, as the two places touch."
"Yes, there is just one," Halcyone said. "The haw-haw runs the whole
way, and it is impossible to pass, except in the one spot, and I believe
no one knows of it but myself. There are a few bricks loose, and I used
to take them out and put them back when I wanted to get into
Wendover--long ago."
"Then it will be an adventure; come," he said, and Halcyone rose.
"Only if you will not give away my secret. Promise you will not tell
anyone else," she bargained.
"Oh! I promise," and John Derringham jumped up--his movements were
always quick and decided and full of nervous force. "I will bring my
hostess to see you on Monday or Tuesday, Master," he announced, as he
said good-by. "And prepare yourself to fall at her feet like all the
rest of us--Merlin and Vivien, you know. It will be a just punishment
for your scathing remarks."
When they were outside in the garden Halcyone spoke not a word. The beds
were a glory of spring bulbs, and every bud on the trees was bursting
with its promise of coming leaf. Glad, chirruping bird-notes called to
one another, and a couple of partridges ran across the lawn.
John Derringham took in the lines of Halcyone's graceful person as she
walked ahead. She had that same dignity of movement from the hips which
the Niké of Samothrace seems to be advancing with as you come up the
steps of the Louvre.
How tall she had grown! She must be at least five feet nine or ten. But
why would she not speak?
He overawed her here in the daylight, and she felt silent and oppressed.
"Whereabouts is our tree that we sat in when I was young and you were
old?" he asked, after they had got through the gap in the hedge. A
little gate had been put in the last years to keep out the increasing
herd of deer.
"It is over there by the copse," she said shyly. "The lower branch fell
last winter, and it makes a delightful seat. One is not obliged to climb
into the tree now. See: Demetrius helped me to drag it close, and we
nailed on these two arms," and she pointed to a giant oak not far from
them, which John Derringham pretended to recognize.
He tried his best to get her to talk to him, but some cloud of timid
aloofness on her part seemed to hang between them, and very soon below
the copse they came to the one vulnerable part in all the haw-haw's
length. She showed him how to take the bricks out and where to place his
feet, and pointed out how secluded from any eye the place was. Then, as
he climbed down and then up again, and looked across at her from
Wendover lands, she said a sedate good-by, and turning, went on among
the thickly growing saplings of the copse and, never looking back, was
soon out of sight.
John Derringham watched her disappear with a strange feeling of ruffled
disquietude in his heart.