It was John Derringham who was taciturn next morning, not the Professor!
The light of day has a most sobering effect, and while still exalted in
a measure by all the strong forces of love, he was enabled to review
worldly events with a clearer eye, and could realize very well that he
was going to take a step which would not have a forwarding impetus upon
his career, even if it proved to be not one of retrogression.
He must give up the thought of using a rich wife as an advancement; but
then, on the other hand, he would gain a companion whose divine
sweetness would be an ennobling inspiration.
How he could ever have deceived himself in regard to his feelings he
wondered now, for he saw quite plainly that he had been drifting into
loving her from the first moment he had seen her that Good Friday
morning, the foundations having been laid years before, on the day in
the tree.
He felt rather uncomfortable about his old master, who he knew would not
approve of any secret union with Halcyone. Not that Cheiron would reck
much of conventionalities, or care in the least if it were a marriage at
a registry-office or not, but he would certainly resent any aspect of
the case which would seem to put a slight upon his much-loved protégée
or place her in a false position.
He would tell him nothing about it until it was an accomplished fact and
Halcyone was his wife--then they would let him into the secret.
All the details of what she would have to say to her aunts in her letter
of farewell on leaving them would have to be thought out, too, so that
no pursuit or inopportune prying into the truth would be the
consequence.
Of any possibility of her stepfather's ultimate interference he did not
think, not knowing that she had even any further connection with him. To
satisfy in some way the ancient aunts was all that appeared a necessity.
And that was difficult enough. He had certainly undertaken no easy task,
but he did not regret his decision. The first and only strong passion he
had ever known was mastering him.
But there was yet one more unpleasant aspect to face--that was the
situation regarding Mrs. Cricklander. He had assuredly not committed
himself or even acted very unfairly to her. She had been playing a game
as he had been. He did not flatter himself that she really loved
him--now that he knew what love meant--and her ambition could be
gratified elsewhere; but there remained the fact that he was engaged to
stay with her for Whitsuntide, and whether to do so, and plainly show
her that he had meant nothing and only intended to be a friend, or
whether to throw the visit over, and go to London, returning just to
fetch Halcyone about Wednesday, he could not quite decide.
Which would be the best thing to do? It worried him--but not for long,
because indecision was not, as a rule, one of his characteristics, and
he soon made up his mind to the former course.
He would go to Wendover on Saturday, as was arranged, take pains to
disabuse his hostess's mind of any illusion upon the subject of his
intentions, and, having run over to Bristol this afternoon to give
notice to the registrar and procure the license, he would leave with the
other guests on the Tuesday, after lunch, having sent his servant up to
London in the morning to be out of the way.
Then he would sleep that night in Upminster, getting his servant to
leave what luggage he required there--it was the junction for the main
line to London, and so that would be easy. A motor could be hired, and
in it, on the Wednesday, he would come to the oak avenue gate, as that
was far at the other side of the park upon the western road; there he
would arrange that Halcyone should be waiting for him with some small
box, and they would go over to Bristol, be married, and then go on to a
romantic spot he knew of in Wales, and there spend a week of bliss!
By the time he got thus far in his meditations he felt intoxicated
again, and Mr. Carlyon, who was watching him as he sat there in his
chair reading the _Times_ opposite him, wondered what made him suddenly
clasp his hands and draw in his breath and smile in that idiotic way
while he gazed into space!
Then there would be the afterwards. Of course, that would be blissful,
too. Oh! if he could only claim her before all the world how glorious it
would be--but for the present that was hopeless, and at all events her
life with him would not be more retired than the one of monotony which
she led at La Sarthe Chase, and would have his tenderest love to
brighten it. He would take a tiny house for her somewhere--one of those
very old-fashioned ones shut in with a garden still left in Chelsea,
near the Embankment--and there he would spend every moment of his spare
time, and try to make up to her for her isolation. Well arranged, the
world need not know of this--Halcyone would never be _exigeante_--or if
it did develop a suspicion, ministers before his day had been known to
have had--_chères amies_.
But as this thought came he jumped from his chair. It was, when faced in
a concrete fashion, hideously unpalatable as touching his pure, fair
star.
"You are rather restless to-day, John," the Professor said, as his old
pupil went hastily towards the open window and looked out.
"Yes," said John Derringham. "It is going to rain, and I must go to
Bristol this afternoon. I have to see a man on business."
Cheiron's left penthouse went up into his forehead.
"Matters complicating?" was all he said.
"Yes, the very devil," responded John Derringham.
"Beginning to feel the noose already, poor lad?"
"Er--no, not exactly," and he turned round. "But I don't quite know what
I ought to do about her--Mrs. Cricklander."
"A question of honor?"
"I suppose so."
The Professor grunted, and then chuckled.
"A man's honor towards a woman lasts as long as his love. When that
goes, it goes with it--to the other woman."
"You cynic!" said John Derringham.
"It is the truth, my son. A man's point of view of such things shifts
with his inclinations, and if other people are not likely to know, he
does not experience any qualms in thinking of the woman's feelings--it
is only of what the world will think of _him_ if it finds him out.
Complete cowards, all of us!"
John Derringham frowned. He hated to know this was true.
"Well, I am not going to marry Mrs. Cricklander, Master," he announced
after a while.
"I am very glad to hear it," Cheiron said heartily. "I never like to see
a fine ship going upon the rocks. All your vitality would have been
drawn out of you by those octopus arms."
"I do not agree with you in the least about any of those points," John
Derringham said stiffly. "I have the highest respect for Mrs.
Cricklander--but I can't do it."
"Well, you can thank whichever of your stars has brought you to this
conclusion," growled the Professor. "I suppose I'll pull through somehow
financially," the restless visitor went on, pacing the floor--"anyway,
for a few years; there may be something more to be squeezed out of
Derringham. I must see."
"Well, if you are not marrying that need not distress you," Cheiron
consoled him with. "Those things only matter if a man has a son."
John Derringham stopped abruptly in his walk and looked at his old
master.
His words gave him a strange twinge, but he crushed it down, and went on
again:
"It is a curse, this want of money," he said. "It makes a man do base
things that his soul revolts against." And then, in his restless moving,
he absently picked up a volume of Aristotle, and his eye caught this
sentence: "The courageous man therefore faces danger and performs acts
of courage for the sake of what is noble."
And what did an honorable man do? But this question he would not go
further into.
"You were out very late last night, John," Mr. Carlyon said presently.
"I left this window open for you on purpose. The garden does one good
sometimes. You were not lonely, I hope?"
"No," said John Derringham; but he would not look at his old master, for
he knew very well he should see a whimsical sparkle in his eyes.
Mr. Carlyon, of course, must be aware of Halcyone's night wandering
proclivities. And if there had been nothing to conceal John Derringham
would have liked to have sat down now and rhapsodized all about his
darling to his old friend, who adored her, too, and knew and appreciated
all her points. He felt bitterly that Fate had not been as kind to him
as she might have been. However, there was nothing for it, so he turned
the conversation and tried to make himself grow as interested in a
question of foreign policy as he would have been able to be, say, a year
ago. And then he went out for a walk.
And Cheiron sat musing in his chair, as was his habit.
"The magnet of her soul is drawing his," he said to himself. "Well, now
that this has begun to work, we must leave things to Fate."
But he did not guess how passion on the one side and complete love and
trust upon the other were precipitously forcing Fate's hand.
The possibility of John Derringham's sending a message to Halcyone was
very slender. The post was out of the question--she probably never got
any letters, and the arrival of one in a man's handwriting would no
doubt be the cause of endless comment in the household. The foolishness
had been not to make a definite appointment with her when they had
parted before dawn. But they had been too overcome with love to think of
anything practical in those last moments, and now the only thing would
be for him to go again to-night to the tree, and hope that she would
meet him there. But the sky was clouding over, and rain looked quite
ready to fall. As a last resource he could send Demetrius--his own valet
he would not have trusted a yard.
The rain kept off for his journey to Bristol, and his business was got
through with rapidity. And if the registrar did connect the name of John
Derringham, barrister-at-law, of the Temple, London, with John
Derringham, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he was a
man of discretion and said nothing about it.
It was quite late when Mr. Carlyon's guest returned to his
roof--cross-country trains were so tiresome--and it had just begun to
pour with rain, so there was no use expecting that Halcyone would be
there by the tree. And bed, with a rather feverish sensation of
disappointment, seemed John Derringham's portion.
Halcyone had passed a day of happy tranquillity. She was of that godlike
calm which frets not, believing always that only good could come to her,
and that, as she heard nothing from her lover, it was because--which was
indeed the truth--he was arranging for their future. If it had been fine
she had meant to go to the tree, but as it rained she went quietly to
her room, and let her Priscilla brush her hair for an hour, while she
stared in the old dark glass, seeing not her own pale and exquisite
face, but all sorts of pictures of future happiness. That she must not
tell her old nurse, for the moment, of her good fortune was her one
crumpled rose-leaf, but she had arranged that when she went she would
post a letter at once to her, and Priscilla would, of course, join her
in London, or wherever it was John Derringham would decide that she
should live. The thought of leaving her aunts did not so much trouble
her. The ancient ladies had never made her their companion or encouraged
her to have a single interest in common with them. She was even doubtful
if they would really miss her, so little had they ever taken her into
their lives. For them she was still the child to be kept in her place,
however much she had tried to grow a little nearer. Then her thoughts
turned back to ways and means.
She so often spent the whole day with Cheiron that her absence would not
be remarked upon until bedtime. But then she suddenly remembered, with a
feeling of consternation, that the Professor intended to leave on the
Tuesday in Whitsun week for his annual fortnight in London. If the
household knew of this, it might complicate matters, and was a pity.
However, there was no use speculating about any of these things, since
she did not yet know on which day she was to start--to start for
Paradise--as the wife of her Beloved!
Next morning it was fine again, and she decided she would go towards
their tree, and if John were not there, she would even go on to the
orchard house, because she realized fully the difficulty he would find
in sending her a message.
But he was there waiting for her, in the bright sunlight, and she
thought him the perfection of what a man should look in his well-cut
gray flannels.
John Derringham knew how to dress himself, and had even in his oldest
clothes that nameless, indescribable distinction which seems often to be
the birthright of Englishmen of his class.
The daylight made her timid again; she was no more the imperious goddess
of the night. It was a shy and tender little maiden who nestled into the
protecting strong arms of her lover.
He told her all his plans: how he had given notice for the license, and
that it would be forthcoming. And he explained that he had chosen
Bristol rather than Upminster because in this latter place everyone
would know the name of La Sarthe--even the registrar's clerk and whoever
else they would secure as a witness--but in Bristol it might pass
unnoticed.
They discussed what should be done about Cheiron and the old ladies, and
decided that when to apprise the former of their marriage must be left
to John's discretion; and as Halcyone would not be missed until the
evening, they would simply send two telegrams from Bristol in the late
afternoon, one to Miss La Sarthe and one to Priscilla, the former
briefly to announce that Halcyone was quite safe and was writing, and
the latter asking her old nurse not to let the old ladies feel worried,
and promising a letter to her, also.
"Then," John Derringham said, "you will be my wife by that time,
sweetheart, and you will tell your aunts the truth, ask them to keep our
secret, and say that you will return to them often, so that they shall
not be lonely. We will write it between us, darling, and I do not think
they will give us away."
"Never," returned Halcyone, while she looked rather wistfully towards
the house. "They are too proud."
He dropped her hand for an instant; the unconscious inference of this
speech made him wince. She understood, then, that she was going to do
something which her old kinswomen would think was a hurt to their pride,
and so would be silent over it in consequence. And yet she did not
hesitate. She must indeed love him very much.
A tremendous wave of emotion surged through him, and he looked at her
with reverence and worship. And for one second his own part of utter
selfishness flashed into his understanding, so that he asked, with
almost an anxious note in his deep, assured voice:
"You are not afraid, sweetheart, to come away--for all the rest of your
life--alone with me?"
And often in the after days of anguish there would come back to him the
memory of her eyes, to tear his heart with agony in the
night-watches--her pure, true eyes, with all her fresh, untarnished soul
looking out of them into his as they glistened with love and faith.
"Afraid?" she said. "How should I be afraid--since you are my lord and I
am your love? Do we not belong to one another?"
"Oh, my dear," he said, as he folded her to his heart in wild,
worshiping passion, "God keep you always safe, here in my arms."
And if she had known it, for the first time in his life there were tears
in John Derringham's proud eyes. For he knew now he had found her--the
one woman with a soul.
Then they parted, when every smallest detail was settled, for she had
promised to help Miss Roberta with a new design for her embroidery, and
he had promised to join Mrs. Cricklander's party for an early lunch.
They intended to make an excursion to see the ruins of Graseworth Tower
in the afternoon.
"And indeed we can bear the separation now, my darling," he said,
"because we shall both know that we must go through only four more days
before we are together--for always!"
But even so it seemed as if they could not tear themselves apart, and
when he did let her go he strode after her again and pleaded for one
more kiss.
"There!" she whispered, smiling while her eyes half filled with mist.
"This tree is forever sacred to us. John, it is listening now when I
tell you once more that I love you."
And then she fled.