Mrs. James Anderton was seated in the Italian parlor with the two
ancient hostesses when Halcyone at last came into their midst. They had
evidently exhausted all possible topics of conversation and were
extremely glad of an interruption.
Miss La Sarthe had been growing more and more annoyed at her
great-niece's lengthy absence, while Miss Roberta felt so nervous she
would like to have sniffed at her vinaigrette, but, alas! the stern eye
of her sister was upon her and she dared not.
Mrs. James Anderton--good, worthy woman--had not passed an agreeable
afternoon either. She felt herself hopelessly out of tune with the two
old ladies, whose exquisitely reserved polished manners disconcerted
her.
She had been made to feel--most delicately, it is true, but still
unmistakably--that she had committed a breach of taste in thus
descending upon La Sarthe Chase unannounced. And instead of the
sensation of complacent importance which she usually enjoyed when among
her own friends and acquaintances, she was experiencing a depressed
sense of being a very small personage indeed.
Her highly colored comely face was very hot and flushed and she rather
restlessly played with her parasol handle. Miss La Sarthe's voice grew a
little acid as she said:
"This is our great-niece, Halcyone La Sarthe, Mrs. Anderton"--and
then--"It is unfortunate that you should have been so long absent,
child."
"I am very sorry," Halcyone returned gently, and she shook hands. She
made no excuse or explanation.
Mrs. Anderton plunged into important matters at once.
"Your father, Mr. Anderton"--how that word "father" jarred upon
Halcyone's sensitive ears!--"wished me to come and see you, dear, and
hopes you will return with me to-morrow to London, for a little visit to
us, that you may make the acquaintance of your brother and sisters."
Halcyone had already made up her mind what to do, before she had left
her room. She would agree to anything they suggested in order to have no
obstacles put in her way--not admitting for a moment that these people
had any authority over her. Then, if in the morning she received a
letter from her Beloved, she would follow its instructions implicitly.
Always having at hand her certain mode of disappearance, she could slip
away, and if it seemed necessary, just leave them to think what they
pleased. Priscilla would be warned to allay at once the anxiety of her
aunts, and for the Andertons she was far too desperate to care what they
might feel.
"Thank you; it is very good of you," she said as graciously as she
could. "My old nurse has told me of your kind invitation, and is already
beginning the preparations. I trust you left Mr. Anderton and my
stepbrother and sisters well?"
"Hoity-toity!" thought Louisa Anderton. "Of the same sort as the old
spinsters. This won't please James, I fear!" But aloud she answered that
the family were all well, and that James Albert, who was thirteen now,
would soon be going to Eton.
Over Halcyone, in spite of her numbness and the tension she was feeling,
though controlled by her firm will, there came the memory of the red,
crying baby, for whose life her own sweet mother had paid so dear a
price. And Mabel and Ethel--noisy, merry little girls!--she had thought
of them so seldom in these latter years--they seemed as far-off shadows
now. But James Anderton and her mother stood out sharp and clear.
The strain and anguish of the day had left her very pale. Mrs. Anderton
thought her plain and most uncomfortably aloof; she really regretted
that she had put into her husband's head the idea of giving this
invitation. He would gladly have left Halcyone alone, but for her kindly
thought. Mabel was just seventeen, and such a handful that her father
had decided she should stay in the schoolroom with her sister for
another year, and Mrs. Anderton had felt it would be a good opportunity
for Halcyone to rejoin the family circle at a time when her presence, if
she proved good-looking, could not in any way interfere with her
stepsister's debut.
And here, instead of being overcome with gratitude and excitement, this
cold, quiet girl was taking it all as quite an ordinary circumstance. No
wonder she, Louisa Anderton, felt aggrieved.
They had hardly time for any more words, for Mrs. Anderton had already
put off her departure by the seven-twenty train from Applewood to
Upminster on purpose to wait for Halcyone, and now proposed to catch the
one at nine o'clock--her fly still waited in the courtyard--and they
made rapid arrangements. Halcyone, accompanied by Priscilla, was to meet
her the next day at the Upminster junction at eleven o'clock, and they
would journey to London together.
And all the while Halcyone was agreeing to this she was thinking, if in
the improbable circumstance that she should get no letter in the
morning, it would be wiser to go to London. There was her Cheiron, who
would help her to get news. But of course she would hear, and all would
be well.
Thus she was enabled to unfreeze a little to her stepfather's wife, who,
as they said good-by at the creaking fly's door, felt some of her soft
charm.
"Perhaps she is shy," she said to herself as she rolled towards the
station. "Anyway, it is restful, after Mabel's laying down the law."
That night Halcyone took her goddess to the little summer house upon the
second terrace.
"If I start with John to-morrow, my sweet," she said, "you will come
with me as I have promised you. But if I must go to that great, restless
city, to find him, then you will wait for me here--safe in your secret
home." And then she looked out over the misty clover-grown pleasance to
the country beyond bathed in brilliant moonlight. And something in the
beauty of it stilled the wild ache in her heart. She would not admit
into her thoughts the least fear, but some unexplained, unconquerable
apprehension stayed in her innermost soul. She knew, only she refused to
face the fact, that all was not well.
Of doubt as to John Derringham's intentions towards her, or his love,
she had none, but there were forces she knew which were strong and could
injure people, and with all her fearlessness of them, they might have
been capable of causing some trouble to her lover--her lover who was
ignorant of such things.
She stayed some time looking at the beautiful moonlit country, and
saying her prayers to that God Who was her eternal friend, and then she
got up to steal noiselessly to bed.
But as she was opening the secret door, to have one more look at the
sky, after she had replaced Aphrodite in the bag, it seemed as though
her lover's voice called her in anguish through the night: "Halcyone!"
and again, "Halcyone! My love!"
She stopped, petrified with emotion, and then rushed back onto the
terrace. But all was silence; and, wild with some mad fear, she set off
hurriedly, never stopping until she came to their trysting tree. But
here there was silence also, only the nightingale throbbed from the
copse, while the faint rustle of soft zephyrs disturbed the leaves.
And Jeb Hart and his comrade saw the tall white figure from their
hiding-place in the low overgrown brushwood, and Gubbs crossed himself
again, for whether she were living or some wraith they were never really
sure.
At the moment when Halcyone opened the secret door, John Derringham was
just recovering consciousness in a luxurious bed at Wendover Park,
whither he had been carried when accidentally found by the keepers in
their rounds about eight o'clock. It was several days since they had
visited this part of the park, and they had lit upon him by a fortunate
chance. He had lain there in the haw-haw, unconscious all that day,
while his poor little lady-love waited for him at the oak gate, and was
now in a sorry plight indeed, as Arabella Clinker bent over him,
awaiting anxiously the verdict of the doctors who had been fetched by
motor from Upminster. Would he live or die?
Her employer had had a bad attack of nerves upon hearing of the
accident, and was now reclining upon her boudoir sofa, quite prostrated
and in a high state of agitation until she should know the worst--or
best.
Arabella listened intently. Surely the patient was whispering something?
Yes, she caught the words.
"Halcyone!" he murmured, and again, "Halcyone--my love!" and then he
closed his eyes once more.
He would live, the physicians said after some hours of doubt--with very
careful nursing. But the long exposure in the wet, twenty-four hours at
least, with that wound in the head and the broken ankle, was a very
serious matter, and absolute quiet and the most highly skilled attention
would be necessary.
It was Arabella who made all the sensible, kind arrangements that night,
and herself sat up with the poor suffering patient until the nurses
could come. But it was Mrs. Cricklander who, dignified and composed,
received the doctors after the consultation with Sir Benjamin Grant next
day, before the celebrated surgeon left for London, and she made her
usual good impression upon the great man.
That the local lights thought far more highly of Arabella did not
matter. Mrs. Cricklander was wise enough to know, it is upon the exalted
that a good effect must be produced.
"And, you are sure, Sir Benjamin, that he will get quite well?" she said
tenderly, allowing her handsome eyes to melt upon the surgeon's face.
"It matters enormously to me, you know." Then she looked down.
Thus appealed to, Sir Benjamin felt he must give her all the assurance
he could.
"Perfectly, dear lady," he said, pressing her soft hand in sympathy. "He
is young and strong, and fortunately it has not touched his brain. But
it will take time and gentlest nursing, which you will see, of course,
that he gets."
"Indeed, yes," the fair Cecilia said. And when they were all gone, she
summoned Arabella.
"You will let me know, Arabella, every minute change in him," she
commanded, "especially when he seems conscious. And you will tell him
how I am watching over him and doing everything for him. I can't bear
sick people--they upset my nerves, and I just can't stand them. But the
moment he is all right enough to see me so that it won't bore me, I'll
come. You understand? Now I must really have a trional and get some
rest."
And when she was alone she went deliberately to the glass and smiled
radiantly to herself as she whispered aloud:
"So he isn't going to die or be an idiot. In a few years he can still be
Prime Minister. And I have got him now, as sure as fate!"
Then she closed her mouth with that firm snap Arabella knew so well,
and, swallowing her sleeping draught, she composed herself for a
peaceful siesta.