AROUND THE CORNER
It was Saturday morning, and a very warm day, when Claudia started out
from the house to meet her sister. The station was nearly a mile away
through the fields. She had refused the offer of the dog-cart, although
after she had been walking a few minutes she rather regretted her
decision. The sun at half-past twelve was grilling, and there was hardly
any breeze to stir the long grass, rich with big ox-eyed daisies, waving
red sorrel, yellow trefoil, and all sorts of field flowers. She kept her
sunshade well over her head, but it is really very tiring to walk in the
heat on an August day.
She wondered why she felt so listless and depressed. Why did she feel
that life was simply a barren desert? Probably it was the result of
having to listen to the pompous old vicar the previous night, who
had engaged in a deep but narrow discussion with Sir John on the
degeneration, ingratitude and irreligion of the working-classes. The talk
had been brought about by the dissatisfaction in the mills at Langton,
some ten miles off, from which Sir John derived a large part of his very
handsome income, and as Claudia had listened, she had wondered with a
mild amusement what Colin would think of the views expressed around the
Currey tablecloth.
She ought not to be depressed when Pat—jolly, good natured Pat—was coming
down to see her, and she tried to be severe with herself as she swept
through the grasses. She must not be gloomy when Pat was coming down to
announce her engagement. True, her own experience of married life had not
been ideal, but Colin was different, and anyway, one had no right to dash
the hopes of the newly-engaged. Some married couples are happy. She must
be glad. She _was_ glad. If it were not that inflated windbag, the vicar,
it must be the remembrance of her own happy anticipations when she had
first become engaged to Gilbert that made her feel blue. The sun to-day
did not seem brilliant and wonderful, but only tiresomely hot. The long,
luscious grass was not an exquisitely soft carpet, but only rather long
for walking. The station was not one mile away, but many miles.
At last, however, the little sleepy station was reached, and she sank
with a sigh of relief on one of its wooden seats.
Pat and Socky did fall out together, and then Socrates, being a friendly
and remembering beast, nearly knocked Claudia down in his demonstration
of joy at seeing her and being once more on _terra firma_.
“Socky, shut up, you beast.... Look out, Claud, he’ll break your
string of pearls.... My dear, you are blooming! If I could burst into
poetry—Socky, leave my ankles alone—I should say you were like a red, red
rose, or an apple-tree, or something equally unlike a woman.... Socky,
come away from that pond. Can’t you see Auntie Claudia has got on a nice,
white muslin frock? Darling, I’m awfully glad to see you.”
How boyish Pat looked in her grey linen coat and skirt, and neat white
silk collar and tie. It seemed almost absurd, the idea of her getting
married. One could easier imagine her having a wrestling bout with her
lover, as did a certain Cornish heroine of fiction. If she had been
espousing some happy-go-lucky, high-spirited youth of her own age it
would have seemed more feasible—but Colin Paton!
“Mother has become a Roman Catholic,” chattered Pat, “or she is going
to become one when there’s a vacancy, or however they do it. Why? Oh!
she’s tired of the professional spooky people, and she now finds that the
‘greatest and only true mysticism’—her words, not mine—is to be found
in religion. She’s going into retreat, she says. As a matter of fact, I
suspect she is going to have a new skin treatment that Rhoda is raving
about, and which takes three weeks, during which time you have to lie
_perdu_. She is going to pray for all of us and repent very picturesquely
of her sins in purple and grey, not being able to commit quite so many
now. She says that her liking for incense foreshadowed this. I told her
she couldn’t become Saint Circe and pose in a stained-glass window,
however much she tried; but her new rôle is to be very patient, oh! so
sweet and patient.” Pat laughed. “She isn’t a bad sort really—she stumped
up for all my bills the other day—only why on earth does she want to pose
so much? Ah! the ‘Three Compasses!’ That’s the ducky window—dost see? If
there were anyone impressionable about I should do the sentimental act
from that window. He would call ‘Let down your hair, let down your hair,
Patricia,’ in a sepulchral voice, and I should carefully remove about
twenty hairpins, two side-combs and a piece of tape, and then lean out
with a fatuous smile.”
“Well, Colin is coming down to-morrow, you tell me. No doubt he will
oblige.”
Pat shook her head. “He’s too sensible for those tricks. Besides, he
doesn’t admire fair hair. I will not let down my hair to a man who
prefers dark hair.”
They entered the inn, and were shown up to a quaint-shaped, homely
bedroom.
“Pat, Lady Currey graciously extended an invitation to you for lunch
to-day, but I told her a fib. I said I was engaged to you for lunch
here.... Now, tell me the—secret.”
“In a minute.... Do you like apples, lots and lots of apples? Would you
like to be buried in apples, rosy-cheeked, luscious apples?” Pat grinned
at her sister as she threw off her coat and commenced to wash her hands.
“I like them tolerably,” smiled Claudia, watching the noisy ducks
waddling in the pond. “But why——?”
“You’ll like them intolerably soon. Wait till they arrive in barrels!
But, as the novels say—I anticipate. Over lunch I will to thee impart
the great news. Glory! Hallelujah! there’s an imitation of a bathroom. I
shall have to bath in instalments, but I had awful visions of an egg-cup
in my bedroom. No, wait till we’ve started lunch.”
“I can guess one thing,” said Claudia, with a slight effort. “You are
going to leave home. The house of Circe will soon be empty of her
children.”
“It will. Where’s that wild beast gone to? He mustn’t kill _all_ the
ducks. Oh, here he is! You idiot, that’s a turnip. Turnips don’t need
catching. You are discredited as a sportsman. Anyone can catch a
turnip.... Well, do you remember the talk we had when I said matrimony
was not for me and you pretended not to believe me?”
“And now——”
“Now I’m sure of it. Look at me well, Claudia. I am a woman to be
respected. Here at this table behold a farmeress! Salute her with the
gravy-spoon!”
“A what!”
“A farmeress—feminine of farmer. I am the legal owner of a fruit-farm in
Canada, and another of England’s unemployed will, at the beginning of
next month, emigrate and leave the sinking ship. It’s rude to stare, my
dear sister. Isn’t it a brilliant idea? Alone I did it. At least, no. I
got the idea and Colin Paton helped me to get the farm and see that it
was genuine and above-board. Why, Claud, old girl, what’s the matter?”
For suddenly Claudia found herself half laughing, half crying, and
nearer hysterics than she had ever been in her life. She had a silly,
light-headed sort of feeling that she could not account for. She seemed
suddenly freed from a suffocating sensation that had oppressed her
lately. She had never before experienced the sensation of wanting to
laugh and cry at the same time. Indeed, she had always despised people
who got so muddled in their emotions. But though she made an effort to
keep on laughing—there was nothing really to cry about—the tears ran down
her cheeks.
“It’s all right, Pat.... It’s being shut up with the Curreys and the
strike, I think.... Oh! Socky!” For the dog, very perturbed, was standing
with his feet on her shoulders, showering moist kisses upon her. “Socky,
go away ... give me some water ... all over.”
Pat surveyed her anxiously, and she saw that although her sister’s
physical health seemed perfect, her eyes were those of a woman who lies
awake at night thinking.
“Claudia, old girl, you want a change. Come to Canada with me next month.
Do—it will do you a lot of good.”
Her sister shook her head and absent-mindedly wiped her eyes on the
serviette. “Go on, tell me more about it.”
Then Pat, her eyes shining with excitement, told how an article on the
future of women as fruit-farmers in Canada had fired her with a desire to
do something real, as she expressed it, to get out of the smug, bandboxy
life she was living. She had consulted Colin, who encouraged her, and
all through the summer they had been investigating various farms that
were for sale, and only a few days ago had they finally settled on one
in the Winnipeg district. “Colin was no end of a help to me,” concluded
Pat, “because, of course, I should have been done in the eye like Martin
Chuzzlewit was. But this is a good farm and belongs to a woman who
wants to give it up, but she has consented to stop with me as long as
I want her, so I can learn the whole box of tricks. Claudia, I know I
shall love it. That’s what I meant by apples just now. I shall send you
barrel-loads, simply barrel-loads.”
Claudia asked if their father and mother had given their consent, though
Patricia was of age and had her own income.
“Yes, in a sort of way. They think I’ll come back in a few months, but I
shan’t. I told you long ago I was a throw-back. I love the earth and all
that pertains to it, and what’s the good of wasting my youth and energies
in what the papers call Society? It’s all right for those who like it.
I’m not slinging any adjectives at it; but I’m not made that way. I
want more scope. But, seriously, will you sail with me next month for a
holiday to see me settled?”
“I should love it, but you see—I’ve got a husband.” Then, half-smilingly,
yet with a touch of sarcasm, she added, “I’ve become useful to him, Pat.
He complimented me the other day on my neatness and method in arranging
some documents for him.”
Pat walked to the little window and said something to herself that was
very like “Damn!”
“But he’s better, isn’t he?” she said, turning round again. “I shall
never forget how scared I was when they got him back to the hotel at Le
Touquet. They had to support him on the grass-roller. I was afraid he
was dead, he looked so awful. I begged him not to go on playing, but you
might as well ask an elephant to tread in a whisper. It was that climb
up to the fourteenth that did it. But his heart is all right again now?
Does one quite get over a thing like that? It’s all vague to me. What’s
the anatomy of a heart? Does something heal up?”
“He will have to be more careful than formerly not to over-exert himself
or get excited. But Neeburg says there are many people with worse trouble
who live to be ninety. But let’s come out into the sunshine and sit under
a tree!” She went to the door which opened on the small garden. “Oh!
isn’t it a glorious day! Come and tell me more about the apples!”
As Claudia went back to Wynnstay that night she wondered what she could
tell Gilbert about the mistake she had made. Was it necessary to go up
and gratuitously inform him that Colin was not engaged to Pat? She had
made a blunder. Ought she to correct a wrong impression? Was it a wrong
impression on anyone but herself? Gilbert’s attitude had certainly been
one of quiet scepticism.
The sun was setting, and the earth was very peaceful and restful after
the hot day, as she walked up the long approach to the house. Now she was
alone, she ought to be able to think out why Pat’s unexpected secret had
moved her so strangely. But somehow, she had no want to probe into her
feelings to-night. She only knew she felt happier than she had done for a
long time. But then, Pat was a cheering person, she would have enlivened
a graveyard. She hummed a little song as she walked, the drowsy birds
twittering a half-hearted accompaniment.
Pat and Colin came to lunch with them next day, for though Pat had made a
hideous grimace at the prospect, she had ultimately agreed that she had
better pretend to be a well-behaved person. She had urged Claudia to go
with her to the station to meet Colin, but her sister had for some reason
undefined, even to herself, pleaded the heat and the distance. Besides,
was he not really coming down to see Pat? Not in a lover-like way, but
still to see her. Was he? Was he?
She took out his last letter from Manchester. Somehow it seemed to read
differently from the day she had received it.
“When are we going to forgather?” it ran. “Letters are always
so inadequate. I have crowds of things to tell you, and why
don’t you write more about yourself? Your account of life
at Wynnstay was most amusing. I could picture the deadly
regularity of its clockwork, but what about the alien in its
midst? Has she become a carefully adjusted machine too? I know
what it must be to live with the Curreys day after day, and
I wish I could help you in some way. I am sending you down a
couple of books I think you will like, and a newspaper-cutting
in which you will see I am described as an earnest, middle-aged
man! Rather a blow, that! I wonder if I do impress people
that way? Of course, it was probably written by some reporter
at the back of the hall, but—’tis a horrid thought. Earnest!
Middle-aged! I’ve still got two thirties to spare....”
At lunch—or, as Sir John would insist on everyone calling it,
luncheon—she did not sit next to him or have an opportunity for any
private conversation. She had to be content with a long look and a smile.
The vicar and his wife always dined with them on Sunday, and there were
two or three other people, quite uninteresting, but very chatty. Claudia
wondered vaguely why uninteresting people generally are chatty.
It was not until nearly four that Claudia found herself free to talk to
Colin, and she had been sitting so long that she jumped to her feet as
the vicaress was lost to sight.
“Let’s go for a little stroll before tea. Colin, do you know the view
from the windmill? It’s rather jolly. Come and see it. Get up, Pat.”
“No, mum, it’s too nerve-racking looking after Socrates. Now he’s chained
to the tree I don’t want to disturb him. No, go thou to the view.
Peradventure thy servant will slumber a little. Those beastly ducks and
a perfectly abominable creature called a guinea-fowl wouldn’t let me
sleep this morning, and the hardness of the bed wouldn’t let me sleep
last night. These facts, combined with an English Sunday lunch (I beg his
pardon—eon) make me what writers call somnolent. Go away and leave me to
somnol.”
Claudia gave a great sigh of relief as they turned out of the gates of
Wynnstay, and he looked at her with quick sympathy.
“It isn’t an exhilarating existence at Wynnstay, is it?” he said. “I know
how you feel about it. But it won’t be for much longer, I gather?”
“No, thank goodness. It _is_ rather dreadful. I either feel perfectly
comatose or so irritably alive that I want to scream. Don’t let us talk
about it. Let me tell you how glad I am at the success of your book. What
a magnificent notice you had in the _Times_. Don’t you feel on top of
yourself?”
“I won’t pretend that I’m not glad. But, honestly, it has been rather a
surprise. I had a horrible feeling all the time I was writing it that it
was _vieux jeu_, that it had all been said before. It is charming to find
people so appreciative,” he concluded modestly.
“You’ve waited and done something worth doing,” said Claudia slowly.
“That was prophesied of you long ago.”
“My waiting was pure laziness,” he said lightly. “The silent man is not
always the wise one, though he does look unutterables.”
“Well, I’m glad, I’m very, very glad,” said his companion simply. “It
gives me quite a thrill when I read the notices. Now tell me about Pat
and her farm.”
Claudia found that he had gone into the whole matter very thoroughly, as
he did everything he took up, and that Pat, through him, had made a very
sound and promising bargain.
“And you approve of Pat going out there?” she said. “It sounds rather
mad. Suppose I took a craze in my head to go out to Canada and farm,
would you do all this for me and pack me off with your blessing?”
He laughed. “You and Pat are two very different propositions. Besides,
you are not a bachelor like Pat.”
“No.”
There was a slight pause.
“Pat doesn’t seem to want to marry. She snaps her fingers at your sex.”
“Oh! that will come later on. She’ll marry right enough one day, when the
right man comes along. Pat isn’t unfeminine or a crank.”
Claudia shot a sideways glance at him as they walked in step together.
They were passing a hedge fragrant with honeysuckle and she stopped and
picked a piece.
“Do you know—oh! do you mind getting that top piece—I once thought you
had a—a fancy for her.”
He looked down at her, honeysuckle in hand, a curious twinkle in his grey
eyes. “I’m very fond of Pat, but not as a wife, thank you. I’m neither
old enough nor young enough for her. Middle-age would not mate well with
the Amazon.”
“What ridiculous nonsense! The reporter was blind. You don’t look
middle-aged.... Are you ever going to take a wife, Colin? Thank you.
Doesn’t it smell sweet?”
They were approaching the top of the hill on which stood the windmill
revolving very slowly, and from whence a magnificent view of the country
around could be obtained. Perhaps the jerks in their conversation were
due to the need of economy in breathing, for the climb was fairly steep.
“Do you insist on my marrying?”
“No ... of course not.... Isn’t it hot? Why did I choose this walk? But
most men get married sooner or later, and—you—don’t dislike women, do
you? You’re not unmasculine or a crank! But as a matter of fact,” she
added recklessly and breathlessly, “I’d rather you didn’t, I think.”
She thought he gave a little exclamation, but she could not be sure.
“Why would you rather—I didn’t?”
“Married friends are never the same as before they were married. Oh! here
we are at the top at last! Isn’t the view worth the climb? No, please,
don’t get married. I—I don’t want you to.”
What was she saying? She hardly knew, except that it was the truth, the
plain, unvarnished truth. She had really _hated_ the idea of his marrying
anyone, even Pat. There was something in the air this warm summer
afternoon that made her take a reckless joy in saying the things she
should have decently hid.
“I—I don’t want you to,” she repeated, suddenly raising her eyes to his
as they stood side by side, each apparently a little breathless still.
She found he was looking at her and the quiet strength of his face was
all broken up. The eyes looked at her as they had looked once before.
When? When she had been flirting with Frank Hamilton at her mother’s.
And suddenly she knew.
* * * * *
It was as though something that had always been hiding round the corner
for many years unexpectedly came into view. And with the knowledge came
a rush of joy, so great, so overpowering, that she reeled. Instinctively
she put out her hands and he took them in his.
“Colin, I never knew until just this minute. Isn’t it curious.... I’m so
glad, so glad.”
The hands held hers very tightly, the warm, capable hands that had
always held her heart so safely, so securely, if she had only known it.
He was looking at her as though he could never look enough. She knew now
the love that she had wanted so badly, so desperately, had been at her
side all the time, faithful, tender, and, what means so much to a woman,
understanding.
The scent of the honeysuckle, delicately persistent over the other field
flowers, was around them both. The windmill across the field was giving
slow, rheumatic creaks. A bird was chirping noisily in the bushy hedge.
“Claudia, you can’t mean that you——”
“Yes.... I think I have always loved you, only I didn’t realize it.
The very strength of my love made it so quiet that I didn’t notice it.
When you are a girl you imagine that love will come with a great stir
and noise, with a flourish of trumpets, so that all your senses will be
deafened, and you will be bound a captive. One doesn’t think of it as
a great, noiseless, silent thing.” She gave a queer little laugh that
was a half sigh. “One always expects the big drum, a sort of circus, in
fact.... Oh, my dear! I’m so glad I know. That’s all I can think of now.”
As she looked at him she saw that his love for her had taken its
toll. There were little lines round the eyes—lines of repression, of
unsatisfied desire that had not been there when she first knew him. He
had suffered in that year in the Argentine when, because he was very
human, he could not bear the sight of her happiness, when he had fled
from her. He had schooled himself to be her friend, to aid her whenever
she should call upon him, after that year, but it had not been done
easily. Most men would have ridden away, unable to fulfil the demands of
friendship, unwilling to bear the continued sting which the sight of her
brought them. She saw now that his one aim had always been to make her
happy, he himself had always come in a poor second. Gilbert had wanted
her to make him happy, and she had chosen—Gilbert!
“Oh, Colin!” she cried, “I don’t deserve that you should have gone on
caring for me all this time.”
“Claudia, I can’t believe it. I’ve hungered for your love so long that,
like a starving man, I can’t eat. I tried to be content with your
friendship. I tried not to think of you in any other way, even when——”
“Yes?”
How steady and tender her eyes were.
“Even when I knew you were not happy. I’d given up all hope. I had almost
made myself believe I was content with your platonic affection.”
She laughed a little mischievously.
“Shall I take my love back? Ah, no! I couldn’t. It’s been out of my
keeping so long. Yes, it’s true, Colin.” She blushed hotly. “I will be
honest. I have felt passion for two other men, Gilbert—I thought that
was passion born of love—and another. But the best part of me has always
mated with you, always loved you. And yet I didn’t discover it until I
thought you were going to marry Pat.”
The word _marry_ sobered both of them a little, but did not detract from
their happiness.
“Colin,” she said gently, “why did you let me marry Gilbert? I asked you
once before in a different form. I think—I am almost sure, I was ripe for
love in those old days when we used to poke round picture-galleries and
book-shops together. I was always perfectly happy with you. Didn’t that
mean love? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“My dear, I wanted to give you plenty of time. Perhaps it was a mistake,
but I felt it was your due. You were so young, so beautiful, such a
success in Society, that I wanted you to have every chance. I’m nothing
in particular, and I didn’t feel it was fair to press my suit until you’d
got to know what the world and men were like. You see, you were always
a little romantic, idealistic, enthusiastic, and such women as you are
difficult to woo fairly. One is afraid to take advantage of you. Because
we were good chums didn’t necessarily mean that you could be happy with
me as a husband.”
“And yet isn’t friendship, comradeship, the best foundation for marriage?”
“Some people say yes, some say no. I suppose one can’t generalize. It
depends on temperament, age, experience, many things. I adored you, but
that was natural. There were any amount of men who adored you. I thought
I knew those you were at all likely to marry. Oh! I watched carefully,
sometimes agonizedly. And then, as you turned them down one by one,
I began to hope.... Your engagement to Gilbert came as a bomb-shell.
Gilbert, my old college friend! Why, I was hardly aware you knew him,
except that you had been neighbours as children.”
“I didn’t.... He just carried me off my feet. I can’t think, even now,
how it happened ... a sort of intoxication—youth, music, passion. In
those days he was very much the male animal, and you see ... it was the
flourish of trumpets ... I was deafened ... I thought it was the real
thing, just because I was moved. When will women learn that the men who
move them physically are not always the men they really love? No one can
say I was brought up ignorantly; there were certain broad-minded, lax
ideas I grew up with side by side, but I didn’t know. I thought it was
love, because I liked the feeling of his arms around me. The two things
are so horribly alike at crucial moments. If only they were differently
dressed!”
“I know.... I never moved you that way.”
“You never tried. If I had once thought of you as a possible lover
... who knows? At least, I have learned what a large part a woman’s
imagination plays in the game of love, but the woman is poor indeed who
finds nothing for her imagination to feed on after marriage.... Why,”
she exclaimed in wonderment, “I can’t imagine life without you. As I look
back I see that our friendship has been a thread in my life for years,
and I really believe the whole fabric would fall to pieces without it.
Unconsciously I have always turned to you, always applied your standards
to things.”
“Claudia!”
“Yes.... I think _you_ saved me from a terrible mistake.... You said I
wasn’t to speak of it. But I must now, just this once, then it goes into
the realm of things utterly forgotten. You remember the night you found
me on the stairs.... I expect you guess somewhere near the truth. Don’t
look like that. It was as much my fault as his. I was ready to snatch at
anything to fill my life. I thought I could—but I couldn’t.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference to me,” he said steadily. “I should
have understood the reasons that drove you to it.”
She looked at him, and marvelled that what he said _was_ true.
“But I’m glad,” she whispered, “that I—couldn’t. It would have made a
difference to _me_. I think we should not have been standing here now. It
wouldn’t have lasted, I should have gone on plunging.... Let me tell you
something. That night your card was on the mantelpiece in the studio. I
picked it up, and from that moment my mood changed. Somehow you seemed in
the room with us.... Then I hated the way he had painted me. I knew you
wouldn’t like it, and I wouldn’t like you to see it exhibited. I didn’t
want to be that woman—because of you. I see it now. I didn’t understand
why my mood changed at the time. Now it’s clear to me, and I can only
marvel that I have been blind so long.” The mingled tenderness and
strength of her face were very beautiful, as she added, “That temptation
can never happen again. I shan’t feel so restless any more.”
He drew in a deep breath. “Claudia, it’s like an impossibly sweet dream
that you should be saying these things to me. I know what you have meant
to me for years; but that I can mean anything to you! Is it all quite
real? You are sure it doesn’t come from your generous heart, just to
comfort me, now you have found out my secret?”
“It’s real,” she smiled, standing in front of him, and putting a piece
of the honeysuckle in his buttonhole. “It’s the only thing that is real
in my life. Fay and I have both been trying to fight, each in our own
way—she’s helped me too with her pluck and courage, but now this makes
the fight much easier. Now I shall go on almost happily, because I’ve got
my wish, the greatest wish in the world.”
“And that is——?”
“To be first with the man I love. I am first, am I not?”
“Don’t you know? Need you ask? If—if I ever had the chance, my one aim
would be to make _you_ happy, because—a man is always selfish, you
see—that would make me happy.”
“And that knowledge does make me happy. You and I belong to one another,
just as much as if we were married, wherever we are, whatever we may do.”
Then she gave a little laugh of contentment, and threw out her arms to
the countryside, so green and smiling all around them. “This afternoon
you and I, Colin, are on the top of the hill. We’ve climbed away from the
stuffy, humdrum houses in the valleys. To-day we can shout and sing and
be glad! Do you know, I seem to hear that Sullivan madrigal ringing in my
ears, ‘All creation seems to say, earth was made for man’s delight’—do
you remember? I am so happy, so happy. But it won’t always be as easy as
it is this afternoon. We’re of the earth, earthy. At least, I am very
earthy sometimes.”
“My darling,” he cried, passionately, more moved than he had ever been in
his life, “you are the most wonderful woman in the world!”
“Dearest, shall I tell you a secret in the greatest of confidence? You
won’t tell anyone? _I’m not._ I like to think you think so, but I’m the
most ‘ornery’ person, really. I shan’t remain on the hill-top. I shall
sigh and groan and grunt inwardly, and—I shall want you just as much as
you’ll want me.... I should hate to think you were too placid without me,
I should hate to see serene, ethereal content in your eyes.... But if
you know I’m feeling just as you are feeling, but, like you, resolutely
sitting on those feelings, it makes it easier, doesn’t it? Sexless,
unemotional people never helped anyone. And because we look things in the
face we won’t be afraid to meet as friends; we won’t run away from our
happiness and—our pain; we won’t fret because of a mistake that we can’t
alter, will we? We’ll just make the best of what we have, shall we?”
“Everything shall always be exactly as you wish,” he said, raising her
hands to his lips. For a moment she wished that he would take her in his
arms and kiss her, just once. Then she knew that he was right. Things
in the future would be hard enough without that memory. For this was no
sudden rush of passion that she felt, so that she longed to have his arms
close round her. This man, standing on the hill-top with her, was her
mate, her man, and naturally all that she had or was was his, by Nature’s
unalterable laws. If she could have then and there gone away with him,
there would have been no hesitation, no fear, no breathlessness, only a
joyous and calm acceptance of the beauty that such mating would hold for
them.
After a while he said, “I shall go back to Manchester to-morrow, but at
any time you send me the word ‘Come,’ I shall be with you by the next
train. If you feel you want to talk to me, if you are in any difficulty,
you won’t hesitate to send for me?”
“No.”
When they arrived back at Wynnstay they found only stewed tea, an empty
cake-dish, Patricia and an unrepentant cheerful Socrates under the trees.
“He demolished the plate of cakes at one fell swoop when my back was
turned, and Lady Currey has gone into the house in disgust. She finally,
I am sure, washed her hands of the Iverson family. A little cold stew?”
Her blue eyes, at present so sexless and so keen, noted the exaltation of
the hill-top upon their glad faces, and she raised her eyebrows as she
peered into the teapot.
“Well, she’s tumbled to it at last,” she muttered. “And I can go to
Canada with an easy mind. I don’t care what she does or does not do with
Colin Paton.”
“What on earth are you muttering about, Pat?” laughed Colin. “Is it an
incantation to the Family Genie—the teapot?”
Pat looked at him with a broad and bland smile.
“I was thinking out your epitaph, Colin Paton. But it will keep for a few
years yet.”