THE LITTLE HOUSE IN DEANERY STREET
Pamela construed the departure of Tony and his wife together according
to her hopes. They were united again. She was content with that fact,
and looked no further, since her own affairs had become of an
engrossing interest. But the last word has not been said about the
Truants. It was not, indeed, until the greater part of a year had
passed that the section of their history which is related in this book
reached any point of finality.
In the early days of January the Truants arrived in London at the
close of a long visit to Scotland. They got out upon Euston platform,
and entering their brougham, drove off. They had not driven far before
Millie looked out of the window and started forward with her hand upon
the check-string. It was dusk, and the evening was not clear. But she
saw, nevertheless, that the coachman had turned down to the left
amongst the squares of Bloomsbury, and that is not the way from Euston
to Regent's Park. She did not pull the check-string, however. She
looked curiously at Tony, who was sitting beside her, and then leaned
back in the carriage. With her quick adaptability she had fallen into
a habit of not questioning her husband. Since the night in the South
of France she had given herself into his hands with a devotion which,
to tell the truth, had something of slavishness. It was his wish,
apparently, that the recollection of that night should still be a
barrier between them, hindering them from anything but an exchange of
courtesies. She bowed to the wish without complaint. Tonight, however,
as they drove through the unaccustomed streets, there rose within her
mind a hope. She would have stifled it, dreading disappointment; but
it was stronger than her will. Moreover, it received each minute fresh
encouragement. The brougham crossed Oxford Street, turned down South
Audley Street, and traversed thence into Park Street. Millie now sat
forward in her seat. She glanced at her husband. Tony, with a face of
indifference, was looking out of the window. Yet the wonderful thing,
it seemed, was coming to pass, nay, had come to pass. For already the
brougham had stopped, and the door at which it stopped was the door of
the little house in Deanery Street.
Tony turned to his wife with a smile.
"Home!" he said.
She sat there incredulous, even though the look of the house, the
windows, the very pavement were speaking to her memories. There was
the blank wall on the north side which her drawing-room window
overlooked, there was the sharp curve of the street into Park Lane,
there was the end of Dorchester House. Here the happiest years of her
life, yes, and of Tony's, too, had been passed. She had known that to
be truth for a long while now. She had come of late to think that they
were the only really happy years which had fallen to her lot. The
memories of them throbbed about her now with a vividness which was
poignant.
"Is it true?" she asked, with a catch of her breath. "Is it really
true, Tony?"
"Yes, this is our home."
Millie descended from the carriage. Tony looked at her curiously. This
sudden arrival at the new home, which was the old, had proved a
greater shock to her than he had expected. For a little while after
their return to England Millie had dwelt upon the words which Tony had
spoken to her in the _Reserve_ by the sea. He had dreamed of buying
the house in Deanery Street, of resuming there the life which they had
led together there, in the days when they had been good friends as
well as good lovers. That dream for a time she had made her own. She
had come to long for its fulfilment, as she had never longed for
anything else in the world; she had believed that sooner or later Tony
would relent, and that it would be fulfilled. But the months had
passed, and now, when she had given up hope, unexpectedly it had been
fulfilled. She stood upon the pavement, almost dazed.
"You never said a word of what you meant to do," she said with a
smile, as though excusing herself for her unresponsive manner. The
door was open. She went into the house and Tony followed her. They
mounted the stairs into the drawing-room.
"As far as I could," Tony said, "I had the house furnished just as it
used to be. I could not get all the pictures which we once had, but
you see I have done my best."
Millie looked round the room. There was the piano standing just as it
used to do, the carpet, the wall-paper were all of the old pattern. It
seemed to her that she had never left the house; that the years in
Berkeley Square and Regent's Park were a mere nightmare from which she
had just awaked. And then she looked at Tony. No, these latter years
had been quite real--he bore the marks of them upon his face. The
boyishness had gone. No doubt, she thought, it was the same with her.
Tony stood and looked at her with an eagerness which she did not
understand.
"Are you glad?" he asked earnestly. "Millie, are you pleased?"
She stood in front of him with a very serious face. Once a smile
brightened it; but it was a smile of doubt, of question.
"I am not sure," she said. "I know that you have been very kind. You
have done this to please me. But----" And her voice wavered a little.
"Well?" said Tony.
"But," she went on with difficulty, "I am not sure that I can endure
it, unless things are different from what they have been lately. I
shall be reminded every minute of other times, and the comparison
between those times and the present will be very painful. I think that
I shall be very unhappy, much more unhappy than I have ever been, even
lately."
Her voice sank to a whisper at the end. The little house in Deanery
Street, even in her dreams, had been no more than a symbol. She had
longed for it as the outward and visible sign of the complete
reconciliation on which her heart was set. But to have the sign and to
know that it signified nothing--she dreaded that possibility now. Only
for a very few moments she dreaded it.
"I don't think I can endure it, Tony," she said sadly. And the next
moment his arms were about her, and her head was resting against his
breast.
"Millie!" he cried in a low voice; and again "Millie!"
Her face was white, her eyelids closed over her eyes. Tony thought
that she had swooned. But when he moved her hands held him close to
her, held him tightly, as though she dreaded to lose him.
"Millie," he said, "do you remember the lights in Oban Bay? And the
gulls calling at night above the islands?"
"I am forgiven, then?" she whispered; and he answered only--
"Hush!"
But the one word was enough.