"A funeral morn is lit in heaven's hollow,
And pale the star-lights follow."
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
Towards nine o'clock in the evening carriage after carriage began to
drive up to Overleigh in the moonlight. When Di came down, the white
stone hall and the music-room were already crowded with guests, among
whom she recognized Lord Hemsworth, Mr. Lumley, and Miss Crupps, who had
been staying at houses in the neighbourhood for the hunt ball the night
before, and had come on with their respective parties, to the not
unmixed gratification of John.
"Here we are again," said Mr. Lumley, flying up to her. "No favouritism,
I beg, Miss Tempest. Tempest shall carry one skate, and I will take the
other. Hemsworth must make himself happy with the button-hook. Great
heavens! Tempest, whose funeral have you been ordering?"
For at that moment the alarm-bell of the Castle began to toll.
"It is unnecessary to hide in the curtains," said John. "That bell is
only rung in case of fire. It is the signal for lighting up."
And, headed by a band of torches, the whole party went streaming out of
the wide archway, a gay crowd of laughing expectant people, into the
gardens, where vari-coloured lines of lights gleamed terrace below
terrace along the stone balustrades, and Neptune reined in his dolphins
in the midst of his fountain, in a shower of golden spray.
The path down to the lake through the wood was lit by strings of Chinese
lanterns in the branches. The little bridge over the frozen brook was
outlined with miniature rose-coloured lights, in which the miracles
wrought by the hoar-frost on each transfigured reed and twig glowed
flame-colour to their inmost tracery against the darkness of the
overhanging trees.
Di walked with John in fairyland.
"Beauty and the beast," said some one, probably Mr. Lumley. But only the
"beast" heard, and he did not care.
There was a chorus of exclamations as they all emerged from the wood
into the open.
The moon was shining in a clear sky, but its light was lost in the glare
of the bonfires, leaping red and blue and intensest green on the further
bank of the lake, round which a vast crowd was already assembled. The
islands shone, complete circles of coloured light like jewels in a
silver shield. The whole lake of glass blazed. The bonfires flung great
staggering shadows across the hanging woods.
John and Di looked back.
High overhead Overleigh hung in mid air in a thin veil of mist, a castle
built in light. Every window and archer's loophole, from battlement to
basement, the long lines of mullioned lattice of the picture-gallery and
the garret gallery above, throbbed with light. The dining-hall gleamed
through its double glass. The rose window of the chapel was a rose of
fire.
"They have forgotten my window," said John; and Di saw that the lowest
portion of the western tower was dark. Her own oriel window, and
Archie's next it, shone bravely.
Mitty was watching from the nursery window. In the fierce wavering
light she could see John, conspicuous in his Russian coat and peaked
Russian cap, advance across the ice, escorted by torches, to the
ever-increasing multitude upon the further bank. The enthusiastic
cheering of the crowd when it caught sight of him came up to her, as she
sat with a cheek pressed against the lattice, and she wept for joy.
Di's heart quickened as she heard it. Her pride, which had at first
steeled her against John, had deserted to his side. It centred in him
now. She was proud of him. Lord Hemsworth, on his knees before her,
fastening her skates, asked her some question relating to a strap, and,
looking up as she did not answer, marvelled at the splendid colour in
her cheek, and the flash in the eyes looking beyond him over his head.
At a signal from John the band began to play, and some few among the
crowd to dance on the sanded portion of the ice set apart for them; but
far the greater number gathered in dense masses to watch the "musical
ride" on skates which the house-party at Overleigh had been practising
the previous day, which John led with Lady Alice, circling in and out
round groups of torches, and ending with a grand chain, in which Mr.
Lumley and Miss Crupps collapsed together, to the delight of the
spectators and of Mr. Lumley himself, who said he should tell his mamma.
And still the crowd increased.
As John was watching the hockey-players contorted like prawns, wheeling
fast and furious between their flaming goals, which dripped liquid fire
on to the ice, the local policeman came up to him.
"There's over two thousand people here to-night, sir," he said.
"The more the better," said John.
"Yes, sir, and I've been about among 'em, me and Jones, and there's a
sight of people here, sir, as are no tenants of yours, and roughish
characters some of 'em."
"Sure to be," said John. "If there is any horseplay, treat it short and
sharp. I'll back you up. I've a dozen men down here from the house to
help to keep order. But there will be no need. Trust Yorkshiremen to
keep amused and in a good temper."
And, in truth, the great concourse of John's guests was enjoying itself
to the utmost, dancing, sliding, clutching, falling one on the top of
the other, with perfect good humour, shouting with laughter, men, women,
and children all together.
As the night advanced an ox was roasted whole on the ice, and a cauldron
of beer was boiled. There was a tent on the bank in which a colossal
supper had been prepared for all. Behind it great brick fire-places had
been built, round which the people sat in hundreds, drinking, singing,
heating beer and soup. They were tactful, these rough Yorkshiremen; not
one came across to the further bank set apart for "t' quality," where
another supper, not half so decorously conducted, was in full swing by
the boathouse. John skated down there after presiding at the tent.
Perhaps negus and mutton-broth were never handed about under such
dangerous circumstances. The best _Consomme a la Royale_ watered the
earth. The men tottered on their skates over the frozen ground, bearing
soup to the coveys of girls sitting on the bank in nests of fur rugs.
Mr. Lumley and Miss Crupps had supper together in one of the boats, Mr.
Lumley continually vociferating, "Not at home," when called upon, and
retaliating with Genoese pastry, until he was dislodged with oars, when
he emerged wielding the drumstick of a chicken, and a free fight ensued
between him and little Mr. Dawnay, armed with a soup-ladle, which ended
in Mr. Lumley's being forced on to his knees among the mince-pies, and
disarmed.
John looked round for Di, but she was the centre of a group of girls,
and he felt aggrieved that she had not kept a vacant seat for him beside
her, which of course she could easily have done. Presently, when the
fireworks began, every one made a move towards the lower part of the
lake in twos and threes, and then his opportunity came.
He held out his hand to help her to her feet, and they skated down the
ice together. Every one was skating hand in hand, but surely no two
hands trembled one in the other as theirs did.
The evening was growing late. A low mist was creeping vague and billowy
across the land, making the tops of the trees look like islands in a
ghostly sea. The bonfires, burning down red and redder into throbbing
hearts of fire, gleamed blurred and weird. The rockets rushed into the
air and dropped in coloured flame, flushing the haze. The moon peered in
and out.
And to John and Di it seemed as if they two were sweeping on winged feet
among a thousand phantasmagoria, in the midst of which they were the
only realities. In other words, they were in love.
"Come down to the other end of the lake, and let us look at the
fireworks from there," said John; and they wheeled away from the crowd
and the music and the noise, past all the people and the lighted islands
and the boathouse, and the swinging lamps along the banks, away to the
deserted end of the lake. A great stillness seemed to have retreated
there under shadow of the overhanging trees. The little island left in
darkness for the waterfowl, with its laurels bending frozen into the
ice, had no part or lot in the distant jargon of sound, and the medley
of rising, falling, skimming lights. There was no sound save the ringing
of their skates, and a little crackling of the ice among the grass at
the edge.
They skated round the island, and then slackened and stood still to look
at the scene in the distance.
One of the bonfires just replenished leapt one instant lurid high, only
to fall the next in a whirlwind of sparks, and cover the lake with a
rush of smoke. Figures dashed in and out, one moment in the full glare
of light, the next flying like shadows through the smoke.
"It is like a dream," said Di. "If it is one, I hope I shan't wake up
just yet."
To John it was not so wild and incredible a dream as that her hand was
still in his. She had not withdrawn it. No, his senses did not deceive
him. He looked at it, gloved in his bare one. He held it still. He could
not wait another moment. He must have it to keep always. Surely, surely
fate had not thrown them together for nothing, beneath this veiled moon,
among the silver trees!
"Di," he said below his breath.
"There is some one on the bank watching us," said Di, suddenly.
John turned, and in the uncertain light saw a man's figure come
deliberately out of the shadow of the trees to the bank above the ice.
John gave a sharp exclamation.
"What has he got in his hand?" said Di.
He did not answer. He dropped her hand and moved suddenly away from
her. The figure slowly raised one arm. There was a click and a snap.
"Missed fire," said John, making a rush for the edge. But he turned
immediately. He remembered his skates. Di screamed piercingly. In the
distance came the crackling of fireworks, and the murmur of the
delighted crowd. Would no one hear?
The figure on the bank did not stir; only a little steel edge of light
rose slowly again.
There was a sharp report, a momentary puff of light in smoke, and John
staggered, and began scratching and scraping the ice with his skates. Di
raised shrieks that shook the stars, and rushed towards him.
And the cruel moon came creeping out, making all things visible.
"Go back," he gasped hoarsely. "Keep away from me. He will fire again."
And he did so; for as she rushed up to John, and in spite of the
strength with which he pushed her from him, caught him in her arms and
held him tightly to her, there was a second report, and the muff hopped
and ripped in her hand.
She screamed again. Surely some one would come! She could hear the
ringing of skates and voices. Torches were wheeling towards her.
Lanterns were running along the edge. Good God! how slow they were!
"Go back--go back!" gasped John, and his head fell forward on her
breast. He seemed slipping out of her arms, but she upheld him clasped
convulsively to her with the strength of despair.
"Where?" shouted voices, half-way up the lake.
She tried to shriek again, but only a harsh guttural sound escaped her
lips.
The man had not gone away. She had her back to him, but she heard him
run a few steps along the frost-bitten bank, and she knew it was to
make his work sure.
John became a dead weight upon her. She struggled fiercely with him, but
he dragged her heavily to her knees, and fell from her grasp, exposing
himself to full view. There was a click.
With a wild cry she flung herself down upon his body, covering him with
her own, her face pressed against his.
"We will die together! We will die together!" she gasped.
She heard a low curse from the bank. And suddenly there was a turmoil of
voices, and a rushing and flaring of lights all round her, and then a
sharp cry like the fire-engines clearing the London streets.
"I must get him to the side," she said to herself, and she beat her
hands feebly on the ice.
Away in the distance, in some other world, the band struck up, "He's a
fine old English gentleman."
Her hands touched something wet and warm.
"The thaw has come at last," she thought, and consciousness and feeling
ebbed away together.