A SUMMER IDYLL
The summer, of all seasons of the year, is very surely the perfect time
for lovers, and to Sara the days that followed immediately upon her
engagement to Garth Trent were days of unalloyed happiness.
These were wonderful hours which they passed together, strolling
through the summer-foliaged woods, or lazing on the sun-baked sands, or,
perhaps, roaming the range of undulating cliffs that stretched away to
the west from the headland where Far End stood guard.
During those hours of intimate companionship, Sara began to learn the
hidden deeps of Garth's nature, discovering the almost romantic delicacy
of thought that underlay his harsh exterior.
“You're more than half a poet, my Garth!” she told him one day.
“A transcendental fool, in other words,” he amended, smiling.
“Well”--looking at her oddly--“perhaps you're right. But it's too late
to improve me any. As the twig is bent, so the tree grows, you know.”
“I don't want to improve you,” Sara assured him promptly. “I shouldn't
like you to be in the least bit different from what you are. It wouldn't
be my Garth, then, at all.”
So they would sit together and talk the foolish, charming nonsense
that all lovers have talked since the days of Adam and Eve, whilst
from above, the sun shone down and blessed them, and the waves, lapping
peacefully on the shore, murmured an _obbligato_ to their love-making.
Looking backward, in the bitter months that followed when her individual
happiness had been caught away from her in a whirlwind of calamity, and
when the whole world was reeling under the red storm of war, Sara could
always remember the utter, satisfying peace of those golden days of
early July--an innocent, unthinking peace that neither she nor the
world would ever quite regain. Afterwards, memory would always have her
scarred and bitter place at the back of things.
Sara found no hardship now in receiving the congratulations of her
friends--and they fell about her like rain--while in the long, intimate
talks she had with Garth the fact that he would never speak of the
past weighed with her not at all. She guessed that long ago he had been
guilty of some mad, boyish escapade which, with his exaggerated sense
of honour and the delicate idealism that she had learned to know as an
intrinsic part of his temperamental make-up, he had magnified into a
cardinal sin. And she was content to leave it at that and to accept the
present, gathering up with both hands the happiness it held.
She had written to Elisabeth, telling her of her engagement, and, to her
surprise, had received the most charming and friendly letter in return.
“Of course,” wrote Elisabeth in her impulsive, flowing hand with its
heavy dashes and fly-away dots, “we cannot but wish that it had been
otherwise--that you could have learned to care for Tim--but you know
better than any one of us where your happiness lies, and you are right
to take it. And never think, Sara, that this is going to make any
difference to our friendship. I could read between the lines of your
letter that you had some such foolish thought in your mind. So little do
I mean this to make any break between us that--as I can quite realize
it would be too much to ask that you should come to us at Barrow just
now--I propose coming down to Monkshaven. I want to meet the lucky
individual who has won my Sara. I have not been too well lately--the
heat has tried me--and Geoffrey is anxious that I should go away to
the sea for a little. So that all things seem to point to my coming to
Monkshaven. Does your primitive little village boast a hotel? Or, if
not, can you engage some decent rooms for me?”
The remainder of the letter dealt with the practical details concerning
the proposed visit, and Sara, in a little flurry of joyous excitement,
had hurried off to the Cliff Hotel and booked the best suite of rooms it
contained for Elisabeth.
On her way home she encountered Garth in the High Street, and forthwith
proceeded to acquaint him with her news.
“I've just been fixing up rooms at the 'Cliff' for a friend of mine who
is coming down here,” she said, as he turned and fell into step beside
her. “A woman friend,” she added hastily, seeing his brows knit darkly.
“So much the better! But I could have done without the importation
of any friends of yours--male or female--just now. They're entirely
superfluous”--smiling.
“Well, I'm glad Mrs. Durward is coming, because--”
“_Who_ did you say?” broke in Garth, pausing in his stride.
“Mrs. Durward--Tim's mother, you know,” she explained. She had confided
to him the history of her brief engagement to Tim.
Trent resumed his walk, but more slowly; the buoyancy seemed suddenly
gone out of his step.
“Don't you think,” he said, speaking in curiously measured tones, “that,
in the circumstances, it will be a little awkward Mrs. Durward's coming
here just now?”
Sara disclaimed the idea, pointing out that it was the very completeness
of Elisabeth's conception of friendship which was bringing her to
Monkshaven.
“When does she come?” asked Trent.
“On Thursday. I'm very anxious for you to meet her, Garth. She is so
thoroughly charming. I think it is splendid of her not to let my broken
engagement with Tim make any difference between us. Most mothers would
have borne a grudge for that!”
“And you think Mrs. Durward has overlooked it?”--with a curious smile.
Sara enthusiastically assured him that this was the case.
“I wonder!” he said meditatively. “It would be very unlike Elis--unlike
any woman”--he corrected himself hastily--“to give up a fixed idea so
easily.”
“Well”--Sara laughed gaily. “Nowadays you can't _compel_ a person to
marry the man she doesn't want--nor prevent her from marrying the man
she does.”
“I don't know. A determined woman can do a good deal.”
“But Elisabeth isn't a bit the determined type of female you're
evidently imagining,” protested Sara, amused. “She is very beautiful and
essentially feminine--rather a wonderful kind of person, I think. Wait
till you see her!”
“I'm afraid,” said Trent slowly, “that I shall not see your charming
friend. I have to run up to Town next week on--on business.”
“Oh!” Sara's disappointment showed itself in her voice. “Can't you put
it off?”
He halted outside a tobacconist's shop. “Do you mind waiting a moment
while I go in here and get some baccy?”
He disappeared into the shop, and Sara stood gazing idly across the
street, watching a jolly little fox-terrier enjoying a small but meaty
bone he had filched from the floor of a neighbouring butcher's shop.
His placid enjoyment of the stolen feast was short-lived. A minute later
a lean and truculent Irish terrier came swaggering round the corner,
spotted the succulent morsel, and, making one leap, landed fairly on
top of the smaller dog. In an instant pandemonium arose, and the quiet
street re-echoed to the noise of canine combat.
The little fox-terrier put up a plucky fight in defence of his prior
claim to the bone of contention, but soon superior weight began to tell,
and it was evident that the Irishman was getting the better of the fray.
The fox-terrier's owner, very elegantly dressed, watched the battle from
a safe distance, wringing her hands and calling upon all and sundry of
the small crowd which had speedily collected to save her darling from
the lions.
No one, however, seemed disposed to relieve her of this office--for the
Irishman was an ugly-looking customer--when suddenly, like a streak of
light, a slim figure flashed across the road, and flung itself into
the _melee_, whist a vibrating voice broke across the uproar with an
imperative: “Let _go_, you brute!”
It was all over in a moment. Somehow Sara's small, strong hands had
separated the twisting, growling, biting heap of dog into its
component parts of fox and Irish, and she was standing with the little
fox-terrier, panting and bleeding profusely, in her arms, while one
or two of the bystanders--now that all danger was past--drove off the
Irishman.
“Oh! But how _brave_ of you!” The owner of the fox-terrier rustled
forward. “I can't ever thank you sufficiently.”
Sara turned to her, her black eyes blazing.
“Is this your dog?” she asked.
“Yes. And I'm sure”--volubly--“he would have been torn to pieces by that
great hulking brute if you hadn't separated them. I should never have
_dared_!”
Garth, coming out of the tobacconist's shop across the way, joined the
little knot of people just in time to hear Sara answer cuttingly, as she
put the terrier into its owner's arms--
“You've no business to _have_ a dog if you've not got the pluck to look
after him!”
As she and Trent bent their steps homeward, Sara regaled him with
the full, true, and particular account of the dog-fight, winding up
indignantly--
“Foul women like that ought not to be allowed to take out a dog licence.
I hate people who shirk their responsibilities.”
“You despise cowards?” he asked.
“More than anything on earth,” she answered heartily.
He was silent a moment. Then he said reflectively--
“And yet, I suppose, a certain amount of allowance must be made
for--nerves.”
“It seems to me it depends on what your duty demands of you at the
moment,” she rejoined. “Nerves are a luxury. You can afford them when
it makes no difference to other people whether you're afraid or not--but
not when it does.”
“And from what deeps did you draw such profound wisdom?” he asked
quizzically.
Sara laughed a little.
“I had it well rubbed into me by my Uncle Patrick,” she replied. “It was
his _Credo_.”
“And yet, I can understand any one's nerves cracking suddenly--after a
prolonged strain.”
“I don't think yours would,” responded Sara contentedly, with a vivid
recollection of their expedition to the island and its aftermath.
“Possibly not. But I suppose no man can be dead sure of
himself--always.”
“Will you come in?” asked Sara as they paused at Sunnyside gate.
“Not to-day, I think. I had better begin to accustom myself to doing
without you, as I am going away so soon”--smiling.
“I wish you were not going,” she rejoined discontentedly. “I so wanted
you and Elisabeth to meet. _Must_ you go?”
“I'm afraid I must. And it's better that I should go, on the whole.
I should only be raging up and down like an untied devil because Mrs.
Durward was taking up so much of your time! Let her have you to herself
for a few days--and then, when I come back, I shall have you to _myself_
again.”