GOLDEN DAYS
The time went peacefully with Nelly and the mother in the little house
among the Sussex woods. And presently, since Nelly showed no indication
of wishing to join them, and could not be spared indeed, and since Robin
was plainly ill at ease yachting up and down the coast, the General
declared his intention of going off to a grouse-moor in Scotland, rented
by an old friend, over which he had shot year after year for many years
back.
On hearing of this sudden change of plans Robin expressed a polite
regretfulness, but the General looked at him with twinkling eyes--he and
Robin had come to be on the best of terms of late--and bade him be off
to Dublin without any confounded hypocrisy about it.
"You've been wishing me anywhere, my lad, this last week or two except
aboard the _Seagull_," he said. "Not but what you've borne with me--oh,
yes, you've borne with me; a lad of my own couldn't have done more: and
now you've earned your reward."
So the General went off northward for what was left of the grouse
season. Later, he was to go into Sussex for the partridge and pheasant
shooting, not so far from where Nelly was living in a state of blissful
peace, with excellent reports of Langrishe's recovery coming by every
mail.
And be sure, the _Seagull_ spread her white wings and flew, as fast as
wind and wave could carry her, across the Irish Sea.
Sir Robin presented himself unannounced at the little house in Wistaria
Terrace, where the youngest but two of the Miss Grays opened the door
half-way to him, and was visibly alarmed at the sound of his title.
The little house smelt of cookery, perhaps of washing, although doors
and windows were open. But little Robin Drummond cared for that. Beyond
the demure child who had admitted him he caught sight of Mary sitting on
the shabby little grass-plot, in a wicker-chair, with a Japanese
umbrella over her head. And roses could not have been sweeter than the
atmosphere.
The simplicity which belonged to his character came out in his dealings
with Mary's family. Walter Gray came home to find his daughter's grand
lover stretching his long figure on the grass at her feet, while the
smaller Grays, their shyness quite departed, rolled and tumbled over him
as confident as puppies. To be sure Walter Gray, with his disbelief in
distinctions of rank as otherwise than accidental, was not unduly elated
by the fine company in which he found himself. He looked hard and long
at Robin Drummond as hand met hand. Then a bright look of reassurance
came over his face. He could trust even Mary to the owner of those eyes.
They discovered a deal in common later on as they walked, with Mary for
a third, in the long twilight and early moonlight. Walter Gray imparted
his secret thoughts as to a spiritual brother. His dreams, his
aspirations, his Utopia of a world as he would have made it, he laid
bare to Robin Drummond in his slow, easy talk, with a hand through his
arm.
"He was born to be a great man," Robin Drummond said to Mary later, in a
generous enthusiasm, "and he shall not miss his vocation. He must have
leisure and ease. When we are married he shall have a corner of the
Court to himself, and he shall put his dreams into black and white. I
know the room; it looks into an elm-tree, and the owner of the room has
the key to the birds' secrets. There is an oriel window, and in the room
is a little old organ, yet wonderfully sweet. You shall play to him when
he lacks inspiration."
"He could do better with the young ones about him and the mother
grumbling placidly in his ear," said Mary.
"Then they shall have the Cottage. It is within the walls and looks to
the mountains. It is a roomy old place and has a big overgrown garden of
its own."
"I wonder if he will take it from you?"
"He will have to," said the lover.
Then they went back to supper: and he was introduced to Gerald, the
young bank-clerk, whose mind was not yet cured of the fever for the sea,
who had a roving eye in his smooth young face; and Marcella, the eldest
one of the young Grays, who was a typist in the same employment as her
father. And though at first the young people were shy of Mary's lover
they were quickly at home with him. The fine breeding of Walter Gray had
passed on, to some extent, to every one of his children.
"It will be my privilege to look after them," Robin Drummond said to
Mary. "As for the lad, he will never be a financier. He is too old for
the Navy, but why should he not learn the seaman's trade on the yacht?
He has a pining look which I don't altogether like."
"It will be said that you are marrying all my people," Mary said
uneasily.
"We shall not hear it said," her lover answered placidly. "We shall be
out of hearing of that sort of thing."
When their friendship had the ratification of weeks upon it he broached
the matter of the cottage to Walter Gray. They were walking together as
they usually did of evenings; and Walter Gray walked with a stick,
leaning on him, with the other hand thrust through his arm. He had a
groping way of walking, which Drummond had noticed and ascribed to his
abstraction from the things about him. After Drummond had unfolded his
plans there was a silence, during which he watched Walter Gray
curiously. Was he going to refuse, as Mary had suggested?
They were near a lamp on the suburban road which stood up in the boughs
of a lime, making a green flame of the tree. Walter Gray pulled up
suddenly and lifted his eyes to the light.
"Do you notice anything?" he asked.
Drummond peered down into the eyes. Yes, there was a slight film upon
the pupil of one.
"Cataract," said Walter Gray cheerfully. "I shall never be fit for my
work any more, even if an operation should be successful. Marcella
knows. Good girl, she has kept her own counsel. I have not been working
for some time at the watches. Mr. Gordon, kind soul, continues my
salary. I have been learning type-writing against the days that are to
come. I confess I have a desire to write a book. I have saved nothing,
Sir Robin Drummond. How is it possible, with fifty shillings a week and
eight children? I have no pride about accepting your offer. If my scrip
is empty and yours is full I don't object to receiving from a
fellow-pilgrim what I should give if our cases were reversed."
"Ah! that is right," said Robin Drummond. "As for cataract, in its early
stages it is easily curable. Sir George Osborne----"
"I will do whatever you and Mary wish. But I anticipate blindness. I
shall not mind very much if I have the light within. There will be the
book to solace my age; and after a time I shall not be so helpless."
The Dowager came round after all sooner than was expected. The
reconciliation was hastened by a letter she received from Mrs. Ilbert
congratulating her on her prospective daughter-in-law. "My poor
Maurice," she wrote. "I don't mind telling you, dear Lady Drummond, that
Maurice was head-over-ears in love with your charming and distinguished
daughter-in-law that is to be. The boy takes it very well, says that the
better man has won, which is exactly like Maurice. Since your son has
chosen a political career I congratulate him on having such a woman as
Miss Gray by his side. She will be a force in political life, so says
Maurice. And she will be the noblest inspiration. Though I am grieved
that she is to be your son's Egeria and not mine yet I offer you and Sir
Robin my heartiest congratulations. I may add that I also congratulate
the party to which your son belongs."
Lady Drummond had rubbed her eyes over this letter. Congratulate
_her_--was it possible?--on being the prospective mother-in-law of Mary
Gray, the daughter of a man who worked for his living at repairing the
insides of watches! She, the widow of a hero, a rich woman of social
importance! Congratulate _her_ and Robin and Robin's party! And not one
word of congratulating Mary Gray! Was Caroline Ilbert mad?
However, the thing impressed her. It worked by slow degrees into her
mind. She had listened often to such foolish heresies as that which
declared brains more important than rank or wealth. In a general way she
had not dissented. Brains were very important. Gerald had thought a good
deal of brains. If he had lived he had meditated a book on Napoleon's
Wars. She had often met writing and painting and musical people in her
friends' drawing-rooms. They had not appealed to her nor she to them.
But she had grown accustomed to their presence there and to meeting them
on an equality to which in her heart she had never subscribed.
However, she had the wisdom to see that there was no use in holding out
against her son and to console herself with the idea that Mary was going
to be a personage, even apart from the incredible social promotion of
marrying Sir Robin Drummond. So she actually reached the point of coming
in person to Wistaria Terrace to make a formal recantation of her
opposition to the marriage, and to take Mary to her imposing,
black-bugled breast.
To be sure the little house had almost driven her back from its
threshold. She filled the small shabby hall, she fell over the brushes
left by the general servant who had been scrubbing the oilcloth, not
expecting her ladyship; she sat uncomfortably on the green rep chairs of
the drawing-room staring at a Berlin-wool banner-screen which
represented a poodle with beads for his eyes, at the silver shavings in
the grate, and the school drawings, finished by the nuns, of the younger
Misses Gray. There were certain aspects of that drawing-room dear to
Mrs. Gray which Mary had been too tenderhearted to try to alter.
There Mary had found her and had been moved in her innermost humorous
sense; but she had been glad to be friends with Robin's mother, and so
had done her best to advance the reconciliation.
Lady Drummond had a surprising proposal to make. It seemed that her
friend, Lady Iniscrone, had placed at Miss Gray's disposal for the
wedding the big house on the Mall formerly occupied by Lady Anne
Hamilton. Lady Iniscrone wrote that they had heard of Miss Gray from a
friend of Lady Agatha Chenevix, and had felt interested in her progress
ever since. Of course, remembering the tie which had existed between
Lord Iniscrone's aunt and Miss Gray, Lord and Lady Iniscrone could never
be without interest in Miss Gray's progress.
Mary smiled a smile of fine humour over the reading of the letter. At
first she was in the mood to refuse. But, being her father's daughter,
and so endowed with that sense of the comedy as well as the tragedy of
life which makes it easy to regard things and persons equably, she
consented at last. She would have preferred to be married from Wistaria
Terrace, but she had no difficulty in making a concession to Robin's
mother.
So the wedding-breakfast was spread in the dining-room where she and
Lady Anne used to have their meals together. Mrs. Gray held a terrified
reception of the few fine folk whom Lady Drummond had declared it
necessary to ask in the long drawing-room with the three windows where
Lady Anne used to sit with little Fifine in her lap.
Mary had wished to be married from the poor little house where she had
grown up, but on her wedding day she felt that she had done as Lady Anne
would have wished. There was nothing changed in the house: the
old-fashioned substantial furniture, the faded carpets and curtains,
were just the same. There were one or two familiar faces among the
servants. After all, Lord and Lady Iniscrone had used the house little,
since Lord Iniscrone had developed a chest affection which kept him
following the sun round the world for three-fourths of the year.
The marriage had taken place earlier at the big, dim old church behind
which Wistaria Terrace hid itself away, and the few fine folk were not
bidden to the wedding but to the reception. A great many glittering
things were spread out on the tables in the long drawing-room. It was
surprising how many well-wishers the new Lady Drummond seemed to have in
the great world. Sir Denis Drummond had come over for the wedding, and
Nelly was a bridesmaid, with Mary's type-writing sister, Marcella. She
was a different Nelly from her of a couple of months earlier, her
delicacy gone, her old pretty bloom come back, her eyes bright as of
old.
"Mrs. Langrishe wants me to return to her!" she confided to Mary, "but
we are going to Sherwood Square. You know, _he_ is on his way home. In a
week or two he will be on the sea. He must come to me, not find me there
waiting for him. Do you know, Mary, that though his mother and sister
have taken me to their hearts, he has not written me a line? You don't
suppose, Mary, that he could be going to keep silence _now_?"
"Of course not," said Mary. "Seeing what you have suffered for him----"
"He must never know that," Nelly said, with gentle dignity, "until he
has spoken. What should I do, Mary, if he never spoke? But I think
everyone would keep my secret, even his sister and mother. I asked them
not to speak of me in their letters. I am in suspense, Mary."
"It will not be for long," the happy bride assured her. As though she
were wiser than another in knowing the way of any particular man with
any particular maid!