THE REAL THING
Jack had come to the conclusion that it was impossible to part from
Kitty Wynthrop with his love unconfessed. It was unthinkable that he
should go out to India, loving Kitty as he did, and marry--Mrs. Fox!
Bah! he consigned the latter, remorselessly, to perdition.
Whatever befell, he would speak to Kitty that very night--dear little
girl!--he had wasted too much time already over his confounded doubts
and fears, and had little enough time to spare. If she favoured
him--why, he would be the luckiest, as well as the happiest of men! Some
day, when he was absolutely sure of her and her love, he would confess
his misconduct in the past, lest she should hear of it from others--she
might; there was no knowing, with all those meddlesome cats about!--and
perhaps he would obtain her forgiveness, after which he would be
faithful unto her as long as they both should live. How fellows
could--damn!
Jack was shaving at the time and had gashed his chin in his agitation.
He was confident, while he soothed the spot with an antiseptic, that
such a darling little girl as she, would never hold up against him
anything he had done in pre-Kitty days. It would be unjust and
unreasonable. Why, hang it all! who was there that was human who hadn't
some little--or big--scrape to his discredit in his bachelor days?
Unfortunately, fellows were not gifted with second sight to know how
they would feel when they came to be properly in love with the only girl
in the world for them! The sickening sense of self-disgust----
Another accident with the razor, and Jack paid more attention for a time
to the matter in hand.
When he was putting the finishing touches to his tie, his fingers
betrayed by their unsteadiness, his agitated frame of mind.
The worst of it was the blessed uncertainty of the whole affair. A
fellow could never be sure of a girl like Kitty, or at any time take her
feelings for granted. The least little bit of a liberty, and--hands off!
Yet she was adorable and, often, sweetly encouraging. Certain little
concessions had been treasured in mind and dreamed of at night, such as
a dainty wrist held out to him for glove-buttons to be fastened; his
blundering fingers allowed to assist her with her theatre wrap; their
shoulders touching at a picture palace--a fact of which she had been
unconscious, but which had thrilled him to the foundations of his being.
They were hopeful signs; but the indifference with which she could drop
him for a whole day, so as to keep some idiotic engagement with giggling
flappers, was enough to send any lover crazy!
Jack hurried downstairs in time to hang about the hotel passage, waiting
for Kitty to arrive by the lift with her sister so that he could
accompany them to the dining-hall.
On this occasion Kitty was alone, Joyce having confessed to a headache,
and they dined at their little table _tete-a-tete_.
"I can't think what is troubling her," the little sister remarked, "for
she is fearfully worried, I know."
"Something, perhaps, in that letter you took to her a little while ago?"
suggested Jack.
"It was from a friend of hers at Muktiarbad."
"Honor Bright?"
"Yes--a strange idea to name a girl 'Honor'!"
"Her surname must have suggested it."
"Perhaps I should call it a happy idea. But supposing her character did
not bear out the selection?"
"In her case, I should say it suits her admirably. She's a topping good
sort."
"Is she pretty?"
"My chum used to think so, but not I. She's good to look at, anyway, and
there's something straight and clean about her that does a fellow good.
She has fine eyes and nice teeth which go far towards beauty."
"I wonder what she could have written about, to upset my sister so
completely?"
They wondered together, and grew more confidential over their mutual
interest in the subject. Jack enjoyed every minute of the meal, trying
to imagine he was dining with his wife,--an idea full of charm.
After dinner was over and Kitty had satisfied herself that Joyce was no
worse, they strolled in the hotel gardens, at the corner of which was a
summer-house. Jack who was trembling from head to foot with impatience
and longing, drew her suddenly within where the shadows were darkening,
and blurted out his tale of consuming passion. "Can't you see it without
the need of words? I am mad for love of you! If you don't want me, in
mercy say so, and I shall go out there and drown myself."
He would have said a great deal more, only there was no need, for Kitty
confessed that she wanted him more than anything on earth, and was only
waiting for the initiative to come from him.
Her frank response enraptured Jack, and he caught her to his breast
inarticulate with joy, while she, free of artificial coyness,
surrendered herself to his embrace and gave him her sweet lips again and
again.
Jack felt that he would have liked to have kicked himself all round
Eastbourne for imagining that he had ever before known what it was to
love! This was the real thing, and the bliss of it was unspeakable.
"And why didn't you give me the least bit of inkling that you had a soft
corner in your heart for a blighter like me?" he asked when it was
possible to indulge in connected conversation.
"Why did you take so long to know your own mind?"
"My mind was made up the instant I found out that you were not Mrs.
Meredith the afternoon I met you in front of the booking-office at
Victoria. You surely have not forgotten our very first meeting? I could
tell you in detail what you wore!"
Of course she had not, though she feigned to seem retrospective.
"I believe you were wearing a shot brown tie," she ventured, perfectly
aware that she was correct.
"You remember that?" (An interlude of ecstasy.) "I went all the way to
Richmond just to be able to look at you for a bit longer. I have been in
love with you for quite a year!"
Doubt being cast upon his veracity, he explained his possession of her
photograph, which fact she had long been aware of.
"I used to write poems about your eyes and your lips which I thought the
most alluring in the world. Did I dream I should ever see and kiss them
in reality?"
Silence again for a further interval of rapture.
"Now you will know how I have been feeling about going out to India! How
is it possible for me to leave you behind? Can't we be married in a
week?"
"We could," said Kitty, "but you forget there are others who will have
something to say to that."
"Your parents?"
"Undoubtedly. One daughter in India is enough for Mother. I am not at
all sure she will consent." It was very mischievous of her to distress
him for the sake of delighting in the proofs of his abject slavery to
herself, but Kitty was nothing if not human, and realising the
completeness of her own surrender, was pleased to get back a little of
her own.
His woe-begone look was almost melodramatic. "If they refuse their
consent, what will you do?"
"I suppose I shall have to obey. I'm not of age, you know," said Kitty
knowing full well that she was bound to have her own way, her parents
having long ago resigned themselves to her strength of character and
determination.
"Then I'll desert and enlist under another name that I might be killed
by a German bullet," he said gloomily.
"But you mightn't be killed. You might just be smashed up instead,
invalided out without a limb, or, worse still, be made unrecognisable!"
Horrible prospect! Jack's military ardour cooled visibly. "Anyhow, it
would be their fault."
"And I should chase after you and beg of you to marry me, all the
same,--limbless and unrecognisable as you may be!"
"You would? You said just now you would have to obey."
"Of course I would obey, but only for a time. Do you think I shall ever
give you up, even if the skies were to fall?"
That finished it. Jack was in heaven again, and the time passed with
amazing rapidity.
Meanwhile, Joyce had been to see Baby Douglas asleep in his crib and was
weighing the pros and cons of her problem with agonised uncertainty. He
was now as healthy as any normal infant of his age, and was in the care
of an experienced and trustworthy nurse. At Wynthrop Manor he would be
in the lap of luxury, wanting for nothing, and his grandparents would be
sure to bring him up in the way he should go, till she and Ray came home
together on his next furlough ... (after the War!--whenever that might
be!). But all her baby's pretty ways and unfolding intelligence would be
for others to enjoy! She, his devoted mother, would be thousands of
miles away!
The thought brought forth a flood of tears, and expressions of sympathy
from the nurse. "If it makes you feel so badly, I wouldn't go if I were
you."
"It breaks my heart!"
"There now, don't take on so. Give up the idea. You will feel easier in
mind to leave him when he is a bit older."
"It will be just as bad--perhaps worse!" cried Joyce, thinking of the
possibility of a loveless reunion with Ray, if she stayed away too long!
In that case she would have no compensation for her act of
self-sacrifice.
"Then take him with you, I have no objection to the voyage, or serving
in India which I have often wished to see."
"Oh, no. Baby is best here, for his own sake. In India I have all sorts
of anxieties. I would have to go alone."
"But there are many ladies who stay in Europe for the sake of their
children, leaving their husbands in India. In my last place, my
mistress, whose husband was a Forest officer living in lonely places
among the blacks, spent most of her time with her people in England as
she could not abide the natives, and the climate upset her nerves. Only,
occasionally, she visited him in the East, and sometimes he came home."
"What a life!" sighed Joyce. "I know it is done, but it isn't
right"--she was thinking of Honor's letter. "Both go different ways, and
what love and happiness is there for them?"
"But that is always so when ladies have husbands in India!"
"It need not be so. It makes me wonder why men marry when they know the
risk they run of broken domestic ties, and the burdens they have to
bear! It isn't worth while, if a man is to become only the means of
providing money for the comforts of his family, and keeping very little,
or none for himself--poor dear!"
Decidedly, Joyce Meredith's views had undergone a change.
The questions pressing on her mind were--Where was she most needed? and
where, most, lay her heart's desire?
In her case, duty and desire were no longer in conflict. Clearly, her
place was beside her husband as long as she was capable of enduring the
climate, and her heart was sick with longing for him.
"I shall be going out almost immediately--as soon as it can possibly be
arranged," she said coming to a sudden decision. "Pack the trunks early
in the morning, and we shall return home in the afternoon to fix this
up. It will be a great comfort to me, nurse, to know that you will stay
with Baby."
"I'll stay as long as you want me, ma'am, and you need have no fears,"
said the woman who was sincerely attached to her charge, and who was
aware that her devotion received ample recognition.
On her way to her own room, Joyce met two embarrassed and happy people
waiting to waylay her with their news.
"Take us into your room for a little while, do, there's a darling, we've
so much to tell you!"
Joyce was hustled into her own room by her little sister with Jack's big
form looming in the rear, and the wonderful tale was told and her
congratulations solicited.
"Of course I saw it coming," said Joyce kissing them both. "You were
like ostriches with your heads in the sand----"
"In the clouds, rather. I have been seeing a little bit of heaven, Mrs.
Meredith," said Jack.
"Now please come back to earth, and tell me your plans, for I have
decided to join my husband as soon as it is possible to get a passage."
"You?--with Baby?" from Kitty.
"No. Baby must stay behind."
"Then that was what gave you a headache? You ought to be ashamed of
yourself to have a headache at the prospect of going back to Ray!" Kitty
teased.
"Say, 'at the prospect of leaving Baby.'"
"Can't you take him?" said Jack. "There are crowds of youngsters of his
age getting rosy and fat in the hills all the summer."
"I shouldn't feel safe about him. He'll be best with Grannie."
"Bravo!" cried Kitty. "Jack's got to go very soon, so we can all three
go together." Jack's face showed intense appreciation.
"You don't mean to say you are thinking of marrying at once?"
"Why not?" from him.
"Of course not," said Kitty ruthlessly. "But as it is not good for you
to travel alone in these exciting times, you _must_ take me with
you--engaged to Jack--and to be married when we have time to look
around. Has anyone any objections?"
"You darling!" gasped Jack.
"Well, let's see what Mother has to say about it," said Joyce. "Meantime
I shall pack a few things before getting to bed."
"Then you won't be so heartless as to turn us out. Come Jack, and let us
talk it over"; and Jack, nothing loath, drew her on his knee in the one
big chair by the window, and for some little time Joyce had ceased to
exist for them. Neither seemed to mind the fact of her presence; it was
sympathetic and that was quite enough, so they felt at liberty to
continue to enjoy their mutual delight in the knowledge that they had
become engaged.
Joyce suffered a pang of jealous longing for her own dear lover-husband,
when she saw the look on Jack's face while he held Kitty to his breast
and kissed her yielding lips. And Kitty, with her arms wound about her
boy's neck and her face uplifted to his!--It was her hour, and Joyce
knew that her own was yet to come. She had indeed been the Sleeping
Beauty who had slept too long under the kisses of her Prince. She had
never really understood her own heart, or realised love till now. Could
there ever be a moment more wonderful on this old earth, than that in
which two lips met in mutual passion?--two souls fused in divine
ecstasy?
"Blessed darlings!" she murmured to herself, turning aside not to
intrude on their sacred joy yet conscious of the fervour of the clinging
kisses, the incoherent whispers, the bounding hearts! It was all as God
had meant it to be when he created Man and gave him Woman for his mate.
"My place is indeed with my husband," she muttered to herself.