Halcyone Part 25

Halcyone had already made up her mind what to do, before she had left her room. She would agree to anything they suggested in order to have no obstacles put in her way--not admitting for a moment that these people had any authority over her. Then, if in the morning she received a letter from her Beloved, she would follow its instructions implicitly.

Always having at hand her certain mode of disappearance, she could slip away, and if it seemed necessary, just leave them to think what they pleased. Priscilla would be warned to allay at once the anxiety of her aunts, and for the Andertons she was far too desperate to care what they might feel.

"Thank you; it is very good of you," she said as graciously as she could. "My old nurse has told me of your kind invitation, and is already beginning the preparations. I trust you left Mr. Anderton and my stepbrother and sisters well?"

"Hoity-toity!" thought Louisa Anderton. "Of the same sort as the old spinsters. This won't please James, I fear!" But aloud she answered that the family were all well, and that James Albert, who was thirteen now, would soon be going to Eton.

Over Halcyone, in spite of her numbness and the tension she was feeling, though controlled by her firm will, there came the memory of the red, crying baby, for whose life her own sweet mother had paid so dear a price. And Mabel and Ethel--noisy, merry little girls!--she had thought of them so seldom in these latter years--they seemed as far-off shadows now. But James Anderton and her mother stood out sharp and clear.

The strain and anguish of the day had left her very pale. Mrs. Anderton thought her plain and most uncomfortably aloof; she really regretted that she had put into her husband's head the idea of giving this invitation. He would gladly have left Halcyone alone, but for her kindly thought. Mabel was just seventeen, and such a handful that her father had decided she should stay in the schoolroom with her sister for another year, and Mrs. Anderton had felt it would be a good opportunity for Halcyone to rejoin the family circle at a time when her presence, if she proved good-looking, could not in any way interfere with her stepsister's debut.

And here, instead of being overcome with grat.i.tude and excitement, this cold, quiet girl was taking it all as quite an ordinary circ.u.mstance. No wonder she, Louisa Anderton, felt aggrieved.

They had hardly time for any more words, for Mrs. Anderton had already put off her departure by the seven-twenty train from Applewood to Upminster on purpose to wait for Halcyone, and now proposed to catch the one at nine o'clock--her fly still waited in the courtyard--and they made rapid arrangements. Halcyone, accompanied by Priscilla, was to meet her the next day at the Upminster junction at eleven o'clock, and they would journey to London together.

And all the while Halcyone was agreeing to this she was thinking, if in the improbable circ.u.mstance that she should get no letter in the morning, it would be wiser to go to London. There was her Cheiron, who would help her to get news. But of course she would hear, and all would be well.

Thus she was enabled to unfreeze a little to her stepfather's wife, who, as they said good-by at the creaking fly's door, felt some of her soft charm.

"Perhaps she is shy," she said to herself as she rolled towards the station. "Anyway, it is restful, after Mabel's laying down the law."

That night Halcyone took her G.o.ddess to the little summer house upon the second terrace.

"If I start with John to-morrow, my sweet," she said, "you will come with me as I have promised you. But if I must go to that great, restless city, to find him, then you will wait for me here--safe in your secret home." And then she looked out over the misty clover-grown pleasance to the country beyond bathed in brilliant moonlight. And something in the beauty of it stilled the wild ache in her heart. She would not admit into her thoughts the least fear, but some unexplained, unconquerable apprehension stayed in her innermost soul. She knew, only she refused to face the fact, that all was not well.

Of doubt as to John Derringham's intentions towards her, or his love, she had none, but there were forces she knew which were strong and could injure people, and with all her fearlessness of them, they might have been capable of causing some trouble to her lover--her lover who was ignorant of such things.

She stayed some time looking at the beautiful moonlit country, and saying her prayers to that G.o.d Who was her eternal friend, and then she got up to steal noiselessly to bed.

But as she was opening the secret door, to have one more look at the sky, after she had replaced Aphrodite in the bag, it seemed as though her lover's voice called her in anguish through the night: "Halcyone!"

and again, "Halcyone! My love!"

She stopped, petrified with emotion, and then rushed back onto the terrace. But all was silence; and, wild with some mad fear, she set off hurriedly, never stopping until she came to their trysting tree. But here there was silence also, only the nightingale throbbed from the copse, while the faint rustle of soft zephyrs disturbed the leaves.

And Jeb Hart and his comrade saw the tall white figure from their hiding-place in the low overgrown brushwood, and Gubbs crossed himself again, for whether she were living or some wraith they were never really sure.

At the moment when Halcyone opened the secret door, John Derringham was just recovering consciousness in a luxurious bed at Wendover Park, whither he had been carried when accidentally found by the keepers in their rounds about eight o'clock. It was several days since they had visited this part of the park, and they had lit upon him by a fortunate chance. He had lain there in the haw-haw, unconscious all that day, while his poor little lady-love waited for him at the oak gate, and was now in a sorry plight indeed, as Arabella Clinker bent over him, awaiting anxiously the verdict of the doctors who had been fetched by motor from Upminster. Would he live or die?

Her employer had had a bad attack of nerves upon hearing of the accident, and was now reclining upon her boudoir sofa, quite prostrated and in a high state of agitation until she should know the worst--or best.

Arabella listened intently. Surely the patient was whispering something?

Yes, she caught the words.

"Halcyone!" he murmured, and again, "Halcyone--my love!" and then he closed his eyes once more.

He would live, the physicians said after some hours of doubt--with very careful nursing. But the long exposure in the wet, twenty-four hours at least, with that wound in the head and the broken ankle, was a very serious matter, and absolute quiet and the most highly skilled attention would be necessary.

It was Arabella who made all the sensible, kind arrangements that night, and herself sat up with the poor suffering patient until the nurses could come. But it was Mrs. Cricklander who, dignified and composed, received the doctors after the consultation with Sir Benjamin Grant next day, before the celebrated surgeon left for London, and she made her usual good impression upon the great man.

That the local lights thought far more highly of Arabella did not matter. Mrs. Cricklander was wise enough to know, it is upon the exalted that a good effect must be produced.

"And, you are sure, Sir Benjamin, that he will get quite well?" she said tenderly, allowing her handsome eyes to melt upon the surgeon's face.

"It matters enormously to me, you know." Then she looked down.

Thus appealed to, Sir Benjamin felt he must give her all the a.s.surance he could.

"Perfectly, dear lady," he said, pressing her soft hand in sympathy. "He is young and strong, and fortunately it has not touched his brain. But it will take time and gentlest nursing, which you will see, of course, that he gets."

"Indeed, yes," the fair Cecilia said. And when they were all gone, she summoned Arabella.

"You will let me know, Arabella, every minute change in him," she commanded, "especially when he seems conscious. And you will tell him how I am watching over him and doing everything for him. I can't bear sick people--they upset my nerves, and I just can't stand them. But the moment he is all right enough to see me so that it won't bore me, I'll come. You understand? Now I must really have a trional and get some rest."

And when she was alone she went deliberately to the gla.s.s and smiled radiantly to herself as she whispered aloud:

"So he isn't going to die or be an idiot. In a few years he can still be Prime Minister. And I have got him now, as sure as fate!"

Then she closed her mouth with that firm snap Arabella knew so well, and, swallowing her sleeping draught, she composed herself for a peaceful siesta.

CHAPTER XXII

It required all Halcyone's fort.i.tude to act the part of unconcern which was necessary after the post had come in and no letter for herself had arrived. The only possibility of getting through the time until she should reach London, and be able to communicate with Cheiron would, be resolutely to forbid her thoughts from turning in any speculative direction. _She knew_ nothing but good could come to her--was she not protected from all harm by every strong force of the night winds, the beautiful stars and the G.o.d Who owned them all? Therefore it followed that this seeming disaster to her happiness must be only a temporary thing, and if she bore it calmly it would soon pa.s.s. Or, even if it delayed, there was the a.n.a.logy of the winter which for more than four months of the year numbed the earth, often with weeping rain and frost, but, however severe it should be, there was always the tender springtime following, and glorious summer, and then the fulfillment of autumn and its fruits. So she _must not_ be cast down--she must have faith and not tremble.

She made herself converse gently with her stepfather's wife, and won her liking before they reached Paddington station. If she had not been so highly strung and preoccupied, she would have been thrilled in all her fine senses at the idea of leaving Upminster, further than which she had never been for the twelve long years of her residence at La Sarthe Chase; but now, except that all appeared a wild rush and a bewildering noise, the journey to London made no impression upon her. It was swallowed up in the one longing to get there--to be able somehow to communicate with Cheiron, and have her anxiety laid to rest.

The newsboys were selling the evening papers when they arrived, but her eyes, so unaccustomed to all these new sights, did not warn her to scan the headlines, though as they were reaching Grosvenor Gardens where Mr.

Anderton's town-house was situated, she did see the words: "Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs." The sheet had fallen forward and only this line was visible.

They did not strike her very forcibly. She was quite unacquainted with the custom of advertising sensational news in London. It might be the usual political announcements--it surely was, since she saw another sheet as they got to the door with "Crisis in the Cabinet" upon it. And it comforted her greatly. John, of course, was concerned with this, and had been summoned back suddenly, having had no possible time to let her know. He who was so true an Englishman must think of his country first.

It seemed like an answer to her prayers, and enabled her to go in and greet her stepfather with calm and quiet.

James Anderton had come from the city in the best of tempers. The day had been a good one. He had received his wife's telegram announcing that Halcyone would accompany her on her return, and awaited her arrival with a certain amount of uneasy curiosity and interest. Would the girl be still so terribly like Elaine and the rest of the La Sarthe--especially Timothy, that scapegrace, handsome Timothy, her father, on whose memory and his own bargain with Timothy's widow he never cared much to dwell?

Yes, she was, d----d like--after a while he decided; with just the same set of head and careless grace, and that hateful stamp of breeding that had so lamentably escaped his own children, half La Sarthe, too. It was just Timothy of the gray eyes come back again--not Elaine so much now, not at all, in fact, except in the line of the throat.

His solid, coa.r.s.e voice was a little husky, and those who knew him well would have been aware that James Anderton was greatly moved as he bid his stepdaughter welcome.

And when she had gone off to her room, accompanied by the boisterous Mabel and Ethel, he said to his wife:

"Lu, you must get the girl some decent clothes. She looks confoundedly a lady, but that rubbish isn't fair to her. Rig her out as good as the rest--no expense spared. See to it to-morrow, my dear."

And Mrs. Anderton promised. She adored shopping, and this would be a labor of love. So she went off to dress for dinner, full of visions of bright pinks and blues and laces and ribbons that would have made Halcyone shrink if she had known.

Mabel was magnificently patronizing and talked a jargon of fas.h.i.+onable slang which Halcyone hardly understood. Some transient gleam of her beloved mother kept suggesting itself to her when Mabel smiled. The memory was not distinct enough for her to know what it was, but it hurt her. The big, bouncing, overdeveloped girl had so little of the personality which she had treasured all these years as of her mother--treasured even more than remembered.

Ethel had no faintest look of La Sarthe, and was a nice, jolly, ordinary young person--dear to her father's heart.