Halcyone Part 30

"I am so glad. I hope you will be very happy," Halcyone said, and tried not to let the contrast of Cora's joyous prospect make her wince.

"I am always happy," Cora returned, "and it's dear of you to wish me nice things."

Halcyone attracted her immensely, her quite remarkable personal distinction was full of charm, and, now in fresh and pretty modern clothes, to Cora's eyes she looked almost beautiful; but why so very pale and quiet, she wondered; and then, with a flash, she remembered the news she too had read in the paper that morning. Perhaps Halcyone minded very much. She decided rapidly what to do. If she did not mention it at all, she reasoned, this finely strung girl would know that she guessed it would be painful to her--and that might hurt her pride. It was kinder to plunge in and get it over.

"Isn't it wonderful about Mr. Derringham and Cecilia Cricklander?" she said, pretending to be busy untangling her parasol ta.s.sel. "She always intended to marry him--and she is so rich I expect he felt that would be a good thing. Freynie says he is very much harder up then anyone knows."

Her kind, common sense told her that a man's doing even a low thing for expediency would hurt a woman who loved him, less than that the motive for his action should have been one of inclination.

Halcyone came up to the scratch, although a fierce pain tightened her heart afresh.

"Yes," she said, "I suppose no one was surprised to read of the engagement in the papers to-day. I can imagine that a man requires a great deal of money to support the position in the government which Mr.

Derringham has, and no doubt Mrs. Cricklander is glad to give it to him--he is so clever and great." And not a muscle of her face quivered as she spoke.

"If it does hurt--my goodness! she is game!" Cora thought, and aloud she went on, "Cecilia isn't a bad sort--a shocking sn.o.b, as all of us are who are not the real thing and want to be--like your own common pushers over here. We used to laugh at her awfully when she first came from Pittsburgh and tried to cut in before she married my cousin. Poor old Vin! He was crazy about her." Then she went on reflectively, as Halcyone did not answer. "We often think you English people are so odd--the way you can't distinguish between us! You receive, with open arms, the most impossible people if they are rich, that we at home would not touch with a barge pole, and you say: 'Oh, they are just American,' as if we were all the same! And then we are so awfully clever as a nation that in a year or two these dreadful vulgarians, as we would call them in New York, have picked up all _your_ outside polish, and pa.s.s as _our_ best!

It makes lots of the really nice old gentle-folk at home perfectly mad--but I can't help admiring the spirit. That is why I have stuck to Cis, though the rest of the family have given her the cold shoulder. It is such magnificent audacity--don't you think so?"

"Yes, indeed," agreed Halcyone. "All people have a right to obtain what they aspire to if they fit themselves for it."

"That is one of Mr. Derringham's pet theories," Cora laughed. "He held forth one night, when I was staying at Wendover at Easter, about it--and it was such fun. Cis did not really understand a single thing of the cla.s.sical allusions he was making--but she got through. I watch her with delight. Men are sweetly simple bats, though, aren't they? Any woman can take them in--" and Cora laughed again joyously. "I have sat sometimes in fits to hear Cis keeping a whole group of your best politicians enthralled, and not one seeing she is just repeating parrot sentences.

You have only to be rich and beautiful and look into a man's eyes and flatter him, and you can make him believe you are what you please. Now Freynie thinks I am absolutely perfect when I am really being a horrid little capricious minx--don't you, Freynie, dear!" and she leaned over and looked at her betrothed with sweet and tender eyes--and Lord Freynault got up and moved his chair round, so that the four were in a circle.

"What preposterous thing is Cora telling you?" he laughed, with an adoring glance at her sparkling face. "But I am getting jealous, and shall take her away because I want to talk to her all to myself!"

And, when they had settled that the two girls should meet at tea the following day in Cora's sitting-room at Claridge's, where she was staying with a friend, the newly engaged pair went off together beaming with joy and affection.

And Halcyone gazed after them with a wistful look in her sad eyes, which stabbed the old Professor's heart.

She was remembering the morning under their tree, when she and her lover had sat and made their plans, and he had asked her if she had any fear at the thought of giving him her future.

It was only three weeks ago. Surely everything was a dream. How much he had seemed to love her. And then unconsciously she started to her feet, and strode away among the trees, forgetful of her companion--and Cheiron sat and watched her, knowing she would come back and it was better to let her overcome alone the agony which was convulsing her.

Yes, John Derringham had seemed to love her--not seemed--no--it was real--he _had_ loved her. And she would never believe but that he loved her still. This was only a wicked turn of those bad forces which she knew were abroad in the world. Had she not seen evil once in a man's face crouching in the bracken, as he set a trap for some poor hare one dark and starry night? And she had pa.s.sed on, and then, when she thought he would be gone, she had returned and loosened the spring before it could do any harm. That poacher had evil forces round him. They were there always for the unwary, and had fastened upon John. She would never doubt his love, and she herself could never change, and she would pour upon him all her tender thoughts, and call to the night winds to help her to do her duty.

So presently she remembered Cheiron, and turned round to see him far away still, sitting quietly beneath a giant elm stroking his long, silver beard.

"My dear, kind master!" she exclaimed to herself, and went rapidly back to him.

"That is a charming girl--your young friend," he said to her, as he got up to stroll to the gate; "full of life and common sense. There is something wonderful in the vitality of her nation. They jar dreadfully upon us old tired peoples in their worst aspects--but in their best we must recognize a new spring of life and youth for the world. Yonder young woman is not troubling about a soul, if she has one; she is a fountain of living water. She has not taken on the shadows of our crowded past. Halcyone, my dear, you and I are the inheritance of too much culture. When I see her I want to cry with Epicurus: 'Above all, steer clear of Culture!'" And then he branched from this subject and plunged into a learned dissertation upon the wors.h.i.+p of Dionysus, and how it had cropped up again and again with wild fervor among the ancient worlds whose senses and brains were wearied with the state religions, and he concluded by a.n.a.logy that this wild longing to return to youth's follies and mad ecstasies, to get free from restraints, to seek communion with the spiritual beyond in some exaltation of the emotions--in short, to get back to nature--was an instinct in all human beings and all nations, when their zeniths of art and cultivation had come.

And Halcyone, who had heard it all before and knew the subject to her finger tips, wandered dreamily into a shadowland where she felt she was of these people--those far back wors.h.i.+pers--and this was her winter when Dionysus was dead, but would live again when the spring came and the flowers.

CHAPTER XXVI

Mrs. Cricklander felt it would be discreet and in perfect taste if she announced her intention of going off to Carlsbad the week after her engagement was settled--she was always most careful of decorum. And, if the world of her friends thought John Derringham was well enough to be making love to her in the seclusion of her own house, it would be much wiser for her to show that she should always remain beyond the breath of any gossip.

In her heart she was bored to tears. For nearly the whole of June she had been cooped up at Wendover--for more than half the time without even parties of visitors to keep her company--and she loathed being alone.

She had no personal resources and invariably at such times smoked too much and got agitated nerves in consequence.

John Derringham--strong and handsome, with his prestige and his brilliant faculties--was a conquest worth parading chained to her chariot wheels. But John Derringham, feeble, unable to walk, his ankle in splints and plaster of Paris, and still suffering from headaches whenever the light was strong, was simply a weariness to her--nothing more nor less.

So that, until he should be restored to his usual captivating vigor, it was much better for her pleasure to leave him to his complete recovery alone, now that she had got him securely in her keeping.

Arabella could ask her mother down and keep house and see that he had everything in the world that he wanted--and there were the devoted nurses. And, in short, her doctor had said she must have her usual cure, and that was the end of the matter!

She had only made him the most fleeting visits during the week. He had really been ill after the fever caused by the champagne. And she had been exquisitely gentle and not too demonstrative. She had calculated the possibility of his backing out under the plea of his health, so she determined not to give him a chance to have the slightest excuse by overtiring him.

No one could have better played the part of devoted, understanding friend who by excess of love had been betrayed into one lapse of pa.s.sionate outburst, and now wished only to soothe and comfort.

"She is a good sort," John Derringham thought, after her first visit.

"She will let me down easy in any case," and the ceasing of his anxiety about his financial position comforted him greatly.

The next time she came and sat by his bed, a vision of fresh summer laces and chiffons, he determined to make the position clear to her.

She always bent and kissed him with airy grace, then sat down at a discreet distance. She felt he was not overanxious to caress her, and preferred that the rendering of this impossible should come from her side. Indeed, unless kisses were necessary to gain an end, she did not care for them herself--stupid, contemptible things, she thought them!

John Derringham would have touched the hearts of most women as he lay there, but Cecilia Cricklander had not this tiresome appendage, only the business brain and unemotional sensibilities of her grandfather the pork butcher. She did realize that her _fiance_, even there with the black silk handkerchief wound round his head and his face and hands deadly pale and fragile-looking, was still a most arrogant and distinguished-looking creature, and that his eyes, with their pathetic shadows dimming the proud glance in them, were wonderfully attractive.

But she was not touched especially by his weakness. She disliked suffering and never wanted to be made aware of it.

John Derringham went straight into the subject which was uppermost in his thoughts. He asked her to listen to him patiently, and stated his exact financial situation. She must then judge if she found it worth while to marry him; he would not deceive her about one fraction of it.

She laughed lightly when he had ended--and there was something which galled him in her mirth.

"It is all a ridiculous nothing," she said. "Why, I can pay off the whole thing with only the surplus I invest every year from my income!

Your property is quite good security--if I want any. We shall probably have to do it in a business-like way; your house will be mine, of course, but I will make you very comfortable as my guest!" and she smiled with suitable playfulness. "Let the lawyers talk over these things, not you and me--you may be sure mine will look after me!"

John Derringham felt the blood tingling in his ears. There was nothing to take exception to in what she had said, but it hurt him awfully.

"Very well," he answered wearily, and closed his eyes for a moment. "If you are satisfied, that is all that need be said. As things go on, and I reach where I mean to get, I dare say to spend money to do the thing beautifully will please you as much as it will gratify me. I will give you what I can of the honors and glories--so shall we consider our bargain equal?"

This was not lover-like, and Mrs. Cricklander knew it, but it was better to have got it all over. She was well aware that the "honors and glories" would compensate her for the outlay of her dollars, but her red mouth shut with a snap as she registered a thought.

"When I come back it may amuse me to make him really in love with me."

Then, watching carefully, she saw that some cloud of jar and disillusion had settled upon her _fiance's_ face. So with her masterly skill she tried to banish it, talking intelligently upon the political situation and his prospects. It looked certain that the Government would not last beyond the session--and then what would happen?

Mr. Hanbury-Green had given her a very clear forecast of what the other side meant to do, but this she did not impart to John Derringham.

She made one really stupid mistake as she got up to leave the room.

"If you want a few thousands now, John," she said, as she bent to lightly salute his cheek, "do let me know and I will send them to your bank. They may be useful for the wedding."

A dull flush mounted to the roots of his hair, and then left him very pale.

He took her hand and kissed it with icy homage.