Halcyone Part 9

They would arrange flowers in the epergne, she suggested--a few sweet williams and mignonette and a foxglove or two. A pretty posy fixed in sand, such as she remembered there always was in their gala days.

Halcyone was enchanted at the prospect.

"Oh! dear Aunt Roberta, do let me do it all," she said. "You sit here on the bench and I will run and fetch the epergne--and we can pick what we think best. Or--don't you think just a big china bowl full of sweet peas would be prettier? The sand might show and, and--the epergne is rather stiff."

But Miss Roberta looked aggrieved. The epergne with its gold and silver fern leaves climbing up a thin stalk of gla.s.s to its top dish for fruit had always come out for dinner parties and she liked not innovations. It was indeed as much as Halcyone could do to get all the flowers of the same kind, a nasturtium and a magenta stock had with care to be smuggled away, leaving the sweet peas sole occupants of the sand. But the effect was very festive and the two carried their work into the dining-room well pleased.

The best Sevres dinner-set was had out, which that traveler Timothy had brought from Paris among other things, and the best cut gla.s.s and rat-tailed silver. Old William, a.s.sisted by Hester and Priscilla, had been busy polis.h.i.+ng most of the day--while the cook and the "young person from the village" were contriving wonders in the vast kitchen.

And punctually at seven in broad daylight, the three Misses La Sarthe, the two elder in their finest mauve silk evening dresses, awaited their guests in the Italian parlor.

Miss Roberta's heart had not fluttered like this since a county ball some forty years ago when a certain whiskered captain of a das.h.i.+ng cavalry regiment stationed at Upminster had whispered in her ear.

Priscilla had let down Halcyone's white muslin frock and as the tucks were rather large, it was longer than she intended, so that the child might easily have been taken for a girl of fifteen, and her perfect feet were encased in a pair of old-fas.h.i.+oned bronze slippers with elastics crossed up the legs of her white silk stockings. A fillet of blue silk kept back the soft cloud of her mouse-colored hair.

Mr. Miller was announced first--very nervous, as usual, and saying the wrong thing in his flurry. Then up the terrace steps could be seen advancing Mr. Carlyon and his guest. They had walked over from the cottage--and Halcyone, observing from the window, was conscious that against her will she was admiring John Derringham's arrogant, commanding walk.

"He could very well be as Theseus was after he grew proud," she said to herself.

And soon they were announced.

Mr. Carlyon was now on the most friendly terms with both old ladies, and as well as coming to the monthly dinner, sometimes dropped in to tea on Sunday afternoons, but he knew this was a real party and must be treated as such.

How agreeable it felt to be once more in the world, Miss Roberta thought, and her faded pale cheeks flushed a delicate pink.

John Derringham had been sulky as a bear at the idea of coming, but something in the quaintly pathetic refinement of the poor and splendid old house pleased him, and the aroma of untouched early-Victorian prudish grace which the ancient ladies threw around them appealed to his imagination, as any complete bit of art or nature always did. He found himself seated between Miss La Sarthe and Halcyone and quite enjoying himself. Everything was of the time from the epergne to the way the bread was cut.

Halcyone conversed with Mr. Miller, who always felt he must make nursery jokes with her and ask her the names of her dolls.

"He can't help it," she told Cheiron one day. "If he had any more intelligence G.o.d would have put him to work in some busier place."

John Derringham did not address her; he devoted himself to Miss La Sarthe.

He had absolutely no diffidence. He had been spoilt from his cradle, and by the time he had left Eton--Captain of the Oppidans--had ruled all those near him with a rod of iron, imposing his interesting enthusiastic personality upon all companies with unqualified success. Miss La Sarthe fell at once. He said exactly the right things to her and flattered her by his unfeigned interest in all she spoke of. He was studying her as he studied any rare memento of historical value.

"My great-niece reads every morning with Mr. Carlyon," she said presently. "Girls are expected to be so very clever nowadays, we are told. She already knows a little Greek. It would have been considered quite unnecessary in our day."

"And I am sure it is in this," said John Derringham. "Learned women are an awful bore. As a s.e.x they were meant to be feminine, dainty, exquisite creatures as those I see to-night," and he bowed gallantly while Miss La Sarthe thrilled. She thoroughly approved of his appearance.

"So very much of a gentleman, Roberta," she afterwards said. "None of that thick, ill-cut look we are obliged to observe in so many of the younger people we see when we go into Upminster each year."

"And why should he look thick or ill-cut, Sister?" Miss Roberta replied.

"Mr. Carlyon told me the Derringhams have been seated at Derringham since fabulous times."

Thus this last of that race was appreciated fully in at least two antiquated female hearts.

But meanwhile the cloth was being removed, and the port wine and old Madeira placed before the elder hostess.

"Our father's cellar was famous for its port," she said, "and we have a few bottles of the '47 left."

But now she felt it was only manners to turn to Mr. Carlyon upon her other hand, so John Derringham was left in silence, no obligation to talk to Halcyone making itself felt. She turned and looked at him, he interested her very much. Mr. Carlyon had quant.i.ties of books of photographs of all the famous statues in Europe and especially in Italy and Greece, but she could not find any likeness to him in any of her recollection of them. Alas! his face was not at all Greek. His nose was high and aquiline, his forehead high and broad, and there was something n.o.ble and dominating in his fearless regard. His hair even did not grow very prettily, though it was thick and dark--and there was not an ounce of superfluous flesh upon his whole person. He never for a moment suggested repose, he gave the impression of vivid, nervous force and action, a young knight going out to fight any impossible dragon with his good sword and s.h.i.+eld--unabashed by the smoke from its flaming nostrils, undaunted by any fear of death.

Halcyone watched him, and her prejudice slept.

The silence had lasted quite five minutes when he allowed his natural good manners, which he was quite aware he had kept in abeyance in regard to her, to come uppermost.

"The Professor has been telling me how wonderfully you work with him,"

he said; "we under him at Oxford were not half so diligent it seems. I wonder what good it will be to you at all."

"If a thing gives pleasure, it is good," she answered gravely. "I wanted to learn Greek because I had a book when I was little which told me about those splendid heroes, and I thought I could read more about them when I am grown up if I knew it--than if I did not."

"There is something in that. What was the book?" he asked.

Her steady eyes looked straight into his as she replied: "It was Kingsley's 'Heroes' and if only I were a boy I would be like Perseus and go and kill the Gorgon and rescue Andromeda from the sea monster. Pallas Athene said some fine things to him--do you remember?--when she asked him the question of which sort of man he would be."

"No, I don't remember," said John Derringham. "You must tell me now."

Then Halcyone began in a soft dream voice while her eyes widened and darkened with that strange look as though she saw into another and vaster world. "'I am Pallas Athene and I know the thoughts of all men's hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls of clay I turn away; and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at ease like sheep in the pasture and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They grow and spread like the gourd along the ground, but like the gourd they give no shade to the traveler and when they are ripe death gathers them, and they go down unloved into h.e.l.l, and their name vanishes out of the land.'"

She paused a second and John Derringham was astonished at himself because he was conscious of experiencing a thrill of deep interest.

"Yes?" he said--and her voice went on:

"'But to the souls of fire I give more fire and to those who are manful I give a might more than man's. These are the heroes, the sons of the Immortals who are blest but not like the souls of clay, for I drive them forth by strange paths, Perseus, that they may fight the t.i.tans and monsters, the enemies of G.o.ds and men. Through doubt and need and danger and battle I drive them, and some of them are slain in the flower of youth, no man knows when or where, and some of them win n.o.ble names and a fair and green old age--but what will be their latter end, I know not, and none, save Zeus, the father of G.o.ds and men--Tell me, now, Perseus, which of these two sorts of men seem to you more blest?'"

It was as if she asked him a personal question and unconsciously he answered:

"I should reply as Perseus did. Tell me his words."

"'Better to die in the flower of youth on the chance of winning a n.o.ble name than to live at ease like the sheep and die unloved and unrenowned.'"

He bent nearer to her and answered softly: "They are indeed fine words,"

and there was no mockery whatever in his eyes as he looked at her--and took in every detail of her pure childish face. "You wonderful, strange little girl--soon I too am going like Perseus to fight the Gorgons, and I shall remember this night and what you have said."

But at that moment Mr. Miller's high, cackling laugh was heard in an explosion of mirth. Mr. Carlyon had made some delightfully obvious joke for his delectation and amidst a smiling company Miss La Sarthe rose with dignity to leave the gentlemen alone with their wine.

CHAPTER VIII

Next morning, John Derringham sat at a late breakfast with his whilom master of Greek and discussed things in general over his bacon and tea.

It was three years since he had left Oxford, and life held out many interesting aspects for him. He was standing for the southern division of his county in the following spring when the present member was going to retire, and he was vehement in his views and clear as to the course he meant to take. He was so eloquent in his discourse and so full of that divine spark of enthusiasm, that he was always listened to, no matter how unpalatably Tory the basic principles of his utterances were.

He never posed as anything but an aristocrat, and while he whimsically admitted that in the present day to be one was an enormous disadvantage for a man who wished to get on, he endeavored to palliate the misfortune by lucid explanation of what the duties of such a status were, and of the logical advantages which an appreciation of the truths of cause and effect might bring to mankind. Down in his own country he was considered the coming man. He thundered at the people and had facts and figures at his finger tips. His sublime belief in himself never wavered and like any inspired view, right or wrong, it had its strong effect.

Mr. Carlyon thought highly of him, for a number of reasons.

"If women do not make a stumbling-block for you, John, you will go far,"

he said as he b.u.t.tered his toast.