CHAPTERXXVI.SUNSET LOVE.
Perhaps one of the chief attractions of Jersey is that even during July, August and September, when most seaside resorts in England are so crowded with excursionists that anything in the nature of solitude is out of the question, you may find miles of sea-beach where hardly a human being is in sight. Add to this that the sun shines there usually all day and every day in summer, that the blueness of the sea resembles the Mediterranean, that the landscapes over and seascapes around the whole island are exceptionally beautiful, and that the inhabitants are, for the most part, hospitable and exceedingly polite, and the popularity of Jersey is easily accounted for.
Johnson had meant to stay there only a week or two, but more than a month had elapsed since his arrival and he still tarried. Nor did he express any intention of bringing his visit to a close. He had told his newly-made friends in the Victoria Club that he had now decided to remain “until the weather broke;” but when some days later the weather did break, he hesitated. The reason he gave for altering his mind was that the air suited him. Even if it had not suited him he would probably have remained, however, seeing that he had fallendeeply in love with the beautiful young widow who had come to him for advice, and that his love was fully reciprocated.
It had all come about in a very curious way, yet neither had as yet ventured to reveal to the other the secret they both cherished. After three days’ heavy rain the weather recovered its normal condition—blazing sun and cloudless sky—and then it was that the doctor suggested to Cora Hartsilver that he should drive her in his car right round the coast.
The afternoon was gorgeously fine when they set out fromSt.Helier, and as they sped rapidly over the picturesque coast-road which leads along Victoria Avenue through Villees Nouaux to Bel Royal, thence past Beaumont with its pretty red-roofed houses nestling in the cliff behind the hamlet, then by Le Haute Station and on towards the old-world village ofSt.Aubin with streets so steep and narrow that Johnson was forced to slow down to a mile or two an hour, they began to feel that now at last life seemed worth living.
“There is a lovely bay a little farther on,” Johnson said as they crept up the steady slope towards Mont Sohier. “I saw it from a boat the other day, and have meant ever since to go there by road. It is calledSt.Brelade’s Bay, and the cliffs behind it are for the most part beautifully wooded. I suggest we should stop there a little while; I will leave the car at the hotel. Would you like to do that?”
They were almost the first words he had spoken since they had set out, and for some moments his companion did not answer. Then she said, and her voice had a curious timbre, as though she were holding herself in check:
“I will do whatever you like; the surroundings here are so exquisite that no matter where we go it will be pleasant. Look at that purple haze hanging like a gauze curtain over the cliffs all round the coast and right along the shore,” and she pointed. “Did you ever see anything so perfect? And the endless expanse of white sand with the sun’s rays sparkling on it as far as eye can reach, and hardly a soul in sight. I had no idea Jersey was so lovely; had you, Doctor Johnson?”
He murmured some almost inaudible reply, and, turning the corner sharply, slowly drew up at the entrance to a garage flanked on both sides with great bushes of hydrangeas.
“We will leave the car here,” he said, “and after tea we can explore some of those woods on the sloping cliffs. Probably from up there the view is even finer.”
The hotel, though the holiday season was at its height, they found almost deserted. The hordes of trippers whose presence each had often suffered from during August and September by the sea on the coasts of England, were conspicuous by their absence. The few visitors wandering on the beach were of quite a different type. They were what can most accurately be described as people of refinement.
During tea Johnson and his companion hardly spoke. Some strange barrier seemed suddenly to have risen up between them. Almost in silence they afterwards strolled along the terrace, and a little later turned their steps up a narrow, grass-grown lane which appeared to lead in the direction of the sloping woods they sought.
The lane curved, then turned abruptly to the right. Presently it curved again, describing almost a segment of a circle, then gradually became narrower. The grass, too, was longer as they wandered on. Then the branches of the trees on either side began to meet overhead, and soon they found themselves walking through a tunnel of thick foliage.
And still neither spoke. They walked very slowly now. It was Johnson who at last broke the silence:
“Jersey will always be associated in my mind,” he said in a low voice, “with some of the happiest moments of my life—this wonderful afternoon in particular.”
“Why wonderful?” Cora asked almost in a whisper, not trusting herself to look into his face.
“Why wonderful?”
Almost unconsciously his arm stole about her, and he drew her, unresisting, closer to him.
“Why wonderful?” he repeated.
They were standing quite still now. His arms encircled her. Her head sank forward on his breast and she felt his face buried in her hair.
On an instant a wild wave of passionate love for him swept over her. It was like the bursting ofsome great dam in her heart which for days past she had controlled. Turning, she put her hands behind his head and drew it down until his lips were pressed to hers. For over a minute they remained locked in a close embrace.
“Do you really mean it?” she exclaimed at last in a feverish whisper, disengaging herself from his strong arms. “You are not just flirting with me? You are not doing this just to pass the time away, or because this beautiful spot has intoxicated your brain?”
She paused.
“Can all that is happening be really true,” she exclaimed ardently. “Or is it only a beautiful dream from which I shall presently awake?”
“It is no dream, my darling,” he murmured, taking her face between his hands and gazing down into her lovely eyes as though they mesmerized him.
“I want you, my dear; I want you dreadfully; you can have no idea how I yearn for you! Yes, I ask you now if you will become my wife, for I know you are the first woman I have ever truly loved.”
He bent forward and kissed her again passionately on the lips. As he did so he felt her body quiver.
He had meant to return to the hotel within an hour or two, but more than three hours had passed and still they did not go back. The sun was setting now, and from where they sat the shadow of the trees on a sheltered spot near the summit of thewooded cliff, a magnificent view of the entire bay unfolded itself beneath them.
But of that both were oblivious. They could see nothing but each other’s eyes, hear nothing but each other’s voices. The world might have fallen in without their knowing.
The sun, which all day had blistered the scorched earth, had sunk in a halo of gray and purple streaked with seams of gold. Dusk was fading into darkness, and still neither moved. Cora’s head rested in his lap. His fingers, buried in her soft hair, toyed gently with it. Again he bent down and kissed her with all the ardor of his soul.
Night had set in when at last they rose to go. Cora felt supremely happy. Her brief married life, when she looked back on it, now seemed to her a nightmare; her future married life, on the contrary held all sorts of hopes. Would she have been as happy with Sir Stephen Lethbridge—the question came unbidden into her thoughts—as she felt she would be with the man she had now accepted?
She dispelled the question unanswered, and at once another took its place. The unsigned letter she had received, the threat it contained, the identity of the writer, what of all that? Her future husband had not even referred to it again. Could he have forgotten it in the ardor of his wooing?
As so often happens between people in close sympathy, the thought, as it came to her, flashed at once into his brain.
“I have been carefully considering,” he said suddenly,“the matter you came to me about, and that has led indirectly to our engagement. You have nothing now to fear from that, my darling. The scoundrel who sent the letter can do her worst. Let her write to all your friends. Let her tell them what she chooses. If she does, and they talk in consequence, what can it matter to us? It will not affect my love for you, or your love for me, will it? And what else is there that matters? In point of fact, when she reads or hears of our engagement, as undoubtedly she soon will, she will, I suspect, let the matter drop. Or she will write to me, thinking I know nothing.”
“Then you still believe, dear, the writer to be a woman?”
“I feel convinced it must be, though, as I told you, she may have a male accomplice. But already I have set in motion the machinery which I hope will lead her unwittingly to reveal herself. We ought to hear something in a week or two.”
They were now back at the hotel, and there they dined. Cora was trembling with excitement at all that had occurred. It all seemed so wonderful. That she should, quite by chance, have read in the newspaper of Doctor Johnson’s arrival; that the unsigned letter should have come about that time; that she should have thought of asking his advice; that he should have interested himself in the matter; that their friendship should have ripened so quickly into love, and have ended as it had done!
Out in the night the moon was shining brightly.It lit up the bay with a single streak of silver, which extended far out across the sea to where the lighthouses were winking along the coast. And the atmosphere was as warm as in the tropics.
“Must we go back toSt.Helier now?” she inquired in a strained voice, as they rose to go out. “I feel to-night as if I could never sleep again.”
“And you need not sleep again,” he answered with a smile, taking her hand in his, “at least until you want to. We are returning toSt.Helier, but not by the way we came. I said when we came out we would go right round the island, but then I did not know what was going to happen. We will telephone to the friends with whom you are staying, and you can speak to them. You can tell them as little or as much as you like of what has befallen you to-night. And you can say that you do not expect to be home before midnight, or possibly even later. It should be the most delightful drive either of us has ever had.”
Slowly the car passed up the narrow lane which led from the hotel. At the top it turned into a wider road which branched off to the left.
The great headlight lit up the road for a hundred yards or more. Increasing speed a little, Johnson made straight for Corbière, where the road turned abruptly to the right. Leaving La Pulente behind them, they traveled rapidly until they reached the village of La Thiebaut, not far from the northern coast. And all the time they traveled they exchanged hardly a word.
The moon had now completely risen, and as they bore round to the right again to meet the road to Ville Bagot, the car suddenly slowed down. It stopped, and the engine became silent.
“Is anything the matter?” Cora inquired anxiously.
No sound of any sort was audible save, in the far distance, the sea washing up the beach.
“Nothing is the matter, my own darling,” Johnson murmured passionately, “but I felt that on a night like this——”
And so, in the solitude of that perfect night, they renewed their vows once more. Locked in her lover’s arms, Cora felt supremely happy. She felt his burning kisses on her lips and face and neck, on her eyes and on her hair.
“Darling,” she whispered back in an ecstacy at last. “I never knew before that any one could be so happy! Oh, how I hope you will never tire of me, that we shall live in this state of bliss right through to the end of our lives! I feel that until now my life has been so aimless. I have led such a butterfly existence. But it will be different in the future, my darlingest—oh, so completely different. I mean to do all in my power to make you the happiest man on earth, and then....”
Thus she talked, her words of love and passion flowing like a torrent from her lips. For the time all else but their great love was forgotten. Even her fondness for Yootha had passed completely from her mind.
When Johnson had driven her back to the house where she was still on a visit to her friends, and had returned to the Brees Hotel, he found several letters awaiting him which had arrived during the day.
One, he saw, was from Preston, and bore the Dieppe postmark. The other came from England, and the handwriting was Blenkiron’s.