"Such money as Margaret had she has left to you, Christina, and in telling you this, I should like to make a final protest against your remaining in Lady Cicely's household, in a subordinate and dependent position."
"How dear of Aunt Margaret—how very, very dear of her, to give me her money," Christina said; "and with that money I shouldn't be dependent any more, should I?" and she looked into Sir Arthur's grim face, with a smile whose inner meaning that worthy did not feel quite able to fathom. Was it merely the smile of guileless simplicity, or was she, in a mild way, presuming to chaff him?
"In the stricter sense of the word, no, you would not be dependent. But that is a mere shuffling of words. You would still be in a subordinate position here, and the position is a false one."
Christina, standing by the window in Cicely's great London drawing-room, devoutly wished that somebody would come in, or that something would happen, to end this interview with her uncle, who never failed to have one of two disastrous effects upon her: either he made her feel angry—really viciously angry, as she expressed it—or he made her hopelessly inclined to giggle.
"And to-day I want to giggle," she said to herself, "and if I do, he will never forgive me or forget."
Aloud she said, with a gravity she was far from feeling—
"I don't want to be rude and contradict you, Uncle Arthur, but I cannot feel I am in a false position here. Cicely really needs me, for herself, as well as for Baba; this is a very happy home for me, and, because I still take care of Baba just as I did before, I don't feel I am doing anything beneath my dignity, or—subordinate."
"I wish I could make you understand the fitness of things," Sir Arthur answered, with a grieved air, which never failed to amuse his niece. "Your Aunt Ellen and I would gladly offer you a home, but—I fear that, at the bottom of your heart, this Babylon, this Vanity Fair, makes an appeal to you."
"I do like London," was the frank response, "and though it is very good of you to ask me to come to your house, I think I am really wanted here. Cicely would miss me, Baba would miss me, and—I like doing all I can for them. Cicely has been so good to me all through."
"Wilful woman," Sir Arthur said, with a shrug of the shoulders; "you often remind me of your poor Aunt Margaret. You have her set obstinacy of character. She was never able to see any other point of view but her own, and you are very like her."
"I—should like to be like Aunt Margaret," the girl answered; "and if she did like her own points of view, I think they were always very beautiful views. I have never met anybody like her."
"She was a good woman," Sir Arthur said, smitten with sudden compunction. "I had no business to say a word against her; she was a good woman, but the thought of her wasted life hurts me."
"Not wasted," Christina said; "I don't think her life was wasted. Her influence can't die away, even now. It was such a wonderful influence—like herself, so beautiful."
"Yes," he repeated, "poor Margaret. She was a good woman, and it hurts me to think of all the trouble of her life. You are like her in many ways. God grant that your life may not hold the sorrows her life held."
Uncle and niece were silent for a few moments after those solemnly-uttered words, and Christina stood looking out across the square, where the trees waved delicate green leaves against a background of May sky, her thoughts full of the beautiful woman who had entered so strangely into her life, through whose instrumentality so vast a change had come to her.
From first to last, Margaret's personality had made a great appeal to Christina, and looking out now into the May sunshine, across the fragrant window-boxes of geranium and mignonette, a vivid recollection came to her of that December afternoon, when Margaret had stood in the lane, pleading with her to fetch a doctor. What apparent inconsequence had led her to drive past that lonely house in the lane, and how strange had been the outcome of that inconsequent drive.
What big results had rested upon such a seemingly small event! Her relationship to Sir Arthur and his sister Margaret, would probably never have been discovered, but for that meeting in the lane; and no one but Margaret would ever have been able to elucidate the mystery about the emerald pendant. It was strange, so strange as to be like some story-book happening, instead of an event in real, everyday life!
Sir Arthur's voice brought her back from her thoughts of the past.
"I am sorry, my dear Christina, that you have made up your mind to stay here, in the very anomalous position you now occupy. But, I quite see that it is useless to argue further with you. If, however, you should, at some future date, see things differently, your Aunt Ellen and I will still be willing to offer you a home under our roof."
Christina's thanks were none the less warm, because, in her heart of hearts, she decided that no power on earth would ever induce her to make a home with her uncle and aunt.
"But I couldn't live with them, could I?" she said to Cicely an hour later, when the two sat together in the rose-coloured boudoir, which, at Christina's first visit to the house, had aroused her deep admiration. "Uncle Arthur is so—so very kind, but——"
"But, he moves along like a horse in blinkers, and he cannot see anything on either side of him, and not much in front."
"He says I am like Aunt Margaret, and that she only saw one point of view," Christina answered demurely.
"Then, my dear, it is evidently a family failing," Cicely retorted; "but never mind what Cousin Arthur says. You are to stay with me, and be as happy as you can, and because you are sweet enough still to look after Baba, that does not lower you in anyone's eyes."
"One argument Uncle Arthur used to try and induce me not to stay here, was, that you might marry again, and then, he said, I should be stranded."
The colour flew into Cicely's face, but she answered collectedly—
"Why should Cousin Arthur think absurdities of that kind? I——"
"He said you were very young, and—very attractive"—Christina laughed, a low, mischievous laugh, as the colour deepened on the other's face—"and he would have it, too, that people would want to marry you for your money and position."
"I have no intention of marrying again," Cicely said firmly, "and, if I did, I hope I should have sense enough to know whether I was wanted for my stupid position, or for myself."
"There are some people," Christina said, the words coming from her lips almost involuntarily "who would be afraid to ask you to marry them, just because of your money and position."
"I don't see why a man's silly pride should stand in the way of his love," Cicely retorted; but Christina shook her head sagely.
"Ah! but men do let their pride spoil their love," she said, "and they let their pride spoil other people's lives too," she added, with a wisdom beyond her years. "A man might easily think it would be dishonourable to ask you to marry him—a man who was not rich, or distinguished." She spoke very slowly; in some odd way it seemed, even to herself, as though the words were put into her mouth to speak, and as she uttered them she was looking so intently out of the window, that she did not observe the varying expressions of emotions that flitted over Cicely's face.
"One would not know how to beat down the sort of pride you describe," she answered, after a pause, during which Christina's eyes fixed themselves upon a flock of pigeons, wheeling about the plane-trees in the square. "A woman is so tied, so handicapped; she can only possess her soul in patience, and wait."
"I don't believe I should wait," again it seemed to Christina, as though the words were being forced from her. "If I knew that only pride, silly, ridiculous pride, was holding a man back, a man who loved me and I him—well, I don't believe I would wait. I think—there's a limit to possessing one's soul in patience."
"But Christina—surely!"—Cicely's blue eyes opened wide, she looked into the girl's animated face, with wondering incredulity.
"Surely—yes," Christina answered with an audacious little laugh. "If the man cared for me, and I knew it, I—would not let his pride spoil his life and mine. If he was too proud to ask me—why, then, I should ask him—that is all." With the laughing words, she turned and left the room, murmuring that it was time she attended to Baba's tea; but after she had gone, Cicely sat very still, her mind haunted by the words the other had just spoken.
"I would not let his pride spoil his life and mine. If he was too proud to ask me—why, then, I should ask him, that is all."
"But such a big 'all,'" Cicely reflected, her eyes, like Christina's, following the wheeling flight of the wood-pigeons about the plane-trees' tops; "it is such an impossible thing even to contemplate doing, and yet——"
And yet! Sitting there alone, she reviewed the past happy years, when John had been her safeguard, her protector, the shadow of a great rock in her life, shielding her from everything that could hurt or vex her. And after those years of full content had come the lean years of sorrow—the blank desolation of her widowhood, the loneliness, the overpowering loneliness, which no kindly friends nor kindred could really lessen or assuage. And now, new possibilities of happiness seemed to be opening before her, if—but again it was such a big "if." How could she put out her hand to snatch at what had not been offered to her, what might never be offered to her, but which, nevertheless, she knew with a woman's sure knowledge was hers?
"I don't think it is being unfaithful to John," she thought; "it does not make me love John less, because I know—that other—could bring me a measure of joy again."
For a few moments she gave free rein to her thoughts, letting them range over the past few months, allowing her memory to bring back Denis Fergusson's kindly, shrewd face, with the brown eyes that held so much both of tenderness and humour, and the mouth that could smile so cheerily, and set itself into lines of such strength and steadfastness. During those anxious days of Baba's illness at Graystone, she had of necessity seen Fergusson constantly, and perhaps it had been borne in upon her then, that he, too, was of the nature of a great rock, strong to lean upon, and very steadfast; and perhaps she had been drawn to him, in that mysterious drawing together of one particular man to one particular woman, which must always be a wonder of the universe.
Whenever she and Fergusson had met, she had been conscious of her own power over him, conscious also that something was holding him back. And now, as it seemed to her, Christina had given her the clue, to what had often sorely puzzled her. Her own outlook upon life was an eminently simple one, and she had never dreamed that her rank or wealth could make a bar to the friendship, and the something deeper than friendship, of such a man as Denis Fergusson. Christina's words had given her food for thought, and they had also brought her face to face with the knowledge of herself, and of all that Denis was beginning to mean to her. He possessed that same steadfast quality which had been one of her husband's noblest characteristics, and the one perhaps that had made the chief appeal to her more yielding nature. And Fergusson's cheery strength and unfailing optimism, had gone far also towards drawing her to him. But instinctively she had been aware of a barrier between them, of something which he was rearing up against her, and though the instinctive knowledge of the barrier had wounded and puzzled her, it was only now, with Christina's words ringing in her ears, that she understood the meaning of all the puzzle. The doctor was a poor man, or at any rate comparatively poor, whilst she had more than enough and to spare of this world's goods, and a title into the bargain; and because the man was proud as well as poor, he had erected that barrier, of which she had been confusedly conscious.
Well! Christina—straightforward Christina, with her almost boyish love for all that was most natural, most frank and simple—had said, "I would not let his pride spoil his life, and mine. If he was too proud to ask me, then I should ask him!"
"But"—Cicely rose from her chair, and crossed the room to the window—"but, of course, any such step as that was out of the question for her—impossible and out of the question. She could never overcome her pride, to such an extent as that—never!"
"Dr. Fergusson has called, my lady, and desired me to say that if you were disengaged, he would be very glad if he could see you for a few minutes." James, the footman, stood in the doorway, and even upon James's slow intelligence, it dawned that his mistress looked unusually lovely, and unusually young. But his dense mind did not especially connect the youth or loveliness with anything or anybody; he only dimly saw and wondered, whilst for the fraction of a second Cicely hesitated. Should she order James to bring the doctor up to the boudoir—to this dainty room in which she made a point of only receiving those who were her most intimate friends? Or should she go down to the drawing-room, and receive him as she received acquaintances? The two questions revolved in her mind, and they were quickly answered.
"I will come down to the drawing-room," she said, scarcely knowing herself why she came to this decision; coming to it more by instinct, than by any power of reasoning. She paused yet another moment to collect her forces, then went slowly down the great staircase, and opened the drawing-room door, without lingering on the threshold, as she was more than half inclined to do.
Fergusson came forward quickly to greet her, and she saw that, though he smiled, and spoke in his customary, cheery manner, his eyes held a troubled look, and there was a worn expression on his face, which she had never seen there before. His manner, too, had a nervousness very foreign to it, and he talked rapidly, as though he were afraid of silence, and must continue speaking at all costs.
"I must apologise for troubling you," he said, and Cicely noted the formality of his speech, "but I felt I should like to come and ask about my little friend Baba, before I go away."
"Go away?" Cicely could frame no other words than those two bare ones, because for a second her heart seemed to stop beating, then raced on again at headlong speed.
"Yes"—Fergusson still spoke fast and nervously,—"I have come to rather a sudden decision, but I feel it is a wise one. I have made up my mind to go abroad, to begin life in a new country. The old one is over-crowded—we are all finding that fact out more and more, and I am proposing to go to the Far West. It has always appealed to me—that free life in a big, new country."
"But your poor people—your people in South London," Cicely interrupted, a sick pain gnawing at her heart; "surely they want you?"
He shrugged his shoulders a little, and smiled.
"I am not indispensable to them, or to anyone"—the last words he spoke under his breath—"and I believe there is plenty of work waiting for me, on the other side of the world. I have not made up my mind to this hurriedly, but it seems the best and wisest thing to do."
"I wonder why?" Cicely began slowly, her blue eyes looking full into those troubled brown ones. "It seems"—she broke off, leaving her sentence unfinished, her eyes dropping suddenly, because of what she read in those other eyes.
"Does it seem to you a mad idea?—an act of impulse?" he asked, his glance travelling hungrily over her down-bent face. "I have not come to the decision impulsively. It is the best—the only thing to do." The last part of the speech dropped hurriedly from his lips, he drew in his breath sharply, almost as if he were being tried to the limits of his strength. "I—could not—go away without coming to say good-bye to you—and Miss Moore—and Baba," he added jerkily.
"We should have been very angry with you if you had done such a horrid thing," Cicely answered lightly, so lightly, that a hurt look crept into the brown eyes watching her. He had not dared to hope she could by any remote possibility care for him, so he said to himself. He had never dreamt such wildly improbable dreams, but he had thought she would be a little sorry to lose a friend for ever; and when he left England, he intended to leave it for ever, to cut adrift from all old friendships, all old ties. And yet she looked up at him with laughter in her eyes, and talked brightly of being angry with him, if he had gone without a farewell! He felt oddly hurt and ruffled, and Cicely, as keenly aware of the hurt, as she had been a moment before of the significant look in his eyes, only knew that her own heart was beating with an excess of joy that frightened her—only realised that the game lay in her own small hands, if only—she could play the game as it should be played.
"You—have not given up your house and practice—yet?" she questioned, and her tone was still brisk, almost business-like, and there was a hurt note in his voice as he answered—
"My house is in an agent's hands for letting, and I am only going on with the work, until I can find someone to take it over; as soon as everything is settled here, I shall be off. To tell you the honest truth, I shall be glad to go." Cicely's heart leapt in an insane way, because of the sudden ring of bitterness in his accents, she moved a step nearer to him (they had both remained standing since her entrance), she had even uttered the words, "I wish"—when the door was flung wide open, and James announced, "Mrs. Deane."
Cicely was not quite sure whether she most wished to laugh or cry, when this very ordinary little acquaintance, a walking mass of platitudes, propriety, and dullness, walked into the room. Too well she knew that Mrs. Deane, once established in her drawing-room, would not be quickly dislodged, and, with an inward sigh, she resigned herself to her fate, whilst Fergusson held out his hand in farewell.
"I must be getting on my way," he said; "perhaps I might just go up to the nursery, to say good-bye to Miss Moore and Miss Baba?"
"Of course," Cicely answered with her pretty smile. "Baba would bitterly resent it, if her dear doctor went across the sea, without saying good-bye to her."
"If—you go across the sea," she mentally ejaculated, as the door closed behind his tall form, and she settled herself down to listen to Mrs. Deane's totally uninteresting conversation. "If—you—go—across—the sea!"
If Fergusson had left the great house in the square with his spirits at zero, they had travelled many degrees below that point on the following morning. He sat alone in the room he used as study and general sitting-room, and, spread on the table before him were two letters, one from a house-agent informing him that a possible client was in treaty for his house; the other from a medical practitioner in the north of England, who expressed a desire to come in person, and learn all particulars about the practice.
"Burning my boats with a vengeance," Fergusson muttered, looking round the room which he had learnt to love, and smiling a troubled smile that had no joy behind it. That glance round the room, brought back to his remembrance, in an odd flash of memory, Christina's first visit to him, when he was occupying Dr. Stokes's house in the country. There was real humour in his smile when he recalled the girl's look of surprise, and her naïve acknowledgment of the discrepancy she saw between his appearance, and that of the house in which he was. Looking round the study of his South London abode, he wondered whether Christina would consider his present surroundings more in keeping with his personality, than those in which she had first seen him. Certainly there was nothing here of the smug respectability which had characterised Dr. Stokes's well-kept establishment. No two chairs matched one another, but they were all comfortable and restful, the walls were distempered a soft rich yellow that gave an effect of sunlight even on the greyest days, and the few pictures hanging against the sunny background, were excellent photographs framed in oak, and representing some of the best Old Masters of the Italian School. Bookcases covered a considerable amount of the wall space, books covered the tables, and were even piled upon a corner of the rather faded Turkey carpet. The box outside the open window was filled with wallflowers, and their penetrating fragrance made the room sweet. The view was not a wholly uninspiring one, for a narrow strip of garden lay behind the house, and glimpses of waving boughs were visible against the blue sky of May. The roar of traffic from the main road a few paces away, the distant hum of humanity, these were sounds dear to the ears of the doctor, to whom human beings made so deep an appeal; he even had a weakness for the raucous street cries, audible now and again above the persistent roar, that was like the noise of Atlantic breakers on a rock-bound coast.
He was sorry to be leaving the teeming London world, in which he had spent so much of his busy life—more sorry than anyone else could realise, he reflected grimly. Possibly, to the rest of mankind, a practice in South London might not appear the acme of bliss—a practice that dealt almost exclusively with the sordid, the poor, even the criminal; but—he loved his work, he loved his people; it was intolerably hard to tear himself away from them all, and yet—the tearing was inevitable.
"I can't stay here within measurable reach—of her—and of temptation, and—play the man," his reflections ran on, "so—so I must run away." He laughed shortly, as he picked up the two letters from his table, and re-read them, feeling absurdly disinclined to reply to either. He knew he must go. With the unwavering directness of an upright man, when making a decision, he had seen what he conceived to be the right path clearly marked for him; and, having seen it, he had no thought of drawing back from following it. But, with all his strength and decision of character, he nevertheless felt, at this juncture, a deep repugnance to writing those letters, which would, as he expressed it to himself, have the effect of burning his boats behind him. He knew that good work awaited him in that far western land, where he had determined to begin a new life; he knew, too, that to remain in England within call, as it were, of a temptation which his sense of what was right and honourable, bade him resist, was merely dallying with that sense of right; and yet, the human man within him, cried out against the necessity which he had faced, and acknowledged to be inevitable. Although he already actually knew the contents of those two letters by heart, he read both through again, then deliberately folded, and set them aside, with another short laugh.
"If they are answered by to-night's post, it is time enough," he exclaimed. "They shall be answered to-night; these few hours of delay will make no difference." He was half-amused, half-ashamed of his own cowardice, as he called it, in postponing the inevitable, but a weight seemed to be lifted off his heart when those letters were set aside unanswered, when he turned away from the writing table, to go to his downstairs surgery, feeling that the conflagration of those boats of his had not yet begun.
The busy morning of attending to the motley collection of fellow creatures who thronged to his surgery door, was only half over; and he was waiting in his tiny consulting-room, for the next patient, when a tap on the door was followed by the entrance of Thompson, his caretaker, and general factotum. Indeed, Thompson and his wife constituted the entire staff of Fergusson's household, being the doctor's devoted admirers, as well as his faithful servants; and when he had broached to them his proposed change of life, they had simultaneously announced their intention of going with him to the West, and sharing his fortunes in the new land and new labours.
Upon Thompson's face now, as he entered his master's little consulting-room, there was an expression of mingled bewilderment and pleasure, which made Fergusson look at him sharply.
"Yes, Thompson, what is it?" he asked, for it was seldom indeed that any call from the house was allowed to interfere with the surgery work.
"There's a lady called to see you, sir," the man answered. "When she heard you was busy, she wanted to call again, but I didn't feel it would be right to let a lady like her go away, and call again." Fergusson smiled. Thompson was the worthiest soul on earth, but his powers of discrimination were not great, and a "lady like her" was in all probability a suburban "Miss," hoping to obtain a consultation at surgery rates.
"Where is the lady?" he asked.
"In your study, sir," Thompson answered, mild amazement in his voice. "I couldn't show a lady like her nowhere else, could I, sir?"
Again Fergusson smiled. He knew them so well—those ladies who made such an appeal to Thompson's æsthetic soul, the ladies of rather abnormally sized hats, garments they called "stylish," with lace blouses, out of which rose an unnecessary length of neck, encircled by artificial pearls. Oh! he knew precisely what sort of a lady he would find in his study, and the knowledge did not make him hasten his steps, as he went up the staircase to the sitting-room. Long before opening the door, he had decided to make short shrift of the lady—he knew precisely how he should frame his terse speech—and there was a distinctly grim look upon his usually kindly face, when he entered the room. But when he saw who it was that stood in the May sunlight, close to the open window, the grim expression died away, unbounded astonishment took its place, and he caught his breath suddenly, standing stock still on the threshold, and staring at his visitor, as if she was an apparition from another world.
"You?" he said; and it seemed as though that single word were the only one that he could bring himself to utter. "You?" he repeated, as he moved slowly across the room, his eyes riveted upon Lady Cicely's face. She stood very still, just where she had been when he first entered, the sunlight falling upon the pure gold of her hair, and on the exceeding fairness of her face; her eyes very blue, and very deep, looking up at Fergusson with a strange mixture of embarrassment and sweetness, which set his heart beating fast.
In all the time of his acquaintance with her, she had never looked younger or fairer than on this May morning. Her gown of some pale grey material, exactly suited the pale pure tints of her hair and complexion, and the great pink rose fastened against the soft feathers of her grey boa, harmonised with the delicate colour that had risen to her cheeks, as Fergusson entered.
"I—promised I would come some day to see your house, and your surgery," she said, hesitating a little between the words, but speaking firmly nevertheless, "and—I thought I would come to-day."
"What made you come to-day?" he asked, an odd abruptness that almost amounted to roughness, in his voice. "Why to-day, of all days?"
"I—don't know," she answered. "I believe I acted—on impulse. It just came into my head that I must come this morning, and—you know I am rather a creature of impulse—and I came—straight away."
"It is so curious you should have come to-day," he persisted, still with that odd abruptness of voice and manner. "You have come in time to see my boats burnt."
"Your—boats—burnt?" her voice was puzzled; she looked into his face with less of embarrassment, because in some indefinite way she felt that he was more embarrassed than she, and it gave her courage. "Why are you burning boats?"
"Because, as I told you when I came to see you, I am giving up the life here, giving it up altogether, irrevocably, for always. There is to be no turning back."
"No turning back," she repeated softly, her eyes watching the changing expressions on his face. "Why no turning back?"
"Why? Because I have made up my mind to begin a new life, in a new world, and—when I make up my mind a thing must be done, I generally carry it through."
"Ah!" she said. "You generally carry it through?"
"Yes," he spoke almost harshly. "The boats will be burnt to-day—finally burnt."
She stood very still in the sunlight, her pretty head bent down, her hands slowly moving over the knob of the dainty sunshade she carried, a little smile lurking about the corners of her mouth; her eyes fixed on the faded colours of the Turkey carpet.
"I think—I should like—to be here for the burning of the boats," she said. "It sounds so—subversive—so final."
"It is subversive—it is final," was the short reply, and a flame of anger against her shot up within him. "Why did she come here to torture him? What had possessed her to come and stand here in his room, in the sunlight, stand here amongst all his most cherished belongings, just as in some of his mad dreams, he had pictured she might stand—looking so fair, so young, so sweet? Why had she done it? It was cruel, not just to a man who was trying to follow his code of honour, to its bitterest consequences." So his thoughts ran, whilst Cicely still stood there, moving her hands over the knob of her sunshade, the little smile still hovering upon her lips.
"I wonder," she said slowly, after a moment's silence—and Fergusson, watching her intently, saw that a deeper colour crept into her face—"I wonder—whether—the burning—is—really necessary?"
"Quite necessary." His tone was abrupt to the point of rudeness. "I have made up my mind."
"And—you—never—change—your mind?" She shot one swift glance at him from her pretty eyes, lowering them again instantly, whilst her hands moved more nervously, and her voice shook.
"Not when I am sure I am acting rightly," he answered. "And in this case I have no doubts."
She was silent again, for what seemed to the man who watched her many, many minutes, though only a few seconds had ticked by, before she said gently—
"I wonder—why you—are so very sure?"
"Because there is no room for doubt," was the terse response, and again there was silence, until Cicely said softly—
"I—think you are wrong. I—believe there is great room for doubt."
"Why do you say that?" he exclaimed, that almost rough note in his voice again. "How can you tell, how can you know, what I——" He broke off with significant abruptness, and Cicely moved a few steps nearer to him.
"Dr. Fergusson," she said, her voice very low, her words hurried. "I don't know—how to explain—what makes me say—that I am sure you are wrong to—to burn your boats. I—came this morning—on purpose to tell you——"
"To tell me what?" he questioned, his own voice more gentle, because of the nervousness in hers.
"To tell you—you are—wrong to give up your work here, and go away."
"Wrong? Why?" For the life of him, Fergusson could not utter another syllable; he could only stand and stare and stare at the bent golden head, wishing desperately that she would go away, before he was conquered by his overmastering desire to seize her hands in his, and draw her close against his breast.
"Quite, quite wrong," she answered firmly, lifting her eyes again, and looking into his face; "you mustn't go away. I came this morning—to tell you—that you mustn't go away. Baba and I—can't spare you." The last words were spoken so softly as to be almost inaudible; but they reached Fergusson's ears, and he looked at the speaker, as though he could hardly believe the evidence of his senses.
"Baba—and—you?" he repeated.
"Baba—and—I," she whispered. "Oh! perhaps I ought not to have come, but there seemed no other way to show you—what a dreadful mistake you were going to make, and—Rupert says I am always a creature of impulse," she ended with a little laugh. "I came—on—impulse, because—because I had to come." She came closer to his side, and laid one of her hands upon his coat sleeve, her blue eyes looking into his, with the wistful, appealing eagerness of a child's eyes. "I—don't know what Cousin Arthur would say—if he knew," she ended inconsequently.
"But—I can't quite understand even now," Fergusson said, with a not very successful effort to speak quietly. "I—do not think I can be of any use to—you—and little Baba. There are plenty of other doctors who——"
"Plenty of otherdoctors," she answered, a quiver in her voice; "but only one you—and—and are all men always so dense? Please understand, Baba—and I—ask you—to stay. We—are very bold—and brazen—Baba and I!"
She did not look up at him now. She did not see the look of radiant joy that swept across his face, she only felt his arms go suddenly round her, she only realised what a relief it was to hide her burning cheeks against his rough coat, whilst he bent his head to hers, and murmured passionate inarticulate little words, that would not frame themselves into sentences, and yet seemed to flood her world with happiness.
"I can't understand it," he said presently, putting his hand softly under her chin and lifting her face, so that he could look deep into her eyes; "you can't mean—that you—would stoop—to me?"
"I didn't know how to make you understand without telling you in plain English that I—that you——" She broke off again, her eyes dropping before the look in his, the colour deepening in her cheeks.
"That you—and Baba—want me?" he quoted softly.
"Yes; we don't think we can do without you, Baba and I. We can't let you go to the Far West, or—anywhere very far away from us. Only——"
"Only?" he whispered, his lips close to hers.
"Only—I didn't think I could ever be so—horribly brazen—as to ask a man to——"
"You haven't asked me anything," he answered whimsically, a smile on his lips, a humorous twinkle in the eyes that looked so tenderly at her rosy face. "You haven't asked me anything yet!"
"Don't make me more ashamed," she whispered. "It is dreadful to have come—to have said—to——"
"To have played the part of a gracious and lovely queen, whose Prince Consort dares not speak, until she gives him the right?" His voice was a caressing whisper, his arm held her more closely. "And even now, I do not know whether I have any business to accept the right you give me? You and I are such poles asunder."
"Are we?" she answered softly, her hand touching his. "Are we really 'poles asunder,' just because I happen to have a little more money than you have? Aren't we just a man and woman, who——"
"Who?" he echoed gently, as she paused, and his face was bent very near to hers, to hear her answer.
"Who—care for each other," she whispered confusedly. "I don't think—you ought to make me say all the—difficult things."
"Is it so difficult to say you care for me," he answered, with a low laugh of triumphant gladness. "I have got dozens of patients waiting downstairs for me, but I don't want to do anything except go on telling you how much I care for you, so much that I could not stay in England, and not tell you the truth."
"And why didn't you tell me?" she said reproachfully, lifting her head to look again into his radiant face.
"Because—your rank, and money, and surroundings—oh! everything about you, put you far out of my reach," he answered, with a sudden return to his old abruptness. "Even now I have not the smallest right to take advantage of the wonderful thing you have done to-day. What will your people say? What will the world say? What——"
"Need you and I mind what the rest of mankind thinks, or says?" she answered, a little flash of defiance in her eyes. "Perhaps in coming here to-day I have been unwomanly and horrible; and yet, I had to come, because I knew that happiness is too big a thing to be sacrificed to pride, or to other people's opinions."
"And—this is your happiness?" His voice was strangely softened. "Do you really mean me to know that you could be happy with me, with a rough sort of fellow like me?"
"With a rough sort of fellow like you," she answered, laughing, a tender mockery in her words. "I can't be happy without you, and—I came to-day, to tell you so!"
The afternoon was very still. Overhead, the sky of October was mistily blue, the autumn sunshine flooded upland and valley with a golden glory; in the air was that quietness, that sense of waiting and brooding, which marks an autumn day. From the cottages in the valley, thin trails of blue smoke mounted straight into the veiled softness of the sky. The touch of autumn's hand was already visible upon the trees. In the copse over the brow of the hill, the hazels were yellowing; the beech-trees showed orange and gold amongst their leaves; the hawthorns wore a brave array of crimson and yellow leaves, and bright red berries. Long ago the heather had faded, a soft dun colour had taken the place of the royal purple, which earlier in the year had carpeted the uplands, and the bracken blazed golden and brown upon the moorland slopes. From the place where Christina sat, she could see the white road that wound away across the heather to Graystone, and to those far blue hills, about which the afternoon sun was weaving a veil of light. In the valley to her right, the trunks of the pine-trees were turning crimson in the sun's level beams, the birches' delicate branches outlined against the blue of the sky, the soft amber of the larches contrasting with the sombre green of the pines, and beneath the trees, the carpet of bright bracken touched to gold by the sunshine. From far away across the moor, came the sound of chiming bells, from the copse across the road a robin sang his wonderful song of spring, that will follow winter, of life that will come after death; and from somewhere amongst the trees of the valley, a thrush was fluting the first notes of his next year's song, that he had yet to learn. The world was a very peaceful world on that October afternoon; and Christina, sitting on a hummock of dry heather, rested her chin on her hands, and looked over the wide landscape, with a great sense of its abiding restfulness. The chiming bells, the robin's song, the occasional soft murmur of the little breeze in the pines, harmonised with the brooding peace of autumn, that seemed to be over all the land, and the girl smiled, as she let the sense of restful peace sink deep into her soul. She and Baba were spending a week with Mrs. Nairne at Graystone, and on this Sunday afternoon, leaving the child in Mrs. Nairne's charge, she had walked over the hill to the little churchyard, to visit Margaret's grave.
In that sunny corner of the churchyard, close to the old grey wall, she had found violets in bloom, filling the air with their sweetness just as they had filled it on the April day, when Margaret had been laid to rest; and Christina held some of the purple, fragrant blossoms in her hand, whilst she sat looking out over the great sweep of country, to the golden sky behind the hills. Her thoughts were very full of the beautiful woman whose life had so strangely crossed her own, and from her thoughts of Margaret, by a natural transition, her mind wandered on to the remembrance of the man who had stood by her side, at Margaret's funeral. She recalled the look of heartbreak in Rupert Mernside's eyes, when they had met hers; she remembered that glimpse she had had into the man's tortured soul. How many times since that day, had Cicely speculated about Rupert's friendship with Margaret, wondering whether he had cared for her more deeply than as a friend, discussing the why and wherefore of his disappearance from the midst of his own circle, whilst all the time Christina knew in her heart, that she could if she would, have answered all these questions. She knew that Rupert's feeling for Margaret was not merely that of friendship, never had been friendship only; and she knew, intuitively, that his usual round of life had become intolerable to him, after Margaret's death. She felt an odd sense of triumph in her knowledge of him; of triumph, and of awe as well. For to Christina's simple and straightforward nature, there was something awe-inspiring, in this strange, intimate understanding of another human being's soul.
Seated there upon the heather, she was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she did not observe a figure moving slowly across the valley; and not until the figure had detached itself from amongst the trees, and was walking along the high-road in her direction, did she see that the object of her thoughts was coming towards her. That he should have come at that particular moment, struck her first as so extraordinary a coincidence, that she could hardly believe the evidence of her own eyes. But as the figure came a few paces nearer, she knew that she had made no mistake; it was Rupert's face into which she looked, as she sprang to her feet, Rupert's grey eyes that met hers with a smile, despite their expression of haunting sadness.
"I never dreamt of seeing you here," were his first unconventional words of greeting; "and yet it seems natural to find you."
Perhaps he was hardly aware himself why he spoke the last half of his sentence, and although Christina's heart leapt as she heard it, something within her seemed to respond to the spirit of his words. To her, too, it seemed "natural," that they should meet out here on the heather, in the sunlight, close to Margaret's grave. For the little churchyard lay only just over the brow of the hill, and Rupert's explanation of his presence on the moorland, was not needed by the girl, who knew without any words of his that he had come to visit that corner by the sunny wall, where the violets scented the air with their fragrance. After that brief greeting, he made Christina sit down again upon the heather, and flung himself beside her, his face turned, like hers, to the western horizon. "I am glad they put those words on the stone," he said abruptly; "whose thought were they?"
"I think I thought of them first," Christina answered; "they seemed the fittest and most beautiful words for her."
"Love—never faileth," he quoted slowly, his thoughts going back to the white cross, upon which the words were engraved, "Love never faileth; yes, you could not have chosen a better epitaph for her. Her soul was built up of love, and her love never failed, never for a single moment. It is a wonderful thing—the love of such a woman. Perhaps, in all the world, there is nothing more wonderful than a woman's love." He seemed to be speaking his thoughts aloud, rather than addressing her directly, and she did not answer his speech, only sat very still, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes looking out towards the golden west, a little smile on her lips.
"You know—I have been wandering over the earth—since—that day," Rupert went on, speaking with singular abruptness. "I felt like that man who went out, seeking rest—and finding none. I have found none."
The ring of bitterness in his voice hurt the girl. She turned a little, and looked down into his face.
"I am sorry," she said; "so very sorry."
"Are you?" he answered. "It is not worth while being sorry for a man who has made a mess of things, as I have done."
"Why do you say that," she said quickly. "You made the most of a beautiful friendship; you did Aunt Margaret no wrong in loving her. You were always her helpful friend. And now——"
"Now?" he echoed when she paused.
"Perhaps you will think me impertinent for saying what I was going to say," she answered, the colour creeping into her face; "but I was going to say, now you will not waste your life, in regretting what is past and over. You are not the sort of person to waste life in regrets. I should think you would take all the best of the love and friendship, and work them into your life, to make it better."
The words were as simply spoken, as they were simple in themselves. Their very simplicity made an appeal to the man who heard them, for, like all the best men, Rupert, man of the world though he was, had a very simple nature.
"Weave the past into the future," he answered thoughtfully. "Not sweep it away and try to forget it, but let it be woven into my life? Is that what you mean?"
"Yes, that is what I mean, only you have put it into better words. I never think it is quite right to try and sweep away a past, even if it has hurt us. It always seems as if it must be so much better to use all that was good in the past, and let it help to make the future better. I don't think I believe in stamping things out, and burying them, and being ruthless over them. Isn't it better to take the good from them, and bury the rest?"
Rupert's eyes were fixed on the girl's face, which had grown eager and intent over the thoughts she was trying to express, and as he watched her a smile broke up the ruggedness of his own features. She was quite unconscious of his gaze, but a soft colour had come into her cheeks as she spoke, her eyes were very deep and bright, and the man who looked at her realised that hers was more than mere girlish prettiness. She had taken off her hat, and the sunlight fell upon the dusky masses of her hair, showing golden gleams in its dark threads. Her eyes, green and deep and very soft, made Rupert think of a stream in Switzerland, beside which he had stood only a few weeks back, a stream whose waters shone in the sunbeams, showing dark and green and soft in the shade. The colour that had crept into the pure whiteness of her cheeks, tinted them as a white rose is sometimes tinted; and for the first time Rupert was aware of a faint, yet definite likeness, between the girl at his side and the woman he had loved. Perhaps it was in her expression more than in any actual resemblance between the two women's faces, that the likeness lay, for something of Margaret's nobility and serenity, seemed to be reflected on the younger countenance, and with that flashing thought, there flashed into his mind, too, the words Margaret had spoken to him, before she died. He had never remembered those words again until now, and they recurred to him with extraordinary force.
"She would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife. She has a sweet, strong soul."
"A sweet, strong soul." Those words rang in his brain with odd persistence, whilst his eyes watched Christina's profile, as she sat silently looking out again across the moorlands.
A—sweet—strong soul. And there was such a strange restfulness, too, about the personality of the girl, young though she was; he remembered how conscious he had been of that restfulness on the day when he had sat and talked to her, in Mrs. Nairne's parlour. That same restfulness stole over him now, and some of the haunting misery within him died away.
"So you don't believe in a ruthless chopping away of the past?" he asked, going back to her last words.
"Oh! no," she exclaimed vehemently. "I am sure we are meant to use the past as a foundation stone for the future. Each thing in turn comes into our lives—joy, sorrow, pain, difficulty; and they all have to help together to build it up into perfection. But—I have no business to be sitting here preaching sermons," she added lightly. "I must go home, and relieve Mrs. Nairne of Baba, and write to Cicely, and——"
"No; wait here a little longer," he interrupted imperiously, laying a hand on her arm, as she attempted to rise. "I am a returned traveller, and you are to tell me all the news before you go back to Baba, who, I am morally convinced, is supremely happy with Mrs. Nairne."
"Supremely," Christina laughed. "She was going to help warm the scones for tea; perhaps you will come and help us eat them," she added shyly. "Baba would be so pleased if you came to have tea with us again."
"And you? Would you be pleased?"
"Of course," but she looked away from him as she spoke, and the soft rose tints on her face deepened ever so slightly, "Baba and I were very proud of giving you tea in the little parlour, last December."
"I liked that parlour. I have pleasant recollections of it," he answered. "I liked the low ceiling, and the oak panelled walls, and the queer old-fashioned furniture. Yes, I will come and have tea with you and Baba to-day, but first tell me all about everybody."
"You know Cicely has married Dr. Fergusson?"
"I saw it in a chance paper. I have heard no details. I have simply drifted over Europe, where my fancy, or the demon of unrest led me, and I let nobody know where I was. I know practically nothing. Why did Cicely marry the doctor? He is a thorough good fellow, but——"
"There isn't any 'but,'" Christina answered firmly. "Denis Fergusson is one of the very best men in the world, and Cicely has been radiant ever since—they were engaged. They were only married three weeks ago, and I wish you could have seen her face, when she walked down the church. You would not have said 'but' then!"
"Were her people annoyed?"
"A little, but only a little, and only at first. I think they recognised how completely the marriage was for Cicely's happiness. After all, Denis is a gentleman, an absolute and perfect gentleman, and a good man; and those two things are all that matter."
"Yes, those things are all that matter. It is only sheer worldliness that demands more. And if Cicely is happy, why—let worldliness go hang. Poor little Cicely certainly needed a man to take care of her, and Baba, and that big property; but—is Fergusson willing to give up his work?"
"Cicely won't hear of his giving it up. The surgery in South London is to go on as usual, and Cicely has insisted on having an assistant there, to do the work when Denis cannot go himself, so that, as she expresses it, she is not depriving a poor man of his living, in allowing a rich man to profit by the surgery and its practice."
"I confess to being a little surprised that Fergusson ever got himself up to the scratch of asking a rich woman to marry him," Rupert said, with some hesitation. "It doesn't seem—quite like the man."
"It wasn't in the least like the man," Christina answered demurely. "And—I'm afraid—I—made myself into a kind of—of matchmaker—or god in the machine, or something of that sort."
Rupert laughed outright.
"It was all your doing, was it?" he questioned, looking at her with smiling kindliness. "Did you——"
"I don't think I can exactly tell you how I—I—worked the trick," she laughed a little confusedly. "But Cicely says it wouldn't ever have happened but for me. And I am glad."
"So am I—very glad. Fergusson is a lucky man. A man who gets a woman like Cicely to take care of him, may consider a part of every day well spent, if he spends it in singing aTe Deumof his own. And Sir Arthur's lost pendant—was it ever found?"
"Yes; eventually the police traced the woman who had been in the railway carriage with Lady Congreve's bag, and she confessed to having stolen the jewel."
After these words, silence again fell between them, until Christina once more made an attempt to rise.
"I ought to go back," she said, when Rupert's detaining hand again fell on her arm. "Baba——"
"Why should you go back when I want you here," was the audacious response. "I want you much more than Baba does."
The hand he had laid on her arm lingered there; over the latter half of his sentence, his voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and the rose tints on Christina's cheeks brightened. "I believe I have been wanting you for quite a long time," he went on, deliberately, his eyes watching how the colour came and went on her face, his hand still resting on her arm. "Would you like to know how often, when I was wandering about the byways of Europe, I thought of that evening in Mrs. Nairne's oak-panelled parlour, when I told you so many things about myself? Would you like to know how often you came into my mind?"
Christina's dark head was a little bent, her eyes were fastened on a clump of bracken, blazing golden in the level sun-rays, her voice was very low and a little shaky.
"I—shouldn't have thought you would remember me at all," she said, the touch of his hand upon her arm filling her with a sensation of strange gladness.
"On that afternoon I told you, I am sure I told you, how restful you were," Rupert continued, speaking with an eagerness that gave him an oddly boyish manner; "something in your personality rested me then, and I have never forgotten it. You rest me now," he added suddenly, his hand slipping from her arm, and folding itself over her hand. "I came here to-day, feeling as if the world were a sorry enough place, and I a poor fool who had messed up my life, and was at the end of my tether. But when I saw you, sitting here in the sunshine, I felt as if—some day—the sunlight might come back to my life."
"CouldI—bring it back?" Her voice still shook, but she lifted her eyes bravely to look into his face, and he bent nearer to her, and gathered both her hands into his.
"Little Christina," he said. "I don't know whether it is fair, even to think of asking you to spend your fresh young life in bringing sunshine back to mine, but—because I am a selfish brute—because—I—want you—I am going to ask you what I believe I have no right to ask you. And yet—it was Margaret's thought, too—Margaret's wish," he added, under his breath.
"Aunt Margaret's wish!" the girl exclaimed. "That I—that you——" She broke off confusedly, trying instinctively to draw her hands from his, but feeling his clasp tighten over them.
"Shall I tell you what she said to me about you the very last time I saw her?" he asked. "I think she knew I was going to be very lonely, and she spoke of you. I have not forgotten the actual words she used; they came back to me just now, as I sat here beside you; she said: 'She would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife. She has a sweet, strong soul.'"
More and more vividly the colour deepened on Christina's face, and she did not answer, because speech at that moment was a physical impossibility. Only her hands lay passive in his grasp, she no longer tried to draw them away.
"I think Margaret knew—how I should learn to need you," Rupert went on, his voice vibrating along the girl's nerves, and sending little thrills of happiness through her whole being. "She understood how much you could help me, if you would."
"If I would?" she echoed, a tremulous gladness in her voice. "But—I—am so young, so ignorant, not a bit worthy of—of all you say," she ended incoherently.
"Could you some day learn to care for me, if I tried to make you care?" was his answer. "Could you—some day—care for an old fellow like me, who hasn't even the best of his life and love to offer you? Could you do that, little girl?"
"I don't call you an old fellow," she said indignantly; "and—I—don't think—I have got to learn to care. I—think—I have—learnt—already."
Very gently, with a sort of tender reverence, he drew her into his arms and kissed her, then put her away from him again, and said quietly—
"Is it fair to you, I wonder; is it fair to you to take all your best, and give you only the second best in return?"
"But if I would rather have your second best, than the best from any other man in the world?" she said quickly. "What then? If it is a greater joy to me to think of being your rest and sunshine, than to be anything else in the world; what then?"
She put her hands upon his shoulders, pushing him a little further from her, that she might look fully into his eyes. "I don't believe any man really ever understands a woman," she added, inconsequently, with a laugh.
"Where have you learnt your knowledge of mankind?" he questioned; "and what makes you say we don't understand the other half of the world?"
"Because, if you did, you would know that when a woman cares for a man, she would rather just be a servant in his house than go altogether out of his life. Perhaps we all prefer the best, but a woman who cares, would rather have the second best, than nothing at all."
"And are you a woman—who cares?" he whispered, drawing her back into his arms, with a sudden sense of her sweetness, her desirableness; "would you rather be——"
"You haven't asked me yet to be anything," she answered, with a touch of audacity, that sat charmingly upon her—"at least, you only mentioned rest, and sunshine, and—and intangible things of that sort."
"And if I asked you to be my wife?" His lips were very near to hers, his voice in itself was a caress, and Christina's heart beats nearly choked her. "If—I want you for my wife, little girl?"
Her answer was quite inarticulate, if indeed she answered him at all, but she allowed him to kiss her lips, and Rupert knew that her answer was given him with that kiss.
"You would not let any man kiss your lips, unless you loved him well enough to marry him," he said, after a moment's pause, and Christina looked at him with happy, laughing eyes.
"I would not let any man kiss me at all, unless I—wanted to marry him," she answered; "and——"
"You want to marry me?" Rupert interrupted with a boyishly spontaneous laugh, such as she had never heard from him before.
"Yes, I want to marry you," she said demurely, drawing herself away from him again, and looking mischievously into his face; "and, do you know, this—isn't the first time I—I have thought of marrying you?"
"What do you mean?" Rupert's mystified expression brought a dimpling smile out upon her face.
"Do you remember the girl who answered your advertisement in the matrimonial column of a certain Sunday paper? That girl——"
"Was it you?" he exclaimed. "Were you the girl to whom I wrote? The girl I appointed to meet at Margaret's house? Could any coincidence be more strange?"
"I was C.M. who answered that advertisement, because she was at the very end of her resources, her hope," Christina answered gravely. "I felt horrible when I did it. I felt you would think the very worst of me for writing to you at all, but I was nearly in despair that day; there seemed just a loophole of escape for me, if I found—you were—kind and good."
"Poor little girl, my poor little girl." His arm drew her close. "You wrote the dearest, most simple little letter. I never thought the worse of you. I never thought badly of you at all. I made up my mind to help you get work; and I recommended you to Cicely; at least, I went so far as to tell Cicely I knew of someone who might do for Baba."
"But she didn't take me on your recommendation?"
"No, she said references were necessary, and——"
"And in the end she took me practically with no references at all, and—the story has just worked itself out to this wonderful ending."
"Is it such a wonderful ending?" He helped her to her feet, and they stood watching the golden sun drop slowly towards the golden hills. "Is it—the ending you would have chosen for yourself?"
"When I told Baba fairy stories, the prince used to have a curious family resemblance to you," she answered. "I—liked to make my fairy prince like you—because——"
"Because?"
"Because—I think I knew you were the best prince in all the world," she whispered, "the king—of my kingdom."