The heavens such grace did lend herThat she might admired be.Shakspere.
The heavens such grace did lend herThat she might admired be.Shakspere.
The heavens such grace did lend herThat she might admired be.
The heavens such grace did lend her
That she might admired be.
Shakspere.
Shakspere.
Next morning early, Mark drove Maurice to the main line station, despatched him with a final volley of chaff, and proceeded patiently to tramp the lane outside till the down train should bring him the desire of his eyes. From the station-master he learnt that ‘she’ might be anything from twenty minutes to two hours late. Yesterday five specials had run through, packed with horses and men, and there would be more to-night.
‘Jolly for they Germans, sir!’ he added with a jovial wink. ‘Theydosay now that the British Army will be keeping Christmas in Berlin!’
‘And on the other side they say the Kaiser will keep it in London,’ Mark answered him. ‘Best leave fairy tales to the Germans. It’s their line!’
And he retired to commune with his own heart in the lane.
The train gave him ample time to lose patience and recapture it; and the longer he waited, the brighter grew the halo round Bel’s golden head. Idealist as he was, in art and life, he could not choose but idealise the woman he loved: if, indeed, he were not rather in love with a phantom of his own brain, who wore the appearance and spoke with the voice of Bel. During the last ten days, while his conscious mind had been absorbed in things practical, the subconscious, unoccupied artist in him had been sedulously gilding her halo; and as for that bewildering jar in Scotland, he had so completely credited her with his own sensitiveness on the subject, that his one wish was to make her forget it had ever been.He had shrank even from asking her to speak of it to his mother; and had made the request in his last letter, rather than spring an unpleasantness on her by way of greeting.
And now—all he craved was herself. Her letters were not the same thing at all. Clever, affectionate and often amusing, they seemed just to miss something that, for him, was the secret of her charm. In them the slightly studied effect of her whole attitude to life seemed more definitely artificial; and after reading them, a troubled uncertainty was apt to pervade his mind. But sight and touch of her would cure all such lover’s folly⸺
Ah—the whistle at last!
He reached the platform as the train drew up, and there emerged from a distant carriage the tall, unmistakable figure in a bluish coat and skirt and close-fitting hat. About midway down the platform they met and clasped hands. She coloured a little when their eyes met; but they merely talked of luggage and the lateness of the train.
It is a common experience, that first, faint shock of actual meeting after keen anticipation; and in these two it waked the undersense that, although they had taken the most hazardous step in life, they were still comparative strangers. In some vague way they seemed to have lost touch; to have become suddenly shy of each other—the man more so than the girl.
Shy or no, she was contented, utterly, to be sitting there beside him in the August sunlight, speeding between stretches of ripe cornland; between purple sweeps of heather, when they climbed a ridge; and on through rolling open country where the earlier trees showed a yellow leaf or two, and the oaks were still sunset-tinted with their second blossoming. England, relying serenely upon her grey ghosts of the North Sea, lay dozing in the high noon of the year, while little Belgium, like another Kate Barlass, thrust her arm through the bolt that the murderers might be stayed were it only for a moment. A Territorial Camp, an occasional motor decked with flags, a group of khaki figures resting in the shade—these were the sole reminders of that invisible horror across the Channel, that for Bel was no more than the shadow of a shadow; though the cloud of it overhung her own life and sat visibly upon her lover’s brow.
Every now and then she took stock of him under her eyelids, from his rough motor-cap and his sensitive mouth, safe-guarded by that uncompromising chin, to the lean, strong fingers controllingthe machine. A woman could safely entrust her destiny to that mouth and those hands, though she might wish, incidentally, that he would take a less exaggerated view of this singularly inopportune war. It was just her luck that it should have been timed to spoil the most promising ‘phase’ of her life. If only Mark’s admirable virility were tempered by a touch of Rex Maitland’s intelligent common sense, matters would be so much easier and pleasanter all round. And the coming interview with Lady Forsyth was a nuisance, to put it mildly: but still⸺
‘Have I given you time to get through the worst of your troublesome affairs?’ she asked after an interchange of commonplaces that led nowhere. ‘I’m hoping for a clear field as the reward of my lost week.’
He gave her a contrite glance.
‘I wish it were clearer. Russell, my land-agent, has played up like a Trojan. But the wood seems to thicken as one goes on. And to-day I’m booked for a recruiting show at Bramleigh. No getting out of it. Sir Nevil Sinclair—the artist, you know—said Imustmanage to placate you somehow. So pleasebeplacated and save me the managing!’
Down went the corners of her mouth. ‘Our first day! And not even Mr. Lenox to play with.’
‘Won’t Sheila do?’
‘As a substitute foryou? Mark, your modesty is incredible! Is she with you still?’
‘She came back yesterday.’
‘And Mr. Macnair?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are they part of your permanent family, those two?’
‘More or less. People just accrue to Mums. Are you placated now—Queen of Wynchcombe Friars?’
She laid gloved finger-tips on his knee.
‘I’m trying to be. I vowed a vow to be heavenly good this time, to make up for....’
His hand closed on hers.
‘That’s over and done with,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry—even about Mother. But it seemed only fair. I’ll take you to her straight—’
‘I’d prefer half an hour first with her son—notin a motor on the open road! Darling, give me time to feel more at home.’
His eyes sought hers. ‘I’m agreeable. We’ll stop at thegate and go up through the wood. I can fetch the car afterwards. No superfluous attendants these days!’
On a cushion of moss in the cool of the pine-wood, they recaptured the atmosphere of Scotland and the little cloud of estrangement melted away. Mark, who had keenly felt the momentary jar, was the more relieved.
‘Now, my darling girl, time’s up,’ he said; reluctant, but inflexible, ‘Mother will be picturing us wrecked on the road, and sending poor old Keith to pick up the pieces! Come.’
At that, she knelt upright, and, with a charmingly tender air of proprietorship, passed her hands over his head, bringing them to rest on his shoulders. ‘I’m glad I’ve found you again,’ she said. ‘That strange man at the station rather alarmed me.’
‘Youknew how to conjure him away, you witch!’ he answered, stopping her lips with a kiss.
She accepted the kiss, but not his tacit dismissal of the subject. For her, a new sensation not analysed was a sensation wasted.
‘I suppose it was that things hadn’t time to crystallise properly after the break,’ she went on, twisting a button between her finger and thumb. ‘I hope the War Office will be merciful and allow us a good spell this time. Separations are rather uncanny things. You never quite know⸺’
‘Well, if you don’t know me when I get back this evening,’ he said, with perfect gravity, ‘the marriage that has been arranged, etc., had better not take place.’
‘Mark!’ Her voice had a sharp, startled note.
‘That’ll learn you!’ he retorted, smiling. ‘We’ll make out our “para” to-morrow.’
And he heard no more of the subject.
They found Lady Forsyth alone in the drawing-room reading her midday post.
‘My dears!’ She sprang up to greet them. ‘We’ve been wondering what had come to you.’
Mark explained, asked a few questions, backed casually towards the door—and vanished, leaving the women alone.
Bel had resolved that there should be neither awkwardness nor hesitation. Already she had rehearsed the little scene half a dozen times; and as the door closed, she turned to the small, upright figure near the piano, both hands flung out.
‘Dear Lady Forsyth, youaregoing to forgive me, aren’t you?I know I don’t deserve it. But Mark has been so beautifully generous⸺’
‘That is easier for him than for his mother,’ Lady Forsyth rejoined with her disconcerting frankness: but her smile made partial atonement and she took the proffered hands. ‘Not that I’m belittling Mark’s generosity. It takes a just man to be generous even in exasperating circumstances; and Mark possesses that rare quality in a high degree. He particularly wants us all to make light of the whole matter; and—to please him, Bel, I can at least condone what I can’t pretend to understand.’
This—as may be supposed—was not precisely the cue Bel had prepared for herself. But she had the adaptability of the born actress; and she recognised that Lady Forsyth had paid her the embarrassing compliment of speaking her mind as to a daughter.
‘That’s rather a crushing form of forgiveness!’ she said, with the pretty droop of her lips. ‘And I don’t suppose it’s much use trying to explain....’
‘Not the slightest, my dear.’ Lady Forsyth’s tone was brisk but kindly. ‘Facts, like beauty, are best left unadorned. I take it for granted you must have been very much upset to hurt a brave man so unnecessarily. Had your refusal been final, I could have better understood.’
The girl flinched at that and bit her lip. ‘You don’t sound much like forgiving me. And I don’t think,’ she made bold to add, ‘that Mark would be quite pleased if he heard you.’
‘He would probably bite my head off,’ Lady Forsyth answered, taking the wind out of her sails. ‘And if you want to make him angry with me, you can tell him what I have said. I should say just the same if he were present. Mark and I are in complete accord, however much we squabble. He knows my bark is worse than my bite: and you’ll soon know it too, Bel. So don’t let’s write in brass what is meant to be writ in water. We shall gain nothing by making Mark our apple of discord. He’s a very large apple, big enough for two! Now, after that, let me “behave” and show you to your room. Later on, you must see over the dear old house.’
‘Yes. It’s a dream of a place.’ Bel swerved thankfully to a more congenial subject and the still more congenial reflection that all this stately, soft-toned beauty would some day be her own.
Once this wretched war was over, everything would goswimmingly. He would settle down and shed some of his troublesome ideals. That flat in town—which she had already chosen and furnished mentally—would be the best possible antidote for what she vaguely styled ‘that sort of thing.’ She washed her hands and tidied her smooth hair in a frame of mind too serene even to be clouded by the prospect of a whole afternoon without Mark.
And downstairs, alone in the drawing-room, Lady Forsyth was playing Grieg’s Temple dance with a fire and fury that brought Keith in from the terrace, startled concern in his eyes.
‘Bless my soul, Helen! Who are you wanting to murder now? The Crown Prince or one of our own super-Solomons?’
‘Neither,’ she answered, crashing out the last double chord. Then, swinging round on the stool she faced him with heightened colour, head in air. ‘It’s Mark’s future wife. And I’m in terror that he’ll want to marry before he goes out. Keith—it’s not only wicked prejudice. I distrust her more than ever. She came to me with a pretty, ready-made apology which I am afraid I dislocated by my incurable candour. Then, having let fly for my own satisfaction, I proceeded to smooth things over for love of Mark. Told her my bark was worse than my bite.’
‘That I can swear to,’ Keith struck in smiling.
‘Still—by every oath I mustn’t use, if I was a natural savage instead of a Christian woman, who adores her son, I’dbiteher with all my teeth.—There! Between that and Grieg, I feel a little better. But oh, you sagacious bachelor, you have your divine compensations. At times it’s a positive curse to love any human thing better than your own soul.’
‘It is that,’ Macnair agreed with quiet emphasis, as the door opened to admit Mark himself.
The air seemed still to vibrate with Helen’s impassioned outburst, and he glanced quickly from one to the other.
‘What have you two been plotting—eh?’
‘The wholesale reconstruction of the universe!’ Keith answered lightly; but Mark went straight to his mother and laid his hand on her.
‘She’s been working herself up about nothing,’ he said. ‘I can feel her quivering all through. Keith, you oughtn’t to encourage her. She’ll be needing all her reserves of strength, if she’s to pull through this. Would the drive to Bramleigh calm you down, Motherling? Or would it churn you up again, hearing me speak?’
‘No: I should love it,’ she answered in a low voice. The invitation and the touch of his hand had soothed her already, as nothing else could have done. It was as if, by some telepathic process, he had divined the cause of her emotional stress; and when the two girls came in he said casually, without removing his hand: ‘I’m carrying Mums off with me to Bramleigh. You’ve had your drive, Bel, and the outing will do her a power of good.’
The announcement faintly ruffled Bel’s conviction that all was for the best in this best of all possible worlds. But later in the evening, when her own turn came, when she wandered with Mark through the terraced gardens down to the river, he found her apparently satisfied, if not communicative, as regards her interview of the morning. Convinced of her own supreme sovereignty, instinct told her that she would gain nothing by ‘giving the woman away.’
(To be continued.)