I had resolved, on the morning of my marriage, to put behind me all thought of the mysteries and gruesomeness of the past. Now that I was Sylvia"s husband, I felt that she would have my protection, as well as that of her father. I had said nothing to her of her strange apprehensions, for we had mutually allowed them to drop.
We had come to Scarborough in preference to going abroad, for my well-beloved declared that she had had already too much of Continental life, and preferred a quiet time in England. So we had chosen the East Coast, and now each day we either drove out over the Yorkshire moors, or wandered by the rolling seas.
She was now my own--my very own! Ah! the sweet significance of those words when I uttered them and she clung to me, raising her full red lips to mine to kiss.
I loved her--aye, loved her with an all-consuming love. I told myself a thousand times that no man on earth had ever loved a woman more than I loved Sylvia. She was my idol, and more, we were wedded, firmly united to one another, insunderably joined with each other so that we two were one.
You satirists, cynics, misogamists and misogynists may sneer at love, and jeer at marriage. So melancholy is this our age that even by some women marriage seems to be doubted. Yet we may believe that there is not a woman in all Christendom who does not dote upon the name of "wife." It carries a spell which even the most rebellious suffragette must acknowledge. They may speak of the subjection, the trammel, the "slavery," and the inferiority to which marriage reduces them, but, after all, "wife" is a word against which they cannot harden their hearts.
Ah! how fervently we loved each other. As Sylvia and I wandered together by the sea on those calm September evenings, avoiding the holiday crowd, preferring the less-frequented walks to the fashionable promenades of the South Cliff or the Spa, we linked arm in arm, and I often, when not observed, kissed her upon the brow.
One evening, with the golden sunset in our faces, we were walking over the cliffs to Cayton Bay, a favourite walk of ours, when we halted at a stile, and sat together upon it to rest.
The wide waters deep below, bathed in the green and gold of the sinking sun, were calm, almost unruffled, unusual indeed for the North Sea, while about us the birds were singing their evening song, and the cattle in the fields were lying down in peace. There was not a breath of wind. The calmness was the same as the perfect calmness of our own hearts.
"How still it is, Owen," remarked my love, after sitting in silence for a few minutes. From where we sat we could see that it was high tide, and the waves were lazily lapping the base of the cliffs deep below. Now and then a gull would circle about us with its shrill, plaintive cry, while far on the distant horizon lay the trail of smoke from a pa.s.sing steamer. "How delightful it is to be here--alone with you!"
My arm stole round her slim waist, and my lips met hers in a fond, pa.s.sionate caress. She looked very dainty in a plain walking costume of cream serge, with a boa of ostrich feathers about her throat, and a large straw hat trimmed with autumn flowers. It was exceptionally warm for the time of year; yet at night, on the breezy East Coast, there is a cold nip in the air even in the height of summer.
That afternoon we had, by favour of its owner, Mr. George Beeforth, one of the pioneers of Scarborough, wandered through the beautiful private gardens of the Belvedere, which, with their rose-walks, lawns and plantations, stretched from the promenade down to the sea, and had spent some charming hours in what its genial owner called "the sun-trap." In all the north of England there are surely no more beautiful gardens beside the sea than those, and happily their good-natured owner is never averse to granting a stranger permission to visit them.
As we now sat upon that stile our hearts were too full for words, devoted as we were to each other.
"Owen," my wife exclaimed at last, her soft little hand upon my shoulder as she looked up into my face, "are you certain you will never regret marrying me?"
"Why, of course not, dearest," I said quickly, looking into her great wide-open eyes.
"But--but, somehow----"
"Somehow, what?" I asked slowly.
"Well," she sighed, gazing away towards the far-off horizon, her wonderful eyes bluer than the sea itself, "I have a strange, indescribable feeling of impending evil--a presage of disaster."
"My darling," I exclaimed, "why trouble yourself over what are merely melancholy fancies? We are happy in each other"s love; therefore why should we antic.i.p.ate evil? If it comes, then we will unite to resist it."
"Ah, yes, Owen," she replied quickly, "but this strange feeling came over me yesterday when we were together at Whitby. I cannot describe it--only it is a weird, uncanny feeling, a fixed idea that something must happen to mar this perfect happiness of ours."
"What can mar our happiness when we both trust each other--when we both love each other, and our two hearts beat as one?"
"Has not the French poet written a very serious truth in those lines: "_Plaisir d"amour ne dure qu"un moment; chagrin d"amour dure toute la vie_"?"
"Yes, but we shall experience no chagrin, sweetheart," I a.s.sured her.
"After another week here we will travel where you will. If you wish, we will go to Carrington. There we shall be perfectly happy together, away in beautiful Devonshire."
"I know you want to go there for the shooting, Owen," she said quietly, yet regarding me somewhat strangely, I thought. "You have asked Mr. Marlowe?"
"With your permission, dearest."
But her face changed, and she sighed slightly.
In an instant I recollected the admission that they had either met before, or at least they knew something concerning each other.
"Perhaps you do not desire to entertain company yet?" I said quickly.
"Very well; I"ll ask your father; he and I can have some sport together."
"Owen," she said at last, turning her fair face again to mine, "would you think it very, very strange of me, after all that you have done at beautiful old Carrington, if I told you that I--well, that I do not exactly like the place?"
This rather surprised me, for she had hitherto been full of admiration of the fine, well-preserved relic of the Elizabethan age.
"Dearest, if you do not care for Carrington we will not go there. We can either live at Wilton Street, or travel."
"I"m tired of travelling, dear," she declared. "Ah, so tired! So, if you are content, let us live in Wilton Street. Carrington is so huge.
When we were there I always felt lost in those big old rooms and long, echoing corridors."
"But your own rooms that I"ve had redecorated and furnished are smaller," I said. "I admit that the old part of the house is very dark and weird--full of ghosts of other times. There are a dozen or more legends concerning it, as you know."
"Yes, I read them in the guide-book to Devon. Some are distinctly quaint, are they not?"
"Some are tragic also--especially the story of little Lady Holbrook, who was so brutally killed by the Roundheads because she refused to reveal the whereabouts of her husband," I said.
"Poor little lady!" sighed Sylvia. "But that is not mere legend: it is historical fact."
"Well," I said, "if you do not care for Carrington--if it is too dull for you--we"ll live in London. Personally, I, too, should soon grow tired of a country life; and yet how could I grow tired of life with you, my own darling, at my side?"
"And how could I either, Owen?" she asked, kissing me fondly. "With you, no place can ever be dull. It is not the dulness I dread, but other things."
"What things?"
"Catastrophe--of what kind, I know not. But I have been seized with a kind of instinctive dread."
For a few moments I was silent, my arm still about her neat waist.
This sudden depression of hers was not rea.s.suring.
"Try and rid yourself of the idea, dearest," I urged presently. "You have nothing to fear. We may both have enemies, but they will not now dare to attack us. Remember, I am now your husband."
"And I your wife, Owen," she said, with a sweet love-look. Then, with a heavy sigh, she gazed thoughtfully away with her eyes fixed upon the darkening sea, and added: "I only fear, dearest--for your sake."
I was silent again.
"Sylvia," I said slowly at last, "have you learnt anything--anything fresh which has awakened these strange apprehensions of yours?"
"No," she faltered, "nothing exactly fresh. It is only a strange and unaccountable dread which has seized me--a dread of impending disaster."
"Forget it," I urged, endeavouring to laugh. "All your fears are now without foundation, dearest. Now we are wedded, we will fearlessly face the world together."
"I have no fear when I am at your side, Owen," she replied, looking at me pale and troubled. "But when we are parted I--I always fear. The day before yesterday I was full of apprehension all the time you had gone to York. I felt that something was to happen to you."
"Really, dear," I said, smiling, "you make me feel quite creepy. Don"t allow your mind to run on the subject. Try and think of something else."