She started, and he had an idea that she changed colour, although it was too dim to be sure. "Selwyn!" she exclaimed, putting out her hands. "Why, Selwyn Grant! Is it really you? Or are you such stuff as dreams are made of? I did not know you were here. I did not know you were home."
He caught her hands and held them tightly, drawing her a little closer to him, forgetting that she was Tom St. Clair"s wife, remembering only that she was the woman to whom he had given all his love and life"s devotion, to the entire beggaring of his heart.
"I reached home only four hours ago, and was haled straightway here to Leo"s wedding. I"m dizzy, Esme. I can"t adjust my old conceptions to this new state of affairs all at once. It seems ridiculous to think that Leo and Alice are married. I"m sure they can"t be really grown up."
Esme laughed as she drew away her hands. "We are all ten years older,"
she said lightly.
"Not you. You are more beautiful than ever, Esme. That sunflower compliment is permissible in an old friend, isn"t it?"
"This mellow glow is kinder to me than sunlight now. I am thirty, you know, Selwyn."
"And I have some grey hairs," he confessed. "I knew I had them but I had a sneaking hope that other folks didn"t until Leo destroyed it today. These young brothers and sisters who won"t stay children are nuisances. You"ll be telling me next thing that "Baby" is grown up."
""Baby" is eighteen and has a beau," laughed Esme. "And I give you fair warning that she insists on being called Laura now. Do you want to come for a walk with me--down under the beeches to the old lane gate? I came out to see if the fresh air would do my bit of a headache good. I shall have to help with the supper later on."
They went slowly across the lawn and turned into a dim, moonlight lane beyond, their old favourite ramble. Selwyn felt like a man in a dream, a pleasant dream from which he dreads to awaken. The voices and laughter echoing out from the house died away behind them and the great silence of the night fell about them as they came to the old gate, beyond which was a range of shining, moonlight-misted fields.
For a little while neither of them spoke. The woman looked out across the white s.p.a.ces and the man watched the glimmering curve of her neck and the soft darkness of her rich hair. How virginal, how sacred, she looked! The thought of Tom St. Clair was a sacrilege.
"It"s nice to see you again, Selwyn," said Esme frankly at last.
"There are so few of our old set left, and so many of the babies grown up. Sometimes I don"t know my own world, it has changed so. It"s an uncomfortable feeling. You give me a pleasant sensation of really belonging here. I"d be lonesome tonight if I dared. I"m going to miss Alice so much. There will be only Mother and Baby and I left now. Our family circle has dwindled woefully."
"Mother and Baby and you!" Selwyn felt his head whirling again. "Why, where is Tom?"
He felt that it was an idiotic question, but it slipped from his tongue before he could catch it. Esme turned her head and looked at him wonderingly. He knew that in the sunlight her eyes were as mistily blue as early meadow violets, but here they looked dark and unfathomably tender.
"Tom?" she said perplexedly. "Do you mean Tom St. Clair? He is here, of course, he and his wife. Didn"t you see her? That pretty woman in pale pink, Lil Meredith. Why, you used to know Lil, didn"t you? One of the Uxbridge Merediths?"
To the day of his death Selwyn Grant will firmly believe that if he had not clutched fast hold of the top bar of the gate he would have tumbled down on the moss under the beeches in speechless astonishment.
All the surprises of that surprising evening were as nothing to this.
He had a swift conviction that there were no words in the English language that could fully express his feelings and that it would be a waste of time to try to find any. Therefore he laid hold of the first baldly commonplace ones that came handy and said tamely, "I thought you were married to Tom."
"You--thought--I--was--married--to--Tom!" repeated Esme slowly. "And have you thought _that_ all these years, Selwyn Grant?"
"Yes, I have. Is it any wonder? You were engaged to Tom when I went away, Jenny told me you were. And a year later Bertha wrote me a letter in which she made some reference to Tom"s marriage. She didn"t say to _whom_, but hadn"t I the right to suppose it was to you?"
"Oh!" The word was partly a sigh and partly a little cry of long-concealed, long-denied pain. "It"s been all a funny misunderstanding. Tom and I _were_ engaged once--a boy-and-girl affair in the beginning. Then we both found out that we had made a mistake--that what we had thought was love was merely the affection of good comrades. We broke our engagement shortly before you went away.
All the older girls knew it was broken but I suppose n.o.body mentioned the matter to Jen. She was such a child, we never thought about her.
And you"ve thought I was Tom"s wife all this time? It"s--funny."
"Funny. You mean tragic! Look here, Esme, I"m not going to risk any more misunderstanding. There"s nothing for it but plain talk when matters get to such a state as this. I love you--and I"ve loved you ever since I met you. I went away because I could not stay here and see you married to another man. I"ve stayed away for the same reason.
Esme, is it too late? Did you ever care anything for me?"
"Yes, I did," she said slowly.
"Do you care still?" he asked.
She hid her face against his shoulder. "Yes," she whispered.
"Then we"ll go back to the house and be married," he said joyfully.
Esme broke away and stared at him. "Married!"
"Yes, married. We"ve wasted ten years and we"re not going to waste another minute. We"re _not_, I say."
"Selwyn! It"s impossible."
"I have expurgated that word from my dictionary. It"s the very simplest thing when you look at it in an unprejudiced way. Here is a ready-made wedding and decorations and a.s.sembled guests, a minister on the spot and a state where no licence is required. You have a very pretty new dress on and you love me. I have a plain gold ring on my little finger that will fit you. Aren"t all the conditions fulfilled?
Where is the sense of waiting and having another family upheaval in a few weeks" time?"
"I understand why you have made such a success of the law," said Esme, "but--"
"There are no buts. Come with me, Esme. I"m going to hunt up your mother and mine and talk to them."
Half an hour later an astonishing whisper went circulating among the guests. Before they could grasp its significance Tom St. Clair and Jen"s husband, broadly smiling, were hustling scattered folk into the parlour again and making clear a pa.s.sage in the hall. The minister came in with his blue book, and then Selwyn Grant and Esme Graham walked in hand in hand.
When the second ceremony was over, Mr. Grant shook his son"s hand vigorously. "There"s no need to wish you happiness, son; you"ve got it. And you"ve made one fuss and bother do for both weddings, that"s what I call genius. And"--this in a careful whisper, while Esme was temporarily obliterated in Mrs. Grant"s capacious embrace--"she"s got the right sort of a nose. But your mother is a grand woman, son, a grand woman."
At the Bay Sh.o.r.e Farm
The Newburys were agog with excitement over the Governor"s picnic. As they talked it over on the verandah at sunset, they felt that life could not be worth living to those unfortunate people who had not been invited to it. Not that there were many of the latter in Claymont, for it was the Governor"s native village, and the Claymonters were getting up the picnic for him during his political visit to the city fifteen miles away.
Each of the Newburys had a special reason for wishing to attend the Governor"s picnic. Ralph and Elliott wanted to see the Governor himself. He was a pet hero of theirs. Had he not once been a Claymont lad just like themselves? Had he not risen to the highest office in the state by dint of sheer hard work and persistency? Had he not won a national reputation by his prompt and decisive measures during the big strike at Campden? And was he not a man, personally and politically, whom any boy might be proud to imitate? Yes, to all of these questions. Hence to the Newbury boys the interest of the picnic centred in the Governor.
"I shall feel two inches taller just to get a look at him," said Ralph enthusiastically.
"He isn"t much to look at," said Frances, rather patronizingly. "I saw him once at Campden--he came to the school when his daughter was graduated. He is bald and fat. Oh, of course, he is famous and all that! But I want to go to the picnic to see Sara Beaumont. She"s to be there with the Chandlers from Campden, and Mary Spearman, who knows her by sight, is going to point her out to me. I suppose it would be too much to expect to be introduced to her. I shall probably have to content myself with just looking at her."
Ralph resented hearing the Governor called bald and fat. Somehow it seemed as if his hero were being reduced to the level of common clay.
"That"s like a girl," he said loftily; "thinking more about a woman who writes books than about a man like the Governor!"
"I"d rather see Sara Beaumont than forty governors," retorted Frances.
"Why, she"s famous--and her books are perfect! If I could ever hope to write anything like them! It"s been the dream of my life just to see her ever since I read _The Story of Idlewild_. And now to think that it is to be fulfilled! It seems too good to be true that tomorrow--tomorrow, Newburys,--I shall see Sara Beaumont!"
"Well," said Cecilia gently--Cecilia was always gentle even in her enthusiasm--"I shall like to see the Governor and Sara Beaumont too.
But I"m going to the picnic more for the sake of seeing Nan Harris than anything else. It"s three years since she went away, you know, and I"ve never had another chum whom I love so dearly. I"m just looking forward to meeting her and talking over all our dear, good old times. I do wonder if she has changed much. But I am sure I shall know her."
"By her red hair and her freckles?" questioned Elliott teasingly.
"They"ll be the same as ever, I"ll be bound."
Cecilia flushed and looked as angry as she could--which isn"t saying much, after all. She didn"t mind when Elliott teased her about her pug nose and her big mouth, but it always hurt her when he made fun of Nan.