I had never begun to understand it before this evening--never once had thanked her.
Mother, mother!----
The copse was full of her. Her figure went before me between the bare larch boles, taking care not to tread on flowers. The ground was a sheet of blue when we had last come here. The time of wild hyacinths was nearly over now. And her time---- Was that nearly over too? Where would she be when the foxgloves stood tall here among the bracken? The larch stems wavered and the hazels shivered. The man was on in front now, the first to cross the outermost stile. As I hurried after him, he looked back. I did not know until I met his eyes that mine were wet ... and that I was walking not quite steadily. I had run a long way that evening.
"Rest a moment," he said; and he looked away from me and up at the flowering may. "The scent is very heavy," he said. "I knew a woman once who was always made faint by it."
He did not look at me again.
But I had seen that those hard eyes could look kind.
Now we could see the red tile roof.
Underneath it what was happening? I had been long gone, for all my running.
As we came across the links, the sun went down behind the wall of Duncombe garden.
Oh, sun! I prayed, do not go down for ever.
Before I entered the house a strange thing happened.
A great peace fell on me.
I knew, without asking, that all was well.
Was that a blackcap singing? And had I seen the sun go down? What magic light was this, then, that was shining on the world?
He saw my mother, and told us what to do.
Bettina stayed with her, while I came down with Mr. Annan to hear his verdict.
As we stood in the lower hall, I looked up to find his eyes on me--eyes suddenly so gentle that terror fell on me afresh.
"You don"t think she is going to die?"
"Good nursing," he said, "will make a difference. One must always hope----"
"Oh, you must save us!" I said incoherently; and then corrected: "My mother!..."
He seemed to accept the charge. He would come back early in the morning.
I never found the bridge between that pa.s.sion of dread about my mother"s life--and the strange new pa.s.sion that took possession of me, body and soul.
Like the dart of a kingfisher out of the shade of a thicket into intensest sunshine, the new thing flashed across my life, all emerald and red-gold and azure--a blinding iridescence, and a quickness that was like the quickness of G.o.d.
CHAPTER IX
ERIC
For a long time I said nothing in his presence, except in answer to some direction.
There seemed no need to talk.
Enough for me to see him come striding across the links; to watch him walk into my mother"s room; to see a certain look come into his eyes. It came so seldom that sometimes I told myself I must have dreamed it.
Then it would come again.
He made my mother almost well. But when he went back to London he left a great misery behind him.
No one knew, and I hoped that in time I should get over it. At least I pretended that was what I hoped. I would rather have had that pain of longing than all the pleasure any other soul could give.
The following year my mother was wonderfully well, and so cheerful I hadn"t the heart to worry her with questions.
We saw more of the Helmstones than ever before. My mother even went to them once or twice. A few days before that first visit of Eric Annan"s had ended, Lady Helmstone and the two unmarried daughters came home from touring round the world in their cousin"s yacht. Lady Barbara was the plain daughter. She was twenty-two and wrote poetry, we heard. But we thought the youngest of the family much the cleverest. Hermione was striking to look at, and the fact that she laughed at Barbara, and at pretty well everyone else, made her seem very superior. Also, she had an air.
She made a deep impression on Bettina. I, too, found her wonderful. But my mother said she was crude. We thought that was only because, in spite of "being who she was," Hermione Helmstone put pink stuff on her lips and darkened the under lid of her green eyes. Just a little, you understand. Enough to give her a look of extraordinary brilliancy. She took a great fancy to Bettina. In spite of Bettina"s being so young Hermione used to tell her about her love affairs.
There seemed to be a great many. But one was serious. She was as good as engaged, she said, to Guy Whitby-Dawson. He was in the Guards.
We were all agog. When was she going to be married?
She didn"t know. It was dreadfully expensive being in the Guards.
Being a peer seemed to be very expensive, too. Hermione"s father had so many places to keep up, and so many daughters, he couldn"t afford to give Hermione more than "the merest pittance." When we heard what it was, we thought it very grand to call such a provision a mere pittance.
I wished we three had a pittance.
For those two to try to live on it would be madness, Hermione said. So she and Guy would have to wait. Perhaps some of Guy"s relations would die. Then he would have plenty.
Meanwhile, in spite of being as good as engaged, Hermione flirted a good deal with her cousin, Eddie Monmouth, and with the various other young men who came to the week-end parties and for the hunting. Bettina and I were often rather sorry for Guy, until the day when Hermione brought over some of his photographs for us to look at. We did not admire him at all.
But we never told Hermione.
As for me, though I tried to take an interest, I was never really thinking about any of the things that were going on about me. And I was always thinking of the same thing. Day and night, the same thing.