"Positive! I could tell you the church, and the day, and call a whole pewful of witnesses who were convulsed by it."
"Well, I shall tell his Majesty at the next opportunity, and say you heard it. But how about the tennis? What comes next? Final for couples?
Oh, yes! Dal, you and Miss Lister play Colonel Loraine and Miss Vermount; and I think you ought to win fairly easily. You two are so well matched. Jane, this will be worth watching."
"I am sure it will," said Jane warmly, looking at the two, who had risen and stood together in the evening sunlight, examining their rackets and discussing possible tactics, while awaiting their opponents. They made such a radiantly beautiful couple; it was as if nature had put her very best and loveliest into every detail of each.
The only fault which could possibly have been found with the idea of them wedded, was that her dark, slim beauty was so very much just a feminine edition of his, that they might easily have been taken for brother and sister; but this was not a fault which occurred to Jane.
Her whole-hearted admiration of Pauline increased every time she looked at her; and now she had really seen them together, she felt sure she had given wise advice to Garth, and rejoiced to know he was taking it.
Later on, as they strolled back to the house together,--she and Garth alone,--Jane said, simply: "Dal, you will not mind if I ask? Is it settled yet?"
"I mind nothing you ask," Garth replied; "only be more explicit. Is what settled?"
"Are you and Miss Lister engaged?"
"No," Garth answered. "What made you suppose we should be?"
"You said at Overdene on Tuesday--TUESDAY! oh! doesn"t it seem weeks ago?--you said we were to take you seriously."
"It seems years ago," said Garth; "and I sincerely hope you will take me--seriously. All the same I have not proposed to Miss Lister; and I am anxious for an undisturbed talk with you on the subject. Miss Champion, after dinner to-night, when all the games and amus.e.m.e.nts are in full swing, and we can escape un.o.bserved, will you come out onto the terrace with me, where I shall be able to speak to you without fear of interruption? The moonlight on the lake is worth seeing from the terrace. I spent an hour out there last night--ah, no; you are wrong for once--I spent it alone, when the boating was over, and thought of--how--to-night--we might be talking there together."
"Certainly I will come," said Jane; "and you must feel free to tell me anything you wish, and promise to let me advise or help in any way I can."
"I will tell you everything," said Garth very low, "and you shall advise and help as ONLY you can."
Jane sat on her window-sill, enjoying the sunset and the exquisite view, and glad of a quiet half-hour before she need think of summoning her maid. Immediately below her ran the terrace, wide and gravelled, bounded by a broad stone parapet, behind which was a drop of eight or ten feet to the old-fashioned garden, with quaint box-bordered flower-beds, winding walks, and stone fountains. Beyond, a stretch of smooth lawn sloping down to the lake, which now lay, a silver mirror, in the soft evening light. The stillness was so perfect; the sense of peace, so all-pervading. Jane held a book on her knee, but she was not reading. She was looking away to the distant woods beyond the lake; then to the pearly sky above, flecked with rosy clouds and streaked with gleams of gold; and a sense of content, and gladness, and well-being, filled her.
Presently she heard a light step on the gravel below and leaned forward to see to whom it belonged. Garth had come out of the smoking-room and walked briskly to and fro, once or twice. Then he threw himself into a wicker seat just beneath her window, and sat there, smoking meditatively. The fragrance of his cigarette reached Jane, up among the magnolia blossoms. ""Zenith," Marcovitch," she said to herself, and smiled. "Packed in jolly green boxes, twelve shillings a hundred! I must remember in case I want to give him a Christmas present. By then it will be difficult to find anything which has not already been showered upon him."
Garth flung away the end of his cigarette, and commenced humming below his breath; then gradually broke into words and sang softly, in his sweet barytone:
""It is not mine to sing the stately grace, The great soul beaming in my lady"s face.""
The tones, though quiet, were so vibrant with pa.s.sionate feeling, that Jane felt herself an eavesdropper. She hastily picked a large magnolia leaf and, leaning out, let it fall upon his head. Garth started, and looked up. "Hullo!" he said. "YOU--up there?"
"Yes," said Jane, laughing down at him, and speaking low lest other cas.e.m.e.nts should be open, "I--up here. You are serenading the wrong window, dear "devout lover.""
"What a lot you know about it," remarked Garth, rather moodily.
"Don"t I?" whispered Jane. "But you must not mind, Master Garthie, because you know how truly I care. In old Margery"s absence, you must let me be mentor."
Garth sprang up and stood erect, looking up at her, half-amused, half-defiant.
"Shall I climb the magnolia?" he said. "I have heaps to say to you which cannot be shouted to the whole front of the house."
"Certainly not," replied Jane. "I don"t want any Romeos coming in at my window. "Hoity-toity! What next?" as Aunt "Gina would say. Run along and change your pinafore, Master Garthie. The "heaps of things" must keep until to-night, or we shall both be late for dinner."
"All right," said Garth, "all right. But you will come out here this evening, Miss Champion? And you will give me as long as I want?"
"I will come as soon as we can possibly escape," replied Jane; "and you cannot be more anxious to tell me everything than I am to hear it. Oh!
the scent of these magnolias! And just look at the great white trumpets! Would you like one for your b.u.t.tonhole?"
He gave her a wistful, whimsical little smile; then turned and went indoors.
"Why do I feel so inclined to tease him?" mused Jane, as she moved, from the window. "Really it is I who have been silly this time; and he, staid and sensible. Myra is quite right. He is taking it very seriously. And how about her? Ah! I hope she cares enough, and in the right way.--Come in, Matthews! And you can put out the gown I wore on the night of the concert at Overdene, and we must make haste. We have just twenty minutes. What a lovely evening! Before you do anything else, come and see this sunset on the lake. Ah! it is good to be here!"
CHAPTER X
THE REVELATION
All the impatience in the world could not prevent dinner at Shenstone from being a long function, and two of the most popular people in the party could not easily escape afterwards unnoticed. So a distant clock in the village was striking ten, as Garth and Jane stepped out on to the terrace together. Garth caught up a rug in pa.s.sing, and closed the door of the lower hall carefully behind him.
They were quite alone. It was the first time they had been really alone since these days apart, which had seemed so long to both.
They walked silently, side by side, to the wide stone parapet overlooking the old-fashioned garden. The silvery moonlight flooded the whole scene with radiance. They could see the stiff box-borders, the winding paths, the queerly shaped flower-beds, and, beyond, the lake, like a silver mirror, reflecting the calm loveliness of the full moon.
Garth spread the rug on the coping, and Jane sat down. He stood beside her, one foot on the coping, his arms folded across his chest, his head erect. Jane had seated herself sideways, turning towards him, her back to an old stone lion mounting guard upon the parapet; but she turned her head still further, to look down upon the lake, and she thought Garth was looking in the same direction.
But Garth was looking at Jane.
She wore the gown of soft trailing black material she had worn at the Overdene concert, only she had not on the pearls or, indeed, any ornament save a cl.u.s.ter of crimson rambler roses. They nestled in the soft, creamy old lace which covered the bosom of her gown. There was a quiet strength and n.o.bility about her att.i.tude which thrilled the soul of the man who stood watching her. All the adoring love, the pa.s.sion of worship, which filled his heart, rose to his eyes and shone there. No need to conceal it now. His hour had come at last, and he had nothing to hide from the woman he loved.
Presently she turned, wondering why he did not begin his confidences about Pauline Lister. Looking up inquiringly, she met his eyes.
"Dal!" cried Jane, and half rose from her seat. "Oh, Dal,--don"t!"
He gently pressed her back. "Hush, dear," he said. "I must tell you everything, and you have promised to listen, and to advise and help.
Ah, Jane, Jane! I shall need your help. I want it so greatly, and not only your help, Jane--but YOU--you, yourself. Ah, how I want you! These three days have been one continual ache of loneliness, because you were not there; and life began to live and move again, when you returned.
And yet it has been so hard, waiting all these hours to speak. I have so much to tell you, Jane, of all you are to me--all you have become to me, since the night of the concert. Ah, how can I express it? I have never had any big things in my life; all has been more or less trivial--on the surface. This need of you--this wanting you--is so huge. It dwarfs all that went before; it would overwhelm all that is to come,--were it not that it will be the throne, the crown, the summit, of the future.--Oh, Jane! I have admired so many women. I have raved about them, sighed for them, painted them, and forgotten them. But I never LOVED a woman before; I never knew what womanhood meant to a man, until I heard your voice thrill through the stillness--"I count each pearl." Ah, beloved, I have learned to count pearls since then, precious hours in the past, long forgotten, now remembered, and at last understood. "Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer," ay, a pa.s.sionate plea that past and present may blend together into a perfect rosary, and that the future may hold no possibility of pain or parting. Oh, Jane--Jane! Shall I ever be able to make you understand--all--how much--Oh, JANE!"
She was not sure just when he had come so near; but he had dropped on one knee in front of her, and, as he uttered the last broken sentences, he pa.s.sed both his arms around her waist and pressed his face into the soft lace at her bosom. A sudden quietness came over him. All struggling with explanations seemed hushed into the silence of complete comprehension--an all-pervading, enveloping silence.
Jane neither moved nor spoke. It was so strangely sweet to have him there--this whirlwind of emotion come home to rest, in a great stillness, just above her quiet heart. Suddenly she realised that the blank of the last three days had not been the miss of the music, but the miss of HIM; and as she realised this, she unconsciously put her arms about him. Sensations unknown to her before, awoke and moved within her,--a heavenly sense of aloofness from the world, the loneliness of life all swept away by this dear fact--just he and she together. Even as she thought it, felt it, he lifted his head, still holding her, and looking into her face, said: "You and I together, my own--my own."
But those beautiful shining eyes were more than Jane could bear. The sense of her plainness smote her, even in that moment; and those adoring eyes seemed lights that revealed it. With no thought in her mind but to hide the outward part from him who had suddenly come so close to the shrine within, she quickly put both hands behind his head and pressed his face down again, into the lace at her bosom. But, to him, those dear firm hands holding him close, by that sudden movement, seemed an acceptance of himself and of all he had to offer. For ten, twenty, thirty exquisite seconds, his soul throbbed in silence and rapture beyond words. Then he broke from the pressure of those restraining hands; lifted his head, and looked into her face once more.
"My wife!" he said.
Into Jane"s honest face came a look of startled wonder; then a deep flush, seeming to draw all the blood, which had throbbed so strangely through her heart, into her cheeks, making them burn, and her heart die within her. She disengaged herself from his hold, rose, and stood looking away to where the still waters of the lake gleamed silver in the moonlight.