Christobel Charteris looked straight before her, a stern light upon her face, as of one confronted on the path of duty by the clear shining of the mirror of self-revelation.
Into Miss Ann"s pale blue eyes shot a gleam of nervous anxiety.
Sweetie-weet chirped, interrogatively.
Then Miss Ann, recovering, clasped her hands. "Ah, what a beautiful definition!" she said. "What _could_ be more pure, more perfect?"
Miss Charteris knew a love of a very different kind, which was absolutely pure, and altogether perfect. But that was the love she had put from her.
"A woman could hardly marry a book," she said.
Miss Ann gave a little deprecatory shriek. "Darling child!" she cried.
"_No_ simile, however beautiful, should be pressed too far! Your exquisite description of your love for dear Kenrick merely a.s.sures us that your union with him will prove one of complete contentment to the mind. And the _mind_--that sensitive instrument, attuned to all the immensities of the intellectual spheres--the _mind_ is what really matters."
"Bodies count," said Miss Charteris, with conviction; adding beneath her breath, the dawning of a smile in her sad eyes: "We shall jolly well find, bodies count."
Miss Ann"s hearing, as we have already remarked, was preternaturally sharp. She started. "My dear Christobel, what an expression! And do you not think, that, under these circ.u.mstances, any mention of bodies savours of impropriety?"
Miss Charteris turned quickly. The colour flamed into her beautiful face. The glint of angry indignation flashed from her eyes. But the elderly figure on the couch looked so small and frail. To wound and crush it would be so easy; and so unworthy of her strength, and wider experience.
Suddenly she remembered a little blue back, round with grief and shame; a small sandy face, silent and unflinching; a brave little heart which kept its faith in G.o.d, and prayed on trustfully, while nurses misunderstood and bullied. Then Miss Charteris conquered her own wrath.
"Dear Ann," she said, gently, "do you really believe your brother would be much disappointed if--after all--when he asks me to marry him--which he has not done yet--I feel it better not to do so?"
"My _darling_ child!" exclaimed Miss Ann, and her hair-brooch flew open, as if to accentuate her horror and amazement. "My _darling_ child! Think how patiently he has waited! Remember the long years!
Remember----"
"Yes, I know," said Miss Charteris. "You told me all that last night, didn"t you? But it seems to me that, if a man can wait twelve years, he might as well wait twenty."
"So he would have!" cried Miss Ann. "_Undoubtedly_ dear Kenrick would have waited _twenty years_, had it not been for this fortunate legacy, which places him in a position to marry at once. But why should you wish to keep him waiting any longer? Is not twelve years sufficiently long?"
Miss Charteris smiled. "Twelve days would be too long for some people," she said, gently. "I have no wish to keep him waiting. But you must remember, Ann, the Professor has, as yet, spoken no word of love to me."
"Dear child," said Miss Ann, eagerly; "he would have come to you to-day, but imperative legal business, connected with our uncle"s will, took him to town. I know for certain that he intends writing to you this evening; and, if you then give him leave to do so, he will call upon you to-morrow. Oh, _darling_ girl, you will not disappoint us?
We have so trusted you; so _believed_ in you! A less scrupulously honourable man than Kenrick, might have tried to bind you by a promise, before he was in a position to offer you immediate marriage. Think of all the hopes--the hopes and p-_plans_, which depend upon your faithfulness!" Miss Ann dissolved into tears--but not to a degree which should hinder her flow of eloquence. "Ah, sweetest child! You knelt beside this _very_ sofa, five years ago, and you said: "Ann, I think _any_ woman might be proud to become the wife of the Professor!"
Have you forgotten that you said that, kneeling beside this _very_ sofa?"
"I have not forgotten," said Miss Charteris; "and I think so still."
"Then you _will_ marry Kenrick?" said Miss Ann, through her tears.
Christobel Charteris rose. She stood, for a moment, tall and immovable, in the small, low room, crowded with knick-knacks--china, bric-a-brac, ferns in painted pots, embroidery, photograph frames--overseated with easy chairs, which, in their turn, were overfilled with a varied a.s.sortment of cushions. Miss Ann"s drawing-room gave the effect of a rather prettily arranged bazaar. You mentally pictured yourself walking round, admiring everything, but seeing nothing you liked quite well enough to wish to buy it, and take it home.
Christobel Charteris, tall and stately, in her simple white gown, looked so utterly apart from the trumpery elegance of these surroundings. As the Boy had said, the mellow beauty of his ancestral homes would indeed be a fit setting for her stately grace. But she had sent away the Boy, with his beautiful castles in the air, and places in the shires. The atmosphere and surroundings of Shiloh were those to which she must be willing to bend her fastidious taste. Miss Ann would expect to make her home with the Professor.
"Then you _will_ marry Kenrick?" whispered Miss Ann, through her lace pocket-handkerchief.
Christobel bent over her, tenderly; fastening the clasp of the mysterious hair-brooch.
"Dear Ann," she said. "It will not be leap year again, until 1912.
And, meanwhile, the Professor has not proposed marriage to me."
Miss Ann instantly brightened. Laughing gaily, she wiped away a few remaining tears.
"Ah, naughty!" she said. "Naughty, to make me tell! But as you _will_ ask--_he is going to write to-night_. But you must never let him know I told you! And now I want you just to find the _Spectator_--it is laid over that exquisitely embroidered blotter on the writing-table in the window, sent me last Christmas by that kind creature, Lady Goldsmith; so thoughtful, tasteful, and _quite_ touching; Emma, careful soul, spread it over the blotter, while darling Sweetie-weetie took his bath. Dear pet, it is a sight to see him splash and splutter. Lady Goldsmith thinks so much of dear Kenrick. The first time she saw him, she was _immensely_ struck by his extraordinarily clever _appearance_.
He sat exactly opposite her at a Guildhall banquet; and she told me afterwards that the mere sight of him was sufficient to take away all inclination for food; excepting for that intellectual nourishment which he is so well able to supply. I thought that was rather well expressed, and, coming from a _florid_ woman, such as Lady Goldsmith, was quite a tribute to my brother. You _would_ call Lady Goldsmith "florid," would you not, dear Christobel? ... Oh, you do not know her by sight? I am surprised. As the _wife_ of the _Professor_, you will soon know all these distinguished people by sight. Yes, she is undoubtedly florid; and inclined to be what my dear father used to call "a woman of a stout habit." This being the case, it was certainly a _tribute_--a tribute of which you and I, dearest child, have a right to feel justly proud.... Oh, is it still damp? Naughty Sweetie-weet!
Don"t you think it might be wise, _just_ to take it to the kitchen.
Emma, good soul, will let you dry it before the fire. I _have_ heard of fatalities caused by damp newspapers. Precious _child_, we can have you run no risks! What would _Kenrick_ say? But when it is _absolutely_ dry, I want you just to explain to me the _gist_ of that article on the effect of oriental literature on modern thought.
Kenrick tells me you have read it. He wishes to discuss it with me. I really cannot undertake to read it through. I have not the _time_ required. Yet I must be prepared to talk it over intelligently with my brother, when next he pays me a visit. He may look in this evening, weary with his day in town, and requiring the relaxation of a little intellectual conversation. I must be ready."
An hour later, somewhat tired in body, and completely exhausted in mind, Miss Charteris walked home. She made a detour, in order to pa.s.s along the lane, and enter through the postern gate at the bottom of the garden.
She opened it, and pa.s.sed in.
A shaft of sunlight lay along the lawn. The jolly little "what d"-you-call-"ems" lifted gay purple faces to the sky.
She paused in the doorway, trying to realize how this quiet green seclusion, the old-fashioned flower-borders, the spreading mulberry-tree, the quaint white house, in the distance, with its green shutters, must have looked to the Boy each day, as he came in. She knew he had more eye for colour, and more knowledge of artistic effect, than his casual acquaintances might suppose. It would not surprise her some day to find, as one of the gems of the New Gallery, a reproduction of her own garden, with a halo of jolly little "what-d"-you-call-"ems"
in the borders, and an indication of seats, deep in the shadow of the mulberry-tree. She would not need to refer to the catalogue for the artist"s name. The Boy had had a painting in the Academy the year before. She had chanced to see it. Noticing the name of her Little Boy Blue of the Dovercourt sands in the catalogue, she had made her way through the crowded rooms, and found his picture. It hung on the line.
She had been struck by its thoughtful beauty, and wealth of imaginative skill. She had not forgotten that picture; and during all these days she had been quietly waiting to hear the Boy say he had had a painting in the Academy. Then she was going to tell him she had seen it, had greatly admired it, and had noted with pleasure all the kind things critics had said of it.
But, the subject of pictures not having come up, it had not occurred to the Boy to mention it. The Boy never talked of what he had done, _because_ he had done it. But were a subject mentioned upon which he was keen, he would bound up, with shining eyes, and tell you all he knew about it; all he had seen, heard, and done; all he was doing, and all he hoped to do in the future, in connexion with that particular thing. He would never have thought of informing you that he owned three aeroplanes. But if the subject of aviation came up, and you said to the Boy: "Do you know anything about it?" he would lean forward, beaming at you, and say: "I should jolly well think I do!" and talk aeroplanes to you for as long as you were willing to listen. This trait of the Boy"s, caused shallow-minded people to consider him conceited. But the woman he loved knew how to distinguish between keenness and conceit; between exuberant enthusiasm and egotistical self-a.s.sertion; and the woman who loved him, smiled tenderly as she remembered that even on the day when she scolded him, and he had to admit his "barely respectable B.A.," he had not told her of the painting hung on the line and mentioned in the _Times_. Yet if the question of art had come up, the Boy would very probably have sat forward in his chair, and talked about his painting, straight on end, for half an hour.
She still stood beneath the archway, in the red-brick wall, as these thoughts chased quickly through her mind. She would have made a fair picture for any one who had chanced to be waiting beneath the mulberry-tree, with eyes upon the gate.
"Straight on end for half an hour, he would have talked about his picture; and how bright his eyes would have been. And then I should have said: "I saw it, Boy dear; and it was quite as beautiful as you say." And he would have answered: "It jolly well gave you the feeling of the scene, didn"t it, Chris...o...b..l_?" And I should have known that his delight in it, as an artistic success, had nothing to do with the fact that it was painted by himself. Just because egotism is impossible to him, he is free to be so full of vivid enthusiasm."
She smiled again. A warm glow seemed to enfold her. "How well I know my Boy!" she said aloud; then remembered with a sudden pang that she must not call him _her_ Boy. She had let him go. She was--very probably--going to marry the Professor. She had not--with the whole of her being--wanted him to stay, until he had had the manliness to rise up and go. Then--it had been too late. Ah, was it too late? If the Boy came back to plead once more? If once again she could hear him say: "Age is nothing! Time is nothing! Love is all!" would she not answer: "Yes, Guy. Love _is_ all"?
The blood rushed into her sweet proud face. The name of the man she loved had come into her mind unconsciously. It had never yet--as a name for him--pa.s.sed her lips. That she should unconsciously call him so in her heart, gave her another swift moment of self-revelation.
She closed the gate gently, careful not to let it bang. As she pa.s.sed up the lawn, her heart stood still. It seemed to her that he must be waiting, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
She hardly dared to look. She felt so sure he was there.... Yes, she knew he was there.... She felt certain the Boy had come back. He could not stay away from her on his sixth day. Had he not said he would "march round" every day? Ah, dear waiting army of Israel! Here was Jericho hastening to meet it. Why had she allowed Ann Harvey to keep her so late? Why had she gone at all, during the Boy"s own time?
She might have known he would come.... Should she walk past the mulberry, as if making for the house, just for the joy of hearing him call "Chris...o...b..l_"? No, that would not be quite honest, knowing he was there; and they were always absolutely honest with one another.
She pa.s.sed, breathlessly, under the drooping branches. Her cheeks glowed; her lips were parted. Her eyes shone with love and expectation.
She lifted a hanging bough, and pa.s.sed beneath.
His chair was there, and hers; but they were empty. The Boy--being the Boy--had not come back.
Presently she went slowly up to the house.
A telegram lay on the hall table. She knew at once from whom it came.
There was but one person who carried on a correspondence by telegraph.