"Don"t be absurd, Boy. I prefer _this_ side Jordan, thank you; and you shall stay here until you beat me."
The Boy won the next set.
It was deliciously cool and quiet under the mulberry-tree.
The Boy was quite subdued--for him. He seemed inclined to do his marching in silence, on this second day.
Miss Charteris felt her mental balance restored. She held the reins to-day, and began considering how to deal wisely with the Boy. So much depended upon how she managed him.
At length she said: "Boy, when you were at Trinity, I often used to see you. I knew you were my Little Boy Blue of all those years ago. I used to feel inclined to send for you, talk to you for your good, and urge you to set to, and do great things; but I remembered the stone, and the bucket; and I did not want to let myself in for a third snubbing."
The Boy smiled. "Did you think me a lazy beggar?" he asked. "I wasn"t really, you know. I did quite a good deal of all kinds of things. But I didn"t want to get played out. I wanted to do things all the rest of my life. Fellows who grind at college and come out Senior Wranglers, begin and end there. You don"t hear of "em again."
"I see," said Miss Charteris, amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes. "So you felt it wisest to avoid being Senior Wrangler?"
"Just so," said the Boy. "I was content with a fairly respectable B.A.
and I hope you saw me take it. How rotten it is, going up in a bunch, all hanging on to an old chap"s fingers."
"Boy, Boy! I know all about you! You wasted golden opportunities; you declined to use your excellent abilities; you gave the authorities an anxious time. You were so disgracefully popular, that everybody thought your example the finest thing to follow, and you were more or less responsible for every lark and row which took place during your time."
The Boy did not smile. He looked at her, with a quaint, innocent seriousness, which made her feel almost uncomfortable.
"Dear," he said, "I had plenty of money, and heaps of friends, and I wanted to have a good time. Also I wanted all the other fellows to have a good time; and I enjoyed getting the better of all the old fogies who had forgotten what youth was like--if they"d ever known it.
And I had no mother to ask me questions, and no sisters to turn up at my rooms unexpectedly. But I can tell you this, Christobel. I hope to be married soon; and I hope to marry a woman so sweet and n.o.ble and pure, that her very presence tests a man"s every thought, feeling, and memory. And I can honestly look into your dear eyes and say: My wife will be welcome to know every detail of every prank I ever played in Cambridge; nor is there a thing in those three years I need feel ashamed of her knowing. There! Will that do?"
Miss Charteris threw out a deprecatory hand. "Oh, Boy dear!" she said.
"I never doubted that. My Little Boy Blue, don"t I know you? But I cannot let you talk as if you owe me any explanations. How curious to think I saw you so often during those years, yet we never actually met."
The Boy smiled. "Yes," he said, "we were all awfully proud of you, you know. What was it you took at Girton?"
Miss Charteris mentioned, modestly, the highest honours in cla.s.sics as yet taken by a woman. The Boy had often heard it before. But he listened with bated breath.
"Yes," he said, "we were awfully proud of it, because of your tennis, and because of you being--well, just _you_. If you had been a round-shouldered little person in a placket, we should have taken it differently. We always called you "The G.o.ddess," because of your splendid walk. Did you know?"
"No, Boy, I did not know; but I confess to feeling immensely flattered.
Only, take a friend"s advice, and avoid conversational allusions to plackets, because you are obviously ignorant of the meaning of the word. And now, tell me? Having successfully escaped so serious a drawback to future greatness as becoming Senior Wrangler, on what definite enterprise have you embarked?"
"Flying," said the Boy, sitting forward in his chair. "I am going to break every record. I am going to fly higher, farther, faster, than any man has ever flown before. This week, if I had not stayed on here--you know originally I came up only for the "May week"--I was to have done a Channel flight. Ah, you don"t know what it means, to own three flying-machines, all of different make, and each the best of its kind! You feel you own the world! And then to climb into your seat and go whirling away, with the wonderful hum in your ears, mastering the air--the hitherto invincible air. May I tell you what I am going to do for my next fly? Start from the high ground between Dover and Folkestone; fly over the Channel; circle round Boulogne Cathedral--you remember the high dome, rising out of the old town surrounded by the ramparts? Then back across the Channel, and to ground again at Folkestone; all in one flight; and I hope to do it in record time, if winds are right."
"And if winds are wrong, Boy? If you rush out and take the horrid risks of the cross-currents you told us about? If something happens to your propeller, and you fall headlong into the sea?"
"Oh, it"s all U P then," said the Boy, lightly. "But one never expects that sort of thing to happen; and when it does, all is over so quickly that there is no time for antic.i.p.ation. Beside, there must be pioneers. Every good life given, advances the cause."
Christobel Charteris looked at him. His was not the terrible, unmistakable, relentless face of the bird-man. He was brilliant with enthusiasm, but it was the enthusiasm of the sportsman, keen to excel; of Young England, dauntless, fearless, eager to break records. The spirit of the true bird-man had not, as yet, entered into her Little Boy Blue.
She pressed her hand upon her bosom. It ached still.
"Boy dear," she said, softly. "Has it ever struck you that, if you marry, your wife--whoever she might be--would most probably want you to give up flying? I cannot imagine a woman being able to bear that a man who was her _all_, should do these things."
The Boy never turned a hair! He did not bound in his seat. He did not even look at her.
"Why, of course, dear," he said, "if you wished it, I should give up flying, like a shot, and sell my aeroplanes. I know plenty of chaps who would like to buy them to-morrow. And I"ll tell you what we would do. We"d buy the biggest, most powerful motor-car we could get, and we"d tear all over the country, exceeding the speed-limit, and doing everything jolly we could think of. That would be every bit as good as flying, if--if we did it together. I say, Christobel--do you know how to make a sentence of "together"? Just three words: _to get her_!
That"s what "together" spells for me now."
Miss Charteris smiled. "You might have taken honours in spelling, Boy.
And I am not the sort of person who enjoys exceeding speed-limits.
Also I am afraid I have a troublesome habit of always wanting to stop and see all there is to see."
But the Boy was infinitely accommodating. "Oh, we wouldn"t exceed the speed-limit--much. And we would stop everywhere, and see everything.
You should breakfast in London; lunch at the Old White Horse, Mr.
Pickwick"s inn at Ipswich; have tea at the Maid"s Head, beneath the shadow of Norwich Cathedral, where you could wash your hands in Queen Elizabeth"s fusty old bedroom--what a lot of bedrooms Queen Elizabeth slept in, and made them all fusty--and have time to show me Little Boy Blue"s breakwater at Dovercourt, before dinner. There"s nothing like motoring!"
"It sounds interesting, certainly," said Miss Charteris.
"And then," continued the Boy, in a calm business-like voice, "it"s less expensive than flying. You run through fifty thousand a year in no time with aeroplanes. And of course we should want to open both my places. I"m awfully glad I didn"t let the tenants in the old home renew their lease. As it is, they turn out in three months. Oh, I say, Christobel, I do believe it is a setting worthy of you. Have you ever seen it? The great hall, the old pictures, the oak staircase--I once rode down it on my rocking-horse and came to utter smash. And outside--the park, the lake, the beech avenue, the rose-garden, the peac.o.c.ks. And a funny little old village belongs to us. Think how the people must want looking after. I believe you would like it all--I really believe you would! And think, ah, just think what it would be to me, to see my own splendid wife, queen over everything in my dear jolly old home! Hullo!--Hark to all the clocks! What is that striking? Seven? Oh, I say! I"m dining with the Master to-night. I must rush off, and change. Though I was such a bad lot, they all seem quite pleased to see me again. Really they do! Have I stayed too long? ... Sure? ... May I come to-morrow? ... You _are_ most awfully good to me. Good-bye."
And the Boy was gone. He had held her hand, in a firm, strong clasp, a second longer than the conventional handshake; his clear eyes, exactly on a level with hers, had looked at her gravely, wistfully, tenderly; and he was gone.
She walked slowly up the lawn. She must write a few letters before post time; then dress for her solitary dinner.
She felt a little flat; quite without cause. What could have been more satisfactory, in every way, than the Boy"s visit; in spite of his absurd castles in the air? These must be tactfully demolished to-morrow. To-day, it was wisest just to let him talk.
Poor Little Boy Blue! Instead of the walls of Jericho falling, his own castles in the air would come tumbling about his ears. Poor Little Boy Blue!
She felt she had been completely mistress of the situation to-day, holding it exactly as she wished it to be. There was no need to fear the remaining days.
And when the seven days were over--what then? ... She certainly felt very flat this evening. How suddenly the Boy had gone! There was still so much she wanted to say to him.... And to-morrow was the Professor"s afternoon. Mercifully, he never stayed later than four o"clock. It was to be hoped the Boy would not turn up early! But there was never any knowing what the Boy would do.
She smiled as she mounted the flight of stone steps, and pa.s.sed into the house.
And, outside the postern gate, the Boy threw up his cap, and caught it; then started off and sprinted a hundred yards; then, turning aside, leapt a five-barred gate, and made off across the fields. When he pulled up at last, in his own bedroom, he had just time to tub, shave, and wrestle with his evening clothes. He communed with himself in the few moments of enforced stillness, while he mastered his tie.
"That was all right," he said. "I jolly well worked _that_ all right!
There was nothing to frighten her to-day--not a thing. Dear lips!
They never trembled once; and no more turning faint. And, my Goody, how she lectured me! I wonder who"s been telling her what. I know why she did it too. She wanted to feel quite sure she was bossing the show. And so she was, bless her! But I marched round! Yes, I jolly well marched round.... Oh, I say! Can"t you stop where I put you?"
This, to his tie.
Then, with _her_ golden rose in his b.u.t.ton-hole, fastened by _the_ pin from his flannel coat, off went the Boy to dine with the Master of his college.
"_And the evening and the morning were the second day._"